Some people are trying to beat the Eldrazi deck by sneaking in underneath with cards like Cranial Plating, Lava Spike, or Fulminator Mage. Another alternative is to just go bigger. Of course, that’s not easy when the opposition gets access to multiple two-mana lands, but Chris Lansdell may have found a way. Let’s look at his awesome take on U/W attrition:

U/W Emeria ? Modern | Chris Lansdell

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Bottle Gnomes
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Neurok Replica
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 2 Lone Missionary
• 2 Myr Retriever
• 2 Perilous Myr
• 3 Court Hussar
• 4 Sun Titan

• Spells (21)
• 2 Condemn
• 4 Path to Exile
• 2 Detention Sphere
• 1 Aether Spellbomb
• 1 Mycosynth Wellspring
• 2 Ichor Wellspring
• 2 Mortarpod
• 3 Ensnaring Bridge
• 4 Thopter Foundry

• Lands (23)
• 2 Island
• 9 Plains
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 3 Ghost Quarter
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 1 Ratchet Bomb
• 1 Spellskite
• 2 Lone Missionary
• 2 Meddling Mage
• 1 Detention Sphere
• 2 Stony Silence
• 2 Worship
• 3 Supreme Verdict

Buy This Deck

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a deck packing four Sun Titan and some number of Emeria, the Sky Ruin. That style of deck is an established archetype. Granted, it may not be particularly powerful, but it can do a number of enormously powerful things against the Eldrazi. First, Sun Titan just outclasses cards like Reality Smasher and Thought-Knot Seer in a heads up fight, which forces your opponent to have a Dismember to make any headway. Additionally, you have access to cards like Wrath of God and Supreme Verdict, which are awesome against both Eldrazi and decks like Merfolk, Infect, or Affinity which are incapable of keeping pace with board wipes.

However, Chris doesn’t stop with a generic Sun Titan shell. He went a step further and added Ensnaring Bridge, which is a card some Eldrazi variants simply can’t beat. However, Ensnaring Bridge prevents you from really going off with Sun Titan, which is a bit of a problem. Enter Thopter Foundry. Now you can do wacky things like sacrifice your Ensnaring Bridge pre-combat, attack with Sun Titan, and rebuy your bridge. Additionally, Thopter Foundry gives you a ton of play against decks like Affinity and Infect, which tend to be weak against swarms of flying blockers.

Mortarpod is a crazy addition which lets you rebuy your value creatures at will with Emeria and Sun Titan while giving you the ability to kill under an Ensnaring Bridge. The artifact engine also gives you access to Mycosynth Wellspring and Ichor Wellspring as a way to continue hitting land drops and draw interactive elements as you work your way up to Emeria. All told, there’s a lot of powerful cards and flexibility in this shell. While the artifact theme isn’t something we’ve seen much before in this format, it ties all of the disparate themes together into something cohesive. This means Chris’ deck may be perfectly positioned to take advantage of the recent shifts in the Modern metagame.