Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

[ISBPathfinder]

It's my opinion, but you know you've got to be cynical when you compare the textbox of Emrakul to Overrun and see the same thing and/or feel roughly the same way.

Sorry, rereading my previous post I do come off as a bit of an ass. I wasn't trying to make little of your opinion and I am not trying to say that its unplayable or wouldn't be played. Your thoughts are as reliant as anyone else's and my previous post does make me feel like a bit of an ass after.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Animar, Soul of Elements sez hi!

[ISBPathfinder]

Animar, Soul of Elements sez hi!

Don't worry, he went infinite before casting Emrakul mattered.

In all fairness I have seen Animar eldrazi decks. I have also seen Rakdos, Lord of Riots with eldrazi concepts. There are probably a few other commanders but its just been kind of a while since I have seen many dedicated eldrazi decks. As time goes on I think a lot of us are jaded with them and those who aren't see the price tag of obtaining a bunch of mythic eldrazi and its just not something I see a lot of anymore.

Also, it might just be me but casting a 15 mana spell that generally speaking doesn't kill a single player is a bit underwhelming for me. I tend to be the kind of person though that looks at six drops and tries to pair them down so I can run faster and leaner though. Fifteen drops are 100% not happening in my decks these days. If you ask me, Emrakul is the kind of card you use to hit that you put in a deck when you are the underdog and need to make someone who always wins sad. It generally won't win you the game but you use it to fight through interaction and punish someone before it eats a wrath. I wouldn't run Emrakul myself because it won't go the distance and fifteen drops are crazy bad on the curve.

[pokken]

. If you ask me, Emrakul is the kind of card you use to hit that you put in a deck when you are the underdog and need to make someone who always wins sad. It generally won't win you the game but you use it to fight through interaction and punish someone before it eats a wrath. I wouldn't run Emrakul myself because it won't go the distance and fifteen drops are crazy bad on the curve.

Given how many games I've won by slamming Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Emrakul, the Promised End with mana to spare, I'm confident that Emrakul would be very good in at least some decks. Obviously 9-10 is a different mana amount, but Emrakul is functionally free because of the extra turn -- his mana cost plays like uncounterable Time Spiral

Making 15 mana with Exploration.dec is just not that hard.

Ultimately I think you're right that if Emrakul was unbanned it would not be any worse than Expropriate or whatever - I don't find Uncounterable to be that big of a deal since probably 90% of the decks I run into have 0-3 counterspells, and the removal rider doesn't dodge sweepers. It's functionally not that much less uninteractive than Torment of Hailfire.

But I do think you're underselling it a bit overall.

[DirkGently]

I think calling Emmy a 1-card win condition is a bit of a stretch. In 1v1, totally, but in multiplayer you still only attack one player at a time, and depending on the deck annihilator 6 may not take them out of the game, or even come close if they're a token deck. I also think the infinite combo concerns are pretty silly. There are so many easier to set up infinites that don't require nearly as much mana. Comparing it a 1-card-win like T&N which can easily fetch a combo that wins immediately against any number of players is not exactly close, especially considering T&N costs 9 compared to 15 for emmy. And as nasty as it is off sneak attack, not many people play the card, and also there are so many other very nasty things to do with it that Emmy is probably relatively tame.

All that said, it's not a card I would likely ever play so although I think it's probably okay I'm not going to join the picket line anytime soon. It's probably fair, but it doesn't seem super fun - extra turns are cancer and I don't think the gameplay experience of getting annihilated-on brings much positive to the game.

[ISBPathfinder]

Given how many games I've won by slamming Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Emrakul, the Promised End with mana to spare, I'm confident that Emrakul would be very good in at least some decks. Obviously 9-10 is a different mana amount, but Emrakul is functionally free because of the extra turn -- his mana cost plays like uncounterable Time Spiral

Making 15 mana with Exploration.dec is just not that hard.

Ultimately I think you're right that if Emrakul was unbanned it would not be any worse than Expropriate or whatever - I don't find Uncounterable to be that big of a deal since probably 90% of the decks I run into have 0-3 counterspells, and the removal rider doesn't dodge sweepers. It's functionally not that much less uninteractive than Torment of Hailfire.

But I do think you're underselling it a bit overall.

I am under selling it but I also think that the power level of commanders has risen a lot and a lot of games finish a lot faster than they used to. I honestly don't find most expensive spells to be very playable in general but the fact that it only maybe disables a player based heavily on how much a trigger of annihilate 6 is going to hurt them doesn't endeer me to this card. It is fast acting and resistant to a lot of forms of control but I have more than one deck that could literally ad nausium be hit by this effect and never really suffer from it not to mention that most of those decks will kill you by turn 8 or so.

I was playing a Sythis, Harvest's Hand deck the other day that ate a Turn 5 Austere Command for essentially only enchantments and still killed that table like 2 turns later with having drawn over half of my deck by turn 8. I am just saying like the horrible things that are legal to do in this format seem like they heavily out pace what Emrakul can do these days. I am not saying that we are better off with her in but I don't think the issue of her being everywhere and the de facto wincon of every deck will be true anymore.

[Mookie]

As mentioned previously, I'm less concerned about a player ramping to 15 and hardcasting Emrakul - we already have payoffs for ramping, like Expropriate and Torment of Hailfire. I'm more concerned about the possibility of cheating her out with Polymorph / Sneak Attack / Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge / Genesis Ultimatum / etc - creatures are much easier to cheat out than sorceries and other card types. I don't think it's difficult to cheat Emrakul out around turn 4-5, and I do think that doing so will be enough to win the game by itself, while cheating out another Eldrazi or something like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur usually won't be, partially due to their vulnerability to removal. I'll also note that while Emrakul is technically vulnerable to board wipes, her ability to shuffle back into the deck means it is possible to cheat her out multiple times, and I don't think a table is likely to have multiple board wipes available to deal with her.

If Emrakul is available as a payoff, I think that this type of strategy would become a lot more viable - I'm going to point to the Polymorph decks that ended up getting Emrakul banned from 1v1 Commander as an example of the style of deck that I would expect to show up. I myself have at least two decks that would be interested in cheating out Emrakul (using Proteus Staff and Possibility Storm), with a third already brewed but shelved due to needing more payoffs (which Emrakul helps with).

[ISBPathfinder]

As mentioned previously, I'm less concerned about a player ramping to 15 and hardcasting Emrakul - we already have payoffs for ramping, like Expropriate and Torment of Hailfire. I'm more concerned about the possibility of cheating her out with Polymorph / Sneak Attack / Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge / Genesis Ultimatum / etc - creatures are much easier to cheat out than sorceries and other card types. I don't think it's difficult to cheat Emrakul out around turn 4-5, and I do think that doing so will be enough to win the game by itself, while cheating out another Eldrazi or something like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur usually won't be, partially due to their vulnerability to removal. I'll also note that while Emrakul is technically vulnerable to board wipes, her ability to shuffle back into the deck means it is possible to cheat her out multiple times, and I don't think a table is likely to have multiple board wipes available to deal with her.

If Emrakul is available as a payoff, I think that this type of strategy would become a lot more viable - I'm going to point to the Polymorph decks that ended up getting Emrakul banned from 1v1 Commander as an example of the style of deck that I would expect to show up. I myself have at least two decks that would be interested in cheating out Emrakul (using Proteus Staff and Possibility Storm), with a third already brewed but shelved due to needing more payoffs (which Emrakul helps with).

I suppose that is a fair concern. I would have to see a list though potentially still. The upside of Emrakul as the payoff is that a number of cheap exile removal effects can't target her and if you wrath then the shuffle and reload happens. I have always thought that polymorph effects were still a bit scarce to try to go all in on a single creature in deck for it especially with getting tokens and a polymorph that early but its definitely doable.

I mocked up a list a while back for a Mass Polymorph concept but I am not sure how much of a problem using only a single creature would be. It would likely be a little bit all in on the concept. The flip side on the polymorph idea is that those effects can be responded to with spot removal on the targeted creature denying the effect. It does open up the interaction a little but I think your point is still fair.

[Mookie]

I mocked up a list a while back for a Mass Polymorph concept but I am not sure how much of a problem using only a single creature would be. It would likely be a little bit all in on the concept. The flip side on the polymorph idea is that those effects can be responded to with spot removal on the targeted creature denying the effect. It does open up the interaction a little but I think your point is still fair.

I've seen Mass Polymorph → Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake in a mono-blue control shell (with Kefnet the Mindful as the commander and infinite mana sink, and manlands as the polymorph fodder). Hard to say whether the increased redundancy in having access to more polymorph effects would be worth losing infinite mana as a win condition, but it's definitely a viable shell. And, as mentioned, I have a Proteus Staff deck, which is only running a single creature so it can set up a lethal Goblin Charbelcher. Not a particularly serious deck, but Emrakul would definitely be a significant power spike over the next-strongest target (which is probably either Blightsteel Colossus or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre).

