First, great to finally see this thread up and running - big thanks to the creator/contributor. Great to have a place to discuss this archetype. Some initial thoughts from me below:
1) Do you play pure Grixis or do you splash White as your 4th colour? TBD - but would only play it for souls+ranger and forego orzhov charm
2) If you play pure Grixis, do you prefer 2 Watery Grave or two Blood Crypt? 2 grave+2crypt. Found that there were many turns where you were wishing you could play multiple black spells and the need for steam vent seemed marginal
3)[edited] How many Fatal Push and how many Terminate and Lightning Bolt in the maindeck? How many in the sideboard? I think 4 pushes, 1-2 terminates and 2-3 bolts in the 75 seems right
4) Do you prefer 3 Fulminator Mage or some mixture of it and Molten Rain as your land destruction package? Am not convinced we need this vs big mana and other mid range strategies. I am trying out ceremonious rejection and i think that answers a lot of the big mana problems cleanly especially in tandem with denial and snapcaster (prime time not withstanding)
5) Can you find RR to cast Anger Of The Gods? Do you like the card or Damnation? If playing Grixis I think anger is the way to go (clean answer to dredge, one of the tougher matchups). I think if we are playing 4 colors Flaying Tendril is a reasonable alternative.
6) [added] What do you like more in the Grixis version than the other ones(Jund, Junk, Esper, Shardless, etc)?
7) Most sideboarded out cards?kcommands, wraiths
a. Is a 1-of Temur Battle Rage reasonable? It's still helpful in a variety of settings including vs souls, chump blockers, combo etc
b. Is the fulminator package good enough? I Feel like 3 mana is a lot to use at sorcery speed, when I feel like we should be holding up mana to threaten instant speed interaction constantly with our threats. I've been trying ceremonious rejection for its mana efficiency and ability to answer problem spells and it's been great so far. Being able to answer wurmcoil (a huge problem for us i think) TKS, reality smasher, endbringer, all is dust, chalice, ravager, etched champion, plating, Karn, Ugin, Ulamog etc. has felt good
c. Optimal anti-swarm package? (Staticaster, Kozilek's Return, Anger of the Gods, Flaying Tendrils, EE)
d. Planeswalkers? LthL is great for grinding. I've seen some SB or even MD LotV. Seems counterproductive when you have so many great instant speed interactions to hold up, but I have admittedly not tested this
Also some other ideas I've had that I'm going to be testing:
1 Murderous cut in the place of 1 terminate
Kira (this is probably too cute)
Painful Truths
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Disdainful Stroke (I think Ceremonious Rejection is strictly better save for vs. scapeshift)
Ravenous Trap
Phyrexian Unlife
Rakdos Charm
Also some other ideas I've had that I'm going to be testing:
1 Murderous cut in the place of 1 terminate
Kira (this is probably too cute)
Painful Truths
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Disdainful Stroke (I think Ceremonious Rejection is strictly better save for vs. scapeshift)
Ravenous Trap
Phyrexian Unlife
Rakdos Charm
Just my thoughts on these ideas:
Murderous cut i think would be sideboard. We already rely on Delve threats. I'm not convinced we could cast it easily.
Kira seems too cute, I agree.
Painful Truths is a card I'm playing a 1-of in the board, it's won me games when resolved. It's also going to be included in sideboard section of the Primer
Jace, VP seems waaaaaaay to slow.
Stroke seems good if Valakut ever gets 10% of the meta. Otherwise it seems meh.
I'm not sold on Ravenous Trap, I personally am really digging Relic of Progenitus right now.
Phyrexian Unlife requires a 4th color, and I'm personally of the mindset that we don't need it.
Rakdos Charm has been very good for some people, very solid modal choice. Also going into the primer.
Just me 2 cents.
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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)
Also some other ideas I've had that I'm going to be testing:
1 Murderous cut in the place of 1 terminate
Kira (this is probably too cute)
Painful Truths
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Disdainful Stroke (I think Ceremonious Rejection is strictly better save for vs. scapeshift)
Ravenous Trap
Phyrexian Unlife
Rakdos Charm
Just my thoughts on these ideas:
Murderous cut i think would be sideboard. We already rely on Delve threats. I'm not convinced we could cast it easily.
Kira seems too cute, I agree.
Painful Truths is a card I'm playing a 1-of in the board, it's won me games when resolved. It's also going to be included in sideboard section of the Primer
Jace, VP seems waaaaaaay to slow.
Stroke seems good if Valakut ever gets 10% of the meta. Otherwise it seems meh.
I'm not sold on Ravenous Trap, I personally am really digging Relic of Progenitus right now.
Phyrexian Unlife requires a 4th color, and I'm personally of the mindset that we don't need it.
Rakdos Charm has been very good for some people, very solid modal choice. Also going into the primer.
Just me 2 cents.
Thanks for the comments. I agree on most. On Cut, I feel like with 4 scours my graveyard would've been able to support the 1 Cut when needed and it costing 1 mana vs 2 can be big.
Truths seems like a great card vs grindy matchups. If we are not playing white for souls I think we definitely should include it in our 75. JVP was considered in the same vain (grindy matchup) - in those matchups we don't need to be fast so I think JVP makes sense in theory
Relic is interesting - even though we'd have agency over the timing of relic it can still be very bad for us. How has it worked out for you in practice?
Rakdos Charm is a pet card of mine and it's great it can be recurred via snapcaster but 2 mana is a big deal. Think it is worth testing though
Because the 1 mana spot on the curve is so crowded, i would like to test Mishra's Bauble in place of a couple of Visions or Scour. I like both cantrips but find myself just cantriping and like someone above said, not adding anything to the board. Bauble doesn't fix the air problem but it does let us play more spells per turn. I'm also into Whispers of Emrakul shenanigans. Hymn to Tourach seems too good to pass up, it is such a powerful effect that it looks like it could be worked on and tested at least.
Relic has been good to me thus far. The control over when it is popped cannot be understated. Usually I can still play a delve threat on turn 2, then pop it. Truths I think is a must as well in the 75. Not sure about that bauble idea. You can try it, but I'm not sure if it fixes any issues in the deck currently.
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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'm mostly sure that it would be either the 4 Visions or a split of 2 Visions 2 Scours. I'm not sure you need 4 Baubles. 3 could be okay too. As i said, i haven't tested it yet, but i think it is worth it. It makes Snapcaster a little worse though.
Also, i forgot to post it above, but i'm finding 4 Snapcaster Mage a little too much. I found myself having extra copies in my hand sometimes, or having to take care of Delve too much. I were to go the Bauble+Whispers route, i would definitely cut at least 1 Snapcaster.
Good points on bauble. Couldn't have said it better myself. Test it if you'd like, and let me know how it goes, but I don't think I'm going to try it. I'm going to ask again, does anyone have any insight into matchups? It would make creating the primer much easier.
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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)
Also, i forgot to post it above, but i'm finding 4 Snapcaster Mage a little too much. I found myself having extra copies in my hand sometimes, or having to take care of Delve too much. I were to go the Bauble+Whispers route, i would definitely cut at least 1 Snapcaster.
I feel like that as well. Sometimes it seems like we're too constrained on mana or wanting to be more proactive for Snapcaster. Though I'd never get rid of them all, cutting down one or two might be good? Some person posted a primer on Esper Delver-Shadow that was only playing 2 and that felt pretty okay in my testing of that deck.
Hey everyone. I play a lot of Grixis Delver, but recent results would indicate Death's Shadow is the stronger deck by quite a bit. Here's my take on it:
Now for my answers to the questions.
1) Do you play pure Grixis or do you splash White as your 4th colour?
Pure Grixis. Milling our splash color's shock feels real bad.
2) If you play pure Grixis, do you prefer 2 Watery Grave or two Blood Crypt?
2 Watery Grave. This is primarily a UB deck.
3)[edited] How many Fatal Push and how many Terminate and Lightning Bolt in the maindeck? How many in the sideboard?
3 Push, 2 Terminate, 2 Bolt and another Terminate in the sideboard. I recently lost to an unanswered Delve threat at a tournament so I want more outs to those creatures.
4) Do you prefer 3 Fulminator Mage or some mixture of it and Molten Rain as your land destruction package?
Fulminator mages all the way. Great when you can cast it on turn 3 and snipe a tron land and later if you draw more they can beat for a while before taking out a land.
5) Can you find RR to cast Anger Of The Gods? Do you like the card or Damnation?
Yes. 12 fetches make double red trivial. I prefer Anger over Damnation because its faster and deals with Voice and Finks.
6) [added] What do you like more in the Grixis version than the other ones(Jund, Junk, Esper, Shardless, etc)?
I own all the cards. /s In all seriousness, Snap Kommand is one hell of an engine and Stubborn denial is one of my favorite cards. I get to use both.
7) [added] What question would you like to exist, so that you can answer it yourself- and of course if you'd like, answer it yourself!
Still new the the deck, so I don't think I can answer things with much certainty. Maybe something like "Q. Why don't you use 4 Bolts? A. Bolt is at an all time low as a removal spell. Push is better against the larger meta and terminate is necessary for things Push can't hit. It is worth keeping some amount of Bolts as Bolt Snap Bolt is a real way to end the game in Grixis colors."
I'm interested in the progression for this deck, but I have a question. The deck seems to curve out at 3 pretty consistently, and even then it has very few spells that actually cost 3 to cast. Given that... why do so many lists have 19 land? I was goldfishing with an 18-land list, and still flooding at times.
hey guys. i was scouring the net today checking the current lists of grixis. i noticed some fluctuations in the core. i wanted to inquire into what people thought was the best core numbers. i know some minor number tweaks are meta dependent and those things are also reflected in the SB. im very interested in the fundamentals of the deck in a vacuum for understandings sake. ty in advance.
This deck is strong. I faced something similar to the list at first post during Sunday Night Magic in our area. The list I saw used 4 Tasigur and was heavy enough on blue to use two Cryptic Command.
Hello all, I'm currently on the grixis shadow deck as the rest of you. I currently do the white splash for the souls and rangers in the side. One comment I I like to bring up on the whole milling over your white source is that, you typically open with 2 fetchs. If your fetch base is the 4 flooded, 4 blood, 4 polluted. your t1 thoughtsieze play can just be used with the shrine, while you get w/e land you need to get afterwords. With all the cantriping and k commands we run. finding ranger isn't typically a problem.
The core posted in the last pages is similar to what the Primer will have. Still working on it, should hopefully be ready soon. Still needing some insight into matchups.
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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 there are a couple main points that we aren't all in agreement on yet. I want to give my arguments for them, and maybe we can see if we can come to a consensus.
The Tasigur/Angler split
I played Grixis Delver before this, and I've always been a proponent of the 3/1 split in that deck, but I think in this deck the 2/2 split is correct. There were two reasons to play more Tasigurs in Delver: he's easier to play on turn 2 and sometimes you get to 4 mana and get to activate him when you don't have something else to use your mana for. In Shadow, I feel like it's much easier to cast Angler on turn 2 than it is in Delver because of the high number of fetches and Street Wraith. With the closing speed of the deck, I also feel like you don't have as much unused mana to dump into Tasigur activations. So basically, the upsides to playing Tasigur over Angler are lessened in this deck. The upsides for Angler are the extra point of power, which can be relevant against your average sized Goyfs, and that it's not legendary, which is the real sticking point here. You can't play multiple Tasigurs. While I think I would still rather have one Tasigur over an Angler, I would rather have one of each or two Anglers over two Tasigurs. So that's why I feel like the 2/2 split is correct here.
The mana base and RR spells
I think if you want to play Anger and Stone Rain over Kozilek's Return and Fulminator, you HAVE to play 2 Blood Crypts and 1 Steam Vents (in fact, this might just be correct for everyone). It's not hard to hit RR by turn 3, but you often don't want to. Black sources are the most important thing to have because so many of our spells require black mana. I've watched a lot of games where someone fetched a Steam Vents early and then lost the game because they had 3 black spells they wanted to play on a turn but could only play 2. Without RR spells in the deck, I would probably fetch Grave, Grave, Crypt every time if I could. Playing RR spells means you have to fetch Grave, Crypt, Crypt and limit yourself on blue mana, or Grave, Vents, Crypt and limit your black mana (which is probably even worse).
For these reasons, I'm on Fulminator and Kozilek's Return(for now). Anger might still be the better card, but that RR by turn 3 is not free like people have been making it out to be in posts in this thread.
Fourth color splashes
I don't think this is correct to do in this deck. You can't search up your copy of Ranger of Eos like the GBx versions can with Traverse. Lingering Souls is a great card, but they play it because it gives them the ability to play a longer grindy game. We already have that ability with Snapcaster and Serum Visions fixing our topdecks. I just don't think the white splash really does anything for us.
Temur Battle Rage, yes/no?
I haven't been playing it, but I might try it as a 1-of in the main. The card is really good for helping you race when you need to win quickly. I think the ability to add a small comboish aspect to the deck might be worth the opportunity cost of a slot in the main.
Planeswalkers
I think LotV is not right for the deck. We just have too many instant speed things we want to do on our opponent's turn, so I think you'll have too many instances where you don't want to uptick your LotV for several turns because you have a good card in hand you don't want to pitch. I could maybe see 1 in the SB for a matchup like Bogles, but I don't know if I love that
LtLH, on the other hand, seems great in this deck. I've been running 2 SB, but I've seen people running her MD. She's great in grindy matchups, and she's great in matchups where your opponent has a lot of X/1s. She very well may be MD-worthy, since even in matchups that aren't grindy or she's not killing creatures, she can provide fuel for delve and dig to threats.
I'm wondering, has anyone tried Ashiok in this deck? It seems like a crazy mirror breaker.
I think JVP is too slow for the deck. The only upside I can see is that people are probably going to side out their Bolts against you, so if they are using their Pushes and Paths on JVP instead of your actual threats then that's a win for you. I don't think he's worth it, though.
Tibalt is clearly a 4-of in the main deck.
Matchups
I'm not really sure from my own experience, but I can say what I've read from various people. Grixis Shadow supposedly has a good matchup against GBx Shadow. I've also read that Shadow instead of Delver improves the Burn and Tron matchups. From my limited experience with Shadow, it feels like the control matchup would be hard, likely worse than it is for Delver. That's all I really know, though.
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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
recently switched over to Grixis Shadow from Grixis control, I'll have to post my list later. I just have one question though, I've been told that Grixis Shadow is better vs tron and burn but would any of the matches I'm used to being good get worse by moving from control to shadow?
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4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
Sorceries (10)
4 Serum Visions
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
2 Stubborn Denial
4 Thought Scour
3 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Temur Battle Rage
1 Terminate
2 Kolaghan's Command
Creatures (16)
4 Death's Shadow
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Gurmag Angler
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Fatal Push
2 Collective Brutality
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Temur Battle Rage
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1) Do you play pure Grixis or do you splash White as your 4th colour? TBD - but would only play it for souls+ranger and forego orzhov charm
2) If you play pure Grixis, do you prefer 2 Watery Grave or two Blood Crypt? 2 grave+2crypt. Found that there were many turns where you were wishing you could play multiple black spells and the need for steam vent seemed marginal
3)[edited] How many Fatal Push and how many Terminate and Lightning Bolt in the maindeck? How many in the sideboard? I think 4 pushes, 1-2 terminates and 2-3 bolts in the 75 seems right
4) Do you prefer 3 Fulminator Mage or some mixture of it and Molten Rain as your land destruction package? Am not convinced we need this vs big mana and other mid range strategies. I am trying out ceremonious rejection and i think that answers a lot of the big mana problems cleanly especially in tandem with denial and snapcaster (prime time not withstanding)
5) Can you find RR to cast Anger Of The Gods? Do you like the card or Damnation? If playing Grixis I think anger is the way to go (clean answer to dredge, one of the tougher matchups). I think if we are playing 4 colors Flaying Tendril is a reasonable alternative.
6) [added] What do you like more in the Grixis version than the other ones(Jund, Junk, Esper, Shardless, etc)?
7) Most sideboarded out cards?kcommands, wraiths
a. Is a 1-of Temur Battle Rage reasonable? It's still helpful in a variety of settings including vs souls, chump blockers, combo etc
b. Is the fulminator package good enough? I Feel like 3 mana is a lot to use at sorcery speed, when I feel like we should be holding up mana to threaten instant speed interaction constantly with our threats. I've been trying ceremonious rejection for its mana efficiency and ability to answer problem spells and it's been great so far. Being able to answer wurmcoil (a huge problem for us i think) TKS, reality smasher, endbringer, all is dust, chalice, ravager, etched champion, plating, Karn, Ugin, Ulamog etc. has felt good
c. Optimal anti-swarm package? (Staticaster, Kozilek's Return, Anger of the Gods, Flaying Tendrils, EE)
d. Planeswalkers? LthL is great for grinding. I've seen some SB or even MD LotV. Seems counterproductive when you have so many great instant speed interactions to hold up, but I have admittedly not tested this
1 Murderous cut in the place of 1 terminate
Kira (this is probably too cute)
Painful Truths
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Disdainful Stroke (I think Ceremonious Rejection is strictly better save for vs. scapeshift)
Ravenous Trap
Phyrexian Unlife
Rakdos Charm
Just my thoughts on these ideas:
Murderous cut i think would be sideboard. We already rely on Delve threats. I'm not convinced we could cast it easily.
Kira seems too cute, I agree.
Painful Truths is a card I'm playing a 1-of in the board, it's won me games when resolved. It's also going to be included in sideboard section of the Primer
Jace, VP seems waaaaaaay to slow.
Stroke seems good if Valakut ever gets 10% of the meta. Otherwise it seems meh.
I'm not sold on Ravenous Trap, I personally am really digging Relic of Progenitus right now.
Phyrexian Unlife requires a 4th color, and I'm personally of the mindset that we don't need it.
Rakdos Charm has been very good for some people, very solid modal choice. Also going into the primer.
Just me 2 cents.
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
Thanks for the comments. I agree on most. On Cut, I feel like with 4 scours my graveyard would've been able to support the 1 Cut when needed and it costing 1 mana vs 2 can be big.
Truths seems like a great card vs grindy matchups. If we are not playing white for souls I think we definitely should include it in our 75. JVP was considered in the same vain (grindy matchup) - in those matchups we don't need to be fast so I think JVP makes sense in theory
Relic is interesting - even though we'd have agency over the timing of relic it can still be very bad for us. How has it worked out for you in practice?
Rakdos Charm is a pet card of mine and it's great it can be recurred via snapcaster but 2 mana is a big deal. Think it is worth testing though
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
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
Also, i forgot to post it above, but i'm finding 4 Snapcaster Mage a little too much. I found myself having extra copies in my hand sometimes, or having to take care of Delve too much. I were to go the Bauble+Whispers route, i would definitely cut at least 1 Snapcaster.
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
I feel like that as well. Sometimes it seems like we're too constrained on mana or wanting to be more proactive for Snapcaster. Though I'd never get rid of them all, cutting down one or two might be good? Some person posted a primer on Esper Delver-Shadow that was only playing 2 and that felt pretty okay in my testing of that deck.
What is everyone's opinion on Delver in this?
UBR Grixis Shadow
URG Amulet Titan
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
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Island
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Steam Vents
1x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Serum Visions
4x Thoughtseize
2x Kolaghan's Command
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Terminate
4x Thought Scour
4x Death's Shadow
2x Gurmag Angler
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Street Wraith
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1x Anger of the Gods
2x Collective Brutality
3x Fulminator Mage
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Painful Truths
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Terminate
Now for my answers to the questions.
1) Do you play pure Grixis or do you splash White as your 4th colour?
Pure Grixis. Milling our splash color's shock feels real bad.
2) If you play pure Grixis, do you prefer 2 Watery Grave or two Blood Crypt?
2 Watery Grave. This is primarily a UB deck.
3)[edited] How many Fatal Push and how many Terminate and Lightning Bolt in the maindeck? How many in the sideboard?
3 Push, 2 Terminate, 2 Bolt and another Terminate in the sideboard. I recently lost to an unanswered Delve threat at a tournament so I want more outs to those creatures.
4) Do you prefer 3 Fulminator Mage or some mixture of it and Molten Rain as your land destruction package?
Fulminator mages all the way. Great when you can cast it on turn 3 and snipe a tron land and later if you draw more they can beat for a while before taking out a land.
5) Can you find RR to cast Anger Of The Gods? Do you like the card or Damnation?
Yes. 12 fetches make double red trivial. I prefer Anger over Damnation because its faster and deals with Voice and Finks.
6) [added] What do you like more in the Grixis version than the other ones(Jund, Junk, Esper, Shardless, etc)?
I own all the cards. /s In all seriousness, Snap Kommand is one hell of an engine and Stubborn denial is one of my favorite cards. I get to use both.
7) [added] What question would you like to exist, so that you can answer it yourself- and of course if you'd like, answer it yourself!
Still new the the deck, so I don't think I can answer things with much certainty. Maybe something like "Q. Why don't you use 4 Bolts? A. Bolt is at an all time low as a removal spell. Push is better against the larger meta and terminate is necessary for things Push can't hit. It is worth keeping some amount of Bolts as Bolt Snap Bolt is a real way to end the game in Grixis colors."
