I’m very lucky to have a weekly commander playgroup. We have a good system for sharing beer and, more importantly, a good balance of decks and playstyles. We discuss if we’re playing more competitive decks or more goofy ones. We inspire each other’s ideas and delight in each other’s successes. It’s fun, and I’m grateful for their friendship and the play.

All of my group are talented, smart, and creative. As we’re solidly in spoiler season, I’d like to talk about my friend James, who sent me two things the day after Emrakul, the Promised End was spoiled. The first was this image, which he created:

(James is the “someone” in last Thursday’s mothership daily update — if you want to give him some props, he posted the poster on Reddit.)

He also sent me a deck list for the monstrous mana-eating menace straight outta the blind eternities. He calls it a fairly straightforward colorless deck with tricks to get Emrakul out faster. It looks like fun, so with credit to James, I put my spin on the deck:

Emrakul, the Promised End ? EDH | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Emrakul, the Promised End

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Artisan of Kozilek
• 1 Bane of Bala Ged
• 1 Breaker of Armies
• 1 Conduit of Ruin
• 1 Deceiver of Form
• 1 Desolation Twin
• 1 Eldrazi Mimic
• 1 Endbringer
• 1 Endless One
• 1 It That Betrays
• 1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
• 1 Kozilek's Channeler
• 1 Kozilek's Pathfinder
• 1 Matter Reshaper
• 1 Oblivion Sower
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Reality Smasher
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Thought-Knot seer
• 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1 Void Winnower
• 1 Warden of Geometries

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

• Spells (35)
• 1 Not of This World
• 1 Scour from Existence
• 1 Spatial Contortion
• 1 Titan's Presence
• 1 All is Dust
• 1 Gruesome Slaughter
• 1 Skittering Invasion
• 1 Eldrazi Conscription
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Cryptolith Fragment
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Erratic Portal
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Lotus Bloom
• 1 Magnifying Glass
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1 Oblivion Stone
• 1 Perilous Vault
• 1 Seer's Lantern
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strionic Resonator
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Tamiyo's Journal
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Ugin's Nexus
• 1 Unstable Obelisk
• 1 Urza's Incubator
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (40)
• 16 Wastes
• 1 Blasted Landscape
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Command Beacon
• 1 Crystal Vein
• 1 Eldrazi Temple
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Mirrorpool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Ruins of Oran-Rief
• 1 Sanctum of Ugin
• 1 Sea Gate Wreckage
• 1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
• 1 Spawning Bed
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terrain Generator
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Eye of Ugin
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well

Buy This Deck

James is right: nothing is subtle about this fatty deck reminiscent of a Mono-Green build based around someone like Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer. Nobody can miss our theme: we ramp; we play a big dude; we smash in. The thing is, dealing with only colorless creates strange limitations. There is exactly one colorless enchantment (though Eldrazi Conscription is a doozy). Let’s break it down a bit.

We’ve got a 13-mana commander who’s HUGE and gives us a game-ending ability if we play it right. We’ve also got a built-in way to make her cheaper if we dump some stuff in our graveyard.

So we’re going to play our lands, ramp, and try to get at least a few things into the graveyard in the early game so we can have an early Emrakul. 40 lands, aided by 16 Wastes, helps ensure the first, and some of those lands will add a card type in the graveyard as Terramorphic Expanse and its ilk bin themselves for a Wastes. A number of other lands will dump themselves, but use them carefully. Each land in the graveyard is one fewer to tap for mana. Expedition Map can find us several useful things: Eye of Ugin, Eldrazi Temple, or even Homeward Path. Pilgrim's Eye and Solemn Simulacrum both get us a land, and the Map, Eye and Sad Robot all put another card type in the graveyard. A number of mana rocks will jump us forward. Sol Ring is here, of course, as is Thought Vessel and Mind Stone (along with its sacrifice-for-cards cousins, Hedron Archive and Dreamstone Hedron). Worn Powerstone and Thran Dynamo jump us more than. Seer's Lantern and Magnifying Glass are both new and useful mana sinks to help us filter or draw. The brand new Cryptolith Fragment will give us extra mana, hurt our opponents, and could turn into a pretty great creature later in the game. Oh, let’s set Urza's Incubator to “Eldrazi.”

I considered including some “eggs”, cheap or free artifacts which sacrifice themselves for some amount of mana. They just ended up being too cute, I thought. The rocks mostly hang around and bring Emrakul back when she inevitably gets killed, but if you want to go with a “get her out as quickly as possible” strategy, those eggs could play a role in that. The one which stuck is Lotus Bloom. In the first five or six turns, this card can get us Emrakul a full four turns earlier than opponents expect.

(I found a God-hand/God-draw way to get Emrakul out on turn four, with haste. If you can get her earlier than that, please show us in the comments!)

Card draw is a bit thin, but hey, no guts, no glory, right? Actually, my editor pointed out the lack of draw, with a comment that my decks usually have a fair amount of dedicated draw. I like having more cards, and think extra ones help keep up with multiple opponents. Card draw, however, is rarely incidental and those dedicated slots take away from other cards. Solemn Simulacrum is so valuable because it’s always three things in one. Heck, in this deck it’s four. This deck runs the risk of not drawing a threat with all the mana we accumulate, but when we do draw those threats they come out like an angry grizzly bear. Wearing spiked armor. Breathing fire.

