Golos
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The idea of the deck was to look at your hand and then, when you play Golos, find a land that has a strong synergy with card in hand. So, if you drew Bringer of the Red Dawn, you could search up City of Shadows or High Market, and repeatedly steal and exile/sacrifice creatures you steal.
The deck leans pretty heavily on Cascading Cataracts and Crystal Quarry to fix mana, though it's not impossible to fix on its own. To make up for it, the deck has plenty of other land search to find synergies.
The active synergy list:
Mana Reflection: This interacts well with Cascading Cataracts, Crystal Quarry, and to a lesser extent, Castle Garenbrig. Pay 5 into Cataracts, get 10 out. Pay four into Castle Garenbrig, get 12 out (but only for creatures). These are cute especially with the Hydras in the deck.
Anything with Landfall: Oboro, Palace in the Clouds can bounce itself. This means that you'll always have landfall 'available', and with multiple land plays (like Mina and Denn, or in response to Burgeoning's trigger), and you can capitalize on every additional land play available. It also does a good impression of a basic Island.
Bringer of the White Dawn: With this in hand, searching up High Market is a priority. While the deck has few artifacts, you can sacrifice Golos and then bring him back on your upkeep to search another land. Over and over again.
Nissa, Vital Force / Genju of the Realm: Both of these like Cascading Cataracts; being indestructible is a big plus!
Notion Thief / Smothering Tithe: Both of these cards like Geier Reach Sanitarium for obvious reasons (though, not at the same time).
Anything that Fetches: Good with Crucible, Loam, Excavator. These are probably not critical in the deck, and some may get cut.
Tragic Arrogance: While it's probably not super important to search Forbidden Orchard, this can hamstring some voltron strategies by donating a spirit via the land, and then selecting the spirit to survive the ensuing Tragic Arrogance.
Synergies not currently in, but were considered or around once:
The Gitrog Monster: Drownyard Temple easily recurs itself. This wasn't spectacular for the deck, and was replaced. I think any combo involving Dakmor Salvage would be unwelcome in my playgroups. I don't think TGM is completely useless; it's just not profitable in a build that lacks self-mill.
Crumbling Vestige: This was a consideration with Ephemerate. Play Golos, get Vestige, play Ephemerate. It might still make it in, though it's probably cuter than it is effective.
Ghost Town: Essentially colourless Oboro #2, but only with Burgeoning. Not super exciting.
Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace: This was going to go with Geier Reach Sanitarium and Geth's Grimoire. Not sure it needs the redundancy or if I could just jam Grimoire; realistically, I'd just tutor the land I wanted, so it's a matter of finding a slot for Grimoire.
Arena: This was a consideration with Rhonas the Indomitable or similar.
Wayward Swordtooth/Azusa, Lost but Seeking/Exploration/etc.: These didn't really pop when I played them. Basically, I had to draw a landfall card, more extra land plays, and then tutor Oboro. If the deck was heavier on land, I would consider this.
Hanweir Battlements: Clearly for use with Hanweir Garrison. I hate double-faced cards. I might yet include this, though, just for the potential of silly meld action.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Strongly considered for Cabal Coffers (especially with Mana Reflection!) and Crusading Knight, I actually just lack the Crusading Knight. But, the deck is also heavily weighted towards Bant (Cataracts fixing notwithstanding), so, it's not clear to me that Urborg/Coffers would add much, except for some sick X-spells (which I kind of want to remove because they have anti-synergy with Golos' activated ability).
Rogue's Passage: Maybe around for Master of Cruelties, but, I had thought this might be too mean for my group.
More fetches: Originally included for Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, they just took up too many slots. The deck could probably use the fixing, realistically.
Open to comments/questions/suggestions!
Change Log
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2019-11-29: out The Gitrog Monster, Drownyard Temple, in Geth's Grimoire, Kor Haven
TGM kind of sucks in this deck; it's like the worst sort of pay-to-draw (via Drownyard Temple) with some stats and an extra land play. Not really enough to be exciting. It also frees up a valuable land slot, since Drownyard Temple is left without any synergies. Geth's Grimoire combos nicely with Geier Reach Sanitarium; I think part of the direction the deck will take is that I'm going to focus on fewer lands rather than the huge broad utility currently on offer. Kor Haven is pretty generically useful, but I could slot it out if something else comes up.
2019-12-03: out City of Shadows, Crucible of Worlds, Ramunap Excavator, in Mirrorpool, Venser, the Sojourner, Overwhelming Stampede.
The deck has trouble closing games out. On the weekend, I played a game where I stuck Mana Reflection, drew 30+ cards from Recurring Insight, and was tapping for 40+ mana and failed to win, because the wincons are too soft. They still might be too soft. City of Shadows (despite my love for the card) has been underperforming; it hurts that it is only good with Bringer of the Red Dawn, and the rest of the time, it's godawful on account of not even tapping for mana without consigning a creature to exile first. I'm sure it has a home in a more dedicated threaten or token-style deck (Yasova? Kari Zev?). The graveyard-to-play cards have been pretty lackluster as well; the deck doesn't have the fetches/cycling lands nor land-sacrifice cards to take advantage. I'm retaining Life from the Loam to keep a way of recurring lands that have been destroyed; LftL is the most resilient of these recovery cards. In the future, Terra Eternal or Sacred Ground may get a slot to secure the land-based future. Another possibility is Muldrotha, the Gravetide, on account of being a Crucible of-everything-in-the Worlds.
To the additions: Mirrorpool offers a good way to extend our threats at instant speed without exposing ourselves to more risk; table an Avenger of Zendikar, and then EOT duplicate it if you want to go wild. Most of the creatures in this deck like being copied. All of Venser's abilities are relevant; many of our creatures like being flickered and all of them like to go unblocked. As for Overwhelming Stampede, it has the good grace to be castable via Bring to Light while being mostly lethal with the right kind of board.
2019-12-11: out Steelbane Hydra, in The Haunt of Hightower.
Steelbane Hydra is not my favourite. It flops when it appears when you activate Golos, it's a not-awesome proactive play since it lacks evasion, and the enchantment/artifact hate -- while necessary and now sort of lacking in the deck -- is ponderously slow. I like the card, but, this probably isn't the deck for it.
The Haunt of Hightower is included as an effort to streamline the deck a little more around a narrow set of lands, and Geier Reach Sanitarium is already one of the lands with the most synergies in the deck. Geth's Grimoire and other synergies have been performing well, and The Haunt can get real large, real fast with the madhouse. It also can smack hands around, and provides some lifegain; it's an all-around decent card. I may also find a slot for its cousin, Vulturous Zombie.
TGM kind of sucks in this deck; it's like the worst sort of pay-to-draw (via Drownyard Temple) with some stats and an extra land play. Not really enough to be exciting. It also frees up a valuable land slot, since Drownyard Temple is left without any synergies. Geth's Grimoire combos nicely with Geier Reach Sanitarium; I think part of the direction the deck will take is that I'm going to focus on fewer lands rather than the huge broad utility currently on offer. Kor Haven is pretty generically useful, but I could slot it out if something else comes up.
2019-12-03: out City of Shadows, Crucible of Worlds, Ramunap Excavator, in Mirrorpool, Venser, the Sojourner, Overwhelming Stampede.
The deck has trouble closing games out. On the weekend, I played a game where I stuck Mana Reflection, drew 30+ cards from Recurring Insight, and was tapping for 40+ mana and failed to win, because the wincons are too soft. They still might be too soft. City of Shadows (despite my love for the card) has been underperforming; it hurts that it is only good with Bringer of the Red Dawn, and the rest of the time, it's godawful on account of not even tapping for mana without consigning a creature to exile first. I'm sure it has a home in a more dedicated threaten or token-style deck (Yasova? Kari Zev?). The graveyard-to-play cards have been pretty lackluster as well; the deck doesn't have the fetches/cycling lands nor land-sacrifice cards to take advantage. I'm retaining Life from the Loam to keep a way of recurring lands that have been destroyed; LftL is the most resilient of these recovery cards. In the future, Terra Eternal or Sacred Ground may get a slot to secure the land-based future. Another possibility is Muldrotha, the Gravetide, on account of being a Crucible of-everything-in-the Worlds.
To the additions: Mirrorpool offers a good way to extend our threats at instant speed without exposing ourselves to more risk; table an Avenger of Zendikar, and then EOT duplicate it if you want to go wild. Most of the creatures in this deck like being copied. All of Venser's abilities are relevant; many of our creatures like being flickered and all of them like to go unblocked. As for Overwhelming Stampede, it has the good grace to be castable via Bring to Light while being mostly lethal with the right kind of board.
2019-12-11: out Steelbane Hydra, in The Haunt of Hightower.
Steelbane Hydra is not my favourite. It flops when it appears when you activate Golos, it's a not-awesome proactive play since it lacks evasion, and the enchantment/artifact hate -- while necessary and now sort of lacking in the deck -- is ponderously slow. I like the card, but, this probably isn't the deck for it.
The Haunt of Hightower is included as an effort to streamline the deck a little more around a narrow set of lands, and Geier Reach Sanitarium is already one of the lands with the most synergies in the deck. Geth's Grimoire and other synergies have been performing well, and The Haunt can get real large, real fast with the madhouse. It also can smack hands around, and provides some lifegain; it's an all-around decent card. I may also find a slot for its cousin, Vulturous Zombie.
