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Izzet Polymorph
With the recently printed Transmogrify we get 8 copies of Polymorph as well as 4 copies of Proteus Staff
This gives the deck 12 copies of the combo piece it needs to put an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into play.
Brief Summary of Basics
In order to make Polymorph work, we can't have any creatures in the deck
other than the ones we want to find once we cast polymorph.
We still need a creature to target with polymorph
which is why we have man lands and token generating cards.
Khalni Garden on turn 1 allows us to potentially have the combo assembled
as early as turn 3 if we play a Talisman on turn 2.
Blinkmoth Nexus and Inkmoth Nexus count as lands while they are in the library,
but they can activate to become a creature we can target with Polymorph .
Cloudform is a hexproof creature which ends up being very clutch.
The deck plays Two copies of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Only playing a single copy is a liability if it's ever drawn.
Playing more than two is unnecessary and just increases
the chance you will draw one which we never want to do.
Two copies is the sweet spot.
Talisman Ramp
The deck plays Talisman of Creativity and Talisman of Progress
After scouring Gatherer for any and all mana rocks available in Modern These rose to the top.
They enable a Turn 3 Emrakul if we lead off Turn 1 with Khalni Garden
followed by a Talisman on Turn 2 and Polymorph on Turn 3.
Counter Spells
Once again scouring Gatherer, this time for the cheapest counter spells Legal in Modern.
We have Spell Pierce as a catch all negate effect.
We also have Swan Song between these two cheap counter spells we can stop the major threats to our combo;
Plenty of games begin with the opponent casting hand disruption,
whether it's Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek
having Spell Pierce available starting Turn 1 gives us protection
from the more common combo disruption effects in the format.
Once we make it past the first few turns we rapidly approach the point
at which we are ready to execute our combo and go for the win.
It can be quite difficult to execute the combo considering it is inherently weak to the following;
Path to Exile Premier Removal in White.
Lightning Bolt Premier Removal in Red.
Fatal Push Premier Removal in black.
Having access to 1cmc counter spells allows us to have protection as early as turn 1,
as well as the ability to play a Talisman on Turn 2 which can
tap for Blue Mana the turn it comes out, allowing us to maintain
our counter spell shields while progressing our game plan.
Excess Talisman end up helping when we need one more mana to be able
to cast our combo and have 1 blue mana left for counter spell back up.
The Negate style counter spells are fine for our needs,
There aren't many creature's we are worried about,
in fact if our opponent spends their first 3 turns
playing creature's they have effectively given us a free pass
to go for our combo. Our 1cmc counter spells can help
to stop anything else from opposing combos to spells aimed at disrupting our combo.
Sideboard
To be fair, all sideboards are personalized based on an individuals personal play group or Meta.
In my experience, I find generic mainboard spells to be quite troublesome, hence the mainboard counter spells,
as well as the sideboard copies of Dispel to bump us up to 12 counter spells in the matches where it matters.
Of the 4 major archetypes in any format, we have the luxury
of ignoring all of their game plan's and just attempting to
execute our own, faster than they can handle it.
As it turns out, a resolved Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is quite difficult to deal with,
and it's Annihilator 6 trigger cleans up most opposing board states with ease.
Aggro decks can race us but they typically lack the tools to interact with our game plan.
Midrange decks are more likely to have removal,
but also fall into a similar role of committing
to their own creature based strategy which
leaves the door open for us to execute our game plan.
Control decks can be very difficult to play against, but we have our mainboard counter spells and more in the side.
Combo decks can be good or bad.
If they are all-in and lack any interactive spells,
we just need to be faster than them.
If they have interaction,
we play around it and still try to be faster.
In general, I believe our toughest match up is Tron.
Tron Matchup
If an opponent is able to assemble Tron lands on turn 3,
they can leisurely cast Karn, the Great Creator
and activate his minus ability and fetch out an Ensnaring Bridge
from their sideboard and cast the bridge all on Turn 3.
This effectively locks us out of being able to attack with Emrakul indefinitely.
Because of this glaring weakness I have focused My sideboard
to give me an edge in this particular match up.
I have devoted 2/3 of the sideboard to fighting Tron.
Damping Sphere is self explanatory however it doubles as a way to slow down storm.
Ceremonious Rejection is also fairly obvious,
it fits the 1cmc theme of the deck and is a slam dunk
against the early tron pieces like Expedition Map
while also stopping the haymakers like Karn Liberated
Void Snare is the final card in the sideboard and it's my answer to a resolved Ensnaring Bridge
Our Tron opponent may manage to play a bridge but we are still free to get an emrakul in play, we just can't attack with it.
However, if at any point we manage to draw into Void Snare
we can bounce the bridge and get in a quick hit, and the Annihilator 6 trigger
may clean things up so much that they aren't able to recast the bridge
and then we just finish things up from there. Admittedly, I could be playing another
bounce spell like Brazen Borrower but I prefer to keep my support spells
to 1cmc to facilitate being able to interact while also executing my combo.
Not to mention the current price for Brazen Borrower is nearly $18 for digital copies on MTGO
which would make it the single most expensive card in the deck.
Progenitus
Because Tron is able to hard cast Karn Liberated as early as Turn 3 and simply exile a resolved Emrakul
we pack one copy of Progenitus in the sideboard which has protection from Everything including Karn Liberated exile ability
this also serves as a way to dodge exile from deck effects like
Surgical Extraction as well as Slaughter Games and Lost Legacy
Assuming they see our Emrakul game plan in game one and they sideboard into the exile from deck spells
we bring in Progenitus to have a search target for Polymorph
they mulligan aggressively for their exile effects only to be blown out by a different creature.
This is a simple but effective way to circumvent these scenarios.