Ever thought about jumping into a format but not knowing what is being played or what is good to play in it? I know I have and sometimes it can be very difficult, especially if you’re on a budget because you start building deck list A and figure out it isn’t that great or your style so you dump it and start to build deck list B. Already losing some cash from trying to make deck A you are a bit behind with building B and prices can go up making it more difficult building the deck of your desire. So which deck you should build? And why? That’s something you have to ask yourself.
First off all decks are broken into three deck types: Control, Aggro, and Combo. In this Block Format there isn’t a Combo deck type so all the decks are either Control or Aggro. There are three main Control decks in the block format U/W Control, Big Eldrazi, and RUG Control. While the main Aggro decks are Koros, Red Deck Wins, Mono Green Eldrazi, Vampires. There are a few rogue decks floating like Mono White Control, Allies (Aggro), R/G Land Destruction (Control). With a nice healthy and diverse environment, you begin to wonder what deck is best suited for you and what deck will make you, your money back? Let’s look at some charts to see which decks are putting up the results you so crave.
6/8/10 – 6/15/10
4-0
Vampires 4
Koros 8
Big Eldrazi 7
Mono Green Eldrazi 6
Red Deck Wins 4
U/W Control 13
RUG Control 3
Allies 0
Mono White 1
3-1
Vampires 18
Koros 37
Big Eldrazi 36
Mono Green Eldrazi 17
Red Deck Wins 14
U/W Control 50
RUG Control 12
Allies 1
Mono White 0
As we look at the numbers it’s safe to assume that U/W Control dominated this week with amazing results with Koros and Big Eldrazi right behind it fighting to be named the king of the throne. Also a couple of other decks showing great signs on life like RUG Control, Red Deck Wins, and Vampires. Let’s look into next weeks results and see which decks improved and which didn’t.
6/15 – 6/22
4-0
U/W Control 13
Mono White 1
Big Eldrazi 8
Koros 6
Mono G Eldrazi 5
Vampires 3
RUG Control 5
Red Deck Wins 1
3-1
Koros 38
RUG Control 27
Big Eldrazi 32
Vampires 16
Mono G Eldrazi 13
U/W Control 39
Red Deck Wins 8
Allies 1
Mono White Control 1
RG tokens 1
As we look at the chart it shows that they are very similar with U/W Control being the most dominate deck with Koros and Big Eldrazi riding up the coat tails. Vampires are still, well, not alive, but dead and kicking, showing numerous appearances in the format still. Red Deck Wins almost flew completely off the radar. And RUG Control showing promising results this time around. I won’t get into all the decks, but I will get into one of the control type deck called Big Eldrazi.
Zendikar Block Big 'Drazi
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Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt formatI am not going to include a sideboard since it can change depending on what you feel you need to cover. As we look closely at the deck you will notice that there is a lot of ramp with the help of Oracle of Mul Daya, Everflowing Chalice, Explore, and Growth Spasm. At the same time there is a decent amount of card draw to help you fetch up your fatties with Wall of Omens, Explore, and Eye of Ugin. The deck plays out its lands very fast, thinning out your deck to help lower the chances of top decking more mana. Since this deck has no spot removal or counter-magic to help slow down the aggressive field it relies on its Wall of Omens to block and stall out as much as it can before drawing into Day of Judgment or All Is Dust. Gideon Jura is used as a fog effect or after you Day of Judgment he can sneak in a quick 6 damage directly. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth isn’t always a quick “Good Game” time of card when it hits play since any 0/1 plant can chump block him. He’s very dependent on his Annihilator 4 ability causing enough sacrificing to push the damage through.
That is my summary of Zendikar Block Constructed hope you enjoyed it and got some useful information out of this. I will be looking into the Block Format as much as I can and write about what’s being played and what’s dominating while bringing you deck examples of what is doing well. Until next time good luck and have fun everyone.
Thanks so much,
Mike
This article was written in rush and it really lacks deeper analysis. It’s just looking into daily event lists and giving one that performed well without even a try to analyze at least different matchups. There is no sideboard listed as well, author probably has no idea how to sideboard against different decks. If Mtgoacademy wants to gain any kind of respect it has to stop publishing articles like this. People will look to another places for real articles.
I have found that Mono red is indeed too weak against many of the top archetypes, mainly due to the fact that they all run white and have access to firewalker. In addition, the vampires matchup is quite hard for red. Makes me sad that I invested in a block RDW instead of say the eldrazi deck, which I think is quite strong.
Is there any reason why you only post the results from up until the 22nd? Nevertheless, good to see the numbers being compiled!
Re: Kosta105 I understand what you’re trying to say but how can I give you a match up comparision with the deck if I dont have the parts to build it with and can not test it myself? And as for the sideboard there is plenty of different ways to sideboard against different decks it all depends on your play style. You might be weaker against Red Deck Wins than the average Eldrazi player and run 4 Kor Firewalkers over 4 Pelakka Wurm or Momentous Fall?. Or weaker against vamps and run 4 Devouted Lightcaster? Run Naturalize over Nature’s Claim due to the fact you dont want to give them life. It all really just depends on your style and what you feel is better
Re. Aznsilly Sorry to hear about that Aznsilly Kor Firewalker can slow down Red Deck Wins a lot and makes them rely on a Unstable Footing to take control of certain match ups. But becomes really difficult with U/W Control running walls and counters. And the reason it went up to the 22nd is because when I finished writing the article it went up to that date, Next months I will continue from 22nd- up to the last date it shows.
And the next article will about Koros and how it runs with match up results.
Yeah tis quite a short article and not too much anaylsis on the actual deck constructions and which deck matchups it favours and faulters against. Its good to have things like this to help examine the metagame and the deck constructions and strategys of the most popular or successful decks but this one seemed a tad short.
I dont see the point in putting gideon in there I dont feel like he fits the theme of the decks at all
I also just realized that there is no sideboard :/.
You could (and perhaps should?) have made that comment regarding the sideboard right in the article. Stuff like that is what I am interested in, not just some results with a random netdeck attached.
If you have the knowledge, write it down! And if you don’t have the knowledge…
I put after the I added in the deck that I would not include a sideboard since it changes from person to person.
Re: Masterofbrine Gideon is used as a fog effect to help buy time to ramp up, or a finisher after you cast All Is Dust
I just want to know what your sideboard plan is. That will give others a good idea of what too prepare for
True SB options very from person to person and the meta, but maybe for someone who doesn’t have any idea show some cards that are good against certain decks. I find this helpful for new readers as well as experienced players alike.
A nice Sideboard plan so far would be 3 Kor Firewalkers, 2 Day of Judgement, 4 Nature’s Claim, 3 Summoning Trap, 3 Pelakka Wurm. Wurm and Firewalkers help deal with Koros and Red Deck Wins. Summoning Trap is for U/W Control and for RUG Control when they side in counters. More Day of Judgement for Vampires, Mono G Eldrazi and Koros. And of course Nature’s Claim is good all around since it targets Everflowing Chalice, Luminarch Ascension, Journey to Nowhere and many other targets.
Cool, see thats a good detailed sideboard plan and something that should probably be expanded upon and placed in the article itself. Thanks
Like the others said I too definitely feel as though you should have put the sideboard in. Good read but awfully short. Good article all together though.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, next time I will plan to extended it more and add in sideboards in the future. I apologize for lack of sideboard this time.