Shambling Vent is not ideal for this type of mana-hungry deck. Nothing feels worse than getting beat down only to draw have your third land come into play tapped. A few marsh flats should be played in order to fetch up a basic (for blood moon) or a dual BW land. Blood moon is a huge problem for this deck. The mana base is streched really thin due to the tidehollow sculler.
@JurK
You need to play 24 lands that is non negotiable. Besides that your land distrubtion is fine, however I much prefer Field of ruin and wastes in the deck, gives you a few % vs bloodmoon and if field of ruin is your only colourless source it doesnt take you off colourless. Also I would play fetches or blood moon is just auto lose.
Reality Smasher is the best card and you should never go below 4.
Relics are bad, even vs dredge. I would rather play more RiP in sideboard. I've had way more success since removing Relics from my maindeck.
There is no reason you should play dismember, cast down is just better.
You need some maindeck answers to Bridge and Moon like ratchet bomb and anguished unmaking.
Fulminator mage is pointless, since all the decks that it's good vs like dredge and scapeshift are 10% matchups anyway.
Interesting list! I was never a fan of the relic lists and created this thread when the relevant eldrazi were printed as a more midrange varient to the processor version at the time, but the deck never really took off:
I did pretty well at FNM with it, but didn't really play in any larger tourneys. However, I haven't played <>BW eldrazi in a while and I am glad that you are doing well with your list. Why don't you run any fatal push?
I felt that the deck could be either explosive or clunky at times and it really needed a way to filter draws. I would almost try a version without lingering souls (as crazy as that may sound!) since it feels like you are compeating against casting an eldrazi or lingering souls during turn 3. I would change up the deck to make it a bit more consistent and find some card draw.
As an aside, how does Kaya, Orzhov Usurper play out in the processor version of this deck?
This is the MB im testing right now, but only had in Paper so no MTGO, i change the mana base to have 23 lands and add the 4th TS, still in the control side using Blight Herders + Sorin, maybe i will purchase some mutavaults to test the agro version, but righ now with the rise of Eldrazi Tron, and the victory from Affinity in GP Vegas after people "forgot it" i didnt want to take off the GQ.
How is the remove of fetchlands working in the manabase for the people who take them out ? Budget reason or 4x Concealed Courtyard work better ?
I presonaly like 3-4 marsh flats because they help with fatal push, thin our deck, and help with blood moon. Concealed Courtyard is great if your run a lot of discard, but is pretty disappointing mid game. I run a 3/4 split with flats/courtyard.
This one can eat Tidehollow Sculler or Mutavault and has
bonus synergy with Wasteland Strangler (exiling Cards). Also i do need
an additional Creature with Lifelink because my Meta is Merfolk, Goblins, Burn,
Death's Shadow and Affinity
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is a great card, but has horrible synnergy with path and anguished. You are probably better off adding a single planeswalker (either liliana, the new gideon, etc.) to give your deck more depth and the ability to attack from different angles.
Hey guys. Im new to this deck. So far I really like it. I have a couple of questions. First, I was just wondering how were you dealing with Blood Moon or Valakut ? There is many Ponza, Storm (with Blood Moon) and Valakut in my meta. Seem pretty rough...
Also, Im playing a list with no Mutavault but with GQ and Shambling. Which MU would be improve if I switch for the Mutavault decklist? Here is my decklist. Any advices would be appreciated. Thanks
Ponza is a complete nightmare. I have played against the deck 4 or 5 times and lost handley every time.
Valakut is also a nightmare, but not as bad as ponza.
The key against those decks is to disrupt them turn 1 (and hopefully turn 2 with tidehollow sculler) then apply as much pressure as possible. Your best play would be: turn 1 iok, turn 2 tidehollow, turn 3 reality smasher or thought-knot seer.
I would put more thoughtseize in your main deck (probably 4) and if you don't have them, put some appetite for brains (or even duress). Maybe even try out gideon of the trials. I figure that card would be decent against valakut.
I would also cut ratchet bomb from the mainboard. Unless you have a lot of wide creature decks at your LGS.
I think your getting confused. The 10th place deck did not run vault, Lilliana's. These are different types of decks.
Yeah, my bad! I think that I opened up the same deck in multiple tabs and didn't realize it!
