You seem to fail to understand my reasoning, i refer you back to my post again. urborg does not, i repeat, does not help you with your offcolour fixing. Which if you have followed this thread seem to be a problem. Your statement that "Urborg lets you ramp with eye without giving up the ability to still play spells." is false based on those players empirical playtesting and the statistical results (hypergeometric distribution) based on their manabase.
In addition, How often do you play Ulamog the turn after you sower? How many turns does it take to draw into an Urborg (or to find a map to crack and fetch one after you have played a sower)? All of this matter when determining how many urborgs you should play. Based on your line of reasoning, we should play 4 of Urborgs. Which most list doesnt do. Why is that?
How often do we really crack a map to find a Urborg instead of an temple or an eye? The only eldrazi that benefit from urbogs is Wasteland strangler while all other dont care. Urborg also help you play double black the turn it enters the battlefield, which could allow 2 discard spells the same turn.
How often do you play Oblivion Sower on say, turn 3 with temple, eye and Urborg. (2 temples and an Eye does the same) Say you have an Temple and an Eye out (and some other land) - do you ever crack map for an Urborg or do you go for another Temple? (if you get temple it gives you 4 colourless eldrazi mana that turn with the possibility to play the new waste-mana type, if you find urborg you also get 4 eldrazi mana, but with two sources of black).
With urborg you would have 7 mana to play eldrazi next turn, or 4 mana for regular spells (at least 2 of them black coloured, 3 if the "other land" could provide).
With temple you would also have 7 mana to play eldrazi, but only 3 play regular spells (with maximum 1 coloured mana if "other land" could provide).
Urborg doesnt help us ramp into eldrazi, but does help us play other spells with its black mana it gives Eye.
With the new set, double black could be relevant for that black sweeper.
0. How often do you play Oblivion Sower on say, turn 3 with temple, eye and Urborg. (2 temples and an Eye does the same)
Assuming 4 Temple, 2 Eye
Without Urborg, You can have 3 Temples (4 combos) or 2 Temples + Eye (12 combos). Total 16 combos.
With 2x Urborg, You can have 3 Temples (4 combos), 2 Temples + Eye (12 combos), or Temple+Eye+Urborg (16 combos). Total 32 combos.
So the answer is 100% more often.
Context: Below I'm ignoring OGW in the time being as there is still one big tournament (SCG Charlotte) coming this weekend. So I am indifferent between colorless and black mana. I believe post-OGW the monoblack version would be better as we will have more colorless requirement.
1. Urborg fixes black, which is more important than white (or whatever off color it is).
2. In fact, if you already have Eye in play, you should always Map for Urborg instead of Temple. (And if you already have Urborg you should always Map for Eye instead of Temple.)
3. Urborg does help us ramp into Ulamog. Oblivion Sower into Ulamog.
4. Legendary is the reason why we're not playing 4. It is extensively discussed, tested, and most of us agreed that 2/3 Eye+2 Urborg is optimal for splash color builds.
Now this:
5. Mana is hard, that I agree. But Urborg does not seem like the cut here. Have you ever thought of cutting other cards instead?
Can you play more lands or more Maps? I was missing white sources when I played 24 lands+2 Maps so I went up to 25. I feel comfortable there.
Can you cut some 'off-color' spells? http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=11230&d=263776&f=MO This one only plays 3 Lingering Souls for example.
Can you cut some colorless lands? I only play 2 Ghost Quarters, but extra land hate in the SB.
Regarding the "artifact creature" thing, I decided to go with Doom Blade over Go for the Throat because it seems to me that the Jund/Junk/Grixis match ups are much easier for the bulk of our shell, compared to Affinity/Tron/whoever put down Spellskite against us.
Go for the Throat conveniently goes around Spellskite. When you wanna kill that Glistener Elf...
But I agree, that's why I cut it altogether. I don't like the way it blanks my 4 Wasteland Strangler. I'm playing Slaughter Pact, but Victim of Night. Our deck is very good against the zombies and werewolves in the format.
Yeah, while the idea of an opener with double Eye scares me, 23 lands seems a little tight. What other lands are you running, Vault of the Archangel, Caves of Koilos, Shambing Vent?
With an Urborg in play, duplicate Eye's work as Lotus petal. So it's not all bad.
I'm also on 2 Urborg, 2 Eye, 2 Map and 23 lands total. This configuration is the most comfortable. I tried 3 Eyes before but duplicates come up a little too often.
Any thoughts on running a single Shizo, Death's storehouse? I know we only got one legendary, but it lets us swing Ulamog right into someone without any way for them to block except if they are running black.
I enjoyed playing the Jace version with Serum Visions and black discard spells. I think Jace works better with that core instead of just loot and hope to flip. It definitely makes the deck more resilient.
I haven't tried Goryo's Vengeance though. It would definitely help Jace but I'm not sure if it's too narrow. It is not easy for Griselbrand to draw 14/21 as our life is constrained without Nourishing Shoal.
Apart from P/T and the mana cost, these are relevant:
Tidehollow Sculler's textbox means it is better against removals. If your opponent has only one removal, they cannot remove Sculler or a card is permanently removed.
Tidehollow Sculler being an artifact is way worse against Kolaghan's Command. Of course, enchantments are worse vs Tarmogoyfs.
The 2 power is mostly relevant in combo matchups where you need to race.
Check out the Expedition for confirmation.
0. How often do you play Oblivion Sower on say, turn 3 with temple, eye and Urborg. (2 temples and an Eye does the same)
Assuming 4 Temple, 2 Eye
Without Urborg, You can have 3 Temples (4 combos) or 2 Temples + Eye (12 combos). Total 16 combos.
With 2x Urborg, You can have 3 Temples (4 combos), 2 Temples + Eye (12 combos), or Temple+Eye+Urborg (16 combos). Total 32 combos.
So the answer is 100% more often.
Context: Below I'm ignoring OGW in the time being as there is still one big tournament (SCG Charlotte) coming this weekend. So I am indifferent between colorless and black mana. I believe post-OGW the monoblack version would be better as we will have more colorless requirement.
1. Urborg fixes black, which is more important than white (or whatever off color it is).
2. In fact, if you already have Eye in play, you should always Map for Urborg instead of Temple. (And if you already have Urborg you should always Map for Eye instead of Temple.)
3. Urborg does help us ramp into Ulamog. Oblivion Sower into Ulamog.
4. Legendary is the reason why we're not playing 4. It is extensively discussed, tested, and most of us agreed that 2/3 Eye+2 Urborg is optimal for splash color builds.
Now this:
5. Mana is hard, that I agree. But Urborg does not seem like the cut here. Have you ever thought of cutting other cards instead?
Can you play more lands or more Maps? I was missing white sources when I played 24 lands+2 Maps so I went up to 25. I feel comfortable there.
Can you cut some 'off-color' spells? http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=11230&d=263776&f=MO This one only plays 3 Lingering Souls for example.
Can you cut some colorless lands? I only play 2 Ghost Quarters, but extra land hate in the SB.
Doesn't work. You need colorless mana. (You only have 2 black)
You can play 25 lands or some Expedition Maps if you want more white.
Looks alright, although I would max out on Caves of Kolios before Bloodstained Mire
1. It is kindof a clock vs combo matchups.
2. Killing Bogles!
3. It is so bad in the mirrormatch.
I would avoid.
Go for the Throat conveniently goes around Spellskite. When you wanna kill that Glistener Elf...
But I agree, that's why I cut it altogether. I don't like the way it blanks my 4 Wasteland Strangler. I'm playing Slaughter Pact, but Victim of Night. Our deck is very good against the zombies and werewolves in the format.
If you cut either of these you have to cut some colorless lands.
GQ is also a colored source in some sense...
But that's still bad isn't it.
Or artifact.
I like running 2 Maps with 23 Lands including 1 Cavern of Souls, 1 Ghost Quarter and 1 Bojuka Bog.
I haven't tried Goryo's Vengeance though. It would definitely help Jace but I'm not sure if it's too narrow. It is not easy for Griselbrand to draw 14/21 as our life is constrained without Nourishing Shoal.
I'm also leaning towards more Thoughtseizes (over IoK) as our worst matchups have bigger spells (Scapeshift, Primeval Titan, Karn).
Tidehollow Sculler's textbox means it is better against removals. If your opponent has only one removal, they cannot remove Sculler or a card is permanently removed.
Tidehollow Sculler being an artifact is way worse against Kolaghan's Command. Of course, enchantments are worse vs Tarmogoyfs.
The 2 power is mostly relevant in combo matchups where you need to race.