The problem I have with scourge is that it doesn't fit into the rest of the deck. Turn 3 has a lot of options: Ballista on 2 + Ruins trigger, Scrounger + Ruins trigger, removal, Lili, Reshaper, etc. One of those would have to go in favor of it, and I don't think it's a big enough gain against control specifically to warrant playing it over the other cards
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Standard: Mono B Eldrazi, G/B Delirium, whatever other brews I want || Modern: Abzan Elves
The problem I have with scourge is that it doesn't fit into the rest of the deck. Turn 3 has a lot of options: Ballista on 2 + Ruins trigger, Scrounger + Ruins trigger, removal, Lili, Reshaper, etc. One of those would have to go in favor of it, and I don't think it's a big enough gain against control specifically to warrant playing it over the other cards
Have you played Scourge against control? I have. Several times. And between Scrounger and Scourge you can grind out control.
The problem I have with scourge is that it doesn't fit into the rest of the deck. Turn 3 has a lot of options: Ballista on 2 + Ruins trigger, Scrounger + Ruins trigger, removal, Lili, Reshaper, etc. One of those would have to go in favor of it, and I don't think it's a big enough gain against control specifically to warrant playing it over the other cards
Have you played Scourge against control? I have. Several times. And between Scrounger and Scourge you can grind out control.
Not arguing that. I just couldn't find a spot for it in the 75 without diluting other portions of the deck.
That being said, now that the Pro Tour is done and Marvel is likely to be on the rise, Scourge might be a viable way to get around Ulamog exile triggers. Hopefully without decreasing win % against the more aggressive decks.
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Standard: Mono B Eldrazi, G/B Delirium, whatever other brews I want || Modern: Abzan Elves
I find it hard to believe there's no home for Thought-Knot Seer in standard. I managed to 4-1 a friendly league (2-1 vs zombies, 2-0 vs humans) with this brew:
The basic idea is to go hard after your opponent's hand, kill their creatures, and beat down with big colorless monsters.
Harsh Scrutiny is surprisingly good right now. Most decks play a decent chunk of creatures and often your top target is a creature anyways. I always like getting an early peek at the opponent's hand, and the scry is nice.
Going all in on Transgress the Mind is a little bit of anti-Marvel preboarding. There is a whiff rate but Transgress does hit most of the absolute bombs in the format (Gideon, Marvel, Diregraf Colossus/Lord of the Accursed/Liliana's Mastery, New Perspectives, Gearhulks). Against non-Marvel and non-Ishkanah decks I swap them out for Lay Bare the Heart or just drop them entirely post-board.
Reality Smasher is the most frequently sided out card, as indicated by the five-drops in the board. It's nice to use as a sudden clock-shortener in game one but unless I'm very clearly the beatdown it gets bumped for games two and three. The big guy is just a little bit slow when you can't cheat on the mana.
Yahenni's Expertise is better than I thought it would be. The trick is to use your discard and removal to keep anthem effects under control against zombies and humans. Then the expertise can clean out the board and maybe drop a guy into play.
The mana base is a little sketchy in terms of supporting Grasp of Darkness. The numbers suggest that you won't reliably hit BB until turn 5, and that's counting Aether Hub as a full black source. However, grasp is still super premium removal so it's worth enduring a little variance to have it available.
The deck really shines when the sacrifice effects (Bearer of Silence/Blighted Fen) are good. To a certain extent you can influence this with the way that you play but sometimes they're just not great. If zombies have Dread Wanderer or Diregraf Colossus rolling then the sacrifice stuff looks silly. It's possible I need Kalitas somewhere in the 75 to help that out.
Overall I found the deck fun to pilot. There's not a lot of options out there in standard that let you really attack your opponent's hand. This deck certainly delivers that, which I enjoy.
I've got a deck that I've been using for a couple of weeks now. I got a couple of top 8 with it in FNM but when put through a GPT or PPTQ that are 7 to 8 rounders, it mostly misses.
Do you have any suggestion for this deck? I'm having trouble with aggro decks like the mono-red ones and those R/G decks that uses gods. That's why I now have 3 Bearer of Silence and a singleton Blighted Fen when it should have been a Sea Gate Wreckage.
I've got a deck that I've been using for a couple of weeks now. I got a couple of top 8 with it in FNM but when put through a GPT or PPTQ that are 7 to 8 rounders, it mostly misses.
Do you have any suggestion for this deck? I'm having trouble with aggro decks like the mono-red ones and those R/G decks that uses gods. That's why I now have 3 Bearer of Silence and a singleton Blighted Fen when it should have been a Sea Gate Wreckage.
I know it would be a big change, but have you thought about adding white instead of red? It gives you access to Anguished Unmaking and Cast Out which would work against stuff like the gods, ulamog, etc. You also get Fumigate which I think is a lot better than Yaheeni's Expertise against zombies.
Because decks like Aetherworks Marvel and Mardu Vehicles can be really fast, I don't think trying to race them is the way to go, so I added white for a little more durability. The mana base is of course worse, but I think overall it's a good trade-off.
I'm not sure if Fumigate and Yahenni's Expertise is overkill against zombies but I think it's safe considering they could have Lost Legacy and Transgress the Mind.
I'm going to start testing this week, so I'd welcome any feedback.
Harsh Scrutiny was my MVP of the day. Ripping out hard to handle threats like Bristling Hydra, Avacyn, even Torrential Gearhulk. It's almost never a dead draw because even control decks play 4x Spell Queller and Gearhulks. The Scry 1 also helps to smooth draws.
Scrapheap Scrounger combined with Ruins of Oran Rief is a very annoying recursive threat.
Turn 2 Fatal Push into Bone Picker is immense pressure for the opponent.
Overall, the deck runs really smooth and has no mana problems.
I can't believe anyone is excited about this card. It is absolutely unplayable. I wouldn't even play her in LIMITED. Easily the worst walker printed since the green elf one. Absolutely terrible.
Since we just got spoiled some painlands that can tap for colored AND colorless mana, I think it's time to break out the Eldrazis one last time in Standard!
These new painlands are worse than the ones from Magic Origins in that they can tap for only 1 color instead of 2. So I think we can only go mono colored; black would be best largely given the suite of efficient removals
The sideboard is really TBD as we don't know what the meta will be like once HOU releases. My plan is to go Very aggressive, while also having cards to switch to a more midrange plan if necessary.
I've seen them too but find them uncomfortable. They mainboard multiple copies of Glorybringer and Reality Smasher which sounds much too clunky in a meta that's dominated by Zombies and fast energy decks.
I think the mana now exists to run RB Eldrazi. If you go by Frank Karsten's article on the topic, in order to have a 90% chance of:
1 colored mana source by turn one: 14 sources in deck
1 colored mana source by turn two: 13 sources in deck
1 colored mana source by turn three: 12 sources in deck
This seems very doable between the new deserts and Aether Hub. No tap lands needed, either. The deserts also give very solid abilities if the game goes long. That leaves the question of how the rest of the deck goes together, of course. Maybe something like:
I really don't like aether hub for mana fixing eine without other sources of energy, it's a one-time thing. If this were to to work, I'd say maybe epkay 4x Spire of Industry instead and then play more artifacts like Heart of Kiran, Skysovereign, or Pia Nalaar.
It's a 3/3 split because I'm not sure which one is better. Glorybringer is probably a better card but Smasher is easier on the mana. Aether Hub isn't ideal but between the Harnessed Lightning and generally avoiding double colored costs I think it's manageable. It could quite possibly be better to replace some basics with Canyon Slough.
I'm also not sure about the Crasher. The current mono red lists mostly seem to run Hanweir Garrison but I've been super happy with Crasher in two-tix red and I think hasty creatures get better in bunches.
Pummeler Energy has been scratching my face-smashing itch so I haven't been doing much testing with Eldrazi, to be honest.
That means whoever built that deck is indecisive, not a sign of a good deck. When you're dealing with 5-drops and running only 24 lands you can't afford to be indecisive. You have to choose 3 of one or 3 of another. You can't run six 5-drops in a 24-land deck.
Not to mention that the Eldrazis don't even fit in a hyper-aggro shell like mono red to begin with. The Eldrazi creatures are powerful but slow, not really doing much until turns 4-5. The shell they'd do best in is a midrange (leaning closer to aggro) build that is backed up by solid removals, something that mono red severely lacks. And I don't think I should even have to explain how having multiple copies of Glorybringer AND Reality Smasher in the main completely defeats the point of a mono red aggro strategy...
