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Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:05 am
by DirkGently
Sefris at first blush looks like a relatively straightforward payoff for the typical sacrifice-themed strategy, outside of his ties to dungeons. On another read, while it's limited to once a turn, it can trigger on EVERY turn, giving the possibility of 4 triggers per turn cycle in a normal commander game. But it wasn't until I'd read the card a couple times that I noticed it triggers from a creature hitting your grave from anywhere, not just the battlefield. This gives the options for:

from play (sacrifice)
from hand (discard)
from deck (mill)
from exile (?)
from the stack (...countering your own spells?)
from the command zone (........?)
from ante (ok I'll stop)

From play is boring. From deck seems inconsistent - I'd love to see someone try, but it won't be me. The other options aren't real afaik. So that leaves discard. Of course there are many cheap discard outlets which could be activated every turn, but we need fodder to fuel them.

So how do we get as many creatures as possible to discard?

While we could just rely on drawing cards naturally, considering the low impact of most discard outlets it seems like we'd likely run out of gas. There are a decent number of creatures that can self-recur to hand, but most of them cost enough that you'd be better off just playing more draw.

Except for one little cycle that everyone forgot ever existed: the eidolon cycle. Damn do I like finding uses for old junk cards.

Okay, neat, but just having a few cards that self-recycle isn't exactly a huge payoff for having to fill the deck with gold cards. We need a way to set it up. Luckily in esper, we have two amazing setup cards: Buried Alive and Intuition. Now we're cooking.

So here's the plan:

1) Get Sefris out.
2) Cast intuition/buried alive to get the eidolons.
3) Get a discard outlet.
4) Play multicolor spells to fuel discard and trigger Sefris every single turn for "free"

I see a few risks for this deck.

1) It might end up being pretty dependent on getting one of the key tutors, which we have good but not guaranteed odds on getting, without running a lot of mediocre tutors. Hopefully the generally-high-quality of multicolor cards makes this less of a risk.
2) It might be a bit slow to get going.
3) It might not have enough payoff. I chose not to lean heavily on the reanimation trigger from Sefris, so there aren't any super exciting targets. I'm hoping to win via a lot of small value off dungeons, which may not be bursty enough to reliably get there.

Anyway, here's the decklist:
Decklist

Commander (1)

The Setup (2)

Less Tangible Means of Control (5)

Approximate Total Cost:

I will confess I didn't go very thoroughly through my mono-color boxes, so there's probably some useful stuff I missed there. I think there's a solid chance the deck might end up with an excessive number of multicolor spells to where it's kind of redundant, so there's probably an argument to be made for including more monocolor and artifacts - but I think I want to run the deck a couple times first.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:18 am
by TheAmericanSpirit
Skirge Familiar and Call the Bloodline come to mind.

Edit: Compulsion, Hypochondria, and Mortiphobia are also some neat chaff.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:31 am
by DirkGently
TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
2 years ago
Skirge Familiar and Call the Bloodline come to mind.

Edit: Compulsion, Hypochondria, and Mortiphobia are also some neat chaff.
Considered those (I actually dug through scryfall for all "discard" cards in esper, which is a fair number), but I opted to avoid most things that had an activation cost beyond discarding. Although I almost forgot, I did want to shove in Zombie Infestation. Let me figure that out real quick.

Skirge familiar I think is too expensive. And the mana is kinda awkward since I won't necessarily have an easy way to use it on enemy turns. To justify a 5 mana discard outlet I think I'd want more reliable value.

EDIT: also forgot Archfiend of Ifnir. Blerg.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2021 10:42 am
by DirkGently
Got to play this twice tonight and the results were very interesting.

First of all, it's a pretty strong deck. Won both games pretty solidly. It seemed pretty reliable to set up the eidolon loops, and I always had plenty of multicolor stuff - probably a bit more than needed, but not a lot more. I almost always went for mad mage, and I think I completed it 2 or 3 times the first game, and 4 or 5 the second game. So yeah, a LOT of venturing.

Part of why I wanted to make this deck was to see how dungeons would (or wouldn't) fit into my "mini-goal" idea. On one hand, they're basically impossible to interact with by your opponent. On the other, they're value but they're not a permanent sort of value the way and emblem is.

Overall, I think they provided a really fun thing to strive towards in the game. There's a kind of escalating action, where you get more and more excited as you get close to completing it, and then a bunch of value, and then you reset and start to build up again (please no metaphors...). It was really cool to get to the end of a dungeon because it felt earned. I also think the number of decisions was fun but definitely not paralyzing.

(I should point out that I've done some dungeon stuff in limited but it plays very different - I've almost always done Phandelver in limited because it's so much harder to progress, so it doesn't have quite the same effect)

Beyond the goal of completing dungeons, I really had fun setting up the engine of discard outlet + Sefris + eidolons. That was kind of a fun mini-goal in itself. Obviously Sefris and/or my discard outlet would get killed on occasion but it wasn't hard to set back up again, so long as my eidolons were still available.

On the negative side, it did end up playing out as a pretty harsh control deck, which I think annoyed a lot of my opponents. That's not exactly intrinsic to the deck, although I think a certain degree of interaction is necessary to protect our little value engine and to make sure the game goes long enough to generate a worthwhile amount of value from it. One can certainly imagine a version of this deck that didn't play out that way, but I suspect it would be less focused on setting up the elaborate but efficient dungeon looping.

Overall I had a lot of fun with the deck and will probably play it some more. I may make some tweaking to diminish some of the control elements, although I also really like playing control so maybe just screw 'em. I'll be in a new meta in a month so maybe they'll be less salty about that sort of thing, lol. I do think it would probably be more fun for my opponents if I did put in some classic wincon creatures to reanimate, though, so the game doesn't drag on while I'm trying to find a win. I love spinning control value forever but other people don't necessarily appreciate that, apparently. I was kinda shocked how long some people took before conceding tbh.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2022 5:12 am
by Dunadain
I feel like Syr Konrad, the Grim would be pretty sweet here, a good wincon to reanimate, not to hard to hard cast if necessary (though you have so many discard outlets, and you complete a dungeon so often not sure that's necessary) and it has synergy with the deck rather than generic big fatty.

He will deal damage when you discard your creatures AND when you return them to your hand, so he'll be dealing 6 (8 with Master of Death) damage each turn cycle, which is a pretty respectable clock.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2022 2:44 pm
by Dunadain
Alright, this deck has been living in my head rent free for the past couple days so here's my stab at an updated list. DMU was very kind to this deck and I want to wait to put those cards in as well so I won't actually be assembling this for a while, but I can gather feedback until then:
Decklist

Eidolon Tutors

Fogs

Main WinCons

Approximate Total Cost:

I opted to put in two reanimation targets to close out games: Syr Konrad, the Grim and Bone Miser. Partly just because I don't like dragging a game out if I don't need to, and partly because I really think control decks need to have a strong and clear win condition in a multiplayer format like EDH, otherwise someone's going to drag they're way out eventually. I think creatures are the way to go for win conditions in this deck. The downside to wincons in traditional control decks is they force you to make an awkward decision to move towards winning the game by casting your win con, or tighten you're lock on the game by playing a more controlling/value oriented spell or just holding up mana. This deck can simply discard one of these creatures when it's on the the second to last room of a dungeon then immediately reanimate it with Sefris of the Hidden Ways. I thought for a short while on Dying to Serve but it is functionally a LARGER mana investment most of the time and while as an enchantment it is harder to remove, once it is removed, it's impossible to get it back

The Deck got a couple cool new cards since you made this deck, Void Rend is a versatile removal spell. Faithful Mending and Tainted Indulgence seem great. Solve the Equation is another way to tutor for Intuition or Buried Alive (I chopped Scheming Symmetry because I'm convinced that card is bad). Blot Out the Sky might be a bit to expensive, but instinctually, four Boardwipes feels like a really low number, so even thought this is a noncreature wipe, I think it might help. I also thought about Lazotep Chancellor, but it's probably not that good.

DMU gave the deck Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator which seems AMAZING. functionally tap to draw a card, then you can sac it for to reuse a removal spell/tutor/board wipe, it's a drag that it's sorcery speed only but still. AND THEN you can just reanimate her with Sefris of the Hidden Ways in order to reuse her. Honestly she'd be decent if she wasn't multicolor, but she is, slam dunk.

It also gives us Ertai Resurrected who is just a versatile answer and when he dies he can be resurrected to blow up more stuff/counter more stuff (though timing completing a dungeon to happen at the same time a spell you want to counter hits the stack is unlikely.

Other small changes I made: Marsh Crocodile is either genius or just cute. On the one hand: it does everything: it's a multicolor spell that you can cast over and over again to get back your eidolons, it makes you discard a card, triggering Sefris, and it makes all your opponents discard. On the other hand, the whole point of filling the deck with multicolored spells was to reliably get back the eidolons, if we wanted a reusabale spell to get them back we could just use Cavern Harpy which is a much more reasonable price for the effect. the discard you're own eidolon part isn't actually that helpful because if we've got a discard outlet online, we can discard as much as we want, whenever we want. Finally, in general, discard is pretty weak, especially if your not built to capitalize on it. Eventually I opted to cut it, but it might be an all star in the late game where you have a ton of mana and can force all your opponents into continuous top-deck mode.

I opted for more efficient discard outlets. Disciple of Deceit is pretty neat but PAINFULLY slow, you gotta cast it, wait a turn cycle, attack with it, wait a turn cylce, AND THEN it does something (and that something is only once a turn). I also feel like I have more exciting reanimation targets than Dream Trawler, so that one also got axed. Tireless Tribe is the other 1 MV discard outlet so seemed like a good option and Trained Pronghorn seems to have a much stronger ability than Cabal Initiate. The only remaining question is are the multicolor 3MV discard outlets (Psychatog and Phantatog) better than some other single color 2MV discard outlets. While putting the list together I opted for multicolor outlets, But now I'm second guessing myself. Both are probably fine.

Finally, I tried to put some thought into some more mono-colored cards that are strong enough that they ought to be run anyways, Syr Konrad, the Grim and Bone Miser made it, but nothing else did. Though I do think Dungeon Delver and Forbid might also be strong enough to justify.

Edit: I just realized I never put in Archfiend of Ifnir, I'm torn, on the one hand it's probably really good in the deck and three reanimator bombs is probably the right number (certainly no more). On the other hand, it's a grown inducing card.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2022 2:09 am
by Chromaticus
Is it too late to have two Sefris decks? Only half kidding

I was noodling on Dirk's list as well, but I was leaning more towards multi-colored bombs for the reanimating targets. It makes a lot more sense to consider them as part of the discards.

Not much more to add here - I'm a fan, and if you can get a gameplay description from a game, I'll eat it up.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 5:10 am
by Dunadain
Chromaticus wrote:
1 year ago
Is it too late to have two Sefris decks? Only half kidding

I was noodling on Dirk's list as well, but I was leaning more towards multi-colored bombs for the reanimating targets. It makes a lot more sense to consider them as part of the discards.

Not much more to add here - I'm a fan, and if you can get a gameplay description from a game, I'll eat it up.
Alright, so I got two games in.

The biggest thing is the deck I brewed is WAY too light on lands 36 lands in a control deck with next to no ramp? What was I thinking? It's made even worse by the fact that you have to mulligan aggressively for a path to Intuition or Buried Alive. Honestly I'd run 40.

Both games I got targeted really hard, it kinda looks like a dedicated combo deck even though your more of a control deck, so people start side eyeing you when you cast demonic tutor t2 and intuition t3. I really think that was some poor threat assessment on my opponents side, but what you gonna do.

Game one I couldn't keep my engine online for a full turn cycle, but I had to mull down to four so that was probably part of the problem.

Game two the deck actually did it's thing, was a close game but I was constantly on the backfoot as the dragon tribal deck kept playing giant dragons, and I eventually succumbed to the chip damage.

I also failed to appreciate how big tutors with MV <=2 are as they let you intuition on turn three, so maybe scheming symmetry is defensible.

Finally, the discard outlets felt really fragile, I'd like some more non creature options so I don't lose sefris and my discard outlet everytime the board wipes. but their aren't really any good ones (though actually using Mind Over Matter as a somewhat fair magic card is kinda funny). Maybe Scuttletide? But the deck is already really mana hungry..

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2022 3:39 pm
by yeti1069
Dunadain wrote:
1 year ago


I opted to put in two reanimation targets to close out games: Syr Konrad, the Grim
DMU gave the deck Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator which seems AMAZING. functionally tap to draw a card, then you can sac it for to reuse a removal spell/tutor/board wipe, it's a drag that it's sorcery speed only but still. AND THEN you can just reanimate her with Sefris of the Hidden Ways in order to reuse her. Honestly she'd be decent if she wasn't multicolor, but she is, slam dunk.

It also gives us Ertai Resurrected who is just a versatile answer and when he dies he can be resurrected to blow up more stuff/counter more stuff (though timing completing a dungeon to happen at the same time a spell you want to counter hits the stack is unlikely.

Other small changes I made: Marsh Crocodile is either genius or just cute. On the one hand: it does everything: it's a multicolor spell that you can cast over and over again to get back your eidolons, it makes you discard a card, triggering Sefris, and it makes all your opponents discard. On the other hand, the whole point of filling the deck with multicolored spells was to reliably get back the eidolons, if we wanted a reusabale spell to get them back we could just use Cavern Harpy which is a much more reasonable price for the effect. the discard you're own eidolon part isn't actually that helpful because if we've got a discard outlet online, we can discard as much as we want, whenever we want. Finally, in general, discard is pretty weak, especially if your not built to capitalize on it. Eventually I opted to cut it, but it might be an all star in the late game where you have a ton of mana and can force all your opponents into continuous top-deck mode.

I opted for more efficient discard outlets. Disciple of Deceit is pretty neat but PAINFULLY slow, you gotta cast it, wait a turn cycle, attack with it, wait a turn cylce, AND THEN it does something (and that something is only once a turn). I also feel like I have more exciting reanimation targets than Dream Trawler, so that one also got axed. Tireless Tribe is the other 1 MV discard outlet so seemed like a good option and Trained Pronghorn seems to have a much stronger ability than Cabal Initiate. The only remaining question is are the multicolor 3MV discard outlets (Psychatog and Phantatog) better than some other single color 2MV discard outlets. While putting the list together I opted for multicolor outlets, But now I'm second guessing myself. Both are probably fine.

Edit: I just realized I never put in Archfiend of Ifnir, I'm torn, on the one hand it's probably really good in the deck and three reanimator bombs is probably the right number (certainly no more). On the other hand, it's a grown inducing card.
So, I have a Sefris deck that isn't focused on trying to make the eidolons work, and through that lens have some comments:
[*] Syr Konrad is fantastic as a wincon. between discard, sacs, removal, and reanimation, it can be triggering 5-10 times per turn cycle pretty easily.
[*] I've liked Vohar so far. On this and the topic of discard outlets, I think you've got too little card advantage to be running so many pure discard outlets. I try to run mostly looter effects so I'm not going down cards too much. Especially since the stronger pure discard outlets (Pilferer, Trawler) and payoffs (Ifnir) are MUCH stronger if you have cards in hand. Also, both Pilferer and Trawler draw cards, which makes them worthwhile. I don't know if it's worth running a bunch of crappy discard outlets.
[*] Don't sleep on Trawler. It's usually a 5/5 flying lifelinker that can dodge removal and draws a card once per turn while being a free repeatable discard outlet, AND can sometimes close the game out as a HUGE beater. I've had it at over 10 power on multiple occasions. Plus, life link is going to do a lot to keep you in the game when getting hated on.
[*] Ertai looks fantastic. Been wanting to get a copy to slot in. I've been playing with Overcharged Amalgam and can say that it's definitely possible to time dungeon completions to reanimate a counter spell to a degree.
[*] Marsh Croc looks...cumbersome. I guess a recastable multi-colored creature has some value for the eidolons, but I feel like I'd rather have a an effect like Bottomless Pit, Necrogen Mists or a cheaper ETB everyone discard creature, or even a planeswalker like Liliana.
[*] Ifnir is very strong.
[*] On the lands front, I think I'm on 34, with just a few mana rocks, but I'm aiming to cast fewer spells and have more reanimation targets. My deck is definitely setup as moderate control, with most creatures having interaction on them, and they run the whole curve from 2-mana to 8-mana for removal of different permanent types, board wipes, and counter spells. Having removal stapled to a big, evasive body helps close out the game while also controlling the board a bit.
[*] As for getting focused...anyone who casts that opener of DT and Intuition should be getting focused unless you know the deck is pretty janky with high confidence. Also, the best ways to interact with this deck are to remove Sefris early and often, or exile everything. Otherwise, it's pretty resilient and snowball-y.

