Oops, just realized I never posted a revised list. Here it is...looking to replace the temples with forests, wastes, or Thespian's Stage. Was curious your opinion on best swap. Thanks.
Oops, just realized I never posted a revised list. Here it is...looking to replace the temples with forests, wastes, or Thespian's Stage. Was curious your opinion on best swap. Thanks.
Obviously our budgets are a little mismatched, but things like Emrakul and All Is Dust can be swapped for any budget alternative. Here's what my experiences have been:
Eldrazi Temple is nice, but Cloudpost does 90% of the heavy lifting. I've played this deck once a week for a couple months now, and I can count the number of times the difference between having a Temple and a Forest/Wastes would've mattered on one hand.
12x land tutors is absolutely the right number. It all but ensures you hit 3-4 Cloudpost early on and leaves room for you to tutor up your Eye of Ugin once you have enough mana to activate + cast every turn.
Oblivion Sower >>> Kozilek's Channeler. It's permanent ramp that doesn't require you to tap the creature, synergizes with World Breaker to let you steal extra lands, and has a much better body. Definitely worth the $4.00 price increase for the deck.
If you tutor your lands properly and don't get completely unlucky with draws, you'll be dropping at least 1 fattie every turn starting on turn 3/4. Unless your meta is completely plagued with aggro this is plenty fast to justify omitting the 2-3 drops.
Crop Rotation heavy hands sometimes end up with no green sources to cast World Breaker. In your case, this would be a great reason to replace the Temples with more Forests.
Void Winnower sometimes just shuts the game completely down and wins for you by itself. I highly recommend it as a 1-of. Conduit of Ruin and Eye of Ugin help you find it when necessary.
Spawnsire of Ulamog is mostly for fun but actually helps when combat damage won't do the trick alone. I use Abundant Maw for my kill because it was like $3.00 for 40 copies and it's always funny to break out my backup deck box full of nothing but one card.
Breaker of Armies is great. I play him in place of one Artisan once in a while to combat swarm decks.
I'd say looking at your current list, I'd make the following budget-minded changes:
Looks good.
Just one thing to add: the Thespians are probably useful in future decks as well so they're probably money well spent.
(Lands are often a good investment...)
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My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Looks good.
Just one thing to add: the Thespians are probably useful in future decks as well so they're probably money well spent.
(Lands are often a good investment...)
Thomeyis's suggestions or my revised list? Since he hijacked my thread, it's hard to tell which "looks good." For the record, I am thinking through his suggestions because a number of those suggestions are things I have considered previously, and play testing experience is always useful to mull over. I agree with your reasoning on making the investment. I figure I'll pick up the Stages while I can afford them!
Looks good.
Just one thing to add: the Thespians are probably useful in future decks as well so they're probably money well spent.
(Lands are often a good investment...)
Thomeyis's suggestions or my revised list? Since he hijacked my thread, it's hard to tell which "looks good." For the record, I am thinking through his suggestions because a number of those suggestions are things I have considered previously, and play testing experience is always useful to mull over. I agree with your reasoning on making the investment. I figure I'll pick up the Stages while I can afford them!
I agree with basically everything that Thom said. Oblivion Sower is bonkers, you want the 12 tutor spells and you want at least 2 Stages if you can afford them. You don't have to run 4 but try to find room in your budget for at least 2 because it's quite important that you assemble 3-4 Cloudposts early on.
Looks good.
Just one thing to add: the Thespians are probably useful in future decks as well so they're probably money well spent.
(Lands are often a good investment...)
Thomeyis's suggestions or my revised list? Since he hijacked my thread, it's hard to tell which "looks good." For the record, I am thinking through his suggestions because a number of those suggestions are things I have considered previously, and play testing experience is always useful to mull over. I agree with your reasoning on making the investment. I figure I'll pick up the Stages while I can afford them!
I agree with basically everything that Thom said. Oblivion Sower is bonkers, you want the 12 tutor spells and you want at least 2 Stages if you can afford them. You don't have to run 4 but try to find room in your budget for at least 2 because it's quite important that you assemble 3-4 Cloudposts early on.
