With the new bannings out this week, I thought it would be fitting for another Modern Deck Tech showcasing an old favorite of mine: Eggs. For those of you interested in a cheap deck to play for this year's modern season, there are a bunch of viable tier 1.5-2 decks out there to choose from. There's Living End, Zombie Hunt/Seismic Assault, Martyr Proc, Infect, and... Eggs. I'm going to give you an argument of why Eggs may not be a dead archetype and why it might be worth your time to take a closer look at it.
So why is it called Eggs, anyway? Well, there was and old Extended deck that used the ally-colored mana rocks from Odyssey (Sungrass Egg, Darkwater Egg, etc.) as a way to draw cards just like today's version. Thus the deck was appropriately, and somewhat harmlessly, dubbed "Eggs." I was piloting Eggs back when it was Tier 1 in 2012-2013, and since the banning of Second Sunrise, I have attempted to recreate a competitive list. Conley Woods posted an article last year about Eggs 2.0 and what he thought was a good list. I found many of the main deck choices to be rash and not perfectly thought out, so I developed a chart comparing my old list (which I Top 8'd a PTQ with back in early 2013), my current list sans Second Sunrise, and Conley Woods's suggested list.
There are many criticisms to Eggs and that it is too slow and boring to play against. Non-interactive Magic make most players cringe, but combo players thrive on it. Eggs is a combo deck whose purpose is to do one thing: reduce interaction. After Eggs gets to a certain level of incremental advantage, it explodes with an infinite or uncounterable way to kill the opponent. It uses artifact cards like Chromatic Sphere, Chromatic Star, Ichor Wellspring, Terrarion, Elsewhere Flask, and Conjurer's Bauble to draw cards and gain a board state of artifacts. The deck then uses cards like Krark-Clan Ironworks, Reshape, and Lotus Bloom to create fast mana, which is subsequently spent on Faith's Reward and Open the Vaults. The two cards then begin a cycle of slow torture until a win condition is found to put opponents out of their misery. This is just how we like it.
So why is it called Eggs, anyway? Well, there was and old Extended deck that used the ally-colored mana rocks from Odyssey (Sungrass Egg, Darkwater Egg, etc.) as a way to draw cards just like today's version. Thus the deck was appropriately, and somewhat harmlessly, dubbed "Eggs." I was piloting Eggs back when it was Tier 1 in 2012-2013, and since the banning of Second Sunrise, I have attempted to recreate a competitive list. Conley Woods posted an article last year about Eggs 2.0 and what he thought was a good list. I found many of the main deck choices to be rash and not perfectly thought out, so I developed a chart comparing my old list (which I Top 8'd a PTQ with back in early 2013), my current list sans Second Sunrise, and Conley Woods's suggested list.
There are many criticisms to Eggs and that it is too slow and boring to play against. Non-interactive Magic make most players cringe, but combo players thrive on it. Eggs is a combo deck whose purpose is to do one thing: reduce interaction. After Eggs gets to a certain level of incremental advantage, it explodes with an infinite or uncounterable way to kill the opponent. It uses artifact cards like Chromatic Sphere, Chromatic Star, Ichor Wellspring, Terrarion, Elsewhere Flask, and Conjurer's Bauble to draw cards and gain a board state of artifacts. The deck then uses cards like Krark-Clan Ironworks, Reshape, and Lotus Bloom to create fast mana, which is subsequently spent on Faith's Reward and Open the Vaults. The two cards then begin a cycle of slow torture until a win condition is found to put opponents out of their misery. This is just how we like it.
I will first point out the major differences between what old Eggs lists were good at and why we made the changes to the new card choices. There were two main decklists for Eggs running around when Second Sunrise was still around: one used Krark-Clan Ironworks and the other did not. Stanislav Cifka popularized the KCI-less version with his Pro Tour Return to Ravnica victory. I used his list with a few minor variations, such as Noxious Revival, Silence, cantrips in the main deck, and replacing some of his sideboard cards with Spell Pierces. Other than that, Cifka had a marvelous understanding of this deck and what cards he wanted to optimize his draws. The KCI version looks similar to what we have in the Woods column, but we have a few very curious--and in my opinion dubious--main deck decisions.His list looks really clean and crisp to the untrained eye, but nothing has been optimized. We have 4 copies of almost every card, which is great when you want to draw all of those cards, but some of these cards aren't that good in our new game plan. KCI is a tool, not a crutch. We don't need it to win, so why rely on it so heavily? His win cons reflect why he has 4 in the main deck, but we'll revisit that in a moment. KCI pushes the deck to use more artifacts with "leaves the battlefield" triggers. This makes Ichor Wellspring our best card; it replaces the old Elsewhere Flasks (our worst card in the old list) and becomes a little cantrip for us. Speaking of cantrips, what happened to all of the one-mana draw spells in our new list? Isn't digging necessary?
Our best card in the old version was by far Sleight of Hand. Serum Visions was great for digging, but you really just wanted better card selection provided by Sleight of Hand. However, we're curiously missing almost any card draw in the new list. The cantrips have been removed in lieu of Thoughtcast. Thoughtcast, in combination with KCI, allows us to use Terrarion, Ichor Wellspring, Chromatic Star, and even Mox Opal and Darksteel Citadel to great effect. KCI helps draw extra cards and making a crucial extra bit of mana makes a huge difference in what turn the deck can go off. All of these small synergies make this deck very consistent. We cut out those pesky Adarkar Wastes from Woods's list to increase those consistent synergies. Ghost Quarter makes extra mana, but only when you can find more basics. Adarkar Wastes clunked up the draws.The elephant in the room here is the replacement of Second Sunrise by Open the Vaults. Open the Vaults is twice as much mana and occurs at Sorcery speed, which pushes our deck from going off around turn 3.5 to probably a solid turn 4. Open the Vaults necessitated the switch to the more explosive mana version of Eggs. Lastly we have the win conditions, of which we have myriad of options. Pyrite Spellbomb, Banefire, and Grapeshot are all great ways to use all the mana we are creating to kill our opponents. Yet for some reason, Woods decided that a two-card combo was a better way to kill his opponent. I think this was a crucial and dubious mistake. I made room for two more Mox Opals by cutting out a win condition and a land, which provided the deck with nice mana ramp leading to earlier combos. I also ended up cutting a Terrarion or two in favor of a Silence and a Conjurer's Bauble. Why just one? If Melira Pod, Soul Sisters, or another deck with semi-infinite life manages to go off, I can still kill my opponent. I feel the lack of Conjurer's Bauble was a huge oversight in Woods's list. You just can't win some games without going infinite. This one card slot makes a big difference.
So let's talk matchups. This deck doesn't like interaction, so it main decks a couple of Silences to make sure you can go off uninterrupted. Our worst matchups are probably Infect, Hatebears, Martyr-Proc, UWx Control, and Faeries. Faeries may make a comeback with the unbanning of Bitterblossom. I don't think the addition of black will scare us, we don't mind discarding a few cards to a fair deck, and Silence hedges us in this matchup. These matchups hurt us most due to the high density of counter-magic and access to sideboard Rest in Peace or Stony Silence. Infect is just too fast sometimes; we need to win the die roll to have the best chance.
Sideboard plans usually involve cutting some number of Thoughtcast, Terrarion, and KCI, adding up to seven cards from the sideboard. Any more than seven cuts make it really difficult to stay consistent. If on the draw, you can cut an Island to maybe slide an additional sideboard card in. Against fair decks without countermagic, we bring in Grapeshot and probably a couple of Echoing Truth. Against BGx decks with a lot of disruption, Leyline of Sanctity is our best friend, potentially alongside Grapeshot. Against any of the white decks, we have to respect the hate and bring in those Echoing Truths. The Pact of Negation and Spell Pierce come in against control in lieu of Leylines. They function as extra copies of Silence when necessary and can sometimes snag a piece of hate on the stack. Unfair matchups like Splinter Twin, Infect, Storm, etc. are combated nicely with the Echoing Truth and counter-magic package. Lastly, the Pithing Needle is good for green decks. Deathrite Shaman is gone, but that means that Scavenging Ooze will see more play. Grafdigger's Cage is great against reanimator and Birthing Pod strategies.
I hope you guys enjoyed my reminiscing on Eggs. I may even be taking a similar list to this year's Modern PTQ season. Thanks for reading!
-Stephen Poindexter
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