Speed
The deck is a base line turn 4 combo deck, with the possibility of having the mana dorks shave off a full turn. A normal line of play is to play a mana dork at turn 1, Saheeli Rai at turn 2, Felidar Guardian at turn 3 against non-interactive decks. The deck can even “go off” as early as turn 4 without having either of the combo pieces on board with a mana dork and Voice of Resurgence/Wall of Omen on the board: Play Saheeli, copy the mana dork, sacrifice VoR/WoO to Eldritch Evolution to search for Felidar, bounce Saheeli.
You can compare it to Kiki-Chord which requires more setup and has at least 2 turns slower combo in effect.
Eldritch Evolution also allows the deck to tutor up and advance its board position by going up two CMC while often not losing any value (if you sacrifice a "sticky" creature that has already gained you value, like Wall of Omen or Voice of Resurgence) or finding a silver bullet.
Eldritch Evolution over Chord of Calling
Eldritch Evolution takes an X CMC creature and can convert it into a X + 2 CMC creature, for a total of X + 2 mana investment during two turns. Chord of Calling requires you to “convoke” for X + 5 mana in total for the same effect. Some of that higher mana requirement is upheld by being able to convoke. The upside from Eldritch Evolution is that you don’t need to stay back with your creatures to make them convoke like you have to with Chord of Calling. Chord also more or less requires us to play “empty shells” like Wall of Roots to adjust for that higher casting cost of Chord. Eldritch Evolution, therefore, synergises better with a proactive strategy since you can fruitfully turn your creatures sideways to attack. A drawback is that you have to sacrifice the creature. It is only a real downside if the creature you died didn’t already generate value or if the spell gets countered. The former case is negated by having the deck play lots of value generating creatures and the second case is negated by only keeping 1 or 2 Evolutions against decks with counters.
In short, Chord of Calling is more of a reactively inclined card in comparsion while Eldritch Evolution is more proactive.
Proactive
The GW creature package gives you a strong beat down plan akin to Abzan Company decks, what is “lost” in quantity coming from Collected Company is gained through faster starts from Eldritch Evolution “ramping” us up in mana and the Renegade Rallier synergy package with the rest of the deck. A common play is to sacrifice a Voice of Resurgence after it attacks and search up a Renegade Rallier to get a Voice token and recur the Voice from the graveyard. More than half of my matches usually end by me beating down my opponents, especially the fair matchups. The proactive nature of the deck makes it difficult for the opponent to both answer a potential combo and the board. Usually the decks proactive board state will force the opponent's hand implying there’s a greater chance of successfully comboing. Even a simple turn 1 mana dork will force the bolt from our opponents hand or they risk being behind too far on board.
Resilience
The deck operates on two axes. One being the combo, which gets “interupted” by removal, the second one by graveyard based value generation off Voice of Resurgence, Eldritch Evolution, Renegade Rallier and the like. Both are difficult to answer at the same time. If you must save removal for the combo you risk getting overrun by the value engine- Conversely if you answer the board you risk dying to the combo from nowhere. Even a simple “bolt the bird” on turn 1 might be the wrong choice for that reason against this deck.
The combo part also has lots of redundant pieces 4 Felidar Guardians and 4 Saheeli Rai. Both are found through regular draw steps, Wall of Omen entering the battlefield or recurring Oath of Nissas. All these cards together give us a high probability of drawing into the combo should we need it.
The combo can be often reassembled quickly from scratch. Whether it is that you draw a Felidar Guardian which you use to blink an Oath of Nissa or a Rallier and fetch getting back an Oath from your graveyard which digs deeper. Most pieces in the deck propel both your game plans of beatdown and combo simultaneously.
Consistency
The mana base is primarily Selesnya with a slight splash for red and blue for casting Saheeli Rai. Typically during a game you will fetch for almost G and W exclusively, being very painless in effect. When you don’t need to curve out the fetches get you R/U. Similarly Oath of Nissa and the mana dorks make sure you can cast Saheeli Rai without any trouble. The times when I’ve not been able to cast Saheeli Rai on time with this “strategy” is incredibly low.
Oath of Nissa not only fixes your mana by allowing all colors to cast Saheeli, but it also smoothes out your starting hands. It can get any of planeswalker, creature or land. Let it be Saheeli, Felidar Guardian or some utility land like Horizon Canopy or Gavony Township. Without the card the deck would mulligan alot more and would be in general more inconsistent. This is one of the big draws for me to playing this deck.
Silver Bullets
Being able to have access to the full 4 Eldritch Evolutions among our 75 cards allows us to play silver bullets with high consistency and as early as turn 2. Chord of Calling takes a bit of setup.
Free Wins
The super fast combo gives you alot of free wins. With Splinter Twin traditionally you won perhaps 1-in-5 games with the combo and most with the tempo and burn plan. Since both plans are so strong individually in this deck you win pretty much split between beatdown and combo, even against decks that are attrition based, especially game 1.
Few Truly Bad Matchups
The few truly bad matchups I’ve encoutnered during my 150+ games have been RG Titan type decks and Eldrazi Tron. The best matchups are midrange, control and combo in that order. Aggro decks range from favorable to even thanks to our combo and silver bullets. Tron which is traditionally good against these type of strategies is pretty much a favored matchup for us. The current top dog Death's Shadow Jund is slightly favorable to even also.
Oath of Nissa
This is the best card in the deck so it deserves a special mention since it does so much for the deck. Conversely the deck is so far the deck that utilizes Oath of Nissa to its fullest potential in Modern. It is the single card that is not taken out against any deck or matchup, it does everything:
fixes mana by getting us lands in land light draws or creatures in creature light draws, also allows us to cast Saheeli Rai for GGG.
smoothens draws
the best top deck
digs for both combo pieces
gains incremental value by bouncing with Felidar or recurring the legendary copies in the graveyard with Rallier
You simply have to see the card in action in the deck.
Different Avenues to Combo
Another strength of the deck is that it can win from nowhere and it can present the combo constantly, meaning that the opponent must either choose to give up tempo by respecting the combo or preemptively using their spells to be safer, allowing us to gain a value advantage.
A turn 4 kill without having either of the combo on board is exemplified by the following board. A mana dork and Voice of Resurgence/Wall of Omen on the board: Play Saheeli, copy the mana dork, sacrifice VoR/WoO to Eldritch Evolution to search for Felidar, bounce Saheeli and win.
Turn 5 kill with only a Voice of Resurgence/Wall of Omen on board is gotten by using Eldritch Evolution on the mentioned 2 drop getting Felidar Guardian which bounces a land. Tap three mana to play Saheeli Rai and combo off.
The standard turn 6 kill without any board is gained by playing Felidar Guardian, bouncing a land and using three mana to cast Saheeli Rai (which we perhaps drew from bouncing Oath of Nissa with Felidar Guardian).
There are of course many different variations of the above which all “win from nowehere”, it is often impossible for your opponent to correctly hedge against them all. And it is part of the decks consistency to assembling the combo.
Mana Dorks Birds of Paradise - Mana dork, fixes mana for Saheeli and Creatures. Noble Hierarch - Mana dork that ramps and fixes mana along with more utility from Exalted. Lotus Cobra - ramps very fast. A fetchlanf meand 3 mana. If you play a rallier and return the fetchland you played that's another 3 mana.
Combo Pieces Felidar Guardian - Combo piece that has utility by blinking lands, Oath of Nissa, ETB creatures. Saheeli Rai - Combo piece that has utility by copying creatures. Eldritch Evolution - Looks for combo piece or silver bullets. Is basically the glue. Our 5-8th Felidar Guardian if so needed.
Evolution Fodder Voice of Resurgence - The best 2-drop in the deck. Allows us to threaten combo under VoR protection. Serves as excellent Evolution fodder. One of the best synergies is Eldritch Evolution for Renegade Rallier resulting in a Renegade Rallier, 3/3 Voice Token, Voice of Resurgence. Total of 8 power split around 3 bodies. Wall of Omens - Excellent Evolution fodder that minimizes the downside from sacrificing. Also draws us cards when we blink it with the blink/copy effects in the deck. Strangleroot Geist - Aggressively slanted body for Evolution.
Utility Restoration Angel - Value creature that has synergy with ETB creatures and is an evasive flash threat. Allows us to force action on opponents turn. Renegade Rallier - Amazing synergy with recurring utility lands like Gavony Township or Horizon Canopy. Recurs our Voice of Resurgence or Wall of Omen from the graveyard. Very good to search up with Evolution. Eternal Witness - Value creature that gives us recursion. Scavenging Ooze - Utility creature that can be taken back by Renegade Rallier. Glen Elendra Archmage - Combo protection and evasion. Sun Titan - Recurs and alloww explosive lines if you copy him with a Saheeli. Since the token gains haste you effectively get two triggers in one turn. Also comboes infinitely if you have two Saheeli between the graveyard/in play. Whirler Rogue - Similar to Pia and Kiran Nalaar, gives two colorless fliers that lets us go wide and pumps Voice of Resurgence tokens. Unblockability is useful in midrange matchups. Also non-legendary so copying with Saheeli gives another 2/2 haste body. Pia and Kiran Nalaar - gives two colorless fliers that lets us go wide and pumps Voice of Resurgence tokens. Effective against small creatures that can be shot down. Useful to blink repeatedly. Tireless Tracker - Excellent grind card. Excellent synergy with Lotus Cobra. Courser of Kruphix - Allows us to control our topdecks with fetchlands and helps aggressive matchups. Great synergy with Tracker and Lotus Cobra.
Spells Oath of Nissa - One of the best cards in the deck. See above dedicated section. Path to Exile - Interaction to buy us time or remove too large creatures.
Matchups
Todo!
