So what are the actual Eldrazi players afraid of? Could any one that plays a flavor of Eldrazi lend the community advice on how to slow them down?
In order, this is what I'm afraid of.
1. Super quick decks - Merfolk, Burn, Infect, and Affinity are all scary matchups. Surprisingly though, Zoo can be a bit easier since the deck does have a lot of removal.
2. Drawing awkward hands.
3. Stony Silence.
4. Crumble to Dust.
5. Bogles.
6. Tempo - Twin has been banned. UR Kiki continues its Tempo ways... Despite having many cards to stop the combo per se, it's easy to tap lands to tempo Eldrazi out while Remanding certain spells.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I wont be surprised if Eldrazi takes half the top 8 slots at Pro Tour, and wins the whole thing. I predict it.
Do you have any data to support this?
I will say the early metagame indicators don't suggest the deck is nearly as broken as a lot of players and pros feared. A big reason for this is likely the omnipresence of Affinity, Infect, and Burn right now, all of which are matchups you don't want to face as an Eldrazi pilot. Merfolk is also a rough matchup and that's another deck with some early successes. Indeed, many of the deck's best matchups are currently lagging behind other decks in initial metagame standings, including BGx, Grixis, and UWx Control. As for Eldrazi itself, the deck is only at around 4% of the paper metagame, behind seven other decks. Of those decks, only Jund and Abzan Company are good matchups, with Tron being neutral.
Early metagame indicators are just that: early. They are preliminary datapoints that might change with time. But I will say the current picture is very unfavorable to Eldrazi and I don't think there is data to suggest this will radically change during the PT.
I think you can build Eldrazi to have positive matchups against Affinity, Zoo, and Merfolk. I don't understand why people aren't playing 4 Warping Wail and 4 Dismember (or 4 Path to Exile if splashing white) alongside 4 Wasteland Strangler as starting points, and then maxing out on something like Flaying Tendrils + Night of Soul's Betrayal in the sideboard. If built this way, Eldrazi should be highly competitive against the faster creature-based decks.
I think you can build Eldrazi to have positive matchups against Affinity, Zoo, and Merfolk. I don't understand why people aren't playing 4 Warping Wail and 4 Dismember (or 4 Path to Exile if splashing white) alongside 4 Wasteland Strangler as starting points, and then maxing out on something like Flaying Tendrils + Night of Soul's Betrayal in the sideboard. If built this way, Eldrazi should be highly competitive against the faster creature-based decks.
We could certainly see that shift happen at the PT, although this is going to trade percentage points against Tron and others where those cards are worse than what's currently being used. But making the right metagame call could lead to big payoffs.
I think Eldrazi will settle firmly in the T2 category and stay there for a while unless new tools come with Shadows Over Innistrad. I play with a sideboard heavily geared against fast decks and have been doing fairly well, but nothing like someone running infect at the moment would be pulling off.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
-Autumn's Veil&Choke to handle Delay etc.
My affinity standpoint I'm just keeping Illness in the ranks in my 15/75 for handling this deck and only using Master of Etherium and Hangarback walker for G2/G3 issues
I'm more interested if land disruption UR(W?) shells could become a thing to replace use/replace twin shells.(sorry to be off topic)
I think you can build Eldrazi to have positive matchups against Affinity, Zoo, and Merfolk. I don't understand why people aren't playing 4 Warping Wail and 4 Dismember (or 4 Path to Exile if splashing white) alongside 4 Wasteland Strangler as starting points, and then maxing out on something like Flaying Tendrils + Night of Soul's Betrayal in the sideboard. If built this way, Eldrazi should be highly competitive against the faster creature-based decks.
We could certainly see that shift happen at the PT, although this is going to trade percentage points against Tron and others where those cards are worse than what's currently being used. But making the right metagame call could lead to big payoffs.
The thing is, as long as you play 4 Ghost Quarter MD, and additional Tectonic Edge in the sideboard, and Pithing Needle in the sideboard, and maybe some amount of Expedition Map MD, your Tron matchup with Eldrazi is actually positive overall.
And you don't have to trade points against aggressive decks to play the above cards, either.
Just realized (the hard way) eldrazi effects from Oblivion Sower, Blight Herder and Ulamog take effect even when I counter these spells... That sucks !!
Just realized (the hard way) eldrazi effects from Oblivion Sower, Blight Herder and Ulamog take effect even when I counter these spells... That sucks !!
My bad for you. It's just better to leave counters at home if you expect a lot of these and play an aggro deck. The best bet is to kill them before they start to put their fatties out.
Even this has gotten harder since Oath. In the testing I've done with it (using mostly Monkey Grow, Merfolk and Hatebears) Turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer into turn 3 Reality Smasher happens a fair amount. I find shutting off their lands is the best thing you can do against the Drazis. Tossing a Spreading Seas or Sea's Claim on their Temples/Eyes/Urborgs can slow them drastically. As much as I hate devoting so much of my sideboard to land hate, it seems to be necessary against this deck and incidentally pretty good against other decks in the meta right now too.
Really looking for a deck that can play Painter's Servant to hose these Eldrazi decks. Probably playable in Affinity and Merfolks, but...
Still worth a try. Eldrazi is like a dumb zoo deck (despite what many claim), and they play very little amount of removal. Also turns off Eye of Ugin, so they have less lands to work with.
Really looking for a deck that can play Painter's Servant to hose these Eldrazi decks. Probably playable in Affinity and Merfolks, but...
Still worth a try. Eldrazi is like a dumb zoo deck (despite what many claim), and they play very little amount of removal. Also turns off Eye of Ugin, so they have less lands to work with.
This isn't even kind of true. AGGRO versions of Eldrazi are KIND of like a 'dumb zoo' deck, but other versions play more like Tron, Heartless plays like combo, and processors plays like Jund.
Beat this deck? Win on turn 1, I can't think of any other way to do it other than scummy cheating tactics or anything involving a judge giving out game losses or warnings. The Eldrazi deck is that busted.
[quote from="Niallplaysmagic »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/660897-beating-bx-eldrazi?comment=188"]
However the Eldrazi decks in the PT at the moment of speaking are not Jundy-processors nor the Hearthless summoning version, but aggro decks.
Most of them are either all-in colorless beatdown or go bigger UR.
The biggest win of the deck are the creatures that kinda work around the most commonly used removal.
Lightning Bolt and path to exile arent really helpfull against the Eldrazi, and the sacrifice effects of Liliana doesnt work due to the scions.
Abrupt Decay also doesnt hit the 4+ mana Eldrazi, and the Reality Smasher has the correct size of 5/5 to beat around potential blockers (Goyf being a 4/5 , Siege Rhino is a 4/5, stuff like Kitchen Finks) , even a Wall of Roots cant block it.
If you want to the deck is flexible enough to splash whatever color you want and you can pack allmost any hate card in your sideboard to adapt against more or less anything.
As it stands, its quite a menace for modern, mainly due to the old Eldrazi lands (if they ban them, Eldrazi temple and Eye of Ugin, then the deck loses its explosive nature and the cards have to be played with the "correct" mana cost, which will render the deck more or less meanignless again for modern [which then means, the playable Eldrazi will just become cards for Jund/Junk and what not, but not a deck that all-in Eldrazi tribe).
The biggest trump of the Eldrazi cards is that theres no hate card that just downright destroys them.
Ensnaring bridge is pretty ugly, but its just an artifact that you can destroy. A combination of stuff like Worship with a "shroud/hexproof" creature (or just too many creatures) is fairly annoying for the Eldrazi deck to beat , but if thats what you are trying to do, they can just throw in some cards in the sideboard to beat whatever clever plan you want to come up with, as the deck is quite free to play whatever colors it wants to.
