Hmm and Selesnya tokens board both those cards in for various matchups, including the Golgari mirror. It's true that you can't activate Vivien with TIS on the board but the argument is, if TIS is on the board, you don't need Vivien because you're going to win anyway. I've tended to find that correct: TIS is like a planeswalker ultimate in terms of inevitability. TIS is also harder to remove: Vivien can be attacked away or hit by Vraska's Contempt, but there're only a few cards that outright remove artifacts: Knight of Autumn (and who brings this in against Golgari?), Conclave Tribunal & Ixalan's Binding (if these are used, they stick in play for a future Vivien/Thrashing Brontodon to kill and get a blowout), Assassin's Trophy (still a 2-for-1 and Golgari has ways to use excess mana), Thrashing Brontodon (yeah, but I'd expect other Golgari decks to board this out in the mirror because it's only got one target).

I guess with Golgari though, if you need more 6-mana cards, you have Carnage Tyrant & Vraska Relic Seeker.

I honestly dislike Vivien in Selesnya. At 5 mana she's a tad too slow, her +1 finds very little useful stuff (Trostani or a sideboard Knight of Autumn/other big card) and Selesnya finds it hard to utilize excess lands, Knight of Autumn/Conclave Tribunal take the enchant hate niche.
Also Selesnya gets a LOT more out of TIS because their boardstate usually is wider than Golgari's thanks to their token makers; of which Golgari runs none.

Well even if her +1 has fewer hits, she's still a planeswalker, which is why she's there: there're no comparable planeswalkers Selesnya can run. Selesnya can also use excess lands, via a flipped Legion's Landing or Arch of Orazca, or simply pumping it into March of the Multitudes. Most of the time I find I have too little mana to do all the things I want to do instead of too much. You make a good point about TIS and the fact that Selesnya's goes wider, though.

Another question: do you find the matchup vs. Selesnya positive for Golgari? On the other side of the table it feels a little scary: they have answers to all my threats. Find//Finality is especially scary. On the other hand, there are also undoubtedly cards out of Selesnya that's scary for Golgari (TIS and Flower//Flourish especially). I've also been winning the matchup much more often than not. On yet another hand because my win rate with Selesnya is so high, the fact that I've been winning vs. Golgari might have other explanations. It could also be that I'm simply giving credit to the Golgari deck for having everything, when of course they like everyone else only have 75 slots.

Would you say Golgari is favoured? Disfavoured? Which cards out of Selesnya do you find most problematic?

IMO the matchup is slightly favourable for Golgari overall in BO3; at least it's the side I'd prefer. Game 1 is quite a bit better for Selesnya, but Golgari should have an edge post-sideboard.

The best cards on Golgari's side IMO are Thrashing Brontodon (blocks the otherwise very problematic Adanto Vanguard and blows up enchantments), Vivien Reid (finds ways to stall the board and thrives off a stalled board), Find // Finality and Wildgrowth Walker.
Selesnya thrives more off redundancy and synergies than strong individual cards; you need to find a decent mix of pump spells and token makers. I'd maybe count History of Benalia and Trostani as the highlights seeing how they sort of perform both roles; post-sideboard Baffling End (to exile Wildgrowth Walker or Brontodon if Golgari tapped out carelessly) is quite good.

TIS is a way to beat Selesnya in the long game as long as they don't draw their answer (Trophy, Brontodon or a way to recur Brontodon), which can happen faster than Selesnya likes. That's one of the reasons why I think Golgari has the much better lategame chances overall; Selesnya needs to find a way to break Golgari fairly early.

Hmm and I get the feeling my opponents board out Thrashing Brontodon against me until they see I have The Immortal Sun. That surely can't be right though, since killing Conclave Tribunal / Ixalan's Binding is a huge tempo blowout.

Funnily from my point of view Adanto Vanguard is weak (it dies to Golden Demise, it doesn't get past Wildgrowth Walker, and even if it does life totals don't matter too much). History of Benalia is also less than ideal. I'd rather have a single big creature than several small ones, usually. I was actually thinking of trying Conclave Cavalier out for this reason. 4/4 is not particularly big, but it's still big enough to eat Jadelight Rangers, Golgari Findbrokers, etc, and it leaves bodies behind after Find//Finality. But then I thought: at that point why not just play Tocatli Honor Guard? I mean even if I have only one Tocatli Honor Guard in my post-sideboard deck, I almost just win if I play it since they'll be boarding out Cast Down ... why not ... it's something to think about, I just need the sideboard space ...

