[Primer] Eldrazi Stompy

[sadface]

The downside is the opponent may not be holding the thing you need to hose, and you can't randomly name it.

Not sure what you mean by this. You can name a card that is not in their hand.

[DavidHernandez]

Not sure what you mean by this. You can name a card that is not in their hand.

Dude. I totally misread the card, as you pointed out. Sorry to add ridiculous incorrect fluff to the thread.

As Sorcerous Spyglass enters the battlefield, look at an opponent's hand, then choose any card name.
Activated abilities of sources with the chosen name can't be activated unless they're mana abilities.

I thought you were to look at the hand and name one of the cards in their hand. I don't like the wording in Spyglass! LOL. Anyway, now I think this card has huge potential!

Dave

[Hopo]

What it comes to Sorcerous Spyglass, this very cool list got 3rd/195 last weekend in Japan. I took it for a spin yesterday finishing 4-0.

I think the more interesting card here is still Grim Monolith. It's an overlooked piece of acceleration which conveniently also gives you some game against Blood Moons.

[Qernavak]

What it comes to Sorcerous Spyglass, this very cool list got 3rd/195 last weekend in Japan. I took it for a spin yesterday finishing 4-0.

I think the more interesting card here is still Grim Monolith. It's an overlooked piece of acceleration which conveniently also gives you some game against Blood Moons.

That is a cool list!

Although I question the main deck Sorcerous Spyglass. I have tested intensively with it maindeck, and it's just not that powerful. Yes, there are some games where you go turn 1 SS and name their fetchland and they lose. But those games are uncommon. In many matchups, they don't do much. I see it more as of metagame choice, if you expect to face lots of DRS/Jace decks, then it's pretty good. Otherwise you're better off with increasing your aggressive position.

I tested a lot with Grim Monolith last year, when Painter was at its peak. This is also a metagame choice, specifically to combat Blood Moon decks. It's pretty week vs. fast aggressive decks, like Delver, because it dilutes your number of threats. You can see the deck is built to withstand Blood Moon by the 3 maindeck Oblivion Sower. Usually this slot is occupied by either Endbringer or OSower, depending on the metagame.

***

Changing topics, after a few 4-1s and 3-2s (and one 0-3) leagues, I finally was able to score one 5-0 with UB Eldrazi. The list is here:

//Creatures (24)
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
3 Bearer of Silence
4 Walking Ballista
1 Oblivion Sower

//Spells (11)
3 Lotus Petal
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Chalice of the Void
1 All is Dust
1 Warping Wail


//Lands (25)
2 Unclaimed Territory
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Underground River
3 Eye of Ugin
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Wastes


//Sideboard (15)
1 All Is Dust
2 Spine of Ish Sah
3 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Leyline of the Void

Round 1: 2-1 vs. Miracles
Round 2: 2-0 vs. Storm
Round 3: 2-1 vs. Czech Pile
Round 4: 2-1 vs. Sneak and Show
Round 5: 2-0 vs. Grixis Delver


I feel positive about the last two weeks of testing, win rate is around 65%. And this last league was all vs. high performing decks.

The biggest notable change is that I dropped Eldrazi Mimic from the list. Mimic is just not that good anymore, and this is especially true in the UB version. There are too many answers (Fatal Push) and blockers (Baleful Strix) being played right now. If we want to compete with Czech pile and alike, we need our creatures to provide extra value. All of the creatures in the list offer a type of "2 for 1" effect. It's a lot more profitable to trade the Reshapers or Skyspawners with Strix to open up space for the bigger creatures. Bearer is amazingly good, but we usually don't want too many in our opening hand, and so I cut them down to 3.

