Free to Play players, rejoice! In this week’s article, JackischMTG is bringing one hell of a sweet Golgari brew to the table, with the full list having a combined 57 commons and uncommons!

Before we dive in to today’s write-up - I want to make a shameless plug. I stream live on Twitch  at https://www.twitch.tv/jackischmtg every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, starting around 8:00 PM (EST). If you enjoy this deck and want to see more, or perhaps are struggling with the deck and need help, please come join me. I love helping new players, and would be more than willing to talk all things MTG with you. For those who learn new decks best by watching, you can see me go 7-2 in QC and 5-0 in CC event queues here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/316011908?t=01h01m04s

/end ShamelessPlug.exe

I’ve done it again! But this time, it’s for real. My long-time readers and viewers may remember back when Kaladesh block was first introduced to Arena, I set out to create a fun, half-decent, and easily acquirable deck for F2P using as many of the starting cards as possible with minimal need for rare and mythic wildcards. The result was the wonky combo deck I jokingly called U/R Turtles n’ Birds, and boy was it a riot. Of course, it wasn’t actually good in a field consisting of 40% Chainwhirler decks. But with standard rotation, comes a new and wide open meta.

Introducing, G/B Undergrowth! A combo-ish midrange deck, this thing has been absolutely dominant for me in the Constructed Event Queues, going 7-2 QC, 5-0 CC, and 5-1 CC. As the name might suggest, this deck wants to start of with as much graveyard velocity as possible. Cards like Stitcher's Supplier and Glowspore Shaman make this possible, with the added bonus of some mana fixing in the latter. These 8 cards are core to the deck, and should never be side-boarded out (even against Goblin Chainwhirler), as they enable our biggest threats in Molderhulk and Hatchery Spider, as well as allow us to use our graveyard as a toolbox with Golgari Findbroker.

Moving on to Plaguecrafter and Elvish Rejuvenator, these are just solid 3 drops with a ton of utility. Rejuvenator is fantastic when our opponent is durdling, developing/fixing mana and sometimes even grabbing one of our Memorial to Folly. Plaguecrafter, on the other hand, serves as some rather crafty removal for planeswalkers, hexproof creatures, and even sometime just a discard effect with the intent clearing out an opponent’s lingering card in hand (which always seems to be Settle the Wreckage) or just being a sacrifice outlet for our Sticher’s.

Moving on to the 4 and 5 drops, we have our midrange portion of the deck, i.e. efficient creatures and spells that advance your board while getting extra value out of them. Chupacabra is a self-explanatory card. The Golgari Findbroker and The Eldest Reborn are great value while also serving as one of our “combos”, all of which are noted at the end. Vivien Reid, on the other hand, serves several purposes as a one-of that are important to note. First, she’s our only permanent card capable of removing artifacts and enchantments in the mainboard. This is important because both Findbroker and our Hatchery Spider only target permanents, so Assassin’s Trophy is out of the question unless its in your hand. Second, this deck can struggle with flyers from time to time, so Vivien’s -3 ability also cleanly takes care of those. With cards like Doom Whisperer, Lyra Dawnbringer, and maybe even Niv-Mizzet, Parun poised to be common threats over the next few weeks, there’s a possibility that a 2nd main board Vivien would be correct.

Next, our removal suite. With Necrotic Wound being the most efficient removal spell in standard, it’s no wonder that we are running the full 4. The fact that it exiles is also frequently relevant, and it’s kinda fun being the only deck that gets it’s own Fatal Push, even if it’s not as good. Speaking of Fatal Push, one of the best things black decks had going for them in the previous standard was that Fatal Push could be so cleanly sideboarded out for a package of Duress against the creatureless control matchup. Having access to such potent disruption, without messing up our curve is a gamechanger there. As for Assassin’s trophy, we are not on the full 4 because we typically don’t want to see multiple copies in our hand early on. However, the catch-all nature of the card almost demands that we run more than 2. Whatever the most problematic thing is on your opponent’s field, Assassin’s Trophy has you covered.

Finally, our biggest haymakers are Molderhulk and Hatchery Spider. Molderhulk can come down as early as turn 3, but more often turn 4 - 5, making it an efficient body, on par in power/toughness with a Nullhide Ferox. And don’t get me started about how it grabs our Memorial from the graveyard! Finally, Hatchery Spider is the top end of our deck, and it is a beast of a threat. The most overlooked aspect of our friendly neighborhood spider friend is that the Undergrowth trigger is ON CAST, meaning that control opponents have no way of preventing that ability, even if they counter the spider itself.

Wrapping up the mainboard now, I want to cover the “combos” in our deck:

1.  The Eldest Reborn, 3rd phase trigger targets Golgari Findbroker in our graveyard. Findbroker’s ETB ability targets the Eldest Reborn that just went to the grave and sends it back to our hand.

2. Memorial to Folly sacrifice ability targets Molderhulk. Molderhulk ETB ability grabs Memorial to Folly from the grave and puts it back into play for future use.

3. Hatchery Spider cast trigger targets a Golgari Findbroker. Findbroker ETB ability targets a previously milled Hatchery Spider or other needed threat/answer for the following turn. Nothing feels better than chaining Hatchery Spiders on back-to-back turns.

Sideboard Choices:

4 Duress - Always comes in against control, in replacing our Necrotic Wounds

1 Shapers' Sanctuary- Comes in against control and midrange decks that have a lot of targeted abilities and spells. This may be cut from the deck should cards like Brontodon and Knight of Autumn be common-place.

1 Arguel’s Blood Fast - See Shaper’s Sanctuary, similarly might be replaced by other cards

1 Plaguecrafter - Comes in typically against control, but sometimes midrange match-ups may make you want the 4th copy in the mainboard

3 Plague Mare - You know where Plaguecrafter absolutely sucks? Against Tokens. Sideboard those guys out for Plague Mare and make your opponent regret playing tokens against Chainwhirler... I mean, Plague Mare!

2 Reclamation Sage - There are a ton of potent enchantments in the format. Rec Sage is the perfect answer to those in light of Hatchery Spider and Findbroker only targeting permanents. Rec Sage is often brought in alongside the 4th Plaguecrafter against Teferi Control decks that use Seal Away or other enchantment based removal.

1 Golgari Findbroker - Also comes in against Control, replacing one of the frequently useless Chupacabras in that match-up.

1 Vivien Reid - See Findbroker’s sideboard info. The second copy Vivien Reid is also brought in against grindy midrange decks that have cards like Lyra Dawnbringer or Doom Whisperer on their top end.

1 Carnage Tyrant - Comes in against both Control and Tokens. Trample prevents your tokens opponent from indefinitely blocking with his/her tokens to survive.

On a final parting note - as I’m writing this, we are only on day 3 of MTGA’s open beta and standard is nowhere close to being solved. This may mean that this deck absolutely sucks in 4 or 5 weeks from now, but even in that worst case scenario, F2P players shouldn’t feel like they got burned building this deck because 12 of the 15 rares in this deck will be staples in multiple competitive decks, and should remain so until they rotate out of Standard. The same will likely be true of all 3 mythics in the deck.