Question, what would be some good substitutes for the most expensive cards in this list such as Timetwister, Tabernacle, and power artifact? The most I'm willing to splurge for this deck right now is a Mana crypt and maybe grim monolith. I don't have Mox diamond either but I think I can either trade an extra city of traitors for it or get a Lotus petal to run instead.
If it helps focus the suggestions a bit, what cards could help tune this deck to better fight aggro strategies? I know they're probably not the most competitive strategies to fight but they are the most dominant locally.
I came back into the game after a short hiatus to play in a local team tournament last Saturday. I decided to play Burn over Grixis Delver because I knew I'd be much less likely to make mistakes with burn. Despite going 1-3 with the rest of my team, I ended up only having 3 real misplays that day, and none of them really made a difference as to the outcome of the games. I changed up my list from usual, going completely fetchless, and consolidating my sideboard into 5 different cards under 4 distinct matchup categories.
Round 1: Lands (0-2)
This was an interesting round as I ended up playing against Jody Keith; a player who's top 8'd multiple GP's and Opens with Lands, and is probably one of the best Lands players in the world currently. Game 1, he attempts to Crop Rotate on turn 3, sacrificing a Tabernacle and leaving up a Taiga and Wasteland; I respond with a Price of Progress. After that resolves, he gets a Glacial Chasm and stabilizes at 10 life. The following turn, he follows up by manabonding the dark depths combo and I don't have enough instant speed burn to win before he attacks with Marit Lage. Game 2 is the same thing, he gets out a Marit Lage while at 8 life and I don't have enough burn to close the gap (double fireblast definitely would have gotten me there). I will say that after playing against him, I've realized that the Lands matchup is definitely less favorable than it looks on paper. Also I was surprised at his sideboard strategy; he only brought in 2 Krosan Grip against me just in case I brought in Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge. He's the first lands player I've seen not to board in Sphere of Resistance or other artifact-based hate against me.
Round 2: Elves (2-1)
This matchup was pretty straightforward. Game 1, I keep my opponent off of enough creatures to stop him from doing anything. Game 2, my opponent manages to Natural Order into Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. I manage to remove it, but at the cost of all my lands and going to 2 life. The end result is that my board is now 2 Eidolon and 0 land. My opponent manages to follow up with a Scavanging Ooze to recover. Game 3, my opponent stumbles and I hit multiple Searing cards.
Round 3: Burn Mirror (0-2)
My opponent straight up drew way better than I did this round. Game 1, I stabilize at 8, and I have the lead in life total with double Eidolon out (he's at 4), but my opponent manages to come back and win with double Fireblast. Game 2, my opponent gets off a late game Swiftspear+2 bolts to put me at 3 life out of nowhere.
Round 4: Grixis Delver (1-2)
Game 1, I play around most of his counters and burn him out while he stumbles with ponders. Game 2, he counters my attempt to remove his turn 1 Deathrite Shaman and then proceeds to power out a turn 2 True-name Nemesis, which ends up beating me in a race. Game 3, we both have slow starts, but he manages to win after getting out a Gurmag Angler and double Flusterstorming my Price of Progress (It would have been for 10 if it had resolved) when I had 3 mana up.
Overall despite the bad record I had a lot of fun and I feel like I still haven't lost my touch actually playing the deck. The only real bummer was that I originally wanted to name our team the Crimson Tide (as all 3 of us were playing burn decks) just to get reactions out of people (I live in Louisiana), but the people running the tournament decided to rename our team as well as a few others. I was so close to living the dream.
Ok....i confess...i have no idea how to play eidolon in this deck. Really. Ive been playing magic since 1994 and i just dont get it.
So i play this card in my second turn? Then what? Every spell i cast for the rest of the game costs me 2 life? I play lightning bolt to do 3 damage to you and 2 damage to me?
Do i wait till later in the game to cast it?
Do i cast it then do nothing until i have lethal damage in my hand?
I get it, im wrong. Everyone who has ever played magic sees how awesome this card is in a burn deck but me.
Can someone tell me how to play this card?
As in:
When do i want to cast it in a ideal situation?
What am i trying to do before i cast it?
What am i trying to do after i cast it?
What 4 cards should i cut to fit it in?
Im really looking forward to your answers.
Thanks
I know I'm kind of late to this discussion, but I haven't noticed anyone bring this up so I thought I might mention it. The reason Eidolon is good is because of how Legacy is as a format: The vast majority of cards that are playable in Legacy are 3cmc or less, with most cards that cost more being either super value control cards (Jace, the Mind Sculptor), has a cost reduction clause (Gurmag Angler) or cheated onto the field (Batterskull, Emrakul, Griselbrand). So if you're on the play and jam this card turn 2 against most decks in the format and it resolves, literally anything your opponent will play effectively has "This card deals 2 damage to you" written on it. If they want to advance their gameplan or even just remove Eidolon, they have to help yours as well. Another benefit is that you can lock your opponents out of the game if they are are 2 or less life, so you only really need to deal 18 damage to win. The only real outs to Eidolon at such a low life total are JTMS, Murderous Cut, or Fireblast.
Sure you take damage playing your own spells, but between Eidolon being an attacker and your opponent taking damage from playing their spells, it usually turns out asymmetric most of the time. The only time I won't jam him out on turn 2 is if I'm against a blue deck and I suspect they have a Daze. Obviously don't play him if you're far behind in life total, but that's usually much later in the game.
I also feel like this may have been covered earlier, but don't run Flame Rift and Eidolon in the same list. Flame Rift was what burn mages ran before Eidolon was printed, and obviously now it's just not good to deal yourself 6 while dealing your opponent 4.
Only reason to really consider keeping in Firecraft is that it's great to kill off Batterskull. Of course, it's only D&T and *Blade decks that runs that card, so probably fine to let them go. The question is what to replace it with? Harsh Mentor, Pyroblast, Tormod's Crypt, Ashen Rider, Volcanic Fallout, Searing Blaze are the things I am considering for the Firecraft replacement.
Honestly, you'll probably want more copies of Smash to Smithereens. It's basically a Searing Blaze that kills Batterskull, and it can also hit their Vials early on if you think it will make them stumble. I used to run 3 but I'm about to go up to a full playset in my board because the effect is just that good against them. It's also good against Chalice decks like your Eldrazi matchup because those decks tend to play Chalice on one against you since it shuts out over 1/3 of your deck.
Beyond Smash I feel like Red Elemental Blast might also be good in your sideboard considering the meta. There's better things to run than Sudden Shock.
This is currently the board I'm considering running:
I might play around with the numbers just to try and squeeze a third blast but I feel like it's our best option against Show and Tell. Alternatively I could just run 2 copies of Pyroclasm in that slot if I feel like Elves or DNT is more dominant in my local meta. However, I feel Searing Blood might actually be enough against those decks given my build. If that's the case, I could run 3 Blood and 4 Smash and have the last slot reserved for Grafdigger's Cage. It would look like this:
Also this note isn't really directed at you but it's more of a general observation. Harsh Mentor is actually pretty useless as a SB card. Whenever I'd play him, my opponent would simply just cast a removal spell, then proceed to crack the fetch or activate the ability Harsh Mentor was supposed to punish without taking any damage.
Your one of Fallout, 2 of Ashen Rider, and 2 of Tormod's Crypt are really 2-ofs though in your list which is what I was focusing on. I prefer Mindbreak Trap over Pillar because it prevents turn 1 combo from beating us before we can play Eidolon, which is what I'm really worried about with this matchup. Sure, they can duress the trap out of our hand, but if they play a turn 1 Duress, they're not comboing off on turn 1 anyway.
I have been digging a bit into older tournament results and top decklists. Seems like the Omnitell player does well fairly regularly and there are 1-2 ANT Storm players.
Fallout seems like a somewhat decent card considering the D&T decks and Shardless BUG so i would like to keep it as a 1-of. I do not have access to a 4th Exquisite Firecraft unfortunately, if i had i would play it in that slot....
DNT can play around Fallout with Mother of Runes and Flickerwisp, and Smashes are better in that matchup anyway. I'd probably suggest siding in 1-2 Smashes or Searing Blaze against Shardless BUG to remove blockers to be honest. Again, you have a lot of 2 of's in your board which isn't ideal given that you have no library manipulation. Given the information you've given me about your meta (namely that there's only one Show and Tell player, you have DNT/shardless BUG/Storm, and you don't seem to have any decks that rely on graveyards), I'd suggest a sideboard like this:
I've given you 2 flex slots that can be 2 copies of any one card based on your needs. For example, if you really want to keep Ashen Rider, run 2 of him and also board in 4 Red Blast, so you can bring in a total of 6 cards against the Show and Tell player instead of 2. I feel like this board gives you the most coverage (these cards can almost always be brought in against multiple matchups except maybe Mindbreak Trap), and gives you these cards in enough quantities so you have the best chance of drawing your sideboard cards in games 2 and 3. Nothing sucks more than boarding in answers for a deck and losing game 2 anyway because you didn't draw your answer. I'm also surprised you have access to records like these on a local level, most local stores don't keep records like this unless it's a GP trial, PTQ, or SCG IQ.
Keep in mind, this board is created on the premise that there aren't any graveyard decks in your meta. If this isn't the case or GY decks start cropping up later, I would adjust the board so you can run 4 copies of Tormod's Crypt.
I am going to a legacy tournament on 22.01. and want to take my Burn deck there. I have not played legacy there yet so i don't know much about the meta except for the winning decks which were for November and December:
Shardless BUG
Death & Taxes
2x Omnitell
Some Goblin/Red Control Homebrew (2. place of this list: https://www.trader-online.de/turniere/Decks/2016-11-T15.html)
4c Control (3. place of the link above)
Eldrazi
What would you suggest in such a meta? The list i play currently looks like this:
Do you think this has a reasonable shot at not failing completely? Any sideboard tech i am overlooking here?
