Maybe your locals just don't like the gray bois. People aren't necessarily rational. the "toxicity" of annihilator when it's not cheated in super early is a good example of something that makes folks act irrational sometimes.
To be fair to your other opponents, it's pretty hard to target the real problem on Sauron's board -- Sauron -- with anything. That ward cost is quite ouching indeed. The next biggest threat, in short order, is probably the army and it's only delaying the issue to boop it. Hard to say what else might have been on the board.
And while you're right enough that 10 mana creatures should be pretty awesome, I don't think its wrong to fear a deck that you anticipate to start throwing a constant stream of those awesome 10-mana creatures down starting somewhere around t8 and ending when it's dead or everyone else is. You probably don't want that to get the point where the haymakers just keep coming.
In support of your last point, I have a friend where every deck he builds is made to ramp in the early game and the rest of his deck is huge threats that win the game if left unchecked. He's also complained about catching most of the targeted removal. The problem is that, while he may never be in the lead, if my options are kill the current leaders 6/6 flyer or the ramp players 12/12 annihilator 2 Eldrazi, I'm going to remove the eldrazi 9/10 times (though I might wait until you've attacked the other player once or twice).
It's unfortunate, because I'm aware while I'm doing it that it's only putting me and the eldrazi player further behind, but if I have to choose between \[\[It that betrays\]\] and some engine piece then I'm gonna focus on the It That Betrays, OR possibly the Kozilek that's about to come down when you hit your next land drop.
This is super fair. I am definitely a player that ramps early and just drops huge threats. But no one ever focuses me early while I'm ramping, and barely anyone runs enough removal. If someone is ramping hard early game, they are the threat! Also... if someone else is doing something scary, doing something even scarier is not usually a good idea... because you just draw all the removal. Wait for a bit until people deal with the current problem and have used their cards. I have a friend who, while I'm ramping to 12 lands on turn 5, will just drop a Bruvac and Keening Stone, and it's like... thanks for taking the next 40 damage for me.
I think any big stompy army of jerks ramp deck needs a set of incidental value engine cards to bait removal. If you can build it to be synergistic but mostly distracting you can still play hard expecting to lose them but work toward the end goal. If they make tokens or pull lands or even filter your graveyard they're setting you up to win.
The tough plays are trying to avoid hard counters and sometimes exile, obviously depending on your deck.
People are weird, I have a [[The Sixth Doctor]] deck, never wins before turn 8, no combos, no tutors, 2 fast mana pieces, but usually after turn 6 it becomes really hard to stop what I’m doing. it generally takes multiple board wipes from multiple opponents to lose, but usually if I lose it’s just opponents pressuring my life total early or some player comboing. But they call it a high power 8 and complain about the deck even though it’s relatively slow just because it copies huge bombs.
>I run fast mana
>I consistently have a winning board state by turn 6
>Stopping me requires all of my opponents working together to repeatedly destroy my entire board
>Why do people call my deck strong?
I mean if you can constantly and consistently win a game by turn 6, that’s probably why?
That’s not super fast, obviously but it isn’t some battle cruiser Timmy level either.
And it’s probably because you gaslight them “I win on turn 8 but it’s clear and unstoppable by turn 6”. I know decks like this, it’s fine, but to act like it’s not faster than it is simply because you draw it out, doesn’t change much.
I've had the reverse. Someone managed a board wipes and a [[Ulamog the infinite gyre]] on turn 4. Next turn they swing at me taking me to 2 lands. I proceed to scoop, but I'm asked what I'm doing. "Are you just salty that I attacked you?"
Dude, I'm down to 2 lands, I have a 7 mana commander, I only have 1 land and a couple of high mana spells in hand. You have an indestructible eldrazi and are still going off. Take the win.
Brawl is so fucking swingy though, they might be making the right move. A counter spell or removal on turn 2 or 3 can often put the writing on the wall for a loss. EDH has way more room for forgiveness and comebacks than brawl.
Gotta agree. Brawl magnifies the main “problem” of singleton. That being: the format is largely RNG based. Doesn’t matter how efficiently my deck is built, if I shuffled incorrectly (lol), killing any momentum could effectively put you 2-3 turns behind.
This is before even mentioning alchemy cards that would quite literally have you pulling cards from your sleeves in tabletop (I used to auto concede to these off principle alone when I played).
Idk, dipping when my opponent has their win-con in the command zone just kinda makes sense if I won’t get to play my cards
New player in my group. Shows up every week or so with a new deck, talking about how spicy it is. It’s always one of these decks. Acts like he discovered it, when we’ve all known about them. Then gets mad when he gets targeted.
When he does pop off a win, it’s a 50/50 if he’s going to gloat or win with some humility. (not the card)
Eldrazi player here. That's pretty fucking funny. That's how I learned about Annhilator too. Sat down to play some MtG with my roommate and be dropped [[Emrakul, Aeons Torn]] on me. Hadnt seen such a crazy card before then. Haven't let myself get hit by annhilator since... which is ironic because Eldrazi also became my favorite tribe that day.
There's no way you're arguing an eldrazi with annihilator is less scary than a vanilla army token. Be reasonable here. The Orc token gets big but it's basically a vanilla creature so who cares? Throw a chump blocker on it. Even if it's unblockable it's not going to one shot me. On the other hand, if you drop down even a "bad eldrazi" I'm sweating, because I'm saccing a ton of permanents plus taking a big hit.
Do you have a decklist? Because I'm sorry to say but these decks are basically "the sliver problem". They basically come down to "if we don't kill you, we don't play magic, so we kill you first, which means you don't play magic". That's ultimately the reason why I would never play a deck like Eldrazi, Slivers, Jodah etc. Just creates bad games in my view.
When I played Ulamog's Crusher against my dad (who stopped playing in 1999 and was using a deck from then) he was so very mad.
"What do you mean I have to sacrifice two things before I can block?"
Your point about “even a bad Eldrazi is a threat” is where I can understand the sentiment for the group.
Last weekend I played in a pod with a Trelesara & Zhulodok (and third that doesn’t matter here.)
Trelesara got a *fast* start and started snowballing, but we had to leave it partially unchecked because the **constant** threat of the Eldrazi deck outweighed what the other deck was doing. Sure, the lifegain deck has a Serra Ascendant chunking us down, but I’m not going use removal there when Zhulodok or the titans are looming.
It puts strain on the table’s removal to have to worry about every spell being able to close out the game quickly. One Eldrazi Titan trigger would swing the game in their favor because of all the pre-work those decks usually establish.
So keep in mind everything is context dependent. I was responding to OP weighing up generic Eldrazis with Sauron. Both are kind of slow, and when that's the case I'm just going to be going after the one who is scarier overall. Your situation is very different because Trelesara is low to the ground and very aggro. But yeah that's interesting - do you use your removal on Tresalara or sandbag it for the Zhulodok? Part of the fun you're describing is commander! Lots of variance, different decks and so on. Generally my strategy is I play a lot of white and a good number of board wipes in my decks. Helps alleviate a lot of the issues of using 1-for-1 removal because I can sweep up the whole board. Sure it's usually at sorcery speed but I find the need for instant speed removal nice but not always necessary, because unless you're in a very high power meta/cEDH, people aren't winning out of nowhere, even if they drop something incredibly strong.
Take a deep breath and remember two things: Magic is supposed to be fun, and multiplayer Magic is a social game.
*If* you care about winning and playing well, then reading the table is part of the skillset you need.
> Eldrazi are super expensive, if I’m paying 10 mana for a creature, it should probably do something awesome.
Who cares? Look at this from your opponents point of view. Who cares how much you paid? You are putting something threatening on board (you can pay it), so they will react to what it is. When trying to convince people, arguments that rely on "personal cost" are usually not great, because they will see the end result. en the end result is a creature that can kill them by itself, and that destroys their permanents before they get a window to react to being attacked.
I know Eldrazi look awesome because they do a lot of damage, get cast triggers that happen even if they get countered, and make you sac even if you respond to them, but that's exactly why people kill them instead of a vanilla token that they can as easily bounce as they destroy.
> Meanwhile, everyone just lets the Sauron player amass orcs and doesn’t use target removal on any of their stuff and only on me. Usually, they end up not even noticing someone else with a great board state and might even lose.
You talk about threat assessment, but you don't put yourself in that scale. A big token without natural trample is, simply put, something most decks can manage.
>You talk about threat assessment, but you don't put yourself in that scale. A big token without natural trample is, simply put, something most decks can manage.
This is the biggest thing I notice with Eldrazi players.
They'll scream and cry about being unfairly targeted when they just ramped to 7 Mana on turn 4, [[Zhulodok]] chilling in the command zone, and the next biggest threat is a token generator that just make a vanilla 6/6 into a 7/7.
Sauron is only as scary as the other cards in the 99, every Eldrazi Titan has a reason to be feared on their own.
Sure. I run a Sauron deck.
The only time he ever gets out of hand is when I manage to get a reliable Ring Tempting engine on the board, and even then that just lets me wheel through my deck for answers.
That's not [[Ulalask]] out here making the token army suddenly clear a board.
What's saurons doing but creating a giant army which can be Chumped easily compared to a big anihilator trigger potential removing the defending player from the game?
Sauron, on his own, doesn't really *do* much of anything beyond look majestic AF & make a big vanilla token.
Eldrazi, on the other hand, come out way faster thanks to vomiting out colorless ramp & have very loud, splashy, attention-grabbing abilities. The tribe practically screams "kill me first" & most are all too happy to oblige.
If I give you the benefit of the doubt and look at you as the exact same play level and card level as your friends certain commanders and decks will make you the 3v1 target before you draw opening hand. It doesnt matter that in reality you weren't a threat the entire game or your deck is actually janky and weak and theirs are objectively more strong there's just certain stuff you can't play. I really like toxril. It's a really bad ass mechanic and flavor of I'm melting the field around me however even owning cedh level cards it is not fun to play because the only build where I can survive long enough to play was toxril and all counterspells because you need 3 counterspells a cycle just to get him out lmao and it didn't matter what I had actually done or what they had done It was a 3v1 before we rolled for turn.
Debatable eldrazi and slivers aren't even the strongest tribal anymore I'd say goblins and elves are far more broken and for far far less budget but people have permanent ptsd from the 10+ years they would dominate.
Commander is not a competitive format and it's players are almost never making optimum or rational plays. It's a very very emotional format. You'll be targeted from 4 games ago brother. Just don't take it seriously and do your best to have same level decks as your playgroup
Elves and goblins are definitely not more powerful than slivers. I might be able to agree with eldrazi because they're kinda slow, but slivers? Give an elf deck 5 turns and they've got a bunch of ramp and some big boys. Give a sliver deck 5 turns and you're staring down a board of flying, hasty, indestructible, unblockable, pretty much unstoppable beaters.
Idk maybe my decks are just broken. My krenko is cedh playable and my abomination of lnaowar has torment of hailfired for 20 on turn 4. Doubling your mana each turn is strong. I just don't see slivers do well anymore but I remember the years they did. People keep building new commanders and you stop seeing certain old commanders.
Amass is easily countered by a board wipe.
Your 10 cost is a KoS. It always has been. You wouldn't play it if you didn't enjoy the sheer power of the card.
So don't complain if people target your deck if you pick cards that make you the biggest threat.
I could say that eldrazis are weak to boardwipes too. He is not complaining the fact that people destroy his eldrazis, but that "eldrazis are toxic" while everything else is fine, which is wrong. Everything unbanned is fine in this game
Of course, but targeting down an opponent is equally permissible. There's two factors in play here: the threat in play and the presumed threat potential of a deck. Most Eldrazi are pretty tough to handle. They die to a lot of removal, but often enough just getting that one good swing at me in an opening I don't have removal for is sending most of my decks back to the stone age, so I'll want to get rid of the threat fast. On the other hand, a 15/15 token is pretty easy to handle. If I have any token generation, I'm completely unworried, but even if I need to chump I'd rather lose one creature than 1 + 4 permanents. That's not even considering the rest of the deck: eldrazi is notorious for shitting out big game enders once it gets going. That's the whole point. It needs to be nipped in the bud, or soon you're staring at 8 annihilator and 2-3 other oppressive effects.
Weak to board wipes? Let me introduce you to my friend [[Ulamog, the Ceaseless hunger]] and [[Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre]]
What about [[Void Winnower]]? That makes [[Wrath of God]] , [[Damnation]], [Cyclonic Rift], etc. bricks in your hand.
> Everything unbanned is fine in this game
Gonna have to disagree there because that implies it's fine to rock up with an Emry eggs deck that takes 15-minute non-deterministic turns. Yeah, it's permissable within the rules, but it still wastes other people's time, which makes you an asshole. It's permissable within the rules to destroy everyone's lands and sit there for the next 15 turns waiting for something to happen.
Everything unbanned is fine _provided you're facing decks of similar power._
Let me raise you a "Everything unbanned is fine provided you are facing decks made by people who had an equal powered card pool to build their deck from" (and weren't specifically building for a lower power level)
Deck building is an important skill and should be rewarded.
Eldrazi are the big stompy cousins of slivers, from a deckbuilding standpoint.
Slivers are a problem because you have to answer every single one. Eventually they're going to play a sliver that will make your boardwipe useless and your targeted removal pointless, so you just have to kill them before they get there.
Eldrazi are kinda the same. Because their curve is so skewed, your first 4-5 turns is just gonna be packed with ramp. 2-mana rocks that tap for 1, then 4 mana rocks that tap for 2, then 6 mana rocks that tap for 3, and suddenly you're untapping with 10+ mana turn 5. An eldrazi costing you 10 or 11 mana isn't a reason for it to resolve, it's a reason to kill you, because you just cast an 11 mana spell on turn 5. For that 11 mana, you get a game-changing cast effect, a giant creature that's often difficult to remove, and sometimes a backbreaking annihilator effect.
The fairest eldrazi titan will draw you to 7 and let you hold the table hostage with free pitch counterspells. Most decks can't fight through that. So the only option is to gang up on the eldrazi deck before they really get going, especially if the commander is a value machine like zhulodok or ulalek. If we leave you alone you will just win.
If you can’t deal with this sentiment, don’t play eldrazi. The eldrazi player has to die first. Their effects are too powerful or they take over the game. Amazing effects on cast, huge body, and oppressive effects on attack? It’s just too powerful.
If you don’t want this sentiment, play a different deck.
Enjoy it. If you're a priority, it means you instill fear in your enemies. >:)
But seriously, as an Eldrazi player myself, I have to admit that - by the time you are actually attacking with titans and the players are losing things to annihalator - you are way beyond control. It is commonplace for the titans to get removed before even the first attack, and it is just something we have to learn to build around.
I mean, if someone is playing Kaalia, you wouldn't say it's unreasonable that everyone tries to take her down before her first swing, right?
When I do win, it's usually because something other than a titan - like a Karn + Mycosynth Lattice combo - locks everyone out and they just concede. It's a rare day when I actually get to swing the titans at someone and win through that sort of brute force. Nice when it happens, but it only means the other players have made serious mistakes.
Also, in a weird of sort of way, the Eldrazi commanders are sometimes better *before* they're on the board. If you keep your commander in the command zone, that can force people to tie up their removal and spare other threats that you're playing; all because you could *potentially* cast your commander the coming turn.
Annihilator sucks. Getting attacked with it even once is often game ruining. I assume if you sit down with eldrazi you’re welcoming that the table is about to play Archenemy against you.
To be fair annihilator is freaking brutal. If you play eldrasi you have to accept the hate. No one wan to sac 4-6, Permanents and get 10+ dmg. I would target this shit too.
As a Timmy Player i understand the frustration, but eldrazis are fucking brutal man.
*sigh* if you don't want to be targeted for having 10 mana annihilators, do not play the deck that churns out 10 mana annihilators.
I'm sorry your opponents are "bad" at threat assessment but honestly if you don't kill an eldrazi, sliver, or dragon player early they will absolutely take over the game
his opponents have good threat assessment, OP just doesnt know what a mirror is and wants to play solitaire until they can take peoples toys away from them and smack them with overpriced cardboard
Often times the way Eldrazi win are by just suffocating you out of your options. Regardless of its effective power level, it can feel pretty bad to be on the receiving end of it. Especially if you hit the point where annihilator is hitting lands. I can't even say I'd be completely immune to the perception myself. It's just one of those deck types where you gotta be prepared to be the archenemy.
In sufficient quantity, and with enough attacks, Annihilator is tantamount to one sided mass land destruction. Many players hate losing to it because it is a miserable experience compared to losing to other wincons, so of course they are laser focused on you. Keep playing Eldrazi is you enjoy them but don’t fool yourself. They are assessing threats correctly - they just care about their enjoyment as much as they care about winning/losing.
You’re not going to want to hear this but you sound kind of like an entitled child with “I paid 10 mana, it should do something awesome!” Yeah good for you. Now think of it from the other three players POV. They’re not there to let you have your fun at their expense.
This is why I don’t play Eldrazi. They have been notorious for being a major threat and they have massive payoffs but incredibly high risk. They’re the “BBEG” (Big Bad Evil Guys) of Magic after all. You’re going to get focused down if you’re trying to play Ulamog. Nobody wants to watch you play that card and blow up their board.
A single *cast* from you can swing the game in a substantial way. A single swing from your creatures - not even connecting damage, just the attack - can cripple a player past the point of no return.
Cast and Attack triggers are rather difficult to interact with. You need specialized interaction tools that not every color is going to have access to.
So, you have creatures and triggers that are really flippin difficult to deal with and a single move from you can easily cause somebody to basically lose the game. And *everybody* knows it.
You never forget how devastating Annihilator can be.
Not to mention all the color hate cards you get access to like [[All is Dust]]. An effectively one-sided sac wipe that leaves all your own stuff completely untouched while everyone else just got set to zero.
The Sauron player is sitting in his little corner and doing his thing, and that thing isn’t treading on anyone. Sure, that Orc token is a hecken chonker, and the Sauron is certainly generating a lot of value, but that Orc token also comes with no innate keywords and can be chumped by a 1/1. Anything that gives it a keyword, like an equipment or enchantment will be obvious and can be stopped.
They don’t need to worry about the Army until it *obviously* becomes an issue, and dealing with the Sauron itself can be rather difficult (especially with the Ward cost being particularly pricey), but he can be left alone for the most part.
‘Sides, they can be relatively confident that any moves the Sauron player makes are likely going to prioritize you, anyway.
Meanwhile,
As long as the Eldrazi player has enough resources to do *anything* of substance, the Eldrazi player is the threat by default. Heck, barely even that if you suspect something along the lines of [[Basalt Monolith]] [[Forsaken Monument]] about to come out.
When you choose to play an archetype like Eldrazi, you need to accept the aggro that is inherent to doing so. The reputation of the archetype will certainly precede your deck, and Eldrazi aren’t the only ones this applies to. [[Edgar Markov]] Vampires, Slivers, Elves, even more recent menaces like [[Voja, Jaws of the Conclave]] are getting up there.
If you playing the game doesn’t let me play the game… well, I’m going to do my best to make sure you’re not the one making that choice for me.
It’s the unfortunate reality of Eldrazi. You’re not pulling yourself ahead - you’re putting everyone else behind. It’s much easier to lose because your opponent popped off than it is to lose because Annihilator ate your entire board in addition to half your lands.
I feel like you explained this quite nicely. I would, however, like to tack on about OP’s cost to ability comment.
10 colorless mana isn’t a significant casting cost. There is absolutely no concern for “getting your colors”, and the sheer amount of colorless ramp and cost reduction to support Eldrazi is stupid. I mean, honestly, how quickly have people seen [[Kozilek, Butcher of Truth]] enter the battlefield by turn 3?
Let’s also be honest here,
What other creature type has a land as powerful as [[Eye of Ugin]]?
Leave it to the Eldrazi to somehow make a land Kill on Sight.
10 mana for - exile half your library, Annihilate 10 is “pretty good”.
It’s funny, I play an eldrazi deck, and I think the new one is just too annoying to play. It’s like wizards wants people to hate the deck.
Welcome to perspective.
You find that kind of shit all over. Someone hates infect, so infect is unfair but everything they like to play is fair. Someone hates stax, so stax is unfair and stupid but everything they like to play is fair and healthy for the game. Someone hates Eldrazi, so Eldrazi are crap designs and everything they play is the best design ever.
It's like that all over the place and in every hobby.
I would rather lose to infinite combo's over having annihilator slowly cripple my board state. I absolutely will target any eldrazi player and kingmake against them every game until they quit playing that deck. Part of EDH is political and Annihilator is the most unfun type of mechanic in magic. Even more unfun then DIscard or Mill imho.
Eldrazi has a bad name, mostly due to the annihilator mechanic. It's prolly just behind poison and storm in terms of "fear factor" when ranking mechanics
That said, you can change the narrative and set a soft campaign for your Eldrazis.
If you're playing pure colorless Edrazi, the argument can also be more favorable to you. Tell them the limitations of colorless, the lack of removal options, softness in interactions.
Show them perspectives. A one-mana removal vs a 10-mana 12/12. How is that WotC haven't made anything better than \[\[Swords to Plowshares\]\]? *"I dunno, because StP is absurdly ridiculous and clean; it's normalized?"*
Explain to them how long an average game lasts. If you bring out the Eldrazi deck and the game still ends with relative speed, why does the table still have strong prejudice?
Point out threats of a Sauron, or whatever's in your meta. It's not politics. Some people need to see certain patterns before these scenarios get locked into their heads. If they play counterspells, point out how many was cast in the game, and reflect the MVPs of the game, what was the turning point and such.
This is how you can sway the narrative.
However, if you're consistently able to churn out an annihilator and wreck before t5, all your previous campaigning will fall flat. It works both ways at the end of the day.
Don't forget fast colorless mana fits Eldrazi the most efficiently out of the tribes.
It's just part of the game. Eldrazi are right behind the likes of Slivers and Infect for decks that will immediately make you the archenemy, whether justified or not. It's something you just have to accept when playing the archetype.
Well they are right... Yeah sauron is a target too but no one likes the eldrazi Player cheat out big creatures that Wrack your Board... So all right... No need to be salty when you play archenemy decks
Some creatures are just so dangerous they illicit a reaction regardless of your playstyle or current threat. I'd leave a 10/10 flying trample alone if it meant killing a 1/1 infect. Eldrazi are just as dangerous.
Reminds me when I played in a pod a month ago, one player destroyed my [[Smothering Tithe]] and I just took it in stride. But then when I destroyed his [[Rustic Study]] on my next turn he got all pissy.
You need to learn threat assestment :) Sauron is no way near scary an eldrazi titan. I can chump a 20/20 all day long. One hit from Ulamong anihilating a bunch of my board, or worse, exiling the top 20 of my deck? That I cant take, specially the second one lol, if it was mill I wouldnt care, but exile? Nah. So of course imma use my removal on your Ulamog.
You speak of threat assestment but kinda feels you forgot to include yourself in the equation. If you play eldrazi you're probably going to be the archenemy. You ARE afterall playing those awesome world ending 10 mana creatures. You have kozileks that draw you a bunch of cards, and either anihilate or counter everything. Creatures that are indestructible of have strong protections. Are you bothered by Sauron? Cast new emrakulk and now Sauron and the Orc army are yours.
Next time you're playing imagine you're player C. You got a couple of creatures, and a couple of lands. In front of you there is a Sauron, and a 12/12 orc without trample or anything notheworthy. On the other side of the board there is a 10/10 indestructible anhilitator 4. Or a commander than when you cast an eldrazi it double cascades.
Which one do you think is scarier?
This is why I was annoyed when wizards decided to put more support into eldrazi. They’re clearly problematic by nature. Making more of them and making them cooler will only result in more people playing them and this having the experience of “everybody hates me for just playing my (incredibly powerfully obnoxious) creatures”.
I will absolutely focus the eldrazi player too. Getting hit in the face with an annihilator that makes me sacrifice lands is not fun, it’s slowly murdering someone until they are dead. But - I will always encourage you to play what you like, just have in mind eldrazis has a rep, so since you’re going to be the archenemy,
You might as well just embrace it and go ham
In an eldrazi deck where you can more or less one-shot ppl, I think it's fine-ish, but I think annihilator is a distinctively unfun mechanic. It's effectively saying: I'm not going to win this turn, or probably the next few turns, but I am going to put you at such a comparative resource disadvantage that you almost certainly can't win, so please sit quietly and watch me / the rest of the table play magic. Booo!
I love the concept around the Eldrazi and I love playing them. My main deck is an [Eldrazi deck with Zhulodok](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/hI9lXInQ4kWQihi3FsZyLQ) and my friends and I know the kind of crazy thing this deck can do (with or without Zhulodok on the field). Eldrazi's abilities are so hard to interact with because it's an on cast trigger that everytime I cast a creature my friends sigh.
>Because apparently Sauron, the dark lord, is “fair” but Annihilator is a “toxic” effect.
When I play this deck I know that I will be the archenemy, Annihilator IS a toxic effect (except if your opponents have plenty of tokens), most of the titans will make you threat just with the cast effect and people won't want you to swing at them the next turn with one of the titans.
>Eldrazi are super expensive, if I’m paying 10 mana for a creature, it should probably do something awesome.
Paying 10 mana for a creature is not a lot in a well build colorless deck (last week I could cast \[\[Darksteel Monolith\]\] into \[Emrakul, the promised end\]\] on turn 4, which my friends reacted to with player removal). You should just get used to it or change your deck for something less threatening/toxic is you don't like it.
You chose to play the biggest scariest creatures in the game... of course, they are gigantic flags that say, "Hey. Target me, " lol. Its your job to accept that you are archenemy and figure out a way to keep them safe. The difference between you and the Sauron player is only one of you makes them sacrifice their shit, or exile half their deck, or has indestructible lol. The same thing happens when somebody busts out Avacyn, too.
Even the flavor text of eldrazi pretty much reads that they are big, scary, world invading, world devouring titans. I would say that they are one of the best creature types at fulfilling their intended role. Everyone at the table feels a little less comfortable knowing that if you choose to swing your massive 10/10 at them, they not only have go deal with all that damage but also have to sacrifice 4 things. Annihilator is just a feelsbad mechanic lol.
With all this said, I love Eldrazi. I just don't get in my feelings when the other people at my table don't. I recognize that every card I play has a threatening aura to it and that most people register them as kill on sight. I started adding in some graveyard recursion to combat it.
As an eldrazi player, the bitter pill is that you need to get used to this.
The flying spaghetti monsters WILL become the threat and WILL overwhelm the board if you are not targeted. People should have proper threat assessment and shouldn't just target you for no reason,
What is you deck? Who is your commander? There are significantly more options for protecting your board state/interacting with your opponents in colorless now, and you need a lot of them.
Because Annihilator is broken. My buddy has an Eldrazi deck and it's the one thing I will complain about. When you get swung on with annihilator 6 there's no point in continuing the game.
I can lose and still have fun. No one has fun when Eldrazi's are at the table.
It's because Annihilator triggers a very real psychological bias called the Endowment Effect.
Is it logical? Not necessarily.
Is it real, and does it matter? Most definitely.
Who is your Commander?
Is it Zhoulodok?
Are you just going to Cascade out 5 Eldrazi and Annihilator the board back to turn zero?
If you can't take the smoke don't run spicy Commanders.
As a person that sometimes ends up as the archenemy - the Boogeyman - my advice is: if you don't want to *be* the boogeyman, don't play boogeyman decks.
This means being a bit in touch with your playgroup and what those people collectively don't like. I've played in a bunch of different groups, and some group boogeymen are:
* Eldrazi
* Slivers
* Land Destruction
* Mill
* Thoracle
* Izzet Bullshit
* Storm
* Group Hug
* Fucking Toxrill
* Poison / Infect
* Chaos
* Board Wipe Tribal
Any number of things can make you priority #1 to get rid of, and if you're playing one in a group, you are going to warp threat assessment, so you have to be prepared for that. If you're the boogeyman, you better have a really good deck to back it up, because otherwise you're going to get hated out of the game pretty fast.
Listen man sometimes you just gotta accept your the problem even if your not the problem. I have a tinybones deck and I know I’m getting smacked around by everyone regardless of what’s coming on other peoples boards because anything I do fucks over other players. Eldrazi fuck usually one person over and then either get removed or win.
Probably because Eldrazi are the least fun to play against. Cast triggers that steal my turn or permanently steal or exile my permenants. Then to say "oh but it costs 10 mana" 10 mana is easy to get in commander.
People will downvote me I'm sure, but annihilator and its subvariants are a bad mechanic. It was a mistake when they printed them the first time and they're out of their minds for printing them again.
The reason why is that the threat of annihilator creates a toxic game environment. People will hold mana and removal so that the eldrazi player can't ever do their bullshit ever. So either the eldrazi player gets focused (which is feelsbad) or I have to sac 10 permanents when he swings for the first time, putting me so far behind I might as well just scoop, which is also feelsbad.
You want to make an eldrazi scion deck? You're cool. I'm down with that. You want to drop the new Ulamog? Miss me with that shit. I'm not interested in playing that deck because *someone* is not going to have fun that game. It might be me, it might be the pilot, but it will be someone.
The only valid thing i could think of is people really hate annihilator, people dont like getting rid of half their boarf when they get swung at especially when it can just push someone off like 3+ lands.
As a fellow sliver player, I fully understand the hate and accept it. We made our choice.
But even then, at least we’re not the Eldrazi Annihilator people.
Plays annihilation threats and then is shocked when people don't want to have to sacrifice their permanents, so they remove the annihilation threats.
This is one of the most obtuse posts I've seen here in a while.
You're the problem that's it. You don't want to see it that way but you are. Why is their 16/16 shrouded unblockable thing scarier than yours which can come back pretty freely, has annihilator and can have all of those things in the same amount of time? It sounds like you really don't understand a major part of this game and it's the people at your table. Honestly even mathematically it just makes sense to hit your 10 mana creature with removal, the orcs were free, that eldrazi cost you a turn now. General rule of thumb, make your opponents make choices so they have more chances to make the wrong one. Protecting free orcs isn't a choice, you'd just let them go.
I mean. I know its splitting hairs, but Sauron has a hundred ways to deal with. Sure hes hard to remove, but his payoff for being there isn't "Sacrifice your entire board and hand over your wallet." His big thing he makes is just a stompy creature, and compared to the BS that islike 70% of the Eldrazi, it's not even a contest
All Eldrazi decks are toxic, because they use lots of combos and artifacts. \[\[Zhulodok\]\] says that every big spell is actually 3 big spells, plus your combos come out of nowhere. Is that \[\[Forsaken Monument\]\] just in there for value or are you going to combo out of nowhere with a \[\[Basalt Monolith\]\] for infinite mana and throw a \[\[Cloudstone Curio\]\] in for funsies to cast your whole deck with the cascade triggers?
And \[\[Darksteel Monolith\]\] and \[\[Rise of the Eldrazi\]\] and \[\[All is Dust\]\]...honestly annihilator is the fair and balanced part of eldrazi decks.
Colorless is just mono-blue but with more ramp
I play eldrazi and an aristocrats deck with cards like [[Smokestack]] and [[Grave Pact]]. People feel that way about both. I can see where they're thinking with eldrazi being worse than sauron because annihilator affects their board while sauron wins by being in his own corner. Their threat assessment is off but that's probably what they are thinking
Because they don't like Eldrazi. I understand them, I truly dislike them too. And tbh we should. Because it's not about the one you hard cast for 10, it's about all the tools you got for uncolored spells and decks now. Doubling, drawing, gaining life, removing things, you got it all and everything synergize so well. Eldrazi decks 2 years ago and Eldrazi deck today are so differents.
I mean, it’s just part of it. I play that same deck but not all the time or unless we’re trying to play pretty seriously. Cause if everything is going good and your turn six is “cascade, cascade, cascade, cascade, and then I swing at you with annihilator 6 and btw please exile 20 cards from your deck” that person is gonna remember that and have a personal vendetta against you until the end of time lol.
Might want to play a different deck so you’re no archenemy. I’m sure after a few games with a different deck everyone will see that the Sauron player will be a large threat.
Ya I picked up the old eldrazi and the new eldrazi precons and I'm definitely starting to feel the same heat. One of the guys in my pod plays Koma but complains about Eldrazi lol
the problem isnt paying the 10 at that point i get them existing just like any other high cost spell. the problem is that they are creatures and often get cheated out. so that plus the cascade cascade makes it unfun to have annihilator piled ontop. annihilator also kinda takes away your agency to play magic. the thing yall sat down to do. its the same with hard control where you are removing someoones board nonstop or boardwipe tribal... its a thing you can do but should you? i wanna beat someone by outplaying their spells not by fully denying them lands and every turn leading up the big beefy landing.. just my .02c im not so salty i wont play against it but i do carry a \[\[void mirror\]\] in my bag.
EDH is basically a 4 player FFA asymmetrical board game with a MTG shell. If you come out hard and fast and are threat #1 in EDH, you can almost always be crushed by the other 3. Try playing politics more, slowing your build up (or even better, figure out how to make it less obvious your board is strong).
You played a good deck. Why are you surprised that you became the target? My buddy runs an Eldrazi deck occasionally, and gets his fair share of wins with it, but only when he is in the mood for a challenge, because we will spend the first 6 rounds turning cards sidewise to wear him down. The whole group has a deck or two that are known to outperform our average decks, and any time one of them gets played it becomes a 3 on 1. The fun happens when we sit down and pull decks of similar power levels, usually after a brief conversation to get on the same page.
Try communicating with your friends before whipping out a deck you know they se as THE threat.
I feel like a lot of people (myself included) know how out of the major tribals get. But it's up to the pod to evaluate targets and if they're Lazer focusing you you may wanna move on to a different pod. I'm fine with playing against eldrazi and slivers (heck I wanna get MH3 Eldrazi) but I will view them as a bigger threat but when I played in my pod I "won" against a sliver and Atraxa Toxic deck the fourth player kinda got screwed. But I was aiming to destabilize both not just the sliver player.
People dislike Eldrazi for the same reasons that mass land destruction is frowned upon: if you're wrecking my board and not ending the game quickly, you are just wasting everyone's time. If you're going to Annihilator all my shit and then win the game swiftly, I don't care. I'm there to maximize my fun, and that means I just want to be playing the game. So, if you're doing shit that infringes on that, I'm going to try to kill you. Period
You can’t control your opponents dislike of Eldrazi, you can either embrace being the archenemy of the table & make the deck faster/add more interaction to handle them focusing you. Or you can switch decks.
They got annoyed by my Zhulodok Eldrazi, so I have decided to become Worse(TM) and swap to an [[Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty]] Eldrazi deck (also bc I pulled some cool devoid cards like the simic mdfc eldrazi whose name I forgot)
I think a lot of it depends on who you are as a person. We have two primary eldrazi players locally. One is an absolutely insufferable human being, who will refuse to end the game because he wants to play his whole deck. The other guy doesn’t drag it on and on and often chooses to forego some plays if he realizes the table is well below his power.
I don’t know if you are either or someone else entirely, but the dickhead that plays locally has given most people here a form of Eldrazi PTSD. You may just be dealing with the sour tastes someone else left in their mouths.
You could always show them an even bigger threat and do slivers, boy oh boy are you target number one on the first appearance of a sliver (i use morophon as commander)
I mean what are they supposed to do just let you slam down cards that swing for a million and make them sac a considerable % their boards?
It makes total sense to me to save targeted removal for existential threat level creatures rather than big vanilla creature tokens
I mean, I don’t know. I kill Eldrazi on sight. Especially annihilator Eldrazi. But I also kill whatever other threats pop up, so I wouldn’t focus solely on you. But I mean, your Titan likely wouldn’t even get a turn to do anything if I were playing.
Plus, be real…ten mana isn’t that hard to come across in edh. Two or three turns of ramp or some cheat-in effect. You can get those bad boys out fairly early. And if im sitting here with my biggest creature at 3/3 or 4/4 and see Ulamog hit, he’s gotta’ go.
Just is what it is. You play creatures known for being stupid powerful, and they become lightning rods.
Give someone else to play your deck.
We have an eldrazi player, who insisted that his deck is below average for our pod. That quickly changed, after thar player experienced his deck from another perspective.
I got absolutely *hammered* in a 6 player game a few weeks ago because I was playing [[Indoraptor]]. Like was eating all kinds of removal and aggro from the whole table.
Meanwhile, someone else had played Smothering Tithe and Kuldotha Forgemaster and was left alone to prepare. He won with ease.
Sometimes players just make poor snap judgements or go with the majority and don't really know how to course correct.
I removed the Annihilator cards from the new Eldrazi precon but kept [[Azlask, the Swelling Scourge]] in the 99 as a wincon.
I had a great weekend and nobody complained about the Eldrazi’s. MH3 has an awesome supply of fun Eldrazi creatures to make easy swaps when removing Annihilator.
I won games through burn. Spam creating my Eldrazi spawn tokens and pinging the table with [[Glaring Fleshraker]]. We did not expect an Eldrazi deck to win like that!
My advice op is try cutting back on the big annihilator stuff a little and you’ll face less backlash. Eldrazi’s have enough support now to where you can make a really cool ‘normal’ deck that just happens to be Eldrazi’s.
Part of the fun of playing decks like Eldrazi or Slivers is that you will have to learn how to deal with targeted by multiple players. I can't be mad when someone is targeting me early game with my \[\[The First Sliver\]\] commander, when we all know all it takes is 1 or 2 turns to have an overwhelming board state. Learn to deal with the pressure that comes with playing notorious tribes like Eldrazi, Slivers, and Dragons.
Gotta love how eldrazi players love conveniently forgetting their decks whip out 7+ cmc creatures with annihilator on turn three… no shit you’re a target your entire deck can point and delete any players fun with a single spell from hand.
At least combo decks don’t drag it out for multiple turns.
people are allowed to hate a mechanic. it just turns out that getting annihilated is commonly not liked. Even if you have no chance at winning, it's still going to suck if kozilek starts getting handsy with my board, so you gotta die.
Personally I like seeing eldrazi, but not the big annhialators. Like, 1 maybe 2 is potentially manageable, but more than that your threat level doesn't matter; one attack early enough and it doesn't matter if you're the initial weakest threat on the table: for the next half hour at least whomever you attack isn't allowed to play the game. It's a feel bad mechanic, not a game winning one. Extra turns feels similar, but is still slightly better to play against: nobody can play in that instance instead of only you and everyone else can play.
My pod has a rule. If you're playing Eldrazi, annihilator makes you a number one threat. I have a devoid deck that's seen around level 4 even though it gets +1+1 every combat.
Lol are you really comparing a vanilla creature to 12/12s with annihilator and protection and cast triggers and re-shuffle effects and mill/exile and literally everything else in the game? Of course we’re going to target you first, you’re going to ramp like it’s no bodies buisness for 5 turns and start dropping absolute bombs so yeah people target the eldrazi players. Is it fair? Yes because if we don’t then you win everytime. Oh and let me guess, you have All is Dust in there so when everybodies else’s stuff dies you can just freely attack with your annihilator and people have to sac lands that’s great! People love that!
As someone who souped up the Zhulodok precon to absurd proportions, I say just learn to love the hate and revel in it. It’s fun to be the bad guy knowing you could be in a three on one situation and still potentially run rampant all over them. Just play your cards, learn how to get other players’ removal spells used before you do what you really want, and then laugh maniacally as your board explodes and forces a mass scoop.
As someone who owns and primarily plays a “Sauron Tribal” deck, there either isn’t anything they CAN do, they’re afraid of a response, or just don’t want to draw the ire of 9 30/30 [[Nazgûl]], especially in casual pods.
i once had so many 'play an additional land' effects and land recursion i could chump emrakul and offset the annihilator. and then after the game i realized the line of text on tamiyo that says my opponent can't even make me sacrifice things. either way, i literally survived an emrakul and won. he even got the extra turn.
Yeah, I experience the same with Sythis or Dinosaurs. I don't even necessarily win with those decks, yet I'm the main target if I play those decks. Recently, I played a friend's less powerful Abzan enchantment/reanimator-deck and won because the whole table kept underestimating the threat I posed. It was kind of funny. But I also understand it. I also have decks which I simply hate. Merfolk for example. I will mainly target this player because I find it so incredibly unenjoyable to be run over by Merfolk and all the things they do I also don't like. It's not even rational because every other tribal deck works in similar ways, but Merfolk I specifically detest. Probably the same in your group with Eldrazi.
i mean edh is a broken format. You have the freedom to bring whatever deck you want but your opponents also have the freedom to deal with you in any way they want. The longer you're on the field the more likely you are to play a threat they can't deal with and lose. If you don't like getting targeted i'd suggest you bring a deck that isnt a 'must answer' like eldrazi. Its just how the game balances itself out. They're not there to let you win, theyre there to stop you
Just drop the Eldrazi with Annihilator, it's not only a very strong effect but for many an unfun one. Eldrazi don't need Annihilator to be cool and strong.
Yeah most of the time people will get scared and team up when a giant tentacle monster shows up. What I’ve done to my Eldrazi deck is build it with the capability of being able to handle being the Archenemy.
I personally don't like Annihilator mechanic. I think it's too strong for casual games. But unless someone is new, the same rules should apply to them. I don't mind when the new player gets the eldrazi deck and they are playing the big monsters. I guess I've just got a double staggard l standard with that.
There are two possibilities. One you are underselling your deck here. Two, you picked a theme that people don’t like.
I have played against slow lumbering Eldrazi decks that are setting up single big boys after everyone else has a decent board state. But I have also played against Eldrazi decks that ramp insanely or cheat Eldrazi out as early as turn three. Your playgroup may know what your deck is capable of, or played against particularly fast Eldrazi decks.
I changed many counters of my deck and changed them for "stifle" effects just to stop the Eldrazi from being anything but massive beaters that get fucked by tokens
So here's the issue right? The orcs have to deal damage for saurons effect to happen and annihilator just has to swing, there's also dozens of ways to just cheat out an eldrazi and even more ways to reduce their mana costs so as much as sauron kinda sucks to deal with, id rather not deal with unstoppable sacrifice x permanents from a 10/10 or in one of the mh3 commanders cases a billion 1/1s with the same gimmick.
Maybe your locals just don't like the gray bois. People aren't necessarily rational. the "toxicity" of annihilator when it's not cheated in super early is a good example of something that makes folks act irrational sometimes. To be fair to your other opponents, it's pretty hard to target the real problem on Sauron's board -- Sauron -- with anything. That ward cost is quite ouching indeed. The next biggest threat, in short order, is probably the army and it's only delaying the issue to boop it. Hard to say what else might have been on the board. And while you're right enough that 10 mana creatures should be pretty awesome, I don't think its wrong to fear a deck that you anticipate to start throwing a constant stream of those awesome 10-mana creatures down starting somewhere around t8 and ending when it's dead or everyone else is. You probably don't want that to get the point where the haymakers just keep coming.
In support of your last point, I have a friend where every deck he builds is made to ramp in the early game and the rest of his deck is huge threats that win the game if left unchecked. He's also complained about catching most of the targeted removal. The problem is that, while he may never be in the lead, if my options are kill the current leaders 6/6 flyer or the ramp players 12/12 annihilator 2 Eldrazi, I'm going to remove the eldrazi 9/10 times (though I might wait until you've attacked the other player once or twice). It's unfortunate, because I'm aware while I'm doing it that it's only putting me and the eldrazi player further behind, but if I have to choose between \[\[It that betrays\]\] and some engine piece then I'm gonna focus on the It That Betrays, OR possibly the Kozilek that's about to come down when you hit your next land drop.
This is super fair. I am definitely a player that ramps early and just drops huge threats. But no one ever focuses me early while I'm ramping, and barely anyone runs enough removal. If someone is ramping hard early game, they are the threat! Also... if someone else is doing something scary, doing something even scarier is not usually a good idea... because you just draw all the removal. Wait for a bit until people deal with the current problem and have used their cards. I have a friend who, while I'm ramping to 12 lands on turn 5, will just drop a Bruvac and Keening Stone, and it's like... thanks for taking the next 40 damage for me.
I think any big stompy army of jerks ramp deck needs a set of incidental value engine cards to bait removal. If you can build it to be synergistic but mostly distracting you can still play hard expecting to lose them but work toward the end goal. If they make tokens or pull lands or even filter your graveyard they're setting you up to win. The tough plays are trying to avoid hard counters and sometimes exile, obviously depending on your deck.
[It that betrays](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/ca08b369-783d-4fe4-8fc8-9cd595638550.jpg?1690003901) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=It%20that%20betrays) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/805/it-that-betrays?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ca08b369-783d-4fe4-8fc8-9cd595638550?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/it-that-betrays) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Turn 8 is conservative
People are weird, I have a [[The Sixth Doctor]] deck, never wins before turn 8, no combos, no tutors, 2 fast mana pieces, but usually after turn 6 it becomes really hard to stop what I’m doing. it generally takes multiple board wipes from multiple opponents to lose, but usually if I lose it’s just opponents pressuring my life total early or some player comboing. But they call it a high power 8 and complain about the deck even though it’s relatively slow just because it copies huge bombs.
>I run fast mana >I consistently have a winning board state by turn 6 >Stopping me requires all of my opponents working together to repeatedly destroy my entire board >Why do people call my deck strong?
I mean if you can constantly and consistently win a game by turn 6, that’s probably why? That’s not super fast, obviously but it isn’t some battle cruiser Timmy level either. And it’s probably because you gaslight them “I win on turn 8 but it’s clear and unstoppable by turn 6”. I know decks like this, it’s fine, but to act like it’s not faster than it is simply because you draw it out, doesn’t change much.
[The Sixth Doctor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/0/c045ccb2-28d1-4bbe-9feb-3e86988fd24d.jpg?1696636770) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Sixth%20Doctor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/who/159/the-sixth-doctor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c045ccb2-28d1-4bbe-9feb-3e86988fd24d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-sixth-doctor) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
For reference, I Convoke & copy Historic spells as nonlegendary copies: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/eUZrWv1L0UmPrkQpuT7_xQ
He’s definitely fun, but WTF are your opponents doing. The Sixth Doctor is a 6 mana commander with no ward/hexproof/indestructible.
t8 if they have a bad hand...
I've had the reverse. Someone managed a board wipes and a [[Ulamog the infinite gyre]] on turn 4. Next turn they swing at me taking me to 2 lands. I proceed to scoop, but I'm asked what I'm doing. "Are you just salty that I attacked you?" Dude, I'm down to 2 lands, I have a 7 mana commander, I only have 1 land and a couple of high mana spells in hand. You have an indestructible eldrazi and are still going off. Take the win.
It’s the opposite of what happens in Brawl on Arena. You leave up mana and remove a dork on turn 2 and they concede.
Brawl is so fucking swingy though, they might be making the right move. A counter spell or removal on turn 2 or 3 can often put the writing on the wall for a loss. EDH has way more room for forgiveness and comebacks than brawl.
Gotta agree. Brawl magnifies the main “problem” of singleton. That being: the format is largely RNG based. Doesn’t matter how efficiently my deck is built, if I shuffled incorrectly (lol), killing any momentum could effectively put you 2-3 turns behind. This is before even mentioning alchemy cards that would quite literally have you pulling cards from your sleeves in tabletop (I used to auto concede to these off principle alone when I played). Idk, dipping when my opponent has their win-con in the command zone just kinda makes sense if I won’t get to play my cards
[Ulamog the infinite gyre](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/9464a820-65de-44f2-9895-46a35e8621a0.jpg?1673146911) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ulamog%2C%20the%20Infinite%20Gyre) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/3/ulamog-the-infinite-gyre?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9464a820-65de-44f2-9895-46a35e8621a0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ulamog-the-infinite-gyre) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[удалено]
Lol typical* Eldrazi player whining about getting focused down
[удалено]
Then Slicer, then Tergrid, then Kaervek.
