Introduction
Do you like drawing cards?
Do you like gaining life?
Do you like ensuring everyone at the table plays the best game they can, but your game is just a bit better?
Selvala, Explorer Returned is my favorite commander, and I hope this primer can help sell a deck I haven't really seen that often in all the years I've been running her. If you enjoy synergistic decks that can be political while holding their own, then I highly recommend you give this a read.
This deck aims to accomplish three things:
- Gain life.
- Protect yourself.
- Fly under the radar.
Most people don't realize how much (asymmetrical) value Selvala brings to the table. For you get card draw, explosive mana, and a 'group-hug' effect that will let opponents who might be inclined to target other more oppressive life-gain commanders give you a pass in exchange for some group hug card draw.
And there will be card draw.
When you're activating Selvala multiple times per turn (any turn), you can quite easily find any answer to just about any board state, and put yourself in a position to close out the game quite quickly.
The Plan
This deck lives and dies by the state of the board. The symmetrical card draw that Selvala provides means other people will be going online, and while you have the tools to ensure it never gets too out of hand, most of your lines of play will involve protecting your board state while manipulating others' to be good...just not good against you. Did an opponent drop a big beat-stick down on turn four? Armadillo Cloak. Is the Voltron player giving you the side eye? Divine Presence. That token deck getting out of hand? Ghostly Prison, Island Sanctuary, Mystic Barrier.
The best part about Selvala is that, while everyone else is going crazy off the cards you're letting them draw, the added value of life and mana means you're in an exponentially better position than they are.
Ways to abuse Selvala, Explorer Returned are:
- Tapping her multiple times per turn with Magewright's Stone, Thornbite Staff, Thousand-Year Elixir, Umbral Mantle, Wirewood Lodge, Awakening, and Seedborn Muse.
- Turning your into even more card draw with Well of Lost Dreams, then turning your hand into a source of significant lifegain with Venser's Journal.
Now that Selvala is up and running, how do you win?
Lifegain. It's in the title for a reason. Selvala can reliably net you several life per turn all on her own--and that's a just a net benefit that occurs while you're drawing your other pieces. Serra Ascendant is ridiculous, and needs no introduction. Along with Serra Avatar, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, and Engulfing Slagwurm, you can get significant lifegain from the likes of Loxodon Warhammer, Armadillo Cloak, and Heliod, Sun-Crowned.
Aside from these beat-sticks, you also have plenty of ways of taking your lifegain to the next level. This package includes Rhox Faithmender, Alhammarret's Archive, and Boon Reflection. As lifegain is traditionally a rather tenuous strategy in EDH (see: Sorin Markov), we need to make all this life work for us. This is where our raft of 'lifegain utility' cards come into play. Archangel of Thune buffs your creatures, while Speaker of the Heavens, Griffin Aerie, and Angelic Accord churn out even more reliable blockers and beaters. This package is where Trostani, Selesnya's Voice really makes her presence known.
You can easily net enough life in a couple turns to bring your bog-standard win-cons online. These are: Felidar Sovereign, Test of Endurance, Aetherflux Reservoir, and Angel of Destiny. The first two need no explanation: set up your board with enough mitigation to last a turn (Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Asceticism, Divine Presence, Island Sanctuary, etc.) or simply wait for the blue player to tap out and resolve Teferi's Protection (then extend a handshake). The second two, however, can be quite a blast. A fully operational Aetherflux Reservoir is a terrible sight to behold, and turning Angel of Destiny sideways at players, then seeing them realize what exactly it is she does, are moments this deck was built to crescendo around.
Finally, some notable "key" cards are:
- Aura Shards, to deal with oppressive enchantments and incur even more value from your creatures.
- Invincible Hymn, to recover from early game aggro or a particular nasty hit.
- The boardwipe package of Divine Reckoning and Fell the Mighty, which are asymmetrical enough to allow you to hold on to Selvala while clearing most of your opponent's threats.
Conclusion
This is not, by any stretch of the term, a "competitive" deck (even outside of CEDH), but it is fun, and interactive, and in the right hands has enough gas to have some pretty explosive finishes. Its notable weaknesses are to combo, permission decks, and anything that can target you in the early game (this is where the politics come in). Lifegain is, in general, widely regarded as one of the weaker EDH archetypes, but what I love most about this deck is that it elevates the game of everyone at the table, and in turn just makes for great games all around. At no point piloting this deck will you have nothing to do, and the 4D chess of planning out future board states and navigating threats is both rewarding and engaging.
