Nature's Most raw beauty is the circle: perfect in it's continuance, with no break between death and life.
Intro:
I started playing Commander a few years ago with Kresh the Bloodbraided it was a solid deck, but seemed a little overdone; felt like as Commander was becoming more popular more and more people began playing Kresh. I first discovered Savra, Queen of the Golgari when I traded for one to explicitly put into my Kresh deck. Turns out Kresh and I had a falling out and Savra become my new #1.
I felt like Savra's abilities were both unique and powerful. She has one of the most reliable (and unreliable) ways of taking out the oppositions creatures. With Shroud, Indestructible, and Hexproof running around en masse targeted removal can be very unreliable in Commander. The obvious downside however is that your opponent gets the option of choosing what gets sacrificed.
I also really enjoy playing with the colour combo of GB, the colours themselves have tons of chemistry with one another, especially when concerning graveyard effects, which just happens to be Savra's bread and butter. Plus G and B have some of the strongest single cards in Commander.
I've been playing this deck for a very long time now and have optimized it to a level that I'm very satisfied with. I found playing with a mixed bag of strategies was the best way to go with Savra. It's tempting to go with an all out grave based deck when playing GB and it also appears the best to abuse Savras abilities, but with the amount of grave-hate in Commander that option is far too susceptible to getting blown out. I also avoided playing huge blow-out creatures. They often aren't very fun (I also avoid infinite combos for that reason) and with how much fun and popular cards like Bribery are you can end up shooting yourself in the foot. That's why I'm not playing cards like It That Betrays, Lord of Extinction, etc. Savra has a unique ability and therefore you can tailor a deck around her. This makes it very useful when opponents want to steal your cards, because while amazingly useful in your deck they fall flat in the hands of the opponent. Everything in the deck is purposefully designed so that untapping with a certain permanent won't result in a blowout. The trick however is to untap with multiple key permanents to blowout the opponent.
This deck runs around "engines"; setting up a few permanents with synergies that will give you a large advantage in the game. These engines most often result in either generating huge token swarms, forcing the opponent to sacrifice all of their creatures, or both. Many of the cards have natural synergies with many of the cards in the deck. So while extremely synergetic they are both good on their own and you can mix and match them throughout the game. The downside is that this makes the deck semi-slow in the early game, so the main strategy is to play un-threatening and drop some early chumpers and some unassuming pieces you can use in one of the engines. Eventually once you feel comfortably set in a game you can begin going off on the opponent. I’d advise holding back on cards that are immediately perceived as big threats early in the game, like Smokestack, Birthing Pod, etc. Until you can use them to their fullest later.
This deck is also mainly designed for 1 vs. 1 play, but is still quite good in multiplayer as it plays rather unthreatening in the early parts of a game and that Savra’s sacrifice effect also affects all opponents.
You would like playing Savra if:
You enjoy longer Commander games.
You like having multiple ways to threaten the opponent.
You like graveyard effects.
You like Tokens.
You like having a sexy General.
You like having numerous types of answers.
You like being a royal pain in the ass to the opponent.
You like beating up on Voltron-style Generals.
You hate your opponent using Mind Control effects on your creatures.
You may not like playing Savra if:
You like a deck that comes out of the gate quick.
You like controlling strategies that are more reliable.
Your mother was a hamster.
Your father smells of elder berries.
You can't bear playing a deck that doesn't play U.
Acidic Slime - Well known for it's role and utility as a solid piece of removal for Enchantments and Artifacts that comes on a body (Savra loves abilities on creatures; use 'em and sac 'em). Plus does a decent job at chumping as well. Sitting at 5 CMC is also a nice spot for Birthing Pod use.
Avenger of Zendikar - One of the few singleton wincons in the deck. You can just run it out and if the opponent doesn't have an answer you win. Not too overpowered however which makes it decently balanced. Plus who doesn't love tokens?
Braids, Cabal Minion - Can really pressure the opponent as they have to sac permanents when you start killing all of their creatures. Plus if you don't mind the opponent hating you, you can win pretty quickly off this if it's in your opening hand.
