Gruul Arcanist, Maximize Damage

Standard* Aggro Competitive Netdeck RG (Gruul) RGW (Naya)

themudman

Creature (23)

• 4x Dreadhorde Arcanist
• 1x Ghalta, Primal Hunger
• 2x God-Eternal Rhonas
• 4x Gruul Spellbreaker
• 4x Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
• 2x Nullhide Ferox
• 4x Rekindling Phoenix
• 2x Sunder Shaman

Land (23)

• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 3x Forest
• 3x Mountain
• 4x Rootbound Crag
• 3x Sacred Foundry
• 4x Stomping Ground
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 4x Temple Garden

Instant (10)

• 4x Collision / Colossus
• 3x Giant Growth
• 3x Samut's Sprint

Planeswalker (4)

• 4x Domri, Anarch of Bolas

---

Sideboard

Instant (7)

• 3x Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi
• 2x Crushing Canopy
• 2x Revitalize

Creature (4)

• 4x Trostani Discordant

Sorcery (4)

• 4x Domri's Ambush

---

This is a deck intended to inflict pain up front and finish off with heavies turn 5 ~ 9. It lacks card draw for much longer, but has had success on untap.in versus a variety of decks that cannot respond to ~15 damage, often with trample, over the first 3~4 turns. I haven't had many games that go longer than that which aren't just a slow, merciless death for one side or the other.

While there are a lot of Gruul packages out there, this one makes use of Dreadhorde Arcanist and Sunder Shaman to ensure there is lots of early trample damage, keeping opponents on the defensive while you can play out bigger threats. This deck also has great acceleration, and with Krenko tokens and Ghalta, can go from 3~4 damage on board at the start of a turn to 20+ damage on board at the end of the turn. A surprise Rhonas can also turn tokens or mid-size threats into game-ending attackers. Without board wipes, this often creates a state that is very difficult for the opponent to respond to without dying.

The sideboard is a work in progress, and the white splash is for Trostrani Discordant to deal with one threat the mainboard can't answer: manipulation spells. Crushing Canopy is for pesky fliers like Lyra or Kefnet, or bothersome enchantments. Domri's Ambush is also to deal with planeswalkers and fliers. Revitalize is to give a little bit of draw and life versus burn decks, but was added post-facto and I have not had the chance to use it yet. Vitu-Ghazi idea was another large threat at instant speed (with haste), but I haven't had the chance to main-board it yet. Perhaps something like Unbreakable Formation would be better?

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Splash colors	W
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 4 Mythic Rares 34 - 3 Rares 6 - 4 Uncommons 6 - 4 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.24
Tokens	Elemental 0/1 R, Goblin 1/1 R, Soldier 1/1 W w/ Lifelink