Can you Animate Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
General forum
Posted on Sept. 26, 2013, 7:53 a.m. by Raguto
According to the stack and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn s zone-changing ability, When Emrakul is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library.
Can I use in response to him going to the graveyard these cards? Necromancy , Animate Dead , Corpse Dance and the effect of emrakul's ability still activate?
If you have an instant speed animation spell/ability (Corpse Dance / Whip of Erebos ), or if you use something like Quicken / Alchemist's Refuge in response to the triggered "put into graveyard' ability, you could reanimate it with before the ability resolves.
The ability would still resolve, and you would shuffle your graveyard into your library.
Note that his "When cast" ability will not trigger so you will not get an extra turn. As well, the animation spell/ability can still be countered.
September 26, 2013 8:03 a.m.
My mistake... Whip of Erebos can only be activated when you could play a Sorcery.
September 26, 2013 8:04 a.m.
Yeah.. sorry, do you think 1 turn bring back cards are worth it? considering necromancy, goryo's, corpse dance all bring a creature back until the end of your turn then they are exiled.
I normally use animate dead in a deck since the creature stays on the battlefield.
September 26, 2013 8:06 a.m.
The Necromancy though states that put that creature into play as though it were just played would that count as casting or is casting only applied when spending the mana cost?
September 26, 2013 8:08 a.m.
Let me rephrase this a little better okay, It's my turn and I have Zombie Infestation down on the battlefield and I have say 4 cards in my hand one of the cards is Animate Dead and one of the cards is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn .
In this case let's say I use zombie infestation and I discard emrakul and some other card then in response to emrakul going to the graveyard I use an enchantment aura called Animate Dead now why wouldn't this work when I could use it and choose a creature in my graveyard to enchant? the new writing is this> I know it's not an instant but I'm still playing it when an instant or sorcery could be played.
Enchant creature card in a graveyard
When Animate Dead enters the battlefield, if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with Animate Dead." Return enchanted creature card to the battlefield under your control and attach Animate Dead to it. When Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it.
September 26, 2013 8:14 a.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #8
You should probably check out Todd Anderson's GP Kansas City deck. Goryo's Vengeance is prettymuch it.
September 26, 2013 8:17 a.m.
AegairEtapa says... #9
You can't play Animate Dead in response to the Emrakul trigger unless you have a way of giving it flash. Since the Emrakul trigger is on the stack you can't cast sorcery speed spells, even though it is your main phase as sorcery speed is during your mainphase when nothing is on the stack.
September 26, 2013 9:12 a.m.
harrydemon117 says... #10
Enchantments, sorceries, artifacts, creatures, and abilities that say "only when you can cast a sorcery" are allowed when the stack is empty and it is your turn (unless you have an effect that changes this such as what is printed on Necromancy ). You cannot cast the enchantment Animate Dead as it is an enchantment without the printed ability that is on Necromancy .
When Emrakul, the Aeons Torn goes into the graveyard he has a triggered ability that gets placed on the stack. The only things that can be responded to this are the following:
instants, cards with the ability "flash" printed on them, abilities from permanents who do not have summoning sickness and do not have timing restrictions (such as Whip of Erebos ).
Since Animate Dead is an enchantment without "flash", you can't normally cast this in response. However, you could cast Rescue from the Underworld since it is an instant and you have a creature to sacrifice for the extra cost
September 26, 2013 9:28 a.m.
Thanks for the many responses I have a few more questions still.
@harrydemon117- in response to what Rayenous was saying if I take the instant Quicken to change a sorcery in my hand into an instant could I cast 2 instants before emrakul's graveyard ability activates? Such as! Quicken + Exhume , Quicken + Soul Exchange , Quicken + Twilight's Call ?
I'm going through looking at the most efficient ways of playing this out and I don't want to pay the money for Goryo's Vengeance I would rather play around that in a little different way by either using quicken or using Alchemist's Refuge like Rayenous suggested.
I suppose if I wanted to use Alchemist's Refuge I would have to have the land out use the tap ability and then use zombie infestation to sacrifice emrakul and then use animate dead since nonland cards can be played as though they had flash.
September 26, 2013 9:48 a.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #12
As stated before, you can only reanimate Emrakul at instant speed. The only times you can cast something at sorcery speed (creatures, artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, sorceries) are when:
1) It is your main phase
2) The stack is empty
3) You have priority
In the case of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn , reanimation using a card like Goryo's Vengeance is absolutely worth it. Even if it goes away at the end of turn, forcing your opponent to sacrifice six permanents is backbreaking as all hell.
September 26, 2013 9:54 a.m.
Yeah I know it's worth it now but as I said I don't really want to pay the money for goryo's, I'm going to end up also looking for a card like Pull from Eternity to bring him back from the exiled zone if I do end up going with goryo's.
September 26, 2013 9:57 a.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #14
There are very few cards (if any) that will bring an exiled card back to your hand or library. Pull from Eternity won't work because Emrakul's ability triggers from anywhere, so he would just exile himself again.
September 26, 2013 10:09 a.m.
No, he would go to the graveyard in where I could then use another instant to bring him from the graveyard to the battlefield once again.
September 26, 2013 10:10 a.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #16
That you could do, but it would be more efficient to just reanimate him the first time he hits the grave. Just sayin.
Or, trying to reanimate the same Emrakul over and over again after he exiles himself just seems goofy (if that's where you were going with the idea).
September 26, 2013 10:14 a.m.
