Guild · Color Identity
Golgari (Black-Green): History, Playstyle and Best Commanders
Black-green treats the graveyard as a resource rather than a bin. Golgari ramps, sacrifices what it ramped into, brings it back, and does that until the table runs out of removal.
Golgari is black and green, the two-color identity. Death feeding growth: the graveyard as a second hand, and nothing stays dead.
Also called BG, Golgari Swarm.
Where the Name Comes From
The Golgari Swarm, Ravnica's guild of death and rebirth, named in Ravnica: City of Guilds (2005).
The Golgari Swarm is Ravnica's undercity: fungus, rot and the plane's actual recycling system, run at various points by an elf-lich and a gorgon assassin. It was one of the original four guilds in 2005, and its first keyword (Dredge) is one of the most powerful mechanics Magic has ever printed, to the point that it has warped several formats and is largely avoided today. Return to Ravnica gave it Scavenge and Guilds of Ravnica gave it Undergrowth, both far gentler statements of the same idea: what is in your graveyard is worth something.
Black-green in Commander is the format's default graveyard identity, and the format is unusually kind to it. Games are long enough for a graveyard to fill, singleton means every card that comes back is a different card, and there are three opponents' graveyards to steal from as well as your own. That is why so many of Commander's iconic value engines (Meren, Muldrotha's black-green core, the Gitrog loop) live in or around this pairing.
All 32 color combinations and where each name came from →How Golgari Plays
A Golgari deck's plan is to convert cards into permanents faster than the table can remove them, and to lose nothing when they do. Green ramps and fills the graveyard, black recurs whatever ended up there, and a sacrifice outlet in between turns the whole thing into a loop. The deck rarely needs the best individual cards, because it plays the same good card four times.
That gives it the best attrition game in the format. A board wipe is a setback for most decks and a trigger for this one, and one-for-one removal is close to useless against a deck whose creatures come back. Against a grindy table, Golgari simply outlasts.
Its actual kill is usually a big attack or a drain loop, and the pairing's weakness is what happens before either arrives. Golgari cannot counter a spell, cannot answer an enchantment through black, and has removal that is either unconditional-but-slow or fight-based. A combo deck that goes off on turn six does not care how much value you have accumulated, and graveyard hate (a single Rest in Peace) attacks the entire strategy from a direction the identity cannot answer.
What It Does Well, and What It Doesn't
Strengths
- The best recursion in Magic combined with the best ramp, so the deck is fast and never loses resources.
- Excellent removal: black's unconditional kill spells plus green's fight effects and artifact answers.
- Card advantage from the graveyard as well as the library, which no other two colors do as well.
- Sacrifice outlets and death payoffs, which convert the recursion into a win condition rather than value.
Weaknesses
- Graveyard hate is a hard counter, and neither color removes an enchantment like Rest in Peace.
- No interaction with the stack, so a combo turn cannot be stopped once it starts.
- Slow to convert value into a kill, which is the usual way a Golgari deck loses a game it was winning.
- Very few ways to deal with a resolved flier, which is how the pairing gets raced.
Best Golgari Commanders
The command zones that define the identity rather than the ones winning this week: the pips beside each name are its color identity, which is what it lets you play in the other 99.
Commander Spotlight
Meren of Clan Nel Toth ↗
Returns a creature from your graveyard every single end step, for free, and the counters make it better the longer the game runs. The definitive Golgari value engine.
The Gitrog Monster ↗
An extra land drop and a card for every land that hits the graveyard. Famous as a combo piece and genuinely excellent as a fair one.
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord ↗
Sacrifices a creature to hit every opponent for its power. Turns the graveyard deck into a kill from an empty board.
Slimefoot, the Stowaway ↗
Saprolings that drain when they die, and a mana sink that makes more. The simplest good aristocrats build in the identity.
Savra, Queen of the Golgari ↗
Every creature you sacrifice drains the table or forces everybody else to sacrifice too. A twenty-year-old card that still ends games.
Izoni, Thousand-Eyed ↗
Exiles your graveyard for an Insect per card, then converts them all into cards. A one-card refill from a full bin.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Golgari mean in Magic?
Golgari is the black-green guild of Ravnica: the Golgari Swarm, the plane's undercity guild of fungus, decay and rebirth. It appeared in Ravnica: City of Guilds in 2005, and players use "Golgari" to mean the black-green color pair in any format, including Commander decks with no Ravnica cards in them.
How do you beat graveyard hate in a Golgari deck?
By playing around it rather than answering it, mostly. Neither color removes an enchantment, so Rest in Peace can sit permanently: the practical responses are colorless removal, a plan that works from the battlefield rather than the graveyard, and keeping enough of your value engine as permanents that a graveyard exile does not blank the deck. Most good Golgari lists carry two or three colorless answers for exactly this.
Is Golgari good for a first graveyard deck?
It is the best starting point. The cards are cheap, the plan explains itself, and the identity has the widest selection of recursion at every price. The main thing to watch is that the deck actually wins: Golgari accumulates value very easily and it is common to build a deck that grinds forever and never closes, so pick a way to convert the board into damage and build toward it deliberately.
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