Slogurk, the Overslime Landfall Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on February 15, 2024

Slogurk, the Overslime | Illustration by Nicholas Gregory

This time around I’m coming to you with a landfall-themed Commander deck that might just be more concerned with lands leaving the battlefield than entering it. The commander today is Slogurk, the Overslime, which means the list is restricted to the Simic () colors and doesn’t have access to red.

This puts the deck in an interesting position. Blue doesn’t have landfall, or really any land-based, cards to work with, which means green has to carry most of the weight in that department. But blue does bring incredible proactive interaction and some much-needed card draw, which will work wonders for this deck.

But that’s enough talk, let’s get into the build!

The Deck

Cyclonic Rift | Illustration by Chris Rahn

The Commander

Slogurk, the Overslime is a 3/3 ooze for that has a few interesting land effects. It’s first ability gives it a +1/+1 counter whenever a land enters the graveyard from anywhere, which makes you impervious to discard decks on top of being great with fetch lands. And three of those counters can be removed to return Slogurk to return it to your hand at instant speed.

But it's Slogurk’s last ability that really seals the deal. All lands return from your graveyard to your hand when it leaves the battlefield, effectively Life from the Loaming for everything. This is an incredibly powerful ability, especially in a deck that can dump its hand of lands and get five or six landfall triggers in a single turn.

Early Game

This deck’s early game doesn’t quite look like your typical green deck, filled with mana dorks. You have some early land dorks instead in Greenseeker, Lotus Cobra, Elvish Reclaimer, and Azusa, Lost but Seeking since you have a much more land-driven focus. These are great because they provide early advantage in your theme and continue paying dividends throughout the game where Llanowar Elves would become semi-redundant in a deck that will have plenty of lands early on.

Your commander is also a 3-mana creature, which means you can play it on turn 3 and be happy to start generating value and accumulating +1/+1 counters. It’s also a great lightning rod to distract from the absolute threat of Azusa, Lost but Seeking.

Landfall Cards

Here’s where we get to the good part, the actual cards with landfall. There are quite a few creature and noncreature cards that pay you dividends whenever you play or sacrifice lands, which ideally will be just about all the time.

Evolution Sage is one of the better ones. It proliferates upon landfall which can start to add up with your commander in conjunction with fetch lands. That’s two counters and it’s going to be even more if you have something like Crucible of Worlds out. It also hits your other oozes like Oran-Rief Ooze and even your little Plants that spawn from Avenger of Zendikar.

Turntimber Sower is great in conjunction with other cards, especially Avenger of Zendikar. These two will result in an overwhelming mass of Plants coming to mow down your opponents combined with some extra land drops, which is all this deck wants to do.

Tatyova, Benthic Druid is also noteworthy in that it gives you plenty of cards, maybe even more than you want, while also padding your life total. You can get sort of beat down by other creature-based decks that come out of the gates faster and harder until you get your main lands engine up and running, so this helps recuperate a lot of that damage.

There isn’t much to be said for Rampaging Baloths. It makes 4/4s on landfall, which means you can easily refill your board from nothing with this card. It also only costs, like, less than a dollar, which is very convenient for you budget players out there.

I also want to briefly mention Apex Devastator. This card has nothing to do with landfall and is just a huge creature that cascades four times.

Devastator is the most expensive permanent in the deck so it can hit some real bangers. This is a great post-board-wipe bomb. While it’s nice to imagine you’ll get Cultivator Colossus, Elder Gargaroth, and other mega creatures, be ready to be satisfied with a few 4- and 5-drops.

Landfall-Empowering Cards

Landfall is a mechanic balanced around the once-per-turn rule when it comes to land drops, with fetch lands being a convenient way to generate more value. But in a format like Commander where you can get your hands on multiple lands per turn, landfall becomes a much more potent strategy that’s held back not by the once-per-turn rule but rather the three people you have to kill.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking is the ultimate landfall empowering creature. It gives you two extra land drops which can be four if you have two fetches in your hand. There’s no reason not to play this card. It’s the last card to be cut and is probably one of the best cards in the deck overall.