Silver Bullets/Evolution Targets
Eidolon of Rhetoric (Combo, Ad Nauseam, Storm, everything with suspend)
Magus of the Moon (Tron)
Magus of the Moat (Death Shadow Jund, Bant Eldrazi, Elves, Merfolk, go wide strategies)
Gaddock Teeg (Control decks, Ramp, Tron, Dredge, Chord and Company decks)
Reclamatino Sage (Anything with enchantments or artifacts you need to handle)
Kataki’s War Wage (Affinity, Lantern, artifact decks)
Linvala, Keeper of Silence (Affinity, Elves, Abzan Company, Kiki-Chord, decks with creatures with activated abilities)
Any reason to use the "Saheeli Rai + Felidar Guardian" combo over "Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder" which can be assembled much easier as both pieces can be tutored for (so you don't have to run so many dead cards in the deck) and not splash additional colors ?
I don't think you would need to run 4x of each piece (2x each or even a 2/1 split is probably more reasonable), I'd rather add Chord of Calling instead for more tutoring (and would probably cut the Oath of Nissa).
Have you tried noxious revival as a way to combo again the round after your opponent disrupts the combo (like a bolt on saheeli for example). Seems like it may be pretty good at providing a bump in resiliency. You can also use it to blank a surgical extraction and remove the spells target since you're all in on the plan A. spellskite seems like good protection too.
4c makes the secondary beat down plan of gavony township slightly more difficult I'd assume. How often to you swap to plan B beat downs with it?
If you run rallier, I think Todd Stevens article last week on the engine of asuza, lost but seeking + crucible of worlds + ghost quarter seems viable in the shell. Saheeli copying a courser of kruphix to play a land and gain 2 seems pretty legit and the asuza can churn through your deck via fetchlands with rallier/crucible to shuffle the top and "dig" towards combo pieces? Seems like a strong I win button that Todds list lacked. Thinking out loud here, as it does water the deck down a good bit for the soft lock but it's interesting to say the least. Just curious.
That is only if you draw Saheeli Rai, which is not guaranteed.
The Archanglel-Feeder combo is much more likely to happen with the tutors, it also leaves you more slots in the deck to run silver bullets for these match-ups.
With the amount of mana dorks you play setting up Chord shouldn't be an issue (you can even replace Birds of Paradise with Wall of Roots to Chord faster) and it only serves as additional tutor to complement Eldritch Evolution to further improve the consistency of the combo.
Any reason to use the "Saheeli Rai + Felidar Guardian" combo over "Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder" which can be assembled much easier as both pieces can be tutored for (so you don't have to run so many dead cards in the deck) and not splash additional colors ?
Having played a fair number of matches with the deck since OP posted it to reddit, I will say that Saheeli and Felidar are very good at coming in clutch. Mana has never been an issue for me, between our mana dorks and the oath. I will concede that the Archangel/Feeder combo is probably easier to assemble, but Oath is incredibly good at finding us what we need. As far as the place of Saheeli and Felidar, they are very good at abusing our ETB effects. I also agree with your other comment that Finks deserves a spot in this list. It most certainly does. I would recommend taking the deck for a spin. It's a lot of fun, and seems perfectly capable of holding its own.
Very nice deck, OP, and responses. I look forward to seeing this deck progress.
I guess I'm supposed to offer some creative feedback. So here goes. Finks deserves a spot. If not a 2 or 3 of in the case of silver bullets, like you said this deck offers. Then as a set since the card is so good and puts so much pressure on the opponent.
Very nice deck, OP, and responses. I look forward to seeing this deck progress.
I guess I'm supposed to offer some creative feedback. So here goes. Finks deserves a spot. If not a 2 or 3 of in the case of silver bullets, like you said this deck offers. Then as a set since the card is so good and puts so much pressure on the opponent.
I think we could definitely use some more bullets in the main. I'm not completely sure what yet, but they seem like a good thing to include.
Anafenza seems pretty nice. She's a solid bear on her own, and the upside with the combo is excellent. We can even get around summoning sickness if we already have a guardian in play, and flash in resto on the opponent's end step.
With regards to the sideboard, I've found it pretty tough too. Reveillark seems to be one of the best sideboard cards we have, and I've even been contemplating running one mainboard.
I must be missing something with the new combo. If you have Anafenza in play already and a guardian in play.... Play the angel... How does that really help? Wouldn't boaster put counters on Anafenza until it gets 5 toughness? then the counters would just be placed on the soon to be exiled guardian or angel?
Nahiri has been a good two of, felidar bouncing her for multiple activations in a turn is good value and having the nahiri ult to grab emrakul sneaks out some wins, especially when you can play her early via the dorks and clog the board. Not to mention she's grabable with oath, and filters out some of your awkward draws with her plus 2.
Kinda nice to have an additional win con in the deck that doubles as filtering and removal. These kind of decks often suffer from a lack of interactivity as we sort of get tunnel vision on the combo, nahiri assists with this without getting in the way.
Oh, I really liked that combination of Felidar + Anafenza + Restoration, it can works even on other deck colors. I will give a thought on it!
About adding green, I'm not very confident it can work strong, but, with time if I see this is a thing, I will consider it, that's for sure. Hope you can report match-ups soon!
I have played Jeskai Saheeli quite a bit both online and in paper. As an old Twin player I tried lots of variants. I can safely say that this GW deck is largely superior against almost all decks in Modern except cases like Tron and Valakut. It is almost like night and day. The Jeskai variant has too many bad matchups for me to feel comfortable taking it to a large tournament and very few really good matchups. The deck in general feels very forced. Even decks like Storm or Ad Nauseam are better with the GW variant because of the silver bullets that are so easily available. Grindy matchups and control decks are the best matchups (65% and 70% winrate). Aggro decks are favorable (55%) Ramp decks are more difficult but I still have 50% winrate against those. The two most difficult decks are Eldrazi Tron and GR Valakut, you can improve those matchups by playing 3-4 Unified Wills.
Out of curiosity, why are you not confident that it is good?
Edit: I don't mean to sound too defensive. Just making my case.
I think ardilla is saying they aren't too confident in green, not the deck as a whole (could be wrong). It looks to me they're saying green isn't pulling its weight in the deck, so to speak. I disagree, but I think that's what ardilla's trying to say.
I was saying to add a fourth color is what it makes me refuse it a bit, only that. Catching the correct mana is the complicated thing. The only deck I play 5 colors are Slivers, and because I can use there my Cavern of Souls and Sliver Hive.
But, I'm open to see how is it working for you, and if it gives you good results, I would like to test it someday! I would like to try it with jeskai colors with the angel, anafenza and invisible stalker combinated with Rally the Ancestors. I will give a try first in this jeskai version, and later on, if it's just totally horrible, try it with the 4 colors version of yours.
I was saying to add a fourth color is what it makes me refuse it a bit, only that. Catching the correct mana is the complicated thing. The only deck I play 5 colors are Slivers, and because I can use there my Cavern of Souls and Sliver Hive.
But, I'm open to see how is it working for you, and if it gives you good results, I would like to test it someday! I would like to try it with jeskai colors with the angel, anafenza and invisible stalker combinated with Rally the Ancestors. I will give a try first in this jeskai version, and later on, if it's just totally horrible, try it with the 4 colors version of yours.
Here's the way I see it: This is a grindy, midrange, GW deck. We have mana dorks to fix our mana and Oath of Nissa to fix mana for Saheeli and to act as a mini-ponder. We have a light splash into UR for Saheeli. The mana is actually really smooth, and hardcasting Saheeli turn 2 isn't nearly as rare as you might think. I would recommend trying it out. It's a lot of fun, and seems pretty damn competitive. For reference, I have had mana issues one game: I was on the draw. My opponent played land, then passed. I drew, played land, played a mana dork, passed. My opponent then cast smallpox. My land and dork were the only mana sources I had in my hand. The mana is actually really smooth, and as long as you don't keep a risky hand and then get Smallpoxed, you should be fine.
Some quick standard comparisons before I launch into next question. I run 4c saheeli in standard and elder deep-fiend is a friggen house. It's a great copy target when you don't not have the combo and helps set up some great turns. I started with two and moved to three, I've tried the four but I think 3 feels good. Because of this I'm in the process of phasing out my oath of Chandra's/harnessed lightning (burn removal package) to incorporate kozilek's return in the main.
Is the package out of the side something the deck could want if we go for wall of roots? May be a solid way of dealing with tribal decks before they get off the ground. Then after they spend turns 3-5 rebuilding you just dig to the combo. Thinking of a sideboard package maybe? Deepfiend and finks feel great together.
That sounds good to have one on the sideboard. As grixis, junds, abzans are around here a lot, Surgical Extraction it's a threat, and just 1 kiki-jiki tutoreable is a good thing to catch them with their guard down
This list recently 5-0'd a league, thought you all would be interested, don't know if tarmo is a good choice here over voice, but blade splicer seems incredible. easy to bounce and clone for value, and a great to sac to evo (though should be noted that this particular list runs no evos)
It is rather surprising to see Lotus Cobra and Domri Rade there over more Nobles and a better PW. Blade Splicer is great in any blink strategy.
Tarmogoyf makes sense as it is probably better than Voice in a non-Evo list.
This deck is probably more of a "Bant value-beatdown" deck (similar to "Knightfall") with the combo as backup instead of being the main focus. Spell Queller seems missing from this dek though as both evasive beater and interaction.
Really like this deck. Do you think using elves instead of noble is going to hurt it a lot? One of the cards I don't have and it spiked like crazy. I liked ply idea of Kiki so tried to splash one. This is what I have so far. It's very close to your newest build.
Really like this deck. Do you think using elves instead of noble is going to hurt it a lot? One of the cards I don't have and it spiked like crazy. I liked ply idea of Kiki so tried to splash one. This is what I have so far. It's very close to your newest build.
I think that the Nobles help out the deck quite a bit, both with blue mana (sometimes it's relevant) and with exalted. You are somewhat "saved" by the fact that you run 3 Lotus Cobras. Kiki-Jiki is definitely an upside in term of power level of the deck but I think the mana needs a bit rework with it in, and it will be a bit more painful. Because you will only have few red mana sources if you should draw it.
Also, Grafdigger's Cage shuts down your own Evolutions, can be good to keep in mind. Gaddock Teeg does similar things to Grafdigger's Cage: helps with Coco/Chord/Conflagrate from Dredge.
I like Stony Silence since it helps alot with the Eldrazi Tron (amongst all other artifact decks of course) which is really one of our worsts matchups. It shuts down Ballista. I like it! Sigarda is also a beating against BGx and blue decks.
Nice build! I'm always too afraid to test Kiki out myself, tell us if it was good when you've tried it!
Suggestions on Mana base? I tried adding a few extra red from yours. Hopefully will help with it. Thought cobras would help too and 4 birds.
Honestly didn't dig too deep into the side deck I copied the one from the deck with goyf. Will play with that later. Was thinking about a way to make it more aggressive for when you can't combo. How is anafenza for you? Wasn't sure about it. Also what do you think about Burning-Tree? Kind of helps with red in its own way. Thought it might be interesting
Honestly liking Essence Warden over anafenza, it's an effective win con against most decks to gain infinite life, easier on the mana, and less likely to lose to removal spells/chump blockers. As far as the list I posted, I ran a collected company knightfall list that I think is strictly a more powerful deck if you're going to forgo the evo/value plan, and go for tarmogoyfs as coco is significantly more powerful at dumping aggression on to the board. I actually took it apart to build this value/combo list as a change of pace, as well as a general lack of good match ups in the meta especially since deaths shadow became the new hotness.
Not totally sold on lotus cobra, always seems to be inconsistent in every list I try it in, and sort of fills our deck with air like a chord list with wall of roots.
Thanks for opening this thread, I hope to stick around here and work on this deck with all of you. I just started playing this similar but different deck this week. I am in love with combo and value.
I have already walked away from the sisters version of the saheeli deck and sleeved up Lejoon's V3 for modern on monday night.
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Introduction, What Does This Deck Offer?
Speed
The deck is a base line turn 4 combo deck, with the possibility of having the mana dorks shave off a full turn. A normal line of play is to play a mana dork at turn 1, Saheeli Rai at turn 2, Felidar Guardian at turn 3 against non-interactive decks. The deck can even “go off” as early as turn 4 without having either of the combo pieces on board with a mana dork and Voice of Resurgence/Wall of Omen on the board: Play Saheeli, copy the mana dork, sacrifice VoR/WoO to Eldritch Evolution to search for Felidar, bounce Saheeli.
You can compare it to Kiki-Chord which requires more setup and has at least 2 turns slower combo in effect.
Eldritch Evolution also allows the deck to tutor up and advance its board position by going up two CMC while often not losing any value (if you sacrifice a "sticky" creature that has already gained you value, like Wall of Omen or Voice of Resurgence) or finding a silver bullet.
Eldritch Evolution over Chord of Calling
Eldritch Evolution takes an X CMC creature and can convert it into a X + 2 CMC creature, for a total of X + 2 mana investment during two turns. Chord of Calling requires you to “convoke” for X + 5 mana in total for the same effect. Some of that higher mana requirement is upheld by being able to convoke. The upside from Eldritch Evolution is that you don’t need to stay back with your creatures to make them convoke like you have to with Chord of Calling. Chord also more or less requires us to play “empty shells” like Wall of Roots to adjust for that higher casting cost of Chord. Eldritch Evolution, therefore, synergises better with a proactive strategy since you can fruitfully turn your creatures sideways to attack. A drawback is that you have to sacrifice the creature. It is only a real downside if the creature you died didn’t already generate value or if the spell gets countered. The former case is negated by having the deck play lots of value generating creatures and the second case is negated by only keeping 1 or 2 Evolutions against decks with counters.
In short, Chord of Calling is more of a reactively inclined card in comparsion while Eldritch Evolution is more proactive.
Proactive
The GW creature package gives you a strong beat down plan akin to Abzan Company decks, what is “lost” in quantity coming from Collected Company is gained through faster starts from Eldritch Evolution “ramping” us up in mana and the Renegade Rallier synergy package with the rest of the deck. A common play is to sacrifice a Voice of Resurgence after it attacks and search up a Renegade Rallier to get a Voice token and recur the Voice from the graveyard. More than half of my matches usually end by me beating down my opponents, especially the fair matchups. The proactive nature of the deck makes it difficult for the opponent to both answer a potential combo and the board. Usually the decks proactive board state will force the opponent's hand implying there’s a greater chance of successfully comboing. Even a simple turn 1 mana dork will force the bolt from our opponents hand or they risk being behind too far on board.
Resilience
The deck operates on two axes. One being the combo, which gets “interupted” by removal, the second one by graveyard based value generation off Voice of Resurgence, Eldritch Evolution, Renegade Rallier and the like. Both are difficult to answer at the same time. If you must save removal for the combo you risk getting overrun by the value engine- Conversely if you answer the board you risk dying to the combo from nowhere. Even a simple “bolt the bird” on turn 1 might be the wrong choice for that reason against this deck.
The combo part also has lots of redundant pieces 4 Felidar Guardians and 4 Saheeli Rai. Both are found through regular draw steps, Wall of Omen entering the battlefield or recurring Oath of Nissas. All these cards together give us a high probability of drawing into the combo should we need it.
The combo can be often reassembled quickly from scratch. Whether it is that you draw a Felidar Guardian which you use to blink an Oath of Nissa or a Rallier and fetch getting back an Oath from your graveyard which digs deeper. Most pieces in the deck propel both your game plans of beatdown and combo simultaneously.
Consistency
The mana base is primarily Selesnya with a slight splash for red and blue for casting Saheeli Rai. Typically during a game you will fetch for almost G and W exclusively, being very painless in effect. When you don’t need to curve out the fetches get you R/U. Similarly Oath of Nissa and the mana dorks make sure you can cast Saheeli Rai without any trouble. The times when I’ve not been able to cast Saheeli Rai on time with this “strategy” is incredibly low.
Oath of Nissa not only fixes your mana by allowing all colors to cast Saheeli, but it also smoothes out your starting hands. It can get any of planeswalker, creature or land. Let it be Saheeli, Felidar Guardian or some utility land like Horizon Canopy or Gavony Township. Without the card the deck would mulligan alot more and would be in general more inconsistent. This is one of the big draws for me to playing this deck.
Silver Bullets
Being able to have access to the full 4 Eldritch Evolutions among our 75 cards allows us to play silver bullets with high consistency and as early as turn 2. Chord of Calling takes a bit of setup.
Free Wins
The super fast combo gives you alot of free wins. With Splinter Twin traditionally you won perhaps 1-in-5 games with the combo and most with the tempo and burn plan. Since both plans are so strong individually in this deck you win pretty much split between beatdown and combo, even against decks that are attrition based, especially game 1.
Few Truly Bad Matchups
The few truly bad matchups I’ve encoutnered during my 150+ games have been RG Titan type decks and Eldrazi Tron. The best matchups are midrange, control and combo in that order. Aggro decks range from favorable to even thanks to our combo and silver bullets. Tron which is traditionally good against these type of strategies is pretty much a favored matchup for us. The current top dog Death's Shadow Jund is slightly favorable to even also.
Oath of Nissa
This is the best card in the deck so it deserves a special mention since it does so much for the deck. Conversely the deck is so far the deck that utilizes Oath of Nissa to its fullest potential in Modern. It is the single card that is not taken out against any deck or matchup, it does everything:
- fixes mana by getting us lands in land light draws or creatures in creature light draws, also allows us to cast Saheeli Rai for GGG.
- smoothens draws
- the best top deck
- digs for both combo pieces
- gains incremental value by bouncing with Felidar or recurring the legendary copies in the graveyard with Rallier
You simply have to see the card in action in the deck.Different Avenues to Combo
Another strength of the deck is that it can win from nowhere and it can present the combo constantly, meaning that the opponent must either choose to give up tempo by respecting the combo or preemptively using their spells to be safer, allowing us to gain a value advantage.
A turn 4 kill without having either of the combo on board is exemplified by the following board. A mana dork and Voice of Resurgence/Wall of Omen on the board: Play Saheeli, copy the mana dork, sacrifice VoR/WoO to Eldritch Evolution to search for Felidar, bounce Saheeli and win.
Turn 5 kill with only a Voice of Resurgence/Wall of Omen on board is gotten by using Eldritch Evolution on the mentioned 2 drop getting Felidar Guardian which bounces a land. Tap three mana to play Saheeli Rai and combo off.
The standard turn 6 kill without any board is gained by playing Felidar Guardian, bouncing a land and using three mana to cast Saheeli Rai (which we perhaps drew from bouncing Oath of Nissa with Felidar Guardian).
There are of course many different variations of the above which all “win from nowehere”, it is often impossible for your opponent to correctly hedge against them all. And it is part of the decks consistency to assembling the combo.
Decklist
4 Saheeli Rai
Creature (22)
3 Birds of Paradise
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
4 Felidar Guardian
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Sun Titan
1 Thragtusk
4 Voice of Resurgence
2 Wall of Omens
Sorcery (3)
3 Eldritch Evolution
Instant (4)
4 Path to Exile
1 Engineered Explosives
Enchantment (4)
4 Oath of Nissa
Land (22)
1 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
1 Gavony Township
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Auriok Champion
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
2 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Manglehorn
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Reveillark
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Lotus Cobra
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Wall of Omens
1 Eternal Witness
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Tireless Tracker
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Restoration Angel
1 Sun Titan
Planeswalkers (4)
4 Saheeli Rai
Spells (5)
3 Path to Exile
2 Eldritch Evolution
4 Oath of Nissa
Lands (22)
1 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Path to Exile
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Negate
2 Unified Will
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Eldritch Evolution
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Thragtusk
1 Breeding Pool
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
Creatures
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Restoration Angel
4 Voice of Resurgence
2 Wall of Omens
2 Anafenza, Kin Tree Spirit
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Eternal Witness
Spells
3 Eldritch Evolution
4 Saheeli Rai
4 Oath of Nissa
3 Path to Exile
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Thragtusk
1 Path to Exile
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Deadeye Harpooner
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Reveillark
1 Breeding Pool
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Felidar Guardian
2 Restoration Angel
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Wall of Omens
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Eternal Witness
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
3 Eldritch Evolution
4 Saheeli Rai
4 Oath of Nissa
3 Path to Exile
Cards
Mana Dorks
Birds of Paradise - Mana dork, fixes mana for Saheeli and Creatures.
Noble Hierarch - Mana dork that ramps and fixes mana along with more utility from Exalted.
Lotus Cobra - ramps very fast. A fetchlanf meand 3 mana. If you play a rallier and return the fetchland you played that's another 3 mana.
Combo Pieces
Felidar Guardian - Combo piece that has utility by blinking lands, Oath of Nissa, ETB creatures.
Saheeli Rai - Combo piece that has utility by copying creatures.
Eldritch Evolution - Looks for combo piece or silver bullets. Is basically the glue. Our 5-8th Felidar Guardian if so needed.
Evolution Fodder
Voice of Resurgence - The best 2-drop in the deck. Allows us to threaten combo under VoR protection. Serves as excellent Evolution fodder. One of the best synergies is Eldritch Evolution for Renegade Rallier resulting in a Renegade Rallier, 3/3 Voice Token, Voice of Resurgence. Total of 8 power split around 3 bodies.
Wall of Omens - Excellent Evolution fodder that minimizes the downside from sacrificing. Also draws us cards when we blink it with the blink/copy effects in the deck.
Strangleroot Geist - Aggressively slanted body for Evolution.
Utility
Restoration Angel - Value creature that has synergy with ETB creatures and is an evasive flash threat. Allows us to force action on opponents turn.
Renegade Rallier - Amazing synergy with recurring utility lands like Gavony Township or Horizon Canopy. Recurs our Voice of Resurgence or Wall of Omen from the graveyard. Very good to search up with Evolution.
Eternal Witness - Value creature that gives us recursion.
Scavenging Ooze - Utility creature that can be taken back by Renegade Rallier.
Glen Elendra Archmage - Combo protection and evasion.
Sun Titan - Recurs and alloww explosive lines if you copy him with a Saheeli. Since the token gains haste you effectively get two triggers in one turn. Also comboes infinitely if you have two Saheeli between the graveyard/in play.
Whirler Rogue - Similar to Pia and Kiran Nalaar, gives two colorless fliers that lets us go wide and pumps Voice of Resurgence tokens. Unblockability is useful in midrange matchups. Also non-legendary so copying with Saheeli gives another 2/2 haste body.
Pia and Kiran Nalaar - gives two colorless fliers that lets us go wide and pumps Voice of Resurgence tokens. Effective against small creatures that can be shot down. Useful to blink repeatedly.
Tireless Tracker - Excellent grind card. Excellent synergy with Lotus Cobra.
Courser of Kruphix - Allows us to control our topdecks with fetchlands and helps aggressive matchups. Great synergy with Tracker and Lotus Cobra.
Spells
Oath of Nissa - One of the best cards in the deck. See above dedicated section.
Path to Exile - Interaction to buy us time or remove too large creatures.
Matchups
Todo!
Silver Bullets/Evolution Targets
Cluster Theory
Cluster Theory applied on Saheeli Evolution is todo!
Archangel of Thune can certainly do some work even without Spike Feeder especially with Scavenging Ooze and Kitchen Finks (which should be in every Eldritch Evolution deck imho).
4c makes the secondary beat down plan of gavony township slightly more difficult I'd assume. How often to you swap to plan B beat downs with it?
If you run rallier, I think Todd Stevens article last week on the engine of asuza, lost but seeking + crucible of worlds + ghost quarter seems viable in the shell. Saheeli copying a courser of kruphix to play a land and gain 2 seems pretty legit and the asuza can churn through your deck via fetchlands with rallier/crucible to shuffle the top and "dig" towards combo pieces? Seems like a strong I win button that Todds list lacked. Thinking out loud here, as it does water the deck down a good bit for the soft lock but it's interesting to say the least. Just curious.
The Archanglel-Feeder combo is much more likely to happen with the tutors, it also leaves you more slots in the deck to run silver bullets for these match-ups.
With the amount of mana dorks you play setting up Chord shouldn't be an issue (you can even replace Birds of Paradise with Wall of Roots to Chord faster) and it only serves as additional tutor to complement Eldritch Evolution to further improve the consistency of the combo.
Having played a fair number of matches with the deck since OP posted it to reddit, I will say that Saheeli and Felidar are very good at coming in clutch. Mana has never been an issue for me, between our mana dorks and the oath. I will concede that the Archangel/Feeder combo is probably easier to assemble, but Oath is incredibly good at finding us what we need. As far as the place of Saheeli and Felidar, they are very good at abusing our ETB effects. I also agree with your other comment that Finks deserves a spot in this list. It most certainly does. I would recommend taking the deck for a spin. It's a lot of fun, and seems perfectly capable of holding its own.
I guess I'm supposed to offer some creative feedback. So here goes. Finks deserves a spot. If not a 2 or 3 of in the case of silver bullets, like you said this deck offers. Then as a set since the card is so good and puts so much pressure on the opponent.
I think we could definitely use some more bullets in the main. I'm not completely sure what yet, but they seem like a good thing to include.
With regards to the sideboard, I've found it pretty tough too. Reveillark seems to be one of the best sideboard cards we have, and I've even been contemplating running one mainboard.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Kinda nice to have an additional win con in the deck that doubles as filtering and removal. These kind of decks often suffer from a lack of interactivity as we sort of get tunnel vision on the combo, nahiri assists with this without getting in the way.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
About adding green, I'm not very confident it can work strong, but, with time if I see this is a thing, I will consider it, that's for sure. Hope you can report match-ups soon!
I think ardilla is saying they aren't too confident in green, not the deck as a whole (could be wrong). It looks to me they're saying green isn't pulling its weight in the deck, so to speak. I disagree, but I think that's what ardilla's trying to say.
I was saying to add a fourth color is what it makes me refuse it a bit, only that. Catching the correct mana is the complicated thing. The only deck I play 5 colors are Slivers, and because I can use there my Cavern of Souls and Sliver Hive.
But, I'm open to see how is it working for you, and if it gives you good results, I would like to test it someday! I would like to try it with jeskai colors with the angel, anafenza and invisible stalker combinated with Rally the Ancestors. I will give a try first in this jeskai version, and later on, if it's just totally horrible, try it with the 4 colors version of yours.
Here's the way I see it: This is a grindy, midrange, GW deck. We have mana dorks to fix our mana and Oath of Nissa to fix mana for Saheeli and to act as a mini-ponder. We have a light splash into UR for Saheeli. The mana is actually really smooth, and hardcasting Saheeli turn 2 isn't nearly as rare as you might think. I would recommend trying it out. It's a lot of fun, and seems pretty damn competitive. For reference, I have had mana issues one game: I was on the draw. My opponent played land, then passed. I drew, played land, played a mana dork, passed. My opponent then cast smallpox. My land and dork were the only mana sources I had in my hand. The mana is actually really smooth, and as long as you don't keep a risky hand and then get Smallpoxed, you should be fine.
Is the package out of the side something the deck could want if we go for wall of roots? May be a solid way of dealing with tribal decks before they get off the ground. Then after they spend turns 3-5 rebuilding you just dig to the combo. Thinking of a sideboard package maybe? Deepfiend and finks feel great together.
This list recently 5-0'd a league, thought you all would be interested, don't know if tarmo is a good choice here over voice, but blade splicer seems incredible. easy to bounce and clone for value, and a great to sac to evo (though should be noted that this particular list runs no evos)
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Blade Splicer is great in any blink strategy.
Tarmogoyf makes sense as it is probably better than Voice in a non-Evo list.
This deck is probably more of a "Bant value-beatdown" deck (similar to "Knightfall") with the combo as backup instead of being the main focus.
Spell Queller seems missing from this dek though as both evasive beater and interaction.
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Elvish Mystic
1 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
3 Lotus Cobra
3 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eternal Witness
2 Renegade Rallier
2 Tireless Tracker
4 Felidar Guardian
2 Restoration Angel
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Spells:13
4 Oath of Nissa
3 Path to Exile
2 Eldritch Evolution
4 Saheeli Rai
1 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Izzet Staticaster
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Thragtusk
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Path to Exile
2 Blessed Alliance
3 Stony Silence
2 Unified Will
Suggestions on Mana base? I tried adding a few extra red from yours. Hopefully will help with it. Thought cobras would help too and 4 birds.
Honestly didn't dig too deep into the side deck I copied the one from the deck with goyf. Will play with that later. Was thinking about a way to make it more aggressive for when you can't combo. How is anafenza for you? Wasn't sure about it. Also what do you think about Burning-Tree? Kind of helps with red in its own way. Thought it might be interesting
Not totally sold on lotus cobra, always seems to be inconsistent in every list I try it in, and sort of fills our deck with air like a chord list with wall of roots.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
I have already walked away from the sisters version of the saheeli deck and sleeved up Lejoon's V3 for modern on monday night.