Card: Sisay, weatherlight captain
This is my "pet deck". The Deck i try to keep up to date with each releasing Set to make the Superfriends playstyle viable in my rather competetive Playgroup.
Its been a looong journey until today, but with the Release of Modern Horizons and the introduction of
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain
the Deck finally can keep up. Even if the Superfriends Theme died down a little and it became more of a 5 Color Good Stuff/Midrange/Combo list. Atleast on the first sight. The Wincon is still mainly focussed around Superfriends, usually to get them out in masses or Ultimate one quickly.
Since Superfriends are quite slow, there are a lot of Midrange Cards to prevent enemies strategies from going off before i can start my "Combos". Especially since
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain
ability allows me to Tutor nearly every Card in the Deck to have an Answer.
▬▬ι═══════ﺤ Gameplan -═══════ι▬▬
First Priority is to survive, not only as a player, but also to keep your Commander alive long enough so you can go off.
Usually you dont want to block anything, unless you are sure you can kill the Attacking creature without Sacrificing anything of your own that generates Value for you.
The Second Priority is to get to Mana and Sisay as powerful as possible on the Way to the needed Mana.
The moment you hit and
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain
on the Battlefield, your game finally can begin. Whenever someone casts a spell, or activates an Ability you dont want to happen, for example, an
Urza, Lord High Artificer
hits the field and the owner has 5 Mana to Activate the ability, it would be whise to quickly pay your 5 Mana to get out a
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
or
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
to stop the activation from happening.
Usually keep the Mana for an activation up to have something for emergency situations like someone tries to Remove your Sisay so you can get out an
Archangel Avacyn
or
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
to protect your commander or any other important Card on your board.
If you get around the table with out the need to Tutor something to save something of you or stop someone else from finishing the game, you can start to work on your own plan. For example, try to get out
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
to have enough mana for two activiations your next turn.
Whenever you have 2 activations per turn, you can think about finishing the game off. For example, tutor
Liliana Vess
in your Main Phase, put a
Deepglow Skate
to the top to draw into it with a planeswalker activation or any other Card Draw effect. With the next two activations you can first find card: Teferi, time reveler to stop your opponents from interacting with you and then get out
Liliana, Dreadhorde General
to play it into the Deepglow Skate and activate the Ultimate. This usually makes your opponents concede or puts you into a position of a severe Advantage.
This is just one of many lines that can lead to Victory, in a more grindy game, you can always go for
Blackblade Reforged
to win with Commander Damage.
It is a very versatile and robust Deck which is quite powerful as long as the Commander survives.
▬▬ι═══════ﺤ Cards and their Meaning in the Deck -═══════ι▬▬
Ugh! 31 Lands? Isnt that to little in the deck?
Well actually, yes it is. It is way to little usually. But since we run 10-11 Signets for mainly mana fixing and we need to gurantee to have at the same Time we hit 5 Mana, it is extremly important to have a lot of multicolored fast options at our hand. This List seems slow, but so far i could deal with it rather fine.
Academy Rector
What an Amazing Card to prevent People from attacking you. If they do, they need an Answer to remove whatever you search for. We dont run many Enchantments, but usually
Doubling Season
is powerful enough to finish the Game if your enemies dont have an immediate response to it. And if they have, you can still play the gamble and tutor out a powerful planeswalker with your Commander before Doubling Season leaves the battlefield again and hope it has enough Loyalty once its your turn again.
Anafenza, the Foremost
WBG for our Sisay power improvements are nice. But her real strength is to boost Sisay whenever we decide to Attack or tap her in another Way and also have a way to deal with Graveyard interactions. Its a powerful early tutor target when you are facing Decks like
Meren of Clan Nel Toth
.
Archangel Avacyn
This is a bit of an odd card. I currently consider to remove her but being able to dodge a mass removal is quite the powerful option. The addition that she can wipe the board of small tokens is an additional Benefit.
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
4 Colors for Sisay is not as important as it seems. To tutor 4 CMC Cards you already need 5 Power on her which means you already have 3 of the colors on the field.
But Atraxa has different strengths. She has an amazing tool in Flying and Death Touch to deal with scary attackers, she is not the best response, but she is one and has more often that i would like to admit saved me from certain death.
Also, she lead this Deck for years, it would be a shame to kick her out of the Crew.
Gaddock Teeg
It is an overall good Card, the 2 Mana symbols are great for Sisay, the toolkit he has is amazingly useful and overall it is a good card. Not a card i tutor often, but certainly one that has enough Power to stay in the deck.
