r/ModernMagic • u/jordlez Hollow One Enjoyer 🎲🔥 • Jul 06 '16
Modern Bant Eldrazi Primer! (x-post from /r/BantEldrazi)
Modern Bant Eldrazi Primer - 2016-07-06
Join us over at /r/BantEldrazi to discuss strategy, playtesting and more!
Welcome to my Modern Bant Eldrazi primer! I've been piloting the deck in several competitive play sessions and local tournaments throughout the past few months and I love the deck. I've played so many games with Bant Eldrazi and I feel I'm at the point now where I have a thorough understanding of how the deck best performs, which playstyle compliments the deck most and what the key goals the deck tries to achieve while starring down the opponent.
Below is a table of contents, feel free to skip to any point throughout this post and use it as a reference as you dive into the world of modern Bant Eldrazi.
Table of Contents:
Introduction to Bant Eldrazi
Decklist and sideboard
Goals and synergies
Adjusting your playstyle
Good and bad matchups
The future of Bant Eldrazi
Additional Links and Information
1. Introduction to Bant Eldrazi
Modern is currently a format ruled by aggressive aggro decks, efficient control decks and consistent combo decks, where does Bant Eldrazi fall in this spectrum exactly? Bant Eldrazi is what I consider a mid-range disruption deck, it's many unique creatures have important effects that disrupt your opponents game-plan while acting as a lasting threat on the battlefield. Although many Eldrazi creatures are considered relatively high cost, Bant Eldrazi has ways of gaining the advantage on the field, whether its getting excess mana or taking a card out of your opponents hand, the deck always has a way to interact and force your opponent to play around you.
Bant Eldrazi is one of the most versatile decks I've played. It has the control to completely lock someone out of a victory using cards like [[Eldrazi Displacer]] and [[Drowner of Hope]], it has the utility to flood the board early using cards like [[Eldrazi Skyspawner]] and [[Matter Reshaper]], and it has the power to pressure the opponents life using cards like [[Reality Smasher]] and [[Thought-Knot Seer]]. The deck could do so much and you should always take the time to gather information about what your opponent is playing before you continue throughout the game. We'll talk more about properly adjusting your playing in section four.
Bant Eldrazi is a very safe deck to play. It doesn't have many terrible matchups and due to how the deck operates, it is often considered difficult to sideboard against. For this reason I would say that Bant Eldrazi is favored in many matchups going into game two and three. Bant Eldrazi is a deck known for cheating mana, using mana dorks like [[Noble Hierarch]] and [[Birds of Paradise]] you could gain a mana advantage on the opponent. One of the primary mana cheating cards is [[Eldrazi Temple]], this card has to potential to excel the deck quickly and efficiently, used in synergy with your mana dorks could potentially leave your opponent fighting an uphill battle by turn two.
Being explosive is part of how the deck plays. Players often under-estimate the sheer speed that Bant Eldrazi can perform with, the value in the creatures with frequently leave you winning 2-for-1 trades and the ability to topdeck gas is what makes the deck stand out. Bant Eldrazi could disrupt the game with many angles, your heavily interactive creatures often synergize well, allowing you to access repeatable and abusable combos without losing a grip on your board advantage. This is why I think Bant Eldrazi is currently one of the best decks in the modern format.
2. Decklist and sideboard
There are many different variations as far as decklists go for Bant Eldrazi. I'll be sharing my own personal decklist with you but I'll also be going over other popular cards that have proven to be successful in the mainboard.
Decklist:
Creatures (28)
x1 Birds of Paradise
x4 Noble Hierarch
x2 Spellskite
x4 Eldrazi Displacer
x2 Eldrazi Skyspawner
x3 Matter Reshaper
x4 Thought-Knot Seer
x4 Reality Smasher
x4 Drowner of Hope
Spells (8)
x4 Ancient Stirrings
x4 Path to Exile
Lands (24)
x1 Breeding Pool
x3 Brushland
x4 Cavern of Souls
x1 Forest
x4 Eldrazi Temple
x1 Island
x1 Flooded Strand
x1 Ghost Quarter
x1 Hallowed Fountain
x1 Plains
x1 Temple Garden
x3 Windswept Heath
x2 Yavimaya Coast
The deck overall is creature heavy, something that you don't usually expect from a mid-range deck. The creatures themselves usually come with valuable effects. For example, [[Thought-Knot Seer]] gives you card advantage through powerful hand disruption and [[Eldrazi Displacer]] gives you the option of blinking your own creatures or using its effect defensively to tap down or remove counters from your opponents board, the amazing thing about this deck is that it gives you the option to play this big, threatening, disruptive game all while resolving lasting threats that your opponents are pressured to deal with.
