Etali - your cards? OUR cards!

A whacky deck to smack your friends with their own cards

---

> About me

Hi there, thank you for reading this deck primer.

I was introduced to MTG by my colleagues in late 2021. We played some games of draft and I hated it. The whole concept of getting "random" cards while not knowing what is good and what to avoid was not fun for me. But I promised my colleagues that we would play, and so we did.
After some time we found someone to replace me. Finally, I was free... or so I thought.

Later that year they talked about playing this cool format called commander - and I was surprisingly hooked. It was way more interesting to me to build your deck on your own and fighting three people at the same time. Or become allies.
So unannounced to most of them I started looking for a cool, but budget friendly deck I could bring to one of their game nights. I mean, I was not even sure if this format would be fun for me, I just wanted to try it out.

After some research, "I" came up with not one, but two somewhat cheap decks. And with "me" I mean the girls and guys from The Commander's Quarters. So all credits to them!

• Etali - Beat Your Friends with Just $3! | Extreme Budget Deck
• Jarad - EDH Budget Deck Tech $9.99 | Sacrifice
  (I hope it is ok to reference the tcgplayer decks)

When I arrived, they were happy to see me and could not believe, that I brought my own decks.

And oh boy was it fun.

Well, that's the story how I entered the MTG rabbit hole... and yeah, now that I understand the game a little bit, draft is fun, too.

But please, keep in mind I have not played as much MTG as most of the people here, so my decks will be not as optimized as you like.

---

> Etali, Primal what? ~ Introduction ~

As mentioned in my "About me", this is one of my first decks ever build. It was a cheap 10$ deck at the time - and it had to compete against decks existing for some 5 - 7 years.

But it still performed surprisingly well. Why is that?

Etali, Primal Storm is a somewhat strange commander cheating out cards as he attacks. Not only does this affect our library, but the libraries off all players on the table. Meaning the stronger the decks of your opponents are, the scarier Etali becomes.

Playing Etali is like gambling. (At least without top deck manipulation.) It is really fun hitting a Sol Ring, a Smothering Tithe, a Rhystic Study or even a Blightsteel Colossus off the top of your now foes libraries. And it's addicting. Kinda like gambling.

So if gambling and being the guy that takes the cards of your friends is your thing - try out this deck.
Just remember to give them their cards back after they have been slayen

> The way of the dinosaur ~ Strategy ~

The main game-plan is stupidly simple.

• Bring out Etali, Primal Storm
• Give him haste
• Attack the player that cannot kill Etali
• Profit and repeat

That is the general idea behind this deck.

Also, we have some ways to trigger Etali more than once each turn, which leads to even more profit.

> Ruling

Let's analyse Etali, Primal Storm. His text reads as following:

Whenever Etali, Primal Storm attacks,
exile the top card of each player’s library, then you
may cast any number of spells from among
those cards without paying their mana costs.

So whenever we declare Etali as an attacker, the effect will trigger. We just remind our opponent not to declare his blockers yet, because after our trigger resolves the potential blocker might be done and dusted :)

After declaring Etali as an attacker we friendly ask all players to give us the top card of their library to exile those.

All of the lands sadly remain in exile. For all the other cards we have to decide if we want to play them or not.
This is all situational.
Most of the times you leave for example Damnation in exile - but that one time you are currently not the archenemy that board wipe can be crucial. And it can be even better if you can cast your or your friends creatures immediately after the wipe.
Remember: All cards we don't play now we won't be able to play this match ever again. Or at least I don't know any method to play them later.

Casting those spells is part of the resolution of this ability. Timing permissions like casting a sorcery are therefore ignored.

We have to cast those spells without paying their mana costs.
This means we cannot pay alternative costs to activate abilities like "Dash" or "Overload".
Furthermore for all {X} in mana cost it will result in X = 0.

But we can and should pay additional costs to activate abilities like "Escalate" and "Kicker"

The order of the spells we want to cast is also kind of importent.
Instants can target other instants or sorceries which we played from exile while Etali's ability resolves. But permanent spells will not resolve until we are done casting those spells.
So we cannot chose a permanent of the cards we just played as the target of another spell.

Quite hard to read, just check the ruling by mtgassist for yourself :)
(I hope it is ok to reference mtgassist)

> Stomping your foes ~ Win-conditions ~

The main win condition is to fill up your board with your opponents cards and use those cards against them. At least this is the theme of the deck.
For this we try to trigger Etali as often as possible. Strionic Resonator to copy the triggered ability and Relentless Assault are the main ways to do so.

