60 to 100: Gruul Stompy

One Billion +1/+1 Counters...

Welcome to 60 to 100, a series where we convert beloved decks from 60-card formats to Commander.

My favorite Magic: The Gathering products of all time are Challenger Decks. After the discontinuation of Event Decks, most of which were not very good, 60-card formats lacked an easy on-ramp. Since 2011, a player that wanted to get into Commander could waltz into a local game store and pick up a ready-to-play deck. Getting into a format like Standard or Modern, on the other hand, required doing research and buying singles. Even worse, building decks on small budgets is an activity that requires more knowledge and skill than someone that is totally new to Magic would reasonably have. 

Challenger Decks sought to remedy this problem by providing affordable decks that were good enough to compete at the Friday Night Magic level. For all their flaws, they at least did a better job than the Event Decks of old. My entry point to Standard was buying a Challenger Deck, modifying it with cards that I already owned, and winning my first Friday Night Magic with it. When I worked at my local game store, I witnessed several people come in, pick up a Challenger Deck, and do the same thing that I did.

In this article, we're going to take a look at Gruul() Stompy, one of the last Standard Challenger decks, and see if we can find a new purpose for these cards in Commander.  Let's have a look at the deck and get to work, shall we?

What is Gruul Stompy?

Gruul Stompy is an aggressive deck that looks to make a lot of mana using the combination of Jaspera Sentinel

The Commander

Halana and Alena, Partners

Ramp

My favorite part about playing Gruul decks is the wide variety of powerful ramp options we have at our disposal. Orcish Lumberjack

One of my favorite ramp packages from Modern is Arbor Elf

Card Draw

One problem point for aggressive decks like this one is drawing cards. Unlike in 60-card formats, we have 120 life points to grind through rather than 20 and that can take a little more time. Card draw is a necessary evil to sustain ourselves and keep the pressure on during these longer games. Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes

Armorcraft Judge and Inspiring Call are cards that care about how many creatures you have with +1/+1 counters in play. You'll typically want to spread your counters around the board, either by targeting different creatures with Halana and Alena, Partners each turn or by moving your counters around with Nesting Grounds, to set up for these draw effects.

Return of the Wildspeaker and Garruk, Primal Hunter are huge draw spells that usually leave you discarding down to hand size at the end of the turn. I try to play out as much of my hand as possible before casting either of these, but there isn't much you can do to avoid the hand size limit when you have 20 power creatures in play.

Removal

One of my least favorite occurrences when playing aggressive decks is my opponents having the audacity to play creatures to block with. That simply won't do. In a deck like this, the best removal spells are the ones that are stapled onto big creatures. Glorybringer, Inferno Titan, and Dragonlord Atarka all help clear a path to force damage through when they attack. You don't need to let up the pressure by spending your mana on dedicated removal spells. More importantly, these effects are repeatable. This help trim down the amount of other removal spells the deck will need.

The best mass removal effects are the ones that are asymmetrical. That is, it should remove all or most of your opponents' creatures and very few or none of your own. Earthquake lets you decide how big you want to go. It's basically a red version of Toxic Deluge, except your opponents also take damage. Typically, you'll cast Earthquake and do just a little less damage than the toughness of your biggest threats. Blasphemous Act is locked into doing 13 damage to everything, for a much more reasonable mana cost than Earthquake can. Thankfully, getting several of your best creatures above 13 toughness isn't something this deck will struggle with.

Counters

The first layer of the counters theme are cards that increase the number of +1/+1 counters Halana and Alena, Partners are placing each combat. Hardened Scales is the most iconic of these effects, and for good reason. It is much easier to find one extra mana somewhere in our curve to play a Hardened Scales than it would be to find five mana to cast a Doubling Season. Ozolith, the Shattered Spire is just a second copy of Hardened scales with the added benefit of being able to put counters on creatures by itself. The Ozolith helps keep all of these +1/+1 counters in play, even as your creatures die.

The next layer of the counters theme is making Halana and Alena, Partners bigger so they can put more counters on your creatures each turn. Thanks to how to stack functions, effects that place a +1/+1 counter on a creature at the beginning of combat can be stacked so that they resolve before Halana and Alena's beginning of combat ability. Ornery Tumblewagg is a brilliant card that fits this function and can double a creature's +1/+1 counters when it attacks while saddled. Innkeeper's Talent is another version of this effect that can also give your permanents ward to disincentivize opponents from pointing spot removal at your board. Finally, Loyal Guardian is a ridiculous card that reads as if it was tailor-made for this deck. At the beginning of combat, if you control the creature you most want to put +1/+1 counters on, put a +1/+1 counter on all of your creatures. Stellar.

Pump

Gradually building a large Halana and Alena, Partners by placing +1/+1 counters on them is great, but sometimes you need to rush the process a bit. Since their release in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, I've been a huge advocate for including Backgrounds in the 99 of commander-centric decks. Raised by Giants is perfectly suited to a deck that cares about how big your commander is. If you play Raised by Giants in your pre-combat main phase, you effectively add 18 additional power to the board after Halana and Alena's beginning of combat trigger resolves. Become Immense serves much the same function, only temporarily and with a much funnier name. Given that this deck has few other ways to take advantage of the graveyard, the inclusion of one delve spell feels pretty safe. Xenagos, God of Revels is the flashiest pump option in the deck. Each combat, you get to double one of your creature's power. What I love about Xenagos is his flexibility. You can either stack his beginning of combat trigger before Halana and Alena's and make them bigger so they can distribute more counters, or after Halana and Alena's trigger to make the creature they put counters on even bigger. 

Finishers

I've included four cards that would traditionally be identified as finishers in this deck. End-Raze Forerunners, Overrun, and Overcome all make your creatures a bit bigger and give them trample. Theoretically, these cards are included as a way to end games in one big swing. In practice, I've found myself using these cards a little bit differently. Often, even with only a few creatures committed to the board, one of these cards hitting the stack can lead to you taking a player from 40 life to 0 in a single combat step very early in the game. I, being the cold and cruel Commander player that I am, have been using this as a way to remove the scariest person at the table before their advantage becomes insurmountable. I had an opponent that started with Sol Ring, used it to ramp into Doubling Season and Academy Manufactor. It was looking like the game could spiral out of my control very quickly. My response? 40 damage, at their face. I'm not sure if everyone would do what I did in that scenario, but it is a use for these cards I'd keep in mind.

Lands

I've crammed as much utility into the lands as I can this time around, as we have a plethora of powerful options at our disposal. Kessig Wolf Run allows you to pump a creature at instant speed to push additional damage through. You can do this entirely at instant speed by fetching it onto the battlefield with Crop Rotation during combat. Nesting Grounds is another method of making Halana and Alena, Partners bigger so they can distribute more +1/+1 counters each combat. Each turn, you can move one of the counters they placed on a creature back to them and increase their output on future turns. Last up, Urza's Saga is here to search for The Ozolith or Sol Ring.

Also hiding away in the lands, we have an assassin. Inkmoth Nexus, with some setup, can start taking out opponents in one hit if you can get it to 10 power. You don't even have to wait a turn for summoning sickness, as Halana and Alena, Partners can give it haste.