The 20 Best Gruul Card Draw Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on March 4, 2026

Manamorphose | Illustration by Adam Paquette

When I think of card draw in Magic, my mind first goes to blue. And unless I’m playing it, gods know I love to pick on blue players. Naturally, all colors in Magic have ways to draw cards, but what about when colors team up? Specifically, how do blue’s enemy colors draw when they come together?

Gruul () is definitely not the color pairing I think of when I want to draw a bunch of cards, so let’s see just how much card draw these two can offer. Spoiler: It ain’t much.

What Are Gruul Draw Cards in MTG?

Territorial Kavu | Illustration by E. M. Gist

Gruul draw cards have both green and red in their mana costs and/or rules text if we’re talking Commander color identities. Red and green both individually have their own solid draw effects, but I’m focused on 2-color cards today.

Gruul draw cards allow you to draw one or multiple cards. Gruul also plays around with effects like Borborygmos Enraged and Domri Rade that allow you to reveal cards before putting them in your hand, but I’m leaving those effects aside. Drawing a card doesn’t reveal it, and I value keeping that information private.

#20. Unnatural Moonrise

Unnatural Moonrise just feels way too situational. Werewolves are its obvious home, and the flashback is nice. But it relies on your creature dealing combat damage to get you that card draw. The trample helps, but your opponents may still have instant speed removal.

#19. Sprouting Goblin

The Arena rebalanced version of Sprouting Goblin removes the you pay before the card draw ability. If you sacrifice a tapped Mountain on a late turn, would you say you gained a card? Not amazing, but it counts in my book for Gruul card draw.

#18. Invasion of Ergamon / Truga Cliffcharger

Invasion of Ergamon gives you a rummaging opportunity as part of its ETB. 2 mana for a Treasure and a rummage sounds like a good trade, so the potential rhino on the flip side is just gravy. Of course, you could always just use it in a deck that cares about the number of card or permanent types you have, like finding a way to sac it to make Korvold, Gleeful Glutton cheaper to cast.

#17. Territorial Kavu

Territorial Kavu’s modal attack trigger gives you rummaging or graveyard hate. Its domain ability controls its power and toughness, which to me makes more sense if you’re going to throw this into a 5-color deck rather than a dedicated Gruul one.

#16. Hansk, Slayer Zealot (Daryl, Hunter of Walkers)

Hansk, Slayer Zealot gives you a built-in way to give your opponents some zombies and take them out. Note that the death payoff ability here doesn’t care if the dying zombies are Walkers or not, so you can get a lot of cards playing against a zombie typal deck like Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver.

Whether it’s the Secret Lair printing of Daryl, Hunter of Walkers or the Universes Within copy of Hansk, they aren’t as easy to track down, so that’s less fun.

#15. Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods

I concern myself primarily with the card drawing effect on Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods and it's OK. You need to help your face-down morph/cloaked/disguised creatures quite a bit and haste is a start.

The second triggered ability is pretty good, even if it's more card and mana advantage than card draw.

#14. Peer Past the Veil

Peer Past the Veil is kind of a wheel effect, especially if you overperform on your delirium. If you net more than 3 cards because you're hellbent this instant is better than Harmonize.

#13. Rydia, Summoner of Mist

Rydia, Summoner of Mist offers rummages easy and often. I also give it “card draw” points for letting you pull sagas out of your graveyard for a second use. If you have ways to remove counters, then the activated ability is really sweet.

#12. Kogla and Yidaro

Kogla and Yidaro indeed has “draw a card” rules text, but it’s kind of buried in a pseudo-cycling effect. Is it really cycling if you shuffle the card back into your library? Either way, Kogla and Yidaro can be some targeted artifact or enchantment hate for you, and I wouldn’t mind running it in all kinds of other RG+ homes. I wonder if any of the other cards here can take advantage of a 7/7….

#11. Bello, Bard of the Brambles

Raccoons are pretty cool and when you get to know Bello, Bard of the Brambles, you work with what you got. This whole artifact animation effect is sweet with the saboteur text of dealing combat damage for a card. It is better than most that Gruul has access to. Remember, vehicles like Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, Cybership and Rolling Hamsphere thank Bello for easy crewing, they might lose a bit in stats, but the effects are decent.

#10. Samut, Vizier of Naktamun

Being a mythic rare from March of the Machine: The Aftermath isn’t doing much for getting Samut, Vizier of Naktamun into players’ collections, let alone decks, but it’s a neat little haste payoff. Samut pays you in cards when creatures that entered the battlefield this turn deal combat damage to players, so the other possible home is blink. Maybe not with this color combo….

Personally, I use Samut, Vizier of Naktamun in my Gallia of the Endless Dance deck since Gallia also works as a satyr haste enabler.