I think Eldrazi will settle firmly in the T2 category and stay there for a while unless new tools come with Shadows Over Innistrad. I play with a sideboard heavily geared against fast decks and have been doing fairly well, but nothing like someone running infect at the moment would be pulling off.
Ensnaring bridge is pretty ugly, but its just an artifact that you can destroy. A combination of stuff like Worship with a "shroud/hexproof" creature (or just too many creatures) is fairly annoying for the Eldrazi deck to beat , but if thats what you are trying to do, they can just throw in some cards in the sideboard to beat whatever clever plan you want to come up with, as the deck is quite free to play whatever colors it wants to.
You don't have to be hellbent for Bridge to work against Eldrazi, Eldrazi are pretty big themselves.
I think Eldrazi will settle firmly in the T2 category and stay there for a while unless new tools come with Shadows Over Innistrad. I play with a sideboard heavily geared against fast decks and have been doing fairly well, but nothing like someone running infect at the moment would be pulling off.
mtgsalvation=the best at predicting the metagame
I don't think anyone could have foreseen what happened on the PTQ floor. Those new Drazi builds are far more potent than anything people were brewing up here earlier. The UR list is almost an entirely different beast from the mid-range go big builds that Bx was originally aiming for.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The problem is I play Esper Midrange and I have the full gifts package and I keep 4 spreading seas mostly in my sideboard to deal with burn and these pesky manlands and tron. I find the spreading seas don't do too much to the opponent. Does anyone know a good reanimator target or a effective sideboard card against the Bx Eldrazi deck?
(Yes I know Leyline, but I don't like keeping 1-2 and *hoping* you can draw it in your opening hand)
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
The only deck that runs Bribery right now in the meta is Esper Draw-Go Control (which I think is very badly placed in the meta) and they need to do it because its their only way out against Tron. Alot of these Eldrazi decks are really slimming down and going for a more lighter build with no big eldrazi, but casting alot of really strong small value Eldrazis with their temple and eye ahead of curve
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I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Lantern and Troll Worship both seem to be well-positioned against the Eldrazi deck.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Ive thought about bridge and worship - however - these decks are packing ratchet bomb maindeck and more in the sideboard - sorry - this isnt going to work all that well
Ive thought about bridge and worship - however - these decks are packing ratchet bomb maindeck and more in the sideboard - sorry - this isnt going to work all that well
Well Ratched Bomb is fairly slow, you can destroy it before it goes of.
Which means, the game resolves around you dropping your trump card and then make sure it wont get destroyed ; anything else doesnt matter then.
In case of lantern that means you can probably pack Ratched Bomb yourself to let it explode for 0 against Chalice (tokens maybe) and to destroy stuff at 2 mana aswell. Others play Abrupt Decay and other answers, Pithing Needle would work, but the Chalice on 1 hurts you just too much to make that a reasonable card to play.
The game again resolves around you either getting infinited life and/or a Worship that sticks, as they dont play many answers to it at all (but they certainly can go big with a single Ulamog / Worldbreaker or whatever else, so its not a hard-answer that they cant beat at all).
The available hate against the Eldrazi is just too weak, and no matter what you do, they have maindeck exile discard, chalice at 1, ratchet bomb and a fast clock to beat anything that might threaten it.
Ive thought about bridge and worship - however - these decks are packing ratchet bomb maindeck and more in the sideboard - sorry - this isnt going to work all that well
Lantern runs 3-4 Needles doesn't it? You can Needle Bomb, Eye of Ugin and one other thing. The critical thing is that they don't get the bomby turn 2 kill (it generally takes me 2-3 turns to empty a hand and play Bridge), not much you can do about that outside Thoughtseize/Surgical Extraction.
Saw another gentleman mention Chalice, Abrubt Decay can't be countered by Chalice, so there's an out for you.
