Gruul is one of the most popular guilds in the history of Magic, dating all the way back to Kird Ape.

However, so far in Ravnica Allegiance Standard it has been a total bust. Cards like Rhythm of the Wild and Domri, Chaos Bringer have completely failed to live up to lofty expectations, embarrassing the legacy of their previous incarnations (Fires of Yavimaya and Domri Rade, respectively). Meanwhile, each other guild has been making major waves.

What gives?

A lot of this failure has to do with the attempt to make the overrated cards like Rhythm of the Wild work. A lot has changed since 2001. Creatures and threats are so much better than they used to be, so taking an early turn off to not affect the board in Standard is a death sentence.

A much better template is the classic Monsters decks of Theros Standard. We've got Elvish Mystic (Llanowar Elves), some beefy creatures, and a big mythic dragon to top the curve. What more could we want?

Time Stamps:

Match 1 - 00:03:57

Match 2 - 00:20:25

Match 3 - 00:36:18

Match 4 - 00:53:07

Match 5 - 01:17:29

Gruul Monsters | Allegiance Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (31)
• 3 Skarrgan Hellkite
• 4 Growth-Chamber Guardian
• 4 Gruul Spellbreaker
• 4 Legion Warboss
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 4 Pelt Collector
• 4 Rekindling Phoenix
• 4 Zhur-Taa Goblin

• Instants (7)
• 3 Collision // Colossus
• 4 Lightning Strike

• Lands (22)
• 6 Mountain
• 8 Forest
• 4 Rootbound Crag
• 4 Stomping Ground

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Lava Coil
• 2 Kraul Harpooner
• 3 Cindervines
• 2 Fiery Cannonade
• 2 Thrashing Brontodon
• 2 Domri, Chaos Bringer
• 1 Banefire

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Definitely not an ideal set of matches, but the deck certainly shows promise.

There's no doubting the power of the Red top end cards. Rekindling Phoenix and Skarrgan Hellkite are quite the top end, while Legion Warboss looks real nice on turn two. Gruul Spellbreaker and Growth-Chamber Guardian also impressed, but Zhur-taa Goblin wasn't great on either side of riot.

The biggest issue the deck had was the lack of one-mana spells. Any hand that didn't contain a Llanowar Elves would feel clunky at times, as it was hard to double spell and get ahead if our curve wasn't perfect. Playing a card like Shock over Lightning Strike is a way to possibly solve this issue, but unfortunately there just aren't a lot of great 1- and 2-drops available which limits our options.

Still, the deck is fast, clean, and aggressive, and also has a very solid matchup against Standard's new darling in Mono-Blue Aggro. If you loved the old Monsters deck, you'll love Gruul Monsters too!