Emeria, the Sky Ruin is a bit of a cult favorite in Commander. It’s been on the radar for mono-white and Boros players for some time as one of the better forms of card advantage available. With more dual-typed lands available than ever, now’s the time to start building around one of the best lands in the format.
EMERIA, THE SKY RUIN
Emeria, the Sky Ruin comes in tapped, and taps for a white mana. If at the beginning of your upkeep you control seven or more Plains, you get to return a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield, which is awesome.
It’s a land that only really kicks in toward the late game (unless you ramp considerably) and only really viable if you run enough Plains cards in your deck to turn it on – we don’t yet have an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth equivalent to use for this task.
That said, it’s a very powerful land, and can provide quite the engine to ensure you stay in the game. Combined with controlling cards with strong EtBs and other ways to control the board, it can give you the most resilient deck at the table. So, how do we play with it?
HOW TO BUILD AROUND EMERIA IN COMMANDER
Building around Emeria in Commander requires you to have intent in your deckbuilding. The first thing you need to do is consider what lands to add to your deck.
As far as the count of Basic Plains goes, I’d advocate for running at least the seven required to turn on Emeria. You could potentially run more (and would in mono-white) but chances are with enough of the dual-typed lands, you can have enough Plains across your manabase’s nonbasic lands.
Next up, you want to make sure you’re running the dual-typed lands. Original Duals, Tangolands, Surveil Lands, Checklands, Shocklands, Cycle lands and the recent Turbulent land cycle should be your first choices. That’s already seven more Plains to add to your starting seven Basic Plains. If you’re in a three color deck you also have the option of Triomes, and if you’re on a budget you get access to the tapped dual lands and tapped snow duals. Mistveil Plains is sometimes useful, too.
Alongside these, I’d definitely run at least four fetchlands. Picking four or five from the original Fetchlands, Fabled Passage, Prismatic Vista and Evolving Wilds should be more than enough to get you going. We use these in Emeria decks to ramp from the graveyard by reusing fetchlands, basically.
GETTING EMERIA INTO PLAY
So, you’ve built your manabase, but how are you getting Emeria into play? Well, it depends on the colors of your deck.
Every deck will have access to Expedition Map and World Map. If you’re in green or black, it’s a little less likely you want these (depending on power level and quantity of tutors, of course) but they’re still handy. Black decks like these for finding Cabal Coffers and Urborg, too – which you can easily run alongside Emeria.
A recent pickup for all colors is Urza’s Cave, which fits in your manabase, and can be used at instant speed before your turn to get a sneaky Emeria into play.
Black decks obviously have every unconditional tutor you could desire, so if they really want to fetch Emeria, they can.
If you’re lucky enough to be in green, there are plenty of ways to tutor up lands, from Game Changer Crop Rotation to Scapeshift to Elvish Reclaimer and Ulvenwald Hydra. Speaking of that Wood, Traverse the Ulvenwald is also a sweet pick for digging out creatures or Emeria as the game progresses. Tempt with Discovery may be viable for you, but if opponents run a lot of Wasteland effects, it might backfire spectacularly.
Knight of the Reliquary is a long-time cube card that does a sterling job here too, and if you’re in Abzan, you can try Wight of the Reliquary, too.
If you’re not in green or black, don’t let that dissuade you. Weathered Wayfarer plus Expedition Map and Urza’s Cave is more than enough, particularly with good card draw and ways to ramp – besides which, building around Emeria gives you such a good ramp and recursion engine, you’re going to have a good game even if you don’t find it.
GETTING TO SEVEN PLAINS
Your next job is to get to seven Plains to trigger Emeria. How you go about this will vary depending on the colors you’re in, but if you’re in green, it’s as simple as playing ramp creatures like Wood Elves. White has plenty to offer other Emeria decks, with a Knight of the White Orchid out of the gates being a strong contender. You’ll like use white’s ways to ramp – alongside Sword of Hearth and Home and Sword of the Animist – to ramp if you’re not in green, but don’t let that stop you playing Copy Land in blue if it’s available. Early it copies a Plains, late it copies Emeria.
The Boros Advantage Engine – discussed here in detail – is the biggest tool in your toolkit for ramping without green. Using a combination of Sun Titan, Redemption Choir and similar effects with fetchlands and flicker, you can ramp like there’s no tomorrow.
Whichever way you’re ramping, make sure to take advantage of landfall if you can. Lotus Cobra and Tireless Provisoner can really help you to “get there”, and you can use anything from a Valakut Exploration to an Admonition Angel to take advantage of landfall triggers.
As far as the rest of your toolbox, you’re essentially limited to what white has to offer if you’re in Boros or Azorius, with green being the color of land synergies and black being unequalled in power to tutor for whatever you desire. That said, blue and red do offer some good synergies that are worth investigating.
Cursed Mirror and Molten Duplication represent cheap copy effects to double up on ramping abilities – or recursion abilities.
Blue can use flicker effects too, giving Azorius Emeria decks access to a deeper flicker package to “get there”.
COPYING EMERIA
Once you indeed “get there”, you’ll want to make sure you can copy Emeria, as double dipping makes it even better. Vesuva, Echoing Deeps and Thespian’s Stage are all incredible tools in your toolbox, and can be run in any color combination.
The aforementioned Copy Island (and Clever Impersonator, and a couple more) can copy Emeria in blue, and Sphinx of the Second Sun can also give you extra Upkeep steps to trigger more Emeria action.
THE EMERIA ENGINE
Once you have a deck built around Emeria, you probably also want to be playing with the rest of what I like to call the “Emeria Engine”. Along with the Sun Titan and Redemption Choir we looked at earlier, you should try to run some of the following:
- Reya Dawnbringer, who gives you another Emeria effect on upkeep.
- Emeria Shepherd, who turns all of that ramp and those fetchlands into reliable recursion
- Angel of Indemnity, that can do what Sun Titan does up to four mana value, and can be Encored
- Karmic Guide, who – combined with Flicker – can enable some big turns
Running these reanimation engine cards alongside strong EtBs can help your Emeria really deliver.
OTHER PAYOFFS
There are so many ways to build out the top end of a deck doing Emeria things – and nearly as many ways to customize the journey to get there.
Don’t forget that you’re likely a “big mana” deck at this point, so anything from Exsanguinate to Genesis Wave to Finale of Devastation are on the table depending on your colors.
BEST COMMANDERS FOR AN EMERIA THE SKY RUIN BUILDAROUND
Karametra is leagues above your other options, seeing as she can essentially double the rate at which you can assemble your seven Plains while also giving you the best tutors to get Emeria into play. In mono-white, Giada is probably your best option, as she can wear equipment that tutor Plains into play, doubling your rate of Plains acquisition, while already wanting you to play the likes of Emeria Shepherd and Sun Titan anyways.
RW has Commanders like Hofri, who can double dip on EtBs that ramp lands, and do a lot of graveyard shenanigans anyways. In WB, your better options are those like Silverquill, the Disputant, as you can double up on Erode and Path to Exile on your small creatures to ramp, and run WB reanimation engines, too.
When it comes to blue-based decks, I really like Linvala, Shield of Seagate as a flying hatebears deck with resiliency, and Yorion, Sky Nomad as the ultimate blink Commander.
END STEP
Having Emeria as a build around can give you a super resilient deck. It can also set you up for a more focused deckbuilding experience, which can really help in refining a deck. What deck do you run Emeria in?
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.