Ya, I believe Fish to be a slightly unfavorable matchup. He drew poorly overall most games. I did outplay him, but not overly so. In that matchup, I ignore anything that's not a Lord. I'm also firmly on the Anger plan. I've found it to be the best wipe personally.
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How I like to win games:
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
I think it's harder to switch from Kozilek's Return to Anger once you are used to how elegantly Kozilek's Return can solve your problems. I'm testing Anger again atm. One game I could not cast it in good faith for several turns because my two Shadows were 3/3s and I was already desperate for the shock/fetch. And in another game, I got the Snappy/Liliana train rolling until I was forced to snap back Anger. I won both of these games in the end, but they were so much closer.
I have seen some people using Rise//Fall and saying it's pretty good in the mirror. Could someone elaborate why ?
The mirror is often just about who can grind better. Bouncing a Tasigur or an Angler can leave it stranded in your opponent's hand and returning a Death's Shadow or a Snapcaster from your own grave effectively turns this into a bouncing spell that cantrips. It doesn't provide card advantage, but it's a solid tempo play. The Fall portion of the card can be useful too, especially if you know they have only nonland cards. Then it's basically Hymn to Torach.
Wouldn't the Catacombs be more important than the Strands? Strands can fetch four of your lands, where Catacombs can fetch five (assuming you're running two Blood Crypts and one Steam Vents). Even still I would suggest 2/2 split on Catacombs and Strands if no Tarns are available.
EDIT: Maybe even 2/1 in favor of Catacombs with an extra Watery Grave instead of the 12th fetch?
My suggestion means 9 Fetches to get basic Swamp and 7 that gets basic Island. Not taking the already present fetches into account, then I'd absolutely go for the black ones, but being able to fetch up basic Island can be very important when facing a Blood Moon on the stack. I'd be hesitant to replace a fetchland with a shockland in this deck personally, but I guess that could also be something to explore.
That makes sense. What about running the full 4 Flooded Strand, but playing a second Steam Vents instead of the second Blood Crypt? That way there's 5 targets for Strand to fetch, and there's 8 lands that fetch for each basic. Or, is the additional black from the 2nd Blood Crypt too important to ignore?
I have seen some people using Rise//Fall and saying it's pretty good in the mirror. Could someone elaborate why ?
The mirror is often just about who can grind better. Bouncing a Tasigur or an Angler can leave it stranded in your opponent's hand and returning a Death's Shadow or a Snapcaster from your own grave effectively turns this into a bouncing spell that cantrips. It doesn't provide card advantage, but it's a solid tempo play. The Fall portion of the card can be useful too, especially if you know they have only nonland cards. Then it's basically Hymn to Torach.
Don't forget that it can actually provide card advantage when you bounce your own Snapcaster and take back a creature form your graveyard (Shadow, Wraith). Also the Hymn mode is card advantage when it trades 1 for 2.
Got it, Rise//Fall should be at MB? It seems like a good card to have on game 1, where most people don't expect it, right?
I think Rise//Fall is overrated. It's only consistently good in the grindy matchups, and we have access to plenty of cards that are good there. I'd rather have something that has applications vs. fast aggro and/or big mana decks too. Don't fall into the trap of continually going over the top in grindy matchups - it makes you more susceptible to Tron and other big mana decks, fast aggro, and combo decks. The best deck in modern might be grindy, but the format is still something like 60-70% decks that aren't fighting on that axis.
I played against that bant humans deck twice in a league last night, went 1-1 against it (4-1ed overall). It's almost certainly a bad matchup, but if we want to fight it start packing sweepers. Anger is good, but Damnation would be better. Their creatures can get big fast. Not that it's worth trying to fight it anywhere besides maybe on MTGO.
yea that was my impression as well Spooly. Certainly not worth packing hate for in an open field because it's highly susceptible to a major subset of the metagame (combo) but I think it'll do a good job policing MTGO sometime..
I think Rise//Fall is overrated. It's only consistently good in the grindy matchups, and we have access to plenty of cards that are good there. I'd rather have something that has applications vs. fast aggro and/or big mana decks too. Don't fall into the trap of continually going over the top in grindy matchups - it makes you more susceptible to Tron and other big mana decks, fast aggro, and combo decks. The best deck in modern might be grindy, but the format is still something like 60-70% decks that aren't fighting on that axis.
I played against that bant humans deck twice in a league last night, went 1-1 against it (4-1ed overall). It's almost certainly a bad matchup, but if we want to fight it start packing sweepers. Anger is good, but Damnation would be better. Their creatures can get big fast. Not that it's worth trying to fight it anywhere besides maybe on MTGO.
I totally agree with you. I'm just wondering It because on my LGS the field is switching towards Grixs/4c DeathShadow, Dredge and Tron variants. Just thinking what I could do to get ahead and I'm planing on playing a GP in two months from now all knowledge is welcome!
My question about burn seems to have been lost in the conversation. What is our strategy against burn? Being at the mercy of 3-4 damage top decks is not fun at all.And eidolon just wrecks us if we cant kill it
please some thought on my Grixis Death's Shadow build with Delver of Secrets.
Goal is to have a more threat weight build to counteract drawing to less of them.
Snapcaster Mage: I reduced it as a 2-of. Think he is many times just to clunky and often times get enabled, when i want to play. I feel like i don't want to see him more than 2 times, mostly only one time in most of the games.
Delver of Secrets: I got 25 sorc / inst, so flipping the Delver shouldn't be a problem. Many times you can control it via Serums Vision. At the end, it's just a little gambling with him. Even when you play only him in a deck, you have the chance to draw a land. He plays his role as early threat pretty well and have evade in the late. Gives some extra dmg vs big mana and eats push in the mirrors.
Street Wraith: Was my main reason for not playing Delver of Secrets, cause he decrease the sorc / inst count. After some testing, i don't see that anymore. In games where you have to rush, you'll need the lifeloss for DS and the card for tempo. In defensive games, you just can hold him up. Delver of Secrets would be killed anyway, you'll be fine with one removal gone and if he lives, he makes most of the times dmg, cause of evade. You can wait for your DS, for turning them on.
Stubborn Denial: I have 7 creatures to enable it. I don't need them for protecting a single Delver of Secrets. I want to protect my stuff later, when some of the big guys on board. Compared to classic Grixis DS with 8 big creatures, i think its nearly the same to enable it. I play it as a 3-of cause of my 2 Snapcaster Mage's - i want to ensure, that i see one every game.
Delver and Shadow together is basically watering down two strong aggressive strategies to make one less efficient strategy. I would just pick one and stick with it.
Also, Snapcaster Mage is absolutely uncuttable in my opinion.
please some thought on my Grixis Death's Shadow build with Delver of Secrets.
Goal is to have a more threat weight build to counteract drawing to less of them.
Snapcaster Mage: I reduced it as a 2-of. Think he is many times just to clunky and often times get enabled, when i want to play. I feel like i don't want to see him more than 2 times, mostly only one time in most of the games.
Delver of Secrets: I got 25 sorc / inst, so flipping the Delver shouldn't be a problem. Many times you can control it via Serums Vision. At the end, it's just a little gambling with him. Even when you play only him in a deck, you have the chance to draw a land. He plays his role as early threat pretty well and have evade in the late. Gives some extra dmg vs big mana and eats push in the mirrors.
Street Wraith: Was my main reason for not playing Delver of Secrets, cause he decrease the sorc / inst count. After some testing, i don't see that anymore. In games where you have to rush, you'll need the lifeloss for DS and the card for tempo. In defensive games, you just can hold him up. Delver of Secrets would be killed anyway, you'll be fine with one removal gone and if he lives, he makes most of the times dmg, cause of evade. You can wait for your DS, for turning them on.
Stubborn Denial: I have 7 creatures to enable it. I don't need them for protecting a single Delver of Secrets. I want to protect my stuff later, when some of the big guys on board. Compared to classic Grixis DS with 8 big creatures, i think its nearly the same to enable it. I play it as a 3-of cause of my 2 Snapcaster Mage's - i want to ensure, that i see one every game.
By your own description, cutting Snapcaster to 2 is incorrect. If you want to have a good chance to see at least one per game, you need to run 3, and if you want a decent chance of seeing 2 per game you need the full 4. Also, I would cut a Tasigur before cutting an Angler. In my experience with the deck so far, Angler's 5th power has been relevant more often than Tasigur's one cheaper cost or activated ability. In Ari Lax's recent video with the deck, he actually discussed the possibility of going to a 3/1 Angler/Tasigur split in the stock lists. I would also drop a Bolt before dropping a Terminate. Other than that, what other people have said is valid. Delver doesn't really work with the rest of the Shadow deck, they're really two different strategies.
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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
My question about burn seems to have been lost in the conversation. What is our strategy against burn? Being at the mercy of 3-4 damage top decks is not fun at all.And eidolon just wrecks us if we cant kill it
Against burn, you need a quick clock + disruption. You should aggressively mulligan in this matchup because any hand that doesn't have a threat or can't find one will lose the game. You also need to be very judicious with your life total. You can probably fetch + shock once in the game, but after than you might need to fetch basics. Be careful with Thoughtseize - only cast it when you know you can hit something that matters. Hitting a bolt is pretty mopey. Hitting Boros Charm is ok. Hitting a creature early, Path, or Deflecting Palm is good.
Beyond that, there's no set thing you should do. It all depends on the texture of the game. Play the match slowly. Pay attention to how many cards they have left in their hand, what cards you know they have, and do the math every single turn to see how far they are from killing you. They typically have to get you to about 10 life, then set up a situation where the EOT bolt a couple times, then untap and bolt a few more times on their turn. So don't pretend your Shadow will get huge in time. This gives you leeway to fetch + shock and maybe thoughtseize on the turn you go for lethal. But you need Stubborn Denial and any other countermagic you might have to disrupt their plan - either to stop a Path or Palm, or to prevent them from killing you before you lethal them. Typically it's correct to spend your mana and your Stubs on any burn spell you can early. If you aren't using all of your mana to the best of your ability each of your turns, you will probably lose. (This rule applies in general to the deck)
please some thought on my Grixis Death's Shadow build with Delver of Secrets.
Goal is to have a more threat weight build to counteract drawing to less of them.
Snapcaster Mage: I reduced it as a 2-of. Think he is many times just to clunky and often times get enabled, when i want to play. I feel like i don't want to see him more than 2 times, mostly only one time in most of the games.
Delver of Secrets: I got 25 sorc / inst, so flipping the Delver shouldn't be a problem. Many times you can control it via Serums Vision. At the end, it's just a little gambling with him. Even when you play only him in a deck, you have the chance to draw a land. He plays his role as early threat pretty well and have evade in the late. Gives some extra dmg vs big mana and eats push in the mirrors.
Street Wraith: Was my main reason for not playing Delver of Secrets, cause he decrease the sorc / inst count. After some testing, i don't see that anymore. In games where you have to rush, you'll need the lifeloss for DS and the card for tempo. In defensive games, you just can hold him up. Delver of Secrets would be killed anyway, you'll be fine with one removal gone and if he lives, he makes most of the times dmg, cause of evade. You can wait for your DS, for turning them on.
Stubborn Denial: I have 7 creatures to enable it. I don't need them for protecting a single Delver of Secrets. I want to protect my stuff later, when some of the big guys on board. Compared to classic Grixis DS with 8 big creatures, i think its nearly the same to enable it. I play it as a 3-of cause of my 2 Snapcaster Mage's - i want to ensure, that i see one every game.
Delver of Secrets is just not good in modern. The little guy is just too inconsistent. It's not worth diluting the main strategy. If you want another threat, you can take one of the stock lists and cut the 2 K Commands (likely move them to the board) for another Angler and a cheap piece of interaction.
How do you guys usually play against burn? It's one of this decks's really hard matchups.
Dude. The last two posts just above yours literally answered that question. I get not wanting to read through 40 pages of a thread, but looking at the last few posts or so isn't that hard.
How do you guys usually play against burn? It's one of this decks's really hard matchups.
Previous 3 post has mention the best way we could do. SB game I would goes for -4 Wraith, -2 Thoughtseize, +2 Collective Brutality, +2 Denial, +1 Kozilek's Return, +1 Kolaghan's Command.
I thought the Delve Creature-Terminate dynamic to be too important in the mirror, even more so than protecting my Snapcaster from his Thoughtseize. So I took his Terminante, expecting to win the game with a topdeck Delve guy. But I am not 100% confident on the decision.
I thought the Delve Creature-Terminate dynamic to be too important in the mirror, even more so than protecting my Snapcaster from his Thoughtseize. So I took his Terminante, expecting to win the game with a topdeck Delve guy. But I am not 100% confident on the decision.
I think in this instance, Terminate is the wrong choice. He has two answers to your Shadow. If you take Terminate he almost assuredly takes your Shadow with his Thoughtseize. I think there are 3 possible choices here. Either you 1) take his Serum Visions because he's stuck on 1 land and relying on Visions to find him lands, 2) take his Shadow and leave him with no threats, or 3) take Thoughtseize and protect your own hand and information. I think the choice with the biggest upside is taking SV. If he bricks on land drops for several turns you probably just win the game because of it. The safest play is probably to just take his Thoughtseize. Your hand is good, and it lets you hide information. You'll probably have to wait on casting Shadow until you find a Denial and can get to 9 life, or until you find another discard spell to take his Terminate.
As to your last question in your article, I do think Thoughtseize on turn 1 was correct. On turn 2, if you don't naturally draw your second land, I would Visions and scry a land to the top if you find one, then cycle Wraith to hit your 2nd land on time. If you draw a land on your draw step, cycle Wraith first and then Visions.
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
Legacy:
Burn
B/R Reanimator (slowly building
EDH:
Sedris Control/Reanimation
The mirror is often just about who can grind better. Bouncing a Tasigur or an Angler can leave it stranded in your opponent's hand and returning a Death's Shadow or a Snapcaster from your own grave effectively turns this into a bouncing spell that cantrips. It doesn't provide card advantage, but it's a solid tempo play. The Fall portion of the card can be useful too, especially if you know they have only nonland cards. Then it's basically Hymn to Torach.
That makes sense. What about running the full 4 Flooded Strand, but playing a second Steam Vents instead of the second Blood Crypt? That way there's 5 targets for Strand to fetch, and there's 8 lands that fetch for each basic. Or, is the additional black from the 2nd Blood Crypt too important to ignore?
Got it, Rise//Fall should be at MB? It seems like a good card to have on game 1, where most people don't expect it, right?
I played against that bant humans deck twice in a league last night, went 1-1 against it (4-1ed overall). It's almost certainly a bad matchup, but if we want to fight it start packing sweepers. Anger is good, but Damnation would be better. Their creatures can get big fast. Not that it's worth trying to fight it anywhere besides maybe on MTGO.
I totally agree with you. I'm just wondering It because on my LGS the field is switching towards Grixs/4c DeathShadow, Dredge and Tron variants. Just thinking what I could do to get ahead and I'm planing on playing a GP in two months from now all knowledge is welcome!
I've been following all Grixis threads for the last 2 years now. First time posting.
I run a pretty much a stock list for shadows.
I have been considering the following:
-1 serum visions
We have a lot of fetches
-1 Street wraith
Found I only need to use 1
+1 IoK
+1 Stubborn Denial
Feel like I'm always trying to look for 1 of these anyways if not a creature.
Thoughts?
Delver and Shadow together is basically watering down two strong aggressive strategies to make one less efficient strategy. I would just pick one and stick with it.
Also, Snapcaster Mage is absolutely uncuttable in my opinion.
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
Against burn, you need a quick clock + disruption. You should aggressively mulligan in this matchup because any hand that doesn't have a threat or can't find one will lose the game. You also need to be very judicious with your life total. You can probably fetch + shock once in the game, but after than you might need to fetch basics. Be careful with Thoughtseize - only cast it when you know you can hit something that matters. Hitting a bolt is pretty mopey. Hitting Boros Charm is ok. Hitting a creature early, Path, or Deflecting Palm is good.
Beyond that, there's no set thing you should do. It all depends on the texture of the game. Play the match slowly. Pay attention to how many cards they have left in their hand, what cards you know they have, and do the math every single turn to see how far they are from killing you. They typically have to get you to about 10 life, then set up a situation where the EOT bolt a couple times, then untap and bolt a few more times on their turn. So don't pretend your Shadow will get huge in time. This gives you leeway to fetch + shock and maybe thoughtseize on the turn you go for lethal. But you need Stubborn Denial and any other countermagic you might have to disrupt their plan - either to stop a Path or Palm, or to prevent them from killing you before you lethal them. Typically it's correct to spend your mana and your Stubs on any burn spell you can early. If you aren't using all of your mana to the best of your ability each of your turns, you will probably lose. (This rule applies in general to the deck)
Delver of Secrets is just not good in modern. The little guy is just too inconsistent. It's not worth diluting the main strategy. If you want another threat, you can take one of the stock lists and cut the 2 K Commands (likely move them to the board) for another Angler and a cheap piece of interaction.
Dude. The last two posts just above yours literally answered that question. I get not wanting to read through 40 pages of a thread, but looking at the last few posts or so isn't that hard.
Previous 3 post has mention the best way we could do. SB game I would goes for -4 Wraith, -2 Thoughtseize, +2 Collective Brutality, +2 Denial, +1 Kozilek's Return, +1 Kolaghan's Command.
http://imgur.com/a/0sRA3
I thought the Delve Creature-Terminate dynamic to be too important in the mirror, even more so than protecting my Snapcaster from his Thoughtseize. So I took his Terminante, expecting to win the game with a topdeck Delve guy. But I am not 100% confident on the decision.
I wrote some more about it here: http://www.dexarmy.com/?p=532
As to your last question in your article, I do think Thoughtseize on turn 1 was correct. On turn 2, if you don't naturally draw your second land, I would Visions and scry a land to the top if you find one, then cycle Wraith to hit your 2nd land on time. If you draw a land on your draw step, cycle Wraith first and then Visions.
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