If there's a lot of Show and Tell in your local meta (I don't know the size of it), you might just want to up the number of Ashen Rider in your board. One copy isn't going to show up in your hand frequently enough to be a good answer to the deck. If there's just one or 2 players who consistently do well with the deck, I'd suggest running 2-3 copies of Red Elemental Blast instead. It's still a card that can answer the SNT deck as well as other blue-based decks, so it's relevant in more matchups. My philosophy is that since there are so many different decks played in Legacy, I choose sideboard cards that have the versatility to be used against multiple different decks. I'd probably cut your one and 2-ofs in your board since you're not a brainstorm deck and sometimes all it takes is to not draw your sideboard card to lose games 2 and 3.
Glad you had fun. It's always interesting looking at reports from a huge tourney and seeing how big a divergence there is in what decks people see. My only overlap was playing (and 2-0ing!) Miracles twice and you saw 2 Infect and the only overlap between us at all was a single Storm deck. Wide open format and people will show up w/everything
That is true, I did see a ton of Lands decks being played at the event though, including my friend's (For the sake of boarding and gameplay I'd count aggro loam and lands as the same deck to be honest). My friend playing lands ended up dropping after round 6 after drawing a close match to U/W stoneblade. From what I was able to see he had really good gameplay all day but sometimes his opponent's cards just lined up better, and he ended up 2-3-1. My other friend was playing Miracles and he ended up dropping after round 5 to play vintage as the deck didn't really fit his playstyle (he was 2-3) and he got destroyed by Tezzerator in his last round.
I don't even know if the storm deck we both played would overlap, as your opponent's storm deck seems to be ANT (you didn't say much about it aside from the tendrils wincon), while the one I played was TES with Empty the Warrens.
Round 1: U/R Delver (1-2 loss)
I feel like this one could have gone either way. All 3 games my opponent dropped multiple swiftspears so I had to redirect some of my burn to the swiftspears instead of his face. Game 1 I managed to win the race, games 2 and 3 I gassed out. Game 3 was kind of close. My opponent was at 7 life and I was sitting with a fireblast in hand waiting for a bolt spell. However my opponent dropped a Bedlam Reveler and I failed to draw the burn spell I needed before he had lethal, but I guess it doesn't matter since he had Force of Will backup when I attempted to remove his reveler. We both played fairly sloppily as I was still kinda just waking up and this was my opponent's first GP ever. I got a warning for accidentally looking at too many cards off of Sensei's Divining Top, and he got a warning for not shuffling in his exiled cards that he pitched for Force of Will back into his deck for game 2.
Round 2: Infect (0-2 loss)
I completely punted game 1. I had 2 Eidolon on the board He attempted to kill me with an Inkmoth Nexus plus 2 Invigorate, and either I forgot I had 2 Eidolons on board or thought Invigorate was 4CMC, but I missed the triggers on Eidolon and conceded a game I should have won. I'm an idiot.
Game 2 I was doing my best to keep his board clear while chipping away at his life, but he ended up with a bonkers one-turn-kill hand I couldn't answer.
Round 3: Aggro Loam (2-1 Win)
I'm all the way at the scrub tables at this point. The way my opponent was playing I thought he was lands for a while but with some unusual choices like Scrubland. Game 1 I kill him before he could reasonably advance his board.
Game 2, he has a turn 1 Chalice of the Void for 1, and later plays Chalice of the void for 2. On my turn after the second chalice resolves, I finally draw my Smash to smithereens and, completely dumbfounded at my *****ty luck, I scoop and move on to game 3.
Game 3, I am tempted with a 1 land hand that has a ton of good, cheap burn including Goblin guide. I resist the temptation and mulligan to get a 2-land hand. I have Smash in my opening hand to answer his Chalice on 1, and I end up Price of Progressing him for a lot.
Round 4: Lands (0-2 Loss)
Just my luck, I get paired up with one of the friends I went to this GP with, so we both know what's in each other's decks. Game 1, he wins the dice roll and gets out a turn 3 Marit Lage. Nothing I can do there. I know he runs Leyline of Sanctity in his board (atypical for a lands deck) so I board accordingly, putting in my Lavamancers in addition to Smash and Crypt.
Game 2, he has the turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity, and while I did resolve a Sulfuric Vortex, I was scrambling to find creatures and non-targeted burn, which bought my friend enough time to set up a Marit Lage again. This was the only matchup of the day where I felt like I lost because of pure bad luck and not because I made mistakes.
Round 5: Storm (2-0 Win)
Game 1, my opponent has a turn 1 Probe into Cabal therapy to take away my Eidolon. It doesn't matter as I burn his face away before he can set up his combo.
Game 2, we both mulligan to 5. This is the only one-land hand I kept the entire day, as it contained Mountain, 2 Eidolons, Price of Progress, and a 1-mana burn spell. I reason that this 5 is better than a mulligan to 4 as I'll be in business if I draw a second land. Unfortunately, I don't draw a second land and for the most part it's draw, one mana burn spell, pass on my end while he Brainstorms and Ponders with impunity. The turn before he combos off, he Gitaxian Probe's me and sees 2 Prices, 2 Eidolons, and a Lightning bolt. I bolt his face at the end of his turn, and he passes back. I drew a Mindbreak Trap and pass. I act dejected that I still have not gotten a second land 6 turns into the game. He attempts to combo off, only for me to respond to his Empty the Warrens with my trap card. He is left with no cards in hand, and I finally draw my second Mountain the turn after to seal the game.
Round 6: Infect (2-1 Win)
Game 1, my opponent had an awkward manabase start involving multiple Inkmoth Nexus and no colored sources, which I take advantage of by bolting the Nexus's away.
Game 2, I consistently burn away his infect creatures, so he resorts to the Pump-Noble-Hierarch-and-swing-for-30 method, with double Invigorate, Become Immense, and Berzerk. It works.
Game 3, I'm able to resolve 2 Eidolons again (deja vu anyone?) which makes him unable to pump his creatures and he loses the damage race as a result.
Round 7: 4-color deathblade (1-2 Loss)
Game 1 was very weird. My opponent tried to fake Shardless Sultai for a while with Tropical Island into Deathrite Shaman, but he dropped the farce once he started having to play white sources for Swords to Plowshares. He played no equipment or Stoneforge mystic and I had no idea what he was playing by the end of the game. I don't side in Smash to Smithereens because I didn't see Stoneforge Mystic or any equipment out of his end and I assume he's playing a brew.
Game 2, he rocks my world with a Jitte. I made a mistake here by not waiting to cast Sulfuric Vortex, because I jammed it turn 3, assuming he didn't run Daze. He had Spell Pierce instead.
Game 3, I board in my Smashes, but don't draw them. He goes in with his Jitte plan again, and I can't Price of Progress him out of the game as he has a Meddling mage naming that card out. It's a real shame too, because after he resolved the second one, I drew a second price, which would have easily won me the game since he had 4 nonbasics out.
Overall I had a great time, though. I played pretty sloppily for the first 2 rounds because I was kind of rusty with this deck but I tightened up for the most part after round 2. My performance here was also better than my performance at GP Columbus last summer playing Grixis Delver, and I lasted longer in the tournament than both of my friends that came up here with me. I also had fun telling my opponents they were doing the Lord's work whenever they would crack a fetchland or pay 2 life for a Gitaxian probe, which elicited tons of laughs from both my opponents and the people sitting next to us. After I dropped I ended up trading and buying cards to upgrade my Atraxa EDH deck (including the last 2 dual lands I needed for the manabase), and I had a blast playing her at the commander tables.
Infect is very much a deck as it has potential to kill on turn 2 or just have an explosive turn while the deck is behind in general. Tom Ross is probably the most prolific infect player so you can look up videos of him playing the deck on the internet as he's featured quite often. Infect also won GP Columbus a while back and at GP Louisville I played against 2 infect decks. The MTGtop8 link listed above is also a good place to look for builds too^
You can, however, achieve what you want, by responding to Avacyn's transform trigger or the damage trigger from her transformed version (so you actually have two chances) by saccing the Spirit. Then all your creatures will get indestructible before the trigger your responded to resolves, because the Spirit's ability is placed on top of the stack above anything that is already there, and objects on the stack resolve from top to bottom.
While you are correct in that the Spirit can be used to protect against the damage trigger, you need another creature to die on the previous turn to trigger the transform to begin.
Thanks, that was what I was looking for. I know it's a common trick to sac a spirit to transform Avacyn but I guess achieving the line I'm trying to accomplish is going to be trickier than I thought.
A line of play I've been wondering is possible in standard is sacrificing Selfless Spirit during the untap step while Archangel Avacyn is on the board so I can flip her and save my creatures in the same turn. I've always thought it was possible but I've heard mixed things about the legality of doing this from various people. Is it a valid play, and if not, how could I reach my end goal legally?
I used to have the spirits in the sideboard but I moved them to the main to better combat removal and to be more solid against fliers (also because expedition envoy was proving to be pretty useless after turn 2). It's the same reason I made that shift from Champion to Avacyn for my high CMC flash creature slot. Most of my losses have come from decks that are running sets of Harnessed Lightning, Incendiary Flow, and board in a set of Galvanic bombardment so they can run 12+ removal spells against me. That's also why you see 2 copies of Sigarda and 3 gearhulks in my board; those decks have a hard time answering both cards.
Recruiter is obviously bonkers when you flip him but flipping him is usually so unreliable that I ignore the other side of him completely when I evaluate the card (not playing anything on my turn is bad because I constantly need to advance my board state). I do agree he is more of a grindy card but first and foremost I see him as a mana sink in case I get flooded and that's why I run the card. Obviously this might just be a local meta thing but there's too much removal around to go balls-out aggro like the G/W list you linked. If I did want to go that route, however, R/W might be the better choice anyway because I get access to burn spells. Regardless I feel like tuning the list towards resiliency is the best option, as my deck does best when I can dodge removal and draw cards off of Copter and clue tokens.
That said, I've gone a grand total of 13-7 at my local shop as of this post (3 FNM's where I've 3-1'd and 2 where I went 2-2). I still haven't tried out a board with Gideons or the third gearhulk yet as I'm waiting for the cards to arrive in the mail as of this post.
Seems like a VERY strong deck, I am unfortunately not in a position to buy into it (despite its low budget) but I think that 24 lands seems VERY high, maybe 23 or even 22 (I would go 23 because of the 4-drops) seems as though flooding was quite a problem and I'm not surprised.
24 land seems correct given his curve tops out at 5cmc and he has multiple 4cmc cards in his main and side. Plus, if you're worried about excess land Smuggler's Copter is an excellent way to deal with flooding. I personally run 24 in my own standard build (GW humans) but my deck also runs quite a few mana sinks.
Heron's Grace Champion used to be in my list and it felt like it was either a dead card with an inefficient 3/3 for 4 body that could surprise chump block and delay the inevitable, or it was strictly win-more, putting in tons of work in games that I was already winning without using the card (In one particular example I flashed it in after swinging with 3 Tireless Trackers to gain 15 life. I was already winning the game because I already had 3 Trackers out that my opponent could not answer). I cut them for the 2 Avacyns in my list and I like them much better for my high mana flash creature slot. I also run 4 Thalia because she attracts an insane amount of removal. Considering how much work she puts in I want 4 of her so the odds of being able to replace her once she dies are maximized. I used to have her as a mere 3 of but after the first FNM I immediately playsetted her. Plus, the buy-a-box art is gorgeous.
The most successful W/R decks from what I've seen seem to be vehicle decks and not necessarily human themed. I notice the G/W human list you linked is significantly different from mine. I'm not sure I agree with playsetting the Champion and only running 1 tireless tracker in the sideboard considering the land count is at 23, although he does have 8 1-drops and more creature density than what I have. Considering the added density over my list I'm surprised he's not running Duskwatch Recruiter.
Feel free to link this to the generic humans thread. I actually had no idea such a thread existed. Thanks for the feedback.
If it helps focus the suggestions a bit, what cards could help tune this deck to better fight aggro strategies? I know they're probably not the most competitive strategies to fight but they are the most dominant locally.
This is the 75 I chose to run:
4x Chain Lightning
4x Fireblast
4x Lava Spike
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Price of Progress
4x Rift Bolt
2x Searing Blaze
2x Sulfuric Vortex
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
Land
20x Mountain
3x Mindbreak Trap
1x Relic of Progenitus
3x Searing Blood
4x Smash to Smithereens
4x Tormod's Crypt
Round 1: Lands (0-2)
This was an interesting round as I ended up playing against Jody Keith; a player who's top 8'd multiple GP's and Opens with Lands, and is probably one of the best Lands players in the world currently. Game 1, he attempts to Crop Rotate on turn 3, sacrificing a Tabernacle and leaving up a Taiga and Wasteland; I respond with a Price of Progress. After that resolves, he gets a Glacial Chasm and stabilizes at 10 life. The following turn, he follows up by manabonding the dark depths combo and I don't have enough instant speed burn to win before he attacks with Marit Lage. Game 2 is the same thing, he gets out a Marit Lage while at 8 life and I don't have enough burn to close the gap (double fireblast definitely would have gotten me there). I will say that after playing against him, I've realized that the Lands matchup is definitely less favorable than it looks on paper. Also I was surprised at his sideboard strategy; he only brought in 2 Krosan Grip against me just in case I brought in Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge. He's the first lands player I've seen not to board in Sphere of Resistance or other artifact-based hate against me.
Round 2: Elves (2-1)
This matchup was pretty straightforward. Game 1, I keep my opponent off of enough creatures to stop him from doing anything. Game 2, my opponent manages to Natural Order into Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. I manage to remove it, but at the cost of all my lands and going to 2 life. The end result is that my board is now 2 Eidolon and 0 land. My opponent manages to follow up with a Scavanging Ooze to recover. Game 3, my opponent stumbles and I hit multiple Searing cards.
Round 3: Burn Mirror (0-2)
My opponent straight up drew way better than I did this round. Game 1, I stabilize at 8, and I have the lead in life total with double Eidolon out (he's at 4), but my opponent manages to come back and win with double Fireblast. Game 2, my opponent gets off a late game Swiftspear+2 bolts to put me at 3 life out of nowhere.
Round 4: Grixis Delver (1-2)
Game 1, I play around most of his counters and burn him out while he stumbles with ponders. Game 2, he counters my attempt to remove his turn 1 Deathrite Shaman and then proceeds to power out a turn 2 True-name Nemesis, which ends up beating me in a race. Game 3, we both have slow starts, but he manages to win after getting out a Gurmag Angler and double Flusterstorming my Price of Progress (It would have been for 10 if it had resolved) when I had 3 mana up.
Overall despite the bad record I had a lot of fun and I feel like I still haven't lost my touch actually playing the deck. The only real bummer was that I originally wanted to name our team the Crimson Tide (as all 3 of us were playing burn decks) just to get reactions out of people (I live in Louisiana), but the people running the tournament decided to rename our team as well as a few others. I was so close to living the dream.
I know I'm kind of late to this discussion, but I haven't noticed anyone bring this up so I thought I might mention it. The reason Eidolon is good is because of how Legacy is as a format: The vast majority of cards that are playable in Legacy are 3cmc or less, with most cards that cost more being either super value control cards (Jace, the Mind Sculptor), has a cost reduction clause (Gurmag Angler) or cheated onto the field (Batterskull, Emrakul, Griselbrand). So if you're on the play and jam this card turn 2 against most decks in the format and it resolves, literally anything your opponent will play effectively has "This card deals 2 damage to you" written on it. If they want to advance their gameplan or even just remove Eidolon, they have to help yours as well. Another benefit is that you can lock your opponents out of the game if they are are 2 or less life, so you only really need to deal 18 damage to win. The only real outs to Eidolon at such a low life total are JTMS, Murderous Cut, or Fireblast.
Sure you take damage playing your own spells, but between Eidolon being an attacker and your opponent taking damage from playing their spells, it usually turns out asymmetric most of the time. The only time I won't jam him out on turn 2 is if I'm against a blue deck and I suspect they have a Daze. Obviously don't play him if you're far behind in life total, but that's usually much later in the game.
I also feel like this may have been covered earlier, but don't run Flame Rift and Eidolon in the same list. Flame Rift was what burn mages ran before Eidolon was printed, and obviously now it's just not good to deal yourself 6 while dealing your opponent 4.
Honestly, you'll probably want more copies of Smash to Smithereens. It's basically a Searing Blaze that kills Batterskull, and it can also hit their Vials early on if you think it will make them stumble. I used to run 3 but I'm about to go up to a full playset in my board because the effect is just that good against them. It's also good against Chalice decks like your Eldrazi matchup because those decks tend to play Chalice on one against you since it shuts out over 1/3 of your deck.
Beyond Smash I feel like Red Elemental Blast might also be good in your sideboard considering the meta. There's better things to run than Sudden Shock.
This is currently the board I'm considering running:
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Smash to Smithereens
2 Searing Blood
4 Tormod's Crypt
I might play around with the numbers just to try and squeeze a third blast but I feel like it's our best option against Show and Tell. Alternatively I could just run 2 copies of Pyroclasm in that slot if I feel like Elves or DNT is more dominant in my local meta. However, I feel Searing Blood might actually be enough against those decks given my build. If that's the case, I could run 3 Blood and 4 Smash and have the last slot reserved for Grafdigger's Cage. It would look like this:
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Searing Blood
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Smash to Smithereens
4 Tormod's Crypt
Also this note isn't really directed at you but it's more of a general observation. Harsh Mentor is actually pretty useless as a SB card. Whenever I'd play him, my opponent would simply just cast a removal spell, then proceed to crack the fetch or activate the ability Harsh Mentor was supposed to punish without taking any damage.
DNT can play around Fallout with Mother of Runes and Flickerwisp, and Smashes are better in that matchup anyway. I'd probably suggest siding in 1-2 Smashes or Searing Blaze against Shardless BUG to remove blockers to be honest. Again, you have a lot of 2 of's in your board which isn't ideal given that you have no library manipulation. Given the information you've given me about your meta (namely that there's only one Show and Tell player, you have DNT/shardless BUG/Storm, and you don't seem to have any decks that rely on graveyards), I'd suggest a sideboard like this:
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Exquisite Firecraft
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 flex slots of your choosing
I've given you 2 flex slots that can be 2 copies of any one card based on your needs. For example, if you really want to keep Ashen Rider, run 2 of him and also board in 4 Red Blast, so you can bring in a total of 6 cards against the Show and Tell player instead of 2. I feel like this board gives you the most coverage (these cards can almost always be brought in against multiple matchups except maybe Mindbreak Trap), and gives you these cards in enough quantities so you have the best chance of drawing your sideboard cards in games 2 and 3. Nothing sucks more than boarding in answers for a deck and losing game 2 anyway because you didn't draw your answer. I'm also surprised you have access to records like these on a local level, most local stores don't keep records like this unless it's a GP trial, PTQ, or SCG IQ.
Keep in mind, this board is created on the premise that there aren't any graveyard decks in your meta. If this isn't the case or GY decks start cropping up later, I would adjust the board so you can run 4 copies of Tormod's Crypt.
If there's a lot of Show and Tell in your local meta (I don't know the size of it), you might just want to up the number of Ashen Rider in your board. One copy isn't going to show up in your hand frequently enough to be a good answer to the deck. If there's just one or 2 players who consistently do well with the deck, I'd suggest running 2-3 copies of Red Elemental Blast instead. It's still a card that can answer the SNT deck as well as other blue-based decks, so it's relevant in more matchups. My philosophy is that since there are so many different decks played in Legacy, I choose sideboard cards that have the versatility to be used against multiple different decks. I'd probably cut your one and 2-ofs in your board since you're not a brainstorm deck and sometimes all it takes is to not draw your sideboard card to lose games 2 and 3.
That is true, I did see a ton of Lands decks being played at the event though, including my friend's (For the sake of boarding and gameplay I'd count aggro loam and lands as the same deck to be honest). My friend playing lands ended up dropping after round 6 after drawing a close match to U/W stoneblade. From what I was able to see he had really good gameplay all day but sometimes his opponent's cards just lined up better, and he ended up 2-3-1. My other friend was playing Miracles and he ended up dropping after round 5 to play vintage as the deck didn't really fit his playstyle (he was 2-3) and he got destroyed by Tezzerator in his last round.
I don't even know if the storm deck we both played would overlap, as your opponent's storm deck seems to be ANT (you didn't say much about it aside from the tendrils wincon), while the one I played was TES with Empty the Warrens.
Here's the deck I ran at the event:
2x Fireblast
4x Lava Spike
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Price of Progress
4x Rift Bolt
3x Searing Blaze
2x Sulfuric Vortex
4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Bloodstained Mire
11x Mountain
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Tormod's Crypt
2x Grim Lavamancer
3x Mindbreak Trap
3x Smash to Smithereens
3x Exquisite Firecraft
Here were my matchups:
Round 1: U/R Delver (1-2 loss)
I feel like this one could have gone either way. All 3 games my opponent dropped multiple swiftspears so I had to redirect some of my burn to the swiftspears instead of his face. Game 1 I managed to win the race, games 2 and 3 I gassed out. Game 3 was kind of close. My opponent was at 7 life and I was sitting with a fireblast in hand waiting for a bolt spell. However my opponent dropped a Bedlam Reveler and I failed to draw the burn spell I needed before he had lethal, but I guess it doesn't matter since he had Force of Will backup when I attempted to remove his reveler. We both played fairly sloppily as I was still kinda just waking up and this was my opponent's first GP ever. I got a warning for accidentally looking at too many cards off of Sensei's Divining Top, and he got a warning for not shuffling in his exiled cards that he pitched for Force of Will back into his deck for game 2.
Round 2: Infect (0-2 loss)
I completely punted game 1. I had 2 Eidolon on the board He attempted to kill me with an Inkmoth Nexus plus 2 Invigorate, and either I forgot I had 2 Eidolons on board or thought Invigorate was 4CMC, but I missed the triggers on Eidolon and conceded a game I should have won. I'm an idiot.
Game 2 I was doing my best to keep his board clear while chipping away at his life, but he ended up with a bonkers one-turn-kill hand I couldn't answer.
Round 3: Aggro Loam (2-1 Win)
I'm all the way at the scrub tables at this point. The way my opponent was playing I thought he was lands for a while but with some unusual choices like Scrubland. Game 1 I kill him before he could reasonably advance his board.
Game 2, he has a turn 1 Chalice of the Void for 1, and later plays Chalice of the void for 2. On my turn after the second chalice resolves, I finally draw my Smash to smithereens and, completely dumbfounded at my *****ty luck, I scoop and move on to game 3.
Game 3, I am tempted with a 1 land hand that has a ton of good, cheap burn including Goblin guide. I resist the temptation and mulligan to get a 2-land hand. I have Smash in my opening hand to answer his Chalice on 1, and I end up Price of Progressing him for a lot.
Round 4: Lands (0-2 Loss)
Just my luck, I get paired up with one of the friends I went to this GP with, so we both know what's in each other's decks. Game 1, he wins the dice roll and gets out a turn 3 Marit Lage. Nothing I can do there. I know he runs Leyline of Sanctity in his board (atypical for a lands deck) so I board accordingly, putting in my Lavamancers in addition to Smash and Crypt.
Game 2, he has the turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity, and while I did resolve a Sulfuric Vortex, I was scrambling to find creatures and non-targeted burn, which bought my friend enough time to set up a Marit Lage again. This was the only matchup of the day where I felt like I lost because of pure bad luck and not because I made mistakes.
Round 5: Storm (2-0 Win)
Game 1, my opponent has a turn 1 Probe into Cabal therapy to take away my Eidolon. It doesn't matter as I burn his face away before he can set up his combo.
Game 2, we both mulligan to 5. This is the only one-land hand I kept the entire day, as it contained Mountain, 2 Eidolons, Price of Progress, and a 1-mana burn spell. I reason that this 5 is better than a mulligan to 4 as I'll be in business if I draw a second land. Unfortunately, I don't draw a second land and for the most part it's draw, one mana burn spell, pass on my end while he Brainstorms and Ponders with impunity. The turn before he combos off, he Gitaxian Probe's me and sees 2 Prices, 2 Eidolons, and a Lightning bolt. I bolt his face at the end of his turn, and he passes back. I drew a Mindbreak Trap and pass. I act dejected that I still have not gotten a second land 6 turns into the game. He attempts to combo off, only for me to respond to his Empty the Warrens with my trap card. He is left with no cards in hand, and I finally draw my second Mountain the turn after to seal the game.
Round 6: Infect (2-1 Win)
Game 1, my opponent had an awkward manabase start involving multiple Inkmoth Nexus and no colored sources, which I take advantage of by bolting the Nexus's away.
Game 2, I consistently burn away his infect creatures, so he resorts to the Pump-Noble-Hierarch-and-swing-for-30 method, with double Invigorate, Become Immense, and Berzerk. It works.
Game 3, I'm able to resolve 2 Eidolons again (deja vu anyone?) which makes him unable to pump his creatures and he loses the damage race as a result.
Round 7: 4-color deathblade (1-2 Loss)
Game 1 was very weird. My opponent tried to fake Shardless Sultai for a while with Tropical Island into Deathrite Shaman, but he dropped the farce once he started having to play white sources for Swords to Plowshares. He played no equipment or Stoneforge mystic and I had no idea what he was playing by the end of the game. I don't side in Smash to Smithereens because I didn't see Stoneforge Mystic or any equipment out of his end and I assume he's playing a brew.
Game 2, he rocks my world with a Jitte. I made a mistake here by not waiting to cast Sulfuric Vortex, because I jammed it turn 3, assuming he didn't run Daze. He had Spell Pierce instead.
Game 3, I board in my Smashes, but don't draw them. He goes in with his Jitte plan again, and I can't Price of Progress him out of the game as he has a Meddling mage naming that card out. It's a real shame too, because after he resolved the second one, I drew a second price, which would have easily won me the game since he had 4 nonbasics out.
Overall I had a great time, though. I played pretty sloppily for the first 2 rounds because I was kind of rusty with this deck but I tightened up for the most part after round 2. My performance here was also better than my performance at GP Columbus last summer playing Grixis Delver, and I lasted longer in the tournament than both of my friends that came up here with me. I also had fun telling my opponents they were doing the Lord's work whenever they would crack a fetchland or pay 2 life for a Gitaxian probe, which elicited tons of laughs from both my opponents and the people sitting next to us. After I dropped I ended up trading and buying cards to upgrade my Atraxa EDH deck (including the last 2 dual lands I needed for the manabase), and I had a blast playing her at the commander tables.
Thanks, that was what I was looking for. I know it's a common trick to sac a spirit to transform Avacyn but I guess achieving the line I'm trying to accomplish is going to be trickier than I thought.
Recruiter is obviously bonkers when you flip him but flipping him is usually so unreliable that I ignore the other side of him completely when I evaluate the card (not playing anything on my turn is bad because I constantly need to advance my board state). I do agree he is more of a grindy card but first and foremost I see him as a mana sink in case I get flooded and that's why I run the card. Obviously this might just be a local meta thing but there's too much removal around to go balls-out aggro like the G/W list you linked. If I did want to go that route, however, R/W might be the better choice anyway because I get access to burn spells. Regardless I feel like tuning the list towards resiliency is the best option, as my deck does best when I can dodge removal and draw cards off of Copter and clue tokens.
That said, I've gone a grand total of 13-7 at my local shop as of this post (3 FNM's where I've 3-1'd and 2 where I went 2-2). I still haven't tried out a board with Gideons or the third gearhulk yet as I'm waiting for the cards to arrive in the mail as of this post.
24 land seems correct given his curve tops out at 5cmc and he has multiple 4cmc cards in his main and side. Plus, if you're worried about excess land Smuggler's Copter is an excellent way to deal with flooding. I personally run 24 in my own standard build (GW humans) but my deck also runs quite a few mana sinks.
The most successful W/R decks from what I've seen seem to be vehicle decks and not necessarily human themed. I notice the G/W human list you linked is significantly different from mine. I'm not sure I agree with playsetting the Champion and only running 1 tireless tracker in the sideboard considering the land count is at 23, although he does have 8 1-drops and more creature density than what I have. Considering the added density over my list I'm surprised he's not running Duskwatch Recruiter.
Feel free to link this to the generic humans thread. I actually had no idea such a thread existed. Thanks for the feedback.