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Brewing With EMN- Golgari’mrakul

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Listen. I just want to cast Emrakul, the Promised End. So mission accomplished there, WotC. I would have preferred to have some better enablers for delirium, though there are some serviceable tools. These seem to be the best new enablers with regard to churning your library into your graveyard at a high enough velocity to matter:

It's ironic that Liliana looks to be among the best ways to set up Emrakul, though her -2 is clearly a delirium enabler and her +1 helps to enable attacks with Grim Flayer. Given that the enablers are a little shy of ideal and that delirium forces us to play a mix of different card types, I can basically guarantee that we won't see the best delirium build week one, though I think there is something here.

The game plan is simple. You get on the board turn two in somewhat aggressive fashion, and then start trying to set up delirium. Your two drops all scale well into the mid game, and then you build up to a game-breaking Emrakul. One issue with this build is that there is no way to discard Emrakul if you draw it, which makes playing a bunch of copies awkward. As such, I have included two copies of Traverse the Ulvenwald to make Emrakul more available, though only two copies as Traverse is pretty terrible without delirium and getting Traverse flooded could be just as bad as getting Emrakul flooded. One nice thing about the deck, is that if Emrakul ends up in the graveyard, both Liliana and Grapple with the Past can get her back.

I imagine that somebody smarter than me will put together something wild and less forced than this build, though this looks like a solid starting point for a week one deck. The deck both has the potential to play aggressively and to play longer games with subtle flexibility and scalability of the cards, which leaves a lot to like about this deck.

6 thoughts on “Brewing With EMN- Golgari’mrakul

  1. Very interested to see what a few iterations of this deck looks like. Cards like Dead Weight & Oath of Nissa, that play the role of a “Sorcery” while being other card types, seem key here.

    Same goes for Hangarback Walker, which does double duty.

    I’d love to see another take on this build in a week or so, after you’ve had time to test.

    1. Yeah, Hangarback Walker and some manner of enchantment seem essential. I want Jace VP in this deck but even just adding blue it doesn’t exactly fit this particular build.

      1. I would consider something even more simplistic: Mindrack Demon. Evasion, win condition, and enabler in one. With G/W packing a low amount of removal, it matches up well, and even beats an unflipped Avacyn as well.

        1. Demon is very intriguing. I could see cutting Ruinous Path for them, as Demon helps a lot with regard to pressuring planeswalkers and does a plenty solid job of blocking the creatures of the format.

  2. Just curious can’t remember the names but any reason to not include the new nimble moongoose and the +4/+0 cards to this? I feel like this would be a good early game, though this doesn’t especially mean this is an aggro deck prob more midrange

    1. Delirium forces you to play a mix of card types, and those cards really mess up the deck’s focus. What card would you cut for them? How does that cut impact the deck’s ability to get delirious?

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