Xenagos, God of Face Smashing

Commander / EDH RG (Gruul)

Greyhame888

Creature (33)

• 1x Aggressive Mammoth
• 1x Archetype of Endurance
• 1x Atarka, World Render *f-pre*
• 1x Balefire Dragon
• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Bramble Sovereign
• 1x Etali, Primal Storm
• 1x Ghalta, Primal Hunger
• 1x God-Eternal Rhonas
• 1x Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
• 1x Gyre Sage
• 1x Hellkite Charger
• 1x Hydra Omnivore
• 1x Ilharg, the Raze-Boar
• 1x Kalonian Hydra
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Neheb, the Eternal
• 1x Nylea, God of the Hunt
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1x Prowling Serpopard
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Savage Ventmaw
• 1x Scourge of the Throne
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Somberwald Sage
• 1x Stonehoof Chieftain
• 1x Ulvenwald Tracker
• 1x Vexing Shusher
• 1x Vigor
• 1x Wayward Swordtooth
• 1x Worldspine Wurm
• 1x Wurmcoil Engine

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Command Tower
• 9x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Game Trail
• 1x Karplusan Forest
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 8x Mountain
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Taiga
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Artifact (7)

• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Gruul Signet
• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Loxodon Warhammer
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Strionic Resonator

Instant (4)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Berserk
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Savage Beating

Commander (1)

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Natural Order
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Seize the Day
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Traverse the Outlands
• 1x Triumph of the Hordes

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Aggravated Assault
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Rhythm of the Wild
• 1x Song of the Dryads
• 1x Survival of the Fittest

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Domri Rade
• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter

---

Gruul.

Gruul smash. Gruul make big creature.

Gruul take extra combat steps, make creature bigger, smash more.

Pretty simple deck idea. Big stompers with trample, try and kill with one creature in one swing.

Super fun to play. See below for a breakdown of the deck.

Overview

Xenagos, God of Revels is the perfect Gruul commander. Ramp hard and smash face with big nasty creatures. Our goal is to get some big creatures out as quickly as possible and turn them sideways. The deck has a number of elements to help us do this. We have a few decent removal options, ways to protect our own board, extra combat phases, damage doublers, and some pretty cool enablers. Each of these is broken down below.

Ramp

Like most green stompy decks, one of the most important things to do early on is ramp. The faster we can drop Xenagos, God of Revels , the faster we can start swinging beat nasty beaters for the win.

Mana Crypt , Sol Ring , Llanowar Elves , and Exploration are all turn one ramp. Gyre Sage , Sakura-Tribe Elder , Gruul Signet , and Farseek are our 2-drops. Gyre Sage is especially good as it produces more mana as it grows. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds , Somberwald Sage , Cultivate , and Kodama's Reach fill our 3-drop ramp slots. Oracle of Mul Daya is excellent too.

Traverse the Outlands gets a special mention because if played properly, it can pull every basic out of our deck at once. Target a big creature with Xenagos to buff its power, then target it with Travers on second main to pull out a TON of lands.

We have some creature/combat centered ramp in the deck as well. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma makes our big thumpers cheaper to cast. Neheb, the Eternal and Savage Ventmaw both provide us with large amounts of mana in the second main.

Or we can just use Ilharg, the Raze-Boar to cheat out big nasties each turn. Even if they bounce back to hand, we can still do it often enough to be deadly.

Protection

Ramping into our big creatures is important, but if we don't have a way to protect them it's all for nothing. Xenagos being indestructible is pretty handy, but one of the best ways to protect him is actually keeping him below the devotion threshold. There aren't many cards in magic that exile enchantments, and other than Merciless Eviction I rarely see them run in EDH. That being said, we have some good ways to protect any of our creatures.

A few of our creatures provide protection as well. Archetype of Endurance gives all of our creatures Hexproof while stripping it from our opponents. Vigor ensures that damage to our other creatures makes them stronger rather than killing them. Prowling Serpopard ensures that mean blue played can't counter our big threats. Stonehoof Chieftain is an all-star, as he gives your whole field of attackers indestructible and trample.

Heroic Intervention is an instant speed panic button to protect our creatures from a wipe.

Card Draw and Selection

This is one area the deck is a bit light, partially because we actually don't want a game to go long. If we haven't won by the midgame, there's a problem.

Lifecrafter's Bestiary gives us a scry and let's our creatures become cantrips. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds should end up drawing us a few cards. Both of our planeswalkers, Domri Rade and Garruk, Primal Hunter will be drawing us cards as well. Beast Whisperer makes all our creatures cantrip. Rishkar's Expertise is amazing here. Drop it after combat and we should be drawing 10+ cards every time. Reliquary Tower is in the deck for this exact reason.

Removal and Disruption

Removal is one our deck does in a unique way. We focus primarily on player removal, but also have other decent options as well. We have creature-based removal with Balefire Dragon and Ulvenwald Tracker . Domri Rade can use his -2 as a fight effect as well.

Beast Within , Chandra's Ignition , Blasphemous Act , and Song of the Dryads all help with removal as well.

Blasphemous Act is particularly good as it often won't kill our own creatures because they will be so strongly buffed by Xenagos.

Archetype of Endurance can be annoying to deal with, while enabling our own strategy.

Evasion, Extra Combats, Damage Doublers, and Enablers

This section shows off some of the deck's best toys. Ensure our creatures get through and hit the player are the most important part of the deck.

To do this, we can start by ensuring everything we control has trample. Aggressive Mammoth , Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma , Nylea, God of the Hunt , Pathbreaker Ibex , and Stonehoof Chieftain all give all of our attackers trample. Better yet, why not just make something unblockable with Rogue's Passage ?

Xenagos, God of Revels increase a creature's stats on EACH COMBAT, meaning the more combat steps we take, the bigger our creature gets! Aggravated Assault , Hellkite Charger , Savage Beating , and Seize the Day all provide us with extra combat phases. Hellkite Charger + Savage Ventmaw gives us as many combat steps as we have mana. Scourge of the Throne lets us do this as long as we attack the player with the greatest life total.

We also want ways to increase the damage we can do in one shot. Double strike does this well. With only Xenagos and Atarka, World Render on the field, we can hit an opponent for 24 damage! But we have other tricks too. Using Strionic Resonator to copy Xenagos combat trigger on any big stomper is basically a win all on its own.

Berserk should often allow a total one-shot with the other damage increases in the deck. Even if we lose the creature, it's worth it to kill an opponent. We may even be able to use it on an indestructible creature, or sac it to Greater Good .

Pathbreaker Ibex is another all-star in the deck. On attack he buffs our entire field and gives them trample. With only the supergoat and Xenagos, we hit for 12 which isn't bad. But imagine a swing with Ghalta, Primal Hunger and the goat? Oh hey, my whole board get's +24/+24 and trample. GG.

Two new additons, God-Eternal Rhonas and Finale of Devastation are massive for doubling damage as well.

Additional Wincons

Well obviously our main wincon is bashing people's faces in, traditional Gruul style. Our whole strategy revolves around it. If you want to see your opponents' get sad, drop Triumph of the Hordes with a couple evasive creatures on board.

If you didn't see it above, Hellkite Charger + Savage Ventmaw gives us as many combat steps as we have open mana.

Hydra Omnivore does this as well. Make him huge, swing at an open opponent, and kill everyone at the same time.

There are a couple useful tutors in the deck too. Natural Order to sacrifice a mana dork and grab Worldspine Wurm , Stonehoof Chieftain , Ghalta, Primal Hunger , or Hydra Omnivore is always entertaining. Tooth and Nail entwined can grab any two scary creatures as necessary.

Tweaks and Changes

January 31, 2019 - Eternal Witness and Malignus out, Ravager Wurm and Wayward Swordtooth in. Malignus rarely ended up and more than a dumb beater, and was easily chumped. Ravager Wurm is a good body but also removal. E-Wit I found rarely does much, especially with no way to recur it. Wayward Swordtooth on the other hand will be solid ramp and a much better beater.

March 13, 2019 - Tooth and Nail out, Greater Good in. I don’t often need to tutor as the deck is full of good beaters for Xenagos, but I occasionally run out of gas and drawing 10+ cards is never a bad thing.

April 3, 2019 - Chaos Warp , Blood Mist , Ravager Wurm , and Mage Slayer out. I’ve found Chaos Warp and Blood Mist to be a bit underwhelming lately. But it a couple other equipments to boost the overall strategy instead, as well as adding some card draw. Ravager Wurm was underwhelming as well. Mage Slayer is great, but often a major removal target and usually a ‘Win More’ kind of a card. Bramble Sovereign , Basilisk Collar , Blade of Selves , and Rishkar's Expertise in. Bramble is just a disgusting card. Getting a second copy of a major threat or giving one to an ally in need is amazing. Basilisk Collar and Blade of Selves can greatly increase the power of some already threatening creatures. Rishkar’s can give us some much-needed extra card draw and play a spell for free.

April 4, 2019 - Zhur-Taa Druid and Blighted Woodland out, Gyre Sage and Kessig Wolf Run in. Gyre Sage is a much better dork that doesn't draw hate, and Kessig Wolf Run is great for a super swing with Xenagos or to enable trample.

April 28, 2019 - Some VERY good War of the Spark toys to add to our deck. Ilharg, the Raze-Boar , God-Eternal Rhonas , and Finale of Devastation all come in to replace Charging Tuskodon , Decimate , and Destructive Revelry . Yes, we lose a bit of artifact/enchantment removal but gain significantly in player removal.

June 3, 2019 - Dropped Colossal Majesty for Ancient Tomb . We were a bit land-light and this will help accelerate us better.

June 12, 2019 - Big update!

• Couple land swaps made. Dropped a 2 mountains and a forest for Taiga + Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep + Reflecting Pool
• Swapped Explore for Exploration . 2 lands every turn is better than 2 lands one turn.
• Swapped Farhaven Elf for Selvala, Heart of the Wilds . Selvala is card draw, and better mana acceleration.
• Swapped Acidic Slime for Wurmcoil Engine . After blowing up one thing, the Slime doesn't do much. Wurmcoil on the other hand still stays a major offensive and defensive threat.
• Swapped Rubblehulk out for Berserk . Does basically the same thing, but for less mana.
• Swapped Gruul Charm out for Scourge of the Throne . Extra combats are always good, and better than stopping a couple blockers.

July 24, 2019 - Dropped Blade of Selves for Vexing Shusher . Always nice to protect big threats from countermagic. Also dropped a mountain for Survival of the Fittest . Rampant Growth out, Farseek in.

August 18, 2019 - Picked up a couple better lands. Dropped a Forest and Skarrg, the Rage Pits for a Gaea's Cradle and Strip Mine . Also dropped Rampaging Brontodon for Tooth and Nail .

September 15, 2019 - Dropped Swiftfoot Boots for Oracle of Mul Daya . I find the boots are often useless as Xenagos provides haste, and if a creature dies after it has connected once I'm usually not sad.

September 23, 2019 - Burgeoning out for Mana Crypt . Better to have the guaranteed mana than possibility of extra lands. Combat Celebrant out for Aggravated Assault . Same effect, but repeatable.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the read as much as I enjoy playing the deck! Feel free to drop and comments or suggestions below.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.20
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Emblem Domri Rade, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink, Wurm 5/5 G w/ Trample, Wurm 6/6 G
Folders	cool stuff, Favorites