This was a deck posted by Joshua Cho 2 1/2 years ago and I haven't heard much about it since. I've listed the original article and Deck Tech from SCG but for reference here is the list. I'm honestly thinking about playing this for some upcoming GP Trials but I'm not real familiar with it. I typically only play Infect so I'm not sure if it's worth changing for it. I have some questions and I'm hoping the community can help me out.
My Questions:
1. Is this a viable option to be competitive or is that why no one has really talked about it in 2 1/2 years?
2. Is it worth adding Green making it a BUG deck?
3. What is this deck weak against? Removal, Miracles, possibly Pithing Needle, Chalice of the Void, Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives. Am I missing stuff? Is that too much to be weak against?
4. What changes would you make to the Sideboard? Anyway for Artifact Removal? (I'm assuming with the GP Trial people will be coming that normally don't so I guess the field could be broad.)
5. Do you have any other suggestions for me?
Looks interesting, though I wonder if Gutshot has enough targets in today's meta. Suiciding your life on its own may not be worth the card. Seems like you just want Lightning Bolt/Disfigure to kill off X/2s.
I love the SB plan of all the free and 1cc spells into Erayo.
If you go BUG, you keep Death's Shadow but the deck radically changes. You gain Abrupt Decay and access to Varolz, which is too good to pass up. Then you'd want DRS instead of Delver and Dreadnought/Stifle over the Nivmagus/Clout stuff, since you want to max out on Varolz value. Varolz means you don't need to play the suicide spells since you can abuse Death's Shadow other ways, so then you just play good spells and those creatures. I think that's just a very very different strategy and there's merit in discussing yours.
I agree with Gut Shot not having as many targets but the option to pay 2 life, will grow your Death's Shadow and then your Nivmagus Elemental can eat it and get 2 counters. That's 4 damage as opposed to 3 from a Bolt.
I still think this deck sounds fun and I think it can be competitive. I'm wondering why people aren't considering it. I hope this thread gets some more traffic too.
Well, here's what I would assume. The Delver part of the deck is probably okay because flipping a Delver and protecting it is just how many of the best decks operate; the difference here is that the other threats in this deck seem rather inferior. Cards like Tarmogoyf, Nimble Mongoose, Young Pyromancer, etc. all become huge issues for your opponent merely from just playing Magic; you don't feel silly for playing those sorts of threats in a world where Abrupt Decay is legal. On the other hand, Nivmagus Elemental requires work in that you have to actively be feeding spells to it without getting their effects. At this point in time, I would assume that Monastery Swiftspear acts in a way similar to the Elemental, but you get to have your cake and eat it too by resolving your spells and getting the damage in. Also, Death's Shadow seems like suicide in a world where True Name Nemesis exists and Burn is a deck to beat.
Nivmagus requires minimal effort to make big (Flusterstorm either redundantly on your own spell or to win a counter war, eating unnecessary copies).
However, Death's Shadow seems like a serious problem, since it makes you play Gut Shot as a dead spell just to suicide your own life total. This is the kind of deck that would play Ulcerate over Disfigure even though Legacy has relatively few X/3s. Legacy is a tough enough format that you should not be trying to lose at Magic. Life loss may not matter against control and combo, but every Delver deck is going to be happy for every turn you just took off their clock. Plus burn.
There's a reason Bob Huang outraced Reanimator in game 3 of the finals last weekend, and it's not because Delver is a 2-turn clock.
Nivmagus requires minimal effort to make big (Flusterstorm either redundantly on your own spell or to win a counter war, eating unnecessary copies).
The point I'm trying to make is that Nivmagus Elemental requires effort at all to make it into a relevant threat. Flusterstorm is nice if you draw it, but how good is Nivmagus Elemental if you don't draw a Flusterstorm? The other threats that the Delver decks play become threats from you just casting spells; however, you actually need to go out of your way to feed spells to the Nivmagus Elemental, so growing your Nivmagus Elemental and resolving relevant spells is often going to be an either/or situation. You won't always have the luxury of maneuvering into a situation where you can make Nivmagus into a real creature without having to pay the added cost of exiling a spell you would have wanted to resolve later.
I think liliana would be great here, handling control decks as also being a removal card. Also, reanimate would be pretty good as for itself and death's shadow.
Now that we are talking about a delver deck, I think Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time are a must here.
Wouldn't DRS or Dark Confidant be good choises also? DRS explains itself, and bob generates you card advantage and also the life loss is not that big of a deal since you have death's shadow.
I think you could cut some discards and counters. There are 12 counters and 4 discards (not to mention liliana), maybe some of them could make room for some of the cards I said.
Also, you have to take care about the ammount of damage you will take.
Now I'm thinking of another course to take this deck: wouldn't it be nice to make a kind of Land Destruction deck with Death's Shadow?
I mean, only with wastelands, stifle and sinkholes there are already 12 sources of mana denial. In the beginning of the game your opponent may cast some spells and creatures with 1 land (as it will be constantly destroyed), but then you may catch him up with death's shadow as your lower life is boosting him.
