202.3b When calculating the converted mana cost of an object with {X} in its mana cost, X is treated as 0 while the object is not on the stack, and X is treated as the number chosen for it while the object is on the stack.
Endless Ones (X>=7), Titans, All is Dust, Deceiver of Form are all Sanctum of Ugin enablers in my deck for example. Super useful for fetching a titan if I have Tron or Reality Smasher if I am mana limited.
And another good finish. Really thinking about picking up the deck, looks fun. But how does the deck play compared to regular Tron? As in, how are openers kept now that you don't have stirrings or sylvan scrying, etc...
It depends on the version of the deck that you are playing. If you are going with a full set of Endbringers/Chalices, your goal is to play highly efficient creatures while controlling your opponent with chalice/removal/and board clears. The ability to close out the game usually comes down to your 5/5s (Reality Smasher/Endbringer) while the Titans are a bonus if you hit fast tron.
The other version is more aggressive using Mimics/Endless Ones and mana acceleration to speed up the game. Close to the ideal play is something like this;
T1: Mimic, T2: TKS (Swing for 4), T3: Reality Smasher (Swing for 14) - Basically dead if they run shocks/fetches. If not you have basically swung with only 4/4,5/5 stat-line early in the game which most people can't effectively block without making bad trades (additional the TKS rips a card from your hand which they aren't getting back anytime soon). It has its own weakness of being less consistent and lighting bolts/path to exile still slows it down. Beyond that your core creature base is fantastic (Reshapers/TKS/Reality Smasher); I usually save Endless Ones to become at least a 4/4 or higher (ideally using them for Sanctum Triggers as 7/7 or silly games where I make 11/11 from them).
My ideal opening is at least 3 mana (temple/other land) or two ursa plus map. I'll keep 3 normal lands (urza without map/utility lands) if the rest of the hand has a way to stall out the game until I draw into something (Removal, Reshaper, Mimic, etc). The best/worst part of the deck is the opening hands since we depend on certain lands and have a high average CMC. There is ways to make this better (green splash) but I think running chalice of the void helps a lot to slow down other decks. I haven't decided if I want to buy a play-set at the current prices.
Proceeded to go 2-0,2-1,2-1. The first game was against a mono-blue control deck (brew) - apparently bad draws on his part but his opening hands were extremely high CMC so I was able to tear apart his hand with TKS and fast mana. Beat-down with the core crew (Mimic, Reshaper, TKS, Reality Smasher) before he could get anything going both games. Second game was against a B/W Lifelink/Flyers deck. I lost a game due to not reading a card and getting beatdown by a 6/5 Flyer Lifelinker but the other games went fairly well. First game with natural tron; big mimics and reality smashers while the third game I was able to cast both of my titans to seal out of the game (one drawn, one Conduit of Ruin). My last game was against Eldrazi & Taxes which was extremely close.
The first game was pretty much a blowout - kept a one lander with Eldrazi Temple + removal. Got my removal stolen and then got ghost quartered with arbiter out AKA stuck on one land and proceeded to concede. Second game, two tron + map into the aggro plan. Drew into natural tron anyways and proceeded to close out the game by dropping 3 TKS, All Is Dust, and a Smasher. Last game was extremely grindy (ended up at 2-3 life and took him down from 16 life). I was able to stabilize at the end of the game due to drawing higher value cards each turn when we were hellbent. He was trying to keep me off of fast mana and the two basic wastes were life-savers in this matchup with Path to Exile + Ghost Quarter. Played a 4th and got blown out by his good curve while mine was too high. Certainly a matchup that could go either way.
My sideboard method is usually based if a game will go long or short. If I know my opponents deck is a very low curve deck then I usually forgo a lot of the top end and try to play lower to the ground, on the flipside if I don't think I can win with mimic then they are the first to go with Endless Ones being the flex creature that gets removed. I almost never remove the core creatures (Reshaper, TKS, Reality Smasher) and usually find myself looking for Ratchet Bombs.
As for changes I would like to make to the deck or test. I would like to try Basilisk Collar in the mainboard for the ability to lifelink with our creatures, new Eldrazi in the 7-9 flex spot (Deceiver of Form is there currently), and switching out of the Conduit of Ruinx2/DoF for 3 Endbringers. When I have some time this week I'll be testing Distended Mindbender in the flex spot - it has synergy with the Urborg I already run and it is basically a guaranteed 1 for 1 with its discard ability (or better). It is disappointing that Emerge wasn't an instant ability allowing us to dodge removal with the sacrifice...or the fact that all of the new Eldrazi are very overcosted for the stat-line. Interesting enough; it may be a good way to get value out of a Matter Reshaper that was previous cast. Sacrificing Reshaper for Distended Mindbender give us a cost of 2BB.
Edit: If we sacrifice TKS to Distended Mindbender, we get to put the draw a card before the discard trigger right?
Newmarkul on the other hand looks quite interesting to test with. Casting this on T4-T5 when most other decks want to be winning could be extremely decisive.
Played a game with a proxy copy of new Emrakul against (Naya)Burn yesterday. Burn 5 life, me 4 life, hard cast new Emmy. Forcing Burn to crack a fetch for a land on the end of my turn so I wouldn't crack it for a shock land on my Mindslaver turn. Burn draws a Boros Charm. Game over for Burn. Can't tell you how many games I've lost to Boros Charm. Poetic justice.
I haven't had the chance to playtest with him at all. What do you normally find yourself casting him for?
Interesting approaches to both of these decks is cutting out Mimics/or Endless Ones (our aggro/pressure tool) for a better midrange game with Endbringers and Spellskite (to help with bad match-ups). Also I really like the Basilisk Collar tech. for the deck as well since there is often times I wished I had a little bit of lifelink to keep the game going longer. Additional Chalice of the Void is just so good. I would love a reprint on it and Spellskite so I could do more testing with these.
The general vibe I am getting is the deck should be focused towards an aggressive aggro game with mana acceleration/mimics or a mid-range variant that cuts out the mimics/mana acceleration for a little more removal/better midrange creatures. I am interested if Conduit of Ruin is even worth having around. Wish I had more time to play test all the variations.
I think they are interesting but I struggle to see a place for them in our decks. Even more so after going to a larger tournament last weekend (~140 people) where I was constantly fighting to achieve the mana-base for our higher costing threats. Sometimes it can be a struggle to find the mana for even a Reality Smasher or Conduit of Ruin before Affinity, Burn, and other decks can either disrupt us or kill us outright. Both Lashweed Lurker and Elder Deep-Fiend are overcosted for their stats, aren't playable on T3, would require at least a few temples (and more land on top of that), and the benefit of their abilities isn't gamebreaking. Elder Deep-Fiend reminds me of Mistbind Clique but doesn't fly, has a small gain in power/toughness but cost double. Lashweed Lurker has a worst statline than Reality Smasher, and effectively denies a draw step which isn't going to help you get your board back on track by the time you can cast 8 mana. For 8 colourless mana, I rather have an Ugin which is effectively going to act as a boardwipe/or removal/free lightning bolts.
Our creature package has a simple vibe; good statline - powerful effects
Mimic (2) - 2/1; Can grow in power/toughness for a turn
Reshaper (3) - 3/2; Aggressive piece that can trade and replace itself
TKT (4) - 4/4; Ability to remove a card for a draw when it dies. Avoids most damage removal
Reality Smasher (5) 5/5; Haste+Trample + Soft protection against removal
6 cost flex - RoC/Endbringer; 5/5, all with some kind of added bonus
If I am paying 7 or more mana for something, it needs to be very impactful. Wurmcoil Engine is pretty much the creature we would love to have as an Eldrazi. Good statline, hard to removal, prolongs the game. What I would like to see? Pay 7, 5/5 Lifelink+Flyer. Or a cheaper variation to round out our 4/5 drops more. We suffer against not being able to prolong the game against decks faster than us (unless we hit our removal) and getting something into the air would be nice.
New colourless cards : D Super excited to see what the upcoming set holds for us.
Had the chance to head out to a tournament during the weekend and proceeded to go 1-3 (meh). Had some pretty poor luck for most of the day (didn't win a single die roll to play) and a few close games that could have gone either way. (Overall; 1-2, 0-2, 1-2, 2-1). Random thoughts; I'll be increasing my Mimics from x2 to x4. The core of the deck has always been TKS - Reality Smashers, I rather have things that synergies with them than dropping a filler endless one at 3/3 or whatever. Also need to remind myself to announce mimic triggers for people, otherwise they don't count. Oh well, nitpicky magic is something that certain people love to play. Not my particular cup of tea, but that is the nature of the beast.
On the other note, I finally decided to order the rest of the deck online since all of the LGS I frequent doesn't seem to have any Ghost Quarters or Relics which has been frustrating. Lots of Tron/Blood Moon around so I think the Ghost Quarters are extremely important for us in both situations (stopping Tron/finding a basic for ourselves).
Still around; been fairly busy of late so I haven't had the chance to play a ton. Played a FNM Modern two weeks ago and went 3-1; the deck performed well in general and the lost match certainly could of been a win depending on draws. Ended up beating Tooth and Nail, Amulet of Vigor (Land Deck; Combo Thing), and a R/U Combo Homebrew. Lost to Breachshift which felt pretty bad in general since each time the game went fairly long and I just didn't draw into anything relative for the board state (Being at 9 mana with Ulamog in hand, and no land drops for multiple turns feels bad). Biggest issue I had was closing out the game with early aggression since Sakura-Tribe Elder ramp/chump proved very effective. Also getting Worldspine Wurm for 15 into 3 5/5 on turn 3/4 feels bad.
Other than that match, the deck felt really good overall. Even won through a blood moon with some good draws into my Wastes in the Tooth and Nail game. All is Dust was an all star in several matches (except for Breachshift where it never showed up >_< I needed you), either causing a board wipe for my opponent to delay or outright winning the game when it is cast. Loving the deck; I really need to buy some Ghost Quarters to replace 1-2 of my utility lands so I can crack it on myself to find a Waste. Running 2 Waste in the mainboard also has been very beneficial since Blood Moon and Path to Exile are rampant.
Further thoughts; I feel like I often side out my Mimics (currently playing with 2) for my sideboard in favour of playing a longer control game but I have a feeling that it would be better to keep them and side out the Endless Ones instead. The 6&7 slot package is something that I have been mulling over awhile;
Currently I run Conduit of Ruin x2, Endbringer x1, and Deceiver of Form x1. Tempted to drop that down to Conduit of Ruin x2, and add in the x2 Mimic in the bottom slot. I win a vast majority of my games simply off Though-Knot Seer and Reality Smashers. The higher end package seems like overkill for Modern (we are already "bigger" than most decks) and don't have the options against a real control deck. It seems I am trending towards a mid-range shell for the mainboard, then sideboard options between control (when playing against decks faster than us) or aggro (when playing against decks slower than us).
Going to play against this weekend and then work towards the next version for tuning depending how I feel it goes.
The sideboard isn't really completed by any sense of the word so I won't bother posting it here. The only things of note were a few cards of graveyard hate, 2 Dismember, and 2 Warping Wail.
Match 1: Storm (2-1)
Game 1: Lost this game. Main board against storm as noted in a previous post is basically a write off. They are almost always going to have the ability to "go off" before we kill them unless we draw into the nuts. While I have a little bit of sideboard against them, I don't think this is a good matchup for us in general.
Game 2: Sided in GY-hate, and Warping Wail (for Past in Flames). Removed out the top end of the deck since I knew I was never going to get to the chance to curve into a titan for the long game. Ended up drawing/opening hand hate for GY-Hate and Warping Wail. Dropped a TKS and was able to beat down the storm player until death due to some bad card draws on his part.
Game 3: Storm had the worst opening hand I have seen in awhile. I curved into Matter Reshaper->Reality Smasher and beat down with the ability to clear the graveyard. I wouldn't say the win was from skilled play but moreso from my opponents terrible luck. Amusingly enough, I was blood mooned in Game 3 and drew into my only Waste. Pretty much miracle game.
Match 2: Homebrew Wolves (2-0)
Game 1/2: Match against a home brew deck. Not too much to write about this one, I removed his creatures with Spatial and played creatures that he couldn't deal with. Endbringer provided a lot of value in this match as it was a bit of a creature beat down on both sides. In the end, his deck was far too "fair" and our late-game is inevitable with tron and conduit of ruin.
Match 3: Living End (0-2)
Game 1: I knew my opponent was playing Living End from the start. The first game is pretty much a loss unless I could get a Warping Wail in my hand to delay the game. They also main board fulminator mage which disrupts our fast mana plans and can chump for a turn. He gets a great opening hand into a Turn 3 lethal living end (the board is so wide that I couldn't chump block to stall). I scoop.
Game 2: Similar to the storm match-up, I sideboard in the GYhate and the Warping Wails. Tons of misplays on my part but I manage to stall out the game for an extended period of time so he has to suspend a Living End. He ends up cascading and hitting the Living End but the suspended one would have wiped his board the turn after. At this point, I am starting to get hungry and scoop (thinking it is the last game of the night) but turns out that I could have won the game still and we had a round 4 anyways. Oh well; I think the biggest issue here is my own lack of experience against living end since it doesn't seem very popular online. Terrible game before sideboard, honestly very winnable afterwards.
Match 4: Standard B/G Ramp (2-1)
Game 1: Mulled down to 5. Terrible opening hand but still manage to get a few threats down while he ramps every turn (he is playing his standard deck for fun). I am a turn too late as he bounces everything on the board back to hands and plays a 8/8 tentacle monster. Then proceeds to Timewalk me into death. Next game.
Game 2: I don't change much on the main board but side in a few counterspells to help deal with the ramp/time walks. The game starts and I get the nut draw for a Turn 4 Ulamog. He scoops.
Game 3: Map into Tron. TKS and Matter-Reshaper then Reality Smasher the turn after. Far too fast for his deck and he never has time to recover.
End up getting second overall.
