As somebody who's been playing for a very long time, I love this series so much because it reminds me of cards I used to put in every deck that I forgot about. Energy Tap was so good in artifact decks, I have like 9 copies, and I just stopped using it for no reason at some point.
Empty the Catacombs feels like it would be great in Disa the Restless. Very creature heavy, and you’ll likely end up with more than 7 cards in hand by the end step, so just focus on discarding Lhurgoyfs when that rolls around and you can get a board state pretty quickly.
The phasing on Ertai's Familiar was less about being too powerful (although that is a good guess given the state of creatures in magic at the time) and more about Weatherlight being a graveyard set. It's actually a sweet design that has aged pretty well.
9:22 I put Equal Treatment in my Kelsien deck. Everyone thinks their creatures are safe because they don’t see a lot of Deathtouch. Not only can Kelsien ping for two that turn, but I can also save myself from being run over by a Craterhoof. Just when you thought you had the answer, I changed the equation. Math isn’t only for blockers. 😂
Great points, as always.. Empty the Catacombs is also a hilarious finisher with Syr Konrad. Especially since you can just move to discard and essentially double the damage you just did.
An important thing to note about Energy Tap is that most times, blue is not playing with hastey creatures. So, you can tap out to cast some expensive creature, then assuming you don't need it as a blocker you can tap it down to get your mana back and cast something else. VERY powerful in some situations. Unfortunately it is not an Instant, so you can't wait until your opponent's turn to decide unless you have some flash enabler.
The other major drawback is that tapping a creature is not part of the casting cost, so if someone removes your creature, you will either get less mana or nothing at all when it resolves. I’m never a fan of spells where my opponents removal gets two for the price of one. This was the problem with Auras until the recursion effects for most aura decks was drastically improved.
What's really interesting about ertai's meddling, is that they cast the copy of the spell, and they aren't allowed to change the targets of the copy. If you use this on someone's doom blade that targeted a creature, and that creature is no longer there when the copy of doom blade is ready to resolve, they can't kill a new target, it just fizzles
You got an instant follow from me, a series about cards you should be playing is such a dope idea. I've been playing for over 10 years, Ertai's Meddling is one of my favorite cards no one has heard of! Also another interaction with it in edh it puts a copy of the spell on the stack, it forces people to put their commander in the zone as to not have their commander exiled for the rest of the game.
Seizan mentioned. Still building that deck but it's been a little difficult since I've never built a mono black deck before. I'm inundated with so many good choices!
Had a great moment where a friend had set up a stacked grave for reanimation. I had a leyline of anticipation out and used an empty the Catacombs to stop them reanimating everything
I use Emrakul's Evangel in my Chatterfang deck. As long as Chatterfang is onboard, it's basically a "hey, do you want to double the amount of token creatures you already have."
6:59 another funky fresh use for empty the catacombs: if your commander has a “exile creatures when they die (or instead of them dying)” clause on it, like, for example, 4cmc kalitas, you completely break parity with your opponents because you get all your creatures back from grave to hand, but their creatures have mostly been exiled from their graveyard so they get nothing or almost nothing back.
I love this series! You help me find the perfect cards to put in my decks! Not to mention quite close to my philosophy of Commander games, fun first, win later.
Hell yeah! EnergyTap mention! I have it in my mono blue Gandalf deck. It's a sorcery that I can cast at instant speed and tap my commander for 4 mana. Great card
I love Energy Tap. I just discovered it a few days ago when I was looking for blue/black ritual effects. I was expecting it to be one of those old $50 cards, but it's like, 50 cents instead, and it's really good
8:50 I need to trust my instinct more: When I was young, I felt that "Empty the Catacombs" would be appreciated; but ALSO now I understand why "Emrakul's Evangel" did attracted my attention: I run an "Atla Palani" clone-populate deck and sometimes I struggle blowing out my Eggs ...... well, I now could blow them up easily and without relying on the red non-creature card "Goblin Bombardment" (I don't use a lot of red mana and I tend to heavily lean towards creatures).
