Your Sass Is Grass! (Sasaya Combo) *Primer*
Commander / EDH Combo Forest Infinite Combo Lands Mono-Green Primer Snake Snow Tap/Untap
Land (50)
- 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
- 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
- 1x Buried Ruin
- 1x Cavern of Souls
- 1x Dryad Arbor
- 1x Echoing Deeps
- 1x Fabled Passage
- 1x Glacial Chasm
- 1x Maze of Ith
- 1x Misty Rainforest
- 1x Myriad Landscape
- 1x Petrified Field
- 1x Prismatic Vista
- 1x Reliquary Tower
- 26x Snow-Covered Forest
- 1x Talon Gates of Madara
- 1x Thawing Glaciers
- 1x Thespian's Stage
- 1x Underdark Rift
- 1x Urza's Cave
- 1x Urza's Saga
- 1x Verdant Catacombs
- 1x War Room
- 1x Windswept Heath
- 1x Wooded Foothills
Sorcery (6)
Creature (19)
- 1x Argothian Elder
- 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
- 1x Bane of Progress
- 1x Blossoming Tortoise
- 1x Burnished Hart
- 1x Dosan the Falling Leaf
- 1x Elvish Reclaimer
- 1x Eternal Witness
- 1x Hermit Druid
- 1x Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
- 1x Magus of the Candelabra
- 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
- 1x Realm Seekers
- 1x Sakura-Tribe Scout
- 1x Timeless Witness
- 1x Veteran Explorer
- 1x Wakeroot Elemental
- 1x Walking Ballista
- 1x Yavimaya Elder
Instant (9)
Commander (1)
Artifact (14)
- 1x Armillary Sphere
- 1x Candelabra of Tawnos
- 1x Expedition Map
- 1x Malachite Talisman
- 1x Oblivion Stone
- 1x Perilous Vault
- 1x Phyrexian Portal
- 1x Planar Portal
- 1x Ring of Three Wishes
- 1x Rings of Brighthearth
- 1x Scroll Rack
- 1x Skullclamp
- 1x Skyship Weatherlight
- 1x The One Ring
Enchantment (1)
Maybeboard
Sorcery (9)
- 1x Animist's Awakening
- 1x Ecological Appreciation
- 1x Hurricane
- 1x Journey of Discovery
- 1x Scapeshift
- 1x Skyshroud Claim
- 1x Splendid Reclamation
- 1x Sylvan Scrying
- 1x Wildest Dreams
Creature (7)
Land (8)
- 1x Dark Depths
- 1x Deserted Temple
- 1x Field of the Dead
- 1x Mouth of Ronom
- 1x Scrying Sheets
- 1x Shifting Woodland
- 1x Strip Mine
- 1x Tranquil Thicket
Instant (6)
This is one of my favorite paper decks and probably what I play most often. The whole idea is to get 7 lands in hand to flip Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant into Sasaya's Essence, which effectively squares the mana we get from basic lands -- 6 basics = 36 mana. Then use this massive mana to close out the game as decisively as possible.
Why play Sasaya?
You hate missing land drops, love powerful combos, love mono green, want to get around 'no infinite' rules on a technicality (just remove the Wakeroot Elemental and the deck is entirely exponential not infinite), and you enjoy kicking back, playing somewhat passively, and not posing a threat until ready to combo off. Like an ambush predator 🐍
Why not play Sasaya?
You prefer to have interaction available most of the time, you don't like combos/they are frowned upon in your playgroup, you don't want to have to do math, don't want to memorize some semi-complex lines, don't want to rely heavily on your commander to win, or your friend is playing Nekusar and Sire Of Insanity
Here's a detailed gameplan.
--- Early Game ---
Sasaya starts off slow and unassuming, playing out basics and low cost setup cards like Veteran Explorer, Elvish Reclaimer
, Life from the Loam, Armillary Sphere, Endless Atlas, Hermit Druid and Yavimaya Elder. Yavi is one of the best cards in the deck to progress our gameplan and often will be the optimal target for Green Sun's Zenith. Thawing Glaciers is another great setup card that combos with Candelabra of Tawnos/Magus of the Candelabra/Sakura-Tribe Scout to generate free land drops every turn. It's usually better to pace ourselves and keep lands in hand as opposed to dumping them with Azusa, Lost but Seeking, but we want to work toward the 6, 7, 8.. basics needed in PLAY as well.
