Playing white eldrazi against mentor w/ fow's. On the play and your opening hand is:

mox pearl, mana crypt, sol ring, thorn of amethyst, phyrexian revoker, loadstone golem

Whats your turn 1 play?

Turn 2 you draw thalia. With adjustments from hand above what is turn 2?

I went pearl, crypt, tap crypt for sol ring. Tapped sol ring for thorn which got forced then used last 2 mana for revoker naming jace.
Turn 2 I went pearl/crypt for thalia over LSG figuring I'd rather not pay 3 for thalia next turn.

Just curious if anybody would have opened with LSG on turn 1.

I personally don't see many lines in playing the T1 Golem in this scenario that work out, especially when you have a Thorn you can play it through. The only reason I would ever stick the T1 Golem is if a more animated player offered a "tell" that helped inform whether they might have FoW (also factoring in mulligans, snapkeep, etc). Seems like a high risk, low reward gamble, when you can pretty adequately protect your golem. Racing with Revoker rarely works out for me-

I probably would open with Lodestone because I'm greedy but the more I think about it the more I think that's wrong anyway. Thorn slows down their Moxen if they have any and then T2 Revoker + Thalia is doubly effective.

Thanks for asking this question. I've been playing White Eldrazi a lot lately and I'm new to non-blue decks. I'm sure I'm making a lot of less than optimal plays and I'm looking forward to more input in this thread.

i would have went revoker first then thorn because if they counter revoker, then thorn resolves, and then you are much more likely to get lodestone to resolve because it shuts down any turn one plays besides moxen and then you bury them under taxing effects, for turn two i would have played thalia then turn three lodestone, but my turn one wouldnt have changed.

Edit: some thing i just thought about to is that if both revoker and thorn got force of willed, turn two i would definitely play golemn because the chances of them having a 4 card hand (after two forces and two exiled blue cards) with another force plus blue card is highly unlikely, i would say its safe to assume two of those cards are mana sources of some type(either moxen, land, so on and so forth), and even if they did have third force they are so far behind it would be ridiculous but as i said, if they had double force on your turn one i highly doubt they have a third one on your turn two.

T1: Mox, Sol Ring, Crypt, Thorn
T2: Thalia + Revoker if they've played a mana accelerant, Lodestone if they haven't

Don't see any other lines.

@JuzamJim isn't it uneccessary to play the crypt?

@letseeker a blind Revoker is extremely unlikely to draw out a Force though, unless the opponent is holding Black Lotus, or T1 Dack Fayden with no other action.

@skecr8r
Yeah, you're right, that's probably not necessary.

First of all, opponent might reduce our choice by missteping our sol ring.

Are we missing a card or did we indeed mull to 6? With scrying bottom or do we know we draw Thalia?

I think i would go with thorn, if fow'd, go. I would not go with a blink revoker which is a savannah lion.
We have 5 manas, we'll either draw a threat or a mana source to go golem+revoker next turn

@evouga there is still a chance they force it because they have dack or jace in hand, my reasoning is that thorn is a must counter for blue decks but while revoker isn't, there is still a chance it gets countered, and personally if I had to pick a card to get countered it would be revoker.

I would play. Pearl, Sol Ring and then Thorn... Leaving the Crypt in hand. If Sol ring get's a Misstep, I would then play Crypt and continue into Thorn.

I think that leaves as little to chance as possible. And it makes most of your deck into good draws for the next turn. Any Thalia, Tks, next Thorn, Wingmare (Not sure you are playing it), or Strip or Waste or Cavern are likely very good draws now. Playing t1 Thorn, into t2 Thalia, into t3 Lodestone has got to be beating most things that aren't Dredge.

I play blue a lot, and I would be much much more likely to Force a Thorn than a blind Revoker. Thorn puts incredible pressure on one or two land hands that are looking to land a Preordain and find more land. From the blue side, it's very likely to see a line where the blue deck doesn't have Force, but has... let's say turn 1 Ancestral even. You play Thorn, they play land and Ancestral and are tapped out with Thorn in play. You can now follow up with things like Thalia + Wasteland... or a Lodestone and it barely even matters what they have in hand. They are just busted.

@CwaM said:

First of all, opponent might reduce our choice by missteping our sol ring.

Are we missing a card or did we indeed mull to 6? With scrying bottom or do we know we draw Thalia?

I think i would go with thorn, if fow'd, go. I would not go with a blink revoker which is a savannah lion.
We have 5 manas, we'll either draw a threat or a mana source to go golem+revoker next turn

Good catch. The 7th card was wasteland which is why I wanted to use the thorn to bait out the force (which is what happened), drop the revoker naming either mox sapphire or lotus then finally play my land showing a waste, figuring on turn 2 I could put thru the golem to get the sphere affect. Then I drew for turn 2 and drew into thalia and opted for thalia over LSG for turn 2.

