I think land destruction is too slow for Tron. Turn 1 hand disruption then later let them get Tron and play ceremonious rejection followed by a snap ceremonious rejection.
Ceremonious rejection also hits chalice which saves you from trying to spell snare it.
Hand Disruption is an interesting thing. People love to say that its objectively bad in every measure and that it's not what Delver decks want to be doing while simultaneously ignoring that Legacy Grixis and Sultai Delver will play some number of Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy. There is a good point to be made that hand disruption and counterspells don't play too well together, since one encourages you to use mana on your turn and the other to use it on your opponent's turn.
I'm not sure how much I like hand disruption in Grixis Delver, but I think it can be a thing. The Grixis Death's Shadow deck plays very similarly to Grixis Delver and ditches most of its counterspells for hand disruption. There's the possibility that this is what we want to be doing, since counters aren't too great right now outside of Spell Snare and Stubborn Denial (when you have Death's Shadow in your deck).
I don't think it's wrong to play some amount of hand disruption if you're expecting to see a lot of Tron, combo etc. But, as always, I suggest trying it yourself and then reporting back how it worked. Theory only goes so far.
I actually think that's the premise behind playing Grixis Death's Shadow.
Play as proactive as possible WHILE being disruptive. You back that with Denial which is perfect along delve guys and DS since you play either protect the queen or save your butt.
The question remains the same. Is delver actually worth it? We will know in a few weeks. Right now i'm leaning towards 'No' but my testing has been little(8 matches or so). I will report back. Corey Burkhart said in his last stream that DS seems the way to go in Grixis right now. Kevin Jones had some similar comments too.
It's weird testing DS Grixis. I've tried it with Delver and with Street Wraiths and I 50/50 on what I like more. I'll always play a game where I'm missing the other, Delver is an early threat who allows you to get in some early damage or a worst at least soaks up some removal that would have been used on GS/Tasigur/Fish. Street Wraith fits with the losing life game plan and is instant speed draw which is great, it makes you go through your deck faster to find your threats sooner and make DS better. Maybe have both Delvers and Street Wraiths via sideboard? Probably a terrible idea but similar things have been done.
I will say that I don't miss all of the counters, stubborn denial puts in work by itself and against burn you can side in a full set to protect your threats and your face pretty easily.
I kind of wish the Death's Shadow had it's own thread just so we could have more specific feedback.
It's weird testing DS Grixis. I've tried it with Delver and with Street Wraiths and I 50/50 on what I like more. I'll always play a game where I'm missing the other, Delver is an early threat who allows you to get in some early damage or a worst at least soaks up some removal that would have been used on GS/Tasigur/Fish. Street Wraith fits with the losing life game plan and is instant speed draw which is great, it makes you go through your deck faster to find your threats sooner and make DS better. Maybe have both Delvers and Street Wraiths via sideboard? Probably a terrible idea but similar things have been done.
I will say that I don't miss all of the counters, stubborn denial puts in work by itself and against burn you can side in a full set to protect your threats and your face pretty easily.
I kind of wish the Death's Shadow had it's own thread just so we could have more specific feedback.
I'm playing a fair number of counters in my builds. 3 Denial, 2 Snare, 2 Leak. Plus only 4 Thoughtseize as discard. I've made a number of nonstandard choices, tbh, so it's probably worth sharing my list. This is the MD I've been playing on MTGO:
In paper I've done something similar, except with Liliana of the Veil replacing K Command. This is just an example SB - I change it a lot. 0 Bolts because they don't kill Death's Shadow. Less Thought Scour so there's less air in the deck. With 4 Street Wraith, 12 fetches, and 8 Serum / Thoughtseize on T1, it's not that hard to enable only 4 delve fatties. I've tried Esper builds as well, but honestly I prefer the red SB cards to the white ones in this shell since Timely Reinforcements and Rest in Peace are nombos with the deck and I really like having access to Anger of the Gods and K Command right now, plus Path to Exile is a nombo with Mana Leak. This build crushes most combo decks. Even the GR Valakut matchup feels favorable. Funnily, the place I miss bolt the most is in those matchups because bolting yourself often takes a turn off the clock. The Jund Shadow matchup feels pretty favorable, though if they MD Liliana of the Veil and you don't it's a lot closer and maybe even in their favor. In theory this amount of countermagic should make Burn a decent matchup as well, but I haven't been running into it much since I started playing this build. I keep losing to Affinity, but it's mostly because of Etched Champion, but I haven't been playing much to deal with it.
