It's Gruul time! A simple mid-range/ramp sort of thing with a very simple objective - gather mana, play big creatures, punch the opponents teeth out. It's about as Gruul as you can get honestly.

X3 Goblin Glory Chaser
x2 Abbot of Keral Keep
x3 Undercity Troll
x3 Gather The Pack
x2 Ravaging Blaze
x3 Infectious Bloodlust
x1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
x2 Valeron Wardens
x2 Exquisite Firecraft
x3 Nissa's Pilgrimage
x3 Zendikar Incarnate
x2 Flameshadow Conjuring
x2 Outland Colossus
x2 Chandra's Ignition
x1 Woodland Bellower
x2 Gaea's Revenge
x9 Forest
x7 Mountain
x4 Gruul Guildgate
x2 Rootbound Crag
x2 Rogue's Passage

The win-con really is as simple as just hitting things until they stop moving. We're running about the biggest things the game allows you to field with things like Outland Colossus and Zendikar Incarnate - both of which are creatures that can get significantly larger as time goes on. Combined with Flameshadow Conjuring you can double your potential damage out put and keep the pressure on your opponent by throwing huge threats you simply don't care about surviving towards them.

With 12 potential sources of Renown (24 with Flameshadow Conjuring) Valeron Wardens provides us a decent way to keep cards coming into your hand which, when combined with Gather The Pack, let's you keep up the threats you need. Speaking of threats Infectious Bloodlust pushes even your weakest creatures into absolute powerhouses and fetches a new copy when it's owner is killed; prime candidates are Outland Colossus due to it's phenomenal endurance, Undercity Troll for its regeneration or a renowned Goblin Glory Chaser thanks to it's Menace.

Ramp isn't really hugely supported but it's vital to getting everything rolling as soon as possible. The earlier you can drop your threats (and the more you can pump up Zendikar Incarnate or Ravaging Blaze) can really prove brutal against slower decks. Speaking of brutal Chandra's Ignition off a Outland Colossus or Zendikar Incarnate can level an entire field in your favor. If the Colossus is renowned or the Incarnate particularly large they could win you the game right then and there.

I think you should try a rogue's passage or two. Currently, it's way too easy for your opponent to prevent your from getting any renown off, and that card isn't a draw engine if you can't do that. Also without renown you don't really have a decent way to guarantee you will be able to do anything before 4 cmc.

Oh! I completely forgot Rogue's Passage existed. Good call Jack! I'll add a pair in now.

It's unfortunate, but for this pool Animist's Awakening is just a bad card. It doesn't outshine your standard Nissa's Pilgrimmage until you can already afford to drop your massive creatures, so you're better off just playing another massive creature instead. It can ramp you to Eldrazi or it can combo with Landfall effects, but two Zendikar's Roil is not a landfall deck. If you do happen to get your two card combo, it creates around 2-4 tokens on average. Not exactly the payoff I'm looking for in cards that are poor by themselves.

Consider on the other hand just playing a Gaea's Revenge instead. It hits your opponent in the face for 8 immediately and it can't be targeted by any removal. I think I'd take that over the lands and tokens.

If you want sweet ramp tech to top off your curve, you want Nissa's Revelation. It's the biggest payoff for green ramp that currently exists in the game. You scry into a fatty, put the lands on the bottom, and then you fill your hand with a bunch of huge creatures while gaining a decent chunk of life. But you would probably need some better creatures in your deck for that.

To be perfectly honest though, this deck looks better without any ramp cards and without the Zendikar's Roil. Instead of keeping the ramp and adding more top end, I'd modify the deck by dropping the ramp and adding more red burn. Fiery Impulse, and Exquisite Firecraft your best options, perfect for tearing away your opponent's defenders at discounted mana costs and finishing them off with some Firecrafts to the face.

Is the ramp situation really that bad? I kinda wanted to try and put Zendikar's Roil into a deck and this seemed like it would be a decent candidate for that. Still I can certainly see your point - a deck like this isn't ever really going to say no to more giants or burn to ensure they get their hits in. I'll take that into consideration and make a few edits - most likely a single Nissa's Revelation and a pair of Exquisite Firecraft.

Guess I'm just going to have to wait for Battle for Zendikar for that ramp deck I really want eh?

I very much disagree? But I want to do some testing before I post a list over in the sultai thread.

Edit: I have something in mind for which I want a lot of thinning and a lot of land. I think this card is good if you can reliably trigger it with the spell mastery.

You still don't really have enough big creatures to make Nissa's Revelation reliable though. If your scry into a Goblin or a Troll the the payoff isn't really there for you. To me this looks like the deck revolves more around renown creatures pressuring your oppoent's life total early and finishing them off with Flameshadow Conjuring and a huge creature. Whether you're swinging with the creature, casting chandra's ignition, or just getting the opponent low for your burn. Anyway, if you want to keep the ramp and add a seven drop it has to be Gaea's Revenge before Revelations.

I don't think a ramp deck is a completely lost cause though. It revolves around achieving that critical mass of bombs for Nissa's Revelation, including both copies of Nissa's Revelation, and never running out of gas. You'd probably need to go three colours for that to find enough decent creatures, and the third colour I would use is probably black. You get Gilt-Leaf Winnower so your spot removal is a big creature. You get Kothophed. You get Languish + Chandra's Igntion so you can skimp on your early game removal a bit.

I thought we were talking about Animist's Awakening?

I agree we don't have enough big creatures for that particular 7 drop but you don't really need it? There are tons of good cards like gather the pack that can do just as well more consistently.

That deck looks very removal light with half of it being sorcery speed and the other half being dependant on ramping. I do like the high end list except nissa's revelation seems like a huge risk, I really wanted something similar to last years draw with hunter's prowess.

Edit: Nice to see rougue's passage in the list. Definitely a way to score those big hits in.

I honestly just want to give Nissa's Revelation a fair shake since I kinda like that card. It will probably end up being swapped out for the other Gaea's Revenge if it under performs.

No problem in testing stuff out. I think that is what the vast majority of us are gonna be doing as soon as the game hits pc. Are you gonna be game for a few games on game day garren?

Oh yeah certainly. I've already got my grind deck set up and everything.

Well it depends.

How many cards do you need to draw off of 7 mana at sorcery speed?

Drawing 7 of course would be awesome, but that's not realistic unless you are running crap like axebane stag. Let's say 4 is just on curve. That covers 5 mana for the 4 cards drawn at sorcery speed, and let's say the 4 life and scry 5 was two mana. Just barely worth it.

In your deck you have 7 cards that would meet this barrier, and everything else would be a poor use of this card. A perfectly reasonable situation, given the math, might be that only 10% of your deck will make that cut out of some 40 cards left in it. Do you really think those odds are worth running Nissa's Revelation?

Yeah, Animist's Awakening is not really good. I guess I got a little off track talking about the current state of the pool for ramp in general. We lack plays that ramp before turn three and we lack extremely high value bombs, so I'm a bit annoyed. Our best ramp card is a divination that draws only forests, so stompy aggro a bit underwhelming.




Yeah, no harm in testing. You could even give a shot to various Roil decks if you want. I don't think I'll be touching that card until we get more landfall synergy, but it's possible I'm wrong.




I look at it like this: If your chances are 7/60 to hit and you get 5 chances, you have roughly a 46% chance to find one or more of those 7 cards.

I think Animist's Awakening has 3 valuable parts to it:

1) SPEED

Let's say you are stuck on 3 lands. You pay 3 for animist's awakening because you are desperate. In the worst case, you whiff on both. Do you know what you've gained? Well you are two turns closer to drawing a land vs having to draw 2 non-lands. This can be very valuable, although sometimes you can send something like Nissa's Pilgrimage (I think the risk is worth it though).

2) KNOWLEDGE

As with scry, there is inherent value in knowing what is on the bottom of your deck because you know you cannot possibly draw it any time soon, at least until you have shuffled your deck.

3) RAMP AND THINNING

The card is actually a decent deck thinner and rather reliable ramp card if you pay a lot into it. So if one wanted to have lots of excess land for certain combos, this could be a very positive thing.


I don't think the card is good in most decks, but I believe it has its applications and I'm excited for it.

Let's say you're stuck on three lands, and you cast Nissa's Pilgrimage. You get 2 lands, and are ramped by one. Later in the game Pilgrimage gets your three lands and Ramps for 1. If you don't need to instantly untap with 9 mana, Nissa's Pilgrimage is not really much worse than Awakening even here.

Paying 6 for thinning 2 lands and knowing what 3 cards are on the bottom of my deck isn't really what I want to be doing in Magic.

If you've got reliable combos with Commons and Uncommons and the limiting factor in how fast you win the game is how fast you can get 9-10 lands into play, then I think you've found a use for the card. I haven't seen any interactions that benefit massive amounts of lands beyond the X power creatures and the X burn spells, so good on you for figuring it out. But I really need to stop talking about this card.

Evolutionary Growth ()

4 x Gatecreeper Vine
4 x Elvish Visionary
4 x Twin Bolt
3 x Ravaging Blaze
2 x Evolutionary Leap
2 x Reclamation Sage
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 x Exquisite Firecraft
3 x Zendikar Incarnate
2 x Flameshadow Conjuring
2 x Outland Colossus
2 x Embermaw Hellion
2 x Chandra's Ignition
1 x Woodland Bellower
2 x Gaea's Revenge

x11 Forest
x7 Mountain
x4 Gruul Guildgate
x2 Rootbound Crag


The plan is to stall with Gatekeeper Vine and Elvish Visionary until you can find one of your bombs or use burn to win.

Evolutionary Leap is to recycle your early creatures or creatures that will die into big creatures.

Flameshadow Conjuring is just sick with creatures with come into play abilities and haste. And this deck has both.

Edit: Removed one Reclamation Sage and 3 Kird Chieftain for 4 Twin Bolt.

Garren there is a lot a like about your deck. It looks like it can consistently apply pressure throughout the game.

On the other hand I think if you fall behind on board and your opponent has one or two removal/tap effects it might be hard to catch up. Your entire curve is offense oriented which doesn't necessarily work well with a ramp deck. You skimp a lot on the early burn which can be very powerful in this meta.

Embermaw Hellion is a legit bomb who boosts all of your red spells. 5/5 for 5 is powerful in this meta. I would cut some of the renown stuff, flameshadow conjuring and infectious bloodlost to fit in all the early burn - twin bolt and fiery outburst.

I may be wrong about flameshadow conjuring - it just feels win more in this deck. If you can afford to spend a turn ramping and then spend a turn casting this spell you probably should have won already.

1) There is an assumption being made that it is this or Pilgrimage. This is wrong. Unfortunately, it's more like this or acid moss in whatever ramp deck we choose to play, assuming we go with a ramp strat. I'm sure this will change later but for now it's meh.

2) I want 10 lands for some of the stuff I want to do. That's why I said I think I have a few particular uses in mind. This is due to what I view on an unfortunate reliance on a few 4cmc and 5cmc combo pieces where I would like to be able to combo all in one turn, if I can get the deck to that amount of land fast and reliably enough.

3) In "lower curve" decks the value of this card is that if you KNOW a land is on top of your deck via read the bones, sigiled starfish, etc then it can easily be a psuedo nature's lore or better.