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Saskia Midrange Beatdown

Commander / EDH* BRGW

Odyssey

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Creature (44)

Land (37)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Saskia the Unyielding

Instant (8)

Sorcery (6)

Enchantment (3)

Planeswalker (1)

Maybeboard

Creature (30)

Sorcery (3)

Enchantment (1)

Artifact (2)

Overview

It's like someone shuffled up the standard bombs of years past with a hatebears deck. A midrange, face-punching deck that doesn't tolerate your deck's shenangians.

+Toralf, God of Fury

+Sarulf, Realm Eater

+Archon of Emeria

+Opposition Agent

Why Play This Deck?

  • You want to apply pressure and win through combat.
  • You like playing creature decks.
  • You like seeing your opponents squirm when you drop the perfect hatebear to shut them down.
  • You like decks with straightforward strategies but tactical nuances.

Why NOT Play This Deck?

  • You like combos (this deck has none).
  • You like spellslinger archetypes.
  • You don't like making enemies. Saskia points. Pointing makes an enemy.
  • You want a budget deck.

Saskia Pitfalls

I've seen a lot of Saskia decks. She supports a wide variety of strategies ranging from infect to aristocrats to human tribal, so there is no one correct way to build her. Still, many Saskia builds that focus on the combat step make some common deckbuilding errors. I'm going to cover a few below. Hopefully that'll make the reasoning behind my card choices clearer.

Common Saskia Deckbuilding Mistakes (regardless of strategy):

If your goal is to win with combat damage, you don't need a bunch of undercosted beatsticks like Zurgo Helmsmasher, Hydra Omnivore, or Vexing Devil. Saskia doubles the damage of any creature you connect with, so it's most important to connect. Big, non-evasive creatures will either get removed or blocked by the many value (i.e. disposable) creatures that a typical EDH deck plays.

If you are trying to smash face in the combat phase, prioritize reaching the face and not how hard you hit it. Non-evasive creatures should have some other important function: making mana, disrupting your opponents, providing card advantage, etc.

Board wipes exist. This deck and decks like are one reason they do. Even with creatures like Selfless Spirit you will still get your board reset from time to time. The more pressure you apply, the more your opponents will do everything they can to keep your board as small as possible. So accept it. Prepare for it. Be able to grind away card advantage while still applying pressure. Cards like Tireless Tracker and Vivien, Monsters' Advocate get this done.

There are several ways you disrupt your opponents. You could drop Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Vryn Wingmare and add more spells to deal with problematic opposing permanents. But without blue, dealing with opposing spells is tricky. White offers tax effects, which is one reason I've opted for more hatebears instead of spells like Mana Tithe, Disenchant, etc.

Regardless of your approach, you can't play solitaire. This deck has no combo win conditions. You have to respect what your opponents can do and slow them down long enough to drop their life to zero. Hatebears + Saskia + removal on blockers is an effective way to close out the game.

This is a 4 color deck that wants the option to cast a commander on turn 3 or 4. You can't play multiple cute utility lands that may be useful in some niche scenario. Your lands need to come in untapped and provide all your colors. Relying on untapped multicolor lands is possible if you are in a lower power playgroup, but I wouldn't recommend them. Figure out what your curve looks like and use a hypergeometric calculator to make sure you can hit your color requirements on time. Don't skip on lands - play at least 36 if your curve is similar to mine, and don't forget nonland mana sources either. Color fixing is important, so prioritize dorks and ramp spells that provide fixing. Elvish Mystic is a fine card in general, but here Avacyn's Pilgrim is better. If you can cast Elvish Mystic, you already have the first green you need. Avacyn's Pilgrim will give you the first white you need some percentage of the time.

I've omitted Zendikar fetches from this build to try to keep the budget under control. But if you have less budget constraints, adding more fetches is the logical next step.

EDH is a format with many powerful, cheap spells and it can be tempting to play lots of them in a four color deck like this. However, if your win condition is combat damage, you need to stay focused. You need bodies that can attack. Sure, Terminate is a great removal spell, but a lot of the time Flametongue Kavu will get the job done and leave behind the threat of 8 damage next turn. When 4 damage isn't enough, Ravenous Chupacabra should suffice.

"Defense is attack, attack is defense, each being the cause and result of the other." - Bruce Lee

You could play both Terminate and a threat like Leonin Warleader in your Saskia deck. One is great at defending, the other great at attacking. Or you could play a card like Flametongue Kavu and do both in the same card slot. It's not perfect in either attack or defense, but flexibility is valuable. In an aggressive deck that needs bodies to attack with, prioritizing creatures with powerful effects is a winning strategy.

Deck Revisions

Card Commentary

If you've had a look at the list you might have felt that something is missing. Something typically ubiquitous. There is, in fact, no Sol Ring in this deck. While Sol Ring should be in most EDH decks, it's worth re-evaluating the sacred truths of EDH from time to time. It's playable here, but not exceptional. I don't want to play cards that are just OK; I only want to play the best cards for their roles.

Sol Ring ramps. That's it. It does a very good job at ramping, but it doesn't provide fixing. It's also a noncreature, nonland card. And this build of Saskia cares a lot about creatures and lands. Creatures, even tiny mana dorks, can eventually deal nontrivial damage when Saskia, Elesh Norn, Gran Cenobite, or Fiery Emancipation hit the field. Sol Ring will never deal damage. Sol Ring will get taxed by my own Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Vryn Wingmare, but Birds of Paradise never will. I can play a mana dork off the top with Vivien, Monsters' Advocate, but not a Sol Ring. Deathrite Shaman gives me an extra color of mana for Faeburrow Elder, but Sol Ring doesn't. If I'm desperate for a 4th mana source, I can always Finale of Devastation for X=1 to find a mana dork, but Sol Ring isn't a valid target.

If you still aren't convinced by the above, consider the numbers. There are only 28 spells in this deck that are made more affordable by Sol Ring. Painful Truths and Woodland Wanderer. I counted Ghalta, Primal Hunger among those 28, but in practice the big dino is often just so Sol Ring doesn't help there either.

28/63 is only 44%. That's the percentage of the spells for which Sol Ring is potentially better than a mana dork. In practice, it's much lower. Not just due to all the reasons mentioned above, but also because mana dorks and Sol Ring are best in the early game. But the color requirements of this build are most stringent in the early game. Many of the spells that Sol Ring can help cast are too costly for a T1 Sol Ring to provide much of an advantage.

You can make the argument that casting two spells per turn, each with a colorless mana cost of , is still a good use of a Sol Ring. That's also true in theory. But in practice this deck doesn't often cast multiple spells per turn. It's a midrange deck. So the typical play pattern is something like: play a threat, then hold up removal/tutor/protection for an opponent's turn.

In some builds of Saskia Sol Ring might be an ok card. In this build it doesn't pull its own weight.

Will write later.

Will write later.

Aurelia + Gisela + Saskia. Also Combat Celebrant.

Will write later.

Card Groups

This deck does a pretty good job finding the right creature for the job.

  1. Worldy Tutor
  2. Eladamri's Call
  3. Chord of Calling
  4. Finale of Devastation
  5. Vivien, Monsters' Advocate
  6. Woodland Bellower
  1. Abzan Charm
  2. Painful Truths
  3. Eternal Witness
  4. Nissa, Sage Animist
  5. Radha, Heart of Keld
  6. Tireless Tracker
  7. Bloodbraid Elf*
  8. Elder Gargaroth

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Date added 7 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

19 - 0 Mythic Rares

50 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

6 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.24
Tokens Ashaya, the Awoken World, Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Treasure
Folders EDH Creations
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