Battle for Zendikar Eldrazi Assault Intro Pack Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG) Deck Review

by ElspethFTW, Old School Duelist

The Eldrazi Assault Intro Pack for Battle for Zendikar is a Red/Black deck based around Eldrazi and the Devoid and Ingest mechanics. It also has a decent finisher in the cover card for the deck, Barrage Tyrant. Let’s take a look and see if this intro pack has enough bang for your buck.

The Deck List

Creatures (22)
2 Sludge Crawler
2 Kozilek's Sentinel
3 Culling Drone
2 Forerunner of Slaughter
2 Nettle Drone
2 Vile Aggregate
2 Dominator Drone
3 Vestige of Emrakul
2 Mind Raker
1 Silent Skimmer
1 Barrage Tyrant (R)

Non Creature Spells (13)

2 Processor Assault
2 Transgress the Mind (U)
2 Touch of the Void
2 Swarm Surge
1 Serpentine Spike (R)
1 Complete Disregard
1 Grip of Desolation
2 Molten Nursery

Lands (25)

1 Blighted Fen
2 Evolving Wilds
2 Looming Spires
10 Mountain
10 Swamp

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Synergy

Devoid is a mechanic that makes a card colorless even if it has colored mana in its casting cost. Every single spell in the deck has Devoid, meaning that any cards that benefit from casting colorless spells or having colorless creatures on the battlefield work to maximum effect in Eldrazi Assault. Forerunner of Slaughter can give any of your creatures haste for a single colorless mana. Kozilek’s Sentinel gets a power boost for each spell you cast in a turn. Molten Nursery can ping a player or creature each time you cast a spell. Then, Barrage Tyrant lets you Fling each of your other creatures at your opponent (or his/her creatures) to finish off the game.Ingest is a cool mechanic, too, stripping away the top card of your opponent’s deck each time a creature with Ingest connects. There are a good number in the deck. Unfortunately, only a couple cards in the deck even care about your opponent’s cards being exiled, but simply Ingesting away your opponent’s cards is just fine.

Grade: A-

Value

Barrage Tyrant is pretty much a bulk rare, but in this deck he’s an All-Star. You definitely want him in here, and perhaps a second or third copy for redundancy isn’t a bad idea, either. Transgress the Mind is the real card of value in the deck, even being an uncommon, as discard spells that can exile are pretty strong in Constructed formats. It works really well with the Eldrazi Processors that care about your opponent’s cards being exiled, too.

Also, most of the common and uncommon creatures, while not worth big money, are good enough to fill out a budget Red/Black Devoid Aggro deck for Standard. Examples include Sludge Crawler, Forerunner of Slaughter, Dominator Drone, and Vile Aggregate.

Serpentine Spike is a pretty bad rare overall, but in the context of this deck, it’s playable. If you go about improving the deck, though, it’s one of the first cards to go.

Grade: A-

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Improving the Deck

The Red/Black Devoid deck is actually a pretty strong theme and if you want to build a Standard deck on a budget, this is a good place to start. Maxing out your Sludge Crawlers, Forerunners of Slaughter, and Dominator Drones is a good start. Mind Raker is also kind of an underwhelming Processor, so you may want to look for a better candidate for that slot. Vestige of Emrakul is an aggressive trampler, but there are better options in Battle for Zendikar for this slot.

The best cards you could add to this deck on the cheap are Endless One and Dust Stalker. Endless One gets better as the game goes on, allowing you to pump more mana into it on casting to make it bigger. Dust Stalker is a 5/3 with Haste for 4 mana that has a downside, but one that ordinarily won’t be a big deal in a deck with exclusively colorless creatures. If you want to spend the extra cash, Hangarback Walker works well, too, as not only does it get better as the game goes along, but replaces itself with flying Thopter tokens. Beyond that, just adding Smoldering Marshes and Bloodstained Mires for mana consistency should make this a pretty quick and lethal aggro deck.

Overall

As Intro Packs go, Eldrazi Assault has some of the best synergy you’ll find. Getting two packs along with this deck makes this well worth the $14-15 you’ll find this product selling for. The upgrades for this strategy are reasonably inexpensive and the best, more expensive ones are cards that you’d want to have around anyway (Hangarback Walker, Smoldering Marsh, and Bloodstained Mire.) All in all, this is the deck I would buy if I were to pick one of the BFZ five.

Grade: A-