I played a pretty stock White Eldrazi list at EW. I ran into Shops 4 times and went 1-3. Overall I was 5-5. I beat Blue and Oath decks. I lost to Shops 3 times, survival once, and red stompy with 2nd turn blood moon both games.

White Eldrazi is a fine deck, but hopeless against Shops. I am not saying anything new or enlightening. This is almost my derpstep torch bearing. Can't beat Shops. Nothing new.

Survival is a bad matchup in my opinion. You need a revoker or Thalia 2.0 or wasteland. But Containment priests are great cards.

The White Eldrazi maindeck continues to solidify; recently, everyone’s been running Trinisphere and a singleton Null Rod. I have never been a huge Trinisphere fan in the deck (it’s the only real symmetrical lockpiece), and one Null Rod feels strange in a deck with no library manipulation. Anyone here have insight into why these are universal inclusions right now - is it strategic, or just one successful list that keeps getting copied?

UW Lavinia Eldrazi has recently been supplanting straight White Eldrazi. Does anyone here have experience playing with/against Lavinia Eldrazi? I’m curious how castable Lavinia and sideboard Energy Flux have been for people - does 4 Adarkar Wastes get the job done, or are some Tundras necessary? And does Lavinia bring enough to the table to justify making our already-shaky manabase even worse?

I wanted to play Eldrazi at Romancing The Stones yesterday, but I grabbed the wrong deckbox and went a nice 1-4 on Xerox. . Oh well.

I was pretty interested in trying out Lavinia. Unfortunately, in the 2 weeks leading up to the event, I didn't have time for any actual games. However, I still wanted to do some quick testing to see how castable Lavinia was in a list replacing 4 Plains with 4 Adarkar Wastes. After 100 goldfishing hands, here's what I found

• Lavinia was in my opener: 29 hands
• Castable Turn 1: 7 hands
• Castable Turn 2: 9 hands
• Castable Turn 3+: 13 hands
• Drew her on Turn 3+ and still couldn't cast: 8 hands

In other words, in 100 hands I drew Lavinia a total of 37 times, of which I had difficulty casting her 21 times. To me, that's really problematic for a deck that wants to make lock pieces every single turn. Of course, goldfishing doesn't mean all that much, but it was an interesting little test for me. Would love to hear how she's been for other people!

Discussion's kinda quiet around here, but it's a pretty interesting time in Eldraziland. In addition to the rise in Colorless Eldrazi, White Eldrazi pilots have been making some cool innovations. The one that jumps out to me: trimming Phyrexian Revoker. 6 months ago, I would have told you that that card will always be a 4-of until Shops gets it restricted. But now, we're not only seeing lists trimming down to 3 copies, we're seeing as few as 1 and 0 copies! I love it. Revoker's ability and CMC are obviously great, but I've had plenty of Hurkyl's blowouts when my board is overly reliant on Revoker. It seems like Eldrazi pilots are realizing that their best shot in the meta is to simply sidestep all the hate targeted at Shops.

Hey there Stuart,

Glad to talk about this here, I was answering you in twitter but I hate texting on my cell phone . I'd like to share some thoughts:

• As I told you earlier, trimming Revokers is mainly a meta call. Revokers are good for nullifying Planeswalkers and nasty artifact creatures like Ravagers and Ballistas, but they are too fragile against artifact removal. Right now I prefer Glowriders over Revokers: with 4 Glowriders, 3 Thalia GoT, 1 Thorn and 1 Trinisphere (and our clock), we try to tax enough the opponent to make him really difficult to cast his PWs anyway. Also, in the late months I'm struggling to beat Jeskai Pyromancer builds, so I prefer Glowriders over Revokers.

• I have to admit I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with Workshop decks; it seems that 3 Kataki and 3 Suppression Field in the SB are not enough (I'm also siding in Ratchet Bombs, although they nonbo with SField; I side out CotV, Thorn, 3sphere, 2 Thalia GoT and 3 Glowriders). I'm not sure if there is just variance or if I should really try to improve the match up.

• About Suppression Field, I think it's a sweet tech against Shops and Survival, but I played against both decks last tournament and I never drew it (I won vs Survival anyway thanks to him flooding in both games).

• All in all, there's a thing I dislike about my build: I'm playing way too many mana sources, I just don't see what to cut. I desperately need colorless mana AND white mana, and off-color moxes are also necessary to help me to get some big play first turn (from Thalia GoT to Reality Smasher). But 31 sources are a lot, and is usual finding opening hands with 5-6 sources that I have to mulligan. Thoughts?

