Ideas for Eldrazi Ramp (Emrakul)
Deck Help forum
Posted on Dec. 2, 2017, 10:57 p.m. by Irianne
Hi all! :) I recently found myself in possession of a copy of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and I'm very excited to build a deck around her but I honestly don't even know where to start. I don't even know what colors to run! Nothing ramps like green, so unless people have strong advice to the contrary, that's going in.
As for other colors.. I don't know! G/U was my first thought, green for ramp and blue for disrupting everyone else's plans until Emrakul makes an appearance. But I read an article from way back when she was first spoiled that said R/G was the best fit. Why? I'm also open to more than two colors, I can do Temur or something if there's a reason for it.
Help is very much appreciated. Casual format, but a deck which mostly stays within the Eldrazi theme would make me happiest.
RowdyMagic18 says... #3
Ive seen a very fun deck built by a few people where they have a card called Through the Breach as there main win con for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Unfortunately it isnt the best budget wise, but Ive found it to be one of the best ways to get Emrakul out fast. You could play Sneak Attack as a slightly cheaper option.
If you want to stick with an Eldrazi themed deck, I would recommend the Urza lands Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant and Urza's Tower. an Eldrazi Tron deck with Wurmcoil Engine, and Karn Liberated is what comes to mind for me. You can find this deck on MTGGoldfish under modern on the metagame tracker. Hope this helps!
December 3, 2017 8:41 a.m.
Forgive me if I'm wrong on this, but if I use any of the suggested methods to cheat Emrakul, the Aeons Torn out I won't be triggering her ability, right? I mean she's still a protected 15/15 flier, I get that she's still doing work, but it seems like a waste to get her on the battlefield without casting her. Especially if I'm going to sacrifice her at the end of the turn with Through the Breach.
Is that normally how she's played now? Just a 15/15 fatty and forget the extra turn thing?
December 3, 2017 10:16 a.m.
The Nahiri, the Harbinger option seems fine, though. It finds you Emrakul, gets you a turn to punch with her, and still doesn't remove the option to cast her when/if you get the mana for it.
I was thinking decks which spawn a ton of scions would be able to legitimately cast her in a semi-reasonable amount of time, though. I'm starting to worry this isn't the case xD
December 3, 2017 10:21 a.m.
Bulldawg1310 says... #6
Irianne its not the case, finding a way to hard cast an emrakul without it getting countered or you already being dead by the time you get it out is very hard to do with how fast the modern game is played. With the protection from basically everything you dont need to worry about the extra turns, and cheating out a 15 cmc creature at turn 3 or 4 is much more exciting than hoping you can get 2 or 3 copies each of all the tron lands without them getting Fulminator Maged and Surgical Extractioned. Its truly going to come down to your budget, through the breach i think can be built for around 650 dollars, the nahiri deck carries close to an 800 dollar price tag, or you can build a competitive version of polymorph for about 250/275, probably cheaper than that, considering you already have the most expensive card in the deck purchased.
December 3, 2017 10:54 a.m.
Bulldawg1310 says... #7
If you go the eldrazi tron route, you would need all 4 copies of Eldrazi Temple and the tron lands assembled. As an E-tron player, i can tell you this is very difficult to make happen consistently, and thats why emrakul isnt played in E-tron matchups. The biggest creature is usually an Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and hes ran as a 2 of at the very most. Land destruction is a thing in modern and players should be sensible about whether they expect to be competitive or just talk about how theres an emrakul in the deck somewhere or if only i could have ramped to 15 i totally would have had you! Youll sound silly 100% of the time...
December 3, 2017 11:01 a.m.
Whoa whoa whoa, let's back up a sec. First of all, I'm not playing modern, I'm playing casual. I'm not joining any modern tournaments, I'm not playing with anyone I don't know. I'm playing with friends who, like me, are absolutely not willing to pay even close the amount you're suggesting for a deck. Our games aren't ending by turn 4, we're just.. playing magic.
I didn't see a specific forum for just casual deck building so I put it here in the general deck help one and mentioned in the post that the format is just casual.
I appreciate the advice that everyone's given me, and it makes more sense now. I know Modern is a very fast format, I understand why you wouldn't be able to ramp into something that big there. I don't like Modern though, particularly for that reason. The meta is uninteresting to me.
I was only asking for advice because I'm still very new to this and don't even really know how to start, not because I want to make sure the deck is hyper competitive. I don't need it to be hyper competitive. I just want it to function. Maybe that makes advice totally impossible to give since you guys can't have a good feel for what I'm playing against, so.. I apologize if this has all been sort of an exercise in futility.
I appreciate the advice everyone's been giving, but it isn't a deck I want to play. Cheating out a 15/15 on turn 3 or 4 doesn't actually sound exciting to me at all... and it won't be fun for any of the people I'm playing with either.
Thank you all anyway.
December 3, 2017 11:30 a.m.
Bulldawg1310 says... #9
If youre playing casual and all bets are off, than you need a playset of Sol Ring, Eldrazi Temple, Eye of Ugin basically all of the edh legal land cards that help you ramp colorless... wish you luck.
December 3, 2017 2:15 p.m.
Bulldawg1310 says... #10
As far as your opponents are concerned, you said cheating out an emrakul by turn 4 wont be exciting to them, do you honestly think anyone you play against is going to enjoy you getting to A(take 2 turns in 1? And B(getting to attack with a creature that basically destroys their board state? I would guess no. The whole purpose of a creature like emmy, is to win the game, so by even having it in your deck as win-con means youre trying to be competitive. I understand youre playing for fun, and iCan totally dig that, but if youre not going to play to win, why play?
December 3, 2017 2:23 p.m.
Why play? I can't tell if this is a rhetorical attempt to tell me I'm playing wrong or a genuine question. I will answer anyway.
Imagine, for a moment, that you and I are sitting down to play a game of Magic. You are playing a carefully built constructed deck that you spent a significant amount of both time and money on. I am playing literally every red and green card I opened at a pre-release. My deck has no synergy, no real plan. I've got a card that deals two damage to all non-pirates and I'm not even running a single pirate. It's a mess. I clearly didn't know what I was doing.
Is this going to be a fun game? Are you going to enjoy it when you win?
If the answer is yes, then you're not going to understand where I'm coming from no matter how many more words this answer includes, so don't worry about it. We're just playing differently and getting different things out of the game. That's fine. But don't act like I shouldn't even bother playing because I'm not doing it your way.
If the answer is no, then maybe you see where I'm going with this. My example may have been more dramatic than what would be going on here but sometimes pushing an argument to its logical extreme is the best way to show what happens as you diverge from the middle. I don't want a deck that outpaces what everyone else is playing by an amount that cannot, no matter how ingenious their plays, ever be made up for. That isn't fun.
This is what I mean when I say they also wouldn't have any fun if I was playing a 15cmc creature on turn 4. It will end the game every time, nobody else is playing something that can win by or before then. I'd have a few matches where I shut them down before they even kind-of-sort-of-maybe-almost got going and then we'd toss it back in my bag and play games with decks where we don't already know who's going to win before the first draw.
The difference between playing a staggeringly massive creature, even one as mean as Emrakul, or turn 8 or turn 4 is massive. One gives you a shot at winning in a competitive Modern game, one doesn't. One makes you dick in kitchen table magic, one doesn't. I'm not interested in winning any competitive Modern games, but I am interested in not being a dick.
December 5, 2017 9:38 p.m.
Again, I do appreciate the advice you gave me. I understand that it was good advice, and that it was all the relevant advice there is for the only place where the card I have is played competitively.
It's just that you're trying to help me do something that I don't want to do. I am much less appreciative of your last post and its implication that not wanting to play magic competitively means I shouldn't be wasting my time playing magic at all.
December 5, 2017 9:47 p.m.
Bulldawg1310 says... #13
I never said you had to play competitively like at a tournament or even a LGS, but the basic principles of playing or doing anything in a format of anything thats me vs you is to A(have fun, B(win the damn game. When youre taught the definition of competition, it means theres a goal, you completely misconstrued my last statement and i had preceded it by saying as long as your having fun, youve completed part of the goal. You took my definition of competition and ran with it in the wrong direction. But obviously, if youre playing a creature such as emmy (in which i hope we can agree) wins games pretty much instantaneously, especially when its hardcasted, your goal (personally) is to win. I was strictly saying that if winning is your goal, there are ways to achieve it much simpler than to just spew 15 lands and hope it works out especially if youre playing in a relaxed format such as casual. Im sorry if you took offense or think im a dick, youre certainly not the first nor the last that will. consider this however, most folks on tapped out fall into 2 categories, builders(folks who do it all themselves and wanna shock the hell outta the net deckers and want feedback from the community when they do it) or competitive folks who play in regional tournaments and all that jazz. You dont have to fit into either of these categories, im just saying those are the mass majority of folks on this forum. Thats who youre going to get advice from, most folks on here who find out youre looking for casual help are going to assume (especially with a creature like the spag monster) youre gonna want to get it out as fast as possible.i think we gave you some valid options, take em or leave em, but dont get pissed off when we give you advice that youve solicited and now you dont like it because youre afraid of being a dick. If youre playing emrakul, youre gonna be a dick, its an instant scooper.
December 6, 2017 6:42 a.m.
Bulldawg1310 says... #14
To kill this argument and just answer your question straight up, if youre looking to ramp into 15 mana, youre gonna want to run green and x other colors you want, it wont really matter. Youre gonna nees 4 Arbor Elf, 4 Utopia Sprawl and probably 4 each of Llanowar Elves 4 Elvish Mystics and then splash blue to play Counterspell after counter spell to keep your guys alive until you can hit 15. Once again, i wish you luck. Im interested in hearing about which way you go and your success rate. And remember, if youre having fun, youre doing it right!
December 6, 2017 6:50 a.m.
"To kill the argument" you say, after 200 words continuing it. I wasn't pissed about the advice. In fact I thanked you for it three times in my first response alone. And I didn't call you a dick, I said playing a hyper fast competitive modern deck against a bunch of people trying to have fun with their casual decks would be a dick move. There are tons of things that are instant scoopers. Most planeswalkers ultimating will end a game for us. The hard part is making sure you actually get to do it. I didn't want to not win, I just didn't want to skip the part where I had to try.
As for my deck, don't worry about it. Thank you for the ramp advice as well, but the card was a gift and after all this I'm just going to give her back.
Bulldawg1310 says... #2
Irianne youre not gonna want to ramp into a 15 mana costed creature. Who does that and lives to tell the tale? What youre gonna wanna do is cheat it out. Theres a few ideas you can run with, Polymorph tokens is one to do it. Proteus Staff is another way, or you can combine them both into a small soldiers tokens deck with cards like Raise the Alarm or Gather the Townsfolk Timely Reinforcements would help as well. Or you can build the jeskai control deck that had some success a few years ago and see how you like that, get a bunch of Wall of Omens and other defenders and chump blockers until you can max out your Nahiri, the Harbinger. Keep me posted im interested in reading about which way you go!
December 3, 2017 12:54 a.m.