This week I tackle one of the most divisive topics in EDH, land destruction. Everyone has an opinion. See what I got myself into in play tesing the deck and get hooked on land destruction with me. No resource should be safe.
Brewing decks is one of my favorite things about Magic. Even if I can't get to the shop to get a game in I can still be involved in the game by brewing. These days I certainly don't get to my LGS as often as I would like. As great as brewing in a vacuum can be, imagining big splashy plays and how the deck optimally functions, you really need to play it against real people to see what works and what doesn't so you can properly iterate on the deck. I think this is where a lot of content suffers, from first draft-ism. To combat that I want to look at a couple of decks in my stable that I frequently use. Although frequently tweaked and tuned they are far from perfect. I'll talk through not only what the deck is now and how it plays, but what cards have moved in and out and whats on deck in the maybe board. My favorite deck happens to be a Boros deck. As excited as I am to share that one with you, I just did a red white deck. I think it's a better idea to give a little distance with the color combination before I write about another deck. Instead I'll go in the opposite direction, to one of my personally least used color combination, Green Black.
People describe life points and the graveyard as resources. The graveyard functions as a secondary hand in some cases. For better or worse that wasn't my thing. The true story of this Golgari deck didn't begin with a colored card at all, it began with an artifact, Ark Of Blight. It was just floating around in my collection. I had never played it before and don't even know when I acquired it. It easily fit into my love for land destruction. People have very strong feelings when it comes to land destruction in EDH. Usually negative feelings. I could argue there's a difference between targeted land destruction and mass land destruction, but I don't really need to. I think LD is a fine strategy and a normal reaction against unchecked land ramp. If green is the most powerful color it's in part because it dumps lands onto the battlefield. Finding a counter to that is only natural. Any other resource is at risk in a game and can be wiped away without much animosity from the table. I'm certainly not afraid to try and normalize land destruction in some form. Ark Of Blight is rather benign in terms of LD anyway. Cast the card, pay to tap it, blow up a single land. It seems a rather underwhelming trade, especially against three opponents. I was determined to make it work. I quickly recognized I needed a way to recur the Ark, and do it often to break parity. I briefly considered red and white options for obvious reasons. Those are fine builds that I encourage you to explore on your own. I wanted to do things a little different. I knew Golgari was big into pulling cards out of the graveyard and thought that might be an option worth exploring. A quick Gatherer search, and a trip to price cards on Amazon, clearly pointed me in the direction of Glissa, The Traitor.
Glissa had everything I needed to make the Ark viable. She rewards you for killing enemy creatures by pulling artifacts out of the graveyard. Not only does she make it even easier with deathtouch and firststrike but she doesn't even have to be the thing that killed the creature in the first place. Combat is an easy way to kill enemy creatures for Glissa but I didn't expect opponents to block her after a while and a 7 turn clock isn't threatening enough to pressure opponents to casually commit blockers against my commander. A good Murder would do the job for me, but I wanted Glissa to play a more active role. But what was the best way to target damage when not playing red? I knew the answer wasn't fight spells like Pounce. If Glissa is important to the plan why put her at risk? A fair fight wasn't in the cards (pun not intended but left in anyway) but an unfair one is. Just let Glissa sucker punch people. Green has a solid handful of cards like Ram Through and Rabid Bite that do just that. Nature's Way helps clear the way and sets up an even more profitable attack step than usual. These effects certainly exist but are one and done. I knew there had to be a more permanent option to targeted removal through deathtouch damage. Viridian Longbow and Pathway Arrows were easy includes in this category. I certainly didn't want to overload the deck with similar equipment but I knew Thornbite Staff had to make the cut since it would let me machine gun down an opposing board state. If we get blown out with something like a Vandal Blast or Shatterstorm, fear not as Glissa can pull those equipment back easily.
Those are certainly a fair number of cards to support Glissa pulling the Ark Of Blight out of the graveyard but I knew I had to find profitable ways to put it there in the first place or put it into my hand another way. Green answered that need too with cards like Commune With The Gods and Sudden Reclamation. Pull useful resources from the top of your library into your hand and provide juicy targets for Glissa to give us back later. The deck was starting to take shape with basic categories like card draw, recursion, and removal all playing off each other nicely. But something was still missing. I realized it wasn't so much missing as it was neglected. I needed more land destruction. I can't normalize such a strategy with just one card.
There are certainly black and green targeted land destruction spells out there that would fill in my deck quickly. However, I knew they were too lackluster, even for this casual build. I couldn't see the deck playing Drain The Well unironically. I did leave the door open for cards like Creeping Mold and Reclaiming Vines as they offer up a broader type of removal. There still wasn't enough land destruction. I wanted to get clever and use one strategy, LD, to support another, Glissa powered artifact recursion. So I took a look through my collection and found an old classic I had wanted to take in a similar direction years before, Jolrael, Empress Of Beasts. Animate an opponent's lands and let Glissa tear through them with sucker punch effects, then clean up the stragglers. But why settle for only hitting a couple of lands? All I had to do was play a board wipe and the biggest threat at the table would be reset big time. I had to find more spells that animate lands. In recent years Wizards has avoided this strategy by limiting such animate spells to your own lands. But in EDH I'm not nearly as limited with these modern restraints. Verdant Touch gives me extra breathing room as the land stays a creature permanently so I can profit from it's destruction at my leisure. The buyback also helps me threaten the rest of the table with the same fate. Lifespark Spellbomb does the same thing and is repeatable thanks to Glissa. Then I found them, Nature's Revolt and Natural Affinity. Revolt is a great way to keep opponents from ramping as their lands now become fragile creatures. At 5 mana it may be a stretch to see it early enough to stop the bulk of ramp, but it still puts everyone on notice once it hits the field. Whoever plays the next boardwipe is going to become an even bigger target than you. Natural Affinity plays the exact opposite way. It lets me surprise punish anyone playing a boardwipe while I'm ahead.
There were still plenty of slots in the deck that I was eager to fill with value. Soul-Guide Lantern and Tormod's Crypt were easy graveyard hate includes. Moriok Replica and Sylvok Replica are recurrable removal and draw that function as beaters and blockers when needed. Marionette Master will drain out the table in no time and Platinum Angel provides solid insurance if a game gets out of hand. Ramunap Excavator helps me leverage lands in the graveyard to help me rebuild faster than anyone else. Drownyard Temple just returns on its own if I pay. I can also protect myself from my own wrath with Sylvan Awakening. Just once I was able to draw into Sylvan Awakening, Natural Affinity, and Bontu's Last Reckoning to turn 9 mana and three cards into the fairest win I could. Even though it took a couple turns to close out afterward. I also insulated myself from these animated land blowouts with Scryb Ranger and Quirion Ranger pulling vulnerable lands back to my hand. The last thing I did was turn into the effect on those cards. Not the land return but the untapping of a creature. If I could untap Glissa or any other equipped deathtoucher I can get extra mileage out of their effect and even create situations where I can throw up a surprise blocker that can tap to kill a second threat after its been declared. Say Glissa attacked and is currently tapped. If someone is foolish enough to attack me with my shields down I just play Sudden Spinnerets and get to first strike deathtouch their best attacker and maybe tap Glissa if she's carrying a bow to remove another threat. That was a great feeling the first time I pulled it off.
Here's what the deck looks like now.
Glissa, The Taitor
Verdant Touch Vampire Knighthawk Ark of Blight
Natural Affinity Rabid Bite Acidic Slime
Sylvan Awakening Ram Through Reclaiming Vines
Nature's Revolt Nature's Way Creeping Mold
Jolrael, Empress of Beasts Viridian Longbow Return to Nature
Lifespark Spellbomb Pathway Arrows Murderous Rider
Quirion Druid Thornbite Staff Phyrexian Scriptures
Commune With The Gods Umbral Mantle Crux of Fate
Grisly Salvage Emerald Charm Bontu's Last Reckoning
Codex Shredder Instill Energy Sylvok Replica
The Mending of Dominaria Sudden Spinnerets Noxious Gearhulk
Sudden Reclamation Quirion Ranger Workshop Assistant
Foundry Inspector Scryb Ranger Metalspinner's Puzzleknot
Jhoira's Familiar Ramunap Excavator Read The Bones
Mind Stone Marionette Master Sign In Blood
Solemn Simulacrum Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire Pointed Discussion
Burnished Hart Platinum Angel Circuit Mender
Horizon Spellbomb Glaring Spotlight Treasure Keeper
Amillary Sphere Tormod's Crypt Moriok Replica
Golgari Cluestone Soul-Guide Lantern Spare Supplies
Deep Reconnaissance Plague Boiler
Darkmoss Bridge Darksteel Citadel Vault of Whispers
Overgrown Tomb Underground Stadium Evolving Wilds
Ghost Quarter Drownyard Temple
Swamp x 11 Forest x 18
Originally I had more of the untap effect for surprise blocking. The group I started playing the deck against wasn't as enthusiastic about casual combat so those got trimmed early. Instill Energy stayed because it's repeatable and provides pseudo haste. Umbral Mantle makes too much sense in other decks for me to keep here much longer. Elixir Of Immortality was in the initial build. It's one of my pet cards. Anytime I think I'm going to churn through my deck I want it so I can refill my library. After cracking the Elixir I'm more likely to draw into options rather than lands since I generally don't have lands in my graveyard to be shuffled back in. I didn't run into instances where I was being milled, and I wanted cards in my graveyard anyway so it got cut. Ram Through made it in once Ikoria was released as I was hungry for more direct damage. Plague Boiler is a recent add, probably the most recent. I like the ability to hold the board hostage but it isn't supportive of the land destruction plan so it's on the list of potential cuts. I need more survivable lands so once I get a Cascading Cataracts and Darksteel Citadel they'll probably replace basic lands. The last card I want to find a home for is Zoetic Cavern. If I had it on the field face down and could somehow destroy all lands I would be happy to flip it to be ahead on mana. It's super weird and niche. I feel like I would try too long to make it work then cut it immediately after I lucked into making it work.
I really like this deck. I don't play it casually 1v1 anymore since focusing all the targeted land destruction on one player doesn't feel great to do every time. Golgari hasn't moved too far up my list of favorite color combinations because of this deck but it is higher now. It also inspired another black green deck. I wanted another challenge and decided to move away from an artifact focus in these colors to an enchantment based strategy. More on that later.
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