Without any card drawing engine, doesn't this deck run out of gas fairly quickly?
It probably would if it didn't have so many card-drawing engines... 3-4x Reshaper, 3-4x Relic, and 1-2x Mind Stone are standard across most builds. 4x Lingering Souls obviously gives good card advantage and threat density, as does Herder when it processes. Decks that play Lili (tLH) can recur from the graveyard, and decks with Sea Gate Wreckage have an additional draw engine.
Congrats RidetheIguana on your recent first place finish at the SCG IQ! Post an event report maybe? Do you still find you are fixing your mana with GQ very often?
why would you want to even test that. scarab feast seems miles behind relic. Relic you can crack it when it's beneficial to you, you get incremental value out of it every turn and It can be flipped off reshaper. It also can clear the entire GY as lots of times there's way more than 3 cards you need to hit. Plus relic nerfs goys, feast not so much. On top of all of this, relic requires no colored mana. The only good thing about feast is surprise factor. As yet another negative to it, you are forced to do a single GY so random corner-case scenarios come up like they try to scooze a dude in your GY you can't even be that tricksy with it.
Unless I'm missing something, this card seems terrible unless you have a heavy cycling or delerium theme in the deck. Who knows, maybe...
I dunno, it was the surprise factor I was thinking of? When I thought about it later, after posting that, it occurred to me that Relic represents a new card AND graveyard hate, while with Feast you have to choose one or the other. In a deck that intentionally runs so many catch-all or multi-purpose cards, that is not the right direction to be going in, agreed.
Got a 3-1 (losing to valakut) and a 4-0 last two tournaments. The deck is feeling pretty solid, however it can be clunky a few times. What I feel is the greatest strength of BW Eldrazi is it's sideboard plans. I am playing with several splits of MB/SB that can cheat a g1 win, and after board things are greatly at our favor. It is hard to sideboard against a deck that has lots of removals, discards, and creatures that removes and discards. Add to it land interactions( GQ and Fulminator) and a great midrange walker (Liliana), and they have lots of things to worry about. Attacking our lands or combining are they best plan to win, and we can play around that after game 1.
Here is my almost fully optimized list:
BW Eldrazi
[/Deck=Zirzhas
Lands
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
2 Shambling Vent
2 Swamp
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Cavern of Souls
Sideboard:
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Collective Brutality
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Stony Silence
1 Yahenni's Expertise
1 Thoughtseize
1 Warping Wail
1 Wrath of God - should be damnation
1 Rest in Peace]
Almost every match I lose game 1 and come back at game 2 and 3 with our SB hosers and topping with powerful attackers. Also, I have almost always won when I played a Liliana.
The metagame I play is always up to date with the GPs and SCG opens. Lately Grixis controls, death shadows Grixis and Jund, lots of valakut variants, Jund, junk, lots of afinity, merfolk, tron... Overall, I am impressed with how much Processors can keep up with almost all those decks!
Hey zirzhas, I'm psyched that you've been having success, thanks for telling us. I had been a little down in the ol' Processors lately before tonight.
I wonder if a clunky thing for you sometimes is having BB for Lili on T3? Cards with BB or WW costs seem much harder to land than the split nana BW cards. With BW the only way to have two colored lands and NOT have the right mana is to only have your two Swamps and need it for a white spell. It's a corner case, but to me it seems that this deck is kinda looking to take advantage of every angle it can--e.g., GY hate, exile hate, hand disruption, land destruction, manlands, etc. etc. You also have Sea Gate Wreckage where I have Concealed Courtyard, making Lili one step harder to cast.
I think you really nailed something crucial with your insight about the SB plan--while playing Bant Eldrazi I found that if I sided in more than 3-4 cards max, then I was messing up my primary all-in gameplan too much; where with BW (are we still calling this thing "Processors"?) we are built around flexibility. I regularly find myself siding in/out 6-7+ cards and feeling good about it: like taking out Relics for more creature removal vs. aggro; or hand siding out disruption for multipurpose removal like Bomb and Unmaking vs. Jund; or losing the creature removal for Needle etc. vs. combo.
Anyway, I went 4-1 last night, losing to a KCI/Eggs/Hangarback Walker/Scrapheap Scrounger/Emrakul combo I'd never encountered before, and beating some fun brews, Ad Nauseam, and Naya Burn. In anticipation of Death's Shadow decks I went with 3x Push and 4x Path maindeck, with both Unmakings in the side. I also went back to 3x Relic and 2x Stone, because even though I really want the reliable GY hate in the main, playing the ramptastic Bant deck made me fully appreciate the utility of Mind Stone anew. Ramp is important in this deck! If we don't have a Temple in play we are at a pretty significant disadvantage. Stone is a strong role-player and the importance of the late-game cantrip cannot be overstated.
Hi makoy27. Welcome to the site and the thread. If I remember correctly, using script tags in your post to call out other forum members (like I just did with your username) will alert them when they next log in, and will help ensure they see your post.
I have been on Bant Eldrazi lately, but haven't been winning too much with it actually. However it has made me realize that the inconsistency of Processors is a problem. The deck can be very good in many matchups. But, when you draw a hand full of Seers and Smashers, but only 2-3 lands with no Temples or Mind Stones, then it can be very hard to play out your hand. And this happens often enough that mulliganing often won't help as much as we would like.
Nevertheless, the deck is fun to play, and lot more interesting and complex than Bant is. And the maindeck graveyard hate plus the addition of Fatal Push to the format makes it look like it might be positioned OK going forward--I'll probably bring Processors to the next couple of weekly events I attend. Don't know what I'll do about the GPT this weekend though.
In other news, Amonkhet has a card that looks very interesting for our deck:
This compares pretty well to Relic in some ways--like Relic it cycles for 1 mana, and like Relic it is cheap graveyard interaction. The downside is obviously that it doesn't get everything in all yards, making it much worse against Goyf, for instance. But it has the upside that opponents probably won't see it coming, so it lends itself far better to disruption and combat tricks in some ways. If it didn't have cycling I would never consider it, but for only B to cast it either of two ways, it might be worth a look. I'll probably test it by running a 2/2 split with Relic to start.
For 3W, Cast Out should hit lands. Cycling for W isn't good enough to make this card playable, I don't think.
RiP isn't some kind of amazing game-winning enchantment to the point you're building it up to. Unlike Relic, it doesn't become better grave hate in multiples--instead, multiples are dead cards, which is presumably why you're only planning for three right now.
Overall, I think your deck idea is too defensive and not proactive enough. Twelve threats is nowhere near enough--the standard BW Eldrazi builds run a minimum of 18 threats (14-15 Eldrazi plus 4 Lingering Souls). If you're gonna plan for landing RiP in most games then I don't know why you wouldn't run Eternal Scoourge, either. I really think your Explores and enchantment tutors are gonna be a big pile of do-nothing in most games and you should be beefing up your threat roster. I suggest going to 4 RiPs and losing the Prison, Leyline, and all the tutors. This frees up slots to add Scourge and either Matter Reshaper or Reality Smasher, and you may be able to find room in the side for the other enchantment options.
Lastly, I strongly encourage you to playtest the green splash--adding green to the CBW land package has proven very troublesome in earlier attempts. It's extremely tough to get reliable T1 B for hand disruption plus reliable T2 G for Explore or Decay, plus all the mana you want for the Eldrazi and the white spells. With only six sources for C, you're gonna have a ton of games where your Thought-Knot Seers are uncastable because you just never saw a colorless land. In general I'd venture to say that if you're building an Eldrazi deck with fewer than four Eldrazi Temples, then you might be overthinking things.
This deck is a classic black midrange deck. It does play pretty similar to jund in that you have discard, removal and beaters with a smattering of walkers. This deck, depending on the build, usually has more play to it than jund. With TKS, Strangler, relic, stones (if one is playing those), souls are all 2 for 1s essentially as they do more than 1 thing. It is rather slowish deck so decks that prey on midrange decks WILL be a problem. You typically don't have much pressure till t3-4 usually. The lack of a good 2 drop is a real issue with this deck. But the deck is very flexible and fights on a few different angles. Relic, discard, souls some life gain and processing give it a solid edge where other decks do not.
This is a pretty good summary. I'd add that attacking the opponent's exile zone is very unusual and can be super fun and pretty powerful when it's relevant.
Been playing Bant for a couple of weeks--feels more powerful but less interesting. It's definitely way more consistent with ramping than this deck is. Not sure how much I like it.
I was on four Flats and three Caves of Koilos, until two consecutive nights where I had games with no source of C, leading to inevitable defeat.
I like Fatal Push a whole bunch and I don't feel like the extra Flats is really needed--I also use Ghost Quarter to trigger it on occasion. I am on a 3/3 split between Path and Push, with a fourth Path in the side. I have also gone to four Relics and only one Mind Stone. Lately my FNM record has been pretty bad, like 2-2, 2-3, 3-2, etc. There was even a 1-3 in there one night.
If you're looking for a one-of maindeck generic hoser I'd consider 1x Ratchet Bomb, I side that card in all the time. It is good against Moon and Bridge, and also all kinds of other stuff like Merfolk/Elves, Death's Shadow Jund (not that we need help there), Gesit of St. Traft, etc. Wouldn't help against Tron or Valakut though.
Sorin is a little bit of a legacy card from earlier builds before the release of Brutality and Blessed Alliance. Now that we have more lifegain options, it might be cuttable--but don't dismiss its remarkable power when combined with either Smasher or Spirit tokens. It literally doubles our clock with the tokens, and curves perfectly into a hasty trampler that gives huge life swings. T3 Souls --> T4 Sorin --> T5 Smasher is real good. But it is true that Sorin is not so good in a vacuum (though on the other hand, I have also had the Vampire be extremely relevant against Infect on occasion).
The low 1 CMC hand disruption count is a mixed bag. I am not entirely happy with only 3 T1 disruption spells, though on the other hand T1 Relic is usually very good. T1 Relic either establishes the grave-hate right out of the gate, or allows a T2 crack-and-draw if it's not relevant, on a turn where (let's face it) we are sometimes not making other impactful plays anyways. And the recent addition of Push means we have a third good T1 play in many matches. I do very much enjoy how well the low Thoughtseize/IoK count improves our late-game topdeck plan, though. There's no way I would ever go above 5 such spells total in a deck that also plays 4 Seers, personally, even if I had the room--better to get more proactive with threats, I reckon.
As I mentioned on reddit, I don't think Liliana of the Veil works in a build that is trying to land 4 and 5 CMC threats, because it makes it hard to keep both the spells and land count high enough to curve out--BGx doesn't have this problem as much, due to their much cheaper threats. Though of course throwing Souls to Lili is always good. But I have been throwing it to Brutality instead, which card is also very, very good. Liliana the Last Hope might be worth a shot--haven't tried it myself. Personally, I don't see Elspeth doing anything important for this particular deck in the 4 CMC slot.
[edit] Found a thoughtful article about why Burn may be on its way out--Sorin might indeed be worse than an alternative nowadays. Not sure what I'd run in that slot, but Endless One might be right, or a single Herder. I'm even inclined to maybe give Blood Baron of Vizkopa a shot again, since that card dies to exactly nothing except sweepers and double-Bolt. Or of course, maybe a Lili would be best.
4x Smasher is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned, that and Souls are the primary win conditions, and you're running two Mind Stones so you should be GTG. I like your list BTW
If i would use bligh herder i will add tidehollow scullers and at least 1 Sorin but good SebastianStueckl, is great see processor list there.
Awesome. I dunno about cutting Vault for a 4th GQ, but I can see cutting Cavern of Souls if you're running Blight Herder instead of Smasher. Personally I would still want Sorin in that build too, since it runs so many tokens. And I'm not so sure 6 1 CMC disruption is great alongside 4 Seers. Still, congrats to the player.
Those who've been around for a while might recall that the original build 5-0'ed online with 4 Herders and 4 Relics. The more things change...
I think Endbringer is probably best in the side as well.
Haven't been doing so hot last couple weeks--as always I play twice a week in a competitive shop (I did not go, but we had 7-8 regulars day 2 the Vancouver GP last week, finishing from ~125 up to 36th and 25th) where 25-40 players show up each Modern night. Tonight I went 1-3, only change recently is back to 3x Marsh Flats and 4x Caves of Koilos after twice losing games by getting mana screwed for C. I also have not been needing Push with Revolt too often.
vs. Breach Titan: 0-2 (0-1)
On the draw, unsurprisingly I lost here. Mulled to 6 in G2 and kept a hand with two lands plus Surgical Extraction, but no Ghost Quarter. I drew into GQ but didn't see a Valakut until he landed two off of Primetime, by which time it was too late. Without a 2-Temple draw this match is real tough, period. This match makes me want to try Lost Legacy for Titan, instead of Extraction.
vs. GoBots/Kuldotha Rebirth Zoo: 2-1 (1-1)
Lost G1 on the draw after keeping a slow opener (though it was close, with a Vault on the table backing a Reshaper) when he finished me with Shrapnel Blast. This deck is like half Affinity and half Goblins/8-whack, and I had never heard of it before, let alone played it. Ratchet Bomb was HUGE after siding, hitting for value in each post-board game on 1 or 0. Both Brutality and Alliance well proved their worth, again, too. Love both of these super-versatile Escalating EMN cards in this build.
vs. UB Mill: 1-2 (1-2)
Super fun match here with an opponent with a tuned and fast Mill deck. I don't usually lose to Mill, and this one was close. Relic was very useful throughout to prevent some of his shenanigans. I lost G1 after never drawing a third land.
***ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Who Wants To Be A Mullionaire?!***
For G2 I sided in 8 cards but sided out nothing, and then drew a one-land 7, into a one-land 6, and 5, and 4. Ahaha I suck at this game why did I side like that! Then I kept the following three: Temple, Shrine, Relic. Mulligander (my little name for the scry) another Temple on top... keep that. Open T1 Temple, Relic, go. T2 draw Temple, play Shrine tapped, go. T2 his EoT crack Relic, exile yards/draw. T3 draw for turn, play Temple, Smasher, swing for 5, go. (Pause here for a moment while opponent adjusts to what just happened to him.) T4 draw and play Souls, play Shrine tapped. T5 draw and play Seer, flashback Souls. And so I won, on a mull to three. Gotta tell you I was super surprised and pretty stoked about that one.
In G3 he got my library super low, but I had lethal on board--when he topdecked a Bridge to shut me down. Having not seen it earlier, I'd sided out my Bombs AND my Unmakings and so was left with only one out: Cast Souls to present lethal tokens, draw a Path, and Path my in-play Seer to force the draw, giving me room to swing. I got the Souls off and was confident he would not see the threat and Extract a Path if he were to see it. I had 8 cards left in my deck... and two of them were Paths. Me: Draw and play Seer, go. Him: Draw, play a land, go. Me: ... another Seer... go. Him: Draw, casually play Night of Souls' Betrayal, crushing my dreams. Died after he milled the remaining five cards left (including the two Paths) in my library the next turn. Super fun match and I don't know how many mull-to-3-and-win's I'll ever get. That was certainly my first.
vs. Grixis Delver: 0-2 (1-3)
I kept a two-lander in G1 that never converted, while Sorin, Seer, and Smasher gathered dust in hand. (I was careless in not mulling some slow hands tonight in general, and it cost me.) In G2, he drew into three Terminates and three Fulminator Mages and I never really was able to establish. I played pretty badly in this match, truth be told. For instance I could have prevented his Gurmag Angler by cracking my Relic in response to his fetch activation, but I missed it until it was too late.
Thoughts: Dunno about Endless One; without a Temple in play he is pretty meh. Reshaper always feels better in the early game for sure as a T2/T3 play, and it's not terrible in the late game since the deck topdecks well overall if it dies. (It's remarkable how much I notice it when Reshaper gets exiled by like Anger or Kalitas, for instance.) Think I might retire ol' Endless. I am also thinking I might try out 4x Relic and 1x Stone, since I find myself missing the 4th Relic more than I expected. Consistency with that tool is noticeably down, at only three copies. (Reminds me of when I tried only two Ghost Quarters and felt like I never saw them anymore.) Relic is relevant surprisingly often, and it is low-downside in matches where it is irrelevant.
I would say my least sided-in card is Damnation, but I certainly don't feel willing to part with it. Cards I side in all the time are Needle, Bomb, Blessed Alliance, and my SB one-of's Unmaking, Brutality, and Path. The Wastes also comes in surprisingly frequently, since I have it anyway because it is necessary to fight Blood Moon in this Herder-free build, and it is also good vs. opposing Paths and GQs. In such matches a utility land can usually come out painlessly. Stony and Surgical and Damnation are much more match-specific and get sided rarely. However, I notice that my meta is absolutely wide-open right now; tonight I heard many people mention they thought there were a ton of different brews and minor decks--*ahem* guilty!--around. (Though in my prejudiced way I don't really consider my deck a minor brew. And most people in my shop know exactly what I'm up to by now.) But anyway I think the sweeper has got to stay.
Relic is good all by itself, we don't just play it for Strangler. But it is true that this build has kind of evolved into a CBW midrange goodstuff build over time and calling it "Processors" is not really so appropriate anymore.
Strangler is a pretty strong card overall in my experience, and zirzhas is right that we need a certain minimum threat density. 14-15 creatures, plus Souls and at least a couple of manlands, is about right in my experience.
Anguished Unmaking is a catch-all; like Relic it is good all by itself. The synergy with Strangler is just a bonus.
Polymorph, I have been on a 3/3 split of Path/Push and like it a lot. In particular, having an answer for a T1 Birds or Hierarch has been extremely good. However with the recent return in graveyard decks I've been thinking about going back to 4 Relics and down to 1 Stone. Regarding your sideboard, I would definitely not think a single Leyline will be any good, and Worship is bad against RG Valakut decks because they can just shoot down all our creatures with little difficulty. Runed Halo could be OK; but Valakut decks can kill you with either Titan OR Valakut, and Ad Nauseam decks can kill you with either Lightning Storm or Laboratory Maniac, so I'm not sure that's going to work out either. Pithing Needle can name Lightning Storm, FWIW.
