Brainstorming Sevinne, the Chronoclasm - Jeskai ???

MeowZeDung · Post by **MeowZeDung** » 4 years ago

As per usual, I am brainstorming more decks than I have time to build, let alone play. What can I say, the deck building bug bites me hard.

2019 was great for Jeskai nerds like me, probably the best year since Khan's block. Kykar, Wind's Fury was an amazing 3c legendary gift to us (FROM A CORE SET!) and the pre-con had lots of goodies . Elsha of the Infinite is bonkers, but the other two legendaries in the deck are eyed with a bit more skepticism. Pramikon, Sky Rampart at least lends itself to some off the wall (ha), but powerful, strategies.

Sevinne, the Chronoclasm, on the other hand, comes across as a one trick pony at first glance: fill the yard and play spellslinger goodstuff with an emphasis on flashback, retrace, jump-start, aftermath, and Snapcaster Mage type effects so you can get free copies and profit. Cool, right? Well, sure. . . but the problem I have with it is that, apart from some notable exceptions, there aren't many powerful effects on instants/sorceries that can be played from the graveyard. I want my commander decks to have a strong identity, and I felt that the "typical" Sevinne build would be generic jeskai spellslinger goodstuff. Nothing wrong with that. I love those cards, they're literally why I play this wedge almost exclusively. It's just that I want a more unique experience from each deck, and Sevinne 1.0 wasn't cutting it.

All that said, here are two Sevinne lists I'd like to solicit feedback on.

The first is a Jeskai Wizard Tribal deck that's looking to be creature heavy with an extensive ETB/bounce/flicker theme that fills most of it's lower count of spell slots with the Sevinne goodstuff flashback/retrace/jump-start/aftermath etc. I've been keen on 3c wizards for some time, and the only other Jeskai general that really seemed to fit the bill was Kykar, but my bird buddy has about a dozen different potential builds that seem stronger and cooler than wizard tribal, so Sevinne it is perhaps. My concern is that it's just a bad version of Kess, Dissident Mage or Inalla, Archmage Ritualist.

SPOILER

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Sevinne Wizards

Approximate Total Cost:

Just some ideas of the flavor of the deck if you aren't interested in scouring the list card by card:

Have Naban, Dean of Iteration or Panharmonicon in play, cast Trinket Mage, fetch Sol Ring with one trigger and an artifact land or Expedition Map with the copy from Naban/PH, then cast Storm Sculptor, returning Trinket Mage to hand with one trigger and sculptor with the copy so you can do it all over again.

OR

Cast Reflector Mage, bouncing the most threatening creature or an opposing general. Cast Cackling Counterpart targeting Reflector Mage to do it again. Next turn, flash back Counterpart, which gets copied by Sevinne, putting two more Mages in play to bounce more threats.

The second is built around Sevinne's first line of text and runs creatures that don't take damage or that want to take damage and supporting spells to take advantage of this. There's a little less of the cast from the graveyard theme here, but it's still there with enough density to matter I think.

SPOILER

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Sevinne Direct Damage

Commander

1 Sevinne, the Chronoclasm

Mana Rocks

1 Mind Stone

1 Sol Ring

1 Talisman of Conviction

1 Talisman of Creativity

1 Thought Vessel

Card Draw

1 Chemister's Insight

1 Deep Analysis

1 Expansion // Explosion

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Faithless Looting

1 Ignite the Future

Removal

1 Chaos Warp

1 Crush Contraband

1 Generous Gift

1 Path to Exile

1 Swords to Plowshares

Board Wipes

1 Blasphemous Act

1 Earthquake

1 Magmaquake

1 Molten Disaster

1 Star of Extinction

1 Starstorm

Creatures

1 Bellowing Aegisaur

1 Boros Reckoner

1 Coalhauler Swine

1 Firesong and Sunspeaker

1 Fumiko the Lowblood

1 Heartless Hidetsugu

1 Illusory Ambusher

1 Mogg Maniac

1 Nin, the Pain Artist

1 Ryusei, the Falling Star

1 Soulfire Grand Master

1 Spitemare

1 Stuffy Doll

1 Swans of Bryn Argoll

1 Tibor and Lumia

1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell

1 Truefire Captain

Goodstuff

1 Arcbond

1 Aurelia's Fury

1 Cackling Counterpart

1 Comet Storm

1 Increasing Vengeance

1 Jeskai Ascendancy

1 Mana Geyser

1 Mirrorweave

1 Pariah

1 Pyrohemia

1 Reverberate

1 Sevinne's Reclamation

1 Underworld Breach

Lands

1 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Steam Vents

1 Shivan Reef

1 Sulfur Falls

1 Fiery Islet

1 Sunbaked Canyon

1 Celestial Colonnade

1 Needle Spires

1 Wandering Fumarole

1 Ash Barrens

1 Strip Mine

1 Emergence Zone

2 Plains

2 Island

3 Mountain

Approximate Total Cost:

Again, an idea of what the deck is looking to do if you aren't wanting to go through the deck card by card:

With Firesong and Sunspeaker and Stuffy Doll in play, cast Star of Extinction. In response, cast Reverberate to copy Star, gain a billion life and kill one other player.

OR

With Sevinne and Nin, the Pain Artist in play, cast Seething Song, flashback Increasing Vengeance targeting song which gets copied by Sevinne and again targets song for 4 copies + the original song = 25 red mana. Tap an Island to go with it and blast Sevinne with Nin's ability and draw 24 cards. All at instant speed.

Anywho, I can't decide which deck I'd like to move forward with, so I'm hoping some other folks' perspectives and insights will help me choose a path. Let me know what you think!

darrenhabib · Post by **darrenhabib** » 4 years ago

I had competently written off Sevinne, the Chronoclasm immediately as you pointed out the Jeskai influx in the last 6 months has been ridiculous and Sevinne just comes across as a hard to use Riku of Two Reflections. When you have Kess, Dissident Mage who actually allows you to cast a spell...

Then on top of that if you actually look at a lot of the flashback cards, often copying them doesn't gain all that many benefits. Take for example Past in Flames itself would not do anything copying itself.
Other examples are Dusk // Dawn, Echo of Eons, Commit // Memory, Divine Reckoning where the copy abilities are not at their best.

The fact that it has to be the first and only one for the turn is a big turn off. OK, so he isn't the best, but lets look to the positives.

I actually really like some of the retrace cards with him in Reality Scramble and Throes of Chaos.
Throes of Chaos could be a super value card in that you are spending 4 mana to cast two spells. Granted they are random but I guess you are in it the fun of it anyway.
You can use cards like Land Tax, Endless Horizons, Tithe to fuel the retrace ability to discard lands.
Reality Scramble can be mixed with a fairly creature-light build and use token generators instead.

Other cards that I would look to use are:
Underworld Breach
Finale of Promise
Mizzix's Mastery
Jaya Ballard
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Snapcaster Mage
Dreadhorde Arcanist
Torrential Gearhulk
Dire Fleet Daredevil
Baral, Chief of Compliance

Now Brain Freeze is a way to fuel your graveyard. If you can get a descent storm turn going, and then recast it from graveyard with an enabler then that is going to mill a lot of cards.

Traumatize, Jace, Memory Adept, Fleet Swallower are also quick ways to fuel graveyard

I would look to Underworld Breach as a major source of value. You can use a bounce spell like Chain of Vapor to actually bounce the Underworld Breach each turn to recast it.
So it's just a case of getting a massive graveyard to fuel the escape costs.

Gamble is nice with flash, retrace, etc cards because if you discard them you're fine with that.

As far as the two lists you posted my gut feel is that the Wizards one is working way too hard just to do the same thing as Inalla, Archmage Ritualist.

The damage dealing one is at least unique, but will require a lot of setup. Getting the big mana turn to cast a decent damage spell on top of setting up some of your creatures into play is going to require a reasonable amount of things to go your way.
I guess it's a bit disappointing that you are mainly using the "prevent all damage" element of Sevinne and then the graveyard use isn't really helping the deck all that much.
Rolling Earthquake can be picked up for $9 with the From the Vault: Annihilation version.

Hawk · Post by **Hawk** » 4 years ago

My Sevinne list is not heavily modified, but has a few tricks:

- The deck often wins by spamming tokens. Jeskai is a natural home for cards like Young Pyromancer, Monastery Mentor, Talrand, Sky Summoner, and Thalia's Geistcaller (the one card Sevinne uniquely rewards using). You have some great graveyard based token-makers like Increasing Devotion, Battle Screech, and Cenn's Enlistment. This mostly looks like a worse Kykar, Wind's Fury deck...but you do get to wham-bam folks out of nowhere with Rally the Peasants in a way other Jeskai commanders can't.

- More relevantly to your first list (which I think is more fun and is my pick to play), Sevinne is a great home for the Ral, Storm Conduit OTK combo as it allows you to really go ham with Refuse // Cooperate and Increasing Vengeance. Those gel up with the Dualcaster Mage and the Sevinne's Reclamation you are already running to give you a ton of redundancy (The Wiz deck can also trigger the combo with Naru Meha, Master Wizard + Naban, Dean of Iteration with a cheap spell on the stack, or with a Quasiduplicate or Cackling Counterpart from the 'yard targeting Dualcaster Mage)

I'll also note that I find Desperate Ravings to be surprisingly good in my Sevinne list; it may be less good in a wizard tribal build than my spellslinger version but it is just so much digging once Sevinne is in play.

MeowZeDung · Post by **MeowZeDung** » 4 years ago

darrenhabib wrote: ↑
4 years ago
You can use a bounce spell like Chain of Vapor to actually bounce the Underworld Breach each turn to recast it.

Oh that's filthy. . .

Breach is awesome in my Kykar list, and while I'm still testing it and can't say conclusively, my gut feeling is that I really only *need* it for one turn except when I'm casting it for value and not to combo. Breach + Burning Inquiry, Brain Freeze, Faithless Looting, or Frantic Search will usually start a sequence of events that wins me the game in one way or another. All that said, Chain of Vapor could merit consideration since it has other uses and it does allow me to setup for a win by using breach multiple turns for insane value.

I appreciate all the feedback. I do fear that Sevinne is just a bit of a swing and a miss, but I'm going to keep tinkering and brainstorming and test a list or two to see what happens. You both gave me some ideas of better/more creative ways to utilize spells from the yard, so thank you!

Edit: I will add, in response to [mention]darrenhabib[/mention]'s (correct) observation that it's dissapointing the lists don't focus much on casting spells from the graveyard, that it was intentional. The real fly in the ointment of Sevinne's design is that you only get to get the copy benefit 1x per turn, so building the deck heavily around that theme seems meh to me.

MeowZeDung · Post by **MeowZeDung** » 4 years ago

Hawk wrote: ↑
4 years ago
- The deck often wins by spamming tokens. Jeskai is a natural home for cards like Young Pyromancer, Monastery Mentor, Talrand, Sky Summoner, and Thalia's Geistcaller (the one card Sevinne uniquely rewards using). You have some great graveyard based token-makers like Increasing Devotion, Battle Screech, and Cenn's Enlistment. This mostly looks like a worse Kykar, Wind's Fury deck...but you do get to wham-bam folks out of nowhere with Rally the Peasants in a way other Jeskai commanders can't.

Pardon the double post. . . but did someone say Jeskai tokens? Check out the Kykar link in my sig if that's something you're interested in. Pyromancer, Mentor, and Talrand are my homies.

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