This thread has been rather dead, but Golgari is very much alive for me (still my main deck in various iterations).
Currently I'm running Bobby Fortanely's list from GP Milwaukee to good success (
here is a pretty great article about his stance on the archetype; after my experiences in the past few weeks I agree with basically everything of it).
For convenience, here's the list:
Creatures (23)
4 x
Llanowar Elves2 x
Druid of the Cowl4 x
Merfolk Branchwalker1 x
Midnight Reaper1 x
Plaguecrafter1 x
District Guide4 x
Jadelight Ranger3 x
Ravenous Chupacabra3 x
Carnage TyrantSpells (14)
2 x
Cast Down1 x
Assassin's Trophy3 x
Vraska's Contempt1 x
Karn, Scion of Urza1 x
Vraska, Golgari Queen3 x
Vivien Reid3 x
Find // FinalityLands (23)
5 x
Swamp8 x
Forest2 x
Memorial to Folly4 x
Overgrown Tomb4 x
Woodland CemeterySideboard (15):
4 x
Duress2 x
Wildgrowth Walker1 x
Assassin's Trophy1 x
Plaguecrafter2 x
Thrashing Brontodon2 x
Golden Demise1 x
Vraska's Contempt1 x
Carnage Tyrant1 x
Vraska, Golgari QueenKey points for me:
-Only 2 Wildgrowth Walker in the sideboard: I have had a similar idea a few weeks ago already by sideboarding them only and cut their number down, but was too afraid to make a change as drastic as this. Really happy with it so far, though.
-0 Seeker's Squire: Squire is so much worse than Branchwalker and was mainly in the deck to have critical explore mass to feed up to 4 Wildgrowth Walker. With Walker playing a much smaller role, Squire can take a hike.
-2 Druid of the Cowl: I did run 4 and didn't hate it, but the 8 manadorks I experimented with were too much for the deck, so I rolled back to only 4. 6 seems like a very good compromise.
-More removal: The deck seriously operates off removal, especially with even control decks running creature-based threats like Crackling Drake, Niv-Mizzet, Chromium or Nicol Bolas - and in the matchups vs. red and white it's good anyways.
-1 Vraska, Golgari Queen; 1 Karn: I have basically always felt like 1 Vraska is correct for the deck as a clean answer to History of Benalia, Benalish Marshal, Search for Azcanta and others; not running more than 1 because the +2 is very hard to take advantage of. Karn I have been (and still kind of am) on the fence about; he provides a ton of value but also is very passive; that said he has been good to me.
-3 Vivien: Another jump to make for me; Vivien is obviously good but also tended to get clunky in multiples in my experience, so I ended up running 2 Vivien 1 Vraska, Relic Seeker for most of the time. However, in almost all matchups Vivien is just so much better than Vraska, and with the additional space in the SB for Relic Seeker (because I want access to her in the MUs she's good in) this paved the way for the 3rd copy of my new favourite green Walker.
-0 Golgari Findbroker: I started really high on the card, but gradually came down on it. It ends up being a hard-to-cast, glorified
Gravedigger, and that is too slow, especially in a deck where 2 Memorial to Folly and 3 Find // Finality already do the job.
-3 (+1 SB) Carnage Tyrant, 0 Doom Whisperer: Being uncounterable and hexproof is too much better than flying and just hard to kill; and the Surveil is less relevant due to less recursion in the deck.
SB:
-2 Golden Demise, 0 Ritual of Soot: Not killing Druid of the Cowl as well as 3-power Jadelight Ranger has merit.
-0 The Eldest Reborn: This was the cut that pained me the most, and in fact I tried running it instead of the sideboarded Plaguecrafter in the beginning. However, Plaguecrafter ended up just being more consistent and less clunky; and the deck has enough recursion without Reborn.