_Ever since Terror came out in 2021's Core set, it's lit a fire in people's bellies. Some believe this new dragon with gorgeous card art to be a game changer which will be banned, while others think it's formidable but fair. I will say right now, that due to the fact that a deck built around Terror can be easily taken down by users of cards like Lofty Denial, Terror will not be banned any time soon, it's a tough creature to get rid of overall, but it's not Nicol Bolas or Uro. Like Questing Beast, it is powerful but vulnerable to counter cards and Lava Coils. _
Gruul decks are my bread and butter, and they are also the Terror's Bread and Butter, as it's 5 mana cost doesn't allow it to dip its toes into many Standard Mono Red formats unless you're just looking for a curve topper that isn't Chandra.
This deck's main focus will be to give you a good look at how a basic Gruul Terror Centered Deck should work, and what type of cards to focus on in regards to Terror, as 2021 cards are going to be around for quite a while.
Basic Build:
The first thing you have to gather is, that Terror's main advantage comes into play when you are able to play huge creatures after Terror's on the field, throwing out either direct damage at your opponent, or wiping out huge threats like Planeswalkers. And not only that, but Terror's effect actually stacks with other Terrors. The moment you have Four Terrors on the field, unless your opponent has a storm's wrath or something similar hidden up their sleeves, you can consider the game over the moment you play a Bonecrusher Giant or throw out a beast token from Vivien. I've found myself doing as much as 40 damage in a single turn with just 2 terrors.
Because of this, Terror functions best in a mana ramp deck designed to get him out by turn 3 or 4 at the very least. Paradise Druid and Gilded Goose are essential cards, especially since Terror is a Double Red on the non converted costs.
Partners for Terror:
Aside from a large amount of ramp, you're going to need some huge creatures to throw out that can take advantage of Terror's power. Questing Beast is an optimal choice thanks to it's relatively unchallenging mana cost, and ability to change the game in your favor even if Terror never comes out. Combining it's haste, unblockability with terror results in an easy 8 damage instantaneously, driving powerful threats to ruin or throwing your opponent into the single digits where their life is concerned. Other powerful partners to consider are Zilortha (Godzilla) who can render your Terror immune to four damage type cards like Lava Coil or Storm's Wrath, or Quartzwood Crasher, who can continuously summon massive creatures to keep your combo going every turn. In actuality any huge creatures can combo well with Terror, but creatures that also benefit Terror directly like Elder Gargaroth or Quartzwood are preferred as you want to not only have Terror causing trouble, but causing absolute chaos, as his full potential is being able to cause MASSIVE amounts of damage at any given turn.
Overall due to the amount of optimal Terrors being 4, and some of the best combo creatures with Terror being golds to mythic rares, this deck is expensive, (why I recommend going digital and just playing MTG Arena), however the strategy is extremely straightforward. Ramp, Terror, then big damage go boom.
Planeswalkers:
The optimal Planeswalkers to take out are ones like Vivien Monster's Advocate, or Garruk unleashed, basically Planeswalkers who can fill up the field with lots of creatures really fast, taking advantage of Terror's ability, essentially giving you unlimited 3 damage shocks to throw either directly at your opponent, or to board wipe with. Vivien is preferred however, as her -2 ability allows her to summon out even more big bois like Questing Beast when your hand doesn't have any more big on demand creatures, and on the small chance you decide to go above 5 on your list of high cost creatures, using that very same ability can help you bring a Terror out immediately if you don't have one, or a second terror if one is already present. (remember, stacking Terrors will rip your opponent to pieces).
Staples to Aim For, and budget replacements.
The optimal cards you'll want to aim for are Two Viviens, Two Elder Gargaroths, two Questing Beasts, and Four Terrors. Yeah, super intimidating. Luckily Terror combos well with most big bois, and honestly you don't have to have all the creatures here. In fact, my best deck currently consists of just 2 Viviens, and 2 Questing Beasts. It all depends on how you want to set your mana curve. You can even run this deck with only 2 Terrors. However 4 terrors is just what you'll want if you want this deck to be a horrifying monster. Stacking Terrors one by one just bones your opponent so thoroughly that unless they run some insane removal spells, their loss is inevitable. And even then, you can save a Terror or 2 in your hand for just in case of Removal spells and you'll still be ripping them to pieces.
