Ertai, & his Famous Nope Machine. (EDH / Commander)

Major update today (20 october 2018)

I have brewed this for several months and have identified several small combos that I previously ran in an Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim list, that can interlock and interact with each other and this commander to create what I think is shaping up to be a legit bat-shit crazy machine of ridiculous possibilities. There is currently however two main end game combos which create a counter-spell lockout of the game. They go something like this:

Ertai, The Corrupted + (Infinite Untap and Mana: Tidewater Minion + Illusionist's Bracers) + (Infinite Fodder Options: Adarkar Valkyrie + 1 Creature, Sun Titan + Angelic Renewal, etc ... There are quite a few in here...)

OR,

Ertai, The Corrupted + Paradox Engine + (Gilded Lotus + Prismatic Geoscope) + Havengul Lich + ANY CREATURE up to 4CMC casting cost. (with a decent mix of coloured mana available to cast it). Adding the Sol Ring here or rocks dorks with equivalent 2 cmc, gets you to 6 cmc which would allow any 187 from this list to go infinite.

Isochron Scepter paired directly with Dramatic Reversal could also be of use here. But it would require some pretty intense re-working to get more value out of Isochron Scepter in this present list.

If you want to be the most hated person in your playgroups. You can also dare to find space to squeeze in the infinite NO STICK combo. Isochron Scepter + Counterspell + Paradox Engine + Sol Ring.

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All aboard for a ride on the nope machine.

About a year ago I started working on this insidious contraption in response to a slaughter at the hands of a Krufix deck that “goes off” consistently with near infinite mana, and crazy explosins of tokens and creatures around turn 10ish.

The initial plan and drafted list was to run zombie tribal with this guy. But after crafting my Avacyn and Baron decks, I really elevated my Orzhov game immensly after spending hours ... ok months of watching and reading Mono-White and Black primers.

Eventually I realized that a couple of mono-white re-animation engines and loops I was using in an Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim list actually really come to life when blue Is thrown into the mix.

So for the record here is how this machine works.

Behold: Ertai, the corrupted

Ertai needs 3 things to accomplish his mission. Blue mana, Sacrificial Fuel, and a way to Untap so he can do it again. To accomplish this. I built a combo deck that runs engines to try to fullfill these three needs.

The Three Engines

Untap Engine:

Tidewater minion, Aphetto Alchemist, Thornbite Staff, Paradox Engine,
Illusionist's Bracers.

All these peices individually can interact with Ertai directly, or with each other. The two most effective pairings however are the Thornbite staff attached to Ertai directly, or the Illusionist’s Bracers attached to the Tidewater Minion. These two pairings provide the most efficient means to make Ertai untap after sac-ing/countering. The other tools are valuable as well but involve a bit more work to abuse them properly.

The Mana Engine:

When compiling my original list several months ago I first discovered Tidewater Minion + Illusionist's Bracers as an infinite mana combo. It also doubled as infinite loop in this case to Untap this crazy commander.

And that is went a light went off... What other combos may interlock and synergize together to make an engine of this commander.

There are ALOT of other ways to go infinite mana with this list. I am still studying it carefully to pin point its most efficient ways to produce blue mana.

A secondary one that has very good odds of going off is Preist of Gix (for black mana).

In this list Priest of gix can go off through Ashnod’s Altar + Nim Deathmantle or Karmic Guide + Reveillark via Ashnod’s Altar/Viscera Seer.

There are other reasons as well... But I opted to run Gemstone Array mainly to filter colorless mana into blue mana from the fuel that can come out of Ashnod's Altar.

The sacrificial fodder Engines:

It all started with three pet dragons...my biggest desire for this commander from the onset, abusing high quality 187s In particular Yosei, Kokusho, and Keiga.

The most efficient way I had uncovered of doing this in my old Ayli list is:

Adarkar Valkyrie + Thornbite Staff

This makes any high value, or wincon 187 go infinte through a sac outlet.

But upon starting to study blue+orzhov I came across the wording of Havengul Lich, which thanks to friend who jogged my memmory gave me this gem.

Havengul Lich + Paradox Engine. The hiccup here however is you do need to run High Quality Mana Rocks/Dorks and find them, AND protect them for this to work.

Other notables:

Karmic Guide + Reveillark is also an excellent re-animation engine.

Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod’s Altar makes ETB creatures that produce at least two tokens go infinite. (Many thanks to another friend for this one ... see comments)

Now the interesting thing about these two combos is you do have some interesting fodder options in Esper that can run through BOTH of these combos... i.e.: Reef Worm.

And finally there is good ole Sun Titan loops with Angelic Renewal / Unhallowed Pact / Fiend Hunter.

The Classic "Enduring Renewal" is also a great Re-animation enabler that make things loop with Paradox Engine on YOUR turn. It would need creatures to have flash "Vedalken Orrery" / Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir in order for it to go infinite with Ertai on opponent turns.

So in conclusion friends, this list is not so much about how you are going assemble one specific combo.

The thrill of running this particular deck is rather the excitement of seeing how creative you can be with your draws to discover new and interesting synergies.

Thanks for reading,
And brew on!!