Standard

Mono White Eldrazi Going Forward

So diving right into things, here is the 75 I registered and piloted to a 10-5 finish at Grand Prix Toronto. This put me at 176th out of 1700+ people so a respectable finish but I could have played better.

Mono White Eldrazi – Cole Clarke

[deck]
[Lands]
3 Battlefield Forge
3 Caves of Koilos
4 Foundry of the Consuls
10 Plains
2 Ruins of Oran-Rief
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
2 Westvale Abbey
[/Lands]
[Spells]
4 Declaration in Stone
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Secure the Wastes
2 Silkwrap
1 Warping Wail
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
4 Archangel Avacyn
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Hedron Crawler
3 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
1 Mirrorpool
2 Felidar Cub
3 Hallowed Moonlight
2 Surge of Righteousness
2 Warping Wail
2 Stasis Snare
2 Tragic Arrogance
1 Oblivion Sower
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

When brewing for the format, Mono Red Eldrazi really appealed to me as a midrange deck that suited my playstyle well. However, I quickly recognized the power level of [card]Eldrazi Displacer[/card] in the meta, accompanied by powerhouses [card]Archangel Avacyn[/card] and [card]Declaration in Stone[/card]. Gideon was originally a two-of in testing but quickly went up as many decks have a hard time dealing with him. He ends the game quickly vs. the ramp decks and clogs up the board in the midrange games. The Eldrazi package was also very strong as [card]Reality Smasher[/card] is very difficult for a lot of decks to handle, and [card]Thought-Knot Seer[/card] disrupts a lot of decks game-plans.

Instead of going through each round, I’ll sum up the results:
Goggles 3-0, Bant Coco 1-1, [card]Seasons Past[/card] 1-1, GB Aristocrats 1-1, BW Control 1-0, GW Tokens 0-1, Mono White Humans 1-1, Mardu Eldrazi 1-0,

Reviewing my games, the matches I lost vs. Mono White Humans and GB Aristocrats were due to my opponents simply being too fast for my game plans. [card]Tragic Arrogance[/card] and [card]Archangel Avacyn[/card] + [card]Hangarback Walker[/card] were not fast enough to avoid getting run over. [card]Declaration in Stone[/card] being sorcery speed definitely hindered me here.

Playing vs. GB [card]Seasons Past[/card], the match-up felt very dependent on a few pieces. An [card]Infinite Obliteration[/card] hitting three [card]Thought-Knot Seer[/card] in my hand was very crushing in my loss. [card]Warping Wail[/card] was fantastic and the deck is soft to [card]Reality Smasher[/card] and [card]Secure the Wastes[/card]. These cards are very important and I likely should have mulliganed better for this matchup.

Bant Coco is a reasonable match-up for us. Post-board my opponent sided out his [card]Collected Company[/card]s however and made me look silly trying to hold up [card]Hallowed Moonlight[/card]. [card]Sigarda, Heron’s Grace[/card] making a series of tokens helped crush me quickly. I might have wanted to flip Abbey early on but I was too afraid of being blown out by [card]Reflector Mage[/card].

Lastly my one match vs. GW tokens I completely threw away. [card]Tragic Arrogance[/card] does a lot of work here but make sure they have [card]Oath of Nissa[/card] in play before trying to make them sacrifice a [card]Quarantine Field[/card]. [card]Eldrazi Displacer[/card] is fantastic here, and [card]Archangel Avacyn[/card] and [card]Reality Smasher[/card] pressure planeswalkers quite well.

I think it’s interesting to note that this deck really does have game against anything in the format. Even though I lost to GW tokens, the match-up still feels reasonable for us and I think we are slightly favoured. A lot of the matchup comes down to who gets more [card]Archangel Avacyn[/card]s but we are much safer to flip our [card]Westvale Abbey[/card] than they are. Our Eldrazi package gives us a solid midgame and in the late game our lands are much more valuable.

Speaking of which, the power of the lands are the reason I opted for mono white over a splash colour. I’m going to be testing BW in the future but the main reason I stuck with mono white for this event was my practice with it. Mono white gives you much more untapped lands since [card]Ruins of Oran-Rief[/card] is our only tapped land. BW has to play 4 [card]Shambling Vent[/card] and [card]Forsaken Sanctuary[/card] or [card]Evolving Wilds[/card]. Playing the full set of [card]Foundry of the Consuls[/card] was a very solid choice. I needed untapped lands to produce C anyways, and these lands really pull their weight. [card]Westvale Abbey[/card] is an obviously inclusion as the flip-side is really good, however in terms of generating tokens, Foundry making two thopters for 0 life is very important. [card]Ruins of Oran-Rief[/card] can also put a counter on them which gives you a sizeable air force when you flood out. [card]Sea Gate Wreckage[/card] is also solid as a 1-of to refuel your hand in the late game.

For my sideboard, it might look a little odd. However, it is important to have a game plan with your sideboard and to plan around a variety of things given a 15-round event. With this in mind, I’ll explain that the [card]Surge of Righteousness[/card] is not a card I would recommend. However, as I had 0 byes for the event, I thought there was a reasonable chance I ran into some Red Black Vampires or similar decks. There was also a few red midrange decks with [card]Thunderbreak Regent[/card]s and [card]Sin Prodder[/card]s I thought might pop up earlier on.

[card]Mirrorpool[/card] was a 26th land to bring in when I sided out [card]Hedron Crawler[/card]s vs. [card]Languish[/card] or Chandra decks. [card]Felidar Cub[/card] was the go-to answer to destroy enchantments such as [card]Stasis Snare[/card] or [card]Cryptolith Rite[/card] at a very low cost. It’s also important for killing [card]Virulent Plague[/card]s. [card]Hallowed Moonlight[/card] was for Bant Coco and GB Coco as well as 4 Color Eldrazi Rites. However, as I said before, the Coco player I played in round 2 sided out [card]Collected Company[/card]s against me so that’s something to keep in mind. I likely should have been boarding it in more against token strategies to blank token generators like [card]Secure the Wastes[/card]. [card]Warping Wail[/card] was a solid card which acted to [card]Negate[/card] a lot of cards vs. RG Goggles and [card]Seasons Past[/card]. It’s also removal in a pinch vs. Humans and GB Aristocrats. [card]Stasis Snare[/card] and [card]Silkwrap[/card]s frequently swapped places as well as helped our removal. [card]Tragic Arrogance[/card] is a powerhouse in midrange mirrors and [card]Oblivion Sower[/card] pulls its weight vs. other Eldrazi decks.

Going forward, I would expect WB to be an improvement over the mono white counterpart but it will be worth testing. The white Eldrazi build is very powerful however the pieces don’t always line up. Some games you have very aggressive draws and some games are more passive controlling ones. It’s difficult to mulligan without knowing what your opponent is on as most opening hands have a mix. However, game two and three you need to mulligan strong hands if they don’t match up well against your opponent. The BW list has a lot more catch-all answers which will mitigate this issue, and also plays a more consistent role.

Something like this:

BW Eldrazi – Cole Clarke

[deck]
[Lands]
1 Blighted Fen
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Plains
1 Ruins of Oran-Rief
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Shambling Vent
4 Swamp
1 Wastes
2 Westvale Abbey
[/Lands]
[Spells]
2 Anguished Unmaking
4 Declaration in Stone
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Read the Bones
2 Ruinous Path
2 Secure the Wastes
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
2 Transgress the Mind
1 Warping Wail
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
3 Archangel Avacyn
3 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Wasteland Strangler
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

A list like this is much slower but a lot more powerful. Getting rid of the early creatures means we need to play more powerful cards. I could also see an argument for replacing the [card]Ruins of Oran-Rief[/card] but it was really important in getting [card]Thought-Knot Seer[/card] to 5 toughness which is huge against [card]Grasp of Darkness[/card] and [card]Chandra, Flamecaller[/card]. Black opens up the sideboard to some better options like [card]Ultimate Price[/card] and discard spells combine really nicely with the current white sideboard options we are playing.

[card]Anguished Unmaking[/card] offers more answers against planeswalkers and [card]Pyromancer’s Goggles[/card]. Black also brings us [card]Ruinous Path[/card], which is a solid catch-all removal spell. We’re missing the [card]Archangel Avacyn[/card] and [card]Hangarback Walker[/card] combo which helped against a lot of aggro decks but the angel is still very powerful. [card]Wasteland Strangler[/card] is also another card which has a huge potential to swing a game. [card]Sorin, Grim Nemesis[/card] and [card]Read the Bones[/card] help give the deck card advantage which the mono white version was desperately lacking. [card]Shambling Vent[/card] is also a very powerful manland which is another reason I think WB may be the way to go. Having the ability to easily pressure the board and gain life while also fixing your mana is pretty handy. [card]Caves of Koilos[/card] also functions as a triland which makes the mana pretty solid in this deck.

I definitely think that the Eldrazi decks are here to stay. Josh Buitenhuis made a sweet run at GP Toronto with his BW deck, and I believe these changes will help push the deck moving forward. [card]Reality Smasher[/card] even made it into the 4 Color Coco decks sideboard.

BW Eldrazi – Josh Buitenhuis

[deck]
[Lands]
3 Blighted Fen
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Forsaken Sanctuary
2 Plains
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Shambling Vent
4 Swamp
3 Westvale Abbey
[/Lands]
[Spells]
3 Anguished Unmaking
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Grasp of Darkness
1 Languish
2 Ob Nixilis Reignited
3 Read the Bones
1 Ruinous Path
4 Secure the Wastes
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 Spatial Contortion
3 Transgress the Mind
2 Ultimate Price
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
2 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Wasteland Strangler
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Descend upon the Sinful
2 Duress
2 Hallowed Moonlight
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Languish
1 Linvala, the Preserver
3 Matter Reshaper
1 Ultimate Price
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

GP Toronto was a fantastic event and I’m glad I could be a part of it. While I scrubbed out in top 8 of the Super Sunday Series and didn’t cash the main event, I had a great time and look forward to more Grand Prixs and Face to Face Games events in the future.

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