My biggest mistake was not having 4x Unclaimed Territory and 2x Underground River. Initially I thought having the river would allow me to hard cast Leylines; but the reality is that I don't want to be in that position, because if I'm bringing Leylines, I want to try to mulligan to them. This realization led me to now understand that having a 5-color Eldrazi deck is 100% viable. For example:

//Creatures (24)
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Reality Smasher
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
2 Bearer of Silence
4 Walking Ballista
1 Oblivion Sower
2 Eldrazi Obligator
1 Eldrazi Displacer

//Spells (11)
3 Lotus Petal
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Chalice of the Void
1 All is Dust
1 Warping Wail


//Lands (25)
4 Unclaimed Territory
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Corrupted Crossroads
3 Eye of Ugin
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Wastes


//Sideboard (15)
1 All Is Dust
2 Spine of Ish Sah
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 World Breaker
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Leyline of the Void


I have not been a big fan of Eldrazi displacer because all the mana that it needs to consume in order to be effective, and it doesn't really offer a true "2 for 1", but I wouldn't mind it as a 1-of. Likewise, having access to Obligator can help sneaking out of tight situations, from a blocking Griselbrand to a Baleful Strix. World Breaker is a nice Creeping Mold with a huge body attached to it.

For now I will keep focusing and tuning the UB version and on the side develop the 5 or 4 color list a bit more.

[Hopo]

What it comes to Sorcerous Spyglass, this very cool list got 3rd/195 last weekend in Japan. I took it for a spin yesterday finishing 4-0.

I think the more interesting card here is still Grim Monolith. It's an overlooked piece of acceleration which conveniently also gives you some game against Blood Moons.

I top8'd a 40+ player tournament today with the list. I really like those 6-drops, they did some heavy work.

EDIT:

R1 2-0 Dragon Stompy
R2 2-1 Aggro Loam
R3 2-0 Maverick
R4 1-1 Maverick
R5 0-2 Death and taxes
R6 2-1 Shardless Bug
Quarters 1-2 Maverick

[shawn_low]

Changing topics, after a few 4-1s and 3-2s (and one 0-3) leagues, I finally was able to score one 5-0 with UB Eldrazi. The list is here:
...
The biggest notable change is that I dropped Eldrazi Mimic from the list. Mimic is just not that good anymore, and this is especially true in the UB version. There are too many answers (Fatal Push) and blockers (Baleful Strix) being played right now. If we want to compete with Czech pile and alike, we need our creatures to provide extra value. All of the creatures in the list offer a type of "2 for 1" effect. It's a lot more profitable to trade the Reshapers or Skyspawners with Strix to open up space for the bigger creatures. Bearer is amazingly good, but we usually don't want too many in our opening hand, and so I cut them down to 3.

My biggest mistake was not having 4x Unclaimed Territory and 2x Underground River. Initially I thought having the river would allow me to hard cast Leylines; but the reality is that I don't want to be in that position, because if I'm bringing Leylines, I want to try to mulligan to them. This realization led me to now understand that having a 5-color Eldrazi deck is 100% viable. For example:

//Creatures (24)
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Reality Smasher
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
2 Bearer of Silence
4 Walking Ballista
1 Oblivion Sower
2 Eldrazi Obligator
1 Eldrazi Displacer

//Spells (11)
3 Lotus Petal
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Chalice of the Void
1 All is Dust
1 Warping Wail


//Lands (25)
4 Unclaimed Territory
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Corrupted Crossroads
3 Eye of Ugin
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Wastes


//Sideboard (15)
1 All Is Dust
2 Spine of Ish Sah
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 World Breaker
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Leyline of the Void

I have not been a big fan of Eldrazi displacer because all the mana that it needs to consume in order to be effective, and it doesn't really offer a true "2 for 1", but I wouldn't mind it as a 1-of. Likewise, having access to Obligator can help sneaking out of tight situations, from a blocking Griselbrand to a Baleful Strix. World Breaker is a nice Creeping Mold with a huge body attached to it.

For now I will keep focusing and tuning the UB version and on the side develop the 5 or 4 color list a bit more.

Congrats on the 5-0 and your continued development with UB Eldrazi. Would love to you develop things further. Couple of questions for you:

1) Why 2 Spine of Ish Sah over more All is Dust in the SB? Budget reasons?
2) How did Sorcerous Spyglass perform for you? I've been sticking to Pithing Needles as you generally board them in G2 and you already know what your opponent is playing so you have a 1 drop Needle vs the Spyglass which drops T2 unless you take 2 from Tomb or such.

Personal reflection:

Unclaimed Territory now makes multi-colour Eldrazi a really viable option. No more taking damage from painlands! Plus the colourless it generates also works with TKS, Smasher, Endbringer etc. A local player here played 4x Unclaimed Territory and 4x CoS with Skyspawners, Displacer and Drowner of Hope to a 3-0 finish last FNM. I 3-0ed with regular colourless Eldrazi facing Nic Fit, Grixis Delver and Elves.

So UB is an option but I've found Bearer of Silence to be hit or miss against some decks (an edict against Elves for example is just not good enough). I like the idea of getting value vs Czech pile but I often find myself boarding out Matter Reshapers in colourless builds. The 3CMC makes it a T2 drop but I'd rather be dropping TKS on T2.

Of the multi-coloured Eldrazi, I think the Displacer is a good one: blinking blockers, Marit Lage, other tokens. Colourless lists splashing for Displacer have done well before. Notably in Europe at the MKM series. This is the most recent list at Hamburg which T4ed: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16936&d=304755&f=LE. Note that the list if pre-Ixalan.

I think Eldrazi Stompy is reasonably well placed in the meta at the moment. Looking forward to seeing more development here!

[shawn_low]

I top8'd a 40+ player tournament today with the list. I really like those 6-drops, they did some heavy work.

EDIT:

R1 2-0 Dragon Stompy
R2 2-1 Aggro Loam
R3 2-0 Maverick
R4 1-1 Maverick
R5 0-2 Death and taxes
R6 2-1 Shardless Bug
Quarters 1-2 Maverick

Congrats. How did the MD Spyglass and Monolith work for you?

The Spyglass MD is a neat way to potentially have a T1 play with a Sol Land and shut down stuff like DRS immediately! I'll bet not many people will see that coming.

Monolith seems like a one-shot use as it's less valuable without Voltaic Key in the 75 no?

Might give this build a tweak and spin at the next FNM!

[Hopo]

Congrats. How did the MD Spyglass and Monolith work for you?

The Spyglass MD is a neat way to potentially have a T1 play with a Sol Land and shut down stuff like DRS immediately! I'll bet not many people will see that coming.

Monolith seems like a one-shot use as it's less valuable without Voltaic Key in the 75 no?

Might give this build a tweak and spin at the next FNM!

Spyglass had a few moments, including one t1 blowout. It really deserves it's spot because it answers many problems you might face and buys time to make enough land drops to take over the game. But Grim Monolith is what really makes this deck tick. It makes so many hands keepable, let's you make 6-drops on turn 2 and gives you very reasonable answers to Blood Moon. You don't need Voltaic Key to make Monolith playable. It's typical to fire monolith once to cast a big dude or a couple smaller ones. You can reload it when you have nothing else to do with your mana. If nothing else, untapping Monolith brings you always closer to activating Eye of Ugin.

[shawn_low]

More proof that Eldrazi Stompy is well placed in the meta.

2x in the T8 with one deck taking it down. Both were colourless variants. The main difference is with the SB. The winner played 3x Warping Wail vs 3x Karakas from the other deck.

Decklists here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...nge-2017-10-09

Keep serving up bologanaise!

[Qernavak]

More proof that Eldrazi Stompy is well placed in the meta.

2x in the T8 with one deck taking it down. Both were colourless variants. The main difference is with the SB. The winner played 3x Warping Wail vs 3x Karakas from the other deck.

Decklists here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...nge-2017-10-09

Keep serving up bologanaise!

I love both of these decklists. Tony's is streamlined and clean. Ninjaneer83's almost as streamlined (with subtle differences in the manabase). If I was playing colorless, I would choose Tony's list. I think what makes it even more impressive is the Top 8 matchups: a coin flip and two very close matchups.

Congrats on the 5-0 and your continued development with UB Eldrazi. Would love to you develop things further. Couple of questions for you:

1) Why 2 Spine of Ish Sah over more All is Dust in the SB? Budget reasons?
2) How did Sorcerous Spyglass perform for you? I've been sticking to Pithing Needles as you generally board them in G2 and you already know what your opponent is playing so you have a 1 drop Needle vs the Spyglass which drops T2 unless you take 2 from Tomb or such.

1) Spine is a local metagame choice. I noticed a spike in Sneak and Show, and Spine has been historically an answer that can be used for SnS and Blood Moon -type of matchups. It's a very flexible slot and I number of things can replacement, including ignoring the SnS matchup and concentrating on other decks.
2) Needle has been a good sideboard option, but it always came with the following tension: should I play chalice on 1 and make this needle in my hand obsolete, or should I play needle first and risk not being able to resolve chalice next turn (and/or my opponent resolving a key 1 mana spell). This tension is alleviated to a great degree, because I can always play the chalice on 1 and the SS on the next opportunity. This card is a mainstay in Eldrazi and I am not going back to needles. The bonus "peek" is an underrated advantage that Eldrazi did not have, and plays a role with playing around counterspells, removal, and how to deploy threats.

Personal reflection:

Unclaimed Territory now makes multi-colour Eldrazi a really viable option. No more taking damage from painlands! Plus the colourless it generates also works with TKS, Smasher, Endbringer etc. A local player here played 4x Unclaimed Territory and 4x CoS with Skyspawners, Displacer and Drowner of Hope to a 3-0 finish last FNM. I 3-0ed with regular colourless Eldrazi facing Nic Fit, Grixis Delver and Elves.

So UB is an option but I've found Bearer of Silence to be hit or miss against some decks (an edict against Elves for example is just not good enough). I like the idea of getting value vs Czech pile but I often find myself boarding out Matter Reshapers in colourless builds. The 3CMC makes it a T2 drop but I'd rather be dropping TKS on T2.

Of the multi-coloured Eldrazi, I think the Displacer is a good one: blinking blockers, Marit Lage, other tokens. Colourless lists splashing for Displacer have done well before. Notably in Europe at the MKM series. This is the most recent list at Hamburg which T4ed: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16936&d=304755&f=LE. Note that the list if pre-Ixalan.

I think Eldrazi Stompy is reasonably well placed in the meta at the moment. Looking forward to seeing more development here!

Let me give a brief history of the development of the UB version. Back in January/February of 2017 there was a spike on mtgo of Delver/TNN/Stoneforge Mystic/Baleful Strix decks. My win rate, while playing the colorless version, dropped significantly enough that made me reconsider the options. I tried many of the colored versions: W, GW, UR, BW, Jeskai, etc. But, in my anecdotal experience, I was getting similar results.

Consistently, the stronger card (other than chalice) was reality Smasher. It was clear that the evasion was a big big plus in this metagame. I had also been playing Eldrazi bant, so I knew Skyspawner would be good. Eldritch Moon had just come out, so I wanted to try a few cards from there. I also made some silly choices, like Cairn Wanderer (spoiler: does not work well with Eye of Ugin/Eldrazi Temple; bonus: I "almost" went 5-0 with my test deck with 2x Cairn Wanderer, losing in the last round to Manaless dredge because I mulled to zero cards on game 3). Bearer of Silence met some of the criteria I was looking for: had evasion, and gave me answers to TNN. I was very skeptical of it because of its small body, and not being able to block a delver, but also because it arguably requires 4 mana. Played it nevertheless. The last odd choice was Walking Ballista. At this point, WB was not mainstream in legacy Eldrazi, but I saw it in Vintage and Modern and thought it may be worth testing because its ability to deal with unflipped delvers and strix. Other unsuccessful inclusions: Wretched Gryff, Walker of the Wastes, Elder Deep Fiend, Sire of Stagnation.

As I remarked above, the deck very quickly became successful and and had a tremendous run. Bearer was part of that success, but it took my a few games to understand how to take maximum advantage of bearer. It may sound obvious, but the best way was to deploy threats that need to be dealt with (Mimic, TKS, Smasher), then slowly chip away advantage by deploying Ballistas and getting rid of the smaller threats, and then bring Bearer to keep gaining value, and eventually capitalize on it. Of course this formula will vary from case to case, but it applied to most of the scenarios. I included other improvements, like the addition of Emrakul, the Promised End, to combat of the strategies from Miracles (pre-top banning). I had some mild success piloting the UB version, with some results published and some not, but with a greater win rate that I was having with the colorless version (which I was also piloting).

Following the banning of top, the metagame quickly shifted and I had a hard time playing with Eldrazi, being the colorless or the UB version. So I took a break and started to play Modern. Once in a while I would play a Legacy league, and in one occasion 5-0'd another league with the UB version but didn't get published. After modern, I tried Vintage. But Ixalan made me excited again and seeing so many pilots doing well with colorless gives me a lot of hope. And Bearer of Silence is still a very important card, but I think having access to other colors can help diversify the roles that BoS fills.

tl;dr: Bearer can seem weak on its own, but its strength is playing it along with other cards and learning how to time it.

[Manipulato]

Short noob question ^^ Does a casted 5/5 Endless one for example trigger a Eldrazi Mimic up to a 5/5? I heard yes and no and am really unsure now :-/

[fluuu]

Short noob question ^^ Does a casted 5/5 Endless one for example trigger a Eldrazi Mimic up to a 5/5? I heard yes and no and am really unsure now :-/

Yes!

[bonkotsu]

What is the reasoning for cutting down on AiD lately?

[Hopo]

What is the reasoning for cutting down on AiD lately?

Who are you addressing by this vague question?

[bonkotsu]

Who are you addressing by this vague question?

Probably should have elaborated. I have noticed a decline in AiD in the sb on MTGO and other top 8 listings from events at mtgdecks and mtgtop8, whats the reasoning for cutting down to 1 as opposed to 2 or 3?

[darkgh0st]

Less TNNs and doesn't really solve Blood Moon as it is so hard to cast under it. I'm also seeing Ratchet Bombs pick up from 2 to 3.

[MD.Ghost]

The biggest notable change is that I dropped Eldrazi Mimic from the list. Mimic is just not that good anymore, and this is especially true in the UB version. There are too many answers (Fatal Push) and blockers (Baleful Strix) being played right now. If we want to compete with Czech pile and alike, we need our creatures to provide extra value. All of the creatures in the list offer a type of "2 for 1" effect. It's a lot more profitable to trade the Reshapers or Skyspawners with Strix to open up space for the bigger creatures. Bearer is amazingly good, but we usually don't want too many in our opening hand, and so I cut them down to 3.

I have not been a big fan of Eldrazi displacer because all the mana that it needs to consume in order to be effective, and it doesn't really offer a true "2 for 1", but I wouldn't mind it as a 1-of. Likewise, having access to Obligator can help sneaking out of tight situations, from a blocking Griselbrand to a Baleful Strix. World Breaker is a nice Creeping Mold with a huge body attached to it.

For now I will keep focusing and tuning the UB version and on the side develop the 5 or 4 color list a bit more.

First i really like your unique way to brew around with devoid-drazi. I never liked full colorless and always try to sneak in at least Eldrazi Displacer since he keep so many problematic cards in check.

At UBx - Yes Eldrazi Mimic seems not the right one since i figured out that little dude needs a lot of colorless beaters around him with 3 or more power. A build with Bearer and Skyspawner simply has not enough power for Mimic. I like Skyspawner too, but really want to team him up with Eldrazi Displacer and Matter Reshaper to get a good amount of nasty cc3 cards that can generate some advantage. Bearer of Silence also i a sleeper card that always felt uncastable/to slow for colorless Eldrazi Stompy. But most ignore the fact that he is an uncounterable edict with a body. Okay 2/1 "can't block" isnt a huge deal but at least he can carry a little and fly over blockers. Combined with a critical amount of "Removal-Eldrazi" he works good cause you can interact way better with your Opponent and the field isnt full with targets too.

My biggest problem with the Esper-Eldrazi List is, that i feel it needs Lotus Petal/Mox Diamond too which results into more bad topdecks and 3-4 critical slots for deck building. I still tinker around with the list but currently switched back to WB-Drazi.

Mimic is back, cause i also run Endless One and its overall more aggressiv besides additional fast mana. You lose some grinding power (2:1 Skyspawner, Reshaper etc.)

// 60 Maindeck

// 9 Artifact
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Thorn of Amethyst

// 26 Creature
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Walking Ballista
3 Bearer of Silence
4 Eldrazi Mimic
3 Endless One
2 Drowner of Hope

// 25 Land
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Unclaimed Territory
3 Eye of Ugin
2 City of Traitors
2 Karakas
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

// 15 Sideboard
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Endbringer
SB: 3 Warping Wail
SB: 2 Dismember
SB: 2 All Is Dust

With Displacer, Bearer, Ballista and Drowner (Endbringer Side) you have a good amount of interaction and still a very high body count (to avoid useless topdecks or bad 1:1 trades vs Cantrip-Shells). I currently tried Drowner of Hope over Endbringer. The common Endbringer can be faster (colorless and needs only 3 lands) and have a good kit, but Drowner will instantly affect the field (remove blockers or prevent a deadly attack), works better vs Edict-Effects and can be combined with Displacer too. Sideboard isnt set in Stone, just some slots to tinker and try different ideas. Currently not miss Ratched Bomb.

EDIT

@Qernavak: Thats more a Uwb List developed from your latest list. Currently test Petal over Mox and going down to 24 lands cause Skyspawner (+Displacer) nets mana too and the deck can operate with less mana too. Besides Petal for more 1 Turn Plays, the list is creaturewise less aggressiv than the WB List above (no Mimic+Endless One) and will profit from more grindy battles since it also packs Reshaper or matchups where skyspawner as a flyer really shines. Warping Wail main as a flexible solution, i like that it can be fired of with Eldrazi Scion tokens too which are often ignored from opponents. Sideboard is still the one above but i test Basilisk Collar over Dismember here because the Skyspawner deck is more about control and not fast overrun where you sneak in dismember as removal because life doesnt really matter. But fire of a Dismember with a Scion Token is also a nice move.

// 60 Maindeck

// 9 Artifact
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Lotus Petal

// 25 Creature
4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Matter Reshaper
3 Walking Ballista
2 Drowner of Hope
2 Bearer of Silence

// 2 Instant
2 Warping Wail

// 24 Land
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
2 City of Traitors
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Karakas
4 Unclaimed Territory
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth


// 15 Sideboard
SB: 3 Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Basilisk Collar
SB: 3 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Endbringer
SB: 2 All Is Dust

[bonkotsu]

Went 8-3 at EW with colorless squids, spyglass is great

[ChrisDissent]

Went 8-3 at EW with colorless squids, spyglass is great

Congratz !! Really nice.
Could you tell us what decks did you face in the swiss ?

[bonkotsu]

Congratz !! Really nice.
Could you tell us what decks did you face in the swiss ?

Interestingly enough I only faced the same deck once.
RD 1 Loss - Turbo Depths
RD 2 Win - Aggro Loam
RD 3 Loss - Food Chain
RD 4 Loss - Infect
RD 5 Win - D & T
RD 6 Win - Czech Pile
RD 7 Win - Maverick
RD 8 Win - Merfolk
RD 9 Win - Esper Deathblade
RD 10 Win - Czech Pile
RD 11 Win - UB Reanimator