Building RUG Aggro
Part 1: The Main Deck
By Rich
June 21, 2021
The world is sorta kinda returning to normal, and, with the return of the Puget Sound Battleground, it's time to get back into the swing of things. It's been over two years since I've played any Magic tournament, so the rust is going to be tough to get off. Fortunately, we have the Summer Derby starting soon, and, though I'm not a big fan of webcam-based Magic, it is an excellent opportunity to a) get some practice in, and b) take a new approach to the format.
Although RGW Zoo is my one true love, I think it's time to branch out and see what else this wonderful format has to offer. While I don't want to go too far to the dark side, I have never actually played Ancestral Recall in a tournament, so I have my sights set on playing some Blue cards.
My sources in the field tell me that this is a good card
The question is, then, what shell do I want to play? I was thinking about some sort of UB-based midrange deck, featuring, you know, actual good cards for a change...
Tempting
...But why play good cards when Blue just gives me more burn spells?
Step 1. Point at dome, Step 2. ???, Step 3. Profit
So straight UR? Or do we want another color? Each of them gives some good options, but only one lets me play the true hero of the format:
Apes strong together
So RUG it is. Many builds opt for a more Aggro/Control approach, playing some Counterspells and a higher curve with Ernham Djinns. But the word "Control" isn't in my vocabulary, so we're going to try to build a straight Aggro deck. It won't be as simple as replacing the White cards from RGW Zoo with some Blue cards and calling it a day, but we can take some of the lessons learned from years of playing that deck and apply them to this one.
Sorry guys, but you're sitting this one out
Our general approach to this deck is going to be similar, though; play some early dudes and finish the game off with some burn. To that effect, we have a few guiding principles:
- Keep a low curve so we can keep a low land count - This means we probably don't want to go up to 4, and it also means we should be mindful of the number of 3s we're playing.
- Maximize our chances of playing a T1 dude - We want to start off every game with a
creature on T1. Some math:
# 1-drops % to see >= 1 in opener EV in opener 8 65% 0.93 10 74% 1.1 12 81% 1.4
Moxen + 2-drops help here, so we might not need the full 12. - Minimize bad topdecks, especially G1 - Obviously, your 1-drops get worse as the game goes longer, but that's just the cost of doing business. We can try to minimize other dead draws, however, which means cutting down on some utility cards and playing as much burn as we can.
- Be cognizant of Strip Mine and have good mana - Sure, we could play 4 Strip Mine, 4 Mishra's Factory, 1 Library of Alexandria, and a bunch of basics to fade Blood Moon, but we need to maximize the number of colors we can make from the few lands we'll be running. This means we'll likely have to cut down on the good colorless lands and play the full suite of duals.
- Be as focused as we can G1, and diversify as needed in G2 and G3 - This is a tough balance to get right, but the fewer utility cards we can get away with, the better. A G1 hand of Shatter, Chaos Orb, Time Walk, Lighting Bolt, and some land seems like a good opener, but not for the deck we want to build.
Before we dive into examining our card choices, let's first cover what we lose from dropping White.
Losing Swords means we lose a way to 1-for-1 a big creature. Psionic Blast can cover Serra Angels and Sengir Vampires, but doesn't help much against the Djinns, Shivan Dragons, or other random fatties. We might have to compensate here with an X-spell or two.
This is a big one, as in RGW Zoo this covered a few major purposes. The first was to deal with problematic enchantments - Moats, Abysses, Sylvan Libraries. The second was to, in combination with Strip Mine, target some mana sources to keep the opponent just a tad off balance. The third, and maybe the biggest for an Aggro deck, was to, in combination with Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, and Strip Mine, deal with Mishra's Factory at instant speed. Since we're losing both this and Swords, we need to consider how we're going to fight that card, since right off the bat we're losing 6 answers. I mean, sure, we can Psionic Blast it, but that doesn't help us on T2, and feels like a waste of a Blast. Maximizing Strip Mines, playing more Scavenger Folk, some evasive creatures, and even some Shatters might help here.
We're losing Savannah Lions, which is one of the few 1-drops in the format that attacks for 2 without any drawbacks. Icatian Javelineers, although they look innocuous, are still solid, as they can both kill the opponent's early plays by itself - Birds of Paradise, Order of Leitbur, whatever - and also team up with a burn spell to kill a bigger dude. Losing these hurts, but I'm sure we can compensate.
