Commander Overview
Shroofus Sproutsire is such an awesome commander, even though he is a major problem for your opponents and can hit like a truck, they are still a very fun and cute commander. Even when we are beating down our opponents with Shroofus, they legally cannot get mad. Shroofus is just so cool. All jokes aside, Shroofus is a mono-green deck that feels as mono-green as they come. We are as simple as they come, pump them up, make a ton of tokens, and swing. We are an extremely aggressive deck and can come out of the gate swinging. Shroofus is in a full primary role within this deck and is critical to our game plan; we are very much a glass cannon in that way. We do need Shroofus out and attacking to execute our game plan. Shroofus is a true mono-green machine, and this deck is an absolute blast to play! If you like being aggressive and creating a ton of tokens, this is the deck for you. While Shroofus may seem cute and cuddly on the outside, if we pump them up and they aren’t addressed, we can easily take over the game.
Creature 10
Instant 32
Sorcery 9
Artifact 7
Enchantment 9
EDH BRACKET
The average current preconstructed deck.
- No Mass Land Denial
- No Chaining Extra Turns
- No 2-Card Infinite Combos
- No Game Changers
- Few Tutors
How to Play the Deck
Playing the deck is extremely simple; we really only do one thing in the deck: we swing with Shroofus, buff them up, and make tokens. We use our early advantage to deal a ton of damage and thus make a lot of tokens, allowing us to control combat. I’ve had multiple games where I have five or ten additional tokens on turn four, allowing me to dish out a lot of damage. This deck is really fine for a player of any skill level; it’s straightforward to play.
Synergy’s in the deck
Our whole deck is synergized around Shroofus and our tokens; as a result, our biggest synergies focus on both.
By far, our biggest synergy is with Shroofus; it’s the reason we have so many pump spells in the deck, and Shroofus is always our number one priority. I love cards like Blossoming Defense and Vines of Vastwood, which are both excellent pump spells and protection for Shroofus. A lot of our opponents will try to remove Shroofus, so being able to protect them is key. We have a lot fewer synergies with our token package, but we do have some big ones like Beastmaster Ascension, which is greatly aided by our tokens. Cards like Second Harvest, which is nothing more than a four mana token doubler, are great for us as well. I want to highlight Craterhoof Behemoth, which is one of our good payoffs for all of the tokens we create.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: The early-game is really important for us! Getting an early mana dork or a Sol Ring on turn one can enable us to get Shroofus out quite early and allow us to get the token train rolling and, more importantly, get some damage in. Once we get rolling in the early game, we can be quite hard to stop.
Mid-Game: By the mid-game we should hopefully have a big board and be pretty good in combat, the mid-game is a bit tougher for us than the early-game since our opponetns have bigger boards and chump blocking is much better for them, if we do have a decent sized board being able to use cards like Beastmaster Ascension to make them true threats is important. Overall, the game plan doesn’t change.
Late-Game: We don’t really want to get to the late-game in this deck, but if we do, we become pretty reliant on a few cards. The cards we rely on are almost all our finishers, like Triumph of the Hordes or Overwhelming Stampede, as well as Craterhoof Behemoth. We can get really outpaced in the late-game, so we need these cards to win. We can grab a win if the game goes long, but we try not to.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
Even though we are a deck that has a pretty low overall cost, we are quite good at ramping, and being in mono-green certainly helps with that. Even though we prefer to be quick, we do have games where we are a little slower, and in those instances, having cards like Cultivate/Kodama's Reach as well as Birds of Paradise and Elvish Mystic can help us accelerate our game plan. Our mana dorks can performperform a lot of work when we play them on turn one, since it enables us to get Shroofus out on turn two, which is a a great way to accelerate our game plan and allow us actually to play out our pump spells on our next turn
Card Draw/Card Advantage
This is by far the weakest aspect of our deck. We don’t really draw any additional cards in this deck. In my testing games, I didn’t find this to be much of a problem since our commander is the big flashy part of our deck. More importantly, we have so many effects that are redundant that it often doesn’t matter. The lack of card draw can hurt more as the games go longer, but we hope to never get to that point.
