Magic: The Gathering - Golgari Midrange Standard Deck Guide (2024)

Golgari midrange was a formidable deck prior to the release of the Bloomburrow set and the rotation of four sets that came along with it. Miraculously, the rotation of these sets took virtually nothing from the pre-rotation deck. In addition, Bloomburrow added a handful of cards that have taken the deck's power to the next level.

Though the new Magic: The Gathering Standard format is still in its fledgling days, Golgari Midrange has emerged as a frontrunner in the post-rotation metagame. This is thanks in no small part to a sneaky combo that allows the deck to win games out of nowhere. Introductions aside, let's take a closer look at the midrange deck turning players' heads.

Sample Decklist

Mosswood Dreadknight by Ryan Pancoast

Key Cards

The core strategy of Golgari Midrange is to outvalue the opponent's deck and bury them with your card advantage. Thanks to discard spells, value centric creatures, endless counters, and a powerful planeswalker at the top of your curve, it will be difficult for all but the most controlling of decks to keep up with the amount of resources Golgari Midrange generates.

Deep-Cavern Bat / Thought-Stalker Warlock

These are the deck's answers to any problem card you might encounter. Forcing your opponent to discard their most powerful cards or synergistic cards they are trying to set up is not only excruciatingly annoying for the opponent. It's a great way to make winning the game as easy as stealing candy from a baby.

If you draw multiples of these cards it can be good to take the removal out of an opponent's hand so that they can't get the card you steal with Deep-Cavern Bat back until they top deck more removal. Furthermore, keep in mind that the Thought-Stalker Warlock is much better after the opponent has lost life the turn you play it.

Mosswood Dreadknight / Sentinel Of The Nameless City

Your bread and butter threats. The nice thing about each of these cards is that both creatures represent card advantage in one form or another. Dreadknight can draw you a card using its adventure side, and Sentinel removes lands from the top of your deck with its map tokens.

The map token counters can be especially good on your Dreadknight thanks to its trample keyword. Map tokens can also be useful in enhancing your other legendary creature cards Glissa Sunslayer and Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal. Depending on the matchup, either of these creatures with a few map token counters can be pivotal to ensuring your victory.

Innkeeper's Talent

This is the Bloomburrow addition that is taking Golgari Midrange to the next level. Additional counters, ward 1, and a mana sink for even more counters make every creature in this deck a potentially game-winning threat.

On top of these amazing benefits, Innkeeper's Talent also provides a combo win through Vraska. If Innkeeper's Talent is at level 3 when you play Vraska, she enters with 12 loyalty counters: enough to ultimate her immediately and put 18 poison counters on the opponent, which wins you the game.

Vraska, Betrayal's Sting

Aside from the cheeky combo win, Vraska works well with this deck because her proliferate loyalty ability will hit the counters your creatures already have from map tokens and Innkeeper's Talent. She also provides up to three instances of removal with her -2 ability, which should be more than enough to churn through whatever creature threats your opponent presents.

Planeswalkers are always at their best when every loyalty ability they have is potentially useful. Thanks to Innkeeper's Talent, Vraska checks this box.

How To Play Golgari Midrange

You'll start the game by getting on the board with your Dreadknights and Bats or removing your opponent's initial threats with Cut Down or Go For The Throat if you find yourself against an aggressive deck.

Ideally, you'll only play Innkeeper's Talent once you already have a creature on the board so that you can immediately get value out of the counter it provides when you go to combat.

In the mid-game, you'll continue to develop your board with Sentinels, Glissa, and Innkeeper's Talent triggers while deciding between using your map tokens and Dreadknight adventures for card advantage or removing creatures important to your opponent's strategy. This is also where you'll typically find out whether you are the aggressor or defender in the matchup.

If you find yourself against an aggressive deck, keep in mind that Aclazotz is here to help with its lifelink keyword. Always attack with Aclazotz if you can to ensure you are gaining life when you are against an aggressive opponent. In the case that you're defending, Vraska can easily put you ahead on cards and the board using her 0 and -2 loyalty abilities.

In the late game, you'll either try to pull ahead in cards using a combination of Vraska, map tokens from Sentinel, the adventure side of Dreadknight, and Aclazotz's discard triggers, or look for an opportunity to combo by playing Vraska with a level 3 Innkeeper's Talent on board and ultimate her to instantly win the game.

Sideboarding

Like most greatly synergistic decks, Golgari Midrange only has so many cards you can sideboard out of the deck. If you take the wrong cards out, the synergy of your deck becomes too inconsistent. All of the key cards mentioned above are cards that you'll generally want to avoid sideboarding out against just about any opponent.

When playing against aggressive decks, you'll want to bring in your copies of Choking Miasma as well as Gix's Command thanks to its lifelink mode.

In most cases, you'll want to take out one copy of Duress and three Thought-Stalker Warlocks as they are poor blockers. You also need your creatures on defense, so it's unlikely you will trigger Thought-Stalker's choose clause.

If you're up against an opposing midrange deck,Liliana of the Veil will diversify your threats and provide a method by which you can win the card advantage war. Your one copy of Duress and your Cut Downs are typically good cards to trade out for her. Removal usually ends up costing more than it's worth in these matchups as most cards provide more value than a single trade.

As far as control decks are concerned, bring in the rest of your Duress copies as well as Blot Out.Take outCut Down as well as a couple of your Deep-Cavern Bats.

Finally, Tranquil Frillback acts as a silver bullet in the mirror (against other Golgari Midrange deck) as well as against hyper aggressive decks, decks with powerful artifacts or enchantments, and graveyard recursion decks. You will find yourself bringing in this card less frequently, however, it will be very good when you do.

Final Thoughts

Golgari Midrange is the first of what will likely be many midrange decks to come in the post-rotation Standard metagame. Its hybrid identity as both a midrange deck and a combo deck allows it to attack from multiple angles that make it difficult for many decks to defend from.

Furthermore, the excessive number of hand removal spells it has access to allow you to sculpt the game in the direction of your choosing. All of that being said, this is far from an easy deck to pilot, as you will make many important decisions throughout a match. It's best to get your repetitions in now, as it's hard to see Golgari Midrange going anywhere any time soon.