Just wondering what ur thoughts on Gemrazer and Ram through are as well and why they aren't included?

pitan77 I’m a fan of benefactors, but you can definitely swap it out for whatever you prefer. The deck is flexible enough. I actually do like Bane of Progress and run it in my paper list, but it’s definitely a meta choice, as it can be a bit too expensive in certain metas. As for rack and mem jar, I’m not a fan of those anymore now that we have so many new gas options since the initial build. Vivien, Monsters' Advocate and Cream of the Crop are solid gas options that I prefer to the ones you mentioned.

NG8 yes, check the updates.

huntersmith878 Not a fan of gemrazer, it’s easy to counter with removal and useless to fetch with to-battlefield tutors like green sun’s zenith. I’m not sure what Ram you’re talking about.

asm he's referring to Ram Through. I'm curious as to your thoughts on it as well.

It’s a reasonable choice. I’m not a super huge fan since you can counter it with removal, but if you need the extra removal its fine.

My play group has all agreed to go up in power level. I really want to play this deck but its out of my budget limit, so can you update the budget list if there need to be any changes. Thank You!

A lot of the cards mentioned in your infinite mana combos and ways to win are not included in your decklist: Eldrazi, Primal Command, Vitalize, Concordant Crossroads. Could you update with the cards you are using? Ty

Do you think a Fruitcake Elemental would be competitive in this deck?

I have a few questions about high power Selvala builds that haven't really seen discussion at all, even as to why they are bad (I preface all of this with stating that obviously the deck is strong/fast, I'm just wondering why I never saw any of these things discussed):

Sword of the Paruns: clearly a similar but worse version of Umbral Mantle in more than one way, but a possible redundancy for a card that the deck can't search up and has to draw.

More than a few of the win cons for the deck require winning via combat damage even if it is infinite, which generally from what I've seen in cEDH games isn't as good as winning without combat due to the extra vectors of interaction you give your opponents to stop you. Having your combo finish being impossible to interact with as possible always seems to be beneficial, it's what makes the strongest combos what they are. Obviously there is one particular loop possible where you destroy all your opponents permanents, but if you don't do that and swing with haste or pass to the next turn with infinite creatures you could still have issues. Also, Beast Within isn't searchable by the deck.

So I have a couple of cards to ask about for that.

Helix Pinnacle: Clearly it requires you to wait until your next upkeep which isn't great. But if I were going to sit for a turn before winning, with my opponents having permanents or not, I would expect getting a 'you win' effect off an enchantment with Shroud would be superior to needing to swing. The only thing that I'm really curious about is the lack of any talk about it even to say it's bad most places I looked.

Aetherflux Reservoir: You're basically storming off so just kill people without attacking? Not searchable though clearly.

'Hurricane' effects, there are a few so I won't link them all. The downside is they hit you too, but in this style of deck it's not to hard to gain some incidental life. Primal Command already does this, tweaks could be made to have better consistency. The upside is you only need to have more life than your opponents and it doesn't require you have reached infinite mana yet, just that you have accumulated a lot. I only bring this up because in the past I had played a 60 card deck in casual that was essentially a sort of 'green high tide' deck that also made lots of mana and drew lots of cards and it wasn't super hard to gain a touch of life along the way and then Hurricane the table down as the win; that deck did so through land ramp mostly, so a critical card in that deck like Fruition doesn't really suit this deck and would be more at home in a Tatyova or Azusa for sure, but Primal Command is already present in some lists and does the job. It is worth noting that there are several creatures, which the deck could actually tutor, that can do this either through looping or just having a repeatable ability:

Cloudthresher, Ifh-Biff Efreet, Squallmonger

Hey FlavorPolice,

Your way of thinking is pretty cool, and you're right, these are all good cards.

However, these cards aren't "good enough" in modern selvala lists because of the way we win. All selvala lists win by storming off, drawing your entire deck, and killing your opponents by presenting a insurmountable boardstate/infinite damage.

Yes, Helix Pinnacle and Aetherflux Reservoir can win the game on the spot when you're storming off. But so can Beast Within Eternal Witness Kogla, the Titan Ape loop. But so can Finale of Devastation. And all these cards actually do something when you're not trying to win.

Your entire matrix of what constitutes a "good wincon" changes when your win-condition is drawing your deck + infinite mana.

As for Sword of the Paruns, I find that Umbral Mantle is good because its a 1 card infinite mana combo with selvala, and they aren't really comparable. I dont think mantle isn't even as good as Cloudstone Curio or Staff of Domination. It is a good budget option though!

Why no Craterhoof Behemoth?

Fluid1 The list has a fair amount of combo flexibility, I feel it’s useful for people who choose to run those cards to be aware of the combos. The primer gets updated with new combos when they come out.

FlavorPolice It’s rare for people to be able to deal with infinite combat damage at instant soeed and not have been able to stop the combo prior to that. Instant wincons are nice, but ultimately it’s most important to save card slots for cards that do things the rest of the game. I actually have sword of the paruns in the budget build linked in the primer. I do think it is fine to run, but can be a little harder to pull off than the other ones since the input mana required is a lot more.

DarkMagician You can run it if you wish, but the deck doesn’t generally go wide, so it’s hard to win off just casting craterhoof without also comboing off already.

asm You don't actually have to go wide which is why I like it. I run a version of this deck and all you actually need is 3 creatures (for a 4 person pod) counting Craterhoof. The deck pumps out a ton of mana and goes infinite with relative ease. A large enough Finale of Devastation into Craterhoof ends the game.

Not entirely convinced that it’s necessary, but I do think it’s fine to run.

Is this still the master primer? or has the moxfield one replaced it?

How how about allosaurus shepherd