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Varolz And His Happy Butcher Shop

Commander / EDH* BG (Golgari) Sacrifice

cameronhawk2

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CreatureCMC0 (2)

CreatureCMC1 (5)

CreatureCMC2 (4)

CreatureCMC3 (6)

CreatureCMC4 (6)

CreatureCMC5 (6)

CreatureCMC6 (1)

CreatureCMC8 (1)

CreatureCMC 10 (1)

CreatureCheat (3)

Draw (6)

Lands (22)

LandsFetch (4)

LandsUtility (6)

ManaRamp (3)

Plansewalkers (1)

Reanimation (7)

Removal (6)

Tutor/CardSelection (9)

Commander (1)

Commander: Varolz, the Scar-Striped

Maybeboard

BetterTutors (1)

Control (4)

NotSureHowIFeel (5)

Other (3)

Lands (3)

Tobuy (36)

A History of the Butcher

This deck is my child. It's my first EDH deck and through the years I have played the deck it's gone through it's fair share of changes. The original deck was just another Varolz scavenge deck, dump some cheap high power creatures into the grave, scavenge, then swing and deal damage. Over time and with much refinement (mainly against one friend and his annoying deck) I started to steer the deck towards a control style that uses sacrifice triggers to cause edict effects for the opponents. To push my deck to further greatness I started ramping up the competitive aspect of the deck, focusing on more efficient creatures and better death effects. It was around that time that Protean Hulk got unbanned and a horrible OTK hulk deck born.

After a year had passed and my thirst for a turn one kill was pretty much sated I started to reel back the competitive nature of the deck and started to shift it towards a competitive deck that doesn't try to win one turn one or two. Now after many years the deck is finally settling down into it's final form.

And once again the changes continue! After playing more and more I finally made a difficult choice and have continued to lower the power level of the deck, and while the deck is no where close to what I would consider a casual deck, it's a lot more taimed than it used to be.

No, Gosh No. For reanimator style decks there are so many better choices, all of which include additional colors. Remember, more colors always gets you more choices. Heck, if you're being a little stickler and wanted to remain in Golgari for reanimator, there are better choices like Meren of Clan Nel Toth, she'll definitely recur more than Varolz ever could. But Varolz can offer on thing that makes up for the lack of additional colors:

he can sacrifice creatures.

and by gosh he needs it. He's so useless besides that... literally every set I'm hoping for a creature that can replace him...

Deck Overview

There's actually a lot of synergy in this deck. After so much refining there are a lot of small things that one might overlook when piloting the deck on the whole!

There's other more generic synergies within the deck rather than combos, like Scroll Rack with anything that shuffles the deck.

If you so happen to like my deck and would like to build it for yourself this panel will help if you ever feel like editing the deck. The cards below are central to deck and could be considered the core.

While these cards are considered my key cards I wouldn't say they are as core to my deck as I might have thought before. I have actually gotten rid a cards that I used to have listed here mainly because they were forcing the deck to play into a more unfair style.

Reanimate and Entomb, while being the best at what they do, more so represent needing cards within that concept as a whole. I mean... to be a reanimator deck you need cards that reanimate creatures and cards that can have sent those creatures to the graveyard in the first place.

I could say the same about Bolas's Citadel and Necropotence, they represent card draw within the deck, and while they can be comboed with a lot of other cards in my deck, you do not absolutely need them.

So last time I edited this page, which was around 2020, I had talked in one of these sections about adding a land package into my deck. I already had Ramunap Excavator and Azusa, Lost but Seeking, both of which preformed amazingly in my deck, so I wanted to play around with the thought of adding more.

Well, if you looked through my card list before reading any of this then you'll have noticed that I, in fact, have added a land package, and just like the previous two cards it's an overall preformace boost which I am exremelly happy I added.

These are actually a bunch of the cards that I have added which work wonderfully together. A lot of them work in conjunction with the reanimator playstyle of the deck as well, while also giving me a lot more needed interaction for opponents.

I mean this panel is more of a statement rather than anything else. I mentioned before this deck is basically my child, so I'm slowly trying to get a fun or unique version of every card!

I've already collected a lot, but I've added a section in my maybe board that's labeled "To buy" and it contains the version of the cards I want to collect.

Things to Consider

My deck did go through a phase, admittedly it was a lot longer than it should have been, in which it was much more toned for cEDH. It could consistently get the kill off on turn 2-3 a decent amount of the time!

I will say that I'm not the be-all end-all of cEDH, so you could just as easily go look up a primer for Varolz, (because some crazy people are playing him competitively for whatever reason) but I'll still leave this list of options just in case someone wants any suggestion on ways to take their deck to the next level.

Ramp
If you're playing competitively then you're going to need more ramp than the deck currently has, and not the ramp you think of normally (generally your land count is very low in cEDH) but artifact ramp, and fast mana.

These are all good mana rocks that supply a decent mana to cost ratio. After the artifacts there is "fast mana" as I like to put it.

These are generally spells that will get you ahead further than mana rocks but only once.

the odd one out, neither artifact or instant.

Interaction
Interaction is something that is needed when playing cEDH. How will you get your big win con to actually win you game if your key spell gets countered or exiled. For that these pieces of interaction are a must have! (depending on your play group)

The standard here is cards that either protect your spells/permanents, strip the threats from others, or destroy hate pieces that are locking you out of the game. There are other cards out there that do the same as these cards, these are just the most played.

Consistency
I'm missing some cards that would make the deck overall more consistent to pilot when playing cEDH. All of them are just tutors and most are just redundant cards that do the same thing as the tutors I currently have in my deck.

Win Cons
The last thing you should look out for when upping the power of this deck is win cons.

I will also say this, I have not really kept up with the metagame at all, there are most likely a ton of new cards and combos that are floating around the cEDH sphere that I do not know about. Please look at a primer in case you do want to maybe work your way into it.

Additional Information

Once again, It's been quite a while since I have heavily edited this deck on tappedout, before this it was 2020, then before that it was around 2018. I don't know how often I'll keep up to date with this page, I don't really want to stop as I really do love this deck and would like others to see it as well!. It's my first EDH deck and I will probably never take it apart unless something absolutely tragic happens.

I got rid of many different things within this deck mostly because it was unfun for me and my friends in our play group. After playing the game for a while, it really makes me appreciate games in which I can have fun piloting a very difficult sequence in my deck and my friends can have fun possibly stopping me.

The maybe board now has different sections within it. I have some cards that I'm thiking about adding, the cards I would like to aquire to pretty up my deck, and cards that I kinda want to get rid of.

There can be many reasons why I want to get rid of cards, they aren't preforming well, they don't match the style I like, or maybe I just really hate that card.

This is the deck that I mentioned before, the one that my friend plays which eventually lead to the ultimate creation and refinement of this deck. If you want to blame anyone for this thing then blame him.

Depths of the Wild

The definitive Varolz primer, check it out even if it doesn't have Mikaeus (which is wrong)

I love this deck, I always will. I don't know how many more changes it will go through, but I think it wil always continue to go through some. If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please leave a comment!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Once again, my deck has changed quite a bit! — Aug. 19, 2023
Edit

Below is my old deck description. I've made quite a lot of changes (like 5 cards) which entirely change the whole dynamic of the deck.

OLD DECK DESCRIPTION

A History of the Butcher

This deck is my child. It's my first EDH deck and through the years I have played the deck it's gone through it's fair share of changes. The original deck was just another Varolz scavenge deck, dump some cheap high power creatures into the grave, scavenge, then swing and deal damage. Over time and with much refinement (mainly against one friend and his annoying deck) I started to steer the deck towards a control style that uses sacrifice triggers to cause edict effects for the opponents. To push my deck to further greatness I started ramping up the competitive aspect of the deck, focusing on more efficient creatures and better death effects. It was around that time that Protean Hulk got unbanned and a horrible OTK hulk deck born.

After a year had passed and my thirst for a turn one kill was pretty much sated I started to reel back the competitive nature of the deck and started to shift it towards a competitive deck that doesn't try to win one turn one or two. Now after many years the deck is finally settling down into it's final form.

No, God No. For reanimator style decks there are so many better choices, all of which include additional colors. Remember, more colors always gets you more choices. Heck, if you're being a little stickler and wanted to remain in Golgari for reanimator, there are better choices like Meren of Clan Nel Toth, she'll definitely recur more than Varolz ever could. But Varolz can offer on thing that makes up for the lack of additional colors:
he can sacrifice creatures.

Deck Overview

1. You diddle about the first 3-4 turns building up resources and drawing cards

2. You find one of the many tutors

3. You find Protean Hulk

4. You sacrifice Protean Hulk

5. You win the game to the demise of everyone else at the table

Ah Mikaeus, the bread to my butter, and the very card responsible for amany degenerate combos, not just in this deck, but for all of commander. The only true infinite combo I have in the deck is with him.

The only card that is truly infinite is woodfall. You just keep sacrificing him until all the noncreature card you want to be deaded are deaded. Besides woodfall the other cards that I combo souly with Mikaeus are,

Sidisi and Shriekmaw are the only two cards that don't need a sacrifice outlet because sidisi can kill herself and shriekmaw dies when he's done his job. Everything else I've just listed is really just to get extra benefit from the additional ETB trigger.

Protean Hulk

The big baddie himself. He gets unbanned from the format and now any deck has an easy target for a free access pass to any creature combo they really want, and that's right, I'm included in that "any deck" so here's the combo, the showcase of my deck, the pièce de résistance if you will.

  1. Protean Hulk needs to become not alive. Doesn't matter how, just do it.

  2. Get Viscera Seer for a sac outlet if you don't already have one and Phyrexian Delver for recursion; target Protean Hulk to reanimate him.

  3. Sacrifice the hulk boy again with Viscera Seer or any other sacrifice outlet. Get Mikaeus, the Unhallowed.

  4. Sacrifice Phyrexian Delver, he will come back all snazzy with a new counter from undying with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed.

  5. Reanimate Protean Hulk (guess who back) shot him in the face with a sac outlet. He'll come back, (back again) but before he comes back get Gravebreaker Lamia and another 1 drop, then put Dread Return in your graveyard from Lamia's ability.

  6. Protean Hulk needs to die on more time, this time he wont come back with undying because he has a counter on him already. With this death grab Sidisi, Undead Vizier and another 1 drop.

  7. Use Dread Return's flashback by sacrificing all the one drops you've been grabbing and any other creatures without counters on them. Target...

  8. Protean Hulk is alive again. (Protean hulks back) sacrifice him again getting Gray Merchant of Asphodel and another one drop.

  9. sacrifice Gray Merchant of Asphodel to get another trigger from him with undying and kill Protean Hulk one final time getting Body Snatcher.

  10. reanimate Gray Merchant of Asphodel with Body Snatcher and get another two triggers with Gary.

  11. At this time you have probably dealt around 40-50 points of damage to each player while gaining around 3 times that life. winning the game or causing every other play to scope 10 minutes ago while you were goldfishing your deck.

  12. (Tell a friend).

In the previous two panels I've explained the main combo enabler and "the big combo" of the deck. In this panel I'll just be explaining a bunch of small combos that don't win the game, but are nonetheless, good ways to get ahead on resources

  • if you use Reanimate on Vilis, Broker of Blood he will actually see the damage from reanimate and you will draw the 8 cards from his ability and the life loss

  • Skirge Familiar and either Necropotence or Vilis, Broker of Blood is a good way to cast any spells you need the exile effect from Necropotence doesn't really matter as Riftsweeper can get you back any cards you absolutely need

  • of course Sensei's Divining Top and Bolas's Citidel is the good ol' build your own yawgmoth's Bargen

  • Ramunap Excavator and any fetch land is really more of a good happenstance rather than a combo, but it's going here anyway

  • really Bolas's Citidel and Vilis, Broker of Blood are just two cards that are absolutely broken and can start combos at the drop of the hat.

  • Eternal Witness + a sacrifice outlet that generates mana like Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar + Living Deathfoil allows you to cycle your board over and over for any ETB effects that you would want to abuse.

