Arena Budget Build Series - Golos Field
Let’s kick off another season of the Arena Budget Build Series now that Throne of Eldraine has dropped. For those who have not come across this before, what I set out to accomplish is a three-part build series across various budgets for a particular deck or theme.
The first version of the deck is a budget version, looking to minimize the number of Rare and Mythic wildcards to as few as possible, often settling around 10 or so. Part of the constraint here is in 2 color decks, the dual lands typically account for 4-8 Rares, hence the reason we target around 10 Wildcards.
From there, I build out a mid-budget version using around 20-25 Rare/Mythic wildcards, followed by a non-budget optimized version. The intent of these guides is to provide a progression guide for you to work towards building stronger decks as you amass more cards. For each of the decks, I play a few matches with each, explaining lines of play and rationale for side-boarding.
The first archetype we will be exploring this season is my favorite from last standard, Golos Field. The essence of this deck is ramp up on lands, drop a Golos, Tireless Pilgrim
, search up Field of the Dead
and start generating zombie tokens after you have 7 unique lands. Golos’s activated ability lets us gain value by casting multiple spells per turn for free. There are a few different directions to build Golos in terms of colors; however, for this series, we are going with Bant (Green-White-Blue) heavy with light splashes of red and black for Golos’s ability, plus a couple random cards.
[ELD] Budget Golos Field Gates (8 Rare)
Main 60 cards (24 distinct)
Lands - 28
Side 15 cards (6 distinct)
Main 60 cards (24 distinct)
Lands - 28
Side 15 cards (6 distinct)
Main 60 cards (24 distinct)
| Creature (15) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.20€0.100.03 | |||
| $0.250.03 | |||
| $0.25€0.180.03 | |||
| $1.44€1.590.32 | |||
| Planeswalker (1) | |||
| $0.25€0.100.03 | |||
| Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (16) | |||
| $0.95€0.420.03 | |||
| $0.39€0.240.03 | |||
| $0.23€0.140.03 | |||
| $0.26€0.160.03 | |||
| $0.31€0.240.03 | |||
| Land (28) | |||
|
4
Forest
|
$0.15€0.030.04 | ||
|
2
Mountain
|
$0.30€0.050.04 | ||
| $0.15€0.050.03 | |||
| $0.22€0.080.03 | |||
|
2
Island
|
$0.20€0.090.03 | ||
| $0.20€0.060.03 | |||
| $0.15€0.050.03 | |||
| $0.18€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.19€0.050.03 | |||
| $0.17€0.050.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.060.03 | |||
| $0.17€0.070.03 | |||
| $21.25€14.040.02 | |||
|
1
Plains
|
$0.40€0.090.04 | ||
Side 15 cards (6 distinct)
| $0.30€0.220.03 | |||
| $0.24€0.060.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.150.03 | |||
| $0.26€0.160.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.25€0.120.03 |
Gamplay for Budget Golos Field
First up is the budget version of the deck, clocking in at only 8 Rares; 4 Golos & 4 Field. The rest of the deck achieves the 5 color manabase by leveraging off the 5 color gates shell. The deck features a number of early ramp options to make up for the fact that the majority of our lands enter the battlefield (ETB) tapped. Arboreal Grazer
, Growth Spiral
& Circuitous Route
can all get us ahead on mana to cast an early Golos.
Since we are playing guild gates, we can leverage some of the Gates payoff cards in Gates Ablaze
as a sweeper, Guild Summit
as card draw and Archway Angel
as lifegain.
One card in particular from the new set that I am really impressed with is Beanstalk Giant
. The adventure side of the spell allows us to have a 3 mana ramp spell that brings a land into play untapped, often fixing our mana. The creature half is a big beater that scales as the game goes long.
The last two cards are somewhat filler in the budget version of the deck. Samut, Tyrant Smasher
is a haste enabler for our zombies, to pressure the opponent the turn they come down. Improbable Alliance
is an alternative token creation avenue, as we can draw quite a few cards within this deck. These get replaced in subsequent builds.
[ELD] Mid Budget Golos Field
Main 60 cards (25 distinct)
Lands - 28
Side 15 cards (6 distinct)
Main 60 cards (25 distinct)
Lands - 28
Side 15 cards (6 distinct)
Main 60 cards (25 distinct)
| Creature (14) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.590.06 | |||
| $2.90€2.680.12 | |||
| $0.250.03 | |||
| $0.25€0.180.03 | |||
| $1.44€1.590.32 | |||
| Planeswalker (4) | |||
| $7.87€8.095.05 | |||
| Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (14) | |||
| $0.95€0.420.03 | |||
| $0.39€0.240.03 | |||
| $0.26€0.160.03 | |||
| $0.31€0.240.03 | |||
| Land (28) | |||
| $0.17€0.050.03 | |||
|
1
Mountain
|
$0.30€0.050.04 | ||
| $0.15€0.050.03 | |||
| $17.75€15.120.19 | |||
|
2
Island
|
$0.20€0.090.03 | ||
| $0.20€0.060.03 | |||
| $0.15€0.050.03 | |||
| $0.18€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.19€0.050.03 | |||
|
2
Forest
|
$0.15€0.030.04 | ||
|
1
Plains
|
$0.40€0.090.04 | ||
| $0.85€0.640.02 | |||
| $0.20€0.060.03 | |||
| $0.17€0.070.03 | |||
| $21.25€14.040.02 | |||
Side 15 cards (6 distinct)
| $0.30€0.220.03 | |||
| $6.85€6.450.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.150.03 | |||
| $0.35€0.180.02 | |||
| $0.20€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.25€0.120.03 |
Gameplay for Mid-Budget Golos Field
The mid-budget version looks to improve some of the mainboard card quality, the manabase, and some of the sideboard options. I’ve highlighted the additions and the rationale for each below.
Realm-Cloaked Giant
Real-Cloak adds effectively two spells within one card. The board wipe will sweep up pretty much any creature minus our Beanstalk Giants, while the create side is a pretty big body as a 7/7 Vigilance creature. Both halves can be cast off a Golos activation.
Hydroid Krasis
One of the premier payoffs for any ramp deck. Krasis gains us life and draws us cards regardless if it gets counter or not. If it does resolve, it often can make quick work of an opponent having evasion in both Trample and Flying.
Teferi, Time Raveler
His big brother the Hero of Dominaria may have rotated, but “3feri” is still annoying opponents. Teferi is a huge tempo enabler for us, bouncing opponent’s permanents, drawing us cards, letting us instant speed ramp spells or board wipes and restricting opponents to only play on their turn. Teferi can also be used to reset our own creatures – think bouncing Golos, Krasis or Beanstalk to get another cast/ETB trigger.
Plaza of Harmony & Breeding Pool
These lands improve our probability of having either turn 1 Grazer or turn 2 growth spiral. Plaza Harmony can also serve as a multi-color land that also happens to gain us life.
Agent of Treachery
A familiar top end for ramp decks, Agent comes in against control or midrange mirrors. This card can steal powerful top end threats from our opponent such as Nicol Bolas, 6 mana Chandra or opponent’s field of the deads in the mirror.
Time Wipe
One of my preferred board wipes in Golos deck since you can bounce your Golos to hand and cast it afterwards. It’s also another unconditional board wipe for the Green based creature decks.
[ELD] Golos Field
Main 60 cards (32 distinct)
Lands - 28
Side 15 cards (8 distinct)
Main 60 cards (32 distinct)
Lands - 28
Side 15 cards (8 distinct)
Main 60 cards (32 distinct)
| Planeswalker (6) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| $7.87€8.095.05 | |||
| $17.48€13.760.52 | |||
| Creature (15) | |||
| $0.590.06 | |||
| $1.44€1.590.32 | |||
| $0.25€0.180.03 | |||
| $0.250.03 | |||
| $2.90€2.680.12 | |||
| Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (11) | |||
| $0.30€0.240.02 | |||
| $0.35€0.180.02 | |||
| $0.39€0.240.03 | |||
| $0.95€0.420.03 | |||
| Land (28) | |||
| $17.75€15.120.19 | |||
|
1
Mountain
|
$0.30€0.050.04 | ||
| $0.48€0.210.02 | |||
| $0.40€0.240.02 | |||
| $0.50€0.260.02 | |||
| $0.49€0.250.02 | |||
| $11.00€9.770.45 | |||
| $12.30€9.640.12 | |||
| $0.15€0.050.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.060.03 | |||
| $21.25€14.040.02 | |||
| $0.17€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.060.03 | |||
| $0.85€0.640.02 | |||
|
1
Plains
|
$0.40€0.090.04 | ||
|
2
Forest
|
$0.15€0.030.04 | ||
| $0.17€0.050.03 | |||
| $0.19€0.050.03 | |||
| $0.18€0.070.03 | |||
| $0.15€0.050.03 | |||
|
2
Island
|
$0.20€0.090.03 | ||
Side 15 cards (8 distinct)
| $6.85€6.450.03 | |||
| $0.20€0.100.03 | |||
| $0.42€0.220.02 | |||
| $0.20€0.150.03 | |||
| $0.25€0.120.03 | |||
| $0.40€0.200.02 | |||
| $3.17€2.870.30 | |||
| $2.14€1.310.02 |
Gameplay for Non-Budget Golos Field
For the non-budget version, I usually try to tie it to an established deck, however with it being so early into the season, a bit more experimenting was needed. I tried keeping the original gates package, tested out Golden Goose, Garruk, Cursed Hunstman and a few other random cards, but ultimately settled on the below. The main change was a more diverse manabase including more scry lands along with some shock lands to reduce the number of ETB-tapped lands within the deck. You can see the updated manabase above so I won’t highlight them individually. I also found that Hydroid Krasis was really good for the deck, so I went up from 2 to 4 copies, along with the same changes to the sideboard with Agent of Treachery.
Drawn From Dreams
I was looking for some card draw/selection options, particularly which we could hit off Golos, and ended up settling on Drawn from Dreams. Digging 7 cards deep and taking the situationally best two cards helped with the consistency of the deck.
Oko, Thief of Crowns
The new face of standard, this powerful 3-mana planeswalker can stall out the game, deal with troublesome creatures, and upgrade our tokens into 3/3s.
Deafening Clarion
A cheaper board wipe out of the sideboard that had the added upside of potentially gaining us life. After switching to less gates in this version, it lowered the consistency of gates ablaze being able to deal 3 damage on turn 3.
Planar Cleansing
I wanted to have a board reset option useful for decks like Jeskai/Grixis Fires of Invention to Golgari midrange lists
Chandra, Awakened Inferno
I like bringing Chandra in against control matchups or decks that have ways to deal with the zombie token approach. It is also useful that Chandra is uncounterable, and is able to deal direct damage to creatures or planeswalkers.
Ugin, the Ineffable
Another 6 drop planeswalker option that can be a catch all removal along with tokens/card advantage.
Overall with this non-budget version, there is a bit of flexibility in tailoring it to your preference. I’ve seen some lists with 4x Realm-Cloaked Giant main, while others play Agents main. In the sideboard, my preference was to have Chandra + Ugin instead of other 6 mana planeswalker such as Garruk or Lilliana since I didn’t play as much black. Since we are playing 5 mana, the options are limitless.
Let me know what you think, and if you’ve played your own variants of Golos field, let me know what has/hasn’t worked. I personally have most of these pieces in paper, so I’m testing out as many shells as possible to settle on a final list.
Up next for build series is a couple options based on audience preference, but I’m leaning towards Jund Adventure or Esper Dance of the Manse. If there are any other build series you’d be interested in, make sure to drop a comment below!
About MTG_Joe:
MTG_Joe
I am a part time content creator on YouTube playing everything from budget brews to Tier 1 lists. I enjoy focusing on build guides and explaining strategy through my videos to help our newer and returning players. I am also very engaged in the Arena Subreddit community, also happy to chat MTG.
Youtube & Twitch: MTG_Joe
Twitter & Instagram: MTG_Joe2