[pokken]

Worrying about cheating emrakul out seems loose to me, they already have Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and while they do crap on games when they start swinging they aren't exactly popular cheat targets anymore when we have stuff like Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Vilis, Broker of Blood and Nyxbloom Ancient

I'm generally a lot more worried about Nyxbloom and Razzledazzle than emrakul

My main objection to Emrakul is the extra turn rider making the functional cost 0, and that effect being functionally uncounterable.

[ISBPathfinder]

To be honest I had always assumed that a polymorph concept would use a range of creatures assuming that only one creature would going too all in on assuming things work out. I would likely assume that 3-5 creatures would make the deck a lot less of a glass cannon. Even if you got Emrakul its not as if there aren't effects that could transform or steal that tend to be good against commanders that still interact with her in terrible ways. When you polymorph into Emrakul you don't get the extra turn and you give everyone time to respond to it before you can annihilate (unless you assemble haste as well which is more setup).

I am not trying to make light of cheating Emrakul out early. I agree its terrifying. I just think there are a lot of things that can still be done about it and if you make a deck that can consistently do something like that and I know that when you show me your commander I am absolutely going to mulligan into oblivion to get a hand that doesn't just bend over to that. Playing a one trick deck like that in a consistant meta your opponents should pick up on that and try very hard to not die to something you are always trying to consistently do like that.

Kind of off topic mass polymorph thing

Show

Hide

Not to go too far down a rabit hole but I had a mass polymorph concept that was Jeskai colors that the plan was along as follows:

So obviously my goal is to get 5+ creatures / tokens in play and then mass polymorph them off into our only five creatures: Terror of the Peaks, Fiendish Duo, Angrath's Marauders, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, and Avacyn, Angel of Hope. If this ideal situation happens without interaction from my opponents we will ultimately end up with: 64 damage, 40 damage, 32 damage, and 40 damage as damage doubler effects stack.

This is probably enough to kill most boards. Including Avacyn, Angel of Hope into this mix doesn't add a ton but it makes it far harder to spot remove interact with one of the damage dealers which is going to be one of the bigger ways to shrink our damage. If someone does have exile our bounce spot removal having Avacyn in the mix also makes it more likely that we exist to the point where we can attack with some of the creatures as well. I found a few other things that would give more output but they increased the number of targets I was looking at and didn't seem to make things better than just using Avacyn.

I never built said deck mostly because well..... it seemed kind of lame lol. The upside though is that you can get more than 5 tokens in play before engaging the mass polymorph and it makes it a lot harder to disrupt with spot removal. Also even if someone does have exile / bounce / edict response after you floop your creatures you are left with some very chunky creatures and all of your opponents should still be at like half life stairing down Avacyn still.

My main objection to Emrakul is the extra turn rider making the functional cost 0, and that effect being functionally uncounterable.

This is a big issue I have with extra turns but because you untap doesn't mean that Time Stretch and Expropriate have no functional cost to them. Needing to amass the mana to cast them is their cost and while I do hate most extra turns because of this I wouldn't go so far as to say there is no cost in running Emrakul. You have to run a much higher ramp objective or have games go much much later to hit this level of mana.

It is true that Emrakul's extra turn is harder as it requires a stifle / end turn sort of effect to stop but I still think that the mana to cast it in the first place is a restriction which would likely keep me from including it in 95% of decks still.

[pokken]

This is a big issue I have with extra turns but because you untap doesn't mean that Time Stretch and Expropriate have no functional cost to them. Needing to amass the mana to cast them is their cost and while I do hate most extra turns because of this I wouldn't go so far as to say there is no cost in running Emrakul. You have to run a much higher ramp objective or have games go much much later to hit this level of mana.

The functional *mana* cost is 0 to casting a time warp, but you can counter a time warp or Deflecting Swat it or whatever.

[ISBPathfinder]

The functional *mana* cost is 0 to casting a time warp, but you can counter a time warp or Deflecting Swat it or whatever.

Extra turns are good and its hard to interact with I will give you that. But getting to that 15 mana is still intense and you can get combo or aggro killed as you are setting up all of that ramp. I have plenty of aggro decks that have killed tables of four by turn 6 via combat damage because my opponents are trying too hard for a proactive gameplan that involves ignoring my aggro deck.

