Emperor of Bones seems like a really neat card. At its very worst, it's a 2/2 with a smol combat trick that is also a bit of graveyard hate. At its best, as we saw here, it's a turn 3 atraxa while attacking for 11 while gaining 7 life while drawing 5-6 cards
38:59 isn’t it better here to wasteland the thespian stage that was making a copy? The saga was sacrificing itself anyways, so getting rid of it doesn’t put them down a land.
The return of Alex Steacy's Sheoldred commander deck: "I ain't sayin' she's a gravedigger, but she certainly... exiles creatures from the graveyard with... startling efficiency... it needs work."
Awesome video! I did some scryfall searching and thought of ideas. Entomb+Reanimate doesn't seem the best for Emperor. You're going from a combo plan to a midrange plan without having the right enablers. If you want to keep a combo/midrange feel, I'd add more looting effects to get rid of dead draws and find the other half of your A/B of binned monster vs reanimation. I think there is some consideration for +1 synergy: Hardened Scales & Green Ozolith if you go deep. Agatha's Soul Cauldron enables Emperor and is yard hate. Innkeeper's Talent lets any creature become a threat and synergizes with cards aside from Emp. Evolution Witness is the same 'cycle' and that might be a strong form of game ending card advantage with Talent/Cauldron. Imagine picking wastelands back up. Stocking the Pantry is another form of card advantage. Each +1 counter is effectively a clue. Vadmir, New Blood grows REAL quickly with Emperor of Bones and scales off any other +1 counter synergies you run. You can double dip with removal on your opponent's turn too. I think a creature plan backed by strong discard could get some value. I think going full BUG Counters with T1 Hardened Scales, T2 Psychic Frog can let you psychic frog REALLY hard. Retribution of the Ancients awesome sideboard tech for creature matchups. 1BB: Emperor reanimate and give a creature an opponent controls -2/-2 until end of turn. If you start the turn with counters that's 1BBB for -4/-4 repeatably. If you run more creatures that like counters Retribution becomes a removal machine gun that makes it impossible for them to win combat math. Benthic Biomancer, Basking Broodscale, Quirion Beastcaller and Scurry Oak are probably too cute/not strong enough. Oona's Blackguard can straight knock people out of the game with all the discard. Sarulf, Realm Eater is possibly a wrath trick you can consider with fetchlands/wastelands/removal I think there's a cool midrange counters deck here, it might be too weak for legacy but the pieces are almost all in Modern as well.
Emperor of bones plays fantasticly with ulamog the defiler..if we manage to exile ulamog under emperor and activate his ability,,ulamog enters with +10 counters(gets the amount from himself)with haste anihilator 10 and a victory!
Another tech could be Ulamog, the Defiler cause IF exiled see himself so enter with 10 Counters! on Emperor! - AND/OR (sidetech) creation of avacyn means with ritual a potential T3 Ulamog with 10 Counters, able to win the game in one swing the turn after ;)
Controversial take: This deck could do great things with a Psychic Frog Even More Controversial Take: This deck could do great things with Return to Ravnica bomb *Lotleth Troll*
I think Emperor of Bones might do well with some red splash? then you could also run Oliphaunt. Turn 1 cycle Oliphaunt. Turn 2 Emperor, turn 3 adapt, bring back Ouliphant, Ouliphant gives Emperor +2 and trample, swing for 12 trample damage. I think building this beck more as fair midrange and coincidentally have 2 high power cyclers to bring back could be pretty good. With turn 1 dark rit you could even both play EoB and cycle. Swinging for 12 on turn 2
[11:15] is it feasible to board out both your big creatures in that matchup? Since your opponent is very dedicated to putting big creatures into the graveyard and your reanimates can target anyone you can just target their creatures, and not give them outs to use your big creatures against you. Since they seem pretty all in on the reanimation they can't do the same, unless they have quite the transformative sideboard.
I have a very silly idea that would probably be bad but fun: Emperor of Bones + Broadside Bombardiers + landcyclers and try to go for a 14 damage throw off adapt+boast?
I currently evolved the following decklists after your idea and some playtesting: 4 Emperor of Bones 4 Barrowgoyf 1 Archon of Cruelty 1 Titan of Industry 2 Generous Ent 4 Troll of Khazad-dûm 2 Boggart Trawler 4 Animate Dead 4 Dark Ritual 4 Fatal Push 4 Entomb 2 Bayou 4 Verdant Catacombs 2 Swamp 1 Forest 2 Underground Mortuary 3 Ancient Tomb 4 Polluted Delta 4 Reanimate 4 Thoughtseize 2 Null Rod 3 Undermountain Adventurer 3 Opposition Agent 2 Faerie Macabre 3 Abrupt Decay 2 Pick Your Poison Idea was to have the option to hardcast every card, get less blanks and surprise with green initiatve at side (which also comes with a strong mana push itself, letting you follow up with Trolls from hand etc.) Note that a deathtouch+lifelink goyf is really good to in the current meta,
Restating this opinion: I feel like you should just restart the league if your round 1 opponent doesnt even show up. That round 1 is just not helping the content. Sure if its round 3 or 4, whatever, you sigh and move on. But round 1??? Just restart a new league and actually give us the full content we come here to watch.
Paraphasing video intro "Dealers choice donation list... so I wanted to use it grief people because no one would donate directly to see more grief" well once a scammer always a scammer. I think this grief ban might have also been a phil ban. Maybe you can grief people in vintage
I mean, sure, you can overlook all the crazy deckbuilding here and sweet cards to focus on Grief... but it sort of seems like you totally missed the mark of what I was showcasing in this video. It certainly was not Grief.
