Have you had any experience with Altar of the Brood? I added it to my list and it feels like it has a lot of potential. Being able to mill all opponents with the many infinite loops is a great option in multiplayer. Also curious on how Knight of the Reliquary has gone. I know it can be a beater and can fix mana but it feels like you'd need to build around it to maximize the benefit, or am I missing something? Since I know you focused heavily on card draw effects, have you thought about Bygone Bishop or Tireless Tracker? Its been nice to have the card draw saved for later rather than being forced to pay for it in the moment via Mentor of the Meek. I'll keep watching your list as you've helped mine a ton. Thanks.

jjp16: I haven't played Altar of the Brood, however I kind of think it would fall into the same category as Perilous Myr / Inquisitor Exarch (see above comment). Generally if something is part of a 4+ card combo then it needs to be effective outside of that combo too. Altar of the Brood draws too much hate and does too litte, plus has the potential to help out graveyard decks.

Knight of the Reliquary is a powerhouse. She generally does the opposite of of mana fixing as I'm getting a colourless only land, however she fetches things like High Market (instant speed sac outlet), Buried Ruin (get back an altar), Mikokoro, Center of the Sea (card advantage), Strip Mine (land hate), Inventors' Fair (dig for a combo piece given enough artifacts) or the most common target - Gaea's Cradle (which commonly is tapping for like 4 mana). Plus there's nothing like like having Lotus Cobra see Knight sac a land, get a fetch and then crack it to get another land.

I've thought about Tireless Tracker in the past. I run enough lands to make it work but it always felt a bit slow. It has a reserved spot in the back of my mind and if I was going to go for raw card advantage, it would probably be then next card in line for it. I also like that clues help with Inventors' Fair. Though I think the next addition to the deck is going to be Academy Rector as it's stright up dig for a win condition.

I don't really like Bygone Bishop as it's only on cast. I think it would just miss too many triggers to make it worthwhile. It does some work, but overall I think that Mentor is the better choice. The other thing is that Mentor also triggers off Karmic Guide and any 1/1 counters from an opponent's Forbidden Orchard. Little things like that which are probably irrelevant, but can pay out in those weird corner cases.

enpc - yeah, I'm surprised Rector still hasn't made it into your list.

MrKrabs - Just ordered one the other night. Should be here in the next few days. I have been deliberating about it for a while and finally decided to bite the bullet. Now my next goal is getting a Mox Diamond.

This might be an odd question but where do you get your alters? They look dope

goon1993: The Wrath of God and Starved Rusalka were both just me playing around with Magic Set Editor. I have been meaning to get them properly done however they don't currently exist as real cards (I have the normal ones in the deck). The Saffi Eriksdotter was done by one of the guys who used to frequent our LGS.

The actual alter in real life looks slightly different to the uploaded version. Because the image is cropped, a few details were left out. For example the big one is that the bow goes right to the edge of the card.

Solid build +1! Looks like a fun strong deck and I really like the recursion. I made a green white dredge deck that seems to run a similar style. I would love to hear your input on my build to see if there are any cards I should add or remove. Here is the link. Green White Dredge (Sigarda EDH)

enpc - Now that you're running Academy Rector and since you've already got Eldritch Evolution, you should just go the next step and add Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Living Plane ;D

Frankly, I should too haha

studajew: cheers for the upvote, I shall have a look at your list.

MrKrabs: Yeah, that's pretty gross. But slots for hatebears seems slow. I mean, it's like the less good way to build Saffi :P

enpc - oof, SAVAGE. I didn't realize this was a burn deck.

enpc, MrKrabs or anyone have thoughts on running Collected Company in Saffi? I've trimmed down my version on CMC so there's a good chance of hitting some value with it, especially after a wrath or something. The downside obviously is you don't get to choose what you get and while randomness isn't great if your main goal is combo, mine favors raw value and advantage over strictly combo wins, as my playgroup prefers long drawn out games and isn't keen on infinite so I tend to use them sparingly when possible.

Saffi Synergy

Commander / EDH jjp16

SCORE: 1 | 1 COMMENT | 674 VIEWS

jjp16: Eh, I've thought about it on and off but ultimately the limitations make it not worth playing. Plus hitting one of your sac outlets with it would be a serious case of the feel bads.

For your deck it might be more appropriate, however this build is basically designed to do the exact oppostie of what you're describing - I want to get my combo together and fast. Maybe MrKrabs might get a bit more value from it as it picks up a good chunk of hatebears. Though not hitting combo pieces (except Renegade Rallier) makes for a sad panda.

Have you tried Aluren in your deck? Would conserve mana if game goes longer than expected and gives more flexibility flashing things in. Your build may be so focused on speed that it wouldn't be worth it but I'm thinking of seeing how it goes in mine. Love to hear your thoughts on it.

I used to run Aluren in a much earlier version of the list. It's not bad, but I think that its a much better fit in blue/X decks.

The problem I have with it in the list here is that while I can cheat it my commander, I still have to pay the commander tax and other than Renegade Rallier, none of my combo pieces are free still. It also allows opponents to flash in stuff like Hushwing Gryff for free, which really hurts. Plus as you mentioned, this list is designed to be fast so it doesn't really need it.

On the whole it's a cute card in certain builds, but it can be a double edged sword, so you have to be careful with it.

Even in my hatebears version of Saffi I ended up cutting Aluren. I'm with enpc on this one - it's just not great without blue. I personally like Aether Vial better in that slot.

The other option is Elvish Piper. It's not a bad card, just as long as you aren't using it instead of ramp. It can be quite good at deploying specific hate cards.

