All is Dust isn't going to help with Painter's Servant, or Ensnaring Bridge. Expecting lots of mirror and Affinity suggests to me that other sweepers are a better option.
I would just prepare for more zoo-like decks with larger butts and CMC. Cut down on one or possibly two iok and replace it with thoughtseize, run sweepers that are not languish, run a one more ghost quarter in the main. With all of the eldrazi hate incoming, I am considering running a few Noxious Revival since it has more utility than crucible of worlds. Has anybody tested Porphyry Nodes?
Worship could be really annoying though to play against. Not as bad as ensnaring bridge for us though.
Ok guys here is my report for SCG Regionals Seattle. We had 352 people. It was a large and exhausting tournament. I'll pause between each round with a bit of thoughts I had during the tournament. I am doing this on monday so the specifics for each game will be a bit fuzzier but I'll make sure to hit the highlights. After the whole report I'll give some comments about how the deck felt over the entire day, the reception I got playing it, my thought process behind the outcome, the PT top 8 and the Eye of Ugin ban discussion and hypotheticals of this deck post ban.
Pre-tournament thoughts: I know the typical thing is to want to win it all so this may come off as a non-sequitur but I REALLY wanted to get a healthy lead in the win column. I was expecting a lot of aggro matchups to make it out of the first couple rounds and then in the middle rounds for a few midrange/GBx decks to be in the top couple tables. I felt like if I could win early and start off 3-0 or 4-0 (something like that) I'd be set up pretty well to face good matchups. On the flip side of that, I feared dropping a couple early and getting paired against lots of GR Tron and Burn (which I expected to get hated to the back end of the room), not to mention all the random brews people were bringing (there was quite a few random things I heard and saw on the day.. all towards the back of the room).
Round 1 Naya Company (1-2) [0-1]:
I don't remember a ton about this game other than the fact that game 1 he Coco'd in response to me swinging with Souls tokens and found 2x Knight of the reliquary to make 3 onboard and I couldn't find enough answers to them or Kessig Wolf's Run. Game 2 I exiled his gy into a flaying tendrils sweep of 2 Knights, a goyf and a voice. I won pretty handedly after that on the back of Sorin, Solemn Visitor. Game 3 came down to turns. I set up a board for lethal damage (hit him down to 4 with a reality Smasher in play, 1 in hand, 4 Lingering Souls tokens and Blight Herder with 3 friends.). I did the math on his draws and he had only 1 out.. Bolt. He had just enough mana to knock me down to 1 with a kessig wolf's run but it'd leave him tapped out and lethal to crackback. He draws his card, moves to attacks. I block leaving back a souls token (he'd leave back both of his knights but would still die to lethal because of the 2nd Reality Smasher in hand). He starts to go through the motions to pump Wolf's Run. He knows he needs more than just the trample (he had 5 lands in total because of Knights sacing his land all game). He taps both knights trying to go for the kill (I had already done the math and knew he'd be 1 short. He got a Stomping grounds (taking the shock down to 2) and a Fetch. He then cracks the fetch (he didn't need to, I had Urborg out but he forgot) and flips through his library and starts to look panicked.. I was like.. holy hell I'm going to win this thing. He fails to find. He then uses the red and reveals a bolt in hand.. I was like... what the ****. Totally slow rolled me on that. He had enough guys onboard to swing out, give trample and then bolt to get the win. No need to give me false hope :-(. Oh well variance and a great topdeck when I had lethal on the crackback.
Post-match thoughts: First of all, this is a deck we are GOING to be seeing more of. This particular individual ended at 3-3 drop but there was another similar list running around near the top 8 all day. Kessig Wolf's Run is a monster of a card and very hard for us to deal with. It lets them trade up with our guys while trampling over. Luckily most lists run it as a singleton so just be sure you save a GQ for it. I gotta take a look at their list and count their basics. They tend to rifle through them very very quickly. This is a matchup where Oblivion Sower is just straight up dumb lategame. You can snatch like 10-15 lands if you've kept up the GY exile shenanigans all game (including their own GQ's to let you hit their important lands). These were fun interactive games and a fun grindy match. Losing to a top decked bolt when you are presenting lethal is just the way Magic goes sometimes. Because of the round 1 loss though my back felt against the wall for most of the day and because of my pre-tournament thoughts on how the matchups might go, I was nervous.
Round 2 Jeskai Control (2-0) [1-1]:
Out of 352 people, I ran into my buddy. I felt really bad about this. Not much to really say about this matchup because he had some pretty bad draws and mine were average. Quickly stomped him in 2 games and that was that.
Post-match thoughts: Being back to 1-1 was nice but I still felt behind the 8 ball. Besides that I felt bad for knocking my friend down to 0-2. He hung in there through the day though and would end up at 6-3 but just out of top 32 because of awful tiebreakers.
Round 3 Boros Burn (2-0) [2-1]:
This game was pretty simple, I won the roll and game 1. Leyline of Sanctity came out in game 2 and he couldn't find a way to remove it. After I dealt with his early creatures, I started in with fatties. He was unable to kill them efficiently, eventually ditching his entire hand to kill a Reality Smasher. I then played another and killed him.
Post-match thoughts: Woot back to the winning record. No time to celebrate just yet but I was feeling a bit better. Leyline definitely pulled it's weight in the match and I was really happy I included them in my sideboard. Because I had time to wander around I found folks I recognized from local FNMs and asked them how their day was going, what they were on, etc. A lot of them (and I mean a staggering number) were 0-3. Almost every Infect player I spoke to was 0-3 or 1-2... Apparently it was just getting housed (some variance due to the nature of the deck) and some just getting hated out (via spot removal galore).
Round 4 4 Color Control (Superfriends?) (2-0) [3-1]:
The magic gods felt it just to gift me 2 games of magic against this brew. I had no idea what he was on game 1 other than the fact he mulled to 5 and I curved out to murder him (I did know he was some type of control). Game 2 he mulliganed to 5 again and my 7 was one of the most evil things I have ever done against someone on a mull to 5. 2x TKS, 2x Inquisition, 1x Temple, 1x Cave of Koilos, 1x Godless Shrine. So in addition to him being at 5 cards, I destroyed his hand T1-T4. He did find some answers and started to stabilize (got a New Gideon out when I was left with just a strangler post board wipe). He was at 9 and I had double path in hand (he was topdecking). I knew I couldn't kill him so I path'd the token and swung at gideon (knocking him to 1). He now had 2 options. Plus gideon and I path it or 0 gideon, I path the token and then kill gideon on the swing. He opted to + him and I closed the game out from there. I did surgical the guy's list (hit an early Sphinx Rev with Inquisition (he totally forgot it was CMC 3) and it's not a bad option to get rid of vs control anyway (plus I needed to know his outs). His list was essentially typical control cards, Ajani Vengeant, New Gideon and Flip Jace. It was an interesting list and I wish I could have seen more how it actually played rather than just house him on 2 mull to 5's.
Post-match thoughts: I felt like this variance was a gift to make up for round 1. I'll take it anyway I can get it and now I am starting to build a little bit of a better lead. Got to keep the hammer down though.
Round 5 Jund (2-0) [4-1]:
I was pretty happy so far. I had wandered around the top half tables a bit after my quick win and had seen several of these Jund decks up there. My theory (outside of infect) was proving true so far. I was now rewarded with a good matchup had good enough draws to bend him over a barrel. Game 1 was typical, let me rip your hand apart while I out value you. Lingering Souls was a house. Game 2 I won on the back of Leyline of Sanctity and Sorin, Solemn Visitor. I had a pretty land shy hand (only 2) but a Leyline of Sanctity and some early interaction if he played some dudes. He did drop a liliana turn 3 but my early creature removal stalled the game out long enough that I eventually got Sorin to ult and he was pretty DOA from there. He got his Liliana of the Veil up to 15 which was pretty impressive but his inability to ultimate and force me to sacrifice cost him the game. He also drew into a bunch of discard spells. I did ask him if he was expecting Leyline and he stated he hadn't seen or played against a list that ran it so he assumed Liliana was a safe thing to keep in the MB. Despite being a little salty about losing like that, he did concede that I had outwitted him in the SB game and regardless of it being a bad matchup for him, totally earned that win before I even sat down at the table.
Post-match thoughts: Woot 4-1 baby! My dreams were alive and well. I just came off a good matchup and was exactly where I wanted to be. My only loss was to a top decked bolt as well. With half the day gone, I don't think the first half could have played out much better overall. The new colorless aggro deck was making an appearance at the top tables (only a couple in the room) and a local kid from my FNM was undefeated on Burn (he ended up going undefeated on the night. He is utterly convinced Burn is too strong and has about a 50/50 matchup or better on the field and thinks Goblin Guide should be banned. I don't know about that but his results do speak a bit.
Round 6 Jeskai Tempo (1-2) [4-2]:
Do you guys remember the Jeskai Tempo player I played a couple weeks ago at FNM in route to a 4-0? The guy I mentioned with Delver, Stormchaser into Mantis Rider? Well this was that guy and that deck. We greeted each other and both knew it would be a tight match (I beat him in 3 last time). I took game 1 pretty handidly on the back of TKS, Lingering Souls and Sorin. The next two games I lost because he drew kinda crazy. Game 2 he found 3 Mantis Riders in a row while I bricked on lands and then Game 3 he found one right when he needed to and while I had 2 turns to find an out (of which I had all of them, hadn't drawn any Path's, Celestial Purge, Lingering Souls or Wasteland Strangler all game) and I drew 2 relics (cracking them to find 2 lands). What a bad series of draws. Oh well, chalk another up to variance, a good deck, an experience pilot and I can tolerate the loss. This guy made top 8 by the way.. We need to be wary of this deck. It's crazy amount of X/3's with flying and haste really puts us in a bind because none of our current board clears help. Another thing to note that he changed coming into today. He was no longer running Negate and was instead running Disdainful Stroke, while he never caught me napping on it (because I yanked it from his hand). I did have to play a little bit more cautiously than I normally would. Anyway, if for some reason he reads this, congrats to him on making top 8.
Post-match thoughts: Well it sucks to drop a game but I felt like my tiebreakers were pretty good (I kept talking to most of my previous matchups to see how they were doing). My top 8 dreams were dead in the water but I was far from out of prizes all together. Bost losses were due to a bad brand of variance and I I just needed
Round 7 Gruul Pump Frogs (I think that's the deck name) (2-1) [5-2]:
This is the deck that runs like Gruul Zoo opting to use Burning-tree Emissary, New Bushwacker, Atarka Command and Ghor-clan Rampager to pump their dudes enough to lethal their opponent quickly. I lost game 1 pretty quicking on a mull to 5. I had to mull to 5 again game 2 but pulled it out my but to win and then mulled to 6 game 3 but had enough answers to stall and win. Flaying Tendrils did wonders in this matchup against the bulk of their X/2's (he was forced to use an Atarka Command to bolt and pump his dudes. This left him with not enough damage to kill me on board (he wouldn't have with Atarka's command but it would have been close). I was able to cast Timely Reinforcements followed by a Blight Herder. The following turn I topdecked a Sorin and the + just killed him.
Post-match thoughts: Still a bit bummed about being out of top 8 contention but liked my tiebreakers so far. When they posted standings, I was at 24 overall. If I win the next round I lock a top 32 spot based on tiebreakers alone and set myself up to win and be top 16. I was pretty stoked with where I was at as this was my first major tournament. My friends wished me the best of luck as I headed to my match (only 2 of the 6 of us that came together were still fighting for prizes, the Jeskai Control player I beat earlier who was 5-2 as well and myself).
Round 8 Jund (?-?) [?-?]
I am leaving this spoiler free for those who want to feel as I felt while playing this match. First off I sit down, he is a bit standoffish as he discovers he was paired down as an X/1 (which reaffirms my belief that my tiebreakers are good). I keep an average hand but with Ulamog in it. I immediately see he is on Jund and get excited (fell right into my train of thought on how the tournament would go). 1 good matchup left and I am playing for top 16 and a bit of self-affirmation that my play and deck building strategy is legit (I was the only BW Eldrazi player in it this late and I think there were only 2 of us at the event). Game 1 I interact with back to back Bobs Turns 1 and 2 (I had Path and Warping Wail). Turn 3 I play a TKS. Turn 4 I play Blight Herder and count my open mana in my head. I had exactly 8 with an Eye of Ugin in play if he doesn't remove the scions. He doesn't remove them and I cast Ulamog. He sees his draw and then scoops (don't know what he was expecting to find as I think he has no MB answer to Newlamog). Woof great game 1. Just got to take 1 more. Game 2 I have a keepable ish hand. I have 2 TKS with an Temple and an Eye. I proceed to draw no lands over the 10-11 turns it took him to stick a threat and kill me. That had me a bit on tilt because if I had found 1 more I had gas for days in hand. My opponent then proceeds to ask me if I would concede the match since he still has a chance to make top 8. I tell him there is no way I was going to do that when I still had a chance to play for top 16. Game 3, I have a very keepable hand with a Leyline. Plenty of gas and mana to get there. It's a tad slower but has a path and celestial Purge. Things appear to be going normally until Turn 3 when he played a Fulminator Mage and destroyed my Cave of Koils. In response I destroy it and go get my basic plains (so I could still have path (which I drew another of) and Celestial Purge open. I draw an Urborg and play it. But have to pass the turn (I have a TKS in hand so I just need to get to 1 more mana). He plays a 2nd Fulminator mage on turn 4 and blows up the urborg. Ug.. ok. I draw a Cave of Koilos and play it, passing the turn back. He plays a 3rd Fulminator mage blowing up the new Koilos. (seriously, I am about full tilt now). I proceed to draw next to no lands for the rest of the game. I did find an Eye which let me play the TKS and rip K.Command from his hand but he had very little gas aside from that. He eventually starts cracking in with Raging Ravine hitting me with it twice by the time I get to mana. I then cast Blight Herder into Reality Smasher and hit him down to 9. I had another smasher in hand so I wanted to give the option to crack back for lethal on the following turn. I was at 8 so I felt pretty safe overall but knew the risk of sacrificing the 3 scions instead of using them as blockers. If he found a way (like a blocker) to take lethal off the board, I had Lingering Souls that I could flash back as well to give me chump blockers. He animates his Raging Ravine and swings. Before blocks he casts Jund Charm to place 2 counters on the ravine putting it at 8 and then terminates my Blight herder... I lose. Seriously... what a ****ed up way to get knocked to x/3. I was totally tilted about how that went (I still congratulated my opponent and was cordial because I am not a poor sport but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to put my fist through a wall.)
Post-game thoughts: I was absolutely pissed. Variance had decided to rear it's ugly head as he revealed his hand. Even if I had not sacrificed the Scions, he uses Jund Charm to clear them away and terminates the wall to bring me down to 2. He had 2 copies of Maelstrom pulse in hand so even if I played both Reality Smashers the next turn, I wouldn't have lethal so I'd have to leave 1 or both of them back in order to not die the following turn. I'd also be low enough for him to topdeck a bolt, pulse the Leyline and then kill me. I still can't believe he was able to pull triple fulminator mage on me. Thinking back on it, I shouldn't have been a nice guy about just turning down his offer to have me concede. I should have just called a judge who might have issued him a game loss and it would have been over. I don't like being "that guy" but after how game 3 went... man maybe I just should have. Who knows. I still had a chance to play a win and in for top 32 since I was almost guaranteed to be at or in the top of the x/3's.
Round 9 Bring to Light Scapeshift (1-2) [5-4]
This was just my luck. I go from a good matchup with the chance to play for a top 16 slot, to a bad matchup on a win and in for top 32. These games went like typical scapeshift games except that he totally threw game 2. I had clock onboard and was sitting behind a leyline. I had just cast a blight herder (processing a cryptic) and then surgically extracted all of his cryptics. He had 1 Maelstrom Pulse in his deck but a BTL and Scapeshift in hand. He was on a 2 Turn clock and could easily BTL for Pulse, hit my leyline and then cast scapeshift on his final turn to lethal me. Instead he durdled by getting more lands and then casting Bring to Light for Pia and Kia Nalaar on his final turn which I removed with 2 Paths. I mulliganed to 5 game 3 and had 3 awful hands. The last one could have been fine if I drew into discard (had 2 surgicals. Instead I bricked on all my draws and he combo killed me.
