Metagame choice ? I see it doesn't hit Prime, Wurmcoil, the mirror (no matter what we think, there's an Eldrazi hype we need to be ready for right now). It doesn't hit Rhino, Tasigur, the new Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet (playable in Grixis and Jund), Redcap, Olivia,... so what does it do that Blade doesn't ? Hits Dark Confidant, Viscera Seer, what else ?
I'm not a huge fan of Dismember, mainly because of Prime, Wurmcoil and the mirror. Slaughter Pact is the only card I could consider as better than Doom Blade in a vacuum. Because it surprises your opponent and force him play around it next games.
I really believe Green-Black works fine. I don't know if you guys have noticed how few times we need to crack Tendo Ice Bridge for black in the straight black version. It almost never happens. It means the manabase with searching spells is way more consistent than what we see at first glance. The Karsten's article is kind of an argument of authority which often doesn't count the fact we play Maps and such.
Another thing is also how we sequence our hand: it's pretty rare that we need turn 1 discard. It's a way stronger play to go Urborg >> Eye or Temple >> Urborg, or if we don't have black, Temple / Eye >> Land. Playing TKS or Smasher turn 2-3 is a better play overall than a Thoughtseize, since TKS is basically a TS on legs.
I end up cutting Cavern of Souls for an extra Ghost Quarter. It's way too important to disrupt Tron, Infect and Affinity lands while forcing a big creature against blue decks isn't a priority. The big guys have triggers on cast, so who cares ? The possibility to quarter myself for a Wastes against Blood Moon is also mandatory in the blue MUs, more than Cavern that's gonna be shut down anyway.
What do you guys think about Desert in this deck
The manabase is very tight, I think I'd rather have a Ghost Quarter against Affinity and Infect than a Desert. Desert lets your opponent hit you with a Plating or pump spells on their Nexus before you can hit the thing... Not reliable to me.
Besides I will edit my first post page 1 about the possible multiple T3 plays, because yes we can put more than 1 eldrazi on the battlefield on turn 3 (for the few that aren't aware when they start playing the deck). I guess it can be useful to share the sequencing.
tougher matchups like Merfolk, Afinity, Infect (kindof), ZOO, Abzan Company, etc.
For the BG version, seems like Feed the Clan in the sideboard is way better than Vampiric Link, or in your case, better than no lifegain at all. It's one of the rare decks where we can gain 10 life out of the spell !
I was wondering, couldn't kozilek's translator be the new channeler? I mean, i know it only produces 1, but its out of bolt range and can attack the same turn it produces mana
I was also thinking of adding in Endbringer, it seem's like it can put in a lot of work, wish it costed 5 though... ahah
They're considerations... I really believe we don't need Channeler slots anymore with the lower curve overall. Losing a couple life in the process of playing spells is damageable too. I think it's a bit under the standard we want. Endbringer might just be a worse Conduit of Ruin. That one lets you draw THE card that ends the game (for no additional mana), and probably stops your opponent from attacking with his main creature anyway. If not, Endbringer actually does nothing before the next turn, so it doesn't stop Primetime, a flying Cranial Extraction or a Wurmcoil... Beautiful card on paper but I feel like we only want hammer-effect cards.
That's why World Breaker is probably miles better than Bane of Bala Ged.
@jrankin12 and @mambosong: thanks for your insights.
Yeah Breaker killing a Wurmcoil is very appealing... And I agree having a good 7-drop is great with Conduit. It has Reach too, which is one weakness in the monoB version. If you jam this against Affinity, Tokens and even more Infect, it probably stabilizes enough.
@Jrankin, how do you feel about not running Verdant Catacombs and what about Oblivion Sower ? I'm less and less tempted to play Sower, even though he's good in the big-creature mirrors.
The green version is interesting. There's a few things that bother me though:
- you can't get Heartless Summonings with Stirrings;
- Expedition Map is slower but safer to fix the right mana;
- It constrains the build to less <> spells, so potentially a worse build.
World Breaker is still a great card though, but at this point, any splash could give an edge in certain MUs.
By my side, a pretty miserable Tron MU, Wurmcoil Engine being one thing I can't get through initially. Amulet Bloom can race with a Primeval Titan as well. As I don't want to lose to these cards and don't lose tempo, I won't play Slaughter Pact or Go for the Throat but I'll cut 2 Oblivion Sowers for 2 Doom Blade. I don't care of any black creature in the format so far, so Blade seems better than Go which doesn't hit Wurmcoil and Affinity and Inkmoth Nexus.
