The big question I am running into is All is Dust vs Sorin in the main. All is Dust has won so many games for me when I am behind, but Sorin seems like he secures a win for me if the board is in parity.
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No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
I play one Fetid Heath mainboard, I'm tempted to play a few more so I could have options like testing say Fracturing Gust in the side. What about even a card like Return to Dust? I've been seeing too much Affinity, Boggles, even 8 Rack, ect. showing up.
This is my current deck, pretty happy with it, besides the affinity and boggles matchups, those are pretty rough. I have this on MTGO testing it. Does well versus most control and aggro, the 4 sided Rain of Tears really help in the mirror and against Tron.
This deck is going for a more direct path to victory with the knowledge that most people can not match up to Eldrazi stats. So the creature hate is either Path, or on the back of strangler. The deck then either shoves reality smashers anf thought knots to lock the game down and then proceeds to get ulamog on line. It uses oblivion sowers in order to fullfill eye of ugin to tutor more pain. The sideboard is created with these weaknesses in mind, firstly, Leyline of Sanctity and Blood Moon are bad juju in a great many ways. Erase kills them and fuels Processing. Grim discovery is both defensive and offensive. Firstly it can be used to loop ghost quarters, which is brutal in the mirror and against decks like tron (the creature part is just gravy, and has its uses). The rest of the deck is geared against the swarm of aggro in the format. Vendetta and dismember take care of a great many of the aggro threats including affinity. Night of Souls take care of them too but also hits that annoying token deck. Tendrils is self explanatory.
Match One vs Junk: Graveyard hate and value creatures were too much for the opponent to deal with, lost a game due to flood. 1-0
Match two vs Tron: Game one, I got a turn 2 surgical on a mine with a scoop. Game 2, he played t1 needle on ghost quarter, I get him to 5 on the back of a single Reality Smasher but he eats my creatures and his lands. Game 3 I get Stony Silence into Thought-Not into Thought-Not into Herder, somehow he draws absolutely 100% perfect to win, not even kidding (claim into karn into o-stone). 1-1
Match three vs Junk: Same as match 1, lost one game to flood. 2-1
Match 4 vs Abzan Company: Graveyard hate and wasteland stranglers take game 1, game 2 more of the same, he ends up with some mana creatures and a township, but I finally hit a blight herder and herder with vault of the archangel is too good at racing. 3-1
Final notes, vault is amazing, I'm very happy with 2 main. My tron plan seems fine, but I'd like to see some more games. I don't really miss lingering souls or liliana. I never got to try out the Displacer or Depleter so no comments there. I really think this deck is fantastic I love having access to path.
I made top 4 at a 59 person SCG IQ in NJ with BW Eldrazi. I went 4-0-2 in the Swiss, won the quarterfinals, and lost in the semifinals. First, a decklist and some preliminary remarks:
As I've mentioned before, I'd like to build BW Eldrazi in such a way that it can play a decent game of Magic even when it doesn't find Eye or Temple. That means playing a lower curve like I've done. I only run 2 Smasher because (a) he's just a dumb beater, you don't need too many, and (b) it's too hard on the mana running 8 5-drops. Herder is just way, way better than Smasher overall, so you're definitely not shaving him. Lowering the curve has the highly-desirable side effect of enabling you to completely cut Expedition Map and Oblivion Sower, both of which are horrible cards in a midrange strategy. I am quite certain that doing this is correct. Ulamog is still OK as a get-out-of-jail-free kind of card, since you're naturally good at making the game go long, and then it becomes a nice Eye target that you can cast without the aid of Oblivion Sower. Ulamog got sided out a lot since I played a fair number of quick decks, and it's possible that he should be cut for another cheap interactive spell.
A few notes about nonconventional choices, for those of you who have not been following my ramblings: Sorin, Solemn Visitor was an experimental card today as a second Vault effect that isn't a land, and he was worth his weight in gold, singlehandedly winning me my quarterfinal match. I think he is a perfect one-of. Oblivion Ring was also great all day long, playing a key role in my win-and-in, but of course you must be mindful of the concentration of Abrupt Decay decks. I am tempted to run a second, but this is almost certainly a really dangerous and reckless idea. Disfigure was a metagame choice since the mid-Atlantic region is pretty heavy on little aggro decks, and it was serviceable but not fantastic. I can easily see these being some other removal option like Doom Blade or Dismember. Finally, 1 Urborg: why just one? Answer: Eye + Urborg doesn't matter as much since you're just trying to get to 5, not 6. You don't need Urborg to turn Eye into Workshop. Saving 1 mana is enough to reliably cast the 5 drops. It is just better to have a fourth basic since you often run out of Path/GQ targets with just 3.
Here are match descriptions, hopefully with minimal errors. Sorry if there are errors, since I'm reconstructing from my memory/notes, both of which are imperfect.
Round 1: 2-0 win versus 8-Rack
This is a relatively good matchup for Eldrazi just like it was for Jund. In game 1, he aggressively tried to mana screw me with turn 2 Smallpox, but I had a land-heavy draw and just naturally played out my threats a turn later than I would have otherwise. He drew the wrong mix of removal and discard and couldn't answer all of my threats, and with no board presence of his own, he just died. Oblivion Ring was helpful here to remove a pesky Ensnaring Bridge. In game 2, he mulled to 5 and again lacked enough interaction to meaningfully limit my threats.
Round 2: 2-0 win versus UWR Control
This is another decent matchup for Eldrazi. Game 1 I had a discard heavy draw that ultimately allowed me to play Thought-Knot into Blight Herder safely, which was enough to put the game away. In game 2, I led with an early discard spell into Lingering Souls into flashback Souls. One token drew a removal spell. A few turns later, I cast a Thought-Knot into his two-card hand, and he had land + Path. He Pathed the Seer with the discard trigger on the stack, and his draw was… Detention Sphere! That was lucky. The Souls ended up getting there.
Round 3: 2-0 win versus Naya Company
In game 1, he mulliganned to 6, kept on top, and led with land go. I turn 1 Thoughtseized a Collected Company, seeing two Loxodon Smiters, a Ghost Quarter, and a Path. I followed up with Relic, making sure to activate every turn to keep any potential Goyfs under control, and then he missed his third land drop. A Thought-Knot the following turn later saw that he drew two Goyfs off the top, so Relic was really good here. I took a Loxodon Smiter, and the follow up of Blight Herder was too powerful for his weak Goyfs to control. Post-sideboard, I had All is Dust in my opener and a bunch of Sol lands. He had an early Stony Silence, which was irrelevant to me since I just didn't have a Relic in the opener, and I played Wasteland Strangler. He followed up with Knight of the Reliquary, which quickly grew to 4/4, and I countered with Reality Smasher, which immediately got in for 5. The following turn, with mana open, I attacked with both Strangler and Smasher into his Knight, thinking I could Disfigure the Knight if it blocked the Strangler, but a Path on the Smasher resulted in a Loxodon Smiter being flashed into the battlefield. I let the Smiter eat the Strangler even though I had the Disfigure since I didn't want to two-for-one myself just for a vanilla 4/4. Post-combat, I played a Seer, which stripped a crucial Crumble to Dust from his hand. On his turn, he swung with both creatures, I didn't block, and then he dumped the rest of his hand onto the battlefield, playing a land and a Noble Hierarch. The followup All is Dust was a 4-for-1, leaving him with no non-land permanents and no cards in hand, effectively ending the game on the spot.
Round 4: Win 2-1 versus RG Tron
Game 1 I had the nuts, curving discard into multiple Seers. He got Tron online, but had nothing to cast since his eggs bricked. Game 2, I had Ghost Quarter + Surgical in my opener, and I got so excited when he played T1 Urza's Mine that I just went for it in my first turn. That set me behind quite a bit tempo-wise, and with a flurry of eggs and dig spells, he just curved out his fatties naturally, ending in an Ulamog decking me. Never, ever do that GQ+Surgical play on turn 1; it was awful, and I feel bad for having done that. I should have just waited until the last second so that I could set up some kind of board presence. In game 3, I had turn 2 TKS with Temple + Eye, but when I led with Temple, he GQ'd immediately, which set him behind on tempo, as he could only play an egg on his turn 2. I played T3 Thought-Knot off of Eye + two lands, which took a Karn, leaving two Wurmcoils, an Oblivion Stone, and lands. The following turn, I attacked with TKS to bring him to 16, played Urborg, and cast a post-combat Lingering Souls. He went digging with eggs a bit more and passed back. I then topdecked a Temple, and then cast Smasher the following turn to bring him to 5, and then played a post-combat Stony Silence to turn off Oblivion Stone and an Inquisition to rip Sylvan Scrying from his hand. That was a good turn. However, he topdecked the last Tron piece the following turn despite my efforts, and played Wurmcoil Engine in an attempt to stabilize. My follow-up of Oblivion Ring, however, cleared the way to victory. Sometimes you just have it all.
Round 5 and 6: ID, 8th seed.
Quarterfinals: Win 2-1 versus Merfolk
I kept a sketchy 2-lander game 1 on the draw, which got punished by double Spreading Seas. In game 2, I mulled a one-lander to 6 and bottomed a redundant fatty. Thankfully, he had a slow start with T2 Harbinger of the Tides as his first play, and I curved Flaying Tendrils into Thought-Knot (taking Master of Waves) into Reality Smasher. He countered with Kira, Merrow Reejerey, and Mutavault. I swung for 9 and he didn't block, taking him to 11. Then he slammed Master of Waves on his turn to make 4 2/1 Elementals. I topdecked a second Thought-Knot, cast it, and attacked with Smasher to bring him to 6, leaving behind two Ghost Quarters and two Thought-Knots. The following turn, he went for the alpha strike, which resulted in his Mutavault, Reejerey, and Master all dying (along with all the Elementals) for 10 damage, which wasn't enough to kill me – I am not sure what he was thinking here, perhaps he simply miscalculated, but this of course directly caused his defeat despite a valiant effort from a flashed in Harbinger of the Tides to buy a turn. In game 3, I was able to gum up the board with a bunch of Souls tokens, Thought-Knot, and a pair of unprocessed Blight Herders. He had Kira and a large collection of fish, and neither of us could really attack profitably into the other. Topdeck Sorin, however, completely broke the symmetry of the board, and his +1 directly led to the concession, as all his blocks were awful and I was going to gain more than 20 life.
Semifinals: Loss 0-2 versus Little Kid Abzan
I was again on the draw, and I had no plays before turn 3 in my hand. He went Hierarch, Smiter, Rhino, Rhino. Oh well. In game 2, he had Souls and Township online before I could go over him, and Township eventually ended up taking over the game. Sorin gave me a glimmer of hope here, but my deck was not providing any additional support, and I soon died to a horde of constantly-growing value creatures. I notably had almost no relevant sideboard cards for this matchup.
Overall, I would say the list felt great. I never wanted Oblivion Sower or Expedition Map, and I am likely never going to play either of those cards in this archetype ever again. As for improvements, Flaying Tendrils was kind of bad, and I keep going back and forth on whether or not Ulamog belongs, since his effect is really unique, but I think it's a solid 75, all things considered. I would happily run this back, with the aim of squeezing another card or two in the SB for “big wide decks” like Little Kid and Merfolk. Right now, I feel quite underprepared for those matchups, but I don't know what can be done about it. All the sweepers in these colors are horrible in various ways – this deck would kill for Toxic Deluge.
Tron is a very hard match but Affinity should be pretty even. If you have Lingering Souls. And Stony Silence in the side, with a Disenchant or two as well. Affinity is the largest single share of the meta, and that is not going to change. We need to be ready for them and, in BW, we should be able to show them a pretty hard time.
In my opinion, not running Lingering Souls as a 4-of in a BW mainboard (OK, maybe a 3-of) is a big mistake.
Spellskite is excellent anti-Bogles tech, as is Lili. All is Dust is powerful, though slow. Engineered Explosives is good against Bogles. Disenchant comes out of the board in this match as well. Bogles players often keep a one-creature hand, so T1 disruption on the play can also be very strong.
