This is an evolution of my OG paper EDH deck and is probably still my most competitive brew. Captain Sisay was my first EDH deck, which I built in 2011 when I decided to make the switch from Standard to EDH and traded my Tezzeret, Agent of Bolass and Karn Liberateds (which were $40 and $60 cards at the time lol) for about half the deck. I posted the wantlist to craigslist and was hit up by a guy who turned out to work at the card shop I frequented, met him there and traded all my hot standard cards for pretty much the entire bones of the deck. I got a huge pile of legends including Linvala, Iona, Azusa, Rofellos, (who at the time was only banned * as * a commander, lol) Gaddock Teeg the best card in the deck, the Myojins, Umezawa's Jitte, plus lands like Kor Haven, Yavimaya Hollow, Horizon Canopy, and staples Survival of the FittestGC, Enlightened TutorGC and Land Tax which highschool me could NOT have afforded (having already spent all my lunch money on New Phyrexia boxes :D). And of course I had Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Vorinclex, Voice of HungerGC, which I may have pulled myself though honestly I don't remember. As time went on I saved up and invested into more power cards for the deck including Gaea's CradleGC which was $100 on ebay at the time, a revised Savannah for $60 at a game shop which I think I traded my last Karn and $20 for. I bought a Sylvan Library and an (Italian) Living Plane and traded for Chrome MoxGC and Mana Crypt, and by this point in time the deck was starting to get pretty hot.
I decided on Sisay as my first commander because not only was she an incredibly classic card and an iconic character, but the toolbox style of build she enables really appealed to me. I thought a deck that always had access to a wide array of answers should be consistently interactive and interesting to play. My build started out as a somewhat casual big legends stompy/hatebear toolbox strategy topping out with VorinclexGC and Norn to try and just beat everybody down while preventing their big plays with rockstar Gaddock Teeg. But as time went on and the deck naturally got more powerful I began intentionally optimizing her for 1v1 competitive, which in my experience was the predominate way of playing high power back then. When your friends were tired of playing against your most OP decks (always) and you couldn't find a full table for high power, players with stronger decks would often throw down 1v1 with their best generals (oh yeah we called them generals, not commanders). With that in mind, the previous build of this deck was very much focused on acceleration and tempo play with Strip Mine, Wasteland, and even Tectonic Edge recurred via Titania, Protector of Argoth and Crucible of Worlds, which alongside Azusa made for a particularly effective LD/tempo strategy in 1v1. Sisay of course still finds silver bullets and the deck now packs a couple hard locks to close out games against full tables as well with Living Plane + Elesh Norn/Linvala as well as Survival of the FittestGC into Loyal Retainers into Iona. This older version can still be found here. I think this build dates from right BEFORE Paradox Engine was printed. I did play with Paradox for a little while until it got banned, which honestly was a bit of a relief because those lines were such a slog to play out. Also, I was trolling through my old decks on here and just found THIS which looks like THE ORIGINAL JANKY DECKLIST!!! From some time before performing any of the upgrades to make it competitive. Wow now I'm going to have to play this!!
Anyways, this here is the most modern version of the deck which has been heavily redesigned and reworked for the sort of 4 player CEDH we typically play today. Sadly our LD package and other classics like Gaddock Teeg had to be cut to make room for more combo support, removal, and quick hate like Deafening Silence and Vexing Bauble against the ultra-lightweight CEDH combos we're going up against. I still try to pack a ton of acceleration, silver bullets, removal, and finishers with the fairly robust Ashaya/Quirion combo, backed up by our OG Norn/Plane lock as well as Food Chain/Eternal Scourge mana combo which just goes bananas with Sisay. This deck pushes the limits by fitting cards like Academy Rector, Sterling Grove, and Idyllic Tutor to provide more support for our multiple enchantment-based combos, also going as deep as possible on spot removal via cards like Khalni Ambush
and Umezawa's Jitte to combat serious roadblocks such as Opposition AgentGC. We also run Surrak and Goreclaw which I haven't seen in many other lists, but this is the tutorable haste-enabler the deck has wanted for so long. Most other competitive Sisay lists probably run slightly more ramp and/or stax cards, relying solely on the Ashaya combo and midrange stax plan. But I'm a prison player at heart so this is how I built my version. I regularly play this deck in CEDH pods and win, I'd say it's pretty much the only one of my original brews that can keep up in that environment. The biggest strength is the deck's consistency since Sisay can always grab answers to almost everything and she also finds the entire Ashaya combo, basically she will threaten the win turns 5-6 nearly every single time. It makes me happy that after all these years and getting our best cards banned at least 3 times, my first and best girl Selesnya Sisay can still throw down with the strongest decks in the format and come out on top.
:) If you made it this far, cheers and hopefully you enjoyed the history of this deck as well as some of my own history as an EDH player! Thanks for reading!
