Depending on who you ask, Eldrazi Winter was either the best or the worst time to be playing MTG. If you loved to create Eldrazi decks, then fantastic!
You would dominate almost every opponent thrown in your direction. Didn’t love Eldrazi? You are nothing but fodder on the route to the pros, or at least fodder on the path toward players securing a few booster packs at FNM.
Eldrazi Winter ran from January to April 2016.
During this time, Wizards of the Coast tried their hardest to stay on top of card bannings, but there was only so much that they could do. For those four months in early 2016, an Eldrazi Winter fell upon the MTG world. Players were skipping out on certain tournaments. Others felt forced into playing Eldrazi and nothing else.
Even today, people are still talking about the Eldrazi Winter in hushed tones.
Not quite sure what the Eldrazi Winter was? Let me take you on a journey. This was a pretty major part of MTG history. I won’t be able to tell you everything but hopefully will learn why people both love and hate Eldrazi…and why Wizards will probably take more care over set design in the future.
Which Formats Did Eldrazi Winter Impact?
I am sure that many of you have a rough idea of how MTG formats work. If you don’t, then you can think of the MTG format as being a sub-game within the overall MTG game. These sub-games will have individual rules on the decks that you can build. This includes the types of cards that you can use. For our Eldrazi Winter story, we need to pay attention to two formats:
- Standard
- Modern
Standard decks contain everything from the current sets of MTG. Cards are regularly cycled out. It can vary a little since MTG has changed how standard works, but most sets will remain playable for about 2-years before they leave the format.
Modern contains everything else…sort of.
It doesn’t cover the earliest cards in the game. It includes all cards from the Eighth Edition onward. This means, bar a few bannings, every single card released since 2003. This is the most popular MTG format.
When Wizards design a set of cards, they have to balance the playability. They need to ensure that the cards are fun to play in standard. They need to make sure that they gel with the rest of the release sets in that block. They don’t want people to be upset when certain cards are pulled during their draft.
They also need to ensure that somebody wants to play with these cards in modern. After all, people won’t be massive fans of purchasing cards if they have to throw them away every couple of years, right?
At the same time, while they want the cards to be playable in modern, they don’t want to completely change the format to the point where people feel they have to ditch the decks that they have been working on for years.
This is how it should work. It normally does. However, Eldrazi Winter was different. Various factors resulted in Eldrazi completely changing both standard and modern. Seemingly forever, although it only lasted a few months. Reddit was awful during that time.
What Are the “Eldrazi” in Eldrazi Winter?
I don’t want to give you a MTG lore lesson here. Eldrazi are big, scary creatures found in Zendikar. Terrifying!
Although, you don’t need to know their backstory to use them. Most MTG players have no clue about the backstory beyond the flavor text on the cards anyway.
Eldrazi are colorless creatures. This means that you can include them in most decks. You don’t need to build around a certain mana type, any color or colorless mana will do.
In the early sets, Eldrazi were incredibly costly creatures to pay. Some had converted mana costs of 15! You certainly wouldn’t be playing them in a hurry. It was still worth including a couple inside of a deck, just because many of them were incredibly powerful. However, for most people, the Eldrazi were very much a take it or leave it sort of thing.
Then Oath of the Gatewatch happened. The game changed.
How Did The Eldrazi Winter Play Out?
Remember when I talked about how the various formats work in MTG? Well, that is now going to come into play.
Up until the Oath of the Gatewatch expansion, Eldrazi existed, but they were rarely played. They were powerful, but the mana costs were far too high. Games were ending before people were playing these cards. As a result, a lot of people avoided Eldrazi.
As you can imagine, Wizards weren’t too happy about that, so they came up with new ways in which to encourage people to play more Eldrazi. A good chunk of the game’s lore for the current block was based upon them. This is where the mistakes happened.
The first step that Wizards took was to introduce the new Eldrazi. These were cheaper creatures. Not quite as powerful as their high converted mana cost counterparts, but usable. They would cost 1-2 land to play. Nothing too drastic. It was a staple cost for this type of creature. I have no complaints about this decision.
Their fatal flaw was to create cards that would make it easier to get the powerful Eldrazi from previous sets out onto the field. There were a few cards that accomplished this, but Eye of Ugin was the worst.
This was a land that allowed you to cast any colorless Eldrazi for 2 mana less than it normally would. In theory, this means that people are now getting out their most powerful creatures two turns earlier.
Yes. Other cards were the trigger for Eldrazi Winter, but we would be here all day if we went through them. This is because these cards had an impact on everything in the game. These cards didn’t just impact standard and modern, but every set where they were legal.
Eye of Ugin was allowing people to knock out their creatures quickly. If you had 4 Eye of Ugin on the table? That is the functional equivalent of 12 colorless lands. You could play hulking creatures quickly. It wouldn’t be long before you would overwhelm your opponent.
Even the decks that were perfectly viable before were struggling to deal with the Eldrazi dominance.
Green players were sobbing in a corner as green ramp wasn’t good enough.
Blue players had no way to control the onslaught.
Red players couldn’t turn on the burn fast enough.
Black players were no doubt working out the best way to play their creatures and spells in a bid to chip away their life so that the game ends quicker.
It wasn’t a pleasant time for anybody except for Eldrazi players.
The problem is that people play MTG for fun. It is tough to have fun if you are constantly being destroyed by your opponent. It wasn’t too long before everybody shifted on over to Eldrazi decks. They dominated the pros. They were in almost every deck in the standard and the modern format, and they threatened to stretch beyond that.
There was no reason not to be playing an Eldrazi deck. It was the only way you could win.
Why would you want to bother playing with a deck where you can’t get your most powerful spells or creatures out onto that table?
I know some other decks could beat Eldrazi, but these were few and far between. They certainly were not guaranteed a win.
For four months, Wizards of the Coast let this happen. There wasn’t much that they could do. However, eventually, the Eye of Ulgin was banned. Eldrazi decks, particularly in modern, were a lot less viable after that. The Eldrazi Winter was over.
My Favorite Eldrazi Winter Deck
A lot of Eldrazi decks appeared during the Eldrazi Winter. All of them were built around fast land. All of them including the Eye of Ugin.
I played around a lot with Eldrazi decks. This is by far my favorite. With the right first draw, you could destroy your opponent by the 4th turn. You would be ramping up your creature base so fast, that they would have no hope.
Obviously, due to bannings, this deck is no longer playable. Most Eldrazi decks are unplayable in modern. They all hinge on the Eye of Ugin, and I doubt that Wizards will be bringing that back into the format:
Creatures
- 2 x Spellskite
- 4 x Thought-Knot Seer
- 4 x Simian Spirit Guide
- 4 x Eldrazi Mimic
- 4 x Endless One
- 4 x Reality Smasher
- 4 x Matter Reshaper
Spells
- 4 x Dismember
Artifacts:
- 4 x Chalice of the Void
- 2 x Ratchet Bomb
Lands
- 2 x Wastes
- 4 x Eye of Ugin
- 4 x Ghost Quarter
- 4 x Blinkmoth Nexus
- 4 x Eldrazi Temple
- 3 x Mutavault
- 3 x Urborg. Tomb of Yawgmoth
Conclusion
Depending on who you ask, Eldrazi Winter will either be looked upon with absolute disdain or with a twinkle of love in the eye.
I, personally, hated Eldrazi Winter. I had no issues with playing an Eldrazi deck. I love to win.
However, it resulted in me struggling to build any other color deck that could be viable. I do enjoy the fact that Wizards got a major lesson, though. They learned that it may be a little bit better to not create cards that would make only one deck viable, it doesn’t matter how much they want to push certain creature types.
Of course, I hope they learn. But, let’s be honest. This is Wizards of the Coast. They are always one expansion away from completely tearing up the rulebook. You never know when a card will be launched that will cause an Eldrazi Winter-sized problem again.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Eldrazi Overpowered?
I wouldn’t say that Eldrazi are overpowered, as such. While they can do a lot of damage to an opponent, the most powerful had a high converted mana cost. This means that they would never be a winning creature in the early part of the game. The issues stemmed from the fact that Wizards introduced cards that allowed the Eldrazi to be played sooner.
That is where the power was. However, with those cards now banned from the format, the Eldrazi are just slightly powerful creatures. There are many alternatives to them.
What Is The Most Powerful Eldrazi Card?
Putting aside the obvious Eye of Ugin that would have allowed players to play powerful Eldrazi quickly, I would say Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. The card has a converted mana cost of 15, but as a 15/15 card, it can do some serious damage.
The card cannot be countered, it has flying, and no colorless spells can hit it. It has annihilator 6 too. If that wasn’t enough, playing this card gives you an extra turn right after. If you managed to get this on the table, you win.