We do have some draw and filtering in addition to Magnifying Glass and Seer's Lantern. Tamiyo's Journal is worth snatching up, because it’s a fine choice for most decks. We can use it as a tutor if necessary, but most of the time we’ll just draw an extra card every turn. (Note we get an extra Clue using Strionic Resonator on the Journal’s triggered ability.) Kozilek, the Great Distortion will fill our grip, which is pretty obnoxious when we’ve already got 10 mana; and, y’know, we just played KOZILEK, THE FREAKING GREAT DISTORTION. Endbringer lets us use extra mana for a card. Mikokoro, Center of the Sea is useful, especially in the early game if we’re just digging for ramp. Yeah, we help everyone else, but we’ll soon be smashing them with something huge.

We’re absolutely packed with threats, which is the point of playing with Eldrazi. Normally we’d go through some of the stand-outs, but really? Just look at almost any creature in that list. They’re all absurd. 5/8s that steal lands from opponents’ decks. 10/10s that exile permanents. 5/5s with trample and haste that force a discard in order to be targeted. 11/9s that don’t let our opponents play spells with even mana costs. Just don’t get too excited and play everything in hand. Ramp to something huge, play it, run the table with it. If necessary, wrath, then play another huge thing.

The Eldrazi have also helped colorless decks with answers. The wonderful All Is Dust is pretty much the worst thing we can do to our friends but the best thing we can do to crush them. We also have old-school Nevinyrral's Disk, the abusable Oblivion Stone, and the much newer Perilous Vault, all of which do a nice job of resetting the board. The cool thing is, whatever we play after a reset is likely to be way bigger than whatever anyone else plays.

But we’ve also got removal: Gruesome Slaughter, Titan's Presence, Spatial Contortion, Scour from Existence, along with Unstable Obelisk on a mana rock. We also have a hilarious counterspell in the form of Not of This World. Hooray for colorless instants!

We’re really set up to go big as fast as we can and play an Eldrazi giant. Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots are here to give our titans haste, which can be pretty devastating, and Eldrazi Conscription makes Pilgrim's Eye really big or Bane of Bala Ged really, REALLY big. We’ve got Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Karn Liberated, ‘cause we can (and they’re awesome). And we’ve got a few nifty interactions which are worth pointing out.

The first is Erratic Portal to return our big dudes to our hand. Most of them have powerful enters-the-battlefield effects, and sometimes that’s better than attacking. Recasting Oblivion Sower, for example, is probably better than attacking. The Portal can also protect them from removal.

The second is Strionic Resonator, which can double Emrakul’s ETB effect, meaning we’ll get to take over two players.

The third is Ugin's Nexus, which I stockpiled when it first appeared because I wanted to figure out a way to abuse the second ability. I confess, I never really thought about the first. However, with Emrakul’s ETB trigger, Ugin's Nexus does work for us. We Mindslaver our opponent and they don’t get a turn to salvage themselves. Excellent. Combine Erratic Portal with the Nexus for really silly turns. Eith enough mana (and a few cards in the graveyard) we can take over two opponents in a single turn. Let’s see. With an artifact, a land, an instant, a creature, and a sorcery in the ‘yard, Emrakul costs. It’s to return her with the Portal. So we need 17 total? No problem. Then add Strionic Resonator, and for more we get to take over 3 players. We play all the turns! That would be fun. Or mean, depending on your perspective, I suppose.

I cut Sensei's Divining Top from James’s list mostly because, though it’s amazing, I think it can be annoying. In a deck where we’re reliably playing creatures with power over 10, taking over people’s turns, and annihilating their stuff, saying “Top” and rearranging part of our library every time anything happens just seems obnoxious. If you can control it, don’t care, or disagree, feel free to add it. It would be a strong add.

We also don’t have any of the original titans. The original Emrakul is banned, of course, but Kozilek and Ulamog – in their original Zendikar iterations – would be powerful, though keep in mind Annihilator is an un-fun mechanic. There’s a big argument to “if you’re going to do something that mean, have a way to just win” (like when someone casts Enter the Infinite off Jhoira of the Ghitu). Annihilator is not that, because often it feels like there’s still a chance; “sure, I just lost four of my lands, but if I just draw this one thing . . . ” So rock ‘em if you want.

I normally do budgets, but I’m going to skip it for preview season. I’ll be back to my more wallet-conscious constructions in a few weeks.

Commander players should rejoice with this spoiler season. Who would you like to build around? So far I’ve seen Bruna, Gisela, and Thalia, Mono-White abounds, I suppose; or, should we just build a deck using Tree of Perdition and Triskaidekaphobia (yeah, they totally printed the card I’ve been looking for)? Please let me know, along with your suggestions for how to get Emrakul out faster!

Big smashy stuff smashes. Extra points if you end most of your words with “’mrakul.” As in “I’mrakul attacking’rakul!”