Card advantage in Selesnya
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on June 27, 2016, 12:24 a.m. by enpc
I am looking to tweak my Saffi Eriksdotter deck to try and increase its card advantage. Currently I am looking to take out Twilight Shepherd and Cathars' Crusade for two new cards. One of these will most likely be Starved Rusalka or Martyred Rusalka however for the other slot I am considering more card advantage for the deck.
The cards I cam currently leaning towards are:
I would love to get people's opinions of the cards in regards to how well they perform (given this deck is designed to play pretty competitively) or if poeple have other recomendations, I would love to hear them.
Here is the deck for reference:
Just Stay Dead
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 65 | 97 COMMENTS | 21933 VIEWS | IN 41 FOLDERS
Terrvex: Yeah, unfortunately it's gotten to the point where I'm already running all of the staples. I mean there's also Wall of Blossoms but I'm trying to find something that more than just cantrips.
June 27, 2016 1:17 a.m.
I used to run Fecundity in a much earlier version of the build, however I found it geve my opponents too many cards. Ulvenwald Mysteries is slower and more conditional but is one sided making it the preferred choice of the two.
June 27, 2016 2:12 a.m.
Garruk, Primal Hunter he is my one of two main mass card draws next to harmonize
June 27, 2016 9:10 a.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #7
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury works with tokens too.
June 27, 2016 9:33 a.m.
DiamondFlavor says... #8
Stoneforge Mystic and/or Steelshaper's Gift. Honestly just having multiple copies of Skullclamp is your best bet, I think.
I also do like the cantrip creatures quite a bit. It's not very hard to get more than one draw off of Wall of Blossoms if you pull Sun Titan or Reveillark before you combo out.
Life from the Loam and the cycling lands is decent in a pinch. Slow as hell but better than nothing.
I've found Yavimaya Elder and Wild-Field Scarecrow to be decent just for pure card flow, and Evolutionary Leap is a useful sac outlet that can fill up your hand as well. 
to activate is not ideal, but it's a pretty low opportunity cost.
June 27, 2016 10:45 a.m.
DiamondFlavor says... #9
Personally I've never been terribly interest in Harmonize but I think that's a playstyle choice. It's probably a solid choice, it's just that is has no synergy. I suppose it's a decent thing to Eternal Witness though.
Tireless Tracker looks decent. It's not threatening enough to be targeted with spot removal, so I think you'd probably rack up several clues unless you run into an immediate board wipe. Fine, but slow, but that's just how Selesnya draw goes.
Ulvenwald Mysteries is most intriguing to me. Again, really slow, but it has the upside of making Clamp-able tokens. It will help you avoid stalling and works with what the deck wants to do naturally.
The tokens also trigger Mentor of the Meek, which I noticed you're not running, but I can't recall if we discussed him or not earlier. I'm perpetually on the fence about Mentor but keep him around because persistent draw for 
is so tempting and he can cantrip Saffi herself, not to mention all the other cantrip guys.
June 27, 2016 10:54 a.m.
EmblemMan and Raging_Squiggle: I'm on the fence about planeswalkers. They have to be really good for me to justify it (like Nissa :D). Garruk is nice in that he gives you cards immediately, however I would typically be drawing less cards than a Harmonize (a lot of my creatures are only small). It is an option hoever and I do like it. Freyalise probably provides much better utility than Garruk however I don't like to rely on a walker ult to actually go off. The oterh thing is, at the time I player her, it will be minimum 2 more turns until I can reap the benefits of the card advantage.
DiamondFlavor: I have seen a few decks do this with stoneforge. Personally though I'm not a fan as the deck only runs 2 equipment to begin with. It just seems like too much of a dead draw to often.
Wall of Blossoms is ok, but I would really like to find something that needs minimal interaction to get more than one card.
Yavimaya Elder just feels like too much investment for not enough return. While he gets some lands, 5 mana to draw one card is a bit steep. And Wild-Field Scarecrow is just outright worse on card advantage.
I had made a comment about Evolutionary Leap on the deck. Basically, I don't like the idea of trading boardstate for card advantage that can only get creatures. I know that Saffi abuses creatures dieing but I also know that it can get very expensive to do this repeatedly. In some ways, I would just prefer a Duskwatch Recruiter Flip as I can get more than one for one value. Plus it's a creature which is tutorable.
I kind of like the idea of Mentor of the Meek though. I'd completely forgotten about him and twenty-something creatures will trigger his ability.
I'm still not sure though. The whole reason that I was/am leaning towards Tireless Tracker so heavily is that when I'm top decking, he interacts with lands. This means that every top deck land can potentially become another card. And this is kind of where he excels. All of the other cards work well when you're in a better situation and recurring creatures and all that. But in the worst case scenario, he really shines.
I know it might sound like I'm being really picky about exactly what I'm after and I can appreciate that it might be a bit frustrating to people recommend cards. I just really want to get this right. So a big thankyou to everyone who suggested cards. Even if it may not have been what I was after, it gives me a lot to thhink about and I really do appreciate it greatly. I'll have a bit more of a think though.
June 28, 2016 12:32 a.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #11
Her ult isn't the only thing about her. Everyone one of her abilities provide support.
First one gives you a token which can be a chump blocker if needed, and is a mana dork. And it's a +2, not +1.
Second is a repeatable Naturalize. Which by itself is worth putting her in there. The ult just puts icing on the cake, so to speak.
June 28, 2016 1:39 a.m.
Even with a +2, it still ends up being 2 turns though. You play her and tick her up to 5 that turn, then 7 the next turn and then ult her the turn after.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying she's not great. But the key thing I'm looking for here is more card advantage. What she provides is utility with the possibility of card advantage.
June 28, 2016 2:30 a.m.
If you had more basics I would recommend Karametra, God of Harvests.
June 28, 2016 1:01 p.m.
DiamondFlavor says... #14
The way I think of it, Stoneforge Mystic is only a dead card if you've already accessed Skullclamp, in which case it's less important that it's dead.
June 28, 2016 1:53 p.m.
DiamondFlavor says... #15
Also I know that you want your card selection to be non-contextual, but I think you build those contexts into your deck with redundancies. A ton of role-players is, in my experience, better than a ton of good stuff cards.
Like, I've actually attached a Skullclamp to Wall of Blossoms and sacrificed it to Evolutionary Leap, which dug up a Wood Elves which I played and then Clamp'd. Then you play a Reveillark, Clamp it, sac Saffi to it, feed it to Leap, get back Saffi, Lark, Wall. And then you have draw two cards, find a creature.
Sure, that's contextual, but with 20 creatures that draw or search, 5-10 sac outlets, the best reanimators, and Saffi in the zone, that's just kind of how the deck runs every game, at least in my experience.
I fully respect your opinions of course, and being picky is important. Just playing devil's advocate to some extent. I enjoy that our lists are so similar and yet so different.
June 28, 2016 2 p.m.
DiamondFlavor says... #16
Forgot to mention about Evolutionary Leap: sure, you're literally trading board state for creatures. But in practice you're really trading Elvish Visionary or Solemn Simulacrum or the like for another creature, which you'll proceed to play, given that you're seeking card advantage. Card flow and options are, to me, the essence of what card advantage hopes to achieve. You can argue about the card-to-card ratio, but killing off a 3-drop that already etb ramped a land for a card that will bring it back or search again is preferable to leaving a 1/1 on the board.
June 28, 2016 2:04 p.m.
Perpetual: I would prefer to run Shamanic Revelation over Collective Unconscious. it's just better. I think I used to run Karametra for a while but she is really slow. The problem you have with her is that you wanna play your weenies to ramp into her but then you wanna not play your weenies so that you can get her ability working. She basically catch 22's herself.
DiamondFlavor: By all means, having someone play the devil's advocate is good. I probably am over-analyzing it but I guess my assessment is always worst case scenario. One of the problems I have with the deck (especially when comapred to playing my Damia, Sage of Stone deck is that when a game is good, I have cards coming out the wazoo. But in a game where the deck is slow, the deck is well, slow. So my main focus is trying to make sure there is more consistency (read good consistency) across games.
My biggest issue with running Stoneforge Mystic is that the card becomes much less useful if my Skullclamp has been destroyed. I know this is a corner case though and I am starting to warm up t othe idea of runnign her. Regardless, I want one so I will invest in getting one while they're a bit cheaper.
The reason I've been steering so clear of Evolutionary Leap (at least as card advantage) is the scenario where the only creatures on the board are a Knight of the Reliquary and a Qasali Pridemage and Saffi costs 6+ to cast. And I have been in these kind of scenarios before. At this point, leap is only good once I draw into a creature I'm happy to eat.
Plus as a sac outlet, I have to draw into it. That's why I've been looking at Starved Rusalka, as I have so many more creatrue tutors in the deck. If i did put in Stoneforge, I might consider looking at Mortarpod instead though.
Don't get me wrong, I do see the benefit to Leap. I'm just not sure if the conditional nature of it is what I'm after. You also run a noticeably higher creature count than I do, which might explain the skew in thoughts on the card.
Terrvex says... #2
Sylvan Library comes to mind but nevermind you have that already.
June 27, 2016 12:53 a.m. Edited.