And I don't think I should even have to explain how having multiple copies of Glorybringer AND Reality Smasher in the main completely defeats the point of a mono red aggro strategy...
But you should since such a deck just hit Cincy top 8
That means whoever built that deck is indecisive, not a sign of a good deck. When you're dealing with 5-drops and running only 24 lands you can't afford to be indecisive. You have to choose 3 of one or 3 of another. You can't run six 5-drops in a 24-land deck.
Not to mention that the Eldrazis don't even fit in a hyper-aggro shell like mono red to begin with. The Eldrazi creatures are powerful but slow, not really doing much until turns 4-5. The shell they'd do best in is a midrange (leaning closer to aggro) build that is backed up by solid removals, something that mono red severely lacks. And I don't think I should even have to explain how having multiple copies of Glorybringer AND Reality Smasher in the main completely defeats the point of a mono red aggro strategy...
The deck is a BR midrange list that runs 25 lands. Other than that, your response is dead on point.
I know but I'm still sticking with my opinion because one deck making top 8 at one event isn't enough to determine its performance in the current format. If we end up seeing more similar decks to that making top8 at future events then maybe. Similarly decks that don't top 8 aren't necessarily inferior. Look at Copycat during PT AER, it didn't make a top 8 appearance at all but still needed up dominating standard to the point that it had to be banned. Bottom line is that no one tournament result conclusively defines the format, especially not the first one.
In this case I still prefer to stick to fundamentals. Fundamentally, I think the Eldrazi are optimized in a midrange shell backed by solid removals and not an aggressive shell that looks to close out the game quickly. Similarly, I think it's fundamentally not wise to play so many 5-drops in a 25-land deck where you main strategy is straight up beatdown.
In general when it comes to deck building, I prefer to play cards I am comfortable with and I do that by deciding what cards I'd like to be playing and what kind of shell that would optimize those cards. Occasionally I'll stumble across lists that seem to defy those fundamentals but I've learned to see those as an exception rather than the norm, unless of course such deck lists start popping upconsistent ly, in which case it'd be time to revise my perception of the norm.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
The problem I have with scourge is that it doesn't fit into the rest of the deck. Turn 3 has a lot of options: Ballista on 2 + Ruins trigger, Scrounger + Ruins trigger, removal, Lili, Reshaper, etc. One of those would have to go in favor of it, and I don't think it's a big enough gain against control specifically to warrant playing it over the other cards
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Not arguing that. I just couldn't find a spot for it in the 75 without diluting other portions of the deck.
That being said, now that the Pro Tour is done and Marvel is likely to be on the rise, Scourge might be a viable way to get around Ulamog exile triggers. Hopefully without decreasing win % against the more aggressive decks.
4 Ruins of Oran-Rief
3 Blighted Fen
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
12 Swamp
4 Fatal Push
4 Grasp of Darkness
4 Transgress the Mind
4 Bearer of Silence
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Matter Reshaper
2 Eternal Scourge
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Reality Smasher
3 Lay Bare the Heart
3 Yahenni's Expertise
2 Ob Nixilis Reignited
2 Distended Mindbender
2 Dispossess
2 Never // Return
1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
The basic idea is to go hard after your opponent's hand, kill their creatures, and beat down with big colorless monsters.
Harsh Scrutiny is surprisingly good right now. Most decks play a decent chunk of creatures and often your top target is a creature anyways. I always like getting an early peek at the opponent's hand, and the scry is nice.
Going all in on Transgress the Mind is a little bit of anti-Marvel preboarding. There is a whiff rate but Transgress does hit most of the absolute bombs in the format (Gideon, Marvel, Diregraf Colossus/Lord of the Accursed/Liliana's Mastery, New Perspectives, Gearhulks). Against non-Marvel and non-Ishkanah decks I swap them out for Lay Bare the Heart or just drop them entirely post-board.
Reality Smasher is the most frequently sided out card, as indicated by the five-drops in the board. It's nice to use as a sudden clock-shortener in game one but unless I'm very clearly the beatdown it gets bumped for games two and three. The big guy is just a little bit slow when you can't cheat on the mana.
Yahenni's Expertise is better than I thought it would be. The trick is to use your discard and removal to keep anthem effects under control against zombies and humans. Then the expertise can clean out the board and maybe drop a guy into play.