Butcher of Malakir - Grave Pact on a decently sized flying body. Can't really go wrong there. Getting this guy out can really start putting the hurt on the opponent.
Elvish Visionary - Savra absolutely loves cantrip creatures. Their essential to the early game as they're a quick source of chumpers. Plus their still always good in the late game as they replace themselves and provide fodder for any one of your sac outlets. Just makes me wish B and G had more cantrip creatures.
Eternal Witness - Grabbing anything back from your graveyard is always a good thing.
Farhaven Elf - Similar to cantrippers, better early game as it can help ramp/mana fix, but worse late game. Either way cheap bodies for sac outlets are never really bad and the impact it can have early far outweighs any lategame negatives.
Grave Titan - Anything that produces multiple B tokens is at a premium in this deck. You get a guaranteed 3 B creatures right off the hop and get 2 more each turn the titan lives. Bonus!
Hell's Caretaker - Firstly it's a sac outlet. It is however kind of slow and the fact you can only use it during your upkeep sucks, but I absolutely adore this card anyway. It's a lot of fun to play with as you can get some fun chains going. Necrotic Ooze can also use it's ability which is always nice too.
Hex Parasite - It's a multi-tool: Kills Planeswalkers, disrupts anything your opponent is using with counters. Plus has nice synergy with any of your creatures with Persist or Undying. Especially Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. It's also another one that Necrotic Ooze can use.
Marsh Flitter - Absolute staple for any Savra deck. Comes out with B tokens and can sac them itself. Essentially makes the opponent sac 2 creatures straight up. Gets waaay better with Doubling Season or Parallel Lives down as well.
Mikaeus the Unhallowed - Has synergy across the board with just about everything. Everything can be sacced twice and it works very well with any creatures that have ETB abilities. Totally nuts with creatures that have persist or with a Hex Parasite down.
Mitotic Slime - One of the decks MVP's you can get a ton of mileage out of this guy. Tons of saccs and chump blocks, plus even though I don't like infinite combos you can still use this plus Nim Deathmantle + Phyrexian Altar/Ashnod's Altar for infinite mana+infinite tokens+infinite grave triggers. If someone ever pulls a dick move on me I like to keep that combo in my back pocket.
Oracle of Mul Daya - One of the best ramp cards out there. Good in early game for dropping lots of land, plus good in the late game as it takes the lands off the top of your library to help your draws.
Phyrexian Rager - Same as Elvish Visionary, but better. Like I said, Savra loves her cantrippers, but being on a B body is much more useful to help force sacs through Savra.
Reassembling Skeleton Another All-Star for this deck. Easily reusable and B, so Savra can keep forcing those sacs!
Rune-Scarred Demon - Pretty much the king of all cantrippers. It's really a tutor, so it's obviously awesome in that respect and yet again comes with decent size and flying, as demons usually do and yet again Savra loves it being B.
Solemn Simulacrum - Cantripper and mana ramper. Being uncoloured does suck, but it's a good value card anyways and you can get whatever bonus your sac outlet gives you with this.
Scavenging Ooze - Pretty much one of the best pieces of grave-hate out there. Cheap body. Cheap activation cost. Plus pumps itself if it's just sitting around. Oh yeah, it's good buddies with Necrotic Ooze too.
Wood Elves - Pretty much the same as Fauna Shaman, you're almost always grabbing Overgrown Tomb with this and the land coming into play untapped can be semi-relevant.
Woodfall Primus - Pretty much the king of non-creature removal in this deck. Having Persist is a major bonus as well.
Sorceries:
Damnation - Good for whenever you just need to clear the entire board if things really aren't going your way.
Green Sun's Zenith - Another awesome tutor. Only for G creature's but seeing as it gives you access to any of them in your deck for only one more G, that's pretty amazing. Good at all stages of the game.
Harmonize - Love the art on the full-art version of this. Draw 3 cards. Simple enough advantage.
Maelstrom Pulse - Amazing piece of removal and really helps when facing token decks.
Instants:
Beast Within - Amazing removal as it hits anything without protection. Giving them the 3/3 is pretty negligible.
Chord of Calling - Similar to Green Sun's Zenith, but possibly better. Costs more, but it's instant speed and it grabs anything. Plus your own creatures can help pay for the mana cost with convoke.
Putrefy - Another card that I love the full-art on (admittedly I probably wouldn't use it otherwise) solid piece of instant speed removal though.
Planeswalkers:
Garruk Relentless - Generates tokens, but you usually want him to flip right when you play him. Even if you have to arena one of your own creatures. The ability to generate B tokens is again huge + sac outlet with creature tutor ++ a wincon final ability makes him Golden.
Artifacts:
Ashnod's Altar - This and Phyrexian Altar are possibly the best sac outlets in the deck and therefore are MVP's in here. No cost to activate the sac effect and it instead gives mana, opens up a lot of doors and extended plays for this deck.
Birthing Pod: - Sac outlet and gradually improves any of your creature's. Sounds golden to me.
Expedition Map - BG has some of the best lands in the format, so having a cheap tutor for lands can be a big deal. Can also tutor up sac outlet lands if you need one.
Mimic Vat - Pretty close to being a Commander staple. Amazing with ETB creatures and due to the fact that this deck has a lot of things (yours and your opponents) hitting the grave, the vat will almost always have something fantastic under it
Phyrexian Altar - Pretty much the exact same as Ashnod's. Never found the ability to generate colour or 2 to be influential in anyway.
Smokstack - Be careful with this one as some people can hate on you hard for it. Can really close out a game though.
Mortarpod - Gives you a B token to start with and also provides a pinging sac outlet later on if you need that sort of thing.
Nim Deathmantle - Has synergy with just about everything in here. Making whatever it brings back B is a massive bonus and giving them intimidate is a nice touch as well.
Enchantments:
Bitterblossom - Can't overstate how good B token generation is in this deck. Plus it's so cheap!
Doubling Season - Great when you're making tokens and Ridiculous with Planeswalkers.
Grave Pact - It's a back-breaker in this deck. You usually want to hold it back until later, to bait the removal on other permanents as this is one of your best cards in your deck.
Parallel Lives - Falls quite short of Doubling Season, but there's enough token generation in this deck to still make this very useful.
Phyrexian Arena - Can't complain about extra card draw. Gives a good use for the extra life you'll get from saccing G dudes.
Lands:
I think the lands are all generally pretty self-explanatory so I won't go through them all.
Other Considerations:
Gonna work on this later.
Thanks for reading and as always would love some feedback.
only thing i could suggest is a gravecrawler, he is another "infinate" sacrifical object if you ever need it, other then that it seems like a very solid deck
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"Well I am death, none can excel I'll open the door to heaven or hell:" Ralph Stanley
This looks like a really fun deck. My question for you is: does it get crippled if they manage to keep your general off the table?
No, most of the strategies work perfectly fine with one another. Token generation and certain stax effects have synergies to begin with. There's more than enough cards that can win on their own.
That being said you do want to have her out in play and it's a little annoying if someone is constantly killing her. I've been entertaining putting Darksteel Plate in this deck for that reason.
only thing i could suggest is a gravecrawler, he is another "infinate" sacrifical object if you ever need it, other then that it seems like a very solid deck
I've used Nether Traitor and Bloodghast alongside Reassembling Skeleton, but lately I find I don't use them as much and they're much less reliable than the skeleton. Maybe if the format changes and that sort of package becomes more useful I'll give it another look, but right now the Skeleton does fine on his own.
As for Gravecrawler I just don't use enough zombies to reliably be able to recur him. It's something I'll take a look at as a consistent one sided wrath threat at the cost of some life is nothing to be laughed at. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Looks pretty good. Savra is my favourite commander, and although I've had the deck for quite a while I've never really put enough into it to get it to the point yours is now. I'll leave you a list of some cards that pulled their weight in my deck, maybe you'll get some ideas...
Nullmage Shepherd - My favourite way of dealing with artifacts and enchantments. Even if it gets killed immediately, odds are it'll take down a few problem artifacts and enchantments with it.
