From the days of Kird Ape, G/R Aggro has been a staple archetype in Magic.
We may not have anything as powerful as a forest gorilla on turn one, but
Standard has plenty of efficient creatures in the Gruul guild, and starting
your deck off with four copies of Llanowar Elves is enough to pique my
interest no matter what format you’re playing.
Aggro decks are all about getting ahead by using their mana efficiently on
the early turns of the game, so any time you can get more mana on those
turns the more you can do to end the game quickly. Llanowar Elves is the
best at what it does in that department, but this deck goes even further on
that theme with the heretofore overlooked Grand Warlord Radha.
Radha, Heir to Keld used to pair nicely with Stonewood Invocation back in
the day, but with a little more experience under her belt this newest
version lets you make a whole lot more mana and do a whole lot more with it
since it sticks around for the rest of the turn. And today’s list has a
boatload of ways to take advantage of that mana.
There’s the eternalize Khenra pair, not the best to bring back after combat
but a fine mana sink nonetheless. There’s the vastly underrated Fight with
Fire, a removal spell that cleanly answers Lyra Dawnbringer and when kicked
ends the game a majority of the time. Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter
provides a steady stream of creatures to make even more mana later on.
And then there’s Siege-Gang Commander. With Goblin Chainwhirler around this
card is going to be held in check, but in any matchup where you don’t have
to worry about the newer Goblin, Siege-Gang Commander is unbelievably good.
It also combos with Radha on multiple levels, both creating a horde of
creatures to make tons of mana and providing an excellent sink for that
mana. Whether it’s taking down small creatures, comboing with red removal
to take down bigger creatures, or finishing off planeswalkers, Siege-Gang
Commander does it all.
I’d like to see a little more removal in the maindeck, but you need a
certain density of creatures to make this strategy work, and Blossoming
Defense slots nicely in any deck that is trying to piece together synergies
between creatures, so space is tight. Either way I’m looking forward to
flooding the battlefield with creatures and never running out of gas.
Creatures (28)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 2 Siege-Gang Commander
- 2 Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter
- 2 Walking Ballista
- 3 Glorybringer
- 3 Earthshaker Khenra
- 2 Resilient Khenra
- 2 Captain Lannery Storm
- 4 Jadelight Ranger
- 4 Grand Warlord Radha
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (23)
Spells (7)
