Seance Tokens [Primer]

Commander / EDH Blink Goodstuff Populate Primer Reanimator RGWU Tokens Tokens

DrDoomBlade

Lands (34)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 2x Forest
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 2x Island
• 1x Jungle Shrine
• 1x Ketria Triome
• 1x Littjara Mirrorlake
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 2x Plains
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sweepers (4)

• 1x Cataclysmic Gearhulk
• 1x Hour of Reckoning
• 1x Phyrexian Rebirth
• 1x Subterranean Tremors

Toolbox (2)

• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Fauna Shaman

Value Creatures (13)

• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Cloudblazer
• 1x Coiling Oracle
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Mirrorhall Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Omnath, Locus of Creation
• 1x Prime Speaker Zegana
• 1x Progenitor Mimic
• 1x Seasoned Pyromancer
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Timeless Witness

Ramp (9)

• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Springbloom Druid
• 1x Three Visits
• 1x Wood Elves

Non-Creature Enablers / Engines (7)

• 1x Flameshadow Conjuring
• 1x Mimic Vat
• 1x Mythos of Illuna
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Seance
• 1x Tamiyo, Compleated Sage

Modal Double-Faced Cards (4)

• 1x Ondu Inversion  ^Flip
• 1x Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip
• 1x Shatterskull Smashing  ^Flip
• 1x Turntimber Symbiosis  ^Flip

Raw Token Value (2)

• 1x Dragon Broodmother
• 1x Koma, Cosmos Serpent

Commander (1)

Instant-Speed Interaction (10)

• 1x Endurance
• 1x Ephemerate
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Repudiate / Replicate
• 1x Restoration Angel
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x Sublime Epiphany
• 1x Sundering Growth
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Creature Enablers / Engines (8)

• 1x Adrix and Nev, Twincasters
• 1x Bramble Sovereign
• 1x Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer
• 1x Hofri Ghostforge
• 1x Rhys the Redeemed
• 1x Riku of Two Reflections
• 1x Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• 1x Trostani, Selesnya's Voice

Removal-Based Creatures (6)

• 1x Angel of Serenity
• 1x Cavalier of Dawn
• 1x Foundation Breaker
• 1x Knight of Autumn
• 1x Skyclave Apparition
• 1x Solitude

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Deck Origins And Focus

This deck has been a pet project of mine for many years. What once started out as a casual "exile matters" deck, revolving around using Pull from Eternity and Riftsweeper in conjunction with creatures like Misthollow Griffin and Eternal Scourge, I aimed to get value out of exiling permanents with cards such as Seance, and some valuable mass-exile effects like Descend upon the Sinful. After some playtesting, I realized that Seance on its own was powerful enough to build a deck around it in its own right, and moved away from the exile theme. Its power comes from one innocuous little word on the first line of text: "At the beginning of each upkeep." This allows us to autonomously cash in on our value creatures turn after turn while freeing up our mana, letting us play out our turns as normal and/or leave up interaction while gaining some additional value in the late game after our board has been swept a few times.

After some (bad) brews with the deck that didn't function when I never drew Seance, or had nothing in my graveyard when I did draw it, I began to looking for all of the effects in magic that mimic Seance. In the past few years, the magic gods have been kind to this deck, providing Feldon of the Third Path, God-Pharaoh's Gift, and of course the more widely known Mimic Vat (and everyone's favorite goblin, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker). My next step was finding cards that synergized with the plan of creating tokens of specific creatures, as we aren't interested in making an army of 1/1s here. We of course have the standard Anointed Procession and Parallel Lives that accompany all token decks, as well as an innocent little mechanic from Return to Ravnica called populate, present on spells like Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, Sundering Growth, and Ghired, Conclave Exile. These seemed to be the most commander viable of the bunch, as the other spells are either too narrow in effect, were obviously made for limited, or too slow (Growing Ranks and Song of the Worldsoul come to mind).

Populate allows me to create one additional token of a token I already control, so if I had a Storm Crow token that say my Mimic Vat created, I could create an additional Storm Crow token. What's interesting with all of the token doublers and populated tokens is that they don't actually get the clause that exiles or sacrifices the token at the beginning of the next end step. So say I Mimic Vat a Storm Crow and then cast Sundering Growth and populate my Storm Crow token. The first one that was created with the Mimic Vat would have to be exiled at the next end step, but the populated one stays! This plays into the key gameplay loop I hope to achieve with the deck:

1. Create creature token.
2. Copy creature token.
3. Value.

The Tools Of The Trade

Okay so we have some creature tokens. What do we do with them? Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer can turn all of our plant tokens from Avenger of Zendikar into copies of a Sun Titan we just reanimated with our God-Pharaoh's Gift and swing with a dozen vigilant giants. Or perhaps we'd like to convert our board into the 5/5 wurm tokens created by our Armada Wurm and trample in for victory. But lets say we need to take to the skies, so we convert all of our tokens into copies of our Mimic Vat copy of Restoration Angel! No matter which direction we take, Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer helps craft a game winning board state using the very tokens we seek to create throughout the course of the game.

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In order to fuel up our graveyard to turn on our engine pieces like Seance and Feldon of the Third Path, we have several options. Greater Good makes great use of our expendable value creatures that we cast early game to get their ETB effects, then sacrifice them to draw into our engine pieces and discard our juicy Seance targets. Altar of Dementia doesn't let us draw into our value cards, but it does serve to fill our graveyard extremely efficiently, while also acting as another free sacrifice outlet to be able to fill our yard on demand. Both of these allow us to set up a creature under Mimic Vat at any time we choose, making it extremely difficult for our opponents to know what we are going to do. This ability to pull the trigger when we want to gives the deck an incredible amount of flexibility, and ensures we never have to act without full information.

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We can divide our 7 main engine pieces into two different categories:

1. Triggered abilities Seance, God-Pharaoh's Gift, Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer
2. Activated abilities Feldon of the Third Path, Mimic Vat, Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

While the deck may be named after and built around Seance, our triggered ability engine pieces are limited in their potential because of their timing restrictions. Seance can only trigger on every upkeep, and has no use during any other phase. God-Pharaoh's Gift and Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer only trigger at the beginning of combat, meaning you can't cast anything shy of an instant once their abilities resolve before you have to go to attackers, limiting their effectiveness. These are real drawbacks that you will experience in game, but are offset by their autonomy. Once they're out on the field, they will work their magic free of charge until they're dealt with, and that more than merits their inclusion. The activated ability engine pieces also have their upsides and their downsides. For one, Feldon of the Third Path and Trostani, Selesnya's Voice both are creatures that don't have haste, meaning you can't even utilize their abilities the turn you play them. And with Mimic Vat, something on the board has to die in order to turn it on. On top of that, these three all cost 3 mana and need to tap to activate. But all of these cards are worth their drawbacks because the upside for each of them is being able to get that creature you need at instant speed. This lets you Feldon of the Third Path back a Torrential Gearhulk at the right time to counter a spell, or Swords to Plowshares a problem creature at a key moment. Or maybe you just need to survive a lethal attack so you copy a Thragtusk and block to keep you alive. The potential interactions are limitless, and the utility these activated abilities give you more than makes up for their drawbacks.

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And then there's Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. All the upside with none of the downside. Oh how we both love and hate you, Kiki.

The Creatures

Goodness me, I've been going on about how to use our creatures this whole time without even mentioning what they do!

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With such a large cardpool to choose from, and such a limited number of slots in any given deck, some creatures just aren't gonna make the cut. For this deck, creatures are heavily judged by their ability to either accelerate our engine, or have great "enter the battlefield" abilities. You have your classic commander staples with Mulldrifter, Cloudblazer, and Prime Speaker Zegana to draw some cards, Reclamation Sage, Knight of Autumn, and Acidic Slime to blow up pesky artifacts and enchantments, and Solemn Simulacrum, Elvish Rejuvenator, and Avatar of Growth to ensure we get ahead on mana. Perhaps you just want to put some power on the board with Armada Wurm and Avenger of Zendikar, or get some repeatable value with Glen Elendra Archmage and Woodfall Primus. Or if you're crazy enough, you can clone your Woodfall Primus with cards like Phyrexian Metamorph, Dack's Duplicate, Progenitor Mimic, or Altered Ego to cash in on the destruction, then sacrifice your clone with Greater Good to churn through your deck. Oh, and did I mention that when a clone with persist dies, it return to the battlefield, but you get to choose what to clone all over again! So you can just copy your Woodfall Primus or Glen Elendra Archmage again, or you can copy a Mulldrifter, or a Restoration Angel, or even an opponent's commander! The creatures are truly the life-blood of the deck, and will set the pace for every game you play. Sometimes you draw all of your ramp and engine pieces and go off on turn 4. Sometimes you draw only interaction and the wrong half of your engine. This is where our commander comes in.

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Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis. If you don't have some big engine piece to set up, or some ramp to play on turn 4, our commander is always available to us, and helps to set us up for a stronger late game. Having 8 toughness is no joke, typically steering all early to mid-game aggression away from us and toward another player who can't block as easily. Also getting to draw a card and ramp on each of your turns is an incredible effect. I can't count how many times my hand didn't give me something to do on turn 4 so I just set out my commander and let the value flow while I got to Growth Spiral for free each rotation. Granted, our opponents get some bonuses too, but that also helps to divert attention away from us. People don't want to kill the player who's drawing them extra cards.

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A lot of the appeal of this deck is your ability as a player to judge the flow of the game and play to that power level. If everyone else at the table is playing budget/janky decks, you can use your tutors to get innocent cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Mulldrifter, and use your clones to copy your opponents creatures and play to the power of the table. On the other hand, if your opponents are playing more competitive, cutthroat decks, you can aggressively search for interaction and combo pieces. If your meta doesn't hate on graveyards enough, you can play from your graveyard with Eternal Witness, Sun Titan, Emeria Shepherd, Karmic Guide, and Reveillark, while reusing your spells with Snapcaster Mage, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, and Torrential Gearhulk. Or perhaps your meta is very control heavy and you need to be able to react at all times with Restoration Angel and Torrential Gearhulk with our selection of spells. No matter how you choose to play the deck, it has game in almost any playgroup.

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Speaking of spells...

The Spells

I've constructed the entire spell package of this deck around two cards: Sunforger, and Spellseeker. Sunforger is an amazing little equipment that lets you search through your deck and cast red or white instants with CMC 4 or less at your leisure. Every instant in the deck (minus Cyclonic Rift) can be searched up with Sunforger. Being able to cast Rootborn Defenses in response to a board-wipe is fantastic, as is having a Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile in your back pocket. My favorite of the bunch is Suffocating Blast, which is a cheeky little counterspell + removal spell you can cast off of Sunforger. When we get late game with hoards of mana, we can Sunforger for Eladamri's Call and fetch up any creature we want at instant speed. This means we can respond to a spell by unattaching to get the call, call to get Torrential Gearhulk, Snapcaster Mage, or Restoration Angel, and mess with our opponents plan when they thought we were out of action. Sunforger is so powerful when built around, that the whole table will team up on you if you have even a remotely threatening board to go alongside your molten hammer. Sunforger gets even stronger in conjunction with a little land called Mistveil Plains. It's a plains, so you can fetch it up with the white fetchlands, but most importantly, you can activate it to put a card from your graveyard on the bottom of your library. This means that you can tuck your Suffocating Blast back into your deck in response to a spell, and then unattach Sunforger to search up the blast and keep countering their spells. Or you could buyback some artifact/enchantment removal, or perhaps repeatedly tutor up utility creatures. The power that this one little land provides is unbelievable when you put it context with Sunforger and creature tutors like Eladamri's Calland Imperial Recruiter.

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Did I forget to mention that Imperial Recruiter has 21 targets in the deck? One of those targets is Spellseeker, the instant/sorcery version of Imperial Recruiter. Spellseeker works great in this deck for several reasons. She can grab any creature removal spell in the deck, any artifact/enchantment removal, or even Farseek if you're desperate for mana. She can also grab two board wipes in the form of Martial Coup, because while it's not on the stack, X=0 making it a 2 CMC spell, and Cyclonic Rift. But what really puts her over the top, is the fact that she can tutor up Eladamri's Call, meaning she can grab nearly every instant in the deck, as well as every creature in the deck with the call. This also means Imperial Recruiter can also get Spellseeker, and can therefore get most any spell out of our deck too. Now, going down this path leads to lots of tutoring, and lots of shuffling, which may not go over well with the table, so be forewarned, but the option to do so is there. I personally cut several other tutors from the deck, as well as trimming on some fetchlands to reduce the amount of shuffling and time-wasting I do, and so I mostly avoid doing large tutor chains like this, though I did go through an absurd tutor chain once to find a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to finish a 2 hour long game that had no end in sight.

Thoughts

I love this deck. It is a project that I've poured endless hours into, theory crafting and playtesting, along with slowly blinging out over time. I think the one card I haven't mentioned yet (aside from the standard ramp spells) is Perplexing Chimera. That card is just hilarious. Overall, I think this deck is a real contender at a table, but isn't tuned to be an absolutely tier 1 competitive deck. I've opted to exclude some cards from my build because the power they bring to the table might turn too many heads my direction, with cards like Gilded Drake having a hilarious interaction with Feldon of the Third Path and all of those similar effects, and Luminarch Ascension just creating so much power so quickly for essentially free. Survival of the Fittest is another upgrade you can make, but I didn't include it because of how degenerate it can be, in addition to how long the tutoring will take in a deck that already has plenty of tutors.

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I've talked with friends who ask why I don't just lean further into the reanimator portion of the deck and play black, giving me access to The Scarab God, which would benefit this deck greatly. It'd allow for just some great value creatures like Grave Titan, Massacre Wurm, Rune-Scarred Demon, Phyrexian Delver, and all of the other staple black ETB creatures. But in the end I've always decided to leave the deck as is. I like how I have a reanimator package in a non-black deck. I also like how my deck has such a unique identity that would get muddled into the land of 5-color good stuff if I added black.

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I hope you found something interesting to take home with you from this! Any and all comments and suggestions are welcome in the comment section below, and if you have any questions to me or any questions about the deck, feel free to ask. Below is a list of the cards that I have playtested with and found that they underperformed or were a cut from the deck for one reason or another. +1s are appreciated, and I hope you have a fantastic day!

Second Harvest Clone Legion Rampaging Baloths Angel of Serenity Blade of Selves Stoneforge Mystic (too few targets, even though it gets Sunforger) Mystic Remora Fauna Shaman Ojutai's Command Growing Ranks Skullwinder Deadeye Navigator Warstorm Surge Enlightened Tutor Idyllic Tutor Mystical Tutor Arcane Artisan

A few closing notes: I'm disappointed by Divine Visitation because it replaces the tokens I'm making. I'd be so much happier if it made them all base power and toughness 4/4 with flying instead. I really wanna try out Flameshadow Conjuring and Bramble Sovereign. They seem like they're right up my alley, I just don't know what to cut. Same with Riku of Two Reflections. I also really need to cut Descend upon the Sinful for Hour of Reckoning.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	35 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 8 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.91
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Dragon 1/1 RG, Elemental 1/1 R, Elf Warrior 1/1 GW, Golem 3/3 C, Illusion */* U, Koma's Coil 3/3 U, Lizard 8/8 R, Horror */* C, Myr 2/1 U, Plant 0/1 G, Spirit 1/1 C, Tamiyo's Notebook, Timeless Witness 4/4 B
Folders	Interesting Ideas