This deck is slightly based around Satyr Tribal with Gallia of the Endless Dance and Anax, Hardened in the Forge providing a lot of synergy between each other, but for the most part, this is a regular Gruul Aggro deck with a very low CMC curve. This deck is mostly red and there is no real curve out cards, I wanted to keep CMC 3 or below. Because this deck is mostly red, cards like Questing Beast and Pelt Collector I left out. Maybe in the future, I might change it to be an even color split or mostly green, but for right now, I like the value I get from Anax.
Early Game
Your main turn one play is Fervent Champion. Getting your one drop on turn one is not life or death, but any early damage is important for an aggro deck. Turn two gives us a lot more options with Gallia and Careless Celebrant and aside from creatures Collision / Colossus, and Light Up the Stage are great early. Turn three is a very loaded spot for this deck. Anax, Klothys, God of Destiny, Gruul Spellbreaker, and Bonecrusher Giant round out the value-filled 3 drop spot. Anax will almost always take priority because it is huge against removal after that Gruul Spellbreaker is usually played. Bonecrusher Giant is most likely saved for removal or burn, and Klothys is a 3 drop but it will usually be left for later to burn out your opponent.
Finishing
The big cards that are going to matter as finishers are Gruul Spellbreaker, Klothys, Collision // Colossus, and Embercleave. All of these finishers are huge because of one main mechanic Trample. Other than Klothys that provides us with consistent burn, our Spellbreakers, Colossus, and Embercleave with give us what we need to break through.
Sideboarding
Cindervines(4) is great against decks that play a lot of noncreature spells like Control or Tempo, but also has its activated ability which is huge since Theros Beyond Death has brought back enchantment creatures. Lava Coil(4) is for matches where have bigger creatures that are getting in the way, if Bonecrusher Giant and Domri's Ambush aren't doing the job bring in Lava Coil. Shifting Ceratops(2) is huge against counters but I think that the protection against blue is a bigger plus. Domri, Anarch of Bolas(2) gives you ramp, it is strong against counters, and provides you with a removal outlet. Phoenix of Ash(3) is a sideboard that could come in for decks that have a lot of removal or decks that cannot contest flying.
Advantages
The main advantages I have found from playing this deck is its speed and value. Every aggro deck is going to be fast but with nothing below 3 drop and with all the trample and burn, this deck can really go into turbo mode. For value, what I mean by this exactly is that there are so many cards that aren't just a big body or raw damage, they provide so much more. Anax and Klothys have insanely good static abilities, Gallia has its own value with Satyrs, Gruul Spellbreaker has hexproof and trample, and Embercleave is probably the most valuable aggro card in Standard.
Disadvantages
I think the main problem with this deck is that you can run out of cards very easily. Light Up the Stage and Gallia's card draw ability can help, but these methods are not the best answers to our problem. In the future, I might try out Experiment Frenzy to give me something to surge into the late game.
FNMs
January 31, 2020 (4-0) 2nd out of 28:
- Simic Mill (2-0): Pretty evenly matched in the early game. Trample and Burn are what won me it in the end. No sideboards.
- Mono-Red Aggro (2-0): They were a little bit faster, but my beefier aggro overran them. No sideboards.
- Golgari Graveyard (2-1): I guess this deck could be considered Big Golgari because its win conditions were based around big creatures. The reason I labeled it as a Graveyard deck though is that it utilized the Golgari guild synergy of Self Milling with mechanics like Undergrowth and cards like Acolyte of Affliction. I lost the first game mostly because I did not get the good creature draws I needed. Their two losses came partially because of getting mana screwed, but my deck was also too fast. Sideboarded in Lava Coil. Sideboarded out Shock.
-
Azorius Dream Trawler (2-1): By far the best deck I played against all night. Cards like Banishing Light, Teferi, Time Raveler, Absorb, and Dream Trawler gave me a lot of trouble. Sideboarded a ton for this matchup, brought in Domri, Anarch of Bolas, Shifting Ceratops, Cindervines, Fry, and Tibalt, Rakish Instigator. Bringing in the 4 Cindervines gave my opponent a lot of problems. Sideboarded out Tin Street Dodger, Shock, and Domri's Ambush
-
Summary: The deck did great but hopefully in the future I will face some more powerful decks. A lot were still playing some of their Throne of Eldraine decks, so it is still early for the meta. The Azorius deck was a really good possibly tier 1 deck, I was very happy that my deck could withstand it. Other than that the Monored deck seemed good, they had some synergy around Anax, Hardened in the Forge, but Monored is in such a bad spot right now. A card that did better than expected was Careless Celebrant, as a blocker or attacker this card has so much value, especially with a Gallia of the Endless Dance out. Cards that did not surprise me but did amazing were Gallia, Anax, and Klothys, God of Destiny.
February 7, 2020 (2-2) 7th out of 16:
- Changes to the Deck : Fervent Champion in for Tin Street Dodger, and Shadowspear in for Domri, Anarch of Bolas in the sideboard
- Grixis Spellslinger (2-1): The two games I won he did have trouble with his three-color mana base, but also the speed of my deck did not give him any time to stabilize. His deck was based around instants and sorceries along with Ral, Storm Conduit. The one game he beat me, he got Murmuring Mystic out, and filled the board. Sideboarded in Fry and Cindervines, took out Domri's Ambush and Shock.
- Mono-White Lifegain (2-0): Fervent Champion did really well in this matchup with its first strike up against their white one drops. Cards like Shock and Bonecrusher Giant were great for removal in this matchup. Sideboarded in Tibalt, Rakish Instigator, took out Gruul Spellbreaker(2).
- Bant Enigmatic Incarnation (1-2): The coolest deck I have played against so far since Theros Beyond Death has come out. The deck was split between Enchantments and Creatures and used Enigmatic Incarnation as like birthing pod to bring out value-filled creatures like Deputy of Detention, Knight of Autumn, and Cavalier of Dawn. The deck even had a few of the Gods as well such as Nylea, Keen-Eyed and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling. His deck was able to stabilize very easily against me even after sideboards, barely won game 2. Sideboarded in Cindervines, Lava Coil, and Shadowspear.
- Mono-Black Aphemia (1-2): Another very interesting deck, it was based around the card Aphemia, the Cacophony. It had a lot of enchantments, card draw based around enchantments, and Rankle, Master of Pranks as an aggressive curve out. Klothys, God of Destiny did a lot of work in this matchup to deny Aphemia, but in this matchup it was the lifegain that kept me from finishing them. Also ran into issues with them going wide against me with Aphemia. Sideboarded in Cindervines and Tibalt, Rakish Instigator.
- Summary: Learned a lot about the weaknesses of my deck, and I was happy to see that it got challenged this week. I feel like my deck needs to be quicker with removal, and also I need to improve how I sideboard. Bonecrusher Giant is a card that I am feeling like is too slow. I think adding more of Domri's Ambush and a Light Up Stage will give me more consistency with the snowball effect I want with this deck.
February 21, 2020 (3-1) 5th out of 24:
- Changes to the Deck : Light Up the Stage(1), Domri's Ambush(2), and Bonecrusher Giant(1) in for Shock, and Domri, Anarch of Bolas(2), Pheonix of Ash(3), Lava Coil(1) in for Shadowspear, Tibalt, Rakish Instigator, and Fry from the sideboard
- Summary: The deck did really well this FNM, most of the matches were finished very quickly by my deck. The one deck that gave me so much trouble was Rakdos Aristocrats. I feel like this match could have gone either way, but in game 3, he got out all 4 of his Witch's Oven. The big change for this deck that I could do is go up to 3 or 4 of Embercleave. That card is such a big play for the over the top damage that having a couple more might help me get that last lethal damage in.
March 6, 2020 (4-0) 1st out of 28:
- Summary: This time around my deck did really well and won against a Tier 1 deck. The first two matches were both 2-0's, wasn't challenged much until the 3rd round when I play against a Mono-White Lifegain deck. I felt good against this deck but the second game he was able to take me into the late game with Heliod, the 1st and 3rd games went smoothly. Last round I played against the guy who usually wins FNM at my LGS and he was playing a variant of Bant MidRamp. Bant MidRamp is the deck style that has become popular recently in the meta, it consists of bombs like Nissa, Who Shakes the World, Teferi, Time Raveler, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Hydroid Krasis, and Dream Trawler. For the first game, he was able to take me a little bit into the late game, but at that point, I had dealt with all of his threats like Teferi, Nissa, and Hydroid Krasis. For sideboarding I brought in Shifting Ceratops, Phoenix of Ash, and Lava Coil(2), taking out Bonecrusher Giant, Klothys, God of Destiny, and Careless Celebrant(1). Brought Phoenix of Ash in because I thought he might be running a lot of copies of Shatter the Sky, but I think now after the match it might have only been 2. In the second game, he was able to stabilize with Nissa and Hydroid Krasis, and once he put down Dream Trawler I decided to scoop. The last game was really fast, and I had some key early removal with Domri's Ambush. What really finished the game off was the devotion synergy between Anax, Hardened in the Forge and Embercleave. Even with his Uro out as a blocker, I had 12 damage on turn 5, which was the finishing blow. I was really happy to see my deck getting another 4-0, aggro can be one of the hardest deck archetypes to play but I feel like I am getting better at playing it.
Possible Upcoming Changes
