Shroofus Sproutsire Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on February 18, 2025

Shroofus Sproutsire | Illustration by Yukihiro Maruo

That’s Sir Shroofus Sproutsire to you!

Trivia question for the good folks at home: How many saproling creatures are in Magic: The Gathering? Not cards that make saprolings, but actual creature cards with the saproling creature type. Got your answer locked in? The answer is exactly one, and it’s this doofus here! We’ve been playing with Saproling tokens for years, but Foundations Jumpstart gave us our first actual sap creature card. And it’s legendary! You know what that means….

How good is this card as a commander, though? The Shroofus in the pudding.

The Deck

Tendershoot Dryad | Illustration by Yongjae Choi

We’re playing mono-green saprolings here, casual all the way. This deck is just a notch above straight-up meme territory, and it has a central strategy and actual avenues to victory. But if the art on Shroofus Sproutsire is any indication, the overall theme is a little on the silly side.

I’ve passed on many mono-green staples to allow anyone to adapt this deck to their own personal tastes. It’s “budget-conscious” without having a set budget in mind, and the power level can be adjusted up or down depending on your preference.

The Commander: Shroofus Sproutsire

Shroofus Sproutsire is a legendary mono-green saproling that gives you a heavy incentive to build around the creature type. This green commander is a token doubler of sorts, provided you’re able to get some number of saprolings through during each combat. And this is exponential growth, since the numbers keep multiplying with each consecutive combat step.

Mr. Shroof here also attended The School of Charging Badger Stat Lines, being a 1/1 with trample, which is always good for a laugh. That might suggest a Voltron commander of sorts, but I’ve opted to go wide and let your other tokens do the work for you.

I find it funny this is the exact same design as Zeriam, Golden Wind, another legend designed to head a typal deck focused on a severely underrepresented creature type (griffins). Totally inconsequential, but I just felt like pointing it out.

Lords and Anthems

It’s worth noting from the start that a lot of great typal payoff cards don’t really work in this deck. Go-to support pieces like Realmwalker, Kindred Summons, and Herald's Horn don’t actually do anything, since you have no actual saproling creature cards in your deck, aside from a handful of changelings.

That said, we’ve still got some typal payoffs, the biggest of which is Foundations’s Banner of Kinship. Once you’ve established a big enough board, this will often come down and make your saprolings immense. It has the pitfall of doing nothing on an empty board, but you’re already losing pretty badly if your board’s empty anyway.

Metallic Mimic does a finnicky anthem impression, and you really want to get this into play as early as possible. Sylvan Anthem’s a nice small-ball board pump that lets you dig towards action (or lands if necessary).

Saprolings have a surprising number of lords, including Sporecrown Thallid, Nemata, Grove Guardian, Tendershoot Dryad, Verdeloth the Ancient, and Thelonite Hermit.

The Sappy Stuff

Part of the appeal of playing this deck is dredging up some old saproling-themed cards that have no real home anywhere else. I didn’t go so deep on this to be playing the truly bad cards, but we get some fun additions that you won’t see in other decks.

Starting with the fungi, we’ve got Utopia Mycon as a fungified version of Skirk Prospector, Psychotrope Thallid as a sac outlet that lets you cash in saps for cards, and Nemata, Grove Guardian to both generate Saproling tokens and to pump the board.

This is pretty much the only deck where you’ll ever see Saproling Symbiosis, Saproling Migration, and Scatter the Seeds, which are all ways to jumpstart your strategy without fully relying on the commander. The adventure on Brightcap Badger falls in with these as well.

Night Soil is just an underrated piece of graveyard hate in general, but this is its obvious home. Same for sap-creators like Fists of Ironwood, Druidic Satchel, and Fungal Rebirth, which all have better versions of similar effects but feel like a better fit with Shroofus.

The Glue Cards

Unfortunately, there’s not quite enough saproling-specific stuff to make a fully functional deck, so we’ve got some staples thrown in to make the deck tick.

Regal Force and Shamanic Revelation are mass card draw spells. Return of the Wildspeaker isn’t optimized in this deck, but you do go for a big Shroofus sometimes, and this modal spell is really here for the +3/+3 option anyway.