I see your point on helping the other players too much being hit with a surprise hate card could be damaging. That said, most of the people I play tend to avoid hate cards so it might be worth a gamble. Thanks to both of you.

do you have a link of where to get that saffi proxy? looks super cool

Since the recent unbanning of Protean Hulk, what are your thoughts on adding it to the list?

SirFowler - I can't 100% speak for enpc, but I know we've spoken about it a bit in the past and it just doesn't feel good enough in the deck. If either of us were still running Boonweaver Giant it'd be a 1:1 swap, possibly, but you really need access to blue and/or black to really get value out of Protean Hulk, imo.

Ok, so now that I can see the comments appearing on my deck again...

warthog177: I posted a response on your profile when I couldn't see the comment on my deck but for posterity sake, the proxy was done by one of the people who attended my LGS, so it's not available online.

SirFowler: Protean Hulk fits into the category that a bunch of cards (like Boonweaver Giant) do, they're nice but wrong for the deck because of the colours. As MrKrabs mentioned, because you don't have access to black, you lose the value that cards like Viscera Seer bring. The hulk combo is nice because it's such a clean package - resolve flash hulk and win. Or even play hulk, sac it to a once off sac effect and win.

But in green white, it means that you have to assemble hulk as well as a repeatable sac outlet, which is 10 mana. And since the victory condition comes from the sac outlet, I may as well just play a cheaper card that combos with Saffi to form a loop. Even a Woodland Bellower fetching Renegade Rallier costs one less mana and achieves the same thing.

If WotC released a green/white free sac engine (and Mirror Entity doesn't count, I'm talking an actual sac outlet) for a decent mana cost, then absolutely would I start to reconsider cards like boonweaver and hulk. But as they stand, the combos are too hard to deploy in the colours.

What about Fanatical Devotion or Martyr's Cause? Or are you just looking for creatures with a free sac outlet? Also, there is always Natural Order to get the hulk out quickly.

The problem with Fanatical Devotion and Martyr's Cause is that outside of either the boonwevaer or hulk combos, they are basically dead draws. On top of that, since the deck is designed so that the creatures form recusion engines and the outlets provide value, neither of those two work with any other combos in the deck. Basically they seem useless here.

Natural Order isn't bad, but my problem with it is that you have to sac a creature to get value. This means that from a worst case scenario situation, it is nowhere near as good as a Green Sun's Zenith which can help me get back in the game. The fact that it's limitied to only getting green creatures as well is frustrating. I know GSZ has the same limitation but it is easier to cast, recurable and forms part of a combo.

I was thinking about lines to get hulk working and the best two I came up with (without having to add a bunch of situational cards) were:

Option 1:

1. Play Saffi and Hulk.

2. Sac saffi targetting Hulk.

3. Sac Hulk to a single use sac outlet (e.g. High Market).

4. Saffi ability triggers. Bring back Hulk.

5. Resolve Hulk's ability, getting Reaper of Flight Moonsilver - (you need to have delirium on line).

6. Sac Hulk to Reaper. hulk's ability triggers, getting Karmic Guide.

7. Guide's ability triggers, returning Hulk.

8. Sac Hulk to Reaper, triggering Hulk and getting Reveillark.

9. Sac Guide to Reaper.

10. Sac Lark to Reaper, bringing back Saffi and Guide.

From here you can loop so that you get back Hulk who can fetch something like Inquisitor Exarch. This line is ok, but you have to have Saffi in play and delirium online before you start to combo. total mana required on combo turn: 7. Total number of added cards to the deck: 3.

Option 2:

1. Play Saffi and Hulk.

2. Sac Saffi targetting Hulk.

3. Sac Hulk to oneshot sac effect. Saffi ability triggers bringing Hulk back.

4. Resolve Hulk's ability, getting Stoneforge Mystic, Hidden Herbalists and Inquisitor Exarch.

5. Stoneforge mystic triggers, getting Demonmail Hauberk (you can technically use Grafted Wargear instead, but Hauberk is simpler)

6. Cast Hauberk.

7. Sac Hulk to Hauber, getting Karmic Guide.

8. Guide triggers, bringing back Hulk.

9. Sac Hulk to Hauberk, getting Reveillark.

From here you can form a loop with Reveillark, Karmic Guide and Demonmail Hauberk and looping Inquisitor Exarch for the win. Total mana required on combo turn: 9 (8 if you use wargear). Total number of added card to the deck: 4.

That being said, I personally prefer option 2 over 1 as the combo feels cleaner and doesn't impact the average CMC of the deck as much (plus Hidden Herbalists is good with Karmic Guide, Reveillark and Greater Good). Having a semi-tutorable sac outlet (on Hauberk) is not weak either. That being said, it's not the strongest sac outlet. Obviously the optimum Hulk line involves a sac outlet on a creature though. Without it, the lines are messy and there are a lot more dead cards in the deck than I would like to be.

I just feel like without access to cards like Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder that it feels too much like running Protean Hulk is trying to force it because it's a graveyard combo package and it can be good. But without the support to make it work it just feels too clunky as you have to add sub-optimal lines. Ultimately it's about evaluating a card in the context of the deck. If this were a Karador, Ghost Chieftain deck I would run it without hesitation, however here I don't think it's worth the slot. It's for the same reasoning that the deck doesn't bother with the Boonweaver combo.

I've actually never heard of Staffi Eriksdotter... What a gem! That card actually gave me an idea for a deck too, so thanks!

xXxFiR3FoXxX: Yeah, Saffi is pretty great. And I'm glad you like the deck. What's your deck idea?