Most eldrazi shells are good against midrange, and with the unbans midrange is seeing more play. Makes perfect sense to me, whether its RG, Bant, or that BW shell that won a GP last year.
I played Eldrazi Tron for a lot of last year and into this year and the Jund matchup was always good, but it's different now. BBE is such a massive shot in the arm that I'm not even sure the matchup is favorable anymore.
what is RG eldrazi even soft to? spell based combo? breach decks?
It's pretty weak to Blood Moon. BBE becoming commonplace has helped to mitigate that, but still most lists are only playing 1 Forest and 2 Mind Stones to combat Moon. The mana creatures do help.
So, I've been testing Hollow One more, and I still think this deck is...unhealthy
It's in this weird spot where it doesn't necessarily win on turn 3, but it creates a board so difficult to actually defeat by turn 2 or 3 it may as well.
I beat some E-Tron player with a turn 1 hollow one, who established turn 3 Tron and played back to back Endbringer and still couldn't win.
Then I pumped out 2 turn 1 Hollow one's and he scooped game 2.
This does not promote healthy or good game play.
The deck isn't tier 0, it seems to have trouble against go wide decks and UW Control.
I know it doesn't have the results or meta shares yet----but come on, Sheridan, have you tested this deck out? I thought this deck was way more luck based until I began to play it.
It seems to beat up on a lot of fair decks, combo and aggro. Things like Merfolk, Elves and maybe Humans is tough
The deck has weaknesses, so let the meta adjust. I for one am not ready to give cries of unfairness to Hollow One any more credit than I gave Grixis Shadow (that is to say, any more than zero).
My real question is if jund pushes every other fair deck out of the format, leaving it where instead of playing abzan, grixis shadow, jund shadow, mardu pyromancer, or jeskai flash they all get killed off in favor of jund midrange. It already appears to be steering that way, although we've yet to recover from the hype factor of people just wanting to play more jund (and more jund players means more good jund results overall even if conversion rate isn't too high).
Most eldrazi shells are good against midrange, and with the unbans midrange is seeing more play. Makes perfect sense to me, whether its RG, Bant, or that BW shell that won a GP last year.
Eldrazi decks have begun to feel like a trap to me
First it was bant eldrazi, then it faded
E-Tron was awesome, but then chalice became bad
Now it's RG E-Tron, but the protour winner wrote that when he and his group tested the deck, it became a lot easier to beat once people realized how it operates and what it does, which made his playtesters move off the deck.
Matter Reshaper, Thought-Knot and Smasher are great cards to curve into, but if it has to drastically change that much so often, something is fundamentally wrong with it.
So, I've been testing Hollow One more, and I still think this deck is...unhealthy
It's in this weird spot where it doesn't necessarily win on turn 3, but it creates a board so difficult to actually defeat by turn 2 or 3 it may as well.
I beat some E-Tron player with a turn 1 hollow one, who established turn 3 Tron and played back to back Endbringer and still couldn't win.
Then I pumped out 2 turn 1 Hollow one's and he scooped game 2.
This does not promote healthy or good game play.
The deck isn't tier 0, it seems to have trouble against go wide decks and UW Control.
I know it doesn't have the results or meta shares yet----but come on, Sheridan, have you tested this deck out? I thought this deck was way more luck based until I began to play it.
It seems to beat up on a lot of fair decks, combo and aggro. Things like Merfolk, Elves and maybe Humans is tough
How was he unable to beat you with two Endbringers? Enbringers block nearly everything in your deck favorably. The cards it can't block it can simply make it so they are useless. And this is all with being able to apply insane pressure.
With two end bringers + tron - he can make up to 4 creatures unable to attack each turn. How did you beat that?
It's in this weird spot where it doesn't necessarily win on turn 3, but it creates a board so difficult to actually defeat by turn 2 or 3 it may as well.
you mean just like multiple other decks in the format? other decks look to do the exact same thing, with one existing in the format basically since its inception (affinity).
as it was already pointed out the probability of getting multiple turn 1 or 2 hallowed ones is exceptionally low. you also mention other decks that are good against it. not sure what the problem is.
give it time to see where it fits in. if it becomes overly played, or wins to a large degree i think we can revisit the discussion. pretty much any new deck that shows promise as a tier 1 option looks unhealthy at first.