So, with that said, let's take a look at some creatures. Our choices for 1-drops: https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=type%3Acreature+color%3C%3DURG+cmc%3D1+legal%3Aoldschool
Most of these aren't worth considering, but we do have some options.
This is likely the best 1-drop in the format; there really isn't any better feeling in the world than going T1 Taiga, Kird Ape. He's not a complete freeroll, however, as he does require some concessions in your mana base. In fact, let's touch on that here. If you have 8 forests in your deck, your odds of attacking for 2 on T2 are ~71%, 9 forests is ~75%, and 10 is ~79%. We'll have to keep this in mind when we put together the mana base, but this guy is still an easy 4x.
This is the one of the few creatures who can "reliably" attack for 2 on T2. I ran these guys in my first Old School event and they performed pretty well...up until I played one, passed the turn, and my opponent picked it up, read it, went "huh", then played a land and Bolt'ed me. Playing these guys and expecting them not to fight for the other side is probably wishful thinking. In a world where everyone's playing Crusades, Mishra's Workshops, and Jayemdae Tomes, these guys would be great. Unfortunately, I don't think we live in that world.
This guy is decent enough for a 1-drop. Although it only attacks for 1, the evasion helps against opposing blockers (including public enemy #1: Mishra's Factory), as well as random nonsense like Earthquake and Moat. We want our 1-drops to be able to get in damage, and although 1 < 2, it does the job. Definitely not a bad option.
Similar to Scryb Sprites, though with the added drawback that these can be REB'd. Now, sure, if our opponent REB's this guy instead of our Serendib Efreet or Ancestral Recall, we're probably happy, but the more we can avoid giving our opponent options, the better. In addition, if we're trying to maximize our ability to make Kird Ape happy, we're leaning towards having both Red and Green in the early turns, which may have us sacrifice Blue sources. Still, magic carpet rides are fun, so let's keep him in mind.
If you stand far away enough and squint, he kinda attacks for 2. On the surface, this guy doesn't look terrible - either he gets in for 2, or he's a walking Rishadan Port. He does get brickwalled by basically every other creature in the format, but then again, so did Savannah Lions. Granted, the Lions can trade with a naked Factory, whereas the Asp can't. Again, I'm not thrilled with letting my opponent have the option to reduce the damage this guy does, but I can see a world where we're pressuring the opponent's manabase with Strip Mine. So, we can consider Mr. Snake if we don't like our other options.
I'm lumping these together, as even though the Elves have some power, none of these guys fight real well. We're not interested in ramping, either, and none of these are great topdecks, so these are a pass.
After this, things get real dark, as now we're looking at mostly utility creatures, and none of them fight. One of them, which I mentioned earlier, does stand out, though.
Definitely not a great, or even good, fighter, but he will always have targets. I usually ran him as a 1-of in my other deck and have been happy. Since we're losing some answers to Mishra's Factory, I think we might actually want a pair.
We need somewhere between 8 and 12 1-drops. Moxen do allow us to sometimes skip a 1-drop, so let's start with 10:
4 Kird Ape
4 Scryb Sprites
2 Scavenger Folk
Many RUG builds only run a limited number of 2-drops, but I want to at least start with the full 8 and see where that takes us. Our choices for 2-drops: https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=type%3Acreature+color%3C%3DURG+cmc%3D2+legal%3Aoldschool
Probably my second favorite creature behind Kird Ape, these guys are awesome. First Strike is great in this format, especially as that plus a Bolt kills literally everything in a not-embarrassing trade of resources. The 1 toughness opens them up to some things, but they're still worth it. Maybe not as easy of a 4x as Kird Ape, but still 4x.
These guys basically read "Protection from Mishra's Factory", which makes them winners in my book. Randomly, they'll stare down a Triskelion and laugh all the way to the bank. Sure, against normal creatures, they're a 2/1 with no text, but the upside is worth the 1 toughness as compared with our other options for this slot.
I don't see a reason to run these over Archers or Pixies.
This dude seems like it has big upside, but it needs to hit 4 times to do more damage than a regular 2-power creature. That's incredibly optimistic, and the double color is too high a price to pay.
There are a couple of other creatures that seem interesting, like Citanul Druid or Wyluli Wolf, but let's just keep it simple:
4 Elvish Archers
4 Argothian Pixies
Our choices for 3-drops: https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=type%3Acreature+color%3C%3DURG+cmc%3D3+legal%3Aoldschool
Really, this section is going to be easy. We'll likely only have room for at most 4 3-drops, and there's a clear favorite.
