However, we're still a little short on other additions. One of the reasons for that may be that Marc, our Uril player, has yet to level up his legend and I'm really not looking forward to that. I can confirm, though, not that it needed to be confirmed, that Channel is pretty strong and this previously ignored card is now at the centre of the debate regarding its continued viability in the format.
It didn't take long for it to surface in only our second post-RoE EDH game. Taking things chronologically however, first came a quick heads-up game with Rafiq getting served by Phelddagrif:
1v1, Rafiq (me) Vs Group Hug (Arnaud) for the giggles.
Arnaud decided to try to win with the full-hug version and managed to land a Forced Fruition before losing it to an Oblivion Ring. Unfortunalty he followed that with an Eye of The Storm & Windfall and I couldn't kill it right away so I went for the throat. He chumped a couple of times before I tried to push through the win by dropping a Shield of the Oversoul on Rafiq with Finest Hour out. He played Swords to Plowshares for Rafiq, Misdirection on the Shield and followed it with a Krosan Grip. The extra 30 cards drawn off the Forced Fruition didn't really help me with the attack phase over and the next turn Prosperity & the copied Windfall finished me. Hippo deck wins! Wham!
Another aside: What's better than a Flying, Purple Hippo?
Answer: a Flying, Purple Hippo with Firebreathing!!!!!!
Get it made R&D! You know you want to!!
Checking back with our EDH team, we have a 4 man set up: Me (Kazuul/Big Red/Eldrazi) Vs Marc (Nath/Eldrazi) Vs Arnaud#2 (GAAIV) Vs Arnaud#1 (Rafiq)
Going first on his turn 3 Marc plays Channel into Pathrazer of Ulamog and Kozilek. That's pretty bad, though it could have been a lot worse. Still, if we can kill them, Marc is only at 9 life (we play 30 life games) and very likely to get crushed. Kozilek eats a Path to Exile right away, but the Pathrazer gets in one attack stripping me of all my permanents. This is essentially the big play in the entire game whenI convince Marc that all I need is to play my third Mountain to "deal with" the Pathrazer. He falls for it.
When Arnaud#1 then asks what's in everyone's graveyard (after only 2-3 turns) and him with 5+ mana coming free when he untapps his lands, Sol Ring and signets, it can only mean he has a Body Double in hand and I know that we can pull it out. I have no land and a full grip of things that really could have done with me getting Planar Lens online (without the annihilation, of course) so I could either play the remaining mountain in hand or discard..... It that Betrays hit the bin hoping for my intuition to be right about Body Double.
Arnaud not only had the Body Double, he also has a Hall of the Bandit Lord which I hadn't noticed so It That betrays slammed into Marc for the 11 needed to kill him on the spot. Channel that!
Two Eldrazi down, one to go!
I played a mountain & Arnaud#2's Island meant that Arnaud#1's Dancing Boots went away to a Mogg Salvage before it could be an issue & Arnaud#2 had the follow-up Swords to Plowshares right after to make it final.
Then we played a normal, Eldrazi-free game and had a lot of fun though I may have overdone the "flinch and you take 2" effects. Dying to your own cards, and not even in the hands of your opponents, is a bit weak.
Eldrazi 0, Rest of the Plane 1
Over the following weekend I shamelessly copied Jeremy's Karrthus/Eldrazi deck off YouTube, made a couple of changes and got ready to battle again.
You can find Jeremy and his lovely wife on their YouTube channel (there's that card again!) extolling the virtues of this great format: ElderDragonHighlandr This is a great visual resource by theway and I highly recommend giving up a few minutes (or a few hours) to watching these videos.
The first chance I had to play Eldrazi-Jund was actually against the deck. Friday we pulled out 5 decks and randomly assigned them. Here's where we got to after the opening few turns.
Arnaud#1 rolled the Karrthus/Eldrazi deck and has powered out enough tokens and land to play Emrakul but doesn't have it in hand, though he's also just dropped Eye of Ugin with a stack of mana open and passed the turn so it's as good as having it in hand! He's got a couple of chumps apart from the tokens but nothing that flies or otherwise effects the board. Very importantly he has Anger in the GY so his Eldrazi are going to hurt someone fast when they come out to play. He has a full hand and passes the turn on 38 life.
Arnaud#2 is playing Thada Adel/Artifacts and it must be said, he's playing it very badly. He has 10 cards in hand (and a Reliqary Tower), Propaganda, about 10 mana, Aeon Chronicler with a Basilisk Collar on it, and Magus of the Future showing Island. The deck is a monster being driven by someone who doesn't understand its power and that's a bit sad because I'm fairly sure that he should be the #1 threat at the table. He has just gone back up to 40 life by attacking with the now tapped Chronicler.
Antoine is packing Sharuum. He's Acquired Thada Adel's Darksteel Forge and played a Platinum Angel on previous turns but is down to 11 life. His latest play is a KRoR on the Angel which leaves him tapped out but with 24 power of indestructable flying on the board. He has 5 cards in hand when he passes the turn.
Player 4 is Me, the active player, playing Group Hug. I have 8 mana, Gomazoa, Indentured Djinn and Swans of Bryn Argol. I have 40 life and a full hand of 6 land, Swords to Plowshares that I've just drawn and Trade Secrets.
Player 5 is Rhys - G/W Elves. He had a full hand, Garruk on 5 counters, 5 creatures and had announced that he has Overrun in hand. He's on 25 (or 26) life.
As the active player with only Trade Secrets able to effect the game significantly, who do you target? Ok, accepting that you can just pass the turn to Mr. Double Overrun to your left, you don't have to play the Trade Secrets, but it's going to go downhill from all sides anyway so you may as well pick someone to help:
Player 1 who will have Emrakul the next turn irregardless.
Player 2 who won't be able to profit from cards he draws through inexperience.
Player 3 who has 6 indestructable Platinum Angels already
or
Player 5 who can annoy the hell out of almost every player but actually kill none before he passes the turn to Emrakul.
I can help Thada Adel but I won't because he should be completely dominant already and he's randomly discarding Rings of Brighthearth before asking what the point of the Basalt Monolith is or not choosing the Acquire pile in an otherwise empty FoF split despite having Sharuum sitting opposite who has just Acquired his own Darksteel Forge the turn previous only because his own Acquire is in Japanese. The Emrakul player is helping him a lot with advice and reminders and but is having to hold back because any more help and he's essentially just playing the deck himself. I'm not going to give him any more though choices on what to play with Trade Secrets, because those choices are not going to solve the situation currently developing. Unfortunatly for him, this essentially relegates him to the status of "sacrificial goat" for no other reason than having Darksteel Forge in his deck.
Sharuum is winning the game quite well on his own, thank you very much. Emrakul is likely to try to do a number on him as Sharuum has noted the lack of fliers and, well, 6x indestructible Platinum Angels is a bit of a threat.
So that leaves Rhys. I think I can convince him to try to kill Thada Adel as quickly as possible so as to give the imminent Emrakul a shot a beating off Sharuum but the Propaganda is a pain. He can't play both Overrun & attack with everything, so he's got to use Garruk & attack then do it again but with the Basilisk Collar sitting opposite, it could take a lot of time without outside help and he risks being caught in a return attack. There's very little overall benefit to be reaped by helping him as it can't add damage to his attack.
So I help Karrthus. I actively help the Eldrazi take over. I must be mad!!!
Emrakul is currently the only way to beat Sharuum. Either he attacks directly (not a good idea because the 20 power of untapped flying indestructible will kill Emrakul even after the Annihilator 6) or he kills Thada Adel to get rid of the Darksteel Forge that Sharuum controls [When a player is killed all cards and permanents he/she owns are removed from play and the stack immediatly lethal damage is resolved]. The rest of the table have a couple of turns to find a way to deal with Emrakul once he's been unleashed and it's coming out anyway so helping is immaterial to what's going to happen on the next turn anyway.
So why am I helping at all?
Sharuum can untap and SDT/tutor or draw into an O-Stone or Disk and just win if he can do it before Thada Adel is killed. He also has 6 Platinum Angels in play. Me & Rhys are not really threats until Sharuum is gone and Sharuum gone means that Thada Adel is too. Rhys becomes potent especially if Sharuum takes some life off Emrakul but it's not in Rhys' interests to kill Emrakul until Sharuum & Thada have been dealt with. This is a pretty twisted situation where two players are actively ignoring the two biggest threats to help eliminate another player so that a domino effect can be triggered. It's really all just hoping that, once the beast has fed, it will roll over and take a nap letting the mice scurry in for the kill.
So what happened?
It went pretty much as I had calculated, cajoled, pushed and manipulated. I played Trade Secrets and Karrthus drew about 15 cards while I drew about 10, one of which was Hallowed Burial. I smile and pass the turn while getting roundly cussed!
Rhys goes into the tank in his first main phase and, I slip in for a quick dip and to expand on the idea that A beats B to get at C and we should help. Seeing no better solution appart from passing the turn, he attacks into Thada Adel, using Garruk's Overrrun & paying for 4 creatures for 22 damage. Thada goes to 18, loses his Magus of the Future and Rhys passes the turn.
Emrakul is searched out with the Eye of Ugin at EOT and played. He starts tapping for an all out attack on Sharuum when I suggest that he should probably attack Thada Adel with his Kozilek's Predator. He does a double take and looks at the board again before attacking Thada Adel with both for exactly lethal. Darksteel Forge goes away and Sharuum is a bit stunned. He wasn't expecting that at all!
Karrthus untaps for his additional turn and plays Artisan of Kozilek getting Dread Drone back into play. He attacks into Sharuum with all three. Annihilator 8 destroys his mana base and he blocks Emrakul with 4 Platinum Angel copies, killing Emrakul and losing 3 of the copies. He takes 14 from the Dread Drone & Artisan (-3).
Since Thada Adel is dead, Sharuum is next up, plays a land and an empty Chrome Mox and passes a bit disgusted that his grand plan is in tatters.
I untap and draw Forced Fruition, attack & kill Garruk with my Indentured Djinn, much to Rhys's total disgust. I play Hallowed Burial. Sharuum dies. He cries. It's sad when a Sphinx cries. Worse than doves.
Eye of Ugin ends up tutoring out the Eldrazi one after the other and killing off myself and Rhys. Giving an Eldrazi a billion cards that he can use to just recycle his graveyard into his library at will and tutor back is pretty strong against a deck that hopes to inadvertantly win through milling while doing it's best to help you to win! Had it been an Eye of the Storm rather than the Forced Fruition to go with the Swords to Plowshares I had in hand, I would have been much happier but it wasn't to be and it only takes a single hit from Emrakul to crush your manabase to the point where hoping to cast a 7cc enchantment, if you ever draw it, is just foolish thinking.
Eldrazi 1, Rest of the plane 1
So, we're going to sign this one off as a score draw but those pests will take some watching! Next week is Cube week with a surprisingly huge number of cards from Rise of the Eldrazi making the cut into the Common/Uncommon cube I shamelessly copied (where have I seen that before?) from Klug over on MTGS.com which you can find here. Take a quick visit even if you're not a cuber, it's pretty pimp!
I confirm, I cried ;-)
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