if ever you play in a tournament or fnm, even if it's just a small one, I would like to hear more from you YJBh33ls. Interested to see how your build perform against the current decks in modern.
I don't believe so, in the meantime Bob49 and I hang in the Martyr Proc discord server, mainly cause I took it over with Emeria stuff. If you have questions / want a more active stream then thats where it would be, but idk how constructive it'll be. https://discord.gg/HR4Wrrt
Hello all, and a belated Merry Christmas to you as well, Fluff!
First off, I have missed a lot while in Europe, so I will recap changes to the format as I take the chance to voice quick responses to Plichow, Dean's Finest, and YJBh33ls, respectively:
The field of ruins were solid, and the basic island was also excellent, but I felt the ghost quarter was unnecessary.
I think it has become clear to me over time, Plichow, that access to Ghost Quarter is not absolutely required in the more aggressive versions of the deck, impeding Emeria activation too much if Field of Ruin can cover similar ground without putting you down a land. When things like Kaldra Compleat and Stoneforge Mystic or Ranger-Captain of Eos and Walking Ballista combine to end things swiftly, these cut off draw steps more directly in the late stages of your gameplan. However, I am still adamant that eventual access to Strip Mine is simultaneously a necessary evil and the best lategame possible for the slower builds that cannot turn the corner with offensive options.
an updated 2022 list (non-Yorion and without Solitude/Ephemerate so far, but updated the lists now again with those)
The banning of Yorion, Sky Nomad has simplified many of the dilemmas you mention, Dean's Finest, by simply taking the 80-card options out of our hands, which I tend to see as a good thing overall as including the Companion was a mixed blessing at best, and its removal has certainly improved the 4-colour Omnath pile matchups by first removing a threat from their sequencing and then by forcing their manabases onto a narrower tightrope with fewer redundancies.
would also love to hear peoples thoughts on Stoneforge vs traditional (creature heavy) versions in the current meta.
I am not sure whether the Stoneforge builds are favoured at the moment,YBJh331s, but I can confidently state that access to new Reconfigure options like Cloudsteel Kirin, Lion Sash and even The Reality Chip add a great deal of flexibility to the strategy, and do an excellent job of enhancing the Spirited Companion that these lists should typically be looking to run over Wall of Omens ever since that wonderful new attacking variant has become available. My feeling is that Emeria itself still passively discourages Stoneforge recursion by naturally extending the game to a point where it draws its its Equipment and runs the Kor Shaman out of targets later in the game, conversely giving a passive encouragement to an 0/4 Defender more by gaining access to its focused blocking power immediately on ETB. This means Control variants can better leverage Sweepers in general as a consequence of less investment in their (primarily defensive) board presence, but in my opinion this is only true in contexts where the Aggro and Midrange elements are more common than the Big Mana and Combo portion of the metagame, whereas a faster clock closing out the game rapidly gains back any lost equity against the latter two strategies.
But as I am myself just back from travel, and have been looking to return to casual tournaments with Emeria, my perspective may be skewed since I have moderate success at a 12-person tournament to point to with a clean 2-1 record only losing in the finals, the quick breakdown being a straightforward 2-1 win versus Izzet Murktide confirming my previous comfort level with the pairing, a well-earned 2-1 win versus 4-colour Wrenn and Six/Indomitable Creativity strongly indicating the viability of a new sideboard strategy, and a tough 1-2 loss versus Amulet Titan after failing to note life totals correctly, leading me to back out of an on-board win and therefore miss out on an undefeated evening. Rust is a real concern once again here for me, but most importantly I have some solid strategic improvements to report in the new configuration of my "classic board control" variant resulting in the following list:
I am once again running my trademark undecided 61 cards at the moment due to the recent overperformance of Elspeth Resplendent, who has impressed me enough to be a serious consideration in the maindeck currently, primarily as a way to find (and even ramp to, plus protecting!) Emeria, the Sky Ruin while digging for singletons or sideboard cards and producing the odd "surprise" Teferi, Time Raveler off of only white mana, all in a package that increases lifegain and turns specifically Mortarpod tokens but also more generally any random board presence into marginally upgraded Planeswalker pressure in resource-intensive matchups. The 12 non-Lesson cards in my sideboard, incidentally, have reflected the twin pressures of Elspeth and the Titans to become 100% 3-mana-or less permanents, which helps focus the post-board plans when making substitutions for games 2 and 3, and situationally boosts the "luxury reset" utility of Tef3ri's -3 ability, particularly by re-establishing ETBs once safely out of the "do whatever it takes to survive" early game.
The most notable gains come in the manabase and in the sideboard directly, though, where in the first instance I have cut Raugrin Triome and Raffine's Tower as too unwieldy to be of use in most matchups, much as it pains me to lose out on the lategame power-level upgrades for Prismatic Ending. I am not certain if cutting both is correct on this axis, since the appeal of 4-mana Endings is extremely tempting, but I am confident in stating that I can currently not reliably get to 5-mana Endings against Control opponents fast enough to prevent Teferi, Hero of Dominaria from activating his matchup-defining Ultimate ability. On the other hand, two-mana Endings are very consistent, and the low opportunity cost of adding a third colour with any Triome of choice seems to make 3-mana versions accessible for the lategame in around 60-70% of matches (which is good enough for me when the 1 and 2 mana modes are so strong generally), but at present the 4-mana version of Converge drops to being available below 50% of the time even in my bread-and-butter extended topdecking situations, and the 5-mana version sits at a highly unreliable 30% or less, with that only a factor in the longer games or in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds and Sun Titan powered fetchland recursion - which equates to an almost entirely tapland manabase for the games where I attempt to prioritize maximizing colour diversity in my lands.
