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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Golgari deck

October 30, 2006

Hello Bmoor,
 
   My name in Sean Winiarski.  I am currently living in TN.  I really need help with building a kick ass Golgari deck and i cant decide which way i want the deck to go in.
I really only play casually but i am thinking of going and and playing some FNM or something like that.  Any advice you could give would be very help full.
 
Lands-24
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
2 Golgari Rot Farm
10 Forests
11 Swamps
 
Creatures-28
 
Green-8
1 Elvish Skysweeper
3 Greater Mossdogs
3 Golgari Brownscales
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
 
Black-3
2 Stinkweed Imp
1 Mortipede
 
Dual/Hybrid-17
4 Golgari Rotworm
4 Woodwraith Strangler
2 Shambling Shell
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari
2 Drooling Groodion
2 Golgari Guildmages
1 Sisters of Stone Death
1 Vulturous Zombie
 
Instants-10
 
Black-5
2 Darkblast
3 Last Gasp
 
Dual/Hybrid-5
2 Gaze of the Gorgon
3 Putrefy
 
Enchantments-5
 
Black-3
3 Necromantic Thirst
 
Green-1
1 Moldervine Cloak
 
Hybrind/multicolored-1
1 Golgari Germination
 
Sorcery-5
 
Black-1
1 Vigor Mortis
 
Green-4
1 Rolling Spoil
3-Recollect
 
Thanks a bunch.

Death is just the beginning of another stage. The stage of unlife and undeath.
-The Big Cheese

Before I begin, I just want to say something to everyone who submits a deck to me.  Please, don't organize your deck like this.  The standard way of organizing a deck is Creatures, Other Spells, Lands.  I'm not really a stickler for this, and I've given some people quite a bit of leeway with this, but when you split up a deck into so many subcategories and drag it out so long, I can barely read it.  Don't separate cards based on color, please, and every card type doesn't need its own subsection in the list.  And artifact creatures count as creatures.  If your deck has a lot of Enchantresses or something, enchantments could get their own subsection, but don't divide it up too much.  It makes it less readable, not more readable.
 
Okay, rant over.  Sorry about that.  Now for deck fixing.  You say you don't know which direction you want the deck to go in?  Well, that's a bit of a problem, because Golgari can go a number of ways.  Golgari Aggro wants to curve out with the Guildmage, Shambling Shell, and then maybe Golgari Rotwurm and swing away.  Golgari Control hides behind Stinkweed Imps until you get the Savra/Shell combo going.  Golgari DredgeAggro swings mindlessly with its dredgers, hoping to do damage, until it can power out an enormous Grave-Troll or Mortivore.  And so on.  So here's what we'll do.  I'll run through the list and isolate all the cards that are strongest utility wise, synergy aside.  That will give us a strong core that we can then build around, okay?  Let's see what you've got, not looking at lands yet.  In creatures, your best stuff is Shambling Shell, Golgari Rotwurm, Savra, Drooling Groodion, Golgari Guildmage, and Vulturous Zombie. 
 

Multicolor cards tend to be the best cards.  For instants, Last Gasp and Putrefy are the best.  Moldervine Cloak is the only enchantment you have worth playing.  And for sorceries....actually, all your sorceries are good.  So first of all, let's increase your count of each of the above cards to four.  Except Savra, for her two is enough.  And, as a matter of fact, that right there is too many cards if you count lands.  So, what from that list isn't good enough?  Well, from this list, you seem to want to sacrifice a lot of creatures.  I think we need to remove a sacrifice outlet.  Of the ones you have, the Groodion uses the most mana and your mana requirements are high already, so that can come out.  I suppose Golgari Rotwurm can be taken out too, since Vulturous Zombie makes a great high-end beater and the Wurm has no evasion.  This isn't Limited, after all.  That brings us down to 38 cards, which is a good place to be.  It also reduces the amount of cards that want you to sacrifice creatures, which is good, because you have only so many to go around and limited means of bringing them back.  But if you can't get 4 copies of everything, here's a few ideas of other cards to add in.

 
Grave Pact- like Savra, but less restrictive.
 
Mortivore- not Mortipede, Mortivore
 
Thallid Shell-Dweller- Good to help buy time for you to build up an army, plus a source of sacrificial lambs.
 
Grave-Shell Scarab- An amazing card that beats for four and comes back for more.
 
Llanowar Elves- Early game, mana acceleration.  Late game, sacrifice food.
 
There are literally hundreds of options, so I'll let you explore them and see what feels right to you.  If you stick with the strong deck core I outlined for you, then sheer card quality might be enough to overwhelm your opponent.  Luckily you've got synergy too, so I'm confident in this deck's abilities.  Good luck!
 
 
~BMoor
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