Creature (24)
Land (24)
Instant (7)
Planeswalker (2)
Sorcery (3)
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Sorcery (5)
Enchantment (2)
Maybeboard
Creature (1)
Welcome to my take on Standard Golgari Midrange! To learn more about the deck, just click on one of the below bars to get more information. I hope you enjoy the new build as I have incorporated an additional twist of a combo alternate wincon!
If you like this deck, your upvote is appreciated!
Well, my preferred format (Pioneer) is no longer played at my lgs, and it's 70 miles (about 113 km) to the next closest store. However, the store is making at least some effort to get Standard going, so I decided to give it a try. I've kept my eye on Standard ever since I stopped playing when the Pioneer format was created, and I have always really liked Golgari decks. If you look at some of my decks, you'll also notice a fondness for deathtouch, and even some fondness for poison counters. With this in mind, I started looking at Standard legal Golgari decks and quickly realized they are mainly piles of good cards, i.e., there are a lot of flavors of Golgari and a lot of card flexibility.
As a result, this deck was born.
I recently watched SaffronOlive demonstrate a Pioneer deck of demon tribal. It's a "fair" deck that also has an alternative scam-style wincon that can come out of nowhere using Unstoppable Slasher and Bloodletter of Aclazotz. The combo is simple: play Unstoppable Slasher, then stick a Bloodletter of Aclazotz and get combat damage with the Unstoppable Slasher. The text of Unstoppable Slasher says that if it deals combat damage that the recipient of the damage loses half their life total, and the Bloodletter of Aclazotz says if an opponent loses life this turn, then double that life loss-- and that applies to the life loss from Unstoppable Slasher! Thus, in a single hit we can kill our opponent!
This is definitely a midrange deck and it plays like it. We take some early hits from aggro, hopefully keeping them at least a bit at bay with efficient removal like Go for the Throat and Anoint with Affliction, maybe a small amount of hand manipulation with Duress and Deep-Cavern Bat. In this build, we even have a turn 1 creature, Venerated Rotpriest, that can cause some misdirection and confusion with the deck as people will think we're on a throw-back toxic deck. In reality, most of the Golgari decks only have Duress as a 1 drop, so I decided to add some Venerated Rotpriest as a bit of spice and to give us another turn 1 option.
As we progress to turns 3 through 5 or so, we can start to get out a Glissa Sunslayer, a Liliana of the Veil, or set up our alternate wincon with Unstoppable Slasher. To be very fair, Unstoppable Slasher is a strong card on its own, and I was already considering adding it to the deck. Even Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor is a solid turn 3 play, though I would play Unstoppable Slasher or Glissa Sunslayer first, if either of those options are available.
As we enter the true midgame in turns 4 through 6 or so, we hope to have a Bloodletter of Aclazotz in hand to play on curve, but if not, then Sheoldred, the Apocalypse can start to do her work. Coupling Sheoldred, the Apocalypse with Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor is great! We get to draw cards and gain life because of Sheoldred's trigger! If Glissa Sunslayer is available, we effectively gain life here, too, with Sheoldred out. In a few quick games against aggro, my life total got pushed down pretty low, but then these cards hit the battlefield and started doing their work and turning the game around to our favor.
NOTE: I only own a single copy of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse that I was fortunate enough to pull from a set booster (remember those???), but if I could, I would definitely play 2 of them-- but I can make a solid argument that my single copy is plenty with this current build.
This combo has been explained in the Combo Strategy section, but here's the brief summary: get Unstoppable Slasher and Bloodletter of Aclazotz onto the battlefield, deal damage with the Slasher so the opponent loses half their life and the Bloodletter doubles that life loss to end the game on the spot.
Unstoppable Slasher is a very, very interesting Magic card. at , we get a 2/3 with deathtouch which would ordinarily be pretty meh. However, the additional novel-length text that WotC now adds to every card states that our opponent loses half their life (rounded up) if this creature does combat damage. A single hit could do a lot more than the 2 damage that the power of this creature indicates!
Bloodletter of Aclazotz is a good card by itself-- a 2/4 flier that doubles any opponent life loss during our turn is just a quality card. It effectively doubles the power of all of our creatures. Yes, the can be rough, so we have to go virtually all-in on our mana, but I think it's worth it. Oh, and the combo thing. Yeah, that's pretty good, too.
Liliana of the Veil is just such a strong card. It basically gives us an additional removal spell, and if left unchecked will crush our opponent's board.
Deep-Cavern Bat gives us some early hand control and a flier, so not bad. This can easily disrupt our opponent's game plan, or at least slow it down by a turn.
Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor
draws us cards whenever we do combat damage, and it can serve as a place to use mana late game if we're grinding out a long game. Really, though, the card draw is pretty incredible.
Glissa Sunslayer is a 3/3 for with a lot of upside and flexibility. Did I mention the firststrike AND deathtouch? That's a ridiculous combination on a single card!
Mosswood Dreadknight was a pretty good card. We can use it to dig through the deck before we get some of our other card draw engines out (e.g., Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, Glissa Sunslayer), then cast it and use it to saddle the Caustic Bronco, or just swing in with the trample. It's a really good card in a "pile of good cards."
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is arguably the best card in Standard. It's so powerful. The 5 toughness makes it hard to kill, the deathtouch gives our opponents pause, and the life gain/drain can be backbreaking for opponents.
Venerated Rotpriest is really here as an additional 1-drop. Most Golgari builds only have Duress as the 1-drop. I prefer to have just a bit more available on turn 1, so I added this overlooked gem. We have a lot of creatures, and with Venerated Rotpriest we make our opponents pay (in poison!) to target them with removal.
Duress lets us clear the way for our combo, playing one of our other high-end creatures (e.g., Glissa Sunslayer or Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor or Shoeldred The Apocalypse), see what our opponent is trying to do, and generally advancing our game.
Anoint with Affliction exiles our target and has the bonus of doing more if our Venerated Rotpriest has been able to stack some poison counters on our opponent.
Go for the Throat is the premium removal in Standard at the moment. Efficient, instant speed, and easy to cast.
The sideboard is largely net-decked. Hey, just being honest. I haven't had a lot of chance to play this deck against a wide variety of decks, so a sideboard guide will have to be developed. For now, I see the logic of including these cards, but I will reserve comment until I have had more chance to tweak the sideboard to my liking.
I think this version of Golgari would easily hold its own against the current "tuned" builds in the format. The addition of the scam-style wincon is solid and I think actually makes the deck a bit more efficient.
Put bluntly, this is a pile of good Standard-legal cards that should and does win games. Enjoy!
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Casual
94% Competitive
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 1 month |
| Last updated | 2 weeks |
| Legality | This deck is Standard legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 9 - 0 Mythic Rares 25 - 1 Rares 10 - 13 Uncommons 6 - 1 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.42 |
| Tokens | Food, On an Adventure |
| Folders | Standard Decks I Did Not Make, Standeck |
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