Hello folks!

I hope you are having a wonderfully delightful day today! I want to hit up that random button in the sky and try to unearth another random Commander to use as inspiration for another build!

As a part of this series, I've randomly hit on leaders like The Lady of the Mountain and Arcades Sabboth, Isamaru, Hound of Konda, and Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient.

I am always challenged to want to do something different and stretch my deck-building muscles. There is nothing more challenging than a randomly selected Commander. I have no idea what I'll get! General Jarkeld? Memnarch? Akroma, Angel of Fury? No idea!

Now there are three rules for this challenge:

1. It must be legal as a Commander. If it's banned, or legal only in some variants of Commander like Brawl, but not Commander proper, then it's not use-able.
2. I can't have built around it already. For example, last week I build a really fun deck around Tor Wauki. If I grab him again, then I can't skip him.
3. I can skip a heavily played Commander. If I have a new way of taking it, sure! But if I flip over Kaalia of the Vast, then I reserve the right to just keep on keeping on.

However, I can do it if I am inspired. If I flip over Frankie Peanuts, a silver-bordered leader and I want to build a Commander deck around him, I can. If I want to try to use a planeswalker that's legal for Brawl, then I can do it. The same is true for others. If random-ness gave me Bosh, Iron Golem, around whom I have already built a budget Commander deck for you, and I have a cool idea for a different direction, I could still do it.

Anyway, ready?

Here's my first go around the till.

Nope! It's not a bad Limited card, but it's not where you want to be. Next?

Hello Crypt of Agadeem! You are also not a legal Commander.

Next, I see cards like Sin Prodder and Kazandu Refuge.

This is my 10th card I have hit randomly, it's Plague Belcher!

Some of my favorite Commander cards are slipping by in the next ten.

A few cards later...

Here is my first one! It's Firesong and Sunspeaker. As you probably know, they are one of the most popular Commanders in their color. I also just built a deck around them for my Budget series this year. Next

About 25 more cards rolls off the line. My next option isn't legal.

But just a few ones later?

And there's the 2nd take on Selvala.

That's legal, I've never built a deck around her. Ready?

What does Selvala seek to do?

She's a 3-drop that can arrive quickly.

She can always turn a Green mana into at least one more Green mana, with the ability to really go a little crazy.

She allows the player of the dork with the biggest power to draw a card. Now note there are a few little dials on that trigger.

1. Selvala doesn't count herself. If you were to play her on a naked board or where all of the critters were weaker than her 2 power, then you aren't drawing cards.
2. Anyone draws the card. It's not just you.
3. Creatures that allow the draw need to be the biggest power, not tied for it. Dropping a 4/3 on the board when something else has a 4/7 isn't drawing them a card. What this means is that Selvala won't allow a big draw from some tokens arriving or something similar. It's more limited.

The first card that popped into my mind is the Green Ball Lightning:

Groundbreaker is highly unlikely to be a blank, as it's likely to get that card no matter what. It's doubtful that someone will have a 6 or bigger power when it arrives.

Dinosaurs like Giganotosaurus and Wayward Swordtooth are great early or mid-range drops that will also likely net you some of those sweet, sweet cards!

Let's dig down into this and unpack some more:

Look at Weatherseed Treefolk to see where I am about to head down. See how it's a solid 5/3 trampler that will self-return upon death? It's incredibly good in this build, as you are likely able to bring recast it repeatedly, and it's likely to remain out there netting you those sweet cards. But if not? It's still a self-recursive 5/3 that will keep the beats flowing, like the headphones. In a similar way, Gigapede also has that sort of grinding-ness with the higher power. You'll note cards like Genesis and Vengevine that will help add to the deck's longevity - always important in a creature-heavy deck.

These are my deep-dive. The Serow and Wildebeests are both 5/4 tramplers for four mana. On whatever turn you drop your Selvala (turn three without any accelerants) then on the next turn you can drop these and likely net a card. And then you can self-bounce in your upkeep a Green creature, and then recast it. Bounce a big, cheap dork and get some more cards. They will provide the deck a little more engine. I also tossed in Cloudstone Curio and Erratic Portal to play into this theme.

Here's a little trick from my own Equinaut deck I use a lot. You can bounce any other dork just by investing some cool mana. Which you could have a lot of in this build.

Consider the bouncing of God-Eternal Rhonas. The doubling of power? Giving them vigilance? And doing do each turn? That's a nasty punch in the face.

Rhonas the Indomitable and Surrak, the Hunt Caller are clear powerhouses for your deck. Both are cheap, and can draw cards. Each works very well with the large creature's power theme of Selvala, and Rhonas is also a mana sink for a big, giant Selvala tap. You can easily do this with Selvala:

Turn three- Selvala

Turn four - Surrak. Draw card. Swing for five if you control another dork.

Turn five- Giganotosaurus. Draw card. Have nine Green mana sitting in your pool. Swing for 15.

A special conversation about the Dreadnaught. In this build, it's essentially a sorcery speed Black Ritual that makes 12 Green mana and replaces itself. How?

Drop this when you control your leader. Put its trigger on the stack and put the draw trigger to resolve first. Use a Green mana to tap Selvala and make 12 Green. Resolve both. You lose the Dreadnaught (unless you want to keep it around for some reason) and draw a card.

I also want to have a few folks here and there that could profit from card drawing as well as helping the team. As most of the dorks in the deck count, Goreclaw can reduce their cost and drop-rate. It also helps with looping dorks too but note that a few like Steel Leaf Champion don't have any colorless costs to reduce, just as an FYI. Ayumi will smash for 7 (often) unblockable damage as most folks are going to have a few legendary lands here and there in their builds.

