Ertai, the Corrupted

Ertai, the Corrupted is a sneaky control engine disguised as a creature. Your game plan revolves around building a board of expendable creatures and enchantments, then using Ertai to counter spells while sacrificing your own permanents. This turns your mana rocks, tokens, and utility creatures into counterspells, letting you control the game while keeping a body in play. It's remarkably mana-efficient—you're turning resources you'd normally trade away into answers.

To make this work, you'll want cheap creatures that either generate value before dying (like Village Bell-Ringer, Ephemerate targets, or Orcish Bowmasters) or produce tokens. Enchantment-based ramp and utility cards double as fuel for Ertai's ability, turning cards like Fertile Ground or Spreading Algae into potential counters when you're done with them. The deck plays like a tempo deck with built-in redundancy: you're never truly out of answers because your permanents literally become counterspells.

Strategy generated by Tapped Decks AI. Not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast.