Ruby, Daring Tracker - MTG Arena Brawl Play Guide

Intro

This Ruby, Daring Tracker deck works as a way to get big red and green creatures out quickly without being too bothered with removal. Since Ruby works as a mana dork with haste, it helps you quickly ramp out more mana or big creatures a turn ahead of what you could before. However, in 1v1 brawl on MTG Arena, opponents will often kill your commander quickly no matter what. We can use this to our advantage, as if Ruby dies, it takes away some of the opponent's removal without really slowing us down too much. If they don't kill Ruby, we're ramped faster than we should be and can quickly get out of control.

Here's a video showing how this deck plays on Arena.

The decklist I use on MTG Arena can be found on Moxfield.

Starting hand

Like most green decks, you'll want a few sources of ramp in your starting hand. Even though you have ramp in your command zone, you don't want to be stuck with only big creatures if Ruby dies quickly. The other thing to look for in an opening hand is red removal, especially if the opponent might be playing some small creatures early.

Early game

The first couple of turns are likely going to be ramping. Ruby having haste means you can sequence some ramp to get multiple creatures out on turn 2. Turns 2 and 3 are often setup turns to get enchantments out, such as Tribute to the World Tree, Cabaretti Revels, or Worldweave. These enchantments provide extra value when you play your big creatures.

Late game

By turns 4 and 5, you should be way ahead on mana production, so you can start playing some big creatures. If your board got wiped or Ruby got removed, you might still have enough mana to start putting big creatures on the board, as the mana curve for this deck lends itself to persisting through removal. Most of the big creatures come with extra value through card draw or ETB effects, so as long as you can make 5+ mana per turn then you should be able to snowball into a bigger board presence than your opponent.

Win-cons

The main win condition is through combat damage, though there are a few burn spells and creatures that cause damage that can help close out the last few points of damage to your opponent.

Bad matchups

Control decks can be a tough matchup if they limit your mana production early and force you into playing a single spell per turn, as they can often stop that one spell. Discard-based decks can also be a problem if you can't get going fast enough.