If you thought aggro was dead in Standard, think again. Gruul Delirium brings the heat with fast threats, graveyard synergy, and enough tricks to keep your opponents guessing. It's aggressive, grindy, and way smarter than it looks—exactly the kind of deck that punishes slow starts!
Gruul Delirium Standard Deck Overview
Best Card Choices for Gruul Delirium in Standard
This deck is all about turning your graveyard into a weapon. You’re not just dumping cards for fun—every creature and spell is chosen to either fuel delirium or hit harder once it’s online. Whether you’re racing out hasty threats or getting value from the yard later on, each card helps keep the pressure going. Let’s take a look at the key pieces and what they bring to the table.
The Creatures
This deck leans hard into delirium synergy, and the creatures really showcase that.
Patchwork Beastie is a fantastic payoff once you hit four types in the graveyard—it's a 3/3 for one mana, which is absurdly efficient, but only after you do the work. Fear of Missing Out brings a discard-draw effect and, if delirium is active, gives you an extra combat step—perfect for piling on the pressure.
Wildfire Wickerfolk is another early drop that gets trample and an extra +1/+1 when delirium is live, letting you swing in hard. Keen-Eyed Curator plays double duty: it's both a beefy body once it gets powered up and a way to exile cards to turn on delirium or mess with opponents' graveyards.
Tersa Lightshatter is your curve-topper that fuels the graveyard and gives you access to free spells when you attack. And Balustrade Wurm is your late-game hammer—an uncounterable, hasty beater that keeps coming back from the graveyard once delirium is active. Altogether, this suite of creatures lets you scale aggression with graveyard setup and overwhelm opponents in a flurry of power boosts and combat steps.
Removal and Disruption
While this deck is definitely about going face, it still packs a little disruption to clear the way.
Bushwhack gives you the option of fixing your mana early or fighting off a problematic creature later. It's flexible and cheap, perfect for this style. Monstrous Rage and Violent Urge serve as pump spells that help you win combat or push for lethal. Violent Urge especially shines once delirium is active, turning into a potential double strike finisher. These aren't traditional removal spells, but they let you dictate the terms of combat and keep pressure high while sneaking in a few tricks.
Utility and Support
This category is all about making sure your delirium cards actually work.
Seed of Hope is great early to dump cards into the yard and potentially recover a permanent, all while gaining life. Break Out helps keep your board full by digging for low-cost creatures and giving them haste, which is a huge tempo play. Overprotect is your way to protect a key creature—whether you're going in for lethal or bracing for removal, it offers hexproof, indestructible, and trample all in one. These utility spells keep the wheels turning and make sure your aggression doesn't run out of gas.
The Lands
You've got a nice mix of dual lands and utility here to support the aggressive plan while helping fill the graveyard. Commercial District enters tapped, but surveil 1 is great for setting up delirium. Copperline Gorge and Karplusan Forest provide untapped early access to both red and green mana, though Karplusan can hurt a little. Thornspire Verge is a conditional dual, but in this deck it should be active most of the time. And of course, basic Mountains and Forests round things out for fetchability and reliability. Altogether, this mana base is smooth and deliberate, helping you hit early plays while quietly fueling your graveyard strategy.
Standard Gruul Delirium Strategy
In the early game, your focus is all about setting up delirium. Cards like Seed of Hope, Tersa Lightshatter, and Fear of Missing Out help you fill the graveyard quickly while getting value along the way. Cheap threats like Patchwork Beastie and Wildfire Wickerfolk start to apply pressure, even if they don't reach full power just yet. The key is to curve out aggressively while building your graveyard foundation.
By turn 3 or 4, you want delirium online. This is where your threats get serious. Fear of Missing Out can give you extra combat phases, and Keen-Eyed Curator becomes a monster with trample. Break Out and Monstrous Rage help you push through damage or refill the board. You're trying to turn every draw into a threat while keeping up the pressure with combat tricks and aggressive swings.
In the late game, if your opponent's still standing, your graveyard turns into a toolbox. Balustrade Wurm becomes your recurring win condition, crashing in once more for revenge. Tersa Lightshatter lets you cast cards from the graveyard, keeping your hand full and threats flowing. At this point, your delirium is always on, and even your smaller creatures like Wildfire Wickerfolk are fully powered up. You're closing out games with big, hasty threats and overwhelming board presence.
Standard Gruul Delirium Sideboard
Even the most aggressive decks need a plan for tricky matchups. These sideboard cards help Gruul Delirium stay flexible, giving you answers to control, combo, and anything else that might try to slow you down.
Cankerbloom is super handy when you need to deal with annoying artifacts or enchantments. Plus, if you're ever in a situation where proliferating matters, it gives you that extra flexibility too.
Sunspine Lynx is your go-to if you're facing control or decks that lean on nonbasic lands. It punishes those mana bases hard and shuts off life gain and prevention shenanigans, making it a great top-end threat that swings momentum your way.
Balustrade Wurm isn't just a huge beater—it's also uncounterable and keeps coming back from the graveyard if you've got delirium going. Against control decks, it's a nightmare that just won't stay dead.
Lithomantic Barrage is a one-mana nuke for anything white or blue. It's honestly just perfect against those colors—cheap, efficient, and almost always going to trade up.
Torch the Tower gives you early removal that can scale up if you bargain it. It's great for picking off small creatures and can exile them too, which is super relevant against graveyard-focused decks.
Abrade is one of those cards that never feels bad to draw. Whether you're blasting a creature or blowing up a key artifact, it gives you options without needing to sideboard in two different cards.
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