I jumped on the Eldrazi train, but I feel that I should say this. The hype surrounding Eldrazi decks is simply way over the top. Yes, the deck is insane and produce absolute nut openers, but it seems that the Modern community is just slamming the panic button way to early. Playtesting U/R Eldrazi, the deck has its inconsistencies clearly. If we all simply just relaxed a bit, took our time and put our heads in together, I am sure we will find answers to the deck.
While I understand all the hype for the deck after it's showing, I'm undefeated post pro tour with Jund in 4 events (playing against Eldrazi a total of 4 times, both UR and Colorless variants). Winning 2-0 in 3/4 of the matches so far. Just upped to 2 maelstrom pulse in the main and post board 3 fulminators 1 crumble 1 sowing salt and outside of the broken temple-multiple mimic into eldrazi temple starts it's not impossible to disrupt them and throw down a goyf (the deck has fits against a 5/6 or bigger goyf). I know that the players are still somewhat inexperienced with the deck and probably not mulling slower hands and trying for a faster start, but the deck doesn't feel unbeatable. The deck is only good when it's playing 1-2 turns ahead of it's opponents, when it's not doing that it is really clunky and can fold under it's own weight.
Perhaps when players start getting more acclimated to the deck and can identify mulligan decisions and sequencing better I'll worry about it. But thus far I feel like you can tune a fair deck like GBx and even URx to beat it with the proper answers (forked bolt on multiple mimic starts seem great, roast kills literally every scary creature in the deck, electrolyze has amazing value against the UR version later in the game). Most of the cards that are worth playing against the eldrazi deck are also still good against a lot of the field as well, bolt isn't as dead as people are making it out to be, and creatures like Goyf, scooze, Angler, etc... can be big enough to trade or stalemate the board. There's also the slew of land hate options as well. But the deck is far from unbeatable. Can it have the nut draws that decks can't deal with? Yea, but so does affinity, infect, boggles, merfolk, elves, Kiki-chord, Slivers, Allies (most CoCo decks to be honest), Burn, Zoo, Storm, and Grishoalbrand.
All these decks can be interacted with on different levels and raced on different grounds. They sometimes require different answers but there is also a lot of overlap in good cards in the matchups that you can build a fair deck that can hold it's own against the onslaught of fast linear decks. Is there a perfect end-all be-all answer to all these decks? No. But that's why there is something known as a diverse metagame. Perhaps the eldrazi deck is just the most consistent linear deck that is currently out there and I feel that the protour helped confirm this by being more explosive and having main deck hate (chalice) that affected a large portion of the field.
I know I have small anecdotal evidence with a small sample size, but I feel like the deck isn't just some monstrosity that can't be beat (It can!). That being said, I do feel like Eye should still be banned because it would alleviate a large headache, hurt all the big mana decks in one fell swoop, because if rumors of Eldrazi and Emmy showing up in SoI it's going to be a disaster if the deck gets anymore support. I also feel there hasn't been a full exploration of the eldrazi decks themselves and various iterations that could come to be that are even better than what we have seen so far.
I know a lot of people are completely distraught and are temporarily giving up on modern until April because we have a total of 6 almost 8 Eldrazi players in our 20ish person Metagame and most people have a bad taste in their mouth (especially the twin players who converted to grixis, jeskai, and temur delver/control/midrange variants) and got smashed (though this has pushed some people to finally get duals and FoWs for their legacy decks and we've been able to fire 2 Legacy events in 3 nights and possibly firing again on Friday!!! It is a shame, though, to see Modern going from our most played format to people simply not even showing up at all).
Anyways It'll be an interesting couple of months, I feel that both the community and wizards will have a better idea based on the turnout of the 3 GPs in March go. If they have an attendance dip and eldrazi dominate the top 8/16 like they did at the Protour then it certainly is a problem that needs to be addressed. If the meta clears up and there is a more traditional top 8 (I.E 5-6 different decks/archetypes) then that means modern is in a fine place and has adapted. If not then we'll potentially see some kind of a ban in April with SoI.
Modern is in turbulent times but honestly the format has always been this way since it's inception in 2011.
I think the reason there's even a discussion about this is that many players still don't fully understand the fundamentals of the game and what happens when one of those fundamentals is broken. Such fundamentals include drawing 1 card per turn and making 1 land drop per turn and tapping 1 land producing 1 mana. A karoo land is balanced because it gives up the 1 land drop per turn for the extra mana, which puts you right back at parity (barring shenanigans with other cards like Amulet).
Similarly taxing card draw abilities with large mana costs ensures a fairness to breaking that fundamental. To belabor the point, there's a vast difference between Ancestral Recall and Jace's Ingenuity. Waiting that long to load up on cards means your opponent had plenty of opportunities to kill you, develop their board state, disrupt you, etc., and tapping out that late in the game has its consequences as well.
A card like Eye of Ugin seemed "meh" to everybody before Oath simply because there were no low costed Eldrazi creatures before then. Now that they exist, we have to be sure we're viewing the entire picture in the right context. The card is basically Gaea's Cradle or Tolarian Academy but with a hand check instead of a board check, and is reusable during the turn since you don't have to tap it to access that "mana." To take it to the absurd, if you had endless Endless Ones in your hand, you could make infinite 2/2's simply because of Eye.
Having a deck in a format that can consistently break the fundamentals of the game such as number of cards drawn per turn or amount of mana produced by a land or number of land drops in a turn (Summer Bloom's offense, and need I remind you the card was just banned?) can be fine as long as the other decks are on an equal playing field. That can include an equal ability to break those fundamentals, a fast and accessible response to the end result of the breaking of that fundamental, hosers, the ability to ignore the opponent due to equally fast goldfishes, etc. But Modern doesn't have any of those. Each and every time a Modern deck has exhibited any of those qualities it has received a ban. Modern has been neutered (rightfully or wrongfully) to the point where decks simply can not compete with a deck breaking the fundamentals of the game so quickly and so efficiently.
EDIT: One important thing to note is that just as with Ancestral Recall and Jace's Ingenuity, breaking fundamentals gets safer as the game progresses. Making Emrakul, the Aeons Torn cost 13 instead of 15 is fine, even with the existence of Tron lands (the tutor part is something else entirely). But it's the fact that Eye does this beginning Turn 1 and then every turn thereafter that makes it such a huge violator of these rules.
The fact that it requires some mulligans and doesn't win 100% of its games is irrelevant. The mere existence of such a thing is the antithesis of the way Modern has been managed thus far.
If you read all that, you're probably itching to respond "no poop sherlock, we know all that. that's basic stuff" (along with other insults, I'm sure). Well, apparently some of you need a reminder.
Personally, I think there's enough lands in modern that if they wanted to weaken eldrazi they could do it without destroying the deck. Merfolk has been around for a long time and no one really bothers them, so I could see a similar existence for Eldrazi.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Everything ahead assumes a hypothetical world of eldrazi... I don't know how I actually feel about the deck yet. It may be beatable, it may need a ban. No opinions there... but...
I don't think the issue that most people in here have is related to "beating the eldrazi deck." Sure 8-rack can have a great eldrazi matchup, but it is one deck. Coco and affinity are doing OK too, but even they have a tough time with the deck.
The "problem" as far as I'm conscerned, is that a format where you have "eldrazi vs everything else" is NOT a healthy format and it is the best way to kill the format. We've already seen a lot of players taking a hiatus and it's been not even a full week. When people are forced to play eldrazi, 8-rack, affinity, lantern control, or coco... or (whatever else has a good eldrazi matchup) that is super far from a healthy meta. Twin never pushed decks out of playability like this deck appears to, and twin was banned to help diversity of the format. Leaving eldrazi in the format (should it continue at its current rate) would be very ironic with the twin ban in mind. The possible format is not a diverse format.
I have 8-rack and I play it frequently. It is great that it has a good eldrazi matchup, but that doesn't mean that the format is healthy when most of the rest of the format is "how to beat eldrazi" decks.
Think back to miridin. Affinity was insane and that format is, to many, one of the worst in the history of magic because half the meta was one deck and the other was decks that are good against it. Same goes for delver standard. Or even treasure cruise delver.
