I think your getting confused. The 10th place deck did not run vault, Lilliana's. These are different types of decks.
Yeah, my bad! I think that I opened up the same deck in multiple tabs and didn't realize it!
The 10th place deck is running the eldrazi displacer and tidehollow sculler version that used to run!! Yay! I am a big fan of that deck. Eldrazi displacer has a lot of synergy with this deck with all of the enter the battlefield triggers and it can tap down the opponents board. Knight of glory is a really interesting choice and doesn't have synergy with lingering souls but is amazing with all of the fatal pushes and death's shadows running around.
The common theme between the decks that have placed well recently is that:
Hmm, well, I'm the 18th place player. I'll be honest and say I've played literally 15 matches altogether with this deck since Eye of Ugin got banned. I just made a meta call to all-in the Death's Shadow decks on Thursday and played 90% RidetheIguana's deck, with some changes to ignore big mana decks knowing how bad Valakut decks are against Shadow. I probably dropped at least one match due to inexperience and missing one damage here and there, most notably in the on-camera round 9 match game 2.
I played against 6 Shadow, UWR Kiki, Eldrazi Tron, Burn, MonoU Tron, Affinity, 2 Dredge, Abzan, and Naya Company.
I lost to Dredge, UWR Kiki, and 2 Shadow decks. Both Shadow games felt winnable, with me being, and I lost the Dredge match due to a mulligan to 3 in game 1 and then played around the incorrect card in game 3. I was just super flooded out in the UWR match and was attacking with multiple Shambling Vents in a turn in both games into Wall of Omens just to gain life...
I beat 4 Shadow decks, Eldrazi Tron, Naya Company, Burn, MonoU Tron, Affinity, Dredge and Abzan, all fairly good matchups except for Eldrazi Tron, where Todd Stevens drew the absolute worse string of cards I have ever seen in my life, so it didn't matter that I just ignored land hate. I faded a non-land card for like 10+ turns in both games.
Obviously I boarded out Tidehollow Sculler in 11 matches, but I think the card is necessary just in case I run into combo or Company decks. Even if it eats a removal spell, I get information out of it, and it's one less removal spell TKS is eating.
Vault of the Archangel is an interesting card. It's super mana hungry and forces me to basically cast no spells whenever I hold it up, so against the Shadow decks, I'm just usually staring down Shadow with something like 2 Souls until I can draw a removal spell or Blight Herder, and if they find enough removal to kill the Souls, I'm usually just dead. but if I find Blight Herder first, they usually die. However, it was definitely great at racing the aggro decks and felt fine against Eldrazi Tron.
Liliana, the Last Hope was mediocre as expected. I want more removal spells somewhere. It's kinda of hard to beat Shadow when I'm just chumping with all of my tokens because I can never draw a Path. I wonder where I could fit in a Dismember and/or Push in the main deck, and I would look to replace Liliana with Declaration in Stone or Journey to Nowhere. I may remove Aven Mindcensor too. I've already decided to ignore big mana decks...might as well continue doing so. The Knight of Glorys in the other deck looks interesting and is something I might try. I was considering Auriok Champion even though it's difficult to cast, but it's literally unkillable by Shadow except for EE.
TL;DR, I suck, had no practice, played against like 13 positive matchups and probably punted a couple matches by giving away a few free damage because I am super conservative.
The exalted is mostly irrelevant and just having a pro-black 2/1 creature doesn't seem worth it especially in a deck that can have infinite blockers with Relic + E.Scourge, even more removal (Declaration in Stone/Blessed Alliance) seems like a better idea against DS decks.
Nice to see the deck being well-positioned and placing well though.
Knight of Glory seems like a good idea for smacking Shadow down with a spirit token for ~4 turns to kill them while it blocks Shadow/Angler/Tasigur forever. Exalted is actually the ability that makes me want to cast it over the other 2, though Crusader ends the game insanely fast and is also a consideration, but casting Crusader while boarding in Liliana of the Veil seems like it'll be impossible to cast.
Another decent anti-DS option can be Devour Flesh, it is like Condemn but actually a playable card.
I'm not sure if it is better than Blessed Alliance though which also doubles as a SB card against Burn (and Bogles if it shows up).
Any deck that can cast T2 Sculler successfully should probably be able to cast either Liliana or Mirran Crusader on T3.