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Fades Bolts, fights in the air, brickwalls a bunch of stuff, invented calculus, does everything.
As mentioned earlier, we want to be tighter on mana and lower to the ground, so we will not be running any 4-drops.
Much thicc. So efficient. Wow
Again, if we wanted to run some mana dorks, or take a more midrange approach, these guys would be automatic starters. We might have a place for them in the sideboard, but they don't fit in our maindeck.
So, our creature base is going to start from this:
4 Kird Ape
4 Scryb Sprites
2 Scavenger Folk
4 Elvish Archers
4 Argothian Pixies
4 Serendib Efreet
10 1-drops gives us a 74% chance of getting one in our opening hand. With 3 Moxen and 8 2-drops, we're bumped up to about a 93% chance of playing a creature on T1. While we could get to 100%, we also don't want to draw too many of them later in the game, so I think I'm happy with where we're at.
Spells
Let's look at our burn spells, first.
I mean, we're not not running these. Fo, Fo, Fo.
Definitely an option. It's unlikely we'll ever have the mana to really take advantage of these, but they're never terrible. Fireball is obviously better against weenie decks, but Disintegrate kills Sedge Troll dead. Either would be one of the few ways we have to 1-for-1 a big Djinn or Dragon. We probably want at least 1.
Just making a note of this here as we could construct our deck around being able to play it, if we wanted to. As it stands, this will probably kill as many of our creatures as the opponent's, so we'll pass on this for now.
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Psionic Blast
1 Fireball
Next come the utility spells...
Have to haves.
These are definitely worth considering, but we need to be mindful that we already have a bunch of other 3-drops, and we're going to be tight on mana. In addition, it's probable, because of our mana, that we'll be casting one of these and then passing the turn, giving our opponents first crack at a new grip of cards. However, we will be trying to empty our hand pretty quickly, so we'll probably be netting more cards than the opponent. I think we probably want one, and since we're running a lot of burn spells which we won't mind drawing again, Timetwister gets the nod.
A more complicated - and expensive - Regrowth, we won't be able to take advantage of this card as well as other decks. However, this is still a powerful effect, so it's worth considering.
This is one of my favorite cards, and I usually run two in my RGW Zoo.
However.
Between the 4 Serendib Efreets, the 4 Psionic Blasts, and the (likely) 4 City of Brasses we'll be running, we might not be able to take full advantage of this card. In addition, we're playing some busted Blue cards now, which give us some of the potential card advantage we could get from this card. On the other hand, this provides a steady source of card filtering, an occasional source of card advantage, and, unlike the draw-7s, doesn't give our opponents anything. Let's see if we can squeeze in 1, for old time's sake.
Sure, these cards are basically better than most of the other cards in our deck, but none of them go to the face, so we ain't about that. That, and they all cost double Blue, which'll be tough.
This doesn't go to the face, nor does it find cards that go to the face. But, it clears away any problem we might run into, and since we lost Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares, this can help there. I'm back-and-forth on this card, but let's see if we have room for it.
On a similar note, we probably do want some of these. However, if we want to keep with our theme of minimizing bad topdecks and being super streamlined in G1, we don't want too many, and we already have a couple of Scavenger Folk to help us out. We'll start with one.
I don't think we want to be a Giant Growth deck, but it's at least worth discussing. We have a bunch of early guys, and we definitely are interested in making them better. We're also interested in ending the game as early as possible, which these certainly help do. But, this opens us up to getting 2-for-1'd, and these aren't great topdecks. For now, I'm going to leave these at home.
This leaves us with the following:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Psionic Blast
1 Fireball
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Library
1 Chaos Orb
1 Timetwister
1 Shatter
If we want to focus on maximizing topdecks, I could see trading the Sylvan Library for Wheel of Fortune. Our 3-drop slot is already pretty crowded, though, and on that note I could even see cutting the Timetwister and relying on Sylvan Library for extra cards.
This leaves us with our mana base to construct. Remember, we need to strike a balance between running as few lands as possible, having enough to fight through Strip Mine, and being able to have access to our 3 colors reliably. My sort of starting point was 20, but with a 3 color deck in a 4 Strip Mine world, erring on the side of caution isn't a bad idea, and I think we might even want 22.
Let's breeze through the auto-includes:
Yes, please.
Also yes.
