Guild · Color Identity
Gruul (Red-Green): History, Playstyle and Best Commanders
Red-green ramps harder than anything and hits harder than anything. Gruul is the most straightforward identity in Magic, and the one that most needs a plan for the turn its enormous creature gets exiled.
Gruul is red and green, the two-color identity. Anti-civilization berserkers: the most mana, the biggest creatures, the fewest answers.
Also called RG, Gruul Clans.
Where the Name Comes From
The Gruul Clans, Ravnica's anti-civilization guild, named in Guildpact (2006).
The Gruul Clans are the guild that rejected the Guildpact: Ravnica's dispossessed, living in the ruins and wanting the whole city torn down. They arrived in Guildpact in 2006 with Bloodthirst, then Bloodrush in Gatecrash and Riot in Ravnica Allegiance, and all three keywords say the same thing in different words: make the creature bigger and attack with it now.
Red-green is the oldest "big creatures" pairing in Magic and the one design has changed least. What Commander added was a reason for it to be more than a beatdown deck: landfall, which turns green's ramp into a trigger engine rather than just mana, and the format's long games, which give a ramp-heavy deck time to actually deploy what it accelerates into. The modern Gruul deck is a landfall deck about as often as it is a stompy one.
All 32 color combinations and where each name came from →How Gruul Plays
Gruul is the fastest identity in the format at putting large permanents onto the battlefield. Green's mana dorks and land ramp plus red's rituals and treasure mean the deck routinely has double the available mana of the table by turn five, and it spends it on creatures that are individually bigger than anything anybody else has.
Its damage comes from trample and doubling rather than from evasion. Gruul cannot make a creature unblockable, so it makes one so large that chump-blocking does not help, then adds an overrun effect or a damage doubler and kills somebody from a board that looked survivable. That means the deck usually needs one clean attack step rather than a long grind.
The pairing's weakness is that it interacts with almost nothing. Between them, red and green cannot counter a spell, cannot make anybody discard, and cannot remove a creature except by fighting it or burning it, which fails against anything with high toughness, hexproof or protection. Gruul decks that beat control decks do it by being faster, not by answering anything.
What It Does Well, and What It Doesn't
Strengths
- The best ramp in the format combined with the best rituals, so the mana advantage is enormous.
- The largest creatures, with trample, haste and overrun effects to make them lethal immediately.
- The best artifact and enchantment removal of any pairing, mostly stapled to creature bodies.
- Landfall payoffs that turn ramp into card advantage and damage rather than just mana.
Weaknesses
- No counterspells, no discard and no way to stop anything before it resolves.
- Creature removal is fighting or burn, both of which fail against the creatures that matter most.
- Extremely vulnerable to board wipes, since the whole plan is a small number of large permanents.
- No card draw that does not depend on the board surviving, so a sweeper hits twice.
Best Gruul Commanders
The command zones that define the identity rather than the ones winning this week: the pips beside each name are its color identity, which is what it lets you play in the other 99.
Commander Spotlight
Xenagos, God of Revels ↗
Gives a creature haste and doubles its power every combat. The most direct commander in the format: cast a fatty, attack, and the maths are usually lethal.
Omnath, Locus of Rage ↗
A 5/5 Elemental every land drop, and three damage anywhere whenever one dies. Landfall plus a sacrifice outlet is a win condition.
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed ↗
Six damage to anybody who casts a noncreature spell. Punishes exactly the decks Gruul is otherwise weakest against.
Klothys, God of Destiny ↗
Exiles a card from every graveyard each turn and turns it into mana or damage. Graveyard hate, ramp and a clock, all indestructible.
Radha, Heir to Keld ↗
Makes red mana whenever it attacks. The cheap, aggressive start that ramps into the top of the curve.
Grumgully, the Generous ↗
Every other non-Human creature enters with a +1/+1 counter: a token deck's anthem that scales without needing an attack.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Gruul mean in Magic?
Gruul is the red-green guild of Ravnica: the Gruul Clans, a coalition of dispossessed groups living in the city's ruins who want civilization torn down. They were introduced in Guildpact in 2006. Players use "Gruul" to mean the red-green color pair anywhere in Magic, not just on Ravnica.
Is Gruul the weakest color pair in Commander?
It is the least interactive one, which is not the same thing. Gruul has the best mana and the biggest threats in the game, so it wins games it is allowed to play. What it cannot do is stop other people's plans, which is why it struggles most against decks that combo off or that win without needing the battlefield. Speed is its answer to both.
How does a Gruul deck survive a board wipe?
By planning for it before it happens. The standard tools are recursion that brings creatures back from the graveyard, threats that are cheap enough to redeploy, and protection like Heroic Intervention that saves the whole board for two mana. A Gruul deck that has spent five turns building one enormous creature with no backup is the one that never recovers.
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