The deck has weaknesses, so let the meta adjust. I for one am not ready to give cries of unfairness to Hollow One any more credit than I gave Grixis Shadow (that is to say, any more than zero).
My real question is if jund pushes every other fair deck out of the format, leaving it where instead of playing abzan, grixis shadow, jund shadow, mardu pyromancer, or jeskai flash they all get killed off in favor of jund midrange. It already appears to be steering that way, although we've yet to recover from the hype factor of people just wanting to play more jund (and more jund players means more good jund results overall even if conversion rate isn't too high).
i dont see this ever happening. shadow decks will keep existing in various forms because they operate on mana efficiency and can close games faster. mardu pyro is doing is own crazy powerful things that are distinct. jeskai flash is being pushed out because its been a mediocre deck to begin with.
look at the various coco decks. those shells can be modified to include multiple combos, become more grindy and disruptive, or can even play jace like the bant version that is on the rise. those decks being pushed out by jund is highly unlikely.
i think there were some worries about the power of BBE homogenizing GRx decks, but i havent seen any evidence of that yet. more that BBE is just being splashed for in various archetypes (ie RG eldrazi) so its showing up a bunch, but a creature showing up a bunch isnt uncommon.
as for Eldrazi decks. having that core of cards that are build-around is a good thing. just because it shifts to accommodate what is going on in the format isnt a sign of weakness to me. RG is good when eldrazi obligator is good, and they just got a new toy with BBE.
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So, I've been testing Hollow One more, and I still think this deck is...unhealthy
It's in this weird spot where it doesn't necessarily win on turn 3, but it creates a board so difficult to actually defeat by turn 2 or 3 it may as well.
I beat some E-Tron player with a turn 1 hollow one, who established turn 3 Tron and played back to back Endbringer and still couldn't win.
Then I pumped out 2 turn 1 Hollow one's and he scooped game 2.
This does not promote healthy or good game play.
The deck isn't tier 0, it seems to have trouble against go wide decks and UW Control.
I know it doesn't have the results or meta shares yet----but come on, Sheridan, have you tested this deck out? I thought this deck was way more luck based until I began to play it.
It seems to beat up on a lot of fair decks, combo and aggro. Things like Merfolk, Elves and maybe Humans is tough
How was he unable to beat you with two Endbringers? Enbringers block nearly everything in your deck favorably. The cards it can't block it can simply make it so they are useless. And this is all with being able to apply insane pressure.
With two end bringers + tron - he can make up to 4 creatures unable to attack each turn. How did you beat that?
Hollow one's enabled two Phoenix's and 1x Bloodghast, he couldn't avoid the final points of damage to stabilize in time
I had to spend hours and hours tuning, testing, practicing, and considering lines of play to maximize my version of Hollow One, and yes, it is still much more affected by variance than many other Modern decks, but after all of that, I can pull some pretty disgusting stuff off. Thinking about how it's described here, though ("Works to create a situation where you haven't won the game on Turn 3, but it seems inevitable"), I realize I wasted my time.
I could've just played Expedition Map into Karn. Guess all that practice and tuning was a bust, because T3 Wurmcoil in a format pushing heavily towards Lightning Bolt right now seems ridiculously unbeatable. What a shame.
Most eldrazi shells are good against midrange, and with the unbans midrange is seeing more play. Makes perfect sense to me, whether its RG, Bant, or that BW shell that won a GP last year.
Eldrazi decks have begun to feel like a trap to me
First it was bant eldrazi, then it faded
E-Tron was awesome, but then chalice became bad
Now it's RG E-Tron, but the protour winner wrote that when he and his group tested the deck, it became a lot easier to beat once people realized how it operates and what it does, which made his playtesters move off the deck.
Matter Reshaper, Thought-Knot and Smasher are great cards to curve into, but if it has to drastically change that much so often, something is fundamentally wrong with it.
