Over the years, graveyard decks have, appropriately enough, proved to be some of the most enduringly popular strategies in Magic. There’s just something innately appealing about leveraging spent resources for value, not to mention the myriad combo opportunities such decks afford. As a result, a lot of powerful graveyard synergy cards are very well-known and very expensive.
That said, there are still some hidden MTG graveyard treasures out there waiting to be discovered, such as Decaying Soil. This little-known card offers an absurd recursion engine, if you can overcome its sizable drawbacks. Whether you’re looking for grindy value or combo lines, this Odyssey classic has something for you.
Decaying Soil MTG
Once it gets going, Decaying Soil offers graveyard recursion that few other MTG cards can match. Unfortunately, you need to overcome a couple of hurdles before you can really use it. The first of these is getting seven cards in your graveyard for Threshold, and the second is keeping them there while the card’s upkeep trigger eats away at them.
On the Threshold front, you can address the issue fairly easily via self-mill. Cards like Stitcher’s Supplier and Mesmeric Orb are ideal for this purpose, getting you to seven cards without much trouble. Dredge cards, like Stinkweed Imp, are also great for keeping your ‘yard topped up throughout the game.
Consistent self-mill like this is the best way to push through Decaying Soil’s exile requirement, too. If you’re feeling a bit fancier, however, you can also use the cast-from-exile creatures, Squee the Immortal, Eternal Scourge, and Misthollow Griffin, to offset this as well.
When you’re able to get it online consistently, Decaying Soil is an absolute powerhouse. Recurring creatures for just a single mana is incredible in Reanimator decks, for instance, where your threats tend to offer big, swingy value. It’s also excellent in Aristocrats, where it can buy back key pieces, often for free if you have something like Pitiless Plunderer around to offset the mana cost.
While having to re-cast your recurred creatures can be a pain, you can offset that by running Decaying Soil alongside cards that cheat things out from the hand. Sneak Attack and Meek Attack are probably the best examples, though fellow underplayed Threshold gem Hunting Grounds work well here too. With cards like these in the mix, Decaying Soil goes from grindy value engine to terrifying game-winner real quick.
Combos From The Crypt
If you’d rather cut to the chase and simply win the game on the spot, Decaying Soil has you covered there, too. This card enables a wide range of infinite combos, provided you have a good sacrifice outlet around to back it up.
With Phyrexian Altar, for example, you can sacrifice an Ornithopter and pay to return it to your hand with the mana you gained, then re-cast it for zero and repeat the loop. This is an easy way to generate infinite enters and dies triggers, which can net you a win via Zulaport Cutthroat or a similar card.
For a funkier road to the same effect, you can loop Blood Pet with either Pitiless Plunderer or Carnival of Souls, which is a nice budget alternative given Phyrexian Altar’s price tag. Similarly, in a Rakdos Goblins shell, Skirk Prospector can loop Mogg War Marshal with Decaying Soil out for a quick Pashalik Mons win.
If you swap out Phyrexian Altar for Ashnod’s Altar, you can also generate infinite colorless mana with the Ornithopter loop. You can then sink this into Walking Ballista or Torment of Hailfire to close things out. Ashnod’s Altar unlocks similar infinites with Cathodion and Su-Chi as well, which provides some welcome redundancy.
These specific combos are all excellent, but you can really expand your options by throwing Heartless Summoning into the mix. With this card in play, literally any two-mana colorless creature with two toughness can go infinite with either Altar. This lets you use bangers like Ornithopter of Paradise and Spellskite as combo pieces, making great cards even better.
A Real Buried Treasure
While it’s not for every deck, there are a surprising number of lists that can support Decaying Soil effectively. A ton of decks can make great use of the cheap recursion it offers, and there are even some Commanders that can leverage the card’s downside. Decks that care about cards leaving your graveyard or being exiled, like Teval, the Balanced Scale and Ketramose, the New Dawn, for example, can get a lot out of Soil even without Threshold active.
Despite all of the card’s fair potential and combo shenanigans, Decaying Soil is a seriously underplayed card in Commander. According to EDHREC data, just 660 decks run the card in total. Even considering the deckbuilding restrictions necessary to run it effectively, this feels incredibly low.
While it’s a shame that more players aren’t enjoying this excellent card, this does mean Decaying Soil is incredibly cheap to pick up. Near-mint copies of the card can be had for just $0.49 on TCGplayer right now, which is a bargain by any standards. When you consider the fact that this is a unique, single-printing rare from a 25-year-old set, it starts looking even better. Whether you want to use it for grindy value or for devious combo plays, you can’t go wrong with Decaying Soil at its current price.
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