alot of times the 3 blue after kci isnt hard because you are using stars and moxs to get the 3 blue after recycling them a bunch of times. retriever is also a catch all if you start to fizzle it can grab a wellspring or egg to continue. usually a retriever is atleast 2-3 draws in my experience.
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Tooth & Nail........Grishoalbrand....Living Dominance....Tezzerator.........Vannifar Pod
My Decks that have been BANNED
DRS Jund | Kiki-Pod | Bloom Titan | Splinter Twin | KCI
At worst, without a Trawler Retriever is a copy of the most relevant egg in your graveyard. You're right that it doesn't do much if your graveyard is pretty empty. The upshot is that with Trawler in play, most of the time you can find a way to go infinite after finding a Retriever. E.g. common loops are:
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + Star + Opal draws your whole deck and gives infinite mana.
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + 2 Stars/Terrarions draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + 1 Star draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + anything costing 1 or less is infinite mana.
At any point in your combo where you have either KCI + Retriever or KCI + Trawler, if you draw into either Fair or Whir, or naturally draw the missing piece, you don't even have to worry about fizzling. The deck has changed so you really don't need that much garbage on board to start going off, unlike the old Eggs deck. I like Hangarback, too, but it has some hidden costs in having CMC 0 and needing to run Sanctum to make use of it. Cutting it saves you 2-3 slots, since you also get to remove Emrakul, and makes casting colored sideboard cards easier since you get to replace Sanctums with basics/UG duals/Spires.
Engineered Explosives is like Oblivion Stone, but much cheaper and with the ability to recur easily via Trawler or Retriever. I've set EE at 2, then blown it up with a Retriever on board when I didn't have a Trawler to be able to recur it and wipe their board at the same time.
At worst, without a Trawler Retriever is a copy of the most relevant egg in your graveyard. You're right that it doesn't do much if your graveyard is pretty empty. The upshot is that with Trawler in play, most of the time you can find a way to go infinite after finding a Retriever. E.g. common loops are:
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + Star + Opal draws your whole deck and gives infinite mana.
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + 2 Stars/Terrarions draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + 1 Star draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + anything costing 1 or less is infinite mana.
At any point in your combo where you have either KCI + Retriever or KCI + Trawler, if you draw into either Fair or Whir, or naturally draw the missing piece, you don't even have to worry about fizzling. The deck has changed so you really don't need that much garbage on board to start going off, unlike the old Eggs deck. I like Hangarback, too, but it has some hidden costs in having CMC 0 and needing to run Sanctum to make use of it. Cutting it saves you 2-3 slots, since you also get to remove Emrakul, and makes casting colored sideboard cards easier since you get to replace Sanctums with basics/UG duals/Spires.
Engineered Explosives is like Oblivion Stone, but much cheaper and with the ability to recur easily via Trawler or Retriever. I've set EE at 2, then blown it up with a Retriever on board when I didn't have a Trawler to be able to recur it and wipe their board at the same time.
Right so of we compare card quality. Myr retriever is more combo graveyard oriented. Below are some lines that are good not game over. But good.
1. Krark + hangarback can help cast a creature. Maybe help fuel an inventors fair. Help block sac for expedition map, warping wail, spellskite, even play a wurmcoil and grow bigger. (Mostly game 2 ideas)
2. Hangarback with 8 lands and a sanctum leads to selection of good creature next turn
3. Hangarback cast it for 2 Mana. Following turn tap a Mana into it.
Hehe I like hangarback so much I might pick up a masterpiece .. the little guys can swarm. In the mirror match up need to path these guys or warping wail them haha.
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GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Hangar is a meta call, great vs gbx and shadow and stuff, I prefer lingering souls since we don't play cavern it'll never resolve vs a reject
I prefer ee over hangar for a ton of reasons. One of which is enabling t1 opal, ee also one of the only reason humans is winnable. There's other random times you need to kill a trinisphere, md white leyline, chalice, etc.
Ostone has no place alongside a whir build, they are nonbos, I play me bridge instead of ostone, it's a lot better
So I was talking with a fellow kci player today and we hit a point that was like wow.
So Krark-clan, scrap tralwer and myr retriever can be played in a way where you sac the Myr retriever during the Mana activation of a chromatic sphere or star. This basically allows you to have the Myr retriever return trigger target itself ? Is this correct ? Because the Myr retriever enters the graveyard first the the return an artifact triggers follows the stack afterwards.
This is because during an artifact activation which requires Mana (chromatic sphere) you can pay Mana which doesn't use the stack. The krark sacs the Myr retriever which goes to the graveyard and puts the return artifact to the stack. Then chromatic sphere needs to resolve, and the return artifact resolves whereby the Myr retriever is a legal target since it went there before the stack during Mana payment for the chromatic sphere.
The scrap trawler trigger on the chromatic and myr retriever make the combo even better.
So if just a krark clan, myr retriever and chromatic star. You can do one cycle for a loss of chromatic star, and 1 Mana loss to draw a card, and recast myr retriever. Which gives you one extra cast for aetherflux reservoir ?
The article above helps shed some light on this potential game altering combo ?
Okay turn one EE is pretty darn good.
So maybe playing multi coloured with lots of nature's claim and stick with combo plan is okay. I didn't realize how good EE is early.
I also have this assumption most creature decks can't kill in 4 turns so they should be more preventative of a combo before an attacking plan.
It is like asking a Tron player to think that EE is better than Oblivion stone. I have Mox Opal and expedition maps to blow up a turn 5 O-stone, with hangarback blocks and other card cycling to concentrate the Tron possibilities, where as Tron players use ancient stirrings, expedition maps, and sylvan scrying.
Cards in play: Kci, thrawler, myr, star.
Mana in the pool: 1 colorless.
