Quick Links
The main villain of Final Fantasy VII makes an appearance inMagic: The Gathering’sUniverses Beyond crossover set with Final Fantasy. Sephiroth has multiple cards across all the products, with Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier being Sephiroth’s main set card.
Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier is a fantastic mono black commander that utilizes an aristocrat strategy. An aristocrat deck is one that sacrifices its own creatures for value, which is something that you will always want to be doing with a Sephiroth Commander deck. Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier wants you to sacrifice your creatures to advance your game plans, allowing you to take on the role of the villain.
x27 Swamp
War Room
Witch’s Cottage
The decklistcontains one planeswalker, 34 creatures, four sorceries, eight instants, 12 artifacts, six enchantments,and34 lands. Many of the permanents either create creatures to sacrifice or benefit from creatures being sacrificed.
Key Cards
Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER // Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel
The commander of the deck, Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER isyour primary way to deal burn damage and lifegain, pinging an opponent for life whenever a creature dies. Youwant this to trigger four times quicklyso you can flip to the backside of Sephiroth as soon as you can.
The backside of Sephirothprovides an emblem that permanently gives you Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIERSeffect.Emblems cannot be interacted with, so even if Sephiroth gets removed, you’ll still be able to burn your opponents for creature deaths.
You get an emblemevery time Sephiroth transforms into One-Winged Angel. This allows you to stack multiple emblems to have more instances of the effect.
Drivnod, Carnage Dominus
The deck has a ton of death triggers, allowing Drivnod, Carnage Dominusto double up on all of them. It is important to note thatonly death triggers will be doubled,not effects that sacrifice for cost. Regardless, Drivnod, Carnage Dominus makes it much easier to deal more burn damage to your opponents to close games out quicker.
Drivnod caneasily be given indestructible so long as you have three creatures to exile from your graveyard. Since you’re playing an aristocrat deck, your graveyard always has creatures in it. Drivnod’s effect can be activated for just four life, and can be done at instant speed, making it easy to keep resources for other effects and still give it protection.
Gravecrawler
Gravecrawler is a staple of aristocrat deckssince it can easily be re-cast after being sacrificed multiple times in one turn. It’s the most recurable creature in the deck, so long as you have another Zombie on the battlefield (which is something the deck can easily provide).
The main attraction of Gravecrawleris its potential to combo infinitely with sacrifice outlets. The combo is very easy to compile all the parts together, allowing for potential infinite burn damage to close out any game. Here is how the combo works.
Prerequisites:Gravecrawler, another Zombie creature, and Phyrexian Altar on the battlefield.
Step 1:Sacrifice Gravecrawler to Phyrexian Altar, adding one black mana.
Step 2:Cast Gravecrawler from the graveyard since you control a Zombie.
Results:Infinite sacrifice triggers, infinite death triggers
Black Market Connections
Black Market Connections providescard draw,ramp through Treasure tokens, or creates creature tokens for you to sacrifice. The creature tokens have changeling, so other permanents that need specific creatures, like Gravecrawler, can utilize these.
The strength of Black Market Connections comes from its utility. Itmakes up for everything that mono black is weak for, though at the cost of life. It ismandatory to choose at least one effect, so no matter what, you’ll have to lose at least one life every turn. This can hurt in the long run if you use all three effects constantly in the game, so be careful about your life total.
How To Play The Deck
A Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER Commander deckis constantly sacrificing its own creatures, burning your opponents with Sephiroth’s effectsand other permanents that have similar effects.You actively want your creatures to dieso you can keep these triggers going, so blocking with weak creatures turns into major burn damage.
There are multiple permanents with effects that deal damage when a creature dies. Each one of these permanents triggers individually, so if a creature dies with both Sephiroth and Blood Artist on the battlefield, each will provide one burn damage for a total of two.
Themana curve of the deck is rather low, meaning you can cast a lot of spells without much mana investment. Since you’re in mono black, permanents like Bontu’s Monument and The Darkness Crystal make it even easier to cast spells,allowing you to hold mana up for interaction.
Not every creature can be re-cast from the graveyard, sopermanents that generate tokens are vital for this strategy. These often provide tokens at your upkeep or when a creature dies, which gives you creatures to sacrifice to your sacrifice outlets. Thebest choices for token generatorsare Black Market Connections, Bitterblossom, and Ophiomancer, andshould be put onto the battlefield as quickly as possible.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through burn damage. While you can amass a large battlefield,they do not have much in the stats department,making them weak in combat. However, with how much burn damage your permanents can do, this is hardly a downside since you can deal damage directly to your opponents instead.
You can also control the battlefield through forced sacrifice with Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact, which will force your opponents to sacrifice a creature whenever one of your creatures dies. This helps you to chip in for minor combat damage with your creatures that can attack.
Thebiggest downside of the deck is its requirement of multiple permanents to work. The deck needs both a sacrifice outlet, as well as sacrifice fodder in order to make the most out of all of its effects. Thismakes removal potentially backbreakingif used on a key card.
There aren’t many ways to bring permanents back from the graveyard once they’re removed, soonce something is gone, it’s likely gone for good. Luckily, there are a lot of different permanents that have the same function, so even if one gets removed, you’re able to draw into a different one.
