chromatic sphere is probably your next best bet. replaces itself, and draws immediately, and mana fixes, but has a 1 initial investment. part of the way to pay for removing a blood moon.
Getting to have a look at any library is huge though and can't be replaced. Bauble on its own is amazing in this deck. I think you can either bite in the dust or play a different variant like Grixis Shadow which doesn't run Baubles.
I'm having trouble against burn and bant eldrazi. I can get a game in each match against my playtesting partner but can't seem to crack a whole match yet. Both matchups seem really tough and i feel sort of "swept along" by whatever hands they draw rather than be able to set the aggression like I want. Won one match (against Eldrazi) out of a combined 12 or more matches. Abysmal record haha.
What's the secret here? I feel like I'm finally playing the deck properly and making optimal decisions, but the matchups remain steadfastly awful. Drowner is the worst thing ever.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I've just dropped fatal push completely, I'm rarely needing to push things early on and having 2 mana for terminate is never an issue, and it deals with everything.
Wait what? have you even tested the mirror with that strategy? I mean this deck wasnt tier one before because we was having to play 2 mana removal as our main source
In the mirror it shouldn't be that devastating as the mirror is very much an attrition based game where its not about Tempo rather grinding and destroying each other. I am not a fan of cutting pushes though. Its definetely better as we generally operate on low mana.
I've just dropped fatal push completely, I'm rarely needing to push things early on and having 2 mana for terminate is never an issue, and it deals with everything.
Not Master of Waves ;)Are you playing Tarfires, Dismembers or Lightning Bolts instead?
I've just dropped fatal push completely, I'm rarely needing to push things early on and having 2 mana for terminate is never an issue, and it deals with everything.
Wait what? have you even tested the mirror with that strategy? I mean this deck wasnt tier one before because we was having to play 2 mana removal as our main source
I'm having trouble against burn and bant eldrazi. I can get a game in each match against my playtesting partner but can't seem to crack a whole match yet. Both matchups seem really tough and i feel sort of "swept along" by whatever hands they draw rather than be able to set the aggression like I want. Won one match (against Eldrazi) out of a combined 12 or more matches. Abysmal record haha.
What's the secret here? I feel like I'm finally playing the deck properly and making optimal decisions, but the matchups remain steadfastly awful. Drowner is the worst thing ever.
I'm close to thinking burn is a actual bye, currently undefeated vs it and think its close to affinity in terms of how easy the matchup gets after board. whats your current list?
Bant eldrazi is another kettle of fish, its the main reason Im looking to cut fulminator as its only really goodish vs tron (you cant side it in vs bant)...having more cards like terminate and dismember help I'm also siding in the additional push now...I think ranger shines in this match up if you have white as you can fetch death shadow which is better than goyf due to potential rip, I think its a bad matchup however (it was my first loss the other day which ended my mtgo win streak of 24-0)
Also quick edit - Id be surprised if anyone ever plays a game of magic making all optimal decisions maybe recording and rewatching games should be something to move towards?
Not all optimal decisions, but when I test we go over plays analytically for whole matches and while initially I recognised I was making some weird play errors now I've ironed out my game to the point where even given multiple options all are defensible.
No idea how you managed to make burn such a good matchup honestly. Even siding out all my self-pain cards and bringing in stuff like lingering souls and collective brutality I just get burnt out. My threats don't come online fast enough & I always end up in this awkward situation where my opponent has maybe one threat left, I've got a goyf maybe, and I'm on 5 or 6 life. If i attack I'm dead to quite a few topdecks (Boris charm etc) and then it has ended up going in my opponent's favour each time. Doesn't fill me with confidence anyway haha
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I'm having trouble against burn and bant eldrazi. I can get a game in each match against my playtesting partner but can't seem to crack a whole match yet. Both matchups seem really tough and i feel sort of "swept along" by whatever hands they draw rather than be able to set the aggression like I want. Won one match (against Eldrazi) out of a combined 12 or more matches. Abysmal record haha.
What's the secret here? I feel like I'm finally playing the deck properly and making optimal decisions, but the matchups remain steadfastly awful. Drowner is the worst thing ever.
I'm close to thinking burn is a actual bye, currently undefeated vs it and think its close to affinity in terms of how easy the matchup gets after board. whats your current list?
Bant eldrazi is another kettle of fish, its the main reason Im looking to cut fulminator as its only really goodish vs tron (you cant side it in vs bant)...having more cards like terminate and dismember help I'm also siding in the additional push now...I think ranger shines in this match up if you have white as you can fetch death shadow which is better than goyf due to potential rip, I think its a bad matchup however (it was my first loss the other day which ended my mtgo win streak of 24-0)
Also quick edit - Id be surprised if anyone ever plays a game of magic making all optimal decisions maybe recording and rewatching games should be something to move towards?
Not all optimal decisions, but when I test we go over plays analytically for whole matches and while initially I recognised I was making some weird play errors now I've ironed out my game to the point where even given multiple options all are defensible.
