Captain Sisay

Legendary Creature — Human Soldier

: Search your library for a legendary card, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.

Discussion (48)

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 10: Selesnya …

2 days ago

Every dual color up until now has been some sort of aggressive, negative experience for other players, and Selesnya certainly has the potential to be no different. Combining Green’s predilection for quality with White’s penchant for quantity (AND stacking board buffs) makes for a lethal pairing in the combat phase. Rhys the Redeemed, Captain Sisay, and Gaddock Teeg are just a few commanders with justifiable appeal for power gamers. And don’t forget the enchantments: Aura Shards, Mirari's Wake, and Hunting Grounds all have singularly disruptive board presence, and that’s just a few on a stellar list.

And yet, undeniable potency aside, this is an almost grandmotherly pairing: you don’t so much play Selesnya to ruin someone else’s day as to ensure you have the best one. A properly built deck in these colors should wrap around its pilot like a blanket fresh out of the dryer, basting you in a pervasive feeling of shelter, growth, and self-promotion. Another good analogy might be a garden tended by someone with an emerald thumb, game-breaking fertilizer, and the patience of Saint Francis. In summary, players running these are very much there to do their own thing without interruption: the problem is, once they’ve done their own thing, opponents find out that the “game-breaking fertilizer” is typically their own mulched remains.

It’s also oddly human-centric.

Ok, enough poetry. Now to the really fun bit: we’re here to talk thematic commanders, so let’s dive into that roster. Today, we’re discussing the Selesnya themes of Lifegains, Counterplay, and “Don’t Loot at Me!”. As always, please bear in mind that our focus here is not necessarily competitive but rather on thematic, archetypical commanders. Just don’t judge me harshly for including a lot of beasts.

Lifegains

I spelled with an "s" for a reason. Yes, as covered in a past article, Black has a more intimate relationship with the life total. Yes, Black both drains life and spends life. BUT… there is a profound difference between eating cookies and baking them. Black is the undisputed cookie monster (and a bit of a baker, to be fair), but Selesnya could, to continue the analogy, take any bake off by storm. Prize money, people: Selesnya’s about not only baking that cookie, but getting prize money for it. In other words, crossbreeding these colors gets you a thematic trend toward gaining life AND triggering something whenever you do. Think combotastic crap like the Accomplished Alchemist and Rhox Faithmender, or Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Spike Feeder. The possibilities are… well, a little scary.

The Oprah of lifegain. Who needs general damage when you can drown your opponent in creatures the approximate size of your life hack? Smack them with the Angel of Destiny, or… wow, there are a lot of relevant angels. Gather it. Just bring your lifelink and enjoy.

Direct, though the scry is a nice touch. This is a commander made for some sort of evasion, the Soul Warden cycle, and a pile of tokens. Like, maybe March of the Multitudes. Hehehehe…

… Sheesh. I mean, I’ve had this built on and off, but… still, sheesh. If you’ve never heard of the Phyrexian Processor, enjoy the pearl I just gave you. Green-White is token central: hell, their own private keyword about it is right on this commander. This is a definite instance of the Green penchant for chunks being over-synergized with the white predilection to breed like rabbits. Or, in this case, Phyrexian Minions.

Counterplay

I’ve covered stax twice by this point, once in White and once in Azorius. I don’t deny that the potential for oppression is there: one of my favorite cards in Selesnya is Glare of Subdual. However, I can’t help feeling that it’s coming from a different direction in this slice of the pie. While Blue and White are geared toward inflicting stagnancy, Selesnya’s stax are angled toward preventing thematically negative effects, kind of a mercy mission for your opponent’s resources. I think Quakers would like it here.

Mind control pervasive in the local meta? Not anymore! Second Trostani is actually a rather inoffensive commander for everyone who’s not a thief, offering both board support and considerable political clout. Other players may even go out of their way to keep her up and you in the game, just to screw over that one guy.

Ah, the man himself. I never found him especially oppressive, leaning more toward creatures by disposition. Not everyone will feel the same way. He cuts most conventional boardwipes out of the mix, and God help super-friends. You can almost picture the little hobbit raising his hands and saying “Let’s have a nice, simple game, shall we?” Which isn’t something you expect in a typical game of Commander, now that I think about it.

Land fixing is nice, but this is where things are downright hostile. Those may look like tusks, but those are really two giant middle fingers pointed at black decks.

“Don’t Look at Me!”

When we were little, my brother would build cereal box walls between us as we ate breakfast, then stare at me over them. Whenever I eyed him like the nutcase he was, he’d scream “DON’T LOOK AT ME!!!”

I don’t think I need to explain the point.

I always liked the aesthetic of Dosan the Falling Leaf, but not enough to make him a commander. Dromoka, meaty beast of two colors that she is, has a bit more appeal. All but guaranteeing an uninterrupted turn, combo players could do worse.

A 5/5 with flying for five would be nice. Hexproof on a general is competitive. Putting a kibosh on all offensive-sacrifice decks ever tagging you? Downright savage. I like this card a lot.

