So i had the pleasure of playing against the deck tonight and I keep on wondering can we not splash white for arbiter. I ended up 2-0 the deck but I am playing a little janky deck that seems to wreck shop lately, but back to my question. I am not interested in the running a death and taxes deck but I feel like this deck wants to play control turns 1-3 then turn the gas on. I just feel like arbiter allows you to exploit GQ, and slow your opponent down and we don't have any search cards. A turn 1 arbiter or turn 1 chalice pretty much slows down any deck and the combo decks really struggles with arbiter.I mean even if there was room thalia it be salty. I mean turn 1 chalice followed by arbiter is game over for any deck or even turn 1 arbiter/thalia and turn 2 thalia/arbiter shuts down a deck. Those cards help against our rough matchups, tron, combo decks, really any deck that fetches hardcore. Just an idea, plus a little white could help in the sideboard like rest in peace, blessed alliance, stony silence.
So i had the pleasure of playing against the deck tonight and I keep on wondering can we not splash white for arbiter. I ended up 2-0 the deck but I am playing a little janky deck that seems to wreck shop lately, but back to my question. I am not interested in the running a death and taxes deck but I feel like this deck wants to play control turns 1-3 then turn the gas on. I just feel like arbiter allows you to exploit GQ, and slow your opponent down and we don't have any search cards. A turn 1 arbiter or turn 1 chalice pretty much slows down any deck and the combo decks really struggles with arbiter.I mean even if there was room thalia it be salty. I mean turn 1 chalice followed by arbiter is game over for any deck or even turn 1 arbiter/thalia and turn 2 thalia/arbiter shuts down a deck. Those cards help against our rough matchups, tron, combo decks, really any deck that fetches hardcore. Just an idea, plus a little white could help in the sideboard like rest in peace, blessed alliance, stony silence.
Our roughest matchups are Valakut, Grishoalbrand, and Bant Spirits. GQ is not very helpful against them, not to mention the fact that splashing a color turns our mana into a nightmare and robs us of the utility we so rely on in longer games. Post a list?
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I had an opportunity to play against my friend's Four color Kiki Chord and I must say that matchup is miserable. He plays Eldritch Evolutions and Reflector Mages but I guess that any deck with Restoration Angels and Reflector Mages is a bad matchup. Just a thing I noticed - that little 2/3 feels back breaking.
Correct. It is a deck unto itself, Stabil0, Death and Staxes - Nice job on your primer & hope it continues to truck on. I was the cat that fncmtg played against on cockatrice last night. I was running Colorless Eldrazi Stompy and he was running an "Indomitable Creativity Deck" (it's thread can be found in Deck Creation Modern).
First Time Poster: My appetite for this deck has been voracious. Jordan's write-ups, primer, tournament performances and tourney reports [Rain Man-esque in its recollection] are boss. I'm chucking cardboard tonight for the first time at FNM, but have run endless hours of testing on Cockatrice. Where to start - Where to start.....
How about with the most controversial card in the deck, Serum Powder. Jordan played in a 350 person tournament and got 4th. He 'powdered' 19 times at an average of 4 times per round. Critics of powder have said that its ill-suited for this deck and best seen in a combo deck which searches for specific combinations of cards. Even then, it's supposedly a jank card. Traditionally, that is true. But, brotha-man got 4th in a 350 and mulliganed 4 times per round. It's baffling. Pulling the trigger on mulls down to 4 or 5 cards is terrifying. In my testing, I've rarely done it, but I have learned to increasingly get bolder with saying 'ship it'.
Aside from the obvious tricks with Gemstone Cavern and Eternal Scourge and Simian Spirit Guide, this deck can play low. 4 cards is OK if you've got a Temple and another land since you can run out early threats and wait on dropping phatties. I know I'm preaching to the choir so far, but here is where I start to shift:
- I want a full complement of manlands: 4 Nexi and 4 Muta
- I want to run 1 big'un, Endbringer, and an All is Dust in the Sideboard.
These goals are unachievable if I'm starting with a small hand (albeit, there may be Scourges living in the Phantom Zone). First, I am dropping 1 Serum Powder. This justifies my less aggressive mull style (though, I fear this may run counter to the deck's mojo). I'm keeping more hands, so I need reliable and immediate development.
CREATURES
So, increasing the likelihood of an early drop Endless One has me trading off a middling drop Matter Reshaper (although effective, it's our least 'scary' card). Endbringer balances out the addition of the 1*-drop Endless One and provides a silver bullet answer. It's been harder to cast than I would have thought. But, the way I look at a single 1-of-60 indulgence card: if it's in my hand instead of a Matter Reshaper and I lose....I didn't really deserve/earn the win anyway. There are enough occasions where Endbringer will provide bigger game swings than a 3/2 popper. I think?
LANDS
If my starting hand is fuller, then sea gate wreckage gets harder to use, thus I'm swapping a couple of them for Mutavault. Mishra's Factory, 2/2 bear lands are stellar mana sinks & hard-to-kill threats. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a shot in the dark, and I don't want to enable opponents to use their fetch lands for free mana - crack 'em & feel the burn of the ping! So, I'm running Tectonic Edge. There's a lot of Tron/Eldrazi/Grixis in my meta.
SIDEBOARD Pithing Needle - can't stand this card, never could. It's an answer to a threat that may never be drawn. This fiddlestick is in sideboards all over creation, but I can't abide its passive nature. Turn that needle into a sword! I'm dumping these for an All is Dust and a Grafdigger's Cage - my favorite sideboard card in Modern right now.
So, I'm landing on a total adjustment of (8) Eight cards. I have to write that twice. Only 8. Colorless Eldrazi Stompy is a well-reasoned, stout, motherhumper of a deck. For a fella that relishes brewing and perverting net decks into unholy creations, I'm stumped on making any other alterations. Cheers to the thread and wish me luck tonight!
Quick Follow-Up Report on FNM last night (22 players). I'm not much for detailed reports, but just wanted to check in with an abbreviated account:
3-1 Finish
ROUND 1 - JUND // Win 2-0: Seasoned Opponent fell to an onslaught of tentacled face slaps in game 1. A timely TKS took away a Huntmaster of the Fells after he knocked away an eldrazi temple with a fulminator mage. I top decked another temple to squeak out my 4/4. Manlands helped finish the job. The sideboarding for game 2 is fascinating. +14 (minus the grafdigger's cage) and suddenly I'm midrange with tons of removal [following Jordan's advice]. Worked like a charm.
ROUND 2 - G/x TRON // Win 2-0: Ghost Quarters kept him slowed and Eldrazi Mimic along with Reality Smasher took home the 1st win pretty handily. The 2nd win had the opponent with an Oblivion Stone on the board, but he kept whiffing on draws - no threats. My only onboard critter was a Mimic...juuust enough to have him hold back on firing off the stone. I'm swinging in for 5-6 damage with manlands which had him helpless. Eventually, that's all it took. When I told him that my major alteration over the online deck construction was going up to 4 mutavault from 2. He said, "when I played a sliver deck, my best sliver was mutavault." The comparison is skewed, but that was 2 games in a row (limited data, I know) where mutavaults made the difference.
