UL's Better Deckbuilding: Saffi Eriksdotter, Infinite Martyr EDH

Well Happy Holidays Zoners!

Your pal Landdrops has saved his most ambitious and surprising deck to date for an Eve such as this, and it's time I showed you my best work since Animar.

Why Saffi?

Inspiration comes to me in all different slants of light, and in all different moments. In the case of Animar, I didn't decide to go all-in on creatures until I got to my pre-test (Magic Solitaire) phase of deck testing. Sometimes, like in the case of this Tajic deck I'm working on now, it comes when I'm looking through a trade binder and I think about an interaction between a Commander and a card I haven't played with before.

The choice to build around Saffi was similar to Tajic. It was one card that kicked off a chain of events which led to the beginnings of design for this deck. That card was Gift of Immortality.

Having never played Saffi as a card, the connection and idea that arose from my unconscious was that Saffi could infinitely sac herself and come back, making her Wrath Proof. Since GoI acted in a similar way, this would make for a few nice combos to get card advantage.

So I decided I'd try to make a non-blue combo deck. Little did I know that what I'd actually stumbled upon was going to be the most involved combo-based deck I'd ever built, seen, or played, even.

What Does This Deck Do?

After I'd gotten to a good place with the deck, I did the thing I usually do when I get excited about a list. I sent it to Grandpa Growth to get thoughts, feedback, etc.

He asked this very question. What does the deck do?

The best three-word answer is Extreme Card Advantage. However, the full answer is slightly more complicated.

Conceptually, you have various layers of combos. Some are as simple as Sakura-Tribe Elder + Gift of Immortality, generating significant incremental value, while others, like Sun Titan + Saffi + Blasting Station can effectively end the game.

Because the combos and synergies within the deck scale to the game, it does two important things most other combo decks don't.

The first is that this deck keeps up an active board presence. A lot of combo decks in my experience revolve around being less interactive, specifically in combat. With little in the creature department, these decks tend to do nothing and either take damage, or go off and end the game in a less than exciting way for people.

The second is that the deck's inherent card advantage provides not only the ability to control a game, but also the ability to troubleshoot when you're in worst-case scenario. With a plethora of combos and the ability to weather Wrath effects because of Saffi, there are very few one card answers that can stop the deck from ending the game.

The overall effect of these qualities creates an effectively new identity for the combo deck in Commander. Rather than be the guy at the table hiding behind a handful of cards, the Saffi deck can play aggressively in a natural way and force your opponents to choose how best to manage their own disruption and resources to beat you.

When played correctly, this deck has yet to be beat. This is because it has a side effect I discovered.  With access to scaleable combos, inherent threats, and massive synergy, the deck can be played much like a "Shell Game," forcing your opponents to guess which combo is going to be the one that finishes them off.

If you've ever seen Yu-Gi play the card Magical Hats, that's essentially what's going on.



The Tech

While no one particular card is responsible for ending the game, there are plenty of pretty neat cards I was able to redefine and carve out a different identity for here in this deck.

The first one I want to talk about is this goofy Aura tutor. I've developed quite a soft spot for it in Saffi because of how great it is with access to sac outlets and creatures like Sakura-Tribe and Saffi, who can help me control the timing of this trigger.

Being able to have that flexibility is extremely valuable, which is why it's become one of the better cards in the deck.

That said, I don't think it's awesome without sac outlets, but it is well worth your time if you've got ways to get it into play for free, and creatures that you'd rather get into play for free.

Sac outlets are pretty important for this deck to be online. In green and white, we're pretty thin in terms of having relevant ones, but Martyr's Cause has been useful. With Sun Titan/Reveillark/Karmic Guide and Saffi, this card basically ensures I have an infinite Fog. It can also create "double-blocks" against decks like Azusa, which will probably have either more dudes, bigger dudes, or both.

I don't go get it regularly, but it is a good situational card when the odds are not in your favor.

Auramancer is another great situational card. Since most of our big enchantments (Pattern of Rebirth and Defense of the Heart) are either sacrificed when they work, or countered when they don't, the utility and value from Auramancer has been pretty unbelievable. There have been a few instances where sending a Saffi enchanted with Pattern to the bin meant going for Auramancer to get Pattern, enchant Auramancer, then get Sun Titan, get Auramancer back on the battlefield, get Pattern again in my hand. This is the kind of degenerate plays that can be made with this seemingly harmless card.

There are many sac outlets this deck plays, and we play all the ones that break the game- Ashnod's Altar, Greater Good, Blasting Station.

But we're talking about Spawning Pit just to illustrate how many great redundant copies of sac outlets I'm running.

Also, the fact that we have a really cool combo with this card too. In conjunction with Sun Titan/Karmic Guide/Reveillark, Saffi, and Earthcraft, This little engine can create infinite dudes or infinite ETB loops and mana.

I know it's not that good. It's just that much better because of the teamwork that takes place in this deck.

Okey-doke. Well, that's all I got for you today. Here's my full Saffi list on TappedOut:

Saffi Eriksdotter, Infinite Martyr 


I recommend you check it out, gimme comments, +1s if you like it, and feel free to follow me or add me as a friend if you're already on there.

Until next time, have a Happy Holidays. I'll try to be back here on Thursday with an essay on why Lightning Greaves is bad for you.

Here's to hoping you don't have to put your boots on. Merry Holiday.

-UL