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Gornog, the Red Reaper is one of the many legendary creatures introduced inMagic: the Gathering’sFoundations Jumpstart set. This mono red commander is the perfect choice if you want to play a deck primarily consisting of Warrior creatures (called either Kindred or Typal).
A Gornog, the Red Reaper deck is one heavily built around combat. If you’re newer to the game or want to play a deck with a more straightforward strategy, this is the perfect commander choice for you. For those who like to turn cards sideways and swing, you’ll want Gornog leading that charge.
Fury of the Horde
Helm of the Host
x31 Mountain
Rogue’s Passage
War Room
The decklistconsists of 29 creatures, nine sorceries, four instants, 14 artifacts, nine enchantments,and34 lands. Most of the creatures are Warriors, and the rest of the cards either support the creature type, or provide extra combat steps to have extra combat triggers.
Key Cards
Gornog, The Red Reaper
The commander of the deck,Gornog, the Red Reaperis one of the main ways you’ll turn off your opponents' ability to block.Every attack of a Warrior turns a creature into a Coward. Thisis a permanent effect,meaning once a creature becomes a Coward, it will remain one until it leaves the battlefield.
While this is permanent, being a Coward has no actual effect by itself. You need a card that applies a consequent effect, such as Gornog preventing any Coward card from blocking Warriors while it’s on the battlefield.
Youwant your opponents to have as many Cowards as possible, as each one will give attacking Warriors a stat boost. Itdoes not matter how many Cowards the defending player controls, and the stat boost applies toall Cowards on the battlefield.
Neheb, The Eternal
Neheb, the Eternalis one of the ways to ramp in a Gornog deck. Outside of ritual cards,mono red decks can struggle to generate a lot of mana. This is where Neheb comes in. Itturns all damage opponents lost that turn into red manayou can use.
Neheb’safflict ability helps to guarantee you’ll get at least three mana out of it. However, when combined with turning creatures into Cowards that can’t block, you can get in for even more damage and thus, more mana.
Molten Echoes
For Gornog’s ability,Gornog itself doesn’t need to attack, you just need any Warrior to turn a creature into a Coward. Molten Echoesis a way to guarantee Gornog triggers without putting one of your permanent creatures in danger.
The tokenis exiled at the end step, so if it dies in combat it doesn’t matter since it was going to be removed from the game anyway. Thetoken copies of Warriors also count for other permanents that care about the number of certain creature typeson the battlefield to make them even more impactful.
Coat Of Arms
Themajority of the creatures in the deck are Warriors. This makes Coat of Arms massively boost their stats, aseach Warrior will give the others +1/+1.This effect stacks,so if you have three Warriors on the battlefield they will all give a +2/+2 stat boost to each other.
Coat of Armsis a must-answer permanent. If your opponents don’t get rid of it, you will almost always win whatever combat your creatures enter. Coat of Arms combined with unblockable creatures make for a devastating combo that deals giant outbursts of damage.
Aggravated Assault
A Gornog deck is heavily combat-focused, so Aggravated Assault is especially good as a way to get multiple combats in one turn. Solong as you have five mana to spend, you’re able to keep taking extra combat stepsthat untap all your creatures.
you’re able to go infinite with Aggravated Assault and Neheb, the Eternal. Deal at least five damage in combat so Neheb adds that as mana, and then activate Aggravated Assault. After the extra combat, you’ll go into another postcombat main phase and Neheb will trigger his effect again to add mana. Keep looping this to have an infinite number of combat phases.
Unlike other extra combat cards,Aggravated Assault is an enchantment, which lets you re-use it constantlyrather than casting it once and being done with it. With how important combat is to the deck, Aggravated Assault is one of the cards you want on the battlefield as quickly as possible.
How To Play The Deck
A Gornog, the Read Reaper Commander deck is all about combat. You want to be swinging your creatures at your opponents constantly, all whileturning your opponents' strongest creatures into Cowards so theycan’t block your Warriors.
The only cards that can turn creatures into Cowards in mono red areGornog, the Red Reaper, Coward // Killer, Boldwyr Intimidator, and Kargan Intimidator.However, Gornog is the only one that permanently makes a creature into a Coward (the rest are only until the end of the turn).
Permanents that give stat boosts are especially strong tomake sure you don’t have to worry about your creatures dying in combat.Coat of Arms, Banner of Kinship, Patchwork Banner,andAdaptive Automatonall help to give your Warrior big stats boosts, and all can stack on each other.
Taking extra combat steps is importantas well.World at War, Aggravated Assault, Relentless Assault, andGreat Train Heistall help to gain extra combats and push your advantage.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. You want toflood the battlefield with creatures, and constantly swing them at your opponents. This win condition is helped by stat-boosting permanents and making creatures in Cowards to make it easier to deal damage.
Thebiggest flaw of the deck is mono red’s natural slowness in setting up. The color struggles to ramp on its own, so a higher-than-average number of mana rocks is used to generate mana quicker. It takes a while to get going, which leaves you defenseless in the early game.
Also, Mono red doesn’t have ways to gain life back, so the damage taken is damage you’ll have to live with.