Really important wording is that the exiled spell of ertai's meddling that it's a copy of the original spell. So when you hit a morph spell on the stack and finally resolves it enters as a face up 2/2 with no abilities
great points about ertai's meddling it also allows you to exile a threat for X turns which will be the entire game if you have enough mana, which is just better than a counterspell when the opponent has graveyard recursion
I run Ertai's familiar in my Hakim loreweaver deck, it runs a lot of self mill to get the enchantments in the yard, but also it's useful if I want to transfer an enchantment to it with an effect to save it for later. Energy tap I use in my dimir dragons deck it's great for playing more six drops. Energy arc's in the banding deck, empty the catacombs is indeed in the Seizan deck and equal treatment is in the pestilence tribal deck.
i ran energy tap in my myrrim deck for a while, still need to find a spot for it again for find a new deck for it, its such a good card and good to see someone else notice it.
Energy Arc could combo well with Split Up if you have a way to tap down your creatures first. With your creatures tapped, cast Energy Arc with Split Up on the stack set to destroy all untapped creatures. Energy Arc untaps all your opponents creatures and they get destroyed. Or this could work in reverse too. Untap your own creatures to prevent them from being destroyed with other tapped creatures.
I also use Emrakul's Evangel in my Grismold the Dreadsower deck. Use it to sac 20 1/1's turn them into 3/3's and put 20 +1+1 Counters on grismold. It's a great card.
I use emrakul’s evangel in my Flubs impact tremors deck. Cast A of Z or Phylath then sac all the plants. Just a way to double up the damage. For times when you don’t have scute swarm.
14:49 Re: Ertai’s Meddling, Not that it’s relevant, but a counterspell wouldn’t be able to counter something cast during their upkeep, because nothing would be on the stack for it to counter when it triggers.
you definitely missed syr konrad and tormod with empty the catacombs oh energy tap when you think about it you can simply use it on a creature that's summoning sick for mana you don't necessary want to attack with, and when you think about colorless mana you could do Eldrazi's with it you can tap a big one to use it to cast another big one. ertai meddling was on my consideration list before this came out and you got my thinking even further on it using it on teferi's protrotection is brilliant because if it's one and they did it for boardwipe reasons this turns into skip your turn like you said and that will buy you time for prep for their return.
If you haven't put Oblivion Crown on the list before I think you should. It's a free discard outlet, and pumps up a creature it's amazing in Greasefang as it allows you to put vehicles back into the graveyard and pump up a creature to crew the vehicle that gets brought back.
I don't normally, but I will first, since it's the first time I've made it this early on one of your videos. :D so......... FIRST. edit: Energy Tap is friggin sick, I love that card, and I rly might have to look into using Emrakul's Evangel. That seems like it could have some really great swing. I might have to figure out how to use Ertai's Meddling..... that kind of jank seems right up my alley. PS: love your videos, keep making this great content for us niche card lovers. You give me tons of great ideas and lots of wacky cards that fuel a lot of my deck building.
Zur is an attack trigger not a combat damage trigger, so unless youre somehow making extra combat steps in your esper deck, you shouldnt have a way to tutor twice with zur (other than just straight up coping the ability, like with roaming throne or strionic resonator, obviously). Doublestrike doesnt make zur do anything else besides an additional point of commander damage.
@@connorl0204 got me to go and check the rule and realise my mistake. Only ever played this deck once and misplayed that double trigger once luckily. Know for next time
Something I don’t get as a newbie, watching several content creators they always seem to have the same engine ramping cards and Always play them. When you look at their deck build they’ve got exactly 1 in their deck. How are they doing this? Looking at you Sol Ring.