Ad Nauseam has been a decent match for me, with Stranglers to hit their Lotus Bloom and Stony Silence for their mana rocks, plus hand disruption for the combo.
3-1 tonight out of 35 players, deck as last posted but -1 Go for the Throat and +1 Surgical Extraction.
Went 0-2 against classic UR Storm on the draw--kept a slow seven in G1 while he combo'ed off T5, and in G2 I kept a six that had Thoughtseize and Bomb, plus Reshaper and Seer, but never drew a colorless mana source (I have 14 in the deck). I died with him at 5 life on like turn 8 while I had three Seers, Reshaper, and a Smasher in hand. Never saw a Relic all match--going to three definitely affects the reliability of getting this.
Beat Jeskai Control in two on the draw; Geist was his best threat, but Lingering Souls and Relic go a long way in this match. As usual the blue deck struggled against this build.
Next I beat Abzan on the draw in two. This Abzan had Grim Flayer and Mishra's Bauble in it, plus Hierarch and Rhino, but no Bob. In G1 he got me very low but Vent bought me room to topdeck Souls and Smasher for the win while he topdecked useless hand disruption. At one point I had to double-block a 7/7 Scooze with two Seers but it all worked out. In G2 at one point I had 3 Reshapers and two Spirits on board when he swung in with a 4/4 Flayer and a Rhino; I blocked the Rhino with two Reshapers and the Flayer with one plus a Token, holding one token back for Lili (otV) while also having Vent in play. The Reshapers flipped me a Path, a Seer, and the only Pithing Needle I sided in, which named Lili of course. He was to die to Spirit tokens and Strangler beats with two more Lilis in hand.
Last Grixis Delver went to me in three on the play; I easily took G1 with Souls and Smasher, while in G2 I almost eeked out a win after mulling to 5 and keeping a hand with only Temple for land, and a Relic on top. In G3 he got me low but was not able to burn me out in time. Tar Pit did a lot of work for him until I topdecked a Push.
Thoughts: I think the deck is right about where it should be. I don't see it getting significantly better with the current card pool. Tweaking the SB to a local meta is always wise, of course, and this kind of tuning might be able to help with the hard matches of Tron, RG Valakut, and fast mono-color aggro like Elves, Merfolk, and 8-Whack. If Death's Shadow Jund picks up in a big way it is good for us, as just about all our kill spells are live against those guys. The same seems true of the Cheerios deck that people are making noises about--though it is true of course that that latter deck did not put up results this past weekend. But personally I think the hype train is a little out of control on both decks and that like Nahiri decks last year they are likely to prove to be a moderate presence, at the most, going forward.
If graveyard decks start to come back, it might be right to go back to 4 Relics main--I have played against Living End, Esper Gifts, Abzan Company, and now UR Storm, all since the ban.
I played that Stompy deck for a couple of months. Against decks where Chalice on 1 is not super relevant, it did not seem all that great to me. Serum Powder in particular was a real double-edged sword in my experience, it was a real feel-bad card almost every time I found it in hand when it wasn't in my opener. I didn't mulligan as much as Jordan does though.
Regarding Smuggler's Copter, I'll just reiterate that a main focus of this deck, the way I envision and have built it, is to make an opponent's removal bad against our creature package. But this is not true of Looter Scooter. It dies to almost everything, and does not present a threat by itself. Think of it as an equipment that can be hit by creature removal spells. It is a good effect, on a decent-bodied flyer, but I think it has a significant downside, and would be very hard to fit into a list that already has very few flex slots.
I think if I were going to run one, I'd lean towards Disenchant over Celestial Purge as a more versatile answer. Smasher and Souls tend to be pretty good in the planeswalker-destroying department anyway.
Blood Moon decks rarely give me much trouble. I only really seem to run into problems in two cases. One, when they have a lot of fast pressure, like 8-Whack decks; or two, when they combine Moon with cards like Molten Rain or Stone Rain (not Fulminator Mage, though). If they can hit me with a Moon AND blow up my basics then I'm in trouble. But if I am playing around it, a Moon all by itself is not going to be very effective against me. This is even more true now that I have all 4 Flats in the mainboard.
Batterskull could be worth trying out again. It is very good, but it is so slow to land.
(edit)
Went 3-1 tonight again at that shop I was at a week ago--it's rare for me to only play once in a week, but I've had little time. I was going to change up the list a little but didn't get time to do it, and it proved to be an interesting experiment. Here's the list, then a brief report:
Bant Eldrazi, 2-1 (1-0)
I kept an opener on the play with T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Mind Stone / Relic, T3 Smasher, due to Stone and Temple. I drew a ton of removal, even using Stone to activate Push on his Seer, and so drawing 2 but losing one and the removal. Love that card in this build. Vault of the Archangel was a big deal in that game, too, and I easily won it. G2 saw me get overwhelmed quickly as he ramped fast and I drew lands. In G3 my opponent mulls to 6 and I keep a T2 Reshaper / T3 Seer hand. The clincher turned out to be an early Ghost Quarter on his Temple when I knew he had a Seer in hand, which allowed me to Push a Displacer. That play ended up slowing him down a lot. I felt very in control of the two games I won, I have a *****-ton of removal now it feels like. Push was great on mana dorks here, so much better than Path, and really changing an opponent's plans when it hits them.
Super-Budget RG Tron, 1-2 (1-1)
So here's where I draw Extraction--to my chagrin, because I had forgotten to pull it from the main deck--and then find my opponent on RG Tron, and I happen to have a Ghost Quarter in hand, too. That one I blew him out, but I also discovered he had a super-budget build with no Karns or O-Stones, and with Smashers (I can see the attraction), Kozilek's Return, Bolt, and Sanctum of Ugin for Platinum Angel, Platinum Emperion, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, and All Is Dust, those last two being pretty bad against us. He also had the RG scryland instead of Grove. I had a fun interaction where he Koz Returned the board, killing Reshaper who flipped a Strangler to process/kill his Spellskite, which in turn allowed me to Path his Wurmcoil before its first swing. Push was not relevant here. Turned out he tromped me; in G2 I kept a bad 6 with Stony, Caves, Mind Stone and never drew the land I needed, ceding quickly. I kept another shaky 6 on the play G3 with no C, and ended up with both Extractions in my hand and no lands in the yard because no GQ or any other colorless land. I got stuck on three lands this game, once again starving out while uncastable Eldrazi rotted in my hands.