ROUND 3 - Merfolk // Win 2-0: I was nervous. Luckily, he was light on fish and my dismembers, backed my octopi, were enough to push through. He kind of flooded out. The 2nd game was a nut start with a gemstone cavern/eternal scourge into temple into 1st turn 3/3. Another one fell from my hand on the next turn. 3/3s when you can knock off their lords is a beating. Endbringer sewed it up. He had multiple aether vials out in both games.
ROUND 4 - Death's Shadow-Kiln Fiend // Loss 0-2: In game 1, on the play, I mulliganed 5 times. 2 of them were on serum powder. Starting at 4 cards, I pitch a simian spirit guide to gemstone cavern and keep 2 ghost quarter [i don't know what he's playing]. He hits me with a thoughtseize. /sad trombone. I get out a scourge on T2, but he gets a pair of Death's Shadow and that's all she wrote. I wanted to go aggressive on the mulliganing, but kept whiffing. The crowd was loving it though In game 2 I got stuck on a Ghost Quarter and Seagate Wreckage with a turn 2 Chalice of the void. I never saw another land, and he smoked me with a kiln fiend with Infect for 12 damage. I probably should have mulled, but was a little gun shy, and hoped that the chalice was going to be enough. Happens.
For a first outing with Colorless Eldrazi Stompy, I was pumped. Especially with the 6-0 match count start! I'll keep testing and tweaking - good luck out there!!
Went 6-1-1 and came in 9th (!!!) at the TJ Titanium Plus today, narrowly missing Top 8 on breakers. We were something like 120 I believe (will verify) and had a couple of matches on camera. May be able to share some of those if they go up. Report probably to follow too!
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
This guy just keeps up the good work with the deck congrats on strong finish again! I haven't been playing so much lately but the Copter haven't convinced me (at least not yet). Copter often feels just kind of bad draw when I am light on threats and it just eats all removal like a boss.
Smuggler's Copter offers much needed evasive attack against some matchups. I purposely upped my Endless One count in order to crew one up, if I have to as a 1/1. Also, hand dependent, I don't mind dropping a T1 Endless one as a 2/2 off of Eldrazi Temple on the first turn. It's a Isamaru, Hound of Konda: 2/2 for 1!
As for the Titanium Plus event where Jordan cited his 9th place finish, I was there. There were just over 200 players. I didn't compete in the main event (had to work), but showed up later to sell standard chaff to the vendors and compete in side events. Anyway, that's 3 premier events with monstrously strong finishes. Where's the buzz? This thread should be exploding. Baffling. I guess word of innovative, winning decks travels slow when folks are busy mushing eldrazi temples and urza's power plants together.
As for my continued online testing, I'm settled on deck design - just working out sideboarding strategies. I wish we had a sweeper, but ratchet bomb will have to do. The 4 mutavault approach, over the sea gate wreckage, continues to clock in with positive results. I guess I would just reiterate my affection for grafdigger's cage. The meta is changing pretty fast these days, so I'm holding at 1. For now...
This guy just keeps up the good work with the deck congrats on strong finish again! I haven't been playing so much lately but the Copter haven't convinced me (at least not yet). Copter often feels just kind of bad draw when I am light on threats and it just eats all removal like a boss.
Sorry for no reports guys, I just keep getting distracted. I played 1 Copter at the Titanium Plus and a full set of Matter Reshaper. Copter was great for me at Regionals but thoroughly underwhelming the other times I've played with it so it's gone now. Replaced with a Bomb from the sideboard, which gives us room to run anti-Death's Shadow cards. I love Reshaper with all the Pushes around, since opponents need revolt to kill it and even then we plus.
@Raystack: One person Top 8ing (or close) three small-to-large-sized Competitive REL events is not enough to generate buzz. Multiple people need to do well with the deck or it needs a high-profile win.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Smuggler's Copter offers much needed evasive attack against some matchups. I purposely upped my Endless One count in order to crew one up, if I have to as a 1/1. Also, hand dependent, I don't mind dropping a T1 Endless one as a 2/2 off of Eldrazi Temple on the first turn. It's a Isamaru, Hound of Konda: 2/2 for 1!
As for the Titanium Plus event where Jordan cited his 9th place finish, I was there. There were just over 200 players. I didn't compete in the main event (had to work), but showed up later to sell standard chaff to the vendors and compete in side events. Anyway, that's 3 premier events with monstrously strong finishes. Where's the buzz? This thread should be exploding. Baffling. I guess word of innovative, winning decks travels slow when folks are busy mushing eldrazi temples and urza's power plants together.
As for my continued online testing, I'm settled on deck design - just working out sideboarding strategies. I wish we had a sweeper, but ratchet bomb will have to do. The 4 mutavault approach, over the sea gate wreckage, continues to clock in with positive results. I guess I would just reiterate my affection for grafdigger's cage. The meta is changing pretty fast these days, so I'm holding at 1. For now...
I understand this, it just feels very awkward that in other matches were deck needs to put out some raw and serious power very fast (like a skipped draw phase). I definitely need to test more with it but so far it feels that it boosts some matchups those are already decent but shrinks the better ones downward.
Smuggler's Copter offers much needed evasive attack against some matchups. I purposely upped my Endless One count in order to crew one up, if I have to as a 1/1. Also, hand dependent, I don't mind dropping a T1 Endless one as a 2/2 off of Eldrazi Temple on the first turn. It's a Isamaru, Hound of Konda: 2/2 for 1!
As for the Titanium Plus event where Jordan cited his 9th place finish, I was there. There were just over 200 players. I didn't compete in the main event (had to work), but showed up later to sell standard chaff to the vendors and compete in side events. Anyway, that's 3 premier events with monstrously strong finishes. Where's the buzz? This thread should be exploding. Baffling. I guess word of innovative, winning decks travels slow when folks are busy mushing eldrazi temples and urza's power plants together.
As for my continued online testing, I'm settled on deck design - just working out sideboarding strategies. I wish we had a sweeper, but ratchet bomb will have to do. The 4 mutavault approach, over the sea gate wreckage, continues to clock in with positive results. I guess I would just reiterate my affection for grafdigger's cage. The meta is changing pretty fast these days, so I'm holding at 1. For now...
I understand this, it just feels very awkward that in other matches were deck needs to put out some raw and serious power very fast (like a skipped draw phase). I definitely need to test more with it but so far it feels that it boosts some matchups those are already decent but shrinks the better ones downward.
I agree with you. Copter is bad. With all the Push in the metagame it's actually just unplayable.
Didn't have time to write a tournament report but I did manage to produce this write-up.
It's nearly identical to what I played at the Titanium Plus. My list for that tournament had these changes: -1 Bomb (main
+1 Copter (main)
-1 Needle (side)
+1 Bomb (side)
A more detailed explanations of the updates:
- Up to 4 Reshaper. This card is great against Push which is everywhere right now, as well as decent vs. mass destruction sweepers and sacrifice effects. We're seeing many of these types of card to combat Death's Shadow Jund.
