Why do we not use Endless One?
Ask your self this:
Anywhere along the mana curve, when given the choice, would you rather cast Endless one over:
3cmc Matter Reshaper, Wasteland Strangler
4cmc Thought-knot Seer
5cmc Reality Smasher, Ob Nixilis Reignited, Kalitas
6cmc Endbringer
That leaves the 2cmc slot open. But i would not want to cast Endless one over any of the those other options.
If you want a curve filler, Hangerback walker does it better.
The maindeck did fine, but I did notice that Rogue's Passage was almost useless, mainly because I don't like tapping almost all my mana just to get in one unblockable attack. While making one of my creatures unblockable sounds nice, usually my opponents would either have too much life to be finished off that turn or so little that unblockable isn't even needed. I'm probably going to take this along with one Caves of Koilos for 2 Foundry of the Consuls; I think having some flyer tokens would be great in a deck with Drana, and I can trigger Foundry of the Consuls on my opponent's turn.
The sideboard is probably where I anticipate would be changing the most. I felt Grasp of Darkness wasn't used very often, because most smaller creatures can be handled with Spatial Contortion or Ultimate Price, and most bigger creatures can be handled by Bearer of Silence and Blighted Fen. I originally put in Grasp of Darkness against other Eldrazi builds, but since Eldrazis didn't make an appearance in Pro Tour, it looks like not many others would want to play Eldrazi now. Below is a list of sideboard cards I may consider:
-Macabre Waltz
-1 more Ultimate Price
-To the Slaughter
-Carrier Thrall
With that said does anyone have any suggestions (Mainboard or sideboard)? Thanks
Note: One top tier build i haven't faced yet so far is mono white humans. In fact, all my match-ups till now have been control or midrange, and not full aggro, so I don't know how my deck would fare against that but I should probably make sure my sideboard is ready for white humans too.
Hey Sc1987, great job and and thanks for the report.
How did you like Pitiless Horde and Drana?
What did you like most about the deck? And where did you feel it was the weakest?
Did you like Ob Nixilis? I use Endbringer in the slot. But they do both semi similar things.
Rogue's Passage is really only used when you have nothing else you can do to get in that last bit of damage when there are road blocks.
In my experience its been helpful while Sea gate wreckage has never had the chance to be used
This deck can take out W/x Humans. Ultimate Price, Grasp of Darkness, and Spatial Contortion slow them down while the bearer of silence, TKS, Smasher beat them down.
Main deck Ruinous Path is legit.
Luckily for you, you did not face many Collected Company decks. Everyone at my LGS had some variant of a Co-Co deck at the last FNM. And I lost to all of them. Eldrazi aggro has been very competitive for me outside of Co-co centric decks.
Against Golgari BG Sacrifice (Aristocrats as they call it), I put a tainted remedy on the battlefield on turn 3. It did surprise my opponent as it shuts off two of their win cons in Zulaport Cutthroat and Ormendahl.
The idea of Macarbre Waltz is to bring back creatures that made it to the grave yard that were destroyed by Blighted Fen and Ob Nix from the WB control decks. But I think Ever After would much more effective. Especially if you can resurrect a TKS and a Smasher.
Carrier Thrall is ok earlier but terrible late game and thats why I cut those and Hedron Crawler. Both are decent early but make you vomit when you top deck one later.
Besides on turn 2 I would rather put a flyer in play or steal a card from the opponents hand.
Hey Sc1987, great job and and thanks for the report.
How did you like Pitiless Horde and Drana?
What did you like most about the deck? And where did you feel it was the weakest?
Did you like Ob Nixilis? I use Endbringer in the slot. But they do both semi similar things.
Rogue's Passage is really only used when you have nothing else you can do to get in that last bit of damage when there are road blocks.
In my experience its been helpful while Sea gate wreckage has never had the chance to be used
This deck can take out W/x Humans. Ultimate Price, Grasp of Darkness, and Spatial Contortion slow them down while the bearer of silence, TKS, Smasher beat them down.
Main deck Ruinous Path is legit.
Luckily for you, you did not face many Collected Company decks. Everyone at my LGS had some variant of a Co-Co deck at the last FNM. And I lost to all of them. Eldrazi aggro has been very competitive for me outside of Co-co centric decks.
Against Golgari BG Sacrifice (Aristocrats as they call it), I put a tainted remedy on the battlefield on turn 3. It did surprise my opponent as it shuts off two of their win cons in Zulaport Cutthroat and Ormendahl.
The idea of Macarbre Waltz is to bring back creatures that made it to the grave yard that were destroyed by Blighted Fen and Ob Nix from the Wb control decks. But I think Ever After would much more effective. Especially if you can resurrect a TKS and a Smasher.
Carrier Thrall is ok earlier but terrible late game and thats why I cut those and Hedron Crawler. Both are decent early but make you vomit when you top deck one later.
Besides on turn 2 I would rather put a flyer in play or steal a card from the opponents hand.
Drana and Pitiless Horde were great additions and really gave this deck more punching power. I do like Ob Nixilis a lot and was I actually able to emblem him twice on Game Day. I think where this deck lacks the most is what to do when my opponent starts getting a lot of creatures and/or starts gaining too much life. In that regard, I think Tainted Remedy might actually be a good sideboard option. I initially didn't include it because I thought it was too situational and would likely just take up space but looking back it seems that I should've used it; it would've helped against the BG Aristocrats AND the Jund opponent (He won by playing Pulse of Murasa and kept flashing it back with Goblin Dark-Dwellers).
Yeah I was surprised nobody at my local meta played Bant Company, but I suppose I should be ready for that as well. Any recommendations on dealing with Bant Company?
I'm not a big fan of Ruinous Path in mainboard because I think it's primarily used in removing Planeswalkers, which I normally don't feel like it's necessary except against Esper Control. But other than that, do you think this deck is perfectly fine against W/x Humans?
Ever After sounds like an interesting choice. Although using it on TKS or Smasher would make them vulnerable to Ultimate Price, but I'd imagine the benefit outweighs the drawback.
Played on Game Day and went 1-1-3. ID on the first game with a friend of mine. Got a bye on the last round. PATHETIC.
Went 0-3 against 2x Bant Company and GR Ramp.
Will be removing Warping Wail for Ruinous Path.
Back to the drawing board.
Dam dude, sorry to hear it. What was your list?
My FNM was dismal too. 5 rounds with the first 4 being a Co-Co variant. Lost to them all. Beat R/g Googles.
Unfortunately I could not attend Game Day because of other more pressing matters.
Played on Game Day and went 1-1-3. ID on the first game with a friend of mine. Got a bye on the last round. PATHETIC.
Went 0-3 against 2x Bant Company and GR Ramp.
Will be removing Warping Wail for Ruinous Path.
Back to the drawing board.
Dam dude, sorry to hear it. What was your list?
My FNM was dismal too. 5 rounds with the first 4 being a Co-Co variant. Lost to them all. Beat R/g Googles.
Unfortunately I could not attend Game Day because of other more pressing matters.
It's the list on the OP. I'm really thinking of goin less creatures and more removals or discard. 18 creatures and 18 spells route.
4x RS
4x TKS
4x MR
4x HW
2x D, LoM
4x Duress
4x Languish
4x Ruinous Path
2x Ultimate Price
2x Read the Bones
2x Transgress the Mind
The frustration against Co-Co decks is understandable. Its a tough match up for a lot of decks. However our midrange beat down strategy is effective against most of the decks outside of Co-Co. At least in my experience. Moving in to WB wont really do much to take on Co - Co either. As they are admittedly having tough time with it to over in their thread.
If you would like to angle your deck around beating Collected Company while staying BdarkB perhaps you move into a control archtype.
Your creature team would look more like
4x Bearer of Silence
4x TKS
4x Reality Smasher
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited or 2x Endbringer
That is a multitude of 2 cmc cards in this list that are relevant against a vast majority of decks. Once you reach 4 mana on board, you are able to cast two spells per turn.
you can then use your TKS and Smasher to close out the game.
The frustration against Co-Co decks is understandable. Its a tough match up for a lot of decks. However our midrange beat down strategy is effective against most of the decks outside of Co-Co. At least in my experience. Moving in to WB wont really do much to take on Co - Co either. As they are admittedly having tough time with it to over in their thread.
If you would like to angle your deck around beating Collected Company while staying BdarkB perhaps you move into a control archtype.
Your creature team would look more like
4x Bearer of Silence
4x TKS
4x Reality Smasher
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited or 2x Endbringer
That is a multitude of 2 cmc cards in this list that are relevant against a vast majority of decks. Once you reach 4 mana on board, you are able to cast two spells per turn.
you can then use your TKS and Smasher to close out the game.
I really hate the fact that BoS is basically a 4 drop that can't block, MR at least helps us chump block n gives us card adv for the 3 drop slot. I'm also tempted to add Macabre Waltz in.
I also like duress at the 1 drop slot, helps w planeswalker/spell removals. Not many options in the 1 drop slot though
Matter Reshaper over BoS, thats a good call.
Although I prefer the midrange beat down strategy, how do you feel about the control style?
i don't think black is quick enough to race BG sac, GW Tokens or Bant. However, black does have lots of removals/discards. i think it's best that we play to it's strength. i'll keep playing and i'll update you guys on the results.
Matter Reshaper over BoS, thats a good call.
Although I prefer the midrange beat down strategy, how do you feel about the control style?
i don't think black is quick enough to race BG sac, GW Tokens or Bant. However, black does have lots of removals/discards. i think it's best that we play to it's strength. i'll keep playing and i'll update you guys on the results.
It's definitely not quick enough. BG Aristocrats is why I run one Languish in my MB and 3 Kalitas in my SB along with 2 more Languish. I've yet to face GW tokens or Bant myself but I think they share some common weaknesses, particularly sweepers.
eldrazi deck particularly now is not designed to race. if you want to race go play mono white human and join the plebs.
languish demolish bant but not the gw token deck since rebuilding their board is as easy as snapping finger for them.
gw token deck is particularity weak for flyers, big bad flyers such as mindwrack demon decimates their deck easily. but unfortunately some idiot at rnd decided to give all the good unconditional removal to white and since wizards decided never to print card with protection again it makes white very oppressive right now.
to beat the gw token we need more discard. turn 1 duress turn 2 transgress and turn 4 thought knot seer blanks their game plan.
maybe its time to go back to control plan and ditch all the early aggro creatures for more spot removals and discards.
eldrazi deck particularly now is not designed to race. if you want to race go play mono white human and join the plebs.
languish demolish bant but not the gw token deck since rebuilding their board is as easy as snapping finger for them.
gw token deck is particularity weak for flyers, big bad flyers such as mindwrack demon decimates their deck easily. but unfortunately some idiot at rnd decided to give all the good unconditional removal to white and since wizards decided never to print card with protection again it makes white very oppressive right now.
to beat the gw token we need more discard. turn 1 duress turn 2 transgress and turn 4 thought knot seer blanks their game plan.
maybe its time to go back to control plan and ditch all the early aggro creatures for more spot removals and discards.
Sorry if this is too much splash for this thread, but I like the Dark Drazi deck
Hey guys, I've kept my eye on this thread and popped in and out a few times. I've bought my Smashers and TKS and have really been torn between Dark Eldrazi and Simic Eldrazi. I took a look at what I wanted from each, and think I lean more towards dark, however I have some questions for ya all.
First, from Simic, the ONLY cards I want are: 4x Altered Ego, 3x-4x Pulse of Murasa, 3x Elemental Bond. *I also want to play more of a midrange, early control till T4 and start laying down a constant stream of cards they cant deal with.
So my question is, do you think the following mana-base could work for splashing the above listed cards (count E-Bond as a T3 drop, and Altered as T5 drop).
That should give me 16 untapped black sources for a T1 Duress, 12(16) total green for a T3 Elemental Bond, and 8(12) total blue, 12(16) green for a T5 or later Altered Ego, which according to a Frank Karsten Article should be just enough. All but 4(8) lands come untapped, and those 4 lands are 3/3 hexproof lands for extra dmg if needed.
After that, you should be drawing a card for every creature, probably every turn, and the idea is to destroy the opponents hand the first 2 turns, then starting T4 overwhelm them in card advantage. Top deck Duress and Transgess kinda suck, but every other card is great. The draw keeps your lands full, keep the creatures coming, and give you your slight recursion/lifegain.
Here would be a sample deck, and probably pretty close to what I'd run, but I'd like your input on tweaks.
Altered Ego - One of my pet cards, but having up to 8 Reality Smasher or Thought-Knot Seer is REALLY hard for a deck to beat.
Reality Smasher - The take it home card. Hard for decks to handle, especially with us making them discard all their other cards.
Elemental Bond - Another very underrated card imo, it gets great millage in this deck by having ALL the creatures trigger it. Multiples get better.
Pulse of Murasa - Lifegain for some early aggro decks, plus gets back some of my creatures, between this and the E-Bond, I shouldnt run out of dudes, even with only 16.
Duress - Early discard, and lategame protection for Smasher.
Touch of Moonglove - Probably the weakest card in the deck, but I really like it in testing, also underrated in aggro IMO. Punishes chumps, great synergy with Smasher and gang blocks.
Transgress the Mind - Amazing discard, protects dudes, hates on Avacyn, great card.
So again, I hope this isnt too far away from Dark Eldrazi as in my mind, thats how I'd be playing it, and it only has a splash for 3 cards. Any input and thoughts would be greatly appreciated and I'd definitely trying to test this deck out some today and get it up and running. I really really like Altered Ego and Elemental Bond for an Eldrazi midrange deck, however I dont think they are enough to push me fully into Simic, yet as the deck overall I really enjoy the Dark Eldrazi style deck, using early discard to get up to the big baddies, and thing that a mostly black deck is the best to go for it.
Sorry if this is too much splash for this thread, but I like the Dark Drazi deck
Hey guys, I've kept my eye on this thread and popped in and out a few times. I've bought my Smashers and TKS and have really been torn between Dark Eldrazi and Simic Eldrazi. I took a look at what I wanted from each, and think I lean more towards dark, however I have some questions for ya all.
First, from Simic, the ONLY cards I want are: 4x Altered Ego, 3x-4x Pulse of Murasa, 3x Elemental Bond. *I also want to play more of a midrange, early control till T4 and start laying down a constant stream of cards they cant deal with.
So my question is, do you think the following mana-base could work for splashing the above listed cards (count E-Bond as a T3 drop, and Altered as T5 drop).
That should give me 16 untapped black sources for a T1 Duress, 12(16) total green for a T3 Elemental Bond, and 8(12) total blue, 12(16) green for a T5 or later Altered Ego, which according to a Frank Karsten Article should be just enough. All but 4(8) lands come untapped, and those 4 lands are 3/3 hexproof lands for extra dmg if needed.
After that, you should be drawing a card for every creature, probably every turn, and the idea is to destroy the opponents hand the first 2 turns, then starting T4 overwhelm them in card advantage. Top deck Duress and Transgess kinda suck, but every other card is great. The draw keeps your lands full, keep the creatures coming, and give you your slight recursion/lifegain.
Here would be a sample deck, and probably pretty close to what I'd run, but I'd like your input on tweaks.
Altered Ego - One of my pet cards, but having up to 8 Reality Smasher or Thought-Knot Seer is REALLY hard for a deck to beat.
Reality Smasher - The take it home card. Hard for decks to handle, especially with us making them discard all their other cards.
Elemental Bond - Another very underrated card imo, it gets great millage in this deck by having ALL the creatures trigger it. Multiples get better.
Pulse of Murasa - Lifegain for some early aggro decks, plus gets back some of my creatures, between this and the E-Bond, I shouldnt run out of dudes, even with only 16.
Duress - Early discard, and lategame protection for Smasher.
Touch of Moonglove - Probably the weakest card in the deck, but I really like it in testing, also underrated in aggro IMO. Punishes chumps, great synergy with Smasher and gang blocks.
Transgress the Mind - Amazing discard, protects dudes, hates on Avacyn, great card.
So again, I hope this isnt too far away from Dark Eldrazi as in my mind, thats how I'd be playing it, and it only has a splash for 3 cards. Any input and thoughts would be greatly appreciated and I'd definitely trying to test this deck out some today and get it up and running. I really really like Altered Ego and Elemental Bond for an Eldrazi midrange deck, however I dont think they are enough to push me fully into Simic, yet as the deck overall I really enjoy the Dark Eldrazi style deck, using early discard to get up to the big baddies, and thing that a mostly black deck is the best to go for it.
Hi Pyro. IMO we're having a heavy creature meta right now. If you're playing black and missing out on the removals, it's a very bad drawback. Based on the list u've provided, i think Bant Company, which is everywhere btw, will be having a field day against you. Declaration in Stone, which is the most used White card currently, also strikes Altered Ego and any other creatures of the same name.
Pulse of Murasa is good but not too sure on elemental bond though. If u intend to spalsh a colour, it's advisable to just stick with green. Having blue just for Altered ego, doesn't seem to be worth the mana fix.
Sylvan advocate would do well to replace Altered Ego.
So I just playtested it some on TappedOut against myself, and while its not the best test, I feel as if I can play either too harshly against my deck, or fairly unbiased.
From the playtesting, I definitely noticed a few things. Pulse of Murasa is good, but doesnt have that many targets, there are a lot of exile effects, especially in the decks mine struggles against. Elemental Bond is actually REALLY good. I dont think there was a single game that I was unhappy to see it. In fact, out of 7 games, I never saw a multiple, but actually kinda wanted it earlier sometime so I may consider 4. However its definitely key on having those 3+ power creatures. Altered Ego was awesome when it worked, but often times it had the same issue as Pulse, not enough targets and I actually had to play it as a 5cmc 1/1 in one game to chump, however I won that game, but it was painful. Mana-fixing: I only had 2 hiccups out of 7 games (admittedly not many), and neither were color issues. The first issue was being screwed at 2 lands till T4, then 3 lands till T6 with 2x TKS and a Smasher in hand. Probably a mulligan situation as I think 24 lands in this curve is pretty decent, especially with all the draw. Consistency: Here is where the trouble came in. The deck functioned beautifully and ran right through an Avacyn, out raced a flipped Abbey, and DOMINATED Bant CoCo in 3 games. The other 4 it didnt quite flop... but it flopped. The issues stemmed mainly from not having enough creatures. When the engine ran, it was unstoppable. However, I would often get stuck with only 1x Creature on the field or in hand, and like 3-4 spells, or some similar situation with that same effect, I had good cards, but nothing to use, or wiff'd. Of the 7 games, Transgress the Mind hit something 2 of 5 casts, the other 3 wiff'd. Duress only got something 1 of 4 times, but baited a Negate once too, so call it 2/4. Top-decking them seems worse than I imagined. Even TKS wiff'd quite a few times.
Thoughts on early changes: I agree that black has an amazing removal suite, and I am not *fully* taking advantage of that. I sort of wanted to play this deck similar to a CoCo deck, or Elves deck in style with very little interaction, however that doesnt really work when half of your creatures are actually discard spells lol. Going forward, I still think that Elemental Bond is amazing and deserves a lot more of a chance, however I think I need to get some more creatures in there, especially earlier, so lets look at a few of those cards and see what we can come up with, and since this is the Dark Drazi thread, I'll keep most/all of the the suggestions in black unless they are awesome.
Asylum Visitor - Easy to cast, triggers E-Bond, draws me cards, has a madness outlet if needed. Definite consideration.
Despoiler of Souls - Cant block, hard to cast possibly, effect doesnt help this deck, but he does trigger E-Bond, most likely a no.
Pale Rider of Trostad - A big body with some evasion for 2 cmc, triggers E-Bond. He does make be discard, but, that gets rid of extra discard spells, and can create targets for Pulse of Murasa.
Deadbridge Shaman - I dont get to pick the discard, its 3 cmc, but does trigger E-Bond, and can hand hate so not horrible.
Dominator Drone - Im fond of Ingest luck, plus the 2 life isnt a horrible top deck, triggers E-Bond.
Fleshbag Marauder - Edict effect, but hits me too. I can either use as a spell, or use it on Matter Reshaper if I have him out. Triggers E-Bond.
Pitiless Horde - I hate hurting myself, yet here I am playing black :SMH: Im just not fond of this card, but a contender.
Tooth Collector - Kills some chump blockers, makes combat math fuddled, triggers E-Bomb, could be nice.
Wasteland Strangler - I knew there was something else in Black I was forgetting, love em.
Bounding Krasis - Honorable Mention, and like I forgot Wasteland, hes what I forgot that I liked in Simic, probably wont splash though.
I went with the following changes. Took out the discard, I like it, but it was garbage topdeck, and didnt do enough for me early IMO. Added in the 4th E-Bond, and 6x 2 drops, and switched the count of Pulse and Mutation due to the self discard.
Out: -3 Duress, -4 Transgress the Mind, -1 Grotesque Mutation
In: +1 Elemental Bond, +1 Pulse of Murasa, +2 Asylum Visitor, +4 Pale Rider of Trostad *I'm hoping 4x Pale Riders is not too much self discard, however, I figure it gives Pulse more targets, and lets me dump extra of whatever I have. Extra spells with few creatures, dump em, extra 2 drops, dump em, extra lands, dump em.
Thanks Pyro for your updates and testnig!
Haha deadbridge shaman! I always thought that card was kinda cool. People hate having it die actually! Pitiless horde should almost always be dashed. But can be hard cast if you have it early.
What are talks thoughts on Altered Ego vs Mirrorpool? The deck I linked in tapped out is EXTREMELY similar in playstyle to my original deck, with a bit of added removal, however it seemed to wreck mine.
I got him down to 3 life, when I was at 28, he managed to stabilize, and won. I got him to 1 life, he stabilized and took me down from 25. Two games, a reality smasher top deck would've clinched for me, but didn't happen.
One difference I noticed was that his decks discard didn't really wiff as muh as mine did, not sure if that was just luck or what.
Despite having only 3x of each of the instant combat tricks, sometimes I felt flooded wth them.
I'm still 100% behind Elemental Bond, especially in my deck with 22 creatures with 3 power or more. The card draw is amazing. Cantripping creatures is huge, especially aggressively costed creatures like eldrazi.
Altered Ego I still like as I got to copy a Kalitas, and an opponents TKS to discard his Languish, and I cast mine for 5 so it got a counter and beat his.
I'm going to try V2 out a bit more tomorrow. I'm enjoying it and think some tweaks could have it perfect. I may just cave and throw in removal lol. I wish I had enough exile effects for Strangler to be justified.
adding 3rd and 4th color in my opinion is not a sound idea right now especially if you want to splash sub par card for the meta (altered ego, elemental bond).
if you want to branch into 3rd color (i considered generic mana as another color) it will be the painfully obvious white.
sometimes even without splashing 3rd and 4th color i have difficulties casting spell with double black (my manabase is 11 swamp, 6 pain lands, 8 other colorless utilities land)
right now i want to try to push for delirium because actually black have some powerful delirium card:
- pick the brain: decent if not delirium, particularly deadly in delirium. it strips away opponent gameplan in a single swoop.
- to the slaughter: meh against most of the meta right now (multiple vanilla creature) but in delirium it is brutal to gw token.
- mindwrack demon: if we can consistently induce delirium this would be one heck of a card. 4/5 flyer with trample is huge in standard.
how to trigger delirium:
evolving wilds: puts land in the graveyard while fixing mana, however it reduce the speed of the deck.
hanggarback walker and hedron crawler: puts 2 card type in the graveyard with 1 card, but the haggarback is more prone to exile type removal.
mindwrack demon: puts 4 card in the graveyard if it come into play. helps if you haven't got delirium but can hurt you if it miss.
dead weight and sinister concoction: add another type of card in your graveyard however it is rather clunky. dead weight can kill most of the mono white human but not the other usual suspects since they are 2/3 or 3/3 and for the case of humans if they have Thalia's lieutenant or always watching dead weight become useless.
sinister concoction is neat way to achieve delirium, however discarding another card is a huge loss for the deck that is already lacking card advantage.
if someone could test this please do and post the results
I was really worried about the mana too, however it's been REAALLLY consistent so far, and I think it's because I don't really use the utility lands as much. Most are too slow for my taste.
I have 4x G that I want to cast on T3, and 8x G and 4x U that I want to cast on T5 or later, usually the later the better for those two.
Everything else is Black and Colorless, and it's all a single symbol cost. According to the article I linked earlier, and my experiences in the past, to consistently (90%) on curve cast a three drop with 1 colored symbol on T3, you need 12 sources.
For green I have 12 untapped 16 total.
For 1 symbol on T2, you only need like 14, I have 16 untapped sources.
For the altered ego and Pulse of Murasa, those are usually later game, and I have 8 untapped sources, 12 total for blue.
My first colorless symbol is T3, but I'd rather play E-Bond first. Either way, I have 8 untapped, and 12 total.
Honestly the mana I've had no issues with whatsoever.
I think this thread has shifted too much into other colors. While splashing other colors can be powerful you really do risk losing consistency. But you won't necessarily be screwed, just slowed down. So I guess if you're going to play 3 colors, go with a more control-like build.
Luckily, I still haven't faced many Bant decks in my local meta. However I do see a lot of Esper, which my deck usually has no trouble beating.
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Ask your self this:
Anywhere along the mana curve, when given the choice, would you rather cast Endless one over:
3cmc Matter Reshaper, Wasteland Strangler
4cmc Thought-knot Seer
5cmc Reality Smasher, Ob Nixilis Reignited, Kalitas
6cmc Endbringer
That leaves the 2cmc slot open. But i would not want to cast Endless one over any of the those other options.
If you want a curve filler, Hangerback walker does it better.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
4x Bearer of Silence
3x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
2x Matter Reshaper
2x Wasteland Strangler
2x Pitiless Horde
Spells (14):
2x Spatial Contortion
3x Transgress the Mind
3x Ultimate Price
2x Warping Wail
2x Read the Bones
1x Languish
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1x Rogue's Passage
1x Ruins of Oran-Rief
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Caves of Koilos
2x Mirrorpool
2x Sea Gate Wreckage
2x Blighted Fen
9x Swamp
1x Warping Wail
1x Languish
1x Flaying Tendrils
3x Duress
3x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Ruinous Path
2x Grasp of Darkness
2x Infinite Obliteration
I think the deck performed well overall, and was quite easily able to overpower some pro tour builds. Game Day match-ups were:
Round 1: Esper Control (2-0)
Round 2: RG Werewolves (2-0)
Round 3: Jund Midrange (1-2)
Round 4: Abzan Midrange (2-0)
Round 5: BG Aristocrats (0-2)
The maindeck did fine, but I did notice that Rogue's Passage was almost useless, mainly because I don't like tapping almost all my mana just to get in one unblockable attack. While making one of my creatures unblockable sounds nice, usually my opponents would either have too much life to be finished off that turn or so little that unblockable isn't even needed. I'm probably going to take this along with one Caves of Koilos for 2 Foundry of the Consuls; I think having some flyer tokens would be great in a deck with Drana, and I can trigger Foundry of the Consuls on my opponent's turn.
