I've wanted to build an eldrazi deck that wasn't so OP that I couldn't play it with my friends. But, the mana was so wonky the first time I tried it in the first Zendikar block that it didn't survive. Then I recently looked at the latest Zendikar block and took interest again. I looked over Cadaverousbloom's Eldrazi Stampede deck, and loved it as well, but that is too high-octane to drop on my group. This decklist is intended as a moderately-priced deck that doesn't go over the top on instant wins. It will be used in cooperative games or 1v1, but not in big FFAs. I know lands are light for some of your tastes. Please, if you are going to lecture me on my land, keep it polite, to the point, and include suggestions for replacements that don't bloviate the deck $$$ costs. I believe the ramp contained within along with the posts and temples will work as is given the gradual curve I put in with the mana dorks in the middle, but I'm open to ideas.
The thought here is that Endbringer gets around key creatures like first-striking deathtouch, etc, and fills other utility roles. Bane of Bala Ged, Breaker of Armies, and Eldrazi Conscription hammer opposing armies and resources, and World Breaker whacks everything else like game stallers (Moat, Ensnaring Bridge, and Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale are all owned in my group). Does the card selection cover the bases pretty well as a casual face beater? What am I not seeing? Thanks.
Listen up dimwit, you're going to have to completely change the manabase to include things like 4x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and 4x Karakas. Let's start at the top with how Magic first came into existence and work our way to the game as we know it today.
Please, if you are going to lecture me on my land, keep it polite, to the point, and include suggestions for replacements that don't bloviate the deck $$$ costs.
Oh.
Ahem.
The deck seems sweet but I will offer some suggestions. Warden of Geometries is too weak of a Magic card to pass muster (Kozilek's Channeler is an order of magnitude more powerful for example) and 21 lands is loose. I'm also not a fan of Eldrazi Conscription because the worst-case scenario is you go turn ~5 Breaker of Armies (or whatever), turn 7 Conscription only to have your 15 drop 2-for-1d by a 1-2 mana spell like Pongify or Doom Blade. That's a game losing swing no matter how you slice it. I would like to see a slightly tinkered version with more Forests and things like Crop Rotation and Sylvan Scrying to bolster your consistency. They're dirt cheap, give you more things to do on turns 1-2 and are perfect for amassing Cloud Posts. I promise you that if you cut the Wardens (the card is just awful) and shave some of the top-end for some more Forests and land fetchers that you'll experience significantly more success with the archetype. After all, this deck will never fall flat on its face insofar as it assembles enough mana to cast its spells which is why you need to go out of your way to make that happen each and every game. Losing with a hand full of powerful 7+ drops is miserable so it behooves you to shave some of it off in favor of cheap ramp that will power you into the mana required to cast everything.
Do you already have the Eldrazi Conscriptions on-hand? That's easily your most expensive card and I don't think it makes much sense thematically--I mean, the eldrazi wouldn't really be conscripting themselves would they? Especially not after having won the war. Plus, as fun as it would be to swing with a conscripted Breaker of Armies that's a pretty hefty mana investment that you could easily lose to a single Doom Blade.
No, and they are kinda spendy, I could instead sub in something else easily, and yeah the theme doesn't really make sense...it never did. lol.
That said, I could easily use Ulamog's Crusher in place of the Conscription. Or, I could re-tool the mana and stretch to 10 for Desolation Twin. There are other options as well. The whole point of the Conscription is to put it on the weaker eldrazi, not the Breaker of Armies or Bane of Bala Ged. At least that way, I don't really care if they doomblade the recipient or not.
No, and they are kinda spendy, I could instead sub in something else easily, and yeah the theme doesn't really make sense...it never did. lol.
That said, I could easily use Ulamog's Crusher in place of the Conscription. Or, I could re-tool the mana and stretch to 10 for Desolation Twin. There are other options as well. The whole point of the Conscription is to put it on the weaker eldrazi, not the Breaker of Armies or Bane of Bala Ged. At least that way, I don't really care if they doomblade the recipient or not.
Eh, save the money for something more important. I recommend Kozilek, the great Distortion as a fantastic singleton for lategame card draw (even with Eye of Ugin card draw can help) and then either Conduit of Ruin or Oblivion Sower with the nod going to Oblivion Sower. It hits 2 lands a reasonable % of the time at which point it feels like a Primeval Titan. Sower also makes things like Desolation Twin much more appealing because you have that much more ramp in your list.
