Everyone seems to have forgotten that the duo that sent Modern into the Eldrazi Winter are still standard legal. The Eldrazi Aggro floated around at the fringes during early Oath of the Gatewatch standard and remains pretty much fully intact. We've also picked up a couple of great additions in Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh: Scrapheap Scrounger & Eternal Scourge. They just so happen to play very well together, and fit right in in with an aggressive Eldrazi Mimic shell.
The deck primarily wants to just curve out and attack. There are some interesting synergies with Mimic + Ruins and Scrounger + Scourge that give the deck power and tenacity. The Contortion helps clear the way for our early aggression and Transgress poke holes in our Opponents' gameplan.
Mainboard
Eldrazi Mimic - Great T2 play, which can put a lot of pressure on our opponent if we curve out. It plays really well with Ruins of Oran-Rief, so learning the proper interactions there is important. Remember that Mimic makes its base P/T a copy of the entering creatures full P/T after modifiers like counters. So a counter on Mimic will apply on top of its copied P/T. It will also 'see' counters on the creature that it copies. It doesn't look at the P/T until the trigger resolves, so we can respond to the trigger but putting a counter on creature it is copying with Ruins, and the Mimic will get the benefit of that added +1/+1. E.g. If we have a Mimic with a +1/+1 counter, we cast Smasher, and respond to Mimic's trigger by putting a +1/+1 counter on Smasher, Mimic will become a 7/7 until end of turn (6/6 base P/T with a +1/+1 counter).
Scrapheap Scrounger - Scrounger gives us another excellent 2-mana aggressive play that will pump our Mimics. The activated ability makes them tough to kill off as well.
Eternal Scourge - Solid 3-drop that pumps our Mimic on curve. It also plays really well with our Scrounger activations, as we can cast it again after exiling it from our graveyard.
Matter Reshaper - Another solid 3-drop on curve with Mimic. It has the bonus of finding land drops and further gas when killed. A lot of the exiling removal is gone, though the trigger unfortunately doesn't match up very well vs Incendiary Flow or Kalitas.
Bearer of Silence - This card I think has gotten a lot better now that people are not playing Collected Company and big token spells like Secure the Wastes.
Thought-Knot Seer - Great card. Not much to explain here other than this card alone makes it tempting to play Hedron Crawlers to power out earlier.
Reality Smasher - Another Great card. Unfortunately Stasis Snare takes care of it pretty well, but otherwise the trigger makes it a lot more annoying to deal with. Red will have fits, as one of their only decent removals for it is Lightning Axe and that's just feel bad.
Spatial Contortion - Solid removal that we can use to Bloodlust our Seers and Smashers if their are no relevant opposing targets.
Transgress the Mind - I like Transgress a lot going into a format where people are likely to be playing Elder Deep-Fiends, Emrakuls, and Gearhulks. Can also snag a Fumigate against control decks. Otherwise, allows us to grab stuff like Tireless Trackers, Lilianas, and a whole slew of annoying cards.
Aether Hub - Seems like a better choice over Crossroads. The deck does not need a ton of black mana, but being able to tap for a black that can activate Scrounger and not taking extra damage is likely more relevant than the risk of using up your energy.
Blighted Fen - Great card to kill Emrakuls with, since it can only target an opponent. Otherwise, just a solid way to use our excess mana as the game goes late.
Ruins of Oran-Rief - This one can be sort of clunky if it isn't in the opener, as T1 is ideally when we want to be playing this. Its fairly strong and lets us scale a bit into the later game. Not generally worth it to hold back on curving out unless we have a way to progress the board otherwise.
Sea Gate Wreckage - Another very good card for this deck. This allows us to compete on card advantage with midrange green decks playing Tireless Tracker.
Westvale Abbey - Off chance we can activate this off a bunch of Scroungers, Eternal Scourges, and late game Mimics. I imagine some decks will just fold to a single Ormendahl connect.
Sideboard
Reaver Drone - For when we want to get more aggressive against control style decks where its likely to get in a couple shots and help keep them off balance.
Warping Wail - This generally will come in to counter Fumigate. Also likely good against R/x Spells since they play so many Sorceries. Countering a Voice or Reunion would pretty bad for them.
Essence Depleter - Speculative card for the burn heavy matchups. We can cast this one T5 to get value off the trigger. I think one of these with a Ruins counter will also be difficult to answer for some Red decks.
Filigree Familiar - Another tool against the aggressive decks. Can come in over the more durdlely cards like Scourge.
Distended Mindbender - Likely mainboardable. I've kept this in the side to stick with a more aggressive game 1. This plays well with our recursive combo of Scrounger and Scourge.
