Emrakul's New Best Friend

While many of us had our suspicions that it was Emrakul making things weird in Innistrad, I think of us were blown away by the card when it was revealed to
us last week.

Emrakul, the Promised End is no joke, from the awe-inspiring artwork down to the gaggle of rules text and formidable power and toughness. In
Standard, I’ve had this odd thing going on the past few different brews I’ve cooked up where the deck overall has underperformed but the cards with
delirium have overperformed, so much so that I’m jumping into delirium full-bore to see how things go. Now that I’ve seen Emrakul, the Promised End, I’m
beginning to think I’ve had her voice whispering in the back of my head the whole time.

Which is terrifying; I’m not gonna lie. But hey, maybe I need to just embrace the power and start winning more matches!

In the course of trying to maximize the power of delirium, I’ve started building decks in a different way from how I had before. I used to worry about
things like mana curve, powerful spells, and a decent amount of removal. I still worry about those things, but I also now am worried about card types.
Changing my way of thinking in that way is going to pay off once I’ve got Emrakul, the Promised End to work with in a few weeks, since you can really
reduce the mana cost of Emrakul considerably if you try.

Of course, Emrakul being legendary, my mind wanders to Commander. The first time Emrakul joined the ranks of the Commander pool was late April 2010. We got
to play with it for all of seven to eight months before it was banned from the format. I was a bit ambivalent about the banning at the time—I personally
liked having a Time Walk scarier than the blue Time Walks that green decks could use to good effect—but that annihilator ability was just obnoxious.

The new Emrakul is a much more balanced card and is priced to move. The casting cost is manageable if we warp our deck to accommodate it, and that’s
actually quite a flavor win; of course Emrakul would demand we warp our deck around it! And switching from taking an extra turn to taking someone else’s
turn (and then giving one back) makes beautiful yet horrible sense.

I started thinking what a deck might look like with Emrakul, the Promised End as the Commander, and it didn’t take long to realize that it was going to be
difficult to reliably get enough different card types in the graveyard to be able to cast Emrakul early and often. If we couldn’t bank on doing that, we’d
pretty much just have to go with artifact ramp and Eldrazi cards, much like decks I’ve built around Emrakul’s other titan siblings, and that didn’t exactly
sound like something exciting and new.

I especially wanted to maximize the chances of including all the potential card types in the graveyard: lands, creatures, instants, sorceries, artifacts,
enchantments, planeswalkers, and tribal. If I could get all eight in the graveyard, Emrakul would cost a paltry five mana! But this meant going into
colors, which meant moving Emrakul to one of the 99. If I did that, how could I guarantee that Emrakul would be nearly as accessible to cast as if it were
in the Command Zone?

The answer I came up with: Captain Sisay! I actually liked going this route for flavor reasons: Emrakul, the Promised End initially hides out in Innistrad,
where everything seems normal… but is secretly a little bit off. Like, I can see the deck playing like any other Captain Sisay deck, fetching out legendary
permanents and having a grand old time. But then you see I’ve got a bunch of planeswalkers. And I’m playing some oddball tribal cards like Favor of the
Mighty and Bound in Silence. What’s that all about? Well, those are clues, my friend, that maybe Captain Sisay has lost her mind… and is about to unleash
the most monstrous of Eldrazi titans upon the Commander table… and steal your next turn! Don’t worry, you’ll get an extra one back after I wreck you, ha ha
ha!

For even more flavor win, Captain Sisay can fetch up Mindslaver for a little practice run.

Of course, the real challenge was to build a deck with a fair balance between all eight card types, paying attention to mana curve and ensuring that you’re
playing good, powerful multiplayer cards. I think I’ve succeeded on both.

