There’s a lot of debate among Magic: The Gathering players as to what the best land in the game is. Some back the mana-generating abilities of cards like Gaea’s Cradle and Ancient Tomb, while others prefer the Fetchlands for their flexibility. Urza’s Saga is a regular contender in these conversations, and with good reason. It’s so flexible and powerful that it can essentially power some decks single-handed. This week, we got a fantastic example of this idea in action, as a Golgari Saga deck took top eight in an MTG Modern event.
This is a deeply nostalgic list in many ways, running several cards from the glory days of Modern Jund. Thanks to a nifty Urza’s Saga package, however, it takes on a totally new character. The end result is an effective blend of old and new-school Magic, clearly capable of taking on the tyrants of the current metagame.
Golgari Saga In MTG Modern
Golgari Saga is ultimately a deck of two halves. You’ve got the titular Urza’s Saga package and the classic Golgari shell that surrounds it. While it makes up a smaller chunk of the deck overall, we’re going to look at the former first.
By now, most players know just how good Urza’s Saga is as a land. It provides untapped mana, it creates scaling threats, and it even tutors up silver bullet artifacts for good measure. Running the card simply gives your deck a ton of options. If you don’t have an on-curve play for turn three, making a Karnstruct is a great way to fill the gap. Getting to reach into your deck for a cheap artifact is also a great way to answer problems, or even advance your own plan in some situations.
Naturally, Inoue Daisuke, the deck’s creator, runs the full complement of Sagas. To make the package more resilient, however, they also include three Wight of the Reliquary. This is a fantastic land tutor on a body, and one of the more underrated cards from Modern Horizons 3 as a whole. As we’ll see later, this is a creature-focused deck overall. This means it’s easy to activate Wight on demand, so it effectively serves as copies five through seven of Saga.
The deck runs a nice set of targets for Saga’s last chapter, too. Haywire Mite puts a free body on the board and can take out a ton of popular targets, from Goblin Bombardment to Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. Shadowspear deals with the protection on Scion of Draco and the like, while Nihil Spellbomb is fantastic against graveyard decks like Living End and Murktide.
Playing The Hits
The other half of Golgari Saga feels like one big callback to the ‘good ol’ days’ of MTG Modern. Most of the cards here did hard time in the Jund decks that once dominated the format, and still pack a punch today.
Tarmogoyf is the big one, Modern’s classic ‘big creature for two mana.’ With the deck’s nice mix of card types, it’s not hard at all to have this come down as a 3/4 on turn two, then get even bigger before it attacks on three. Urza’s Saga helps a lot in this regard, putting two card types in the bin for no mana investment. Nethergoyf, the card’s 2024 reimagining, provides some redundancy for the same effect. Turns out big creature beatdown is still valid in Modern, especially with fewer top-tier decks running Fatal Push.
Inoue Daisuke also runs Ignoble Hierarch for mana ramp, and Troll of Khazad-dûm for fixing. There are no reanimation shenanigans here, so Troll is purely here for the Cycling. With so many Goyfs running around, an easy way to put a creature in your ‘yard is appreciated, too.
Outside of that, it’s all interaction all the time. All the classic black pieces are here: Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Fatal Push, and Dismember. These cards all have the advantage of being castable on turn one, ensuring an early play while filling your graveyard for the Goyfs. Liliana of the Veil also reprises its old role, as a way to lock down your opponent either on the board or in the hand.
Overall, this deck is more than just a fun callback. The addition of Urza’s Saga boosts consistency by a lot and gives the deck more reactive play against the dominant strategies in the format right now.
A New Saga Begins?
It’s heartening to see a deck like Golgari Saga do well in MTG Modern. The format has been run by Aggro and Combo decks for a while now, so it’s good that a classic Midrange list is making moves. That said, one top-eight result does not a top-tier deck make. If Golgari Saga is going to continue thriving, it’ll have to reckon with the boogeymen of the format.
Fortunately, the current top dog, Boros Energy, looks like a solid matchup for the deck. Golgari has plenty of cheap removal for its cheap threats, and the Goyfs should always be big enough to serve as effective blockers. Saga itself lets you address Goblin Bombardment to stop your opponent from going over the top, and it shouldn’t be too hard to turn the corner once you stabilize. Fast starts are always a possibility with this deck, of course, but in general, Golgari is well-positioned here.
Domain Zoo, as a fellow Aggro deck, is a similar story. Where difficulties creep in for Golgari is with Modern’s duo of high-tier Combo decks. Both Amulet Titan and Belcher are tricky because they can totally ignore Golgari Saga’s fair game plan.
Things aren’t hopeless, mind you. Haywire Mite gives you an answer to both Amulet of Vigor and Goblin Charbelcher, so if you time your Sagas right you can foil their plans that way. Pithing Needle can also come in out of the sideboard against Belcher, but is of little use against Titan. Both of these cards are Saga targets, so you should reliably have access. That’s hardly a guarantee, mind you, so you should be extra careful if these matchups arise.
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