Big Glarb
- bonzaientertainmen
- Nov 24
- 9 min read
I have failed you. I try to provide a balanced and varied series of themes and color combinations. I was talking to someone about my series, and he said, “too bad you haven't done a Sultai deck.” I was a little defensive and corrected the record by talking about my Sultai Equipment deck. I did a little introspection that night and realized I had a gap. That deck debuted in June 2023, so it's understandable someone wouldn't be familiar with it (go check it out). I set out to make right my wrong, and thank that reader.
It was an unnatural experience. I don't gravitate toward the color combination naturally, which is surprising since I've built so many Abzan decks and Simic decks for this series. I can't seem to get excited for those colors together in the same way. Luckily, Duskmourn had recently come out and there were a healthy number of 3 color Legends that had come out between that and Thunder Juction. Gonti, Canny Acquisitor and Felix Five-Boots could have been easy picks for a Stripped Out article, but I felt like that would have been cheating. It was actually a Bloomburrow Frog that caught my eye. That set was stacked for me between Zinnia, Valley's Voice and Flubs the Fool. I even have a Ms. Bumbleflower list sitting around somewhere. It was actually Glarb, Calamity Augur that caught my eye. I mean, just look at him, sitting on his throne, a little bored, without a care in the world, with no interest in keeping you alive. Very menacing.
Glarb (which is fun to say and I encourage you to read it out loud through the course of this article) was interesting to me because his abilities are discordant. The King is not blocking, but if I attack, I can't use the tap ability to Surveil. The Surveil allows me to break through a blockage of cards on top of my library so I can continue to play the top card. My first thought was some untapping and flash spells, maybe some sucker punches too. Even with the fun dissonance of Glarb's abilities, I was underwhelmed. Was it really that weird? The big idea actually fell into place thanks to my 5 color companion deck. I was trying to challenge myself to include more companions for a future version of the deck when I got slapped in the face by a Dinosaur Hippo. I had been striving to tweak decks around companion restrictions, in general, and Keruga, the Macrosage fit my Glarb problem perfectly.
Glarb, by nature of being 3 colors, already fits Keruga's restriction. I also learned a lot of tricks from Companion Bonanza about how to get around that. I knew it would be easy enough to port over some of that strategy and expand on it. Plus, I now have a card draw engine in Keruga. Companions aren't as powerful since the rules change early on in their existence, so they're more of a conversation piece than a giant target on your deck. And if everyone thinks your deck only has 3+ mana value cards, they tend to overlook you in the early game.
I mentioned ways to get around Keruga's restriction, so what are they? My first line of defence comes from Adventure spells. These cards give me some flexibility. Stormkeld Vanguard is a big card expensive creature. A 6 mana 6/7 is not going to tip the game in my favor, even if Keruga lets me draw a card when I cast it. Waiting until turn 6 for that is not enough. But I get to cast Bear Down on turn 2 and surprise my opponents. Cast removal early, destroy your opponents' sources of ramp so they can't race you to their high cmc cards or casting 2 or more spells in a turn cycle. I found that even with my getting around the high costs, a deck like this can use the breathing room that destroying an early Sol Ring can bring. Similarly, Sword Coast Serpent can reliably get in for damage. On its own, I wouldn't run it. At 2 mana, getting to cast Capsizing Wave means I can get a tempo win and bounce back an expensive commander or combo piece creature from the board early on. I've even used it to return my own creature with Adventure before, so I could get a second chance at the cheap Adventure half.
Split cards behave similarly, but require some explaining for newer players. Split Cards have the combined mana value of both sides when they're in my library, hand, and graveyard. When cast, the mana value happens to be what you paid for the spell of your choice. If you look at Discovery//Dispersal, the total mana value is 7, so it satisfies Keruga, even though Discovery only costs 2 mana. Early on, I can filter out some dead draws with that half, or later on, I can bounce away some expensive creatures and maybe send them to the graveyard. Far//Away offers interesting flexibility. Far is a tempo win, while Away puts some power into an opponent's hands, letting that player choose a creature to sacrifice. I'm not picking the token player for Away. Thanks to Fuse, I don't have to choose which side to cast if I cast it from my hand. For 5 mana total, I can hit 2 creatures, one with Far and another with Away.
