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Blanka, Ferocious Friend

Commander / EDH* RG (Gruul)

GolgariGravedigger

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Instant (27)

Enchantment (11)

Sorcery (18)

Creature (12)

Commander (1)

Commander: Blanka, Ferocious Friend

Land (34)

Artifact (5)

Maybeboard

Sorcery (12)

Instant (9)

Enchantment (4)

Creature (3)

Artifact (2)

Game Plan

This is a pretty straight forward deck. Target Blanka, Ferocious Friend with pump spells and deal commander damage to take out as many opponents as you can. Use low CMC protection spells to keep our commander alive. Use storm cards or Chain of Plasma to kill the table.

Game Winning Combo

Blanka, Ferocious Friend+Chain of Plasma+Groundswell(or any +X/+2 pump spell)

  1. First, target Blanka with a at least a +2/+2 pump spell. Blank deals 2 commander damage to everyone and becomes 9/9.
  2. Next, target Blanka with Chain of Plasma. Blanka gets (+2/+2 making him 11/11), he deals 2 commander damage damage to each opponent and Chain of Plasma deals 3 damage to Blanka so is at 11/8 (in terms of toughness "health"). Every turn his toughness increases by 2 but he takes 3 damage so we are a net loss of 1 "health" on Blanka.
  3. We choose to cast a copy of Chain of Plasma for 0 mana and repeatedly target Blanka 8 more times dealing a total of 20 commander damage to each opponent to win the game. Blanka dies, but you have to break some eggs to make an omelet.
    Killing the table on the spot with a $0.15 card is hilarious to me. Also because of all the redundant pump spells Chain of Plasma feels like a 1 card combo in this deck.

Strengths

This deck is super budget friendly. The cards have a low CMC. Draws are consistent due to redundancy. Playing pump spells in commander is unexpected and fun.

Limitations

Draw and removal is limited in Gruul colors.
Deck plays like an aggro deck but our commander costs 5 mana to cast. Without throwing money at low CMC ramp it's hard to cast the commander early and we have a ton of 1 mana spells we wont be playing until around turn 4 or 5. Which means we won't play very many spells in the early game.
Usually we cast our commander and pass the turn with our lands completely tapped out. This leaves us very vulnerable to removal. Dies to Doom Blade.
If Blanka lives until our next turn we usually vomit our hand onto him and swing for the fences which doesn't always work out.

Possible Solutions/Changes

Go heavier on ramp to cast our commander earlier. Add more protection spells and wait until we can protect Blanka to cast him. Swap some pump spells for worse spells that target Blanka and draw a card. Throw more money at the deck for better rituals and mana rocks. This would push it put of the budget range which I think defeats the point of playing Blanka. Just my opinion but I see Blanka as a Jank deck that should stay within the $50 range.

Help Wanted

Please let me know your thoughts on the deck. I need to cut some cards to get this bad boy down to 100 and I'm really struggling with what to take out. I'd like to hear what you guys think should thrown in recycle bin. Your suggestions on adds are also welcome but please do note that the intention is to keep this deck in the $40-$50 range.

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96% Casual

Competitive