Ramunap Excavator and Crucible of Worlds unlock the graveyard as places to play lands from. Slogurk, the Overslime does that to a lesser extent, but these two take it to the next level. They’re also the primary reason I opted to include every playable fetch land in an otherwise mid-budget deck.

Scapeshift is also extraordinarily great, especially in a deck led by Slogurk. It gets you lands entering the graveyard which come back through your commander as well as new landfall triggers to generate more value through your other permanents.

It’s Scapeshift. Not much mode needs to be said.

Interaction

Every deck needs interaction, even when lands entering the battlefield don’t pass priority themselves. Luckily you’re playing blue which unlocks some sweet cards draw and tempo spells that help your deck actually interact and not just goldfish each pod.

Cyclonic Rift is an obvious inclusion that requires little introduction. It doesn’t hit you, totally resets your opponents, and drags the game on forever.

I also love Perilous Research because it becomes card positive through your commander and other recursion effects. Most decks don’t want to lose a land but for you it’s a feature, not a bug!

Fierce Guardianship, Foil, and Mana Drain are your counterspells today. They’re all technically free, and Foil even gives you a +1/+1 counter on Slogurk, the Overslime, which makes them all quite efficient.

As for defending your own permanents, Snakeskin Veil and Tamiyo's Safekeeping offer another line of defense with Heroic Intervention being the big brother of the two. I’ve never not loved playing these cards. They’re always worth it, especially in a format where you’re looking at possible three times the normal amount of removal.

But you still need to actually remove creatures and other threats, which is where Resculpt, Ram Through, and Beast Within come in. These are great and affordable removal spells that almost aren’t ever dead in your hand. Again, not much to say here.

The Mana Base
Lands

It wouldn’t be a landfall deck without, well, lands! This deck runs 35 lands which provide a consistent stream of land drops to keep up with your extra lands per turn.

It also plays every single playable fetch land including Flooded Strand, Misty Rainforest, Scalding Tarn, Verdant Catacombs, Windswept Heath, and Wooded Foothills. These are great because they give a landfall trigger when they enter the battlefield on top of the landfall trigger you get when you actually fetch with them. The fetches also go to the graveyard which has great synergy with cards like your commander and Crucible of Worlds and Ramunap Excavator.

We’ve all seen what Boseiju, Who Endures can do in a variety of formats from Legacy to Standard and it’s just as good in Commander, maybe even more so.

Otawara, Soaring City is also in for the ride as a great way to bounce commanders at instant speed without worrying about Counterspell.

I’ve tried to include some more lands that can reach the graveyard to go along with your commander’s synergy. These include Ghost Quarter as a way to get rid of a manland or dual land from your opponents on top of getting you a landfall trigger as well as Saprazzan Skerry and Hickory Woodlot to ramp you out while also adding to the graveyard pile only to come back later.

I’ve opted to include Strip Mine too. This doesn’t give you another land like Ghost Quarter does, but it can still continuously come back and strip your opponents of their precious lands.

Acceleration

Naturally you’d like to have some acceleration in your mana base. Being one or two mana ahead of your opponents is always welcome and extremely valuable in games where you go third or fourth.

There are two lands that come in tapped but can offer two mana for the price of one land: Saprazzan Skerry and Hickory Woodlot. These are great on turn 1 and can get you a turn 2 Slogurk, the Overslime who will then gladly accept some +1/+1 counters.

This deck doesn’t have too much to work with in terms of creature ramp. Mana dorks aren’t great in this deck so instead you’re looking for land-based creatures like Lotus Cobra.

Greenseeker is another great example of this. It helps you filter your hand and guarantees a third and fourth land drop, which can be the most important determining factor going into the midgame.

The Strategy

Azusa, Lost but Seeking | Illustration by Winona Nelson

The strategy for this deck is pretty simple, which makes it good for players of all skill levels as long as you’re able to keep track of your triggers! The basic strategy can be summarized as playing Slogurk, the Overslime as early as possible in combination with some early landfall cards. There isn’t much to it, you just need to hit your land drops and get the engine going.

The deck really picks up once you have some extra lands per turn and something like Crucible of Worlds. It lets you put a bunch of counters on Slogurk to attack with, which you can then remove to get your lands back for more triggers next turn and repeat the cycle. This gets extra nasty once Strip Mine comes into play and your least favorite friend suddenly just lost four lands.

One tip I’d give that will really help your games go smoothly is to keep a hand with card draw, even if that card draw isn’t coming until turn 4 or 5 since you’re playing other cards. Landfall decks tend to stall out if they’re board wiped or their primary landfall cards get destroyed. Sitting on a bunch of lands is only good if you have a reason (and the ability) to play them, and having card draw helps you find those reasons quicker.

As for closing out the game, I’d like to point your attention to Blackblade Reforged and Whispersilk Cloak. These two will turn your Slogurk, the Overslime into a one-shot machine if you have enough lands. It’s actually somewhat easy to accomplish, especially when Slogurk receives counters and grows itself naturally.

Combos and Interactions

Strip Mine is one of the more unique and powerful interactions in the deck. You can easily wipe the field in just two or three turns when you combine it with multiple lands per turn and something that returns lands from your graveyard to your hand or battlefield. But this can also get you in trouble, which I’ll go over in a second.

Another interaction of note is the combination of fetches, extra lands, and Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator. I’ve mentioned this a few times but I really can’t stress this enough: this often wins the game through sheer value since nobody can keep up with you. It’s basically a “do you have artifact removal right now?” button.

Rule 0 Violations Check

Rule 0 refers to the unwritten rule of Commander which just reads “have fun.” Land destruction is an admittedly un-fun and annoying mechanic that seriously hinders players to the point of conceding early.

The Strip Mine interaction mentioned above is your primary violator here. It’s notoriously and infamously un-fun, and some play groups may ask not to have that in the game or to take it out to balance out the power struggle. Fierce Guardianship may also get you in trouble in some precon pods since it’s basically a free counterspell with no downsides.

You should be all set in the Rule 0 department with those two mentioned!

Budget Options

Fierce Guardianship | Illustration by Randy Vargas

This deck has a somewhat high price tag in the mid $500 to $600 range, which can be out of this world for some. If you’re looking for some cuts, I’ve got you covered.

Fierce Guardianship and Mana Drain are the first to go. They can be replaced with Counterspell and Swan Song and won’t have much impact on how the deck plays whatsoever.

Unfortunately the fetch lands, despite being the most powerful lands in the deck, are the next cards to go. They’re just so darn expensive, especially the Khans of Tarkir lands that are due for a reprint. Luckily you can probably say goodbye to Crucible of Worlds as well if you’re taking these out. You’re looking at a 35% budget decrease or so with those gone, which is pretty good.

There aren’t a lot of big offenders when it comes to price and budget impact other than those two groups. Most of the relevant cuts are $10 to $15, and you can go through and determine what cards are and aren’t worth it.

Other Builds

Slogurk, the Overslime is a lands commander through and through and isn’t interested in doing much else. I suppose a self or group mill strategy could pay dividends, guaranteeing you land drops on top of growing and leaning into a reanimation strategy, but I’m a little hesitant.

Reanimator and mill work better with black somewhere in the color pool, which is what’s missing here. No reanimation or sacrifice synergies give me an icky feeling about that, and I’d really like to stress that landfall is the way to go here.

Commanding Conclusion

Ghost Quarter | Illustration by Peter Mohrbacher

That concludes this guide for Slogurk, the Overslime! I really enjoyed writing this up, and it was interesting to build a landfall deck without red. I never expected to be playing around with this commander when it was spoiled but I’ll admit it’s growing on me. In a strange way it makes me think of a commander deck with only lands, with Child of Alara in the command zone and a goal of pushing people to a draw.

What do you think of Slogurk, and landfall as an overall strategy in EDH? Let me know your thoughts and comments down in, well, the comments! Or you can come talk about it in the official Draftsim Discord if that’s more your thing.

Until next time, stay safe and stay healthy!