Had a terrible Game Day trying to go with the explosive Wastes and Ruins plan. Only won a single match. Some of it was just bad luck, a la the game where I mulled a hand of only lands into a hand of only lands again into 5 cards and only one land. Still, just based on the day overall, I'm thinking trying to cram in extra wastes to activate ruin is a bit of a mistake. Two games where I didn't start with forests is two games too many.
got to top 8 for my gameday, but 2-2 and barely making it in 8th overall.
Matches:
Vs Atarka red 0-2 Loss
Yay, great way to start out the night, didn't draw my returns and that was pretty much it.
Vs Mardu 2-1 Win
Vs B/W/C 1-2 Loss
This match up is horrendous, T2 Transgress, T3 Transgress, into T4 Thought-knot, into smasher GG.
Vs Dark Jeskai 2-0 Win
Steam rolled this match up.
Top 8 vs Mardu Green 0-2 Loss
Nope, duress away my relevant ramp spells in G1 and clocks me with Tasigue and Anafenza, G2, he goes T1 Duress, T2 Trangress and proceeds to shred my hand.
Nope, ramp isn't in a good spot. I mulled a ton, I'm at a stone wall with this deck. Too many decks are packing B based discard + relevant removal for the deck to play to T4. If ramp is going to adjust it needs to focus on more creatures along a smaller curve, which makes it not a ramp deck anymore.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
What is replacing Evolving wilds in your deck?
I think by including evolving wilds you are increasing your chances of T2 ruin in their wake or warping wail into a T3 hedron or vegatation.
I dont know if you have thought about running EV together with Oath but the entire point of running ruin in their wake it to play it T2 as a rampant growth. Taking Evolving Wilds out eliminates the option of playing it Turn one to get a forest or waste to get Ruin out on T2.
Post your most revised list and let us know what you replaced the EVs with.
Before I removed the Evolving Wilds I used a Mana base closer to this:
The deck I posted before is the most recent iteration, minus a change to remove the WF to test the Mana base without them.
As you can see Evolving Wilds is replaced with additional 4 Wastes, which also meant taking out 2 Sanctum to raise my Forest count to an acceptable level of T2 Green. I was on the Evolving Wilds plan before, but disliked how often it was just a bad draw after T1 when it is so important that T2-4 are untapped for curving out into our threats which negates the power of a T2 Ruin.
Evolving Wilds makes Oath worse IF you cast Oath T1, because it makes it harder to grab a Wastes in the Top 3 (just as likely to hit a Wastes as you are a Evolving Wilds). With 8 Wastes in the deck and 0 EV, your chance of an Oath hitting one of the 8 Waste is increased.
I do understand if you just had an Evolving Wilds turn 1 you would use it to fix your T2, and it is possible that I am making an incorrect decision here not running it. Since you could have access to both Evolving Wilds and Oath, even if Oath would have a decreased chance to dig to a Wastes with Evolving Wilds in the deck it should increase your overall percentage of turning on T2 Ruin.
Making sure you have a consistent untapped Mana T2-4 is key to getting your threats online in time. If you manage to get a T2 Ruin/Wail, but have to use an Evolving Wilds for T3 you fail to cast your 4-CMC ramp spell, if you play EV T4 you can't play World Breaker/DL Atarka (though it leaves you up to play Chandra or Oblivion Sower, which isn't bad)
I have had good results with this mana base and believe that my chances of turning on a T2 Ruin is high enough to warrant cutting the Evolving Wilds while keeping consistent untapped mana for the follow up turns, but I may find I am incorrect in the future and put them back in.
Ultimately further testing is required on my part before I can make a final decision. I understand where you are coming from with Evolving Wilds and it is possible that it is the correct way to go in the future.
Have you given any thought to Fertile Thicket as a possible 1-2 of to further increase the chances of an online T2 Ruin? I imagine that increasing the number of CiPT lands is incorrect, but it is something to think about to further increase our chances of having keep-able hands that turn on Ruin. And the ability to look at the top 5, decline the May-Ability of putting a land on top and know that you WON'T draw those 5 cards is a benefit on its own.
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Gang, are their better sideboard cards? Should I move Returns to the side and Main something else?
Sylvan Advocate in place of Jaddi Offshoot has been great for me, he even had a spot in main and might come back. Jaddi is good early for incidental life gain, but Advocate has been excellent at being a beater and holding back my opponents small guys, while being a good top deck late.
Also Dragonlord Atarka has been doing excellent work in main, replacing my Returns, as a way to wipe the board of problem cards (including planeswalkers) and affecting the board as a must-answer threat.
Didnt think about that. Whole reason to run ruin is to be faster, laying down EW T2-5 slows us down.
Hmmm......well, I suppose I'll just take out EW and replace with 4 wastes.
I like Atarka agaisnt Abzan over returns..... maybe only one return.