OK, so, I am no rules lawyer, BUT I have been playing since the 'old days', when this card was written. The INTENT was that you would untap attacking creatures. By the original rules of magic, if a creature was attacking (and thus tapped) and it got untapped BEFORE THE DAMAGE PHASE of the combat, then it just 'went home' and no damage was allocated by or against that creature. Honestly, I have never seen it played even though I own a few copies, but my assumption would be that, due to the vague wording, you could use it before blockers were declared as well to just untap some creatures, but that wouldn't trip the "no damage" part, because THAT PART IS A RULES INTERACTION and only applies to untapping attackers. I'd very definitely consult someone who's a bona fide rules expert, a judge or something, or at least do the research online before expecting this card to work as described here. Gatherer is not super helpful here though, it just mentions that you can target untapped creatures and "the second part of the effect will still effect them."
I've tried with Emrakul's Evangel in difrent Decks. Problem is for it to realy shine you already need a bigger board with lots of small creatures, otherwise it replaces only himself. It was much more ofte I used him, if I was attacked and loose some creatures, instead I sacrificed them, so I have at least some creatures afterwards. In my conclusion he isn't it worth, because that is a niche scenario and I could have better cards in that situation, like a fog. Speaking of... I play Equal Treatment in every 1/1 token deck because of the thinking "hey, I can make more damage". Never used that that way. Until now it is only a worser Fog. Funny was only one time where one who would win the next turn was left with 2 life and the player before him was only able to deal 1. This card was the help.
Don't undersell Ertai's Meddling. Especially in stormy/copy decks - Ertai's Meddling can annihilate an opponent's game plan. Suspending someone's commander for 2-3 turns? Amazing.
Energy Field + Wheel of Sun and Moon... not only do you keep Energy Field up, but IF a card WOULD be put in your graveyard, put it at the bottom of your library (2 drop multi GW/GW)
As somebody who's been playing for a very long time, I love this series so much because it reminds me of cards I used to put in every deck that I forgot about. Energy Tap was so good in artifact decks, I have like 9 copies, and I just stopped using it for no reason at some point.
Ertai meddling against teferi pro is a sweet tech
also it's somehow fun, lore-wise
Empty the Catacombs feels like it would be great in Disa the Restless. Very creature heavy, and you’ll likely end up with more than 7 cards in hand by the end step, so just focus on discarding Lhurgoyfs when that rolls around and you can get a board state pretty quickly.
The phasing on Ertai's Familiar was less about being too powerful (although that is a good guess given the state of creatures in magic at the time) and more about Weatherlight being a graveyard set. It's actually a sweet design that has aged pretty well.
9:22 I put Equal Treatment in my Kelsien deck. Everyone thinks their creatures are safe because they don’t see a lot of Deathtouch. Not only can Kelsien ping for two that turn, but I can also save myself from being run over by a Craterhoof. Just when you thought you had the answer, I changed the equation. Math isn’t only for blockers. 😂
Great points, as always.. Empty the Catacombs is also a hilarious finisher with Syr Konrad. Especially since you can just move to discard and essentially double the damage you just did.
An important thing to note about Energy Tap is that most times, blue is not playing with hastey creatures. So, you can tap out to cast some expensive creature, then assuming you don't need it as a blocker you can tap it down to get your mana back and cast something else. VERY powerful in some situations. Unfortunately it is not an Instant, so you can't wait until your opponent's turn to decide unless you have some flash enabler.
The other major drawback is that tapping a creature is not part of the casting cost, so if someone removes your creature, you will either get less mana or nothing at all when it resolves. I’m never a fan of spells where my opponents removal gets two for the price of one. This was the problem with Auras until the recursion effects for most aura decks was drastically improved.
What's really interesting about ertai's meddling, is that they cast the copy of the spell, and they aren't allowed to change the targets of the copy. If you use this on someone's doom blade that targeted a creature, and that creature is no longer there when the copy of doom blade is ready to resolve, they can't kill a new target, it just fizzles
You got an instant follow from me, a series about cards you should be playing is such a dope idea. I've been playing for over 10 years, Ertai's Meddling is one of my favorite cards no one has heard of! Also another interaction with it in edh it puts a copy of the spell on the stack, it forces people to put their commander in the zone as to not have their commander exiled for the rest of the game.
Seizan mentioned. Still building that deck but it's been a little difficult since I've never built a mono black deck before. I'm inundated with so many good choices!
Had a great moment where a friend had set up a stacked grave for reanimation. I had a leyline of anticipation out and used an empty the Catacombs to stop them reanimating everything
I use Emrakul's Evangel in my Chatterfang deck. As long as Chatterfang is onboard, it's basically a "hey, do you want to double the amount of token creatures you already have."
6:59 another funky fresh use for empty the catacombs: if your commander has a “exile creatures when they die (or instead of them dying)” clause on it, like, for example, 4cmc kalitas, you completely break parity with your opponents because you get all your creatures back from grave to hand, but their creatures have mostly been exiled from their graveyard so they get nothing or almost nothing back.
I love this series! You help me find the perfect cards to put in my decks! Not to mention quite close to my philosophy of Commander games, fun first, win later.
Just yesterday I put aside a copy of energy tap I found for it to put into a future deck of mine. Perfect timing
I love embargo in my Noyan Dar deck where I am attacking with one big land creature, so it does untap 👌
Hell yeah! EnergyTap mention!
I have it in my mono blue Gandalf deck. It's a sorcery that I can cast at instant speed and tap my commander for 4 mana. Great card
Ertais meddling against teferis pro is absolutely hilarious
I love Energy Tap. I just discovered it a few days ago when I was looking for blue/black ritual effects. I was expecting it to be one of those old $50 cards, but it's like, 50 cents instead, and it's really good
Glad to see someone knows the value of energy tap
8:50 I need to trust my instinct more: When I was young, I felt that "Empty the Catacombs" would be appreciated; but ALSO now I understand why "Emrakul's Evangel" did attracted my attention: I run an "Atla Palani" clone-populate deck and sometimes I struggle blowing out my Eggs ...... well, I now could blow them up easily and without relying on the red non-creature card "Goblin Bombardment" (I don't use a lot of red mana and I tend to heavily lean towards creatures).
Really important wording is that the exiled spell of ertai's meddling that it's a copy of the original spell.
So when you hit a morph spell on the stack and finally resolves it enters as a face up 2/2 with no abilities
great points about ertai's meddling
it also allows you to exile a threat for X turns which will be the entire game if you have enough mana, which is just better than a counterspell when the opponent has graveyard recursion
I'll always advocate for playing classic Magic cards
Have you ever tried using “Web of Inertia” ? Perfect blue graveyard hate decks that don’t want to get swung at
I run Ertai's familiar in my Hakim loreweaver deck, it runs a lot of self mill to get the enchantments in the yard, but also it's useful if I want to transfer an enchantment to it with an effect to save it for later. Energy tap I use in my dimir dragons deck it's great for playing more six drops. Energy arc's in the banding deck, empty the catacombs is indeed in the Seizan deck and equal treatment is in the pestilence tribal deck.
Love energy tap! I run it sometimes in Jori En.
A big commander gets more mana, but a 3 cost commander means i get the ritual consistently.
Did you call Emrakul “Im-rack-kul”?
Energy Arc would also be sweet in a UWx convoke strategy, Saint Traft and Rem Karolus for example where you don't have access to green untap effects.
i ran energy tap in my myrrim deck for a while, still need to find a spot for it again for find a new deck for it, its such a good card and good to see someone else notice it.
Energy Arc could combo well with Split Up if you have a way to tap down your creatures first. With your creatures tapped, cast Energy Arc with Split Up on the stack set to destroy all untapped creatures. Energy Arc untaps all your opponents creatures and they get destroyed.
Or this could work in reverse too. Untap your own creatures to prevent them from being destroyed with other tapped creatures.
I also use Emrakul's Evangel in my Grismold the Dreadsower deck. Use it to sac 20 1/1's turn them into 3/3's and put 20 +1+1 Counters on grismold. It's a great card.