Looking back at 2015 MTGtop8 results, the rise of GR Tron these last months, the annoying aspect of Lantern Control and the consistent Amulet Bloom, I would consider Ancient Stirrings for a ban. This card is only played in these three performing decks as I check MTGtop8, and they give the decks more consistency.
* Tron would replace the card with Oath of Nissa or another card of the kind. The way this deck cracks rocks and finishes its turn with Stirrings makes the assembling of Tron very consistent for a turn 3 Karn / Wurmcoil. Even turn 4 (add Ugin to the list), no fair strategy can compete. The deck profits new editions every now and then, and the latest sets are going to push this archetype on top of everything.
* Lantern Control splashes for one main color : green. And the reason is Stirrings. It helps getting the top-control engine very consistently, and is close to an Enlightened Tutor when it hits.
* Amulet Combo can search for an Amulet with Stirrings, which helps the crazy Amulet-Bloom start. it's like Tron, sometimes you just go off naturally, but it's less consistent fi you can't dig for 5 cards. In comparison, Faithless Looting digs for 2 in the already turn 2-3 Griselbrand archetype.
A card that can threaten of a goldfish-start one turn later is very oppressive in the format. It's arguably stronger than Preordain or Ponder in the right deck.
Some people calls Oath of Nissa the green Ponder, well most players disagree with that, but if Oath is comparable to a banned card, how strong is Ancient Stirrings then ?
So, after all, I'm playing a Wastes. I've been playing VS Blood Moon all day to figure out how strong it was against my list. Well it wrecks me. I have 12 spells that need colorless mana and they are pretty strong against URx Twin and Grixis Control. Without a Wastes fetchable through a Map, the best I can is respond to Moon with a Wail and cast one colorless spell with it. After that I'm done for the rest of the game and it multiplies my dead draws. Since Moon is a SB strat anyway for Amulet and Tron, I want to keep my 4 Maps to be sure I can recover.
1) We probably have a different experience with the deck since I'm playing 4 of each cards. Wail is also a card that lets me keep an average hand. The opponent will barely care of the token so I see it as a Sakura-Tribe Elder. I think this is how good the card is. I recommand players to try Wails x4 before making blind splits with other removal spells.
2) I tend to agree with you. Sometimes we don't get lands with him resulting in an underwhelming play. I want to try Bane of Bala Ged in a 2-2 split with Sower. If it's not good, too slow and/or too expensive, I might just go down to 18 creatures (2 Sowers only). In the end, he might be just good enough to keep the full set.
3) It'd be good to have some feedback from the few BG players here. The World Breaker is more attractive than Bane !
I tried some games without Map, and I had some pretty awkward draws that could have easily been fixed by map, so I think it's definitely good in some quantities. I still don't think 4 of them are right. Drawing 2 early on is definitely also awkward
Take Bogles or UG Infect: it happens that they don't draw a second threat after the first one was dealt with. Or simply they mull because they don't have one of their 12 bodies in hand. Take Tron and Amulet: sometimes you draw the wrong half of your deck. These decks have to mulligan hard rather often to get a playable opening hand. The latest example on camera was Ali Aintrazi with Tron who mulled to 4 and won against Jeff Hoogland's Kiki Chord.
It's part of the nature of such a deck. It's even more awkward to have 2 Urborgs, and if you don't have Urborg, 2 Eyes. I'm repeating myself, but Maps help these hands being keepable. With 2 Maps in your opener, it's not that bad because any eldrazi top deck is going to be castable, and that's the most important part to me.
Even against Jund that's supposed to be a good MU, if they Abrupt Decay your HS and Fukminator Mage your lands, you just can't cast anything relevant and they'll beat you with Tarmogoyfs.
But let me sum it up: you're playing 26 lands and 2 Maps, Baugh played 25 and 3, I play 24 and 4. It's just a matter of what one prefers: more land drops with less tutors, or less lands for more tutors. I think none of these choices is significantly better. Right ?
So far, Infect is the thoughest matchup. I'll keep you guys posted!
Thought-Knot Seer and Warping Wail will help you in the mainboard, enjoy them ! because of Infect, Burn, Twin and Chord decks being very popular, I like to have a couple Spellskite in my sideboard. This is close to the best SB card in modern anyway, most tier decks play some in their 75.
