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By: LSVLover4Lyfe, Jason Smoovy
May 03 2016 12:00pm
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Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad has come and gone. The PT has left us with a lot of interesting decks that have now started to take over the new metagame. Within only one weekend, the format has changed a lot. My perspective of RG Eldrazi is much different than it was a week ago since there has been a lot of changes within one of the decks that was able to survive rotation. I was about to give up on the deck since I did not like a lot of the natural variance in ramp decks and with having such a bad Mono-White match up, I thought it was time to throw in the towel. However, thanks to  De Jesus Freita's and his 8-2 standard PT record, my faith in the deck has been renewed.

De Jesus's RG Eldrazi
 
Creatures
1 Dragonlord Atarka
3 Endless One
4 Jaddi Offshoot
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
3 World Breaker
1 cards

Other Spells
3 Chandra, Flamecaller
4 Explosive Vegetation
4 Kozilek's Return
4 Nissa's Pilgrimage
3 Nissa's Renewal
4 Oath of Nissa
4 cards
Lands
4 Evolving Wilds
8 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Cinder Glade
4 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
1 Wastes
14 cards

Sideboard
1 Dragonlord Atarka
1 cards
Explosive Vegetation


The sideboard is the following (since the puremtgo decklist generator is not reading newer cards):

1 World Breaker, 1 Dragonlord Atarka, 2 Clip Wings, 4 Tireless Trackers, 2 Warping Wail, 1 Ulamong, the Ceaseless Hunger, 3 Spatial Contortion, and 1 Nissa's Renewal

At first I was skeptical of this deck since it plays Jaddi Offshoot, since I personally don't think it's a good card. It's in here for the obvious Aggro match ups, which again at first I did not like, but where it really shines is with Nissa's Renewal. Being able to gain 10 life is pretty amazing against some decks. The Offshoot is also not terrible against Brad Nelson's RG Googles Ramp since that deck is very dependent on the opponent having a low life total. The Offshoot does make the BW Midrange MU (Match Up) worse, but that deck is starting to lose popularity, making the Offshoot choice a decent one.

The key card in this deck is the Legacy/former Modern powerhouse Endless One. Before I did not think this creature was Standard playable, but I was very wrong. This creature is amazing for a few reasons. The first is that it is good in ANY match up. Good in the mirror since it's a threat, good against Aggro since it's an early play and good against Control since it's a threat. Endless One is also good in that it triggers Sanctum of Ugin, which is huge since very few cards in this deck can do that. Endless One fills a big hole in this deck and that was the question of "what do I do on turns 2-5 if I'm not ramping and am against aggro?"

Besides Endless One, this version just trims copies of World Bringers, Nissa's Renewals, Ulamogs, Dragonlord Atarkas and Chandras. The deck does not need 4 of these and the max was leading to clunky draws. I also like the addition of Evolving Wilds since this deck was having bad mana issues without them and there is also good synergy with Tireless Tracker and Jaddi Offshoot.

Here I am going to break down the major metagame match ups and how to sideboard as well as your game plan for the respective match ups.

Mono White Humans / UW Humans/ GW Humans / Any kind of Mono Color MU

Before the PT, I was clueless on how to beat this deck. Now this match is a cake walk. Your plan in this match up is to melt their board away with Kozilek's Return and Chandra. If your opening hand doesn't have these cards, you might want to mulligan into them since these two cards easily take care of this deck. After boarding your cutting most of your higher end since you won't have time. These are the changes I would make post board.

Out: -2 Ulamog, -3 Nissa's Renewal, -1 World Breaker

In: +2 Warping Wail, +3 Spatial Contortion +1 Dragonlord Atarka

BW Midrange / BW Tokens

This match has gotten slightly worse since you have some weaker cards now in your mainboard. I still think this is fine, especially after boarding since you also now have Warping Wail, a counter to Infinite Obliteration and other hand disruption spells. This is mildly grindy since your goal is to jam Ulamog quickly and get them off lands so they can't do much or just blow up as many of their planeswalkers as you can and try to out grind them. Some versions are still on the Westvale Abbey and Secure the Wastes to kill you plan, so I keep in a few Kozilek's Return against them. Against Non-Westvale Abbey decks, I cut them. 

Out: -4 Jaddi Offshoot -2 Kozelik's Return (all 4 if they are not running Abbey)

In: +4 Tireless Tracker +1 Ulamog + 1 Atarka +1 World Breaker +2 Warping Wail (if they are not on the Abbey plan)

Esper Control / Esper Dragons / Grixis Control / Jeskai Control / UR Control

 

I group all of these decks together since they are all trying to do the same thing, which is just out grind you. These are probably your best matchups since they are slow and have a hard time dealing with your abilities that work upon casting as well as your variety of threats. The main thing to always be thinking about against decks with black mana is playing around Infinite Obliteration and their hand disruption. These cards either destroy you or do nothing since you're extremely threat dense, especially after boarding. They also play a lot of do nothing cards like Grasp of Darkness, Languish, and Ultimate Price. UR Control is starting to phase out of the metagame, while Esper is starting to rise. Esper Control is more popular than Esper Dragons. There are some Grixis and Jeskai decks running around, but I really think that Esper is just a better version since it has access to Anguished Unmaking, which is really strong against you. Either way, always make these changes against these decks.

Out:-4 Offshoots -4 Kozilek's Return -1 Nissa's Renewal

In:+4 Tireless Tracker +2 Warping Wail +2 Clip Wings (mainly for Esper Dragons, board this in over Warping Wail) +1 Dragonlord Atarka +1 World Breaker +1 Ulamog

GW Tokens

I find this to be another easy matchup, maybe even easier than Esper variants since this deck plays zero hand disruption. The plan against this deck is to melt the board with Chandra or set up a melt down with Kozilek's Return / World Breaker or Endless One. I don't make too many changes in this match up since your main deck is very good against theirs. They don't pressure you fast nor do they do anything that scary. The biggest threat they have is the Westvale Abbey / Secure the Waste combo along with a board of tokens and Avacyn. These are the only things to really watch out for since you can lose to a bunch of instant speed tokens and Nissa Gideon combos if you don't play Kozilek's Return correctly. 

Boarding is super easy. Cut 1 World Breaker for 1 Atarka. No need to do anything else.

GB Midrange aka Season's Past / All other GBx Midrange Decks

I think I might go as far to say that this is probably an easier MU than Esper Control. The issue with their deck is that they have no real scary threats. This deck just hopes to resolve an Infinite Obliteration and grind you out. Most of the time it doesn't work since they have nothing that will close out the game very easily. Your game plan is just to play multiple threats that they cannot handle.  If you run into Jund or Sultai, I would assume the game plan is probably the same. Boarding is basically the same as the Esper Matchup. In fact it's the same card for card (minus the obvious Clip Wings for Esper Dragons). 

GB Husk 

Zulaport CutthroatNantuko HuskCollected Company

The irony that last week I mentioned that there was going to be some deck out there with these 3 cards. Well here you go and I must say for the record that people need to stop calling these decks "Aristocrat" decks since there are zero copies of a card with that name. Husk has been a deck way longer and it makes a lot more sense to call a deck by a card that's actually Standard legal in it instead of using names from 3 years ago just to sound hip. 

So yeah, there is a deck with these three cards and so far I find this match similar to Mono White except that your racing to clear their board before they can get Westvale Abbey going. There are two ways you can approach this match. One is that you can just go with the same plan that you with against GW tokens in that you keep your regular deck minus a World Breaker and plus an Atarka, or you go the same route as you go against Mono White. I think the plan that I use against Mono White is better since your deck is a bit too slow against a deck that tries to flip Westvale Abbey on turn 4-5. I would go with the same exact sideboard changes that you would against Mono White but I would not fault anyone for keeping the deck the same minus the World Breaker swap.

G/R Googles / The Mirror

I group these decks together since your plan is to play very similar against both.  GR Googles is not a hard match since their biggest threat is not in the form of creatures. It is not that hard to get out of burn range with Nissa's Renewal. The lack of Ulamog makes it very hard for them to kill you quickly. The main objective against Googles is to kill the Googles, resolve Nissa's Renewal and Ulamog. Sometime's it is just a race since your both ramping at the same rate, but I found the Googles to not really have enough to kill you faster than you kill them.

The Mirror is just a coin flip since it's all about whoever can land the first Ulamog / chaining of World Breakers. Not much too really say other than your just trying to land the first major threat and ramp into your Eldrazi the quickest.

In the Mirror:

Out: 4 Offshoots 4 Kozilek's Return, 2 Nissa's Renewal on the draw

In: 4 Tireless Tracker, 1 Nissa's Renewal on the play, 1 Atarka, 1 Ulamog, 1 World Breaker, 2 Warping Wail on the draw

Against RG Googles

Out: 4 Offshoot 4 Kozilek's Return

In: 4 Tireless Tracker, 1 Nissa's Renewal, 1 Atarka, 1 Ulamog, 1 World Breaker, maybe go with the Warping Wail plan if they run Ulamog since some builds are starting

RW Googles

I think you are favored here, but not majorly. You are going up against a RW Control deck that has a lot of different angles of attack since they have burn, planeswalkers, a little hand disruption, and even a Westvale Abbey sideboard plan. The cards to really watch out for are Reality Smasher in some builds/post board, Eldrazi Obligator post board, and getting burnt out. Similar to your game plan against Esper and GB Seasons Past, you just board and play the same exact way. You may need to keep in some Kozilek's Returns if you feel they may be aggro, which I would think of not bringing in Warping Wails and Nissa's Renewal's if that is the case.

Bant Company

This is by far the worst MU and it's one that I have not even figured out for myself yet. This match is hard since they have so many big creatures and many ways of protecting them at instant speed. This deck feels more like control than aggro, but it's the one true tempo deck of the format. If I had to say what your best plan is, it would have to be stalling the game out with Nissa's Renewal's and then jamming Ulamogs to pick their guys off or setting up some sort of melt plan with Kozilek's Return and an Eldrazi or with Chandra. This deck is hard to attack and my best strategy so far is just to pray they stumble and you come out strong.

Boarding is still up in the air, but this is what I usually do.

Out:-4 Jaddi Offshoot , 1 World Breaker, 1 Endless One

In: 3 Spatial Contortion, 1 Nissa's Renewal,  1 Dragonlord Atarka , 1 Ulamog

Closing Thoughts

I like this deck a lot and think it's well positioned at the moment. Outside of Bant Company, which probably could be improved with, all your matches are solid. This deck thrives against most midrange decks and with the new changes made to this build, even Aggro is not a bad pairing. The only changes I would make is to cut Clip Wings out of the board. I honestly don't know what you are supposed to do with them. I know that you can use it against a flipped Westvale Abbey, but that seems very narrow and not worth boarding in since Ulamog or breaking their board down can accomplish the same thing.

If you are playing this deck let me know in the comments your thoughts on De Jesus's deck and some strategies that have worked out for you.