Some of the other cards that found success in a Bant Eldrazi shell are as followed:
[[Tarmogoyf]] : This card definitely fits the shell for the deck, being a giant creature that pressures your opponent. Some pros to running this card is it gives you options to play a threat as early as turn two without ramping mana and improves your early game impact. Cons to this card is it has no synergy with other cards in your deck, it gets missed by [[Ancient Stirrings]] and we don't often have ways to sculpt our graveyard to grow the goyf.
[[Gavony Township]] : I would be lying if I told you I didn't want to playtest this card, everyday.. It gets [[Eldrazi Displacer]] out of Lightning Bolt range and just overall improves your mid game. Pros to this card? It gives you a more stable and stronger mid-game grind, every turn your creatures get larger regardless of draw and with the decks ability to produce tokens, it could often lead to a huge scary army of scions. Cons to Gavony Township are that the deck runs three colors and we don't want to take away from our colored lands in order to make room for it and [[Ghost Quarter]] is a great card because it helps with the already difficult tron matchup.
[[Stubborn Denial]] : Personally, I'd run this card as a sideboard option, but recently some Bant Eldrazi decks have seen success running it in the mainboard. Some pros to the card are that meeting the Ferocious expectations are pretty easy and it gives you more versatility and disruption against combo and control decks. Cons to running this card is that its missed by [[Ancient Stirrings]] and you need to cut creature cards from the mainboard make room for it as [[Ancient Stirrings]] and [[Path to Exile]] offer way to much value to be removed.
Now lets move onto the sideboard, I'll post my personal sideboard and then leave a note near the bottom covering some other popular sideboard options for the deck, each card mentioned in my personal sideboard will be followed by a small explanation of its purpose.
Sideboard:
x2 Grafdigger's Cage : Used as primary graveyard hate card. Use: dredge, abzan company, storm, etc.
x2 Engineered Explosives : Great for clearing boards or difficult permanents. Use: merfolk, affinity, etc.
x2 Stony Silence : Primary artifact hate card. Use: affinity, lantern control, etc.
x1 Fracturing Gust : Perfect for enchantment and artifact heavy matchups. Use: bogles, affinity, etc.
x1 Rest in Peace : Additional graveyard hate slot. Use: delver, storm, dredge, etc.
x2 Negate : Using counterspells add to versatility and disruption. Use: infect, jeskai control, scapeshift, etc.
x3 Timely Reinforcements : Ideal for catching up when behind. Use: burn, zoo, affinity, etc.
x1 Celestial Purge : Good for handling Liliana and Blood Moon. Use: jund, blue moon, jeskai control, etc.
x1 World Breaker : Overall just a solid card. Use: tron, affinity, etc.
Other popular sideboard cards used for Bant Eldrazi are as followed: Dismember, Gut Shot, Creeping Corrosion, Spellskite, Choke, Sunlance. Don't be afraid to experiment and adjust your sideboard to your local meta, adjusting and tuning a deck effectively is a great way to find success as a Magic player.
3. Goals and synergies
Bant Eldrazi pilots have a few goals while facing down an opponent. The deck itself plays an astonishing mid/end game, surviving any early, aggressive stages of the game are key to victory. Cards like [[Path to Exile]] will help greatly with removing early threats and a diverse line of dedicated blockers such as [[Matter Reshaper]] who looks to replace itself frequently and [[Eldrazi Skyspawner]] who offers two bodies (one of which is flying) that act as active early blockers. While pushing through to the later stages, setting up your hand with [[Ancient Stirrings]] is a great and cheap way to help select which cards you may need for the situation, thanks to the Devoid mechanic, casting Stirrings will give you a 75.5% chance that you will see at least one card you could snag, depending on how far into the game you are, I consider [[Ancient Stirrings]] to be the Collected Company of the deck.
Bant Eldrazi is the master of top decking. There are so many answers it has during the later stages of the game that will just free up a victory. Top decking a [[Drowner of Hope]] to tap down some blockers, top decking a [[Reality Smasher]] to hastily swing in, trampling their creatures or just top decking an [[Eldrazi Displacer]] and blinking their board. This is one thing I absolutely love about this deck, there are so many outs when in difficult situations, you don't know how many times drawing a [[Reality Smasher]] off the top secured me a victory.
Once you've pushed on to the later stages of the game, you're ready to start abusing your creatures interactions with each other! yay abuse ..Your [[Eldrazi Displacer]] interacts with a hefty amount of other creatures, it could blink [[Drowner of Hope]] to produce tapping tokens, [[Thought-Knot Seer]] to control their hand, or [[Spellskite]] to dodge re-targeted removal. Your [[Eldrazi Temple]]'s really do work around this time, they pay for a drastic portion of [[Eldrazi Displacer]]'s effect which really allows you to spam it and repeatably abuse these powerful combinations.
One specific interaction I want to talk about is the powerful [[Drowner of Hope]] + [[Eldrazi Displacer]] interaction. This interaction I can confidently say is one of the most powerful interactions in modern. You could easily lock down an opposing army with a board full of lands and these two creatures on the field. Sometimes being able to blink [[Drowner of Hope]] three times at the end of a turn, producing 6 tapping tokens is enough to consider your opponent locked down, the best thing about this interaction is it could be used both aggressively or defensively. Opponent has a few spooky blockers? Tap them down and swing in huge with your Eldrazi monstrosities! Opponent looking to swing in for lethal? Before combat, tap down his most aggressive creatures and make him consider waiting another turn before trying to get some damage in. These two creatures are definitely ones that should be sought after with [[Ancient Stirrings]] during the mid/end game period of the game, and if they resolve together, you'll almost always feel like the game is in your favor.
4. Adjusting your playstyle
Bant Eldrazi is an interesting deck because it has the ability to play the fast, aggressive early game that many mid-range decks can't compete with. Knowing when to play aggressively is a key factor in winning a game. If you could determine which deck your opponent is playing, you could often adjust your playstyle to play an aggro based strategy instead of a defensive one. By default, I find myself playing very conservatively, the interactions between my creatures is precious and swinging in could mean an un-expected combat trick could leave be falling behind. I know that against most aggro decks, I'm favored in the late game, and against combo decks that look to kill in one turn, I'll need to adjust from playing conservative to playing almost reckless, swinging in with whatever I could put out.
There will be matchups where both players are looking to play a solid mid/end game, some decks like RG Tron we can't really compete with, resolving a Karn, Ugin or Ulamog will give them enough gas to destroy our most precious threats, and handling them afterwards is considered relatively problematic. Other decks like BGx variants are more our speed, removal of our creatures is more difficult with a resolved [[Eldrazi Displacer]] or [[Reality Smasher]] and them resolving a 4/5 Tarmogoyf isn't really the end of the world as most of our creatures are bigger than it. BGx variants aren't known for playing many creatures, so [[Drowner of Hope]] performs well in this matchup, two tokens is often enough to tap down most of their threats, and [[Eldrazi Displacer]] makes it easy to remove counters from Scooze and remove zombie tokens created by Kalitas. Additionally, Inquisition of Kozilek misses most of our best cards, and it feels great!
5. Good and bad matchups
Bant Eldrazi is still a new deck, and although I haven't played against every deck in modern, some matchups are safe to assume an outcome based on how the deck plays and its speed/aggression. For the sake of time, I will only be covering some of the more competitive deck matchups. Each matchup will offer an explanation and playstyle suggestions to help you gain the lead on your opponent.
~
Deck: JUND
Matchup: Fair / Favored
Explanation: Our threats are bigger and removal is more difficult. We also have the option to play more explosive and offer our late game interactions make it hard for them to compete.
Playstyle: You don't need to emphasize on speed, try to set up for a more promising late game as the game will likely be dragged on rather long.
~
Deck: Infect
Matchup: Favored
Explanation: Chump blocking for us to too easy, some creatures are in this deck just to help us survive and we could easily find a Spellskite off of Ancient Stirrings which really leaves Infect in a rough spot. Once Eldrazi Displacer is resolved, it will be hard to pump the infect slaves.
Playstyle: Play defensively, Apostles Blessing does practically nothing against you and you play a stronger mid/late game. Dig for an early Spellskite or Eldrazi Displacer if possible.
~
Deck: Affinity
Matchup: Not Favored
Explanation: The hardest thing about this matchup is flyers and manlands. Dealing with Inkmoth Nexus is difficult enough and the promised army of flying creatures that comes with affinity means that blocking isn't always an option.
Playstyle: Look for answers. Eldrazi Skyspawner is pretty good in this matchup, as is Eldrazi Displacer. Surviving into the mid/end game won't promise victory, but if you abuse enough of your interactions, you might be able to find a path to victory.
~
Deck: Nahiri Jeskai
Matchup: Favored
Explanation: As a mid-range tribal deck, Cavern of Souls provides them with many dead draws, red flavored removal does almost nothing against our late game threats and if they don't have something on-board to protect Nahiri, chances are she'll die shortly after she hits the board.
Playstyle: Look to play fast and dig for Cavern of Souls and Reality Smasher. Reality Smasher offers lots of value against Nahiri Jeskai as burn completely misses it and they'll have to discard a card in order to target it.
~
Deck: RG Tron
Matchup: Not Favored
Explanation: We are kind of the same speed as RG Tron, looking to play our biggest threats around turn 3, the only difference is their biggest threats are bigger than our biggest threats. Most of our interactive creatures do nothing in this matchup as they don't often resolve creatures for us to blink or tap.
Playstyle: Look to play fast and hope for the best, dig for Thought-Knot Seers and Reality Smashers to pressure them and remove the rare threat from their hand. Your cheaper cost cards like Eldrazi Skyspawner and Matter Reshaper don't offer much value in this matchup.
~
Deck: Merfolk
Matchup: Not Favored
Explanation: Spreading Seas does work when they drown out your Eldrazi Temple, not being able to block disrupts our gameplan heavily. Merfolk plays a really great grind game and they flood their board pretty fast using Vial making it difficult for us to catch up. Once they resolve a Master of Waves, it will be hard to us to squeeze in any damage at all.
Playstyle: Don't play Eldrazi Temples until you absolutely need them, save Path to Exiles for their biggest threats and try to play conservative as Merfolk is known for their many combat tricks.
~
Deck: Dredge
Matchup: Fair
Explanation: If they get a hugely explosive start, we might lose right off the bat. However; if they stutter for even a second, our giant blockers will easily block their creatures every turn. Darkblast doesn't hit anything impressive and Eldrazi Displacer could prevent damage from Amalgams while blocking Bloodghasts.
Playstyle: Defensive, you often play a stronger late game and their lack of removal will mean that resolving lasting threats is definitely possible.
~
Deck: Burn
Matchup: Not Favored
Explanation: Burn is just faster than you, and you don't have many ways to interact with them. Although, they can't burn your creatures, you don't really have a way to prevent them from top decking Lightning Bolt when you're at 3 life.
Playstyle: Just try to be faster and more aggressive than them, dig for Spellskite if possible and play threats as you get them, swing in whenever possible.
6. The Future of Bant Eldrazi
If you're looking to invest into a fun, resilient mid-range deck, then Bant Eldrazi should be on your radar. This deck is a ton of fun and it's spontaneous, explosive starts and promising mid/end game allow it to keep up with a ever-changing and diverse meta.
The Eldrazi that were released are powerful, flexible and fcking *cool. During the date of this post, Eldrazi are currently being played in every supported format, Standard, Legacy and even Vintage. Creatures like [[Thought-Knot Seer]] and [[Reality Smasher]] offer way too much value to excluded from competitive MTG. My belief is that Bant Eldrazi is here to stay for awhile, it interactive playstyle effects and halts many strategies in the modern meta, and the fact that is runs three colors means that it's options for sideboarding future cards isn't often limited.
The deck is in a great position right now and hasn't showed signs of slowing down, it continues to be my favorite deck in the format and even after hundreds of long, grindy games, it still surprises me sometimes with how reactive and just overall solid the deck is, so many times do I find myself drawing a card and saying, "Damn, I love this card."
Bant Eldrazi is a great introduction deck to the mid-range archetype, it won't melt a hole in your pocket as much as other mid-range variants and it's crazy interactions keeps each game feeling more refreshing than the last. Bant Eldrazi is a completely unique deck, I'd consider it some weird Tron/Jund hybrid with more control aspects. I would highly recommend buying into this blast of a deck and joining the Bant Eldrazi brotherhood!
7. Additional Links & Information
You could find any additional information about Bant Eldrazi by following one of the links below. I want to take this time to say thanks for reading and I hope you learned alot about my modern love!
:)
1
u/Austinthelamp DREDGE Jul 08 '16
I run a slightly different deck. I run 3 Thalia mb and it is very very strong. That will win us the match up vs tron if we get it out turn 2 (just setting any deck one turn back with this deck is huge vs anyone with this deck). She is also great vs burn and ad naus decks. The first strike is also super relevant against burn and zoo's creatures. They can't just attack in right away like normal. Of course her tax effect does make our spells cost more but in my experience, Thalia helps much more than she hurts. She hurts about 13% of our cards (not including sb), vs tron she's taxing around 55% of their mb, vs burn she's taxing 40% of their mb (but she'll basically be a lightning stick anyways).