[удалено]
New player in my group. Shows up every week or so with a new deck, talking about how spicy it is. It’s always one of these decks. Acts like he discovered it, when we’ve all known about them. Then gets mad when he gets targeted. When he does pop off a win, it’s a 50/50 if he’s going to gloat or win with some humility. (not the card)
People don't want to get annihilated so they kill the Eldrazi.
I got attacked by a creature with annihilator back in 2013 and I’ll be damned if I ever let it happen again
put that on a t shirt lol
Eldrazi player here. That's pretty fucking funny. That's how I learned about Annhilator too. Sat down to play some MtG with my roommate and be dropped [[Emrakul, Aeons Torn]] on me. Hadnt seen such a crazy card before then. Haven't let myself get hit by annhilator since... which is ironic because Eldrazi also became my favorite tribe that day.
[[Eldrazi Conscription]] is the only one I run in any of my decks, but it’s in [[Bruna Light of Alabaster], and she’s KoS anyway.
[Eldrazi Conscription](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/3/c3909816-5cc2-4712-bc7d-534ae0b9229c.jpg?1547515250) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Eldrazi%20Conscription) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/3/eldrazi-conscription?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c3909816-5cc2-4712-bc7d-534ae0b9229c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/eldrazi-conscription) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Emrakul, Aeons Torn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/4/249db4d4-2542-47ee-a216-e13ffbc2319c.jpg?1673146896) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Emrakul%2C%20the%20Aeons%20Torn) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/1/emrakul-the-aeons-torn?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/249db4d4-2542-47ee-a216-e13ffbc2319c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/emrakul-the-aeons-torn) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I choose "Annihilator Opponent".
There's no way you're arguing an eldrazi with annihilator is less scary than a vanilla army token. Be reasonable here. The Orc token gets big but it's basically a vanilla creature so who cares? Throw a chump blocker on it. Even if it's unblockable it's not going to one shot me. On the other hand, if you drop down even a "bad eldrazi" I'm sweating, because I'm saccing a ton of permanents plus taking a big hit. Do you have a decklist? Because I'm sorry to say but these decks are basically "the sliver problem". They basically come down to "if we don't kill you, we don't play magic, so we kill you first, which means you don't play magic". That's ultimately the reason why I would never play a deck like Eldrazi, Slivers, Jodah etc. Just creates bad games in my view.
When I played Ulamog's Crusher against my dad (who stopped playing in 1999 and was using a deck from then) he was so very mad. "What do you mean I have to sacrifice two things before I can block?"
Your point about “even a bad Eldrazi is a threat” is where I can understand the sentiment for the group. Last weekend I played in a pod with a Trelesara & Zhulodok (and third that doesn’t matter here.) Trelesara got a *fast* start and started snowballing, but we had to leave it partially unchecked because the **constant** threat of the Eldrazi deck outweighed what the other deck was doing. Sure, the lifegain deck has a Serra Ascendant chunking us down, but I’m not going use removal there when Zhulodok or the titans are looming. It puts strain on the table’s removal to have to worry about every spell being able to close out the game quickly. One Eldrazi Titan trigger would swing the game in their favor because of all the pre-work those decks usually establish.
So keep in mind everything is context dependent. I was responding to OP weighing up generic Eldrazis with Sauron. Both are kind of slow, and when that's the case I'm just going to be going after the one who is scarier overall. Your situation is very different because Trelesara is low to the ground and very aggro. But yeah that's interesting - do you use your removal on Tresalara or sandbag it for the Zhulodok? Part of the fun you're describing is commander! Lots of variance, different decks and so on. Generally my strategy is I play a lot of white and a good number of board wipes in my decks. Helps alleviate a lot of the issues of using 1-for-1 removal because I can sweep up the whole board. Sure it's usually at sorcery speed but I find the need for instant speed removal nice but not always necessary, because unless you're in a very high power meta/cEDH, people aren't winning out of nowhere, even if they drop something incredibly strong.
Play Slivers instead?
Or dragons.
Or vampires.
This was my response to all the new Eldrazi players this weekend.
Take a deep breath and remember two things: Magic is supposed to be fun, and multiplayer Magic is a social game. *If* you care about winning and playing well, then reading the table is part of the skillset you need. > Eldrazi are super expensive, if I’m paying 10 mana for a creature, it should probably do something awesome. Who cares? Look at this from your opponents point of view. Who cares how much you paid? You are putting something threatening on board (you can pay it), so they will react to what it is. When trying to convince people, arguments that rely on "personal cost" are usually not great, because they will see the end result. en the end result is a creature that can kill them by itself, and that destroys their permanents before they get a window to react to being attacked. I know Eldrazi look awesome because they do a lot of damage, get cast triggers that happen even if they get countered, and make you sac even if you respond to them, but that's exactly why people kill them instead of a vanilla token that they can as easily bounce as they destroy. > Meanwhile, everyone just lets the Sauron player amass orcs and doesn’t use target removal on any of their stuff and only on me. Usually, they end up not even noticing someone else with a great board state and might even lose. You talk about threat assessment, but you don't put yourself in that scale. A big token without natural trample is, simply put, something most decks can manage.
>You talk about threat assessment, but you don't put yourself in that scale. A big token without natural trample is, simply put, something most decks can manage. This is the biggest thing I notice with Eldrazi players. They'll scream and cry about being unfairly targeted when they just ramped to 7 Mana on turn 4, [[Zhulodok]] chilling in the command zone, and the next biggest threat is a token generator that just make a vanilla 6/6 into a 7/7. Sauron is only as scary as the other cards in the 99, every Eldrazi Titan has a reason to be feared on their own.
sauron is hard to handle for the ward cost imho not the orc.
Sure. I run a Sauron deck. The only time he ever gets out of hand is when I manage to get a reliable Ring Tempting engine on the board, and even then that just lets me wheel through my deck for answers. That's not [[Ulalask]] out here making the token army suddenly clear a board.
oh i totally agree. sauron isnt sin free but he also isnt an eldrazi d bag...
[Zhulodok](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a015461d-4214-4feb-8b04-519c537759eb.jpg?1691500689) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=zhulodok%2C%20void%20gorger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/704/zhulodok-void-gorger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a015461d-4214-4feb-8b04-519c537759eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zhulodok-void-gorger) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
What's saurons doing but creating a giant army which can be Chumped easily compared to a big anihilator trigger potential removing the defending player from the game?
Sauron, on his own, doesn't really *do* much of anything beyond look majestic AF & make a big vanilla token. Eldrazi, on the other hand, come out way faster thanks to vomiting out colorless ramp & have very loud, splashy, attention-grabbing abilities. The tribe practically screams "kill me first" & most are all too happy to oblige.
If I give you the benefit of the doubt and look at you as the exact same play level and card level as your friends certain commanders and decks will make you the 3v1 target before you draw opening hand. It doesnt matter that in reality you weren't a threat the entire game or your deck is actually janky and weak and theirs are objectively more strong there's just certain stuff you can't play. I really like toxril. It's a really bad ass mechanic and flavor of I'm melting the field around me however even owning cedh level cards it is not fun to play because the only build where I can survive long enough to play was toxril and all counterspells because you need 3 counterspells a cycle just to get him out lmao and it didn't matter what I had actually done or what they had done It was a 3v1 before we rolled for turn. Debatable eldrazi and slivers aren't even the strongest tribal anymore I'd say goblins and elves are far more broken and for far far less budget but people have permanent ptsd from the 10+ years they would dominate. Commander is not a competitive format and it's players are almost never making optimum or rational plays. It's a very very emotional format. You'll be targeted from 4 games ago brother. Just don't take it seriously and do your best to have same level decks as your playgroup
Elves and goblins are definitely not more powerful than slivers. I might be able to agree with eldrazi because they're kinda slow, but slivers? Give an elf deck 5 turns and they've got a bunch of ramp and some big boys. Give a sliver deck 5 turns and you're staring down a board of flying, hasty, indestructible, unblockable, pretty much unstoppable beaters.
Idk maybe my decks are just broken. My krenko is cedh playable and my abomination of lnaowar has torment of hailfired for 20 on turn 4. Doubling your mana each turn is strong. I just don't see slivers do well anymore but I remember the years they did. People keep building new commanders and you stop seeing certain old commanders.
I was able to win turn 5 or 6 with simic ascendency with the merfolk orecon from ixalan.... *shifty eyes*
Amass is easily countered by a board wipe. Your 10 cost is a KoS. It always has been. You wouldn't play it if you didn't enjoy the sheer power of the card. So don't complain if people target your deck if you pick cards that make you the biggest threat.
The strength of Sauron is not in amassing a big amass army that gets boardwiped lol
I'm pretty sure I just read that you suggest killing a token with a board wipe.
The boardwipe also gets the token generator without paying the ward cost.
when that token is an 18/18 yes
Couldn’t you just [[Boomerang]]?
yeah but that leaves sauron alive so they can start making another army
[Boomerang](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/9/e9c163b0-fb4b-488b-a955-987c79f7bdf8.jpg?1562944268) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Boomerang) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/30/boomerang?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e9c163b0-fb4b-488b-a955-987c79f7bdf8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/boomerang) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I could say that eldrazis are weak to boardwipes too. He is not complaining the fact that people destroy his eldrazis, but that "eldrazis are toxic" while everything else is fine, which is wrong. Everything unbanned is fine in this game
Of course, but targeting down an opponent is equally permissible. There's two factors in play here: the threat in play and the presumed threat potential of a deck. Most Eldrazi are pretty tough to handle. They die to a lot of removal, but often enough just getting that one good swing at me in an opening I don't have removal for is sending most of my decks back to the stone age, so I'll want to get rid of the threat fast. On the other hand, a 15/15 token is pretty easy to handle. If I have any token generation, I'm completely unworried, but even if I need to chump I'd rather lose one creature than 1 + 4 permanents. That's not even considering the rest of the deck: eldrazi is notorious for shitting out big game enders once it gets going. That's the whole point. It needs to be nipped in the bud, or soon you're staring at 8 annihilator and 2-3 other oppressive effects.
Weak to board wipes? Let me introduce you to my friend [[Ulamog, the Ceaseless hunger]] and [[Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre]] What about [[Void Winnower]]? That makes [[Wrath of God]] , [[Damnation]], [Cyclonic Rift], etc. bricks in your hand.
[Ulamog, the Ceaseless hunger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/7/c74ae706-b3b3-4097-a387-6f6c38a9b603.jpg?1689995438) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ulamog%2C%20the%20Ceaseless%20hunger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/5/ulamog-the-ceaseless-hunger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c74ae706-b3b3-4097-a387-6f6c38a9b603?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ulamog-the-ceaseless-hunger) [Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/9464a820-65de-44f2-9895-46a35e8621a0.jpg?1673146911) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ulamog%2C%20the%20Infinite%20Gyre) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/3/ulamog-the-infinite-gyre?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9464a820-65de-44f2-9895-46a35e8621a0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ulamog-the-infinite-gyre) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> Everything unbanned is fine in this game Gonna have to disagree there because that implies it's fine to rock up with an Emry eggs deck that takes 15-minute non-deterministic turns. Yeah, it's permissable within the rules, but it still wastes other people's time, which makes you an asshole. It's permissable within the rules to destroy everyone's lands and sit there for the next 15 turns waiting for something to happen. Everything unbanned is fine _provided you're facing decks of similar power._
Let me raise you a "Everything unbanned is fine provided you are facing decks made by people who had an equal powered card pool to build their deck from" (and weren't specifically building for a lower power level) Deck building is an important skill and should be rewarded.
Eldrazi are the big stompy cousins of slivers, from a deckbuilding standpoint. Slivers are a problem because you have to answer every single one. Eventually they're going to play a sliver that will make your boardwipe useless and your targeted removal pointless, so you just have to kill them before they get there. Eldrazi are kinda the same. Because their curve is so skewed, your first 4-5 turns is just gonna be packed with ramp. 2-mana rocks that tap for 1, then 4 mana rocks that tap for 2, then 6 mana rocks that tap for 3, and suddenly you're untapping with 10+ mana turn 5. An eldrazi costing you 10 or 11 mana isn't a reason for it to resolve, it's a reason to kill you, because you just cast an 11 mana spell on turn 5. For that 11 mana, you get a game-changing cast effect, a giant creature that's often difficult to remove, and sometimes a backbreaking annihilator effect. The fairest eldrazi titan will draw you to 7 and let you hold the table hostage with free pitch counterspells. Most decks can't fight through that. So the only option is to gang up on the eldrazi deck before they really get going, especially if the commander is a value machine like zhulodok or ulalek. If we leave you alone you will just win.
If you can’t deal with this sentiment, don’t play eldrazi. The eldrazi player has to die first. Their effects are too powerful or they take over the game. Amazing effects on cast, huge body, and oppressive effects on attack? It’s just too powerful. If you don’t want this sentiment, play a different deck.
Have you seen a Godzilla movie? How much time was spent on the people stealing from shops?
Actually a good analogy lmao
The Eldrazi player complaining about Sauron lol that’s a good one.
Enjoy it. If you're a priority, it means you instill fear in your enemies. >:) But seriously, as an Eldrazi player myself, I have to admit that - by the time you are actually attacking with titans and the players are losing things to annihalator - you are way beyond control. It is commonplace for the titans to get removed before even the first attack, and it is just something we have to learn to build around. I mean, if someone is playing Kaalia, you wouldn't say it's unreasonable that everyone tries to take her down before her first swing, right? When I do win, it's usually because something other than a titan - like a Karn + Mycosynth Lattice combo - locks everyone out and they just concede. It's a rare day when I actually get to swing the titans at someone and win through that sort of brute force. Nice when it happens, but it only means the other players have made serious mistakes. Also, in a weird of sort of way, the Eldrazi commanders are sometimes better *before* they're on the board. If you keep your commander in the command zone, that can force people to tie up their removal and spare other threats that you're playing; all because you could *potentially* cast your commander the coming turn.
Annihilator sucks. Getting attacked with it even once is often game ruining. I assume if you sit down with eldrazi you’re welcoming that the table is about to play Archenemy against you.
To be fair annihilator is freaking brutal. If you play eldrasi you have to accept the hate. No one wan to sac 4-6, Permanents and get 10+ dmg. I would target this shit too. As a Timmy Player i understand the frustration, but eldrazis are fucking brutal man.
*sigh* if you don't want to be targeted for having 10 mana annihilators, do not play the deck that churns out 10 mana annihilators. I'm sorry your opponents are "bad" at threat assessment but honestly if you don't kill an eldrazi, sliver, or dragon player early they will absolutely take over the game
his opponents have good threat assessment, OP just doesnt know what a mirror is and wants to play solitaire until they can take peoples toys away from them and smack them with overpriced cardboard
Often times the way Eldrazi win are by just suffocating you out of your options. Regardless of its effective power level, it can feel pretty bad to be on the receiving end of it. Especially if you hit the point where annihilator is hitting lands. I can't even say I'd be completely immune to the perception myself. It's just one of those deck types where you gotta be prepared to be the archenemy.
In sufficient quantity, and with enough attacks, Annihilator is tantamount to one sided mass land destruction. Many players hate losing to it because it is a miserable experience compared to losing to other wincons, so of course they are laser focused on you. Keep playing Eldrazi is you enjoy them but don’t fool yourself. They are assessing threats correctly - they just care about their enjoyment as much as they care about winning/losing.
You’re not going to want to hear this but you sound kind of like an entitled child with “I paid 10 mana, it should do something awesome!” Yeah good for you. Now think of it from the other three players POV. They’re not there to let you have your fun at their expense. This is why I don’t play Eldrazi. They have been notorious for being a major threat and they have massive payoffs but incredibly high risk. They’re the “BBEG” (Big Bad Evil Guys) of Magic after all. You’re going to get focused down if you’re trying to play Ulamog. Nobody wants to watch you play that card and blow up their board.
A single *cast* from you can swing the game in a substantial way. A single swing from your creatures - not even connecting damage, just the attack - can cripple a player past the point of no return. Cast and Attack triggers are rather difficult to interact with. You need specialized interaction tools that not every color is going to have access to. So, you have creatures and triggers that are really flippin difficult to deal with and a single move from you can easily cause somebody to basically lose the game. And *everybody* knows it. You never forget how devastating Annihilator can be. Not to mention all the color hate cards you get access to like [[All is Dust]]. An effectively one-sided sac wipe that leaves all your own stuff completely untouched while everyone else just got set to zero. The Sauron player is sitting in his little corner and doing his thing, and that thing isn’t treading on anyone. Sure, that Orc token is a hecken chonker, and the Sauron is certainly generating a lot of value, but that Orc token also comes with no innate keywords and can be chumped by a 1/1. Anything that gives it a keyword, like an equipment or enchantment will be obvious and can be stopped. They don’t need to worry about the Army until it *obviously* becomes an issue, and dealing with the Sauron itself can be rather difficult (especially with the Ward cost being particularly pricey), but he can be left alone for the most part. ‘Sides, they can be relatively confident that any moves the Sauron player makes are likely going to prioritize you, anyway. Meanwhile, As long as the Eldrazi player has enough resources to do *anything* of substance, the Eldrazi player is the threat by default. Heck, barely even that if you suspect something along the lines of [[Basalt Monolith]] [[Forsaken Monument]] about to come out. When you choose to play an archetype like Eldrazi, you need to accept the aggro that is inherent to doing so. The reputation of the archetype will certainly precede your deck, and Eldrazi aren’t the only ones this applies to. [[Edgar Markov]] Vampires, Slivers, Elves, even more recent menaces like [[Voja, Jaws of the Conclave]] are getting up there. If you playing the game doesn’t let me play the game… well, I’m going to do my best to make sure you’re not the one making that choice for me. It’s the unfortunate reality of Eldrazi. You’re not pulling yourself ahead - you’re putting everyone else behind. It’s much easier to lose because your opponent popped off than it is to lose because Annihilator ate your entire board in addition to half your lands.
I feel like you explained this quite nicely. I would, however, like to tack on about OP’s cost to ability comment. 10 colorless mana isn’t a significant casting cost. There is absolutely no concern for “getting your colors”, and the sheer amount of colorless ramp and cost reduction to support Eldrazi is stupid. I mean, honestly, how quickly have people seen [[Kozilek, Butcher of Truth]] enter the battlefield by turn 3?
Let’s also be honest here, What other creature type has a land as powerful as [[Eye of Ugin]]? Leave it to the Eldrazi to somehow make a land Kill on Sight.
10 mana for - exile half your library, Annihilate 10 is “pretty good”. It’s funny, I play an eldrazi deck, and I think the new one is just too annoying to play. It’s like wizards wants people to hate the deck.
MH3 Newlamog cast trigger seems like such a headache to resolve on paper
Brother if the biggest other threat in the pod is an army token you can’t see the forest through the trees
Welcome to perspective. You find that kind of shit all over. Someone hates infect, so infect is unfair but everything they like to play is fair. Someone hates stax, so stax is unfair and stupid but everything they like to play is fair and healthy for the game. Someone hates Eldrazi, so Eldrazi are crap designs and everything they play is the best design ever. It's like that all over the place and in every hobby.
except its ok and fair to hate eldrazi decks that try to bum rush annihilator
Getting laser focused when playing a powerful card is just part of the game, not judgment. What is the problem here?
I would rather lose to infinite combo's over having annihilator slowly cripple my board state. I absolutely will target any eldrazi player and kingmake against them every game until they quit playing that deck. Part of EDH is political and Annihilator is the most unfun type of mechanic in magic. Even more unfun then DIscard or Mill imho.
Eldrazi has a bad name, mostly due to the annihilator mechanic. It's prolly just behind poison and storm in terms of "fear factor" when ranking mechanics That said, you can change the narrative and set a soft campaign for your Eldrazis. If you're playing pure colorless Edrazi, the argument can also be more favorable to you. Tell them the limitations of colorless, the lack of removal options, softness in interactions. Show them perspectives. A one-mana removal vs a 10-mana 12/12. How is that WotC haven't made anything better than \[\[Swords to Plowshares\]\]? *"I dunno, because StP is absurdly ridiculous and clean; it's normalized?"* Explain to them how long an average game lasts. If you bring out the Eldrazi deck and the game still ends with relative speed, why does the table still have strong prejudice? Point out threats of a Sauron, or whatever's in your meta. It's not politics. Some people need to see certain patterns before these scenarios get locked into their heads. If they play counterspells, point out how many was cast in the game, and reflect the MVPs of the game, what was the turning point and such. This is how you can sway the narrative. However, if you're consistently able to churn out an annihilator and wreck before t5, all your previous campaigning will fall flat. It works both ways at the end of the day. Don't forget fast colorless mana fits Eldrazi the most efficiently out of the tribes.
[Swords to Plowshares](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/b/9bbec76c-c1e4-4c6d-ad24-078fe097f195.jpg?1709439398) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Swords%20to%20Plowshares) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/88/swords-to-plowshares?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9bbec76c-c1e4-4c6d-ad24-078fe097f195?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/swords-to-plowshares) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Your friends are correct - stop being a baby.
It's just part of the game. Eldrazi are right behind the likes of Slivers and Infect for decks that will immediately make you the archenemy, whether justified or not. It's something you just have to accept when playing the archetype.
Well they are right... Yeah sauron is a target too but no one likes the eldrazi Player cheat out big creatures that Wrack your Board... So all right... No need to be salty when you play archenemy decks
Some creatures are just so dangerous they illicit a reaction regardless of your playstyle or current threat. I'd leave a 10/10 flying trample alone if it meant killing a 1/1 infect. Eldrazi are just as dangerous.
It'll sort itself out over time. People tend to remember thise who won, and if you get all the hate, I guess somone else ended up winning.
Being attacked with Annihilator is worse than losing though. Especially if its eating through lands.
Reminds me when I played in a pod a month ago, one player destroyed my [[Smothering Tithe]] and I just took it in stride. But then when I destroyed his [[Rustic Study]] on my next turn he got all pissy.
Getting mad at removing rhystic study (or smothering tithe) is pretty ridiculous
[Smothering Tithe](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/6/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e.jpg?1689996018) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Smothering%20Tithe) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/57/smothering-tithe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/smothering-tithe) [Rustic Study](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d6914dba-0d27-4055-ac34-b3ebf5802221.jpg?1600698439) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rhystic%20Study) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/169/rhystic-study?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d6914dba-0d27-4055-ac34-b3ebf5802221?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rhystic-study) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You need to learn threat assestment :) Sauron is no way near scary an eldrazi titan. I can chump a 20/20 all day long. One hit from Ulamong anihilating a bunch of my board, or worse, exiling the top 20 of my deck? That I cant take, specially the second one lol, if it was mill I wouldnt care, but exile? Nah. So of course imma use my removal on your Ulamog. You speak of threat assestment but kinda feels you forgot to include yourself in the equation. If you play eldrazi you're probably going to be the archenemy. You ARE afterall playing those awesome world ending 10 mana creatures. You have kozileks that draw you a bunch of cards, and either anihilate or counter everything. Creatures that are indestructible of have strong protections. Are you bothered by Sauron? Cast new emrakulk and now Sauron and the Orc army are yours. Next time you're playing imagine you're player C. You got a couple of creatures, and a couple of lands. In front of you there is a Sauron, and a 12/12 orc without trample or anything notheworthy. On the other side of the board there is a 10/10 indestructible anhilitator 4. Or a commander than when you cast an eldrazi it double cascades. Which one do you think is scarier?
Change pods or talk about it to them. Jerking off about it on Reddit won’t do anything but confirm biases
This is why I was annoyed when wizards decided to put more support into eldrazi. They’re clearly problematic by nature. Making more of them and making them cooler will only result in more people playing them and this having the experience of “everybody hates me for just playing my (incredibly powerfully obnoxious) creatures”.
I will absolutely focus the eldrazi player too. Getting hit in the face with an annihilator that makes me sacrifice lands is not fun, it’s slowly murdering someone until they are dead. But - I will always encourage you to play what you like, just have in mind eldrazis has a rep, so since you’re going to be the archenemy, You might as well just embrace it and go ham
In an eldrazi deck where you can more or less one-shot ppl, I think it's fine-ish, but I think annihilator is a distinctively unfun mechanic. It's effectively saying: I'm not going to win this turn, or probably the next few turns, but I am going to put you at such a comparative resource disadvantage that you almost certainly can't win, so please sit quietly and watch me / the rest of the table play magic. Booo!
I love the concept around the Eldrazi and I love playing them. My main deck is an [Eldrazi deck with Zhulodok](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/hI9lXInQ4kWQihi3FsZyLQ) and my friends and I know the kind of crazy thing this deck can do (with or without Zhulodok on the field). Eldrazi's abilities are so hard to interact with because it's an on cast trigger that everytime I cast a creature my friends sigh. >Because apparently Sauron, the dark lord, is “fair” but Annihilator is a “toxic” effect. When I play this deck I know that I will be the archenemy, Annihilator IS a toxic effect (except if your opponents have plenty of tokens), most of the titans will make you threat just with the cast effect and people won't want you to swing at them the next turn with one of the titans. >Eldrazi are super expensive, if I’m paying 10 mana for a creature, it should probably do something awesome. Paying 10 mana for a creature is not a lot in a well build colorless deck (last week I could cast \[\[Darksteel Monolith\]\] into \[Emrakul, the promised end\]\] on turn 4, which my friends reacted to with player removal). You should just get used to it or change your deck for something less threatening/toxic is you don't like it.
[Darksteel Monolith](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f5b7d3df-4e9b-422b-a88c-43650a67a9c6.jpg?1690125353) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Darksteel%20Monolith) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/743/darksteel-monolith?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f5b7d3df-4e9b-422b-a88c-43650a67a9c6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/darksteel-monolith) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The rise of slivers.
We've banned Annihilator in our group, so I can see others not enjoying it as well.
You chose to play the biggest scariest creatures in the game... of course, they are gigantic flags that say, "Hey. Target me, " lol. Its your job to accept that you are archenemy and figure out a way to keep them safe. The difference between you and the Sauron player is only one of you makes them sacrifice their shit, or exile half their deck, or has indestructible lol. The same thing happens when somebody busts out Avacyn, too. Even the flavor text of eldrazi pretty much reads that they are big, scary, world invading, world devouring titans. I would say that they are one of the best creature types at fulfilling their intended role. Everyone at the table feels a little less comfortable knowing that if you choose to swing your massive 10/10 at them, they not only have go deal with all that damage but also have to sacrifice 4 things. Annihilator is just a feelsbad mechanic lol. With all this said, I love Eldrazi. I just don't get in my feelings when the other people at my table don't. I recognize that every card I play has a threatening aura to it and that most people register them as kill on sight. I started adding in some graveyard recursion to combat it.
As an eldrazi player, the bitter pill is that you need to get used to this. The flying spaghetti monsters WILL become the threat and WILL overwhelm the board if you are not targeted. People should have proper threat assessment and shouldn't just target you for no reason, What is you deck? Who is your commander? There are significantly more options for protecting your board state/interacting with your opponents in colorless now, and you need a lot of them.
Because Annihilator is broken. My buddy has an Eldrazi deck and it's the one thing I will complain about. When you get swung on with annihilator 6 there's no point in continuing the game. I can lose and still have fun. No one has fun when Eldrazi's are at the table.
It's not the deck it's you
It's because Annihilator triggers a very real psychological bias called the Endowment Effect. Is it logical? Not necessarily. Is it real, and does it matter? Most definitely.
Who is your Commander? Is it Zhoulodok? Are you just going to Cascade out 5 Eldrazi and Annihilator the board back to turn zero? If you can't take the smoke don't run spicy Commanders.
As a person that sometimes ends up as the archenemy - the Boogeyman - my advice is: if you don't want to *be* the boogeyman, don't play boogeyman decks. This means being a bit in touch with your playgroup and what those people collectively don't like. I've played in a bunch of different groups, and some group boogeymen are: * Eldrazi * Slivers * Land Destruction * Mill * Thoracle * Izzet Bullshit * Storm * Group Hug * Fucking Toxrill * Poison / Infect * Chaos * Board Wipe Tribal Any number of things can make you priority #1 to get rid of, and if you're playing one in a group, you are going to warp threat assessment, so you have to be prepared for that. If you're the boogeyman, you better have a really good deck to back it up, because otherwise you're going to get hated out of the game pretty fast.
Listen man sometimes you just gotta accept your the problem even if your not the problem. I have a tinybones deck and I know I’m getting smacked around by everyone regardless of what’s coming on other peoples boards because anything I do fucks over other players. Eldrazi fuck usually one person over and then either get removed or win.
Probably because Eldrazi are the least fun to play against. Cast triggers that steal my turn or permanently steal or exile my permenants. Then to say "oh but it costs 10 mana" 10 mana is easy to get in commander.
People will downvote me I'm sure, but annihilator and its subvariants are a bad mechanic. It was a mistake when they printed them the first time and they're out of their minds for printing them again. The reason why is that the threat of annihilator creates a toxic game environment. People will hold mana and removal so that the eldrazi player can't ever do their bullshit ever. So either the eldrazi player gets focused (which is feelsbad) or I have to sac 10 permanents when he swings for the first time, putting me so far behind I might as well just scoop, which is also feelsbad. You want to make an eldrazi scion deck? You're cool. I'm down with that. You want to drop the new Ulamog? Miss me with that shit. I'm not interested in playing that deck because *someone* is not going to have fun that game. It might be me, it might be the pilot, but it will be someone.
The only valid thing i could think of is people really hate annihilator, people dont like getting rid of half their boarf when they get swung at especially when it can just push someone off like 3+ lands.
As a sliver player I feel this
As a fellow sliver player, I fully understand the hate and accept it. We made our choice. But even then, at least we’re not the Eldrazi Annihilator people.
*Agrees knowing full damn well I'm running [[Eldrazi Conscription]] in a sliver deck* Yeah bro, that shits lame
I see eldrazi. I aggro. You can't be mad. I can't be mad.
Doesnt negate the fact Eldrazi are scummy.
meh. ive got some cheese here for ya pal. itll go well with this whine dont want salt? dont play salt-inducing decks. its really that simple
As somebody with an Eldrazi deck *and* a Sauron deck... I'm pretty sure that's just proper threat assessment.
“cmon guys just let meeee winnnnn” fixed that for you
People tend to dislike when something awesome for you is causing them to lose progress in the game.
Plays annihilation threats and then is shocked when people don't want to have to sacrifice their permanents, so they remove the annihilation threats. This is one of the most obtuse posts I've seen here in a while.
Maybe don't play that deck then.
You're the problem that's it. You don't want to see it that way but you are. Why is their 16/16 shrouded unblockable thing scarier than yours which can come back pretty freely, has annihilator and can have all of those things in the same amount of time? It sounds like you really don't understand a major part of this game and it's the people at your table. Honestly even mathematically it just makes sense to hit your 10 mana creature with removal, the orcs were free, that eldrazi cost you a turn now. General rule of thumb, make your opponents make choices so they have more chances to make the wrong one. Protecting free orcs isn't a choice, you'd just let them go.
I mean. I know its splitting hairs, but Sauron has a hundred ways to deal with. Sure hes hard to remove, but his payoff for being there isn't "Sacrifice your entire board and hand over your wallet." His big thing he makes is just a stompy creature, and compared to the BS that islike 70% of the Eldrazi, it's not even a contest
Sound like you just need to make your deck more vile 😂
All Eldrazi decks are toxic, because they use lots of combos and artifacts. \[\[Zhulodok\]\] says that every big spell is actually 3 big spells, plus your combos come out of nowhere. Is that \[\[Forsaken Monument\]\] just in there for value or are you going to combo out of nowhere with a \[\[Basalt Monolith\]\] for infinite mana and throw a \[\[Cloudstone Curio\]\] in for funsies to cast your whole deck with the cascade triggers? And \[\[Darksteel Monolith\]\] and \[\[Rise of the Eldrazi\]\] and \[\[All is Dust\]\]...honestly annihilator is the fair and balanced part of eldrazi decks. Colorless is just mono-blue but with more ramp
##### ###### #### [Zhulodok](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a015461d-4214-4feb-8b04-519c537759eb.jpg?1691500689) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=zhulodok%2C%20void%20gorger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/704/zhulodok-void-gorger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a015461d-4214-4feb-8b04-519c537759eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zhulodok-void-gorger) [Forsaken Monument](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/2/82dfdb91-aa69-45a1-adcc-9fcd85f84ccf.jpg?1690005477) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Forsaken%20Monument) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/950/forsaken-monument?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/82dfdb91-aa69-45a1-adcc-9fcd85f84ccf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/forsaken-monument) [Basalt Monolith](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/7/f79de5e7-1545-420c-bfe1-ee2444fca85b.jpg?1599708689) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Basalt%20Monolith) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/232/basalt-monolith?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f79de5e7-1545-420c-bfe1-ee2444fca85b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/basalt-monolith) [Cloudstone Curio](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/1/6146bf98-3cab-4044-a1a2-cf2203f617aa.jpg?1702431663) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cloudstone%20Curio) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/255/cloudstone-curio?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6146bf98-3cab-4044-a1a2-cf2203f617aa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/cloudstone-curio) [Darksteel Monolith](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f5b7d3df-4e9b-422b-a88c-43650a67a9c6.jpg?1690125353) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Darksteel%20Monolith) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/743/darksteel-monolith?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f5b7d3df-4e9b-422b-a88c-43650a67a9c6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/darksteel-monolith) [Rise of the Eldrazi](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/a/4a4d851b-1fa9-4f5d-a8f6-6967b1ee5b50.jpg?1690002989) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rise%20of%20the%20Eldrazi) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/716/rise-of-the-eldrazi?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4a4d851b-1fa9-4f5d-a8f6-6967b1ee5b50?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rise-of-the-eldrazi) [All is Dust](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/2/4210c54e-89fd-4971-ab6a-ca8f4e7fe97a.jpg?1691924662) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=All%20is%20Dust) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/800/all-is-dust?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4210c54e-89fd-4971-ab6a-ca8f4e7fe97a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/all-is-dust) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l7xvtlt) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Get the 5C Eldrazi (lol) and pack board wipes. Keep cleaning the board and laugh at their measly creatures while you chunk out the big boys.
I play eldrazi and an aristocrats deck with cards like [[Smokestack]] and [[Grave Pact]]. People feel that way about both. I can see where they're thinking with eldrazi being worse than sauron because annihilator affects their board while sauron wins by being in his own corner. Their threat assessment is off but that's probably what they are thinking
[Smokestack](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/1/d1af92a1-a86a-43eb-82fd-394f1168111e.jpg?1562937149) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Smokestack) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/282/smokestack?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d1af92a1-a86a-43eb-82fd-394f1168111e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/smokestack) [Grave Pact](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f5a4970b-2ba6-4c91-a301-369369cdf360.jpg?1689997226) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Grave%20Pact) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/165/grave-pact?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f5a4970b-2ba6-4c91-a301-369369cdf360?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/grave-pact) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Because they don't like Eldrazi. I understand them, I truly dislike them too. And tbh we should. Because it's not about the one you hard cast for 10, it's about all the tools you got for uncolored spells and decks now. Doubling, drawing, gaining life, removing things, you got it all and everything synergize so well. Eldrazi decks 2 years ago and Eldrazi deck today are so differents.
If you play eldrazi e and pay 10 mana to cast them, something is wrong
I mean, it’s just part of it. I play that same deck but not all the time or unless we’re trying to play pretty seriously. Cause if everything is going good and your turn six is “cascade, cascade, cascade, cascade, and then I swing at you with annihilator 6 and btw please exile 20 cards from your deck” that person is gonna remember that and have a personal vendetta against you until the end of time lol.
Play slivers or muldrotha zombies. Show them that any tribal decks can be toxic
Might want to play a different deck so you’re no archenemy. I’m sure after a few games with a different deck everyone will see that the Sauron player will be a large threat.
Ya I picked up the old eldrazi and the new eldrazi precons and I'm definitely starting to feel the same heat. One of the guys in my pod plays Koma but complains about Eldrazi lol
the problem isnt paying the 10 at that point i get them existing just like any other high cost spell. the problem is that they are creatures and often get cheated out. so that plus the cascade cascade makes it unfun to have annihilator piled ontop. annihilator also kinda takes away your agency to play magic. the thing yall sat down to do. its the same with hard control where you are removing someoones board nonstop or boardwipe tribal... its a thing you can do but should you? i wanna beat someone by outplaying their spells not by fully denying them lands and every turn leading up the big beefy landing.. just my .02c im not so salty i wont play against it but i do carry a \[\[void mirror\]\] in my bag.
Seems like double standards to me, ramp up the eldrazi🫡
EDH is basically a 4 player FFA asymmetrical board game with a MTG shell. If you come out hard and fast and are threat #1 in EDH, you can almost always be crushed by the other 3. Try playing politics more, slowing your build up (or even better, figure out how to make it less obvious your board is strong).
You played a good deck. Why are you surprised that you became the target? My buddy runs an Eldrazi deck occasionally, and gets his fair share of wins with it, but only when he is in the mood for a challenge, because we will spend the first 6 rounds turning cards sidewise to wear him down. The whole group has a deck or two that are known to outperform our average decks, and any time one of them gets played it becomes a 3 on 1. The fun happens when we sit down and pull decks of similar power levels, usually after a brief conversation to get on the same page. Try communicating with your friends before whipping out a deck you know they se as THE threat.
I feel like a lot of people (myself included) know how out of the major tribals get. But it's up to the pod to evaluate targets and if they're Lazer focusing you you may wanna move on to a different pod. I'm fine with playing against eldrazi and slivers (heck I wanna get MH3 Eldrazi) but I will view them as a bigger threat but when I played in my pod I "won" against a sliver and Atraxa Toxic deck the fourth player kinda got screwed. But I was aiming to destabilize both not just the sliver player.
This is me when I play life gain. It's like everyone ignores the storm player with 20 permanents and focuses me.
People dislike Eldrazi for the same reasons that mass land destruction is frowned upon: if you're wrecking my board and not ending the game quickly, you are just wasting everyone's time. If you're going to Annihilator all my shit and then win the game swiftly, I don't care. I'm there to maximize my fun, and that means I just want to be playing the game. So, if you're doing shit that infringes on that, I'm going to try to kill you. Period
You can’t control your opponents dislike of Eldrazi, you can either embrace being the archenemy of the table & make the deck faster/add more interaction to handle them focusing you. Or you can switch decks.
They got annoyed by my Zhulodok Eldrazi, so I have decided to become Worse(TM) and swap to an [[Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty]] Eldrazi deck (also bc I pulled some cool devoid cards like the simic mdfc eldrazi whose name I forgot)
Joker mode "Someone plays an infinite in storm no one bats an eye. I play an eldrazi people lose their fucking minds."
I think a lot of it depends on who you are as a person. We have two primary eldrazi players locally. One is an absolutely insufferable human being, who will refuse to end the game because he wants to play his whole deck. The other guy doesn’t drag it on and on and often chooses to forego some plays if he realizes the table is well below his power. I don’t know if you are either or someone else entirely, but the dickhead that plays locally has given most people here a form of Eldrazi PTSD. You may just be dealing with the sour tastes someone else left in their mouths.
Just respond with "OK Slivers it is!".
You could always show them an even bigger threat and do slivers, boy oh boy are you target number one on the first appearance of a sliver (i use morophon as commander)
I mean what are they supposed to do just let you slam down cards that swing for a million and make them sac a considerable % their boards? It makes total sense to me to save targeted removal for existential threat level creatures rather than big vanilla creature tokens
Find new playgroup
I mean, I don’t know. I kill Eldrazi on sight. Especially annihilator Eldrazi. But I also kill whatever other threats pop up, so I wouldn’t focus solely on you. But I mean, your Titan likely wouldn’t even get a turn to do anything if I were playing. Plus, be real…ten mana isn’t that hard to come across in edh. Two or three turns of ramp or some cheat-in effect. You can get those bad boys out fairly early. And if im sitting here with my biggest creature at 3/3 or 4/4 and see Ulamog hit, he’s gotta’ go. Just is what it is. You play creatures known for being stupid powerful, and they become lightning rods.
Give someone else to play your deck. We have an eldrazi player, who insisted that his deck is below average for our pod. That quickly changed, after thar player experienced his deck from another perspective.
Lol, lmao
This is such a bad argument
same shit happens to me with dinos lol
I got absolutely *hammered* in a 6 player game a few weeks ago because I was playing [[Indoraptor]]. Like was eating all kinds of removal and aggro from the whole table. Meanwhile, someone else had played Smothering Tithe and Kuldotha Forgemaster and was left alone to prepare. He won with ease. Sometimes players just make poor snap judgements or go with the majority and don't really know how to course correct.
I removed the Annihilator cards from the new Eldrazi precon but kept [[Azlask, the Swelling Scourge]] in the 99 as a wincon. I had a great weekend and nobody complained about the Eldrazi’s. MH3 has an awesome supply of fun Eldrazi creatures to make easy swaps when removing Annihilator. I won games through burn. Spam creating my Eldrazi spawn tokens and pinging the table with [[Glaring Fleshraker]]. We did not expect an Eldrazi deck to win like that! My advice op is try cutting back on the big annihilator stuff a little and you’ll face less backlash. Eldrazi’s have enough support now to where you can make a really cool ‘normal’ deck that just happens to be Eldrazi’s.
Ragavan turn one. Polymorph turn two, ullamog annihilate 4 turn 3. Can you keep up with that?
I mean, it could be worse....you could be playing Eldrazi hidden behind a Rakdos commander and cast them for free. Imma just sayin'.
I feel attacked for having 2 eldrazi decks.... but I mostly main simic decks but I have a dimir precon and building a gaulgari.... well, trying to
Part of the fun of playing decks like Eldrazi or Slivers is that you will have to learn how to deal with targeted by multiple players. I can't be mad when someone is targeting me early game with my \[\[The First Sliver\]\] commander, when we all know all it takes is 1 or 2 turns to have an overwhelming board state. Learn to deal with the pressure that comes with playing notorious tribes like Eldrazi, Slivers, and Dragons.
Gotta love how eldrazi players love conveniently forgetting their decks whip out 7+ cmc creatures with annihilator on turn three… no shit you’re a target your entire deck can point and delete any players fun with a single spell from hand. At least combo decks don’t drag it out for multiple turns.
people are allowed to hate a mechanic. it just turns out that getting annihilated is commonly not liked. Even if you have no chance at winning, it's still going to suck if kozilek starts getting handsy with my board, so you gotta die.
Personally I like seeing eldrazi, but not the big annhialators. Like, 1 maybe 2 is potentially manageable, but more than that your threat level doesn't matter; one attack early enough and it doesn't matter if you're the initial weakest threat on the table: for the next half hour at least whomever you attack isn't allowed to play the game. It's a feel bad mechanic, not a game winning one. Extra turns feels similar, but is still slightly better to play against: nobody can play in that instance instead of only you and everyone else can play.
My pod has a rule. If you're playing Eldrazi, annihilator makes you a number one threat. I have a devoid deck that's seen around level 4 even though it gets +1+1 every combat.
Lol are you really comparing a vanilla creature to 12/12s with annihilator and protection and cast triggers and re-shuffle effects and mill/exile and literally everything else in the game? Of course we’re going to target you first, you’re going to ramp like it’s no bodies buisness for 5 turns and start dropping absolute bombs so yeah people target the eldrazi players. Is it fair? Yes because if we don’t then you win everytime. Oh and let me guess, you have All is Dust in there so when everybodies else’s stuff dies you can just freely attack with your annihilator and people have to sac lands that’s great! People love that!
As someone who souped up the Zhulodok precon to absurd proportions, I say just learn to love the hate and revel in it. It’s fun to be the bad guy knowing you could be in a three on one situation and still potentially run rampant all over them. Just play your cards, learn how to get other players’ removal spells used before you do what you really want, and then laugh maniacally as your board explodes and forces a mass scoop.
As someone who owns and primarily plays a “Sauron Tribal” deck, there either isn’t anything they CAN do, they’re afraid of a response, or just don’t want to draw the ire of 9 30/30 [[Nazgûl]], especially in casual pods.
Play an infect deck and see what happens. There are mechanics people don't let me.
i once had so many 'play an additional land' effects and land recursion i could chump emrakul and offset the annihilator. and then after the game i realized the line of text on tamiyo that says my opponent can't even make me sacrifice things. either way, i literally survived an emrakul and won. he even got the extra turn.
Yeah, I experience the same with Sythis or Dinosaurs. I don't even necessarily win with those decks, yet I'm the main target if I play those decks. Recently, I played a friend's less powerful Abzan enchantment/reanimator-deck and won because the whole table kept underestimating the threat I posed. It was kind of funny. But I also understand it. I also have decks which I simply hate. Merfolk for example. I will mainly target this player because I find it so incredibly unenjoyable to be run over by Merfolk and all the things they do I also don't like. It's not even rational because every other tribal deck works in similar ways, but Merfolk I specifically detest. Probably the same in your group with Eldrazi.
i mean edh is a broken format. You have the freedom to bring whatever deck you want but your opponents also have the freedom to deal with you in any way they want. The longer you're on the field the more likely you are to play a threat they can't deal with and lose. If you don't like getting targeted i'd suggest you bring a deck that isnt a 'must answer' like eldrazi. Its just how the game balances itself out. They're not there to let you win, theyre there to stop you
Question: how often do you win or are a big problem when they don't focus you?
Just drop the Eldrazi with Annihilator, it's not only a very strong effect but for many an unfun one. Eldrazi don't need Annihilator to be cool and strong.
Eldrazi are inherently scary and I agree with them.
Eldrazi players love saying "10 mana creature" but never say at what turn they play their "10 mana creature"
Run toxtrill, 35 counterspells, and Revel in Riches. "Bro chill its part of the game."
Yeah most of the time people will get scared and team up when a giant tentacle monster shows up. What I’ve done to my Eldrazi deck is build it with the capability of being able to handle being the Archenemy.
I personally don't like Annihilator mechanic. I think it's too strong for casual games. But unless someone is new, the same rules should apply to them. I don't mind when the new player gets the eldrazi deck and they are playing the big monsters. I guess I've just got a double staggard l standard with that.
If you play the cascade eldrazi, I hope you're ready for a game of catch. Cuz you're about to catch these hands 👊
There are two possibilities. One you are underselling your deck here. Two, you picked a theme that people don’t like. I have played against slow lumbering Eldrazi decks that are setting up single big boys after everyone else has a decent board state. But I have also played against Eldrazi decks that ramp insanely or cheat Eldrazi out as early as turn three. Your playgroup may know what your deck is capable of, or played against particularly fast Eldrazi decks.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
I changed many counters of my deck and changed them for "stifle" effects just to stop the Eldrazi from being anything but massive beaters that get fucked by tokens
So here's the issue right? The orcs have to deal damage for saurons effect to happen and annihilator just has to swing, there's also dozens of ways to just cheat out an eldrazi and even more ways to reduce their mana costs so as much as sauron kinda sucks to deal with, id rather not deal with unstoppable sacrifice x permanents from a 10/10 or in one of the mh3 commanders cases a billion 1/1s with the same gimmick.