Eldrazi and Ramp decks have existed in Legacy ever since the printings of [[Cloudpost]], [[Glimmerpost]], and the Eldrazi cards. Eldrazi Ramp has always been a small percentage of the metagame, but over the past year, it has picked up in popularity. The goal is to assemble these posts along with artifact mana to accelerate out expensive cards like [[Ugin, the Spirit Dragon]] and [[Karn, Scion of Urza]]. In order to survive the game long enough, Eldrazi Ramp uses cards like [[Chalice of the Void]] and [[Trinisphere]] as a way to lock the opponent down. These cards also help protect the more expensive payoff cards by trying to shut off discard spells or counters. Eldrazi Ramp has proven itself as a force to be reckoned with. It also plays so uniquely compared to more traditional Legacy decks. If we want to have any success against it, then we need to be prepared.
How does Eldrazi Ramp matchup against TES?
[[Chalice of the Void]], [[Trinisphere]] – Eldrazi Ramp needs some way to interact with the opponent and combo decks. Being an artifact based deck, it does this through what is considered lock pieces. They are called lock pieces because that’s exactly what these try to do, lock the opponent from casting spells. To nobody’s surprise, this is very strong against a Storm deck. [[Chalice of the Void]] is the least threatening of the two because the opponent can only select one part of our deck based on the number of counters on [[Chalice of the Void]]. Typically, they’re going to choose either zero or one. Whichever number they select, we may be able to go off with enough cards of the other. [[Trinisphere]], however, is a different story. This makes it nearly impossible to combo.
[[Ugin, the Spirit Dragon]], [[All is Dust]], [[Ratchet Bomb]] – These cards don’t seem like they would be that good against Storm. They really aren’t, except for when we try to combo using [[Empty the Warrens]]. Our best chance of winning is to combo off as quickly as possible, and we usually do that with [[Empty the Warrens]]. It is our fastest way to combo off because it requires less mana and we can access [[Empty the Warrens]] through either [[Infernal Tutor]], if you’re playing it, or [[Burning Wish]]. This will expose us to just losing to [[Ratchet Bomb]] or [[Ugin, the Spirit Dragon]] being able to sweep all of the tokens. Thankfully, they don’t run many copies of [[Ratchet Bomb]] in the 75 and [[Ugin, the Spirit Dragon]] costs eight mana. Don’t be fooled by that eight mana though. Eldrazi Ramp has many lands and artifacts that all produce more than one mana. [[Ugin, the Spirit Dragon]] can be cast a lot quicker than one may think. We have to be careful if we choose to play out all of your artifacts before the turn we combo off because [[Ratchet Bomb]] could destroy all the zero cost artifacts.
[[Karn, the Great Creator]] – The main text we need to pay attention to here is the very first line. See [[Null Rod]]. We have 18 artifacts in our deck and they are quite crucial to being able to combo off. This is even worse for this version of the deck compared to previous versions that only played a dozen. At the very least, this will slow us down several turns giving the opponent the opportunity to tutor with [[Karn, the Great Creator]] to find another lock piece. It just piles on. We can win through this, but it will require the right type of hand. Most of the time we will need to remove it or use a discard spell to prevent it from being in play during our turn.
[[Thought-Knot Seer]] – Despite Eldrazi being an aggro deck they definitely play a lot of disruption, and for Storm these cards do overtime. It can be hard to win through some of these cards. We either need a rare hand or an answer once they are on the table. [[Thought-Knot Seer]] isn’t as bad, but it could set us behind a turn or two by taking a crucial card from our hand. That disruption could be just enough for them to win since it also comes with four power.
Deck List
Main Deck
- 4 [[Burning Wish]]
- 4 [[Wishclaw Talisman]]
- 4 [[Brainstorm]]
- 4 [[Ponder]]
- 4 [[Veil of Summer]]
- 3 [[Thoughtseize]]
- 1 [[Ad Nauseam]]
- 1 [[Echo of Eons]]
- 4 [[Rite of Flame]]
- 4 [[Dark Ritual]]
- 4 [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]]
- 4 [[Lotus Petal]]
- 3 [[Chrome Mox]]
- 3 [[Mox Opal]]
- 4 [[Polluted Delta]]
- 4 [[Bloodstained Mire]]
- 1 [[Badlands]]
- 1 [[Underground Sea]]
- 1 [[Volcanic Island]]
- 1 [[Bayou]]
- 1 [[Swamp]]
Sideboard
- 2 [[Abrupt Decay]]
- 1 [[Thoughtseize]]
- 2 [[Chain of Vapor]]
- 1 [[Defense Grid]]
- 1 [[Infernal Tutor]]
- 1 [[Grapeshot]]
- 4 [[Empty the Warrens]]
- 1 [[Tendrils of Agony]]
- 1 [[Echo of Eons]]
- 1 [[Pulverize]]