I'm currently playing against this deck in my meta. Holy crap it's been tough. Some nights we do 1v1 40 hp standard edh banlist and this deck crushes that too.

What decks are stopping you from winning on a consistent basis?

1. Flash-Hulk as it is too fast and Sisay can't interact with the combo

2. Teferi Chainveil - also very fast, can counter sisay easily and also shuts down your deck with cursed totem

3. Derevi Stax - it's the better stax deck as Sisay and hurts your combo

4. Arcum Dagson - it's faster than Sisay and can go off with less pieces (on the other hand with the right pieces like stony silence or kataki you can hate the deck pretty hard)

All in all I'd say there are faster decks than Sisay and on these you need to keep an eye on :)

considering there's only like 4 decks you need to really worry about that's pretty good :D

I disagree with the assessment made about Derevi and Teferi. Derevi Stax is in an inherently weak spot because she doesn't have amazing cEDH wincons - she plays amazinginly through your stax pieces but often won't have good answers to your Paradox combo. Teferi is one of Sisay's easier matchups, especially because you can run Gaddock Teeg in that meta which straight up makes Teferi impossible to cast, and Teferi is weak to Null Rod/Stony Silence decks. Teferi is also generally weak to tax effects, because he often can't afford to hold up countermagic for Sisay if there are any other relevant decks at the table.

The hardest matchups tend not to be opposing stax decks (because Sisay plays extremely well through stax). The stax decks will help Sisay buy turns to either Paradox combo or find something that shuts off those decks (Elesh Norn stops Derevi, for example). The hardest matchups are the fast combo matchups, because tutoring with Sisay to find a stax piece that shuts off their combo is often too slow. You're heavily reliant on relevant stax pieces in their opener against fast combo decks. There are a variety of fast combo decks - Flash Hulk, Selvala Brostorm, Grixis Storm, Arcum, etc.

Hmmm... well spoken. I misjudged and agree to your assessment. As I have have both Teferi and Sisay, I will give it a try and handout one of either decks to a friend of mine to test the matchup. Though honestly today, my friend pulled of two times a turn 2 win with Teferi. It's sad that most of the people here in Switzerland don't like cEDH. It's pretty hard to find people to play with.

As for Flash-Hulk, this strategy is quite meta warping. It is the reason why I swapped Karador against Anafenza and often I tend to bring Rashmi to the table against it, so I can defend against combo from turn one.

How does this deck fair in a table with Mr. Froggy Gitrog monster?

You can add Rest in Peace to improve the Gitrog matchup. Against cEDH Gitrog, Linvala can help stop the discard outlet Gitrog needs for his full combo, but she won't stop an end-step sculpt towards something like Slaughter Pact. You get a slight advantage in that Armageddon and Ravages double as removal against the frog (although they do draw him a card). In my experience the matchup is slightly favored towards Sisay, but there are very good tech cards Gitrog can run that makes life hard for Sisay (most notably Massacre).

I've played a very similar list and found gitrog to be a decent match up. I've found that the stax pieces do more work than the creatures. Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, and Thorn of Amethyst all slow the deck down really well, and then tutor a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. It can still be played through, but gets really hard. Most people in my meta fear the frog enough to be okay with these lines of play and will let you advance your board state.

Just remember any deck can explode and run away with it.

How does this deck play around Eidolon of Rhetoric? I don't see Miren the Moaning Well in here, so I was wondering if you came up with a different way to combo out from under it and Canonist (I'm still in 2017 sacrificing them to Miren in order to do the Selvala + Elixir + GSZ chain).

Also, have you considered Seton, Krosan Protector in the place of Rishkar? Rishkar, if she comes out during an Engine chain, needs another creature on board without summoning sickness (which isn't difficult at all but follow me here), whereas Seton can come out during barenaked plays for whatever reason you might be backed into doing that and can produce green mana immediately because it can tap immediately since its ability doesn't have the tap symbol. The mana cost is harder to meet than Rishkar's though, so I was wondering if that may be why.

Although Eidolon stops the Paradox combo, going for a slower line (notably Yisan chains and Kamahl Norn) under an Eidolon is usually pretty fine. With the release of Urza's Ruinous Blast, I'm experimenting with it as a way to remove Eidolon.

Seton is interesting but ultimately the GGG casting cost and only making a single G are huge drawbacks. If Rishkar turns two other creatures into mana-producing sources, he effectively only costs G and it's pretty frequent that there will be at least one target for his counters. The two mana matters a lot when comboing off through taxes.

Ah, I see. How has Urza's Ruinous Blast been working out for you? I guess it pulls twice the weight because it can eliminate things that would normally stop the combo dead too (like Damping Sphere and Rule of Law effects). It seems clunky, to me, which is why I haven't tried it yet, but I'm definitely wanting to hear your experiences on it.

And what you said on Seton makes sense too. I took for granted how often I use Rishkar to make 2 mana instead of just one, which helps accelerate during non-combo games.

Anyway, awesome. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Eidolon, especially.

Urza's Ruinous Blast has been okay. Not super exciting and my main negative experience with it has been in a pod with another Sisay (for obvious reasons). That said, I haven't jammed enough games with it to make an amazing judgment on the card yet.

You know there is an all legendary no additional mana win-con.

Sisay Paradox Combo (Turn 3 wins!)

I'm sure he knows, because if you click combo lines he lists Bontu's Monument under Legend-only lines.

Yeah, but he can't pull it off without Seton, Krosan Protector, and he doesn't run it.

Can also be done with mikaeus, the lunarch. Only need the two mox

that is now a main wincondition? after drop of blasting station. and how deck works with cards advantage outside sisay

simakover , his main wincon i believe so far is using Selvala, Explorer Returned to mill everyone out except yourself.

Yo, lightninja7 to use Mikaeus, the Lunarch still needs 3 mana because Bow of Nylea costs two to tap.

My appologies. Haha You're right. I meant to say that using mikaeus loop allows you to only need two moxs and seton. Thanks man!

I'm fairly certain he doesn't run the Bontu's Monument combo line in the maindeck and merely details exactly how to perform it in the description because that combo line requires running multiple cards that are dead without the combo.

As it stands, Green Sun's Zenith has viability at all points of the game, Selvala, Explorer Returned is actually quite reasonable during combo and during stax (she's beautiful with Spirit of the Labyrinth out too), and Thousand-Year Elixir is just good all around with this many mana dorks and a Commander with a tap ability.

Mikaeus and Bontu's Monument only have a relevant function to the deck during the combo and not really anywhere else (I guess Mikey could be used during the beatdown plan for obvious reasons), which is probably why the description goes over Saffi instead of Mikaeus, as Saffi at least has some utility outside of the combo.

I mean, Saffi does also have other combo (not in this deck), and can be used as protection for other creatures (whilst her being in the yard isn't making the combo any more difficult (one use of Bow of Nylea) and a fetch and she's right back in hand, yet the main issue with the combo that was gone over is that you need from non-land sources.

It costs one green less to use Mikaeus, the Lunarch, and one mana less is very useful.

PookAndPie more or less got the main reason right. It is an advantage to be able to run combo pieces that are reasonable cards to play on their own. Mikaeus and Saffi do very little when you draw them normally.

I'd vaguely toy around with the idea that maybe the legendary-only pile should just be Bow of Nylea + Mindslaver, under the assumption that you can just make enough mana off casting your other legends that you can loop Mindslaver three times. It's fewer dead cards than the other legend pile - it'd take some investigation of whether it's too much mana or not.

You know, with the legend only line, Aetherworks Marvel is a great replacement for Bontu's Monument, and has more versatility.

Any news on an update to the primer with the Mox Amber release? I'm working on a version of this deck, and I'll admit, I'm not an arch