This loss of 4 and 5 mana Converge capacity is not a net negative, however, since with the space I am pleased to welcome back Mistveil Plains as a way to recycle my overperforming Lesson sideboard removal package of Introduction to Annihilation and Reduce to Memory. Re-drawing these cards is notably quite valuable against the Control and Prison opponents which most appreciate Converge 4+ on Prismatic Ending, while the Mistveil's return restores my operational confidence against decks featuring infinite lifegain shenanigans. That is not all, however, and I have perhaps left the best for last since a real improvement has come along with the printing of Demolition Field, substantially solidifying my manabase disruption versus the unfair matchups by increasing my absolute "Field of Ruin" count to 5 (though it is also notable that I can now rely on a 3 Ruin and 2 Demolition split to better hedge against corner-case Pithing Needle and Surgical Extraction effects in some matchups). This was a good deal of the reason I got into the winning position against my finals opponent, and definitely helped me take game one against him to even get me into the post-board games in good shape. It is currently crucial to control both the Urza's Saga and the Simic Growth Chamber angles against Amulet Titan, and nothing covers those better than Ghost Quarter effects that do not set turn-by-turn mana development back - preferably activated both early and often. I believe 6 of the effect might be even better, but at that point the plethora of colourless sources begins make for a few too many non-functional hands in the two-colour builds I favour. I will, however, state that Mono-White versions may now have gained a real selling point through their ability to run up to 8 copies of the two "Fields" - an option with huge consequences.
My other real breakthrough comes with the sideboard, where beating unfair strategies has gone from a seriously unpredictable challenge to a legitimately focused - though still difficult to execute - gameplan of delay thanks to a thematic, elegant, and subtle dynamic enabled by multiple copies of Curse of Silence. The improvement touches on all Cascade variants, is currently well-positioned enough against Indomitable Creativity to have won two post-bard games in a row, is flexible enough to pose problems for Tron, and extends to spell-based or Creature-based combo, where the effect of pushing any of these decks two turns higher on the curve translates to two or more real chances at drawing the now-increased manabase disruption which is the most effective strategy when not running countermagic. Losing out on Lion Sash, Blossoming Calm, [EDIT: AND DRANNITH MAGISTRATE] is a pity, but the versatility of these 1-mana enchantments is extremely high against curve-cheating cards as significant compensation. They also streamline decision-making and complement each other surprisingly well in multiples, and include a hidden bonus 2W "cycle" mode when out of danger. Finally, I have not yet had a good chance to examine the Reclamation Sage function of Loran of the Third Path, and she may yet be replaced by a Haywire Mite to hedge against Burn and to keep the substitutions at a low mana cost in a more Emeria-friendly package, but for the moment this is my new configuration of choice.
Speaking of recommendations, the release of Brother's War has also granted us a massive Sideboard silver bullet for those interested in beating Living End by introducing Calamity's Wake to the card pool. (For the sake of completeness, I also think that the following list of white spells from that expansion have possible applications depending on specific builds: Recommission, Recruitment Officer, Lay Down Arms, Tocasia's Welcome, Soul Partition, and Kayla's Command. In the Artifacts, storyline spotlights The Stone Brain and The Stasis Coffin join Platoon Dispenser as new niche options, though the first two are more likely to matter against us by extending the toolboxes of Karn, the Great Creator decks. Finally, in variants splashing Black it is worthwhile to note the presence of Hero of the Dunes and Legions to Ashes as new possibilities, though I will specify that even these are quite unlikely to matter enough unless the build in question is already running multiple Raffine's Tower or some such to legitimately enable stronger funamental options - such as the old powerhouse Necrotic Sliver.) There are also new spoilers currently being released for Phyrexia: All Will be One, so as always I will keep an eye out for any potential new inclusions. Thus far, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines and Soulless Jailer appear to be the only two reasonable inclusions, but are at least intriguing ones.
As an end note, I would very much like to thank everyone for continuing on with this thread when so much of the playerbase seems to have fragmented rather badly in the mass move towards Discord and Twitch. The continuity of this ongoing discussion has not been replicated in my forays onto the Discord, where the communication is heavily biased towards addressing shorter-term surface-level problems and therefore loses out on the considered approach which a historical archive such as this one provides. I may be becoming an old man prematurely at 33 years old, now, but even if that is true I have noticed a distinct "casual and generic" attitude to the Discord servers which are the antithesis of what I hope to enable here - namely a sustained interest in documenting the specifics of evolution during what amounts to a long-running experiment. The undeniable ease of use of these chat platforms seems destined to win out on a large scale for many purposes, but as long as there are still people interested in a focused discussion with easy-to-navigate visuals and a clear timeline built in... Well, suffice it to say that I will thank all of you who choose to post here for your investment in maintaining such a culture, where the juxtaposition of interesting ideas stands a better chance of shining through overall.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year for 2023, then,
-Stéphane Gérard
P.S.: In case it might sway anyone into following me in doing the same, I have myself largely abandoned posting on (and literally even signing into) MTG Discords due to the reasons above, and will be staying with this thread as my primary reference for updates and results as long as I will be able to do so. Discord clearly has its place, but I have found it much more rewarding to contribute here on mtgsalvation. If you find the same is true for you, I would recommend posting a quick message sounding off in support of Fluff's stalwart curation work of this much more useful long-term resource!
glad to see you back here friend. I hope you're doing fine. Sorry for not noticing the new post sooner.
btw, if you have not noticed. This thread has a duplicate thread on MTG Nexus. All updates here, I also post there. Have posted there that you have come back here, so development for the deck can continue.
from this post on, I will check this thread at least once a week, so to be able to see if people are chatting here.
Hey all, just checking in to see how everyone is doing. I've been grinding a bunch of standard lately, but am looking forward to perfecting Emeria in time for RC cycle 4. Anyways I wanted to share a tournament report from someone in our discord playing an interesting version.
Hello! My name is Truong (Khepi) Nguyen and this is the last write up I will be writing for a hot second as I have now qualified for the RC in Dallas!
Real quick, huge shoutout to Adam and Dana Fischer for supporting me through this whole thing. Along with the judges of SoCal, my brother Anthony, and all the friends I’ve made along the way to help document this journey.
This is the third RCQ Ive played with this list. In the first two, I lost in second place. I think it’s a testament to the Emeria copium fan club that the worst this deck has ever done in an RCQ is Game 3 of finals.
Here’s my match breakdown:
35 players RCQ in SoCal.
6 rounds swiss with a cut.
Round 1
BYE
GOOD START. Took this time to take notes on every single other player and scout what they’re playing.
Round 2
2-0?
UR Murktide
G1: Durdly grindy game. Both on top deck mode but Emeria breaks parity.
G2: Don’t super remember. I remember seeing a Blood Moon. I remember finding my removal pieces and getting a good Verdict down. But I also don’t remember if he got a game or not? Nonetheless, we get there.
