Building Golgari Saprolings, An Adventure
Updated: Aug 3, 2021
This is going to be a deck primer on building Golgari Saprolings. The leader of our Saproling and Fungus army is none other than Slimefoot, the Stowaway! The general idea is to go wide with Saprolings and then either steamroll your opponent's defenses, or punish them when your Saprolings die. There are also some pitfalls for those opponents that like to gain life, via Tainted Remedy.
Creatures:
OK, so, I mentioned that we wanted to go wide, yeah? How do we do that? With the help of Slimefoot himself, we can pump extra Mana into him to get some 1/1 Saproling Creature Tokens.
Sporemound has a landfall trigger that gives us a 1/1 Saproling Creature Token when a land enters the battlefield under our control (this is great because Azusa, Lost but Seeking allows us to drop three lands per turn!).
Elvish Farmer & Thallid both let us remove 3 Spore Counters from them to create a 1/1 Saproling Creature Token.
Verdant Force & Tendershoot Dryad both give us a 1/1 Saproling Creature Token during each of our Upkeeps.
Verdeloth the Ancient has Kicker X and if it's Kicked, we get X 1/1 Saproling Creature Tokens when it comes into play.
Jade Mage allows us to tap 2G to get a 1/1 Saproling Creature Token.
Sporeweb Weaver gains us one life and gives us a 1/1 Saproling Creature Token whenever damage is dealt to it.
Mycoloth has Devour 2, meaning that when it comes into play, you can sacrifice any number of creatures, and then put that many +1/+1 counters on it x2. Then, during your Upkeep, you create X Saproling Creature Tokens, where X is equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on Mycoloth.
Korozda Guildmage's second ability allows us to sacrifice a non-token creature to put X 1/1 Saproling Creature Tokens onto the battlefield, where X = the sacrificed creature's toughness.
OK! So, now you know what creatures we have that can pump out our lovely little Saprolings, what about spells and Enchantments?
Spells
Morbid Bloom allows us to remove a creature card in a Graveyard from the game to put X 1/1 Saproling Creature Tokens onto the Battlefield, where X = the removed card's toughness.
Fungal Sprouting gives us X 1/1 Saproling Creature Tokens where X = the greatest power among creatures we control.
Saproling Migration creates us two 1/1 Saproling Creature Tokens, but if we pay the Kicker cost of 4, we get 4 tokens instead.
Enchantments
Fungal Plots serves two purposes; 1) It allows us to exile a creature from our Graveyard to create a 1/1 Saproling Creature Token and 2) It also functions as a sacrifice outlet by allowing us to sacrifice two Saprolings to gain 2 life and draw a card.
So, now that we know all of the ways that we can get Saprolings on our board, what do we do with them? Well, we have some fun!
Enchantments & Artifacts
Doubling Season and Parallel Lives both let us double the number of tokens that come into play on our side from all of our token generators above. Doubling Season also has the added benefit of adding an additional +1/+1 counter on our creatures from either Path of Discovery or Metallic Mimic.
Path of Discovery lets every creature of ours Explore when they enter the battlefield, and thanks to Wildgrowth Walker, we'll gain 3 life every time a creature we control Explores.
Alhammarret's Archive doubles our life gain from Wildgrowth Walker (or any other source).
Finding What You Need
Here, we take advantage of multiple Tutors to be able to find the pieces that we need to get the deck moving along:
Yeah, that all sounds fun, but what are our win-cons?
I'm glad you asked! We're running Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider to add additional +1/+1 counters to our massive Saproling army, as well as Kamahl, Heart of Krosa to pump our creatures at the beginning of Combat on each of our turns. Thanks to the aforementioned Doubling Season and Parallel Lives, you should be able to overrun your opponent's defenses outright.
However, if you can't, lets dump our Saprolings into Phyrexian Altar to generate some mana (which you can put into Slimefoot or Jade Mage to generate more Saprolings). This in turn triggers Slimefoot and Poison-Tip Archer, pinging each opponent for 2 damage per Saproling Creature that dies.
There are some other odds and ends in this deck like Staff of Domination and Royal Assassin. This pairs nicely with both Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun (transforms from Growing Rites of Itlimoc) and Mana Reflection. You could wipe out many creatures, should the Staff and Royal Assassin survive. We also have Deathgrip for the inevitable Green opponent. Thaumatic Compass/Spires of Orazca and Maze of Ith can deal with pesky attackers quite nicely. Tainted Remedy punishes your opponents for trying to gain life, and Cover of Darkness makes our Saproling army only blockable by Artifact and/or Black Creatures.
See the deck in action! Check out The Lotus Council's Miscast EDH Episode 4:
Have any questions about the deck, or maybe some suggestions? Let us know in the comments below!