I like your deck. For a first deck, it's definitely a good one ! I have some suggestions to make your deck more consistent. I hope you will like those suggestions.

1- Put more lands !!! I would probably play at least 23 lands in a deck like yours.

2- Make your creature with 13 +1/+1 on it trample so it doesn't get blocked by a 1/1 token... To do so, you could use a card like Rancor witch is one of the best green card in standard.

3- Jarad's Orders and Treasured Find are great cards to search for your winning cards, but in the mean time, your not putting any pressure on your opponent. I suggest you just put more winning conditions like Protean Hydra , Vigor and Scute Mob that you already have in your sideboard and maybeboard.

4- Dreg Mangler and Thragtusk are awesome cards for sure, but they don't help you put more counters on your creature (easily) and I don't think they benefit from it enough to justifies there play in your deck. For that reason, I would remove them.

On the other hand, It think you should keep Bioshift , Corpsejack Menace , Death's Shadow , Lotleth Troll , Vampire Nighthawk and Varolz, the Scar-Striped . They deserve to be in your deck.

Your deck looks like a lot of fun and I will test it when I get the time.

I have made some test and I must say, Jarad's Orders is awesome to get Varolz, the Scar-Striped on my hand and Death's Shadow on the graveyard. I would play 1 or 2 of it. You lose one turn if Varolz, the Scar-Striped is not already on the table, but it's worth the waiting if you don't lose the game in the process.

@ jokercrow

Thanks for the suggestions and play testing! This deck has gone through several evolutions since I first started modifying the pre-configured Golgari deck; especially once I have up on the standard format since my usual play group use a lot of really old (& powerful) cards.

I completely agree with the placement of the 13 +1/+1 counters. I try to put them on Lotleth Troll for his Trample and Regenerate (discard) ability and even on Vampire Nighthawk for lifelink and death touch. So even if they do block I build life and wipe out the creature. Adding Rancor could be great for to add trample to the nighthawk in addition to the other two abilities.

I've added and removed Jarad's Orders and Treasured Find so many times to make room for other creatures, but it just made the deck more unpredictable. Dreg Mangler is a remnant of that unpredictability... so I had something to scavange if Varolz, the Scar-Striped didn't turn up. So with the added control I think you're right that I can pull him out of this deck... and possibly even Slitherhead . That easily makes room for 6 of the cards in the sideboard and/or maybe.

I just recently added Thragtusk . But that was before I happened across Vigor and Protean Hydra while searching a card database for a different deck. The life gain and token generation would definitely be better suited to a Selesnya deck I'm working on - yet to be entered on here.

I'll test the removal of Dreg Mangler and Slitherhead , replacing them with 2 Protean Hydra , 2 Scute Mob , 1 Plains , 1 Swamp ... after I procure them. Hopefully I can get them at a card shop this weekend.

I think that Deathrite Shaman would be a good sideboard card, possibly taking out Gaze of Granite or Golgari Charm . I dont know for sure but if Verdant Catacombs is modern but if your not worried about money it is a great card. It will also make Deathrite Shaman a lot better.

@ 000000mattDeathrite Shaman is a fun card and this deck had 4 of them at one point. I took them out because the utility was not there that I expected. I scavenge the creatures, and there aren't many sorcery or instants to be useful with the abilities. I will either build a deck around Deathrite Shaman that is full of land cycle cards, instants, and sorcery... or it will be added to a Korozda Guildmage / Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord deck. I think probably the later... where Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord gets bumped up with graveyard and sacraficed with Korozda Guildmage for saproling creation.

Kalonian hydra would make scavenged creatures rediculous especially after a turn 2 lotleth troll turn 3 varolz and turn 4 corpsejack he may not scavenge but he's worth it+1 by the way

@Lordofevolution: Thanks for the +1! Kalonian Hydra could be a good sideboard card or maybe a one of in the main deck. Of all the hydras I play tested it had the most utility. Primordial Hydra was good too, but was replaced with Vampire Nighthawk for the 3 CMC to have at least one creature with flying. Kalonian Hydra will probably work better when I work out a protection strategy; especially against blue counter and bounce spells.

Grisly Salvage for potentially dumping the right guys to the gy and digging in for the one you want to play. Lotleth troll does feed the gy but salvage helps card fix so you get that menace out t4. Increasing Savagery and Gyre Sage are also great counter cards with corpsejack. Also Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord is a devistating finisher for these colors.

Necropolis Regent might also work in here in fact it would get crazy with Kalonian Hydra attack on turn six with the hydra , the hydra is an 8/8 hits the person for 8 hydra is now a 16/16 next turn attack hydra is now 32/32 and after is a 64/64 even more insane with corpsejack menace

Necropolis Regent is sick but with his mana cost you need to be playing more control and protection like a set of golgari charm set of abrupt decay and probably doom blade or Hero's Downfall

@Felixlives, Thank you for the card suggestions.

