@Ilculto
Your list looks good! Cataclysm vs BUG is fine. I tend to worry more about Jace and Lilly in that matchup than I do about Cataclysm permanents though Just realized this kills walkers! Your sideboard plans versus Grixis looks OK. The only questionable part is +2 Council's / -2 Thalia. Some lists don't run True-Name Nemesis.
+ picture (attached)! First printings of everything except Plains and Swords to Plowshares, I believe. I love seeing peoples choices for editions/art for D&T. Please share some of yours!
(PS the site rotated the image 90 degrees and I can't fix it)
@llculto
Cataclsym is quite good against Shardless BUG. It's a great way to deal with their planeswalkers.
Thalia is likely one of your best cards against Grixis Delver; I'd be more inclined to cut a couple of Mirran Crusaders before I cut Thalias.
@Permance
The list looks solid.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the "Lightning Plains." I'm slowly working on obtaining foreign copies of all the cards in the deck, but I'm just doing it when I see them in trade binders. I'm not going out of my way to do it. So far I have German Thalias, German Swords to Plowshares, and Chinese Serra Avengers.
+ picture (attached)! First printings of everything except Plains and Swords to Plowshares, I believe. I love seeing peoples choices for editions/art for D&T. Please share some of yours!
(PS the site rotated the image 90 degrees and I can't fix it)
So for the last few times I actually had the time, I've played the black splash (for Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize and a single Bitterblossom in the main) to dishearteningly little success. I blame that mostly on my lack of practice (read: I suck), and also not taking my specific metagame into account. At least the latter I intend to change, which is why I've been tallying the archetypes I lost to over the last few weeks; some of them multiple times:
4C Loam
The Rock
Lands
Natural Order Elves
Burn
Enchantress
Tezzerator
Next time, I'd like to come prepared for these matchups specifically, as I have a feeling that the Loam lists are here to stay, and I'm also always getting paired against our local Elves slinger. I'm contemplating this sideboard:
Perish is what I hope to snuff Elves out with. It also solves Knight of the Reliquary and the random Dryad Arbor I'm guaranteed to see every time I play. Cataclysm is there to beat lists that have to over-commit resources to the board, and that rely on Planeswalkers. I don't think Rest in Peace and Council's Judgment need to be argued for. Orzhov Pontiff should help in the (unexpected, but possible) mirror, and kill off truckloads of Elves and Merfolk. Ethersworn Canonist hedges against Enchantress and Storm variants, while Nyx-Fleece Ram is a very nice addition to the anti-Burn suite that's tutorable AND blocks incoming critters all day long. Enlightened Tutor serves as virtual copies of a few otherwise underrepresented cards in my board. Pithing Needle is a given (I don't run Phyrexian Revoker), and Surgical Extraction hopefully provides that little extra oomph! against Life from the Loam, Punishing Fire and their graveyard-abusing friends.
Do you spot any obvious weaknesses and holes in this plan of mine? Can you recommend better choices to deal with the opponents I expect to be facing? I'm also still looking for something that solves an opposing Sylvan Library, without being overly narrow.
Althougth I have been testing 2 Council's Judgment lately instead to shore up the Eldrazi matchup, which should be very favorable now. I still prefer Relic Warder for pretty much everything else.
@colo
Council's Judgment is a fine answer to Sylvan Library, and it is conveniently already in your deck.
I'm not sure that Nyx Fleece Ram does enough *quickly* enough. Other tutorable pieces of hate like CoP:Red or Warmth have a more immediate impact on the game. I would be worried that I would cast that and still just die to burn after gaining 1-2 life. The best-case scenarios for Nyx Fleece Ram are fine, but it's really mediocre in the average to bad scenarios.
I saw a list with 4 Displacer I believe in an online event recently. I was shocked. Maybe you just need to overload on them to get the proper value from them?
@colo
Council's Judgment is a fine answer to Sylvan Library, and it is conveniently already in your deck.
I'm not sure that Nyx Fleece Ram does enough *quickly* enough. Other tutorable pieces of hate like CoP:Red or Warmth have a more immediate impact on the game. I would be worried that I would cast that and still just die to burn after gaining 1-2 life. The best-case scenarios for Nyx Fleece Ram are fine, but it's really mediocre in the average to bad scenarios.
Ad Judgment vs. Library: well, that's actually something I totally overlooked %)
Ad Nyx-Fleece Ram: hmm, you're probably right - I guess I'll replace it with Warmth, since I don't think that the constant mana investment that CoP: Red requires is something I want to deal with. Burn's critters are something D&T should be well-eqipped to handle.
If you really need help against Burn, my number one choice if you don't have a tutorboard for CoP:R would be Kor Firewalker. It's pretty hard to lose the game once you drop one unless they have the absolute nuts which doesn't usually happen. Firewalker is also pretty nice against Punishing Grove decks.
If you have no tutorboard then one thing you should think about is to put priority on creatures when weighting card choices, since you will be boarding out creatures from your maindeck most of the time. Jamming too many non creatures in the SB will dilute your deck and there's a risk of running out of gas postboard. That's why I prefer WLL over any anthem enchantment, Relic-Warder over Disenchant/C.Judgment (meta dependant, there are some metas that are bad for Warder but right now the cat is pretty good), extra Revokers over Needle if you don't already have the full set main, and Fiend Hunter over Sunlance/C.Judgment (also meta dependant like Relic-Warder, he's really good right now against Eldrazi)
Adrian Throop beat Belcher, Shardless and Miracles in his last three matches.
I don't think I have seen someone go for 4 Eldrazi Displacer (usually only 1-2), and he only had 4 flyers, 2 Karakas and 10 colorless mana sources, but he still managed to pull it out. Quite impressive. Also, first time in a while we have seen a deck win with double Mangara of Corondor. Still a great card when you have lots of ways to bounce it around.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard Tempo Modern Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison Legacy
5c Humans DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
1 RiP seems greedy, even with 1 Cage as well. but I guess that's ok.
1 Leyline seems too random to be effective given that you generally want to open with it in your hand.
Gideon is intriguing. It could be hard to cast, but I can also see it being very difficult to deal with for decks like Miracles once it is out, making 2/2 beaters and even swinging for 5 when they are tapped out. The anthem effect is also not bad, alongside 2 Veteran Armorer.
Path is always a reasonable choice, IMO, and he was really in with 2 of them.
@Permanence
The list looks solid. Here's my deck's current state - http://i.imgur.com/yTlgkoc.jpg?1
I'd like to have a foil Karakas as well, but I'm a bigger fan of the old art so I'm in no rush there. I'll be swapping the judge StPs for the Conspiracy ones at some point. Otherwise, I'm happy with my version of everything else.
I'm a little torn about going with Brimaz as I have been in the board, or Fiend Hunter to the GP. I played the same old thing at two 1Ks this weekend and went a combined 10-2 excluding intentional draws. It's hard to argue with the results I've been getting, and I'll likely stay the course.
The 4 Displacer list looks interesting, but I agree that that sideboard could use some refinement. Extra colorless sources necessitated him cutting back on some of the WW creatures. I wonder if he couldn't find a third Karakas. I see no reason to cut back especially when running Mangara.
@antiquated
Really like your list! Been rocking close to the same 75 for a while and been loving it.
Also I have a question if you will indulge me. What matchups is cataclysm good against that Armageddon isn't? I only ask cause I'm deciding on a final sideboard slot and vs. lands and miracles I love Armageddon far more. But is cataclysm good vs decks like Aggro Loam, shardless bug, maybe some sort of stoneblade? What matchups is it applicable and good where Armageddon isn't? Cause I feel Armageddon is better vs the aforementioned matchup.
Cataclysm has the upside that it kills planeswalkers too, all of them. So it's better for everything ranging from Miracles to Shardless BUG to Esperblade variants. It also kills Angel tokens and Monks.
Cata can also be boarded in against decks that try to go very wide, like Elves (if you survive until turn 4) and Goblins.
I'd say having extra creature removal in the sideboard is always welcome. There are two matchups in particular that are very popular right now and get huge benefits off extra removal: Delver (all variants) and Eldrazi. I would say that anything betwwen 1 and 3 cards in the SB are okay depending on the prevalence of those decks in your local meta.Right now Fiend Hunter looks pretty awesome, as it can eat any Eldrazi and Trade very favorably against Delver as it evades Forked Bolt and can block a Pyro all day. My second option would be Sunlance rather than PTE, although that's more of a personal preference, but Sunlance has improved somewhat in this meta as SFM is at an all time low (very few Stoneblade decks, almost no Maverick, and the mirror isn't that popular anyways). It's great at hitting early game stuff that can make your life hell, such as DRS is you decide not to board in RIPs, Delver and even Eldrazi Mimic.
