Qernavak, do you have updated your list (I have a question especially about 3 or 4 ballista and in or out Warping wail)? May you post the current one?
I will bring it in a small tournament soon!
Last edited by benoasan; 03-14-2017 at 07:45 AM.
Thanks for the explanation ! It makes sense.
Did a little testing (-4 Ballista +2 Wail +2 Dismember), and between the two new bad boys, Skyspawner is the one that really shines for me. It flies, it dodges Liliana, it blocks Delvers, it ramps into bigger buddies (and Emrakul/All is Dust SB), it gives an out vs Blood Moon, etc.
It mitigates the (little) loss of explosiveness (T2 double Reshaper is a thing - and in order to play Skyspawner T2, you're less likely able to play T3 Smasher sometimes).
As for Ballista, without any test, I found it really hard to make the most of it with Ugin/Temple, as it doesn't benefit from eldrazi mana.
What goal/targets is it aimed for mainly ?
Anyway, nice work Qernavak and congratz for the results !
Playing a small tournament this week. Expecting a LOT of Delver (c.30%) and Death & Taxes/Maverick (25%), with some Reanimator/S&T/ANT combo as well.
What do you guys think of this list for my expected meta?
4 Endless One
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Endbringer
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Warping Wail
2 Dismember
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Eye of Ugin
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard:
1 Thorn of Amethyst (Delver, Miracles, combo/burn)
1 Surgical Extraction (expecting some Reanimator and Loam decks)
3 Faerie Macabre (Ditto)
2 Pithing Needle (D&T and Miracles)
2 Ratchet Bomb (TNN & D&T)
2 All is Dust (TNN)
2 Spatial Contortion (expecting lots of Delver/aggro)
1 Dismember (Angler/KoTR)
1 Warping Wail
Pretty stock but heavy on the SB removal. Don't really want to reinvent the wheel. If I was going to go in a different direction, I would do White Eldrazi, but I think colorless is better for this meta. Would be nice to fit a Karakas against all the D&T/Reanimator/S&T, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Maybe instead of a Factory?
Also, does anyone have a good sideboarding plan?
_noloam did a great Eldrazi SB guide on page 87 (?)Originally Posted by keys
I am now rebenchmarking with the 1st list presented. Only changes are the mana base:
4 Walking Ballista
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
4 Bearer of Silence
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Endbringer
3 Lotus Petal
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Underground River
2 Corrupted Crossroads
1 Crystal Vein
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 City of Traitors
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Emrakul, the Promised End
3 All Is Dust
2 Pithing Needle
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Leyline of the Void
Quick brief on my findings so far:
Tried cutting 1x Bearer and 1x Ballista to fit Warping Wail: WW felt underwhelming and many times not doing much in my hand. On the other hand, I really missed Ballista. I think is one of the better cards and grossly underrated. Cutting 1x Bearer feels safer, but for now I will go back to 4x until I can justify adding a different 1-of.
Tried 2 Oblivion Sower instead of Endbringer: I am a big fan of OSower in the colorless version, especially against Miracles and Tarmogoyf decks. But in this version, those decks haven't been as challenging. Perhaps if Blood Moon became more prevalent I will cycle back to OSower, but for now I'm switching back to Endbringer. I also tried playing 2x Warping Wail instead of any of these two, but that just grossly reduced the power of the deck, leaving me with underwhelming top decks and options.
@ChrisDissent, I cannot express how much I love Ballista. I literally glued a Mox Diamond to a Sol Ring and can't wait for a walk on the beach to pop it out of a sleeve and ask the big question "would you replace my Endless One in Colorless Eldrazi?" I recognize that Eye of Ugin and Temple don't power it up. But what it's hard to see is that Ballista's job is primarily to: (a) clear the path for other Eldrazi to get through, (b) kill delvers, strix and other pesky creatures, (c) deal the last 1 or 2 points of damage needed to win. Ballista does add more complexity to the deck, and the math of "should I play it this turn or next turn" is a lot more difficult than with Endless One. All in all, I would suggest to give it a shot, and perhaps it will give you a better perspective.
Love the UB list. I have a (maybe stupid) question:
Does Eldrazi Temple help you cast the Bearer of Silence sac a dude cost? Obviously, Temple gives you at least 1 mana, but does it pay for the whole thing?
Not stupid at all! I had the same question. Temple only pays the extra mana for activated abilities; Bearer's ability is a triggered ability and will not get to use the extra mana.
OK, that's what I thought. I wanted to double check before I assumed otherwise in an actual event haha.
Is Ballista really better than Endless One here? Sure, it gives you some reach and you can pick off small creatures, but EO is always gong to be huge in the same situation and you can still play him early as a Jitte holder or to curve out. Seems just as easy to race a Delver with a 4/4 than shoot it down. Also he plays way better with your lands (obviously).
I agree with you, on paper EO has better synergy with the lands and makes the deck much faster.
And so the short and lazy answer is... depends on your metagame. When you have a field crowded with Swords to Plowshares and Fatal Push, there's the same chance of getting either your EO or WB killed. If you add Baleful Strix, TNN, Young Pyromancer, Monastery Mentor... then WB looks a lot better. The online metagame, on the time zone I play, is saturated with the above creatures, and probably can explain a little bit why I decided to take a different direction.
This is too good (lucky) to not share.
Luckiest Play Ever by Deane Calcagni, on Flickr
Did you make an account just to post that?
No, I joined to have an online outlet for my snarky comments... 🙄
But seriously, I just started playing this deck and I'm preparing for the Worcester Open. I thought it might be helpful.
After some 4-1s, just today I 5-0'd another league. And as promised, compiled my results since I started playing with the list. This includes some very bad lists, some of which included Cairns Wanderer and Sire of Insanity. Anyhow, here's my MUs by archetype
Other than miracles and grixis delver, I don't have enough data for providing broader conclusions, but the aggregate is 72.6% win rate! that's so darn good, but I must confess a lot of it has to do with the deck taking people by surprise or oponents making mistakes. However, my intuition tells me that my death and taxes MU has gotten better, my grixis delver feels slightly worse, and my bug MUs have become slightly better.
Just finished 101 Matches with the deck this month, and capped it off with a perfect 5-0 League (10 game wins, 0 losses).
I saved the results of every match versus each archetype in a spreadsheet.
Here's the link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
Here's my version:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/593831#online
(Currently not running Karakas and instead a single Wastes)
Of note is the winrate versus Miracles... I truly believe that we are the best deck versus Miracles in the current meta.
Especially since most pilots have moved to the Predict/Entreat version which is a better for us than the Mentor version.
Miracles just doesn't stand a chance without much sideboarding for Eldrazi currently (I haven't run into any Moats/Bridges or very many Blood Moons/From the Ashes).
I was also surprised how easy the D&T matches felt, they don't run many cards that matter other than Swords/Batterskull. So as long as we can keep our mana high we overrun them before they can set up a decent Batterskull board.
Elves felt very difficult to win, even with Chalice. They often are able to fetch Arbor into Cradle into GSZ/Natural Order to get around in the games we have it. Or if we don't they're simply faster than we are.
S&S predictably was also a bad matchup, especially since I biased my build to be good against fair decks/Delver with very little S&S relevant cards (In the past I've run Confusion and Karakas when S&S was more prevalent)
Overall the deck has felt strong and consistent, with a 68% winrate, providing five 5-0's, four 4-1's, and very few non-cashes (only 4) out of 21 leagues. EV for the month was about +300 tickets and some playpoints.
I probably could have played better in some matches, where I've definitely lost some games to loose play or misclicks playing while tired or late at night.
Anyways, keep on Smashing friends!
Those are some really impressive results! It feels really good to play a deck that crushes Miracles.
Do you have any thoughts or insights in terms of cards that over or under performed?
What has your plan for Delver, especially BUG? Your win rate against them is great and I haven't found it to be that match up to be amazing.
Well, other than the obvious stars of Mimic, TKS, Smasher... I've been impressed by the pressure Endless One on 2 off Eye puts out. Just putting down 4 power early on the board has been enough to pressure out plenty of opponents.
Also Oblivion Sower has been great in fair matchups. It's bigger than Goyf/Angler, eats cards off the top of Miracles decks, and puts lands in play to use for activating eye.
Under performed: I haven't liked Warping Wail when I was testing it. But I think if I wanted to play it I would instead play more Cities and less Spirit Guides. Two real mana is a lot to hold up for sorceries and it is tempo negative to remove most creatures that you can commonly hit with it.
I'm also not sold on Urborg all the time. Sometimes it provides us an extra mana with Eye and allows us to tap Tombs without paying life. And sometimes it doesn't cast colorless mana for TKS and Smasher.
My plan for Delver is different for Grixis and BUG
Against Grixis I just want to get power on the board as fast as possible and try take Anglers with TKS. If I can get two creatures into play turn 1 off Eye, instead of holding Endless for more power, I will. Having them try to play the wasteland game while you're beating them for 4 a turn just wins you a lot of races. Honestly its mostly about committing to always trying to be in a position where they have to play defense instead of being able to attack you.
Against BUG its been about going bigger with Sower. If you can get a fast start great! Otherwise try to stall the board out and get to the late game where they are drawing dead forces/Dazes/Hymns and you are able to build enough power on the board to go wide around Goyf.
Against both matchups its key to keep hands that don't just lose to wasteland. No matter how juicy that 1 land chalice hand looks.
Honestly with only 4 matches against each its entirely possible I simply wound up on the good side of variance.
I have some difficulties to beat D&T.
The turn 2 stoneforge into T3 Batterskull is almost unbeatable (except with TKS)
How do you guys sideboard against them?
Thanks for your reply. I think I was trying to race BUG too often and doing exactly what you called out in terms of keeping hands that lose to Wasteland. I ran through a couple of leagues and beat them both times I played them just being more aware of that.
I've had an OK time with D&T but it's definitely a tricky matchup. I side out 4 Chalice both on the play and draw because after board they will only have Aether Vial and Swords at 1 CMC. Lately I've been bringing in 2 Spatial Contortion and 2 Pithing Needle. Spatial Contortion hits literally all of their guys without equipment and Pithing Needle shuts down Aether Vial, Stoneforge, Port, Wasteland, and any of their equipment. Main deck I have 2 Warping Wail, which hits most of their guys including an early Stoneforge, and 2 Dismember.
I'd be curious to see how other people approach it though.
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