If we get to a point where we are mainboarding specialized eldrazi hate lIke some of these lists of merfolk are doing... something has gone wrong. While I have no idea how things will shake out, or even if a ban is necessary, that is to be seen as time passes. Even the people who created the deck barely are able to cite its bad matchups. If the deck is beatable by some manner of specialization... with paths and land hate and bridges... well Bloom was beatable too, doesn't mean it was in any way ok for modern (by wizard's standards) Eldrazi would be a justifiable ban in my opinion especially at the rate it is dominating currently. We'll see in a few weeks though I suppose.
Everything ahead assumes a hypothetical world of eldrazi... I don't know how I actually feel about the deck yet. It may be beatable, it may need a ban. No opinions there... but...
I don't think the issue that most people in here have is related to "beating the eldrazi deck." Sure 8-rack can have a great eldrazi matchup, but it is one deck. Coco and affinity are doing OK too, but even they have a tough time with the deck.
The "problem" as far as I'm conscerned, is that a format where you have "eldrazi vs everything else" is NOT a healthy format and it is the best way to kill the format. We've already seen a lot of players taking a hiatus and it's been not even a full week. When people are forced to play eldrazi, 8-rack, affinity, lantern control, or coco... or (whatever else has a good eldrazi matchup) that is super far from a healthy meta. Twin never pushed decks out of playability like this deck appears to, and twin was banned to help diversity of the format. Leaving eldrazi in the format (should it continue at its current rate) would be very ironic with the twin ban in mind. The possible format is not a diverse format.
I have 8-rack and I play it frequently. It is great that it has a good eldrazi matchup, but that doesn't mean that the format is healthy when most of the rest of the format is "how to beat eldrazi" decks.
Think back to miridin. Affinity was insane and that format is, to many, one of the worst in the history of magic because half the meta was one deck and the other was decks that are good against it. Same goes for delver standard. Or even treasure cruise delver.
If we get to a point where we are mainboarding specialized eldrazi hate lIke some of these lists of merfolk are doing... something has gone wrong. While I have no idea how things will shake out, or even if a ban is necessary, that is to be seen as time passes. Even the people who created the deck barely are able to cite its bad matchups. If the deck is beatable by some manner of specialization... with paths and land hate and bridges... well Bloom was beatable too, doesn't mean it was in any way ok for modern (by wizard's standards) Eldrazi would be a justifiable ban in my opinion especially at the rate it is dominating currently. We'll see in a few weeks though I suppose.
It's not so much that I've given up on eldrazi as much as given up trying to convince people that banning Eye of Ugin may not be necessary. That and it feels like if that many people feel strongly about it then it's best to consider the land dead and just move on. So many people are rushing to pick up Eldrazi hate cards that it definitely feels like Mirrodin all over again.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Get rid of the new ruling that allows former colorless lands to now tap for wastes?
And simply add a whole new color into the format? No thanks
It already feels like another color though. "Wastes" is a basic land too. By going back to the old ruling, eldrazi players are forced to run at least 12 basic wastes in the mana base if they want to reliably cast thought knot seer, reality smasher, and matter reshaper. This will force them to drop mutavaults, blinkmoths, and maybe others, weakening the crazy manabase. Just my 2 cents on how to nerf the deck without any bans.
Get rid of the new ruling that allows former colorless lands to now tap for wastes?
And simply add a whole new color into the format? No thanks
It already feels like another color though. "Wastes" is a basic land too. By going back to the old ruling, eldrazi players are forced to run at least 12 basic wastes in the mana base if they want to reliably cast thought knot seer, reality smasher, and matter reshaper. This will force them to drop mutavaults, blinkmoths, and maybe others, weakening the crazy manabase. Just my 2 cents on how to nerf the deck without any bans.
its not a new ruling, and the colorless lands are not tapping for "Wastes", they are tapping for colorless mana, which they always have and always will
The Eldrazi as creatures are too powerful and maybe might merit a ban but then again you don't see anyone playing Bearer of the Heavens for some reason. What I did notice is almost every eldrazi deck has nothing but 3 cost and up spells. That's INSANE in modern. It only works because of the lands and in my opinion they need to ban just 1 of the lands and the decks will be reasonable. Actually ban any land that taps for 2 under any circumstance. That's the definition of game-breaking. Anyway, 3 cost means 2-3 cost blue antimagic can actually make a comeback against the Eldrazi decks. My new mostly blue Beholder 3.0 Alpha deck shreds the crap out of Eldrazi top tier decks in testing. None of them online, in person, or driven by any level of player has been able to beat it in a 2 out of 3 round.
But since 1 and 2 cost heavy decks will beat blue counterspells, they need to power down the eldrazi by ditching one of the lands.
Expedition Wasteland has a wastes mana symbol in it? How else are these eldrazi players casting their thought knot seers? Unless I am missing something
Expedition Wasteland has a wastes mana symbol in it? How else are these eldrazi players casting their thought knot seers? Unless I am missing something
you are missing something. its not a wastes mana symbol, its a colorless mana symbol. all they did was give it a symbol
Expedition Wasteland has a wastes mana symbol in it? How else are these eldrazi players casting their thought knot seers? Unless I am missing something
you are missing something. its not a wastes mana symbol, its a colorless mana symbol. all they did was give it a symbol
okay maybe i'm getting it now. sooooo a thought-knot-seer can be casted off of 3 swamp and 1 ghost quarter? or 3 forest and 1 mutavault? basically any colorless source?
these creatures still sound too strong though, if they can be casted off of all "colorless" though.
I think the deck is beatable and it needs a ban. So far my GP testing had been profitable but the amount you must warp your maindeck for this one deck is absurd. It worse than pod or twin ever were.
Expedition Wasteland has a wastes mana symbol in it? How else are these eldrazi players casting their thought knot seers? Unless I am missing something
you are missing something. its not a wastes mana symbol, its a colorless mana symbol. all they did was give it a symbol
That brings up an interesting point. They wanted a strong set but didn't want modern to just go Eldrazi crazy with automatic adoption into any color deck so they made colorless costs effectively its own color. And that did NOTHING to stop modern players
It's more than just the deck that caused issues. You have these teams that play through channel and other big game stores and down played the deck, making sure that most players didn't bother looking in that direction while these teams brewed and tested. People reading these articles let themselves forget the psychological warfare apparent before a big event by teams like these and therefor didn't properly consider the implications.
In other sides, i don't personally feel a ban is necessary. Board appetite for brains, gut shots, any 1 damage spells get mimic off including your path. Ghost quarter stops eye from getting oppressive. Get creative in your hate and use cards that answer multiple decks. We already have Thoughtseize as well as every other piece of good turn one disruption and removal, people just weren't ready. I played modern tonight at my local shop with my footsteps reanimator and literally 90 percent of the field was some Eldrazi variant. Boarding into gunshots and appetites just won me the day without a single worry at all. Give it time, things will shake out.
Last thoughts, I think it's hilarious how "bad" the return to zendikar was by most pro players, and now it's posting incredible numbers thanks to those same players taking advantage of people's trust in their analysis.
Last thoughts, I think it's hilarious how "bad" the return to zendikar was by most pro players, and now it's posting incredible numbers thanks to those same players taking advantage of people's trust in their analysis.
It was specifically Battle for Zendikar that was considered bad. Oath of the Gatewatch, even before its actual release, was regarded as a less mediocre set.
I mean, heck, you look at the new Eldrazi decks, and the only card they run from Battle for Zendikar is Endless One.
I feel like the artifact lands are the best comparison to what the eldrazi lands are doing for the deck, and i'm honesstly not sure which is stronger, Eldrazi Temple or Seat of the Synod, but the temple doesnt have nearly as much support. "Fast mana" in pretty much any degenerate form has never been allowed in Modern, its pretty safe to expect a ban.
Expedition Wasteland has a wastes mana symbol in it? How else are these eldrazi players casting their thought knot seers? Unless I am missing something
you are missing something. its not a wastes mana symbol, its a colorless mana symbol. all they did was give it a symbol
okay maybe i'm getting it now. sooooo a thought-knot-seer can be casted off of 3 swamp and 1 ghost quarter? or 3 forest and 1 mutavault? basically any colorless source?
these creatures still sound too strong though, if they can be casted off of all "colorless" though.
The issue is not they can be cast off of all color less, it is the busted amount of mana eldrazi lands make. imagine squaring off against 4 mana worth of generic goblin pikers cast on turn 1. That is a good play for any aggro deck. Then lets make those 2/1 a 4/4 and rip a card out your hand on turn 2. It gets completely busted at that point. It is slightly pushed creatures combined with very pushed mana.
I think it's time for the format to grow up. Power levels will rise as they always have for legacy and vintage. Sure, they want to keep a turn 4 format but that doesn't mean that anyone's brew should be tier 1.
Eldrazi doesn't destroy modern. Sure, it's dominant if no one is willing to meta-game / sideboard properly, but the same is true for any other tier 1 deck (look what happens when you don't board against Grishoalbrand). You refuse to adapt, you die. It's that simple. Don't point the finger at wizards for trying to come up with cool new cards/mechanics. You know the only constant in magic is that we get a fresh injection to the card pool every 3 months so this is inevitable.
Take a look at your deck, metagame appropriately and get the sideboard cards and strategies needed for a favorable match against Eldrazi.
Spreading Seas, Forked Bolt, Gut Shot, Ancient Grudge against Chalices and Spellskites, Painter's Servant, Pyroclasm, Remand, Thoughtseize, Mana Leak are all great interactive answers that significantly slow the deck down. Ensnaring Bridge, Supreme Verdict, Batterskull and Vedalken Shackles are great late game control pieces that can win the Eldrazi matchup upon resolution.
imagine Affinity was a new deck. Imagine nobody had sideboard cards against it, and one team decided to go all-in on a rogue affinity strategy. At its first tournament, how would it perform?
it would be carnage. would the deck need a ban? no!
It's a perfect storm of big team, no hate, new deck. there's nothing realistically to panic about. no bans need to be made.
sure, lots of people will pick up the deck over the next few weeks and try it out (who can blame them?). I myself had all the cards already before the ProTour and built the deck while watching the coverage. I'm psyched to have a go at playing it, and i'm sure it'll be a reasonably powerful option going forward, in-line with many other top-tier decks of the past.
is it broken though? no! obviously.
case in point - at a large local event, I saw Living End absolutely crush a metagame, not losing any matches and breezing through. If this had been the deck's first ever outing, on camera for the world to see, it would look COMPLETELY BUSTED. can you imagine the hysteria it would cause? "free spells are broken", "three mana instant-speed wraths are broken", "ban simian spirit guide"... sound familiar? fact of the matter was though, nobody was packing any graveyard hate. *shrug*. does the deck need a ban? no!
this forum, and particularly this thread, is full of panic-mongering. I hope Wizards takes the time to appreciate the lack of depth and imagination of this panic. I also hope that the panic doesn't result in some kind of dumb self-fulfilling prophecy, where people's stubborn negativity actually does get something banned when it really didn't need to. that would be the worst.
I will give my view on Eldrazi deck based on experience. I bought the deck online because modern is my favorite format and I have to have a top tier deck. I play Abzan as main, Jeskai and Hatebears for fun. There are so many variations of Eldrazi decks, heartless, RedBlue, GreenBlack, Sultai, Mono Black, and colorless. The one I bought is the colorless because it is the most consistent deck we've seen during Protour and the simplest. I want to say first that I think Eldrazi lands won't be banned. Eldrazi decks are really vulnerable and not as strong as they look. First, it all depends on your opening hand and it is not always that you have a combination of lethal creatures and fast lands. It felt that burn and infect can be more lethal to me than Eldrazi. When you play Eldrazi, you don't really feel safe like when you play a heavy removal decks like Jund/Junk. You have so many issues with combo decks. Decks that I lose to that are obviously RedBlue that run BloodMoon on main board. I lost to combo decks and I don't really remember which ones, but I can see myself losing to storm or Ad Nauseam for sure. I lost to a budget BW tokens with vigilance fliers. I had rough matches against any BGX or even BG with many removal spells.
Right now I feel Colorless Eldrazi is not really the best Eldrazi deck. The absence of removal spells is huge. I can see myself playing BG Eldrazi. It felt that Meta is really balanced after seeing older decks rise again like Storm or Enchantments decks that can lock you out and stop you from attacking.