I'll have to think about advocate.....
without Sanctums this deck loses it's inevitably. Chaining Breakers, and threats is how it grinds down opponents. My Mardu and Jeskai opponents couldn't out grind the sanctum chains without obliterating World Breaker. The fact is, prior to starting the Swiss my friends saw my deck and made meta game calls. My first round loss was to Atarka and as he said, "Nah I didn't want to play Jeskai when you're running this thing". I tested agaisnt Mardu Green earlier and wrecked it, but he drew better in the top 8 match.
I tried playing a few Haven of the spirit Dragon, and it was too cute. Losing the 4th shrine and 4th sanctum stopped me from being able to chain at some points in my match. When Ruin gets on line, it puts pressure on opponents to start deploying their hand.
Either the deck starts to pressure from the get go, or you go the gain life route. I tried the board wipe route, and it's not a great plan. Back to the drawing, and for GP Houston...I have work to do.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
played games day today with my crumble to dust list. I did drop a santum for an haven as I expected there to be some abzan and jeskai B in order to fight duress. IN the end there were none.
It generally played really well, I went 4-0 in swiss won quarters and lost in semis to UR. I crushed him in the 1st game , didn't draw any interaction in g2 where 1 of 4 ugin, 3 chandra, 3 warping wails 3 koz return at any point would have stablized me and g3 mulled to 5 and didn't draw any g source.
The spells we take away from our opponents aren't as good as the ones they take away from ramp decks. 4 Duress in the main sounds overboard. Thought-knot Seer could be fine since it strips away any card, exiles it, and leaves behind a 4/4 body.
On Friday I played Standard at FNM and was very frustrated with the deck as I never seemed to be ramping right. I took Kozilek's Return out of the MB and added more ramp and it felt a lot better on Saturday Game Day, I ended up getting second.
I am still looking to optimize the deck list, I still want one more World Breaker. I am disappointed that Kozilek's Return didn't fit in the main board but the deck seemed more smooth game 1 without it.
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Standard:GR Eldrazi Ramp
Modern: Mono Green Devotion
Here is a list I played at my local GameDay tournament, ended up winning the entire thing(6-1)only losing my first match to Mardu Green due to a unfortunate mulligan and missing two land drops. This list plays really well, although I find myself siding OUT the 4 Oath of Nissa nearly every game for Sylvan Advocate, TKS or Kozilek's Return depending on the matchup// or if I'm on the play or draw. On the play, TKS is better than Sylvan Advocate and additionally people tend to side OUT removal after game one, making the TKS or SA a really nice board option. Jaddi Offshoot is a beast and I can't imagine a better 1 drop for the deck. It does so much work and won me matches against U/R Prowess simply by gaining 4+ life and eating a couple prowess triggers. The Oblivion Sowers were great against Esper Dragons or any deck with Siege Rhinos, any deck that delves with fetchlands provides this guy with a lot of fuel, although I'm considering taking them out for 1 more Chandra and perhaps something else (Depending on if I keep Oath of Nissa). No point in playing Kozilek, The Great Dorito, as Sanctum of Ugin with World Brearker, Ugin and Ulamog can all fuel into the other and there hasn't been a single scenario where I'd rather have found a Kozi. The Hedron archive are nice at a 2 of, it helps you consistently hit that 7-8 mana breakpoint and late game can be used to get more cards. I'd consider main boarding one of my 4 SB cards, but I'm not sure which is better in game one vs the format.
Below is a picture of the 2 foil Wastes and foil Ulamog that brought me to victory, really pretty foils.
More thoughts. If I could find another reasonable 7-8 drop Colorless spell to trigger Kozi Return//Sanctum of Ugin I would replace the Oblivion Sowers with them, but I'm not sure what I could use. The Ruin in Their Wake build is almost certainly the objectively best version of the deck and there is very little consistency issues.
Match 1 - 2-0 Abzan
Nothing to really talk about, ramp perfectly both games and crushed the guy.
Bonus points for him getting mana screwed.
Match 2 - 1-2 Abzan Tokens
Game 1 Ramped fine as his deck was completely week to what our game plan is.
Game 2-3 Got duressed and overall and overall had bad draws with little ramp.
Match 3 - 2-0 Mardu Green
Similar to match 1 end up ramping fine both games and crushed him with world breakers.
Match 4 - Draw in to top 8
Top 8 2-0 B/W Warriors
Both games were dominated by Chandra and Ugin wiping his board. Each time he was not able to recover from there and it was a pretty easy win.
Top 4 2-0 Eldrazi Combo
Ramped into chandra to keep him from having a board and then finished it by breaking his world. Simple match up as we just go to fast for them to be able top combo.
Finals 1-2 Abzan Tokens (same guy)
He was not happy to see me again as we our his worst match up.
Game 1
Ramped into breaker into Ugin then Ulamog. game went by with little difficulty as is an example of how the match up should be most of the time.
Game 2 (game took an hour to play)
Even though i lost world breaker showed how strong he is here with his recursion ability.
