Eternal Dryad
"A Journey to Golgrindy."
Hard to pilot, quite slow, but so much fun when the engine starts kicking in!
Graveyard!
Once flipped,
Atzal, Cave of Eternity
gets fragile threats, such as the
Tendershoot Dryad
, out of the graveyard, or dig out a
Ravenous Chupacabra
at instant speed for a semi-surprise kill'n'block.
The
Tendershoot Dryad
is our threat of choice because, while able to win games by herself, she can also dig the deck out of a rough spot by creating an army of decent blockers. (Too many good threats are dead when fighting from behind.) She's often overlooked because of her fragility, but this whole shell is designed to make her eternal.
I particularly like the
Golgari Findbroker
as it's a revivable creature that can regrow key non-creatures pieces, such as the tomb, the journey-aura and the eventual planeswalkers or sagas. Two of them are able to revive each other, making a decent body that's hard to remove without exile effects.
The
Thrashing Brontodon
is a central workhorse, enabling and protecting the game's main plan. First, it's a great blocker for 3 mana, often stopping many early threats dead in their track, giving the rest of the deck precious time to setup its engine. It can also serves as an expensive naturalize, not unlike the Reclamation Sage, but way more effective on the board than the frail elf when the effect isn't needed. But where it truly shines is when enchanted with the
Journey to Eternity
: if the aura resolves and while you keep a single mana open (turn 3 bronto, turn 4 aura + 1 mana), nothing can prevent the journey to flip (save instant graveyard hate). If some exile or naturalize effect targets the dino or its aura, you sacrifice it as a cost (targeting the aura if nothing else), sending both to the graveyard before your opponent receive priority. The removal fizzle, the bronto comes back and you have a shiny new land. You can also attack with an enchanted bronto, and when your opponent attacks back, sacrifice the bronto to get it back untapped, ready to block.
Find / Finality
is paramount in the current meta: it's a pseudo
Ritual of Soot
main board and it gives some leeway against go-wide (Selesnia, Boros, merfolks/vampires/zombies, and even some flavor or mono-red) or slow starts, and it silently becomes a cheap Soul Salvage when needed. Sooo flexible! The sideboard has some actual
Ritual of Soot
to complement it against true go-wide decks.
Sources of sacrifice, such as the
Plaguecrafter
or
Vicious Offering
are valuable for this deck. Your opponent will be wary of sending a creature to the graveyard when they finds out what we're up to. Also, letting a Journey on a non-bronto creature for too long is asking for an exile effect. For 6 mana, putting the aura on a creature and sacrificing it immediately with a Plaguecrafter dodges all sorcery-speed exile effects (such as white seal effects), and is completely safe against a tapped-out opponent. Vicious offering is the best, IMO: it cost 2 mana, it's instant speed and sacrifice as a cost... and it's a removal! Which one to main board depends on the meta, I guess. The Plaguecrafter is better against control (or creature-light decks such as Izzet Drakes), and the Offering is better against aggro.
I recently replaced a playset of
Llanowar Elves
with one of
Glowspore Shaman
. While the elves from Llanowar are good for explosive starts (turn 2 jadelight ranger or bronto followed by a journey for a turn-3 flip), the elves from Ravnica are better latter in the game while decently filling the role of finding early mana (even if less reliably). Also, they fill the graveyard for an early
Golgari Findbroker
, pressure control players, trade up against aggressive creatures and have a nice synergy with a
Memorial to Folly
. Bye, Llanowar...
Midnight Reaper
is a debated inclusion. It came from the traditional midrange golgari (with lot of explore and planeswalkers) and certainly provides an interesting advantage against sweepers and board stalls, while still being a decent 3-power 3-drop. However it costs life, which isn't a cheap price in a deck that have trouble staying afloat after turning the corner in aggro matchups. I believe this is the weakest slot in the deck and will be the first to be replaced.
Priest of Forgotten Gods
is the most recent inclusion. While not
Whisper, Blood Liturgist
, this deck can afford to sacrifice two bodies (one
Tendershoot Dryad
gives two fodders each each time the priest untaps) and is sometimes happy to put a non-token creature in the graveyard for Atzal to revive it. The damage, draw, edict and dark ritual effects are bonuses, when you just want to flip Atzal or recur a chupacabra. It's awesome how flexible this effect is: when you want to dig for a threat or an answer, edict a hexproof creature or pressure your opponent's life, all the other parts come as a bonus.
The sideboard is geared toward control (
Duress
and
Carnage Tyrant
), angels/flyers (chupa-like
Kraul Harpooner
) and go-wide (
Ritual of Soot
).
Not the Slimefoot Deck
This deck is not an aristocrat deck.
After reflection, I came to the conclusion that
Thallid Soothsayer
,
Slimefoot, the Stowaway
or
Reassembling Skeleton
don't have their place in this deck. (Don't get me wrong: they're great cards that could be awesome in a slightly different deck.) No, the goal of my deck is to stick threats and revive them over and over again, sucking opponent's removals until they're out of gas, while controlling their board with removals and recursive chupacabras. That deck happens to do that by sacrificing some creatures, occasionally creating some tokens to help. That deck wants powerful ETB effects strapped on revivable creatures, not just fodder bodies and death triggers.
The route of adding more consuming effects (
Thallid Soothsayer
) and more fodder bodies (
Deathbloom Thallid
) leads to the Slimefoot deck. Which is great, but not what I'm trying to accomplish here.
Gah,
Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
is tempting, though. X)
Old Cards
Cards that used to be in this deck, pushed out by the aggressive metagame.
The
Desecrated Tomb
is admittedly a pet card, but it synergize with so many cards. Flipping Atzal gives a bat. Using Atzal gives a bat, each time. Playing a findbroker brings a bat. (Reviving one gives a second bat!) Even the small half of Find//Finality gives a bat (just one, though).
Whisper, Blood Liturgist
is another pet card of mine. She is another source of revival, and she can even send creatures to the graveyard! And with a source of tokens, such as the Dryad or the tomb, she does wonders. With one tomb in play, she can exchange one creature in play for one in the graveyard at instant speed, triggering ETB effects for no loss in value. Fizzling enemy removals for value is great. However, she's a 2/2 for 4 and can't act the turn she arrives. I currently have her in the sideboard, because she can only shine against other grindy decks such as most of the other golgari and some selesnia or mono-green decks.
Windgrace Acolyte
may seem an odd choice, but it really does everything in this deck. It heals against aggro and burn, getting out of top-deck-shock range, fills the graveyard to get more targets for Atzal, trades (or chump-block) in the air, and may punish opponents for having no air control. Everything. It's expensive, though, and it has been bouncing in and out of the sideboard, lately.
Edit.
The more I look at the
Mausoleum Secrets
, the more I think it has a place in the main board. At undergrowth 2, it can fetch our ultimate removal. At 3, Journey is in range. At 4, half the deck is accessible: Vraska, Whisper, the findbroker, the chupa and even the demon. Only the big green threats and medium workhorses stay out of range, and the artifact tomb. But it got all angles covered, already: threats, removal and combo pieces. I just need to see how easy it is to enable it; maybe the
Stitcher's Supplier
will get some job, after all...
Edit.
After some tests (thanks MTG Arena), I decided to decrease the quantity of graveyard combo pieces: 2
Whisper, Blood Liturgist
instead of 4 and 2
Desecrated Tomb
instead of 3, but I added one
Journey to Eternity
to reach the full playset. I added 2 lands for more consistency (from 23 to 25), and dropped one
Tendershoot Dryad
(from 3 to 2) in favor of 2
Kraul Harpooner
(from side to main board) because that deck desperately needs 2-drops. Plus, it's a great little, repeatable chupacabra against flyers.
That makes me sad to have less Whisper and Tomb, because they are such a fun engine. But I realized Whisper is expensive and slow (4 mana, can't activate the turn she arrives, requires two bodies). The tomb is great because it's cheap, but I must be honest with myself: while fun, it's often a 3-mana do-nothing rock until I get my engine rolling. So if it can supplement Atzal to chump block or pressure in the air, great, and if Whisper is here to double the fun, double-great, but I can't hurt the deck's curve for fun. Also, the games this deck wants tend to be long and grindy, so there's more chance to find the rare Whisper+Tomb engine pieces.
Also, I love the dryad, but I must admit... a 5-mana 2/2 is hard to justify. But I can't convince myself to cut her below 2 copies. I keep the #3 and #4 in the sideboard for a midrange transformation.
The new Vraska is great, though. Sending the Chupa on a Journey, sacrificing it to Vraska's +2 to gain a card and a life for it to come back, flip the land and kill a blocker... Sooo goood. :)
Gold opening hand: 1 Forest, 2 Swamps, 1 Elf, 1 Journey, 1 Demon.
- Forest + Elf
- Swamp + Journey on the Elf
- Swamp +
Demon of Catastrophes
, sacrificing the the Elf, flipping the Cave
Turn three: Five mana sources on the table and a 6/6 flampler. Brutal. :)
Edit.
The
Kraul Harpooner
are back to the sideboard, replaced by the flexible
Find / Finality
, from side to main. While that deck critically lacks 2-drop creatures, I prefer to embrace its slow and grindy pace. Beside, having a slightly more expensive
Ritual of Soot
that can be traded for graveyard value is awesome. It's like pre-boarding against go-wide decks.
Say hello to
Windgrace Acolyte
! It fills the graveyard, it gains life, it trades with fliers and attacks above board stalls! Sure, it cost 5, but red decks hate seeing it bounce back from the graveyard and restore these precious life points.
Plaguecrafter
is entering the sideboard. It's a precious source of sacrifice and isn't dead against planeswalkers in control shells. Maybe I'll have it mainboard, one day.
I'm also seriously considering a mainboard pair of
Thallid Soothsayer
, after all. While it's a small body for 4 mana (a thing that this deck already have to a fault), it has the huge advantage of repetable sacrifice. The idea came from the fact that we can't trust our opponent to gently kill our enchanted chupacabra: they won't attack into it or will take two damage to the face, or they'll straight up exile it, when they don't blatantly naturalize the aura itself. The
Thrashing Brontodon
does wonders keeping it safe, dying for 1 mana when kindly asked for it, but the two-card combo isn't always in opening hands, and the aura ends up too often on a defensive chupacabra or a dumb elf. The solution is sacrifice, and I want more. The
Plaguecrafter
is an option.
Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
is too expensive; we want to sacrifice something early. The Soothsayer seems both decent by itself and qualified for the job: it doesn't need to tap, can sacrifice itself, and generously pays back for the food (the
Ravenous Harpy
is too selfish for my liking). It still retains it full value when Atzal is transformed: if our opponent doesn't want the free kill of a chupacabra attacking into a 4/4 body, our thallid will be happy to send it to the graveyard, for Atzal to fetch it back, killing dudes and stirring bats on its circular journey. Sure, that's a 7 mana flicker, but hey, wake me up if cloudshift comes back. Sure,
Whisper, Blood Liturgist
can simultaneously fill the graveyard and revive, but... I don't know, I've found her slow and clunky, lately.
Another approach I've been considering, these days:
Mausoleum Secrets
. In the magic christmas land where our graveyard is always filled, having a couple of mainboard tutors and several black one-off to fetch would be nice. Imagine Whisper, Windgrace, Plaguecrafter, Soot, and even an extra Atzal or Trophy, right in your hand, when you need it. Christmas. Heck, even
Stitcher's Supplier
and
Reassembling Skeleton
become interesting.
I need to run some tests... :)
Midrange (Stompy, Selesnia...) is our favorable matchup. The sideboard options depends on the specific threats and answers of our opponents. We can cover flyers (Kraul), white exile-removals (Duress), direct-damage (Guildmage)...
Against Board-Control (Rx Control, Bx Control, non-blue), no problem. Red and black can only kill our creatures, and we're already prepared for that. They put less pressure than aggro and midrange, and gives us more time to assemble our engine. Their creature threats are manageable for our removals and barring mirror graveyard shenanigans, we're fine.
Against Hand-Control (Ux Control, UW Teferi), the idea is to... well, hope for the best. Loosing key combo pieces to counterspells or exile is hard to recover. Thanks to the Trophy, our creature removals aren't useless against decks that won't play the same game, but still, that deck is lost when its chupas have nothing to chew.
Against Aggro and Tempo (Adeliz, Boros, Merfolks...), the idea is to transform into a removal-heavy midrange, foregoing the slower combo parts to survive the early game, and rely on sheer value (chupa, dryad, journey) to outgrow the opponent in mid- to late-game.
Against Combo (true, linear, non-interactive combos), we're toasted. We lack speed and can barely remove non-creature threats. The best hope is to side in Duress and bring as much bodies as possible, trading useless creature removals for bodies.
If aggressive and evasive decks rise, more cheap and fast removals should be considered.
Cast Down
sounds good against medium evasive creatures. Adding more
Vicious Offering
also seems a flexible option.
If a new artifact deck crawls back after Kaladesh's farewell (sort of midrange or synergy/combo historic), we have the revivable
Reclamation Sage
to support the brontodons.
Price of Fame
might also hit hard on historic figures.
Vraska's Contempt
will come back as our big removal if some resilient creatures or graveyard rivalry becomes too annoying. But I don't see it so soon, as Vraska's Trophy just became our front runner removal.
If some big, hexproof creatures becomes rampant, I can see
Divest
getting some job.
