Another thought as I sift through the panicked moans of the masses. I think I am going to run Sacred Grounds in my sideboard now. It's less about what happened at Regionals (even though it would have been great in that instance) and more about how people are going to combat the colorless Eldrazi deck. Crumble to Dust is too slow for that so folks are going to be leaning harder on Ghost Quarter, Fulminators and other land destruction effects. I think I might try and put in the sideboard and test it out some more.
Edit: I am also think of running a Batterskull? Folks don't bring in a ton of artifact hate in against us. This could be another resilient threat that acts double to help us clock with Lingering Souls or any other creature lategame. Would give us another 1x MB lifegain tool.
Ok guys here is my report for SCG Regionals Seattle. We had 352 people. It was a large and exhausting tournament. I'll pause between each round with a bit of thoughts I had during the tournament. I am doing this on monday so the specifics for each game will be a bit fuzzier but I'll make sure to hit the highlights. After the whole report I'll give some comments about how the deck felt over the entire day, the reception I got playing it, my thought process behind the outcome, the PT top 8 and the Eye of Ugin ban discussion and hypotheticals of this deck post ban.
Pre-tournament thoughts: I know the typical thing is to want to win it all so this may come off as a non-sequitur but I REALLY wanted to get a healthy lead in the win column. I was expecting a lot of aggro matchups to make it out of the first couple rounds and then in the middle rounds for a few midrange/GBx decks to be in the top couple tables. I felt like if I could win early and start off 3-0 or 4-0 (something like that) I'd be set up pretty well to face good matchups. On the flip side of that, I feared dropping a couple early and getting paired against lots of GR Tron and Burn (which I expected to get hated to the back end of the room), not to mention all the random brews people were bringing (there was quite a few random things I heard and saw on the day.. all towards the back of the room).
Round 1 Naya Company (1-2) [0-1]:
I don't remember a ton about this game other than the fact that game 1 he Coco'd in response to me swinging with Souls tokens and found 2x Knight of the reliquary to make 3 onboard and I couldn't find enough answers to them or Kessig Wolf's Run. Game 2 I exiled his gy into a flaying tendrils sweep of 2 Knights, a goyf and a voice. I won pretty handedly after that on the back of Sorin, Solemn Visitor. Game 3 came down to turns. I set up a board for lethal damage (hit him down to 4 with a reality Smasher in play, 1 in hand, 4 Lingering Souls tokens and Blight Herder with 3 friends.). I did the math on his draws and he had only 1 out.. Bolt. He had just enough mana to knock me down to 1 with a kessig wolf's run but it'd leave him tapped out and lethal to crackback. He draws his card, moves to attacks. I block leaving back a souls token (he'd leave back both of his knights but would still die to lethal because of the 2nd Reality Smasher in hand). He starts to go through the motions to pump Wolf's Run. He knows he needs more than just the trample (he had 5 lands in total because of Knights sacing his land all game). He taps both knights trying to go for the kill (I had already done the math and knew he'd be 1 short. He got a Stomping grounds (taking the shock down to 2) and a Fetch. He then cracks the fetch (he didn't need to, I had Urborg out but he forgot) and flips through his library and starts to look panicked.. I was like.. holy hell I'm going to win this thing. He fails to find. He then uses the red and reveals a bolt in hand.. I was like... what the ****. Totally slow rolled me on that. He had enough guys onboard to swing out, give trample and then bolt to get the win. No need to give me false hope :-(. Oh well variance and a great topdeck when I had lethal on the crackback.
Post-match thoughts: First of all, this is a deck we are GOING to be seeing more of. This particular individual ended at 3-3 drop but there was another similar list running around near the top 8 all day. Kessig Wolf's Run is a monster of a card and very hard for us to deal with. It lets them trade up with our guys while trampling over. Luckily most lists run it as a singleton so just be sure you save a GQ for it. I gotta take a look at their list and count their basics. They tend to rifle through them very very quickly. This is a matchup where Oblivion Sower is just straight up dumb lategame. You can snatch like 10-15 lands if you've kept up the GY exile shenanigans all game (including their own GQ's to let you hit their important lands). These were fun interactive games and a fun grindy match. Losing to a top decked bolt when you are presenting lethal is just the way Magic goes sometimes. Because of the round 1 loss though my back felt against the wall for most of the day and because of my pre-tournament thoughts on how the matchups might go, I was nervous.
Round 2 Jeskai Control (2-0) [1-1]:
Out of 352 people, I ran into my buddy. I felt really bad about this. Not much to really say about this matchup because he had some pretty bad draws and mine were average. Quickly stomped him in 2 games and that was that.
Post-match thoughts: Being back to 1-1 was nice but I still felt behind the 8 ball. Besides that I felt bad for knocking my friend down to 0-2. He hung in there through the day though and would end up at 6-3 but just out of top 32 because of awful tiebreakers.
Round 3 Boros Burn (2-0) [2-1]:
This game was pretty simple, I won the roll and game 1. Leyline of Sanctity came out in game 2 and he couldn't find a way to remove it. After I dealt with his early creatures, I started in with fatties. He was unable to kill them efficiently, eventually ditching his entire hand to kill a Reality Smasher. I then played another and killed him.
Post-match thoughts: Woot back to the winning record. No time to celebrate just yet but I was feeling a bit better. Leyline definitely pulled it's weight in the match and I was really happy I included them in my sideboard. Because I had time to wander around I found folks I recognized from local FNMs and asked them how their day was going, what they were on, etc. A lot of them (and I mean a staggering number) were 0-3. Almost every Infect player I spoke to was 0-3 or 1-2... Apparently it was just getting housed (some variance due to the nature of the deck) and some just getting hated out (via spot removal galore).
Round 4 4 Color Control (Superfriends?) (2-0) [3-1]:
The magic gods felt it just to gift me 2 games of magic against this brew. I had no idea what he was on game 1 other than the fact he mulled to 5 and I curved out to murder him (I did know he was some type of control). Game 2 he mulliganed to 5 again and my 7 was one of the most evil things I have ever done against someone on a mull to 5. 2x TKS, 2x Inquisition, 1x Temple, 1x Cave of Koilos, 1x Godless Shrine. So in addition to him being at 5 cards, I destroyed his hand T1-T4. He did find some answers and started to stabilize (got a New Gideon out when I was left with just a strangler post board wipe). He was at 9 and I had double path in hand (he was topdecking). I knew I couldn't kill him so I path'd the token and swung at gideon (knocking him to 1). He now had 2 options. Plus gideon and I path it or 0 gideon, I path the token and then kill gideon on the swing. He opted to + him and I closed the game out from there. I did surgical the guy's list (hit an early Sphinx Rev with Inquisition (he totally forgot it was CMC 3) and it's not a bad option to get rid of vs control anyway (plus I needed to know his outs). His list was essentially typical control cards, Ajani Vengeant, New Gideon and Flip Jace. It was an interesting list and I wish I could have seen more how it actually played rather than just house him on 2 mull to 5's.
Post-match thoughts: I felt like this variance was a gift to make up for round 1. I'll take it anyway I can get it and now I am starting to build a little bit of a better lead. Got to keep the hammer down though.
Round 5 Jund (2-0) [4-1]:
I was pretty happy so far. I had wandered around the top half tables a bit after my quick win and had seen several of these Jund decks up there. My theory (outside of infect) was proving true so far. I was now rewarded with a good matchup had good enough draws to bend him over a barrel. Game 1 was typical, let me rip your hand apart while I out value you. Lingering Souls was a house. Game 2 I won on the back of Leyline of Sanctity and Sorin, Solemn Visitor. I had a pretty land shy hand (only 2) but a Leyline of Sanctity and some early interaction if he played some dudes. He did drop a liliana turn 3 but my early creature removal stalled the game out long enough that I eventually got Sorin to ult and he was pretty DOA from there. He got his Liliana of the Veil up to 15 which was pretty impressive but his inability to ultimate and force me to sacrifice cost him the game. He also drew into a bunch of discard spells. I did ask him if he was expecting Leyline and he stated he hadn't seen or played against a list that ran it so he assumed Liliana was a safe thing to keep in the MB. Despite being a little salty about losing like that, he did concede that I had outwitted him in the SB game and regardless of it being a bad matchup for him, totally earned that win before I even sat down at the table.
Post-match thoughts: Woot 4-1 baby! My dreams were alive and well. I just came off a good matchup and was exactly where I wanted to be. My only loss was to a top decked bolt as well. With half the day gone, I don't think the first half could have played out much better overall. The new colorless aggro deck was making an appearance at the top tables (only a couple in the room) and a local kid from my FNM was undefeated on Burn (he ended up going undefeated on the night. He is utterly convinced Burn is too strong and has about a 50/50 matchup or better on the field and thinks Goblin Guide should be banned. I don't know about that but his results do speak a bit.
Round 6 Jeskai Tempo (1-2) [4-2]:
Do you guys remember the Jeskai Tempo player I played a couple weeks ago at FNM in route to a 4-0? The guy I mentioned with Delver, Stormchaser into Mantis Rider? Well this was that guy and that deck. We greeted each other and both knew it would be a tight match (I beat him in 3 last time). I took game 1 pretty handidly on the back of TKS, Lingering Souls and Sorin. The next two games I lost because he drew kinda crazy. Game 2 he found 3 Mantis Riders in a row while I bricked on lands and then Game 3 he found one right when he needed to and while I had 2 turns to find an out (of which I had all of them, hadn't drawn any Path's, Celestial Purge, Lingering Souls or Wasteland Strangler all game) and I drew 2 relics (cracking them to find 2 lands). What a bad series of draws. Oh well, chalk another up to variance, a good deck, an experience pilot and I can tolerate the loss. This guy made top 8 by the way.. We need to be wary of this deck. It's crazy amount of X/3's with flying and haste really puts us in a bind because none of our current board clears help. Another thing to note that he changed coming into today. He was no longer running Negate and was instead running Disdainful Stroke, while he never caught me napping on it (because I yanked it from his hand). I did have to play a little bit more cautiously than I normally would. Anyway, if for some reason he reads this, congrats to him on making top 8.
Post-match thoughts: Well it sucks to drop a game but I felt like my tiebreakers were pretty good (I kept talking to most of my previous matchups to see how they were doing). My top 8 dreams were dead in the water but I was far from out of prizes all together. Bost losses were due to a bad brand of variance and I I just needed
Round 7 Gruul Pump Frogs (I think that's the deck name) (2-1) [5-2]:
This is the deck that runs like Gruul Zoo opting to use Burning-tree Emissary, New Bushwacker, Atarka Command and Ghor-clan Rampager to pump their dudes enough to lethal their opponent quickly. I lost game 1 pretty quicking on a mull to 5. I had to mull to 5 again game 2 but pulled it out my but to win and then mulled to 6 game 3 but had enough answers to stall and win. Flaying Tendrils did wonders in this matchup against the bulk of their X/2's (he was forced to use an Atarka Command to bolt and pump his dudes. This left him with not enough damage to kill me on board (he wouldn't have with Atarka's command but it would have been close). I was able to cast Timely Reinforcements followed by a Blight Herder. The following turn I topdecked a Sorin and the + just killed him.
Post-match thoughts: Still a bit bummed about being out of top 8 contention but liked my tiebreakers so far. When they posted standings, I was at 24 overall. If I win the next round I lock a top 32 spot based on tiebreakers alone and set myself up to win and be top 16. I was pretty stoked with where I was at as this was my first major tournament. My friends wished me the best of luck as I headed to my match (only 2 of the 6 of us that came together were still fighting for prizes, the Jeskai Control player I beat earlier who was 5-2 as well and myself).
Round 8 Jund (?-?) [?-?]
I am leaving this spoiler free for those who want to feel as I felt while playing this match. First off I sit down, he is a bit standoffish as he discovers he was paired down as an X/1 (which reaffirms my belief that my tiebreakers are good). I keep an average hand but with Ulamog in it. I immediately see he is on Jund and get excited (fell right into my train of thought on how the tournament would go). 1 good matchup left and I am playing for top 16 and a bit of self-affirmation that my play and deck building strategy is legit (I was the only BW Eldrazi player in it this late and I think there were only 2 of us at the event). Game 1 I interact with back to back Bobs Turns 1 and 2 (I had Path and Warping Wail). Turn 3 I play a TKS. Turn 4 I play Blight Herder and count my open mana in my head. I had exactly 8 with an Eye of Ugin in play if he doesn't remove the scions. He doesn't remove them and I cast Ulamog. He sees his draw and then scoops (don't know what he was expecting to find as I think he has no MB answer to Newlamog). Woof great game 1. Just got to take 1 more. Game 2 I have a keepable ish hand. I have 2 TKS with an Temple and an Eye. I proceed to draw no lands over the 10-11 turns it took him to stick a threat and kill me. That had me a bit on tilt because if I had found 1 more I had gas for days in hand. My opponent then proceeds to ask me if I would concede the match since he still has a chance to make top 8. I tell him there is no way I was going to do that when I still had a chance to play for top 16. Game 3, I have a very keepable hand with a Leyline. Plenty of gas and mana to get there. It's a tad slower but has a path and celestial Purge. Things appear to be going normally until Turn 3 when he played a Fulminator Mage and destroyed my Cave of Koils. In response I destroy it and go get my basic plains (so I could still have path (which I drew another of) and Celestial Purge open. I draw an Urborg and play it. But have to pass the turn (I have a TKS in hand so I just need to get to 1 more mana). He plays a 2nd Fulminator mage on turn 4 and blows up the urborg. Ug.. ok. I draw a Cave of Koilos and play it, passing the turn back. He plays a 3rd Fulminator mage blowing up the new Koilos. (seriously, I am about full tilt now). I proceed to draw next to no lands for the rest of the game. I did find an Eye which let me play the TKS and rip K.Command from his hand but he had very little gas aside from that. He eventually starts cracking in with Raging Ravine hitting me with it twice by the time I get to mana. I then cast Blight Herder into Reality Smasher and hit him down to 9. I had another smasher in hand so I wanted to give the option to crack back for lethal on the following turn. I was at 8 so I felt pretty safe overall but knew the risk of sacrificing the 3 scions instead of using them as blockers. If he found a way (like a blocker) to take lethal off the board, I had Lingering Souls that I could flash back as well to give me chump blockers. He animates his Raging Ravine and swings. Before blocks he casts Jund Charm to place 2 counters on the ravine putting it at 8 and then terminates my Blight herder... I lose. Seriously... what a ****ed up way to get knocked to x/3. I was totally tilted about how that went (I still congratulated my opponent and was cordial because I am not a poor sport but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to put my fist through a wall.)
Post-game thoughts: I was absolutely pissed. Variance had decided to rear it's ugly head as he revealed his hand. Even if I had not sacrificed the Scions, he uses Jund Charm to clear them away and terminates the wall to bring me down to 2. He had 2 copies of Maelstrom pulse in hand so even if I played both Reality Smashers the next turn, I wouldn't have lethal so I'd have to leave 1 or both of them back in order to not die the following turn. I'd also be low enough for him to topdeck a bolt, pulse the Leyline and then kill me. I still can't believe he was able to pull triple fulminator mage on me. Thinking back on it, I shouldn't have been a nice guy about just turning down his offer to have me concede. I should have just called a judge who might have issued him a game loss and it would have been over. I don't like being "that guy" but after how game 3 went... man maybe I just should have. Who knows. I still had a chance to play a win and in for top 32 since I was almost guaranteed to be at or in the top of the x/3's.
Round 9 Bring to Light Scapeshift (1-2) [5-4]
This was just my luck. I go from a good matchup with the chance to play for a top 16 slot, to a bad matchup on a win and in for top 32. These games went like typical scapeshift games except that he totally threw game 2. I had clock onboard and was sitting behind a leyline. I had just cast a blight herder (processing a cryptic) and then surgically extracted all of his cryptics. He had 1 Maelstrom Pulse in his deck but a BTL and Scapeshift in hand. He was on a 2 Turn clock and could easily BTL for Pulse, hit my leyline and then cast scapeshift on his final turn to lethal me. Instead he durdled by getting more lands and then casting Bring to Light for Pia and Kia Nalaar on his final turn which I removed with 2 Paths. I mulliganed to 5 game 3 and had 3 awful hands. The last one could have been fine if I drew into discard (had 2 surgicals. Instead I bricked on all my draws and he combo killed me.
Post-SCG Regionals thoughts:
Man did I get shafted by luck on the back end of the day. I am happy I ended above .500 which would have been fine by me for my first major event like this, had I not gotten shafted so hard by luck in those last 2 rounds to get me booted from prizes. All in all the decklist did wonders. Flaying Tendrils came up in a couple matchups but we definitely need a way to kill X/3's or greater who are 3 CMC. Mantis Rider and Knight of the Reliquary are going to be common going forward I think and we need better answer than Flaying Tendrils to them. I still don't think Damnation is the answer because of how slow it is to the aggro matchups but that is my first impression. I am probably going to keep brewing but dodge tournaments this week and next just to clear my head after those closing rounds. I still definitely think this deck will find a place in the meta at the end of the day because I faired fairly well against most of the field and my losses were due to some very bad draws/good ones from my opponents. You can only do so much sometimes.
Thoughts on PT Top 8:
I think there is a ton of panic surrounding Eye of Ugin right now. I think some of it is justified but some of it isnt. People need to remember that the PT is a very inbred meta. Most folks were expecting every aggro deck to die to a Lightning Bolt. This made the Colorless Eldrazi deck and UR Eldrazi (still think that is a pile of jank and nowhere near as good as our's) great Meta decisions. I think they are going to be easier to hate out than we are as they are more susceptible to land destruction/BM effects plus answers like Disdainful Stroke. Imagine us playing against them. If you force them to discard Reality Smasher and then Surgical Extraction it, they are left with 1 actual major threat. Mimics on T1 (more than 1) is really magical christmas. It's a good deck, don't get me wrong but I think people who are expecting it will find an answer. The main thing that I think people are overlooking (that makes the deck really dumb) is SSG so they can play Chalice on turn 1 as well as cast their Reality Smashers on Turn 2. This card was a problem in Bloom Titan already when it enabled T1 and T2 kills. Just my thoughts on it anyway.
Eye of Ugin Banning:
I think it's way too early to snap and ban Eye. If it's still not answered by SOI and they DO decide to ban it, it's not the end of the world for this deck. Things I cut because of the ban (based off my list because everyone's is different):
1x Oblivion Sower
2x Eye of Ugin
1x Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
From there we add:
3x Sea-gate Wreckage
1x Reality Smasher
and I probably adjust the mana base to have some number of fetch lands back in the mix.
Sea-gate Wreckage gives us late game card draw so we can keep finding threats (part of the reason we use Eye of Ugin).
The deck won't be as good as it is now for sure but I think we would settle in as a tier 2 midrange deck with little hope of increasing from there. The other option would be to add late game threats like Batterskull or Wurmcoil Engine since we care less about Eldrazi specific mana reduction at that point.
The main thing about banning Eye is we'd all have to ask ourselves if we are better than Junk. We are certainly cheaper but I don't know if we are better at that point. We are definitely a boogyman right now. It certainly doesn't help that the aggro variant did so well. I already see people wonder when I don't kill them T4 and I have to explain to them that our version isn't the aggro variant. Gonna have to keep our heads down a bit over the next month or so and hope the meta can adjust. I really wish I could see who won my Regionals Top 8 because it was pretty diverse all things considered. Of the decks I saw close to the top 8 going into the final round. 1 GR Tron running Life from the Loam (no idea if it was SB or MB but it was saucy as hell. Watching his opponent GQ 3 of his Towers as he delayed casting it from hand only to reveal that he had it was just brutal to watch. There was the Burn player I know and the Jeskai Tempo player I lost to. I have no idea how the Jund player who beat me had faired but I think his tiebreakers were bad enough to keep him out of top 8 (which makes me even saltier). There was a Colorless Aggro deck up there for a while but I didn't see it towards the end. There was a Naya Company player as well at those tables for most of the day as well as an Affinity player. All in all the meta was pretty diverse towards the top (albeit varying shades of aggro for the most part, still lots of interactivity). Anyway those are just my thoughts and my experience throughout the day. I think I was easily one of the best 16 decks/players in the room on the day but just hit a god awful string of events towards the end (to be fair there were other folks who had bad luck and days as well. One of my friends is a Jund player who is very experienced and he went 0-3 drop. Sometimes things just don't break your way I guess). Anyway, the most depressing thing coming out of this weekend is the ban talks. I hope we at least get a year to play with our new toy but people love to fearmonger.
Is it me, or are the Eldrazi deck at the Pro Tour really lackluster?
Would've expected something sweeter from "the pros", but the decks on this site seem more powerful and interesting...
It's not just you. The colorless Eldrazi deck is spiffy and good in the PT meta but it would get wrecked by Midrange and Control. The UR list we just saw made me scratch my head because he would be far better off playing a Bx variant based on what I see of his draws and plays.
I have to disagree with you on your last point here. I am running a 4x Herder, 3x Reality Smasher, 1x Oblivion Sower and 1x Ulamog. I respectfully disagree that we don't need the top end. There will be long grindy games where you simply win because you are either topdecking gas or you get enough lands to turn on Eye of Ugin and they just can't answer Ulamog. Even in games where they CAN answer him, he 2 for 1's and you can still keep searching up threats every turn. This is also where I've needed multiple Reality Smashers. I ran into quite a few games where they'd kill the first 2 and I wanted 1 more. The haste and trample is extremely relevant at times where 4/5 with 3 1/1 upside just isn't. Bear in mind that on an empty board, Reality Smasher does 10 damage by the time Blight Herder does 7.
It's just a play style choice. I'm willing to give up almost all of the late game inevitability just to play more cheap reactive cards so that I don't die early on; Blight Herder and TKS beats are how I get most of my wins, typically. Like I keep saying, I'm playing the deck because I think it's the best midrange deck, and I've found that calibrating the threat density, especially at the top end, to match that of BGx is approximately right, and they typically play 4 Goyfs and a couple flex cards as primary threats, so that's what I'm doing (4 Herders and a couple "flex Smashers"). I don't think it's right or wrong the way you're doing it, just different.
The difference is that you sacrifice 1 card slot to run late game inevitability in Ulamog. That is TOTALLY worth the slot. GBx would do it if they could as well. Junk is closer to what we resemble and they tend to run 4x Goyf and 3 Siege Rhinos. Blight Herder is our Goyf and Smasher is our Rhino.
this is the one game where running only 8 white sources hurt me but the deck has ran really smoothly most of the time so whatever.
You could cut one of your 2x basic Swamps for a 4th Godless Shrine.
The reason why I don't want to do this is because I want to have access to Flaying Tendrils if needed. After an early path and GQ I'd like to still have BB as the only WW source in my SB now is Leyline which is either free or a late game draw. I don't think I need another white source (I'm actually up to 9... forgot I cut an Urborg for a Godless Shrine). I just gotta take the downside every so often. Typically I get a Cave of Koilos and I am set for the entire game on every mana type.
Wer you happy with 1 Disenchant and 2 rachet bombs?
I still think I might go to a 2 Disenchant, 1 Ratchet Bomb ratio but I will say that Ratchet Bomb has been good for me. I love dropping it and not having to worry about keeping mana open to activate it. My only issue is against affinity it's a little wombo with Stoney Silence.
Went to a little 5-rounder last night just to try out a few exotic choices. Beat Storm, Elves, UW control (?!), lost to Burn and Tron, so no surprises there. Observations:
- My goodness, is Eldrazi Displacer bad. Basically was wishing it was anything else every time I drew it.
- What to play in the Displacer slot? In my version of the deck that eschews all the top end, I think Liliana of the Veil may be a consideration again, since once you get to 5, you're actually pretty OK throwing away lands. Activating Eye is just not that important here. I think I was wrong about this a few pages go. 1 would be a nice high-impact singleton, probably can't run more than 2 at most, and even that's probably also a bad idea just because BB is so hard.
- Still not feeling like I want more than 2 Reality Smasher, except maybe against Tron, but even then it could be a trap because Herder closes out nearly as fast (5+5+5 is very close to 7+7).
I have to disagree with you on your last point here. I am running a 4x Herder, 3x Reality Smasher, 1x Oblivion Sower and 1x Ulamog. I respectfully disagree that we don't need the top end. There will be long grindy games where you simply win because you are either topdecking gas or you get enough lands to turn on Eye of Ugin and they just can't answer Ulamog. Even in games where they CAN answer him, he 2 for 1's and you can still keep searching up threats every turn. This is also where I've needed multiple Reality Smashers. I ran into quite a few games where they'd kill the first 2 and I wanted 1 more. The haste and trample is extremely relevant at times where 4/5 with 3 1/1 upside just isn't. Bear in mind that on an empty board, Reality Smasher does 10 damage by the time Blight Herder does 7.
Round 1 Storm (2-1) [1-0]:
Game 1 he had a very slow hand that I ripped with a little bit with early discard and got in with Reality Smashers to close out the game. Game 2 I had a T0 Leyline and pulled a Blood Moon out of his hand with a T2 TKS (Lead with Temple->Map without another Temple or Eye in hand. Topdecked Eye for T2... I mentioned yesterday about setting your future draws up with your land drops. Paid off again.) Hindsight I could have take Pyromancers Ascension but oh well. I had him facing lethal onboard so he attempted to combo off. Took him 12 minutes but eventually he got to an Empty the Warrens with 18 Storm count. I didn't topdeck an answer so gg. Yay Storm... Game 3 I ripped his hand apart twice, this time letting him Blood Moon but taking 2 Pyromancers Ascension. The key difference is I had Relic this game so if he tried to cast Past in Flames, I'd crack the relic and it'd be gg anyway. He blanked and I won.
Round 2 Esper Control (2-1) [2-0]:
This is one of my good friends and he is very angry at the BW Eldrazi deck and insists Eye of Ugin will be banned when SOI gets released. Besides not listening to reason, here is how the matchup went. Game 1 I came out of the game swinging extremely hard and destroyed him. I did over extend towards the end but I wasn't punished for it (thankfully). Realized as soon as I did it that it was likely a mistake (It was turn 5 and I played a second reality Smasher. Second mainphase (I knew he had a cryptic in hand so I let him tap down my team and draw vs counter and tap them down). I should have just held onto Smasher because he was at 5 and if he casts Verdict, I then reality smasher and kill him. Didn't hurt me in the end so whatever. Game 2 I had some pretty bad draws. I got him down to 4 life but he topdecked a Sphinx Rev. This hurt because his only "out" onboard was to block one of the 3 scion tokens I had with his Shambling Vent. I then Sac the blocked token and the 2 remaining Scions and 2 spirits I have kill him. Instead he gained 6 and then took 5. He then cast a verdict. I was in topdeck mode so during my draw step he Esper Charmed me forcing me to discard my draw (it was a path). He then untapped and cast Bribery for my Newlamog (I scooped before he searched my library, so I assume that's what he grabs). I did the math and essentially I had to hope that I could topdeck a Path, hope he doesn't have a counter (still had 4 mana open and had just Sphinx Rev so it was likely). If I didn't have a path, I could take 1 swing and then hope to draw a Reality Smasher (still hope he doesn't have a counter) and crack in for lethal. The odds were way too low for me to draw out of it and I wanted to save time for game 3 in case it went long. Game 3 I grinded him out of things in hand. My sideboarded Celestial Purge came up big on an Ashiok. He did get a Runed Halo on Reality Smasher which stranded 2 in my hand. I still got through for enough pressure and damage to take care of business though. Key play in this game was I used Surgical Extraction on Supreme Verdict removing all 4 he had. This allowed me to go wide and not worry about a sweeper. I didn't put in Leyline of Sanctity for this match but I wonder if I should have. He doesn't run discard but it blanks Esper Charm (other than him blowing up Leyline himself), Bribery, and Ashiok. I think it could still be pretty relevant. This also makes me think it's relevant for the Jeskai control matchup as well because Bolts can't go at my face and if they have a resolved Keranos on an empty board. They have to bolt themselves on Keranos trigger. (or flash in a creature to get bolted.. either way, profit for us). Interesting thoughts.
Round 3 Infect (2-1) [3-0]:
Game 1 We both had extremely awful draws all things considered but I eventually drew into Lingering Souls and that bought me enough time to win. Game 2 I drew really really poorly. He drew a pretty slow hand overall but since I had to GQ my own Urborg for a Plains so I could Path his thing. The main issue was he got 3 Inkmoth Nexus out.. ug. Whatever this is the one game where running only 8 white sources hurt me but the deck has ran really smoothly most of the time so whatever. Game 3 I had a terrible 7. so as I was mulling to 6, one of the best players in the area that I know personally (plays a lot of Jund) and I were talking about how whenever he watches the deck it seems to have bad draws and awful mulligans. I joked that maybe he shouldn't watch Eldrazi players anymore because it was likely his fault. I then drew my 6... man what a 6. 2x Path to Exile 1x Warping Wail, 1x Cave of Kolios, 1x Eldrazi Temple, 1x Urborg... No actual gas but I could kill the first 3 Creatures he played. I drew into TKS and Lingering souls and pretty much won the game from there.
Round 4 Temur Delver (2-0) [4-0]:
Admittedly he had slowish draws but I really took this guy to the woodshed. I ripped his hand apart with discard and TKS. Blight Herder closed out game 1 and Reality Smasher x2 closed out game 2. Game 2 was especially unique because while I wasn't having the greatest draws, I did have a relic in play to keep his GY from being flash backed and I had a Ratchet Bomb on 0. Because of this he was beating me in the face with an unflipped Delver and Snapcaster. He was trying NOT to flip Delver so I couldn't just crack bomb and kill it. This bought me enough time to resolve a lingering Souls w/ flashback on 5 lands and then double Reality Smasher for 6 lands (Eye and Urborg in play... for a 2:1 they come up a lot.. to be fair I did map). he didn't have an answer so he scooped. He said he beat another BW Eldrazi list round 1 and felt pretty good about the matchup overall. Unfortunately, I don't know that guys list though. If it was the guy I faced last thursday, his sideboard was severely deficient in my mind and maybe he just got bad draws or kept bad hands.
Welp.... That is another 4-0. I am now 17-3 over my last 5 tournaments and have won $210 over in store credit over that span (which for me dates back to last Thursday). I think my list is set for Regionals and I am very confident going in. Things in my area have shifted (as expected) to Infect, Affinity, Jund and other various aggro decks with Burn and Tron taking back seats as they get hated out. I think if I can win my first several rounds on Saturday, I might be in a very good position to take advantage of the meta. On the downside, I fear that if I drop a couple early.. I might shift to the hostile back end of the room where Burn and Tron players will reside. I have one more tournament tonight to test out the Leylines (they only came in once tonight against Storm and duress would have been better on the night overall but I still won without duress so I think they stay in for now). Happy Friday yall!
What kind of removal suite should I be running? Currently, I have 4 PtE's, 1 Dismember, and 1 Warping Wail. Should I go with Go for the Throat over Warping Wail mainboard, and is 6 removal spells MB enough?
I've personally liked Warping Wail enough that I'm never moving off it. It hits enough things early game, exiles instead of kills and doesn't become dead late game.
Hi to everyone! I'm playing a mono b list that is doing really were for me; in the past I played the bw version and I'm still reading this thread. Working on the deck, I've built a very similar list to exatraz's list, without the white spells obviously and with a different mana base. Anyway, my creatures list is the same of the exatraz list except for one more sower.
I know that I'm not playing the bw versions, but because my list play the 95% of cards of the bw list I wanted to share with you my impression on some of them, I hope you will appreciate.
Here my opinion on some cards:
- 3 copies of thought knot are perfect. I think that 4 are too much, it's not so good in late game
- warping wail is a perfect card against affinity, also very good against burn and scapeshift( counter lava spike and scapeshift, exile swiftspear ). In the matchup where it doesn't shine it still can ramp, create a chump blocker or give colorless mana in extreme situations
- reality smasher is really smashing. It's a finisher, and a real clock but not game ending; anyway I'm playing 3 of it and I'm loving it, it also is very good to destroy the oppo's liliana
- I really like 2 expedition map to get out utility lands like gq, or other lands in my list. They have helped me in so many situations
- I like the 2 sower. In certain matches they alone can get eyes online, and then you can start tutoring your best eldrazi for every situation. I also really like them against affinity to get their lands, but to me are more useful because I don't play lingering souls
- I'm playing one board sweeper in mb ( languish ) , and 2 others in side ( languish, all is dust )
- I won't go under the 25 lands, I've tested 24 lands and I didn't do well
- I think it's hard to play ulamog without having sowers. In fact, I don't remember at the moment situations where I played it not following a sower, maybe only one or two times playing herder and the turn after sacking the tokens to have manas, but you need the perfect manabase to cast it in this way. I'm not sure if is it fine to play it without sowers, but I didn't test a version without it; I really like sower, for its ability and even for its huge body
At the moment I'm winning against merfolks, even if I think is a 50-50 matchup, maybe 55-45 for us post board, and also against affinity so I think that a build similar to the one of exatraz is the way to go considering that those two decks are not so easy for us to play against
Thanks bro. I think the addition of Path and Lingering Souls is what buys the white version the ability to go to 24 lands. I cast Newlamog all the time without Oblivion Sower. the primary reason for this is that if you can tutor with eye of ugin... you only need 1 more mana to play Newlamog. This means with Urborg in play, you can tutor and play immediately. If you don't have urborg in play, fetch up a Blight Herder. Tap a temple and 1 other random mana source to play it. Now you can sacrifice 2 tokens and still activate eye for newlamog, giving you 1 more token to sacrifice and cast him on your turn. This is also provided you don't have a land in hand already or find one. Without Urborg in play, stealing your opponents fetchlands still does you very little good.
If you find yourself facing Tech Edge and are on 4 lands, 1 being GQ, you can sacrifice Ghost quarter in response to them trying to destroy your land. Upon resolution of the ability you will only have 3 lands and Tech Edge's ability will fizzle essentially making them waste a mana, a land and you were able to GQ one of their lands.
This is wrong. 3/1/2010: Tectonic Edge's second ability checks how many lands an opponent controls only at the time you activate the ability.
This is what I had initially thought until one of my judges told me otherwise.. well ok then. This isn't the first time I've had to correct this judge on a bad ruling he's made. I love the guy but I can't wait til I pass my judge test and can start helping out at my LGS.
This is pretty close to what I'll be running. I've got a couple of slight variance with how my meta has been. Surgical extraction is the flex for either warping wail or doom blade, just haven't made a final test yet with the wail. Eldrazi displacer is pretty fun late fun with it's shenanigans and possiblity to blink creatures.
I feel like my lands aren't as generous though, but don't wanna give up the caverns since I feel that countermagic will be a thing. I've got 12 black mana, 10 white mana, and 12 colorless mana.
So you are opting to go in with 0 Ghost Quarters? That seems like an unnecessary gamble. They hit so many matchups besides just Tron. 9/10 I'm killing manlands with them.
12 creatures might seem lite, but most GBx decks run 13 + this list is packing 4 copies of souls, 2 wail and 1 sorin to generate creatures. & turning on herder on is fairly easy (4 relic, 4 PtE, 2 Wail, 1 Surgical).
I've been really impressed with both Sorin, its not uncommon to curve herder with process trigger into sorin +1 and usually the game is out of reach.
The manabase breaks down to 14 (11 non tapped) & 12 :symw:. I've reduced GQ from 4 to 3 still affording you the ability to draw it naturally by T3 at 43% of the time, while adding vault.
By removing both sowers and upping herder and bringing in Sorin; I've the effective curve has been reduced. As for the sideboard Flaying has been great but ratchet bomb has continually over performed and left me wanting another copy so I made the switch. I still prefer rest for the weary over timely because of instant speed and interacting with a skullcrack on the stack.
I can't imagine going in with only 12 creatures though. That seems way too light for me (bearing in mind that Wasteland Strangler is a pseudo removal spell as well). All in all I think we are on the same lines (though maybe cutting an inquisition for TKS solves both problems of creature count and still gives you a discard style effect).
Here is my list once again.. gonna see if I can pick up some leylines and run them in the sideboard for Regionals.
Just had the realization that the majority of my ratchet bombs are for Artifacts or Enchantments. I think I'm going down to 1 and upping my Disenchants to 2. Again tweaks will happen along the way and I'll have a tournament report tomorrow for tonight's tournament. As I have said before, I am uber comfortable with where my deck is at. It's by no means perfect but my results speak for themselves that I think I have enough versatile answers to answer whatever gets thrown at me. Here is hoping it happens on Saturday.
With Regionals right upon, I was hoping to get a list of tips and tricks for taking the BW Eldrazi to victory and bring forth it into the tier 1 it deserves to be in. So anyone with tips, please feel free to list and contribute to them. I'm just going to list what I've had personal interactions with, but will expand.
When playing against the infinite melira combo or kitchen finks, you can surgical extraction it or break the relic while the persist trigger is on the stack to remove it and stop those shenanigans.
I've dealt with a goyfs by processing a strangler,flaying tendrils, and a surgical extraction. They combo well together to break apart any graveyard synergy creatures.
Wasteland strangler is great at processing rift bolts and lotus blooms.
In the mirror match, I've found reality smasher to be game breaking and the opponent was convinced to add them to his deck. I cannot stress how awesome the smasher is. I love Oblivion sower, but the threat is real.
I've dropped my number of Eye/Urborg/Map to 2/1/2. Land destruction doesn't cripple me as much as they want. The real weakness is the temples. But as long as they think they can remove 4 eyes or urborgs, I'm more than happy to reveal less. It's also a reason I've been playing less full playsets. Makes surical and slaughter games less effective.
Tutoring up bojuka bog is a thing.(or any land for that matter) Totally changed my mind and made me include a couple of maps since we have some decent lands.
One thing I'd say is that remember your processor interactions with ANYTHING in exile. You reminded folks about Suspend cards which is 1 aspect. Remember that you can process spells with Rebound, Imprinted cards on Isochron Scepter and cards put in "hideaway" via windbrisk heights.
Remember that you can respond to Snapcaster targeting a spell in order to exile their yard (or the spell itself) to leave them unable to cast it.
If you find yourself facing Tech Edge and are on 4 lands, 1 being GQ, you can sacrifice Ghost quarter in response to them trying to destroy your land. Upon resolution of the ability you will only have 3 lands and Tech Edge's ability will fizzle essentially making them waste a mana, a land and you were able to GQ one of their lands.
Against goyf decks, keep a note of what cards you have or could have in your graveyard and be sure to process those same card types back into your opponents GY. This will ensure opposing Goyfs are as small as possible. As usual, try and avoid creatures if able due to Scavenging Ooze.
With less and less Oblivion Sowers being ran.. remember to process lands over other gas when able. Before it was advantageous to keep lands in exile so you could abuse Oblivion Sowers ability to it's maximum potential. Now that is far less important (unless you know you are playing a deck that has no GY interaction like Elves)
When in doubt on sideboarding, bring in Surgical Extraction. I remember facing a Naya Company deck on Tuesday. He mulled to 4 game 1 and scooped to my turn 1 TS. I had no idea what he was on so I made sure to bring in my surgical extractions. Once I saw he was on Naya company, I pinpointed a card he would need most to win (at the point I drew Surgical we were at parity on board so in this instance he wanted to draw as many Path to Exiles as possible. By removing this out from his deck, he couldn't answer my abundance of threats and I turned the tides.)
The order in which you drop your lands is EXTREMELY important. You don't want to lead off with Cave of Koilos when you are sitting on a Temple and TKS in hand with no T1 Discard. The reasoning for this is there is a CHANCE you could draw into an Eye or Temple and be able to turn 2 TKS which is a crazy powerful play. Along this same line, the best way to dodge land destruction is to delay dropping important lands until you need them. There is no reason to play Eye of Ugin unless doing so allows you to drop multiple Eldrazi over the next couple turns that you otherwise wouldn't be able to (this is of course assuming you have other lands to play). Example is if T3 you can play another land and cast a Blight Herder but have no other Eldrazi in hand. This protects the Eye in hand as it can't be discarded (unless it's the only card in hand against a Lili deck), Cliqued away or destroyed. I have had some games where I get to 7 mana and can drop eye and tutor on the same turn. Eye is very situationally dependant as to when you play it straight up or when you lag it out. You mainly have to get a feel for it. One of the most notorious lands I do this with in the deck is Vault of the Archangel. If you jam it early, you let your opponent see that you are 1 land away from activation and they might play around this. (Burn in particular might hold up Skullcrack/Atarka Command in game 1). Instead I hold onto it until Turn 5 where I can just drop it, swing and activate. This can catch people off-guard and force them to make bad trades as well as let you gain a lot of life. With Reality Smasher already onboard, it becomes an even bigger blowout because they will need a creature for every 1 point of damage they want to prevent. Vault does you nothing if you can't activate it and if you are making your land drops without it, why tip off your opponent. Subtle interactions like this can make the difference in some games.
If I think of more I'll post them for sure. That land one is something I use a lot and takes a lot of time to get used to. You have to remember what is in your hand and what you could potentially draw that would change your mind on your land drops. If your opponent drops an early GQ and you have a Map in hand... feel free to throw out an eye of ugin and not reveal the map. Let them GQ it, get you ahead in a land and then tutor it up the next turn.
Would you also leave Warping Wail in against Burn, to help counter Lava Spike and Rift Bolt?
Yes but less just because of those. It also kills Swiftspear usually (yeah they can cast a spell to negate it but that requires them leaving mana open and playing around it.. that means they aren't bolting your face or getting to abuse the Prowess trigger.)
No particular reason, I just have more Banishing Lights on hand than I do Onion Rings.
Ah ok. I still like O-ring as a catch all answer but I have never had a Warping Wail stuck in hand. It finds a use eventually. It also counters Bring to Light which can be pretty big (those versions of scapeshift sacrificed a little bit of counter magic (because Twin isn't in the format they expect less counters) for utility. We now get a better chance to counter it before they board sweep or win with scapeshift. You gotta read the situation though and know what they are getting since Supreme Verdict can't be countered.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Edit: I am also think of running a Batterskull? Folks don't bring in a ton of artifact hate in against us. This could be another resilient threat that acts double to help us clock with Lingering Souls or any other creature lategame. Would give us another 1x MB lifegain tool.
3x Wasteland Strangler
3x Thought-knot Seer
3x Reality Smasher
4x Blight Herder
1x Oblivion Sower
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Sorceries(8):
4x Lingering Souls
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
Instants(6):
4x Path to Exile
2x Warping Wail
Planeswalkers(1):
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Artifacts(6):
4x Relic of Progenitus
2x Expedition Map
2x Eye of Ugin
1x Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
3x Godless Shrine
4x Cave of Koilos
4x Eldrazi Temple
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Waste
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Shambling Vents
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Ratchet Bombs
2x Flaying Tendrils
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Surgical Extractions
2x Stoney Silence
1x Disenchant
1x Celestial Purge
Pre-tournament thoughts: I know the typical thing is to want to win it all so this may come off as a non-sequitur but I REALLY wanted to get a healthy lead in the win column. I was expecting a lot of aggro matchups to make it out of the first couple rounds and then in the middle rounds for a few midrange/GBx decks to be in the top couple tables. I felt like if I could win early and start off 3-0 or 4-0 (something like that) I'd be set up pretty well to face good matchups. On the flip side of that, I feared dropping a couple early and getting paired against lots of GR Tron and Burn (which I expected to get hated to the back end of the room), not to mention all the random brews people were bringing (there was quite a few random things I heard and saw on the day.. all towards the back of the room).
Round 1 Naya Company (1-2) [0-1]:
I don't remember a ton about this game other than the fact that game 1 he Coco'd in response to me swinging with Souls tokens and found 2x Knight of the reliquary to make 3 onboard and I couldn't find enough answers to them or Kessig Wolf's Run. Game 2 I exiled his gy into a flaying tendrils sweep of 2 Knights, a goyf and a voice. I won pretty handedly after that on the back of Sorin, Solemn Visitor. Game 3 came down to turns. I set up a board for lethal damage (hit him down to 4 with a reality Smasher in play, 1 in hand, 4 Lingering Souls tokens and Blight Herder with 3 friends.). I did the math on his draws and he had only 1 out.. Bolt. He had just enough mana to knock me down to 1 with a kessig wolf's run but it'd leave him tapped out and lethal to crackback. He draws his card, moves to attacks. I block leaving back a souls token (he'd leave back both of his knights but would still die to lethal because of the 2nd Reality Smasher in hand). He starts to go through the motions to pump Wolf's Run. He knows he needs more than just the trample (he had 5 lands in total because of Knights sacing his land all game). He taps both knights trying to go for the kill (I had already done the math and knew he'd be 1 short. He got a Stomping grounds (taking the shock down to 2) and a Fetch. He then cracks the fetch (he didn't need to, I had Urborg out but he forgot) and flips through his library and starts to look panicked.. I was like.. holy hell I'm going to win this thing. He fails to find. He then uses the red and reveals a bolt in hand.. I was like... what the ****. Totally slow rolled me on that. He had enough guys onboard to swing out, give trample and then bolt to get the win. No need to give me false hope :-(. Oh well variance and a great topdeck when I had lethal on the crackback.
Post-match thoughts: First of all, this is a deck we are GOING to be seeing more of. This particular individual ended at 3-3 drop but there was another similar list running around near the top 8 all day. Kessig Wolf's Run is a monster of a card and very hard for us to deal with. It lets them trade up with our guys while trampling over. Luckily most lists run it as a singleton so just be sure you save a GQ for it. I gotta take a look at their list and count their basics. They tend to rifle through them very very quickly. This is a matchup where Oblivion Sower is just straight up dumb lategame. You can snatch like 10-15 lands if you've kept up the GY exile shenanigans all game (including their own GQ's to let you hit their important lands). These were fun interactive games and a fun grindy match. Losing to a top decked bolt when you are presenting lethal is just the way Magic goes sometimes. Because of the round 1 loss though my back felt against the wall for most of the day and because of my pre-tournament thoughts on how the matchups might go, I was nervous.
Round 2 Jeskai Control (2-0) [1-1]:
Out of 352 people, I ran into my buddy. I felt really bad about this. Not much to really say about this matchup because he had some pretty bad draws and mine were average. Quickly stomped him in 2 games and that was that.
Post-match thoughts: Being back to 1-1 was nice but I still felt behind the 8 ball. Besides that I felt bad for knocking my friend down to 0-2. He hung in there through the day though and would end up at 6-3 but just out of top 32 because of awful tiebreakers.
Round 3 Boros Burn (2-0) [2-1]:
This game was pretty simple, I won the roll and game 1. Leyline of Sanctity came out in game 2 and he couldn't find a way to remove it. After I dealt with his early creatures, I started in with fatties. He was unable to kill them efficiently, eventually ditching his entire hand to kill a Reality Smasher. I then played another and killed him.
Post-match thoughts: Woot back to the winning record. No time to celebrate just yet but I was feeling a bit better. Leyline definitely pulled it's weight in the match and I was really happy I included them in my sideboard. Because I had time to wander around I found folks I recognized from local FNMs and asked them how their day was going, what they were on, etc. A lot of them (and I mean a staggering number) were 0-3. Almost every Infect player I spoke to was 0-3 or 1-2... Apparently it was just getting housed (some variance due to the nature of the deck) and some just getting hated out (via spot removal galore).
Round 4 4 Color Control (Superfriends?) (2-0) [3-1]:
The magic gods felt it just to gift me 2 games of magic against this brew. I had no idea what he was on game 1 other than the fact he mulled to 5 and I curved out to murder him (I did know he was some type of control). Game 2 he mulliganed to 5 again and my 7 was one of the most evil things I have ever done against someone on a mull to 5. 2x TKS, 2x Inquisition, 1x Temple, 1x Cave of Koilos, 1x Godless Shrine. So in addition to him being at 5 cards, I destroyed his hand T1-T4. He did find some answers and started to stabilize (got a New Gideon out when I was left with just a strangler post board wipe). He was at 9 and I had double path in hand (he was topdecking). I knew I couldn't kill him so I path'd the token and swung at gideon (knocking him to 1). He now had 2 options. Plus gideon and I path it or 0 gideon, I path the token and then kill gideon on the swing. He opted to + him and I closed the game out from there. I did surgical the guy's list (hit an early Sphinx Rev with Inquisition (he totally forgot it was CMC 3) and it's not a bad option to get rid of vs control anyway (plus I needed to know his outs). His list was essentially typical control cards, Ajani Vengeant, New Gideon and Flip Jace. It was an interesting list and I wish I could have seen more how it actually played rather than just house him on 2 mull to 5's.
Post-match thoughts: I felt like this variance was a gift to make up for round 1. I'll take it anyway I can get it and now I am starting to build a little bit of a better lead. Got to keep the hammer down though.
Round 5 Jund (2-0) [4-1]:
I was pretty happy so far. I had wandered around the top half tables a bit after my quick win and had seen several of these Jund decks up there. My theory (outside of infect) was proving true so far. I was now rewarded with a good matchup had good enough draws to bend him over a barrel. Game 1 was typical, let me rip your hand apart while I out value you. Lingering Souls was a house. Game 2 I won on the back of Leyline of Sanctity and Sorin, Solemn Visitor. I had a pretty land shy hand (only 2) but a Leyline of Sanctity and some early interaction if he played some dudes. He did drop a liliana turn 3 but my early creature removal stalled the game out long enough that I eventually got Sorin to ult and he was pretty DOA from there. He got his Liliana of the Veil up to 15 which was pretty impressive but his inability to ultimate and force me to sacrifice cost him the game. He also drew into a bunch of discard spells. I did ask him if he was expecting Leyline and he stated he hadn't seen or played against a list that ran it so he assumed Liliana was a safe thing to keep in the MB. Despite being a little salty about losing like that, he did concede that I had outwitted him in the SB game and regardless of it being a bad matchup for him, totally earned that win before I even sat down at the table.
Post-match thoughts: Woot 4-1 baby! My dreams were alive and well. I just came off a good matchup and was exactly where I wanted to be. My only loss was to a top decked bolt as well. With half the day gone, I don't think the first half could have played out much better overall. The new colorless aggro deck was making an appearance at the top tables (only a couple in the room) and a local kid from my FNM was undefeated on Burn (he ended up going undefeated on the night. He is utterly convinced Burn is too strong and has about a 50/50 matchup or better on the field and thinks Goblin Guide should be banned. I don't know about that but his results do speak a bit.
Round 6 Jeskai Tempo (1-2) [4-2]:
Do you guys remember the Jeskai Tempo player I played a couple weeks ago at FNM in route to a 4-0? The guy I mentioned with Delver, Stormchaser into Mantis Rider? Well this was that guy and that deck. We greeted each other and both knew it would be a tight match (I beat him in 3 last time). I took game 1 pretty handidly on the back of TKS, Lingering Souls and Sorin. The next two games I lost because he drew kinda crazy. Game 2 he found 3 Mantis Riders in a row while I bricked on lands and then Game 3 he found one right when he needed to and while I had 2 turns to find an out (of which I had all of them, hadn't drawn any Path's, Celestial Purge, Lingering Souls or Wasteland Strangler all game) and I drew 2 relics (cracking them to find 2 lands). What a bad series of draws. Oh well, chalk another up to variance, a good deck, an experience pilot and I can tolerate the loss. This guy made top 8 by the way.. We need to be wary of this deck. It's crazy amount of X/3's with flying and haste really puts us in a bind because none of our current board clears help. Another thing to note that he changed coming into today. He was no longer running Negate and was instead running Disdainful Stroke, while he never caught me napping on it (because I yanked it from his hand). I did have to play a little bit more cautiously than I normally would. Anyway, if for some reason he reads this, congrats to him on making top 8.
Post-match thoughts: Well it sucks to drop a game but I felt like my tiebreakers were pretty good (I kept talking to most of my previous matchups to see how they were doing). My top 8 dreams were dead in the water but I was far from out of prizes all together. Bost losses were due to a bad brand of variance and I I just needed
Round 7 Gruul Pump Frogs (I think that's the deck name) (2-1) [5-2]:
This is the deck that runs like Gruul Zoo opting to use Burning-tree Emissary, New Bushwacker, Atarka Command and Ghor-clan Rampager to pump their dudes enough to lethal their opponent quickly. I lost game 1 pretty quicking on a mull to 5. I had to mull to 5 again game 2 but pulled it out my but to win and then mulled to 6 game 3 but had enough answers to stall and win. Flaying Tendrils did wonders in this matchup against the bulk of their X/2's (he was forced to use an Atarka Command to bolt and pump his dudes. This left him with not enough damage to kill me on board (he wouldn't have with Atarka's command but it would have been close). I was able to cast Timely Reinforcements followed by a Blight Herder. The following turn I topdecked a Sorin and the + just killed him.
Post-match thoughts: Still a bit bummed about being out of top 8 contention but liked my tiebreakers so far. When they posted standings, I was at 24 overall. If I win the next round I lock a top 32 spot based on tiebreakers alone and set myself up to win and be top 16. I was pretty stoked with where I was at as this was my first major tournament. My friends wished me the best of luck as I headed to my match (only 2 of the 6 of us that came together were still fighting for prizes, the Jeskai Control player I beat earlier who was 5-2 as well and myself).
Round 8 Jund (?-?) [?-?]
I am leaving this spoiler free for those who want to feel as I felt while playing this match. First off I sit down, he is a bit standoffish as he discovers he was paired down as an X/1 (which reaffirms my belief that my tiebreakers are good). I keep an average hand but with Ulamog in it. I immediately see he is on Jund and get excited (fell right into my train of thought on how the tournament would go). 1 good matchup left and I am playing for top 16 and a bit of self-affirmation that my play and deck building strategy is legit (I was the only BW Eldrazi player in it this late and I think there were only 2 of us at the event). Game 1 I interact with back to back Bobs Turns 1 and 2 (I had Path and Warping Wail). Turn 3 I play a TKS. Turn 4 I play Blight Herder and count my open mana in my head. I had exactly 8 with an Eye of Ugin in play if he doesn't remove the scions. He doesn't remove them and I cast Ulamog. He sees his draw and then scoops (don't know what he was expecting to find as I think he has no MB answer to Newlamog). Woof great game 1. Just got to take 1 more. Game 2 I have a keepable ish hand. I have 2 TKS with an Temple and an Eye. I proceed to draw no lands over the 10-11 turns it took him to stick a threat and kill me. That had me a bit on tilt because if I had found 1 more I had gas for days in hand. My opponent then proceeds to ask me if I would concede the match since he still has a chance to make top 8. I tell him there is no way I was going to do that when I still had a chance to play for top 16. Game 3, I have a very keepable hand with a Leyline. Plenty of gas and mana to get there. It's a tad slower but has a path and celestial Purge. Things appear to be going normally until Turn 3 when he played a Fulminator Mage and destroyed my Cave of Koils. In response I destroy it and go get my basic plains (so I could still have path (which I drew another of) and Celestial Purge open. I draw an Urborg and play it. But have to pass the turn (I have a TKS in hand so I just need to get to 1 more mana). He plays a 2nd Fulminator mage on turn 4 and blows up the urborg. Ug.. ok. I draw a Cave of Koilos and play it, passing the turn back. He plays a 3rd Fulminator mage blowing up the new Koilos. (seriously, I am about full tilt now). I proceed to draw next to no lands for the rest of the game. I did find an Eye which let me play the TKS and rip K.Command from his hand but he had very little gas aside from that. He eventually starts cracking in with Raging Ravine hitting me with it twice by the time I get to mana. I then cast Blight Herder into Reality Smasher and hit him down to 9. I had another smasher in hand so I wanted to give the option to crack back for lethal on the following turn. I was at 8 so I felt pretty safe overall but knew the risk of sacrificing the 3 scions instead of using them as blockers. If he found a way (like a blocker) to take lethal off the board, I had Lingering Souls that I could flash back as well to give me chump blockers. He animates his Raging Ravine and swings. Before blocks he casts Jund Charm to place 2 counters on the ravine putting it at 8 and then terminates my Blight herder... I lose. Seriously... what a ****ed up way to get knocked to x/3. I was totally tilted about how that went (I still congratulated my opponent and was cordial because I am not a poor sport but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to put my fist through a wall.)
Post-game thoughts: I was absolutely pissed. Variance had decided to rear it's ugly head as he revealed his hand. Even if I had not sacrificed the Scions, he uses Jund Charm to clear them away and terminates the wall to bring me down to 2. He had 2 copies of Maelstrom pulse in hand so even if I played both Reality Smashers the next turn, I wouldn't have lethal so I'd have to leave 1 or both of them back in order to not die the following turn. I'd also be low enough for him to topdeck a bolt, pulse the Leyline and then kill me. I still can't believe he was able to pull triple fulminator mage on me. Thinking back on it, I shouldn't have been a nice guy about just turning down his offer to have me concede. I should have just called a judge who might have issued him a game loss and it would have been over. I don't like being "that guy" but after how game 3 went... man maybe I just should have. Who knows. I still had a chance to play a win and in for top 32 since I was almost guaranteed to be at or in the top of the x/3's.
Round 9 Bring to Light Scapeshift (1-2) [5-4]
This was just my luck. I go from a good matchup with the chance to play for a top 16 slot, to a bad matchup on a win and in for top 32. These games went like typical scapeshift games except that he totally threw game 2. I had clock onboard and was sitting behind a leyline. I had just cast a blight herder (processing a cryptic) and then surgically extracted all of his cryptics. He had 1 Maelstrom Pulse in his deck but a BTL and Scapeshift in hand. He was on a 2 Turn clock and could easily BTL for Pulse, hit my leyline and then cast scapeshift on his final turn to lethal me. Instead he durdled by getting more lands and then casting Bring to Light for Pia and Kia Nalaar on his final turn which I removed with 2 Paths. I mulliganed to 5 game 3 and had 3 awful hands. The last one could have been fine if I drew into discard (had 2 surgicals. Instead I bricked on all my draws and he combo killed me.
Post-SCG Regionals thoughts:
Man did I get shafted by luck on the back end of the day. I am happy I ended above .500 which would have been fine by me for my first major event like this, had I not gotten shafted so hard by luck in those last 2 rounds to get me booted from prizes. All in all the decklist did wonders. Flaying Tendrils came up in a couple matchups but we definitely need a way to kill X/3's or greater who are 3 CMC. Mantis Rider and Knight of the Reliquary are going to be common going forward I think and we need better answer than Flaying Tendrils to them. I still don't think Damnation is the answer because of how slow it is to the aggro matchups but that is my first impression. I am probably going to keep brewing but dodge tournaments this week and next just to clear my head after those closing rounds. I still definitely think this deck will find a place in the meta at the end of the day because I faired fairly well against most of the field and my losses were due to some very bad draws/good ones from my opponents. You can only do so much sometimes.
Thoughts on PT Top 8:
I think there is a ton of panic surrounding Eye of Ugin right now. I think some of it is justified but some of it isnt. People need to remember that the PT is a very inbred meta. Most folks were expecting every aggro deck to die to a Lightning Bolt. This made the Colorless Eldrazi deck and UR Eldrazi (still think that is a pile of jank and nowhere near as good as our's) great Meta decisions. I think they are going to be easier to hate out than we are as they are more susceptible to land destruction/BM effects plus answers like Disdainful Stroke. Imagine us playing against them. If you force them to discard Reality Smasher and then Surgical Extraction it, they are left with 1 actual major threat. Mimics on T1 (more than 1) is really magical christmas. It's a good deck, don't get me wrong but I think people who are expecting it will find an answer. The main thing that I think people are overlooking (that makes the deck really dumb) is SSG so they can play Chalice on turn 1 as well as cast their Reality Smashers on Turn 2. This card was a problem in Bloom Titan already when it enabled T1 and T2 kills. Just my thoughts on it anyway.
Eye of Ugin Banning:
I think it's way too early to snap and ban Eye. If it's still not answered by SOI and they DO decide to ban it, it's not the end of the world for this deck. Things I cut because of the ban (based off my list because everyone's is different):
1x Oblivion Sower
2x Eye of Ugin
1x Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
From there we add:
3x Sea-gate Wreckage
1x Reality Smasher
and I probably adjust the mana base to have some number of fetch lands back in the mix.
Sea-gate Wreckage gives us late game card draw so we can keep finding threats (part of the reason we use Eye of Ugin).
The deck won't be as good as it is now for sure but I think we would settle in as a tier 2 midrange deck with little hope of increasing from there. The other option would be to add late game threats like Batterskull or Wurmcoil Engine since we care less about Eldrazi specific mana reduction at that point.
The main thing about banning Eye is we'd all have to ask ourselves if we are better than Junk. We are certainly cheaper but I don't know if we are better at that point. We are definitely a boogyman right now. It certainly doesn't help that the aggro variant did so well. I already see people wonder when I don't kill them T4 and I have to explain to them that our version isn't the aggro variant. Gonna have to keep our heads down a bit over the next month or so and hope the meta can adjust. I really wish I could see who won my Regionals Top 8 because it was pretty diverse all things considered. Of the decks I saw close to the top 8 going into the final round. 1 GR Tron running Life from the Loam (no idea if it was SB or MB but it was saucy as hell. Watching his opponent GQ 3 of his Towers as he delayed casting it from hand only to reveal that he had it was just brutal to watch. There was the Burn player I know and the Jeskai Tempo player I lost to. I have no idea how the Jund player who beat me had faired but I think his tiebreakers were bad enough to keep him out of top 8 (which makes me even saltier). There was a Colorless Aggro deck up there for a while but I didn't see it towards the end. There was a Naya Company player as well at those tables for most of the day as well as an Affinity player. All in all the meta was pretty diverse towards the top (albeit varying shades of aggro for the most part, still lots of interactivity). Anyway those are just my thoughts and my experience throughout the day. I think I was easily one of the best 16 decks/players in the room on the day but just hit a god awful string of events towards the end (to be fair there were other folks who had bad luck and days as well. One of my friends is a Jund player who is very experienced and he went 0-3 drop. Sometimes things just don't break your way I guess). Anyway, the most depressing thing coming out of this weekend is the ban talks. I hope we at least get a year to play with our new toy but people love to fearmonger.
It's not just you. The colorless Eldrazi deck is spiffy and good in the PT meta but it would get wrecked by Midrange and Control. The UR list we just saw made me scratch my head because he would be far better off playing a Bx variant based on what I see of his draws and plays.
The difference is that you sacrifice 1 card slot to run late game inevitability in Ulamog. That is TOTALLY worth the slot. GBx would do it if they could as well. Junk is closer to what we resemble and they tend to run 4x Goyf and 3 Siege Rhinos. Blight Herder is our Goyf and Smasher is our Rhino.
The reason why I don't want to do this is because I want to have access to Flaying Tendrils if needed. After an early path and GQ I'd like to still have BB as the only WW source in my SB now is Leyline which is either free or a late game draw. I don't think I need another white source (I'm actually up to 9... forgot I cut an Urborg for a Godless Shrine). I just gotta take the downside every so often. Typically I get a Cave of Koilos and I am set for the entire game on every mana type.
I still think I might go to a 2 Disenchant, 1 Ratchet Bomb ratio but I will say that Ratchet Bomb has been good for me. I love dropping it and not having to worry about keeping mana open to activate it. My only issue is against affinity it's a little wombo with Stoney Silence.
I have to disagree with you on your last point here. I am running a 4x Herder, 3x Reality Smasher, 1x Oblivion Sower and 1x Ulamog. I respectfully disagree that we don't need the top end. There will be long grindy games where you simply win because you are either topdecking gas or you get enough lands to turn on Eye of Ugin and they just can't answer Ulamog. Even in games where they CAN answer him, he 2 for 1's and you can still keep searching up threats every turn. This is also where I've needed multiple Reality Smashers. I ran into quite a few games where they'd kill the first 2 and I wanted 1 more. The haste and trample is extremely relevant at times where 4/5 with 3 1/1 upside just isn't. Bear in mind that on an empty board, Reality Smasher does 10 damage by the time Blight Herder does 7.
3x Wasteland Strangler
3x Thought-knot Seer
4x Blight Herder
3x Reality Smasher
1x Oblivion Sower
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Sorceries(8):
4x Lingering Souls
2x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
Instants(6):
4x Path to Exile
2x Warping Wail
Artifacts(6):
4x Relic of Progenitus
2x Expedition Map
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Lands(24):
4x Eldrazi Temple
2x Eye of Ugin
1x Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
3x Godless Shrine
4x Cave of Koilos
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Waste
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Shambling Vent
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Stony Silence
1x Disenchant
2x Flaying Tendrils
1x Celestial Purge
2x Ratchet Bomb
Round 1 Storm (2-1) [1-0]:
Game 1 he had a very slow hand that I ripped with a little bit with early discard and got in with Reality Smashers to close out the game. Game 2 I had a T0 Leyline and pulled a Blood Moon out of his hand with a T2 TKS (Lead with Temple->Map without another Temple or Eye in hand. Topdecked Eye for T2... I mentioned yesterday about setting your future draws up with your land drops. Paid off again.) Hindsight I could have take Pyromancers Ascension but oh well. I had him facing lethal onboard so he attempted to combo off. Took him 12 minutes but eventually he got to an Empty the Warrens with 18 Storm count. I didn't topdeck an answer so gg. Yay Storm... Game 3 I ripped his hand apart twice, this time letting him Blood Moon but taking 2 Pyromancers Ascension. The key difference is I had Relic this game so if he tried to cast Past in Flames, I'd crack the relic and it'd be gg anyway. He blanked and I won.
Round 2 Esper Control (2-1) [2-0]:
This is one of my good friends and he is very angry at the BW Eldrazi deck and insists Eye of Ugin will be banned when SOI gets released. Besides not listening to reason, here is how the matchup went. Game 1 I came out of the game swinging extremely hard and destroyed him. I did over extend towards the end but I wasn't punished for it (thankfully). Realized as soon as I did it that it was likely a mistake (It was turn 5 and I played a second reality Smasher. Second mainphase (I knew he had a cryptic in hand so I let him tap down my team and draw vs counter and tap them down). I should have just held onto Smasher because he was at 5 and if he casts Verdict, I then reality smasher and kill him. Didn't hurt me in the end so whatever. Game 2 I had some pretty bad draws. I got him down to 4 life but he topdecked a Sphinx Rev. This hurt because his only "out" onboard was to block one of the 3 scion tokens I had with his Shambling Vent. I then Sac the blocked token and the 2 remaining Scions and 2 spirits I have kill him. Instead he gained 6 and then took 5. He then cast a verdict. I was in topdeck mode so during my draw step he Esper Charmed me forcing me to discard my draw (it was a path). He then untapped and cast Bribery for my Newlamog (I scooped before he searched my library, so I assume that's what he grabs). I did the math and essentially I had to hope that I could topdeck a Path, hope he doesn't have a counter (still had 4 mana open and had just Sphinx Rev so it was likely). If I didn't have a path, I could take 1 swing and then hope to draw a Reality Smasher (still hope he doesn't have a counter) and crack in for lethal. The odds were way too low for me to draw out of it and I wanted to save time for game 3 in case it went long. Game 3 I grinded him out of things in hand. My sideboarded Celestial Purge came up big on an Ashiok. He did get a Runed Halo on Reality Smasher which stranded 2 in my hand. I still got through for enough pressure and damage to take care of business though. Key play in this game was I used Surgical Extraction on Supreme Verdict removing all 4 he had. This allowed me to go wide and not worry about a sweeper. I didn't put in Leyline of Sanctity for this match but I wonder if I should have. He doesn't run discard but it blanks Esper Charm (other than him blowing up Leyline himself), Bribery, and Ashiok. I think it could still be pretty relevant. This also makes me think it's relevant for the Jeskai control matchup as well because Bolts can't go at my face and if they have a resolved Keranos on an empty board. They have to bolt themselves on Keranos trigger. (or flash in a creature to get bolted.. either way, profit for us). Interesting thoughts.
Round 3 Infect (2-1) [3-0]:
Game 1 We both had extremely awful draws all things considered but I eventually drew into Lingering Souls and that bought me enough time to win. Game 2 I drew really really poorly. He drew a pretty slow hand overall but since I had to GQ my own Urborg for a Plains so I could Path his thing. The main issue was he got 3 Inkmoth Nexus out.. ug. Whatever this is the one game where running only 8 white sources hurt me but the deck has ran really smoothly most of the time so whatever. Game 3 I had a terrible 7. so as I was mulling to 6, one of the best players in the area that I know personally (plays a lot of Jund) and I were talking about how whenever he watches the deck it seems to have bad draws and awful mulligans. I joked that maybe he shouldn't watch Eldrazi players anymore because it was likely his fault. I then drew my 6... man what a 6. 2x Path to Exile 1x Warping Wail, 1x Cave of Kolios, 1x Eldrazi Temple, 1x Urborg... No actual gas but I could kill the first 3 Creatures he played. I drew into TKS and Lingering souls and pretty much won the game from there.
Round 4 Temur Delver (2-0) [4-0]:
Admittedly he had slowish draws but I really took this guy to the woodshed. I ripped his hand apart with discard and TKS. Blight Herder closed out game 1 and Reality Smasher x2 closed out game 2. Game 2 was especially unique because while I wasn't having the greatest draws, I did have a relic in play to keep his GY from being flash backed and I had a Ratchet Bomb on 0. Because of this he was beating me in the face with an unflipped Delver and Snapcaster. He was trying NOT to flip Delver so I couldn't just crack bomb and kill it. This bought me enough time to resolve a lingering Souls w/ flashback on 5 lands and then double Reality Smasher for 6 lands (Eye and Urborg in play... for a 2:1 they come up a lot.. to be fair I did map). he didn't have an answer so he scooped. He said he beat another BW Eldrazi list round 1 and felt pretty good about the matchup overall. Unfortunately, I don't know that guys list though. If it was the guy I faced last thursday, his sideboard was severely deficient in my mind and maybe he just got bad draws or kept bad hands.
Welp.... That is another 4-0. I am now 17-3 over my last 5 tournaments and have won $210 over in store credit over that span (which for me dates back to last Thursday). I think my list is set for Regionals and I am very confident going in. Things in my area have shifted (as expected) to Infect, Affinity, Jund and other various aggro decks with Burn and Tron taking back seats as they get hated out. I think if I can win my first several rounds on Saturday, I might be in a very good position to take advantage of the meta. On the downside, I fear that if I drop a couple early.. I might shift to the hostile back end of the room where Burn and Tron players will reside. I have one more tournament tonight to test out the Leylines (they only came in once tonight against Storm and duress would have been better on the night overall but I still won without duress so I think they stay in for now). Happy Friday yall!
I've personally liked Warping Wail enough that I'm never moving off it. It hits enough things early game, exiles instead of kills and doesn't become dead late game.
Thanks bro. I think the addition of Path and Lingering Souls is what buys the white version the ability to go to 24 lands. I cast Newlamog all the time without Oblivion Sower. the primary reason for this is that if you can tutor with eye of ugin... you only need 1 more mana to play Newlamog. This means with Urborg in play, you can tutor and play immediately. If you don't have urborg in play, fetch up a Blight Herder. Tap a temple and 1 other random mana source to play it. Now you can sacrifice 2 tokens and still activate eye for newlamog, giving you 1 more token to sacrifice and cast him on your turn. This is also provided you don't have a land in hand already or find one. Without Urborg in play, stealing your opponents fetchlands still does you very little good.
This is what I had initially thought until one of my judges told me otherwise.. well ok then. This isn't the first time I've had to correct this judge on a bad ruling he's made. I love the guy but I can't wait til I pass my judge test and can start helping out at my LGS.
So you are opting to go in with 0 Ghost Quarters? That seems like an unnecessary gamble. They hit so many matchups besides just Tron. 9/10 I'm killing manlands with them.
I can't imagine going in with only 12 creatures though. That seems way too light for me (bearing in mind that Wasteland Strangler is a pseudo removal spell as well). All in all I think we are on the same lines (though maybe cutting an inquisition for TKS solves both problems of creature count and still gives you a discard style effect).
Here is my list once again.. gonna see if I can pick up some leylines and run them in the sideboard for Regionals.
3x Wasteland Strangler
3x Thought-knot Seer
4x Blight Herder
3x Reality Smasher
1x Oblivion Sower
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Sorceries:
4x Lingering Souls
2x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
Instants:
4x Path to Exile
2x Warping Wail
Artifacts:
4x Relic of Progenitus
2x Expedition Map
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Lands:
4x Eldrazi Temple
2x Eye of Ugin
1x Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
3x Godless Shrine
4x Cave of Koilos
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Waste
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Shambling Vent
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Stony Silence
2x Disenchant
2x Flaying Tendrils
1x Celestial Purge
1x Ratchet Bomb
Just had the realization that the majority of my ratchet bombs are for Artifacts or Enchantments. I think I'm going down to 1 and upping my Disenchants to 2. Again tweaks will happen along the way and I'll have a tournament report tomorrow for tonight's tournament. As I have said before, I am uber comfortable with where my deck is at. It's by no means perfect but my results speak for themselves that I think I have enough versatile answers to answer whatever gets thrown at me. Here is hoping it happens on Saturday.
One thing I'd say is that remember your processor interactions with ANYTHING in exile. You reminded folks about Suspend cards which is 1 aspect. Remember that you can process spells with Rebound, Imprinted cards on Isochron Scepter and cards put in "hideaway" via windbrisk heights.
Remember that you can respond to Snapcaster targeting a spell in order to exile their yard (or the spell itself) to leave them unable to cast it.
If you find yourself facing Tech Edge and are on 4 lands, 1 being GQ, you can sacrifice Ghost quarter in response to them trying to destroy your land. Upon resolution of the ability you will only have 3 lands and Tech Edge's ability will fizzle essentially making them waste a mana, a land and you were able to GQ one of their lands.
Against goyf decks, keep a note of what cards you have or could have in your graveyard and be sure to process those same card types back into your opponents GY. This will ensure opposing Goyfs are as small as possible. As usual, try and avoid creatures if able due to Scavenging Ooze.
With less and less Oblivion Sowers being ran.. remember to process lands over other gas when able. Before it was advantageous to keep lands in exile so you could abuse Oblivion Sowers ability to it's maximum potential. Now that is far less important (unless you know you are playing a deck that has no GY interaction like Elves)
When in doubt on sideboarding, bring in Surgical Extraction. I remember facing a Naya Company deck on Tuesday. He mulled to 4 game 1 and scooped to my turn 1 TS. I had no idea what he was on so I made sure to bring in my surgical extractions. Once I saw he was on Naya company, I pinpointed a card he would need most to win (at the point I drew Surgical we were at parity on board so in this instance he wanted to draw as many Path to Exiles as possible. By removing this out from his deck, he couldn't answer my abundance of threats and I turned the tides.)
The order in which you drop your lands is EXTREMELY important. You don't want to lead off with Cave of Koilos when you are sitting on a Temple and TKS in hand with no T1 Discard. The reasoning for this is there is a CHANCE you could draw into an Eye or Temple and be able to turn 2 TKS which is a crazy powerful play. Along this same line, the best way to dodge land destruction is to delay dropping important lands until you need them. There is no reason to play Eye of Ugin unless doing so allows you to drop multiple Eldrazi over the next couple turns that you otherwise wouldn't be able to (this is of course assuming you have other lands to play). Example is if T3 you can play another land and cast a Blight Herder but have no other Eldrazi in hand. This protects the Eye in hand as it can't be discarded (unless it's the only card in hand against a Lili deck), Cliqued away or destroyed. I have had some games where I get to 7 mana and can drop eye and tutor on the same turn. Eye is very situationally dependant as to when you play it straight up or when you lag it out. You mainly have to get a feel for it. One of the most notorious lands I do this with in the deck is Vault of the Archangel. If you jam it early, you let your opponent see that you are 1 land away from activation and they might play around this. (Burn in particular might hold up Skullcrack/Atarka Command in game 1). Instead I hold onto it until Turn 5 where I can just drop it, swing and activate. This can catch people off-guard and force them to make bad trades as well as let you gain a lot of life. With Reality Smasher already onboard, it becomes an even bigger blowout because they will need a creature for every 1 point of damage they want to prevent. Vault does you nothing if you can't activate it and if you are making your land drops without it, why tip off your opponent. Subtle interactions like this can make the difference in some games.
If I think of more I'll post them for sure. That land one is something I use a lot and takes a lot of time to get used to. You have to remember what is in your hand and what you could potentially draw that would change your mind on your land drops. If your opponent drops an early GQ and you have a Map in hand... feel free to throw out an eye of ugin and not reveal the map. Let them GQ it, get you ahead in a land and then tutor it up the next turn.
Yes but less just because of those. It also kills Swiftspear usually (yeah they can cast a spell to negate it but that requires them leaving mana open and playing around it.. that means they aren't bolting your face or getting to abuse the Prowess trigger.)
Ah ok. I still like O-ring as a catch all answer but I have never had a Warping Wail stuck in hand. It finds a use eventually. It also counters Bring to Light which can be pretty big (those versions of scapeshift sacrificed a little bit of counter magic (because Twin isn't in the format they expect less counters) for utility. We now get a better chance to counter it before they board sweep or win with scapeshift. You gotta read the situation though and know what they are getting since Supreme Verdict can't be countered.