- Bomb in the main. Helps vs. DSJ but mostly there isn't another card I wanted in the deck, so I just ported over our most versatile sideboard card. Now we don't have to auto-scoop to a Game 1 Ensnaring Bridge.
- Wurmcoil Engine in the SB. The best anti-DSJ tech I could come up with besides Chalice, Bomb, and Relic, which we max out on. Amazingly, those 12 cards aren't enough to beat DSJ consistently once they bring in their Grudges. They have AG, KCommand, and Pulse to out our hoser artifacts post-board. We need a lategame to play towards that they can't interact with favorably. Wurmcoil is that lategame.
Vs. Death's Shadow Jund, G1 comes down to resolving a Chalice or drawing multiple Smashers, which isn't so bad for us. Although we can still randomly cheese them with Chalice G2, it's not a super reliable plan. Reshaper helps fade attacks until we can drop Wurmcoil, which is surprisingly easy to ramp into between Reshaper, Powder, and Guide. Usually we want to dig into Wurmcoil with Sea Gate after the board stalls out. Opening Wurmcoil is not ideal since DSJ casts a lot of Thoughtseizes. Play Chalice on 1 when you can instead of Relic on the play, or they will just rip your other hate piece with a discard spell. Don't mull to aggressively into Temples post-board since they have Fulminator; instead, look for hands heavy on disruption, ideally of different sorts (i.e. Chalice + Relic + Bomb and lands). Final note: Dismember looks bad on paper but it's crucial to kill early Goyfs and Shadows or win in combat.
-4 Mimic
-4 Scourge
-1 Smasher
+4 Relic
+3 Bomb
+2 Wurm
General notes on this build:
- Stay far away from Endless One in such a Push-heavy metagame. Copter too.
- The Gut Shot and Needle in the side are the other flex spots after Wurmcoil.
- Found some reliable ways to beat Valakut: Torpor Orb and Witchbane Orb. Not comfortable dedicating sideboard slots to winning this matchup right now though.
Notes on the tournament:
- My one loss was to Keith Rong on DSJ in Round 3, who ended up winning the tournament. Locked him out in G1 with a Chalice, and lost G2 pretty swiftly to some huge Shadows. G3 I manage to land two Chalices on one and he rips Pulse from the top to blow them up. I follow up with Smasher and attack him down to 2 but he lands Goyf and Shadow the following turn and then kills me the turn after.
- Drew against UW Control in Game 3 against Ryan Holmes in Round 7. Our G1 lasted 40 minutes; I ended up losing to Colonnade #4 after Quartering the other three. I had two Relics and two Scourges in G3 and Ryan was starting to run low on cards; I think I would have taken this game had we had more time. I managed to get him down to 2 life on Turn 5.
- Other matches were pretty easy. Faced Burn (R1), Burn (R2), Grixis Delver (R4), BUG Midrange (R5), Jeskai Flash (R6), and Abzan Midrange (R8). Of these, the only tough match was against Ian Morency on Jeskai Flash; I had actually borrowed one of my Wurmcoils from Ian and managed to resolve it in Game 2, but he kept tapping or bouncing it with Cryptic and beat me with a pair of Spell Quellers in the air. I brought in all my Bombs and Contortions and handily took G3. (Important to have a ton of removal in this kind of matchup or the fliers will just get us.) Ian is also the guy who crushed me with Bant Spirits at the tournament I Top 8'd a couple weeks ago (see earlier in the thread).
Last weekend marked my first Comp REL event with the deck that I didn't Top 8 (so close though, pic for breakers)! Surely there are more to come, but I will say that I'm loving our positioning and the deck in general. Right now I'm searching for better plans against Bant Eldrazi, so any help on this front would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Thoughts on Blight Herder in the SB (in the Wurmcoil Engine Slot) ?
It is much easier to cast and can provide many blockers (especially with Relic to enable it).
Thoughts on Blight Herder in the SB (in the Wurmcoil Engine Slot) ?
It is much easier to cast and can provide many blockers (especially with Relic to enable it).
DSJ is blowing up our Relics whenever they get the chance, so it's not very reliable. We're already in good shape if we have a Relic on the board anyway. The purpose of this slot is to help us claw back into games they manage to remove all our hate in. Herder makes chump blockers but it can't swing through a Goyf or a Shadow most of the time and the Scions don't do anything in the face of Temur Battle Rage. Wurmcoil solves all these issues.
Endbringer is slow and clunky. In my plan above I board out a Smasher to make space in the main; I'd rather have Smasher #4 in that matchup than an Endbringer.
Flagship is somehow even worse than the other two since Bolt effects do next to nothing against DSJ. How would Flagship be good in this matchup? Did you read my post? Have you played against DSJ with this deck?
The one question I have is the following. It's g3 vs Abzan Coco, we are on the draw and we won game 2 on the back hand of relic of progenitus and smugglers copter. I expected him to bring some artifact hate, and cut some combo pieces for grindier creatures. I had almost all the sb in (2 needle, 4 spatial contortion, 4 relic, 1 gut shot). I wrongfully decided not to bring the 2nd gut shot, thinking that since this is going longer (with him going more into tireless tracker, which I had seen G2), I kinda dont want the 1 dmg ping. Since I expected stony silence, I didn't want ratchet bomb for g3 (it is always kinda dubious against abzan coco. It depends a lot on their draw, if they go dork into finks, there is little work for the bomb).
You want all your removal in this matchup, no questions asked. Their grindy plan is never going to beat a bunch of Scourges and Relic, period; TKS and Smasher just add insult to injury. CoCo's only real hope is to combo you, which is impossible if you have Relic and lots of removal.
We both mulligan and I have a t1 TKS (also have blinkmoth nexus as my second land, a dismember and a copter in hand). He has a single bird in play and 1 land. I see his hand and he has 1x Eternal Witness, 1x Murderous redcap, 2x Company and a Noble Hierarch). I decide to take away the noble, planning on dismembering his bird. I saw no point in taking a Company, maybe the witness. I take the mana dork.
He topdecks a fetch, casts witness, gets back fetch. I stick to dismember the bird to keep him off coco.
A few turns go by and he is now at 5 life with 3 lands and a witness on the field vs my TKS, nexus and smugglers copter. I tapped out to activate blinkmoth to crew the copter and attack with TKS. I know 3 out of 4 cards in his hand (2 CoCo, 1 redcap, 1 unknown). That lead me to tap out. He blocks and chords for 1. I'm thinking he chords for a bird, to get to 4 lands and then tries to start the coco train (i have a warping wail to kill the bird befores blocks and can attack in the air, since he would be at 2). He chorded for Viscera, top decks a basic land, companies mainphase into the other 2 combo pieces... I'm kinda pissed and try to drain the clock since there are only 2 mins left but end up losing (i draw relic next turn to stop him scrying the deck, but he gets a qasali and then the redcap kills me).
In retrospect, the 2nd gut shot would have been very good at stopping the combo and killing dorks, but I mistakenly went 4 dismember + 4 spatial contortion + 1 gut shot, expecting beefier creatures. Lesson learned folks, bring the gut shots in.
So, would you have taken the noble or the hierarch turn 1? Would you have tapped out for crewing copter to drop them to 2 (him at 3 lands with 2 coco in hand)? Do you keep bring in the ratchet bombs in g3 if they saw gy hate in g2? Was I overthinking this since I have played a lot with the other deck? I also sided out the chalices on the draw, since they have such a wide range of cmc (same reason I didn't bring in ratchet bombs).
Yes, of course. Always kill their dorks right away. The other creatures you can wait on. You don't want Chalice at all in this matchup, play or draw, but Bomb is excellent.
Maybe if I had that gut shot instead of a spatial contortion, I'd kill the dork t1 alongside TKS and easily steal the game... Just some thoughts from 1 game, but there was a lot of thinking on each decision I made, and kinda want feedback from those with more experience with the deck.
Sorry for any formatting, on mobile at the moment
Your problem is that you don't know the matchup. Jam it a lot and you'll start to understand what you need to be doing. Here's a plan to help (with my above list):
-4 Mimic
-4 Guide
-4 Chalice
-3 Reshaper
+15
I can also see leaving a Wurm or both in the sideboard for Reshapers.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I clearly have not played this side of the matchup (as I said, first time actually playing this outside of goldfishing some draws). I just put myself on their shoes, and after seeing relic and copter, I was expecting stony silence, hence me not bringing ratchet bombs.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Well I played this deck last friday, I ended up just running 1 smuggler's copter in the deck since I am short one chalice, and copter actually won me 3 games. I don't have a list on how the games went but I beat Abzan coco,Abzan Junk and Valakut/Scapeshift and lost to Valakut/Scapeshift. Every game went 2-1 besides the last game, I will say after playing this deck multiple times I hardly ever cast scourage from exile. I know the point of it and little combo but it seems to be a little cute. I will say the 4 matter reshaper is alot better than the endless one in the deck. The games copter won me were huge, I know it just depends on the meta but running at lest one in the deck is huge. Well I had a good FNM and the deck is fun to play when it is working. I have had nights were it seems pretty rough.
Game 3 I kept a risky two lander (GQ + mutavault) with reshaper, TKS, smasher, needle and serum powder (If it wasn't for funsies, I would strongly consider using serum powder). I have to break my ghost quarter to stop him from having tron turn 3, the game slows down a lot, I eventually get to start playing my stuff. He has an ugin that bolts reshaper and I get a ghost quarter off the top. I decide to cast TKS and get an oblivion stone out of his hand, he draws thragtusk. I get rid of thragtusk with Spatial contortion (i had cut eternal scourge and chalice and brought spatial contortions to increase the clock). I get to cast reality smasher and attack him down. I drop a needle on karn. He draws the missing tron land, maps for sanctum of ugin, plays karn, getting him wurmcoil, while he was at two life. I can't draw anything relevant and then he finds an oblivion stone that threatens to blow up the boards (i still have mutavault if he cracks stone). On his next turn, he blows the stone to play a freshly drawn walking balista with 4 counters. I don't topdeck a smasher and know it is mostly over. A huge ballista makes short work of my creatures and life total.
Powder + no Temple = Powder, 100% of the time. Doesn't matter if you have 3 cards or 7. Incidentally, opening Temple is especially important against linear decks like Tron.
Vs. Bant: Don't play Endbringer that card is bad. Wurmcoil also terrible in this matchup, too slow and they can answer it easily with Path or Drowner. All your removal is good and keep Powder/Chalice. Mimic, Reshaper, Guide are all easy cuts. And you don't need Surgical just max out on Relic.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I have just started to buy into this deck because I think it is really neat and I love that for a linear, aggro deck, there are a lot of interesting decisions to still be made for the pilot. I just have a couple of questions / concerns at this point:
1) I have essentially all of the cards right now to play the deck except for Simian Spirit Guide and Chalice of the Void. I can get SSG fairly easily, but a play-set of Chalice is just so expensive right now. Can I be FNM competitive without Chalice? I sort of like the idea of the version that uses main deck Relic better anyway as multiples of Relic are never dead in hand, whereas you don't really want to see more than a single Chalice very often, right?
2) Copter seems like excellent value to me. I've been testing this deck out by simulating turns and it seems to me that drawing Serum Powders really hurts an aggro deck... but not so much with Copter! Also, my local meta isn't playing hardly any tron right now, so I wonder if I can move the ghost quarter's to sideboard tech and play the full 4x Blinkmoth and 4x Mutavault to help fuel the copter? While it dies to fatal push, the value it offers seems really good to me... perhaps I'm missing something?
3) If I don't buy into Chalice and stick with Relic, could this deck be played with 4x Expedition Map instead of 4x Simian Spirit Guide? Assuming a situation where I get an opening hand Eldrazi Temple, both Map and SSG power out Reality Smasher on T3, which seems awesome. True, only SSG allows us to play Thought-Knot on t2, but SSG is card pure card disadvantage that might be hard to overcome if we are aggressively mulliganing all of the time. On the other hand, Map slows us down for our first two turns, but we should always have enough mana every turn beyond that and we become a lot more resilient to Ghost Quarter with an extra Eldrazi Temple.
If you all would be willing to address my questions/thoughts I would really appreciate it, because you guys seem to have the most experience on this deck that I can find anywhere on the internet.
So I would still love some answers to my questions in my post above if anyone is willing to help me out. It would be much appreciated! However, I thought I would also try and contribute here. I came up with my own idea of what Eldrazi Stompy could look like for someone who doesn't have Chalice, but would like to try and control the opponent a bit early and ride that to victory with a fast start.
Just like Ashton's stompy deck, I am fishing for a Turn 1 Eldrazi Temple. On Turn 2 I would like to be casting Matter Reshaper, Eldrazi Skyspawner, or (a little worse) Cultivator Drone. This means that my manabase is different because I need blue by T2 and ideally a second blue by T3. The pain lands help me do this while allowing me plenty of colorless mana for my beater Eldrazi. So say I have an Eldrazi Skyspawner out on T2... the line is on T3 to either cast a Reality Smasher (Sac the Eldrazi token from Skyspawner or tap the Cultivator Drone for mana) so I can cast a T3 Reality Smasher quite reliably. A good send plan is to just attack on T3 and then pass and then stop my opponent during their upkeep and cast an Elder Deep-Fiend with Emerge. The hope here is to upgrade my creature to Elder-Deep Fiend and then Timewalk my opponent. If you are concerned they might have removal, you could wait until the end of their turn to cast Elder Deep-Fiend and if they played a creature or permanent, just make sure to tap that down too. That early tempo should be enough to propel us to a win is the theory here. I would still like to find room for 4x Eldrazi Mimic, but I'm not sure what to cut to get there... honestly maybe Thought-Knot? Thought-Knot only curves the way I want if I get T1 and T2 Eldrazi Temple since I am not running SSG in this list. A T1 Mimic, T2 Skyspawner and T3 Reality Smasher ought to be crippling. Another card I like to get an extra of any card we like is a 1x Phyrexian Metamorph. It could be Reality Smasher or Elder Deep-Fiend #5. What do you guys think?
