Historic 101: Irencrag Gruul (Historic, Magic Arena)
This week we have a deck for all the "Timmy" players out there. If you're a fan of big scary creatures ....
Gameplan
The deck, as you can tell, is meant for players who just want to cheat out big creatures and that's exactly what we're going to try to do.
With a card like Irencrag Feat, our gameplan is to try to cheat out a Drakuseth, Maw of Flames out as early as possible and let it wreak havoc on everyone. If Drakuseth isn't there, hopefully our friend Ilharg, the Raze-Boar will be there. Because of Ilharg, I definitely added some memes like Impervious Greatwurm which could be an OTK (one turn kill). We also added cards like a Pelakka Wurm to gain a ton of life back. All of these cards get even better when they're cheated out and have haste...
Rhythm of the Wild got a lot of buzz when announced and I feared it because of the uncounterable clause but here I am...using this card.....for FUN! I've definitely set up a ton of crazy swing turns thanks to this card. If Drakuseth can swing upon entering the battlefield, I usually feel like the match will end in our favor unless the opponent has a ton of spot removal. This card is also great to have just because they stack and in Historic, there's a decent amount of Esper control decks so it feels good to not get countered.
Sundering Stroke is just another seven cost spell we can cast off of Irencrag Feat that can sweep the board or just be the reach we need later on in the game. At one point I ran a Dragon Mage just to have more seven drops because seven is our lucky number!
The main deck is pretty much one gigantic attempt at being a Sneak Attack deck and its pretty fun but after the sideboard, we board in lower to the ground threats with haste and become a more typical Gruul deck as the gameplan will be known after game one. Don't be afraid to board out a few Irencrag Feat and the meme cards like Impervious Greatwurm to be faster and lower on the ground. In some matchups I take out all of the Big Memes and Dreams package (Feat and Drakuseth) so don't feel weird doing that!
Conclusion
The deck ran hot in our games so we finished 5-0 and we even escaped a few of our bad matchups with a win. My personal favorite moment is the turn three Drakuseth, Maw of Flames. Though this deck is a blast, I definitely don't recommend trying to climb high mythic with it as I definitely want more consistency if I were trying to achieve a higher ranking. The deck does what I wanted it to do but if I were to make any changes, it'd mostly be in the sideboard as I think we want more control punishers. Something like a Chandra, Awakened Inferno is decent out of the sideboard.
As always, thanks for watching my content and I'll see you all at the next one!
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
Twitter: @TheAsianAvenger || Twitch: twitch.tv/TheAsianAvenger || Email: theasianavenger@mtggoldfish.com
