Sisay: Legendary Creature Toolbox
Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 10:07 am
I've had a Commander deck full of commanders in one form or another for nearly a decade. It started with Cromat, and has shifted commanders through Ramos, Dragon Engine and is now led by Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. Throughout the lifecycle of this deck, the purpose has always been a place for the legendary creatures that I like to play, but don't have a deck to lead. When Ramos lead, this included Damia, Sage of Stone, Prime Speaker Zegana and more card advantage or tutors. Sisay, Weatherlight Captain and Rienne, Angel of Rebirth have since shifted the deck away from draw and tutor effects and towards a multi-colored legendary toolbox that is more responsive with resiliency, protection, disruption, and non-combat winconditions.
The primary deck restriction is that it should only be using legendary creatures. The second restriction is that this deck shares a manabase with 3 other 5 color decks: legendary dragons, superfriends, and Elemental tribal. This makes changes to bias the colors of the manabase to match any one deck's color distribution less viable. Additionally, it contains a Maze's End win condition and one of my favorite cards as a small taste of 5-color.
This deck shares a manabase among four decks, listed here in intentionally descending power level.
The gameplan is to play a 2-3 color creature and Sisay before reaching . This is usually possible around turn 4 with most hands. The first activation usually has one of the following options. The decision can be weighted by a desired to just get more colors and expand the toolbox vs protection or disruption.
If 4 CMC is available for the second activation, then the main reason to use it before setting up Selvala+Derevi is for protection or setup. Those options are:
The setup cards consist of tutoring, card and tempo advantage, backup mana generation, and other power increases to fully open the toolbox.
The primary deck restriction is that it should only be using legendary creatures. The second restriction is that this deck shares a manabase with 3 other 5 color decks: legendary dragons, superfriends, and Elemental tribal. This makes changes to bias the colors of the manabase to match any one deck's color distribution less viable. Additionally, it contains a Maze's End win condition and one of my favorite cards as a small taste of 5-color.
This deck shares a manabase among four decks, listed here in intentionally descending power level.
- Sisay, Weatherlight Captain: legendary creature tribal located here.
- Golos, Tireless Pilgrim / Ramos, Dragon Engine / Sisay, Weatherlight Captain: Superfriends, artifacts, and boardwipes located here.
- The Ur-Dragon: legendary dragons tribal.
- Horde of Notions: tribal elementals located here.
Legendary Toolbox
Approximate Total Cost:
The gameplan is to play a 2-3 color creature and Sisay before reaching . This is usually possible around turn 4 with most hands. The first activation usually has one of the following options. The decision can be weighted by a desired to just get more colors and expand the toolbox vs protection or disruption.
- Saffi Eriksdotter is protection for my current board state. This can be tutored in response to removal, you you don't need to telegraph it. If you didn't need the reaction, this can still be a reasonable option for some resiliency.
- Gaddock Teeg and Lavinia, Azorius Renegade are both proactive disruption, either preventing most board wipes or slowing down an artifact-heavy ramp deck. These should be tutored the turn before the player(s) that they're intended to disrupt. These are reasonable options at the end-step before you untap if you didn't need to react but expect to need this disruption.
- Lazav, the Multifarious is primarily useful in the late game as backup for key cards that may have died. Selecting Lazav early only makes sense if you really need the colors for the next toolbox.
- Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is new and untested, but I expect him to become the greediest option here if disruption and protection were not needed. With 15 mana rocks and now 3 mana producing creatures, Kinnan should enable faster ramp and getting to a 2x activation more quickly.
- Selvala, Heart of the Wilds should usually be the second card searched if able. Scaling any color combination of mana off the power of Sisay, Weatherlight Captain is one of the fastest pathways to a multiple activation turn and a winning combat step. Holding off until an end step is best is haste is not out yet. If CMC 4 is available, then finding Chainer, Nightmare Adept can be a safer route.
- Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is usually the card that I find after Selvala. Untapping Selvala on EtB, and potentially more if done during combat is a fast way to putting the deck into play. This combination is the primary mana engine.
- Selvala, Explorer Returned is a backup mana source, and usually not as effective as Heart of the Wilds.
- Anafenza, the Foremost is a hatebear to punish most graveyard loops and recursion engines. It can also be another way to add power to Sisay beyond the colors.
- Kunoros, Hound of Athreos is a similar hatebear to Anafenza, but also stops Yawgmoth's Will, Underworld Breach, and graveyard recursion that doesn't care about where the card ends up like Grenzo, Dungeon Warden. The drawbacks here are that it's symmetric, so it stops Kethis, Chainer, and Primevils' Rebirth. It also has fewer colors that Anafenza. The choice between them is situational.
- Kethis, the Hidden Hand is usually not found early game. This is primarily to rebuild either after a board wipe or bounce effect via cost reduction. If you need a card just for the colors, find Anafenza first.
- Judith, the Scourge Diva can be found early primarily for the +3 to Sisay. However, if you manage to set up a recursion loop, this can be a damage outlet to deal lethal damage, so having it unprotected isn't ideal.
- Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist performs two effective roles. Foremost, if she is tapped then only a single creature can attack you. This effectively stops any size of token swarm. Second, she provides evasion to an attack. This allows for a larger attacking force to hit and trigger Derevi, Empyrial Tactician.
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation to tax non-creatures and punish most storm/combo players
If 4 CMC is available for the second activation, then the main reason to use it before setting up Selvala+Derevi is for protection or setup. Those options are:
- Venser, Shaper Savant to either avoid removal or bounce said removal back to hand. The latter is most effective against board wipes with Gaddock Teeg following to prevent it from coming back.
- Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero to weather the board wipe
- Shalai, Voice of Plenty in response to targeted removal
- Sakashima the Impostor in response to targeted removal on Shalai, or as a backup for a key card if necessary. Rarely can clone an opponents bomb/recursion.
- Chainer, Nightmare Adept gives haste to everything tutored via Sisay as well as some recursion options. This is a viable option as the second activation at an end step, because it enables lines of play such as Selvala → Derevi, untap → Aurelia, attack → untap 4 times. This can be the fastest route to winning.
- Marisi, Breaker of the Coil protects Sisay if you activate during combat. The goad can be needed early in order to force a voltron deck to attack elsewhere.
- Marchesa, the Black Rose provides some backup survival options against board wipes, and can add some extra power to Sisay via dethrone. She can be used to hide your battlefield in the graveyard thought a Cyclonic Rift or Final Judgment if they are cast unexpectedly.
- Renata, Called to the Hunt generates the +1/+1 counters for Marchesa.
The setup cards consist of tutoring, card and tempo advantage, backup mana generation, and other power increases to fully open the toolbox.
- Captain Sisay finds any key card in the deck, specifically including the sorceries for one-sided board wiping or massive unearth.
- Sidisi, Undead Vizier is an unrestricted tutor. If you have infinite mana and want to use Door to Nothingness, go find it.
- Heroes' Podium is scaling power for all legends. This enables Sisay to find any card, independent of CMC while also scaling creature size (and therefore mana) up quickly.
- Arvad the Cursed does a decent impression of the podium as a backup for tutoring as long as all five colors are out. The highest cost is 8, so +2 is sufficient to keep the shields up.
- Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage is a tempo swing, letting the entire deck have flash.
- Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir doesn't enable everything to be instant speed, but disrupts most counterspells, removal, and survival techniques. Important note: once your opponents have passed priority to let Sisay's ability resolve then they no longer have an instant speed opportunity to respond if this is your search.
- Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain is a hold over from the days of Ramos, Dragon Engine. Still draws cards well from mana-rocks, but not off of tutors. This is good mostly in response to Stranglehold or Pithing Needle. Due to a lack of those cards, it may be cut here for a lower CMC option.
- Jegantha, the Wellspring is being added as a backup mana source for the engine. This will not be a companion because that would require cutting the more efficient option, as well as significant sections of the protection toolbox.
- The Great Henge provides mana, but more importantly gives each creature that enters a +1/+1 counter. These counters then enable Marchesa, the Black Rose to be a potent option for resiliency.
- Minamo, School at Water's Edge is a tutorable option to untap Selvala, Heart of the Wilds or Jegantha, the Wellspring.
- Sen Triplets is best if there is a highly interactive deck at the table. With protection from Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir putting this into play during the previous end step allows you to first known what to play around, and second to direct their resources elsewhere.
- Sigarda, Host of Herons is highly effective against Grave Pact or annihilator. Because the lockdown route limits opponents to casting creatures that cost more than 3, this shores up one of the main vulnerabilities.
- Bruna, the Fading Light and Gisela, the Broken Blade are here primarily for Brisela, Voice of Nightmares to combine with Gaddock Teeg. Commander can be all about battle cruiser decks, so these combine to prevent the casting of anything other than a creature that cost 4 or more. Bruna can't recur on the tutor, so searching these is usually for Brisela specifically.
- Avacyn, Angel of Hope is fairly straightforward. Indestructibility is good. Add Teeg, Brisela, Sigarda, Shalai and Sakashima (as Shalai) for an nigh-untouchable battlefield
- Rienne, Angel of Rebirth will recur most creatures when they die and adds some power.
- Yomiji, Who Bars the Way will recur all creatures when they die, immediately. With a sacrifice outlet, you can loop Derevi, Empyrial Tactician to untap a mana source and recast to generate infinite mana and trigger Judith, the Scourge Diva for infinite damage.
- Legacy Weapon is tutorable removal for anything. It's not efficient but it is on theme.
- Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter is a potential machine gun for creatures with a sacrifice loop. It's also the sacrifice outlet for the Yomiji combo mentioned above.
- Tsabo Tavoc destroys nearly all commanders
- Empress Galina steals them instead
- Samut, Voice of Dissent is global haste and can untap Selvala, Heart of the Wilds or Jegantha, the Wellspring for large amounts of mana
- Urabrask the Hidden is global haste and works well with Marisi, Breaker of the Coil by preventing the non-goaded creatures from blocking.
- Ilharg, the Raze-Boar can drop out any creature to make combat difficult, or just take infinite turns by putting Medomai the Ageless into play attacking.
- Medomai the Ageless represents more untaps and attack steps, and therefore more activations. This is usually kill-on-sight or the deck wins.
- Aurelia, the Warleader also represents more attack steps, which offers more Derevi triggers and therefore more activations.
- Saskia the Unyielding is 4 colors for 4 CMC, while also doubling the damage output.
- Gisela, Blade of Goldnight is both damage reduction in and multiplication out. This stacks Saskia for lethal combats