I played in the Columbus SCG Modern Classic today, ended up going 3-3 and dropping. I hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, and it really caught up with me by the 5th round. My list used some strange main deck tech that actually really pulled its weight throughout the day. List:
My matches were:
Round 1: Affinity 1-2. Game 1, I was run over by turn 4. +3 Chalice +2 Disenchant +2 Stony Silence +1 Flaying Tendrils. Game 2, never see any sideboard cards, but aggressive Ghost Quarters and Paths on man-lands get there. -3 Chalice. Game 3, we end up grinding a lot. I steal a bunch of Nexus's with Oblivion Sower, but he gets lethal the turn before I stablize. He had 4 attackers, I had could only animate 2 Nexus to block, then used the rest to gain 4 life off Tomb.
Round 2: GR Tron 2-1. Game 1, turn 5 Ulamog earns a scoop from me. +1 Chalice. Game 2, I take a proactive approach with Ghost Quarters again, keeping him off of 1 Tron land nearly the entire game. Game 3, I play 3 Temples in a row, followed by Crucible and Ghost Quarter.
Round 3: Martyr Proc 2-0. Game 1 is super grindy. He gains ~60 life over the course of the game. Couldn't beat 30 power on board though, including Kozilek with 4cmc in my hand to counter Wraths. +2 Worship +1 Sword +1 All is Dust. Game 2, he doesn't board in enchantment removal, so we spend a good 8 turns going back and forth between him hitting me with a Serra Ascendant (1, 46), and me hitting him with Thought-Knot + sword (4, 40). Eventually, I land Kozilek, with a second Worship to counter Wrath. Fun match overall.
Round 4: Mirror 2-1. Game 1, I get there with Ulamog. (As an aside, seeing the look on your opponent's face when you play Damnation with Ulamog on board is pretty great). +1 Crucible, +1 Sword, +2 Worship. Game 2, I lose to my own Blight Herder. I had worship out with 3 Scions. I sac the Scions and cast a Blight Herder, but realize that he only has 1 card exiled. Herder gets pathed, I get smashed. Game 3, we each Thought-Knot eachother's Crucibles, on sequential turns at that, then start aggressively Ghost Quartering. Lingering Souls and Timely keep me in the game long enough to cast Ulamog, exiling his Eye and Reality Smasher. We go to time, and I get there on the third turn.
Round 5: Zoo 0-2. Here's basically were my decision making went down the drain. I keep a 5 land hand, not knowing what my opponent has. He goes turn 1 Hierach, turn 2 Nacatl x2, Turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary. I'm dead before casting a spell. +2 Worship +1 All is Dust +3 Chalice. Game 2 begins with a mull to 5 (technically 4 because I had an Ulamog in hand), he gets 2 Nacatl on board before I can drop a Chalice for 1, then a Knight of the Reliquary, followed by a Collected Company for Knight of the Reliquary and Loxodon Smiter.
Round 6: Boggles 0-2, drop. Game 1, I never find a white mana to Path his 20/20 Spirit Dancer. Game 2, I take a Boggle on turn 1 with Inquisition, then neglect to Slaughter Pact his Kor Spirit Dancer in response to an Umbra, even though I could pay for it next turn. I tell my opponent my mistake, and scoop it in.
On all but the last two matches, the deck felt great. The worst card the whole day was actually Wasteland Strangler. Best card was definitely Ghost Quarter. The one thing I noticed was that I was cracking Relics in order to dig A LOT throughout the day. Friend of mine is trying Night's Whisper as a 1-of. I might try it as a 1- or 2-of. Tomb of the Spirit Dragon performed well throughout the day. Vesuva was okay, it copied a couple Temples, a Nexus, and a Ghost Quarter at least once.
Terrific play report, thanks and congratulations! I too have cut Sower (down to 1 in my case) and am debating Ulamog in the main because I side him out so often.
I notice you didn't mention Vent one way or the other; any times the CIPT was a real blow? Any late-game saves?
My sweepers include a mix of Damnation and Engineered Explosives and I consider having a fair number of them essential for the fast-n-wide decks like Elves and baby Zoo etc. I've also gone to a 2/2 split on Rest for the Weary and Timely Reinforcements to shore up both those matches and the Burn match.
Oblivion Ring and Sorin both look really good, but there are only 75 slots in this deck, and any cut has real consequences. Right now I have a 1-of Eldrazi Displacer that is a flex slot.
Terrific play report, thanks and congratulations! I too have cut Sower (down to 1 in my case) and am debating Ulamog in the main because I side him out so often.
I notice you didn't mention Vent one way or the other; any times the CIPT was a real blow? Any late-game saves?
My sweepers include a mix of Damnation and Engineered Explosives and I consider having a fair number of them essential for the fast-n-wide decks like Elves and baby Zoo etc. I've also gone to a 2/2 split on Rest for the Weary and Timely Reinforcements to shore up both those matches and the Burn match.
Oblivion Ring and Sorin both look really good, but there are only 75 slots in this deck, and any cut has real consequences. Right now I have a 1-of Eldrazi Displacer that is a flex slot.
Thanks! Vent was fine, but low impact today. I activated it only rarely, but on the other hand I didn't really play the matchups where he is supposed to shine the most. I think the jury is still out, but I have a positive opinion of it. CIPT wasn't a gigantic deal in my experience.
As for sweepers, EE and All is Dust are both good, and I would rather play Damnation than Flaying Tendrils' for sure. All the options have drawbacks, that's all. What the deck really wants is Anger of the Gods or Toxic Deluge - just some 3cmc thing that doesn't kill most of our own stuff.
Another good play report, thanks Stillenacht288. Some interesting choices there. I'm delighted to hear that Koz is pulling his weight in countering your opponents' efforts.
Round 6: Boggles 0-2, drop. Game 1, I never find a white mana to Path his 20/20 Spirit Dancer.
With all due respect, though, that is going to keep happening to you if you only run 6 sources for W, two Maps or no. In my opinion, your deck list is way, way too light on the colored mana count.
I agree, my list runs 10-13 of each, I'd have to go back and look... The only thing that has been pissing me off about this deck is actually getting to 6 mana when you have too, this deck can stall on itself. For that reason I'm even thinking 4 maps 2 mind stones. But it's tough to pick what to cut, I would like to get down to 2 oblivion sower so that might be an option.