So the one concern I have is a meta that not only plays gobs of aggro, but also drops a lot of spot removal during all phases of the game. Once they see an eldrazi drop, "it's on" with the opposing side, and I will get the attention. Do your build suggestions work under those conditions? You had mentioned previously that aggro can be a concern.
So the one concern I have is a meta that not only plays gobs of aggro, but also drops a lot of spot removal during all phases of the game. Once they see an eldrazi drop, "it's on" with the opposing side, and I will get the attention. Do your build suggestions work under those conditions? You had mentioned previously that aggro can be a concern.
Winning any game 3v1 (or whatever) is always going to be hard regardless of what your adversaries are playing. If people remove every permanent that you play and attack you with all of their creatures every turn then it doesn't really matter what your strategy is. That being said I have previously showcased how I build these decks myself to compete with aggro. You see more cards like Elephant Grass, Wall of Roots, Courser of Kruphix, Thragtusk, Wurmcoil Engine, Hornet Queen, etc. with the idea being that you don't actually cast these creatures but rather that you Green Sun's Zenith for them. My big "tech" card is obviously Elephant Grass, that's the card that I play that others don't that tends to swing the aggro MUs over to my favor, but, again, I also don't expect to win games in which everyone dedicates every resource available to them into beating me.
FWIW spot removal is why you'll never see me put cards like Breaker of Armies in my lists. Casting one of those only to have it eat some generic removal spell is depressing as all Hell. This is where multi-bodied threats and ETB triggers shine because at least then you're never getting blown out.
Prid3 suggested either Wall of Roots or Elephant Grass if aggro strategies are a huge deal. They stall things out long enough for you to get your Post mana up and running. Also don't forget you get a pretty decent amount of incidental lifegain from the Glimmerposts. And I'm slamming something very difficult to deal with on turn 4 every game, sometimes on 3. Cloudpost, Cloudpost, Eye of Ugin gets you to Endbringer/Conduit of Ruin on turn 3 and with Crop Rotation it's a fairly consistent draw. Getting to 7 on turn 4 is pretty much guaranteed even with a mediocre keep. This is why I shelled out for the All Is Dust by the way; it trivializes aggro by consistently wiping their side on turn 4. But yeah, if literally the whole table is ganging up on you every game then you'll get steamrolled. I don't think there are many decks that can function 4v1 with any amount of consistency. Artisan of Kozilek is extremely helpful if people blow a lot of removal on you, because every time they kill your Eldrazi it just gives you more revival fuel. Maybe Steely Resolve could be used to combat the issue, but I feel like you're just diluting a solid game plan by trying to compensate for a basically unwinnable situation.
Thomeyis and Prid3, thank you both. Your patient and potent advice has given a lot to mull over. After re-reading the inputs, I've decided to buy the cards for both lineups (what you suggest and what I had in mind) and then goldfish and playtest to the configuration that works best for me and my group. There are a number of reasons for this, none of which are stubborness. Lol. I actually really appreciate the help. The early critter beats give me something to start along the lines of how I like to play. This deck is not going to take on a six person table. Rather, it will probably only face two opponents, being designed for 2v2 team, star games, Emperor's, T-HG, and such smaller games. Our meta enjoys these more than big FFAs and I already have three other FFA decks optimized for larger FFAs. Additionally, a fast aggro start will draw out early hate and leave them emptier-handed than they would be when the fatties start dropping. If they don't take the bait, that means mimics will suddenly start blowing up as fatties come in on my side.
All that said, I also want to test for myself everything you guys suggest, too, to see how well things mesh, how often they come together game by game since your play styles are very different from my group and I'm not used to skipping early game beats to rush into 6 mana. Since this is likely the last deck I build for some time, I'm going to splurge just a bit, try both, and probably even come up with two modes to change out to keep opponents guessing. Salute!
