Thoughts, HairyManBack? This is the funniest budget brew I could come up with, so far.

lol, i absolutely love it! This is by far your best Timmy build I've seen. My head has been wrapped up in Modern and the emerge ability since I got those cards.

The thought has now crossed my mind to revisit Standard just to abuse emerge and Eldritch Evolution. That's it.

Thoughts on your deck as follows: Thinking of mixing a color? Elder Deep-Fiend and Distended Mindbender are just absurd if it's rolling. Even mana color friendly Abundant Maw is excellent. Not digging It of the Horrid Swarm much. You could even run a 1x of that art/enc destroyer. But maybe a meta call for mb.

If you did splash it would be quite easy with the sheer amount of mana dorks. Personally, blue or black just annihilate. I prefer Mindbender, certainly. But that's in my Jund build. My Simic build now runs 4x Elder. The whole feel is really different but effective. More quick and powerful on multiple levels.

Alter Ego looks like it's got some good targets. Unfortunately it doesn't trigger 'while' casting costs. But I still think it deserves some slots.

Your definitely pushing the fat Eldrazi's hard here. I'm wondering if a couple should come out with some other smaller-mid sized targets. Tireless Tracker and not-so-budget Sylvan Advocate. Putting some threats early on the board that pay off late game are always nice in ramp these days.

If you did decide to cut down on the Eldrazi replacing a few forest with Sanctum of Ugin has no downfall but just great replacements. I think if Ugin came in you may feel inclined to reduce Seek the Wilds. Never played the card and it looks cool. My thinking was playing nice rock solid creatures that keep giving (Tireless Tracker, etc.) and sac Ugin to keep the end game gas going.

I was thinking I'd probably have to branch into other colors to get enough value creatures; it's just dead at the bottom of green and especially for purposes of emerging. I'm thinking probably black as the main go-to; the ideal curve would currently be Emissary, Swarm, Pig, Pig for the win, but the Mindbender could do some solid work at giving me a late-game.

TO THE DRAWING BOARD!

Sweet man. Liking the black splash. Though Elder Deep-Fiend is a crusher Mindbender is also an excellent route. Plus Abundant Maw is an excellent buddy to Mindbender.

After reading your description here last night I said, "What the hell... why not?" Made a jank G/B emerge deck and played 4-5 games. Granted a lot of my decent Standard cards got sold and traded for Modern I could work with a rough draft.

Foul Emissary is really good for Standard. In fact, I saw him in a top 8 list just abusing him with Eldrazi Displacer. But I did notice that emerge is not what it is in Modern. There's no 1CC mana dorks so the combo is a turn behind. Standard doesn't offer creatures like Kitchen Finks, which is a huge blow to the theme. But not an end all.

Thought a delirium build would be best with these archetypes. But now were talking $$$ to get the key Liliana and Flayer. However, I truly believe those cards are going to quickly spike down. They're good for what they do but I'm still not sold.

For a sloppy delirium job Pilgrim's Eye would be nice. Guarantee the 4th land to emerge. No one destroys Pilgrim anyways. And it will feed delirium. That would also open up Titan's Presence for excellent removal. And then I start to think on Wasteland Strangler and Matter Reshaper.

Point being I believe it works well with 3CC creatures with ETB effects. Otherwise it seems clunky thus far.

I was on the edge about Pilgrim's Eye because of how little else it would be used for, but it could be worth it.

Are the emergers really doing that well in modern? I expected them to be standard staple cards but not much else even with the power level of Elder Deep-Fiend. With the one game I've actually managed to play with EMN cards (homemade draft of sorts) that one wasn't really a good tempo play. It just straight-up ended games. In one, my opponent played the game-winning Bruna, which is practically impossible to kill, out-value, or even get past in limited... screwed out of blue, I drew a land, hard-casted it for 8, and won.

I've been avoiding Matter Reshaper because of its hard casting cost in this deck for what it does, either trying to keep the triple green for a Pig or the double-color costs of many other things.

From my experience with limited, I can say one thing for sure: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE Chittering Host. The best part is, if I've got the rules right, Altered Ego is made useful for two things. One: It can copy the melded back face as a 4 mana 5/6 haste, menace, mass +1/+0 menace. Two: It's one of two answers in standard that exist against Brisela, Voice of Nightmares. Casting it for 5 is probably the most frustrating thing you could possibly do to any opponent. This might apply in Modern too, by the way.