Opinions/Thoughts: In terms of creature beat-down and 'fair' match-up, we are fairly well positioned. We can often remove threats, place our own, and scale very well into the later part of the game. As it stands, I do think that Cavern of Souls has a place in our deck mainboard as it is a valuable land against control even if my own LGS is lite in it. The core components of our deck work well if we draw into them or start with a good hand, one of the biggest issues we face is land disruption/artifact destruction and then sitting with a hand we cannot play. Our counterplay with Warping Wail and TKS is essential to counter non-interactive match ups. Warping Wail is an all-star and hits a surprising amount of spells and creatures, I have been very impressed with it. It almost always warrants having it in the mainboard(2) and sideboard(2) to complete the playset in some match ups.
As for Endbringer/Conduit of Ruin, I am forever torn between the two. Endbringer is a fantastic card for providing value for an extended period of a match. CoR tutors a titan (or Deceiver of Form) so you have a threat next turn (unless the library gets forced shuffled). Endbringer is for board stalls while CoR for finishing the game when you have mana. I have gotten a fair amount of value out of CoR but I can't understand how important it is to have a Deceiver of Form as another target. The 8/8 body is also fantastic, provides defense against almost any creature in Modern, and is a scry 1 engine every turn.
The worst part of the deck comes down to draws and opening hands. If we are left alone, we can often start with a fantastic hand and play our very fun mid-range game. Jund being one of the most popular decks, and Black in general means that our hands are going to be rarely left alone which cripples us. We need some way to smooth out of bad/good draws and mana curve if hand/land/bad luck disruption happens. Alot of the other decks that splash colours have been using Talisman of Impulse because it has great synergy (1. Provides extra colourless mana, 2. Mana fixes, 3. Enables 1CMC spell and ramp on T2). The biggest issue right now is our primary spells are 2CMC, and we don't have a great multi-purpose item like that (provides ramp and return on turn 2). When we play a stone - it sits dead for that turn. And I seriously doubt that a good colourless 1CMC spell will ever happen.
We either need better low CMC hand disruption or a better engine to get started. As Purklefluff has noted, Gemstone Caverns and SSG both provide a better engine but at other costs.
Edit: Cleaning up some of the writing. Who knows; maybe we will get some <> 1CMC spells in Eldritch Moon but I wouldn't hold my breath.
I'm finding in testing that in so many matchups I am running out of gas. The deck is missing the explosiveness of old iterations by 1-2 turns, and then I'm sitting there hellbent and not able to topdeck enough gas to put the last few points of damage through. Has anyone built it closer to a RG Tron shell with Chromatic Star or Sphere at all and things like Ancient Stirrings for more draw power/card selection? If so what were the results?
There is a few examples of the EldraziTron build that splashes green for World Breaker and Ancient Stirrings. There is a post a few above this that list such a version using R/G EldraziTron that has more consistent performance in the long game. In the end, the deck is quite good (both the colourless and the colour splash version) but I would agree that they often lack the gas to finish a game if you get a series of bad draws. The biggest issue is we don't know how the meta-game is currently shaping up and most of us are stuck in an aggro-oriented world but there has been a sudden emergence of decks looking to play the long game. At the same time, there is still decks in the format that can straight up win without ever interacting with us (Scapeshift, Storm). That is the biggest problem with our deck building currently;
3 Decks.
1. You need to get creatures out or have removal in hand otherwise you are dead against Infect by T3.
2. You need to be able to get down threats early (and not have them be countered/removed) and have large threats that still impact the game if they do get countered AND have enough card draw/filter to get you there.
3. You need to be able to interact with certain decks otherwise you will always lose (disrupt hand/or counter).
If we are following the main theme of the opening post, we are suppose to stay in colourless to do that. Which as many people have found; is really hard to do. We are luckily that the core cards of the deck already support some of these ability (Reality Smasher is an upfront beater with a protection cause, TKS disrupt hands, and Matter Reshaper is a threat and 1card engine). We have threats that can come later in the game which still have effect if they are countered (Ulamog/World Breaker). The real challenge is trying to put together all the pieces into something that makes sense (aka we have gameplan that other people need to deal with) and has an effective sideboard.
I'm going to test blinkmoth nexus instead of ghost quarter today. We're pretty mana greedy and I don't really expect Tron to be a major force going forward.
Has anybody tested against Scapeshift? I feel like we may have a questionable matchup and it seems to be on the rise. I'm running just one warping wail in the board at the moment which seems pretty fragile. Unfortunately nobody local plays scapeshift and I don't have the deck online.
Haven't had to the chance to play it online at all but I imagine we will be seeing alot more of it in the future. As for sideboard options, Warping Wail (full playset) into our deck, Surgical Extraction, and Thorn of Amethyst(possible) to slow it down. In the end, they have far more counterspell magic than we do, and we will only likely get to trick them once before they wait to play it with extra mana to back it up. Currently I am running two warping wails mainboard but it is unlikely without a steller opening hand that we would win mainboard. Even worst match-up than storm for us. Still; a T3/T4 TKS might be able to stall out of the game for a little longer but I wouldn't count on it.
Nice deck! The G/x Tron thread is discussing switching entirely to Eldrazi for their decks. I think you should post this deck in that thread and see what responses and suggestions you will get. Oh, have you thought about switching out Endless One for Tarmagoyf? Just a thought.
The biggest problem with Tarmagoyf is we aren't really good at putting cards in the graveyard. We don't run fetches and graveyard hate is plentiful in Modern. The two slot is also likely filled with talismans and map activations. Might have potential; I'll give it a try.
I'll be heading to FNM tonight with version 1.1 of the <> Midrange deck (minus the Ghost Quarters because I don't have any kicking around right now). Typically speaking I don't think that is really a big deal since I never found myself wanting to crack them unless I was against a mirror match or another Tron player. We need all the land we can get. Good luck to everyone else who is playing modern tonight.
I personally like Endless Ones because they are a super flexible card when we don't know what our curve will look like each game (since you never know). Being able to put down a small blocker or big beater gives the card a lot of wiggle room. Of course they can always be sided out and most of us are open to suggestions for better cards in that placement. Speaking of suggestions, here is an interesting splash R/G EldraziTron I found on the net. http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=100603
Played a few rounds with it on XMage so far and found it to be fairly consistent. Need to play a few more games with it at the moment to get a better feeling of how the deck plays out and its match-ups. I certainly already miss All Is Dust as a sweeper. The mana base so far preforms very well but the lack of targeted or precision removal hurts compared to our standard 6-8 pieces normally. Give it a shot : )
We discussed this a little bit before on the topic of mana rocks and how much removal the deck needs on the last few pages. I think a handful of us agree that this deck is firmly looking to be a midrange creature based deck which has the chance to play late game threats if the opening hand presets itself (Tron/Map) or draw into our ramping pieces without weakening the core power of the deck (on average we play effective threats ahead of curve, we never get colour screwed, and we have good interaction between our 2CMC plays and TKS).
Looking over your current deck; I am most concerned on how you would fair mainboard against a deck like Affinity/Infect/and Merfolk. All decks that will rush you down and beat you before we can establish a medium game threat if we don't pack a heavy removal aspect. Considering that I had the chance to play both yesterday (0-2 against Infect, 2-1 Merfolk) with far more removal than your currently packing I can say that you would likely find these match ups troublesome since they will be consistently on lower curve for game winning states early unless they are disrupted.
