Jund Sacrifice is a tried-and-true archetype in Pioneer. Despite falling out of favor in part due to the anti-life gain elements and Trample enablers out of mono-red, the combination of Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven is still enough to strike fear in the heart of your opponents.
Interestingly, though, a Golgari sacrifice shell just recently surged to the top four of a Challenge event… in Modern of all places. Not only that, but there are no copies of Witch’s Oven to speak of!
Instead, this deck is built to maximize an infinite life drain combo. The vast Modern card pool provides a multitude of upgrades, making the combo easier to pull off and more consistent. Before we take a look at all the intriguing support elements, we first need to go over how the combo works.
Golgari Food Combo
The infinite combo in question revolves around two key cards. The first, unsurprisingly, is Cauldron Familiar. Two copies of Cauldron Familiar are prerequisites in order to execute the loop.
The other card is another Cat, except this time it’s a beefy five-drop. Ygra, Eater of All has a neat set of abilities, with the most important being the one that turns all other creatures into Food.
The goal is to get Ygra and one copy of Cauldron Familiar onto the battlefield. With another Cauldron Familiar in your graveyard, you can then activate the ability of the Cauldron Familiar in your graveyard by sacrificing the copy on the battlefield (because it’s a Food). By repeating this process over and over, your opponent will lose all of their life thanks to the potent enters-the-battlefield triggers.
Part of what makes this combo powerful is that you don’t actually need to draw all of the pieces. Once you Mill over multiple Cauldron Familiars, you can slam Ygra, and any other creature under your control can be sacrificed to start the chain.
In some cases, you can even Mill over Ygra and reanimate it. This way, you bypass the card’s hefty mana cost. This is where your support pieces come into play.
Building Around the Combo
To help maximize Ygra, you’ll find a lot of Mill effects in the decklist. Playsets of both Stitcher’s Supplier and Malevolent Rumble show up here as low-cost ways to churn through your library for Ygra and Cauldron Familiar.
Stitcher’s Supplier pairs perfectly with Phyrexian Tower, which allows you to cast Ygra ahead of schedule. Similarly, the Eldrazi Spawn created by Malevolent Rumble is worth more than you’d expect as a means of accelerating out Ygra.
Of course, you can also reanimate Ygra with cards like Emperor of Bones. Doing so gives you a one-turn window to go through with your combo, but if everything is lined up, you’re good to go.
You’ll even find a few copies of Chthonian Nightmare here. Chthonian Nightmare is the ultimate value engine in this decklist. Between Stitcher’s Supplier, Cauldron Familiar, Eldrazi Spawns from Malevolent Rumble, and Orcs from Orcish Bowmasters, you have plenty of fodder for the enchantment.
Using Chthonian Nightmare to resurrect other copies of Orcish Bowmasters is powerful. Given enough time, bringing back five-drops to play like Ygra and Overlord of the Balemurk isn’t out of the question. Alongside interactive elements like Fatal Push, this deck is perfectly capable of winning a fair game through resource advantages.
Playing Through Hate
The biggest issue this deck can run into is that it is reliant on you having access to graveyard synergies at all times. Not only can graveyard hate mess with the combo aspect of the deck, but it also can halt any value you might generate from Chthonian Nightmare.
Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace are large concerns as a result. The good news is that these cards aren’t super prevalent in Modern. Nonetheless, even a well-timed Soul-Guide Lantern can be very annoying. In a world dominated by Urza’s Saga, you’ll need to beware of graveyard-based interaction when playing this archetype.
The two copies of Boseiju, Who Endures are helpful in forcing the action out of your opponents that have maindeck Lanterns and such. From there, Pick Your Poison out of the sideboard gives you a couple more outs to hate pieces.
Beyond strategies that mess with your graveyard, your matchup versus fast combo shells like Ruby Storm isn’t ideal. You need some time to spin your wheels. There’s a reason three copies of Damping Sphere appear in the sideboard.
Fortunately, your gameplan lines up reasonably well against Boros Energy, the most played deck in the format. Orcish Bowmasters does a great job keeping Ocelot Pride in check. Boros Energy doesn’t tend to run a ton in the way of graveyard hate, and sideboard heavy hitters such as Culling Ritual can singlehandedly swing games in your favor.
Traditional sacrifice shells may be most well-known for impacting Pioneer, but there’s a lot to like about Golgari Food in Modern following this elite performance. For Cat and Food combo enjoyers, consider giving Golgari Food a shot.
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