This taps for everything we need at a marginal cost. I typically play 4 of these in RGW Zoo, but there are a couple of points to note for this deck. The first is that, similar to the Sylvan Library question, we're going to be casting some number of Efreets and Blasts, which might already be putting pressure on our life total. Now, we should be the beatdown in most matchups, so while I'm not super concerned about this, it is something to keep in mind. The second issue is that we're playing Efreets in addition to Apes, which makes us even weaker against City in a Bottle. I think we can start with 4, then trim back if we want to.
This is, for all intents and purposes, a Forest, but one that buffs all of our (let's face it, mediocre) 1-drops. I think we want 1.
I'd love to find room for a playset of both of these, but we just don't have the room for that much land, and especially that many colorless sources. There is a question of which one is better in the deck, but I'd lean towards Strip Mine. There might be a way we can fit in some mix of them, though, depending on how things end up.
We have a need for three types of colored mana which none of these provide, and no real need for much extra colorless. We can leave these at home.
I don't own one of these, but I'm not convinced I'd run it even if I did. But I don't, so we can move on.
Having some Blood Moon insurance is not a bad idea. In that regard, Mountain is the least important, whereas Island casts BEB, and Forest casts most of our creatures and makes Kird Ape happy. On the other hand, the odds we beat an early Blood Moon are slim, and I'd rather just have lands that help our consistency. I don't usually run any in RGW, but let's keep an open mind and see if we can fit them in.
This card is better than almost every other card in our deck so far, but I'm not convinced we want it. We want to be playing dudes on T1 and T2, and I'm not sure the typical T1 line of LoA, pass is what we want to be doing. I could definitely be dead wrong here, but I'm going to keep it at home for now.
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 City of Brass
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Strip Mine
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
So, our current maindeck, before making cuts, looks like this:
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 City of Brass
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Strip Mine
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
4 Kird Ape
4 Scryb Sprites
2 Scavenger Folk
4 Elvish Archers
4 Argothian Pixies
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Psionic Blast
1 Fireball
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Library
1 Chaos Orb
1 Timetwister
1 Shatter
We're currently at 26 land, which is way over where we want to be. Looking at our mana requirements, we need both Red and Green on T1 and T2, and don't need Blue until T3 at the earliest. I'm leaning toward shaving a Strip Mine (possible sacrilege), 2 Cities, and the Island. Pendelhaven seems like a sketchy keep, since it's less powerful than Strip and doesn't help with our mana as much as City. But, I like the card, and makes our 1-drops not embarrassing, so it's going to stay. There's an argument to be made for cutting a Volcanic Island instead of a City, as a hand with City + Volc casts everything, whereas a hand of Volc + Volc is not keepable. But, I like having some City in a Bottle insurance, so let's cut the Cities. This gives us 22 land.
I think I like our creature base, but I can see cutting an Efreet for curve purposes, so that gives us 21.
So, we have 17 slots to play with. I'm keeping the burn trifecta, because that's what our deck is, and Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Regrowth aren't going anywhere, either. I think Chaos Orb and Shatter are my cuts, as I want to be completely focused on my plan in G1, and we do have an extra Scavenger Folk which at least covers some of our bases.
So, we have 2 slots left for the following:
My first instinct, honestly, is to go with Library and Fireball, but let's go through it. Library and Timetwister kind of occupy the same role, but have different strengths and weaknesses. While Timetwister is great with all of our burn spells, I think we're going to end up casting that card and passing the turn against an opponent with more mana than us. That said, Timetwister is a much better topdeck. I don't know what the correct answer is, but I'm going to lean towards the cheaper option, so Library gets the nod for now.
Fireball, as noted above, is the only way we have to 1-for-1 a 5-toughness guy. (Elvish Archers + instant speed burn is close to a 1-for-1, though at the cost of getting in some damage). Against decks playing those cards, there's a good chance the game is going long enough for us to get to 6 mana, and at the very worst it can just go to the face, so it won't ever be that dead of a draw.
There is a question of if we'd rather have the extra creature over either of the utility cards. I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards no. I think we have enough early guys who can get in damage, and we'd probably be happier to see a Fireball on T10 than another Efreet.
So, that leaves us here:
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Strip Mine
2 City of Brass
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
4 Kird Ape
4 Scryb Sprites
2 Scavenger Folk
4 Elvish Archers
4 Argothian Pixies
3 Serendib Efreet
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Psionic Blast
1 Fireball
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Library
In Part 2, we'll look at the SB and matchups.
