The 50 Best Golgari Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on March 19, 2026

Yargle and Multani | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

Splashing colors together in Magic decks is like making witch’s brew. Cue in Tempting Witch with their “delicious”-looking apple giving off Evil Queen vibes when she turned into an old lady to tempt Snow White with the poisoned apple.

However, Tempting Witch only encompasses half of the color identity of Golgari () cards, which are black and green. Let’s rank some of the best Golgari cards in Magic, discover their thematic synergies, and generate gruesome deck building ideas with their wicked ways of reaching win conditions. Put down those poisoned apples and get ready for a great Golgari treat!

What Are Golgari Cards in MTG?

Revival Experiment | Illustration by Jeremy Wilson

Golgari cards have a green and black color identity and encompass the Golgari guild from Ravnica: City of Guilds. Many Golgari creatures have evergreen abilities like regeneration, reach, deathtouch, and aristocratic effects of losing and gaining life.

Golgari instant and sorcery cards destroy permanents, gain you life, and make opponents lose life. Some even return cards from your graveyard to your hand or the battlefield. The best themes for Golgari-based decks are a mix of lifegain, sacrifice, and even sometimes Voltron, depending on a Golgari creature’s abilities.

#50. Aphelia, Viper Whisperer

There are many reasons to play Aphelia, Viper Whisperer, not the least of which is that it has the loveliest anime art from Foundations Jumpstart. It’s also a deadly snake commander, producing tokens and giving you a powerful win condition to poison the pod for a swift victory. The balance of enabler (it makes snakes) and payoff (your snakes deal more damage) makes it a great typal commander.

#49. Greta, Sweettooth Scourge

Greta, Sweettooth Scourge is best run as a Food token themed Golgari sacrifice deck with staples including Peregrin Took, Gilded Goose, Savvy Hunter, and Experimental Confectioner. Integrate other Food token generating staples from Throne of Eldraine and Wilds of Eldraine for the most synergy.

#48. Casualties of War

Casualties of War isn’t a complete board wipe, but this 6-drop sorcery originally from War of the Spark can take out your opponent’s best permanents. Are you tired of an opponent’s card draw engine with Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim, Rhystic Study, Reliquary Tower, Laboratory Maniac, and Midnight Clock? Cast Casualties of War to destroy them all. Don’t worry blue players, we still love you and your milling shenanigans!

#47. Revival Experiment

Revival Experiment helps you utilize your life points as a resource to get your best cards back from your graveyard to the battlefield. You have the potential of returning one each among artifacts, creatures, lands, and enchantments, as well as planeswalkers and battles if you've got them.

#46. Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons

Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons is a powerful distributor of -1/-1 counters as it deals combat damage. The more -1/-1 counters you place on creatures, the more Snake tokens with deathtouch that are produced. It's capable of producing infinite combos, usually with a few other cards like Nest of Scarabs and a Blood Artist variant.

#45. Creakwood Liege

Creakwood Liege is an option for just about every Golgari deck because it buffs green creatures and black creatures by +1/+1. If any of your creatures are both colors, they get a +2/+2 buff, which includes the 1/1 Worms created on your upkeep.

#44. Mortality Spear

It’s easy to gain life in a Golgari deck, so you can more than likely cast Mortality Spear for just . It's a removal spell dedicated to lifegain decks, the same way you might consider Drag to the Roots in a dedicated delirium deck.

#43. Windgrace’s Judgment

Casting too much one-for-one removal in Commander leads to you falling behind in the grand scheme of things, which is partially responsible for everybody running a billion board wipes; yet those often put you as far behind as your opponents, creating lots of tension in a deck’s removal suite.

Windgrace's Judgment eases that tension nicely; you get to destroy the three strongest threats on the board while leaving yours untouched. It doesn’t have the utility of a board wipe, especially against token decks, but it still puts you up two cards compared to something like Drag to the Roots.

#42. Beledros Witherbloom

Beledros Witherbloom from Strixhaven: School of Mages has everything that a Golgari token sacrifice deck wants: tokens on every upkeep and a pay life ability that can untap all your lands. Plus, the Pest tokens gain you 1 life when they die if you need to use them as chump blockers. This is a mana doubler disguised as a dragon, and a persistent token generator at the same time.