UB Fae 2-0 (2-1)
Sandbagging Cavern of Souls is so good against control decks. T4 Seer off Cavern feels dirty against those guys. My opponent played a late Bitterblossom but Smasher doesn't care. A key play here was when I played Souls late and he activated two Mutavault to Spellstutter Sprite it, but I was able to GQ his 'Vault before Sprite resolved, fizzling it and allowing Souls to resolve. In G2 he landed T2 and T3 Blossoms, but I Unmade one and the other one slowly unmade him. A Lingering Souls kept his fliers at bay, and Shambling Vent gained me 6 life this game, plus more from Alliance and Brutality. Meanwhile he slowly ticks down as I fend him off from the back foot. Eventually Smasher closed things out. I had too much mana for Mana Leak in the late game both games.
Jeskai Control/Geist 2-1 (3-1)
Once again Cavern of Souls earns its place in the main, as G1 goes to me in a walk. In G2 his T3 Geist of Saint Traft, and Snaps operating with impunity in the face of zero Relics, quickly destroyed me. But in G3 I sided the Bombs in, eventually ticking up both and using one for Ajani Vengeant and the other for Geist. This whole keeping it at one CMC value, but threatening the next one higher, is a real unsung virtue of Bomb, in my opinion. On the other hand, he could have bounced one instead of drawing, once, but he missed or rejected that line.
Thoughts:
Push was very good all night, and I was able to get Revolt a lot. I thought about Ghost Quarter, Mind Stone, and Relic all a little differently due to Push, because cracking them earlier than I often would have was a decision, but it never felt bad. Instead, even using GQ like that once felt like a not-terrible tradeoff for a great card--because at the same time of course I was also turning Revolt on as planned, using Flats, dying tokens, etc. It feels so good to Push a mana dork, I love it. Lots of removal in general feels pretty good.
Extraction was a decidedly mixed bag, but I should maybe have played it more aggressively on stuff like hit a fetch on their T2 draw step after they draw. When you hit their hand it's pretty good, and when you miss at least you see their probable next couple of turns, which is always nice. It was such a blowout in that one Tron game when I was able to link it up with GQ, but otherwise it was not really particularly good. It was unwanted in hand a couple of times too, especially when I drew the second one. I think it probably needs to go, despite the odd Tron matches it wins for us. Either that or drop to 2 Push, but I don't think I like that either. Having lots of removal is pretty important.
I still intend to try one Endless One for a Reshaper, but don't have any with me. However Reshaper is just pure value every time, especially on T2 he is a very strong play. Also, I used store credit from the two nights to cover most of a Liliana, the Last Hope, though I think for now it's going into my Jund deck.
Congrats RidetheIguana on your recent first place finish at the SCG IQ! Post an event report maybe? Do you still find you are fixing your mana with GQ very often?
I wonder if a clunky thing for you sometimes is having BB for Lili on T3? Cards with BB or WW costs seem much harder to land than the split nana BW cards. With BW the only way to have two colored lands and NOT have the right mana is to only have your two Swamps and need it for a white spell. It's a corner case, but to me it seems that this deck is kinda looking to take advantage of every angle it can--e.g., GY hate, exile hate, hand disruption, land destruction, manlands, etc. etc. You also have Sea Gate Wreckage where I have Concealed Courtyard, making Lili one step harder to cast.
I think you really nailed something crucial with your insight about the SB plan--while playing Bant Eldrazi I found that if I sided in more than 3-4 cards max, then I was messing up my primary all-in gameplan too much; where with BW (are we still calling this thing "Processors"?) we are built around flexibility. I regularly find myself siding in/out 6-7+ cards and feeling good about it: like taking out Relics for more creature removal vs. aggro; or hand siding out disruption for multipurpose removal like Bomb and Unmaking vs. Jund; or losing the creature removal for Needle etc. vs. combo.
Anyway, I went 4-1 last night, losing to a KCI/Eggs/Hangarback Walker/Scrapheap Scrounger/Emrakul combo I'd never encountered before, and beating some fun brews, Ad Nauseam, and Naya Burn. In anticipation of Death's Shadow decks I went with 3x Push and 4x Path maindeck, with both Unmakings in the side. I also went back to 3x Relic and 2x Stone, because even though I really want the reliable GY hate in the main, playing the ramptastic Bant deck made me fully appreciate the utility of Mind Stone anew. Ramp is important in this deck! If we don't have a Temple in play we are at a pretty significant disadvantage. Stone is a strong role-player and the importance of the late-game cantrip cannot be overstated.
Current list in sig for those interested.
I have been on Bant Eldrazi lately, but haven't been winning too much with it actually. However it has made me realize that the inconsistency of Processors is a problem. The deck can be very good in many matchups. But, when you draw a hand full of Seers and Smashers, but only 2-3 lands with no Temples or Mind Stones, then it can be very hard to play out your hand. And this happens often enough that mulliganing often won't help as much as we would like.
Nevertheless, the deck is fun to play, and lot more interesting and complex than Bant is. And the maindeck graveyard hate plus the addition of Fatal Push to the format makes it look like it might be positioned OK going forward--I'll probably bring Processors to the next couple of weekly events I attend. Don't know what I'll do about the GPT this weekend though.
In other news, Amonkhet has a card that looks very interesting for our deck:
This compares pretty well to Relic in some ways--like Relic it cycles for 1 mana, and like Relic it is cheap graveyard interaction. The downside is obviously that it doesn't get everything in all yards, making it much worse against Goyf, for instance. But it has the upside that opponents probably won't see it coming, so it lends itself far better to disruption and combat tricks in some ways. If it didn't have cycling I would never consider it, but for only B to cast it either of two ways, it might be worth a look. I'll probably test it by running a 2/2 split with Relic to start.
For 3W, Cast Out should hit lands. Cycling for W isn't good enough to make this card playable, I don't think.
