GR HasteBraid

Modern Aggro Budget RG (Gruul) Zoo

_Mummynips_

Creature (30)

• 4x Bloodbraid Elf
• 4x Dryad Militant
• 2x Experiment One
• 4x Goblin Rabblemaster
• 4x Kird Ape
• 4x Magus of the Moon
• 4x Scavenging Ooze
• 4x Strangleroot Geist

Land (20)

• 5x Forest
• 3x Mountain
• 4x Rootbound Crag
• 4x Stomping Ground
• 4x Windswept Heath

Instant (4)

• 4x Lightning Bolt

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Rancor

Artifact (2)

• 2x Aether Vial

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Sideboard

Instant (6)

• 2x Ancient Grudge
• 2x Fracturing Gust
• 2x Natural State

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Blood Moon

Sorcery (4)

• 2x Pyroclasm
• 2x Stone Rain

Artifact (4)

• 2x Ratchet Bomb
• 2x Tormod's Crypt

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The Deck

The basic idea of GR HasteBraid is simple. We're essentially a GR Aggro / Zoo deck that's looking to curve out from one mana to four mana, with Bloodbraid Elf as our finisher, often bringing with it a total of six hasty power and allowing us to kill our opponent out of nowhere. If our creatures don't offer enough damage to get the job done by themselves, we also have a few spells to finish off the opponent.

One-Drops

Experiment One

Dryad Militant

We've got two options in the one-drop slot. Experiment One is our best beater. When we curve out, it's usually attacking for two on Turn 2 and three on Turn 3 as sort of a build-your-own Wild Nacatl, which allows us to get in a ton of damage in the early game. Then, in the late game, the ability to remove counters to regenerate provides some natural wrath and spot-removal protection. While removing counters might seem like a major cost, the fact that we can simply play some more creatures and add more counters means it actually isn't all that painful. In fact, a single Bloodbraid Elf hitting another creature brings Experiment One from one power to three.

Meanwhile, Dryad Militant might look like a Savannah Lions, but exiling instants and sorceries that go to the graveyard is actually a meaningful upside. While getting spells out of the graveyard is especially helpful against various control decks with Snapcaster Mage, just getting cards out of the graveyard in an absolute sense is good in a strange number of matches, since quite a few decks take advantage of the delve mechanic and fewer total cards in the graveyard makes it harder for opponents to cast their Gurmag Anglers and Tasigur, the Golden Fang.

Two-Drops

Earthshaker Khenra

Strangleroot Geist Earthshaker Khenra and Strangleroot Geist are actually very similar in our deck. Both come down as hasty 2/1s, which allows us to attack for four damage on Turn 2 after playing a one-drop, and both come back from the graveyard, which gives them some amount of resilience to removal spells. This being said, both cards have one significant upside that the other is missing. For Earthshaker Khenra, the ability to make an opposing creature not block is important, allowing us to get in huge chunks of combat damage by surprise, even when our opponent thinks they left back enough defense to stay alive. Of course, this power comes with the downside that Earthshaker Khenra is really expensive to eternalize. We'll have some games where we simply don't reach six lands (considering we're a 20-land deck), so the ability to come back from the graveyard isn't relevant in every matchup. Meanwhile, Strangleroot Geist doesn't really help us force through big attacks, but it comes back from the graveyard for free as a 3/2 with haste, which means the opponent often has to spend two chump blockers or removal spells to get it off the table for good. Plus, Strangleroot Geist is especially punishing to wraths, since it immediately comes back and allows us to attack for a huge chunk of damage the very next turn.

Scavenging Ooze

Scavenging Ooze doesn't really fit the haste theme of our deck, but it's too efficient and powerful to pass up. While it is one of our least powerful creatures when it first enters the battlefield, it provides cover for a lot of potential problems. First, the ability to exile any card from the graveyard is a great hedge against reanimator strategies, Hollow One, and Snapcaster Mage decks. Second, Scavenging Ooze give us a mana sink, which helps to protect against flooding out. If we have nothing else going on, we can always spend our turn exiling some creatures, growing our Scavenging Ooze, and gaining some life. Speaking of gaining life, the final big upside of Scavenging Ooze is that it gives us some main-deck life gain, which can be helpful against Burn and other aggro decks. The combination of all of these small advantages more than makes up for the fact Scavenging Ooze is one of our least aggressive creatures and makes it great in our deck.

