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Thread: [Primer] Eldrazi Stompy

  1. #1

    [Primer] Eldrazi Stompy

    This is a work in progress and not yet finished but a good start for everyone interested in Eldrazi's in Legacy. For work reasons I wont be able to have any progress until the 23rd of march, sorry for the delay.

    Introduction
    Eldrazi Stompy also known as Eldrazis Shops is the newest deck in the Legacy and Modern pool. It plays similar to other stompy Decks like “Dragon Stompy” but makes use of the new Eldrazi creatures from Oath of the Gatewatch which had a lot of impact for the following reasons:
    - The most important ones are completely colorless, thus making the „Sol-Lands“ (Ancient Tomb & City of Traitors) stronger as those now could cast the lock-pieces and the threats without additional manafixing needed.
    - They’re pretty good on the cost/power ratio while having additional benefits.
    - Compared to the beaters MUD plays (f.e. Wurmcoil Engine) they can make use of 2 further „Sol-Lands“ in Eye of Ugin & Eldrazi Temple thus having an overall more stable manabase which is a little bit more difficult to disrupt and just more consistent while lessening the need of other acceleration pieces thus lessening the chance of a hand consisting of all mana and no pressure.

    Since the deck is still new there isn’t one list to play, everything apart from a few card choices is still in flux and depends on your general strategy and expected matchups.
    You can play a straight colorless version or splash different colors which opens up new maindeck and even more important sideboard choices, though as usual at the cost of a weaker manabase.
    In general a „Stompy“ deck trys to play a lock piece, followed by a threat which is now protected/cant be answered and kill the opponent with it.
    There are 2 camps of Eldrazi players, one who favor a more aggressive approach, trying to keep the curve as low as possible and attack the opponent before he has any chance to recover from the first dropped lock piece.
    The other camp favors a higher end manacurve to play the most powerful Eldrazis, making use of the lock pieces to get in the actual mid/lategame and dominate the board.
    Those 2 variants share a lot of cards in common, but there are several cards one list would play while the other does not. In each cards description I’m going to add which variant profits more from the inclusion of each card.


    Card choices
    24-26 Lands
    The correct land count hasn’t been figured out yet and always does depend on the rest of your list and also on the use of other acceleration.

    Ancient Tomb
    The best land in the deck and the oldest „Solland“, yes sometimes the damage will kill you but those 2 colorless mana enable you to play your (for Legacy) high costed creatures as well as dropping your important lock pieces on turn 1. Play 4.

    City of Traitors
    The disadvantage of the City is clear but the risk is well worth it to give you a higher chance to drop your lock pieces t1, followed by a huge threat turn 2.
    Depending on your actual decklist you might want to play fewer or more of those as it matters a lot whether you want them mostly to drop Chalice/Thorn on turn 1 (which can be helped out in other ways) or need them to cast non-Eldrazi threats.
    Most people try a balanced approach and play 3 Cities, depending on your decklist you can argue for 2 or 4.

    Eye of Ugin
    Its a legendary which sucks. It doesn’t add mana for your non-Eldrazi spells which sucks. The ability needs you to have 7 mana which rarely happens.
    But it makes some of your most broken starts possible as it „taps“ for 2 for all your Eldrazi creatures without hurting you.
    If you can actually play 2 or more creatures in a turn it effectily makes 4 or 6 mana !
    When playing a more aggressive approach of Eldrazi-Stompy you want to max out on those Eyes, as the disadvantage of it being legendary wont come up as often in shorter games. If you’re playing a lot of non-Eldrazi cards you might want to settle on 2.

    Eldrazi Temple
    Similar to Eye it allows you to drop your Eldrazi threats way faster than usual though is restricted to a maximum of 2 mana per turn unlike Eye. On the other hand it doesn’t suck in multiples and can cast your non Eldrazi cards aswell. The first Eye will be better than the first Temple more often than not but you rather draw more Temples than Eye’s.
    Depending on your decklist you probably want to play a mix of 4-8 copies of Temple/Eye. Aggressive versions favoring more copies of both for the maximum chance of broken starts.

    Cavern of Souls
    As most or all creatures in the deck share the „Eldrazi“ type Cavern of Souls ability to make your threats uncounterable is a great way to get a edge in control-matchups as you reduce their outs to just their removal.
    Even when you’re playing non Eldrazi creatures and name them with cavern it wont hinder your manabase as its still produces colorless for your Eldrazis!
    But more than that the Caverns allow you to fix your mana in case you’re splashing one or more colors. But be careful when splashing non-Eldrazi creatures as its still gonna be the most common announced creature type.
    Note: If you want to make use of the „uncounterable clause“ the mana added can’t be the colorless one you need to spent for casting f.e. Thought-Knot Seer.

    Crystal Vein
    Some people like it better than City of Traitors as you don’t have to sacrifice it when playing the next land, other hate it as its gonna be even more awkward to play it turn 1 into Chalice/Thorn than City is gonna be.
    Most use them when they want more ways of having 2 mana on turn 1 without overloading on City of Traitors (thus reducing the chance of drawing multiples) and without playing other acceleration.

    Wasteland
    Depending wether you have room for more colorless-only lands or not Wasteland is a great choice. While the deck is mana hungry and you won’t always use it to hinder your opponent it helps a lot against annoying lands of your opponents (Tabernacle, Maze of Ith, Rishadan Port, Thespian Stage).
    Aggressive colorless variants could want the full 4 as they have the room for it, other variants most likely still want to play some number of them to battle the mentioned problem-lands. In any case the use of it should be carefully considered, as the deck is very mana hungry and losing a land is a huge cost. Take some seconds to think whether its worth it or not before destroying your opponents land.

    Ghostquarter
    Poor mans Wasteland but good enough for those who want the extra land destruction. It’s possible you’ll find them in a super-fast list as a 2 of. A decent choice if you expect a lond of land or mirror matchups.
    Another point worth mentioning is that it can act as a fetchland if you're killing your own land. This might make a splash a tad more feasable though more important it allows you to run 4 Ghostquarter and 4 Waste and have virtually 8 copies against Bloodmoon. Then again you have to destroy your land preemptive or have Ghostquarter untapped for that to work.

    Rishadan Port
    Apart from niche situations its going to be worse than Wasteland. Nonetheless its an alternative to Ghost Quarter (I doubt a list can make slots for all 3 of those). I haven’t tasted it personally because I’m doubtful you’ll want to tap 2 lands (3 mana at times!) to stop your opponent from using 1 mana. Does have the advantage of working better against basics compared to Ghost Quarter.

    Mishra’s Factory
    Most likely played in the more aggressive variant, the deck builder probably has to chose some mix of those and Wasteland depending on the valuation. Definitely do getbetter when you’re playing equipment.
    Inkmoth Nexus is an alternative for the ability to fly over with equipment during board stalls, but therefore is weaker on its own.

    Corrupted Crossroads
    It’s here to fix your mana for Eldrazi-Creatures, between Cavern and it you could be looking at 8 sources of every color for each Eldrazi, its hard to find room for all those good lands but if you’re seriously thinking about playing 3 or even 4 colors of Eldrazi you should try to fit some of those in. If you’re playing the colorless variant or just splash for one color skip on those, there’re better alternatives.

    Wastes
    Allows you to play through Bloodmoon and From the Ashes. Helps a lot against Back to Basics. Otherwise a useless land. You can’t fetch for those which makes playing only 1 or 2 most likely a waste of effort. Most decks don’t want to afford to waste their land slots on Wastes, but if you expect the above cards you can/should try to make some room for those.

    Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
    Another legendary land which doesn’t even accelerate you like Eye of Ugin does..doesnt it? It actually can make you 2 mana in combination with said Eye of Ugin (letting you tap the Eye for B), giving you another possibility of having 4 mana on turn 2 (note those 4 mana can’t cast Thought-Knot Seer).
    Its also a great way to reduce damage from Ancient Tomb in the lategame when you only need them to tap for 1 mana and it fixes your mana in case you’re running a black splash. If you make use of all those abilities you should consider running 3 or 4 but otherwise don’t overload on it for the chance to make Eye of Ugin tap for mana, its still a good 1-2 of if you have the slot.

    Karakas
    Yet another legendary land. It helps you in different matchups (Reanimator, SneakShow and Lands most commonly) which without it are some of the more problematic matchups. If you’re splashing white it even fixes your mana and then there’s no reason to not play at least one copy.

    Grove of the Burnwillows
    If you're playing at least one of those colors this land will fix your colors while still providing colorless mana. The lifegain is not irrelevant but as you won't need much colored mana negligible. Also the obvious combo with Punishing Fire.

    Horizon Canopy
    Fixes your mana if you're splashing white and green and smooths out your land-heavy draws, an ability this deck otherwise lacks.
    But be careful, for one it doesn't produce colorless mana which can be awkward at times and the lifeloss is an actual factor between Ancient Tomb and Dismember.

    Painlands
    Those are just here to fix your mana in case you splash some color and can’t use better lands for those colors.

    Gemstone Cavern
    For those of you feeling lucky, on the play it’s a worse Waste, on the draw its pretty much a Chrome Mox which you can pitch any card to. I haven’t any experience with it yet but I’m eager to try it as a 1-of.


    Acceleration
    Some shy away from acceleration for the card disadvantage they bring with them or for being to slow to actually matter. But if you want to maximize your chance of a turn 1 lock piece without mulligans and/or want to diminish the number of the worse sollands you play you might want to opt for the inclusion of some of those. People who use them found out 3 to be a good number between constistenly getting speed without ruining your deck, although it heavily depends on your goal (for example landing turn 1 a lockpiece or fix your mana) and landbase.

    Mox Diamond
    On the plus side its free, fixes your mana stays in the game and can give you even 3 mana on the first turn, all while getting rid of those extra copies of lands the lands you rather only draw once (legendary lands, City of Traitors). On the other hand its only better as an additional land while you’re still hitting your land drops, can lead to awkward starting hands and is card disadvantage. If your curve goes rather high or you try to splash multiple colors you should strongly think about adding some of those in your list. Colorless variants are better of with other options.

    Simian Spirit Guide / Elvish Spirit Guide
    One time acceleration for your turn 1 lock piece for card disadvantage. Mostly used in case you want to stay at 8-9 ways of having 2 mana on turn 1 without playing 4 City of Traitors. If you play Worldbreaker you should chose the Elf as it fixes your mana and can get you out of Bloodmoon. If you don’t chose the Ape as you can still cast it during a Bloodmoon (gets slightly better when playing equipment).

    Lotus Petal
    This is an alternative to the spirit guides. The advantage of the Lotus Petal is that it can actually fix your mana in any color, not just red or green (in any case, be careful with relying on those 1 time effects for your manafixing !). This can be specially interesting for lists trying to splash 2 or more colors for non-Eldrazi cards.
    Therefore it has anti-synergy with your lock pieces though, mostly Thorn of Amethyst and Sphere of Resistance or Trinisphere. Sometimes, but less common, even with Chalice of the Void.
    You’ll never be able to cast it as a 2/2 beater to carry equipment.
    In theory it can also be a problem that it can get countered, but that’s not something you should actually worry about when building your deck.

    Mindstone/Talismans
    Both help you ramp, though the focus here is to ramp in your mid/lategame and not for your t1 lock piece. Lists which might be interested in playing those cards are top-heavy lists or lists playing some non-Eldrazi threats while maxing out on Temples. Note that those mana rocks also help you play around Bloodmoon. The Talismans will fix your mana for splashes, the Mindstone can be cashed in for a card if you don’t need the manafixing.


    7+ Lock pieces
    General conses is that you want to play at least 7 lock pieces to give you a decent chance of having access to at least one without mulliganing to oblivion.
    As you want them to be playable on turn 1 many people feel they should cost 2 mana. While 3 mana can be done with Mox’es/Spirit Guide’s those will severely hamper your win % against decks where its boom or bust on turn 1 (f.e. fastcombo). Though feel free to add some of the more expansive ones as piece number 8-10. Despite being very important to the decks core, the more aggressive version doesn’t want to overload on those as drawing just lock pieces without threats is bad and will give opponents the chance to overcome them.

    Chalice of the Void
    This is your first and from now on your favorite lock piece. The whole decks wraps
    around it and just its inclusion determines the rest of the deck enormously. It’s well worth it. A lot of decks simply fold to a turn 1 chalice on 1 and even later Chalices lock out a good portion of most decks. It’s the best thing you can do turn 1 by a whole lot.

    Thorns of Amethyst
    Most commonly this is the second lock piece as it hits most decks in Legacy.
    It does stop some decks completely game 1, makes it very hard for others, is decent against yet another portion of the metagame and unfortunately there are also some matchups its weak against. Most people favor Thorns over the next mentioned Sphere as the latter does hinder you aswell.
    If you expect lots of decks like Maverick, Elves, Death and Taxes and other creature centric decks you should skip on those Thorns and play something else.



    Sphere of Resistance
    Here is your other choice of 2 drop and while it hits pretty much every matchup
    (apart from MUD and Affinity) it also severely hampers you, a trade-off most people do not find worth it. It is however a worthy consideration if you expect lots of creature-centric matchups (as a Thorns replacement), if you want even more disruption playable on turn 1 or as a sideboard choice.

    Trinisphere
    A mighty weapon, able to shut off your opponent completely allowing you to play
    solitaire. Its still not a necessary maindeck choice as we can’t (or only rarely) have 3 mana on turn 1 and its dissynergy with Eye of Ugin. In the matchups where Thorn is weak Trinisphere is most likely as weak and thus most people have shied away from it, maybe making room in their sideboards. Some still swear on it though, but the (nearly) inability to pump it out turn 1 makes it much weaker than in a deck like “MUD” or “Dragon “Stompy.

    Winterorb
    Another 2 drop lock piece but bad enough in enough matchups (Combo decks) while also being annoying for yourself its most likely just a sideboard choice for some matchups. Then again the aggressive approach could combine its synergy with [card]Eye of Ugin to good effect.


    Tangle wire
    So far no successful deck included it, but some people are trying to combine this
    magnificent piece with an aggressive strategy. I’d like to see it work out, if you’re playing it some strategy involving Eldrazi Spawns might work out for you.

    Smokestack
    While playing similar lock pieces Eldrazi Stompy/Shops is not a “Staxx” deck and you should stay away from including this in your list. Its way to slow for what we’re trying to do and apart from a combination with [card]Crucible of Worlds we can’t abuse it in any way.

    Creatures
    When lock pieces are your bread of the deck then those creatures are your favorite topping of choice, whether its peanut butter, nutella, cheese, bacon or even marmite. They’re your win conditions and can add another layer of disruption while smothering your opponent.

    Thought-Knot-Seer
    The card which had most attention before the set was released and for a good
    reason. As a 4 mana 4/4 its decent sized and doesn’t die to the common non white
    removal. Its colorless and as such compeltly castable of sol-lands. Its an Eldrazi thus giving you a maximum of 16 sol-lands for it and more to boot: It’s an awesome piece of disruption ! Yes they get a card back when this dies and sometimes they won’t have anything thus getting card advantage on a kill. But those occasions are far enough apart and do not undermine this creatures strength ! Play 4 end of discussion.

    Reality Smasher
    5 mana is a whole lot for nothing but a dump 5/5 beater in Legacy. But when that guy is castable on turn 3, has haste, trample and some sort of protection its well worth it. This guy is going to close out the games you’ve been locking before and he’s going to do that fast. You should have a good reason to not include 4 of those bad boy.

    Eldrazi Mimic
    Now we have the first creature which hugely determines the rest of your build. If you favor an aggressive strategy play 4 and be happy turning 2 of those sideways on turn 3 after playing a [cards]Reality Smasher[/carsd]. Even most “slower” decks want them as it’s the only Eldrazi 2-drop (apart from Endless one) and is free with an Eye of Ugin in play.
    However it’s a weak stand alone card, even a 0 mana Goblin Piker is just that and as such a weak topdeck. At first its seemed to be an auto inclusion but in the past couple of weeks decks experimenting without them have been seen. In the future this card might be a splitting point between the 2 different variants.

    Endless One
    As a x-mana x/x its always unexciting but it will always fill your curve, can be super fast if you have the according opening hand and makes Eldrazi Mimic that much stronger. Aggressive colorless variants will want/have to play it, those decks splashing a color or two might have other choices.

    Matter Reshaper
    Don’t let you fool yourself into thinking this is the colorless Baleful Strix. It isn’t. What it does is filling the 3-mana slot which looks rather empty without it. With Eye of Ugin out it’s a Wild Nacatl which cantrips when it dies. That’s something aggressive decks do like, but it matches up poorly against a lot of other creatures (Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary, Eldrazi-Mirror).
    Note: The ability to put something with cmc <=3 onto the battlefield is a may, so if you reveal a Chalice of the Void or an Endless One you can simply draw them.

    Endbringer
    We’re getting to the top of the curve, 6 mana is a lot even when having access to 16 sol-lands so the question is whether what we’re getting is worth it. As a 5/5 this not-so-little guy can bring the end to your opponent by smashing, though that’s what we have the actual Reality Smasher for.
    The pinging is helpful for annoying opposing creatures like Dark Confidant or Young Pyromancer, it can put a stop to Thalia-attack-with-first-trike-while-being-equipped-with-Jitte-then-bounced-by-Karakas shenanigans which already is good.
    Further this ability gives you an out to a resolved Ensnaring Bridge / Moat game 1.
    Its also a good card to put into play against SneakShow as the tap ability can win you the game easily.
    But wait! There’s more! He can even let you draw some cards in case non of the
    above options is any good, that’s a fair amount of value for one card. Though as 6
    mana is a steep step to pay you’ll only see some copies of him in the slower decks.

    Oblivion Sower
    Another 6 drop but without as much impact as the Endbringer. What it does offer you is a great body, matching up well against opposing Reality Smasher and Tarmogoyf. As processing is not as much of a deal in Legacy the exiling part isn’t interesting. Getting some lands on the other hand is nice as it can accelerate you into Eye of Ugin activations.

    Blight Herder
    It’s a 5 mana 4/5. Not exiting.
    If you warp your deck around processing it would be worth it and I could see some use of him against creature heavy decks while also boarding Rest in Piece, but overall its weaker then other cards you get for 5-6 mana.

    Phyrexian Revoker
    The first non Eldrazi Creature I’m going to cover and while he’s flexible and can help you out in a lot of matchups, there are several others where he’s just a Goblin Piker.
    The more aggressive versions will have enough 2 drops between the lock pieces and Eldrazi Mimic but those decks which opt to not include the mimic and play a more controlling/taxing deck will want a playset of this little phyrexian.

    Lodestone Golem
    Now we’re getting in Staxx territorial, 4 mana and hinders you nearly as much but its just a beating against most deck. You have to adjust your manabase as Eldrazi Tempel only adds 1 while Eye of Ugin adds 0 for casting this bad guy, but between him, Phyrexian Revoker and Thought Knot Seer you can deliver hard disruption while beating your opponent to death.

    Phyrexian Metamorph
    The only reason its not super awesome is that it costs 3 and 2 life (life which will be low for all those [card]Ancient Tomb usings) and being useless alone. But being able to copy Thorn of Amethyst, Thougt-Knot-Seer, Reality Smasher, Lodestone Golem and much more it’s just brilliant. As you can’t deny its disadvantages however most lists run 0-2.
    Note: It also works with Eldrazi Mimic when copying a colorless creature.

    Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
    Not really a thing as 10 mana is way to expensive even with all those sol-lands. But for some matchup its good to have as a searchable way of getting rid of annoying permanents. Better in your sideboard then in your maindeck though as most matchups won’t give you enough time to cast him.
    Last edited by Holly; 03-17-2016 at 01:34 PM.

  2. #2

    Re: [Primer/Deck] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Other Cards
    Between the many lands and the need for a good mixture of disruption/lock pieces and threats there’s not much room left in the deck for other cards. Still, after building the mainframe of your deck you will end up with a couple of flex spots, here are some of the more common used cards to fill up those spots to round up the deck.
    Because there are so few spots for removal spells you’ll have to carefully chose which to play and in a game don’t mindlessly try to kill every creature your opponent plays. Our creatures are mostly big enough that you just have to take care of a small subset (Tarmogoyf, Tasigur, Gurmag Angler, Knight of the Reliquary)

    Dismember
    Playing colorless comes at a cost, you don’t have access to some of the more efficient removal spells. Nonetheless Dismember is a very powerful one, 1 mana to kill pretty much 95% of the creatures in Legacy. -5/-5 is often enough to kill the opposing creature to let your Thought-Knot Seer’s attack again though sometimes you will have to use it as a combat trick.
    On the negative side costing 4 life when playing Ancient Tomb will be awkward at times and makes it pretty much impossible to run a playset. If you’re playing Urborg, Tomb of Yawghmoth it gets slighty better as it will happen that you’re able to pay with more mana for it.

    Spatial Contortion
    The lack of flex slots means that most decks only play 2 or 3 removal spells, as such they favor Dismember since -3/-3 is enough worse than Dismember and when playing only some copies the lifeloss doesn’t matter as much.
    The problem with Spatial Contortion is that most of the time the creatures we care about are bigger than our Thought-Knot Seer or Reality Smasher, thus can’t be killed by the spell alone (making it pretty much a glorified Giant Growth) or they’re so small that other cards can take care of it while providing other benefits.
    If you wan’t more removal for medium sized creatures and can’t play more Dismember it’s worth a consideration.

    Umezawas Jitte
    4 non Eldrazi mana before you get the first effect from it is much, but well worth it.
    Not only allows it your creatures to battle and win against large Tarmogoyf, it can also kill pesky creatures (Young Pyromancer, Baleful Strix, Delver of Secrets) and even offset the damage you dealt yourself through Ancient Tomb.
    Its legendary and useless without any creatures which is why most lists contempt themselves playing this as a 2 of.
    It does get better when you’re playing creatures which sometimes might be near useless (Phyrexian Revoker) as even those will find a use when equipped with this sword.

    Warping Wail
    Also known as Kozileks Charm, a jack of all trades master of none.
    What it gives you is a turn 1 cast able Envelop against combo decks. The possibility to counter late game enders like Show and Tell, Natural Order or Terminus. A way to get rid of small creatures similar to Umezawas Jitte . The Eldrazi Spawn is by far the least used mode but every other match there’s a point where its going to safe your day, be it as a suspended Lotus Petal, as a chump blocker or even as a way to play one more spell around Bloodmoon.
    For its very versatile it’s liked in the maindeck, though as none of those modes are super efficient you’ll rarely see a playset. The counter mode is pretty non replaceable with our self-made restrictions which leads to some players having a full set in their 75, most commonly 2 maindeck and 2 sideboard.

    All is Dust
    This card is pretty much a one-sided boardwipe and will lead to your win a huge amount of the time you can play it. Which is exactly the point, IF you can play it. 7 mana is a lot, even for an Eldrazi spell (only Temple or Eye works). Between the manacost making it to slow in matchups you want it and being useless in some matchups even if you could cast it (Mirror, MUD, Affinity, non-Elves-Combo in general, […]) most people shy away from maindecking it.
    Nonetheless it’s a mighty weapon which finds it way into some sideboards for its use against board-heavy midrange decks.

    Ratchet Bomb
    Ratchet Bomb is another way to eventually get rid of any permanent making you problems. It can kill a huge amount of tokens efficiently but is otherwise a slow card. The good side of it is, as our mana curve is well above the Legacy average, you’ll rarely run in the problem of destroying your own cards while getting rid of the troublesome permanent of your opponent.
    If you want to be prepared for everything this is your card.

    Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
    Is a All is Dust with a planeswalker attached to it for 1 more mana (though it being non-Eldrazi makes it feel like 3 mana more). Even harder to cast, more powerful and can be used in more matchups (vs control decks). Since it is very narrow you only want it in your sideboard as a 1 of, if at all.

    Karn Liberated
    Similar to Ugin, a tad cheaper but can’t wipe the board if you’re behind. Therefore he can get rid of any annoying permanent not just colored ones (some lands, Ensnaring Bridge).

    Crucible of Worlds
    Helps to fight through Wasteland and other land destruction, get's better if you play Wasteland yourself or some manlands which could die.
    Not useful in every matchup but nice to have in some.



    Sideboard
    Again I’m not going to give you 15 cards and tell you this is your sideboard. That would be pretty pointless as every sideboard has to adjust itself to the played maindeck as the anticipated matches you’re going to face. As such I’ll like you to outline your options so you can chose what’s going to be the best for you.
    For some cards above I’ve already written about their possible uses in the sideboard so I’m going to skip to repeat those and instead focus of cards which see pretty much only sideboard play.

    Faerie Macabre
    0 mana, doesn’t conflict with any of your lock pieces and gets the job done if you want to get rid of specific cards. It’s good against Reanimator and Lands, can be okayish against ANT.
    Don’t board it in against opposing Tarmogoyf or delve-creatures.

    Tormod’s Crypt
    Similar to Faerie Macabre, you have to play it preemptively therefore it wont be discarded. Can be destroyed or bounced before you want to activate it though. Better against dredge.
    Again don’t board it in against opposing Tarmogoyf or delve-creatures.

    Surgical Extration
    Another clash with Chalice of the Void, much like Pithing Needle hardly a problem in the lands matchup but will bite your butt when boarding it against Reanimator.
    Some people hate this cards while others are fans of it. What are you?


    Sword of X and Y
    As a maindeck choice inferior to Umezawas Jitte those are sideboard choices worth considering.
    Sword of Light and Shadow do help against the lifeloss of Ancient Tomb while also protection your creature from Swords to Plowshare, it also helps fighting against Batterskull.
    The other choice is Sword of Fire and Ice for its ability to let you attack through True Name Nemesis while also giving you some card advantage and shocking creatures.
    Reality Smasher is the most obvious choice for equipment, thanks to trample its able to often get 1 damage on the opponent, triggering the swords.

    Pithing Needle
    Clashes with Chalice of the Void for 1 big times. Still sees play in most sideboards, why is that?
    The effect is just that good and needed. While Phyrexian Revoker can turn of most stuff it leaves out the most important card type we care about; lands.
    Wasteland, Rishadan Port and Thespian Stage to name the most important ones, followed by Maze of Ith.
    There’s one deck in Legacy playing all 4 of those and such is a bad matchup. To make things worse Chalice of the Void x=1 only stops Exploration/Manabond/Gamble and thus gets drastically worse on the draw (or whenever you can’t play it turn 1 on the play). More to that in the matchup section.


    Mindbreak Trap:
    What you read is what you get, 0 mana counterspell against Storm/Belcher/Rogue Hermit (Oops all spells).

    Leyline of the Void
    Leylines do make for awkward situations whenever they’re not in your starting hand. Since we’re very dependent on ours and have to aggressively mulligan to a hand of “mana, threat, disruption” adding Leyline to the equation will lead to unhappy faces.
    However one can’t deny the power a turn 0 Leyline has as it can win games on its own.

    Leyline of Sanctuary
    Has the same problem as Leyline of the Void but only can singlehandedly win in the Burn matchup. You could board it in against heavy discard decks (Shardless BUG). While I doubt that’s where you want to be, I haven’t tested it yet.

    Sun Droplet
    Another card to shore up the aggressive matchups. It helps to offset damage dealt yourself via Ancient Tomb, makes Delver of Secrets more bearable and can help in the Burn matchup.
    Unfortunately you can’t rely to much on it against Burn as they can just burst you down in 1-2 turns between Price of Progress and Fireblast thus reducing its effect.
    Note: If you have 2 Sun Droplet in play Ancient Tomb starts to slowly gain you life.


    Weakness of Eldrazi Stompy/Shops
    While the deck is strong and cards like Chalice of the Void or Thorn of Amethyst can win games on their own on turn 1, the deck also has weaknesses which are exploitable. Some of those can be helped out with the above sideboard cards, others can’t be covered by colorless cards which is one reason people tend to splash one or more colors into their deck.

    Painter Servant – shuts off Eye of Ugin and the good part of Eldrazi Temple as both lands specify “colorless” cards.
    Can be answered by Dismember, Spatial Consortion and Warping Wail.

    Big creatures – Tarmogoyf gets easily to 4/5 thus blocking our Thought-Knot Seer which drastly slows us down. Often enough it can also be a 5/6 nullyfing our attacks completely. Other big creatures: Knight of the Reliquary (also land destruction!) Tasigur, Gurmag Angler.
    All those get answered by Dismember to a certain degree, sometimes in combination with an attack/block. Endbringer can also tap those down.

    True Name Nemesis – This fish spells hard time. You can however trample over him with Reality Smasher but he’s going to blank a lot of your other creatures. Ratchet Bomb is a (slow) way of getting rid of him, so is All is Dust. As long as hes not equipped you can win through him with Smasher or just by attacking with a lot of huge creatures (Eldrazi Mimic, Endless One) if he gets equipment only it’s going to be ugly.

    Manadisruption – Wasteland, Rishadan Port are all going to “destroy” 2 mana of ours and thus can be hard to overcome or slow us down while the opponent advances their board through Aether Vial or Exploration.
    Can be answered by extra lands, Wasteland of your own or Pithing Needle. Playing other mana acceleration like Mox Diamond, Mindstone or Talismans will help you aswell.
    Armageddon effects like From the Ashes, there’s not much you can do about them apart from playing other acceleration, playing Wastes, countering it or having a good enough board presence already.

    Fast combo – Belcher, Stormdecks aiming for t1 kills etc. can’t be stopped by our lock pieces on the draw. It doesn’t even have to be the worst case. T1 discard on our single lock piece into t2 win is quite possible aswell. Reanimator could also go for the t1 Entomb in response to our Chalice of the Void or t1 Entomb t2 Reanimate through Thorn of Amethyst.
    Answers: More lock pieces to fight the discard into win, Mindbreak Trap, Warping Wail, in case of Reanimator: graveyard hate & Karakas and in theory Endbringer though that’s more often than not going to be to slow.

    Bloodmoon – “Shuts off” every land making you unable to play your best cards.
    Warping Wail can get you one more mana if cast in response, otherwise if you’re not playing the above mentioned mana acceleration or Wastes you’re pretty much done and have to hope your board presence is good enough. Ratchet Bomb can get it but is still going to give your opponent quite some time if you haven’t been ticking it up already.

    Ensnaring Bridge, Moat, Humility – There is not much you can do, Ratchet Bomb can answer them. Endbringer can win through the first two but is going to be slow. Humility..go in with your 1/1’s and pray for the best.

    Lack of deck manipulation – You’re going to take some mulligans. Its part of the deck and inevitable, make the best of it and learn when to take a mulligan and when not. You’re looking for mana, disruption and threats. Sometimes mana and one those will get there.
    Note that this time I did say disruption not lockpiece, turn1 Phyrexian Revoker on Lion’s Eye Diamond or Sneak Attack into turn2 [cards]Thought Knot Seer[/card]s might be good enough against Storm/SneakShow for example.


    Splashing colors
    There are various reasons you can decide to splash one or more colors. It can be to supplement your overall strategy or make up for weaknesses with impactful sideboard cards.
    Whatever your reasons might be you have to carefully adjust your mana.
    Cavern of Souls (and if you’re playing Corrupted Crossroads) generate mana of each color but only for your Eldrazi creatures, making splashing those easily. However they won’t help you at all if you’re trying to cast sideboard cards like Rest in Piece!
    In general you should make sure every card you splash only costs 1 colored mana, generating for example BG or WW will be very difficult and might do too much damage to your manabase to be worth it.
    More often then not you see decks splashing 2 colors as the painlands fix mana for 2 colors, making it as easy as just splashing 1 color, while still providing the much needed colorless mana.

    White:
    Splashing White offers you a lot of splendid hate cards as in Rest in Piece for graveyard hate, Containment Priest for unfair strategies orDisenchant (see weaknesses above, a lot of those cards are artifacts or enchantments!). Karakas also gets better if you splash white. Those alone would be a good enough reason to splash white, yet still the main reason is this guy: Eldrazi Displacer
    As a 3/3 for 3 he’s filling the low spot in your curve which previously could only be taken by Matter Reshaper & Endless One, both of which are only good in aggressive strategies. The main appeal however is his ability, for 3 mana you can blink another creature, what’s important to realize: the creature comes back tapped! Here are some tricks this guy can do for you:
    - Protect other creatures from removal
    - Stop creatures from attacking (good against Show and Tell, Reanimator, sometimes Sneak Attack (the creature will however stay in play!) and sometimes just a big Tarmogoyf)
    -Kills tokens (Batterskull, Marit Lage!)
    - Solves the problem of opposing equipment
    - Triggers Eldrazi Mimic again without the need to play another creature.
    - If you flicker a Thought Knot Seer you can chose the order you stack your triggers, meaning most commonly you let your opponent draw a card and then chose one to remove from his hand. This can remove a just miracle’d Terminus before they can cast it!
    Sometimes you can also change the order of the triggers, your opponent is empty handed and has an Ensnaring Bridge in play. You flicker your Thought Knot Seer, you stack the trigger as following “draw” “remove”, you remove nothing. Now you flicker TKS again stacking the triggers the same way. The result: your opponent draws 2 cards and you can attack with your Eldrazi Mimic again !
    -“Rebuys” other triggers of your creature, lets say something which creates Eldrazi Spawns?!
    -Can kill creatures permanently in combination with Containment Priest
    - If you play Russians greatest love machine (Rasputin Dreamweaver) you can make infinite mana.
    As you can see he offers you a great deal of diversity and board control.
    Note: Eldrazi Temple adds 2 mana for his ability!

    Blue
    Flusterstorm is worth a consideration as it’s a cc1 counter which works around Chalice of the Void and can hit instants compared to Warping Wail.
    Phyrexian Metamorph gets a minimal upgrade as you can sometimes hardcast him to save a point of damage.
    Those are minor points, the main reasons are the Eldrazi creatures blue offers:
    Drowner of Hope brings a lot of beef on the table for 6 mana and a great ability to boot. Similar to Eldrazi Displacer offers you board control; lets you attack through big creatures, can stop Sneak Attack, buys time against Show and Tell, stops equipped creatures from dealing damage..
    Last but not least blue offers you limited allstar Eldrazi Skyspawner.
    This guy ramps you at a valid point in time, making it easier to have 3 mana on turn 5. The flying body is relevant trading with Delver of Secrets (and sometimes chumpblocking Marit Lage) and is a good body for your own equipment.
    Those two creatures work well together as Drowner doesn’t care where the spawns come from. As a added benefit the Spawns also help playing around Bloodmoon.
    Thanks to all those spawns a blue splash works well with playing Umezawas Jitte and maybe even a sideboard SoXaY.
    Blue is often splashed together with white as they share a Talisman and Eldrazi Displacer is quite happy to flicker some token-maker.


    Black
    Black offers you Toxic Deluge which often enough is a one sided sweeper and is a great way to get rid of True Name Nemesis or a swarm of tokens blocking your big Eldrazis, take care of your life total though. Speaking of: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth gets better, helping you to preserve your life total from Ancient Tomb and Dismember can be more often cast with mana.
    Bearer of Silence is also a way to get card advantage going, the edict-effect is matchup dependent. Unfortunately it can’t block Delver of Secrets which would make it great but it’s a good equipment-carrier.
    Note that its on cast so counterspells won’t stop it but you can’t put it into play for much use against Show and Tell.
    Eye of Ugin won’t reduce the cost of the trigger, making it total cost still B+1C.
    Another creature black offers you is Wasteland Strangler, between Thought Knot Seer, Warping Wail, opposing Force of Will & Deathrite Shaman its not too difficult to get the processing going and he can be a great way to kill before mentioned DRS or something like a Delver of Secrets, Baleful Strix etc.
    As there are matchups in which he’s useless and some matchups in which he’s harder to turn on, it’s probably more of a sideboard card.

    Red:
    Red offers some artifact destruction similar to Green and white though lacks enchantment removal. Therefore you gain Pyroclasm or Kozileks Return, latter lends itself into playing a more top heavy version but be careful as it does kill your Thought Knot Seer.
    Red also gives you access to Vile Aggregate which not only has a huge butt for 3 mana but can grow to Tarmogoyf size. The trample isn’t irrelevant and gives you more creatures which can easily attack through True Name Nemesis. Swords of XaY get slighty better aswell.
    You also gain the possibility to play Eldrazi Obligator, which can end games very fast. Worst case scenario it’s a 2 mana 3/1 haste which is nothing to scoff at and helps rebuilding pressure after a sweeper.
    Vile Aggregate gives you small an impulse to splash blue as your second color as Eldrazi Skyspawner suddenly adds 5 power to the board with an Aggregate in play.



    Green
    Green offers you a better Disenchant in Krosan Grip and World Breaker. Splashing the latter is relatively easy as it’s a 7 drop which can be cast from Cavern of Souls. He’s an out to those annoying Enchantments/Artifacts, when playing Mox Diamond or Elvish Spirit Guide he can even be an answer to Bloodmoon.
    I found his ability to destroy lands to slow in the actual Lands matchup to matter much apart from some random games but its worth noting, as is his ability to return to your hand from your graveyard.
    His huge body helps to fight through big creatures and his reach can catch the one or other Delver of Secrets not paying attention.
    Note: Eldrazi Temple doesn’t add 2 mana for his recursion ability.

  3. #3

    Re: [Primer/Deck] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Sample Decklists inc.

    More Matchup Analysis inc.
    A perfect matchup analysis is difficult as it depends on your decklist, your sideboard aswell as their decklist. Even than every game can play out totally different.
    As such I’m not a fan of win percentages, instead I’m going to indicate who tends to be favored while providing some infos on how those decks are going to win against us, what we can do against it and which cards are even more important than others.

    MiraclesFavors Eldrazi
    Miracles is a control deck which utilizes Counterbalance in combination with Sensei’s Divining Top to control the stack while Terminus clears the board.
    Thanks to our high mana curve Counterbalance is pretty ineffective, adding to that we play several Cavern of Souls so we hardly need to fear it or their other Counterspells.
    Snapcaster Mage can’t trade for any of our creatures but non-triggered Eldrazi Mimic, Matter Reshaper and Phyrexian Revoker which makes it less effective than it could be. It’s still going to flashback a Swords to Plowshares if possible. It’s important to put them under pressure but not overextend into Terminus, always try to have a backup creature. The way they’re going to beat you is a Terminus to wipe the board into a Monastery Mentor whose army can outclass us.
    As games can easily go long this is one of the rarer matchups in which we actually can use the ability of Eye of Ugin which will turn the game in our favor.
    In sideboard games you have to be careful of Blood Moon and From the Ashes, some lists also include Moat and rarer Humility.
    Important cards for the matchup:
    Chalice of the Void x=1 as most Miracle lists rely on cantrips to hit their landdrops, also protection from Swords to Plowshares.
    Phyrexian Revoker for Sensei’s Divining Top (2nd target Jace). Their deck heavily depends on it to set up Terminus /hit land drops. Never attack with a Revoker into 2+ mana, you don’t want to trade it for a Snapcaster Mage !
    Reality Smasher’s haste is relevant after a Terminus into Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
    Warping Wail counters Terminus/Entreat the Angels and can kill a Vendilion Clique trying to race us.
    Winterorb is going to be a beating against them aswell.
    Thorns of Amethyst depends heavily on their decklist, if they favor high cantrips, lots of Snapcaster Mage and low amount of lands it taxes their mana pretty good. If they play more lands, less Snapcaster and rarely try to play more than 1 spell per turn it loses much of its power.
    The white splash is good as Eldrazi Displacer can protect other creatures from Swords to Plowshares and can in combination with Thought-Knot Seer prevent Terminus from getting miracle’d.
    Green provides the useful World Breaker who can get us out of their enchantment hate or Karakas shenanigans. The red splash can take care of a Monastery Mentor army, the other splashes do not provide anything overwhelming.
    Bad cards in the matchup: Matter Reshaper, Endless One

    Death and TaxesFavors slighty Death and Taxes
    Is another control deck, this time utilizing dozens of annoying creatures.
    They have mana disruption in form of Wasteland and Rishadan Port (while progressing their board thanks to Aether Vial).
    Mother of Runes is useless against us, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben barely taxes us.
    Our Thorn of Amethyst are useless, Chalice of the Void is just a minor annoyance for them and can be made useless by Flickerwisp.
    Stoneforge Mystic into Batterskull is a huge problem and can’t be raced by Reality Smasher.
    Thalia equipped with an active Umezawa’s Jitte will block everything we throw at her and kill our Eldrazi Mimic’s.
    Flickerwisp can also kill Endless One.
    Some lists also include Imperial Recruiter for Magus of the Moon making it even harder.
    How are we going to win: Kill them before they get going, have Thought-Knot Seer for their equipment before it gets online, an active Jitte is also going to be game over.
    Important cards for the matchup:
    Umezawa’s Jitte will kill every creature of theirs.
    Phyrexian Revoker on Aether Vial will make it hard for them to tax our mana while developing their board, also stops lots of their little tricks. Another potent target is Stoneforge Mystic in case we can’t grab the equipment with our Thought-Knot Seer.
    Wastes if you play them, this is the matchup they’re for. Other permanent mana acceleration is also going to be golden.
    Sideboard cards which help: Tsabo’s Web, Sword of Light and Shadow.
    The red splash is splendid here, it can wipe their board, Vile Aggregate can smash through their defense easily. White offers you Eldrazi Displacer who can shut down their equipped creatures (as long as its not revokered) and Batterskull. Containment Priest is another way to shut of Aether Vial but makes their Flickerwisp even more lethal.
    Bad cards in the matchup: Thorn of Amethyst, Chalice of the Void to a certain degree (play it when you’re on the play as shutting of Vial is just so good, on the draw its definitely cuttable). The value of Endless One heavily depends on the amount of Flickerwisp they play and you can never expect it to be large.


    Canadian ******** (RUG Delver, Temur Delver)Favor slighty Eldrazi
    Is THE definition of a tempo deck, low costed aggressive creatures, backed up by free counterspells and supported by cheap burn. All glued together through the use of cheap efficient cantrips.
    Lighting Bolt hardly kills anything relevant and Nimble Mungoose is pretty bad against our creatures.
    A Chalice of the Void x=1 restricts their deck to Tarmogoyf, Daze and Force of Will.
    As they do run a low amount of lands (14 + 4 Wasteland) Thorn of Amethyst is devastating.
    How they’re going to beat you is by landing a Delver of Secrets and riding it to victory, countering the first lock piece for free, disturbing out mana with [cards]Wasteland and maybe even land a Tarmogoyf (normally going to be a 5/6 in this matchup) to block our attacks or add even more pressure. Between Ancient Tomb and Delver of Secrets we’re getting low so one or two Lightning Bolts will spell K.O.
    We’re going to beat them if we land an early lock piece or they can’t put us under pressure early. While Tarmogoyf is going to be a roadblock he can’t attack into us well as we will have to much power on board to attack back.
    After boarding they might have more burn (Price of Progress) and artifact destruction for our lock pieces.
    Important cards for the matchup:
    Our lock pieces as said above.
    Removal, Dismember for Tarmogoyf and Delver of Secrets, add Spatial Contortion for the later. Ratchet Bomb is also a way to kill those two.
    Umezawa’s Jitte to kill Delver of Secrets and stabilize our life total.
    Endless One can be bigger than everything they have and they can’t kill it.
    The black splash adds Bearer of Silence, the blue splash Eldrazi Skyspawner to block Delver. The red Splash has Vile Aggregate to (maybe) trade with Tarmogoyf and Eldrazi Obligator will turn a Tarmogoyf for a turn, likely enough to win.
    White splash adds Rest in Peace, though Nimble Mungoose is medicore against us, still going to make a laugh out of Tarmogoyf.
    Bad cards in the matchup: Everything cmc6+, Phyrexian Revoker, Warping Wail

    Grixis Delver Favors none
    Similar to Canadian ********, but this deck cut their bad cards against us (Stifle, Nimble Mongoose) and added ones good versus us.
    They will win in a similar manner against us, though Young Pyromancer gives them another angle of attack by going wide and can give them a lot of time. Tarmogoyf just got replaced by Tasigur or Gurmag Angler so the lack of green is no cause for joy.
    Our lock pieces are premium here, though on the draw they will be even harder to land thanks to Cabal Therapy.
    The same cards as against Canadian ******** are going to be good (apart from Endless One who’s now going to be chump blocked by Elemental tokens), but their splash also changes our splash.
    Black gets worse as Bearer of Silence is crap against Young Pyromancer, though if you play Toxic Deluge you can easily destroy their board. Red gets better as Vile Aggregate can trample through their tokens and can’t be killed by Tasigur alone.
    White is thanks to Rest in Peace still good, blocking their delve-creatures as well as flashbacks.
    Bad cards: Matter Reshaper matches up poorly against the tokens. Phyrexian Revoker has no targets apart from Deathrite Shaman. Compared to Canadian ***** Endbringer gets better as it kills Young Pyromancer and Warping Wail is actually good between him and Deathrite Shaman.

    Team America (BUG Delver, Sultai Delver)slighty favors them.
    The slowest of the Delver decks (well there’s patriot but that one doesn’t see much play anymore) and might be the hardest.
    While their lack of reach is good news for us, Abrupt Decay can mean they’re able to get out of our lock.
    In addition to Tarmogoyf lists often play 2 from True-Name Nemesis, Tasigur, Gurmag Angler or rarer Tombstalker. The Nemesis will have no equipment which means Reality Smasher can still trample through it but our outs to Tombstalker are rare.
    Abrupt Decay also means they have an answer to Endless One.
    Hymn to Tourach can leave us empty handed, getting additional support from a most likely 1-of Liliana of the Veil.
    After sideboarding expect a little bit more removal and if they fear Eldrazis maybe even Sower of Temptation. Vendilion Clique to fly over as the ground gums up are also a possibility.
    How do we beat them? Our lock pieces, while they can get out of them, are still good and will be obstacles they have to overcome.
    As they’re slower they will struggle with early pressure from one or more Eldrazi Mimic followed by any threat. A turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer removing their Tarmogoyf can also win games alone.
    They struggle with killing our larger Eldrazi’s, most list play only about 3 from Dismember or Liliana of the Veil.
    Umezawa’s Jitte is good when its online, but it’s a risky play – you invest 4 mana which can be turn to dust by a timely Abrupt Decay.
    Splashwise white is great (Rest in Peace & Eldrazi Displacer) blue is good (Drowner of Hope & Eldrazi Skyspawner), black is good (Bearer of Silence and Wasteland Strangler (who will be nearly always online). Green doesn’t add much, though World Breaker is bigger than anything they do and is even an out to the uncommon Tombstalker. Red’s Eldrazi Obligator can turn the tide, Vile Aggregate can be killed by Abrupt Decay but that’s just a card we have to overwhelm with targets.
    Bad cards: Phyrexian Revoker can get Deathrite Shamans and their 0-2 Liliana of the Veil they play but that’s about it. Matter Reshaper matches up poorly with their creatures. Equipments can lead to blowouts because of Abrupt Decay so be careful with those. Warping Wail gets Deathrite Shamans and unflipped Delver of Secrets but can’t counter anything useful.

    Shardless BUG (Shardless Sultai)favors them
    Similar to Team America but they trade their tempo cards (Delver of Secrets, Daze) for more grinding power in Shardless Agent and Ancestral Vision.
    Why is that matchup much more difficult than Team America?
    Their higher mana curve makes Chalice of the Void less attractive, they do play more creatures which weakens Thorn of Amethyst. Baleful Strix is a road block and between it and Tarmogoyf profitable attacks are rare.
    Toxic Deluge can reset the board if we press the advantage.
    While our ways of generating card advantage (mostly Chalice) are getting disabled, they will draw tons of extra cards and overwhelm us. Lines of T2 Hymn to Tourach into T3 Liliana of the Veil are very hard to beat on the draw.
    How do we win? We have to try to be faster than they are and aggro them out before their card advantages matters, or we have to make sure we have a better lategame then they do. Apart from some Toxic Deluges their removal will be restricted to Baleful Strix and Abrupt Decay which means they can’t interact with our big guys unless we let them. If we can take care of Tarmogoyf (regularly 5/6) they won’t be able to stand trough the stampede.
    Important cards in the matchup:
    Endbringer shines here in killing the dreaded Baleful Strix before letting our team swing by their Tarmogoyf.
    Warping Wail kills Strix, Deathrite Shaman and counters Ancestral Vision & Toxic Deluge.
    Crucible of Worlds together with Wasteland can do serious damage to their manabase.
    Matter Reshaper can actually profitable attack into everything but Tarmogoyf.
    Sword of Fire and Ice can let us swing pass their Baleful Strix but can lead to blowouts against Abrupt Decay.
    The Black splash is awesome here, Bearer of Silence is medium against Shardless Agent but most of the time we don’t hate them sacrificing Baleful Strix. The true powerhouse is Wasteland Strangler though. We have the usual Thought-Knot Seer & Warping Wail to turn him on, they have Force of Will + Deathrite Shaman and even more delicious to eat: Ancestral Vision.
    Drowner of Hope will also do heavy lifting here and as in every creature-heavy matchup Eldrazi Displacers can provide an unmatched board control.
    Bad cards: Thorn of Amethyst. Chalice of the Void is actually very medium, too.






    Elves - no favourites
    A creature heavy combo deck. It can overwhelm you with Glimpse of Nature into hundreds of little green 1/1’s or a Green’s Sun Zenith / Natural Order into Craterhoof Behemoth to turn those 1/1’s into Eldrazi-like-powerhouses. A 3rd angle of attack would be their grind plan, similar to Glimpse they will end up with dozens of small creatures, this time by drawing extra cards with Elvish Visionary & Wirewood Symbiote. Thankfully there won’t be enough instants/sorceries to burn us out with Deathrite Shaman.
    Another card they can beat us with is Wren’s Run Packmaster
    Chalice of the Void x=1 IS awesome against them but far from an auto-win, specially on the draw, as they can search up Reclamation Sage to get rid of it.
    Sphere of Resistance is very good against them while Thorns of Amethyst does pretty much nothing. Trinisphere tends to be overrated, it is good against the Glimpse plan but still loses to Natural Order.
    After boarding expect Cabal Therapy and Abrupt Decay as ways to get rid of our locks.
    Other good cards:
    Thought-Knot Seer doesn’t need explanation.
    Phyrexian Revoker, most likely to be naming Wirewood Symbiote or Heritage Druid but in a pinch can be set on any mana producer they have.
    Warping Wail if on the play can slow them down by killing their 1-drop and counters their scary sorceries.
    Umezawa’s Jitte is backbreaking once activated, but remember they can block and bounce with Symbiote so you won’t get any counters on it.
    Black splash offers you Toxic Deluge to whipe their board but nothing else.
    Red offers you boardwipes too, in addition to Vile Aggregate to nullify their chump-block-bounce-with-Symbiote-tricks.
    Eldrazi Skyspawner lets you get through with Jitte more easily.
    White has Containment Priest to stop Natural Order & Green’s Sun Zenith.


    Storm – ANTFavored / TES dice roll dependent.
    While they’re different decks and play out slighty different, our way to combat them is the same.
    Both decks are trying to cast at least 9 spells in a turn followed by a Tendrils of Agony. To reach those 9+ spells they generate mana and chain Infernal Tutor or abuse Past in Flames or Ad Nauseam.
    TES is faster as it plays Chrome Mox and Rite of Flame instead of the slower Cabal Ritual and uses Burning Wish to have naturally more business spells. ANT is slower, using cantrips and more tutors (Dark Petition) and favors Past in Flames over Ad Nauseam as an engine.
    [cards]Chalice of the Void x=1 is preboard pretty much game over for TES, ANT can still get enough mana to scrap out a win but it will be difficult. Both decks can win through a Thorn of Amethiyst / Sphere of Resistance but those can easily turn into a win. If you open a hand with Chalice and Thorn, set the Chalice on 0 to block Lotus Petal, Lion’s Eye Diamond and an eventual Chrome Mox.
    Later Chalice’s can be set for x=2 to block Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish or Cabal Ritual.
    After boarding they will bring in ways to combat our locks, be it artifact destruction or bounce.
    Sometimes preboard (especially TES) or not uncommonly postboard (ANT) they try to go wide with a large Empty the Warrens since apart from our tramplers no further damage will get through and we have hardly anything to interact with a huge amount of tokens. Add to that, that its a faster way to victory (10 tokens on turn 1 are going to race us and any lockpiece we have). If you play Ratchet Bomb you should probably bring it in as an answer to the tokens. Another (rarer) use is blowing up their mana artifacts which they will play down beforehand to save mana against Thorns and get them before Chalice lands. But be careful to not blow you own Chalice up unless you need/can afford to.
    Our goal is to lock them out while applying pressure making the most important creatures:
    Phyrexian Revoker (when in doubt: Lion’s Eye Diamond > Lotus Petal > Chrome Mox)
    Thought-Knot Seer
    Lodestone Golem
    Phyrexian Metamorph copying any of the above.
    Other good cards:
    Trinisphere gives them a really hard time.
    Warping Wail is a hard counter for the important Tutor/Wish or Past in Flames.
    If you sideboard Mindbreak Trap, that’s the matchup.
    Rest in Peace is decent against ANT as it abuses the graveyard but lackluster against TES.
    Bad cards: removal, equipment, every big dumb creature (cc5+), Matter Reshaper

    SneakShow: Aggro lists without Revokers will have a bad time game 1. With them its going to be relatively even (slightly favor them). A certain splash can turn this matchup HEAVILY in our favor.
    They try to cheat in Griselbrand or the mother of Eldrazis: Emrakul via Show and Tell or Sneak Attack to win the game. Between sol lands and sometimes Lotus Petal they go for it as soon as turn 1. More commonly after playing some cantrips on turn 2-3.
    Chalice of the Void blocks their cantrips but can’t stop them from winning. Thorn of Amethyst / Sphere of Resistance delay everything by a turn but again, won’t stop them from winning.
    Our big dumb beaters won’t be able to race them.
    The colorless version has as good cards:
    Phyrexian Revoker (Sneak Attack, naming Griselbrand is an option but we’re not going to beat a 7/7 lifelinker anyway under normal circumstances).
    Thought-Knot Seer is going to provide early pressure and is awesome to disturb their 2 card combo.
    Lodestone Golem do apply pressure while delaying them.
    Endbringer who can tap down their sneaked in creature (which dies end of turn) or repeatedly taps down their Show and Tell’ed creature.
    After boarding expect Blood Moon which rarely will be game over for us, as at the time it hits we hopfefully have some pressure in play, but will slow us down and can shut of our Karakas
    In the board we should have some Pithing Needles which will come in for Sneak Attack.
    Most splashes don’t provide anything useful, red can steal a win with Eldrazi Obligator now and then. Worldbreaker might be useful once in a while as Show and Tell target to destroy Sneak Attack before they can use it. Black has Bearer of Silence as an possible answer after Show and Tell (but you have to cast it, don’t put it into play please!). Drowner of Hope can buy some turns against Show and Tell or Sneak Attack.
    But the splash color to really change the match completely is white. Karakas is a problem card for them, as is Containment Priest.
    Eldrazi Displacer can buy enough time for a win as well (careful when displacing [cards]Sneak Attack targets as those won’t be sacrificed at the end of turn anymore).
    Bad cards: Dumb beater like Reality Smasher, Matter Reshaper, Endless One, equipment, removal. You probably have more bad cards than good cards to side in, so some of those beaters have to stay in. Try to build some curve to build up pressure as fast as possible and keep it up.

    Lands - favors them
    Lands is a combo/control deck, I’ll cover the rg-combo-heavy version as that one is by know the more commonly played one. It’s going to slow you down with mana disruption in the form of Wasteland and Rishadan Port, stabilizing with Maze of Ith and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale before killing you with Marit Lage.
    Chalice of the Void x=1 on the play is brilliant as its shutting of Exploration (their card to pull them ahead) and Gamble, on the draw its way worse since Exploration will already be in play. On x=2 its still going to be good to stop Life from the Loam, but getting to the 4 necessary mana can be hard.
    Thorn of Amethyst / Sphere of Resistance do nothing, Winterorb if played can be good but can backfire quite as easily.
    If you’re playing Mox Diamond or any Talisman/Mindstone it’s going to be a bit easier.
    Preboard we can pretty much only win if they have a slow start and we can aggro them out as most of our disruption is subpar. If you’re playing Wastelands of your own it gets a little bit easier as that can buy you another turn.
    A successful cast Endbringer is good as it’s impossible for them to remove and you can tap Marit Lage down, but getting to 6 mana is a challenge on its own.
    Crucible of Worlds is also good as it does allow us to recover, we will still be grinded out eventually if they can pull ahead with Exploration.
    The sideboard gives us Pithing Needle which is very much needed. Graveyard hate in any form is also good to slow their loam engine down.
    White splash offers us Karakas (good against Marit Lage though will be the target of Wasteland/Rishadan Port eventually) and Eldrazi Displacer who is able to kill Marit Lage, or at least until they destroyed every land we have which gives us time.
    Blue offers a 1 time chumpblocker in Eldrazi Skyspawner, who will also help out your mana a little bit, and 2 turns time with Drowner of Hope.
    Red can steal some wins with Eldrazi Obligator if you force them to make Marit Lage in their turn and they don’t have a Maze of Ith, that’s about as cornercase as it gets.
    Greens World breaker has been to slow for me in the matchup to matter but is worth mentioning.

    Infect – G1 favors them slightly, G2 & 3 us.
    Infect has 3 routes to victory in this matchup. The first is pumping an infect guy to one or two-shot us. The second is grinding us out for one or two poison counters a turn with Blighted Agent or Blinkmoth Nexus pumped by Pendelhaven or Noble Hierarch.
    The third, quite uncommon one, is pumping said Noble Hierarch and going for a normal damage kill (I guess slighty more common against us because of [cards]Ancient Tomb.
    Their infect creatures cost 0 (Blinkmoth Nexus), 1 (Glistener Elf) or 2 mana (Blighted Agent) while their pump spells costs 1 (Vines of Vastwood, Berserk), 3 (Invigorate, cast for 0) or 6 (Become Immense) mana. This results in Chalice of the Void never going to be able to win the game itself. Nonetheless its still going to be a great impact on the match, shutting off a great deal of the important parts + their cantrips.
    An early sphere effect will hinder them as they are commonly light on lands, though after a couple of turns (3-4+) its not uncommon to only cast 1 spell per turn if any, thus reducing the impact.
    An active Umezawa’s Jitte is as good as game over.
    Decks playing Wasteland or Ghost Quarter will have an easier time in this matchup while those lacking those might want to include some more sideboard slots for it.
    Removal is king, Warping Wail is good but can be countered by any pump spell or Pendelhaven. Dismember is awesome, nearly no drawback and can’t be countered by a single Invigorate.
    You should try to cast your removal spells end of combat / end of turn, you don’t want to cast them before damage, only to have them cast a kicked Vines of Vastwood and in addition to protecting their creature dealing 4 more poison counters ! If they have a Noble Hierarch out cast your Warping Wails in your turn if possible as otherwise the exalted trigger will force you to cast your removal precombat resulting in the above scenario. Nexus + Hierarch + pump spell will result in a useless Warping Wail, in that case you’re better of killing the Hierarch.
    Glistener Elf is the least of our problems, we have a lot of creatures, only waste a removal spell on him if necessary. Always block him, you’re fine trading your Eldrazi Mimic for the Elf or a pump spell.
    This is an interesting match and games can play out wildly different depending on your opening cards. It can be a race for the win ending on turn 3 or a grindy matchup with no one gaining a huge advantage.
    However game 1 favors them as our ways to interact with Blinkmoth Nexus or Blighted Agent are few and they’re commonly as fast as we are, making a race problematic. Add to that the blocker you might have to leave back for the Glistener Elf..
    After boarding expect some way to get rid of your annoying artifacts (specially Umezawa’s Jitte if you play it) but nothing more dangerous than game 1.
    For your sideboard: any removal you have will go a long way to ensure your win. Pithing Needle, while being awful with a Chalice of the Void x=1 out is still a fine choice just to shut off their Blinkmoth Nexus.
    A good splash will help out a long way and nearly every color gives you some advantage.
    White again offers the Eldrazi Displacer, which stops their attempts to one-shot us as long as you have mana left. This means unless they have the mana for Vines of Vastwood in addition to another pump spell they have to grind it out. If you actually get to 6 mana you can easily shut off one creature completely.
    Black offers Bearer of Silence and Wasteland Strangler, both fail to kill a Nexus which is unfortunate. Bearer of Silence often will result in them sacrificing a Noble Hierarch or Glistener Elf, the Wasteland Strangler will do good work in killing a Blighted Agent though.
    Blue gives you Eldrazi Skyspawner which is HUGE against Blinkmoth Nexus trading for it or at least a pump spell while giving you time. Drowner of Hope can buy you enough time to smash their face but can easily be to expensive to matter.
    Red can have Pyroclasm / Kozileks Return to kill all but Blinktmoth Nexus which is splendid.
    Green doesn’t add much. World Breaker is able to kill the Blinkmoth Nexus but more often then not will come out to late.
    Bad cards: Its difficult in this matchup to say any cards are actually horrible. While it can be game over turn 2, you still need Reality Smasher as a way to close out the game in tons of other games. I’d say everything costing 6 or above is worth a cut as is the slower acceleration (Talismans) as you often won’t have the time to cast them. Phyrexian Revoker also lacks targets besides Noble Hierarch.


    Reanimator – dice roll, splash can make us favorites
    Similar to SneakShow they try to cheat in a big meany guy and ride it to victory. Compared to SneakShow they’re faster and more easily disrupted in their attempts.
    Their ways to bin a creature to the graveyard consists of: Entomb, Careful Study and discarding to handsize, some lists do play a couple of Hapless Researcher or Izzet Charm, giving them another way.
    Discarding to handsize is a) slow and more often than not they have to chose whether to go for it or not on turn 1. All their other ways, apart from Izzet Charm, cost 1 mana thus getting turned off by Chalice of the Void x=1 !
    On the reanimation side they have Reanimate, Exhume and some copies of Animate Dead. Again Chalice does help but won’t stop them completely in this regard.
    Some lists even play about 2 Show and Tell maindeck, though that’s more commonly a sideboard card for them.
    They’re light on lands making Thorn of Amethyst, Sphere of Resistance and Trinisphere all good cards.
    Endbringer can force them to go for Tidesprout Tyrant but with cc6 and summon sick will often be to late.
    Game 1 is mostly a dice roll, if you can land your lockpieces (specially Chalice of the Void) before they’re doying anything useful you’ll beat them more often than not. On the other hand they can easily do their thing before you have a chance to cast your artifacts.
    Creatures they will attempt to get: Griselbrand is their default target and hard to beat on board.
    Grave Titan can be actually raced rather easily.
    Blazing Archon is not commonly played but will win the game for them (unless you have the Eldrazi Displacer for it). – Sideboard card only.
    Elesh Norn is difficult but not unmanageable to beat.
    Tidesprout Tyrant is hard to beat if they can follow up with any spells (Chalice won’t stop them here).
    After boarding expect Show and Tell to go above the graveyard hate, lots of lists favor Abrupt Decay or bounce spells to get rid of the hate. You don’t need any splash to get in a favorable position in this matchup, one hate as f.e. Faerie Macabre is often enough to buy you enough time to lock them out of the game through your artifacts. Thought-Knot Seer is also naturally good against the Show and Tell route.
    White is the splash to win this matchup. Between sideboard cards like Rest in Peace and Containment Priest the much praised Eldrazi Displacer can fight a creature they already got on the battlefield and still lets you win. Karakas is also a thing, stopping most of their creatures.
    Blue gives you Drowner of Hope, if it hits it can swing the race in your favor despite them having a creature but 6 mana is too much.
    Black has Bearer of Silence as an additional answer for when they got their creature into play.
    Red & green doesn’t offer anything apart from niche uses of Eldrazi Obligator to win the match.
    Bad cards: Matter Reshaper, Equipment, Phyrexian Revoker (Lotus Petal can be a random relevant target, Griselbrand is worth a call but 7/7 lifelink flying will still beat us), Dismember (has niche uses for letting you attack your creatures into Griselbrand/Elesh Norn and hope they block and don’t have a counter).

    Dredge – favors us
    There are to variants of Dredge, the rarer manaless version which can grind well if undisturbed and makes use of a combo-like finish with Dread Return and the much more common version playing at least a couple of lands which aims to be faster with additional draw spells in Faithless Looting, Careful Study and even Breakthrough (all in combination with Lion’s Eye Diamond and now starting to get used more often Lotus Petal).
    First of all: Both can win without casting a single spell, for obvious reasons the manaless version is better positioned to do that.
    But both still WANT to cast at least some spells.
    Chalice of the Void is a great t1 play against the common version, shutting off: all their drawspells (expection Breakthrough x=1) and Street Wraith, thus slowing them down. It also stops Cabal Therapy (they can still use the flashback to generate Zombies) and Putrid Imp. Against manaless its way worse, just shutting of Cabal Therapy & Gitaxian Probe. Some lists do play up to 8 0-costed creature to let them die instantly and trigger Bridge from Below which would be stopped, so its fair to put it on 0.
    Sphere of Resistance / Thorn of Amethyst / Trinisphere will prevent the manaless version “completely” from resolving spells (some list do play Dryad Arbor) and often enough hinder the land-version as that is commonly playing between 12-14 lands. If you’re on the play you shut down their most broken starts (Land, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Breakthrough, hold priority to discard dredgers + Faithless Looting, dredge 4 time, flashback Faithless Looting, dredge 2 more times, good game). On the draw they quite often are able to find a second land and can easily win playing 1 spell per turn.
    Umezawa’s Jitte, while slow, can easily spell game over for them. First step is to kill a creature of your own (Eldrazi Mimic f.e.) to remove all their Bridge from Below, after that (or if they don’t have any yet) you can use the counters to kill Ichorid/Narcamoeba making it impossible for them to win.
    Against the manaless version always save 1 counter on the Jitte if possible, you don’t want to remove the last one to kill a Ichorid or Nethershadow only to have them respond with a Phantasmagorian, discarding 3 Bridge from Below to get 3 Zombies thus enabling their flashback of Dread Return !
    [cards]Warping Wail is way to counter said Dread Return or get rid of Ichoridforever, but this is the matchup in which the 3rd mode is FANTASTIC. Make an Eldrazi Spawn, maybe block some attacker, sacrifice it to remove their Bridge from Below !
    Endless One can be cast as a 0/0 for the same effect.
    Phyrexian Revoker should name Lion’s Eye Diamond or if you follow it up with a Chalice for 0 you should name [cards]Street Wraith. Against the manaless version name Street Wraith if they didn’t had the chance to use it yet or/otherwise Phantasmagorian.
    After boarding expect the mana-version to try to be faster (Lotus Petal) or play some form of anti-hate (Ingot Chewer, Abrupt Decay). Some also play no Dread Return maindeck but side them in.
    The manaless version is commonly played fearless (you land a hate, they lose), versions featuring Dryad Arbor might have some artifact/enchantment removal and some “blue” versions (recognizable when they play Whirlpool Rider maindeck) board into Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal.
    Depending on your maindeck you’re already in quite a good position as you have many ways to get rid of Bridge from Below which is their scariest card followed by Dread Return which again, you have a decent set up for. However a splash might make the matchup even easier:
    White offers Containment Priest and Rest in Peace who speak for themselves.
    Blue has Eldrazi Skyspawner, yet another way to have a spawn to sacrifice.
    Neither green nor red nor black offer significant cards.
    Bad cards: Manaless: Chalice of the Void. Thought-Knot Seer is also lackluster but blocks Ichorid well. Some acceleration might be to slow (Talisman) as they’re actually pretty much a turn 3 deck.
    Mana version: Sphere/Thorn on the draw are lackluster in at least 50% of the games. Thought-Knot Seer again just to block Ichorids, but you don’t need them.

    Painter – favors them
    Painter’s Servant colors all your colorless creatures, resulting in a [cards]Grindstone activation to mill you out. Surrounded by tutors (Imperial Recruiter, Enlightened Tutor), protection (Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast after the Painter’s Servant is on blue) and their own lock pieces (Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, Ensnaring Bridge).
    Yes, this matchup is ugly.
    They have the potential to play a turn 1 Bloodmoon/Magus which more often than not will win them the game. Even a turn 1 Painter’s Servant is devastating as now our cards are no longer colorless, a condition required to make Eye of Ugin / Eldrazi Temple work properly.
    And even if we establish some board they can drop an Ensnaring Bridge and hide under it.
    Chalice of the Void x=1 will stop their Grindstone however, it also protects itself from their blasts even if it gets colored blue. However you won’t win the game instantly as they can tutor up a Jaya Ballard, Taskmage to get rid of the Chalice of the Void or hide behind the Ensnaring Bridge and have some planeswalker (Koth of the Hammer, Chandra) to kill you.
    Lists playing multiple Wastes might stand a better chance as you lessen the impact of their Bloodmoon and if they fail to find a Ensnaring Bridge in time you can race them while they try to find their Jaya. If they already dropped their Grindstone your chances to win the race lessens by a lot.
    Dismember and Warping Wail (as long as you can still cast it) are good to kill a Painter’s Servant, the first is also an out to Magus of the Moon. Umezawa’s Jitte is another possible out.
    I actually lack some experience in the matchup, so I’m all ears for more suggestions on how to beat them besides trying to be lucky and race.
    You can still play some of your creatures (Eldrazi Mimic, Endless One, Matter Reshaper) and can try to build a board before destroying their Ensnaring Bridge and attack for the win.
    If you play Ratchet Bomb do definitly want to bring them in as their most problematic permanents cost all 3.
    White gives us Disenchant.
    Blacks Wasteland Strangler as a good way (if castable) to kill Painter’s Servant but he ain’t gonna kill a Magus of the Moon unless you can cast him with a Talisman or Mox Diamond (they do play Simian Spirit Guide to turn him on though).
    Blue offers Eldrazi Skyspawner to come down early, carry Jitte and gives you a one shot colorless versus Bloodmoon.
    Green has Krosan Grip and World Breaker (with Elvish Spirit Guide an out to Bloodmoon).
    Red can try to win with creatures which are still castable under the effect of Bloodmoon before the [cards]Ensnaring Bridge comes down.
    If you play Spartial Contortion, this is the deck you want them in for. They can even kill a Magus of the Moon if you float the mana in response to them casting it, then let it resolve, kill it and move on to smash them.

    Burn – favors them
    As all their cards are cheap Sphere of Resistance / Thorn of Amethyst are pretty medium. Chalice of the Void is decent but far from game over. Compared to other matchups x=2 is actually where you want to be as it stops Price of Progress, Searing Blaze / Searing Blood and after boarding Smash to Smithereens or Destructive Revelry.
    The good part of the matchup is, that Eidolon of the Great Reveldoesn’t do too much and we have enough creatures to block Goblin Guides & Monastery Swiftspear.
    The bad part is, that won’t matter to much as Ancient Tomb will do some work for them and Price of Progress can be a total blowout.
    If you play lot of Wastes you have a better chance, same is true when you’re playing Mox Diamond or some Talisman. Try to not play more lands than necessary, but do play all those you actually need, it doesn’t help to be total frightened of Price of Progress, thus not developing your board and die because you gave them to much time. Wasteland can target itself or another one of your lands to diminish damage taken from Price of Progress, this interaction will come up at some point so remember it.
    An active Jitte can stabilize you sometimes. A good hand of some fast Thought-Knot Seers should be able to steal a game aswell.
    After boarding expect artifact destruction, mostly costed 2 mana which makes the Chalice of the Void x=2 so great in this matchup. Some lists also include Ensnaring Bridge so you might want to hedge against that.
    On our side, Leyline of Sanctity if you play can win you matchups, Price of Progress will still hurt but we’re able to deal with their creatures making the amount of spells doing damage quite low.
    No color has good sideboard cards unless you go your way to play some lifegain cards in green or white just for this one matchup.
    Bad cards: Phyrexian Revoker (only hits Grim Lavamancer), Cc6+ cards.
    Its not that our cards are actively bad against them, we’re just not efficient enough and can’t stop them properly to win unless luck is a bit on our side and they flood out and even if they do they could get lucky to draw 2 Price of Progress and a Fireblast.


    Jund
    The Jund matchup is very similar to the Shardless BUG one, here they switch the the more controlling blue cards (Ancestral Vision, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Baleful Strix) and replace them with more aggressive red cards (Lightning Bolt, Bloodbraid Elf) a lot of decks (though not all) also play Punishing Fire.
    All in all this matchup is way better for us as their red cards don’t match up well. Lightning Bolt is yet another card getting caught by Chalice of the Void x=1. For Punishing Fire to kill our (important) creatures they need to cast it twice in a turn, a challenge under normal circumstances with some taxing effect nearly impossible.
    Bloodbraid Elf and Lightning Bolt both don’t match up well against Thought-Knot Seer or Reality Smasher.
    Despite all that don’t underestimate their deck. They still have access to Tarmogoyf nulling our attacks, Abrupt Decay to get rid of lock pieces or some of ours creatures as well as Lilliana of the Veil to attack our hand/board.
    Don’t try to grind to much, while a lot of their cards are weak, you will end up with more dead draws while they can get some advantage between Planeswalkers, cascade and Sylvan Library.
    To win you can either be quick and remove the first road block (Tarmogoyf) while smashing through their other creatures or go big, play enough Endless One (x=5+), Reality Smasher, Endbringer to just go through their Tarmogoyfs and still have a creature between their removal.
    The Jund-sideboard can be pretty diverse, most commonly you can expect some artifact removal (Ancient Grudge), additional hard-removal (Maelstrom Pulse, Toxic Deluge), maybe some more ways to attack our lands (Life from the Loam in combination with Wasteland – or even Bloodmoon).
    Sphere effects are a defensible cut in this matchup, Jund plays more creatures than spells and while it can be good against against plays like Bloodbraid Elf into Hymn to Tourach and is splendid versus repetitive Punishing Fire it won’t pull its weigh (and in addition: Punishing Fire is pretty medium against us anyway). However if you play enough creatures who gets killed by it you should have some plan how to deal with Punishing Fire.
    If you’re playing Sphere of Resistance over Thorn of Amethyst this is definite one of the matchup you’re doing this for. They like to curve it and making [cards]Bloodbraid Elf costing 2 more to actually get something out of the cascade will definitely slow them down !
    Chalice of the Void x=1 hits Deathrite Shaman, Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize. The Lightning Bolt varies how effective it is, so on the draw it’s no blasphemy to cut the Chalice.
    Warping Wail can kill Deathrite Shaman, Dark Confidant and counter Hymn to Tourach. This is a decent amount of value you can get out of it but you have to think about it some more.
    On the draw you can counter a possible t1 Hymn to Tourach (great), kill Dark Confidant (great) or kill Deathrite Shaman even bevore they untap with it (great).
    On the play on the other hand.. them playing a turn 2 Hymn to Tourach is way less effective if we already have a threat on board while they have nothing. Dark Confidant can be quite risky if we apply pressure early enough. It’s still decent but definitely less good and worth thinking about cutting it on the play.
    Phyrexian Revoker is hard to evaluate in this matchup. He can disturb them by naming Deathrite Shaman or help out calling Lilliana of the Veil but dies to everything they do immediately. If you think your opponent is leaving in their burn effects you should board him out, otherwise he can stay.
    The white splash offers you the usual board control with Eldrazi Displacer, Rest in Peace can also do some work by negating Tarmogoyf, Deathrite Shaman and possible Loam/Punishing Fire shenanigans.
    Drowner of Hope is a beating in this matchup, protection from Liliana, boardcontrol and big beater is all you want in a single card in this matchup. The value of Eldrazi Skyspawner again depends on whether they leave in [cards]Punishing Fire or not but its worth mentioning that he harasses Liliana quite well (+ carries equipment).
    Green’s Worldbreaker is bigger than everything they do and pretty much can’t be killed, but offers nothing else for his high cost. If you want to go big, bring him in but Jund is not reason to splash green for him.
    Black’s Wasteland Strangler will be active more often than not and kill a huge part of their creatures, then again Bloodbraid Elf is weak anyway, [cards]Dark Confidant can be risky at times against us.. Bearer of Silence is another out to Tarmogoyf in case they don’t have a useless creature sitting around and again a good way to harass Liliana. Both cards should come in for this matchup but won’t be super amazing.
    Red as usual against Tarmogoyf decks can swing the game around completely with a well timed Eldrazi Obligator. Apart from him Vile Aggregate allows you to trade with Tarmogoyf and kill Liliana through chumpblockers. If you’re playing Endless One he gets better as you now have 2 huge threats Abrupt Decay must answer.
    Last edited by Holly; 03-30-2016 at 08:02 AM.

  4. #4

    Re: [Primer/Deck] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Blade-Decks
    There are several different kind of blade decks but they do share a core and a overall strategy so I do lump them together while still addressing their differences.
    One version is the UW(r). The splash is mostly for Pyroblast or if they’re actually trying to be more aggressive Lightning Bolt.
    Next variation is Esperblade, the black offers some proactive plays (Thoughtseize), additional value (Baleful Strix) as well as smoothing out everything (Deathrite Shaman).
    Some lists even go further, Deathblade are actually playing 4 colors, advancing the splash to green for Abrupt Decay.
    Indifferent of their splash(es) the core of the deck resolves around Stoneforge Mystic, True-Name Nemesis supported by cantrips (Brainstorm, Ponder), efficient removal (Swords to Plowshares) & counterspells (Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Force of Will) and various flex-slots used for value (Snapcaster Mage, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Vendilion Clique), catch-all-answers (Counterspell, Councils Judgement, Vindicate, Unexpectedly Absent) or bombs (Jace, the Mind Sculptor).
    As every list varies strongly between midrange and control, depending on their use of those free slots, every match can play out completely different even if you were to play 3 matches against bladedecks in a row at a tournament.
    Stoneforge Mystic into Batterskull is a huge problem, hard to stop for us and even harder to race. Our outs are a well timed Thought-Knot Seer, Warping Wail on the Stoneforge Mystic or Dismember for either the Mystic or the token while racing and Phyrexian Revoker on Stoneforge Mystic.
    That doesn’t sound like a low amount of outs, but the problem is that our time window to use them properly is only 1 turn and some are unreliable (Revoker if not protected by Chalice of the Void x=1).
    In addition to that True-Name Nemesis is a road block we can only beat as long as its not equipped by trampling over with Reality Smasher.
    If they play black for Baleful Strix they have yet another good creature against us.
    After blocking our path to victory they eventually will be able to grind us out thanks to Batterskull (or just equipping it to True-Name Nemesis) or chip in for 3 a turn with Vendilion Clique).
    On the good side we have several cards harming them drastic as well. Chalice of the Void x=1 shuts off a huge part of their deck.
    All their creatures (but the Batterskull) are small so that even a 4/4 body (to survive True-name Nemesis) is huge.
    After boarding expect some artifact removal (Disenchant, Wear/Tear), maybe some catch-all (Engineered Explosives/Ratchet Bomb; so be careful of overextending Chalice of the Void & Endless One). Overall they don’t really get more dangerous after boarding except for some bombs they can play (Bloodmoon, Back to Basics) but not all lists do (if they play a lot of utility lands game 1 like Wasteland, Mishra’s Factory etc. its safe to assume they neglect to play non-basic-hate in their sideboard).
    On our side, additional removal for Stoneforge Mystic is great. Equipment like Umezawa’s Jitte (kills their creatures, shrinks germ-tokens to allow Thought-Knot Seer to battle it) or Swords of Feast and Famine (protection from black!)
    The white splash as always offers Eldrazi Displacer whose ability is great to kill germ tokens. Their other creatures you either don’t want to or can’t blink. The 3/3 body is decent until True-Name Nemesis hits the board.
    Blue’s Eldrazi Skyspawner in combination with Umezawa’s Jitte is decent to get some counters on it or just fly over them while our Reality Smasher holds their Batterskull at bay at vice versa. As they do have fliers of their own the Skyspawner is neat but not great. Drowner of Hope can end the game by tapping the germ token for some turns, allowing us to quickly finish the game before we’re out of Eldrazi Spawns, unfortunately he again is useless against True-Name Nemesis.
    Black offers the usual removal-creatures, Wasteland Strangler will rarely be turned on to get Stoneforge Mystic but is decent against Vendilion Clique or Baleful Strix. Bearer of Silence is in theory an out to True-Name Nemesis but will often eat a random Snapcaster Mage.
    The most important card black gives you access too is Toxic Deluge as our only efficient out to True-Name-Nemesis !
    Greens Worldbreaker can randomly destroy Batterskull or other equipment. The timing to hit Batterskull is difficult to manage as by the time you have 7 mana they often have 3 to return it to hand.
    The red splash excels in this matchup. Pyroclasm or Kozileks Return manage to wipe their board leaving nothing but Batterskull and True-Name Nemesis which is decent but not awesome.
    This however is the matchup in which Vile Aggregate shines. Not only does it block and attack into Batterskull decently, it having trample makes True-Name Nemesis a much smaller pain in the ass. It still won’t win you the game against the merfolk once its equipped, but will be able to do so at every point before that.
    Bad cards for the matchup: Matter Reshaper matches up poorly against their creatures. Trinisphere and Thorn of Amethyst/Sphere of Resistanceare very dependent on their actual decklists. Against decks trying to smooth out their draws with additional cantrips and make a good use of Snapcaster Mage they’re good. Other lists are often fine actual just casting 1 spell per turn rendering those artifacts medium.

    Other than that there are no really bad cards. Phyrexian Revoker has only a couple of medium targets but is impactful against Stoneforge Mystic that you tend to play it. If however you have enough other outs to a turn 2 Mystic its easily cuttable.


    Goblin
    The goblin matchup is pretty straight forwards. They try to “cheat” on mana via Aether Vial or Goblin Warchief while building up card advantage through Goblin Ringleader or Gempalm Incinerator. They get their beef through Goblin Chieftain or Goblin Piledriver and go wide thanks to Siege-Gang Commander or Krenko, Mob Boss. All this supported by Goblin Matron to tutor for those cards or various silverbullets.
    They also play a little bit of mana denial, pretty much every list plays Wastelands, Rishadan Port isn’t uncommon to see and some lists even play Goblin Settler (and if they’re really mean they combo him with Kiki-Jiki Mirrorbreaker).
    As everyone of their creatures gets beaten by a 3/3 (without external help) they will only ever beat us by said manadenial and going wide. We have more then enough creatures to trade with Goblin Piledriver so it’s very unlikely that we get aggro’d out. We still have to be careful, a turn 1 Goblin Lackey will likely connect if they’re on the play. From then they can steamroll us.
    Some lists splash black which makes the game a little harder for us as Grenzo, Dungeon Warden can be quite big (though only uncommonly as big as our creatures) and while the ability on Earwig Squad isn’t to relevant his 5/3 body is pretty decent against us.
    If we stabilize and survive into the midgame (turn 4-6) its just a matter of whether we can finish them off before they have time to make use of their card advantage and get wide.
    Since their 1 drops are much worse on the draw this matchup is heavily dependent on who goes first. By turn 2 we commonly have 3 mana and are able to play any creature to block Goblin Lackey, which means they’ll be playing from behind the whole time.
    Chalice of the Void is plain bad. On the play you might get a Aether Vial or if they lack Cavern of Souls a Goblin Lackey but that’s all you’ll ever get. Both of those cards rarely matter if drawn after turn 1/2 anyway. Trinisphere is bad for the same reasons, you’ll rarely have it turn 1 which means they will have a way to cheat on mana already. While it can stop their lategame swarm delaying your other plays will give them an opportunity to punish you.
    Thorn of Amethyst is useless for obvious reasons. Sphere of Resistance... I am actually not quite convinced its bad. They’re manahungry and it will slow them down, but the same is true for us and I rather have another creature.
    Warping Wail kills Goblin Lackey/Warren Instigator and.. well some other random 1/1s. Depending on how many ways you have to deal with a turn 1 Goblin Lackey if you’re on the draw you might want to leave some in. On the play you should have enough outs for that situation so they won’t be needed.
    Phyrexian Revoker should be nearly always on Aether Vial, unless of course the game is already in an advanced state or they don’t have any. Other targets to name Krenko, Mob Boss, Siege-Gang Commander Goblin Sharpshooter and to a lesser extent Gempalm Incinerator or Kiki-Jiki Mirrorbreaker.
    After boarding you can expect some artifact removal if they’ve seen/fear equipment from your side. Pyrokinesis or Dismember as additional removal (though Pyrokinesis doesn’t match up well against us).
    Note: some more info concerning their removal. Tarfire and Pyrokinesis don’t match up well against us. Gempalm Incinerator does kill our smaller creatures easily while providing them card advantage but has problems getting Thought-Knot Seer or bigger creatures. Warren Weirding is something to keep in mind if they splash black.
    Goblin Sharpshooter is the most interesting one, he will kill all our Eldrazi Mimic and Phyrexian Revoker (and some more depending on your splash). However what I want to point out, as I’ve seen it getting missed all too often, is that the Goblin Sharpshooter triggers for every creature dying, even if they die at the same time.
    Example:
    You attack with a 3/3 and a 4/4, the goblin player blocks your 3/3 with a 1/1 token and your 4/4 with a Goblin Ringleader), the result: 2 creature die, 2 untap-trigger are placed on the stack (even if he is already untapped). He now pings your 3/3, lets 1 untap-trigger resolve, pings it again (killing your 3/3, triggering the untap again). Now the Sharpshooter is tapped with 2 untap-triggers, he lets 1 resolve, pings your 4/4, lets the other resolve to kill your 4/4 untapping it yet again !
    And now I have to add yet another small note as even though it’s a basic rule people tend to forget about it as it rarely matters.
    New example:
    Your 4/4 attacks and your opponent has 2 1/1 tokens and an untapped Goblin Sharpshooter.
    He blocks with both tokens. If you don’t specify both tokens will die, creating 2 untap-triggers thus killing your 4/4. However you’re not obliged to actually kill both of his creatuers ! You can just chose to deal all 4 damage to 1 token. Result: Your 4/4 has 2 damage on him, but as only 1 creature died only 1 untap-trigger will be created making it impossible for the Goblin Sharpshooter to kill your guy.

    Back to the topic of sideboard cards: Some lists also do include Bloodmoon.
    On our side, additional removal is fine but remember that you can’t trade 1 for 1 all the time or you will lose. Spatial Consortion is a good swap for Warping Wail as you can additional creatures, but I’d never want both of them for example.
    Umezawa’s Jitte can win games on its own.
    The white splash doesn’t offer much. Eldrazi Displacer has a fine body but his board control is at its worst, they have to many creatures and most you don’t even want to blink. They don’t have a huge amount of removal so protection your creatures is only of some relevance. He’s definitely not bad but this is one of his worse matchups. If you play Containment Priest you can board them in to shut off their Aether Vial.
    Blacks Wasteland Strangler won’t be active often enough and as a 3/2 vanilla is pretty bad. Bearer of Silence eats a random 1/1 thus not worth it. Toxic Deluge however is brilliant and will win you games and is even an out for a 2+ turns active Krenko, Mob Boss !
    Blues Eldrazi Skyspawner isn’t needed to get Umezawa’s Jitte active, nonetheless it’s a good card for this matchup as it provides 2 blockers, specially relevant for an early Goblin Lackey into removal. Remember that he’s not actually blue thus can block Goblin Piledriver ! Drowner of Hope, yet another big beater. Neat but not needed.
    Greens Worldbreaker..by the time he comes online the ability to destroy a land or Aether Vial is rather mood, however it can be an out to Bloodmoon (in combination with Elvish Spirit Guide). The body.. yeah well he’ll get chumped.
    Red again excels here. Pyroclasm/Kozileks Return will wipe their board (at least nearly) completely. Vile Aggregate is another good beater thanks to coming online early and having the very relevant trample.
    Last edited by Holly; 04-01-2016 at 05:02 PM.

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    Re: [Primer/Deck] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Thank you for this Holly and welcome to the DTB section.

    I moved the old thread to the Old Threads sub. A short lived thread but a well earned rest.
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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Looks good thus far. Few more cards that might warrant mentions: Rishadan Port, Grim Monolith, Lotus Petal.

    Rishadan Port is a land that's potentially very powerful especially in the slightly slower variants with 6-drops and perhaps even hopes of activating Eye of Ugin in control match-ups. The superaggressive builds are obviously not interested but like goblins, the builds with more 5-6 drops are in the market for a land that can trade for the opponent's mana/hold the opponent's colors off or whatever while getting their lands in play. It can also "trade" taps with an opposing Rishadan Port opening up your mana on the following turn to make your plays. It's also not horrid in the mirror either. I'd generally be more inclined to play Rishadan Ports than Ghost Quarters generally (though Quarter is often better vs. Lands), and there are lists where I posit it may well be correct to play Ports over Wastes.

    For acceleration, I think Lotus Petal (for multisplash lists over Spirit Guides) and Grim Monolith (for the slightly higher curve lists) are potentially interesting. Lotus Petal has been in one decently finishing list just recently: its downsides compared to Spirit Guides (counterable, clashes with Chalice at 0) are generally fairly minor but it doesn't have that many upsides unless you want specific colors of mana. Grim Monolith is mostly absent but potentially more interesting: its being untappable can come up a fair bit in slower match-ups, particularly against Rishadan Ports (Lands/D&T/Goblins/etc.). It doesn't accelerate to 2 mana but it goes from 2 to 3 (relatively useless) or more interestingly, 2 to 5-6 on the following turn, or in decks with 3-drops they want to drop soon such as lists with Trinisphere.


    Also, on weaknesses I'd lists non-basic hate in general over just Blood Moon. Price of Progress is already being sideboarded by some Delver-variants in addition to the obvious Burn and it's absolutely brutal vs. Eldrazi, and Back to Basics sees sporadic play and does a number on the manabase.

  7. #7

    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Just wanted to include a link to my primer dedicated to Midrange Eldrazi variants that play a Cloudpost manabase...

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...o-Feat-10-Post

    Cloudpost lists being posted here would just derail this thread's discussion so figure it would help to link to a thread where they would be appropriate to discuss.

  8. #8
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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Is this the fastest New Development-to-DTB in history?
    The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.

  9. #9
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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    It's also probably the only DTB with no actual set list or widely agreed upon color combination

  10. #10

    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    It's also probably the only DTB with no actual set list or widely agreed upon color combination
    Really, other than a couple rogue brewers, it's a colorless deck and the list is pretty set outside of a few flex slots which should all be determined based on your meta.

    Edit: Great job on the primer Holly! Would you mind updating the spirit guide portion with a brief point on how great they are against Daze? It's a point worth noting.

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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Oh snap we DTB now. All hail our noodly Eldrazi overlords!

    But yeah, hopefully we will have enough tournament results soon to provide sample decklists for each color splash. I would say there's enough results out there for the colorless one to get a pretty good idea of what's going on, but the color splashes are more in their infancy (and it remains to see if any of them will be good enough to make the cut).
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    Clearly aimed at Modern plebs, not gonna be a pillar of our format.
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  12. #12

    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    I´m just thinking about what has been said I few comments ago. Do we really need Thorn of amethyst?

    Today I tried it against maverick, elves and eldrazi-mirror. Obviously they were not missed. I think, they are good in matchups we are already favored?! I want to play them for example against Miracles, TES/ANT. But we got chalice, warping wail, revoker, thought knot seer.
    Is it really that good against S&T. They got Cities and Ancient tomb too. So the mana to cast a S&T shouldnt be that much of a problem. Of course you could slow them down, but isnt it enough to play the named cards (revoker TKS ...) and wastelands to destroy their sollands? And in match 2 you can put your SB-hate in.
    I could imagine a build with 2-3 Sphere of resistence in my SB. They are good against ANT/TES/Miracles but they are also great against bad matchups like elves/maverick/DNT. of course they got Vial, but therefor we got needle or revoker.

    Sphere of R. also slows us down, but its way more flexible and we dont care that much about mana like UR delver (18 lands), jeskai delver (19 lands), Grixis delver (18lands), Elves (18 lands) and I did not count the fetchlands you have to subtract => these are all decks that count on cheap creatures. and we cant handle these creatures with thorns. and their lands can be handled by wasteland.
    maybe youcould even try a tanglewire!?

    The question is what to play instead of thorns? I personally often miss cards like all is dust. it helps against a lot of bad situations (planeswalker control, elves flooded board ...)
    And maybe we could use some more mana accelleration like SSG ...

    would appreciate some help here.

  13. #13

    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Is this really already a DTB? Seems kind of early to move it up so quickly. I mean it is heavily represented online, but I don't see it in paper much. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd like to see it around and win some tournaments (not just 5-0 MTGO leagues) before we put it in the DTB section.

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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Quote Originally Posted by Juice11 View Post
    Is this really already a DTB? Seems kind of early to move it up so quickly. I mean it is heavily represented online, but I don't see it in paper much. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd like to see it around and win some tournaments (not just 5-0 MTGO leagues) before we put it in the DTB section.
    It's the moderation cabal trying to get more people to pack SB cards for it sooner so it'll get hated out of the meta faster
    The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.

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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Quote Originally Posted by Juice11 View Post
    Is this really already a DTB? Seems kind of early to move it up so quickly. I mean it is heavily represented online, but I don't see it in paper much. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd like to see it around and win some tournaments (not just 5-0 MTGO leagues) before we put it in the DTB section.
    You WILL see it much, later.

    Many players are just waiting April Banning in modern, which would bring significant prices fall of some key cards of this deck.

    And it seized the title of "The budget DTB" from DnT.
    I hear they got twisters miles wide in the Midwest.

  16. #16

    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Quote Originally Posted by Tokugawa View Post
    You WILL see it much, later.

    Many players are just waiting April Banning in modern, which would bring significant prices fall of some key cards of this deck.

    And it seized the title of "The budget DTB" from DnT.
    If I will see it later, then why not just wait till later to bump it up? Most of the cards in the deck will not drop in price much, at least until they rotate out of standard. Chalice won't drop until it's reprinted. City of traitors will never fall to a reasonable price again.

    To be clear, I like the deck. I like stompy decks. I think it is a good presence in the Legacy metagame. However, this is hardly an established deck let alone a deck to beat...

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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Quote Originally Posted by Tokugawa View Post
    You WILL see it much, later.

    Many players are just waiting April Banning in modern, which would bring significant prices fall of some key cards of this deck.

    And it seized the title of "The budget DTB" from DnT.
    But eldrazi will not become stronger in the future. Future sets will not include them.

  18. #18
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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Quote Originally Posted by Juice11 View Post
    To be clear, I like the deck. I like stompy decks. I think it is a good presence in the Legacy metagame. However, this is hardly an established deck let alone a deck to beat...
    DTB is not strictly based off results. It's also based off popularity, and this is the second most-played deck in Legacy right now. Those numbers will fall once it gets hated out and people start adapting.
    Last edited by CutthroatCasual; 03-16-2016 at 12:30 AM.
    The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.

  19. #19

    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    Quote Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual View Post
    DTB is not strictly based off results. It's based off as well popularity, and this is the second most-played deck in Legacy right now. Those numbers will fall once it gets hated out and people start adapting.
    Maybe online where it is 2nd to miracles. In paper events there are about 9 more popular decks than eldrazi over the last 2 months according to MTGtop8. Regardless, I didn't realize popularity made a DTB. If that is the criteria, including the online metagame, then that's perfectly fine. Just doesn't make sense to me I guess.

    Edit: read the DTB philosophy, Eldrazi definitely qualifies. I guess when I think of the phrase Deck to Beat, I am thinking of the best/tier 1 decks that have been proven and put up results. Just didn't realize that was the criteria used, seems a bit arbitrary. Not to mention D&T is still a DTB, it is 4th on the council with 18 top 8s in the past 30 days.

  20. #20
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    Re: [DTB] Eldrazi Stompy/Shops

    The deck ticked all the boxes. I do not move decks into this forum on a whim. Read the update I posted here or message me if you have any other questions.

    Quote Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual View Post
    Is this the fastest New Development-to-DTB in history?
    Yes, Jund is the next fastest.
    It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
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