I have a fun little trick for you here. Primal Forcemage gives dorks a temporary growth on arrival. Normally, barring haste for attacking or flash for blocking, it's weak. However, here it helps to guarantee that your dorks get enough of a boost that Selvala will give you that precious card. You don't want your deck to be shut down because your foe's Commander is randomly something really big on the front like Zurgo Helmsmasher or Ruhan of the Fomori.

Who likes creatures?

We do!!! We have a number of creatures and effects in the deck that care deeply about your creatures, from planeswalkers to things like your Vizier of the Menagerie. Note that the Vizier will help any colorless lands we have to play the high Green costs, so its final ability isn't a blank here. No worries, no musses, no problems! It's also a fun post-Selvala drop if nothing else has a 3 or higher power, and could both draw a card and set up many powerful future turns.

Would you like some Bows with that? I really enjoy the Arkbow here. This deck can be flowing with the cards, and discarding one and digging down deeply into the deck for a big, fat, dork for free is pretty useful as a Selvala mana sink. I also think that Bow of Nylea is likely best when using the final ability and reloading your deck with Delights of Christmas Past.

Another great mana sink is Call of the Wild. Even if it's just a random shot, any deck with this many creatures is going to be happy. It's a powerful mana sink. And if you are open but sitting on this and mana, will someone attack you? They may get smashed running into as powerful dork you just mise'd. I have some other mana sinks in here as well.

This is an ideal place to add in some recursive fighting. Here you can see Thorn Mammoth and Ulvenwald Tracker are both bringing different options to punch folks.

And then I wrap it up with cool triggers from Guardian Project to The Great Henge. I even tossed in some bigger land fetchers like Krosan Tusker and Beanstalk Giant where that makes sense so you net some dorks in the later game.

Ready?

Selvala's Creature Manifesto | Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

• Creatures (41)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Ant Queen
• 1 Arborback Stomper
• 1 Ayumi, the Last Visitor
• 1 Beanstalk Giant
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Cavalier of Thorns
• 1 Challenger Troll
• 1 Crash of Rhino Beetles
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Garruk's Packleader
• 1 Genesis
• 1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
• 1 Giganotosaurus
• 1 Gigapede
• 1 Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
• 1 Groundbreaker
• 1 Karametra's Acolyte
• 1 Krosan Tusker
• 1 Masked Admirers
• 1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
• 1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
• 1 Primal Forcemage
• 1 Primalcrux
• 1 Prowling Serpopard
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Rhonas the Indomitable
• 1 Shifting Ceratops
• 1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
• 1 Stampeding Serow
• 1 Stampeding Wildebeests
• 1 Steel Leaf Champion
• 1 Surrak, the Hunt Caller
• 1 Temur Sabretooth
• 1 Territorial Allosaurus
• 1 Thorn Mammoth
• 1 Ulvenwald Tracker
• 1 Vengevine
• 1 Vizier of the Menagerie
• 1 Wayward Swordtooth
• 1 Weatherseed Treefolk

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 1 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
• 1 Vivien Reid
• 1 Vivien, Champion of the Wilds

• Instants (2)
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Far Wanderings
• 1 Nissa's Pilgrimage
• 1 See the Unwritten
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Tooth and Nail

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Call of the Wild
• 1 Greater Good
• 1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Rancor
• 1 Sylvan Library

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Bow of Nylea
• 1 Cloudstone Curio
• 1 Erratic Portal
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Rhonas's Monument
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 The Great Henge
• 1 Vivien's Arkbow

• Lands (31)
• 23 Forest
• 1 Arena
• 1 Desert of the Indomitable
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Slippery Karst
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Yavimaya Hollow

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All right and there we are. I included a lot of fun cards here and there for your perusal. Anything in here you like? Anything I missed? Just let me know!

Random Commander Challenges

Did you enjoy today's deck and want to check out all of the random chaos from the previous editions? Great! Here they are.

1. For my first challenge, I hit on Random Gatherer Gwendlyn di Corci from the set that introduced legendary permanents. I create a discard-matters deck around her.
2. I flip over one of the original Elder Dragon Legends that the format was initially named after - Arcades Sabboth. I decide to build around a non-Red and non-Black Dragon theme. Get ready!
3. The Random Fairy Strikes Again! This time it lands on Toshiro Umezawa, one of the major protagonists of the Kamigawa Block storyline. Check out my spell-based fun time deck!
4. My submission of the random button finds the vanilla The Lady of the Mountain. Inspired by one of the few Commander options legally printed as a common, I decide to create a Pauper EDH deck for you! Let me know what you think!
5. I hit the random button and got Kefnet the Mindful. I turned him into a budget build for fewer than $33 as part of my Budget Commander series. Enjoy!
6. Random Gatherer hits Nissa, Vastwood Seer for a fun, mono-Green Forests-matter deck! Check it out!
7. This time, we hit 1-drop Vanilla Isamaru, Hound of Konda. What do I do with him? How about Isamaru Ultron? Let's give our pet some pants.
8. Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle - This build wants to build a fun challenge around the historic recursions of Teshar's potential. You can check it out here.
9. I randomly uncover the first Niv-Mizzet from way back and build a fun damage-matters and card-drawing matters build for your consideration! Let me know what you think!
10. What happens when Gatherer give me Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner? I make one of the most fun EDH decks in this series, that's what! Check it out!
11. I flip over Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient that loves to fork artifact abilities. Want to check out this odd take on Mono-Red artifacts?