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Another league run, another 4-1:
R1: Miracles 1-2 (made a few mistakes G2 and G3, so losing was well-deserved. Didn't help that I had to mull to 4 in G3.)
R2: BR Reanimator 2-0
R3: Infect 2-0
R4: Food Chain 2-0 (was lucky he didn't have it)
R5: Grixis Delver 2-1
But more importanly, new achievement unlocked! :cool:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkGfsvYWsAARRH3.jpg
Congrats Barook!! Well earned achievement.
General question, I see a lot of people dropping the City of Traitors count. Is it due to the instant mull hand of 2x CoT you guys are going down to so little? How are you finding only running 13 sol lands?
Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by RhoxWarMonk
Double city rarely comes up. At least for me, I want a stable mana development, and early City jeopardizes that if you don't have enough other lands.
Congrats Barook! i know you've been working on that and been super close for a while. awesome !
So i tried 3 obligator main last night. It was ok... this is how i feel about the non-colorless versions . when i started playing the white splash it was the crappy white splash with 4 displacer,2 revoker, 2 containment priest main. it was slow.I went down to 2 displacer in an essentially colorless version. it was awesome! i loved it and went up to 3 displacer and it was really good . The problem was that when i tried 4 i didn't like it a ton. because there are less times when you can get multiple mana from eye of ugin like playing a mimic and a 2/2 endless one on turn 1 and playing a sol land and a matter reshaper and a 3/3 endless one which really help push damage through in early turns and that early pressure is what makes the colorless version the most consistently powerful option.
So where i'm at now is thinking i go down to 2 displacer (which i love) and 2 obligator main just to try those numbers. I play in the philly/nj area mostly and the meta has shifted A ton . mud and twelve post are everywhere,lots of lands ,lots of blood moon decks,lots of bug(in all variants ) and actually a few painter/stone .just lots of hate and trying to go over the top of eldrazi seems to be a popular route rite now ...Thats what makes obligator such a powerful option, even just a goyf is cool..i'm just not sure its worth it ..
Been jamming a couple leagues with the RWg version, 3-2 in both of them. First pair of losses were to 4c Loam and Tezzerator, the second league's losses to Miracles and UR Delver where I just had no action because every hand even when mulling to 6 or 5 was non-sol land 3+ tks or smasher.
Some notes:
Obligator was activated 0 times. Even with the 4 petal 4 Crossroads 4 Cavern I wasn't getting enough red sources to cast it when I needed to steal something from the opponent. The best uses were as a hasty creature, but I think factory would be just as good, without dying to sweepers as much.
Displacer was okay, but I wasn't 100% impressed with it due to the mana involved (I was never getting to 6+ mana to either play a threat and activate displacer, or do two activations at once, without hurting myself so much due to the tombs. Did get to live the dream though of displacing a TKS to take a terminus in response to the trigger, which is always great when it works out.
Going to do a league or two with Wg today, and then finally try the colorless version because noloam's 75 (with a few changes from others) sure is putting up good MTGO results. I'm still so afraid to go away from displacer, even though it's done very little for me. Did anyone ever get an idea of how the colorless version felt against DnT and Lands, given that they're barely represented online? Especially without the Towers as noloam is suggesting?
Updated my SB guide - remember that it's just a guideline.
Getting a little back to MtG after a several year break. I would very much like to try this deck. Is there some kind of composite / reference decklist I could start with ? Thanks for the help.
You should probably treat this as a macroarchetype spanning multiple different decks mostly defined by their splashes. Generally you can splash some colors for some of the powerful colored Eldrazi, or stay colorless for maximum consistency. Few different lists with some performance behind them:Quote:
Originally Posted by ParkerLewis
Colorless Eldrazi - Noloam's list
White/Green Eldrazi - Barook's list
White/Red Eldrazi - DrGenial's list
White/Blue Eldrazi - wooop_orc's list
Serum Powder Eldrazi - Jeff Blyden (dunno if he has a handle here)
As much as I like Eldrazi Displacer, it probably should be said that the Colorless version is enjoying by far the most success on Magic Online, and although I personally believe that Displacer is worth it, the data contradicts me. If you're just getting started, you really should just build the colorless version.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eldariel
Is there something about the MTGO metagame that makes Displacer worse than it otherwise would be, or am I deluding myself?
On an unrelated note, another issue that seems to pit my testing experiences versus the data is Trinisphere versus Thorn of Amethyst in the sideboard. In my testing, I've never really found Thorn to be all that impactful against anything except Storm and Reanimator to a lesser extent. Sneak/Show doesn't really care about Thorn since they have a lot of fast mana themselves and are only trying to resolve one spell; I guess Trinisphere is also useless here. Elves doesn't care about Thorn since all their combo pieces are creatures; here, Trinisphere seems amazing. Miracles cares about Thorn a little, but they run a ton of land and can eventually play through it, whereas Trinisphere basically makes it so that they can't do 2 things in a turn.
Big thing is that the colorless version does alot worse than the w/g one against death n taxes, which is much less prevalent online on MTGO and is free to put up more consistent results. Tower of magistrate main deck helps vs it, but it doesn't solve the entire problem Both on xmage and in paper, I run into far more D+T, where displacer is far better.Quote:
Originally Posted by iostream
Thorn hurts miracles alot. They do get alot of land but losing the ability to free cast force and havin gall their cantrips and swords cost double suddenly means they cannot sensei top nearly as frequently. Miracles is about options, and thorns restricts their options.
Big news was an unpowered eldrazi vintage deck made it to top 16 in NYSE Open Series. His record was 6-1-1.
Link
I'm surprised that there were no City of Traitors in the list
Thanks for the answer. I'll give them a look :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Eldariel
Imho, the white version is harder to play since you have to pay more attention how you sequence your mana. There are also alot more people playing the colorless version than the Displacer versions.Quote:
Originally Posted by iostream
One big thing of note is that the SCG had colorless lists in the Top 8, and it's not that rare for people to just look at latest lists from a major tournament and ape them. It's a common and fairly solid heuristic: tournament Top 8 lists are proven and tested - if you're going to invest only little time into deck selection (little time, secondary format, or for whatever reason), it's the easiest path to getting to play with something workable without having to scour through the internet and playing days of test games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
I think when you play also has a big role. I found times where you play more Americans easier than European prime time, partly due to average play skill, partly due to deck choices. E.g. I faced 3x Aggro Loam in my league run this morning and lost 3x. That would never happen during US prime time where everybody is too busy rubbing their dick to Miracles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eldariel
I've heard this reason before, and it is probably the most persuasive argument, but we're talking about maybe 5% of the online metagame that's different due to D+T being so expensive to build on MTGO. I'm not sure it can account for the entire discrepancy.Quote:
Originally Posted by maraxusofkelds
I've heard this reason before as well, but it seems like there is every incentive for people on MTGO to play the "better deck" if it's actually better, especially since the price difference between Colorless and White Eldrazi is so small. It seems hard to imagine that so many people would leave actual money on the table for no reason other than groupthink.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eldariel
But we see very few pilots - European or American or anyone else - piloting the white Eldrazi deck into 5-0?Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
Just to be clear, I'm not trolling. I'm just wondering if my judgment about the white deck is just wrong. We're talking about it as though it's a metagame consideration, but really we are not exploring the possibility that Displacer is just worse and that we are all biased. For instance, one possibility is that the colorless deck has evolved since April, which is when we really started to figure out how the white version of the deck should be built. So it could be the case that the April version of colorless Eldrazi is worse than white Eldrazi, but white Eldrazi is worse than today's version of Eldrazi (i.e. noloam's build). I think it would be good to scrutinize our opinions a little more just in case something like this is true, especially because Columbus and Prague are coming up in less than a week!
I'll play a slighty different version of Riehu/NoLoam's build next (with 4x Factory and 2x Karakas because I can't be assed to buy Wastelands or Towers) just to get a feel for it. I tanked my total win percentage by almost 4% today (from 73%+ to 69+%) with unfavorable match-ups and sheer amount of stupid bad luck, like 4+ matches being decided G3 by one single topdeck that could have won them the game - and of course they got it. I'm somewhat frustrated because of that, but I wonder if the Colorless version would have been that much better in those situations. E.g. I just can't see what a Colorless version would have done against tripple Therapy (snatching 2x TKS & 2x Smasher) into 4x Baleful Strix on the draw. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by iostream
I can loan those for a week or two if you want.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barook
Well, if you don't know which deck is actually better, chances are most of the players don't either. Yeah, MTGO players optimally want to play the better deck but I doubt anybody has the information to pick based on that. In a case where one variant has more results than another, the usurper has to be significantly better to begin replacing it. The other version will continue to put up solid results because it's also a strong deck and the differences aren't significant enough to push the other variants out of the metagame so the results will keep players playing said deck - indeed, people succeeding with one variant will keep playing that variant unless something that's clearly better shows up, and people picking based on results will pick the one they see winning the most; which in turn will repeat the cycle. Peoples' choices are inevitably based on incomplete information - thus, using only results as an indicator on which build is better is unreliable without data on the builds being entered and the players playing the decks. A deck's performance should be measured by its average match win controlled for mirrors, not by its Top 8 penetration as that's much more a function of its frequency on the field than its performance in individual match-ups. With the current reporting system on MTGO we lack the data to properly make quantitative analysis on which performs better, and such data inevitably has pollution from list variants, player skill, etc. too.Quote:
Originally Posted by iostream
Thus I recommend relying on qualitative analysis instead: which match-ups favor which build? How high frequency are those match-ups? Could the builds be altered to achieve a better match-up matrix? Group testing and aggregated results complete with in-game information on how the MU feels. Pick the build based on what you think would perform better in your expected metagame. Though one of the probable reasons you will do fine either way is that the differences aren't frankly that big. The different builds are about ~10 cards off, half of which are mana sources. The remaining 50 are going to win or lose most of your games for you. Chances are colorless Eldrazi and White/X Eldrazi are both fine and viable and their overall chances against the field are probably fairly similar. I lack the individual match-up data from both sides to say this confidently but the various results posted in this thread seem to point in that direction.
0-2 in matches so far with the colorless build, lost R1 to an untimely DD from 12-Post and R2 to a Belcher who topdecked Belcher right after my TKS G1 and topdecked the right mana again G2.
Maybe today isn't just my lucky today, considering destiny has decided to fuck me over at every chance it gets.
Edit: 0-3, third Belcher game within 4 matches. :rolleyes:
Edit #2: Went 2-3 overall, beating D&T (budget?) and TES in the last two rounds. I'll stick to my GW build again as it fits my playstyle better and the difference between the builds is miniscule at best. E.g. I really disliked running 4 Eyes in the Colorless build. Playing with the Colorless build again just confirmed my long-standing suspicion that in certain situations, you're just boned no matter what when they have it, Displacer or Colorless build. And today was just unreal in terms of bad luck.
I might rework some slots of the deck, though. E.g. the white count for Displacer is something I'll keep my eyes on. I'm going to cut 1 City and run a Crossroads in its place as a "marked" GW source and see if it's better or worse than the second City. SB is always a meta choice. Also, how have the Endbringers been lately?