@purklefluff This guy has nailed. This is clearly the case. The surprise factor had taken us by storm and we felt that Eldrazi decks are unbreakable. I can see Jund/Junk in the top 8 in the upcoming GP's once they adapt to meta
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King Macar, the Gold-Cursed
Perhaps when players start getting more acclimated to the deck and can identify mulligan decisions and sequencing better I'll worry about it. But thus far I feel like you can tune a fair deck like GBx and even URx to beat it with the proper answers (forked bolt on multiple mimic starts seem great, roast kills literally every scary creature in the deck, electrolyze has amazing value against the UR version later in the game). Most of the cards that are worth playing against the eldrazi deck are also still good against a lot of the field as well, bolt isn't as dead as people are making it out to be, and creatures like Goyf, scooze, Angler, etc... can be big enough to trade or stalemate the board. There's also the slew of land hate options as well. But the deck is far from unbeatable. Can it have the nut draws that decks can't deal with? Yea, but so does affinity, infect, boggles, merfolk, elves, Kiki-chord, Slivers, Allies (most CoCo decks to be honest), Burn, Zoo, Storm, and Grishoalbrand.
All these decks can be interacted with on different levels and raced on different grounds. They sometimes require different answers but there is also a lot of overlap in good cards in the matchups that you can build a fair deck that can hold it's own against the onslaught of fast linear decks. Is there a perfect end-all be-all answer to all these decks? No. But that's why there is something known as a diverse metagame. Perhaps the eldrazi deck is just the most consistent linear deck that is currently out there and I feel that the protour helped confirm this by being more explosive and having main deck hate (chalice) that affected a large portion of the field.
I know I have small anecdotal evidence with a small sample size, but I feel like the deck isn't just some monstrosity that can't be beat (It can!). That being said, I do feel like Eye should still be banned because it would alleviate a large headache, hurt all the big mana decks in one fell swoop, because if rumors of Eldrazi and Emmy showing up in SoI it's going to be a disaster if the deck gets anymore support. I also feel there hasn't been a full exploration of the eldrazi decks themselves and various iterations that could come to be that are even better than what we have seen so far.
I know a lot of people are completely distraught and are temporarily giving up on modern until April because we have a total of 6 almost 8 Eldrazi players in our 20ish person Metagame and most people have a bad taste in their mouth (especially the twin players who converted to grixis, jeskai, and temur delver/control/midrange variants) and got smashed (though this has pushed some people to finally get duals and FoWs for their legacy decks and we've been able to fire 2 Legacy events in 3 nights and possibly firing again on Friday!!! It is a shame, though, to see Modern going from our most played format to people simply not even showing up at all).
Anyways It'll be an interesting couple of months, I feel that both the community and wizards will have a better idea based on the turnout of the 3 GPs in March go. If they have an attendance dip and eldrazi dominate the top 8/16 like they did at the Protour then it certainly is a problem that needs to be addressed. If the meta clears up and there is a more traditional top 8 (I.E 5-6 different decks/archetypes) then that means modern is in a fine place and has adapted. If not then we'll potentially see some kind of a ban in April with SoI.
Modern is in turbulent times but honestly the format has always been this way since it's inception in 2011.
And simply add a whole new color into the format? No thanks
King Macar, the Gold-Cursed
Similarly taxing card draw abilities with large mana costs ensures a fairness to breaking that fundamental. To belabor the point, there's a vast difference between Ancestral Recall and Jace's Ingenuity. Waiting that long to load up on cards means your opponent had plenty of opportunities to kill you, develop their board state, disrupt you, etc., and tapping out that late in the game has its consequences as well.
A card like Eye of Ugin seemed "meh" to everybody before Oath simply because there were no low costed Eldrazi creatures before then. Now that they exist, we have to be sure we're viewing the entire picture in the right context. The card is basically Gaea's Cradle or Tolarian Academy but with a hand check instead of a board check, and is reusable during the turn since you don't have to tap it to access that "mana." To take it to the absurd, if you had endless Endless Ones in your hand, you could make infinite 2/2's simply because of Eye.
Having a deck in a format that can consistently break the fundamentals of the game such as number of cards drawn per turn or amount of mana produced by a land or number of land drops in a turn (Summer Bloom's offense, and need I remind you the card was just banned?) can be fine as long as the other decks are on an equal playing field. That can include an equal ability to break those fundamentals, a fast and accessible response to the end result of the breaking of that fundamental, hosers, the ability to ignore the opponent due to equally fast goldfishes, etc. But Modern doesn't have any of those. Each and every time a Modern deck has exhibited any of those qualities it has received a ban. Modern has been neutered (rightfully or wrongfully) to the point where decks simply can not compete with a deck breaking the fundamentals of the game so quickly and so efficiently.
EDIT: One important thing to note is that just as with Ancestral Recall and Jace's Ingenuity, breaking fundamentals gets safer as the game progresses. Making Emrakul, the Aeons Torn cost 13 instead of 15 is fine, even with the existence of Tron lands (the tutor part is something else entirely). But it's the fact that Eye does this beginning Turn 1 and then every turn thereafter that makes it such a huge violator of these rules.
The fact that it requires some mulligans and doesn't win 100% of its games is irrelevant. The mere existence of such a thing is the antithesis of the way Modern has been managed thus far.
If you read all that, you're probably itching to respond "no poop sherlock, we know all that. that's basic stuff" (along with other insults, I'm sure). Well, apparently some of you need a reminder.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I don't think the issue that most people in here have is related to "beating the eldrazi deck." Sure 8-rack can have a great eldrazi matchup, but it is one deck. Coco and affinity are doing OK too, but even they have a tough time with the deck.
The "problem" as far as I'm conscerned, is that a format where you have "eldrazi vs everything else" is NOT a healthy format and it is the best way to kill the format. We've already seen a lot of players taking a hiatus and it's been not even a full week. When people are forced to play eldrazi, 8-rack, affinity, lantern control, or coco... or (whatever else has a good eldrazi matchup) that is super far from a healthy meta. Twin never pushed decks out of playability like this deck appears to, and twin was banned to help diversity of the format. Leaving eldrazi in the format (should it continue at its current rate) would be very ironic with the twin ban in mind. The possible format is not a diverse format.
I have 8-rack and I play it frequently. It is great that it has a good eldrazi matchup, but that doesn't mean that the format is healthy when most of the rest of the format is "how to beat eldrazi" decks.
Think back to miridin. Affinity was insane and that format is, to many, one of the worst in the history of magic because half the meta was one deck and the other was decks that are good against it. Same goes for delver standard. Or even treasure cruise delver.
If we get to a point where we are mainboarding specialized eldrazi hate lIke some of these lists of merfolk are doing... something has gone wrong. While I have no idea how things will shake out, or even if a ban is necessary, that is to be seen as time passes. Even the people who created the deck barely are able to cite its bad matchups. If the deck is beatable by some manner of specialization... with paths and land hate and bridges... well Bloom was beatable too, doesn't mean it was in any way ok for modern (by wizard's standards) Eldrazi would be a justifiable ban in my opinion especially at the rate it is dominating currently. We'll see in a few weeks though I suppose.
It's not so much that I've given up on eldrazi as much as given up trying to convince people that banning Eye of Ugin may not be necessary. That and it feels like if that many people feel strongly about it then it's best to consider the land dead and just move on. So many people are rushing to pick up Eldrazi hate cards that it definitely feels like Mirrodin all over again.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It already feels like another color though. "Wastes" is a basic land too. By going back to the old ruling, eldrazi players are forced to run at least 12 basic wastes in the mana base if they want to reliably cast thought knot seer, reality smasher, and matter reshaper. This will force them to drop mutavaults, blinkmoths, and maybe others, weakening the crazy manabase. Just my 2 cents on how to nerf the deck without any bans.
its not a new ruling, and the colorless lands are not tapping for "Wastes", they are tapping for colorless mana, which they always have and always will
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
But since 1 and 2 cost heavy decks will beat blue counterspells, they need to power down the eldrazi by ditching one of the lands.
you are missing something. its not a wastes mana symbol, its a colorless mana symbol. all they did was give it a symbol
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
okay maybe i'm getting it now. sooooo a thought-knot-seer can be casted off of 3 swamp and 1 ghost quarter? or 3 forest and 1 mutavault? basically any colorless source?
these creatures still sound too strong though, if they can be casted off of all "colorless" though.
That brings up an interesting point. They wanted a strong set but didn't want modern to just go Eldrazi crazy with automatic adoption into any color deck so they made colorless costs effectively its own color. And that did NOTHING to stop modern players
In other sides, i don't personally feel a ban is necessary. Board appetite for brains, gut shots, any 1 damage spells get mimic off including your path. Ghost quarter stops eye from getting oppressive. Get creative in your hate and use cards that answer multiple decks. We already have Thoughtseize as well as every other piece of good turn one disruption and removal, people just weren't ready. I played modern tonight at my local shop with my footsteps reanimator and literally 90 percent of the field was some Eldrazi variant. Boarding into gunshots and appetites just won me the day without a single worry at all. Give it time, things will shake out.
Last thoughts, I think it's hilarious how "bad" the return to zendikar was by most pro players, and now it's posting incredible numbers thanks to those same players taking advantage of people's trust in their analysis.
I mean, heck, you look at the new Eldrazi decks, and the only card they run from Battle for Zendikar is Endless One.
The issue is not they can be cast off of all color less, it is the busted amount of mana eldrazi lands make. imagine squaring off against 4 mana worth of generic goblin pikers cast on turn 1. That is a good play for any aggro deck. Then lets make those 2/1 a 4/4 and rip a card out your hand on turn 2. It gets completely busted at that point. It is slightly pushed creatures combined with very pushed mana.
Eldrazi doesn't destroy modern. Sure, it's dominant if no one is willing to meta-game / sideboard properly, but the same is true for any other tier 1 deck (look what happens when you don't board against Grishoalbrand). You refuse to adapt, you die. It's that simple. Don't point the finger at wizards for trying to come up with cool new cards/mechanics. You know the only constant in magic is that we get a fresh injection to the card pool every 3 months so this is inevitable.
Take a look at your deck, metagame appropriately and get the sideboard cards and strategies needed for a favorable match against Eldrazi.
Spreading Seas, Forked Bolt, Gut Shot, Ancient Grudge against Chalices and Spellskites, Painter's Servant, Pyroclasm, Remand, Thoughtseize, Mana Leak are all great interactive answers that significantly slow the deck down. Ensnaring Bridge, Supreme Verdict, Batterskull and Vedalken Shackles are great late game control pieces that can win the Eldrazi matchup upon resolution.
imagine Affinity was a new deck. Imagine nobody had sideboard cards against it, and one team decided to go all-in on a rogue affinity strategy. At its first tournament, how would it perform?
it would be carnage. would the deck need a ban? no!
It's a perfect storm of big team, no hate, new deck. there's nothing realistically to panic about. no bans need to be made.
sure, lots of people will pick up the deck over the next few weeks and try it out (who can blame them?). I myself had all the cards already before the ProTour and built the deck while watching the coverage. I'm psyched to have a go at playing it, and i'm sure it'll be a reasonably powerful option going forward, in-line with many other top-tier decks of the past.
is it broken though? no! obviously.
case in point - at a large local event, I saw Living End absolutely crush a metagame, not losing any matches and breezing through. If this had been the deck's first ever outing, on camera for the world to see, it would look COMPLETELY BUSTED. can you imagine the hysteria it would cause? "free spells are broken", "three mana instant-speed wraths are broken", "ban simian spirit guide"... sound familiar? fact of the matter was though, nobody was packing any graveyard hate. *shrug*. does the deck need a ban? no!
this forum, and particularly this thread, is full of panic-mongering. I hope Wizards takes the time to appreciate the lack of depth and imagination of this panic. I also hope that the panic doesn't result in some kind of dumb self-fulfilling prophecy, where people's stubborn negativity actually does get something banned when it really didn't need to. that would be the worst.
+1
Right now I feel Colorless Eldrazi is not really the best Eldrazi deck. The absence of removal spells is huge. I can see myself playing BG Eldrazi. It felt that Meta is really balanced after seeing older decks rise again like Storm or Enchantments decks that can lock you out and stop you from attacking.