Oftentimes in Magic, fun and flavorful mechanics, regrettably, don’t make the cut in serious play. This has largely been the case for the original Dungeon mechanic from Magic’s D&D crossover sets. While its retrain, the Initiative, did extremely well, original Dungeons have largely gone unexplored in most formats.
For that reason, many of the cards that care about this unique mechanic have been lost to time. In the case of Sefris of the Hidden Ways, one of the very best Dungeon Commanders, this is particularly tragic. Not only is this a great value Commander for regular play, but it can also bust out some wild combo plays to boot.
MTG Sefris Of The Hidden Ways
Sefris of the Hidden Ways is the definition of an MTG hidden gem. Since debuting in the Dungeons of Death precon back in 2021, Sefris has seen less and less play. Now that Wizards has dedicated an entire Secret Lair drop to it, players are starting to wake up to the card’s potential.
The bulk of Sefris’ value is tied up in that first ability. If you can reliably have your creatures die, you can venture into the Dungeon up to four times per turn cycle. The easiest way to do this is by sticky fodder creatures like Reassembling Skeleton or Nine-Lives Familiar. Pair these with an instant-speed sacrifice outlet like Altar of Dementia, and you can sacrifice on opponents’ turns to reliably hit four ventures a cycle with ease.
With the right cards, you can actually push things even further. Blink effects, like Ephemerate, can reset Sefris’s once-per-turn clause on its first trigger. You can also sacrifice Sefris and bring it back with something like Sun Titan for the same effect.
Once you’re venturing into the Dungeon a bunch, you can start to leverage Sefris’s second ability. Getting a free Reanimate each time you finish a Dungeon lets you easily recur the fodder creatures you used to trigger it in the first place. With Dungeon support pieces like Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker and Midnight Pathlighter, you can pursue this as a grindy, Aristocrats-esque strategy. Alternatively, you can dream bigger and reanimate haymakers like Archon of Cruelty, pushing for swingier turns rather than gradual value.
Convoluted Combos
Sefris of the Hidden Ways is great when played fair, but it also enables a surprising set of combo lines. The wildest of these involve Sefris’ fellow D&D alumni Radiant Solar and Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward. To pull this combo off, you need Sefris, Radiant Solar, and two other nontoken creatures in play. You also need to be in the Veils of Fear Room of the Tomb of Annihilation Dungeon.
Once that’s all ready, start by playing Abdel Adrian, and blinking the trio in play. Thanks to Radiant Solar’s trigger, you can then move into the Sandfall Cell room, and sacrifice Abdel Adrian. You can put a Sefris trigger on the stack here, and have it activate after the trio returns to play. At this point, you’ll finish Tomb of Annihilation and bring Abdel Adrian back, ready to blink the trio again. From here you’ll have enough Radiant Solar triggers to work with to loop through this process as many times as your life total can handle, since Tomb of Annihilation costs three life per trip. If you’re ahead on life, however, your opponents will succumb to it before you do.
You can also pull off something similar with the classic combo duo Karmic Guide and Reveillark. With these two and Sefris out, and a free sacrifice outlet at your disposal, you can get infinite venture triggers. Simply sacrifice Karmic Guide to get a Sefris trigger, then Sacrifice Sefris itself, followed by Reveillark. With Reveillark’s death trigger, you can bring both Sefris and Guide back to play, and Guide can bring back Reveillark. Repeat this loop to go through the Lost Mine of Phandelver Dungeon infinite times, completely draining the table out.
Second Wind
As of right now, despite all of its potential, Sefris of the Hidden Way is not a particularly popular MTG Commander. According to EDHREC, it only heads up around 10,200 decks in the format, which is low for such a versatile three-color legend. This is doubly surprising since Sefris was actually released in the Dungeons of Death precon deck, meaning the card has always been easily accessible.
Because of its low play rate, Sefris is also very affordable to buy. While the extended art version is steep-ish at $5.40, regular foil copies of the precon version can be had for just $0.65, which falls firmly into budget territory. Along with the overall low prices of most Dungeon support cards, this means you can get a viable Sefris deck together at very little expense.
That said, this may not be the case for much longer. With the new Roll for Initiative Secret Lair superdrop, a lot more players are talking about the card already. As a result, this hidden gem may not be quite so hidden come next week. For that reason, if you like the cut of Sefris’ jib, you’d be best advised to buy in sooner rather than later, before fresh demand pushes up prices.
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