"Trolling with Varolz"

"Trolling with Varolz"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

    I have always been a Golgari at heart and the  Scavenge mechanic though it does appear to be weak is actually in great flavor to the present standard Golgari , it is a guild that capitalizes in creatures who have already died and otherwise would not have served any other purpose in the graveyard except for reanimation or to power up cards like Jarad , Splinter fright or Bone yard wurm. With the Scavenge mechanic (exile a target creature from your graveyard and pay its mana cost:Put a number of +1/+1 Counters on  target creature. Scavenge only as a sorcery)in place you could expect all Golgari to love the new Legend.

    Varolz, The Scar-Striped is a legendary Troll Warrior who will be the champion of the Golgari in the Dragons Maze.He does embody all that is Golgari at the present or most possibly any of their future forms for that matter.

     I wrote a blog about him earlier that I failed to publish (I was out for awhile). This turned out for the better because I wrote about an overpowered Troll whose unfocused picture with his abilities turned out to be a hoax. Some things are just too good to be true. It still doesn't change the fact that I am excited about this guy.

     At  1 Generic Mana , 1 Black and 1 Green. He is an easier Golgari Commander to cast in EDH. He has a 2/2 Stat that proves quite unimpressive for a troll. Shouldn't he be bigger some of you might already be asking. I have asked the same question myself and found him a bit puny to be smashing things around until I read his ability. 

     All of your creatures in the graveyard have the scavenge mechanic. It seems that those mushrooms on his shoulder have an activation effect that could recycle dead creatures (And as an update Magicthegathering.com has revealed that those mushrooms actually give Varolz some regenerative powers that allow him to heal his wounds instantly and giving him tough scar tissue).  It should have been green mushrooms!The kind of Mushrooms Super Mario used to eat to grow bigger. Italian plumber references aside from a puny 2/2 Troll Warrior its not hard to imagine that with enough mana and creatures in the graveyard Varolz could be huge. Very Huge. One lethal hit Commander damage huge.

     The Golgari have all the required cards to make this happen with Mulch , Grisly Salvage , Lotleth Troll and the new card Rot Farm Skeleton which lets you dredge more creatures into the graveyard to let him see more playing time on the battlefield. Not to mention Varolz himself who has the ability to have a creature sacrificed to regenerate himself. He is going to be a headache that refuses to go away. This action fills your graveyard even more.Literally thriving on more death and using up all the materials that are needed to be strong. The graveyard as steroids...how about that?!

     One look at his ugly mug and I was reminded of Ryuku from Death Note and there is one similarity that he shares with the Death god. He also hands out death with his abilities.Both to his fellow creatures and opposing sides that have no way of properly dealing with him.