Much has been made of how good (or not) Dellian's Demons can be in
#Strixhaven #Standard post
#PTSoS, but no one ever asks, who was the good Prof. Dellian before the Demons claimed him?
It is a little known fact, but before his career at Strixhaven and secret dealings in demonic rituals, Dellian was actually classically trained as a samurai, at the
#BGRock school! This deck was born to explore, to put a spotlight on if you will, Dellian's wild-grown pre-demon days.
The Last Ronin is, for those who have played TMNT Limited, a board reset of almost insurmountable power. Its strength comes from the fact that it is a sweeper attached to a threat, and that threat - any threat, in fact - becomes an unanswerable monstrosity. Playing it in Constructed is difficult solely because it is 6 mana - but if you resolve it ... eat your heart out, Grave Titan.
So how do we get to 6 mana? Enter our old friend Environmental Scientist, recently retired from his job at the Demon planetarium, where the upper management are currently all high on Growing their land assets as Rampantly as possible. Slower but surer, card advantage and land drops leaking from their glasses, our scientists have joined hands with the Sentinels who are now almost as long-forgotten as the Nameless City they served, to create a super value squad that effectively guarantee a smooth uptick to 6. The 2/2 Scientist becomes a lot more threatening with some map tokens lying around ...
The numbers and feel of the resulting list will begin to sound familiar to those who were playing BG Midrange in Guilds of Ravnica standard, with explore creatures generating EtB value and eventually getting up to a game changing Find // Finality / planeswalker / other busted 6 - drop.
Now, the interaction. The Last Ronin already sets us up well against opposing creature decks; we just need to make sure we get to those final turns. Oodles of early removal because we live in a Mole-Cub-Otter world (6, to be precise; significantly more likely to be in opening hand than if you have 4, I have no joke considered going up to 8, but given this deck has no way to loot away dead cards, that seemed ambitious); the two Harvester of Misery that should by now surprise no one who has been following my builds.
Here I chose to add a little twist, for better or for worse is left as an exercise to the reader to determine. Sentinel makes map tokens. Scientist is a throwaway body that will often be fog an attacker, draw a land. Given this, Witherbloom Charm stands out as a possible removal spell that also double times as card draw! Now, remember when said 6 T1 removal spells?Requiting Hex is of course the best T1 removal spell available to black at present, but to supplement it, what if we add something that makes our Harvesters better, by giving -N to toughness? As it so happens, that removal spell happens to come on an artifact which can then be sacrificed to Witherbloom Charm!
Since we're really going deep into the "this enters and gives negative stats and then sticks around to be sacced", why not also consider some Nowhere to Run? Nowhere to Run is fantastic right now, especially into all the protection spells both Prowess and Green landfall decks are starting to main / bring in - but there is such a thing as too much "little-guy removal", so I decided to sideboard these. Note that none of this is necessary per se - we could easily skip the Witherbloom Charm and associated shenanigans, but I'm afraid I saw the words "draw two cards" on a 2 mana card and got very excited. Forgive me.
Maelstrom Pulse is an auto-include, as is 4 Duress (never leave home without in an interactive black deck); no maindeck because I do not like Duress into landfall, though I could easily see 2 main, since the first copy will often have targets.
For graveyard hate, we have our lovely Curators; 3 toughness is a lot more than 2 in this format, instant speed and continuous graveyard hate is very strong (especially if you wish to eat your opponent's earthbent lands!) against a lot of different archetypes, and does anybody remember Tarmogoyf? You laugh but a 2-drop that eats graveyards and attacks for 7 trample deserves all the love, Matt Nass absolutely knew what was up. Curator eats earthbent lands and fetches against landfall; nullifies Talent level 2 activation; slows down Spellementals immensely; hurts Excruciator combo; messes with the Flashback / Shiko mages still out there in the wild; and exiles threats that line up well against all destroy removal.
All this proactivity means we do have some holes in our reactive game-plan: no maindeck hand disruption, no real ways to get rid of dead removal in hand (the cost of much midrange business, I fear), and no instant speed big-guy removal (Bitter Triumph, Shoot the Sherriff, etc.). My reasoning is that between Charm, Hex, HoM & Bauble, every little thing is dying early; bigger things will have to contend with our threats Maelstrom Pulse can take care of them, since we are unlikely to go leave up mana, pass.
To round out the threat-suite, we must not forget the new 3/4 vigilance for 3 adding to Green's portfolio of versatile value threats, Dellian's personal favourite (though I've heard Ral was competing for these affections) Emeritus of Abundance. There is no better way to generate insurmountable advantage lategame; even a midgame Regrowth on an interactive spell or a high value threat can be game-changing; and with the Last Ronin ... oh, the things you can do with looping the Last Ronin with an indestructible Emeritus in play (Regrowth Last Ronin also costs precisely 8 mana - coincidence? I think not!).
Sideboard, the usual suspects - I love Ral and Mosswood Dreadknight as the value threats to board in for matchups where removal is worse, and Ral works so incredibly well with value 2-3 drops - though some slots are flexible. Cease // Desist could (should?) be a Heritage Reclamation, Cruelclaw's Heist is optional and could instead be Petrified Hamlet, which shores up the deck's inability to kill opposing lands, and is a fantastic silver bullet against Landfall (typically naming Fabled Passage or Escape Tunnel). You could also shave a Scientist main to add the Petrified Hamlet to maintain the early land-drop count at 28; note that Demolition Field / Soulstone Sanctuary have a very real cost in this deck, given you are trying to cast black cards turn 1 and Curator turn 2 (no matter how tempting it may be to lategame earthbend Demolition Field and run the opponent out of basics - some dreams are best left dreamed).
Ultimately, the point of these decks is not to demonstrate one stock way to build
#GolgariMidrange. BG, especially in large formats, is one of the most flexible colour combinations; with a value engine as powerful as Dellian, supported by appropriate removal and a plethora of board-controlling hand-disrupting graveyard-recurring options, you can win in whatever way your heart desires. If your heart desires comboing off with Bloodthirsty Conqueror, for instance, by all means so be it! Just pack your Duress and your recursion and your sweepers and ... you get the idea.
Go forth now, into a Steam Vents world infested with Badgermoles, and practice the
#Witherbloom way in whatever manner seems to you best.