Titan's Presence is a SWEET find for this deck (Thanks!).

I'm not sure what I would take out for removal... Suggestions?

I'd say an Abundant Maw and a Seek the Wilds. 2x is a nice number here cuz there's always that one guy...

Still uncertain if emerge can be broken in Modern. For semi-budget decks there monsters. An author/player on StarCityGames wrote a great article with half a dozen brews on it. All of them looked very mean. I think it's one of those cards that it'll take time for people to work with. Modern does have a lot of support to abuse it's costs. One thing that does suck about Distended Mindbender (my fav) is it's a sloppy drop against aggro. Unless you get him out 3rd turn. In Abzan and Jund builds they have help with insane removal. But how effective it is is yet to be seen.

Don't know if Pilgrim will be worth it. At least not 4x. Maybe though. I was making more reference to a tempo-delirium build. Of course, that moves more into midrange. I was thinking more on the lines of Distended Mindbender to close out games after solid creatures and removal.

Midnight Scavenger combo looks farfetched to me. But idk. You've proven me wrong more than once. I'd love to try it out. It feels so good when you meld!

I realized that It of the Horrid Swarm is a particularly good way to flip a Voldaren Pariah  ^Flip, particularly if you got a 3/2 from Foul Emissary. At the rates I'm paying, I think it's a pretty hard hit compared to anything else I had, and it comes from a different direction. I don't know if it will work, but it seems pretty solid.

Pilgrim's Eye seems to improve the matchup against a lot of things because it allows for fringe lands that would normally be covered by the mana dorks... A great tool against control decks, even if Gaea's Revenge and Rogue's Passage would need boarded in for games two and three. It ensures that Altered Ego will come down against Brisela, which is DEFINITELY good.

This seems pretty rad I completely forgot Seek The Wilds was a thing, I might try those in my emerge deck, the same with pilgrim's eye.All in all it seems like a pretty neat deck

Good to hear, BirdmanWhy. Thanks!

Those have served me well in keeping the right things coming along at the right times. Best of luck with them.

Any suggestions?

Thinking of making changes after facing my friend's new KLD Turbo'mrakul deck. First thoughts: Change of mana dorks, Lost Legacy, and possibly Conduit of Ruin. The Conduit is a bit of an abstract thought that came up from other stuff.

I think the new mana dork Servant of the Conduit is a tad better than Deathcap Cultivator in this Sultai build. Generally, I find I'm not tapping these shitty 2CC mana dorks more than twice. But maybe your build is different. Personally, I'm still sold on Beastcaller Savant since you've added him to one of your original Emerge builds. However, if your keeping Lost Legacy I could see why you would want to run Cultivator or Conduit.

On a side note I am a bit disappointed in the energy mechanic thus far. Seems like it's missing 2-4 cards to make it worth it. Especially with Aether Hub and Harnessed Lightning looking so promising in competitive play. Maybe next set...

Yeah. It was indeed mainly for the Lost Legacy. I've found that I've been drifting away from blue because of inconvenient bounce targets and sheer superiority of Decimator of the Provinces over Elder Deep-Fiend for ending games. In testing I've found that curving up mana-correction into hardcasts works nicely, but I was definitely considering Servant of the Conduit. I got a playset of Beastcaller Savant so I may still use them as a way of swarming out faster.

I agree about energy being kinda disappointing. It had a good start, but the different pieces don't tie together particularly well. It's... there. It works. The cards are powerful. They just don't have that much synergy under energy itself, so you might have a few stray counters and value creatures, but that's about it. If I curve Oath into Seek into Emissary into Mindbender into Legacy, I have a more advanced board, a massive creature that can't be removed, a value creature, the perfect hand, and you no longer have half of your wincons. Minor details.

On the line of Energy, I was considering the possibility of using Demon of Dark Schemes and Aetherworks Marvel but I'm not sure how well I could cast the first and I'm not sure if the second is effective enough.

In the couple playtests I just did, though, Conduit of Ruin seems to be particularly nice if I can get to it. Decksearch cantrip that allows for more cantripping, and some ramp to hardcast emergers for its own mana cost? SWEET, if you ask me.

Any neat brews of your own recently?

Yeah, I definitely am digging the Conduit of Ruin. How exactly I would use him with Emerge cards, I don't know. But something to look at.

Absolutely zero brews lately. Just bored with Standard really. Don't know how hyped I am for Kaladesh. Like most sets there's a few cards I love and the rest is bullshit mostly. Or as they say nowadays, "it's for limited."

Kaladesh looks like one of those sets that is going to be super cool with the whole block. Not sure if I'm too pessimistic. Again I was really hoping this energy mechanic was really going to take off.

Alright. I decided ramptastic wasn't the way to go. Since I did that playtesting, I've added one Gonti and one Lurker. HairyManBack, I challenge thee to find a brew that can beat this... thing... Splendid Turbo'Mrakul is the other big one to beat this coming standard that I know of. The only way I know of to beat it is Lost Legacy because of the practically guaranteed stall and turn 5-8 Emrakul, the Promised End.

NotSquishedYet - My man, my time is done with the site and magic. I've had a long run of some 15 years and it's run it's course.

I whole heartily hope you the best in your schooling and all your life long goals... whichever, they may be.

Maybe I'll catch you around when I least expect it. May your time with Magic be fruitful and fun always. Carry the torch as a brewer. A Magic type that is quickly becoming more and more extinct. But I'm glad for our work and insights together. Likely, I wouldn't have stayed around as long as I did without a friend showing me simple yet effective brewers were still playing the game.

This will be my last message on the site. Best of luck, my friend.

Caleb (HairyManBack)

Shufflefist, any thoughts on the deck? I noticed it's in a couple folders.

Have you considered Elder Deep-Fiend? I know it's a little pricey, but it's a beast of a creature against control, aggro, and basically any deck.

I'll just throw a bunch of ideas at you:

Some great cards for this deck you might want to consider are Duskwatch Recruiter  ^Flip which can help you dig, and really speeds things up if it gets flipped.

Loam Dryad, which can be a great ramp card, since you can tap down things like Foul Emissary, get a mana out of it, and then still be able to sac Foul Emissary for emerge. Of course Matter Reshaper is just sick in emerge decks, and you could pay for it with Sanctum of Ugin.

Other good creatures for possible emerging:Catacomb Sifter, Exultant Cultist if your willing to deal with the Blisterpod, but maybe this belongs more in an Aristocrats deck.

Voldaren Pariah  ^Flip is also a good card that might be able to find a home here. Cryptolith Rite is great in emerge decks where you can first tap your creatures for mana, and then sacrifice them, but it is a little expensive.

Also, I'm not sure what Wild Wanderer and Vexing Scuttler have to offer. Wild Wanderer is good, but you could probably find better things to do for 4 mana, and there might be better emerge creatures for this deck than Vexing Scuttler.

Maybe you could tell me what your thoughts on Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter are.

Counterspell / removal heavy decks might pose a bit of a problem, but the flash mechanic of Elder Deep-Fiend might be able to help.

All in all, your deck looks great. +1 from me!

Well, this is a little more of a word-wall than I'd expected... I think it answers just about everything, though. I do appreciate the sounding off of all kinds of ideas!

Funny enough, I've actually had most of those in the deck at one point. I'm still considering Voldaren Pariah  ^Flip but it seemed like at most points where I could use it to gain massive board advantage I could merely win the game instead with Decimator of the Provinces. Perhaps it will be back with a vengeance...

Duskwatch Recruiter  ^Flip, while very good for the long game, was eventually taken out because it was one card less I could use for emerging, and if the game went that long they probably killed it early on anyway. I still own a bunch, so it's up for debate if they turn out to be useful in the new meta post-rotation.

I've been unsure on Loam Dryad, again, for the critical mass of creatures that I can bust a bigger one out of. The main reason I'm not already planning on a load of Matter Reshapers is the mana-base. As it is, I'm currently rather broke, and I doubt that it could be played without messing up the curve. Also, there's the detail that even Rashmi, Eternities Crafter rarely did more than cantrip. They would be nice, but it lacks the double board-advantage of getting a free creature out consistently.

Wild Wanderer, I've been thinking about and debating its worth against Primal Druid or something else entirely. It fixes mana and lines up for whatever larger creature I'm looking to play, like Decimator of the Provinces. Vexing Scuttler has been a maybeish inclusion to emerge for 1 after a Sanctum of Ugin for card advantage. The one-ofs are all situational eldrazi to be fetched with Sanctum of Ugin to improve the situation juuuuust right for the win in a turn or two. Stuff like that is actually how this deck wins, if you'd like to give it another go. Resource management for speed versus advantage is key; against some decks playing it out slowly and never wasting the solid value of an emerger will pull the win. Against most, however, I would sacrifice a Foul Emissary to play an It of the Horrid Swarm fetched with a Sanctum of Ugin from my last Distended Mindbender, and immediately sacrifice that It of the Horrid Swarm to play a second Distended Mindbender.

I do have one Elder Deep-Fiend that was in here for a long time, but it only delayed an opponent by one turn where a Decimator would have won. I've considered having two Decimators here, in place of it... Catacomb Sifter was heavily considered but I found that its ability was unfortunately not of much use because I wanted to be sacrificing IT instead of something else to keep the tempo.

Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter came in as a grindy way to hold out when I have nothing to cast, somewhat in place of Duskwatch Recruiter  ^Flip now that I think about it. It can stop some early aggro, tries to guarantee no dead turns, and builds board state. I, personally, actually don't know how well she warrants the slots, but I took it on good faith that she was good because of a friend's prerelease report of something like: Sooo Oviya won every single game I played her in with ease, and I got 3 of Chandra, Torch of Defiance from the packs. Playtesting feedback would probably be good on her.

I had a weird thought a few days ago that Void Grafter might actually deserve a home here. I have some on hand, so I could try it out in some of the flex slots, if you'd like to make suggestions of where. I'm also thinking of re-dropping Macabre Waltz entirely for one Seek the Wilds and another creature slot.

I'll bet there was at least one isle of play you might not have seen in testing (I believe you did some; apologies if not): Sacrifice an emerge creature, perhaps a Distended Mindbender from turn 4, to play Lashweed Lurker hitting something important and proceeding to play Gonti, Lord of Luxury taking either it or something else like hard removal for another one or two creatures and shuffling away the rest. It's brutal, from every time I've used it in a game. If you did do testing (with a U/W control deck, yes?) I would be happy to hear how it went in detail, and happy to try and see if there was any way I could have pulled through myself.

Glad to hear that the deck looks good! Cheers, friend!

NotSquishedYet, I did more playtesting with your deck, and I must say, it plays very smoothly. It can really flood the board with creatures, and escalated into MONSTERS far more quickly than I anticipated. In short, enough to give any deck a run for its money. I agree with everything you said, and think pretty much all of your card choices were good. Sanctum of Ugin, like you said, did turn out to be a key card to this deck, and I did see the use of Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter. Altered Ego was interesting, sometimes a huge hit, sometimes not. Even Wild Wanderer did it's thing. Decimator of the Provinces was definitely a big wincon, and you might want to add a second. There were times when your deck would have won the next turn, but the Decimator got killed.

Surprisingly, this deck had a little trouble with aggro, to combat this you might want to consider adding some removal. That would help a lot in many situations. Eliminating blockers, taking out threats. Maybe just some Grasp of Darkness or Ruinous Path in the sideboard.

Void Grafter is and interesting thought. There were definitely a few times when some key creatures got killed and it cost you the game, and that might have been prevented with Void Grafter. You'll have to decide if you can realistically anticipate a removal spell, and leave three mana open.

Sadly, I never hit the Lashweed Lurker into Gonti, Lord of Luxury combo, _ but the Lurker did some good work for sure.

The deck played great, the only suggestions I would have would be to maybe add another Decimator of the Provinces, and some removal, either sideboard or mainboard. Eliminate the Competition could be interesting here...

Cheers to Tentacles!

If you want a blow-by-blow replay of the match between this deck and my Torrential Tides Dimir control deck, it was pretty interesting. I would say both deck were pretty evenly matched, and it basically came down to the luck of the draw at the end. I can't remember the exact turns, but it was something like this:

(Note: this is not turn-by-turn, and other things may have happened in between. I can't remember everything.)