Duskmourn brought with it a new type of split card: Rooms. It's a limited card pool, so there's room to grow in the future. Moldering Gym, for instance, is a 3 mana ramp spell. It doesn't fit the idea of a cheap spell to cast on turn 1 or 2, like I mentioned 2 paragraphs ago. My ramp options at 1 or 2 mana here are a little low, but I think you get my point. The exciting part is actually Weight Room. It lets me Manifest Dread, so I look at my top 2 cards, put one face down onto the field, and the other in my Graveyard. This has been great at resetting Glarb, Calamity Augur. What do I mean? Glarb lets me play cards from the top of my deck. If I get stuck with a land on top, after I've played one for turn, I just unlock Weight Room and clear that card away. There's no guarantee my 3rd card is castable, but I certainly know the top card is unplayable in this instance. Manifest Dread and Surveil work well with Walk-In Closet, too. If I drop a land into the graveyard from either of those abilities, I can just play them from my graveyard when I fail to hit my land drop. Forgotten Cellar feels like the setup for a great reanimator strategy, or other graveyard schenanigans, but that's not quite what the deck is designed to do, but there's plenty of potential when it happens.
I found another way to get value off the top of my Library when Glarb is out. Lands on the top of my library proved a challenge. I plan on hitting my land drop every turn, so encountering a land 2 or 3 cards down in my library meant I would get stuck and have to Surveil with Glarb. I tweaked my play pattern to avoid playing lands until absolutely necessary, instead of on my first main phase. This helped, but I had taken an earlier step in deck building before deciding to change my play pattern. I added cards that allow me to play 2 lands per turn. I was lucky enough to have 2 that were Adventures: Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy and Beanstalk Wurm. This Kellan provides some removal as an attacking creature after I used the Adventure to ramp out an additional card. The fact that it's a 2 mana effect means I can play it early while I still have multiple lands in hand. Plant Beans is similar but even easier to cast, only requiring Green mana instead of Blue and Green like Tail the Suspect. I've whittled down some of these effects recently, but I still have Case of the Locked Hot House in the deck. Enchantments are harder to deal with for some decks, and since it's a permanent, I can capitalize on the ability more than once. The Solved portion is the most important as it adds some redundancy for my strategy in case Glarb is removed. The Case also doesn't care if the spells on top cost 4 or more, so it opens up some additional cards to be played. I've found it also acts as a deterrent. People are less likely to remove Glarb if the Hot House is out, since destroying one doesn't stop me from playing from the top of my library. It was strange to notice initially.
There was another set of cards from my Companion deck that fit well here, too, creatures with Evoke. Mulldrifter and Shriekmaw are the classics. Rather than waiting for 5 mana I can fire these off for 3 or 2, respectively, and get their effect without the body. Sometimes you just ned an early game Divination or Doom Blade. Foundation Breaker is a welcome addition to this pool of cards. Don't be afraid to remove those early ramp pieces.
I expanded on what Evoke brought me and targeted spells with inherent cost reduction. Murderous Cut is fine targeted removal, while Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are great draw options. Snuff Out is another flexible removal option. 4 mana or 4 life, either way, that problematic creature is going down. Overwhelming Remorse, on the other hand, is less all in on mana or life and scales with the number of creatures in my Graveyard. It also exiles rather than destroys, so it's more decisive. Baleful Mastery is in the same vein, but can be played more politically. I'll cut the cost in half and give an opponent a card, with some strings attached. Like, don't use whatever it is against me. The cost reduction is great, you just have to be careful with Glarb and casting from the top of the library since he only lets you play 4 mana spells or higher.