The 10th place deck is running the eldrazi displacer and tidehollow sculler version that used to run!! Yay! I am a big fan of that deck. Eldrazi displacer has a lot of synergy with this deck with all of the enter the battlefield triggers and it can tap down the opponents board. Knight of glory is a really interesting choice and doesn't have synergy with lingering souls but is amazing with all of the fatal pushes and death's shadows running around.
The common theme between the decks that have placed well recently is that:
Thinking to test a similar version with Marsh Flats with Blight Herders instead Smashers and 2 Sorins instead the Glory-Bound.
4 relics and 4 Tormod's Crypt in the sideboard?!?!?!? Is the meta online that graveyard dependent?
Is Glory-Bound Initiate any good? The 3 power is no joke and drastically speeds up our clock. Does anybody have any experience with glory-bound in this deck? Glory-bound does fill out our lack of 2-drops.
Maybe cast out is a good fit for this deck? Cycling is decent and it takes care of karn, etc.
I'm no math genius and I may well have made some mistakes with my assumptions. If so I'd be interested to hear where I went wrong. But Karsten would suggest that you need something on the order of TWENTY BW duals to get Sculler out on curve 90% of the time with reasonable mulligan parameters. Running a single Swamp, a single Plains, and a single Fetid Heath would be functionally identical to running only duals in terms of casting BW spells. But, if you double up on any basics or on Heath then the odds get worse, not better. (Urborg would help with Liliana or board wipes, but not with Sculler.) Is Sculler worth gimping our manabase like this? It leaves room for only Temples and Caves and one Heath for C... and then we can no longer cast TKS on-curve on T4 reliably.
Twenty duals is correct according to Frank's math. I agree with you previously here.
I haven't played this deck for a few months (4 now??) since I just wanted to try out another deck. Plus, I felt that my bw eldrazi midrange brew was better but graveyard hate is amazing right now. I used to run tidehollow, then I hated him, then I loved him... it was not a healthy relationship. Against some decks, he is amazing. You can use him with eldrazi displacer to create a lock on the opponents draw step. The biggest drawback is that he dies to every single creature in the format and is not a great late game top-deck. He lead to a lot of games that were amazing, curving into tidehollow, hitting wasteland strangler, then thought-knot seer. But most games he would come down and I couldn't do anything to actaully stop the opponent.
I am glad that the bw processor deck is starting to get results. Joe's deck is just weird to me. Shriekmaw is an interesting addition and Mutavault is hands-down better than shambling vent. He had some really weird card choices:
Blessed Alliance - collective brutality is just better against burn. The untap mode could be relevant though. If you are expecting to face a lot of reality smashers, then I would pack this in the sideboard.
Only 4 discard spells? This deck wants to put the opponents card into the graveyard.
With the low number of discard spells and bad manabase, the deck literally doesn't do anything pro-active until it hits 3 mana. This is why we added mind stone to the deck. It gives us a higher probability to hit 3 mana as well as landing thought-knot seer on turn 3.
Tidehollow sculler is horrible with that manabase. Why would I cast tidehollow on turn 3+ when I could cast lingering souls, thought-knot, or anything else in the deck?
His build was built to curve out entirely and just drop the lategame entirely.
Sculler is such a bad topdeck, it's ridicolous.
Even worse, his Manabase is jank. Like total jank.
The real good idea we could take from him is that Ghost Quarter is no fit for the Meta at the moment. Mutavault fits much better - thats it.
This deck's success is built upon the right opening hand, good sideboarding and an extensive knowledge of the Modern-Metagame.
Nothing else is needed for succeeding.
I agree that ghost quarter is bad right now and it is just bad for this deck. Ghost quarter puts us back a turn, which is not something we want to do.
Last two tournaments lost all matches, although were about to win when they topdecked a kill. Sad but I will tweak my sideboard to better answer my metagame. Tomorrow I will switch from smashers to Herders and let you know how it goes.
Topdeck's happen. That is one of the main problems with discard spells when compared to counter-magic --- you cannot stop a top-deck. With all the affinity, merfolk, junk running around your meta game you might want to up the sweepers to 2. Maybe try an engineered explosives if you have it. Or just put in an additional damnation, wrath of god, or day of judgment.
You could put a sweeper mainboard to have better game 1 matchups. I wouldn't recommend this for an unknown meta though.
1-2 vs affinity, missing my thrid land drop g1 and drawing 10 lands and 6 spells g3.
