Golgari Save the Queen [PreDH]

[Oversoul]

Some of the players at my LGS have been getting pods together for "preDH" games. I'm excited to try that, and if participation in this variant continues, I'll keep building decks for it. Here's my first attempt.

Commander:
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari

1 Abundance
1 Abyssal Gatekeeper
1 Apprentice Necromancer
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Barren Moor
1 Bayou
1 Beast Within
1 Bitterblossom
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Burgeoning
1 Buried Alive
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Constant Mists
1 Crop Rotation
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Crystal Vein
1 Culling the Weak
1 Damnation
1 Dark Ritual
1 Decree of Pain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Dread Return
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Far Wanderings
1 Fertilid
1 Fleshbag Marauder
8 Forest
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Genesis
1 Genesis Wave
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Grave Pact
1 Harrow
1 Journey of Discovery
1 Life from the Loam
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Manabond
1 Marsh Flats
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mind Slash
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mox Diamond
1 Natural Balance
1 Natural Order
1 Noxious Revival
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Polluted Delta
1 Praetor's Grasp
1 Rampaging Baloths
1 Reanimate
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Regrowth
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sol Ring
1 Spike Weaver
1 Spore Frog
1 Squandered Resources
1 Strip Mine
1 Survival of the Fittest
8 Swamp
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Victimize
1 Viscera Seer
1 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Worm Harvest
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Zuran Orb

 

[Oversoul]

While I didn't get to take this deck into a proper preDH pod, I did play it twice, and I was generally happy with it. I already see some adjustments that I want to make, but I like the deck overall and I am just really enamored with this whole concept. I did Worm Harvest shenanigans in a Savra deck before and I love it.

The deck performed OK, but found itself between a rock and a hard place. One player was running Omnath, Locus of All. That commander is stupidly powerful and the player was pretty much staying shields down and building up resources for a big turn, which I knew would eventually be a problem. Another opponent was running an aggressive deck I've seen before, helmed by Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor. I didn't have many creatures to sacrifice, so if I compromised my own board state with Savra out, I could have weakened the Omnath player and made it easy to finish him off. But if I did that, I'd probably be banding the Obuun player the game. So I held back, and this gave the Omnath player time to set up to the point where I couldn't stop him anymore. He used Cadaverous Bloom and Peer into the Abyss, then took some eons-long turn to cast a bunch of spells, eventually killing everyone but me. From there, it was more durdling until he finally finished me off. I'd have gladly kingmade in favor of the Obuun aggro deck if I'd suspected that it would be this extreme.

Second game shouldn't really count. It was a quick 1 vs. 1 test before the game store closed. I did get to cast Genesis Wave for 13, which was pretty cool. Ultimately, it didn't really matter. My opponent was running a self-mill deck helmed by Lazav, the Multifarious. He worked his way into the nonbo of Living Death + Leveler, and decided it was funny enough to let that happen and watch himself get decked. I might have done the same in his position. It was funny.

I want this deck to be able to more reliably have black creatures on the battlefield sooner. So I'm going to work on that.

 

[Oversoul]

Finally got to use Worm Harvest! This deck put up a pretty nice performance, but I botched it as a player. I should have won, but I dredged into Gaea's Blessing at exactly the wrong time. Forgot about that. I had other options and could have used them. Dredging that one time went on to cost me the game. I also would have won if I hadn't been targeted with Exhaustion by a player as his last move before scooping. He actually said that he was going to target my other opponent, but I pointed out that my board state was more dangerous to him, so he changed his mind and hit me with the card. Less than a minute later, he was telling us that he was out of time and had to leave the table.

Frustrated that I lost, but happy with the deck's performance.