I feel like EDF has its place in the deck. The ability to interact with your opponent's mana gives us another avenue to attack decks that don't care as much about board presence, and the only card that does that in the current list is Thought-Knot. In all of the matchups that you want to take out Drowner because it feels too slow and not impactful enough, Deep-Fiend functions just fine and is often just actively good. I do feel that Drowner is generally better, but I also feel Deep-Fiend has a place in the deck by diversifying the disruption available to Bant Eldrazi. After all, this whole deck is founded on the idea of blending disruption and aggro to create unwinnable board states for your opponents.
On the note of spellskite, what would you guys run in place of it if you expected 0 infect in your meta? It seems kind of weak in almost any other matchup, and since I'm the only infect player in my area at the moment, I can go into locals with about 95% certainty that I won't be facing the deck.
Eldrazi Mimic and 1 extra Bird or Skyspawner depending on your meta and configuration of deck.
Also Wall of Omens is nice along Displacer.
I ran two mimics the other night and it worked out pretty well. They seem to make the most sense as a replacement. I'll see if I can't dig some skyspawners out of my draft piles later tonight. Wall of omens is a half decent idea as well since it's just a better blocker than spellskite vs all the zoo decks.
On the note of spellskite, what would you guys run in place of it if you expected 0 infect in your meta? It seems kind of weak in almost any other matchup, and since I'm the only infect player in my area at the moment, I can go into locals with about 95% certainty that I won't be facing the deck.
I was wondering how we felt about the deck's apparent vulnerability to Blood Moon. With the way the lists are currently built, a Blood Moon would lock us out of our best creatures (including Drowner, as we usually run zero basic Island) and we don't have enough fetches to reliably fetch the basics we do play before a Moon comes down or a cheap way to deal with Moon after it resolves (we do have World Breaker at 7 mana).
I've been looking into this myself, and the cards that caught my eye most were celestial purge and natural state. Natural state seems like it can take care of just about any problem artifact/enchantment, because I can't think of any common 4+ mana ones that affect this deck's gameplan. We also have green mana available very often to help cast it from floated mana or even after a resolved moon. Celestial purge's usefulness against red and black permanents seems okay, but I don't really know what matchups we really want that effect in. It kills bob, lili, and Kalitas which is okay, and I guess it can kill burn/zoo creatures too.
I was also pretty intrigued by all the pros running this deck last weekend, so I decided to cash in some credit to pick up the missing pieces (this deck is super cheap if you just skimp on the caverns!) and try this thing out last night. Mulliganing isn't as straightforward as it looks like it would be on paper. There are a lot of hands where you have to weigh the odds of drawing into a land in x turns or hoping your mana dork doesn't get bolted so that you can ensure a powerful enough curve to take over the game.
I found myself terrified of blood moon in the two matches where it mattered, and my fears were confirmed when it locked me out of just about every spell in the deck. There are 0 colorless sources once you get mooned out, and the only way you can access any colored mana is if you draw one of the 7-8 sources that can become basics / have a dork alive. How do you guys feel about playing against blood moon? I'm considering throwing 1 or 2 Celestial Purge, Krosan Grip, Disenchant etc in the side as a retroactive answer for that and as something that could come in handy against some other decks. It just felt so bad being afraid to tap low to play a non-TKS threat against a deck running moons maindeck since the only answers in the current list are negates and a singleton worldbreaker. Also, has anybody tried Pascal's (?) version with the 1/1 Eldrazi Mimic split between the main and side in place of a BoP? It seemed like having access to a lower curve could be really beneficial against decks that put up less on-board resistance like Ad Nauseam or Storm.
In regards to Gavony Township, I tried adding it as the 4th Cavern of Souls replacement after maxing out the painlands. It only came up in one game, but it put me in a great position to win if my opponent didn't have a way to finish the game right away. This deck definitely comes off as one that would be interested in another mana sink. Too early for me to tell if it is relevant in enough games to warrant the slot over a ghost quarter or not though.
I ran two mimics the other night and it worked out pretty well. They seem to make the most sense as a replacement. I'll see if I can't dig some skyspawners out of my draft piles later tonight. Wall of omens is a half decent idea as well since it's just a better blocker than spellskite vs all the zoo decks.
I've been looking into this myself, and the cards that caught my eye most were celestial purge and natural state. Natural state seems like it can take care of just about any problem artifact/enchantment, because I can't think of any common 4+ mana ones that affect this deck's gameplan. We also have green mana available very often to help cast it from floated mana or even after a resolved moon. Celestial purge's usefulness against red and black permanents seems okay, but I don't really know what matchups we really want that effect in. It kills bob, lili, and Kalitas which is okay, and I guess it can kill burn/zoo creatures too.
I found myself terrified of blood moon in the two matches where it mattered, and my fears were confirmed when it locked me out of just about every spell in the deck. There are 0 colorless sources once you get mooned out, and the only way you can access any colored mana is if you draw one of the 7-8 sources that can become basics / have a dork alive. How do you guys feel about playing against blood moon? I'm considering throwing 1 or 2 Celestial Purge, Krosan Grip, Disenchant etc in the side as a retroactive answer for that and as something that could come in handy against some other decks. It just felt so bad being afraid to tap low to play a non-TKS threat against a deck running moons maindeck since the only answers in the current list are negates and a singleton worldbreaker. Also, has anybody tried Pascal's (?) version with the 1/1 Eldrazi Mimic split between the main and side in place of a BoP? It seemed like having access to a lower curve could be really beneficial against decks that put up less on-board resistance like Ad Nauseam or Storm.
In regards to Gavony Township, I tried adding it as the 4th Cavern of Souls replacement after maxing out the painlands. It only came up in one game, but it put me in a great position to win if my opponent didn't have a way to finish the game right away. This deck definitely comes off as one that would be interested in another mana sink. Too early for me to tell if it is relevant in enough games to warrant the slot over a ghost quarter or not though.