#41. Garruk Relentless / Garruk, the Veil-Cursed

Garruk Relentless was Magic's original flip-walker, and you might even say the first planeswalker with a static ability, before all those pesky WAR ‘walkers were introduced. It's a little behind the times on power, and a few things trip new players up with this card: First, this card has a green-black color identity, so it can't be played in a mono-green deck. Second, Garruk, the Veil-Cursed can't use its loyalty abilities the turn it transforms, since it doesn't leave the battlefield and re-enter on its back face like most flipwalkers do.

#40. Gyome, Master Chef

Gyome, Master Chef is the master, for lack of a better term, of generating Food. The usual food payoffs and generators like Gilded Goose, Tireless Provisioner, and Intrepid Trufflesnout are nice, low-curve creatures that can lead into Gyome on turn 4. Protect your best creatures with temporarily indestructibility via Gyome’s activated ability, or use it politically and offer to save an opponent's creature in exchange for a favor.

#39. Insidious Roots

Wizard’s recent attention to “creatures leaving your graveyard” has resulted in Insidious Roots, one of the most interesting build-around cards we’ve seen in a while. The promise of a gradually growing army of Plant tokens to overtake your opponents with botanical horrors is interesting enough, but the Cryptolith Rite impression gives this legs in many token strategies that might play it for the mana, plus the occasional token. I could see the value of this Murders at Karlov Manor enchantment rising with time as this archetype is fleshed out with more payoffs.

#38. Shaman of the Pack

Shaman of the Pack is one of the best reasons to slip some Swamps into your elf-ball deck. A good elf deck often finds this dealing 5 or more damage with little effort, and it can be just what you need to push your deck over the finish line, especially in formats that can’t count on dropping a Craterhoof Behemoth at the top of the curve.

#37. Trystan's Command

Options are so important in Magic and though expensive, Trystan's Command offers decent value. For maximum value, I like the elf token copy and untap + mass pump, but even if you don't have a great elf in play, the other two options can pull you out from a losing situation.

#36. Garruk, Apex Predator

Garruk, Apex Predator is one of the best Garruk planeswalkers because it outright destroys another planeswalker with one of its plus abilities. You get even more utility by creating Beast tokens and destroying permanents to get lifegain. Seven mana is a lot for a planeswalker that functionally acts as 1-for-1 removal, so have a plan to help this stick around.

#35. Garruk, Cursed Huntsman

Garruk, Cursed Huntsman rewards you for controlling a horde of Garruk planeswalkers. As the wolf creature tokens that it creates dies, it increases the loyalty counters on all of the Garruk planeswalkers you control. This Garruk also plays exceptionally well with Carth the Lion, which overlaps on colors perfectly, and allows Garruk to -6 immediately.

#34. Drag to the Roots

Golgari decks excel at milling themselves, so it only takes a little more work to enable delirium to make Drag to the Roots an exceptionally cheap removal spell for its lack of conditions, plus 4 mana to destroy anything isn't a terrible rate in its own right.

#33. Old Rutstein

Old Rutstein rewards you with a different token based on the card type that you mill on every upkeep. The potential of getting a Blood, Insect, or a Treasure token offers synergy for an all-around token deck that can take on different themes. It's a slow attrition card, but the value adds up over time.

#32. Atomize

Atomize gave every BGx proliferate deck a must-have spell. It might not be flashy, and it’s on the higher end of what you should pay for single-target removal, but a nice, thematic removal spell goes a long way to enhancing many Commander decks.

#31. Glissa, the Traitor

Glissa, the Traitor gives you benefits as you kill off your opponent’s creatures by returning an artifact from your graveyard to your hand. Run an artifact-heavy deck with many destruction and mill spells to get the most triggers. This Glissa's at its absolute best with cards like Executioner's Capsule, which just rebuys itself whenever you use it to kill a creature.

#30. Beifong's Bounty Hunters

You can try to dismiss Beifong's Bounty Hunters as incompetent for not grabbing the kid they're after, but go through combat and watch the power stick around on your side of the battlefield and it becomes a really strong strategy. It is also a great repeatable way to earthbend and dangerous with Rotting Regisaur or Phyrexian Soulgorger.

#29. Squandered Resources

Cards with the highest ceilings often have the lowest floors, leading to designs like Squandered Resources. This plays best in combo decks that fuel explosive turns via sacrificing their lands, though you better hope you can win because you might not get a second chance after using this Golgari card.

#28. Pillage the Bog

Pillage the Bog is an amazing cantrip that scales with the game. I’ve had Cube games where this is essentially Demonic Tutor; that’s much harder to pull off in Constructed formats, but this still sets up powerful turns.

#27. Honest Rutstein

I love a good Gravedigger; thanks to its below-average mana value of 3 and the powerful cost reduction ability, Honest Rutstein is one of the best gravediggers we've seen. Being legendary ties this Outlaws of Thunder Junction card together as it allows you to stick it in the command zone or get value off cards like Reki, the History of Kamigawa and Jodah, the Unifier.

#26. Vraska, Golgari Queen

Vraska, Golgari Queen is one of the quintessential Golgari planeswalkers, allowing you to sacrifice permanents for value or destroy small problems. The planewalker’s ultimate ability is about as Vraska as it gets, giving you an easy out to one-shot opponents with an evasive creature.

#25. Urgent Necropsy

If you need to answer multiple permanents, Urgent Necropsy is your card. You need to play this in a self-mill deck to enable collect evidence, but that’s a low threshold for Golgari decks. This card can be a useful alternative to a wrath in decks that want to deal with multiple threats but can’t stomach destroying their board state.

#24. Compy Swarm

It’s not Scute Swarm, but Compy Swarm offers plenty of value to a sacrifice deck, either as a source of continuous sacrifice fodder or an exponentially growing threat to ensure you have the board presence to stomp the table with Craterhoof Behemoth.

#23. Revitalizing Repast // Old-Growth Grove

The multicolored MDFCs from Modern Horizons 3 had some hits and some misses, but I think Revitalizing Repast was the best of them by a wide margin. There’s no Commander deck in existence that doesn’t want a few protection spells, and most of them could use a little more; replacing a land with this instant makes that a painless upgrade.

#22. High Perfect Morcant

High Perfect Morcant has wrecked a lot of decks in its relatively short time of release. At the pedestrian rate of one elf per turn, an opponent can consider themselves lucky. But pop out 3-4 elf tokens and follow it up with a couple of proliferates and it's a fast game over.

#21. Hollowmurk Siege

Hollowmurk Siege was a precursor to Mikey & Leo, Chaos & Order and the two solidify their shared ground under Abzan's colors. Then there's the actual Abzan mode on this siege and it's still quite good, especially at two mana.

#20. Sludge Titan

My initial impression of Sludge Titan was “okay, cute callback,” then I thought nothing of it. But as I’ve played with and against it, it’s risen in my esteem. A chunky body that draws a card when it attacks or enters would be fine, but it fills your graveyard at a terrific rate, and Sludge Titan usually picks up two cards; depending on your deck’s construction, milling five cards can be as good as drawing them. I’d love to see more multicolored titans in this vein in future sets.

#19. Pernicious Deed

Pernicious Deed is a powerful Golgari card that board wipes creatures, artifacts, and enchantment equivalent to X or less. It's a great way to sweep away tokens, and a fine rattlesnake to have sitting in play if you don't need to wipe the board quite yet.

#18. Jenova, Ancient Calamity

The more I look at Jenova, Ancient Calamity, the more I see a supremely powerful card draw machine. In black and green, the options for creature recursion and sacrifice outlets are numerous, so consider Gravecrawler or Reassembling Skeleton, or cards that are already mutants (and believe me, we expect more) and think of them as draw two cards when they die. If you bump Jenova's power up it just gets absurd quickly.

#17. Fiend Artisan

Fiend Artisan may only be a 1/1 nightmare creature, but it packs a punch as more creature cards get into your graveyard. It also sports a Birthing Pod-like activated ability, which will usually upgrade a creature in play and the Fiend Artisan as new creatures hit the bin.

#16. Ravenous Squirrel

In a Golgari sacrifice deck, Ravenous Squirrel gets large quickly as you create a larger sacrifice outlet engine. Chatterfang, Squirrel General’s squirrel sacrifice ability pumps Ravenous Squirrel by +1/+1 for each Squirrel token sacrificed.

#15. Maelstrom Pulse

Maelstrom Pulse works best against token decks, but it’s always nice to have one up your sleeve in Constructed to handle that one player who drew all their Ornithopters. Three-mana sorcery speed removal is awfully slow and expensive these days, but this one being unconditional makes it an excellent card to consider should you need more removal in your EDH deck.

#14. Colossal Grave-Reaver

Colossal Grave-Reaver gives you an incredible reanimation of sorts, because each instance of self-mill can be a free creature. Toss in a few scry cards or Future Sight style cards to peek at the top of your deck and you'll know if you get something juicy on the next mill.

#13. Assassin’s Trophy

Assassin's Trophy looks like a group hug type of Golgari removal card, but this is another card that could go into any Golgari deck. Think of it like Path to Exile for any permanent. It ramps an opponent, but it answers just about anything efficiently and decisively.

#12. Tyvar the Bellicose

I’m still rather astonished whenever I read Tyvar the Bellicose. Mana doublers are already powerful—and this counts in my book, even if it doesn’t literally double the mana your mana dorks produce—but this one makes your Llanowar Elves and Elves of Deep Shadow into serious threats after a few turns? That doesn’t even factor in cards like Gyre Sage and Marwyn, the Nurturer that double their power and thus mana production through this ability.

#11. Ygra, Eater of All

Bloomburrow‘s Ygra, Eater of All has proven to be a ferocious threat in Pioneer, slotting into Jund Sacrifice decks to provide Cauldron Familiar with all the fuel it could desire.

It’s also easily the best food commander; though the archetype has always had reasonable payoffs like Gilded Goose and Trail of Crumbs, Food production has stifled those decks. You simply can’t produce them en masse the way you can Treasure and they aren’t as useful. Ygra changes all of that and allows your Gilded Goose and Bristlebud Farmer to get in on creature-based sacrifice synergies like Blood Artist and Midnight Reaper for even more value.

#10. Chatterfang, Squirrel General

Chatterfang, Squirrel General is a mass producer of Squirrel tokens. Whether you make another creature token or a Food, Blood, or Clue token, you get an extra Squirrel with each token you make.

It's a popular commander for those seeking out a combo win, as well as players who just want to jam a bunch of silly squirrels in their Commander deck.

#9. Glissa Sunslayer

One of the scariest 3-drops in Standard and Cube, Glissa Sunslayer has a disgusting textbox. The combination of first strike and deathtouch slaughters virtually any creature strategy while the combination of pressure and card advantage puts your opponent on the backfoot—especially if you play this early with Llanowar Elves. And it even interacts with planeswalkers and enchantments! This might be the Platonic ideal of midrange threats.

#8. Grist, the Hunger Tide

Grist, the Hunger Tide thrives in an insect typal deck, but it's also just a generically powerful planeswalker. It's cheap, it produces fodder than can protect it, and it can take out problematic permanents at the cost of a single sacrifice. It even threatens a quick ultimate that actually matters in most games. And because of its quirky static ability, it can be you commander, and interacts with cards that don't normally interact with planeswalkers (think: Green Sun's Zenith).

#7. The Gitrog Monster

It's not too hard to break The Gitrog Monster. If you're just playing it as honestly as possible, you'll still probably pull ahead with your extra land drops and card draw. Incorporate some combos and you end up with a fierce commander worthy of cEDH play.

#6. Lathril, Blade of the Elves

Lathril, Blade of the Elves is best run as a Voltron token-themed Commander deck because it can create more Elf tokens the stronger it gets. There's a reason Lathril is in the top 10 most popular commanders of all time: Elves are extremely popular, and Lathril's both enabler and payoff for two-color elf decks.

#5. Winding Constrictor

Slapping Hardened Scales onto an oversized body produced one of the strongest snakes in Magic. Winding Constrictor has been at the core of aggressive +1/+1 counter decks ever since its printing and is likely to remain a fringe playable for its entire existence.

#4. Wight of the Reliquary

Wight of the Reliquary might be my favorite card printed in 2024 due to the originality of its design. Ramp’s not exactly an uncommon payoff for sacrificing cards—just look at Ashnod's Altar—but permanent land ramp is.

This card would be fantastic if it just snagged basic lands, but just like the card it references (Knight of the Reliquary), it puts any land into play.

This has myriad uses, from assembling combos like Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage to showing off that Gaea's Cradle to snagging value lands like Strip Mine and Bojuka Bog. And it’s amazing with a host of cards that create creature tokens on landfall, like Scute Swarm and Sporemound.

#3. Life // Death

Adding Life // Death to this ranking feels like cheating since I’ve never seen anybody use it as anything but a 2-mana Reanimate, but 2 mana and some life to get a threat of any size into play is still a fantastic card.

#2. Abrupt Decay

Are you looking for a Golgari spell that can’t be countered? Abrupt Decay is fantastic against low-curve control decks, or even tempo decks looking to stick a cheap threat and back it up with cheap countermagic. Abrupt Decay has saved many a Constructed player from a turn-1 Delver of Secrets into stack interaction.

#1. Deathrite Shaman

One of the best elves in Magic, Deathrite Shaman offers so much utility for a variety of Golgari-themed decks. This shaman is simply one of the most flexible creatures in the game, combining ramp, graveyard hate, and long-game utility all attached to a simple, easy-to-cast 1-drop.

Best Golgari Card Payoffs

To get the most out of your Golgari cards, you must understand the angle you’re taking on them. I’ve found my Golgari decks to fall into three categories, each of which I have a few payoffs for: sacrifice decks, graveyard decks, and midrange decks. But don’t limit yourself to just these three possibilities!

Sacrifice

Golgari contains plenty of sacrifice outlets like Grist, the Hunger Tide and cards that produce sacrifice fodder like Compy Swarm and Creakwood Liege. With these in hand, you can look to powerful sacrifice synergies like Blood Artist and Vein Ripper. Get in on the reanimation game too with Dread Return or Victimize. Though most of these cards are black, we also have some good green cards like Greater Good and Fecundity to use.

Graveyard

Golgari cards like Grisly Salvage and Grist, the Hunger Tide excel at filling the graveyard, at which point you have a few options for payoffs. You could go big with reanimation spells like Reanimate and Necromancy to recur massive threats or take a grindier option with Regrowth, Gravedigger, or Reassembling Skeleton effects to turn your graveyard into another pile of resources.

Midrange

Golgari cards lend themselves well to midrange strategies largely because they have some of the best removal spells in the game, like Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse. You want to back these up with powerful threats like Mosswood Dreadknight and Dark Confidant plus a little card advantage from spells like Night's Whisper to extend your advantage. Decks like this are often referred to as The Rock after a list popularized by Sol Malka in 1999.

What Is Golgari Good at in MTG?

Golgari is good at sacrificing creatures and utilizing its graveyard. For example, Chatterfang, Squirrel General sacrifices Squirrel tokens to help you remove opponents' creatures. Sacrificing creatures can also help you with life gain and card draw like with Izoni, Thousand-Eyed and Ravenous Squirrel’s ability. You'll see plenty of self-mill in Golgari, as well as ways to either return cards from your graveyard to other zones, or payoffs for filling up the graveyard.

Wrap Up

The Gitrog Monster | Illustration by Jason Kang

Golgari cards are all about the balance of lifegain and life loss, with the graveyard as their main source of power. Now that you know more about them, are you ready to build a Golgari deck? Check out deck guides on the Draftsim blog and watch out for more content updates on the Draftsim Facebook page.

Until next time, look around your collection and LGS for all the gruesome Golgari gifts that Magic has to offer!