Has anybody tried faerie macabre? Yes the BB in the casting cause is problematic, but the versatility between either exiling cards from a graveyard or casting it in matches where the opponent doesn't fill up the graveyard seems like it would be pretty good.
Lots of food for thought there, Dimmez. I'll try to reply in order of your comments.
Displacer is great against Arcbound Ravager, Voice of Resurgence tokens, can break up the Kiki/Resto combo, and can defend against big attackers. If it can survive, it can tap Primeval Titan before the combat step, which would help some with the very challenging RG Titan/Valakut decks out there. It's great in the late game with Thought-Knot Seer and/or Strangler (or Tidehollow Sculer for those who play that card). Reshaper replaces itself when it dies, and in my testing it sees plenty of removal. Both are good options and have strengths and weaknesses that are board state and matchup-dependent. The new Thalia might be great, maybe not; I'm sure time will tell. There's no doubt that a 3/2 with first strike can be a pretty good wall against a lot of creatures.
I agree that Faerie Macabre has too many downsides with a BB casting cost. It might be good in a meta with an unusually large number of graveyard-reliant decks.
In general, I think that this deck's relative immunity to Inquisition of Kozilek, Abrupt Decay, and especially Bolt, is one of the hidden strengths that helps make it competitive. All of the cards being discussed here are vulnerable to Inquisition and Decay, but it's probably worth considering which make the most sense in a larger format where Bolt is far and away the single most-played card. Again, all this is just my two cents.
Thanks for the feedback on matchups. I had already made some changes from the primer draft on this page, and am thinking about breaking down the page 1 primer matchup guide further in the next few days, to include siding options and a few more details about some of the decks. I will definitely be including some of your comments.
I'm curious: Are you getting a lot of testing in? What's your meta like?
Anyone other than deaddrift here from the ole Dead guy ale modern thread? I took the spirit of that deck and just upgraded some of the outdated cards with eldrazi. It has been extremely effective.
Dead Guy was fun and similar in many ways, but the Eldrazi package is pretty tough to beat. Better than Percy and Bob.
Tonight I got second out of 38 players with a 4-0-1 record. The current build, as always, is linked in my sig.
2-1 vs. Affinity: This guy knows exactly what he is doing and once Ravager hits the board you had better watch out. I have lost to him several times before. In G1 I drew no removal and lost to 3 Ravagers and a Vault Skirge after running out of Spirit tokens. But in G2 my T2 Ratchet Bomb cleared two Ornithopters, a Memnite, and a Mox Opal to leave him high and dry; he eventually sacced everything he had to a singleton Vault Skirge which I was able to Path for the win. In G3 he mulled to 4; my T2 Stony Silence and T3 Path on his Inkmoth were enough to close it out.
2-1 vs. Goblin Charbelcher: This is a weird deck I never played before. He has seven lands (I think?) in the whole deck, plus tutors and mana dorks. On T3 of G1 I was able to O-Ring his Charbelcher, prolonging what probably would have been a very short game. His Wurmcoil clogged the board (me saccing chump-blocking Scions to keep him off lifegain) for a while G1 until I swung into it with a huge crew of Eldrazi and tokens backed by Vault of the Archangel. However, his topdecked Charbelcher #2 on the very next turn hit me for 42 when I was at 38 life. WTF?! In G2, I Thoughtseized a Charbelcher in T1, then Seized a Wurmcoil on T2, and then TKS'ed a second Charbelcher T3. Later on I Extracted his remaining Charbelchers and he could not come back. In G3 I Unmade his T3 Charbelcher and then immediately took his second from hand with TKS; Smasher on the next turn was enough to close it out. He had a lot of big green creatures that he was not able to make good use of as they seemed a little too big and slow. Hand disruption was key in the match and I was lucky to get my Unmaking/O-Ring when I needed it.
2-0 vs. UG Infect: One of my best buds at this shop, and he usually can't beat me with his deck. I won G1 on a very slow roll with a single Lingering Souls clogging up his game plus a long-sandbagged Path for his sole Blighted Agent. Sorin was HUGE in the late game, making two Vampires to keep chumping his Nexus while I swung in on the ground with Seers. I have never had Sorin's -2 be so amazingly relevant before; it was rad. In G2 I simply owned him: on T2 I Strangled his Blighted Agent; on T3 I Pathed his second Agent, and on T4 I Thoughtseized his third Agent. Ratchet Bomb cleared out two Spellskites in G2 as well. Lots of hand disruption was crucial for the wins here.
2-1 vs. RG Tron: In G1, I was only one turn too slow; drawing three Lingering Souls did me no good at all in this match. They are the only thing that Ugin is good for on his side. I Thoughtseized a Karn, Path'ed an Ulamog, but second Karn took me off my mana while Ugin was already in play, so that was a scoop. (His Karn took my Temple and then I looked at the top card of my library: Smasher! Where were you one turn earlier?!) In G2 I kept 2x Thoughtseize with Caves and Vent, and 2x Smasher (I was worried about those guys with only 2 lands), and my single Reshaper. He kept a bad hand with too many lands and I was able to Thoughtseize his Karn, Path his Wurmcoil, and swing in with both Smashers FTW after drawing a Temple just in time. G3 saw us both mull to 6 but early TKS and Smasher closed the game in rounds while he struggled to stick a threat.
1-1-1 vs. GW Maverick/Hatebears: My son tells me this is called "Maverick" because it was the high-creature-count, Vial-free version with lots of Loxodon Smiters and Wilt-Leaf Lieges. Fortunately he never drew his Paths so he was never able to get free discards for Smiter or Liege while removing Smasher; if he had been able to put this together I probably would have had some big problems. Watch out for that! In G1, two resolved Lieges made the board very ugly and my Smashers were outclassed. However, in G2 a very clogged board state developed with lots of huge critters facing off over no-man's-land. Sweepers were nowhere to be found, but my Spirit tokens--as they have often done before--flew in for the air-cavalry win. The first two games were so grindy that we got time in rounds as we shuffled up for the final game, so we shook hands and called it a night. He took first for the evening because, despite going 2-1 in all four matches previous (I had one 2-0), his opponents did better than mine did.
Thoughts: I thought tonight, and not for the first time, that the sideboard plan for this deck is very strong. I find that often when lose G1, I can come correct for G2&3--once I know what's going on and can tune up for it. Side note, and feedback desired: I often have 61 cards post-board, because I usually have more to bring in than to take out. I wonder if any others do this? I am kind of loving this little tweak.
Blessed Alliance looks like a solid sideboard choice instead of rest for the weary. Yes you gain less life, but blessed alliance can also make them sac a creature and helps with the bogles matchup.
Blessed Alliance does look interesting, but be aware that you cannot choose the same mode twice, similar to the Charms and the Commands.
I went 3-1 tonight for 4th of 38 players.
2-0 vs. Dredge: Short games: maindeck Relics and sideboard Extractions were not what he was prepared to beat.
2-0 vs. Bant Company: Variance helped a lot here for me; once in each match he cast Collected Company, and both times he hit a single Birds of Paradise. Souls flying over his board were important in G1.
2-0 vs. Junk/Abzan Midrange: He ceded at 12 life early in G1 while I had four Spirit tokens on the battlefield, which surprised me, but he knows his midrange deck is bad against me so he was feeling pessimistic I guess. In G2 I was able to process his Souls with Blight Herder and then Extract it, leading to the win.
1-2 vs. RG Tron: Such a hard match. Hate is essential in this matchup. I side in seven cards against RG Tron: 2x Stony Silence, 3x Surgical Extraction, 1x Pithing Needle, and 1x Anguished Unmaking. But if I don't get Thoughtseize and/or Ghost Quarter out of the maindeck pile, plus some of those cards, then I am probably going to lose. In G1 I mulled to 5 and ceded to a resolved Karn. I won G2 after Extracting an Urza's Mine, followed by Stony Silence after I took his sole Nature's Claim from hand with TKS, making his two in-hand O-Stones dead cards. In G3 I mulled to 6 and kept a hand with no hate but Thoughtseize on top. I took his sole Map with that Thoughseize, but he topdecked a second immediately after, leading him to early Wurmcoil and Ulamog. Tron sucks. I have to admit that I don't have a ton of respect for people who play it, either. I seems pretty linear and simple. I actually built the whole deck myself before discovering that I simply didn't find it interesting to play.
Thoughts: Yep, still 100% sold on Processors. I am not willing to give up on the Tron and RG Valakut matchups but they are super tough. Not sure I have a lot of room for improvement against them unless I weaken some other lines, though. Anyone feel like they have the answer for these decks? I am almost ready to throw down the funds for a Crucible of Worlds I think, which could make Ghost Quarter incredible in these matches.
A few times lately, since making the switch back to Oblivion Ring over Anguished Unmaking, I have found myself having to play around opponent's removal like Abrupt Decay. This is actually more relevant than I had expected and makes me question the wisdom of this choice. I am certain that I want a spell in this slot to deal with non-creature permanents, but still not sure which is the best card. For now I will keep each as a 1-of.
Long Road Home looks like it might have some functionality in this build to eliminate one of their guys or to protect one of our own. Cost is reasonable. Thoughts?
Long Road Home looks like it might have some functionality in this build to eliminate one of their guys or to protect one of our own. Cost is reasonable. Thoughts?
I think that it is not a good fit for this deck. It is a reactionary card and it would just be better to have more threats. It could be useful against sweepers, but you are just better off running another thoughtseize.
I also play Martyr proc and a ton of people switched to b/w version when Anguished Unmaking became availible. I still have flashes of them abrupt decayinging my ring or bouncing it with crytping. There is no way i'll ever play obliviong rings, it's just so fragile and unreliable. God forbid someone maelstrom pulses 2.
Yeah. Anguished unmaking is so good I always main deck 2.
... Thoughts: Yep, still 100% sold on Processors. I am not willing to give up on the Tron and RG Valakut matchups but they are super tough. Not sure I have a lot of room for improvement against them unless I weaken some other lines, though. Anyone feel like they have the answer for these decks? I am almost ready to throw down the funds for a Crucible of Worlds I think, which could make Ghost Quarter incredible in these matches.
I think that you are going about the RG tron matchup the wrong way. Most of the time it is not very efficient to attack their mana base. They have 20-ish cantrips or tutors to look for the land they need. To beat tron you need to play threat after threat so they cannot keep up with you. Cracking ghost quarter on a tron land is a bad idea since it just slows you down when you can play reality smasher, thought-knot, etc. I feel that bringing in surgical extractions to try and exile one of their lands after using a ghost quarter is such a huge tempo loss on your part. Looking at your deck, these are the cards that I would try and sideboard out: Relic of Progenitus Lingering Souls Oblivion ring :: This card is not great against tron. They have many ways to get rid of it and then you are stuck playing against two threats. It is better to run anguished unmaking to permanently exile their threats.
Your gameplan should be to play threats to put them on a clock and have the relevant removal that when they play a threat you just deal with it while preserving your threats. Here is what I would side in: Anguished unmaking :: This is primarily for karn Path to exile :: This is for world breaker, wurmcoil, ulamog, etc. Disenchant :: This is for turn 1 expedition maps and obilivion stones.
More threats! Matter reshaper is pretty decent against tron.
When I play against tron, I usually play a couple of 3/x creatures or a 3/2 and a thought-knot to put them on a two turn clock. Don't over extend yourself either. Lay out a decent clock then hold back to deal with their threats. The game feels like a boxing match, you come out strong, they recover, then you deal with their threat and play more threats to win the game.
If I were to ghost quarter a land, I would ghost quarter Sanctum of Ugin 100% of the time. Their deck has fewer threats than yours and after they assemble tron they have a lot of dead draws. You need to take advantage of that.
Thoughts: Yep, still 100% sold on Processors. I am not willing to give up on the Tron and RG Valakut matchups but they are super tough. Not sure I have a lot of room for improvement against them unless I weaken some other lines, though. Anyone feel like they have the answer for these decks? I am almost ready to throw down the funds for a Crucible of Worlds I think, which could make Ghost Quarter incredible in these matches.
I think that you are going about the RG tron matchup the wrong way. Most of the time it is not very efficient to attack their mana base. They have 20-ish cantrips or tutors to look for the land they need. To beat tron you need to play threat after threat so they cannot keep up with you. Cracking ghost quarter on a tron land is a bad idea since it just slows you down when you can play reality smasher, thought-knot, etc. I feel that bringing in surgical extractions to try and exile one of their lands after using a ghost quarter is such a huge tempo loss on your part. Looking at your deck, these are the cards that I would try and sideboard out: Relic of Progenitus Lingering Souls Oblivion ring :: This card is not great against tron. They have many ways to get rid of it and then you are stuck playing against two threats. It is better to run anguished unmaking to permanently exile their threats.
Your gameplan should be to play threats to put them on a clock and have the relevant removal that when they play a threat you just deal with it while preserving your threats. Here is what I would side in: Anguished unmaking :: This is primarily for karn Path to exile :: This is for world breaker, wurmcoil, ulamog, etc. Disenchant :: This is for turn 1 expedition maps and obilivion stones.
More threats! Matter reshaper is pretty decent against tron.
When I play against tron, I usually play a couple of 3/x creatures or a 3/2 and a thought-knot to put them on a two turn clock. Don't over extend yourself either. Lay out a decent clock then hold back to deal with their threats. The game feels like a boxing match, you come out strong, they recover, then you deal with their threat and play more threats to win the game.
If I were to ghost quarter a land, I would ghost quarter Sanctum of Ugin 100% of the time. Their deck has fewer threats than yours and after they assemble tron they have a lot of dead draws. You need to take advantage of that.
Thanks for your thoughts, herfs. I have to say that although I agree with some of your thoughts, I strongly disagree with other ideas.
O-Ring, Relic, and Lingering Souls are all bad against Tron, agreed. I too endeavor to put down a Strangler or Reshaper on T2 if possible, and follow that up with the fastest and most disruptive clock I can assemble. I always keep all four Paths in for Wurmcoil. However, one O-Stone will get everything I play out. One Wurmcoil or World Breaker will block any creature I can play. One Karn can take any permanent I have in play. My repeated experience has been that my best chance lies in preventing these spells from resolving, or failing that, from being useful if they do resolve. As an illustration of that last line of attack, you forgot to mention Stony Silence and Pithing Needle in your side-in list. Both of those cards are absolute gold in this matchup. Stony in particular is 100% irreplaceable against Tron decks. I actually like Disenchant too--for O-Stone, that is. About the only time it would help against Map is if it were my T2 on the play. However, I no longer run it because Unmaking is filling that role and I only have 75 cards to work with.
A single Ghost Quarter is unlikely to be enough all by itself, agreed. However, GQ + Extraction is unbelievably good. When I get this I win the game. Ask Tron players about how it feels for one of their Tron lands to get Extracted, if you doubt my perspective. Attacking the mana is the format standard, tried-and-true method of disrupting Tron's game. (Thoughtseize + Extraction on Wurmcoil or especially Karn can also be good.) I find it hard to imagine many situations where GQing Sanctum would be a better play than hitting a Tron land; if they can't cast a 7+ CMC colorless spell, then Sanctum is just a Wastes for them. And if I can keep them off Tron, they're not likely to be able to cast such a spell before they are dead (assuming I can prevent O-Stone from cracking). They don't have a ton of threats, true, but they can find their threats pretty easily even without Sanctum, and their threats are better than ours, so one is often all they need.
Tron beats midrange decks. That's what it does. All decks have a rock to their scissors and this is one of ours.
If you want to beat Tron, you need speed. Cards i hate to see when i'm playing is P.Needle,G.Quarter and Path. Stony Silence is only good turn 2 o 3. Mindcensor might be good too.
But dont try to beat Tron at all cost sacrificing you SB, sometimes you just need to accept the bad MU. It's hard for any midrange deck to beat Tron.
...
A single Ghost Quarter is unlikely to be enough all by itself, agreed. However, GQ + Extraction is unbelievably good. When I get this I win the game. Ask Tron players about how it feels for one of their Tron lands to get Extracted, if you doubt my perspective. Attacking the mana is the format standard, tried-and-true method of disrupting Tron's game. (Thoughtseize + Extraction on Wurmcoil or especially Karn can also be good.) I find it hard to imagine many situations where GQing Sanctum would be a better play than hitting a Tron land; if they can't cast a 7+ CMC colorless spell, then Sanctum is just a Wastes for them. And if I can keep them off Tron, they're not likely to be able to cast such a spell before they are dead (assuming I can prevent O-Stone from cracking). They don't have a ton of threats, true, but they can find their threats pretty easily even without Sanctum, and their threats are better than ours, so one is often all they need.
Tron beats midrange decks. That's what it does. All decks have a rock to their scissors and this is one of ours.
We approach the tron matchup differently. I assume that they are going to hit tron and deal with their threats. I do this since the majority of their cards are there to try and assemble the combo. If I spend turns just trying to stop them and not applying pressure by sacraficing my lands and playing stony silence, I loose. Tron folds when you apply pressure quickly. Once they get the combo they usually only have one or two threats to deal with. I am attacking where I believe there deck is weak, the threat density. I take out my slow cards and put in cards that deal with their threats in the most efficient manner.
Yes, I think that ghost quarter + extraction is good. The problem is that you need both of them in your hand. Surgical extraction is a dead card in our hand unless we have ghost quarter since the majority of our removal exiles their threats. By running surgical extraction you are taking up sideboard slots that can be used for cards like fulminator mage which has the versatility to kill lands and apply pressure.
Thoughtseize + surgical on karn is good since the majority of RG tron lists run 4 karns, but extracting anything else is not as great.
Yes, pithing needle naming karn or o-stone is really good. I really like pithing needle in the sideboard, it is a very useful card.
I just think that this deck has a very bad tron matchup since the CMC of the creatures is so high. Both decks are playing good threats by turn 4, but a karn beats thought-knot, blight hearder, or reality smasher all day long. We need to essentialy need to apply more pressure sooner, which is why matter reshaper is good in this matchup.
If you want to beat Tron, you need speed. Cards i hate to see when i'm playing is P.Needle,G.Quarter and Path. Stony Silence is only good turn 2 o 3. Mindcensor might be good too.
But dont try to beat Tron at all cost sacrificing you SB, sometimes you just need to accept the bad MU. It's hard for any midrange deck to beat Tron.
This is true. The problem with ghost quarter and the bw processor decks is that the creatures cost a significant amount of mana to cast and by using ghost quarter we are slowing ourseleves down and providing them with a mountain or forest. If we ghost quarter a land they have multiple copies of by holding on to it in their hand, it is a such a huge tempo loss for us that we can not recover.
Well, food for thought. Personally I am OK with giving them a Forest to shut down their ability to assemble Tron, and I can't recall a game where I Extracted a Tron land and subsequently lost. I also always want Path (Wurmcoil), Pithing Needle (Karn, O-Stone, Map), and Stony Silence (all their eggs, O-Stone, Map) in my opening hand. I agree that racing them is ideal but have found that my deck is usually too slow for that, unless I get the 2x Temple/TKS/Smasher package that beat just about every deck there is. Tron decks assemble the package by turn three to four on average, and if I am not disrupting that then I have found that I am unlikely to win.
I was thinking of some good cards for the tron/scapeshift matchups and I settled on a few
Leonin Arbiter: slows down the searching in both decks. makes path and ghost quarter way more powerful
Tidehollow Sculler: Mini thought-knot seer. Great for picking out big threats from these two decks
Thalia: Slows down both strategies.
Right now I'm leaning towards the Arbiters because of the ghost quarter interaction. Quarter is one of the best cards in these matchups and arbiter makes it better
I think that eternal scourge is a great fit for this deck. It is pretty much an unkillable re-occurring threat that we can bring back if we have nothing better to do.
They path it, we can still cast it.
It dies some other way, we use relic to exile it, then cast it.
Because the CMC of the deck is too high. The general list has an average CMC around 2.8 and about 9 cards with CMC 4 or 5 while decks that run bob have a average CMC around 2 and only run one or two 4-drops.
The current iteration of this deck would take a lot of damage with bob. If you want to draw cards you can try phyrexian arena or night's whisper.
Eternal Scourge alone makes me want to pick this deck up again. It's an infinite threat (with Rest in Peace or an active exile effect), and if you Surgical Extract it out of your own graveyard it's like a mega Squadron Hawk. Seems totally awesome to me.
Well, you can use Relic of Progenitus to target yourself and exile Scourge. I don't think Scourge will be great against all decks, but against 1-1 removal based decks, or against Blood Moon decks it could be very useful.
I agree that eldrazi displacer is not a good fit for this deck.
Has anybody tried faerie macabre? Yes the BB in the casting cause is problematic, but the versatility between either exiling cards from a graveyard or casting it in matches where the opponent doesn't fill up the graveyard seems like it would be pretty good.
ps. Good job on the primer!
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Displacer is great against Arcbound Ravager, Voice of Resurgence tokens, can break up the Kiki/Resto combo, and can defend against big attackers. If it can survive, it can tap Primeval Titan before the combat step, which would help some with the very challenging RG Titan/Valakut decks out there. It's great in the late game with Thought-Knot Seer and/or Strangler (or Tidehollow Sculer for those who play that card). Reshaper replaces itself when it dies, and in my testing it sees plenty of removal. Both are good options and have strengths and weaknesses that are board state and matchup-dependent. The new Thalia might be great, maybe not; I'm sure time will tell. There's no doubt that a 3/2 with first strike can be a pretty good wall against a lot of creatures.
I agree that Faerie Macabre has too many downsides with a BB casting cost. It might be good in a meta with an unusually large number of graveyard-reliant decks.
In general, I think that this deck's relative immunity to Inquisition of Kozilek, Abrupt Decay, and especially Bolt, is one of the hidden strengths that helps make it competitive. All of the cards being discussed here are vulnerable to Inquisition and Decay, but it's probably worth considering which make the most sense in a larger format where Bolt is far and away the single most-played card. Again, all this is just my two cents.