The mana base is a little sketchy in terms of supporting Grasp of Darkness. The numbers suggest that you won't reliably hit BB until turn 5, and that's counting Aether Hub as a full black source. However, grasp is still super premium removal so it's worth enduring a little variance to have it available.
The deck really shines when the sacrifice effects (Bearer of Silence/Blighted Fen) are good. To a certain extent you can influence this with the way that you play but sometimes they're just not great. If zombies have Dread Wanderer or Diregraf Colossus rolling then the sacrifice stuff looks silly. It's possible I need Kalitas somewhere in the 75 to help that out.
Overall I found the deck fun to pilot. There's not a lot of options out there in standard that let you really attack your opponent's hand. This deck certainly delivers that, which I enjoy.
I've got a deck that I've been using for a couple of weeks now. I got a couple of top 8 with it in FNM but when put through a GPT or PPTQ that are 7 to 8 rounders, it mostly misses.
Do you have any suggestion for this deck? I'm having trouble with aggro decks like the mono-red ones and those R/G decks that uses gods. That's why I now have 3 Bearer of Silence and a singleton Blighted Fen when it should have been a Sea Gate Wreckage.
4 Aether Hub
3 Spire of Industry
4 Foreboding Ruins
2 Ruins of Oran-Rief
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Blightted Fen
5 Swamp
4 Mountain
Creatures
4 Bone Picker
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Scraphear Scrounger
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Walking Ballista
2 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
4 Unlicensed Distintegration
3 Fatal Push
2 Cut//Ribbons
2 Ruinous Path
2 Transgress the Mind
2 Heart of Kiran
3 Yaheeni's Expertise
2 Disposses
2 Lost Legacy
1 Transgress
1 Release the Gremlins
3 Magma Spray
3 Bearer of Silence
Any help would be welcome.
I know it would be a big change, but have you thought about adding white instead of red? It gives you access to Anguished Unmaking and Cast Out which would work against stuff like the gods, ulamog, etc. You also get Fumigate which I think is a lot better than Yaheeni's Expertise against zombies.
I'll post my list when I'm done tweaking it.
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Noxious Gearhulk
Spells
4 Grasp of Darkness
4 Lay Bare the Heart
3 Anguished Unmaking
3 Gideon of the Trials
4 Aether Hub
4 Shambling Vent
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Crumbling Vestige
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Mirrorpool
2 Swamp
1 Wastes
1 Plains
3 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Dispossess
3 Lost Legacy
3 Yahenni's Expertise
3 Fumigate
Because decks like Aetherworks Marvel and Mardu Vehicles can be really fast, I don't think trying to race them is the way to go, so I added white for a little more durability. The mana base is of course worse, but I think overall it's a good trade-off.
I'm not sure if Fumigate and Yahenni's Expertise is overkill against zombies but I think it's safe considering they could have Lost Legacy and Transgress the Mind.
I'm going to start testing this week, so I'd welcome any feedback.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
4 Aether Hub
3 Ruins of Oran-Rief
2 Blighted Fen
15 Swamp
Spells
4 Harsh Scrutiny
4 Fatal Push
3 Grasp of Darkness
1 Ruinous Path
1 Aethersphere Harvester
1 Skysovereign, Counsul Flagship
4 Gifted Aetherborn
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Glint Sleeve Siphoner
4 Bone Picker
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Reality Smasher
2 Yahenni's Expertise
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4 Transgress the Mind
2 Ruinous Path
2 Ob Nixilis, Reignited
2 Bearer of Silence
1 Reality Smasher
Harsh Scrutiny was my MVP of the day. Ripping out hard to handle threats like Bristling Hydra, Avacyn, even Torrential Gearhulk. It's almost never a dead draw because even control decks play 4x Spell Queller and Gearhulks. The Scry 1 also helps to smooth draws.
Scrapheap Scrounger combined with Ruins of Oran Rief is a very annoying recursive threat.
Turn 2 Fatal Push into Bone Picker is immense pressure for the opponent.
Overall, the deck runs really smooth and has no mana problems.
These new painlands are worse than the ones from Magic Origins in that they can tap for only 1 color instead of 2. So I think we can only go mono colored; black would be best largely given the suite of efficient removals
4x Dread Wanderer
4x Scrapheap Scrounger
4x Though-knot Seer
3x Matter Reshaper
3x Walking Ballista
3x Bone Picker
1x Reality Smasher
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Artifacts (4):
3x Heart of Kiran
1x Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
3x Fatal Push
3x Grasp of Darkness
2x Murder
Sorcery (1):
1x Never // Return
Land (24):
4x Ifnir Deadland
3x Spire of Industry
2x Ruins of Oran-Rief
1x Sea Gate Wreckage
1x Blighted Fen
13x Swamp
3x Yahenni's Expertise
2x Transgress the Mind
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited
2x Key to the City
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1x Reality Smasher
1x Liliana, Death's Majesty
1x Distended Mindbender
1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1x Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
The sideboard is really TBD as we don't know what the meta will be like once HOU releases. My plan is to go Very aggressive, while also having cards to switch to a more midrange plan if necessary.
4 Hedron Crawler
4 Metallic Mimic
4 Consulate Skygate
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Eternal Scourge
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Walker of the Wastes
4 Spatial Contortion
Land
4 Ruins of Oran-Rief
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
18 Wastes
4 Bearer of Silence
3 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Metallic Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Eternal Scourge
4 Thought-knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
1 Endbringer
1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
2 Fatal Push
2 Transgress the Mind
4 Spatial Contortion
Land
4 Ruins of Oran-Rief
4 Corrupted Crossroads
4 Sea Gate Wreckage
2 Blighted fen
10 Swamp
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
3x Endless One
4x Naga Vitalist
4x Eternal Scourge
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
Artifact (4)
2x Heart of Kiran
2x Aethersphere Harvester
Instant (4)
4x Spatial Contortion
4x Nature's Way
Enchantment (3)
3x Oath of Nissa
Land (22)
4x Aether Hub
4x Hashep Oasis
3x Scavenger Grounds
3x Sea Gate Wreckage
2x Westvale Abbey
2x Crumbling Vestige
4x Forest
1x Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
4x Clear Shot
4x Warping Wail
2x Appetite for the Unnatural
2x Blossoming Defense
2x Heroic Intervention
1 colored mana source by turn one: 14 sources in deck
1 colored mana source by turn two: 13 sources in deck
1 colored mana source by turn three: 12 sources in deck
This seems very doable between the new deserts and Aether Hub. No tap lands needed, either. The deserts also give very solid abilities if the game goes long. That leaves the question of how the rest of the deck goes together, of course. Maybe something like:
4 Ramunap Ruins
4 Aether Hub
7 Mountain
6 Swamp
4 Harnessed Lightning
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Forerunner of Slaughter
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Ahn-Crop Crasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Bearer of Silence
3 Reality Smasher
3 Glorybringer
Smash face with giant monsters, backed up with a bit of removal. There's worse strategies.
Also why play 2 Smashers AND 3 Glorybringer?
I'm also not sure about the Crasher. The current mono red lists mostly seem to run Hanweir Garrison but I've been super happy with Crasher in two-tix red and I think hasty creatures get better in bunches.
Pummeler Energy has been scratching my face-smashing itch so I haven't been doing much testing with Eldrazi, to be honest.
Not to mention that the Eldrazis don't even fit in a hyper-aggro shell like mono red to begin with. The Eldrazi creatures are powerful but slow, not really doing much until turns 4-5. The shell they'd do best in is a midrange (leaning closer to aggro) build that is backed up by solid removals, something that mono red severely lacks. And I don't think I should even have to explain how having multiple copies of Glorybringer AND Reality Smasher in the main completely defeats the point of a mono red aggro strategy...
C Long Live Eldrazi C
The deck is a BR midrange list that runs 25 lands. Other than that, your response is dead on point.
In this case I still prefer to stick to fundamentals. Fundamentally, I think the Eldrazi are optimized in a midrange shell backed by solid removals and not an aggressive shell that looks to close out the game quickly. Similarly, I think it's fundamentally not wise to play so many 5-drops in a 25-land deck where you main strategy is straight up beatdown.
In general when it comes to deck building, I prefer to play cards I am comfortable with and I do that by deciding what cards I'd like to be playing and what kind of shell that would optimize those cards. Occasionally I'll stumble across lists that seem to defy those fundamentals but I've learned to see those as an exception rather than the norm, unless of course such deck lists start popping upconsistent ly, in which case it'd be time to revise my perception of the norm.
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16215&d=300098&f=ST
C Long Live Eldrazi C