Most Peasant cubes I see run Bloodbraid Elf, Kird Ape, and Flinthoof Boar in their Gruul section. These are all fine cards; however, beyond the basic theaters of aggro, midrange, and control, what can a Gruul deck do in Peasant Cube? How can we, as Cube architects, design our Red and Green sections to make drafting an RG deck feel special?
Please post GR archetype ideas in this thread. Let's work together to make our Cubes better! (Or at least weirder)
Archetypes suggested so far (basic strategy/noteworthy cards):
-Monster Ramp (Ramp into fatties/ Zhur-taa Druid)
-Defenders (Spam walls and use their abilities to win/ Overgrown Battlement, Vent Sentinel)
-Fires (Grant haste to efficient creatures/ Fires of Yavimaya, Generator Servant)
-Tokens (Make tokens/ Squirrel Nest, Goblin Bombardment)
-Spells (Play lots of spells/ Guttersnipe, Sprout Swarm)
-Shamans (Use tribal synergies with Shamans/ Rage Forger, Burning-Tree Emissary)
-Combat Pump (Use combat tricks and threat-of-activations/ Fires of Yavimaya, Ghor-Clan Rampager)
-Suspend Storm (Combine suspend or ritual creatures with storm spells/ Burning-Tree Emissary, Empty the Warrens)
These are all good suggestions. Fires and Ramp I like especially.
One direction I'm toying with in my own cube is a Combat Tricks/Pump deck, featuring Ghor-Clan Rampager as the seeded gold card along with other combat tricks like Savage Surge and Giant Growth. I realize this is a deck where you don't want a "critical mass" of pump spells, so I'm experimenting with other forms of combat pump, like Captive Flame and Curse of Predation. I don't get to play actual drafts often, so testing is slow.
Squirrely did a great job of offering a bunch of different things you can do. I can specifically attest to the Modern Masters Suspend-Storm deck since I really love it in my cube. While you won't often "just win" with Empty the Warrens the average number of goblins produced is between 6 and 8 and the high has been 16. And mostly it exists as a package in rg midrange decks (turn 5 Skred-Empty for 4 goblins is perfectly fine and only gets better from there), though it can be the focus of a deck when Empty shows up early in draft. The thing to know about the deck is there are a lot of cards that fit in elsewhere that really excel in it. Burning Tree Emissary, mana elves, guttersnipe, young Pyromancer, Kiln Fiend, ramp spells and burn spells all stoke the fire of the deck as well as create a consistent framework with a lot of play outside of "Storming". The deck dovetails really nicely with Ramp, Tokens and RG aggressive strategies so the changes needed to make it work in my cube were minimal.
These are all good suggestions. Fires and Ramp I like especially.
One direction I'm toying with in my own cube is a Combat Tricks/Pump deck, featuring Ghor-Clan Rampager as the seeded gold card along with other combat tricks like Savage Surge and Giant Growth. I realize this is a deck where you don't want a "critical mass" of pump spells, so I'm experimenting with other forms of combat pump, like Captive Flame and Curse of Predation. I don't get to play actual drafts often, so testing is slow.
I'm kind of doing this with my gruul decks. I'm running these at 300:
Priest of Urabrask seems good in the same kind of decks that BTE is good in—play him, then another 3-drop, and he's essentially free. But, his stats aren't as great as BTE, and his mana is less useful (unless you run Flame Javelin I guess).
Squirrely did a great job of offering a bunch of different things you can do. I can specifically attest to the Modern Masters Suspend-Storm deck since I really love it in my cube. While you won't often "just win" with Empty the Warrens the average number of goblins produced is between 6 and 8 and the high has been 16. And mostly it exists as a package in rg midrange decks (turn 5 Skred-Empty for 4 goblins is perfectly fine and only gets better from there), though it can be the focus of a deck when Empty shows up early in draft. The thing to know about the deck is there are a lot of cards that fit in elsewhere that really excel in it. Burning Tree Emissary, mana elves, guttersnipe, young Pyromancer, Kiln Fiend, ramp spells and burn spells all stoke the fire of the deck as well as create a consistent framework with a lot of play outside of "Storming". The deck dovetails really nicely with Ramp, Tokens and RG aggressive strategies so the changes needed to make it work in my cube were minimal.
Would Priest of Urabrask be worth it to push this some more? I've seen the card pop up in rare cubes here and there and with how good Burning-Tree Emissary has been performing, I'm wondering if the Priest would be playable. I'm guessing no, but who knows.
I see you run Rift Bolt as well, I guess I should start including it again.