Overall, I think your deck idea is too defensive and not proactive enough. Twelve threats is nowhere near enough--the standard BW Eldrazi builds run a minimum of 18 threats (14-15 Eldrazi plus 4 Lingering Souls). If you're gonna plan for landing RiP in most games then I don't know why you wouldn't run Eternal Scoourge, either. I really think your Explores and enchantment tutors are gonna be a big pile of do-nothing in most games and you should be beefing up your threat roster. I suggest going to 4 RiPs and losing the Prison, Leyline, and all the tutors. This frees up slots to add Scourge and either Matter Reshaper or Reality Smasher, and you may be able to find room in the side for the other enchantment options.
Lastly, I strongly encourage you to playtest the green splash--adding green to the CBW land package has proven very troublesome in earlier attempts. It's extremely tough to get reliable T1 B for hand disruption plus reliable T2 G for Explore or Decay, plus all the mana you want for the Eldrazi and the white spells. With only six sources for C, you're gonna have a ton of games where your Thought-Knot Seers are uncastable because you just never saw a colorless land. In general I'd venture to say that if you're building an Eldrazi deck with fewer than four Eldrazi Temples, then you might be overthinking things.
Been playing Bant for a couple of weeks--feels more powerful but less interesting. It's definitely way more consistent with ramping than this deck is. Not sure how much I like it.
I like Fatal Push a whole bunch and I don't feel like the extra Flats is really needed--I also use Ghost Quarter to trigger it on occasion. I am on a 3/3 split between Path and Push, with a fourth Path in the side. I have also gone to four Relics and only one Mind Stone. Lately my FNM record has been pretty bad, like 2-2, 2-3, 3-2, etc. There was even a 1-3 in there one night.
The low 1 CMC hand disruption count is a mixed bag. I am not entirely happy with only 3 T1 disruption spells, though on the other hand T1 Relic is usually very good. T1 Relic either establishes the grave-hate right out of the gate, or allows a T2 crack-and-draw if it's not relevant, on a turn where (let's face it) we are sometimes not making other impactful plays anyways. And the recent addition of Push means we have a third good T1 play in many matches. I do very much enjoy how well the low Thoughtseize/IoK count improves our late-game topdeck plan, though. There's no way I would ever go above 5 such spells total in a deck that also plays 4 Seers, personally, even if I had the room--better to get more proactive with threats, I reckon.
As I mentioned on reddit, I don't think Liliana of the Veil works in a build that is trying to land 4 and 5 CMC threats, because it makes it hard to keep both the spells and land count high enough to curve out--BGx doesn't have this problem as much, due to their much cheaper threats. Though of course throwing Souls to Lili is always good. But I have been throwing it to Brutality instead, which card is also very, very good. Liliana the Last Hope might be worth a shot--haven't tried it myself. Personally, I don't see Elspeth doing anything important for this particular deck in the 4 CMC slot.
[edit] Found a thoughtful article about why Burn may be on its way out--Sorin might indeed be worse than an alternative nowadays. Not sure what I'd run in that slot, but Endless One might be right, or a single Herder. I'm even inclined to maybe give Blood Baron of Vizkopa a shot again, since that card dies to exactly nothing except sweepers and double-Bolt. Or of course, maybe a Lili would be best.
Those who've been around for a while might recall that the original build 5-0'ed online with 4 Herders and 4 Relics. The more things change...
Haven't been doing so hot last couple weeks--as always I play twice a week in a competitive shop (I did not go, but we had 7-8 regulars day 2 the Vancouver GP last week, finishing from ~125 up to 36th and 25th) where 25-40 players show up each Modern night. Tonight I went 1-3, only change recently is back to 3x Marsh Flats and 4x Caves of Koilos after twice losing games by getting mana screwed for C. I also have not been needing Push with Revolt too often.
vs. Breach Titan: 0-2 (0-1)
On the draw, unsurprisingly I lost here. Mulled to 6 in G2 and kept a hand with two lands plus Surgical Extraction, but no Ghost Quarter. I drew into GQ but didn't see a Valakut until he landed two off of Primetime, by which time it was too late. Without a 2-Temple draw this match is real tough, period. This match makes me want to try Lost Legacy for Titan, instead of Extraction.
vs. GoBots/Kuldotha Rebirth Zoo: 2-1 (1-1)
Lost G1 on the draw after keeping a slow opener (though it was close, with a Vault on the table backing a Reshaper) when he finished me with Shrapnel Blast. This deck is like half Affinity and half Goblins/8-whack, and I had never heard of it before, let alone played it. Ratchet Bomb was HUGE after siding, hitting for value in each post-board game on 1 or 0. Both Brutality and Alliance well proved their worth, again, too. Love both of these super-versatile Escalating EMN cards in this build.
vs. UB Mill: 1-2 (1-2)
Super fun match here with an opponent with a tuned and fast Mill deck. I don't usually lose to Mill, and this one was close. Relic was very useful throughout to prevent some of his shenanigans. I lost G1 after never drawing a third land.
***ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Who Wants To Be A Mullionaire?!***
For G2 I sided in 8 cards but sided out nothing, and then drew a one-land 7, into a one-land 6, and 5, and 4. Ahaha I suck at this game why did I side like that! Then I kept the following three: Temple, Shrine, Relic. Mulligander (my little name for the scry) another Temple on top... keep that. Open T1 Temple, Relic, go. T2 draw Temple, play Shrine tapped, go. T2 his EoT crack Relic, exile yards/draw. T3 draw for turn, play Temple, Smasher, swing for 5, go. (Pause here for a moment while opponent adjusts to what just happened to him.) T4 draw and play Souls, play Shrine tapped. T5 draw and play Seer, flashback Souls. And so I won, on a mull to three. Gotta tell you I was super surprised and pretty stoked about that one.
