buuchuu

There are several ways to do it but no matter the method you must have the ability to draw your deck and have infinite mana (staff of domination or flickering a fatty or flickering ewitness and a draw spell). So you go ahead and draw your deck.

One easy way:

• Play all your non-land permanents (now your hand is a bunch of lands / spells and you have memory jar in play. Let's say you have 50 cards in hand and none in the library.

• Tap scroll rack to set your whole hand of 50 cards aside (normally you'd take that same number from your library into your hand but since there is nothing in your library you don't take anything to hand). Note: you won't die from being unable to draw a card here because scroll rack doesn't "draw". Also note: your opponents can't kill you by forcing your to draw because Dosan is on the field. Now the 50 you set aside go to your library so you hand is 0 cards and your library is 50 cards.

• Now tap and sacrifice memory jar. You will set your hand of zero cards aside in exile and draw 7 from your library of 50. Your opponents will all set their hands aside in exile too and draw 7. Note: they can't cast any spells with these new cards because Dosan is on the field. So now your library is 43 and your hand is 7. Redraw your deck with Staff or Domination or whatever. Your hand is now 50 and your library is 0.

• Bounce ewitness with sabretooth or curio to get memory jar back from the graveyard. Replay it untapped.

• Use Nature's Claim or Reclamation Sage or something like that to blow up your tapped Scroll Rack. Bounce ewitness to get back Scroll Rack and Nature's Claim. Replay Scroll Rack.

• Now you're back at the start. You have a hand of 50, a library of 0, an untapped Scroll Rack and Memory Jar. Restart the loop by racking 50 from hand to library. Hand is now 0 and library 50. Crack Memory Jar to set aside hand of 0 and draw 7. Opponents exile their hand of 7 and draw 7 more. Repeat this loop until they have exiled all their hands and library.

@tw0handt0uch Thanks a bunch I understand where I was getting confused, its easy enough haha. Having tons of fun with the deck though! Going to treat myself to a Cradle for Christmas to finish up this list.

This deck is sick. Someone in my group plays it a lot. I don't see him win too often because this deck really sucks against hatebears (which is what I tend to play), but it's really neat to see this deck and it's really intrigued me. Suggestions:

You absolutely need to find room for Prey Upon. Prey Upon is pretty great in your deck since you're playing so many big cheap things.

You're already running Scroll Rack which is sick. So cut 4 forests, add Windswept Heath, Wooded Foothills, Verdant Catacombs, and Misty Rainforest. It's a marginal upgrade, literally the last things I'd add to this deck, but it can make a huge difference sometimes. Plus if you figure out how to fit in Sylvan Library and Sensei's Divining Top, they become even better.

Lightning Greaves.... definitely think it should be in the deck. But that's just me and my meta.

p0megranates we explain in the primer why we don't like the fetches in this deck. We don't run much synergy with them to make it worth the drawbacks.

As for prey upon, it's a fine card to add if you have a hate bears heavy meta. I'm used to a more artifact-based stax meta but definitely tune the removal suite to what you see in your local playgroups.

Greaves doesn't actually work very well as a piece of protection. It's a combo piece like crossroads as well as helping you recover. The thing is, you have to move the greaves off in order to untap Selvala with rangers and symbiotes, so people just remove her then.

It is very much up to the pilot to tune the list to suit their playstyle. For me, if I can go for a turn 3 and the coast looks reasonably clear, I'll go for it. But if it looks dicey or people are dropping stax pieces, I'll usually wait and take my time to be ready to pounce when the opportunity arises.

Prey upon is pretty sweet tech for creature metas. I like it quite a bit, sapecially since selvala herself can fight down most little bears like ethersworn canonist and teeg.

We updated the original list to include sylvan library (see update 1), and we've both been testing top in the flex slot. It's fine - not amazing but solid. I'm pretty confident we still don't want the fetches (at least for our meta) where we see a lot of blood moon, new thalia, and deathrite shaman.

I mean, I understand it's all meta dependent. I don't personally buy that the downsides outweigh the upsides in the typical EDH meta, and I think the reasons you guys give in the primer do not give a thorough and appropriately critical overview of the situation. Even the most popular cEDH Yisan list, Wanderer's Song, has a commander that literally shuffles the deck every turn and the deckbuilder decided to include the 4 fetchlands for additional Top/Library/Rack synergy.

I'll respond to a few of the reasons given in the outline:

• On Elvish Pioneer: If you have a fetchland, a forest and Elvish Pioneer in your opener, then just play out the fetchland, crack, then play Pioneer for the forest. Adding 4 fetchlands doesn't dilute the chances that you won't have a forest to get off Pioneer t1 to such a significant degree. Seriously, just do the math. The chances of getting 2 forests or more in your starting hand in your current deck, using a hypergeometric distribution with parameters N=99,n=7,K=25,k=2 is 56.8%. If you replace 4 forests with 4 fetchlands, the probability of ONLY getting 2 or more fetchlands and no basics is about 0.6%, and that's before I even throw into the mix the fact that, in the specific situation you're talking about, one of the other 5 or fewer cads needs to be an Elvish Pioneer so approximately multiply the results by 1/97, and almost certainly the number of times that fetchlands turn otherwise good hands into bad hands is so statistically irrelevant (less than 1/1,000) that it's not worth even bothering with.

• On Blood Moon: This deck has plenty of basic forests. Having a couple sources that taps for red isn't a big deal at all. It's only a big deal in that really odd scenario that your whole hand is just fetchlands (unlikely, and if you see a Daretti player then just mulligan that), and they play turn 1 Mana Crypt Mountain Moon before you ever play a land. That's like... really specific. Anyway, what we want to calculate is the probability that, if you're scared of Blood Moon turn 1 opener, that adding 4 fetchlands instead of forests makes an otherwise keepable opening hand really bad. The chances of getting 2 fetchlands in your opener is about 2.4%; but then multiply that by the chances that the other 5 cards in the hand formed an otherwise keepable hand. How many hands with at least 2 forests do you mulligan right now? 30%? 40%? Take 1 minus that amount, then multiply by 2.4%, and that's how often you'll feel screwed by adding fetches assuming you're always super scared of that super elusive turn 1 blood moon. All in all... not really a big deal.

• Speaking of math, deck thinning is.... statistically insignificant. The deck thinning is even less important than Pioneer, (which is already less than 1/1,000 in mattering for t1 hands). It's not a real advantage of playing fetches. For example, playing a fetch with 90 cards in your library increases your odds of getting any single card by.... 0.01%, or by a factor of one additional ten-thousandth.

• If someone responds to your fetch cracking by flashing Aven, they likely have bad threat assessment. If someone has an Aven out already, then don't crack the fetch until someone removes it. I understand that it's a concern, but it's a concern for most other people at the table except the guy who's gonna win. I think this is the most worrisome thing there, but not by so much that it changes whether it's worth running fetchlands.

• I think New Thalia and Deathrite, as you mention in your response to me, are legitimate concerns. Depending on how cutthroat your meta is or whether you're just playing the strongest deck at the table, adding fetches may not make that big of a difference on how much the Deathrite Shaman player can tap for mana? That's a judgment call I wouldn't be able to make. Again though, for the average EDH meta, it's probably not a huge deal.

If you're running Scroll Rack and you're trying to find an answer for my Linvala, Keeper of Silence and you don't see any in the top 5 cards of your library, you're going to wish that one of those Forests was a fetchland. That's all I'm really saying. The dude I'm sitting across from is doing OK but he's losing to Linvalas and sometimes Phyrexian Revokers even when he has a Scroll Rack out, which really shouldn't be happening. Of course, this is all from the perspective of someone who's goldfished your deck and has played against it and also beat it multiple times, but has not actually played it. I might not understand some of the nuances, but I do understand fetch+Rack pretty well, and I know what I would lose to when I'm playing against a mono-G deck.

At the end of the day, it comes down to how you weigh the synergies against the drawbacks. Those drawbacks are rare as you mention, but they happen and I would rather the chance be 0.

I don't have any experience with the deck in a heavy hatebears meta. At most I'll play against 1 hatebears deck in the pod and it is quite manageable. I am happy with the way the deck plays in the metas that I play in, but I have no doubt there are tunings better suited for other metas. Your friend should definitely try the fetches and see how much they help. My suspicion is that even with digging deeper with rack, the deck just won't be able to keep up with growing piles of hatebears from multiple decks. There are too many bears that cripple the deck - linvala, teeg, eidolon, spirit of the labyrinth, etc. If you double or triple the chances of those appearing with a multi-hatebears pod, there's a certain point where you have to concede that the deck is going to perform poorly in a given meta.

Ya i mean you make some good points pom - my sense is that,in total, the degree to which fetches will help is approximately equal to the degree to which they hurt if you look across a wide variety of metas. I'd encourage anyone to throw in and test... but the sample size of games would need to be quite large in order to see if it there is any significant difference.

Thanks for the feedback on my suggestion. Hope it didn't come off too critical or obstinate; I really love this deck and the work you guys put into it. This list actually inspired me to build a super-budget (<$90) version of the list here: Budget Selvala Mono-G Combo, and a slightly-higher budget ($155) list here: Upgraded Budget Selvala Combo (still lower than your budget list), although I haven't really gotten a chance to test the latter. Thoughts?

There is some pretty spicy stuff in there! Squallmonger is interesting in that it can kill mindcensor, hushwing, linvala and act as an outlet for infinite mana. I'd do anything I could to keep the big draw spells - not having memory jar and genesis wave really hurts. Some interesting stuff there fot sure. Let us know how prey upon works out. We've been experimenting with crushing vines.

tw0handt0uch squallmonger doesnt work against linvala, but its still pretty spicy. I'll have to checkout this list tonight.

Wow, this Selvala Deck is absolutely unique! I really appreciate and respect the effort you guys put in here. Awesome! I play Selvala myself but never thought of such interesting combos.Maybe two more suggestions I use myself. Since you play many small mana dorks which let your devotion run berserk you could consider Khalni Hydra as well. A creature that becomes cheaper as time goes by and may be cast for 0 or at least at decent cost. Also, Altar of Dementia seems to be another sweet win condition, for example together with Umbral Mantle. Keep the good work up! Def +1!!

ScrOuch we don't run khalni hydra because its too cost prohibitive t3/4 which is when we want to go off. Altar of dementia is a dead card and unnecessary. The deck has enough ways to win. The list is very tight and we cut as many situational cards as possible. All of our win cons also serve as combo pieces or protection/removal/recovery.

Thoughts on the new Rishkar's Expertise from Aether Revolt?

Rishkar's Expertise is a powerhouse and will almost certainly carve out a spot. I wish it was 5/4 instead of 6/5 so it could cast off of a turn 3 riftwurm / groundbreaker with spare mana to tap Selvala again if you draw into an untap- but even so, if you get this puppy to resolve you should win promptly thereafter.

Just gotta live the dream of rishkar's into soul's majesty for 12.

Do you think Walking Ballista will have a spot as a tutorable wincon?

I think we'd want to be careful - we're talking about outlets that are not useful unless we are already infinite. We would only want to add more if we are finding ourselves with infinite mana and nothing to do with it. We have 1 creature to deal with this already: duskwatch recruiter - which means that any creature tutor is also an outlet. We also have outlets in gwave, staff, and Selvala herself provided we can bounce the biggest creature repeatedly or cast any draw spell on a dude buffed to our library size. Swapping duskwatch for ballista would seem bad because then we camt tutor the wincon with green sun's zenith, summoner's pact, or natural order.

So I would say probably no spot for ballista. Rishkar's expertise on the other hand lools like ot has a lot of potential.

Do you have a mulligan guide for this deck?

Not yet, but it's something we can discuss and add in.

I just wanted to say, thank you for this primer and this deck idea. I've built a "budget" version of this deck mostly because I don't have the money cards (Gaea's Cradle).

This deck really took me by surprise. The speed at which it wins is mind blowing. The card draw power is incredible.

Once again, thank you for this awesome primer and deck idea!

Meut budget version is linked at the top of the primer. A friend also has a great budget list you can checkout here.

Thanks Meut !

We put a lot of work into the deck and have continued to tinker with it. Look for updates in the near future as we continue to improve it based on play experiences and new set releases.

Mmmmmmm, Briarhorn is a clever addition. I like it.

I knew that you were definitely doing to try out Rishkar's Expertise. Definitely looked like it had a place here when i saw the spoilers.