Much Abrew: Golgari Depths (Timeless)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! Some of my favorite parts of recent Magic sets are the special sheets, which have added some really cool old cards to Magic Arena for the first time, and Avatar is no different, giving us Dark Depths! As such, we're heading to Timeless today to see just how quickly we can get a 20/20 flying indestructible Marit Lage on the battlefield! How good is Dark Depths in Timeless? Let's get to the video and find out!
Much Abrew: Golgari Depths
Discussion
- Record-wise, Golgari Depths crushed it! We went 8-0 with the deck, climbing out of Platinum to Diamond along the way!
- Our deck's plan is simple: get Marit Lage out of the Dark Depths and on the battlefield as quickly as possible and use it to win the game. While technically we can get a Marit Lage fairly by playing Dark Depths and slowly removing the 10 ice counters one by one for three mana each, this is way, way too slow for Timeless. Thankfully, we have a couple of plans for speeding things up.
- The first is Vampire Hexmage, which we can sacrifice to remove all the counters from Dark Depths. With our best draws, Vampire Hexmage can give us a Marit Lage as early as Turn 1, although Turn 2 or 3 is more likely.
- Our second plan is Thespian's Stage, which is a bit slower but harder to disrupt. If we can get both Thespian's Stage and Dark Depths on the battlefield, we can use Thespian's Stage to copy Dark Depths, giving us a Dark Depths with no ice counters, which means we immediately sacrifice it and get our 20/20 flying indestructible Marit Lage!
- The rest of our deck is about three things: finding our combo pieces, speeding up our Marit Lage, and protecting our combo.
- First, as far as finding our combo, we have Sylvan Scrying and Crop Rotation to tutor up Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage. I should have tossed in one Demonic Tutor too, but for some reason, I always forget that Demonic Tutor is restricted in Timeless and not outright banned.
- For speeding up the combo, we have Chrome Mox and Dark Ritual, which are how we can potentially get a Marit Lage on Turn 1. Something like Turn 1 Chrome Mox into Dark Ritual for Vampire Hexmage and Dark Depths gives us a 20/20 on Turn 1, which is pretty unbeatable. Plus, having fast mana lets us play Necropotence as a backup plan and way to find our combo pieces. While not an outright win, a Turn 1 Necro off Dark Ritual almost feels like cheating.
- Finally, for protecting the combo, we first should talk about what actually disrupts our plan, and there are two primary answers. First is exile-based removal. Cards like Swords to Plowshares and Solitude are easy answers to Marit Lage, even through its indestructibility. For this, we have a bunch of discard to strip the removal preemptively from our opponent's hand and also Sylvan Safekeeper, which can give Marit Lage shroud by sacrificing a land. The second is land destruction, primarily Strip Mine, which is one of the most played cards in Timeless. This is why we are running a full playset of Pithing Needle in the main deck. The first copy should always name Strip Mine, no matter what matchup we happen to be playing (unless you know with some certainty that the opponent doesn't have Strip Mine in their deck). We also have Boseiju, Who Endures (which we can tutor up with Sylvan Scrying) to deal with Blood Moon, along with more answers in the sideboard.
- Overall, Golgari Depths felt pretty busted, to the point where I think it's on par with Show and Tell and could end up in the conversation for best deck in Timeless. Throughout our matches, we never got a Turn 1 Marit Lage (although it will happen eventually), but we managed to summon the 20/20 on Turn 2 a bunch of times. And I would say that on average, we have a Marit Lage by Turn 3, assuming we don't have to play through a bunch of disruption. The deck is super fast, super consistent, and surprisingly resilient. And even in a world where everyone is playing Strip Mine, with the right protection spells, Dark Depths is pretty busted.
- So, should you play Golgari Depths in Timeless? I think the answer is an easy yes! We'll see how the metagame adjusts to Dark Depths. If people start playing more answers to Marit Lage (like various edicts and narrow hate cards), it will probably get a bit worse. But for right now, it feels like one of the strongest decks in Timeless! If you like winning games and summoning massive indestructible fliers, give the deck a shot!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
