Samyou3I streamed some tonight, i think he's going to be looking to stream it some more. He went 4-1 narrowly losing to abzan. The deck looks very good
Thanks for letting us know! I found his stream here.
I am looking forward to watching it. It looks like we both have very, very similar decklists (with Liliana of the veil mainboard). My current list is in my signature, but I am tempted to cut the ranger of eos for something else.
Really wish someone was streaming with Esper Shadow or posting vids. Seems like the deck would have gained enough traction by now for someone to be doing it. I don't have a lot of time to play, so seeing someone else talk through the various matchups would be super helpful. Anyone here stream?
I agree. It is hard to find esper death shadow videos, but I found a video of Michael Majors playing esper death shadow here. Some audio portions are muted and the action starts around 1 hour and 3 min. His decklist is here.
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.
You're playing a Delver deck which happens to run Shadow, not a Shadow midrange. Therefore, maindeck Ranger, Liliana, Souls, Esper Charm are pretty much horrible choices (Liliana, the Last Hope could be understandable, but Of the Veil? You don't want to discard spells in a Snapcaster deck!). Also your Snap count is too low. At the BARE MINIMUM it must be a three-of. But four is just better, expecially if you up your cc1 removal count by one or two (5 between Path and Push seems very low).
My suggestion: cut Ranger, two Liliana, 2 Souls, 2 Esper Charm. Add two Snapcaster, 2 Path/Push, one Tasigur, two Stubborn Denial (seriously, where are the Stubborns? The main reason to play this deck, I would say). You are a go-under deck in game one, while in g2-3 you can be more midrangey if needed (both siding midrangey stuff like Souls or AVisions).
I was trying to go for a midrange deck that played delver. But the deck looks like a mis-mash of a death's shadow deck and a delver deck. Which, is probably not good. I should probably stick to a list from SoDamnLucky's qoute:
It looks like the decks went more of the non-delver route and added lingering souls and path to exile as the white cards. I am really liking the 5-0 MTGO list:
Tasigur and ol' gurmmy dodge bolts and pushes. If you run stubborn denial as well then you've got some nice counters for paths as well. Quite powerful, I think. Ranger is cool but unlike the jund version there's no traverse the ulvenwald to tutor it up which is probably what makes it so good in that deck. Thought scour is also great with souls (I'd be ok with only ever playing milled souls from the gy) and giving targets for snapcasters. I've played an Esper-delver-shadow version and was quite unimpressed with Delver. Having street wraiths let you power out shadows faster and can be held as potential tricks too.
You are playing a delver deck with only 24 instants/sorceries. That seems real low. I disagree with your assessment of Tasigur/Gurmag as well. Often playing one of those two early is the best route to victory as they both dodge some of the most common removal spells being played right now (push, bolt, abrupt decay).
Alright! I'll change up my deck. I played tasigur when he came out and just found him to be meh. Since then I have been off playing other decks that just don't care about him. But I have changed up my deck to:
I feel that tasigur, the golden fang and Gurmag Angler are just mediocre and I would prefer to run a more 1-drop threat streamlined deck. If you cut tasigur and angler you can also cut thought scour to make room for better cards. Here is where I am at right now:
This deck has a lot of explosive or synergistic plays as well as the ability to grind out the long game and I am curious to what other people think. I am not 100% sold on plunge into darkness but I will try it out.
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?
I played in a local regionals tournament with a list very similar to the one above (liliana of the veil instead of last hope) and went 2-3 drop. I played against affinity twice (loss and win), burn (win), skred (got destroyed), and uw spirits (lost). Overall I felt the deck was competitive it just depended on how much gas I drew and how good my opponents hand was. I feel that I should go down to 23 lands and add something that will help me filter my draws.
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.
Decided to continue with BW over Tron. I don't know what the meta at the GP will be like, so I want to be as flexible as possible. However, given the recent bans and Fatal Push being printed, I've made my list as anti-tron as possible without sacrificing points in other matchups. Would collective brutality be a good fit given its versatility? I tested anguished unmaking, but the three life really hurts. Oblivion ring as a singleton accomplishes the same thing, but without that annoying three life loss. I just hope not to run into any abrupt decays or esper charms.
