Emberwilde Captain

Creature — Djinn Pirate

When Emberwilde Captain enters the battlefield, you become the monarch.

Whenever an opponent attacks you while you're the monarch, Emberwild Captain deals damage to that player equal to the number of cards in their hand.

Tokens

• The Monarch

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (22)

Crow-Umbra on Isshin for a Fight

3 months ago

I like your detailed update Michigone. I had a very similar realization with Emberwilde Captain & some of the other pillow fort effects.

They were clunky in that I wanted them to dissuade attacks at me, but their benefits happened if people attacked me. Often times people I played against would remove either Isshin & tank through standard triggers from the pillow effects, or removed the pillow effect all together.

I may re-examine Neyali, Suns' Vanguard at some point as a potential swap with Professional Face-Breaker. I do like that Face-Breaker is kind of like a Tymna the Weaver, except with treasures & impulse. Neyali's "no time limit" is cool, I just didn't like having my instant speed protection/removal stuck in impulse, & hampering that reactive element.

Drawing in these colors is a balancing act that takes plenty of playing to see what feels right.

My only knock against Helm of the Host is that it's 9 total mana to cast & equip to something.

Michigone on Isshin for a Fight

3 months ago

Change Log 05-02-2023

Moved to Maybe Board:

• Emberwilde Captain

Add:

• Helm of the Host

Michigone on Isshin for a Fight

3 months ago

From the beginning, I liked that this deck focused on the attack trigger. In looking at EDHREC and other people's builds, I've always wondered about inclusions that have myriad, whether it was Battle Angels of Tyr or Hammers of Moradin or even Blade of Selves. And I've had discussions where the other player has made solid points about inclusions, from tapping down creatures to card draw to life gain to ramp, and those are valid. BUT (You knew there was a but in there somewhere), for me, if you can't double it, it just seems like I want to slot something else in that can be doubled. Now with all that said, card draw in Mardu is one of the major challenges of the deck space, and each card draw slot must be examined extremely carefully when thinking about a cut for something else.

It is with this balancing act in mind that I decided to cut Emberwilde Captain, a card that offers both card draw and politicking. I know that sounds crazy, but my justifications are thus. When he ETBs, I become the monarch, which is great, an extra card draw at the end of my turn is always amazing. Additionally, he provides me with a little security, in that for an opponent to attack me while I'm the monarch, he will deal direct damage to them equal to double the amount of cards in their hand. That also sounds good right? Well here is the issue with the Captain. 1) What does my deck do? It swings, often with all my creatures, as even the tokens I control usually enter tapped and attacking. So what does that leave me with for blockers so that I can retain my monarch status? Nothing, I'm usually wide open. Which might make you say well yeah, but what about his second ability? Which leads me very nicely to point 2) In decks that want to attack me to win, my assumption is that those decks probably aren't heavy on card draw either, so they may take 6-8 damage from swinging at me. Not really a lot of damage in commander, certainly not enough to warrant holding back on attacking me. Additionally, in the act of attacking with Isshin, my board state is going to make blink deck level changes and hopefully do a ton of damage, drawing a massive target on my back. So the first player to attack me once Emberwilde Captain is out is going to feel a bit of a sting, but the next two players won't feel that same sting when attacking me, as the monarch is most likely someone else at the table now. And an additional card draw is not enough of an incentive for those other players to warrant attacking the monarch, when they've seen my deck go from six o'clock to midnight. And maybe you're wondering about decks that draw a lot of cards and aim to have max hand sizes. Those decks aren't winning through attacking me. So they're not concerned about a single additional card draw on my part at the end of my turn when I have to wait a full turn around the table to utilize it. They'll just combo out. So Emberwilde Captain provides a single additional draw and little deterrent for the slot it takes up in the deck.

So what to replace it with? Well, like I've mentioned earlier, I've kicked around the idea of myriad, but always found it to be not on theme enough for my taste. I even cut Delina, Wild Mage from my deck for a while because the tokens she generates don't benefit from Isshin, as they are never declared as attackers. Which is dumb, I know, because I realized that I could target Isshin, resolve Delina's attack trigger first and have multiple copies of Isshin out to triple (or more) other attack triggers on the stack. He, you live and you learn right, we all make mistakes sometimes. ANYWAY... sorry for the rambling, what happened is a friend reminded me of Helm of the Host. A light bulb went off in my head! Instead of doubling, how about tripling? Dare we even dream of quadrupling? I already loved how it worked with Delina, why not have redundancy (my favorite thing when deck building)? So Helm is in, Captain is out, and I'm going to keep tuning!

Crow-Umbra on Isshin for a Fight

4 months ago

Lookin good! If you like Revenge of Ravens and Emberwilde Captain, you might want to consider swapping Revenge of Ravens with Marchesa's Decree. Marchesa's Decree and Emberwilde Captain can work together in tandem.

Similarly, Norn's Decree is a kinda pillow fort/draw effect in a somewhat similar vein as Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant and Breena, the Demagogue. Norn's Decree might be a bit more useful if you have a lot of Goad in your meta.

Lastly, Gruesome Realization is like a Night's Whisper with the additional modal option to soften up an opponent's board before a swing, if needed.

TogbusPrime on

4 months ago

You forgot to make a "goaded with the sauce" joke! 8c

Butt serially, seems fun. Also seems like you should have more Fog effects and should consider Predatory Hunger, Thundering Mightmare, Dragonlair Spider, Emberwilde Captain, and maybe Tahngarth, First Mate for shits n giggles.

Last_Laugh on Isshin, Two Heavens As One - Eiganjo Uprising v1.2

5 months ago

Nice start. I have a few suggestions for you. I'll try to keep things budget(ish) friendly and break it down by category.

Card Draw: Breena, the Demagogue, Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant, and Emberwilde Captain are all budget friendly AND good card draw here. Plumb the Forbidden in your maybeboard I can't recommend enough.

Pumps: Soltari Champion and Shared Animosity are excellent here. Shared Animosity will make just 4 matching tokens into 7/1's on attack... and it snowballs from there. Divine Visitation I guess goes in this category and is well worth a slot with this much token production.

Tokens: Launch the Fleet is something I've added recently to my own list. Good results so far but I've only seen it twice lol.

Finishers: Commissar Severina Raine and Brutal Hordechief will end people. Devilish Valet doesn't have an attack trigger but just 6 tokens entering makes him 64 power and 10 tokens is 1024 power. He WILL 1 shot at least 1 person out of nowhere.

Haste: Ogre Battledriver giving haste and pumping your tapped and attacking tokens works really well here.

Feel free to check out my list for ideas. Upvotes on any of my decks are appreciated. Isshin - Army of Darkness

Crow-Umbra on Attack-harmonicon

5 months ago

No prob, Worrad75 , happy to help. Lol yeah, I've been playing and play-testing Isshin a lot since he was initially spoiled.

I figured you might get a bit more mileage out of Through Investigation with the other Venture stuff in your 99. I think Tocasia's Welcome really shines in decks that are more creature token focused. The Clue tokens are helpful for getting that cantrip in a pinch.

Emberwilde Captain is a fun one too. I had him in earlier versions of my list that had some of the other pillow-fort effects like Revenge of Ravens & Marchesa's Decree. For me, they were effective deterrents at first, but my regular play group would just remove Isshin, and tank through the standard triggers as needed. It's part of what eventually caused me to shift to including more creature token creation. Druid of Purification and Dismantling Wave are removal regulars in the group as well.

Inquisitorial Rosette is a cool one. It replaced Captain's Claws in my list. I liked the Menace from Iroas, so figured I'd get a bit more in the deck. I also had Goblin War Drums in for a bit.

Hammers of Moradin is underrated for Isshin lists. The double Myriad opens up some politicking opportunities for how to direct the attacks.

My meta has a lot of token go-wide strats, and any of the token decks running Red usually feature some combination of Impact Tremors, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Goblin Bombardment, and now Witty Roastmaster. I can see how it would be win-more, but for us the ETB damage from consistent token creation can help close games without having to spread attacks out as much. It helps our token strats by letting them focus the player with the softest board presence, and still "punch" the other two players to some degree. Definitely a meta call for sure.

Although Mishra doesn't have draw stapled on like Severina Raine, I like that Mishra doesn't have to attack for his trigger. Severina is cool and all, but she needs a bit more investment from a decent board and preferably some Haste enabler.

Worrad75 on Attack-harmonicon

5 months ago

Thanks for the suggestions! These are all fantastic. You certainly know your way around an Isshin list!

I had Hammers of Moradin in my original list in my notes tab, not sure how it didn't make it; I'll swap that in for Commissar Severina Raine as a budget option. It seems better in the midgame anyways, where people have some blockers but not a massive boardstate.

i feel silly for not thinking of Ogre Battledriver sooner! I had it in my old krenko deck and it's an absolute HOUSE. Its coming in. Fervor not being a creature and Ardoz not giving things other than the 1/1s haste seem like deal breakers for the moment.

Zhentarim Bandit is one I haven't seen and I think I'll swap it in for Honored Crop-Captain for now; My only reservation is that the 2/1 body seems a bit too fragile to attack with unless I have something to give it evasion/protection, so it seems conditionally good. That being said, its a 2 drop and mana is good at all points of the game so the floor is probably higher than that of crop-captain, although the ceiling is lower.

I like Tocasia's Welcome, but I think I prefer Thorough Investigation just because I happen to have 2 other really good venture cards, and in my goldfishing I've run into a couple situations where I have tons of mana and no card draw, so its a bit of a hedge. It also works as a nice plan B if I can pair it with Emberwilde Captain and play psuedo pillowfort in a pinch. Certainly an option after more field-testing though.

I like Inquisitorial Rosette but not sure what i'd take out for it. Maybeboard for now.

I've flipflopped a lot on the etb damage trigger cards, another card I've considered in that slot would be Goblin Bombardment. They all just seem like win-more cards in this deck, haste enablers would result in roughly the same amount of damage and have a higher floor. Also since I'm taking out Severina Raine for the moment, the group slug subtheme is more just Mishra at this point (finger's crossed I get to double his melded attack trigger at least once, that would be epic!)