• One last thing: I'm not even able to think how Vintage will be affected with the new London mulligan (I truly hope it will not be implemented). Do you think White Eldrazi will be better or worse?

Thanks for reading!

...sorry for doubleposting, but I'm thinking about The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale as a SB answer to Mentor/Pyromancer tokens, Dredge zombies and Workshop creatures. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Eldrazi Temple can pay for the Tabernacle upkeep cost of 2 Eldrazi creatures. I might switch the 2 Ratchet Bombs for 2 Tabernacles next month. This way, the number of artifacts played would be the absolute minimum (mana rocks and restricted bombs).

@grr said in White Eldrazi:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Eldrazi Temple can pay for the Tabernacle upkeep cost of 2 Eldrazi creatures.

it makes 2 mana for spells or activated abilities, and tabernacle gives them triggered abilities.

@blindtherapy you're right, I skipped the "activate" part. Someday I'll learn to read, I hope Thanks!

Recently, I've tried splashing Blue for Lavinia and that means I can put a couple of Energy Flux into the sideboard. That's an absolute beating against Shops. In one game (game 3) last weekend, I got an opener with Energy Flux. My opponent, on the play dropped a turn one Trinisphere. I put down an Ancient Tomb, then, on turn 2 played Adarkar Wastes, took 3 damage from my lands, but played Energy Flux and pretty much closed out the game right away.

@prn I'm not convinced about adding Lavinia to White Eldrazi; we are already punishing our opponents with Thalias, Thorn and Glowriders with the mono-white versión, and adding Adarkar Wastes makes us more vulnerable to Wastelands.

I prefer Kataki instead of Energy Flux because it's a creature, so we can play it out of Cavern of Souls, costs 1 less, is unaffected by Thalia/Thorn/Glowrider, and does not compromise our manabase. Sure, its effect is half as broken as Energy Flux's effect, but I prefer to play safer.

The more I think about it, the more I'm liking a couple Tabernacles in the sideboard. I'll test them next tournament instead of Ratchet Bombs.

@prn Awesome to hear UW Eldrazi worked for you! What did your manabase look like? When I tested UW, I swapped my 4 Plains for 4 Adarkar Wastes and had huge issues casting Lavinia. Some lists are also playing Tundra, and while that would definitely make casting your blue cards a lot easier, I don't see a way of fitting Tundras into the list that I like.

@gRR Kataki's issue against Shops is that he can be Ballista'd really easily - you kinda need Kataki and either Null Rod or Revoker to protect him. I still like Kataki, but Flux is definitely much stronger if you can resolve it. Tabernacle is a great idea, though - would love to hear how it works for you.

@stuart I play 2 Karakas, they may help protecting Kataki (I must have it in play and untapped, though). I also play Suppression Field, so activating Ballista should cost them 2 mana. And I'll try Tabernacle too, so the idea will be that they will have to pay for too many costs to do their thing.

More exciting developments in the Eldrazi world: Karn, the Great Creator has been seeing some initial success! @ChubbyRain 5-0'd with an interesting Colorless Karn list, and then @diophan won a Challenge with a similar list. That same weekend, local Austin player Kai top 4'd a 25-man event with a White Karn list.

I have no idea if this is the future of the archetype, but Karn adds some interesting play to a deck that otherwise has no card selection (and obviously the static ability is absurdly good).

@stuart I tried Karn in other Shops builds but couldn't cast him consistently, so then I moved on to Eldrazi. He was much better (i.e. I could actually cast him) and the legacy tech of Grim Monolith was good enough that I added a second. Might be worth adding a 3rd. It dramatically increases your turn 1 Karn and TKS rate.

Karn himself was excellent, but not really as a splashy card like in the Legacy version. Eldrazi has always been a deck that wanted a null rod effect but whose mana base was never really consistent enough to support it. The one-sided Null Rod effect is huge and then you just end up winning with value plays like grabbing the Metamorph or Ballista or just +1 for damage or pick off Moxen against PO so even if they Chain, all their Moxen are dead and they can't win. Also keeps him from randomly dying to Bolt. I never really grabbed bombs like E Bridge or Lattice and am not sure if they are necessary. Ryan didn't think so and cut Bridge for Dismember and was a bit ambivalent in the debrief as it would have helped in his loss against Survival, but he's pretty sure he misplayed somewhere as he wasn't comfortable with that matchup (it was a last minute audible).

