Some more thoughts on matchups I've played a few times, again roughly in order of current meta representation:
Jeskai Control / Nahiri Control (even to slightly favored)
If they mainboard Supreme Verdicts it's a big problem. Otherwise, if you get a Cavern out you should eventually overwhelm their removal. Thought-Knot Seer and Cavern are the key cards here.
Burn (slightly unfavored pre-board, about even post-board)
Thought-Knot Seer puts a big roadblock in their plans and Smasher does a great job racing them. Spellskite is okay. Don't expect your Hierarch/Bird to live long here. Eidolon of the Great Revel whiffs on the majority of our deck as well.
Sideboarding:
IN - 2 Timely Reinforcements, 1 Thragtusk, 1 Celestial Purge, 0-1 Engineered Explosives
OUT - 3-4 Drowner, 0-2 Flex (Skyspawner, Bird, or Displacer perhaps)
Abzan Company (unfavorable pre-board, slightly better but still unfavored post-board)
Game 1 mostly hope they don't get lucky and you draw god hands to race and disrupt them. Game 2 and 3 sideboard only helps out slightly - don't let them combo out (MUCH easier said than done) and you should win. Tough match but by no means unwinnable. Keep in mind what they can Chord for each turn and what is in their grave for them to E-Witness back.
Sideboarding:
IN - 2 Cage, 1 Stubborn Denial, 1 Dismember, 0-1 Gutshot (only for Seer really), 0-1 Celestial Purge (also for Seer), 0-2 Engineered Explosives
OUT - 2 Spellskite, 2-4 Drowner, 2+ Flex (Skyspawner, Bird, Reshaper)
Affinity (even to slightly favorable post-board)
Very similar to the Infect matchup other than Spellskites don't do much here. Skyspawner, Displacer, Paths, and Drowner are excellent here as expected. Keep in mind they can instant-speed move the plating around. Also Etched Champion is worthless against all your devoid creatures.
Scapeshift (unfavorable and not much better post-board either)
Nightmare matchup. You need to have the god hands of acceleration + disruption + Cavern + Smashers to win this. Mulligan aggressively.
Sideboarding:
IN - 1 Thragtusk, 1 Worldbreaker, 1 Stubborn Denial
OUT - 2-4 Paths, 0-1 Drowner
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Again, interested in others experiences / sideboarding with these matchups.
I'll start with my thoughts on some of the matchups (in rough order of Tier representation)
vs Jund (favored)
They constantly disrupt then have a lot of 1 for 1 removal, which is not great against us. With them emptying their hand often, it makes Reality Smasher even more difficult to deal with. Bolt / Seal of Fire / Abrupt Decay misses a lot of our targets. Our creatures that come into play with a scion like Skyspawner / Drowner make saccing to Lilianna easy as well.
Sideboarding:
IN - 1 Thragtusk, 1 Celestial Purge, 1 World Breaker
OUT - 1 Bird, 1 Skyspawner, 1 Spellskite
GR Tron (slightly unfavored)
Our combination of disruption with pressure is how we win here. Displacer and Drowner can keep their big resolved creatures at bay while you swing in with a singleton Smasher/Drowner for victory sometimes. Ugin does nothing against us so we can ignore him as long as he isn't near ultimating. However, if we draw the wrong side of our deck or are too slow, we can quickly get outclassed and Ulamog will wreck our day.
Sideboarding:
IN - 2 Stony Silence, 1 World Breaker, 1 Stubborn Denial
OUT - 2 Drowner, 1-2 Spellskite, 1 Bird
Infect (fairly even, slightly favored post-board)
We have a few main-deck answers to Infect so it's a matter of drawing them or not game 1. Displacer, Drowner, Spellskite, Skyspawner, and Path as you would expect are excellent here. Smasher provides a quick clock - especially considering they generally play very aggressively with their life total with fetch/shock, and phyrexian spells.
Sideboarding:
IN - 1 Gutshot, 1 Dismember, 1 Stubborn Denial
OUT - 2-3 Matter Reshaper, 1 Drowner/TKS/Bird
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Interested to hear others thoughts on those matchups - this is how I've been sideboarding at the moment.
I second EE as a great answer. EE on 1 to wipe out the majority of their creatures, then you should be able to stomp over the rest. Save paths for the lords if possible.
With your SB I would bring in:
1 Gutshot (Heritage Druid being the main target)
1 Dismember (Lords or Heritage Druid to slow them down)
2 EE (set on 1 or 3) - I know yours was Ratchet Bomb, which is slower as you noticed. You should be able to get a 2 for 1 or better with this pretty easily.
