MTG Salvation

I put this list together 5 days or so ago and have been playing this deck on Cockatrice. It's been fairly successful against a variety of the usual suspects, Radha, Mimeoplasm, Grand Arbiter, Thraximunder, Animar, Griselbrand and Maelstrom Wanderer so far. The Derevi match against the more usual Derevi list was terrible for me, but I'm not certain if it was bad match or bad hands.

This list is heavy control into one of the following combos into Emrakul, The Aeons Torn:

• Oath of Druids
  
• Polymorph
  
• Proteus Staff

The primary win condition is obviously Emrakul, but Derevi is a credible threat with a sword or Jitte, so he can act as a back up win condition backed by the control and removal suite. Most of the time Derevi is acting as a defensive spell and way to tap down mana for opponents counters of key spells. I suspect this is not as strong as a control/small creature Derevi deck, but it's a lot of fun.


Tell me what you all think, are there any obvious cards I'm missing for this strategy?

Here's what I've got for matches on cockatrice so far with this list:
radha 1-0
Radha 1-0
Geist 1-2
Oloro 1-1 had game but lost to play error
Griselbrand 3-2
Derevi creature build 0-1
Oloro 1-0
Arbiter 1-1
Animar 4-1
Wandere 1-0
momir vig 0-2
Derevi creature build 1-2
Another derevi creature build 1-1
Wanderer 2-1
Rhys 2-0
venser 2-1
Clique 1-2

this deck seems really really fascinating, good job on creating such a unique and interesting list. wow. i like this a lot, it uses derevi like a squadron hawk, and seems to have a really good matchup against control. Im guessing you don't have the best matchup against aggro lists, whats your strategy for them besides oath?

Against aggro my best plays are wraths or a timely oath, otherwise there are too many targets for me to lock down. Decks that rely on general damage to win just get reamed by a combination of Derevi, Maze of Ith and Kor Haven.

Cataclysm is another solid play against aggro. I've gone from a clearly losing board state to Marit Lage against a single small dude and 1 land with this combo, and ended up easily winning. The main thing is not to get killed before you can answer, which it seems many of the Derevi creature aggro decks can do with counter backup. Supreme verdict has been one of the best spells in the deck for this reason, as it makes my worst match winnable if I can draw or tutor into it.

I realized the list is a little out of date. I'm running dark depths thespians stage now as well as a win con. Here is the current list:



Notable new picks include Dark Depths + Thespians Stage, and Scapeshiftto fetch it, as well as Seaside haven as a sac and draw outlet for Derevi. I also added Boseiju to put me over the top against control. Tolaria west was also added as part of this package to be able to tutor half of the dark depths combo, another utility land, or ancestral vision.

I also added Wargate as another method to fetch this land combo for 3, or it can get Oath of Druids for 5. Muddle the mixture was added as another counter along with transmute for Oath of Druids

Quote from Wildfire393

Have you considered Reweave as an additional Polymorph effect? It's a bit more expensive, but instant speed means you can pull it out EOT to stop your opponent from beating Emrakul with a Wrath.

I had not considered it (Kamigawa was the dark period when I quit playing Magic so I didn't even know this existed!) but I think it's worth testing, instant speed is indeed a boss way to get Emrakul on the board. If His Noodliness can attack before the opponent can respond at sorcery speed the game is usually over. Given the strong stall elements of the deck I should be able to get to the mana for it as well.

Quote from Omnom

If His Noodliness

actually since emeria is a derivative legend from emrakul, we can derive that somehow emrakul uses the feminine pronoun. So its "her" noodliness.

other than that the instant speed seems far better here.

Update on this deck. I've been playing on cockatrice for several weeks now, and found the combo is just too fragile. I can fairly consistently get the combo to go off, but it does not always win the game, which results in a fairly bad breakdown against a lot of decks.

I still want to make use of our Noodly friend, so I went with the following build, where Emrakul is used as a finisher, rather than being the only real wincon in the deck. It's been performing much better this way:




Many games play out exactly identical to the typical Derevi list, prison control lock down while beating with weenie creatures wearing swords. Occasionally I get a hilariously epic play using Defense of the Heart + Forbidden Orchard (Crop Rotation is great for setting this up). Use Defense to grab Emrakul and Stoneforge Mystic, Mystic grabs Lightning Greaves and swing for the finish.

My other favorite play is:
Birthing Pod Derevi into Academy Rector, then Flash Derevi in untapping pod. Pod Rector into Prophet of Kruphix and fetch Pattern of Rebirth (Obviously Rising Waters is another solid play here, but Emrakul is funnier), attach it to an evasive dude preferably, but a mana dork is also fine. Attack with said dork, if they block it dies and Emrakul is out, if they don't block, untap pod, and pod the dork into the next up the chain. I like Qasali pridmade because it can instant speed break most of the answers to Emrakul. Tutor Emrakul with the pattern trigger. All told the entire chain cost 7 mana and 6 life (not including initial Birthind Pod cast), much of which can be gotten using untap triggers from Derevi

Its pretty complicated, but it's surprising how many times I've had this exact scenario play out, leading me to believe it's fairly reliable and not a fluke. I think the main part is that nothing in that chain in cast except the initial Birthing Pod cast, so if you can slip it out, it really finishes the game.

Quote from Wildfire393

Natural Order might be something else to consider abusing. You can't get Emrakul with it, but with a lot of mana dorks, Craterhoof Behemoth is frequently lethal. Alternately, just grab Terastodon and blast their mana base.

I considered it, but I don't want to dilute my primary win condition too much by investing in many alt win cons. I thought about natural order + prime time as well, or Painter's servant to make Emrakul green, but I think I'm already pushing the "too cute" boundries with the inclusion of Emrakul, Pattern and Defense.

The new build is working out MUCH better than the more control oriented OP build. I played it in a 10 player tournament last night, and ended up winning out in straight games, not a single game loss. The tournament was not super competitive, but I faced a fairly strong Zur list and a fairly strong Rafiq list, along with less competitive Uril and Omnath lists. The addition of the Emrakul combos to the more standard Derevi list allowed me to use Emrakul as a "shut down everything" button when my opponents started to get out of hand.

Plan A is a typical Derevi lockdown through Hokori, Rising waters, Rishadan port, Derevi land taps with cheap counters. Mana dorks and swords round out a really strong plan A. If plan A gets answered (for example if I overextend into a wipe without a counter, or if the wipe is Supreme Verdict) Plan B can use the Emrakul combos, either Pattern of Rebirth or Defense of the Heart to swing the board back to my favor. It is very satisfying when your plan A is thwarted to use counters and removal as stall until you can combo out Emrakul, it really hurts the opponents morale.