Effort9 - thanks for the detailed post of your match ups. It appears you sideout Hangarback. That is typical in my games as well and I am wondering how good Hangarback even is at this point. Although in Red Eldrazi it is better because of PKN and Vile Aggregate.
Hangarback is one of my easy "not sure what else to take out" sideboard decisions. Everything except for quick aggro decks (which aren't plentiful at the moment) he can be sided out in. He doesn't apply much pressure and with the amount of exile removal in white right now, he also isn't so good vs many of the top decks. He still is useful in many matches where I end up winning with plays involving blowing him up (P+K, incidentally with Chandra or trading him in combat) to make many more creatures. Works terrific with Outnumber as well. I also have had a few games where I just wasn't going to win without just going for it and transforming my Abbey (and saccing a couple Hangarbacks in the process is gravy).
Luis Salvatto is running a R/w variant with Pyromancer's Goggles at the SOI Pro Tour
Hey dudes. kpal is headed in the right direction. If you want to discuss the R/w Goggles list or R/x Eldrazi lists, you can do so here. Thanks! -- Lugger
I am new here - lurked a lot but now need some help! I'm taking a list similar to what Effort9 posted to GP Toronto but want to nail down the sideboard. I've got Goldnight Castigator for BW control (tons of it in my meta), Eldrazi Obligator, Rending Volley, Kozilek's Return and Tears of Valakut. But my Bant Company and GB Aristocrats matchups are so bad!! Is there something I'm missing that I should have side or main for a better matchup or am I just doomed to those decks at the GP?
Friday i played a 10 person tournament (First tournament with The deck) with a very very similar List to Michael Egolf and Went 3-0-1 and then splitted in top4
Radiant Flames was there b/c I couldn't find the Return.
FIRST TURN: B/G Season Past 2-1 (1-0)
First match I play my creatures, he kills me someone of that with his removal and then tries To play a Seasons Past countered by Warping Wail (I LOVE this card). He dies after some turns by triple Reality Smasher.
Second game he tool soon The pace of The game and won easy, playing an early Infinite Obliteration on Reality Smasher. The third game I had a good hand and I TKSed him twice and removed 1 of 2 Languish and a Kalitas. I was stuck with 4 lands and only 1 red mana with Castigator in my hand. He tutored an Obliteration for Smasher I didn't have in hand. We ended at addictional turns, And in the last one I topdecked (finally) the second mountain to play Goldnight and sent him to 0.
SECOND TURN: Mardu Control 2-1 (2-0)
I lost the first match because after his Languish on 4º turn I TKSed him and removed a Goblin Dark-Dwellers instead of Kalitas, b/c I was afraid he could play back Languish (I don't know why had this conviction). Kalitas 7/8 won game after some turns.
Game 2 I was very close. I TKS his Kalitas (don't replay the mistake). He played some removal a Nahiri and a topdecked Ob-Nixilis that helped him to stabilize killing my threats. Then He played Nahiri again, and made -2, to kill my TKS. I played Artificier and pumped with Ruins to kill his Nahiri, and the Next turn Chandra ended game. G3 was still close, I Roasted and Contortioned a Kalitas 5/6 before it could become too great to kill, traded some other resources but he ended game with about twelve lands while I drew my haste creatures helped me closing game.
THIRD TURN: B/G Aristocrats ID (2-0-1)
We played The games because I never played this MU but we signed for draw. First match he didn't hit third land in 4 draws (played Visionary Elf) so I killed her the next turn when played Rite. He was back a couple of turns so the game was easy.
Second game was the opposite. I started with 2 lands in hand, 1 Radiant Flames and a Contortion and I was on the draw. Didn't hit third land for a couple of turns and he won easily. Third game we had the right number of lands and was an interesting match, I Wailed his second turn Zulaport, and 2 Smasher and 1 Aggregate with 2 Thopter and 1 Artificier won besides his 2 Zulaport played with CoCo and other 4 creatures .
FOURTH TURN: B/G Aristocrats 2-0 (3-0-1)
First game I played Smasher, and had Hangarback with 2 counter, 2 Thopter and 2 Artificier. Attacked with Smasher and Thopters he blocked with Quagmire, went to 11, Killed Smasher and flipped his Liliana. I played WestVale and passed. On my Turn I flipped Westvale sacrifing all but 1 Artificier so Hangar made 2 Thopter that could attack and kill him because he had no flying.