I'm interested in the progression for this deck, but I have a question. The deck seems to curve out at 3 pretty consistently, and even then it has very few spells that actually cost 3 to cast. Given that... why do so many lists have 19 land? I was goldfishing with an 18-land list, and still flooding at times.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
4 shadow
1/2 angler
2/3 tasigur
4 wraith
4 snap
2-4 iok
4 serum
4 seize
4 scour
3-4 push
2-3 kolmand
1-4 bolt
1-3 terminate
0-3 stubborn
possible lili
12 fetch
5 shock
2 basic
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
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 Tasigur/Angler split
I played Grixis Delver before this, and I've always been a proponent of the 3/1 split in that deck, but I think in this deck the 2/2 split is correct. There were two reasons to play more Tasigurs in Delver: he's easier to play on turn 2 and sometimes you get to 4 mana and get to activate him when you don't have something else to use your mana for. In Shadow, I feel like it's much easier to cast Angler on turn 2 than it is in Delver because of the high number of fetches and Street Wraith. With the closing speed of the deck, I also feel like you don't have as much unused mana to dump into Tasigur activations. So basically, the upsides to playing Tasigur over Angler are lessened in this deck. The upsides for Angler are the extra point of power, which can be relevant against your average sized Goyfs, and that it's not legendary, which is the real sticking point here. You can't play multiple Tasigurs. While I think I would still rather have one Tasigur over an Angler, I would rather have one of each or two Anglers over two Tasigurs. So that's why I feel like the 2/2 split is correct here.
The mana base and RR spells
I think if you want to play Anger and Stone Rain over Kozilek's Return and Fulminator, you HAVE to play 2 Blood Crypts and 1 Steam Vents (in fact, this might just be correct for everyone). It's not hard to hit RR by turn 3, but you often don't want to. Black sources are the most important thing to have because so many of our spells require black mana. I've watched a lot of games where someone fetched a Steam Vents early and then lost the game because they had 3 black spells they wanted to play on a turn but could only play 2. Without RR spells in the deck, I would probably fetch Grave, Grave, Crypt every time if I could. Playing RR spells means you have to fetch Grave, Crypt, Crypt and limit yourself on blue mana, or Grave, Vents, Crypt and limit your black mana (which is probably even worse).
For these reasons, I'm on Fulminator and Kozilek's Return(for now). Anger might still be the better card, but that RR by turn 3 is not free like people have been making it out to be in posts in this thread.
Fourth color splashes
I don't think this is correct to do in this deck. You can't search up your copy of Ranger of Eos like the GBx versions can with Traverse. Lingering Souls is a great card, but they play it because it gives them the ability to play a longer grindy game. We already have that ability with Snapcaster and Serum Visions fixing our topdecks. I just don't think the white splash really does anything for us.
Temur Battle Rage, yes/no?
I haven't been playing it, but I might try it as a 1-of in the main. The card is really good for helping you race when you need to win quickly. I think the ability to add a small comboish aspect to the deck might be worth the opportunity cost of a slot in the main.
Planeswalkers
I think LotV is not right for the deck. We just have too many instant speed things we want to do on our opponent's turn, so I think you'll have too many instances where you don't want to uptick your LotV for several turns because you have a good card in hand you don't want to pitch. I could maybe see 1 in the SB for a matchup like Bogles, but I don't know if I love that
LtLH, on the other hand, seems great in this deck. I've been running 2 SB, but I've seen people running her MD. She's great in grindy matchups, and she's great in matchups where your opponent has a lot of X/1s. She very well may be MD-worthy, since even in matchups that aren't grindy or she's not killing creatures, she can provide fuel for delve and dig to threats.
I'm wondering, has anyone tried Ashiok in this deck? It seems like a crazy mirror breaker.
I think JVP is too slow for the deck. The only upside I can see is that people are probably going to side out their Bolts against you, so if they are using their Pushes and Paths on JVP instead of your actual threats then that's a win for you. I don't think he's worth it, though.
Tibalt is clearly a 4-of in the main deck.
Matchups
I'm not really sure from my own experience, but I can say what I've read from various people. Grixis Shadow supposedly has a good matchup against GBx Shadow. I've also read that Shadow instead of Delver improves the Burn and Tron matchups. From my limited experience with Shadow, it feels like the control matchup would be hard, likely worse than it is for Delver. That's all I really know, though.
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