Telling Time - Oath and Shadows - Izzet Eldrazi vs Green Wastes Ramp
Today I continue the early-bird Duels testing with paper Magic cards, and the decks I picked out today are Green Wastes and Izzet Eldrazi. Let’s jump right in -
Green Wastes
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3 x Jaddi Offshoot 4 x Elvish Visionary 4 x Pulse of Murasa 1 x Titan's Presence 2 x From Beyond 2 x Outland Colossus 2 x Reality Smasher 1 x Oblivion Sower 2 x Nissa's Renewal 1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger 4 x Evolving Wilds 9 x Wastes 10 x Forest |
Pulse of Murasa was a real pain in the butt. It is the reason that Elvish Visionary makes the deck as a four-of, because worst case you get a chump block, six life and a card cycle, and perhaps another chump block and more Fleshbag/Bearer of Silence protection. Gaining six life at instant speed really messes with lethal-looking attacks, and late in the game you just keep recycling Eldrazis.
Titan’s Presence did nothing and can/should be cut. Jaddi was huge, any game that started with one felt too easy. The curve for the deck could use work since we go three-five-eight often enough, and we have no real eight-mana payoff. Walker of the Wastes is pretty nuts, and was a 13/13 trample plenty of times. Is it worth cutting Red? I doubt it at this point, but it is worth more work. The games that the deck lost involved missed land drops, so I would raise the mana count to 25 or 26 and turn one or two Natural Connection into Nissa’s Pilgrimage, I rarely had trouble getting plenty of Wastes after a certain point.
Izzet Eldrazi
2 x Fiery Impulse
4 x Twin Bolt
3 x Disperse
3 x Vile Aggregate
3 x Whirler Rogue
1 x Akoum Firebird
2 x Reality Smasher
2 x Drowner of Hope
1 x Oblivion Sower
5 x Island
5 x Mountain
2 x Sulfur Falls
1 x Rogue's Passage
1 x Wastes
4 x Evolving Wilds
This deck took the Eldrazi Thopters approach and went more in on the Eldrazi side of it. The results felt poor. The game count was 3-2 in favor of Green Wastes, but I don’t think the matchup is that close, both of the Izzet wins came when the Green deck failed to hit land drop three for multiple turns. In the losses, the Izzet deck felt like everything was going very well but it couldn’t keep up with the lifegain from Pulse, Jaddi and Renewal, and the Izzet deck couldn’t find any good long term answer to a 13/13 Walker of the Wastes. This deck needs better early plays, for now the Izzet Eldrazi just casts some removal spells for the early turns and starts kicking into gear on turn four. That gives too much time to ramp, and this matchup felt like many matchups I played early in B4Z - midrange decks failing to kill Gruul Ramp in time and getting run over. What the deck need is at least two quality two or one drops to be a player in the future, in this writer’s humble opinion :)
This test was conducted with confirmed cards only (check out my Confirmed Visual Spoiler HERE). There are a lot more cards that could make the Green Wastes deck even better if we get them, and there are a handful of cards that could help Izzet. There may still be something to the Izzet Eldrazi list, but for now I am sticking to the Thopter build.
<3 CGB
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Awesome Duels resources and recommendations -
Magic Duels Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/magicduels/
No Goblins Allowed - http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewforum.php?f=38
Twitch Magic Duels - http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Magic%20Duels
CGB
Lots going on in that comment Random, and I’ll try to address it in a post I am writing right now. Thanks for your take on it.
Rabble Rabble, I agree with you, and we still haven’t seen that needed two-drop yet. A shame, as I love the Eldrazi shell, but Thopters may remain the better Izzet list.
Rabble Rabble
I currently play an Izzet drazi list for funsies but more slated to tempo. It has 2 drop fliers and shrivels and cards like Adverse conditions and Brutal Expulsion. All in all the deck’s decent, but your analysis is spot on: the deck would gain ALOT if it would have more powerful evasive 2 drops. I tried solving it with Welkyn Tern but the deck already suffers worse than crats against twin bolt and terns make that an even bigger problem. I think Stormchaser Mage if we get it, would be the best solution, because both Ulmara Entangler and Dimensional Infiltrator fail the ‘bolt’ test.
randomname
Interesting results. I’ve been thinking for a while that G/Colorless Ramp is likely to be Tier One after the expansion. One big reason for that is Kozilek. Much of the time, that will be a more certain game-ender than Ulamog is, because of its counter ability and card draw. But the ability to fetch either with From Beyond is very scary.
I’m surprised that Titan’s Presence was so poor for you. To me it seems like one of the draws to the deck, and it has seen play in mono-green ramp in standard – and those lists weren’t running many more colorless creatures than yours does. It’s high variance, but has a much higher ceiling than Green removal usually is allowed.
I also think BW Control will be interesting. A big reason for the deck I ran in this tournament was to test how close it was to the current tier one decks. I thought, and think, that BW Control is likely to get a much bigger power-level boost from the expansions than Ramp will.
In the Steam Tournament, I finished 6-5 in games (and so 3-2 in matches). Your assessment of the deck in your tournament preview as prescient. It was a solid B, did well against less tuned Ramp decks (6-1 in games), and lost decisively to your RG Ramp deck (and the experienced pilot playing it – like you, Qasim is a veteran paper player).
But it’s gaining a ton. Avacyn, Kalitas, Oblivion Strike and Anguished Unmaking will all replace objectively weaker cards in the deck I ran. Sorin is a near-certain addition, and Linvala, Ayli, Call the Gatewatch, Declaration in Stone, and Relentless Dead would all be good. It’s not likely we get all of those, but less likely we get none of them. Grasp of Darkness is good too.
What do you think about BW Control post-expansion, or Control more generally?