Any criticism / suggestions would be appreciated, thanks:
I have just started to buy into this deck because I think it is really neat and I love that for a linear, aggro deck, there are a lot of interesting decisions to still be made for the pilot. I just have a couple of questions / concerns at this point:
1) I have essentially all of the cards right now to play the deck except for Simian Spirit Guide and Chalice of the Void. I can get SSG fairly easily, but a play-set of Chalice is just so expensive right now. Can I be FNM competitive without Chalice? I sort of like the idea of the version that uses main deck Relic better anyway as multiples of Relic are never dead in hand, whereas you don't really want to see more than a single Chalice very often, right?
2) Copter seems like excellent value to me. I've been testing this deck out by simulating turns and it seems to me that drawing Serum Powders really hurts an aggro deck... but not so much with Copter! Also, my local meta isn't playing hardly any tron right now, so I wonder if I can move the ghost quarter's to sideboard tech and play the full 4x Blinkmoth and 4x Mutavault to help fuel the copter? While it dies to fatal push, the value it offers seems really good to me... perhaps I'm missing something?
3) If I don't buy into Chalice and stick with Relic, could this deck be played with 4x Expedition Map instead of 4x Simian Spirit Guide? Assuming a situation where I get an opening hand Eldrazi Temple, both Map and SSG power out Reality Smasher on T3, which seems awesome. True, only SSG allows us to play Thought-Knot on t2, but SSG is card pure card disadvantage that might be hard to overcome if we are aggressively mulliganing all of the time. On the other hand, Map slows us down for our first two turns, but we should always have enough mana every turn beyond that and we become a lot more resilient to Ghost Quarter with an extra Eldrazi Temple.
If you all would be willing to address my questions/thoughts I would really appreciate it, because you guys seem to have the most experience on this deck that I can find anywhere on the internet.
Thanks!
1) read the articles in the primer, a version with relic and no guide/chalice is possible and explained in those
2) it's good in the deck but not in this metagame, too much push/AG/stony
Still regarding bant: by all removals, I'm guessing Spatial contortion and gut shot (needle possibly). Ratchet bomb doesn't seem good. Getting it to 4 or more is not realistic. The best I could see is getting their tokens or dorks, but those look like low impact options. In that match up, copter can give me some reach (I'm back to 1 copter in the 4th reshaper slot).
If I cut mimic and guide, I dunno how I can win by getting under them. The long game doesn't seem favourable either.
Relic + Scourge doesn't seem like a good plan either. I think I'd rather have reshapers than scourges.
I'm considering a single crucible of worlds in the sb for the games where we need to keep blowing up enemy lands,but not sure what to cut (most likely endbringer).
Getting to 4 is very realistic. Games usually stall out and they take a few turns to draw their bombs/get their mana since we kill their dorks aggressively.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I wouldn't really bother going with the blue build. You are running more sub-par cards: skyspawner and cultivator drone), in the hopes of getting a Elder Deep Fiend.
If you stick to that plan, you are running too many 3 drops. Cut one of them for a playset of mimics. Unfortunately, I think that without chalice, there isn't enough to lock out the elements and ride the tempo wave to victory. A turn 1 do nothing is not something a stompy deck is looking to do (ok, you have 3/4 relics, but that isn't enough). Run the 4 TKS, a turn 2 TKS can be devastating (especially if following a chalice or mimic).
Another con of mimic in your build, is that if you want to abuse Elder deep fiend, the mimic trigger would be wasted. There is another fine (not great, not bad) Emerge target, the 3/4 flier that draws a card. It is less blue intensive and flies over. There is also a blue/green that puts a permanent on top of it's owners library. Of all the creatures we have I'd be kinda happy to sacrifice the Reshapers and the eternal scourge if I'm running maindeck relics. Unfortunately, I think losing my turn 2 creature just to tap them out is basically trading my turn for one of theirs. That is awesome if we are chipping in for damage, but not that great if they are the ones with creatures.
A TKS/Reality smasher after a chalice on 1 can do a lot of work. If the opponent can just path, then it isn't as good. I'd still stick with Dismember over vapor snag.
Overall, drop the vapor snags for dismember, lose the cultivator drone, up the TKS count to 4, think hardly if you want the Elder-Deep Fiend or not (or if the build in jordan's article back when dredge was more popular is the better choice or not). Meta dependant, Relic in the main can be awesome instead of chalice. There are a few match-ups where I'd rather have relic maindeck and chalice does very little. I don't think more heavy drops are where this deck wants to be (looking at you Elder deep fiend).
If running eldrazi skyspawner, smuggler's copter starts looking better.
Thanks for the feedback. I think you are right that dismember is just better than Vapor Snag, although I do like that snag offers a tiny bit of reach and can be used on my own elder-deep fiend. I agree that TKS is awesome on T2, but the problem my deck has is powering him out that early. I either need a double temple hand or I need to be on the draw, use Gemstone, and have a temple. That seems a lot less likely than playing a t2 Eldrazi Drone and then a t3 Reality Smasher, but I could be wrong about that I suppose. I do agree that mimic is pretty important... especially on the T3 Smasher plan. The worst thing I have noticed about my version vs a chalice version is that I am very vulnerable to Thoughtseize. I suppose that can be remedied a bit with Leyline, but that card is really bad if not in opening hand here and not exactly budget friendly either. Anyhow, my play-testing with Deep Fiend is going pretty well. It comes down pretty early and Time Walks my opponent pretty effectively on usually T3 - T5 (assuming I don't get thoughtseized away early). One of the toughest things about it is not being good unless I have a 3 drop out, which means super aggressive mulliganing down to, say 4 cards, is pretty dangerous.
I don't think any of the other emerge eldrazi in blue are worth it. They just aren't strong enough payoff and they don't have flash. Part of Elder's charm is that if I have board advantage I can just beat away, hold up mana, and flash Elder in as a response to my opponent targeting my creature for removal. Elder also clears a stalled board pretty well for me to swing away. I agree with you about Copter... might be a 1 of.
So I took the deck again to the FNM and went 3-1, I have been pretty consistent at going 3-1 with it. I 2-0 Grixis control, 2-1 Ad Naseaum, and 2-1 Deathly shadows, the game I lost was to Abzan company and went 0-2. I usually don't struggle with that deck but the cards weren't flipping my way. I did change the side board a little, I added Phyrexian revoker over warping wail and pithing needle I originally had. Revoker was great in the ad naseaum deck. I able TKS the ad naseum, chalice for 0 and revoker simian spirit guide which stops the combo. The deathly shadow game was awesome and pretty much won with blinkmoth nexus, with him destroying his life total and using matter reshaper for the defense, I would just chip at his life total and win, plus chalice for 1 helps. The guy playing deathly shadows is a very good player and has top 8 a lot here in the local Dallas tournaments. He was very impressed and he was just laughing when I kept powdering and getting more aggressive hands.