Post-SCG Regionals thoughts:
Man did I get shafted by luck on the back end of the day. I am happy I ended above .500 which would have been fine by me for my first major event like this, had I not gotten shafted so hard by luck in those last 2 rounds to get me booted from prizes. All in all the decklist did wonders. Flaying Tendrils came up in a couple matchups but we definitely need a way to kill X/3's or greater who are 3 CMC. Mantis Rider and Knight of the Reliquary are going to be common going forward I think and we need better answer than Flaying Tendrils to them. I still don't think Damnation is the answer because of how slow it is to the aggro matchups but that is my first impression. I am probably going to keep brewing but dodge tournaments this week and next just to clear my head after those closing rounds. I still definitely think this deck will find a place in the meta at the end of the day because I faired fairly well against most of the field and my losses were due to some very bad draws/good ones from my opponents. You can only do so much sometimes.
Thoughts on PT Top 8:
I think there is a ton of panic surrounding Eye of Ugin right now. I think some of it is justified but some of it isnt. People need to remember that the PT is a very inbred meta. Most folks were expecting every aggro deck to die to a Lightning Bolt. This made the Colorless Eldrazi deck and UR Eldrazi (still think that is a pile of jank and nowhere near as good as our's) great Meta decisions. I think they are going to be easier to hate out than we are as they are more susceptible to land destruction/BM effects plus answers like Disdainful Stroke. Imagine us playing against them. If you force them to discard Reality Smasher and then Surgical Extraction it, they are left with 1 actual major threat. Mimics on T1 (more than 1) is really magical christmas. It's a good deck, don't get me wrong but I think people who are expecting it will find an answer. The main thing that I think people are overlooking (that makes the deck really dumb) is SSG so they can play Chalice on turn 1 as well as cast their Reality Smashers on Turn 2. This card was a problem in Bloom Titan already when it enabled T1 and T2 kills. Just my thoughts on it anyway.
Eye of Ugin Banning:
I think it's way too early to snap and ban Eye. If it's still not answered by SOI and they DO decide to ban it, it's not the end of the world for this deck. Things I cut because of the ban (based off my list because everyone's is different):
1x Oblivion Sower
2x Eye of Ugin
1x Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
From there we add:
3x Sea-gate Wreckage
1x Reality Smasher
and I probably adjust the mana base to have some number of fetch lands back in the mix.
Sea-gate Wreckage gives us late game card draw so we can keep finding threats (part of the reason we use Eye of Ugin).
The deck won't be as good as it is now for sure but I think we would settle in as a tier 2 midrange deck with little hope of increasing from there. The other option would be to add late game threats like Batterskull or Wurmcoil Engine since we care less about Eldrazi specific mana reduction at that point.
The main thing about banning Eye is we'd all have to ask ourselves if we are better than Junk. We are certainly cheaper but I don't know if we are better at that point. We are definitely a boogyman right now. It certainly doesn't help that the aggro variant did so well. I already see people wonder when I don't kill them T4 and I have to explain to them that our version isn't the aggro variant. Gonna have to keep our heads down a bit over the next month or so and hope the meta can adjust. I really wish I could see who won my Regionals Top 8 because it was pretty diverse all things considered. Of the decks I saw close to the top 8 going into the final round. 1 GR Tron running Life from the Loam (no idea if it was SB or MB but it was saucy as hell. Watching his opponent GQ 3 of his Towers as he delayed casting it from hand only to reveal that he had it was just brutal to watch. There was the Burn player I know and the Jeskai Tempo player I lost to. I have no idea how the Jund player who beat me had faired but I think his tiebreakers were bad enough to keep him out of top 8 (which makes me even saltier). There was a Colorless Aggro deck up there for a while but I didn't see it towards the end. There was a Naya Company player as well at those tables for most of the day as well as an Affinity player. All in all the meta was pretty diverse towards the top (albeit varying shades of aggro for the most part, still lots of interactivity). Anyway those are just my thoughts and my experience throughout the day. I think I was easily one of the best 16 decks/players in the room on the day but just hit a god awful string of events towards the end (to be fair there were other folks who had bad luck and days as well. One of my friends is a Jund player who is very experienced and he went 0-3 drop. Sometimes things just don't break your way I guess). Anyway, the most depressing thing coming out of this weekend is the ban talks. I hope we at least get a year to play with our new toy but people love to fearmonger.
Another thought as I sift through the panicked moans of the masses. I think I am going to run Sacred Grounds in my sideboard now. It's less about what happened at Regionals (even though it would have been great in that instance) and more about how people are going to combat the colorless Eldrazi deck. Crumble to Dust is too slow for that so folks are going to be leaning harder on Ghost Quarter, Fulminators and other land destruction effects. I think I might try and put in the sideboard and test it out some more.
Edit: I am also think of running a Batterskull? Folks don't bring in a ton of artifact hate in against us. This could be another resilient threat that acts double to help us clock with Lingering Souls or any other creature lategame. Would give us another 1x MB lifegain tool.
I think that its actually mimic/SSG that feels like the most broken pieces in the PT decks. SSG enables chalice on 1 T1, and a couple mimics plus eye can be a little oppressive. Overall I think everyone felt a little slapped in the face by eldrazi this past weekend, but these were meta decks against an expected aggro field. The meta will adapt, but many decks like infect, affinity, griselbrand et al...are also capable of oppressively good draws. There was a clear lack of wrath like effects being played.
Everyone should expect to see chalice, ensnaring bridge, worship, fulminator mage, torpor orb (against mimic and tks triggers), magus of the moon, blood moon, and painter's servant being played a bit more in main decks for the time being and adjust for these. Chalice on 1 is a problem for us (path, iok, ts, relic). Disenchant deals with most of these problems and should be in sideboards.
To anyone that has twitter/reddit: if something has to be banned in the future , let's ask for mimic-seer or mimic-smasher. Processor list must live!:(
My money is on Mimic and SSG. Simian Spirit Guide has now enabled dumb early game things for 2 decks that came up at Pro Tours. If they snap to ban Eye of Ugin, I'd also like them to address other fast mana outlets like Mox Opal and SSG just to be even with banning fast mana across the board. Regardless, we have til April.
Another thought as I sift through the panicked moans of the masses. I think I am going to run Sacred Grounds in my sideboard now. It's less about what happened at Regionals (even though it would have been great in that instance) and more about how people are going to combat the colorless Eldrazi deck. Crumble to Dust is too slow for that so folks are going to be leaning harder on Ghost Quarter, Fulminators and other land destruction effects. I think I might try and put in the sideboard and test it out some more.
Edit: I am also think of running a Batterskull? Folks don't bring in a ton of artifact hate in against us. This could be another resilient threat that acts double to help us clock with Lingering Souls or any other creature lategame. Would give us another 1x MB lifegain tool.
Affinity is still a big boogieman in the format so SB artifact hate is probably a wise choice still. I've had ppl side in pithing needle and stony silence against me (not that it was a wise choice, but if they dont have anything against our matchup other than that, they will use them).
My second concern with batterskull is that it has cc 5 and cant be cheated into play. Not impossible, but might be a bit slow against burn decks (where we need them) and might not be that relevant against other midrange decks. Do we really want to use our SB plan against decks that we are already favoured against? It's an interesting choice and I might try it tomorrow at my local venue. Still I think I would rather use that space for either Grafdigger's cage (vs viscera seer combo) or pithing needle (vs kikichord combo).