2-0 vs Burn, not close. Given that we were in the 0-1 bracket I gave my opponent the friendly advice not to overboard into situational cards like Deflecting Palm, but he does not heed my advice and dies g2 with 2 of them in hand.
2-0 vs Zoo, bad hands for the matchup but played with a cool head and wasn't afraid to trade my TKS for a narnarm renegade when it was necessary. Played around Atarka's command at all times, and never feared the top of his deck. I play that deck, I know what its capabilities and its limitations are.
2-0 vs burn, Won game 2 at one. Made sure to take lines that would end up with my life at 5 with lethal for the next turn through searing blaze. the most damage he could possibly draw is boros charm, and draw it he did. gotta make your own luck, against decks like burn you can find lines even if they require you to take more damage earlier. your life is a resource, use it, dont be afraid.
2-1 vs Abzan, game 1 mulliganned a hand with seize, 2 souls and 2 sorin. Felt it was too weak against anything but jundy decks, and mulled to nearly the same hand but without the souls. Even though I got punished, on the blind it was a fine mulligan, especially because of my strength in games 2 and 3 vs abzan. My opponent was tilted and misplayed in subsequent games, but the writing was already on the wall and it did little to affect the outcome.
2-0 vs Death's Shadow, this was a breeze. g2 I had the gq interaction I mentioned, and later on in that game I made attacks that were sure to present lethal on the next turn and keep his life just high enough that a topdecked street wraith cycled into another street wraith into a temur battle rage would leave me at 1
2-1 vs valakut. was dead game 1 to any cards off the top other than valakut, forest, and khalani heart expedition for 2 turns. He drew forest forest and I stole it. game 2 I got crushed by a courser into a fast primetime. once they get multiple valakuts going the game is over. G3 I curved sculler into sculler into fulminator and never cracked the fulm. if they have 7 lands and draw scapeshift, you can destroy a mountain (not valakut) and stop 15 of the 18 damage coming your way due to the intervening if clause on valaukut that checks your other mountain count both when the trigger goes on the stack and tries to resolve. Dont crack your fulminator unless they for example have 5 lands and you can keep them off primetime for a turn, the 2 damage clock is important. Hard matchup, you need to do a lot of math and cost/benefit analysis
Seed #1 going into the top 8, we almost split but one guy didnt want to (which saved me from having to make the hard choice, do I split and just go home or be the ******** who makes everyone play?)
Quarters against affinity. G1 I had a good draw against his medium draw, and was able to chump with lingering souls while beating down long enough to survive any crazy draws, like a second ravager or a master of etherium. he had glint nest crane, which I am glad to see on the other side of the table given the alternatives. I was also likely dead to a line he could have taken involving poisoning me over 2 turns and praying i dont draw path/push/gq/souls, but he took the low risk low reward line. He regretted it, and I agreed that he should have gone for it instead of waiting. g2 I drew both zealous, and although one was enough to put me way ahead, the second one saved us from having to do combat math. 2-0
Semi's Bant Eldratzi. this deck is very different than ours, we are the control player for sure. landing the first tks is big tho, and they have access to way more tricks. g1 was easy, I tore up his hand and board and easily raced a smasher. G2 I have the hardest sculler of the day, with a wrath in hand I know he will eventually get the card back. He has drowner, smasher, and worship, and 3 lands in play, one being a temple. I took the worship, knowing I would need to draw a second wrath and a shambling vents to be able to beat it waaay down the line. My hope was that he would whiff on land for turn and I would be able to pressure him enough to deprive him of the opportunity to ever play the worship profitably, or find a processor in time. he got the land i hoped to fade and curved smasher into drowner, which I was ready for with my wrath. my wrath puts the worship back into his hand, and with 2 path in hand i know my line is to kill him before he draws scion producers. he draws skyspawner of course and that plus an noble and worship means his fortress is impenatrable. I get him to one and have to draw a zealous before he draws a bigger than 1 toughness guy or outright kills me, and he finds a drowner. g3 I curve relic into strangler (kills his displacer) into souls into blight herder, which is way more than his "low energy" reality smashers can swing into while I assainate him with the spirit of Gene Wilder (courtesy of RK Post)in the air.
Finals. Bant Eldrazi again. It was late so we split the finals, taking home 600 bucks cash and an invite each. Given that I was top seed coming in I got top billing
So I went 8-1 in matches, 16-4 in games. Deck is great, I have changed nothing since the event, even though I've played in a couple fnm-type events since (2-1 and 4-0). Ask me anything, except why Smasher is so much worse than Herder, I've beaten that poor ghoulsteed to life by now.
1st place and you beat valakut?!!? Even zoo? Those matchups can be very, very horrible. Congrads man!
Extra T1 discard is real, real good--I had room for 5 in that build, compared to 3 in my current deck. This helped a lot against some combo decks I played.
Sculler is extremely good as a T2 play followed by T3 Strangler, but it is very greedy in the manabase--I felt I only had room for 6 colorless-only lands (4x Temple and 2x GQ). No Cavern, no Vault, no Wreckage, one less GQ.
When using Herder, it is much harder to side out Relics. Herder is greedy for processing fodder, and it is so hard to get without Relic in play. This leads to keeping Relic in the 60 post-SB even in cases where its only function is to enable Herder instead of to interfere with the opponent's plans. No bueno.
Herder is still an amazing play when it processes. But it is still challenging to turn that on sometimes. Sculler and Path aren't really enough, especially if you're also trying to get value out of Strangler a turn or two before you're trying to also get value out of Herder. This makes me wonder about swapping out one Relic for a main-deck Surgical Extraction which can often get 4 cards into exile very early on, especially with all the hand disruption. It can also occasionally shut an opponent down if they have a key primary wincon (Bridge in Lantern, Titan in RG Valakut decks, etc.)
I definitely missed haste and trample in a couple of situations (against Nahiri and other planeswalkers, when at 3 and topdecking vs. Burn).
Working hypothesis: The choice of 5-drop finisher is meta-dependent. Corollary: Smasher and Sculler don't fit into the same deck. Herder is higher ceiling in some matchups (vs. control, vs. Suspend decks, vs. lots of targeted removal, vs. Blood Moon) and Smasher is higher ceiling in others (vs. Burn, vs. planeswalkers, oftentimes in late-game topdeck wars). Herder is lower floor though overall, because it's really pretty bad compared to Smasher if it doesn't process.
I'll probably keep testing the Sculler/Herder build, right now the jury (in my courtroom at least) is out. The crucial factor might turn out to be how much control and combo I start to see--Herder and lots of hand disruption are both very good against these decks.
Glad to see you finally testing out tidehollow sculler!!!!!!! You really need to add some eldrazi displacers to the deck so you can do the displacer + tidehollow combo on their draw step. I feel that wasteland strangler is a good card and amazing when you curve out. However, it is not a great end-game top-deck card and not the greatest at pushing your guys through their defenses. Displacer, on the other hand, is a great card throughout the game. It is extremly powerful to be able to flicker their creatures on their turn and freely attack the following turn. If you want to give tidehollow a fair shot, I would try something like this:
Or something from a previous post when I was brewing with fatal push.
I should add that I think that tidehollow is in a REALLY bad spot right now. Too many fatal pushes and k-command's running around.
I am also glad that people are starting to add more discard to the main board. It was always weird to me that people started cutting thoughtseize and iok. We want to get cards in their graveyard to exile then process. It is a core part of the deck. I would say that 6 discard spells is mandatory for a processor deck. With the iteration of the deck that I listed above, you have 9 ways to get in the opponents hand. That should be a nightmare for control.
I had a lot of fun with it and went 2-1-1 as follows:
1-1 vs Abzan Coco/GW Hatebears rogue brew (tough, actually went to turns and drew) [EDIT: Turns out this was Abzan Cocowisp, another deck under development in the mtgsalvation forums. Can be found here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/686228-abzan-cocowisp]
2-0 vs Mono White Humans Aggro
2-0 vs Ad Nauseum (seemed like a very favourable match-up. Wasteland strangler ate a lotus bloom and burped it out of the exile zone g1. g2 Inquisition on phyrezian unlife into surgical extraction seemed to do the trick).
1-2 vs Jund (I don't know either. I thought this would be a more favourable match-up but apparently Kalitas messes up our Matter Reshapers and that lifegain puts them back up from behind the game. Found myself wishing I had Anguished Unmaking instead of Oblivion Ring. In future, I will have more dismembers and less discard in the SB and will board out the reshapers purely because of kalitas).
[EDIT: There were around 23 players and I ended up 8th overall.]
I will probably be trying the deck again at the next fnm
If anyone could give me some pointers on sideboarding with this deck or if anyone could lead me to some pointers, it would be very much appreciated.