On the topic of Path to Exile, search for a basic is a choice. You have the choice of opting out of the shuffle effect if you don't want to tutor a basic onto the battlefield (depending on the board state and mana in hand). As mentioned before; Deceiver of Forms as a one of is a great choice since it cost 7 (Natural Tron Output), and doesn't suffer the same blowout if you lose the Conduit of Ruin. I have continued to use him in several games now and I am very happy with its performance (both the ability to buff other creatures) but more so for the Scry effect which you mentioned as something that is important to us later in the game.
I would like to also put forward that All Is Dust is one of the best if not the best sweeper mainboard for us. If we are playing a temple based game then it can come out T5/T6, if we are playing a Tron based game then it can come out as early as T3. It has single handedly won many of my games for me and unlike many other sweepers, it has synergy with Temples.
Right now we have 3 variants of EldraziTron that concern us:
Colourless Midrange EldraziTron - Page 4 has the best example of these decks.
Currently as it stands here, I think we are best developing and focusing on the first and second version. There is already a bunch of G/R Tron decks becoming G/R EldraziTron decks (with all of the mana fixing and looking for tron that is involved). The middle ground between our mid-range variant and G/R Tron is a splash green for World Breaker (without a doubt the best 7 drop, and improving the ability for the deck to draw in better cards with Ancient Stirring, and maybe Syvan Scrying). The biggest issue with that, is without a ton of mana fixing (with Eggs, like Tron) we could often have dead green cards in our hands which is going against the whole idea of the deck (<> synergy) and the idea of splashing green in the first place (makes the deck more consistent). Unless that can be overcome (low cost green drops make the deck more consistent, splashing green makes us less consistent), I don't think green is the best thing to play right now. With a possible caveat of playing a playset of Cavern of Souls and 1-2 World Breakers as a variant.
We should focus on improving the version of the mid-range <> EldraziTron and/or developing a better understand of our playstyle in the current metagame with an exception for the possible green splash version. The full G/R version is best left to the Tier 2 Tron thread, and other colour variations should likely have their own thread (unless someone can blow our minds with a non-green splash version that solves all of our issues).
The two variations have slightly different summaries:
<> Midrage EldraziTron - Packs heavy removal, plays creature threats ahead of turn, uses Tron as a bonus early game or finisher late game.
Splash G EldraziTron - Has less removal, better tutors/draw effects, and mana fixing in order to play World Breaker and enable Tron more consistently.
Would Hangarback Walker be a good way to stall the board (in that mimic/revoker slot) before some of the bigger guys get online? Or is that too slow?
I feel like if I don't get tron online quick without Eye, I get overwhelmed without good sweepers in hand.
I don't personally think that Hangarback walker is a good replacement since it lack synergy with our temples. Something that should be discussed going forward is that we need a pretty good reason to include non-eldrazi cards (because then you could just be playing Tron). The advantage of our deck is that we still have Eldrazi Temples in order to play our creature-base 1/2 turns ahead of schedule and effectively doubling the value of a land in our opening hand/top deck so we can hit our medium costing creatures (Matter Reshaper/Thoughtknot-Seer/Reality Smasher) and get our Tron online over time. If you are finding yourself with a dead hand or something that is far too slow, I would like to ask how much 2CMC you are currently running. Personally I am running 8 cards in that slots which helps greatly in slowing down other decks until I can start casting Reality Smasher and better. On my previous point of the temples and the desire to get Tron online right away, we can't and shouldn't rely on Tron to finish the game for us. As it stands, we don't have enough tools to find our missing pieces without playing another colour (likely Green) and often enough I find myself fetching temples with our maps in many games because that is a more reliable gameplan for us. Right now, I am at a 3.53 avg. for CMC and I couldn't imagine going any higher. Other modern decks play much lower to the ground (even Tron since it has a number of eggs and low cost cards to pair in with its bombs) so we need to be thinking about our lower end if we are expected to compete.
As someone mentioned in the last couple previous pages, Gemstone Caverns might be a good solution to our issue of playing on the draw and being behind mana wise. Also I would highly recommend having Ratchet Bomb in your sideboard for additional removal if you are getting run down by Zoo/or other creature heavy decks. That being said, I personally found the matchup with a deck like Hatebears awful depending on your hand vs theirs. But people can say the same thing about Turn 4 Ulamog or Turn 3 Mimic+Reality Smasher from our side. It is also possible that the end version of this deck is a splash of green as well for access to ancient stirrings and worldbreaker (along with a little bit of mana fixing pieces similar to Tron) but I haven't had the time to sit down and brew that.
The main reason I like Sower is cause its ability triggers when you cast it, not when it comes into play, so you are getting some good value if even if he is countered or killed.
Of course it also accelerate mana and we can play more spells each turn.
If you think about it Conduct of Ruin also has a cast trigger which is the tutor effect for finding our titans (or higher end drops) and has a battlefield effect after dropping. Comparatively the only advantage Sower has compared to Conduit of Ruin is a higher toughness if they both remain on the field. The floor of each card is similar - one finds you a titan, one grants you a few extra land (maybe if you don't hit a bunch of fetchlands). The ceiling of Conduit of Ruin is basically "Win the game next turn"/"Remove two permanents and discard a removal spell from your opponent".
In reference to the last page on whether or not Kozilek, the Great Distortion is worth running; it is something that is best tested against the current decks in the meta. If you are only running two titans then it is a nice benefit to be able to tutor up Kozilek on matches where Ulamog doesn't put you in a game winning state to refill your hands with cards (and who knows, draw Ulamog as well). The biggest issue I have with running x2 of Ulamog is in game where you are down to 1-2 cards, drop Ulamog, and it gets exiled. Sure it was nice to remove two permanents from the field but now you are basically sitting on a empty hand and the board state has had moderate but not game winning changes. Additionally there is going to be matches where you might die to burn next turn and can't remove all of the land base of the other player. At that point, Kozilek is a much better option if you are packing the 2CMC removal (and hope to catch Lightning Bolt with map).
My only issue that I have found with Kozilek is when your Ulamog appears near the start of your opening hand and it gets discarded which leaves only Big K to win the game with. Is it worth increasing the titan to avoid that issue? I don't think so at least in the main board. I do think it is worthwhile to sideboard an old titan against the odd (and unlikely) mill matchup but also as discard protection.
I like your list and idea in general, but I would make the following changes:
-3 Conduit of Ruin +3 Oblivion Sower
-1 Bane of Bala Ged (Nice find) +1 New Ulamog
-2 Mountain -1Forest -1 Sylvan Scrying +4 Karplusan Forest
I'm still playing the deck, but I have a blue oriented version and also a Colorless build.
I thank you for the suggestions of what to change however due to financial constraints purchasing something like ulamog is way out of my price range on cards in general
If Ulamog is out of your price range I would suggest playing the following cards instead of Bane of Bala Ged.