Other forms of card advantage come in the form of Skullclamp, Idol of Oblivion, Elven Chorus, Ohran Frostfang, and War Room.

Bala Ged Recovery and Eternal Witness spot you some recursion, while Tyvar's Stand and Snakeskin Veil defend you from spot removal while also pumping your commander. Heroic Intervention’s here to keep the whole board intact.

Spot removal/sweepers are a sore spot, but that’s a reflection of our removal options in mono-green. Still, we have Beast Within and Song of the Dryads to get annoyances out of the way, and Ezuri's Predation as a pseudo board wipe.

If your saproling plan isn’t coming together or Shroofus isn’t sticking around, you can fall back on Scute Swarm or Pest Infestation as some go-wide token generators.

The Mana Base

Mono-green means an easy mana base. We’ve got a huge stack of Forests and a few utility lands, namely cycling lands and some ways to incidentally pump Shroofus. This is a fantastic Pendelhaven deck, and cards like Hashep Oasis are here as a niche way to pump Shroofus in a pinch.

Don’t get too caught up on Conduit Pylons; it’s a fairly harmless addition to a mono-colored mana base, but it also ups the desert count by +1 for Hashep Oasis and Scavenger Grounds. Deserts aren’t really even a subtheme here, but the small package doesn’t hurt either.

There’s a decent number of non-land accelerants as well. I’m not a huge fan of jamming a bunch of 1-mana dorks into any deck, so Birds of Paradise is the only ramp creature for 1 mana. There’s also Wild Growth for quick starts, and the near-mandatory Sol Ring. I’m a fan of Emerald Medallion here, and there are three Rampant Growth effects plus Sakura-Tribe Elder.

You could argue that the deck wants more 1-drop accelerants to play Shroofus on turn 2, but I’d rather play a ramp effect on turn 2 and play Shroofus on turn 3 with a protection spell like Snakeskin Veil or Tyvar's Stand as backup.

MDFC lands make up a small part of the land base, too. Bridgeworks Battle and Bala Ged Recovery are great effects to hide amongst your lands, with Vastwood Fortification being a bit weaker, but relevant with this commander.

The Strategy

This deck has two main “phases” that it’s trying to achieve. You want to start out most games by making Shroofus a large or evasive creature and connecting in combat a few times. Once you’ve triggered the combat damage ability multiple times, or once you’ve resolved some other saproling-makers, it’s time to transition to phase two. Here, you want to turn your army of saps into a win, so you’ll look for an Overrun effect to wrap things up. That could be Return of the Wildspeaker, Banner of Kinship, or just Tendershoot Dryad. It’s the basic gameplan most go-wide decks employ: Make an army, then make the army lethal.

Getting Shroofus through for one big hit is usually the most pivotal part of the plan. You’ll absolutely pounce on anyone who didn’t leave a blocker up, but assuming all your opponents are well-defended, you’ll need a way to push through. Thankfully Shroof has trample, so it’s all about pumping its power. Invigorate will catch people off guard, while Primal Might and Tyvar's Stand can go for fireball-style pumps. Sword of the Squeak is a fun addition to the deck, though it requires a few other saproling support cards before it starts giving a reasonable stat boost. Access Tunnel stops working if you’ve pumped Shroofus too much, but it can always slip a 1/1 by for a quick hit and an extra token.

Combos and Interactions

A quick note on Beast Within, since it’s one of your only instant-speed removal spells. Opponents will almost always block Shroofus given the chance, so you’ll need a way to clear out blockers. It’s actually best to let your opponent block, then use Beast Within to remove the blocker and trample over. If you use the green instant first, they’ll just have a 3/3 ready to block instead.

Dreampod Druid is kind of just thrown in here without being fully supported, but if you ever assemble this 2-drop plus any aura, you get a Saproling on each upkeep, opponents’ included. It’s one of the easiest ways to grow a board, but it requires drawing one of the four creature auras in the deck.

Remember that you can use Access Tunnel on a small creature then pump it afterwards without interfering with being unblockable.