Game started off with me getting duress'd and then transgressed which I countered with wail. After words game went pretty slow he played walkers i play Ugin wipe board then he makes more soldiers EoT to kill Ugin. Game continued to be an attrition match until he ult'd Soren. Continued to sack world breaker to Soren then recur him to stone rain him every turn. Game continued with some other minor plays that both of us would have answers to. Eventually he utter ended my last World Breaker (he obliterated the rest earlier well 1 was on the field)at this point i needed to top deck Ugin or Chandra (had 1 left of each), never did and lost.
Game 3
Was first time I got really ramp screwed, hadn't happened all day so was bound to happen. Just did not have the ramp and only drew my top end lost pretty fast. Could have gone differently had I mulled but I still suck at when deciding to mull so theirs room for improvement their.
Overall
Deck felt great and never gad to many issues with lack of mana. If i did i normally had advocate to shore up the early game enough to ramp into my bigger stuff. Though i didn't face any decks i'd consider to be weak against so I guess I was just lucky and had a good day. Only ran 2 explosive as I couldn't get 2 more so I ran 2 archive instead which turned out fine.
Oath - Was always good, helped cast Chandra, got lands you need to threat and was never a truly dead card.
Kozilek's Return - The flash back effect is amazingly relevant in matches where 2 damage is bad so it can feel really weird at those times but overall it did what i wanted it to do, clear board when breaker showed up.
Chandra - Simply amazing and always found it to be relevant in someway
Warping Wail - Did a good job and I really like the card now. Killed a few creatures here and there got rid of blockers or in general some cards that made attacking awkward. Countering effect was great for duress and things like painful truths. The last ability was relevant in the finals game 2 where i made a 1/1 to sac instead of sacing world breaker. Never had to use it as ramp as i normally had another ramp card to cast instead.
I don't think that thought-knot seer is where you want to be, even in the 75. At 4 mana I want a spell that is ramping towards the 6+ cmc spells that are our end game
I think we have established something of a consistence here.
4 Evolving Wilds & 4 Waste goes very well into a package of 4 Ruin in their Wake. Oath of Nissa and Sylvan Advocate is a confirmed 4 of in most decks as well. 4 World Breaker and 2 Ulamog for best count of threat. 2 Ugin and 1 - 2 Chandra as sweepers besides Kozilek's Return. Putting that together
Warping wail was surprisingly versatile and effective for me. Occasionally acting as a two mana ramp spell it also killed it's fair share of creatures and countered a few spells it can also put out a blocker in emergency situations late. It was great early and not terrible late game.
Honestly, I was less impressed with kozilek's return this weekend with Chandra, ugin, and Dragon Lord Atarka I felt like I had enough board wipe against most match ups.
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Standard:GR Eldrazi Ramp
Modern: Mono Green Devotion
Honestly, I was less impressed with kozilek's return this weekend with Chandra, ugin, and Dragon Lord Atarka I felt like I had enough board wipe against most match ups.
One thing Kozilek's return has is the surprise factor in being an instant. I used that today to punish a player playing read when they tried to overextend for the win because I was also able to waste their Temur Battle Rage.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
K Return has been fantastic for me, but there are matchups where I board it out. Surprisingly, the only trouble I had was in the mirror against a slower build that played the new Nissa in the top 8. I had boarded out K Return and Ugin and didn't get Chandra down quick enough to deal with Nissa before -7 in both game 2 and 3 as we both kept countering ramp spells with Warping Wails. Even though I had Thought-Knot into World Breaker relatively quickly, I couldn't get through the blockers in time to stop it and drawing 10 and then 5 proved to be too much, even though I was way ahead in game 3 when he did it.
Warping wail was surprisingly versatile and effective for me. Occasionally acting as a two mana ramp spell it also killed it's fair share of creatures and countered a few spells it can also put out a blocker in emergency situations late. It was great early and not terrible late game.
Same, I'm planning to run 1 lesser now (3 MB) thou because at times when I have it on hand it's only for ramp, other times I drew it it's rather a dead card
Honestly, I was less impressed with kozilek's return this weekend with Chandra, ugin, and Dragon Lord Atarka I felt like I had enough board wipe against most match ups.
Have yet to see a GR Ramp decklist in my LGS... more Rally Players then I expected, with 1 Bant coco, 1 4C rally and 1 Abzan rally as the variance. Only me and a friend plays Eldr4azi (him Bant me GW) and the rest are UR Prowess or Ataka Red.
K Return has been fantastic for me, but there are matchups where I board it out. Surprisingly, the only trouble I had was in the mirror against a slower build that played the new Nissa in the top 8. I had boarded out K Return and Ugin and didn't get Chandra down quick enough to deal with Nissa before -7 in both game 2 and 3 as we both kept countering ramp spells with Warping Wails. Even though I had Thought-Knot into World Breaker relatively quickly, I couldn't get through the blockers in time to stop it and drawing 10 and then 5 proved to be too much, even though I was way ahead in game 3 when he did it.
Honestly, this is how I felt about Koz Return, when it was good it was great but to me that was less than %50 of the time. That is why I opted to put it in my board. My theory is, game one they have less disruption so I just want to go big and get threats out as fast as possible then game 2/3 board in things like koz return or other disruption/removal.