It feels like we keep going in circles how you explain how hard it is to control deck vs Emrakul and I keep pointing to how easy it is to proactive deck vs emrakul lol. Emrakul is a very strong card vs control strategies but tends to get weaker to a lot of decks that are token or excessively draw heavy (depends on the deck a little but if you can put cheap permenants to play and draw cards).

Emrakul is a ramp payoff that happens to be strong vs traditional control strategies.

[Swift2210]

I expect Emrakul to be unbanned at some point in time in the future. It's 15 mana, meaning it's a dead card most of the time until someone pulls off a Sneak Attack on you. As ISB states, a lot of the cards on the ban list have been outclassed with power creep. I can site numerous examples. Dockside Extortionist makes Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and Primeval Titan look slow and inefficient. Peer into the Abyss trumps Yawgmoth's Bargain. With so much new card draw available like Esper Sentinel and the new Rite of Harmony I'd think Library of Alexandria could come off at some point in time too.

[JovialJovian]

I expect Emrakul to be unbanned at some point in time in the future. It's 15 mana, meaning it's a dead card most of the time until someone pulls off a Sneak Attack on you. As ISB states, a lot of the cards on the ban list have been outclassed with power creep. I can site numerous examples. Dockside Extortionist makes Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and Primeval Titan look slow and inefficient. Peer into the Abyss trumps Yawgmoth's Bargain. With so much new card draw available like Esper Sentinel and the new Rite of Harmony I'd think Library of Alexandria could come off at some point in time too.

Didn't really read through the discussion.
Emrakul is almost never cast for full price, but you can build an entire deck around getting it out, it's that powerful. Combined with fitting into any color, it's oppressive.
Rofellos is problematic because it lives in the command zone. When they eliminated "Banned as commander" Rofellos simply got upgraded to a full ban. If it was just in the 99, then you are correct, but that's not the reason it's on the list.
Primeval Titan is not a ramp card, it searches utility land combos right onto the battlefield, that's the reason it's on the list. If it was purely about the speed of the ramp, then there are a hundred things more efficient than PrimeTime, but again, you missed the point.
If you think Yawgmoth's Bargain is trumped by anything, then you've never played against it. The card is insane, truly unbalanced.
Library of Alexandria is likewise hideously unbalanced, but in a much more swingy way, and is banned for the reason the Moxen are, if you land them in the early game by luck or design, it takes over the game.

[DirkGently]

Library of Alexandria is likewise hideously unbalanced, but in a much more swingy way, and is banned for the reason the Moxen are, if you land them in the early game by luck or design, it takes over the game.

I don't think it's nearly as unbalanced as you say. One card per turn isn't game-breaking, especially at the cost of mana. Compare to a totally fine card, Phyrexian Arena. They both generate a card per turn, and in terms of mana cost they're realistically pretty comparable since arena costs 3 upfront whereas library costs 1 per turn. Library can draw a few extra cards if you have it in your starter, but it also has the potential to be basically dead if you drop to too few cards whereas arena always draws.

Now, I'm not going to say it's not better than arena in most decks. It's less vulnerable to removal, it takes a land slot, etc, but it's not THAT far off and arena is nowhere close to dangerous. I find it strange that you think it's more explosive than bargain because it obviously isn't - bargain can draw 20 cards immediately, how is 1 card per turn remotely explosive by comparison?

When I imagine sitting down to a game where an opponent plays either sol ring or library, I'd 100% rather play against library. Tempo is way more dangerous than gradual card advantage. If the library player wins it's probably because the other players didn't threat-assess him correctly to compensate for the CA. Whereas some games early fast mana gives you literally no chance to win.

I do think you're correct that it's banned for the same reason as the moxen though. It's not a guaranteed auto-include like the moxen are, but it is certainly very strong in a very large number of decks, and the price is exorbitant. I think a lot of people would get upset that they couldn't fully optimise their decks. Catering to the wealthy is probably a bad move in 2021 😆

[pokken]

Library of Alexandria actually would be likely a great card for the format if it were broadly available. Serious powerhouse lands that don't tap for colored mana are fantastic for the game. The more of them the better. Look at the contortions people do in CEDH to include Boseiju, Who Shelters All in their manabase and that's typically the only one they can have if any.

