In this experiment, we combine the powers of Ulamog and Otaria’s Cabal to bleed our opponents dry.

Oath of the Gatewatch and Kozilek-themed mechanics have begun to be previewed, but Ulamog and his Processors still have some work to do. The creatures with ingest offer rather obvious methods of exiling opponents’ cards in order to fuel the Processors, which have abilities requiring the virtual expenditure of the nonobvious resource that are opponents’ exiled cards.

The ingesters innocuously exile the cards from the top of the opponent’s library, taking away virtually nothing from affected players—removing a card from the top of a library is basically the same as shuffling the deck unless that player’s deck eventually become completely exhausted (or if the player searches for a card and can’t find what he or she was looking for because it’s now gone).

However, players realized that a more exciting exiled card to process would be one taken with the likes of Banishing Light. But before there was Banishing Light, there was Oblivion Ring, and before the effect was in white at all, there was Oubliette. And somewhere in between, we had Nightmares.

Devoid of Nightmares

So white has plenty of Oblivion Ring–style effects, including Journey to Nowhere, Fiend Hunter, and the aforementioned Banishing Light. But white doesn’t have any Processors, so while we could build a W/B deck, there’s no reason we have to rely on white for this effect.

The effect used to be in black’s part of the color pie, most thoroughly explored in Torment with the Nightmares. Mesmeric Fiend, Gravegouger, Faceless Butcher, and Hypnox all fit this bill, and sending any cards exiled by those cards’ effects seems to be pretty powerful. Brain Maggot brings in the rear as Mesmeric Fiends five and six. These look like worse forms of Ravenous Rats until we realize we are able to select the card to deny our opponent—rather than letting him or her craft his or her game plan accordingly.

Slithery Stalker and Faceless Devourer don’t quite make the cut here, and neither do the blue Nightmares—which ingest our own resources—or the various Nightmares that hit noncard resources. Soul Scourge and Laquatus's Champion would be great if they worked with Processors, but alas, life points are not cards.

Spellgorger Barbarian, Wormfang Crab, Wormfang Newt, and various other Wormfangs aren’t going to work out great with our plan. Petravark and Petradon, on the other hand, could be pretty interesting (perhaps not the rare because of its 8-mana cost), but while I did end up selecting a secondary color, that color did not end up being red.

My search for exiling effects led me to Parallax Nexus. For only 3 mana, we can exile as many as five cards from our opponent’s hand, though we’ll need to process them quickly if we want to permanently deny our opponent of them, as the Nexus will fade out during our next upkeep if we do go for the full five. However, if we exile just four, we can safely remove a fade counter during our next upkeep, and then we have that turn to try to process as much as we can.

Similarly, Parallax Tide can completely destroy our opponent’s lands in the way Parallax Nexus can completely destroy his or her hand. That would be incentive enough to play blue, but one of our Processors is pretty convincing as well. With our Processors around, the Parallax enchantments are ones our opponents should fear.

Parallax Processors

So we have plenty of ways of denying our opponent cards, from those cast as creatures to those played as lands to those still in hand. But if we want to permanently deny him or her of those cards, we’ll need to move them from the exile zone to the graveyard. There weren’t a ton of solid Processors that seemed worth playing, but we will need a good number of them to keep the resources drained.

Wasteland Strangler — This guy can set up a really mean sequence, in which we cast a Mesmeric Fiend or Brain Maggot on two and then kill our opponent’s turn-two or turn-three play on our turn three while also permanently getting rid of the card we exiled with the Fiend or Maggot. This lets us deny a mana-invested resource while also taking out another one at the same time. It doesn’t curve well into Faceless Butcher, but the two do form a solid one-two punch nonetheless.

Ulamog's Nullifier — This was the real reason I decided blue was the secondary color to go with here. Imagine exiling a couple opponent’s cards and then, just when he or she thought he or she might have a chance to pull back into the game, we just permanently lock up some exiled cards by sending them to the graveyard while also countering the opponent’s comeback spell. This is just a nail in the coffin that houses the dying morale of the opponent.

Blight Herder — This is just a solid method for processing cards while gaining solid onboard presence. It can also help us gain the mana we need for Hypnox—or just a Despoiler if we don’t quite have the mana. We might end the game with incremental attacks through card advantage gained, but otherwise, putting 7 power on the board for 5 mana should help.

Ulamog's Despoiler — This one’s a bit expensive, but we do need solid methods for processing, which are harder to find than I might have expected. But for 6 mana, we can make a 9/9, and that’s hard to argue with.

Nightmare Eldrazi ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Hypnox
• 2 Brain Maggot
• 2 Gravegouger
• 2 Ulamog's Despoiler
• 3 Blight Herder
• 4 Faceless Butcher
• 4 Mesmeric Fiend
• 4 Ulamog's Nullifier
• 4 Wasteland Strangler

• Spells (10)
• 3 Parallax Nexus
• 3 Parallax Tide
• 4 Oubliette

• Lands (24)
• 12 Swamp
• 4 Island
• 4 Temple of Deceit
• 4 Watery Grave

Buy This Deck

If we find ourselves only drawing Processors, thing may not go too well, as a 3/2 for 3, a 4/5 for 5, and a 2/3 with flash and flying aren’t particularly impressive. Similarly, if we only draw Nightmare effects, we’ll be exiling cards that our opponent will have plenty of opportunities to gain back, through removal spells and pressure from attacking. (At some point, we’ll just have to chump-block with our 2-mana 1/1s and 4-mana 2/3s.)

But if you love Nightmares, if you love Processors, or if you’re just not afraid of Parallax, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com