Wombo Combo - Best Golgari Combos For EDH
(Glissa, the Traitor | Art by Chris Rahn)
Get Out Of My Swamp!
Welcome back to the dredges of the article series Wombo Combo, where we look at the most used combo cards in each distinct color identity, with help from EDHREC and Commander Spellbook. Today, we dive head first into the murky swamps and look at the combination of black and green, also known as Golgari.
Golgari is a major hub for popular deck archetypes, such as graveyard recursion, token generation, death/sacrifice triggers, and counters. Golgari is also home to some of the format's most popular commanders, such asLathril, Blade of the Elves and Chatterfang, Squirrel General. With a wide variety of effects and cards to choose from, let's gander at Golgari's marvels and find the most popular combo cards it has to offer.
#10: Winding Constrictor
Deck Inclusions: 30,388 decks (3.926%)
If you like putting counters on artifacts, creatures, or yourself (like experience counters), then look no further than Winding Constrictor. Winding Constrictor is a great way to give additional counters to your creatures like Walking Ballista, Ghave, Guru of Spores or Crystalline Crawler for easy combo potential. You may also use it to put more +1/+1 counters on your creatures for an easier Simic Ascendancy win. Do take caution, however, if a player is playing an infect deck, as Winding Constrictor will cause you to get additional poison counters.
#9: The Gitrog Monster
Deck Inclusions: 5,489 decks as commander (#156); 39,164 decks as card (5.060%)
Have you ever wanted a giant Frog Horror to be your commander? Well, look no further than The Gitrog Monster to satisfy your frog desires. The Gitrog Monster is a perfect commander if you want to play Golgari landfall, and capitalizes on lands entering your graveyard by giving you a free card draw. Coupled with some of the other cards upcoming on the Top 10, as well as cards like Dakmor Salvage and Abundance, the monster can make for an easy combo. From there, add you favorite landfall payoff like Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and the game is as good as done. Just don't try to kiss The Gitrog Monster afterwards - I don't think you can expect a charming prince out of it.
#8: Carth the Lion
Deck Inclusions: 3,197 decks as commander (#323); 14,400 decks as card (1.861%)
If you play a Superfriends deck, chances are you've heard of or played Carth the Lion. Carth the Lion causes each of your planeswalker's abilities to cost +1 more, either putting more loyalty counters on your planeswalkers or removing fewer counters whenever their abilities are activated. Some popular planeswalkers to use in a combo alongside Carth include Jace, Cunning Castaway, Teferi, Temporal Archmage and Wrenn and Realmbreaker. Carth has even more potential alongside the superfriend staples The Chain Veil and Oath of Teferi, by not only improving the cost of the loyalty abilities, but also allowing you to activate those abilities twice per turn instead of once.
#7: Beledros Witherbloom
Deck Inclusions: 3,344 decks as commander (#312); 32,454 decks as card (4.193%)
Beledros Witherbloom has two abilities, with the first creating a Tendershoot Dryad style effect, allowing you to create a 1/1 Pest each upkeep. While this is a perfect way to amass a large quantity of creatures quickly, and gain life when they die, the second ability is more unique and has interesting combo potential. Beledros allows you to pay 10 life to untap all lands you control once per turn. This ability opens up a combo line using Lithoform Engine to copy the ability, and Minamo, School at Water's Edge to untap Lithoform over and over again. A more unique combo involves animating your lands, and then tapping them to activate Ancestor's Prophet to regain the life Beledros costs. You can then blink Beledros via Deadeye Navigator and activate its ability again.
#6: Golgari Findbroker
Deck Inclusions: 12,855 decks (1.661%)
Golgari Findbroker is Golgari's slightly more restricted version of Eternal Witness, which allows you to return a permanent card to your hand from your graveyard. Golgari Findbroker can be used to return a permanent that you have lost to your hand, so you can get back an essential combo piece and continue your plan to victory. Also, Golgari Findbroker can reclaim cycling cards, such as Slippery Karst. This allows you to create an infinite loop alongside Escape Protocol and Fluctuator.
#5: Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
Deck Inclusions: 1,753 decks as commander (#576); 30,842 decks as card (3.985%)
Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest buffs up your creatures whenever a player sacrifices another permanent. This could be a perfect answer to your friend's Treasure deck, where you constantly buff your creatures whenever they sacrifice a Treasure. Alternatively, you can use Mazirek for your own combo desires, alongside cards like Ulasht, the Hate Seed, Scurry Oak and the previously mentioned Ghave, Guru of Spores. Mazirek counteracts the counter removal these cards require to create creature tokens, and all you need is a simple sacrifice outlet and watch all your creatures get extremely large in an extremely quick manner.
#4: Squandered Resources
Deck Inclusions: 7,788 decks (1.006%)
Sacrifice outlets are instrumental to many permanent based combos, and Squandered Resources is no exception. Squandered Resources is one of the more popular free land sacrifice outlets, alongside the likes of Zuran Orb and Sylvan Safekeeper. Squandered Resources can be used in a combo to achieve two different results. The first allows Squandered Resources to put lands into your graveyard, where they can be returned with cards like Ancient Greenwarden. The second allows you to get extra mana from your lands to pay for effects like Drownyard Temple's, or for cards like Splendid Reclamation. Squandered Resources can also help you cast your game-winning spell if you are a bit short on mana by sacrificing a couple lands to cast it.
#3: Golgari Rot Farm
Deck Inclusions: 136,618 decks (17.651%)
Try to contain your shock when you notice that Golgari's resident bounceland, Golgari Rot Farm, makes the Top 10, just like every other two-color color identity we've looked at thus far. Bouncelands are great for getting additional landfall triggers, perfect for cards like Retreat to Coralhelm and Retreat to Hagra. You can repeatedly put it onto the battlefield using Walking Atlas, Wrenn and Seven, or continually as your land drop each turn if you don't need new lands to stay on the battlefield.
#2: Glissa, the Traitor
Deck Inclusions: 2,486 decks as commander (#404); 4,890 decks as card (0.632%)
Glissa, the Traitor has a simplistic effect, allowing you to return an artifact card from your graveyard to your hand whenever an opponent's creature dies. What may not be apparent, however, is how much of a pain this can be for your opponents. Adding a card like Dictate of Erebos or Grave Pact allows you to control when Glissa triggers instead of relying on your opponents. You can then sacrifice a cheap artifact creature, such as Ornithopter or Memnite, and continually cause your opponents to sacrifice all their creatures. You may also sacrifice a mana-neutral or mana-positive creature instead, like Su-Chi.
#1: Chatterfang, Squirrel General
Deck Inclusions: 12,909 decks as commander (#25); 37,574 decks as card (4.855%)
Token doublers are some of the most useful cards when creating combos, so it's no surprise that Golgari's best combo card is Chatterfang, Squirrel General. Outside of Chatterfang being ranked #25 out of all commanders, it it simply an amazing card to have in your deck for creating more creature tokens to enable your token combos. With Chatterfang in the command zone, you can combo it with Pitiless Plunderer and have an easy two-card combo. Chatterfang has a wide variety of other uses, including cards like Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, Ruthless Knave and Jaheira, Friend of the Forest. Chatterfang is also a great inclusion outside of its combo potential for any token deck, as more tokens can surely never be a bad thing.
Honorable Mentions
You may have to dive deeper into the swamp to find these cards, but that doesn't mean they can't make a difference in your next deck:
- Corpsejack Menace: Increasing +1/+1 counters is very useful for cards like Crystalline Crawler or Walking Ballista.
- Shelob, Child of Ungoliant: Recurring cards from your graveyard is a solid way to combo, and Shelob allows you to do that, alongside cards like Thornbite Staff.
- Cadaverous Bloom: A unique card allowing you to turn any junk in your hand into valuable mana. Also a great enabler for infinite draw combos.
- Slimefoot, the Stowaway: Being able to create tokens without tapping Slimefoot makes for easy combo potential. Additionally, Slimefoot's first ability can easily end the game during the combo.
- Umori, the Collector: The Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths Companion cycle was certainly contentious, and while Umori's companion restriction is very restrictive, its effect can easily enable combos for cheaper.
This concludes this edition of Wombo Combo! Thank you very much for reading, and be sure to check out Commander Spellbook for more EDH combos, as well as join the Commander Spellbook Discord to vote on the next edition of Wombo Combo!
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Ethan Coover
Ethan has been an avid EDH player since 2014 with the release of Core Set 2015. In 2021, he joined the Commander Spellbook project as an editor, and later a head-editor and moderator, and has assisted in the curation, updating and/or uploading of over 10,000 unique EDH combos. In his spare time, Ethan loves coming up with new jank EDH lines, playing video games, and going for long walks.
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