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
A card i would love to Remove. It is slow and the effect is not as helpful as i would hope it to be. But Green and Black in the Mana cost with a total CMC of 2 is to good to pass on, if he sticks around to boost Sisay enough, he can slow down some decks with his effect, but he rarely hits the field in my games.
Judith, the Scourge Diva
The same as
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
if there would be a good replacemant, i would like to cut her. But in Black and Red it is hard to find Legendarys. Her 3 CMC is only accetable since she brings an additional Power for our Sisay.
Kambal, Consul of Allocation
A lovely card to play early on to drain some of the opponents to help with out extremly painful Manabase, and a nice tutor Target against long combo decks that only start to Deal Damage in the later steps of the Combo.
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
She was mentioned earlyer in the Text already, but there are so many "cast for free" effects that she is the perfect tutor target for it. Also, since there is so much ramp artifacts in EDH that her other effect also is quite useful against fast Decks, especially colorless/eldrazi decks that quickly ramp to high CMC Creatures.
Melira, Sylvok Outcast
I did not want to Include her, but there showed up an Infect Deck in my Playgroup. It holds him in check for a turn or two, usually enough for the others to handle these disgusting Infect creatures.
When there is no Infect Deck around, she is mostly a dead card, with only 1 Mana type she does not help Sisay much, but she can be a nice emergency tutor if someone tries to kill our Commander with -1/-1 Counters.
Pramikon, Sky Rampart
I love this Card. Its the best card we got with Commander2019. Not only helps us to get to our 5 Different Mana Symbols to tutor the big bombs, it also protects our whole board and shrinks down the number of attackers from three to one. It also helps you to put the Aggro player against the deck you have a hard time to deal with. Overall, i love this card!
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
It gives us Mana, it is legendary. We can tutor it if we have at the end of a turn to instantly give us enough Mana to activate our Commander a second time or to cast expensive things from our Hand.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty
Hexproof to all our Creatures and Planeswalkers? Yes please. The 6 Mana effect is not as useful in the Deck, but it is a nice addition i dont want to miss anymore.
Thada Adel, Acquisitor
This is a bit of an odd card. It is quite bad in the Deck, we rarely tutor it but if we draw into it early, its a nice drop to steal some very important Artifacts from our Opponents. Starting with the all so well known
Sol Ring
or even Artifacts that build up the opponents win con like
Aetherflux Reservoir
.
Venser, Shaper Savant
This is the last resort if you have no other options to handle a thread or a spell. Just bounce it back to the opponents hand. Yes, it is not the best form of Removal, but it is instant and we can find it with our Commander. This certainly is a card i would love to Swap out if there is another option.
Blackblade Reforged
A Card to boost Sisay alone to a powerlevel where we can find anything and to make her a Thread alone on the board plus it is Legendary so we can find it. I think
Blackblade Reforged
is one of the most powerful Cards in combination with Sisay.
Ensnaring Bridge
If you took a closer look at the Decklist by now, you will probably found out that this deck is lacking card draw. So far, in all my test games, my hand was rather empty most of the time, making
Ensnaring Bridge
a nice tool to handle attacking Creatures.
Rings of Brighthearth
Double the Sisay effect for 2 Mana? Yes please.
Double a Planeswalker activation for 2 Mana aswell? Yes please!
There is not much to say about
Rings of Brighthearth
expect its just amazingly good in the Deck - if you draw into it.
Ugin's Nexus
It is Legendary. It does not help us to fuel Sisay further, but it stops people from taking Extra Turns. Especially nice if you tutor it in Response to someone playing the extra turn spell.
Its a nice addition that you get an extra turn when it gets removed.
Ajani Steadfast
All abilites of this Planeswalker are relevant for the deck. Boosting Sisay temporarly or permanently is nice. His ulti is the best tool against Voltron strategies aswell
Ashiok, Dream Render
Blocking the Enemies from tutoring out their wincons in a more competetive Table is quite amazing. Exiling all Graveyards is just an additional Bonus.
Dack Fayden
Another Odd card in the deck. Usually just there to filter out lands if you draw to many, which rarly happens, or to get control of an artifact that is about to kill you or to fix your mana. His ultimate is not worth mentioning since we dont run enough spells for it to be relevant.
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
a 3 Mana card which boosts our Sisay by up to 3 Power is always nice. The ability to stop enemies from countering our Spells, in case we need to Hardcast something, Mostly
Deepglow Skate
, is also nice. But the best ability of his is the possibility to Remove a support card of our enemies. Since our Sisay usually is quite big she overshadows most Cards on the board and can deal with them easylie.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Nice for the Tokens in case we need something to Block, nice to give Sisay +3 Power in case we lack power for the tutoring effect and also super nice to make all our Permanents Indestructible (well outside of planeswalkers). Giving Sisay Flying also helps with the Commander Damage win approach.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
I think i have never tutored her out since her biggest strength are just the 3 Tokens she brings with her. The Emblem is nice, the boardwipe is ok-ish aswell, but it sadly kills our Sisay more often than not.
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
Bounce a creature. Its a nice effect for Voltron or Hydra strategies. Drawing a Card is something we sometimes need in the Deck, filtering the top card is nice in addition.
But the real power is in the Ultimate. Yes it is rare and if we can chose to play only one ultimate in the entire deck, the slot usually goes to
Liliana, Dreadhorde General
but it is stil something nice to have.
Maybe he will be one of the many cards that i will cut. Hopefully we get a good replacement in Throne of Eldraine.
Liliana Vess
Tutor a card from the Deck to the top of the library. It is just a tutor for our
Deepglow Skate
to bring it to the top so we can cast it later. The rest of her abilities are just "nice to have".
Liliana, Dreadhorde General
What a wonderful card. To draw a card whenever a creature on our side dies is a nice feat. To generate 2/2 Creatures also helps from time to time, even if we just use them to run into Walls to get them killed for the card draw.
Her Real power is within the two Minus abilities. The first one is another important tool against Voltron strategies, even if we have to Sacrifice something we own aswell. We atleast can draw a card for it.
And her ultimate is the ultimate Game ender. As mentioned before, if we can chose to use one Ultimate, it would be Lilianas to end the game.
Narset Transcendent
It is a 4 CMC Thread your opponents have to deal with early. If they cant, you will have an Emblem that is powerful enough to win you the game.
I added her after facing a lot of Enchantment Strategies and this card shuts them down quite well.
Narset, Parter of Veils
"You cant draw more than one card each turn". Thats all she is there for, and it is amazingly powerful to get her out in response to an
Enter the Infinite
or other heavy draw spell.
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
He can Copy loyalty abilites, in case we need an additional copy of one. But his own abilities are all quite well. To force the enemy to discard while we Draw just generates Value, destroying a target creature is also more than welcome in a deck that lacks removal. And the Ultimate can finish a game on the spot.
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Untap 2 Lands is nice for another activation of our Commanders ability, while putting down Cards of our opponents is also quite nice to stop their combos from happening before we are ready.
The Ultimate is nice, but since we dont have that much card draw, its more or less something for a Game that became very grindy, where our initial plans all failed.
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
Draw a Card is always nice,
Untap 4 Permanents usually gives you another activation of Sisay which is even better and the Ultimate allows us to play some weird, wonky and stupid interactions with the Planeswalkers in the turns of our enemies. It rarely happens, but when it happens, its quite fun and finishes the game fast.
Teferi, Time Raveler
He is amazing to protect you when you need to start a Combo to finish the game since noone can interact with spells . His +1 is not important for the Deck, but against unknowing opponents it scares them just a little which is nice.
The usefulness of a bounce effect i explained a lot before already, he draws an additional card to it which is alos nice.
Wrenn and Six
His emblem is not important again, his -1 also rarely is really something we want. But since our Manabase is quite small with only 31 Lands and 10 of these lands are Fetchlands there is a good chance we see atleast one of them and can enusre to get the Fatchland back with each and every turn to find another land in our deck. And since he is only CMC2 with 2 Color symbols he boosts Sisay nicely and is easy to tutor early.
▬▬ι═══════ﺤ Problems & Additions -═══════ι▬▬
The Deck isnt Perfect, by no means. The list currently even has to many cards, and i havent found a place for
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
. I tried hard to build a deck that still sticks to the Superfriends theme but also can keep up with a meta that more and more leans into the competetive direction. I dont want to play a mindless Turn1/Turn2 Combo deck, i would much rather stick to the Deck i build years ago and improve it. So far, my playgroup fears the Deck still and think its overpowered, but it wont take long until they figured out ways to Deal with it. So i decided to ask for help. I tried to polish the list, make it look good for the Eyes, explain my toughts behind the important cards and decisions i made in the last couple of Years and Months building this deck.
I hope i could spark some interest or creativity in your own to build a Deck with the ideas i handed out. I would be glad to see ideas to improve the decks, maybe there are Cards i just havent looked at yet to make this deck even better.
