(Gimli, Mournful Avenger | Art by Bartłomiej Gaweł)

Gruul-Ristocrats

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Street Urchin is the only non-creature Gruul sac outlet available in the command zone that you can use to sac more than one creature a turn?)

Aristocrats is a time-honored strategy that's been popular in Commander since the beginning. But if there's one thing we know about Aristocrats, it's that it's only playable with color combos including black. Right?

Enter Gimli, Mournful Avenger, a Gruul commander who darus to buck that convention and bring Aristocrats to Gruul. Well, I'm not one to back down from a challenge!

Top 10 Gruul Sac Outlets

There are three basic legs to the stool that is the Aristocrats strategy: Creation, Sacrifice, and Payoffs. In this particular case, our commander is going to be in the payoff category, meaning what we're still going to have to work hard at are the creation and sacrifice legs. Luckily, green is no slouch when it comes to making tokens, and red ain't so bad either. Which just leaves sacrifice, which at first look, Gruul isn't great at. Don't get me wrong, there are the colorless options that are available in every color combination, the infamous Altars:

Three sac outlets does seem a little light, though. Generally if you want to guarantee that you'll have an effect once per game at least, you want at least 10 of those effects in your deck. The problem? Most of the other sac outlets available in colorless only let you sacrifice one creature a turn, which isn't even going to make Gimli indestructible, much less get him taking out the whole board so he can swing in for huge damage.

In other words, we're going to have to find some sac outlets that work within the Gruul color combination!

Criteria: Non-Colorless cards in the Gruul color identity that can sacrifice any non-specific creature more than once in a turn without outside assistance. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Makeshift Munitions

(4,757 Inclusions, 0% of 1,305,540 Decks)

Those familiar with red sac outlets will know that Makeshift Munitions is a poor excuse for the best option available, but it's not wholly inferior. The number one card on our list that's also a two mana red enchantment only lets you sacrifice creatures, whereas Munitions also allows you to sacrifice artifacts. That may not seem like the most relevant thing, but given that we're going to be in the +1/+1 counter theme, we could dabble in some Modular creatures if we wanted to take real advantage.

The problem is, other than The Ozolith, there's not a great way to move the +1/+1 counters from Modular creatures to Gimli, or vice-versa. Between that and the one cost to activate, I think we'll pass on this one and hope we have better stuff further up the list.

9. Greater Gargadon

(4,768 Inclusions, 0% of 1,305,540 Decks)

My initial inclination was to also be unimpressed with Greater Gargadon, but I think I'm not for two reasons: One, beggars can't be choosers, and we do need to be able to sacrifice stuff on the regular. Two, there actually aren't many one-mana sac outlets in the game that will let you sacrifice for free, especially not ones that are as flexible as allowing artifacts, creatures, or lands.

Take all that and the fact that when we do reach the end of that Suspend cost, we might have *two* nine-power creatures on the board to swing in with, and I think I'd at least like to give Greater Gargadon a chance.

8. Turntimber Sower

(6,921 Inclusions, 1% of 1,264,921 Decks)

To be clear, Gimli doesn't want to be a lands deck in pretty much any fashion. Don't get me wrong, we could still make Turntimber Sower into a thing by packing 14 various fetch lands, a few Cycling lands, and a few lands with sacrifice effects, but that's a lot of hoops to jump through just for the off-hand case where you might draw one of your 100 cards. To be clear, in lands decks or Cycling decks, Turntimber Sower is absolutely nuts. We're just not one of those decks.

7. Thermopod

(7,018 Inclusions, 1% of 1,305,540 Decks)

I've always been a bit unimpressed with Thermopod outside of combo settings. There's no doubt that it's one of the best cogs in an engine out there, but five mana is also a lot for a sac outlet that just makes more mana. Still, you could do worse. If we do manage to get enough token-makers together, there is a lot to be said for being able to use a whole bunch of mana to make a whole bunch of tokens, then sac those tokens to make more mana...

6. Perilous Forays

(7,936 Inclusions, 1% of 1,264,921 Decks)

Perilous Forays is also probably solidly a win-more card, only it's not as good in a combo setting. It seems like all you need to make this card great is to untap with it, but it's actually even slower than that. You put it down on turn four or five, then have to make sure it survives a round of the table, then untap with it to sacrifice a whole bunch of creatures, and then wait for all the lands to untap. Combine all that with the fact that you have to have creatures to get the lands in the first place, and it's a three-turn monstrosity that requires setup and costs five mana.

That said, once you do untap with all those lands three turns later, you are pretty much guaranteed to win the game if it's still going, so there is that.

5. Dark-Dweller Oracle

(13,525 Inclusions, 1% of 1,305,540 Decks)

Card draw is one of the most powerful things you can do in the game. Impulse draw may be a rung down that ladder, but it is nonetheless extremely powerful. While I do think that seeing Dark-Dweller Oracle show up in a bunch of decks not trying to sacrifice things is a really poor decision, there is no doubt that if you're looking to have a bunch of creatures to sacrifice already, there's few sac outlets anywhere near this cost that can deliver anything like this powerful an effect. The one to pay in addition to the sacrifice can be a bit cumbersome, but if you already have a payoff around for your sacrifices, there is every reason to start ripping cards off the top instead of using the ones in your hand. And with us having a payoff in our command zone, this is pretty much as much of a slam dunk as it gets.

4. Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus

(Helms 529 Decks, Rank #960; 23,750 Inclusions, 5% of 492,344 Decks)

Using Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus' sacrifice effect several times is nowhere near as impactful as what you'd get for Dark-Dweller Oracle, especially at the cost of two creatures and (probably) four life every time you do so. Combine that with the seven mana cost, and there's not a lot to be said about Zopandrel as a sac outlet.

That is ignoring a large portion of the card, however. For most intents and purposes, Zopandrel is an 8/12 for seven mana that can block fliers and make not only your impossibly large commander larger, but also the rest of your team as well. Combine all that with a commander that also acts as a removal spell, and you're pretty happy to have this fill out your top end.

3. Evolutionary Leap

(24,391 Inclusions, 2% of 1,264,921 Decks)

If you're looking to have a two-mana sac outlet that is going to turn the entire tide of a game, however, then you're not looking for Dark-Dweller Oracle, you're looking for Evolutionary Leap. It may seem like you're not winning in the exchange by sacrificing a creature to just get another creature that you then have to cast, but that's exactly what the Aristocrats strategy is looking to do: Move creatures from one pile to another, gaining advantages from triggers along the way. Combine that with a probable ton of creatures that make yet more creatures when they enter the battlefield, and Evolutionary Leap is the best sac outlet this deck could ever end up with.

2. Greater Good

(73,725 Inclusions, 6% of 1,264,921 Decks)

...Or is it? Greater Good may be a bit pricey at four mana, but it gets going the moment it hits the table, and synergizes with Gimli's probably huge power. It's not quite as good in a Gruul deck that probably isn't going to interact with the graveyard much as it is in black, where your three discarded cards will probably come back later. But it is still a sac outlet without any other activation cost that can draw you a whole new grip if you happen to have a big creature around. The only bad part is that if it's your only sac outlet, you're going to be discarding a lot of your hand to get smaller creatures sacrificed and get your commander big enough to draw a real amount of cards. Still, you are doing the thing, and hopefully getting to pick out some of the best cards in your deck along the way!

1. Goblin Bombardment

(94,342 Inclusions, 7% of 1,300,824 Decks)

The undisputed Aristocrats sac outlet, Goblin Bombardment skips the step of having to find your Blood Artist to start winning and goes directly to damage, not only to players, but to their stuff as well. While you do need just short of 120 activations to take out the table, and you're not gaining life, it's hard to beat that kind of efficiency. This is precisely why Bombardment has been one of the primary combo finishers in the history of Magic, both back in the old days of Standard and Extended and now in Commander. In short, it was always going to be at the top of this list, and anyone who's interacted with it knew it. I do think that- outside of combo world - Goblin Bombardment is not actually going to be the favorite for Gimli, with Evolutionary Leap taking that place instead.

That said, it will be number two, taking out all sorts of blockers while making Gimli ever larger to swing/Fling in for a win.

Honorable Mentions

There are still the other two legs to contend with to make a Gruul Aristocrats, so rather than going over that in detail, how about just looking at the decklist I came up with?

There is also a small bit I played with here that could have made an entirely different kind of build: Not quite Aristocrats, but still regularly triggering Gimli.

There are a variety of ways that you could pursue a plethora of sacrifice triggers with Gimli without being a more general Aristocrats deck. The ultra-aggro way to do so would be by making a Ball Lightning deck. Far from being the only cheap, high-powered creature with trample that sacrifices itself, there is a whole genre of Ball Lightnings to choose from that would both trigger Gimli and get up in people's faces in quick fashion. A slower version would be to harness all of the "make a copy, then sacrifice it at the end of combat/turn" effects available out there, effectively doing the same in a hopefully more repeatable and resilient fashion. Finally, there is also a handful of Sneak Attack copycats that would let you play all of the big stuff that would swing in and then sacrifice itself, making your commander into a big stuff himself.

Finally, there are some less repeatable sac outlets that you may want to feature in just about any Gimli build, despite them only getting you part of the way there:

Top 10 One-Time Gruul Sac Outlets

1. Eldritch Evolution
2. Natural Order
3. Birthing Pod
4. Momentous Fall
5. Mycoloth
6. Life's Legacy
7. Fling
8. Primal Growth
9. Dragon Broodmother
10. Vivien on the Hunt

Several of these are spicy enough that they're going to attract attention, but there are several that are also just good inclusions at any power level. In short...

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

What Do You Think?

Not every brewer is a hipster, and as such, I do have to wonder how much I'm barking up the wrong tree here.

And finally, what's your opinion on Gruul Aristocrats? Is Gimli the right commander to make it happen? Are there enough avenues to make it a deck that would survive in your local meta?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the long counter that's not technically a table, but should do the trick.

DougY

Doug has been an avid Magic player since Fallen Empires, when his older brother traded him some epic blue Homarids for all of his Islands. As for Commander, he's been playing since 2010, when he started off by making a two-player oriented G/R Land Destruction deck. Nailed it. In his spare time when he's not playing Magic, writing about Magic or doing his day job, he runs a YouTube channel or two, keeps up a College Football Computer Poll, and is attempting to gif every scene of the Star Wars prequels.