Another option is running down all foes with the combo Helm of the Host + Godo, Bandit Warlord or Helm of the Host + Combat Celebrant.
This leads to an infinite amount of combat phases in which at least one creature can attack. As far as I know this should be infinite damage to all players ... at least after a while.

When everything else fails, we fallback to commander damage. With 21 or more combat damage dealt by a single commander a player is declared dead.
Etali is a 6/6 commander, but we have some cards to make him a little stronger. So most of the time three hits are already lethal.

> When to hatch ~ Your starting hand ~

Best case scenario is 3 lands, 1-2 castable mana advantages, 1 haste card and 1 protection or extra trigger card. Draw is also fine.
I do not mulligan that often, 3-4 mana sources and maybe some draw should do the trick most of the time.
Just remember this deck is not cEDH and wont be as fast as those PL8+ decks out there.

---

> Cards cards cards

> Commander

> Extra Trigger

> Protection

> Damage from Exile

> Top Deck Watchers

> Haste

> Planeswalker

> Mana Advantage

> Card Advantage

> Target Removal

> Board Wipe

> Our Mountains

> Maybeboard

The maybe board is used to track ideas and removed cards.

> other thoughts

Deck looks fine right now

> FAQ

> Where is Mana Crypt, fetch lands etc?

This deck started as a test whether I like playing commander or not. We play paper magic without any proxys, so there was a tight budget set initially.
While I was working on the decklist, I never thought of including cards 30$+. That's why this deck is currently budget friendly, but not as fast as it could be.

Over time this opinion can change and stronger cards can make it onto the list. Who knows.
But for now this is exactly the paper deck currently sitting on my desk.

> Why did you not include X ?

Good question, X seems like a game changer! I am still fairly new to MTG and most likly never heard of this card before.
Maybe with the next deck update X will be included in the active deck or in the maybe board.
Thank you for helping me optimizing this deck!

> What is the power level of the deck?

As far as I understand the power level metric I would rate it a PL5 or PL6. Feel free to correct me.

---

> Fails

> Approach of the Second Sun

Reading the card explains the card - as always.
Just remember to only cast this card off an opponents deck if you know you can trigger Etali at least seven more times to win the game this way.
Otherwise leave it in exile...

> Big Score

Big Score is draw with mana value 4!
So do not keep a hand with 2 removal, Big Score, 3 mountains and Keeper of Secrets.
Next Mountain I drew was turn 5.

---

> Why did you write this primer?

Simple.
Reading the deck primer explains the deck, right?
But there was no primer for this deck in particular. So I wanted to write my own primer, to better understand my own deck and to optimize it even further.
I can also track ideas and things I already tried, so I wont try them again.

Last I wanted the community to join in and to give them the chance to try out this deck.

> Changelog

> 2023/09/22 - "FiNaL FinAL fiNaL FiNaL update - FoR nOw"

Who am I kidding, I will still update Etali whenever I find/get a card I like...

For now, we just add upgrades:

-- Relentless Assault
-- Wild Ricochet

++ Aggravated Assault
++ Wyll's Reversal

Maybe I find time to .. ah whatever...

> 2023/09/15 - "Final FINAL FINAL update - for now"

Yea... I had to include Throne of Eldraine...

-- Unstable Obelisk

++ Throne of Eldraine

I hope I can shift my focus towards my other decks.

> 2023/09/01 - "Final update - for now"

Some adjustments because the previous ping damage felt wierd. We also removed Defiler of Instict earlier, so no need for Torbran anymore.
Also playing against mono red Gauntlet of Power is helping the wrong side of the board.
And I found Spinerock Knoll and liked it.

-- Gauntlet of Power
-- 1x Mountain
-- Torbran, Thane of Red Fell

++ Caged Sun
++ Generator Servant
++ Spinerock Knoll

I am very pleased with this state, so I will shift my focus towards my other decks.

> 2023/08/28 - "Paper update"

Bought Delina and Plargg, so I had to include them ofc.

-- Defiler of Instinct
-- Wild-Magic Sorcerer

++ Plargg and Nassari
++ Delina, Wild Mage

I am also considering removing Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, it feels kind of off due to the lack of Ping Damage we deal.

> 2023/08/10 - "Delina & Plargg and Nassari"

Mate told me about Delina, and I like her! And Plarrg and Nassari are also very interesting

> 2023/07/20 - "Initial commit"

Finished writing this primer with the deck in the current state.