I just think it would be an interesting departure from the usual Eldrazi oppression articles. I could def see a midrange deck coming from only one of the lands getting ban. If they keep Eye for Tron players and just axe the Temple then I think we will def see a midrange strat emerge. I’m just wondering what other crazy brews people will come up with these colorless Eldrazi toys. I might just pick some up to brew with after the ban and their prices tank putting them in the dollar rare binder.

Blue Moon is probably just a first-resort for twin players looking to go elsewhere. It plays a lot of the same cards so it’s a relatively easy transition. There’s definitely an argument that the deck is not going to make it long-term as people get used to it. A lot of the time wins depend on the surprise-factor of a blood moon. Once people start fetching basics against you you lose a lot of your game and at that point your cards are worse version of cards in a traditional control decks. Terminate or path are better kill spells than Roast, Remand is not a real counter. Blue/red doesn’t have a whole lot going for it in terms of wincons compared to white or black.

I haven’t played with Flamecaller either, I get mine monday and I’ll be testing it then. I fear she may be a win-more card, at least in an eldrazi world. Post-bans I can see her picked up in the deck even if the deck at large falls back into obscurity because of her built-in pyroclasm/anger of the gods and being a decent clock at the same time.

I have Keranos in my sideboard and it has helped me stabilize against in a number of games and some other lists I have seen with finishes online have done the same. I think it’s too slow to be mainboarded pre-ban, but I agree there’s a decent number of decks out there where the bolt is relevant.

Definitely sounds interesting, I’m not sure what the other authors have planned but I don’t have anything like this in the works. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, I just don’t speculate too far ahead to have something like that in mind. 🙂

You are correct, I was aware that the Shackles/Batterskull wincons aren’t the only way to go with Blue Moon, but I should have mentioned that in the article. Chandra, Flamecaller is interesting, I’ve seen it start popping up but haven’t had a chance to play with it myself.

I wonder if Keranos, God of Storms is worth bringing back in to that list? I think there are a lot more x/3’s or less around now, so the Bolt should definitely be useful, but Twin no longer existing takes away a good reason to play that card.

Thanks, glad you liked it!

Master of Etherium definitely seems great against Eldrazi’s limited interaction, and I guess that extends to Steel Overseer as well. I think after board Overseer would be one of the first cards I would cut to make room for Ensnaring Bridge and such, those two cards don’t seem to play well together and Overseer often just eats a removal spell for the two mana investment.

II think that the permanence of Eldrazi in the meta after April 4th will depend on the nature of the bans. If only one land will be banned I think that there will be room for a midrange eldrazi deck (I won some matches with UR list without dropping any sol land. I think it’s possible to play without one in a midrange-control shell even if the deck may be different from the one we know today). If both will be banned I think that a pure eldrazi deck can’t be a tier 1 or 2.

Largely depends on what gets banned.
If both temple and eye get hit, I think the deck is gone and the eldrazi that needs colorless will likely go out too, since wastes can’t be fetched.
If only either of them get the hammer, even harder to tell.
Numbers (as of # copies of certain cards) will be adjusted but only time will tell how the deck will fare and how the meta will develop.

Blue Moon has largely moved away from relying on Shackles and Batterskull as winconditions. Batterskull is usually still played in some numbers and Kommand is annoying there, but with the printing of Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Blue Moon decks have moved to that card as a 3of along with a sizable amount of burn that serves a twin purpose of removal and reach. Recently Chandra, Flamecaller has been another card that some have been testing(I’m still waiting for mine to get to me) and their feedback is generally positive. All this is a move away from artifacts being the main way for the deck to close games.

On the subject of the content, I think that the Affinity list I would opt for at the moment is a mix between the one that took down Louisville and the “stock” list you linked to. 4 Master of Etherium and 4 Steel Overseer are definitely where I want to be in a field full of mid-size colorless beaters, and Galvanic Blast can either give you reach or drop anything up to a Thought-Knot Seer in size. I don’t know if I can make room for Dispatch given those assumptions, but maybe it can be snuck into the sideboard.

The Jund list is also interesting – Goblin Dark-Dwellers feels like all sorts of problematic with Dark Confidant, though it may be worth the risk. I was hoping to see if a list had tested the effect of interesting new pieces of tech such as Hissing Quagmire, but I guess I’ll have to wait until this week to see if it’s good enough to use.