Hmm, I like the Oblivion Sower. Really plummets deck costs, too. Possibly exiles a key card and as you pointed out puts some more steam into the middle of the curve to get to 8 faster. I'm leaning on Endbringer to serve for card draw, though. After all, once I hit top curve, I have mana to burn. My thought is that if they can stop everything I do to include Endbringer even after dropping Bala Ged, World Breaker, and Breaker of Armies, I wasn't going to win anyway. Sometimes, you just lose.
Hmm, I like the Oblivion Sower. Really plummets deck costs, too. Possibly exiles a key card and as you pointed out puts some more steam into the middle of the curve to get to 8 faster. I'm leaning on Endbringer to serve for card draw, though. After all, once I hit top curve, I have mana to burn. My thought is that if they can stop everything I do to include Endbringer even after dropping Bala Ged, World Breaker, and Breaker of Armies, I wasn't going to win anyway.
Fair, I just like having a Kozibuns because the mass card draw is usually relevant and his activated ability is surprisingly bonkers. The ability to convert your hand into pseudo-Force of Wills can protect you from a ton of shenanigans that would otherwise thwart your well-laid plans.
What about running a single Void Winnower? Since you're already committed to generating a lot of mana, swapping out a Breaker of Armies for one of those seems like it could be a good, low-opportunity cost way of adding a significant disruptive element to your deck.
What do you think about the land count? How did you choose 21?
It's too low. He should be playing 23-24 with the rest being Forests for things like Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying, Ancient Stirrings, etc. After all, Eldrazi is not a deck that you should be shaving lands on. All of your key spells cost 4 or more and most builds feature a ton of over-the-top fatties that cost 6+. As such missing land drops is heinous and so you can't afford to run so few.
With the posts in, the most important lands are Cloudpost, so I have to prioritize getting them, no argument there. With the extra forests and 8 ramp tutors now, that should pay off with plenty of steam left to get Eye of Ugin for continued late game pressure. By taking out the Conscriptions, I lost the annihilator levels I wanted resident for my meta. So the Crushers restore that resource pressure with a body almost as good as the Breaker of Armies, without inflating the top of the curve. At worst, Doomblade has to 1 for 1 it. At best, it ends up being a 3 to 0 or 4 to 1 swap when the Crusher attacks. Between Bala Geds, Crushers, and World Breakers, that's a lot of back breaking without having to resort to FFA sweepers like All is Dust, so I can keep this deck for team cooperative games and smaller group games. And, if pick up two All is Dust, I can swap out the Breaker of Armies easily to play a moderately-sized FFA. In my group, that could still be competitive enough to do.
Deck might be a little too greedy right now. Ideally you can get to 6 on turn 3 by going Cloudpost, Cloudpost, Post/Temple or something similar and drop the Endbringer or Oblivion Sower. It would be fun to try putting in a singleton Spawnsire of Ulamog and keep 20x Ulamog's Crusher in the sideboard, but I'm not sure another 10-drop is what this deck needs right now. Emrakul is a flavor choice which is probably not ideal, but can at least reliably be cast for 9-10. I'm not sure what planeswalkers or enchantments would be appropriate to get her cost down, or if that's even worth it. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon would probably be a house here but that price tag is hard to swallow.
Dude, get your own thread, lol. Jokes aside, yours looks very much like mine would if I planned to go straight FFA, to include All is Dust in multiples to keep heat off my flanks. I'm fairly excited to get this bought and running.
As to Mindstone, I would think that's a dead draw later over Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map, or even another Endbringer for sheer card advantage, or Conduit of Ruin for a nice discount on casting and a free Vampiric Tutor into an Eldrazi Lord.
Dude, get your own thread, lol. Jokes aside, yours looks very much like mine would if I planned to go straight FFA, to include All is Dust in multiples to keep heat off my flanks. I'm fairly excited to get this bought and running.
As to Mindstone, I would think that's a dead draw later over Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map, or even another Endbringer for sheer card advantage, or Conduit of Ruin for a nice discount on casting and a free Vampiric Tutor into an Eldrazi Lord.
You could be right. I put Mind Stone in to add another path to 6 mana on turn 3 in case of a Forest-light hand that can only do a single Crop Rotation. I also like that it cycles away later on, which isn't true for the other ramp options. I also don't know about replacing it with more 6+ drops. I have 7 cards at CMC 6 already, in hopes of being able to drop one on both turns 3 and 4 while I get up to 8+ mana for the huge Eldrazi/Eye of Ugin shenanigans.
As for your build, is there a huge difference between 8 and 9? Seems like Artisan of Kozilek is a pretty big upgrade to Ulamog's Crusher if you can cast it just as reliably. Your card draw options are pretty limited still so any form of card advantage you can eke out will make a big difference.
EDIT: The build is slightly changed now. I decided to go for the Spawnsire after all, since his worst case scenario is still a decent mana sink if I ever run out of cards. The sideboard is mostly a joke, although I'll probably pick up a bajillion copies of Abundant Maw from the penny box at my LGS for a legit uncounterable, uninteractable win condition if I can activate the Spawnsire.
As to Mindstone, I would think that's a dead draw later over Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map, or even another Endbringer for sheer card advantage, or Conduit of Ruin for a nice discount on casting and a free Vampiric Tutor into an Eldrazi Lord.
To be fair Mind Stone is one of the most powerful ramp spells in the entire game precisely because it's never a dead draw. Early on it's ramp when you still need it and later on it just cycles away into another card. Now, I'm not saying that he needs to keep them or anything but it's unfair to exclude it for this reason alone. Plenty of Modern Eldrazi decks happily field 4x Mind Stone because it's objectively one of the best spells for the job.
I also don't know about replacing it with more 6+ drops. I have 7 cards at CMC 6 already, in hopes of being able to drop one on both turns 3 and 4 while I get up to 8+ mana for the huge Eldrazi/Eye of Ugin shenanigans.
For what it's worth as someone who's built and played this archetype to the ground I think that the only correct numbers are 4x Expedition Map, 4x Crop Rotation and 4x Sylvan Scrying. It's virtually impossible for these cards to be bad draws because you actively want to assemble 4x Cloudpost and 1x Eye of Ugin every game and so it's virtually impossible to flood out on this effect. By the time that they become "obsolete" you can already Eye of Ugin to tutor up + cast a threat every turn and so "mulligans" are a moot point. You don't care because you still have something to do with your mana. If they deck didn't have Eye of Ugin, ok, sure, you could make an argument for shaving those numbers. Still, with EoU it's not possible to draw a Cloudpost and feel actively bad about it. It's the single best draw in your deck every draw step of every game and you're never unhappy to see more.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that Crop Rotation seems scary/bad/awkward and I know that 12 ramp spells feels like a lot. It's not. I want to reinforce that your only concern in the world should be "can I reliably ramp out my spells" because if the answer is "yes" then you should be sitting pretty and so there's basically no reason to start shaving those numbers.
Uhm... in my meta Annihilator is the only thing banned.
Maybe your friends won't like the U. Crushers.
Maybe so, but while game-ending single drops aren't common, pillow forts, turbo-fog, elves, slivers, and other layered decks are prominent, no matter if FFA or co-ops. The eldrazi with annihilator will allow me to clear through chaff on the other team without blasting my side in the process. The eldrazi will draw a lot attention, too, so I need some annihilator to add to Bala Ged exiling to ironically keep enough pressure on. I'm keeping it reasonable, so it should be OK to the group. If anyone complains, I'll be honest about it, too. "Stop playing boinking-like-bunny Elves every game and I'll consider it." Or something else like it.
The more I think about it the more I realize you're right Cz. Mind Stone is great in some places but I struggled to come up with a single case where another Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map wouldn't be just as good or better early on. In your experience is it worth it to have some early drops like Matter Reshaper or is it better to just go all-in on the ramp into 6+ drops? I also worry about the singleton Eye of Ugin getting destroyed on the spot once opponents get wise to the deck's game plan. Is there anything worth running to get it back or is the best solution to just run 2?
Realistically, probably not enough to not put the Artisans in, because they will help save more of them when I'm losing steam. His point was totally valid, heh heh. I totally missed seeing it.
The more I think about it the more I realize you're right Cz. Mind Stone is great in some places but I struggled to come up with a single case where another Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map wouldn't be just as good or better early on.
It's never going to be, and that's why you've never seen me post a version of this deck that has Mind Stone. Crop Rotation and Sylvan Scrying are way too powerful to cut for a dorky Rampant Growth because they represent more Cloudposts and this deck is literally never unhappy to draw the card Cloudpost.
In your experience is it worth it to have some early drops like Matter Reshaper or is it better to just go all-in on the ramp into 6+ drops?
No, I've never put cards like Eldrazi Mimic or Matter Reshaper in my lists. If I'm not worried about aggro then I omit these kinds of blockers entirely and focus purely on ramping out Posts and such. If critter beats are a concern then I turn to things like Elephant Grass, Wall of Roots and Moment's Peace to buy me the 2-3 turns needed to jam my fatties. The reason why I like Wall of Roots is because it doesn't tap, it has a huge booty and you can activate it immediately to EOT a Crop Rotation on the circuit that you cast it. Clearly it enables you to chain into any 1 drop and since the deck often has a ton of them (Expedition Map, Ancient Stirrings) it's actually an absurd blocker + ramp spell for the archetype. Elephant Grass is stellar when you only need to buy 2-3 turns and given how powerful this deck's endgame is I don't care about losing value from marginal "Walls." After all, I'm not worried about topdecking into them later on since I'll always have the Eye of Ugin value plan to grind people out. This is why I'll happily play Elephant Grass in this archetype even though I think that Propaganda effects aren't very good in a vacuum. Moment's Peace is the best Fog effect by a significant margin (Constant Mists is HEINOUS in this archetype) and has the upside of creating psychological pressure.
I also worry about the singleton Eye of Ugin getting destroyed on the spot once opponents get wise to the deck's game plan. Is there anything worth running to get it back or is the best solution to just run 2?
Quick follow-up here. I've finished mod'ing my other decks, so I've started buying cards for my revised eldrazi deck. (By the way, thanks for your previous input). One problem is that in the last three months, Eldrazi Temple has doubled in price and is out of my budget tolerances. Given the latest decklist I posted above, if I replace the temples with either forests or Wastes, is there enough search to reliably power out the Cloudposts with 4xExpedition Map and 4xSylvan Scrying, or would I be better to get a playset of Thespian's Stage to replace the temples? I do have budget enough for the Stages, but looking to shave a nickel further if it's not going to make a huge blip.
The thought here is that Endbringer gets around key creatures like first-striking deathtouch, etc, and fills other utility roles. Bane of Bala Ged, Breaker of Armies, and Eldrazi Conscription hammer opposing armies and resources, and World Breaker whacks everything else like game stallers (Moat, Ensnaring Bridge, and Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale are all owned in my group). Does the card selection cover the bases pretty well as a casual face beater? What am I not seeing? Thanks.
1 Eye of Ugin
8 Forest
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Expedition Map
Eldrazi cards: 36
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Warden of Geometries
4 Kozilek's Channeler
4 Endbringer
4 World Breaker
4 Bane of Bala Ged
4 Breaker of Armies
4 Eldrazi Conscription
Oh.
Ahem.
The deck seems sweet but I will offer some suggestions. Warden of Geometries is too weak of a Magic card to pass muster (Kozilek's Channeler is an order of magnitude more powerful for example) and 21 lands is loose. I'm also not a fan of Eldrazi Conscription because the worst-case scenario is you go turn ~5 Breaker of Armies (or whatever), turn 7 Conscription only to have your 15 drop 2-for-1d by a 1-2 mana spell like Pongify or Doom Blade. That's a game losing swing no matter how you slice it. I would like to see a slightly tinkered version with more Forests and things like Crop Rotation and Sylvan Scrying to bolster your consistency. They're dirt cheap, give you more things to do on turns 1-2 and are perfect for amassing Cloud Posts. I promise you that if you cut the Wardens (the card is just awful) and shave some of the top-end for some more Forests and land fetchers that you'll experience significantly more success with the archetype. After all, this deck will never fall flat on its face insofar as it assembles enough mana to cast its spells which is why you need to go out of your way to make that happen each and every game. Losing with a hand full of powerful 7+ drops is miserable so it behooves you to shave some of it off in favor of cheap ramp that will power you into the mana required to cast everything.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Anyone else?
That said, I could easily use Ulamog's Crusher in place of the Conscription. Or, I could re-tool the mana and stretch to 10 for Desolation Twin. There are other options as well. The whole point of the Conscription is to put it on the weaker eldrazi, not the Breaker of Armies or Bane of Bala Ged. At least that way, I don't really care if they doomblade the recipient or not.
Eh, save the money for something more important. I recommend Kozilek, the great Distortion as a fantastic singleton for lategame card draw (even with Eye of Ugin card draw can help) and then either Conduit of Ruin or Oblivion Sower with the nod going to Oblivion Sower. It hits 2 lands a reasonable % of the time at which point it feels like a Primeval Titan. Sower also makes things like Desolation Twin much more appealing because you have that much more ramp in your list.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Fair, I just like having a Kozibuns because the mass card draw is usually relevant and his activated ability is surprisingly bonkers. The ability to convert your hand into pseudo-Force of Wills can protect you from a ton of shenanigans that would otherwise thwart your well-laid plans.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
It's too low. He should be playing 23-24 with the rest being Forests for things like Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying, Ancient Stirrings, etc. After all, Eldrazi is not a deck that you should be shaving lands on. All of your key spells cost 4 or more and most builds feature a ton of over-the-top fatties that cost 6+. As such missing land drops is heinous and so you can't afford to run so few.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Seems perfect for when you run out of gas (and life).
Oh. And your lands are too cheap.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Maybe a few Thespian's Stages as extra Locuses?
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
-4 Eldrazi Conscription
-4 Warden of Geometries
-2 Breaker of Armies
+2 Forest
+4 Sylvan Scrying
+4 Ulamog's Crusher
With the posts in, the most important lands are Cloudpost, so I have to prioritize getting them, no argument there. With the extra forests and 8 ramp tutors now, that should pay off with plenty of steam left to get Eye of Ugin for continued late game pressure. By taking out the Conscriptions, I lost the annihilator levels I wanted resident for my meta. So the Crushers restore that resource pressure with a body almost as good as the Breaker of Armies, without inflating the top of the curve. At worst, Doomblade has to 1 for 1 it. At best, it ends up being a 3 to 0 or 4 to 1 swap when the Crusher attacks. Between Bala Geds, Crushers, and World Breakers, that's a lot of back breaking without having to resort to FFA sweepers like All is Dust, so I can keep this deck for team cooperative games and smaller group games. And, if pick up two All is Dust, I can swap out the Breaker of Armies easily to play a moderately-sized FFA. In my group, that could still be competitive enough to do.
Thoughts on final design?
12 Forest
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
2 Sylvan Scrying
3 Mind Stone
4 Matter Reshaper
4 All Is Dust
4 Oblivion Sower
3 Endbringer
3 World Breaker
3 Breaker of Armies
1 Void Winnower
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Deck might be a little too greedy right now. Ideally you can get to 6 on turn 3 by going Cloudpost, Cloudpost, Post/Temple or something similar and drop the Endbringer or Oblivion Sower. It would be fun to try putting in a singleton Spawnsire of Ulamog and keep 20x Ulamog's Crusher in the sideboard, but I'm not sure another 10-drop is what this deck needs right now. Emrakul is a flavor choice which is probably not ideal, but can at least reliably be cast for 9-10. I'm not sure what planeswalkers or enchantments would be appropriate to get her cost down, or if that's even worth it. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon would probably be a house here but that price tag is hard to swallow.
As to Mindstone, I would think that's a dead draw later over Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map, or even another Endbringer for sheer card advantage, or Conduit of Ruin for a nice discount on casting and a free Vampiric Tutor into an Eldrazi Lord.
You could be right. I put Mind Stone in to add another path to 6 mana on turn 3 in case of a Forest-light hand that can only do a single Crop Rotation. I also like that it cycles away later on, which isn't true for the other ramp options. I also don't know about replacing it with more 6+ drops. I have 7 cards at CMC 6 already, in hopes of being able to drop one on both turns 3 and 4 while I get up to 8+ mana for the huge Eldrazi/Eye of Ugin shenanigans.
As for your build, is there a huge difference between 8 and 9? Seems like Artisan of Kozilek is a pretty big upgrade to Ulamog's Crusher if you can cast it just as reliably. Your card draw options are pretty limited still so any form of card advantage you can eke out will make a big difference.
EDIT: The build is slightly changed now. I decided to go for the Spawnsire after all, since his worst case scenario is still a decent mana sink if I ever run out of cards. The sideboard is mostly a joke, although I'll probably pick up a bajillion copies of Abundant Maw from the penny box at my LGS for a legit uncounterable, uninteractable win condition if I can activate the Spawnsire.
12 Forest
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Crop Rotation
2 Sylvan Scrying
3 Mind Stone
4 Matter Reshaper
4 All Is Dust
4 Oblivion Sower
3 Endbringer
3 World Breaker
1 Conduit of Ruin
1 Spawnsire of Ulamog
1 Breaker of Armies
1 Void Winnower
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
40 Abundant Maw
20 Lashweed Lurker
To be fair Mind Stone is one of the most powerful ramp spells in the entire game precisely because it's never a dead draw. Early on it's ramp when you still need it and later on it just cycles away into another card. Now, I'm not saying that he needs to keep them or anything but it's unfair to exclude it for this reason alone. Plenty of Modern Eldrazi decks happily field 4x Mind Stone because it's objectively one of the best spells for the job.
Then don't, replace it with cards that fetch Cloudpost such as Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying.
For what it's worth as someone who's built and played this archetype to the ground I think that the only correct numbers are 4x Expedition Map, 4x Crop Rotation and 4x Sylvan Scrying. It's virtually impossible for these cards to be bad draws because you actively want to assemble 4x Cloudpost and 1x Eye of Ugin every game and so it's virtually impossible to flood out on this effect. By the time that they become "obsolete" you can already Eye of Ugin to tutor up + cast a threat every turn and so "mulligans" are a moot point. You don't care because you still have something to do with your mana. If they deck didn't have Eye of Ugin, ok, sure, you could make an argument for shaving those numbers. Still, with EoU it's not possible to draw a Cloudpost and feel actively bad about it. It's the single best draw in your deck every draw step of every game and you're never unhappy to see more.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that Crop Rotation seems scary/bad/awkward and I know that 12 ramp spells feels like a lot. It's not. I want to reinforce that your only concern in the world should be "can I reliably ramp out my spells" because if the answer is "yes" then you should be sitting pretty and so there's basically no reason to start shaving those numbers.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Maybe your friends won't like the U. Crushers.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
OK, -4 Ulamog's Crusher, +4 Artisan of Kozilek.
If nothing else you can play a bit of mental Magic and count the number of instances where the 8 drop might have won a game that the 9 drop cost you.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Maybe so, but while game-ending single drops aren't common, pillow forts, turbo-fog, elves, slivers, and other layered decks are prominent, no matter if FFA or co-ops. The eldrazi with annihilator will allow me to clear through chaff on the other team without blasting my side in the process. The eldrazi will draw a lot attention, too, so I need some annihilator to add to Bala Ged exiling to ironically keep enough pressure on. I'm keeping it reasonable, so it should be OK to the group. If anyone complains, I'll be honest about it, too. "Stop playing boinking-like-bunny Elves every game and I'll consider it." Or something else like it.
It's never going to be, and that's why you've never seen me post a version of this deck that has Mind Stone. Crop Rotation and Sylvan Scrying are way too powerful to cut for a dorky Rampant Growth because they represent more Cloudposts and this deck is literally never unhappy to draw the card Cloudpost.
No, I've never put cards like Eldrazi Mimic or Matter Reshaper in my lists. If I'm not worried about aggro then I omit these kinds of blockers entirely and focus purely on ramping out Posts and such. If critter beats are a concern then I turn to things like Elephant Grass, Wall of Roots and Moment's Peace to buy me the 2-3 turns needed to jam my fatties. The reason why I like Wall of Roots is because it doesn't tap, it has a huge booty and you can activate it immediately to EOT a Crop Rotation on the circuit that you cast it. Clearly it enables you to chain into any 1 drop and since the deck often has a ton of them (Expedition Map, Ancient Stirrings) it's actually an absurd blocker + ramp spell for the archetype. Elephant Grass is stellar when you only need to buy 2-3 turns and given how powerful this deck's endgame is I don't care about losing value from marginal "Walls." After all, I'm not worried about topdecking into them later on since I'll always have the Eye of Ugin value plan to grind people out. This is why I'll happily play Elephant Grass in this archetype even though I think that Propaganda effects aren't very good in a vacuum. Moment's Peace is the best Fog effect by a significant margin (Constant Mists is HEINOUS in this archetype) and has the upside of creating psychological pressure.
Running 2 is your best bet. Restore, Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds, these kinds of solutions tend to be marginal at best.
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