Round 3
0-2
UR Murktide
G1: Holy I never want to play against a Murktide ever again. This guy was insane. Two online DRCs with two Counterspell backups in the play by turn 3 and the game is over.
G2: I get outtempoed and outclassed. He’s a really good player and I just felt useless.
Round 4:
2-0
UW Hammer
G1: I’ve talked about the hammer matchup before and I still feel the same about it. It seems so easy. Solitude Ephemerate just goes so far. He should have conceded much earlier, G1 took 35 minutes or so. It looked like I was organizing my deck I just had playsets of cards on top of one another.
G2: He scoops early after a Mull to 5 and a Dawnbringer Cleric stone raining him and hitting a Sigardas Aid.
Round 5:
0-2
Amulet Titan
G1: Grindy Game. I go down to 1 and can’t activate last fetch to turn on Emeria. He gets there.
G2: I get stuck on mana. He gets a Cultivator Colossus out turn 5 or something after I spent Solitudes on Titans and I just die.
Round 6
2-0
E Tròn
G1: The fear I had going into this. Tròn is my worst matchup by far and it’s so poetic my last game, the one that determines if I top 8 or not, is on tron. This game takes maybe 30 minutes, and with Elesh out and some Princes, I get out of range of Ballista and we shilling. Side note, not sure if I was supposed to evoke Solitude and Eph it earlier but I got greedy and went down to 5 from a Reality Smasher. Worked in my favor because I hit 3 things with it eventually. Also if he know what I was playing, he would have gotten a Topor Orb so fast. Definitely a good reason to play off meta. No one expects it.
G2: He keeps a 2 lander and struggles. I get an Elesh Norn down and he scoops it up.
A deck created using Moxfield.
uwu emeria - Modern
A deck created using the deck building website, Moxfield.
Image
Cut to Top 8
Now is the fun part. The bracket is miserable.
Semis
2-1
THE SAME MURKTIDE PLAYER FROM ROUND 3
G1: He’s so fast and so smart. I get so disheartened from this. He’s playing around my stuff so well. Hopes are shattered.
G2: Well timed Verdict as well as Emeria getting back online means I get there. Side Note: I think I adopted a different attitude once my hope dropped. Like it didn’t matter if I won or not. Stopped taking it so seriously. Just played.
G3: I drew a good amount of sideboard cards. Emeria is active and he concedes.
Quarters
2-0
THE SAME AMULET TITAN PLAYER FROM ROUND 5
G1: Kind of long. He plays cards. I remove some. I always lived in fear I was just dead. I play Mommy Elesh. He tried to play in it and it just doesn’t work. Turns out Solitude Eph is even better with Mom out.
G2: He keeps such a slow hand. Basic Forest into Forest Defense Grid. Dryad into Pact. It’s just too slow. I remove everything as soon as I can. Loran really good in this match btw. Got an Elesh and he scoops.
FINALS
2-0
Creativity
G1: I play a card called Elesh Norn. My opponent creativities and gets an Archon with no trigger. I solitude it and flipped Reflection games over.
G2: Brought Back Elesh. He concedes. We both qualify but we’re just playing for the Lanyard so low stakes.
Overall I’m so proud of my deck and myself. I never realized how high my Match WR on Emeria was before tonight. I love the deck and I think i’m ready to return it and start prepping for Pioneer for the RC. None of my emeria cards are legal so idk what we’ll do. Mindsplice Apparatus?
"
They play what I like to call, high risk high reward emeria, where you have these high impact spells but can be more easily hated out.
Anyways,
Hope all of you are well. I recognize that discord isn't the best medium for archiving results etc, but it sure is a good medium for getting quick conversations going.
Love this new build, currently working on something similar and play testing in XMage. Any ideas on how to threaten UR Murktide early? It's my worst winrate and has strong showing at my LGS.
I just won an RCQ with BW Emeria. I got here from UW emeria by transitioning to Esper to try to play bowmaster and the ring and Teferi Time Raveler and Supreme verdict but the deck was too slow so i cut the blue for a leaner deck. All the cards were great especially the Eagles. I'll ada link here to moxfield and to my twitter post with the quick writeup but only because i'm in a rush https://www.moxfield.com/decks/HwK3WdLWt0GFW9ffyzoMnw] https://twitter.com/_PlichoW_/status/1683009678085869568?s=20]
I had forgot to mention that i had come 2nd in another RCQ on September 19/23. Same list except i played a Hallowed Fountain in the main over an Idyllic Grange and 2 Supreme Verdict in the SB over a Hallowed Moonlight and an Unlicensed Hearse. It was a hedge for Murktide, as you can surprise them postboard with an uncounterable wrath.
I also went 4-3 at the facetoface open in October but it was a weird event.
I plan on continuing to test and tune with WB going forward as I'm qualified for the RC in February, and will be bringing Emeria. It honestly feels like the strongest iteration.
sorry for the long absence, just posting back here to let people know I'm still alive. lol
will update the primer if I see some activity with the deck.
________
@TwoWycked
interesting. A version of this deck that would use the Clay-Fired Bricks would be the one that use Flickerwisp, to be able to reuse the etb.
But I'm not much of a fan, since it's not a creature. Emeria cannot bring it back.
and since it's not a creature, it cannot block for us. We need a blocker early in order to survive to the mid to late game.
___________
@Plichow
apologies, I was not able to see that last post you made.
I am mostly out of Magic these days, unfortunately, however I still check in on tournaments every once in a while to socialize and recently I have heard of a mono-white Prison variant running Emeria, The Sky Ruin as a win condition in an otherwise Isochron Scepter-Orim's Chant-The One Ring-based lock environment.
It may not technically count as an Emeria deck per se, since the namesake land is only being used for value and inevitability, but it includes a few strategic considerations and card choices which could be applicable to some of the more straightforward Emeria builds. In addition, I have a tremendous soft spot for Prison in general and the Scepter-Chant synergies in particular from way back in Standard (and eventually with more success in old Extended) when its restriction was powerful enough to require nothing more than a single Raise The Alarm or Fire // Ice in the deck as an eligible Imprint in order to win the game once it was established. Those days are long past, and even the split card rules have changed, but the memory of mana-burning Combo opponents out by effectively ending the turn with their Infernal Tutor on the stack lives on...
