Slogurk Self-mill standard deck I've been working on for the past year or so. This iteration of the deck feels the most competitive It has ever felt and I really think it is a high-tier deck in the current standard metagame. I have a 29-13 record in Bo3 on the MTGA leaderboard in the mid diamond ranks (started in low gold). This is good for a 69% winrate, which has impressed me greatly. This breakthrough in the deck's competitiveness came with the addition of Otherworldly Gaze and the emphasis on removal in the current meta.
Here is a breakdown on how the deck works:
The overarching strategy for this deck is self-mill and punching through damage with Slogurk, the Overslime and Cruel Somnophage. Slogurk has trample, so it is easily the best late game threat in this deck. Slogurk also has abilities which allow it to be pumped at instant speed, and can also be bounced to hand to avoid removal or unsafe situations. I will get more into this later in this Description.
The self-mill strategies are as follows. Turns 1-3 are the turns where you want to build up your graveyard. This can be done through Otherworldly Gaze, the adventure side of Cruel Somnophage, Faerie Dreamthief, Invasion of Amonkhet
, Old Rutstein, and Blanchwood Prowler. Blanchwood Prowler is sneakily the best card in this deck since this deck is mana hungry and has an even split of Sultai colors which means finding every color by turn three is very important. Blanchwood Prowler also plays very well with Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler as a reanimation target. Activating Tyvar to bring back a Prowler will mill 6 cards which is a great way to pump a Slogurk or Somnophage. Anyways, never mill the opponent unless there is a weird scenario where it might be beneficial.
LANDS: You might have noticed that there are at least 2 copies of each of the sultai NEO lands. This deck plays a lot of lands, and these lands have dual purposes as spells. Their interaction with Slogurk means that they can be discarded for their abilities, which pumps Slogurk, and then can be returned to the hand whenever Slogurk leaves the battlefield. If Slogurk got targeted with a removal spell, discarding one of these lands with their channel ability allows them to be returned to hand instantly as Slogurk dies. Or maybe the channel ability gets Slogurk to 3 +1/+1 counters which allows you to bounce Slogurk and get the lands back anyways. As you can probably tell, their are a lot of intricate interactions between the lands, slogurk, Somnophage, and other cards in the deck. That can make this deck very difficult to pilot correctly, but it is a very rewarding experience once you get the hand of it. Think of the channel lands as lands, spells, and combat tricks. Sometimes playing a second copy of one of the NEO lands can also be advantageous since you have to sac one which will trigger Slogurk.
Cards to look out for: This deck gets absolutely destroyed by Farewell. Luckily, with the addition of Sunfall to the meta, I have rarely if ever come across Farewell recently. The negates are one way of trying to deal with these board wipes. Another pesky card is Graveyard Tresspasser. This is a must remove for me, as it can selectively pick off useful cards from the graveyard. The same with Unlicensed Hearse.
Decks that are tough matchups: The G/W enchantments deck can be tough to keep up with. Boseiju, Who Endures is a great card here, but it often isn't enough. I run 2 copies of Cankerbloom in the sideboard to help combat this deck. It is worth noting that Cankerbloom is a really great Tyvar reanimation target. Sometimes allowing you to shoot down 2 enchantments in a single turn. I haven't had too much trouble with any of the other decks, but some planeswalker control decks can be a battle to get through.
Sideboard:
Negate is great vs control/planeswalker/sweepers/reanimation.
Cut Down for the aggro decks
Undead Butler for aggro decks/sweepers that don't exile/removal heavy decks
Cankerbloom for GW Enchantments/Wedding Announcement
/BR artifacts/Unlicensed Hearse
Pile On for planeswalkers/midrange/sheoldred
Gix's Command for aggro/BR artifacts/Tokens
Sheoldred
for low creature count decks/planeswalker
Turn the Earth for reanimation decks/Unlicensed Hearse/other graveyard interaction
The Turn the Earth are the least used card currently, but are very great vs Atraxa reanimation decks. I don't see as many Atraxa decks anymore, so this is probably a good candidate to be removed from the deck.
Have fun and let me know if you have any feedback, comments, or suggestions!