Removal
This is another weak aspect of our deck. Still, since we care about hitting the ground running early, we don’t pack really any removal in our deck outside of Return to Nature, which can take out some problematic Ghostly Prisons or Propagandas.
Protection
This is a very strong aspect of our deck, since Shroofus is such a big part of our overall gameplan we need to keep them on the field as much as we can, so we are packing a lot of cheap protection like Tamiyo's Safekeeping and Snakeskin Veil, but we also have a lot of protection that provides a buff to Shroofus like Vines of Vastwood or Blossoming Defense, these are great ways to protect Shroofus going into combat and make them hit a little bit harder. We also have some sources of protection that are not just for Shroofus, like Fog and Constant Mists. These are very helpful if we fall behind, want to save an opponent, or just simply don’t want to let our opponents kill us!
Utility / Support
Let’s highlight some of my favorite cards in the deck! We have a lot of pump spells that can get really out of hand quickly with cards like Echoing Courage, which isn’t great for Shroofus, but if we’ve already hit a couple times and have a lot of tokens, being able to buff them all makes us a lot more threatening. While not a pump spell, we can easily end an opponent’s whole career with Alpha Status, which gives us a huge, cheap payoff for all the saprolings we create. This card can be devastating to our opponents and make the twenty-one damage threshold much easier to hit. While I was a bit skeptical when I put it in Belt of Giant Strength, it did very well in my testing games, ten or even close to it is criminally easy for us to do, and making Shroofus a 10/10 is just terrible news for our opponents.
Mana Base
We have a very boring landbase, we have Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse just as ways to search our deck and get a good shuffle in, as well as Rogue's Passage, which can allow us to make Shroofus unblockable, which can be great if we get to the late-game. Overall, the game plan doesn’t change if we don’t hit our nonbasics; all we really need is some forest to make things crazy.
Win Conditions
Our only win condition in the deck is combat, whether it be commander damage from Shroofus or simply running our opponents over with all of our tokens. These are the only ways we close out games.
Strengths of the Deck
We are extremely quick, a couple of spells and one attack from Shroofus, and we can overwhelm the board and our opponents.
We are very hard to go wide against since we have so many tokens.
Weaknesses of the Deck
Without Shroofus, we really don’t do anything; our game plan falls very flat without them.
Control decks are abysmal matchups for us, counters removal, just not something we want to see constantly.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer. Matchup Record: 3-0
I had no trouble with this matchup. We are just a lot quicker than Anti-Venom. By turn four, if we get Shroofus out and swing, there isn’t a ton they can do against us. They do have some good removal like Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, so make sure you pack your protection here.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Birds of Paradise, Blossoming Defense and Primal Bellow.
Game 2: Vs Jenny, Generated Anomaly. Matchup Record: 3-1
Their commander and some of their really aggressive creatures can be nasty, and they can also start quickly. Still, if we hit with Shroofus once or twice, we can easily chump block or even kill their attacking creatures, even though we don’t love first strike damage that constantly happens. As long as we don’t stumble and fall behind, we will be just fine.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Second Harvest, Tyvar's Stand and Emerald Medallion.
Game 3: Vs Hylda of the Icy Crown. Matchup Record: 1-2
This is that terrible control matchup that I spoke about earlier. This was a terrible matchup for our deck. They love to tap down Shroofus and keep them tapped. Azorius has way more stun counter effects than you may think, and that can present a huge problem. If they don’t mess with us much, we can beat them down pretty quickly, but if we don’t start quickly, this is a terrible matchup.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Forgotten Ancient, Fungal Sprouting and Triumph of the Hordes.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed it. Shroofus is a bit gimmicky and a bit stupid, but it’s a blast to play. While this deck is a bracket two, it can be quite fast, so always make sure you check with your table before you drop this cute and cuddly monster on them. This is very much a mono-green glass cannon; there are a lot of games where you lose if you get outpaced, but luckily, we are pretty consistent on going off.