Blessed Alliance can hit Geist of Saint Traft in response to the angel trigger, or at end of combat after the angel disappears but before the second main phase. It also has wide utility against Burn, Bogles, and attack-with-big-dudes decks like Shadow builds. It's a very strong modal card in my opinion.
It seems like people are torn on the two different builds.
The one with reality smasher is a midrange deck that wants to curve out with turn 1 discard/relic, turn 2 collective brutality/tide hollow/strangler/displacer/TKS, turn 3 TKS/Strangler/reality smasher/lingering souls turn 4 reality smasher
Iguanas list is a control deck and plays a similar strategy but they are also ok sitting back and waiting for the right time to ply blight herder and Sorin to finish the game off. Lingering souls is also much stronger in this version.
Wouldn't it make sense to make the mid range version with reality smasher a little more linear and aggressive. Lingering souls is a nice card that gives you some flexibility that is good against control, BGX and also allows you to gain some evasion. We already play smasher so we have evasion that the control version lacks. Has anyone tested replacing the lingering souls with matter reshaper? This card is amazing against BGx decks and also gives us card advantage like souls. It would also increase our chances of landing a turn 2 beater that opponents hate to use removal on. All of the disruption that we play would make reshaper and smasher both very difficult to deal with.
It seems like people are torn on the two different builds.
The one with reality smasher is a midrange deck that wants to curve out with turn 1 discard/relic, turn 2 collective brutality/tide hollow/strangler/displacer/TKS, turn 3 TKS/Strangler/reality smasher/lingering souls turn 4 reality smasher
Iguanas list is a control deck and plays a similar strategy but they are also ok sitting back and waiting for the right time to ply blight herder and Sorin to finish the game off. Lingering souls is also much stronger in this version.
Wouldn't it make sense to make the mid range version with reality smasher a little more linear and aggressive. Lingering souls is a nice card that gives you some flexibility that is good against control, BGX and also allows you to gain some evasion. We already play smasher so we have evasion that the control version lacks. Has anyone tested replacing the lingering souls with matter reshaper? This card is amazing against BGx decks and also gives us card advantage like souls. It would also increase our chances of landing a turn 2 beater that opponents hate to use removal on. All of the disruption that we play would make reshaper and smasher both very difficult to deal with.
Has anyone tested removing souls for matter reshaper? We can create a very disruptive deck that also curves out and is aggro with reshaper instead of souls. I'm just wondering if it's any good.
Reshaper is a faster clock than Souls, but Souls is way better against removal of all kinds and is way grindier. I can think of Eldrazi decks that don't really play Reshaper (e.g. Bant) but I can't think of any BW decks that don't play Souls. Lingering Souls is absolutely one of the best cards in the whole format.
I refuse to believe that this deck is actually competitively viable. There's simply no way that 10 duals plus two Plains and one Swamp (do you want T1 Inquisition or T1 Path, bro?!) is gonna cast your Scullers when you want them. Can we get some of these shaky manabase players on this thread to tell us how the hell they are getting their Scullers out on-curve? Because it just seems like it must be pure luck to me. Or like Iguana, maybe they're GQing their own lands (in a build that's trying to get to 5 for Smasher, no less)?
Ob Nix seems interesting. What have your results been with this? How does it compare to Sorin, Gideon, elspeth knight errant?
Destroying any creature seems good in a meta full of reality smasher, enbringer, tasigur, gurmag angler, deaths shadow. I also love it's card advantage engine and it's ultimate.
With the exception of Blessed Alliance, those cards seems not great against a deck with so much hand disruption and at least 2-3 Stubborn Denial main deck. They are very slow and they're a huge tempo loss if countered. I would definitely keep Inquisition over Damnation or Ob Nix, and I'd probably keep Thoughtseize over those too. Dismember is a good card against GDS for their Delve fatties.
With the exception of Blessed Alliance, those cards seems not great against a deck with so much hand disruption and at least 2-3 Stubborn Denial main deck. They are very slow and they're a huge tempo loss if countered. I would definitely keep Inquisition over Damnation or Ob Nix, and I'd probably keep Thoughtseize over those too. Dismember is a good card against GDS for their Delve fatties.
Yeah, guess you're right on that matter.
I do play 2x Anguished Unmaking which has broader applications.
I've dropped Tidehhollow Sculler because i just wasn't super-impressed by it.
If it works in my favor it was great, if not it was plain horrible.
