GruulLegendary Creature — Centaur DruidYarus, Roar of the Old Gods
Mana value4Rank#11,477
The Commander
Other creatures you control have haste.
Whenever one or more face-down creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, draw a card.
Whenever a face-down creature you control dies, return it to the battlefield face down under its owner's control if it's a permanent card, then turn it face up.
Guide
Gameplan
Yarus turns face-down creatures (morph, megamorph, manifest, disguise) into a relentless aggro-value engine: every hasty face-down attacker draws you cards, and dead ones recur themselves to be flipped again. You flood the board with cheap 2/2s, swing immediately thanks to global haste, draw off connecting damage, and grind out value by sacrificing and reflipping morphs in a near-inexhaustible loop.
Strengths
- Global haste lets every fresh body and reanimated morph attack the turn it arrives
- Built-in card advantage engine off face-down combat damage keeps your hand full
- The death-recursion trigger makes your morphs effectively immortal, enabling sacrifice loops and value grinds
- Gruul ramp lets you deploy multiple face-down threats and unmorph them in the same turn
- Cheap to recast and unassuming, so opponents often underestimate the board
Weaknesses
- Face-down 2/2s are individually weak and fold to board wipes and chump-blocking
- The draw trigger requires connecting, so flying/reach-heavy or stax tables stifle you
- Relies on the commander being active; without Yarus you lose haste and recursion
- Mana-hungry, since unmorphing costs are paid on top of casting
- Limited interaction in Gruul makes it weak to combo and protected control
Key Cards
- Den Protector — Megamorph that returns your best spell from the yard each time it flips, fueling the loop with card advantage.
- Temur Sabertooth — Repeatable sacrifice/bounce outlet that protects creatures and triggers Yarus's reanimation and flip value.
- Sagu Mauler — A trample, hexproof 6/6 that comes down as a cheap face-down attacker and turns into an evasive beater.
- Hooded Hydra — Snakes when it dies but as a morph it loops back via Yarus, generating tokens and bodies repeatedly.
- Master of Pearls — Megamorph that pumps your whole face-down team for a lethal alpha-strike turn.
- Lurking Predators — Continuous free creature drops that arrive with haste and bolster your face-down army.
Upgrade Path
Add efficient sacrifice outlets (Viscera Seer, Goblin Bombardment) and reanimation-loop payoffs to abuse the death trigger, plus manifest enablers like Lurking Predators to cheat huge creatures into face-down status. Improve mana with Gruul ramp (Cultivate, fast dorks) and top-end finishers such as Craterhoof Behemoth or Pathbreaker Ibex to convert your wide hasty board into one-shot kills. Round out with protection (Heroic Intervention) and a couple of reusable bounce/blink effects to reset and recur your best morphs.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Going wide with hasty face-down creatures and an overrun-style pump like Master of Pearls or Craterhoof Behemoth
- ▸Grinding card advantage off combat-damage draws until you out-resource the table
- ▸Looping sacrifice and recursion of value morphs to slowly drain or out-board opponents
- ▸Flipping up oversized threats (Sagu Mauler, Pine Walker) for repeated evasive beats
Archetypes
- Morph/Disguise Tribal — Yarus is the premier payoff for face-down creatures, rewarding damage and recurring them on death.
- Aristocrats — The death-recursion trigger turns sacrifice outlets into repeatable value and token engines.
- Aggro/Go-Wide — Universal haste plus cheap 2/2 bodies enables explosive, surprising attacks.
- Reanimator-lite — Manifest and the recursion loop cheat big permanents onto the battlefield face down and flip them up.
Combos
- Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods + Ashcloud Phoenix + Goblin Bombardment
→ Near-infinite damage, Near-infinite damage to all players, Near-infinite death triggers
- Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods + Ashcloud Phoenix + Ashnod's Altar
→ Near-infinite colorless mana, Near-infinite damage to all players, Near-infinite death triggers
- Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods + Ashcloud Phoenix + Phyrexian Altar
→ Near-infinite colored mana, Near-infinite damage to all players, Near-infinite death triggers
- Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods + Obscuring Aether + Deathmist Raptor + Phyrexian Altar
→ Infinite LTB, Infinite ETB, Infinite colored mana
- Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods + Ashcloud Phoenix + Blasting Station
→ Near-infinite damage, Near-infinite damage to all players, Near-infinite death triggers
Combos via Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (GR), by popularity.