Phyrexian Plaguelord - Despite not working too well with Savra, this guy actually does a good job. At worst, your green creatures can now be sacrificed for removal too, or you can force them to lose their big creature. Does a similar job to Mortarpod, its main selling point being that it frees up your mana.
Brutalizer Exarch - The cost is annoying, but this guy does everything you want him to. Your selection of green creatures is somewhat narrow but tucking an annoying permanent is pretty sweet.
Shriekmaw - Doom Blade that sacrifices itself for a Savra trigger. You can stack it so the kill resolves first. Same goes for Bone Shredder.
Fleshbag Marauder/Slum Reaper - same as the last two, these guys will leave you up two creatures if they kill themselves. Abyssal Gatekeeper is okay at this too, although sometimes you'll find yourself playing around him as much as your opponent.
Thoughtpicker Witch - She crazy. So long as you can keep feeding her, your opponent will never draw that answer they need.
Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble - Personally, I like having at least one of these because they offset Savra's black effect while steadily bleeding your opponent.
Entomber Exarch - Not amazing, but both Disentomb and Duress are useful abilities. He's generally nice to have around to recover creatures or pick out a problem spell.
Seedguide Ash - Again, this deck may not need it, but I've always found Savra to be quite mana-intensive. This guy might not be a half-bad replacement now that Primeval Titan is banned.
Disturbed Burial - I won't lie, it's a fairly bad card, more of a sentimental card than anything decent. But sometimes you just have to keep pushing and grinding, and then you'll be glad to have a fallback.
Going to get a mod to see if I can get this actually moved to multiplayer, as that's what we generally play at the store now and that's what this deck performs better in.
Going to get a mod to see if I can get this actually moved to multiplayer, as that's what we generally play at the store now and that's what this deck performs better in.
Anyone know which mod I should contact?
Well I'm sad to hear that... I have a hard on for competitive French garruk the relentless
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Nature's Most raw beauty is the circle: perfect in it's continuance, with no break between death and life.
Intro:
I felt like Savra's abilities were both unique and powerful. She has one of the most reliable (and unreliable) ways of taking out the oppositions creatures. With Shroud, Indestructible, and Hexproof running around en masse targeted removal can be very unreliable in Commander. The obvious downside however is that your opponent gets the option of choosing what gets sacrificed.
I also really enjoy playing with the colour combo of GB, the colours themselves have tons of chemistry with one another, especially when concerning graveyard effects, which just happens to be Savra's bread and butter. Plus G and B have some of the strongest single cards in Commander.
I've been playing this deck for a very long time now and have optimized it to a level that I'm very satisfied with. I found playing with a mixed bag of strategies was the best way to go with Savra. It's tempting to go with an all out grave based deck when playing GB and it also appears the best to abuse Savras abilities, but with the amount of grave-hate in Commander that option is far too susceptible to getting blown out. I also avoided playing huge blow-out creatures. They often aren't very fun (I also avoid infinite combos for that reason) and with how much fun and popular cards like Bribery are you can end up shooting yourself in the foot. That's why I'm not playing cards like It That Betrays, Lord of Extinction, etc. Savra has a unique ability and therefore you can tailor a deck around her. This makes it very useful when opponents want to steal your cards, because while amazingly useful in your deck they fall flat in the hands of the opponent. Everything in the deck is purposefully designed so that untapping with a certain permanent won't result in a blowout. The trick however is to untap with multiple key permanents to blowout the opponent.
This deck runs around "engines"; setting up a few permanents with synergies that will give you a large advantage in the game. These engines most often result in either generating huge token swarms, forcing the opponent to sacrifice all of their creatures, or both. Many of the cards have natural synergies with many of the cards in the deck. So while extremely synergetic they are both good on their own and you can mix and match them throughout the game. The downside is that this makes the deck semi-slow in the early game, so the main strategy is to play un-threatening and drop some early chumpers and some unassuming pieces you can use in one of the engines. Eventually once you feel comfortably set in a game you can begin going off on the opponent. I’d advise holding back on cards that are immediately perceived as big threats early in the game, like Smokestack, Birthing Pod, etc. Until you can use them to their fullest later.