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Standard:GR Eldrazi Ramp
Modern: Mono Green Devotion
Warping wail was surprisingly versatile and effective for me. Occasionally acting as a two mana ramp spell it also killed it's fair share of creatures and countered a few spells it can also put out a blocker in emergency situations late. It was great early and not terrible late game.
Same, I'm planning to run 1 lesser now (3 MB) thou because at times when I have it on hand it's only for ramp, other times I drew it it's rather a dead card
My only issue with running 3 instead of 4 is that it is so good early and I want to make sure I get it especially since it can be more linear late. Late its pretty much a blocker or you hold it for a counter spell. Honestly, because I am RG I can hold them and it helps me draw more cards with Chandra.
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Standard:GR Eldrazi Ramp
Modern: Mono Green Devotion
I think we have established something of a consistence here.
4 Evolving Wilds & 4 Waste goes very well into a package of 4 Ruin in their Wake. Oath of Nissa and Sylvan Advocate is a confirmed 4 of in most decks as well. 4 World Breaker and 2 Ulamog for best count of threat. 2 Ugin and 1 - 2 Chandra as sweepers besides Kozilek's Return. Putting that together
I would count shrine as a definite 4 of. And I have tried different splits. Being able to cast ugin as soon as you hit 7 lands has been pivotal for me.
As soon as you drop your top end down to worldbreaker I can see it being much less important.
I do run 4 oaths and a conduit of ruin to help smooth draws / start chaining to help make up for just 2 sanctums
This is the list I took to Game Day, and my 3rd iteration of the deck. In 3 events (last being gameday) the deck has gone 7-3, and I can honestly say two of the 3 losses were to play errors on my part. The deck is certainly strong. Some thoughts:
I'm thinking of lowering the Wastes count to allow for Evolving Wilds. I was scared of being awkward on Oath of Nissa openers, but in practice the deck has a lot of awkward hands anyway. I'd rather smooth some of that out with EWilds, even if that makes some Oaths stick around in hand for a few turns.
Return of Kozilek in the main is interesting. You actively become worse against the mirror (game 1), but I feel they range from okay to amazing in almost every other MU. Keep in mind that pitching these to Chandra is the best day ever!
Oblivion Sower. I guess it's just been my luck, but I've not yet had the opportunity to tutor for this guy, especially off a World Breaker into Sanctuary of Ugin trigger with only 7 lands. All I ever do is draw him. I'm wavering on replacing this guy with a second Dragonlord Atarka.
I think we need to have at LEAST 3 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in the 75. Conduit of Ruin is GREAT in the mirror, but if your opponent is packing more Ulas than you, then (all else being equal) you're gonna have a bad time.
Chandra, Chandra, Chandra. My god, this card is incredible. I'm going to be moving to 3 in the main, maybe a 4th in the side. There's literally no bad time to see her in my experience, and she is always value. Just be sure to play smart around Siege Rhino.
Next test will involve Sylvan Advocate, since everyone seems to be singing his praises, but I REALLY don't like giving my opponent's ways to interact with me. What do you guys think?
Seeing a lot of mana dorks being used in builds that are placing.
Anyone have experience in testing these builds?
I've gone back to running Rattleclaw's in my list and I'm thinking of adding 2 Hedron Crawler or Leaf Gilder's back in also. I cut the number of Kozilek Return down to 1 in the main and 2 in the sideboard.
For me; going back to running the mana dorks have been worth it. When I've used them (I have gone anywhere from 4 Rattleclaws and 2 Leaf Gilders, to just 4 Rattleclaws); I've been winning almost 70% games that I've played. When I've dropped them completely (I did that the 1st two weeks of Oath) I only won 33% of the games that I played.
Since I'm using mana dorks and not running Ruin in their Wake; I'm not having to run Wastes+Evolving Wilds in the mana base; so my mana base has been more consistent (for me) and I'm back to where I'm more of a 2 color deck instead trying to hit 3 colors (Wastes, Forests, Mountains). Plus I don't need to worry about drawing an Evolving Wild on turn 3 if I ended up keeping a 2 land hand due to having to mulligan down to 5 or 6 cards (which has happened a few times). I can also still end up playing the rattleclaw as a morph if I don't have a forest by turn 3 (which I have done a few times); then pay the morph cost on turn 4 has still given me 6 mana if I hit the land drops each turn. Rattleclaw's has also helped to fix my mana when casting Chandra or DLA since it can tap for R if I don't have 1 or 2 mountains or an Oath in play (for Chandra).
The downside to running mana dorks; as everyone has pointed out; is the fact that they don't play nice with Kozilek's Return. But I'm starting to find that KR; while great against the Atarka Red; is weaker against UR Prowess; Rally and Abzan Aggro in my experience. Since Stormchaser Mage and Reflector Mage both have 3 toughness and so KR doesn't end up killing them when we first cast it. They (mana dorks) also don't play well with Chandra's or Ugin's -X ability; but normally if I have either one of them in play; I'm not worried about killing my own mana dork and I stabilize and take over the board from there.
In my experience so far using them; they haven't faced as much removal as I feared game 1; they will start to eat more removal during game 2 and 3; but then it is removal that they are not using on World Breaker, Ulamog, Ugin or Dragonlord Atarka; which I feel is a fair trade.
I've also used them as a emergency blocker if needed and with the 2 power they can slow down some attackers or I have used 2 to block and then play KR return to kill a Rhino that the other player thought was save to attack me with.
Psy
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Currently Playing:
Jeskai Control:42-23-5 Elves: 44-31-3 Red-Aggro: 18-9-0 B/G Energy 21-6-0
He talks about his 16th place deck in MOCS and the changes he would make if he was registering the deck today. He also talks about his sideboard.
It was a pretty good read and the changes he talks about make sense to me. It helps in my case that my creature base is close to what he is showing with the main difference in the number of Chandra's main and a slightly different ramp package.
Psy
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Currently Playing:
Jeskai Control:42-23-5 Elves: 44-31-3 Red-Aggro: 18-9-0 B/G Energy 21-6-0
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
Matches:
Vs Atarka red 0-2 Loss
Yay, great way to start out the night, didn't draw my returns and that was pretty much it.
Vs Mardu 2-1 Win
Vs B/W/C 1-2 Loss
This match up is horrendous, T2 Transgress, T3 Transgress, into T4 Thought-knot, into smasher GG.
Vs Dark Jeskai 2-0 Win
Steam rolled this match up.
Top 8 vs Mardu Green 0-2 Loss
Nope, duress away my relevant ramp spells in G1 and clocks me with Tasigue and Anafenza, G2, he goes T1 Duress, T2 Trangress and proceeds to shred my hand.
Nope, ramp isn't in a good spot. I mulled a ton, I'm at a stone wall with this deck. Too many decks are packing B based discard + relevant removal for the deck to play to T4. If ramp is going to adjust it needs to focus on more creatures along a smaller curve, which makes it not a ramp deck anymore.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
Didnt think about that. Whole reason to run ruin is to be faster, laying down EW T2-5 slows us down.
Hmmm......well, I suppose I'll just take out EW and replace with 4 wastes.
I like Atarka agaisnt Abzan over returns..... maybe only one return.
I'll have to think about advocate.....
Props to DarkNightCavalier 4 da banner and SGT_Chubbz 4 avvie, here
Standard
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GRWNaya Purphoros
GWAggro Retired 9/19/2014
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Top 4 Channelfireball Winter series 5k Feb. 2011
3rd at California National Qualifiers 2011
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I tried playing a few Haven of the spirit Dragon, and it was too cute. Losing the 4th shrine and 4th sanctum stopped me from being able to chain at some points in my match. When Ruin gets on line, it puts pressure on opponents to start deploying their hand.
The mana should have:
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Wastes
4 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
4 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Mountian
and at least 8-10 Forest you, can use Oath of Nissa to help mitigate early mana issues, if going this route I feel like Jaddi is rather important.
depening on the meta you have to make a decision in the deck building process to shore up the early game,
Jaddi offshoot
Sylvan Advocate
Matter Reshaper
Hangarback Walker
all have upsides. Hangarback can trigger sanctums later in the match.
If you do not go the ruin route, map has great syngery with hangarback walker
Decks that pack hate for ramp:
Mardu Green
Abzan iterations
Bring to Light
Mardu
B/r Dragons
Eldrazi midrange/aggro
Everyone is splashing B for Duress, Transgress the Mind, Infinite Obliteration and in my meta (due to me early success with the deck) Despise.
Either the deck starts to pressure from the get go, or you go the gain life route. I tried the board wipe route, and it's not a great plan. Back to the drawing, and for GP Houston...I have work to do.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
played games day today with my crumble to dust list. I did drop a santum for an haven as I expected there to be some abzan and jeskai B in order to fight duress. IN the end there were none.
It generally played really well, I went 4-0 in swiss won quarters and lost in semis to UR. I crushed him in the 1st game , didn't draw any interaction in g2 where 1 of 4 ugin, 3 chandra, 3 warping wails 3 koz return at any point would have stablized me and g3 mulled to 5 and didn't draw any g source.
EDH: Rakdos, Lord of Riots
4 Sylvan Advocate
1 Oblivion Sower
2 Dragonlord Atarka
3 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Spells
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Warping Wail
2 Ruin in Their Wake
2 Nissa's Pilgrimage
1 Nissa's Renewal
4 Explosive Vegetation
2 Hedron Archive
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Mountain
4 Waste
4 Evolving Wild
4 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
7 Forrest
I am still looking to optimize the deck list, I still want one more World Breaker. I am disappointed that Kozilek's Return didn't fit in the main board but the deck seemed more smooth game 1 without it.
Modern: Mono Green Devotion
4 Jaddi Offshoot
2 Oblivion Sower
4 World Breaker
3 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Planeswalkers (3)
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
2 Ugin, The Spirit Dragon
Lands (26)
9 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Wastes
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
Spells (18)
2 Hedron Archive
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Explosive Vegetation
4 Nissa's Pilgrimage
4 Ruin in Their Wake
Sideboard
2 Conduit of Ruin
1 Void Winnower
4 Kozilek's Return
4 Sylvan Advocate
4 Thought-Knot Seer
Below is a picture of the 2 foil Wastes and foil Ulamog that brought me to victory, really pretty foils.
More thoughts. If I could find another reasonable 7-8 drop Colorless spell to trigger Kozi Return//Sanctum of Ugin I would replace the Oblivion Sowers with them, but I'm not sure what I could use. The Ruin in Their Wake build is almost certainly the objectively best version of the deck and there is very little consistency issues.
4 Sylvan Advocate
4 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Spells
4 Oath of Nissa
2 Warping Wail
4 Ruin in Their Wake
3 Nissa's Pilgrimage
2 Explosive Vegetation
2 Hedron Archive
3 Kozilek's Return
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Land
2 Mountain
4 Waste
4 Evolving Wild
3 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
9 Forrest
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 Void Winnower
2 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Kozilek's Return
3 Roast
3 Jaddi Offshoot
1 Rending Volley
2 Winds of Qal Sisma
1 Crumble to Dust
Match 1 - 2-0 Abzan
Nothing to really talk about, ramp perfectly both games and crushed the guy.
Bonus points for him getting mana screwed.
Match 2 - 1-2 Abzan Tokens
Game 1 Ramped fine as his deck was completely week to what our game plan is.
Game 2-3 Got duressed and overall and overall had bad draws with little ramp.
Match 3 - 2-0 Mardu Green
Similar to match 1 end up ramping fine both games and crushed him with world breakers.
Match 4 - Draw in to top 8
Top 8 2-0 B/W Warriors
Both games were dominated by Chandra and Ugin wiping his board. Each time he was not able to recover from there and it was a pretty easy win.
Top 4 2-0 Eldrazi Combo
Ramped into chandra to keep him from having a board and then finished it by breaking his world. Simple match up as we just go to fast for them to be able top combo.
Finals 1-2 Abzan Tokens (same guy)
He was not happy to see me again as we our his worst match up.
Game 1
Ramped into breaker into Ugin then Ulamog. game went by with little difficulty as is an example of how the match up should be most of the time.
Game 2 (game took an hour to play)
Even though i lost world breaker showed how strong he is here with his recursion ability.
Game started off with me getting duress'd and then transgressed which I countered with wail. After words game went pretty slow he played walkers i play Ugin wipe board then he makes more soldiers EoT to kill Ugin. Game continued to be an attrition match until he ult'd Soren. Continued to sack world breaker to Soren then recur him to stone rain him every turn. Game continued with some other minor plays that both of us would have answers to. Eventually he utter ended my last World Breaker (he obliterated the rest earlier well 1 was on the field)at this point i needed to top deck Ugin or Chandra (had 1 left of each), never did and lost.
Game 3
Was first time I got really ramp screwed, hadn't happened all day so was bound to happen. Just did not have the ramp and only drew my top end lost pretty fast. Could have gone differently had I mulled but I still suck at when deciding to mull so theirs room for improvement their.
Overall
Deck felt great and never gad to many issues with lack of mana. If i did i normally had advocate to shore up the early game enough to ramp into my bigger stuff. Though i didn't face any decks i'd consider to be weak against so I guess I was just lucky and had a good day. Only ran 2 explosive as I couldn't get 2 more so I ran 2 archive instead which turned out fine.
Oath - Was always good, helped cast Chandra, got lands you need to threat and was never a truly dead card.
Kozilek's Return - The flash back effect is amazingly relevant in matches where 2 damage is bad so it can feel really weird at those times but overall it did what i wanted it to do, clear board when breaker showed up.
Chandra - Simply amazing and always found it to be relevant in someway
Warping Wail - Did a good job and I really like the card now. Killed a few creatures here and there got rid of blockers or in general some cards that made attacking awkward. Countering effect was great for duress and things like painful truths. The last ability was relevant in the finals game 2 where i made a 1/1 to sac instead of sacing world breaker. Never had to use it as ramp as i normally had another ramp card to cast instead.
I don't think that thought-knot seer is where you want to be, even in the 75. At 4 mana I want a spell that is ramping towards the 6+ cmc spells that are our end game
4 Evolving Wilds & 4 Waste goes very well into a package of 4 Ruin in their Wake. Oath of Nissa and Sylvan Advocate is a confirmed 4 of in most decks as well. 4 World Breaker and 2 Ulamog for best count of threat. 2 Ugin and 1 - 2 Chandra as sweepers besides Kozilek's Return. Putting that together
4 Evolving Waste
4 Waste
2 Mountain
7 Forest
3 Shrine of the Forsaken God
3 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Sylvan Advocate
4 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Ramp Package
2 Explosive Vegetation
4 Ruin in their Wake
2 Nissa's Pilgrimage
2 Hedron Archive
4 Oath of Nissa
(Can Varies from 2 - 4 or 3 - 4 except for Mountain in this shell)
Which leaves us 2 Land slot (in a 25 land list), 11 more open slots in our main 60 if we only run the above.
