Locations
With Rise of the Eldrazi spoilers battering at the gate, we are starting to see the contours of the set emerge. Wizards R&D has tried very hard to get us to slow down, take our time, and win with 10+ mana creatures, and the new set gives us all the tools we will need if we want to survive against the Bloodbraid Elf, Ball Lightning and Vampire Nighthawk that have been smacking our faces in for the last 6 months. While resolving a Kozilek or, heaven forbid, Emrakul is obviously a better endgame than anything we have currently, let's be realistic – where are we going to find all that mana?
Option 1 – Land Ramp
A pretty obvious way to go, really: generate mana using lands. A very particular set of lands in this case. We all know Eye of Ugin from Worldwake, which reduces the cost of every Eldrazi spell you play by 2. Note that it doesn't tap for mana itself so if you are just playing one Eldrazi spell a turn it is only worth 1 extra mana over say, a Forest. If you are in a situation where you are able to cast two Eldrazi spells on a single turn, Eye of Ugin becomes far more explosive. It is Legendary however and it does not give you any mana towards non-Eldrazi spells, so Eye of Ugin is probably only a two-of card.
More exciting in this strategy is the new Eldrazi Temple, which is not legendary, taps for a single colourless mana, and taps for 2 mana towards Eldrazi spells. This land is actually very versatile if you want to incorporate Eldrazi finishers into other decks like UW control as you can use the generic mana to cast your Everflowing Chalice, Martial Coup and so on but the extra ability lets you bring out All Is Dust or Kozilek, Butcher of Truths a turn earlier. Any deck that wants to play a few Eldrazi spells is going to be playing some number of Temples, so be sure to grab yours early.
There are sure to be more unspoiled lands in Rise but as yet there is no incentive to play an entirely colourless Eldrazi deck to fully exploit Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple, so let's take a look at some other plans for cranking out big dudes.
Option 2 – Eldrazi Spawn Ramp
Eldrazi Spawn are 0/1 token creatures that have an activated ability – Sacrifice this: add 1 mana to your mana pool. They're created en masse by a large subset of cards in the new set, centred in Red, Green and Black. There are two kinds of these cards – ones that have a main effect and create some Spawn almost incidentally, like Corpse Hatch or Growth Spasm, and the kind which are devoted to powering out Spawn tokens like Skittering Invasion and Awakening Zone.
These give you some really explosive acceleration: Imagine you have 5 basic lands and an Eldrazi Temple, and you play a Skittering Invasion. If your five tokens survive to your next turn, that gives you 12 available mana which is enough for basically anything you want (besides Emrakul). This raises the interesting point of when is it right to remove your opponent's spawn tokens? Lightning Bolt on a single spawn is negative card advantage but it might be the right play in some dire situations. Volcanic Fallout, Day of Judgment, Earthquake and the like will gain value if Spawn Ramp becomes a valid strategy. Here's a starting point for a really dedicated spawn-ramp deck's mana:
4 Eldrazi Temple
9 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Skittering Invasion
4 Birthing the Brood
4 Awakening Zone
4 Growth Spasm
That is 40 cards dedicated to mana which is a lot, but the other 20 slots can be any combination of massive monsters that you like – Gelatinous Genesis, Kozilek, Ulamog's Crusher, or whatever takes your fancy. I would like to have a 1 drop Spawn card to enable Birthing the Brood turn 2, or a Khalni Garden style land that gives us a spawn for free, but we will have to see what the last bunch of cards turns up. The bonus of the spawn strategy is that they can be just chump blockers if that is what you need at the time – a 0/1 will happily throw itself in the path of Bloodbraid Elf or Sprouting Thrinax if you're not able to 'go off' until the following turn.
Option 3 – Elves!
My buddy Neale (@wrongwaygoback) has been insisting that 'Eldrazi Green' is going to refer to a completely different deck after Rise of the Eldrazi, and with the number of insane mana generating options the little green men now have available it looks like he'll be right. Elvish Archdruid, Llanowar Elves and Arbor Elf are familiar from previous sets, but Rise of the Eldrazi is really upping the ante. Check out Joraga Treespeaker:
This card is completely nuts for mana acceleration. Drop this turn one, turn two play a second Forest and pay to level him up and you have two green mana immediately to play a blocker like Overgrown Battlement, a Rampant Growth, an Explore, or whatever other 2 mana spells your green ramp deck cares to play. Even with just Forest & Treespeaker, Forest & level, Forest you have five mana on turn three for something like Bestial Menace. Another accelerator lets you get silly with turn 3 Terra Stomper, smashing for 8 trample damage on turn 4 while a Temple-powered Ulamog's Crusher joins our side of the table. These are not outlandish play sequences by any stretch and unlike Lotus Cobra, Treespeaker will give you mana even if you don't have a continuous flow of lands to follow up. In a dedicated elf deck the sky is the limit, though that might end up being consigned to the casual table.
Option 4 – Artifact Ramp
Currently known as UW control, this is the least dedicated of the potential Eldrazi Ramp decks - one that already plays a bunch of expensive game winners, like Iona and Martial Coup, and might like to add in the powerful Eldrazi spells like All is Dust and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. This deck doesn't so much ramp as it does control the board until the late turns when its consistent land drops and more powerful spells let it dominate the game. It uses multiple Everflowing Chalice and a very high land count to keep the mana coming. All is Dust will be particularly welcome as it not only takes care of your opponent's creatures but also any planeswalkers that might be causing you trouble, and if they have Oblivion Ring on one of your cards – like, say, Jace, the Mind Sculptor – it is just a complete blowout. Eldrazi Temple is also a perfect fit for such a deck, which isn't terrible heavy on the coloured costs and is only two colours.
A similar card to Chalice has been previewed in Rise of the Eldrazi, called Dreamstone Hedron. It is a little hard to evaluate – it is kind of like three Mind Stone stuck together, but that is not that illustrative a comparison to make. Mind Stone jumps you ahead to four drops on turn three, and then later on you can sacrifice it to draw a card when you have a surplus of mana. Dreamstone Hedron jumps you from 7 to 10, assuming you're hitting all your land drops, which in most environments wouldn't be useful – but now we want to get to 10 for Kozilek and friends. Everflowing Chalice with 3 counters performs the same duty, so what about the second ability? When will we want to give up this mana boost for a Concentrate? Presumably we have cast our big threat and we want to draw cards to protect it, or we have drawn a second Hedron and really need some gas. Hedron seems like a reasonable card in a controlling ramp deck and it shouldn't be dismissed immediately as I think people may be prone to do with a card like this.
Option 5 – Magical Christmas Land
Harking all the way back to the World Championships, another option for powering out Eldrazi spells early is a strategy based on Conley Woods' "Magical Christmas Land" deck. Four Harrow, four Khalni Heart Expedition, and four Lotus Cobra near to guarantee you a head start on mana, and any two in combination lead to some explosive starts. Getting to 10 is a significantly bigger ask than getting to 7 for Violent Ultimatum, though, so powering out turn 3 Eldrazi with this strategy might be outside the realms of reasonable possibility.
I think the land destruction angle Conley took with this deck originally might be due for a comeback though, with everyone wanting to play super-expensive spells. I expect that blowing up an Eldrazi Temple will be a massive setback to a dedicated Eldrazi deck. Spreading Seas will not be terribly effective at stopping colourless Eldrazi spells for obvious reasons, but perhaps using a Joraga Treespeaker to power out turn 3 Acidic Slime or Mold Shambler is a good way to go. Red offers Roiling Terrain, Goblin Ruinblaster and Demolish as extra land destruction options, but it is embarrassing how much I would like to play Drain the Well in ROE-era standard.
First you get the mana...
Then you get the Eldrazi. Or the Deathless Angel, or the Gelatinous Genesis, or the Pestilence Demon... hopefully this article has made it a bit easier for you to figure out the boring bits - how you are going to play all those awesome expensive spells coming in Rise of the Eldrazi. That leaves you more time to consider the most interesting way to kill your opponent, whether with a huge monster, Rite of Replication kicked, or a massive Banefire directed at their face. Leave a comment, let me know how you are going to make your mana, tell us about any interesting interactions that come up at the prerelease, and see me same time next week for my financial guide to Rise of the Eldrazi!
