I can dig that. I've watched this deck a lot on the Nevius stream, and I remain amazed that it doesn't curl up and die. I sleeved it up and played five games against R/G Ramp today and I am sad to report that the results were brutal, Ramp 5, Sultai Ingest Control zero (0). I never had the perfect counterspell curve, and I don't think it can be counted upon. I also tested the what-happens-if-they-kill-Intruder theory and the answer is "nothing good for sultai". It hasn't proven it can handle R/G Ramp to me, but it is an overperformer. I am still looking for a great Sultai list, but if I had to play those colors today I would play Sultai Fog.

Here's a Sultai Midrange/Superfriends deck I quite like. It does have quite a few control elements and is perfectly happy to go to late-game against almost anything (five planewalkers who each generate card advantage can be tough for most decks to beat in a long game), but at heart, this deck wants to beat down. I'm 19-6 with it so far.

Creatures

1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 x Gatecreeper Vine
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Lilliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Bounding Krasis
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 x Woodland Wanderer
2 x Gilt-Leaf Winnower
2 x Outland Colossus
1 x Greenwarden of Murasa
1 x Woodland Bellower
1 x Sire of Stagnation
2 x Alhammarret, High Arbiter

Spells

3 x Coastal Discovery
3 x Cruel Revival
1 x Part the Waterveil

Planeswalkers

1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 x Kiora, Master of the Depths

Lands

1 x Plains
3 x Island
3 x Swamp
5 x Forest
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Lumbering Falls
2 x Woodland Cemetery
2 x Drowned Catacomb
2 x Hinterland Harbor
1 x Dimir Guildgate
4 x Evolving Wilds


A few things that aren't in here that one would think should be:

1. No Gaea's Revenge. I think it's not well placed in the meta as Alhammarret. I kept careful track as I played, and there weren't any games I lost that I might have won if I had Gaea's instead, but there were two where I trapped Ulamog in the other guy's hand and won where Gaea's would have most likely lost. The deck has no ramp other than Kiora, so more than two seven drops seems wrong to me.

2. No permission. I tried 2x Scatter to the Winds, but this deck really wants to tap out every turn, and can not reliably have two blue early in the game. It might in fact be correct to cut something for one or two, but on the whole, the opportunity cost of passing the turn with unused mana is really high.

3. No Sweepers. I was 4-2 against aggro, but did not play elves or thopters. I don't think they are too big a part of the current meta. And against one-for-one aggro decks, Krasis is fantastic and Woodland Wanderer is even better. Lilliana and her Marauder pals aren't half bad either.

4. No Skyrider Elf. This came as a surprise to me, as when I built the first draft of the deck I'd imagined it being one of the key cards. Unfortunately, in practice it just wasn't very good. Rather than being fairly good in any situation in seemed a lot more like fairly weak in any situation.

5. No Oblivion Sower. I actually think this probably should go in here. I'm just not sure what to cut for it.

I'm very pleased with the mana base. It's a bit of a puzzle each game, but I was able to cast what I had early game and everything late game unless I got mossed. The shambling vents and lone plains are to give a lifelinking man-land late and to bump Wanderer from 5/5 to 6/6 - which I've found makes a surprisingly big difference.

It looks like the deck should just lose to ramp, but in fact it does fairly well there, scoring 5-2 so far. One loss came to double moss (which does cripple the deck), the other to Bant ramp, a game I thought I had good chances in even after the first time he cast Ulamog, but he had Emeria Shepherd+evolving wilds to bring the big ugly back. In one game against GR ramp, my opponent cast Desolation Twin three different times (he got it back once with Greenwarden and once with a singleton black spell land) and Ulamog once. I ended up winning with 13 cards left in my library, having dealt with nearly every threat in his library with card advantage and recursion. One of the most fun games I can remember. In some other games, I had an aggressive draw and just beat down for the win before the ramp deck was able to do its thing.

Part the Waterveil has been notably good. If you're ahead on board, an extra turn to attack can be all you need. And lategame, it can at times win all by itself. Coastal Discovery has also been excellent. Kiora plays very well with awakened lands (you can tap one as a creature as well as another land, for a total of two extra mana a turn), and they help with the beat-down plan. In other decks I can fully understand wanting Brilliant Spectrum instead for the card selection, but I think Discovery is better here.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Hey CGB,

your updated Turbofog looks great, however, i'm not quite understanding how you plan to fight Ulamog in Ramps with it? I literally see no counter. Maybe cut the hydrolashes for some counterspells?

