Oh boy this format is moving fast.

As I talked about last Friday, it feels like this format has been evolving almost on a daily basis. New decks, new rules of engagement, and even newer decks trying to break those rules. At SCG Syracuse greedy mana bases were the order of the day, with both the Lotus Box Jeskai Planeswalkers deck and the Four-Color Dreadhorde deck I played running zero basic lands. Both decks were the breakout decks of the event and have been heavily played since.

As such, people have been trying to ruin their fun, quite literally, with Assassin's Trophy and Field of Ruin.

Many of the Japanese MPL players brought a land destruction-themed Goglari Midrange deck to the MPL weekly event last weekend, with the intent of punishing greedy mana bases to the max. It features many normal elements of Golgari Midrange, but with a full package of Assassin's Trophy and Field of Ruin complemented by War of the Spark haymaker Casualties of War. Against any opponent with zero or one basic lands and heavy mana requirements, this deck is poised to make it very hard for them to play Magic, and the fallback plan of playing a solid Golgari Midrange build works as well.

Time Stamps:

Match 1 - 00:04:08

Match 2 - 00:19:06

Match 3 - 00:46:09

Match 4 - 01:09:12

Match 5 - 01:27:29

Golgari Land Death | War Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (23)
• 2 Carnage Tyrant
• 2 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 3 Paradise Druid
• 4 Jadelight Ranger
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 4 Merfolk Branchwalker
• 4 Wildgrowth Walker

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 1 Vraska, Golgari Queen
• 2 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
• 3 Vivien Reid

• Instants (4)
• 4 Assassin's Trophy

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Casualties of War

• Lands (24)
• 4 Swamp
• 8 Forest
• 4 Field of Ruin
• 4 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Woodland Cemetery

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Duress
• 2 The Elderspell
• 1 Ob Nixilis's Cruelty
• 2 Moment of Craving
• 2 Cast Down
• 2 Thrashing Brontodon
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Massacre Girl

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Of course, the problem with playing a metagame deck is that sometimes you don't run into the metagame you expect. We played against three (!) mono-colored aggro decks which exposed us for the middle of the road Golgari deck that we were, as well as two three color decks that had a couple of basic lands along with their duals.

And there's the rub really. If your opponent is playing a lot of basic lands, this deck is going to struggle to do what it wants to do. If your opponent isn't playing basic lands, you're likely to crush. But either way, when you play a metagame deck you are subjecting yourself to the will of the pairing gods to an extent. Players are adapting as well, as by this point any smart Jeskai or Four-Color Dreadhorde player is playing at least one basic land to prevent getting cheesed out.

Make no mistake this deck is a tool; if your metagame is infested with greedy mana bases, pick up the hammer and punish them, but if you're looking at well adapted mana bases and mono-colored aggro decks, you're going to reach into the toolbox for something else.