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Selvala, the Holy Trinity

Commander / EDH* Competitive Elves Multiplayer Ramp Stax

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Creature (32)

Land (33)

Artifact (10)

Commander (1)

Commander: Selvala, Explorer Returned

Instant (13)

Sorcery (6)

Enchantment (5)

First off the name. This deck is The Holy Trinity because while youre piloting it, it functionally has 3 commanders.

The Father; Selvala, Explorer Returned is the God of this deck. If she's in play, we're miles ahead of our opponents and can regularly close out games with few, if any, lands in play. She's card draw, insane amounts of ramp, and even some incidental life gain (which we occasionally abuse). We want her out T2 every single game unless our hand does something even better. And only activate her if you need to shes not just draw an extra card every turn effect shes gas for the engine and if you dont need to give your opponents resources, dont. Theres nothing wrong with playing draw-go, then Parlaying EOT to get another card before you start your next turn.

Next up, the Son; Yisan, the Wanderer Bard. He drops in on occasion, and takes over for Selvala while hes around, but the both of them together is an unstoppable force. We pack both a competitive-grade tutor chain so we can make him sing all 8 verses, if need be, and we even have a few fun choices due to our splash of white. Depending on what else we have in hand or in play, we can shortcut him and win in only 3 verses.

Then you have Captain Sisay, the Holy Spirit; everybody knows she exists, and they've heard stories about her power, but they dont quite understand it and she enables an equally confusing Storm win-con Ill detail below. Captain Sisay and Selvala in play with no other non-lands in play is enough to win in one turn assuming no disruption.

There's a few questions that people ask me about Selvala, so let's address those first.
  • Were giving cards to our enemies?

Well, yeah, but it works in our favor more often than not. First off, people tend to let her live since everybody draws, and everybody loves extra cards. Because of this, we dont want to make her asymmetrical, or she becomes a huge target (hence the absence of Uba Mask and others). For us, she's just a really good mana dork that puts gas in our tank, and looks like she's helping others; but she's helping us more.

Be sparing in using her as she can backfire, but youll pretty quickly get a feel for when to parlay on your turn, and when to do it EOT to gas-up your turn before it begins.

  • But won't we just draw our opponents answers to what we're doing?

Yes and no. They'll be drawing answers, but, from experience, they're going to be so busy playing all those extra cards they drew that they'll forget to leave mana up for counters.

Most people would rather play a couple of those extra cards and not leave mana up (especially if they dont know what our deck is), than have to just throw them in the graveyard. It's very rare that I eat a counter at the crucial play of the game, occasionally I'll eat a kill spell or wipe, but those generally come too late to stop the inevitable. People become so self-interested with all their extra cards, and forget that there's a reason we don't care that they're getting them.

  • How powerful is she really? Extremely. The average turn 3 for this deck is 6 mana. A good T3 can be 8+, Turn 3 is also the earliest we can to go infinite. Without going infinite this deck has pumped out 14 mana on T4 many times before.

  • This deck has no God hands that give you a T1/T2 kill. There are no rituals, no one-shot mana producers, and as few cards as possible that are good early, but bad late. Huge swings of power were tossed aside for consistency I've won games on T4, on a mull-to-4, because the AVERAGE hand, is still just that damn consistent, and that's what I wanted. I didnt want clunky draws, I wanted to minimize questionable keeps, I wanted to feel like I was relevant every game and this list delivers on that quite well.

  • The easiest way to summarize piloting this deck is Selesnya Elf-Storm, so the best way to learn the actual strategy behind this deck, and how to pilot it, is to hop down to the sample mulligans section I goldfished a few hands and screen-capped the end results so you can see just how this deck works. The deck is a little weird to pilot due to all the tutors and loops within loops contained in the deck, but if you can plan out your moves, count your mana properly and keep your tutors straight, this deck is a hard thing to stop.

Im pretty sure everybody knows how he works in his own deck, but in our deck he brings some interesting options to the table.

We do not waste our time singing 8 verses like a standard Yisan deck we do it in 3, then win that same turn with our next 4 verses. If youre playing against slower decks, you just go for the chain listed below, but we also have hatebears at most of the verses to disrupt people as well, then use the higher verses in the chain to loop back around and win anyways.

Fast Infinite Mana:

  • Verse 1, Quirion Ranger.