So my thought on Batterskull is to replace my 1x Oblivion Sower with it. It's more than just for burn, it's for any other aggro strategy and decks like Naya company (which I suspect we will see more of). Any deck that is trying to kill you with creatures would force themselves to swing into it every turn or every other turn. You'd gain 4 life and be able to give yourself the ability to keep resetting it. It's just another resilient threat that doesn't die to creature removal (which folks will be packing). I have seen some decks bring in Stoney Silence but they are few and far between and I usually don't care all that much since it'd just be a 1x for additional value. Essentially I am looking at it as another 4/4 that you can keep resetting against fair decks. Side bonus, if you have 3 scion tokens, you can tap out with it in play and still bounce it back to hand if they try and remove it. Our current MB lifegain sources are Vault which you need dudes and 5 mana to use, Sorin which you need dudes but 4 mana to cast. Batterskull provides you with a 5 mana 4/4 lifelinker with potential upside. (can you imagine equipping it to a Reality Smasher as well. Talk about dumb. I saw almost no artifact hate (other than k.commmand because it has 3 other useful modes) being brought in against me. Most folks don't care a ton about the relics and maps because they can be cracked early and in response to the spell. Again it's not perfect but it is an option I am going to try out. It also benefits from requiring no color mana sources like Sorin or Vault.
I think that its actually mimic/SSG that feels like the most broken pieces in the PT decks. SSG enables chalice on 1 T1, and a couple mimics plus eye can be a little oppressive. Overall I think everyone felt a little slapped in the face by eldrazi this past weekend, but these were meta decks against an expected aggro field. The meta will adapt, but many decks like infect, affinity, griselbrand et al...are also capable of oppressively good draws. There was a clear lack of wrath like effects being played.
Everyone should expect to see chalice, ensnaring bridge, worship, fulminator mage, torpor orb (against mimic and tks triggers), magus of the moon, blood moon, and painter's servant being played a bit more in main decks for the time being and adjust for these. Chalice on 1 is a problem for us (path, iok, ts, relic). Disenchant deals with most of these problems and should be in sideboards.
Ratchet Bomb has also been a nice answer to a lot of these things (in addition to Disenchant). I am definitely not sad that I had them in my SB already. They didn't come in a lot at SCG Regionals but they are definitely becoming more relevant now.
Please don't flame in the boards with things that aren't constructive. Bear in mind my comments were after watching Day 1 and the decks proved to definitely be the right meta call. The second "quote" was taken out of context about the colorless Eldrazi deck not the UR one. If you have nothing of value to contribute to the BW Eldrazi decklist and thread, please do not comment in it.
No more banlist discussion in this thread. I've issued everyone involved a warning. The Modern forum rules are very clear on this point and we need people to keep their discussion confined to deck strategy and development, not bans. If you want to talk about bans, you can do so in the official banlist thread.
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Despite Baron_Sengir_007's horrible tone, I think there is a legitimate question as to whether or not BW retains any advantage over Mimic-based builds in general (UR, Colorless, or otherwise). The Pro Tour was not super-inbred, and I don't know why this keeps being said. Basically all major archetypes were represented if you look at the metagame breakdown, and the conversion rates into day 2 and top 25 speak for themselves. The Mimic decks are definitely the real deal. There are two main things that I think are working against us now:
First, all our one-for-ones are too expensive. Both the discard and the removal we play is just not good because they can play their hand way faster than we can answer it. If you played Standard during Affinity's reign in 2004, you will remember that Shatter and Oxidize were actually not very effective versus them because they would just play artifacts faster than you can destroy them. The same is true here. Their decks are designed to maximize the amount of virtual mana that Eye of Ugin makes by overloading on 2's and 3's, and we just can't answer them all. They will commonly play 2 things a turn for two consecutive turns, and because the things they are playing dodge almost every 1-cmc removal spell besides Dismember, we cannot hope to match their velocity with reactive spells. We have to play sweepers, but there are no 3cmc sweepers that reliably sweep them. So we have to look to 4cmc sweepers like Damnation. But this is not reliable. Sometimes Damnation will be too slow, sometimes it will be stripped by TKS, sometimes it will be Warping Wailed, sometimes it will not deal with multiple manlands, and sometimes they will read you and hold back a fatty or two so that your sweeper doesn't actually alleviate the pressure. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and I think that it is too risky to be a viable plan.
You might argue in response that all of these things are true of Affinity as well, but the difference there is (1) Souls is actually good against them and generates value, and (2) most of their artifacts don't really matter, just the "lords" - Plating, Overseer, and Ravager. With Eldrazi, nearly every creature they play is capable of doing real damage and attacking through our typical boardstates - even Mimic.
You might also argue that all my concerns are true of Little Kid Abzan, and you'd be right. That's actually a bad matchup for us! The difference is now Mimic-based Eldrazi has great matchups against decks that Little Kid struggles with, and it has an insane amount of hype now, so we should expect to see it more often.
Second, Ensnaring Bridge, Worship, and other hate cards that the metagame is moving towards hampers us just as badly as it does them.
In the face of these two challenges, I have serious doubts about whether Processor-based builds can compete.
Despite Baron_Sengir_007's horrible tone, I think there is a legitimate question as to whether or not BW retains any advantage over Mimic-based builds in general (UR, Colorless, or otherwise). The Pro Tour was not super-inbred, and I don't know why this keeps being said. Basically all major archetypes were represented if you look at the metagame breakdown, and the conversion rates into day 2 and top 25 speak for themselves. The Mimic decks are definitely the real deal. There are two main things that I think are working against us now:
First, all our one-for-ones are too expensive. Both the discard and the removal we play is just not good because they can play their hand way faster than we can answer it. If you played Standard during Affinity's reign in 2004, you will remember that Shatter and Oxidize were actually not very effective versus them because they would just play artifacts faster than you can destroy them. The same is true here. Their decks are designed to maximize the amount of virtual mana that Eye of Ugin makes by overloading on 2's and 3's, and we just can't answer them all. They will commonly play 2 things a turn for two consecutive turns, and because the things they are playing dodge almost every 1-cmc removal spell besides Dismember, we cannot hope to match their velocity with reactive spells. We have to play sweepers, but there are no 3cmc sweepers that reliably sweep them. So we have to look to 4cmc sweepers like Damnation. But this is not reliable. Sometimes Damnation will be too slow, sometimes it will be stripped by TKS, sometimes it will be Warping Wailed, sometimes it will not deal with multiple manlands, and sometimes they will read you and hold back a fatty or two so that your sweeper doesn't actually alleviate the pressure. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and I think that it is too risky to be a viable plan.
You might argue in response that all of these things are true of Affinity as well, but the difference there is (1) Souls is actually good against them and generates value, and (2) most of their artifacts don't really matter, just the "lords" - Plating, Overseer, and Ravager. With Eldrazi, nearly every creature they play is capable of doing real damage and attacking through our typical boardstates - even Mimic.
You might also argue that all my concerns are true of Little Kid Abzan, and you'd be right. That's actually a bad matchup for us! The difference is now Mimic-based Eldrazi has great matchups against decks that Little Kid struggles with, and it has an insane amount of hype now, so we should expect to see it more often.
Second, Ensnaring Bridge, Worship, and other hate cards that the metagame is moving towards hampers us just as badly as it does them.
In the face of these two challenges, I have serious doubts about whether Processor-based builds can compete.
I think we can compete with the Colorless Strategies. What we will need to do is try and answer them early (like we do other aggro variants). Surgical Extractions are huge in this because they have 2 primary threats (TKS and Reality Smasher). Flaying Tendrils will hurt them if they went too wide too early and stripping them of Reality Smashers will also be big. We need to see how the format adjusts. The most likely decks to combat this aggro variant is going to be midrange and control decks. We could easily prey on them as well (depending on what they bring out as answers). What I suspect will be an answer is for folks to bring more creature removal (non-bolt ones like Terminate, Path, Doom Blade, ETC), land destruction, counterspells (like Leak, Disdainful Stroke, Remand) and wrath effects. I'd work on fighting against those strategies (particularly board wipes) by trying to run non creature threats that give you resilience to those things. I have mentioned Batterskull before and agree it's borderline. What about whip of erebos? If you delay cracking relic as much against matchups where it's not needed, you could reuse TKS and Reality Smasher (or wasteland Strangler), give everyone lifelink and potentially make things harder on your opponent. Again slower answer but still an answer. The main goal is we need to live through the early game. It's not an easy strategy but it is an option.