Otherwise, any tips on improving my list and grinding out Jund/Abzan midrange would be very much appreciated (I'm very aggro oriented and inexperienced with a deck like ours).
I briefly recall seeing Eldrazi Displacer discussed over here but the consensus seemed to be that we want Lingering Souls over it despite the pseudo-lock with thought-knot seer, because Lingering Souls helps us trade more favourably and on our own terms with other midrange decks and helps chump aggro? I can definitely see the logic behind that but I was wondering if someone hasn't tried a version with displacer and found themselves liking it at all? (I saw this video with Corbin Hosler playing a Mardu variant that ran Eldrazi Displacer with Hangarback Walker so that has got my attention: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13671&writer=Corbin Hosler&articledate=12-12-2016)
Other than that, thank you all for developing this really neat, under-appreciated deck and let's hope we can push this thing closer to the top of the charts!
To me, your sideboard is a mess. We don't really need any additional graveyard hate because we run relics mainboard. If you are trying to ghost quarter tron's land then use surgical extraction that is your call. To me adding surgical dilutes the deck to much. With Tron we want to rip apart their hand with thoughtseize AND apply pressure. You can look at some previous posts here where deaddrift and I discussed the Tron matchup.
You can also tone down the number of life gain cards in your sideboard. Collective brutality is the best card (by far) that we have against burn. It absolutely wrecks them. All three modes are relevant. If you have 2 (total) you should be okay. I think that deaddrift talked about the sideboard more in depth than the primer in a previous post, but I cannot remember for sure.
FWIW, Blood Moon decks seem to be pretty popular right now; I played eight matches on cockatrice this morning and four of them featured that card from my opponent, all maindeck. I believe Moon is showing up in league results as well. Which is smart, because the card is real good right now. Make sure you are ready for it, is my advice. If you see T1 Temple of Triumph it could as easily be Sun & Moon as Ad Nauseam. Beware of opponents fetching basics in general too, of course.
Gonna hold off on Lili V for now, for the reasons stated above. Also, I definitely do not feel like I want to lose the Relics, as they are a major part of this deck's gameplay. Push remains as a three-of main, with three Paths main, and one more in the side. I took out the maindeck Surgical Extraction, though, as I have been seriously reconsidering the wisdom of running 61 cards. Plus, Extraction is really pretty bad overall; it has a "high ceiling" for sure, but most matchups don't actually put us in the right room for that, so to speak.
Lastly, so far, Endless One has been pretty decent. There really isn't that much Fatal Push running around out there, actually, so it's 0 CMC cost is less of a downside. However, it does get wiped by sweepers like Engineered Explosives and Ratchet Bomb that opponents are likely to bring in for our tokens anyway, so there is that downside.
I've noticed and uptick in Blood moon myself as well as skred decks. Celestial purge is a great sideboard card now.
Hello everyone! Long time lurker here. I have been following this thread since before the banning of Eye and I have finally assembled the deck myself (I have a limited budget as a student).
My list is largely based on deaddrift's list with only a few minor tweaks. This is my first modern deck and my experience with the format is very limited, though I have always enjoyed playing midrange decks in standard.
My manabase might be wrong. I like running Wastes in the main instead of it taking up a sideboard slot but this might be incorrect. Also, I'm not sure wether or not I should drop the Concealed Courtyard or a Caves of Koilos and add a second Shambling Vent. I might also be too light on basics...
I would love to find room for the last copies of Path to Exile and Fatal Push in the sideboard but I am unsure of what to cut. I feel like the matchups where we need Surgical Extraction are so bad that I am reluctant to go below 3 copies. This might also be wrong though. I haven't fully grasped my local meta yet so I might also make changes later based on that.
Also, I really wish that I could find room for the fourth copy of Relic of Progenitus and Thoughtseize. I feel like they would benefit the deck but the list feels super tight. I would love to try out Liliana, the Last Hope as a one off but I think I'll wait until she rotates to pick her up.
I have a few questions: Is there a specific reason to run Damnation over Wrath of God? And for those of you who do run Damnation, is that why you run 2 Swamp and only 1 Plains?
How has testing with Languish been? Is it worth it to hit Selfless Spirit when losing power against tough creatures?