I ran this about 4-5 months after the initial deck tech... I swapped out the gut shots for surgical extractions and slid around the numbers a bit to allow some snapcasters. Since I was on the extraction plan, I also had 2-3x wasteland to kill and extract duals for greedy mana bases.
It was comparable to RUG delver at the time, with deaths shadow playing the role of goyf. This archetype probably needs dusting off with TC and the power of extracting the few wincins prevelent in legacy currently..
Going to play sets of force flusterstorm, thoughtseizes extractions and snapcasters with a few IoK and extirpates thrown was enough for feline to break out in hives when I played her with high tide.
My sb had bitterblossom and baby jace to help versus miracles, and some duresses and IoK to reconfigure the hand hate, and extirpate and additional flusterstorm to finish combo.
Migt also want to look at using dismember rather than snuff out so you can moderate the lifeloss when needed. I never had dark confidents, nor erayo that people thought it should have. My SB was tailored towards what I knew the shop had, so build your own.
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My Questions:
1. Is this a viable option to be competitive or is that why no one has really talked about it in 2 1/2 years?
2. Is it worth adding Green making it a BUG deck?
3. What is this deck weak against? Removal, Miracles, possibly Pithing Needle, Chalice of the Void, Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives. Am I missing stuff? Is that too much to be weak against?
4. What changes would you make to the Sideboard? Anyway for Artifact Removal? (I'm assuming with the GP Trial people will be coming that normally don't so I guess the field could be broad.)
5. Do you have any other suggestions for me?
DECK LIST
Creatures (12)
Lands (16)
Spells (32)
Sideboard
Joshua Cho U/B Links:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25321_U-B-Nivmagus-Primer.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdHD2rztxEI&feature=youtu.be
Gerry Thompson BUG Link:
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_bug_deaths_shadow_wi.html
My Haves/Wants Thread
I love the SB plan of all the free and 1cc spells into Erayo.
If you go BUG, you keep Death's Shadow but the deck radically changes. You gain Abrupt Decay and access to Varolz, which is too good to pass up. Then you'd want DRS instead of Delver and Dreadnought/Stifle over the Nivmagus/Clout stuff, since you want to max out on Varolz value. Varolz means you don't need to play the suicide spells since you can abuse Death's Shadow other ways, so then you just play good spells and those creatures. I think that's just a very very different strategy and there's merit in discussing yours.
I still think this deck sounds fun and I think it can be competitive. I'm wondering why people aren't considering it. I hope this thread gets some more traffic too.
My Haves/Wants Thread
However, Death's Shadow seems like a serious problem, since it makes you play Gut Shot as a dead spell just to suicide your own life total. This is the kind of deck that would play Ulcerate over Disfigure even though Legacy has relatively few X/3s. Legacy is a tough enough format that you should not be trying to lose at Magic. Life loss may not matter against control and combo, but every Delver deck is going to be happy for every turn you just took off their clock. Plus burn.
There's a reason Bob Huang outraced Reanimator in game 3 of the finals last weekend, and it's not because Delver is a 2-turn clock.
The point I'm trying to make is that Nivmagus Elemental requires effort at all to make it into a relevant threat. Flusterstorm is nice if you draw it, but how good is Nivmagus Elemental if you don't draw a Flusterstorm? The other threats that the Delver decks play become threats from you just casting spells; however, you actually need to go out of your way to feed spells to the Nivmagus Elemental, so growing your Nivmagus Elemental and resolving relevant spells is often going to be an either/or situation. You won't always have the luxury of maneuvering into a situation where you can make Nivmagus into a real creature without having to pay the added cost of exiling a spell you would have wanted to resolve later.
Now that we are talking about a delver deck, I think Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time are a must here.
Wouldn't DRS or Dark Confidant be good choises also? DRS explains itself, and bob generates you card advantage and also the life loss is not that big of a deal since you have death's shadow.
I think you could cut some discards and counters. There are 12 counters and 4 discards (not to mention liliana), maybe some of them could make room for some of the cards I said.
Also, you have to take care about the ammount of damage you will take.
Now I'm thinking of another course to take this deck: wouldn't it be nice to make a kind of Land Destruction deck with Death's Shadow?
I mean, only with wastelands, stifle and sinkholes there are already 12 sources of mana denial. In the beginning of the game your opponent may cast some spells and creatures with 1 land (as it will be constantly destroyed), but then you may catch him up with death's shadow as your lower life is boosting him.
Just a kinda off-topic idea...
It was comparable to RUG delver at the time, with deaths shadow playing the role of goyf. This archetype probably needs dusting off with TC and the power of extracting the few wincins prevelent in legacy currently..
Going to play sets of force flusterstorm, thoughtseizes extractions and snapcasters with a few IoK and extirpates thrown was enough for feline to break out in hives when I played her with high tide.
My sb had bitterblossom and baby jace to help versus miracles, and some duresses and IoK to reconfigure the hand hate, and extirpate and additional flusterstorm to finish combo.
Migt also want to look at using dismember rather than snuff out so you can moderate the lifeloss when needed. I never had dark confidents, nor erayo that people thought it should have. My SB was tailored towards what I knew the shop had, so build your own.