Yah, from experience I can tell you that if you get it to stick around for a while Honor Guard puts a serious shut down on Golgari explore decks.

Do you see anything from Ravnica Allegiance that'd fit well into the Golgari deck? If not, it feels quite ominous to me because the control decks got some extremely good tools. Cry of the Carnarium is the only obvious card, but it's so similar to Golden Demise that it's not really an upgrade.

This will probably reworked to being a Wet Golgari primer.

Wet Golgari is basically the old Golgari list splashing Hydroid Krasis as well as some sideboarded counterspells.
Most people refer to that as Sultai, but there's some Sultai lists that run a heavier Blue investment, and these decks often play differently from the classic Golgari; so I'd like to draw a line there.

To me it's just Sultai. They also play Hostage Takers, and some even main some copies of Thief of sanity and/or Thought erasure. I would just call it Sultai Krasis or something (but yeah names don't matter that much anyway).

See, the thing is I'm not running Hostage Taker. The blue splash is for Krasis in the main and a few selected counterspells in the sideboard. A total of 6 cards in the 75.

Just makes the manabase so much easier and so much less painful.

If you run counters in SB, you surely have enough blue sources for Hostage taker also. Not that you have to run it, but a 1-2 in your 75 is very good in current meta (vs Krasis, WG Walkers, etc). The mana is not too painful for Sultai right now, and certainly not if you run the full explore package.

Incubation Druid and Spawn are two good inclusions. They didn't make it into my Standard deck. I'm just too happy with the way it runs, but they both made it into my Singleton deck.

Hydroid Krasis fits real good and is very strong against control. Including it lets you put negate and d-stroke in the sideboard too, maybe some thief of sanity as well!

GolgarSultai might be a good deck

What do ya'll think about adding Muldratha to the Sultai version?

Too slow. Krasis gives you as much or more card advantage while being more flexible on the curve and is a lot less prone to removal.

Do you intend to restart this thread as a Sultai-RNA edition? I think that's cleaner than modifying an old thread. Nothing wrong with copy-pasting parts that you still consider to be true.

I think my next project should be the sideboard for this deck. It's my favorite and I certainly have more than 60 cards for it, but I really lack ideas other than "fill it with Duress/Negate to swap for all the removal cards".

Haven't played a single Bo3 match yet, but this deck kind of screams for it. Even the pros write that you're prone to lose game1 vs either end of the spectrum

Currently don't have the time to re-write anything. February has always been a busy month for me; this one is taking it to the extreme.

Golgari is almost classically a BO3 deck. Your starting 60 are 'fair' cards that generally aren't too specialized taking out certain decks; the main strength comes from the SB, being able to adapt to almost everything. There's very few match-ups I'd consider Golgari/Sultai a favourite game 1, but many match-ups I'd consider it a favourite games 2 and 3; the match-ups generally come down to how much of a favourite you are and how well either side plays the deck.

To be fair though, I'm somewhat off Sultai rn. You just cannot improve your bad match-ups by enough, and they're common.

I see, my februarys are usually busy, too.
I turned my Bo1 deck into a Bo3 version though and have played my first matches. It's really nice to board in "fck you" cards
4-4 games, 2-1 matches

Which matchups do you fear?

For sideboard these are some of the cards to consider, though it depends also if you're running the explore package or going maindeck Thief (I put a number in just so it'll show links):

Disdainful Stroke
1 x Negate
1 x Duress
1 x Thief of Sanity
1 x Kraul Harpooner
1 x Unmoored Ego
1 x Crushing Canopy
1 x Eldest Reborn
1 x Midnight Reaper


Also any extras of things you have main like Contempt (some lists only have contempt in the side though). I run maindeck Reapers which I probably shouldn't since though it's great in midrange mirrors that's not what MTGA is about right now. Obviously you don't run all of these cards, though I think 4 duress, 1 d-stroke, 2 negate is probably a decent minimum.

I think the explore list is the best version, but there's reasons you might want to go in another direction for sure.

For bad matchups the ones that stand out are mono blue aggro and nexus of gates. Mono blue is just too efficient at stopping your expensive plays and dive down is pretty absurd. Wildgrowth Walker is huge in this, but it can be denied by trickster or all your creatures can be countered. Harpooner out of the side is a big deal here and can make a real difference.

Nexus of Gates is close to unbeatable if I go by my record against it, pre sideboard they outvalue hard and can just win from nowhere while post sideboard they can almost be playing a different deck if the choose to and if you guess wrong it's bad times.