It rarely comes up, but Pest Infestation can be cast with zero targets (presumably if your opponents have none in play). Be careful targeting Treasure tokens though! If Treasures are the only targets of Pest Infestation, an opponent can sac all their Treasure in response and fizzle the entire spell. Either make sure there’s another target or just don’t target the Treasures at all.

Also be aware of the trample and deathtouch interaction that comes up with Ohran Frostfang. If your opponent blocks a pumped up Shroofus while it has deathtouch, you only need to assign 1 damage to each blocker, and the rest will trample over.

Rule 0 Check-In

Nope, I won’t entertain any reason this warrants a pre-game discussion. I’m sure you could engineer some sort of infinite combo with Utopia Mycon and Nemata, Grove Guardian, but you’re probably talking a 4+ card combo at that point, and I’m not sure the tools are there anyway without dedicated token doublers.

You’re not running obscene tutors, stax pieces, or 2-card combos, so I see no reason to divulge anything about this deck during a Rule 0 conversation. Your commander’s name is Shroofus Sproutsire. Just play the deck and let people have fun with it.

Budget Options

Let’s start with cards you can cut to drop the price of the deck. Skullclamp is one of the pricey cards I’d strive to keep in the deck. It’s the best draw engine, and it’s well worth the $7-10 it asks.

Birds of Paradise can be subbed out for any 1-mana dork like Llanowar Elves to save you around $7. Tendershoot Dryad is a similar price and tailored perfectly for the deck, but you can sub it out for another Overrun-style effect, perhaps actual Overrun.

Heroic Intervention hovers around $10 no matter how many times it’s reprinted. It’s best-in-class for mass protection, but you might consider a budget alternative like Silkguard (roughly $3). Three Visits sits at a tedious $6 or so, but any 2-mana accelerant will do. Maybe Moss Diamond, or even just an Arcane Signet or Mind Stone.

Bear Umbra is cuttable. Snake Umbra’s a fine alternative if you really care about umbra armor, but otherwise this is a flex slot. Banner of Kinship is still demanding an above-average price, so feel free to drop it for a different typal payoff like Obelisk of Urd for less than half the price. Finally, Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers is a cute $5 addition, but it can become a basic Forest in a heartbeat.

Now for upgrades. Roaming Throne, Three Tree City, and Cavern of Souls are big pick-ups, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to find these for a Shroofus deck unless I was really trying to optimize. I’m not a fan of Coat of Arms in most decks, but it’s a $20+ wincon in a deck like this.

Boseiju, Who Endures and Delighted Halfling are staples for green decks and slot in here easily. Commander's Plate is also a great addition for decks looking to push through a singular creature. Legolas's Quick Reflexes is my 1-mana protection spell of choice, but it’s expensive and unlikely to be reprinted any time soon.

Other Builds

My first thought for Shroofus was to go full-meme. Play all the saproling cards. The ones you find perusing bulk boxes at the Local Game Store (LGS). Saproling Cluster, Saproling Burst, and all the other fungus payoffs like Vitaspore Thallid. You’re probably signing up for a weaker deck this way, but if you’re the type who likes exposing tables to weird cards, old cards, or heck, weird, old cards, this is the way to go.

You could also go full Shroofus Voltron, which is just the goofiest thing I’ve ever typed out. Shroofus scales with combat damage, so loading it up with auras and equipment and going all in is a great way to push the gameplan without running all the D-tier saproling cards. Basically, let Shroofus be its own engine and gameplan, and ignore the lesser saproling support.

Alternatively, go even harder on token-making. I’m not a huge fan of Parallel Lives and Doubling Season, but all the token doublers work here.

Commanding Conclusion

Fungal Rebirth | Illustration by Nicholas Gregory

I’ve never been into mushrooms, but if ever there were a shroom that could warm my heart, it’s Shroofus Sproutsire. I’m a little concerned that this card is narrow enough that you just won’t get meaningful support for it that often, but Commander needs its niche legends, too.

I’m curious if Shroofus has inspired other players the way it caught my attention. It’s apparently the most-built commander of any of the Foundations Jumpstart legends, and there was some truly inspired stuff in there. If you’ve got a Shroofus brewfus, let me know in the comments below, or on the Draftsim Discord/Twitter!

As always, thanks for making Draftsim your #1 stop for all things Magic!