Only variance is Oblivion Sowers, Conduit of Ruins, Warping Wail and Spatial Contortion.
How has Warping Wail played out in most of your match ups? I'm interested in finding out what are the most commonly used mode of the "Eldrazi Charm".
Edit : Also forget to include the Ramp Decklist on top 32 on MOCS
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Creature (18)
2 Hedron Crawler
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
3 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
3 Whisperer of the Wilds
4 World Breaker
Sorcery (8)
4 Explosive Vegetation
4 Nissa's Pilgrimage
4 Hedron Archive
Enchantment (4)
4 Oath of Nissa
Land (24)
1 Crumbling Vestige
14 Forest
4 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
1 Wastes
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
3 Hangarback Walker
4 Jaddi Offshoot
2 Reclaiming Vines
2 Spatial Contortion
3 Winds of Qal Sisma
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Creature (14)
2 Dragonlord Atarka
3 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Sylvan Advocate
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 World Breaker
Sorcery (8)
4 Explosive Vegetation
4 Nissa's Pilgrimage
2 Kozilek's Return
Artifact (2)
2 Hedron Archive
Enchantment (4)
4 Oath of Nissa
Land (25)
1 Blighted Woodland
2 Cinder Glade
10 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Kozilek's Return
2 Cranial Archive
4 Jaddi Offshoot
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 Radiant Flames
3 Roast
1 Void Winnower
RWW Eldrazi Goggles
Honestly, I was less impressed with kozilek's return this weekend with Chandra, ugin, and Dragon Lord Atarka I felt like I had enough board wipe against most match ups.
Modern: Mono Green Devotion
One thing Kozilek's return has is the surprise factor in being an instant. I used that today to punish a player playing read when they tried to overextend for the win because I was also able to waste their Temur Battle Rage.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Modern: UW Spirits
Same, I'm planning to run 1 lesser now (3 MB) thou because at times when I have it on hand it's only for ramp, other times I drew it it's rather a dead card
Have yet to see a GR Ramp decklist in my LGS... more Rally Players then I expected, with 1 Bant coco, 1 4C rally and 1 Abzan rally as the variance. Only me and a friend plays Eldr4azi (him Bant me GW) and the rest are UR Prowess or Ataka Red.
RWW Eldrazi Goggles
Honestly, this is how I felt about Koz Return, when it was good it was great but to me that was less than %50 of the time. That is why I opted to put it in my board. My theory is, game one they have less disruption so I just want to go big and get threats out as fast as possible then game 2/3 board in things like koz return or other disruption/removal.
Modern: Mono Green Devotion
My only issue with running 3 instead of 4 is that it is so good early and I want to make sure I get it especially since it can be more linear late. Late its pretty much a blocker or you hold it for a counter spell. Honestly, because I am RG I can hold them and it helps me draw more cards with Chandra.
Modern: Mono Green Devotion
Modern: UW Spirits
I would count shrine as a definite 4 of. And I have tried different splits. Being able to cast ugin as soon as you hit 7 lands has been pivotal for me.
As soon as you drop your top end down to worldbreaker I can see it being much less important.
I do run 4 oaths and a conduit of ruin to help smooth draws / start chaining to help make up for just 2 sanctums
Anyone have experience in testing these builds?
Props to DarkNightCavalier 4 da banner and SGT_Chubbz 4 avvie, here
Standard
GRAggro
GRWNaya Purphoros
GWAggro Retired 9/19/2014
RGPrimeval Titan RIP
1/5/2010 - 9/30/2011
Top 4 Channelfireball Winter series 5k Feb. 2011
3rd at California National Qualifiers 2011
40th at GP SLC 2012
Find me on MTGO @ Ruslvmusl91
4 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Oblivion Sower
1 Dragonlord Atarka
Planeswalkers (4)
2 Ugin, The Spirit Dragon
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
Ramp (12)
4 Ruin in their Wake
4 Explosive Vegetation
4 Hedron Archive
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Warping Wail
3 Kozilek's Return
Lands (25)
4 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Mountain
12 Forest
7 Wastes
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Kozilek's Return
2 Roast
2 Rending Volley
4 Jaddi Offshoot
2 Conduit of Ruin
2 Cranial Archive
This is the list I took to Game Day, and my 3rd iteration of the deck. In 3 events (last being gameday) the deck has gone 7-3, and I can honestly say two of the 3 losses were to play errors on my part. The deck is certainly strong. Some thoughts:
I'm thinking of lowering the Wastes count to allow for Evolving Wilds. I was scared of being awkward on Oath of Nissa openers, but in practice the deck has a lot of awkward hands anyway. I'd rather smooth some of that out with EWilds, even if that makes some Oaths stick around in hand for a few turns.