@Marungo13
Cataclysm is also really good when you randomly get paired against things like Affinity and Enchantress.
@Atenpls
I think it would be foolish to play in a Open-level event or larger right now without at least one extra piece of removal.
@Barook
One of the locals from Roanoke really appreciates your post about Eldrazi elsewhere on the forum. He really appreciates how much you break down your results and analyze your data.
@Everyone
In my opinion, the top decks to beat at the GP are:
Miracles
Grixis Delver
Lands
ANT
Eldrazi
D&T
Besides those, I expect a decent amount of Burn, Shardless, and Infect.
Here are some of my assorted thoughts that haven't quite come together yet:
I wouldn't hate having 2 Brimaz in the 75 for Miracles, Lands, ANT, and Burn. They are noticeably worse than Mirran Crusader in the Shardless and Mirror though.
My Fiend Hunters keep getting Warping Wailed. I'm not 100% sure if my Eldrazi player locally has just figured out my tricks and adjusted his play style accordingly or if Fiend Hunter has just has a bad run in my past two testing sessions. For about the last month, Fiend Hunter has been complete gas, but now I've started to get completely blown out because of it. Fiend Hunter is the removal spell with the highest upside and highest downside we can play, and it may be a bit risky against the higher-caliber pilots in the later rounds of a GP. I'm considering running 1-2 PtE over it, as they function better against Infect, Burn, and Lands while being of only slightly lower power level against Eldrazi. Considering that the Eldrazi deck *should* be boarding out Chalice, I think that's a fine plan. Sunlance is a fine consideration as well, but answering Marit Lage is important on my to-do list.
Given the decks listed above, I'll be running 12 basic Plains. There is some temptation to jam a couple of Caverns in there for Miracles, but the losses elsewhere likely make that not worth it. If I'm running 12 Plains, I don't want to be running Warping Wail. I do like Warping Wail for the GP, I'm just hedging in different directions.
I've felt that the Eldrazi matchup is still fine, but I don't have an Eldrazi player in my testing group, so I may not have enough data there. My concern about Fiend Hunter is that Eldrazi runs several Warping Wails and Dismembers giving them a pretty good shot at a blowout. Moms come out so we aren't stopping Dismember. I can see Path as an alternative that's better in several other matchups.
I still do like Brimaz a lot for Miracles and Lands in particular which I consider two of the top decks to beat. The other Punishing Fire deck, Aggro Loam, I think is flying a little under the radar and I expect to be better represented in the later rounds. It has good game against many of the other decks to beat.
@barook
When I have talked with various other eldrazi pilots, most notably Paul Lynch after his top 8, we came to the conclusion that Chalice wasn't necessary. I think the the Eldrazi deck needs to have powerful top decks throughout the game. The large average creature size means that D&T has to trade two for one to remove threats. If this process continues, the eldrazi deck pulls ahead. I've won many matches against Eldrazi where they simply had garbage like chalice in hand at the end of the game. I'd rather board out the chalices for more removal or to keep threats in the deck. When d&T doesn't have flickerwisp, a large endless one is basically an Abyss.
Now it seems pretty straightforward: with Disk's ability on the stack, you can apply the "regen shield" before everything blows up.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Your list looks good! Cataclysm vs BUG is fine.
I tend to worry more about Jace and Lilly in that matchup than I do about Cataclysm permanents thoughJust realized this kills walkers! Your sideboard plans versus Grixis looks OK. The only questionable part is +2 Council's / -2 Thalia. Some lists don't run True-Name Nemesis.@all
Here's what I'm running at GP Columbus:
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port
3x Karakas
4x Flickerwisp
4x Mother of Runes
4x Serra Avenger
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Phyrexian Revoker
3x Mirran Crusader
4x AEther Vial
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Absolute Law
2x Containment Priest
2x Council's Judgment
1x Enlightened Tutor
2x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Fiend Hunter
1x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Sword of War and Peace
+ picture (attached)! First printings of everything except Plains and Swords to Plowshares, I believe. I love seeing peoples choices for editions/art for D&T. Please share some of yours!
(PS the site rotated the image 90 degrees and I can't fix it)
Cataclsym is quite good against Shardless BUG. It's a great way to deal with their planeswalkers.
Thalia is likely one of your best cards against Grixis Delver; I'd be more inclined to cut a couple of Mirran Crusaders before I cut Thalias.
@Permance
The list looks solid.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the "Lightning Plains." I'm slowly working on obtaining foreign copies of all the cards in the deck, but I'm just doing it when I see them in trade binders. I'm not going out of my way to do it. So far I have German Thalias, German Swords to Plowshares, and Chinese Serra Avengers.
Here's mine: http://imgur.com/a/iKB26
Sorry for potato quality. I use my trusty Espeon EX as a Germ token.
Lightning plains is a fine choice. The other one I run sometimes is the 'Close up of Karakas Plains' (attached).
@Frenadol
Looks awesome! What's that card next to your germ token?
4C Loam
The Rock
Lands
Natural Order Elves
Burn
Enchantress
Tezzerator
Next time, I'd like to come prepared for these matchups specifically, as I have a feeling that the Loam lists are here to stay, and I'm also always getting paired against our local Elves slinger. I'm contemplating this sideboard:
Perish is what I hope to snuff Elves out with. It also solves Knight of the Reliquary and the random Dryad Arbor I'm guaranteed to see every time I play. Cataclysm is there to beat lists that have to over-commit resources to the board, and that rely on Planeswalkers. I don't think Rest in Peace and Council's Judgment need to be argued for. Orzhov Pontiff should help in the (unexpected, but possible) mirror, and kill off truckloads of Elves and Merfolk. Ethersworn Canonist hedges against Enchantress and Storm variants, while Nyx-Fleece Ram is a very nice addition to the anti-Burn suite that's tutorable AND blocks incoming critters all day long. Enlightened Tutor serves as virtual copies of a few otherwise underrepresented cards in my board. Pithing Needle is a given (I don't run Phyrexian Revoker), and Surgical Extraction hopefully provides that little extra oomph! against Life from the Loam, Punishing Fire and their graveyard-abusing friends.
Do you spot any obvious weaknesses and holes in this plan of mine? Can you recommend better choices to deal with the opponents I expect to be facing? I'm also still looking for something that solves an opposing Sylvan Library, without being overly narrow.
Leonin Relic-Warder
Althougth I have been testing 2 Council's Judgment lately instead to shore up the Eldrazi matchup, which should be very favorable now. I still prefer Relic Warder for pretty much everything else.
Council's Judgment is a fine answer to Sylvan Library, and it is conveniently already in your deck.
I'm not sure that Nyx Fleece Ram does enough *quickly* enough. Other tutorable pieces of hate like CoP:Red or Warmth have a more immediate impact on the game. I would be worried that I would cast that and still just die to burn after gaining 1-2 life. The best-case scenarios for Nyx Fleece Ram are fine, but it's really mediocre in the average to bad scenarios.
This is a relatively different direction than what most of us have been taking recently.
Ad Judgment vs. Library: well, that's actually something I totally overlooked %)
Ad Nyx-Fleece Ram: hmm, you're probably right - I guess I'll replace it with Warmth, since I don't think that the constant mana investment that CoP: Red requires is something I want to deal with. Burn's critters are something D&T should be well-eqipped to handle.
If you have no tutorboard then one thing you should think about is to put priority on creatures when weighting card choices, since you will be boarding out creatures from your maindeck most of the time. Jamming too many non creatures in the SB will dilute your deck and there's a risk of running out of gas postboard. That's why I prefer WLL over any anthem enchantment, Relic-Warder over Disenchant/C.Judgment (meta dependant, there are some metas that are bad for Warder but right now the cat is pretty good), extra Revokers over Needle if you don't already have the full set main, and Fiend Hunter over Sunlance/C.Judgment (also meta dependant like Relic-Warder, he's really good right now against Eldrazi)
I don't think I have seen someone go for 4 Eldrazi Displacer (usually only 1-2), and he only had 4 flyers, 2 Karakas and 10 colorless mana sources, but he still managed to pull it out. Quite impressive. Also, first time in a while we have seen a deck win with double Mangara of Corondor. Still a great card when you have lots of ways to bounce it around.
Modern
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
His sideboard also had me scratching my head a bit.
1 Pithing Needle
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Containment Priest
2 Veteran Armorer
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Rest in Peace
1 Warmth
2 Path to Exile
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Cataclysm
No ET, but only 1 RiP, 1 Leyline of Sanctity, and 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.
1 RiP seems greedy, even with 1 Cage as well. but I guess that's ok.
1 Leyline seems too random to be effective given that you generally want to open with it in your hand.
Gideon is intriguing. It could be hard to cast, but I can also see it being very difficult to deal with for decks like Miracles once it is out, making 2/2 beaters and even swinging for 5 when they are tapped out. The anthem effect is also not bad, alongside 2 Veteran Armorer.
Path is always a reasonable choice, IMO, and he was really in with 2 of them.
Modern
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
The list looks solid. Here's my deck's current state - http://i.imgur.com/yTlgkoc.jpg?1
I'd like to have a foil Karakas as well, but I'm a bigger fan of the old art so I'm in no rush there. I'll be swapping the judge StPs for the Conspiracy ones at some point. Otherwise, I'm happy with my version of everything else.
I'm a little torn about going with Brimaz as I have been in the board, or Fiend Hunter to the GP. I played the same old thing at two 1Ks this weekend and went a combined 10-2 excluding intentional draws. It's hard to argue with the results I've been getting, and I'll likely stay the course.
The 4 Displacer list looks interesting, but I agree that that sideboard could use some refinement. Extra colorless sources necessitated him cutting back on some of the WW creatures. I wonder if he couldn't find a third Karakas. I see no reason to cut back especially when running Mangara.
Really like your list! Been rocking close to the same 75 for a while and been loving it.
Also I have a question if you will indulge me. What matchups is cataclysm good against that Armageddon isn't? I only ask cause I'm deciding on a final sideboard slot and vs. lands and miracles I love Armageddon far more. But is cataclysm good vs decks like Aggro Loam, shardless bug, maybe some sort of stoneblade? What matchups is it applicable and good where Armageddon isn't? Cause I feel Armageddon is better vs the aforementioned matchup.
Cata can also be boarded in against decks that try to go very wide, like Elves (if you survive until turn 4) and Goblins.
I live for fair Magic.
Legacy: D&T/Lands
Modern: BGx
Cataclysm is also really good when you randomly get paired against things like Affinity and Enchantress.
@Atenpls
I think it would be foolish to play in a Open-level event or larger right now without at least one extra piece of removal.
@Barook
One of the locals from Roanoke really appreciates your post about Eldrazi elsewhere on the forum. He really appreciates how much you break down your results and analyze your data.
@Everyone
In my opinion, the top decks to beat at the GP are:
Miracles
Grixis Delver
Lands
ANT
Eldrazi
D&T
Besides those, I expect a decent amount of Burn, Shardless, and Infect.
Here are some of my assorted thoughts that haven't quite come together yet:
I wouldn't hate having 2 Brimaz in the 75 for Miracles, Lands, ANT, and Burn. They are noticeably worse than Mirran Crusader in the Shardless and Mirror though.
My Fiend Hunters keep getting Warping Wailed. I'm not 100% sure if my Eldrazi player locally has just figured out my tricks and adjusted his play style accordingly or if Fiend Hunter has just has a bad run in my past two testing sessions. For about the last month, Fiend Hunter has been complete gas, but now I've started to get completely blown out because of it. Fiend Hunter is the removal spell with the highest upside and highest downside we can play, and it may be a bit risky against the higher-caliber pilots in the later rounds of a GP. I'm considering running 1-2 PtE over it, as they function better against Infect, Burn, and Lands while being of only slightly lower power level against Eldrazi. Considering that the Eldrazi deck *should* be boarding out Chalice, I think that's a fine plan. Sunlance is a fine consideration as well, but answering Marit Lage is important on my to-do list.
Given the decks listed above, I'll be running 12 basic Plains. There is some temptation to jam a couple of Caverns in there for Miracles, but the losses elsewhere likely make that not worth it. If I'm running 12 Plains, I don't want to be running Warping Wail. I do like Warping Wail for the GP, I'm just hedging in different directions.
I still do like Brimaz a lot for Miracles and Lands in particular which I consider two of the top decks to beat. The other Punishing Fire deck, Aggro Loam, I think is flying a little under the radar and I expect to be better represented in the later rounds. It has good game against many of the other decks to beat.
Basically. I tried to run them SB, and I kept having problems holding open the mana for them when I really needed them.
When I have talked with various other eldrazi pilots, most notably Paul Lynch after his top 8, we came to the conclusion that Chalice wasn't necessary. I think the the Eldrazi deck needs to have powerful top decks throughout the game. The large average creature size means that D&T has to trade two for one to remove threats. If this process continues, the eldrazi deck pulls ahead. I've won many matches against Eldrazi where they simply had garbage like chalice in hand at the end of the game. I'd rather board out the chalices for more removal or to keep threats in the deck. When d&T doesn't have flickerwisp, a large endless one is basically an Abyss.