Aye Aye Captain! v3

Commander / EDH GW (Selesnya) Humans Legendary Matters Multiplayer Value Engine

LegoChickenGuy

Creature (41)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Delighted Halfling
• 1x Joraga Treespeaker
• 1x Skrelv, Defector Mite
• 1x Frodo Baggins
• 1x Gaddock Teeg
• 1x Kataki, War's Wage
• 1x Katilda, Dawnhart Prime
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Melira, the Living Cure
• 1x Saffi Eriksdotter
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Boromir, Warden of the Tower
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea
• 1x Knight of the Reliquary
• 1x Loran of the Third Path
• 1x Nissa, Resurgent Animist
• 1x Reki, the History of Kamigawa
• 1x Selvala, Explorer Returned
• 1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
• 1x Gisela, the Broken Blade  ^Meld
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Mangara, the Diplomat
• 1x Sigarda, Font of Blessings
• 1x Yasharn, Implacable Earth
• 1x Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
• 1x Gandalf the White
• 1x Karametra, God of Harvests
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
• 1x Dragonlord Dromoka
• 1x Kogla, the Titan Ape
• 1x Bruna, the Fading Light  ^Meld
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Branchloft Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 6x Forest
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 1x Krosan Verge
• 1x Minas Tirith
• 1x Mistveil Plains
• 7x Plains
• 1x Plaza of Heroes
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scattered Groves
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Bastion
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
• 1x Ajani Unyielding
• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Flowering of the White Tree
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip

Commander (1)

Artifact (7)

• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sword of the Animist
• 1x Mithril Coat
• 1x Relic of Legends
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir

Instant (5)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Sejiri Shelter  ^Flip

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Steelshaper's Gift
• 1x Kamahl's Druidic Vow
• 1x Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip
• 1x Urza's Ruinous Blast

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Maybeboard

Creature (5)

• 1x Samwise the Stouthearted
• 1x Voice of Resurgence
• 1x Dosan the Falling Leaf
• 1x Omnath, Locus of Mana
• 1x Shalai, Voice of Plenty

Artifact (1)

• 1x Birthing Pod

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This is the third generation of my Captain Sisay EDH deck. I'm always iterating on the design and would love to hear any feedback or suggestions you have, but keep in mind that the deck is intended to be powerful but still playable at a casual table, so while I'm sure there are more powerful cards that could blow out my opponents more, I find it more conducive to winning if I manage to stay popular at the table and keep the deck "fair" while winning with good old-fashioned combat damage. If this all sounds good to you, then I encourage you to keep reading.

Why Captain Sisay?

Pros:

Captain Sisay's ability to tutor for any legendary card creates a very fun deck to play that can do some pretty powerful things. Its toolbox style means that it is highly adaptable to answer whatever your opponents are doing, and it means that the deck is highly resilient and difficult to completely stop.

Also, Selesnya ({G}{W}) is my personal favorite 2-color combination, and this deck enables you to play many of the coolest cards in those colors in a deck that is actually good. So, if you're like me and really enjoy this color combination and the many great cards in it, then this is gonna be a great deck for you.

Finally, the new Lord of the Rings set has added a number of cards that are particularly useful in this deck, and pretty much every legendary-based set gives the deck a huge bonus, meaning that it's likely that over time this deck will only become more and more powerful.

Cons:

This style of deck does not at all lend itself to a budget-friendly build. For me, this is really my pet commander deck, so I've been able to spend a lot of time investing in the deck over the approximately 7 years that I've been running it, but that's not gonna be true for most. Also, back when I started building this deck in 2015, a lot of the important cards in it were a lot cheaper; I can't say that I'd start building this from scratch now. The deck inherently relies on having powerful mostly legendary cards to tutor up, and powerful legendary cards tend to be expensive (Captain Sisay herself these days is nearly $30!). That being said, there are a number of expensive cards in the deck that aren't really necessary for it to function and could be easily substituted, so don't be entirely discouraged by the price tag TappedOut has on the left hand side of the page.

Card Choices and Combos

Lands/Mana Production

This deck is very mana-hungry, which is why it runs 37 lands (35 + Bala Ged Recovery   and Sejiri Shelter  ). I find that any hand that doesn't have both colors in it is usually worth a mulligan, so over the years I've pared down the list to include only 2 or 3 lands that produce colorless mana (depending on how you count Krosan Verge). I'm still tinkering with the balance of basics, but 7 Plains and 7 Forests is pretty close to where I want it to be.