AegairEtapa says... #17
Reanimating and attacking with Emrakul once should be just about enough to win you the game, or put you into a position where winning the game from there is pretty much guaranteed. At least in 1v1.
September 26, 2013 10:21 a.m.
Has anyone actually made a viable deck with Emrakul and was actually able to spend 15 mana to cast it from their hand for the extra turn? I seriously doubt it.
@AegairEtapa, I know that should be enough I'm going to be playing casually against my friend and I wanna show him up but I don't wanna spend 100 dollars to do it so I'm working on creating a deck around 60-70 bucks.
September 26, 2013 10:31 a.m.
sabrepaisan says... #19
I actually have hard cast emrakul, but it was in a deck where i was trying to use goryo's vengeance and what not. Its only happened in 1 game but ive done it. Goryo's vengeance and rescue from the underworld are ur best options. Something like quicken into a sorcery speed should technically work but u put yoursef at more risk for disruption. I would focus on having the sure thing and counterspells. U can always trade for the instant reanimators.
September 26, 2013 11:10 a.m.
harrydemon117 says... #21
@Raguto:
There's a reason why certain cards are worth so much lol. Are you trying to build this for a "fun deck" or a "viable competitive deck"? If the latter, then adding a 3 card combo of Quicken + Exhume + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn won't be viable as the cards won't come up that often. Legacy is FULL of fast/efficient decks that will have you dead long before you can get those combos off.
As for your questions above, yes if you use Quicken
or Alchemist's Refuge
you can cast your sorceries when the ability triggers from Emrakul (just activate AR or cast Quicken
and THEN use your sorcery).
You are wanting to get Emrakul out without casting him I understand. , If you are playing modern, I would suggest using a "Tron" deck such as this one here: Urza's Day Spa they can hard cast Emrakul easier than you think
September 26, 2013 11:37 a.m.
Turn 1: Swamp, Dark Ritual , Entomb (finding Blightsteel Colossus , Goryo's Vengeance . Totes amaze.
September 26, 2013 11:48 a.m.
Turn 1: Swamp, Dark Ritual , Entomb (finding Blightsteel Colossus , Goryo's Vengeance , win. Totes amaze. Chances of it happening are slim, but fun to have the option.
September 26, 2013 11:50 a.m.
there are other easier ways to cheat him out. Polymorph for example. As in my Eldrazi Control deck. Just run tokens and cheap to activate man lands like Mutavault and run him as the only creature card. Turn 4 emrakul :)
September 26, 2013 12:24 p.m.
It doesn't need to be super competitive, the only person I really play against is 1-2 friends, we kinda go through this thing where we try to out counter each other, I'm looking through lots of cards to just try and make my own deck and improve it from there but thanks very much for the suggestions.
Instead of doing the quicken thing I'm adding in Alchemist's Refuge and going with another animate card instead. Probably make my deck island/white with another land that gives me any color to my mana pool to pull off alchemist's refuge.
September 26, 2013 12:45 p.m.
@smackjack Very nice actually, a few things though, your deck is 59 cards, with that number of creatures you might be able to actually just add in enough stuff to get the mana to play emrakul.
September 26, 2013 12:50 p.m.
@Raguto You could do extreme ramp to play him. But the deck is designed to take control of the board before he enters. Exile, counter and wrath the board until you hit the 4 mana you need to get him out. Instead of ramp cards that doesnt do anything but building up mana you can respond to almost everything your opponent plays until you drop the most powerful creature in the game :). Its a blast to play haha. One weakness: opponent can Doom Blade the creature targeted by Polymorph . That just means that the game will last a bit longer since almost everything you have deals with your opponents threats ;). And i use Entreat the Angels and Celestial Colonnade as a backup plan (i have won as much games with the angels as with emrakul)
September 26, 2013 1 p.m.
.. And Entreat the Angels are over 9000 times better with Brainstorm in the deck letting you put it on the top of your library any time.
September 26, 2013 1:08 p.m.
It isnt :P. The decklist you see are an div element covering up the real decklist (so i can put a background there hehe). There are 60 cards in the list you see, seems like there is only 59 cards in the list underneath it.. I will take care of that now.
September 26, 2013 1:10 p.m.
oh.. actually there was 60 cards in the real list :P. I just forgot to change the count on the sorceries from 15 to 16 :).
September 26, 2013 1:14 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #33
A couple rule-related things:
In response to the original post: Emrakul, the Aeons Torn has no activated abilities. The last ability is a triggered ability. Triggered abilities trigger; activated abilities are activated.
In response to post 1:5: Casting is the process by which you take a card, put it onto the stack, make relevant decisions for it (mode, targets, etc.), and pay its costs. You cast Necromancy , but Necromancy doesn't cause you to cast anything else.
In response to post 1:10: Quicken doesn't change a sorcery into an instant. It just changes the timing restriction on sorcery spells for a specified duration. The sorcery is still a sorcery.
Zombie Infestation does not cause you to sacrifice anything. Discarding is a completely different game action from sacrificing.
September 26, 2013 1:33 p.m.
harrydemon117 says... #35
Show and Tell and Sneak Attack are still good ways to get Emarkul out :)
sylvannos says... #2
You can respond to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 's trigger of going to the gravyard with instants or cards with flash. Animate Dead can't be cast as an instant; however, you can target Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with Necromancy , Goryo's Vengeance , etc. since they are instants or can be cast whenever an instant can be played.
Also, questions like this are best asked in the Q&A.
September 26, 2013 7:59 a.m.