Caes,

Thanks for reading my comment over. I appreciate the detailed response. Here are some brief follow ups to see if any clarification or further help might be of use to you:

I missed the fact that Sinister Concoction kills Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, which seems sweet after the rise of Jeskai Nahiri. That's probably worth leaving it in. My thoughts on the copies of Grafdigger's Cage in the Sideboard are that they hose dredge hard, and, if you side them in in place of the copies of Eldritch Evolution, they don't hurt your plan. They also buy you time to win past artifact and enchantment removal out of Dredge. I thought about what you said of the Fauna Shamans, and I still wondered if Grim Flayer, which needs to connect early to fill the yard, but does come down big for cheap later, will give you more value. I hope your testing proves it worth including, but if it does not, I had a secondary thought: Do you really need any more Delirium enablers in those slots, or could you just play Tarmogoyf (though not easy on the budget at all). That would compliment the midrange element of your build quite well, I think. I also wondered if your plan would be fast enough to include the extra maindeck Maelstrom Pulse if you could race with Tarmogoyf and support with your other removal spells. Something about it, though slow, seems powerful enough as a catch-all and made me want to bring it up one more time. Lastly, I wondered if you might be able to find a way to work two or so copies of Treetop Village into the main. It has a way of sneakily winning games.

Anyhow, the deck is awesome. Can't wait to hear how you do with it once it's tuned.

Out of curiosity, what have you tested against? A good spread of everything? I'd be interested to know.

-Wrighter

Wrighter, Some more fine points! Let's dive in:

• Regarding Dredge, I believe I have relatively positive match-up against this deck already, especially against versions running Bridge from Below. Devoted Druid, Evolutionary Leap, Eldritch Evolution, and any of my kill spells all allow me to exile any bridges my opponent has in their graveyard and this greatly reduces the speed of their deck. Mainboard Scavenging Oozes also do great work against both versions, but the Conflagrate version in particular; eating the namesake spell and their Bloodghasts and amalgams. Not to mention Languish and Maelstrom Pulse acting as Fogs to buy time to combo off and the Devoted Druid + Grim Poppet combo completely shuts down their deck. I am, however, strongly considering adding a Nihil Spellbomb to my sideboard to fight other graveyard decks and enable delirium. The fact that it replaces itself is also nice.

• Regarding Fauna Shaman and Grim Flayer: On its own, Fauna Shaman is remarkably slow and fragile. The greatest value that comes out of Fauna Shaman is using her ability in combination with Devoted Druid's abilities with Necrotic Ooze in order to put a sequence of creatures into the graveyard in one fell swoop, usually winning in that turn. To this end, I found 4 was way too many, but I now also believe 1 is too few. I'm going to try slotting in a second one in place of a Grisly Salvage. Grim Flayer gets the nod over Tarmogoyf in this deck due to its ability to encompass everything I am trying to do. Whether I am on the combo plan or the midrange plan, I am always happy to see it. Think of it as a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none kind of deal. It is outclassed in combat by Tarmogoyf and outclassed in filtering by Grisly Salvage, but the fact that I need both of those aspects in this deck and it can do both of those things in an above average way is the reason I run it. Even if I didn't have the delirium component in the deck, the filtering ability of the flayer is so useful for setting up both my future draws and the graveyard combo. I almost never top deck useless lands in the late game when I have an active flayer.

• Finally, regarding Treetop Village: I used to run two before I swapped over to the Phyrexian Obliterator sideboard plan. When I adopted the Obliterators, I had to start running 2-3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to consistently hit on turn 4. Then Hissing Quagmire was released and I cut back on the Urborgs and swapped the two villages for quagmires. After that Traverse the Ulvenwald was released and I cut back on a land to run a couple. With only 22 lands, the frequency of the Hissing Quagmires to set me back a turn by ETB tapped increased to the point where I chose to cut one when I added Grier Reach Sanitarium. Long story short, entering tapped is to much of a drawback with only 22 lands to be worth the extra aggressiveness Treetop Village would add.