No idea how you managed to make burn such a good matchup honestly. Even siding out all my self-pain cards and bringing in stuff like lingering souls and collective brutality I just get burnt out. My threats don't come online fast enough & I always end up in this awkward situation where my opponent has maybe one threat left, I've got a goyf maybe, and I'm on 5 or 6 life. If i attack I'm dead to quite a few topdecks (Boris charm etc) and then it has ended up going in my opponent's favour each time. Doesn't fill me with confidence anyway haha
Woah, Never bring in Lingering Souls against Burn. This match is a race, one that we are very good at winning with bigger threats.
I played a bunch of games against GR Tron recently and got my ass kicked. Eight games main deck, 20+ post board. He probably got 60% of the games both pre and post board.
I know DSJ is supposed to be able to "go under" Tron, but I just couldn't. He was able to consistently cause me to gain 1-2 life per turn off of Grove which kept me off the Shadow plan. At some point inevitability just takes over the game, because shredding his hand didn't matter as he could top deck something that shut down my Goyf(s), which was my only threat left.
Postboard allowed me to get Fulminator hijinks online, but he sided into Relic which kept Goyf at bay and continued the lifegain shenanigans off of Grove.
Am I playing this match wrong? Has anyone else struggled like this? I think if it was the GB or GW variants I'd have been ok since IoK could have stripped removal and I could get at or below 10 life without interference.
FWIW I was trying the straight Jund plan with 2 Tombs instead of a Shrine. Other variance was 2 LotV MD and 2 Last Hope side, 3 Push, 1 MD Decay and 1 Brutality side.
This is interesting. Grove can for sure be a pain but the deck is able to lose more life in one turn than what Grove can gain. This match up can be unfavorable but with the right play you can edge it to even. I think based on what little info I have that you might just be approaching the match wrong from a play perspective or sideboard perspective.
I'm having trouble against burn and bant eldrazi. I can get a game in each match against my playtesting partner but can't seem to crack a whole match yet. Both matchups seem really tough and i feel sort of "swept along" by whatever hands they draw rather than be able to set the aggression like I want. Won one match (against Eldrazi) out of a combined 12 or more matches. Abysmal record haha.
What's the secret here? I feel like I'm finally playing the deck properly and making optimal decisions, but the matchups remain steadfastly awful. Drowner is the worst thing ever.
I'm close to thinking burn is a actual bye, currently undefeated vs it and think its close to affinity in terms of how easy the matchup gets after board. whats your current list?
Bant eldrazi is another kettle of fish, its the main reason Im looking to cut fulminator as its only really goodish vs tron (you cant side it in vs bant)...having more cards like terminate and dismember help I'm also siding in the additional push now...I think ranger shines in this match up if you have white as you can fetch death shadow which is better than goyf due to potential rip, I think its a bad matchup however (it was my first loss the other day which ended my mtgo win streak of 24-0)
Also quick edit - Id be surprised if anyone ever plays a game of magic making all optimal decisions maybe recording and rewatching games should be something to move towards?
Not all optimal decisions, but when I test we go over plays analytically for whole matches and while initially I recognised I was making some weird play errors now I've ironed out my game to the point where even given multiple options all are defensible.
No idea how you managed to make burn such a good matchup honestly. Even siding out all my self-pain cards and bringing in stuff like lingering souls and collective brutality I just get burnt out. My threats don't come online fast enough & I always end up in this awkward situation where my opponent has maybe one threat left, I've got a goyf maybe, and I'm on 5 or 6 life. If i attack I'm dead to quite a few topdecks (Boris charm etc) and then it has ended up going in my opponent's favour each time. Doesn't fill me with confidence anyway haha
Woah, Never bring in Lingering Souls against Burn. This match is a race, one that we are very good at winning with bigger threats.
Bant Edlreazi is a tough matchup. You have to play extreme tight and optimal to get wins. It's in their favor just a bit. Against Bant Eldrazi you go up to four Fatal Push. Bring in Maelstrom Pulse if you run it and leave at least one copy of Collective Brutality in. The brutality is there to give you an out against Worship if you don't hit it with a discard. K Command isn't that great against them and neither is tarfire so you can sideboard out some number of those cards.
After playing DSJ for a few months, I've found some of the more complex cards to sequences are this deck's cantrips. Hopefully someday we'll have a nice primer detailing some of this information, but I wanted to take a little time to share my thoughts on how to best utilize Bauble, Street Wraith, and Delirium-less Traverse in this deck. While they aren't the flashiest cards, I think we all have had openers that need a bit of time to figure out how to navigate them.
Woah, Never bring in Lingering Souls against Burn. This match is a race, one that we are very good at winning with bigger threats.
I agree not bringing in Souls against Burn, but I would not consider this match a race. This match needs conservative fetching and stalling basically, you need to let the burn player do the work for you, not hurting yourself and thus this is not a race. We just build up our board and get in for lethal when we can. That being said, calling this matchup a race might be misleading because we should definitely not hurting ourselves to the max to get down a early death shadow basically.
