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Skulduggery - A Sen Triplets Updated [Primer]

Commander / EDH* Primer Theme/Gimmick WUB (Esper)

caantpayrent

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Land (35)

Tutor (6)

Utility (3)

Ramp (16)

Steal From Opponents (11)

Removal (4)

Extra Turns (2)

Commander (1)

Commander: Sen Triplets

Defence (11)

Draw / Card Advantage (9)

Flash Speed (2)

Maybeboard

Utility (7)

Draw / Card Advantage (2)

Land (1)

Steal From Opponents (1)

Ramp (2)

Tutor (1)

I've tried breaking down the deck into relevant categories so that someone who is thinking about Sen Triplets , or is just browsing for a new commander will have all the information they would need to know if they should use Sen Triplets and if they are what are some of the things that they can do with in this build.

Some sections (E.g Cards not included) are much larger than others as some areas of Sen triplets are very open ended.

And lastly if you have any suggestions or questions ask me below...I'm always looking to improve and refine my brews.

In this build we are combining the old with the new (Who doesnt love EDH), This deck is optomised to focus on;

1 - Creating Sen Triplets Value

2 - Stealing our Opponents Things

3 - Aggressively Ramping

We aren't running towards combo or infinte wins, We instead will win by taking the best things on the field and from our opponents hands and using them against their owners!


  • Average CMC : 3.42

  • Ramp : 15 - Artifact based, allows us a solid and sonsistant paradox engine aspect.

  • Land : 35 - I think 36 would be better but we have agresiive artifact ramp and will use our opponents hands so 35 is fine.

  • Steal From Opponents : 15 - This was orginally around 25 but as the deck became tight we had to make cuts. 15 very good options.

  • Traditional Removal : 3 - Depends on how you see Removal, We have so many theft options and the ones that take perms from the board also work as removal.

  • Defence : 10 - We need to have defence to keep the heat at bay, I think this could be a little higher..Cutting things at this point would be real tough though.

  • Utility : 11 - This includes both Flash and Extra turns, 11 is a little high but due to the nature of using our opponents things we need to be ready for a wide variety of situations.

  • Tutor : 6 - We're only running the best 6 that fit with what we're doing, Most of the time we will using our tutors to find Rhystic Study early..

  • Draw : 4 - This is the traditional draw we have, But if you think about card advantage from Sen triplets or the options that steal our opponents best things then its a little higher.


The play style of this sen triplet deck can best be summarised as random, We rely a lot on our opponents to win, and how we win is a combination of taking the best things on the field and denying those same best things to our opponents. Sen triplets is the a good deck for you if;

  • 1 - You like being flexible and adapting to the table

  • 2 - You enjoy not knowing how your going to win or even play

  • 3 - You like talking and trying to make friends, (Sen works best with some political grease)

  • 4 - You enjoy picking your moments well, You prefer a good tempo play to an all out war

  • 5 - If you want a commander that encourges build feedom then definitely Sen Triplets is for you.


I'd suggest a different deck if;

  • 1 - You enjoy Sequential and defined lines

  • 2 - You want to combo off, early and you enjoy going infinite

  • 3 - You like to go on all out wars every turn..maybe look at Boros or Goblins

In general the best Sen triplets decks are when the pilot knows how and when to pick a spot to make a move, and how to get things done without making the table turn on them, IF you think you do this well then Sen triplets will suit your style.


We currently have included 15 cards that will directly steal our opponents things, This category could easily have been 30 or more but in order to try and balance ramp, and Sen triplets goodies we had to pick carefully. Some of the really powerul options that will steal opponents stuff are;

  • Steal Enchantment - Deceptively soo strong, Think of how many games have been won by some insane enchantments, and for 2 mana we can get it. so very very good. Could not recommend this more

  • Bribery - Oldie but a goldie. Think 5cmc It That Betrays , or Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

  • Blatant Thievery - 7cmc is a lot, and we should be playing very powerful spells this isn;t just about getting 16 to 20cmc worth of stuff for 7, but we also deny our opponents of some of their best things.

  • Treachery - we pay 5, get the best creature on board and then untap 5 lands...this can even ramp us with some of the bounce lands we have.

  • Dimir Doppelganger - Interesting creature removal from GY but for 3cmc we can take the best creatures in the bin

  • Gilded Drake - only 2 cmc, this is such value...not to mention we do have some bounce in our deck to make this reusable.

  • Expropriate - 9cmc is High, But this as you may already know is a game winner, Worst case scenario we get 3 perms..best we get 3 turns.

  • Corrupted Conscience - Think 5cmc and turn a big beater into Blightsteel Colossus

  • Knowledge Exploitation - On the high side of cmc but it can find us the answer we need when we need it

If youve never used Sen Triplets before..Firstly youre in luck as you have found this deck!, Secondly there's a few game play things that are a little unique to Sen. These are Mana Fixing for all 5 colors and Keeping our opponents hands full.


So when we're lucky enough to be using Sen on our opponents we will be casting all 5 color types so we need to make sure we have the ability to cast WUBRG otherwise we will get much lesser value from Sen. It needs to be said we can play lands, Ramps and artifacts from our opponents hands and many times this can be super crucial to both getting the right colors and ramping us.

The options we've included in the deck to ensure we have WUBRG when needed are;


Keeping hands full The other part of sen triplets that gets mentioned a lot but at first I disregarded (to my loss) is the important to have things in our opponents hands so we can actually play something, Its such a feels bad if we get to untap with Sen and have only 2 cards in our opponents hands. The options we have to help this are;

  • Tidespout Tyrant - 8cmc is high but this can be part of a combo, we arent building around combo this is used to send back big threats that we need off the board, The win con with this (if you want it) we need Paradox Engine, + artifact ramp, we cast a low cmc perm, untap all ramps then use Tidespout Tyrant to bonce our perm back to our hand, this loop will create inf mana then we can cast all the spells in our opponents hand, and as we cast a spell in our opponents hand we bounce something they control...and then repeat.

  • Jace Beleren - Great blue option, We draw or we can give the table a little hug and we all draw

  • Cyclonic Rift - Yup the card that everyone runs and everyone hates,

One option not included that many use

  • Capsize For 6cmc we get a reusable bounce spell, this was cut as its a little high but with enough mana this is a win con.

As I got more and more use to playing Sen and this deck the early to mid game goal of this deck became a clear, The order of priorities for us;

So ramp in EDH is obviously the life blood of so many decks, and more than most this deck needs mana, all decks get better with more mana but some get exponentially better with more mana and exponentially struggle with less...and this is the sen triplets theft dynamic we are facing.

With in the deck we have included 15 artifact based mana ramp, 14 of these are traditional rocks and the 15th is Paradox Engine We aren't building around infinite combos but we have got the potential by over lapping synergies. but being able to generate a high amount of mana really cerments the value of the deck. we want to bounce things at times so Tidespout Tyrant has the ablity to go infinte with paradox, also we are running Isochron Scepter so even thouugh we wont often win this way it is included, Most of these are standard artifact ramp, These are;

Rhystic Study is so good with in this brew it alone deserves a priority, getting this our turn 3 or 4 will keep our hand full into the end game, this will make everything better... we will be holding more protection, more ramp and will have the right theft card. if we cant get to this with one of our tutors then Jace Beleren will get some value.

An exmaple of an early line of play that we would want to play would be;

This is how alot of my openings go, I want to be getting Rhystic Study out as soon as possible.


So anyone who plays knows how strong instant speed interaction can be, but due to the nature of this theft build we can create situations that are amazing for us with the added benefit of flash speed.

The downside to this is it slows down how fast out we can get sen triplets, and depending on the way the game is shaping out i can be forced into skipping this part. The scenario we are working towards is being able to cast Sen triplets just before we untap and then we can continue un disrupted.

an added benfit is that our thefty cards like Steal Enchantment , Corrupted Conscience or even in a pinch Empress Galina become funny as hell..I've on many times stolen a Smothering Tithe in response to a wheel, or just after someone has paid 7 for Zendikar Resurgent paid 2 and taken it for myself.

This is the hardest aspect of the deck to plan for, We rely a lot on our opponents so as you play sen more this becomes much easier to play well but we have some solid single card value creators in the deck as well as some potential ways to win with what we have and not using our opponents things. Value


In this brew we have a few interesting cards that can provide some extra juicy just on their own, the ones that havnt been mentioned already are;

  • Narset's Reversal - Can be a 2cmc copy the best instant on the stack, 5mc for Time Warp add 2cmc and we have Time Stretch value..this can also go under Isochron Scepter to give us infinite turns or be able to copy our spells each time we play them

  • Paradox Haze - For all sen decks, we get to pick two opponents and use two other hands...super value

  • Clever Impersonator - is there a mana doubler on board? or has someone got a big scary creature? we get a copy for 4cmc

  • Rite of Replication - Great blue option...turn 1 threat into our army

  • Neurok Stealthsuit - Instant speed protection, excellent for keeping out things on board.

  • Blatant Thievery mentioned a few times, and at 7cmc is high but as you get to know how to play this, its amazing! Its about takng the 3 most important things on the field with one card. It may be we take a mana doubler and 2 commanders. We have little use for the 2 commanders but we deny our opponents from using them and with the doubler can have enough mana to explode forward.


These are the ways to win with just our things, This method isnt the most efficient way as we arent really working towards these but they exists so;

Infinite Mana

We use to run paradox engine and in this brew it was amazing, we have replaced with Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter not as good but viable.

...we have outlets for infinte mana such as Memnarch or Knowledge Exploitation which isn't a sink but will find the mana sink

We can use lots of options to make our infinite mana Win, we have the tutors, we have Archaeomancer

Infinite Turns

Infinite Bounce

These wins are much more efficient when we add the ability to use our opponents things..Ive almost never used these to win, I have used the Infinite Turns before but thats about it. Rite of Replication for 9cmc on something huge has been used many times

Sen Triplets being such an open commander there are lots an lots of options that could easily be included, These are the main ones that I considered; and some of the reasons I left them out;

In order to balnce all aspects of the deck we had to make some tough cuts, the ones that could easily go back in are;

  • Celestial Dawn - One of the most sen triplets cards ever, The reason this was cut is we have a good amount of mana fixing that ramps us, and if we dont rely on the mana fixing as much than this has a lot less value, Still for any budget options this is amazing.
  • Smothering Tithe - One of the best ramp options, We're leaning into the artifact based ramp so we cut this to make paradox engine lines a bit more consistent
  • Desertion - Counter + control, 5cmc is a tad high but the value is real.
  • Grand Abolisher - Gives us ultimate protection for our turn...
  • Path to Exile - I never like ramping someone else, + id rather steal the threat but its still so good
  • Brainstorm - fix our early draw, cut for space
  • Mystic Remora - Its amazing, but we needed space and Rhystic Study is a much better long term option for us in this deck
  • Ponder - Great early fixer but we needed space
  • Alms Collector / Notion Thief - did someone just play a Wheel? or Rishkar's Expertise ..I love to flash these in and disrupt the big combo turn.
  • Unwinding Clock - With all our artifact ramp this was in till the very end, We don't have a ton of need for instant speed casting, We have some but this was cut for space
  • Show and Tell - We have some big cmc boys but in the end I think we dont have enough to justify this, although this work very well with Blatant Thievery

These are the extra defence card choices i considered, Sen will need to have protection sopicking the right options is crucial to a good brew.

  • Desertion - This made the top contenders, Only cut as its 5cmc and we needed space.
  • Grand Abolisher - This also made the top contders list, only 2cmc..this should probably go back in.
  • Arcane Denial - Classic and the downside of ouropponent drawing 2 isnt so bad as we need them to be hoding things to use
  • Swiftfoot Boots - Great clasic option, but we are running Neurok Stealthsuit and Lightning Greaves so ended up being cut for space. We don't need / have space for 3 and given the brew I think the instant speed equipping of Neurok Stealthsuit gives it the edge.
  • Rewind - I really like this option, but a little to often we are running right for mana, and when it count most we want to not be holding two mana when we need more.
  • Unwind - The excct same reasoning as above,
  • Aethersnatch - Great fun option, But its a little slow and requires too much mana being held open, If i was playing in a slower group then id cut one of the spiky defence options for this
  • Spelljack - Similar to Aethersnatch , My meta is too fast for this. but in a slower group this would be better.
  • Ashiok, Dream Render - Super spikey and tough defence option, if i get angry and want to be spikey then this will find a spot
  • Aven Mindcensor - Same as above but not as spikey, I love flash imo people underestimate the advantage of tempo mis steps,

Sen Kicks in at the start of our upkeep, so if we want more sen triggers we want more turns, we're running 2 extra turn options but could have included all of these, theyre are just pure value. although they will make the table turn on us, so its important to be realistic about the table dynamic.

We are running a ton of ramp, but some options that didnt make the list are;

  • Smothering Tithe - Best Ramp option for almost any deck with white and not in green, but we are building into Paradox engine, and we want to focus on sen triplets gettng out and we cant tutor to this and focus on sen, so it was cut, still amazing though..
  • Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - Both ramp for us, and tax for our opponents, but cut as cmc is awkward with our plan and we needed space
  • Prismatic Geoscope - Cut for space and its just a little on the high cmc side (so is Gilded Lotus but)

We're are running super low traditional removal, but if you consider theft as removal then we have a decent amount of fragile removal, as we had to make sacrifices get the theft options in we had to cut some pretty strong removal options, These included;

Similar to Removal, We had to make some tough cuts and Sen triplets gets to use opponents cards, so we can get by without as much draw, The result of the low draw is we need to activiely play towards either getting Rhystic Study out or being as aggressive as possible to get a Sen Triplets trigger, most of these we're purely cut for space;

  • Brainstorm - Love it but cut for space, Made the top contders list
  • Mystic Remora - Same as above had to cut for space, Made the top contders list
  • Ponder - Make that 3peat, Cut for space
  • Blue Sun's Zenith - Strong blue option
  • Phyrexian Arena - A little on the slow side, if its not in our opening hand we'd have to tutor for it, so on the majorty of the games its drawing us maybe 1 card by turn 5, just awkward.
  • Alms Collector - This is a defenisve option that i like for tough metas
  • Narset Transcendent - Same as above
  • Whispering Madness - We hve 1 wheel, and maybe we dont even need that, but if you like to wheel then heres another option
  • Finale of Revelation - This is a little too much win more for my meta, but if you play in a slower meta than this is problably a good option.
  • Timetwister - Can somone say proxy?..cough cough i mean cmon now.

Utility options are my favourite part of a well built deck, there are some real beauties in the deck and in here;

  • Telepathy - Perfect option for Sen as we can see what our opponents are holding, but they dynamic of our opponents ont able to make secret plans will turn their attention to us, and as much advantage as we get from this id say we lose overall as its brings some decnt heat and we dont want that, we want to be unnoticed.
  • Mirage Mirror - such flexibility, but cut for space
  • Show and Tell - Made the top contenders list, Probably should be in the deck, but I wanted more ramp.
  • Phyrexian Metamorph - If you like clone options than this is for you.
  • Unwinding Clock - Made the top contenders list but we needed space.
  • Emrakul, the Promised End - Right on theme...but too high on the cmc side for our brew, and if we're going off with paradox engine then we've probably lready won so its win more.
  • Jester's Mask - funny and on its own can end an oppenents game, its a little feels bad so i cut it, but with Sen Triplets we can make sure they hve the perfect cards for us to use, This would be better in an artifact build of Sen trips imo.
  • Mindslaver - Oldie but a goldie, Good option and if we had a artifact build then this would be a good option
  • Master Transmuter - If we wanted to cut back on Theft and build into artifacts then this is a gold mine, it also makes the options above instantly added, but thats not the build we have.
  • Capsize - I know this is a win con with infinite mana but we aren't often going that line and its just a little too slow for a one time use bounce 1 thing.
  • Dramatic Reversal - Strong and part of a ton of infinte combo's that are in the deck, But i don't want to run infinite combos for the sake of it.

These are the options that could be added if you want to increase the non Sen triplets theft aspect of the deck; Some of these are really strong but were cut just for numbers;

Sen triplets is one of the most open non 5 color commanders thats been printed and as a reult there is tons of builds that are viable; I dont normally recommend this but in this situation https://www.edhrec.com/commanders/sen-triplets and looking t the different themse will help you decide whoch theme is for you. Specifically though I've linked 3 different versions of builds other people have made below;


Firstly Sen can be very non budget luckily you have Commanders Quarters to the rescue, They have done the research and published a $25 Sen brew.

  • The Video can be found here Youtube Vid

  • The Deck list can be found here Deck List

  • I like this as its a very current brew, only at the start of this year..and its quite a nice little brew and considering the budget its amazing.


While I'm on the content creators vibe Jumbo Commander has published a sen deck tech, My only hesitation is that it's 2 years old at this point so it should be taken as a startig point only.


lastly we have a cEDH..esk brew**, If building for power and more power is your thing then this will help.

deck chart

Power Sen

Commander / EDH* TorinoAK

SCORE: 5 | 1301 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS


  • Well the first major update is Paradox Engine is out and Dramatic Reversal is in, I had avoided Revesal as its too much with paradox engine for me, but now that we had that taken from us its in..

  • If you have a suggestion or question ask below, After I finalise a brew I like I'm almost always looking to keep it fresh and strong.

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Revision 5 See all

(4 years ago)

+1 Arcane Signet main
-1 Clever Impersonator main
+1 Expropriate main
+1 Forbidden Orchard main
+1 Frantic Search main
+1 Gateway Plaza main
-2 Island main
+1 Lotus Field main
+1 Mystic Remora main
-1 Paradox Engine maybe
-1 Plains main
+1 Rupture Spire main
-1 Swamp main
+1 Transguild Promenade main
Date added 5 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

11 - 0 Mythic Rares

43 - 0 Rares

20 - 0 Uncommons

14 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.95
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Spirit 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders 2019 - Non Combo Can Hang with the Big Boys - My current Favourite Decks
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Thievery & Skulduggery - A Sen Triplets [Primer]
caantpayrent EDH
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