I don't think we really need Nephalia Academy unless the meta starts leaning heavily towards discard decks, and maybe not even then. It'd be a 1-2 of at most meaning you wouldn't have it consistently enough one turn 1/2 for it to be relevant. Also, during turns 1/2 I'd rather be playing green sources for Noble Hierarchs or Eldrazi Temples so that the cards they'd take with discard would just be in play. For the decks it'd be useful against (GBx, Grixis, Death's Shadow) I'd rather have Sea Gate Wreckage or just moreGhost Quarter to make the tron match more winnable.
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Im currently on 24 lands and 4 dorks (but switch between 23 lands and 5 dorks) - the only utility land I play is GQ (have tested Sea gate, Gavony Township and 2x GQ). Gemstone Caverns is not even on my list to test - seems way too cute and inconsistent to bother with.
Perhaps if you are on 'colourless stompy' lists (which is a somewhat different deck) you can go 'all-in' and play 3 Caverns and 4 SSG - I personally have never tested such a list but it seems pretty bad (esp with Shadow decks ripping your hand with 10+ discard spells).
My approach to Shadow is to be more redundant with removal and GY hate - I run 4x PTE, 1x Dismember, 3x EE MD with 2x Blessed Alliance,2x RIP and 2x Relic SB. My win rate has been decent but the match-up is not a slam dunk - Shadow is a great deck.
I've only recently jumped on this deck but Spawner tends to provide 2 bodies and ramp + the scion itself is in a form C fixing. The evasion and synergy with Drowner are also reason it's seeing more play. I'm very new to the deck but I have won more matches VS decks like Jund due to spawner giving me a little more insulation against Lotv. I'm sure the more experienced players will have more in depth reasons but on the surface this is what I'm seen and experienced.
R1: Burn 2-0
- The more I play this matchup the more favored it feels. Also, EE sucks, I would board it out.
R2: Bant Eldrazi mirror 2-1
- I lost game 1 even though I was on the play and had TKS/Smasher on 3 and 4. I decided to take a path instead of smasher and I think taking the smasher might have been better. I lost to a 2nd top deck smasher.
- Other games were pretty close. Won the last one in a nail biter with an exalted birds.
R3: Grixis control 2-1
- Lost G2 to fulminator into kalitas. Had RIP on board and Elspeth in my hand. I am thinking Elspeth needs to be cut. It is just too slow and the way that control decks beat us is via mana disruption into threat. If you're already at 6 mana, you're probably doing fine and just hope to top deck.
R4: Ad Naus 2-0
- Game 1 I had 2 stirrings in my opener and found EE to blow up Pentad prism and TKS to rip wincon from hand.
- Game 2 I won with TKS and EE on 3 against an unlife.
R5: Living end blood moon 1-2
- Game 1 I lost to turn 1 blood moon
- Game 2 and 3 were close. Last game I topdecked a naturalize without a forest against a resolved blood moon. Feels really bad. I think I'm going to be replacing the naturalize with a ratchet bomb. Ratchet bomb is less narrow and can actually be cast under a moon, and it's stirrings searchable.
R6: Ad Naus 2-1
- I don't really think leyline is that great against us. They need to keep a tight list and every card counts. I won via just straight reality smasher beats with EE to destroy their artifacts and stony to constrain their mana. A key point here is that you shouldn't cast Stony against them unless you KNOW for sure it will hit one of their mana artifacts. Otherwise it shuts off EE and that can be huge.
R7: ID against Death's Shadow for Top 8
Top 8 Round 1: vs BR Blood Moon control
- Seems like a super unfavored matchup with so much removal, liliana, and blood moon.
- G1 I was on the play thanks to my good breakers and I had a ridiculous hand of Noble-Temple-Forest-Yavimayacoast-TKS-Smasher-Drowner. He made the mistake of inquisitioning me and hitting nothing instead of pushing the hierarch. Note for anyone playing against bant eldrazi: killing the dork turn 1 is pretty much always going to be more impactful than disruption. Also, bant eldrazi is one of the few matchups where thoughtseize needs to come before inquisition.
Top 8 Round 2: vs Elves
- VERY unfavored matchup. It's like merfolk but faster and they have postboard answers and mainboard resiliency to EE.
- G1 I had an EE in hand but he had Ezuri and Selfless spirit.
- G2 I land worship but mistakenly attack with my displacer into a 3/3 dork (I forgot that he had 2 lords in play...) which he regenerates, causing me to lose one of my best creatures for nothing. I still end up stabilizing with 3 smashers in hand, and have a ratchet bomb that i'm slowly ticking up to 3 to wipe his lords. On the turn it can tick up to 3, however, he topdecks the chord and destroys the worship. Had I had one more turn I could have killed his 3 drops and been able to stabilize.
- I think the gameplan against elves postboard is still based on worship. However, I think this matchup is really hard to win without Grafdiggers. I was debating putting one in and decided not to, thinking it was too narrow. However this matchup (and chord/company decks in general) is so bad that it's probably worth keeping one in.
- I sided out a few drowners, displacers, and a matter reshaper. I think it's actually right to side out all 4 smashers in this matchup because they can actually block surprisingly well with so many regenerate & pump effects.
The top 8 was super weird. It was 2 elves, 1 blood moon living end, 1 death's shadow, 1 BR blood moon control, 1 ad nauseam, me, and I forget what else - maybe bogles.
Here are my proposed changes to my list after today:
- Same mainboard: 4 drowner / 4 skyspawner / 1 reshaper / 3 EE / 5 dorks / 23 lands (with adarkar wastes instead of hallowed fountain)
- Original sideboard --> Changes:
-- 1 naturalize --> Cut this for a 2nd ratchet bomb. Yeah, that's 5 EE effects, but that's how you win a lot of unfavored matchups like go-wide or artifact/enchantment based. I think it's a better answer to blood moon and chalice than naturalize/natural state/nature's claim.
-- 2 RIP --> Must
-- 1 Ratchet bomb
-- 1 Blessed alliance --> Cut this. I don't like the card in general and it only comes in against matchups where we're favored already. Ratchet bomb usually does the job just as well, and I'm not too worried about burn.
-- 1 Chalice --> Consider a 2nd one. It's so randomly useful in bad matchups like Ad naus, and still does work against some of the normal decks like burn. Also resolved it on 3 with my opponent having 2 blood moons in hand. Felt good, as it also hit Lily and Goblin rabblemaster (and kolaghan's).
-- 1 Unified Will --> 1 feels right. You never want 2 in hand, plus it's a little narrow against combo
-- 2 Disdainful stroke --> Brought it in against Ad Naus and Elves today. I still like the card.
-- 1 Flashfreeze --> 1 feels right. Hits blood moon, coco, chord, burn, and a bunch more.
-- 2 Stony silence
-- 2 Worship --> 2 is not unreasonable. In the matchups where you want to draw it you sometimes really NEED to draw it. The 2nd one also gives you an out to the 1st one dying.
-- 1 Elspeth SC --> probably cut. It's good, yes, but postboard control decks often try to fulminator, bolt birds, etc. We already have a decent top end with 4 drowners. Plus this card is really narrow imo.
Flashfreeze hitting creatures makes it better against coco decks and burn. I haven't brought it in against jund yet but it might be a reasonable option against fulminator while also hitting goyf scooze huntmaster kolaghans and terminate.
Unified will hitting creatures can be relevant against creature based combo like cheerios and storm.
But yes, it's also very helpful to be able to counter primetime.
As a burn player I have the toughest time going against bant eldrazi just wanted to post here and ask what about burn scares you the most? What would you not want us to play? Just trying to learn the matchup and how I can be better at it
The best play you can make is turn 2 searing blaze our dork - that's pretty much game winning. But we don't always have the dork.
Often your creatures won't be able to attack into ours. However, you should just hold them back and look to find a profitable double block. If we don't have a smasher, you might put us in a situation where we can't attack, buying you time to find the topdeck burn spells. This is probably the mistake I see the most. Don't needlessly attack, especially with a gob guide that can help us find lands.
Postboard, be wary of worship, but don't overboard - I would bring in 2 destructive revelries at most and definitely not 4. Also take out Eidolon. Play around stubborn denial if you can. Bring in paths.
Did more testing with eternal witness - 20 preboard games against jund. It is very impressive when your opponent has discard effects because it basically makes you immune to the first discard effect. I had one game grind to turn 10 or so with the eternal witness / displacer / path combo that helped me stabilize with just those two creatures against 3 tarmogoyfs, and huntmaster.
I still don't think it's maindeckable because it takes so many turns for it to have full value. However, I think it might be reasonable to replace Elspeth with it in the sideboard. Also, if you know you're bringing it in, you can consider naming Human on caverns so that you have 3-4 more green sources to support it.
But it also seems like it would be worth bringing in for almost any grindy postboard game. In any game where we've already cast 1 counterspell or path, it essentially acts as extra copies... let alone being able to completely lock out the game when paired with displacer
Thanks for the report regarding E-Witness. I played the card in GP Brisbane and found it worth the slot at the time - I ws running 2 Matter Reshaper as well.
I'm now back to 4x Skyspawner and given this build and meta I dont play E-Witness anymore. However, I am trying to find a slot in the sb as I agree it is good as your grindy/bomb card. Ive found that cards like Elspeth and World Breaker - just arent good enough against decks that kill all your dorks and blow up your temples - they have performed badly in my hands.
^ Would rather run reshaper for more consistent value
Can anyone comment on Thragtusk? It's not as great of a bomb as Elspeth for sure but it's another combo piece with displacer that can lock out a game. I think it's only mediocre against Jund/Abzan/Grixis and Burn, but I would want to bring it in any time we bring in worship to 1) prevent life loss as an out; 2) be able to generate a board state where we can actually attack and win. I'm thinking along the lines of 1 Thragtusk, 1 Ewit, and 2 RIP for all the fair matchups.
Metamorph is a bad topdeck on an empty board state - I think that's why no one plays it. My flex spot in the last 2 weeks has gone to another non-creature spell (Extra EE, Dismember or Blesed Alliance), 1x Reshaper or E-Witness..
I've tried Thragtusk and well - I really don't like playing any bombs out of the sb. Maybe someone can help me understand what bombs are actually good for and why they are better then other sb cards?
Big Elspeth - Good in the mirror - but isn't Worship just better for the mirror? We are already favoured against control and Junk. Against Jund its too slow and with bolt the bird and Fulminator Mage we aren't getting to 6 mana (non-temple) consistently in a timely manner.
Thragtusk - seems good for grindy matchups - but the life gain seems mostly irrelevant - are you really going to beat burn with this card? 5 mana is a lot for what it does. I think id rather obstinate baloth - as it actually is relevant against Burn and is 'good' against BGx. For 5 mana I think Nissa, Voice of Zendikar might be preferable over Thragtusk.
E-Witness - in my opinion this is prob the best 'bomb' for grindy matchups. Early games gets back lands that are Mage'd or helps hit land drops by bringing back a fetch - brings back other important cards to 'grind' in the mid to late game - is relevant against a wider range of matchups - like matchups were you really want an extra EE, path, natural state or just get a fatty back..
Thragtusk is more for locking out and closing the game after stabilizing with worship, and just happens to be a value card too. I'll have to test it and see...
Thragtusk is more for locking out and closing the game after stabilizing with worship, and just happens to be a value card too. I'll have to test it and see...
For which is better between Nissa Vital Force, Thragtusk and EWitness, I would say it depends a lot on the meta you're expecting. If Control, Nissa is a practically unstoppable threat to Grixis/Esper Control if she resolves. But, she's a little slow to actually produce Value against BGx, since her 5/5 land likely can't attack into an untapped Goyf/Death's Shadow, and is highly vulnerable to Fatal Push.
I don't think Voice of Zendikar is worth anytyhing to Bant Eldrazi. It's initial bodies arn't even 1/1s, and so produce no pressure what so ever for the first turn or two, and while her Ult is nice, it takes 5 turns to get there, and your tokens will never grow beyond 0/1s while you tick her up. Better to play Gideon and just pump out a steady stream of 2/2s and have a 5/5 waiting for when you need it, or an Anthem for a game winning attack otherwise. Vital Force at least can pull double duty by turning lands into extra attackers, pulling back lands or threats, and provides a lot of late game grinding with her very achievable ult, etc. In many ways, Vital Force is a repeatable EWittness plus a 5/5 attacker, barring needing Ewitness to get back a Path, but that's a very narrow situation.
For Witness, her cheaper cost is helpful, but her body is lackluster, and her upside over Vital Force is negligible unless you REALLY need that Path, or need to cast whatever you got back in the same turn. Since most of what Wittness gets back is going to be 4-5cmc, I don't think its going to come up anyway, but even getting a Displacer to combo with a Thoughtknot/Drowner you already have out costs yet more mana to do anything that turn. Not sold. Nissa's biggest downside is not synergizing with anything our deck is doing. She reliably produces beat sticks even through multiple creature removal spells, but playing something that will synergize with a Displacer might be better.
As far as Thraghtusk goes, wouldn't play him over Worship, but might play him alongside if both Burn and BGx were running my Meta. He combos with Displacer even better than Ewittness does, which is saying a lot, and he is very easy on the mana by only costing one green compared to the two green of all the other cards being dicussed here. Casting Wittness on curve is difficult with no Dork, and while Nissa is better at 5 at that point it is doubtful our Dork survived 3+ turns in play to help us with color fixing. Thragtusk is great against anything in BGx that's NOT Discard--> Goyf--> Lilliana, and even there it will buy us two+ turns to get back in the game.
Decided to sleeve up the trusty aliens to go attend an event with some buddies since they were packing a car to head to a tournament anyway. Coming fresh off a devastating 1-3 in my local RPTQ with Bant Eldrazi I was just looking for more reps.
Round 1:
Matchup: Jund
Game 1: OP keeps a two lander with a couple discard spells and a bolt for my noble with him on the draw. My tiny human collaborator is incinerated on the first turn, and I get to double stirrings turn 2, snagging a TKS and a temple. I sarcastically proclaim "take that inquisition". My opponent takes this at face value and proceeds to run out tarmogoyf and two Scooze while being stuck on two mana. I continue to sandbag EE since my threats are better than his and he can't attack through them. A pair of TKS Shred my opponents hand that contained Terminate, Scooze, Chandra CoD. My one side wrath EE eventually gets hit by a topdeck inquisition, but I get to drop a whole bunch of giant Eldrazi while poor continues his screw. OP concedes.
Game 2: Sided in +1 EE out of the SB. -1 BOP on the draw. OP keeps a land heavy draw with interaction (bolt, inquisition, abrupt decay) and cannot stick a threat while flooding out. I feel as though Jund is a strongly favored matchup, since Eldrazi topdeck Drowners while Jund topdecks inquisitions, but this match is decided by OP having terrible luck rather than the usual attrition war.
Thoughts: I contend that Jund is the best matchup for Bant Eldrazi. EE is often a one sided wrath, your creatures are generally larger, and with more utility than theirs, and late in the game Eldrazi's board presence spirals out of control, where Jund is still trying to use point removal. They also have few good targets for abrupt decay and bolt, and have SOOO many dead draws late in the game when they desperately need more board presence, whereas we have around 12 gigantic eldrazi and 4 stirrings to snag them with.
1-0
Round 2:
Matchup: Affinity
Game 1: I keep a very strong draw with temple, noble, noble, greensource, smasher, smasher and draw into a TKS on turn 1. Turns out I am playing against Affinity and a cranial plated skirge pecks my face for around 7 turn 2 against my board of land, noble. TKS turn 2 seems less exciting when OP has 1 card in hand. Turns out its a galvanic blast for my face. My next TD is neither Path or EE, so I die.
Game 2: +3 Stony Silence +2 Natural State +1 EE, I don't remember what I cut for the slots, but I know it involved only 2 of my 4 TKS so I could potentially mise a t2 TKS (Don't do this at home, it is definitely a mistake. Shave em all obviously.) I mulligan a 7 that has no hate pieces and isn't the fastest draw ever (the two conditions i'm looking for against affinity.) Mulligan has a TKS and a temple, but no hate and has a path. I keep it on the hope that it is better than a mull to 5. I was wrong. OP drops entire hand except one card before t3 when I can drop TKS (which is why it's an obvious side out.) Turns out his last card is galvanic blast for my TKS, which draws him into another galvanic for my face, which means my TKS net my opponent 1 dig through his deck and cost him 0 cards. I had already burned my path on a signal pest by this point and OP draws and drops Master of Etherium next turn to ruin me.
Thoughts on the matchup: I'll get to this one later on, but this is a terrible game 1, and a game 2 where you simply must have stony or EE.
1-1
Round 3:
Matchup: Abzan
Game 1: OP keeps a pretty stellar draw that starts with a quick Noble and Temple Garden. I inwardly die a little. I hate the mirror match. I have a noble of my own and settle in for a long game. T2 OP plays marsh flats and runs out lingering souls, and I breathe for the first time in around a minute. Thought for sure I was going to be wrecked by TKS. I am able to land a fast smasher which eats a path and another card, then stick a drowner to make racing impossible. A displacer comes down the turn after and wraps things up.
Game 2: +3 relic (maybe should have only done 2) +1 EE, -1 BOP on the draw, don't remember the other cuts. Most likely shaved some combo of smasher/drowner/skyspawner to bring the curve down a little lower to help dodge discard while still being the bigger midrange. I won't pretend I have a well thought out argument that this is ideal. My Opponent keeps an excellent hand which revolves around 2 copies of lingering souls (which he only gets the front half of due to relics) and gets to turn 3 at which point he plays gideon. I topdeck a smasher a turn later to attempt to assassinate the silly white planeswalker but OP has path off a noble to close me out. I die with 2 useless relics on the board neutralizing his non-existent goyfs and flayers.
Game 3: -1 Relic (Maybe all three were too much), +1 Bird. This game was VERY close. OP leads with noble and I led with stirrings. I make no turn 2 play while running out Coast. OP plays lingering souls. I play my sandbagged temple (smasher was revealed on the stirrings earlier) run out TKS seeing Liliana otV, Marsh Flats, flayer, damnation, lingering souls. OP had the mana but decided not to liliana on t2. I take lili and start the race against the tokens. My opponent plays out his threats while holding damnation, opting for the race and to force me to commit more, while holding damnation. My hand at this point is just lands and smasher, drowner, drowner, drowner. I run out smasher and my opponent opts to trade several tokens and flayer for the smasher, and chumps TKS. OP flashes back both copies of lingering souls, plays a noble, and continues the aggro game plan. I play out drowner and my OP is forced to play damnation to avoid losing the race, but is quickly double drowner'd out of the game. After the match is over we discussed his t2 lingering souls over lili and he mentioned he was respecting the counterspell and didn't expect the t3 TKS since no temple had been played/revealed. I don't like counterspells in this matchup since like Jund it so frequently comes down to topdecks and attrition, but it is nice to know that the deck has that going for it. I am about 90% sure I lose that game immediately if he plays t2 Liliana. The uptick would have eaten several drowners and it would have made my t3 TKS horrible.
Thoughts: I think these fair grindy decks are our best matchups. We prey on decks that try and trade with us one for one, and it makes our decisions on which hands are keepable infinitely easier when we don't have to filter for a SB piece of hate. The longer the game goes the more likely you are to be favored, and lili is a lot less scary against skyspawner builds. I am not sure if I want the full three relics, as drawing them in multiples can be bad if your OP shows a lot of early aggression. Relic only temporarily stops grim flayers, and after its cracked its just back to business as usual. The benefit is that it turns goyf into a taunting elf, shrinks flayer, cuts off the back half of souls, and in rare instances helps fight tasigur. My advice is to assemble presence on board quickly in this matchup, because an early liliana can be very, very bad.
2-1
Round 4:
Matchup: Gifts Storm
Game 1: My opponent leads on Spirebluff Canal and I put him on either gifts storm or Goryo's, and I am hoping it is storm, because goryo's keeping 7 on the play without a turn 1 filter card is pretty scary. I play some alien beaters and progress the beatdown plan, but my opponent already has a resolved electromancer and EoT's a gifts on 3 mana at the end of my turn 4. I give him the past in flames and a pyretic ritual, but between those and the manamorphose and desperate rituals in GY he is able to storm off from cards in hand and murder me t4.
Game 2: +3 Relic of Progenitus, +3 Disdainful Stroke, +1 Stubborn Denial, -2 EE, -2 Drowner, -2 smasher, -1 Skyspawner. I keep an easy 7 with a t3 TKS and a relic. In combo situations I will deviate from my normal mulligan rule (mulligan anything that doesn't have temple, t1 dork, t1 stirrings) and I will mulligan any hand that has no disruption (or easy access to it). My OP has an excellent setup this game with the same t2 electromancer, t3 gifts, but I have a relic out and am eating spells every turn while leaving up mana for my relic activation. I land a TKS and snatch his gifts (he didn't have mana for cast at that moment unless he wanted to ritual, morphose, cast, which in retrospect may have been better for him.), leaving him with desperate ritual, 3 pyretic ritual, grapeshot, manamorphose. I still have a mana up for relic activation. OP Topdecks past in flames and produces approximately a million mana before casting past in flames, but relic exiles his GY and he has to settle for a grapeshot to kill my current board. OP isn't able to reassemble enough storm pieces in time.
Game 3: I keep a hand with Path, Stirrings and a stubborn denial with a Heath. Turn 1 I cast stirrings and find a relic. Turn 2 OP plays Baral. My turn two I run out the relic and hold up path mana. I upkeep path the Baral so OP can't gifts in response and OP passes. Stubborn denial is beginning to look worthless here since next turn I won't have ferocious and my OP will have one billion mana. On my turn I am forced to pass with 3 up for relic and stubborn, fully expecting a shatter spree, then imminent death. My OP casts ritual at the end of my t3 and casts gifts with no mana up. I am able to stubborn denial, and continue the slow eating of GY with relic. Over the next couple turns OP passes while I build a board capable of killing him and find a second relic, which I hold back in the prayer I am not punished by a kill that can push through the first relic activation and kill me on the same turn. I decided this line was ok since OP's GY had around 2 cards in it since relic had been munching on them all game. OP doesn't punish me and never hits spree.
Thoughts on the matchup: This is one of the few combo decks where you can just flat out crush them with limited interaction. In game one they usually can't reliably assemble their combo until around turn 4 or 5, which is plenty of time to beat down and dig for TKS or a path. Path can stifle their attempts to go off in the first game, but it has to be combined with a decent amount of pressure because it won't buy you long. After SB disdainful stroke / relic / denial are all solid against them since the best cards in their deck to cast are gifts and past in flames. Bear in mind it is usually better to give them the past in flames when they gifts so they net less mana, but when you have disdainful stroke it may be better just to put it in yard, and force them to find their second one. Additionally it can be very difficult for them to beat a relic, which pressures them on its own starting turn 1. I am a little afraid of the shatter spree I know most of them pack, and I know blood moon comes out of the board, but Blood Moon doesn't hit my build as hard as most since there are no reshaper and skyspawner actually fixes for colorless. They also don't pick off scions, so don't sacrifice them willy nilly if they threaten the moon.
3-1
Round 5:
Matchup: Merfolk
Game 1: I keep a 1 lander on the play with noble, stirrings, skyspawner, engineered explosives and pure beatdown gas. I lead noble and OP leads island, vial. I whiff on land on my draw and stirrings for a land, finding cavern, and pass the turn with no other plays. OP upticks vial, misses his second land drop and plays another vial. On my turn I whiff on land again, but have the option of casting either skyspawner (which enables all my fat pressure) or EE, which kills my noble, but sets my clearly mana screwed OP back 2 vial. I run out spawner with the idea that I will be able to beat down my OP with a TKS and Smasher in hand. My idea is incorrect. My opponent vials out several lords and creates a board state I cannot contend with much faster than I can, all on one land. It becomes clear to my OP I have never played a match against Fish before.
Game 2: I lead with excellent t2 skyspawner into t3 TKS while my OP plays out 2 aether vial. I take a vapor snag which my OP declined to cast leaving him with 2xMaster of the Pearl Trident, 2x Harbinger of the Waves, Kira. OP upticks vials and has harbinger at the ready while casting a lord on his turn. I stirrings into EE on turn 4 and take out both vials, forced an activation of vial. My OP eventually hits enough mana to deploy all his threats, but a pair of Paths eat his lords and he loses the race to eldrazi tokens trading for silvergill adepts.
Game 3: This game went very similarly to game 2 with an early TKS staring down a cursecatcher and a vial. My OP played out a silvergill adept and another vial, and I get the glorious opportunity to destroy both vial and a sea claim with my EE. My OP reassembles a respectable board state and I (stupidly) crack a heath for breeding pool to give myself access to another green mana since my forest and temple were already out (witness was an excellent draw assuming it could get played through an OP spreading seas, etc.) It was stupid because my OP's only out was two topdecked lords in a row to swing for lethal, but until that point I had no island. A couple turns pass and I am able to TKS to see my OP is down to just a harbinger. I attack in with an alien army and my OP puts cursecatcher in front of TKS. I do some quick math and I am not dead to a single lord on the crackback, but double will kill me and OP has one card in hand. My OP plays a harbinger for my TKS at EOT instead of during combat (catching me completely offguard but avoiding the mainphase replay) and draws double lord between the additional draw and the draw for his turn. I fret a little bit until I realize that my OP's chump with cursecatcher means he only dealt 11 when he needed 13. In retrospect my mainphase replay of TKS would have most likely locked his list out of being able to play double lord, but I didn't realize that at the time.
Thoughts on the matchup: Destroy the vials when possible. I don't have a ton of experience in this matchup, but destroying the vials and sea's claims/spreading seas felt important enough that I probably should have brought in the natural states in addition to the extra EE. EE is a house against them, just ruinously strong early or late. It gets around Kira, and usually destroys half their creatures minimum, usually on 2, which means it hits none of ours. Don't search out your island shocklands without good reason. It may even be correct to cut the breeding pool instead of a bird on the draw if you feel like cutting a mana dork.
4-1
Round 6
Matchup: Eldrazi Tron
Game 1: This is the matchup that I wanted to dodge most, since I am fairly certain it is a poor one for Bant Eldrazi. They prey on the same midrange and fair decks we do, but more effectively, and I feel as though we are not favored here. The one downside they have in this matchup is that their hate pieces out of the board are far worse, and their maindeck spot removal is tragic (usually just a couple dismember). I keep a fairly standard turn 3 smasher hand on the play, facing down a temple'd out matter reshaper from OP. With noble in play the smasher smacks for 6 and my OP responds with another reshaper and a mana up (only 1 piece away from tron now as well). I run out a second noble, which prompts a dismember on my smasher after exalted triggers. My OP's hand is thinning out at this point and I land a postcombat TKS to take his Endbringer, leaving him with no good threats. I draw displacer and begin resuming the beatdown, and it isn't long before the exalted TKS seals game 1.
Game 2: +3 Stony Silence, +2Disdainful Stroke -2 Engineered Explosives, -1 Drowner, -1BOP, -1Smasher. I keep a hand without stony silence but a nice curve into t3 TKS off of temple, a stirrings and a smasher. A strong 7 in a fair matchup is generally acceptable, but I am beginning to come around to the idea that ETron might actually be an unfair deck, although they aren't necessarily all in on Tron. My OP begins with a map, then a Reshaper (Which I would have guessed they should board out) then, unfortunately, a TKS to take my TKS. I believe I had a chance to play a skyswpawner on my T3 before a second TKS took my smasher. I drew a couple more lands and a very sad displacer, then promptly died to an eponymous Endbringer.
Game 3: On the play I forgot to put the bird back in, but kept a hand with stony silence and some pressure. I led with stirrings and my OP led with Map. T2 I laid down Stony Silence and my OP took his map and just stuck it under the silence. I guess that means there isn't an all is dust tucked in there still (but against Eldrazi, I'm not sure I would keep it in either). A couple unexciting turns later My OP revealed hand to a TKS showing Smasher, Mind Stone, Endbringer, Urza's Mine, Karn. I had displacer for the smasher and a path for either the Endbringer or the smasher, so I took Karn. My OP drew the last piece of tron off the top and began to spew out the threats. An eternal witnessed'd path took care of the bringer and smasher, while displacer at a dismember. The board stabilized for my OP with just a witness facing him down and several turns of topdecking before both of us, with just a disdainful stroke in my hand for protection. I quickly drew another threat, while for several turns my OP topdecked dead cards under Stony or land. One turn before lethal he was able to draw a ballista with X=8, which would have stopped my attack, but disdainful stroke had other plans.
Thoughts on the matchup: Turns out Stony silence can be a house against them, shutting off basilisk collar, ballista activations, batterskull equips/returns, maps, mindstones, and (potentially) oblivion stones. It was very good at significantly slowing the ramp when played on two, and turned a lot of my OP's tds into dead draws. In general I think this matchup is close, but they are favored. It is just too easy for us not to get stony and for them to either assemble tron, or figure out how to equip basilisk collar to a ballista or an endbringer, either of which just ruins us if unanswered immediately. Our creatures fight pound for pound pretty well against theirs, and matter reshaper is horrible against us, but this is one of the few matchups where your topdecks just will not be better than your OP's topdecks in game 1.
5-1
Round 7
Matchup: Death's Shadow Jund
Game 0: We split into the top 8, shook hands, and thanked our various deities that we were paired against each other instead of the pair down.