0-2 Cage - turns off their CoCo and Chords
0-1 Negate and/or 2 Stubborn Denial - hit the Chord/Coco/Lead Stampede
0-1 Thragtusk - Buys time and a big body that replaces itself with another. Flickering with Displacer also buys you even more time.
As to cards to cut...
2 Spellskite (does nothing here)
2-3 Drowner, 1-2 Smasher, 0-1 TKS (cut a little top end for earlier interactions)
0-2 Flex (Skyspawner, Reshaper, Displacer, Birds, Mimic - something of that nature)
It's a tough matchup indeed - as are many other go wide strategies for this deck.
Well deserved promotion for such a beast of a deck! I was floored by how many at my LGS were playing it already - and as mentioned in my quick summary, all of them went 3 or more wins in the 4 round event last time - also worth mentioning one of them only went 3 wins because he lost the mirror match (to me).
What do you think are the worst matchups for the deck?
Game 1s I have trouble beating Melira Company and almost any combo deck barring some god draws into T2 TKS and then pressure and more TKS.
Scapeshift seems a rough matchup even post sideboard since I just bring in World Breaker, Stubborn Denial, and Thragtusk for some earlier pressure. Very draw dependent on getting Cavern and TKS out basically.
I've also had issues beating BW Tokens. Their going wide plan with vigilance and constant disruption and life-gain is difficult for the deck to deal with. Drowner isn't so great to tap down Bitterblossom / Spirit tokens. We are a fair deck with some potential explosive starts, so very draw dependent on getting that out uninterrupted. Explosive Engineering and World Breaker help a decent amount in the sideboard, but still a rough match in my experience.
With regards to Ghostfire Blade... very few decks run equipment at all. If they do it has to be nearly broken in strength - think Cranial Plating in Affinity. Giving +2+2 to a creature alone isn't strong enough to play - there's also the question of what card is being cut for this and would that be better for the deck or not?
I understand that the toughest matches everyone is coming across seem to be Infect, Affinity, and Abz Co. I figured 2 Ghost Quarters should help to deal with Inkmoths and the SB is geared fairly hard toward those with only World Breakers as a nod toward anything else really. Am I missing anything else with where the deck is at right now? Should I be prioritizing a 4th Cavern? If I do, what do I replace?
As to the sideboard, I would suggest trimming down on Worships to fit in a Gut Shot and Dismember. Maybe only go to 2 EE and 2 Cage as well since they can be fetched by Stirrings you don't need 3 of them as bad. You can put in some life gain like Timely Reinforcements and Thragtusk perhaps. I've also been trying Creeping Corrosion and Fracturing Gust as 1-ofs in the sideboard to deal with Affinity, Lantern, and the likes.
lol good find on that clip. That is one of the ones I was thinking of - though it appears only one player had a displacer when the coverage was on the game which quickly turned the game in one player's favor (no spellskites out on board to protect against some of the blinks either - though spellskite was rarely played in the mirror back then).
Played Bant Eldrazi tonight at my LGS Thursday Night Modern and went 4-0.
Round 1 vs Abzan Company - lost game 1 to infinite life, won game 2 with Grafdigger Cage and Displacer shenanigans. Won game 3 thanks to a Stubborn Denial and Gut Shot doing work when I needed it.
Round 2 vs Naya Burn - won game 1 due to a couple TKS stripping away burn spells and holding down the ground then Drowner finishing it off. Game 2 landed a Timely Reinforcements to buy myself more time and also won with TKS and Drowner again.
Round 3 was the mirror match. Got stomped game 1 - he curved out quicker and got more threats than me. Game 2 I got some nutty draw of T2 TKS, T3 TKS constantly stripping away his hand. Then T5 a 3rd TKS! He conceded then. Game 3 I also won on the back of a couple TKS stripping his threats and Smasher/Drowner to finish it off.
Round 4 also was the mirror match. We never even finished game 1 - we just agreed to split after we both had a board state of 2 Spellskites each, 1 Displacer each, 2 Drowner each, 1 Hierarch each, 1 Bird each... it was just a game of constantly blinking our Drowner and redirecting the opponent's blinks to Spellskite whenever possible. I would have won in the end since I had more mana and more scions out, but the game was so miserable and lengthy we just wanted to concede and split the prize.
Bant Eldrazi certainly is a force to be reckoned with for sure. After going 2-0 I faced the 2nd of 3 people there with the deck, who also was 2-0 at the time. Then I faced the final Bant Eldrazi deck against another player who was 3-0. All 3 Bant Eldrazi decks tonight went 3 or 4 wins. Ridiculous!
On another note, I am terrible at the super clogged board states in the mirror match. I'm never confident with what my plays should be. Has anyone written an article or primer on how to navigate those board states with Displacer, Drowner, Spellskite and tons of mana? I wasn't sure where to find something on it. That or maybe some old footage of Eldrazi Winter when the mirror match came up a bunch - maybe I could learn more from that.
EE is not that awkward against Totem Armors - all enchantments with CMC1 will be destroyed still, just the Bogle and any 2CMC+ auras will survive. So if it's a Bogle with Rancor, Ethereal, Spider Umbra, and Daybreak Coronet, EE on 1 will leave them with just the Bogle (Daybreak will fall off since there are no other enchantments). Speaking as a previous Bogle player, EE is one of the worst cards they want to see (that and Spellskite of course).
I'm confused by Deceiver of Form in the sideboard. Is that just to have a 7 colorless mana Eldrazi for recurring K-return against some decks? Bringing in a 7 drop just to recur K-return earlier on doesn't seem that great to me. What matches would you bring in Deceiver of Form for and why?
A serious question, how this deck can be a tier if every time we face infect or Coco/kiki chord/maybe affinity we lose hard?
Sure, this is a fun deck but is competitive?
Some major exaggerations there. Infect is pretty even - we have 2 maindeck spellskites for instance and Ancient Stirrings can grab them. Skyspawner, Displacer, Path, Drowner, and Thought-Knot Seer all are great cards in the matchup too. Post-board we have a lot of options to make it possibly even slightly in our favor.
Abzan Coco is rough game 1. That's a bad matchup. Post board you need to hit some sideboard cards or run lucky. Grafdigger's Cage, also fetchable by Stirrings shuts them down hard. Any sort of counter spells Negate/Stubborn Denial is great vs Coco/Chord as well. TKS stealing important pieces is great of course.
Kiki Chord I don't understand why it would be a bad matchup. They're a slow combo deck.
Affinity is rough game 1, but significantly better post board. A lot of our creatures still are decent game 1, especially if you have been weaving in 2-3 Skyspawners into the main.
I wasn't as high on Tracker until I started playing him myself. Sometimes you get a ramp spell extracted (or just don't have any in hand) and next turn just go Tracker and land drop. Many turns we have excess mana so saccing a couple clues and drawing into something like an Oath of Nissa / threat is fantastic. Then you have turns with him in play and go "land drop, Nissa's Renewal / Vegetation / ramp spell" and get so much value from that. In a deck that loses to itself due to consistency issues having more ways to dig further into the deck, and with a body attached fits well into the deck. Better than Advocate / Visionary that sometimes are run in these slots.
Cutting the 4th Ulamog for something else is probably fine, but cutting an Oath almost assuredly is not. Traverse will so rarely be on it's not a good fit in this build. Also cutting a land makes it more likely you have to mulligan in this build due to no green sources.
I wouldn't really worry about tuning the deck to beat BR Vampires or GR Werewolves or anything of the sort. It's such a small percentage of the field it's not worth hurting the matchups you'll run into much more often. If you're just casually play-testing with friends and that's what they're always running, then by all means metagame it up against them. Otherwise, keep in the mind the matchups you'll most likely run into:
GW Tokens
Mono W Humans
4C Company / Rites / Aristocrats
Bant Company
BW Control
Esper / Dragons Control
Seasons Past Control
Jeskai Control / Nahiri Control (even to slightly favored)
If they mainboard Supreme Verdicts it's a big problem. Otherwise, if you get a Cavern out you should eventually overwhelm their removal. Thought-Knot Seer and Cavern are the key cards here.
Sideboarding:
IN - 1 Worldbreaker, 1 Stubborn Denial, 1-2 Cage (if Nahiri), 0-1 Celestial Purge (if Nahiri/Kiki/expecting Blood Moon)
OUT - 2 Spellskite, 1 Bird, 1 Drowner
Burn (slightly unfavored pre-board, about even post-board)
Thought-Knot Seer puts a big roadblock in their plans and Smasher does a great job racing them. Spellskite is okay. Don't expect your Hierarch/Bird to live long here. Eidolon of the Great Revel whiffs on the majority of our deck as well.
