Selvala's Lifegain Beatdown

Commander / EDH

Skydra2

Beatsticks (11)

• 1x Ajani's Pridemate
• 1x Angelic Accord
• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Karametra, God of Harvests *f-etch*
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Omnath, Locus of Mana
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Serra Ascendant
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Terastodon
• 1x Voracious Wurm

Combo (2)

• 1x Archangel of Thune
• 1x Spike Feeder

Enablers (10)

• 1x Archangel of Thune
• 1x Armadillo Cloak
• 1x Concordant Crossroads
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Overwhelming Stampede
• 1x Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1x True Conviction
• 1x Vedalken Orrery
• 1x Yeva, Nature's Herald

Lands (33)

• 1x Brushland
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Forbidding Watchtower
• 5x Forest
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 11x Plains
• 1x Razorverge Thicket
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Saltcrusted Steppe
• 1x Selesnya Sanctuary
• 1x Stirring Wildwood
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Temple of Plenty
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wirewood Lodge
• 1x Wooded Bastion

Lifegain (6)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Beacon of Immortality
• 1x Essence Warden
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Soul Warden
• 1x Soul's Attendant

Protection (5)

• 1x Asceticism
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mother of Runes
• 1x Privileged Position
• 1x Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant  ^Flip

Ramp (13)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Burgeoning
• 1x Concordant Crossroads
• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Karametra, God of Harvests *f-etch*
• 1x Mirari's Wake
• 1x Omnath, Locus of Mana
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Selesnya Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Recursion (3)

• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Skullwinder
• 1x Sun Titan

Removal (11)

• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Aura Shards
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Cataclysm *list*
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Terastodon
• 1x Terminus
• 1x Wrath of God

Synergy (3)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Well of Lost Dreams

Tutors (4)

• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Untaps (6)

• 1x Instill Energy
• 1x Magewright's Stone
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Umbral Mantle
• 1x Wirewood Lodge

Win (3)

• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Storm Herd
• 1x Test of Endurance

Commander (1)

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Maybeboard

Other (38)

• 1x Academy Rector
• 1x Ageless Entity
• 1x Armada Wurm
• 1x Auriok Champion
• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Blade of Selves
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Cloudthresher
• 1x Crush of Wurms
• 1x Divine Reckoning
• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Gaea's Revenge
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Hallowed Burial
• 1x Hokori, Dust Drinker
• 1x Hydra Omnivore
• 1x Luminarch Ascension
• 1x Nylea, God of the Hunt
• 1x Oath of Nissa
• 1x Oreskos Explorer
• 1x Primal Command
• 1x Realm Seekers
• 1x Righteous Confluence
• 1x Solitary Confinement
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Steelshaper's Gift
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Sword of the Paruns
• 1x Tempt with Discovery
• 1x To Arms!
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Verdant Confluence
• 1x Wall of Reverence

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Selvala's done with politics, and she's ready to give you all the cards and life she can to beat face! Welcome to Selvala's Lifegain Beatdown!

Watch your life total soar to levels unbeatable without commander damage. Meanwhile, feed off your lifegain with creatures such as Ajani's Pridemate and Voracious Wurm for big beaters to smack your opponent in the face.

If the situation requires it, go infinite with Archangel of Thune and Spike Feeder, giving you as much life as you please and an arbitrary number of counters on all your creatures. Or, simply protect a Test of Endurance or Felidar Sovereign.

Game Plan

The goal of this deck is to get our girl Selvala, Explorer Returned on the field, hopefully with hasty protection with Lightning Greaves. With untappers such as Instill Energy, Wirewood Lodge, and Umbral Mantle (the latter of which can go pseudo-infinite if there are enough players feeding you enough nonlands), generate tons of and life.

Meanwhile, its time to drop some bombs like Ajani's Pridemate, which is helped by an early Soul Sister (Soul Warden and similar cards, for the uninitiated). Selvala's lifegain makes Pridemate and Voracious Wurm generally must-answer cards that are fairly low on the curve, allowing you to play around them with protection like Asceticism (regeneration helps too) or Lightning Greaves. A huge Pridemate, Wurm, or possibly Omnath, Locus of Mana means Overwhelming Stampede or Pathbreaker Ibex can boost Selvala and weenies like the Soul Sisters to win-levels.

Alternatively, there's always the option to go infinitely huge with Archangel of Thune and Spike Feeder. This combo gives any number of +1/+1 counters to each of your creatures, and as much life as counters. The Archangel is still and awesome play without Spike Feeder, although without the Angel Spike Feeder might be a dead card. Whatever, just discard it, Selvala's gonna be refilling your hand more than enough.

Finally, Felidar Sovereign and Test of Endurance are must answers for your opponents. Even if dealt with, they feed out removal and can be recurred with Eternal Witness and Skullwinder, which can in turn be recurred by Sun Titan.

Support

This deck once looked to get a ridiculous life total and not much else, and though I've changed the focus of the deck it still can reach insane levels with Beacon of Immortality, Soul Sisters effects, and Scavenging Ooze. Alhammarret's Archive also doubles both lifegain and card draw from Selvala. Storm Herd, while providing us with LOTS of flyers, has the additional effect of doubling (or tripling, or quadrupling?) your life total if you have one or more Soul Sisters out. Now lets drop an E-Witness and do it again!

A far as tutoring goes, I have neglected to include the Survival of the Fittest/Fauna Shaman+Genesis tutor engine, because it simply doesn't fit where I want to go with the deck. However, I included one-off tutors for useful lands, creatures, enchantments, and lands that you can refer to the decklist to see. My reasoning is, though I don't want to seem ultra-competitive with Survival/Fauna Shaman, there are a lot of nice pieces in the deck that give me a huge edge.

Ramp such as Exploration (that flavor), Burgeoning (best ramp card in Commander IMO) and Birds of Paradise are mostly there for the early game to get out Selvala and her support. Oracle of Mul Daya and Courser of Kruphix synergize far too well with our returned explorer to be overlooked, when you get her on the field. A few other nice pieces like Karametra, God of Harvests and Gilded Lotus help our lategame, especially if Selvala is dealt with.

The removal package of this deck is pretty extensive, both to deal with opposing win-conditions as well as threats to our beaters. Aura Shards, with the right hand, makes it difficult for your opponents to maintain their non-creature board state or artifact ramp, while Krosan Grip snipes them uncounterably. Meanwhile, we have the usual exile effects such as Path to Exile, and Beast Within is a jack of all trades, master of none.

In addition to sweepers such as Wrath, love it or hate it, mass land destruction is a part of the game. I've included card:Armaggedon to hit mana-bases hard while leaving our own ramp alone. Selvala recovers pretty quickly from dropping this, but save your producing lands if you know you're gonna drop it. Later plans for the deck include the addition of a Cataclysm as well, with maybe a Ravages of War in a far off future where I actually have money.

Politics, Playgroup Considerations, and More

One thing I've learned is, though life totals aren't even too relevant when your opponents can reach the magic number of 21, Having 300 life or more (it does happen even without the Archangel/Spike Feeder combo) can turn heads a bit. Voltron decks may be venerated by a table as they turn their aggro towards you, and more controlly decks are gonna notice when you're tutoring up a win-con like Felidar Sovereign. Sometimes its best to fly under the radar for a while by establishing a firm but non-threatening field position with cards like Asceticism and helpful artifacts. Usually Soul Sisters just aren't threatening enough to take removal either, allowing you to build that life total.

Some people may know Selvala as an Elfball commander, a competitively viable strategy: this deck isn't trying to win tournaments, but its still strong in many playgroups. Depending on power-level of a table, you could drop cards such as Felidar Sovereign, Test of Endurance, and the Archangel/Spike Feeder infinite combo in order to tune the deck to the preferred power level of a playgroup, as can massive lifegain enablers like Beacon of Immortality that pretty much counter a Timmy strategy.

Eventual Acquisitions

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: Holy shit, double anthem that also sweeps weenies and weakens enemy creatures? At worst, if uncountered, you kill a bunch of enemy creatures before she gets hated off the board.

Cataclysm: Hits everyone pretty hard, but leaving Selvala alive with some supporting artifacts and enchantments, along with a producing land for fixing, leaves us in a much better spot. Deals with a lot of different strategies your opponents may be using such as land ramp, hordes of creatures, or loads of artifact ramp.

Gaea's Cradle: While not broken in this deck compared to Elves or the like, its still a very strong land that's almost always tapping for at least .

Privileged Position: Another Asceticism basically, but one that affects all other permanents, not just creatures. Despite the lack of a regeneration clause, it might even be stronger since it protects our myriad of supporting and even game-winning artifacts and enchantments (avoiding Strip Mines and the like is pretty sweet as well).

Date added	9 years
Last updated	8 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 0 Rares 26 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.43
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Beast 3/3 G, Elephant 3/3 G, Pegasus 1/1 W
Folders	Owned Decks