Savra, Queen of the Golgari

Legendary Creature — Elf Shaman

Whenever you sacrifice a black creature, you may pay 2 life. If you do, each other player sacrifices a creature.

Whenever you sacrifice a green creature, you may gain 2 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (51)

DreadKhan on Beledros Witherbloom

6 months ago

I could be wrong, but since your deck cares about lands I would make an effort to include more land ramp, artifacts seem to get blown up a lot anyways. I would use Wood Elves over arcane signet (or Dawntreader Elk?), replacing Sol Ring is harder, but there is Crop Rotation. Finding a Coffer or Urborg at the right time is a much bigger effect than Sol Ring. Deserted Temple is a good card in here with Coffers. Since you have Urborg and Coffers in here I wonder about Hour of Promise and/or Tempt with Discovery, if you can cheat out 2 or 3 lands at once you can probably cast your Commander and go off.

Not sure if it's really a 'good' card, but Silverglade Pathfinder can dig lands out repeatedly, your Commander is high enough MV that this might be worth doing.

Ashaya, Soul of the Wild is interesting in here, but especially if you've got something like Selvala, Heart of the Wilds out. Ashaya also works very well with your landfall effects.

I'm not sure if you need to stack up activations, but if you reanimate your Commander you can activate him again, so maybe some of the lower to the ground reanimation effects, stuff like Reanimate, Life / Death, and Animate Dead. They are pretty big ramp if you have a sac outlet and your Commander out.

I'm not sure if it's outside your playgroups boundaries, but Pitiless Plunderer is very good with Chatterfang. It's not a combo, but if you've got lots of Pests kicking around there is Savra, Queen of the Golgari, she's budget compared to Dictate of Erebos and might fit in here.

DreadKhan on Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

6 months ago

I've always loved Mazirek, such a cool Commander! I think Make an Example would probably do some work in here, and it's little brother Do or Die would probably be decent as well.

Mitotic Slime is a good source of creatures-from-a-creature, the only ones that can compete are cards like Underworld Hermit, which makes an army of squirrels equal to your devotion to Black. There are things like Grismold, the Dreadsower that can make a lot of bodies (it gives them to opponents as well, but if you can force them to sacrifice those tokens both Grismold and Mazirek go nuts), Grismold even offers a backup Commander of a sort for long games when you might not be able to recast Mazirek.

I'm not sure if you're interested in reanimation effects, but Hell's Caretaker is a free sac each upkeep, and he can bring back your best creature in exchange for your worst. Coffin Queen can reanimate from any graveyard, but it's especially useful to reanimate your opponent's stuff because it gets exiled when it dies. If you want a repeatable reanimation effect there is Demon of Dark Schemes, this offers a small wipe and it works very well with Pitiless Plunderer and something like the aforementioned Mitotic Slime.

Since your Commander cares about sacrifice effects, have you thought about using Diligent Farmhand and Dawntreader Elk in here? There is also Burnished Hart, all of these ramp you and can trigger Mazirek if he's out. There is also Ordeal of Nylea that would work with Mazirek later game (or anything that can get in early). I'm not sure if it comes up very much, but I put Forsworn Paladin in my Golgari deck because it had Haakon, but what I noticed was that it's also a useful way to ramp in Black, which importantly can fix your mana (to let you cast Green ramp), it's very low to the ground and can generate triggers for Mazirek or help recast Mazirek later.

Have you ever tried Sadistic Hypnotist? This offers a free and infinite sac outlet, and the effect can be pretty strong if you've got a bunch of creatures to burn through. Another really versatile sac outlet is Infernal Tribute, this lets you sacrifice any non-token permanent (it has to be an actual card) to draw a new card. I'm not 100% on it being a fit, but Savra, Queen of the Golgari is a pretty impressive payoff if you regularly have creatures being sacrificed, it can put a lot of pressure on an opponent's board.

It can get very out of hand with Mazirek, but I feel like I have to mention One with the Kami, it's very good on Mazirek with a free sac outlet. Similarly any creatures you can find with Persist will work very well with Mazirek and sac outlets, though again, this might be more pushed than what you're looking for. I took a gander and Aerie Ouphes might be interesting, and there is always Woodfall Primus, these might help support your Puppeteers!

If you ever want to throw in something pricier, I think Old Gnawbone would be absolutely hilarious in here.

DreadKhan on BBEG Deck Ideas

6 months ago

I feel like you could also look into running a lot of wipes, stax or other salt inducing things, such that the deck will naturally end up the archenemy and everyone will unite against them. Do the other decks compete with one another? If so, something that does Goad or Goad-like effects would be cool. TBH, if I had to pick a commander to try out as an Archenemy type deck, I'd be very tempted to go with Kresh the Bloodbraided. 5 mana for a 3/3 isn't very spicy, but he quickly can get very, very out of hand, it's not unusual for you to do something like Mandate of Abaddon or Phyrexian Scriptures and then one shot people one at a time with your gigantic Kresh. Lots of cards synergize with Kresh, ranging from Grim Feast and anything that works with/is Rite of the Raging Storm. Big Goad effects like Disrupt Decorum and Spectacular Showdown also add a nasty surprise, and Insurrection is a great turn-around-is-fair-play type effect for an Archenemy. You can even make the deck on the cheap using stuff like Fleshbag Marauder (there are a bajillion at this point, especially if you'll pay 4 for a 4 power one), these generate a lot of power if you also have Savra, Queen of the Golgari (or something similar) out. Pestilence and similar effects are very good in here, they let you both clear out weenie blockers while also pumping Kresh ever bigger by winnowing away the chaff. Kresh will quickly crush everyone, you just need to add fun stuff like evasion or trample to make his immense power count. If you build this right it should be quite scary to play against, and the odd Fling can be a nice way to punish the players for killing Kresh.

Another great option might be Sauron, the Dark Lord, the more the party does the bigger the 'threat' gets, and it's almost impossible to remove Sauron. It's easy to sneak in some powerful Changelings to work as a better base army, but the whole 'orc army' thing is in and of itself very stereotypical in D&D. I like Grixis because you get Blue, meaning you have access to the odd counter. In particular I'd look into stuff like Stronghold Machinist, effect-on-a-stick creatures are good for an Archenemy because they tend to soak up the opponent's cards, even something like Royal Assassin is card advantage over time. Since the Army can get pretty big you can use Voltron stuff with it, and if you use Anthems (Berserkers' Onslaught, Dauthi Embrace, and Whip of Erebos come to mind) they'll work on both the Army and Sauron, which is cool Big Bad energy for the deck.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

1 year ago

When I built my Meren deck, I found that even with a pretty Black heavy deck, it was nice to run more Green than Black mana sources, since my Green ramp fixed my Black mana. I also cut lands for repeatable (and potentially repeatable) ramp like Diligent Farmhand or the Dawntreader you're considering, these can not only help get Meren out early, they give her something very useful to do with her ability as soon as she's out. There are quite a few now, but I only run ones that can find swamps. I also run a couple cards like Wood Elves, which don't sac themselves but can be sacrificed for value as soon as Meren is out. Using these types of cards allows my fairly low land Meren deck to be extremely rampy if Meren stays out. You can also run lots of 1 mana dorks in Meren, including Elves of Deep Shadow and knock-off Llanowar Elves.

I also find it's hard to run enough card draw, stuff like Grim Haruspex and Midnight Reaper or Beast Whisperer can draw a bunch of cards, and all of them are creatures. This brings me to another point, I found that in Meren that it's hard to run too many utility creatures of various sorts, you can do an astonishing amount of stuff with creatures in Golgari, I presently have 55 creatures in the 99, which makes cards like Lurking Predators insane and Heartwood Storyteller lots of fun, because Meren decks are also pretty good at pressuring the board, it's hard to know how many of the various Demon's Disciple family of cards you should run, but they feel pretty decent in Meren in my experience, if a bit obnoxious. There are also more cards like Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, as well as Savra, Queen of the Golgari, these are all super-obnoxious in a deck that likes to sacrifice stuff. One really weird 'one creature toolbox' is Callous Bloodmage, this can do a bunch of stuff and can be worth recurring if you can get it killed.

Not sure if you've ever come across these, they are old and rare even in Commander, but I find Ritual of the Machine and Helm of Possession can do work in Meren, the Helm is a sac outlet that grabs the best creature on the board. It rarely lasts too long, but it's a very strong effect if you're not worried about running artifacts. Ritual is nice and compact, you sac something you want dead to steal the best thing in a way that's hard to interact with for many decks. Final Parting is an interesting card in Meren, you can put a Protean Hulk or Razaketh, the Foulblooded, maybe Sheoldred into the graveyard and a Reanimate into hand, so it's 6 or 7 mana to put your best creature into play from the library.

If you want any ideas about infinite (or non-infinite) combos that can win games, I read a lot of Meren deck Primers, so I might have some ideas if you want to have that option.

Very good deck so far, hope you enjoy testing it!

Rhadamanthus on Savra and Priest of Forgotten …

1 year ago

You can use double square brackets around a card's name to create a reference link/pop-up. It's the best way to help make sure everyone understands what's going on in your question: Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Priest of Forgotten Gods

Yes, this works. Savra's ability is written in a way that makes it trigger for each black and/or green creature you sacrifice. If you sacrifice multiple creatures at once then it will trigger separately for each one. If Savra was only meant to trigger once for multiple things being sacrificed then it would be written to say "Whenever you sacrifice one or more (black/green) creatures..." instead.

PhotogenicParasympathetic on Is the Commander format being …

1 year ago

This talk of "printing legendaries that makes other invalid" is ridiculous.

This is a casual format. The main draw, the primary attraction, to this format is that there isn't a wrong way to do it as long as you're having fun. I play Savra, Queen of the Golgari because I enjoy her, even though Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest exist. None of them made her invalid as a strategy.

There's this weird feeling in the room like everyone wants to min/max their casual commander decks, and it's that idea - that there's a wrong way to play, and "why would you play X when Y exists" - that's actually toxic to the format. It's not about the new cards. A new card ALWAYS gives MORE options, not fewer. And as much as I may miss the "specialness" of getting the once-a-year precon sets, greater access to this game in the form of more cheap commanders and more preconstructed decks is a feature, not a bug.

Necrosis24 on darkest hour ideas

1 year ago

Dire Undercurrents, Ayara, First of Locthwain for etb.

Repentant Vampire + Thornbite Staff for wiping board. Some other pro-black removal: Liliana's Defeat, Dark Betrayal, Stronghold Taskmaster, Urborg Shambler.

Some others Horror of Horrors, Decomposition.

Savra, Queen of the Golgari if ur doing a sacrifice sub-theme.

Corrosive Mentor + Nest of Scarabs

Elephant Grass + Razorjaw Oni for protection and unbloackable.

EleshNornsFs on Commanders You Defend?

2 years ago

Savra, Queen of the Golgari is a great card, but I would only ever run her in the 99 of Meren or Mazirek.