pie chart

Selvala's Army of Infinite Mana Generating Elves

Commander / EDH* Competitive Elves Infinite Combo

Rzepkanut

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Elf (22)

Untapper (12)

Removal Disruption (9)

Protection (5)

Pump (3)

ManaDork (17)

Tutor (14)

Draw (10)

Scaling Mana Source (7)

Recursion (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

Land (23)

Non Creature Mana Source (11)

Infinity Enabler (7)

Cast Spells Free (3)

Haste (2)

Maybeboard

Other (82)

Selvala

Play Patterns and Combos

Infinity (plan A) Show

The "Fair" Game Plan (plan B) Show

  • Fast mana types of effects can be the difference between which turn the deck can go off, and I would play more if I could. Landing a turn 1 "scaling mana source" like Priest of Titania off of something like a Lotus Petal is a great start to a turn 3 win. Also anytime you draw into lots with of cards with no mana floating, it's great to have super fast artifact mana to keep comboing off.

  • I usually keep any hand that can ramp to at minimum 3 mana to cast Selvala by turn 3, unless there are no tutors or card draw or combo pieces.

  • Each turn the deck gets to play you need to generate way more mana than the last. So you get a "scaling mana source" on board asap. Selvala is only one of those kind of mana sources, and not really even the best one. But you need to be able to ramp beyond 6 mana just from your opening 7 cards to be really good.

  • Having a tutor in the opening hand is pretty important, but sometimes the mana is so explosive you can keep a hand without any tutors and combo right away anyways. There are lots of cards that draw or tutor or combo so it's reasonable to draw into what you need soon, if you can at least generate lots of mana.

  • Always prioritize casting spells to maximize future mana production potential.

  • Don't run out of cards! Get a card draw engine going before you use your last tutor on a mana dork to combo off. Infinite mana is not useful without something to spend it on.

  • Cast spells and tap resources in an order that leaves the most mana available to you after each spell cast.

  • You can increase mana production during the turn by growing any "scaling mana source" before it's tapped. Like playing an Arbor Elf off a Forest before tapping Elvish Archdruid.

  • Play your land from hand to get your last mana to use each turn. What I mean is you often draw into lots of cards each turn and you never know what land you will wish you could play later in the turn. So conserve your land drop each turn for a potentially really good land unless you are certain what you have will be as good as it gets this turn.

  • Cast Genesis Wave for at least =, ideally = or more so any permanent in the deck can come into play. This card will usually at least generate lots of mana as a result of being casted, and often just wins the game by hitting an infinite combo.

  • I don't really even need an opponent to have fun playing with this deck. I occasionally shuffle the cards up alone and "play" a hand out to see what turn I can go infinite.

  • I know it's also good to practice with decks this complex before playing them out. There is a lot you can learn about piloting a deck by practicing with it alone. It's fun for me to see which play sequences are most efficient, and I don't need an opponent to try and figure them out.

Combo Walkthroughs

Beginning setup: You need 2 cards in play: Selvala, Heart of the Wilds (not summoning sick, untapped) a Temur Sabertooth , 8x available, and a Great Oak Guardian in hand.

Note: This is a walk through for achieving the combo without the help of any other cards, which never happens in real games. Its acually much easier to accomplish this combo in real gameplay than this worst case scenario.

  • 1) Use to tap Selvala for 4x , now you have 11x total.

  • 2) Cast Great Oak Guardian from your hand for x6 , goto 5x total.

  • 3) The Great Oak Guardian enters play, pumps the all your creatures, and untaps Selvala.

  • 4) Use to tap Selvala for 6x (the largest creature is Temur Sabertooth , now at 6 power)

  • 5) You now have 10x total, for x8 we can bounce and recast the Great Oak Guardian

  • 6) When Great Oak Guardian comes back down, it will untap selvala, and pump the Sabertooth to 8 power. Tap selvala for x8 .

  • 7) You now have 9x total. You do another loop for 8x , and when Great Oak Guardian comes down this time, it pumps the Sabertooth to 10 power. And you have exactly left to use Selvala to tap for 10x . Now she can tap for enough for the whole loop and go on forever.

The worst case scenario is you need 8x at the beginning to go infinite if you are hard casting Great Oak Guardian... That's assuming you are somehow only using the three cards, Guardian, Selvala and the Sabertooth. However there's quite a few easy ways to make it cost less:

  • You only actually need more than the cost it takes to get the Great Oak Guardian in play (step 2) to complete the sequence from the beginning. The guardian can come into play at a discount from something that costs less mana like Eldrich Evolution, Natural Order or Birthing Pod. If the means you use to play the guardian cost less than it's normal casting cost of , you save some mana.

  • Any creature larger than 4 power in play when you begin to do this will make the combo need less mana.

  • If you do the 3 card combo above with any additional mana dorks in play, it will make the combo need less mana.

I realized that with the prefect hand it can even win on turn 1... not likely to actually ever happen naturally but cool anyways and it was a fun puzzle to solve.

That sequence actually generates even more mana than needed to combo off, some of the mana dorks could be interchanged with others, and so could the finishing combo pieces. The impossible part is getting it started, there are many ways to finish.

Deck Construction Notes

  • After lots of testing I decided that to combo faster and more often Selvala, Heart of the Wilds should be the commander and Ezuri, Renegade Leader should be in the 99 instead. That's why this deck changed commanders some time after the release of Kaladesh. I'm very happy with the change so far. Although I sometimes think it would be great if the deck was not mono colored, I'm happy with Selvala, Heart of the Wilds and mono green. It was an obvious switch if you think about it. Ezuri doesn't help you in the early game ...but Selvala is mana dork that even scales up in mana production which you can usually play on turn 2, and she even draws you cards for free. With this deck whenever I actually need to cast Ezuri, I already have infinite mana anyways.

  • The cards in the "Maybeboard" are ones I am considering to add, or are recent cuts from the deck.

  • This deck is designed to combo asap every game, so it has limited removal & defense. Almost everything in the deck helps combo in some primary way: mana production, card draw, tutors, and combo pieces.

  • Another important deck building note, this deck has been switched over to mostly proxy for the foreseeable future. After a couple years of actually having this deck completely built in real life I decided to take it partially apart to use the cards in other decks. But since I worked on this deck so much for so long I can't bring myself to actually take it apart and abandon it. Besides I rarely ever use this deck with my normal play group and so it just sits in a box most of the time... unless I find someone who actually wants to face it at a random game shop or I attend an EDH event of some sort... otherwise I mostly play solitary games with it (which proxy cards are fine for). I don't like proxy cards in my decks normally, and I'm too lazy to move cards around all the time. So I had all these awesome cards for years and hardly ever actually used them. So I figure why stop at proxied cards that I actually own? Competitive decks are more appropriate to design with no budget limits anyways. So it's no holds barred, full on, no limits on any cards, deck building suggestions from now on. Now I am always testing this deck with proxies of cards I don't own to see how busted I can make it.

  • I'm looking for ways to make the deck combo faster & in new ways but also be more resilient to disruption. Any ideas are welcome!

Give me a +1 if you like what you see! Thanks.

Look at my EDH decks!

Click to see them ranked by tier on my profilemikesdecks

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

hoggyhay222 says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #1

Also; why not both Invasive Species and Temur Sabertooth? IS is still really good because you can grab it off of a Woodland Bellowers as well, which is why I think I like TS in the Sword of the Paruns slot more than anything else, because I'm really not a fan of that card personally- but I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

December 20, 2016 5:40 p.m.

Rzepkanut says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #2

hoggyhay222 dude Genesis Wave is the truth.

January 22, 2017 11:25 p.m.

Winterblast says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #3

I would include more artifact/enchantment removal that are not implemented on a creature. For example Nature's Claim, Krosan Grip, Sundering Vitae...maybe even mass removal for enchantments/artifacts

Decks like this have to be aware of Humility, Torpor Orb, Cursed Totem, Moat, Ensnaring Bridge and the like because they disable essential parts of the synergies and shut down several combos and win options. Ulamog is a solution because it's a cast effect and not ETB or activated ability but it's only one card.

February 27, 2017 7:49 a.m.

Rzepkanut says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #4

Winterblast, thats a good idea, I think I'm going to have to squeeze in a Nature's Claim somewhere. The defensive/removal spells I have been thinking about adding the most are that card, Phyrexian Revoker and Wrap in Vigor. Not sure what to cut to add all three of those cards, but probably at least one mana dork could go. Any suggestions for cuts?

February 27, 2017 4:08 p.m.

Winterblast says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #5

I'd cut protection against targeted removal, it's the least effective type in this format. The worst effects are those that completely shut down certain card types and whole decks, for example Humility. You can recover from a Wrath of God and you have no problem taking a Swords to Plowshares or Vindicate but you can't deal with stuff that makes creatures as a whole useless, unless you have removal on noncreature cards available

February 27, 2017 4:21 p.m.

bushido_man96 says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #6

This is nice. I like the combos you have in place. Collective Unconscious would be another good card draw option for you.

February 28, 2017 10:14 p.m.

Winterblast says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #7

I would suggest Rishkar's Expertise for card draw. I play it myself in a mono G deck and it's amazing...I'd include Worldspine Wurm as target for Natural Order though. Hard to handle that one if it shows up on turn 2 or 3 (not to mention what it can do with a Berserk in addition).

March 1, 2017 4:39 a.m.

Rzepkanut says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #8

Hey thanks for the suggestions bushido_man96 & Winterblast! So far I have been happy with Glimpse of Nature, Shamanic Revelation, and Regal Force as my mass card draw spells. Having the Regal Force so easily tutorable makes it very easy to draw cards usually. I do like Rishkar's Expertise though.. and Glimpse of Nature is often underwhelming unless you have a whole lot of mana. It's something I will try out for sure.

Worldspine Wurm + Berserk sounds like an fun idea, but those cards don't have enough other uses for me to want to include them here. I feel like having a crazy big Natural Order target to get is cool, but usually I go get one of these 3 cards:

  • Great Oak Guardian - it immediately generates lots of mana, it's also half of an infinite combo, and it pumps my team +2/+2.

  • Temur Sabertooth - the other half of the above infinite combo.

  • Regal Force - it will draw a bunch of cards, find combo pieces and/or find mana sources if all I have is mana dorks.

March 1, 2017 6:48 p.m.

themachamp says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #9

I use something similar to this....with the one major difference being that I run City of Solitude to make sure my opponents have no interaction. Though i guess it depends on how many counters and instances are flying around in your play group.

March 27, 2017 12:07 a.m.

Rzepkanut says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #10

themachamp great idea now I just have to figure out how to fit it in the deck.

March 27, 2017 7:40 a.m.

Lanzo493 says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #11

You can't use Elves of Deep Shadow. Cards that have mana symbols outside of your commander's color anywhere on the card can't be used. You could use a card like Birds of Paradise because it doesn't directly reference a color outside of your commander's color. Phyrexian Processor may mention a color, but you could technically use it since it doesn't say anywhere. This doesn't apply to cards with extort, like Blind Obedience, because the mana symbols are in reminder text, not on the card. Then again, you're not running mono-white or mono-black so that last bit doesn't matter.

June 23, 2016 11:01 p.m.

Rzepkanut says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #12

Lanzo493, well according to the official rules committee website for Commander/EDH, you are wrong. As of January of this year, they changed the rule about restricting mana color production in decks. Maybe you just didn't hear about it. Look it up for yourself. Here is a link to the rules' change log.. http://mtgcommander.net/EDH_Root/changelog.php

June 24, 2016 6:04 a.m.

Rzepkanut says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #13

Lanzo493, after more research I discovered you were right. So I'm switching Elves of Deep Shadow for Birds of Paradise. Thanks :)

June 24, 2016 9:19 a.m.

Spoosky says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #14

Maybe Asceticism

September 12, 2016 9:50 a.m.

Rzepkanut says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #15

Spoosky thanks for the suggestion, but I am staying away from creature protection or pump spells since the commander can do those things quite well. I'm looking for ways to combo off faster and more consistently.Thanks for your time.

September 12, 2016 11:53 p.m.

Rzepkanut says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #16

hoggyhay222, great move on acquiring the cradle. It's so worth it. Also I really appreciated your suggestions for my deck :) But I thought I would talk about mine here, to keep your thread mostly about your deck and mine mostly about mine.

So, Temur Sabertooth was in long ago but was cut for Invasive Species because it's less mana to use and I almost never used it more than once per game anyways. However, it didn't occur to me then that it can create infinite mana with a haste enabler the same way Cloudstone Curio does. Plus with the added synergy of being a 4 power creature for Selvala, I think switching back is a good idea now. Thanks for the idea.

December 19, 2016 3:09 p.m.

hoggyhay222 says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #17

Woohoo go Sabertooth!

Why no Genesis Wave, by the way? It feels like it should be an auto include for me, but I'd be interested to hear your take on.

December 20, 2016 5:36 p.m.

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Created with Highcharts 9.3.3Card costs (outer) ​Land mana (inner)
Created with Highcharts 9.3.3Cast_Spells_Free​Cast_Spells_FreeDraw​DrawElf​ElfHaste​HasteInfinity_Enabler​Infinity_EnablerLand​LandManaDork​ManaDorkNon_Creature_Mana_Source​Non_Creature_Mana_SourceOther​OtherProtection​ProtectionPump​PumpRecursion​RecursionRemoval_Disruption​Removal_DisruptionScaling_Mana_Source​Scaling_Mana_SourceTutor​TutorUntapper​Untapper
Created with Highcharts 9.3.3Converted mana costMana-curve​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​012345678910051015202530