We often take for granted ramp and draw in a deck. Here, they do their main function and also disrupt the top card of my Library. This gives me the opportunity to use Case of the Locked Hothouse to play more cards from my Library. Migration Path ramps me 2 lands for only 4 mana and I get to shuffle away whatever pesky uncastable card from the top of my library. Or, I can cycle it away for 2 mana to draw a possibly problematic card. Deep Analysis can draw me a couple of cards twice over, thanks to Flashback. Sometimes I'm better off casting cards from my hand, especially when cost reduction is an option, so drawing cards can be key for that.
Let's take a look at the deck as is.
Price of Fame | ||
Dig Through Time | ||
Drag to the Roots | Behold the Multiverse | |
Sword Coast Serpent | Search for Tomorrow | |
Vantress Transmuter | Venture Forth | |
Sursian Voidborn | Foil | |
Destined//Lead | Once and Future | Flare of Cultiation |
Beanstalk Giant | Dryad of the Elysian Grove | Heaped Harvest |
Wayward Swordtooth | Incubation/Incongruity | |
Murderous Rider | Status/Stature | |
Moldering Gym/Weight Room | ||
Tlincalli Hunter | Polluted Cistern/Dim Oubliette | |
Young Blue Dragon | Funeral Room/Awakening Hall | Phyrexian Metamorph |
Tempest Hart | Reason/Believe | Toxic Deluge |
Mouth//Feed | Disruptive Stormbrood | Unshakeable Tail |
Bottomless Pool/Locker Room | Sagu Wildling | |
Defiled Crypt/Cadaver Lab | Feral Deathgorger | Walk-In Closet/Forgotten Cellar |
Discover/Dispersal | Bloomvine Regent | Spring/Mind |
Find/Finality | Horned Loch-Whale | Never/Return |
Hagra Mauling/Broodpit | Sultai Banner | |
Temple of Mystery | Temple of Deceipt | Temple of Malady |
Demolition Field | Field of Ruin | Ghost Quarter |
Scavenger Grounds | Bojuka Bog | Lilly Pad Village |
Blast Zone | Terrain Generator | Tyrite Sanctum |
Bonder's Enclave | Swamp x6 | Island x6 |
Forest x6 | Encroaching Wastes | Tectonic Edge |
Desert of the Indomitable | Desert of the Mindful | Desert of the Glorified |
The deck really came together. After a couple play throughs I noticed I was fighting the idea of Surveil. I sought out some key cards to pay off and expand upon the ability. Disinformation Campaign is reverse card advantage in a lot of ways. It only draws me 1 card, but each opponent has to discard when I cast it. It's a 2 card swing against any given opponent. The fact that I can bounce it back to hand each time I Surveil just to recast it is very funny, for me. Unshakable Tail turns my Surveil into Clue tokens, which I can use later on to recur this Zombie Detective.
Sultai gives me access to some interesting theft effects. What do these have to do with Glarb, Calamity Augur? Absolutely nothing, but they're good finishers. Villainous Wealth just lets me cast multiple cards from an opponent's library for free. I pump a ton of mana into this, so x tends to be high but reasonable. I also really like Flotsam//Jetsam. Just Jetsam, really. It mills a little and then recurs a spell from each of my opponents' graveyards. With either of these, I know to not eliminate the opponent who gave me the coolest card when I turn them against opponents.
Thanks for reading. The deck is fun and has a lot of potential for customization. Keruga is really fun to build around. It really comes down to when to summon him to my hand and when to cast him. I've found summon him early and cast him after the first board wipe works best. He really helps me rebuild and get ahead of my opponents in the rebuild phase.
Some of the companions are a little trickier than others to make work, but big mana is a noble goal. I still don't think the Companion mechanic is necessary for the game, but with the rules change, it has its own niche. I also added some Omen cards into the deck recently to experiment with, so I'll report back to you once I get some more games in with them.
Let me know what you think of the deck. Have you messed around with Companions before? Do you think the restrictions on them are worth the benefit of 101st card?
As always, don't forget to use my TCG Player and Mana Pool links if you're buying cards or other products.
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