I would say this deck is really good and needs more love, it has it's holes but after playing it for about a month, I am learning what to keep and not to keep. I still think the sideboard will always be changing. I still only have 3 chalice so copter takes the one spot. He didn't get much play this past week but it has come huge at other times.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I'm enjoying G_g53's succinct tourney reports. I ran Colorless Eldrazi Stompy last night at my LGS. Unlike last time where I opened up 6-0 in 3 rounds, I got the kind of poor draw luck that can happen to anyone -- just a little bit worse than that.
Round 1 - Beat Merfolk twice after sideboarding Round 2 - Lost to Bant Eldrazi. After post-game discussion, we sussed out and agreed upon the best win strategy. Go fast, hard, and under the opponent. I just didn't draw well. But, believe that +4 spatial contortion, +1 gut shot with a -4 chalice of the void and -1 can't recall. Round 3 - Abzan Chord/Coco - He put up large creature walls and won in lieu of the dearth of my effective draws.
After a lot of testing, I would just highlight that keeping at least 1 endless one in a deck with 4 eldrazi mimic seems prudent. 4 ratchet bomb also seems reasonable in the 75. Go with at least 1 Grafdigger's cage in the SB. All is Dust is not a fit in the SB or MB [too slow]. When in doubt, go faster and harder.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Modern
WUBRG
First Time Poster: My appetite for this deck has been voracious. Jordan's write-ups, primer, tournament performances and tourney reports [Rain Man-esque in its recollection] are boss. I'm chucking cardboard tonight for the first time at FNM, but have run endless hours of testing on Cockatrice. Where to start - Where to start.....
How about with the most controversial card in the deck, Serum Powder. Jordan played in a 350 person tournament and got 4th. He 'powdered' 19 times at an average of 4 times per round. Critics of powder have said that its ill-suited for this deck and best seen in a combo deck which searches for specific combinations of cards. Even then, it's supposedly a jank card. Traditionally, that is true. But, brotha-man got 4th in a 350 and mulliganed 4 times per round. It's baffling. Pulling the trigger on mulls down to 4 or 5 cards is terrifying. In my testing, I've rarely done it, but I have learned to increasingly get bolder with saying 'ship it'.
Aside from the obvious tricks with Gemstone Cavern and Eternal Scourge and Simian Spirit Guide, this deck can play low. 4 cards is OK if you've got a Temple and another land since you can run out early threats and wait on dropping phatties. I know I'm preaching to the choir so far, but here is where I start to shift:
- I want a full complement of manlands: 4 Nexi and 4 Muta
- I want to run 1 big'un, Endbringer, and an All is Dust in the Sideboard.
These goals are unachievable if I'm starting with a small hand (albeit, there may be Scourges living in the Phantom Zone). First, I am dropping 1 Serum Powder. This justifies my less aggressive mull style (though, I fear this may run counter to the deck's mojo). I'm keeping more hands, so I need reliable and immediate development.
CREATURES
So, increasing the likelihood of an early drop Endless One has me trading off a middling drop Matter Reshaper (although effective, it's our least 'scary' card). Endbringer balances out the addition of the 1*-drop Endless One and provides a silver bullet answer. It's been harder to cast than I would have thought. But, the way I look at a single 1-of-60 indulgence card: if it's in my hand instead of a Matter Reshaper and I lose....I didn't really deserve/earn the win anyway. There are enough occasions where Endbringer will provide bigger game swings than a 3/2 popper. I think?
LANDS
If my starting hand is fuller, then sea gate wreckage gets harder to use, thus I'm swapping a couple of them for Mutavault. Mishra's Factory, 2/2 bear lands are stellar mana sinks & hard-to-kill threats. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a shot in the dark, and I don't want to enable opponents to use their fetch lands for free mana - crack 'em & feel the burn of the ping! So, I'm running Tectonic Edge. There's a lot of Tron/Eldrazi/Grixis in my meta.
SIDEBOARD
Pithing Needle - can't stand this card, never could. It's an answer to a threat that may never be drawn. This fiddlestick is in sideboards all over creation, but I can't abide its passive nature. Turn that needle into a sword! I'm dumping these for an All is Dust and a Grafdigger's Cage - my favorite sideboard card in Modern right now.
So, I'm landing on a total adjustment of (8) Eight cards. I have to write that twice. Only 8. Colorless Eldrazi Stompy is a well-reasoned, stout, motherhumper of a deck. For a fella that relishes brewing and perverting net decks into unholy creations, I'm stumped on making any other alterations. Cheers to the thread and wish me luck tonight!
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Eternal Scourge
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
3 Endless One
1 Endbringer
2 Smuggler's Copter
Locks (4)
4 Chalice of the Void
Accelerators (7)
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Serum Powder
4 Dismember
Lands (23)
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Gemstone Caverns
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Mutavault
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Tectonic Edge
2 Wastes
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Spatial Contortion
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Gut Shot
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 All is Dust
3-1 Finish
ROUND 1 - JUND // Win 2-0: Seasoned Opponent fell to an onslaught of tentacled face slaps in game 1. A timely TKS took away a Huntmaster of the Fells after he knocked away an eldrazi temple with a fulminator mage. I top decked another temple to squeak out my 4/4. Manlands helped finish the job. The sideboarding for game 2 is fascinating. +14 (minus the grafdigger's cage) and suddenly I'm midrange with tons of removal [following Jordan's advice]. Worked like a charm.
ROUND 2 - G/x TRON // Win 2-0: Ghost Quarters kept him slowed and Eldrazi Mimic along with Reality Smasher took home the 1st win pretty handily. The 2nd win had the opponent with an Oblivion Stone on the board, but he kept whiffing on draws - no threats. My only onboard critter was a Mimic...juuust enough to have him hold back on firing off the stone. I'm swinging in for 5-6 damage with manlands which had him helpless. Eventually, that's all it took. When I told him that my major alteration over the online deck construction was going up to 4 mutavault from 2. He said, "when I played a sliver deck, my best sliver was mutavault." The comparison is skewed, but that was 2 games in a row (limited data, I know) where mutavaults made the difference.
ROUND 3 - Merfolk // Win 2-0: I was nervous. Luckily, he was light on fish and my dismembers, backed my octopi, were enough to push through. He kind of flooded out. The 2nd game was a nut start with a gemstone cavern/eternal scourge into temple into 1st turn 3/3. Another one fell from my hand on the next turn. 3/3s when you can knock off their lords is a beating. Endbringer sewed it up. He had multiple aether vials out in both games.
ROUND 4 - Death's Shadow-Kiln Fiend // Loss 0-2: In game 1, on the play, I mulliganed 5 times. 2 of them were on serum powder. Starting at 4 cards, I pitch a simian spirit guide to gemstone cavern and keep 2 ghost quarter [i don't know what he's playing]. He hits me with a thoughtseize. /sad trombone. I get out a scourge on T2, but he gets a pair of Death's Shadow and that's all she wrote. I wanted to go aggressive on the mulliganing, but kept whiffing. The crowd was loving it though In game 2 I got stuck on a Ghost Quarter and Seagate Wreckage with a turn 2 Chalice of the void. I never saw another land, and he smoked me with a kiln fiend with Infect for 12 damage. I probably should have mulled, but was a little gun shy, and hoped that the chalice was going to be enough. Happens.
