Gruul Ragebeast

Creature — Beast

Whenever Gruul Ragebeast or another creature enters the battlefield under your control, that creature fights target creature an opponent controls.

Discussion (51)

king-saproling on Fight me bro

3 weeks ago

Nice you picked a really cool general for your first EDH! Nice to see Gruul getting some love. You do have a lot of noncreature stuff though, which your general seems to hate.

You might swap some of those noncreature things out for some of these: Ruric Thar, the Unbowed , Krosan Restorer , Magus of the Candelabra (this guy is super good when your general is out, all your lands will effectively make 3 mana each!), Voyaging Satyr , Reclamation Sage , Genesis Hydra , Savageborn Hydra , Apocalypse Hydra , Garruk's Horde , Garruk's Packleader , Duskwatch Recruiter  ^Flip, Drumhunter , Artisan of Kozilek , Ulvenwald Tracker , Foe-Razer Regent , Gruul Ragebeast

Mj3913 on And The Wurms Ate Into His Brain (Atla)

1 month ago

Made some changes based on your suggestions, let me know what you think. Longish read condensed.

Changes

Burnished Hart --> Skyshroud Claim : The point was made that 6cmc for 2 lands is not optimal, so we reduced it to 4cmc.

Sakura-Tribe Scout --> Elvish Mystic : The former was included in case of an overflow of lands in hand. However a dork is always useful.

Advent of the Wurm --> Mirror Entity : Eggs = Instant creatures, Making everything an egg during a wipe is almost equivalent to someone casting Cyclonic Rift in your favor.

Crush of Wurms --> Congregation at Dawn : 21 mana total for 6 tokens... while flavorful it can't be hatched.

Urza's Incubator --> Ashnod's Altar : both cost the same, produce the same basically, the latter offers a sac outlet for eggs. (Still debating Thornbite Staff )

Wurmcoil Engine --> Nesting Dragon : Mostly to reduce the budget, increase fliers, and better synergy

Panglacial Wurm --> Gruul Ragebeast : Never have I ever... been able to cast the P- Wurm from the deck. Ragebeast will be in testing.

Discuss

Argothian Wurm : Early game goodness, late game could slow us down facing certain decks that can abuse lands.

Voracious Wurm : Pelakka Wurm and Mayael's Aria are our only instances of lifegain in the deck now (thought there was more) it is however the cheapest wurm in the deck. Replace with dork, or keep?

Saltskitter : Triggers Gruul Ragebeast , Elemental Bond , and Warstorm Surge potentially every turn. Too cute?

Naya's Charm: I have mixed feelings about. 3dmg to creature only feels like a waste. Returning a card from the yard could prove useful if commander tax adds up. Lastly and most used is clearing a path to swing. Should this slot be filled with a better removal spell, or is there worth I'm missing here?

Lurking Predators : Our new commander has a similar ability that's less annoying. Also its not a 'May' trigger so we could potentially be forced into casting our deck into a wipe.

Mayael's Aria : There's no other counter synergy in the deck, but bigger is always better. Surprise wincon? Slot in something better?

Garruk, Primal Hunter vs Vivien Reid : One or both? Garruk protects himself on the ground, draws cards, and makes a mess of Wurms. Vivian finds critters, destroys flyers (glaring weakness in the deck), and an emblem to boost our field. Both technically have the same turn clock to go off except Garruk can be used as a 5cmc one shot draw spell, whereas vivian can minus and have points remaining.

Something else I've been mulling over is what to replace these last 2/3 with... as they are no longer as useful, at least not all of them. Piper may have a use to stay being: a) it's a creature that can be egged, and b) with a haste enabler out it can be 5cmc for 2 creatures.

Belbe's Portal : 8cmc(5/t:3) investment for 1 creature limited to type.