Hi Nevelo, well, you are giving this deck another go? A bit surprising considering the loss of pain lands has... well hurt the deck.
AS you may already know, in case you forgot, that BC Eldrazi is basically the only deck that I have played since the release of OGW.
In my limited recent testing, the core creatures of Reshaper, Seeer, Smasher have just not felt as strong as they did prior to KLD. But perhaps I had a bad run of tests.
However the lack of land that can produce both colored and devoid mana is troublesome. BUT my list did run multiples of double BB spells.
Distended Mindbender emerging off of Reshaper or Seer was also a strong play and probably still can be. Again, that is double black.
Anyway, your list looks interesting and test worthy.
For reference here was my most recent list:
I kept the deck build all this time. I've played it from time to time. The strongest it felt was when I played it at and prior to Oath Gameday (ended up winning).
It did fall off a bit because there was either too many tokens or too much random stuff from Collected Company. One of the stronger cards was Bearer up until that point. I tried the mono-red version, but it didn't feel as solid.
Actually, thinking about it, losing the life gain land was the worst thing for the deck. Westvale Abbey does a mild impression.
Mindbender looks really good actually. Sort of forgot about it. I think I'll cut the two Flaying Tendrils from the side for a couple of Mindbenders.
I was thinking of running Crawlers. Initial post-rotation lists had it. But with the new 2-drop and 3-drop, I thought going back to the original Mimic shell was the strongest.
Seems like Scrounger and Scourge would play well with Mindbenders anyway. You can sac them and then reanimate Scrounger and recast Scourge form exile.
That was my other thought too but I opted for harsh Scrutiny in MB to keep the mana curve low because I wanted more aggro. In the past I noticed this dexk to be weaker against control but strong against control, hence why I put Dead Weight and Harsh Scrutiny in the MB. That being said I could totally go the other direction as well.
Smugglers Copter is a concern but probably not worth playing Transgress over. My theory is that decks running Copter would be more aggro so Transgress won't hit much. And I think I've got enough Removals to deal with Copter when it becomes a creature.
Speaking of which...does anyone know of any Enchantment or Artifact Removals in Black?
Eldrazi Mimic and Hedron Crawler both suffer from the same dilemma of not being very good after turn 2.
Both straight die to Liliana's +1. However, Mimic has a bigger target on its head for a kill spell than Crawler. Most opponents do not want to spend a kill spell on a 0/1.
Crawler can get you a turn 3 Seer into play, help fix your mana, and can help emerge Mindbender. With four lands in play, Crawler can tap to add the fifth mana and then provide its 2cmc cost to add the 7 mana needed for emerge.
Im not going to say that Crawler or Mimic is better than the other. As it will depend on how you want to run your deck.
Eldrazi Mimic and Hedron Crawler both suffer from the same dilemma of not being very good after turn 2.
Both straight die to Liliana's +1. However, Mimic has a bigger target on its head for a kill spell than Crawler. Most opponents do not want to spend a kill spell on a 0/1.
Crawler can get you a turn 3 Seer into play, help fix your mana, and can help emerge Mindbender. With four lands in play, Crawler can tap to add the fifth mana and then provide its 2cmc cost to add the 7 mana needed for emerge.
Im not going to say that Crawler or Mimic is better than the other. As it will depend on how you want to run your deck.
It's for those same reasonss I'm not a fan of Mimic or Crawler: the lack of mid-late game potential. And since I've built my deck to be more aggro, the extra mana from Crawler really seems unnecessary for me.
Mimic doesn't really suffer from that issue actually. Late game we'll have at least 1 Ruins. Ruins will make him a 3/2. Reanimating Scrounger with a counter makes him a 5/4. Casting Scourge from exile with a counter a 5/5. A topdeck Seer makes him a 6/6. A topdeck Smasher or Mindbenders a 7/7. Edit: I'll add, Mimic was one of my best cards in the original version. He punishes people who don't answer him. He is also a removal magnet that helps keep them from dealing with our Seers later.
Also, I don't think double black spells are viable. To make Grasp, Liliana, or Kalitas reliable, you need between 18-20 sources depending on what turn you want it. Add that to needing 12-13 colorless sources, and it becomes very difficult without running stuff like Evolving Wilds, Crumbling Vestig, and Aether Hub (the latter two I'd only count as half sources). Unreliable and slow. Also cuts out our value lands.