Yeah. I honestly never even considered Priest of Urabrask but I should almost certainly be running it along side the existing Storm stuff. Fits exactly where BTE does IMO. Making RRR is slightly worse (along with the -1 toughness) but there are enough 3 drops in red (or a 2 drop +1 drop) and additionally you can get value out of it in later turns by chaining it into another creature (FTK would be ideal) that it should be negligible.
I cut Rift Bolt for a long time and it's only in my cube now because this archetype exists. I could just play an additional Incinerate variant if I wanted mother 3 damage spell that much. Just in general I feel like the card is marginal.
It has been 7 years since the last post on this topic. I guess now is a good enough time to revisit it. Is anyone happy with what RG is doing in their cubes in 2021? What is and isn't working for you?
After looking over this year's average cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/mtgs2021, my environment seems pretty standard as far as RG goes, and it just isn't working.
I think some sort of "R/G Monsters" archetype is almost evergreen for Gruul. It's the big, hard-hitting creatures of green - often with haste or perhaps coming out a turn early via a mana elf - backed up by burn for removal or the last few points. The only new twist I see for it since 2014 is it's more about +1/+1 counters than it used to be. Green in general heavily supports counters in most cubes now, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it has bled over into all the guild sections it touches. In my Gruul section, for example, I run Domri's Ambush, Grumgully, the Generous, Rhythm of the Wild, Zhur-Taa Goblin, and Fanatic of Xenagos as counters stuff. Obviously, these combine well with green cards that proliferate or offer trample to creatures with +1/+1 counters. +1/+1 counters also just make your creatures bigger, great in Gruul with trample and fight spells, which themselves have become more common imo.
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Now... if there's one thing I'm kind of disappointed in it's that Gruul doesn't have much of a "second archetype." Since I have a bigger cube, I always try to give each color combination at least two different ways to go. Before I converted my rare cube to Peasant, R/G Ramp was a thing. It really isn't in my cube now. Ramp is either Simic or Mono-Green in most cases. Pyroclasm and Firespout would combine with Rampant Growth and other non-creature ramp spells to create a formidable anti-aggro, early-game into devastating bombs like Inferno Titan and Dragonlord Atarka. The problems as I see them for Peasant are 1.) most ramp is creature-based, which doesn't play well with red sweepers and 2.) red doesn't have any good targets to ramp into - making it completely reliant on green bombs. I currently run Red Dragon, but whenever I try to draft a Gruul ramp deck, I often end up cutting it for a green bomb that does a better job of stabilizing the board or being more resilient. Then I cut the red sweepers because they'd just kill my mana-dorks, and ask myself, why am I trying to play R/G Ramp again? It's sad.
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The only other archetype I can think of trying in this color combination is some sort of ephemeral "Lands" deck. Again... I'm not quite sure it exists in Peasant (heck, it didn't really exist in my rare cube either, but I was always a big fan of the Life from the Loam/Seismic Assault combo). However, I know that with Modern Horizons a number of useful "Lands" cards were added to the existing pool, so this might be a thing. One day when I get bored with what Gruul does or I decide to give up on trying to make R/G Ramp work, I'll give Lands a shot.
Outside of the old standby Bloodbraid Elf, my other two Gruul cards are dedicated to persist combo with Rhythm of the Wild and Grumgully, the Generous. One nice thing about those two cards specifically, though, is they slot just fine into Gruul aggro decks without persist synergies.
My Gruul archetype is high power matters. Of all the RG commons and uncommons that could serve as signposts for the color pair I found power matters the only one that is represented on enough cubable red cards. And in my cube high power overlaps with equipment theme in RW and counters in GW and GB. RG spells lacks green cards, RG counters red cards, RG landfall lacks good cards, as do werewolves. Ramp, as was mentioned before, lacks red payoffs. There are enough red and green elementals to try to make it tribal archetype, but those cards seem weak and unappealing.
My Gruul archetype is also supposed to be Stompy, but honestly red doesn't really provide much. Charging Monstrosaur is the only thing that comes close to the green options. Gruul is definitely one of my weaker guilds right now.
Please post GR archetype ideas in this thread. Let's work together to make our Cubes better! (Or at least weirder)
Archetypes suggested so far (basic strategy/noteworthy cards):
-Monster Ramp (Ramp into fatties/ Zhur-taa Druid)
-Defenders (Spam walls and use their abilities to win/ Overgrown Battlement, Vent Sentinel)
-Fires (Grant haste to efficient creatures/ Fires of Yavimaya, Generator Servant)
-Tokens (Make tokens/ Squirrel Nest, Goblin Bombardment)
-Spells (Play lots of spells/ Guttersnipe, Sprout Swarm)
-Shamans (Use tribal synergies with Shamans/ Rage Forger, Burning-Tree Emissary)
-Combat Pump (Use combat tricks and threat-of-activations/ Fires of Yavimaya, Ghor-Clan Rampager)
-Suspend Storm (Combine suspend or ritual creatures with storm spells/ Burning-Tree Emissary, Empty the Warrens)
Squad Goals Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/39847
PowerSquad Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/39911
Defenders.deck. They tried it in Conspiracy but green just offers so much better walls for this than white. Wall of Mulch, Axebane Guardian, Overgrown Battlement, Wall of Blossoms, Wall of Roots... And of course, Vent Sentinel and another defender or two in red. Depending on how you look at it, Gruul itself offers Tinder Wall.
However, I prefer Gruul as an aggressive color combination because it offers so much power for that strategy.
One direction I'm toying with in my own cube is a Combat Tricks/Pump deck, featuring Ghor-Clan Rampager as the seeded gold card along with other combat tricks like Savage Surge and Giant Growth. I realize this is a deck where you don't want a "critical mass" of pump spells, so I'm experimenting with other forms of combat pump, like Captive Flame and Curse of Predation. I don't get to play actual drafts often, so testing is slow.
Squad Goals Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/39847
PowerSquad Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/39911
I'm kind of doing this with my gruul decks. I'm running these at 300:
Madcap Skills is also good in this deck.
Squad Goals Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/39847
PowerSquad Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/39911
Squad Goals Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/39847
PowerSquad Cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/39911
Yeah. I honestly never even considered Priest of Urabrask but I should almost certainly be running it along side the existing Storm stuff. Fits exactly where BTE does IMO. Making RRR is slightly worse (along with the -1 toughness) but there are enough 3 drops in red (or a 2 drop +1 drop) and additionally you can get value out of it in later turns by chaining it into another creature (FTK would be ideal) that it should be negligible.
I cut Rift Bolt for a long time and it's only in my cube now because this archetype exists. I could just play an additional Incinerate variant if I wanted mother 3 damage spell that much. Just in general I feel like the card is marginal.
After looking over this year's average cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/mtgs2021, my environment seems pretty standard as far as RG goes, and it just isn't working.
----------------------------------------
Now... if there's one thing I'm kind of disappointed in it's that Gruul doesn't have much of a "second archetype." Since I have a bigger cube, I always try to give each color combination at least two different ways to go. Before I converted my rare cube to Peasant, R/G Ramp was a thing. It really isn't in my cube now. Ramp is either Simic or Mono-Green in most cases. Pyroclasm and Firespout would combine with Rampant Growth and other non-creature ramp spells to create a formidable anti-aggro, early-game into devastating bombs like Inferno Titan and Dragonlord Atarka. The problems as I see them for Peasant are 1.) most ramp is creature-based, which doesn't play well with red sweepers and 2.) red doesn't have any good targets to ramp into - making it completely reliant on green bombs. I currently run Red Dragon, but whenever I try to draft a Gruul ramp deck, I often end up cutting it for a green bomb that does a better job of stabilizing the board or being more resilient. Then I cut the red sweepers because they'd just kill my mana-dorks, and ask myself, why am I trying to play R/G Ramp again? It's sad.
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The only other archetype I can think of trying in this color combination is some sort of ephemeral "Lands" deck. Again... I'm not quite sure it exists in Peasant (heck, it didn't really exist in my rare cube either, but I was always a big fan of the Life from the Loam/Seismic Assault combo). However, I know that with Modern Horizons a number of useful "Lands" cards were added to the existing pool, so this might be a thing. One day when I get bored with what Gruul does or I decide to give up on trying to make R/G Ramp work, I'll give Lands a shot.
I recently thought about moving a little bit into "trample tribal", too. Cards that come to mind:
However, I am not sure that's too good of an idea
My current guild cards that I run are
Legacy Cube
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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All of them have 4 or more toughness, so they survive to Firesprout, too. Rhythm of the Wild and Grumgully, the Generous also help your creatures with 3 toughness to survive to Firesprout.
I try to not play ramp spells that cost 3 or more, so after Sakura-Tribe Elder and Rampant Growth (and mana dorks), I play with enchantments for lands: Utopia Sprawl Fertile Ground, Wolfwillow Haven... They are good options to play.
Into the North could be another card if you say your drafters all your basics are snow lands.
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