Advanced Jumpstart: The Gruul Clans

Posted on December 30, 2020

Gruul smash! Beat face! RAWR!

We're back with another round of Advanced Jumpstart; and, this week, we're bringing together the Gruul Clans of Ravnica! This guild is a bit of an oddity, as it once worked under the guidelines of the guildpact by nurturing the natural areas of Ravnica. As it happened, other guilds encroached on this, causing the other guilds to act as though they were not part of the guildpact at all. As such, the Gruul grew angry and rage-filled, with this leading to riots, destruction, and more to bring down the other guilds who have wronged them for so long.

As luck would have it, though, these brutish and aggressive clans come together to form some mean Jumpstart packs, so let's jump right into it with Guildpact!

Guildpact Gruul | Jumpstart | Kendra Smith

Artifacts (2)
1 Gruul Signet
1 Gruul War Plow

Going through Guildpact looking for Gruul cards was interesting and posed some unique problems. For one, there are actually very few Red and/or Green instants and sorceries in the set. This is in part because Gruul is meant to be much more aggressive and creature-oriented, but it also has to do with the fact that Guildpact was a small set. This meant that your goal should be to pick up spells from your Ravnica: City of Guilds and Dissension packs in a normal draft setting. For something like custom Jumpstart packs, however, that's not as possible (the only on theme cards, really, are Savage Twister and Wreak Havoc) and so we rely instead on creatures and creature-like spells to get us by.

The other issue I noticed when going through this set is boy howdy did Gruul like to sacrifice themselves a lot in this block. I noticed it a lot when working on my Golgari lists that they also had a lot of that going on, but that kinda made sense given the guild's themes. It makes less sense when it comes to the Gruul, unless you consider that it's their reckless and rage-induced state causing them to die quickly in a way. This was likely because sacrificing creatures worked well with the rules of the day, as they involved damage going onto the stack. When the damage was on the stack waiting to happen, you could sacrifice your creatures and have the damage still go through. Nowadays, not so much, and it makes our creatures worse in the process.

As such, this isn't the best example of a pack that could probably be made. It's very creature-heavy and aggressive, but it lacks the nuance you might get in other creature-heavy packs. If nothing else, it helps round out just about any other pack you might be mashing this with, which is great and ensures you'll have no shortage of ways to take down unsuspecting opponents. Gruul Guildmage pumps creatures up and can act as removal, so it becomes one of the more versatile cards of the bunch. Burning-Tree Shaman stops opponents from getting too cute with their abilities, and we even get good ol' Captain Tickles himself (Giant Solifuge) to slam through with some massive quick damage.

Next, let's rush on over to Gatecrash and see what the Gruul are up to there:

Gatecrash Gruul | Jumpstart | Kendra Smith

Planeswalkers (1)
1 Domri Rade

Sorceries (2)
1 Clan Defiance
1 Ground Assault

Enchantments (1)
1 Gruul War Chant

Artifacts (1)
1 Gruul Keyrune

Here, things to start looking a little more interesting. Now, mind you, we're still looking at a ridiculous amount of creature combat. Nothing about that's changed. This is the Gruul we're talking about, after all. The difference here is that we're not just working with a bunch of bland, often dated one-trick creatures like we would find in Guildpact. No, here we have the power of bloodrush at our disposal!

Bloodrush creatures are great because they have much more versatility in how they can be played. With the bloodthirst creatures in Guildpact, the only advantage the mechanic had was how it made your creatures more powerful if you got in for a bit of damage. This is why cards like Skarrgan Pit-Skulk are actually good, since they can get in the necessary damage early and can come down stronger later if needed. Here we can instead choose to play the creatures as actual creatures or else save them for later to super-charge our attackers.

We also get some real removal spells this time around with the likes of Ground Assault and Clan Defiance. That's not to discount the powerful Domri Rade, who both helps you find more creatures but can also remove problems creatures from the board. If you can ultimate him in a game then if might as well be just actual game over on the spot. Lastly, Gruul War Chant makes your creatures both bigger and harder to block - a bit of a different play on the sort of card that made up Gruul War Plow in Guildpact.

Now let's check in on Ravnica Allegiance. Hope Domri's not making too much of a mess!

Ravnica Allegiance Gruul | Jumpstart | Kendra Smith

Instants (1)
1 Thrash // Threat

Sorceries (1)
1 Savage Smash

Enchantments (1)
1 Rhythm of the Wild

Artifacts (1)
1 Gruul Locket

Gruul this time around plays very similarly to how it does in Gatecrash. Like both of the other lists, it's very heavily aggressive and creature-focused, but it does it in a different way. With riot, nearly every creature has a modal option on it. Do you want to get in for damage right away or do you want to wait and have a bigger creature for the next turn? Skarrgan Hellkite even gets some extra benefit if you choose to wait on it.

But hold on! If you have a copy of Rhythm of the Wild down, you don't have to choose because it makes each of your creatures have a second riot ability on top of the first one. That means you can give your creature haste and a +1/+1 counter, or even two counters should your heart desire. Past that, we've got some solid spells like Thrash // Threat and Savage Smash, but it's overall just the usual play creatures and turn them sideways. Business as usual for the Gruul.

Now let's put them all together and show our opponents how we do it on Gruul Turf!

All Sets Gruul | Jumpstart | Kendra Smith

Instants (1)
1 Thrash // Threat

Sorceries (1)
1 Ground Assault

Enchantments (1)
1 Rhythm of the Wild

Artifacts (1)
1 Gruul Signet

Now this is what I'm talking about! This is Gruul at its most aggressive, leaning in strongly to the cream of the crop in its creature pool while peppering in some of the powerful spells as well. All the while, we try to keep our curve nice and low so as to go in hard and fast to bring our opponents to their knees. Ravager Wurm is the only big card here and that's largely just to have something to do in the late game. Thankfully, it's a very strong play to make.

And that about wraps it up this time! The End-Raze may not have gone as the Gruul anticipated, what with a certain planeswalker dying and all, but you now have some excellent packs to try out! I hope you can smash away all your friends' life totals with the help of your Gruul allies.

Until next time!

Kendra Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

Twitch: twitch.tv/themaverickgirl

YouTube: Kendra Smith

TAGS articles, draft, casual, limited, drafting, decklist, gruul, kendra smith, red/green, jumpstart, 12302020