What has been people's general trends on sideboarding? I know this is largely affected by what your flex spots are, but a general guide would be helpful.
Cards I couldn't do without in SB (numbers change on preference):
This deck looks really powerful and fun to play. I am
Trying to get a good idea if it's the right choice for my LGS.
It seems like this deck beats midrange decks such as jund and junk. It also seems aggro enough to beat tron.
What other decks is this good against?
More importantly what does this deck really struggle against? What cards in particular crush this? I would think damnation and wrath of God but those cards don't see a lot of play.
Midrange and Control are your best matchups. It can struggle a bit with certain hyper aggro decks and combo. Now even though it has "bad matchups" there, they are totally winnable if you know what you are doing. For example, the Infect matchup is about sticking Displacer and not tapping out til you can drop Drowner of Hope. Force them to have multiple Vines a turn while slamming in for 3 each turn.
Tron is strange. Their nut hands will beat yours, however your average draws are better than theirs. If you can survive long enough to get TKS and Displacer lock on them, they effectively can't win (their deck is not made to have 2 good draws in a row and with all sorcery speed threats/answers, you can rip it out during their draw step).
Thanks man. This deck sounds really good. How fragile is te mana base? Are we weak to ghost quarters?
Not really weak to GQ. You have enough lands and dorks that even if they hit a temple, you just shrug and fetch a basic. It IS weak to Blood Moon when they can compliment that with either LD and/or a clock though.
This deck looks really powerful and fun to play. I am
Trying to get a good idea if it's the right choice for my LGS.
It seems like this deck beats midrange decks such as jund and junk. It also seems aggro enough to beat tron.
What other decks is this good against?
More importantly what does this deck really struggle against? What cards in particular crush this? I would think damnation and wrath of God but those cards don't see a lot of play.
Midrange and Control are your best matchups. It can struggle a bit with certain hyper aggro decks and combo. Now even though it has "bad matchups" there, they are totally winnable if you know what you are doing. For example, the Infect matchup is about sticking Displacer and not tapping out til you can drop Drowner of Hope. Force them to have multiple Vines a turn while slamming in for 3 each turn.
Tron is strange. Their nut hands will beat yours, however your average draws are better than theirs. If you can survive long enough to get TKS and Displacer lock on them, they effectively can't win (their deck is not made to have 2 good draws in a row and with all sorcery speed threats/answers, you can rip it out during their draw step).
Bad matchups: Merfolk (land disruption plus pressure), Affinity, Elves, Zoo, Infect, Scapeshift, Ad Nauseam and other degenerate creature-less combo decks, Abzan Company, Tron. Decks that either go wide and can block our stuff, race faster than us, or do not care at all what we are doing in general while we have few ways to stop them from doing their main game plan.
Ofcourse I'd probably tier these off in some fashion because while they are all "bad" matchups, several are extremely winnable. Scapeshift for example is pretty easy if you can stick an early TKS and then blink it with displacer. Infect is extremely difficult but if you can stall them a turn or 2 and drop a drowner of hope (or multiple blinks) you can easily win the match.
The hardest matchups for me are decks that use Blood Moon and Land Destruction to kill the basics. Abzan Company is also hard due to the consistency of their deck as well. Most other matchups have been winnable for me (Infect as an example is a bad matchup but I have a positive winning percentage against it).
Well I just realized we are tier 1!!! Woot! Keep up the quality work everyone. I think I am going to cut my flex land for an Island since I am now running EDF as a 3x in the list. He has really done a ton of heavy lifting in games by slamming the door shut on games.
Yeah I think the point is to blink her repeatedly and I think it's too cheeky. Sigarda seems good but I can't think of any matchups where I am clamoring for her because I keep losing it. Elder Deep Fiend really is the real deal from my experiences so far. The biggest change is it forces my opponents to view Matter Reshaper as a threat. This means they bolt/path/terminate it more frequently out of fear of being wrecked on their upkeep.
I've liked the Boreal Druid as well for the possible ability to trade with something small, also the attack too. Basically the 1 power all the time is completely relevant! I like your other changes in order to accommodate the EDF. I'll have to look at my mana base.
I added in the basic Island over the 2nd forest as well and then swapped a Brushland for another Yavimaya coast
Currently testing the following list for GP Lille (26-28/08). I have tried EDF but not convinced, DOH is better in a lot of cases.
I expect a lot of affinity and aggro deck, that's why i play 3 skyspawner (it also permit to play smasher or DOH one turn earlier)
The worship in SB are great!! I steal a lot of game with these (aggro deck don't side in enchantment hate vs us). The rest of the sb is classic.
Elder Deep Fiend is the real deal against those aggro decks you mentioned over Drowner of Hope because you can tap them down, untap and then play Reality Smasher. Typically that wins you the race flat out. I will still be running 3-4 DoH so it's not like you are losing anything by adding 2 Deep Fiend. Notice the main difference is I moved Spellskite to the SB. I really feel like it's not good enough against the majority of matchups so I might as well not have it. Adding 2 more good threats increases your percentages across the board (except Boggles).
I still stick by not bringing in EE against spell heavy decks like Jund. You don't want to dilute your main game plan too much so don't oversideboard. If you have to make room for 2-3 EE as well, I guess cut all the rest of your Hierarchs. You'll be going for a more midrange and long game against them anyways, so losing the explosive starts and mana fixing isn't as big a deal.
This. Diluties gameplan, makes Goyf bigger and they can easily remove it too which means it's a T4 play. There are better things to do. Jund is an easy matchup, stock up on a high density of threats and keep getting 2 for 1's whenever possible. Elder Deep Fiend also seems amazing here because a timewalk against them will let you set up lethal more often than not. Typically I cut most if not all my dorks in this matchup. You want live draws. Hierarch is still good but BoP is definitely axed. I only have like 1-2 actual threats in the SB though so typically I bring in World Breaker and Swagtusk and take out BoP and 1 Noble.
Tuesday Tournament Report: 30 People
Round 1: Infect (2-1)[1-0]: Game 1 he had turn 3 (my turn 2) kill with Vines on blighted agent… gotta love infect. Game 2 I stuck a T2 Eldrazi Skyspawner to block his Inkmoth Nexus. He didn’t have enough to pump it so he passed his 2nd turn. I drop a Displacer with mana to blink the following turn. He animates and swings in. I block with Skyspawner, he pumps and then I blink my skyspawner to net me another Scion. I crash in for 3 with Displacer and know I have him beat. I Emerge Elder Deep Fiend sacing my Noble Heirarch to tap down his lands. He is unable to adequately respond. I untap and play a Reality Smasher and crash in for 17 and lethal (Skyspawner 2/1, 2 Scions 1/1’s, Displacer 3/3, EDF 5/6, Smasher 5/5). Game 3 he had to mulligan to 5. I got T2 Displacer and he dropped a T3 Geist. This made me very happy because with no infect creatures onboard and me at 18 still I dropped TKS instead of being forced to hold open mana. He had a Become immense, Groundswell and lands. I rip the next pump with a TKS the following turn and then crash in for lethal with a Smasher.
Round 2: Lantern Control (2-0)[2-0]: I won’t go through each game because they essentially came down to the same thing. We provide a very very fast clock and he couldn’t find a bridge fast enough. My opponent was very very adamant that this matchup was fine for him but we have what feels like a million outs to what they are doing and worse yet I was able to use Elder Deep Fiend to keep him tapped out turns 3 and 4 for game 2. Even if he had topdecked the bridge (which I saw he wasn’t going to do) he couldn’t cast it anyway. All this ignores that we can blink TKS to mill them to death as well as let them draw cards by blinking TKS and then crash in for lethal amounts of damage.
Round 3: Burn (1-2)[2-1]: Burn is an awful matchup that I have all but conceded. While I am testing out the new cards I even took my only answer (Thragtusk) out of my sideboard. The match still came down to a single draw. Game 1 he had what burn wants, the play, T1 Guide and then he Searing Blazed my Heirarch for the TFB. Game 2 I had a fast hand and a bit of luck. He swings in on turn 3 with Goblin Guide and 2 Swiftspears into my Matter Reshaper. I block the Guide, he bolts my face and then I path one of the Swiftspears. My Reshaper finds a 2nd reshaper. I am at 8. He is also pseudo out of gas. Now came the interesting part. I drop a Noble Heirarch and swing in for 4. He takes. Next turn he just passes. I then untap and come in for 4 again. He uses Deflecting Palm which I let resolve then Path my Reshaper and play a Displacer form hand. I am in a position to set up lethal if all goes well (I crash in for 3 putting him to 10 and then I EDF tap him out and then smasher for lethal). He has another Deflecting Palm so I EDF immediately to prevent it. The next turn I crash in with EDF putting him to 4 and play TKS to see what’s going on in his hand. He responds with a flurry of burn spells bringing me to 1 and I take the last card out of his hand. I pass and he flips the top card.. Atarka Command. Welp sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
Round 4: Infect (2-0)[3-1]: You know for being a bad matchup, my deck loves to let me draw stupid nonsense against this deck. Elder Deep fiend put in some more serious work in this matchup allowing me to leave blink mana open to disrupt my opponent and then when I had enough for lethal I Emerge it in, tap all his things down and come in for the lethal 10. Game 2 he kept a T2 kill but I had the path for the T1 Glistener Elf and he never drew another infect creature. This allowed me to make quick work of him (T2 Displacer, T3 TKS, T4 EDF, T5 Smasher).
Eldritch Evolution hasn’t really come up and impressed me just yet so I will be taking it out most likely. Elder Deep Fiend on the other hand has been caressing the dark recesses of my soul that make me want to do evil things to my opponent. Tap your lands down then crash in for 10 has come up more than I think it should and his ability to close out a game is absurd. I think I am going to leave myself at 2 Drowner of Hope since they are awkwardly costed at 6 and go up 2 more Skyspawners (to a total of 4). This will give me 12 3cmc creatures to help with 4 CMC EDF. I am also doing a slight modification to my landbase (-1 Badland +1 Yavamaya Coast) to account for the added UU symbols on deep fiend.
EDF is great! Jus not sure of the numbers. i'm doing a 1/3 EDF and DoH split. not sure if 2/2 is the way to go.
or replace worldbreaker w an EDF in the sb.
I had Worldbreaker in the main still due to my control heavy meta and I essentially swapped out that and my flex slot (Which had Elspeth) for the 2 EDF. I liked having 2 because of those times when you can chain them together and close out the game. Currently I dropped to 2 Drowner of Hope to test out Eldritch Evolution but if I end up not liking that I might go to a 3/2 split of Drowner to EDF and add another Skyspawner to the list.
Hey guys I did a bit of testing with EDF and Eldritch Evolution this weekend. Both had moments in which they shined but EDF definitely earned another showing. One example is game 1 against Jeskai Nahiri I play a T2 Matter Reshaper. He doesn't want to bolt it because why concede that extra value. I play a Cavern of Souls (name Eldrazi) and pass the turn. During his upkeep it's Uncounterable Mistbind Clique Mode for EDF. I hit a Heirarch and tap all his lands. I untap and drop Reality Smasher to crash in for 10 (putting him to 4). He doesn't have the verdict and scoops (I had another Smasher in hand because... magic). Game 2 I found 3 Eldrazi Temples and used back to back EDF to just keep him tapped down and cast him for his full 8. I also got to feel bad stubborn denial a Path on Reality Smasher so that felt good.
Eldritch Evolution I am less sold on but it still did a lot of work. I won another game where I had an opening 7 of 4 lands heirarch and 2 Eldritch Evolutions. Turn 2 I sac the dork and get Matter Reshaper, Turn 3 I sac Matter Reshaper and get reality Smasher. My opponent couldn't answer that and the threats I drew into and it was gg. Still there were times where it felt unnecessary in hand (i.e. overkill) and it really doesn't play well on an empty board.
Going forward I think I am going to keep the 2 EDF in the main instead of the other utility cards I had (Elspeth and World Breaker) and I'll keep testing Evolution to see if it's worth sacrificing 2 top end creatures for more consistent turn 3 bombs (which I think has merit). I do want to try Tomb of the Spirit Dragon in the list for the off chance I get to trigger off Deep Fiend but currently Westvale Abbey actually puts in a suprising amount of work for just making my opponents sweat my creature count (especially Tokens and Reshapers). It has also been an amazing mana sink when you are straight racing without Displacer and want to churn out a chump blocker for 1 life each turn. It's a lifesaver against creatures without evasion.
Ah.. yeah I agree with you. The reason I came to Bant Eldrazi from Eldrazi & Taxes was the exalted triggers of Hierarch. They are often overlooked and sometimes do a LOT of work (powering TKS through Goyf or Tasigur is pretty huge.
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Cards I couldn't do without in SB (numbers change on preference):
Those cards put in a lot of work.
Not really weak to GQ. You have enough lands and dorks that even if they hit a temple, you just shrug and fetch a basic. It IS weak to Blood Moon when they can compliment that with either LD and/or a clock though.
Midrange and Control are your best matchups. It can struggle a bit with certain hyper aggro decks and combo. Now even though it has "bad matchups" there, they are totally winnable if you know what you are doing. For example, the Infect matchup is about sticking Displacer and not tapping out til you can drop Drowner of Hope. Force them to have multiple Vines a turn while slamming in for 3 each turn.
Tron is strange. Their nut hands will beat yours, however your average draws are better than theirs. If you can survive long enough to get TKS and Displacer lock on them, they effectively can't win (their deck is not made to have 2 good draws in a row and with all sorcery speed threats/answers, you can rip it out during their draw step).
Ofcourse I'd probably tier these off in some fashion because while they are all "bad" matchups, several are extremely winnable. Scapeshift for example is pretty easy if you can stick an early TKS and then blink it with displacer. Infect is extremely difficult but if you can stall them a turn or 2 and drop a drowner of hope (or multiple blinks) you can easily win the match.
Yeah I think the point is to blink her repeatedly and I think it's too cheeky. Sigarda seems good but I can't think of any matchups where I am clamoring for her because I keep losing it. Elder Deep Fiend really is the real deal from my experiences so far. The biggest change is it forces my opponents to view Matter Reshaper as a threat. This means they bolt/path/terminate it more frequently out of fear of being wrecked on their upkeep.
I added in the basic Island over the 2nd forest as well and then swapped a Brushland for another Yavimaya coast
Elder Deep Fiend is the real deal against those aggro decks you mentioned over Drowner of Hope because you can tap them down, untap and then play Reality Smasher. Typically that wins you the race flat out. I will still be running 3-4 DoH so it's not like you are losing anything by adding 2 Deep Fiend. Notice the main difference is I moved Spellskite to the SB. I really feel like it's not good enough against the majority of matchups so I might as well not have it. Adding 2 more good threats increases your percentages across the board (except Boggles).
Certainly can. Here is what I am currently running:
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Thought-knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Eldrazi Skyspawner
2x Drowner of Hope
2x Elder Deep-Fiend
1x Birds of Paradise
Spells(10):
4x Path to Exile
4x Ancient Stirrings
2x Eldritch Evolution
4x Eldrazi Temple
4x Windswept Heath
3x Cavern of Souls
2x Badlands
2x Yavimaya Coast
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Westvale Abbey
1x Temple Garden
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Breeding Pool
2x Forest
1x Plains
3x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Stubborn Denial
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Pithing Needle
2x Stony Silence
2x Spellskite
1x Worldbreaker
I haven't been overly impressed with Evolution yet so I am likely going to cut those for either +2 Drowner or +2 Skyspawner.
This. Diluties gameplan, makes Goyf bigger and they can easily remove it too which means it's a T4 play. There are better things to do. Jund is an easy matchup, stock up on a high density of threats and keep getting 2 for 1's whenever possible. Elder Deep Fiend also seems amazing here because a timewalk against them will let you set up lethal more often than not. Typically I cut most if not all my dorks in this matchup. You want live draws. Hierarch is still good but BoP is definitely axed. I only have like 1-2 actual threats in the SB though so typically I bring in World Breaker and Swagtusk and take out BoP and 1 Noble.
Tuesday Tournament Report: 30 People
Round 1: Infect (2-1)[1-0]: Game 1 he had turn 3 (my turn 2) kill with Vines on blighted agent… gotta love infect. Game 2 I stuck a T2 Eldrazi Skyspawner to block his Inkmoth Nexus. He didn’t have enough to pump it so he passed his 2nd turn. I drop a Displacer with mana to blink the following turn. He animates and swings in. I block with Skyspawner, he pumps and then I blink my skyspawner to net me another Scion. I crash in for 3 with Displacer and know I have him beat. I Emerge Elder Deep Fiend sacing my Noble Heirarch to tap down his lands. He is unable to adequately respond. I untap and play a Reality Smasher and crash in for 17 and lethal (Skyspawner 2/1, 2 Scions 1/1’s, Displacer 3/3, EDF 5/6, Smasher 5/5). Game 3 he had to mulligan to 5. I got T2 Displacer and he dropped a T3 Geist. This made me very happy because with no infect creatures onboard and me at 18 still I dropped TKS instead of being forced to hold open mana. He had a Become immense, Groundswell and lands. I rip the next pump with a TKS the following turn and then crash in for lethal with a Smasher.
Round 2: Lantern Control (2-0)[2-0]: I won’t go through each game because they essentially came down to the same thing. We provide a very very fast clock and he couldn’t find a bridge fast enough. My opponent was very very adamant that this matchup was fine for him but we have what feels like a million outs to what they are doing and worse yet I was able to use Elder Deep Fiend to keep him tapped out turns 3 and 4 for game 2. Even if he had topdecked the bridge (which I saw he wasn’t going to do) he couldn’t cast it anyway. All this ignores that we can blink TKS to mill them to death as well as let them draw cards by blinking TKS and then crash in for lethal amounts of damage.
