Varolz, Warlord of the Amani

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari)

Gundam-Tyrfing

Creature (28)

• 1x Apprentice Necromancer
• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Body Snatcher
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Disciple of the Vault
• 1x Dosan the Falling Leaf
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Grim Flayer
• 1x Lesser Masticore
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Mindblade Render
• 1x Protean Hulk
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Riftsweeper
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Wickerbough Elder
• 1x Woodfall Primus

Land (36)

• 1x Blooming Marsh
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Command Tower
• 12x Forest
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 11x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Artifact (9)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Mimic Vat
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Dark Tutelage
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Pattern of Rebirth
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation

Commander (1)

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Final Parting
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Life / Death
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Natural Order
• 1x Reanimate

Instant (6)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Krosan Grip

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Note: Some of the quotes used are not from Zul'jin's Warcraft appearances, but from his Heroes of the Storm depiction.

Hello and welcome to Varolz, Warlord of the Amani, I will discuss the Pros, and Cons, of playing Varolz, the Scar-Striped win conditions, value, and generally how to play the mighty Warlord of the Amani. But like all other lists I do I will once again discuss the history I have with Varolz.

Varolz is an old deck I've had for some time, it was a General I was naturally drawn to due to its protection and the fact that Varolz gave everything Scavenge a unique way to play and to buff up my creatures. Back in the day I played a Scavenge build, using things like Death's Shadow and Phyrexian Juggernaut it was tuned for the deck but it wasn't particularly very strong. It won with infect and other means, it was fun to play but over time I thought I'd like to really beef this guy up, Varolz deserved to really start cracking heads so I did an extreme revision of the list and that's now what we have.

Varolz back then was one of my first efforts to make something focused and strong, and when I started to tune and make better decks I knew, Varolz had to make the transition and become stronger.

Warlord of the Amani

"Nobody badduh dan me!" - Zul'jin, Warlord of the Amani

Who is Varolz, the Scar-Striped ? Well Varolz is a 3 cost 2/2 costing he gives all creatures Scavenge. A keyword that allows, you to exile a creature from your graveyard and put +1/+1 counters on another creature equal to its power. He also has an activate ability that allows you to sacrifice another creature to Regenerate Varolz. Now the first thing most people will notice about Varolz is that he has access to a wide arrange of High Power low CMC creatures with drawback effects that can be used to pump power onto other creatures and beat down opponents.

Well that can be a sound strategy, Varolz himself also can be used as a sac outlet and only costing Three Mana allows him to fit into multiple Combo Lines as a way to close out the game.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Low Cmc

• Hard to Remove

• Multiple Lines to victory

• Resilient to most forms of removal and Graveyard Hate

Cons: - Rest in Peace effects destroy the deck

• Well fast disruption can leave you in Top Deck Mode.

• Effects that limit spell cast or Graveyard Recursion are crippling.

• Cursed Totem and Grafdigger's Cage murders the deck.

Combos

"Da Amani di chuka!" Zul'jin, Warlord of the Amani Translation: "The Amani will prevail!"

Varolz, has many combos he can play around some require him or other outlets, and since we are running a plentiful amount its likely we'll always have a combo piece in hand.

Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Lesser Masticore + Phyrexian Altar

Leads it infinite Mana due to to Masticore constantly being reoccurred via Persist, can also be used with any other outlet for other effects, such as Viscera Seer to scry your deck. Can also combo this with Skullclamp to funnel mana into equipping Masticore and then sacrificing it to draw your whole deck and play any card you need to combo off.

Disciple of the Vault can also be added to drain the life of everyone.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Walking Ballista + Phyrexian Altar

Creates infinite Mana and a constant reoccurring Ballista that can ping down every opponent, this Combo is relatively inexpensive depending on what you have on the field, since you can cast Ballista for 0 and have it enter as a 1/1 due to Mikaeus' effect. Thus only the Outlet and Mikaeus cost any mana and one or the other can be out before the other is put onto the field, other outlets also work fine with this as well as Skullclamp , and Disciple of the Vault .

Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Woodfall Primus + Phyrexian Altar

Infinite Mana and blowing up all noncreature permanents.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Wickerbough Elder + Phyrexian Altar

Creates Infinite Mana, can also be combo'd with Skullclamp to draw your whole deck, and cast every card in it.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Lesser Masticore + Phyrexian Altar

Creates Infinite Mana, can be combo'd with Disciple of the Vault to drain all opponents to death.

Melira, Sylvok Outcast / Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Lesser Masticore + Disciple of the Vault + Phyrexian Altar .

This combo has been alluded to multiple times above but now will be stated this allows us to drain every opponent and make infinite Mana.

Protean Hulk

"Say hello to my little friend!" Zul'jin, Warlord of the Amani

Ah Protean Hulk, a beloved and hated card in the EDH Community, some people love it since its unbanning, and other people hate the ever living hell out of this card. But you know someone who really loves Protean Hulk, our boy Varolz!

Hulk is a very easily brought out card and with the abundance of outlets in this deck its super easy to bring out a pile!

So what Piles do we got?

Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Viscera Seer + Lesser Masticore + Disciple of the Vault

This is what I like to call the Exodia of Hulk piles, This is the PERFECT cmc pile from Hulk. Before this use to be Wingrattle Scarecrow but with the release of Modern Horizon, and Masticore we don't need an outlet on board we just slap everything together from a dying Hulk. This means we can destroy our own Hulk via things like, Assassin's Trophy , or Beast Within or even a board wipe from an opponent turns to us winning the game.

This pile actually gets the biggest value from having Flash in a deck so part of that is lost here in Varolz, since he obviously doesn't contain which would assemble all 4 cards without the need of some sort of outlet or outside destruction. Either way this pile gives us redundancy and protection for us to combo off, since we have an additional outlet that would have to be removed to stop us from comboing.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Walking Ballista

Sometimes, something gets removed or pieces are in our hands, in which case we have a backup combo pile as long as we have a sac outlet. This leads us into the standard Mikaeus, Ballista combo, usually we won't go for this but sometimes you need a back up plan.

Let's say something is here to disrupt us, some sort of artifact or enchantment. So we need to get rid of it well also making sure we can Combo off again.

Body Snatcher + Viscera Seer + Caustic Caterpillar

Snatcher here is used to get our Hulk back, since the first ability is a triggered ability when Snatcher enters so we can sac it with Seer to revive our Hulk bypassing the need to discard a card. Well also having Caterpillar destroy whatever Artifact or Enchantment that's going to mess with us!

Say we have a combo piece in exile, so we need it back!

Body Snatcher + Riftsweeper

This requires us to have an outlet out on the board but, Sweeper enters and puts our piece back into the deck and then we sac Snatcher and get our Hulk back and then rebuild a win pile!

Assembling Combos

"You too slow! Me too strong!" Zul'jin, Warlord of the Amani

So now we understand our combos so how are we going to assemble them? Well since we're playing Golgari we have access to an amazing Tutor Suite, Demonic Tutor , Diabolic Intent , Beseech the Queen , Diabolic Tutor , Sidisi, Undead Vizier , Green Sun's Zenith , Natural Order , and Final Parting .

Final Parting is an interesting case because it actually allows us get Protean Hulk , and Reanimate which means if we have an outlet on board and 6 mana we win off this Tutor!

Fauna Shaman ah the good old budget Survival of the Fittest , a great way to convert creatures in our hand into things like Hulk or a combo piece if we're close to manually assembling one.

There are other options to tutors though!

Grim Flayer which allows us to altar our draw for the next turn, self mill us if those are dead draws, or put cards we want in grave into the grave!

Skullclamp a sizeable draw engine via things like Reassembling Skeleton and Persist Engine.

Pattern of Rebirth slap a creature with this and then sac it to grab anything we want.

Phyrexian Arena & Dark Tutelage card advantage is always helpful well now Arena is not the best example its still a solid card and it does its job, Tutelage though is the real allstar. More often then not people will target Arena because you lose more life in theory from Tutelage which is true, but Tutelage is not a draw so it gets around things like Notion Thief stops additional triggers from Consecrated Sphinx and more.

Also our average cmc is just below 3, 2.73 to be precise so usually we will not be losing that much life, and since our opponents will likely allow Tutelage to stick around we will keep gaining value until its too late.

Typical Game

"De' Amani never give up! We never forget. We never die. 'Dis is our land: you wanna stay, you stay here forever! We gonna bury you here." Zul'jin, Warlord of the Amani

A typical game involves getting Hulk out as fast as possible, to bring out our instant win condition, usually the type of hand you want to keep is with Entomb , a dork, a sac-outlet in case Varolz gets taken out, and some sort of reanimate effect, if you're really lucky it is Reanimate .

We start out fast putting out a land and playing our dork, then the next turn we drop another land and play Varolz. When turn 3 rolls around that's when we go all in, we drop our third land and then cast Entomb, search for Protean Hulk and slap him into the graveyard now we are sitting on 3 mana, enough to cast all our reanimate effects. We target Hulk bring him out and assemble our typical win con!

Now what if this doesn't happen? What if we just don't get that win hand? Well there are other plays we can make, with our large tutor suite, and other ways to assemble combos even if not getting the ideal hand we can still set up to win as quickly as possible.

We should still aim for a hand with multiple lands, at least 1 dork and a tutor effect. As the early game begins we just adjust and be flexible with our strategy, in games where we are not in the driver seat and can threaten win early we need to build the ability to combo off, as well as reactive defensively to our opponents. Assembling strong removal is a good option for that, we will need to remove Rest in Peace effects, and Cursed Totem / Grafdigger's Cage if they hit the board. These cards will dismantle our ability to win and need to be removed asap, luckily we have uncounterable removal in the form of Krosan Grip and Abrupt Decay . These cards don't need to be priority searches or things you should hope to draw/topdeck into in a lot of cases, but they are something to keep in mind since they are popular additions to a lot of decks.

Card Analysis

"Da power of da gods!" Zul'jin, Warlord of the Amani

Apprentice Necromancer in the event we lose Protean Hulk or another combo piece somehow, we can use Necromancer to bring it back if we can win that turn. Also if Hulk is the target due to being discarded or some other reason since Necromancer causes the reanimated creature to be sacrificed at the end step we can assemble a win combo and win on end step.

Eternal Witness sometimes things just don't go our way and we need to get something back to hand, Witness is a great option for that and can also be used in combination with other cards to abuse its effect to bring back tons of useful cards!

Mindblade Render a very niche way to draw cards since it triggers only when warriors do damage but, Varolz is a warrior as is Render but so is another card in the deck, Grim Flayer when Flayer connects with a player we stack which effect goes first Render or Flayer. Due to Flayer letting us either rearrange the top of our deck or straight up milling it we can decide what we get or just dump everything and still get a card.

Reassembling Skeleton the Skeleton that won't quit, works with Skullclamp to make an alright draw engine, and is also a warrior so we can trigger Mindblade Render with it!

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre things don't always go as planned and when that happens we need to really bring the hurt, Ulamog is a remnant of the previous build that I just couldn't really cut at the time. Not only does it refresh our grave when it dies it also draws hate to itself and if things go well can start crippling players. Honestly I do think I can cut this card, for what I don't know yet but for now Ulamog is gunna be a threat that no one sees coming.

Shizo, Death's Storehouse another remnant of the previous build, really only use is sneaking Varolz in with Mind Blade Render on board to get a card or, sneak Ulamog in to lay a beat down, this will probably get cut.

Mimic Vat , Vat is a great way to abuse certain effects, Sidisi, Undead Vizier , Protean Hulk , Eternal Witness the list goes on it also lets us steal our opponents effects as well.

Phyrexian Reclamation great way to reoccur creatures that can give us value, also another way to ensure our combo pieces don't stay in the grave for long!

Notable Exclusions and Potential Upgrades

I think this deck could use a Vampiric Tutor and Worldly Tutor they interact well with Grim Flayer if you want them in Grave.

Imperial Seal would also work but that's a pretty pricey card.

Final Thoughts and Feedback

Well there you have, Varolz, Warlord of the Amani. I really enjoy this deck and what it can do and I'm going to continue to update it as I think of better options for it! I'd love to hear with other people think and what suggestions that you think would make this deck better!

Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 33 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 16 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.73
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone