Alright, people were asking for a primer of sorts on this deck, so here you go.
Let’s start with a decklist, and go from there. We’ll get into some specific card choices, some strategy, and some of the deck’s subtleties later.
Aeon Bridge – by Nightmare
4 Show and Tell
2 Worldly Tutor
4 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 See Beyond
4 Stifle
4 Thoughtseize
1 Wipe Away
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Chrome Mox
4 Mosswort Bridge
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Forest
SB
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Blazing Archon
1 Progenitus
2 Duress
This is the list as I would play it on 5/18/10. I played a slightly different list on the 15th, and wrote a report which you can find here. Some of the preliminary discussion in that report details the early progression of the deck, where we started, etc. I won’t go into that too much here, because its irrelevant. Moving on.
Card Choices – lets run down the list:
Show and Tell – The real reason to play the deck. This allows you to put a huge monster into play for three mana, with the slight drawback of allowing your opponent to do the same. Boo Hoo. Chances are, if you can survive your opponent attacking with his monster (which you can, since it’s like turn 3-5, and Emrakul blocks pretty hard), then his monster will get eaten on your next turn, thanks to Annihilator 6. Seems like a fair deal.
Cards you don’t want to see Shown and Told – Oblivion Ring, Journey to Nowhere, Blazing Archon, Karakas, Ensnaring Bridge
Worldly Tutor – Pretty good at setting up Mosswort Bridge, or finding the Dreadnought to turn it on.
Lim-Dul’s Vault – The scariest tutor in Legacy. This card does everything. It finds every card you want to be in your hand, and paired with either Brainstorm or See Beyond, it acts as multiple Vampiric Tutors. You can look at your entire deck for 9 life at most points in the game. If LDV can’t find you the win, nothing can. It also sets up sick Briges, giving you the Nought + the creature to go under the bridge at the same time. If you EOT the LDV (gg), put the Nought on top, and the Emrakul in the rest of the 5. You draw the Nought, and recycle the rest of the LDV. Or, you can main phase it, and put the Nought last to protect from discard and activate it next turn.
Next few cards are standard fare for blue decks.
See Beyond – I wasn’t sure about this card until I played with it. I will not say that it is a good card in a generic Legacy deck. I will not say that decks like Thresh or even Reanimator would want to play it. However, this deck loves it. For whatever reason, should you draw a pair of Emrakuls, or Noughts, or a Chrome Mox you don’t need, or even get a little mana flooded, this turns the chaff into pure gas. It’s a turbo-charged Lat-Nam’s Legacy, except it acts more like Brainstorm+Fetch 5-7. It is a little worse at digging for land than Ponder, but it’s much better at making your hand be what you want it to be. I am now a believer in this card – in this deck, and decks running Oath of Druids anyway.
Stifle – For Nought, mostly, but also extremely useful in protecting your manabase (specifically Bridge) from Wastelands, and protecting Emrakul for the turn you need to Annihilator 6 their problems away. What, you have Jace online? Stifle. Oh, Karakas? Stifle. Nice Seal of Removal. Stifle. Sick Aether Spellbomb. Stifle.
Thoughtseize – Protection.
Wipe Away – Catch all spot removal, for all intents and purposes. It is unlikely that the things you’re wiping away (Blazing Archon, Ensnaring Bridge) will be coming back after Emrakul attacks once.
Phyrexian Dreadnought – This card is here for two reasons. First, and BY FAR foremost, is to activate the Mosswort Bridge. It is extremely rare that you will be casting this and stifling the trigger. That opens you up to some pretty silly disasters when you get owned by Shatter. That’s simply not your plan – unless you’re looking at a combo deck, or Reanimator game 1, or Dredge. Some decks are, in fact, still cold to a turn 2 12/12 Trampler. These decks are getting fewer and further between, however, so focus this guy on plan A – Time Walking into Annihilation.
Emrakul, the Game Wrecker, Wife Stealer, Mother Lover, Baby Killer – Emrakul, the Aeons Torn cannot be countered. When you cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, take another turn after this one. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn cannot be Swords, Pathed, Chain of Vapored, Krosan Gripped, Washout’d, Perished, Red Blasted, or Wiped Away. Flying. When Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is declared as an attacker, your opponent sacrifices their will to continue playing this game.
Chrome Mox – this is here as a concession to the fact that a turn 1 Nought is better than a turn 2 Nought, and a turn 2 Show and Tell is better than a turn 3 Show and Tell. However, it is not a need – just a “that’d be cool.” Often suggested was Ancient Tomb. However, this does not play nicely with the extremely large amount of colored mana symbols in the deck. It would be great for accelerating out Show and Tell, but no other spells in the deck could use it. Chrome Mox is a fine replacement, and I’ve been really happy with it as a 2-of.
Mosswort Bridge – When this comes into play, look at the top 4 cards of your library, and put Emrakul, the Aeons Torn under it. If you control a creature named Phyrexian Dreadnought (even for a second), you may payand tap this land to win the game.
Other lands are lands.
The sideboard is a combination of catch-all answers (Krosan Grip, Duress, Pithing Needle, Crypt) and specific matchup exchanges. The Dudes sub in for 1 Emrakul each in specific matches:
Progenitus – Blue decks which would have access to Sower of Temptation, Gilded Drake, Jace Mind Sculptor, etc. Lands (Karakas). This dude has protection from EVERYTHING.
Iona, Shield of Emeria – Mono colored decks like Stupid Red Burn, Mono-B control, White Weenie, etc. Also against Combo, since naming Black wins.
Blazing Archon – Merfolk, Dredge, sometime Joblins. Attack-y decks that don’t run Path. Sometimes you board him in against Zoo anyway, since he makes them have the Path, and you get to Force it anyway.
Faerie Macabre doesn’t come in for Emrakul, but the card beats the shit out of Reanimator, and is not terrible against Dredge.
Duress comes in against anything with Blue or burn, Grip comes in against Grippy stuff, Needle comes in against their hate cards, Crypt is for Dredge and Reanimator. You all get it, standard stuff.
Strategery –
So, the basic plan A is to set up a Mosswort Bridge with an Emrakul under it, and play Dreadnought. You respond to the Dreadnought trigger with activating Mosswort Bridge, and making a Time Walking Emrakul. Then you let the Nought die. Who cares, he’s served his purpose. Then you take another turn, and wipe their board off the table. They go to 5 or less, and die. Most of the time, you say “take another turn” and they’re already sideboarding.
Plan B, or rather, Plan A2, is to cast a Show and Tell with Emrakul in your hand. This is the slightly slower, slightly more risky plan, but is almost always sufficient to get you there. Chances of the opponent having a card in hand that is more devastating than yours are slim – and it’s even ok to cast this spell against Reanimator! It’s not that big a deal for them to put Iona into play if they’re gonna lose it next turn, since they can’t even attack into Emrakul. It’s not that bad to take 7 from Inkwell once, since you smashy smash it on your turn. It’s really not even that bad to see them drop Blazing Archon, because they can’t attack either, and you’re going to have plenty of time to find either Wipe Away, or LDV to find the Wipe, and then the game is over. Unfortunately, this is not a winning strategy sometimes against aggro decks, since often the one card can be the difference between beating their clock and losing to it. This is a sacrifice that you have to make, though, in order to have 8 ways to cheat Emmy into play.
Plan C, or “oh look what I can do!” is to play a Dreadnought, and Stifle it’s trigger. Alternatively you could have a second Nought under a bridge, and cheat it into play with the trigger on the stack, then sac it to the other one. Either way, you end up with a 12/12. Seems ok, but it’s extremely vulnerable to a ton of different bad things. However, if you hit it on turn 1 or 2, you can often beat the hate.
That’s all there is to it. There is obviously a lot you need to feel out by playing the deck, but those are the basic strategies. Note that they are not independent of each other. They all have common cards, and they all work well together, although don’t forget your Emrakul is Legendary. There’s nothing wrong with running out a Stifle-Nought on turn 2, and activating the bridge on turn 3. Time Walking with lethal on the board is pretty awesome.
A couple other things I’ve learned from experience –
~ There is no matchup where you should side out Wipe Away. DON’T DO IT.
~ There is a reason you don’t board in Iona or Archon against Reanimator.
~ Don’t be afraid to run an extra Show and Tell out against blue with no guy in hand. They have to counter it. If you can document a situation where they choose to put a Sower in, and you put a land in, I will personally give you a high-five next time I see you. If you follow that up with another putting Emrakul in on the next turn, upgrade that high-five to a hug.
Some things to consider to start us off –
An additional land. That would be a great addition against decks like Merfolk and New Horizons. Could it be in the maindeck without diluting the deck, or should it be a sideboard slot?
I’ve been really tempted to try Misdirection. Is it worth playing?
Another off-key card I’ve been interested in trying is Teferi’s Response. It’s obviously narrow, but your lands are extremely important to protect. Granted, your opponent would likely be playing around the Stifle anyway, but it seems like a blowout.
That’s about all I have for now. Let’s get to the discussion!
Tournament Report (additional info) - http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...from-Nightmare
Last edited by Nightmare; 07-22-2010 at 07:10 PM.
I just got hard by reading your deckilst.
It looks fun and promising. As much as I hate progenitus/NO in sideboards,
this decklist lacks that, just uses Progenitus as a normal sideboard card for show and tell.
I will certainly test this deck as I own most of the cards, and rest I will blatantly steal (emrakuls) from guys
who've been to releases :)
Hope you get to work on this list!
With the similarities this bears to the Emrakul deck I've been working on, I'll chime in on Misdirection. It's great vs Merfolk and Counterbalance decks, and bad vs everything else (maybe no Bg/x piles, but who runs those?).
The reason that it's good vs Merfolk (better than Daze or Spell Pierce) is that once they apply pressure in the early turns, they tend to sit with a bunch of lands open. This happens even faster if they resolve a Vial. Pitch counters let you build up a wall of lands with which to drop Show and Tell with Daze/Cursecatcher mana up (hopefully for Blazing Archon, which is a card that is very difficult for them to deal with). Emrakul past turn 3ish is sketchy as they'll sometimes just drop LoA and kill you, but before then is fairly solid. I counteract this a lot of accel (Dark Rits and Lotus Petals) that I keep in postboard. You have more dudes so should be able consistently go turn 2-4 depending on your protection (i.e. if you can afford to counter Daze with your own Daze or a pitch counter).
The reason that it's good vs Counterbalance is that it lets you force the issue on 3cc bombs. Even the Bant lists playing "a lot" of threes don't really have that many. Resolved counterbalance and often be let go as all it means is that they've tapped out and only have Force up, maybe Daze. Further, since you have Misdirection, you're more likely to be able to protect early Dreadnoughts (i.e. make them resolve) to activate Mosswort Bridge. Misdirection is excellent here at controlling early stack wars, which is exactly the sort of thing you want to be in against modern Counterbalance.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
I just realized, that Mosswort Bridge is not errated in Gatherer. Does it mean that we actually donť cast Emrakul, or did they just forgot to errata it?
Was this even a real Skeggi's hero?Originally Posted by Skeggi
Lol. You're my hero.
Play: 1. To play a land is to put a land onto the battlefield as a special action. See rule 114, "Special Actions," and rule 305, "Lands." 2. To play a card is to play that card as a land or cast that card as a spell, whichever is appropriate. See rule 601, "Casting Spells." 3. (Obsolete) Casting a spell used to be known as playing a spell. Cards with that text have received errata in the Oracle card reference. See Cast. 4. (Obsolete) Activating an activated ability used to be known as playing an activated ability. Cards with that text have received errata in the Oracle card reference. See Activate. 5. (Obsolete) The battlefield used to be known as the in-play zone. Cards that were printed with text that contains the phrases "in play," "from play," "into play," or the like are referring to the battlefield and have received errata in the Oracle card reference. See Battlefield.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Did you consider cutting the Stifles for Tarmogoyf to serve as a blocker and randomly activating Bridge off Goyfs?
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Interesting question. In the tournament report, I mentioned that Goyf was originally in the list but was cut due to the fact that it was dead 99% of the time. It was basically a blank card on turns 3-5, when you really wanted to be drawing the stuff to make the combos work. I was ready to dismiss your comment out of hand due to this, but it's actually an interesting substitution. You lose the ability for Stifle to protect the Bridges, and for it to make Nought active, but you gain additional threats when you don't have a Nought in hand, and blockers. It could be worth a look, but my initial displeasure with the way Goyf plays in the deck makes me think I'll be happier with it being Stifle.