In G3 he got my library super low, but I had lethal on board--when he topdecked a Bridge to shut me down. Having not seen it earlier, I'd sided out my Bombs AND my Unmakings and so was left with only one out: Cast Souls to present lethal tokens, draw a Path, and Path my in-play Seer to force the draw, giving me room to swing. I got the Souls off and was confident he would not see the threat and Extract a Path if he were to see it. I had 8 cards left in my deck... and two of them were Paths. Me: Draw and play Seer, go. Him: Draw, play a land, go. Me: ... another Seer... go. Him: Draw, casually play Night of Souls' Betrayal, crushing my dreams. Died after he milled the remaining five cards left (including the two Paths) in my library the next turn. Super fun match and I don't know how many mull-to-3-and-win's I'll ever get. That was certainly my first.
vs. Grixis Delver: 0-2 (1-3)
I kept a two-lander in G1 that never converted, while Sorin, Seer, and Smasher gathered dust in hand. (I was careless in not mulling some slow hands tonight in general, and it cost me.) In G2, he drew into three Terminates and three Fulminator Mages and I never really was able to establish. I played pretty badly in this match, truth be told. For instance I could have prevented his Gurmag Angler by cracking my Relic in response to his fetch activation, but I missed it until it was too late.
Thoughts: Dunno about Endless One; without a Temple in play he is pretty meh. Reshaper always feels better in the early game for sure as a T2/T3 play, and it's not terrible in the late game since the deck topdecks well overall if it dies. (It's remarkable how much I notice it when Reshaper gets exiled by like Anger or Kalitas, for instance.) Think I might retire ol' Endless. I am also thinking I might try out 4x Relic and 1x Stone, since I find myself missing the 4th Relic more than I expected. Consistency with that tool is noticeably down, at only three copies. (Reminds me of when I tried only two Ghost Quarters and felt like I never saw them anymore.) Relic is relevant surprisingly often, and it is low-downside in matches where it is irrelevant.
I would say my least sided-in card is Damnation, but I certainly don't feel willing to part with it. Cards I side in all the time are Needle, Bomb, Blessed Alliance, and my SB one-of's Unmaking, Brutality, and Path. The Wastes also comes in surprisingly frequently, since I have it anyway because it is necessary to fight Blood Moon in this Herder-free build, and it is also good vs. opposing Paths and GQs. In such matches a utility land can usually come out painlessly. Stony and Surgical and Damnation are much more match-specific and get sided rarely. However, I notice that my meta is absolutely wide-open right now; tonight I heard many people mention they thought there were a ton of different brews and minor decks--*ahem* guilty!--around. (Though in my prejudiced way I don't really consider my deck a minor brew. And most people in my shop know exactly what I'm up to by now.) But anyway I think the sweeper has got to stay.
Strangler is a pretty strong card overall in my experience, and zirzhas is right that we need a certain minimum threat density. 14-15 creatures, plus Souls and at least a couple of manlands, is about right in my experience.
Anguished Unmaking is a catch-all; like Relic it is good all by itself. The synergy with Strangler is just a bonus.
Polymorph, I have been on a 3/3 split of Path/Push and like it a lot. In particular, having an answer for a T1 Birds or Hierarch has been extremely good. However with the recent return in graveyard decks I've been thinking about going back to 4 Relics and down to 1 Stone. Regarding your sideboard, I would definitely not think a single Leyline will be any good, and Worship is bad against RG Valakut decks because they can just shoot down all our creatures with little difficulty. Runed Halo could be OK; but Valakut decks can kill you with either Titan OR Valakut, and Ad Nauseam decks can kill you with either Lightning Storm or Laboratory Maniac, so I'm not sure that's going to work out either. Pithing Needle can name Lightning Storm, FWIW.
Ad Nauseam has been a decent match for me, with Stranglers to hit their Lotus Bloom and Stony Silence for their mana rocks, plus hand disruption for the combo.
3-1 tonight out of 35 players, deck as last posted but -1 Go for the Throat and +1 Surgical Extraction.
Went 0-2 against classic UR Storm on the draw--kept a slow seven in G1 while he combo'ed off T5, and in G2 I kept a six that had Thoughtseize and Bomb, plus Reshaper and Seer, but never drew a colorless mana source (I have 14 in the deck). I died with him at 5 life on like turn 8 while I had three Seers, Reshaper, and a Smasher in hand. Never saw a Relic all match--going to three definitely affects the reliability of getting this.
Beat Jeskai Control in two on the draw; Geist was his best threat, but Lingering Souls and Relic go a long way in this match. As usual the blue deck struggled against this build.
Next I beat Abzan on the draw in two. This Abzan had Grim Flayer and Mishra's Bauble in it, plus Hierarch and Rhino, but no Bob. In G1 he got me very low but Vent bought me room to topdeck Souls and Smasher for the win while he topdecked useless hand disruption. At one point I had to double-block a 7/7 Scooze with two Seers but it all worked out. In G2 at one point I had 3 Reshapers and two Spirits on board when he swung in with a 4/4 Flayer and a Rhino; I blocked the Rhino with two Reshapers and the Flayer with one plus a Token, holding one token back for Lili (otV) while also having Vent in play. The Reshapers flipped me a Path, a Seer, and the only Pithing Needle I sided in, which named Lili of course. He was to die to Spirit tokens and Strangler beats with two more Lilis in hand.
Last Grixis Delver went to me in three on the play; I easily took G1 with Souls and Smasher, while in G2 I almost eeked out a win after mulling to 5 and keeping a hand with only Temple for land, and a Relic on top. In G3 he got me low but was not able to burn me out in time. Tar Pit did a lot of work for him until I topdecked a Push.
Thoughts: I think the deck is right about where it should be. I don't see it getting significantly better with the current card pool. Tweaking the SB to a local meta is always wise, of course, and this kind of tuning might be able to help with the hard matches of Tron, RG Valakut, and fast mono-color aggro like Elves, Merfolk, and 8-Whack. If Death's Shadow Jund picks up in a big way it is good for us, as just about all our kill spells are live against those guys. The same seems true of the Cheerios deck that people are making noises about--though it is true of course that that latter deck did not put up results this past weekend. But personally I think the hype train is a little out of control on both decks and that like Nahiri decks last year they are likely to prove to be a moderate presence, at the most, going forward.
If graveyard decks start to come back, it might be right to go back to 4 Relics main--I have played against Living End, Esper Gifts, Abzan Company, and now UR Storm, all since the ban.
