Really? As someone who plays this and Junk/Jund, an LOTV feels backbreaking to me, you need to shut the door fast or have some snapcaster tricks.
I still have a ways to go with this deck, this deck definitely requires a lot of reps, it's so easy to lose with Grixis despite it being the best deck. Kinda glad the best deck isn't a brainless gimme free wins archetype though.
I wonder how many reps it takes to become decent with this deck
I was talking about LotV's +1 ability. Her -2 ability can obviously be backbreaking.
She's tough to play against in Junk because they can back her up with tokens. Jund heavily relies on her, so we can often focus our entire game plan on beating LotV. Snapcaster Mage is indeed a key card here, but an immediately minused LoTV also dies to Kommand with minimal card disadvantage. I also run two MD bolts and usually have a Dreadbore in the sideboard. Jund is also one of the few non-combo matchups where I bring in my Surgical Extractions. If I manage to take out LotV with it, my opponent will be left with a very threat-light deck. This means that I can afford to keep all my discard spells and a few Stubborn Denials despite heading for an attrition battle. In longer games, LtLH's -2 ability can also sometimes balance out LotV's -2 ability, and LtLH's ultimate can be truly game ending.
All things considered, I'm doing pretty well with my setup and don't feel an urge to dedicate a sideboard slot to a LotV of my own.
I don't consider Grixis Shadow to be the "best deck". Maybe it was, before the metagame adapted, but not anymore. I would rather play Titanshift or Eldrazi Tron right now, but I still play for fun and those decks aren't fun for me.
Spooly I didn't call Affinity a bad matchup. It's one of the more difficult matchups IMHO, because games can play out different depending on what they are working with. Sometimes it's all about the Plating, sometimes Edged Champion rears its shiny head, sometimes a swarm is coming from the air. It's a matchup I personally like.
You can see how I might be confused. Here and before you called it "one of the more difficult matchups" - easy to interpret that as calling it a bad matchup! But I guess you're talking about how difficult it is to play the matchup? Or maybe you think that we have so many good matchups that "one of the more difficult matchups" is an apt description for a matchup that is roughly 50/50, depending on deckbuilding choices?
Of the midrange decks, I'm mostly worried about Junk. And in this matchup, I prefer LtLH over LotV because of Lingering Souls.
I don't like attrition battles, at least not with this deck. So maybe I don't appreciate the ability of making them discard their worst card enough. I have played against LotV many times and her +1 ability has been rarely backbreaking. Sometimes it can even be exploited to get certain cards in the yard.
I think I think about the card and matchups generally in a different way. I want to increase my chance to win the tournament any way I can. I don't care about which specific decks I gain % against, except to the extent they're represented at the top tables. Taking a 50% matchup to 60% is more valuable than taking a 35% matchup to 40%, all else equal. I agree that Junk is a tougher midrange matchup than the other midrange decks, but so what? If I can gain win % against the metagame without impacting the Junk matchup much (or even losing % there), I will do it.
With that in mind, I like 2 MD LotV right now because she gives you major gains in most fair matchups, while her +1 pressures many of the unfair matchups in a worthwhile way. Discard into threat into Lily is the classic Jund strategy against degenerate nonsense, and it works here too. Even against Eldrazi Tron this works ok because you can use discard to pick off the hangerbacks, then pressure their resources with LotV. The only fair matchups where she isn't an all star have some ability to go wide, but even against Junk she's still very good. You just need to dodge / answer Lingering Souls. Against control, again, she's very good simply because most control strategies aren't well equipped to deal with a resolved planeswalker. Outside of stuff like tokens, elves, and affinity, she's at least decent. LotV won't blow you away against death and taxes or dredge, but we weren't winning those matchups anyway without a significant commitment of deck/sb slots anyway - a commitment I'm not willing to make.
But note that I'm not interested in her as a SB card - I specifically want her MD. If you want a SB card to beat midrange specifically, there are better options that are just as strong against Junk as against other midrange decks. My current favorite is P&K Nalaar as a way to go wide, and also have applications against Affinity and Elves, but you can go very deep here.
