Lucian_Devine

Also, if you happen to have access to it. Entomb is pretty ridiculous as well, since you can fetch the creature straight from your deck, and put it into your graveyard. This would only be necessary though, if you don't happen to have any fatties in your hand when you want to go off.

I don't know if this occurred to you before, or if you just decided not to, but you can actually use this combo, or at least part of it, to get the legendary eldrazi. The only catch is, that you need a little more mana available when you do it, because you have to do it all at once.

If you have either a Doomed Necromancer or a Strands of Night, you can cast your discard spell, targeting yourself. Discard a legendary eldrazi. When it goes to the graveyard, it's triggered ability happens. Put the trigger on the stack, and then use the activated ability of either of the two aforementioned cards. This gives you a legendary eldrazi in play, and then the previous trigger resolves, and you shuffle your graveyard into your library.

I'll give it a look, see what if there's anything I can do for you.

Lol, yeah you can steal it. I just liked the sound of it, and it was less to say than some of the other options.

Yeah, Lurking Predators does have that effect on the game, especially with eldrazi in the deck.

Happens to the best of us, lol.

On a side note though, I wonder if you might consider Prismatic Omen, helps a lot with mana fixing.

Simply put, Kozilek has proven his usefulness to me, time and time again.

I mentioned the Kozilek drawing fog, because sometimes it's the last ditch effort to live, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. It's hardly the real plan, but sometimes you just have to go with what you have at the time, which might only be enough mana to fetch up and cast him, and see what happens.

As for having the mana, that is rarely an issue, even if I lose an Archdruid to a Doom Blade on their turn 2. My question for you is this, what kinds of hands are you keeping that you are losing consistantly to deck disruption? There are 16 mana producers in the deck, not counting the Sylvan Rangers. Spot removal here and there is hardly enough to slow up the deck, this much I have seen and overcome time and again.

As for mass removal, that is simply dependent on the matchup, and me not over-committing to the board. In my experience, which with this deck is quite expansive, the more time I can keep my opponent focused on my creatures, be they on the field, or in the deck, the better my chances. I can recover from a Consume the Meek, I can win without my Primeval Titans, and even without my Eldrazi. If they're focusing literally 2 turns worth of tempo on my deck, then any elves I have on the board might be bashing them in the face. Garruk also presents a challenge for mono-black control. This deck attacks in a singular fashion, but varies in the tools it's using, based simply on the draw.

If you pick up this deck blind, draw up a seven card hand, and immediately plan around Summoning Trap for Emrakul, without even looking at your hand, you've already lost. With this deck, you just have to take what your hand gives you, look at your matchup, and make your decisions based on that. No single plan will work every time, but the deck is consistent in what it does.

I will concede that Wurmcoil Engine is good, but only in the sideboard for me. I would rather see any of my eldrazi or a titan at the end of my opponents turn, or on turn 3, not a Wurmcoil. The come into play ability of the titan makes it infinitely more valuable, and even trapping into a Kozilek at the end of my opponents turn might be enough to just cause them to scoop. If, on game one, they tap out while I'm sitting on six, not knowing what's coming, any annihilator is good enough.

Well, the trap is still decent if you can ramp the mana. Once you get to six mana, you can just hard cast it at the end of their turn. Just because it has the trap cost of 0, doesn't mean it can only be played that way, lol.

Yeah, my deck is fairly vulnerable to red deck wins and white weenie. I don't have as many blockers as you do. What mine lacks against agro though, I make up for against control. It's the risk I take for my mana ramp and combo.

I would just kind of take it slow on the modifications, depending on what you actually have available. Do some playtesting, see what works in your metagame, and what doesn't, and go from there. My metagame is littered with control, and this deck just walks right around and over control, especially when I board in 4 tectonics to cripple their land base.

I am for the most part faster than any U/B mill. They are generally creature light as well, which means that simply attacking with elves is usually good enough. So mill for the most part doesn't scare me at all, even with a turn 1 Leyline of the Void. If they can't handle the elf swarm, then slowly exiling my library doesn't matter, lol.

Path to Exile was a huge problem for me. The fact that it was 1 mana made it very hard to play around, as did the fact that it was instant speed, and the creature didn't have to be attacking, blocking, or anything. It was just a problem card in general. Vine's were mandatory in the main back then, but since this is standard, I don't have to worry about it anymore.

The other 2 pieces that help you drop them into play for 0-1 is all fine and good, if they live. The temples however, can give a fair bit of acceleration in their own right. Holy wow, didn't realize till just now that you threw the legendaries in, lol. I would definitely add in the Temples, although I don't recommend taking out forests with them. You are starting to tread some pretty dangerous territory with your mana though. 12 6+ drops and only 16 actual mana producing lands in the current build. I would give it some solid playtesting before you actual compete with it, make sure you're confident about your land/mana base. Also make sure to test against some heavy creature removal, just in case. You need to make sure that even spot removal on your Archdruids doesn't guarenteedly doom you, lol.

Lol, you mean the mana burn that doesn't exist anymore? Oh, and just to be a dick...Counterspell on your Fireball :D.

You've got 2 Lurking Predators there.

I might recommend adding an additional way to kill your own Abyssal Persecutors. The gatekeepers are a good way, but I might consider 2-4 additional ways to kill it. Flesh Allergy or Consuming Vapors come to mind. I know he's not a primary win condition, and any control player is likely to have either exhausted their counter magic, or removed him for you before they got below 0, but you just want to make sure that he doesn't get stuck on the battlefield and cost you the game.

Oh, and as for your words about Kozilek. Obviously you haven't played this deck against an agro, staring across at lethal, fetched up a Kozilek, played it, drawn a fog, attacked with any titans you have, potentially giving you enough mana for infinite turns, then used the fog to survive the next turn, and winning on infinite turns. Kozilek is there for that reason, and pretty much that reason alone. Having 3 of either of the other 2 instead, pales in comparison to the potential of using his draw 4 in such a scenario. When dealing with the largest mana costs in magic, any and all card advantage you can get, aka Sulvan Rangers and Kozilek, can mean the difference between dead by 1 turn, and winning or going infinite turns, on the last possible scenario.

I will say though, that Wurmcoil is a potentially good sideboard card for me, possibly in place of the plummets. It is something I could swap in, taking place of a couple of the Eldrazi, pending the matchup. It could very well be another gamebreaking 6 drop against the blitz agro decks that are very good at dealing 20, but not so good at dealing 26 or more.

I am by no way saying that Memoricide done , turn 4, which is potentially a mistake in it's own right, doesn't have the potential to slow this deck up. What I can honestly tell you though, is that you also have to know what is a keepable hand for the matchup. Losing the titans to a Memoricide does slow it up, and it improves the chances of the U/B deck. The only catch is, if I leave 6 mana untapped as you go into that turn 4, and you tap out for Memoricide, you leave yourself incredibly vulnerable to an "In response, Summoning Trap. I should follow that up by saying that I have done that exact matchup plenty of times, and I rarely do a trap during my main phase, if I can help it.

The next thing that you're going to say is, "What are the odds that you are going to have the trap in hand?" My answer is simply this. I run 4 traps, and you may or may not run 4 Memoricides/Sadistic Sacraments. Aka, my odds of having a trap to punish you for tapping out are about as good, if not better, than you having the Memoricide on that turn in the first place. Tap out at your own risk.

Some would think that a single Memoricide or Sadistic Sacrament would rip this deck apart, but they're actually wrong. I've found, that 9 fatties is just about perfect. It's enough to the point where I will usually have at least 1 of them in my opening hand, even if it is an Emrakul. The other advantage of 9 fatties, in this case, the 4 Titans, and 5 Eldrazi, is that I can win without my titans. On several occasions, I've had my titans memoricided and won without them. Another win condition, is the elves themselves, something the other Eldrazi Ramp decks don't have. I've won more than my fair share of games just swinging with elves+Overrun from Garruk.