Golos Loves Goooooold! (Final Build)

Commander / EDH

jerseyscribe

Land (33)

• 1x Alchemist's Refuge
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Taiga
• 1x Treasure Vault
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Artifact (5)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Time Sieve
• 1x Vedalken Orrery

Creature (28)

• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Captain Lannery Storm
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Deadeye Plunderers
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Eidolon of Blossoms
• 1x Emiel the Blessed
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Faeburrow Elder
• 1x Goldspan Dragon
• 1x Grim Hireling
• 1x Hellkite Tyrant
• 1x Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
• 1x Magus of the Moat
• 1x Marionette Master
• 1x Nyxbloom Ancient
• 1x Old Gnawbone
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Prosperous Pirates
• 1x Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• 1x Rapacious Dragon
• 1x Setessan Champion
• 1x Skullport Merchant
• 1x Sythis, Harvest's Hand
• 1x Tireless Provisioner
• 1x Xorn

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Brass's Bounty
• 1x Contract Killing
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Reckless Endeavor
• 1x Replenish
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall

Commander (1)

Enchantment (17)

• 1x Anointed Procession *f-pre*
• 1x Aurification
• 1x Collective Restraint
• 1x Copy Enchantment
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Enchantress's Presence
• 1x Estrid's Invocation
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Mana Reflection
• 1x Mechanized Production
• 1x Mirrormade
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Revel in Riches
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Sphere of Safety
• 1x Sterling Grove

Instant (6)

• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

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Sideboard

Creature (2)

• 1x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1x Ruthless Knave

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Storm the Vault  ^Flip

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Saheeli, the Gifted

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It was 2017, and for some reason I was watching a lot of Austin Powers in Goldmember. I particularly enjoyed the part when the titular character proclaimed he loved gold, and I would repeat the line ad nauseum. It was this silly reference, paired with the release of Ixalan and the introduction of the treasure token, that gave rise to the deck you see before you - I simply wanted an excuse to proclaim “I Love Gold” as much as possible, and what ended up coming out of it is arguably my favorite commander deck I have ever created. Not just because I can say this line, though that certainly is a plus.

It has been a journey watching the deck evolve, from its humble origins of putting literally every card with “gold” or “treasure” in its text to fill it out, to today, where treasure is such a common game mechanic it has been increasingly difficult to make cuts when I need to. Note, in the current build we do not run any cards that create gold (like King Macar, the Gold-Cursed), as having two different tokens that functionally do the same thing but have different names actually goes against our strategy.

So without further ado, let’s get greedy and make some treasure!

Deck Overview Show

In a nutshell, this is an enchantment deck that relies on stalling combat to survive, creating as many treasure tokens as possible, and simply winning the game off your riches. It runs very little direct interaction, but has enough pillow fort cards like Collective Restraint and Sphere of Safety to ensure that if anyone is going to be attacking, they sure as hell won’t be attacking you. So you will be casting stuff that doubles (or triples, or quadruples) your treasure generation or your mana output, the best of the best treasure-centric cards, and ways to stall the game and ensure your victory once your riches have been established.

Why Golos? Show

Since the deck’s inception up until late 2019 I ran Ramos, Dragon Engine as my general, and for a while it was a good. With Ramos, Dragon Engine we can make more mana to cast more spells fairly easily, as we are running 5 colors, but the problem I was often running into is that I would generate so much treasure and already have access to as much as I needed that Ramos’ ability became irrelevant. Yes it worked thematically as Dragons hoard treasure and yes one could theoretically keep pumping him up and kill players through commander damage, but killing through combat is not what this deck is about and many times I found myself simply not casting him or finding his ability more or less useless.

This is where Golos, Tireless Pilgrim comes in. With Golos, Tireless Pilgrim as our commander, we now consistently have an outlet for all the treasure we generate, and with the right cards we can continue activating his ability, or in the case of pulling off one of our main combos to create infinite treasure (which I explain below) we can actually play our entire deck. Having access to this ability in such a mana-centric deck is indispensable, and we get so much more value off of this than we would Ramos, Dragon Engine or any other potential commander. Additionally, being able to search for any land in your deck when he enters the battlefield is another useful tool, as we can search up any colors we may still need, or even get useful utility lands such as Alchemist's Refuge, Treasure Vault, or Hall of Heliod's Generosity. There’s a reason Golos, Tireless Pilgrim has the most decks out of the 5-color commanders on EDHREC, and it’s because he is absurdly powerful - after playing with Golos, Tireless Pilgrim since the end of 2019, I would say he is far and above the best option as our commander.

How Do We Win? Show

As stated before, the goal of this deck is to win off your hoard of treasure - to simply be so entrenched in gold, rubies, and diamonds - to have wealth so staggering, that others simply must submit to you. There are ways to make exorbitantly large amounts of treasure, but 9 times out of 10 we are going to be going for the following combo line in order to create an infinite number of treasures.

The combo is simple, and you will need the following.

1. Either Prosperous Pirates or Rapacious Dragon
2. Either Deadeye Navigator or Emiel the Blessed
3. Any sort of Token or Mana doubler (Xorn or Mana Reflection, for example)

Prosperous Pirates and Rapacious Dragon each create two treasure tokens when they enter the battlefield, so with any mana or token doubler you will be able to either tap your treasure for 4 total mana, or have 4 total treasures on the battlefield.

After either of these cards have entered, we are going to either soulbond them to Deadeye Navigator to flicker them an infinite number of times, or utilize Emiel the Blessed’s ability to… flicker them an infinite number of times. It does not matter which one is used, because we are going to always be generating more mana than we use, and as such, will be able to use their ability over and over and over again until we are drowning in precious gems.