I don't understand what you mean. These are good cards that are a bit odd in that they are colorless, and people constantly try to fit them into different shells. This is innovation! The fact that three strong creatures create half a dozen different archetypes isn't a weakness, especially when you consider that most of these have had very short lifespans as in "oh, we thought this was the best shell, then we tried that." It's the same thing that happened with Grixis Shadow. Death Shadow builds morphed into different versions.
So, I've been testing Hollow One more, and I still think this deck is...unhealthy
It's in this weird spot where it doesn't necessarily win on turn 3, but it creates a board so difficult to actually defeat by turn 2 or 3 it may as well.
I beat some E-Tron player with a turn 1 hollow one, who established turn 3 Tron and played back to back Endbringer and still couldn't win.
Then I pumped out 2 turn 1 Hollow one's and he scooped game 2.
This does not promote healthy or good game play.
The deck isn't tier 0, it seems to have trouble against go wide decks and UW Control.
I know it doesn't have the results or meta shares yet----but come on, Sheridan, have you tested this deck out? I thought this deck was way more luck based until I began to play it.
It seems to beat up on a lot of fair decks, combo and aggro. Things like Merfolk, Elves and maybe Humans is tough
How was he unable to beat you with two Endbringers? Enbringers block nearly everything in your deck favorably. The cards it can't block it can simply make it so they are useless. And this is all with being able to apply insane pressure.
With two end bringers + tron - he can make up to 4 creatures unable to attack each turn. How did you beat that?
Hollow one's enabled two Phoenix's and 1x Bloodghast, he couldn't avoid the final points of damage to stabilize in time
So he was at 6 or less life on turn 3 after playing the endbringers? Assuming you swing the turn he plays the end bringer for 4 damage. If that doesn't kill him, you can only do 2 damage every turn after that unless you draw more creatures.
T1 Hollow One, T2 bring back Ghast and Phoenix swinging for 6 with Hollow One and Phoenix, T3 swinging for 10 is 16 damage. If he's on the play, then his opponent answers with an Endbringer after all of that, then another Endbringer the next turn, and none of that stops Phoenix from finishing him off.
T1 Hollow One, T2 bring back Ghast and Phoenix swinging for 6 with Hollow One and Phoenix, T3 swinging for 10 is 16 damage. If he's on the play, then his opponent answers with an Endbringer after all of that, then another Endbringer the next turn, and none of that stops Phoenix from finishing him off.
Ah. Hallowed one player was on the play and had the nut draw. Yea can't do much about that.
If the hallowed one player was on the draw... he looses in that scenario most likely. Despite having the nut.
T1 Hollow One, T2 bring back Ghast and Phoenix swinging for 6 with Hollow One and Phoenix, T3 swinging for 10 is 16 damage. If he's on the play, then his opponent answers with an Endbringer after all of that, then another Endbringer the next turn, and none of that stops Phoenix from finishing him off.
Ah. Hallowed one player was on the play and had the nut draw. Yea can't do much about that.
If the hallowed one player was on the draw... he looses in that scenario most likely. Despite having the nut.
This is why my version runs Fiery Tempers. That last bit of reach makes a world of difference, IME.
so a deck with very little removal got run over by a fast creature deck? welcome to modern.
have people forgotten that affinity and small zoo exist? those decks can swing for lethal on turn four fairly regularly, with burn for reach if they so choose.
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Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. - René Descartes
so a deck with very little removal got run over by a fast creature deck? welcome to modern.
have people forgotten that affinity and small zoo exist? those decks can swing for lethal on turn four fairly regularly, with burn for reach if they so choose.
My thoughts exactly. Even if someone gets 2 Hollowed One on t1 that's still a t4 kill unless they get other stuff out too.
I think that a lot of people misunderstand The Hallowed One deck. Its like when someone tells you that you were lucky to draw a certain card that you have 4 of. The Hallowed One deck runs on cards that embrace randomness, but the fact is, the deck is constructed in a way that abuses it. It runs a ton of cards that draws a ton of cards, which only increases the consistency of the deck. While those cards forces you to discard, often times netting you card disadvantage, the deck doesn't care about card advantage but only cares about board advantage.