It didn't seem like you were doing a lot of Stifling Wastelands anyway, although you could have done it and just not mentioned it. If that's what you're using it for, how much worse is Teferi's Response?
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
I didn't see a whole lot of Wastelands, honestly. I think only one was directed at a Bridge and I did indeed Stifle it. Of course, stifle has a bunch of other applications other than protecting your lands, which I'm sure you're aware.
It has other uses, but they're all kind of awful and I hate them and don't want to run the card. I would also feel like an idiot for Stifling the fetchlands of a deck with Waste and then get blown out by Wasteland.
The lack of Defense of the Heart in the deck concerns and confuses me. It's only one more mana than Bridge + activate + Dreadnought and it seems unbeatable against Fish decks and similar. At worst case, it just puts Emrakul onto the battlefield, but it gets nutty if you sideboard another man.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
I can't see Defense of the Heart being good in this deck because of it's slowness, cost, and vulnerability to enchantment removal. I feel like the deck has better things to than wait for 4 mana, and then wait again until next turn to make sure that the opposing player has enough creatures. Admittedly it is powerful, but it seems too conditional to be useful. It's not giving you the same game plan--Just another, worse method to go find creatures.
Also, this deck looks fun. Though, I am disappointed at the number of decks trying to cheat big creatures into play lately.
If they keep making ridiculous creatures, we're gonna cheat them into play.
You can see it as an update to the old mossnaught bridge deck.
So is playing a three card combo?
Worldly Tutor + Mossburg Bridge + Dreadnought
that can also be two subpar two card combos...
Dreadnought + Stifle
Show and Tell + Emrakul
worth playing over one card combos like Natural Order that require you to devote far fewer slots to them (and devote more slots to disrutpion), and also play a more resilient creature.
FYI, Sower of Temptation can steal Emrakul, Oblivion Ring can get rid of it, as can Humility, Edicts, Innocent Bloods, Wraths/Damnations and a whole host of other hate.
Defense of the Heart is incredibly clumsy in the maindeck. But it seems like a fantastic card to board in against decks that are helpless to it, like Merfolk and Goblins especially.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Are you planning to add something constructive, or just shitting in cornflakes?
I'm perfectly aware of the obstacles. There are ways to play around most of them. In fact, all of the cards you mentioned were mentioned in the opening post (or at least parallel hate cards were).
But because I'm killing time at work, let's say I do it again.
Sower of Temptation - Problematic, but not unbeatable. There are three ways to beat it. First, don't use Show and Tell. If you Bridge the Emrakul, they die before they get to play it. Second, Wipe it Away on their EOT, and kill their board. This is the least viable option. Third, board in Progenitus. This card is specifically why Progs is in the sideboard.
Oblivion Ring - See Sower, except they can't kill you with your own Emrakul. Also, Krosan Grip.
Humility - See Oblivion Ring. Again, if you EOT bounce it, and Bridge in an Emrakul, they are unlikely to be able to replay it.
Edicts - You play Thoughtseize, Duress, Force and Daze for a reason.
FYI - Emrakul is nearly as resilient as Progenitus, and has haste about 50% of the time. In addition, it assures that your opponent will NEVER be able to win after swinging. It also ignores Glacial Chasm (most of the time) and Circle of Protection: White.
That is assuming they have mana to cast said Sowers, Ob Rings, Humility, etc. Off Mosswort Bridge, they tend to lose that mana.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
Here's my concern - Defense of the Heart is 4 mana, where Show and Tell is three. You're playing it on turns 3-5, most likely on turn 4. When you do, you wait a whole turn for it to activate, so it is usually going to be a turn 5 Emrakul + Blazing Archon, with a turn 6 win. Against Zoo, Merfolk, and Goblins, if they have the 3 creatures to activate the Defense, you're in bad shape anyway. They'll be running dudes into it and racing you. I mean, either that, or they smash your face with two guys and it never activates. I don't know. I'm willing to think about it but it feels slow and clunky to me. Not to mention, Pridemage.
Is this a pun on Thunderbluff?
Team Legal Actions.
No. I actually played this in a tournament, and it's actually really good.
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