Against the Odds: The Sneakiest Flying Spaghetti Monster Ever (Timeless)

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Against the Odds! This week we have an unique one. Yesterday a new Arena Anthology showed up on the client without any announcement or even being in the store. Players realized that if you typed S:AA3 into the deck builder the cards would not just show up, but were actually playable! While there are several interesting cards in the set, the one that caught my eye the most was Magic's biggest, baddest finisher: Emrakul, the Aeons Torn! The strangeness of the situation offered a unique opportunity: we could build a deck designed to cheat Emrakul into play as early as turn one and do it against opponent's that likely have no idea that Emrakul, the Aeons Torn exist on Arena, or even at all! The end result is a deck that leans heavily in the infamous old Legacy deck Sneak and Show, looking to use Show and Tell with fast mana to put Emrakul into play on turn one, and if that doesn't work Sneak Attack to cheat it into play with haste! How will Arena opponents react when they are facing down Magic's most dominant finisher even though it's not suppose to exist on MTG Arena? Let's find out!

Against the Odds: Turn One Emrakul Surprise

Wrap Up

I'm just going to do a short wrap up this week since this episode came together pretty late. Record wise, we only won 33% of the time overall with the deck (4 wins and 8 losses), although part of this is that it took me a while to figure out a functional manabase for the deck, once I did, we went 3-0 with the final version. The good news is that after several near misses, we did pull off the turn one Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and it was as hilarious as expected! On some level, I'm actually glad the deck didn't do better overall. A year ago Show and Tell decks dominated Timeless to the point where I got incredibly sick of playing against them. In recent months though the archetype has completely fallen off - I haven't played against Show and Tell in many weeks - and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn's random appearance on Arena had me worried that the archetype might make a comeback, but it seems like the meta is still pretty hostile to the Show and Tell plan thanks to endless tax and Strip Mine decks as well as counterspell heavy control. While Show and Tell might not be back (thankfully), I do expect that Emrakul, the Aeons Torn will make a big impact on both Timeless and History. Somehow, nearly 15 years after it was first printed the fifteen drop still remains the best creature you can cheat into play, which is pretty wild, considering how few creatures from its era have stood up to the test of time. 

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.