The sideboard is probably where I anticipate would be changing the most. I felt Grasp of Darkness wasn't used very often, because most smaller creatures can be handled with Spatial Contortion or Ultimate Price, and most bigger creatures can be handled by Bearer of Silence and Blighted Fen. I originally put in Grasp of Darkness against other Eldrazi builds, but since Eldrazis didn't make an appearance in Pro Tour, it looks like not many others would want to play Eldrazi now. Below is a list of sideboard cards I may consider:
-Macabre Waltz
-1 more Ultimate Price
-To the Slaughter
-Carrier Thrall
With that said does anyone have any suggestions (Mainboard or sideboard)? Thanks
Note: One top tier build i haven't faced yet so far is mono white humans. In fact, all my match-ups till now have been control or midrange, and not full aggro, so I don't know how my deck would fare against that but I should probably make sure my sideboard is ready for white humans too.
How did you like Pitiless Horde and Drana?
What did you like most about the deck? And where did you feel it was the weakest?
Did you like Ob Nixilis? I use Endbringer in the slot. But they do both semi similar things.
Rogue's Passage is really only used when you have nothing else you can do to get in that last bit of damage when there are road blocks.
In my experience its been helpful while Sea gate wreckage has never had the chance to be used
This deck can take out W/x Humans. Ultimate Price, Grasp of Darkness, and Spatial Contortion slow them down while the bearer of silence, TKS, Smasher beat them down.
Main deck Ruinous Path is legit.
Luckily for you, you did not face many Collected Company decks. Everyone at my LGS had some variant of a Co-Co deck at the last FNM. And I lost to all of them. Eldrazi aggro has been very competitive for me outside of Co-co centric decks.
Against Golgari BG Sacrifice (Aristocrats as they call it), I put a tainted remedy on the battlefield on turn 3. It did surprise my opponent as it shuts off two of their win cons in Zulaport Cutthroat and Ormendahl.
The idea of Macarbre Waltz is to bring back creatures that made it to the grave yard that were destroyed by Blighted Fen and Ob Nix from the WB control decks. But I think Ever After would much more effective. Especially if you can resurrect a TKS and a Smasher.
Carrier Thrall is ok earlier but terrible late game and thats why I cut those and Hedron Crawler. Both are decent early but make you vomit when you top deck one later.
Besides on turn 2 I would rather put a flyer in play or steal a card from the opponents hand.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Drana and Pitiless Horde were great additions and really gave this deck more punching power. I do like Ob Nixilis a lot and was I actually able to emblem him twice on Game Day. I think where this deck lacks the most is what to do when my opponent starts getting a lot of creatures and/or starts gaining too much life. In that regard, I think Tainted Remedy might actually be a good sideboard option. I initially didn't include it because I thought it was too situational and would likely just take up space but looking back it seems that I should've used it; it would've helped against the BG Aristocrats AND the Jund opponent (He won by playing Pulse of Murasa and kept flashing it back with Goblin Dark-Dwellers).
Yeah I was surprised nobody at my local meta played Bant Company, but I suppose I should be ready for that as well. Any recommendations on dealing with Bant Company?
I'm not a big fan of Ruinous Path in mainboard because I think it's primarily used in removing Planeswalkers, which I normally don't feel like it's necessary except against Esper Control. But other than that, do you think this deck is perfectly fine against W/x Humans?
Ever After sounds like an interesting choice. Although using it on TKS or Smasher would make them vulnerable to Ultimate Price, but I'd imagine the benefit outweighs the drawback.
I think I might try this sideboard going forward:
1x Ever After
2x Languish
3x Duress
3x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Ruinous Path
2x Tainted Remedy
2x Infinite Obliteration
Also, the funny part is that the BG Aristocrats opponent is my friend, and I actually beat him the night before at FNM.
Went 0-3 against 2x Bant Company and GR Ramp.
Will be removing Warping Wail for Ruinous Path.
Back to the drawing board.
Did you play with the same deck posted in your original post?
My FNM was dismal too. 5 rounds with the first 4 being a Co-Co variant. Lost to them all. Beat R/g Googles.
Unfortunately I could not attend Game Day because of other more pressing matters.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Yeap.. Coco onto reflector mage really sucks man.
It's the list on the OP. I'm really thinking of goin less creatures and more removals or discard. 18 creatures and 18 spells route.
4x RS
4x TKS
4x MR
4x HW
2x D, LoM
4x Duress
4x Languish
4x Ruinous Path
2x Ultimate Price
2x Read the Bones
2x Transgress the Mind
What do u think?
If you would like to angle your deck around beating Collected Company while staying B dark B perhaps you move into a control archtype.
Your creature team would look more like
4x Bearer of Silence
4x TKS
4x Reality Smasher
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited or 2x Endbringer
Spell book would be something like
4x Trangress
4x Grasp
4x ultimate price
4x Self-inflicted Wound
3x Languish
3x Read the bones
That is a multitude of 2 cmc cards in this list that are relevant against a vast majority of decks. Once you reach 4 mana on board, you are able to cast two spells per turn.
you can then use your TKS and Smasher to close out the game.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
I really hate the fact that BoS is basically a 4 drop that can't block, MR at least helps us chump block n gives us card adv for the 3 drop slot. I'm also tempted to add Macabre Waltz in.
I also like duress at the 1 drop slot, helps w planeswalker/spell removals. Not many options in the 1 drop slot though
Although I prefer the midrange beat down strategy, how do you feel about the control style?
C Long Live Eldrazi C
i don't think black is quick enough to race BG sac, GW Tokens or Bant. However, black does have lots of removals/discards. i think it's best that we play to it's strength. i'll keep playing and i'll update you guys on the results.
