no, I agree with what you are saying spooly. Just thinking out loud here for mirror breaking techs. That's why death's shadow isn't interested in playing Confidants etc either. For those "Grindy" matchups I think I'd prefer other multi-purpose cards like Last Hope and Kcommand, but those are good but not great in the matchup.
Still secretly testing Leyline of the Voids to break the Shadows and the Dredge matchups (as well as Living End and random nonsense). Realize the lack of synergy with Snapcaster but Extractions and Spellbombs are basically speedbumps vs. Dredge and Shadows whereas Leyline is as close to a knockout punch as they come. Was thinking of putting a singleton on the board as to have a 10% chance of drawing a knockout punch while minimizing the chance of having a dead draw late game.
Do want to note you can reasonably control the life loss on Painful Truths due to converge
Yeah, but at that point you're getting less payoff from the card. I'd rather have something that's going to do its thing no matter what my life total is.
Yeah, Bolt is just not good right now. I've been advocating for 0 bolt for some time, with a short relapse where I played 1.
This is meta-dependent, of course. The number of small creature decks in the top 32 of that tournament is extremely low. Affinity, for instance, is completely absent from the list, despite having a notable share in other metas. Plus, several Jeskai control decks with 0 bolt targets outside Snapcaster Mage and bolt face popped up. So yes, in this meta, bolt is pretty bad.
On the other hand, the meta on MTGO still has lots of CoCo and D'n'T decks, against which Lightning Bolt is a valuable part of the removal mix because it doesn't require revolt. My local meta is still dominated by big mana decks like Tron and Valakut. While Lightning Bolt is not amazing against these decks, Fatal Push is a whole lot worse. Drawing 2 Fatal Pushes against Tron usually means losing game 1, whereas Snap + Bolt has won me several games recently, bypassing resolved planeswalkers.
So I wouldn't write off bolt completely yet.
Interestingly, Rise // Fall is also not present in any of the lists, even though the metagame looks much more friendly for it.
I'm hesitant to remove bolts, simply because the amount of CoCo decks are very real while it also serves as a kind of mirror breaker if an opponent on Shadow becomes just a touch too greedy.
Rise // Fall seems a bit too costly for this deck, but I haven't playtested with it yet, so I might be wrong.
4 grixis shadow in the t8 of scg Charlotte. 13 made day 2, as the most represented deck. 2nd was dredge with 5.
The rest of the t8 is dredge, living end, 2 eldrazi tron.
When I read this post, I feared that Grixis Shadow had totally dominated the field. But while 4 Grixis Shadow decks made top 8, only one other Grixis Shadow deck is listed in the top ~32 (a few decks are not listed for some reason). Plus, Eldrazi Tron won in the end. In the final interview, the winner mentioned that he lost only a single game to a Grixis Shadow deck all day, stating that he had felt favored against it after adjusting his sideboard.
In addition, Jund Death's Shadow, not long ago considered to be the best deck in Modern, is completely absent from the list of decks. So the number of Death's Shadows equals the number of Thoughtknot Seers this time.
Still secretly testing Leyline of the Voids to break the Shadows and the Dredge matchups (as well as Living End and random nonsense). Realize the lack of synergy with Snapcaster ...
Apologize if I'm missing something but wouldn't your graveyard still be accessible to Snapcaster with a Leyline on your side only?
I think the real mirror breaker is probably just playing an Esper build.
Yeah, probably. In Grixis you can get more of an edge by having access to Liliana of the Veil in the SB. Or just splashing white for Lingering Souls. Leyline of the Void is one that is probably pretty good as well and underutilized, though GerryT mentioned it in his article last week. I'd be more comfortable with Leyline in a build that has LotV in the 75 though.
4 grixis shadow in the t8 of scg Charlotte. 13 made day 2, as the most represented deck. 2nd was dredge with 5.
The rest of the t8 is dredge, living end, 2 eldrazi tron.