  • I've just recently put Liliana's Standard Bearer in the deck and I've found some convoluted combos that work with him and Ashnod's Altar. You if you can generate any card advantage with him he starts to combo extremely well with Skirge Familiar. Draw cards, discard them with skirge's ability, and then sacrifice the bearer and reanimate him to repeat the process. It requires a lot of pieces but it essentially allows me to draw my whole deck.

    • If you so happen to like my deck and would like to build it for yourself this panel will help if you ever feel like editing the deck. The cards below are central to deck and could be considered the core.

    I would consider these card to be the baseline of the deck. Almost everything else I have in the deck just equates to tutors or additional draw for more consistent gameplay, but if you're trying to build on a budget or want to lower the power level of the deck but still keep the insane combo in then these are the card that are a must include.

    I've finally took out Greenwarden of Murasa I may feel a little sad about him leaving as he has been in the deck for probably as long as it has existed, but he's bad. His whole being is just a 6 mana Eternal Witness In his place I have put Woodland Bellower. As I continue to build the deck, having a creature that can get multiple answers from my deck is just overall better. A long time ago I used to have Bellower in the deck, but ended up cutting him because I wasn't able to use him all to much, now I think he will be a decent addition to the deck overall.

    I mean this panel is more of a statement rather than anything else. I'm slowly pimpin my deck.

    just look at all those juicy foils I've already collected.

    Food for Thought

    This deck did go through a phase in which is was much more toned for cEDH. It could consistently get the kill off on turn 2-3 around 60% of the time. I'm not the be-all end-all of cEDH, so you could just as easily go look up a primer for Varolz, (because some crazy people are playing him competitively for whatever reason) but I'll still leave this list of options just in case someone wants any suggestion on ways to take their deck to the next level.

    Ramp
    If you're playing competitively then you're going to need more ramp than the deck currently has, and not the ramp you think of normally (generally your land count is very low in cEDH) but artifact ramp, and fast mana.

    These are all good mana rocks that supply a decent mana to cost ratio. After the artifacts there is "fast mana" as I like to put it.

    These are generally spells that will get you ahead further than mana rocks but only once.

    the odd one out, neither artifact or instant.

    Interaction
    Interaction is something that is needed when playing cEDH. How will you get your big win con to actually win you game if your key spell gets countered or exiled. For that these pieces of interaction are a must have! (depending on your play group)

    The standard here is cards that either protect your spells/permanents, strip the threats from others, or destroy hate pieces that are locking you out of the game. There are other cards out there that do the same as these cards, these are just the most played.

    Consistency
    I'm missing some cards that would make the deck overall more consistent to pilot when playing cEDH. All of them are just tutors and most are just redundant cards that do the same thing as the tutors I currently have in my deck.

    Win Cons
    The last thing you should look out for when upping the power of this deck is win cons. I currently don't have the best win con in my deck,

    • Walking balista

    but there are other cards that also are better win cons than contently sacrificing Gary for the eventual win.

    I've just recently added some cards into my maybeboard, cards that I think would be better. I'm mainly looking at

    I've played with Crucible of Worlds before, but that was back when I had just recently built the deck so I didn't really have any good lands to combo with it, but now I've got a better selection of lands such as Strip Mine and the fetch's. Wasteland is in there just for a better selection of utility lands.

    The last thing I want to add is that I really need better selection of 4 drop creatures in my deck so if anyone has any suggestions I really need them. I feel like the 4 drop slot is not entirely full with creatures that can generate a lot of value, so if there are any fringe cards that are old please leave a comment.

    I felt like I didn't have enough golgari spells in my deck so I thought I'd look up some on scryfall. I found Cadaverous Bloom and thought it would be a nice ramp effect. The downside is somewhat negatable with Riftsweeper.

    They have been successfully added into my deck and have been performing amazingly.

    Umezawa's Jitte Is a perfect card as it allows for life gain, creature removal, and explosive damage. The life gain and creature removal are especially relevant because of how much life I end up losing to myself in this deck and the lack of excessive and good removal in the deck as well.

