Is It All Ingest?

Posted on September 25, 2015

This week on Brainstorm Brewery, we trudged through our usual set review for Battle for Zendikar, looking for the gems among the rough. One of the few cards I found that I felt was undervalued, as a bulk rare, was Blight Herder. This card reminds me of Cloudgoat Ranger, trading in the flying pump for some mana-ramp and a larger body. As we progressed down the spoiler, we came to a point wondering whether is there enough ingest or other ways to remove cards to make all of these Eldrazi playable. This week, I want to look at the set from a mechanics standpoint and see what we can do to form the most playable Eldrazi deck while not sacrificing consistency.

With Blight Herder leading the pack, I felt it was better suited as either a midrange shell or a ramp-to-Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger design. As I have already covered a few ramp variants, I want to keep this more midrange this week, but that doesn't mean we won't have a top end—I just want to focus on something slightly more well-rounded over playing See the Unwritten and trying to hit the lottery.

The logical first step in looking at this archetype is to figure out how many cards we want to play that need fuel from exile. This will give us an idea on how deep into that subtheme we need to be going. Ideally, I want to keep the count under twelve, but if the theme proves strong enough, I would consider moving to more.

I expected to see at least a few cards I wanted to play next to Blight Herder, but I made it halfway through blue before I found my first. While white does not have any Eldrazi, that means we are locking ourselves into colors already, as there seem to be no real other playable ones that are colorless. Ulamog's Reclaimer is not exactly the most exciting of cards, and another 5-drop isn’t exactly what we are looking for, but it does come with quite the stats upgrade over its predecessors as well as remaining a single color. If we end up playing a higher density of draw effects or removal spells, this becomes a better option, but for now, I am not excited about playing more than one or two.

Mind Raker seems to be a large investment at four to just simply generate a discard, but with some of the best discard leaving the format, this may prove to be playable. As with Ulamog's Reclaimer, I am not excited about this card in particular unless we are moving toward a control deck. I just have a hard time picturing control being able to create the fuel these decks need without running creatures early, and that severely limits the Wrath of God effects you can run. It just does not seem worth the effort when you already have Dragons to fill out those decks.

Finally, as we approach the end of black, we have our first real candidate that I am happy to play as a four-of: Wasteland Strangler. This card seems fine on curve and can certainly provide some two-for-ones this deck will need to make the late game. The fact that this only requires one card to be in exile means we have a greater chance of being able to support this on turn three while also still being relevant in the late game. It’s a good start to our deck, as it’s much nicer on the curve than the last two options.

While I was looking more toward creatures when I began this list, it seems a removal spell is also viable, and that’s Processor Assault. While I have scoured the list already for a land destruction deck now that we have a new and improved Sowing Salt in Crumble to Dust, I had to shelve that idea. Being in red does open the options up in the sideboard, though, and that further fuels our value creatures and removal such as this. I am still not fully convinced red has enough to push me in that direction, but I would be curious to see a potential list if anyone has a brew.

All of green offers very little in the way of this strategy but does open new doors I am certain I will be exploring in the coming months. Eldrazi Scions do not seem to be much in terms of aggression, but at the rate green can provide them and some of the pumps other colors can contribute, it does seem that there may be something there. The only card that excited me for our current archetype is Void Attendant. Creating a loop of creatures in the late game could provide enough to overwhelm other midrange decks, and the extra mana you can carry between turns may also prove useful. I will probably stay away from green this week—I feel it will already be receiving plenty of attention moving forward, and it just further pushes us in a ramp direction.

Finally, as we head toward the bottom of the set, we have the card that I so desperately want to play that I am going to push at least those two colors: Ulamog's Nullifier. This is one of those cards I cannot understand in rarity—seriously, how is this not a rare? Either way, that means this deck may be even more budget than anticipated, which is a nice bonus when you try to play on Magic Online right after a set release. While this card does push us in a more control direction, I do not want to be a slave to that designation, as we will be filling out the early drops with creatures to fuel these value Eldrazi.

Being in blue and black also opens up a few great options for early ingest creatures in the form of one of my favorites, Fathom Feeder, and Salvage Drone. Both of these cards seem so simple in what they do, but I feel both feed into this strategy so well and should prove to be a great start to our curve. I want four of each and will probably top the ingest curve off with some number of 3-drops. There are a few to choose from, but I want to figure out how many colors we are playing and what the additional options may provide.

It seems that red has the support needed, but the mana concerns me, as we have no tri-land, and the same is true with white. I really do want to stay away from green, but if the mana is not manageable with the other two colors, that may be the best place to look. For now, I want to move forward with red, as it does seem to fit the synergy of the deck fairly well, and it provides some early removal the other two may lack. Ultimate Price is a great card, but I would much rather have less conditional early removal going into a new format, and red seems to be the place for that. White also has a strong push on the removal front, as Gideon's Reproach, Stasis Snare, and Quarantine Field seem right in line with the curve of this deck. The Field and Snare both also work well with our cards that are looking to put cards from exile into the graveyard, essentially nullifying any enchantment removal your opponent may have used to return his or her creature back.

So now that we have the basic outline, I’ll start with two ways you could take the deck moving forward, and after I see what the format looks like after the commotion of release, we can come back and tune as needed.

U/B Eldrazi ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Ryan Bushard

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Ob Nixilis Reignited

U/B Eldrazi ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Ryan Bushard

I am not sure how many cards you will need to exile to consistently hit, but I don't want to have to play cards like Infinite Obliteration to make this work, so I cut back on how many exile triggers we needed. I feel red certainly has some potential in these types of midrange lists. The more I mulled over the potential ways to shape these lists, I could not help but come up with more and more ideas. I am excited to also play with cards like Herald of Kozilek down the road, leaving me with high hopes for this season.

It seems so many players are grumbling that the format is slowing down some with the coming set, but in reality, I find these years the most enjoyable to play Magic, as value and skill are usually abundant in decks that put up good results. Casting your curve into a Siege Rhino is still an option that will win games, but you also have decks that are not as focused on keeping to the three-colored themes to play bombs, and for that, I am excited. The coming year should be great and also allows the needed reset so the power creep does not spiral out of control in the long term. If anyone has particular ideas he or she would like input on, feel free to send them in through the comments below or over Twitter.

Ryan Bushard

@CryppleCommand