Creatures (14)

Stampede Driver; Rhys the Redeemed; Topplegeist; Saffi Eriksdotter; Riftsweeper; Devout Witness; Eternal Witness; Commander Eesha; Michiko Konda, Truth
Seeker; Surrak, the Hunt Caller; Gisela, the Broken Blade; Thalia’s Lancers; Dragonlord Dromoka; Bruna, the Fading Light; Emrakul, the Promised End

With the creatures, I wanted to make sure I included a few things. First, I needed enough legendary creatures so I could activate Captain Sisay a few times
to lull my opponents into a false sense of security before it was time to Promise an Ending. And something I could include to further spice up the flavor
here was to include Gisela, the Broken Blade and Bruna, the Fading Light—with Captain Sisay, it should be relatively easy to meld the two into Brisela,
Voice of Nightmares! This would actually be a pretty good precursor to Promised Endings, luring out removal spells before the main event shows up.

I’ve got two legends here that I think work particularly nice alongside Emrakul. First is Surrak, the Hunt Caller—with Surrak on the battlefield, I can
give Emrakul, the Promised End haste the turn I cast it. The other is Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker. With Michiko Konda in play, when I steal someone’s turn,
I can send creatures to attack me and deal damage to me, and then I get to choose which permanents that player must sacrifice to Michiko Konda’s triggered
ability. This could really be devastating, especially if they have a bunch of token creatures.

While they aren’t legends, I also wanted to include a couple of creatures that could facilitate pitching cards from my hand into the graveyard. I thought
Stampede Driver and Devout Witness were pretty good candidates. During the course of a normal game, I anticipate interaction with opponents along with
casting spells will fill my graveyard with a variety of card types, but being able to pitch a card from my hand might make all the difference.

Topplegeist is a cute card that scales nicely in group games if you can reliably achieve delirium, and I dare say this deck will reliably do so. Thalia’s
Lancers is another new card from Eldritch Moon that fits perfectly here in this deck.

Instants (9)

Crop Rotation, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Unravel the Aether, Deglamer, Arachnogenesis, Crib Swap, Return to Dust, Not of This World

A fair number of instant usual suspects in a Commander deck, with a few oddballs like Crib Swap and Not of This World that do double duty as having two
card types. Not of This World is a pretty cool way to help protect Emrakul from sorcery-speed direct removal once you’ve got it on the battlefield. Crop
Rotation is an instant that also puts a land into the graveyard as well. Two for one!

Sorceries (9)

Traverse the Ulvenwald, Farseek, Kodama’s Reach, Terashi’s Grasp, Wrath of God, Nissa’s Expedition, Feudkiller’s Verdict, Verdant Confluence, Tooth and
Nail

Traverse the Ulvenwald makes an appearance here as a one-mana tutor most of the time, since delirium is so easily obtained. I often utilize artifacts for
mana ramp, but in the interest of balancing card types, I cut a lot of those artifacts in favor of sorcery-speed mana ramp like Farseek and Kodama’s Reach.
Terashi’s Grasp looks a little weird, but I was looking for a three-mana sorcery and that one didn’t seem like a bad call.

I like Tooth and Nail here because you can use it to tutor up Emrakul, the Promised End, but that doesn’t have to be one of the creatures you put onto the
battlefield (since you won’t get the cast trigger we all want to use). So I foresee using Tooth and Nail to tutor up Emrakul and Eternal Witness and then
putting another creature from my hand onto the battlefield alongside Eternal Witness so I can get back Tooth and Nail.

Artifacts (9)

Claws of Gix, Sol Ring, Veteran’s Armaments, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Bow of Nylea, Thousand-Year Elixir, The Chain Veil, Mindslaver

Did you remember that there was a whole cycle of tribal artifact equipment cards in Morningtide? Captain Sisay happens to be a Soldier, so it
makes sense to toss Veteran’s Armaments in the mix! Thousand-Year Elixir is a fantastic artifact to include in any Captain Sisay deck. Since I’m running a
fair number of planeswalkers, The Chain Veil makes a good fit, and it’s even fetchable by Captain Sisay.

Enchantments (9)

Oath of Nissa, Favor of the Mighty, Hoofprints of the Stag, Militia’s Pride, Sylvan Library, Cryptolith Rite, Bound in Silence, Bow of Nylea, Oath of
Gideon

The five Oaths in the cycle from Oath of the Gatewatch are legendary, which means they can be searched up by Captain Sisay! Oath of Gideon is
particularly nice if you happen to draw a bunch of planeswalkers and you want to go a little nuts with them to encourage your opponents attacking them and
putting a couple in your graveyard. Favor of the Mighty gives us two card types in one card, but I’m thinking it might be worth running out to the
battlefield the turn before you cast Emrakul. I mean, that card is bound to have the highest converted mana cost on the battlefield, right? And it should
make Emrakul even more difficult for your opponents to deal with outside of a sweeper.

I love having Bow of Nylea here. Not only is it two card types in one, but deathtouch is a fantastic ability to pair up with Emrakul’s trample. And being
able to put legendary cards from your graveyard into your library to fetch up with Captain Sisay – and being a legendary card itself – it really should be
called Bow of Captain Sisay.

Planeswalkers (8)

Nissa, Voice of Zendikar; Gideon, Ally of Zendikar; Ajani, Mentor of Heroes; Freyalise, Llanowar’s Fury; Garruk, Primal Hunter; Nahiri, the
Lithomancer; Elspeth, Sun’s Champion; Karn Liberated

I could have a lot more planeswalkers in the mix, but for flavor reasons I didn’t want to duplicate the names, even though that’s one way to get a
planeswalker in the graveyard. Still, it’s really not that difficult to get one of your planeswalkers into the graveyard, even assuming your opponents
aren’t attacking them. I could have squeezed in one more planeswalker without duplication: Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. But I just didn’t want to be forced
into a position to exile a bunch of permanents that I’d much rather have in my graveyard.

Tribal (9)

Favor of the Mighty, Hoofprints of the Stag, Militia’s Pride, Veteran’s Armaments, Bound in Silence, Crib Swap, Reach of Branches, Feudkiller’s
Verdict, Not of This World

There are a surprisingly large number of tribal cards I could have included in the mix, but I ended up trimming down to just these. Nine seemed to be a
balancing point for most of the card types, though each of these count as two-fers.

Lands (7)

Bant Panorama, Naya Panorama, Krosan Verge, Windswept Heath, Terminal Moraine, Warped Landscape, Strip Mine

I wanted to include a fair number of lands that I could easily get into the graveyard to satisfy that card type, and there are plenty to choose from. I
rarely use the fetchlands like Windswept Heath, but it makes perfect sense to include it here.

Okay, so without further ado:

Captain Sisay

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 07-01-2016

Commander

Creatures (15)

Planeswalkers (8)

Lands (40)

I’m not entirely sure I want Eye of Ugin, but it’s a legendary land that can be fetched by Captain Sisay and can shave the cost of Emrakul even further.
Also, it does fit the flavor.

As you can see I’ve got a pretty good curve here. Counting Eye of Ugin as a zero-drop:

Zero/one mana – 11

Two mana – 13

Three mana – 11

Four mana – 9

Five mana – 7

Six mana – 5

Seven or more mana – 5

So what do you think about Emrakul, the Promised End lurking in the depths of a Captain Sisay deck? How would you go about building a deck featuring
Emrakul, the Promised End?

Oh, before I go, I mentioned being interested in “mailbag”-type questions I can include in my columns to facilitate discussions, and I thought that my
email address was included in my bio at the bottom of the column, but apparently it is not. If you want to reach out to me via email, it’s starcitygeezer
AT gmail DOT com.

New to Commander?

If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links:

Commander Primer Part 1
(Why play Commander? Rules Overview, Picking your Commander)
Commander Primer Part 2
(Mana Requirements, Randomness, Card Advantage)
Commander Primer Part 3
(Power vs. Synergy, Griefing, Staples, Building a Doran Deck)
Commander Starter Kits 1
(kick start your allied two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 2
(kick start your enemy two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 3
(kick start your shard three-color decks for $25)