In any event, the list I heard about was approximately the following:
I was particularly tickled by the sideboard Bovine Intervention on a Scepter as a way to interact with problematic threats early while eventually either putting creatures in the graveyard for Emeria at an advantage, or providing a steady stream of White Oxen when aimed at an indestructible One Ring... My discussion of the deck also brought up the merits of the highly synergistic Lapse of Certainty, as well as the virtues of the following oddball Isochron Scepter-eligible substitutions, which have mostly been tested and found to range from the legitimate contenders to the situational players, metagame calls, and/or matchup-dependent tools:
Another way to play conversely de-emphasizes the ETB triggers and avoids the Battlefield more or less entirely outside of its Artifacts and Lands using Sunken Citadel to power early activations of a full 8 Fields, while Monumental Henge, Castle Ardenvale, Blast Zone, and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire all benefit from its mana boost. Sevinne's Reclamation and Brought Back are also apparently of better utility in these monocoloured builds (but this specific variant would, I assume, be running too many non-Plains lands to support Emeria, the Sky Ruin any longer, let alone having the creature count to have its trigger matter).
Also there may be builds running more black (or elegantly leaning on the Scepters for fixing) within which Despark, Vanishing Verse, and Fracture (as well as an old favourite in Hide // Seek) could fill in some of the gaps.
[EDIT: THIS WAS FUN, BUT LIKELY THE MOST REALISTIC AND OR USEFUL IDEAS WERE:] the introduction of Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury into the mix as a quite strong variant on the old perpetual Court Hussar upkeep loop, the realization that Angel of the Ruins was now Modern-legal as a way to search out the Plains subtype that has serious value for stabilizing and turning the corner on the back end (especially given the right matchups), and that same Plains subtype being an advertisement for the tremendous power of the Surveil duals in Emeria generally.
TwoWycked; if you are still keen on trying out the Clay-fired Bricks tech, perhaps Essence Reliquary might bridge the gap, and the "Land+2 life" trigger could enable the Ring, then counter the lifeloss somewhat once it is active? I could see Carrot Cake, Tinker's Tote, and Arcanist's Owl being viable there for you as well, and the "Powerstone" mechanic might do good service in such a build with Thran Spider, Static Net, Repair and Recharge, and most intriguingly The Mightstone and Weakstone providing incidental resources to cast and activate Artifacts - such as Scepters, Reliquaries, and Rings - while developing a regular gameplan with normal mana (Hall of Tagsin being likely prohibitive with most Emeria manabases, but interesting enough for the theme to note regardless). If you'll join me going off the deep end, then it could be possible to do a full Scourglass pivot and include more extravagant or marginal effects like Glass Casket, Citizen's Crowbar, Splitskin Doll, Idol of Endurance, and Sanctum Gargoyle to support Emeria. Leonin Abunas could also push the angle out of the sideboard? Though I assume it wouldn't truly break anything, the research might be worth your while as you would already be in that general deckbuilding space.
In any event, I hope to do a write-up of some of the more interesting additions for Emeria over the past year and a half, but this may take a while to get to. In the meantime, perhaps I have provided the brewers among you with some new food for thought!
Hoping you are all doing well, and wishing you the best of luck with your tinkering,
And thanking you for the continued curation, Fluff.
For the record; the ridiculous Oriss/Recruiter/Bombardment "Soft-Mardu Soft-Lock" theorycraft I mentioned yesterday, after being cleaned up a little, could possibly look something like the following:
I will note that the Samite Guardian "combo" here is substantially more intricate than it might appear, since even once Mistveil Plains can enter the picture to potentially tuck used copies into the Library, it relies on an irregular supply of the Legend unless Emeria is triggering and at least one other White permanent besides the active Oriss can be relied upon, at which point they can be summoned up at will by an Imperial Recruiter either continually shot dead every upkeep by a Phlage with an extra Emeria, or directly sacrificed under the same conditions at some point every turn cycle to a Goblin Bombardment. This clearly involves a lot of moving parts, but at least while the machinery cobbles itself together either damage or lifegain triggers are being distributed, and in the buildup to this state every Grandeur activation is highly valuable to the strategy of "keep staying alive to make land drops". This is especially true here because the ticking clock to an active Emeria end-state is now a game-winning threat in and of itself instead of simply a way to keep grinding value.
This leads me back to a more thorough analysis of the original Scepter-Chant build from my post above, where I have come to the conclusion that (outside of nostalgia) my curiosity was essentially piqued because Mana Tithe, Reprieve, Orim's Chant, and The One Ring triggers as different sorts of passive Time Walk effects exist in an interesting defensively-flavoured inflection point between "staying alive", "buying time to develop", "reducing reliance on dominating the board", and "not winning the game" - the same conditions which apply to the most glaring examples of Emeria's strengths in many matchups. As a bonus, the dovetail of Essence Reliquary for One Ring ETBs with the types of creatures Emeria makes best use of highlights the fact that the Graveyard becomes a backup resource - not one which must be relied upon at all times, and not the primary source of game-winning advantages, but quietly looming with the threat of increasingly causing problems to an opponent unable to effectively interact with it once duels reach a midgame equilibrium. If focused on too much, in fact, the graveyard becomes a distraction likely to play into Emeria's strengths by reducing opposing aggression and buying time with dead draws, which applies equally well as a theme to an opponent needing to interact with the massive card advantage represented by The One Ring.
In addition, this same overwhelming supply of resources (if given time) can support the inherent card-disadvantage of an answered Isochron Scepter, make the Silence mode of Orim's Chant more of a weapon, and punish incautious use of removal on its permanents. This last point is exacerbated by squeezing the opposition between Essence Reliquary and Emeria, the Sky Ruin for creatures, but even more so between Isochron Scepter and The One Ring for its Artifacts. On the one hand, the aggressive early use on a Scepter of a potentially limited number of spells that could answer a noncreature permanent might allow a devastating cascade of problems once a Ring appears. On the other hand, an over-cautious use of the same interaction allows the Orim's Chant loop to buy time and prevent easy wins.
The real beauty of the Artifact package in combination with Emeria, therefore, lies in the fact that these are orthogonal strategies which may demand an unlikely combination of hyper-specialized toolkits to deal with both Graveyards and Artifacts over the long term. The combination of the two axes therefore replicates the micro-tensions which were present in each separate strategy at a macro level! The specific Instants chosen to support these tensions in effective Silence, Remand, or Force Spike variants capitalize on the pressure for opponents to commit to plays early regardless of the possibility of losing value. I find this a fascinatingly consistent strategic vision, and a likely reason for its relative current success.
I think I have laid out the basic premises well enough for my own satisfaction, at least.
If anyone wants clarification, please do not hesitate to ask.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Only playing modern at the moment
UR Storm
UW Control
UW Azorius Titan
UU Turns
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
https://discord.gg/HR4Wrrt
there's not much activity now, but most info on the primer should probably be still usable for people who would wander into this thread.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
First off, I have missed a lot while in Europe, so I will recap changes to the format as I take the chance to voice quick responses to Plichow, Dean's Finest, and YJBh33ls, respectively:
I think it has become clear to me over time, Plichow, that access to Ghost Quarter is not absolutely required in the more aggressive versions of the deck, impeding Emeria activation too much if Field of Ruin can cover similar ground without putting you down a land. When things like Kaldra Compleat and Stoneforge Mystic or Ranger-Captain of Eos and Walking Ballista combine to end things swiftly, these cut off draw steps more directly in the late stages of your gameplan. However, I am still adamant that eventual access to Strip Mine is simultaneously a necessary evil and the best lategame possible for the slower builds that cannot turn the corner with offensive options.
The banning of Yorion, Sky Nomad has simplified many of the dilemmas you mention, Dean's Finest, by simply taking the 80-card options out of our hands, which I tend to see as a good thing overall as including the Companion was a mixed blessing at best, and its removal has certainly improved the 4-colour Omnath pile matchups by first removing a threat from their sequencing and then by forcing their manabases onto a narrower tightrope with fewer redundancies.
I am not sure whether the Stoneforge builds are favoured at the moment,YBJh331s, but I can confidently state that access to new Reconfigure options like Cloudsteel Kirin, Lion Sash and even The Reality Chip add a great deal of flexibility to the strategy, and do an excellent job of enhancing the Spirited Companion that these lists should typically be looking to run over Wall of Omens ever since that wonderful new attacking variant has become available. My feeling is that Emeria itself still passively discourages Stoneforge recursion by naturally extending the game to a point where it draws its its Equipment and runs the Kor Shaman out of targets later in the game, conversely giving a passive encouragement to an 0/4 Defender more by gaining access to its focused blocking power immediately on ETB. This means Control variants can better leverage Sweepers in general as a consequence of less investment in their (primarily defensive) board presence, but in my opinion this is only true in contexts where the Aggro and Midrange elements are more common than the Big Mana and Combo portion of the metagame, whereas a faster clock closing out the game rapidly gains back any lost equity against the latter two strategies.
But as I am myself just back from travel, and have been looking to return to casual tournaments with Emeria, my perspective may be skewed since I have moderate success at a 12-person tournament to point to with a clean 2-1 record only losing in the finals, the quick breakdown being a straightforward 2-1 win versus Izzet Murktide confirming my previous comfort level with the pairing, a well-earned 2-1 win versus 4-colour Wrenn and Six/Indomitable Creativity strongly indicating the viability of a new sideboard strategy, and a tough 1-2 loss versus Amulet Titan after failing to note life totals correctly, leading me to back out of an on-board win and therefore miss out on an undefeated evening. Rust is a real concern once again here for me, but most importantly I have some solid strategic improvements to report in the new configuration of my "classic board control" variant resulting in the following list:
7 Plains
4 Flooded strand
3 Field of Ruin
2 Demolition Field
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Spara's Headquarters
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Wall of Omens
4 Professor of Symbology
3 Mortarpod
4 Pilgrim's Eye
4 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Supreme Verdict
1 Elspeth Resplendent
4 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
1 Shadowspear
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Remorseful Cleric
1 Cathar Commando
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
2 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Loran of the Third Path
1 Environmental Sciences
1 Reduce to Memory
1 Introduction to Annihilation
I am once again running my trademark undecided 61 cards at the moment due to the recent overperformance of Elspeth Resplendent, who has impressed me enough to be a serious consideration in the maindeck currently, primarily as a way to find (and even ramp to, plus protecting!) Emeria, the Sky Ruin while digging for singletons or sideboard cards and producing the odd "surprise" Teferi, Time Raveler off of only white mana, all in a package that increases lifegain and turns specifically Mortarpod tokens but also more generally any random board presence into marginally upgraded Planeswalker pressure in resource-intensive matchups. The 12 non-Lesson cards in my sideboard, incidentally, have reflected the twin pressures of Elspeth and the Titans to become 100% 3-mana-or less permanents, which helps focus the post-board plans when making substitutions for games 2 and 3, and situationally boosts the "luxury reset" utility of Tef3ri's -3 ability, particularly by re-establishing ETBs once safely out of the "do whatever it takes to survive" early game.
The most notable gains come in the manabase and in the sideboard directly, though, where in the first instance I have cut Raugrin Triome and Raffine's Tower as too unwieldy to be of use in most matchups, much as it pains me to lose out on the lategame power-level upgrades for Prismatic Ending. I am not certain if cutting both is correct on this axis, since the appeal of 4-mana Endings is extremely tempting, but I am confident in stating that I can currently not reliably get to 5-mana Endings against Control opponents fast enough to prevent Teferi, Hero of Dominaria from activating his matchup-defining Ultimate ability. On the other hand, two-mana Endings are very consistent, and the low opportunity cost of adding a third colour with any Triome of choice seems to make 3-mana versions accessible for the lategame in around 60-70% of matches (which is good enough for me when the 1 and 2 mana modes are so strong generally), but at present the 4-mana version of Converge drops to being available below 50% of the time even in my bread-and-butter extended topdecking situations, and the 5-mana version sits at a highly unreliable 30% or less, with that only a factor in the longer games or in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds and Sun Titan powered fetchland recursion - which equates to an almost entirely tapland manabase for the games where I attempt to prioritize maximizing colour diversity in my lands.