So this probably won't shock anyone here, but as I was testing synergies, deck cohesiveness, speed of mana development, etc through simulated hands, I popped in Crop Rotation this morning and holy crap that card is insane! Even at only 8 land tutors by replacing Expedition Map with Crop Rotation, that made an immediate improvement of about two turns on average. The turn one forest into crop rotation to a Cloudpost is so much more efficient than spending three mana to tutor a land and still have to then play it, it just can't be overstated. And the best part is that if I'm holding an Eldrazi Temple or two and no locus lands, I can instead take mana in the opposite direction that gets me to six and seven mana with the temples and Eye of Ugin.
No kidding, this is THE BEST suggestion anyone has ever made on any forum for a single deck's improvement. Thanks.
So this probably won't shock anyone here, but as I was testing synergies, deck cohesiveness, speed of mana development, etc through simulated hands, I popped in Crop Rotation this morning and holy crap that card is insane! Even at only 8 land tutors by replacing Expedition Map with Crop Rotation, that made an immediate improvement of about two turns on average. The turn one forest into crop rotation to a Cloudpost is so much more efficient than spending three mana to tutor a land and still have to then play it, it just can't be overstated. And the best part is that if I'm holding an Eldrazi Temple or two and no locus lands, I can instead take mana in the opposite direction that gets me to six and seven mana with the temples and Eye of Ugin.
No kidding, this is THE BEST suggestion anyone has ever made on any forum for a single deck's improvement. Thanks.
How is your complete deck of eldrazi?
If you can put a list, I will thank you
Welp, am I late to this thread.
Yes, +1 to Oblivion Sower, Artisan of Kozilek and Thespian's Stage. I've never been disappointed with any of them.
O-Sower has the ability to actually help ramp into your bigger guys by stealing your opponents' lands off the top of their decks. I've had a few occasions of attacking with an O-Sower the turn after it comes out, and then being able to drop something around the 8-9CC mark post-attack, simply off the land that the O-Sower has been able to gank for me.
In the late-game, Artisan basically reads "9: Get the worst thing in your graveyard back on the table, and then stick an equal threat next to it so that your opponent needs to wrath the board or lose". Thespian's Stage rarely disappoints me. At its current price, I would be all over more copies of that (instead of waiting for Eldrazi Temple to come back down from whichever cloud it parked itself on).
Welp, am I late to this thread.
Yes, +1 to Oblivion Sower, Artisan of Kozilek and Thespian's Stage. I've never been disappointed with any of them.
O-Sower has the ability to actually help ramp into your bigger guys by stealing your opponents' lands off the top of their decks. I've had a few occasions of attacking with an O-Sower the turn after it comes out, and then being able to drop something around the 8-9CC mark post-attack, simply off the land that the O-Sower has been able to gank for me.
In the late-game, Artisan basically reads "9: Get the worst thing in your graveyard back on the table, and then stick an equal threat next to it so that your opponent needs to wrath the board or lose". Thespian's Stage rarely disappoints me. At its current price, I would be all over more copies of that (instead of waiting for Eldrazi Temple to come back down from whichever cloud it parked itself on).
Yeah, for Eldrazi Temple money you can just get Vesuvas now and play honest 12-post.
Here you go. This is the actual lineup I'm going to be sporting to playtest under live fire before sub'ing out more cards. Note that I did spring for the Eldrazi Temples.
I'm finding from my playtesting that I dislike Expedition Map, & cards like Thespian's Stage, believe it or not. Too much mana and delay in the early game. Since I like the lower curve eldrazi for their own reasons, running 8 land tutors really loves the Crop Rotation. I'm finding with that happy medium, I have plenty of creatures to play and I can actually play them faster at times by not trying to get four Cloudposts out, especially since most of my cmc curve is covered by two Cloudposts and a single Glimmerpost. Add in a single Forest and 26 of the 30 Eldrazi are playable with only four lands. I think it's a good balance for me, but it will enter actual gameplay next weekend and I'll see how it holds up under fire. Oblivion Sower is a card I will proxy to test, though. I can definitely see the benefits.
So most of yesterday was not so good, normally steadfast decks went belly-up one after the other. But not the eldrazi. First Emperor's game, we ultimately lost because both of my wings were doing nothing and the eldrazi were the only deck holding the enemy off. The second game, however, the eldrazi were on the wing and they powered past a sweeper, through the spot removal of two players, killed the Emperor, and I never actually saw a single Endbringer or Artisan of Kozilek in either game. Very happy with the deck as it is, seems to be at the right power level. Thanks everybody.
OK, so I acquired a bunch of eldrazi titans and finally realized how stupidly good Conduit of Ruin really is. Instead of running two eldrazi decks, I decided to collapse my G-mana eldrazi mid-range into a colorless eldrazi deck with some big guns. Now, since eldrazi are OP to almost any degree of comparison in a casual tabletop group, I can afford to be a little indulgent here, and add some fun cards such as the tribal Not of This World to defend my titans, Thought-Knot Seer to take out cards that can kill the titans, and not run totally optimized mana. But, by sticking to 29 critters and 8 eldrazi tribal spells, Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin are stupidly strong, considering I'm also running 12 posts and Expedition Map, Kozilek's Channeler and the aforementioned Conduits. Mana should not be the concern here, and I'm willing to lose a meta-ffa if my titans are somehow all exiled and the 5/5 eldrazi can't make up the rest after wiping colored cards from the board. All in all, I believe this is pretty balanced without going all-in on annihilator.
1 Eye of Ugin
10 Forest
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
Eldrazi cards: 30
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Kozilek's Channeler
4 Endbringer
4 World Breaker
4 Bane of Bala Ged
2 Breaker of Armies
4 Artisan of Kozilek
This is the version of the deck I sleeved up and actually shelled out for:
3x Artisan of Kozilek
2x Conduit of Ruin
1x Emrakul, the Promised End
3x Endbringer
1x Kozilek, the Great Distortion
4x Oblivion Sower
1x Spawnsire of Ulamog
1x Void Winnower
3x World Breaker
4x Cloudpost
3x Eldrazi Temple
2x Eye of Ugin
12x Forest
4x Glimmerpost
Sorcery (8)
4x All Is Dust
4x Sylvan Scrying
Instant (4)
4x Crop Rotation
Artifact (4)
4x Expedition Map
40x Abundant Maw
Obviously our budgets are a little mismatched, but things like Emrakul and All Is Dust can be swapped for any budget alternative. Here's what my experiences have been:
I'd say looking at your current list, I'd make the following budget-minded changes:
-4 Eldrazi Mimic
-4 Matter Reshaper
-4 Eldrazi Temple
-4 Kozilek's Channeler
+4 Forest (Or +2 Forest/+2 Thespian's Stage)
+4 Oblivion Sower
+4 Crop Rotation
+1 Void Winnower
+2 Conduit of Ruin
+1 Spawnsire of Ulamog
Just one thing to add: the Thespians are probably useful in future decks as well so they're probably money well spent.
(Lands are often a good investment...)
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Thomeyis's suggestions or my revised list? Since he hijacked my thread, it's hard to tell which "looks good." For the record, I am thinking through his suggestions because a number of those suggestions are things I have considered previously, and play testing experience is always useful to mull over. I agree with your reasoning on making the investment. I figure I'll pick up the Stages while I can afford them!
I agree with basically everything that Thom said. Oblivion Sower is bonkers, you want the 12 tutor spells and you want at least 2 Stages if you can afford them. You don't have to run 4 but try to find room in your budget for at least 2 because it's quite important that you assemble 3-4 Cloudposts early on.
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
So the one concern I have is a meta that not only plays gobs of aggro, but also drops a lot of spot removal during all phases of the game. Once they see an eldrazi drop, "it's on" with the opposing side, and I will get the attention. Do your build suggestions work under those conditions? You had mentioned previously that aggro can be a concern.
