Choosing Your commander - Gruul

Next we look at the red/green color combination of legendary creatures availabel to be your commander.  The Gruul color combination is usually known for its highly efficient creatures, its ability to combine fast mana with land destruction, and overall aggressive nature.  That agression is usually manifested in either accelerating your mana, pumping your creatures, or doling out tons of damage.  As you will see, the best RG commanders play up these themes very well.

Borborygmos:  Borborygmos is a prtty good example of what the Gruul color pairing (and the Gruul clan) are all about.  Unfortunately it is a little on the expensive side to generate that kind of effect, not to mention that the effect is actually quite slow in action (unless you give him Hast eand Double Strike, hint, hint...).  I think there is potential there, but I also think you are paying a bit too much for too little.

Jerrard of the Closed Fist:  Iwamori has a few words to say about whether a fist should be open or closed, but either way I doubt you want a "slightly better than a Craw Wurm" as your commander.

Livonya Silone:  Legendary Landwalk will often make her unblockable, but that will hardly make much difference in her playability.

Marhault Elsdragon:  I really like the Rampage ability, but I don't think its what we are looking for in our commanders.

Radha, Heir to Keld:  Radha is a very unique source of fast mana that requires a bit of planning ahead due to the timing as to when you get the mana (during your combat step).  Creatures with Flash and Instants are the usual way to go, but also utilizing card like Upwelling can do the trick.  She can also just be used as a plain 'ol "mana elf" to accelerate into bigger and badder things.












Rosheen Meanderer:
Rosheen Meanderer has the obvious application of combining with as many "X-spells" as possible, which in red/green also includes creatures with X in their casting cost as well as several different type of "Fireball" effects.  I think the key to a good Rosheen Meanderer deck is to not get too crazy with the X-spells, and look for more permanents that have X in their costs so as to ensure that you always have use of the 4 mana your commander can provide.

Stangg:  Cool concept that is not very good in Commander.

Stonebrow, Krosan Hero:  There are already some very good creatures worth running that have Trample, but the fact that there are also plenty of ways to give good non-Trampling creatures the ability makes for some stunning plays.  Overrun type effects become just that much more deadly, and can turn an army of puny 1/1 tokens into a player killing wave of destruction.

Sunastian Falconer:  If I'm going to play fast mana, I want it to actually be fast...

The Lady of the Mountain:  For all practical purposes, this is strictly worse than Jerard of the Closed Fist....






Thromok the Insatiable:
The shear potential of how big you can make Thromok is his big allure, especially given the exponential character of his ability.  throw in some doubling effect like Doubling Season and you have a creature that is lethal in a hurry.  I personally see him as better of as part of  Kresh deck rather than the commander of his own deck, but I can definitely see the allure.

Tuknir Deathlock:  Cool name, not a very useful ability.





Ulasht, the Hate Seed: 
For being a creature with the word "Hate" in its name, Ulasht sure loves a lot of things.  First off, he loves creatures that are both red and green so as to maximize the amount of counters he gets the natural way.  He also loves card like Doubling Season and Parallel Lives that double on on the number of +1/+1 counters or tokens he can produce.  And last but not least he loves having tons of spare mana around with which he can use to throw his +1/+1 counters at creatures and players.






Wort, the Raidmother:
Wort makes you take a good look at every red and green spell you may want to run and makes you think "Would this be cool if I got to always copy it?".  The obvious answer is yes, but when you put that plan into action all sorts of cool and interesting interactions come to mind.  What if I copy token producing spells, that in turn give me more ways to Conspire more spells?  What if I copy Overrun effects to pump those tokens?  What about Ramp spells into X-Spells?  I think the key to Wort is to not just copy random stuff but to have a very specific purpose as to what you want to accomplish.





Top 5 Gruul Commanders 
1. Radha, Heir to Keld
2. Wort, the Raidmother
3. Rosheen Meanderer
4. Ulasht, the Hate Seed
5. Stonebrow, Krosan Hero