  • Verse 2, Stoneforge Mystic, to tutor up either Umbral Mantle or Sword of the Paruns (if you're already holding one of these, grab Priest of Titania or a different elf instead).

  • Verse 3, Elvish Archdruid then cast and equip, and you have infinite mana (assuming you have 4 or more elves, which is trivially easy). If Archdruid has already died, grab whatever is most useful here (tutors, removal, recursion, whatever) and grab Karametra's Acolyte for Verse 4 and combo off anyways.

Usually this is enough to win on the spot since Umbral Mantle can be re-equiped to all your mana dorks to tap+untap and make them infinitely large. Otherwise, use the infinite mana to untap Yisan and run up the chain to grab Kamahl, Fist of Krosa on Verse 6, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite on Verse 7 to lock your opponents off their lands, and now you have infinite pump on Kamahl assuming everybody didn't already scoop.

Shortcut for 'Hoof when you can make 17 mana (not as hard as it sounds) and Quirion Ranger or Wirewood already in play:

  • Verse 1, Grab Quirion Ranger or Wirewood Symbiote, whichever you don't already have.

  • Verse 2, grab Scryb Ranger. If you have haste and a creature in hand, you can grab Fauna Shaman and use him to get Hoof (cutting 2 mana out of the combo).

  • Verse 3, grab Fierce Empath to bring Craterhoof to hand, and hard cast him to kill people on the spot.

If Fierce Empath is already dead, or you're already above 3 verse counters, Eternal Witness, Greenwarden of Murasa, Sun Titan and Woodland Bellower can all grab him out of order for you.

Stax Run (first option is the better one):

Now your opponent's non-basic lands come in tapped, their creatures come in tapped, and they only get to untap 1 land per turn. Meanwhile, you bounce a forest and replay it on every player's turn to untap 4 extra lands per turn rotation, plus all of your own lands come in untapped.

If you have an Aluren and an elf with an ETB in play, grab Wirewood Symbiote and Voyaging Satyr for your Verse 1 and 2, and you get the added benefit of re-triggering the Elf's ETB, in addition to untapping any land, not just your forests.

She grabs legendary things and thats more than enough for us even when its not going to win, itll help us get there faster.

First off, how do we storm off with her?

With only Selvala, Sisay and a couple lands in play and a couple green/colorless spells in hand:

1) Activate Sisay and Parlay in response. Tutor up Paradox Engine and cast it.

2) Cast any spell from your hand to uptap Selvala and Sisay (S+S for short). This should have required 3.5 mana.

3) Activate Sisay and Parlay in response. Tutor up Mox Opal and cast it. Floating 2.5 mana and untapping S+S.

4) Activate Sisay and Parlay in response. Tutor up Azusa and cast it. Floating 2 mana and untapping S+S.

5) Activate Sisay and Parlay in response. Tutor up Inventors' Fair. Play it and cast any spell from your hand to untap S+S. ~4.5 mana floating depending on what you cast (preferably a mana dork)

6) Activate Sisay and Parlay in response. Tutor up Akroma's Memorial and cast it, untapping S+S.

You can now tutor and cast every legendary permanent in your deck, drawing cards, playing mana dorks from your hand, etc. Use Inventors' Fair to go get Aetherflux Reservoir, keep casting spells, and then Alderaan your opponents.

If the coast isnt clear to storm off, Sisay acts as a combination value engine / toolbox.

Lands: Of course you can go get Gaea's Cradle and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for tons of mana, but we also have a couple less-impactful lands to get as well, namely Eiganjo Castle and Flagstones of Trokair if youre pinched on white mana, or Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers if you just need to hit a land drop, but dont want to face down your opponents Strip Mine just yet.

We pack several of the same Stax pieces as traditional Sisay toolbox decks like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Hokori, Dust Drinker, but since we tend to produce a lot more mana than Sisay, we also pack Yeva, Nature's Herald which can let us do quite a lot, all at instant speed, either cutting a turn our of our combo setup, or just keeping our things alive.

And of course we pack the classic Sisay-lock of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Kamahl, Fist of Krosa so we can lock our opponents off of their lands but make sure to grab Kamahl first, as it'll discourage your opponents from simply wiping the board (as you'll just animate their lands in response to the Wrath).

You've seen me say "Parlay adds X mana" though out this guide, and the reasoning is quite simple. I wanted to build around Selvala as a reliable source of ramp so I could size likely T3 plays based on her surviving a turn.

I did a rough survey of the top commanders on EDHREC.com. Pulled their average decks, and the average number of non-land cards was 65. So 65% of the average deck is non-lands, 4-players is the average pod size, 0.65*4=2.6 mana.

When pulling practice hands, we know if our draw is a land or non-land. So 65% of our 3 opponents works out to 2 mana. So when we're goldfishing it works one of two ways: if we draw a land, we get 2 mana. If we draw a non-land, it's 3 mana.

When you play in a bigger pod, Selvala is stronger. Once you've eliminated opponents, Selvala becomes weaker. But in the back of your head you can always math out that Selvala will tap for 2/3 of the number of players left in the game, on average.

Also keep in mind that players can NOT respond to Parlay. It is a mana ability and doesn't allow responses on the stack. When you say "Parlay" nobody else can respond with their Sensei's Divining Top or Brainstorm to make you miss.

Congregation at Dawn is probably the most powerful card in this deck. Its potential for abuse with our commander is unequaled - it's good in a lot of GW decks, but in ours it is utterly busted. The trick is in the piles.

Now normally Parlay nets 2.6 mana on average. When you cast Congregation at Dawn, it bumps up to an even 3 mana per Parlay (since ours is guaranteed to be non-land).

The key choices to this card are the untappers: Quirion Ranger, Wirewood Symbiote and to a lesser degree Scryb Ranger.

So the first two cards on top for Congregation will be Quirion and Wirewood. You Parlay to draw Quirion, use 1 mana to cast it, bounce a forest, untap Selvala, GG floating. Parlay to draw Wirewood, use 1 mana to cast it, bounce Quirion Ranger to untap Selvala, GGGG floating. Parlay to draw whatever your 3rd card is, recast Quirion Ranger, GGGGGG floating - you've now gained 3 mana, gained 9 life, drawn 3 cards, and still have more to do.

Now, your 3rd pick could be Eternal Witness, and the most boring thing is to pull back Congregation at Dawn to net another few creatures and then Craterhoof. If you have something exciting in your GY, you can grab that instead. Using E-wit to Congregation a second time is never a bad choice and means your opponents have 1 turn to find an answer as this time you can just grab all the pieces for your infinite mana since the first one upped your elf count, and will let you generate enough mana to cast everything in a turn (assuming you have two white mana).

You could use Woodland Bellower, which will bring anything you need, but usually grabs Fierce Empath to bring either Craterhoof or Elesh to our hand, so we can blow somebody out the next turn, or Elvish Archdruid to generate big mana the following turn, or any of a dozen other options Think of Congregation as a Doomsday pile, but instead of the last card saying I win it says That guy loses or I win on my next turn.

If it's a little later in the game and you already have a decent number of creatures, just put Craterhoof Behemoth as your 3rd pick, and you should be able to cast him with just the floating mana from your 4th Parlay for the turn. 3 mana, gain 12 life and cast a Craterhoof seems pretty good, right? Also, you know most of the cards in your opponents hands, which means you have a pretty good idea of who is safe to attack, versus who can defend themselves.

Congregation is a great way to simply stick a T3 Elesh Norn, grand cenobyte , which tends to cripple quite a lot of decks in the early game.

First off, this deck is built with 8 slots for cards that can be tuned to who you're playing against. The preference is to fill these slots with Legendary Creatures to maximize our access to them, even if they cost a mana or two more than an equivalent effect on an artifact.

The flex slots are: Aven Mindcensor, Hokori, Dust Drinker, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Yeva, Nature's Herald (I realize this is a weird card to list here, but it's a great way to mess up Doomsday players by flashing in untappers and forcing them to draw cards with their Lab Man on the stack), Suppression Field, and Armageddon

0-drop rocks - I tested this deck with Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond and found them both to be no-better than a 1-drop elf in terms of early acceleration. They did not increase the number of keepable hands, and reduced the power of our elf-synergies, so they were both cut after testing.

Mox Opal is only in the deck for the Sisay-Storm combo, outside of that itll basically never tap for mana. Mana Crypt fits because it doesn't require anything else to produce mana, and allows for a T2 Aluren, to flash in our Commander, and a couple other better T1 dork plays - it increases our keepable hands instead of decreasing them.