Don't feel like you are getting pushed into a corner just because UR eldrazi had a strong showing. While that deck will show up and probably be a bad match up for BW, the white offshoot has access to a much better sideboard and many more options to grind out with than an all in blitz. I'm kind of wondering about using something like Touch of Moonglove with a souls as a way to kill a creature and hit them in the face, but I'd vastly prefer something that cantrips if it is going to be that situational. Maybe Ready // Willing? I'm mostly trying to think of ways to make lingering souls more efficient.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
@ Colt47 - You could always use Zealous Persecution if you want to superpower soul/scion tokens. It could be a good sideboard option for some of our worse matchups.
@ dEATHdEALER - Sudden Spoiling is an interesting proposition. It allows us to make very powerful trades. However, it would require that we have a meaningful board presence in order to make those trades happen. Since it makes mobs have 2 toughness, we'd have to either double up tokens per mob to trade, which is by all means not bad, or just Fog the other player and hope we can make a meaningful crackback. On that note, however, Sorin would allow us to 1:1 block and kill their creatures, but again, requires we have a decent board presence to take full advantage of. Having to hold 3 mana up to do it seems like a bad use of the turn's tempo. I'd rather cast Lingering Souls or flashback one and hold one mana open for Path or a Dismember in most cases.
I'm not saying it'd be bad, and I'm sure it could actually be good in some cases, but in thinking of our poor match-ups, having Flaying Tendrils or some other 3 cmc board wipe seems preferable.
We agreed to a draw. First match round one was death shadow .. I kept my removal after burning threw his hand blight herders clogged the board and sprits went the distance .. Game 2 he sacs a blood stained I play shambling .. After he draws I serg extract the blood stained hitting 2 in his hand one point in game I timely reinforcements to put my life 1 above a battle raged death shadow spell skite did wonders and sprits pull threw for last few damage
Round 2 grix control. Warp wailing exiles a Jace. I bate a mana leak out with Sorin to cast relic and sac to stop him from being able to tasagar .. And Obliv sower comes down and nets 3 lands
Putting my eye at operation next turn I cast exp map eot search for caverns he scoops.
Game 2 was brutal he's stuck on 2 lands serum again in draw step I extract after draw and remove a sac land (love this play) souls go on line eot warp wail for scion and thought -knot next turn with soul buy back ulamog come down as a natural gg
Round 3 Jund ... He's mana screws at 2 wasn't even funny destroys him.
G2 I bring in lay lines mull to 5 Leyline he sighs .. Plays land and passes I rip his hand with inquisition I see a ozz and hand disruption and burn.. I take the ozz. And game goes threw with me chaining blight herders and ulamog gg
G4. We desire to draw and split but play any way .. He goes first plays forest and enchants it I ghost quarter it pass go. He repeats I draw w/b pain land. He casts. A mana elf ..I path a prime Titan he cast another filling turn and with garuk over runs me. All my removal just ramped him more. G2. Was back and forth at the end I had him at 7 life he just cast a primeval Titan sitting on 13 mana. I swing with a thought knot. He blocks I give lifelink and death touch .. He had zero cards in hand. He draws from thought knot draws for turn casts tooth and nail shows combo gg
I changed 1 Disenchant to a second rachet bomb be cause I've faced 3 ensnaring bridges in past
What about Mana Tithe as a way to punish the colorless Eldrazi deck? They almost always tap out for their big spells, since they want to cast those ahead of the curve. It's a terrible top-deck late game, but Mana Tithe could be stellar against them on earlier turns.
It's probably way too cute, but it's still something.
My 360 Peasant+ Cube!. Modern borders where possible, usually with the newest (or "best") art, and always the most readable card text. I also run all 10 painlands. My playgroup is super casual, as we have a fair number of newer or less experienced players. Typically we draft with 4 to 6 people, using 5 packs of 9.
What about Mana Tithe as a way to punish the colorless Eldrazi deck? They almost always tap out for their big spells, since they want to cast those ahead of the curve. It's a terrible top-deck late game, but Mana Tithe could be stellar against them on earlier turns.
It's probably way too cute, but it's still something.
I thought about Mana Tithe as well and really think it's just too cheeky. I know it hurts us too but if this colorless variant becomes a big part of your local meta, you can always run Torpor Orb to shut down most of their things.
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Worship could be really annoying though to play against. Not as bad as ensnaring bridge for us though.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
3x Wasteland Strangler
3x Thought-knot Seer
3x Reality Smasher
4x Blight Herder
1x Oblivion Sower
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Sorceries(8):
4x Lingering Souls
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
Instants(6):
4x Path to Exile
2x Warping Wail
Planeswalkers(1):
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Artifacts(6):
4x Relic of Progenitus
2x Expedition Map
2x Eye of Ugin
1x Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
3x Godless Shrine
4x Cave of Koilos
4x Eldrazi Temple
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Waste
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Shambling Vents
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Ratchet Bombs
2x Flaying Tendrils
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Surgical Extractions
2x Stoney Silence
1x Disenchant
1x Celestial Purge
Pre-tournament thoughts: I know the typical thing is to want to win it all so this may come off as a non-sequitur but I REALLY wanted to get a healthy lead in the win column. I was expecting a lot of aggro matchups to make it out of the first couple rounds and then in the middle rounds for a few midrange/GBx decks to be in the top couple tables. I felt like if I could win early and start off 3-0 or 4-0 (something like that) I'd be set up pretty well to face good matchups. On the flip side of that, I feared dropping a couple early and getting paired against lots of GR Tron and Burn (which I expected to get hated to the back end of the room), not to mention all the random brews people were bringing (there was quite a few random things I heard and saw on the day.. all towards the back of the room).
Round 1 Naya Company (1-2) [0-1]:
I don't remember a ton about this game other than the fact that game 1 he Coco'd in response to me swinging with Souls tokens and found 2x Knight of the reliquary to make 3 onboard and I couldn't find enough answers to them or Kessig Wolf's Run. Game 2 I exiled his gy into a flaying tendrils sweep of 2 Knights, a goyf and a voice. I won pretty handedly after that on the back of Sorin, Solemn Visitor. Game 3 came down to turns. I set up a board for lethal damage (hit him down to 4 with a reality Smasher in play, 1 in hand, 4 Lingering Souls tokens and Blight Herder with 3 friends.). I did the math on his draws and he had only 1 out.. Bolt. He had just enough mana to knock me down to 1 with a kessig wolf's run but it'd leave him tapped out and lethal to crackback. He draws his card, moves to attacks. I block leaving back a souls token (he'd leave back both of his knights but would still die to lethal because of the 2nd Reality Smasher in hand). He starts to go through the motions to pump Wolf's Run. He knows he needs more than just the trample (he had 5 lands in total because of Knights sacing his land all game). He taps both knights trying to go for the kill (I had already done the math and knew he'd be 1 short. He got a Stomping grounds (taking the shock down to 2) and a Fetch. He then cracks the fetch (he didn't need to, I had Urborg out but he forgot) and flips through his library and starts to look panicked.. I was like.. holy hell I'm going to win this thing. He fails to find. He then uses the red and reveals a bolt in hand.. I was like... what the ****. Totally slow rolled me on that. He had enough guys onboard to swing out, give trample and then bolt to get the win. No need to give me false hope :-(. Oh well variance and a great topdeck when I had lethal on the crackback.
Post-match thoughts: First of all, this is a deck we are GOING to be seeing more of. This particular individual ended at 3-3 drop but there was another similar list running around near the top 8 all day. Kessig Wolf's Run is a monster of a card and very hard for us to deal with. It lets them trade up with our guys while trampling over. Luckily most lists run it as a singleton so just be sure you save a GQ for it. I gotta take a look at their list and count their basics. They tend to rifle through them very very quickly. This is a matchup where Oblivion Sower is just straight up dumb lategame. You can snatch like 10-15 lands if you've kept up the GY exile shenanigans all game (including their own GQ's to let you hit their important lands). These were fun interactive games and a fun grindy match. Losing to a top decked bolt when you are presenting lethal is just the way Magic goes sometimes. Because of the round 1 loss though my back felt against the wall for most of the day and because of my pre-tournament thoughts on how the matchups might go, I was nervous.
Round 2 Jeskai Control (2-0) [1-1]:
Out of 352 people, I ran into my buddy. I felt really bad about this. Not much to really say about this matchup because he had some pretty bad draws and mine were average. Quickly stomped him in 2 games and that was that.
