Since its debut in 2020’s Zendikar Rising, the Party mechanic has failed to make much of an impact in any Magic: The Gathering format. The condition behind it was just too specific, and the payoff cards weren’t really worth the hassle. Many predicted that the mechanic would return for Final Fantasy, since the series is built entirely around parties of adventurers. This didn’t end up being the case, but in a serendipitous turn of events, the mechanic has made a comeback this week. Over in the MTG Pauper format, a spicy Golgari Party deck is making its presence known.
This deck runs a mix of Party creatures, and one of the better payoffs for the mechanic as a win condition. It pairs this with a bit of a self-bounce package, echoing a lot of what we see in Standard right now. The result is a Golgari brew that can play the long game, grinding things out while other Pauper decks run out of gas. It’s a total curveball compared to what tends to do well in the format currently. Sometimes, however, these are the kinds of decks that turn metas on their heads.
Golgari Party In MTG Pauper
The Golgari Party deck we’ll be looking at today comes via MVanni, who piloted it to a 5-0 finish in yesterday’s MTG Online Pauper League. It’s rare for a new archetype to spring up entirely out of nowhere, but that’s what we’re seeing in this case. What’s even more exciting is that this result was MVanni’s first time trying the list, which they call “Salsa Verde,” out in an event.
Everything in the deck revolves around Malakir Blood-Priest: the only Party card in the list. It provides a drain effect on entry that scales with the number of creatures in your Party, itself included, since it’s a Cleric. This deck is all about getting the most lifedrain possible out of this effect, and replaying the card multiple times to do so repeatedly.
To this end, a lot of the deck’s slots are dedicated to creatures that fill out a Party. Novice Occultist is a Wizard and Guildsworn Prowler is a Rogue, for example. Both also let you draw more cards, which ups the deck’s momentum. This pair is joined by Okiba Reckoner Raid, which is a Rogue on its back side. This one is a bit on the slow side, but it gives the deck something to do on turn one. It also gets some chip drain in early, to make Blood-Priest wins easier later.
Last but by no means least, Masked Vandal is the perfect Party creature for the deck. Thanks to Changeling, it can fill in for any of the types you’re missing. This will push your Blood-Priest up towards its full potential. It’s also a solid card in a vacuum, capable of exiling both artifacts and enchantments on entry. In Pauper, the former is especially relevant.
Into The Bounce House
Malakir Blood-Priest aside, the other key MTG card in Golgari Party is another one that’s been pretty much ignored in Pauper so far. That card is Stickytongue Sentinel, a well-statted self-bounce creature in green. Right out of the gate, this card is a Warrior, which lets it contribute to your Party. Additionally, it enables all manner of value plays by bouncing your own permanents back to your hand.
Blood-Priest is the obvious and best target here. Bouncing and replaying it with Sentinel will net you at least a four point life swing, likely more with all the Party creature types in the deck. By serving as, essentially, copies five through eight of Blood-Priest, Sentinel makes your main win condition much more effective.
There’s plenty more Sentinel can do for you in this list. Reusing Masked Vandal is a great example, letting you deal with additional problem artifacts and enchantments. You can also bounce back an Okiba Reckoner Raid, flipped or not, to get a couple of extra life drain points in. Late in the game, this can really help you turn the corner.
There are also a couple of noncreature permanents in MVanni’s list that are clearly intended as Sentinel targets. Omen of the Dead and Tithing Blade both do great work when replayed. Omen even lets you recycle fallen Blood-Priests for even more drain.
The rest of the deck is all about building up redundancy. Fanatical Offering and Eviscerator’s Insight both dig you deeper into your deck, in exchange for one of your reasonably priced creatures. If you sacrifice a Blood-Priest to one of these, you can bring it back cheaply via Unearth. Alternatively, you can get any of your other Party-forming creatures back instead. Add a playset of Cast Down for removal, and that’s the deck.
Keeping The Party Going
MVanni’s Golgari Party list is definitely innovative, and a breath of fresh air compared to what we normally see dominating the MTG Pauper League results. The deck is also quite well-positioned in the format right now, with tools for dealing with most of the current big players.
Take Burn, for example. According to MTG Goldfish data, this is the most-played deck in Pauper at present, with a 9.7% meta share. It’s also a deck that likely struggles against Golgari Party due to the abundance of life drain in the deck. Every Blood-Priest played essentially undoes a burn spell, and Sentinel holds back all of the deck’s aggressive creatures, Sneaky Snacker included thanks to Reach.
Mono-Blue Terror is another great matchup, with MVanni going 2-0 against the deck in their League run. Its bounce-based removal, like Boomerang, is useless against a deck that wants to be bouncing its own permanents anyway. It also lacks any kind of graveyard hate, which means Party will get to grind it out in the end, even through multiple Counterspells.
Jund Wildfire, current Pauper metagame number three, is probably the best matchup for Golgari Party. The deck relies heavily on the Modern Horizons 2 artifact lands, which Masked Vandal can exile very easily. It’s also, ultimately, a fair Midrange deck, which means it’s not really fast enough to kill Golgari Party before it drains them out.
This is mostly theoretical for now, of course. MVanni’s list is the only documented instance of this strategy in Pauper, after all. For such a seemingly obscure list, however, it has real potential to establish a foothold in the current metagame.
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