Commander Deck Tech: Raffine, Scheming Seer
Time for another Streets of New Capenna brew and this time we are going with a very cheap and cost efficient commander in Raffine, Scheming Seer. At only 3 mana, Raffine packs quite the punch; it is a 1/4 Flying Ward 1 Sphinx Demon that also has the Connive ability. You Connive X for each attacking creature and then that creature will get +X/+X for each nonland permanent you discard.
Now normally we would want to keep spells and pitch extra lands we don't need, but in this case we are going to try and pitch cards that have an ability that works when in the graveyard, or we’ll pitch creatures that we can reanimate by other means. You get to loot or see extra cards to try and smooth your curve and make every turn perfect and powerful, all in the meantime powering your synergies to gain more value. Also note that when you connive it says draw X cards the discard X cards. A card like Teferi's Ageless Insight basically doubles the amount of cards you draw with a connive trigger, but then you still only have to discard the original amount of X. This gives you the ability to draw some extra cards without as much disadvantage, or to make sure you discard nonland cards to get the extra +X+X.
Other big cards in the deck that have good synergies with the connive triggers are: Nadir Kraken, Drake Haven, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, Archfiend of Ifnir, Bone Miser, Chasm Skulker, Containment Construct, and Dream Trawler. Keep in mind that these cards either have draw or discard triggers. Those work well with the connive triggers but also trigger in other instances without connive.
Our mana acceleration is very minimal in this deck and is only running 5 cards with some type of acceleration. I chose to run Orzhov Signet, Azorius Signet, Dimir Signet, Arcane Signet, and Sol Ring.
For protection the deck runs Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Selfless Spirit and a Teferi's Protection. I feel that the haste will also help to accelerate the deck and its connive synergies.
We have 9 different ways in which you can reanimate creatures within the deck. The reanimation effects consist of: Reanimate, Unburial Rites, Animate Dead, Obscura Charm, Dread Return, Karmic Guide, Sun Titan, Sheoldred, Whispering One, and Priest of Fell Rites. Some of these outright just reanimate a creature, but some are situational like the Obscura Charm and Sun Titan.
This deck does run quite a bit of control whether it be removal or counterspells. I went sort of heavy on counterspells just because it is an esper deck. You can possibly lower the amount of counterspells and or removal to add more creatures to the deck. I want to play this one a bit before making any adjustments to see how it does, and see what situations occur. There are 6 counterspells within the deck with a few situational counters that are on creatures.
As for removal we have a few board wipes in Damn, Cyclonic Rift and Supreme Verdict. We went heavier on the spot removal vs board wipes because the deck wants lots of creatures in play. The more creatures we have that can attack the bigger the amount of cards we draw off of Raffine’s connive trigger. Because of this we purposely went a lot heavier on spot removal. There are 9 cards that count as spot removal in the deck if you include Noxious Gearhulk. Some of the spot removal is situational like Obscura Charm, while others can hit more than just a creature like Vindicate or Utter End. I think the deck should be pretty versatile with the ability to hit stuff more than creatures. We also have all the counterspells in the deck as well. This allows you to kind of pick and choose what you allow to come into play, and what you don’t. You will most likely be countering stuff that has enter the battlefield (ETB) triggers while holding spot removal for stuff that does not.
The range of creatures in the deck is pretty extensive. We have a commander that is a Sphinx Demon, but by no way is this a tribal themed deck. We do run a Sphinx in Consecrated Sphinx, and we also run a Demon in Archfiend of Ifnir. The deck mainly just runs creatures that trigger abilities off drawing cards, discarding cards, or cards that have some sort of graveyard abilities. Then we just have some efficient cards that are early drops that make it difficult for your opponents. The early drops die easily, however they help to get creatures in play quickly to hopefully gain extra card draws off of Raffine’s connive trigger. The early game one casting cost creatures are: Esper Sentinel, Spectral Sailor, Serra Ascendant, and Judge's Familiar. We also have a hodgepodge of ten different two casting cost creatures which we can get in play before Raffine.
The mana base is a little weird but alot of multicolor lands. I decided to run the new Obscura Storefront and three on-color fetchlands. I’m hoping the signets help smooth things out while also speeding things up. One thing I want to find out is if the signets take away from the deck with all the cheap one and two drop creatures we are running. Regardless, the deck will need quite a bit of play testing and fine tuning like any commander deck does. I’m sure a few cards will be added and a few cards will be taken out over time. It also seems like with every new set that comes out there are cards which should go into your old decks, or even your decks a few months back.
This deck looks like a ton of fun with lots of versatility, and who doesn’t like reanimating big creatures with crazy abilities? I’m sure that Raffine, Scheming Seer has a little bit of something for everyone. I hope that this commander build can give you a good start at building your own Raffine deck!
Until Next Time,
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