I also STRONGLY recommend including Radiant Solar, since it is the strongest card in the precon, and does more to make the deck hum than any other single card.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:12 pm
by Dunadain
yeti1069 wrote:
1 year ago

So, I have a Sefris deck that isn't focused on trying to make the eidolons work, and through that lens have some comments:
[*] Syr Konrad is fantastic as a wincon. between discard, sacs, removal, and reanimation, it can be triggering 5-10 times per turn cycle pretty easily.
[*] I've liked Vohar so far. On this and the topic of discard outlets, I think you've got too little card advantage to be running so many pure discard outlets. I try to run mostly looter effects so I'm not going down cards too much. Especially since the stronger pure discard outlets (Pilferer, Trawler) and payoffs (Ifnir) are MUCH stronger if you have cards in hand. Also, both Pilferer and Trawler draw cards, which makes them worthwhile. I don't know if it's worth running a bunch of crappy discard outlets.
[*] Don't sleep on Trawler. It's usually a 5/5 flying lifelinker that can dodge removal and draws a card once per turn while being a free repeatable discard outlet, AND can sometimes close the game out as a HUGE beater. I've had it at over 10 power on multiple occasions. Plus, life link is going to do a lot to keep you in the game when getting hated on.
[*] Ertai looks fantastic. Been wanting to get a copy to slot in. I've been playing with Overcharged Amalgam and can say that it's definitely possible to time dungeon completions to reanimate a counter spell to a degree.
[*] Marsh Croc looks...cumbersome. I guess a recastable multi-colored creature has some value for the eidolons, but I feel like I'd rather have a an effect like Bottomless Pit, Necrogen Mists or a cheaper ETB everyone discard creature, or even a planeswalker like Liliana.
[*] Ifnir is very strong.
[*] On the lands front, I think I'm on 34, with just a few mana rocks, but I'm aiming to cast fewer spells and have more reanimation targets. My deck is definitely setup as moderate control, with most creatures having interaction on them, and they run the whole curve from 2-mana to 8-mana for removal of different permanent types, board wipes, and counter spells. Having removal stapled to a big, evasive body helps close out the game while also controlling the board a bit.
[*] As for getting focused...anyone who casts that opener of DT and Intuition should be getting focused unless you know the deck is pretty janky with high confidence. Also, the best ways to interact with this deck are to remove Sefris early and often, or exile everything. Otherwise, it's pretty resilient and snowball-y.

I also STRONGLY recommend including Radiant Solar, since it is the strongest card in the precon, and does more to make the deck hum than any other single card.
Having played the deck only twice I might be wrong but I'm fairly confident the more traditional aristocrats Sefris of the Hidden Ways deck is more powerful. However, if you are playing the eidolon loops version, I think what's important in your deck are very different.

For example, free discard outlets seem way more important here because we aren't really worried about card advantage, we'll just get the eidolons right back and you really NEED a discard outlet of some form online, otherwise your just an embarrassingly clunky control deck.

I also don't think you realize how few creatures actually enter the battlefield in this deck, Radiant Solar will probably trigger less than once a turn in this version.

Again, if you just wanted to make the best deck for Sefris of the Hidden Ways you should probably drop the eidolon gimmick all together. But if you do want to run the eidolons you're building a very different deck that just happens to have the same Commander.

Though I will admit that Dream Trawler might have been a good card. I'd definitely consider adding it back.

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:09 pm
by yeti1069
I'll admit that I don't see the allure or value of the eidolons at all. They seem very low impact. What's the point, other than to say you can?

Re: Sefris of the Hidden Ways - the Eidolon Shuffle

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:27 pm
by Dunadain
yeti1069 wrote:
1 year ago
I'll admit that I don't see the allure or value of the eidolons at all. They seem very low impact. What's the point, other than to say you can?
The point is you never cast them, you just discard them to venture into the dungeon, then return them to your hand. It's not strictly worse per se, you get a lot of synergy with looting effects, your more insulated against boardwipes, and you can venture into the dungeon on each players turn much more consistently.

It's really an entirely different way to play it, it's much more of a control deck with a powerful value engine than an aristocrats deck with a reanimator plan.