Welcome back to our final Precon Review for Modern Horizons 3. Today we’re tackling Graveyard Overdrive, the black, red, and green deck led by Disa the Restless. 

Who Are the Commanders for Graveyard Overdrive?

Disa is a 5/6 Human Scout for five mana that cares all about the classic Modern staple Tarmogoyf. Whenever a Lhurgoyf card is put into your graveyard from anywhere other than the battlefield (e.g., from your hand or from your library), you can put it directly into play. And whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to an opponent, you create a Tarmogoyf token.

So we know this is a classic Jund graveyard deck looking to drop things into the yard to make our Lhurgoyfs bigger, or to be reanimated.

Our backup commander is Coram, the Undertaker, a 0/5 Human Warrior that gets +X/+0, where X is the biggest power among creatures in graveyards. When he attacks, everyone mills a card, and during your turn you can play one land and cast one spell from among cards milled that turn. 

Here’s the full decklist:

What Are the Themes and Strategies of the Deck?

Both of our commanders want cards going to the graveyard. To accomplish this we have classic mill staples like Deadbridge Chant, Stitcher’s Supplier, and Syr Konrad, the Grim. We also have discard effects like Faithless Looting and Necrogoyf. 

But we don’t want the cards to just sit there in the yard; we need to take advantage of them. This is where the Lhurgoyfs come into play, as they all have power/toughness relative to cards in the yard. The original Lhurgoyf is here, as well as Mortivore, Necrogoyf, and a few new friends we’ll discuss in a bit. Sadly, the deck is missing the classic Tarmogoyf, and I can’t imagine why they’d skip it here. So we have to settle for Disa’s tokens.

The ‘goyfs aren’t the only ones playing in the grave. Brawn and Anger are both here to give our creatures powerful abilities (trample and haste, respectively). And Izoni, Thousand-Eyed makes Insect tokens on entry for each creature we have in the yard. 

Speaking of tokens, there’s a significant sub-theme here, including three planeswalker token-makers, Garruk, Apex Predator, Grist, the Hunger Tide, and Liliana, Death’s Majesty. We even have Maskwood Nexus to make Shapeshifter tokens, in addition to giving our creatures all creature types.

And we can’t be a graveyard deck without ways to bring creatures back from the dead. For that we’ve got Eternal Witness, Find // Finality, Graveshifter, Junji, the Midnight Sky, and Kolaghan’s Command.

How Do You Play Graveyard Overdrive?

If the deck is humming along, it’s a powerhouse. There is definitely some excellent graveyard synergy in this precon. But there are playability issues here.

The first is that there isn’t enough card draw. There are 10 sources of card draw, but some are either expensive to cast, (Izoni, Thousand-Eyed) or situational (Selvala, Heart of the Wilds), and so the card draw package isn’t terribly reliable. This can lead to a lot of struggles, especially when it’s combined with our other problem, which is too many lands. The deck is running 39. This isn’t terrible, considering our average mana value is 3.74, but when it’s combined with 12 sources of ramp, it feels especially bad when you’re struggling for card draw and all you’re hitting is lands and mana rocks. Thankfully, we do have Faithless Looting, which is great for filtering through lands, or, even better, dropping ‘goyfs in the yard. And the flashback makes it crucial for the deck.

If you’re able to get past these problems, you’re gonna have a great time with this deck. It does a lot of fun things with the graveyard, but it also has the ability to flood the board and overwhelm your opponents, especially with powerful flyers like Archon of Cruelty and Ziatora, the Incinerator.

Our backup commander, Coram, the Undertaker, is (refreshingly) one of the best cards in the deck. He does everything the deck wants: milling cards, playing cards from the grave, and beating face. In fact, I could easily see the argument for having him lead the deck (check out this video from the Spike Feeders to see Coram in action).

The last thing to mention here is that, despite the deck appearing to be Lhurgoyf-themed, it’s really only a small part of the deck’s strategy. In fact, there are only eight Lhurgoyf cards in the deck (plus one changeling), which isn’t nearly enough to consistently get value out of Disa, especially when you don’t always have ways to get them to the yard from your hand or library. So don’t expect much from that ability; the token making is far more relevant.

What Are the New Cards in Graveyard Overdrive?

Each of these MH3 decks gets 13 new cards in addition to the two commanders. So let’s see what this deck has to offer.

This is where the Lhurgoyf type gets a much needed boost. Barrowgoyf’s power/toughness looks at the number of card types in all yards. It also has deathtouch and lifelink, and when it hits a player with combat damage you can mill that many cards and put a creature card from the milled cards into your hand. Pyrogoyf also looks at card types in the yard, and when it or another Lhurgoyf enters, it deals damage equal to that creature’s power to any target. Then there’s Polygoyf, which has trample and myriad, so it makes token copies of itself when it attacks. This is pretty sweet when combined with Pyrogoyf dealing out damage.

We even have two noncreature Lhurgoyf cards. Tarmogoyf Nest is a land Aura that lets you tap two mana plus the land it’s enchanting to make a Tarmogoyf token. And there’s Altar of the Goyf, which gives all of your Lhurgoyfs trample and gives your creatures a power/toughness boost when they attack alone.

Lhurgoyfs aren’t the only creature type getting love in this list, though. It’s a Jund deck, after all, so we’ve gotta see some Dragons and Elves. Gluttonous Hellkite lets you pay X twice when casting it to have all players sacrifice X creatures. Then when it enters the battlefield it gets +1/+1 counters equal to twice the number of creatures sacrificed. You’re also welcome to pay nothing into X and just have a 3/3 with flying and trample. There’s Broodmate Tyrant, a 5/5 flying Dragon that makes an additional 5/5 Dragon token when it enters. But this isn’t the best part. Where this one really shines is its encore ability. With Tyrant in the grave, you can pay eight mana to get copies of it for each opponent. But those copies also have the ETB trigger, meaning if you still have three opponents, you’ll get the three Tyrants (which you’ll lose at the end of the turn) and three Dragon tokens (which will stick around). If you’ve got a haste enabler, you can swing in with 30 power right away.

Infested Thrinax is a bit of board wipe insurance, albeit somewhat expensive insurance. When it enters, until end of turn, whenever nontoken creatures you control die, you make Saproling tokens equal to that creatures power. So, if you’ve got a high-powered board and five mana held up, a Wrath of God can seriously work out in your favor. Alternatively, if you’ve got an unlimited sac outlet, you can just make the tokens for fun. Or maybe for Purphoros, God of the Forge triggers to finish off your opponents. I’d say that five mana is a lot to hold up for an insurance card, but then I remember that Inkshield is the same cost and sees a lot of play. So this might as well.

We can’t forget Dinosaurs. Sawhorn Nemesis is here to make it clear which opponent you like the least, by doubling all damage dealt to that person and their permanents. I’m not sure there’s a real strategy here, other than making another player feel bad, or dealing with the player who’s dominating the board. Seems like something Saskia the Unyielding players might enjoy. Keep in mind, you can target yourself, if you’re into that kind of thing. I won’t yuck your yum.

Oh yeah, I did mention Elves. Here we have Bloodbraid Challenger, the successor to Bloodbraid Elf (which is also in the deck). For one more mana we get a power/toughness boost and an escape clause. It’s a cute callback, but I don’t expect much from it in the Commander format. Exterminator Magmarch is a 5/3 Phyrexian Construct that copies instant or sorcery spells you cast that target a single nonland permanent an opponent controls, as long as another opponent controls the same type of permanent. It’s a very interesting design, but completely out of place in this deck. It has far more potential in Grixis spellslinger builds. 

And what would this deck be without a new Goblin? We’ve got Siege-Gang Lieutenant, a callback to Siege-Gang Commander, except this one cares if your commander is out. It has lieutenant, and makes two hasty Goblin tokens at the beginning of your combat if you control your commander. You can also pay two mana to sac a Goblin and deal a damage to any target. Obviously this deck isn’t overflowing with Goblins to throw around (unless you have Maskwood Nexus out) but it’s a fun card. The fact that it only deals one damage compared to Siege-Gang Commander’s two probably keeps it from finding a footing in Goblin decks. But there is always the argument for redundancy, and the Lieutenant continues to make tokens every turn. So who knows.

Our last two cards don’t have any creature types, because they’re not creatures. Final Act is a modal removal spell along the same lines of Austere Command, except much much better. It’s frequently being touted as a less offensive Farewell, since the caster has the option to not exile everything. And there’s my favorite card of the bunch, Tempt with Mayhem. Like previous tempting offer cards, opponents have the ability to copy the effect, and for each opponent who does, you get an extra copy. In this case, we’re copying an instant or sorcery spell. In a lot of games, this could just be a huge Cultivate. In other games, you could copy someone’s game-winning spell and steal the win, even if no one is tempted. It’s cheap and versatile, and can go anywhere, with the potential to do a lot of silly things. My kind of card.

Is Graveyard Overdrive Worth Buying?

Is this deck good? Here’s my final grade:

C

The deck is fun, but it suffers from a lack of focus. In fact, it reminded me of old precons that just threw a bunch of cards that were popular in other formats into the deck and called it a day. The callbacks, like Bloodbraid Challenger and Siege-Gang Lieutenant, are cute, but don’t work with the rest of the deck.

The playability is a bit rough, with too much land and not enough reliable card draw effects. But when the deck is focused on the graveyard, the synergy really works.

The commanders are the best part of the deck, especially Coram, who should probably be the deck’s leader. And the reprint value is good, with the standouts being Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, The Reaver Cleaver, Archon of Cruelty, and Maskwood Nexus.

Can I make this deck better? Head on over to my Upgrade Guide to find out. And keep checking back for more precon content, here on EDHREC.

Further Reading:

Creative Energy Precon Review

Eldrazi Incursion Precon Review

Tricky Terrain Precon Review