I have theory-crafted and playtested a couple matches with the list below. The list is looking to do a couple things: 1.) use creatures as currency, often tokens, 2.) fill the graveyard, and 3.) recur answers and combo pieces to win the game.
The main plan is to start filling my yard with my deck and use my copious amounts of recursion to always have the right answer until I am ready to combo off and win. In most cases, I have cheap answers to permanents so I can recur and play them right away (bonus points if they can be Skullclamped for value). While doing that, I produce tokens, not really as a go wide strategy, but as a way to fuel Fecundity or Dark Prophecy drawing, as well as chump blocking or even mana.
The deck can also simply outlast other decks and bury them in card advantage.
I am open to suggestions and potential weaknesses to look out for. Obviously, I could consider some fast mana, but I actually don’t love it in this deck and am actively looking to replaceGolgari Signet as it is one of the few cards that has basically no synergy with my deck at all.
Pet Synergies:
Note: All of these require a cost-free, instant-speed sac outlet in play. That’s why we’re playing one in the command Zone. And also why we are playing Viscera Seer, Sadisic Hypnotist and Ashnod’s Altar.
Crawling Sensation is a very fair card. No matter how many lands you dump into your yard on a turn, you get one insect token. To make it really good is to trigger it on each opponents turn. There are many ways to do this, but the easiest is drawing cards on our opponents’ turns.
That sounds counter intuitive until you consider that we have 5 Dredge cards, plus Underrealm Lich and Abundance as ways to bin cards as we draw them. The best engine is with Call the Bloodline and Dakmor Salvage which allows us to pay 1 to create our draw fodder plus a lifelinking vampire token. We also have 9 lands that can find their way to the graveyard from our hand or the battlefield.
With the Thug trigger, you can put whatever creature you want to draw from your graveyard on top. Mysteries gives you a clue to draw it for 2, plus a soldier token for your trouble. Ashnod’s Altar gives you the mana you need to pay for the clue. Simple enough.
However, you can also dredge the Thug (ignoring the creature you top), sacrifice the soldier token for 2 and pay b to recast the Thug, netting yourself 1. Basically, as long as you have black mana, you can continue to dredge 4 cards. Since the deck runs several ways to recur win conditions, this can be very advantageous.
Adding a Grim Haruspex/Fecundity/Dark Prophecy effect lets us both draw the creature we top AND dredge the Thug. Now we can tear through the deck and sculpt our hand as we do it. I’m not running it because I don’t have it, but this would also go infinite with a Phyrexian Altar once you recur a Nest Invader or Eyeless Watcher. Essentially, you would dredge your deck while drawing the creature pieces, then recurring the artifact engine of your choice.
As long as our artifacts find their way to the graveyard, we should be able to return them via Loam + Buried Ruin. This lets us use Golgari Findbroker to retrieve a creature or enchantment.
Out:
- Golgari Signet
- Kodama’s Reach
- Memorial to Folly
The deck wants creatures, so replacing the Signet and Reach was a priority, plus neither of those things does much of anything in the graveyard. I settled on DRS becaus I lacked any grave hate, and it can also be ramp. I do wish it could be clamped, but I do have plenty of sac outlets in a pinch. Wayfinder, even though it doesn’t ramp me, can get my engine going sooner and replace itself with a land.
I’m monitoring my tap land situation and may consider removing the Mosswort Bridge and the noob fetches for additional untapped sources to have more consistent early turns.
You have a few cards in your deck list where the tags don't work. Some are just misspellings and others are (presumably) because the apostrophe is wrong. Here are the cards that don't work:
Also, here is your list again but in alphabetical order. This is more so I can look through the list and see what cards you have and ensure I haven't just skipped over ones I think you should have:
Anyway...it sounds like you are open to combos so is there any reason you aren't running Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion? Since you are in green you could even run Tooth and Nail to get to them.
So first, thanks for the feedback. I definitely considered Mike and Trike, but 1.) I don’t own those cards and 2.) I consider that particular combo to be just a tad too powerful for my playgroup, especially with TaN. The trio also run like $80, so I’ll prolly go without until my playgroup gets a bit more powered.
As far as Gitrog, I definitely considered putting him in, not necessarily to dredge the deck in one shot with Dakmor, but as a great value engine. I definitely want to find a spot for him at some point to try him out. Hypnotist could get hard to continually pay for so I’d probably have to throw in the Skirge to enable the loop, and the mana could pay for combining off once the yard is full as long as I have enough green. I’ll have to try it out.
Lord of Extinction is a card I don’t really like for this deck. It falls into the category of “only a win condition,” and at 5 mana, it’s a bit too much for me. My Jarad sac targets are a 2-mana answer to fliers and a 5 mana deck enabler, and I am OK with that.
Thanks for the reply. There is certainly a scavenge deck that works well for Varolz, especially with infect creatures. As far as Dreadnought and his friend Death’s Shadow are concerned, they are really a part of a different deck.
Deck performed very well this weekend, even with limited mana. The combination of Dredgers and Clues is great, as are they with Abundance and Underrealm Lich.
As a bonus, I have now staved off death twice by having the aforementioned cards as draw replacements.
In my final game of the day with some pretty tuned lists, I hung around on 4-5 lands for most of the game. My turns went in this order to win over the final 3. Cast Catacomb Sifter, sac Scion, cast Ashnod’s Altar. Elesh Norn hits, but my 0/1 Elzdrazi lives. Cast Vindictive Vampire, also a 0/1. Elesh Norn controller is killed leaving me and one other. I untap, play Eternal Witness, retrieve and play Nim Deathmantle, tapping out. Sac Witnes to Altar, sac Sifter to Altar, drain 2 and bring back Sifter with Deathmantle. Sac Spawn to Altar, sac Sifter to Altar, drain 2 and bring back Sifter with Deathmantle. Repeat until I win!
I was certainly lucky to live that long, mostly because I was missing land drops. And this is why I play such a low curve in this deck. I was able to make plays even without mana for long enough to be in the game and win with 2/5’s the mana of my opponents.
With so many creatures in your list, have you considered Lurking Predators? It looks like it would hit creatures fairly often and I like how it pays for itself quickly in a lot of cases.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
With so many creatures in your list, have you considered Lurking Predators? It looks like it would hit creatures fairly often and I like how it pays for itself quickly in a lot of cases.
It definitely should hit a creature fairly often. My main concern is it has a high CMC. Additionally, it’s a bit of an attention grabbing card, which is generally at odds with the rest of the deck as many of the cards are basically considered unplayable in EDH by most players.
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Modern RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH UFblthpU BRXantchaRB BGVarolzGB URWZedruuWRU
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Here is the list:
1x Varolz, the Scar-Striped
Creatures - 42
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Viscera Seer
1x Blood Artist
1x Golgari Thug
1x Kraul Harpooner
1x Nest Invader
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Satyr Wayfinder
1x Zulaport Cutthroat
1x Big Game Hunter
1x Bone Shredder
1x Cadaver Imp
1x Catacomb Sifter
1x Eternal Witness
1x Farhaven Elf
1x Grim Haruspex
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Slimefoot, the Stowaway
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Tireless Tracker
1x Wood Elves
1x Entomber Exarch
1x Eyeless Watcher
1x Golgari Findbroker
1x Gravedigger
1x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1x Poison-Tip Archer
1x Vindictive Vampire
1x World Shaper
1x Golgari Grave-Troll
1x Pharika’s Mender
1x Sadistic Hypnotist
1x Shriekmaw
1x Underrealm Lich
1x Baloth Null
1x Brood Monitor
1x Deadwood Treefolk
1x Noxious Gearhulk
1x Butcher of Malakir
1x World Breaker
1x Call the Bloodline
1x Awakening Zone
1x Crawling Sensation
1x Dark Prophecy
1x Fecundity
1x Journey to Eternity
1x Ulvenwald Mysteries
1x Abundance
1x From Beyond
Artifacts - 6
1x Skullclamp
1x Nim Deathmantle
1x Ashnod’s Altar
1x Birthing Pod
1x Deathrender
1x Whip of Erebos
Sorceries - 2
1x Life from the Loam
1x Sever the Bloodline
Instants - 4
1x Heroic Intervention
1x Beast Within
1x Gnaw to the Bone
1x Krosan Grip
Land - 36
1x Blighted Woodland
1x Blooming Marsh
1x Buried Ruin
1x Command Tower
1x Crypt of Agadeem
1x Dakmor Salvage
1x Drownyard Temple
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Dust Bowl
6x Forest
1x Glacial Chasm
1x Golgari Guildgate
1x Golgari Rot Farm
1x Jungle Hollow
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Mosswort Bridge
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Spawning Bed
1x Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
5x Swamp
1x Tainted Wood
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Tranquil Thicket
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
The main plan is to start filling my yard with my deck and use my copious amounts of recursion to always have the right answer until I am ready to combo off and win. In most cases, I have cheap answers to permanents so I can recur and play them right away (bonus points if they can be Skullclamped for value). While doing that, I produce tokens, not really as a go wide strategy, but as a way to fuel Fecundity or Dark Prophecy drawing, as well as chump blocking or even mana.
The deck wins with a few combos:
Deathrender + Gravedigger effect in hand + Gravedigger effect in graveyard + Blood Artist effect and sac outlet in play. This is much easier with either Baloth Null or Deadwood Treefolk in hand as you can fetch the Blood Artist effect from the graveyard as well.
Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod’s Altar + Nest Invader/Catacomb Sifter/Eyeless Watcher/Brood Monitor + Blood Artist effect/Slimefoot, the Stowaway. Any of the Eldrazi plus Ashnod’s is infinite ETB/death triggers. Watcher and Monitor also produce infinite colorless mana, which allows Slimefoot to make infinite saprolings which are sacc’d to drain the table.
Jarrad, Golgari Lich Lord also has some large fatties to sacrifice, though it may not appear so at first. Both Golgari Grave-Troll and Kraul Harpooner can be gigantic with 40 creatures that can find their way into the graveyard.
The deck can also simply outlast other decks and bury them in card advantage.
I am open to suggestions and potential weaknesses to look out for. Obviously, I could consider some fast mana, but I actually don’t love it in this deck and am actively looking to replaceGolgari Signet as it is one of the few cards that has basically no synergy with my deck at all.
Pet Synergies:
Note: All of these require a cost-free, instant-speed sac outlet in play. That’s why we’re playing one in the command Zone. And also why we are playing Viscera Seer, Sadisic Hypnotist and Ashnod’s Altar.
Crawling Sensation + Fecundity/Dark Prophecy
Crawling Sensation is a very fair card. No matter how many lands you dump into your yard on a turn, you get one insect token. To make it really good is to trigger it on each opponents turn. There are many ways to do this, but the easiest is drawing cards on our opponents’ turns.
That sounds counter intuitive until you consider that we have 5 Dredge cards, plus Underrealm Lich and Abundance as ways to bin cards as we draw them. The best engine is with Call the Bloodline and Dakmor Salvage which allows us to pay 1 to create our draw fodder plus a lifelinking vampire token. We also have 9 lands that can find their way to the graveyard from our hand or the battlefield.
Golgari Thug+Ulvenwald Mysteries+ Ashnod’s Altar
With the Thug trigger, you can put whatever creature you want to draw from your graveyard on top. Mysteries gives you a clue to draw it for 2, plus a soldier token for your trouble. Ashnod’s Altar gives you the mana you need to pay for the clue. Simple enough.
However, you can also dredge the Thug (ignoring the creature you top), sacrifice the soldier token for 2 and pay b to recast the Thug, netting yourself 1. Basically, as long as you have black mana, you can continue to dredge 4 cards. Since the deck runs several ways to recur win conditions, this can be very advantageous.
Adding a Grim Haruspex/Fecundity/Dark Prophecy effect lets us both draw the creature we top AND dredge the Thug. Now we can tear through the deck and sculpt our hand as we do it. I’m not running it because I don’t have it, but this would also go infinite with a Phyrexian Altar once you recur a Nest Invader or Eyeless Watcher. Essentially, you would dredge your deck while drawing the creature pieces, then recurring the artifact engine of your choice.
Life from the Loam + Buried Ruin + Artifact Win Conditions
As long as our artifacts find their way to the graveyard, we should be able to return them via Loam + Buried Ruin. This lets us use Golgari Findbroker to retrieve a creature or enchantment.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
In:
+ Deathrite Shaman
+ Satyr Wayfinder
+ Glacial Chasm
Out:
- Golgari Signet
- Kodama’s Reach
- Memorial to Folly
The deck wants creatures, so replacing the Signet and Reach was a priority, plus neither of those things does much of anything in the graveyard. I settled on DRS becaus I lacked any grave hate, and it can also be ramp. I do wish it could be clamped, but I do have plenty of sac outlets in a pinch. Wayfinder, even though it doesn’t ramp me, can get my engine going sooner and replace itself with a land.
I’m monitoring my tap land situation and may consider removing the Mosswort Bridge and the noob fetches for additional untapped sources to have more consistent early turns.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Also, here is your list again but in alphabetical order. This is more so I can look through the list and see what cards you have and ensure I haven't just skipped over ones I think you should have:
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
Lands
1 Blighted Woodland
1 Blooming Marsh
1 Buried Ruin
1 Command Tower
1 Crypt of Agadeem
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Drownyard Temple
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Dust Bowl
1 Evolving Wilds
5 Forest
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Jungle Hollow
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Memorial to Folly
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Spawning Bed
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
5 Swamp
1 Tainted Wood
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
Artifacts
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Birthing Pod
1 Deathrender
1 Golgari Signet
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Skullclamp
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Beast Within
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Heroic Intervention
1 Krosan Grip
Sorceries
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Life from the Loam
1 Sever the Bloodline
Creatures
1 Baloth Null
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Blood Artist
1 Bone Shredder
1 Brood Monitor
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Cadaver Imp
1 Catacomb Sifter
1 Deadwood Treefolk
1 Entomber Exarch
1 Eternal Witness
1 Eyeless Watcher
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Golgari Findbroker
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Golgari Thug
1 Gravedigger
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Kraul Harpooner
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Nest Invader
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Pharika's Mender
1 Poison-Tip Archer
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Shriekmaw
1 Slimefoot, the Stowaway
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Underrealm Lich
1 Vindictive Vampire
1 Viscera Seer
1 Wood Elves
1 World Breaker
1 World Shaper
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Abundance
1 Awakening Zone
1 Call the Bloodline
1 Crawling Sensation
1 Dark Prophecy
1 Fecundity
1 From Beyond
1 Journey to Eternity
1 Ulvenwald Mysteries
Anyway...it sounds like you are open to combos so is there any reason you aren't running Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion? Since you are in green you could even run Tooth and Nail to get to them.
If you really wanted to gop further into filling your graveyard, The Gitrog Monster + Dakmor Salvage (which you have) + a discard outlet (I see you have Sadistic Hypnotist but Skirge Familiar works too) puts your entire library into your graveyard. With Lord of Extinction and Jarad, you can one-shot the table.
As far as Gitrog, I definitely considered putting him in, not necessarily to dredge the deck in one shot with Dakmor, but as a great value engine. I definitely want to find a spot for him at some point to try him out. Hypnotist could get hard to continually pay for so I’d probably have to throw in the Skirge to enable the loop, and the mana could pay for combining off once the yard is full as long as I have enough green. I’ll have to try it out.
Lord of Extinction is a card I don’t really like for this deck. It falls into the category of “only a win condition,” and at 5 mana, it’s a bit too much for me. My Jarad sac targets are a 2-mana answer to fliers and a 5 mana deck enabler, and I am OK with that.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
As a bonus, I have now staved off death twice by having the aforementioned cards as draw replacements.
In my final game of the day with some pretty tuned lists, I hung around on 4-5 lands for most of the game. My turns went in this order to win over the final 3. Cast Catacomb Sifter, sac Scion, cast Ashnod’s Altar. Elesh Norn hits, but my 0/1 Elzdrazi lives. Cast Vindictive Vampire, also a 0/1. Elesh Norn controller is killed leaving me and one other. I untap, play Eternal Witness, retrieve and play Nim Deathmantle, tapping out. Sac Witnes to Altar, sac Sifter to Altar, drain 2 and bring back Sifter with Deathmantle. Sac Spawn to Altar, sac Sifter to Altar, drain 2 and bring back Sifter with Deathmantle. Repeat until I win!
I was certainly lucky to live that long, mostly because I was missing land drops. And this is why I play such a low curve in this deck. I was able to make plays even without mana for long enough to be in the game and win with 2/5’s the mana of my opponents.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
If you’re recurring the creatures or scavenging them you print a flier
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
It definitely should hit a creature fairly often. My main concern is it has a high CMC. Additionally, it’s a bit of an attention grabbing card, which is generally at odds with the rest of the deck as many of the cards are basically considered unplayable in EDH by most players.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU