Gruul "Heads, you're dead!"

Good evening folks, Shdorsh here again with an exceedingly janky deck. This time, I went extra far outside my comfort zone. So in order to deny the following accusations:

• All of Shdorsh's decks are ultra-cheap
• Shdorsh hates big creatures with a passion
• What flavor of deathtouch will it be today?
• Shdorsh never does a Gruul deck
• All of Shdorsh's decks have bad draw

I went the extra mile and made a deck that denies all accusations, except for one: it is going to get janky. Also, let me ask you another question: Do you feel lucky? Because if you think the shuffler is the only god of random numbers, you might be severely mistaken.

The main idea

So, when I started crafting this deck I actually had tried making a deck that would use Mirror March and do something fun with it. Having tons of creatures and running over your opponent with sheer ferocity is fun, but how can we make sure we keep getting those creatures? After all Mirror March only makes tokens that last for your turn.

Enter Garruk's Uprising: As long as any creature, token or not, enters the battlefield with power 4 or more, you draw a card. In other words: Cast a creature, copy it 5 times as it gets haste and trample, you draw 6 cards.

The only problem is you might actually end up overdrawing and killing yourself with this combo, so I hope you only put down 1 Garruk's Uprising, lest it gets too wild. Hey... what's life without a little risk?

The problem however is that creatures with 4 power actually cost a lot of mana, so I have divided the whole playstyle of this deck into 2 phases:

• Preparation: Get mana and condense
• Destruction: The swarm

Get mana and condense

To prepare our swarm and cast Mirror March, which costs a whopping 6 mana, we will need lands and creatures that generate loads of it, and quickly if we want to survive this. Therefore a good chunk of the deck is dedicated to just this task.

Ilysian Caryatid jives very well with the premise of our deck, as most creatures we want to cast will be power 4 and above. That means that the 2 mana are nearly a guarantee and you can even quickstart it with Chained Brute, which costs a pitiful 2 mana. It also acts well as a wall and can be untapped once you get the mirrored creatures before they leave the battlefield at the end of your turn.

This is not the end though, as there are other cards like Harrow, Cultivate and Migratory Greathorn, which you can easily put on Ilysian Caryatid for more survival. They come with a nice little addition: They will make you draw tons of lands and put them into play, making sure you nearly always draw a creature once you get to the second phase.

- Intermission -

You might be in a pinch before you can get to the next phase, so let me help you with a few tips: you got Bonecrusher Giant, which can ping any target for 2. That is pretty neat for most threats you might encounter. Otherwise, the Chained Brute serves as wall. In case of a flyer, you can also use the one (1!) Gnottvold Recluse you got. I advise you to keep the Terror of the Peaks in hand though, unless you are fearing for your life.

You might also have a Garruk's Uprising in hand, but can't find your Mirror March. A little advice: use Garruk's Uprising always before the 4 power creature. Most are squishy for cheapness' sake, which means that the opponent can deny you a crucial draw by destroying that creature, exiling it or turning it into whatever.

In case your Chained Brute gets popped and it seems like your opponent might be fond of creature removal, you can use the Loathsome Chimera. Since all cards in the graveyard aren't being used for anything, you can exile them away and escape. Other than that, you might actually want to entice your opponent to pop it so you can bring it back from the graveyard and proc Garruk's Uprising.

Another thing you can do if you got the lands for it is use Auspicious Starrix to quickly put as many cards as possible into play. It jives especially well with the Migratory Greathorn, giving you more permanents that get put in the game.

The swarm

"On vile wings and bloody winds, the swarm will rise."

This phase begins as soon as you have put down a Mirror March and Garruk's Uprising: Now all you have to do is lay down the creatures and hope for tons of heads. Now, all creatures actually benefit from being copied, but there are creatures that benefit more than others, and they are all in the deck. Here are a few combos, with the most notable ones first.

Terror of the Peaks could be used to hurt your opponent for 4-6 damage depending on the creature (Caryatid not included), so you'd get 4 to 6 * X damage done, where X is the number of copies. You know what's funnier though? Copying Terror of the Peaks itself with Mirror March. Let's say you got 3 heads, which is quite possible with some luck, since the copying keeps going until it hits tails. That would mean for the first copy, you'd do 5 damage, then for the second copy you'd do 5 * 2 damage, then for the third copy, you'd do 5 * 3 damage. All in all, this would mean that you'd get a whooping 30 damage in, which is a direct win. Nice! And we didn't even calculate the damage from attacking with your trampling, flying, haste 5/4 dragons!

Other than that, you also have Combat Celebrant, which can be exerted to get an additional attack phase. Although the copies are squishy, you could always exert one each attack phase to untap creatures, which synergizes well with Chained Brute, as it will become untapped again and at the end of the last attack you can just untap it by sacrificing a token before it leaves the battlefield. 

That much being said, Chained Brute also gets some help, as its tokens are one-way use creatures and you don't need to bother about the untapping.

All along these options above, you get some amazing card draw out of this, provided you don't end up overdrawing and keeling over. The problem with this might be that mana isn't endless, but we got a fix for that:

Ilysian Caryatid can also be copied, though it won't net you some card draw. It costs 2 mana and its copy will have haste, meaning you will have your whole mana refunded as soon as you copy it only once! Copy it a few more times with maybe one more Mirror March in play or just get lucky and loop it all over!

Things to be wary of

There are a few things your deck might or will struggle against, so I put it all in here just so you can be safe:

• Mill decks are impossible with this. You need a long time before you get this deck started and until then, your opponent will have milled a big chunk of your deck. Another fact is that this card already has tendencies to cause overdraw depending on Mirror March being nice to you or not. You can try, but I wouldn't bother or recommend.
• Fast big flyers can be annoying. Granted, you got some way to deal with them, but you can ping them only for 2 with Bonecrusher Giant's stomp. Gnottvold Recluse is squishy with 2 toughness, but it can bring one creature down and else, you'll have to hope you can get up to Terror of the Peaks quickly.
• DO NOT DOUBLE GARRUK'S UPRISING. AND IF YOU DID, DO NOT STARRIX OR DOUBLE STARRIX ONTO THAT AFTERWARDS REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The conclusion

While this deck can be nervewrecking in the first phase, trying to survive while getting mana as quickly as possible, it turns into the absurd and ridiculous in its later phase where you keep drawing creatures, playing them and copying them. I got many good laughs and memorable moments out of this ridiculous pile of jank and would recommend everyone to play it at least once, if you got the needed cards for it.

Anyway, that is it from me right now. I am preparing something very interesting, that I might or might not post in a few days, all depends on whether I want to keep it to myself or not. I'll just let you know that it's one of those guilds I rarely use, Azorius. If you see me on MTGA with it though, things will be.. fun. We'll see more about that later on.

Anyway, until then: stay cool, stay fresh and I'll see you next time!