MTG Salvation

I remember when Derevi came out I considered if it would be worthwhile to change my Jenara commander to Derevi and my consensus at that time is that Derevi doesn't have a lot of interaction with ETB creatures. This is a little different rendition, this is a death based bant list. It still has some of the better ETB creatures but its focus is on death and recycling creatures instead of being more focused on ETB. When you look at Derevi one of the strong elements of the commander is the consistent 4 mana flash cast of them. This means that using them as sort of a 4 mana Reassembling Skeleton is sort of viable.

So the idea here is creatures, primarily focusing on value in deaths.

I am still something like 8 cards over so additional cuts will have to be made. When I got the list together I think I started at like 20 over though so its been a lot of work to trim it to here. There is sort of a lot going on in here is the problem. I want to hedge it down to 100 cards yet.



MAYBE BOARD:

• Snapcaster Mage
  
• Gurmag Drowner
  
• Fool's Demise
  
• Prime Speaker Zegana
  
• Hallowed Spiritkeeper
  
• Perilous Forays
  
• Foster
  
• Pattern of Rebirth
  
• Faith's Reward
  
• Reincarnation
  
• Miraculous Recovery
  
• Profaner of the Dead
  
• Prophet of Kruphix
  
• Altar of Bone
  
• Mulldrifter
  
• Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
  
• Thunderfoot Baloth
  
• Momentous Fall
  
• Crop Rotation
  
• Sylvan Scrying
  
• Reap and Sow
  
• Rally the Ancestors
  

Swinging with Blade of Selves gives you the ability to tap x defending creatures (or untap x other things, due to CiTP triggers) and then sac x Derevi's or just let them die to legend rule on the attack step. With Martyr's Bond out it becomes quite cruel.

..

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I haven't had a lot of free time to really put into finishing this list yet but hopefully I can come back and finish it off yet soon.

The idea of Hero's Blade / Bastion Protector / Thunderfoot Baloth were in part an idea to try to make my commander more relevant in combat as well as with Greater Good. Its possible I just ditch the idea entirely but I liked that I could trade / beat people up better with my commander with them.

I will have to put more thought into this though. I think there are some great cards in the list still and I have to make some hard cuts yet.

I looked at this list for sort of a long time. I ended up coming up with 6/8 of the cuts I needed to make but it keeps getting harder with each cut. I think there are a few cards I could probably still take out but I just really want to see how they perform which is part of why they are still in.

CUTS:

• Genesis - I like him and he fits the theme of sac based creatures but I did a rundown on graveyard dependency cards and my count was high. I currently have sort of a lot of graveyard interaction with all of my rez currently and I felt he is not as impressive as other graveyard effects considering I need to get him to grave and wait a turn generally speaking or come across Survival of the Fittest for him to really work. He is somewhat obvious and slow so I felt he could get cut.
• Seedguide Ash - I like the card but its slow to come down and slow to ramp. I like it a lot but I felt that Karametra, God of Harvests fills a similar role but was more robust with more value to be had in the long run. I could run both effects but I felt like I could also cut one of the two of them and still be very content. I opted to go for the bigger long term value given I have a reasonable creature count. The treefolk fits the theme of the deck better but for now I felt it was less to assemble on curve and make it work with Karametra where as I can be sort of picky about dropping a Seedguide without a sac outlet.
• Hero's Blade - I love the idea of dropping my commander in at instant speed as a 5/5. That said, I think of the buff effects I run this was the worst of them so I cut it for now. It has good interaction with Greater Good as well as Diamond Valley effects with my commander. I just felt like I needed to cut this one currently but it could pop back up in the future potentially. I like what it does with a flash enabled fixed cost commander like this.
• Life's Legacy - the size of my creatures is not very big on average. Its not instant speed and in a lot of cases it probably wont draw me a ton of cards as a one shot sorcery effect. I love this card but I think its not quite right for this deck.
• Natural Order - I kept hoping to on curve flip my commander into being Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger but outside of this happening I dont see a lot of amazing use for Natural Order. I feel like I would need to make room for something really big and splashy in green to include Natural Order as it stands. I love the card and how it would work great with my commander I just am not crazy about my targets offhand.
• Lifeblood Hydra - I like what it does but the more I thought about it, this thing is super hard to abuse. Most of my tutor to play effects wont work and my rez loops also wont work. I am not +/+ build based so its sort of a one shot creature version Sphinx's Revelation. I like him but for now I see issues with re-usability and tutor-ability.

I need to make two more cuts. I like most everything in the list right now is my issue. This deck looks to have a lot of fun cards so I am having a little bit of an issue combining all of the tactics in bant. I was thinking about trying to assemble this for games tomorrow though. Input appreciated I guess is where I am sitting. I will update if I figure out something else or if I get it together and how it goes.

Have you considered Rally the Ancestors? Goes wonderfully with any of the free sac outlets.

Quote from ZenN »

Have you considered Rally the Ancestors? Goes wonderfully with any of the free sac outlets.

Great call. I will add it to the list of cards to try to make room for after I make two more cuts.

I don't love Martyr's Cause or Fanatical Devotion. I've played with both of those cards in the past, and they never did as much as I wanted them to.

Quote from ZenN »

I don't love Martyr's Cause or Fanatical Devotion. I've played with both of those cards in the past, and they never did as much as I wanted them to.

I know what you mean on both. I am having a hard time cutting sac outlets though because I want to make sure to get them in play and have access to them which is why I resorted to running Fanatical Devotion. I have actually had a lot of success with Martyr's Cause in a lot of decks though as I tend to draw a lot of attention regardless of what I play so having the pillowfort effect does a lot when I can play my commander, tap a creature, block a creature, sac protect all in one shot its like a three way block potentially. I could.... possibly be talked out of Fanatical Devotion because as far as protecting creatures goes, this deck doesnt have many creatures I would care if they lived through a wrath but it was more of the sac outlet count that I was interested in.

I will cut Fanatical Devotion for now and be one card away but I have concerns about cutting further into my sac outlet count. Martyr's Cause has done a lot of work for me in the past as well because of how much of a target I tend to be. We have a few very aggressive decks in my meta and it helps to be able to swat them away.

Honestly, I think you'd be better off replacing mediocre sac outlets with more ways to get the better ones.
For example, you could/SHOULD be playing Enlightened Tutor.