Not sure how Karn would play out in White Eldrazi as I've generally stayed away from the deck due to the even worse manabase. I'll let others work on that. Losing Grim Monolith and Mana Vault would make Karn much harder to cast though.

Wow, I was trying a Karndrazi build after reading an article about it in Modern. My initial list was similar to @diophan's. But now I am trying a bolder approach and I'm having an insane win rate. Basically, it is a "non-tax" beatdown list. Just wanted to share it:

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Eye of Ugin
1 City of Traitors
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Endless One
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Endbringer
2 Dismember
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Karn, the Great Creator

2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Trinisphere
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Pithing Needle
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Walking Ballista

Edit: Sideboard

Really cool stuff. Assuming this won't just be a flash in a pan, does it make sense for one of y'all to make a separate Karndrazi thread?

Not it!

Seriously, I play too many archetypes and jank brews and have already moved on to some sort of TNT reboot. Cycle Hollow One, Weld it back... I only commented here because I got tagged.

Hey there folks,

This last Saturday I won the May edition of the Catalan Vintage League with White Eldrazi. We were only 18 players this time, less players ever in a LCV, which is very bad news. Anyway, here's the decklist I played:

Maindeck:
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Eldrazi Temple
2 Karakas
5 Plains
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Containment Priest
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Glowrider
4 Reality Smasher
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Black Lotus
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
Sideboard:
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Spirit of the Labyrinth
4 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Suppression Field

I will write no report, just some random thoughts and ideas. Anyway, 3 of my 6 matches were featured, so they will be posted in the EternalCatala channel of YouTube in a few days; I'll let you know when they'll be uploaded.
I played against:

Round 1, win 2-1 vs UR Pyro uploaded to twitch, from 0:38:19 to 1:09:23
Round 2, win 2-0 vs Survival
Round 3, win 2-0 vs Jeskai
Round 4 & 5, ID
1st qualified in the Swiss, so I started all rounds of Top 8
Top 8, win 2-0 vs UR Pyro (same player as round 1)
Top 4, win 2-0 vs PO Mentor uploaded to twitch, from 0:22:05 to 0:44:40
Final, win 2-0 vs Jeskai (same player as round 3) uploaded to twitch, from 1:16:44 to 1:45:13

Total, 6-0 in matches, 12-1 in games. Not bad

Thoughts:

• War of the Spark has been, strangely enough, a blessing for White Eldrazi. Only in the Top 8 decks there was 10 Narsets, 7 Karns, 2 Teferis and 1 Ashiok, cards that are almost (or totally) irrelevant to our gameplan. Karn might be a problem if our opponent reaches the mana to cast it through all our taxing effects -and- we have some mana rock in play, and that's all. So our opponents are jamming more and more cards that do nothing against us, which seems OK to me.

• On the other hand, some folks are starting to pack Infernal Reckoning on their sideboards, which I don't especially like!

• I managed to dodge the Workshop players (my round 4 opponent played Forgemaster MUD with 3x the new Karn, but we IDd), so I'm unsure about the match. I suppose it will range between difficult and unwinnable, but who knows, maybe the mix between Tabernacle, Kataki and Suppression Field actually works!

• The deck performed wonderfully the whole day. I play 31 mana sources, which is way too much, but I got mana flooded only in the one game I lost. The rest of the day, my draws were totally smooth. I'm a mediocre player at my best days, and you'll be able to spot a lot of misplays when my games will be uploaded to YouTube, but the deck compensated my lack of skill.

• Since this Saturday, I'm testing sideboarding 2x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale as an answer against Workshops and Pyromancer tokens. I drew Tabernacle only in the 2nd game of Top 8, and I didn't even played it because I could manage the tokens my opponent played without it. Anyway I like the card and the tech, so I'll keep them for the next tournaments.

• I'm starting to side out all my non-mana artifacts (chalice, thorn and trinisphere on the draw) game 2, just to leave my opponents totally without targets for their hate. If they want to Smelt a Mox, I can live with that. I'm not sure if that's a good strategy anyway.

• Sunday I also made Top 8 in Catalan Old School League with Eureka, so I suppose last weekend was my weekend

I'll edit this message if I think about some other thoughts to share.

Thanks for reading, sorry for my bad English and long live Eldrazi!

Editted previous post with links to the 1st round, top 4 and finals on twitch. Enjoy!