The many faces of Golos

[gilrad]

So I've been lowkey enamoured with Golos, Tireless Pilgrim ever since I first laid eyes on him. The only issue is I haven't been able to think of a proper way to utilize him. The various ways to utilize him have been rolling around in my head but it wasn't until recently that it really hit me:

Golos is a command-zone nonbasic land

Well, with the caveat that players aren't going to get their strip mines ready the moment you reveal commanders (though there's a couple of exceptions you can use).

With that in mind, what are some of the different nonbasic lands you can build around? What are some lands you wished you could shove into the command zone? A few that stand out to me:

cascading cataracts - "What is colorfixing?" deck. For a one-mana tax you can go from divinity of pride to cryptic command to cruel ultimatum. All with a manabase that is essentially mind stones and wastes.

lotus field - Land count matters, with a side of "I'm going to have lands in the graveyard guaranteed". It can start out rather tame with things like Natural Balance and balancing act, though if you want to really ramp up the nastiness include stuff like keldon firebombers or cataclysm. As an aside, you've also got guaranteed mana fixing for three of the same color, which again means you can ignore mana fixing for single-colored cards and still have a manabase that's nothing but wastes.

Alchemist's Refuge - "land-go, before I untap I take my turn." I've been thinking of various ways to get a good flash deck going, and this is indeed one solution. The downside is you're looking at a three-mana tax on all spells you play, but on the upside you can jam your deck full of all sorts of hilarious cards that have no business being cast as a combat trick or in response to a wrath.

hall of the bandit lord - "Five Color Xenagos", or "All the Cards that Overperform With Haste". So basically like a Xenagos deck except you're also playing the other three colors, giving you access to things like Sphinx of the Steel Wind or even something like tree of perdition.

There's also some cards that get extra shenanigan-ey with Vesuva and Thespian's Stage to triple them up:

Emeria, The Sky Ruin - Triple Emerias? with all the best five-color targets to cycle?

Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle - I'm envisioning a landfall-focused deck that tries to barf as many mountains into play as possible, maybe with a cameo appearance with my favorite duo, thawing glaciers and deserted temple!

Field of the Dead - ISBpathfinder has already put plenty of thought into this, as he mentioned in his thread, 24 power with two fetchlands sounds like a good goal.

Any other unique and interesting nonbasics to build around?

[75chan]

cascading cataracts - "What is colorfixing?" deck. For a one-mana tax you can go from divinity of pride to cryptic command to cruel ultimatum. All with a manabase that is essentially mind stones and wastes.

This sounds sweet. Indestructable really helps. I think going forests and a green-heavy ramp package would be the way to go though (with signets to help multiple cards/turn) since you would have to get cataracts into play ASAP as it'd be needed for the deck to function. I'm not sure what payoffs you could play though, as a lot of charms/commands aren't very good (a few exceptions, but probably not to fill a deck). A few demigods maybe, maybe an ultimatum or a few other things.

[ISBPathfinder]

Man, Field of the Dead is so good. You know my stance on it though. I have only played the list once so far but Field is really quite solid. I even got to activate Golos' ability once in the one game I have had so far and I just kind of hit critical mass quickly and zurged everyone out.

[pokken]

My mono white Golos deck with Serra's Sanctum or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in the command zone has been incredibly fun.

https://deckbox.org/sets/2423059

I've been slowly budgetifying it a little to make it not quite as oppressive, and pulled some of the stax. But cards like Static Orb are way asymmetrical when your lands tap for 8 and theirs tap for 1.

Late in the game you can use Golos as a card advantage piece by fetching a Cascading Cataracts.

Mono black with Cabal Coffers is one of the next ideas on my list. I've always struggled for a mono black ramp commander when all I want to do is play Cabal Coffers. So seems like it might be worth a try.

[Gashnaw]

I see people run a gates + dragon maze a lot. Decent win con that works.

[Sinis]

City of Shadows is just grand if you have a repeatable Threaten-style effect (like Dominus of Fealty).

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle/Emeria, The Sky Ruin if you have Realmwright or Prismatic Omen (I realize you mentioned both of these, but Realmwright could use the love, here!)

Survivors' Encampment if you have an inspired creature (like King Macar, the Gold-Cursed or Daring Thief).

Moonring Island/Halimar Depths if you have Conundrum Sphinx, Djinn of Wishes or other cards that help you if you know what the top card of your library is.

Karn's Bastion with planeswalkers, storage lands, other kinds of counters.

Geier Reach Sanitarium (or Mikokoro, Center of the Sea, or Cephalid Coliseum) with Notion Thief.

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Obviously we wouldn't go with ALL of these (some of them are pretty bad), but I think some of the cards are very playable on their own (Notion Thief is a perfectly acceptable card), and it's a fairly low opportunity cost to play some generic colourless land.

[gilrad]

I see people run a gates + dragon maze a lot. Decent win con that works.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of playstyles that revolve around building your own board in a vacuum in order to win, and every time I thought about going nonbasic-broad with Golos by flickering, copying, etc, I ran into the same issue of "I've got a billion ways to get him to trigger a bunch of times but the only real payoff I can get is to auto-win with Maze's End".

For me personally, I'd rather focus on a single nonbasic land, maybe with Cataracts as a late-game enabler for Golos's ability, and build the deck around fun interactions with that one land.

[gilrad]

A few others that came to mind recently:

Minamo, School at Water's Edge - Legendaries with Tap Abilities (and also Vigilance to legendaries that could really benefit from it).

Geier Reach Sanitarium or Desolate Lighthouse - Five-color Madness/things in my graveyard deck. Each one has different pros/cons. Lighthouse doesn't share its abilities with anybody so it's really just "four mana tax on all my madness cards to cast them at instant speed and make them cantrip", four mana is getting to be a bit high of a tax too. Sanitarium brings the mana tax down by one, but gives everybody card selection, which can bite you in the ass later. It does open up cards like megrim that care about opponent discards and draws, but those cards might not last very long if everybody's got such good card selection given to them.

Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace - Like above but taking it to a different direction. Taxing each player a card each turn could be an interesting play direction, but you wouldn't be able to flash out your madness cards like above.

Slayers' Stronghold - Flying aggro. Similar to Hall of the Bandit Lord in that you're packing your deck with hasty dudes that overperform with haste, but also adding in an extra layer of always being a terrible target to attack into.

Eye of Ugin I've seen that Eldrazi tribal is a thing for Golos, and after realizing he guarantees this card, I see now why. I'd say this is a pretty central card to getting Eldrazi tribal rolling, and the fact that you're five colors means all those pesky color identity issues aren't a problem either.

[Taleran]

A commander that can find my Serra's Sanctum when I want to play 5C enchantress feels good in my book.

[Serpent_Steve]

There is just soo many lands that Golos would be great to fetch. Temple of the False God allows you to use Golo's activated ability the following turn immeadiately (or cast Golos, Tireless Pilgrim again if he gets removed).

The other lands I'd consider would be those that produce large amounts of mana. In particular Gaea's Cradle, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers spring to mind that haven't been mentioned already.

Alternatively lands with activated versatility are useful like Volrath's Stronghold, Ancient Tomb, Academy Ruins, Westvale Abbey, Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep, Maze of Ith and Homeward Path spring to mind.

[SaintRumpterfrabble]

So gilrad, did you ever decide on a Golos build? I'm finding that there are too many options! 5 color Eldrazi (using Eye of Ugin) seems fun but comes with the possibility of having expensive stuff stranded in the hand without gas if one really wants to take advantage of the cost reduction ability; ISBPathfinder's take on Field of the Dead also seems like a good time.

[gilrad]

Nope! Decision paralysis all the way! Also I've been too busy to do MTG the past month.

My mental circuit has been some variation of:

Lotus field because I can avoid stripmines for ultimate strategy resiliency.

But then I'm going to want some ramp spells to ensure I get Golos out early and can fix my mana properly before he comes out.

You know what's really good with lots of ramp spells? Being able to flash them in when you need to later on in the game so they're not trying up your mana! Alchemists refuge!

But am I going for field or refuge first when Golos gets out?

I could just make a few subs in my Bosh, Iron Golem deck and make it a Valakut deck!

But that deck has poor sweeper options. Just cards like Perilous Vault. It does seem really strong when all your engines are lands! Especially being able to flash it in ETB with refuge!

What deck was I thinking about again?

In all seriousness, I've parked it down to a few ideas but I haven't done much more than goldfish the lists online:

Lotus Field: 5c goodstuff with few synergy cards like I mentioned above. Pretty broad plan but it might be fun to rely entirely on field - vesuva - thespian stage to do what other people spend thousands of dollars on 5c landbases to do.

Alchemists refuge: lots of cheap ramp spells, super-sweepers like play of the game, strong sorcery-speed removal, and a pile of value cards that people generally say "yeah but the card really sucks if you lose it before you untap".

Emeria slide deck: I actually did a lot of testing with it and it could be something. A bunch of cycling creatures (both for lands and for cards), get multiple Emeria triggers, recycle cards from your hand to graveyard to play.

Mono-R Valakut artifacts: I already have a Mono-R deck that basically works to get all sorts of strange ramp shenanigans going, which can get lethal real quick when Valakut is out. Swapping the commander to guarantee one element of the engine kinda works.

Of course, after going through the mental list, I always ask "but what if players are mean and stripmines my awesome engines?", Which brings me back to lotus field again. Which isn't as fun, but it's reliable.

[pokken]

Splash green and put excavator, loam, crucible and scaretiller type stuff

[hyalopterouslemur]

Blinking Golos to get Tron and Post sets is low-effort possibility.

You might consider Prismatic Omen to make Valakut and Emeria work better.

[Sinis]

Nope! Decision paralysis all the way!

I had the same experience, but tried to build all of them. Rather than having an overarching strategy where I always fetch the same land, I decided to try and leverage Golos' flexibility. I considered tagging you in my deck post.

It's a work in progress.