Gruultrol

Control can be a very powerful strategy in Magic. Rule setting, counter spells, taking permanents. All provide powerful tempo shifts. There's nothing like an opponent trying to cast his game winning spell only for me to gain control of the effect and turn it against him. Except maybe countering it. Either way, I'm in the driver's seat and any opponent is left wondering “what evil is he waiting to unleash on the next card I cast?” At least, that's what I think goes through opponents' heads.

It's not hard to see why Esper and it's associated colors are the face of control. So I wanted to do something a little different, and by that I mean completely turn this idea on it's head. I could have let myself have access to one of the Esper colors to make this exercise easier, but I wanted a challenge. So No White. No Black, No Blue. I'm doing Gruul Control today.

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Now that the shock of Gruultrol has worn off I need to examine what control really means in a game. If I am the reason you delay casting a spell, that is a form of controlling the game. If I am the deciding factor on whether on not your permanents get removed, that is a form of control. If I can turn your strategy against you for a full tempo swing, that is control.

Gruul is not flush with counter magic. There is not a lot of playing around spells in red and green. Or is that misconception? For starters I have access to Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast. These are cheap ways to hold my own in a counter spell war. I still build decks with old boogeymen in mind. These cards deal with Expropriate and Cyclonic Rift. They're so much more than that. They also take out blue permanents, so an already resolved Propaganda is no longer a problem for me. Warping Wail is something people don't tend to see coming outside a colorless deck. A lot of powerful finishers are Sorceries and they are vulnerable to this. After you fire one or two of these spells off people start going through their mental encyclopedia of how many of these types of counters exist.

I could do better though. People won't play around these couple of spells for long. I needed something more robust. I needed a deterrent. What a better way to deter someone from casting spells than to punch him in the face every time he does? Once I was locked in on this line I knew who my commander was going to be: Ruric Tar, the Unbowed. People get really cautious when every spell they cast suddenly costs 6 life. This practically reads as Ward- Pay 6 life. A little quick math. 6/40 equals 15% of your starting life total. How many times can you eat six before you change the way you play the game? That's control! After playing this deck it feels most similarly to a Rule of Law effect. People are less inclined to play 2 or 3 spells in a turn. They expect someone else will deal with my commander and hold onto their removal and wait to chain spells together later for greater effect. I couple that mentality with a couple ways to protect Ruric and removal stays in opponent's hand longer and longer.

Before I go any further I want to talk about the trouble finding cards that fit in my Make EDH Weird Again Series. Usually I get 1 or 2 cards across my decks froma set. Which is fine. Thanks to Bloomburrow I found nearly a half dozen cards to add in. Hearthborn Battler lets me throw damage around when anyone casts a second spell. This further disincentivizes opponents from playing multiple spells in a turn. I can get Inkeeper's Talent out early and let it pass counters around. Once I level it up I keep up the control plan by giving those creatures ward. This works great with Wandertale Mentor. I'll ramp and keep getting counters on the Bard until it attack for a ton. Keen-Eyed Curator is above rate being a 2 mana 3/3. It will shine as graveyard hate, removing troublesome cards before they get recurred.

I can increase the potency of Ruric's damage ability by making life gain impossible. If the only direction is down, people keep cards in hand for fear of falling behind and becoming an easy target. Tibalt, Rakish Instigator is a fun Planeswalker to push the strategy. Without a natural way to plus up his loyalty he seems very fragile. Which is actually a plus as people don't just give up and feel locked out of the game. Opponents actively try to solve the puzzle that is removing Tibalt. I have certainly made a devil token with him an knocked away a couple loyalty just to entice people to be more interactive or aggressive. Rampaging Ferocidons behaves similarly. I like it more than Tibalt because Ruric doesn't punish me for playing it. Ferocidon is also easier to interact with for opponents, being a creature. That fact keeps the game moving. People are more apt to throw one removal spell at it and eat the 6 if they think it will be a one and done effect. Even funnier for me though is Atarka's Command. It's a one off and I get hit for 6 if my commander is on board, but there have been other upsides too. A great test case was when an opponent tried to gain a bunch of life in a turn. He took the 6 thinking he would still gain another ten on top. I fired off the Command and flipped that on it's head. Yeah I ate 6 for my troubles but I made sure everyone else took 3 too. The guy who thought he was going to go up in life wound up being down 9 at the end of the turn. I recently added in Stigma Lasher too. It's been a very powerful addition. I would rather play it on turn 2 than ramp to be honest. People get squirmy when they see it hit the table and don't have a blocker ready. Incidental life gain is sneakily strong and more often than not keeps a player in a game he should have been eliminated from turns earlier. Not to have to worry about that from opponents takes a weight off your shoulders. Once an opponent has been tagged by the Lasher they tend to play very conservatively for fear of Ruric Thar. Keeping spells in hand is control. Another Bloomburrow card I've added in is Sunspine Lynx. It too prevents life gain. That coupled with a soft board wipe makes the cat an easy add in here and to a lot of decks.