The upside of running so many lands is that, the way the deck is built, flooding out is much, much better than getting mana-screwed, and 37 lands makes the former a lot more likely to happen. Lotus Cobra and Nissa, Resurgent Animist both turn land drops into two or, if you have them both, three mana, and Azusa, Lost but Seeking allows us to very efficiently get extra lands from our hand onto the battlefield. Furthermore, we can tutor two of those three with our commander to reliably turn extra lands in hand into value. The deck also runs Boseiju, Who Endures and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire, which enable us to tutor for instant-speed removal that's immune to counterspells with our commander. In addition, we have Minas Tirith and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, and these four together mean that we can always tutor for more land drops in a pinch. The fifth legendary land in the deck, Yavimaya Hollow, helps protect our commander or any other important creatures if necessary.

Another important consideration is that we needs lands with the Forest and Plains land types because we have a lot of cards that interact with those specifically, namely Windswept Heath, Krosan Verge, Arbor Elf, and especially Karametra, God of Harvests. So, in addition to 14 basics, which are necessary for Yasharn, Implacable Earth and Prismatic Vista, we're running just about every useful nonbasic with one of the land types: Canopy Vista, Dryad Arbor, Mistveil Plains, Scattered Groves, and Temple Garden.

A solid turn one play is Green Sun's Zenith for 0 getting Dryad Arbor, which is truly the rich man's Rampant Growth, and it only costs one mana instead of two.

Other dual lands we're running are Branchloft Pathway  , Command Tower, Horizon Canopy, Sunpetal Grove, and Wooded Bastion.

Then we're also running Cavern of Souls (usually naming humans) and Plaza of Heroes which act as untapped duals 99% of the time and also give some important protection to our creatures when necessary.

Finally, we're running Ancient Tomb because it's extremely good (better than Sol Ring in my opinion, especially in this deck where lands matter so much).

We're also running a suite of 1-drop mana dorks to get the ball rolling in the early turns; they are Birds of Paradise, which should be run in every green deck, Avacyn's Pilgrim, which really helps with fixing on occasion, Joraga Treespeaker, who quickly taps for two, Delighted Halfling, which is so perfect for this deck that I think Wizards must've been listening to my thoughts, and finally Arbor Elf, which is actually better than a typical Elvish Mystic or something because it + Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in play means that it can untap any land on the board.

card:Katilda, Dawnheart Prime and Relic of Legends make our legendaries tap for mana, giving us even more. Also, Mox Amber generates even more free mana, and Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea is essentially a tutorable Joraga Treespeaker. Selvala, Explorer Returned can get a couple mana, but more importantly she gets everyone at the table to like you.

Once we've got a good board state going, we can go get Growing Rites of Itlimoc   and quickly flip it into a much cheaper Gaea's Cradle for, you guessed it, even more mana.

Knight of the Reliquary is an unassuming all-star in the deck, since she enables us to search for our more useful lands and virtually guarantees us one extra mana each turn.

Finally, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines makes our mana go crazy with Lotus Cobra and/or Nissa, Resurgent Animist on the field, turning one land drop into three mana with one of them or five mana with both. Combine this with Prismatic Vista or Windswept Heath or Krosan Verge and/or Knight of the Reliquary and now we're making like ten mana for free every turn.

Then, if you have some or all of these pieces going, getting Karametra, God of Harvests onto the battlefield means that each creature we cast gets us some mana in return or even results in a net gain of mana, enabling us to cast our entire hand of useful legendaries very quickly.

Finally, Seedborn Muse plus Gandalf the White together mean that we can keep the party going on our opponents' turns, not just our own.

Equipment

An aspect of great importance to this deck's success is keeping Captain Sisay alive long enough for us to put it all together. Our primary means of doing that is by equipping her with Swiftfoot Boots or, preferably, Lightning Greaves. Another good way to keep her alive is to flash in a Mithril Coat when necessary. To ensure we can do any of this consistently, we have a number of tutors for equipment in the deck, which will be discussed in the next section. To ensure that none of these tutors are dead cards once we draw our important pieces, we have Sword of the Animist to go get in order to help us ramp even more.

Another good way to get value from the Captain quickly is to have Thousand-Year Elixir in play, which allows us to tutor with her immediately, and we can use any extra mana to untap her and do it again.

Card Advantage and Extra Tutors

If Captain Sisay is the captain of the ship, then Karametra, God of Harvests and Reki, the History of Kamigawa are her first mates. They are the two most common tutor targets for the Captain's tap ability. When in doubt, go get one of them if you haven't already. We've already talked about Karametra, and the value of Reki should be pretty obvious. He keeps us refilling our hand with more and more legendary creatures and ensures that we never fizzle out. With both in play, each legendary creature we cast is a Rampant Growth and it cycles itself, though keep in mind that both of their triggers are cast triggers, not ETB.

Once we've generated a bunch of mana, using the methods described in the previous section, then we can use Kamahl's Druidic Vow to put a whole bunch more lands and creatures into play. Then, next turn, we can get it back with Bala Ged Recovery   or Eternal Witness and do it again for even more mana thanks to all the lands the last one put in play. Better yet, we can put it back into our library with Mistveil Plains, then immediately tutor for it with Captain Sisay, and play it again. We can just continue doing this loop every turn until we've played our whole deck, doing it each successive time for more and more mana.