Three-Drops

Ahn-Crop Crasher

Boggart Ram-Gang

In our three-drop slot, we have two three-power hasty attackers in Ahn-Crop Crasher and Boggart Ram-Gang. While Ahn-Crop Crasher is usually a bit better since exerting to make a creature not block is more important to our deck than wither, the combination of these cards gives us consistently explosive starts. Picture a typical curve: Experiment One on Turn 1. On Turn 2, Earthshaker Khenra, attack for four. On turn three, Ahn-Crop Crasher, attack for eight. Even discounting any damage our opponent does to themselves with fetch lands and shock lands, this puts our opponent in a position where they are very likely dead on Turn 4. More importantly, thanks to Earthshaker Khenra and Ahn-Crop Crasher, this curve works even if our opponent is playing blockers every turn!

Bloodbraid Elf

Bloodbraid Elf

Finally, we have the namesake Bloodbraid Elf at the top end of our creature curve, which is the most powerful card in our deck and our best way of closing out the game. One of the biggest upsides of playing Bloodbraid Elf in a deck like ours is that there really aren't any bad cascade hits. The absolute worst hits in our deck are non-hasty two-powered creatures like Experiment One and Dryad Militant, and getting five power for four mana across two bodies is still a fine deal. On the other end of the scale, we have cards like Ahn-Crop Crasher that give us six power of hasty attackers out of the blue, along with making it so one of our opponent's creatures can't block.

While GR HasteBraid has a lot of weird fringe value, it doesn't have a lot of card advantage, so the cascade from Bloodbraid Elf also helps to make sure that we don't run out of action against removal-heavy decks. This makes Bloodbraid Elf very similar to a Collected Company in our deck, except we have no chance of whiffing and we know that one of the two creatures we hit will be a 3/2 with haste, which is an incredibly good deal. While our deck can certainly win without the power of Bloodbraid Elf, having access to the four-drop goes a long way toward making decks like our Zoo-esque build viable in the Modern format.

Other Stuff

Domri Rade

Domri Rade is just a two-of, but it provides a ton of value, especially against grindy, controlling decks. Being only three mana, it's pretty easy to slip Domri Rade through counterspells, and as a planeswalker, it naturally dodges a lot of removal. After Domri Rade is on the battlefield, it draws us an extra creature about every other turn on average, since we have a massive 30 creatures in our deck, which means we have a steady stream of hasty threats to keep attacking our opponent's life total. In a pinch, we can use it to fight a blocker to force through even more damage, and if we ever ultimate, all of our creatures become nearly unbeatable threats. Plus, since Domri Rade is only three mana, it's cheap enough that we can cascade into it with Bloodbraid Elf, which makes it sort of the GR HasteBraid, budget-friendly version of Jund cascading into Liliana of the Veil.

Rancor

Lightning Bolt

If our creatures aren't enough to finish off the game, we've got a couple of spells to force through the final points of damage. Rancor is pretty insane in our deck, giving us a repeatable way of not just pumping our creatures but also giving them trample to get through opposing blockers. With all of our haste threats, a Rancor or two allows us to turn many of our creatures into pseudo-Ball Lightnings, hitting for massive, somewhat evasive damage out of nowhere. As for Lightning Bolt, it does double duty in our deck. In the early game, we can use it to clean blockers out of the way, and then in the late game, we can point it at our opponent's face to finish off the game. It's just too efficient not to play in an aggressive deck with red mana, which is why it's in GR HasteBraid.

Wrap-Up

Let's start with the good news: we finished our matches 4-1, and a lot of our games didn't even feel close. Our only loss was to Lantern Control, which is a weird matchup. It basically comes down to Ensnaring Bridge. If our opponent doesn't draw it in the first few turns (or if we can find an artifact-destruction spell after sideboarding), we win. On the other hand, we are drawing dead to Ensnaring Bridge in game one, and we only have a handful of ways to deal with it in games two and three. Regardless, GR HasteBraid felt extremely powerful and consistent.

Bloodbraid Elf

Now for the bad news: we didn't cast a Bloodbraid Elf a single time. For some reason, we simply didn't draw our namesake card in our five matches. While it was disappointing to not get a chance to show off the four-drop's power, it actually makes the deck's performance even more impressive. In theory, if we pretend for a minute that Bloodbraid Elf isn't in our deck since we never played it, we just went 4-1 with a GR Haste deck that would cost about $68, making it pretty close to an ultra-budget deck for Modern. While Bloodbraid Elf seems insane in the deck, it's pretty clear that if you are trying to pinch pennies, you can get by without a playset (or even any copies at all) and still have success with the deck.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	26 - 5 Rares 22 - 6 Uncommons 4 - 4 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	1.90
Tokens	Goblin 1/1 R