Standard: Golgari Self-Mill - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

One of the biggest highlights of the Pro Tour Aetherdrift was an archetype that, while not widely represented, made history by placing a player who was in his first Pro Tour in the Top 8 of the event: the Golgari Self-Mill.

Piloted by Zevin Faust, this strategy mixes effects to mill the deck with creatures that reduce their cost to the number of creatures in the graveyard to cast them for up to one mana while they trigger Up the Beanstalk, allowing a constant flow of cards into their controller's hand.

In this article, we delve deeper into this archetype and present a Sideboard guide for the main matchups of the current Metagame!

This is almost the same list used by Zevin Faust to reach the Top 8 of Pro Tour Aetherdrift. The only changes include the removal of Chitin Gravestalker, which seems redundant as a threat, in favor of two more copies of Harvester of Misery in the maindeck to hold off Aggro, which is very common in online matches, in addition to being a relatively more impactful threat in the long run.

With free slots in the Sideboard, we added another copy of Duress for games like Azorius Control and an extra copy of Starving Revenant, a card that I was skeptical in the initial list, but which allows for some very efficient combinations with Up the Beanstalk while generating card advantage on its own.

Our plan here is pretty clear: we want to mill our deck to have plenty of creatures in the graveyard and, from there, cast big, cheap bombs like Huskburster Swarm and Hollow Marauder for a low cost, preferably with Up the Beanstalk in play to generate card advantage - once we have the setup ready, it becomes very difficult for the opponent to hold or overcome the amount of value we generate with our casts.

Obvious weaknesses involve, besides the obvious graveyard hate with Rest in Peace, the possibility of drawing or milling the wrong part of the deck. In some cases, Golgari Mill reminds me of Abzan Greasefang from Pioneer, which uses very similar themes to close a combo-kill, but which becomes considerably bad if its controller fails to find the right pieces in the first two or three Mill effects - everything is very slow, and your opponent only needs to worry about holding your key cards, or beating you before you recover.

Maindeck

Up the Beanstalk is the heart of this list and the main reason it works. Generating a draw for every high-cost card we can cast for one or two mana is an efficient way to maintain resource parity throughout the game.

Playing three or more high-cost spells in a turn while having two copies of Beanstalk on the board tends to win the game.

Enablers are all creatures that put cards into the graveyard.

Since our bombs count the number of creatures we have in the graveyard, we prefer to avoid cards like Cache Grab or Seed of Hope that mill the deck faster or with more benefits, since every card in the list - at least in the maindeck - needs to actively work to speed up the casting of our threats.

Molt Tender allows, for one mana, a constant mill of a card per turn or the possibility of exiling a card to generate mana. Personally, I consider it slow for the list, but we don't have better options.

Gnawing Vermin is our most efficient one-mana enabler. In addition to milling two cards, it also works as a means of punishing combat and removing small creatures from the opponent.

Cenote Scout can turn into a 2/2 for one mana while putting a creature in the graveyard, or it serves to guarantee the next turn's land drop and avoid a bad topdeck at the early-game.

Overlord of the Balemurk is one of the reasons this archetype exists. In addition to having a cheap alternative cost and milling four cards in the ETB, it interacts with Up the Beanstalk, offers resources every turn and is a threat on its own.

Our threats.

Hollow Marauder, in addition to being a 4/2 with Flying that we can cast for only , forces the opponent to discard and also guarantees an extra draw if the discarded card has a low mana value.

Huskburster Swarm is a difficult threat to kill, even counting cards exiled from the graveyard and its body with Menace guarantees a considerable clock in the game, especially in multiple copies.

Souls of the Lost works as a pseudo-enabler, it doesn't trigger Up the Beanstalk, but its body grows considerably larger as the match progresses, and it's not uncommon for it to turn into a 10/11 or bigger.

Our interaction.

Overwhelming Remorse also triggers Up the Beanstalk while being an exile removal for creatures or Planeswalkers that can be cast by , making it the best interaction we have in this archetype.

Harvester of Misery is commonly used to deal with small creatures ranging from Heartfire Hero to Steamcore Scholar, and also has a relevant late-game body that deals with all the opponent's small creatures on the ETB while also interacting with Up the Beanstalk.

Our mana base is mostlt composed of untapped dual lands, in addition to Underground Mortuary, which despite coming into play tapped, virtually “generates mana” by putting another creature into the graveyard.

There is no reason to use manlands, as tempting as they may seem. We need to be quick and objective with our plan, and we already have a considerable amount of lands that we cannot use immediately with Underground Mortuary.

Sideboard

Rest in Peace is our biggest enemy, accompanied by Ghost Vacuum and Esper Bounce remains on the rise. All of these are reasons to invest heavily in interactions against artifacts and enchantments.

Scrapshooter is such a common side-in today that it can be considered a two-of in the Maindeck. Either because it deals with any artifact or enchantment, or because a 4/4 body with Reach gives some opponents trouble.

Haywire Mite complements this hate package and has the advantage of guaranteeing a life gain when destroyed or sacrificed, making it also useful against Gruul Aggro, where it deals with Innkeeper’s Talent while giving us an extra breath.

Cut Down’s one-of mainly targets red Aggro. It is possible to use it against Prowess, but it is very conditional in games 2 and 3, where the opponent tends to take a more attrition-oriented stance.

Terror Tide is the best sweeper for a permanent-based archetype. While its common side-in is go-wide and Aggro strategies, it can be added against archetypes where the opponent tries to exert good board position with larger creatures that generate value, such as Jeskai Oculus or Golgari Midrange.

Obstinate Baloth is our standard answer against Hopeless Nightmare. Honestly, it's not very common to generate free value from it because the enchantment is (or should be) a common side-out in this game. Baloth also works in games against Red Aggro to give us an extra breath and an efficient blocker.

Duress is our main way to interact against Azorius Control, but it can also be used in games against Domain Overlords and even some Bounce variants.

Starving Revenant is a threat that generates card advantage when it comes into play, feeds our graveyard, punishes bounce effects, and its Descend trigger is easy to enable in this list, where it turns every Up the Beanstalk draw into a ping on the opponent.

Esper Bounce

IN

OUT

Gruul Aggro

IN

OUT

Azorius Control

IN

OUT

Domain Overlords

IN

OUT

Jeskai Oculus

IN

OUT

Golgari Midrange

IN

OUT

Golgari Self-Mill

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!