So… commander damage is a tried, true plan. Lots of people try it. Lots of people won’t be particularly offended by Mirri’s soft push for it. All the token-fiends out there, though, are going to flip their collective gourds when they find out the Silent Arbiter got legendary and started playing favorites. Word of advice: NEVER give her vigilance.

And, for a personal favorite:

As readers know, I like ramp. However, even I think this is broken. I genuinely feel guilty whenever I think of building it again. While she doesn’t approach the misery of Zur the Enchanter or Purphoros, God of the Forge, the power dynamic here is shattering. One turn with a Whitemane Lion or anything similar will secure you a lead. One turn with whitemane lion and a Lotus Cobra? Amulet of Vigor? Tireless Provisioner? God have pity on your tiny, shriveled soul, because your opponents won’t. At least, if they ever manage to catch up under what I assume will be a deluge of ETB and blink effects. There are so many degenerate, savage combos encouraged by this reaping wench that I couldn’t list them all and reasonably expect anyone to finish the article. Let me just close this by saying she turns any card with landfall into a gamechanger, and there are a LOT of good landfall cards.

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back soon for Simic!

Prior Articles:

Gruul

Rakdos

Dimir

Azorius

Green, with links to the other mono-colors

king-saproling on Steamrolled (Banding + Rampage + All must block)

3 months ago

Great minds think alike! I try to do the same thing in my list (https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/maximum-jank-lureflankingbandtrampage/) except I use Captain Sisay as the general in order to grab things like Gabriel Angelfire , Odric, Master Tactician , and Nylea, God of the Hunt

enpc on What is "fair" magic?

3 months ago

My playgroup used to jokingly throw around the expression "Fair and balanced magic" as one of us would play Najeela, the Blade-Blossom or Captain Sisay cEDH decks.

At its actual root, I think the idea behind fair magic is mostly the idea of not blindsiding your opponent with a win. It's not about not running removal, or counterspells, but playing the game in a way that is organically moving forward for everybody. So when somebody whips out a game ending combo out of nowhere, the rest of the players feel robbed. Or if someone slams down a card which effectively locks a player out of the game, that player stagnates while the game moves on without them and again feels robbed.

Similarly, if there are four combo decks all trying to play out the combo while counterspelling everyone else's I would still call that "fair magic", since that's the direction the game's heading and everybody is on board with it.

The biggest violation of this is when somebody knowingly sits down at a table with the goal of breaking the social contract. Again, there's nothing wrong with playing a combo deck, but knowingly playing one into a game where the other three players just want to smash heads would be an example of unfair magic. Especially if there are disparities between the overall effectiveness of each deck.

But similarly, a player could be running a deck containing Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth . That could be considered "unfair magic" as much as a combo if none of the other players are ready for that or it just abruptly ends the game.

While there are a lot of people who interpret fair magic as "supposed to be grindy back and forth", I think that especially in the context of commander it's tightly linked with the social contract more than a particular playstyle.

jamochawoke on Ur-Dragon Legendary Tribal

6 months ago

For your sub-theme support (and some of them are dragon-themed too!):

• Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
• Heroes' Podium
• Thran Temporal Gateway
• Day of Destiny
• Captain Sisay
• Kolvori, God of Kinship  ^Flip
• Reki, the History of Kamigawa
• Blackblade Reforged
• Mox Amber
• Urza's Ruinous Blast

smilodex on Best Commanders in EDH [Tier List]

7 months ago

@Sephyrias: Bruse is mostly played for color reasons and as enpc described, he's the better target in Pod/Evolution decks to search for cards like Seedborn Muse or Kikki-Jikki. As you have correctly recognized, Roon is not much stronger than, for example, Atraxa (the boundaries are often very blurred), but many players forget that Roon can bounce opposing commander / creatures with instant speed and thus a constant threat on the board. In addition, you can loop Time Warp infinitely with Roon and Archaeomancer . The Siona combo is already rated high power. It's also not really a 2 card combo because the tokens don't have haste and GW is lacking stack interaction and has just better commanders like Captain Sisay or Yasharn right now.

And thanks for the reminder, we added Liesa, Shroud of Dusk , Thalisse, Reverent Medium and some new Kaldheim commanders. More will follow...

TheHelvault on H: $30 cards W: Foil …

7 months ago

Good afternoon everyone, I currently have a Natural Order MP, a Selvala, Heart of the Wilds SP, and a Captain Sisay SP for trade. I am looking for a Scroll Rack MP or better. If you have one and would like one of the cards I mentioned, please let me know and we'll start a trade!

Thanks!

Archaeosis on The prismatic bridge to friendship

8 months ago

Mana base: I see you're running a lot of modal lands, I'd recommend switching these out for basic lands or more named lands (Forest, Plains etc). The modal lands aren't searchable off of your ramp spells like Spoils of Victory or Farseek. I really like having a named land focus in Esika's mana base - shock lands ( Overgrown Tomb , Sacred Foundry etc.) should replace the snow dual lands if your budget allows for them. If not (understandable, shock lands for a 5 colour deck eat your wallet) then I'd play all 5 Triomes, and all 5 named lands that enter untapped if you control 2 or more basic lands ( Prairie Stream , Smoldering Marsh etc.) along with 2-4 of each basic land and some basic land ramp alongside your named land ramp such as Rampant Growth , Cultivate & Kodama's Reach . Land Tax is also a solid option if you run at least a couple of each basic land as it can colour fix you very early on so you can play The Prismatic Bridge asap. I know you're running counter increasers like Vorinclex, but I'd also remove the 2 counter based lands you have as well, without something like Vorinclex or Doubling Season out they're sub-optimal.

I'd take out the mana rocks you have in there, and replace them with more ramp sorceries like Three Visits , Ranger's Path , Skyshroud Claim , and Nature's Lore . Yes, they search specifically for Forests, but with enough named dual lands or Triomes they'll still allow you to search for the colour you need. If you didn't want to add in more ramp sorceries, low cmc legendary creatures that you can tap for mana via Esika's ability are viable (this would require you to have cards that allow you to bounce Esika back to hand ideally so you could cast her enchantment side when needed). Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is an absolute beast in this deck, even if you whiff on his ability a lot being able to tap any legendary creature for 2 mana of any colour from turn 2 onwards is dummy strong. If you go down this route untap cards like Derevi, Empyrial Tactician , Dramatic Reversal , Samut, Voice of Dissent and Kiora's Follower can help to give you buckets of mana each turn.

Planeswalkers/counter generation: Unless you decide to add flicker/sac & reanimate/ability copyers, I'd cut Deepglow Skate as it's a one-time-only version of Doubling Season for the same mana cost. Pir, Imaginative Rascal is brilliant in this kind of deck as his ability a) increases both starting loyalty and uptick loyalty gain and b) stacks with Vorinclex & Doubling Season. Having Pir & either Doubling Season or Vorinclex out will turn a +1 uptick into +4, a starting loyalty count of 5 becomes 12. Inexorable Tide & Contagion Engine are worth considering too, I can understand not adding Tide as you're free-dropping a good chunk of your Planesalkers/creatures with The Prismatic Bridge rather than casting them, but Contagion Engine is non-targeted creature removal as well 2 instances of proliferate per turn (Pir & proliferate = happy Planeswalker noises). Estrid, the Masked , Oath of Jace & Sphere of Safety would be a good group of cards to add - Estrid allows you to untap any enchanted permanent, her second ability will let you enchant any permanent (not just creatures) and increase your enchantment count for Sphere of Safety, and her ult is one of your only ways of recurring enchantments should they get destroyed (this won't allow you to recur The Prismatic Bridge though). Oath of Jace is great for filtering through your topdeck during your upkeep to choose your Bridge targets. Kaya the Inexorable is incredible in a superfriends deck - with your counter generation you'll have no problem getting her ult off straight away, which will allow you to free cast any legendary card once a turn, so if people kill (or even exile) your Planeswalkers or important legendary cards like Vorinclex/Chain Veil etc. you can always get them back. She also has removal, and recursion for your creatures. Samut, the Tested . Samut, the Tested . Samut, the Tested . For the love of all that is holy, play Samut because dropping her with Doubling Season or Vorinclex out can end games there and then. I have a combo in my Esika deck that will guarantee you first place unless Samut gets countered on the stack. Lithoform Engine , Strionic Resonator & Rings of Brighthearth will help you capitalize on important abilities like Planeswalker ults, The Prismatic Bridge and proliferate. Getting off an emblem and then going Lithoform Engine > Rings of Brighthearth to get 3 of those emblems instead of one is pretty explosive.

Creatures: Captain Sisay would work quite well here as she can search any legendary card in your deck which is invaluable in Esika and isn't as pricey/colour dependant as Sisay, Weatherlight Captain (I'm not saying cut her, but 2 Sisays are better than one). Kodama of the East Tree will let you chuck out Planeswalkers like nobody's business, The Prismatic Bridge now doubles its usefulness per turn. Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire is a great tutor in Esika as he's cheap, he can swing without tapping due to Esika giving him Vigilance, search something using his boast ability and put it on top of your library (something something Prismatic Bridge shenanigans) and then tap for mana in your 2nd main phase.

I hope what I've said helps, I love building Superfriends and all the whacky stuff you can do with it

Heliogabale on SIsay and her Shrines

9 months ago

Cool thematic deck, looks fun to play.

I don't know your card pool or budget, but I prefer relying on fetches and shocks than having the 3-colored slow lands. Whenever I see a mana base with this many lands that enter the battle field tapped I can't help but think of Amulet of Vigor. An Enlightened Tutor could allow to find it early and still be helpful in late game. A City of Brass or a Mirrodin's Core could come in handy.

I am thinking Captain Sisay may be a good addition as a fall-back option should your commander be disabled. I would also look into slotting Najeela, the Blade-Blossom in there.

Arguably, Song of the Dryads is a stronger removal than Kenrith's Transformation. Three Visits is faster than Spoils of Victory, you can fetch a Triome (or a shock land) and play it for free on turn 2. You can Fetch 2 Triomes with Krosan Verge.

Hope some of this helps!