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Selvala - Overwhelm Them With Tokens!

Commander / EDH GW (Selesnya) Tokens

OttersaurusRex

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Land (36)

Creature (12)

Instant (14)

Sorcery (13)

Planeswalker (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Selvala, Explorer Returned

Enchantment (13)

Artifact (6)

Selvala, Explorer Returned

Behind every deck there is a story and this one is no different.

I was introduced into Magic and EDH with the Commander 2018 products, and more specifically the Estrid, the Masked deck, and I immediately got hooked. Now my friend who introduced me to Magic had been playing for just over a year at that point had between 10-12 decks... That means built approximately 1 deck a month! Because of this, I thought it was normal to think of a deck and within a month build the deck.

Fast forward about 5 months, I now have 6 decks, and all of them poorly built. I just kind of put cards together and thought yeah these look to work together right? Not just because I didn't have the disposable income for them, because we all know you can build very powerful budget decks, but because I was just trying to finish my decks so I could move on to the next project. I never really put in the time, the effort and the love to build a proper EDH deck, I would barely even play test them. So around this time, my friend who introduced me to Commander came over and we played one on one, and let me tell you...

It was a brutal night.

My friend was playing tuned decks and I was playing decks that would only start to work by turn 5 or 6 and only if certain pieces didn't get removed. I pretty much just watched him play Commander by himself for 4-5 hours while I was desperately trying to cobble something together on the board.

Now I don't blame my friend at all for that night, and if anything I'm grateful for it. The games we played were still a lot of fun because he got a ton of cool combos and value engines rolling, so it was really cool to see. But this led me to sit down and really ponder on my deckbuilding. I realized that I didn't actually like playing most of my decks, except Gishath, Sun's Avatar because who doesn't love big Dinos? So I decided to disassemble all of my decks, including Gishath though I promised myself I would rebuild him one day, and start from square one.

I scoured EDHREC for a while, checking the colour combinations that I enjoyed but couldn't find a Commander that popped out at me. So I just kept clicking on Random and looking at the Commanders that popped up, and finally, she appeared.

Selvala, Explorer Returned

I got hooked on Selvala immediately, and was amazed at how powerful she is. I believe she is one of the best if not the best Commander ever printed and I will try and convince you as to why.

To preface this section however, I do want to point I said best not most powerful, and best is relative, and to me she is the best and that is my opinion. I totally understand if you do not agree with me.

First off she's a 3 CMC Commander. Prior to this deck my main two decks were Gishath, Sun's Avatar and Niv-Mizzet, Parun, so when they got removed, I wasn't bringing my Commander back out for another four or five turns. But with Selvala, she can come out as early as turn two, but always on turn three! And you can replay her multiple times and still have Mana left over to do other things. This at the time was a big deal for me.

Second, the Parley mechanic. I love the Parley mechanic, because that's the type of Group Hug effects I love. I don't like when I play when my opponents get Mana screwed, because then it feels like a cheap win, and I didn't actually get to play Magic, I want to interract with people and their boards. But I feel normal Group Hug, or at least the ones I've played against, aren't very powerful. They give everyone around the table benefits, but they don't really benefit themselves anymore. So the other players battle it out, and the winner of those three players takes out the Group Hug player the next turn. But Parley, it gives everyone a card in hand, so if players haven't hit their land drops, or don't have a card draw engine set up, then this will help them out. But you get to ramp and gain life as well as draw the card! That's a pretty powerful effect in my opinion.

This last point is why I truly think Selvala is the best commander ever printed. When you put Selvala in the command zone against someone for the first time, they will have no idea what style of deck you're playing! Did you lean into the lifegain or the group hug? Or are you just using the ramp for big creatures or enchantements or planeswalkers or elves or wurms or tokens or something else that no one else has thought of yet? They don't know! And that's what I love. I can sit across the table from someone, and we both pull out Selvala, and our decks could have almost no overlapping cards in our two decks, and the way we pilot our decks could be vastly different.

I spent two weeks going on EDHREC and through my collection, imagining this deck and writing out deck lists to make sure I really wanted to make and play this deck. Once I decided I want to I spent four months gathering all the cards. Spent another two months, play testing and changing my deck, and now it is at the state you find it here. And of course, my work is not done, it is never done, I am always looking to improve the deck.

This is definitely one of my favourite decks to pilot. Every time I draw a card, no matter if I needed the card or not, I smile inwardly because I think every card in here is super cool!

I hope you enjoyed my story and I hope you enjoy my deck. I'd love to hear stories of how you got certain decks and experiences you've had playing Commander!

This deck aims to create a lot of tokens, gain life and wait until you have enough tokens to overwhelm your opponents or drop a Craterhoof Behemoth.

Seedborn Muse and "mana sinks" are very important to the deck. Seedborn Muse guarantees that you will be able to use Selvala every turn, but you need a way to use the mana that you get from her. So cards like Rhys the Redeemed, Ant Queen, Oketra the True, Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree, and other like that are all very important to advance the token aspect of the game plan.

As for the waiting, it's hard sometimes with tokens because you get a lot of tokens on the battlefield and by the net turn, your board may have been wiped. That's why protection cards like Teferi's Protection, Heroic Intervention, Lapse of Certainty, Sandwurm Convergence and others like this are so important. Other important protection cards include Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Mirari's Wake help by boosting your tokens, so it takes a little more damage to kill your tokens. In the same vein, Intangible Virtue is a sneaky good card, giving your tokens vigilance allows you to be more aggressive while still protecting yourself and your board.

Worse comes to worse, you can win with Aetherflux Reservoir. I generally don't like winning with it, but it's a last ditch effort win con.

I am not currently looking for help with this deck. I am very proud of this deck and wish to share it with the community.

That being said, if you do have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. Our pod is more casual, no infinite combos, not trying to win on turn two or three, we play tuned but not competitive decks.

Thank you for understanding! :)

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Date added 5 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

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

17 - 0 Mythic Rares

46 - 0 Rares

14 - 0 Uncommons

7 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.41
Tokens Ajani's Pridemate, Angel 4/4 W, Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Angel Warrior 4/4 W, Beast 3/3 G, Cat 2/2 W, Cat Beast 2/2 W, City's Blessing, Construct */* C, Copy Clone, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Elephant 3-3 G, Elf Druid 1/1 G, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Elf Warrior 1/1 GW, Emblem Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Human 1/1 W, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Insect 1/1 G, Plant 0/1 G, Saproling 1/1 G, Servo 1/1 C, Soldier 1/1 W, Soldier 1/1 W w/ Lifelink, Soldier 2/2 W, Spider 1/2 G, Spirit 1/1 W, Monarch Emblem, Warrior 1/1 W, Warrior 1/1 W w/ Vigilance
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