Sideboarding:
IN - 2 Timely Reinforcements, 1 Thragtusk, 1 Celestial Purge, 0-1 Engineered Explosives
OUT - 3-4 Drowner, 0-2 Flex (Skyspawner, Bird, or Displacer perhaps)
Abzan Company (unfavorable pre-board, slightly better but still unfavored post-board)
Game 1 mostly hope they don't get lucky and you draw god hands to race and disrupt them. Game 2 and 3 sideboard only helps out slightly - don't let them combo out (MUCH easier said than done) and you should win. Tough match but by no means unwinnable. Keep in mind what they can Chord for each turn and what is in their grave for them to E-Witness back.
Sideboarding:
IN - 2 Cage, 1 Stubborn Denial, 1 Dismember, 0-1 Gutshot (only for Seer really), 0-1 Celestial Purge (also for Seer), 0-2 Engineered Explosives
OUT - 2 Spellskite, 2-4 Drowner, 2+ Flex (Skyspawner, Bird, Reshaper)
Affinity (even to slightly favorable post-board)
Very similar to the Infect matchup other than Spellskites don't do much here. Skyspawner, Displacer, Paths, and Drowner are excellent here as expected. Keep in mind they can instant-speed move the plating around. Also Etched Champion is worthless against all your devoid creatures.
Sideboarding:
IN - 2 Stony Silence, 2 Engineered Explosives, 1 Fracturing Gust, 1 Gut Shot, 1 Dismember
OUT - 2 Spellskite, 2-4 Matter Reshaper, 1-2 Thought-Knot Seer, 0-1 Drowner, 0-1 Bird
Scapeshift (unfavorable and not much better post-board either)
Nightmare matchup. You need to have the god hands of acceleration + disruption + Cavern + Smashers to win this. Mulligan aggressively.
Sideboarding:
IN - 1 Thragtusk, 1 Worldbreaker, 1 Stubborn Denial
OUT - 2-4 Paths, 0-1 Drowner
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Again, interested in others experiences / sideboarding with these matchups.
vs Jund (favored)
They constantly disrupt then have a lot of 1 for 1 removal, which is not great against us. With them emptying their hand often, it makes Reality Smasher even more difficult to deal with. Bolt / Seal of Fire / Abrupt Decay misses a lot of our targets. Our creatures that come into play with a scion like Skyspawner / Drowner make saccing to Lilianna easy as well.
Sideboarding:
IN - 1 Thragtusk, 1 Celestial Purge, 1 World Breaker
OUT - 1 Bird, 1 Skyspawner, 1 Spellskite
GR Tron (slightly unfavored)
Our combination of disruption with pressure is how we win here. Displacer and Drowner can keep their big resolved creatures at bay while you swing in with a singleton Smasher/Drowner for victory sometimes. Ugin does nothing against us so we can ignore him as long as he isn't near ultimating. However, if we draw the wrong side of our deck or are too slow, we can quickly get outclassed and Ulamog will wreck our day.
Sideboarding:
IN - 2 Stony Silence, 1 World Breaker, 1 Stubborn Denial
OUT - 2 Drowner, 1-2 Spellskite, 1 Bird
Infect (fairly even, slightly favored post-board)
We have a few main-deck answers to Infect so it's a matter of drawing them or not game 1. Displacer, Drowner, Spellskite, Skyspawner, and Path as you would expect are excellent here. Smasher provides a quick clock - especially considering they generally play very aggressively with their life total with fetch/shock, and phyrexian spells.
Sideboarding:
IN - 1 Gutshot, 1 Dismember, 1 Stubborn Denial
OUT - 2-3 Matter Reshaper, 1 Drowner/TKS/Bird
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Interested to hear others thoughts on those matchups - this is how I've been sideboarding at the moment.
With your SB I would bring in:
1 Gutshot (Heritage Druid being the main target)
1 Dismember (Lords or Heritage Druid to slow them down)
2 EE (set on 1 or 3) - I know yours was Ratchet Bomb, which is slower as you noticed. You should be able to get a 2 for 1 or better with this pretty easily.
0-2 Cage - turns off their CoCo and Chords
0-1 Negate and/or 2 Stubborn Denial - hit the Chord/Coco/Lead Stampede
0-1 Thragtusk - Buys time and a big body that replaces itself with another. Flickering with Displacer also buys you even more time.
As to cards to cut...
2 Spellskite (does nothing here)
2-3 Drowner, 1-2 Smasher, 0-1 TKS (cut a little top end for earlier interactions)
0-2 Flex (Skyspawner, Reshaper, Displacer, Birds, Mimic - something of that nature)
It's a tough matchup indeed - as are many other go wide strategies for this deck.
edit: neglected to include Cage
What do you think are the worst matchups for the deck?