This loss of 4 and 5 mana Converge capacity is not a net negative, however, since with the space I am pleased to welcome back Mistveil Plains as a way to recycle my overperforming Lesson sideboard removal package of Introduction to Annihilation and Reduce to Memory. Re-drawing these cards is notably quite valuable against the Control and Prison opponents which most appreciate Converge 4+ on Prismatic Ending, while the Mistveil's return restores my operational confidence against decks featuring infinite lifegain shenanigans. That is not all, however, and I have perhaps left the best for last since a real improvement has come along with the printing of Demolition Field, substantially solidifying my manabase disruption versus the unfair matchups by increasing my absolute "Field of Ruin" count to 5 (though it is also notable that I can now rely on a 3 Ruin and 2 Demolition split to better hedge against corner-case Pithing Needle and Surgical Extraction effects in some matchups). This was a good deal of the reason I got into the winning position against my finals opponent, and definitely helped me take game one against him to even get me into the post-board games in good shape. It is currently crucial to control both the Urza's Saga and the Simic Growth Chamber angles against Amulet Titan, and nothing covers those better than Ghost Quarter effects that do not set turn-by-turn mana development back - preferably activated both early and often. I believe 6 of the effect might be even better, but at that point the plethora of colourless sources begins make for a few too many non-functional hands in the two-colour builds I favour. I will, however, state that Mono-White versions may now have gained a real selling point through their ability to run up to 8 copies of the two "Fields" - an option with huge consequences.
My other real breakthrough comes with the sideboard, where beating unfair strategies has gone from a seriously unpredictable challenge to a legitimately focused - though still difficult to execute - gameplan of delay thanks to a thematic, elegant, and subtle dynamic enabled by multiple copies of Curse of Silence. The improvement touches on all Cascade variants, is currently well-positioned enough against Indomitable Creativity to have won two post-bard games in a row, is flexible enough to pose problems for Tron, and extends to spell-based or Creature-based combo, where the effect of pushing any of these decks two turns higher on the curve translates to two or more real chances at drawing the now-increased manabase disruption which is the most effective strategy when not running countermagic. Losing out on Lion Sash, Blossoming Calm, [EDIT: AND DRANNITH MAGISTRATE] is a pity, but the versatility of these 1-mana enchantments is extremely high against curve-cheating cards as significant compensation. They also streamline decision-making and complement each other surprisingly well in multiples, and include a hidden bonus 2W "cycle" mode when out of danger. Finally, I have not yet had a good chance to examine the Reclamation Sage function of Loran of the Third Path, and she may yet be replaced by a Haywire Mite to hedge against Burn and to keep the substitutions at a low mana cost in a more Emeria-friendly package, but for the moment this is my new configuration of choice.
Speaking of recommendations, the release of Brother's War has also granted us a massive Sideboard silver bullet for those interested in beating Living End by introducing Calamity's Wake to the card pool. (For the sake of completeness, I also think that the following list of white spells from that expansion have possible applications depending on specific builds: Recommission, Recruitment Officer, Lay Down Arms, Tocasia's Welcome, Soul Partition, and Kayla's Command. In the Artifacts, storyline spotlights The Stone Brain and The Stasis Coffin join Platoon Dispenser as new niche options, though the first two are more likely to matter against us by extending the toolboxes of Karn, the Great Creator decks. Finally, in variants splashing Black it is worthwhile to note the presence of Hero of the Dunes and Legions to Ashes as new possibilities, though I will specify that even these are quite unlikely to matter enough unless the build in question is already running multiple Raffine's Tower or some such to legitimately enable stronger funamental options - such as the old powerhouse Necrotic Sliver.) There are also new spoilers currently being released for Phyrexia: All Will be One, so as always I will keep an eye out for any potential new inclusions. Thus far, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines and Soulless Jailer appear to be the only two reasonable inclusions, but are at least intriguing ones.
As an end note, I would very much like to thank everyone for continuing on with this thread when so much of the playerbase seems to have fragmented rather badly in the mass move towards Discord and Twitch. The continuity of this ongoing discussion has not been replicated in my forays onto the Discord, where the communication is heavily biased towards addressing shorter-term surface-level problems and therefore loses out on the considered approach which a historical archive such as this one provides. I may be becoming an old man prematurely at 33 years old, now, but even if that is true I have noticed a distinct "casual and generic" attitude to the Discord servers which are the antithesis of what I hope to enable here - namely a sustained interest in documenting the specifics of evolution during what amounts to a long-running experiment. The undeniable ease of use of these chat platforms seems destined to win out on a large scale for many purposes, but as long as there are still people interested in a focused discussion with easy-to-navigate visuals and a clear timeline built in... Well, suffice it to say that I will thank all of you who choose to post here for your investment in maintaining such a culture, where the juxtaposition of interesting ideas stands a better chance of shining through overall.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year for 2023, then,
-Stéphane Gérard
P.S.: In case it might sway anyone into following me in doing the same, I have myself largely abandoned posting on (and literally even signing into) MTG Discords due to the reasons above, and will be staying with this thread as my primary reference for updates and results as long as I will be able to do so. Discord clearly has its place, but I have found it much more rewarding to contribute here on mtgsalvation. If you find the same is true for you, I would recommend posting a quick message sounding off in support of Fluff's stalwart curation work of this much more useful long-term resource!
glad to see you back here friend. I hope you're doing fine. Sorry for not noticing the new post sooner.
btw, if you have not noticed. This thread has a duplicate thread on MTG Nexus. All updates here, I also post there. Have posted there that you have come back here, so development for the deck can continue.
from this post on, I will check this thread at least once a week, so to be able to see if people are chatting here.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
"
They play what I like to call, high risk high reward emeria, where you have these high impact spells but can be more easily hated out.
Anyways,
Hope all of you are well. I recognize that discord isn't the best medium for archiving results etc, but it sure is a good medium for getting quick conversations going.
Take care,
Brad (PlichoW)
Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines. First time for me to see the card. Looks like a great addition to blink builds of Emeria.
primer update:
added it to Top 8's and 5-0's section of the primer.
Table of contents → Top 8's and 5-0's
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I just won an RCQ with BW Emeria. I got here from UW emeria by transitioning to Esper to try to play bowmaster and the ring and Teferi Time Raveler and Supreme verdict but the deck was too slow so i cut the blue for a leaner deck. All the cards were great especially the Eagles. I'll ada link here to moxfield and to my twitter post with the quick writeup but only because i'm in a rush
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/HwK3WdLWt0GFW9ffyzoMnw]
https://twitter.com/_PlichoW_/status/1683009678085869568?s=20]
1 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
2 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
4 Ephemerate
3 Field of Ruin
1 Giant Killer
3 Godless Shrine
1 Haywire Mite
2 Idyllic Grange
1 Indatha Triome
4 Marsh Flats
1 Martyr of Sands
4 Orcish Bowmasters
6 Plains
4 Ranger-Captain of Eos
2 Reprieve
4 Skyclave Apparition
4 Solitude
1 Temple Garden
4 The One Ring
4 Thraben Inspector
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Damping Sphere
1 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
3 Hallowed Moonlight
1 Haywire Mite
2 March of Otherworldly Light
2 Reprieve
2 Stone of Erech
1 Unlicensed Hearse
Sorry for being short, hope everyone is well.
Brad
that's an interesting BW build.
sorry as well for not passing by here sooner.
added your report to Top 8's and 5-0's in the primer.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I also went 4-3 at the facetoface open in October but it was a weird event.
I plan on continuing to test and tune with WB going forward as I'm qualified for the RC in February, and will be bringing Emeria. It honestly feels like the strongest iteration.
will update the primer if I see some activity with the deck.
________
@TwoWycked
interesting. A version of this deck that would use the Clay-Fired Bricks would be the one that use Flickerwisp, to be able to reuse the etb.
But I'm not much of a fan, since it's not a creature. Emeria cannot bring it back.
and since it's not a creature, it cannot block for us. We need a blocker early in order to survive to the mid to late game.
___________
@Plichow
apologies, I was not able to see that last post you made.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I am mostly out of Magic these days, unfortunately, however I still check in on tournaments every once in a while to socialize and recently I have heard of a mono-white Prison variant running Emeria, The Sky Ruin as a win condition in an otherwise Isochron Scepter-Orim's Chant-The One Ring-based lock environment.
It may not technically count as an Emeria deck per se, since the namesake land is only being used for value and inevitability, but it includes a few strategic considerations and card choices which could be applicable to some of the more straightforward Emeria builds. In addition, I have a tremendous soft spot for Prison in general and the Scepter-Chant synergies in particular from way back in Standard (and eventually with more success in old Extended) when its restriction was powerful enough to require nothing more than a single Raise The Alarm or Fire // Ice in the deck as an eligible Imprint in order to win the game once it was established. Those days are long past, and even the split card rules have changed, but the memory of mana-burning Combo opponents out by effectively ending the turn with their Infernal Tutor on the stack lives on...
In any event, the list I heard about was approximately the following:
1 Mistveil Plains
2 Shadowy Backstreet
3 Demolition Field
3 Field of Ruin
4 Flagstones of Trokair
7 Plains
3 Skyclave Apparition
3 Solitude
1 Witch Enchanter
4 Orim's Chant
4 Mana Tithe
4 Reprieve
1 Warping Wail
1 Dawn's Truce
3 Portable Hole
4 Isochron Scepter
2 Essence Reliquary
4 The One Ring
With a sideboard of something like this:
Other varieties of the same general theme include blue for Teferi, Time Raveler to make a kicked Orim's Chant every upkeep a near hard-lock (a technique which gave me another flashback to Extended where Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir accomplished the exact same function) all while doing a strong Essence Reliquary impression and having better utility. Though less devastatingly so, staying mono-White to achieve a similar effect can also be done with Sideboarded Deafening Silence, High Noon, and Rule of Law, or even Maindeck Emeria-friendly versions like Ethersworn Canonist, Phyrexian Censor, Eidolon of Rhetoric, or the highly thematic Archon of Emeria.
I was particularly tickled by the sideboard Bovine Intervention on a Scepter as a way to interact with problematic threats early while eventually either putting creatures in the graveyard for Emeria at an advantage, or providing a steady stream of White Oxen when aimed at an indestructible One Ring... My discussion of the deck also brought up the merits of the highly synergistic Lapse of Certainty, as well as the virtues of the following oddball Isochron Scepter-eligible substitutions, which have mostly been tested and found to range from the legitimate contenders to the situational players, metagame calls, and/or matchup-dependent tools:
Plus, there are versions of the list which supposedly lean more heavily into the board with full playsets of the creatures alongside more Emeria synergies with Dusk Rose Reliquary and Ephemerate joining Essence Reliquary to reset "Enters-The-Battlefield" triggers when supporting a playset of Wall of Omens with Vizier of Deferment or Extraction Specialist and sometimes adding some number of Forbidding Spirit, Kutzil's Flanker, or Toby, Beastie Befriender in an "all-in on no Torpor Orb effects" strategy.
Another way to play conversely de-emphasizes the ETB triggers and avoids the Battlefield more or less entirely outside of its Artifacts and Lands using Sunken Citadel to power early activations of a full 8 Fields, while Monumental Henge, Castle Ardenvale, Blast Zone, and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire all benefit from its mana boost. Sevinne's Reclamation and Brought Back are also apparently of better utility in these monocoloured builds (but this specific variant would, I assume, be running too many non-Plains lands to support Emeria, the Sky Ruin any longer, let alone having the creature count to have its trigger matter).
Also there may be builds running more black (or elegantly leaning on the Scepters for fixing) within which Despark, Vanishing Verse, and Fracture (as well as an old favourite in Hide // Seek) could fill in some of the gaps.
I then got a little carried away on the theorycrafting, and proposed a Savai Triome and Elegant Parlor-fuelled Lightning Helix Boros build using Emeria and Mistveils to loop Oriss, Samite Guardian Grandeur triggers in a "build-your-own Scepter-Chant" impression through Imperial Recruiter and Goblin Bombardment or the like, perhaps even supported by Ranger-Captain of Eos for Hope of Ghirapur and Selfless Savior.
[EDIT: THIS WAS FUN, BUT LIKELY THE MOST REALISTIC AND OR USEFUL IDEAS WERE:] the introduction of Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury into the mix as a quite strong variant on the old perpetual Court Hussar upkeep loop, the realization that Angel of the Ruins was now Modern-legal as a way to search out the Plains subtype that has serious value for stabilizing and turning the corner on the back end (especially given the right matchups), and that same Plains subtype being an advertisement for the tremendous power of the Surveil duals in Emeria generally.