@iostream
Excellent results. Congrats! You didn't face a lot of aggro decks but how was your test results against Burn and Affinity without Maps and Sower? Is 3 Rest for the Weary enough to pull you through? I find Burn a tougher match up than Affinity as they just go all in to the dome whereas you can slow down Affinity with Spirit Tokens and Ghost Quarter to their Nexus. I have a lot of Burn in my meta so I am looking to add Timely Reinforcements as well. However I feel Rest is so much better being an instant but Timely can provide additional blockers.
I like the direction you are going by making the deck more midrange than ramp by cutting Sower and Map. I split Herder and Smasher at 3 each because during grindy games, it's harder to remove Smasher as they need to spend two cards to do so. This synergizes well with our disruption from TKS and IoK/TS.
Your manabase looks good. Although I'm not really a fan of Shambling Vent from my testing and with Sorin acting as a second Vault, I find much less use for Vent. Congrats again on your finish!
I made top 4 at a 59 person SCG IQ in NJ with BW Eldrazi. I went 4-0-2 in the Swiss, won the quarterfinals, and lost in the semifinals.
Congrats!
Have you found 11 colorless sources enough for 4 TKS and 2 Smasher?
I'm not iostream but I think 11 is good enough since you will be curving to TKS and RS at turns 3-4. Only time you can cast TKS earlier is turn 2 with Eye and Temple.
@iostream
Excellent results. Congrats! You didn't face a lot of aggro decks but how was your test results against Burn and Affinity without Maps and Sower? Is 3 Rest for the Weary enough to pull you through? I find Burn a tougher match up than Affinity as they just go all in to the dome whereas you can slow down Affinity with Spirit Tokens and Ghost Quarter to their Nexus. I have a lot of Burn in my meta so I am looking to add Timely Reinforcements as well. However I feel Rest is so much better being an instant but Timely can provide additional blockers.
I like the direction you are going by making the deck more midrange than ramp by cutting Sower and Map. I split Herder and Smasher at 3 each because during grindy games, it's harder to remove Smasher as they need to spend two cards to do so. This synergizes well with our disruption from TKS and IoK/TS.
Your manabase looks good. Although I'm not really a fan of Shambling Vent from my testing and with Sorin acting as a second Vault, I find much less use for Vent. Congrats again on your finish!
I find this version of the deck does much better versus Affinity and Burn than the version with Sowers and Maps. For one, neither Sower nor Map really helps you stabilize in the early turns, which is what really matters, and not running either in and of itself is helpful. Second, maindeck Disfigure is fantastic against both of them, which is actually why I was running them in the first place, as my meta was overrun with Burn and Affinity (although I ironically never faced it yesterday despite both these decks being everywhere in the room). Being able to double-up on removal in a single turn is a common path to victory since such a play buys so much tempo, and Disfigure does a great job enabling that. I would say both of these matchups are slightly to moderately unfavorable pre-board, and they become solidly favorable postboard, to the point that I think the matchup is close to even (for Burn) and slightly favorable (for Affinity). Versus Burn, it is hard to lose if you get to resolve even one Rest for the Weary with any kind of board presence to back it up. Versus Affinity, we have a ton of high-impact cards in the sideboard in addition to the 4 maindeck Souls, which are terrific. I like where this deck is positioned versus both of those.
But I should emphasize that outside of the sideboard, I've found that mulliganing rather aggressively versus these decks is crucial - i.e. don't keep hands without early interaction. If you don't have a way to interact in the first two turns, it is almost always a mulligan. Relic doesn't count. I think many people lose by keeping hands that would be perfectly fine against most decks, but are a half-turn to a full turn slow versus Burn/Affinity. This is all they need to kill you. In general, people aren't mulliganing enough - do it! The scry rule is awesome. I think that the new mulligan rule is so good that most players could probably even double their mulligan frequency and still not be overshooting the theoretical optimum by that much. In testing, I have won many games against Burn and Affinity (and other aggro decks, for that matter) on 5 or 6 cards.
As for Shambling Vent, I'm not married to it, but I could see it going one way or the other. I'm not sure yet. Sorin covers some of Shambling Vent's utility, but a card that gets to be both a land and a threat is uniquely powerful since it saves you slots in your deck. Without it, I worry the deck becomes a little threat-light. Vent also strains opposing Ghost Quarters, which is nice.
I made top 4 at a 59 person SCG IQ in NJ with BW Eldrazi. I went 4-0-2 in the Swiss, won the quarterfinals, and lost in the semifinals.
Congrats!
Have you found 11 colorless sources enough for 4 TKS and 2 Smasher?
I'm not iostream but I think 11 is good enough since you will be curving to TKS and RS at turns 3-4. Only time you can cast TKS earlier is turn 2 with Eye and Temple.
Karsten would say 11 is aggressive, but I thought it was sufficient, if just barely so. In an ideal world, I would like another source of <>, but I don't know how to squeeze it in, so I probably won't mess with it.
I joined the forum few minutes ago.
after a long stop a decided to sweep the dust off my "formerly-know-melira pod" and to build this BW eldrazi which looks really fresh to me ( My town meta is full of jund/tron/abzan/burn...always the same decks, kinda boring )
We all agree that the build is in the beta phase but I would like to ask your opinion about "strangler": in almost the 90% of my tests it was just a 3 mana 3/2, with a very short life.
Since this deck is a midrange and it doesn't dig as much as tron does, for example, wouldn't be better to play matter reshaper instead?
It comes down turn 2-3, while we never play strangler that early, thus we can pressure form turn 2-3 but above all we chump block ( goblin guide, monastery swiftspear, wild nactl etc. ) and we put in play permaments ( lands included) or draw.
I know it's randomic but frankly "strangler" didn't impress me that much...
what do you think?
PS: sorry in advance for my poor english
Everyone hates Strangler, but when you get to trigger the ability, it is amazing, especially in our worst matchups. Reshaper doesn't always give you value, especially with so many decks playing Path to Exile nowadays. Also, the colorless <> mana is hard to get on curve unless you increase the number of <> sources, which can be tough. But I agree, Strangler is the worst card. I just don't know what to put in its place.
Eldrazi Displacer has a 3 butt--allowing to to chump bears and trade with, say, Nacatl--and a powerful and versatile ability that synergizes with both Strangler and TKS. Just saying. It's a lot worse vs. Bolt, though.
Eldrazi Displacer has a 3 butt--allowing to to chump bears and trade with, say, Nacatl--and a powerful and versatile ability that synergizes with both Strangler and TKS. Just saying. It's a lot worse vs. Bolt, though.
I'm not excited by the opportunity to trade Displacer with Nacatl (which Strangler also does, by the way), but it seems like it's a nice Spellskite-like effect that can attack. I can see one in the maindeck. Have you liked it?
I actually like to try both in place of Strangler. The good thing about Strangler is that it provides us the option to be removal 7-10. We can always wait to strangle a creature before casting for that 2 for 1; or we can cast it without any targets and start beating down when the coast is clear or as a chump blocker for something bigger.
The former forces us to be more reactive and the latter is the more proactive option. If you choose to play the more aggresive option, I think Matter Reshaper fills the role better. If it's able to attack and trade, we get to draw something at the very least when it dies. If it gets Pathed, then that is one less Path for TKS or Herder.
Displacer is the riskiest because it can die without providing any value. Like Strangler, its ability is too dependent on the board state. The interaction with TKS is just insane though. And it can blink attacking creatures.
I'm in the process of building this deck and I have a few questions about sideboard slots.
Firstly, is there any merit to running Seal of Cleansing over Disenchant? Or does it not really matter anymore now that Twin is gone?
Second, what about Mortify somewhere in the 75? I get that the flexibility of being able to pay life to Dismember is very important, but I wonder if Mortify's ability to hit enchantments is any more or less relevant.
Lastly, does either Black Sun's Zenith or Languish do anything for us in the problem matchups that try to go wide against this deck, like Merfolk? I'd much rather have something at 3 CMC, like Toxic Deluge, but you can't always get what you want I suppose.
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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.
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4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Eye of Ugin
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Caves of Kolios
1 Fetid Heath
2 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Blight Herder
4 Oblivion Sower
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Artifacts 4:
4 Relic of Progenitus
Instants 7:
4 Path to Exile
3 Dismember
Sorceries 7:
4 Thoughtseize
3 Lingering Souls
2 Chalice of the Void
4 Rain of Tears
2 Drown in Sorrow
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Duress
2 Doomblade
1 Dismember
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Wasteland Strangler
3x Blight Herder
4x Reality Smasher
3x Oblivion Sower
1x Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger
2x Conduit of Ruin
Non-creatures
4x Relic of Proginitous
1x Thoughtsieze
4x Path to Exile
1x Raven’s Crime
3x Duress
2x Expedition Map
4x Eye of Ugin
4x Eldrazi Temple
1x Swamp
4x Caves of Coilos
2x Plains
4x Ghost Quarter
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Godless Shrine
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3x Erase
1x Lingering Souls
2x Dismember
2x Flaying Tendrils
1x Night of Souls Betrayal
3x Grim Discovery
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2x Vendetta
This deck is going for a more direct path to victory with the knowledge that most people can not match up to Eldrazi stats. So the creature hate is either Path, or on the back of strangler. The deck then either shoves reality smashers anf thought knots to lock the game down and then proceeds to get ulamog on line. It uses oblivion sowers in order to fullfill eye of ugin to tutor more pain. The sideboard is created with these weaknesses in mind, firstly, Leyline of Sanctity and Blood Moon are bad juju in a great many ways. Erase kills them and fuels Processing. Grim discovery is both defensive and offensive. Firstly it can be used to loop ghost quarters, which is brutal in the mirror and against decks like tron (the creature part is just gravy, and has its uses). The rest of the deck is geared against the swarm of aggro in the format. Vendetta and dismember take care of a great many of the aggro threats including affinity. Night of Souls take care of them too but also hits that annoying token deck. Tendrils is self explanatory.
My meta has tron's and affinities in multiples
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Godless Shrine
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Vault of the Archangel
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Marsh Flats
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Wasteland Strangler
3 Oblivion Sower
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
3 Blight Herder
1 Eldrazi Displacer
Artifacts
4 Relic of Progenitus
1 Expedition Map
Spells
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Path to Exile
1 Dismember
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Disenchant
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Stony Silence
3 Rest for the weary
1 Rest in Peace
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Essence Depleter
1 Duress
1 Engineered Explosives
Match One vs Junk: Graveyard hate and value creatures were too much for the opponent to deal with, lost a game due to flood. 1-0
Match two vs Tron: Game one, I got a turn 2 surgical on a mine with a scoop. Game 2, he played t1 needle on ghost quarter, I get him to 5 on the back of a single Reality Smasher but he eats my creatures and his lands. Game 3 I get Stony Silence into Thought-Not into Thought-Not into Herder, somehow he draws absolutely 100% perfect to win, not even kidding (claim into karn into o-stone). 1-1
Match three vs Junk: Same as match 1, lost one game to flood. 2-1
Match 4 vs Abzan Company: Graveyard hate and wasteland stranglers take game 1, game 2 more of the same, he ends up with some mana creatures and a township, but I finally hit a blight herder and herder with vault of the archangel is too good at racing. 3-1
Final notes, vault is amazing, I'm very happy with 2 main. My tron plan seems fine, but I'd like to see some more games. I don't really miss lingering souls or liliana. I never got to try out the Displacer or Depleter so no comments there. I really think this deck is fantastic I love having access to path.
2 Eye of Ugin
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Marsh Flats
2 Swamp
2 Plains
1 Godless Shrine
4 Caves of Koilos
2 Shambling Vent
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Vault of the Archangel
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Lingering Souls
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Blight Herder
2 Reality Smasher
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Path to Exile
2 Disfigure
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
3 Rest for the Weary
3 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Disenchant
1 All is Dust
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Spellskite
As I've mentioned before, I'd like to build BW Eldrazi in such a way that it can play a decent game of Magic even when it doesn't find Eye or Temple. That means playing a lower curve like I've done. I only run 2 Smasher because (a) he's just a dumb beater, you don't need too many, and (b) it's too hard on the mana running 8 5-drops. Herder is just way, way better than Smasher overall, so you're definitely not shaving him. Lowering the curve has the highly-desirable side effect of enabling you to completely cut Expedition Map and Oblivion Sower, both of which are horrible cards in a midrange strategy. I am quite certain that doing this is correct. Ulamog is still OK as a get-out-of-jail-free kind of card, since you're naturally good at making the game go long, and then it becomes a nice Eye target that you can cast without the aid of Oblivion Sower. Ulamog got sided out a lot since I played a fair number of quick decks, and it's possible that he should be cut for another cheap interactive spell.
A few notes about nonconventional choices, for those of you who have not been following my ramblings: Sorin, Solemn Visitor was an experimental card today as a second Vault effect that isn't a land, and he was worth his weight in gold, singlehandedly winning me my quarterfinal match. I think he is a perfect one-of. Oblivion Ring was also great all day long, playing a key role in my win-and-in, but of course you must be mindful of the concentration of Abrupt Decay decks. I am tempted to run a second, but this is almost certainly a really dangerous and reckless idea. Disfigure was a metagame choice since the mid-Atlantic region is pretty heavy on little aggro decks, and it was serviceable but not fantastic. I can easily see these being some other removal option like Doom Blade or Dismember. Finally, 1 Urborg: why just one? Answer: Eye + Urborg doesn't matter as much since you're just trying to get to 5, not 6. You don't need Urborg to turn Eye into Workshop. Saving 1 mana is enough to reliably cast the 5 drops. It is just better to have a fourth basic since you often run out of Path/GQ targets with just 3.
Here are match descriptions, hopefully with minimal errors. Sorry if there are errors, since I'm reconstructing from my memory/notes, both of which are imperfect.
Round 1: 2-0 win versus 8-Rack
This is a relatively good matchup for Eldrazi just like it was for Jund. In game 1, he aggressively tried to mana screw me with turn 2 Smallpox, but I had a land-heavy draw and just naturally played out my threats a turn later than I would have otherwise. He drew the wrong mix of removal and discard and couldn't answer all of my threats, and with no board presence of his own, he just died. Oblivion Ring was helpful here to remove a pesky Ensnaring Bridge. In game 2, he mulled to 5 and again lacked enough interaction to meaningfully limit my threats.
Round 2: 2-0 win versus UWR Control
This is another decent matchup for Eldrazi. Game 1 I had a discard heavy draw that ultimately allowed me to play Thought-Knot into Blight Herder safely, which was enough to put the game away. In game 2, I led with an early discard spell into Lingering Souls into flashback Souls. One token drew a removal spell. A few turns later, I cast a Thought-Knot into his two-card hand, and he had land + Path. He Pathed the Seer with the discard trigger on the stack, and his draw was… Detention Sphere! That was lucky. The Souls ended up getting there.
Round 3: 2-0 win versus Naya Company
In game 1, he mulliganned to 6, kept on top, and led with land go. I turn 1 Thoughtseized a Collected Company, seeing two Loxodon Smiters, a Ghost Quarter, and a Path. I followed up with Relic, making sure to activate every turn to keep any potential Goyfs under control, and then he missed his third land drop. A Thought-Knot the following turn later saw that he drew two Goyfs off the top, so Relic was really good here. I took a Loxodon Smiter, and the follow up of Blight Herder was too powerful for his weak Goyfs to control. Post-sideboard, I had All is Dust in my opener and a bunch of Sol lands. He had an early Stony Silence, which was irrelevant to me since I just didn't have a Relic in the opener, and I played Wasteland Strangler. He followed up with Knight of the Reliquary, which quickly grew to 4/4, and I countered with Reality Smasher, which immediately got in for 5. The following turn, with mana open, I attacked with both Strangler and Smasher into his Knight, thinking I could Disfigure the Knight if it blocked the Strangler, but a Path on the Smasher resulted in a Loxodon Smiter being flashed into the battlefield. I let the Smiter eat the Strangler even though I had the Disfigure since I didn't want to two-for-one myself just for a vanilla 4/4. Post-combat, I played a Seer, which stripped a crucial Crumble to Dust from his hand. On his turn, he swung with both creatures, I didn't block, and then he dumped the rest of his hand onto the battlefield, playing a land and a Noble Hierarch. The followup All is Dust was a 4-for-1, leaving him with no non-land permanents and no cards in hand, effectively ending the game on the spot.
Round 4: Win 2-1 versus RG Tron
Game 1 I had the nuts, curving discard into multiple Seers. He got Tron online, but had nothing to cast since his eggs bricked. Game 2, I had Ghost Quarter + Surgical in my opener, and I got so excited when he played T1 Urza's Mine that I just went for it in my first turn. That set me behind quite a bit tempo-wise, and with a flurry of eggs and dig spells, he just curved out his fatties naturally, ending in an Ulamog decking me. Never, ever do that GQ+Surgical play on turn 1; it was awful, and I feel bad for having done that. I should have just waited until the last second so that I could set up some kind of board presence. In game 3, I had turn 2 TKS with Temple + Eye, but when I led with Temple, he GQ'd immediately, which set him behind on tempo, as he could only play an egg on his turn 2. I played T3 Thought-Knot off of Eye + two lands, which took a Karn, leaving two Wurmcoils, an Oblivion Stone, and lands. The following turn, I attacked with TKS to bring him to 16, played Urborg, and cast a post-combat Lingering Souls. He went digging with eggs a bit more and passed back. I then topdecked a Temple, and then cast Smasher the following turn to bring him to 5, and then played a post-combat Stony Silence to turn off Oblivion Stone and an Inquisition to rip Sylvan Scrying from his hand. That was a good turn. However, he topdecked the last Tron piece the following turn despite my efforts, and played Wurmcoil Engine in an attempt to stabilize. My follow-up of Oblivion Ring, however, cleared the way to victory. Sometimes you just have it all.
Round 5 and 6: ID, 8th seed.
Quarterfinals: Win 2-1 versus Merfolk
I kept a sketchy 2-lander game 1 on the draw, which got punished by double Spreading Seas. In game 2, I mulled a one-lander to 6 and bottomed a redundant fatty. Thankfully, he had a slow start with T2 Harbinger of the Tides as his first play, and I curved Flaying Tendrils into Thought-Knot (taking Master of Waves) into Reality Smasher. He countered with Kira, Merrow Reejerey, and Mutavault. I swung for 9 and he didn't block, taking him to 11. Then he slammed Master of Waves on his turn to make 4 2/1 Elementals. I topdecked a second Thought-Knot, cast it, and attacked with Smasher to bring him to 6, leaving behind two Ghost Quarters and two Thought-Knots. The following turn, he went for the alpha strike, which resulted in his Mutavault, Reejerey, and Master all dying (along with all the Elementals) for 10 damage, which wasn't enough to kill me – I am not sure what he was thinking here, perhaps he simply miscalculated, but this of course directly caused his defeat despite a valiant effort from a flashed in Harbinger of the Tides to buy a turn. In game 3, I was able to gum up the board with a bunch of Souls tokens, Thought-Knot, and a pair of unprocessed Blight Herders. He had Kira and a large collection of fish, and neither of us could really attack profitably into the other. Topdeck Sorin, however, completely broke the symmetry of the board, and his +1 directly led to the concession, as all his blocks were awful and I was going to gain more than 20 life.
Semifinals: Loss 0-2 versus Little Kid Abzan
I was again on the draw, and I had no plays before turn 3 in my hand. He went Hierarch, Smiter, Rhino, Rhino. Oh well. In game 2, he had Souls and Township online before I could go over him, and Township eventually ended up taking over the game. Sorin gave me a glimmer of hope here, but my deck was not providing any additional support, and I soon died to a horde of constantly-growing value creatures. I notably had almost no relevant sideboard cards for this matchup.
Overall, I would say the list felt great. I never wanted Oblivion Sower or Expedition Map, and I am likely never going to play either of those cards in this archetype ever again. As for improvements, Flaying Tendrils was kind of bad, and I keep going back and forth on whether or not Ulamog belongs, since his effect is really unique, but I think it's a solid 75, all things considered. I would happily run this back, with the aim of squeezing another card or two in the SB for “big wide decks” like Little Kid and Merfolk. Right now, I feel quite underprepared for those matchups, but I don't know what can be done about it. All the sweepers in these colors are horrible in various ways – this deck would kill for Toxic Deluge.
Thanks for reading!
In my opinion, not running Lingering Souls as a 4-of in a BW mainboard (OK, maybe a 3-of) is a big mistake.
Spellskite is excellent anti-Bogles tech, as is Lili. All is Dust is powerful, though slow. Engineered Explosives is good against Bogles. Disenchant comes out of the board in this match as well. Bogles players often keep a one-creature hand, so T1 disruption on the play can also be very strong.
2 Wasteland Strangler
3 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Blight Herder
4 Oblivion Sower
1 Conduit of Ruin
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Expedition Map
3 Path to Exile
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lingering Souls
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Damnation
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Marsh Flats
2 Godless Shrine
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Wastes
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
1 Vesuva
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
2 Disenchant
1 Celestial Purge
2 Stony Silence
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Worship
1 All is Dust
My matches were:
Round 1: Affinity 1-2. Game 1, I was run over by turn 4. +3 Chalice +2 Disenchant +2 Stony Silence +1 Flaying Tendrils. Game 2, never see any sideboard cards, but aggressive Ghost Quarters and Paths on man-lands get there. -3 Chalice. Game 3, we end up grinding a lot. I steal a bunch of Nexus's with Oblivion Sower, but he gets lethal the turn before I stablize. He had 4 attackers, I had could only animate 2 Nexus to block, then used the rest to gain 4 life off Tomb.
Round 2: GR Tron 2-1. Game 1, turn 5 Ulamog earns a scoop from me. +1 Chalice. Game 2, I take a proactive approach with Ghost Quarters again, keeping him off of 1 Tron land nearly the entire game. Game 3, I play 3 Temples in a row, followed by Crucible and Ghost Quarter.
Round 3: Martyr Proc 2-0. Game 1 is super grindy. He gains ~60 life over the course of the game. Couldn't beat 30 power on board though, including Kozilek with 4cmc in my hand to counter Wraths. +2 Worship +1 Sword +1 All is Dust. Game 2, he doesn't board in enchantment removal, so we spend a good 8 turns going back and forth between him hitting me with a Serra Ascendant (1, 46), and me hitting him with Thought-Knot + sword (4, 40). Eventually, I land Kozilek, with a second Worship to counter Wrath. Fun match overall.
Round 4: Mirror 2-1. Game 1, I get there with Ulamog. (As an aside, seeing the look on your opponent's face when you play Damnation with Ulamog on board is pretty great). +1 Crucible, +1 Sword, +2 Worship. Game 2, I lose to my own Blight Herder. I had worship out with 3 Scions. I sac the Scions and cast a Blight Herder, but realize that he only has 1 card exiled. Herder gets pathed, I get smashed. Game 3, we each Thought-Knot eachother's Crucibles, on sequential turns at that, then start aggressively Ghost Quartering. Lingering Souls and Timely keep me in the game long enough to cast Ulamog, exiling his Eye and Reality Smasher. We go to time, and I get there on the third turn.
Round 5: Zoo 0-2. Here's basically were my decision making went down the drain. I keep a 5 land hand, not knowing what my opponent has. He goes turn 1 Hierach, turn 2 Nacatl x2, Turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary. I'm dead before casting a spell. +2 Worship +1 All is Dust +3 Chalice. Game 2 begins with a mull to 5 (technically 4 because I had an Ulamog in hand), he gets 2 Nacatl on board before I can drop a Chalice for 1, then a Knight of the Reliquary, followed by a Collected Company for Knight of the Reliquary and Loxodon Smiter.
Round 6: Boggles 0-2, drop. Game 1, I never find a white mana to Path his 20/20 Spirit Dancer. Game 2, I take a Boggle on turn 1 with Inquisition, then neglect to Slaughter Pact his Kor Spirit Dancer in response to an Umbra, even though I could pay for it next turn. I tell my opponent my mistake, and scoop it in.
On all but the last two matches, the deck felt great. The worst card the whole day was actually Wasteland Strangler. Best card was definitely Ghost Quarter. The one thing I noticed was that I was cracking Relics in order to dig A LOT throughout the day. Friend of mine is trying Night's Whisper as a 1-of. I might try it as a 1- or 2-of. Tomb of the Spirit Dragon performed well throughout the day. Vesuva was okay, it copied a couple Temples, a Nexus, and a Ghost Quarter at least once.
Footsteps Hulk
Ascendency Combo
Restore Balance
Ad Nauseam
EDH:
Ghave Lands
Narset Combo
Terrific play report, thanks and congratulations! I too have cut Sower (down to 1 in my case) and am debating Ulamog in the main because I side him out so often.
I notice you didn't mention Vent one way or the other; any times the CIPT was a real blow? Any late-game saves?
My sweepers include a mix of Damnation and Engineered Explosives and I consider having a fair number of them essential for the fast-n-wide decks like Elves and baby Zoo etc. I've also gone to a 2/2 split on Rest for the Weary and Timely Reinforcements to shore up both those matches and the Burn match.
Oblivion Ring and Sorin both look really good, but there are only 75 slots in this deck, and any cut has real consequences. Right now I have a 1-of Eldrazi Displacer that is a flex slot.
As for sweepers, EE and All is Dust are both good, and I would rather play Damnation than Flaying Tendrils' for sure. All the options have drawbacks, that's all. What the deck really wants is Anger of the Gods or Toxic Deluge - just some 3cmc thing that doesn't kill most of our own stuff.
Another good play report, thanks Stillenacht288. Some interesting choices there. I'm delighted to hear that Koz is pulling his weight in countering your opponents' efforts. With all due respect, though, that is going to keep happening to you if you only run 6 sources for W, two Maps or no. In my opinion, your deck list is way, way too light on the colored mana count.
Congrats!
Have you found 11 colorless sources enough for 4 TKS and 2 Smasher?
edit:
I just noticed the scary interaction between Reality Smasher and Loxodon Smiter/Wilt-leaf Liege. The blowout is real.
Excellent results. Congrats! You didn't face a lot of aggro decks but how was your test results against Burn and Affinity without Maps and Sower? Is 3 Rest for the Weary enough to pull you through? I find Burn a tougher match up than Affinity as they just go all in to the dome whereas you can slow down Affinity with Spirit Tokens and Ghost Quarter to their Nexus. I have a lot of Burn in my meta so I am looking to add Timely Reinforcements as well. However I feel Rest is so much better being an instant but Timely can provide additional blockers.
I like the direction you are going by making the deck more midrange than ramp by cutting Sower and Map. I split Herder and Smasher at 3 each because during grindy games, it's harder to remove Smasher as they need to spend two cards to do so. This synergizes well with our disruption from TKS and IoK/TS.
Your manabase looks good. Although I'm not really a fan of Shambling Vent from my testing and with Sorin acting as a second Vault, I find much less use for Vent. Congrats again on your finish!
I'm not iostream but I think 11 is good enough since you will be curving to TKS and RS at turns 3-4. Only time you can cast TKS earlier is turn 2 with Eye and Temple.
I find this version of the deck does much better versus Affinity and Burn than the version with Sowers and Maps. For one, neither Sower nor Map really helps you stabilize in the early turns, which is what really matters, and not running either in and of itself is helpful. Second, maindeck Disfigure is fantastic against both of them, which is actually why I was running them in the first place, as my meta was overrun with Burn and Affinity (although I ironically never faced it yesterday despite both these decks being everywhere in the room). Being able to double-up on removal in a single turn is a common path to victory since such a play buys so much tempo, and Disfigure does a great job enabling that. I would say both of these matchups are slightly to moderately unfavorable pre-board, and they become solidly favorable postboard, to the point that I think the matchup is close to even (for Burn) and slightly favorable (for Affinity). Versus Burn, it is hard to lose if you get to resolve even one Rest for the Weary with any kind of board presence to back it up. Versus Affinity, we have a ton of high-impact cards in the sideboard in addition to the 4 maindeck Souls, which are terrific. I like where this deck is positioned versus both of those.
But I should emphasize that outside of the sideboard, I've found that mulliganing rather aggressively versus these decks is crucial - i.e. don't keep hands without early interaction. If you don't have a way to interact in the first two turns, it is almost always a mulligan. Relic doesn't count. I think many people lose by keeping hands that would be perfectly fine against most decks, but are a half-turn to a full turn slow versus Burn/Affinity. This is all they need to kill you. In general, people aren't mulliganing enough - do it! The scry rule is awesome. I think that the new mulligan rule is so good that most players could probably even double their mulligan frequency and still not be overshooting the theoretical optimum by that much. In testing, I have won many games against Burn and Affinity (and other aggro decks, for that matter) on 5 or 6 cards.
As for Shambling Vent, I'm not married to it, but I could see it going one way or the other. I'm not sure yet. Sorin covers some of Shambling Vent's utility, but a card that gets to be both a land and a threat is uniquely powerful since it saves you slots in your deck. Without it, I worry the deck becomes a little threat-light. Vent also strains opposing Ghost Quarters, which is nice.
Karsten would say 11 is aggressive, but I thought it was sufficient, if just barely so. In an ideal world, I would like another source of <>, but I don't know how to squeeze it in, so I probably won't mess with it.
The former forces us to be more reactive and the latter is the more proactive option. If you choose to play the more aggresive option, I think Matter Reshaper fills the role better. If it's able to attack and trade, we get to draw something at the very least when it dies. If it gets Pathed, then that is one less Path for TKS or Herder.
Displacer is the riskiest because it can die without providing any value. Like Strangler, its ability is too dependent on the board state. The interaction with TKS is just insane though. And it can blink attacking creatures.
Firstly, is there any merit to running Seal of Cleansing over Disenchant? Or does it not really matter anymore now that Twin is gone?
Second, what about Mortify somewhere in the 75? I get that the flexibility of being able to pay life to Dismember is very important, but I wonder if Mortify's ability to hit enchantments is any more or less relevant.
Lastly, does either Black Sun's Zenith or Languish do anything for us in the problem matchups that try to go wide against this deck, like Merfolk? I'd much rather have something at 3 CMC, like Toxic Deluge, but you can't always get what you want I suppose.