Off the heels of another Team Open Top 8, everyone seemed super surprised to hear that I decided to play Eldrazi Tron in the Modern seat this past weekend. Little do most people know, I have a pretty deep history with Eldrazi Temple before my spotlight of being one of the Amulet specialists on the tour.
BW Eldrazi, Tenth Place, SCG Cincinnati, January 2016
Yup that is Eye of Ugin, only two copies in fact. I had the pleasure of being one of the first people to convert the Magic Online powerhouse into a result in paper. These were the humble beginnings, before we got the really broken cheap eldrazi from Oath of the Gatewatch. The processors almost make this manabase seem fair—and keep in mind Splinter Twin and Summer Bloom were both still legal at this event.
Broken cards are always really fun to play when you have no chance of playing a mirror match. Funnily enough, I did not play this deck that much during its dominance of the format. But I wasn’t done slinging Eldrazi Temple.
Bant Eldrazi, Twelfth Place, Grand Prix Charlotte 2016
| Creatures (25) 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 2 Spellskite 2 Matter Reshaper 4 Eldrazi Displacer 4 Thought-Knot Seer 4 Reality Smasher 4 Drowner of Hope 1 World Breaker Spells (11) 4 Ancient Stirrings 4 Path to Exile 3 Oath of Nissa | Lands (24) 2 Windswept Heath 1 Temple Garden 1 Breeding Pool 2 Forest 1 Plains 1 Wastes 1 Island 3 Cavern of Souls 4 Eldrazi Temple 1 Ghost Quarter 3 Brushland 2 Yavimaya Coast 2 Horizon Canopy Sideboard (15) 1 Spellskite 1 World Breaker 3 Negate 3 Grafdigger’s Cage 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger 2 Wrath of God 3 Timely Reinforcements |
This event was the breaking point for me in a lot of ways. I lost back to back win-and-ins for top 8 at this grand prix. Easily the closest I have ever come to achieving that goal.
This list is another masterclass in deck-building with only three copies of Cavern of Souls—I have no insight to what I was thinking there. I will maintain that the way I build this deck to guarantee Thought-Knot Seer on turn three was not the worst idea I have had. You also beat Blood Moon/Lightning Bolt decks with the ability to fetch all colors and colorless basic lands with Sakura-Tribe Elder. Oath of Nissa as a worse Ancient Stirrings also digs turn one for Temple or one of your missing pieces.
After a short stint for Bant, Eldrazi Tron would rise to prominence after this point. It would largely be mocked while dominating its period of time in Modern before relegation to the lower tier. I swore off Eldrazi Temple with Urza lands for this period of time.
This past week it all changed. It was recommended that I give it a try when I was at one of my low points in preparation for this event. I was pleasantly surprised with my results and decided to register it in the open.
Eldrazi Tron, Fifth Place, SCG Philly July 2019
Why is this deck good?
Chalice of the Void is incredible in certain matchups. Even without the ability to reliably cast it on the first turn, some decks still crumble to it. Once you have that information, you can use the London Mulligan rule to see more of your deck and mulligan aggressively for cards like Chalice when it is good. On top of being a Chalice deck, you have broken mana draws that explode onto the board with giant disruptive creatures. The lands are so good that again you can mulligan to construct more explosive hands that are lower on resources.
If Chalice of the Void doesn’t cover the matchup, it is very likely Karn, the Great Creator and the wish-board artifacts will. Because of how broken Urza lands are on the third turn, Karn tutor for a bullet and cast it in the same turn into turn four Lattice combo is easily to accomplish on a low resource count. I think at this point I have made clear that this deck can exploit the mulligan rule for powerful plays with fewer resources. In addition, there are plenty of artifact-based decks in Modern that get hurt by Karn’s static ability. Protecting Karn isn’t especially difficult due to the disruptiveness and size of the creature in the deck.
The lands in this deck are just so powerful, aside from the explosiveness of mana. Ghost Quarter and Cavern of Souls have been in Modern for a long time—and we know how powerful the latter is in a tribal deck. The land that most impressed me in this deck is Blast Zone. Because you only need three lands to cast every spell in your hand, having a land as a spell that doesn’t set you behind is so powerful. With the mana of Urza Tron, you can almost always easily pump it up to any value you want.
Multiple Ghost Quarters aren’t necessary, so we opted to go with Gemstone Caverns as the flex land. It came up one time on the draw when I got to play Chalice on the first turn against Phoenix. The only other lands I would consider in that spot are Scavenger Grounds or Sea-Gate Wreckage. Scavenger Grounds is just a little slow in the format against the graveyard deck you need it for, and often Karn for Tormod’s Crypt accomplishes the same goal. Sea-Gate Wreckage would be a nice card in the grindy fair matchups, but I would rather move away from this deck if those strategies become a larger part of the metagame.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do this weekend in Columbus. Without the pressure of the team event or points race, I have free reign to do as I please. Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is a card I really want to mess with.