I use emrakul’s evangel in my Flubs impact tremors deck. Cast A of Z or Phylath then sac all the plants. Just a way to double up the damage. For times when you don’t have scute swarm.
Doing some finishing touches on Hylda of the icy crown and energy arc is perfect for her, thanks!
Errai’s Meddling would be awesome in my zaxara deck! Get to make a x/x hydra off of it as well as suspend someone’s counterspell/interaction
I wasn't really on board with any of these cards until I saw Ertai's Meddling. Now that's an interesting card
I've never seen Energy Tap. Looks pretty good in non-combat blue decks
14:49 Re: Ertai’s Meddling, Not that it’s relevant, but a counterspell wouldn’t be able to counter something cast during their upkeep, because nothing would be on the stack for it to counter when it triggers.
ertai's meddling would work well against fogs too by reversing the effect onto them so damage is dealt during their turn instead.
Energy Tap is awesome in my Orvar deck.
you definitely missed syr konrad and tormod with empty the catacombs
oh energy tap when you think about it you can simply use it on a creature that's summoning sick for mana you don't necessary want to attack with, and when you think about colorless mana you could do Eldrazi's with it you can tap a big one to use it to cast another big one.
ertai meddling was on my consideration list before this came out and you got my thinking even further on it using it on teferi's protrotection is brilliant because if it's one and they did it for boardwipe reasons this turns into skip your turn like you said and that will buy you time for prep for their return.
Energy tap, energy arc and ertai's familiar peaked my interest. Deffos gonna try them in some decks. Thanks for sharing big man :D
Two cards I have been loving recently are Keen Sense and Predatory Hunger. Both are good in a voltron style deck.
Energy Tap is quite funny for Orvar. Copy a creature and get mana.
Gotta give Flux a mention for being a group hug card. It gives all players a chance to rummage their hands and replaces itself with a draw.
If you haven't put Oblivion Crown on the list before I think you should. It's a free discard outlet, and pumps up a creature it's amazing in Greasefang as it allows you to put vehicles back into the graveyard and pump up a creature to crew the vehicle that gets brought back.
Empty the catacombs after resolving my Iname, Death Aspect. Now you have a giant spirit hand that can be used with many combos.
Equal treatment! I need to add this to a deck, when someone swings for a big Lethal swing
Good video, a lot of cards I had never heard of before
I don't normally, but I will first, since it's the first time I've made it this early on one of your videos. :D so......... FIRST. edit: Energy Tap is friggin sick, I love that card, and I rly might have to look into using Emrakul's Evangel. That seems like it could have some really great swing. I might have to figure out how to use Ertai's Meddling..... that kind of jank seems right up my alley. PS: love your videos, keep making this great content for us niche card lovers. You give me tons of great ideas and lots of wacky cards that fuel a lot of my deck building.
Some fantastic ideas here! I use the energy field combo in my Zur deck, as he can tutor both up, even on the single turn if he has double-strike 😉
Zur is an attack trigger not a combat damage trigger, so unless youre somehow making extra combat steps in your esper deck, you shouldnt have a way to tutor twice with zur (other than just straight up coping the ability, like with roaming throne or strionic resonator, obviously). Doublestrike doesnt make zur do anything else besides an additional point of commander damage.
cheers! Live and learn
@ i hope i didnt come off as condescending with my explanation. Sorry if i did!
@@connorl0204 got me to go and check the rule and realise my mistake. Only ever played this deck once and misplayed that double trigger once luckily. Know for next time
How dare you expose my Energy Tap technology
Can you proliferate the delay counters on Ertai’s Meddling?
Something I don’t get as a newbie, watching several content creators they always seem to have the same engine ramping cards and Always play them. When you look at their deck build they’ve got exactly 1 in their deck. How are they doing this? Looking at you Sol Ring.