After the Kobe results I have been jamming this deck again to an unremarkable 3-2 record for each of the past several weekly events. Tonight I went 4-0-1 beating Grixis Shadow, GW Tron, Esper Geist Midrange, and Affinity. I drew against Dimir Control.
I have ditched the two Mind Stone for more threats, in the form of two Eternal Scourge. I'm also trying out two Mutavault and a Wastes maindeck, in the slots formerly occupied by Cavern of Souls, Vault of the Archangel, and one Ghost Quarter. As a result this iteration of the deck is considerably more threat-dense. The maindeck Relics continue to be amazing.
I am not playing Tidehollow Sculler for now. If I were to run it, I would put it in the place of the Matter Reshapers I guess, and also change the land package a lot. Maybe a build that's all-in on hand disruption like that is the way to go, but Sculler just dies to everything and it's not super common to process the card it has tucked away, which seems to make it more of a tempo play, which feels not too good in a deck that is as slow as this one is in the early game.
Thoughts:Shambling Vent was big for me tonight in a few games and I was glad I had it. Mutavault also factored into a couple of games too. I can definitely see Mutavault being useful way more frequently than either Vault or Cavern. Vault and Cavern are much narrower, but also certainly more powerful in the right matchup.
Scourge has been remarkably good, far better than I remember from the little bit of early testing I did when it was released. I really like that it greatly weakens opponents' targeted removal, like the other threats also do. I would not expect to get value out of say Eldrazi Displacer in the same way, which turns on the removal that otherwise is kind of just looking for a worthwhile target.
I'm not missing Mind Stone as much as I expected I would. Having two more resilient three-drop threats in those slots feels like an upgrade. However playing against Affinity and Tron makes me value Ghost Quarter pretty highly and I'm not sure I want to keep the manland/GQ balance where I have it right now.
Hello all I am new to this deck and thought I would take close to the first place finish in kobe a run through FNM. I have to say the deck is very interesting. My sideboard is a mess and it will be tinkered with over the next couple weeks. My biggest issue was mana in particular colorless mana which is odd one game I had 7 lands out and no source of colorless to cast the reality smasher in hand for 5 turns while my opponent on monoblack devotion built up to beat me. I like shambling vents and I think I want 2 of them in my deck somewhere and possibly 2 marsh flats if I can make that work. Its possible a fetid heath might help as well so that could be a possible investment. The displacer didn't do much work so unsure if that will stay. I love my hand disruption numbers as I think I always had turn 1 or turn 2 hand disruption. I saw thought know seer on turn 2 twice at FNM which always felt amazing and like I had won the game already. I ended up going 3-1 at FNM losing to revolt zoo. I think I will try to find a card or two that might perform better in that match up possibly moving a ratchet bomb to main and adding one more the side. My lgs is tron heavy but I think the GQs and surgicals are over board in the side I think te surgicals will be dropped to 2 and the GQs removed to open up some room in the side. I could use a couple more thoughseize in there. I also thought about maybe a couple more top end threats in the side like blight herders or hangerback walkers but unsure how they perform I like hangerback walker in a few match ups.
It lines up pretty good along Ghost Quarter and Thoughtseize.
It's not just to knock out Combo or Ramp-Decks - it additional hurts Decks relying on key pieces / value engines.
Yeah, my bad! I think that I opened up the same deck in multiple tabs and didn't realize it!
The 10th place deck is running the eldrazi displacer and tidehollow sculler version that used to run!! Yay! I am a big fan of that deck. Eldrazi displacer has a lot of synergy with this deck with all of the enter the battlefield triggers and it can tap down the opponents board. Knight of glory is a really interesting choice and doesn't have synergy with lingering souls but is amazing with all of the fatal pushes and death's shadows running around.
The common theme between the decks that have placed well recently is that:
I just don't see how tidehollow sculler is any good right now! There are too many kolaghan's command and fatal pushs running around.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
I played against 6 Shadow, UWR Kiki, Eldrazi Tron, Burn, MonoU Tron, Affinity, 2 Dredge, Abzan, and Naya Company.
I lost to Dredge, UWR Kiki, and 2 Shadow decks. Both Shadow games felt winnable, with me being, and I lost the Dredge match due to a mulligan to 3 in game 1 and then played around the incorrect card in game 3. I was just super flooded out in the UWR match and was attacking with multiple Shambling Vents in a turn in both games into Wall of Omens just to gain life...