5-1-1
Top 8:
Round 8:
Matchup: Bant Eldrazi
Game 1: We must have been well positioned in the metagame that day, because this was a comedy of errors. An early TKS of mine revealed my OP to have a maindeck blessed alliance, which I wrote down, but as these matches are untimed it was MORE THAN AN HOUR later when he cast it, eating a drowner of hope, and literally drowning my hope. I took some heart from the fact that my OP made several comedic errors during the phase of the game in which we were both displacing our Drowners for a million tokens. By far the strangest was watching me cast an ancient stirrings, reveal a displacer, not play it, then he played and cracked Engineered Explosives to destroy both of our already on board displacers, leaving me with the only displacer between us. After I cast displacer the following turn he loudly proclaimed to the thirty or so onlookers that he was playing against the luckiest man alive. Many unusual looks were exchanged. I failed to capitalize on the error by displacing my TKS out of fear that he would draw into path and opted to continue displacing drowner, going for the tap-down kill. My OP immediately topdecked another displacer for the punish. I lost this game a very long time later to the aforementioned alliance, which I had entirely forgot was in my OP's hand.
Game 2: -2 EE, +2 Blessed Alliance. On the play I am not entirely sold that blessed alliance is the bee's knees. You are usually in the position of aggressor and alliance just really isn't as exciting from there. That being said neither is explosives. I drew the stone cold nuts and landed the first TKS, then the first smasher, then a path to back it up. Anyone who has played the mirror knows that this start has to be interrupted with a path the turn TKS comes down, or some combination of TKS and path to claw back. My OP made some commentary about the merits of variance, and conceded.
Game 3: My OP led with noble into Skyspawner, into approximately 3 path and 1 blessed alliance for my variety of aggressive Eldrazi, all the while pecking away with Eldrazi Skyspawner. My OP had depleted me to just a noble, a TKS, and a reality smasher staring down his skyspawner, a displacer and around 2 eldrazi tokens. With three displace activations up my OP elected to displace my Smasher on it's attack (while at 20 life), and displaced his skyspawner for additional tokens on my end step. With lethal on the board with just a few displace activations my OP encouraged me loudly and repeatedly to play faster, prompting the judge to ask me to be more aware of time. In an untimed match I didn't feel compelled to rush through plays, but in the situation presented, where my OP was skipping an onboard kill every turn for almost 4 turns, I was happy to oblige. I topdecked a path (which prompted a blink on the spawner) then a displacer (so that I could displace the spawner :/) Then a Drowner, which allowed me to begin the lock. My OP drew his own drowner and the blinkrace began all over again, with me at 2 life. Several turns later of my OP aggressively telling me to go, then blinking his drowner during my EOT, my OP began sacc'ing tokens to tap down my drowner tokens. My OP had approximately 6 more drowner tokens than me, and successfully tapped my entire board. There was no mention of the phase, so I asked that my OP let me know when we moved to combat. My OP declared that we were in combat, which the judge elected to clarify as the beginning of combat. I began to tap my OP's creatures with Drowner's ability and I saw the horror on my OP's face. I do not feel bad for snagging this game with maliciously good topdecks given that I lived on borrowed time for quite a while, and at this point my OP was making some very vocal and rude commentary about my perceived misplays, while appealing to the judge for a game loss on the basis of stalling. The judge didn't agree, and declined to issue me a warning. After the judge declined to award my OP the match on the basis of his complaints he conceded the game and told me that he didn't care for my playstyle in less kind words. It was at this point I discovered our match had been over two hours long.
Thoughts on the Matchup: The mirror is a miserable chore, and comes down to either assembling the nuts aggressive hand, or assembling the more resilient displacer / drowner combo. A couple maindeck eternal witness assist my current build in making this matchup far more favorable than it otherwise would be, as pathing their displacers is often the path to victory. Skyspawner is a hero in this matchup, as he can often swing through a gummed up ground state and he also helps execute plan A, which involves the all important early TKS/Smasher. After the game starts going long do not try and run out more than the two displacer, since you just need two to blink each other and protect from path by sacrificing tokens. No need to run out more if they are running EE unless you are in imminent danger of being TKS'd. Blessed alliance has met with mixed results for me. It's great on the draw game 2 when you can 'get' the OP when he goes for plan A, and I am willing to bet it would be super satisfying to do so, but I have yet to find myself in that exact position. Usually it just means i'm leaving up two mana when I seldom can afford to in this matchup, and people play around the card anyway. In the very late game it becomes a dead card because attacks are often alpha attacks.
6-1-1
Round 9
Matchup: Affinity
Game 1: It isn't often that you are able to snake a game 1 from an affinity player, but a combination of Noble, Noble, Temple Garden, Smasher, Smasher, Eldrazi Temple, Eldrazi Temple is about as bloodthirsty a hand as you can hope for. My OP came out of the gate very quickly, but could close faster than my draw once I drew a topdecked path.
Game 2: +3 Stony Silence, +2 Natural State, +1 EE, -2 Smasher, -4 TKS. This matchup is all about being able to hit the right piece of hate early, and after a mulligan I had only an ancient stirrings and a relatively slow start. Rather than mull to 5 I put my eggs in the Ancient Stirrings for EE basket, drew another stirrings, then milled through the top 10 looking for the EE that didn't appear, and I was promptly beaten to death.
Game 3: My OP unloaded his entire hand on turn 1, which is quite a feat, but was neutered by a turn 2 stony silence on the play. My hand had consisted of two painlands, stony silence, path, path, and I don't even remember the other two cards, because they were not relevant in my decision to keep. I took around 10 damage from 1/1's attacking me before I drew another land (following drawing both my other copies of stony silence, another path, and many many more unplayable cards. My OP drew and played Ghirapur aether grid, and was able to machine gun a couple creatures including a mana dork, and I appeared dead to rights. I drew a natural state off the top of my library, destroyed the grid and stabilized with a displacer for a blocker. I began accruing poison counters from inkmoth, but my biggest fear at this point was dying to signal pest and ancillary damage effects (my OP didn't play galvanic blast, but I was not positive until the match was complete). For this reason when I drew eternal witness and was able to play it returning either natural state or path, but I had taken a pain damage to 6 to cast witness, and if I wanted to have the mana to cast my spell up without taking an additional damage I would need to take path. I took path, my OP topdecked Ghirapur aether grid #2, dropped it and killed the witness, and shot me to death before I dealt him my first damage.
Thoughts on the match: I do not like this matchup for Bant because I believe it is way too dependent on the die roll, and whether or not you hit EE/Stony/Natural state(to a lesser extent). It is way too easy to keep a hand with EE on the draw and get run over by several threats before you can deploy and crack EE for 2 (which is it's most common use). Post-sideboard I believe you should keep any hand in which you can cast Stony, any hand that has an EE and pressure, or a hand that has a lightning fast start and a natural state, and mulligan anything else. Natural state can't get it done on its own. I think we are distinctly unfavored game 1, especially when we keep hands on the strength of TKS, which is essentially a dead card in the matchup.
My OP drew his own drowner and the blinkrace began all over again, with me at 2 life. Several turns later of my OP aggressively telling me to go, then blinking his drowner during my EOT, my OP began sacc'ing tokens to tap down my drowner tokens. My OP had approximately 6 more drowner tokens than me, and successfully tapped my entire board. There was no mention of the phase, so I asked that my OP let me know when we moved to combat. My OP declared that we were in combat, which the judge elected to clarify as the beginning of combat. I began to tap my OP's creatures with Drowner's ability and I saw the horror on my OP's face. I do not feel bad for snagging this game with maliciously good topdecks given that I lived on borrowed time for quite a while, and at this point my OP was making some very vocal and rude commentary about my perceived misplays, while appealing to the judge for a game loss on the basis of stalling. The judge didn't agree, and declined to issue me a warning. After the judge declined to award my OP the match on the basis of his complaints he conceded the game and told me that he didn't care for my playstyle in less kind words. It was at this point I discovered our match had been over two hours long.
It sounds like your opponent is honestly kind of dumb and doesn't understand the matchup. Plus if you're in top 8 you're not supposed to have time pressure.
The sideboard was a mess I threw together in the last second, and I'm probably changing Dismember for 1x Blessed Alliance main deck going forward. I still think the Burn matchup is tough, and I don't think Blessed Alliance is enough even though I won tonight (they all know I got Worship in the store, so I'm probably changing that as well). I'm considering Kitchen Finks as a 1-2 of. Thoughts?
The key to burn is stabilizing the ground and then clocking them.
If you're that worried about burn bring in 2 chalices. But in general, TKS is actually the best hate card against them. With a stirrings I would often rather pick a TKS over chalice. Chalice also protects itself and worship (on 2).
Burn is super play/draw dependent and there's not much you can do to change that.
I also bring in flashfreeze.
Worship is still worth bringing in even if they know you have it. Drev is a dead card most of the time.
Take out EE.
Thragtusk is more for locking out and closing the game after stabilizing with worship, and just happens to be a value card too. I'll have to test it and see...
For which is better between Nissa Vital Force, Thragtusk and EWitness, I would say it depends a lot on the meta you're expecting. If Control, Nissa is a practically unstoppable threat to Grixis/Esper Control if she resolves. But, she's a little slow to actually produce Value against BGx, since her 5/5 land likely can't attack into an untapped Goyf/Death's Shadow, and is highly vulnerable to Fatal Push.
I don't think Voice of Zendikar is worth anytyhing to Bant Eldrazi. It's initial bodies arn't even 1/1s, and so produce no pressure what so ever for the first turn or two, and while her Ult is nice, it takes 5 turns to get there, and your tokens will never grow beyond 0/1s while you tick her up. Better to play Gideon and just pump out a steady stream of 2/2s and have a 5/5 waiting for when you need it, or an Anthem for a game winning attack otherwise. Vital Force at least can pull double duty by turning lands into extra attackers, pulling back lands or threats, and provides a lot of late game grinding with her very achievable ult, etc. In many ways, Vital Force is a repeatable EWittness plus a 5/5 attacker, barring needing Ewitness to get back a Path, but that's a very narrow situation.