The list is looking good. Personally I would cut a relic, matter reshaper, and wasteland strangler to add another mind stone and 2x eldrazi displacers. I would find a way to put at least 1 anguished unmaking within your 75 and possibly another pithing needle in the side. I am liking the Crucible of Worlds in the sideboard. I assume that is for a ghost quarter "lock" against scapeshift and tron?
Here is my version which is built more around exiling/processing effects but is rather creature heavy (the main strength of Eldrazi decks are the creatures, right ?):
Nice list! The strength of eldrazi is definitely the creatures and you are running a lot! What decks have you tested this deck against? Have you thought about putting in aether vial? How is Kambal, Consul of Allocation working out for you? I have tried out the eternal scourge and relic combo a few months ago. Here is where you can watch me playing Shaun McLaren with an older processor list running eternal scourge (I did misclick about an accidentally attacked with a creature that I wasn't supposed to but I was fairly new to MTGO at the time). I found the combo to be basically the equivalent of a man land and it was too slow at the time. With the printing of fatal push I expect the format will slow down a bit and the combo will be pretty strong. What is your experience with the eternal scourge and relic combo?
Currently, this deck is at a weird place. Some people using BW processor deck (here) have been cutting relics and running the tidehollow sculler / wasteland strangler combo. The other prevalent bw eldrazi deck is death and taxes. All of these decks (bwc processor, bwc eldrazi taxes, and bwc midrange basically have the same 45-ish cards) and it is hard to say which one is clearly the best. For me, I am thinking that the bwc midrange deck can have a more enter-the-battlefield creature base such as:
As you said, eldrazi displacer has a lot of synergy with the BW archtype and this creature base can certainly exploit that. The main problem with this creature base is mana requirements of tidehollow sculler. You basically need 19 B and 19 W sources in order to reliably cast tidehollow sculler on turn 2. And you need 11 C sources to cast thought-knot seer. Since each list should run 4 eldrazi temple and 4 caves of koilos you still need 15 BW dual lands and 3 more C producing sources. This is pretty much impossible without running a mana rock (such as mind stone).
Which is a lot less stressing on the mana. Creature base 2 requires only 12C sources and 12 W sources so we could run more utility lands. This creature base would be better in a heavy control meta because you can run 3-4 cavern of souls.
I feel that you have too many colorless sources in your deck. I would up the number of concealed courtyards to have the option to turn 1 fatal push or thoughtseize. You only need 11 C producing lands if you have the two mind stones to reach the required 12 C sources. I would recommend:
-1 marsh flats Between the relics, ghost quarter, and mind stone it is not hard to activate the revolt mechanic.
-1 collective brutality This might be a mistake but the primary role of this card was to strip their hand and/or kill a creature. I feel that this is taken care of between targeted discard and fatal push.
-1 wasteland strangler This card is great but we don't need 4 of them. I would try out a singleton eldrazi displacer instead. Eldrazi displacer is a powerhouse that can take over games. It helps us against stalled board states (by flickering opponents creatures and having them come into play tapped), nullifies gavony township (this card is the worst to play against, and gives us a mill win con and/or draw step control by flickering a thought-knot seer.
-1 reality smasher I feel that 4 CMC 5 creatures is just too many. We want this creature every game, but it is bad in multiples in our opening hand.
-1 anguished unmaking If your meta is filled with tron, I would have a couple main board. Otherwise our discard spells can remove problematic cards before they are a problem.
+3 Concealed courtyard I know that people are concerned with this coming into play tapped on turn 4 which could delay playing reality smasher. The probability of that is pretty low and I would rather have a pain-free land to use a fatal push on turn 1 against aggressive decks and not take too much damage from a turn 1 discard spell. Taking less damage with our lands also justifies cutting collective brutality.
Thank you wizards for printing fatal push! This is exactly what this deck needs. It gives a fighting chance against some of the toughest matchups for the CBW eldrazi midrange archtype:
Merfolk
Zoo
zoo + a bunch a burn spells
And we can finally "bolt the bird" since "pathing the bird" was never a good option.
With the recent bannings, I feel that dredge too a pretty big hit and running main-deck graveyard hate is not really necessary. Here is the deck that I am going to try out later this week:
However, I am strongly considering cutting sorin (and a couple of other cards) for 3x liliana, the last hope. The mana also needs some work. Ideally, I would have 12 C sources, 20 B, and 20 W sources.
Thanks for letting us know! I found his stream here.
I am looking forward to watching it. It looks like we both have very, very similar decklists (with Liliana of the veil mainboard). My current list is in my signature, but I am tempted to cut the ranger of eos for something else.
I agree. It is hard to find esper death shadow videos, but I found a video of Michael Majors playing esper death shadow here. Some audio portions are muted and the action starts around 1 hour and 3 min. His decklist is here.
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!
I was trying to go for a midrange deck that played delver. But the deck looks like a mis-mash of a death's shadow deck and a delver deck. Which, is probably not good. I should probably stick to a list from SoDamnLucky's qoute:
However, here are some decks that did well recently.
1st in a PTQ: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/613705#online
5-2 at a PTQ: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/608547#online
Went 5-0 on MTGO today: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/614486#online
It looks like the decks went more of the non-delver route and added lingering souls and path to exile as the white cards. I am really liking the 5-0 MTGO list:
4 Death's Shadow
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
2 Tasigur, the golden fang
2 Gurmag Angler
Sorcery (13)
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Serum Visions
3 Lingering Souls
4 Fatal Push
2 Path to Exile
2 Stubborn Denial
4 Thought Scour
Lands (19)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Watery Grave
2 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Swamp
Alright! I'll change up my deck. I played tasigur when he came out and just found him to be meh. Since then I have been off playing other decks that just don't care about him. But I have changed up my deck to:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Death's Shadow
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tasigur, the golden fang
1 Ranger of Eos
Planeswalkers (2)
2 Liliana of the Veil
Sorcery (13)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Serum Visions
2 Lingering Souls
3 Fatal Push
2 Path to Exile
2 Orzhov Charm
2 Esper Charm
4 Thought Scour
Lands (19)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Watery Grave
2 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Swamp
And after looking at other esper shadow delver decks it seems that they are all pretty similar to this one, except I have ranger of eos, lingering souls, and esper charm instead of gurmag angler and stubborn denial.
I feel that tasigur, the golden fang and Gurmag Angler are just mediocre and I would prefer to run a more 1-drop threat streamlined deck. If you cut tasigur and angler you can also cut thought scour to make room for better cards. Here is where I am at right now:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Death's Shadow
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Ranger of Eos
Planeswalkers (2)
2 Liliana of the Veil
Sorcery (14)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Serum Visions
3 Lingering Souls
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
2 Orzhov Charm
2 Plunge into Darkness
Lands (20)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
3 Watery Grave
2 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Swamp
This deck has a lot of explosive or synergistic plays as well as the ability to grind out the long game and I am curious to what other people think. I am not 100% sold on plunge into darkness but I will try it out.
I've noticed and uptick in Blood moon myself as well as skred decks. Celestial purge is a great sideboard card now.
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?
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Reality Smasher
Planeswalkers (3):
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Liliana, the last hope [or Liliana of the Veil]
Spells (16):
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Collective brutality
4 Lingering Souls
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Mind Stone
Lands (24):
4x Eldrazi Temple
1x Sea Gate Wreckage
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Fetid Heath
4x Caves of Koilos
3x Marsh Flats
4x Concealed Courtyard
3x Godless Shrine
1x Wastes
1x Swamp
1x Plains
I played in a local regionals tournament with a list very similar to the one above (liliana of the veil instead of last hope) and went 2-3 drop. I played against affinity twice (loss and win), burn (win), skred (got destroyed), and uw spirits (lost). Overall I felt the deck was competitive it just depended on how much gas I drew and how good my opponents hand was. I feel that I should go down to 23 lands and add something that will help me filter my draws.
Maybe one of these cards would work:
Eternal scourge is also good against jund. As deaddrift says, save removal for kalitas everything else is easy to deal with.
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.
