What I really meant was that Faithless Looting tends to be fairly high variance, as there is nothing in particular that you want to actively put in the yard. Sometimes it is great and you can throw something useless in exchange for something less so, but other times you just end up looking at a bunch of useful cards and having to bin 2 of them. It is also an abysmal top deck if you are hellbent.
Opt is a solid choice, but for some reason the whole Shadow community moved away from it over the last year. I agree that the instant speed draw is nice, but it only digging 1 card deep is a drawback. Good luck with your testing and welcome back
Faithless Looting is debatable, though most arguments in its favor can be summarized in "it's not that bad in the late game". Opt is pretty weak, and you can get a pretty good impression of its effect but for free combining Mishra's Bauble with fetchlands and Street Wraith; it only took me replacing Opt with Bauble to start winning with this deck.
Today I've found a guide of the deck at ChannelFireball by GP Toronto winner: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/grixis-deaths-shadow-guide-first-place-at-grand-prix-toronto/ There are only a few minor details I disagree with in the sideboard guide. I specially dislike how the deck looks against Humans post-board, yet this sideboard is thought with the idea that deck should have disappeared from the metagame. Collective Brutality and Liliana of the Veil are bad in that match-up, but other than Kolaghan's Command to destroy Vials, there is nothing better in that list you can put for that match-up.
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Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I’d even play the 4th Mishra’s Bauble before playing a single Opt. When paired with Fetchlands, Bauble does a pretty good impression of Opt without costing any mana. Also, remember that Serum Visions pairs pretty well with Street Wraith and, to a lesser extent, Mishra’s Bauble. Topping a Stubborn Denial from a Serum Visions, then cracking a Bauble to grab it on your opponent’s upkeep to counter their next play feels pretty good, even if it’s only a corner case.
On Faithless Looting: the card is good when you need it and fine most other times when you don’t. The main thing I keep in mind with it in the deck is that sometimes it’s better to let that 4th or 5th land drop chill in your hand. That way, you can pitch those to Looting and essentially trade them for relevant cards.
Hello friends of magic! yesterday play the monthly league of barcelona (vic) 4-1-0 the first four wins and the last pact. first game: I checked. 2-0 and very easy Second game: UW control 2-1 in no me juice terminus and I notice the fourth stuborn. third game: ur fenix 2-0 was easy and in the second game it is extirpated to the fenix and shadow ends the game. The fourth push is very noticeable top 8 2-0 again against fenix semi-finals I lost against humans 1-2 and I played 3 auriok champion.
I do not like flaying tendrils on the cover because they are bad against dredge. EE or ratchet bomb can work against auriok, tokens and artifacts. a copy of sb I think it can work
What I really meant was that Faithless Looting tends to be fairly high variance, as there is nothing in particular that you want to actively put in the yard. Sometimes it is great and you can throw something useless in exchange for something less so, but other times you just end up looking at a bunch of useful cards and having to bin 2 of them. It is also an abysmal top deck if you are hellbent.
Perhaps you are not using the spell to its full potential. If your hand is full of good cards, you simply don't have to cast Faithless Looting. Stop making land drops (unless you have are completely resource flooded, ie. planeswalkers, snap/kommand, you rarely need more than 3-4). Eventually you will run out of gas and you can cash in the extra lands for real cards. If you keep drawing gas and the looting is just stuck in your hand, you are likely doing well in that game anyway.
It's extremely versatile - lets you power out anglers as well, dump dead cards in G1, dump life loss/discard spells/lands late game, dump GY cards when there is GY hate, dump hand disruption when there's a leyline. Sometimes you just need to see as many cards as fast as possible and you can pitch stuff like Bauble/SV/TS and keep the actual good cards, since that's all you're using the cantrips for anyway.
Playing this deck w/o looting I definitely feel a sharp decrease in card selection and consistency. I feel like the virtual card advantage this card can net you is very high.
I like playing 2 for G1, where I find it especially excels at making sure all the cards you have access to are relevant to the game, and boarding out the second copy post SB in some matchups.
Early game you usually want to be casting spells to set up the requirements of your creatures, and Looting is a bad turn 1 play. What will you discard against an unknown opponent? Fatal Push to then find out he's playing aggro? Stubborn Denial to see he's on combo? Will you keep Thoughtseize over Inquisition of Kozilek against an unknown opponent who eventually plays Burn? I know you have to take many similar decisions with a Serum Visions scry turn 1 against an unknown opponent, but when are you forced to make these poor openings? Usually when you've had many mulligans and can't play anything better, and in those situations you don't want Looting card disadvantage. First land you fetch usually is Watery Grave, and it can't cast Looting; another argument to showcase how bad it is early game.
Faithless Looting is a card I'd never want to see in my opening hand, and the best way to prevent that from happening is playing 0. I just lose a late game card selection spell or a card I'll be happy about milling with Thought Scour (and more often than not I'll have to delve with Angler). With Shadow, cards should be evaluated by their utility in the opening hand more than with other decks, as games are short and you're often mana screwed.
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I played one at GP Toronto and was mostly pretty fine with that choice. One reason why I like running one is because I'm running leyline of the void in the side so it's nice to be able to discard any copies that I draw in the late game. Other than that there are times when I don't wanna see it
I will go in a few days to the GP Bilbao and I will do it with grixis shadow.
Seeing how the format is, what do you think about playing 2 thing in the ice in SB to face pairings like dredge, spirits, humans and the grave hate?
Would you make any major changes to the current lists for this metagame?
I will go in a few days to the GP Bilbao and I will do it with grixis shadow.
Seeing how the format is, what do you think about playing 2 thing in the ice in SB to face pairings like dredge, spirits, humans and the grave hate?
Would you make any major changes to the current lists for this metagame?
Thanks!
I don't like Thing in the Ice here. Between counterspells, Bauble, and Wraith, it can actually be fairly difficult to reliably flip, especially if you need it to flip quickly. I personally never gave up Engineered Explosives or Anger of the Gods, and those have done work in those matchups. Also, after getting wrecked by Affinity (both regular old school, and Hardened Scales) I think my artifact hate of choice is going to be Hurkyl's Recall. A lot of times a win comes from a big alpha strike, or sometimes they have redundant pieces where single removal just isn't good enough. I'm going to test that out going forward.
Side note: I didn't get them in time for GP LA, but my last two Expeditions came in to finish out my manabase.
this has been bugging me a bit the past few days, so I'm gonna post here
against tron and given the choice of either ripping their one one payoff or one of their mana rocks/expedition map, do you take the threat, an egg or the map? does having 2 discard spells change that? I was on the draw and took I believe the map first because that represented whatever he needed and then took the egg, leaving him with Ulamog. He then spun his wheels for a long time and drew the last tron land he needed to cast Ulamog turn before I would have killed him, which is variance I guess
this has been bugging me a bit the past few days, so I'm gonna post here
against tron and given the choice of either ripping their one one payoff or one of their mana rocks/expedition map, do you take the threat, an egg or the map? does having 2 discard spells change that? I was on the draw and took I believe the map first because that represented whatever he needed and then took the egg, leaving him with Ulamog. He then spun his wheels for a long time and drew the last tron land he needed to cast Ulamog turn before I would have killed him, which is variance I guess
Trying to keep Tron off of Tron is a fool's errand. They tend to have more ways of getting to ramped mana than they have threats once they do. You take the threat then try to kill them before they draw a second one.
This depends on a number of things. There is not a single correct answer.
If they have multiple of one or the other, then use discard to poke a hole in their hand. 3 Karns and 3 mana, or 15 mana and no payoff are equivalent for you. The top of the deck is dangerous, but they aren't currently killing you. Any very late game is bad for you because of both mana advantange and card power. Short of something ridiculous like Surgical on Urza's Tower they are going to murder you if you let the game go too long. Keeping them off balance in either direction is fine as long as you kill them before they get their game online.
If their threats are all Planeswalkers and you have live Stubborn Denials, then you don't necessarily need to prioritize them.
How good are their threats? You can beat a Thragtusk. You can sometimes eat one Oblivion Stone.
You can't beat Ugin and Ulamog.
You should generally lean towards taking payoff because there are less of them, and their mana sources are more plentiful and the lands are uncounterable, but if you have a fast clock then disrupting their mana.
Side note, Turn One Stubbon Denial on the play on their Map or on the draw on their Scrying is great. Good rule of thumb is that while hitting them with IoK is fine, never counter eggs and never focus on getting rid of them. Exception here is the last turn of the game.
Here's a wild idea I'd like some feedback on: maindecking Surgical Extraction. I feel that grave decks are so plentiful now that being able to maindeck SE could be very powerful, but the obvious issue is the card disadvantage which makes it so bad in any fair deck. However, I think if there is a fair deck that could pull this off, it would be Grixis Death Shadow:
It can benefit from the lifeloss as an instant speed trick
it can use it in conjunction with discard spells
it has a gameplan that can really benefit from taking a single specific card out of your opponent's deck, like Path to Exile.
Then, there are a bunch of cute interactions:
You could Mishra's bauble your opponent, see what they draw, then surgical to shuffle their deck or even surgical what they draw
up a creek without a paddle vs tron (or any similar deck) you could Thought Scour them in hope to Surgical a tronland
poor man's Gitaxian Probe
You would side out Surgical a lot, similar to faithless looting, but gain a large percentage against dredge and phoenix, the two top decks.
Here's a wild idea I'd like some feedback on: maindecking Surgical Extraction. I feel that grave decks are so plentiful now that being able to maindeck SE could be very powerful, but the obvious issue is the card disadvantage which makes it so bad in any fair deck. However, I think if there is a fair deck that could pull this off, it would be Grixis Death Shadow:
It can benefit from the lifeloss as an instant speed trick
it can use it in conjunction with discard spells
it has a gameplan that can really benefit from taking a single specific card out of your opponent's deck, like Path to Exile.
Then, there are a bunch of cute interactions:
You could Mishra's bauble your opponent, see what they draw, then surgical to shuffle their deck or even surgical what they draw
up a creek without a paddle vs tron (or any similar deck) you could Thought Scour them in hope to Surgical a tronland
poor man's Gitaxian Probe
You would side out Surgical a lot, similar to faithless looting, but gain a large percentage against dredge and phoenix, the two top decks.
Seems very interesting I might give it a try lol
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Interesting Star City Games article by Ben Friedman. I wonder about Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. If anyone has experience, I would be interested. I'm not excited about running additional cantrips so I would like to have more answers. I'm not sold on Rise//Fall. I've run it off and an. I think it was better as an answer in Grixis Delver where you didn't expect a random discard spell. On the other hand, it seems like Rise is a good answer to Phoenix decks.
The problems are exactly what you would expect: It is a garbage, useless, unplayable card in a ton of matchups.
I see the upside of the cute interactions, but none of those are worth a card.
If you just want to pay life, play a Gut Shot or Mutagenic Growth because they actually do something.
If you want to use it as a discard spell, play another Inquisition or a Rise//Fall or a Collective Brutality.
If you want to get rid of UW controls Path to Exile, then just Thoughseize them again rather than pulling them out of their deck. Alternatively, Negate, Countersquall, Dispel, Spell Pierce.
A shuffle for Bauble isn't worth a card.
Surgical against Tron is useless without Fulminator.
Probe that doesn't cantrip is awful.
Note that I am being extra critical because you went out of your way to look at the positive. There is upside, which we cannot and should not ignore, but there is also very serious downside.
Phoenix is currently maindecking Surgical, but they can honestly use it better than us because it is a free spell. This is in what might otherwise be a Gut Shot slot because they already don't need help against Noble Heirarch, and can use the boost in the mirror. Really, they are just picking the least crappy card that costs 0. Shadow has already cut back a lot on its ability to be a fair midrange deck, losing the 4th SCM, Command, and adding stuff like Faithless Looting. Adding more disadvantage and a purely situational card comes at a huge cost.
That all being said, I don't think it is a hard no at the moment. A year ago, if someone made this suggestion I would have been much more blunt, and much more confident in saying: Absolutely not. You are bad at Magic, you don't understand how Shadow works and what makes it good, you don't understand fundamental principles of deckbuilding and gameplay. You are strictly wrong, and if you put this in your deck you are stupid
Today, I am not so sure. I am still extremely skeptical, but it depends on your metagame read. If you expect a pretty open Moden field, which in most cases tends to be correct, then leave it in the sideboard. If you legitimately expect 40 percent Phoenix, then sure, its probably right.
My other observation here is this:
If maindecking Surgical Extraction is legitimately correct, then the format is broken and something needs to be banned, full stop.
I was definitely trying to sell Surgical Extraction mainboard a bit in my post, the card is kind of infamous for being a trap for new players thinking it is amazing to SE Teferi out of a control deck not realizing they just discarded a card for nothing.
That being said, I do actually think that the format is that broken that mainboarding a surgical or two is a real consideration. I'm going to be testing with it a bit.
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Opt is a solid choice, but for some reason the whole Shadow community moved away from it over the last year. I agree that the instant speed draw is nice, but it only digging 1 card deep is a drawback. Good luck with your testing and welcome back
Today I've found a guide of the deck at ChannelFireball by GP Toronto winner: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/grixis-deaths-shadow-guide-first-place-at-grand-prix-toronto/ There are only a few minor details I disagree with in the sideboard guide. I specially dislike how the deck looks against Humans post-board, yet this sideboard is thought with the idea that deck should have disappeared from the metagame. Collective Brutality and Liliana of the Veil are bad in that match-up, but other than Kolaghan's Command to destroy Vials, there is nothing better in that list you can put for that match-up.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I’d even play the 4th Mishra’s Bauble before playing a single Opt. When paired with Fetchlands, Bauble does a pretty good impression of Opt without costing any mana. Also, remember that Serum Visions pairs pretty well with Street Wraith and, to a lesser extent, Mishra’s Bauble. Topping a Stubborn Denial from a Serum Visions, then cracking a Bauble to grab it on your opponent’s upkeep to counter their next play feels pretty good, even if it’s only a corner case.
On Faithless Looting: the card is good when you need it and fine most other times when you don’t. The main thing I keep in mind with it in the deck is that sometimes it’s better to let that 4th or 5th land drop chill in your hand. That way, you can pitch those to Looting and essentially trade them for relevant cards.
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Staff3 mana is a hell of a lot - at that point you've got much more powerful options available to you (Liliana, Snap + x).
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Perhaps you are not using the spell to its full potential. If your hand is full of good cards, you simply don't have to cast Faithless Looting. Stop making land drops (unless you have are completely resource flooded, ie. planeswalkers, snap/kommand, you rarely need more than 3-4). Eventually you will run out of gas and you can cash in the extra lands for real cards. If you keep drawing gas and the looting is just stuck in your hand, you are likely doing well in that game anyway.
It's extremely versatile - lets you power out anglers as well, dump dead cards in G1, dump life loss/discard spells/lands late game, dump GY cards when there is GY hate, dump hand disruption when there's a leyline. Sometimes you just need to see as many cards as fast as possible and you can pitch stuff like Bauble/SV/TS and keep the actual good cards, since that's all you're using the cantrips for anyway.
Playing this deck w/o looting I definitely feel a sharp decrease in card selection and consistency. I feel like the virtual card advantage this card can net you is very high.
I like playing 2 for G1, where I find it especially excels at making sure all the cards you have access to are relevant to the game, and boarding out the second copy post SB in some matchups.
Faithless Looting is a card I'd never want to see in my opening hand, and the best way to prevent that from happening is playing 0. I just lose a late game card selection spell or a card I'll be happy about milling with Thought Scour (and more often than not I'll have to delve with Angler). With Shadow, cards should be evaluated by their utility in the opening hand more than with other decks, as games are short and you're often mana screwed.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
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StaffI will go in a few days to the GP Bilbao and I will do it with grixis shadow.
Seeing how the format is, what do you think about playing 2 thing in the ice in SB to face pairings like dredge, spirits, humans and the grave hate?
Would you make any major changes to the current lists for this metagame?
Thanks!
I don't like Thing in the Ice here. Between counterspells, Bauble, and Wraith, it can actually be fairly difficult to reliably flip, especially if you need it to flip quickly. I personally never gave up Engineered Explosives or Anger of the Gods, and those have done work in those matchups. Also, after getting wrecked by Affinity (both regular old school, and Hardened Scales) I think my artifact hate of choice is going to be Hurkyl's Recall. A lot of times a win comes from a big alpha strike, or sometimes they have redundant pieces where single removal just isn't good enough. I'm going to test that out going forward.
Side note: I didn't get them in time for GP LA, but my last two Expeditions came in to finish out my manabase.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
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Staffagainst tron and given the choice of either ripping their one one payoff or one of their mana rocks/expedition map, do you take the threat, an egg or the map? does having 2 discard spells change that? I was on the draw and took I believe the map first because that represented whatever he needed and then took the egg, leaving him with Ulamog. He then spun his wheels for a long time and drew the last tron land he needed to cast Ulamog turn before I would have killed him, which is variance I guess
Trying to keep Tron off of Tron is a fool's errand. They tend to have more ways of getting to ramped mana than they have threats once they do. You take the threat then try to kill them before they draw a second one.
If they have multiple of one or the other, then use discard to poke a hole in their hand. 3 Karns and 3 mana, or 15 mana and no payoff are equivalent for you. The top of the deck is dangerous, but they aren't currently killing you. Any very late game is bad for you because of both mana advantange and card power. Short of something ridiculous like Surgical on Urza's Tower they are going to murder you if you let the game go too long. Keeping them off balance in either direction is fine as long as you kill them before they get their game online.
If their threats are all Planeswalkers and you have live Stubborn Denials, then you don't necessarily need to prioritize them.
How good are their threats? You can beat a Thragtusk. You can sometimes eat one Oblivion Stone.
You can't beat Ugin and Ulamog.
You should generally lean towards taking payoff because there are less of them, and their mana sources are more plentiful and the lands are uncounterable, but if you have a fast clock then disrupting their mana.
Side note, Turn One Stubbon Denial on the play on their Map or on the draw on their Scrying is great. Good rule of thumb is that while hitting them with IoK is fine, never counter eggs and never focus on getting rid of them. Exception here is the last turn of the game.
Then, there are a bunch of cute interactions:
You would side out Surgical a lot, similar to faithless looting, but gain a large percentage against dredge and phoenix, the two top decks.
Seems very interesting I might give it a try lol
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I see the upside of the cute interactions, but none of those are worth a card.
If you just want to pay life, play a Gut Shot or Mutagenic Growth because they actually do something.
If you want to use it as a discard spell, play another Inquisition or a Rise//Fall or a Collective Brutality.
If you want to get rid of UW controls Path to Exile, then just Thoughseize them again rather than pulling them out of their deck. Alternatively, Negate, Countersquall, Dispel, Spell Pierce.
A shuffle for Bauble isn't worth a card.
Surgical against Tron is useless without Fulminator.
Probe that doesn't cantrip is awful.
Note that I am being extra critical because you went out of your way to look at the positive. There is upside, which we cannot and should not ignore, but there is also very serious downside.
Phoenix is currently maindecking Surgical, but they can honestly use it better than us because it is a free spell. This is in what might otherwise be a Gut Shot slot because they already don't need help against Noble Heirarch, and can use the boost in the mirror. Really, they are just picking the least crappy card that costs 0. Shadow has already cut back a lot on its ability to be a fair midrange deck, losing the 4th SCM, Command, and adding stuff like Faithless Looting. Adding more disadvantage and a purely situational card comes at a huge cost.
That all being said, I don't think it is a hard no at the moment. A year ago, if someone made this suggestion I would have been much more blunt, and much more confident in saying:
Absolutely not. You are bad at Magic, you don't understand how Shadow works and what makes it good, you don't understand fundamental principles of deckbuilding and gameplay. You are strictly wrong, and if you put this in your deck you are stupid
Today, I am not so sure. I am still extremely skeptical, but it depends on your metagame read. If you expect a pretty open Moden field, which in most cases tends to be correct, then leave it in the sideboard. If you legitimately expect 40 percent Phoenix, then sure, its probably right.
My other observation here is this:
If maindecking Surgical Extraction is legitimately correct, then the format is broken and something needs to be banned, full stop.
That being said, I do actually think that the format is that broken that mainboarding a surgical or two is a real consideration. I'm going to be testing with it a bit.