By Melissa DeTora
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Melissa is a former Magic pro player and strategy writer who is now working in R&D on the Play Design team.
Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar results are in the books, and while looking through the top decks I'm slowly learning how this new set has effected the format. We've seen plenty of Gideon, Ally of Zendikars and battle lands in the Top 8, but there are plenty of other hidden gems among the strongest Standard decks at the Pro Tour. Many of these decks weren't talked about much in the coverage, due to the players' mediocre Limited results.
Today's deck is a ramp strategy that plays a lot of fun new Eldrazi creatures. There's no better feeling than casting an Eldrazi and messing with your opponent's stuff. Oblivion Sower is a powerful card that has the ability to steal your opponent's lands, which makes it easier to cast your ten-mana Eldrazi, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger himself.
Ulamog is a very powerful creature in Standard right now. He hasn't seen much love as of yet, mostly due to the high volume of Crackling Dooms and Abzan Charms in the format. One thing that Ulamog has going for it besides exiling your opponent's best threats is the ability to exile lands. Most decks only play a few sources of their splash color, so a timely Ulamog taking out your Dark Jeskai opponent's Swamps will prevent them from casting their key spell.
Lim plays plenty of ways to hold down the fort to make it to the late game. Aside from the obvious inclusions of Languish and Crux of Fate, Catacomb Sifter from Battle for Zendikar plays a key role here. This 2/3 body is large enough to survive most of the creatures out of the aggressive decks, and it gives you an Eldrazi Scion that can be used to ramp you for a turn. But most importantly, this creature allows you to scry whenever a creature you control dies, digging you toward the cards you need.
Victoriano Lim's Eldrazi Ramp deck put up an impressive 7-3 finish in the Standard portion of Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar. Congrats to him for piloting a successful and unique deck!
Victoriano Lim's Black-Green Eldrazi Ramp
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