One of the things that I enjoyed most about Modern in the era of Birthing Pod was the number of random value creatures that got to see play as singletons. Everything from Harmonic Sliver and Orzhov Pontiff to Entomber Exarch and Reveillark; there are so many interesting options that are good enough when you get to pick and choose when you want access to them. Collected Company and Chord of Calling enable similar things, but much less efficiently. However, the addition of the Saheeli Rai combo to the format has encouraged people to find new ways to build value creature decks with a combo finish. This build by Serox makes me enormously happy, and I can’t wait to take a closer look:

Four-Color Saheeli Rai ? Modern | Serox, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Essence Warden
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Reflector Mage
• 1 Restoration Angel
• 1 Sun Titan
• 2 Noble Hierarch
• 3 Felidar Guardian
• 3 Lotus Cobra
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Blade Splicer
• 4 Tarmogoyf

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 1 Domri Rade
• 4 Saheeli Rai

• Instantss (4)
• 4 Path to Exile

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Oath of Nissa

• Lands (22)
• 1 Plains
• 2 Forest
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Stirring Wildwood
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 2 Flooded Strand
• 2 Gavony Township
• 2 Razorverge Thicket
• 2 Temple Garden
• 3 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
• 1 Thragtusk
• 2 Blessed Alliance
• 2 Izzet Staticaster
• 2 Unified Will
• 3 Stony Silence

Buy This Deck

Saheeli Rai and Felidar Sovereign is a great way to generate extra value, and Oath of Nissa allows you to dig through your deck for the best value creatures, ensure your colors work themselves out, and find combo pieces as necessary. It looks like Serox has decided that Blade Splicer is the best thing that you can be doing with all these flicker effects. But that’s not the only thing we’ve got going on. Eternal Witness and Reflector Mage are both reasonable options and show up as singletons. Renegade Rallier is also an interesting pick if you’re looking for additional mana acceleration or more Oath of Nissa triggers. Serox also plays Essence Warden, which is incredible against aggro decks in conjunction with multiple Blade Splicer flickers, as well as a single copy of Sun Titan which can rebuy Saheeli Rai for all kinds of absurd recursion.

It’s interesting to note that this deck is built to function as a reasonable value-midrange deck first, featuring Tarmogoyf beatdown backed up by multiple Blade Splicers to lock opponents out of combat and slowly amass a sizeable squad. A huge strength of this style of deck is the ability to utilize half of your combo to force your opponent to answer your beatdown plan, helping to create an opening for your second combo piece to steal the game.

All in all, this is an interesting Modern-take on the Saheeli Rai midrange deck that we’ve seen so much of in Standard. Outside of Tarmogoyf, it’s actually relatively budget-friendly as well! If you’re looking for a good place to start on exploring creature-based Saheeli Rai decks, this seems like a fantastic place to start.