With over 3,000 different legendary creatures available in MTG, Commander players are spoiled for choice. Thanks to this, finding a relatively obscure Commander who does something powerful but interesting is easier than you might think. Emet-Selch, Unsundered, for example, becomes one of MTG’s most infamous effects once you reach 14 cards in the graveyard.
MTG Emet-Selch, Unsundered
With a somewhat unimpressive frontside, Emet-Selch, Unsundered is all about fulfilling its graveyard condition to transform into Hades, Sorcerer of Eld. Offering an effect similar to the infamous Yawgmoth’s Will, Hades can easily take over a game by recasting the contents of your graveyard.
To help fill your graveyard, Emet-Selch can amplify his Looting ability. Amplifying this trigger with Roaming Throne, or running more looters like Likeness Looter and Matzalanti, the Great Door, can fill your graveyard quickly. If you’re leaning particularly hard on this effect, draw doublers like Teferi’s Ageless Insight and Blink effects like Essence Flux can create a ton of value.
With lots of looting going on, Emet-Selch can easily employ discard payoffs like Monument to Endurance and Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer, turning Emet-Selch into strict card advantage. Pair this with cheap spells like Dark Ritual and Preordain that can fill the graveyard easily, and Emet-Selch offers a grindy value game with a strong win condition.
That said, looting a few cards per turn generally isn’t enough to consistently get Hades into play early. Thanks to this, constant mill pieces like Mesmeric Orb and powerful spells like Breach the Multiverse become necessary. This also opens up a possible reanimator theme for Emet-Selch, with key cards like Animate Dead becoming recastable once your Commander transforms.
Sadly, because your Commander transforms to Hades on your upkeep, your opponents will generally have lots of time to remove it. Fortunately, Sphinx/Shadow of the Second Sun can help, untapping your lands and transforming Emet-Selch before your second main phase. Extra turn spells can do something similar by connecting your upkeep to your previous actions.
Once you successfully transform into Hades, you’re set up for some extremely explosive turns. Whether you reanimate your creatures again with Shallow Grave, or build up to a Storm win with Cabal Ritual and Tendrils of Agony, Hades can easily take over a game of Commander. That said, perhaps the easiest way to win with Hades is to just go infinite.
Infinite Turns
Similar to Yawgmoth’s Will, Hades, Sorcerer of Eld has a conditional effect that stops obvious loops. By preventing cards from entering your graveyard when in play, Hades stops you from casting something like Dark Ritual over and over to create infinite mana. That said, because this card transforms, you can still take infinite turns with an extra turn spell that goes to the graveyard, like Time Warp.
Just cast your extra turn spell from the graveyard using Hades and, before it resolves, Blink Hades with a card like Essence Flux. Hades will re-enter as Emet-Selch, and both your Blink spell and your extra turn spell will go back to the graveyard. Emet-Selch will then transform on your next upkeep, allowing you to repeat the loop.
If setting up this combo is the ultimate goal of your Emet-Selch deck, you can make it extremely consistent. Between tons of extra turn spells like Temporal Manipulation and Walk the Aeons, you can easily chain turns together, buying time to transform into Hades. If that weren’t enough, threats like Hullbreaker Horror and Tidespout Tyrant can pull off the infinite while tying your reanimator theme together.
Surprisingly Underplayed
Thanks to this, Emet-Selch, Unsundured can make for an extremely powerful Commander, fusing extra turns with a reanimator theme. Despite this, Emet-Selch has only 3,944 decks to his name, according to EDHREC, giving you the jump on unsuspecting opponents.
While Emet-Selch being a Universes Beyond Mythic has stopped him from being a budget choice, he’ll hardly break the bank, either. Thanks to his cheapest variant being just $2, picking up this Commander should be easier than you may expect. Considering this, there’s nothing stopping you from taking over your next Commander pod with Emet-Selch.
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