If you like to travel the multiverse through the most epic stories told by its habitants, then Saga Tribal is the right deck for you! Let’s see how you can convert your game into an epic Saga!
I love tribal decks because they combine synergy and flavor and of course power. On top of that you can find many unique cards that support a tribe and can be great budget options as those cards work only on a specific tribal deck and are bad to unplayable to any other deck. That’s why I will try building and presenting a series of decks for all those who share the love for tribal decks.
Saga is an enchantment type introduced in Dominaria. Each Saga tells the story of a key event from the past as it unfolds during each of your turns. Each separate step in the story is called a chapter, and is marked by a roman numeral (I, II, III, etc.). Saga cards are historic. (source: MtG Wiki)
Tom Bombadil is a mysterious being that lived for much of the history of the world. Proclaimed to be “the oldest in existence,” Tom Bombadil was apparently immortal and possesses a range of enigmatic powers with the greatest revealed power to be his singing. (source LOTR Wiki)
With the release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth, Tom Bombadil came to MtG, offering us the ultimate Saga Tribal commander. Much fitting to his abilities (and an amazing flavor hit), Tom Bombadil becomes almost immortal (hexproof and indestructible) when singing the Sagas and he is a great ramp and tutor engine, as with his second ability he never let the stories end, but when the final ability of a Sage resolves, he tutors a Saga directly into the battlefield (once each turn) creating a never-ending tale!
Synergy Diagram
I always like to make a simple synergy diagram in order to deeply comprehend the potential and the strategy areas that are supported by the commander when I choose top-down building. But in some cases, I do a mix of top-down and bottom-up building.
Let’s analyze the main goals of the deck:
- Add the best Sagas. Our priority is to add the ones with powerful chapter abilities (card draw, ramp, removal, etc.) Since Tom Bombadil tutors sagas directly onto the battlefield for free (whenever the final chapter ability of a Saga we control resolves), we should pick only the top Sagas for having the optimal chances to get something valuable and even game-changing.
- Add Saga Tribal support. Adding cards that have Saga synergy can really elevate our build.
- Add Enchantment synergy cards. Since Sagas are Enchantments, cards that synergize with Enchantments are very strong in our build.
- Add cards that can manipulate (add/remove/move) counters. Since Sagas are fueled by lore counters, cards that can manipulate counters are very strong in our build.
- Add cards that synergize with our strategies. To make the best out of our strategies, we can further amplify them by adding cards that support many of our strategies.
For the sake of flavor some of the choices are not optimal, but are (usually budget friendly) alternatives that greatly fit the Saga Tribal theme.
The deck:
Saga Tribal
Comparative Analysis
Let’s see how the deck compares to the general ratios of my deckbuilding guide.
37 Lands
16 Ramp: Tom Bombadil , Azusa’s Many Journeys , Arcane Signet , Sol Ring , The Weatherseed Treaty , Scholar of New Horizons , Chromatic Lantern , Sanctum Weaver , Fertile Ground , Aminatou, Veil Piercer, There and Back Again, Binding the Old Gods, Spelunking , Jukai Naturalist, Herald of the Pantheon, The Bath Song (slow)
14 Target Removal: Birth of the Imperium (kinda), The Horus Heresy (kinda), The Akroan War (kinda), Scroll of Isildur (kinda), The Eldest Reborn (kinda), Binding the Old Gods , Elspeth Conquers Death , The Kami War , Glissa Sunslayer, Inventive Iteration, The Trickster-God’s Heist, Firja’s Retribution, Battle at the Helvault, Kiora Bests The Sea God
4 Board Wipes: The Akroan War , Phyrexian Scriptures , One Ring to Rule Them All, The Elder Dragon War (mini)
12 Graveyard Recursion: Starfield of Nyx , Resurgent Belief, Ghen, Arcanum Weaver, Dance of the Manse, The Cruelty of Gix, The Bath Song (library), The Eldest Reborn, Satsuki, the Living Lore, Inventive Iteration, Anikthea, Hand of Erebos, The Kami War , Eivor, Wolf-Kissed
4 Graveyard Hate: Phyrexian Scriptures , The Cruelty of Gix , The Eldest Reborn, The Eldest Reborn
2 Tutors: The Cruelty of Gix , Tom Bombadil
2 Protection: Tom Bombadil (self-protection), Inventive Iteration
15 Card Draw: Birth of the Imperium , The Horus Heresy , Bello, Bard of the Brambles, Enchantress’s Presence , Eidolon of Blossoms , Setessan Champion , Scroll of Isildur , The First Iroan Games , Goldberry, River-Daughter , The Bath Song, Sythis, Harvest’s Hand, Narci, Fable Singer, Glissa Sunslayer, Inventive Iteration (1/2), The Elder Dragon War, Spelunking (1/2)
3 Finishers/ Surprise /Alternate win conditions: Narci, Fable Singer , Bello, Bard of the Brambles, Firja’s Retribution (not consistent)
As we see from the comparative analysis, the rates per category are very good and that is a result of multiple chapter abilities per Saga. We see four major spikes, Ramp at 16, Card Draw at 15, Target Removal at 14 and Graveyard recursion at 12. There is no score below the optimal low average.
Deck Highlights, synergy and flavor options:
Ramp
Tom Bombadil is both a repeatable tutor and a ramp engine, as whenever the final chapter ability of a Saga we control resolve, he let us put the first Saga we reveal from the top of our library directly into the battlefield. We can get amazing value even if this ability triggers only once each turn and that’s why he is the ultimate Saga Tribal Commander.
Azusa’s Many Journeys // Likeness of the Seeker is a cheap yet powerful Saga that works as ramp by letting us play an additional land this turn at I and at III it is transformed into Likeness of the Seeker, a 3/3 Human Monk that punishes opponents for blocking it, as it untaps up to three lands we control offering us more ramp. A nice addition to our Saga Tribal.
The Weatherseed Treaty is the ideal ramp spell for Saga Tribal because it has similar utility to Rampant Growth (which is a top staple) at I, it let us create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token at II and buffs target creature we control until end of turn at III. What makes it so important is that it is a Saga, so it can be recurred providing repeatable ramp.
Scholar of New Horizons has a typical white ramp ability, but with a twist: we need to remove a counter from a permanent we control first. In our Saga Tribal it can act as repeatable ramp by removing Lore counters from our Sagas and giving us amazing value by repeating the most powerful chapters. Amazing synergy!
Chromatic Lantern is a great color fixing mana rock that is optimal in 5-colored decks such as our Saga Tribal.
Sanctum Weaver is a great mana source for enchantment synergy decks and works wonders in 5-colored decks as it provides X mana of any one color where X is the number of enchantments we control.
Jukai Naturalist and Herald of the Pantheon are enchantment cost reducers so they work great in our Saga Tribal build.
There and Back Again is an amazing Saga and we would expect nothing less for the story of “The Hobbit”. It’s the story of how the “One Ring” was found by Bilbo (thus the “The ring tempts you” at I), the journey to the Lonely Mountain (thus the search for a Mountain card at II) and the dragon Smaug guarding the mythical treasure of the Dwarves (thus Smaug apeears as a 6/6 legendary Dragon at III and when he dies, we create 14! Treasure tokens). Perfect flavor and amazing ramp utility for Saga Tribal.
Binding the Old Gods is a powerful Saga that destroys target nonland permanent on EtB, and can help with ramp in II. On III it gives mass deathtouch to our creatures until end of turn. A great pick for our Saga Tribal.
Spelunking is a great enchantment that on ETB it let us draw a card and put an a land from our hand onto the battlefield and it makes lands we control enter the battlefield untapped, something that is very important for a budget 5-color deck like our Saga Tribal, since we have many lands that enter the battlefield tapped.
The Bath Song is a great pick for Saga Tribal since it has great multipurpose utility. As ramp, it let us ad 
at III.
Fertile Ground is a ramp staple that help in color fixing and has enchantment synergy.
Aminatou, Veil Piercer works like a miracle in our Saga Tribal since most of our Sagas have mid to high mana value (3-6) and being able to cast the first one we draw for its Miracle cost reduced by 
is huge. Morover, she has Surveil 2 which is topdeck manipulation and that can make her ability shine even better, as it reduces the chances to hit a non-enchantment. In addition, Surveil works great with Tom Bombadil too, as with topdeck manipulation we can multiply the chances to hit something useful. A great utility card for our build.
Target Removal
Elspeth Conquers Death is another amazing pick for Saga Tribal as it has great multipurpose utility. As removal, it let us exile target permanent an opponent controls with cmc 3 or greater at I.
We have already analized the importance of Binding the Old Gods in Saga Tribal. As a removal it let us destroy target nonland permanent at I.
The Kami War // O-Kagachi Made Manifest is expensive and 5-colored, but it is a card with great value for Saga Tribal, offering on two different chapters, target removal (at I exiling target nonland permanent and at II returning target nonland permanent to it’s owner’s hand). Moreover, by transforming at III it becomes a 6/6 flyer with trample that gets buffed by attacking and on top of that it offer repeatable graveyard recursion (on attack trigger). Great utility!
Glissa Sunslayer is an amazing card for our Saga Tribal build, as it has great utility. Having First Strike and Deathtouch makes her great for attack and defence and in dealing combat damage to a player we can choose one of three powerful options: 1- to draw a card and loose one life, 2- to Destroy target enchantment 3- to remove up to three counters from target permanent. All are great but the third one has great synergy with Lore counters from our Sagas and can give us amazing value! Top pick for our build!
Inventive Iteration // Living Breakthrough is another great pick for Saga Tribal as it has great multipurpose utility. As target removal it let us return target creature or planeswalke to its owner’s hand at I.
The Trickster-God’s Heist is …tricky. It let us exchange control of two target permanents at I and of two target nonbasic noncreature permanents that share a card type at II. That may prove quite powerful since we can choose our worse permanents and exchange it with the best permanents of our opponent, turning the tide to our favor.
Firja’s Retribution is average alone, but has great synergy with our Saga Tribal build. At I it let us create a 4/4 white Angel Warrior creature token with Flying and Vigilance, while at II it gives Angels we control “
: Destroy target creature with power less than this creature’s power.” We have other cards that create Angels too, so it may prove more consistent as removal than it looks.
Battle at the Helvault is a card that offers temporary target removal at I and II by exiling for each player up to one target non-Saga, nonland permanent until Battle at the Helvault leaves the battlefield. At III we create Avacyn, a legendary 8/8 white Angel creature token with flying, vigilance, and indestructible, which is a big threat and a potential finisher. The great tale of Avacyn, Angel of Hope shouldn’t be absent from Saga Tribal.
Kiora Bests The Sea God is a great inclusion for our Saga Tribal as it is a perfect target for the last ability of Tom Bombadil. A free 8/8 ble Kraken creature with hexproof can be a real menace. Moreover, it is a powerful control tool, as it let us lock the board for a turn at II and gain control of target permanent at III. Gaining control of a permannent is actually better than removal!
Birth of the Imperium and The Eldest Reborn are also great multipurpose utility cards for our Saga Tribal. As target removal they force each opponent to sacrifice a creature (Birth of the Imperium at II and The Eldest Reborn at I).
The Akroan War, Scroll of Isildur and The Horus Heresy are multipurpose utility cards that work great in Saga Tribal. Instead of typical removal, at I, they let us gain control of target creature(s) (The Akroan War and The Horus Heresy) and target artifact (Scroll of Isildur ) for as long as they remain on the battlefield. The Horus Heresy at III unleash chaos and mistrust for everyone: starting with us, each player chooses a creature. We destroy each creature chosen this way. The flavor is on point.
Board Wipes
The Akroan War is a flavor win as it is a story of combat manipulation and destruction. At II, until our next turn, creatures our opponents control attack each combat if able and at III each tapped creature deal damage to itself equal to its power. Those chapters together result in a selective board wipe that can always be in our favor.
Phyrexian Scriptures is a great non-artifact creature removal that is mostly used in artifact decks. In Saga Tribal it is still a nice boardwipe as it has synergy with our theme. With I we can turn target creature into an artifact so in II we can save it from the boardwipe.
One Ring to Rule Them All is the tale of “The Lord of the Rings” and it couldn’t be absent from our Saga Tribal. Among other utilities, at II it is a board wipe by destroying all nonlegendary creatures. At I “The Ring tempts you” so we can make one creature Legendary (our Ringbearer) and save it from the wipe. The mill part of I and the life drain on III are not very revelant to our build, but they are a welcome bonus.
The Elder Dragon War is another multipurpose utility card for our Saga Tribal. At I it deals 2 damage to each creature and each opponent and that help us clear small threats.
Graveyard Recursion
Starfield of Nyx ia a graveyard recursion engine since it can return target encantment from our graveyard to the battlefild at the beggining of our upkeep. In addition, as long as we control five or more enchantments, it turns our Sagas into creatures with power and toughness equal to their mana value, which can be a hidden finisher. Top pick for our Saga Tribal build.
Resurgent Belief is a great mass graveyard recursion sorcery that can return all our enchantments to the battlefild. In our Saga Tribal that is very powerful.
Ghen, Arcanum Weaver by paying 
, and sacrificing an enchantment let us return target enchantment card from our graveyard to the battlefild. In our Saga Tribal we can repeatedly recur our best Sagas while sacrificing the ones with lesser imporntance (or the ones that are on chapters that have lesser impact on the game) gaining optimal value.
Dance of the Manse has amazing synergy with our Saga Tribal build as it can be a great grave recursion tool, but also by paying 6 or more for X, it can convert our returning Sagas into 4/4 creatures (in addition to their other types) giving us an army out of nowhere.
The Cruelty of Gix is another great multipurpose utility card for our Saga Tribal. At III it returns target creature from a graveyard onto the battlefild under our control. The Eldest Reborn serves similar utility at III as it let us return target creature or planeswalker from a graveyard under our control. The returned cards can be from other graveyards, so they counts as graveard hate too and that flexibility makes them much stronger.
The Bath Song at III let us shuffle any number of target cards from our graveyard into our library, which is not optimal but may still prove useful.
Satsuki, the Living Lore is an amazing inclusion in our Saga Tribal as it does mass Lore counter manipulation. By we put a Lore counter on each Saga we control at sorcery speed. Morover, at death trigger it let us either recur target Saga from our graveyard to our hand or return target Saga or enchantment creature we contol to our hand.
Inventive Iteration // Living Breakthrough at II let us return an artifact card from our graveyard to our hand. If we can’t we draw a card, which is a nice alternative.
Anikthea, Hand of Erebos is a great grave recursion engine for Saga Tribal as on ETB and on attack trigger, it let us exile up to one target non-Aura enchantment card from your graveyard and then create a token that’s a copy of that card, except it’s a 3/3 black Zombie creature in addition to its other types. Morover, she gives other enchantment creatures Menace, so our Zombie Sagas become harder to be blocked. Cool utility!
Eivor, Wolf-Kissed is another great inclusion for our Saga Tribal as it can give us great card advantage recurring our Sagas (or even lands) for free, by dealing combat damage to a player, milling that many cards and let us put one Saga/Land from among them onto the battlefield.
Tutors
We have already analized why Tom Bombadil is the ultimate Saga Tribal commander. Combining tutoring with ramp makes him the best storyteller.
The Cruelty of Gix also works as a tutor for any card on II which is alone very stong. Combined with Saga synergy, it becomes a must-have for Saga Tribal.
Protection
Tom Bombadil has build-in protection (hexproof and indestructible) as long as we control four or more Lore counters. Our Saga Tribal build with the counter manipulation strategy help us keep him in God mode.
Inventive Iteration // Living Breakthrough when transformed offers us a unique protection ability: Whenever we cast a spell, our opponents can’t cast spells with the same mana value as that spell until our next turn. Cool utility!
Card Draw
Goldberry, River-Daughter is the wife of Tom Bombadil and she works wonders in our Saga Tribal build. She greatly helps with Lore counter manipulation and on top of that she helps with cards draw. Great option and flavor for our build!
Birth of the Imperium at III let us draw two cards for each opponent who controls fewer creatures than us. That can potentially be a lot of cards, especially if you consider that at I it helps setting up the battlefield domination, by creating a 2/2 white Astartes Warrior creature token with vigilance for each opponent we have. The Horus Heresy also reaps what it has set up at I (stealing creatures), by drawing a card for each creature we control but don’t own at II. Great draw for Saga Tribal.
Enchantress’s Presence, Eidolon of Blossoms , Setessan Champion and Sythis, Harvest’s Hand are enchantment strategy staples that trigger either on enchantment ETB or on enchantment cast, letting us draw a card. In our Saga Tribal, because of Tom Bombadil, ETB triggers are more important since we don’t cast the Sagas Tom tutors onto the battlefield. Nevertheless, all work great in our build as we have a strong enchantment strategy/theme.
Scroll of Isildur at III let us draw a card for each tapped creature target opponent controls. It can net us many cards and the fact that at II it let us tap up to two target creatures and put a stun counter on them, set up the minimum amount of draw to two cards which is a great starting point.
The First Iroan Games is a nice enchantment that give us great value over time. At I we create a 1/1 white Human Soldier token, at II we put three +1/+1 counters on target creature we control, at III if we control a creature with power 4 or greater we draw two cards and at IV we create a Gold token. It’s worth to be mentioned that even if we have no creatures on board, it can set up the prerequisite for card draw by itself by giving the Human Soldier token the counters so it is more consistent than it shows. The Gold metal token is a flavor win, it can prove useful, but I wouldn’t count it as ramp because it is too slow.
The Bath Song is one of the best card draw Sagas for our Saga Tribal since at both I and II it let us draw two cards and then discard a card.
The Elder Dragon War at II let us discard any number of cards and then draw that many cards.
Finishers/ Surprise /Alternate win conditions
Narci, Fable Singer is one of the best cards for Saga Tribal since she gives our build something that was missing before her arrival, a consistent way to finish games. She has “Whenever the final chapter ability of a Saga you control resolves, each opponent loses X life and you gain X life, where X is that Saga’s mana value.” Moreover, she help us with card draw on sacrifice enchantment trigger which is a nice bonus. A must-have card for our build.
Bello, Bard of the Brambles is an amazing inclusion for our Saga Tribal build as it turns our Sagas with mana value 4+ into Elemental creatures with Indestrucible, Haste and Card Draw on combat damage trigger. It serves both as a repeatable card draw source and a potential finisher!
Firja’s Retribution can be a potential finisher by giving Angels we control double strike until end of turn at III, but it needs some setup so it is not very consistent as a finisher. The Angel token it creates at I is not enough, but we have a mini Angel token subtheme on our Saga Tribal so with 2-3 more Angel tokens, it may prove fatal.
Other synergy pieces
Lore Counter Manipulation Strategy : 13 cards
By manipulating Lore counters we are able to go back and forth in Saga chapters gaining optimal (and repeatable) value. Hex Parasite, Thrull Parasite, Scholar of New Horizons, Glissa Sunslayer and Power Conduit are able to remove counters, Satsuki, the Living Lore is able to add counters and Goldberry, River-Daughter, Xavier Sal, Infested Captain, Nesting grounds, Sigurd, Jarl of Ravensthorpe and Clockspinning are able to either add or remove counters. Barbara Wright gives Sagas we control read ahead, so we can define the starting chapter and the number of Lore counters which makes her a powerhouse in our Saga Tribal. Brago, King Eternal on combat damage to a player trigger, can Blink our Sagas and thus reset the Lore counters to I giving us another powerful manipulation option.
Doublers : 4 cards
Weaver of Harmony doubles target activated or triggered ability from an enchantment source, Ian Chesterton multiplies our Sagas by giving them replicate, Xavier Sal, Infested Captain doubles a token with populate on counter removal and Ondu Spiritdancer doubles an enchantment on ETB once per turn. All double the fun of our Saga Tribal!
Angel tokens subtheme : 4 cards
We have a mini Angel tokens subtheme that is giving our build more depth, without sacrificing its Saga Tribal focus. Historian’s Boon and Sigil of the Empty Throne are Angel token production engines. Battle at the Helvault give us Avacyn, a legendary 8/8 white Angel creature token with flying, vigilance, and indestructible, which is a powerful unit and Firja’s Retribution gives us a single Angel token but has Angel synergy at II and III making our subtheme quite strong providing target removal and even a finishing move.
Token producers : 17 cards
Firja’s Retribution , Historian’s Boon, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Battle at the Helvault, Ian Chesterton, Xavier Sal, Infested Captain, Archon of Sun’s Grace, Anikthea, Hand of Erebos, Ondu Spiritdancer, The First Iroan Games, The Weatherseed Treaty, The Elder Dragon War, Birth of the Imperium, In the Darkness Bind Them, There and Back Again, Kiora Bests the Sea God
We can see that we have strong token creation in our build and that compensates for the lack of creatures that are good for combat (most of our creatures are support cards). Among others, Archon of Sun’s Grace and Historian’s Boon are great token engines as they care for enchantment ETB and In the Darkness Bind Them is a powerful Saga that let us create a 3/3 black Wraith creature token with Menace per turn for three turns (at I, II and III).
Let’s see some more statistics about our deck. Some important info to care about is the mana curve and the card type distribution, as it can help us understand better our deck and may indicate where there is space for improving it.
Mana Curve
The mana curve is not too far from average. There are spikes at positions 4 and 5 but also an absence of 8+ mana drops. That is a result of our Saga Tribal build as we rely on middle to middle-high mana cost Sagas to get optimal value from the last ability of Tom Bombadil.
Card Type Distribution
The Sliver Tribal Card Type Distribution shows the dominant enchantment-heavy theme with 30 enchantments. Creatures have a significant presence too with 27 creatures but 6 of them are enchantment creatures, so our enchantment theme is more dominant than it shows. All other categories have a much smaller presence with Artifacts at 4, Sorceries at 2 and Instants at 1. No Planeswalkers or Battles are present for the time.
Of course statistics and comparative analysis are great tools but they don’t always tell the whole truth, since many factors like synergy and combo pieces are hard to be measured numerically. For example in this deck, with our counter manipulation strategy, the value we can get from Sagas is much bigger and consistent than the statistics numbers shown.
Update v1 (Assassin’s Creed)
Update v2 (Bloomburrow)
Update v3 (Duskmourn)
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If you liked the deck, don’t forget to revisit the article after every major new release as I will try to keep my decks updated and examine any potential upgrades. If you want to keep being updated, you can follow mtgbudgetcommander.com on social media (facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, linkedin, reddit, tumblr, medium).
If you like my tribal series, you can check my other tribal decks.