Edit the second! That's been mentioned. Is Echoing Decay legal? It would wipe out the 2/1s, at which point you're left with Reality Smasher.
The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I wouldn't be surprised if no one plays Eldrazi at a Modern Pro Tour. People tend to play what they are comfortable with, and nobody can feel that way with the deck. It’s too new, has too many possible iterations, and the known and established lists of the deck have terrible matchups against the big three.
It's pretty ridiculous that he wrote "I wouldn't be surprised if no one plays eldrazi" a week before the PT Is channel fireball's article a platform for trying to manipulate the metagame or something? I mean I understand teams have to keep their stuff close to the vest, but that's pretty disingenuous.
In order, this is what I'm afraid of.
1. Super quick decks - Merfolk, Burn, Infect, and Affinity are all scary matchups. Surprisingly though, Zoo can be a bit easier since the deck does have a lot of removal.
2. Drawing awkward hands.
3. Stony Silence.
4. Crumble to Dust.
5. Bogles.
6. Tempo - Twin has been banned. UR Kiki continues its Tempo ways... Despite having many cards to stop the combo per se, it's easy to tap lands to tempo Eldrazi out while Remanding certain spells.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I think you can build Eldrazi to have positive matchups against Affinity, Zoo, and Merfolk. I don't understand why people aren't playing 4 Warping Wail and 4 Dismember (or 4 Path to Exile if splashing white) alongside 4 Wasteland Strangler as starting points, and then maxing out on something like Flaying Tendrils + Night of Soul's Betrayal in the sideboard. If built this way, Eldrazi should be highly competitive against the faster creature-based decks.
We could certainly see that shift happen at the PT, although this is going to trade percentage points against Tron and others where those cards are worse than what's currently being used. But making the right metagame call could lead to big payoffs.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
-Crumble to Dust&Blood Moon to be effective against mana base(s) though as well.
-Spreading Algae being a solid choice for crippling mana base.
-Shadow of Doubt being effective if you're in those colors early on.
-Usual Sb choices like Ray of Revelation&Wear // Tear&Nature's Claim&Natural State(Shiny new answer)
I'm more interested if land disruption UR(W?) shells could become a thing to replace use/replace twin shells.(sorry to be off topic)
The thing is, as long as you play 4 Ghost Quarter MD, and additional Tectonic Edge in the sideboard, and Pithing Needle in the sideboard, and maybe some amount of Expedition Map MD, your Tron matchup with Eldrazi is actually positive overall.
And you don't have to trade points against aggressive decks to play the above cards, either.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
Even this has gotten harder since Oath. In the testing I've done with it (using mostly Monkey Grow, Merfolk and Hatebears) Turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer into turn 3 Reality Smasher happens a fair amount. I find shutting off their lands is the best thing you can do against the Drazis. Tossing a Spreading Seas or Sea's Claim on their Temples/Eyes/Urborgs can slow them drastically. As much as I hate devoting so much of my sideboard to land hate, it seems to be necessary against this deck and incidentally pretty good against other decks in the meta right now too.
Still worth a try. Eldrazi is like a dumb zoo deck (despite what many claim), and they play very little amount of removal. Also turns off Eye of Ugin, so they have less lands to work with.
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678This isn't even kind of true. AGGRO versions of Eldrazi are KIND of like a 'dumb zoo' deck, but other versions play more like Tron, Heartless plays like combo, and processors plays like Jund.
Most of them are either all-in colorless beatdown or go bigger UR.
The biggest win of the deck are the creatures that kinda work around the most commonly used removal.
Lightning Bolt and path to exile arent really helpfull against the Eldrazi, and the sacrifice effects of Liliana doesnt work due to the scions.
Abrupt Decay also doesnt hit the 4+ mana Eldrazi, and the Reality Smasher has the correct size of 5/5 to beat around potential blockers (Goyf being a 4/5 , Siege Rhino is a 4/5, stuff like Kitchen Finks) , even a Wall of Roots cant block it.
If you want to the deck is flexible enough to splash whatever color you want and you can pack allmost any hate card in your sideboard to adapt against more or less anything.
As it stands, its quite a menace for modern, mainly due to the old Eldrazi lands (if they ban them, Eldrazi temple and Eye of Ugin, then the deck loses its explosive nature and the cards have to be played with the "correct" mana cost, which will render the deck more or less meanignless again for modern [which then means, the playable Eldrazi will just become cards for Jund/Junk and what not, but not a deck that all-in Eldrazi tribe).
The biggest trump of the Eldrazi cards is that theres no hate card that just downright destroys them.
Ensnaring bridge is pretty ugly, but its just an artifact that you can destroy. A combination of stuff like Worship with a "shroud/hexproof" creature (or just too many creatures) is fairly annoying for the Eldrazi deck to beat , but if thats what you are trying to do, they can just throw in some cards in the sideboard to beat whatever clever plan you want to come up with, as the deck is quite free to play whatever colors it wants to.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
mtgsalvation=the best at predicting the metagame
You don't have to be hellbent for Bridge to work against Eldrazi, Eldrazi are pretty big themselves.
BTW, Sam Black agrees Bridge trumps Eldrazi: https://twitter.com/SamuelHBlack/status/696140670512340993
Specially these aggro lists which skip on Newlamog.
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
I don't think anyone could have foreseen what happened on the PTQ floor. Those new Drazi builds are far more potent than anything people were brewing up here earlier. The UR list is almost an entirely different beast from the mid-range go big builds that Bx was originally aiming for.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
(Yes I know Leyline, but I don't like keeping 1-2 and *hoping* you can draw it in your opening hand)
Does anyone think cutting a Supreme Verdict for a sphinx's revelation is a good idea and try to get ahead in value?
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
The only deck that runs Bribery right now in the meta is Esper Draw-Go Control (which I think is very badly placed in the meta) and they need to do it because its their only way out against Tron. Alot of these Eldrazi decks are really slimming down and going for a more lighter build with no big eldrazi, but casting alot of really strong small value Eldrazis with their temple and eye ahead of curve
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
Well Ratched Bomb is fairly slow, you can destroy it before it goes of.
Which means, the game resolves around you dropping your trump card and then make sure it wont get destroyed ; anything else doesnt matter then.
In case of lantern that means you can probably pack Ratched Bomb yourself to let it explode for 0 against Chalice (tokens maybe) and to destroy stuff at 2 mana aswell. Others play Abrupt Decay and other answers, Pithing Needle would work, but the Chalice on 1 hurts you just too much to make that a reasonable card to play.
In case of Worship it might be reasonable to have a package of Quasali Pridemage to hit the problematic artifacts and if you run Collected Company like WG beatdown, you can use Eternal Witness, infinited life combos (kitchen finks, Spike Feeder, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Archangel of Thune) , might work out.
The game again resolves around you either getting infinited life and/or a Worship that sticks, as they dont play many answers to it at all (but they certainly can go big with a single Ulamog / Worldbreaker or whatever else, so its not a hard-answer that they cant beat at all).
The available hate against the Eldrazi is just too weak, and no matter what you do, they have maindeck exile discard, chalice at 1, ratchet bomb and a fast clock to beat anything that might threaten it.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Lantern runs 3-4 Needles doesn't it? You can Needle Bomb, Eye of Ugin and one other thing. The critical thing is that they don't get the bomby turn 2 kill (it generally takes me 2-3 turns to empty a hand and play Bridge), not much you can do about that outside Thoughtseize/Surgical Extraction.
Saw another gentleman mention Chalice, Abrubt Decay can't be countered by Chalice, so there's an out for you.
Edit the second! That's been mentioned. Is Echoing Decay legal? It would wipe out the 2/1s, at which point you're left with Reality Smasher.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
FYI: the person who wrote that T8ed this PT.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall