One of the less-deck choice from the recent Starcity Games Standard Open last weekend that did finished in the Top 32 was this build by Dan Jessup. He decided to go all-White despite of the variance of the two-color decks in the format. Here is his version of Big White which he finished to a 22nd place in the tournament.

Maindeck
Creatures (20)
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Archangel Avacyn

Planeswalkers (4)
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Spells (10)
2 Secure the Wastes
4 Spatial Contortion
4 Declaration in Stone

Lands (26)
14 Plains
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Caves of Koilos
2 Foundry of the Consuls
2 Westvale Abbey

Sideboard
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
1 Quarantine Field
2 Silkwrap
1 Linvala, the Preserver
1 Planar Outburst
2 Tragic Arrogance

Eldrazi Red was one of my first Standard decks after the rotation. While it is not that good with regards to speed and performance as compared to its Modern version before the Eye was banned, I still enjoyed its early aggression and late-game smashing with Chandra’s Elementals.

With the coming of Eldritch Moon where the predicted return of Emrakul and her Eldrazi minions became a reality, I came up with a rare Eldrazi card previewed that I think will solidify Black as the color of choice for the archetype. Here is the card:

Presenting my first version of Eldrazi Black in EMN Standard:

Eldrazi Black by Mark Ian Alloso
Standard

Creatures
4 Bearer of Silence
4 Distended Mindbender
4 Hedron Crawler
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Wasteland Strangler

Spells
1 Collective Brutality
1 Grasp of Darkness
4 Spatial Contortion
1 Ruinous Path
2 Warping Wail

Lands
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Foundry of the Consuls
1 Mirrorpool
1 Ruins of Oran-Rief
3 Westvale Abbey
1 Nephalia Academy
9 Swamp
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Spawning Bed

Last Sunday held another Standard constructed tournament at Critical Hit: Comics and Games in Atria. I decided to join this time, as opposed before I was only the TO, to refresh myself of the gameplay of the current metagame. The deck I played was Eldrazi Red with old archetype back when Shadows over Innistrad has just entered the format. This time list was somewhat complete as we were able to buy Thought-knot Seers. The deck components somewhat looks like this:

4 x Hangarback Walker
4 x Hedron Crawler
3 x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 x Reality Smasher
4 x Thopter Engineer
3 x Thought-Knot Seer
4 x Vile Aggregate

4 x Chandra, Flamecaller
2 x Roast
3 x Spatial Contortion

There were 8 players present at that time so it was a 3-round tournament. Here is a short summary of the results of my matchups:

Round 1 vs Whine Weenie, won 2-0

Round 2 vs G/W Tokens, won 2-1

Round 3 vs R/G Ramp, won 2-0

All three matches were very close. For instance, I was down to one life against Mono White but as a result of correct blocks and combat tricks, she could not finish me off and ran out of gas. I was able to recover with TKS, Reality Smasher and Pia and Kiran Nalaar. Tokens was also a very hard match, with Avacyn clearly giving him advantage over combat blocks. Game 3 got me ahead as he mulligan to 5 and was somewhat stuck on 3 mana. It was still a close match but I was able to win the game with an activated Foundry of the Consuls to attack him on one life.

I finished in first place and got the first priority pick on the rares from the booster packs. Luckily I got Fortified Village as I badly needed that card for my Naya Planeswalkers deck which I am planning to build this week and also my deck of choice for the upcoming WMCQ I in June.

Anyhow, I hope this weekly Sunday Standard tourney will continue on the coming weeks as one way for the community to enjoy playing the format as well as tournament experience for those who are new of the game.

Until the next post.

Versions of an Eldrazi aggro deck has been appearing in Magic Online Daily tournaments and it is obvious that the deck archetype will be one of the cornerstones of Standard after the arrivals of Shadows over Innistrad. One version that I have been looking on for a possibility is Black Red Eldrazi. The initial components would be the following:

Creatures
4 Forerunner of Slaughter
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Dust Stalker
4 Reality Smasher
4 Flayer Drone
3 Bearer of Silence
2 Eldrazi Obligator

Spells
4 Transgress the Mind
2 Spatial Contortion
1 Ruinous Path

Looking at the current spoilers list of Shadows over Innistrad, we still have limited options on what new cards we will add in the deck. I am speculating the return of Black Red Vampires so we might want to look for a few components there. Here are the current options:

Heir of Falkenrath
Elusive Tormentor
Mindwrack Demon

The Heir of Falkenrath is a solid two drop in itself though discarding a card can become our drawback in certain scenarios because as an aggro deck, we needed more cards as possible. The tormentor is hard to kill and a 4/4 body for four is already good. What we do not need here though is to pile up the four-drops as it can result to clunky draws.

For removals, we have the one casting cost Sinister Concoction and Fiery Temper but we do not have a discard engine yet.

As for the mana fixing and colorless mana source, we have a few land cards from Oath like Crumbling Vestige and Corrupted Crossroads.

I won’t post the full decklist just yet as we wait for more card previews from Shadows over Innistrad but maybe by next week we will have version one of the deck.

That is a wrap for now. Until the next post.