This deck is also mainly designed for 1 vs. 1 play, but is still quite good in multiplayer as it plays rather unthreatening in the early parts of a game and that Savra’s sacrifice effect also affects all opponents.
You would like playing Savra if:
You may not like playing Savra if:
Deck List:
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Creatures:
1 Acidic Slime
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Disciple of Griselbrand
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Grave Titan
1 Hell's Caretaker
1 Hex Parasite
1 Hornet Queen
1 Marsh Flitter
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Mitotic Slime
1 Necrotic Ooze
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Pack Rat
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Wood Elves
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Vraska the Unseen
Sorceries:
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Damnation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Harmonize
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sprout Swarm
1 Triumph of the Hordes
Instants:
1 Beast Within
1 Chord of Calling
1 Putrefy
Artifacts:
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Birthing Pod
1 Expedition Map
1 Mimic Vat
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Smokestack
1 Sol Ring
1 Trading Post
Equipment:
1 Mortarpod
1 Nim Deathmantle
Enchantments:
1 Awakening Zone
1 Bitterblossom
1 Doubling Season
1 Grave Pact
1 Parallel Lives
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Command Tower
1 Deserted Temple
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Grim Backwoods
1 High Market
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Khalni Garden
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Temple of the False God
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Twilight Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Vivid Grove
1 Vivid Marsh
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Woodland Cemetery
Basic Lands:
7 Forest
7 Swamp
Dissecting the Pieces
Creatures:
Acidic Slime - Well known for it's role and utility as a solid piece of removal for Enchantments and Artifacts that comes on a body (Savra loves abilities on creatures; use 'em and sac 'em). Plus does a decent job at chumping as well. Sitting at 5 CMC is also a nice spot for Birthing Pod use.
Avenger of Zendikar - One of the few singleton wincons in the deck. You can just run it out and if the opponent doesn't have an answer you win. Not too overpowered however which makes it decently balanced. Plus who doesn't love tokens?
Bloodgift Demon - Phyrexian Arena on a creature? I'll take it! Plus it's sizeable and has decent evasion.
Braids, Cabal Minion - Can really pressure the opponent as they have to sac permanents when you start killing all of their creatures. Plus if you don't mind the opponent hating you, you can win pretty quickly off this if it's in your opening hand.
Butcher of Malakir - Grave Pact on a decently sized flying body. Can't really go wrong there. Getting this guy out can really start putting the hurt on the opponent.
Elvish Visionary - Savra absolutely loves cantrip creatures. Their essential to the early game as they're a quick source of chumpers. Plus their still always good in the late game as they replace themselves and provide fodder for any one of your sac outlets. Just makes me wish B and G had more cantrip creatures.
Eternal Witness - Grabbing anything back from your graveyard is always a good thing.
Farhaven Elf - Similar to cantrippers, better early game as it can help ramp/mana fix, but worse late game. Either way cheap bodies for sac outlets are never really bad and the impact it can have early far outweighs any lategame negatives.
Grave Titan - Anything that produces multiple B tokens is at a premium in this deck. You get a guaranteed 3 B creatures right off the hop and get 2 more each turn the titan lives. Bonus!
Hell's Caretaker - Firstly it's a sac outlet. It is however kind of slow and the fact you can only use it during your upkeep sucks, but I absolutely adore this card anyway. It's a lot of fun to play with as you can get some fun chains going. Necrotic Ooze can also use it's ability which is always nice too.
Hex Parasite - It's a multi-tool: Kills Planeswalkers, disrupts anything your opponent is using with counters. Plus has nice synergy with any of your creatures with Persist or Undying. Especially Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. It's also another one that Necrotic Ooze can use.
Marsh Flitter - Absolute staple for any Savra deck. Comes out with B tokens and can sac them itself. Essentially makes the opponent sac 2 creatures straight up. Gets waaay better with Doubling Season or Parallel Lives down as well.