Card in graveyard: Opal.
When you are paying for something, the triggered abilities don't go to the stack until you finish that means you can announce the activation of the star, sacrifice the myr, then the thrawler, then finish playing the costs (tapping and sacrificing the star), and only then the triggers go to the stack. You chose the order as you wish but the targets like this: Myr own trigger -> thrawler, Thrawler trigger when Myr died -> star, thrawler trigger then it died -> Myr. The star doesn't get a trigger because it was sacrificed after thrawler. Now you have 5 Mana, play Myr and thrawler. Announce that you will cast star. Sacrifice Myr and thrawler in that order and bring them back with Opal. You have 3 Mana. Cast Opal. Tap Opal, sac it. You have 6 Mana. Cast Myr and thrawler and you are back at the star of the combo.
The Opal costs 0 therefore you don't get to activate mana abilities when you cast it.
Wow I get it. Thanks for the explanation of the line.
So to get to the beginning stage there needs to be 4+3+2+1 mana with 1 more mana to start the rock with a mox opal in graveyard to continue it. So at 10 mana feels like a turn 4 ish at best unlimited combo.
Also you pointed out that on the casting of the star - you then sac the myr and trawler - which brings back mox opal and myr and trawler return together. recast myr and trawler pair.
I'm wondering about Myr retriever and is this combo why we see people playing 2 Myr retrievers I used to think it was at most a 1 of. Why 2 ?
Okay turn one EE is pretty darn good.
So maybe playing multi coloured with lots of nature's claim and stick with combo plan is okay. I didn't realize how good EE is early.
I also have this assumption most creature decks can't kill in 4 turns so they should be more preventative of a combo before an attacking plan.
It is like asking a Tron player to think that EE is better than Oblivion stone. I have Mox Opal and expedition maps to blow up a turn 5 O-stone, with hangarback blocks and other card cycling to concentrate the Tron possibilities, where as Tron players use ancient stirrings, expedition maps, and sylvan scrying.
@wOzTron There are three problems with your logic. First: You claim "I also have this assumption most creature decks can't kill in 4 turns so they should be more preventative of a combo before an attacking plan." But you forget that most of agro decks do, combo decks do too and those that don't, have some disruption. Which means you either will have your O'Stone discarded, countered, Stony Silenced, or Rest in Piece'd by turn 5 if you have not lost by then.
Second: This is not a Tron deck. A Tron deck uses the Tron lands to cast Ugins, Karns, Ulamogs. This is a combo deck that can have Tron lands (imo a bad choice as I will explain).
Third:We are not asking you to think that a sunburst card is better in a Tron deck. We are saying that this deck shouldn't be played as a Tron deck. Spending, Turn 1: Tron land, map. Turn 2: Tron land, use map. Turn 3 Tron land, 7 Mana to start playing the actual combo.
A player that doesn't have Tron would play something like this, Turn 1: Darksteel Citadel, Chromatic Star. Turn 2: Buried Ruin, Mox Opal, Ichor Wellspring, Chromatic Sphere. Turn 3: Inventor's Fair. You have 4 Mana, a 0-drop, 2 one-drops and a 2-drop. That's 8 Mana and I assumed not starting with Opal.
While I know you can play those cards with that 7 Mana, you are weaker to every disruption plan, from discard to counter to artifact hate. With the added problem that you are now weaker to land hate. The deck is already weak to graveyard hate, you don't need to give you opponent other ways of disrupting the deck.
Maybe my tron lands argument are dwindling since combo concept is so strong. but I have some additional points.
Yes not combo optimal -
Tron lands as you showed in your post above that a kwark clan mox opal turn 3 has more stuff on board than a turn 3 expedition map tron set. My thoughts are that yes it isn't optimal for combo win but Tron is still pretty good and the following turn the tron lands are still there to continue where this deck likes to cast big creatures or have an Ostone up and ready turn 4 - 8 mana. sac lands for search. more classic Tron like. Bigger Bigger.
Against the Meta-
My assumption is that a creature based deck can't kill by turn 4 if I block, similar to the glint nest crane chump block all in combo decks. I do have some problems with burn to the face decks hence the heavy sideboarding against burn. But with that being said, in my match ups they can either discard me, counter me, but they can't hurt me 4 times and beat me down to death with creatures- unless death shadow has trample? So that I can lose cards but I rebound with either a Tron set, hangarback walker mana banking, mishra baubles to avoid quality of their discard. Turn 5-6 is game ending possibilities since lands find Krark clan or even a wurmcoil can stabilize. Like merfolk usually takes until turn 7 with steady tricks to get the game.
So I'm still at play testing level so overall I am not confident So I must say my deck list and ideas are extremely preliminary.
My overall response is that Tron lands help with later turns and overall stability of an alternate win con apart from graveyard combo. Hard casting an Emrakul with Sanctum of Ugin assist has come from behind possibilities. Also, 3 Towers and 3 of the other tron lands can hard cast Emrakul. 1 Krark Clan and an 8 casting cost Hangarback with 3 more mana casts Emrakul - else sanctum search for Ceaseless. Can be turn 4. This is why I took out Karn liberated as he is not an artifact for combo. This allows for no scrap trawler involved with game ending options. So it gives for more diversity of options. So it doesn't go combo off as easily turn 4 but I hope I am still alive to win later on Less speed but steadier? I think this variant plays a bit better than Titan Shift. Where as KCI combo plays more like ... hmm blue red storm?
What archetype or match does having tron lands help against?
Not combo since you're slower
Not aggro because you're slower
Not fair decks...
Get it? You scoop to the same things every kci valiant does
The only reason to run emmy/hangar is they serve as extra trawlers incase they get surgical. Personally I think it's easy to play around and not popular enough to justify
So to get to the beginning stage there needs to be 4+3+2+1 mana with 1 more mana to start the rock with a mox opal in graveyard to continue it. So at 10 mana feels like a turn 4 ish at best unlimited combo.
Also you pointed out that on the casting of the star - you then sac the myr and trawler - which brings back mox opal and myr and trawler return together. recast myr and trawler pair.
I'm wondering about Myr retriever and is this combo why we see people playing 2 Myr retrievers I used to think it was at most a 1 of. Why 2 ?
The infinite happens at any point in your combo turn where you happen to draw into the pieces; I wouldn't ever worry about getting the mana since mana usually isn't the bottleneck, but bricking on draws happens more often. You'll almost always incidentally generate more than enough mana to play a Retriever if you happen to draw it. You don't ever need every piece in your hand to start the combo, you just need to draw into it or a tutor for missing pieces in the middle of going off. Has nothing to do with costing 10 mana total since sacrificing pieces naturally gives you more mana, it just happens on whatever turn you start the combo. This is often turn 3 or 4 even if they try disrupting with discard or counters.
It means that whenever you're doing your normal combo with KCI + Trawler, if you draw into Retriever, you win right there.
If you draw into Whir, you probably have UUU floating already and win right there.
If you draw into Stirrings, and the top 5 cards of your library has a Retriever, you win.
You don't have to ever play a big Hangarback and pass the turn, or hope that you played a Sanctum already.
Double Myr Retriever does the following:
1) increases the chances you'll naturally draw into one during combo
2) have a backup if they Path to Exile one
3) Two Retrievers + Scrap Trawler is an infinite that doesn't need an Opal or EE
I could see going down to 1 Retriever, but honestly I found there's a lot more free slots in the deck after switching to Whir and moving Emrakul to the SB + removing Hangarbacks.
Post your deck list again. I want to see how Emrakul works in sideboard. Are you still relying on combo?
So I played 2 test matches today against hollow one and simic aggro and won both. Hangarbacks were all star chump blockers to turn 1 hollow one on the play. Ostone was key.
Against simic strangle root geist got in but wurmcoil basically wins creature strategies. Both games went to 3 games.
A stalled board is in my favour.
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Was an old School Blue Player during Revised. Now I play modern.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Damping Sphere
2
Artifact
If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount.
Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.
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This card is the death of ironworks as a competitive archetype. It's a very attractive sideboard option since it hoses popular decks like tron and storm, and since it's colorless literally any fair deck can cast it. Imagine every deck having access to 2-3 copies of rule of law or eidolon of the great revel in the sideboard; this card is just as much of a hoser as those are. Really disappointed in wizards for stapling two incredibly powerful and distinct taxing effects on one card and making it colorless. It's an absolute no brainer to put this in pretty much every modern sideboard.
It's been a great run with this deck over the last ~6 months, I've put hundreds of hours into mastering all the sequencing interactions and tuning the list to a place I'm happy with. The deck won me hundreds of tix on modo and performed very well in the modern rptq, so I don't feel like the work I put into it was for nothing. I just wish I could've had a few chances to play it in high level events after all the time I spent on it.
If you still want to bring this deck to fnm it's certainly a deck you can play, but be prepared to lose many postboard games to your opponent slamming the sphere on turn 2. Yes, you can bring in nature's claim or abrupt decay to kill it, but having answer cards like this in your deck greatly reduces your ability to combo off, and you're dropping percentage points just by having them in your deck. Your opponent doesn't even have to draw the orb, just the potential for them to play it makes your deck worse by forcing you to cut combo pieces for reactive spells. Keep in mind that you'll have to bring your answer spells in for pretty much every matchup since the orb will be so ubiquitous. If your plan for postboard games is to hope to draw exactly as many answers as your opponent draws hosers, then it's time to play a different deck.
So yes, every deck is going to run Sphere. Not only does is slow down/stop combo decks like KCI and Storm, it also is a massive hit against every variant of Tron, as well as some decks like Ponza or Mono-Green Devotion that are trying to get a lot of mana out of very few lands.
However it isn't the end of KCI. Now, at the very least I think Lantern will become a nightmare match up, since I can see them running 1 of these in the main to tutor with Whir (I know I'll be putting it in my Lantern list), and game 1 it's really hard to deal with. However, Sphere as a card is beatable. We already have to board in card like Abrupt Decay and Nature's Claim to deal with hate for the deck anyway.
Rest in Peace, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, Relic of Pogenitus, Nihil Spellbomb, there are plenty of cards we need to answer already that are horrible for our deck to deal with, some much worse than others. Yes the worst cards (RiP and Stony) are exclusive to decks running white mana, but does that mean we have to instantly concede Games 2 and 3 to any deck running white? No, we just have to find ways to deal with it.
So I play Tron lands with for Emrakul. Even with rest in peace out, I play artifacts turn 1,2,3 then kwark clan sac all the artifacts for a hangarback or just cast more artifacts turn 4, turn 5 should be an emrakul I've done it on turn 4 if I got natural Tron. So the deck can win without scraptrawler return trigger.
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Was an old School Blue Player during Revised. Now I play modern.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
R1 vs. Grixis Control (1-1)
Feels like a pretty decent matchup.
G1 he plays a bunch on discard on my hand full of eggs, Trawlers, and Retriever. Looks like his maindeck doesn't have countermagic. Eventually draw into combo pieces off Stirrings/cantrips and kill him on turn 4.
Sideboarding: -1 Retriever, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, -1 Pyrite, -1 Bauble, +1 Pithing Needle, +2 Defense Grid, +1 Blood Moon
G2 I keep a greedy hand with Trawler, KCI, and turn 2 Blood Moon, and get punished by Inquisitions and Thoughtseizes. He counters my turn 3 KCI and has the Surgical, but no clock. He has Nihil Spellbomb, which I Needle for a while until he blows up my Needle with K. Command. We both durdle for about 30 turns while I try to kill his Jace and Liliana of the Veil with a pair of Scrap Trawlers. He keeps protecting her with K. Commands and Snapcaster chumps. We go to turns, he topdecks BBE and would kill me, but gives the round win anyway since he doesn't care. Nice guy. I know in matchups like this it's good to go for hands that hide combo pieces by keeping Stirrings and Whirs, playing around getting blown out by discard > Surgical, but I got too tempted by the turn 3 kill.
We talked a bit and I realized that I definitely should have just brought in the Wurmcoils for game 2.
R2 vs. Mono G Tron (2-0)
Seems like an awful matchup for them.
G1 he cracks Oblivion Stone on turn 3 to kill Opal, Star and I think a Wellspring, then lands Karn to try and keep me at 3 lands. I have two more lands and a KCI in hand. I drop KCI and start to combo conservatively with my sparse resources, but draw into Trawler, then into the Retriever loop.
Sideboarding: -2 EE, -1 Ensnaring, -1 Retriever, +2 Nature's Claim, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Blood Moon
G2 I have a T1 needle for his T1 Relic of Progenitus. He does nothing for a few turns while I crack eggs into combo pieces, then blow him up.
Vs. Storm (1-2)
Pretty bad games, we both make mistakes games 1 and 2, then just braindead race game 3.
G1 he makes a slight misplay by using Gifts to find Remand, Repeal, Unsubstantiate, and Noxious Revival, in order to avoid dying. His hand had two Manamorphose in hand, but the disruption stalls me for the same number of additional draw steps he would have had as if he just dug with the two Manamorphoses right there. This gives me another turn to live after he Remands my KCI, so he just dies when I replay KCI after a Repeal by saccing extra garbage with Repeal still on the stack. We look and he had the kill within the next 2 cards. Sometimes greed is good.
Sideboarding: -1 EE (keep one in case of gobbos), -1 Pyrite, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, +2 Defense Grid, +1 Grafdigger's Cage
G2 I misplay horribly by going for a main phase Whir to grab a Mind Stone, as I'm stuck on 2 lands + Opal with KCI and Trawler in hand. Main phase'd it since he tapped out, and I wanted to be able to kill him for sure. He Gifts into combo and kills me. I wasn't used to thinking about Whir as an interactive piece. We realize he would have lost to a Whir for Nihil Spellbomb with Past in Flames on the stack.
G3 We both mulligan to 6, but his 6 kills a turn faster than mine does
God I'm so frustrated about punting game 2.
Need to get more used to playing Whir and thinking about this build's ability to interact at instant speed instead of resigning myself to main phases, like I used to with the colorless build. Seems like there's a lot of flexibility, and the ability to board more conservatively is great. Deck is plenty fast and resilient to hate. I'm pretty okay with boarding out a Whir on the draw for games 2 and 3 vs. faster decks.
Had some slight issues with using Aether Hub early to Stirrings, then having to cast Whir. Want to sneak in another land and maybe replace some of the rainbows with Yavimaya Coasts, since they're similar enough to Spires. Still not 100% sold on double Pyrite but it sure as hell beats running Emrakul and bricking when you draw it before netting 15 mana. Oddly, Citadels are also starting to feel pretty bad with Whir in hand. Mishra's Bauble is probably best off as either 4-of or 0-of, instead of as a singleton. Starting to find slots are getting real tight. Interesting to note, if you ever get a loop started, Aether Grid serves as an alternate wincon to Pyrite if both of them somehow get exiled, or if you boarded them out in the matchup for whatever reason. Will be trying this next week:
Even if the meta gets more hostile I think I'm gonna keep playing this deck since it's hella fun. Might even start running my own Damping Sphere in the SB to screw with other combo decks.
2 spellbomb is pretty optional, I do it since humans is so popular but if you don't see much of it you should cut it probably.
Seems like a tough few rounds, I like bauble a lot vs the grixis decks since it fights discard well and can grind a ton of card advantage with trawler out. Storm is inherently difficult since they're just as fast but their interaction is typically better vs us than ours vs them
matt nass at GP Hartford is on stream, tied 1-1 in game 3 for his win-and-in for top eight, with a 12-2 record.
not a bad run. fingers crossed. looks like he just got it actually - i'm typing this live as it happens. haha! is it a top 8? he's gonna be on the right number of points, it's gonna come down to breakers if he can assemble the win.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Pre-intro - super excited watching Matt Nass on the stream in store to a 1st place finish.
Hey guys, been reading some of the posts here, used to be a regular on the Eggs forum. Will give a blurb on myself, before diving in.
PrometeusGod - great Reddit post on history of Eggs; I'll add to it as well, with the variations I've played over the years.
About me - Used to crack packs Antiquities when it was the current set. Been working the industry a long time; playing events, work part time/full time, distribution, management, and its current stage: ownership. Don't think it goes higher from there unless I start working at Wizards.
wOz chatted with me in store, and I showed him my Eggs deck. He was entranced by the iterations, and was without much effort, assimilated. I mentioned about the discussions I previously had on MtgSalv, and he found the thread, and here we are.
I have been on this forum in its previous iteration before the upgrade. The regulars would post results and variant lists, it even went to a point where a mod sent me a list for a mono green legacy build; I've since upgraded that build and run an even faster variant that's also relatively budget.
I have been running Eggs since 2007, from a friend that showed me the crazy list with actual Eggs. I still have the email; it's a sweet nugget of history that I'm happy to tell people about, as the story continues even now.
As this post will be already quite long, I'll run through the variant cards used over the years (as I started to take more competitive):
-- 2012-03-31 PTQ Avacyn Restored / Barcelona 2012 -- Second Sunrise & Open The Vaults - this was pre-Faith's Reward.
