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Emry, Lurker of the Loch

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Emry, Lurker of the Loch

At a glance

  • Commander: Emry, Lurker of the Loch
  • Colors: Mono-Blue
  • Archetype: Mono-blue artifact recursion value
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

Commander

Emry, Lurker of the Loch — Legendary Creature — Merfolk Wizard

Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs less to cast for each artifact you control.) When Emry enters, mill four cards. : Choose target artifact card in your graveyard. You may cast that card this turn. (You still pay its costs. Timing rules still apply.)

The real card (confirmed via CLI) does exactly what the scout described: Emry is usually a 1- or 2-mana drop thanks to affinity, mills four on entry to seed the graveyard, and then every turn taps to let you re-cast an artifact card from your graveyard. The “engine” is the loop of cheap, self-sacrificing artifacts: cast a bauble, sac it for mana/draw, then have Emry re-cast it next turn. That is renewable card advantage and renewable mana, every single turn, from common cards. commander_oracle_ok = true.

Gameplan

A proactive value-grind deck, not a draw-go control shell. We flood the board with cheap artifacts (which makes Emry nearly free and makes affinity creatures cheap), bury opponents in card advantage with bauble loops + ETB-draw rocks, hold up a respectable counter/bounce suite for the things that actually matter, and close with a fistful of evasive affinity flyers that cost almost nothing once the board is wide.

Inevitability comes from the Emry recursion loop: as long as Emry survives, you re-buy a draw or ramp bauble each turn, so you simply out-card the table while flyers and Thopters chip them out.

Key Synergy Lines

  • The bauble loop: Conjurer’s Bauble / Chromatic Star / Chromatic Sphere / Barbed Sextant / Ichor Wellspring — sacrifice for value, then Emry re-casts from the yard next turn. Ichor Wellspring draws on the way in AND on the way out, so looping it is a draw engine all by itself.
  • Affinity payoffs go online fast: Thoughtcast for or free, Somber Hoverguard / Utrom Monitor / Spire Golem as 1–2 mana 3/3+ flyers, Frogmite / Myr Enforcer as free bodies, Gearseeker Serpent as an evasive finisher.
  • Emry casts your dead artifacts: Aether Spellbomb and Surgical Skullbomb get re-bought as repeatable bounce/draw; dead mana rocks become re-castable card advantage.
  • Myr Retriever / Workshop Assistant / Archaeomender / Reconstruction rebuild the artifact graveyard when it gets exiled or empties, and feed Emry fresh targets.
  • Self-mill as a bonus: Emry mills 4 every time she re-enters; that turns on Jace’s Phantasm (5/5 flyer) against milled opponents and our own draw-velocity sorceries.
  • Etherium Spinner / Aviation Pioneer / Nimble Thopterist / Filigree Crawler / Aspiring Aeronaut build a flying Thopter swarm that doubles as affinity-count and as a clock.

Role Breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 36 (24 Island + Command Tower, Seat of the Synod, Darksteel Citadel, Mystic Sanctuary, Halimar Depths, Lonely Sandbar, Remote Isle, Skyline Cascade, Saprazzan Skerry, Crystal Grotto, Ash Barrens, Cryptic Spires). Seat/Citadel are artifact lands that pump affinity.
  • Ramp — 10: Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Everflowing Chalice, Lotus Petal, Prophetic Prism, Guild Globe, Silver Myr, Springleaf Drum, Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere. (Arcum’s Astrolabe / Barbed Sextant also fix mana but are counted as draw.)
  • Card advantage — 11: Arcum’s Astrolabe, Barbed Sextant, Candy Trail, Ichor Wellspring, Mnemonic Sphere, Spare Supplies, Energy Refractor, Combat Courier, Thoughtcast, Frantic Search, plus cantrip sorceries (Preordain/Serum Visions/Ponder are dig/selection on top of these).
  • Spot interaction — 11: Aether Spellbomb, Surgical Skullbomb, Neurok Replica, Network Disruptor, Witness Protection, Snap, Into the Roil, Unsummon, Vapor Snag, Blink of an Eye, Echoing Truth.
  • Counters — 6: Counterspell, Mana Leak, Negate, Disdainful Stroke, Arcane Denial, Memory Lapse. (Mono-blue has no true board wipes; the counter suite + repeatable bounce is the “wipe” substitute.)
  • Recursion — 4: Myr Retriever, Workshop Assistant, Archaeomender, Reconstruction.
  • Win conditions / evasive bodies — payoffs: Frogmite, Myr Enforcer, Somber Hoverguard, Spire Golem, Utrom Monitor, Steelfin Whale, Gearseeker Serpent, Jace’s Phantasm, plus the Thopter package (Aviation Pioneer, Nimble Thopterist, Aspiring Aeronaut, Filigree Crawler, Etherium Spinner) and unblockable beaters (Mist-Cloaked Herald, Cloudfin Raptor), with selection creatures Faerie Seer / Augury Owl / Silver Raven.

Win Condition (one line)

Grind the table out of cards with the Emry bauble loop, then close through the air with cheap affinity flyers + a Thopter swarm + Gearseeker Serpent / Jace’s Phantasm.

Pilot Notes

  • Lead on cheap artifacts before Emry so she costs or , then start the recursion engine the following turn.
  • Sequence baubles to keep Emry fed: don’t sac everything at once — leave a target in the yard for her tap each turn.
  • Hold counters for haymakers (mass removal aimed at your board, fast combos). Your card-advantage engine wins the long game, so trade resources patiently.
  • Re-cast Ichor Wellspring and Aether Spellbomb with Emry for repeatable value/removal; Myr Retriever/Workshop Assistant let you sac-and-rebuy in response to graveyard hate.
  • Affinity makes your “expensive” flyers cheap once you have 3–4 artifacts; deploy the board wide, then drop a 1-mana Somber Hoverguard.

Weaknesses

  • No true board wipes (mono-blue commons). Resilient to going wide is handled by counters + bounce, but a resolved haymaker creature must be bounced repeatedly rather than killed.
  • Emry-dependent: if Emry is repeatedly removed, the recursion engine slows; the deck still functions on raw artifact value but loses inevitability. Recursion creatures partly hedge this.
  • Graveyard hate can blank Emry’s tap; Myr Retriever/Reconstruction rebuild, but exiling effects hurt.
  • Fast aggro before the engine sets up can race us; the bounce/counter suite and chump-Thopters buy time.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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