To add to the LOTV discussion. I think she is very good in the mirror, and overrall a super solid SB card since it's very good against most combo, control and Eldrazi decks. The problem is that she's not that good in the BGx matchups and against Jeskai/UW she is good but they can handle a 1 or 2 off. That's why in an open metagame, Last Hope is usually just better because she forwards our grindy plan and makes our large threats recursive WHILE being a threat by her own. She's a plain slam dunk in Grixis Shadow. The mirror comes down to top decks and better sequencing in my opinion.
I love the points he makes about Modern and efficiency. Also, i'm almost bought into the Temur Battle Rage idea. WHen i tested the card, i found it mediocre, but the fact that Modern is so wide open makes me want to give them a try again. It opens the SB up a lot.
You can see how I might be confused. Here and before you called it "one of the more difficult matchups" - easy to interpret that as calling it a bad matchup! But I guess you're talking about how difficult it is to play the matchup? Or maybe you think that we have so many good matchups that "one of the more difficult matchups" is an apt description for a matchup that is roughly 50/50, depending on deckbuilding choices?
I'm not a native speaker, so I may not always get the nuances right.
What I meant is that Affinity is the kind of matchup where I want all of the pieces of my deck to work in concert. LotV is more like a diva that likes to play her own little games. Even against Affinity, she might occasionally be great. But more often than not, I expect her to be a clunky CMC3 card which soaks up a few points of damage. That's not what I want for this matchup.
I think I think about the card and matchups generally in a different way. I want to increase my chance to win the tournament any way I can. I don't care about which specific decks I gain % against, except to the extent they're represented at the top tables. Taking a 50% matchup to 60% is more valuable than taking a 35% matchup to 40%, all else equal. I agree that Junk is a tougher midrange matchup than the other midrange decks, but so what? If I can gain win % against the metagame without impacting the Junk matchup much (or even losing % there), I will do it.
This is not really a good example, because it's 5% increase vs. a 10% increase. In this case, we would probably both go for the 10% increase. But I still think that our approaches are different, because I don't care that much about winning the tournament anymore. I have won a few tournaments in the past, but nowadays deck construction is the most fun part of the game for me. I strive for a well-rounded deck that can win not only against the top 5 archetypes of the format, but against most of the top 20 archetypes. I usually play rogue decks or add twists to existing archetypes. I'm in the process of making my own rogue Shadow deck, but it is taking a while because Grixis Shadow is really good as it is.
With that in mind, I like 2 MD LotV right now because she gives you major gains in most fair matchups, while her +1 pressures many of the unfair matchups in a worthwhile way. Discard into threat into Lily is the classic Jund strategy against degenerate nonsense, and it works here too. Even against Eldrazi Tron this works ok because you can use discard to pick off the hangerbacks, then pressure their resources with LotV. The only fair matchups where she isn't an all star have some ability to go wide, but even against Junk she's still very good. You just need to dodge / answer Lingering Souls. Against control, again, she's very good simply because most control strategies aren't well equipped to deal with a resolved planeswalker. Outside of stuff like tokens, elves, and affinity, she's at least decent. LotV won't blow you away against death and taxes or dredge, but we weren't winning those matchups anyway without a significant commitment of deck/sb slots anyway - a commitment I'm not willing to make.
Thank you for the detailed explanation. Maybe I don't appreciate LotV enough, I have not extensively played her despite owning several copies.
But note that I'm not interested in her as a SB card - I specifically want her MD. If you want a SB card to beat midrange specifically, there are better options that are just as strong against Junk as against other midrange decks. My current favorite is P&K Nalaar as a way to go wide, and also have applications against Affinity and Elves, but you can go very deep here.
I would also rather MD than SB her. I like to have narrow SB cards and flexible MD cards. LotV is flexible enough for the MD and not narrow enough for the kind of SB I'm aiming for.
You guys are talking about mainboarding a 3CMC card without any details on what you are cutting for it. Between kolaghan's command and Snapcaster recurring a 1CMC spell we have 6 3CMC spells. I don't see myself adding 2 more.
You guys are talking about mainboarding a 3CMC card without any details on what you are cutting for it. Between kolaghan's command and Snapcaster recurring a 1CMC spell we have 6 3CMC spells. I don't see myself adding 2 more.
I have a pptq this weekend, and if it were tomorrow this is what I'll sleeve up. I'll probably change my mind in the mean time though. (On MTGO, at a SCG open, or at a GP I'd -2 Leak, +2 IoK because it's better against the more defined metagame that has formed. But for a pptq, I expect nonsense)
Edit:
Already changing my mind -1 Terminate, +1 Push/Bolt since Lily does some of Terminate's work and makes the curve higher.
This is probably the most notable example of LotV in Grixis Shadow to date. I like how two extra discard spells were also added to the list instead of just randomly throwing in LotV in the flex slots. This is the kind of tweaking I was referring to earlier.
How many of you all are going to try some number of claim//fame? I have yet to decide if 1 or none is correct in the main deck, but it does seem to have some legs for a sideboard slot or two...kind of fills a similar role Temur battle rage does in it helps you close out the game in a hurry...it doesn't give your guy trample (which means it is less effective to combat gummed up boards or tokens), but the flexiblilty if getting back a death shadow and provide a hasty threat in the late game seems like it's worth a look or two.
I've only played a few matches with it so far, but I'm super unimpressed with Claim//Fame at this point. In one of my games I had it stuck in hand the entire game because the opponent had a turn 0 Leyline. When graveyard hate is already one of the most popular ways to attack us, I don't like adding another card that's dead to grave hate. Seems like the opposite direction we want to be going, but I'll keep testing with it, see if it changes my mind.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I noticed that these grixis shadow lists don't run a singleton echoing truths in the board to combat cards like Leyline of sanctity. Would it be correct to run an echoing truths?
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I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Leyline of Sanctity nullifies 6 cards in our maindeck and maybe 3 or 4 cards in our sideboard. As Echoing Truth doesn't get rid of it permanently, we will likely have to spend an additional card to achieve this.
In many cases (not always obviously), siding out a few discard spells is a decent countermeasure. Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand can also help reducing the number of discard spells we draw when Leyline of Sanctity is online.
We can't have a solution for everything in 15 SB slots, unfortunately.
So I was playing against Dredge yesterday and it didn't go so well. Was hoping to get some advice/feedback from you guys.
Game 1 was a complete stomp, and it feels pretty one-sided. You have no good way to interact with them, so unless they draw awfully, you just fold. He has enough ways to block my few big dudes if he has to while also having enough ways to push damage from recursion. Game 2 was more interesting though. I played my Spellbomb early and it got Abrupt Decayed (which I think is normally Maelstrom Pulse), so the effectiveness of it was very minimal. After he got rolling, I had my Anger of the Gods ready, but he played around it. He left a minimal amount of dudes on the board, leaving several things still in his graveyard. For example, he would decline to trigger Bloodghast which left Prized Amalgams in his yard.
My sideboard for them is currently: 2x Surgical Extraction, 1x Nihil Spellbomb, 1x Grafdigger's Cage, 2x Anger of the Gods.
Questions that I have:
What do I sideboard out? I have lots of cards that seem dead and it's not obvious what's best to bring out. I play 1 Bolt, 3 Fatal Push, 2 Terminate, 2 Liliana of the Veil, 2 Inquisitions, 4 Thoughtseize, none of which seem good against them.
Should I be saving Nihil Spellbomb until my opponent has a bunch of cards in his graveyard? It's not clear to me if I want to stop turn 1 or 2 Dredging, if I want to use it to stop triggers on Prized Amalgam or whatever else is there, or if I use it later on to assist with Anger of the Gods (as would have been great in my game).
Is this sideboard plan good/enough? I feel like Leyline of the Void could be good but it's more narrow and much harder to use if you don't open with it. I currently have four graveyard cards in my sideboard, so it's not like I have to make room.
What's the actual gameplan in this matchup? Do I try to grind them out and make good use of sideboard cards? Do I try to put big dudes into play early?
I still think Claim to Fame is bad in this deck. We only have 8 targets, and delve away our graveyard a lot. It's much more interesting in death's shadow aggro, which I've been running into on mtgo lately - featuring Tribal Flames.
I'm not a fan of Echoing Truth, though I tried it. If it did anything else efficiently I'd be more interested. If you want to beat Leyline, configure your deck so that it's less good against you. Vs. Sanctity: cut IoKs for Leaks. Vs. Void: shave a Snapcaster, and make sure post board you can bring in stuff that matters but doesn't depend on the GY: P&K, planeswalkers not named LtlH, etc. Both Leylines are one reason why I like Liliana of the Veil right now.
To beat dredge you need to 1) get lucky and/or 2) pack a pile of gy hate. 6ish hate cards is on the high end for the number of cards you can bring in. But also bring in stuff like Stubborn Denial just because it interacts - not just with their enablers, but also with Conflagrate. Izzet Staticaster is also good if you have it. Same for Kozilek's Return, but it's less good. Keep the discard in because taking a Looting or a Reunion is very good. You can shave Street Wraiths, a Snapcaster, and some removal. Mulligan any hand without at least one threat or serious GY hate. One of those two is sometimes enough to make a hand keepable, but any hand without both is bad. You really need to clock them because they will grind you out. Spellbomb is at its best if you can get a large graveyard with some goodies in it and, e.g., Narcomoeba triggers on the stack. But after they dredge into a big yard with Bloodghasts + Amalgams in it, don't let them go to their main phase before cracking spellbomb - a fetchland will make you sad. If you know the contents of their hand, or have other gy hate, or need to dig for a threat, sometimes cracking Spellbomb early is better. But mostly it's a difficult matchup and your best bet is to dodge.
I played around with Claim//Fame and agree that it doesn't seem that good in our shell here. I think it'd be more interesting in Death's Shadow Jund, but similar problems arise in both
1. It attacks on the same axis as our plan A and makes us weaker to GY hate
2. Grixis only has 8 targets. Think recurring tarmagoyfs in Jund Shadows is better, but I still question how good it'd be.
3. Generally speaking, the way to beat Grixis Shadows falls under one of these axis: GY hate, chalice, swarm. Claim//Fame likely means you cut KCommand which makes us a lot weaker to chalices. I don't think Grixis lacks grind power.
4. I spoke earlier about the synergy Claim//Fame has with JVP. Playing with these made me re-realizing its problem in Grixis Shadows - it attacks on the same axis (graveyard), dies to every removal and I don't think more grind power is what we need.
All in all I think this card could be very interesting, but in another shell. Could be proven wrong though with more testing.
That's basically what I predicted and if it stays that way, it will be yet another argument against a ban. In his ban mongering video after GP Vegas, Luis Scott-Vargas claimed (pun intended) that Claim // Fame will be (I quote) "extremely good" for the Grixis Shadow deck.
Your sideboard is as good as it's going to get. I would side out the Lilis, Terminates, and 2 Pushes. Discard is better against them than it looks because you can often snag one of their engine cards like Cathartic Reunion and slow them down a lot.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Your sideboard is as good as it's going to get. I would side out the Lilis, Terminates, and 2 Pushes. Discard is better against them than it looks because you can often snag one of their engine cards like Cathartic Reunion and slow them down a lot.
Yeah that's what I did yesterday, or something similar. I did leave in the discard, and I did hit Cathartic Reunion with it. I feel like if the post-board matchup is going to suck this much, I might just want to not board that heavily for it.
If you want you can also exchange the/a IOK with Denials to deal with some of the stuff postboard. Specifically the stuff with flashback. Being able to hit looting or conflagrate is nice and you don't run into awkward scenarios in the later game when their hand is all dredge cards so it's dead or you have to think about playing it into a hand of cards they want discarded. Denial is a little more narrow but guarunteed. Doesn't make the matchup significantly better or anything but could gain you a few percentage points in dealing with those pesky conflagrates or stopping loam for a turn to kill them.
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Modern URBSome variant of Death's Shadow URB Grixis Control (Chapin Version) JFM Storm / Treasure Cruise Delver / Splinter Twin / Infect
I still have a ways to go with this deck, this deck definitely requires a lot of reps, it's so easy to lose with Grixis despite it being the best deck. Kinda glad the best deck isn't a brainless gimme free wins archetype though.
I wonder how many reps it takes to become decent with this deck
She's tough to play against in Junk because they can back her up with tokens. Jund heavily relies on her, so we can often focus our entire game plan on beating LotV. Snapcaster Mage is indeed a key card here, but an immediately minused LoTV also dies to Kommand with minimal card disadvantage. I also run two MD bolts and usually have a Dreadbore in the sideboard. Jund is also one of the few non-combo matchups where I bring in my Surgical Extractions. If I manage to take out LotV with it, my opponent will be left with a very threat-light deck. This means that I can afford to keep all my discard spells and a few Stubborn Denials despite heading for an attrition battle. In longer games, LtLH's -2 ability can also sometimes balance out LotV's -2 ability, and LtLH's ultimate can be truly game ending.
All things considered, I'm doing pretty well with my setup and don't feel an urge to dedicate a sideboard slot to a LotV of my own.
I don't consider Grixis Shadow to be the "best deck". Maybe it was, before the metagame adapted, but not anymore. I would rather play Titanshift or Eldrazi Tron right now, but I still play for fun and those decks aren't fun for me.
You can see how I might be confused. Here and before you called it "one of the more difficult matchups" - easy to interpret that as calling it a bad matchup! But I guess you're talking about how difficult it is to play the matchup? Or maybe you think that we have so many good matchups that "one of the more difficult matchups" is an apt description for a matchup that is roughly 50/50, depending on deckbuilding choices?
I think I think about the card and matchups generally in a different way. I want to increase my chance to win the tournament any way I can. I don't care about which specific decks I gain % against, except to the extent they're represented at the top tables. Taking a 50% matchup to 60% is more valuable than taking a 35% matchup to 40%, all else equal. I agree that Junk is a tougher midrange matchup than the other midrange decks, but so what? If I can gain win % against the metagame without impacting the Junk matchup much (or even losing % there), I will do it.
With that in mind, I like 2 MD LotV right now because she gives you major gains in most fair matchups, while her +1 pressures many of the unfair matchups in a worthwhile way. Discard into threat into Lily is the classic Jund strategy against degenerate nonsense, and it works here too. Even against Eldrazi Tron this works ok because you can use discard to pick off the hangerbacks, then pressure their resources with LotV. The only fair matchups where she isn't an all star have some ability to go wide, but even against Junk she's still very good. You just need to dodge / answer Lingering Souls. Against control, again, she's very good simply because most control strategies aren't well equipped to deal with a resolved planeswalker. Outside of stuff like tokens, elves, and affinity, she's at least decent. LotV won't blow you away against death and taxes or dredge, but we weren't winning those matchups anyway without a significant commitment of deck/sb slots anyway - a commitment I'm not willing to make.
But note that I'm not interested in her as a SB card - I specifically want her MD. If you want a SB card to beat midrange specifically, there are better options that are just as strong against Junk as against other midrange decks. My current favorite is P&K Nalaar as a way to go wide, and also have applications against Affinity and Elves, but you can go very deep here.
EDIT PS: I don't know if this article has been brought up here, but i found it very interesting and insightful. Andrew Jessup on GDS: http://www.gatheringmagic.com/andrewjessup-06202017-deaths-shadow-is-the-good-guy/
I love the points he makes about Modern and efficiency. Also, i'm almost bought into the Temur Battle Rage idea. WHen i tested the card, i found it mediocre, but the fact that Modern is so wide open makes me want to give them a try again. It opens the SB up a lot.
What I meant is that Affinity is the kind of matchup where I want all of the pieces of my deck to work in concert. LotV is more like a diva that likes to play her own little games. Even against Affinity, she might occasionally be great. But more often than not, I expect her to be a clunky CMC3 card which soaks up a few points of damage. That's not what I want for this matchup. This is not really a good example, because it's 5% increase vs. a 10% increase. In this case, we would probably both go for the 10% increase. But I still think that our approaches are different, because I don't care that much about winning the tournament anymore. I have won a few tournaments in the past, but nowadays deck construction is the most fun part of the game for me. I strive for a well-rounded deck that can win not only against the top 5 archetypes of the format, but against most of the top 20 archetypes. I usually play rogue decks or add twists to existing archetypes. I'm in the process of making my own rogue Shadow deck, but it is taking a while because Grixis Shadow is really good as it is. Thank you for the detailed explanation. Maybe I don't appreciate LotV enough, I have not extensively played her despite owning several copies. I would also rather MD than SB her. I like to have narrow SB cards and flexible MD cards. LotV is flexible enough for the MD and not narrow enough for the kind of SB I'm aiming for.
Have a list
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
2 Blood Crypt
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Death's Shadow
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
4 Thought Scour
2 Stubborn Denial
4 Thoughtseize
2 Mana Leak
3 Fatal Push
3 Terminate
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Collective Brutality
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Kozilek's Return
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Izzet Staticaster
I have a pptq this weekend, and if it were tomorrow this is what I'll sleeve up. I'll probably change my mind in the mean time though. (On MTGO, at a SCG open, or at a GP I'd -2 Leak, +2 IoK because it's better against the more defined metagame that has formed. But for a pptq, I expect nonsense)
Edit:
Already changing my mind -1 Terminate, +1 Push/Bolt since Lily does some of Terminate's work and makes the curve higher.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
In many cases (not always obviously), siding out a few discard spells is a decent countermeasure. Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand can also help reducing the number of discard spells we draw when Leyline of Sanctity is online.
We can't have a solution for everything in 15 SB slots, unfortunately.
Game 1 was a complete stomp, and it feels pretty one-sided. You have no good way to interact with them, so unless they draw awfully, you just fold. He has enough ways to block my few big dudes if he has to while also having enough ways to push damage from recursion. Game 2 was more interesting though. I played my Spellbomb early and it got Abrupt Decayed (which I think is normally Maelstrom Pulse), so the effectiveness of it was very minimal. After he got rolling, I had my Anger of the Gods ready, but he played around it. He left a minimal amount of dudes on the board, leaving several things still in his graveyard. For example, he would decline to trigger Bloodghast which left Prized Amalgams in his yard.
My sideboard for them is currently: 2x Surgical Extraction, 1x Nihil Spellbomb, 1x Grafdigger's Cage, 2x Anger of the Gods.
Questions that I have:
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
I'm not a fan of Echoing Truth, though I tried it. If it did anything else efficiently I'd be more interested. If you want to beat Leyline, configure your deck so that it's less good against you. Vs. Sanctity: cut IoKs for Leaks. Vs. Void: shave a Snapcaster, and make sure post board you can bring in stuff that matters but doesn't depend on the GY: P&K, planeswalkers not named LtlH, etc. Both Leylines are one reason why I like Liliana of the Veil right now.
To beat dredge you need to 1) get lucky and/or 2) pack a pile of gy hate. 6ish hate cards is on the high end for the number of cards you can bring in. But also bring in stuff like Stubborn Denial just because it interacts - not just with their enablers, but also with Conflagrate. Izzet Staticaster is also good if you have it. Same for Kozilek's Return, but it's less good. Keep the discard in because taking a Looting or a Reunion is very good. You can shave Street Wraiths, a Snapcaster, and some removal. Mulligan any hand without at least one threat or serious GY hate. One of those two is sometimes enough to make a hand keepable, but any hand without both is bad. You really need to clock them because they will grind you out. Spellbomb is at its best if you can get a large graveyard with some goodies in it and, e.g., Narcomoeba triggers on the stack. But after they dredge into a big yard with Bloodghasts + Amalgams in it, don't let them go to their main phase before cracking spellbomb - a fetchland will make you sad. If you know the contents of their hand, or have other gy hate, or need to dig for a threat, sometimes cracking Spellbomb early is better. But mostly it's a difficult matchup and your best bet is to dodge.
1. It attacks on the same axis as our plan A and makes us weaker to GY hate
2. Grixis only has 8 targets. Think recurring tarmagoyfs in Jund Shadows is better, but I still question how good it'd be.
3. Generally speaking, the way to beat Grixis Shadows falls under one of these axis: GY hate, chalice, swarm. Claim//Fame likely means you cut KCommand which makes us a lot weaker to chalices. I don't think Grixis lacks grind power.
4. I spoke earlier about the synergy Claim//Fame has with JVP. Playing with these made me re-realizing its problem in Grixis Shadows - it attacks on the same axis (graveyard), dies to every removal and I don't think more grind power is what we need.
All in all I think this card could be very interesting, but in another shell. Could be proven wrong though with more testing.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
URB Some variant of Death's Shadow
URB Grixis Control (Chapin Version)
JFM Storm / Treasure Cruise Delver / Splinter Twin / InfectCommander/EDH
This pile of cards when I feel like it
Death's Shadow discord link