I'm not sure if Greater Sandwurm is better or worse than Archfiend of Ifnir. Sandwurm is a faster clock and more resilient, but Archfiend is hard to block and keeps Faerie Macabre safe from Deadshot Minotaur. I think Archfiend is probably better than Sandwurm if you have mainboard Faerie, and worse otherwise.
The problem with Pulse is that Burn runs Skullcrack, which counters it outright. Gnaw has flashback, so even if Skullcrack resolves the first time you aren't necessarily screwed.
I personally think that Pulse is the best mainboard lifegain in a blind meta, but is worse than other options out of the board.
I really doubt Wizards will print anything that makes Living End oppressively good, although I am optimistic about getting new tools in general. Also, I think that if Wizards did print something that made Living End oppressively good, that they would probably ban the new card instead of Living End itself.
Hey guys. I want to run this deck at a large local tournament after having set it aside for awhile. Unfortunately, my friend who does commentary for this tournament series says I should expect a ~10% Burn meta. He also told me that creature decks in general are popular, including 8whack, Elves, and GBx decks. I know the creature matchups favor us, but I'm worried about Burn.
Hello all. I'm looking for some quick criticism on my Boros Eldrazi deck. It's intended to resemble Bant Eldrazi, but it removes some explosiveness for more removal and an alternative win condition. Bant Eldrazi is such a powerful linear deck, but I wanted to delineate the core game plan a little to add more versatility/inevitability. Furthermore, Lightning Bolt is a huge asset to both the rushdown plan and the Nahiri, the Harbinger combo. The effect of cutting Noble Hierarch and Ancient Stirrings is large, but this deck still can put out pretty fast wins while ticking up Nahiri.
I'm going to order the cards for this deck soon, so any input is welcome. I've been testing it on XMage; my win record is pretty high and I enjoy playing the deck. If people are interested in talking about this archetype in more depth, I'd be happy to write up a full Primer some time.
With this artifact and Flickerwisp in play. Cast Restoration Angel. Angel lets you blink Flickerwisp twice, giving you 4 ETB triggers from Wisp. Use one Wisp trigger to blink Restoration Angel and the other three triggers on whatever you like. On your end step, get Restoration Angel back, bounce Flickerwisp and repeat this process. You can get three Flickerwisp triggers every endstep for the rest of the game as long as Flickerwisp lives.
What is the opinion on Sin Prodder here now that this deck won't have to race the Eldrazi decks? I looked back over the last three pages, but didn't see anyone mention it. This little devil could help fill the graveyard faster if it lives to see your next upkeep, then it either gives you a card or bins something, dealing damage in the process if it's not a land or living end. Seems to me that a less combo heavy variation of Living end using Sin Prodder may be worth testing in combination with a few Goblin Dark-Dwellers to help cast living end or one of the cascade spells if it the Prodder's trigger sends either one to the graveyard.
Sin Prodder by design is a card that is extremely hit/miss. In a deck like Living End with many high mana-cost cards, it looks like it could be viable. I decided to look at the math behind Sin Prodder to verify this.
I used Wyvernslayer's deck from the primer as a sample deck, except I replaced Faerie Macabre with Sin Prodder. With these adjustments made, the mana cost break down of the deck is as follows:
For our calculations, we assume that we play Sin Prodder on turn 3 after playing 3 lands. The average mana cost of the remaining 56 cards is about 2.77 with a standard deviation of 2.27. Admittedly, the 2.77 figure is slightly low because it does not account for fetchlands or land-cyclers. However this would not account for a huge change in our averages.
If our opponent never gives us any cards from Sin Prodder, they will receive a lightning bolt to the face per turn starting on our 4th turn on average. Frankly, I don't think that's a very good rate considering how fragile Prodder is and how much deck space he will absorb if included in the deck. Prodder is more vulnerable in this type of decks than others because usually, our opponent's removal is useless until we combo-off. Further, the standard deviation on our expected damage output is way too high to make Prodder a consistent threat. Finally, Prodder has the disadvantage of being an option card, which means he will very frequently deal no damage at all.
Geist of Saint Traft is a far more consistent and frightening threat on turn 3, but even if Geist was on color I would not run him here. Sin Prodder is not independently powerful enough to justify compromising our main strategy.
I think the ban list update is going to be good for Living End. The decks that are most helped by the changes are fair decks like Jund, Grixis and UWx Control. Living End traditionally eats fair decks pretty well, and our combo has a good chance of fighting through Thopters. Affinity, Eldrazi, Burn and Infect are still big parts of the meta but big tournaments will keep them in check better.
If 2-3 Kolaghan's Command isn't somewhere in your 75 already, it should be. Artifact-hate has always been good because of Affinity, and Thopter Foundry is making it better.
@PtyLtd: What makes you think there will be a lot more graveyard hate now? Is it because of Grixis or fair decks in general or something else?
I haven't commented on this thread in a long time, but I've always loved this deck and am ecstatic with all the great results recently.
Just looking through the decklists that finished Top 8 at either Bologna or Melbourne, these are the trends I'm noticing:
All decks except for 1 contain 4x Architects of Will
All decks except for 1 contain 3-4x Simian Spirit guide
All decks now use 3x Beast Within in their combined mainboard and sideboard
All decks mainboard 4x Demonic Dread
All decks mainboard at most 2 2-mana cyclers and always prefer Jungle Weaver over all other options
All decks mainboard 2x Shriekmaw
All decks use a minimum of 19 lands.
That's a lot of significant changes to what many in this forum have considered the typical Living End deck. My question is how many of these changes are strict optimization and how many are counter-Eldrazi meta choices? Just my opinions on these changes:
Maximizing Architects is optimal in aggro-heavy and Jund/Grixis-light metas.
I think everyone should use at least 2 Spirit Guides.
Post-Eldrazi winter, 4 Beast Within in the 75 will be optimal again.
I've always believed 4x Dread is optimal.
I think Pale Recluse will be preferred over Jungle Weaver once we don't have to deal with Drowner of Hope and Reality Smasher.
Shriekmaw is always fluctuating in popularity in this deck. It is a good meta choice right now at least.
19 lands is fine.
Iwamori of the Open Fist lets your OPPONENT put a legendary creature from their hand into play. This combo only works if you can have Iwamori enter the battlefield under your opponent's control.
Right, but LE doesnt rly top atm. Is it still a good deck on the meta now ?
The short answer to this questions is: This deck is not great in the meta, but it's viable. I doubt this deck will ever be Tier 1. However it's good enough to place in a major tournament once in awhile and it's definitely good enough for local competition.
Te main thing holding this deck back is that it doesn't have a very good match-up spread. The 4 most important decks to beat in Modern are Jund, Twin, Affinity and Burn. Jund is significantly in our favor. Twin is hard but not unwinnable (frankly, Twin is a hard match-up for almost every deck). Affinity is a bad match-up and Burn is plain terrible.
I'm not sure if Greater Sandwurm is better or worse than Archfiend of Ifnir. Sandwurm is a faster clock and more resilient, but Archfiend is hard to block and keeps Faerie Macabre safe from Deadshot Minotaur. I think Archfiend is probably better than Sandwurm if you have mainboard Faerie, and worse otherwise.
The problem with Pulse is that Burn runs Skullcrack, which counters it outright. Gnaw has flashback, so even if Skullcrack resolves the first time you aren't necessarily screwed.
I personally think that Pulse is the best mainboard lifegain in a blind meta, but is worse than other options out of the board.
How many lifegain spells would you recommend I use? I can't post my list right now, but I'm currently using 1x Pulse of Murasa main, 2 Spike Feeder, 1 Gnaw to the Bone, 2 Shriekmaw side. Should I be running more? Is Bow of Nylea the answer?
A couple of notable interactions with Eldrazi Displacer:
- As anyone who plays Bant Eldrazi knows, Eldrazi Displacer + Thought-Knot Seer is a great hand soft-lock.
- Eldrazi Displacer also plays beautifully with Restoration Angel. This allows Displacer to protect himself and/or untap any of your creatures for 3 mana.
- Eldrazi Displacer resets Kitchen Finks while also gaining you life. I have won a game before by Lightning Helixing my own Finks, then blinking it to net gain 5 life.
- This is the most win-more combo of all. Use Eldrazi Displacer to blink Emrakul, the Aeons Torn post-combat to prevent Nahiri, the Harbinger from returning him to your hand.
4 Arid Mesa
1 Flooded Strand
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Inspiring Vantage
2 Rugged Prairie
4 Battlefield Forge
1 Karplusan Forest
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Mountain
2 Plains
1 Spellskite
4 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Matter Reshaper
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Restoration Angel
4 Reality Smasher
Combo - 5
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Removal - 10
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
2 Lightning Helix
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Condemn
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle
1 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Wear // Tear
I'm going to order the cards for this deck soon, so any input is welcome. I've been testing it on XMage; my win record is pretty high and I enjoy playing the deck. If people are interested in talking about this archetype in more depth, I'd be happy to write up a full Primer some time.
Decklist update 10/10/16:
Main: -1 Mountain, +1 Karplusan Forest
Side: -2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Spellskite
Sin Prodder by design is a card that is extremely hit/miss. In a deck like Living End with many high mana-cost cards, it looks like it could be viable. I decided to look at the math behind Sin Prodder to verify this.
I used Wyvernslayer's deck from the primer as a sample deck, except I replaced Faerie Macabre with Sin Prodder. With these adjustments made, the mana cost break down of the deck is as follows:
22 0-drops (Living End + lands)
20 3-drops
12 5-drops
4 6-drops
2 7-drops
For our calculations, we assume that we play Sin Prodder on turn 3 after playing 3 lands. The average mana cost of the remaining 56 cards is about 2.77 with a standard deviation of 2.27. Admittedly, the 2.77 figure is slightly low because it does not account for fetchlands or land-cyclers. However this would not account for a huge change in our averages.
If our opponent never gives us any cards from Sin Prodder, they will receive a lightning bolt to the face per turn starting on our 4th turn on average. Frankly, I don't think that's a very good rate considering how fragile Prodder is and how much deck space he will absorb if included in the deck. Prodder is more vulnerable in this type of decks than others because usually, our opponent's removal is useless until we combo-off. Further, the standard deviation on our expected damage output is way too high to make Prodder a consistent threat. Finally, Prodder has the disadvantage of being an option card, which means he will very frequently deal no damage at all.
Geist of Saint Traft is a far more consistent and frightening threat on turn 3, but even if Geist was on color I would not run him here. Sin Prodder is not independently powerful enough to justify compromising our main strategy.
If 2-3 Kolaghan's Command isn't somewhere in your 75 already, it should be. Artifact-hate has always been good because of Affinity, and Thopter Foundry is making it better.
@PtyLtd: What makes you think there will be a lot more graveyard hate now? Is it because of Grixis or fair decks in general or something else?
I haven't commented on this thread in a long time, but I've always loved this deck and am ecstatic with all the great results recently.
Just looking through the decklists that finished Top 8 at either Bologna or Melbourne, these are the trends I'm noticing:
All decks except for 1 contain 4x Architects of Will
All decks except for 1 contain 3-4x Simian Spirit guide
All decks now use 3x Beast Within in their combined mainboard and sideboard
All decks mainboard 4x Demonic Dread
All decks mainboard at most 2 2-mana cyclers and always prefer Jungle Weaver over all other options
All decks mainboard 2x Shriekmaw
All decks use a minimum of 19 lands.
That's a lot of significant changes to what many in this forum have considered the typical Living End deck. My question is how many of these changes are strict optimization and how many are counter-Eldrazi meta choices? Just my opinions on these changes:
Maximizing Architects is optimal in aggro-heavy and Jund/Grixis-light metas.
I think everyone should use at least 2 Spirit Guides.
Post-Eldrazi winter, 4 Beast Within in the 75 will be optimal again.
I've always believed 4x Dread is optimal.
I think Pale Recluse will be preferred over Jungle Weaver once we don't have to deal with Drowner of Hope and Reality Smasher.
Shriekmaw is always fluctuating in popularity in this deck. It is a good meta choice right now at least.
19 lands is fine.
Thoughts? Did I miss any major deck changes?
Edit: Typo
The short answer to this questions is: This deck is not great in the meta, but it's viable. I doubt this deck will ever be Tier 1. However it's good enough to place in a major tournament once in awhile and it's definitely good enough for local competition.
Te main thing holding this deck back is that it doesn't have a very good match-up spread. The 4 most important decks to beat in Modern are Jund, Twin, Affinity and Burn. Jund is significantly in our favor. Twin is hard but not unwinnable (frankly, Twin is a hard match-up for almost every deck). Affinity is a bad match-up and Burn is plain terrible.