Gotta Go Fast!

This deck is a blast to play. You put down threats, they swing out immediately, and they generate card advantage. It almost feels like cheating.

Parts of the Deck

1 Mana Ramp

There’s a ton of 1 mana dorks plus wild growth and utopia sprawl in order to get Samut out and swinging on turn 2. You should probably mulligan if you don’t get a turn 2 Samut hand. This is how the deck really takes off in the early game. You need Samut to swing before people start dropping blockers.

Hasties

Clearly, we have a ton of hasteful creatures. But also things that make other haste creatures and/or tapped and attacking creatures. Samut loves them all equally. The mana curve here is pretty low, because we get one card per creature, whether that creature costs 2 or 7. And since we have a lot of pump effects, low mana value creatures are more efficient for us.

There’s a ton of fliers in the deck, too. Way more than you’d normally see in Gruul (thanks, phoenixes … phoenices?…..)

Pump Effects

[[Ardoz, Cobbler of War]], [[Ogre Battle Driver]], [[Beastmaster Ascension]], [[Primal Forcemage]], even [[Tribute to the World Tree]] and [[Rhythm of the Wild]] - these all make our small hasty guys more scary. [[Railway Brawler]] is a new card that I’m considering. It’s kind of high on the mana cost and doesn’t have haste, but doubling the power of our creatures is pretty great, especially with the other things in this list that only give temporary buffs.

[[Goblin War Drums]] or [[Gruul War Chant]] are way better than they look when we have a pretty wide board. Suddenly someone’s 5 blockers can only stop 2 of our creatures.

Board Wipes

One of the traditional problems with aggro decks is that they basically fold to a board wipe. Not this deck. Board wipes often help this deck, because they get rid of blockers. We don’t care (much) about the creatures already on the board anyway, they won’t draw us more cards. Lots of times we’ll cast [[Blasphemous Act]] or [[Chain Reaction]] just to clear the way. Our hand is almost always full, and almost everything replaces itself, so we really don’t have to worry about overcommitting attackers.

Mana Generation

Card draw without mana generation is useless, so we use a ton of the best, which thankfully Gruul is blessed with in spades.

[[Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun]], [[Grand Warlord Radha]], [[Xenagos, the Reveler]], and [[Druids Repository]] all turn our number of creatures and penchant for turning them sideways to generate more mana. Throw in an overlooked [[Kessig Wolf Run]] and it’s game over.

Lands

This deck draws a ton of cards and is low to the ground, so the land count is intentionally a lot lighter than I normally play. At one point, I even added [[Seismic Assault]] in case I get flooded from all the card draw (it’s currently rotated out, but it’s worth watching how often you have a hand full of lands).

Budget Cuts

This is not an expensive deck, but you can easily go even cheaper.

• [[Heroic Intervention]] can be cut no problem.
• Cut several of the more expensive lands like [[Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance]] and [[Spire Garden]]. Basics will work just fine in this deck.
• [[Questing Beast]] and [[Delina, Wild Mage]] and other more expensive creatures could get replaced pretty easily, they’re not super key to the plan.
• You can replace [[Lightning Greaves]] with [[Swiftfoot Boots]] or even just cut it, though this deck really does want Samut on the board at all times. [[Alpha Authority]] or [[Aspect of Mongoose]] would work just as well if you have those.

If you can swing it, don’t cut [[Tribute to the World Tree]]. It’s so good in this deck.

$$$ Adds

• [[The Great Henge]] would be great in this deck, though it’s a little sad it won’t help your tokens.
• [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] I guess? Kinda great in every creature deck.
• [[Goldspan Dragon]] would definitely be in here if I had the cash.
• [[Deflecting Swat]] is always good.