Anzrag, the Quake-Mole Commander Deck Guide

Anzrag, the Quake-Mole | Illustration by Helge C. Balzer

Gruul decks get a bad rap for being simple, combat-based “turn ‘em sideways” decks. Anzrag, the Quake-Mole, while not necessarily breaking this mold, does suddenly force the player to consider the sequence of their attacks and plan for an exciting combat step.

Anzrag is sure to be one of the most popular Gruul commanders, given its innate “extra combat” ability and decidedly Timmy power-to-toughness-to-mana-cost ratio. Just how many extra combats can a single deck generate? Let’s dig right into this Anzrag, the Quake-Mole build and find out!

The Deck

Birds of Paradise | Illustration by Ben Wootten

This Anzrag, the Quake-Mole Commander deck is, in typical Gruul fashion, centered around the combat step. Specifically, getting as many of them as possible. By carefully ordering our extra combat and untap triggers, and forcing our opponents to block our commander, we’re looking to swing in on our opponents a near-infinite number of times.

Since our main trigger for extra combat steps involves forcing blocks on Anzrag, this deck requires some tactical acumen when choosing players to attack. The “right” decision for a player will often be to trade with our Commander and suffer the single extra combat, rather than risk multiple combats. With some practice and a little politics, we can have our pod quaking in their seats.

The Commander

Put simply, Anzrag, the Quake-Mole gives us an additional combat step whenever it becomes blocked, and can force opponents to block it with an expensive 7-mana activated ability.

With a mighty 8 power, Anzrag is a real threat in combat, and will destroy most things it touches. Its 4 toughness is where we need to be careful, though. Be mindful of the total amount of damage dealt to Anzrag each turn, carefully select players to attack, and use our Irresistible Prey cards to force optimal blocks and keep the combat going.

Force Blocks

Whether or not your opponents decide to block Anzrag is entirely dependent on their board state, but we’ve got more than enough ways to encourage their creatures to stand conveniently in the way of our giant Mole God. There are a handful of scantly-played force-block cards in our color identity that do the job well.

Irresistible Prey has the added bonus of being a cantrip, while Hunt Down is akin to targeted removal. Roar of Challenge lets us charge in with Anzrag without worry that we’ll lose it in combat. Enlarge, however, is one of our better ones since it buffs Anzrag enough to survive all those extra combats. Finally, Predatory Rampage takes the place of a traditional Overrun for this deck as well.

Lure and Invasion Plans are our two best spells to force creatures to block Anzrag. Lure runs the risk of an opponent putting their entire board in front of it and killing it, and thus will require careful target assessment, but Invasion Plans lets us decide how those creatures block instead. Since we’re planning to swing with nearly our entire board each turn, we won’t even worry about the counter attack destroying any of our creatures.

Neyith of the Dire Hunt is our only block forcer on a creature, but it’s got the added bonus of doubling a creature’s power as well. This is definitely overkill when used on Anzrag, worth it when it has trample.

But what if our opponent doesn’t have any creatures to block with? No worries! We can give them some weeny blockers with Dowsing Dagger, and we love to cast a Beast Within on that stax player before going to combat. We’re also running two EDH classics in Hunted Troll and Hunted Dragon. These are best used with caution, as both Hunted creatures put enough power on the board to destroy Anzrag, so make sure you’ve got a Tyvar's Stand or Darksteel Plate around to keep it in play.

“I’ll Go To Combat”

The four words your opponents will learn to fear. While Anzrag, the Quake-Mole’s own triggered ability is guaranteed to generate some extra combat steps, there’s really no reason not to double-down on this effect to really run the board.

Most players are familiar with Hellkite Charger and Savage Ventmaw and how they’ll interact with any other creature-based mana source, like Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient, perhaps. And that’s not even accounting for how easy it is to use Aggravated Assault with Savage Ventmaw.

Moraug, Fury of Akoum, Combat Celebrant, Bloodthirster and Relentless Assault have some tricky timing to unlocking their extra combats, and the same goes for Scourge of the Throne. We’ll talk about those later.

While these nine cards might not seem like a lot out of our 100-card deck, with our tutors and sheer volume of extra combats from Anzrag alone, we'll soon lose track of how many combat steps we actually took this turn.

Winning Combat

Taking all those extra combat steps is fine and all, but we need to maximize the total damage we put on the board during each of those combats. The typical suite of Gruul good stuff is here, either spells specifically meant for Anzrag, the Quake-Mole or just generally valuable creatures, plus some rarely used chaff that slots well into our goofy blockers deck.

We want to deal damage to our opponents even when we’re getting extra combats, so throwing trample on Anzrag early is pivotal. We can do it with Rancor and Archetype of Aggression, or even with our instants like Wildsize and Temur Battle Rage..

Flaming Sword is an old card that just grants first strike at instant speed. First strike (and double strike) is another great way to beat that pesky army of 1/1s your opponent can just throw in front of Anzrag to destroy it.

More generally, we can buff our entire board with Berserkers' Onslaught and Unnatural Growth. General Marhault Elsdragon has a pseudo-Rampage effect, giving each of your blocked creatures a Giant Growth for free. Toski, Bearer of Secrets is indispensable in this deck for drawing cards, and End-Raze Forerunners turns those extra combats into a real “win more” scenario.

Bow of Nylea goes great with any of our trample-enablers, bypassing however tough our opponent’s think their creatures are.

For protection, Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard fills in our cheap end while Archetype of Endurance rounds out the top end, protecting us from a surprisingly unfavorable combat or targeted removal. Avoid Fate is one of my favorite counters to those inevitable Imprisoned in the Moons or Darksteel Mutations, too.

We’re running both Fervor and Fires of Yavimaya since hitting a haste-enabler early lets Anzrag really punish opponents if they aren’t ready.

The Mana Base

Our best creatures in this deck are the most mana-intensive, to no one’s surprise, so we’ll really be ramping to hit those extra combats as soon as possible. To that end, we’re running no less than 36 lands, plus three mana rocks and three mana dorks. Nature's Lore, Rampant Growth, Cultivate and Kodama's Reach make for the best follow-up to a turn-1 rock or dork.

With some luck, we’ll be sitting pretty at 5 mana on turn 4 – enough to play Anzrag, the Quake-Mole with a little to spare for, I don’t know, equipping Swiftfoot Boots or casting Irresistible Prey on someone else’s mana dork?

The Strategy

The general plan for this Anzrag, the Quake-Mole deck is to rush our divine little mole into play, and start hitting players with it as soon as possible. We’ll keep ramping until we can run out the rest of our extra combat cards, and, if we haven’t already beaten our foes into submission, go for infinite combat steps.

With access to so much ramp, we should make use of it earlier rather than later. That means that opening hands with ramp spells are good (shocking, I know). Besides mana dorks and Rampant Growth, our next priority is something for Anzrag to use right away. Either a haste enabler like Swiftfoot Boots or Fervor, or some protection like Swiftfoot Boot (again) or Avoid Fate.

With the right opening hands, your first few turns should look conspicuously similar. Turn 1: land, mana dork. Turn 2: land, Rampant Growth/Cultivate. Turn 3: Anzrag, the Quake-Mole.

Once Anzrag’s on the field, our priority becomes protecting it, and continuing to ramp into our big boys. If we don’t use our mana to force blockers or keep Anzrag alive then we’ll use Shared Summons and Chord of Calling to fetch Savage Ventmaw and Hellkite Charger from our library. If Anzrag dies, we should have enough mana to replay it from the command zone after we’ve ramped sufficiently.

There’s really only one way to finish the game with Anzrag, and that’s combat, baby. If the metric ton of extra combats generated by Anzrag and whatever spare attackers we run into throughout the game don’t get the job done, then the infinite combats generated by Hellkite Charger will.

One thing this deck struggles against is board wipes. Lots of spells say “destroy all creatures,” and unfortunately green and red’s best defense against those is generating enough mana to play new creatures.

Combos and Interactions

All of these extra combat abilities can overwhelm even the most veteran of players, so let’s take a minute to focus on some troubling timing.

As a general rule, extra combat steps stack up even if they come from effects that are resolving at the same time. You can attack with Combat Celebrant and exert it at the same time you’re attacking with Scourge of the Throne, and you’ll get two consecutive extra combats after the current one.

Of course, this all becomes moot when we realize how easy it is to get infinite combat steps. The classic Savage Ventmaw + Hellkite Charger + Radha, Heir to Keld makes us 8 mana when we declare attackers, perfect for dumping right into Hellkite Charger’s ability, untapping all three of our attackers and letting us start the whole thing over again. Of course, all three of these creatures need to survive combat, but Radha’s the only one that might need a little extra protection.

Note that Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient doesn’t get the job done here, since the mana it produces can only be used to cast spells, and can’t be used to pay for Hellkite Charger’s triggered ability.

Rule 0 Violations

This Anzrag Commander deck does make use of the aforementioned infinite combat steps combo, but that’s an incredibly fragile three-creature combo that’s vulnerable to Shocks and Stifles. These cards could be swapped out for some other big Timmy-esque creatures; maybe Inferno Titan or Ghalta, Primal Hunger?

Budget Options

This Anzrag, the Quake-Mole Commander deck comes in at around $140. Not too expensive, but not a budget deck by any means. Let’s take a look at some easy cuts to reduce the price.

Nothing in this deck breaks $10, except for the $30 Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient. We already have a couple sources for attack-step mana generation in Radha, Heir to Keld and Savage Ventmaw, but Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion can make for a budget replacement.

After that, you could always cut Darksteel Plate, bringing the deck under $100. Believe it or not, Kaldra Compleat sits at just about $3 right now, and makes for a ridiculous piece of equipment when slapped on Anzrag, the Quake-Mole.

Other Builds

While this Anzrag, the Quake-Mole deck is based around getting lots of extra combats by forcing blocks, and then playing big creatures to really threaten our opponents in the extra combats, that’s not the only way. A Voltron Anzrag deck definitely exists, and it’s just as punishing. Instead of wasting time and mana casting other creatures, we can attach every good aura and equipment we can get our hands on to Anzrag and swing in without fear of losing it. Hammer of Nazahn, Epic Proportions, and Eldrazi Conscription are all hilarious spells I’d love to see cast on Anzrag, the Quake-Mole.

Wrap Up

Xenagos, God of Revels | Illustration by Jason Chan

On its face, this Anzrag, the Quake-Mole deck is just another Gruul deck. We’ll go to combat, we’ll turn all of our cardboard sideways, we’ll go to combat again ad nauseum or until we expire there at the table. It turns out the answer to “how many combats can one deck generate?” is “too many for your opponents to deal with.”

What are some of your favorite Gruul Timmy cards? Are there any other commanders that lend themselves to extra combat steps the way Anzrag does? Let me know in the comments, or over on Draftsim’s Twitter/X.

Thanks for reading, don’t forget to announce each and every one of those combat steps.