#9. Rhino, Barreling Brute

Rhino, Barreling Brute is a Gruul card that cares about casting big spells, or expending 4+ mana. The need to attack usually is a fine thing for Gruul, but a condition nonetheless.

#8. Neyith of the Dire Hunt

Neyith of the Dire Hunt is a cool card as long as you've got the biggest, nastiest creature (let's face it Gruul decks should own this) on the board. You control the fight effects which are found in pretty much every set and creeping up in power with each version. I'm a huge fan of forcing blocks so paying the 3 mana to ensure your creature eats something is fine by me. Normally requiring a block is something you don't want to leave up to your opponents, but Neyith navigates around that and is solid with just a bit of support.

#7. Gallia of the Endless Dance

I have a soft spot for this little satyr, and I spent part of a summer putting together a satyr Commander deck around it. Gallia of the Endless Dance gives you two cards if you discard one at random, which is a higher reward for the same level of risk as regular rummaging. You’ll need to go wide, but you brought your Xenagos, the Reveler along to pump out Satyr tokens for 0 loyalty, right?

#6. Tovolar, Dire Overlord / Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge

Both sides of Tovolar, Dire Overlord / Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge have the same first ability that cares about your wolves and werewolves. Are you going to go wide with tokens or tall with tramplers? There’s more than one way to get Tovolar going!

#5. Dragonborn Champion

Dragonborn Champion is tailormade for fitting into a deck with hard-hitting, evasive creature types. Like dragons! It doesn’t have to be combat damage, and it doesn’t have to be a creature. You can use fling effects, burn spells, and activated abilities to get there. Pack in some damage doublers to make even “weaker” burn effects give you card advantage.

#4. Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes

I hesitate to call the second ability on Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes an ultimate, but it works so well as a sacrifice outlet that burns targets and gives you cards. You’ll almost always have a Boo in play to sacrifice if needed, but Gruul+ offers so many beefier creatures to feed this ability. Hello again, Kogla and Yidaro. And a bunch of them also have haste or trample so you can fatten them up for the slaughter with Minsc & Boo’s +1 ability!

#3. Manamorphose

I mean, it’s basically a free spell, as long as you have the initial mana to pump into your Manamorphose. I like that it doesn’t untap lands, since that’s useless if you don’t have anything that’s worth untapping. It’s also the type of spell I’d be happy to copy for extra cards and mana, especially if I’ve got and Upwelling or a similar, less symmetrical effect in play.

#2. Bitter Work

Red and green are the best at proving 4 power matters and Bitter Work can not only give you an 4 power creature, it is one of the more consistent ways to straight up draw a card each turn in these colors. A very easy condition to meet, but you can't twinkle toe around it, you have to put in the work.

#1. Tannuk, Memorial Ensign

Tannuk, Memorial Ensign tacks on bits of damage with landfall, and it's relatively easy to trigger the card draw half with regularity with access to additional land drops, lander tokens, fetch lands, and inexpensive lands like Evolving Wilds and Warped Landscape. There's lots to love out of this simple Kavu.

Best Gruul Card Draw Payoffs

Green and red don’t really do much in terms of card draw payoffs, whether together or separate. There are some second card draw payoffs like Mad Ratter and Irencrag Pyromancer. There’s also Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse to pay you off for your second drawn card and turn your army into hulks based on the cards in your hand.

For the triggered effects that care about attacking, Wulfgar of Icewind Dale is ready to double those triggers for more cards in your hand.

Card draw payoffs are more blue’s thing, so Temur may be the best RG+ space for those in general.

Card draw puts cards in your hand and a few ways to capitalize on that include On the Trail which turns your extra cards into ramp. The Legend of Kyoshi // Avatar Kyoshi gives you earthbending equal to the cards in your hand in chapter II of the saga, and Broodcaller Scourge just needs permanents from your hand to be a huge payoff for landing damage on an opponent.

Gruul can also be good at dropping a lot of creatures onto the board at once. For example, you want a mittful of creatures if you plan to cast Last March of the Ents or Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant.

A full hand goes a long way with cards like Worldsoul's Rage, Tooth and Nail, Smuggler's Surprise, and Fury of the Horde. Otherwise, having many cards in hand can be good if you’re looking to discard a bunch. Does that sound like a Soul of Windgrace-type of deck to you?

Wrap Up

Gallia of the Endless Dance | Illustration by Johannes Voss

And that’s all the Gruul pure card draw effects in Magic! Some colors just can’t compare to blue’s access to card advantage, but it’s interesting to dig into how different colors and color combinations go about it. Surprisingly or not, quite a few of these Gruul card draw effects play well together, whether it’s by pairing haste enablers with haste payoffs or by using big creatures to sacrifice to Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes.

Which Gruul cards do you like to use for card draw? Should I have covered the draw-adjacent effects that reveal cards from the top of your library? Let me know in the comments below, or come over to the Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, best of luck on your next draw!