Questing Beast is just a good "Do Everything" kind of card that can also win you the game even if you happen to draw no terrors, and can sync very well with cards like Bonecrusher Giant to turn your game into a linear burn type strategy, a sort of fall back strategy in case your hand doesn't pan out with the ramps you need early game, or you don't draw Terrors. Gargaroth and Vivien are the same in this regard. They don't rely on Terror to destroy an opponent, and in case you don't get the cards you need, they can win games on their own. That's part of why this deck is amazingly good. It functions with horrifying destructive power, but thanks to how good the cards are on their own, there's never such a thing as having a "Totally boned hand" unless you're extremely unlucky and draw nothing but land and ramp.
Cheap Options for Gargaroth and Vivien include Quartzwood Crasher, who does what they do, just a little slower, and less safely, as he needs to actually damage your opponent to activate the combo with Terror. Zilortha (Godzilla King of the Monsters) can also be a 'safe' option to run, (plus who doesn't like Godzilla?) as underwhelming of a Mythic rare he is, he makes your Terror practically immune to most of the most dangerous removal spells, as most removal spells that rely on damage run at most four damage. Turning Terror into a 5/5 plus hitting opponents for 7 can be devastating. And to top it off, as a Trample user he syncs well with Quartzwood. Now if another more frequently available Mythic Rare is still a problem, You can patch up your roster with Gemrazer, whose status as a 4/4 with trample and reach is further made amazing when his mutate ability allows him to destroy enchantments and artifacts, which seriously patches up a strong weakness to Gruul Decks, which is dealing with troublesome spells that can't be destroyed simply with damage. Scavenging Ooze, also known as the all purpose green card that deals with literally anything, is also a good patch up who can turn around many games for you, especially if your opponent is the trigger happy counter type who throws around their Lofty Denial like a machine gun, turning your dead creatures into sheer power and dealing with Uro runners who are all too common right now in Standard.
Again, to make an optimal deck for Terror is quite easy thanks to his sync-ability to any large creature, but to make the best use of his effects requires expense and hunting for some pretty big deal mythic rares or golds. Which is why I highly recommend that if you want to build a Terror deck, to do so in Arena rather than in IRL paper form, if you don't want to go through the stress of card hunting on ebay and digging into your PS5 funds.
Weaknesses and Strengths:
Go Wide decks aren't going to have a good time if they meet your Terror.Dozens of small creatures against a bunch of Vivien's beasts, creatures with trample, or Gargaroth beasts, not to mention Terrors with flying and Questing Beasts being unblockable by everything 2 or lower will screw Wide Decks to hell. Even if they have some high toughness flying blockers on the field, Terror's effect will shoot right through their blockers no problem, so all you need to do is use Vivien and Gargaroth to continuously passively summon creatures, and Terror will rip them to shreds in no time.
Other red-green Mana Ramp decks can be a problem, especially other Terror runners who use the same kind of deck. At this point it can be a case of 'who summons the Terror first'. Because whoever summons Terror first, will be able to summon a big creature to kill the other terror on the next turn, after that, hell begins.
Burn Decks are sort of 'depends' situation. Monored is a problem only if you can't ramp out a big creature by turn 3. It's not a game breaker, a Questing Beast by turn four can still seriously screw over small red creatures, and if your opponent's combo doesn't go optimally, even a Terror summoned on turn five can rip your opponent apart if they don't have enough shocks, and Gargaroth is practically immune unless your opponent is really into spending 6 mana to kill one creature, and usually in monored, you won't find much land unless your opponent is trying to run Chandra. In any case, it's all a matter of speed. Summon the big bois as fast as you can and Burn won't be able to do much.
Control decks are frustrating. They are with EVERY deck format. Literally there is nothing in MTG that is totally safe from a white and blue control deck. Hence why many people hate them. You're going to have pacifisms placed on your Questing Beast, you're going to have your Terrors countered, and it'll happen even if you get your mana ramp off flawlessly. The best way to counter this is to use Scavenging Ooze to take advantage of your countered creatures and Gemrazer to destroy as many enchantments as you can. enchanting your gemrazer over a goose to make a 4/4 trampler with flying can really wreck the place in spite of the lower card advantage, and a gemrazer mutated over an Ooze that's already bulked up on dead creatures can grind an opponent into a tiny crumb. Because of this, you might want to keep Gemrazers and Scoozes for later when fighting a control deck, or a tempo Izzet Deck.
Monogreen ramp decks will find themselves dying upon the flames of ruin against you. While they also usually aim to ramp quick like you, your abundance of Terrors can screw them over immensely. Terror will clear their board of even the largest creatures, or merely fly past those giant brutes for a direct blast at your opponent's life. Terror's all about throwing damage wherever he wants, and nothing, not another Gargaroth, or another Vivien, is going to stop him. However, if you don't have Terror around, it can turn into a drawn out battle, especially if your opponent also runs gargaroth and Vivien. Before long you might have a bunch of huge brute creatures staring each other down, with both players too afraid to make an attack as the board is filled with more and more giant big creatures. However, once Terror gets on the field, numbers won't matter too much, as since as long as Vivien and Gargaroth are on the field, he has the ability to clear the board turn by turn, or in an instant, steadily or quickly reasserting your card advantage. And thanks to Green's lack of kill spells, Terror won't leave the field any time soon, allowing you assert a massive controlled dominance over your opponent, allowing you to first destroy their Vivien or Garruk to stop the flow of creatures, and then one by one, kill off the rest of your opponent's board. And if you start drawing more terrors, this will happen all the quicker, allowing you to do 6 to 12 damage every turn. At this point, this deck's victory is only a matter of how soon you draw your terrors, and whether your opponent can clear the board while all your terrors are on the field, or find some mega bogus way to win before your Terrors all get in.
Black and White Decks might screw you a bit with Pacifisms, but Terror's ability still works even if he can't attack or block, so it's not much of an issue. Most black kill spells are high cost and your opponent might run out of cards quick if they attempt that route, and it's usually a steep cost thanks to Terror's 3 life price for targeting him with any spells. And if they attempt to black and white Phoenix you by using Ajani's Pridemate and others like him, even if you can't shock Pridemate early, they often won't be able to get big enough fast enough to deal with a turn three Terror, Vivien, or Gargaroth, or even Zilortha. And Scooze can MAJORLY screw up monoblack mill decks or Witch's Oven Decks. The rate at which Terror can do damage is just too hard and too fast for most Black or Black White decks to handle, and lifegain, being ever the dumb mechanic that it is in the current meta, won't matter when you can dish out 45 damage in a single turn.
Finally, I know how people on Tapped out are usually looking for decks that can throw out 80 percent wins and require minimal brainpower to use. I'm not a veteran of MTG. I'm a decent player, but I'm not a person who wins money. But I seek to help newbies and those who wish to use their favorite cards even if the cards aren't the best. Terror of the Peaks is popular thanks to it's card art, and the fact it's genuinely fun to use. This guide is sheerly just to show you how to make an optimal Terror Centered deck that doesn't rely on kooky gimmicks or hyper complicated tryhard sweat strategies. This deck is not an Ugin, but it is a VERY solid deck that can hold its own in Platinum to Diamond ranks of Arena Standard. Your opponents WILL have a hard time, even White Blue players. it's a deck that can hold it's own even when the combos that it centralizes on are broken, because the creatures in it all synergize well with each other even if Terror, their bread and butter, isn't around to throw his havoc. Maybe instead of turn 3 Terror, you'll turn 3 Questing Beast or Gargaroth and reek havoc with them until you manage to draw a terror, or maybe you'll win an entire game just with a bone crusher giant and a few kill spells. It happens a lot. All in all, this deck's aim is to be solid, even when it's not being utterly broken so you don't have to press the Concede button when your hand's not what you're looking for after several mulligans.