Also, should we run cards like Endbringer and Elspeth, Sun's Champion in the sideboard? I sometimes feel like I'm running out of cards/things to do in control matchups and I have not liked Sea Gate Wreckage. I've also played around with Eldrazi Displacer but the card seems off. I don't think it fits this deck at all.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. I'll hopefully start attending FNM soon and I plan on taking the deck to GP Copenhagen in may.
To answer some of your questions:
If you run an equal number of bw sources it does not matter if you run wrath of god or damnation. Some people run a more B centric sideboard (or mainboard) and have an unequal number of B and W sources therefore it is (very slightly) better to run damnation.
Languish is great because your reality smashers survive. With the rise of bant eldrazi it has been better to run a sweeper.
Running a 1-of late game card that takes over the game (Elspeth, Sun's Champion) is fine. We have a lot of high cmc creatures so you have to be careful not to "top load" the deck.
The situation you described is a win-more situation meaning that M.Mimic is only good when you are doing well anyway.
Cards like M.Reshaper and R.Smasher are (mostly) good enough on their own, Blight Herder is also decent (even without Mimic) and I like 2x copies in the SB against midrange decks.
T.Sculler is a good disruptive card even with "just" W.Stragnger, it doesn't require running more processors to get more value.
The color requirements are indeed quite high: 4x Marsh Flats, 3-4x Godless Shrine, 4x Caves of Koilos and 3x Shambling Vent can cast it almost consistently if not turn 2 then turn 3.
To run tidehollow sculler and cast him on turn 2 you need 20 bw sources. Think of it like this: Assume that all of our lands produce B or W (which they pretty much do). Since all of the lands can produce the same mana, lets just call them all swamps. We have to do the same thing for tidehollow sculler and change its mana cost to BB. If you look at Frank's mana article, to have a 90% chance to cast a BB creature on turn 2 you need 20 B sources. Running 20 BW sources only leaves room for 4 eldrazi temples and nothing else. I've been running tidehollow sculler and wasteland strangler in my CBW eldrazi midrange deck for about a year now and found it to be just okay. Tidehollow is such a bad late game top-deck card that I ended up cutting him for to complete the playset of eldrazi displacer and matter reshaper. It also double-fuels 'goyf which is a horrible thing for modern. Even if we have 4 relics main board.
Liking the Lili idea, gonna have to pick one up I guess. Thinking about trying a single Endless One, too.
Yeah, I really want a new lili but I am waiting until it rotates. Endless one seems okay but with all of the fatal pushes running around I would look for a creature that provides value when it dies. Such as hangarback walker, which somebody brought up a few pages ago. Lingering souls is one of the best cards for us, why no try a card that produces 1/1 fliers when it dies?
Our best cards against jund are lingering souls, thought-knot seer, reality smasher, and matter reshaper. They are great because they provide value despite junds flavor of 1-for-1 removal. I ran a list which is very close to what deaddrift runs (I had some more discard spells and less removal) and have a very high win percentage against jund. I wouldn't play a blight herder over a reality smasher any day of the week. Reality smasher beats opponents down while blight herder provides blockers.
Eternal scourge is also good against jund. As deaddrift says, save removal for kalitas everything else is easy to deal with.
This is the MB im testing with Fatal Push, i will try 2 Eternal Scourge instead 2 Matter of Reshaper, they work for me in me B/R Processor List so im gonna test them here if control go up and they pass the new Fatal Push test.
Nice list but I feel that running 13-ish removal (collective brutality, path to exile, anguished unmaking, fatal push, and wasteland strangler) is just too many unless you only play against zoo decks in your meta. I would add some more creatures. Once you get some marsh flats I would cut 1 swamp, 1 plains, and urborg for 3x marsh flats to get up to 14 untapped B sources in order to play a discard spell on turn 1.
Shambling Vent is not ideal for this type of mana-hungry deck. Nothing feels worse than getting beat down only to draw have your third land come into play tapped. A few marsh flats should be played in order to fetch up a basic (for blood moon) or a dual BW land. Blood moon is a huge problem for this deck. The mana base is streched really thin due to the tidehollow sculler.
Smuggler's copter is not that great unless you have plenty of ways to activate it. You should be running bitterblossom mainboard if you want to run copter. I do like copter with lingering souls, a few bitterblossoms, and tidehollow sculler
Why is everybody running cast down instead of fatal push? We have plenty of spaces for path to exile to take care of the larget creatures.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Interesting list! I was never a fan of the relic lists and created this thread when the relevant eldrazi were printed as a more midrange varient to the processor version at the time, but the deck never really took off:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/665909-bw-eldrazi-midrange
I did pretty well at FNM with it, but didn't really play in any larger tourneys. However, I haven't played <>BW eldrazi in a while and I am glad that you are doing well with your list. Why don't you run any fatal push?
I felt that the deck could be either explosive or clunky at times and it really needed a way to filter draws. I would almost try a version without lingering souls (as crazy as that may sound!) since it feels like you are compeating against casting an eldrazi or lingering souls during turn 3. I would change up the deck to make it a bit more consistent and find some card draw.
As an aside, how does Kaya, Orzhov Usurper play out in the processor version of this deck?
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_YohjfFfag
He discusses the deck here:
https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/modern-monday-bw-eldrazi/
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
I presonaly like 3-4 marsh flats because they help with fatal push, thin our deck, and help with blood moon. Concealed Courtyard is great if your run a lot of discard, but is pretty disappointing mid game. I run a 3/4 split with flats/courtyard.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is a great card, but has horrible synnergy with path and anguished. You are probably better off adding a single planeswalker (either liliana, the new gideon, etc.) to give your deck more depth and the ability to attack from different angles.
If you have a lot of blood moon at your LGS, you need to run 4 marsh flats.
Ponza is a complete nightmare. I have played against the deck 4 or 5 times and lost handley every time.
Valakut is also a nightmare, but not as bad as ponza.
The key against those decks is to disrupt them turn 1 (and hopefully turn 2 with tidehollow sculler) then apply as much pressure as possible. Your best play would be: turn 1 iok, turn 2 tidehollow, turn 3 reality smasher or thought-knot seer.
I would put more thoughtseize in your main deck (probably 4) and if you don't have them, put some appetite for brains (or even duress). Maybe even try out gideon of the trials. I figure that card would be decent against valakut.
I would also cut ratchet bomb from the mainboard. Unless you have a lot of wide creature decks at your LGS.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Yeah, my bad! I think that I opened up the same deck in multiple tabs and didn't realize it!
The 10th place deck is running the eldrazi displacer and tidehollow sculler version that used to run!! Yay! I am a big fan of that deck. Eldrazi displacer has a lot of synergy with this deck with all of the enter the battlefield triggers and it can tap down the opponents board. Knight of glory is a really interesting choice and doesn't have synergy with lingering souls but is amazing with all of the fatal pushes and death's shadows running around.
The common theme between the decks that have placed well recently is that:
I just don't see how tidehollow sculler is any good right now! There are too many kolaghan's command and fatal pushs running around.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
I think that it is weird to run 4 main deck relics and still have graveyard hate in the sideboard!
Other than that they:
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
4 relics and 4 Tormod's Crypt in the sideboard?!?!?!? Is the meta online that graveyard dependent?
Is Glory-Bound Initiate any good? The 3 power is no joke and drastically speeds up our clock. Does anybody have any experience with glory-bound in this deck? Glory-bound does fill out our lack of 2-drops.
Maybe cast out is a good fit for this deck? Cycling is decent and it takes care of karn, etc.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Twenty duals is correct according to Frank's math. I agree with you previously here.
I haven't played this deck for a few months (4 now??) since I just wanted to try out another deck. Plus, I felt that my bw eldrazi midrange brew was better but graveyard hate is amazing right now. I used to run tidehollow, then I hated him, then I loved him... it was not a healthy relationship. Against some decks, he is amazing. You can use him with eldrazi displacer to create a lock on the opponents draw step. The biggest drawback is that he dies to every single creature in the format and is not a great late game top-deck. He lead to a lot of games that were amazing, curving into tidehollow, hitting wasteland strangler, then thought-knot seer. But most games he would come down and I couldn't do anything to actaully stop the opponent.
I am glad that the bw processor deck is starting to get results. Joe's deck is just weird to me. Shriekmaw is an interesting addition and Mutavault is hands-down better than shambling vent. He had some really weird card choices:
I agree that ghost quarter is bad right now and it is just bad for this deck. Ghost quarter puts us back a turn, which is not something we want to do.
Fatal push pretty much made ghost quarter irrelevant anyways.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Topdeck's happen. That is one of the main problems with discard spells when compared to counter-magic --- you cannot stop a top-deck. With all the affinity, merfolk, junk running around your meta game you might want to up the sweepers to 2. Maybe try an engineered explosives if you have it. Or just put in an additional damnation, wrath of god, or day of judgment.