When I read this post, I feared that Grixis Shadow had totally dominated the field. But while 4 Grixis Shadow decks made top 8, only one other Grixis Shadow deck is listed in the top ~32 (a few decks are not listed for some reason). Plus, Eldrazi Tron won in the end. In the final interview, the winner mentioned that he lost only a single game to a Grixis Shadow deck all day, stating that he had felt favored against it after adjusting his sideboard.
In addition, Jund Death's Shadow, not long ago considered to be the best deck in Modern, is completely absent from the list of decks. So the number of Death's Shadows equals the number of Thoughtknot Seers this time.
I think the real mirror breaker is probably just playing an Esper build.
Is the Esper Build really that much better in the mirror? I played a few matches against some variants of it online. Path didn't make much a of a difference compared to Terminate in these games. The exile clause was a little annoying on a few occasions, but getting free basic lands every game helped bringing Tasigur online and allowed for more aggressive digging with Serum Visions. Maybe I just got lucky, but my games felt a lot like playing against Grixis Shadow with the white splash for Lingering Souls, which is something that seems to have fallen out of fashion in the meantime.
4 grixis shadow in the t8 of scg Charlotte. 13 made day 2, as the most represented deck. 2nd was dredge with 5.
The rest of the t8 is dredge, living end, 2 eldrazi tron.
When I read this post, I feared that Grixis Shadow had totally dominated the field. But while 4 Grixis Shadow decks made top 8, only one other Grixis Shadow deck is listed in the top ~32 (a few decks are not listed for some reason). Plus, Eldrazi Tron won in the end. In the final interview, the winner mentioned that he lost only a single game to a Grixis Shadow deck all day, stating that he had felt favored against it after adjusting his sideboard.
In addition, Jund Death's Shadow, not long ago considered to be the best deck in Modern, is completely absent from the list of decks. So the number of Death's Shadows equals the number of Thoughtknot Seers this time.
Saying it was the best deck in Modern was a selling point. It drove huge sales to Jund players looking to stay on top. I don't read much into any articles that try to convince me of such. SCG mainly shows and talks up strategies during the entire stream to promote sales during and after events.
And now the showcasing of Grixis is doing the same thing. Convincing all those Grixis variant players to hop on board. Although I fear all the banmania talk circulating the State of Thread might hold some back. Grixis Shadow was a little too represented this last time. But looking at the field, people weren't trying to play against it(UW Control), just play it instead.
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
Saying it was the best deck in Modern was a selling point. It drove huge sales to Jund players looking to stay on top. I don't read much into any articles that try to convince me of such. SCG mainly shows and talks up strategies during the entire stream to promote sales during and after events.
That makes sense. Against Eldrazi Tron, I would rather be on the Jund version, because it has a higher threat density and is a tad more focused and consistent. The winning Eldrazi Tron deck only ran 2 maindeck Relics instead of their usual 4, which would have made it weaker against Jund Shadow game 1. So there was some good metagaming going on there.
I think I'd rather be Grixis than Jund vs Eldrazi Tron. Ceremonious Rejection is the cleanest answer to TKS and Smasher. In mana leak builds, I've had a favorable matchup vs. Eldrazi Tron with Grixis Shadow AFAICT. But maybe that will change once other Eldrazi Tron players adopt Todd Stevens' build and play/sb strategy.
Edit: on the other hand, Jund has Decay and Pulse to go along with K Command to defeat Chalice locks. Hmm. Genuinely unsure now.
Jund has Fulminator Mages in place of Ceremonious Rejections. So they can probably break Tron most of the time, before Walking Ballista and Hangerback Walker become major issues. If Tron is low on lands, Jund Shadow can get more Fulminator Mages with Traverse the Ulvenwald, probably cutting them off Karn and other expensive spells for the rest of the game. Jund Shadow decks often also run up to 2 TBRs maindeck. Todd Steven's has nothing to stop this except 2 Dismembers, which is next to nothing. So I'm pretty sure I would prefer to be on Jund. That Eldrazi build seems to be tailored to beating our deck, not the Jund version.
Still secretly testing Leyline of the Voids to break the Shadows and the Dredge matchups (as well as Living End and random nonsense). Realize the lack of synergy with Snapcaster ...
Apologize if I'm missing something but wouldn't your graveyard still be accessible to Snapcaster with a Leyline on your side only?
you can snapcaster Extractions and Rakdos Charms whereas you cannot do so with Leylines
I think Fulminator is pretty overrated in these matchups. We could play it too, but don't for a reason. It's very slow, and they play a ton of ways to get mana. Traverse into Fulminator is either slower or takes extra mana on one of your earlier turns, and easily disrupted by Relic. TBR is a good point though.
I am more interested in Liliana of the Veil as a mirror breaker if we are supposed to board out all Stubborn Denials for grindy matchups. I've read both ways on this. Do you guys think this is right? On one hand it's a horrendous card in a top deck war, but it's an answer to their answer as well as planeswalker. I'm conflicted on this. Do you treat the Jund/Grixis shadows mirror like a jund mirror for example and shave all counterspells and some wraiths (which SCG writers have advocated, but 3/4 swampwalker is a real thing) and discards (also an answer to their answers as well as planeswalkers, and proactive)?
I am more interested in Liliana of the Veil as a mirror breaker if we are supposed to board out all Stubborn Denials for grindy matchups. I've read both ways on this. Do you guys think this is right? On one hand it's a horrendous card in a top deck war, but it's an answer to their answer as well as planeswalker. I'm conflicted on this. Do you treat the Jund/Grixis shadows mirror like a jund mirror for example and shave all counterspells and some wraiths (which SCG writers have advocated, but 3/4 swampwalker is a real thing) and discards (also an answer to their answers as well as planeswalkers, and proactive)?
I side out 3-4 Street Wraith is all grindy matchups. 3/4 swampwalker for 5 is really really bad. If that's what you're doing with the card in the matchup, you should side it out. My only reservation is having enough cantrips to hit land drops, but as long as you're bringing in Nihil Spellbomb you shouldn't have any Wraiths postboard. I typically leave a couple counterspells in, but I also start with more, and Mana Leak on a Snapcaster is pretty good. But I've been trying taking more out lately to get a feel for how it goes. I'm genuinely unsure here.
I used to have LotV in my SB and often in my MD, and even with a bunch of counterspells, it was really good in the mirrors. It made Lingering Souls the only real problematic card they could have, and even then we have plenty of ways to fight through that card. Arguably, she makes potentially dead counterspells better because the downside is less bad when you have a Lily +1 to discard to. Replacing the MD K Commands with LotV was one way I managed to get them MD. Note that this also helps against the GY hate to some extent because you have a powerful threat that doesn't care about the GY that can take over the game all on its own.
Edit: where I'd want LotV:
1) every grindy matchup. Mirrors. Midrange. Control. All of them. This is the main draw.
2) Many spell based combo matchups, as long as you have plenty to board out. Storm. Ad Naus (note: insurance against Dromoka and similar without being dead otherwise!). Probably not GR Valakut because you want your 3 mana spells to kill Chalice (aka be K Command), but if you have enough to board out I could see it.
As a MD card, her floor is pretty high so she isn't the worst against decks not on this list. Just being disruption vs degenerate decks is good even if you'd side her out the first chance you get. I'm not a fan against Bant Eldrazi, CoCo decks, and probably not against Eldrazi Tron either, though I'm unsure there.
I bring them in against the psuedo-mirror, basically any deck playing death's shadow or Liliana of the veil. Decks focused on one for one removal have a hard time removing multiple bodies on one card.
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Leyline looks perfectly reasonable to test to me.
Yeah, but at that point you're getting less payoff from the card. I'd rather have something that's going to do its thing no matter what my life total is.
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
On the other hand, the meta on MTGO still has lots of CoCo and D'n'T decks, against which Lightning Bolt is a valuable part of the removal mix because it doesn't require revolt. My local meta is still dominated by big mana decks like Tron and Valakut. While Lightning Bolt is not amazing against these decks, Fatal Push is a whole lot worse. Drawing 2 Fatal Pushes against Tron usually means losing game 1, whereas Snap + Bolt has won me several games recently, bypassing resolved planeswalkers.
So I wouldn't write off bolt completely yet.
Interestingly, Rise // Fall is also not present in any of the lists, even though the metagame looks much more friendly for it.
Rise // Fall seems a bit too costly for this deck, but I haven't playtested with it yet, so I might be wrong.
In addition, Jund Death's Shadow, not long ago considered to be the best deck in Modern, is completely absent from the list of decks. So the number of Death's Shadows equals the number of Thoughtknot Seers this time.
Apologize if I'm missing something but wouldn't your graveyard still be accessible to Snapcaster with a Leyline on your side only?
Yeah, probably. In Grixis you can get more of an edge by having access to Liliana of the Veil in the SB. Or just splashing white for Lingering Souls. Leyline of the Void is one that is probably pretty good as well and underutilized, though GerryT mentioned it in his article last week. I'd be more comfortable with Leyline in a build that has LotV in the 75 though.
The Grixis Delver list that T16ed was a Grixis Shadow list with Delvers and without Street Wraiths: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=114134
You are right and I was wrong. So the Shadows are one playset ahead of the Thoughtknot Seers.
Saying it was the best deck in Modern was a selling point. It drove huge sales to Jund players looking to stay on top. I don't read much into any articles that try to convince me of such. SCG mainly shows and talks up strategies during the entire stream to promote sales during and after events.
And now the showcasing of Grixis is doing the same thing. Convincing all those Grixis variant players to hop on board. Although I fear all the banmania talk circulating the State of Thread might hold some back. Grixis Shadow was a little too represented this last time. But looking at the field, people weren't trying to play against it(UW Control), just play it instead.
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
Edit: on the other hand, Jund has Decay and Pulse to go along with K Command to defeat Chalice locks. Hmm. Genuinely unsure now.
you can snapcaster Extractions and Rakdos Charms whereas you cannot do so with Leylines
Grixis Shadows
Eldrazi Tron (maybe? they can clutter the field with ballistas/reshapers)
Gifts storm
Titanshift..?
Jund SHadows
Abzan
doesn't feel like it'd fit the gameplan for many of the top metagames, unless I'm missing something
I side out 3-4 Street Wraith is all grindy matchups. 3/4 swampwalker for 5 is really really bad. If that's what you're doing with the card in the matchup, you should side it out. My only reservation is having enough cantrips to hit land drops, but as long as you're bringing in Nihil Spellbomb you shouldn't have any Wraiths postboard. I typically leave a couple counterspells in, but I also start with more, and Mana Leak on a Snapcaster is pretty good. But I've been trying taking more out lately to get a feel for how it goes. I'm genuinely unsure here.
I used to have LotV in my SB and often in my MD, and even with a bunch of counterspells, it was really good in the mirrors. It made Lingering Souls the only real problematic card they could have, and even then we have plenty of ways to fight through that card. Arguably, she makes potentially dead counterspells better because the downside is less bad when you have a Lily +1 to discard to. Replacing the MD K Commands with LotV was one way I managed to get them MD. Note that this also helps against the GY hate to some extent because you have a powerful threat that doesn't care about the GY that can take over the game all on its own.
Edit: where I'd want LotV:
1) every grindy matchup. Mirrors. Midrange. Control. All of them. This is the main draw.
2) Many spell based combo matchups, as long as you have plenty to board out. Storm. Ad Naus (note: insurance against Dromoka and similar without being dead otherwise!). Probably not GR Valakut because you want your 3 mana spells to kill Chalice (aka be K Command), but if you have enough to board out I could see it.
As a MD card, her floor is pretty high so she isn't the worst against decks not on this list. Just being disruption vs degenerate decks is good even if you'd side her out the first chance you get. I'm not a fan against Bant Eldrazi, CoCo decks, and probably not against Eldrazi Tron either, though I'm unsure there.