I beat 4 Shadow decks, Eldrazi Tron, Naya Company, Burn, MonoU Tron, Affinity, Dredge and Abzan, all fairly good matchups except for Eldrazi Tron, where Todd Stevens drew the absolute worse string of cards I have ever seen in my life, so it didn't matter that I just ignored land hate. I faded a non-land card for like 10+ turns in both games.
Obviously I boarded out Tidehollow Sculler in 11 matches, but I think the card is necessary just in case I run into combo or Company decks. Even if it eats a removal spell, I get information out of it, and it's one less removal spell TKS is eating.
Vault of the Archangel is an interesting card. It's super mana hungry and forces me to basically cast no spells whenever I hold it up, so against the Shadow decks, I'm just usually staring down Shadow with something like 2 Souls until I can draw a removal spell or Blight Herder, and if they find enough removal to kill the Souls, I'm usually just dead. but if I find Blight Herder first, they usually die. However, it was definitely great at racing the aggro decks and felt fine against Eldrazi Tron.
Liliana, the Last Hope was mediocre as expected. I want more removal spells somewhere. It's kinda of hard to beat Shadow when I'm just chumping with all of my tokens because I can never draw a Path. I wonder where I could fit in a Dismember and/or Push in the main deck, and I would look to replace Liliana with Declaration in Stone or Journey to Nowhere. I may remove Aven Mindcensor too. I've already decided to ignore big mana decks...might as well continue doing so. The Knight of Glorys in the other deck looks interesting and is something I might try. I was considering Auriok Champion even though it's difficult to cast, but it's literally unkillable by Shadow except for EE.
TL;DR, I suck, had no practice, played against like 13 positive matchups and probably punted a couple matches by giving away a few free damage because I am super conservative.
The exalted is mostly irrelevant and just having a pro-black 2/1 creature doesn't seem worth it especially in a deck that can have infinite blockers with Relic + E.Scourge, even more removal (Declaration in Stone/Blessed Alliance) seems like a better idea against DS decks.
Nice to see the deck being well-positioned and placing well though.
Blessed Alliance is also against Death's Shadow since you can give the life to your opponent and that way get them back to 13, or more.
I'm not sure if it is better than Blessed Alliance though which also doubles as a SB card against Burn (and Bogles if it shows up).
Blessed Alliance can hit Geist of Saint Traft in response to the angel trigger, or at end of combat after the angel disappears but before the second main phase. It also has wide utility against Burn, Bogles, and attack-with-big-dudes decks like Shadow builds. It's a very strong modal card in my opinion.
The one with reality smasher is a midrange deck that wants to curve out with turn 1 discard/relic, turn 2 collective brutality/tide hollow/strangler/displacer/TKS, turn 3 TKS/Strangler/reality smasher/lingering souls turn 4 reality smasher
Mid range versions
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/670977#paper
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/658263#paper
Iguanas list is a control deck and plays a similar strategy but they are also ok sitting back and waiting for the right time to ply blight herder and Sorin to finish the game off. Lingering souls is also much stronger in this version.
Control versions
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/670985#paper
Wouldn't it make sense to make the mid range version with reality smasher a little more linear and aggressive. Lingering souls is a nice card that gives you some flexibility that is good against control, BGX and also allows you to gain some evasion. We already play smasher so we have evasion that the control version lacks. Has anyone tested replacing the lingering souls with matter reshaper? This card is amazing against BGx decks and also gives us card advantage like souls. It would also increase our chances of landing a turn 2 beater that opponents hate to use removal on. All of the disruption that we play would make reshaper and smasher both very difficult to deal with.
Would love to hear everyone's thoughts.
I'm still struggling against Death's Shadow Grixis because Ceremonious Rejection knocks me out.
I suggest we doesn't board out Thoughtseize?
What is the best sideboard-Plan against them?
Green @ it's best
Why don't you play 4 caverns like the 10th place deck did. It also makes it much easier to play scullers on curve.
Another successful list here
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/672723#paper
Has anyone tested removing souls for matter reshaper? We can create a very disruptive deck that also curves out and is aggro with reshaper instead of souls. I'm just wondering if it's any good.
