[Deck] The Loch Ness Monster (Naya Eldrazi Slideless Slide)

[morgan_coke]

So, I've been looking at Slide again and trying to make it not suck quite so much. And I'm still at the same conclusions I reached when I announced the funeral on the old Slide thread. Slide/Witness isn't good enough anymore for three reasons: 1) creatures have advanced so much that Witness is just negative value in your deck anymore (i mean, building around a 2/1 when folks have to build to deal with 3/1 TNN just doesn't really work out), 2) Slide is too slow at three mana and no board effect anymore, that's Show and Tell wins the game with Griselbrand mana, 3) The death of stacking damage in the M10 rules changes just makes Sliding creatures not very great in general anymore.

That said, I still think cycling has potential, and the core concepts of the engine are still really good. So I came up with this, heavily modified off some old Red lists.

Naya Eldrazi Slideless Slide aka NESS, aka NESSie, aka The Loch Ness Monster (the part of the Loch Ness Monster will be played by Emrakul)

Planeswalkers (4)
4x Nahiri, the Harbinger

Artifacts (8)
4x Mox Diamond
4x Chalice of the Void

Creatures (12)
3x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Knight of Autumn
3x Thought-Knot Seer
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Enchantments (3)
3x Lightning Rift

Sorceries (3)
3x Life from the Loam

Instants (4)
4x Radiant's Judgment

Lands (27)
4x Ancient Tomb
2x Wasteland
1x Mossfire Valley
1x Karplusan Forest
2x Battlefield Forge
1x Brushland
1x Sungrass Prairie
1x Plains
1x Forest
1x Mountain
2x Tranquil Thicket
2x Secluded Steppe
2x Forgotten Cave
1x Sheltered Thicket
1x Scattered Groves
2x Ash Barrens
2x Blasted Landscape

Sideboard
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Obstinate Baloth
1x Sweltering Suns
3x Abeyance
3x Blood Sun

I feel like this is a really strong starting point for the list, although it does have some rather obvious initial weaknesses - no graveyard interaction and it's 63 cards. I got no idea what to cut to take it down to 60. There are no duals or fetches here, which is on purpose because the painlands and the ODY filter lands are all just better in this specific deck.

The deck has a solid plan in the face of most threats. Spells? TKS and Chalice. Artifacts/Enchantments? KoA, Cast Out, and Nahiri. Creatures? Lightning Rift, Nahiri, Sweltering Suns. Ending the game? Nahiri into Emrakul, 4 power beatdown crew. This has a great name and a lot of potential. That alone should make it work, right?

10/16/2018 EDIT: -3 Sweltering Suns, -3 Cast Out, +4 Radiant's Judgment. Currently 61 cards.
10/20/2018 EDIT: -1 Brushland, -1 TKS, -1 Battlefield Forge, -1 Karplusan Forest, -1 Secluded Steppe, -1 Tranquil Thicket, +2 Ash Barrens, +2 Blasted Landscape, +1 Mountain. 60 cards.

[Michael Keller]

I was hoping for more Taniwha with a name like this!

[Gasmaskdandy]

I'm curious to hear how Lightning Rift worked out in testing. It seems weak, but at the same time, it might be really good in grindier matchups. One card that I think might be good is Edge of Autumn along with Wastes . I this allows for free cycles and the ability to fetches a singleton colorless source for your Eldrazi. I'm not certain what to cut though.

[morgan_coke]

I'm curious to hear how Lightning Rift worked out in testing. It seems weak, but at the same time, it might be really good in grindier matchups. One card that I think might be good is Edge of Autumn along with Wastes . I this allows for free cycles and the ability to fetches a singleton colorless source for your Eldrazi. I'm not certain what to cut though.

With 13 colorless lands, getting the mana for the Eldrazi isn't that bad. I originally had Edge of Autumn and Flagstones in here, but they got cut for space and for cluttering up the manabase, especially once I cut the Slides for Displacers. If it started to feel like it needed more colorless, I'd probably look at things like Blasted Landscape or Ash Barrens first.

Rift is Rift. Sometimes you drop it on turn one or two and it just annihilates all your opponents' little duders and/or planeswalkers and/or life total. Sometimes it's just awful and a dead card. It gets sided out a lot, but when it's good? It's really, really, really good.

[sco0ter]

There are no duals or fetches here, which is on purpose because the painlands and the ODY filter lands are all just better in this specific deck.


But why?

[morgan_coke]

But why?

After you discount the cycling lands and Tombs and Wastelands, there are only 9 "colored mana lands" in the deck. That's not enough slots to run a fetch/dual manabase. The ODY lands let you turn some of that excess colored mana into colors, and the painlands are all tri-colored here.

I changed up the manabase to include fewer CIPT lands, which helps the deck alot. Honestly Displacer and Knight have both been fairly sub-par in playtesting, TKS has been very good. Kind of thinking Knight and Displacer might be better off as more planeswalkers, or at least different creatures that have more of a prison/disruption punch to them. Elspeths and Gideons and Ajani's come to mind, as do both Thalia's. Honestly Rift has been pretty terrible too. Might also need to go, which calls the whole cycling engine into question. But the Naya/Eldrazi prison shell with Nahiri is strongk. Just needs more fine-tuning.