--- Preparing to go off ---
We need 7 lands in hand to flip Sasaya, and we will need at least 6 basics in play, (though it is possible with 5) to reasonably go off. Approaching 7 lands in hand will inevitably cause us to reach the hand limit. Problem is we still need room to hold our wincon. Reliquary Tower is a solution, but playing nonbasics is usually counterproductive. We want as many basics in play as possible. The deck is built to deal with this, providing instant speed means of putting lands to hand on our opponent's end step, allowing us to start the turn with extra cards in hand and go off. Some cards that do this are Armillary Sphere, Sprouting Vines, Realms Uncharted, You Happen on a Glade, Yavimaya Elder, Thawing Glaciers, and Sylvan Library. Anything that nets you a card at instant speed, like War Room and Endless Atlas can do it, or having 6 lands and a wincon then drawing a 7th land works too.
--- Going off ---
To go off, we start by casting Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant . This can be protected with Cavern of Souls or Dosan the Falling Leaf. Dosan and Sasaya are both Monks, fun fact :) I've found, unless your friends already know the deck's capabilities, there usually isn't much need to protect the snake. Sasaya generally doesn't seem all that threatening on its own, and so usually resolves. Players also expect to be able to use creature removal on us, however we are able to activate the flip ability again in response and still get our mana. Try to leave as many basics as possible untapped for AFTER we flip. As soon as Sasaya resolves we reveal our hand, and after a successful activation we will have a Sasaya's Essence. Our basics will tap for X where X is the number of basics we control. With 6 lands out, having tapped 3 to cast Sasaya, we'll be able to make 3x6=18 mana. With 7 lands, that's 4x7=28. From here, we may or may not be able to deterministically win depending on exactly how much mana we can make and which cards are left in hand.
--- The Combo Cards---
Here are the cards that can win the game by themselves after going off:
Planar Portal | Ring of Three Wishes | Skyship Weatherlight
Tooth and Nail | Shared Summons
Cards that can dig a lot to find a win:
The One Ring | Phyrexian Portal | Scroll Rack | Skullclamp
Creature tutors:
Chord of Calling | Green Sun's Zenith | Finale of Devastation | Archdruid's Charm | Summoner's Pact
We should only start going off with at least one of the above cards in hand, or a combination of the following pieces that can ensure a win.
Kill pieces:
Squall Line + Glacial Chasm | Walking Ballista | Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
Combo enablers:
Wakeroot Elemental + 6 or more lands and 5 floating mana = infinite mana
Candelabra of Tawnos / Magus of the Candelabra untaps lands for a lot more mana
Azusa, Lost but Seeking gives extra land drops
Early Harvest another untapper that notably triggers Malachite Talisman
Malachite Talisman untaps lands and/or wish artifacts with every green spell cast
Rings of Brighthearth doubles wishes and Candle/Malachite untaps (not to mention fetches)
Argothian Elder + Maze of Ith bonus combo for infinite mana during combat
Land tutors (cards that can find specific nonbasic lands, most importantly Glacial Chasm):
Crop Rotation | Archdruid's Charm | Realms Uncharted | Nylea's Intervention | Expedition Map | Elvish Reclaimer | Realm Seekers | Urza's Cave
---The Combo Lines---
The deck has a very large number of possible lines but they almost all start and end with the above cards. With a surplus of mana it can be as simple as a Green Sun's Zenith for Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, animate a few lands and pump a bunch of times. 7-8 lands with an untap from Candelabra of Tawnos or Early Harvest should be enough for this. With no untapper you need a LOT of lands to kill everyone with just Kamahl, at least 12. So available mana and cards restricts/determines our line.
The boring kill line:
Tutor for Tooth and Nail. With 14 mana left in pool after tutoring (that's 26 total needed starting with Planar Portal, 24 with Ring of Three Wishes, 32 with Skyship Weatherlight -> RoTW, just 14 needed if casting T&N straight from hand, and 16 if casting Shared Summons from hand. 6 basics needed in all cases), cast Tooth and Nail entwined, find Walking Ballista and Wakeroot Elemental. Put Wakeroot into play Ballista to hand. Use the 5 floating to untap and make inf mana with Wakeroot. Cast the Ballista and activate for game.
Kills with 5 or 6 basics:
The way to win with fewer lands is to untap and/or play more. With 5 basics, a wish artifact, and Candelabra of Tawnos, we start with 10 mana (tap 3 for Sasaya and get 2 lands that tap for 5). Play the Candle, pay 5 to untap all 5, and end up with 29 mana. This would be enough to kill using the boring line except we'd need 6 basics for Wakeroot Elemental. With one green card needed in hand, we can use our first wish to find Malachite Talisman, cast our green card, then use Talisman to untap our wish artifact and continue to chain green spells out of our deck starting with Early Harvest. The 29 mana we have in this example is extremely tight for the more expensive Planar Portal but it works with Ring of Three Wishes. We would actually need 30 mana and a 1 cost green spell to pull it off with Portal guaranteed. If this is all a bit hard to understand, keep reading and I will give a couple more examples of chaining with Malachite. Note that we could also just wish for Genesis Wave X=14/16. Neither option really works with Skyship Weatherlight however--Skyship lines are just too expensive to pull off without more starting mana though it can find a single kill piece, Candle, or Azusa somewhat cheaply if we already have the other cards we need.
5 basics and a creature tutor is much simpler, we start with 10 mana, find Azusa, Lost but Seeking, drop two more basics to up the basic count to 7. This gives us 14 mana plus 10 less the cost to find Azusa, enough for a T&N or Shared Summons win, not quite enough to start Malachite chaining. Starting with 6 basics the Azusa line nets us minimum 32 mana, enough for most lines.
A 6 basic/18 mana line is possible with no creature tutors or a mass untapper, you need Ring of Three Wishes and either Malachite Talisman or Early Harvest (takes 20 mana with Planar Portal). With 18 floating cast Ring, activate and find Early Harvest, with 8 floating cast Malachite, down to 6, now cast Harvest and pay 3 for Malachite, untapping Ring. Now all your forests are untapped and you can tutor two more times off Ring by finding a green spell and using the Talisman again. Alternatively, with only a wish artifact and a green card in hand, the Talisman can be tutored for first, then untap and find Early Harvest costing a total 26/29 mana (RoTW/PP) + the cost of the green card, resulting in untapped forests and wish artifact. I freaking love Malachite Talisman.
Protecting the combo:
The best method to set up protection before going off is simply to Green Sun's Zenith for Dosan the Falling Leaf. Green Sun for 3 generally comes off as pretty non-threatening, so this is a good way to get him in play by surprise. If you have just a wish artifact and no GSZ, you can try to resolve your artifact, then search up Malachite Talisman, cast a green spell from hand to get an untap, search Dosan, then you'll get another untap from casting Dosan. This takes a lot of mana and of course it's better to get the Dosan in play first because Planar Portal is the most likely target for a counterspell. Boseiju, Who Shelters All was also swapped in to give more easily accessible protection for control heavy tables.
The Talisman interaction is our go to for repeated tutoring, which is sometimes necessary to deal with lock pieces or other problem cards. However we need enough mana plus a green card or to have the Talisman already in hand.
Turn 3 kill:
In Christmas land, this deck can win on turn 3.
Turn 1: Draw, Snow-Covered Forest, Veteran Explorer
Turn 2: Draw, Skullclamp, Snow-Covered Forest, equip, draw 2 get 2 basics, play an X/1 creature or Sylvan Library, end with 6 cards
Turn 3: Draw, draw 2 more (paying 1 for clamp if needed), hand now looks like Candelabra of Tawnos/Early Harvest/Azusa, Lost but Seeking + 7 lands + a wincon card, with 4 forests in play. Play Sasaya, flip, play a 5th basic, cast your ramp card, play 2 more basics if Azusa, end up with 29/32/23 (library draw) or 20/27/16 (clamp draw) total mana, then win.
Pretty much all of the lines involve putting the kill pieces together using the aforementioned cards. When in doubt, cast a 20+ Genesis Wave and recur it with Eternal Witness or Timeless Witness. It's rare for this deck to successfully go off and then pass turn without winning, generally we don't want to cast Sasaya at all if we're not confident we can win on the spot. But in the case we do end up passing turn, it's best to try and get protected behind Glacial Chasm because we are certainly going to be a target.
Squall Line didn't really get talked about above because it is never as mana efficient as the other lines, it's more of a backup wincon. You just need a Glacial Chasm in play and cast for X=40. Squall is usually the simplest way to do it with lots of extra mana/after a Genesis Wave. I actually prefer using this kill when possible as it feels a little less dirty than Ballista combo.
Notes on some of the cards:
Phyrexian Portal is a funny card. I think this may actually be the best list in existence for this card to slot in. It can find us lands every turn at instant speed and it endlessly digs for wincons, but it's a bit awkward to resolve especially if playing the deck online. Using it also bears the risk of exiling important combo pieces. I run this card in my paper deck but not online.
Skyship Weatherlight also has some risk associated with it. If it gets removed, you'll lose any combo pieces under it forever. I'll often use this card during setup simply to find advantage cards, like Yavimaya Elder and Skullclamp together, or use it on a combo turn to find a single card like Ring of Three Wishes or Azusa. I would never, for example, put Wakeroot Elemental and Walking Ballista under this and hope to get to use it twice.
Genesis Wave is technically a gamble, but very unlikely to whiff if casting for X>20. This is because you will hit several basics and are very likely to hit an Eternal Witness, Timeless Witness (recurs the wave), a wish artifact, Kamahl, or something else to dig with.
Realms Uncharted could always net two lands at instant speed, but now this card guarantees access to 2 specific lands by finding Echoing Deeps, Petrified Field, and the lands you want
Finale of Devastation is the deck's only haste enabler, keep this in mind if you need to do something like activate Elvish Reclaimer right away on your combo turn.
Oblivion Stone, Perilous Vault, Bane of Progress Some cards not yet mentioned, which don't contribute directly to our win conditions, but do contribute to us staying alive!
Shared Summons is a fantastic card I just discovered from radio414's Sasaya list. I will definitely be adding this I'm just not sure what to cut yet. *I cut the Heroic Intervention.
Sprout Swarm is a very silly card that combos with Malachite Talisman to make infinite mana and saps. I would love to run this but just can't justify it as the use is too narrow and it's hard to tutor for.
There are a few lands I see as on the fringe for inclusion in the deck, and these are Buried Ruin, Strip Mine, and Thespian's Stage. All of these are fairly niche, Strip is needed to remove opposing Glacial Chasms, Thesp Stage gives us a 2nd layer of protection to our own chasm vs Generous Gift etc., and Buried Ruin is land-based artifact recursion for our wish artifacts. All of these are desirable effects but we can't fit every utility land because basics are so important, so maybe consider these as flex spots and select the lands that best fit your meta.
---In Memeorium---
I'd like to pay respects to one of the original cards, the most ridiculous but effective wincon this deck had: Spawnsire of Ulamog. For 30 mana this baby dumps out the 15 baddest drazis (well, #s 2-16), including It That Betrays, All is Dust, Kozilek, the Great Distortion...and yes they are all cast ;) This was actually the most reliable and easily tutorable wincon the deck had, and I pulled this off many times before rules changes officially nullified wishboards in EDH.
Rest easy, my sweet slithery girl.
In conclusion, I love this deck. I've ran this list (or close to it) for many years and I think my version is about as good as it can get, but I'd still love to hear suggestions especially on newer cards. I've tried to keep on top of new sets but haven't found too much that looks right for this. Blossoming Tortoise and You Happen on a Glade are the new cards I am currently testing, replacing my Ramunap Excavator and Journey of Discovery. Also Echoing Deeps seems to be a really good addition for Realms Uncharted piles.
As far as power level goes, I'd put this at a pretty firm 8. I used to call it a 7, but with further optimization I find I am often crushing tables on turn 6 and that feels like too much for casual. The strength of this deck is that it slides under the radar just quietly doing its land stuff, then comes out of nowhere to snag the win. While it is indeed very powerful and consistent, we are often slow to start and lacking interaction, allowing other players a good chance to go off themselves thus keeping games pretty fair. It's also quite easy to pull out Wakeroot Elemental, removing the only truly infinite combo and making the deck more appropriate to play at mid-powered tables.
It's easy to build Sasaya on a budget (the candle is about half the pricetag here!), it could be built many ways with tons of options for big green stompy and land themed cards. There are a bunch of Sasaya lists floating around the net but I had not found a turbo-optimized combo list/primer as you see here, which is why I felt I should share!
Would love to hear what you think and thanks for reading!
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Casual
99% Competitive
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 11 months |
| Last updated | 3 months |
| Legality | This deck is Commander / EDH legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 6 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 100 |
| Avg. CMC | 3.00 |
| Tokens | Construct 0/0 C, Timeless Witness 4/4 B |
| Folders | Other People's deck |
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