Beating Bant Golos is no easy feat.
Going over the top doesn’t really work because Golos mostly does it better, so you’re kind of forced to go under. Golos still has enough interaction and ways to punish going wide that that plan doesn’t necessarily work. What can we do?
We have a few options, but one of them stands out from the rest.
Flying creatures are great against Golos, as are counterspells, but Embercleave is what truly excites me. It’s fast, it’s punishing, it ends the game, and your opponent can never be truly sure if you have it. Embercleave is also a flash combat trick, which Golos has very few ways of interacting with.
With any good creature to wield it, Embercleave should end the game on the spot, which is exactly what the format should be trying to do against Golos. Most decks aren’t capable of winning the long game against Golos, and even winning the old-fashioned way with creatures and removal spells is too slow. We need a haymaker and Embercleave is the best option.
Oddly, Embercleave encourages you to go tall and wide, a feat not easily achieved by most successful Standard decks. Realistically, you should be looking at the mana discount on Embercleave as optional or put it in a deck full of small creatures that just needs a few extra points of damage.
Creatures (32)
- 2 Midnight Reaper
- 4 Venerated Loxodon
- 4 Knight of the Ebon Legion
- 2 Smitten Swordmaster
- 4 Inspiring Veteran
- 4 Venerable Knight
- 4 Worthy Knight
- 4 Fervent Champion
- 4 Stormfist Crusader
Lands (22)
Spells (6)
Ari Lax was the first person who believed in Mardu Knights, but now I’m right there with him.
My first experience playing this deck was running it through the “Win One of Every Card in Standard” event on MTG Arena last weekend on three (!) accounts. I didn’t hit the elusive twelve wins, but my record was 14-5 before I moved on to other decks (and promptly lost). My opponents even had an abnormal number of Deafening Clarions, Cry of the Carnariums, and Ritual of Soots in their decks too!
You have issues with creature decks that are bigger than you, which is mostly why this deck never caught on. Thankfully, Embercleave helps with that problem as well. You can do the white aggro specialty of pumping your creatures or you can finish your opponent with a flashy Embercleave. Once the format settles, you’ll be able to figure out which plan works best, but for now, the creature suite, removal suite, and sideboard are kind of up in the air.
My land count is relatively high, but the color requirements are wild. I’d rather hit my colors and risk flooding a bit than play fewer lands. I started with Mardu, but realistically, the white cards aren’t worth it. Venerated Loxodon is totally busted, but Worthy Knight and Inspiring Veteran were disappointing. Acclaimed Contender can help you find Embercleave, but it’s mostly worse than Midnight Reaper.
Naturally, after I finished my events, my friend sent me a list that looked almost strictly better than what I was doing.
Creatures (30)
- 2 Midnight Reaper
- 4 Knight of the Ebon Legion
- 4 Foulmire Knight
- 4 Smitten Swordmaster
- 4 Fervent Champion
- 4 Blacklance Paragon
- 4 Stormfist Crusader
- 4 Rimrock Knight
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (22)
Spells (4)
Sideboard
I altered this list slightly, so I hope Nathan forgives me for cutting the fourth Embercleave, even though he insists it’s necessary.
This version of Knights has most of the best parts of Rakdos while also incorporating the other three-mana planeswalker in Throne of Eldraine.
Trample, first strike, and +2/+0 are all welcome here, plus the filtering ability allows you to play longer games. The whole time, The Royal Scions are threatening an ultimate. If you manage to pair The Royal Scions or Embercleave with some form of deathtouch, your opponent will probably be very dead.
Did you know that Blacklance Paragon can target itself? What kind of nonsense is this? Against an attacking creature, you can flash in Blacklance Paragon as a removal spell that also gains three life. It seems preposterous. To top it off, Blacklance Paragon is another potential piece to the trample / deathtouch combo. It should have been in my Mardu list.
Rimrock Knight is showing up in more spots, especially in combination with Fervent Champion. Once you add Embercleave into the mix, you start finding various ways to make combinations of lethal from seemingly nowhere. Winning in combat also becomes easier. I used to think Integrity // Intervention was a great card, but it was Rimrock Knight that I wanted all along.
Aether Gust makes the cut over more Noxious Grasps in the sideboard because of how threatening Fires of Invention is. More people need to respect that card, especially with Golos as Public Enemy No. 1.