Thanks for the feedback on matchups. I had already made some changes from the primer draft on this page, and am thinking about breaking down the page 1 primer matchup guide further in the next few days, to include siding options and a few more details about some of the decks. I will definitely be including some of your comments.
I'm curious: Are you getting a lot of testing in? What's your meta like?
Tonight I got second out of 38 players with a 4-0-1 record. The current build, as always, is linked in my sig.
2-1 vs. Affinity: This guy knows exactly what he is doing and once Ravager hits the board you had better watch out. I have lost to him several times before. In G1 I drew no removal and lost to 3 Ravagers and a Vault Skirge after running out of Spirit tokens. But in G2 my T2 Ratchet Bomb cleared two Ornithopters, a Memnite, and a Mox Opal to leave him high and dry; he eventually sacced everything he had to a singleton Vault Skirge which I was able to Path for the win. In G3 he mulled to 4; my T2 Stony Silence and T3 Path on his Inkmoth were enough to close it out.
2-1 vs. Goblin Charbelcher: This is a weird deck I never played before. He has seven lands (I think?) in the whole deck, plus tutors and mana dorks. On T3 of G1 I was able to O-Ring his Charbelcher, prolonging what probably would have been a very short game. His Wurmcoil clogged the board (me saccing chump-blocking Scions to keep him off lifegain) for a while G1 until I swung into it with a huge crew of Eldrazi and tokens backed by Vault of the Archangel. However, his topdecked Charbelcher #2 on the very next turn hit me for 42 when I was at 38 life. WTF?! In G2, I Thoughtseized a Charbelcher in T1, then Seized a Wurmcoil on T2, and then TKS'ed a second Charbelcher T3. Later on I Extracted his remaining Charbelchers and he could not come back. In G3 I Unmade his T3 Charbelcher and then immediately took his second from hand with TKS; Smasher on the next turn was enough to close it out. He had a lot of big green creatures that he was not able to make good use of as they seemed a little too big and slow. Hand disruption was key in the match and I was lucky to get my Unmaking/O-Ring when I needed it.
2-0 vs. UG Infect: One of my best buds at this shop, and he usually can't beat me with his deck. I won G1 on a very slow roll with a single Lingering Souls clogging up his game plus a long-sandbagged Path for his sole Blighted Agent. Sorin was HUGE in the late game, making two Vampires to keep chumping his Nexus while I swung in on the ground with Seers. I have never had Sorin's -2 be so amazingly relevant before; it was rad. In G2 I simply owned him: on T2 I Strangled his Blighted Agent; on T3 I Pathed his second Agent, and on T4 I Thoughtseized his third Agent. Ratchet Bomb cleared out two Spellskites in G2 as well. Lots of hand disruption was crucial for the wins here.
2-1 vs. RG Tron: In G1, I was only one turn too slow; drawing three Lingering Souls did me no good at all in this match. They are the only thing that Ugin is good for on his side. I Thoughtseized a Karn, Path'ed an Ulamog, but second Karn took me off my mana while Ugin was already in play, so that was a scoop. (His Karn took my Temple and then I looked at the top card of my library: Smasher! Where were you one turn earlier?!) In G2 I kept 2x Thoughtseize with Caves and Vent, and 2x Smasher (I was worried about those guys with only 2 lands), and my single Reshaper. He kept a bad hand with too many lands and I was able to Thoughtseize his Karn, Path his Wurmcoil, and swing in with both Smashers FTW after drawing a Temple just in time. G3 saw us both mull to 6 but early TKS and Smasher closed the game in rounds while he struggled to stick a threat.
1-1-1 vs. GW Maverick/Hatebears: My son tells me this is called "Maverick" because it was the high-creature-count, Vial-free version with lots of Loxodon Smiters and Wilt-Leaf Lieges. Fortunately he never drew his Paths so he was never able to get free discards for Smiter or Liege while removing Smasher; if he had been able to put this together I probably would have had some big problems. Watch out for that! In G1, two resolved Lieges made the board very ugly and my Smashers were outclassed. However, in G2 a very clogged board state developed with lots of huge critters facing off over no-man's-land. Sweepers were nowhere to be found, but my Spirit tokens--as they have often done before--flew in for the air-cavalry win. The first two games were so grindy that we got time in rounds as we shuffled up for the final game, so we shook hands and called it a night. He took first for the evening because, despite going 2-1 in all four matches previous (I had one 2-0), his opponents did better than mine did.
Thoughts: I thought tonight, and not for the first time, that the sideboard plan for this deck is very strong. I find that often when lose G1, I can come correct for G2&3--once I know what's going on and can tune up for it. Side note, and feedback desired: I often have 61 cards post-board, because I usually have more to bring in than to take out. I wonder if any others do this? I am kind of loving this little tweak.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
I went 3-1 tonight for 4th of 38 players.
2-0 vs. Dredge: Short games: maindeck Relics and sideboard Extractions were not what he was prepared to beat.
2-0 vs. Bant Company: Variance helped a lot here for me; once in each match he cast Collected Company, and both times he hit a single Birds of Paradise. Souls flying over his board were important in G1.
2-0 vs. Junk/Abzan Midrange: He ceded at 12 life early in G1 while I had four Spirit tokens on the battlefield, which surprised me, but he knows his midrange deck is bad against me so he was feeling pessimistic I guess. In G2 I was able to process his Souls with Blight Herder and then Extract it, leading to the win.
1-2 vs. RG Tron: Such a hard match. Hate is essential in this matchup. I side in seven cards against RG Tron: 2x Stony Silence, 3x Surgical Extraction, 1x Pithing Needle, and 1x Anguished Unmaking. But if I don't get Thoughtseize and/or Ghost Quarter out of the maindeck pile, plus some of those cards, then I am probably going to lose. In G1 I mulled to 5 and ceded to a resolved Karn. I won G2 after Extracting an Urza's Mine, followed by Stony Silence after I took his sole Nature's Claim from hand with TKS, making his two in-hand O-Stones dead cards. In G3 I mulled to 6 and kept a hand with no hate but Thoughtseize on top. I took his sole Map with that Thoughseize, but he topdecked a second immediately after, leading him to early Wurmcoil and Ulamog. Tron sucks. I have to admit that I don't have a ton of respect for people who play it, either. I seems pretty linear and simple. I actually built the whole deck myself before discovering that I simply didn't find it interesting to play.
Thoughts: Yep, still 100% sold on Processors. I am not willing to give up on the Tron and RG Valakut matchups but they are super tough. Not sure I have a lot of room for improvement against them unless I weaken some other lines, though. Anyone feel like they have the answer for these decks? I am almost ready to throw down the funds for a Crucible of Worlds I think, which could make Ghost Quarter incredible in these matches.
A few times lately, since making the switch back to Oblivion Ring over Anguished Unmaking, I have found myself having to play around opponent's removal like Abrupt Decay. This is actually more relevant than I had expected and makes me question the wisdom of this choice. I am certain that I want a spell in this slot to deal with non-creature permanents, but still not sure which is the best card. For now I will keep each as a 1-of.
I think that it is not a good fit for this deck. It is a reactionary card and it would just be better to have more threats. It could be useful against sweepers, but you are just better off running another thoughtseize.
Yeah. Anguished unmaking is so good I always main deck 2.
I think that you are going about the RG tron matchup the wrong way. Most of the time it is not very efficient to attack their mana base. They have 20-ish cantrips or tutors to look for the land they need. To beat tron you need to play threat after threat so they cannot keep up with you. Cracking ghost quarter on a tron land is a bad idea since it just slows you down when you can play reality smasher, thought-knot, etc. I feel that bringing in surgical extractions to try and exile one of their lands after using a ghost quarter is such a huge tempo loss on your part. Looking at your deck, these are the cards that I would try and sideboard out:
Relic of Progenitus
Lingering Souls
Oblivion ring :: This card is not great against tron. They have many ways to get rid of it and then you are stuck playing against two threats. It is better to run anguished unmaking to permanently exile their threats.
Your gameplan should be to play threats to put them on a clock and have the relevant removal that when they play a threat you just deal with it while preserving your threats. Here is what I would side in:
Anguished unmaking :: This is primarily for karn
Path to exile :: This is for world breaker, wurmcoil, ulamog, etc.
Disenchant :: This is for turn 1 expedition maps and obilivion stones.
More threats! Matter reshaper is pretty decent against tron.
When I play against tron, I usually play a couple of 3/x creatures or a 3/2 and a thought-knot to put them on a two turn clock. Don't over extend yourself either. Lay out a decent clock then hold back to deal with their threats. The game feels like a boxing match, you come out strong, they recover, then you deal with their threat and play more threats to win the game.
If I were to ghost quarter a land, I would ghost quarter Sanctum of Ugin 100% of the time. Their deck has fewer threats than yours and after they assemble tron they have a lot of dead draws. You need to take advantage of that.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
O-Ring, Relic, and Lingering Souls are all bad against Tron, agreed. I too endeavor to put down a Strangler or Reshaper on T2 if possible, and follow that up with the fastest and most disruptive clock I can assemble. I always keep all four Paths in for Wurmcoil. However, one O-Stone will get everything I play out. One Wurmcoil or World Breaker will block any creature I can play. One Karn can take any permanent I have in play. My repeated experience has been that my best chance lies in preventing these spells from resolving, or failing that, from being useful if they do resolve. As an illustration of that last line of attack, you forgot to mention Stony Silence and Pithing Needle in your side-in list. Both of those cards are absolute gold in this matchup. Stony in particular is 100% irreplaceable against Tron decks. I actually like Disenchant too--for O-Stone, that is. About the only time it would help against Map is if it were my T2 on the play. However, I no longer run it because Unmaking is filling that role and I only have 75 cards to work with.
A single Ghost Quarter is unlikely to be enough all by itself, agreed. However, GQ + Extraction is unbelievably good. When I get this I win the game. Ask Tron players about how it feels for one of their Tron lands to get Extracted, if you doubt my perspective. Attacking the mana is the format standard, tried-and-true method of disrupting Tron's game. (Thoughtseize + Extraction on Wurmcoil or especially Karn can also be good.) I find it hard to imagine many situations where GQing Sanctum would be a better play than hitting a Tron land; if they can't cast a 7+ CMC colorless spell, then Sanctum is just a Wastes for them. And if I can keep them off Tron, they're not likely to be able to cast such a spell before they are dead (assuming I can prevent O-Stone from cracking). They don't have a ton of threats, true, but they can find their threats pretty easily even without Sanctum, and their threats are better than ours, so one is often all they need.
Tron beats midrange decks. That's what it does. All decks have a rock to their scissors and this is one of ours.
But dont try to beat Tron at all cost sacrificing you SB, sometimes you just need to accept the bad MU. It's hard for any midrange deck to beat Tron.
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
We approach the tron matchup differently. I assume that they are going to hit tron and deal with their threats. I do this since the majority of their cards are there to try and assemble the combo. If I spend turns just trying to stop them and not applying pressure by sacraficing my lands and playing stony silence, I loose. Tron folds when you apply pressure quickly. Once they get the combo they usually only have one or two threats to deal with. I am attacking where I believe there deck is weak, the threat density. I take out my slow cards and put in cards that deal with their threats in the most efficient manner.
Yes, I think that ghost quarter + extraction is good. The problem is that you need both of them in your hand. Surgical extraction is a dead card in our hand unless we have ghost quarter since the majority of our removal exiles their threats. By running surgical extraction you are taking up sideboard slots that can be used for cards like fulminator mage which has the versatility to kill lands and apply pressure.
Thoughtseize + surgical on karn is good since the majority of RG tron lists run 4 karns, but extracting anything else is not as great.
Yes, pithing needle naming karn or o-stone is really good. I really like pithing needle in the sideboard, it is a very useful card.
I just think that this deck has a very bad tron matchup since the CMC of the creatures is so high. Both decks are playing good threats by turn 4, but a karn beats thought-knot, blight hearder, or reality smasher all day long. We need to essentialy need to apply more pressure sooner, which is why matter reshaper is good in this matchup.
This is true. The problem with ghost quarter and the bw processor decks is that the creatures cost a significant amount of mana to cast and by using ghost quarter we are slowing ourseleves down and providing them with a mountain or forest. If we ghost quarter a land they have multiple copies of by holding on to it in their hand, it is a such a huge tempo loss for us that we can not recover.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Leonin Arbiter: slows down the searching in both decks. makes path and ghost quarter way more powerful
Tidehollow Sculler: Mini thought-knot seer. Great for picking out big threats from these two decks
Thalia: Slows down both strategies.
Right now I'm leaning towards the Arbiters because of the ghost quarter interaction. Quarter is one of the best cards in these matchups and arbiter makes it better
They path it, we can still cast it.
It dies some other way, we use relic to exile it, then cast it.
Edit:
I would try something like this:
3 Eternal Scourge
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Spells (14):
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lingering Souls
1 Dismember
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Mind Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
Lands (24):
24x Lands
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Because the CMC of the deck is too high. The general list has an average CMC around 2.8 and about 9 cards with CMC 4 or 5 while decks that run bob have a average CMC around 2 and only run one or two 4-drops.
The current iteration of this deck would take a lot of damage with bob. If you want to draw cards you can try phyrexian arena or night's whisper.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
We have plenty of drop 4 and 5, too risky.
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
And I like souls far too much to ever cut that card
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W