Mimic doesn't really suffer from that issue actually. Late game we'll have at least 1 Ruins. Ruins will make him a 3/2. Reanimating Scrounger with a counter makes him a 5/4. Casting Scourge from exile with a counter a 5/5. A topdeck Seer makes him a 6/6. A topdeck Smasher or Mindbenders a 7/7. Edit: I'll add, Mimic was one of my best cards in the original version. He punishes people who don't answer him. He is also a removal magnet that helps keep them from dealing with our Seers later.
Also, I don't think double black spells are viable. To make Grasp, Liliana, or Kalitas reliable, you need between 18-20 sources depending on what turn you want it. Add that to needing 12-13 colorless sources, and it becomes very difficult without running stuff like Evolving Wilds, Crumbling Vestig, and Aether Hub (the latter two I'd only count as half sources). Unreliable and slow. Also cuts out our value lands.
I agree with you on the mana base, which is why my build is basically black with a splash of colorless.
Now Mimic can be good but I'd just prefer to have more removals and other creatures.
That approach could work mana wise, essentially only splashing for Seer and Smasher. However, I would up your colorless sources. You are only running 9 sources. 4 are Aether Hub, so I would only count the total as 7x (maybe less since you'll be using up your energy a lot faster with the amount of Black spells). I would suggest that you cut 5 Swamps for an Evolving Wilds and Waste package. You really want to have around 11x sources for T4 colorless to be reliable.
Idk about evolving wilds. This deck is meant to be more aggro and I just think that evolving wilds slows it down too much. Besides the deck does not absolutely need to curve into T4 Seer and T5 Smasher to win; it needs to be consistent and able to win regardless of what you draw.
Lastly I'm running a lot of cards requiring double black so I think that should justify more Swamps than colorless lands. Although depending on how it actually does, I may take out 1-2 Swamps tops for Wastes. Overall in this format, evolving wilds doesn't seem necessary if running only 2 colors. Almost every deck that ran evolving wilds before were 3 colors.
I don't disagree with the premise of the build, I'm just saying you will want at least 11 sources of colorless to make sure you have 'consistency' (as you yourself point out) casting your Colorless spells. Statistically speaking, the number of colorless you are currently running is not going to be consistent. And let's be honest, Thought-Knot Seer gets worse the longer you wait to cast him. Furthermore, you ideally want Smasher on T5 to make the most of its aggression.
At the end of the day, this is the issue with trying to run heavy black with a splash. You have to take on lands like Evolving Wilds and make the manabase clunker because we no longer have access to untapped 8x duals that give us both colorless and black (pain lands). That being said, going heavier Black does make splashing White as well a lot easier, since the manabase is only marginally different if we include the fast land and Shambling Vents.
Im not certain how he did overall, but I would like to see his complete list. Especially his mana base. Without the painlands, I suspect it is inconsistent.
However, his build is definitely mid range and not aggro.
I'm not disagreeing in that I probably need more colorless lands but I think 11 is probably too many given how many spells I have requiring double black.
Im not certain how he did overall, but I would like to see his complete list. Especially his mana base. Without the painlands, I suspect it is inconsistent.
However, his build is definitely mid range and not aggro.
Where did you find out about that? Do you have a link?
I agree with Nevelo in that I need more colorless sources to cast my colorless guys on time; I just played two games where I couldn't get TKS or Smasher out on time, though I still won both time. That being said I'm still not in love with the Evolving Wilds+Wastes package just yet.
Also has anyone here got the chance to see if Bearer of Silence is still useful? I liked it a lot in the last standard since it was able to remove big creatures like Ojutai and Ulamog, but the former has rotated out and the latter isn't seeing as much play (Or Ramp in general for that matter), so idk if it'll still add any significant value.
Im not certain how he did overall, but I would like to see his complete list. Especially his mana base. Without the painlands, I suspect it is inconsistent.
However, his build is definitely mid range and not aggro.
Where did you find out about that? Do you have a link?
Chris Weidinger's 3rd round was streamed on SCG. He was 2-0 at the time playing against Caleb Scherer's Aetherworks combo deck. Chris won the match. i have not found he's list yet.
Reshaper, Seer, Smasher have been my favorite set of cards since their release. But with the mana being janky, maybe it is time to drop cards that require the diamond C.
It is still possible to run an aggressive Eldrazi set. The mana base would be RB. And the list could look something like this:
Garrison does not mesh well with Mimic or Forerunner... but its a great must answer aggro threat.
Other cards that could fit as creatures could be Flayer Drone or Combustible Gearhulk
Im not certain how he did overall, but I would like to see his complete list. Especially his mana base. Without the painlands, I suspect it is inconsistent.
However, his build is definitely mid range and not aggro.
Where did you find out about that? Do you have a link?
Chris Weidinger's 3rd round was streamed on SCG. He was 2-0 at the time playing against Caleb Scherer's Aetherworks combo deck. Chris won the match. i have not found he's list yet.
Reshaper, Seer, Smasher have been my favorite set of cards since their release. But with the mana being janky, maybe it is time to drop cards that require the diamond C.
It is still possible to run an aggressive Eldrazi set. The mana base would be RB. And the list could look something like this:
Garrison does not mesh well with Mimic or Forerunner... but its a great must answer aggro threat.
Other cards that could fit as creatures could be Flayer Drone or Combustible Gearhulk
The thing is that the classic Three of Reshaper, Seer, and Smasher is what got me into playing Eldrazis in the first place. Without them, the deck probably won't be nearly as strong as it could be, and I'd probably just build something else entirely. That being said, again I understand the mana being janky and that's what got me into nearly abandoning the build altogether. But as long as you stick with the idea of only splashing colorless and instead of going 50/50, it does still work.
That being said, I'm still very interested in what Chris Weidinger had brewed up.
I played a similar deck pre-SOI to day 2 of GP Houston. That deck was running the flyers and the +2/+2 equipment for 1. Without the equipment the flyers weren't very exciting so I put this deck together to test just all-out agro. The deck is great, but I didn't get to take it to a weekend event, just played a couple weekday events. Went 7-1 with it, and the deck seemed pretty powerful, so I'm going to try and port it to Kaladesh standard. And when I say powerful, I mean, I was just rolling over people. It was great. The numbers weren't tuned since I didn't get to do much with it before work got in the way.
The whirler rogue is the key loss and gave the deck some reach with the unblockability clause. From my testing and playing with the deck, here are the conclusions I came to:
1. Hedron crawler is great. I was very skeptical at first. But after gold fishing a bunch I realized that the deck is just much more explosive with a crawler. It's a very mana intensive deck for an agro deck and 25 lands with 4 crawlers will very rarely have you wondering what to do with the mana. After ramping you out this guy is then a very good sac outlet for any emerge creature since with a crawler you only need 4 lands. And we don't need to go on about turn 3 TKS into turn 4 smashers. Also, I learned pretty quickly that any hand with both crawler and mimic, usually better to cast crawler first. Unless you have the mimic -> reshaper -> TKS -> smasher draw, then by all means, ignore the crawler. But turn 2 crawler, turn 3 2x mimics, turn 4 smasher or TKS is pretty good, too.
A quick aside for people who don't like crawler cause 'it's a bad draw after turn 4'. This is a terrible argument. Not every card in your deck is gonna be great topdeck. Lands aren't great topdecks at a certain point either, but you don't see people going without them. Play with the card. The deck is much better with it.
2. Mimic is a focus of this deck going forward, I think. In the GP deck I often took mimic out game 2 since there were only 8 (12 with reshapers) eldrazi you were excited to copy it with. Now with deep fiend there are 8 5 power creatures to power up mimics. I think that the replacement for whirler rogue will be another monster that synergizes with mimic. Top considerations are Endless One, Scrapheap Scrounger, and Drowner of hope.
3. Colorless counts as a color. I know this thread is mono-black eldrazi, but if you have the reshaper/TKS/smasher trinity then you have to consider it a two-color deck. The great thing about colorless lands is that they are utility lands as well. Losing Foundry of the Consuls sucks (it was especially good with whirler rogue), but we can replace with Spawning Bed. Westvale Abbey is pretty good, but with whirler rogue gone, there will be fewer times that we have enough creatures. Oran-rief is fine, but I wouldn't want more than 2 since you don't want the ETB tapped to hurt your curve. Corrupted crossroads doesn't work with emerge since the emerge creatures are not devoid. Holdout settlement is terrible, but helps with emerge since you probably don't mind tapping the creature you are sacrificing.
4. You need a way to punch through. One of the things I like about whirler rogue was the reach. Elder Deep_Fiend also provides this, though, and that might be enough. Something to think about.
5. Colored mana. You need at least 16-17 sources of each of your colors, IMO. This is another way that crawler helps.
6. Land / creature / disruption counts. I think 25 land is necessary, even with 4 crawlers. 30-31 creatures and 3-4 spells is probably where I'm going to start.
7. What color to add? Given that I want to play the reshaper/TKS/smasher trinity, have to decide on a second color? I like blue because deep-fiend gives you some punch and you get access to counterspells out of the board. I won't fault anyone for going black for mindbender. Deep-fiend just seems better to me though. Also, skyspawner allows acceleration into smasher, an evasive body, and synergizes with westvale abbey.
So, with all that, here's my first try at an agro Eldrazi list for Kaladesh standard:
I'd suggest a different thread, but your running Mimic, so you're welcome to post here.
You need 16 Blue sources for a reliable T5 Elder Deep-Fiend and 13 Colorless sources for T2 Contortion. Unfortunately Crossroads doesn't work with Deep-Fiend, so it is difficult to get the proper amount of Blue. However, I would suggest this manabase:
Ruins and Sea Gate are great in the Aggro Eldrazi decks. You've included the former, so that's self explanatory. Sea Gate was one of the better lands in my original deck. It lets you compete with the card draw of the midrange Tracker decks.
Westvale Abbey is one of the best Colorless utility lands. The transformation is bit easier to pull off in your shell too. At worst, it provides a constant stream of clerics. Spawning Bed I suppose would work as a budget replacement, but the main reason to run Abbey is for the lifegain element of its other side.
Sorry to hijack a little bit, but i've been testing eldrazi synergies against ai (forge)
I like the original B version especially with distended mindbender. But also the sort of ramp U version and elder deep fiend.
I then brewed with aetherworks Marvel to cheat on fatties on opponent's turn.
Powering it with electrostatic pummeler.
I added eldrazi displacer to blink it and power the Marvel faster. Tried fairgrounds warden as à target that exiles on etb. And wasteland strangler as removal and blink the warden again.
Im having a hard time with manabase. Is esper too much of à stretch (access to aether theoeist). And is all this powerful enough to warrant the additions?
ETBs on opponent's combat phase are pretty sweet so far. But very inconsistant.
Threw this together because TKS is insane. I'm not sure how well this does against the meta, but it absolutely crushes RG Pummeler, which IMO is by far the best deck in Standard right now, at least until more people start running Murder.
I piloted a monoB eldrazi deck to win the BFZ gameday that was this exact idea. Haven't changed it until Kaladesh came out as I had time to get back into playing it. I tweaked it to deal with the surge of aggro decks running rampant now. The copter can cycle through cards you don't want as you play your creatures without haste, Scrounger coming back turn after turn is a pain for your opponent to deal with, forcing your opponents to decide whether or not to kill your mimic or your scrounger. Mindbender saccing reshaper is your ideal target and provides some great hand disruption turn 4. Every time I play smasher, it's a windmill. It is very hard to deal with when it hits the field.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that the duo that sent Modern into the Eldrazi Winter are still standard legal. The Eldrazi Aggro floated around at the fringes during early Oath of the Gatewatch standard and remains pretty much fully intact. We've also picked up a couple of great additions in Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh: Scrapheap Scrounger & Eternal Scourge. They just so happen to play very well together, and fit right in in with an aggressive Eldrazi Mimic shell.
Decklist:
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Eternal Scourge
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Bearer of Silence
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Spatial Contortion
4 Transgress the Mind
Lands (25)
4 Aether Hub
3 Blighted Fen
3 Ruins of Oran-Rief
3 Sea Gate Wreckage
10 Swamp
2 Westvale Abbey
4 Reaver Drone
4 Warping Wail
2 Essence Depleter
3 Filigree Familiar
2 Distended Mindbender
The deck primarily wants to just curve out and attack. There are some interesting synergies with Mimic + Ruins and Scrounger + Scourge that give the deck power and tenacity. The Contortion helps clear the way for our early aggression and Transgress poke holes in our Opponents' gameplan.
Mainboard
Sideboard
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)
AS you may already know, in case you forgot, that BC Eldrazi is basically the only deck that I have played since the release of OGW.
In my limited recent testing, the core creatures of Reshaper, Seeer, Smasher have just not felt as strong as they did prior to KLD. But perhaps I had a bad run of tests.
However the lack of land that can produce both colored and devoid mana is troublesome. BUT my list did run multiples of double BB spells.
Distended Mindbender emerging off of Reshaper or Seer was also a strong play and probably still can be. Again, that is double black.
Anyway, your list looks interesting and test worthy.
For reference here was my most recent list:
4 Hedron Crawler
4 Bearer of Silence
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
3 Distended Mindbender
Spells
4 Grasp of Darkness
4 Ruinous Path
3 Live Fast
Land
8 swamp
4 aether hub
4 sea gate wreckage
2 corrupted crossroads
4 ruins of oran-rief
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Bligthed fen
C Long Live Eldrazi C
It did fall off a bit because there was either too many tokens or too much random stuff from Collected Company. One of the stronger cards was Bearer up until that point. I tried the mono-red version, but it didn't feel as solid.
Actually, thinking about it, losing the life gain land was the worst thing for the deck. Westvale Abbey does a mild impression.
Mindbender looks really good actually. Sort of forgot about it. I think I'll cut the two Flaying Tendrils from the side for a couple of Mindbenders.
I was thinking of running Crawlers. Initial post-rotation lists had it. But with the new 2-drop and 3-drop, I thought going back to the original Mimic shell was the strongest.
Seems like Scrounger and Scourge would play well with Mindbenders anyway. You can sac them and then reanimate Scrounger and recast Scourge form exile.
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)
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
4x Matter Reshaper
3x Scrapheap Scrounger
3x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Distended Mindbender
1x Wasteland Strangler
Enchantments (2):
2x Dead Weight
4x Grasp of Darkness
2x Murder
Sorcery (4):
1x Ruinous Path
3x Harsh Scrutiny
Planeswalker (1):
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
Lands (24):
15x Swamp
4x Aether Hub
2x Ruins of Oran-Rief
2x Blighted Fen
1x Mirrorpool
3x Transgress the Mind
3x Bearer of Silence
2x Ruinous Path
2x Flaying Tendrils
2x Lost Legacy
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1x Dead Weight
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
My goal was overall trying to go more aggro and keep the mana curve as low as possible.
Smugglers Copter is a concern but probably not worth playing Transgress over. My theory is that decks running Copter would be more aggro so Transgress won't hit much. And I think I've got enough Removals to deal with Copter when it becomes a creature.
Speaking of which...does anyone know of any Enchantment or Artifact Removals in Black?
Both straight die to Liliana's +1. However, Mimic has a bigger target on its head for a kill spell than Crawler. Most opponents do not want to spend a kill spell on a 0/1.
Crawler can get you a turn 3 Seer into play, help fix your mana, and can help emerge Mindbender. With four lands in play, Crawler can tap to add the fifth mana and then provide its 2cmc cost to add the 7 mana needed for emerge.
Im not going to say that Crawler or Mimic is better than the other. As it will depend on how you want to run your deck.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
It's for those same reasonss I'm not a fan of Mimic or Crawler: the lack of mid-late game potential. And since I've built my deck to be more aggro, the extra mana from Crawler really seems unnecessary for me.
Also, I don't think double black spells are viable. To make Grasp, Liliana, or Kalitas reliable, you need between 18-20 sources depending on what turn you want it. Add that to needing 12-13 colorless sources, and it becomes very difficult without running stuff like Evolving Wilds, Crumbling Vestig, and Aether Hub (the latter two I'd only count as half sources). Unreliable and slow. Also cuts out our value lands.
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)
I agree with you on the mana base, which is why my build is basically black with a splash of colorless.
Now Mimic can be good but I'd just prefer to have more removals and other creatures.
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)
Lastly I'm running a lot of cards requiring double black so I think that should justify more Swamps than colorless lands. Although depending on how it actually does, I may take out 1-2 Swamps tops for Wastes. Overall in this format, evolving wilds doesn't seem necessary if running only 2 colors. Almost every deck that ran evolving wilds before were 3 colors.
At the end of the day, this is the issue with trying to run heavy black with a splash. You have to take on lands like Evolving Wilds and make the manabase clunker because we no longer have access to untapped 8x duals that give us both colorless and black (pain lands). That being said, going heavier Black does make splashing White as well a lot easier, since the manabase is only marginally different if we include the fast land and Shambling Vents.
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)
Im not certain how he did overall, but I would like to see his complete list. Especially his mana base. Without the painlands, I suspect it is inconsistent.
However, his build is definitely mid range and not aggro.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Where did you find out about that? Do you have a link?
Decided to change the mana base and SB a little after some more playtesting.
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
4x Matter Reshaper
3x Scrapheap Scrounger
3x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Distended Mindbender
1x Wasteland Strangler
Enchantments (2):
2x Dead Weight
Instants (6):
4x Grasp of Darkness
2x Murder
1x Ruinous Path
3x Harsh Scrutiny
Planeswalker (1):
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
Lands (24):
14x Swamp
4x Aether Hub
2x Ruins of Oran-Rief
2x Blighted Fen
1x Corrupted Crossroads
1x Mirrorpool
3x Transgress the Mind
2x Collective Brutality
2x Ruinous Path
2x Flaying Tendrils
2x Lost Legacy
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1x Dead Weight
1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
I agree with Nevelo in that I need more colorless sources to cast my colorless guys on time; I just played two games where I couldn't get TKS or Smasher out on time, though I still won both time. That being said I'm still not in love with the Evolving Wilds+Wastes package just yet.
Also has anyone here got the chance to see if Bearer of Silence is still useful? I liked it a lot in the last standard since it was able to remove big creatures like Ojutai and Ulamog, but the former has rotated out and the latter isn't seeing as much play (Or Ramp in general for that matter), so idk if it'll still add any significant value.
Reshaper, Seer, Smasher have been my favorite set of cards since their release. But with the mana being janky, maybe it is time to drop cards that require the diamond C.
It is still possible to run an aggressive Eldrazi set. The mana base would be R B. And the list could look something like this:
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Forerunner of Slaughter
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Eternal Scourge
4 Hanweir Garrison
4 Dust stalker
4 Harnessed Lightning
2 Ruinous Path
2 Unlicensed Disintegration
4 Built to Smash
Lands 24
4 Smoldering Marsh
4 Foreboding Ruins
2 Cinder Barrens
4 Corrupted Crossroads
5 mountain
5 swamp
Garrison does not mesh well with Mimic or Forerunner... but its a great must answer aggro threat.
Other cards that could fit as creatures could be Flayer Drone or Combustible Gearhulk
C Long Live Eldrazi C
The thing is that the classic Three of Reshaper, Seer, and Smasher is what got me into playing Eldrazis in the first place. Without them, the deck probably won't be nearly as strong as it could be, and I'd probably just build something else entirely. That being said, again I understand the mana being janky and that's what got me into nearly abandoning the build altogether. But as long as you stick with the idea of only splashing colorless and instead of going 50/50, it does still work.
That being said, I'm still very interested in what Chris Weidinger had brewed up.
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)
For reference, here is the deck I was playing pre-Kaladesh:
4 Hedron Crawler
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
4 Though-Knot Seer
4 Whirler Rogue
4 Reality Smasher
4 Elder Deep-Fiend
3 Spatial Contortion
4 Foundry of the Consuls
3 Westvale Abbey
4 Shivan Reef
3 Yavimaya Coast
I played a similar deck pre-SOI to day 2 of GP Houston. That deck was running the flyers and the +2/+2 equipment for 1. Without the equipment the flyers weren't very exciting so I put this deck together to test just all-out agro. The deck is great, but I didn't get to take it to a weekend event, just played a couple weekday events. Went 7-1 with it, and the deck seemed pretty powerful, so I'm going to try and port it to Kaladesh standard. And when I say powerful, I mean, I was just rolling over people. It was great. The numbers weren't tuned since I didn't get to do much with it before work got in the way.
The whirler rogue is the key loss and gave the deck some reach with the unblockability clause. From my testing and playing with the deck, here are the conclusions I came to:
1. Hedron crawler is great. I was very skeptical at first. But after gold fishing a bunch I realized that the deck is just much more explosive with a crawler. It's a very mana intensive deck for an agro deck and 25 lands with 4 crawlers will very rarely have you wondering what to do with the mana. After ramping you out this guy is then a very good sac outlet for any emerge creature since with a crawler you only need 4 lands. And we don't need to go on about turn 3 TKS into turn 4 smashers. Also, I learned pretty quickly that any hand with both crawler and mimic, usually better to cast crawler first. Unless you have the mimic -> reshaper -> TKS -> smasher draw, then by all means, ignore the crawler. But turn 2 crawler, turn 3 2x mimics, turn 4 smasher or TKS is pretty good, too.
A quick aside for people who don't like crawler cause 'it's a bad draw after turn 4'. This is a terrible argument. Not every card in your deck is gonna be great topdeck. Lands aren't great topdecks at a certain point either, but you don't see people going without them. Play with the card. The deck is much better with it.
2. Mimic is a focus of this deck going forward, I think. In the GP deck I often took mimic out game 2 since there were only 8 (12 with reshapers) eldrazi you were excited to copy it with. Now with deep fiend there are 8 5 power creatures to power up mimics. I think that the replacement for whirler rogue will be another monster that synergizes with mimic. Top considerations are Endless One, Scrapheap Scrounger, and Drowner of hope.
3. Colorless counts as a color. I know this thread is mono-black eldrazi, but if you have the reshaper/TKS/smasher trinity then you have to consider it a two-color deck. The great thing about colorless lands is that they are utility lands as well. Losing Foundry of the Consuls sucks (it was especially good with whirler rogue), but we can replace with Spawning Bed. Westvale Abbey is pretty good, but with whirler rogue gone, there will be fewer times that we have enough creatures. Oran-rief is fine, but I wouldn't want more than 2 since you don't want the ETB tapped to hurt your curve. Corrupted crossroads doesn't work with emerge since the emerge creatures are not devoid. Holdout settlement is terrible, but helps with emerge since you probably don't mind tapping the creature you are sacrificing.
4. You need a way to punch through. One of the things I like about whirler rogue was the reach. Elder Deep_Fiend also provides this, though, and that might be enough. Something to think about.
5. Colored mana. You need at least 16-17 sources of each of your colors, IMO. This is another way that crawler helps.
6. Land / creature / disruption counts. I think 25 land is necessary, even with 4 crawlers. 30-31 creatures and 3-4 spells is probably where I'm going to start.
7. What color to add? Given that I want to play the reshaper/TKS/smasher trinity, have to decide on a second color? I like blue because deep-fiend gives you some punch and you get access to counterspells out of the board. I won't fault anyone for going black for mindbender. Deep-fiend just seems better to me though. Also, skyspawner allows acceleration into smasher, an evasive body, and synergizes with westvale abbey.
So, with all that, here's my first try at an agro Eldrazi list for Kaladesh standard:
4 Hedron Crawler
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
3 Endless One (maybe better as scrapheap scrounger or eternal scourge)
4 Though-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
3 Elder Deep-Fiend
2 Drowner of Hope
3 Spatial Contortion (I like this as removal because of the extra utility to pump your guys)
4 Spawning Bed
2 Ruins of Oran-Rief
2 Corrupted Crossroads
2 Holdout Settlement
4 Aether Hub
Issues I have with this deck:
1. The mana is a mess. Gonna have to goldfish it.
2. What utilty lands are better? Is spawning bed any good?
3. Need to tune the drowner/deep-fiend numbers. Does this deck have enough punch?
Anyway, those are my thoughts on this style deck and my plan going forward.
You need 16 Blue sources for a reliable T5 Elder Deep-Fiend and 13 Colorless sources for T2 Contortion. Unfortunately Crossroads doesn't work with Deep-Fiend, so it is difficult to get the proper amount of Blue. However, I would suggest this manabase:
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
3 Ruins of Oran-Rief
4 Aether Hub
4 Westvale Abbey
12 Island
Ruins and Sea Gate are great in the Aggro Eldrazi decks. You've included the former, so that's self explanatory. Sea Gate was one of the better lands in my original deck. It lets you compete with the card draw of the midrange Tracker decks.
Westvale Abbey is one of the best Colorless utility lands. The transformation is bit easier to pull off in your shell too. At worst, it provides a constant stream of clerics. Spawning Bed I suppose would work as a budget replacement, but the main reason to run Abbey is for the lifegain element of its other side.
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)
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13538&writer=Adam Yurchick&articledate=9-29-2016&utm_source=tcg-email&utm_medium=tcg-email&utm_term=&utm_content=magic&utm_campaign=tcg-email-newsletter-10-02-2016-KLD-standard-decks
I like the original B version especially with distended mindbender. But also the sort of ramp U version and elder deep fiend.
I then brewed with aetherworks Marvel to cheat on fatties on opponent's turn.
Powering it with electrostatic pummeler.
I added eldrazi displacer to blink it and power the Marvel faster. Tried fairgrounds warden as à target that exiles on etb. And wasteland strangler as removal and blink the warden again.
Im having a hard time with manabase. Is esper too much of à stretch (access to aether theoeist). And is all this powerful enough to warrant the additions?
ETBs on opponent's combat phase are pretty sweet so far. But very inconsistant.
Threw this together because TKS is insane. I'm not sure how well this does against the meta, but it absolutely crushes RG Pummeler, which IMO is by far the best deck in Standard right now, at least until more people start running Murder.
4 Aether Hub
4 Blighted Fen
4 Corrupted Crossroads
2 Crumbling Vestige
1 Island
4 Sea Gate Wreckage
6 Swamp
Creatures:
4 Bearer of Silence
2 Drowner of Hope
4 Hedron Crawler
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Die Young
4 Spatial Contortion
4 Transgress the Mind
2 Warping Wail
2 Deadlock Trap
3 Flaying Tendrils
3 Horribly Awry
3 Sire of Stagnation
1 Titan's Presence
2 Warping Wail
1 Wasteland Strangler
Thoughts?
3 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Smuggler's Copter
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Distended Mindbender
Spells:
4 Transgress the Mind
4 Warping Wail
4 Spatial Contortion
10 Swamp
5 Wastes
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
3 Aether Hub
2 Ruins of Oran-Rief
2 Corrupted Crossroads
3 Flaying Tendrils
2 Lost Legacy
3 Harsh Scrutiny
3 Ruinous Path
4 Undecided