You could put a sweeper mainboard to have better game 1 matchups. I wouldn't recommend this for an unknown meta though.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
1st place and you beat valakut?!!? Even zoo? Those matchups can be very, very horrible. Congrads man!
The two main deck collective brutality must be a nightmare for burn.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Glad to see you finally testing out tidehollow sculler!!!!!!! You really need to add some eldrazi displacers to the deck so you can do the displacer + tidehollow combo on their draw step. I feel that wasteland strangler is a good card and amazing when you curve out. However, it is not a great end-game top-deck card and not the greatest at pushing your guys through their defenses. Displacer, on the other hand, is a great card throughout the game. It is extremly powerful to be able to flicker their creatures on their turn and freely attack the following turn. If you want to give tidehollow a fair shot, I would try something like this:
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Marsh Flats
4x Eldrazi Temple
3x Godless Shrine
2x Concealed Courtyard
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Swamp
1x Fetid Heath
1x Shambling Vent
1x Plains
4x Thought-Knot Seer
3x Wasteland Strangler
3x Eldrazi Displacer
3x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Reality Smasher
Sorcery (11)
4x Lingering Souls
3x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Collective Brutality
3x Path to Exile
3x Fatal Push
Artifact (4)
3x Relic of Progenitus
Planeswalker (1)
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Or something from a previous post when I was brewing with fatal push.
I should add that I think that tidehollow is in a REALLY bad spot right now. Too many fatal pushes and k-command's running around.
I am also glad that people are starting to add more discard to the main board. It was always weird to me that people started cutting thoughtseize and iok. We want to get cards in their graveyard to exile then process. It is a core part of the deck. I would say that 6 discard spells is mandatory for a processor deck. With the iteration of the deck that I listed above, you have 9 ways to get in the opponents hand. That should be a nightmare for control.
To me, your sideboard is a mess. We don't really need any additional graveyard hate because we run relics mainboard. If you are trying to ghost quarter tron's land then use surgical extraction that is your call. To me adding surgical dilutes the deck to much. With Tron we want to rip apart their hand with thoughtseize AND apply pressure. You can look at some previous posts here where deaddrift and I discussed the Tron matchup.
You can also tone down the number of life gain cards in your sideboard. Collective brutality is the best card (by far) that we have against burn. It absolutely wrecks them. All three modes are relevant. If you have 2 (total) you should be okay. I think that deaddrift talked about the sideboard more in depth than the primer in a previous post, but I cannot remember for sure.
Some cards to consider are:
Congrads on the 2-1-1 and, more importantly, on having fun!
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
I've noticed and uptick in Blood moon myself as well as skred decks. Celestial purge is a great sideboard card now.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
To answer some of your questions:
To run tidehollow sculler and cast him on turn 2 you need 20 bw sources. Think of it like this: Assume that all of our lands produce B or W (which they pretty much do). Since all of the lands can produce the same mana, lets just call them all swamps. We have to do the same thing for tidehollow sculler and change its mana cost to BB. If you look at Frank's mana article, to have a 90% chance to cast a BB creature on turn 2 you need 20 B sources. Running 20 BW sources only leaves room for 4 eldrazi temples and nothing else. I've been running tidehollow sculler and wasteland strangler in my CBW eldrazi midrange deck for about a year now and found it to be just okay. Tidehollow is such a bad late game top-deck card that I ended up cutting him for to complete the playset of eldrazi displacer and matter reshaper. It also double-fuels 'goyf which is a horrible thing for modern. Even if we have 4 relics main board.
Yeah, I really want a new lili but I am waiting until it rotates. Endless one seems okay but with all of the fatal pushes running around I would look for a creature that provides value when it dies. Such as hangarback walker, which somebody brought up a few pages ago. Lingering souls is one of the best cards for us, why no try a card that produces 1/1 fliers when it dies?
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Eternal scourge is also good against jund. As deaddrift says, save removal for kalitas everything else is easy to deal with.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Nice list but I feel that running 13-ish removal (collective brutality, path to exile, anguished unmaking, fatal push, and wasteland strangler) is just too many unless you only play against zoo decks in your meta. I would add some more creatures. Once you get some marsh flats I would cut 1 swamp, 1 plains, and urborg for 3x marsh flats to get up to 14 untapped B sources in order to play a discard spell on turn 1.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange