Golgari Legends / Counters | Budget & Non-budget Cleopatra Deck Tech!

Mox Amber

| Illustrated by Steven Belledin

Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh

| Illustrated by Néstor Ossandón Leal

Hey, nerds! In my last article, I said I was going to release an updated Colossal Dreadmaw

She was released in the Assassin's Creed Universes Beyond set, which, as we all know, was the best-selling set of 2024, and unlike my usual deck techs, this deck isn't budget. However, I will be giving budget swaps at the end to bring the cost of the deck down. Without further ado, let's get into it.

+1 / +1 Counters

Cleopatra cares about two things: counters and legendary creatures. Notably, her abilities care about all legendary creatures, not just yours, but for now let's focus on our creatures. There are quite a few Golgari legends that add counters to creatures.

I love Rishkar, Peema Renegade

Emissary Green and Varolz can add a lot of counters for really cheap, while Grakmaw, much like Polukranos, enters with counters, but it also leaves behind a beefy token.

Weird Counters

My two favorite creatures have to be Chevill, Bane of Monsters

What kind of counter deck would it be without some form of proliferation? Evolution Sage

Adding More Counters

We can also load up on Hardened Scales

Sacrifice and Utility

Since our commander wants legendary creatures to die, I wanted to include ways to sacrifice them. The first three that came to mind were Braids, Arisen Nightmare

You might be tempted to add Ashnod's Altar

Ramp and Removal

When I'm building a commander with a strong theme, like this one, I try to find removal and ramp that fits that theme. Don't get me wrong, I included staples such as Nature's Lore

Didn't Make The Cut

Before we get into the budget swaps, I wanted to discuss some cards I decided to exclude from my list that you might see on EDHREC. I already mentioned Winding Constrictor and Cursed Wombat, but I also cut cards like Arwen, Weaver of Hope, Renata, Called to the Hunt, and Drana, Liberator of Malakir. They are listed as high synergy cards on EDHREC, and I can see why. You need to keep Arwen on the board to get a lot of value from them, while Renata is a four-mana do-nothing creature. Drana is great if you can connect, but you also need to attack with other creatures. Yes, she does have first strike, but I'm not sure that it is a high enough upside to include.

Budget Swap

Now for the budget swaps. We can remove 31 cards, 11 of those being lands, to bring the cost of the deck down from over $500 to under $100 at the time of writing. Creatures such as Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Kodama of the West Tree, and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician are incredibly powerful, but they're not required. I'd replace Sheoldred with Psychosis Crawler since they do a similar-ish thing. Then replace Kodama with Kolvori, God of Kinship and Yawg with Aveline de Grandpré. You can easily replace some of the more expensive ramp, such as Mox Amber and Three Visits with Sol Ring and Arcane Signet. Then replace Birds of Paradise and Delighted Halfling with Elvish Mystic and Elves of Deep Shadow. I won't go through all of the replacements here, but you can check out my budget list down below.