Only went 4-4 in the main event, but i managed to get 4 games with turn 3 kills. Only ran 1 Mox Opal at the time because it was legendary, and the rule hadn't changed yet. Reshape/Lotus Bloom was a thing. Pyrite loop ftw.
Other builds tested with:
- Greater Gargadon sacking everything to recur. Played Modo where I cast Emrakul, next turn, Garg was in play, swung to kill. Opponent has 1 blue left, Vapor Snags Garg, survives attack despite Annihilator 6. Post combat, suspend Garg, sac Emrakul, GY trigger on stack, Noxious Revival Emrakul, sac Egg to draw, recast take another turn. Opponent proceeds to swear up a storm.
- Artificer's Intuition - a semi-Surival of the Fittest for Artifacts 1cc or less. Often used to dump Lotuses into GY, then Open the Vaults
- Altar of the Brood - loops made it super easy to dump opponent's deck. Great synergy with Faith's Reward/Ghost Quarter
- Laboratory Maniac - became the de-facto win con for many years, as it couldn't be responded to once in play, with a Chromatic Sphere to draw and win. Pyrite Spellbomb was removed as a result, and then return for use in removal of creatures.
- Codex Shredder. The best lockdown. Establish 9 mana for loop recursion with Faith's Reward, including a draw in the loop and you win. Also a secondary win con with mill.
- Aetherworks Marvel - Energy gain was very easy with GY traffic, and digging 6 deep to hit a spell helped recast the loops. Emrakul was in this build, and I still have a replay clip from pre-Xmas 2017 of killing with it on Modo turn3
- Red - 2 different builds. One incorporates Pia's Revolution loops, to whittle down life. The other was Lightning Bolt/Shrapnel Blast/Galvanic Blast/Atog. At this point, testing between myself and another friend starts to ramp, on what angles work here and there. Also tested RW builds to include Faith's Reward
- Ancient Stirrings - more recent decks had these, I had only know a world where Eggs was strictly UW; I believe it was Pascal Maynard's build that had it last year, I adapted the new builds with Aether Revolt, and started to shift deck away from Faith's Reward. Tested GB, to add Collective Brutality, Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize, as an alternative slower grindy version, but ended up going to UG to accommodate Whir/Tezz.
- Walking Ballista - has completely replaced Pyrite Spellbomb as a win con.
Here is my current build I test against customers, and have consistent goldfish success, either single games or full match w/sb. I don't get time to attend events, as I own and run a store, so I strive to attend Wizards events whenever they're local. Here's the list:
Some play lines worth noting:
- Meek/Foundry/KCI is infy mana/tokens/life
- Meek/Foundry/Trawler/2x Mox is infy tokens/life
- Meek/Trawler/KCI/Ballista is infy mana/dmg
Live Ideas
- Engineered Explosives - currently sb; i go for the raw combo itself, but this is still in testing for MB vs SB
- Gemstone Caverns - testing, but not yet sold on it
- Academy Ruins - I go off faster than I can use this, not sure if this is better than Buried Ruin
- Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle - VERY interested in this card's ability as an engine
Also have majority of it built on Modo, but the iterations make it difficult to play online. Will come back to this at a later date.
Will build Matt Nass version in store tomorrow, and likely give it a social media blurb via store channels. Looking forward to more conversation here.
Tooth & Nail........Grishoalbrand....Living Dominance....Tezzerator.........Vannifar Pod
My Decks that have been BANNED
DRS Jund | Kiki-Pod | Bloom Titan | Splinter Twin | KCI
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + Star + Opal draws your whole deck and gives infinite mana.
KCI + Trawler + Retriever + 2 Stars/Terrarions draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + 1 Star draws your whole deck.
KCI + Trawler + 2 Retrievers + anything costing 1 or less is infinite mana.
At any point in your combo where you have either KCI + Retriever or KCI + Trawler, if you draw into either Fair or Whir, or naturally draw the missing piece, you don't even have to worry about fizzling. The deck has changed so you really don't need that much garbage on board to start going off, unlike the old Eggs deck. I like Hangarback, too, but it has some hidden costs in having CMC 0 and needing to run Sanctum to make use of it. Cutting it saves you 2-3 slots, since you also get to remove Emrakul, and makes casting colored sideboard cards easier since you get to replace Sanctums with basics/UG duals/Spires.
Engineered Explosives is like Oblivion Stone, but much cheaper and with the ability to recur easily via Trawler or Retriever. I've set EE at 2, then blown it up with a Retriever on board when I didn't have a Trawler to be able to recur it and wipe their board at the same time.
Right so of we compare card quality. Myr retriever is more combo graveyard oriented. Below are some lines that are good not game over. But good.
1. Krark + hangarback can help cast a creature. Maybe help fuel an inventors fair. Help block sac for expedition map, warping wail, spellskite, even play a wurmcoil and grow bigger. (Mostly game 2 ideas)
2. Hangarback with 8 lands and a sanctum leads to selection of good creature next turn
3. Hangarback cast it for 2 Mana. Following turn tap a Mana into it.
Hehe I like hangarback so much I might pick up a masterpiece .. the little guys can swarm. In the mirror match up need to path these guys or warping wail them haha.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
I prefer ee over hangar for a ton of reasons. One of which is enabling t1 opal, ee also one of the only reason humans is winnable. There's other random times you need to kill a trinisphere, md white leyline, chalice, etc.
Ostone has no place alongside a whir build, they are nonbos, I play me bridge instead of ostone, it's a lot better
So I was talking with a fellow kci player today and we hit a point that was like wow.
So Krark-clan, scrap tralwer and myr retriever can be played in a way where you sac the Myr retriever during the Mana activation of a chromatic sphere or star. This basically allows you to have the Myr retriever return trigger target itself ? Is this correct ? Because the Myr retriever enters the graveyard first the the return an artifact triggers follows the stack afterwards.
This is because during an artifact activation which requires Mana (chromatic sphere) you can pay Mana which doesn't use the stack. The krark sacs the Myr retriever which goes to the graveyard and puts the return artifact to the stack. Then chromatic sphere needs to resolve, and the return artifact resolves whereby the Myr retriever is a legal target since it went there before the stack during Mana payment for the chromatic sphere.
The scrap trawler trigger on the chromatic and myr retriever make the combo even better.
So if just a krark clan, myr retriever and chromatic star. You can do one cycle for a loss of chromatic star, and 1 Mana loss to draw a card, and recast myr retriever. Which gives you one extra cast for aetherflux reservoir ?
The article above helps shed some light on this potential game altering combo ?
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
So maybe playing multi coloured with lots of nature's claim and stick with combo plan is okay. I didn't realize how good EE is early.
I also have this assumption most creature decks can't kill in 4 turns so they should be more preventative of a combo before an attacking plan.
It is like asking a Tron player to think that EE is better than Oblivion stone. I have Mox Opal and expedition maps to blow up a turn 5 O-stone, with hangarback blocks and other card cycling to concentrate the Tron possibilities, where as Tron players use ancient stirrings, expedition maps, and sylvan scrying.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Wow I get it. Thanks for the explanation of the line.
So to get to the beginning stage there needs to be 4+3+2+1 mana with 1 more mana to start the rock with a mox opal in graveyard to continue it. So at 10 mana feels like a turn 4 ish at best unlimited combo.
Also you pointed out that on the casting of the star - you then sac the myr and trawler - which brings back mox opal and myr and trawler return together. recast myr and trawler pair.
I'm wondering about Myr retriever and is this combo why we see people playing 2 Myr retrievers I used to think it was at most a 1 of. Why 2 ?
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Maybe my tron lands argument are dwindling since combo concept is so strong. but I have some additional points.
Yes not combo optimal -
Tron lands as you showed in your post above that a kwark clan mox opal turn 3 has more stuff on board than a turn 3 expedition map tron set. My thoughts are that yes it isn't optimal for combo win but Tron is still pretty good and the following turn the tron lands are still there to continue where this deck likes to cast big creatures or have an Ostone up and ready turn 4 - 8 mana. sac lands for search. more classic Tron like. Bigger Bigger.
Against the Meta-
My assumption is that a creature based deck can't kill by turn 4 if I block, similar to the glint nest crane chump block all in combo decks. I do have some problems with burn to the face decks hence the heavy sideboarding against burn. But with that being said, in my match ups they can either discard me, counter me, but they can't hurt me 4 times and beat me down to death with creatures- unless death shadow has trample? So that I can lose cards but I rebound with either a Tron set, hangarback walker mana banking, mishra baubles to avoid quality of their discard. Turn 5-6 is game ending possibilities since lands find Krark clan or even a wurmcoil can stabilize. Like merfolk usually takes until turn 7 with steady tricks to get the game.
So I'm still at play testing level so overall I am not confident So I must say my deck list and ideas are extremely preliminary.
My overall response is that Tron lands help with later turns and overall stability of an alternate win con apart from graveyard combo. Hard casting an Emrakul with Sanctum of Ugin assist has come from behind possibilities. Also, 3 Towers and 3 of the other tron lands can hard cast Emrakul. 1 Krark Clan and an 8 casting cost Hangarback with 3 more mana casts Emrakul - else sanctum search for Ceaseless. Can be turn 4. This is why I took out Karn liberated as he is not an artifact for combo. This allows for no scrap trawler involved with game ending options. So it gives for more diversity of options. So it doesn't go combo off as easily turn 4 but I hope I am still alive to win later on Less speed but steadier? I think this variant plays a bit better than Titan Shift. Where as KCI combo plays more like ... hmm blue red storm?
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Not combo since you're slower
Not aggro because you're slower
Not fair decks...
Get it? You scoop to the same things every kci valiant does
The only reason to run emmy/hangar is they serve as extra trawlers incase they get surgical. Personally I think it's easy to play around and not popular enough to justify
The infinite happens at any point in your combo turn where you happen to draw into the pieces; I wouldn't ever worry about getting the mana since mana usually isn't the bottleneck, but bricking on draws happens more often. You'll almost always incidentally generate more than enough mana to play a Retriever if you happen to draw it. You don't ever need every piece in your hand to start the combo, you just need to draw into it or a tutor for missing pieces in the middle of going off. Has nothing to do with costing 10 mana total since sacrificing pieces naturally gives you more mana, it just happens on whatever turn you start the combo. This is often turn 3 or 4 even if they try disrupting with discard or counters.
It means that whenever you're doing your normal combo with KCI + Trawler, if you draw into Retriever, you win right there.
If you draw into Whir, you probably have UUU floating already and win right there.
If you draw into Stirrings, and the top 5 cards of your library has a Retriever, you win.
You don't have to ever play a big Hangarback and pass the turn, or hope that you played a Sanctum already.
Double Myr Retriever does the following:
1) increases the chances you'll naturally draw into one during combo
2) have a backup if they Path to Exile one
3) Two Retrievers + Scrap Trawler is an infinite that doesn't need an Opal or EE
I could see going down to 1 Retriever, but honestly I found there's a lot more free slots in the deck after switching to Whir and moving Emrakul to the SB + removing Hangarbacks.
So I played 2 test matches today against hollow one and simic aggro and won both. Hangarbacks were all star chump blockers to turn 1 hollow one on the play. Ostone was key.
Against simic strangle root geist got in but wurmcoil basically wins creature strategies. Both games went to 3 games.
A stalled board is in my favour.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
So I play Tron lands with for Emrakul. Even with rest in peace out, I play artifacts turn 1,2,3 then kwark clan sac all the artifacts for a hangarback or just cast more artifacts turn 4, turn 5 should be an emrakul I've done it on turn 4 if I got natural Tron. So the deck can win without scraptrawler return trigger.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
4 Scrap Trawler
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Whir of Invention
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Opal
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Terrarion
4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Mind Stone
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Mishra's Bauble
4 Aether Hub
3 Darksteel Citadel
1 Forest
2 Inventors' Fair
2 Island
4 Spire of Industry
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Nature's Claim
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Wear // Tear
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Defense Grid
1 Blood Moon
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
R1 vs. Grixis Control (1-1)
Feels like a pretty decent matchup.
G1 he plays a bunch on discard on my hand full of eggs, Trawlers, and Retriever. Looks like his maindeck doesn't have countermagic. Eventually draw into combo pieces off Stirrings/cantrips and kill him on turn 4.
Sideboarding: -1 Retriever, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, -1 Pyrite, -1 Bauble, +1 Pithing Needle, +2 Defense Grid, +1 Blood Moon
G2 I keep a greedy hand with Trawler, KCI, and turn 2 Blood Moon, and get punished by Inquisitions and Thoughtseizes. He counters my turn 3 KCI and has the Surgical, but no clock. He has Nihil Spellbomb, which I Needle for a while until he blows up my Needle with K. Command. We both durdle for about 30 turns while I try to kill his Jace and Liliana of the Veil with a pair of Scrap Trawlers. He keeps protecting her with K. Commands and Snapcaster chumps. We go to turns, he topdecks BBE and would kill me, but gives the round win anyway since he doesn't care. Nice guy. I know in matchups like this it's good to go for hands that hide combo pieces by keeping Stirrings and Whirs, playing around getting blown out by discard > Surgical, but I got too tempted by the turn 3 kill.
We talked a bit and I realized that I definitely should have just brought in the Wurmcoils for game 2.
R2 vs. Mono G Tron (2-0)
Seems like an awful matchup for them.
G1 he cracks Oblivion Stone on turn 3 to kill Opal, Star and I think a Wellspring, then lands Karn to try and keep me at 3 lands. I have two more lands and a KCI in hand. I drop KCI and start to combo conservatively with my sparse resources, but draw into Trawler, then into the Retriever loop.
Sideboarding: -2 EE, -1 Ensnaring, -1 Retriever, +2 Nature's Claim, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Blood Moon
G2 I have a T1 needle for his T1 Relic of Progenitus. He does nothing for a few turns while I crack eggs into combo pieces, then blow him up.
Vs. Storm (1-2)
Pretty bad games, we both make mistakes games 1 and 2, then just braindead race game 3.
G1 he makes a slight misplay by using Gifts to find Remand, Repeal, Unsubstantiate, and Noxious Revival, in order to avoid dying. His hand had two Manamorphose in hand, but the disruption stalls me for the same number of additional draw steps he would have had as if he just dug with the two Manamorphoses right there. This gives me another turn to live after he Remands my KCI, so he just dies when I replay KCI after a Repeal by saccing extra garbage with Repeal still on the stack. We look and he had the kill within the next 2 cards. Sometimes greed is good.
Sideboarding: -1 EE (keep one in case of gobbos), -1 Pyrite, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, +2 Defense Grid, +1 Grafdigger's Cage
G2 I misplay horribly by going for a main phase Whir to grab a Mind Stone, as I'm stuck on 2 lands + Opal with KCI and Trawler in hand. Main phase'd it since he tapped out, and I wanted to be able to kill him for sure. He Gifts into combo and kills me. I wasn't used to thinking about Whir as an interactive piece. We realize he would have lost to a Whir for Nihil Spellbomb with Past in Flames on the stack.
G3 We both mulligan to 6, but his 6 kills a turn faster than mine does
God I'm so frustrated about punting game 2.
Need to get more used to playing Whir and thinking about this build's ability to interact at instant speed instead of resigning myself to main phases, like I used to with the colorless build. Seems like there's a lot of flexibility, and the ability to board more conservatively is great. Deck is plenty fast and resilient to hate. I'm pretty okay with boarding out a Whir on the draw for games 2 and 3 vs. faster decks.
Had some slight issues with using Aether Hub early to Stirrings, then having to cast Whir. Want to sneak in another land and maybe replace some of the rainbows with Yavimaya Coasts, since they're similar enough to Spires. Still not 100% sold on double Pyrite but it sure as hell beats running Emrakul and bricking when you draw it before netting 15 mana. Oddly, Citadels are also starting to feel pretty bad with Whir in hand. Mishra's Bauble is probably best off as either 4-of or 0-of, instead of as a singleton. Starting to find slots are getting real tight. Interesting to note, if you ever get a loop started, Aether Grid serves as an alternate wincon to Pyrite if both of them somehow get exiled, or if you boarded them out in the matchup for whatever reason. Will be trying this next week:
4 Scrap Trawler
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Whir of Invention
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Terrarion
4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Mind Stone
1 Prophetic Prism
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
3 Aether Hub
3 Darksteel Citadel
1 Forest
2 Inventors' Fair
2 Island
2 Spire of Industry
4 Yavimaya Coast
2 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Nature's Claim
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Wear // Tear
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Defense Grid
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Blood Moon
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
Even if the meta gets more hostile I think I'm gonna keep playing this deck since it's hella fun. Might even start running my own Damping Sphere in the SB to screw with other combo decks.
Seems like a tough few rounds, I like bauble a lot vs the grixis decks since it fights discard well and can grind a ton of card advantage with trawler out. Storm is inherently difficult since they're just as fast but their interaction is typically better vs us than ours vs them
If that's your meta you may want welding jar(s)
not a bad run. fingers crossed. looks like he just got it actually - i'm typing this live as it happens. haha! is it a top 8? he's gonna be on the right number of points, it's gonna come down to breakers if he can assemble the win.
"Am I dead????"
Hey guys, been reading some of the posts here, used to be a regular on the Eggs forum. Will give a blurb on myself, before diving in.
PrometeusGod - great Reddit post on history of Eggs; I'll add to it as well, with the variations I've played over the years.
About me - Used to crack packs Antiquities when it was the current set. Been working the industry a long time; playing events, work part time/full time, distribution, management, and its current stage: ownership. Don't think it goes higher from there unless I start working at Wizards.
wOz chatted with me in store, and I showed him my Eggs deck. He was entranced by the iterations, and was without much effort, assimilated. I mentioned about the discussions I previously had on MtgSalv, and he found the thread, and here we are.
I have been on this forum in its previous iteration before the upgrade. The regulars would post results and variant lists, it even went to a point where a mod sent me a list for a mono green legacy build; I've since upgraded that build and run an even faster variant that's also relatively budget.
I have been running Eggs since 2007, from a friend that showed me the crazy list with actual Eggs. I still have the email; it's a sweet nugget of history that I'm happy to tell people about, as the story continues even now.
As this post will be already quite long, I'll run through the variant cards used over the years (as I started to take more competitive):
-- 2012-03-31 PTQ Avacyn Restored / Barcelona 2012 --
Second Sunrise & Open The Vaults - this was pre-Faith's Reward.
Only went 4-4 in the main event, but i managed to get 4 games with turn 3 kills. Only ran 1 Mox Opal at the time because it was legendary, and the rule hadn't changed yet. Reshape/Lotus Bloom was a thing. Pyrite loop ftw.
Other builds tested with:
- Greater Gargadon sacking everything to recur. Played Modo where I cast Emrakul, next turn, Garg was in play, swung to kill. Opponent has 1 blue left, Vapor Snags Garg, survives attack despite Annihilator 6. Post combat, suspend Garg, sac Emrakul, GY trigger on stack, Noxious Revival Emrakul, sac Egg to draw, recast take another turn. Opponent proceeds to swear up a storm.
- Wargate to drop Lotus into play
- Artificer's Intuition - a semi-Surival of the Fittest for Artifacts 1cc or less. Often used to dump Lotuses into GY, then Open the Vaults
- Altar of the Brood - loops made it super easy to dump opponent's deck. Great synergy with Faith's Reward/Ghost Quarter
- Laboratory Maniac - became the de-facto win con for many years, as it couldn't be responded to once in play, with a Chromatic Sphere to draw and win. Pyrite Spellbomb was removed as a result, and then return for use in removal of creatures.
- Codex Shredder. The best lockdown. Establish 9 mana for loop recursion with Faith's Reward, including a draw in the loop and you win. Also a secondary win con with mill.
- Aetherworks Marvel - Energy gain was very easy with GY traffic, and digging 6 deep to hit a spell helped recast the loops. Emrakul was in this build, and I still have a replay clip from pre-Xmas 2017 of killing with it on Modo turn3
- Red - 2 different builds. One incorporates Pia's Revolution loops, to whittle down life. The other was Lightning Bolt/Shrapnel Blast/Galvanic Blast/Atog. At this point, testing between myself and another friend starts to ramp, on what angles work here and there. Also tested RW builds to include Faith's Reward
- Ancient Stirrings - more recent decks had these, I had only know a world where Eggs was strictly UW; I believe it was Pascal Maynard's build that had it last year, I adapted the new builds with Aether Revolt, and started to shift deck away from Faith's Reward. Tested GB, to add Collective Brutality, Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize, as an alternative slower grindy version, but ended up going to UG to accommodate Whir/Tezz.
- Walking Ballista - has completely replaced Pyrite Spellbomb as a win con.
- Sword of the Meek/Thopter Foundry - surprisingly easy to get this in play with 2 copies each, thanks to Whir/Stirrings/Tezz
Here is my current build I test against customers, and have consistent goldfish success, either single games or full match w/sb. I don't get time to attend events, as I own and run a store, so I strive to attend Wizards events whenever they're local. Here's the list:
2 Myr Retriever
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Mox Opal
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Walking Ballista
2 Sword of the Meek
2 Thopter Foundry
4 Whir of Invention
2 Tezzeret the Seeker
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Glimmervoid
4 Spire of Industry
4 Darksteel citadel
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Gemstone Caverns
Some play lines worth noting:
- Meek/Foundry/KCI is infy mana/tokens/life
- Meek/Foundry/Trawler/2x Mox is infy tokens/life
- Meek/Trawler/KCI/Ballista is infy mana/dmg
Live Ideas
- Engineered Explosives - currently sb; i go for the raw combo itself, but this is still in testing for MB vs SB
- Gemstone Caverns - testing, but not yet sold on it
- Academy Ruins - I go off faster than I can use this, not sure if this is better than Buried Ruin
- Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle - VERY interested in this card's ability as an engine
Also have majority of it built on Modo, but the iterations make it difficult to play online. Will come back to this at a later date.
Will build Matt Nass version in store tomorrow, and likely give it a social media blurb via store channels. Looking forward to more conversation here.
Creatures (6)
2 Myr Retriever
4 Scrap Trawler
Spells (4)
4 Ancient Stirrings
Artifacts (32)
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Opal
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Terrarion
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Mind Stone
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
Lands (18)
2 Aether Hub
3 Buried Ruin
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Forest
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Inventors' Fair
Sideboard (15)
3 Galvanic Blast
2 Guttural Response
4 Nature's Claim
2 Defense Grid
2 Ghirapur Aether Grid
2 Wurmcoil Engine
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer