Historic Trudge Eldrazi: Fun & Jank Episode 79

Howdy boys and girls! I’m Plum, and welcome back to Episode 79 of Fun & Jank!

If you caught the last article (or the stream), you know I’ve been pretty obsessed with Slumbering Trudge since Secrets of Strixhaven dropped. That one-mana 6/6 with stun counters is one of the most fun build-around cards I’ve messed with in a while. In Episode 78 I showed off the all-in mono-green version that goes absolutely berserk with Fanatic of Rhonas, Fight Rigging, and Mitotic Ultimus.

I saw AspiringSpike tearing it up in Modern with a similar shell, pairing Trudge and Fight Rigging with actual Eldrazi, and he was having some great success with his shell, so I thought I’d borrow a few things from his list and see if we could successfully port it over to Historic. His list felt like it had the best of both worlds. Fight Rigging has a ton of explosive potential, but adding an Eldrazi sub theme gave us some mroe grind and staying power. . Sometimes you curve Trudge into Fanatic into a massive Fight Rigging flip. Other times you just play a normal (but very strong) Eldrazi ramp game and hardcast Emrakul.

So let’s take a peek at what we’re working with this week.

The Deck

This is a mono-green Eldrazi Ramp deck that uses Slumbering Trudge and Fight Rigging as its primary sauce, while still having a very legitimate big-mana game plan.

Now, the version I spoke of in our last article was more “all-in.” We wanted to see Trudge early, and the rest of the deck revolved around playing off of the synergies it had with our large cost reduction creatures. The main problem with that is that our deck became rather helpless if we got our Trudge removed or never found it in the first place. Although it was explosive, it opened up the deck to failing more often if the opponent had interaction for us.

The list AspiringSpike has been working on has better ways to pivot that gameplan if faced with heavy removal. It shares a lot of the same power that our Historic version does, but there’s a few differences.

The deck wants to do one (or more) of the following on any given game:

1. Curve out aggressively with Slumbering Trudge into Fanatic of Rhonas and smash face.
2. Stick a Fight Rigging and flip something disgusting (especially Emrakul, Devourer of Destiny, or Sowing Mycospawn).
3. Play a normal-looking ramp game and overwhelm with raw power and card advantage.

This is the heart of the deck.

4 Slumbering Trudge + 4 Green Sun’s Zenith is stupidly consistent. You can tutor Trudge on turn 1 or 2 almost every game. Once you have a Trudge in play, it’s a 6/6 that only costs one mana. Pair that with Fanatic of Rhonas and you suddenly have 7 mana on turn 3 to either cast big spells or dump into developing the board more.

Fight Rigging is the other main interaction we’re aiming to get online every game. If we have a Trudge on board when we drop this bad boy, we can immediately tick it up to 7 power and cast the card we hid away with Rigging for free.

Fight Rigging on a Trudge is already strong, but the deck is packed with absolute bombs you can hide under it:

• Emrakul, the Aeons Torn – Annihilator 6 + extra turn is still one of the most broken things you can flip. Spike played the Promised End in his list, but she’s not nearly as impactful in Historic.
• Devourer of Destiny – Incredible value engine that exiles stuff and gives you a 7/7 body.
• Sowing Mycospawn – Great rate plus the ability to snag an additional land to hardcast our higher costed threats..
• Turntimber Symbiosis – Kind of just a free spin if we happen to whiff on hiding away another target. Not getting cast triggers is sad, but it it still snags us a big beater most of the time.

This is what gives the deck real legs when the combo pieces aren’t lining up perfectly. Kozilek’s Command is easily one of the best cards in the deck. I was constantly impressed by how often it did exactly what I needed on any given turn and one of the main reasons to dive into the Eldrazi package in general.

Rumble is also just a solid piece of glue for this deck too. It helps us find Trudge, Rigging, Sol Lands, and more while also fitting into the curve nicely and ramping us at the same time.

If there’s one card that makes this whole deck sing, it’s Fanatic of Rhonas. This card is absolutely disgusting with Slumbering Trudge. Turn 1 Trudge into Turn 2 Fanatic is the dream curve, giving you access to 7 mana on turn 3 as I mentioned above. Even if you don’t have a Fight Rigging, that mana allows you cast Symbiosis, an untapped Trudge, or even just K-command for x=5. The deck has plenty of mana sinks to abuse.

Even a card like Disciple of Freyalise gets a lot of use in this shell, which is why we jam 4. There’s plenty of games where we get a bunch of mana but don’t quite have the pay off we’re looking for. So we hardcast Disciple, sacrifice trudge, and gain 6 life and draw 6 cards.

The Mana

One of the biggest differences between this Historic version and AspiringSpike’s Modern list is obviously the lack of Eldrazi Temple. I went heavy on Cavern of Souls (4 copies) and it has been excellent. These slots could also be a small package of utiltiy lands for Mycospawn to find, but Cavern was just my starting point.

Labyrinth is obviously strong with our Eldrazi package, but also contributes heavily to some of the explosive starts I talked about earlier. You can do a simple play like this:

Turn 1: Land + Trudge
Turn 2: Labyrinth + Fight Rigging

This gives you the potential of a turn two Emrakul (which we pulled off in our first match with the deck on stream).

The rest of the manabase is simple. Overall the mana has been smooth and consistent even without Eldrazi temple, albeit a bit slower some times, but we gain consistency and protection from counters from Cavern.

Gameplay

I took the deck for a spin on stream and it genuinely felt great. The mix of explosive Trudge starts and solid Eldrazi backup plan worked exactly like I hoped. We actually went undefeated on stream, cruising with a solid 6-0 record.

Even if you don’t watch the whole thing, at least check out the first match. Our first game we managed to jam a Fight Rigging on turn 3 and spin right into an Emrakul. And then we followed that up in the next game by curving a Trudge into a Fight Rigging on turn 2 via Labyrinth, and jammed an Emrakul again.

After that we ended up beating a variety of lists. Mono-R, Auras, High Noon, Angels, Golgari Woodlands, and a Grixis Frog deck.

The Trudge + Fanatic curve into big mana was live almost every game, and Kozilek’s Command kept saving us when things got messy. There were also games where the all-in plan didn’t show up and we just played a patient Eldrazi ramp game. We spent our turns generating notable value until we got to a point where our creatures just outsized everything else.

Sideboard

I don’t want to go to in depth here, but I did want to mention that one of the best parts about this deck is how relevant the sideboard Spike paired with the list was for Historic. Because the main deck already has a good mix of explosive and grindy plans, we don’t need to make huge overhauls most games, just smart, targeted swaps.

Sideboard (15):

• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 3 Thought-Knot Seer
• 2 Chomping Changeling
• 3 Damping Sphere
• 3 Endurance
• 3 Fade from History

I think most of these are self explanatory for how to use them. We had a great run, but I also think we dodged some of what I’d expect to be tougher matchups. Ruby Storm especially. That deck can go off on turn 2 or 3, and our only chance is to either drop a Damping Sphere early, or get a god-hand and cast Emrakul before they can go off. But that’s really hard to do when they run Fragment and Orim’s Chant. I’d assume other combo shells are able to outspeed us too, which makes it a hard archetype for this deck to deal with in general.

Improvements

After playing a bunch of games on stream and tweaking the list, here’s my honest breakdown of what felt great and what I wasn’t fully satisfied with.

What We Loved

• Kozilek’s Command is an absolute superstar. It does everything this deck wants, removal, card advantage, grave-hate, and ramp. There were so many games where it was the reason we won. Easily one of the best cards in the 75.
• Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Devourer of Destiny seem like the best top ends. Flipping either off Fight Rigging feels amazing, and even when hardcasting them they close games out fast. I think Devourer’s pre-game ability really adds to the consistency of the deck.
• Ugin’s Labyrinth was a fantastic despite some of the power lost without Eldrazi Temple. The ability to slam it on turn 2 and immediately enable scary Fight Rigging turns (including that Turn 2 Emrakul we hit) was awesome. It gave the deck real explosive potential.
• The Trudge + Fanatic of Rhonas core is still ridiculous and extremely fun.
• Overall consistency and resilience was much better than the all-in version from Episode 78. We very rarely just “did nothing.”

What We Didn’t Love

The biggest downside was how much the lack of Eldrazi Temple hurt Sowing Mycospawn. In the Modern version, Mycospawn is a powerhouse because Temple makes it easier to hit big land drops and ramp aggressively. In Historic, it often felt like just a 3/3 for 4 that sometimes grabbed an extra land. It wasn’t bad, but it was the card I was least excited to see. No mana dorks or even Utopia Sprawl in the list means we can’t ramp into casting this with Kicker as much as I would have liked.

I also found myself wanting a bit more ways to interact with the opponent in longer games. While Kozilek’s Command is great, there were times I wished I had more ways to answer problematic permanents or planeswalkers.

I could see the Historic version cutting Mycospawn all together in favor of a more value-oriented piece. I very much enjoyed the power of The Great Henge in our original version, and I think it could slot in nicely here as well. It gives card draw, life gain, and makes every creature bigger. Definitely worth testing. Spawn just feels like the weakest link at the moment and I’d like to see something a bit more impactful take it’s place.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, I had a blast playing this deck on stream. Going 6-0 with it felt really good. What I liked most was how well-rounded it ended up being. One game you could be curving Trudge into Fanatic and closing the game out on turn 3 or 4 with a disgusting Emrakul flip. The next game you could be playing a patient, grindy Eldrazi ramp game, using Kozilek’s Command, Devourer of Destiny, and Disciple of Freyalise to outvalue the opponent until they just couldn’t keep up. That flexibility made the deck feel much more resilient than the all-in Trudge version from last episode.

This shell has legs. With a little more refinement I think this can be more than just a spotlight deck. We can definitely make it a consistent powerhouse. This deck is worth trying and I’ll definitely be playing more of it.

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!

If you want to help me brew, come hang out with me on stream where we test, refine, and have a ton of fun together.

Happy Brewin’!