MTGGoldfish is supported by its audience. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a commission.
Browse > Home / Strategy / Articles / Much Abrew: Fiend Wind Eldrazi (Modern)

Much Abrew: Fiend Wind Eldrazi (Modern)


Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. Last week during our Instant Deck Techs, it was Fiend Wind Eldrazi that came out on top. As such, we're heading to Modern today to see if we can Time Walk the opponent out of the game by casting Elder Deep-Fiend over and over again, with the help of Release to the Wind. While our deck looks like a normal Eldrazi deck in some ways, with Matter Reshapers and Thought-Knot Seers, the emerge-heavy game plan makes it play much differently than the builds looking to Eldrazi Stompy opponents out of the game. Can the combo of cheap emergeable creatures, Elder Deep-Fiend, and Release to the Wind work in Modern? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!

Just a quick reminder: if you enjoy the Much Abrew About Nothing series and the other video content on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube channel to keep up on all the latest and greatest.

Much Abrew: Fiend Wind Eldrazi (Modern)

Discussion

  • As far as our record, we played a competitive league and finished 3-2, which isn't horrible for a rogue deck. This being said, I did replace one match. In our league, our last two matches were against Burn, which seems like a close-to-unwinnable matchup for our deck, so I swapped out one of the Burn losses for a loss against TitanShift from an earlier league I played to test out the deck. 
  • One thing that isn't really in doubt about Fiend Wind Eldrazi is that many of the Eldrazi themselves are good. Matter Reshaper and Thought-Knot Seer are powerful cards in an absolute sense and are even better with Eldrazi Temple, so rather than talking about how the Eldrazi we know are good are in fact good, let's focus on the more unique aspects of the deck.
  • Speaking of Eldrazi Temple, it feels like cheating when you play a Thought-Knot Seer on Turn 2, although it is more fun when you are the one casting the Thought-Knot Seer than when you are the one losing to it (which is our normal position). 
  • Elder Deep-Fiend was pretty absurd. In the early game, making the opponent (essentially) skip their turn (by tapping all of our opponent's lands) is a huge tempo swing, and then in the late game, Elder Deep-Fiend was often the card we wanted to draw the most so that we could tap down our opponent's blockers and swing in for lethal with our random Eldrazi. It gets even better when we manage to chain Elder Deep-Fiends together with the help of Release to the Wind or Sanctum of Ugin, or just by drawing them naturally. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from our league is that Elder Deep-Fiend is certainly Modern playable—it's just a matter of finding the right shell to maximize its potential.
  • As for our other combo piece Release to the Wind, the instant is super high variance. In the late game, once we have an Elder Deep-Fiend on the battlefield (or even a Distended Mindbender), it's the best card in our deck, giving us extra "cast" triggers for only three mana (and potentially saving a creature from targeted removal). On the other hand, it looks horrible in our opening hand, and when things go poorly and we only have things like Matter Reshaper and Thought-Knot Seer on the battlefield, Release to the Wind is perhaps the worst card in our deck. Does the late-game power make up for the early-game clunkiness? It's really difficult to say. There's an argument that Release to the Wind is "win more," but chaining together Elder Deep-Fiends to tap all (or most) of our opponent's lands starting on Turn 4 is one of our best game plans, especially against combo decks, which can likely kill us if they untap with all of their mana. In the end, I'm torn. The upside of Release to the Wind is huge, but we also lose some games because it does close to nothing. 
  • In general, I liked most of the choices in the deck, but the mana was a bit of a struggle. While it looks like we have mostly colorless cards, when you consider that the emerge cost on Elder Deep-Fiend is double blue and Distended Mindbender's is double black, we actually have a surprising number of double mana costs. Combine this with some actual double-colored cards like Vendilion Clique and Damnation (and even more in the sideboard) and a bunch of colorless lands, and we had a surprisingly amount of trouble casting our spells. Having a hand that can emerge an Elder Deep-Fiend on Turn 3 or 4 but not having the right colors of mana to do it is extremely painful. Minimizing true double-colored cards like Vendilion Clique seems important, while adding some more dual lands to help fix our mana could also be helpful.
  • One of the best aspects of the deck is the main-deck copies of Relic of Progenitus. While they are in the deck to support our Wasteland Strangler and Eternal Scourge, we occasionally get free wins against decks like RB Vengevine or Storm, and a surprising number of Modern decks use their graveyard to some extent. When you consider that Relic of Progenitus can be cycled away when it is bad, it seems like a pretty low-risk main-deck card in our current meta. 
  • As for the sideboard, it's fairly solid but lacking anything to deal with Tron and a bit light on hate for decks like Ironworks Combo or Storm. A couple of copies of Damping Sphere could go a long way, even thought they are a nonbo with Eldrazi Temple. The other issue was all of the double-black cards, but that can be fixed by sneaking some more dual lands into the mana base.
  • So, should you play Fiend Wind Eldrazi? I think the answer is yes. While I'm not sure it's better than more traditional Eldrazi decks, it does some really cool and unique things and is good enough to compete with a lot of the best decks in Modern, especially if we make a couple of small changes, mostly to the mana base. Plus, casting Elder Deep-Fiend several turns in a row is one of the sweetest things you can do in Modern!

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to vote for next week's deck by liking, commenting on, and subscribing to Instant Deck Tech videos! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.



More in this Series

Show more ...


More on MTGGoldfish ...

Image for Podcast 476: Are These MTG Arena Conspiracy Theories Real? podcast
Podcast 476: Are These MTG Arena Conspiracy Theories Real?

Seth and Crim discuss post-ban Modern, Crim's recent Standard tournament and whether or not a massive list of MTG Arena conspiracy theori...

Mar 18 | by mtggoldfish
Image for Every You "Lose the Game" Card Ranked from Easiest to Hardest video
Every You "Lose the Game" Card Ranked from Easiest to Hardest

Magic has 18 cards that can make the opponent lose the game directly, and today, we're going to rank them all from hardest to easiest!

Mar 18 | by SaffronOlive
Image for Weekly Update (Mar 17): Violent Outburst Banned in Modern weekly update
Weekly Update (Mar 17): Violent Outburst Banned in Modern

This week in MTG news: Violent Outburst Banned in Modern.

Mar 18 | by mtggoldfish
Image for Gain Control of All Permanents | Brewer's Kitchen brewer's kitchen
Gain Control of All Permanents | Brewer's Kitchen

Brewer's Kitchen tries to steal every permanent on the battlefield

Mar 17 | by Brewer's Kitchen

Layout Footer

Never miss important MTG news again!

All emails include an unsubscribe link. You may opt-out at any time. See our privacy policy.

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Twitch
  • Instagram
  • Tumblr
  • RSS
  • Email
  • Discord
  • YouTube

Price Preference

Default Price Switcher