Raffine, Scheming Seer
CommanderRaffine turns every attack step into card selection and a growing threat, rewarding you for going wide with evasive creatures and keeping up interaction.
Public decks: 1Bracket: 1
Card text
Legendary Creature — Sphinx Demon
Flying, ward 
Whenever you attack, target attacking creature connives X, where X is the number of attacking creatures. (Draw X cards, then discard X cards. Put a +1/+1 counter on that creature for each nonland card discarded this way.)
Overview
- Play cheap attackers, then attack early and often to scale connive off your total number of attackers.
- Use connive to filter draws, stock the graveyard, and concentrate +1/+1 counters onto one creature that can safely connect.
- Leverage Esper interaction to force through key combats and protect the creature you’re building into a finisher.
- Transition from early chip damage into a fast clock by turning one evasive attacker into a huge threat.
- Can pivot into graveyard value when connive discards put high-impact cards where you can bring them back.
Common lines
- Develop a small board, attack with multiple creatures, and repeatedly connive onto a single evasive attacker to snowball damage.
- Use connive as a hand sculpting engine: keep lands/answers, discard situational cards, then reload every combat.
- After discarding a premium creature to connive, use a reanimation effect (for example, Animate Dead) to turn filtering into tempo.
Strengths
- Consistent card filtering and velocity as long as you can keep attacking.
- Naturally turns small creatures into real threats via accumulated +1/+1 counters.
- Strong access to stack and spot interaction (for example, Dovin's Veto or Force of Will) to defend your plan.
- Resilient gameplans: can win via combat pressure or via graveyard value depending on how the table answers you.
Weaknesses
- Heavily combat-dependent; fogs, pillowforts, and stalled boards can blunt your engine.
- Board wipes can reset both your attacker count and the counters you’ve invested.
- Graveyard hate can shut off the value of connive discards if you’re leaning on reanimation.
- If Raffine is repeatedly removed, your deck may feel like a pile of small creatures without the connive payoff.
Rule zero notes
- Power level: this snapshot points to a higher-power build (bracket 4) with efficient interaction.
- Free/low-cost countermagic may be present (for example, Force of Will and An Offer You Can't Refuse).
- Potential infect kill exists if you’re using cards like Blighted Agent to convert counters into a quick elimination.
- Graveyard recursion can show up (for example, Animate Dead), which may speed up threat deployment.
- Expect a fairly interactive, attack-driven gameplan rather than a pure battlecruiser pace.
Matchups
Best into
- Creature-light pods where repeated attacks are easy to set up.
- Slower midrange tables where incremental filtering and tempo interaction can take over.
- Decks relying on a few key spells, where countermagic can keep them off balance.
Struggles against
- Heavy board-wipe metas that punish building up multiple attackers.
- Pillowfort or fog-heavy strategies that invalidate combat triggers.
- Fast combo tables if you can’t meaningfully interact in the first few turns.
FAQ
Do I need to go wide, or can I just suit up one attacker?
Raffine scales with the number of attacking creatures, so you typically want multiple attackers even if you’re stacking counters on a single finisher.
What should I usually discard to connive?
Situational cards and expensive threats you can’t cast yet are common discards, especially if you have ways to reuse the graveyard.
How does this deck usually win?
Most wins come from building one evasive creature into a massive threat over a few combat steps, backed by removal and countermagic.
Is this a control deck or an aggro deck?
It often plays like tempo: you pressure life totals through combat while using efficient interaction to keep opponents from stabilizing.
What’s the biggest thing to play around?
Board wipes and effects that stop combat damage can shut off your engine, so sequencing threats and holding protection matters a lot.