Once we've got a great board state going, we can pretty much end the game by casting Urza's Ruinous Blast, which is about as one-sided as a board-wipe gets, and ensures our massive army will meet no resistance.

Another great means of card advantage is Sylvan Library, a true green EDH staple.

Furthermore, getting Frodo Baggins into play, making him the ring bearer, and then playing one other legendary means that he's unblockable by anything that could kill him and he loots each time he attacks.

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard enables us to search up even more creatures, this time not necessarily legendary, and put them directly into play. Eladamri's Call also allows us to find any of our creatures cheaply and effectively. Green Sun's Zenith does one better by putting the creature directly onto the field for us, though it can only get green creatures.

We also have Stoneforge Mystic, Open the Armory, and Enlightened Tutor to go get our equipment for the Captain in the early turns. Enlightened Tutor can go get Sylvan Library or even Karametra, God of Harvests too, and can also get a couple other enchantments that will be talked about later.

Mangara, the Diplomat turns our opponents' overzealous attacking or spellslinging directly into cards in our hand.

Protection, Recursion, and Hate

We are also equipped with a number of ways of protecting our game plan, keeping it going in the face of resistance, and messing with the game plan of our opponents, with some cards contributing to more than one of these goals.

Skrelv, Defector Mite is a legendary Mother of Runes that helps against single-target removal. Sejiri Shelter   provides the same effect for one turn if need be.

Gaddock Teeg simply prevents our opponents from playing big noncreatures or X-spells, though be warned he sometimes works against our own stuff too. He's particularly effective against decks with lots of planeswalkers. Combine him with Gisela, the Broken Blade   and Bruna, the Fading Light   and our opponents simply can't cast noncreature spells at all. What fun!

Kataki, War's Wage makes any pesky artifact shenanigans difficult to keep going. He especially nukes anyone with a lot of treasures.

Saffi Eriksdotter can save one of our creatures if the need arises. Samwise the Stouthearted does this too. Melira, the Living Cure provides a third means of recursion while also completely hosing infect decks.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben slows done any decks with a lot of noncreature spells by quite a lot, most importantly slowing any removal against us. Sigarda, Font of Blessings gives our team hexproof and lets us cast Angels and Humans off the top of the deck, which sometimes can actually be useful. Flowering of the White Tree has a similar effect. Any combination of these makes our board incredibly difficult to deal with for our opponents.

Boromir, Warden of the Tower can save the team from a board wipe and straight up counters any free spell bs from our opponents.

Eternal Witness and Bala Ged Recovery   get back anything that we want.

Loran of the Third Path is a nice form of tutorable artifact/enchantment removal.

Thalia, Heretic Cathar slows down annoying aggro decks and decks with overzealous manabases, particularly four and five color decks.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence just completely shuts some decks down. Most commanders have important activated abilities that Linvala just destroys.

Yasharn, Implacable Earth shuts down a lot of black decks, since so many of them require paying life or sacrificing stuff to do things. He also stops token decks from doing making a bunch of mana with Ashnod's Altar.

Sigarda, Host of Herons protects us from Diabolic Edict or any similar sacrifice effects.

Dragonlord Dromoka keeps any counterspells from interfering with our plans as well as any number of other things our opponent may try to do.

Kogla, the Titan Ape is creature removal when he comes down, artifact or enchantment removal everytime he swings, and can make himself indestructible while saving one of our humans in the process. And all of that for just 6 mana.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite virtually ensures that our board will beat our opponents' boards in combat. She's also another great token hoser.

Finally, Avacyn, Angel of Hope is the greatest protector of all, safeguarding our massive board against any board wipes. Combining her with Sigarda, Font of Blessings makes us mostly unstoppable.

Planeswalkers and Other

This is mainly a creature-based deck, but I've included a few planeswalkers too, since the Captain can tutor for them also. Ajani Unyielding provides extra card draw, and also is a tutorable Swords to Plowshares. Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Elspeth, Sun's Champion are both great ways of improving the board and beating down, and the latter's second ability can be very useful earlier in the game when this deck is still close to the ground, or in combination with Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Overall, I think that they fit the deck best, but in this color combination there are not really a lot of great options to be honest.

Finally, the last cards to be mentioned are Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares. I see these two slots as more flexible, and if your meta has a lot more artifact/enchantment decks than creature decks, then you can replace one of them with a Nature's Claim or something. I think having a couple slots to adjust single-target removal based on whatever I'm playing against is usually helpful.

Card Substitutions and Considerations

Date added	1 year
Last updated	1 year
Exclude colors	UBR
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	17 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.03
Tokens	Emblem Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Soldier 1/1 W, The Ring, The Ring Tempts You