You guys were right about Chalice. It performed very well against Burn & Storm.
Abzan & Smallpox were kinda similar in terms of their deployment. Endbringer & Walking Ballista performed here very well.
Just got lucky on not being paired to Affinity early on.
What I feel like changing:
Mind Stone should be ticked up to 4. The 2nd turn of this deck is like a black hole, there's not much in it (esp. vs. Valakut)
Witchbane Orb, Spellskite or might be a good addition in the sideboard against Valakut (Have yet to Test).
Mass Effect Card Advantage/ Temporary Solution Cards are very important. We just have to jam a big portion of them in our deck.
What I realized so far:
This deck is not that much powerful as it doesn't tap into some clean solutions, but it is very very very consistent.
Mulligan is our friend. Your opener evaluation needs to be checked here more importantly than most other decks.
We badly need to find a solution against Breach & Swarm (colorless swarm is much harder) without compromising our other MUs.
Overall, this deck is great. Also I won a game against Storm with Blood Moon on board, where I have to Surgical Extraction my own cards just to top deck a Wastes, for the last 5 damage through the Smasher in my hand. Crazy Crazy Day!
I don't think the wurmcoil is too effective against affinity. They can move counters around mid combat to prevent the lifrlink, they can move counters to a blinkmoth or inkmoth to go around it, etc. If they durdle a bit after opening turns, I'm sure it will help us win in that scenario. But the basilisk main, especially when attached to endbringer or ballista, will certainly destroy their board state. I'm actually planning on siding the wurmcoil out against affinity, favoring a matter reshaper for earlier board presence and a potential draw. Wurm coming down on T5 or T6 would be way too slow.
I think that ratchet is the best removal for affinity, not quite as potent as o-stone but we get more control over what is removed. Then you add in the fact that when you have a ratchet on the field they'll hold cards in their hand rather than play them into ratchet and lose tempo because of it. I don't think lifegain is the answer because it just takes one inkmoth with ravager counters or cranial attached swing in to get you to 10 infect. Honestly other than pithing needle, ghost quarter, and ratchet bomb, we are going to have a very tough time with affinity. Every deck has an abysmal matchup and this is ours.
Can we therefore conclude that upticking the Ratchet Bomb & Pithing Needle Count to 3 each might be good enough to battle the Affinity?
It seems that all the problems pointed out were all activated abilities (Ravager, Manlands, Cranial), so Pithing Needle is highly important here. Also, Steel Overseer/ Ghirapur is affected by the Needle as well.
Ratchet Bomb for Tempo loss is really good. Expedition Map + Ghost Quarter are also extensions for not dying to Infect. It makes sense that gain life is not the answer due to infect.
I also use Pithing Needle against Devoted Druids, so that's a plus. Ratchet works very well against Merfolk. Well, there are not a lot of them, but I see that somehow they are becoming more effective against us, with Spreading Seas.
The downside may be associated with mirrors, where these cards might not be so useful, except for Ratchet against Hangarback Walker tokens.
I might go this route & try it. Thanks for the input...
Thanks for the reply. I can see o-stone being very clunky, and I agree that going into an event like a PPTQ you want a consistent and smoothe running 75. I suppose you're right that it's better to hope for lucky draws against affinity than fill two slots with a silver bullet that isn't always a home run, even in the matchup it's specifically for. Also magicmurph mentions he felt 5 sweepers in the 75 was too much, and id have to agree with that. It seems like all is dust and ugin are the only board wipes we can count on, with them never hitting our own permanents.
Wurmcoil in the main basically replaces a relic, and the amount of burn and eldrazi tron at my local tournaments is insane. Sometimes half of the field of 12-14 players. I would never main wurmcoil on mtgo or at a gp (in the current meta), but locally I feel like game 1 wurmcoil is going to win more games than relic. It's also never disappointed against shadow, as I'm usually not dead by T5 or T6 so if I can name wurm with a cavern and resolve it I've bought myself a lot of turns. It's the same way in the mirror, landing a wurmcoil is insane. I've seen Grixis Shadow lists go down to 1-2 k-command in the 75, so I'm less resistant to playing collars against them than I was when they consistently ran 3 copies.
Do you think that main board Wurmcoil can also somehow solve the damage problem from Affinity? Our LGS seems the same with the metagame only + Affinity... I myself is testing Affinity to see their perspective... Explosive Draws are really insane...
I was thniking that if we lose to these types of draws, is it possible to just tweak the deck to be either gain life or mass effect control cards (Pithing Needle/ Ratchet Bomb/ (add more)? I was opting to put some more gain life via extra Collar & Batterskull, if It would buy time to bring it to Basilisk/ Endbringer/ Ulamog wonderland...
