Hail to the Queen (Savra EDH Primer)

Commander / EDH* BG (Golgari) Combo Control Multiplayer Primer Sacrifice Value Engine

golgarigirl

Land (37)

• 1x Agadeem, the Undercrypt *f-pre*  ^Flip
• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkbore Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 7x Forest
• 1x High Market
• 1x Hissing Quagmire
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Skemfar Elderhall
• 7x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Turntimber, Serpentine Wood  ^Flip
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Winding Canyons
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Payoffs (8)

• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Moldervine Reclamation
• 1x Pattern of Rebirth
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Tergrid, God of Fright *f-pre*  ^Flip

Outlets (11)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Bloodthrone Vampire
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Dimir House Guard
• 1x Evolutionary Leap *f-pre*
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Woe Strider
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Other (10)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Profane Tutor
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Wilderness Reclamation

Ramp (9)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Farhaven Elf
• 1x Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Springbloom Druid
• 1x Sylvan Ranger
• 1x Wood Elves

Reanimator (4)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Harness Infinity
• 1x Journey to Eternity *f-pre*  ^Flip

Commander (1)

Tokens (11)

• 1x Ant Queen *f-pre*
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Beledros Witherbloom
• 1x Bramble Sovereign
• 1x Callous Bloodmage
• 1x Creakwood Liege
• 1x Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
• 1x Ghoulcaller Gisa
• 1x Sedgemoor Witch
• 1x Tendershoot Dryad *f-pre*
• 1x Valentin, Dean of the Vein  ^Flip

Removal (9)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Archfiend of Depravity *f-pre*
• 1x Assassin's Trophy *f-pre*
• 1x Culling Ritual
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Pest Infestation
• 1x Song of the Dryads
• 1x Sudden Spoiling
• 1x Torment of Hailfire *f-pre*

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Further proving why "Sacrifice a creature:" is my favorite line of text in all of Magic!

One of my first Magic decks was a 60-card 'strictly casual' deck that revolved around Savra and her Golgari thugs being sacrificed to ensure my opponents never saw a creature for the rest of the game. None of my friends play good old 60-card tabletop MTG any more...so it was only natural to take the Old Girl into commander! She doesn't do reanimator like Meren does, nor aggro like Skullbriar, nor explosive combo like Jarad or Gitrog. But she does feel like her old self...a token-based combo-control deck with Rock and stax undertones. And if there's something I love, it's some good Rock-y midrange flavor!

Category Breakdowns:

Tokens

Especially in Commander, it's horribly inefficient to be using an actual card to remove one of your opponent's creatures, especially when all of our creatures serve such glorious purpose! So it's better to chug out some tokens to use as fodder. Ideally, we want to make as many tokens as we can for as little mana investment as possible such as Avenger of Zendikar. Often times, it's great to have a generator that is incremental advantage as a mana sink to ensure we always have plenty of bodies such as Ant Queen. Note that the tokens need to be either GREEN or BLACK to matter to Savra...preferrably both!

Outlets

Savra, befitting of a queen, doesn't do the work herself. She just reaps the rewards.Thus we need cards to do the dirty work of sacrificing our minions for fun and profit. Ideally, these effects cost no mana like with Ashnod's Altar or Nantuko Husk...though some abilities are good enough that we're ok paying a premium. Regardless, they should be repeatable or instant-speed.

Payoffs

Savra is one of these. Payoffs are what make losing a creature so beneficial that it puts us ahead. These aren't useful without the proper setup, so I am extra selective with these, unless they double as another category, such as Massacre Wurm.

Removal

Golgari has the best removal in the game. Because Savra and the deck's build are designed to mop up creatures without much trouble, I want to be able to deal with non-creatures as Assassin's Trophy can, or recursive or unusually resilient targets as Silence the Believers.

Ramp

This deck is very mana hungry thanks to an abundance of mana sinks and a love of playing on an opponent's turn while needing to land permanents during our turn. Of course, getting the engine humming faster is important for any deck, much less this one in particular. My favorite ramp leaves behind bodies to feed to Savra, as Wood Elves.

Board Clear

We can take care of most large armies, but occasionally we have to deal with massive token swarms...one of our largest weaknesses. A few good board clears such as Find / Finality can take care of this in a pinch, and occasionally even cost the opponent dearly with some of our payoffs.

Reanimator

The graveyard is one of the largest resources in a game of Magic, especially one that tends to go long like Commander. We'd be remiss to ignore it, especially in colors known for it's high-quality reanimation. We don't have many slots for it, but what we do have tends to be either recur-able like Atzal, Cave of Eternity or versatile like Harness Infinity.

Other

I'm not sure where some of these cards fit, but all of them are very useful or just generically good. Or I just got lazy in figuring out exactly which category to put these in.

Land

All decks need land, but we can definitely ensure that we're getting a lot of bang out of these slots. We can get extra sacrifice outlets in lands like High Market, recursion in Volrath's Stronghold, and a great surprise factor in Winding Canyons.

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MH2: Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, Cabal Coffers, Timeless Witness, Sylvan Anthem

Date added	8 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 51 - 0 Rares 11 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.32
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Goat 0/1 W, Insect 1/1 G, Pest 1/1 BG, Plant 0/1 G, Saproling 1/1 G, Thrull 1/1 B, Worm 1/1 BG, Zombie 2/2 B