For a first outing with Colorless Eldrazi Stompy, I was pumped. Especially with the 6-0 match count start! I'll keep testing and tweaking - good luck out there!!
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Modern
WUBRG
As for the Titanium Plus event where Jordan cited his 9th place finish, I was there. There were just over 200 players. I didn't compete in the main event (had to work), but showed up later to sell standard chaff to the vendors and compete in side events. Anyway, that's 3 premier events with monstrously strong finishes. Where's the buzz? This thread should be exploding. Baffling. I guess word of innovative, winning decks travels slow when folks are busy mushing eldrazi temples and urza's power plants together.
As for my continued online testing, I'm settled on deck design - just working out sideboarding strategies. I wish we had a sweeper, but ratchet bomb will have to do. The 4 mutavault approach, over the sea gate wreckage, continues to clock in with positive results. I guess I would just reiterate my affection for grafdigger's cage. The meta is changing pretty fast these days, so I'm holding at 1. For now...
@Raystack: One person Top 8ing (or close) three small-to-large-sized Competitive REL events is not enough to generate buzz. Multiple people need to do well with the deck or it needs a high-profile win.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
I understand this, it just feels very awkward that in other matches were deck needs to put out some raw and serious power very fast (like a skipped draw phase). I definitely need to test more with it but so far it feels that it boosts some matchups those are already decent but shrinks the better ones downward.
Modern
WUBRG
Didn't have time to write a tournament report but I did manage to produce this write-up.
Here's my current list:
4 Eternal Scourge
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Matter Reshaper
Spells (13)
4 Dismember
4 Serum Powder
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Ratchet Bomb
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Gemstone Caverns
3 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Mutavault
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wastes
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Spatial Contortion
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Gut Shot
2 Wurmcoil Engine
-1 Bomb (main
+1 Copter (main)
-1 Needle (side)
+1 Bomb (side)
A more detailed explanations of the updates:
- Up to 4 Reshaper. This card is great against Push which is everywhere right now, as well as decent vs. mass destruction sweepers and sacrifice effects. We're seeing many of these types of card to combat Death's Shadow Jund.
- Bomb in the main. Helps vs. DSJ but mostly there isn't another card I wanted in the deck, so I just ported over our most versatile sideboard card. Now we don't have to auto-scoop to a Game 1 Ensnaring Bridge.
- Wurmcoil Engine in the SB. The best anti-DSJ tech I could come up with besides Chalice, Bomb, and Relic, which we max out on. Amazingly, those 12 cards aren't enough to beat DSJ consistently once they bring in their Grudges. They have AG, KCommand, and Pulse to out our hoser artifacts post-board. We need a lategame to play towards that they can't interact with favorably. Wurmcoil is that lategame.
Vs. Death's Shadow Jund, G1 comes down to resolving a Chalice or drawing multiple Smashers, which isn't so bad for us. Although we can still randomly cheese them with Chalice G2, it's not a super reliable plan. Reshaper helps fade attacks until we can drop Wurmcoil, which is surprisingly easy to ramp into between Reshaper, Powder, and Guide. Usually we want to dig into Wurmcoil with Sea Gate after the board stalls out. Opening Wurmcoil is not ideal since DSJ casts a lot of Thoughtseizes. Play Chalice on 1 when you can instead of Relic on the play, or they will just rip your other hate piece with a discard spell. Don't mull to aggressively into Temples post-board since they have Fulminator; instead, look for hands heavy on disruption, ideally of different sorts (i.e. Chalice + Relic + Bomb and lands). Final note: Dismember looks bad on paper but it's crucial to kill early Goyfs and Shadows or win in combat.
-4 Mimic
-4 Scourge
-1 Smasher
+4 Relic
+3 Bomb
+2 Wurm
General notes on this build:
- Stay far away from Endless One in such a Push-heavy metagame. Copter too.
- The Gut Shot and Needle in the side are the other flex spots after Wurmcoil.
- Found some reliable ways to beat Valakut: Torpor Orb and Witchbane Orb. Not comfortable dedicating sideboard slots to winning this matchup right now though.
Notes on the tournament:
- My one loss was to Keith Rong on DSJ in Round 3, who ended up winning the tournament. Locked him out in G1 with a Chalice, and lost G2 pretty swiftly to some huge Shadows. G3 I manage to land two Chalices on one and he rips Pulse from the top to blow them up. I follow up with Smasher and attack him down to 2 but he lands Goyf and Shadow the following turn and then kills me the turn after.
- Drew against UW Control in Game 3 against Ryan Holmes in Round 7. Our G1 lasted 40 minutes; I ended up losing to Colonnade #4 after Quartering the other three. I had two Relics and two Scourges in G3 and Ryan was starting to run low on cards; I think I would have taken this game had we had more time. I managed to get him down to 2 life on Turn 5.
- Other matches were pretty easy. Faced Burn (R1), Burn (R2), Grixis Delver (R4), BUG Midrange (R5), Jeskai Flash (R6), and Abzan Midrange (R8). Of these, the only tough match was against Ian Morency on Jeskai Flash; I had actually borrowed one of my Wurmcoils from Ian and managed to resolve it in Game 2, but he kept tapping or bouncing it with Cryptic and beat me with a pair of Spell Quellers in the air. I brought in all my Bombs and Contortions and handily took G3. (Important to have a ton of removal in this kind of matchup or the fliers will just get us.) Ian is also the guy who crushed me with Bant Spirits at the tournament I Top 8'd a couple weeks ago (see earlier in the thread).
Last weekend marked my first Comp REL event with the deck that I didn't Top 8 (so close though, pic for breakers)! Surely there are more to come, but I will say that I'm loving our positioning and the deck in general. Right now I'm searching for better plans against Bant Eldrazi, so any help on this front would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
It is much easier to cast and can provide many blockers (especially with Relic to enable it).
Some other top-end options can be Endbringer or maybe even Skysovereign, Consul Flagship (I tried it in "Eldrazi Tron" and quite liked it).
Endbringer is slow and clunky. In my plan above I board out a Smasher to make space in the main; I'd rather have Smasher #4 in that matchup than an Endbringer.
Flagship is somehow even worse than the other two since Bolt effects do next to nothing against DSJ. How would Flagship be good in this matchup? Did you read my post? Have you played against DSJ with this deck? You want all your removal in this matchup, no questions asked. Their grindy plan is never going to beat a bunch of Scourges and Relic, period; TKS and Smasher just add insult to injury. CoCo's only real hope is to combo you, which is impossible if you have Relic and lots of removal. Yes, of course. Always kill their dorks right away. The other creatures you can wait on. You don't want Chalice at all in this matchup, play or draw, but Bomb is excellent. Your problem is that you don't know the matchup. Jam it a lot and you'll start to understand what you need to be doing. Here's a plan to help (with my above list):
-4 Mimic
-4 Guide
-4 Chalice
-3 Reshaper
+15
I can also see leaving a Wurm or both in the sideboard for Reshapers.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
4 Eternal Scourge
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Matter Reshaper
Spells
4 Dismember
4 Serum Powder
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 smuggler's copter
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Gemstone Caverns
3 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Mutavault
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wastes
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Spatial Contortion
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's cage
2 warping wail
Vs. Bant: Don't play Endbringer that card is bad. Wurmcoil also terrible in this matchup, too slow and they can answer it easily with Path or Drowner. All your removal is good and keep Powder/Chalice. Mimic, Reshaper, Guide are all easy cuts. And you don't need Surgical just max out on Relic.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
I have just started to buy into this deck because I think it is really neat and I love that for a linear, aggro deck, there are a lot of interesting decisions to still be made for the pilot. I just have a couple of questions / concerns at this point:
1) I have essentially all of the cards right now to play the deck except for Simian Spirit Guide and Chalice of the Void. I can get SSG fairly easily, but a play-set of Chalice is just so expensive right now. Can I be FNM competitive without Chalice? I sort of like the idea of the version that uses main deck Relic better anyway as multiples of Relic are never dead in hand, whereas you don't really want to see more than a single Chalice very often, right?
2) Copter seems like excellent value to me. I've been testing this deck out by simulating turns and it seems to me that drawing Serum Powders really hurts an aggro deck... but not so much with Copter! Also, my local meta isn't playing hardly any tron right now, so I wonder if I can move the ghost quarter's to sideboard tech and play the full 4x Blinkmoth and 4x Mutavault to help fuel the copter? While it dies to fatal push, the value it offers seems really good to me... perhaps I'm missing something?
3) If I don't buy into Chalice and stick with Relic, could this deck be played with 4x Expedition Map instead of 4x Simian Spirit Guide? Assuming a situation where I get an opening hand Eldrazi Temple, both Map and SSG power out Reality Smasher on T3, which seems awesome. True, only SSG allows us to play Thought-Knot on t2, but SSG is card pure card disadvantage that might be hard to overcome if we are aggressively mulliganing all of the time. On the other hand, Map slows us down for our first two turns, but we should always have enough mana every turn beyond that and we become a lot more resilient to Ghost Quarter with an extra Eldrazi Temple.
If you all would be willing to address my questions/thoughts I would really appreciate it, because you guys seem to have the most experience on this deck that I can find anywhere on the internet.
Thanks!
So I would still love some answers to my questions in my post above if anyone is willing to help me out. It would be much appreciated! However, I thought I would also try and contribute here. I came up with my own idea of what Eldrazi Stompy could look like for someone who doesn't have Chalice, but would like to try and control the opponent a bit early and ride that to victory with a fast start.
Just like Ashton's stompy deck, I am fishing for a Turn 1 Eldrazi Temple. On Turn 2 I would like to be casting Matter Reshaper, Eldrazi Skyspawner, or (a little worse) Cultivator Drone. This means that my manabase is different because I need blue by T2 and ideally a second blue by T3. The pain lands help me do this while allowing me plenty of colorless mana for my beater Eldrazi. So say I have an Eldrazi Skyspawner out on T2... the line is on T3 to either cast a Reality Smasher (Sac the Eldrazi token from Skyspawner or tap the Cultivator Drone for mana) so I can cast a T3 Reality Smasher quite reliably. A good send plan is to just attack on T3 and then pass and then stop my opponent during their upkeep and cast an Elder Deep-Fiend with Emerge. The hope here is to upgrade my creature to Elder-Deep Fiend and then Timewalk my opponent. If you are concerned they might have removal, you could wait until the end of their turn to cast Elder Deep-Fiend and if they played a creature or permanent, just make sure to tap that down too. That early tempo should be enough to propel us to a win is the theory here. I would still like to find room for 4x Eldrazi Mimic, but I'm not sure what to cut to get there... honestly maybe Thought-Knot? Thought-Knot only curves the way I want if I get T1 and T2 Eldrazi Temple since I am not running SSG in this list. A T1 Mimic, T2 Skyspawner and T3 Reality Smasher ought to be crippling. Another card I like to get an extra of any card we like is a 1x Phyrexian Metamorph. It could be Reality Smasher or Elder Deep-Fiend #5. What do you guys think?
Any criticism / suggestions would be appreciated, thanks:
Lands:
2) it's good in the deck but not in this metagame, too much push/AG/stony
3) no play eldrazi tron Getting to 4 is very realistic. Games usually stall out and they take a few turns to draw their bombs/get their mana since we kill their dorks aggressively.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Thanks for the feedback. I think you are right that dismember is just better than Vapor Snag, although I do like that snag offers a tiny bit of reach and can be used on my own elder-deep fiend. I agree that TKS is awesome on T2, but the problem my deck has is powering him out that early. I either need a double temple hand or I need to be on the draw, use Gemstone, and have a temple. That seems a lot less likely than playing a t2 Eldrazi Drone and then a t3 Reality Smasher, but I could be wrong about that I suppose. I do agree that mimic is pretty important... especially on the T3 Smasher plan. The worst thing I have noticed about my version vs a chalice version is that I am very vulnerable to Thoughtseize. I suppose that can be remedied a bit with Leyline, but that card is really bad if not in opening hand here and not exactly budget friendly either. Anyhow, my play-testing with Deep Fiend is going pretty well. It comes down pretty early and Time Walks my opponent pretty effectively on usually T3 - T5 (assuming I don't get thoughtseized away early). One of the toughest things about it is not being good unless I have a 3 drop out, which means super aggressive mulliganing down to, say 4 cards, is pretty dangerous.
I don't think any of the other emerge eldrazi in blue are worth it. They just aren't strong enough payoff and they don't have flash. Part of Elder's charm is that if I have board advantage I can just beat away, hold up mana, and flash Elder in as a response to my opponent targeting my creature for removal. Elder also clears a stalled board pretty well for me to swing away. I agree with you about Copter... might be a 1 of.
I would say this deck is really good and needs more love, it has it's holes but after playing it for about a month, I am learning what to keep and not to keep. I still think the sideboard will always be changing. I still only have 3 chalice so copter takes the one spot. He didn't get much play this past week but it has come huge at other times.
4 Eternal Scourge
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Matter Reshaper
Spells
4 Dismember
4 Serum Powder
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 smuggler's copter
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Gemstone Caverns
3 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Mutavault
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wastes
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Spatial Contortion
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Grafdigger's cage
3 phyrexian revoker
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Round 1 - Beat Merfolk twice after sideboarding
Round 2 - Lost to Bant Eldrazi. After post-game discussion, we sussed out and agreed upon the best win strategy. Go fast, hard, and under the opponent. I just didn't draw well. But, believe that +4 spatial contortion, +1 gut shot with a -4 chalice of the void and -1 can't recall.
Round 3 - Abzan Chord/Coco - He put up large creature walls and won in lieu of the dearth of my effective draws.
After a lot of testing, I would just highlight that keeping at least 1 endless one in a deck with 4 eldrazi mimic seems prudent. 4 ratchet bomb also seems reasonable in the 75. Go with at least 1 Grafdigger's cage in the SB. All is Dust is not a fit in the SB or MB [too slow]. When in doubt, go faster and harder.