I am The MTG Hero, and if you have followed my articles for a while, you probably know that I have a soft spot for aggressive decks. Give me some creatures, some burn, and a way to turn sideways, and I am usually pretty happy.
But there is another card that has always had a special place in my Magic collection.
Reality Fracture has brought one of Magic’s most iconic creatures back into the format, and when I started looking at ways to build around it and maximize its effect I landed on Gruul Delirium.
This isn’t exactly a brand-new archetype. Gruul Delirium has been around for quite some time, and the shell has already proven that it can put some serious pressure on an opponent but has never been able to really win “the big one.”
Will the Goyf change that? Probably not. Is a Golgari deck a better fit? Yes. But those decks require meta knowlege to maximize and that’s hard to do in a new set. Not to mention upgrading a fan-favorite tier 3 deck is more fun!
As mentioned Tarmogoyf is one of my all-time favorite Magic cards. I remember when playing a two-mana creature that could quickly become a massive threat felt completely ridiculous. Now, years later, we get to put four copies into a Standard deck.
The important thing about Tarmogoyf in this deck is that we aren’t asking it to do all the work by itself.
Gruul already wants several card types in our graveyard as soon as possible which maximizes how big the Goyf will be early. Basically, he rewards us for doing what this deck already wants to do and becomes a large single threat.
Patchwork Beastie and Wildfire Wickerfolk have already been familiar faces in Gruul Delirium lists, and adding Tarmogoyf gives us another efficient threat that can hit the battlefield early and continue getting better as the game progresses.
Then we have another one of my pioneer favorites in Inti, Seneschal of the Sun which gives us another way to generate value while attacking, growing our threats and giving them trample to get in against clogged boards.
Fear of Missing Out gives us another way to turn our graveyard into an advantage while helping the deck maintain its aggression.
Being able to attack twice is huge and even better when comboed with Inti since we can attack once, discards a useless card for a new one, buff a threat, then allow it to attack again to grow and get another new card.
Not only is this insane value, it is also potentially game ending on any turn against a lot of decks.
Burst Lightning is particularly important because sometimes you just need to get a creature out of the way on turn one or two.
Other times, you have done everything you needed to do and your opponent is sitting at a low enough life total that the card becomes the final few points.
And when one of those threats is a potentially enormous Tarmogoyf, protecting it can be the difference between winning the game and watching your opponent stabilize.
Still the best graveyard hate we can play. It is one-sided and in a pinch or if we draw both, we can trade it for a new card. Also, in this deck it adds a card type.
A solid planeswalker that can threaten control decks and allow us to see some new cards. If we ever get to ult her it becomes hard to lose.
Surrak is still a green staple. He allows us to trade positivly into targeted removal and counter from the opponent by drawing us cards to replace them. He also naturally has trample making him a great target for Inti and Fear of Missing Out with no real investment.
It stops the Izzet Elementals from eating us alive. If you are a creature deck and not playing this then you are making a mistake.
A great card against midrange, Landfall and control decks. It allows us to build up our threats for little investment in long games.
Final Thoughts
I have played a bit of Gruul Delirium over the last two or three formats, and I have always enjoyed what the deck is capable of doing. It has the speed of an aggressive deck, but it also has enough value and graveyard synergy to keep playing when the game doesn’t end immediately.
Reality Fracture gives the archetype something that makes me especially excited to sleeve it up again and it is one of my all-time favorite Magic cards, and getting to play four copies of it in a Standard Gruul deck is something I honestly didn’t expect to be saying a year ago.
Maybe Tarmogoyf becomes the monster we all remember.
Maybe Standard has gotten too good at answering two-mana creatures.
Either way, I want to find out for myself.
For now, I’m putting four copies into the deck and turning them sideways.
Because sometimes the best way to explore a new format is to take an old favorite, give it a new home, and see what happens.
Reality Fracture has arrived and it is already one of my favorite sets becayse it brought one of my favorite cards back from the graveyard
My name is The MTG Hero. I have played Magic for over 15 years. I am a consistent high Mythic ranked player. Follow me on Twitch and subscribe on YouTube!
