So this week I’m going to be looking at my first EDH deck and discuss a little bit about exactly what it tries to accomplish, some cards very close to my heart, and some of the finer inner-workings of the deck. Center stage in my deck is the lovely and talented Savra, Queen of the Golgari. “Why Savra?” you may ask. Well to start off, Green and Black together as a color combination I believe is certainly one of the most potent (and one of my favorites to play). Green provides the necessary beef to maintain a strong board position for you at any given point in a game and black gives you enough removal, disruption, and tempo tricks to be able to respond to and make life harder for your opponents. Secondly, Savra’s global effect is SICK. As you may know, anytime you sac a black creature you can pay two life and activate a global Cruel Edict. If the creature you sac is black and green, you don’t even have to pay the two life because whenever you sac a green creature you gain two life. At the cost of a few lives, this activated ability can sweep boards and really swing things tempo-wise in your favor. And what’s even better is that she’s guaranteed to always be at the ready after the fourth mana drop. However, this seeming sexiness does come with a drawback that actually plays out fairly regularly in EDH play (especially if there is more than one opponent) that I will discuss later in the article.

So here’s the decklist:

What does this deck try to do?

The basic goal of this deck is use efficient global removal effects (Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Damnation, Kagemaro, First to Suffer, Incremental Blight, Decree of Pain) to take charge of momentum in the game and have the ability to recover from potentially tempo swinging moves from your opponents through card drawing and graveyard recovery. Along the way there are efficient creatures, mana fixing, useful sac’ing outlets, and some tutors to make sure the deck performs smoothly and efficiently each game. The curve of the deck is pretty balanced, having a nice healthy array of two, three, and four drops while having some top-end power going up to Decree of Pain with a converted casting cost of eight.

All-Stars in the Deck

While on the whole I do really like every card in this deck, some just outperform and go above and beyond the call of duty:

Protean Hulk: This card is amazing. Especially in EDH where you will usually be seeing seven lands on the board consistently. Protean Hulk works well on three levels:

1. He’s a 6/6 creature, that in and of itself helps to make life a little more wonderful for you.
2. It really makes your opponents question how they should deal with your 6/6 threat, as they don’t want to sweep the board and then see you unleash a hoard of creatures that will be swinging when it comes to your turn.
3. There is a lot of nice synergy with all the sac outlets in this deck. Why wait for your opponents to make the decision to get rid of him? You can just do it yourself by sac’ing him or throwing down some of the removal in the deck to have him hit the graveyard.

Liliana Vess: Of the two Planeswalkers in the deck, I bet you didn’t think I’d be writing about this one. However, I really think Liliana is the All-Star of the two because her tutoring is invaluable and her ultimate is GROSS in multiplayer formats. Yes, you read that right, creatures in ALL graveyards. Damnation to Liliana ultimate???? Oh my…

Decree of Pain: Decree of Pain just reeks of utility. Hard-casted it’s a great card because not only does it sweep the board but it also gives you a huge advantage over your opponents in that you are replenishing your arsenal of cards through drawing after the deed is done. It’s also great against heavy control because you have an un-counterable -2/-2 global effect that snatches you up a card in the process. Praise Wizards for cycling.

Sengir Nosferatu: The last game I played with this deck, Tony (one of the Seattle area’s top judges and avid EDH player) made a bit of a mocking comment when I played the Sengir saying “well, that card was good in limited…”. This was before I threw Savra on the board, activated his bat ability, and started forcing everyone to sac their creatures while I didn’t lose any in the process. He is a one man machine. And a 4/4 flyer to boot. He is also incredibly hard to get rid of, it will usually take two or three opponents to actually do the deed.

Wishlist

Magic article authors can dream too right? These are cards that were simply out of my price range or just very hard to trade for:

Royal Assassin: Talk about board control. His rules text should read “Your opponent’s creatures can’t do anything that requires tapping.” You will hear a lot of groaning and sighing when this guy hits the table and all your opponents have to think about what they are going to do to deal with him. A very solid card.

Pernicious Deed: This one is a no-brainer. One of the greats in magic history.

Spirit Monger: A 6/6 for 5 mana with regenerate and the ability to get huge. GUH. Actually putting this on paper makes me realize I should just break down and buy him.

How the deck plays

Because of the curve, you’re going to always have fairly decent spells at each step of the game. The one problem with this deck is that it grabs a lot of attention from your opponents. Especially for Savra, Queen of the Golgari. Her ability is something that your opponents fear and therefore gives them a reason to hate you out of the game. It may just be my play style, but I love to see the looks on their faces when I’m forcing them to sac creatures left and right. Perhaps this problem isn’t necessarily with the deck, maybe I just need to brush up on my playing tact. But either way, the cards in this deck definitely do not fly under the radar and that requires a bit of finesse and political savvy. This deck also gives you A LOT of play options. Deciding when and how to play different cards in this deck depending on the given board situation is something I’m still learning. Knowing when to sac over when to play, which ability to activate and if it’s the right time yet are all questions that come up frequently over the course of any given game. This is absolutely not a bad thing. In fact, it’s something that will make you a better magic player in the long run. If you’re running a deck with a lot of play options, it forces you to consider the game-state and visualize different plays and what their potential outcomes/consequences could potentially be.

So that’s the deck. Join me next week as I go over a few matches that I will play this week at my local draft. I’ll go over some of the pitfalls and stupid decisions I made along the way (I could probably write a few articles on that alone), as well as what threats the deck has problems dealing with. If you have an EDH deck you would like me to look at, test, or write about otherwise feel free to post on the forums and I’d be happy to give it a whirl!

Until then,

Trent