Game 1:

Early game:

You: Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter, Beastcaller Savant, Foul Emissary, Pilgrim's Eye. Right on curve, a little mana screwed for black. Hand was something like Distended Mindbender, Lashweed Lurker, some lands.

Me: Killed Foul Emissary, returned Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter and Beastcaller Savant to your hand, which you promptly played again the next turn. Gained some card advantage, Anticipate, Glimmer of Genius, got a little mana-flooded.

Mid game:

You: Emerge creatures started to come down. Distended Mindbender, taking my Elder Deep-Fiend and something else. Saced Sanctum of Ugin for Decimator of the Provinces? (Some giant emerge creature anyway.) Played some emerge creatures. Things started to get ugly.

Me: Down on life significantly, Got down a Metallurgic Summonings, flashed out Torrential Gearhulk, recasting a removal spell, getting some tokens. Picked up a timely Summary Dismissal, wiping your board.

You: Played Decimator of the Provinces, which I countered.

Me: Managed to play a Rise from the Tides, for around 8 Zombies, game over. Barely pulled it off.

Game 2:

Early game:

You: Oath of Nissa, Seek the Wilds, Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter, Primal Druid, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, netting an island you were missing to cast Lashweed Lurker and Wretched Gryff.

Me: Early game was a little uneventful, took a lot of damage. Drew an early Summary Dismissal to clear the board.

Mid Game:

You: Emerge creatures: Distended Mindbender, Lashweed Lurker, Wretched Gryff. Saced Sanctum of Ugin multiple times to fetch Decimator of the Provinces, and It of the Horrid Swarm.

Me: Played Metallurgic Summonings, which you bounced to the top of my library multiple times with Lashweed Lurkers. Very annoying. Getting very low on life, needed something to bail me out. Nothing showed. I managed to kill a few creatures, also deal some damage from tokens.

You: Cast Decimator of the Provinces. I managed to acquire a few tokens from Metallurgic Summonings to block down various creatures, but still took trample damage.

Me: About to die. At 2 life. I pulled a Summary Dismissal off the top and wiped the board. I then proceeded to draw a Rise from the Tides, netting 10 Zombies.

You: Drew nothing but land. I swung with the hordes of Zombies, and ended it. Barely.

Like I said, it came down to the draw. If I hadn't draw that one Summary Dismissal, it would have been over for me. Likewise, if you had drawn just a litte better on game 2, it would have been yours.

I have no doubt your deck would have won at least one of those games in your hands. (One successful Lost Legacy on Summary Dismissal, eh?)

I can foresee many decks being trample over by yours.

I'm afraid there's an issue... I'm not surprised, though. It's easily understandable and I've seen good players fall for it all the time. Summary Dismissal is nothing more than a counterspell. "Spells" awkwardly refers to only cards being cast at the moment. It's worded like that because of Grapeshot or similar cards copying themselves 20 times, so that it "counters" (into exile) all 20 copies at once.

I must say, though, thank you very much for the detailed explanation! I hadn't thought of Metallurgic Summonings into Torrential Gearhulk the very next turn. That's quite the combo, for sure! I can't think of any board wipes to compensate at the moment, but Lost Legacy is really good at taking out my Distended Mindbenders. Without them, I'm far less capable of buying time and removing opposing win conditions. And, god forbid, a second one will remove my Decimators. If for nothing else, I like your deck because it's unique and, all in all, neat. Giving it its full credit, though, it looks powerful! Perhaps a little less card advantage for more removal would be good, but I can definitely see it causing serious problems for all kinds of other decks.

Again, thank you! The overview will help a lot in refining this deck. I may return Altered Ego entirely to the sideboard, but I'm glad to hear that the durdly inclusions helped. I think I'll trade my Elder Deep-Fiend for the second all-in Decimator of the Provinces. I'll see what I can do with removal, and cheers indeed to smashy tentacles galore.

I just realized that. I looked up the rules, and you are very right. Soo, the Dimir Control deck might need a little work. heh, heh. Will need some good board wipes. Maybe Fumigate, and make it esper. Anyway, thanks so much for the pointers. This helps me a lot to avoid future embarrassment. Well then, let me say, in absence of the "board wipes", you deck definitely won. :)