Images courtesy of Wizards of the Coast
A few weeks ago, Zevin Faust made the Top 8 in his first ever Magic Pro Tour with a deck that was on nobody’s radar. I knew as soon as I saw this deck that I needed to play it. After getting my reps in, I’m excited to report that the deck is a ton of fun to pilot and also feels surprisingly strong. Let’s take a closer look at the Pro Tour’s surprise breakout deck, Golgari Graveyard!
What’s the Game Plan for Golgari Graveyard in Standard?
You may be surprised to hear this, but the main strategy employed by Golgari Graveyard involves the graveyard. We want to spend our early turns filling the graveyard and hopefully landing an Up the Beanstalk at some point to begin our card flow. Once we’re set up, we can spam a deluge of big, under-costed creatures and bury our opponents in threats and card advantage.
The Creatures of Golgari Graveyard
All three of our one-drop creatures help get the graveyard filled while providing some sort of other support. Molt Tender won’t immediately mill us, but the extra mana can let us accelerate our game plan and is usually online as early as turn two.
If my sequencing doesn’t require that mana though, I’d prefer to start off on Gnawing Vermin, which gets the most cards in the graveyard of our one-drops while being a real pain for many aggro decks to attack into. Cenote Scout can be a similar roadblock for opposing creatures if it gets a +1/+1 counter on entry and can even help get you an aggressive start when the situation calls for it. It never hurts to draw a land, either.
Overlord of the Balemurk is our other main graveyard-filling creature. It gets the ball rolling early, triggers Up the Beanstalk when cast, and becomes a huge threat later. The entire Overlord cycle seems to be all over several constructed formats, so it’s not surprising to see his Horror here.
Skipping way up the mana curve, we have a trio of main payoffs for filling the graveyard. All three of these creatures can be cast for as little as one mana while still triggering Up the Beanstalk. My favorite is Hollow Marauder, as it’s the only one that provides immediate value on entry. Casting it when your opponent is low on cards puts them in a really tough spot, and the evasive body provides a good clock. At worst, it can cantrip when your opponent can’t discard a big enough card to it.
Huskburster Swarm doesn’t provide immediate value, but makes up for it by being huge and hard to block. Rounding out the top end are a pair of Chitin Gravestalkers. They’re the least useful body on average, but they’re relatively cheap and can by cycled to just keep filling the graveyard when needed.
I love the way Souls of the Lost plays in this deck. This not-quite Tarmogoyf gets huge fast, and the additional cost is often upside here. You can easily sacrifice a one-drop when it’s done its job, but discarding a big creature you weren’t playing anytime soon is sometimes worth it too. Worst comes to worst, in the late game it can eat an unneeded land.
Harvester of Misery plays more like a spell than a creature. You’re usually using the discard ability as a removal spell, and being a removal spell that’s also a creature has a ton of value here. You’ll sometimes cast it as a creature when you need the body or just want to hose a Convoke deck, though keep in mind you’ll lose your one-drops and Hollow Marauders when you do.
Golgari Graveyard Spells
We’ve only got two noncreature spells in the main deck, but they really tie the whole deck together. Up the Beanstalk continues to be a messed up Magic card, providing unparalleled card advantage. A total of 20 of our spells trigger it, and the vast majority of the time we’ll be casting those spells for an extreme discount. We don’t need this enchantment out immediately, but it’ll more than pay for itself when the game goes even just a bit longer.
Finally, we have our main removal spell. Overwhelming Remorse doesn’t necessarily come out early, but triggering Up the Beanstalk makes it very worth it. The exile effect is obviously extremely useful, and when we’re drawing a lot of cards we’re likely to draw into at least one copy. I’ve always really liked this card, so I’m very happy to see it in such a fitting home.
The Lands
There’s not a ton to say about the mana base here. We get to play a full playset of Underground Mortuary to help fill the graveyard, but other than that we can’t really afford utility lands. The deck runs smoothly and rarely hurts for the right colors. You do need to be cognizant of your sequencing in the early turns, as a Wastewood Verge won’t help cast Gnawing Vermin turn one, and whether it’s right to use your turn one on your surveil land is going to vary from game to game and matchup to matchup.
The Sideboard for Golgari Graveyard in Standard
Haywire Mite/Scrapshooter – These are arguably the most important sideboard cards for us. Standard has plenty of juicy artifacts and enchantments worth removing, but the most important targets tend to be the ones that act as graveyard hate. We’d rather not fight through Rest in Peace, Ghost Vacuum, or Leyline of the Void, so we bring these in – often preemptively – to combat those cards. Obviously they have other targets, though keep in mind Haywire Mite can’t hit creatures, so it won’t do you any good against Enduring Curiosity and its ilk.
Cut Down/Harvester of Misery – Cheap removal options for various aggro matchups.
Terror Tide – This board wipe also comes in for those aggro matchups. You need to keep your creature count high to keep this effective, but it’s an invaluable effect. It doesn’t exile, but the -X/-X effect still stops the death triggers of Heartfire Hero and Cacophony Scamp.
Obstinate Baloth – This mainly punishes Hopeless Nightmare from various Pixie decks. It can come in against certain aggro decks as well, but we already have a lot of tools for those matchups so it isn’t strictly necessary.
Duress – This mainly comes in against slower control decks to buy us time. You want to hit Day of Judgment or Sunfall with this.
Starving Revenant – Definitely not a common card in Standard, but it has applications in the control matchups where our life total isn’t under pressure. Drawing a few cards off of this can help us win a war of attrition, and we can turn on the Descend 8 ability without too much issue.
Tips and Tricks for Golgari Graveyard
- When sideboarding, you need to keep your creature count relatively consistent. A cut creature or two is fine, but going beyond that risks our graveyard game plan. This is why a large amount of the sideboard is creature-based.
- Aggro decks like Gruul Prowess can still run you over if you don’t play to the board early. There are matchups where you can afford to spend your early turns on Up the Beanstalk and Underground Mortuary, but against a random opponent assume you need to defend yourself earlier.
- When making mana with Molt Tender, exile your Overwhelming Remorse from the graveyard first. This is the only card that doesn’t directly benefit you in the graveyard. Noncreature permanents (lands and Up the Beanstalk) don’t provide cost reduction for your big creatures but do power up Souls of the Lost, so those are next. Exiling creatures should be a last resort.
- Despite the game plan, the deck can still be fairly mana-hungry. We have ways to draw into lands, but don’t assume you’ll do so. Try to keep responsible hands with more than two lands.
I really can’t stress enough how cool it is that this deck made it to the Top 8 of the Pro Tour, so congratulations again to Zevin Faust on his monumental run! The deck is so satisfying to play, so I hope I’ve convinced you to try it out. Thank you all for reading, and I’ll see you here for our next Standard Deck Breakdown.
Want to read more on the Pro Tour’s successful decks? I talked about them in my Top 5 Standard Decks article!