Looking at my second point about removal, Gruul does that well an in interesting ways. Green has fine ways to get rid of artifacts and enchantments. That's equally true for red and artifacts. No artifacts are safe. I have Viashino Heretic to punish opponents who happen to land an artifact on the board. Manglehorn has an immediate effect on the board by destroying an artifact. It goes a step further by causing all opponents' artifacts to enter tapped. That feels very White like Blind Obedience or Kismet. It pairs great with Collector Ouphe. The Ouphe shuts down activated abilities of artifacts. I don't have to worry about treasures or clues or any of the other 2 dozen artifact tokens that have been mass produced in the last 5 years. Titania's Song is akin to removal. Anyone making those same artifact tokens will see them all turn into 0/0s and promptly see them off the board. That feels like a surprise board wipe.

Everyone is familiar with Beast Within at this point. It always has things to target. Just make sure what you remove now is more dangerous than what that 3/3 can do later. I also found Aftershock. Red doesn't have a lot of ways to destroy creatures outright. They're often damage based means. This just kills stuff, no set up required. The damage isn't pleasant, but with 40 life to start with it's doable if Ruric isn't on the field. Acidic Slime gets around that damage by virtue of being a creature. It's not hitting creatures, but plenty of difficult to interact with permanent types. The Deathtouch left behind is always relevant.

Turning an opponent's strategy on its head is where this deck really shines. Old school Red had some wild enchantments. I have been playing stuff like Smoke and Uphill Battle for years. They are not the kind of effects Red puts out today. Stuff entering tapped or not letting things untap screams Azorious to me, but it's alive and well in red. Onslaught was another solid add. No, not the set, the enchantment. Each iteration of this deck has had plenty of creatures, so this is a great way to clear a path for future attackers. Mine or someone else's.

But there's more here. Green gives me Gravity Well to shut down fliers. Do you think you'll be able to fly over blockers and win that way? Not when all your wings get clipped. It doesn't play great with Chaosphere. I'll play one or the other but not both at the same time. Playing this way insulates me from removal, sandbagging a similar effect to deploy after the first one gets blown up. Back to green enchantments with another color pie break. Root Maze is classic STAX, forcing lands and artifacts to enter the battlefield tapped. It's symmetrical, so I need to watch out for the effect too. I've never been lucky enough to have this in hand on turn 1, but I know it would be game warping.

One of the most impactful ways to turn the game around is by messing with people's mana bases. I'm not destroying lands with this card (#NormalizeLandDestruction). Hall of Gemstones forces everyone into one color of mana per turn. There are still enough mana rocks out there or maybe treasures for some fixing. It's just enough to slow opponents down a turn or two. That's one of the reasons I play Curse of Opulence. It encourages attacks and I get a reward. I can also weaponize all my creatures running around with Shivan Harvest. I just sacrifice one and I get to destroy a land. That's very doable in almost any deck today. This is great to deal with utility lands and any that produces more than one mana. Goodbye Nykthos and Field of the Dead. Fountainport fits in well because of this. That fish is easy fodder for Shivan Harvest and the treasure is a great way to get around my own Hall of Gemstones.

The last way to control resources is a very traditional win con with red. I'm going to turn opponent's creatures against them. Insurrection was a classic way to win years ago. It's fallen out of favor in recent years, but it's still potent. I also have the smaller but still potent version, Mob Rule. Do I take the little stuff or the big stuff? Whichever is beneficial at the time. I tend to get more damage through by picking the smaller creatures, but every now and then there are a bunch of beefy tramplers on the field that will run amok. It's important to let a critical mass of creatures hit the board before casting one of these. I can protect myself from combat damage leading up to that with Fog and similar spells. I also use it so save creatures from other non beneficial attacks. It seems nice, until I turn around and crack someone with the creatures I just saved. A lot of creatures don't survive those combat steps, but it's because their owner got knocked out. What about the ones that survive? I pay the Red and sacrifice them to Shivan Harvest to secure my lead. The last spell to highlight here is Disrupt Decorum. I'm not stealing creatures to control combat, but I am forcing them to attack someone else. This spell is pure bedlam when it resolves. The player on my left always has the most difficult question to answer: attack the next player in the turn order to atrit their forces or hit the person to my right in hopes the next player smells blood in the water. There's no good answer.

There is one aspect of control decks I haven't talked about yet. What is their wincon? These decks can get a lot of flack for preventing other players from winning while not having a way to close out the game on their own. I touched on a little of that with my Insurrection effects. Ever Ruric Thar is a win condition by double bolting players left and right. No one is stupid enough to kill himself outright, but plenty of people are reckless enough to soften their life total enough that any attack would knock them out. I wanted another way to win. At least one. But why not 2, or 3, or 10? What if I had access to everyone's wincons and cards? Red does that well. Stolen Strategy takes resources (cards) away from opponents and denies them their own strategy, as long as I flip the right card. Etali, Primal Storm is powerful for the same reason. When the dino attacks I get access to 3 extra cards. I can fill in lots of gaps or needs in the moment that way, all for free. Etali, Primal Conqueror has the benefit of immediately getting me value. The threat of poison counters also goes a long way in a game and opens up another win condition entirely.

How does the deck look now? Like This

Ruric Thar, The Unbowed

Chaosphere Awakening Zone Fires of Yavimaya

Smoke Meria, Scholar of Antiquity Rhythm of the Wild

Mudslide Wood Elves Tibalt, Rakish Instigator

Uphill Battle Fyndhorn Elves Bow of Nylea

Cinder Vines Curse of Opulence Stigma Lasher

Root Maze Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs Rampaging Ferocidons

Onslaught Bothersome Quasit Atarka's Command

Titania's Song Kothys, God of Destiny Clinging Mists

Collector Ouphe Scavenging Ooze Fog

Manglehorn Kappa Tech-Wrecker Silklash Spider

Viashino Heretic Hermit of the Natterknolls Starstorm

Hall of Gemstone Acidic Slime Savage Twister

Stolen Strategy Disrupt Decorum Aftershock

Etali, Primal Storm Mob Rule Pest Infestation

Etali, Primal Conqueror Insurrection Polis Crusher

Gravity Well Xenagos, The Reveler Sunder Shaman

Shivan Harvest Eternal Witness Innkeeper's Talent

Shigeki, Jukai Visionary Timeless Witness Sunspine Lynx

Sunbird's Invocation Beast Within Hunter's Talent

Red Elemental Blast Pawpatch Recruit Keen Eyed Curator

Pyro Blast Yavimaya Elder Hearthborn Battler

Warping Wail

Fountainport Rugged Highlands Kazandu Refuge

Temple of Abandon Spire Gaden Cinder Glade

Desert of the Fervent Desert of the Indomitable Sheltered Thicket

Forgotten Cave Smoldering Crater Slippery Karst

Tranquil Thicket Forest x11 Mountain x11

When playing the deck you need to make a commitment early on. Either to ramp heavy into the commander, or play a lot of early set up with non creature spells to avoid damage from the commander. A little protection goes a long way in the deck. I want to experiment with Adventures here too. I can get the adventure early on before my commander comes out, and once Ruric is on the field I'm free to cast the creature side without fear. I just have to balance this with my control plan. I don't want to dilute it just to avoid the damage from the commander. I could also lean more into curses. They can be cast before my commander is out and accrue value. I've got curses on the mind so I made a conscious effort to avoid those auras. I'm not the curse guy after all.

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