By the way, thanks for the League Data... This is a great help... I'm in pursuit of solving Swarm (CoCo/ Affinity) & Land Decks (Trons/ Valakut) via this deck... Hope to get some insights... TIA...
It seems that the TitanShift & Affinity are our toughest MatchUps, they might be solved by the replacement of Walking Ballista/ Basilisk Collar with Kozilek's Return and an addition of Crumble to Dust for Mirrors/ TitanShifts. Plus, Eldrazi Obligator might be useful for Mirrors as well as TitanShift, getting the Titan perhaps. These cards can all be casted by the Corrupted Crossroads.
As a note on Obstructionist, you can use the stifle effect on storm triggers, so it could be an alternative to Rule of Law or Eidolon of Rhetoric. As an added plus, Obstructionist can't be countered or bounced, and it could in theory also come in vs decks where we just want another tempo flyer.
In addition to that, it stops Planeswalkers Ultimate or against PW relevant ability when needed...
I'm just not too sure if it stops Ulamog/ Emrakul "When you cast" effect as well, but I'm sure it stops TKS, Vendilion Clique, Primeval Titan, Archbound Ravager (Sac Activation), Kitchen Finks and of course fetch lands...
I think it is not so good for a Stifle card to be at 3cost, but the upside proactive turn into a 3/1 flyer or draw a card while stifling is sweet...
As someone who played 4 SSG main for a while it does let you have some impressively fast opening plays especially when paired with Gemstone Caverns. But as stated, it is a pretty feel-bad topdeck mid to late game although it can always be used for 1 mana. Turn One TKS sure was fun for a while.
Mind Stone is slower, but overall better.
I just thought that since we lose to some combo decks and Robots, maybe we could nab some games where it would feel like the deck is somewhat on legacy level when doing that very early TKS & Chalice...
It just feels good when you play a somewhat like "Force of Will" effect in SSG... Especially for Dismember...
This deck solves the late game no hand problem with Sea Gate Wreckage & Endbringers if ever it comes to that...
Plus, was thinking about splashing red for By Force since those Robots are a problem... Crumble to Dust against other Tron decks & Valakut...
I know people don't like it, but I guess it's worth a shot for further innovation... I don't see a lot of Eldrazi Tron winning lately... Maybe it's time to evolve...
Worth noting that basically anything can randomly 5-0 once. He could have just dodged any matchups that Chalice is good in. Without them, Burn and Grixis Shadow instantly go from good to bad, so I couldn't really imagine playing without them. Maybe there's a way to tweak the list to come out OK in those matchups, but it isn't reflected in that list. I'll think about it a bit. If there's a way, I'd like to find it, because I'd like to play this deck in paper for PTQ season but don't own Chalices and don't really feel like selling my kidney to get them.
In going against Grixis DS, I always cut GQ's for they never really worked... It would look like you have little lands @21... But having access to Exped Maps + Mind Stone makes it a lot easier... What happens is that it overrides the entire Grixis deck... Meaning, they could only have access to so much Card Advantage against a lot of your cards... Trust me, CoTV always comes out in this MU but still I win a ton against Grixis DS...
I'm not sure I understand...why are you cutting Chalice against Grixis? It's literally the best card in the matchup; playing it on 1 shuts off over 40% of their deck. Hard to make further comments without knowing your 75/how exactly you sideboard, but IMO cutting Chalice can't possibly be correct. Can you win without them? Sure. But over a large sample size it just wont be nearly as often I think. Unless you have some super secret tech you're withholding :p. Also agree that Ghost Quarter is pretty mopey in the matchup, but cutting 3 lands doesn't sound right either.
Burn is easier to make adjustments for, for sure, but there's still nothing that compares to Chalice.
I know that you know better when it comes to real tourneys and I agree that the bigger portion of the Grixis DS decks will be Shudown... But, it also shut's us down of the cards that matters: Relic of Progenitus & Expedition Map... It occurs that I am stuck with them when the games go longer with CoTV on play.. I board in Surgical as well for these decks since the Threat Density of the Grix DS deck is so low & Killable... Surgical is hit here as well... Surgical acts as a Pseudo counter to Snaps... During the times I had CoTV, I always set it up for 2 against Terminates, 3 against Kolaghan's Command, but Engineered Explosives just kills them... Spellskites are sometimes better, because it takes the Terminate & Kolaghan's Command as well... Skites were as effective as CoTV in this MU...
I know that while we badly need CoTV against Living End & Storm, I don't see them quite too often now a days... If they come up, I'd still want the CoTV @3 pcs maybe on the sideboard...
Worth noting that basically anything can randomly 5-0 once. He could have just dodged any matchups that Chalice is good in. Without them, Burn and Grixis Shadow instantly go from good to bad, so I couldn't really imagine playing without them. Maybe there's a way to tweak the list to come out OK in those matchups, but it isn't reflected in that list. I'll think about it a bit. If there's a way, I'd like to find it, because I'd like to play this deck in paper for PTQ season but don't own Chalices and don't really feel like selling my kidney to get them.
Grixis and Burn are the other 2 decks I've played a lot... So probably I know how to go against them... I never needed CoTV against these decks... You were right about the TKS against Burn, it is really devastating... Adding up Basilisk Collar + Wurmcoil Engine could easily extend the TKS... I still threw in some Skites as I really see it being a solution for not having CoTV against these MUs...
In going against Grixis DS, I always cut GQ's for they never really worked... It would look like you have little lands @21... But having access to Exped Maps + Mind Stone makes it a lot easier... What happens is that it overrides the entire Grixis deck... Meaning, they could only have access to so much Card Advantage against a lot of your cards... Trust me, CoTV always comes out in this MU but still I win a ton against Grixis DS...
Lastly, Stony Silence is a big deal for this deck, especially if they were paired with Blood Moons (Sun & Moon)/ Fulminator (Abzan/ Jund)/ GQ, Tec Edge & Spreading Seas (UW)... Just sharing my initial tests against these types of decks...
Any of y'all gonna be trying out Scavenger Grounds? I'm looking to try one in the main, since having tutorable graveyard hate in game 1 seems like a huge utility. However slots are tight, I don't wanna go down to 2 Ghost Quarters, cutting Sea Gate Wreckage is probably wrong, and I really like Sanctum of Ugin, I feel like it often does a lot of work for me. Sanctum is probably the right cut though.
Not so Gud... An expensive Bojuka Bog in testing against grave decks... Killing the grave at instant speed, 3 mana total to tap, does not happen quite too often against Dredge and Grixis...
Found a deck online that 5-0'd without the Chalice of the Voids...
Will be using it in a medium-sized event in paper this Weekend...
Did test it by comparing the sideboarding plan made by MagicMurph, it went to show that CoTV has been sided out a lot... Ulamog and Ugin are great addition to the deck...
In an Affinity heavy meta it could be decent as a +2 in your sideboard. I have a feeling most would suggest running a full 4 Ratchet Bomb in your 75 as opposed to Imi Statue. And I bought a playset of these (Statue) a long time ago just in case.
This looks like another great solution to Affinity... Looks like a Prison Orb of some sort... I'll try this card out as well... Thanks...
Yep, Affinity is a beating. If you see a lot of it and/or other go-wide decks that are seeing more play lately, consider playing some Oblivion Stones in your 75. I've been doing that lately and have been having success with it.
Spatial Contortion is a fine SB card though. Solid efficient removal for small creatures.
Tomb of the Spirit Dragon could be good if you value gaining life that highly. There are many utility lands but so few slots..
Oblivion Stone is a kill card + card advantage... I'll try testing with that... Thanks...
It just feels like it is so hard to defend against Affinity (esp. on the draw) without having a way to achieve Card Advantage while doing so...
Setting up Walking Ballista/ Endbringer with Collar & Batterskull with any creature is just so tough having only 1-ofs of each of them...
I can see now that Spatial Contortion is more beneficial to this MU, but not in any other Tier 1 decks... These are the 2 cards I'm thinking about sideboarding against Affinity (Spellskite or Spatial Contortion)...
Anyway, I'll try the Spatial Contortion then... I believe I have to give up some grave hate for these...
Lastly, is there a chance to use Miren, the Moaning Well or Tomb of the Spirit Dragon for gain life? There are times we see Expedition Maps against aggressive decks as a top deck with totally nothing to fetch with as a solution...
Just wanted to know why there were never ever Spellskites in the 75?
I believe that it might be the missing link of having a sideboard for both Affinity & Grixis DS...
Tried Spellskite against Grixis DS, it is so effective. It nullifies the Kolaghan's Command split destruction when resolved and eats up Terminate to clear the way for other Eldrazis...
Haven't tested a lot yet with Affinity, but it seems that the Modular Ability from Archbound Ravager becomes a threat later on... Spellskite can suck the counters to it...
I know most of you are very well experienced with this deck, can someone provide any insights regarding this? Spatial Contortion looks promising as well...
Just Top 8ed a 58-man event... Lost in the Quarters against a dreaded enemy... Breach Titan...
