Historic Top 100 with Naya Warriors: Fun & Jank 67

WARRIORS ARE BACK BABY
(they never left)

Welcome back to Fun & Jank! I’m Plum, and as you may or may not know, I have an obsession with Warriors. It’s no secret that I love this tribe. And let’s be honest, it’s also no secret that I think Gornog, the Red Reaper is a glorious, hunky chunk of beef.

Look at those stats! Look at that ability! Cowards can’t block warriors! Incredible!

We’ve been brewing Warriors in the Tank for nearly two years now, but with the release of ECL Alchemy, WoTC finally gave us a new toy specially for this tribe (and giants too I guess) in the form of Craterous Stomp.

Once I saw this bad boy, we sat down and got to work on stream. Taking our past list and streamlining it as much as possible. We took an 80-card pile all the way to #90 Mythic, proving that sometimes, the best way to handle a solitaire meta is to just hit them with a very large stick.

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Updates and Upgrades

The secret to our recent success isn’t just Gornog’s biceps; it’s actually a couple of new cards. Craterous Stomp and the new card Echoing Caverns contributed to our success.

In the past, we relied on Kargan Intimidator and Gornog to manually turn blockers into Cowards one by one. It was honest work, but it was slow. Craterous Stomp is the industrial revolution of cowardice. For two mana, you snipe a threat and turn every other creature they control into a Coward.

The Math is Simple:

• 1. Cast Stomp.
• 2. Opponent’s board becomes a collection of Cowards who literally cannot block your Warriors.
• 3. Attack with Gornog.
• 4. Gornog sees a board full of Cowards and gives your team a massive power boost.
• 5. Profit.

This deck usually plays almost 0 interaction, besides a few activated abilities and such, but with Stomp we can now clear out annoying creatures while also pushing damage through at the same time.

Echoing Cavern is another low-opportunity land that provides us additional value in the late game if we get into top-deck war. The ability to seek a Warrior on a land that taps for any color we need is just *chefs kiss*.

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Why 80 Cards?

I know what you’re thinking: “Plum, why are you playing 80 cards without Yorion? Are you okay?”

First off, I’m never okay, but the 80-card shell actually works here because of the sheer redundancy of the Warrior tribe. We have so many high-quality one and two-drops that we don’t mind drawing any combination of them. Meaning we can play more diverse threats without losing power or consistency.

Between Pelt Collector, Stadium Headliner, and Pawpatch Recruit, we always have a turn-one play. The Recruit is a personal favorite because of the Offspring mechanic, it’s a great top-deck in the late game that puts two bodies on the field. Stadium Headliner is another piece of interaction and the additional attacking body we get from it plays well with Crop-Captain and Gornog pumps.

To really understand why this deck hums though, we have to look at the two-drop slot.

Is it a Warrior? Yes. Does it create more Warriors? Yes. Does it flip into a planeswalker that makes more warriors and deals damage? You bet! Most of the time it doesn’t really matter if we flip him. He’s either a warrior or a must-answer threat, so it’s basically a win-win.

(As of February, 9th 2026 pour one out for Ajani. RIP king.)

The OG Coward-maker. Before Craterous Stomp and Gornog came along and streamlined the process, this guy was doing the heavy lifting. He’s a 3/1 for two, which is fine, but his real value is the activated abilities. Being able to turn a pesky blocker into a Coward is great, but don’t forget his other mode: giving another Warrior +1/+1 and Trample is often how we get those last few points of damage in.

The “Mini-Lord.” While she isn’t quite as… robust as Gornog, the Crop-Captain is essential for wide boards. Whenever she attacks, every other attacking creature gets +1/+0. When you’re playing a deck that aims to have 4 or 5 creatures sideways by turn four, that extra point of power across the board adds up to a lethal swing very quickly. She turns our 1/1 tokens into decent theats.

This is the pure beef of the deck. A 3/2 for two is standard, but the fact that he can pump himself into a 4/3 with Trample twice per game is huge. He is the premier target for Break Out. Hitting a Brawler off a Break Out means you are swinging for 4 Trample damage out of nowhere on turn two. It’s fast, it’s aggressive, and it punishes slow starts. With any of our one-drop played first, we can smack our opponents for 6 damage on turn 2 consistently.

I don’t think we have to talk much about Gornog, but I will mention that we’re also jamming Spellbreaker and our newest inclusion at three mana: Najeela

I like Spellbreaker because its just a straight forward heavy-hitter. Good early, good late, dodges removal on our turn. Basically everything we want in a 3-drop. Can’t complain about him.

And of course, we have to talk about the Queen herself: Najeela. We’ve tried a lot of different creatures in the few flex-slots we have in the deck, and she’s been the most impressive by far. Doubling our creature count whenever we attack is nothing to sneeze at, and the fact that they’re all buffed by Crop-Captain or Gornog makes her a kill-on-sight kind of card for us. The most hilarious part about playing Najeela in this Naya shell is her activated ability. It costs WUBRG, which sounds impossible in a three-color deck—until you look at our mana base. Thanks to Reflecting Pool, Starting Town, Echoing Cavern, Cavern of Souls, we actually have access to all five colors of mana more often than you’d think. Untapping all your attacking creatures, giving them Trample, Lifelink, and Haste, and getting an extra combat phase feels like a war crime.

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Other Spells

Break Out is essentially the fifth through eighth copies of every two-drop in our deck, but with the added bonus of Haste. It’s what allows us to keep the pressure on after a board wipe. And Collected Company? Well, it’s CoCo. Flipping over a Gornog and a Spellbreaker at the end of an opponent’s turn is usually followed by a very fast concession.

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Mana

Between Starting Town and Echoing Cavern providing the colors for our tribe, and Reflecting Pool filling in the gaps, the mana is surprisingly painless. We essentially ignore the color pie and play whatever Warriors we want while making sure we can still cast our noncreature spells on curve.

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The Deck

She’s mean. She’s lean, and she drinks her ovaltine.

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Gameplay

We did quite, well on the Historic Ranked Ladder, finishing with a 10-3 record by the time we hit Mythic. I want to give notes on just a few of the matches we played.

Early in the stream, we ran into a string of UWx control players. Normally, an 80-card aggro deck would be a snack for them, but Cavern of Souls and Break Out change that dynamic drastically, to the point where we becomes heavily favored. Hastey threats pull a lot of the weight in these matchups.

The highlight of the night was facing the #8 ranked player on Boros Energy (right before the Ajani ban). Our own Ajani, Nacatl Pariah simply put in more work, and a timely Craterous Stomp turned their “unbeatable” board of blockers into cowards. I’ve faced this matchup many-a-time off stream, and while it most certainly isn’t a stomp, I’d say we’re favored 60/40. Felt good to beat ’em

It wasn’t all sunshine and Gornog abs though. We met our match against an Eldrazi player who seemed to have a lifelong subscription to Kolaghan’s Command. After the third K-Command in a row, even our most robust Warriors were feeling the strain. I hate playing against that card with a passion.

Overall the deck felt great. Streamlining the mainboard, adding Craterous Stomp, and trimming some lands made it a real coward-making machine.

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Note:

With the recent ban of Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, our Naya mana base loses its biggest incentive. While it hurts to lose the cat-man, it gives us a perfect excuse to lean back into a faster, more consistent Gruul shell. If we aren’t playing White for Ajani, we can tighten up the mana and focus on pure, unadulterated speed. Something like Earthshaker Khenra is probably the direction I’ll beheaded in.

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Closing Thoughts

So yeah, Warriors is still ticking and it’s proof that in a format as fast and “solved” as Historic can sometimes feel, there’s still a little bit of room for out-of-the box decks to compete. Barely…

BUT WAIT!

With that being said, I’m actually incredibly excited about the recent bans shaking up the format. While losing Ajani hurts, the departure of some of the most oppressive solitaire pieces means the meta is wide open again. A shifting meta is a brewer’s paradise, and I’m confident we’ll find a home for Warriors in whatever new world order emerges.

Warriors never left, baby. They were just waiting for a Craterous Stomp to clear the way.

That’s it for me!

Thanks for reading!

As always, feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below. And make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!

Happy Brewin’!