I don't like Delver in these builds at all. Too much of the format has cheap removal, there aren't enough good cantrips to set it up, and the deckbuilding constraints are pretty harsh. Street Wraith allows you to present Death's Shadow as a faster clock sooner, and allows you to shave some of the other air in the deck in favor of more real spells. (Cards on the table, despite my history with the card, I don't like Delver in any shell in modern.)
Something I've been testing.I think mutagenic growth might be worth a few slots but where?
Sideboard is really just cards I've been swapping in and out of the maindeck to try.
I didn't like the full four shadow and no delver,waiting until your life total is 9 or less just to stay out of bolt range is worse than delver not flipping.Delver also has flying,very relevant in some matches.Delver is an early clock where shadow shines more mid game.
I don't think Ancestral Vision and Delver work too well together. For card draw you could try either Painful Truths or Pain's Reward (this card just spiked). Probably only play 1 of's.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
If you've been watching Michael Major's stream, a really neat card that I picked up a few up back in the day but never really used was Rise // Fall. A lot of the top decks in modern run very few lands (especially Death's Shadow decks) so a lot of times it can be a Hymn to Tourach. The Rise mode is also insane - it provides a ton of value in drawn out matchups with the ability to return a Snapcaster as well as a dead DS or even another Snapcaster.
This list is all over the place, baubles and wraiths mess with delver flips, maindeck ancestral, incomplete snaps. And if you're not playing a full set of DS there's no point in having the wraiths, thoughtsieze, and the more painful manabase. It's like you tried to combine delver, shadow, and control decks. If you were only going to have 2 death's shadows I'd just run a standard delver deck since your plan isn't to kill yourself by turn 3.
If you've been watching Michael Major's stream, a really neat card that I picked up a few up back in the day but never really used was Rise // Fall. A lot of the top decks in modern run very few lands (especially Death's Shadow decks) so a lot of times it can be a Hymn to Tourach. The Rise mode is also insane - it provides a ton of value in drawn out matchups with the ability to return a Snapcaster as well as a dead DS or even another Snapcaster.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
If you've been watching Michael Major's stream, a really neat card that I picked up a few up back in the day but never really used was Rise // Fall. A lot of the top decks in modern run very few lands (especially Death's Shadow decks) so a lot of times it can be a Hymn to Tourach. The Rise mode is also insane - it provides a ton of value in drawn out matchups with the ability to return a Snapcaster as well as a dead DS or even another Snapcaster.
Where is his stream?
Thought I had it in there - https://www.twitch.tv/mmajors
You'll have to skip through a couple of his streams since he also does cube and standard, but he has a lot of really cool videos and a very strong Grixis Shadow list. Highly recommended.
I know he posted it a little earlier, I think it's a very cool list though and incorporates the best parts of Grixis into a 4 color deck. It's also very strong and plays very close to a Legacy list.
I don't see what Delver adds to the Jund shell. It's an inconsistent threat that dies to lightning bolt (which your threats are otherwise immune to) and forces you to play less of the cards that make Death's Shadow, Tarmogoyf, and Traverse the Ulvenwald consistently very good. The 4th color is interesting because Stubborn Denial and Snapcaster Mage solve lots of problems (at the cost of creating others of course), but an inconsistent one drop that is at odds with the rest of the shell is not attractive.
I don't see what Delver adds to the Jund shell. It's an inconsistent threat that dies to lightning bolt (which your threats are otherwise immune to) and forces you to play less of the cards that make Death's Shadow, Tarmogoyf, and Traverse the Ulvenwald consistently very good. The 4th color is interesting because Stubborn Denial and Snapcaster Mage solve lots of problems (at the cost of creating others of course), but an inconsistent one drop that is at odds with the rest of the shell is not attractive.
Agree with all of this, and let's not forget that a flipped Delver doesn't activate Denial ferocious so it's harder to play the 'Protect the Queen' plan.
All in all i do recognize what Delver brings to the table. Another clock with evasion, a blocker for the Affinity/Infect matchups. However, this deck doesn't always play the tempo plan. Sometimes you play Grixis Control until Shadow/Tasigoyf comes online. Right now i prefer Delverless Shadow.
Also, i'm questioning Serum Visions as a 4-of. I know we don't play delirium shenanigans but Bauble seems too synergistic with the deck. It lets you play more lean and ease the 1-drop slot which is overloaded. Also i can see that Visions helps set up our gameplan and find SB,Lands etc. I'm taking this one from Gerry T.