Sensei's Divining Top - I tested this out, but when Selvala was in play (nearly always, in my meta) it was mana neutral (usually), but my draws weren't any different/better. When Selvala wasn't in play it was good, but that didn't happen often. For me, being able to squeeze another 1-drop elf into the deck was better, but if Selvala keeps getting killed in your meta then I'd find it a home. Honestly, I would more likely include Mirri's Guile over SDT just for the lower long-term cost of it, and it's ability to have a net-increase on our mana production versus Top being mana neutral, along with adding to our devotion for Nykthos.

Sylvan Library This is a card that I go back and forth on. On one hand, its unusual that were casting it in the early game as we just have better things to do that dont cost us life. In the late game (After eating multiple board wipes) you pretty much take an extra card every turn, then use Parlay to draw the 3rd card and regain the life you paid but there were so many times while playing this card that Id draw it and think Man, I really wish this was XYZ so it keeps getting re-cut after testing.

Carpet of Flowers - This was purely a meta call as it is a very powerful card; there just weren't enough decks playing Islands in the first turns of the game for this card to be a consistent enough producer to stick a T2 Selvala.

Ravages of War - I'd love to include this card, but $90 is hard to justify for a 2nd Armageddon effect in a deck that can't tutor for it - if I had one, I'd find a home for it, but I wasn't going to drop the money on it just for this.

Alhammarret's Archive, Uba Mask , et.al. - Any effects that made Selvala an asymmetrical effect drew way too much attention to Selvala's importance to our deck. Since we're going for a fast and lean win condition, I'd rather give away a couple of cards and have her stick around than try to keep her effect all for myself.

Hope of Girapur I know a lot of the vanilla Sisay-Storm decks use this as their 3rd artifact in the storm combo in lieu of Akroma's Memorial, but I wanted an artifact that could do double-duty since the Sisay-Storm win is a relatively slow one compared to Yisan, or storming off with Cloudstone Curio/Aluren. Outside of the storm combo, its another source of haste for our team, its tutorable by Sisay (obviously) and is still impactful in our storm turn, while being affordable thanks to our commander tapping for mana If you find yourself coming up short on mana on a Sisay-Storm attempt, swap Hope for Memorial and try again, but I fall firmly on the side of Memorial in the mainboard.

Please note, some of the cards in these hands have been replaced in the list, but Im leaving this here as they are still relevant data in evaluating hands and took a long-freaking-time to type out. One day I may update them, but probably not.

For this section, I used TappedOut's playtest to generate hands, and give an evaluation on the hand and the path to a win as fast as possible.

Hand evaluation is a little tricky as you have to weigh a few factors, but in general there are a couple keepable types of hands. (1) T2 Selvala and anything big to follow it up. (2) T3 haste Selvala, with something to do. (3) Crap-tons of ramp with something to do.

Game 1) Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Genesis Wave, Voyaging Satyr, Flooded Strand, Mana Crypt, Collected Company, Chord of Calling

At first this may seem greedy, but this is actually a great opening hand and is something I love to see. T2 Selvala, Yisan, Gen-wave - we've got ramp and we've got gas, lands don't matter.

Play the Plains, tap it and cast Umbral Mantle. Equip to Selvala, use Crypt and Forest to untap Selvala and Parlay again.

Draw Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, 3 mana floating. Untap Selvala, Parlay drawing Plains, 2 mana floating.

Tap the Savannah to untap Selvala, Parlay, drawing Aluren, 3 mana floating. Tap Voyaging Satyr to untap a land and cast Aluren. Pass turn.

Before our next turn starts, play Yisan.

Gen Wave reveals: Forest, Forest, Gaea's Cradle, Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Eternal Witness grabbing back Genesis Wave, Woodland Bellower grabbing whatever you want, Winter Orb, Birds of Paradise.

Equip Umbral Mantle to Voyaging Satyr for infinite mana and win with Yisan tutoring up to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa and locking off lands.

Realistically, the Gen Wave wasn't needed as we could have just cast Kamahl to get the needed devotion to go infinite with Voyaging Satyr + Nykthos, but Gen Wave is more fun.

Imgur Link of T4 boardstate.

Game 2) Lightning Geaves, Eternal Witness, Fierce Empath, Flooded Strand, Congregation at Dawn, Canopy Vista, Hall of the Bandit Lord

This hand I'm on the fence about. I don't have a T2 Selvala, but on T3, she'll have haste, so I'll have half a normal T3 play... My lands are a little slow, but I do have a Congregation at Dawn in hand, so this will likely be a Turn 5/6 win kind of hand. We'll try it out.

EOT Parlay, drawing Tooth and Nail, 3 mana floating. Cast Congregation at Dawn grabbing Stoneforge Mystic, Elvish Archdruid and any 3rd creature. Cast Collected Company putting them both into play, and Stoneforge grabs us Umbral Mantle to hand.

Imgur link of T5 boardstate.

Game 3) Oracle of Mul Daya, Cavern of Souls, Forest, Swords to Plowshares, Natural Order, Eladamri's Call and Gaea's Cradle

Now you could be greedy and keep this, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's going to be slow, you're missing any white source, and this doesn't really have any gas to carry it forward to a win assuming you do draw a white source. For the heck of it I peaked at the next card: Thalia, Heretic Cathar - it's ok to be greedy if you have all your colors, otherwise it's a mulligan in my book.

Mul to 6: Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, Reclamation Sage, Temple Garden, Wirewood Lodge, Craterhoof Behemoth, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

Well, we have 2 lands, no turn 2 Selvala, but the combination of an untapper and a Yisan in hand makes me want to believe that this will come together for us. I'd be on the fence for this hand, but I'd keep.

Cast Mystic and Quirion Ranger, replay your Temple Garden untapped. Cast Sword of Paruns , equip to Priest of Titania and you now have infinite mana again with Yisan in play.

Imgur link of T5 board state (please note, I accidentally just drew a card instead of hitting "next turn" on this so the turn count in the screengrab is off).

Game 4) Krosan Grip, Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Hokori, Dust Drinker, Armageddon, Enlightened Tutor, Forest and Time of Need

Realistically you could probably keep this. It's a playable hand at a non-competitive table, but I want to know my path to a win from my opening hand - shipping it back.

Mul to 6: Mana Crypt, Plains, Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, Natural Order, Karametra's Acolyte.

This one is tough. I like the turn 1 Thalia, but my gas isn't that great and I probably won't get a T2 Selvala, but I like the vibe of this - the hate is strong, let's try it out. It won't be fast, but it might be powerful.

Imgur link of T6 board state.

Game 5) Krosan Grip, Llanowar Elves, Wirewood Lodge, Canopy Vista, Seedborn Muse, Plains, Plains.

I don't have a T2 Selvala, I don't have haste for a T3 Selvala, I don't have anything big to cast in behind it - Mulligan.

Mul to 6: elesh norn , Crop Rotation, Fyndhorn Elves, Sol Ring, Plains, Plains.

I'm really on the fence for this one. I like a super-fast Elesh, but Im missing green. If I were missing white, this would be an instant-mul, but were fairly likely to draw a green source in the first couple turns, and Sol ring plus a dork is good. If we can draw a green source in the first 2 cards, we'll be all set. Let's keep it and see how it goes.

  • Turn 1: Draw a Forest - we're in business. Play Forest and Fyndhorn Elves, pass the turn.

  • Turn 2: Draw a Flagstones of Trokair. Play a Plains, Sol ring, and Selvala, pass the turn.

  • Turn 3: Draw Pendlehanen, Parlay drawing Sakura-Tribe Scout, 3 mana floating. Play our Flagstone, tap it, our plains and Sol Ring to cast Elesh Norn. Pass the Turn. EOT Crop Rotation sac'ing Flagstones to get Gaea's Cradle and a Savannah.

  • Turn 4: Draw Shaman of the Forgotten Ways , Parlay drawing Quirion Ranger, 3 mana floating. Cast Quirion Ranger, float a green from our Forest, bounce it and Parlay again, drawing Winter Orb 7 mana floating. Play the Forest, Winter Orb, Sakura-Tribe Scout and Shaman of the Forgotten Ways . Pass the turn.

  • Turn 5: Draw Greenwarden of Murasa, tap all our lands for 11 mana to activate Shaman of Forgotten Ways, play a Pendlehaven and swing for hopefully lethal.

Link to T5 Board State.

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Date added 8 years
Last updated 7 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

16 - 0 Mythic Rares

40 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

11 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.66
Tokens Beast 3/3 G
Folders Decks from Reddit, Competitive Lists, cutthroat fun, tuned fun, EDH Considerations, Commander/Inspirations, Selvala GW, Commander Lists, EDH, interesting decks
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