Tips and tricks for Garth One-Eye

I've been seeing a few questions/complaints/confusion around Garth, so I thought I'd make a post taking about him, how he plays, and some super spicy (not so secret) tech to play him. I've played the deck 8 or so times in the last week, changing the deck a decent amount as I learn how he plays.

• First off, Garth excels as a battlefield controller. He can get rid of problem permanents, recur one sided wraths like [[Cyclonic rift]] and [[Crater hellion]] and [[In garruk's wake]], and draw you a bunch of cards when you run low. I've seen a lot of people miss that Garth's tap ability ignores timing restrictions you you can keep him untapped to block until the end of the turn of the player going before you to use him, so you can keep your options open to the last possible second. Regrowth at instant speed is fantastic, as is braingeyser. Being able to make Shivan dragons at instant speed is also a surprisingly good deterrent.

• to get Garth himself running smoothly you need... a lot. He can function just on his own in slower games, but he's much 'nicer' to use when you have: Lots of mana, haste, untappers and/or flicker effects, and ways to protect garth. Cards that do one or more of these things are superb in garth.

• Combo is probably the best way to win with garth - it's nicer to other players. You can grind out value by flickering slowly oner per turn and using regrowth to recur cyclonic rift, but that isn't fun for each of your oppnents. It's kinder to them to combo them out (with a haste enabler and [[Deadeye navigator]] then slowly bludgeoning them to death with shivan dragons in my experience. YMMV especially if your meta doesn't run any wraths and is super slow and battlecruisy.

Now I'll list the cards that have been overperforming for me, and a few cards that I haven't played with but I think will be very good in sections.

• Mana accelerators - you want some of your classic rocks and signets and such, but creatures than can tap for more than one mana are very very good. I've been liking [[Selvela, explorer returned]] which often nets you 2-3 mana and life while refilling your grip. As it's group hug, it's also unlikely to be removed. [[Faeburrow elder]] and it's more expensive (money wise) cousin [[bloom tender]] are both incredible, especially when you have garth out. [[Kiora's follower]] is fantastic, as it doubles as a mana accelerator and a means to untap garth, making it useful in early game and late game.

• Haste enablers - the more you have of these, the better, but if they provide incidental value as well they're very very good. I don't have the 'classic' haste enablers edhrec is suggesting like anger, thousand year elixir, and concordant crossroads, or mass hysteria. Both swiftfoot boots and lightning greaves are great, even if boots don't let you combo as they also protect garth. [[Temur ascendancy]] provides cheap haste as well as drawing a card of each shivan dragon and garth himself. Very much worth it. One of the best haste enablers is [[Samut, voice of dissent]] as it gives haste AND can untap garth for great value, even on the turn it comes in. It can also untap your dorks like faeburrow elder for big mana.

• I don't have many untapper/flicker effects that haven't already been listed or are obvious. [[Minamo]] is great obviously, [[Venser the sojourner]] is surprisingly good. [[Pemmin's aura]] protects him as well, but dies to flicker, [[Tawnos's coffin]] is lovely jank but also reserved list so costs $250. The problem with flicker effects, is that without haste they feel slow and clunky to use. you can end step them before your turn, but that doesn't let you do huge explosive turns. According to my (potentially bad) scryfall search, there is exactly one card in the game that flickers your dudes and gives them haste in the same card, and it's one i've never heard mentioned in relation to Garth: [[Legion's initiative]]. This janky do nothing enchantment is perfect for garth - it doesn't let you win the game, but it does buff garth and shivan dragons, while lettting you get clutch protection and resetting garth, while giving him haste. It's unfortunate that it only works once, but oh well. There are a huge amount of normal flicker effects, run whichever ones you like.

• Finally, some cards that don't fit into your overall gameplan but still work well with garth. [[Sundering growth]] for when you don't have garth/have already used disenchant, as it can copy a shivan dragon (not black lotus, as populate only copies creature tokens.) If [[Twinning staff]] works how i think it does, it's obviously great (someone in comments say if this doesn't actually work please.) [[Whir of invention]] can get greaves, I run a bunch of creature tutors like [[eladamris call]] to get deadeye, [[Bring to light]] can kind of get whatever you need (except deadeye, but it can be a very expensive tutor.) [[Familiar's ruse]] is the only counterspell I run, it can protect garth while also resetting him, and sometimes you just need a counterpsell to stop someone else combo.

I hope this list of cards have provided you with some ideas if you want to play garth. If you have any other spicy suggestions, please tell me in comments!

Here is my personal deck list, most of it is very bad but some good ideas https://www.moxfield.com/decks/JEXBnPMMtk-5Th6RXwoB5A/primer