Round 3: Burn (1-2)[2-1]: Burn is an awful matchup that I have all but conceded. While I am testing out the new cards I even took my only answer (Thragtusk) out of my sideboard. The match still came down to a single draw. Game 1 he had what burn wants, the play, T1 Guide and then he Searing Blazed my Heirarch for the TFB. Game 2 I had a fast hand and a bit of luck. He swings in on turn 3 with Goblin Guide and 2 Swiftspears into my Matter Reshaper. I block the Guide, he bolts my face and then I path one of the Swiftspears. My Reshaper finds a 2nd reshaper. I am at 8. He is also pseudo out of gas. Now came the interesting part. I drop a Noble Heirarch and swing in for 4. He takes. Next turn he just passes. I then untap and come in for 4 again. He uses Deflecting Palm which I let resolve then Path my Reshaper and play a Displacer form hand. I am in a position to set up lethal if all goes well (I crash in for 3 putting him to 10 and then I EDF tap him out and then smasher for lethal). He has another Deflecting Palm so I EDF immediately to prevent it. The next turn I crash in with EDF putting him to 4 and play TKS to see what’s going on in his hand. He responds with a flurry of burn spells bringing me to 1 and I take the last card out of his hand. I pass and he flips the top card.. Atarka Command. Welp sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
Round 4: Infect (2-0)[3-1]: You know for being a bad matchup, my deck loves to let me draw stupid nonsense against this deck. Elder Deep fiend put in some more serious work in this matchup allowing me to leave blink mana open to disrupt my opponent and then when I had enough for lethal I Emerge it in, tap all his things down and come in for the lethal 10. Game 2 he kept a T2 kill but I had the path for the T1 Glistener Elf and he never drew another infect creature. This allowed me to make quick work of him (T2 Displacer, T3 TKS, T4 EDF, T5 Smasher).
Eldritch Evolution hasn’t really come up and impressed me just yet so I will be taking it out most likely. Elder Deep Fiend on the other hand has been caressing the dark recesses of my soul that make me want to do evil things to my opponent. Tap your lands down then crash in for 10 has come up more than I think it should and his ability to close out a game is absurd. I think I am going to leave myself at 2 Drowner of Hope since they are awkwardly costed at 6 and go up 2 more Skyspawners (to a total of 4). This will give me 12 3cmc creatures to help with 4 CMC EDF. I am also doing a slight modification to my landbase (-1 Badland +1 Yavamaya Coast) to account for the added UU symbols on deep fiend.
I had Worldbreaker in the main still due to my control heavy meta and I essentially swapped out that and my flex slot (Which had Elspeth) for the 2 EDF. I liked having 2 because of those times when you can chain them together and close out the game. Currently I dropped to 2 Drowner of Hope to test out Eldritch Evolution but if I end up not liking that I might go to a 3/2 split of Drowner to EDF and add another Skyspawner to the list.
Eldritch Evolution I am less sold on but it still did a lot of work. I won another game where I had an opening 7 of 4 lands heirarch and 2 Eldritch Evolutions. Turn 2 I sac the dork and get Matter Reshaper, Turn 3 I sac Matter Reshaper and get reality Smasher. My opponent couldn't answer that and the threats I drew into and it was gg. Still there were times where it felt unnecessary in hand (i.e. overkill) and it really doesn't play well on an empty board.
Going forward I think I am going to keep the 2 EDF in the main instead of the other utility cards I had (Elspeth and World Breaker) and I'll keep testing Evolution to see if it's worth sacrificing 2 top end creatures for more consistent turn 3 bombs (which I think has merit). I do want to try Tomb of the Spirit Dragon in the list for the off chance I get to trigger off Deep Fiend but currently Westvale Abbey actually puts in a suprising amount of work for just making my opponents sweat my creature count (especially Tokens and Reshapers). It has also been an amazing mana sink when you are straight racing without Displacer and want to churn out a chump blocker for 1 life each turn. It's a lifesaver against creatures without evasion.
Considering they aren't legal in Modern yet... no.
Ah.. yeah I agree with you. The reason I came to Bant Eldrazi from Eldrazi & Taxes was the exalted triggers of Hierarch. They are often overlooked and sometimes do a LOT of work (powering TKS through Goyf or Tasigur is pretty huge.