Tested Rise/Fall(Majors list basically) and didn't feel that it deserved a spot although it won me 2 matches against Tron and Abzan. It runs under the assumption that Modern is low on land count right now. I'm not buying that one so much since big mana decks are running rampant.
Now Baby Jace is making it as a 1-of? Has anyone tested that one?
I don't see what Delver adds to the Jund shell. It's an inconsistent threat that dies to lightning bolt (which your threats are otherwise immune to) and forces you to play less of the cards that make Death's Shadow, Tarmogoyf, and Traverse the Ulvenwald consistently very good. The 4th color is interesting because Stubborn Denial and Snapcaster Mage solve lots of problems (at the cost of creating others of course), but an inconsistent one drop that is at odds with the rest of the shell is not attractive.
Having played over 30 matches with the deck, Delver adds a flying threat to the Jund shell - although I truly wouldn't call it a Jund shell as much as it is a fusion of Grixis and Jund, and in many ways an evolution of RUG Delver. The deck is also very consistent with a lot of draw power - the first Traverse generally can go get you a land, and you also have the Serum Visions to set up future draws. It has a lot of reach with 2 Tarfire as well as 4 Bolt (something the other decks lack), and personally, Bolt isn't a huge deal since in longer games I'd rather have the Bolt aimed at my Delver than at my own life total.
It's true that Delver doesn't turn on Stubborn Denial, and this can sometimes be an issue. Luckily, we also have Mana Leak in addition to the Thoughtseizes. Also, regarding the Rise//Fall, it definitely is not good against big mana decks, I will agree with you there. Thanksfully, you can use it to recur and reuse Snapcasters with the Rise mode. It's certainly not a great card, but is serviceable.
Evasion is something that all of the Death's Shadow shells would like to have, but I don't think that's worth the costs that come with Delver. I don't see what Delver adds to *any* Death's Shadow shell, given the major deckbuilding costs.
Believe me I'll defend Delver to death and I miss having an early evasive threat but having a deck that's nearly immune to bolt and push but plays more threats than standard Grixis Control feels great. I'm starting to wish we had a separate thread to discuss it, there's plenty of Grixis Shadow variants and not all of them involve having Delver which would be outside of the scope of this thread. Plus I'd like a primer specific for Grixis Shadow decks. Just my opinion.
I understand that Death's Shadow is quite popular right now because Jund has made it their spawn of a child. Grixis Delver doesn't need to add that potential win condition to the table. Grixis Delver is powerful enough by going in Delver of Secrets along with Tasigur, the Golden Fang for the win. Adding Death's Shadow just gives Burn an extra step getting closer to us at our life total. Aside of that, if people are adding Death's Shadow to the deck, how has the results been turning out? I may be wrong in that Death's Shadow may be the added touch to make us that much stronger.
Believe me I'll defend Delver to death and I miss having an early evasive threat but having a deck that's nearly immune to bolt and push but plays more threats than standard Grixis Control feels great. I'm starting to wish we had a separate thread to discuss it, there's plenty of Grixis Shadow variants and not all of them involve having Delver which would be outside of the scope of this thread. Plus I'd like a primer specific for Grixis Shadow decks. Just my opinion.
I agree about separate threads. I'm not going to be the one to start a primer though because it's so time consuming.
It might be worth noting that this is still the Grixis Delver thread. If you aren't into Delver of Secrets, then why are you posting in this thread?
Because the topic of Grixis Shadow variants (with and without Delver) came up organically, so I responded. I keep an eye on this thread for even though I'm not a huge fan of the namesake card because the deck is still pretty good, and Delver is a necessary evil in it. Sometimes I think a better name for Grixis Delver would be Grixis Tempo to be honest - Delver isn't essential to the shell, but something to give the deck a quick clock is. We just didn't have any real alternatives until the world found out about Death's Shadow. In which case the Grixis Shadow variants do loosely fit under the Grixis Tempo umbrella, though Delver and Shadow variants are different enough due to the different constraints each card puts on the deck that separate threads of course make sense.
So I've been watching the Death's Shadow discussion unfold lately. Personally, I really like the more 'traditional' Delver lists, so I'm loathe to just jump on the bandwagon and reshape my deck to fit the latest craze. But I do agree that an extra threat would be great to have.