It’s a three-piece combo, but there are plenty of doublers in the deck, plenty of draw to get you there, and even stuff like Tooth and Nail, which when entwined can get you two of the pieces you need right into play. Because it is so mana intensive to get off, we need pillow fort effects to stay alive until the combo is in sight, which I will get into later.

(Also of note, we can create infinite treasures using Deadeye Plunderers and at least two doubling effects, or one tripling effect in the form of Nyxbloom Ancient. In addition, the above combo can also be pulled off without any doublers if the board state is right using Dockside Extortionist).

So now that we have established how to make infinite treasures, how exactly do we win with them? One of the most straightforward ways is to use Marionette Master and sacrifice all our treasures to ping our opponents to death, or simply Exsanguinate for a ridiculous amount, but even more fun than that is winning off of simply controlling our wealth. Enter Mechanized Production, Revel in Riches, and Hellkite Tyrant. Each of these, for our purposes, basically states “at the beginning of your upkeep if you control X treasures you win the game.” For Mechanized Production it is 8 (technically 7, since it will create a token on your upkeep), for Revel in Riches it is 10, and for Hellkite Tyrant it is 20 - but the number could be a billion for all we care because we have infinite treasures. Drop any one of these on the battlefield and just sit back and wait until your turn and the game is yours - that is unless other players stop you.

So how do we prevent others from stopping us once we have this win on the board? Maybe we have it but our opponents have removal in hand and are simply waiting for their turn to untap… who knows? Because we can’t afford to simply sit back and wait three or so turns, here are some ways we can either sneak our win out, or guarantee victory once we have our win-cons active:

Firstly, we can utilize flash effects such as Vedalken Orrery, Leyline of Anticipation, and Alchemist's Refuge to do everything written above at instant speed. Ideally you will wait until the end of turn of the player right before you, then flash in your combo and go off at their end step, giving them less opportunity to respond than they would have if you simply played all these cards on your main phase. It’s super sneaky, and unless you know the deck, not many players will see it coming.

If flash is not an option, or you just want to secure the win once you have it, utilize Teferi's Protection to phase you and all your permanents out, leaving you untouchable (apart from mill strategies, or your opponents playing an alternate win-con of their own like Thassa's Oracle) until your upkeep, when you will win.

Even better than Teferi's Protection for securing the win, in my opinion, is Time Sieve. With infinite treasures out you can simply take all the turns you need, ensuring no one else gets to go or even get the opportunity to take you out. So if you don’t have your win cons but have infinite (or a lot) of treasure, you can keep taking turns to keep digging for what you need - or alternatively, if you do have your win con, just proceed to your next turn and win.

How Do We Get There? Show

Even if we are not going infinite, there are many ways to get large amounts of treasure that can get us to these minimum treasure counts to win the game. Cards like Pitiless Plunderer and Tireless Provisioner can gradually get us to the treasure counts we need, especially if there is a doubler on the field, and even if you are not infinite and decide to use Golos, Tireless Pilgrim’s ability there’s a chance to hit stuff like Brass's Bounty, which will usually allow you to use his ability at least one more time. With the new Forgotten Realms set, we even have more combat-centric treasure generators like Old Gnawbone, and Grim Hireling from the commander precon - so while you won’t be killing anyone through combat, you can smack em around a bit until change falls from their pockets. There are various ways to get to the 8 or 10 treasures we need for Mechanized Production and Revel in Riches without going infinite, and while 20 for Hellkite Tyrant is notably way more difficult, with enough doublers it too is possible.

As mentioned already, treasure/token doublers like Goldspan Dragon and Anointed Procession are crucial to the deck, and in a way are the backbone behind the whole strategy. Having one or two of these effects on the field can virtually guarantee that cards like Contract Killing or Reckless Endeavor will net you more mana than they cost, and at the very least will increase the value of the card dramatically. We also run a fair amount of clone effects for enchantments, such as Mirrormade and Estrid's Invocation, just to double-down on these effects and make our treasure engines that much more powerful. Making 1 treasure with Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is already great, but imagine making 2, 4, or even more! It may sound greedy, but greedy is this deck’s middle name, so piling on as many of these effects and ways to copy them not only fits the theme of the deck, but helps us get to our end game faster.

Most of our creatures are not huge threats, so we are trying to generally stay out of combat as much as possible and dissuade anyone from attacking us. While we do have some beefy bodies, it is more beneficial to put up a wall with stuff like Sphere of Safety (since we are running a ton of enchantments) and Collective Restraint (since we are running all 5 colors) to bring the focus of the attacks elsewhere why we do our thing. These are also easily cloned with stuff like Clever Impersonator and a variety of other cards, making it near impossible for most players to even think about turning their creatures our way. (*Magus of the Moat is also good for this, but I will have to see how it plays out with the newer additions of stuff like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Grim Hireling)

And lastly, since we are running so many enchantments, we have plenty of Sythis, Harvest's Hand and Eidolon of Blossoms-type effects that will draw us cards off either casting enchantments or having them enter the battlefield. The latter can actually also be soulbonded to Deadeye Navigator for flicker/draw shenanigans, but even if not bonded, having one or two of these effects on the battlefield will allow us to consistently draw into what we need.

In Conclusion Show

This deck is insanely fun, and I have had an absolute blast fine-tuning it over the years. I hope you all enjoy the build and consider giving it or something similar a shot!

Date added	2 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 1 Mythic Rares 74 - 2 Rares 11 - 1 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.64
Tokens	Copy Clone, Food, Servo 1/1 C, Treasure