With all of that in mind, I believe the changes I would like to test next are:

-3 Grisly Salvage

+1 Fauna Shaman

+1 Traverse the Ulvenwald

+1 Liliana, the Last Hope

Thank you very much for the input you've given! I've really had to think deep to answer some of your questions about my card choices for this deck, which has in turn increased my own understanding of how it works. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the planned changes.

Oh, and so far I've had the chance to play against, Naya Zoo, Grixis Control, UG Infect, Merfolk, Bridge/Gargadon Dredge, Thing Ascension, Kiki Evolution, Grixis Emerge, Jeskai Nahiri, BW Eldrazi and Taxes, and a few others.

Nice work on this deck (and all the explanations) :)

Caes,

 Thank you for reading them! And in turn, thank you for the thoughtful responses. Comments on comments also help me learn. I like cutting the salvages from the list. I think you have a strong game with turn two Grim Flayer or Devoted Druid, and the second Fauna Shaman makes a lot of sense to me. Did you manage to find room for the second Eternal Witness? This is the one thought I have on the planned changes: Eternal Witness makes everything you're doing work well with a midrange plan two. I think two will help you win longer matchups. That's quite the testing run! The Hole I see in it is Tron. Do you beat them if you can't combo off before they reach Tron? Wondered if that might be a sideboard consideration. Might just be one of the matchups you're okay with losing to once or twice in a tournament. Thanks for reading on. Maybe I'll make some decks public for people to look at now too. I could use some peer advice!

Hope the thoughts help, -Wrighter

Wrighter

I'm testing Liliana, the Last Hope in place of the second Eternal Witness as Liliana essentially does the same thing as the witness with her -2, but also has the ability to continually give me value if she sticks around. The fact that she is a planeswalker and she mills cards also aids in setting up delirium not that I don't have Grisly Salvage. If Liliana doesn't work out I'll swap her for the second witness.

Regarding Tron, I just haven't had the chance to play against it yet. It has generally fallen from favor when Eye of Ugin was banned. Most tron deck are turning to the mono versions. Past experience against Tron with older versions of this deck lead me to believe there is not much I can do about their nut draws of Turn 3 tron into threat after threat, but at the same time they are typically removal light and I've killed more than a few tron players with Turn 2 Devoted Druid into Turn 3 Quillspike.

Caes,

 I failed to notice that it was Liliana, the Last Hope rather than Liliana of the Veil. That seems wise. Tron may just have to be a 40%-60% match up, which is fine. Anyhow, hope testing goes well. Good luck!

-Wrighter

Please update the description btw love the deck +1

Tappedchutoy789

Thanks for the support. I've brought the description up to date. The main changes were Liliana, the Last Hope's description and the Feedback section.

Though it's only marginal, you could adjust a few lands. Consider dropping 2 Polluted Delta. They can be replaced with 1 Marsh Flats and 1 Bloodstained Mire. This would matter in those rare abstract moments when people try to Surgical Extraction.

veeonix

If Surgical Extraction is being cast against this deck, fetches are the last thing they are looking to target, but you're right in that there is no real downside to diversifying my fetches.

Have you considered Myr Propagator as your Necrotic Ooze generator over Pack Rat? Makes it so that you don't have to discard each time you make a new one (though I understand why you would want to discard as well).

budlaorf

While Myr Propagator works more efficiently at creating copies of necrotic ooze, ( Quillspike, Devoted Druid, and Myr Propagator make infinite necrotic oozes) I like Pack Rat better as you said for the ability to discard other combo pieces and because it can just take over games on its own if my opponent cannot remove it. Thanks for the input though!

Hi, I'm trying to make ooze work as well, the hard part is that it's much slower than the faster decks of the format (I mean if dredge play turn one Cathartic Reunion almost no deck can survive at the moment). I wanted to share my list with you since it's slightly different.