Second game he played Transgress the Mind to remove my Radiant Flames and next turn my Artificier. I sacrificed my smasher on his Husk with 2 creatures in play to play my Chandra and make -1 to kill Husk. I didn't consider he had 3 mana to activate Quagmire he sac'ed to save Husk. next turn played a creature and sacrificed it to Husk to kill Chandra. I don't remember very well the rest of the game but I removed it next turn and won the game easily with another Chandra I drew in the next turns.
After that we didn't play Top 4 (was 2 o'clock and we splitted the prizes.
I really liked the deck and I would play it at PPTQ next Saturday. RW has great cards like Declaration in Stone MD and Hallowed Moonlight in side, but I think mono red has his possibilities too, and this version has a good suit of removal also maindeck. The real problem are Kalitas and Archangel of Tithes especially the first match.
Thanks to everyone in this thread, it was really helpful. My LGS had a low turnout for Gameday so only had to play 5 rounds with mono red Eldrazi but went 2-0 in all 5 rounds, including the finals vs G/R ramp. Deck played great for me and I got the playmat.
I had trouble stopping Mono W humans both days for Gameday.
They went wide and grew big and out of control faster than I could wipe the board. 1 Always watching + thalia's lieutenant got them out of range of Kozilek's Return.
Maybe I just played wrong or too defensively. But I was facing pumped creatures and was using my thopters to chump block.
Good to hear Darksch81 had a good run with the deck recently. I was having good success with it a while ago (as mentioned in my local GPT write-up), and just shelved the deck for a short time while Bant Company and Humans became super dominant (played RG Ramp and RG Goggles ramp in the meanwhile). Now that GW Tokens has established itself as the new "deck to beat", the meta is filled with GW Tokens decks and control decks aiming to beat tokens. I feel like Mono R Eldrazi is a good choice in this upcoming meta. Reality Smasher and Vile Aggregate get through tokens chump blocking for days, and the sideboard gives access to more flyers to go over them as well. Additionally, the amount of haste and difficult to deal with threats along with TKS disruption, makes Mono R Eldrazi have a strong matchup vs Control as well. Just hope to dodge a lot of Bant Company and Humans.
Not much of a change from my GPT run of the deck. I have a 4th TKS in the main, and I cut my roasts from the SB to put in another Goldnight Castigator and Endbringer. Endbringer I used to have in my SB before this set to bring in for grindier matches as well as tokens decks. Here it is again for another way to constantly ping away tokens or take away loyalty from planeswalkers. What do you think of Endbringer in this GW tokens / control heavy meta?
Endbringer is useful any mathcup. Its a great source for a many dump. Dodges Grasp of Darkness and Languish. Offers card draw/advnatage, paralyzes an opponent creature, and has an always "on" untap status. One in the main is warranted.
PS: my meta is full of every variant of Collected Company deck imaginable.
@Darksch81, I like the idea of playing Radiant Flames instead of Kozilek's Return in sideboard, but if you doesn't play with the 4 copies of Shivan Reef and 4 copies of Battlefield Forge I think it will be very rare to play it for 3 damage even for 2 damage is going to be difficult, the bad thing is I don't know what to replace without screw the utility lands.
@Darksch81, I like the idea of playing Radiant Flames instead of Kozilek's Return in sideboard, but if you doesn't play with the 4 copies of Shivan Reef and 4 copies of Battlefield Forge I think it will be very rare to play it for 3 damage even for 2 damage is going to be difficult, the bad thing is I don't know what to replace without screw the utility lands.
Truth to be told,Radiant Was there Only because I hadn't K-Returns, so The idea Was to find a fast sweeper vs Token and/or Humans, and With 6 Pain I could play it quite often for 2. Yes, with 8 Pain you can try to play it for 3 more often. Matter Reshaper is there because it generates Always card advantage. It can block profitabily, cycling itself. 4 Aggregate are too much and I liked The idea to see some card for free during The game.
I don't know if something like this will be screw the mana base, I know I'am losing utility lands, but I think that is a small cost to pay in order to do 3 damage to the board, because Kozilek's Return doesn't work against aristocrats or bant company.
With this land configuration the idea is to get 19 R, 14 C, 5 U and 5 W for a Radiant Flames that can deal often 2 damage and sometimes 3 damage. What do yo think?
I am about to play Mono R eldrazi for the t2 wmcq this weekend.