Rakdos is probably great as well, but what if we keep cutting colors?
Creatures (23)
- 4 Legion Warboss
- 4 Runaway Steam-Kin
- 4 Scorch Spitter
- 4 Fervent Champion
- 3 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
- 4 Rimrock Knight
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (21)
Spells (14)
One of the few decks I’ve lost to in my climb through Diamond with Bant Golos has been Mono-Red Aggro. Sometimes they get under Golos and sometimes they have sick Experimental Frenzy / Runaway Steam-Kin turns that Golos struggles to break up efficiently. Either way, Mono-Red is a deck people should be working on.
This version foregoes Experimental Frenzy and Cavalcade of Calamity for Embercleave and power over synergy. Legion Warboss makes casting Embercleave trivial and will be nearly lethal once Torbran, Thane of Red Fell is on the battlefield. Embercleave might not seem impressive in this deck because of how small your creatures are on average, but between Runaway Steam-Kin, Rimrock Knight, and Torbran, the double strike will add up to more than you think at first glance.
Embercleave is the easiest way to punch through a horde of Zombies for lethal, but any form of trample plus deathtouch will usually do it.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Gruul Spellbreaker
- 4 Skarrgan Hellkite
- 4 Growth-Chamber Guardian
- 2 Zhur-Taa Goblin
- 4 Paradise Druid
- 4 Questing Beast
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (23)
Spells (5)
Self-proclaimed 2023 MTG World Champion Wyatt Darby has been streaming and refining Gruul for a while and I happen to like his current list. Several versions had Embercleave in the deck, but now he’s focusing on Questing Beast and Vivien, Arkbow Ranger, which can also get the job done.
This iteration of Gruul is simple. You play big threats and hope you don’t run up against a wall of removal. If you do, there’s basically no coming back. It gambles on opponents not having the right tools to fight its big threats, and right now, that’s mostly a fine position to take. Gruul’s case is certainly helped by the fact that the games will often be decided by Turn 6, which doesn’t give the opponent very much time to find those answers.
If Vivien doesn’t show up, you can always use Colossus to give Questing Beast trample, which is usually going to be good for seven damage. Between always threatening damage with Questing Beast and the sheer amount of haste in this decklist, it has plenty of reach.
As a bonus, here’s a Dimir decklist that, instead of trying to Embercleave, simply uses unblockable instead.
Creatures (19)
- 4 Thief of Sanity
- 3 Murderous Rider
- 2 Lochmere Serpent
- 4 Vantress Gargoyle
- 2 Brazen Borrower
- 4 Merfolk Secretkeeper
Lands (25)
Spells (16)
This deck uses Merfolk Secretkeeper and Vantress Gargoyle to fill your opponent’s graveyard, which enables Drown in the Loch and Into the Story. That strategy isn’t particularly strong against Golos, but I like it against almost everything else.
Thankfully, we have Thief of Sanity and Brazen Borrower to pressure Golos. Lochmere Serpent is the big finisher, which is something they basically can’t do anything to stop outside of killing you before you kill them. It’s one of the single best cards you can build toward if you’re interested in playing a midrange or control deck.
Our plethora of Adventure creatures means that Narset, Parter of Veils doesn’t work in this deck, which is a shame. However, it makes it much easier to pressure your opponent when you have bodies lying around. As long as you can enable Into the Story, you won’t be short on cards anyway.
In theory, Dimir has the tools for everything. There are sweepers, spot removal, counterspells, disruption, finishers, and card advantage in just these two colors. Unfortunately, Standard isn’t keen on playing fair at the moment. The successful decks are trying to accomplish broken things, so a slow, unwieldy midrange deck might not be what the format needs.
Cleave ‘Em Up
Golos is not unbeatable. In fact, there are other archetypes out there that don’t need Embercleave to put up a fight. Simic Flash, Feather, and Fires of Invention are just a few of the archetypes that could be refined and find a place at the top tier.
Of the examples in this article, Grixis Knights is my frontrunner. Knights has a proven track record and adding Embercleave and The Royal Scions seems to solve some of the problems. Knights is now stronger at grinding and has a combo finish while also still being one of the only decks in the format with twelve playable one-drops.
Soon, everyone will live in constant fear of Embercleave.