MERNE / FIELD GUIDES

A Gruul field guide / Upper Bracket 3

The Revel
Unbound.

Xenagos, God of Revels

One monster.
A very different combat.

Build the mana. Choose your moment. Turn a creature’s power into pressure, cards, and the next impossible attack.

Enter the revel
GRUUL · POWER MATTERS · FINITE EXTRA COMBATSSELECTED PLANNED LIST / 2026

The proposition

The creature is the instrument.
Xenagos turns up the volume.

A resilient combat deck with a taste for spectacle. The god supplies haste and power; the rest of the deck supplies the cards, trample, and answers that make those attacks matter.

Cards
100
Land slots
38
Nonland average MV
3.73

Bala Ged Recovery is a spell with an emergency land face. Ojer Kaslem’s transforming back is not an opening-hand land.

I / The pilot’s rhythm

Before the noise,
make a plan.

01

Prepare the clearing.

Keep green mana, land drops, and early permanent ramp. Build toward a threat you can actually cast; Xenagos on an empty board is preparation, not pressure. A draw engine before the first monster makes every removal spell easier to recover from.

Cards: Nature's Lore · Fanatic of Rhonas · Garruk's Uprising

02

Choose what the table demands.

Need cards and material? Send Ojer Kaslem or Elder Gargaroth. Need an opposing board cleared? Balefire Dragon rewards a connection, while Glorybringer can remove a non-Dragon for a fixed four damage when exerted. A monster should do more than make a large number.

Cards: Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth · Elder Gargaroth · Glorybringer

03

Let the next combat grow.

Xenagos triggers at every beginning of combat on your turn. Earlier bonuses remain until end of turn. Bloodthirster can carry the pressure across different opponents; Scourge of the Throne can untap attacking creatures when its first attack is against a player still highest in life on resolution.

Cards: Bloodthirster · Scourge of the Throne · Pathbreaker Ibex

04

Leave something for tomorrow.

After all combats, the temporary power is still there. Use Rishkar’s Expertise in the postcombat main phase, or cast a discounted Great Henge. Hold a second threat through a likely wipe. Greater Good can turn a doomed creature into cards, then asks you to discard three.

Cards: Rishkar's Expertise · The Great Henge · Greater Good

II / The first decision

Keep a beginning.
Not just an ending.

Illustrative seven-card hands. These are sequencing examples, not playtest statistics.

KEEP / A route into the game

Forest · Forest · Mountain · Nature’s Lore · Garruk’s Uprising · Elder Gargaroth · Tamiyo’s Safekeeping

Three lands, green ramp, cards, and a threat. Cast Nature’s Lore on turn two. Develop Uprising and land drops; choose the commander or Gargaroth according to pressure and available protection. The fourth and fifth land drops still matter.

MULLIGAN / All destination, no road

Forest · Mountain · Balefire Dragon · Old Gnawbone · Etali, Primal Conqueror · Bloodthirster · Chandra’s Ignition

Two lands and no acceleration or draw. The spectacular top end cannot rescue a stalled opening. A fresh hand with green mana and an early ramp spell is worth more than keeping all these finishers.

III / The combat lab

Power remembers
the last combat.

Xenagos adds the target’s current power again. Each bonus lasts until end of turn. Explore repeated triggers on the same creature.

Same target / no other modifiers

  1. Combat 1126 + 6
  2. Combat 22412 + 12
  3. Combat 34824 + 24

These controls do not create extra combats or untap a creature. Supply those effects separately. Power is not damage dealt.

The Bloodthirster condition

It must deal combat damage to a player to untap itself and create another combat. It cannot attack a player it already attacked this turn. In a four-player game, 12 → 24 → 48 means three different opponents, not 84 damage to one. If all three opponents start at 40 and take full damage, the first two remain at 28 and 16; only the third is eliminated. It does not untap the rest of the team.

Trample is your responsibility

Xenagos grants haste, not trample. Bloodthirster brings its own; Beorn the Fierce, Garruk’s Uprising, and Kessig Wolf Run can supply it elsewhere. Blockers, removal, and prevention still change the result.

IV / Small details, enormous differences

Know the windows.

Beginning of combat comes before attacking.

Xenagos triggers before attackers are declared. Resolve that trigger before declaring attacks; Ibex and Scourge trigger later when they attack. You cannot order those attack triggers ahead of Xenagos. Beorn is different: its beginning-of-combat trigger shares Xenagos’s timing window.

Beorn before Xenagos. The Bear matters.

Put Xenagos’s trigger on the stack first and Beorn’s above it. Converting another creature into a Bear gives it Beorn’s +2/+2 before Xenagos reads its power. Beorn is already a Bear; Goreclaw is too. With those two present, one conversion can reach three Bears and draw two. Trample counters and Bear typing persist; the anthem needs Beorn to remain.

Ibex adds the greatest power. It does not double everyone.

Pathbreaker Ibex attacks after Xenagos has resolved. If Ibex is the largest creature, its printed 3 becomes 6, then its attack trigger gives the team +6/+6 and trample: Ibex ends at 12. With a different 12-power creature present, the bonus is +12/+12 instead. The trigger checks on resolution.

Scourge asks who has the most life — twice.

Scourge of the Throne triggers for an extra combat only on its first attack that turn against a player highest or tied highest in life. That condition must still be true on resolution. Dethrone is separate. Starting at 5 power, Xenagos then dethrone makes 11; next combat makes 22, or 23 if dethrone is eligible again.

Save the power for your second main phase.

Bloodthirster and Scourge do not insert a main phase between combats. Cast the sorcery Rishkar’s Expertise after all combats, while Xenagos’s bonus still lasts. Return of the Wildspeaker is an instant but counts only non-Humans. Eternal Witness is a Human and is excluded; Beorn is not a Human and is included. Greater Good and Momentous Fall sacrifice as a cost; a creature sacrificed before damage cannot connect, but you can cash it in after it has dealt damage.

Not all damage is combat damage.

Ojer Kaslem reveals cards equal to combat damage actually dealt, then puts at most one creature and one land onto the battlefield. Those creatures are not automatically attacking. Terror of the Peaks deals noncombat damage, so it cannot trigger Bloodthirster, Ojer, or Old Gnawbone. Glorybringer’s exert ability always deals four, regardless of its power. Scourge can untap an attacking Glorybringer for another attack and exertion; Bloodthirster untaps only itself.

Protection has edges. So does the poison finish.

Hexproof and indestructible do not answer every sacrifice, exile, bounce, or prevention effect. The One Ring protects its controller, not their creatures; it does not forbid attacks, but its damage prevention ordinarily stops Bloodthirster connecting. Frenzied Baloth stops combat damage prevention. Etali’s costly sorcery-speed transform leads to an 11/11 whose combat-damage trigger gives poison counters. It is not infect; ten poison counters still cause a loss.

Against sacrifice and exile, preserve the next threat.

Keep a creature in hand when one attacker already creates enough pressure. A spare mana creature or token can absorb a generic sacrifice effect, but read restrictions such as “nontoken” or “greatest power.” Veil of Summer can protect you from blue or black effects that target you; Deflecting Swat or Bolt Bend can redirect eligible single-target effects. None stops an effect that makes each player sacrifice without targeting.

Heroic Intervention does not stop a nontargeted exile wipe. If a threat is doomed, use Greater Good or Momentous Fall before the wipe resolves to turn its current power into cards. This prepares a rebuild; it does not save the battlefield. Tamiyo’s Safekeeping remains useful for protecting a noncreature draw engine from targeted removal.

Damage prevention and attack restrictions need different answers.

Frenzied Baloth stops combat damage from being prevented, including ordinary Fog effects and protection’s damage prevention. It does not remove attack taxes, stop creatures being tapped, or override “can’t attack” and life-total restrictions. Save Nature’s Claim, Krosan Grip or Boseiju for the permanent actually blocking combat. Kogla’s artifact/enchantment answer requires an attack, so it cannot always break a lock that already stops attacks.

V / The selected hundred

Every invitation
has a purpose.

Upper B3 · The Revel Unbound · Complete planned view. Roles below are overlapping navigation labels, not the functional-count audit.

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