It's not *that* powerful but it's good enough to give extra power to 1-3 color decks that they deserve. And not good enough to break into 4c and 5c decks that have room for exactly 1 or maybe 2 colorless lands of which one is probably something bananas like Ancient Tomb

I really don't understand the idea that this card is even top 100 most powerful cards in EDH...top 200 at best. all things considered it's probably weaker than Llanowar Elves

Rofellos is problematic because it lives in the command zone. When they eliminated "Banned as commander" Rofellos simply got upgraded to a full ban. If it was just in the 99, then you are correct, but that's not the reason it's on the list.

I am pretty sure there's a thread on this but rofellos *might* be top 3 mono green generals but barely registers on the power level or even consistency of commanders these days

He got banned for comboing too much with Umbral Mantle which I mean...it was just a different time (Yes I know that's an oversimplification but it was a major concern at the time how much he combo'd with stuff -- people were whinging everlasting about Staff of Domination at that same time period)

[Sharpened]

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is not seeing the light of day. It's just not. It was overly centralizing and miserable, And despite probably not being the best thing you could do, I see no reason why it wouldn't be again.

Library of Alexandria isn't moving. it's supply being what it is, there's just no way they would move it off the banlist, even if its not too problematic to play. If it could be reprinted in a masters set, I could see it being a different story, but without that ability, I just can't see the Rules Committee even giving it serious consideration, regardless of whether or not that should affect their decision making.

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is banned less for Umbral Mantle combos and more for being ridiculously consistent in powering out 6 drops before other players 3rd turn. An environment that can be described as 'Start the game treating the Rofellos player as archenemy, then if you make it to the midgame you can play normally' is not a healthy format. Sure, the cEDH decks can handle it, but it's just too unpleasant for most of the format.

[umtiger]

Unbanning Worldfire isn't a signal to me that cards like Emrakul are getting unbanned.

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is banned less for Umbral Mantle combos and more for being ridiculously consistent in powering out 6 drops before other players 3rd turn. An environment that can be described as 'Start the game treating the Rofellos player as archenemy, then if you make it to the midgame you can play normally' is not a healthy format. Sure, the cEDH decks can handle it, but it's just too unpleasant for most of the format.

tbf, many of the games that I play are archenemy based on the commander choice.

[onering]

"Peer into the Abyss trumps Yawgmoth's Bargain." No, unless your using it to kill someone in which case that's a totally different role. Peer costs an additional mana and draws everything immediately, which means you have to already have follow up mana ready as opposed to Bargain where you can cast it and then wait to draw until your next turn when you can play the cards. Bargain is more flexible, easier to use without already having set up a crapload of mana, and easier to cast. Peer has a higher ceiling, as it gives you a better rate on cards for life, but Bargain always OP, and if you can cast it you should, while Peer is a card you can't just immediately cast upon drawing and expect it to dominate. If you curve into it, its incredible card selection and ok card advantage, if you curve into Bargain its incredible card advantage.

Emrakul isn't, and shouldn't be, getting unbanned. Emrakul isn't just a completely absurd pile of keywords, it isn't just extremely difficult to interact with, it isn't just an extra turn spell, it isn't just a massive amount of damage, it isn't just the completely ridiculous Annihilator 6 that can take a single player out of the game out of nowhere when cheated out, its all of these things AND it can be your commander. The total package is why its banned. And being able to be your commander matters a lot more today than when it was banned, because its much easier to both build mono brown today AND easier to ramp into Emrakul while doing so. Better lands, more lands that help cast Eldrazi, more ways to ramp in colorless, etc. I've seen enough Kozileks cast turn 5 to know that Emrakul coming down turn 6 in such a deck should be expected. For me, though, the fact that its so hard to interact with is what really puts it over the top. Its so goddam obnoxious as it is, like Razzle Dazzle and the triple mana treefolk, but you have several ways to immediately answer those. You can counter them, you can throw targeted creature kill at them, you can bounce them, you can steal them, etc. Sure, some of those are going to be less effective than others, and if the player is able to immediately leverage the mana or the tutoring they may be too little to late, but they are still options (and with nyxborn you also have enchantment destruction to throw at it, and with Razzle Dazzle, you then have the opportunity to counter or kill whatever the player tutored, so even then its not game over, and depending on how greedy they were you can kill the creatures they have out while Razzle Dazzle is on the stack so he has nothing to sac, which is narrow but I've done it when my removal was burn and had it pay off, ha ha, run on sentences). Emrakul, on the other hand, demands extremely narrow answers. There are a handful of "counter spells" that are rarely ran that exile the spell rather than counter it, and then you have wraths and other untargeted removal, and O-Ring effects. Most of these things are sorcery speed, and therefore often too late to matter. Sneak attack Emrakul into someone's face turn 4 and they're done. Its overloaded Cyclonic Rift or bust.

So its really the combination of Emrakul being a massive pile of nonsense that is horrific to play against AND the feeling of powerlessness that comes with it being a nightmare to interact with. When "Play more removal" doesn't even help, its a problem. When counterwallandspotremoval.dek can't even deal with it, it deserves the ban hammer.

[JovialJovian]

Library of Alexandria is likewise hideously unbalanced, but in a much more swingy way, and is banned for the reason the Moxen are, if you land them in the early game by luck or design, it takes over the game.

Now, I'm not going to say it's not better than arena in most decks. It's less vulnerable to removal, it takes a land slot, etc, but it's not THAT far off and arena is nowhere close to dangerous. I find it strange that you think it's more explosive than bargain because it obviously isn't - bargain can draw 20 cards immediately, how is 1 card per turn remotely explosive by comparison?

I did not say it was more explosive, but rather that it is more swingy. Yawgmoth's Bargain is consistent, when you play it, you suddenly have all the card advantage you could ever need, every time. Library is swingy, if you draw it early is has a huge impact on the game, if you draw it late it's rather meh. It's swingy, like a Lotus, Sol Ring, or a Mox.

We can disagree on how overall powerful it is, I would agree that it is less oppressive than Bargain, but I do think that it is still above the line for commander and should remain banned. Of course I'm also in the camp that thinks Sol Ring is also too swingy, too potent, and should be jettisoned from the format.

[Ulka]

I love all the discussion around the varying cards but please stay on topic of our Lord and Savior, Spaghetti Monster of the Moon. The other cards have their own threads.
Ulka

[ISBPathfinder]

I think we are all in the same line of thinking that Emrakul is good against control and its hard to pivot to a position where control can interact with him. Generally speaking you need stifle effects and triggered abilities like Cast Out if your plan is to out control Emrakul. I don't know that its necessarily a problem that control doesn't interact with it positively as I think its actually healthy for there to be cards that prey on specific archetypes but are weak to others. Emrakul is still extremely slow and while yes, you can cheat him out he won't be winning you the game when you cheat him out. I think there are more broken things to multi card combine than getting a very specific cheat a creature to play tactic out (oh also those can be countered) to put Emrakul into play to punish a single individual when you could for the same complexity / mana just win the game.

Emrakul is good vs control (TRUE)

I just don't see the reason people are freaking out over a 15 mana good vs control finisher. Its literally like one of the most expensive finishers out there and its very situational to the boardstate still. Any sort of "you could cheat him out with card X" could just as well be me arguing about two card combos that ACTUALLY WIN. Cheating Emrakul into play at best results in one opponent losing and that is still extremely situational to the current boardstate. In a lot of cases the person who has the best board is the one that Emrakul has the least impact on.

[pokken]

The only thing I really struggle with Emrakul about is that cheating her into play by a free cast is hugely problematic. There're enough ways to do it that it worries me.

If you cast her on an early turn for free with something like Descendants' Path or Aminatou's Augury or Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign or whatever it's far, far more backbreaking than anything else you could cheat out (short of something that just straight ends the game like Enter the Infinite)

Like, the game is over to a turn 4 or 5 emrakul that immediately wipes the most threatening opponent from the game with annihilator 6

[materpillar]

Emrakul is good vs control (TRUE)

I just don't see the reason people are freaking out over a 15 mana good vs control finisher. Its literally like one of the most expensive finishers out there and its very situational to the boardstate still.

Pretty sure Emrakul is also hella toxic any low power battlecruiser meta. By which I mean any meta where people actually rely on the combat step to end games (like attacking with creatures over several turns not infinite / pseudo-infinite combat steps). Not only is Emrakul very toxic to that environment that's an environment full of Timmies that can't result the pull of the Timmiest of Timmy spagetti monsters. I'd imagine she'd show up a fair amount to wreck mid-range slug-fest games. I loath playing against Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn does everything Ulamog does but more frustratingly.

She's probably fine in your spike filled dumpster of a meta but please please please keep her out of my games. I say that with her being one of my favorite magic cards and a high-cmc tribal that would love to slot her in next to Autochthon Wurm and Draco.