Until this morning Gyre Sage was in the maybe board for a mana source, but didn't help as much as expected. Putting 13 counters on it by scavenging Death's Shadow might be cool if I could turn some of the green mana black.

Grisly Salvage was replaced a long time ago by Jarad's Orders for control and consistency. A lower cmc alternative would be nice, hence Fauna Shaman in the maybe board. Grisly Salvage is being tested in the legacy version but I suspect Buried Alive and/or Survival of the Fittest will be the winner though.

Pulling off Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord after putting a huge amount of counters on a creature is really hard. My play group tend to team up against me when they see this deck. Sack and Sap is a deck idea with Korozda Guildmage , Tree of Redemption , Marrow Chomper , and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord .

Death's Shadow makes more than enough very cheap counters making Increasing Savagery unnecessarily expensive. If you have suggestions to protect the counters and creatures they are on that would be a big help.

@Lordofevolution and Felixlives:I agree Necropolis Regent would be brutal! And yes even more awesome with Kalonian Hydra ... and Corpsejack Menace ... To add them both I would have to make so many changes to mana ramp it would be a totally different deck.

So... a new deck it will be! ...with Gyre Sage as the target of counters when Death's Shadow is scavenged. So, how can that green mana be turned green?

Naw you already got Bioshift theres Death's Presence but thats mostly good with a sac outlet

In a deck like this a card that really makes a big difference when getting counters like this on your creatures is Dying Wish it's far better than Essence Harvest on your maybeboard. For example, your opponnent is stuck to a decision where he/she has to choose to remove whatever creature being a 15/15 Varolz now or later . If now he/she takes 15 damage and you gain that much. If he/she waits then they have to find a way to deal with varolz without killing him or unless they destroy the enchantment...in other words a creature will continue to grow with counters if not dealt with making Dying Wish and the creature much more dangerous.

I would also take out Gaze of Granite it will pretty much kill all your creatures. You do have Golgari Charm to regenerate but of course all depends how you use your mana and you don't have any mana ramp for it. Its not worth keeping...Maybe you can replace it with Dying Wish if you choose to use it.

+1 by the way!! I have a similar deck but fairly different same concept!! :D

Its not bad if you draw into the perfect hand it can get kinda clunky if you dont. Id say add some Doom Blade its kind of a comboish deck and often times it takes a while to dig out combo pieces you need to keep control of the board untill then with kill spells. So far my favorite hand is 3 land Tormented Soul Death's Shadow Varolz, the Scar-Striped and Corpsejack Menace t1 play tormented soul t2 play deaths shadow t3 play varols t4 play jack t5 put 26 counters on tormented soul. In modern non casual game that is pretty slow. Only decks ive ever played in a modern tournament all had t3 win potential. Infect, kiln fiend pauper, and delver will dominate this deck 9-10 times but as a casual deck this is pretty lolzy. I personally would cut Necropolis Regent for Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord hes easier to cast and can kill multiple players with his sac ability.

Thanks xKrenko, Gaze of Granite is side boarded to wipe out token creatures; several of my play group's decks run a lot of tokens... as do a few of my other decks. If Dying Wish would trigger with bounce, flicker, or exile I would make the change. My friends usually don't kill creatures in this deck, once they are buffed with counters. But I have to contend with the effects above... usually attributed to blue.

And, Felixlives, I put in the one copy of Necropolis Regent to see what would happen, but you're right it wasn't as useful as I'd hoped... partly because there was just the one copy, but I'm not cutting more of the other creatures to make room for extra copies. For now it is replaced with a 4th copy of Tormented Soul . Eventually I would like to add more protection from blue, bounce, flicker, and exile... that really seems to be the deck's biggest weakness at the moment. I'm considering Skylasher or Thrun, the Last Troll .

Yeah not really much to protect against blue except maybe Alpha Authority i dont remember what set Ranger's Guile was last printed in. But as far as removal protection you already got golgari charm and theres Mending Touch

So...-1x Corpsejack Menace ; rarely played anyway, except in longer multiplayer games-1x Vines of Vastwood +2 Alpha Authority

Bioshift doesn't seem that great, though I haven't playtested this list. It feels like those slots would be better with more ways to protect your creatures, like Ranger's Guile , or with more ways to enable your graveyard, like Mulch . Regardless, looks like a really fun deck!

@CogMonocle: let me know what you think after you playtest. I find Bioshift incredibly useful and provides a considerable amount of control, especially during combat. Atypical for Golgari, but the only card I really want in my graveyard is Death's Shadow . So far Jarad's Orders has been the most reliable and consistent method to achieve that and get whatever other creature I need for the scavange synergy... be it Varolz, the Scar-Striped or one of the three attackers. If I have everyone in play I want I seek 2 Death's Shadow and discard 1 with Lotleth Troll before scavenging both.

If you need another big-power graveyard-creature, one is Force of Savagery