Enuma Elish // The Epic of Babylon

Commander / EDH Aggro Cascade Equip UBRG Unblockable Voltron

CarthagoNova

Artifact (24)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Argentum Armor
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Champion's Helm
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Chromatic Orrery
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Conqueror's Flail
• 1x Darksteel Plate
• 1x Fireshrieker
• 1x Fleetfeather Sandals
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Key to the City
• 1x Lotus Bloom
• 1x Mox Tantalite
• 1x Ring of Xathrid
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1x Sword of Vengeance
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x The Immortal Sun
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Instant (9)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Forceful Denial
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Teferi's Time Twist
• 1x Veil of Secrecy

Land (34)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 5x Forest
• 1x Frontier Bivouac
• 5x Island
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Sea Gate, Reborn  ^Flip
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Watery Grave

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Ancestral Vision
• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Decimate
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Migration Path
• 1x Reshape the Earth
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Commander (1)

Creature (15)

• 1x Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait
• 1x Apex Devastator
• 1x Averna, the Chaos Bloom
• 1x Etali, Primal Storm
• 1x Maelstrom Wanderer
• 1x Moraug, Fury of Akoum
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Overbeing of Myth
• 1x Prime Speaker Zegana
• 1x Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Thassa, God of the Sea
• 1x Xenagos, God of Revels
• 1x Xyris, the Writhing Storm

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Aggravated Assault
• 1x Aqueous Form
• 1x Bear Umbra
• 1x Favor of the Overbeing
• 1x Hadana's Climb  ^Flip
• 1x Helm of the Ghastlord
• 1x Journey to Eternity  ^Flip
• 1x Phantom Wings

---

They rejoiced and offered congratulation: "Marduk is the king!"

Enuma Elish, The Babylonian Epic of Creation Tablet IV 28.

Tablet I // Introduction

With this deck we see Yidris take on the role of Marduk, the Babylonian god destined to tame the primal gods that birthed him and usher in a new age of creation with him at the helm. An aspect I love about Mesopotamian myth is their methodology towards creation - destruction and recycling. From the death of Apsu saw the birth of Marduk and it is Marduk who, in killing the vengeful Tiamat, will create the world as we know it. The mechanic of Yidris fits this I believe, in obliterating your opponents you create life through the cascade mechanic, multiplying your bounty from the suffering of your enemy.

Moreover, the process I have elected to do this effectively is through the use of artifacts, these are our tools of creation and which are mentioned throughout the Enuma Elish. These tools of course are weapons and armor, Marduk kicks down the door to Tiamat's lair bearing incredible, fantastical arms of destruction.

"They added to him a mace (Conqueror's Flail), a throne (Bolas's Citadel), and a rod (Isochron Scepter)."

"And filled his body with tongues of flame (Fireshrieker)."

"He rode the fearful chariot of the irresistible storm (Cyclonic Rift)."

"He was clad in a tunic, a fearful coat of mail (Argentum Armor//Darksteel Plate), and on has head he wore an aura of terror (Champion's Helm//Helm of the Ghastlord)."

The artifacts and enchantments go towards being true to the epic, but also turning Yidris into a god-like commander, being equipped with hexproof, indestructible and also being able to hit for large amounts of damage.

Finally, I wanted to also capture the world we are in, this is a world before its very conception and I wanted to replicate that with the monsters (few as they are).

In general, I wanted to keep the monsters as chaotic and primal as I could, keeping in mind the basic elemental forces stated at length in any creation narrative. The beasts in this myth are large, domineering but also defy logic.

Finally, I wanted to represent Tiamat, Marduk's adversary in the creation story, in two shades. We have Thassa, God of the Sea as that is exactly what she is, Goddess of the salt water and wife of Apsu of the fresh water. Water is a huge aspect in the creation myth and a huge part of Tiamat's indentity. Secondly, I wanted to express her raw unbridled power; Apex Devastator is a great depiction as historians do not have a consensus as to what her appearance was intended to be, dragon, serpent or otherwise. I believe Apex Devastator does a good job dealing with her ambiguity and I can believe that all the horrors that were birthed by Tiamat could be done by such a creature.

Tablet II // The arm of Marduk

Marduk famously killed Tiamat and then recycled her remains to create the world as we know it. I doubled down on Yidris' ability to hit face (destroy) => cascade (create) for this deck and that is a good segue into the core mechanic of this deck cascade or as it is stated by Marduk:

"I will bring together blood to form bone"

Yidris' ability states: "When you deal combat damage to a player, as you cast spells from your hand this turn, they gain cascade". Unlike spells that explicitly state "cascade" Yidris' cascade requires the spells be cast from your hand, not from say, the graveyard etc. The beautiful thing about cascade is that the ability stacks, granting Yidris double strike for example Fireshrieker means you get a double cascade. I have also added in Spark Double and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces so we can get more hits in with a Yidris clone and cash-in on cascade triggers. These adds are not assuming that Marduk had the ability to duplicate himself, rather I wanted to express his godly omnipresence.

In this deck, we are using cascade to get out our mana rocks, ramp spells and equipment. Some spells are added at detriment, such as Counterspell. To get the most out of our cascades I have added spells that have a way to reduce their cost, Mulldrifter for example has an evoke cost of 3, but when cast, we are cascading for its CMC of 6. Further, a card like Blasphemous Act is great because you won't get it out of a cascade, but you can cast it for cheap and get a really high cascade and potentially get something really expensive for free.

Combo

One way to overwhelm Tiamat with force is to do it much like Marduk did in the myth:

"He let fly an arrow and pierced her belly, he tore open her entrails and slit her inwards, he bound her and extinguished her life, he threw down her corpse and stood on it."

In other words, hit hard and fast and leave no cause for counter. Thus, this combo for infinite combo steps:

Bear Umbra/Sword of Feast and Famine + Aggravated Assault. If you can also secure a way to have Yidris hit face every time than victory is assured.

Tablet III // The wisdom of Ea

"He set his face toward the raging Tia-mat. In his lips he held a spell,"

Marduk has made his preparations for war, he is aware of his strengths but Tiamat is an old and crafty god and Marduk has weaknesses easily exploited, let's talk about them.

Our principal win con is hitting for commander damage, this deck allows for some fast play and if the cards are kind, we can get our opponents on the rope fairly fast. We know this, our opponents know this. We need to hit to win, therefore making our commander unblockable and invulnerable is key to a solid win. For unblockable, we have Rogue's Passage, Thassa, God of the Sea, Veil of Secrecy and others for explicit "unblockable" I also added some cards that give flying such as Phantom Wings. Haste is also important Fleetfeather Sandals as our opponents would like Yidris off the board before we can get our win con advancing forward. For that very same reason we need preservation, Heroic Intervention, Teferi's Time Twist etc., I have added in a lot of ramp to ensure that Yidris does not spend much time in the command zone, even if our opponents are killing him consistantly.

Tablet IV // The song of creation

I hope you all have enjoyed this creation of mine and shared in my enthusiasm. It was a lot of fun to pay homage to a story I love and I wanted to share it with you all. I hope you can appreciate and forgive that I did take some liberties in how I expressed this story, at no point in the story does Marduk fly, yet some cards may lead you to believe he does. Making a deck that is part gimmick and part playable is no easy feat and I meditated for a long time what flavor could drive this narrative and also drive home victory. Thank you to everyone who read and upvoted, if you are interested in Enuma Elish you can read it here.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Four Color 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Voltron 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	17 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.86
Tokens	Snake 1/1 G