TwoWycked; if you are still keen on trying out the Clay-fired Bricks tech, perhaps Essence Reliquary might bridge the gap, and the "Land+2 life" trigger could enable the Ring, then counter the lifeloss somewhat once it is active? I could see Carrot Cake, Tinker's Tote, and Arcanist's Owl being viable there for you as well, and the "Powerstone" mechanic might do good service in such a build with Thran Spider, Static Net, Repair and Recharge, and most intriguingly The Mightstone and Weakstone providing incidental resources to cast and activate Artifacts - such as Scepters, Reliquaries, and Rings - while developing a regular gameplan with normal mana (Hall of Tagsin being likely prohibitive with most Emeria manabases, but interesting enough for the theme to note regardless). If you'll join me going off the deep end, then it could be possible to do a full Scourglass pivot and include more extravagant or marginal effects like Glass Casket, Citizen's Crowbar, Splitskin Doll, Idol of Endurance, and Sanctum Gargoyle to support Emeria. Leonin Abunas could also push the angle out of the sideboard? Though I assume it wouldn't truly break anything, the research might be worth your while as you would already be in that general deckbuilding space.
In any event, I hope to do a write-up of some of the more interesting additions for Emeria over the past year and a half, but this may take a while to get to. In the meantime, perhaps I have provided the brewers among you with some new food for thought!
Hoping you are all doing well, and wishing you the best of luck with your tinkering,
And thanking you for the continued curation, Fluff.
-Stéphane Gérard
For the record; the ridiculous Oriss/Recruiter/Bombardment "Soft-Mardu Soft-Lock" theorycraft I mentioned yesterday, after being cleaned up a little, could possibly look something like the following:
2 Savai Triome
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Elegant Parlor
7 Plains
2 Mistveil Plains
1 Idyllic Grange
2 Arid Mesa
1 Marsh Flats
1 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
2 Goblin Bombardment
1 Mogg War Marshal
4 Wall of Omens
3 Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury
4 Oriss, Samite Guardian
4 Imperial Recruiter
3 Kor Cartographer
2 Avalanche Riders
1 Ajani Vengeant
4 Solitude
3 Sun Titan
1 Angel of the Ruins
[EDIT: RAISED THE LAND COUNT AND TWEAKED THE CREATURE SUITE NUMBERS FOR BETTER BALANCE.]
I do not expect this to be particularly strong, but the extravagant manabase is ironically much better focused on getting Emeria active as it makes full use of its utility lands with the Plains subtype, through prioritizing Kor Cartographer, Cyclers, and Fetchlands on turn 4 instead of running Wrath of God, Field of Ruin, and Ghost Quarter. (Other valid Plainscyclers include Eagles of the North, Alabaster Host Intercessor, and Timeless Dragon, while Charitable Levy or Endless Horizons might also be worth a mention.) There is also a legitimate burn plan here which is much better supported for either ending the game or stabilizing, with Goblin Bombardment and/or Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury upkeep Emeria loops being supplemented by much better Land destruction using Avalanche Riders and the lovely Venn diagram overlap of Ajani Vengeant.
I will note that the Samite Guardian "combo" here is substantially more intricate than it might appear, since even once Mistveil Plains can enter the picture to potentially tuck used copies into the Library, it relies on an irregular supply of the Legend unless Emeria is triggering and at least one other White permanent besides the active Oriss can be relied upon, at which point they can be summoned up at will by an Imperial Recruiter either continually shot dead every upkeep by a Phlage with an extra Emeria, or directly sacrificed under the same conditions at some point every turn cycle to a Goblin Bombardment. This clearly involves a lot of moving parts, but at least while the machinery cobbles itself together either damage or lifegain triggers are being distributed, and in the buildup to this state every Grandeur activation is highly valuable to the strategy of "keep staying alive to make land drops". This is especially true here because the ticking clock to an active Emeria end-state is now a game-winning threat in and of itself instead of simply a way to keep grinding value.
This leads me back to a more thorough analysis of the original Scepter-Chant build from my post above, where I have come to the conclusion that (outside of nostalgia) my curiosity was essentially piqued because Mana Tithe, Reprieve, Orim's Chant, and The One Ring triggers as different sorts of passive Time Walk effects exist in an interesting defensively-flavoured inflection point between "staying alive", "buying time to develop", "reducing reliance on dominating the board", and "not winning the game" - the same conditions which apply to the most glaring examples of Emeria's strengths in many matchups. As a bonus, the dovetail of Essence Reliquary for One Ring ETBs with the types of creatures Emeria makes best use of highlights the fact that the Graveyard becomes a backup resource - not one which must be relied upon at all times, and not the primary source of game-winning advantages, but quietly looming with the threat of increasingly causing problems to an opponent unable to effectively interact with it once duels reach a midgame equilibrium. If focused on too much, in fact, the graveyard becomes a distraction likely to play into Emeria's strengths by reducing opposing aggression and buying time with dead draws, which applies equally well as a theme to an opponent needing to interact with the massive card advantage represented by The One Ring.
In addition, this same overwhelming supply of resources (if given time) can support the inherent card-disadvantage of an answered Isochron Scepter, make the Silence mode of Orim's Chant more of a weapon, and punish incautious use of removal on its permanents. This last point is exacerbated by squeezing the opposition between Essence Reliquary and Emeria, the Sky Ruin for creatures, but even more so between Isochron Scepter and The One Ring for its Artifacts. On the one hand, the aggressive early use on a Scepter of a potentially limited number of spells that could answer a noncreature permanent might allow a devastating cascade of problems once a Ring appears. On the other hand, an over-cautious use of the same interaction allows the Orim's Chant loop to buy time and prevent easy wins.
The real beauty of the Artifact package in combination with Emeria, therefore, lies in the fact that these are orthogonal strategies which may demand an unlikely combination of hyper-specialized toolkits to deal with both Graveyards and Artifacts over the long term. The combination of the two axes therefore replicates the micro-tensions which were present in each separate strategy at a macro level! The specific Instants chosen to support these tensions in effective Silence, Remand, or Force Spike variants capitalize on the pressure for opponents to commit to plays early regardless of the possibility of losing value. I find this a fascinatingly consistent strategic vision, and a likely reason for its relative current success.
I think I have laid out the basic premises well enough for my own satisfaction, at least.
If anyone wants clarification, please do not hesitate to ask.
Have a very good day,
-Stéphane Gérard