It has shown to be a successful deck, and a deck that should be considered at worst, tier 2. I personally think it is probably underplayed due to the crazy swings that cards like Goblin Lore give you, but it looks to be a very powerful deck, but with weaknesses. I think that we have already passed the days when it was FoTM as well
Hollow One's Tron/big mana matchup is probably the worst possible indicator of whether the deck is broken. Of course the deck beats Tron and big mana. That's what it is designed to do. If Tron and big mana decks were somehow winning this matchup, that would mean the Tron/big mana decks are much scarier and more resilient than we thought. All-in combo style aggressive decks should be trouncing this matchup. Hollow One doing just that is a feature, not a bug.
I'd be more concerned if controlling decks couldn't win this matchup over a large enough sample. I'd also be concerned if controlling decks couldn't adapt to beat larger Push- and Bolt-proof threats like Hollow One and Angler. Until/unless this happens AND Hollow One is also a consistent top-tier deck, I'm just not very worried.
I've beaten opponents who played RIP on Turn 2 by curving out and running out a Hollow One early. If you just have GY hate, it's not enough, as the deck attacks on multiple vectors.
Now blow up the Board once/cast multiple spot removal spells, and hit us with a Leyline of the Void/RIP, and it'll definitely damage us heavily.
I think that a lot of people misunderstand The Hallowed One deck. Its like when someone tells you that you were lucky to draw a certain card that you have 4 of. The Hallowed One deck runs on cards that embrace randomness, but the fact is, the deck is constructed in a way that abuses it. It runs a ton of cards that draws a ton of cards, which only increases the consistency of the deck. While those cards forces you to discard, often times netting you card disadvantage, the deck doesn't care about card advantage but only cares about board advantage.
It has shown to be a successful deck, and a deck that should be considered at worst, tier 2. I personally think it is probably underplayed due to the crazy swings that cards like Goblin Lore give you, but it looks to be a very powerful deck, but with weaknesses. I think that we have already passed the days when it was FoTM as well
The thing about Hallowed One is it's just not about drawing a certain card that you have 4 of... its about drawing a card that you have 4 of in the correct sequence.
For example if you draw the hallowed one the turn AFTER you discard a bunch of cards, that's really bad.
If you discard your only threat you drew cards with goblin lore, thats bad.
There is so much that can go insanely wrong with hallowed one it's not even funny.
The reason hallowed one is good is the same reason Grixis Death Shadow is good. Turn 2 Angler is very powerful.
From my experience snapcaster and path is usually enough by itself to stop the deck dead in its track unless it got a god draw.
of course if you don't draw a path... you very dead.
The thing with Hollowed One is that the deck has enough ways to make everything work. Sure, you can have bad hands, but that applies to every deck. It looks like there's a lot of ways for it to mess up but it's surprisingly consistent. I've lost games against it by having Burning Inquiry make me discard lands.
of course it has redundancies built in, for the most part the deck can operate just fine without ever casting hollow one. its a powerful deck. i dont think anyone is refuting that, however i think most people are pointing out that it looks at best to be a new tier 1 option.
imagine if affinity never existed, and it just showed up recently. what would you think the reactions would be?
the deck isnt inconsistent, but lets not paint an unrealistic portrait. those super explosive starts are because of exceptional draws. there are also draws where the deck just twiddles its thumbs and looks anemic, much the same way that affinity looks weak when its just casting ornithopters and springleaf drums.
for me, the potential problem i see isnt the speed of the deck, its that few removal spells line up with their threats. path is an allstar of course, but the other 2 premier 1 mana removal spells in the format (push, bolt) often dont do much. if hollow one starts gaining real traction then fair decks are going to have to reevaluate their spell base so they arent bringing a bunch of abrupt decays for 4+ cmc threats. also remember that the deck is really weak to bounce effects.
lets be real here people. a lot of decks in the format do disgusting things if they have a god draw. infect, affinity, 8-wack, storm, abzan coco, elves, ironworks, grishoalbrand, bloo, -- the list goes on.
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I'm already thinking yard hate is going to have to come back in over the last few matches I've had against Jund and Grixis, and I was a sad guy when I saw Turn 1 Faithless last night into Loam and Thug.
As tronix says, plenty of decks will kill you with the nuts.
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I played Eldrazi Tron for a lot of last year and into this year and the Jund matchup was always good, but it's different now. BBE is such a massive shot in the arm that I'm not even sure the matchup is favorable anymore.
It's pretty weak to Blood Moon. BBE becoming commonplace has helped to mitigate that, but still most lists are only playing 1 Forest and 2 Mind Stones to combat Moon. The mana creatures do help.
It's in this weird spot where it doesn't necessarily win on turn 3, but it creates a board so difficult to actually defeat by turn 2 or 3 it may as well.
I beat some E-Tron player with a turn 1 hollow one, who established turn 3 Tron and played back to back Endbringer and still couldn't win.
Then I pumped out 2 turn 1 Hollow one's and he scooped game 2.
This does not promote healthy or good game play.
The deck isn't tier 0, it seems to have trouble against go wide decks and UW Control.
I know it doesn't have the results or meta shares yet----but come on, Sheridan, have you tested this deck out? I thought this deck was way more luck based until I began to play it.
It seems to beat up on a lot of fair decks, combo and aggro. Things like Merfolk, Elves and maybe Humans is tough
My real question is if jund pushes every other fair deck out of the format, leaving it where instead of playing abzan, grixis shadow, jund shadow, mardu pyromancer, or jeskai flash they all get killed off in favor of jund midrange. It already appears to be steering that way, although we've yet to recover from the hype factor of people just wanting to play more jund (and more jund players means more good jund results overall even if conversion rate isn't too high).
Eldrazi decks have begun to feel like a trap to me
First it was bant eldrazi, then it faded
E-Tron was awesome, but then chalice became bad
Now it's RG E-Tron, but the protour winner wrote that when he and his group tested the deck, it became a lot easier to beat once people realized how it operates and what it does, which made his playtesters move off the deck.
Matter Reshaper, Thought-Knot and Smasher are great cards to curve into, but if it has to drastically change that much so often, something is fundamentally wrong with it.
How was he unable to beat you with two Endbringers? Enbringers block nearly everything in your deck favorably. The cards it can't block it can simply make it so they are useless. And this is all with being able to apply insane pressure.
With two end bringers + tron - he can make up to 4 creatures unable to attack each turn. How did you beat that?
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
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Vintage: NA
you mean just like multiple other decks in the format? other decks look to do the exact same thing, with one existing in the format basically since its inception (affinity).
as it was already pointed out the probability of getting multiple turn 1 or 2 hallowed ones is exceptionally low. you also mention other decks that are good against it. not sure what the problem is.
give it time to see where it fits in. if it becomes overly played, or wins to a large degree i think we can revisit the discussion. pretty much any new deck that shows promise as a tier 1 option looks unhealthy at first.
i dont see this ever happening. shadow decks will keep existing in various forms because they operate on mana efficiency and can close games faster. mardu pyro is doing is own crazy powerful things that are distinct. jeskai flash is being pushed out because its been a mediocre deck to begin with.
look at the various coco decks. those shells can be modified to include multiple combos, become more grindy and disruptive, or can even play jace like the bant version that is on the rise. those decks being pushed out by jund is highly unlikely.
i think there were some worries about the power of BBE homogenizing GRx decks, but i havent seen any evidence of that yet. more that BBE is just being splashed for in various archetypes (ie RG eldrazi) so its showing up a bunch, but a creature showing up a bunch isnt uncommon.
as for Eldrazi decks. having that core of cards that are build-around is a good thing. just because it shifts to accommodate what is going on in the format isnt a sign of weakness to me. RG is good when eldrazi obligator is good, and they just got a new toy with BBE.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Hollow one's enabled two Phoenix's and 1x Bloodghast, he couldn't avoid the final points of damage to stabilize in time
I could've just played Expedition Map into Karn. Guess all that practice and tuning was a bust, because T3 Wurmcoil in a format pushing heavily towards Lightning Bolt right now seems ridiculously unbeatable. What a shame.
I don't understand what you mean. These are good cards that are a bit odd in that they are colorless, and people constantly try to fit them into different shells. This is innovation! The fact that three strong creatures create half a dozen different archetypes isn't a weakness, especially when you consider that most of these have had very short lifespans as in "oh, we thought this was the best shell, then we tried that." It's the same thing that happened with Grixis Shadow. Death Shadow builds morphed into different versions.
So he was at 6 or less life on turn 3 after playing the endbringers? Assuming you swing the turn he plays the end bringer for 4 damage. If that doesn't kill him, you can only do 2 damage every turn after that unless you draw more creatures.
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Vintage: NA
Ah. Hallowed one player was on the play and had the nut draw. Yea can't do much about that.
If the hallowed one player was on the draw... he looses in that scenario most likely. Despite having the nut.
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This is why my version runs Fiery Tempers. That last bit of reach makes a world of difference, IME.
have people forgotten that affinity and small zoo exist? those decks can swing for lethal on turn four fairly regularly, with burn for reach if they so choose.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)god that would have been gold if the opponent was on grishoalbrand and just untapped and killed him.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)My thoughts exactly. Even if someone gets 2 Hollowed One on t1 that's still a t4 kill unless they get other stuff out too.
It has shown to be a successful deck, and a deck that should be considered at worst, tier 2. I personally think it is probably underplayed due to the crazy swings that cards like Goblin Lore give you, but it looks to be a very powerful deck, but with weaknesses. I think that we have already passed the days when it was FoTM as well
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
I'd be more concerned if controlling decks couldn't win this matchup over a large enough sample. I'd also be concerned if controlling decks couldn't adapt to beat larger Push- and Bolt-proof threats like Hollow One and Angler. Until/unless this happens AND Hollow One is also a consistent top-tier deck, I'm just not very worried.
Now blow up the Board once/cast multiple spot removal spells, and hit us with a Leyline of the Void/RIP, and it'll definitely damage us heavily.
The thing about Hallowed One is it's just not about drawing a certain card that you have 4 of... its about drawing a card that you have 4 of in the correct sequence.
For example if you draw the hallowed one the turn AFTER you discard a bunch of cards, that's really bad.
If you discard your only threat you drew cards with goblin lore, thats bad.
There is so much that can go insanely wrong with hallowed one it's not even funny.
The reason hallowed one is good is the same reason Grixis Death Shadow is good. Turn 2 Angler is very powerful.
From my experience snapcaster and path is usually enough by itself to stop the deck dead in its track unless it got a god draw.
of course if you don't draw a path... you very dead.
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Vintage: NA
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
The card is Hollow One.
of course it has redundancies built in, for the most part the deck can operate just fine without ever casting hollow one. its a powerful deck. i dont think anyone is refuting that, however i think most people are pointing out that it looks at best to be a new tier 1 option.
imagine if affinity never existed, and it just showed up recently. what would you think the reactions would be?
the deck isnt inconsistent, but lets not paint an unrealistic portrait. those super explosive starts are because of exceptional draws. there are also draws where the deck just twiddles its thumbs and looks anemic, much the same way that affinity looks weak when its just casting ornithopters and springleaf drums.
for me, the potential problem i see isnt the speed of the deck, its that few removal spells line up with their threats. path is an allstar of course, but the other 2 premier 1 mana removal spells in the format (push, bolt) often dont do much. if hollow one starts gaining real traction then fair decks are going to have to reevaluate their spell base so they arent bringing a bunch of abrupt decays for 4+ cmc threats. also remember that the deck is really weak to bounce effects.
lets be real here people. a lot of decks in the format do disgusting things if they have a god draw. infect, affinity, 8-wack, storm, abzan coco, elves, ironworks, grishoalbrand, bloo, -- the list goes on.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Bring out your Surgical Extraction, your Shattering Spree, your Path's and Rest in Peace and Scavenging Ooze.
I'm already thinking yard hate is going to have to come back in over the last few matches I've had against Jund and Grixis, and I was a sad guy when I saw Turn 1 Faithless last night into Loam and Thug.
As tronix says, plenty of decks will kill you with the nuts.
Spirits