Legends Legends - Sivitri Scarzam
Sivitri Scarzam by NéNé Thomas
Welcome back to Legends Legends, our weekly column where we dig through the original 55 Legendary Creatures from 1994's Legends block to build playable and thematic Commander decks around the first ever legends! Today, we're summoning a horde of Scarzam dragons off the back of this Sivitri Scarzam Commander deck!
General Thoughts
Sivitri Scarzam is a vanilla 6/4 that costs a whopping seven mana. She's no good for much of anything on her own, save being a mid-to-large-size creature for the late game. In The Lore(TM), she commands a powerful horde of the Scarzam dragons, which she used to raid Corondor on Dominaria.
In keeping with that theme, we're going to lean into the Dragon type, even though we lack the red and green where many of the traditionally best dragons lie. Sivitri herself lacks the Dragon type, so instead, we'll use some tricky blue and black spells to change our creatures into Dragons. Morphs and other utility creatures will provide consistent access to dragon creatures in the early game before we can amass the mana necessary to cast our big beaters. After that, all we have left to do is deploy the standard anthem and kindred effects and start swinging!
The Dragon-izers
So, how do you go about building a Dragons deck in all the wrong colors? There are three enchantments that are key to making this deck work. They are Arcane Adaptation, Conspiracy, and Xenograft. Each of these can change all of our creatures into dragons, whether they're on the field, on the stack, or anywhere else. This means they'll trigger our Kindred Discovery, Reflections of Littjara, Vanquisher's Banner, and more.
Since these cards are so essential to our game plan, we're running a critical mass of tutors. Besides classics Profane Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, and Demonic Tutor, we're also running a number of Transmute cards. Brainspoil can grab Xenograft or Conspiracy, while Drift of Phantasms, Perplex, and Dimir Machinations fetch Arcane Adaptation.
The Dragon-ized
At first glance, it might seem like this deck is already running a lot of dragons; why do we need the type-changing enchantments? Simply put, many of the best blue and black creatures aren't Dragons, but we still want them to benefit from our various lords and anthems. Besides that, a couple rarely played Dragons have morph or megamorph, and Arcane Adaptation will make those usually typeless morphs into Dragons.
Cards like Baleful Strix and Notion Thief are staples in Dimir decks, and Grim Haruspex can be played face-down as a surprise later on in response to a board wipe.
Our morphing Dragon, Quicksilver Dragon, has an edge-case ability to change a single-target spells target away from itself, sort of like an inverse Spellskite, useful if you'd like to spend six mana after an opponent tries to Doom Blade it while face down.
Our two megamorph Dragons are actually useful. Despite the hefty mana cost to flip them face-up, a permanent +1/+1 across the board and a surprise deathtouch blocker can be applicable in more situations than you'd think.
Finally, we have a fun two-card combo we can tutor for should we find ourselves with an Arcane Adaptation already on the field. Brine Elemental and Vesuvan Shapeshifter are two Dragon-morphs that can combo to infinitely skip your opponents' untap steps.
Also note that Urza's Incubator will reduce the casting cost of those Dragon Morphs down to just one mana each!
The Dragons
Our actual dragons make up the bulk of the deck. While the creature type tricks are cute, these are the cards that'll end the game for us.
Ancient Silver Dragon and Ancient Brass Dragon's presence should come as no surprise, considering they're two of the best Dragons in Dimir. Either of these has the potential to skyrocket our board state, especially with a Roaming Throne around.
Astral Dragon's best targets for its copy ability are usually our own Coat of Arms or Vanquisher's Banner, but there will undoubtedly come a time when you'll want to just steal your opponent's Utvara Hellkites instead. In fact, anything you steal should become a Dragon anyways.
Kokusho, the Evening Star and Keiga, the Tide Star have fallen off in EDH, but I still love them. We're not gunning for an infinite Kokusho combo, but we'll still enjoy the value we get when Reflections of Littjara gets us a copy to sacrifice immediately.
Budget Options
All told, this Sivitri Scarzam Commander deck racks up to just under $400! That's a hefty price to jump straight into a deck; let's take a look at some cheap budget choices for Sivitri.
Because we're sort of ham-fisting a Dragons typal theme into Dimir colors, many of our most expensive cards play into that creature type theme. Urza's Incubator, Cavern of Souls, and Roaming Throne are some of the best creature-type synergies in all of Magic, due to their colorless identities. They're essential pieces, but are also something like $80 for all three. They can be replaced with some slower kindred pieces like Brass Herald, Icon of Ancestry, and Pillar of Origins.
Sivitri Scarzam Deck List
Wrap Up
Sivitri Scarzam is the mistress of the Scarzam dragons, the bane of Sol'kanar the Swamp King and the Mangarans, and one of the oddest choices for a Dragons deck. Locking yourself into blue and black makes for an interesting deck building restriction that promises to breed creativity, or whatever MaRo says.
Sivitri doesn't have to be built around her dragon lore, though. Other interesting Sivitri Scarzam builds could include the traditional mill deck found in Dimir with Consuming Aberration as a secret commander, or a spellslinger deck that focuses on making Sivitri Scarzam unblockable with Distortion Strike-esque spells.
Whatever your Sivitri builds look like, I'm sure it's a fun and unique deck! Building around the Legends Legends is a rewarding experience and a wonderful chance to flex your deck building acumen.
Check back next week for another installment of Legends Legends! We might even get around to one of the original Elder Dragons that the format is named for...
Thanks for reading!
