Posted - March 22, 2014

I bought the Gruul Wilding Theme Deck from the Guildpact set of the Ravnica block. Here is what it looks like:

Lands

Creatures

I want my MTG!

Spells

When I got this deck I fully intended to let it be. Because it was a preconstructed deck I wanted to honor that - and I did - for quite some time. The more I played the deck the more I became aware of its strengths and weaknesses. Because of the random nature of the game of Magic each game afforded me a view of a different aspect of the deck. But, because I played it so often, the deck started revealing consistencies.

I really liked the Aura-centric nature of the spell set of this deck. The synergies between the Aura spells and some of the creatures are just amazing. Gatherer of Graces would enhance every Aura attached to her, for example. Bramble Elemental would allow the creation of Saprolings everytime it got hit by any Aura. The Magemark spells are just fantastic because they not only affect a specific creature but every enchanted creature on the battlefield.

Another thing I like was the theme of the deck itself. I'm totally on board with the concept of the Gruuls as the cautionary guild of Ravnica. A once-guild reduced to a wandering band of savage raiders. Borborygmos is just the perfect leader for such a group.

Time and time again, everytime I faced a rival deck with fliers, the Gruul Wilding deck would just sit there with absolutely no ability to block against or attack fliers. At best, the game would be reduced to a war of attrition. It got a bit frustrating.

Next to the absence of creatures with Reach or spells that dealt with fliers I also noticed that if a control spell would be used by rival decks and attached to any of the creatures of this deck no removal would be available to get rid of these unwanted enchantments. Time and time again the Gruuls would get hit with spells that crippled them and would have to limp to the end of the game crippled. The best I could hope for was to load enough positive enchantments to negate the crippling Auras attached to my creatures. Again, very frustrating.

I don't really mind losing games. I'm more interested in the story a deck tells during gameplay. In order to do this a deck has to stay in play for some time. The Gruul Wilding deck folded up too quickly enough times for me to decide to do some tweaking.

The best analysis of this deck I've read so far is from Ertai's Lament . This is an amazing analysis that you should check out. One of the things pointed out in this review is that the Gruul Wilding deck attempts to do too many things at once. Three things actually (1) the Bloodthirst mechanic (2) Auras and (3) traditional big stompy strategy. In trying to do all this things all at once the deck 'trips on its own feet'. Incidentally, those three thngs the deck attempts to do can be taken as three directions to choose from when tweeking the deck. Well I chose my direction alright and I called the result Gruul Wilding Aura Edition.