Magic: The Gathering’s latest set, Secrets of Strixhaven, is pretty great, particularly for Golgari (green/black) players.
There are some awesome cards to swap into the Witherbloom Pestilence precon deck, and if you’ve already got it, then we’ve got good news. You see that Stensian Sanguinist? That’s half of a powerful combo.
That card is a 2/2 Vampire Cleric that grants a creature Deathtouch. If that creature then deals damage to a player (which is likely if they don’t want to be almost guaranteed to lose a blocker), Stensian Sanguinist becomes prepared, a new mechanic from Secrets of Strixhaven.
When Stensian Sanguinist is prepared, you can cast Exsanguinate to drain your opponents’ life and gain life in return, which is nice, but when paired with Yavimaya Bloomsage from the same set, it gets a bit wild.
Yavimaya Bloomsage is a 2/2 Dryad Druid (say that ten times fast) with the ability to put +1/1 counters on a creature. Once it hits 7 power, it becomes prepared, letting you cast Channel, one of Magic‘s early iconic spells, to turn your life points into additional mana. For this combo to work, you’ll need some life, and both cards will need to be prepared. You’ll also need two green mana for Channel, and two black mana for Exsanguinate.
Got all that? Then you can cast Channel, keeping in mind that its effect remains active until the end of the turn. Then you can activate it as many times as you need — without accidentally draining all your life! — to rack up the colorless mana, before casting Exsanguinate. Doing so will cause your opponents to lose a ton of life, gaining back whatever you spent to cast Channel, and essentially ending the match or bringing you very close to it. Consider this Golgari’s version of Magic‘s first iconic combo: Channel plus Fireball.
If you were not able ot finish your opponents in one go, you still have a chance to prepare both creatures again in the following turn. Look, it’s not fast, and it’s not clever, but it’s an unexpected way for Golgari players to end the game. Channel has been doing busted things since the inception of Magic, so there’s no reason for you to feel left out.
For more on Magic’s busy 2026, be sure to check out what we learned about Reality Fracture’s upcoming Commander precon, as well as another combo involving a big ol’ dragon.
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