Go BIG or Go Home!
So this is my build for Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant.
Had thought for a long time to do a mono- EDH-deck since I had got my mono- done (Check also Razaketh's Sacrifice Wombo Combo).
Pick for Commander
So why Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant as the commander? Well the whole idea for this deck came from the Ixalan card spoilers, when Thaumatic Compass
was revealed. I was watching MTG Goldfish's daily spoilers when I saw Seth talk about Thaumatic Compass
's synergy with Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant. After that I made a little research about other Sasaya-decks and immediately fell in love with the playstyle. Also one of the reasons was that I wanted a bit more unusual commander.
General Strategy
The whole deck runs around flipping Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant, which will give us a huge amount of mana. The amount of mana you get will be growing exponentially so you do not want to be stuck on three lands when Sasaya flips, as 3 lands produces 9 mana, 4 lands 16 mana, 5 lands 25 mana and so on. And because this isn't the fastest deck on the market we run a fair amount of artifact hate to slow down other players.
Card Picks
Land Fetchers
This is the key section for this deck to work, you usually want to have a couple of the following in you opening hand.
Greenseeker & Hermit Druid, give us repeatable land fetching with a small downside of discarding, which we mainly don't care about because of our Eldrazi-titans which shuffle our grave back into our deck.
Krosan Tusker & Yavimaya Elder, both have a similar kind of effect of giving us lands and card advantage. You can later in the game also sacrifice Krosan Tusker to Greater Good for even more card advantage.
Kodama's Reach & Cultivate, help us ramp for even more mana when Sasaya flips, while helping us flip him.
Gaea's Bounty, Journey of Discovery & Seek the Horizon, simple and sweet, search basic lands into our hand, after Sasaya flips you can also use Journey of Discovery's secondary mode for a massive mana boost.
Life from the Loam, a huge land fetch engine on it's own and as mentioned above we don't care that much of our non-lands going into the grave.
Abundance & Elfhame Sanctuary, both have the exactly same effect, give us the choice of getting a land instead of the usual draw.
Sprouting Vines, gives us great value after our opponent has cast a ton of spells on their turn, usually gives us 2-3 lands.
Journeyer's Kite & Thaumatic Compass
, a bit like Hermit Druid & Greenseeker, more expensive but while having no downside, you can also turn Thaumatic Compass
basically into a Maze of Ith if needed.
Card Draw & Tutors
As this deck runs a really high land count (a total of 47), we need as much tutors and card draw as we can to get to our hands on our win conditions when we flip Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant. These also help us find our answers for our opponents' more problematic cards.
Conduit of Ruin & Eye of Ugin, only function is to find our huge Eldrazi when needed, usually don't need the cost reduction from Conduit of Ruin but may come in handy sometimes.
Fauna Shaman, helps us switch our useless early game creatures into our endgame finishers. You can also use her to throw Eldrazi-titans from your hand into our grave and thus shuffle it into our deck.
Fierce Empath, great creature tutor as almost our every late game key creature costs more than mana, also works great with Bane of Progress.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, with the cast trigger drawing us cards, being a threat with the Annihilator 4 and shuffling our grave into our deck, this card fits really nicely into this deck.
Regal Force, good tutor target if many creatures on your board and cards needed, combos well with Avenger of Zendikar.
Green Sun's Zenith & Chord of Calling, great tutors as they bring creatures straight from your deck onto the battlefield, with Chord of Calling being more flexible as an instant and with convoke.
Harmonize & Soul's Majesty, plain card draw, as this deck runs many big creatures Soul's Majesty can easily draw you 6+ cards.
Tooth and Nail, will talk about this card more later as it is our main combo-engine.
Greater Good, turns our useless creatures into card advantage, as our creatures a pretty big we often draw way more cards than the three that we have to discard.
Summoner's Pact, mana for any green creature into our hand, one of the best tutors for , only play when sure to win on that turn or to be able to pay the cost on your next upkeep, which rarely is a problem for this deck.
Worldly Tutor, great tutor to either play on your opponents turn or before your drawstep.
Garruk, Primal Hunter, we mostly play it for it's -3 ability (which is basically a Soul's Majesty), but has flexibility if we need blockers fore some reason, we almost never ult him as he usually dies immediately (via our own or opponent's hands).
Removal
As mentioned in the beginning, this deck runs some removal (which is mostly artifact removal) as this deck isn't fast enough to outrun all the aggro and ramp decks dwelling in the world of EDH.
Acidic Slime, a staple for being able to eat artifacts and lands, is also a great blocker as it has Deathtouch.
Bane of Progress, as artifacts and enchantments are really popular in EDH, this card is almost a must have in any deck that doesn't depend on them.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger & Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, as removal being one of 's greatest weaknesses we run both Ulamogs, both being awesome removals and big threats that are hard to get rid of. Also Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre helps us shuffle our grave back into our deck.
All Is Dust & The Great Aurora, as doesn't have that many panic buttons, we have to include those that are decent, and as we have many really big drops The Great Aurora can win us the game.
Song of the Dryads, single handedly kills decks that run around one creature or creature combo. As it turns the creature into a land, it will be really hard to get it back into creature form.
Scavenger Grounds, helps us against decks that run around grave synergies.
Beast Withing, like a mini Terastodon, but this time it may target anything. See that Kozilek on the other side of the table? Not anymore. And for comfort it's controller gets a 3/3 beast.
Krosan Grip, basic artifact/enchantment removal. Split second really helps to get through those counter spells.
Win-Cons/Combos
This is the section where Tooth and Nail really shines. For only we get to search any two cards from our deck and put them onto the battlefield. Many of them utilize the decks two Haste outlets, Concordant Crossroads & Akroma's Memorial, you only play Crossroads if you know you will win this turn. Otherwise it can backfire very badly. These are the combos I find most useful:
-Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth + Haste outlet, gives you a ton of huge Trample creatures, also works without a Haste outlet if you get the Plant-tokens to survive.
-Avenger of Zendikar + Kamahl, Fist of Krosa + Haste outlet, you can use your massive mana pool to make your Plant-tokens huge via Kamahl, Fist of Krosa's ability.
-Kamahl, Fist of Krosa + Masticore, basically you make your opponent's lands 1/1:s with Kamahl, Fist of Krosa and then ping them with Masticore killing them.
-Patron of the Orochi + Temur Sabertooth + Haste outlet & 15+ basic lands (11+ basic lands if Temur Sabertooth is already on the battlefield, 4+ basic lands if Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant is flipped), generates infinite mana.
Things to do with Infinite Mana
-Use Temur Sabertooth to bounce one of the following infinitely: Acidic Slime, Craterhoof Behemoth, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. Any of these will probably win you the game.
-Use Kamahl, Fist of Krosa's ability infinitely, making your creatures infinitely big.
-Cast an infinitely big Genesis Wave putting all of your permanents from your deck onto the battlefield.
-Make an infinitely big Omnath, Locus of Mana, give it trample and one player is out.
Also Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or Blightsteel Colossus with Haste will probably end the game pretty quickly.
That's the deck, still all open for suggestions and will answer to your questions as fast as possible. Hope you liked it and if you did please go give it a +1