• lands:
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 4 Temple of Malady (it's a pretty good turn 1 and this list had no other play t1 anyways)
• 1 Cavern of Souls (I admit it's much better in your list with traverse)
• 4 Forest

• 3 Swamp

• creatures :

• 4 Necrotic Ooze
• 4 Quillspike
• 4 Devoted Druid
• 4 Fauna Shaman (i read you don't like it x4 but heh...)
• 1 Shriekmaw
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Thornling (haste indestructibility and trample, also some decks can't deal with it)
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder (early blocking/fixing against aggro and can be used when they path ooze)
• 1 Lotleth Troll
• 1 Grim Poppet
• 1 Butcher of the Horde (free haste on ooze by sacrificing a combo piece which is game instantly)
• 1 Molten-Tail Masticore (regen is meh, but 4 damage for each exiled creature means you don't need to deal with ensnaring bridge and can win instantly anytime with fauna shaman devoted druid and quillspike in the graveyard)
• 1 Prognostic Sphinx (hexproof and discard combo pieces for free)

• 1 Squee, Goblin Nabob (for grindy games)

• sorceries:

• 1 Collective Brutality

• 1 Maelstrom Pulse

• instants:

• 2 Makeshift Mannequin (instant ooze into instant win, the sacrifice when triggered part doesn't happen using your own abilities as none of them actually trigger ooze!)
• 1 Abrupt Decay
• 3 Grisly Salvage

• 3 Grapple with the Past

• planewalkers:

• 1 Liliana, the Last Hope

• sideboard:

• 1 Big Game Hunter (eldrazi, and nice with the self discard in the deck)
• 2 Reclamation Sage (I like that you can fetch them with the fauna shaman)
• 1 Vampire Hexmage (mainly for planewalkers)
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 2 Kitchen Finks
• 1 Gnaw to the Bone
• 2 Fulminator Mage (mostly for tron, I actually fantasize about T1 bird, T2 fulminator, t3 ooze but it's another deck)
• 2 Ravenous Trap
• 2 Eternal Witness
• 1 Cinderhaze Wretch (if you're scared they'll extirpate devoted druid you have a backup plan, also when you go off you can make them discard their entire hand just because you can, you should almost never cast this)
• 1 Darkblast

I really like Traverse the Ulvenwald in your list though, I definitely have to try it out. (and it gives me a turn 1 play). I'd also love to play more hand disruption but I'm not sure what to remove (Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek and Harsh Scrutiny would be good before going off and it can even help to discard combo pieces in your own hand)

sorkarg

Using Cinderhaze Wretch as a backup untap effect is an excellent idea. I've just updated my list to include Aether Revolt cards (Walking Ballista was great at FNM last Friday by the way), so I'll throw a Cinderhaze Wretch in as well to see how it plays.

But where did all the Phyrexian Obliterator's go? :(

Squirrel_of_War

Fear not! The Obliterators are exactly where they have always been: in the Sideboard. Their purpose is to be brought in for game 2 of a match in place of some or all of the combos in the deck to give the deck an effective win condition that is unaffected by the inevitable graveyard hate opponents will bring in.

Most interesting, +1 definitely from me.

@Caes

here's my current decklist if you're interested in my (numerous) changes http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/golgari-ooze-midrange-combo/

I've written quite an extensive amount on ooze and explain the utilisation of each card. I am getting some decent results with it at about 60% winrate in serious tournaments and edging towards 75% in fnm type tournaments. Yesterday I fell at 10th place at a gp trial :( next time top 8!

For the moment I've had good results against ad nauseam, kiki jikki, abzan coco, eldrazi, blue moon, junk, emeria, GR tron, rakdos control, dredge and elves

50/50 results against : jund, infect, goryo griselbrand, sun and moon, UW control without spell queller, esper control, grixis delver, affinity, bushwhacker goblins, hatebears

bad results against : burn, death shadow, faeries, jeksai control, any deck with spell queller, mardu control, grixis control, esper control, ponza

these results are based on a few hundred games since october with an ever evolving list and against a lot of opponent who have no idea what's going on, so your mileage might vary. (it's so annoying to go infinite on mtgo I kinda play only with real cards now)

I really enjoy how combo-y this deck is!

+1! I really like this deck. Im currently looking to get into Modern and I would like to play a versitile combo or toolbox deck. I really like E. Evolution. Great deck.

Love the deck

Myr Propagator... paired with Parallel Lives... or Illusionist's Bracers.

Surgical Extraction over Sadistic Sacrament, otherwise, sideboard looks solid assuming a unknown meta. +1