Quicksilver Amulet : 8cmc (4/t:4) investment for 1 creature

Elvish Piper : still may have it's uses. 5cmc (4/t:1) investment, haste enabler preferred prior to casting.

liquid_water on The Gruul Clans: The Untamed Onslaught

1 month ago

Is Planebound Accomplice really worth it with only two walkers? Also, Storm Strike seems like it's just too low impact for EDH, especially considering it's anti-synergy with Nikya. Maybe cut them for Loaming Shaman for grave hate and Gruul Ragebeast for removal? Domri's Ambush might also be an upgrade to Savage Smash .

Mj3913 on And The Wurms Ate Into His Brain (Atla)

1 month ago

skoobysnackz - Thanks for the upvote, and for getting the reference.

TypicalTimmy, bushido_man96 & Poly_raptor - Thanks for the suggestions, I like them all, my wallet... not so much XD. That being said I'd like to keep it as budget as possible. It took me a long time to come to terms with adding Wurmcoil Engine because of the price tag... So the ones I'd like to see in the deck include: Mirror Entity , Nesting Dragon , Thornbite Staff , Birthing Boughs , Evolutionary Leap , Fanatical Devotion , Growing Ranks , Gruul Ragebeast , & Culling Dais . Ones I'm unsure of are: Second Harvest because I wonder if there'd be enough tokens to matter, Ashnod's Altar because not sure combo is something I want, Song of the Worldsoul because once we get eggs rolling we aren't exactly casting alot, & Helm of the Host for the investment. The others are pretty pricey or just seem off theme.

With all these new additions though comes subtractions... which I can never do easily so if anyone has any ideas in that department its appreciated.

Also... I'll likely be watching a Tremors marathon again now so... thanks for that. :P

Poly_raptor on And The Wurms Ate Into His Brain (Atla)

1 month ago

Nice list! I love the wurms, reminds me of the film “Tremors”.

I built an Atla list fairly recently and can echo the above recommendation of Ashnod's Altar + Thornbite Staff - this paired with Purphoros, God of the Forge will win instantly. (I appreciate this if off wurm theme)

Gruul Ragebeast is also great because it’ll make all of your s fight everything and provides an immediate trigger for the eggs to die too.

I’d also recommend some top deck manipulation with cards like

- Congregation at Dawn - Sensei's Divining Top - Mirri's Guile

I’d also recommend Greater Good as you could draw some massive amounts by saccing your wurms.

I’m terms of sac outlets I’d say go for the ones that don’t eat into your mana.

- Phyrexian Altar - Culling Dais - Greater Good - Fanatical Devotion

Allow you to do this for free.

dbpunk on Atla palani deck tech

2 months ago

Well, not a big creature, but you should have the combo tech for Atla Palani, which is Mirror Entity , Thornbite Staff and Ashnod's Altar .

Then you probably also want some big boys or value producers to go along with those combos. For example, Avenger of Zendikar goes along pretty well with the Mirror Entity combo. Additionally, Polyraptor , Gruul Ragebeast , Verdant Sun's Avatar , Trostani, Selesnya's Voice could be big help too.

In terms of card advantage, you probably want Soul of the Harvest , Mentor of the Meek , Garruk's Packleader , Garruk's Horde

Also haste enablers like Urabrask the Hidden , Anger , Fervor , Fires of Yavimaya , Hammer of Purphoros , Rhythm of the Wild . Another great combo would Shifting Shadow , which'll get you a two for one if you attach it to an egg (although the second creature gains haste, but will die)

Also graveyard things such as Adarkar Valkyrie , Deadwood Treefolk , Genesis would be vital for the deck because you will be a target.

Finally, may I suggest a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combo pack? Zealous Conscripts and Restoration Angel are in the right colors.

dbpunk on When ideas plunder

2 months ago

Maybe pick a handful of cards you find fun and have copies of and use those as a strategy. Then, look for the right commander identity for the strategy.

For example: my first deck was fun cause I liked the idea of playing both Gruul Ragebeast and Deadeye Navigator .

