Devin Koepke: Brewing Under an Eldritch Moon
The spoilers for Eldritch Moon have fully let loose for all the hooligans and brewers out there to have their fun. This set is full of great art, flavor and power just like the last Innistrad block was.
That time we had Liliana of the Veil and Lingering Souls. Now we have a different Liliana and a lot of different spirits to look at, so let’s unwrap some presents.
Blue/White Spirits
This is the first thing I scribbled down when they spoiled the set. It’s not perfect, but it has a lot of good things going for it.
- Imprisoned in the Moon. As someone who has played many bad cube decks, I know firsthand how powerful Song of the Dryads is, and Imprisoned in the Moon is a very similar card. It gets rid of planeswalkers, troublesome creatures, and the random Westvale Abbey.
- The 1,2,3 draws. This deck plays lots of powerful cards like Avacyn and Gideon, but those are mainly there to close out the opponent or come back when behind. The true strength of this kind of deck are the tempo draws where you hit Wanderer on one, 2 drop on 2, and finish them with a 3. The problem here will be consistency, because you only have one 1 drop.
- Reflector Mage is still busted as ever. I don’t think I need to go into detail about this one.
As I said, this was a Level 1 deck I had on paper, but what if we added colors and cut cards that we were priced into playing because they were automatic additions?
Bant Spirits
This deck is about as jam-packed with good creatures as you can get, but that’s pretty much all you have. The way you combat spells is by using creature utility like Reflector Mage‘s bounce as removal and Bygone Bishop‘s Clue-making potential to draw you cards. With so many enter the battlefield effects, I thought Eerie Interlude would be kind of sweet with what we’re doing. Granted it’s not the best with Permeating Mass‘s token making power, but I guess you can’t really have it all.
Wizards did something this set that has never been done before, which was make a card that allows you to put planeswalkers directly into play. They probably thought “Hey, Collected Company didn’t warp any formats, right?” Enter Deploy the Gatewatch.
Deploying Abzan
I’m not sure that this is even remotely close to viable, but it looks sweet, and in the end that’s kind of all that matters. The goal of this thing we have here is to try and keep the board clear and either play a Sorin or a Deploy for some value. Everything that isn’t used to find that planeswalkers is a removal spell, and that includes the creature lands. I also don’t know if Chandra is supposed to be in the deck, but she is the best off-color planeswalker and she eats people alive, which is nice. I hope someone makes this deck tuned and great. This should be a thing, and we should make it happen.
I’m no master deck builder and I will never claim to be, but I do have an imagination and I put it to work. If just one of my readers uses one of these lists as a reference, tool, or idea then I have done my job. As always, thanks for reading and I wish you the best of luck.
Devin Koepke is a Midwest grinder who will jump in a car and travel off to a far off land at any opportunity. Specializing in whatever the tournament is that weekend, he has a wide range of knowledge and skills that he is excited to share with you. So sit back, crack open an ice cold beverage and get your Hot Pocket out of the microwave, because this is going to be fun.
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