MTG Salvation

I'm coming full circle here... after brief dalliances with new Golgari legends as they've been released, this general group of cards spent some time with both Meren of Clan Nel Toth and The Gitrog Monster at the helm.

Why didn't the new commanders stick around? That's a bit complicated...

Meren of Clan Nel Toth: Seemed like a natural fit. Profit from creatures dying, free recursion in theory a real Win/Win situation. In practice, I couldn't shake the habit of holding my commander back until I'd established board control and Meren wants to experience things. So it ended up being (at best) a 4 mana Raise Dead... back to the drawing board.

The Gitrog Monster: It is a fantastic card I loved playing it but after a relocating cross country a more competitive metagame has forced my hand. Focused combo lists put the fear of the frog into people and I've grown tired of playing archenemy despite not playing the combo list myself. A noted side effect, I was also able to cut fetchlands that had come with the frog with 7 fetches Birthing Pod and Survival of the Fittest I felt like I was shuffling the whole game.



Multiple personalities? What's going on here?

Deck has several let's call them modes of operation.

Toolbox of Answers:
Golgari has a Diverse array of removal and can handle any permanent type. The creatures in this deck were chosen to have natural Birthing Pod chains where possible.
Example: Bone Shredder> Ravenous Chupacabra > Shriekmaw

I'm still waiting for a 4 mana Naturalize creature to chain Reclamation Sage into Acidic Slime.
Key Cards:

• Survival of the Fittest
• Evolutionary Leap
• Birthing Pod

Recursion:
The most common way this deck functions is out of its graveyard facilitated through dredge and similar effects. Two mass reanimation spells function as game enders, for the most part, but Living Death for Value can also be something worth doing.

Key Cards:

• Volrath's Stronghold
• Tortured Existence
• Oversold Cemetery
• Genesis

Sacrifice Matters:
Having Grave Pact in the command zone telegraphs this as a primary strategy. Although there is a lack of traditional sacrifice outlets. Gravepact effects aren't something that I rush out early.

Key cards:

• Phyrexian Tower
• Merciless Executioner and Friends
• Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
• Grave Pact
• Dictate of Erebros

Lands Matter:
This section is why I was pulled into the direction of The Gitrog Monster. A ready built on-color commander for one of the themes to the deck but it wasn't meant to be. Being a two-color deck there is plenty of room available for utility lands and dredging fills the graveyard with lands as much as creatures. I spent some time with 7 cycling lands rather than 5 and found it was too many. I strongly prefer World Shaper to Splendid Reclamation due to the ease of recurring creatures vs spells.

Key cards:

• Ramunap Excavator
• World Shaper
• Life From the Loam
• Crucible of Worlds

Maybe Viscera Seer?

Nothing creative:

A couple draw creatures printed recently that could be useful - Grim Haruspex, Smothering Abomination. And Hermit Druid can also fill a graveyard quickly.

Funny you should mention the card draw creatures.... They made the most recent update as well as a selection of Enchantress pieces.

A fresh batch of updates after taking a turn under the microscope of tstorm823's random deck of the week not in love with trading a mana-producing land for Dark Depths but we'll see how it goes

Changelog
Out:

• Apprentice Necromancer
• Mindslicer
• Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1 Swamp

In:

• Elvish Reclaimer
• Blightbeetle
• Collector Ouphe
• 1 Forest

Implementing a change log going forward to sort out historical changes mostly for my own benefit.

I found both Apprentice Necromancer & Priest of Forgotten Gods too slow for the amount of impact they had.

Mindslicer is a card I've continued to keep in the deck despite rarely tutoring for or casting when drawn it was mostly the final nail in the coffin when resolving Living Death triggers.

Elvish Reclaimer may have the same issues as two of the cuts but fits the reusable tutoring and lands matter packages nicely so I'll give it a try.

Blightbeetle & Collector Ouphe trying out some hatebear options. Beetle is a unique effect. Since I cut Oblivion Stone & Nevinyrral's Disk there is minimal impact to my gameplan from Collector Ouphe

And the associated mana rebalancing.