Mikaeus the Unhallowed - Has synergy across the board with just about everything. Everything can be sacced twice and it works very well with any creatures that have ETB abilities. Totally nuts with creatures that have persist or with a Hex Parasite down.
Mitotic Slime - One of the decks MVP's you can get a ton of mileage out of this guy. Tons of saccs and chump blocks, plus even though I don't like infinite combos you can still use this plus Nim Deathmantle + Phyrexian Altar/Ashnod's Altar for infinite mana+infinite tokens+infinite grave triggers. If someone ever pulls a dick move on me I like to keep that combo in my back pocket.
Necrotic Ooze - Very fun card. Stealing your opponents activated abilities is a lot of fun plus it works well with Hex Parasite, Hell's Caretaker, Fauna Shaman, and Scavenging Ooze.
Oracle of Mul Daya - One of the best ramp cards out there. Good in early game for dropping lots of land, plus good in the late game as it takes the lands off the top of your library to help your draws.
Phyrexian Rager - Same as Elvish Visionary, but better. Like I said, Savra loves her cantrippers, but being on a B body is much more useful to help force sacs through Savra.
Reassembling Skeleton Another All-Star for this deck. Easily reusable and B, so Savra can keep forcing those sacs!
Rune-Scarred Demon - Pretty much the king of all cantrippers. It's really a tutor, so it's obviously awesome in that respect and yet again comes with decent size and flying, as demons usually do and yet again Savra loves it being B.
Solemn Simulacrum - Cantripper and mana ramper. Being uncoloured does suck, but it's a good value card anyways and you can get whatever bonus your sac outlet gives you with this.
Scavenging Ooze - Pretty much one of the best pieces of grave-hate out there. Cheap body. Cheap activation cost. Plus pumps itself if it's just sitting around. Oh yeah, it's good buddies with Necrotic Ooze too.
Wood Elves - Pretty much the same as Fauna Shaman, you're almost always grabbing Overgrown Tomb with this and the land coming into play untapped can be semi-relevant.
Woodfall Primus - Pretty much the king of non-creature removal in this deck. Having Persist is a major bonus as well.
Sorceries:
Damnation - Good for whenever you just need to clear the entire board if things really aren't going your way.
Demonic Tutor - Easy to use tutor, nuff said.
Green Sun's Zenith - Another awesome tutor. Only for G creature's but seeing as it gives you access to any of them in your deck for only one more G, that's pretty amazing. Good at all stages of the game.
Harmonize - Love the art on the full-art version of this. Draw 3 cards. Simple enough advantage.
Maelstrom Pulse - Amazing piece of removal and really helps when facing token decks.
Instants:
Beast Within - Amazing removal as it hits anything without protection. Giving them the 3/3 is pretty negligible.
Chord of Calling - Similar to Green Sun's Zenith, but possibly better. Costs more, but it's instant speed and it grabs anything. Plus your own creatures can help pay for the mana cost with convoke.
Putrefy - Another card that I love the full-art on (admittedly I probably wouldn't use it otherwise) solid piece of instant speed removal though.
Planeswalkers:
Garruk Relentless - Generates tokens, but you usually want him to flip right when you play him. Even if you have to arena one of your own creatures. The ability to generate B tokens is again huge + sac outlet with creature tutor ++ a wincon final ability makes him Golden.
Artifacts:
Birthing Pod: - Sac outlet and gradually improves any of your creature's. Sounds golden to me.
Expedition Map - BG has some of the best lands in the format, so having a cheap tutor for lands can be a big deal. Can also tutor up sac outlet lands if you need one.
Mimic Vat - Pretty close to being a Commander staple. Amazing with ETB creatures and due to the fact that this deck has a lot of things (yours and your opponents) hitting the grave, the vat will almost always have something fantastic under it
Phyrexian Altar - Pretty much the exact same as Ashnod's. Never found the ability to generate colour or 2 to be influential in anyway.
Smokstack - Be careful with this one as some people can hate on you hard for it. Can really close out a game though.
Sol Ring - Cheap mana accel. Commander staple.
Equipment:
Mortarpod - Gives you a B token to start with and also provides a pinging sac outlet later on if you need that sort of thing.
Nim Deathmantle - Has synergy with just about everything in here. Making whatever it brings back B is a massive bonus and giving them intimidate is a nice touch as well.
Enchantments:
Bitterblossom - Can't overstate how good B token generation is in this deck. Plus it's so cheap!
Doubling Season - Great when you're making tokens and Ridiculous with Planeswalkers.
Grave Pact - It's a back-breaker in this deck. You usually want to hold it back until later, to bait the removal on other permanents as this is one of your best cards in your deck.
Parallel Lives - Falls quite short of Doubling Season, but there's enough token generation in this deck to still make this very useful.
Phyrexian Arena - Can't complain about extra card draw. Gives a good use for the extra life you'll get from saccing G dudes.
Lands:
Other Considerations:
Gonna work on this later.
Thanks for reading and as always would love some feedback.
No, most of the strategies work perfectly fine with one another. Token generation and certain stax effects have synergies to begin with. There's more than enough cards that can win on their own.
That being said you do want to have her out in play and it's a little annoying if someone is constantly killing her. I've been entertaining putting Darksteel Plate in this deck for that reason.
I've used Nether Traitor and Bloodghast alongside Reassembling Skeleton, but lately I find I don't use them as much and they're much less reliable than the skeleton. Maybe if the format changes and that sort of package becomes more useful I'll give it another look, but right now the Skeleton does fine on his own.
As for Gravecrawler I just don't use enough zombies to reliably be able to recur him. It's something I'll take a look at as a consistent one sided wrath threat at the cost of some life is nothing to be laughed at. Thanks for the suggestion though.
True (as with a few others). Grave Titan does require the altar in use to be Ashnod's Altar in that case.
In:
Out:
Nullmage Shepherd - My favourite way of dealing with artifacts and enchantments. Even if it gets killed immediately, odds are it'll take down a few problem artifacts and enchantments with it.
Phyrexian Plaguelord - Despite not working too well with Savra, this guy actually does a good job. At worst, your green creatures can now be sacrificed for removal too, or you can force them to lose their big creature. Does a similar job to Mortarpod, its main selling point being that it frees up your mana.
Harvester of Souls - Probably better in a multiplayer deck, but even one-on-one against a token deck you have plenty of other things (such as Eternal Witness and Reassembling Skeleton) to draw off.
Brutalizer Exarch - The cost is annoying, but this guy does everything you want him to. Your selection of green creatures is somewhat narrow but tucking an annoying permanent is pretty sweet.
Shriekmaw - Doom Blade that sacrifices itself for a Savra trigger. You can stack it so the kill resolves first. Same goes for Bone Shredder.
Fleshbag Marauder/Slum Reaper - same as the last two, these guys will leave you up two creatures if they kill themselves. Abyssal Gatekeeper is okay at this too, although sometimes you'll find yourself playing around him as much as your opponent.
Thoughtpicker Witch - She crazy. So long as you can keep feeding her, your opponent will never draw that answer they need.
Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble - Personally, I like having at least one of these because they offset Savra's black effect while steadily bleeding your opponent.
Grave Betrayal - They come back black
Entomber Exarch - Not amazing, but both Disentomb and Duress are useful abilities. He's generally nice to have around to recover creatures or pick out a problem spell.
Seedguide Ash - Again, this deck may not need it, but I've always found Savra to be quite mana-intensive. This guy might not be a half-bad replacement now that Primeval Titan is banned.
Disturbed Burial - I won't lie, it's a fairly bad card, more of a sentimental card than anything decent. But sometimes you just have to keep pushing and grinding, and then you'll be glad to have a fallback.
[Clan Flamingo] Tier Archivist
[15:21] <@CC> Remember, if you argue, you are an idiot.
Untrophied Wins:
Perfect MCC Scores: 2
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Was regular.
Going to get a mod to see if I can get this actually moved to multiplayer, as that's what we generally play at the store now and that's what this deck performs better in.
Anyone know which mod I should contact?
Well I'm sad to hear that... I have a hard on for competitive French garruk the relentless