[Book] Eldrazi Meditations

JACO

After you check out the free companion article "Unpowered Vintage Eldrazi (aka JacoDrazi) - A Double Tourney Report," if you're interested in learning more about the ins, outs, and corner cases of Eldrazi, please check out my new short book on the subject.

Eldrazi Meditations

This extended length treatise chronicles the spread of Eldrazi from its Modern lineage to its impact on Vintage, along with how to build and play a variety of Eldrazi decks in Vintage. With in-depth analysis of deck building tactical options, granular mana source construction, and sideboarding strategy, this book dives deep on Vintage Eldrazi strategies, with translatable lessons for the Vintage novice and the battle-hardened expert alike.

This is now available in Digital Download PDF, Paperback, and Hard Cover at the link above. Please let me know your thoughts, and if there's anything you'd like to see addressed in a future potential revision, what you enjoyed, or what could be expanded upon. Thanks for reading!

Islandswamp

I started reading this and I love it so far. I was annoyed that I had to work so much in the past week, because it prevented me from finishing it. Hopefully I'll have some free time this weekend.

Dave Kaplan

Excellent read. This is a good book for a tournament player looking to advance their game to go from breaking even to consistently T8ing. The analysis is helpful not just for an Eldrazi player but for any strategy.

JACO

We have recently updated this work, and re-titled it Eldrazi Meditations. The new version corrects some typos, has additional Appendices with tournament reports, and has included expanded thoughts on cards such as Sanctum Prelate and Razormane Masticore. If you have already purchased it, an updated licensed copy will be emailed directly to you.

MaximumCDawg

Oh god, does this mean everyone on the Drain has to write a book now.

Sheesh, fine.

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Smmenen

@MaximumCDawg said:

Oh god, does this mean everyone on the Drain has to write a book now.

The more deep Vintage content, the better, imo. Jaco's performance and work on Eldrazi reflects his expertise, and this is a not only a great primer, but also a handy reference guide.

How come when I build a deck, it's just RUG Delver, but when Jaco builds a deck, his name is in it?! Unfair.

All kidding aside, I haven't checked this out yet. But I'm with Smmenen in feeling that more vintage content is ALWAYS better.

JACO

@MaximumCDawg said:

Oh god, does this mean everyone on the Drain has to write a book now.

I suppose rather than write a long form work to answer a lot of questions that have repeatedly been asked, everyone on the Drain could stick to just consistently writing useless posts instead.

Islandswamp

@Smmenen I agree. I'm especially a fan of the longer articles and the e-books. The depth of strategy and history are what drew me to Vintage in the first place.
Keep the good stuff coming @jaco and @Smmenen .

cleverpseudonym

Can i suggest that the links in the book be linking to The Way Back Machine or other internet archive? I don't really trust MTGTop8, for example, to be around in 5 years. More power if they are, but I figure I will be reading this in 5 years again, don't want all the links to be broken.

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boerma

@mickey.nobilis So, speculative fiction?

yugular

Im few pages in and love it so far!Thanks for putting out such interesting and well written Vintage content.

CHA1N5

New from Tentacle Central, Spaghetti Lectern or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ramen.

mdkubiak

Love the book, Jaco. Keep up the excellent work.

Islandswamp

@CHA1N5 said:

New from Tentacle Central, Spaghetti Lectern or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ramen.

Love it. I've been hoping that "Spaghetti Hatebears" would take off as a name for White Eldrazi for a while now.

Aelien

@Islandswamp said

I've been hoping that "Spaghetti Hatebears" would take off as a name for White Eldrazi for a while now.

Yeah why are new Deck names so boring now? Spaghetti Hatebears or Vanilla Spaghetti would be a way cooler name.
I think there is currently a pretty cool standard combo deck that utilizes the new red donate: Harmless offering. Why didn't they name the deck Kitty-trix , what happened to the times decks where named after breakfast cereals and stuff?

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JACO

@mickey.nobilis said:

Before I go ahead and convert today's Whopperito fund into a book about how to spend my Vintage money wisely, does this book make mention of the identical builds of the Green JacoDrazi (WombaDrazi?) that have placed? I believe EE4 preceded even the first "printing", but I wanted to make sure the book was a good resource for me since Mark Hornung is always shouting in my ear to play his version of things.

I do talk about World Breaker a little bit, and adopt it (back) in the latest version of the deck presented in the book. Each card that I viewed as a reasonable tournament consideration is canvassed and discussed in Chapters 3 through 6.

I had tested World Breaker in my first versions of Eldrazi (when Lodestone was still legal as a 4-of even), but then abandon it, while still keeping Ulamog in the sideboard. My latest version adopts 1 World Breaker in the main deck, in favor of a Matter Reshaper, and still plays 1 Ulamog in the sideboard (Ulamog just deals with more random hate, albeit at a higher cost). As I mention in the book, playing any more than 1 or 2 World Breakers requires a slight reworking of the mana base to accommodate the green (most likely Brushland in 'Colorless' Eldrazi, and/or Horizon Canopy in WG Eldrazi decks).