Game 1s I have trouble beating Melira Company and almost any combo deck barring some god draws into T2 TKS and then pressure and more TKS.
Scapeshift seems a rough matchup even post sideboard since I just bring in World Breaker, Stubborn Denial, and Thragtusk for some earlier pressure. Very draw dependent on getting Cavern and TKS out basically.
I've also had issues beating BW Tokens. Their going wide plan with vigilance and constant disruption and life-gain is difficult for the deck to deal with. Drowner isn't so great to tap down Bitterblossom / Spirit tokens. We are a fair deck with some potential explosive starts, so very draw dependent on getting that out uninterrupted. Explosive Engineering and World Breaker help a decent amount in the sideboard, but still a rough match in my experience.
As to the sideboard, I would suggest trimming down on Worships to fit in a Gut Shot and Dismember. Maybe only go to 2 EE and 2 Cage as well since they can be fetched by Stirrings you don't need 3 of them as bad. You can put in some life gain like Timely Reinforcements and Thragtusk perhaps. I've also been trying Creeping Corrosion and Fracturing Gust as 1-ofs in the sideboard to deal with Affinity, Lantern, and the likes.
Round 1 vs Abzan Company - lost game 1 to infinite life, won game 2 with Grafdigger Cage and Displacer shenanigans. Won game 3 thanks to a Stubborn Denial and Gut Shot doing work when I needed it.
Round 2 vs Naya Burn - won game 1 due to a couple TKS stripping away burn spells and holding down the ground then Drowner finishing it off. Game 2 landed a Timely Reinforcements to buy myself more time and also won with TKS and Drowner again.
Round 3 was the mirror match. Got stomped game 1 - he curved out quicker and got more threats than me. Game 2 I got some nutty draw of T2 TKS, T3 TKS constantly stripping away his hand. Then T5 a 3rd TKS! He conceded then. Game 3 I also won on the back of a couple TKS stripping his threats and Smasher/Drowner to finish it off.
Round 4 also was the mirror match. We never even finished game 1 - we just agreed to split after we both had a board state of 2 Spellskites each, 1 Displacer each, 2 Drowner each, 1 Hierarch each, 1 Bird each... it was just a game of constantly blinking our Drowner and redirecting the opponent's blinks to Spellskite whenever possible. I would have won in the end since I had more mana and more scions out, but the game was so miserable and lengthy we just wanted to concede and split the prize.
Bant Eldrazi certainly is a force to be reckoned with for sure. After going 2-0 I faced the 2nd of 3 people there with the deck, who also was 2-0 at the time. Then I faced the final Bant Eldrazi deck against another player who was 3-0. All 3 Bant Eldrazi decks tonight went 3 or 4 wins. Ridiculous!
On another note, I am terrible at the super clogged board states in the mirror match. I'm never confident with what my plays should be. Has anyone written an article or primer on how to navigate those board states with Displacer, Drowner, Spellskite and tons of mana? I wasn't sure where to find something on it. That or maybe some old footage of Eldrazi Winter when the mirror match came up a bunch - maybe I could learn more from that.
I'm confused by Deceiver of Form in the sideboard. Is that just to have a 7 colorless mana Eldrazi for recurring K-return against some decks? Bringing in a 7 drop just to recur K-return earlier on doesn't seem that great to me. What matches would you bring in Deceiver of Form for and why?
Some major exaggerations there. Infect is pretty even - we have 2 maindeck spellskites for instance and Ancient Stirrings can grab them. Skyspawner, Displacer, Path, Drowner, and Thought-Knot Seer all are great cards in the matchup too. Post-board we have a lot of options to make it possibly even slightly in our favor.
Abzan Coco is rough game 1. That's a bad matchup. Post board you need to hit some sideboard cards or run lucky. Grafdigger's Cage, also fetchable by Stirrings shuts them down hard. Any sort of counter spells Negate/Stubborn Denial is great vs Coco/Chord as well. TKS stealing important pieces is great of course.
Kiki Chord I don't understand why it would be a bad matchup. They're a slow combo deck.
Affinity is rough game 1, but significantly better post board. A lot of our creatures still are decent game 1, especially if you have been weaving in 2-3 Skyspawners into the main.
5 days ago list where he placed 2nd:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/416879#paper
GW Tokens
Mono W Humans
4C Company / Rites / Aristocrats
Bant Company
BW Control
Esper / Dragons Control
Seasons Past Control