Regarding Smuggler's Copter, I'll just reiterate that a main focus of this deck, the way I envision and have built it, is to make an opponent's removal bad against our creature package. But this is not true of Looter Scooter. It dies to almost everything, and does not present a threat by itself. Think of it as an equipment that can be hit by creature removal spells. It is a good effect, on a decent-bodied flyer, but I think it has a significant downside, and would be very hard to fit into a list that already has very few flex slots.
Just my $0.02.
Blood Moon decks rarely give me much trouble. I only really seem to run into problems in two cases. One, when they have a lot of fast pressure, like 8-Whack decks; or two, when they combine Moon with cards like Molten Rain or Stone Rain (not Fulminator Mage, though). If they can hit me with a Moon AND blow up my basics then I'm in trouble. But if I am playing around it, a Moon all by itself is not going to be very effective against me. This is even more true now that I have all 4 Flats in the mainboard.
Batterskull could be worth trying out again. It is very good, but it is so slow to land.
(edit)
Went 3-1 tonight again at that shop I was at a week ago--it's rare for me to only play once in a week, but I've had little time. I was going to change up the list a little but didn't get time to do it, and it proved to be an interesting experiment. Here's the list, then a brief report:
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Marsh Flats
3 Caves of Koilos
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Godless Shrine
2 Shambling Vent
2 Swamp
1 Concealed Courtyard
1 Plains
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Cavern of Souls
Creature (15)
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
Instant (8)
3 Path to Exile
3 Fatal Push
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Surgical Extraction
Artifact (5)
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Mind Stone
Planeswalker (1)
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Stony Silence
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Pithing Needle
1 Damnation
1 Collective Brutality
1 Go for the Throat
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Path to Exile
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Wastes
Bant Eldrazi, 2-1 (1-0)
I kept an opener on the play with T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Mind Stone / Relic, T3 Smasher, due to Stone and Temple. I drew a ton of removal, even using Stone to activate Push on his Seer, and so drawing 2 but losing one and the removal. Love that card in this build. Vault of the Archangel was a big deal in that game, too, and I easily won it. G2 saw me get overwhelmed quickly as he ramped fast and I drew lands. In G3 my opponent mulls to 6 and I keep a T2 Reshaper / T3 Seer hand. The clincher turned out to be an early Ghost Quarter on his Temple when I knew he had a Seer in hand, which allowed me to Push a Displacer. That play ended up slowing him down a lot. I felt very in control of the two games I won, I have a *****-ton of removal now it feels like. Push was great on mana dorks here, so much better than Path, and really changing an opponent's plans when it hits them.
Super-Budget RG Tron, 1-2 (1-1)
So here's where I draw Extraction--to my chagrin, because I had forgotten to pull it from the main deck--and then find my opponent on RG Tron, and I happen to have a Ghost Quarter in hand, too. That one I blew him out, but I also discovered he had a super-budget build with no Karns or O-Stones, and with Smashers (I can see the attraction), Kozilek's Return, Bolt, and Sanctum of Ugin for Platinum Angel, Platinum Emperion, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, and All Is Dust, those last two being pretty bad against us. He also had the RG scryland instead of Grove. I had a fun interaction where he Koz Returned the board, killing Reshaper who flipped a Strangler to process/kill his Spellskite, which in turn allowed me to Path his Wurmcoil before its first swing. Push was not relevant here. Turned out he tromped me; in G2 I kept a bad 6 with Stony, Caves, Mind Stone and never drew the land I needed, ceding quickly. I kept another shaky 6 on the play G3 with no C, and ended up with both Extractions in my hand and no lands in the yard because no GQ or any other colorless land. I got stuck on three lands this game, once again starving out while uncastable Eldrazi rotted in my hands.
UB Fae 2-0 (2-1)
Sandbagging Cavern of Souls is so good against control decks. T4 Seer off Cavern feels dirty against those guys. My opponent played a late Bitterblossom but Smasher doesn't care. A key play here was when I played Souls late and he activated two Mutavault to Spellstutter Sprite it, but I was able to GQ his 'Vault before Sprite resolved, fizzling it and allowing Souls to resolve. In G2 he landed T2 and T3 Blossoms, but I Unmade one and the other one slowly unmade him. A Lingering Souls kept his fliers at bay, and Shambling Vent gained me 6 life this game, plus more from Alliance and Brutality. Meanwhile he slowly ticks down as I fend him off from the back foot. Eventually Smasher closed things out. I had too much mana for Mana Leak in the late game both games.
Jeskai Control/Geist 2-1 (3-1)
Once again Cavern of Souls earns its place in the main, as G1 goes to me in a walk. In G2 his T3 Geist of Saint Traft, and Snaps operating with impunity in the face of zero Relics, quickly destroyed me. But in G3 I sided the Bombs in, eventually ticking up both and using one for Ajani Vengeant and the other for Geist. This whole keeping it at one CMC value, but threatening the next one higher, is a real unsung virtue of Bomb, in my opinion. On the other hand, he could have bounced one instead of drawing, once, but he missed or rejected that line.
Thoughts:
Push was very good all night, and I was able to get Revolt a lot. I thought about Ghost Quarter, Mind Stone, and Relic all a little differently due to Push, because cracking them earlier than I often would have was a decision, but it never felt bad. Instead, even using GQ like that once felt like a not-terrible tradeoff for a great card--because at the same time of course I was also turning Revolt on as planned, using Flats, dying tokens, etc. It feels so good to Push a mana dork, I love it. Lots of removal in general feels pretty good.
Extraction was a decidedly mixed bag, but I should maybe have played it more aggressively on stuff like hit a fetch on their T2 draw step after they draw. When you hit their hand it's pretty good, and when you miss at least you see their probable next couple of turns, which is always nice. It was such a blowout in that one Tron game when I was able to link it up with GQ, but otherwise it was not really particularly good. It was unwanted in hand a couple of times too, especially when I drew the second one. I think it probably needs to go, despite the odd Tron matches it wins for us. Either that or drop to 2 Push, but I don't think I like that either. Having lots of removal is pretty important.
I still intend to try one Endless One for a Reshaper, but don't have any with me. However Reshaper is just pure value every time, especially on T2 he is a very strong play. Also, I used store credit from the two nights to cover most of a Liliana, the Last Hope, though I think for now it's going into my Jund deck.