SharpRaptor on Omnath: Locus of landfall & combos

2 months ago

Hi, I hope that at least some of what i'm going to put here will be useful, and even if you don't use any of my advice then maybe you will be able to see where I am coming from and use the logic to find your own improvements :)

Ramp

As the previous commenter has suggested the amount of ramp spells that put lands in to play in your deck is a bit to low for a ramp deck especially one that has subthemes of landfall. Typical commander deck building suggestions say that you should have 10 pieces of ramp to tide you into the midgame. This goes for any deck, not just ramp decks. In ramp decks you will want more. At my count you have 12 ramp cards that are reusable (ie, aren't the one shot sacrifice elemntals) this will want to be more really, with a focus on them being ones that put lands in to play. Another of note, is that cards like Zendikar Resurgent don't really count as a ramp slot, as by the time we can cast it, we have a lot of mana already. 'Ramp' cards are ones that you want to see in your opening hand to get you into your game plan faster.

For this reason I would look into replacing some of the creature based ramp and some other low impact cards with this ramp that will get us executing our main game plan faster and better.

• Beastcaller Savant
• Catalyst Elemental
• Generator Servant
• Gruul Locket

These can all be easily replaced with land based ramp spells as they don't get you any further ahead on mana than 1 land, or are one shot abilities when we want to be dropping big things multiple times over multiple turns.

Smokebraider Is unique because it produces 2 mana for only 2 investment, but only if we focus in on elemtals so can be left on a short list to be evaluated. We'll list other potential cuts later when looking at more over all deck evaluation.

The previous commentor has provided a list which at first glance seems to be comprehensive enough to provide some ideas for what to add.

Removal

More conventional commander wisdom suggests that you have at least 5 ways to directly interact with your opponents game plan. I personally nearly always play more than this, but you should have at least 5. This direct interaction is preferred to be the targetted simgle response cards that can remove threats in any shape or form. Of note, this removal count is seperate from the count of mass removal. At my count you have Song of the Dryads , the down tick of Domri, Anarch of Bolas and Ingot Chewer as easily accessable removal. Things like the trigger from your commander or things like Magmatic Force are more incedental as you can't rely on them doing what you want when you need it.

Cards that could be added in this slot are many. But it is a good idea to have as many as you can being generic answers to anything, but also you need to make sure that they are ones you can realistically weave into your game plan instead of leaving up those answers at all times. This is mostly a balncing act that is where fine tuning comes in from playing the deck. But potential recommendations for all purpose would be Beast Within and Chaos Warp . After that they become more specific but can be cheaper in mana,

• Nature's Claim
• Domri's Ambush
• Force of Vigor
• Krosan Grip
• Hull Breach
• Broken Bond
• Vandalblast
• Manglehorn
• Reclamation Sage

Wrath

This may seem counterintuitive, seen as you are planning on being the big creature deck that wants the board presence. But sometimes the opponents boards just need answering (Not to mention that you might end up getting a lot of elemental death triggers from Omnath). As such having 2 or 3 creature wraths might be worth trying. And having 2 or 3 artifact and enchantment wraths will be good to have access to aswell. Something you already have so I assume you already know.

Creature wraths to consider in green red include

• Blasphemous Act
• Chandra's Ignition
• Arcbond
• Chain Reaction
• Savage Twister - This one is representative of X cost ones that are interesting to try as it gives you the oppertunity of clearing out small creatures while keeping yours alive if you would prefer. Another one that can also be used to finish of players is Rolling Earthquake

You already have the cards for mass removing artifacts and enchantments so I won't bother listing any more.

Card Draw

One of the most common recommendations I have to make to people about their deck is to up the amount of card draw or selection in their decks. There is no point in having sweet cards and synergies in here if we never get to see them! Normally I recommend having 10 ways of drawing cards in your deck, with some of them being repeating and some being one shot. At my count you currently have 7 (Or 8 if you count Praetor's Counsel which can do effectively a similar job), so you are nearly there but I would recommend adding a couple mr just to smooth out the deck running.

• Harmonize is the most obvious recommendation withit being notorious for its colour pie break with not haveing a restriction based on creatures or similar.
• Horn of Greed is universal, but we should be getting more value from it.
• Greater Good is amazing if you keep having big creatures to sacrifice. Thankfully due to our commander triggers, we do!
• Chandra, Flamecaller can cover multiple bases of what we need, it can be counted as both a wrath AND a card draw engine :) IT also even makes elementals (of note, they get exiled at end step instead of dieing so you won't normally get Omnath triggers. Sacrificing them to Greater Good though....... )
• Rishkar's Expertise can be great card draw as you don't need to take a full turn off to refuel, you still get to cast something that costs less, which could be that removal spell or something you needed!

These overview sections are recommendations for generic cards that could go in. From here on, we will be looking at more specific card options, and possible cuts from the existing deck

Deck Applications

Now, again as the previous commentor mentioned, there are multiple ways you can take an Omnath deck. My take on them being

• RG Big thing Ramp. No specific synergies in mind except for incidental ones like, I need land to cast my big spells, and this card cards about land. Not a bad deck by any means, just less commander or theme focused.
• Elemental Tribal Ramp. This seems to be closer to what you are currently going for. Similar to the RG ramp deck, just with tribal synergies from elementals
• Landfall / Lands Matter. Here we are focusing on many landfall triggers, and keep cycling our lands round and round to get them. This deck will likke having access to things like Crucible of Worlds and many effects like Exploration

Here, i will suggest some cards for each of them and maybe later on if you want we could look more into one or a mix of these strategies.

RG Ramp

• Ruric Thar, the Unbowed This card is very very powerful. Expecially as the decks around you get more and more powerful and wanting to do more combo and storm bsaed strategies.
• Gruul Ragebeast A good way of keeping the board under control when you play your 'large and incharge' creatures
• Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger We have mana, they don't. Enough said really. Just beware that with this creature, sometines the adage If you can't remove the problem, remove the player can be applied to just killing you.

Elemental Ramp

Other than ones recommended here, perhaps a good idea would be to use Gatherer or mtg.wtf to find elementals in your colour. Or cards which reference elementals in your colours, the example in wtf would be this

• Chandra, Acolyte of Flame can rebuy your ramp spells and can make elementals that will die to trigger Omnath.
• Chandra, Awakened Inferno A wrath that doesn't kill elementals and can provide a reasonable clock on the game with her uptick.
• Omnath, Locus of Mana Store mana for a rainy day. Or for hitting your opponents upside the head with it. Both work.
• Parallel Lives Double the tokens, double the elementals, double the damage. We like.
• Tornado Elemental clears out any things like Dragons, or Flying Slivers or similar. Also good at picking of planeswalkers as it has sudo unblockable.
• Liege of the Tangle we can go REALLY all in on making all our lands elementals and meaning that if someone wraths us we can basically kill everyone from Omnath triggers
• Budoka Gardener Ramp early game, big guys late game.

Lands Matter

This deck idea might have elements that are closer to a combo deck than the others, but will still mostly be a midrange deck.

• Perilous Forays With your commander out this card is bonkers. But if we are making other elemental tokens too then we can truly get going somewhere
• Crucible of Worlds , Ramunap Excavator , Life from the Loam Allow you to play the lands from your graveyard after we have sacrificed them for effects. Also makes always hitting your lands drops easier if you are playing and sacrificing a fetch land
• Exploration , Azusa, Lost but Seeking , Oracle of Mul Daya all ways to play more lands per turn
• Cavalier of Flame can be card draw and synergizes with lands in graveyard. As well as being an elemental!
• Scapeshift lots of triggers all at once
• Splendid Reclamation if we are sacrificing lands then this gets them all back. Very good after a scapeshift
• Amulet of Vigor makes some of our ramp a lot more effective, while at the same time providing a good combo with Perilous Forays and Omnath, Locus of Rage Of recommendation if you run a lot of land recursion effects then other lands that sacrifice themselves might be worth it. Like Wasteland Strip Mine etc

Possible Cuts

Cutting Criteria

I won't re-list the cuts recommeneded in the ramp section. I will be evaluating cuts in the assumption that the deck is wanting to be a combination of an elementals ramp deck and a lands value deck. A lot of these recomendations for cuts will have very similar reasonings, which I will elaborate on first to be able to be brief later on. These recommendations will possibly sound rather brutal, however I find that it makes it a lot easier to have too many cards that are on the cutting block rather than not enough.

• Too Slow. If the card takes too many turns to start pulling its weight then it could be replaced with something that does what we need sooner. This is common in cards which have 'at the beginning of your upkeep' effects as they will normally have to wait an entire turn cycle to start doing something. Enters the battlefield triggers or similar things that have an effect the turn you play them are often preferred.
• Too expensive. This should be self explanatory. If the card costs too much mana, especially if the same effect can be achieved for less mana then it should be exmined.
• Doesn't do enough. While the effect might be interesting and maybe something we actually want in the deck, The card just doesn't pull its weight in whatever role it is supposed to be doing
• Doesn't contribute to our game plan This might be a good card, maybe even a great card in other decks. But perhaps the effect just isn't one we need in this deck

Cards

Creatures

• Cytoplast Root-Kin Too slow. Doesn't contribute to our game plan.
• Dragonmaster Outcast Too slow. Doesn't do enough
• Grazing Gladehart Doesn't do enough. While we like landfall triggers. The life gain is small enough to be negligable unless we are massrecycling all lands from our yard multiple times.
• Magmatic Force Too Slow.
• Magmaw Doens't contribute to our game plan / Doesn't Do enough. We can run other sac outlets if we want ways to sacrifice our elementals
• Scute Mob Possibly too slow. But I love me a scute mob so I'm fine with this staying in :D
• Spawnwrithe Doesn't do enough. However this one can stay in if you have found that you realistically get to connect with it at least twice to have four of them
• Tendershoot Dryad Doesn't contribute to our game plan. Though it is very good at gummin gup the board
• Tyrant of Discord Doesn't do enough. However if you change to having some ways to knock your opponents off of lands then the chances of this hitting multiple nonlands go up and its value does too. However there are enough control players where the onlything this will do is destroy a land at random
• Undergrowth Champion Deosn't do enough. It's got all the right keywords but thats about it

Enchantments

• Retreat to Kazandu Doesn't do enough. THe landfall idea is good, but putting 1 counter an a guy once or so a turn isn't worth the slot really

Artifact

• Sword of the Animist Too Slow. We want this effect, but we aren't attacking multiple times in one turn so there are better effects to get lands from our deck. We don't neccessarily even have than many small creatures to equip this too to get it active early enough for the ramp to be that useful as ramp

Sorcery

• Animist's Awakening As much as i want this spell to ever be good. It's just not really at all.
• Journey of Discovery Too slow. For this to be actual search out ramp you need to entwine it which is then 6 mana. Any of the 4 mana double basics would be better here. Or just Explore type effects that cantrip too.

Planeswalker

Turns out there is only slightly too much Nissa. (And not enough Chandra ;) ) All of the Nissas' contribute to our gameplan well except for Nissa, Voice of Zendikar . The general rule of Planeswalkers in commander is to assume that you will only get two activations if you are lucky. So with this one you will at best buff your team a little. Consider Garruk Wildspeaker instead maybe?

Other random Card Recommendations

• Boundless Realms All the rest of our lands from our deck? Yes please
• Sylvan Awakening We do this, then we overrun and nobody will be expecting it
• Genesis Wave As previously mentioned. It's the better Animist's Awakening
• The Mending of Dominaria More mass land recursion.

Closing

Well I hope some of this helped at least a little :)

SharpRaptor