Eldrazi Tribal: A Pioneer Deck Tech
Lands-23
4-Mana Confluence
4-Corrupted Crossroads
4-Unclaimed Territory
4-Fabled Passage
7-Wastes
Creatures-26
4-Eldrazi Mimic
4-Eldrazi Displacer
4-Matter Reshaper
4-Wasteland Strangler
4-Thought-Knot Seer
4-Reality Smasher
2-World Breaker
Spells-11
4-Complete Disregard
4-Slip Through Space
3-Void Shatter
This deck was surprisingly difficult to build as there isn’t much in the way of good spells with “Devoid” to make Corrupted Crossroads work but I think this list does the trick. Notice we’re not running any of the legends in this list, so no Ulamog, Kozilek, or Emrakul here. The only one I really considered was Ulamog anyway but because I didn’t focus on the eldrazi scion token production to ramp up to that much mana I opted against him. I also decided against Emrakul because while we want to kill things most of what we care about is exiling things so we’re not reducing the cost on her at all and again, we don’t have the ramp to effectively cast her.
The mana base was super easy for this one. There’s the tribal land that’s legal in the format in Unclaimed Territory. Mana Confluence is a big hit in pioneer due to the lack of fetch lands. Corrupted Crossroads is another Mana Confluence for our “Devoid” spells. Fabled passage to get our basic lands, because yes, Wastes are basic lands. Then throw in some Wastes to round everything out. The number of Wastes might be wrong but seeing as most of our spells actually use colored mana 7 seems right as we’re only using them for a few things anyway.
The creatures were difficult because there’s a few different ways the deck could be played. We can go with the processor build and exile our opponent’s things then bring them back to the graveyard to trigger different abilities. We can go the ramp route and create a bunch of scions to sacrifice for mana to eventually play the really big things like the big three. Or we can go the more midrange route which I chose as it felt the best overall way to go with the deck. We don’t have any 1 drop creatures so we’d like to be on the play as much as possible so we don’t end up falling too far behind. There was one creature I was considering for that slot but I’m not sure it would’ve fit too well and that’s Deathrite Shaman. Not to say it’s a bad card but I don’t think it fits here the way most people would want it to.
Most of the creatures are pretty self-explanatory here. Eldrazi mimic as a cheap creature that turns into a big threat as you play bigger creatures later in the game. Eldrazi Displacer to flicker things, usually our own as to get enter the battlefield triggers multiple times so we can blow up our opponents things. Matter Reshaper to at least draw us a card when it dies. We’re playing this basically to chump block our opponents bigger things to take advantage of the card draw or potentially finding an Eldrazi Displacer to put into play. Wasteland Strangler helps us take advantage of our exile effects and putting those exiled cards in our opponent’s graveyard to potentially kill something else. Though-Knot Seer is one of our exile effects that we can use and abuse when paired with Eldrazi Displacer. Reality Smasher is closer to the top end and it protects itself fairly well as your opponent needs to discard something in order to target it or else the spell is countered. Finally we have World Breaker, another one of our exile effects. It can’t be abused like Thought-Knot Seer can as it has to be cast but if your opponent manages to kill it off you can always get it back later so long as it’s in your graveyard.
The spells were difficult to figure out as there’s not many non-creature spells with Devoid and even fewer that are playable. Complete Disregard is another way we have to set up a Wasteland Strangler as it exiles something with power 3 or less. Slip Through Space is a card that does a couple of things for us. It makes one of our creatures unblockable until the end of the turn as well as draws us a card all for only a single blue mana. Void Shatter is our last non-creature spell in the main board as another way to put things into exile for our Wasteland Strangler.
The one thing I’ve noticed with pioneer is that there’s a lot of things that have protection from a color or decks are playing white to have access to things like Brave the Elements or Center Soul to get protection from specific colors. This deck gets around all of that because even though our spells may have specific color requirements in their casting costs, they all have Devoid which makes the spell colorless.
Sideboard
1-Flaying Tendrills
4-Horribly Awry
4-Reality Hemorhage
3-Transgress the Mind
3-Rest in Peace
Moving on to the sideboard we have some more fairly effective exile spells that do things that any deck would normally try to do anyway. We’re just paying a little more to do them with no way for our opponents to get their things back. Flaying Tendrills is our sweeper. It doesn’t hit a lot of things very well which is why we’re only running 1 copy but it is effective against tokens strategies which seem to have a place in the format, for now anyway. Horribly Awry is another counter spell that exiles things. It’s also a bit easier to cast than our main board counter spell as it only has U in its cost instead of UU. Reality Hemorrhage is a 2 mana shock that gets around the protection from a color thing as it also has Devoid. Transgress the Mind is removal from hand that exiles the card. The target has to be cmc 3 or greater but that hits a ton of things in the format. Oko, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Teferi, etc. all get hit by this one. And finally Rest in Peace because again, it exiles things as soon as they hit the yard. I considered this in the main as it can help Wasteland Strangler fuel itself but felt that there weren’t enough places that this would be good so I opted for the side.
True win conditions in this deck aren’t very clear as this is a mid-range style deck with leanings towards control. The way this deck wants to win is by keeping your opponents things off the board and then attacking with big dumb things. You’re not really going to be on the offensive for most of the game until you gain a board state advantage which shouldn’t be too difficult given the interactions you have in the deck either countering your opponent’s things, killing them, or just straight sending them to exile.
4-Mana Confluence
4-Corrupted Crossroads
4-Unclaimed Territory
4-Fabled Passage
7-Wastes
Creatures-26
4-Eldrazi Mimic
4-Eldrazi Displacer
4-Matter Reshaper
4-Wasteland Strangler
4-Thought-Knot Seer
4-Reality Smasher
2-World Breaker
Spells-11
4-Complete Disregard
4-Slip Through Space
3-Void Shatter
This deck was surprisingly difficult to build as there isn’t much in the way of good spells with “Devoid” to make Corrupted Crossroads work but I think this list does the trick. Notice we’re not running any of the legends in this list, so no Ulamog, Kozilek, or Emrakul here. The only one I really considered was Ulamog anyway but because I didn’t focus on the eldrazi scion token production to ramp up to that much mana I opted against him. I also decided against Emrakul because while we want to kill things most of what we care about is exiling things so we’re not reducing the cost on her at all and again, we don’t have the ramp to effectively cast her.
The mana base was super easy for this one. There’s the tribal land that’s legal in the format in Unclaimed Territory. Mana Confluence is a big hit in pioneer due to the lack of fetch lands. Corrupted Crossroads is another Mana Confluence for our “Devoid” spells. Fabled passage to get our basic lands, because yes, Wastes are basic lands. Then throw in some Wastes to round everything out. The number of Wastes might be wrong but seeing as most of our spells actually use colored mana 7 seems right as we’re only using them for a few things anyway.
The creatures were difficult because there’s a few different ways the deck could be played. We can go with the processor build and exile our opponent’s things then bring them back to the graveyard to trigger different abilities. We can go the ramp route and create a bunch of scions to sacrifice for mana to eventually play the really big things like the big three. Or we can go the more midrange route which I chose as it felt the best overall way to go with the deck. We don’t have any 1 drop creatures so we’d like to be on the play as much as possible so we don’t end up falling too far behind. There was one creature I was considering for that slot but I’m not sure it would’ve fit too well and that’s Deathrite Shaman. Not to say it’s a bad card but I don’t think it fits here the way most people would want it to.
Most of the creatures are pretty self-explanatory here. Eldrazi mimic as a cheap creature that turns into a big threat as you play bigger creatures later in the game. Eldrazi Displacer to flicker things, usually our own as to get enter the battlefield triggers multiple times so we can blow up our opponents things. Matter Reshaper to at least draw us a card when it dies. We’re playing this basically to chump block our opponents bigger things to take advantage of the card draw or potentially finding an Eldrazi Displacer to put into play. Wasteland Strangler helps us take advantage of our exile effects and putting those exiled cards in our opponent’s graveyard to potentially kill something else. Though-Knot Seer is one of our exile effects that we can use and abuse when paired with Eldrazi Displacer. Reality Smasher is closer to the top end and it protects itself fairly well as your opponent needs to discard something in order to target it or else the spell is countered. Finally we have World Breaker, another one of our exile effects. It can’t be abused like Thought-Knot Seer can as it has to be cast but if your opponent manages to kill it off you can always get it back later so long as it’s in your graveyard.
The spells were difficult to figure out as there’s not many non-creature spells with Devoid and even fewer that are playable. Complete Disregard is another way we have to set up a Wasteland Strangler as it exiles something with power 3 or less. Slip Through Space is a card that does a couple of things for us. It makes one of our creatures unblockable until the end of the turn as well as draws us a card all for only a single blue mana. Void Shatter is our last non-creature spell in the main board as another way to put things into exile for our Wasteland Strangler.
The one thing I’ve noticed with pioneer is that there’s a lot of things that have protection from a color or decks are playing white to have access to things like Brave the Elements or Center Soul to get protection from specific colors. This deck gets around all of that because even though our spells may have specific color requirements in their casting costs, they all have Devoid which makes the spell colorless.
Sideboard
1-Flaying Tendrills
4-Horribly Awry
4-Reality Hemorhage
3-Transgress the Mind
3-Rest in Peace
Moving on to the sideboard we have some more fairly effective exile spells that do things that any deck would normally try to do anyway. We’re just paying a little more to do them with no way for our opponents to get their things back. Flaying Tendrills is our sweeper. It doesn’t hit a lot of things very well which is why we’re only running 1 copy but it is effective against tokens strategies which seem to have a place in the format, for now anyway. Horribly Awry is another counter spell that exiles things. It’s also a bit easier to cast than our main board counter spell as it only has U in its cost instead of UU. Reality Hemorrhage is a 2 mana shock that gets around the protection from a color thing as it also has Devoid. Transgress the Mind is removal from hand that exiles the card. The target has to be cmc 3 or greater but that hits a ton of things in the format. Oko, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Teferi, etc. all get hit by this one. And finally Rest in Peace because again, it exiles things as soon as they hit the yard. I considered this in the main as it can help Wasteland Strangler fuel itself but felt that there weren’t enough places that this would be good so I opted for the side.
True win conditions in this deck aren’t very clear as this is a mid-range style deck with leanings towards control. The way this deck wants to win is by keeping your opponents things off the board and then attacking with big dumb things. You’re not really going to be on the offensive for most of the game until you gain a board state advantage which shouldn’t be too difficult given the interactions you have in the deck either countering your opponent’s things, killing them, or just straight sending them to exile.
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