Having played this exact matchup, this is what I did.

I cried.

Seriously though, I run Disperse in my version. I had 2 Tutelage out when my opponent cast Ulamog, I just bounced one of them. I used Alchemist's Vial to keep Ulamog from attacking me and did everything in my power to draw like a madman to mill him out. I made it that game by 1 turn.

CoGo's deck, from I can see, has no answer to Ulamog either, except to mill it early. He looks like he's more worried about the aggro game than Ulamog sitting at him from across the table, which is not a bad thing as Aggro has a better chance against this deck than a 10 casting cost 1-of Eldrazi.

you could add 1 or 2 Countermand

I've had to do some interesting dancing around Ulamog. I have milled it out of the deck on one occasion. On another, Ulamog resolved but I still had Tutelage in my hand because I saw that one coming. The following turns involved, playing the Tutelage, casting Alchemist Vials and using them to keep Ulamog away. I had a turn where I Greenwardened a Vial, used it, then next turn I Languished warden and got back another Vial. I emptied the ramp player's library just as I would have run out of Vials. I am considering adding Disciple of the Ring and maybe Adverse Conditions in place of Hydrolash to add to the tap down strategy.

No, the deck doesn't have a perfect black and white answer to Ulamog because there isn't one, he always gets to exile stuff if he gets cast. Since there are no good 1/1 card answers, you have to have a game plan instead. The deck has a silly amount of draw to it so you can set up all kinds of game plans.

CoGo, have you come over to the STEAMside?

No, he's on TurboGrafx. Stainless secretly released Origins simultaneously with BfZ on that retro system. PS4 owners are furious.

Testing with paper cards.

The languish trick wouldn't work on steam because the Guardian's second ability is completely bugged

But besides that i see the "make a trap" strategy and agree with it but i still have two difficultieswith it. First, it seems to ignore the new thing, that makes the deck exciting - a lot of planeswalkers as alternative wincondition. You could have built up your planeswalker for a lot of turns to see it destroyed by an Ulamog. And having a tutelage in your hand on turn 15 doesn't help if you tried to win with your walkers all along and didn't mill agressively. The second problem ties in with the first - the deck still relies heavily on getting out tutelages early and the opponent having no answer to them. Which of course is the reason why it's called TURBOfog, still that was the decks weakness in Origin and stays so in BFZ which is sad because we should really have a way to improve this main weakness, especially with the focus on planeswalkers added.

But i don't see a clear solution for the moment either, i've added to counterspells, but have to face a biggie deck yet. It's doing a great job against anything midrange/aggro, i have to agree with Kryder. Cheers!

Counterspells don't really help vs Ulamog, they still get to destoy your win conditions. Disperse would be better.

which doesn't stop him from milling you in two turns even with two fog. It's difficult to fit in anything in addition to not disturb the engine of the deck, however i at least won a game today with a counter against Ulamog that i wouldn't with Disperse. Doesn't mean tomorrow the reverse won't happen, though.

Yeah, of course he puts you on a short clock, but I'd rather take my chances at milling him out in 1-2 turns than to lose all my windonditions.

I have a nice little idea here. Kind of works. Could probably be better. Wanted some opinions.

3x Salvage Drone
3x Sludge Crawler
3x Blisterpod
4x Bone Splinters

3x Mist Intruder
2x Rot Shambler
1x Altar's Reap

2x Eldrazi Skyspawner
3x Benthic Infiltrator

2x Wasteland Strangler
2x Ulamog's Nullifier

3x Blight Herder
1x Oblivion Sower
1x Part the Waterveil
3x Ulamog's Despoiler
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

6x Island
3x Swamp
3x Forest
1x Lumbering Falls
2x Sunken Hollow
2x Woodland Cemetery
2x Drowned Catacomb
1x Hinterland Harbor
3x Evolving Wilds


Opinions?

Edit:
-2 Nullifer
+2 From Beyond
-1 Lumbering Falls
+1 Evolving Wilds
-1 Altar's Reap
+1 Rot Shambler

Yes, but that, of course, presupposes that you CAN mill an opponent down in a few turns after he cast Ulamog. Judging by my experience with this deck and the speeds of current day ramp that is more often not the case.

Haven't played this particular version or any version of mill since BfZ, but if your opponent is already down to like 30 cards, there should be hope. It may be a matter of style, I'd always prefer the active plan. Just like in chess I'd always prefer to sac material for activity instead of defending a worse position.

Excellent Sultai Tempo Control list for people searching for a competitive deck to play in these colors

* I did not create this list, youtube user 'shoe' posted a video of the deck and I have made minor changes to it, all credit goes to him. I will include a link to the video at the bottom of this post *

B/U/G Tempo Control (23 creatures, 14 spells, 23 land)

2 x Bone Splinters

1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 x Gatecreeper Vine
4 x Elvish Visonary
2 x Evolutionary Leap
3 x Reave Soul

1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 x Reclamation Sage
3 x Bounding Krasis
1 x Elemental Bond

2 x Gravedigger
2 x Languish
1 x Kiora, Master of the Depths

2 x Cruel Revival
1 x Ob Nixilis, Reignited

1 x Woodland Bellower
1 x Sire of Stagnation

1 x Gaea's Revenge

1 x Island
4 x Swamp
5 x Forest
2 x Lumbering Falls
2 x Woodland Cemetery
2 x Drowned Catacomb
2 x Hinterland Harbor
1 x Dimir Guildgate
4 x Evolving Wilds


From shoe's list I added 2 Lumbering Falls and 1 dimir guildgate taking out 1 of each basic. Added a second reclamation sage and took out 1 elemental bond, added 1 Kiora, Master of the Depths and took out 1 Cruel Revival (which now that I look at it might not be a card we want to cut).

This deck is legit. I went from rank 22 to rank 33 in eleven games, haven't lost with it yet. I feel it doesn't have any bad matchups that I know of and there aren't really any dead cards against certain decks. I just wanted to post the list here to help anyone looking for a competitive deck to hit rank 40. The best part is it's a ton of fun to play and has a lot of synergy.

Link to shoe's deck and video on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zbirq1KOI0
edit: Not sure why the video link starts in the middle, sorry.

I'm enjoying the sultai and bant good stuff decks lately. I often play either the sultai or bant version of these decks, and come across the other deck and it makes me want to switch to the other one.

I mean.. I'm playing sultai good stuff, come across bant good stuff, and want to build that. And so forth..

I think I prefer sultai overall because of a couple cards, but both decks are really good.

So @randomname and @k2solbri, all these decks are pretty similar so why not fill the thread with all our various types, it's nice that we're all trying to build this well and hopefully exchange ideas

My current take on Sultai goodstuff, aka how many rares can you fit in a deck??

3 Jaddi offshoot
3 Dispel (unsure about this overall)

1 Jace, vryn's prodigy
2 Gatecreeper vine

1 Liliana, heretical healer
2 Graveblade marauder
1 Nissa, vastwood seer
3 Reclamation sage
2 Scatter to the winds (unsure here too)

2 Gravedigger
2 From beyond
2 Languish
1 Kiora, master of the depths

2 Necromantic summons
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited

1 Greenwarden of Murasa
1 Woodland bellower
1 Sire of stagnation
1 Oblivion sower
2 Nissa's renewal

1 Ulamog, the Ceasless Hunger

Land

2 Lumbering falls
2 Sunken hollow
2 Woodland cemetery
2 Drowned catacomb
2 Hinterland harbor
1 Mortuary mire
4 evolving wilds
3 Island
3 Swamp
4 Forest

@beeswax I've felt pretty good without any counters but if I were to run any I like Scatter to the Winds the most for the late game awaken potential. I definitely wouldn't run dispel because there aren't very many high threat instant spells. Also a lot of decks will just not play anything for a turn which gives them value for nothing. With this deck I've found you are using every one of your lands for a specific purpose and setting one aside could cause weaker turns, especially criteria tempo turns. Just my limited opinion.

Agree, I tossed dispel in because of a few upsetting games where someones instant turned the tide too much for my liking. I've since cut all dispel and scatter for acid moss and nissas pilgrimage, still not happy there just testing them out.

I kind of hate how when you play these slow late game decks, especially against similar ones, it's a race for Ulamog. And you also have to assume late game that your opponent is holding an Ulamog ready to exile yours as soon as you drop yours. Ugh.. the mind games can be very frustrating

The testing continues..