At least balanced

Hello dear fellowers,

today i’m gonna write `bout my new (old) love – Eldrazi and Taxes.

A Black-White Deck full of disruptive elements, card advantage and clunkiness ;) It has a lot of legs (like many other decks i’ve played), a bunch of removal and some sort of „trick plays“.

First: Why Taxes?

Death and Taxes doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It’s a quite powerful and interactive strategy, it has huge creatures and neat interactions. There are two solid reasons to play the deck:

A)     Great removal

Black and white give all what a skillful player may wish for. Path to Exile, Fatal Push, Zealous Persecution, Dismember, Go for the Throat etc. In addition to this creatures can be blinked, flickered and processed – so a lot of interaction is going to take place at my table.

B)      Disruption „to go“

I love creatures with disruptive elements. I was intrueged by Thought-Knot Seer, Wasteland Strangler and Tidehollow Sculler when i started playing the deck. There maybe no Tarmogoyf (lurking for a Stoneforge Mystic unban) in this deck, but everything does contemplate to the deck plan. Thalia, Arbiter, Sculler, Displacer, Strangler, TKS – i’m just plainly fascinated.

The deck fell off the map when Humans emerged as a super-solid Aether Vial – contender. Merfolk (the other famous Vial-deck) is a local phenomenon, as it’s played by a couple of guys in my LGS. Either way, i believe that this deck is stronger than most of you will suggest.

On paper it looks quite clunky, sluggish and weak compared to the blistering fast and powerful decks in the format. There’s no Jace, Bloodbraid Elf or Hollow One that will kill your opponent in a single turn. Also no Scavenging Ooze, Dark Confidant or Young Pyromancer that will grind your opponent to death. Just solid beaters with tax & discard-effects.

Second: „My“ list

I included 2 specialities the following list will offer to you:

3 shambling vent

4 concealed courtyard

1 godless shrine

3 caves of koilos

4 ghost quarter

4 eldrazi temple

1 sea gate wreckage

2 plains

1 swamp

4 aether vial

4 path to exile

3 lingering souls

3 thalia, guardian of thraben

4 leonin arbiter

4 tidehollow sculler

1 selfless spirit

4 flickerwisp

3 eldrazi displacer

3 wasteland strangler

4 thought-knot seer

Sideboard:

3 relic of progenitus

2 stony silence

2 blessed alliance

2 fragmentize

2 burrenton forge-tender

1 engineered explosives

1 eidolon of rhetoric

1 gideon, ally of zendikar

1 fatal push

So 2 casualties are here: lingering souls and sea gate wreckage.

Let me explain this to you. The deck was lacking innovation for quite some time now. There haven’t been printed anything spectacular new or flashy. The latest solid additions are Blessed Alliance, Gideon, Fatal Push and Fragmentize – all are part of my sideboard.

So why bothering with Lingering Souls? Well Midrange and Control are common matchups nowadays. The deck was lacking a solid option of card advantage. Some included Blade Splicer, others Dark Confidant – both doesn’t shore up the two weakest matchups for Eldrazi and Taxes: Jund Midrange and Affinity.

Both strategies are commonly played and present a serious issue. But there are these tiny little 1/1 Fliers that nobody comes across. 4 creatures for 5 mana, stalling like a wall, chumping like a boss and making combat math getting complicated.

It has anti-synergy with Thalia, but a MTGO-Grinder suggested it and he was running the deck to great success. I’ve tried it and was happy at least.

Sea Gate Wreckage is the other elephant in the room. The Manabase is already quite complicated. I had to cut a single Caves of Koilos for the Wreckage, but the switch was well worth it. This land has drawn me a lot of cards and is one more tool on my way of finding “my” list.

With these additional 4 cards Jund and Affinity are at least manageable.

Third: Matchup Guide – Merfolk

From time to time I’ll give sideboard advice to all of you that are messing around with the intricacies of the deck. Starting with Merfolk today I’m going to share my knowledge and insights about the matchup.

Merfolk is a tempo-based creature deck that tries to disrupt opponents and strengthen it’s boardstate all at once. The disruption suite contains landhate (Spreading Seas, sometimes Field of Ruin), counter-backup (Cursecatcher, Deprive) and pump-effects (Lord of Atlantis, Merrow Rejerry, etc.). On top of that it has 2-for-ones like Silvergill Adept, Spreading Seas and Master of Waves.

It’s crucial to understand that Merfolk is at heart a Aether Vial Deck. So one thing to know is, that without Vial it’s pretty much a fair creature strategy with a lot of “1-play-per-turn” shenanigans. So the first thing to recognize is the reliance on Vial and Spreading Seas too.

Islandwalk is such a huge blowout, that it’s a centerpiece strategy of the deck. Once you are aware of this, artifact/enchantment – removal becomes pretty appealing. 8 pieces getting hit by disenchant are reason enough to board 2 fragmentize.

Be aware that BW E&T is a super mana-hungry deck, once your manabase is messed up you’ll have a hard time deploying all of your threats.

Next let’s think about there creatures. They got a lot of bounce-/tap-effects like Rejerry or Trickster. So reming yourself that they can mess up your combat math easily. Board in a couple of removal spells to kill there lords, the most importance pieces of there aggro-plan. I’m usually into one Engineered Explosives (hits S.Seas, Lord of Atlantis, Adept, Master of the Pearl Trident etc.), one Fatal Push and two Blessed Alliance. These are 6 cards which is fairly enough. I don’t expect that boarding more does make that matchup favorable.

So what should be dropped off? Lingering Souls is pretty bad here, it isn’t a clock and can’t chumpblock Islandwalk creatures, that means -3 Lingering Souls. Another offender to take out is Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.

With more spells coming in it’s a liability to pay the tax. Your opponent won’t be affected as much as you are and Thalia lacks an impressive body. This leads me to -2 Thalia (don’t drop too many 2 drops, but it may be right to board out the 3^rd copy too).

One Slot left, whereas Selfless Spirit is a serious contender. It is no clock and it only messes up your opponents combat math if no islandwalk is available. So the last slot is either -1 Thalia or -1 Selfless Spirit.

Merfolk is a tough matchup. Sometimes they flood the board and overwhelm you, on other meetings your removal package hurts them badly and there fair draws are quite beatable. Be aware of Mutavault which gets buffed by ALL Lords (Master of Waves + LoA / MotPT) and quickly get out of control.

Once they establish a boardstate with Master of Waves and a couple of tokens the game usually ends within 1-2 turns. Be prepared to keep the board small. Trade useless creatures wherever you can (Leonin Arbiter isn’t worth keeping, Thalia too) and either race them or try to control the board with Eldrazi Displacer / Flickerwisp / Wasteland Strangler.

Don’t try to manadenial them hardly. Sometimes it’ll work, but the longer the games go the worse is your chance of winning. Keep Ghost quarter for there Mutavaults.

The matchup favores Merfolk slightly I guess. There creatures line up better against ours and there evasion is far more superior than ours. After board it’s balanced because we got good removal plus there dismember and Ceremonious Rejection are good, but not exceptional.

Our Vial starts can match there Vial starts although we are not that explosive.

Last words

It’s a pleasure to write about this archetype because it’s easy to understand, but hard to master. I advice anyone interested in creature-beatdown decks to take a spin. A lot of things can be learned from it, which is the most important argument for me to sleeve it up and take it to the table.

Hope you enjoyed the article, maybe leave some comments in the section below.