So, you’ve decided to sleeve up Esper Goryos in Modern?

Before we get started, I’d like to remind you that at any moment you can google your local/national mental health hotline and seek help.

Everything clear? Do you still wanna play? Then let’s go!

This guide will be focusing on Esper/4c/5c/Domain Goryo Atraxa builds. If you are looking for Persist, Asmo, Cremator, etc. based lists this is not it.

The main strategy of this deck is reanimating Atraxa, Grand Unifier into play using Goryo’s Vengeance and dodging Goryo’s exile trigger at the end of the turn by using flicker effects such as Ephemerate. As interaction and ways to flesh out the shell, we are using the powerful ETBs of MH2s Incarnations and Brother’s Wars draft chaff common Fallaji Archaeologist. Not only are we using Atraxas colors to set up multiple free pitch spells, but we can also build upon having Ephemerate as a “combo piece” and have a scam plan as well with Grief and Solitude. If you ever wanted to cast Dig Through Time in Modern, Fallaji + Ephemerate is an incredibly good card selection and together it mills 9 cards and lets you grab up to 3 spells out of it.

Also, as of March 11th, 2024, with the banning of Violent Outburst, you are currently the only real instant speed combo deck in the format that can use Force of Negation as a way to freely protect your combo. A reminder that you do not need to bring your Opponent’s life total to 0 to win with this deck. Atraxa’s ability to dig through your deck can easily tip the game state to an unlosable position for you (aka Garbage Time) so don’t be afraid to Goryo at your Opponents End of Turn or even the middle of their turn if you have mana open and can flicker your reanimated Fatty.

The rest of the shell varies depending on build and flex spot choices. I am personally currently running the Esper version focusing on the Surveil lands so for this section I will quickly sum up the appeal and idea behind the other 5c/Domain version before we progress:

The big appeal of Domain in Reanimator is cards like Leyline Binding, Shadow Prophecy, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. With Triomes in your manabase and outside of Ephemerate having very few 1 mana spells being able to fetch tapped lands turn 1 makes this a very easy to enable and lucrative strategy. Leyline Binding for 1 mana at instant speed answers every permanent-based Graveyard Hate you might encounter and cards like Shadow Prophecy and Fable are incredibly synergistic and powerful in a deck like this (Palantir of Orthanc is also a card I enjoyed a lot in this version). Fable does double duty as a looting spell but also a way to ramp out a hard cast Atraxa or ways to get multiple ETBs and lots of value with your Elementals and Fallaji. In general, the Domain version can easily win without ever needing to rely on Goryo’s Vengeance and would be my version of choice in a slower/grindier Meta Game.

Back to the current list.

With the modern metagame currently being faster and more aggressive overall I am focusing on a more “lean & mean” approach of the deck. Without the need for triomes you can easily make use of multiple surveil land and really dig through your deck to push your combo through as fast as possible. With powerful disruption and the benefits of being almost entirely instant speed, a hot-running Goryos deck feels nigh unstoppable. But also remember that MTG is a game of variance too, sometimes your deck does nothing and that happens.

Your Game 1 Plan is to power out the combo ASAP, that’s it, keep it simple and fast.

That is the focus of the current main deck. Your opening hands should focus on being proactive and not durdly. Combo pieces, Fallaji + Blink to dig through your deck, scam hands with Grief, etc.

Your mana curve basically starts and ends at 2 so do not be too afraid of a low land count hand as long as you got your colors. On the draw, a very good hand with a fetch as a 1 lander is a very strong keep because with access to surveil lands your chances of getting that 2nd land are pretty good.

Manabase

There are a few key decisions to be made here that will affect what the rest of your lands look like.

1. Which basic color will be your priority?

2. What will be your 1 off-color green source for potential Atraxa hard cast?

3. What combination of fetches do you run?

All those choices are interconnected because your fetches will determine the access to both the off-color land and the access to basics. First things first, what color priority does what?

Island: with blue, you would have the least painful mana base, because you can fetch a White/Black land turn 1, and most of the time you don’t have turn 1 plays so you do not need to shock, then turn 2 with a basic island you can cast all your spells with the least strain to your life total on average. This would be the last color I’d prioritize. You have so much incidental life gain and your Aggro match-up in general is very good.

Plains: with white, you would have the easiest access to your cards that could answer Blood Moon depending on sideboard choices, with decks like Titan and Tron in the Meta though Magus of the Moon is much more prevalent, and you have Solitudes to take care of that and overall, I don’t think Blood Moon is that much of a hindrance, you can play through it fairly well and there are better things to focus on

Swamp: this is my preferred choice; this deck’s big turns often involve needing multiple white mana because of cards like Ephemerate so you end up with white being your most important dual land color anyway. So by having more ways for fetches to get swamps, you make the multiple black requirements for Grief or Tainted + Goryo’s or Thoughtseize much easier for yourself, in general from my experience the way games play out this has by far been my preferred choice and that’s what affected the rest of the mana base

With that out of the way, the mana base has a big focus on fetch lands, being 50% of it and 8/10 being able to fetch swamps. To have the best access to your off-color green my land of choice for that is Underground Mortuary. The other 2 Surveil lands both focus on having white, as mentioned above which is our preferred color for dual lands. And to make the land slot in Atraxa’s trigger more powerful I have included 1 Otawara. Which can bounce any annoying card we may encounter without the fear of it getting countered and then lets us proceed with our game plan. The rest of the mana base is focused on providing us an even access to all our colors.

Here a quick rundown:

1. 15 ways to get either color

2. 7 ways to get basics for blue/white, 9 for black

3. 9 ways to get your off-color surveil land

4. 1 Utility land

A question that often comes up, is why not a 4th surveil land instead of the 10th fetch or Otawara? Because a 4th surveil land doesn’t line up with the deck’s play patterns.

Let’s go over this with an example:

Turn 1: Unless you are scamming with Ephemerate, thoughtseizing, or killing a 1 drop with pending you are not doing much turn 1, so that’s most of the time your 1st surveil

Turn 2: Most of your deck is 2 cmc cards, chances are you are casting something this turn, you are not surveiling most of the time

Turn 3: Now you need all 3 mana untapped for Goryo(or another 2-drop) + Ephemerate, if you are not epehemerating anything chances are you are not using 3 mana so you can surveil, that would be your 2nd one

Turn 4: These are turns where you can double spell without some sort of Ephemerate, maybe loot spell + Goryo’s at the end of your opponent’s turn, if not chances are good you can fetch your 3rd surveil land

Turn 5: Now we get into territory where you rarely use all your mana, this is a late game where I’d much rather have a utility land like Otawara than an extra choice of what might be on the top of my deck, you are getting into fetching to “thin the deck” range.

The Upside of a 4th surveil land falls off drastically and this is the 1st turn where your 4th surveil is even realistic.

Card Choices

4x Atraxa: main target, easy, always 4

2x Griselbrand: math wise 6 targets lines up the best, Griselbrand is simply the 2nd best choice

4x Fallaji: digs like crazy, insane card

4x Grief: free interaction, scam with flicker

4x Solitude: free interaction, scam with flicker, maybe I’d cut the 4th depending on meta

4x Force of Negation: you are a silly instant speed combo deck, play the silly free counter

4x Ephemerate: basically a combo piece, synergy with all your etbs

4x Goryo’s Vengeance: combo piece

4x Tainted Indulgence: best loot spell currently in modern

3x Faithful Mending: less of a priority than tainted mainly cause it is card disadvantage, 3 is a good number cause you don’t wanna see too many and because of flashback it’s technically 6 copies

Flexslots

1x Solitude: depending on the meta there is a possibility where 3 Solitudes are enough and cutting 1 for another spell might be better

2x Prismatic Ending: I always switch between these and 2 Thoughtseizes in the main, both good choices

1x Touch the Spirit Realm: this card does so many little things at once, 5th flicker effect, uncounterable, removal for artifacts/creatures, white card count for solitude, enchantment type for Atraxa’s trigger; I am always happy with the 1st touch but I doubt I’d play more

There are 2 cards that I would like to also mention here that I often see or get asked about.

Fatal Push: No, please just no, solitude is infinitely better

Bone Shards: this card seems like a super powerful 1 of at first but the more you look at it the more it falls apart and it’s only good in very specific cases; turn 1 on the draw against a Ragavan or maybe Halfling, but it screws with your turn 1 surveil land. Turn 2 you definitely would rather cast other cards. Turn 3 if you put a target in the graveyard now you can only Goryo’s Vengeance on the opponent’s endstep and don’t have a mana open for a flicker. Turn 4, it’s the 4th turn of the game…what is the value of a 1 mana removal spell at this point? Overall it just very rarely lines up super well, when it does it’s awesome but when it doesn’t you wish it was any other card or an extra Prismatic Ending

This might sound strange at first but basically what it means is that 90% of your sideboard plan is to hate on graveyard hate. Most of the time you don’t care what your OP does, you go over the top of basically everything in modern.

Before we get to the individual match-ups and Sideboard slots here is a write-up covering other popular cards I have seen played in the Board and why I choose not to use them:

Chalice of the Void: just play more Teferi, you have plenty of interaction to take care of 1 cascade until you can play Teferi and 1 resolved Rhinos is easy to deal with

Flusterstorm: just play the 4 Forces, Please

March of Otherworldly Light: killing Saga for cheap is nice but otherwise I’d rather have Prismatic Ending cause most graveyard hate you wanna hit with that is 1-2 mana, you ain’t about removing Rings, you discard/counter them or out value them

Celestial Purge: Only really great against Leyline of the Void and Scam, Leyline sees 99% of its play in Living End or Scam; one is a fantastic MU to begin with, where you can use Teferi as Cascade hate and a way to bounce it, the other so bad I would not waste a sideboard slot on such a narrow card

Damn: tried it, incredibly good modern card to be honest, 2-mana kills anything, 4-mana wrath is super flexible and well costed. But why? It’s just a board wipe, we can stabilize with Atraxa against 99% of board states and it doesn’t particularly take care of any specific graveyard hate.

Commandeer: way too much of a high roll card, if Tron becomes the top deck maybe but even then more funny than really great

Emrakul: I refuse to respect Mill; jokes aside, not as great against Mill as it is in other decks, you will never get to attack with it cause your OP is never milling you pre-combat in your turn if they are playing it correctly, also Mills way to beat this card is surgical effects which they are already boarding in against our deck so there isn’t a “gotcha” moment

Engineered Explosives: same as Damn to be honest

Break the Ice: I think our Tron match-up is good enough that we don’t need such a super narrow card

Test of Talents: Cascade is a great match-up, too narrow, if Creativity makes a big comeback maybe

Spell Pierce: have I mentioned you should just play forces before? especially with you being the only “real” instant speed combo deck left in the Format, maybe the meta will come where you want more counterspells, if that happens you will start playing Teferis in the main and maybe some Flusterstorms in the side

In general, an incredibly good match-up for you. Game 1 should be easy, the only worries are a turn 1 Ragavan that might run away with the game and keeping an eye out for Stubborn Denials, besides that you are good to go.

Forces are bad against the aggro creature deck obviously. Mending is a trim.

This one is simple, IF they are running graveyard hate, outside of their Kavu attack trigger, it is either Grafdiggers Cage or Rest in Peace. Both can be answered very cheaply by Prismatic Ending which is also a great removal for their aggro plays if they don’t happen to have a graveyard hate piece out. Teferi in the meantime deals with having counterspells open, while bouncing any Leylines or being a tempo play bouncing their creatures.

Not much to say here, very simple match-up. Clean interaction, use Grief to check for counters or disrupt their ability to curve out. Keep the board clear. Solitude + Ephemerate is backbreaking against their deck.

This one can be tricky. They happen to have maindeck GY hate with Cauldron and on top of that if they exile Griselbrand that’s pretty bad, also Bowmaster makes Grisel even worse. Otherwise, the creature side of the deck is easy to take care of, your removal is all exile-based which is great and they can do very little to a resolved Atraxa outside of Grists -2. Game 1 just make sure to get good use out of your instant speed Solitude and Ephemerate plays, keep the board clear so they don’t combo you until you do your thing. Use Grief and Forces to take care of any Chord/Cauldron shenanigans.

Sideboard Plan:

Out:

-2 Force of Negation

-2 Griselbrand

-1 Faithful Mending

In:

+1 Ashiok, Dream Render

+1 Pithing Needle

+1 Cursed Totem

+2 Subtlety

Griselbrand is an easy cut, Bowmaster AND Cauldron make it undesirable to have. Forces are good to have in Game 1 to counter Chords/Cauldron but in Game 2/3 we have better cards in the MU, also Halfing can make this potentially a dead card. Mending is a trim.

Needle/Totem Split; I like the split here because it adds a lot of flexibility in the Sideboard and Totem here can stop Ooze and their entire deck’s game plan too. Needle allows us to also hit Cauldron and Boseiju to protect our Totem potentially. Subtlety is great to slow them down on the Yawgmoths, deal with Endurance, and in general hamper their deck from doing its thing. Ashiok stops all search effects, empties their Yard for any Cauldron stuff, and can very quickly refill your GY after an Endurance.

Overall, even with the existing maindeck hate this MU is about 50/50. You have good ways to keep the board clear, in general, great interaction to stop their combo, and as long as you are doing that can take your time until you have assembled your pieces to reanimate through their hate cards.

Game 1 is basically Solitaire. Grief ’em, catch ’em off-guard with Solitude, Prismatic Ending their Amulet and just slow ’em down until you can do your thing. Who wins Game 1 here can often come down to who won the die roll and opening hands.

Grisel and Mending are trims. I am also cutting Forces. Post board you have better ways to deal with cards Force would be used for. Instead of Forcing a Pact you Subtlety what they get or prevent searching altogether with Ashiok. You can remove an early Amulet with a Prismatic Ending.

Subtlety while stopping Titans also deals with their Endurances. Ashiok shuts off all their land and summoners pact searching (Bojuka Bog or Pacting for Endurance). Seizes also preemptively deals with Endurance or force it out so you can Goryo’s in response. Prismatic Ending can deal with Amulet but also Defense Grid in case that gets boarded in but I would not expect it. If they are playing Turn the Earth instead of Endurance keep in mind that you cannot play around that with a discard effect because of the Flashback, in this case, your main ways to fight that against Titan are having 2 Goryo’s, using Ashiok exiling the card in their graveyard after you discarded it or surgicaling it and using Goryo’s in response when they cast it. With 6 discard effects post board the chances of being able to use Surgical to take away their main Win-Con is a nice tool to have, especially after you goryo an Atraxa and can dig for ways to shut off anyway for them to try and come back.

Game 2/3 are similar to the 1st just with a few new pieces and lines. The general idea is the same, but this time you have ways to preemptively or actively deal with their boarded-in graveyard hate.

As a Karn, the Great Creator deck Tron does not really change much between Game 1 and 2/3. All that changes is what hands they keep and what cards they are looking for. With Needle and Stonys we can slow them down and outright shut down their graveyard hate and ways to get Tron rolling and with Forces, Subtlety, and Seizes we make sure their Pay Offs never hit the board. Grisel and Mending get trimmed, and Solitude is bad against Tron. For your information, Ashiok might seem tempting at first against Tron but since Karn can tutor things from outside the game that does not get stopped by Ashiok, AND if you ever use Ashiok to exile their graveyard now Karn can tutor anything that was in there. Also with no way to destroy their Lands, Surgical does nothing for us in this match-up.

Outside an unanswered turn 1 Ragavan there is next to nothing you really must worry about Game 1 besides the general counter/tempo plan of Murktide. Check if the coast is clear with Griefs, make use of your Forces.

Grisel and Mendings are trims. The idea with Grief/Force here is how proactive you can be and if you have mana advantage. In general, on the draw, you wanna use Grief first to bait/check if they have anything, and on the play be proactive and use Force to push your combo through.

Prismatic Ending is good removal against everything except Murktide(which is usually a card they trim post-board against our deck, or should at least), hits all creatures, hits their graveyard hate, and hits Blood Moon if need be. Stony seems weird at first but in this Match up it basically reads “You have no graveyard hate and your Ragavan is a Savannah Lion”. It shuts off Hearse/Crypt, Treasures, and Bauble and in their colors, once it sticks, they can’t really do anything about it. Murktide Lists nowadays are splashing for Pick your Poison but that card is not coming in against us to take care of Stony Silence or an already resolved Atraxa.

Teferi obviously because it kills their entire Tempo/Control angle against you.

So Murktide is a funny match-up, because against a good player, this could be pretty difficult. Against a not so good player this is a fairly good match-up. As long as they don’t have a creature out to slowly dwindle your life total down every turn you can take your time. Draw-Go, cast stuff at instant speed, and sculpt your hand. Shut down their interaction entirely with cards like Stony and Teferi. Make sure just in case to fetch out your basics to play around Blood Moon/Magus, remember with a Plains you can still use Ephemerate to cheat your Elementals into play. One important thing in this match-up with Blood Moon to keep in mind is that if you play it right it is VERY good for us. Blood Moon limits the amount of Counters they can cast, without Ragavan out or with a Stony in play they are usually limited to 2 Islands only, rarely 3, and sometimes even just 1. In those situations, if you have 2 Goryo’s and cast 1 on their End step you are tapping them out of being able to cast other counters even if their hand is full of them. Keep the board clear, draw-go, and don’t pull the trigger until you are good and ready.

There can be some variation here but on average these are just control piles with W6, Teferi, Ring, and cards like Binding, maybe also Reprieve. Every now and then there are lists with Halflings, Nissa, and Tidebinder but usually, the only creatures are Omnath and Solitude. The decks are slow and durdly and a lot of main-deck interaction is irrelevant to you. Game 1 unless you do literally nothing you can even ride it out until you start hard casting Atraxa and outvalue and Ring or Wrennblems. You will struggle to lose Game 1s here.

(On the tiny off chance your Omnath Opponent is on the Reef/Halfing/Nissa/Tidebinder plan, you might want Solitudes over Forces but even then, do you care about any of those creatures? Probably not so even then I would stick to Force of Negation, I would not board it out just because of Halfling)

Here you will mostly deal with Endurances, and some counterspells like Dovin’s Veto so be careful you cannot Force those and Surgical might be slowly picking up steam in these shells. The gameplan does not change really, just be more wary of when you can do your thing and make sure to have cards to deal their instant speed ways to deal with your combo. If Surgicals get picked up and become common here board out 1 more Mending and put back in the 2nd Griselbrand so you have more targets. Also, the general rule with Surgical, is do not put a target in the graveyard unless you can prevent them Surgicaling. They are still a slow deck so don’t rush things you don’t have to BUT be aware that if you get the chance early you can make them have it and if you do force them to respond you probably still have plenty of time to set up and try again.

Trimming/cutting bad cards and putting in things that answer their graveyard hate and provide some value like Teferi.

If you wanna win this, it’s an uphill battle. The first few turns are going to be very deciding. If you get scammed, Ragavan’ed, or early Blood Mooned. Fetch your basics, keep your removal spells ready and if you get scammed use your fetches for surveil lands top deck your way out of the hole.

Game 1 depends a lot if an opponent is running a list with tons of Surgicals (or even Extirpates) main. If not, this is basically a free win Game 1, if yes it might be more of a struggle. At the end of the day, they might not know what you are on when the game starts so you have the advantage, make use of it. (FYI, maybe don’t grab something with Fallaji to attack with it as a 1 / 4 , might come in handy)

Fallaji is a cut, we do not need to dig in this match-up and otherwise, it is a 2 mana mill us 3. Prismatic Ending can hit crabs but you have Solitudes for that, if you can try and keep it to hit their Lanterns. Also in this match-up, it is not bad to turn 1 scam in a Solitude to start attacking early. Otherwise, treat it as a control match-up, be wary of tapping out and surgical effects. Be aggressive with attacking and don’t forget you do not have to pick max cards with Atraxa, just pick the 2-3 or even fewer cards you need to win and put the rest back on the bottom.

Usual trims and cutting the sorcery speed removal. Also trimming on 2 Solitudes cause I wanna be more about hand disruption and countering creativity than trying to Solitude the targets that will not work against their treasure tokens.

The usual graveyard hate from Creativity was Turn the Earth, which is basically worse Endurance that you can Force. Teferis and more hand disruption against their control deck, their combo part is sorcery speed so don’t untap, do stuff on their turn. Also be wary of some lists with sneaky Mana Tithe.

Really good and simple match-up, unless they are trying to One-Hit KO you with Hammers there is nothing to worry about, maybe a UW list might have 1-2 Spell Pierces. Kill their stuff, do your thing.

Force is bad here, simple cut. Trimming discard because this match-up is more about the board.

More removal which hits their graveyard hate and all their threats. Needle for anything that might be bothering you and Ashiok to shut off any searching for threats or Saga searching for their hate piece.

The only thing you have to be aware of is that after side boarding they might try and keep a super aggressive hand to try and kill you super fast but otherwise, this match-up gets even better for you post-board.

Not much to say here, Prismatic hits both their threats and potential graveyard hate. Thoughtseize is out cause we do not wanna hurt ourselves.

Burn might play Rest in Peace or just be on Path to Exile.

Prismatic hits both their threats and potential graveyard hate. Usually, I’d expect one-shot graveyard hate from Prowess, so things like Crypt. I don’t think it is worth boarding in Stony or Needle to stop that against a deck that can beat you down very fast with their aggressive hands.

Maybe if they are also on Ragavans you could board in Stony Silences over some other trims(Force of Negation perhaps) to also stop treasure tokens but I doubt it would be that worth it. Otherwise, be wary of Spell Pierces, and don’t keep a slow hand.

Post-board I’d say this becomes slightly better, Forces are basically dead cards, and we get to bring in more removal and Stony. Disabling their tempo advantage and instant speed trickery from Vial is nice but it also disables the most common graveyard hate which is Relic. Teferi also as a way to deal with counterspells and instant speed shenanigans(casted ones at least).

Otherwise, same as pre-board games, avoid getting caught by Force of Negation and Subtlety. If they have to pitch something for Subtlety instead of hard-casting it you are still getting a Merfolk out of their hands probably.

Be war of Looting Spells and Narset, keep in mind that they still have Solitude and Subtlety when they are tapped out. Make good use of Force of Negation and the card advantage Fallaji + Ephemerate provides.

There is not a big consensus of what graveyard hate to run in these decks, I have seen Rest In Peace, Hallowed Moonlight, Containment Priest, and none at all. So I think here it is better to focus on just hampering their overall interaction against you. Teferi, discard, Subtlety, and as many cards as possible that ruin a control player’s day.

If you after Game 2 and you know what graveyard hate they are running you can adjust the Sideboard plan, if you see Rest in Peace board back out the 2 copies of Subtlety and bring back the 2 Prismatic Endings.

Historically, Goryo’s being instant speed has always made this a pretty good match-up, this is basically Murktide but you don’t have to worry about little creatures going under you, and exiling Atraxa on ETB is a losing battle because of the overwhelming card advantage.

This is the same sideboard plan as Tron. Griselbrand gets trimmed entirely because of the threat of Bowmaster and Sheoldred.

This match-up plays similar to Tron but they have discard spells and their main deck plan doesn’t get slowed down as much by Stony, but their payoffs being mainly Karn you have more potential to shut off their payoff. Depending on how much Necromentia is being played you could board back in Griselbrand and cut a 2nd Faithful Mending.

We cut the Forces/Thoughtseites and trim a bit to make room for general Artifact and graveyard interaction, and general on board interaction in this match-up. Ashiok to stop Asmo and Saga from searching up their key pieces and keeping their yard empty. Stony and Needle to shut down their key cards and Surgical to break up any loops with Daredevil or other graveyard shenanigans. One thing to keep in mind in this match-up, Asmo can kill Atraxa with 1 activation of her abilities because Atraxa has deathtouch, just something to keep in mind.

We board out useless creature removal and bad sorcery speed interaction. Trimming Faithful Mending over 1 Griselbrand because I wanna have a higher chance to put a target in the graveyard in this match-up.

Pithing Needle for the One Ring, you can also name Vizier of Tumbling Sands but I am unsure how often that will be relevant. Otherwise, Teferi to prevent them from responding to their own triggers at instant speed, and disabling their counterspells against you.

Post-board you can expect Endurances to come in so we are boarding in the usual countermeasures against that. Teferi at the same time also stops their main game plan of cascading into Rhinos and bounces their Leylines (Guildpact and Binding).

The Sideboard Plan is similar to the other cascade deck, Rhinos, just that we are cutting more Faithful Mending because we wanna keep 1 Griselbrand around and are adding Ashiok to clear your Opponent’s graveyard. Post-ban Living End is now in Bant colors and I have not seen any Leyline of the Voids from these lists so far but your way of playing through that is bouncing it with Teferi. In the Bant Lists, it is more likely for you to encounter Endurances so we board in some Subtlety to help us there and also slow our opponent down if they try to Grief us.

In this match-up, we also trim 1 Goryo itself because we do not particularly wanna turbo out a reanimation target until we have an extra one in the Graveyard as a backup in case the Opponents cascaded into a Living End.

Removal in general gets boarded out here. This match-up is not about who removes the Atraxa after an ETB and Solituding a Grief does not work against an Ephemerate like it does against Scam, so easy out for that and Prismatic Ending.

Discard spells here an important not only to get rid of your Opponent’s looters and Goryo but also any interaction they might have against you.

Most lists I have seen so far are still not on the playset Teferis and Forces, so that should give you a big advantage post-board. Teferi shuts off a ton of lines and lets you operate totally free on your turn. Ashiok is also something I have not seen from others yet and emptying their graveyard while filling yours is a great value and you might even catch them not being able to fetch thus stopping most ways to get surveil lands to dig for answers.

Overall I would treat this as a control that can also have grief-scam hands. Do your stuff at instant speed, be vary of tapping out, and make sure you fetch the right lands so hard cast Force of Negation by turn 3 just in case.

If you would the most up-to-date version, Nero updates it regularly HERE

and is quite active in the Goryo’s Discord.