August 17th 2016
The entire story below is completely fictional and is to give a different perspective on my latest outing in the recent PPTQ Dublin @ Classroom.
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Somewhere deep within the Eldrazi mansion.....
The Eldrazi titan Ulamog was awaken by constant hissing just below his feet. His spawns, size of ants from where he stood, were crawling in distress over the floor. The titan let out a growl and all his spawns stood frozen. Ulamog took a deep breath. The air felt musky and thick. He sensed that something was amiss.
“Summon the elders!” Ulamog roared.
In seconds, Ulamogs loyal advisors gathered at his feet.
“What is thy bidding, my master?” one advisor muttered. He was Destro.
“I yearn for battle. I crave conflict. I want to salivate in death and destruction!”
Destro remained crouched, and did not look up to face his titanic master - “My master. A battle rages in the plane of Classroom. A civil war. Perhaps my master would like to indulge in some sport?”
Ulamog: “Those are ants! Hardly any sport at all. The likes of Elves, Goblins and Humans don't even come close to our strength! It would be a fools errand and a bloody waste of time.”
Destro: “But I hear the Atlanteans are enraged in battle as well.”
Ulamog: “The fish men? Hahahahaha. Remember Lorthos? I still have that squid-head they call champion somewhere in my display cabinet. Go fetch it so we all can have a good laugh about it.”
Destro: “Errrr master…. Its no longer there.”
Ulamog roared: “What?! How can such a huge thing go missing???”
Destro: “Its not missing, my master. We…..we ate it.”
Ulamog couldn’t recall but he just slumped back on his throne, face-palmed and shook his head. What a rabble, he thought to himself. Seconds later, Ulamog looked at his subjects.
“Gather the troops. We’re going hunting.”
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I started my preparation for PPTQ Dublin @ Decards roughly 2 days before the event. The first deck on my list was obviously Merfolk which I had quite a lot of experience with. I did OK in my first 2 leagues, going 4-1 and 3-2. Not stellar. But the games felt a bit boring and I really did wanted to try something different for the event. So I decided to put together a Mono-Brown Eldrazi deck by Todd Stevens from his SCG article.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/33440_The-Most-Underrated-Decks-In-Modern.html
For the last two weeks, I've been pretty much just playing around different combinations of modern decks for the WMC. Similar to last year, the Unified Modern has constraints of playing a maximum of 4 copies of a card between three decks. However unlike last year, only one unique non-basic land card can exist within one out of the three decks. Hence, you couldn't split your four Path to Exiles between three decks for Unified Modern unlike last year's Unified Standard. This presented me a new challenge of looking at the possible archetypes and identifying what critical spells and lands intertwined with each other. This was my first draft:
Much like GR Ramp in last years Unified Standard, I wanted to see if we could find a solid "non-fetch" and "non-shock" deck. Merfolk was obviously good, so moving on from right to left, I decided to give the Eldrazi-Tron deck a spin. The deck was fun to play and after some tweaks, I sleeved up more or less the same list to ready for Saturday’s event.
Saturday morning came by and I had an emergency to attend to and postponed my PPTQ action to Classroom’s event on Sunday instead. Turned out better as it gave me another night of testing for the deck.
Sunday came along and I was just feeling OK, not super confident but still excited to try out something new. The deck breezed to a 3-0 start and ID-ing the next 2 for a place in the Top 8, much thanks to some amazing draws. Here’s a quick recap:
1. First match of the day was against Bant Eldrazi. I had a Turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer and that alone wrapped up the match quickly.
2. Game 2 went Turn 1 Map, turn 2 fetch Tron piece. Pause. My opponent turn 3 Thought Knot Seer taking away my Reality Smasher. My turn 3 Tron into Spellskite + Reality Smasher and SMASSSSSHHHHH….. His follow up play was a Eldrazi Displacer and mine was an Endbringer and SMASSSSSHHHHH. He untapped without a play. My Smasher went to combat and SMAA---blink***. The follow-up Thought-Knot Seer saw nothing, Endbringer drew a card. Without a play he passed and in my draw step the Displacer + Thought-Knot tried to do some fancy tricks but the Displacer got Dismembered and he got SMASSSHHHHHHHed.
3. Round 2 was vs Joe Soh with his Eldrazi Jund hybrid. G1 I got stuck on lands. Game 2 he got stuck on lands. Game 3 by turn 4 I had 9 mana to his 3. Ulamogs pupils started pouring wave after wave.
4. Round 3 vs Loco was rather interesting. After winning a close game 1, I kept the following hand on the draw.
5. Loco’s first play.
Boo.
6. After turn 3 Mind Stone, my draws and plays were as follows:
Justice.
7. Got to top 8, played Kenneth with his Suicide Zoo which included several Tarmogoyfs he picked up in the Lost and Found and decided to join the ranks which caused me plenty of headaches. Thankfully Ulamog decided to show up in my hand before it got Thoughtseized away.
8. But that gave way to endless stream of Endbringers. I could still hear the echoes of Ulamogs scream – “Avenge meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…..”
On the back the Endbringers, the Eldrazi's marched on. This set up a semi final clash with Merfolk.
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Destro surveyed beyond the cliffside. The foul stench of the ocean and fish filled his nostrils. The waves ahead were roaring. They were close.
Destro: “My master. It is time. The Atlanteans are upon us.”
Ulamog: “Let them come. We are ready.”
Destro: “But master, we should be on the attack. We must not allow the Atlanteans to gather strength in numbers.”
Ulamog: “You have the Ghost Quarters ready, have you not?” Destro nodded. “Then you have nothing to fear. They won’t be walking by us unopposed.”
Swords clashed. Spears broken and shields shattered. Ulamog grew anxious. His forces were not winning nor were they being pushed behind. But he had enough. With one swoop and combined with his Endbringer generals, they cleared the path for the Eldrazi warriors to punch through. The first battle was a success.
Day (Game) two. The Atlanteans choked Ulamogs mana. Ulamog felt a burning sensation and was mortally wounded before Destro rescued the titan from the fray to fight another day. The Eldrazi’s may have survived the battle but they sustained too many injuries from this fight.
Day (Game) three. The Atlanteans gave no quarter and went all in. Ulamog’s forces were weary. They were big in size and tripled in strength over their tiny opponents. But the Merfolk grew stronger in numbers. Ulamog knew he didn’t have much time. Facing down a lethal horde of Merfolks, there was only one hope. One chance. He needed to turn everything to dust. He summoned the powerful spell to attempt to cleanse the battlefield….
But he was a mana short. The spell was not complete. Ulamog’s forces succumbed to the weight of the fish men. The Atlanteans had prevailed. Again.
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Epilogue: Back at the Eldrazi mansion....
Emrakul glided along the hallway. It was rather quiet in the Eldrazi mansion. But she caught a glimpse of someone in the dining hall. That someone was hard to miss. It was Kozilek. Kozilek was chowing down on something and froze when he saw Emrakul staring at him.
Emrakul - “What are you doing?”
Kozilek – “Ermmmm…… having a snack.”
Emrakul – “I can see that. What’s that you’re having? It looks good.”
Kozilek – “Its squid head. Want some? Got it from Destro. But you gotta promise not to tell Ulamog.”
Emrakul paused and looked around the hallway.
“Save me a piece.”
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