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Main » Articles » Eldritch Moon Brews

Eldritch Moon Brews

Kyle Boggemes
Posted on July 8, 2016
 Reddit

Hey everyone!

I’m skipping the Pro Tour in Sydney due to work commitments, but have some team members still qualified. So, I’m going hard on solving the Standard format. Today I want to share some of my initial brews, but I don’t want to forget some of the initial frontrunners either. When I brew in a new format I tend to stay away from the gimmick cards so let’s begin with a deck I know to be powerful: Bant Company.

Bant Company

Bant Company ? Eldritch Moon Standard | Kyle Boggemes

Bant Company was great before Eldritch Moon and it will continue to be a solid option. The two cards I’m interested in adding from Eldritch Moon are Thalia and Tamiyo. We’re now getting to the point in Standard where there are too many good options for legendary permanents so I’m just going to be playing all of them. It will take a couple of iterations to get the spells where I want them, but this is where I am going to start. I don’t want too many copies of each legend as the second one is basically a whiff on Collected Company. The tradeoff here is that they happen to be the strongest options to put into play.

All three of Tamiyo’s abilities are strong and they do two things that Bant Company loves to do: draw cards and create tempo. Adding Tamiyo is not free, and it might be possible that she doesn’t make the final cut because there are so many strong options for spells that whiff on a Collected Company. Other powerhouses I am considering in this space are Elder Deep-Fiend, Archangel Avacyn, and Gisela. Tamiyo will draw so many cards when there are a couple of creatures in play that she will easily get out of hand. I think it’s overpriced at $30, but is strong enough for Standard.

Thalia is great in combat and will also help push through a wave of tokens from G/W. If G/W Tokens didn’t have a bunch of annoying plants and allies that entered the battlefield untapped, the matchup would be much easier. The tempo gained from Thalia will be enough to keep this archetype relevant after Eldritch Moon.

The 3 power combined with first strike makes Thalia an excellent blocker versus humans. When I’m evaluating cards in the context of Standard I consider how they play out versus Humans, Midrange, and Black control.

I’m planning on playing in the SCG Open in Columbus and I think this is an early frontrunner.

U/G Eldrazi

Now I want to delve into my favorite deck I made so far, U/G Eldrazi Emerge:

U/G Eldrazi ? Eldritch Moon Standard | Kyle Boggemes

This deck takes a classic Eldrazi approach and combines it with the new emerge mechanic, and I threw in some Eldritch Evolutions for good measure. Let’s get the first thing out of the way; Emerge is busted in half. It’s my job to let WOTC know they got a little out of hand making this mechanic. I put together about ten rough drafts of decks that take advantage of Elder Deep-Fiend and this was my favorite version.

A common issue with Eldrazi decks in Standard was Thought-Knot Seer never wanted to fight because the board would get clogged up. I would put the 4/4 into play and take their best card, but I wanted to protect the seer after it was in play. Elder Deep-Fiend gives me a way to tap opposing creatures to send my giant monsters into the red zone with minimal downside.

I think this deck will be able to hold its own in the new Standard metagame because Elder Deep-Fiend is extremely versatile. It can act as a Mistbind Clique against control decks, but can also stop a White Humans deck from attacking for a turn. Since this operates like a midrange deck, there will be matchups where I am playing control, which means turning the corner is crucial. If I tap down lands on the upkeep it can be hard to kill, as it evades Ultimate Price and Grasp of Darkness. If you leave a land untapped against a White deck they can play another land for the turn and use Declaration in Stone. Stasis Snare is a good card to play if the deep fiend gets too popular.

Eldritch Evolution is getting a lot of Modern hype. Yes, I know the awesome things that can be done with Kitchen Finks, but it’s also going to be great in Standard. These are some of the plays I can make with U/G Eldrazi Emerge:

Evolve an animated Lumbering Falls into Sylvan Advocate

Evolve Elvish Visionary or Hedron Crawler into Thought-Knot Seer

Evolve Matter Reshaper or Nissa into Reality Smasher

Evolve Elder Deep-Fiend into Decimator of Provinces

Elvish Visionary is the best cheap threat to sacrifice and I think it will be played more often in Eldritch Moon Standard. Other options include Blisterpod, but a 2-drop helps you curve into the most powerful option for Eldritch Evolution. It only costs 5 mana to flash in an Elder Deep-Fiend by sacrificing the visionary.

Decimator of Provinces won’t grant +2+2 to your team if it’s put into play from Eldritch Evolution because it happens only when cast, but a 7/7 haste trampling creature is nothing to scoff at. This is another creature that allows stalemates to be broken which will be key in Green card advantage mirrors. It costs 3ggg to emerge by sacrificing a Matter Reshaper which is reasonable to hard cast.

I chose to play only 3 Islands because I needed more colorless sources. Matter Reshaper demands colorless mana as soon as turn three. I couldn’t cut Forests because of Nissa so I added four Shivan Reefs in place of Islands.

B/G Eldrazi

Emerge is certainly an intriguing mechanic that will take a while to fully understand. Elder Deep-Fiend is going to be a Standard powerhouse, but takes discipline to play because you need creatures to sacrifice. B/G has historically been a sacrifice-based color combination so I wanted to try Distended Mindbender as well.

B/G Eldrazi ? Eldritch Moon | Kyle Boggemes

This deck plays out similarly to the U/G version. I chose my color combinations based on the pain lands available to me because there will be good spells in all five colors. When I’m enemy colors, I get a pain land that acts as a tri-land as well as a creature land.

I’m not sure if Distended Mindbender will be better than Elder Deep-Fiend. It’s likely more powerful versus midrange and control decks, but weaker against humans. A four-mana 5/5 that takes the last card in the hand of an aggro White deck won’t work out too well.

The big draw to playing Black is Catacomb Sifter. I can sacrifice the ? to Distended Mindbender or Eldritch Evolution and have a 1/1 scion remain. The scion token can also be evolved into a Sylvan Advocate or Elvish Visionary. It also lets me ramp out a Reality Smasher on turn four without having to play a mana dork. Two creatures for the price of one is also good with the Decimator of Provinces.

Remember that the sacrifice part of Eldritch Evolution is a cost so getting it negated will be costly. This is less relevant in Standard, but with Remands running around in Modern I would be afraid to play too many evolutions.

Again I chose to add a set of Caves of Koilos to increase the amount of colorless mana in the deck without cutting into the Forests for Nissa. The Evolving Wilds give me an additional four lands that enter the battlefield tapped, but I get any color I want including colorless.

After trying another G/x Eldrazi shell I went to Mono-Blue to push the limits on Elder Deep-Fiend.

Mono Blue Eldrazi

Mono-Blue Eldrazi ? Eldritch Moon Standard | Kyle Boggemes

This deck plays out like the Mono-Red Eldrazi deck where I have plenty of top end thanks to all of the various colorless lands. I can sacrifice Hangarback Walker to Elder Deep-Fiend to cash it in for Thopter tokens. There are also a couple Whirler Rogues to sacrifice to help emerge for less mana.

I will be interested to see if this deck is capable of cracking the top tier; it has a chance because the deep fiend is so strong. I can sit back with giant monsters and eventually give myself a turn to attack after I tap my opponent’s creatures.

I think I got my point across that Elder Deep-Fiend and the emerge mechanic are the most exciting things in Eldritch Moon, which is hard to do. What else do I have to be excited about? How about jamming all of the best White cards together!

W/R Midrange

W/R Midrange ? Eldritch Moon Standard | Kyle Boggemes

Gisela, the Broken Blade is quite in your face about how good she is. Broken! I top 8ed my first Grand Prix with U/W Tapout featuring Baneslayer Angel. The creature itself wasn’t amazing, but the threat of her was spectacular. My opponent needed to respect the angel because it was able to dominate combat and win most races; Gisela is no different. Sure, it will get Reflector Maged, but how many times will that happen in a tournament? Not enough to scare me away from playing her. The added threat of melding with Bruna even after you killed Gisela is absurd. It’s hard to come back from a Brisela, Voice of Nightmares and White midrange decks now have that level of inevitability at a low cost.

I talked about Thalia’s Lancer’s in a previous article and it has gotten stronger since. Thanks to Geier Reach Sanitarium I’m able to find a strong legendary land that happens to make colorless mana. This can help curve naturally into playing Eldrazi Displacer and blinking the lancers to find a heavy-hitter. The lancers can also search for an Oath of Chandra because it’s a legendary enchantment to act as a Shriekmaw. I can search for Bruna and then return Thalia’s Lancers when she dies of natural causes.

Nahiri, the Harbinger also works well with Thalia’s Lancers because I’m already encouraged to play large threats that are worth tutoring. Bruna only returns angels and humans to play if she was cast, so it doesn’t combo well with Nahiri. I can search for Thalia’s Lancers which can search for Bruna and potentially meld on the same turn.

Incendiary Flow is going to be a great removal spell because the 3 damage can also be pointed at planeswalkers. I would imagine there will be a Zombie deck in Eldritch Moon Standard which makes exiling creatures relevant. The damage to an opponent will be relevant as each threat can hit hard. I like when my removal spells are able to be used aggressively against decks without many creatures. Declaration in Stone and Nahiri will kill large creatures so I like having a more versatile removal spell that is worse at killing big threats.

I thought about adding Emrakul to the deck, but I’m not sure how powerful it is. A possibility is to add Emrakul to the sideboard for grindy matchups. I could win a game with a Nahiri ultimate by searching for Linvala against aggressive decks, but I might need to step it up against control and Green midrange. This deck has a lot different card types so it could realistically cost 8 mana:

Hangarback Walker for artifact and creature

Nahiri and Chandra for planeswalkers

Declaration in Stone and Incendiary Flow for Sorcery

Evolving Wilds and Needle Spires for land

Using the legend rule or looting away Oath of Chandra for enchantment

Another potential sideboard card is Hanweir Garrison. This deck will play out like a top-heavy control deck and the opponent will only want unconditional removal. If they kill Hanweir Garrison early it paves the way for a Gisela. If I play the garrison I would also have to play a couple copies of Hanweir Battlements which go great with Eldrazi Displacer for the colorless source and giving Gisela haste is powerful. It’s also worth noting that the garrison is a human which is relevant for Bruna.

That’s all I have today. There are still plenty of cards to be spoiled so I’ve only scratched the surface. It already looks like WOTC has done their job and given Standard a breath of life. I’ll stay vigilant and continue to work on new ideas and improve on what we have in Standard.

Thanks for reading!

-Kyle

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TAGS articles, standard, constructed, deck lists, decks, previews, brews, kyle boggemes, #mtgemn, eldritch moon

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