The list is looking good. Personally I would cut a relic, matter reshaper, and wasteland strangler to add another mind stone and 2x eldrazi displacers. I would find a way to put at least 1 anguished unmaking within your 75 and possibly another pithing needle in the side. I am liking the Crucible of Worlds in the sideboard. I assume that is for a ghost quarter "lock" against scapeshift and tron?
Nice list! The strength of eldrazi is definitely the creatures and you are running a lot! What decks have you tested this deck against? Have you thought about putting in aether vial? How is Kambal, Consul of Allocation working out for you? I have tried out the eternal scourge and relic combo a few months ago. Here is where you can watch me playing Shaun McLaren with an older processor list running eternal scourge (I did misclick about an accidentally attacked with a creature that I wasn't supposed to but I was fairly new to MTGO at the time). I found the combo to be basically the equivalent of a man land and it was too slow at the time. With the printing of fatal push I expect the format will slow down a bit and the combo will be pretty strong. What is your experience with the eternal scourge and relic combo?
Currently, this deck is at a weird place. Some people using BW processor deck (here) have been cutting relics and running the tidehollow sculler / wasteland strangler combo. The other prevalent bw eldrazi deck is death and taxes. All of these decks (bwc processor, bwc eldrazi taxes, and bwc midrange basically have the same 45-ish cards) and it is hard to say which one is clearly the best. For me, I am thinking that the bwc midrange deck can have a more enter-the-battlefield creature base such as:
Creature base 1
As you said, eldrazi displacer has a lot of synergy with the BW archtype and this creature base can certainly exploit that. The main problem with this creature base is mana requirements of tidehollow sculler. You basically need 19 B and 19 W sources in order to reliably cast tidehollow sculler on turn 2. And you need 11 C sources to cast thought-knot seer. Since each list should run 4 eldrazi temple and 4 caves of koilos you still need 15 BW dual lands and 3 more C producing sources. This is pretty much impossible without running a mana rock (such as mind stone).
A sample deck would look like this:
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Wasteland Strangler
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Reality Smasher
Planeswalkers (3):
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Liliana of the Veil [or Liliana, the last hope]
Spells (15):
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Collective brutality
4 Lingering Souls
2 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Mind Stone
Lands (24):
4x Eldrazi Temple
1x Sea Gate Wreckage
4x Caves of Koilos
1x Fetid Heath
3x Marsh Flats
4x Concealed Courtyard
3x Godless Shrine
2x Shambling Vent
1x Swamp
1x Plains
We could go with a more eldrazi-centric creature base without the tidehollow / strangler option though. Something like:
Creature base 2
Which is a lot less stressing on the mana. Creature base 2 requires only 12C sources and 12 W sources so we could run more utility lands. This creature base would be better in a heavy control meta because you can run 3-4 cavern of souls.
This would make your deck look like this:
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Concealed Courtyard
3 Caves of Koilos
2 Shambling Vent
2 Godless Shrine
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Marsh Flats
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
Sorcery - 9
3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
Artifact - 5
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Mind Stone
Planeswalker - 1
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Eldrazi displacer
3 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Reality Smasher
For the sideboard I would start with this:
2 anguished unmaking
2 damnation
2 disenchant (There might be a lot of UB tezzeret decks running around, also easily kills blood moon)
1 fatal push
1 engineered explosives
1 worship
1 celestial purge
3 other cards
With the recent bannings, I feel that dredge too a pretty big hit and running main-deck graveyard hate is not really necessary. Here is the deck that I am going to try out later this week:
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Wasteland Strangler
3 Matter Reshaper
3 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Reality Smasher
Planeswalkers (1):
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Spells (15):
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Collective brutality
4 Lingering Souls
2 Dismember [Soon to be fatal push]
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Mind Stone
Lands (24):
4x Eldrazi Temple
1x Sea Gate Wreckage
4x Caves of Koilos
1x Fetid Heath
3x Marsh Flats
4x Concealed Courtyard
3x Godless Shrine
2x Shambling Vent
1x Swamp
1x Plains
However, I am strongly considering cutting sorin (and a couple of other cards) for 3x liliana, the last hope. The mana also needs some work. Ideally, I would have 12 C sources, 20 B, and 20 W sources.