Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Garruk Stompy

Here's a neat little casual Standard deck I built around the new Planeswalker "signature spells" in M11. So far I've just done Garruk Wildspeaker, and I'd like to do all 5 of the plainswalkers. Maybe, maybe not... for now here's Garruk:

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Garruk's Companion
3 Leatherback Baloth
2 Obstinate Baloth
4 Garruk's Packleader
3 Rampaging Baloths
4 Pelakka Wurm

3 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Bestial Ascension
3 Momentous Fall
2 Eldrazi Temple

21 Forest

It's a pretty basic idea, but a classic one. You play mana sources in the form of Forest and Mana elves, and then drop some very efficient fat Green creatures. With 4 Garruk's Packleader and 3 Momentous Fall, this deck often draws like a blue deck. Virtually everything you cast will trigger the Packleaders and Garruk's token ability will also do the trick.

It's a fun deck, and capable of some utter blowouts. It's lightning fast, and with an early Packleader, it never runs out of steam. However, it isn't going to take FNM by storm, as it will die to any decent control deck. The object wasn't to be competative here, I just wanted to play a deck with Garruk and 4 each of his new signature spells. I already was working on a Mono-Green Stompy deck with Joraga Treespeaker and Pelakka Wurm, so the two ideas meshed nearly perfectly.

There are some great choices outside of Standard, if you feel like expanding the pool. Ravenous Baloth is the first and most obvious place I'd look, and Fangren Firstborn is also worth a look. Lightning Greaves would be a nice addition if you can find room for a couple. Also, as a high-risk/high-reward option, I've tested out Magus of the Vineyard as a replacement for Llanowar Elves. It does give your opponent extra mana - hence the high risk - but I was consistently able to drop Pelakka Wurms on Turn 3. It's hard to trump that even with two extra green.

It's a fun deck, and lets you make ridiculously huge plays very early on. If your casual group isn't to Control-heavy, it should do alright for you.

1 comment:

  1. Bonus: PLANAR DECK!!

    Murasa - gets Forests, triggering Lanfall and ramping Mana
    The Maelstrom - Free permanent each upkeep (only 6 cards in the whole deck fizzle this)
    Goldmeadow - Huh? Trust me...
    Isle of Vesuva - Why yes, two Pelakka Wurms are better than one!
    Aether Flues - More free dudes, plenty of tokes to sac. Seems doable.
    Sokenzan - HASTE!!
    Llanowar - GG... could mean two green mana, or Good Game!
    Immersturm - HA HA FUCK YEAH!
    Horizon Boughs - Because MORE MANA!
    Turri Island - Yeah, some guys won't get a discount as they're GG or GGG but Packleader for 3 and Pelakka for 5? Sweet! Chaos will nearly always hit at least one guy.

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