Miracles needs land quantity, and their deck is equipped to dodge the slowing effect of Winter Orb. They however cannot stall with Ankh in play. It's a "must answer" card, while Winter Orb is not.Originally Posted by Delvis
Lands needs to make land drops to win, over and over again. Any game that they do not have turn 4 Marit Lage should yield a win for Eldrazi with Ankh in play.
Thanks! I agree. Though it's a much worse top-deck, Ankh seems quite strong in those matchups. And for those of us still running Metamorph, it seems excellent in multiples.
Ankh seems weirdly underplayed in Legacy in general, for a format so dependent upon fetchlands.
Roses are colorless.
Violets are colorless.
Everything is nothing.
I think it's not played precisely for that reason - if you have a deck that doesn't top-deck well, like we have, you tend to avoid running cards that are terrible top-decks. Is it a good turn 1 play - yeah, but so are so many other cards. Is it a better turn 1 play - sure, maybe. But is it a better play turns 2-4+? I'm not convinced.
Winter orb has been awesome for me against pretty much anything that isn't delver/ combo/ trying to kill you in one turn. not to mention working well with sol lands and eye of ugin in particular. Ive played it in both versions and think it works BEST in the colorless build but is still really good in mono-white.
Winter orb is also best used when already ahead on board so sandbagging it isn't unheard of, just jamming winter orb into play gives you opponent the ability to play around it and map their turns .Letting them tap out (or close) can be game ending.
This deck top decks like a champion...22-24 creatures plus jitte the power level of most of our creatures is huge. i feel like we win top deck wars almost all the time. Anyone else fell the same way or am i off base?
Ankh deserves testing, since turning fetchlands into 5 damage early on sounds pretty good.
On the flipside, the topdeck issue has already been mentioned. Given the amount of self-damage the deck deals to itself and how mana-hungry it is, I could also see the Ankh plan backfire.
I think I what I meant to say was the lack of drawing power or card selection power (Cantrip Cartel, BOB, Etc). We have good cards, but if we are in top deck mode, then I do not think we are a good position. We have a 33-40% of hitting a land, plus a 10-13% chance of hitting a prison piece, so off the bat our top deck is either 43-53% useless, and even then it depends on what we're drawing for the situtation. By the time we're in top deck Mimic will probably be pointless (around 6-7%), and warping wail too most likely (another 6-7% of uselessness) - Think further . . . Jitte will also probably not help you at this point. . . how can it unless you have an active smasher and can connect with it? (3-4%). So top deck is what now. . . 58-71% useless. Doesn't seem like a great place to be in.
Mostly because so many decks play fetchlands that it is unusual for any deck NOT to play them, even monocolored decks like Burn or High Tide. Makes Ankh difficult to utilize. But it is sweet tech though.
"We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."
I think Coercive Portal is the next biggest testing, followed by maindeck Batterskull or SoFaF. Additional discard and untapping lands seems great, as does protecting mimics into goyfs. With Displacer, untapping your mana seems incrediblllly powerful IMO.
Deluge just isn't leaving my maindeck ever again, card is absurd with the P/T on these eldrazi creatures.
I've run MD Batterskull before. Not really a fan, since 5 mana for a non-Eldrazi card is pretty damn pricy. More often than not, it will end up in your hand uncastable. SoFaF is the weakest out of the 3 Swords I run in my Blade plan and is essentially only good when you run into green roadblocks. Interactions with Displacer or combat step Eye of Ugin activations are nifty, but haven't really come up for me so far. Only Factory + SoFaF was a thing once or twice. If you really want to run SoFaF, I would rather run it as a SB card to bring it in where it's really needed as evasion tech.
Just an update regarding my testing results with this deck. After testing various builds, the Tangle Lockdown build below is the one that has functioned the strongest for me against a wide variety of matchups.
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Eye of Ugin
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Cloudpost
3 Glimmerpost
3 Vesuva
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Endless One
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Conduit of Ruin
1 Breaker of Armies
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Tangle Wire
2 Dismember
1 Warping Wail
Sideboard:
4 Thorn of Amethyst (Vs. Combo, Delver, Tempo etc.)
3 Faerie Macabre (Vs. Graveyard Shenanigans.)
3 Tsabo's Web (Vs. Lands, Maze of Ith, Rishidan Port etc.)
3 Damping Matrix (Vs. Maverick, Elves, D&T etc.)
2 All is Dust (Vs. Various Colored Decks.)
x4 Tangle Wire - Tangle Wire is great to either lock down your opponent after you resolve a big threat, or just to slow them to a crawl while you make enough land drops to achieve inevitability.
3x Damping Matrix - This card has been absolutely fantastic. I find myself siding it in more often than not since it shuts down so many different annoyances.
x4 Endless One – Does an excellent job of smoothing out the deck’s mana curve. It can plop down as a 2/2 on turn one or as a 12/12 in the mid/lategame, making it a solid threat regardless of when you draw it.
x4 Conduit of Ruin - I continue to feel that Conduit of Ruin is the most underrated and underutilized Eldrazi. It's a beater, a mana accelerant and a tutor all in one card. With a manabase that supports 24 Sol Lands, it’s a god send.
x1 Breaker of Armies – The best available Conduit of Ruin target when you’re stuck at 3 Sol Lands/6 mana. Against creature based decks, it's a one sided wrath that makes you can swing with everything you have without having to fear an attack back. It also makes it so all of your other creatures get through to deal the maximum amount of damage, enough to outright win you the game some times. Making your mimic into a 10/8 for a turn is pretty good as well.
x1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger – A tutorable answer to Ensnaring Bridge, Moat, Worship and any number of other cards that would otherwise ruin your day. Thanks to Conduit of Ruin, it frequently comes out on turn 4, and it almost always puts your opponent in an unwinnable position the turn it is cast, even if it gets countered.
x2 Dismember – The best early game removal (mid to late game, All is Dust is stronger) this deck has access to. There’s very few threats that Dismember doesn’t kill outright. Warping Wail and even Spatial Contortion to some degree are more flexible alternatives depending on the meta, but neither card deals with nearly as many threats as Dismember does making it well worth maindecking as a two of in most metagames.
Regarding the large land count, a manabase like this both gives the deck resiliency to wastelands, and between Conduit, Eye, All is Dust and the two Ulamog's you rarely mind having tons of mana.
x4 Ancient Tomb – Sol Land #1-4. Due to the more aggressive nature of this deck, it can cope with the lifeloss better than Turbo Eldrazi. The ability to power out a Chalice at 1 on turn 1 makes it an automatic 4 of in this list.
x4 City of Traitors – Sol Land #5-8. Since the deck functionally plays 24 Sol Lands, it just needs 3 of any combination of it’s 24 Sol Lands in the first 10 cards to be able to top off it’s mana curve and lay down Conduit of Ruins (which make the other threats in the deck even cheaper to cast). Due to requiring such a low number of lands to top off the curve, City of Traitors is almost always the perfect land to plop down turn 3.
x4 Eldrazi Temple – Sol Land #9-12. Temples can be played in multiples, is a great target for Vesuva, and given the high density of Eldrazi spells, it is bar none the best land in the deck. Play four copies, always.
x4 Eye of Ugin – Sol Land #13-16. Despite the fact that Eye is legendary, I play 4 due to the high density of Eldrazi spells in the maindeck and the fact that it's tutoring effect is so much more usable here thanks to Cloudpost mana. Yes you will have the occasional opening hand with 2 Eye of Ugins. But just as frequently, an Eye of Ugin in your opening hand pumps out multiple Eldrazi Mimics and Endless Ones turn one followed by a Thought-Knot Seer turn 2, a Conduit of Ruin turn 3 and an Ulamog turn 4. It’s a frequent Wasteland target so it’s not always bad to have in multiples.
x4 Cloudpost – Sol Land #17-20. Quite possibly the second best land in the deck. Even if you have only one post land in your opening hand, there are still 3 Cloudposts, 3 Glimmerposts, and 3 Vesuva left in the deck so the odds are fairly good that Cloudpost will be tapping for atleast 2 mana by midgame. Thus Cloudpost effectively functions as yet another Sol Land in this deck.
x3 Vesuva – Sol Land #21-23. Between 4 Cloudposts, 4 Eldrazi Temples and 4 Ancient Tomb, you’re never lacking for Vesuva targets, and this land essentially functions as Sol land 21-23 as a result. It can even gain you life by copying a Glimmerpost if you’re down to single digits. However, the fact that it comes into play tapped is enough to make it a 3 of.
x1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth – As a 1 of in a build that plays 4 Eye of Ugin, this land functions as Sol Land #24 more often than not. The main reason the cards is worth playing is that it lets you tap Eye of Ugin to generate an additional B mana but it has the additional function of allowing Dismember to be castable without the lifeloss. It can also be very helpful if you side in Oblivion Sowers against a matchup that plays fetchlands, for obvious reasons.
x3 Glimmerpost – I have frequently gone back and forth on playing a full playset main deck. The life gain can be helpful in some matchups. However, the fact that it produces only 1 mana a turn while every other land in the deck on average generates 2 or more mana every turn makes Glimmervoid one of the weakest links in the mana base.
Last edited by Captain Hammer; 03-29-2016 at 06:44 PM.
Still restricted on time but managed to squeeze in the Jund matchup.
Captain Hammer/- Just going to be frank when i say i dont like Winter Orb in our deck, and i cannot imagine Tangle Wire is going to make me feel much safer. Granted the effects are different, but it still feels counterintuitive to the overall deck, which is to make use of mana better than other decks can due to SoL lands and cost effective eldrazi creatures.
Barook- Thanks for the heads up on Batterskull testing being less than excellent for you, i will likey skip over it thanks to your information for the time being.
But how has SoFaF not been impressive vs something like DNT? I fee like they can block a 3/3 displacer but not a 5/5 and then suddenly you have likely two flickers open on the untap while they lose additional resources from hand? I feel like your experience is of boarded SoFaF and therefore you haven't lived full interaction on the weaker matchups side to see what it's like. Sure you dont get Plowshare protection, any sword equipped is bolt protection, but you get incredibly relevant abilities to our deck.
Still not ready to try the Death and Eldrazi version with maindeck Stoneforge, but i am becoming more and more intrigued as the meta becomes more fair to combat Eldrazi lockout pieces.
That's the best case scenario that you actually connect with a non-trampler instead of getting chumpblocked. Don't expect Displacer to stick, considering it's probably THE primary target for them since it can stop their flyers (mainly Avenger, Flickerwisp is so-so as target) and screws with their equipment plan big time. I would rather have a Jitte in that match.
How many black sources do you run and how many Deluge?
I like this direction. It's similar to the Eldrazi-Tron style colorless versions I've seen in Modern, basically subbing Locus for Tron lands. You stay colorless to enable more explosive plays, while at the same time being able to answer problem permanents and win the mirror match. With Conduit/Ulamog you can go long.
Even if the hyper aggro version ends up being better over the long term, as Eldrazi hype dies down and Moon/Bridge effects become less common, I think Conduit+Ulamog (or Sower+Ulamog) is a solid SB plan (instead of Worldbreaker or Displacer which make your manabase much less consistent).
Last edited by keys; 03-30-2016 at 01:25 PM.
Anyone tried Helm of Obedience, as did this guy who took down a 300-person tournament in Japan? http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=11998&d=268785&f=LE
I was just wondering what it was for or how it worked myself, newer to Legacy as of three months ago haven't been in for ages, i know RiP and Helm is a two card combo, but I'm unsure what decks we want to board such a combo in against, especially if you are on nonwhite Leyline of the Void plans....
@keys-- i run two Toxic Deluge with 9 black sources between 4 CoK, 2 Urborg and 3 Mox Diamond.
Thing is, he isn't even playing RiP in the side -- what does he board the Helms in against?
he plays LotV. The combo is still there.
Ah good catch, you're absolutely right...
Just seems like a weird/awkward combo finisher to me. Maybe against lots of hate? IE BloodBridge.dec?
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