Artisan of Kozilek ~$0.50
Ulamog's Crusher ~$0.10
Both of them provide you with bigger bodies instead of a 7/5 which can be removed by Dismember. Artisan of Kozilek is a great budget replacement since it has a cast trigger to bring another Eldrazi back to the battlefield. Ulamog's Crusher provides a much better stat-line for the same effect for only one more mana. Generally speaking you will almost always want to be attack asap to gain the benefit of removing permanents. Artisan of Kozilek also has nice synergy with Conduit of Ruin(and Tron) with 9 cost thanks to Tron 7 + CoR 2. Sometimes you don't want to cast it right away because you will miss out on the return to battlefield trigger but that will be a game-time choice. As for the mana base, I am personally hesitant to run any colours because we truly lack the same for mana fixing like Tron unless we go all-in on the top end of the curve. There has been some brewing in the T2 Tron thread for a later game hybrid of this deck with colour options.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Deck:
B8 RackB
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The CMC of Endless One when it is on the stack is the X mana cost you have paid for it. Otherwise (battlefield, graveyard, hand) it is zero. https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/40yd72/cmc_question_on_kozileks_return_and_endless_one/
202.3b When calculating the converted mana cost of an object with {X} in its mana cost, X is treated as 0 while the object is not on the stack, and X is treated as the number chosen for it while the object is on the stack.
Endless Ones (X>=7), Titans, All is Dust, Deceiver of Form are all Sanctum of Ugin enablers in my deck for example. Super useful for fetching a titan if I have Tron or Reality Smasher if I am mana limited.
It depends on the version of the deck that you are playing. If you are going with a full set of Endbringers/Chalices, your goal is to play highly efficient creatures while controlling your opponent with chalice/removal/and board clears. The ability to close out the game usually comes down to your 5/5s (Reality Smasher/Endbringer) while the Titans are a bonus if you hit fast tron.
The other version is more aggressive using Mimics/Endless Ones and mana acceleration to speed up the game. Close to the ideal play is something like this;
T1: Mimic, T2: TKS (Swing for 4), T3: Reality Smasher (Swing for 14) - Basically dead if they run shocks/fetches. If not you have basically swung with only 4/4,5/5 stat-line early in the game which most people can't effectively block without making bad trades (additional the TKS rips a card from your hand which they aren't getting back anytime soon). It has its own weakness of being less consistent and lighting bolts/path to exile still slows it down. Beyond that your core creature base is fantastic (Reshapers/TKS/Reality Smasher); I usually save Endless Ones to become at least a 4/4 or higher (ideally using them for Sanctum Triggers as 7/7 or silly games where I make 11/11 from them).
My ideal opening is at least 3 mana (temple/other land) or two ursa plus map. I'll keep 3 normal lands (urza without map/utility lands) if the rest of the hand has a way to stall out the game until I draw into something (Removal, Reshaper, Mimic, etc). The best/worst part of the deck is the opening hands since we depend on certain lands and have a high average CMC. There is ways to make this better (green splash) but I think running chalice of the void helps a lot to slow down other decks. I haven't decided if I want to buy a play-set at the current prices.
4 Endless One
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Conduit of Ruin
1 Deceiver of Form
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Lands
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Wastes
4 Expedition Map
3 Dismember
3 Spatial Contortion
1 All Is Dust
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Warping Wail
1 All Is Dust
2 Gut Shot
3 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus
Proceeded to go 2-0,2-1,2-1. The first game was against a mono-blue control deck (brew) - apparently bad draws on his part but his opening hands were extremely high CMC so I was able to tear apart his hand with TKS and fast mana. Beat-down with the core crew (Mimic, Reshaper, TKS, Reality Smasher) before he could get anything going both games. Second game was against a B/W Lifelink/Flyers deck. I lost a game due to not reading a card and getting beatdown by a 6/5 Flyer Lifelinker but the other games went fairly well. First game with natural tron; big mimics and reality smashers while the third game I was able to cast both of my titans to seal out of the game (one drawn, one Conduit of Ruin). My last game was against Eldrazi & Taxes which was extremely close.
The first game was pretty much a blowout - kept a one lander with Eldrazi Temple + removal. Got my removal stolen and then got ghost quartered with arbiter out AKA stuck on one land and proceeded to concede. Second game, two tron + map into the aggro plan. Drew into natural tron anyways and proceeded to close out the game by dropping 3 TKS, All Is Dust, and a Smasher. Last game was extremely grindy (ended up at 2-3 life and took him down from 16 life). I was able to stabilize at the end of the game due to drawing higher value cards each turn when we were hellbent. He was trying to keep me off of fast mana and the two basic wastes were life-savers in this matchup with Path to Exile + Ghost Quarter. Played a 4th and got blown out by his good curve while mine was too high. Certainly a matchup that could go either way.
My sideboard method is usually based if a game will go long or short. If I know my opponents deck is a very low curve deck then I usually forgo a lot of the top end and try to play lower to the ground, on the flipside if I don't think I can win with mimic then they are the first to go with Endless Ones being the flex creature that gets removed. I almost never remove the core creatures (Reshaper, TKS, Reality Smasher) and usually find myself looking for Ratchet Bombs.
As for changes I would like to make to the deck or test. I would like to try Basilisk Collar in the mainboard for the ability to lifelink with our creatures, new Eldrazi in the 7-9 flex spot (Deceiver of Form is there currently), and switching out of the Conduit of Ruinx2/DoF for 3 Endbringers. When I have some time this week I'll be testing Distended Mindbender in the flex spot - it has synergy with the Urborg I already run and it is basically a guaranteed 1 for 1 with its discard ability (or better). It is disappointing that Emerge wasn't an instant ability allowing us to dodge removal with the sacrifice...or the fact that all of the new Eldrazi are very overcosted for the stat-line. Interesting enough; it may be a good way to get value out of a Matter Reshaper that was previous cast. Sacrificing Reshaper for Distended Mindbender give us a cost of 2BB.
Edit: If we sacrifice TKS to Distended Mindbender, we get to put the draw a card before the discard trigger right?
Double Edit:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/449018#paper
7-2 Finish.
Notable additions/modifications:
- Spellskite (MB)
- Playset of Endbringer (MB)
- 3 Titans
- Batterskull (MB) x2
- Warping Wail (MB) instead of Spatial
I haven't had the chance to playtest with him at all. What do you normally find yourself casting him for?
Also in terms of results;
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/443947#paper
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-eldrazi-tron-26966#paper
Both 5-0 in Modern.
Interesting approaches to both of these decks is cutting out Mimics/or Endless Ones (our aggro/pressure tool) for a better midrange game with Endbringers and Spellskite (to help with bad match-ups). Also I really like the Basilisk Collar tech. for the deck as well since there is often times I wished I had a little bit of lifelink to keep the game going longer. Additional Chalice of the Void is just so good. I would love a reprint on it and Spellskite so I could do more testing with these.
The general vibe I am getting is the deck should be focused towards an aggressive aggro game with mana acceleration/mimics or a mid-range variant that cuts out the mimics/mana acceleration for a little more removal/better midrange creatures. I am interested if Conduit of Ruin is even worth having around. Wish I had more time to play test all the variations.
