Improving Common/Uncommon Eldrazi

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Upstartes
Upstartes Posts: 98
The Eldrazi seem to be intended to work together and build on one another. However, when I build Eldrazi-themed decks, they seem to be lackluster at best. I attribute this to three issues:

1. The low-end Eldrazi seem uniformly over-costed, especially those that have the Ingest ability.
2. A deck seems to need a lot of Ingest cards in order to reliably use cards with the Process ability. This doesn't leave much room in the deck for other needed cards, especially considering that most Process abilities aren't particularly powerful.
3. A lot of Eldrazi abilities deal with improving on colorless creatures. This helps the summoned Eldrazi drones, but doesn't do anything for colored Eldrazi (most of the cool ones), meaning that Eldrazi don't build on each other all that much.

There are certainly some awesome rare and mythic Eldrazi, but those tend to be awesome on their own, and building an Eldrazi deck around them just results in a lackluster deck with an awesome rare/mythic in it.

Here are a few things I think would help make the Eldrazi more fun:

* Make the low-end Eldrazi lest expensive to cast.
I don't see that this would cause any issues. Although Ingest has the potential to be crippling, with the current cost structure, it tends to take a long time before it really hampers your opponent. Cheaper Ingest creatures would make this situation just about right, I think. Likewise, I think this would boost the process situation as well. Since the Process abilities mostly aren't game-breaking, being able to use them sooner (both from cheaper Ingest creatures and from the Process creatures themselves being cheaper) would, again, be about where they need to be.
* Make all (or at least most) Eldrazi count as colorless during games (but NOT during deck-building).
I understand why many Eldrazi are colored - it limits their use to only certain-colored plainswalkers. However, once a game begins, I think all Eldrazi should benefit from Eldrazi abilities that affect colorless cards. I don't know if this would be difficult to implement or not, but I do know that it would make Eldrazi work a lot better together, and it would make Eldrazi-themed decks build as the game goes on in a way that would make them more fun.

I think these two simple things would improve Eldrazi a lot, making Eldrazi decks much more viable, as well as more fun.

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  • BigMao
    BigMao Posts: 117
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    I agree with the above. There are a few situations where I can use Ingest/Process somewhat effectively, but not many. Here are a few cards which I think are nice:

    - Slab Hammer gives a creature +2/+2 and "Ingest 1 when attack" for 9 mana, and it stacks so it's quite a decent card.
    - Murk Strider is a 2/1 creature that costs 3 with the ability "Process 1 to bounce a creature" when it enters the battlefield; I think the requirement of having Void gems makes this a very interesting card.
    - Scour from Existence also creates some Void gems but it's fairly expensive at 12.
    - Ruination Guide is a 4/3 creature that costs 13 with "Ingest 1 when attack", but it's a bit more expensive than comparable Blue creatures.
    - Transgress the Mind is a black spell that costs 6 to discard your opponent's first card and Ingest 1, I think it's also quite effective.

    That said, many of the "weaker" Eldrazi creatures that Ingest are too expensive to really be useful, and I think it would be nice if they were made cheaper. For example:

    Benthic Infiltrator - cost 12; 1/2
    Dominator Drone - cost 13; 2/1
    Culling Drone - cost 10; 2/2
    Vile Aggregate - cost 13; 0/5
    Mist Intruder - cost 9; 1/2
    Salvage Drone - cost 10; 1/1
    Sludge Crawler - cost 8; 1/1