So I had a bit of a shower thought today... I noticed how a Burn match gets flipped upside down by a T2 Tasigur. So I got to thinking, could one side in some extra Tasigur's or Anglers and some more ways to fill the GY, in order to get that T2 fatty more reliably? How many decks would that be good against? What kind of card would we run to supplement Thought Scour?
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Ceremonious rejection also hits chalice which saves you from trying to spell snare it.
RGWNaya BurnRGW+++RGWKiki ComboRGW
UGInfectUG+++++++++.++++++++UGMerfolkUG
GGNykthos WaveGG++++++++++GGStompyGG
BRVampiresBR+++++++.+++++++BRGoblinsBR
WGBogglesWG+++++++++++++CRSkred RedCR
UBRGDredgeUBRG++++++++++BB8 RackBB
URWJeskaiURW+++.++UBRGrixis DelverUBR
URStormUR++++++++UWGBant CompanyUWG
WUBRGHumansWUBRG+CCEldrazi TronCC
I'm not sure how much I like hand disruption in Grixis Delver, but I think it can be a thing. The Grixis Death's Shadow deck plays very similarly to Grixis Delver and ditches most of its counterspells for hand disruption. There's the possibility that this is what we want to be doing, since counters aren't too great right now outside of Spell Snare and Stubborn Denial (when you have Death's Shadow in your deck).
I don't think it's wrong to play some amount of hand disruption if you're expecting to see a lot of Tron, combo etc. But, as always, I suggest trying it yourself and then reporting back how it worked. Theory only goes so far.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Play as proactive as possible WHILE being disruptive. You back that with Denial which is perfect along delve guys and DS since you play either protect the queen or save your butt.
The question remains the same. Is delver actually worth it? We will know in a few weeks. Right now i'm leaning towards 'No' but my testing has been little(8 matches or so). I will report back. Corey Burkhart said in his last stream that DS seems the way to go in Grixis right now. Kevin Jones had some similar comments too.
I will say that I don't miss all of the counters, stubborn denial puts in work by itself and against burn you can side in a full set to protect your threats and your face pretty easily.
I kind of wish the Death's Shadow had it's own thread just so we could have more specific feedback.
I'm playing a fair number of counters in my builds. 3 Denial, 2 Snare, 2 Leak. Plus only 4 Thoughtseize as discard. I've made a number of nonstandard choices, tbh, so it's probably worth sharing my list. This is the MD I've been playing on MTGO:
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Street Wraith
4 Serum Visions
2 Thought Scour
4 Death's Shadow
2 Gurmag Angler
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Spell Snare
2 Mana Leak
4 Thoughtseize
4 Fatal Push
2 Terminate
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Dispel
1 Stubborn Denial
2 Collective Brutality
2 Terminate
In paper I've done something similar, except with Liliana of the Veil replacing K Command. This is just an example SB - I change it a lot. 0 Bolts because they don't kill Death's Shadow. Less Thought Scour so there's less air in the deck. With 4 Street Wraith, 12 fetches, and 8 Serum / Thoughtseize on T1, it's not that hard to enable only 4 delve fatties. I've tried Esper builds as well, but honestly I prefer the red SB cards to the white ones in this shell since Timely Reinforcements and Rest in Peace are nombos with the deck and I really like having access to Anger of the Gods and K Command right now, plus Path to Exile is a nombo with Mana Leak. This build crushes most combo decks. Even the GR Valakut matchup feels favorable. Funnily, the place I miss bolt the most is in those matchups because bolting yourself often takes a turn off the clock. The Jund Shadow matchup feels pretty favorable, though if they MD Liliana of the Veil and you don't it's a lot closer and maybe even in their favor. In theory this amount of countermagic should make Burn a decent matchup as well, but I haven't been running into it much since I started playing this build. I keep losing to Affinity, but it's mostly because of Etched Champion, but I haven't been playing much to deal with it.
I don't like Delver in these builds at all. Too much of the format has cheap removal, there aren't enough good cantrips to set it up, and the deckbuilding constraints are pretty harsh. Street Wraith allows you to present Death's Shadow as a faster clock sooner, and allows you to shave some of the other air in the deck in favor of more real spells. (Cards on the table, despite my history with the card, I don't like Delver in any shell in modern.)
2 death's shadow
2 snapcaster mage
3 tasigur, the golden fang
1 young pyromancer
4 street wraith
4 mishra's bauble
4 ancestral vision
3 inquisition of kozilek
2 thoughtseize
2 serum visions
3 fatal push
2 terminate
2 remand
2 kolaghan's command
3 bloodstained mire
2 polluted delta
2 scalding tarn
3 steam vents
2 blood crypt
2 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1 blackcleave cliffs
1 swamp
1 island
1 lightning bolt
1 fatal push
1 inquisition of kozilek
1 grim lavamancer
2 vendilion clique
2 young pyromancer
2 dispel
2 terminate
2 collective brutality
Something I've been testing.I think mutagenic growth might be worth a few slots but where?
Sideboard is really just cards I've been swapping in and out of the maindeck to try.
I didn't like the full four shadow and no delver,waiting until your life total is 9 or less just to stay out of bolt range is worse than delver not flipping.Delver also has flying,very relevant in some matches.Delver is an early clock where shadow shines more mid game.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Where is his stream?
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Thought I had it in there - https://www.twitch.tv/mmajors
You'll have to skip through a couple of his streams since he also does cube and standard, but he has a lot of really cool videos and a very strong Grixis Shadow list. Highly recommended.
Personally, I've moved onto a list that Ashton made that I helped out a bit with - http://modernnexus.com/introducing-temur-shadow/
Link to full list here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/511933-monkey-grow-rug-temur-delver?comment=3633
I know he posted it a little earlier, I think it's a very cool list though and incorporates the best parts of Grixis into a 4 color deck. It's also very strong and plays very close to a Legacy list.
Agree with all of this, and let's not forget that a flipped Delver doesn't activate Denial ferocious so it's harder to play the 'Protect the Queen' plan.
All in all i do recognize what Delver brings to the table. Another clock with evasion, a blocker for the Affinity/Infect matchups. However, this deck doesn't always play the tempo plan. Sometimes you play Grixis Control until Shadow/Tasigoyf comes online. Right now i prefer Delverless Shadow.
Also, i'm questioning Serum Visions as a 4-of. I know we don't play delirium shenanigans but Bauble seems too synergistic with the deck. It lets you play more lean and ease the 1-drop slot which is overloaded. Also i can see that Visions helps set up our gameplan and find SB,Lands etc. I'm taking this one from Gerry T.
Tested Rise/Fall(Majors list basically) and didn't feel that it deserved a spot although it won me 2 matches against Tron and Abzan. It runs under the assumption that Modern is low on land count right now. I'm not buying that one so much since big mana decks are running rampant.
Now Baby Jace is making it as a 1-of? Has anyone tested that one?
Having played over 30 matches with the deck, Delver adds a flying threat to the Jund shell - although I truly wouldn't call it a Jund shell as much as it is a fusion of Grixis and Jund, and in many ways an evolution of RUG Delver. The deck is also very consistent with a lot of draw power - the first Traverse generally can go get you a land, and you also have the Serum Visions to set up future draws. It has a lot of reach with 2 Tarfire as well as 4 Bolt (something the other decks lack), and personally, Bolt isn't a huge deal since in longer games I'd rather have the Bolt aimed at my Delver than at my own life total.
It's true that Delver doesn't turn on Stubborn Denial, and this can sometimes be an issue. Luckily, we also have Mana Leak in addition to the Thoughtseizes. Also, regarding the Rise//Fall, it definitely is not good against big mana decks, I will agree with you there. Thanksfully, you can use it to recur and reuse Snapcasters with the Rise mode. It's certainly not a great card, but is serviceable.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
I agree about separate threads. I'm not going to be the one to start a primer though because it's so time consuming.
Because the topic of Grixis Shadow variants (with and without Delver) came up organically, so I responded. I keep an eye on this thread for even though I'm not a huge fan of the namesake card because the deck is still pretty good, and Delver is a necessary evil in it. Sometimes I think a better name for Grixis Delver would be Grixis Tempo to be honest - Delver isn't essential to the shell, but something to give the deck a quick clock is. We just didn't have any real alternatives until the world found out about Death's Shadow. In which case the Grixis Shadow variants do loosely fit under the Grixis Tempo umbrella, though Delver and Shadow variants are different enough due to the different constraints each card puts on the deck that separate threads of course make sense.
So I had a bit of a shower thought today... I noticed how a Burn match gets flipped upside down by a T2 Tasigur. So I got to thinking, could one side in some extra Tasigur's or Anglers and some more ways to fill the GY, in order to get that T2 fatty more reliably? How many decks would that be good against? What kind of card would we run to supplement Thought Scour?