Return of Kozilek in the main is interesting. You actively become worse against the mirror (game 1), but I feel they range from okay to amazing in almost every other MU. Keep in mind that pitching these to Chandra is the best day ever!
Oblivion Sower. I guess it's just been my luck, but I've not yet had the opportunity to tutor for this guy, especially off a World Breaker into Sanctuary of Ugin trigger with only 7 lands. All I ever do is draw him. I'm wavering on replacing this guy with a second Dragonlord Atarka.
I think we need to have at LEAST 3 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in the 75. Conduit of Ruin is GREAT in the mirror, but if your opponent is packing more Ulas than you, then (all else being equal) you're gonna have a bad time.
Chandra, Chandra, Chandra. My god, this card is incredible. I'm going to be moving to 3 in the main, maybe a 4th in the side. There's literally no bad time to see her in my experience, and she is always value. Just be sure to play smart around Siege Rhino.
Next test will involve Sylvan Advocate, since everyone seems to be singing his praises, but I REALLY don't like giving my opponent's ways to interact with me. What do you guys think?
I've gone back to running Rattleclaw's in my list and I'm thinking of adding 2 Hedron Crawler or Leaf Gilder's back in also. I cut the number of Kozilek Return down to 1 in the main and 2 in the sideboard.
For me; going back to running the mana dorks have been worth it. When I've used them (I have gone anywhere from 4 Rattleclaws and 2 Leaf Gilders, to just 4 Rattleclaws); I've been winning almost 70% games that I've played. When I've dropped them completely (I did that the 1st two weeks of Oath) I only won 33% of the games that I played.
Since I'm using mana dorks and not running Ruin in their Wake; I'm not having to run Wastes+Evolving Wilds in the mana base; so my mana base has been more consistent (for me) and I'm back to where I'm more of a 2 color deck instead trying to hit 3 colors (Wastes, Forests, Mountains). Plus I don't need to worry about drawing an Evolving Wild on turn 3 if I ended up keeping a 2 land hand due to having to mulligan down to 5 or 6 cards (which has happened a few times). I can also still end up playing the rattleclaw as a morph if I don't have a forest by turn 3 (which I have done a few times); then pay the morph cost on turn 4 has still given me 6 mana if I hit the land drops each turn. Rattleclaw's has also helped to fix my mana when casting Chandra or DLA since it can tap for R if I don't have 1 or 2 mountains or an Oath in play (for Chandra).
The downside to running mana dorks; as everyone has pointed out; is the fact that they don't play nice with Kozilek's Return. But I'm starting to find that KR; while great against the Atarka Red; is weaker against UR Prowess; Rally and Abzan Aggro in my experience. Since Stormchaser Mage and Reflector Mage both have 3 toughness and so KR doesn't end up killing them when we first cast it. They (mana dorks) also don't play well with Chandra's or Ugin's -X ability; but normally if I have either one of them in play; I'm not worried about killing my own mana dork and I stabilize and take over the board from there.
In my experience so far using them; they haven't faced as much removal as I feared game 1; they will start to eat more removal during game 2 and 3; but then it is removal that they are not using on World Breaker, Ulamog, Ugin or Dragonlord Atarka; which I feel is a fair trade.
I've also used them as a emergency blocker if needed and with the 2 power they can slow down some attackers or I have used 2 to block and then play KR return to kill a Rhino that the other player thought was save to attack me with.
Psy
Jeskai Control:42-23-5
Elves: 44-31-3
Red-Aggro: 18-9-0
B/G Energy 21-6-0
Previous Played:
G/r Ramp:125-72-3 - Bant CoCo:64-24-2 - Jeskai Saheeli: 62-25-4 - Mono Green Eldrazi: 22-11-2
Bant Aggro: 51-27-6 - U/W/g Midrange: 47-24-1 - Bant: 4-3-0
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/32403_Return-Of-The-Ramp.html#comments
Props to DarkNightCavalier 4 da banner and SGT_Chubbz 4 avvie, here
Standard
GRAggro
GRWNaya Purphoros
GWAggro Retired 9/19/2014
RGPrimeval Titan RIP
1/5/2010 - 9/30/2011
Top 4 Channelfireball Winter series 5k Feb. 2011
3rd at California National Qualifiers 2011
40th at GP SLC 2012
Find me on MTGO @ Ruslvmusl91
It was a pretty good read and the changes he talks about make sense to me. It helps in my case that my creature base is close to what he is showing with the main difference in the number of Chandra's main and a slightly different ramp package.
Psy
Jeskai Control:42-23-5
Elves: 44-31-3
Red-Aggro: 18-9-0
B/G Energy 21-6-0
Previous Played:
G/r Ramp:125-72-3 - Bant CoCo:64-24-2 - Jeskai Saheeli: 62-25-4 - Mono Green Eldrazi: 22-11-2
Bant Aggro: 51-27-6 - U/W/g Midrange: 47-24-1 - Bant: 4-3-0