This weekend, the biggest names in Magic: The Gathering will be duking it out at Pro Tour: Final Fantasy. The new set has already had a significant impact on Standard, and this will become even clearer once we see the full lineup for the event. There are some clear favorites at this stage, most notably Izzet Prowess. With the format being so fresh, however, there’s a real chance for underdog decks to have their day. Golgari Self-Mill, for example, is a list that picked up some very nice new tools from Final Fantasy.
This deck has been a bit of a background contender in Standard for a while now. With these new cards, however, it’s better than it’s ever been. Some players are even registering it for this weekend’s Pro Tour. This is a bold move in any circumstance, but doubly so given Izzet Prowess’ eye-watering share of the metagame at present. It might not get there in the end, but the fact that players are willing to take a chance on Golgari Self-Mill speaks volumes of the deck’s appeal.
Golgari Self-Mill Post-Final Fantasy
Golgari Self-Mill, sometimes known as Golgari Graveyard, is a fairly simple strategy. It centers around dumping a lot of cards in the graveyard early via self-mill effects, then playing powerful cards that benefit from that. Mostly these are big creatures that get discounts for each creature in your graveyard. When paired with the ever-powerful Up the Beanstalk, the deck is capable of burning through resources while maintaining card parity.
Golgari Self-Mill gets two big upgrades from Final Fantasy. While Town Greeter is less flashy than the other new addition, it may actually be more valuable to the deck overall. Essentially, this is a strictly better Satyr Wayfinder, a card which sees regular play in Pauper Dredge as a self-mill enabler. You’re putting up to four cards into the ‘yard with this one, and most likely recurring a land too. For two mana, that’s the same rate as Overlord of the Balemurk, a staple in the list. The extra life from Towns is actually relevant too, since Starting Town and Midgar are both valid options in the deck.
Diamond Weapon is another chunky creature that gets cheaper based on your graveyard, in the vein of Huskburster Swarm and Hollow Marauder. Unlike these cards, however, Diamond Weapon gets a discount from all the permanents in your graveyard, not just creatures. This makes it easier to power out early in the game. Once it’s down, Reach and combat damage immunity make it a fantastic blocker, and it can crash in for eight on offense too. Marauder aside, this is probably the new best creature in Golgari Self-Mill overall.
The Wizard In The Room
With these new upgrades, some players are planning to take Golgari Self-Mill to this weekend’s Pro Tour. Unfortunately, the biggest problem for Golgari Self-Mill is a deck you can pretty much guarantee will be dominating at the event. That deck, to no one’s surprise, is Izzet Prowess. It’s been crushing it in Standard, and in Modern for that matter, ever since Cori-Steel Cutter dropped in Tarkir: Dragonstorm. With Final Fantasy, it gained a perfect new card in Vivi Ornitier, which has pushed it even higher.
According to MTG Decks, Izzet Prowess has a staggering 25.27% metagame share in Standard right now. To put that into perspective, Mono-Red Aggro is the next-best deck and only has a 15.88% share. Izzet Prowess was always going to be a favorite at the Pro Tour for this reason. In the last few days, this has been confirmed, with the official data putting it at 42.3% of the metagame for this weekend.
Izzet Prowess being such a big part of the current metagame is a problem for a lot of decks. Golgari Self-Mill, in particular, has a really rough matchup here. According to MTG Decks, it’s actually the deck’s worst matchup, with only an 18% win rate. With a lot of players on the deck, Golgari Self-Mill is stepping into a very hostile environment this weekend.
There’s not even a huge amount it can do to Izzet out of the sideboard, either, outside of Haywire Mite as an okay answer to Cori-Steel Cutter. Unless the Pro Tour metagame really surprises us, Golgari Self-Mill may need to wait for the upcoming bans to really shine. With how dominant the deck is right now, it’s very likely that Wizards hits at least one Izzet piece on the 30th.
An Outsider’s Chance
With all of that in mind, it’s very unlikely that Golgari Self-Mill makes much headway at Pro Tour: Final Fantasy. That said, the new additions are definitely powerful, and we’re already seeing them make an impact on the deck’s smaller-scale results.
Over the past week, Golgari Self-Mill has had numerous 5-0 League finishes, like Atagomax’s above. It’s also been cropping up regularly in events like Standard Showdown and Hareruya Dailies. It even made top 32 in a 92-player Standard tournament last Sunday. These results, while not the best, are still encouraging. In any event, it’s nice to see a non-red deck on the rise in Standard.
Digging deeper into this, Golgari Self-Mill does have a number of good matchups in the current Standard format. It crushes both Orzhov and Mardu Sacrifice decks, which may see an uptick soon thanks to Sephiroth from the new set. It also plays really well against Jeskai Oculus, and both the Esper and Orzhov variants of Pixie. On top of that, it goes 50-50 with Mono-Red Aggro, which is one of the biggest decks in the format at the moment.
The above decks, Mono-Red aside, aren’t represented well at this weekend’s Pro Tour. It’s worth noting, however, that the metagames for Pro Tours can often vary significantly from those you see out in the wild. Golgari Self-Mill may not be destined for fortune and glory, but it can serve you very well at a local level, if your metagame isn’t prepared for it. It’s also a very solid deck for climbing on Arena and for Standard Leagues.
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