For Witness, her cheaper cost is helpful, but her body is lackluster, and her upside over Vital Force is negligible unless you REALLY need that Path, or need to cast whatever you got back in the same turn. Since most of what Wittness gets back is going to be 4-5cmc, I don't think its going to come up anyway, but even getting a Displacer to combo with a Thoughtknot/Drowner you already have out costs yet more mana to do anything that turn. Not sold. Nissa's biggest downside is not synergizing with anything our deck is doing. She reliably produces beat sticks even through multiple creature removal spells, but playing something that will synergize with a Displacer might be better.
As far as Thraghtusk goes, wouldn't play him over Worship, but might play him alongside if both Burn and BGx were running my Meta. He combos with Displacer even better than Ewittness does, which is saying a lot, and he is very easy on the mana by only costing one green compared to the two green of all the other cards being dicussed here. Casting Wittness on curve is difficult with no Dork, and while Nissa is better at 5 at that point it is doubtful our Dork survived 3+ turns in play to help us with color fixing. Thragtusk is great against anything in BGx that's NOT Discard--> Goyf--> Lilliana, and even there it will buy us two+ turns to get back in the game.
Sorry I meant to say Nissa, Vital Force (5 cmc bomb) NOT the other Nissa (which is of course not very good in Bant Eldrazi)
Regarding the Eldrazi Tron matchup - we are def favoured. They absolutely hate Eldrazi Displacer (displacing Ballista feels pretty good amongst other things you can displace) and good players will try to Needle it. They durdle a lot - we have ancient stirrings and dorks to get things going. We are faster and can get TKS and Smasher down faster. Furthermore, our removal and sb is just superior in every way.
I don't side in Stony against Eldrazi Tron because EE is very strong against them - blow up any hate like Needle or Chalice - you can snag numerous other cards such as Collar, Ballista etc as well. If you play Unified Will you should consider bringing this in, I play Needle and Natural State - you should def bring those in as well if you have them.
Regarding Affinity - I have an overall positive matchup in paper and on MTGO. The 4x Skyspawner build with a reasonable sb IMO is def favoured. However, if you starting shaving hate cards you will be in a bad way - I currently have SS, Natural State, Needle, Worship and 3x MD EE. You def side out 4x TKS as well as any reshapers - Displacer and Drowner is great against them if you can drag the game out.
Regarding Jund - IMO since Jund switched out GY hate for Land hate the matchup has become a lot harder. I think its hyperbolic to say Jund is our easiest matchup. Jund punishes mulligans and applies pressure, combined with the ability to easily kill all our dorks and blow up temples with Mage - if you cant answer Bob quickly you tend to get buried in removal and under certain circumstances Lilli can just lock you out..
My major comment is that you def keep in EE even though there is a non-bo with Stony. Both cards are too powerful against Affinity to leave out. Similarly I bring in Worship. Yes they can play around it with inkmoth or even blow it up with wear//tear - it's still won me plenty of matches despite all of that..
Similarly I would keep in E-Wit against Jund - yes you are bringing in gy hate (mostly relics anyway) but its still worth it for the grind value - if you aren't playing E-wit against an attrition/grindy deck then what are you playing it against?
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Modern
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
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Perhaps if you are on 'colourless stompy' lists (which is a somewhat different deck) you can go 'all-in' and play 3 Caverns and 4 SSG - I personally have never tested such a list but it seems pretty bad (esp with Shadow decks ripping your hand with 10+ discard spells).
My approach to Shadow is to be more redundant with removal and GY hate - I run 4x PTE, 1x Dismember, 3x EE MD with 2x Blessed Alliance,2x RIP and 2x Relic SB. My win rate has been decent but the match-up is not a slam dunk - Shadow is a great deck.
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
My internal testing shows skyspawner gives 5% higher winrate than reshaper in the opening hand (56% vs 51%). Take that as you will
R1: Burn 2-0
- The more I play this matchup the more favored it feels. Also, EE sucks, I would board it out.
R2: Bant Eldrazi mirror 2-1
- I lost game 1 even though I was on the play and had TKS/Smasher on 3 and 4. I decided to take a path instead of smasher and I think taking the smasher might have been better. I lost to a 2nd top deck smasher.
- Other games were pretty close. Won the last one in a nail biter with an exalted birds.
R3: Grixis control 2-1
- Lost G2 to fulminator into kalitas. Had RIP on board and Elspeth in my hand. I am thinking Elspeth needs to be cut. It is just too slow and the way that control decks beat us is via mana disruption into threat. If you're already at 6 mana, you're probably doing fine and just hope to top deck.
R4: Ad Naus 2-0
- Game 1 I had 2 stirrings in my opener and found EE to blow up Pentad prism and TKS to rip wincon from hand.
- Game 2 I won with TKS and EE on 3 against an unlife.
R5: Living end blood moon 1-2
- Game 1 I lost to turn 1 blood moon
- Game 2 and 3 were close. Last game I topdecked a naturalize without a forest against a resolved blood moon. Feels really bad. I think I'm going to be replacing the naturalize with a ratchet bomb. Ratchet bomb is less narrow and can actually be cast under a moon, and it's stirrings searchable.
R6: Ad Naus 2-1
- I don't really think leyline is that great against us. They need to keep a tight list and every card counts. I won via just straight reality smasher beats with EE to destroy their artifacts and stony to constrain their mana. A key point here is that you shouldn't cast Stony against them unless you KNOW for sure it will hit one of their mana artifacts. Otherwise it shuts off EE and that can be huge.
R7: ID against Death's Shadow for Top 8
Top 8 Round 1: vs BR Blood Moon control
- Seems like a super unfavored matchup with so much removal, liliana, and blood moon.
- G1 I was on the play thanks to my good breakers and I had a ridiculous hand of Noble-Temple-Forest-Yavimayacoast-TKS-Smasher-Drowner. He made the mistake of inquisitioning me and hitting nothing instead of pushing the hierarch. Note for anyone playing against bant eldrazi: killing the dork turn 1 is pretty much always going to be more impactful than disruption. Also, bant eldrazi is one of the few matchups where thoughtseize needs to come before inquisition.
Top 8 Round 2: vs Elves
- VERY unfavored matchup. It's like merfolk but faster and they have postboard answers and mainboard resiliency to EE.
- G1 I had an EE in hand but he had Ezuri and Selfless spirit.
- G2 I land worship but mistakenly attack with my displacer into a 3/3 dork (I forgot that he had 2 lords in play...) which he regenerates, causing me to lose one of my best creatures for nothing. I still end up stabilizing with 3 smashers in hand, and have a ratchet bomb that i'm slowly ticking up to 3 to wipe his lords. On the turn it can tick up to 3, however, he topdecks the chord and destroys the worship. Had I had one more turn I could have killed his 3 drops and been able to stabilize.
- I think the gameplan against elves postboard is still based on worship. However, I think this matchup is really hard to win without Grafdiggers. I was debating putting one in and decided not to, thinking it was too narrow. However this matchup (and chord/company decks in general) is so bad that it's probably worth keeping one in.
- I sided out a few drowners, displacers, and a matter reshaper. I think it's actually right to side out all 4 smashers in this matchup because they can actually block surprisingly well with so many regenerate & pump effects.
The top 8 was super weird. It was 2 elves, 1 blood moon living end, 1 death's shadow, 1 BR blood moon control, 1 ad nauseam, me, and I forget what else - maybe bogles.
Here are my proposed changes to my list after today:
- Same mainboard: 4 drowner / 4 skyspawner / 1 reshaper / 3 EE / 5 dorks / 23 lands (with adarkar wastes instead of hallowed fountain)
- Original sideboard --> Changes:
-- 1 naturalize --> Cut this for a 2nd ratchet bomb. Yeah, that's 5 EE effects, but that's how you win a lot of unfavored matchups like go-wide or artifact/enchantment based. I think it's a better answer to blood moon and chalice than naturalize/natural state/nature's claim.
-- 2 RIP --> Must
-- 1 Ratchet bomb
-- 1 Blessed alliance --> Cut this. I don't like the card in general and it only comes in against matchups where we're favored already. Ratchet bomb usually does the job just as well, and I'm not too worried about burn.
-- 1 Chalice --> Consider a 2nd one. It's so randomly useful in bad matchups like Ad naus, and still does work against some of the normal decks like burn. Also resolved it on 3 with my opponent having 2 blood moons in hand. Felt good, as it also hit Lily and Goblin rabblemaster (and kolaghan's).
-- 1 Unified Will --> 1 feels right. You never want 2 in hand, plus it's a little narrow against combo
-- 2 Disdainful stroke --> Brought it in against Ad Naus and Elves today. I still like the card.
-- 1 Flashfreeze --> 1 feels right. Hits blood moon, coco, chord, burn, and a bunch more.
-- 2 Stony silence
-- 2 Worship --> 2 is not unreasonable. In the matchups where you want to draw it you sometimes really NEED to draw it. The 2nd one also gives you an out to the 1st one dying.
-- 1 Elspeth SC --> probably cut. It's good, yes, but postboard control decks often try to fulminator, bolt birds, etc. We already have a decent top end with 4 drowners. Plus this card is really narrow imo.
Is Primeval Titan the only reason ?
Unified will hitting creatures can be relevant against creature based combo like cheerios and storm.
But yes, it's also very helpful to be able to counter primetime.
Often your creatures won't be able to attack into ours. However, you should just hold them back and look to find a profitable double block. If we don't have a smasher, you might put us in a situation where we can't attack, buying you time to find the topdeck burn spells. This is probably the mistake I see the most. Don't needlessly attack, especially with a gob guide that can help us find lands.
Postboard, be wary of worship, but don't overboard - I would bring in 2 destructive revelries at most and definitely not 4. Also take out Eidolon. Play around stubborn denial if you can. Bring in paths.
I still don't think it's maindeckable because it takes so many turns for it to have full value. However, I think it might be reasonable to replace Elspeth with it in the sideboard. Also, if you know you're bringing it in, you can consider naming Human on caverns so that you have 3-4 more green sources to support it.
But it also seems like it would be worth bringing in for almost any grindy postboard game. In any game where we've already cast 1 counterspell or path, it essentially acts as extra copies... let alone being able to completely lock out the game when paired with displacer
I'm now back to 4x Skyspawner and given this build and meta I dont play E-Witness anymore. However, I am trying to find a slot in the sb as I agree it is good as your grindy/bomb card. Ive found that cards like Elspeth and World Breaker - just arent good enough against decks that kill all your dorks and blow up your temples - they have performed badly in my hands.
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
Can anyone comment on Thragtusk? It's not as great of a bomb as Elspeth for sure but it's another combo piece with displacer that can lock out a game. I think it's only mediocre against Jund/Abzan/Grixis and Burn, but I would want to bring it in any time we bring in worship to 1) prevent life loss as an out; 2) be able to generate a board state where we can actually attack and win. I'm thinking along the lines of 1 Thragtusk, 1 Ewit, and 2 RIP for all the fair matchups.
I've tried Thragtusk and well - I really don't like playing any bombs out of the sb. Maybe someone can help me understand what bombs are actually good for and why they are better then other sb cards?
Big Elspeth - Good in the mirror - but isn't Worship just better for the mirror? We are already favoured against control and Junk. Against Jund its too slow and with bolt the bird and Fulminator Mage we aren't getting to 6 mana (non-temple) consistently in a timely manner.
Thragtusk - seems good for grindy matchups - but the life gain seems mostly irrelevant - are you really going to beat burn with this card? 5 mana is a lot for what it does. I think id rather obstinate baloth - as it actually is relevant against Burn and is 'good' against BGx. For 5 mana I think Nissa, Voice of Zendikar might be preferable over Thragtusk.
E-Witness - in my opinion this is prob the best 'bomb' for grindy matchups. Early games gets back lands that are Mage'd or helps hit land drops by bringing back a fetch - brings back other important cards to 'grind' in the mid to late game - is relevant against a wider range of matchups - like matchups were you really want an extra EE, path, natural state or just get a fatty back..
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
For which is better between Nissa Vital Force, Thragtusk and EWitness, I would say it depends a lot on the meta you're expecting. If Control, Nissa is a practically unstoppable threat to Grixis/Esper Control if she resolves. But, she's a little slow to actually produce Value against BGx, since her 5/5 land likely can't attack into an untapped Goyf/Death's Shadow, and is highly vulnerable to Fatal Push.
I don't think Voice of Zendikar is worth anytyhing to Bant Eldrazi. It's initial bodies arn't even 1/1s, and so produce no pressure what so ever for the first turn or two, and while her Ult is nice, it takes 5 turns to get there, and your tokens will never grow beyond 0/1s while you tick her up. Better to play Gideon and just pump out a steady stream of 2/2s and have a 5/5 waiting for when you need it, or an Anthem for a game winning attack otherwise. Vital Force at least can pull double duty by turning lands into extra attackers, pulling back lands or threats, and provides a lot of late game grinding with her very achievable ult, etc. In many ways, Vital Force is a repeatable EWittness plus a 5/5 attacker, barring needing Ewitness to get back a Path, but that's a very narrow situation.
For Witness, her cheaper cost is helpful, but her body is lackluster, and her upside over Vital Force is negligible unless you REALLY need that Path, or need to cast whatever you got back in the same turn. Since most of what Wittness gets back is going to be 4-5cmc, I don't think its going to come up anyway, but even getting a Displacer to combo with a Thoughtknot/Drowner you already have out costs yet more mana to do anything that turn. Not sold. Nissa's biggest downside is not synergizing with anything our deck is doing. She reliably produces beat sticks even through multiple creature removal spells, but playing something that will synergize with a Displacer might be better.
As far as Thraghtusk goes, wouldn't play him over Worship, but might play him alongside if both Burn and BGx were running my Meta. He combos with Displacer even better than Ewittness does, which is saying a lot, and he is very easy on the mana by only costing one green compared to the two green of all the other cards being dicussed here. Casting Wittness on curve is difficult with no Dork, and while Nissa is better at 5 at that point it is doubtful our Dork survived 3+ turns in play to help us with color fixing. Thragtusk is great against anything in BGx that's NOT Discard--> Goyf--> Lilliana, and even there it will buy us two+ turns to get back in the game.
Tournament: Modern SCG IQ
Attendance: 71
List:
Creatures:
1 BOP
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
2 Eternal Witness
4 TKS
4 Reality Smasher
4 Drowner of Hope
Instant/Sorcery:
4 Path to Exile
4 Ancient Stirrings
Artifact:
2 Engineered Explosives
Land:
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Windswept Heath
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
3 Brushland
2 Yavimaya Coast
SB:
3 Disdainful Stroke
1 Stubborn Denial
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Stony Silence
2 Natural State
2 Blessed Alliance
Decided to sleeve up the trusty aliens to go attend an event with some buddies since they were packing a car to head to a tournament anyway. Coming fresh off a devastating 1-3 in my local RPTQ with Bant Eldrazi I was just looking for more reps.
Round 1:
Matchup: Jund
Game 1: OP keeps a two lander with a couple discard spells and a bolt for my noble with him on the draw. My tiny human collaborator is incinerated on the first turn, and I get to double stirrings turn 2, snagging a TKS and a temple. I sarcastically proclaim "take that inquisition". My opponent takes this at face value and proceeds to run out tarmogoyf and two Scooze while being stuck on two mana. I continue to sandbag EE since my threats are better than his and he can't attack through them. A pair of TKS Shred my opponents hand that contained Terminate, Scooze, Chandra CoD. My one side wrath EE eventually gets hit by a topdeck inquisition, but I get to drop a whole bunch of giant Eldrazi while poor continues his screw. OP concedes.
Game 2: Sided in +1 EE out of the SB. -1 BOP on the draw. OP keeps a land heavy draw with interaction (bolt, inquisition, abrupt decay) and cannot stick a threat while flooding out. I feel as though Jund is a strongly favored matchup, since Eldrazi topdeck Drowners while Jund topdecks inquisitions, but this match is decided by OP having terrible luck rather than the usual attrition war.
Thoughts: I contend that Jund is the best matchup for Bant Eldrazi. EE is often a one sided wrath, your creatures are generally larger, and with more utility than theirs, and late in the game Eldrazi's board presence spirals out of control, where Jund is still trying to use point removal. They also have few good targets for abrupt decay and bolt, and have SOOO many dead draws late in the game when they desperately need more board presence, whereas we have around 12 gigantic eldrazi and 4 stirrings to snag them with.
1-0
Round 2:
Matchup: Affinity
Game 1: I keep a very strong draw with temple, noble, noble, greensource, smasher, smasher and draw into a TKS on turn 1. Turns out I am playing against Affinity and a cranial plated skirge pecks my face for around 7 turn 2 against my board of land, noble. TKS turn 2 seems less exciting when OP has 1 card in hand. Turns out its a galvanic blast for my face. My next TD is neither Path or EE, so I die.
Game 2: +3 Stony Silence +2 Natural State +1 EE, I don't remember what I cut for the slots, but I know it involved only 2 of my 4 TKS so I could potentially mise a t2 TKS (Don't do this at home, it is definitely a mistake. Shave em all obviously.) I mulligan a 7 that has no hate pieces and isn't the fastest draw ever (the two conditions i'm looking for against affinity.) Mulligan has a TKS and a temple, but no hate and has a path. I keep it on the hope that it is better than a mull to 5. I was wrong. OP drops entire hand except one card before t3 when I can drop TKS (which is why it's an obvious side out.) Turns out his last card is galvanic blast for my TKS, which draws him into another galvanic for my face, which means my TKS net my opponent 1 dig through his deck and cost him 0 cards. I had already burned my path on a signal pest by this point and OP draws and drops Master of Etherium next turn to ruin me.
Thoughts on the matchup: I'll get to this one later on, but this is a terrible game 1, and a game 2 where you simply must have stony or EE.
1-1
Round 3:
Matchup: Abzan
Game 1: OP keeps a pretty stellar draw that starts with a quick Noble and Temple Garden. I inwardly die a little. I hate the mirror match. I have a noble of my own and settle in for a long game. T2 OP plays marsh flats and runs out lingering souls, and I breathe for the first time in around a minute. Thought for sure I was going to be wrecked by TKS. I am able to land a fast smasher which eats a path and another card, then stick a drowner to make racing impossible. A displacer comes down the turn after and wraps things up.
Game 2: +3 relic (maybe should have only done 2) +1 EE, -1 BOP on the draw, don't remember the other cuts. Most likely shaved some combo of smasher/drowner/skyspawner to bring the curve down a little lower to help dodge discard while still being the bigger midrange. I won't pretend I have a well thought out argument that this is ideal. My Opponent keeps an excellent hand which revolves around 2 copies of lingering souls (which he only gets the front half of due to relics) and gets to turn 3 at which point he plays gideon. I topdeck a smasher a turn later to attempt to assassinate the silly white planeswalker but OP has path off a noble to close me out. I die with 2 useless relics on the board neutralizing his non-existent goyfs and flayers.
Game 3: -1 Relic (Maybe all three were too much), +1 Bird. This game was VERY close. OP leads with noble and I led with stirrings. I make no turn 2 play while running out Coast. OP plays lingering souls. I play my sandbagged temple (smasher was revealed on the stirrings earlier) run out TKS seeing Liliana otV, Marsh Flats, flayer, damnation, lingering souls. OP had the mana but decided not to liliana on t2. I take lili and start the race against the tokens. My opponent plays out his threats while holding damnation, opting for the race and to force me to commit more, while holding damnation. My hand at this point is just lands and smasher, drowner, drowner, drowner. I run out smasher and my opponent opts to trade several tokens and flayer for the smasher, and chumps TKS. OP flashes back both copies of lingering souls, plays a noble, and continues the aggro game plan. I play out drowner and my OP is forced to play damnation to avoid losing the race, but is quickly double drowner'd out of the game. After the match is over we discussed his t2 lingering souls over lili and he mentioned he was respecting the counterspell and didn't expect the t3 TKS since no temple had been played/revealed. I don't like counterspells in this matchup since like Jund it so frequently comes down to topdecks and attrition, but it is nice to know that the deck has that going for it. I am about 90% sure I lose that game immediately if he plays t2 Liliana. The uptick would have eaten several drowners and it would have made my t3 TKS horrible.
Thoughts: I think these fair grindy decks are our best matchups. We prey on decks that try and trade with us one for one, and it makes our decisions on which hands are keepable infinitely easier when we don't have to filter for a SB piece of hate. The longer the game goes the more likely you are to be favored, and lili is a lot less scary against skyspawner builds. I am not sure if I want the full three relics, as drawing them in multiples can be bad if your OP shows a lot of early aggression. Relic only temporarily stops grim flayers, and after its cracked its just back to business as usual. The benefit is that it turns goyf into a taunting elf, shrinks flayer, cuts off the back half of souls, and in rare instances helps fight tasigur. My advice is to assemble presence on board quickly in this matchup, because an early liliana can be very, very bad.
2-1
Round 4:
Matchup: Gifts Storm
Game 1: My opponent leads on Spirebluff Canal and I put him on either gifts storm or Goryo's, and I am hoping it is storm, because goryo's keeping 7 on the play without a turn 1 filter card is pretty scary. I play some alien beaters and progress the beatdown plan, but my opponent already has a resolved electromancer and EoT's a gifts on 3 mana at the end of my turn 4. I give him the past in flames and a pyretic ritual, but between those and the manamorphose and desperate rituals in GY he is able to storm off from cards in hand and murder me t4.
Game 2: +3 Relic of Progenitus, +3 Disdainful Stroke, +1 Stubborn Denial, -2 EE, -2 Drowner, -2 smasher, -1 Skyspawner. I keep an easy 7 with a t3 TKS and a relic. In combo situations I will deviate from my normal mulligan rule (mulligan anything that doesn't have temple, t1 dork, t1 stirrings) and I will mulligan any hand that has no disruption (or easy access to it). My OP has an excellent setup this game with the same t2 electromancer, t3 gifts, but I have a relic out and am eating spells every turn while leaving up mana for my relic activation. I land a TKS and snatch his gifts (he didn't have mana for cast at that moment unless he wanted to ritual, morphose, cast, which in retrospect may have been better for him.), leaving him with desperate ritual, 3 pyretic ritual, grapeshot, manamorphose. I still have a mana up for relic activation. OP Topdecks past in flames and produces approximately a million mana before casting past in flames, but relic exiles his GY and he has to settle for a grapeshot to kill my current board. OP isn't able to reassemble enough storm pieces in time.
Game 3: I keep a hand with Path, Stirrings and a stubborn denial with a Heath. Turn 1 I cast stirrings and find a relic. Turn 2 OP plays Baral. My turn two I run out the relic and hold up path mana. I upkeep path the Baral so OP can't gifts in response and OP passes. Stubborn denial is beginning to look worthless here since next turn I won't have ferocious and my OP will have one billion mana. On my turn I am forced to pass with 3 up for relic and stubborn, fully expecting a shatter spree, then imminent death. My OP casts ritual at the end of my t3 and casts gifts with no mana up. I am able to stubborn denial, and continue the slow eating of GY with relic. Over the next couple turns OP passes while I build a board capable of killing him and find a second relic, which I hold back in the prayer I am not punished by a kill that can push through the first relic activation and kill me on the same turn. I decided this line was ok since OP's GY had around 2 cards in it since relic had been munching on them all game. OP doesn't punish me and never hits spree.
Thoughts on the matchup: This is one of the few combo decks where you can just flat out crush them with limited interaction. In game one they usually can't reliably assemble their combo until around turn 4 or 5, which is plenty of time to beat down and dig for TKS or a path. Path can stifle their attempts to go off in the first game, but it has to be combined with a decent amount of pressure because it won't buy you long. After SB disdainful stroke / relic / denial are all solid against them since the best cards in their deck to cast are gifts and past in flames. Bear in mind it is usually better to give them the past in flames when they gifts so they net less mana, but when you have disdainful stroke it may be better just to put it in yard, and force them to find their second one. Additionally it can be very difficult for them to beat a relic, which pressures them on its own starting turn 1. I am a little afraid of the shatter spree I know most of them pack, and I know blood moon comes out of the board, but Blood Moon doesn't hit my build as hard as most since there are no reshaper and skyspawner actually fixes for colorless. They also don't pick off scions, so don't sacrifice them willy nilly if they threaten the moon.
3-1
Round 5:
Matchup: Merfolk
Game 1: I keep a 1 lander on the play with noble, stirrings, skyspawner, engineered explosives and pure beatdown gas. I lead noble and OP leads island, vial. I whiff on land on my draw and stirrings for a land, finding cavern, and pass the turn with no other plays. OP upticks vial, misses his second land drop and plays another vial. On my turn I whiff on land again, but have the option of casting either skyspawner (which enables all my fat pressure) or EE, which kills my noble, but sets my clearly mana screwed OP back 2 vial. I run out spawner with the idea that I will be able to beat down my OP with a TKS and Smasher in hand. My idea is incorrect. My opponent vials out several lords and creates a board state I cannot contend with much faster than I can, all on one land. It becomes clear to my OP I have never played a match against Fish before.
Game 2: I lead with excellent t2 skyspawner into t3 TKS while my OP plays out 2 aether vial. I take a vapor snag which my OP declined to cast leaving him with 2xMaster of the Pearl Trident, 2x Harbinger of the Waves, Kira. OP upticks vials and has harbinger at the ready while casting a lord on his turn. I stirrings into EE on turn 4 and take out both vials, forced an activation of vial. My OP eventually hits enough mana to deploy all his threats, but a pair of Paths eat his lords and he loses the race to eldrazi tokens trading for silvergill adepts.
Game 3: This game went very similarly to game 2 with an early TKS staring down a cursecatcher and a vial. My OP played out a silvergill adept and another vial, and I get the glorious opportunity to destroy both vial and a sea claim with my EE. My OP reassembles a respectable board state and I (stupidly) crack a heath for breeding pool to give myself access to another green mana since my forest and temple were already out (witness was an excellent draw assuming it could get played through an OP spreading seas, etc.) It was stupid because my OP's only out was two topdecked lords in a row to swing for lethal, but until that point I had no island. A couple turns pass and I am able to TKS to see my OP is down to just a harbinger. I attack in with an alien army and my OP puts cursecatcher in front of TKS. I do some quick math and I am not dead to a single lord on the crackback, but double will kill me and OP has one card in hand. My OP plays a harbinger for my TKS at EOT instead of during combat (catching me completely offguard but avoiding the mainphase replay) and draws double lord between the additional draw and the draw for his turn. I fret a little bit until I realize that my OP's chump with cursecatcher means he only dealt 11 when he needed 13. In retrospect my mainphase replay of TKS would have most likely locked his list out of being able to play double lord, but I didn't realize that at the time.
Thoughts on the matchup: Destroy the vials when possible. I don't have a ton of experience in this matchup, but destroying the vials and sea's claims/spreading seas felt important enough that I probably should have brought in the natural states in addition to the extra EE. EE is a house against them, just ruinously strong early or late. It gets around Kira, and usually destroys half their creatures minimum, usually on 2, which means it hits none of ours. Don't search out your island shocklands without good reason. It may even be correct to cut the breeding pool instead of a bird on the draw if you feel like cutting a mana dork.
4-1
Round 6
Matchup: Eldrazi Tron
Game 1: This is the matchup that I wanted to dodge most, since I am fairly certain it is a poor one for Bant Eldrazi. They prey on the same midrange and fair decks we do, but more effectively, and I feel as though we are not favored here. The one downside they have in this matchup is that their hate pieces out of the board are far worse, and their maindeck spot removal is tragic (usually just a couple dismember). I keep a fairly standard turn 3 smasher hand on the play, facing down a temple'd out matter reshaper from OP. With noble in play the smasher smacks for 6 and my OP responds with another reshaper and a mana up (only 1 piece away from tron now as well). I run out a second noble, which prompts a dismember on my smasher after exalted triggers. My OP's hand is thinning out at this point and I land a postcombat TKS to take his Endbringer, leaving him with no good threats. I draw displacer and begin resuming the beatdown, and it isn't long before the exalted TKS seals game 1.
Game 2: +3 Stony Silence, +2Disdainful Stroke -2 Engineered Explosives, -1 Drowner, -1BOP, -1Smasher. I keep a hand without stony silence but a nice curve into t3 TKS off of temple, a stirrings and a smasher. A strong 7 in a fair matchup is generally acceptable, but I am beginning to come around to the idea that ETron might actually be an unfair deck, although they aren't necessarily all in on Tron. My OP begins with a map, then a Reshaper (Which I would have guessed they should board out) then, unfortunately, a TKS to take my TKS. I believe I had a chance to play a skyswpawner on my T3 before a second TKS took my smasher. I drew a couple more lands and a very sad displacer, then promptly died to an eponymous Endbringer.
Game 3: On the play I forgot to put the bird back in, but kept a hand with stony silence and some pressure. I led with stirrings and my OP led with Map. T2 I laid down Stony Silence and my OP took his map and just stuck it under the silence. I guess that means there isn't an all is dust tucked in there still (but against Eldrazi, I'm not sure I would keep it in either). A couple unexciting turns later My OP revealed hand to a TKS showing Smasher, Mind Stone, Endbringer, Urza's Mine, Karn. I had displacer for the smasher and a path for either the Endbringer or the smasher, so I took Karn. My OP drew the last piece of tron off the top and began to spew out the threats. An eternal witnessed'd path took care of the bringer and smasher, while displacer at a dismember. The board stabilized for my OP with just a witness facing him down and several turns of topdecking before both of us, with just a disdainful stroke in my hand for protection. I quickly drew another threat, while for several turns my OP topdecked dead cards under Stony or land. One turn before lethal he was able to draw a ballista with X=8, which would have stopped my attack, but disdainful stroke had other plans.
Thoughts on the matchup: Turns out Stony silence can be a house against them, shutting off basilisk collar, ballista activations, batterskull equips/returns, maps, mindstones, and (potentially) oblivion stones. It was very good at significantly slowing the ramp when played on two, and turned a lot of my OP's tds into dead draws. In general I think this matchup is close, but they are favored. It is just too easy for us not to get stony and for them to either assemble tron, or figure out how to equip basilisk collar to a ballista or an endbringer, either of which just ruins us if unanswered immediately. Our creatures fight pound for pound pretty well against theirs, and matter reshaper is horrible against us, but this is one of the few matchups where your topdecks just will not be better than your OP's topdecks in game 1.
5-1
Round 7
Matchup: Death's Shadow Jund
Game 0: We split into the top 8, shook hands, and thanked our various deities that we were paired against each other instead of the pair down.
5-1-1
Top 8:
Round 8:
Matchup: Bant Eldrazi
Game 1: We must have been well positioned in the metagame that day, because this was a comedy of errors. An early TKS of mine revealed my OP to have a maindeck blessed alliance, which I wrote down, but as these matches are untimed it was MORE THAN AN HOUR later when he cast it, eating a drowner of hope, and literally drowning my hope. I took some heart from the fact that my OP made several comedic errors during the phase of the game in which we were both displacing our Drowners for a million tokens. By far the strangest was watching me cast an ancient stirrings, reveal a displacer, not play it, then he played and cracked Engineered Explosives to destroy both of our already on board displacers, leaving me with the only displacer between us. After I cast displacer the following turn he loudly proclaimed to the thirty or so onlookers that he was playing against the luckiest man alive. Many unusual looks were exchanged. I failed to capitalize on the error by displacing my TKS out of fear that he would draw into path and opted to continue displacing drowner, going for the tap-down kill. My OP immediately topdecked another displacer for the punish. I lost this game a very long time later to the aforementioned alliance, which I had entirely forgot was in my OP's hand.
Game 2: -2 EE, +2 Blessed Alliance. On the play I am not entirely sold that blessed alliance is the bee's knees. You are usually in the position of aggressor and alliance just really isn't as exciting from there. That being said neither is explosives. I drew the stone cold nuts and landed the first TKS, then the first smasher, then a path to back it up. Anyone who has played the mirror knows that this start has to be interrupted with a path the turn TKS comes down, or some combination of TKS and path to claw back. My OP made some commentary about the merits of variance, and conceded.
Game 3: My OP led with noble into Skyspawner, into approximately 3 path and 1 blessed alliance for my variety of aggressive Eldrazi, all the while pecking away with Eldrazi Skyspawner. My OP had depleted me to just a noble, a TKS, and a reality smasher staring down his skyspawner, a displacer and around 2 eldrazi tokens. With three displace activations up my OP elected to displace my Smasher on it's attack (while at 20 life), and displaced his skyspawner for additional tokens on my end step. With lethal on the board with just a few displace activations my OP encouraged me loudly and repeatedly to play faster, prompting the judge to ask me to be more aware of time. In an untimed match I didn't feel compelled to rush through plays, but in the situation presented, where my OP was skipping an onboard kill every turn for almost 4 turns, I was happy to oblige. I topdecked a path (which prompted a blink on the spawner) then a displacer (so that I could displace the spawner :/) Then a Drowner, which allowed me to begin the lock. My OP drew his own drowner and the blinkrace began all over again, with me at 2 life. Several turns later of my OP aggressively telling me to go, then blinking his drowner during my EOT, my OP began sacc'ing tokens to tap down my drowner tokens. My OP had approximately 6 more drowner tokens than me, and successfully tapped my entire board. There was no mention of the phase, so I asked that my OP let me know when we moved to combat. My OP declared that we were in combat, which the judge elected to clarify as the beginning of combat. I began to tap my OP's creatures with Drowner's ability and I saw the horror on my OP's face. I do not feel bad for snagging this game with maliciously good topdecks given that I lived on borrowed time for quite a while, and at this point my OP was making some very vocal and rude commentary about my perceived misplays, while appealing to the judge for a game loss on the basis of stalling. The judge didn't agree, and declined to issue me a warning. After the judge declined to award my OP the match on the basis of his complaints he conceded the game and told me that he didn't care for my playstyle in less kind words. It was at this point I discovered our match had been over two hours long.
Thoughts on the Matchup: The mirror is a miserable chore, and comes down to either assembling the nuts aggressive hand, or assembling the more resilient displacer / drowner combo. A couple maindeck eternal witness assist my current build in making this matchup far more favorable than it otherwise would be, as pathing their displacers is often the path to victory. Skyspawner is a hero in this matchup, as he can often swing through a gummed up ground state and he also helps execute plan A, which involves the all important early TKS/Smasher. After the game starts going long do not try and run out more than the two displacer, since you just need two to blink each other and protect from path by sacrificing tokens. No need to run out more if they are running EE unless you are in imminent danger of being TKS'd. Blessed alliance has met with mixed results for me. It's great on the draw game 2 when you can 'get' the OP when he goes for plan A, and I am willing to bet it would be super satisfying to do so, but I have yet to find myself in that exact position. Usually it just means i'm leaving up two mana when I seldom can afford to in this matchup, and people play around the card anyway. In the very late game it becomes a dead card because attacks are often alpha attacks.
6-1-1
Round 9
Matchup: Affinity
Game 1: It isn't often that you are able to snake a game 1 from an affinity player, but a combination of Noble, Noble, Temple Garden, Smasher, Smasher, Eldrazi Temple, Eldrazi Temple is about as bloodthirsty a hand as you can hope for. My OP came out of the gate very quickly, but could close faster than my draw once I drew a topdecked path.
Game 2: +3 Stony Silence, +2 Natural State, +1 EE, -2 Smasher, -4 TKS. This matchup is all about being able to hit the right piece of hate early, and after a mulligan I had only an ancient stirrings and a relatively slow start. Rather than mull to 5 I put my eggs in the Ancient Stirrings for EE basket, drew another stirrings, then milled through the top 10 looking for the EE that didn't appear, and I was promptly beaten to death.
Game 3: My OP unloaded his entire hand on turn 1, which is quite a feat, but was neutered by a turn 2 stony silence on the play. My hand had consisted of two painlands, stony silence, path, path, and I don't even remember the other two cards, because they were not relevant in my decision to keep. I took around 10 damage from 1/1's attacking me before I drew another land (following drawing both my other copies of stony silence, another path, and many many more unplayable cards. My OP drew and played Ghirapur aether grid, and was able to machine gun a couple creatures including a mana dork, and I appeared dead to rights. I drew a natural state off the top of my library, destroyed the grid and stabilized with a displacer for a blocker. I began accruing poison counters from inkmoth, but my biggest fear at this point was dying to signal pest and ancillary damage effects (my OP didn't play galvanic blast, but I was not positive until the match was complete). For this reason when I drew eternal witness and was able to play it returning either natural state or path, but I had taken a pain damage to 6 to cast witness, and if I wanted to have the mana to cast my spell up without taking an additional damage I would need to take path. I took path, my OP topdecked Ghirapur aether grid #2, dropped it and killed the witness, and shot me to death before I dealt him my first damage.
Thoughts on the match: I do not like this matchup for Bant because I believe it is way too dependent on the die roll, and whether or not you hit EE/Stony/Natural state(to a lesser extent). It is way too easy to keep a hand with EE on the draw and get run over by several threats before you can deploy and crack EE for 2 (which is it's most common use). Post-sideboard I believe you should keep any hand in which you can cast Stony, any hand that has an EE and pressure, or a hand that has a lightning fast start and a natural state, and mulligan anything else. Natural state can't get it done on its own. I think we are distinctly unfavored game 1, especially when we keep hands on the strength of TKS, which is essentially a dead card in the matchup.
6-2-1, good for 4th
It sounds like your opponent is honestly kind of dumb and doesn't understand the matchup. Plus if you're in top 8 you're not supposed to have time pressure.
The key to burn is stabilizing the ground and then clocking them.
If you're that worried about burn bring in 2 chalices. But in general, TKS is actually the best hate card against them. With a stirrings I would often rather pick a TKS over chalice. Chalice also protects itself and worship (on 2).
Burn is super play/draw dependent and there's not much you can do to change that.
I also bring in flashfreeze.
Worship is still worth bringing in even if they know you have it. Drev is a dead card most of the time.
Take out EE.
Sorry I meant to say Nissa, Vital Force (5 cmc bomb) NOT the other Nissa (which is of course not very good in Bant Eldrazi)
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
I don't side in Stony against Eldrazi Tron because EE is very strong against them - blow up any hate like Needle or Chalice - you can snag numerous other cards such as Collar, Ballista etc as well. If you play Unified Will you should consider bringing this in, I play Needle and Natural State - you should def bring those in as well if you have them.
Regarding Affinity - I have an overall positive matchup in paper and on MTGO. The 4x Skyspawner build with a reasonable sb IMO is def favoured. However, if you starting shaving hate cards you will be in a bad way - I currently have SS, Natural State, Needle, Worship and 3x MD EE. You def side out 4x TKS as well as any reshapers - Displacer and Drowner is great against them if you can drag the game out.
Regarding Jund - IMO since Jund switched out GY hate for Land hate the matchup has become a lot harder. I think its hyperbolic to say Jund is our easiest matchup. Jund punishes mulligans and applies pressure, combined with the ability to easily kill all our dorks and blow up temples with Mage - if you cant answer Bob quickly you tend to get buried in removal and under certain circumstances Lilli can just lock you out..
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
Similarly I would keep in E-Wit against Jund - yes you are bringing in gy hate (mostly relics anyway) but its still worth it for the grind value - if you aren't playing E-wit against an attrition/grindy deck then what are you playing it against?
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver