Tuesday Night Takeover
Witherbloom, the Balancer
EDH June 6, 2026

Witherbloom, the Balancer EDH Sprout Swarm

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Commander Overview

Witherbloom, the Balancer is the newest Golgari heart throb, with a busted ability that makes it possible to cast expensive spells at a steep discount. He also interacts with Sprout Swarm for a two-card infinite creature combo.


Bracket 4 Golgari
Command Zone

Witherbloom, the Balancer

Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon
$3,157.46

Creature 25

1 Birds of Paradise $8.76
1 Bitterbloom Bearer $14.29
1 Blood Artist $1.89
1 Carrion Feeder $4.43
1 Chittering Dispatcher $2.05
1 Delighted Halfling $27.32
1 Dosan the Falling Leaf $27.54
1 Elves of Deep Shadow $3.77
1 Elvish Mystic $0.44
1 Elvish Spirit Guide $2.92
1 Eternal Witness $2.16
1 Fyndhorn Elves $2.30
1 Hoarding Broodlord $5.05
1 Llanowar Elves $0.28
1 Marionette Apprentice $0.74
1 Memnite
1 Opposition Agent $18.71
1 Orcish Bowmasters $47.86
1 Ornithopter $0.36
1 Phyrexian Walker $1.71
1 Shield Sphere
1 Viscera Seer $0.38
1 Warren Soultrader $13.99
1 Witherbloom Apprentice $0.57
1 Zulaport Cutthroat $0.96

Planeswalker 1

1 Professor Onyx $5.51

Instant 16

1 Abrupt Decay $2.43
1 Corpse Dance
1 Crop Rotation $3.98
1 Culling the Weak $7.51
1 Dark Ritual $12.46
1 Deadly Rollick $27.92
1 Dismember $5.10
1 Noxious Revival $7.05
1 Return of the Wildspeaker $0.96
1 Saw in Half $4.95
1 Sprout Swarm $6.46
1 Stinging Study $16.85
1 Tamiyo's Safekeeping $5.50
1 Vampiric Tutor $60.09
1 Veil of Summer $3.96
1 Worldly Tutor $27.05

Sorcery 21

1 Awaken the Woods $15.95
1 Beseech the Queen $6.19
1 Biorhythm $33.68
1 Chain of Smog $10.19
1 Damnable Pact $1.43
1 Dark Petition $2.81
1 Demonic Tutor $77.01
1 Diabolic Revelation $10.74
1 Disturbed Burial $0.27
1 Exsanguinate $0.39
1 Final Parting $0.39
1 Finale of Devastation $52.21
1 Imperial Seal $162.91
1 Lab Rats
1 Life/Death $0.31
1 Nature's Rhythm $4.78
1 Peer into the Abyss $2.69
1 Plague Wind $5.31
1 Saproling Migration $0.18
1 Shamanic Revelation $0.96
1 Shantotto's Coercion $15.04

Artifact 7

1 Altar of the Brood $8.14
1 Arcane Signet $0.61
1 Cauldron of Essence $3.03
1 Chrome Mox $169.42
1 Phyrexian Altar $57.50
1 Sol Ring $1.69
1 Talisman of Resilience $0.40

Enchantment 1

1 Sylvan Library $29.40

Land 28

1 Ancient Tomb $135.76
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog $0.96
1 Boseiju, Who Endures $48.50
1 Command Tower $0.34
1 Darkbore Pathway $6.14
1 Deathcap Glade $2.05
1 Dryad Arbor $3.73
1 Forest $0.19
1 Gaea's Cradle $1,578.57
1 Gemstone Caverns $53.49
1 Gemstone Mine $3.41
1 Llanowar Wastes $0.51
1 Mana Confluence $33.45
1 Marsh Flats $31.67
1 Misty Rainforest $36.41
1 Nurturing Peatland $6.65
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Prismatic Vista $34.21
1 Snow-Covered Forest $0.94
1 Snow-Covered Swamp $0.70
1 Swamp $0.13
1 Talon Gates of Madara $38.92
1 Undergrowth Stadium $5.55
1 Verdant Catacombs $28.24
1 Windswept Heath $11.31
1 Wooded Foothills $17.54
1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth $14.17

Tokens Used 8

Eldrazi Spawn
Faerie
Forest Dryad
Orc Army
Rat
Saproling
Servo
Treasure

EDH BRACKET

1
Exhibition
2
Core
3
Upgraded
4
Optimized
5
cEDH
Bracket 4 // Optimized

High power Commander. It's time to go wild!

  • No Restrictions (Other than the banned list)

How to Play the Deck

This deck is designed to throw down ramp as quickly as possible and put up large numbers of creatures to work on our gameplan. Don’t expect to pop off within the first few turns, but turn 4 onwards is within our ballpark for success.

With limited interaction, save your removal for stuff like Grafdigger’s Cage or Orcish Bowmasters, which can seriously throw a wrench in our plans.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp and Mana

Because each creature is essentially a mana dork because of affinity, we run free creatures like Ornithopter and Shield Sphere. However, don’t keep a hand just because it has these creatures.

You should be keeping hands with actual dorks, too, like any of the elves, Birds of Paradise, or Delighted Halfling.

We’re also on some rocks like Chrome Mox, Talisman of Resilience, Arcane Signet, and Sol Ring.

Culling the Weak is easily turned on for us because we’re always playing creatures. A Turn 1 Ornithopter into Culling the Weak feels really good.

Card Advantage

Drawing cards for us can be tough, but we have a handful of tutors that can grab us combo pieces or interaction.

For bursts of card draw in the late game, Return of the Wild Speaker, Damnable Pact, and Stinging Study are awesome with Witherbloom’s discount.

Sylvan Library can also be impactful for us, but it’s not as good in the late-game.

Cool Synergies

We get to run a lot of cards that don’t usually see higher-level play because Witherbloom makes them more viable. Beseech the Queen is a free tutor with 6 creatures on the battlefield, and Plague Wind is a 2-mana, one-sided board wipe. Biorhythm is also funny, and great if we can’t activate a combo early enough. After it resolves, we can kill someone with combat damage or a few pings off sacrificing creatures.

Combos

Witherbloom has opened up possibilities for niche cards to shine, namely Sprout Swarm and Corpse Dance. These two combos require some setup because of the creatures needed for affinity to work, so it’s not as resilient or fast as other combos in Golgari. Here’s a look:

Sprout Swarm Combo

The Sprout Swarm combo allows you to create infinite insect token, then use any of our many payoffs to end the game.

Prerequisites:

Infinite Insects

Combo Sequence
Cost
1
1. Cast Sprout Swarm by paying or tapping a green creature for convoke.
2
2. Resolve Sprout Swarm, creating a 1/1 green insect and returning Sprout Swarm to your hand because of buyback.
3
3. Use the 1/1 insect to convoke for and cast Sprout Swarm.
4. Repeat from step 2.
×

So you’ve made infinite bugs, now what? To end the game, you’ll also need Witherbloom Apprentice or Professor Onyx on the battlefield to drain the table when you cast Sprout Swarm. Altar of the Brood will also work, milling your opponents out.

Alternatively, if you have a pinger like Blood Artist or Marionette Apprentice as well as a sac outlet, you can sacrifice the insects as they come in ping down the table.

Corpse Dance Combo

You can do some cool stuff with Corpse Dance, but it lacks Convoke like Sprout Swarm, so it requires a few more pieces.

Prerequisites:

Infinite Bowmasters Pings

Combo Sequence
Cost
1
1. Cast Corpse Dance by paying .
2
2. Resolve Corpse Dance, returning Bowmasters to the battlefield and Corpse Dance to your hand because of buyback.
3
3. Resolve Bowmasters ETB.
4
4. Sacrifice Bowmasters to Phyrexian Altar for
5
5. Recast Corpse Dance with the mana, and continue from Step 2.
×

This combo works in a pinch with Warren Soultrader, but you’re limited by your lifetotal. If you have Cauldron of Essence or Witherbloom Apprentice on the field, though, you’re netting life while also pinging off an additional time with each Bowmaster sac.

Other Combos

While the Sprout Swarm and Corpse Dance combos are the most unique to Witherbloom, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a few more classic Golgari combos in the deck.

We’re on Chain of Smog / Witherbloom Apprentice or Professor Onyx for table life drain.

We’re also on Hoarding Broodlord / Saw in Half combos, targeting Peer into the Abyss and Dosan the Falling Leaf. After resolving Peer, you’re kind of free to work whatever combo you need to end the game. With half your library in your hand, you should be able to piece together something.

Strengths of the Deck

Witherbloom is unique and lets you work around Vexing Bauble and Drannith Magistrate.

Black gives us access to all the best tutors, while green lets us ramp out quickly.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Grafdigger’s Cage locks us out of the Corpse Dance combo.

Toxic Deluge hurts bad.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, Witherbloom is a fun deck that can quickly snowball into a force to be reckoned with. His ability lets us play quirky cards no one else at the table is running, and his combo lines sometimes run under the radar. He’s weak to removal and the deck is pretty focused on his ability. However, getting him back is easier because of affinity, so late-game Witherbloom drops is wholly possible.

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