WHEN SUDDENLY: ERTAI THE CORRUPTED

Ertai, the Corrupted

So I’m Eliot and I’m going to start this crazy train off by talking about what this deck does.  Well that’s simple its a control deck, well that’s done time to hand it over to Charlie now.  What, you want me to explain more?  Well fine if you cant figure it out yourself.
Ertai as a character shares a lot in common with this deck.  He has one trick propping up his ass and he desperately has to keep abreast of his enemies because his house of cards comes crashing down if that one trick fails.

What is that trick? 
 Its on the card, he murders his friends to protect himself from enemy spells! Our hero, folks.  Then like a true boss he stabs his helpless enemy to death with a tooth pick.  This column is taking me to the darkest places.  You might want to bring some redundant lock down to protect your fragile board state.

Charlie’s Guide on How to Abuse Ertai:

First you make sure he can’t move. Then you get your blowtorch and pliers and—oh. You mean abuse his ABILITY. It’s certainly not for his measly, roid-wrecked figure. We’re all about getting the most out of his counterspell abilities. Obvious synergies include:
Thornbite Staff means that Ertai’s ability to throw helpless mooks under the bus to save his pasty ass is limited only by the number of creatures you control.
Remember the days your opponents could cast spells? Neither do I! Neither does Arcane Laboratory!

Same can be said with cards like Intruder Alarm (which does quite well with token generation and the undying and persist mechanics strewn through the deck) and Pemmin’s Aura to keep Ertai untapped and annoying.
That being said, that covers a lot of the more important non-creature cards in the deck. Cards like River Kelpie allow you to get more value for each poor schlub who crawls back from the graveyard to play, only to find a madly grinning Ertai standing there with the vorpal toothpick.

Other ‘friends’ of Ertai, rampant douchebag, include Guile. When they team up, you get to keep those pesky spells people were going to use to re-arrange your face and fling them back. For free.
When Ertai and Lullmage Mentor get together, they make mer-childen!
Ertai+ anything with undying or persist. Full stop. You don’t even really lose a creature this way!

Besides creating another disposable body, this combination gives you board state, a topic we will cover in our next section:
Ertai+ anything with undying or persist. Full stop. You don’t even really lose a creature this way!  So this is pretty straight forward I think, Ertai needs to kill creatures to counter spells ergo any creatures that come back or can be brought back are very useful.  It also helps you keep up the board state that is so key to victory.

Undying is your best friend in this game because it instantly give you another mook to grind up into some of the good old anti magic juice. Butcher Ghoul and Geralf’s mindcrusher are some easy ones to understand.  The real fun happens with the cards that spawn things  Ghoulcaller Gisa and hell’s caretaker poop out more minions and bright your more useful creatures back to the battle field

ELIOT’S FUN GUIDE TO NECROMANCY

So this is pretty straight forward I think, Ertai needs to kill creatures to counter spells ergo any thing that brings creatures back from the dead are super awesome.  I mean just think about it if not for magic Ertai would have to go out, make lasting friendships, build meaningful connections then convince them to die for him for love or some nonsense.

No kids, that sound like work why’d do that when we have magic to do it for us.  Lets start this crazy train with Chainer, dementia master this weird little man turns you dead into nightmare then buffs them all for the low low cost of 3 life or a finger.  Thats some real friendship power there, Chainer also stacks up nicely with Reya Dawnbringer and Sheoldred, the whispering one that keep the monsters coming back constantly.

The only problem there is keeping them on the board- Oh wait we have Ertai to counter all the kill spells!

I honestly can’t help but think that these two ladies aren’t to happy with working with Ertai and his weird groupy Chainer.
I mean I’m not sure what Reya is into but I can’t help but think its not a mutant teenage wizard, and Sheoldred… her name mean dreaded hell!  I don’t even want to know what she likes.  I feel this has slipped away from me a bit where was I?  Oh yes Hells caretaker, he’s from Sheoldred’s crew I assume, he must have followed her into this mess.

I imagine you would try and bring something use back when you tap him but I mean you do you bro.

Finally just because everyone is murdering everyone we have dread return, flashback cost that makes you kill three people to bring back one, seems legit.  Oh and kind of mostly for fun and because Ertai seems to be able to eat enchantments as well as creatures (apparently) we have a slew of enchantment gods.  What’s better the shanking a god to block a Blightning cast vague in your direction.  So I need to stop before I fall completely off the rails so lets see what silly thing charlie is raving about.

CHARLIE’S PRIMER ON TOKENS: LADIES LOVE TOKENS!

You know what a cowardly fuckwit like Ertai loves? Mooks! Disposable, idiotic mooks! Like you!Cannon-fodder, target practice, people getting stabbed in the face that aren’t named Ertai! Ertai values all life—after all, what else would he use to stave off his inevitable ass-kicking?

Mook makers for Ertai:
 Lich Lord of Unx makes not just zombies, but zombie WIZARDS. Think about that for a moment. As a side effect, it also mills people and takes a chunk out of their life! Hurray! Can combo nicely with Ghoulcaller Ghisa another token making machine mentioned above, or Army of the Damned to become a true all-star card that can shut out the game—nothing stops you from activating the second ability multiple times a turn besides your manabase.

Speaking of zombies: Necromancer’s Covenant is a great way to hate someone out of the game, especially graveyard centered decks—never mind the fact that it makes zombie tokens. And then gives all zombies lifelink, ensuring Ertai can desperately cling to life, weeping and snotty, for one more turn.

Myr Battlesphere an EDH staple that you’ll find in countless decks for a reason—VALUE!
Skirsdag High Priest In a deck based around sacrifice, you’ll be seeing a lot of this guy and his diabolical chum, the 5/5 demon token!
Lullmage Mentor See above. Counterspells=dudes!
Stitcher Geralf Gisa’s angsty, pimply brother who is capable of making freakin’ huge tokens while milling the opponent.



Charlie’s Conclusion to the Article: (Yes, the pain is almost over)

Ertai is a massive, self-serving, one-note tool. This is an established fact. We have done our best to work with this unpleasant (for your opponents) state of affairs. There is one thing, well, ok two or three, that we will address before we leave you:
1) Lack of protection. Ertai is insanely arrogant, and wouldn’t possibly believe that a pair of boots or armor that made him indestructible would be needed to keep his god-like might on the board. Hence no protections for our favorite four armed sociopath.

2) No counterspells. You see what Ertai does! Aside from one or two creatures that counter, all the counter-spells will be solely on the mutated, pimply shoulders of our favorite failed wizard.

3) No real draw spells, either! Do you jerks know how to play Blue? Of course we do! Ertai, on the other hand, he-who-has-to-oil-his-head-to-fit-through-doors, doesn’t believe in making himself smarter! He’s perfect.

So that’s our first tricolor general, and certainly not the last. Stay tuned for our next exciting general and feel free to jump in and give us suggestions!

Here’s the Deck, minus lands. I’ll upload the TappedOut version later:

Ertai, the Corrupt EDH on MTGVault.com

Or, you can view the partial list here: