Undergrowth is exactly the kind of mechanic I wanted to see from the Golgari out of Guilds of Ravnica. It cares about the graveyard in a way that becomes more meaningful as the game goes on, and makes the deck have an unstoppable late game power if your opponents don’t interact with your graveyard. It isn’t an absolutely busted mechanic like Dredge, and it has a more interesting design space then Scavenge. Unfortunately, the Undergrowth cards we got this set aren’t viable competitively, but for a budget builder like myself this works out perfectly. Now that the hype around Undergrowth has died down, a lot of cards that were previously selling for much more are now at a point where you can pick up a sweet deck for less than 25 bucks.
Building an Undergrowth deck for constructed plays a little different than playing it in limited. With access to more cards, you can fuel the graveyard much sooner. Stitcher’s Supplier, one of the best ways to fuel the graveyard in both Modern and Standard lets you fill up your yard much sooner than would be possible in just limited. Combine this with Glowspore Shaman and you can have huge Undergrowth payoffs in very little time. These creatures are also excellent to trade off in the early stages of the game, filling the graveyard with even more creatures, and also serving as fodder for other cards in the deck such as Plaguecrafter.
One thing about running an Undergrowth deck is that a lot of the payoffs cost a lot of mana. Izoni costs six mana, and even if it is a 1 of, Lotleth Giant is not cheap. Llanowar Elves helps us get our early starts very effectively, while Enter the Unknown is a great way to ramp and stock the graveyard. This card has largely been forgotten from the current Standard format, but given the right context, I do believe this card can do exceptionally well.
One issue that Undergrowth decks struggle with is not stocking the graveyard fast enough. If you can only put 2 creature cards in your graveyard by turn 4, your Rhizome Lurcher is not going to compete with the rest of Standard. Fortunately, we aren’t a limited deck and can stock it with as many creatures as possible. This means our Rhizome Lurchers can enter the battlefield as 6/6’s or even bigger. In my first game with the deck, I got to cast two 11/11’s in a row! Another card that requires a high density of creatures but offers a huge payoff is Charnel Troll. While exiling creatures may be a nonbo with the rest of the deck, being able to swing with a 6/6 trampler as early as turn 3 is worth the nonbo.
This deck isn’t going to win any majors, but for 25 bucks it will still serve you incredibly well. You’ll get to cast really big creatures, build an army of 17 insects out of nothing, and nuke your opponent for 20 with an undead giant. Golgari is infinitely customizable this Standard season, so if you are looking for a place to upgrade this deck look no further than the Standard metagame page on Mtggoldfish. Thank you all for reading, I hope you have a great week and an amazing Tuesday!
Link to Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1521391#paper
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