MTG Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Garruk Wildspeaker
Garruk5
Details
Race Human Planeswalker
Birthplace Unknown
Lifetime ~4570
Colors

Center: {G}

Currently: {B}{G}

Garruk Wildspeaker is a planeswalker with warrior-druid abilities.[1]

Appearance and characteristics

His philosophy is to live naturally, being one with nature, aspiring to become a predator. He is gruff and impatient, uncomfortable in conversation or "civilized settings", and prefers the wilds. Garruk perceives those who don't understand him as considering him a monster. Garruk has an uncanny understanding of the animal mind.[2] After defeating particularly difficult prey, Garruk sometimes "connects" them to himself, gaining their strength.

His height is 8 feet 2 inches and his weight is 480 pounds.

Garruk is primarily green-aligned, and secondary in black mana.

History

Garruk's Adolescence

In his youth on an unnamed plane, Garruk lived on a farm with his father - a taskmage named Raklan.[3] On his tenth birthday his father taught Garruk his first spell, but the day took a turn for the dark when a Sheriff from Lord Faldus came to conscript Garruk into Faldus' army. Raklan told Garruk to run and hide in the forest until he told him that it was safe to return. As Garruk fled the pursuit of soldiers over the next few weeks, his father spoke to him through an artifact that he had given Garruk. He warned of the evils and deceptions of people and instructed Garruk to always listen to nature. Seven years passed. Garruk, having bound several large creatures, sought the men who had killed his father. He rampaged through the town near his former home until the Sheriff confronted him. After a short encounter Garruk was brought to the jail where his father died. Garruk had planned for that treachery, and called a wurm that devoured the Sheriff. He took the Sheriff's helm and wandered back into the wilds.

The Hunter, the Veil, and The Veil's Curse

Having heard of a huge predatory creature called the Ursoth on the plane known as Shandalar, Garruk planeswalked there and hunted the Ursoth with the help of his summoned beasts.[4] When another planeswalker, by the name of Liliana Vess, killed one of his beasts he flew into a rage and tracked her down, assaulting her in an ancient Onakke temple. The ageless necromancer was initially over-powered by Garruk, forcing her to use the artifact known as the Chain Veil she'd been sent to claim from the temple. Using the Chain Veil, Liliana overpowered him with a surge of black magic that cursed him, warping his summoning powers and wracking his body.[5] Desperate for a cure, Garruk planeswalked to a plane he had promised himself he would never visit again: the world-spanning metropolis of Ravnica.[6] Here, he confronted Jace Beleren and demanded to know where Vess was. After a short conflict, which resulted in an enraged Garruk completely overpowering Jace's best efforts before coming to his senses right before the killing blow, Jace told him her last known location.

Garruk travelled to an unnamed plane, working as a bounty hunter for a gorgon in return for information on Liliana's location.[3]

Innistrad

After an extended period of tracking, in which he approached any being that may have had contact with Liliana, he finally tracked her to the distant plane of Innistrad. As soon as he landed upon the plane in Kessig, he began searching ferociously for the death-mage. He crossed her path once in Nephalia, but was beset by her ghouls. He slew all of the undead that swarmed him, but it was enough to allow Liliana to escape, and more of his defenses crumbled as he succumbed to the horrible curse inflicted on him. He became mindless, wandering in circles and yelling incoherently at anything that crossed his path, be it man or animal. Truly, it seemed the end for the once great hunter.

Far away, the archangel Avacyn cast a spell called the Cursemute, and though it was not intended for the planeswalker, he was still affected by the magic. The holy magic washed over him and dulled the Chain Veil's influence, the curse was pushed into remission, temporarily freeing Garruk. He regained his senses for the moment and wandered to the road Liliana had taken. He knew that he could continue to track Liliana, but there was another hope if he chose to take it. He abandoned his pursuit, for now, and turned to the source of the Cursemute, hoping it would offer him a cure.[7]

His quest brought him to the town of Torbach and he sought shelter in the house of a dead woman. People believed Garruk had killed her, and the mysteries surrounding the strange bestial man brought Garruk to the attention of Odric, a high ranking officer in the church's service.[8] Odric trapped Garruk and sought to kill him, but spared his life at the insistence of his second in command. However, guilty of his crimes or not, Garruk would be thrown before Avacyn to answer for them. Odric drugged the planeswalker and prepared him for travel back to Thraben to stand trial. However, as the Curse progressed, Garruk became enraged and escaped Odric and his Riders.

The Apex Predator

Some time after leaving Innistrad, the Veil's Curse continued to worsen. His connection to nature and beasts was dulled, while his desire to hunt increased. While Garruk still hunted Liliana, he now viewed all Planeswalkers as the ultimate prey, losing the difference between being a hunter and a murderer. He had embraced the darkness, each kill causing him to throw more of his humanity away and becoming a greater monster of a man. During this time, Garruk was confronted by a planeswalker known as Vronos, the "Gray Fencer".[9] The elite inquisitor attempted to bring the tainted hunter back to the plane under Avacyn's command, in the hope to heal his curse. Vronos was quickly dispatched after a brief and disjointed clash. Garruk took the walker's mask as a trophy.

Garruk's plight caught the attention of Jace, who was now looking for a way to fix Garruk. Garruk travelled to Shandalar to complete his transformation, which would have destroyed the plane itself. After a battle in the Onakke Temple on Shandalar, a suppression Hedron was used to stop Garruk's transformation into a demon.[notes 1] According to some sources this was done by Jace, himself.[10] However, Jace was still unsure about Garruk's condition following the confrontation and sought him out. Masking himself as Liliana, Jace once more appeared before Garruk. However, the ruse was not effective and Garruk explained that though he was cursed, he enjoyed what he had become and wanted nothing more than to be left alone. With a final warning, Garruk told Jace that if he didn't heed his wishes, he wouldn't escape their next meeting.

After Jace left, Garruk relaxed as he had projected an aura of power to Jace when in reality he was still weakened. Shortly after Jace had left, Garruk was confronted by another planeswalker. The unnamed ice-wielding planeswalker whom he nicknamed "Icy".[11] As it happened, "Icy" had been hired by Vronos for "a great deal of money" to bring Garruk back to Avacyn on Innistrad. Garruk pointed out Vronos's mask hanging from his belt and, as Icy tried to not-so-subtly planeswalk away, Garruk decapitated him, noting his slowness. He then made his way towards his next unknown destination.

War of the Spark

While Bolas carried out his plans to harvest the spark of Planeswalkers on the plane of Ravnica, he devised a way to keep Garruk out of the war, thinking he would kill the planeswalkers that were meant to fuel his ascension to godhood.[12]

Trivia

Nerf Garruk Axe

Garruk's Axe by NERF

  • Garruk has apparently spent some time on the plane of Zendikar, having hunted wurms (and baloths, as seen in the first part of The Veil's Curse) in the Turntimbers of Murasa and having recognized the scroll which was the crux of conflict in Fuel for the Fire.
  • At San Diego Comic-Con 2014, six black on black Planeswalker cards could be bought together with a NERF Garruk Axe.[13]
  • Garruk was notably absent from War of the Spark. According to Mark Rosewater, because his hunter personality didn't fit story wise and because R&D had other plans for him.[14] Also, Mark Rosewater confirmed that Nicol Bolas specifically spent energy in order for Garruk NOT to appear on Ravnica because he would have killed planeswalkers before the dragon could harvest their sparks.[12]

Planeswalkers met

Planes visited

Story appearances

Title Author Publishing date Set Setting (plane) Featuring
Odric, Master Tactitian Jenna Helland 2012-06-27 Magic 2013 Innistrad Odric, Garruk
Beast Tom LaPille 2014-06-18 Magic 2015 Innistrad Garruk
The Hunter Cannot Pity Jennifer Clarke Wilkes 2014-07-16 Magic 2015 Innistrad, Esper Vronos, Avacyn, Garruk
Monster Ken Troop 2014-08-20 Magic 2015 Shandalar Garruk, Jace Beleren, Icy

In-game references

Represented in :

Depicted in:

Quoted or Referred to in:

Gallery

Notes

References

  1. Garruk Wildspeaker at the Planeswalker Minisite (dead link)
  2. Doug Beyer (October 24, 2007). "Planeswalkers Unmasked". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  3. a b Doug Beyer (December 17, 2009). "The Wild Son". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  4. Doug Beyer, Jason Shawn Alexander, Jenna Helland et al. (July 30, 2008). "The Hunter and the Veil". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  5. Kelly Digges (July 22, 2015). "Catching Up". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  6. Doug Beyer (August 11, 2009). "The Veil's Curse". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  7. Tom LaPille (June 18, 2014). "Beast". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  8. Jenna Helland (June 27, 2012). "Odric, Master Tactician". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  9. Jennifer Clarke Wilkes (July 16, 2014). "The Hunter Cannot Pity". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  10. Mel Li (August 19, 2015). "Checking in on the Planeswalkers (2015)". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  11. Ken Troop (August 20, 2014). "Monster". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  12. a b Mark Rosewater (May 13, 2019). "Odds & Ends: War of the Spark". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  13. Blake Rasmussen (July 11, 2014). "San Diego Comic-Con 2014". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  14. Mark Rosewater (April 01, 2019). "Is there a reason in the storyline as to why Garruk doesn't show up to the plane with 36 planeswalkers?". Blogatog. Tumblr.
  15. Tom LaPille (July 1, 2011). "A 'Walker on the Wild Side". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  16. Tom LaPille (September 02, 2011). "Garruk Flips Out". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  17. Trick Jarrett (July 01, 2013). "Looking at Garruk". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
Advertisement