I personally cut Duress down to 2 copies in my board, after checking out nearly 20 SB plans amongst the decks in the format.
I have been testing this list, and when it works it does crazy stuff. But I also feel like it can just stall out and has no real way of recovering. In the processor version, the cantrips can help you get out of tough spots. I feel like this deck needs something like that. Any thoughts?
By cantrips, you think of the UB version with Serum Visions ? The archetype relies on strong topdecks on their own, that's a reason to play Reality Smasher and go up to 20 creatures. I guess you stall more when you play only 16 creatures and a bunch of reactive spells. The deck wants to be proactive, otherwise it may indeed stall plain.
The more I play the list, the more I tend to think the 4 Maps are needed. Math would probably stand that it allows less mulligans of potential average hands. I'm curious to get your feedback within time iostream. I used to play 2 in Processor Eldrazi but it was more because I wanted to fit in other cards than anything else. It felt awkward to have 4 relics + 4 maps + other miserable cards for synergies.
Here, consistency is the core of the engine. Everytime I can't cast my things or miss a land drop, well I can still crack a Map... and makes my cards in hand playable. If I had instead, let's say, removal spells, yes it would buy me time against aggression but it wouldn't assure me a land drop the next turn, so I would still be relying on luck.
I just had some optimistic games earlier, winning 2-0 against Gx Devotion and Burn. I already won against Burn before, so the MU doesn't seem that unwinnable. MVP were Thought-Knot Seer and more surprisingly Warping Wail and Void Winnower (!).
* Against Burn, Game 1, I got a turn 4 Void Winnower, which hoses half of Burn. Enough to win. Game 2, I got a first Wail for a fresh Monastery Swiftspear that I killed in resp of her trigger. Later at 8 life, I play Seer, my opponent has Lightning Bolt x2 and Grim Lavamancer in hand... I decide to exile a Bolt and hope for a Wail top deck to deal with Lavamancer later... which I drew fortunately, which bought me time for a Ruin Processor off a Conduit of Ruin trigger !
* Against G Devo, Wail killed an Arbor Elf, which is a thing since he had a Forest enchanted of Utopia Sprawl. Void Winnower is able to shut down no less than Garruk Wild Speaker, Primeval Titan and Craterhoof Behemoth. It leaves my opponent relying on Genesis Wave, by the way he chained 2 within the same turn, getting no more than 5-max drops. Not enough to overcome me.
which is why I ran Underground River. (By the way, Underground River is clearly the best Bx land to play because of Spellskite activations).
Good call. I think Maps must be considered as potential black sources, and that we can play greedy with 12 black mana sources. I'm still at 11, so I have to fix it. 14 sources is very cumfortable with such a small (yet crucial) black "splash". I think I'll run 1-2 Underground River for testing. It emphasizes the idea of playing a 2-2 split between Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, in order to lose less life in the course of an aggro MU, which I'm not a fan of, but hey...
I've found the problem with Warping Wail is that it doesn't kill anything out of the red-based aggro decks. I think you need at least a little more broadly applicable removal.
It kills almost Souls Sisters and Martyr proc creatures, many Elves, many Affinity, kills Dark Confidant, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Merfolks (including Master of Waves which is their best way to get us midgame), many Company decks small guys (Noble Hierarch, Birds of Paradise, Viscera Seer, Pia's tokens, Spellskite, etc...). The removal mode might not always be stellar because we need to have it in the right situation, but it definitely hits more than red-based decks !
Without silver bullet land targets, do we even need Expedition Map?
As far as I'm concerned, Urborg, Temple and Eye are silver bullets to let the deck function at full potential. I wouldn't go under 3 copies.
An easy way to learn land sequencing with this deck is to jam Eldrazi Temple first. Might be obvious but it wasn't for me before I did the math on paper, so I assume it can be the first thing to learn:
*: on the draw, the time you get to turn 3, you have 10 cards out of your library, which may be the 3 lands, the 2 HS, 2 Banes / Breakers and 3 six-drops, those five creatures costing 32 mana in all... You may actually play any 2 colorless spells of your choice, up to 7 drops. In theory, you can cast 3 Oblivion Sowers for free, and if you get 6 lands out of those guys, you can cast TWO Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Which pushes up to 38 CMC of creature spells !
Now let's talk business.
* Kozilek, the Great Distortion is less appealing than I thought at first. I'd rather play Ulamog against basically anything, so where is Kozilek better ? From the moment I'm told the MUs and/or situations where it really shines, I'll play it. I want to make a comparison with Uli:
- Kozi draws cards, Uli exiles 2 permanents. Uli 1-0.
- Kozi protects himself by discarding a card IF we have the right CMC, Uli is indestructible. Uli 2-0.
- Kozi has Menace, Ulamog exiles 2 permanents. Uli 3-0.
In a vacuum, Ulamog just does it all. So we need a real reason to play Kozi, where Ulamog wouldn't seal the deal anyway. One reason I see is an opposing Cranial Extraction or Surgical Extraction effect. Void Winnower fills that role of being better than Uli in some MUs, oddly enough.
* Reality Smasher seems to be a great 4-of, we'll see in the future. With Tron and Amulet in the format, the sideboards are full of land destruction, and main deck Ghost Quarters are more and more popular. The possibility of killing opponents with colorless Thundermaw Hellkites is, I believe, a very strong upgrade to the deck. In a vacuum, the card doesn't seem to fit, but in reality, we'll be more than happy to apply pressure or have huge blockers against various decks. We may never hit Ulamog's mana in many games. Time will tell.
* Warping Wail as a 4-of doesn't look out of place to me. I might be quite wrong but it answers many top tier decks like Infect, Affinity, Twin, and slows down Amulet, Reanimator and Tron (Sylvan Scrying, Ancient Stirrings, Summer Bloom, Faithless Looting,...). In the other MUs, it just helps ramping into our main plan.
What about Go for the Throat, Dismember, Slaughter Pact then ? Well I feel like we don't need them. I believe the main strategy beats most of the creature-based decks. Every creature we have is probably bigger than our opponent's, and if it's not the case, it's probably a high CMC card than we can disrupt with Thought-Knot Seer and Thoughtseize.
* Thoughtseize x4. Might be wrong once again, but I figured out all the very impactful spells that beat me are 4+ CMC cards. Inquisition of Kozilek has been very bad for me but against Burn. A 2-2 split might be the right call in a vacuum, and it might just be entirely meta-dependant.
* 24 lands + 4 Expedition Map. it seems like 28 mana sources is a decent way to start things off, but can I be so greedy that I play only 24 lands ? I didn't get mana-screwed so far, but a 25 lands + 3 Maps can be the right split.
I'm not a huge fan of Dismember, mainly because of Prime, Wurmcoil and the mirror.
Slaughter Pact is the only card I could consider as better than Doom Blade in a vacuum. Because it surprises your opponent and force him play around it next games.
Another thing is also how we sequence our hand: it's pretty rare that we need turn 1 discard. It's a way stronger play to go Urborg >> Eye or Temple >> Urborg, or if we don't have black, Temple / Eye >> Land. Playing TKS or Smasher turn 2-3 is a better play overall than a Thoughtseize, since TKS is basically a TS on legs.
The manabase is very tight, I think I'd rather have a Ghost Quarter against Affinity and Infect than a Desert. Desert lets your opponent hit you with a Plating or pump spells on their Nexus before you can hit the thing... Not reliable to me.
Besides I will edit my first post page 1 about the possible multiple T3 plays, because yes we can put more than 1 eldrazi on the battlefield on turn 3 (for the few that aren't aware when they start playing the deck). I guess it can be useful to share the sequencing.
For the BG version, seems like Feed the Clan in the sideboard is way better than Vampiric Link, or in your case, better than no lifegain at all. It's one of the rare decks where we can gain 10 life out of the spell !
They're considerations... I really believe we don't need Channeler slots anymore with the lower curve overall. Losing a couple life in the process of playing spells is damageable too. I think it's a bit under the standard we want.
Endbringer might just be a worse Conduit of Ruin. That one lets you draw THE card that ends the game (for no additional mana), and probably stops your opponent from attacking with his main creature anyway. If not, Endbringer actually does nothing before the next turn, so it doesn't stop Primetime, a flying Cranial Extraction or a Wurmcoil... Beautiful card on paper but I feel like we only want hammer-effect cards.
That's why World Breaker is probably miles better than Bane of Bala Ged.
Yeah Breaker killing a Wurmcoil is very appealing... And I agree having a good 7-drop is great with Conduit. It has Reach too, which is one weakness in the monoB version. If you jam this against Affinity, Tokens and even more Infect, it probably stabilizes enough.
@Jrankin, how do you feel about not running Verdant Catacombs and what about Oblivion Sower ? I'm less and less tempted to play Sower, even though he's good in the big-creature mirrors.
- you can't get Heartless Summonings with Stirrings;
- Expedition Map is slower but safer to fix the right mana;
- It constrains the build to less <> spells, so potentially a worse build.
World Breaker is still a great card though, but at this point, any splash could give an edge in certain MUs.
By my side, a pretty miserable Tron MU, Wurmcoil Engine being one thing I can't get through initially. Amulet Bloom can race with a Primeval Titan as well. As I don't want to lose to these cards and don't lose tempo, I won't play Slaughter Pact or Go for the Throat but I'll cut 2 Oblivion Sowers for 2 Doom Blade. I don't care of any black creature in the format so far, so Blade seems better than Go which doesn't hit Wurmcoil and Affinity and Inkmoth Nexus.
* Tron would replace the card with Oath of Nissa or another card of the kind. The way this deck cracks rocks and finishes its turn with Stirrings makes the assembling of Tron very consistent for a turn 3 Karn / Wurmcoil. Even turn 4 (add Ugin to the list), no fair strategy can compete. The deck profits new editions every now and then, and the latest sets are going to push this archetype on top of everything.
* Lantern Control splashes for one main color : green. And the reason is Stirrings. It helps getting the top-control engine very consistently, and is close to an Enlightened Tutor when it hits.
* Amulet Combo can search for an Amulet with Stirrings, which helps the crazy Amulet-Bloom start. it's like Tron, sometimes you just go off naturally, but it's less consistent fi you can't dig for 5 cards. In comparison, Faithless Looting digs for 2 in the already turn 2-3 Griselbrand archetype.
A card that can threaten of a goldfish-start one turn later is very oppressive in the format. It's arguably stronger than Preordain or Ponder in the right deck.
Some people calls Oath of Nissa the green Ponder, well most players disagree with that, but if Oath is comparable to a banned card, how strong is Ancient Stirrings then ?
So, after all, I'm playing a Wastes. I've been playing VS Blood Moon all day to figure out how strong it was against my list. Well it wrecks me. I have 12 spells that need colorless mana and they are pretty strong against URx Twin and Grixis Control. Without a Wastes fetchable through a Map, the best I can is respond to Moon with a Wail and cast one colorless spell with it. After that I'm done for the rest of the game and it multiplies my dead draws. Since Moon is a SB strat anyway for Amulet and Tron, I want to keep my 4 Maps to be sure I can recover.
2) I tend to agree with you. Sometimes we don't get lands with him resulting in an underwhelming play. I want to try Bane of Bala Ged in a 2-2 split with Sower. If it's not good, too slow and/or too expensive, I might just go down to 18 creatures (2 Sowers only). In the end, he might be just good enough to keep the full set.
3) It'd be good to have some feedback from the few BG players here. The World Breaker is more attractive than Bane !
Take Bogles or UG Infect: it happens that they don't draw a second threat after the first one was dealt with. Or simply they mull because they don't have one of their 12 bodies in hand. Take Tron and Amulet: sometimes you draw the wrong half of your deck. These decks have to mulligan hard rather often to get a playable opening hand. The latest example on camera was Ali Aintrazi with Tron who mulled to 4 and won against Jeff Hoogland's Kiki Chord.
It's part of the nature of such a deck. It's even more awkward to have 2 Urborgs, and if you don't have Urborg, 2 Eyes. I'm repeating myself, but Maps help these hands being keepable. With 2 Maps in your opener, it's not that bad because any eldrazi top deck is going to be castable, and that's the most important part to me.
Even against Jund that's supposed to be a good MU, if they Abrupt Decay your HS and Fukminator Mage your lands, you just can't cast anything relevant and they'll beat you with Tarmogoyfs.
But let me sum it up: you're playing 26 lands and 2 Maps, Baugh played 25 and 3, I play 24 and 4. It's just a matter of what one prefers: more land drops with less tutors, or less lands for more tutors. I think none of these choices is significantly better. Right ?
Thought-Knot Seer and Warping Wail will help you in the mainboard, enjoy them ! because of Infect, Burn, Twin and Chord decks being very popular, I like to have a couple Spellskite in my sideboard. This is close to the best SB card in modern anyway, most tier decks play some in their 75.
I personally cut Duress down to 2 copies in my board, after checking out nearly 20 SB plans amongst the decks in the format.
Besides, I'm trying Crumbling Vestige as a 5th Tendo Ice Bridge. I finally don't like the Underground Sea in my 12th black source slot, and Mortuary Mire ETB-tapped effect really bothers me. Also Mire is a bad turn 1 land into Thoughtseize...
By cantrips, you think of the UB version with Serum Visions ? The archetype relies on strong topdecks on their own, that's a reason to play Reality Smasher and go up to 20 creatures. I guess you stall more when you play only 16 creatures and a bunch of reactive spells. The deck wants to be proactive, otherwise it may indeed stall plain.
The more I play the list, the more I tend to think the 4 Maps are needed. Math would probably stand that it allows less mulligans of potential average hands. I'm curious to get your feedback within time iostream. I used to play 2 in Processor Eldrazi but it was more because I wanted to fit in other cards than anything else. It felt awkward to have 4 relics + 4 maps + other miserable cards for synergies.
Here, consistency is the core of the engine. Everytime I can't cast my things or miss a land drop, well I can still crack a Map... and makes my cards in hand playable. If I had instead, let's say, removal spells, yes it would buy me time against aggression but it wouldn't assure me a land drop the next turn, so I would still be relying on luck.
I just had some optimistic games earlier, winning 2-0 against Gx Devotion and Burn. I already won against Burn before, so the MU doesn't seem that unwinnable. MVP were Thought-Knot Seer and more surprisingly Warping Wail and Void Winnower (!).
* Against Burn, Game 1, I got a turn 4 Void Winnower, which hoses half of Burn. Enough to win. Game 2, I got a first Wail for a fresh Monastery Swiftspear that I killed in resp of her trigger. Later at 8 life, I play Seer, my opponent has Lightning Bolt x2 and Grim Lavamancer in hand... I decide to exile a Bolt and hope for a Wail top deck to deal with Lavamancer later... which I drew fortunately, which bought me time for a Ruin Processor off a Conduit of Ruin trigger !
* Against G Devo, Wail killed an Arbor Elf, which is a thing since he had a Forest enchanted of Utopia Sprawl. Void Winnower is able to shut down no less than Garruk Wild Speaker, Primeval Titan and Craterhoof Behemoth. It leaves my opponent relying on Genesis Wave, by the way he chained 2 within the same turn, getting no more than 5-max drops. Not enough to overcome me.
Good call. I think Maps must be considered as potential black sources, and that we can play greedy with 12 black mana sources. I'm still at 11, so I have to fix it. 14 sources is very cumfortable with such a small (yet crucial) black "splash". I think I'll run 1-2 Underground River for testing. It emphasizes the idea of playing a 2-2 split between Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, in order to lose less life in the course of an aggro MU, which I'm not a fan of, but hey...
It kills almost Souls Sisters and Martyr proc creatures, many Elves, many Affinity, kills Dark Confidant, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Merfolks (including Master of Waves which is their best way to get us midgame), many Company decks small guys (Noble Hierarch, Birds of Paradise, Viscera Seer, Pia's tokens, Spellskite, etc...). The removal mode might not always be stellar because we need to have it in the right situation, but it definitely hits more than red-based decks !
As far as I'm concerned, Urborg, Temple and Eye are silver bullets to let the deck function at full potential. I wouldn't go under 3 copies.
Been playing with proxies and assumed colorless spells were eldrazi, which is obviously not the case. I edit my s**t.
I'm on a simpler list for now, because I need more testing to figure out what are better options than the basic best cards for the archetype.
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Conduit of Ruin
4 Oblivion Sower
1 Void Winnower
3 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Expedition Map
4 Warping Wail
4 Heartless Summoning
2 Thoughtseize
2 Doom Blade
Lands (24):
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Eye of Ugin
3 Ghost Quarter
4 Swamp
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Wastes
2 Duress
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 All is Dust
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Ruin Processor
2 Spellskite
An easy way to learn land sequencing with this deck is to jam Eldrazi Temple first. Might be obvious but it wasn't for me before I did the math on paper, so I assume it can be the first thing to learn:
T2 Temple + Eye =
Thought-Knot Seer (1->4 mana)
T2 Temple + Temple =
Thought-Knot Seer (2->4 mana)
T3 Temple + Land + Wail + Land =
Reality Smasher (4->5 mana)
T3 Temple + Land + Wail + Temple =
Conduit of Ruin, Oblivion Sower,
Warping Wail + Thought-Knot Seer (4->6 mana)
T3 Temple + Urborg + Wail + Eye =
Bane of Bala Ged, All is Dust,
Thought-Knot Seer X2 (4->8 mana)
T3 Temple + Land + HS + Land =
Conduit of Ruin, Oblivion Sower,
Warping Wail + Thought-Knot Seer,
Thought-Knot Seer X2 (3->8 mana)
T3 Temple + Land + HS + Temple =
Bane of Bala Ged, All is Dust,
Warping Wail + Thought-Knot Seer / Reality Smasher (3->9 mana)
T3 Temple + Urborg + HS + Eye =
Bane of Bala Ged, All is Dust,
Reality Smasher X2, Oblivion Sower X2, Conduit of Ruin X2,
Warping Wail + Thought-Knot Seer / Reality Smasher / Oblivion Sower / Conduit of Ruin,
Thought-Knot Seer X2 + Conduit of Ruin / Oblivion Sower,
Thought-Knot Seer + Reality Smasher + Conduit of Ruin / Oblivion Sower (3->15 mana)
T3 Temple + Urborg + HS + Eye + HS =
FREE Conduit of Ruin / Oblivion Sower + Bane of Bala Ged + Bane of Bala Ged / All is Dust (3->38* mana)
*: on the draw, the time you get to turn 3, you have 10 cards out of your library, which may be the 3 lands, the 2 HS, 2 Banes / Breakers and 3 six-drops, those five creatures costing 32 mana in all... You may actually play any 2 colorless spells of your choice, up to 7 drops. In theory, you can cast 3 Oblivion Sowers for free, and if you get 6 lands out of those guys, you can cast TWO Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Which pushes up to 38 CMC of creature spells !
Now let's talk business.
* Kozilek, the Great Distortion is less appealing than I thought at first. I'd rather play Ulamog against basically anything, so where is Kozilek better ? From the moment I'm told the MUs and/or situations where it really shines, I'll play it. I want to make a comparison with Uli:
- Kozi draws cards, Uli exiles 2 permanents. Uli 1-0.
- Kozi protects himself by discarding a card IF we have the right CMC, Uli is indestructible. Uli 2-0.
- Kozi has Menace, Ulamog exiles 2 permanents. Uli 3-0.
In a vacuum, Ulamog just does it all. So we need a real reason to play Kozi, where Ulamog wouldn't seal the deal anyway. One reason I see is an opposing Cranial Extraction or Surgical Extraction effect.
Void Winnower fills that role of being better than Uli in some MUs, oddly enough.
* Reality Smasher seems to be a great 4-of, we'll see in the future. With Tron and Amulet in the format, the sideboards are full of land destruction, and main deck Ghost Quarters are more and more popular. The possibility of killing opponents with colorless Thundermaw Hellkites is, I believe, a very strong upgrade to the deck. In a vacuum, the card doesn't seem to fit, but in reality, we'll be more than happy to apply pressure or have huge blockers against various decks. We may never hit Ulamog's mana in many games. Time will tell.
* Warping Wail as a 4-of doesn't look out of place to me. I might be quite wrong but it answers many top tier decks like Infect, Affinity, Twin, and slows down Amulet, Reanimator and Tron (Sylvan Scrying, Ancient Stirrings, Summer Bloom, Faithless Looting,...). In the other MUs, it just helps ramping into our main plan.
What about Go for the Throat, Dismember, Slaughter Pact then ? Well I feel like we don't need them. I believe the main strategy beats most of the creature-based decks. Every creature we have is probably bigger than our opponent's, and if it's not the case, it's probably a high CMC card than we can disrupt with Thought-Knot Seer and Thoughtseize.
* Thoughtseize x4. Might be wrong once again, but I figured out all the very impactful spells that beat me are 4+ CMC cards. Inquisition of Kozilek has been very bad for me but against Burn. A 2-2 split might be the right call in a vacuum, and it might just be entirely meta-dependant.
* 24 lands + 4 Expedition Map. it seems like 28 mana sources is a decent way to start things off, but can I be so greedy that I play only 24 lands ? I didn't get mana-screwed so far, but a 25 lands + 3 Maps can be the right split.