After playing DSJ for a few months, I've found some of the more complex cards to sequences are this deck's cantrips. Hopefully someday we'll have a nice primer detailing some of this information, but I wanted to take a little time to share my thoughts on how to best utilize Bauble, Street Wraith, and Delirium-less Traverse in this deck. While they aren't the flashiest cards, I think we all have had openers that need a bit of time to figure out how to navigate them.
Nice guide, would be valuable when constructing a primer! GJ!
I went 2-1-2 at todays FNM
Played the mirror match once (which was a draw) and also Grixis Shadow once (the second draw). For both decks, I have come to the conclusion that you really want to threat the match like it is: an atrition based matchup, where you wanna shave on cards which are bad topdecks.
For this reason, my general go to route for attrition based matchup is now:
cutting 3-4 IOK, -2 TBR, -some Tarfires and bringing in all the grindy good stuff cards like Lingering, Ranger, Push, and Nihil Spellbomb (for Death Shadow specifically). I really found that bringing in Surgicals is a mistake. I even think bringing in Surgicals against us is a mistake. It will come down to topdeck wars, like in every attrition based matchup and surgicals do not help here. If you extract one threat, eventually, the opponent will more likely draw into another one. And its extremely unlikely to hit both Goyf and Shadow with both Surgicals. In one game my opponent surgicaled my traverses away after discarding it. He immediatly lost a card (as he played surgical) and I not basically. I drew my other threats more likely and had the advantage over my opponent the whole game, as he basically mulligened by using surgicals.
Also, on another note, cutting Ghor was a really good idea. I really loved the extra slot for either extra removal, extra Liliana or something else. I never missed Ghor in any case so far.
After playing DSJ for a few months, I've found some of the more complex cards to sequences are this deck's cantrips. Hopefully someday we'll have a nice primer detailing some of this information, but I wanted to take a little time to share my thoughts on how to best utilize Bauble, Street Wraith, and Delirium-less Traverse in this deck. While they aren't the flashiest cards, I think we all have had openers that need a bit of time to figure out how to navigate them.
I'm having trouble against burn and bant eldrazi. I can get a game in each match against my playtesting partner but can't seem to crack a whole match yet. Both matchups seem really tough and i feel sort of "swept along" by whatever hands they draw rather than be able to set the aggression like I want. Won one match (against Eldrazi) out of a combined 12 or more matches. Abysmal record haha.
What's the secret here? I feel like I'm finally playing the deck properly and making optimal decisions, but the matchups remain steadfastly awful. Drowner is the worst thing ever.
I'm close to thinking burn is a actual bye, currently undefeated vs it and think its close to affinity in terms of how easy the matchup gets after board. whats your current list?
Bant eldrazi is another kettle of fish, its the main reason Im looking to cut fulminator as its only really goodish vs tron (you cant side it in vs bant)...having more cards like terminate and dismember help I'm also siding in the additional push now...I think ranger shines in this match up if you have white as you can fetch death shadow which is better than goyf due to potential rip, I think its a bad matchup however (it was my first loss the other day which ended my mtgo win streak of 24-0)
Also quick edit - Id be surprised if anyone ever plays a game of magic making all optimal decisions maybe recording and rewatching games should be something to move towards?
Not all optimal decisions, but when I test we go over plays analytically for whole matches and while initially I recognised I was making some weird play errors now I've ironed out my game to the point where even given multiple options all are defensible.
No idea how you managed to make burn such a good matchup honestly. Even siding out all my self-pain cards and bringing in stuff like lingering souls and collective brutality I just get burnt out. My threats don't come online fast enough & I always end up in this awkward situation where my opponent has maybe one threat left, I've got a goyf maybe, and I'm on 5 or 6 life. If i attack I'm dead to quite a few topdecks (Boris charm etc) and then it has ended up going in my opponent's favour each time. Doesn't fill me with confidence anyway haha
Woah, Never bring in Lingering Souls against Burn. This match is a race, one that we are very good at winning with bigger threats.
Fair play, but I felt like I needed the blockers so I could get on the offensive without worrying about a crack-back.
In all honesty I only brought them in because nothing else was worth bringing in and I wanted to side out my street wraiths and a couple of thoughtseize.
It doesn't feel like a race to me, unless I luckily draw a battle rage. Otherwise it feels like I'm trying to gain a little traction while my life total plummets, and I end up stabilising on board just at the time when double burn spell would finish me off.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Fulminator Mage is not the greatest but i think has potential of shutting the opponent off a color. Also for Lingering souls you potentially have to fetch+shock to get to cast it what you really don't want to do here.
I recently had the idea of writing a sideboard guide for the newly emerged death shadow deck, since there is basically no sideboard guide out there yet. Its definitely something which won't be perfect right away, I am no expect at this deck yet, and I guess, nobody is at this time around. But, what I can say, is that I have quite an experience and knowledge in playing regular Jund. Thus, I think its a good idea to share my ideas concerning sideboarding with everybody. I hope this helps to a certain extend, and as always, if there is something wrong with the guide, feel free to contact me and discuss the issue with me. As this deck is still evolving, people still test different approaches and spins of this deck, the guide is not something which can be considered final. Its an early draft of an guide I want to improve over time. As I am doing it with the Jund deck Primer, I want to make a similar approach with this guide. So, this should be an open and evolving source of information for every fellow Death's Shadow Jund player coming to this threat and seeking for relevant information about sideboarding, matchup analysis or deck construction. It should be helpful to have a gathered source of information on this and no widespread gathered information over the course of this threat, which would be quite hard to use in order to extract the information needed. So, I very much encourage everybody to help with this and give constructive feedback and suggestions. Working together on this is definitely the best approach I think.
As for basics in sideboarding, I want to define a basic configuration of the deck, and work on from there. I want to go for the white splash and the regular Jund version alike. So here are the decklists (They might change in the future, although some basic concensuses have been made by now):
The White Splash of Death Shadow Jund utilizes some white Sideboard cards which tend to be better vs. Combo (Ethersworn Canonist) or Midrange/Attrition matchups (Lingering Souls). The negative aspect of this version is that the manabase is more vulnerable than the regular one and a little bit less consistant. Maindeck wise, the only cards which are different to the regular Jund version are basically 3 lands. Instead of a second Blood Crypt or Overgrown Tomb in some cases, this version runs a Godless Shrine. Please to not run any other white shockland in this spot. Black is the most important colour to this deck and therefor this is the only acceptable shockland in this spot. To go along with the shockland, the white splash version cuts 2 Wooded Foothills (which can't fetch for Godless Shrine) for 2 extra black fetchlands. It doesn't matter which one you choose (Marsh Flats or Polluted Delta) but from a strict point of few, a mix of 1 Marsh Flats and 1 Polluted Delta is the best, due to possible Pithing Needle shenanigans. However, this is just a marginal improvement.
The regular Death Shadow Jund version is a more streamlined and focused version, which grants the player a more consistant and focused gameplay. By cutting off white, you will loose some of the great tools for attrition and combo matchups, but the deck seems to be performing better concerning its mainstrategy, namely getting yourself to a low life total and killing the opponent wiht giant threats fast. By getting to run additional shocklands (either 1 extra Blood Crypt or 1 extra Overgrown Tomb) the deck is less susceptible to screw from mana denial strategies. Every fetchland you have can get every shockland you have in this version, so basically this means every colour on time and more opportunites to help yourself out of awkward mana denial situations. Note that Death's Shadow Jund is a quite greedy deck conscerning its manabase. If people get the opportunity to cut you off a colour (especially restricting black is effective against us) then you can sometimes be screwed quite hard. Skipping on white and going for a more streamlined approach can help here. It all depends on your meta and your focus on where to guide your deck which version you want to run.
What both versions have in common (in my opinion) is that they share the same core of cards, that shouldn't be sideded out ever, which are the following:
The 8 main threats are a no-brainer to keep, as well as the 4 tutors and the 4 cantrips that are very important in every game I think.
General guidelines
Now lets go for the sideboarding and matchups themselves. First, however, I want to give a bit of theory which I also learned and applied while playing regular Jund, so if some of you know the Jund Primer, there should be nothing new to read here. But for completeness, I'll give it anyway:
To get an idea of what to cut in which matchup, it’s important to recognize an opposing deck for what it is. For this purpose, I am going to categorize different deck types and will be dividing our deck into different categories of tools available for us, and then explain, what is good and what is bad.
The following kinds of decks are out there:
swarm aggro decks based on creatures (Zoo, Goblins)
Aggro decks based on mostly non creature spells (Infect, Death’s Shadow, Burn)
Midrange decks based on goodstuff cards (Jund, Junk, Bant Eldrazi)
Midrange decks including swingy/payoff cards (Abzan Company)
Big Mana decks (Tron, RG Breach, RG Titanshift, Amulet Titan, Eldrazi Tron)
Combo decks based on spells mostly (Ad Nauseam)
Combo decks based on the GY (Goryo’s Vengeance, Living End)
Control decks with an heavy endgame (Grixis Control, Jeskai Control)
Of course, each deck functions somewhat differently and attacks the opponent on a different axis, so it is hard to throw them all into one box and then play the same way against them every time, this just does not work. Always, always knowledge is key in order to beat a deck. We just have to know what our opposing deck wants to do, in order to stop it. In addition, we have to know what the SB plan of our opposing decks will be. Only by knowing this, we can squeeze the most win percentage out of being up against a given deck.
Our deck has certain tools to interact with the opponent, which are the following:
Targeted discard (IOK, TS, CB)
Non targeted discard (Kolaghan’s Command, Liliana of the Veil)
Single target removal (Tarfire, Abrupt Decay, CB…)
Edict effects (Liliana of the Veil)
Mass removal (Anger of the Gods, potentially Maelstrom Pulse)
Burn (Tarfire, KCommand, CB)
Grindy cards (KCommand, LotV, LtlH)
Threats (Tarmogoyf, Death Shadow, Temur Battle Rage, Ghor-Clan Rampager)
CA Engine (not exactly CA, but Card Quality: Mishra's Bauble)
Graveyard Hate (Nihil Spellbomb, Surgical Extraction)
Land Destruction (Fulminator Mage)
Our deck can attack the opponent on a lot of different axis, which gives us game against potentially every opponent. There is no single card which completely shuts down our strategy, which is the reason why Jund overall performs great.
Let’s see what (in general) is useful against which kind of deck:
This chart should generally show, which tools are good against which kind of strategy.
As a general advice for side boarding, always go for the question: “What can I cut from my main deck?” first rather than “What cards can I bring in?”. This applies to every matchup. For this reason, this guide is more focused on the cards to cut, whether on the cards to bring in, because generally, this is easier to determine.
Note: Before going into the detail analysis of each matchup, I wanted to stress, that the sideboarding suggestions are all listed according to priority. The first card in the list is the first card you should cut in this matchup, the second card should be cut secondly, and so on. Also, no exact numbers concerning how many copies of each card to cut is given. It generally wouldn't make much sense, since every list could potentially run different numbers of a given card in his/her deck. Thats why I found the priority approach to be better, and in addition, you can't just copy a sideboard suggestion and use it, which let's you sideboard more dynamicly. Here is an article by Reid Duke, which explains to determine a metagame:The Metagame. One last note for the sideboard guide itself, I will mark sideboard changes which are specific choices for the different versions with either W for the whitesplash and R for the regular version.
Matchups
To conclude, these are the general guidelines for sideboarding in a given game. However, in specific cases, specific strategies are needed. For this reason, I want to go over all matchups present in this meta right now and go into a little bit more detail:
This deck runs no cards which have higher CMC than 3. For this reason, Inquisition of Kozilek is strictly better than Thoughtseize. Since we generally don’t want discard, we will cut all Thoughtseizes from our deck after game 1. Depending on what cards we have in the SB to bring in, we can also cut some Inquisitions. I personally find IOKs sometimes very useful, as the affinity player tends to drop all his small cheap cards in the first turn, and will hold the payoff cards in the hand for another turn. Even if we are on the draw, snapping this payoff card is great. Still, I wouldn’t bring in more discard because of this. This is just a reason why some numbers of IOK are fine to keep in the MB. However, cutting all Liliana of the Veil is the first priority. Depending if you have any more sideboard cards to bring in, it is ok to cut some Street Wraiths, as Affinity is an aggro deck after all and will kill you fast, so Street Wraith is not the best here. So to summarize (in order of priority):
Collective Brutality is not amazing against affinity, but its a removal spell after all, which is certainly better than the discard most of the time. If you run Ancient Grudge in the SB, then obviously you need to bring this card in instead!
Burn generally is a spell based aggro deck. It still runs a fair amount of creatures nonetheless, especially the Naya version (running Wild Nacatl). Against this deck, you want to take as little dmg as possible, so be careful with fetching and thoughtseizing the opponent. Discard is great in this matchup, especially IOK which can strip of a burn card from the opponents hand without taking dmg. So what cards do you bring in against Burn? Generally, cards which gain life like Collective Brutality and Fulminator Mage for potentially denying a colour from the burn player. The cards you absolutely have to cut are:
This gives you about 6 cards to bring in from you SB. But before talking about the SB, why is cutting Bobs and TS important? I often hear people arguing that TS is not as bad against Burn, because you can potentially snatch a Boros Charm or Atarkas Command, effectively gaining 2 life, right? Well, its not that simple.
I look at Burn as being a combo deck, which just has to resolve 6-7 spells in order to win the game. Generally, each spell will do 3 or sometimes 4 dmg to the opponent, so for 20 life --> 7 spells with 3 dmg per spell or 6 spells with two spells dealing 4 dmg are needed. Burn is a very consistant deck. It will more often than not draw the needed spells and just win. Now, when you are playing TS and taking Boros Charm out of the opponent’s hand, you annul the effect of Boros Charm which would have otherwise dealt 4 dmg to your face. But what you also did through this, is effective casting a free Shock on yourself. Combines this with a simple fetch you potentially did prior to this (even if you only fetched for 1) you effectively cast a free Lightning Bolt on yourself. So what did TS actually do for you? Nothing. You took Boros Charm, but bolted you alongside. You gave the opponent 1 of the 7 spells needed to kill you. (And to note, even if you don’t fetch for 1, you effectively cast a combo spell piece on yourself by casting TS, going down to 18 life and the burn player now just needs 6 instead of 7 3-dmg spells) So to conclude, if you TS the Burn player, you take away one spell they have but they simply have to draw one less spell alongside, which is just doing nothing.
If you run any Ghor-Clan Rampager in the deck, cut this also before cutting extra IOKs. I think especially here, the white splash version has a slight advantage over the regular Jund version as the SB cards are very strong here. Besides this, knowledge of the deck is also important to win the MU. Thus, playing Tarmogoyf only when he is bolt proof against Jund is self-explanatory as a simple example. You could argue about removing Liliana of the Veil against Junk, due to Lingering Souls and bring in other stuff from the GY, but I am leaning towards leaving her in the deck. She is still a great card and we have worse cards to cut and less good cards to bring in most likely. Fulminator Mage can be a good tool to blow up opposing manlands and shut opponents off of a colour. However, its not the best card in the matchups, you kinda have to draw it in the right situation to be really great, so its situation dependant. Still fine to bring in in exchange with the worse cards from the maindeck though.
Bant Eldrazi is a pretty though matchup for Death's Shadow Jund. They have very good tools from the sideboard to attack us, among which Rest in Piece and Woorship are one of the scariest ones. Combined with threats like Drowner of Hope and [/c]Eldrazi Displacer[/c] they can pretty much lock us out of the game. Its of great priority to have discard to disrupt their gameplan because of this. Killing Displacer on sight is also a must. The Problem with Eldrazi is, that they have way bigger creatures, which makes our removal awkward at times. Still, both Tarfire and Fatal Push can be used against the deck very effectively, but as it happens, if you draw the wrong removal at the wrong point´, we can get screwed hard. I would cut the following cards:
Liliana, the Last Hope is actually decent against Eldrazi to pick their tokens, manadorks or Skyspawners and reducing the power of their creatures overall, which makes it easier to handle the threats. Lingering Souls is quite slow, but I think still worthwhile to bring in, just to increase threats which are more immune to single-target removal (path/displacer). The flying is relevant as most of their creatures don't fly and thus we can maybe slowly but shurely fly over them if we play Souls backed up by removal for displacer/skyspawner and discard for RIP/Path and Drowner.
By doing so, you can have about 7-8 cards to bring in is this MU. The best options we have to bring in are Fulminator Mages, Surgical Extraction and Ancient Grudges. Fulminator is not the best tool we have against them, but Fulminator Mage in combination with Surgical Extraction is a potential blow-out to them. You can potentially shut the opponent off of Tron for ever, when you hit a single Tron land and extract it right away (only if the land is on the BF as a singleton). However, the main goal is to race them.
So by doing so you get about 7-9 cards to bring in. Out of all option out there, Fulminator Mage and Sweeper provide ok options to bring in. If you run Ghor Clan, then definitely cut it! Fulminator can potentially screw them quite hard. This is very much an attrition based matchup. Therefore we don't want to risk getting 2-for-1ed and also we want to minimize cards which are potential bad topdecks. Its also okay to cut a land (forest) here, which comes up sometimes, but I think its not necessary, you can try it though. This is also the reason not to bring in Surgicals. Surgicals may seem good to bring in, but so many things have to align in order for it to work. In my testing Surgicals were more often than not just bad. I also think its a mistake to board Surgicals in against us in attrition based games. I played against normal Jund and Junk numerous times now and I often see Surgicals be boarded in against us. One time I even got my Traverses stripped with Surgical from my opponent. However, it did not hurt me at all. The game does go long enough that you will eventually draw into one threat and the whole time until that happens, you are effectively up a card because your opponent used Surgicals. It was a great advantage just given me for free.
With this you have about 4-8 cards to bring in. Fulminator might shut them off of Tron, if you get to hit a land and extract it with Surgical Extraction. On its own, Fulminator is not that impressive though. Try not to play the long game against this MU. Generally, you want to close games as fast as you can. One of the most annoying cards they have is Chalice of the Void. But due to this, we keep in our answers for it in the deck (decay, KCommand, Grudge). It is important to keep soething around to trigger revolt at all times, in order to have Fatal Push online and effective. So fetch conservatively.
This frees up about 6-7 cards to bring in. Of course, like against every Big Mana deck, LD is important here. Fulminator is needed here due to this. Bring in all copies you have. After this, bring in Collective Brutality, which discards and gains life which can potentially help getting out of the 18 life threshold for a 7 land shapeshift (also relevant against Breach). As an quick note on Abrupt Decay, it might be correct to leave those in to have an answer for Chalice of the Void, which is a card that Valakut decks sometimes run in their SB. If you expect this, maybe leave in Decay.
One note concerning Fulminator and Scapeshift: If the opponent plays Scapeshift and wants to sacrifice 7 lands, obviously destroy a land in response, so they can only sac 6 lands. If they scapeshift for 8 lands however, you can't deny the valakut triggers, as 7 lands will also be enough, however, you can reduce the dmg from 36 to 6, if you destroy one mountain in response to the valakut triggers (6 mountains and 2 Valakuts usually, which would normally grant 6 x 6 = 36 dmg). The other 5 mountains won't "see" the other 5 mountains required to deal damage, so those will fizzle. Only the land which was destroyed sees 5 other mountains in order to be triggered, which is just 6 dmg, 3 dmg from each valakut. Generally, if the Valakut player knows this as well, they will scapeshift for 7 mountains and only 1 Valakut generally. In that case its better to destroy one land pre-scapeshift, in order reduce dmg from 36 to 18. So its up to you to decide whether to take the risk of letting it resolve and potentially get rewarded or get screwed. If you would die to 18 dmg nonetheless, then its of course safe to just hope they mess up. You would die anyways otherwise.
You can exchange about 7-8 cards by doing so. Other than discard, try to go for their artifact mana ramp spells. I would always destroy them as soon as possible, e.g.: If Lotus Bloom resolves in the upkeep, I would immediatly destroy it before the drawstep, which makes it less likely that the opponent haas the combo already in hand (doesn't get the extra card for this turn).
Abzan Company is generally a midrange deck, which does contain some combo and go-wide elements in it. It is known for playing sticky creatures and big payoff spells like Collected Company or Chord of Calling to find those threats and junk up the battlefield. In order to do this fast, it plays manadorks along those bigger creatures. As for Jund, we can't compete with this race of creature build up onto the battlefield, since we don't run these payoff cards. For us it is important to snap those payoff cards before they get to resolve, which means: targeted discard. In addition, discard helps us to potentially snap manadorks which prevents the Abzan Company deck from being that explosive. Since the deck is creature based, obviously, sweepers are phenominal here (if you got any). As for MB changes this leads to the following:
Liliana the Last Hope is usually very good in this matchup, because it can kill manadorks, shrink their threats while ticking up an heading towards a win condition on her own. Among the best cards available for us is definitely Anger of the Gods. It will deal with the majority of their threats without them coming back, which is really good value. Note though, that some lists play Sigarda, Host of Herons which could potentially shut down Liliana of the Veil.
I've found that GY hate is the best we have against them. Stopping Snapcaster + KCommand shenanigans is what disrupts their extremely powerful engame of almost endless recursion of Tasigurs. I think, discard is the second best thing we have against them, as hand information is such an valueable thing to have against them. You can gain information about what card to play in which scenario and thus can get to a point where a threat of yours will stick, and which will be the best way to win: close games fast.
One thing to note: Pls don't board in artifact hate against Merfolk. It might seem great to include because of Aether Vial, but as it happens, experienced Merfolk players will absolutely side them out against you, as they are just terrible topdecks. If you are afraid of stuff like Chalice of the Void or Relic of Progenitus, then just leave in Kolaghan's Command or deal with them with our Abrupt Decays. Concerning playing against Merfolk, I would suggest the following plan against them (especially on the draw): If you don't have turn 1 discard (which you should normally go for turn 1, unless you face a turn 1 Cursecatcher) then just play a fetchlands and pass. That way, you will prevent your land getting Spreading Seased right on turn 2, which could be devastating for you, and which every good merfolk player would absolutely do on turn 2, if they can.
Storm is a deck which has seen play in the past. Before the Gitaxian Probe ban, obviously this card was included in the deck and often builds using Pyromancer Ascension have been played. After the bans, a new version came up, including cards like the newly print Baral, Chief of Compliance and Gifts Ungiven. Pyromancer Ascension seemed to be disappeared as of now, the builds tend to focus more on Past in Flames now. So this means, our best cards against them are discard, GY hate and a quick threat. We also have a huge amount of single target removal to get rid of any Goblin Electromancer of Baral right away. Due to this, Storm usually is a good matchup. Removal is great, discard is great and a quick threat is great. Among the cards which are mediocre, I would cut the following:
A huge amount of small creatures (Emtpy the Warrens) is hard for us to answer, for which reason we want extra discard, to disrupt them to prevent them going off. Its a good idea to go for their rituals to slow them down. Don't sideboard too much here if you don't have anything to bring in. Usually siding 4-5 cards should be sufficient. We bring Maelstrom Pulse in also for the Tokens.
why do you think merfolks its a great matchup? i strugle with it a lot, mostly because of spreading seas, mutavault and vial+harbinger. i only lost once against it but all the matches were hard mode
why do you think merfolks its a great matchup? i strugle with it a lot, mostly because of spreading seas, mutavault and vial+harbinger. i only lost once against it but all the matches were hard mode
Oh, you are right, I basically used the structure from the Jund Guide, and probably got some leftover wordings in there. I think Merfolk is a though matchup like you said, I will rephrase that!
EDIT: Well, I did not say that the matchup is great actually, so I guess this is fine. I added a clarification that the matchup is hard though.
What's the secret here? I feel like I'm finally playing the deck properly and making optimal decisions, but the matchups remain steadfastly awful. Drowner is the worst thing ever.
In the mirror it shouldn't be that devastating as the mirror is very much an attrition based game where its not about Tempo rather grinding and destroying each other. I am not a fan of cutting pushes though. Its definetely better as we generally operate on low mana.
Not Master of Waves ;)Are you playing Tarfires, Dismembers or Lightning Bolts instead?
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
This deck also wasn't invented at that time...
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
Not all optimal decisions, but when I test we go over plays analytically for whole matches and while initially I recognised I was making some weird play errors now I've ironed out my game to the point where even given multiple options all are defensible.
No idea how you managed to make burn such a good matchup honestly. Even siding out all my self-pain cards and bringing in stuff like lingering souls and collective brutality I just get burnt out. My threats don't come online fast enough & I always end up in this awkward situation where my opponent has maybe one threat left, I've got a goyf maybe, and I'm on 5 or 6 life. If i attack I'm dead to quite a few topdecks (Boris charm etc) and then it has ended up going in my opponent's favour each time. Doesn't fill me with confidence anyway haha
Woah, Never bring in Lingering Souls against Burn. This match is a race, one that we are very good at winning with bigger threats.
Affinity
Legacy:
GBCombo Elves
EDH:
GEzuri, Renegade Leader's Elf Ball
Cube:
180 Peasant Micro Cube
This is interesting. Grove can for sure be a pain but the deck is able to lose more life in one turn than what Grove can gain. This match up can be unfavorable but with the right play you can edge it to even. I think based on what little info I have that you might just be approaching the match wrong from a play perspective or sideboard perspective.
What do you board in and what do you take out?
Bant Edlreazi is a tough matchup. You have to play extreme tight and optimal to get wins. It's in their favor just a bit. Against Bant Eldrazi you go up to four Fatal Push. Bring in Maelstrom Pulse if you run it and leave at least one copy of Collective Brutality in. The brutality is there to give you an out against Worship if you don't hit it with a discard. K Command isn't that great against them and neither is tarfire so you can sideboard out some number of those cards.
You can find my Guide to Using Death's Shadow's Cantrips here. If you have any question or if I missed something, be sure to let me know!
I agree not bringing in Souls against Burn, but I would not consider this match a race. This match needs conservative fetching and stalling basically, you need to let the burn player do the work for you, not hurting yourself and thus this is not a race. We just build up our board and get in for lethal when we can. That being said, calling this matchup a race might be misleading because we should definitely not hurting ourselves to the max to get down a early death shadow basically.
Nice guide, would be valuable when constructing a primer! GJ!
I went 2-1-2 at todays FNM
Played the mirror match once (which was a draw) and also Grixis Shadow once (the second draw). For both decks, I have come to the conclusion that you really want to threat the match like it is: an atrition based matchup, where you wanna shave on cards which are bad topdecks.
For this reason, my general go to route for attrition based matchup is now:
cutting 3-4 IOK, -2 TBR, -some Tarfires and bringing in all the grindy good stuff cards like Lingering, Ranger, Push, and Nihil Spellbomb (for Death Shadow specifically). I really found that bringing in Surgicals is a mistake. I even think bringing in Surgicals against us is a mistake. It will come down to topdeck wars, like in every attrition based matchup and surgicals do not help here. If you extract one threat, eventually, the opponent will more likely draw into another one. And its extremely unlikely to hit both Goyf and Shadow with both Surgicals. In one game my opponent surgicaled my traverses away after discarding it. He immediatly lost a card (as he played surgical) and I not basically. I drew my other threats more likely and had the advantage over my opponent the whole game, as he basically mulligened by using surgicals.
Also, on another note, cutting Ghor was a really good idea. I really loved the extra slot for either extra removal, extra Liliana or something else. I never missed Ghor in any case so far.
Love this guide, its a great walkthrough for neww users of the deck and a great refresher for others!
Also by racing burn I meant keeping in TBR and knocking their life total quickly. But I guess pacing it out is a better term
Affinity
Legacy:
GBCombo Elves
EDH:
GEzuri, Renegade Leader's Elf Ball
Cube:
180 Peasant Micro Cube
Fair play, but I felt like I needed the blockers so I could get on the offensive without worrying about a crack-back.
In all honesty I only brought them in because nothing else was worth bringing in and I wanted to side out my street wraiths and a couple of thoughtseize.
It doesn't feel like a race to me, unless I luckily draw a battle rage. Otherwise it feels like I'm trying to gain a little traction while my life total plummets, and I end up stabilising on board just at the time when double burn spell would finish me off.
-4 Street Wraith
-2 Thoughtseize
+2 Collective Brutality
+1 Fatal Push
+3 Fulminator Mage
Fulminator Mage is not the greatest but i think has potential of shutting the opponent off a color. Also for Lingering souls you potentially have to fetch+shock to get to cast it what you really don't want to do here.
why do you think merfolks its a great matchup? i strugle with it a lot, mostly because of spreading seas, mutavault and vial+harbinger. i only lost once against it but all the matches were hard mode
Oh, you are right, I basically used the structure from the Jund Guide, and probably got some leftover wordings in there. I think Merfolk is a though matchup like you said, I will rephrase that!
EDIT: Well, I did not say that the matchup is great actually, so I guess this is fine. I added a clarification that the matchup is hard though.