    Sylvan Safekeeper has been working well as unconditional protection. Being able to essentially equip Lightning Greaves at instant speed (minus the haste) to any of my creatures is amazing and really goes that extra mile when trying to do something impactful to the gameboard.

    This panel is exactly what it sounds like, I need some big boys to put into play to replace a couple of cards that just aren't putting in work. I have these in mind so far.

    I actually ended up buying Razaketh and put him in.

    I've been thinking about adding a land package within the deck as kinda a subtheme of sorts. I already have a small land package solely with Ramunap Excavator + Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and any good land destruction effect, such as Wasteland. As I play more games though, I've been having less fun winning with Protean Hulk in one turn and instead have fun durddling with other effects.

    So I've been thinking about actively adding a land package that I can use to control, destroy, and durddle even harder than before. The common cards I would start with are:

    -Crucible of Worlds This is already in my maybeboard, because it's just a good card.

    -Azusa, Lost but Seeking

    -The Gitrog Monster

    -Oracle of Mul Daya

    -Elvish Reclaimer (this one is only a maybe)

    -Ashaya, Soul of the Wild this would only be if I lean heavily into the land package instead of just replacing a few cards.

    The additional lands that I would be including to make the creatures more effective would be:

    -Thespian's Stage

    -Dark Depths

    -Wasteland

    -Glacial Chasm (maybe, once again this would be if I lean heavily into the land package.)

    That pretty much completes it. This tab will just be here until I fully test the land package. Comment on your thoughts!

    Additional Information

    It's been quite a while since I have heavily edited this deck on tappedout, around 2018 was when I was last actively editing the deck, and now I have been editing it quite frequently to create this layout. Of course that is liable to change as well. For instance I stopped really updating this for a couple of months while I was working but have came back. I want to keep this deck up to date because I really love it. It's my first EDH deck and I will probably never take it apart unless something tragic happens.

    The other thing to note is that in my old build of the deck I had Walking Ballista which is the better OTK with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed which I talked about in the cEDH section. I got rid of this combo because it was extremely unfun for me and my friends in our play group. (it ended up not really mattering because I can just recur Gary like 5 times in one turn anyway, but I digress)

    Everything in sideboard right now are cards that I want to cut or improve. Most of the other cards I have playtested thoroughly over the course of 3 years, and these cards are the new pizazz that I haven't really liked or seen preform well enough. I might put some cards I'm testing in the sideboard if they don't pan out the way I thought they would.

    The maybeboard is a place where I store cards that I want to put into the deck or thinking about trying to implement somehow.

    This is the deck that I mentioned before, the one that my friend plays which eventually lead to the ultimate creation and refinement of this deck. If you want to blame anyone for this thing then blame him.

    Depths of the Wild

    The definitive Varolz primer, check it out even if it doesn't have Mikaeus (which is wrong)

    Varolz Hulk

    there's a lot of cards that I think aren't super good in the deck, but I just haven't got around to getting rid of them because I just haven't been playing as much as I used to or I haven't found good replacements for them. I have to check out good cards from Ikoria and beyond because I haven't been keeping up with the latest sets, so if you guys have any good suggestions, please leave a comment with cards that would work well!

    Completely Redid the description — Oct. 9, 2020
    Edit
    Old deck description — Sept. 30, 2020
    Edit
    Small changes — April 6, 2017
    Edit
    READ DESCRIPTION AGAIN — April 2, 2017
    Edit
    Money — Aug. 5, 2016
    Edit
    Some changes — July 3, 2016
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    Casual

    96% Competitive

    Date added 8 years
    Last updated 1 year
    Exclude colors WUR
    Splash colors BG
    Legality

    This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
    Rarity (main - side)

    9 - 0 Mythic Rares

    61 - 0 Rares

    14 - 0 Uncommons

    6 - 0 Commons
    Cards 100
    Avg. CMC 3.04
    Tokens Experience Token, Insect 1/1 BG
    Folders EDH, Interesting decks, Ideas, EDH Commander
    Votes
    Ignored suggestions
    Shared with
    Views