Swiss: Overall (4-0-2)
Round1: Abzan (2-0)
Round2: Burn (2-1)
Round3: BW Smallpox (2-0)
Round4: UR Storm (2-1)
Round5: Affinity (0-0-1)
Round6: Affinity (0-0-1)
Top8:
Quarters: Breach Titan (0-2)
Assessment:
You guys were right about Chalice. It performed very well against Burn & Storm.
Abzan & Smallpox were kinda similar in terms of their deployment. Endbringer & Walking Ballista performed here very well.
Just got lucky on not being paired to Affinity early on.
What I feel like changing:
Mind Stone should be ticked up to 4. The 2nd turn of this deck is like a black hole, there's not much in it (esp. vs. Valakut)
Witchbane Orb, Spellskite or might be a good addition in the sideboard against Valakut (Have yet to Test).
Mass Effect Card Advantage/ Temporary Solution Cards are very important. We just have to jam a big portion of them in our deck.
What I realized so far:
This deck is not that much powerful as it doesn't tap into some clean solutions, but it is very very very consistent.
Mulligan is our friend. Your opener evaluation needs to be checked here more importantly than most other decks.
We badly need to find a solution against Breach & Swarm (colorless swarm is much harder) without compromising our other MUs.
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Powerplant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Wastes
2 Endbringer
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Walking Ballista
1 Basilisk Collar
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Dismember
4 Expedition Map
2 Mind Stone
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Karn Liberated
1 All is Dust
1 Batterskull
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spellskite
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Warping Wail
Overall, this deck is great. Also I won a game against Storm with Blood Moon on board, where I have to Surgical Extraction my own cards just to top deck a Wastes, for the last 5 damage through the Smasher in my hand. Crazy Crazy Day!
Peace...
Can we therefore conclude that upticking the Ratchet Bomb & Pithing Needle Count to 3 each might be good enough to battle the Affinity?
It seems that all the problems pointed out were all activated abilities (Ravager, Manlands, Cranial), so Pithing Needle is highly important here. Also, Steel Overseer/ Ghirapur is affected by the Needle as well.
Ratchet Bomb for Tempo loss is really good. Expedition Map + Ghost Quarter are also extensions for not dying to Infect. It makes sense that gain life is not the answer due to infect.
I also use Pithing Needle against Devoted Druids, so that's a plus. Ratchet works very well against Merfolk. Well, there are not a lot of them, but I see that somehow they are becoming more effective against us, with Spreading Seas.
The downside may be associated with mirrors, where these cards might not be so useful, except for Ratchet against Hangarback Walker tokens.
I might go this route & try it. Thanks for the input...
Do you think that main board Wurmcoil can also somehow solve the damage problem from Affinity? Our LGS seems the same with the metagame only + Affinity... I myself is testing Affinity to see their perspective... Explosive Draws are really insane...
I was thniking that if we lose to these types of draws, is it possible to just tweak the deck to be either gain life or mass effect control cards (Pithing Needle/ Ratchet Bomb/ (add more)? I was opting to put some more gain life via extra Collar & Batterskull, if It would buy time to bring it to Basilisk/ Endbringer/ Ulamog wonderland...
By the way, thanks for the League Data... This is a great help... I'm in pursuit of solving Swarm (CoCo/ Affinity) & Land Decks (Trons/ Valakut) via this deck... Hope to get some insights... TIA...
It seems that the TitanShift & Affinity are our toughest MatchUps, they might be solved by the replacement of Walking Ballista/ Basilisk Collar with Kozilek's Return and an addition of Crumble to Dust for Mirrors/ TitanShifts. Plus, Eldrazi Obligator might be useful for Mirrors as well as TitanShift, getting the Titan perhaps. These cards can all be casted by the Corrupted Crossroads.
TIA...
3 Corrupted Crossroads
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Powerplant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Wastes
2 Eldrazi Obligator
1 Endbringer
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Dismember
4 Expedition Map
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Karn Liberated
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Kozilek's Return
1 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spatial Contortion
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Warping Wail
In addition to that, it stops Planeswalkers Ultimate or against PW relevant ability when needed...
I'm just not too sure if it stops Ulamog/ Emrakul "When you cast" effect as well, but I'm sure it stops TKS, Vendilion Clique, Primeval Titan, Archbound Ravager (Sac Activation), Kitchen Finks and of course fetch lands...
I think it is not so good for a Stifle card to be at 3cost, but the upside proactive turn into a 3/1 flyer or draw a card while stifling is sweet...
A card like this may be worth a try...
Peace...
I just thought that since we lose to some combo decks and Robots, maybe we could nab some games where it would feel like the deck is somewhat on legacy level when doing that very early TKS & Chalice...
It just feels good when you play a somewhat like "Force of Will" effect in SSG... Especially for Dismember...
This deck solves the late game no hand problem with Sea Gate Wreckage & Endbringers if ever it comes to that...
Plus, was thinking about splashing red for By Force since those Robots are a problem... Crumble to Dust against other Tron decks & Valakut...
I know people don't like it, but I guess it's worth a shot for further innovation... I don't see a lot of Eldrazi Tron winning lately... Maybe it's time to evolve...
Peace...
It might also be a redundancy to Eldrazi Temple in early games... Also good putting them together to cast TKS turn 2...
Plus, there's a possibility of splashing red for Artifact Destruction cards from the sideboard...
Any thoughts? TIA...
I know that you know better when it comes to real tourneys and I agree that the bigger portion of the Grixis DS decks will be Shudown... But, it also shut's us down of the cards that matters: Relic of Progenitus & Expedition Map... It occurs that I am stuck with them when the games go longer with CoTV on play.. I board in Surgical as well for these decks since the Threat Density of the Grix DS deck is so low & Killable... Surgical is hit here as well... Surgical acts as a Pseudo counter to Snaps... During the times I had CoTV, I always set it up for 2 against Terminates, 3 against Kolaghan's Command, but Engineered Explosives just kills them... Spellskites are sometimes better, because it takes the Terminate & Kolaghan's Command as well... Skites were as effective as CoTV in this MU...
I know that while we badly need CoTV against Living End & Storm, I don't see them quite too often now a days... If they come up, I'd still want the CoTV @3 pcs maybe on the sideboard...
Grixis and Burn are the other 2 decks I've played a lot... So probably I know how to go against them... I never needed CoTV against these decks... You were right about the TKS against Burn, it is really devastating... Adding up Basilisk Collar + Wurmcoil Engine could easily extend the TKS... I still threw in some Skites as I really see it being a solution for not having CoTV against these MUs...
In going against Grixis DS, I always cut GQ's for they never really worked... It would look like you have little lands @21... But having access to Exped Maps + Mind Stone makes it a lot easier... What happens is that it overrides the entire Grixis deck... Meaning, they could only have access to so much Card Advantage against a lot of your cards... Trust me, CoTV always comes out in this MU but still I win a ton against Grixis DS...
Lastly, Stony Silence is a big deal for this deck, especially if they were paired with Blood Moons (Sun & Moon)/ Fulminator (Abzan/ Jund)/ GQ, Tec Edge & Spreading Seas (UW)... Just sharing my initial tests against these types of decks...
Not so Gud... An expensive Bojuka Bog in testing against grave decks... Killing the grave at instant speed, 3 mana total to tap, does not happen quite too often against Dredge and Grixis...
Will be using it in a medium-sized event in paper this Weekend...
Did test it by comparing the sideboarding plan made by MagicMurph, it went to show that CoTV has been sided out a lot... Ulamog and Ugin are great addition to the deck...
Hope to get some insights... TIA...
This looks like another great solution to Affinity... Looks like a Prison Orb of some sort... I'll try this card out as well... Thanks...
Oblivion Stone is a kill card + card advantage... I'll try testing with that... Thanks...
It just feels like it is so hard to defend against Affinity (esp. on the draw) without having a way to achieve Card Advantage while doing so...
Setting up Walking Ballista/ Endbringer with Collar & Batterskull with any creature is just so tough having only 1-ofs of each of them...
I can see now that Spatial Contortion is more beneficial to this MU, but not in any other Tier 1 decks... These are the 2 cards I'm thinking about sideboarding against Affinity (Spellskite or Spatial Contortion)...
Anyway, I'll try the Spatial Contortion then... I believe I have to give up some grave hate for these...
Lastly, is there a chance to use Miren, the Moaning Well or Tomb of the Spirit Dragon for gain life? There are times we see Expedition Maps against aggressive decks as a top deck with totally nothing to fetch with as a solution...
Again, TIA...
I believe that it might be the missing link of having a sideboard for both Affinity & Grixis DS...
Tried Spellskite against Grixis DS, it is so effective. It nullifies the Kolaghan's Command split destruction when resolved and eats up Terminate to clear the way for other Eldrazis...
Haven't tested a lot yet with Affinity, but it seems that the Modular Ability from Archbound Ravager becomes a threat later on... Spellskite can suck the counters to it...
I know most of you are very well experienced with this deck, can someone provide any insights regarding this? Spatial Contortion looks promising as well...
Thanks in Advance...