I have been playing this decks since the PT after analyzing the metagame and coming to the realization that most of the tier 1 and 1.5 decks have some serious issues dealing with reality smasher t4 specially after TKS t3.
And there is also this thing with warping wail hosing seasons past and ramp like nothing.
The list that I am about to share is the combined effort of my whole team, but the original idea and the driving force behind the viability of the deck is mine, I was the guys saying "dudes, this is a real deck, we should tune it to beat the crap out of GW".
As the deck is quite linear, I will only invest time on talking about the sideboard.
After weeks of testing and watching the evolution of the meta, we found ourselves unable to find a proactive solution to the GW MU (which was still a steady 50/50 in during game 1 there used to be one with a different sideboard configuration, but ended up being insufficient after the lastest iterations of GW, so we had to move to a more reactive approach with tears of valakyt being the cornerstone.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The big problem with red decks is that there are lots of terrible players ruining it.
Hangarback is one of my easy "not sure what else to take out" sideboard decisions. Everything except for quick aggro decks (which aren't plentiful at the moment) he can be sided out in. He doesn't apply much pressure and with the amount of exile removal in white right now, he also isn't so good vs many of the top decks. He still is useful in many matches where I end up winning with plays involving blowing him up (P+K, incidentally with Chandra or trading him in combat) to make many more creatures. Works terrific with Outnumber as well. I also have had a few games where I just wasn't going to win without just going for it and transforming my Abbey (and saccing a couple Hangarbacks in the process is gravy).
EDH: Rakdos, Lord of Riots
Podcast
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Hey dudes. kpal is headed in the right direction. If you want to discuss the R/w Goggles list or R/x Eldrazi lists, you can do so here. Thanks! -- Lugger
3 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Creature (10)
2 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
Sorcery (6)
2 Magmatic Insight
4 Tormenting Voice
Instant (11)
2 Fall of the Titans
3 Fiery Impulse
3 Fiery Temper
3 Lightning Axe
3 Pyromancer's Goggles
Land (26)
4 Battlefield Forge
2 Caves of Koilos
3 Drownyard Temple
8 Mountain
4 Needle Spires
2 Plains
1 Shivan Reef
2 Westvale Abbey
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
2 Eldrazi Obligator
2 Linvala, the Preserver
1 Avacyn's Judgment
1 Dual Shot
2 Hallowed Moonlight
1 Planar Outburst
2 Rending Volley
3 Secure the Wastes
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Has any one tried Fall of the titans for the straight up Mono Red build (no goggles)?
Are we allowed to talk about the R/W Variant here? If so, how does the mainboard and sideboard change?
I'm assuming mainboard Declaration in Stone instead of roast?
Standard
UR Control
Modern
Merfolk
Burn
Avacyn did nothing wrong!
Purify Innistrad!
#Purge
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Hedron Crawler
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
3 Thopter Engineer
3 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Vile Aggregate
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Planeswalkers (4):
4 Chandra, Flamecaller
10 Mountain
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Foundry of the Consuls
2 Ruins of Oran-Rief
2 Shivan Reef
2 Westvale Abbey
1 Rogue's Passage
Spells (6):
2 Fiery Impulse
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Warping Wail
2 Eldrazi Obligator
3 Goldnight Castigator
1 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Radiant Flames
4 Rending Volley
1 Tears of Valakut
2 Roast
Radiant Flames was there b/c I couldn't find the Return.
FIRST TURN: B/G Season Past 2-1 (1-0)
First match I play my creatures, he kills me someone of that with his removal and then tries To play a Seasons Past countered by Warping Wail (I LOVE this card). He dies after some turns by triple Reality Smasher.
Second game he tool soon The pace of The game and won easy, playing an early Infinite Obliteration on Reality Smasher. The third game I had a good hand and I TKSed him twice and removed 1 of 2 Languish and a Kalitas. I was stuck with 4 lands and only 1 red mana with Castigator in my hand. He tutored an Obliteration for Smasher I didn't have in hand. We ended at addictional turns, And in the last one I topdecked (finally) the second mountain to play Goldnight and sent him to 0.
SECOND TURN: Mardu Control 2-1 (2-0)
I lost the first match because after his Languish on 4º turn I TKSed him and removed a Goblin Dark-Dwellers instead of Kalitas, b/c I was afraid he could play back Languish (I don't know why had this conviction). Kalitas 7/8 won game after some turns.
SIDE
+1 Thought Knot Seer, +2 Eldrazi Obligator + 3 Goldnight Castigator +2 Roast
- 4 Hangarback Walker, -2 Fiery Impulse, -2 Matter Reshaper.
Game 2 I was very close. I TKS his Kalitas (don't replay the mistake). He played some removal a Nahiri and a topdecked Ob-Nixilis that helped him to stabilize killing my threats. Then He played Nahiri again, and made -2, to kill my TKS. I played Artificier and pumped with Ruins to kill his Nahiri, and the Next turn Chandra ended game. G3 was still close, I Roasted and Contortioned a Kalitas 5/6 before it could become too great to kill, traded some other resources but he ended game with about twelve lands while I drew my haste creatures helped me closing game.
THIRD TURN: B/G Aristocrats ID (2-0-1)
We played The games because I never played this MU but we signed for draw. First match he didn't hit third land in 4 draws (played Visionary Elf) so I killed her the next turn when played Rite. He was back a couple of turns so the game was easy.
SIDE:
+2 Radiant Flames, +2 Roast
-3 TKS -1 Reality Smasher
Second game was the opposite. I started with 2 lands in hand, 1 Radiant Flames and a Contortion and I was on the draw. Didn't hit third land for a couple of turns and he won easily. Third game we had the right number of lands and was an interesting match, I Wailed his second turn Zulaport, and 2 Smasher and 1 Aggregate with 2 Thopter and 1 Artificier won besides his 2 Zulaport played with CoCo and other 4 creatures .
FOURTH TURN: B/G Aristocrats 2-0 (3-0-1)
First game I played Smasher, and had Hangarback with 2 counter, 2 Thopter and 2 Artificier. Attacked with Smasher and Thopters he blocked with Quagmire, went to 11, Killed Smasher and flipped his Liliana. I played WestVale and passed. On my Turn I flipped Westvale sacrifing all but 1 Artificier so Hangar made 2 Thopter that could attack and kill him because he had no flying.
SIDE:
+2 Radiant Flames, +2 Roast
-3 TKS -1 Reality Smasher
Second game he played Transgress the Mind to remove my Radiant Flames and next turn my Artificier. I sacrificed my smasher on his Husk with 2 creatures in play to play my Chandra and make -1 to kill Husk. I didn't consider he had 3 mana to activate Quagmire he sac'ed to save Husk. next turn played a creature and sacrificed it to Husk to kill Chandra. I don't remember very well the rest of the game but I removed it next turn and won the game easily with another Chandra I drew in the next turns.
After that we didn't play Top 4 (was 2 o'clock and we splitted the prizes.
I really liked the deck and I would play it at PPTQ next Saturday. RW has great cards like Declaration in Stone MD and Hallowed Moonlight in side, but I think mono red has his possibilities too, and this version has a good suit of removal also maindeck. The real problem are Kalitas and Archangel of Tithes especially the first match.
They went wide and grew big and out of control faster than I could wipe the board. 1 Always watching + thalia's lieutenant got them out of range of Kozilek's Return.
Maybe I just played wrong or too defensively. But I was facing pumped creatures and was using my thopters to chump block.
Standard
UR Control
Modern
Merfolk
Burn
Avacyn did nothing wrong!
Purify Innistrad!
#Purge
Have you considered warping wail in the spot of pilgrims eye? It's cmc is 1 less and it's a bit more versatile.
My current 75 I'm testing:
4 Hedron Crawler
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Vile Aggregate
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Thopter Engineer
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
LANDS
10 Mountain
2 Shivan Reef
4 Battlefield Forge
2 Westvale Abbey
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Foundry of the Consuls
2 Ruins of Oran-Rief
2 Outnumber
2 Spatial Contortion
1 Warping Wail
4 Chandra, Flamecaller
3 Eldrazi Obligator
3 Kozilek's Return
4 Goldnight Castigator
2 Rending Volley
2 Tears of Valakut
1 Endbringer
Not much of a change from my GPT run of the deck. I have a 4th TKS in the main, and I cut my roasts from the SB to put in another Goldnight Castigator and Endbringer. Endbringer I used to have in my SB before this set to bring in for grindier matches as well as tokens decks. Here it is again for another way to constantly ping away tokens or take away loyalty from planeswalkers. What do you think of Endbringer in this GW tokens / control heavy meta?
EDH: Rakdos, Lord of Riots
Endbringer is useful any mathcup. Its a great source for a many dump. Dodges Grasp of Darkness and Languish. Offers card draw/advnatage, paralyzes an opponent creature, and has an always "on" untap status. One in the main is warranted.
PS: my meta is full of every variant of Collected Company deck imaginable.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Also, can you told us why are you using Matter Reshaper? It is only to draw cards or is some kind of respond to Declaration in Stone??
@kpal, thanks for the explanation of how you use Endbringer (I didn't have a clue XD)
Overall I really feel that we need a good response agains't the meta, maybe add some Eldrazi Displacer and Corrupted Crossroads with Battlefield Forge to get the white without screwing our mana?
Truth to be told,Radiant Was there Only because I hadn't K-Returns, so The idea Was to find a fast sweeper vs Token and/or Humans, and With 6 Pain I could play it quite often for 2. Yes, with 8 Pain you can try to play it for 3 more often. Matter Reshaper is there because it generates Always card advantage. It can block profitabily, cycling itself. 4 Aggregate are too much and I liked The idea to see some card for free during The game.
I don't know if something like this will be screw the mana base, I know I'am losing utility lands, but I think that is a small cost to pay in order to do 3 damage to the board, because Kozilek's Return doesn't work against aristocrats or bant company.
With this land configuration the idea is to get 19 R, 14 C, 5 U and 5 W for a Radiant Flames that can deal often 2 damage and sometimes 3 damage. What do yo think?
1 Needle Spires
1 Wandering Fumarole
4 Shivan Reef
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Foundry of the Consuls
2 Westvale Abbey
PD: After some math I can see that getting the third color is very unlikely, you will need at least 12 mana sources of each color
Current Decks
Standard : WB Orzhov Vampires BW GUB Sultai Constrictor BUG
Brawl : GB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons BG
Modern : GB Golgari Elves BG GR Atarka Goblins RG
Pauper : W Heroic W GB Delve BG
I've been playing this and find it incredibly fun to play. I haven't found a match-up where this feels weak. I'd love to get some feedback on this.
4x Hangarback
4x Hedron Crawler
2x Eldrazi Displacer
3x Thopter Engineer
3x Vile Aggregate
3x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
3x Thought-Knot Seer
3x Reality Smasher
1x Archangel Avacyn
Planeswalkers:
1x Nahiri, the Harbinger
3x Chandra, Flamecaller
Spells:
3x Outnumber
2x Roast
4x Needle Spires
4x Battlefield Forge
3x Foundry of the Consuls
4x Mountain
3x Westvale Abbey
2x Stone Quarry
1x Plains
1x Sea Gate Wreckage
1x Mage-Ring Network
1x Crumbling Vestige
1x Ruins of Oran-Rief
2x Tears of Valakut
1x Hallowed Moonlight
1x Spatial Contortion
2x Fall of the Titans
2x Eldrazi Obligator
1x Eldrazi Displacer
2x Declaration in Stone
2x Nahiri, the Harbinger
2x Rending Volley
I have been playing this decks since the PT after analyzing the metagame and coming to the realization that most of the tier 1 and 1.5 decks have some serious issues dealing with reality smasher t4 specially after TKS t3.
And there is also this thing with warping wail hosing seasons past and ramp like nothing.
The list that I am about to share is the combined effort of my whole team, but the original idea and the driving force behind the viability of the deck is mine, I was the guys saying "dudes, this is a real deck, we should tune it to beat the crap out of GW".
4 assorted painlands
2 rogue's passage
2 ruins of oran rief
2 westvale abbey
4 foundry of the consuls
11 mountain
4 hangerback walker
4 vile aggregate
4 thought knot seer
4 reality smasher
3 pia and kiran nalaar
4 spatial contortion
2 warping wail
2 roast
Sideboard
3 kozilek returns
2 exquisite firecraft
3 thunderbreak regent
3 eldrazi obligator
2 rending volley
As the deck is quite linear, I will only invest time on talking about the sideboard.
After weeks of testing and watching the evolution of the meta, we found ourselves unable to find a proactive solution to the GW MU (which was still a steady 50/50 in during game 1 there used to be one with a different sideboard configuration, but ended up being insufficient after the lastest iterations of GW, so we had to move to a more reactive approach with tears of valakyt being the cornerstone.
C Long Live Eldrazi C