Have you considered writing down play lines for Green Sun's Zenith. it's basically a more mana intensive summoners Pact (you can go of with 20 mana, less if you have a creature with 5+ power)

In theory you could go off with Chord of Calling t0o but I've never had that happen.

Dunadain green sun shuffles in after use so you can't do the same types of ewit loops as pact. Chord you could but it's so mana intensive that I'm not sure a walkthrough is value-added. Most of our effort lately has been focused on trying to make sense of Rishkar's Expertise and Paradox Engine - both are exciting and powerful but might be "win-more". If any pilots have experience with these 2 new cards please let us know.

Missed that, thanks!

P.S. in my, albiet small, testing Expertise is a shoe in, haven't tried Paradox yet

Something interesting I discovered in playtesting: once infinite mana has been generated off of Umbral Mantle or Great Oak Guardian, if you have access to Temur Sabertooth either by having the card in hand or a tutor for it (but not if it is on board with Great Oak Guardian), you can bounce Selvala to reduce her back to her original P/T in order to play out the creatures needed to draw the deck.

Along similar lines, the cat is itself an infinite draw engine once you have infinite mana, as long as you can bounce a creature with greater power than it or Selvala.

Yes, the flickering creatures to draw your deck line is extremely common. This is mentioned in the primer. Also, typically the sabertooth is what is flickering great oak guardian, so you usually need to tutor out duskwatch recruiter to draw all your creatures, play phyrexian dreadnought to sacrifice your temur sabertooth to the dreadnought etb trigger, play ewit to get back sabertooth, then flicker all your creatures to reset their p/t and from there just flicker a fattie to draw your deck.

I realized afterwards that the flickering was all over the primer. I feel less than bright now. Dreadnought to sacrifice as a way around the indestructibility is a great call.

What are your thoughts on Paradox Engine?

It's really good from what I've tested since you keep untap Sel whenever a spell is played which can lead to easier wins.

Enral I'll copy a response I sent to somebody on reddit.

Interesting that you say that - paradox engine is a card we've had a lot of discussion about as it pertains to Selvala. It's obviously powerful and does synergize with Selvala's strengths but it's hard to figure out exactly what role it plays. Basically if you have gas in your hand, PE is amazing because you untap with each spell and string huge mana together; but if you have no gas you just dump your hand onto the field and are done. It can't really take the spot of Cloudstone because you can't use it to repeatedly bounce a fatty and draw your deck. On the other hand it makes for some crazy plays. For instance, let's say at the start of turn 3 you have Selvala on the board with Llanowar Elves and you cast Lupine Prototype with Summoner's Pact and Paradox Engine in hand. Tap Selvala for 5, play Paradox Engine, play Summoner's Pact for Eternal Witness to hand (0 mana in pool), untap everybody. Tap Selvala to float 5 mana, play EWit (2 floating) return Pact to hand, untap everybody. Float 5 (7 in pool), play Pact fetching Temur Sabretooth to hand (12 in pool). Play Temur Sabretooth to untap everybody (8 in pool). Activate Sabretooth to bounce and replay EWit, returning Summoner's Pact....repeat to fetch Great Oak Guardian for infinite mana (Turmurcat and GoG make inf even w/o Paradox), Pact for Duskwatch, draw all creatures, bounce/replay a fatty to draw deck with Selvala and win.So basically it helps with some crazy plays but it's not obvious if it's just "win-more" meaning we woulda won already anyways. Still testing it out and I'll let you know when we get more experience.Cheers.

tw0handt0uch: I see where you're coming from...perhaps Glimpse of Nature/Garruk's Packleader might remedy the situation of running out of gas?

@Enral Hope I'm allowed to interject here. I have both played and played against this deck a lot, and while it does sometimes run out of gas, adding things for value instead of speed just makes the deck far slower and more inconsistent which is antitheical to the goal. It's better to go all in on the fast combo, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but the slower you play the less likely it actually even works to begin with.

Glimpse of Nature is worth considering but when you're comboing off you usually want to save mana for other things, like a big Genesis Hydra or GWave, and when you're not combing (e.g. commander is dead) it's hard to get value off it unless you have dorks in your hand (which you should have already played...?). Also, Garruk's Packleader is far worse than Elemental Bond, which is already a sketchy card since it requires you to play bigger things. If the deck is low on steam, Cream of the Crop is by far one of the best additions, but the list here is already pretty tight for space and it doesn't slot in too well.

With all that said, Harmonize is a card I've come to enjoy in my budget Selvala list, and a guy at my LGS plays the budgetless list and swears by Regal Force. But part of what makes Harmonize decent, at least for my budget version (probably not good in this one), is that it is a simple unconditional draw card-- works whether you're comboing or not. And Regal Force works because it is a draw spell that can be tutored by creature tutors and gets instant value with a few elves out.

p0megranates: Thanks for your input, that makes sense.

Enral yeah after quite a lot of testing with paradox engine, both myself and tw0handt0uch have concluded that it is a winmore card. It rarely has any effect on your ability to win.

This list is great. I "borrowed" about 5 card ideas from this list for my omnath list land my deck is significantly faster because of it. I am no longer a skeptic. Selvala is definitely tier 1.5

I have a question about one of the wincons. The section where you loop steps 3 to 7, steps 6 and 7 both use eternal witness. I may be missing something but how do you get her back to your hand to re use her?

darkartorias

To get ewit back to hand you use Temur Sabertooth's bounce ability or Cloudstone Curio.

Enral p0megranates

Well, after more testing it would seem that Paradox Engine may have found its way into the deck. The reason for the change is not necessarily the synergy with Selvala (which is quite nice) but actually its utility with Duakwatch Recruiter and Yisan. Previously, Duskwatch was a tutorable infinite mana outlet that you never really wanted to draw. But with Paradox Engine and a few cards in hand, you can pull a creature with Duskwatch, play it to untap your dorks/Selvala, then activate Duskwatch again, repeat.

Likewise, Yisan can execute long chain with a few cards in hand to power it. A common chain might be Quirion Ranger on verse 1, Scryb on verse 2, Fierce Empath on 3 fetching Great Oak Guardian, Temurcat on 4, Stag on 5, Bellower on 6 Fetching Duskwatch.

Yay! I love that card, pretty clever abuse to.

That makes sense. I've found the Yisan chains to be pretty gross with Quirion/Wirewood and Scryb Ranger making it so easy to climb to 3, and that definitely sounds like it makes hitting 4 a lot easier (which is the point where you can go infinite with Temur).

Oh crud. I'm running a version of Selvala without Fierce Empath since it seemed awfully mana intensive, but I honesty never even considered that Fierce Empath gets Great Oak Guardian on 3 with Yisan... Well dang, I've been missing an obvious synergy this whole time.

Fierce empath also gives you a line to an 8 power body by going woodland bellower for empath for great oak guardian or fierce empath for woodland bellower for wirewood symbiote bouncing empath and empath for great oak guardian.

Yeah I know; I just always found it a bit mana intensive considering my <$100 budget version doesn't play Berserk, Phyrexian Dreadnought, or many creature tutors to be honest which makes it harder to explode with mana. Although I've been talking it over with another (budgetless) Selvala player and it seems like Fierce Empath is a good inclusion for my version, along with Regal Force for a 3rd Fierce Empath target + more (tutorable) draw. Alright, woo hoo, I got something out of this comment thread. Thanks y'all.

Glad we could help.

Great deck guys!

Have you considered Sword of the Paruns to go off with Selvala?

I realize the sword probably has too high CMC and equip cost, but if you're finding you could use another version of Umbral Mantle in the deck then it could help.

Yes we did have sword in initial testing. Didn't like it very much but it's alright. Usually card draw is the bottleneck, not mana.