"Silver Pieces: Golgari Risen"

"Silver Pieces: Golgari Risen"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

One of my frustrations when I was making Standard Pauper decks was that the Golgari (which is my favorite guild by the way) got no love. The pieces were not really there and it seemed like any deck I made would just be swallowed up by faster or more stable decks in the end game.

When I turned to making Silver decks ( Standard 60 card deck , all uncommons with the exception of lands) I felt something different and I knew that the Golgari could once again make a strong showing in this particular format.

4 X Golgari Guildgate

9 X Swamp

9 X Forest

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22 Lands

4 X Thrill Kill Assassin

4 X Rakdos Cackler

4 X Dreg Mangler

4 X Slither Head

4 X Brush Strider

4 X Burning Tree Shaman

4 X Dryad Militant

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28 Creatures

2 X Golgari Charm

4 X Putrefy

4 X Doom Blade

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10 Spells

Now any color combination that has black in it would always want to check out the available spot removal. And there are 2 at the uncommon spot. Both of these awesome removals are making a come back. Putrefy and Doom blade. Aside from Red this is probably the best color combination for removal. You could add Golgari Charm and Shrivel here as well. So in those 4 cards alone you have the ability to remove Artifacts , Enchantments and creatures , and a mini mass removal too. Now isn't that great? 

It gets better. Scavenge as an ability was hard in standard Pauper but not so in Silver. Slitherhead is fast and makes things much bigger for a Zero Scavenge cost! There are a lot of 2 drops and 1 drops on this list that would cause problems for your opponents regardless of their guilds and color combinations. I mean Dreg Mangler and Brush Strider in one deck! Plus the possibility of Scavenging a Slither head and Dreg Mangler to make any of these guys bigger. 

The Burning Tree Shaman is a personal favorite of mine because it can cast so much more because of that additional mana. The dream casting would be 4 straight Burning Tree Shamans and a Brush Strider at the end. Representing 11 damage all in all at the next swing. 

Yup maybe this time the Golgari will be able to rise in this format. Maybe I could smash heads with those Scavenge creatures finally. Maybe. I can't wait to playtest this.