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Main » Articles » 5 Decks Emrakul Wants to Devour

5 Decks Emrakul Wants to Devour

Brandon Isleib
Posted on June 29, 2016
 Reddit

Last spoiler season, I talked about not making assumptions about the metagame based on what's existed in the metagame before it. I also touted Duskwatch Recruiter and Cryptolith Rite before anyone I saw on other sites. Some of my suspicions have not yet been confirmed, like the playability of Confirm Suspicions, but all in all my Shadows over Innistrad analysis turned out better than I expected based on my previous track record.

I say all that to give context for what I'm about to do, which seems like I'm ignoring my own advice. I'm going to look at the existing metagame to analyze the Eldritch Moon metagame. But it's for a unique purpose: figuring out how much Emrakul, the Promised End's Mindslaver effect will be worth.

Brandon, Why Not Just Build A Deck?

Two reasons: first, almost no Eldritch Moon cards are spoiled; and second, the turn control effect on Emrakul's casting has a value almost entirely shaped by the metagame. Whether you want to control a turn against the average deck depends on whether the average deck is wrecked by someone else controlling a turn and whether that's better than existing alternatives.

To make this analysis more straightforward, I'm operating under these assumptions:

  1. Emrakul's Delirium cost reduction will make it cost about 10 mana in most circumstances — the same as Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Kozilek, the Great Distortion

  2. Decks will decide between playing Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul exclusively rather than mixing and matching (which isn't necessarily what will happen, but if Emrakul is a superior finisher, then it will supplant most copies of Ulamog)

  3. Controlling a player's turn must have greater average value than exiling two permanents before Emrakul will be considered a superior finisher to Ulamog.

There are other differences, of course. Ulamog has indestructible while Emrakul has protection from instants, but if the other factors weigh in Emrakul's favor, then she'd likely be the pick for decks previously running Ulamog. If a Delirium-heavy deck exists capable of making Emrakul reliably cheaper than Ulamog, maybe some of the B/G cards currently supporting The Great Aurora Control then it can have a home in the metagame independently of Ulamog. Otherwise, it's primarily a comparison of their cast triggers. And those comparisons can be made within the existing metagame.

When Does Controlling a Turn Matter?

In Mirrodin Besieged Standard, I played a lot of Glissa, the Traitor, and for a while I ran Mindslaver in the main deck. The idea was , since Glissa had First Strike and Deathtouch, as long as I could run a ground creature into Glissa, I could run a Mindslaver loop for as long as there were creatures to smash into her. Sometimes it took me awhile to find a win condition, which is why I controlled eight turns in tournament game once. It was a pretty good era for controlling turns, because there were a lot of moving parts that could be turned against their owners. I caught a Caw-Blade player off-guard since he was unaware of the possibilities. He had two Tectonic Edges and two Celestial Colonnades, the latter serving as a major win condition for him. He had open mana when I Mindslavered him. What he should have done to preserve his board was sacrifice a Tectonic Edge targeting his other Tectonic Edge before I controlled his turn. Because he didn't see that, I got to send each of his Tectonic Edges at each of his Celestial Colonnades.

Not every deck presents those kinds of opportunities. Obviously, Emrakul, the Promised End will get to block the opponent's best creature when you choose to attack into her; and, unlike the Glissa loop, you can get rid of a flyer this way because Emrakul flies. But the real fun comes when you can turn removal against your opponent. That will be more likely with sorceries, since a smart player will do like my opponent should have done and waste instant-speed effects before the turn is controlled.

So that's what Emrakul is hunting for, decks with sorcery speed removal, things that can target their owners' stuff, and anything else that can punish owners with their pants down.

To Emrakul, the Metagame Is a Refrigerator and Decks Are the Foods Contained Therein

What I'm trying to say is Emrakul's hungry for turns to control and is hunting for the tastiest turns available. So what's on the shelves? The metagame's got a lot of known quantities, so I'm not going to do the usual deck and sideboard analysis. I'll just post a stock version from Magic Online leagues so you can follow along.

G/W Tokens ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | Searzist

Taste-O-Meter: How Angband describes a Ration of Food both describes the Green-White Tokens deck and how tasty Emrakul finds it:

Controlling a turn of this deck, you can:

Several of these still have card advantage in some way, and Dromoka's Command can be pretty easily thrown away pre-turn control. There doesn't seem to be more average value than using Ulamog to exile, say, Gideon and Hangarback Walker.

Bant Company ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | infamousvko

Taste-O-Meter:

That's because the deck is so linearly aggressive there's a trifling amount of stuff likely available to control. The best available play, and, to be fair, it is a good one, is to fail to find anything off Collected Company. But in the late game, it's not like those are saved strategically; they're jammed onto the battlefield whenever possible to find enough gas to close out the game. And if they are and they have four open mana, using it before you get a chance to it isn't going to do much different than what they already would be doing.

Dromoka's Command is here too, and Eldrazi Displacer to blink a beefed-up Tireless Tracker is good. The biggest problem with controlling Bant Company's turns is Reflector Mage only hits opponents' creatures, so you can't use one to bounce friendly creatures.

R/W Humans ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | whitnen

Taste-O-Meter: It's a delicious brownie, but . . . "this brownie might kill you."

This deck runs so quickly and keeps so little in its hand it's hard to imagine Emrakul showing up in any match against this archetype. If it gets there, there are three main things available in the main deck or sideboard:

  • Declaration in Stone on a pile of White weenies instead of Emrakul — the investigation's annoying, but it's better than nothing

  • Wasting Haste (and therefore a lot of damage) on Reckless Bushwhacker

  • Returning Gryff's Boons to the battlefield attached to Emrakul.

The lack of instant-speed interaction is a good thing for surprising someone with a Mindslaver effect, but the deck's speed makes it unlikely. It will be amazing if it ever happens. (I once ultimated Gideon, Champion of Justice against a Boros deck in Magic 2014 Standard. What a rush.)

W/B Control ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | Aelthain

Taste-O-Meter: It's the Bacon Challenge but better.

This is the type of deck Emrakul wants to be all over the metagame (especially if there are only two copies of Transgress the Mind). Transgress the Mind can hit its controller; Secure the Wastes can get wasted; all the removal can turn into betrayals; and Read the Bones can mess with the next few turns. The best feature, however, is that Ob Nixilis Reignited and Sorin, Grim Nemesis can have their minus abilities kill their friends (Sorin can deal damage to planeswalkers, which means he can finish off other ones with a large -X or, if the lifegain will be a problem, target himself for X damage that will be countered on resolution because he removed all his loyalty counters). Emrakul rips this deck apart. All the right types of cards are present, and Anguished Unmaking can't touch her like it can touch Ulamog.

U/R Eldrazi ? Shadows Over Innistrad Standard | daiho2000

Taste-O-Meter: It's pretty tasty chicken.

This deck is pretty slow-roasting. It usually can't play Roast until after sideboarding! So, that gives us lots of time for Emrakul to show up. And when it does, it can do some pretty nasty things with the cast trigger:

  • Minus Chandra to no purpose

  • Remove counters of all Mage-Ring Networks to no purpose

  • Cast a random spell and cast Clash of Wills with X equal to zero

That last one implies, with tweaks to add card types (particularly cheap sorceries), this deck might be a good home for Emrakul, because Emrakul's caster can have countermagic available to run opponents' spells into when controlling their turns. Casting an opponent's Ulamog, exiling two opposing permanents, then casting your own Void Shatter on Ulamog is devastation of the sweetest sort.

Food and Wins (In the Spirit of Manipulation)

The biggest impediments to Emrakul, the Promised End's rampaging over the metagame is several types of decks right now aren't too affected by Mindslaver. Some are too quick; some aren't running much removal; and the Kytheons and Gideons in the format don't have any minus abilities and can't be destroyed as creatures. But there are several decks deeply affected by their opponent running them for a few minutes. And the fun thing, seen best in the W/B and U/R lists, is a lot of the best answers to Emrakul are counterspells and spot removal, exactly the kind of thing Emrakul's caster wants to create mayhem with. So, it might be, as the metagame shifts to deal with Emrakul, it becomes full of decks Emrakul wants to devour.

After reviewing these decks, I still think B/G’s a natural place to start experimenting. There are a lot of control/disruption elements, with a Delirium-friendly array of card types, to make games go long; and, there are enough tutors Emrakul doesn't have to be a four-of. Casting Emrakul on the same main phase as The Great Aurora seems unbeatable, and I'm sure there are other great synergies as more of Eldritch Moon is spoiled; just having extra Delirium enablers will make a difference.

So how big will Emrakul be in Standard? Well, a 13/13; we knew that. But the rest is dependent on the format. Any slowdown in the metagame or any focus on spot removal is to Emrakul's benefit; it will be exciting to see if that happens.

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TAGS articles, standard, metagame, constructed, magic online, analysis, decklist, brandon isleib, 5 decks, tech, emrakul, five decks, five decks you'll play this weekend, #mtgemn, eldritch moon

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