I refuse to believe that this deck is actually competitively viable. There's simply no way that 10 duals plus two Plains and one Swamp (do you want T1 Inquisition or T1 Path, bro?!) is gonna cast your Scullers when you want them. Can we get some of these shaky manabase players on this thread to tell us how the hell they are getting their Scullers out on-curve? Because it just seems like it must be pure luck to me. Or like Iguana, maybe they're GQing their own lands (in a build that's trying to get to 5 for Smasher, no less)?
I think you always keep in hand disruption against the blue decks. What are you siding in for the Thoughtseize/IoK's you side out?
Green @ it's best
Ob Nix seems interesting. What have your results been with this? How does it compare to Sorin, Gideon, elspeth knight errant?
Destroying any creature seems good in a meta full of reality smasher, enbringer, tasigur, gurmag angler, deaths shadow. I also love it's card advantage engine and it's ultimate.
Yeah, guess you're right on that matter.
I do play 2x Anguished Unmaking which has broader applications.
I've dropped Tidehhollow Sculler because i just wasn't super-impressed by it.
If it works in my favor it was great, if not it was plain horrible.
Green @ it's best
I have ditched the two Mind Stone for more threats, in the form of two Eternal Scourge. I'm also trying out two Mutavault and a Wastes maindeck, in the slots formerly occupied by Cavern of Souls, Vault of the Archangel, and one Ghost Quarter. As a result this iteration of the deck is considerably more threat-dense. The maindeck Relics continue to be amazing.
I am not playing Tidehollow Sculler for now. If I were to run it, I would put it in the place of the Matter Reshapers I guess, and also change the land package a lot. Maybe a build that's all-in on hand disruption like that is the way to go, but Sculler just dies to everything and it's not super common to process the card it has tucked away, which seems to make it more of a tempo play, which feels not too good in a deck that is as slow as this one is in the early game.
Thoughts: Shambling Vent was big for me tonight in a few games and I was glad I had it. Mutavault also factored into a couple of games too. I can definitely see Mutavault being useful way more frequently than either Vault or Cavern. Vault and Cavern are much narrower, but also certainly more powerful in the right matchup.
Scourge has been remarkably good, far better than I remember from the little bit of early testing I did when it was released. I really like that it greatly weakens opponents' targeted removal, like the other threats also do. I would not expect to get value out of say Eldrazi Displacer in the same way, which turns on the removal that otherwise is kind of just looking for a worthwhile target.
I'm not missing Mind Stone as much as I expected I would. Having two more resilient three-drop threats in those slots feels like an upgrade. However playing against Affinity and Tron makes me value Ghost Quarter pretty highly and I'm not sure I want to keep the manland/GQ balance where I have it right now.
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Concealed Courtyard
2 Godless Shrines
3 Swamp
2 Plains
4 Mutavault
Creatures
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seers
3 Tidehollow Scullers
4 Wasteland Stranglers
1 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Lingering Souls
3 IOK
2 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
4 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
1 Dismember
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Fragmentize
1 Cast out
1 Pithing needle
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Stony Silence
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Surgical Extractions
Hello all I am new to this deck and thought I would take close to the first place finish in kobe a run through FNM. I have to say the deck is very interesting. My sideboard is a mess and it will be tinkered with over the next couple weeks. My biggest issue was mana in particular colorless mana which is odd one game I had 7 lands out and no source of colorless to cast the reality smasher in hand for 5 turns while my opponent on monoblack devotion built up to beat me. I like shambling vents and I think I want 2 of them in my deck somewhere and possibly 2 marsh flats if I can make that work. Its possible a fetid heath might help as well so that could be a possible investment. The displacer didn't do much work so unsure if that will stay. I love my hand disruption numbers as I think I always had turn 1 or turn 2 hand disruption. I saw thought know seer on turn 2 twice at FNM which always felt amazing and like I had won the game already. I ended up going 3-1 at FNM losing to revolt zoo. I think I will try to find a card or two that might perform better in that match up possibly moving a ratchet bomb to main and adding one more the side. My lgs is tron heavy but I think the GQs and surgicals are over board in the side I think te surgicals will be dropped to 2 and the GQs removed to open up some room in the side. I could use a couple more thoughseize in there. I also thought about maybe a couple more top end threats in the side like blight herders or hangerback walkers but unsure how they perform I like hangerback walker in a few match ups.
It lines up pretty good along Ghost Quarter and Thoughtseize.
It's not just to knock out Combo or Ramp-Decks - it additional hurts Decks relying on key pieces / value engines.
Green @ it's best