Conditions Allow - Safana, Calimport Cutthroat EDH
(Safana, Calimport Cutthroat | Art by Wisnu Tan)
Dank Dungeons
Hello, and welcome back to Conditions Allow, where I take a legendary creature with a drawback and build a commander deck to turn it into a strength. Before we dive fully into spoilers for March of the Machines, I wanted to take a short trip back in time to talk about a few legends from Commander Legends 2: Battle for Baldur's Gate, starting with Safana, Calimport Cutthroat.
Safana, Calimport Cutthroat is one of three legendary creatures from Baldur's Gate which give you some additional benefit for having the Initiative. In this case, Safana gives you a Treasure in your end step if you have the Initiative. If you've completed a dungeon, she gives you three Treasures instead. That's essentially a free Black Lotus every turn. As long as you've finished a dungeon, and can keep hold of the Initiative. Safana does trigger at your end step, which means you can take back the Initiative in combat to keep the mana flowing.
A Background in...
The first step in building this deck is choosing a Background for Safana, Calimport Cutthroat. While Battle for Baldur's Gate supports the Initiative in all five colors, the best come from the Esper shard. Pair that with the fact that doubling stuff is twice as good, and it makes sense that the most popular Background is Dungeon Delver, followed closely by Far Traveler. Both of these choices make a lot of sense. Blue and white bring a lot of Flicker effects to easily move through the Undercity by taking and re-taking the Initiative. I want to do something a little different, however.
As I was looking through the various creatures that take the Initiative, Undermountain Adventurer caught my eye in particular. If you can complete a dungeon quickly, both it and Safana, Calimport Cutthroat generate a ton of mana very quickly. Golgari also offers some of the best payoffs for having a lot of mana. You can even set up creature loops to still move through the Undercity quickly, while green offers some unique tools to help protect the Initiative once you've taken it.
Carpe Inceptum
Speaking of taking the Initiative, green and black give you access to six creatures that send you into the Undercity, in addition to two artifacts and two sorceries. I'm including Explore the Underdark and Dungeoneer's Pack, but the real focus here is on the creatures. Thanks to Master Chef, these all enter the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter. This isn't super relevant for combat, but it does make blocking incoming attacks a little easier. It also makes Avenging Hunter more likely to retake the Initiative if you ever lose it.
To make sure you find these creatures early and often, I'm including a few ways to search for them directly. Fiend Artisan turns any of your mana dorks into an Initiative creature, while Fauna Shaman lets you ditch bigger creatures you can't cast yet. Green Sun's Zenith and Worldly Tutor also make the cut. This brings the deck up to nine creatures that take the Initiative, plus Explore the Underdark and Dungeoneer's Pack. Getting the Initiative shouldn't be a problem, but you'll want to move through the dungeon slightly faster than one room a turn.
Working Through It
In the absence of blink spells, and in true Golgari fashion, we'll have to turn to the graveyard to gain the Initiative multiple times in a turn. Feign Death and Kaya's Ghostform are perfect ways to do this, especially in conjunction with Greater Good as a sacrifice outlet. Master Chef even buffs your creatures' power, making it more likely you'll draw another way to Fake Your Own Death with each sacrifice. Momentous Fall and Life's Legacy both do a one-time version of this loop, with Village Rites and Deadly Dispute doing an even smaller imitation.
To really speed up the dungeoneering process, however, I'm turning to Cauldron of Souls. As long as you have both Safana, Calimport Cutthroat and Master Chef in play, each of your creatures will enter with an additional +1/+1 counter. This offsets the -1/-1 counter from Persist, allowing you to sacrifice and revive all your creatures every turn with Cauldron of Souls. Along with Greater Good, I'm adding Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, and Dimir House Guard as sacrifice outlets to enable this loop.
One interesting quirk of Safana, Calimport Cutthroat's ability is that you don't usually mind giving the Initiative up. Because she makes Treasures during the end step, you can always attack whoever has it and still get your payoff. Sometimes, though, you don't want to give your opponents that value. In a lot of cases your creatures will be big enough to block, but if they can't quite get the job done, you can always turn to a good ol' Fog. I'm only playing two, but each of them has some extra utility. Blessed Respite serves as graveyard hate in a pinch, and I've been including it in more decks for that specific purpose more and more lately. Obscuring Haze is free as long as you control your commander, which is especially valuable right after you draw everyone's attention by tapping out for a big threat.
What Slumbers in the Dark?
Speaking of big threats, this deck is packing plenty of them. You don't have to rely on casting any of these creatures either, since the last room of the Undercity has the potential to put them into play for free, with three +1/+1 counters and hexproof to boot. While some of these, like Giant Adephage and Ancient Bronze Dragon, are just big bodies meant to drop life totals quickly, there are plenty that interact directly with your opponents cards as well. Woodfall Primus already has Persist, making it a devastating combo with Master Chef and a sacrifice outlet. Apex Altisaur is usually pretty close to a one-sided board wipe on its own, but this deck can do that twice with Ashnod's Intervention or Cauldron of Souls. Or you can simply cast Vigor beforehand.
I'm also including some more reasonably costed options. Grave Titan is capable of taking over the game itself, while Ghalta, Primal Hunger will usually only cost three or four mana. Once you're able to deploy a few big threats, you can save up the Treasures Safana, Calimport Cutthroat creates to protect your big creatures. One extra mana is enough to cast most of your Feign Death-type spells. If you're making three Treasures, then Heroic Intervention and Golgari Charm are basically free. Dodging one board wipe should be enough to get the job done, especially combined with the value of continuing to move through the Undercity.
Golgari Dungeons
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As straightforward as this deck is, I really like its angle on the dungeon archetype. Green and black feel mechanically correct for delving into the dark and lost places of the world. Especially if you've tried a more traditional Azorius or Dimir dungeon deck and want to change things up, this could be a fun new direction to take things.
What do you think of Safana, Calimport Cutthroat? She isn't the most popular dungeon commander, but she isn't unpopular either. Which Background would you choose, and would you do anything different with Master Chef? Let me know, and thanks for reading!
