Rise of the Eldrazi After Release Review

[himura]

Well I just got back from the prerelease today and feel that playing with this set I learned a lot about it. This is not a tournament report, I'd just like to share my thoughts.

1. Student of Warfare lives up to her hype. This card is the closest to it's inspiration, Figure of Destiny IMO. It's a very hard card to come back from in the early game and hits hard and levels fast. Only one person at my release pulled one and used it but the games he won were mostly decided by the little level upper. The one game I won against him and the one that I drew were because I was able to keep the student off the field or blocked.

2. I don't think level up is good for Standard but it's better than it looks on paper. The issue of tempo with Level up is odd. There were several times where leveling up the creature was the best possible move and I couldn't immediately think of a situation that would be too different from the standard scenarios I've had described to me where the cases wouldn't be similar. The reason I dislike the levelers for standard is they're even more devastating to get killed than normal creatures.

3. Black and White seem to have the best levelers interestingly IMO. Black has a leveler that becomes a 4/2 on turn three as well as a new vampire that will likely be too big to stop with Deathtouch very early. White's levelers are all pretty reliable and some come in with decent stats even before levels.

4. The Eldrazi are annoying but not unstoppable. They're really rather obnoxious cards but Control and aggro decks are gonna have ways around these brutes. Most of the ones I saw were cast off the backs of some heavy Spawn Tokens. This leads into....

5. Kill those tokens! (and tiny creatures that are getting in the way) It's a bit odd but based on the way Wizards described it, it sounded like you would be saving your removal for big creatures mostly. Yet I found myself saving myself more often from death by handling the smaller, more efficient armies quickly. It still doesn't hurt to leave mana open for a spot removal deal.

6. I expect a black variant of spreading seas to pop up and or a Vampire control build to be viable. One of the games I lost excruciatingly was to a red/black deck that was designed like Spreading Seas. It controlled my land and burned away my creatures as well as discarding them while he built up to the Eldrazi. I don't see why this couldn't turn into a viable strategy outside of sealed. Plus that new blood chief is ridiculous.

6. Jund colors aren't really going anywhere. I saw G/R, G/B, and G/R/B quite a bit at my release. This just confirms what I'd been guessing at, and that Green is going to be heavily favored followed closely by black and red. Naya colors saw some play as well but Jund's colors seemed to lead. If this trend continues and carries over to draft, you may want to stay out of those colors in draft.

7. It's still too early to call it on Deprive IMO and Blue in general right now. Blue is definitely not as strong this set as the other colors but I think it is being undervalued right now. Only a couple of people I saw were playing it and none of them more than a bit. Again, this could prove useful in draft.

8. Rise definitely has weaker removal. Stuff like Oust and Regress can't really compare with Terminate and Path. On the bright side, we do get Flame Slash.

Well that's all I can think of off the top of my head. It's spinning a bit at the moment and I admit, I'm tired. If you learned something interesting at your prerelease please post it here. I'd love to hear it.

[sozan]

i just got back from my prerelease and i have notice the kargan dragon lord and gigantomancer are bombs if you dont diffuse them fast and using the eldrazi tokens as attackers with raid bombardment is devastating if you do not notice the simple combo in time to effectively stop it

[Spijker8844]

I think if you can get the cards...blue white is by far the best with levelers. Student of warfare, the merfolk lord is pretty good, and blue has some other fliers and unblockable levelers also.

White has the enchantment that gives levelers +2/+2, and blue has the 2/2 for 3 that puts 2 level counters on all your creatures.

White blue has excellent removal also. Smite, oust, and guard duty are solid, and blue has the best way to deal with the eldrazi giants with narcolepsy.

[Dommo]

The 1 mana black kill spell is the **** period.

It's like swords to plowshares for suicide black(I was playing a very aggressive R/B/w with a ton of removal), and being able to kill anything on the board for one mana was great.

That card WILL be a standard staple in any aggressive deck running black.

[IkedaTeramusa]

IMO Lighthouse C. totally works in limited. No one would trade him afterwards though so I won't be able to test constructed.

I noticed that Vengevine really did live up to its new 30 price tag... not cause it's super but because it's super rare.

Eldrazi in every shape and color are very proliferate.

Merfolk are back baby and in force.

Edit:

Here are the hard numbers. We played 1 sealed and 2 booster drafts.. So that was $30 + $15 + $15. I semi-sponsored two brothers for $5 a piece to get a crack at their cards. (it was a bust, one was dead last and the other I took 1 card for the win but it was at most worth .50) Grand total I spent $70.

My overall spread (I just added it up using a card selling site that is CHEAPER than what our store buys for):
Colorless - 36.24
White - 14.91
Blue - 22.80
Black - 1.89
Red - 1.33
Green - 20.81
Artifacts - 2.28
Land - 19.32
Foils - 42.22 (counted Emrakul for $30 though he's pre-release so probably not so high)
Grand Total - 161.72

You can guess what my favorite colors were. I did NOT place anything higher than 4th (played only to get first crack at the cards I wanted/trade for). So that isn't eschewing the numbers. Just plain facts IMO and my observations.

10 booster boxes - 2 Vengevines, 6 Gideon, 4 All is Dust (+1 Foil), 4 Lighthouse Chronologists, 3 Elephent Chickie.

[sozan]

i made a blue white red green leveler defender deck with some eldrazi for late game i it worked pretty well for some reason and i have to say that knight of cliffhaven won me a few games oh and throw a splinter twin on a venerated teacher and you have turn after turn level tokens on all you levelers for just tapping him

[MAS MAD]

I used jund colors to generate tokens and hard cast artisan of kozilek backed by removal like vendetta,consuming vapors and heat ray.

[Kilir]

I ended up going Naya defenders. Rage Nimbus, 2 mana walls, 2 ogre sentry, the 4/5 flying defender in white, a couple others. They kept their crap back constantly while my 3-4 levelers (the 1 drop white that becomes 5/5 first strike, the 4 drop white that gives +2/+2 to other creatures, the white 3/10 vigilance, and the green 6/6 trampler) swung at them. The walls gave me MORE than enough money to ALWAYS play my skittering invasion/2 artisans of kozilek, usually getting back by Tuktuk guy and grabbing another token after I use the old one to trade for something.

I did alright overall, I should have made it into finals if my opponent wasn't playing so gotdam slow, and it went to time.

[Eggit]

I fell in love with gideon. I got lucky enough to pull one at the pre-release and was skeptical of his power, but he can really take games home. Such a versatile little planeswalker, he can fog/sleep, he can assassinate, or he can get in for 6 against your opponents tapped out board.

I did learn that eldrazi must be kept in check. I ended up going with a u/r control deck and was able to maintain great board control throughout the game. Just when I was getting into a position to go in for the kill with gideon or a large leveler and eldrazi would hit the field and force me to go full on defense. The dmg wasn't a big deal as I always had blockers, but I was not prepared for how out of hand anihilator can get.
So keep those spawn tokens in check, and save spot removal for the eldrazi.

[justactcasual]

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief wins games. It's repeat, umbra-eating removal that pumps a large flying body.

Lay Bare is remarkably playable, as you can just sit on early defenses with mana up for their bombs. Because everyone gets huge expensive bombs here.

Wildheart Invoker is pretty nice as he can kill most walls, and lategame makes just about anything ridiculous at instant speed.

Escaped Null is the funniest wall ever.

Overall, I think blue is being underrated right now. It gets some good evasion and real answers to the eldrazi, both of which are very relevant.

Funny prerelease story: my transformative sideboard was an entirely separate deck. Made for some surprised opponents. Also, my most used removal against Eldrazi was Sarkhan the Mad.