Of all the MTG bannings that arrived at the end of March, Troll of Khazad-dûm getting the hammer in Legacy was perhaps the most surprising. The card is solid in Reanimator, certainly, but it doesn’t exactly scream ‘ban-worthy powerhouse’ either. Without Legacy to romp around in, the Troll has reverted to its previous status of Pauper staple. This week, the card put in a stellar performance in one of the strangest Golgari Exhume decks the MTG Pauper format has seen.
Featuring bits and pieces from a wide range of archetypes, this deck is hard to pin down. You’ve got the Initiative, Monarch, Reanimator, and Control: a whole melting pot of elements all bubbling away nicely together. Despite this seeming lack of focus, it managed to put on a great performance in yesterday’s MTG Online Pauper League. We may not be looking at a new meta player here, but the deck is certainly interesting and a great home for Troll post-bans.
A Spicy Take On Golgari Exhume In MTG Pauper
This curious cardboard creation comes to us via Selkcahs, who piloted his take on Golgari Exhume to a 5-0 finish in yesterday’s MTG Online Pauper League. While one could certainly argue that it does enough different things to transcend that archetype label, bringing back chunky creatures is still the most powerful line the deck has.
Those creatures, in most cases, will be Landcyclers from The Lord of the Rings. Both Troll of Khazad-dûm and Generous Ent appear as full playsets here, and with good reason. Both are serious threats in Pauper, and both can be discarded via their own abilities to set them up for reanimation.
As the deck’s title implies, said reanimation comes exclusively via Exhume. The obvious curve is to Landcycle a threat turn one, then Exhume it turn two before your opponent has anything of their own to recur. An interesting quirk of Selkcahs’ list, however, is that it can actually do it all on turn one. Thanks to a full playset of Dark Ritual, the deck can afford to Landcycle and Exhume before the opponent has even played their first land. Putting 5-6 power on the board right away is huge, especially given how hard Troll is to block.
Dark Ritual is one of the biggest standouts in this list. Despite its obvious power level, it’s a card you rarely see in Pauper. Here, it does a lot of work beyond just speeding up your Reanimator plays. As we’ll get into, this is a deck with a ton of instant-speed interaction. Ritual not only lets you cast these spells quicker, but it also lets you misrepresent your available mana to your opponent, baiting them into overextending into a Suffocating Fumes or the like.
Welcome To Value Town
Outside of the classic Pauper Golgari Exhume cards, Selkcahs’ deck focuses mainly on playing the MTG value game. The only other creatures in the deck besides the Landcyclers are value engines. Thorn of the Black Rose makes you the Monarch, and Avenging Hunter lets you grab the Initiative. These are both mechanics that gain you more resources over time, provided you can defend yourself. This means they mesh nicely with your chunky reanimation targets, which can hold the fort exceptionally well, Ent in particular.
These are also creatures that play very nicely with Dark Ritual. Thorn of the Black Rose is manageable on turn four, but considerably less so on turn two. The same goes for Avenging Hunter on turn three. Ramping into these powerful engine cards can get the snowball rolling early. If your opponent does have removal on hand, both of these creatures are worthy Exhume targets in their own right, too.
Outside of these creatures, and Malevolent Rumble to set up reanimation and ramp, the deck is pretty much all interaction. Golgari Exhume decks tend to be pretty strapped in this regard, but Selkcahs’ list feels even more so than usual. You’ve got 10 total single-target removal spells here, across Snuff Out, Cast Down, and Defile. Throw in an edict effect in Extract a Confession, hand attack in Duress, and a board wipe in Suffocating Fumes, and there are few Pauper problems this deck can’t solve.
Just to throw one more curveball in the mix, Selkcahs runs a full playset of Bojuka Bog in their manabase. This is the kind of card you might see as a one or two of in a Pauper list, but never as a four-of.
An Underdog Story
This level of graveyard hate makes sense when you consider the current Pauper landscape. Sneaky Snacker has been on the rise in MTG Pauper Rakdos Madness decks for a while now, and is a difficult problem for Golgari Exhume to answer repeatedly. Additionally, Dredge and opposing Exhume decks can also be big problems. When both players are trying to power put winning threats fast, games can easily devolve into coin flips. Bojuka Bog gives you a lot more agency in these matchups.
Graveyard decks aside, Selkcahs’ deck is playing into a very hostile meta right now. Its 5-0 results in yesterday’s League are certainly promising, but there’s little guarantee that will convert into long-term success. Pretty much all of the top decks right now are Aggro decks of one kind or another. Rakdos Madness, Mono-Blue Faeries, and Mono-Red Synthesizer are all lists that can dominate the game early, much more consistently than Golgari Exhume can.
Sure, there are games where you’ll land a huge threat turn one and ride it to victory. For every one of those, however, there’ll be a few games where you don’t land a threat until turn two or three, at which point other decks’ one-drops will already be bashing your face in. There’s enough removal and value here to reasonably stabilize, but it makes up much less of your deck than cheap creatures do in these tier one lists.
That said, I do think Selkcahs’ unique approach here sets the deck up well for success. Dark Ritual adds an explosive element missing from most Exhume lists, while the answer-heavy main deck lets you play reactively in order to stay in the game. I can see players running and refining this version in the weeks to come.