Post-match thoughts: Being back to 1-1 was nice but I still felt behind the 8 ball. Besides that I felt bad for knocking my friend down to 0-2. He hung in there through the day though and would end up at 6-3 but just out of top 32 because of awful tiebreakers.
Round 3 Boros Burn (2-0) [2-1]:
This game was pretty simple, I won the roll and game 1. Leyline of Sanctity came out in game 2 and he couldn't find a way to remove it. After I dealt with his early creatures, I started in with fatties. He was unable to kill them efficiently, eventually ditching his entire hand to kill a Reality Smasher. I then played another and killed him.
Post-match thoughts: Woot back to the winning record. No time to celebrate just yet but I was feeling a bit better. Leyline definitely pulled it's weight in the match and I was really happy I included them in my sideboard. Because I had time to wander around I found folks I recognized from local FNMs and asked them how their day was going, what they were on, etc. A lot of them (and I mean a staggering number) were 0-3. Almost every Infect player I spoke to was 0-3 or 1-2... Apparently it was just getting housed (some variance due to the nature of the deck) and some just getting hated out (via spot removal galore).
Round 4 4 Color Control (Superfriends?) (2-0) [3-1]:
The magic gods felt it just to gift me 2 games of magic against this brew. I had no idea what he was on game 1 other than the fact he mulled to 5 and I curved out to murder him (I did know he was some type of control). Game 2 he mulliganed to 5 again and my 7 was one of the most evil things I have ever done against someone on a mull to 5. 2x TKS, 2x Inquisition, 1x Temple, 1x Cave of Koilos, 1x Godless Shrine. So in addition to him being at 5 cards, I destroyed his hand T1-T4. He did find some answers and started to stabilize (got a New Gideon out when I was left with just a strangler post board wipe). He was at 9 and I had double path in hand (he was topdecking). I knew I couldn't kill him so I path'd the token and swung at gideon (knocking him to 1). He now had 2 options. Plus gideon and I path it or 0 gideon, I path the token and then kill gideon on the swing. He opted to + him and I closed the game out from there. I did surgical the guy's list (hit an early Sphinx Rev with Inquisition (he totally forgot it was CMC 3) and it's not a bad option to get rid of vs control anyway (plus I needed to know his outs). His list was essentially typical control cards, Ajani Vengeant, New Gideon and Flip Jace. It was an interesting list and I wish I could have seen more how it actually played rather than just house him on 2 mull to 5's.
Post-match thoughts: I felt like this variance was a gift to make up for round 1. I'll take it anyway I can get it and now I am starting to build a little bit of a better lead. Got to keep the hammer down though.
Round 5 Jund (2-0) [4-1]:
I was pretty happy so far. I had wandered around the top half tables a bit after my quick win and had seen several of these Jund decks up there. My theory (outside of infect) was proving true so far. I was now rewarded with a good matchup had good enough draws to bend him over a barrel. Game 1 was typical, let me rip your hand apart while I out value you. Lingering Souls was a house. Game 2 I won on the back of Leyline of Sanctity and Sorin, Solemn Visitor. I had a pretty land shy hand (only 2) but a Leyline of Sanctity and some early interaction if he played some dudes. He did drop a liliana turn 3 but my early creature removal stalled the game out long enough that I eventually got Sorin to ult and he was pretty DOA from there. He got his Liliana of the Veil up to 15 which was pretty impressive but his inability to ultimate and force me to sacrifice cost him the game. He also drew into a bunch of discard spells. I did ask him if he was expecting Leyline and he stated he hadn't seen or played against a list that ran it so he assumed Liliana was a safe thing to keep in the MB. Despite being a little salty about losing like that, he did concede that I had outwitted him in the SB game and regardless of it being a bad matchup for him, totally earned that win before I even sat down at the table.
Post-match thoughts: Woot 4-1 baby! My dreams were alive and well. I just came off a good matchup and was exactly where I wanted to be. My only loss was to a top decked bolt as well. With half the day gone, I don't think the first half could have played out much better overall. The new colorless aggro deck was making an appearance at the top tables (only a couple in the room) and a local kid from my FNM was undefeated on Burn (he ended up going undefeated on the night. He is utterly convinced Burn is too strong and has about a 50/50 matchup or better on the field and thinks Goblin Guide should be banned. I don't know about that but his results do speak a bit.
Round 6 Jeskai Tempo (1-2) [4-2]:
Do you guys remember the Jeskai Tempo player I played a couple weeks ago at FNM in route to a 4-0? The guy I mentioned with Delver, Stormchaser into Mantis Rider? Well this was that guy and that deck. We greeted each other and both knew it would be a tight match (I beat him in 3 last time). I took game 1 pretty handidly on the back of TKS, Lingering Souls and Sorin. The next two games I lost because he drew kinda crazy. Game 2 he found 3 Mantis Riders in a row while I bricked on lands and then Game 3 he found one right when he needed to and while I had 2 turns to find an out (of which I had all of them, hadn't drawn any Path's, Celestial Purge, Lingering Souls or Wasteland Strangler all game) and I drew 2 relics (cracking them to find 2 lands). What a bad series of draws. Oh well, chalk another up to variance, a good deck, an experience pilot and I can tolerate the loss. This guy made top 8 by the way.. We need to be wary of this deck. It's crazy amount of X/3's with flying and haste really puts us in a bind because none of our current board clears help. Another thing to note that he changed coming into today. He was no longer running Negate and was instead running Disdainful Stroke, while he never caught me napping on it (because I yanked it from his hand). I did have to play a little bit more cautiously than I normally would. Anyway, if for some reason he reads this, congrats to him on making top 8.
Post-match thoughts: Well it sucks to drop a game but I felt like my tiebreakers were pretty good (I kept talking to most of my previous matchups to see how they were doing). My top 8 dreams were dead in the water but I was far from out of prizes all together. Bost losses were due to a bad brand of variance and I I just needed
Round 7 Gruul Pump Frogs (I think that's the deck name) (2-1) [5-2]:
This is the deck that runs like Gruul Zoo opting to use Burning-tree Emissary, New Bushwacker, Atarka Command and Ghor-clan Rampager to pump their dudes enough to lethal their opponent quickly. I lost game 1 pretty quicking on a mull to 5. I had to mull to 5 again game 2 but pulled it out my but to win and then mulled to 6 game 3 but had enough answers to stall and win. Flaying Tendrils did wonders in this matchup against the bulk of their X/2's (he was forced to use an Atarka Command to bolt and pump his dudes. This left him with not enough damage to kill me on board (he wouldn't have with Atarka's command but it would have been close). I was able to cast Timely Reinforcements followed by a Blight Herder. The following turn I topdecked a Sorin and the + just killed him.
Post-match thoughts: Still a bit bummed about being out of top 8 contention but liked my tiebreakers so far. When they posted standings, I was at 24 overall. If I win the next round I lock a top 32 spot based on tiebreakers alone and set myself up to win and be top 16. I was pretty stoked with where I was at as this was my first major tournament. My friends wished me the best of luck as I headed to my match (only 2 of the 6 of us that came together were still fighting for prizes, the Jeskai Control player I beat earlier who was 5-2 as well and myself).
Round 8 Jund (?-?) [?-?]
I am leaving this spoiler free for those who want to feel as I felt while playing this match. First off I sit down, he is a bit standoffish as he discovers he was paired down as an X/1 (which reaffirms my belief that my tiebreakers are good). I keep an average hand but with Ulamog in it. I immediately see he is on Jund and get excited (fell right into my train of thought on how the tournament would go). 1 good matchup left and I am playing for top 16 and a bit of self-affirmation that my play and deck building strategy is legit (I was the only BW Eldrazi player in it this late and I think there were only 2 of us at the event). Game 1 I interact with back to back Bobs Turns 1 and 2 (I had Path and Warping Wail). Turn 3 I play a TKS. Turn 4 I play Blight Herder and count my open mana in my head. I had exactly 8 with an Eye of Ugin in play if he doesn't remove the scions. He doesn't remove them and I cast Ulamog. He sees his draw and then scoops (don't know what he was expecting to find as I think he has no MB answer to Newlamog). Woof great game 1. Just got to take 1 more. Game 2 I have a keepable ish hand. I have 2 TKS with an Temple and an Eye. I proceed to draw no lands over the 10-11 turns it took him to stick a threat and kill me. That had me a bit on tilt because if I had found 1 more I had gas for days in hand. My opponent then proceeds to ask me if I would concede the match since he still has a chance to make top 8. I tell him there is no way I was going to do that when I still had a chance to play for top 16. Game 3, I have a very keepable hand with a Leyline. Plenty of gas and mana to get there. It's a tad slower but has a path and celestial Purge. Things appear to be going normally until Turn 3 when he played a Fulminator Mage and destroyed my Cave of Koils. In response I destroy it and go get my basic plains (so I could still have path (which I drew another of) and Celestial Purge open. I draw an Urborg and play it. But have to pass the turn (I have a TKS in hand so I just need to get to 1 more mana). He plays a 2nd Fulminator mage on turn 4 and blows up the urborg. Ug.. ok. I draw a Cave of Koilos and play it, passing the turn back. He plays a 3rd Fulminator mage blowing up the new Koilos. (seriously, I am about full tilt now). I proceed to draw next to no lands for the rest of the game. I did find an Eye which let me play the TKS and rip K.Command from his hand but he had very little gas aside from that. He eventually starts cracking in with Raging Ravine hitting me with it twice by the time I get to mana. I then cast Blight Herder into Reality Smasher and hit him down to 9. I had another smasher in hand so I wanted to give the option to crack back for lethal on the following turn. I was at 8 so I felt pretty safe overall but knew the risk of sacrificing the 3 scions instead of using them as blockers. If he found a way (like a blocker) to take lethal off the board, I had Lingering Souls that I could flash back as well to give me chump blockers. He animates his Raging Ravine and swings. Before blocks he casts Jund Charm to place 2 counters on the ravine putting it at 8 and then terminates my Blight herder... I lose. Seriously... what a ****ed up way to get knocked to x/3. I was totally tilted about how that went (I still congratulated my opponent and was cordial because I am not a poor sport but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to put my fist through a wall.)
Post-game thoughts: I was absolutely pissed. Variance had decided to rear it's ugly head as he revealed his hand. Even if I had not sacrificed the Scions, he uses Jund Charm to clear them away and terminates the wall to bring me down to 2. He had 2 copies of Maelstrom pulse in hand so even if I played both Reality Smashers the next turn, I wouldn't have lethal so I'd have to leave 1 or both of them back in order to not die the following turn. I'd also be low enough for him to topdeck a bolt, pulse the Leyline and then kill me. I still can't believe he was able to pull triple fulminator mage on me. Thinking back on it, I shouldn't have been a nice guy about just turning down his offer to have me concede. I should have just called a judge who might have issued him a game loss and it would have been over. I don't like being "that guy" but after how game 3 went... man maybe I just should have. Who knows. I still had a chance to play a win and in for top 32 since I was almost guaranteed to be at or in the top of the x/3's.
Round 9 Bring to Light Scapeshift (1-2) [5-4]
This was just my luck. I go from a good matchup with the chance to play for a top 16 slot, to a bad matchup on a win and in for top 32. These games went like typical scapeshift games except that he totally threw game 2. I had clock onboard and was sitting behind a leyline. I had just cast a blight herder (processing a cryptic) and then surgically extracted all of his cryptics. He had 1 Maelstrom Pulse in his deck but a BTL and Scapeshift in hand. He was on a 2 Turn clock and could easily BTL for Pulse, hit my leyline and then cast scapeshift on his final turn to lethal me. Instead he durdled by getting more lands and then casting Bring to Light for Pia and Kia Nalaar on his final turn which I removed with 2 Paths. I mulliganed to 5 game 3 and had 3 awful hands. The last one could have been fine if I drew into discard (had 2 surgicals. Instead I bricked on all my draws and he combo killed me.
Post-SCG Regionals thoughts:
Man did I get shafted by luck on the back end of the day. I am happy I ended above .500 which would have been fine by me for my first major event like this, had I not gotten shafted so hard by luck in those last 2 rounds to get me booted from prizes. All in all the decklist did wonders. Flaying Tendrils came up in a couple matchups but we definitely need a way to kill X/3's or greater who are 3 CMC. Mantis Rider and Knight of the Reliquary are going to be common going forward I think and we need better answer than Flaying Tendrils to them. I still don't think Damnation is the answer because of how slow it is to the aggro matchups but that is my first impression. I am probably going to keep brewing but dodge tournaments this week and next just to clear my head after those closing rounds. I still definitely think this deck will find a place in the meta at the end of the day because I faired fairly well against most of the field and my losses were due to some very bad draws/good ones from my opponents. You can only do so much sometimes.
Thoughts on PT Top 8:
I think there is a ton of panic surrounding Eye of Ugin right now. I think some of it is justified but some of it isnt. People need to remember that the PT is a very inbred meta. Most folks were expecting every aggro deck to die to a Lightning Bolt. This made the Colorless Eldrazi deck and UR Eldrazi (still think that is a pile of jank and nowhere near as good as our's) great Meta decisions. I think they are going to be easier to hate out than we are as they are more susceptible to land destruction/BM effects plus answers like Disdainful Stroke. Imagine us playing against them. If you force them to discard Reality Smasher and then Surgical Extraction it, they are left with 1 actual major threat. Mimics on T1 (more than 1) is really magical christmas. It's a good deck, don't get me wrong but I think people who are expecting it will find an answer. The main thing that I think people are overlooking (that makes the deck really dumb) is SSG so they can play Chalice on turn 1 as well as cast their Reality Smashers on Turn 2. This card was a problem in Bloom Titan already when it enabled T1 and T2 kills. Just my thoughts on it anyway.
Eye of Ugin Banning:
I think it's way too early to snap and ban Eye. If it's still not answered by SOI and they DO decide to ban it, it's not the end of the world for this deck. Things I cut because of the ban (based off my list because everyone's is different):
1x Oblivion Sower
2x Eye of Ugin
1x Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
From there we add:
3x Sea-gate Wreckage
1x Reality Smasher
and I probably adjust the mana base to have some number of fetch lands back in the mix.
Sea-gate Wreckage gives us late game card draw so we can keep finding threats (part of the reason we use Eye of Ugin).
The deck won't be as good as it is now for sure but I think we would settle in as a tier 2 midrange deck with little hope of increasing from there. The other option would be to add late game threats like Batterskull or Wurmcoil Engine since we care less about Eldrazi specific mana reduction at that point.
The main thing about banning Eye is we'd all have to ask ourselves if we are better than Junk. We are certainly cheaper but I don't know if we are better at that point. We are definitely a boogyman right now. It certainly doesn't help that the aggro variant did so well. I already see people wonder when I don't kill them T4 and I have to explain to them that our version isn't the aggro variant. Gonna have to keep our heads down a bit over the next month or so and hope the meta can adjust. I really wish I could see who won my Regionals Top 8 because it was pretty diverse all things considered. Of the decks I saw close to the top 8 going into the final round. 1 GR Tron running Life from the Loam (no idea if it was SB or MB but it was saucy as hell. Watching his opponent GQ 3 of his Towers as he delayed casting it from hand only to reveal that he had it was just brutal to watch. There was the Burn player I know and the Jeskai Tempo player I lost to. I have no idea how the Jund player who beat me had faired but I think his tiebreakers were bad enough to keep him out of top 8 (which makes me even saltier). There was a Colorless Aggro deck up there for a while but I didn't see it towards the end. There was a Naya Company player as well at those tables for most of the day as well as an Affinity player. All in all the meta was pretty diverse towards the top (albeit varying shades of aggro for the most part, still lots of interactivity). Anyway those are just my thoughts and my experience throughout the day. I think I was easily one of the best 16 decks/players in the room on the day but just hit a god awful string of events towards the end (to be fair there were other folks who had bad luck and days as well. One of my friends is a Jund player who is very experienced and he went 0-3 drop. Sometimes things just don't break your way I guess). Anyway, the most depressing thing coming out of this weekend is the ban talks. I hope we at least get a year to play with our new toy but people love to fearmonger.
Edit: I am also think of running a Batterskull? Folks don't bring in a ton of artifact hate in against us. This could be another resilient threat that acts double to help us clock with Lingering Souls or any other creature lategame. Would give us another 1x MB lifegain tool.
Everyone should expect to see chalice, ensnaring bridge, worship, fulminator mage, torpor orb (against mimic and tks triggers), magus of the moon, blood moon, and painter's servant being played a bit more in main decks for the time being and adjust for these. Chalice on 1 is a problem for us (path, iok, ts, relic). Disenchant deals with most of these problems and should be in sideboards.
My money is on Mimic and SSG. Simian Spirit Guide has now enabled dumb early game things for 2 decks that came up at Pro Tours. If they snap to ban Eye of Ugin, I'd also like them to address other fast mana outlets like Mox Opal and SSG just to be even with banning fast mana across the board. Regardless, we have til April.
So my thought on Batterskull is to replace my 1x Oblivion Sower with it. It's more than just for burn, it's for any other aggro strategy and decks like Naya company (which I suspect we will see more of). Any deck that is trying to kill you with creatures would force themselves to swing into it every turn or every other turn. You'd gain 4 life and be able to give yourself the ability to keep resetting it. It's just another resilient threat that doesn't die to creature removal (which folks will be packing). I have seen some decks bring in Stoney Silence but they are few and far between and I usually don't care all that much since it'd just be a 1x for additional value. Essentially I am looking at it as another 4/4 that you can keep resetting against fair decks. Side bonus, if you have 3 scion tokens, you can tap out with it in play and still bounce it back to hand if they try and remove it. Our current MB lifegain sources are Vault which you need dudes and 5 mana to use, Sorin which you need dudes but 4 mana to cast. Batterskull provides you with a 5 mana 4/4 lifelinker with potential upside. (can you imagine equipping it to a Reality Smasher as well. Talk about dumb. I saw almost no artifact hate (other than k.commmand because it has 3 other useful modes) being brought in against me. Most folks don't care a ton about the relics and maps because they can be cracked early and in response to the spell. Again it's not perfect but it is an option I am going to try out. It also benefits from requiring no color mana sources like Sorin or Vault.
Ratchet Bomb has also been a nice answer to a lot of these things (in addition to Disenchant). I am definitely not sad that I had them in my SB already. They didn't come in a lot at SCG Regionals but they are definitely becoming more relevant now.
Please don't flame in the boards with things that aren't constructive. Bear in mind my comments were after watching Day 1 and the decks proved to definitely be the right meta call. The second "quote" was taken out of context about the colorless Eldrazi deck not the UR one. If you have nothing of value to contribute to the BW Eldrazi decklist and thread, please do not comment in it.
If anyone sees banlist discussion after this post, report it and DO NOT RESPOND. Responding often earns you a warning/infraction as well. Staff will handle it.
Carry on with the development and strategy!
First, all our one-for-ones are too expensive. Both the discard and the removal we play is just not good because they can play their hand way faster than we can answer it. If you played Standard during Affinity's reign in 2004, you will remember that Shatter and Oxidize were actually not very effective versus them because they would just play artifacts faster than you can destroy them. The same is true here. Their decks are designed to maximize the amount of virtual mana that Eye of Ugin makes by overloading on 2's and 3's, and we just can't answer them all. They will commonly play 2 things a turn for two consecutive turns, and because the things they are playing dodge almost every 1-cmc removal spell besides Dismember, we cannot hope to match their velocity with reactive spells. We have to play sweepers, but there are no 3cmc sweepers that reliably sweep them. So we have to look to 4cmc sweepers like Damnation. But this is not reliable. Sometimes Damnation will be too slow, sometimes it will be stripped by TKS, sometimes it will be Warping Wailed, sometimes it will not deal with multiple manlands, and sometimes they will read you and hold back a fatty or two so that your sweeper doesn't actually alleviate the pressure. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and I think that it is too risky to be a viable plan.
You might argue in response that all of these things are true of Affinity as well, but the difference there is (1) Souls is actually good against them and generates value, and (2) most of their artifacts don't really matter, just the "lords" - Plating, Overseer, and Ravager. With Eldrazi, nearly every creature they play is capable of doing real damage and attacking through our typical boardstates - even Mimic.
You might also argue that all my concerns are true of Little Kid Abzan, and you'd be right. That's actually a bad matchup for us! The difference is now Mimic-based Eldrazi has great matchups against decks that Little Kid struggles with, and it has an insane amount of hype now, so we should expect to see it more often.
Second, Ensnaring Bridge, Worship, and other hate cards that the metagame is moving towards hampers us just as badly as it does them.
In the face of these two challenges, I have serious doubts about whether Processor-based builds can compete.
I think we can compete with the Colorless Strategies. What we will need to do is try and answer them early (like we do other aggro variants). Surgical Extractions are huge in this because they have 2 primary threats (TKS and Reality Smasher). Flaying Tendrils will hurt them if they went too wide too early and stripping them of Reality Smashers will also be big. We need to see how the format adjusts. The most likely decks to combat this aggro variant is going to be midrange and control decks. We could easily prey on them as well (depending on what they bring out as answers). What I suspect will be an answer is for folks to bring more creature removal (non-bolt ones like Terminate, Path, Doom Blade, ETC), land destruction, counterspells (like Leak, Disdainful Stroke, Remand) and wrath effects. I'd work on fighting against those strategies (particularly board wipes) by trying to run non creature threats that give you resilience to those things. I have mentioned Batterskull before and agree it's borderline. What about whip of erebos? If you delay cracking relic as much against matchups where it's not needed, you could reuse TKS and Reality Smasher (or wasteland Strangler), give everyone lifelink and potentially make things harder on your opponent. Again slower answer but still an answer. The main goal is we need to live through the early game. It's not an easy strategy but it is an option.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm not saying it'd be bad, and I'm sure it could actually be good in some cases, but in thinking of our poor match-ups, having Flaying Tendrils or some other 3 cmc board wipe seems preferable.
I played beautox build
We agreed to a draw. First match round one was death shadow .. I kept my removal after burning threw his hand blight herders clogged the board and sprits went the distance .. Game 2 he sacs a blood stained I play shambling .. After he draws I serg extract the blood stained hitting 2 in his hand one point in game I timely reinforcements to put my life 1 above a battle raged death shadow spell skite did wonders and sprits pull threw for last few damage
Round 2 grix control. Warp wailing exiles a Jace. I bate a mana leak out with Sorin to cast relic and sac to stop him from being able to tasagar .. And Obliv sower comes down and nets 3 lands
Putting my eye at operation next turn I cast exp map eot search for caverns he scoops.
Game 2 was brutal he's stuck on 2 lands serum again in draw step I extract after draw and remove a sac land (love this play) souls go on line eot warp wail for scion and thought -knot next turn with soul buy back ulamog come down as a natural gg
Round 3 Jund ... He's mana screws at 2 wasn't even funny destroys him.
G2 I bring in lay lines mull to 5 Leyline he sighs .. Plays land and passes I rip his hand with inquisition I see a ozz and hand disruption and burn.. I take the ozz. And game goes threw with me chaining blight herders and ulamog gg
G4. We desire to draw and split but play any way .. He goes first plays forest and enchants it I ghost quarter it pass go. He repeats I draw w/b pain land. He casts. A mana elf ..I path a prime Titan he cast another filling turn and with garuk over runs me. All my removal just ramped him more. G2. Was back and forth at the end I had him at 7 life he just cast a primeval Titan sitting on 13 mana. I swing with a thought knot. He blocks I give lifelink and death touch .. He had zero cards in hand. He draws from thought knot draws for turn casts tooth and nail shows combo gg
I changed 1 Disenchant to a second rachet bomb be cause I've faced 3 ensnaring bridges in past
It's probably way too cute, but it's still something.
I thought about Mana Tithe as well and really think it's just too cheeky. I know it hurts us too but if this colorless variant becomes a big part of your local meta, you can always run Torpor Orb to shut down most of their things.