(Goring Ceratops | Art by Zezhou Chen)

Let's Take Our Bulk Pile for a Ride...

Hey there, my name is Jordan, and I run the EDH Jank Center on YouTube. Welcome to Finding Homes For Janky Cards, the series where we rifle through that big pile of bulk you've got lying around and find a package of five janky, budget, or under-utilized cards and pair them with a commander that will help them shine. The deck we get out of it might not be the fanciest or most extravagant at the table, but we're still going to build it because every card deserves a loving home!

This week, our hospitable host is: Emmara, Soul of the Accord

Emmara is a pretty popular commander who boasts over 2,000 decks to her name at the time of writing this article. People love to build token-based brews around her for obvious reasons, but today I'd like to take a shot at building Emmara as a Vehicle commander!

Builders have already done this since the tap ability on this card synergizes with the Crew Mechanic perfectly, but I'd like to showcase some really awesome budget cards that I think can work in the deck.

Oh, and did I mention my build is under $50? Well, just in case I didn't: It's under $50! ($45.23 at the time of writing this article)

Let's take a look at the average Emmara decklist:

As usual, we're seeing a TON of expensive staples here. Cards like Bennie Bracks, Zoologist, Seedborn Muse, and Mondrak, Glory Dominus provide so much advantage for token builds, but since we're taking this in a more Vehicular direction, we're kicking these guys to the curb!

Here's something wild to think about: the three aforementioned cards cost about the same amount as the entire deck list you'll see at the end of this article. How do we achieve such a low cost? Keep reading!

Seatbelts buckled? Sweet, now let's dive in to our janky selections.

Saruli Caretaker

in of 0% of 1,121,097 decks

I just absolutely love this card for this build. It comes down on turn one, and on the next turn we can tap our commander with its ability. This will not only generate us one mana of any color (amazing in a multi-color deck), but also a cheeky 1/1 token from our commander's ability! Turn two with three creatures ready to Crew on the next turn? Sign. Me. Up.

The more tokens we can generate, the better, because they'll all help out with some of the Vehicles we're running that have higher Crew costs, like these guys:

With Saruli Caretaker and other cards like it, we can get these chunky things started (get it? because Vehicles?) and start swinging out for some damage!

Dauntless Aven

in 0% of 1,090,818 decks

This is a card I had never seen before brewing up this build and searching "untap" abilities on Scryfall, but I'm glad we can now salvage it from the bulk pile!

In our deck we're going to want to continuously tap and untap Emmara so that we can keep getting more and more tokens to Crew with. Dauntless Aven provides us with that by being an evasive creature that can swing in relatively unharmed and untap our commander.

But also, at a base-level evaluation, a 2/1 flier can be pretty formidable when armed with something like Gavel of the Righteous, which we're running in this deck as a finisher of sorts. Additionally, with two power on the board we can Crew our Vehicles even faster, which leaves room to maybe even go to combat with some of our spare 1/1s. All of this utility from a four-cent common? I'll take that any day of the week, baby.

Samite Herbalist

in 0% of 586,331 decks

Listen, in any deck where you do something, you want to run cards that synergize with that something. In Vehicles decks, we tap creatures. So wouldn't it be nice if we had a suite of really awesome budget creatures that give us advantage of some kind when they tap to Crew our Vehicles? Well, look no further than Samite Herbalist and its friends:

Whether it's scrying and life gain, buffing power, or creating more tokens, all of these budget options do work for us in this build!

This also works the other way with creatures untapping: 

Oh, and none of these cards cost over 20 cents. You're welcome!

War Report

in 0% of 1,090,818 decks

This card is a pretty straightforward inclusion in my opinion, yet I don't see it played much at all and the stats back this statement up. However, cards like this and Congregate do a ton of work on most board states with creatures on them.

We're going to have a good amount of both creatures and artifacts on our board in most games, so War Report will almost never be dead in hand. Also, we can cast this at instant speed, which makes it insanely versatile! I want to add that this card also counts every creature and artifact, not just our own.

Imagine: your opponents also have pretty full board states and one of them swings out at you for what they think is lethal, but you cast this in response and pad your life total! I for one would love to see my friends deflate after seeing that cast.

I personally have had a ton of success running Congregate in my decks, so I think War Report will do the same amount of work for us in this build.

Goring Ceratops

in 1% of 1,093,994 decks

This is by far my favorite card of the 5 listed here (don't tell the others I said that). Is it the most efficient card in the world? Not at all. However, that last ability makes it SO much fun to run in a deck where we care about attacking!

Granting double strike to all of our attacking creatures is an insane way to finish off a game. Not only will we be dealing double damage, but we'll also be getting two triggers off of anything that cares about dealing combat damage. Super sweet!

We also are running more classic finishers, like True Conviction and the underrated Bond of Discipline, but in my eyes, nothing will ever beat a chonky, stompy creature.

Now let's take a look at our jankified decklist!

Looks pretty awesome to me!

That about does it for this month's installment, let me know in the comments down below what cards you'd like me to find a home for next! Your suggestions might just make it into the next article.

Cheers!

Jordan Iacovella

Jordan is an actor, music producer, and gigantic nerd who runs the EDH Jank Center on Youtube! Through various tier lists, janky deck techs, and budget-friendly guides, the Jank Center hopes to show people that you don't need to be rich to have fun playing this wonderful game. Think outside the box, baby!