It's definitely not quick enough. BG Aristocrats is why I run one Languish in my MB and 3 Kalitas in my SB along with 2 more Languish. I've yet to face GW tokens or Bant myself but I think they share some common weaknesses, particularly sweepers.
languish demolish bant but not the gw token deck since rebuilding their board is as easy as snapping finger for them.
gw token deck is particularity weak for flyers, big bad flyers such as mindwrack demon decimates their deck easily. but unfortunately some idiot at rnd decided to give all the good unconditional removal to white and since wizards decided never to print card with protection again it makes white very oppressive right now.
to beat the gw token we need more discard. turn 1 duress turn 2 transgress and turn 4 thought knot seer blanks their game plan.
maybe its time to go back to control plan and ditch all the early aggro creatures for more spot removals and discards.
my thoughts exactly.
Hey guys, I've kept my eye on this thread and popped in and out a few times. I've bought my Smashers and TKS and have really been torn between Dark Eldrazi and Simic Eldrazi. I took a look at what I wanted from each, and think I lean more towards dark, however I have some questions for ya all.
First, from Simic, the ONLY cards I want are: 4x Altered Ego, 3x-4x Pulse of Murasa, 3x Elemental Bond.
*I also want to play more of a midrange, early control till T4 and start laying down a constant stream of cards they cant deal with.
So my question is, do you think the following mana-base could work for splashing the above listed cards (count E-Bond as a T3 drop, and Altered as T5 drop).
4x Lumbering Falls
4x Yavimaya Coast
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Crumbling Vestige
8x Swamp
That should give me 16 untapped black sources for a T1 Duress, 12(16) total green for a T3 Elemental Bond, and 8(12) total blue, 12(16) green for a T5 or later Altered Ego, which according to a Frank Karsten Article should be just enough. All but 4(8) lands come untapped, and those 4 lands are 3/3 hexproof lands for extra dmg if needed.
Now the ideal Christmas hand for this deck would be something like:
T1 Duress or Lumbering Falls
T2 Transgress the Mind
T3 Elemental Bond
T4 Thought-Knot Seer
T5 Reality Smasher or Altered Ego TKS
After that, you should be drawing a card for every creature, probably every turn, and the idea is to destroy the opponents hand the first 2 turns, then starting T4 overwhelm them in card advantage. Top deck Duress and Transgess kinda suck, but every other card is great. The draw keeps your lands full, keep the creatures coming, and give you your slight recursion/lifegain.
Here would be a sample deck, and probably pretty close to what I'd run, but I'd like your input on tweaks.
4x Lumbering Falls
4x Yavimaya Coast
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Crumbling Vestige
8x Swamp
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Altered Ego
4x Reality Smasher
Enchantments (3)
3x Elemental Bond
3x Pulse of Murasa
3x Touch of Moonglove
4x Grotesque Mutation
Sorceries (7)
3x Duress
4x Transgress the Mind
Card explanations:
For the sideboard, I'd have to make one, but I assume it'd have some cards like Languish, Virulent Plague, Grasp of Darkness, Ultimate Price, maybe some more creatures that'd fit this shell well.
So again, I hope this isnt too far away from Dark Eldrazi as in my mind, thats how I'd be playing it, and it only has a splash for 3 cards. Any input and thoughts would be greatly appreciated and I'd definitely trying to test this deck out some today and get it up and running. I really really like Altered Ego and Elemental Bond for an Eldrazi midrange deck, however I dont think they are enough to push me fully into Simic, yet as the deck overall I really enjoy the Dark Eldrazi style deck, using early discard to get up to the big baddies, and thing that a mostly black deck is the best to go for it.
Hi Pyro. IMO we're having a heavy creature meta right now. If you're playing black and missing out on the removals, it's a very bad drawback. Based on the list u've provided, i think Bant Company, which is everywhere btw, will be having a field day against you. Declaration in Stone, which is the most used White card currently, also strikes Altered Ego and any other creatures of the same name.
Pulse of Murasa is good but not too sure on elemental bond though. If u intend to spalsh a colour, it's advisable to just stick with green. Having blue just for Altered ego, doesn't seem to be worth the mana fix.
Sylvan advocate would do well to replace Altered Ego.
But hey, give it a try and work from there man!
From the playtesting, I definitely noticed a few things.
Pulse of Murasa is good, but doesnt have that many targets, there are a lot of exile effects, especially in the decks mine struggles against.
Elemental Bond is actually REALLY good. I dont think there was a single game that I was unhappy to see it. In fact, out of 7 games, I never saw a multiple, but actually kinda wanted it earlier sometime so I may consider 4. However its definitely key on having those 3+ power creatures.
Altered Ego was awesome when it worked, but often times it had the same issue as Pulse, not enough targets and I actually had to play it as a 5cmc 1/1 in one game to chump, however I won that game, but it was painful.
Mana-fixing: I only had 2 hiccups out of 7 games (admittedly not many), and neither were color issues. The first issue was being screwed at 2 lands till T4, then 3 lands till T6 with 2x TKS and a Smasher in hand. Probably a mulligan situation as I think 24 lands in this curve is pretty decent, especially with all the draw.
Consistency: Here is where the trouble came in. The deck functioned beautifully and ran right through an Avacyn, out raced a flipped Abbey, and DOMINATED Bant CoCo in 3 games. The other 4 it didnt quite flop... but it flopped. The issues stemmed mainly from not having enough creatures. When the engine ran, it was unstoppable. However, I would often get stuck with only 1x Creature on the field or in hand, and like 3-4 spells, or some similar situation with that same effect, I had good cards, but nothing to use, or wiff'd. Of the 7 games, Transgress the Mind hit something 2 of 5 casts, the other 3 wiff'd. Duress only got something 1 of 4 times, but baited a Negate once too, so call it 2/4. Top-decking them seems worse than I imagined. Even TKS wiff'd quite a few times.
Thoughts on early changes: I agree that black has an amazing removal suite, and I am not *fully* taking advantage of that. I sort of wanted to play this deck similar to a CoCo deck, or Elves deck in style with very little interaction, however that doesnt really work when half of your creatures are actually discard spells lol. Going forward, I still think that Elemental Bond is amazing and deserves a lot more of a chance, however I think I need to get some more creatures in there, especially earlier, so lets look at a few of those cards and see what we can come up with, and since this is the Dark Drazi thread, I'll keep most/all of the the suggestions in black unless they are awesome.
I went with the following changes. Took out the discard, I like it, but it was garbage topdeck, and didnt do enough for me early IMO. Added in the 4th E-Bond, and 6x 2 drops, and switched the count of Pulse and Mutation due to the self discard.
Out: -3 Duress, -4 Transgress the Mind, -1 Grotesque Mutation
In: +1 Elemental Bond, +1 Pulse of Murasa, +2 Asylum Visitor, +4 Pale Rider of Trostad
*I'm hoping 4x Pale Riders is not too much self discard, however, I figure it gives Pulse more targets, and lets me dump extra of whatever I have. Extra spells with few creatures, dump em, extra 2 drops, dump em, extra lands, dump em.
4x Lumbering Falls
4x Yavimaya Coast
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Crumbling Vestige
8x Swamp
2x Asylum Visitor
4x Pale Rider of Trostad
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Altered Ego
4x Reality Smasher
4x Elemental Bond
Instants (10)
4x Pulse of Murasa
3x Touch of Moonglove
3x Grotesque Mutation
EDIT: Also just found this on TappedOut, and I think it fits a lot of what style I was trying to go for. Early turn discard/control, mid game drop threats, late game keep gas pushing. I like his Mirrorpools
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kenji-turned-my-deck-black/
Haha deadbridge shaman! I always thought that card was kinda cool. People hate having it die actually!
Pitiless horde should almost always be dashed. But can be hard cast if you have it early.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
I got him down to 3 life, when I was at 28, he managed to stabilize, and won. I got him to 1 life, he stabilized and took me down from 25. Two games, a reality smasher top deck would've clinched for me, but didn't happen.
One difference I noticed was that his decks discard didn't really wiff as muh as mine did, not sure if that was just luck or what.
Despite having only 3x of each of the instant combat tricks, sometimes I felt flooded wth them.
I'm still 100% behind Elemental Bond, especially in my deck with 22 creatures with 3 power or more. The card draw is amazing. Cantripping creatures is huge, especially aggressively costed creatures like eldrazi.
Altered Ego I still like as I got to copy a Kalitas, and an opponents TKS to discard his Languish, and I cast mine for 5 so it got a counter and beat his.
I'm going to try V2 out a bit more tomorrow. I'm enjoying it and think some tweaks could have it perfect. I may just cave and throw in removal lol. I wish I had enough exile effects for Strangler to be justified.
if you want to branch into 3rd color (i considered generic mana as another color) it will be the painfully obvious white.
sometimes even without splashing 3rd and 4th color i have difficulties casting spell with double black (my manabase is 11 swamp, 6 pain lands, 8 other colorless utilities land)
right now i want to try to push for delirium because actually black have some powerful delirium card:
- pick the brain: decent if not delirium, particularly deadly in delirium. it strips away opponent gameplan in a single swoop.
- to the slaughter: meh against most of the meta right now (multiple vanilla creature) but in delirium it is brutal to gw token.
- mindwrack demon: if we can consistently induce delirium this would be one heck of a card. 4/5 flyer with trample is huge in standard.
how to trigger delirium:
evolving wilds: puts land in the graveyard while fixing mana, however it reduce the speed of the deck.
hanggarback walker and hedron crawler: puts 2 card type in the graveyard with 1 card, but the haggarback is more prone to exile type removal.
mindwrack demon: puts 4 card in the graveyard if it come into play. helps if you haven't got delirium but can hurt you if it miss.
dead weight and sinister concoction: add another type of card in your graveyard however it is rather clunky. dead weight can kill most of the mono white human but not the other usual suspects since they are 2/3 or 3/3 and for the case of humans if they have Thalia's lieutenant or always watching dead weight become useless.
sinister concoction is neat way to achieve delirium, however discarding another card is a huge loss for the deck that is already lacking card advantage.
if someone could test this please do and post the results
I have 4x G that I want to cast on T3, and 8x G and 4x U that I want to cast on T5 or later, usually the later the better for those two.
Everything else is Black and Colorless, and it's all a single symbol cost. According to the article I linked earlier, and my experiences in the past, to consistently (90%) on curve cast a three drop with 1 colored symbol on T3, you need 12 sources.
For green I have 12 untapped 16 total.
For 1 symbol on T2, you only need like 14, I have 16 untapped sources.
For the altered ego and Pulse of Murasa, those are usually later game, and I have 8 untapped sources, 12 total for blue.
My first colorless symbol is T3, but I'd rather play E-Bond first. Either way, I have 8 untapped, and 12 total.
Honestly the mana I've had no issues with whatsoever.
Luckily, I still haven't faced many Bant decks in my local meta. However I do see a lot of Esper, which my deck usually has no trouble beating.