Gruul Ramp has been in and out of Pioneer since 2019. Recently we have received four power house cards that makes the more consistent and much faster overall. Up the Beanstalk, Archdruid's Charm, Sunken Citadel, Overlord of the Hauntwoods, and Glimpse the Core are the big improvements. The deck aims to get down threats starting on turn 3 to turn 5 that can take over the game. Against aggro our objective is lower our curve, add sweeper removal, and gain life to stabilize.
DECK LIST
Deck List: Gruul Ramp
MAIN DECK
Creature Breakdown
Cavalier of Thorns, Overlord of the Hauntwoods, and Spinewoods Armadillo are midrange pieces that provide two functionalities. Most importantly they help ramp us to our bigger threats. The other functionality of these two cards is the ability to block most threats and reducing the aggression by the opponent.
World Breaker, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and Emrakul, the Promised End are a solid late game pieces.
Noncreature Breakdown
Ramp Spells: Glimpse the Core is the most narrow ramp spell we are playing. It is a two drop that gives us a land. Archdruid's Charm is our more flexible ramp spell. It searches for our Sunken Citadel or Castle Garenbrig. Later in the game it can act as a removal spell for creature, artifact, or enchantment.
Card Advantage: Running four copies of Up the Beanstalk. These pieces are critical to bridge our bad matchups that use a lot of hand disruption or counterspells.
Removal Suite: We are running four interaction pieces in the deck. Two Ugins can uptick to deal three damage to any target or minus X to wrath away most permanents based on their mana value. Two Pyroclasms is a sweeper that cost 2 mana that answer most small threats, while still leaving us mana to still ramp.
Sideboard Breakdown
Removal Suite: Two copies of Pyroclasm to deal with aggro decks that swarm the board with small threats like Convoke or Atarka Red.
Combo Interaction: Running two copies of The Stone Brain, which allows the deck to remove key pieces from the opponents deck. We need to be able to remove Terferi and Lotus Field from our opponents deck.
Graveyard Interaction: Running two copies of Unlicensed Hearse to slow down Phoenix and Greasefang matchups.
Tranquil Frillback: Running two copies of this little dinosaur. Frillback is very universal card coming out of the board. Allows us to gain life against aggro, exile the graveyard versus Phoenix, and destroys artifact and enchantment. This functionality is useful against Engimatic Incarnation.
Damping Sphere: Running three copies to help bridge the gap against Lotus Field that wins by turn five.
World Breaker and Emrakul, the Promised End are interchangable threats that can come in against control. Elder Gargaroth is threat that we will bring in against aggro. It gains life and makes blockers.
Sideboard Guide
Rakdos Prowess
Azorius Control
Izzet Phoenix
Jund Sacrifice
Enigmatic Incarnation
Next we will cover non tier one decks that you might face.
Azorius Control
Mono Black Demons