Our creature package has a simple vibe; good statline - powerful effects
Mimic (2) - 2/1; Can grow in power/toughness for a turn
Reshaper (3) - 3/2; Aggressive piece that can trade and replace itself
TKT (4) - 4/4; Ability to remove a card for a draw when it dies. Avoids most damage removal
Reality Smasher (5) 5/5; Haste+Trample + Soft protection against removal
6 cost flex - RoC/Endbringer; 5/5, all with some kind of added bonus
If I am paying 7 or more mana for something, it needs to be very impactful. Wurmcoil Engine is pretty much the creature we would love to have as an Eldrazi. Good statline, hard to removal, prolongs the game. What I would like to see? Pay 7, 5/5 Lifelink+Flyer. Or a cheaper variation to round out our 4/5 drops more. We suffer against not being able to prolong the game against decks faster than us (unless we hit our removal) and getting something into the air would be nice.
Had the chance to head out to a tournament during the weekend and proceeded to go 1-3 (meh). Had some pretty poor luck for most of the day (didn't win a single die roll to play) and a few close games that could have gone either way. (Overall; 1-2, 0-2, 1-2, 2-1). Random thoughts; I'll be increasing my Mimics from x2 to x4. The core of the deck has always been TKS - Reality Smashers, I rather have things that synergies with them than dropping a filler endless one at 3/3 or whatever. Also need to remind myself to announce mimic triggers for people, otherwise they don't count. Oh well, nitpicky magic is something that certain people love to play. Not my particular cup of tea, but that is the nature of the beast.
On the other note, I finally decided to order the rest of the deck online since all of the LGS I frequent doesn't seem to have any Ghost Quarters or Relics which has been frustrating. Lots of Tron/Blood Moon around so I think the Ghost Quarters are extremely important for us in both situations (stopping Tron/finding a basic for ourselves).
Other than that match, the deck felt really good overall. Even won through a blood moon with some good draws into my Wastes in the Tooth and Nail game. All is Dust was an all star in several matches (except for Breachshift where it never showed up >_< I needed you), either causing a board wipe for my opponent to delay or outright winning the game when it is cast. Loving the deck; I really need to buy some Ghost Quarters to replace 1-2 of my utility lands so I can crack it on myself to find a Waste. Running 2 Waste in the mainboard also has been very beneficial since Blood Moon and Path to Exile are rampant.
Further thoughts; I feel like I often side out my Mimics (currently playing with 2) for my sideboard in favour of playing a longer control game but I have a feeling that it would be better to keep them and side out the Endless Ones instead. The 6&7 slot package is something that I have been mulling over awhile;
Currently I run Conduit of Ruin x2, Endbringer x1, and Deceiver of Form x1. Tempted to drop that down to Conduit of Ruin x2, and add in the x2 Mimic in the bottom slot. I win a vast majority of my games simply off Though-Knot Seer and Reality Smashers. The higher end package seems like overkill for Modern (we are already "bigger" than most decks) and don't have the options against a real control deck. It seems I am trending towards a mid-range shell for the mainboard, then sideboard options between control (when playing against decks faster than us) or aggro (when playing against decks slower than us).
Going to play against this weekend and then work towards the next version for tuning depending how I feel it goes.
Went 3-1 with the following deck.
4 Endless One
2 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
1 Endbringer
2 Conduit of Ruin
1 Deceiver of Form
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
3 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Wastes
4 Expedition Map
2 Warping Wail
4 Spatial Contortion
2 All Is Dust
The sideboard isn't really completed by any sense of the word so I won't bother posting it here. The only things of note were a few cards of graveyard hate, 2 Dismember, and 2 Warping Wail.
Match 1: Storm (2-1)
Game 1: Lost this game. Main board against storm as noted in a previous post is basically a write off. They are almost always going to have the ability to "go off" before we kill them unless we draw into the nuts. While I have a little bit of sideboard against them, I don't think this is a good matchup for us in general.
Game 2: Sided in GY-hate, and Warping Wail (for Past in Flames). Removed out the top end of the deck since I knew I was never going to get to the chance to curve into a titan for the long game. Ended up drawing/opening hand hate for GY-Hate and Warping Wail. Dropped a TKS and was able to beat down the storm player until death due to some bad card draws on his part.
Game 3: Storm had the worst opening hand I have seen in awhile. I curved into Matter Reshaper->Reality Smasher and beat down with the ability to clear the graveyard. I wouldn't say the win was from skilled play but moreso from my opponents terrible luck. Amusingly enough, I was blood mooned in Game 3 and drew into my only Waste. Pretty much miracle game.
Match 2: Homebrew Wolves (2-0)
Game 1/2: Match against a home brew deck. Not too much to write about this one, I removed his creatures with Spatial and played creatures that he couldn't deal with. Endbringer provided a lot of value in this match as it was a bit of a creature beat down on both sides. In the end, his deck was far too "fair" and our late-game is inevitable with tron and conduit of ruin.
Match 3: Living End (0-2)
Game 1: I knew my opponent was playing Living End from the start. The first game is pretty much a loss unless I could get a Warping Wail in my hand to delay the game. They also main board fulminator mage which disrupts our fast mana plans and can chump for a turn. He gets a great opening hand into a Turn 3 lethal living end (the board is so wide that I couldn't chump block to stall). I scoop.
Game 2: Similar to the storm match-up, I sideboard in the GYhate and the Warping Wails. Tons of misplays on my part but I manage to stall out the game for an extended period of time so he has to suspend a Living End. He ends up cascading and hitting the Living End but the suspended one would have wiped his board the turn after. At this point, I am starting to get hungry and scoop (thinking it is the last game of the night) but turns out that I could have won the game still and we had a round 4 anyways. Oh well; I think the biggest issue here is my own lack of experience against living end since it doesn't seem very popular online. Terrible game before sideboard, honestly very winnable afterwards.
Match 4: Standard B/G Ramp (2-1)
Game 1: Mulled down to 5. Terrible opening hand but still manage to get a few threats down while he ramps every turn (he is playing his standard deck for fun). I am a turn too late as he bounces everything on the board back to hands and plays a 8/8 tentacle monster. Then proceeds to Timewalk me into death. Next game.
Game 2: I don't change much on the main board but side in a few counterspells to help deal with the ramp/time walks. The game starts and I get the nut draw for a Turn 4 Ulamog. He scoops.
Game 3: Map into Tron. TKS and Matter-Reshaper then Reality Smasher the turn after. Far too fast for his deck and he never has time to recover.
End up getting second overall.
Opinions/Thoughts: In terms of creature beat-down and 'fair' match-up, we are fairly well positioned. We can often remove threats, place our own, and scale very well into the later part of the game. As it stands, I do think that Cavern of Souls has a place in our deck mainboard as it is a valuable land against control even if my own LGS is lite in it. The core components of our deck work well if we draw into them or start with a good hand, one of the biggest issues we face is land disruption/artifact destruction and then sitting with a hand we cannot play. Our counterplay with Warping Wail and TKS is essential to counter non-interactive match ups. Warping Wail is an all-star and hits a surprising amount of spells and creatures, I have been very impressed with it. It almost always warrants having it in the mainboard(2) and sideboard(2) to complete the playset in some match ups.
As for Endbringer/Conduit of Ruin, I am forever torn between the two. Endbringer is a fantastic card for providing value for an extended period of a match. CoR tutors a titan (or Deceiver of Form) so you have a threat next turn (unless the library gets forced shuffled). Endbringer is for board stalls while CoR for finishing the game when you have mana. I have gotten a fair amount of value out of CoR but I can't understand how important it is to have a Deceiver of Form as another target. The 8/8 body is also fantastic, provides defense against almost any creature in Modern, and is a scry 1 engine every turn.
The worst part of the deck comes down to draws and opening hands. If we are left alone, we can often start with a fantastic hand and play our very fun mid-range game. Jund being one of the most popular decks, and Black in general means that our hands are going to be rarely left alone which cripples us. We need some way to smooth out of bad/good draws and mana curve if hand/land/bad luck disruption happens. Alot of the other decks that splash colours have been using Talisman of Impulse because it has great synergy (1. Provides extra colourless mana, 2. Mana fixes, 3. Enables 1CMC spell and ramp on T2). The biggest issue right now is our primary spells are 2CMC, and we don't have a great multi-purpose item like that (provides ramp and return on turn 2). When we play a stone - it sits dead for that turn. And I seriously doubt that a good colourless 1CMC spell will ever happen.
We either need better low CMC hand disruption or a better engine to get started. As Purklefluff has noted, Gemstone Caverns and SSG both provide a better engine but at other costs.
Edit: Cleaning up some of the writing. Who knows; maybe we will get some <> 1CMC spells in Eldritch Moon but I wouldn't hold my breath.
There is a few examples of the EldraziTron build that splashes green for World Breaker and Ancient Stirrings. There is a post a few above this that list such a version using R/G EldraziTron that has more consistent performance in the long game. In the end, the deck is quite good (both the colourless and the colour splash version) but I would agree that they often lack the gas to finish a game if you get a series of bad draws. The biggest issue is we don't know how the meta-game is currently shaping up and most of us are stuck in an aggro-oriented world but there has been a sudden emergence of decks looking to play the long game. At the same time, there is still decks in the format that can straight up win without ever interacting with us (Scapeshift, Storm). That is the biggest problem with our deck building currently;
3 Decks.
1. You need to get creatures out or have removal in hand otherwise you are dead against Infect by T3.
2. You need to be able to get down threats early (and not have them be countered/removed) and have large threats that still impact the game if they do get countered AND have enough card draw/filter to get you there.
3. You need to be able to interact with certain decks otherwise you will always lose (disrupt hand/or counter).
If we are following the main theme of the opening post, we are suppose to stay in colourless to do that. Which as many people have found; is really hard to do. We are luckily that the core cards of the deck already support some of these ability (Reality Smasher is an upfront beater with a protection cause, TKS disrupt hands, and Matter Reshaper is a threat and 1card engine). We have threats that can come later in the game which still have effect if they are countered (Ulamog/World Breaker). The real challenge is trying to put together all the pieces into something that makes sense (aka we have gameplan that other people need to deal with) and has an effective sideboard.
Haven't had to the chance to play it online at all but I imagine we will be seeing alot more of it in the future. As for sideboard options, Warping Wail (full playset) into our deck, Surgical Extraction, and Thorn of Amethyst(possible) to slow it down. In the end, they have far more counterspell magic than we do, and we will only likely get to trick them once before they wait to play it with extra mana to back it up. Currently I am running two warping wails mainboard but it is unlikely without a steller opening hand that we would win mainboard. Even worst match-up than storm for us. Still; a T3/T4 TKS might be able to stall out of the game for a little longer but I wouldn't count on it.
The biggest problem with Tarmagoyf is we aren't really good at putting cards in the graveyard. We don't run fetches and graveyard hate is plentiful in Modern. The two slot is also likely filled with talismans and map activations. Might have potential; I'll give it a try.
I'll be heading to FNM tonight with version 1.1 of the <> Midrange deck (minus the Ghost Quarters because I don't have any kicking around right now). Typically speaking I don't think that is really a big deal since I never found myself wanting to crack them unless I was against a mirror match or another Tron player. We need all the land we can get. Good luck to everyone else who is playing modern tonight.
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=100603
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Endless One
4 World Breaker
Spells
3 Kozilek's Return
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Talisman of Impulse
4 Expedition Map
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Sanctum of Ugin
3 Karplusan Forest
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
3 Warping Wail
1 Kozilek's Return
3 Nature's Claim
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Oblivion Stone
Played a few rounds with it on XMage so far and found it to be fairly consistent. Need to play a few more games with it at the moment to get a better feeling of how the deck plays out and its match-ups. I certainly already miss All Is Dust as a sweeper. The mana base so far preforms very well but the lack of targeted or precision removal hurts compared to our standard 6-8 pieces normally. Give it a shot : )
Looking over your current deck; I am most concerned on how you would fair mainboard against a deck like Affinity/Infect/and Merfolk. All decks that will rush you down and beat you before we can establish a medium game threat if we don't pack a heavy removal aspect. Considering that I had the chance to play both yesterday (0-2 against Infect, 2-1 Merfolk) with far more removal than your currently packing I can say that you would likely find these match ups troublesome since they will be consistently on lower curve for game winning states early unless they are disrupted.
On the topic of Path to Exile, search for a basic is a choice. You have the choice of opting out of the shuffle effect if you don't want to tutor a basic onto the battlefield (depending on the board state and mana in hand). As mentioned before; Deceiver of Forms as a one of is a great choice since it cost 7 (Natural Tron Output), and doesn't suffer the same blowout if you lose the Conduit of Ruin. I have continued to use him in several games now and I am very happy with its performance (both the ability to buff other creatures) but more so for the Scry effect which you mentioned as something that is important to us later in the game.
I would like to also put forward that All Is Dust is one of the best if not the best sweeper mainboard for us. If we are playing a temple based game then it can come out T5/T6, if we are playing a Tron based game then it can come out as early as T3. It has single handedly won many of my games for me and unlike many other sweepers, it has synergy with Temples.
Right now we have 3 variants of EldraziTron that concern us:
Colourless Midrange EldraziTron - Page 4 has the best example of these decks.