I also figured if I went pearl, crypt, sol ring and the ring did get stepped, I always had the revoker still on turn 1

This is awkward without land, because I really want to lead with Thorn, but then I shut off my own Sol Ring until the following turn, which thus leaves little pressure (not knowing the thalia is there) on your 2nd turn, so let's evaluate:

Option 1:

• Turn 1, you lead with Mana Crypt and Mox Pearl, then Sol Ring, and then play the Thorn. In theory, you follow up with Revoker on Black Lotus as that's the scariest turn 1 thing they can do.
  -Turn 2, you draw Thalia, but you cast Loadstone Golem.
• Turn 3, you cast Thalia.
  :Risks:
• Your opponent can Mistep the Sol Ring (assuming they keep this in because they're a Mentor deck and you have Plowshares post-board as your only way to effectively stop their Mentor). This leaves you with no turn 2 play (again, not knowing aboutThalia).
• Your opponent Forces your Thorn. I think this is a pretty fine situation for you, as you follow up with Golem if they don't Vintage you on their turn 1, after removing 2 cards from hand.
• They do both the above. You're in a WORLD of hurt now.

Option 2

• You lead all the way with Lodestone.
  Risks:
• They Force lodestone. You have a Thorn + Revoker to follow up (and then draw Thalia for the real spice)
• They allow it to resolve, then play a mox or two, plow it etc, or just get ahead of you on mana.

There's other options, But I think the two I outlined are the two most reasonable.

I would go with the following line:

Mana Crypt, Mox Pearl. Sol Ring. Regardless of Mistep or not, I play Thorn. If it isn't mistepped and Thorn isn't FOWed, I play Revoker on Lotus, and then follow up my turn 2 with Golem. Basic @Twaun007 Shops Philosophy applies here: I always want to do 2 disruptive things on Turn 1.

If they Misstep the Sol Ring, Thorn gives them a very small shot of just doing Vintage things on their turn 1.
If they Force the Thorn, Revoking Lotus gives them a very small shot of just doing Vintage things on their turn 1.
If they Misstep the Sol ring AND force the Thorn, their 4 Card hand + Draw Step gives them a very small shot of just doing Vintage things on their turn 1.

7th card was wasteland?! That opens up a ton of plays, but here's mine:

Mana Crypt, Mox Pearl, Thorn. Wasteland, Sol Ring, Revoker on Lotus.
Turn 2, Draw Thalia. Tank. Tap Pearl and Crypt, play Thalia. Tap Sol Ring and Wasteland, Play Lodestone Golem.

It's Vintage, so you're playing the good ol' game of "does he have force?"
Does he have force? You might lose.
Does he NOT have force? He's fucked.

@Soly said:

7th card was wasteland?! That opens up a ton of plays, but here's mine:

Mana Crypt, Mox Pearl, Thorn. Wasteland, Sol Ring, Revoker on Lotus.
Turn 2, Draw Thalia. Tank. Tap Pearl and Crypt, play Thalia. Tap Sol Ring and Wasteland, Play Lodestone Golem.

It's Vintage, so you're playing the good ol' game of "does he have force?"
Does he have force? You might lose.
Does he NOT have force? He's fucked.

You should know Soly - I was playing you.

Now here's an interesting twist I thought of and one I'd like to really hear some thoughts on. Instead wasteland, that 7th card is black lotus.
Assuming all your mana resolves do you lead with LSG to bait the FoW or lead with thorn to bait? My initial gut says bait with thorn then drop golem and smash face. BUT, here's 2 things to consider: Golem will affect most of the rest of your deck making your eldrazi and white creatures 1 more, thorn won't. Golem is more susceptible to hate like StP. So if you lead with thorn and it gets forced you can easily lose your lock piece to a 1 (now 2) CC card. But if you lead with golem and it gets Forced the thorn will essentially be 1 sided and is more likely to stick around longer. Personally I think in this environment of heavy creature removal you bait with the LSG.

Golem can win the game on it's own, so you lead with Thorn ALWAYS, and resolve Golem. If he forces Thorn, you're fine, if he doesn't force Thorn, you'll Probably win the Game with the wasteland before he stabilizes.

I thought that was the game you're referring to. And for the record, it wasn't Mentor/Fow... I only have 1 Mentor. It was Hodge-Podge-of-Creatures+Gush. It was also 5 color.

@Soly said:

Golem can win the game on it's own, so you lead with Thorn ALWAYS, and resolve Golem. If he forces Thorn, you're fine, if he doesn't force Thorn, you'll Probably win the Game with the wasteland before he stabilizes.

I thought that was the game you're referring to. And for the record, it wasn't Mentor/Fow... I only have 1 Mentor. It was Hodge-Podge-of-Creatures+Gush. It was also 5 color.

Very true and I really liked that decklist. But I didn't know any of that at the time. Based on what I had seen I assumed it was a mentor based gush deck packing FoW and StP's. It turned out to be packing those and other removal for me to deal with. This is the game you ended up scooping early to when after getting thalia and I think lsg and a chalice at 1 on turn 3 or 4 you scooped.
We had another game where I had a similar string of cards early on that I lost when you StP'd a creature, forced one and hit my golem cast thru caverns with MBT then hit a gush and treasure cruise to reload your hand.

@Khahan i'd answer before knowing other opinions. I'd open with pearl into sol ring. If countered,i play crypt, otherwise it stays in hand. Play thorn.
T2: play crypt if it was still in hand. Play revoker for any mox opponent played or lotus, but not jace. And then play thalia if sol ring was not countered.
T3 golem

I am super greedy. I would go Pearl into Crypt. If they both stick I would try for the Sol Ring into Thorn. if the Ring eats a MM I will crypt into Revoker most likely.