Winning any game 3v1 (or whatever) is always going to be hard regardless of what your adversaries are playing. If people remove every permanent that you play and attack you with all of their creatures every turn then it doesn't really matter what your strategy is. That being said I have previously showcased how I build these decks myself to compete with aggro. You see more cards like Elephant Grass, Wall of Roots, Courser of Kruphix, Thragtusk, Wurmcoil Engine, Hornet Queen, etc. with the idea being that you don't actually cast these creatures but rather that you Green Sun's Zenith for them. My big "tech" card is obviously Elephant Grass, that's the card that I play that others don't that tends to swing the aggro MUs over to my favor, but, again, I also don't expect to win games in which everyone dedicates every resource available to them into beating me.
FWIW spot removal is why you'll never see me put cards like Breaker of Armies in my lists. Casting one of those only to have it eat some generic removal spell is depressing as all Hell. This is where multi-bodied threats and ETB triggers shine because at least then you're never getting blown out.
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
4 Wall of Roots
4 Overgrown Battlement
4 Axebane Guardian
2 World Breaker
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Spawnsire of Ulamog
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 Sol Ring
4 Crop Rotation
2 Ancient Stirrings
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
3 Beast Within
1 Asceticism
2 Ezuri's Predation
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
2 Thespian's Stage
1 Eye of Ugin
10 Forest
All that said, I also want to test for myself everything you guys suggest, too, to see how well things mesh, how often they come together game by game since your play styles are very different from my group and I'm not used to skipping early game beats to rush into 6 mana. Since this is likely the last deck I build for some time, I'm going to splurge just a bit, try both, and probably even come up with two modes to change out to keep opponents guessing. Salute!
No kidding, this is THE BEST suggestion anyone has ever made on any forum for a single deck's improvement. Thanks.
How is your complete deck of eldrazi?
If you can put a list, I will thank you
Yes, +1 to Oblivion Sower, Artisan of Kozilek and Thespian's Stage. I've never been disappointed with any of them.
O-Sower has the ability to actually help ramp into your bigger guys by stealing your opponents' lands off the top of their decks. I've had a few occasions of attacking with an O-Sower the turn after it comes out, and then being able to drop something around the 8-9CC mark post-attack, simply off the land that the O-Sower has been able to gank for me.
In the late-game, Artisan basically reads "9: Get the worst thing in your graveyard back on the table, and then stick an equal threat next to it so that your opponent needs to wrath the board or lose".
Thespian's Stage rarely disappoints me. At its current price, I would be all over more copies of that (instead of waiting for Eldrazi Temple to come back down from whichever cloud it parked itself on).
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Yeah, for Eldrazi Temple money you can just get Vesuvas now and play honest 12-post.
1 Eye of Ugin
10 Forest
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Crop Rotation
4 Sylvan Scrying
Eldrazi cards: 30
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Kozilek's Channeler
4 Endbringer
4 World Breaker
4 Bane of Bala Ged
2 Breaker of Armies
4 Artisan of Kozilek
I'm finding from my playtesting that I dislike Expedition Map, & cards like Thespian's Stage, believe it or not. Too much mana and delay in the early game. Since I like the lower curve eldrazi for their own reasons, running 8 land tutors really loves the Crop Rotation. I'm finding with that happy medium, I have plenty of creatures to play and I can actually play them faster at times by not trying to get four Cloudposts out, especially since most of my cmc curve is covered by two Cloudposts and a single Glimmerpost. Add in a single Forest and 26 of the 30 Eldrazi are playable with only four lands. I think it's a good balance for me, but it will enter actual gameplay next weekend and I'll see how it holds up under fire. Oblivion Sower is a card I will proxy to test, though. I can definitely see the benefits.
4 Expedition Map
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Kozilek's Channeler
4 Endbringer
4 Conduit of Ruin
4 Not of This World
4 All is Dust
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, The Infinite Gyre
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Desert
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Arcane Lighthouse
2 Rogue's Passage