The Graveyard Overdrive deck is one of four preconstructed Commander decks released alongside the Modern Horizons 3 set. It’s a Jund (Red, Green, and Black) color identity deck built around getting Lhurgoyfs into your graveyard so they come into play for free, then dealing combat damage with them and making a bunch of tokens.
Upgrading the Deck
Disa the Restless is a really fun commander that appeals to longtime Magic players by caring about one of the original meme cards (Lhurgoyf). It’s kind of interesting that they picked Disa to retcon as befriending and taming Goyfs – she was already an established character from the original Ice Age story but there wasn’t any connection in this direction that I can recall. It probably wouldn’t make sense for this card to be one of the original Eriksdotters, but maybe they could have found a way to make it a cousin or fellow villager or something?
My only other quibble is not with the card itself but more with the state of Magic in 2024. We’re now at the point where what I would argue is easily one of the top 3 most iconic creatures in the history of the game (Tarmogoyf) has gone from being a 200 dollar card to a token. Obviously power creep happens within the game but that is still wild to me.
Okay, all that aside, how are we actually tweaking this deck? First things first, we want to figure out how to get as many Goyfs as we can in our graveyard without coming from the battlefield first so we can cheat them into play. Cards like Buried Alive and Entomb are excellent for essentially tutoring directly into play, Tortured Existence cheats things out of our hand, and then we have a bunch of self mill like Golgari Grave-Troll and friends.
Next, we want to connect with our grisly new toys so we have Anger and Urabrask the Hidden to give us haste and Brawn and Cover of Darkness for evasion. We’ve also upgraded the wrath suite with Damnation and Living Death, added repeatable card draw with Garruk’s Uprising and Elemental Bond, and put in a few tutors in Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor.
Now what do we want so badly in this deck to add expensive tutors? After all we’re just making a few 4/5s or 5/6s most of the time right? Well, not exactly. The first kind of tech piece we are looking for are cards that turn ALL of our creatures into Goyfs, namely Maskwood Nexus, Conspiracy, or Ashes of the Fallen. Once we have one of those it’s time for our nasty little combo piece – Hermit Druid. With one activation we are going to mill our entire deck since we have no basic lands, and this in turn will put every creature in our deck into play. Ideally it will also mill our Gaea’s Blessing as well to shuffle our graveyard back into our now empty library so we don’t lose on our upkeep if this all goes wrong.
Assuming we hit our Pyrogoyf we should be able burn the table out on the spot, or alternatively Gray Merchant of Asphodel can drain them out. Failing that we should have both haste and trample, and have cleared the way of annoying little token blockers with Massacre Wurm. While the deck has this surprise win potential, it’s also perfectly happy to play a long, grindy game to try and Jund the table out with solid creatures, card advantage, and reanimation, so don’t feel like it’s Druid combo or nothing.
Cut List
- Find // Finality
- Deathreap Ritual
- Bloodbraid Challenger
- The Reaver Cleaver
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Infested Thrinax
- Broodmate Tyrant
- Exterminator Magmarch
- Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
- Juniji, the Midnight Sky
- Gluttonous Hellkite
- Bituminous Blast
- Grisly Salvage
- Kolaghan’s Command
- Tempt with Mayhem
- Chandra’s Ignition
- Garruk, Apex Predator
- Grist, the Hunger Tide
- Liliana, Death’s Majesty
- Burnished Hart
- Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
- Siege-Gang Lieutenant
- Maelstrom Pulse
- Syphon Mind
- Grapple with the Past
- Altar of the Goyf
- Sakura-Tribe Elder
- Deadbridge Chant
- Ziatora, the Incinerator
- Stitcher’s Supplier
- Rampant Growth
- Demolition Field
- Evolving Wilds
- Myriad Landscape
- Riveteers Overlook
- Terramorphic Expanse
- Twisted Landscape
- Cinder Glade
- Forgotten Cave
- Smoldering Marsh
- Sheltered Thicket
- Tranquil Thicket
- Savage Lands
- Canyon Slough
- 5 Forest
- 3 Mountain
- 4 Swamp
Add List
- Gaea’s Blessing
- Conspiracy
- Hermit Druid
- Ashes of the Fallen
- Tarmogoyf
- Buried Alive
- Terravore
- Taurean Mauler
- Golgari Grave-Troll
- Masked Vandal
- Underrealm Lich
- Entomb
- Heroic Intervention
- Damnation
- Vampiric Tutor
- Demonic Tutor
- Farseek
- Swiftfoot Boots
- Life from the Loam
- Crucible of Worlds
- Living Death
- Ziatora’s Proving Ground
- Overgrown Tomb
- Stomping Ground
- Blood Crypt
- Wooded Foothills
- Bloodstained Mire
- Verdant Catacombs
- Underground Mortuary
- Raucous Theater
- Commercial District
- Strip Mine
- Spire Garden
- Luxury Suite
- Haunted Ridge
- Deathcap Glade
- Rockfall Vale
- Llanowar Wastes
- Karplusan Forest
- Sulfurous Springs
- Dragonskull Summit
- Woodland Cemetery
- Rootbound Crag
- Skyshroud Claim
- Nature’s Lore
- Garruk’s Uprising
- Tortured Existence
- Elemental Bond
- Three Visits
- Sheoldred, Whispering One
- Chainer, Nightmare Adept
- Gray Merchant of Asphodel
- Vile Entomber
- Massacre Wurm
- Cover of Darkness
- Urabrask the Hidden
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