OK, so, I am no rules lawyer, BUT I have been playing since the 'old days', when this card was written. The INTENT was that you would untap attacking creatures. By the original rules of magic, if a creature was attacking (and thus tapped) and it got untapped BEFORE THE DAMAGE PHASE of the combat, then it just 'went home' and no damage was allocated by or against that creature. Honestly, I have never seen it played even though I own a few copies, but my assumption would be that, due to the vague wording, you could use it before blockers were declared as well to just untap some creatures, but that wouldn't trip the "no damage" part, because THAT PART IS A RULES INTERACTION and only applies to untapping attackers.
I'd very definitely consult someone who's a bona fide rules expert, a judge or something, or at least do the research online before expecting this card to work as described here. Gatherer is not super helpful here though, it just mentions that you can target untapped creatures and "the second part of the effect will still effect them."
It's bothersome to me that Glittering Stockpile isn't seeing a mention on any of these lists, from what I've seen from this channel.
Emrakul’s evangel in a Chatterfang deck would be pretty nuts… ha.. ha. Get it? Nuts?
I love energy arc. Useful in so many situations
i'm getting a card called energy flux soon and it'll be hilarious to counter rock heavy decks since they'll gain an upkeep cost
Im gonna try energy tap in my Talrand and energy field in my Tastsunari ! :)
It's so good!
Very nice selects, thanks!
Thanks for another great video Demo!
I've tried with Emrakul's Evangel in difrent Decks. Problem is for it to realy shine you already need a bigger board with lots of small creatures, otherwise it replaces only himself. It was much more ofte I used him, if I was attacked and loose some creatures, instead I sacrificed them, so I have at least some creatures afterwards. In my conclusion he isn't it worth, because that is a niche scenario and I could have better cards in that situation, like a fog. Speaking of...
I play Equal Treatment in every 1/1 token deck because of the thinking "hey, I can make more damage". Never used that that way. Until now it is only a worser Fog. Funny was only one time where one who would win the next turn was left with 2 life and the player before him was only able to deal 1. This card was the help.
Excellent content as always
Ertai’s Meddling is hilarious
Yeaaah, another episode ! Love it ! 🤩
Another great target for ertais meddling is Time stop 😁and yes, it feels GOOD
Emrakul's Evangel going in my Yedora, Grave Gardener morph deck.
God I'm gonna have to add Ertai's Meddling to my Melek deck... I have a friend in my playgroup that is wayyyy to reliant on T-Pro
Energy tap is perfect for my simic eldrazi deck
Empty the catacombs would be insane in my anje madness deck.
I can tell you’ve been searching for more answers to these board protection spells. 👍
Instant like for manatap!!!
All of these picks are so fiiiire 🔥
Ertai's meddling against phage :D
Essence filter is a sleeper board wipe
Empty the catacombs + syr Konrad, seems pretty strong
Energy Tap enjoyers! 🙌
Emrakuls evangel is bonkers in aristocrats
Don't undersell Ertai's Meddling. Especially in stormy/copy decks - Ertai's Meddling can annihilate an opponent's game plan. Suspending someone's commander for 2-3 turns? Amazing.
10 Cards you *shouldn't* put in your Commander Decks:
1) Basic Plains
2) Cards w/White Mana
3-10) All of the Above
Love your vids. I gotta say however, your white backgrounds are blinding!
Energy Field + Wheel of Sun and Moon... not only do you keep Energy Field up, but IF a card WOULD be put in your graveyard, put it at the bottom of your library (2 drop multi GW/GW)
Woah baby Energy Tap is going into my Ovar deck....muah hahaha
Really enjoy your videos, thanks, but lately there have been so many advertisements throughout each video.
sorry i have no control over that. i think youtube is ramping it up.
@@edhdeckbuilding Wouldn't surprise me. No problem. Thanks again for the videos.
emrackel?
i love when people do this, it's hilarious.
@@edhdeckbuilding is that how it's pronounced? Have I been saying it wrong this whole time?
@@NattixOMG it's a made-up imaginary fantasy name. pronounce it however you like.