Pretty much all of the Ertai decklists I've seen have revolved around creature sacrifice or enchantment tech, but what really drew me to him was being a commander with a hard counter on a stick.When my LGS switched to Frech ban list for our 1v1 commander night, and I saw that Zur was banned as a commander but not in the 99, the Ertai build starting coming together. It almost immediately became my favorite deck: I began magic in Esper control style, the deck captures all the themes throughout magic that draw me to it (wizards, phyrexians, magic manipulation, arcane robots, and more!), and while can be a very powerful deck, requires its pilot to know what's going on, and can still be interacted with (no turn 4 combos or stax oppression).Also keep in mind, the deck was designed for our French 1v1 playgroup, but I left out multiplayer banned cards so I can swap freely between formats without having to swap cards from sleeves each time.
Being a commander counterspell deck, I'll begin with the counterspells. Many are obvious commander inclusions (Force, Denial, Disallow). Our son
Mundungu
is great against decks that win with a pay X, but is more of a harasser that gets pumped by Docent/Iteration
, is cheap sac fodder for Ertai, and can be returned by Sun Titan, so the minor synergies there are actually pretty nice. And stealing a spell with Guile from Mundy's measly counter power is hilarious. Burst can't be recast with Gearhulk or Snappy, but the buyback is too good for a deck who's wincons are turned on by counterspells. Jace might go under here, but his ultimate really isn't a primary consideration.
Now the payouts for playing so many counters. Baral is the early game dig that make Stroke and Denial just silly.
Lullmage Mentor
is more used for the replaceable sac fodder for Ertai, but getting the 6 merfolk tokens to turn his second ability is an exciting, if rare sight. The big wincons are Docent
/Iteration
and Guile. Guile is obvious, having so many counterspells available, eventually we'll have Ertai up and be able to steal at least one spell a turn while chipping away at them for 6. Docent
is a more traditional win route, turning Ertai, Snappy, Baral, Mentor, AND Mundy into flying beaters, and activates on our removal as well as our counters, which is a necessary backup for these types of decks. Yaheeni, Undying Partisan|Yaheeni is our tertiary wincon, as she can just hang back in a locked down game, slowly getting bigger as our Dictate of Erebos and other removal chips away their board, until we can smash in with a huge indestructible robot vampire.
Because our setup takes a little while, we have a suite to protect us against early game assaults, allowing us to set the pace of the game. All of our target instant removal can be recast with Snappy or Gearhulk, and all of our single target enchantment removal can be searched to play with Zur, returned by Sun Titan, and sacrificed to Ertai. And last, we round out with our 3 boardwipes. (Sometimes I'll throw in a Damnation in multiplayer games, but that's mainboarded in my Glissa's Mausoleum deck).
Besides removal, we run a bit of pillow fort as well, seeing how Prison and Propaganda can be sacrificed as counter fuel in the late-game. Selfless Spirit is particularly silly with Sun Titan or Palace Siege. Spellskite and greaves help protect Ertai while we're setting up, or keep Guile/Iteration
safe once they're online.
Tutors and draw of course make sure we find the pieces essential to our win. Zur may not seem like traditional tutoring, but he finds our pillow fort pieces for defense, and then serves as counter fuel once we're online. If we're playing more aggressively, he can search the Phyreian Arena|Arena or Study to begin digging for out win right off the bat, which I've had to do in more than one duel match-up.
Although Mentor and Bitterblossom make plenty of creatures for Ertai to sac, we definitely want to recur Hangarback for more fodder, Spirit on defense or one of our wincons if they're killed/milled. Palace Siege is our most reliable method of this, but Sun Titan is good too, as it can return enchantments we may have lost/sacrificed to Ertai. Liliana
and Athreos may not be as reliable recursion, but their added benefits are too nice to passe up (and again, Athreos can be fetched with Zur, and both can be returned with Sun Titan).
And now we have the random tech! I mentioned Jace earlier, and I put him here because he can be draw, counter and pseudo-removal. He's just all around very comfortable in this deck. Dictate of Erebod|Dictate is practically necessary in any deck which wants to sacrifice things, and Leyline is necessary if we plan to send many things to our opponents' yards.Possibly the two oddest seeming additions are
Merieke Ri Berit
and Yosei, the Morning Star. Yosei can clearly be a nightmare when recurred, putting a late-game soft lock on our opponent. Although usually a strictly duel option, I leave it in for multiplayer as a good political tool. Merieke I actually see as more of a removal option. I prefer her over Rubinia for the "destroy that creature", and I abuse this by sacrificing Merieke to counter spells, which removes the creature I stole, then just recur her with Siege or Titan.
And there we have it! Let me know what you think, this is my second entirely from-scratch deck, and this is also my first fully-descprited decklist, so if you see any obvious omissions or opinions on the deck, let me know!