4 Endless One
2 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
1 Endbringer
2 Conduit of Ruin
1 Deceiver of Form
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
3 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Wastes
4 Expedition Map
2 Warping Wail
4 Spatial Contortion
2 All Is Dust
4x urza's power plant
4x urza's tower
4x urza's mine
4x Eldrazi Temple
4x Vesuva
2x ghost quarter
2x gemstone caverns (these are flex, I like the turn 1 ramp)
Creatures
4x Eldrazi Mimic (or Phyrexian Revoker)
4x Endless One
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
3x Endbringer
2x ulamog, the ceaseless hunger
1x Ratchet Bomb
3x oblivion stone
3x Dismember
4x expedition map
2x Ratchet Bomb
3x Gut Shot
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Faerie Macabre (or relic of progenitus)
4x Chalice of the Void
2x spellskite
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Radiant Fountain
2 Vesuva
2 Wastes
Creatures: 21
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Endbringer
2 Conduit of Ruin
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
4 Expedition Map
2 Oblivion Stone
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Relic of Progenitus
Instants: 6
3 Dismember
3 Spatial Contortion
1 Void Winnower
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Damping Matrix
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Gut Shot
1 All is Dust
Splash Green EldraziTron
4 x Thought-Knot Seet
4 x Reality Smasher
3 x Conduit of Ruin
4 x World Breaker
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 x Expedition Map
4 x Spatial Contortion
4 x Warping Wail
2 x Dismember
2 x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 x Urza's Tower
4 x Urza's Mine
4 x Urza's Power Plant
2 x Vesuva
3 x Karplusan Forest
3 x Forest
4 x Relic of Progenitus
1 x Dismember
2 x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 x Pithing Needle
2 x Ratchet Bomb
2 x Ghost Quarter
1 x All is Dust
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Forest
Tutors and Color Fixing
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Conduit of Ruin
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
3 World Breaker
4 Karn Liberated
2 All is Dust
1 All Is Dust
2 Creeping Corrosion
2 Feed the Clan
3 Nature's Claim
1 Ruin Processor
3 Spellskite
3 Warping Wail
Full Tron (G/R?) EldraziTron - A bunch of ongoing discussion in the Tier 2 G/R Tron deck here. http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-2-modern/220174-gr-and-gx-tron?page=270
Currently as it stands here, I think we are best developing and focusing on the first and second version. There is already a bunch of G/R Tron decks becoming G/R EldraziTron decks (with all of the mana fixing and looking for tron that is involved). The middle ground between our mid-range variant and G/R Tron is a splash green for World Breaker (without a doubt the best 7 drop, and improving the ability for the deck to draw in better cards with Ancient Stirring, and maybe Syvan Scrying). The biggest issue with that, is without a ton of mana fixing (with Eggs, like Tron) we could often have dead green cards in our hands which is going against the whole idea of the deck (<> synergy) and the idea of splashing green in the first place (makes the deck more consistent). Unless that can be overcome (low cost green drops make the deck more consistent, splashing green makes us less consistent), I don't think green is the best thing to play right now. With a possible caveat of playing a playset of Cavern of Souls and 1-2 World Breakers as a variant.
We should focus on improving the version of the mid-range <> EldraziTron and/or developing a better understand of our playstyle in the current metagame with an exception for the possible green splash version. The full G/R version is best left to the Tier 2 Tron thread, and other colour variations should likely have their own thread (unless someone can blow our minds with a non-green splash version that solves all of our issues).
The two variations have slightly different summaries:
<> Midrage EldraziTron - Packs heavy removal, plays creature threats ahead of turn, uses Tron as a bonus early game or finisher late game.
Splash G EldraziTron - Has less removal, better tutors/draw effects, and mana fixing in order to play World Breaker and enable Tron more consistently.
I don't personally think that Hangarback walker is a good replacement since it lack synergy with our temples. Something that should be discussed going forward is that we need a pretty good reason to include non-eldrazi cards (because then you could just be playing Tron). The advantage of our deck is that we still have Eldrazi Temples in order to play our creature-base 1/2 turns ahead of schedule and effectively doubling the value of a land in our opening hand/top deck so we can hit our medium costing creatures (Matter Reshaper/Thoughtknot-Seer/Reality Smasher) and get our Tron online over time. If you are finding yourself with a dead hand or something that is far too slow, I would like to ask how much 2CMC you are currently running. Personally I am running 8 cards in that slots which helps greatly in slowing down other decks until I can start casting Reality Smasher and better. On my previous point of the temples and the desire to get Tron online right away, we can't and shouldn't rely on Tron to finish the game for us. As it stands, we don't have enough tools to find our missing pieces without playing another colour (likely Green) and often enough I find myself fetching temples with our maps in many games because that is a more reliable gameplan for us. Right now, I am at a 3.53 avg. for CMC and I couldn't imagine going any higher. Other modern decks play much lower to the ground (even Tron since it has a number of eggs and low cost cards to pair in with its bombs) so we need to be thinking about our lower end if we are expected to compete.
As someone mentioned in the last couple previous pages, Gemstone Caverns might be a good solution to our issue of playing on the draw and being behind mana wise. Also I would highly recommend having Ratchet Bomb in your sideboard for additional removal if you are getting run down by Zoo/or other creature heavy decks. That being said, I personally found the matchup with a deck like Hatebears awful depending on your hand vs theirs. But people can say the same thing about Turn 4 Ulamog or Turn 3 Mimic+Reality Smasher from our side. It is also possible that the end version of this deck is a splash of green as well for access to ancient stirrings and worldbreaker (along with a little bit of mana fixing pieces similar to Tron) but I haven't had the time to sit down and brew that.
If you think about it Conduct of Ruin also has a cast trigger which is the tutor effect for finding our titans (or higher end drops) and has a battlefield effect after dropping. Comparatively the only advantage Sower has compared to Conduit of Ruin is a higher toughness if they both remain on the field. The floor of each card is similar - one finds you a titan, one grants you a few extra land (maybe if you don't hit a bunch of fetchlands). The ceiling of Conduit of Ruin is basically "Win the game next turn"/"Remove two permanents and discard a removal spell from your opponent".
In reference to the last page on whether or not Kozilek, the Great Distortion is worth running; it is something that is best tested against the current decks in the meta. If you are only running two titans then it is a nice benefit to be able to tutor up Kozilek on matches where Ulamog doesn't put you in a game winning state to refill your hands with cards (and who knows, draw Ulamog as well). The biggest issue I have with running x2 of Ulamog is in game where you are down to 1-2 cards, drop Ulamog, and it gets exiled. Sure it was nice to remove two permanents from the field but now you are basically sitting on a empty hand and the board state has had moderate but not game winning changes. Additionally there is going to be matches where you might die to burn next turn and can't remove all of the land base of the other player. At that point, Kozilek is a much better option if you are packing the 2CMC removal (and hope to catch Lightning Bolt with map).
My only issue that I have found with Kozilek is when your Ulamog appears near the start of your opening hand and it gets discarded which leaves only Big K to win the game with. Is it worth increasing the titan to avoid that issue? I don't think so at least in the main board. I do think it is worthwhile to sideboard an old titan against the odd (and unlikely) mill matchup but also as discard protection.
If Ulamog is out of your price range I would suggest playing the following cards instead of Bane of Bala Ged.
Artisan of Kozilek ~$0.50
Ulamog's Crusher ~$0.10
Both of them provide you with bigger bodies instead of a 7/5 which can be removed by Dismember. Artisan of Kozilek is a great budget replacement since it has a cast trigger to bring another Eldrazi back to the battlefield. Ulamog's Crusher provides a much better stat-line for the same effect for only one more mana. Generally speaking you will almost always want to be attack asap to gain the benefit of removing permanents. Artisan of Kozilek also has nice synergy with Conduit of Ruin(and Tron) with 9 cost thanks to Tron 7 + CoR 2. Sometimes you don't want to cast it right away because you will miss out on the return to battlefield trigger but that will be a game-time choice. As for the mana base, I am personally hesitant to run any colours because we truly lack the same for mana fixing like Tron unless we go all-in on the top end of the curve. There has been some brewing in the T2 Tron thread for a later game hybrid of this deck with colour options.