Quote from ThirdDegree »Quote from cfusionpm »Quote from ThirdDegree »Quote from Pokken »If Grixis Shadow is a blue deck then Infect was a blue deck.
Infect ran a blue creature and maybe a spell pierce or two in the main. DS runs serum, snap, stubborn, and though scour. That gives it some blue identity. I don't understand how GDS is not thought of as a deck that has one foot solidly in the blue camp. My point from earlier is that almost all 'blue' decks use the blue cards to find things from other colors. Blue is not known for it's finishers.
See the last line of this post: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/773038-state-of-modern-thread-bans-format-health-metagame?page=139#c3475
I'm not saying the strengths of the deck are blue, I am saying that using blue cards to dig for your answers/threats or using snap to flashback removal is still a blue thing to do. When I would play jeskai control, my blue spells were all about finding and/or protecting nahiri, or snapping back bolt several times. (I'm by no means arguing that DS is as blue as jeskai control, just making a point). I see what you're saying, and I still think that blue needs help, despite that I also think DS is a blue deck. Someone previously talked about not just color identity, but shard/wedge identity. And GDS certainly 'feels' grixis to me.
As someone who spent the majority of their time in modern playing Twin and Delver strategies, Shadow is about the least "blue" blue deck I have ever played. It's certainly a fun and powerful deck to play, but literally 75% of the deck is black (most of which mono black), all of the cards that do anything of significance are black, and the deck does not function whatsoever without black mana. This means it plays more like a BGx attrition deck than a URx tempo deck.
I would personally love to be playing Delvers and Remands and Young Pyromancers again, but that's just not where the format is right now. You either need to be doing something fast, broken, and powerful, or accept being at a significant disadvantage in most matchups.
1
Edit: my current list is below in the sig.
1
1
Can't say I didn't think about trying this deck again though just as a refresh. I want to try a different build but not sure if it's any better then the current. It got zero feedback so far.
Grixis Counter Drake
1
OMG, it's stifle pigeon!
2
4
1
1
Went 3-1 last night with Shadow Delver. Delver replaced Street Wraith because I wanted an early threat while later I could eventually start dropping shadows. Delver confused my opponents and threw them off as to which deck I was on and that was advantageous. They ended up spending removal on them which let my Shadows come down afterwards. Delver also provided a decent clock since he has evasion, something this deck lacks when you aren't running TBR. He did have some trouble flipping which is normal but Serum Visions is in the deck. He was still good when I had no starting hands with shadows to play into. I did not play Wraith for too long but I also did not like the plan of dropping my life so far down only to rely on DS. Maybe it was just bad variance during my initial playing with the deck. My opp had answers for them while I simply did not have protection. There are also times when my discard could not nab all the removal. I think if you are going to play the Wraith version it would be wise to run 4 denials. Also to note, I really liked having 1 Rise // Fall. That card was clutch at doing a few things my opponents were not expecting. My sequence was to hold Snap + Stubborn or Push something end of turn. Then on my turn Rise, bouncing Snap and reviving Shadow back to recast for a total of BBU. Felt pretty good to get more value from a Snap that way. There was also a game where Fall took the last two cards in his hand.
1
Ancient Stirrings would be my vote for anything to go but I also dislike banning more cards. Stirrings is a broken card in the decks that play due to having no downside (Tron, Lantern, Scrap Trawlololer Combo, Bant Eldrazi) and looking at the top 5 from lands(temple, tron lands), answer(EE, Bridge, Karn) or threats(too many to count..) is way too good.
I'm ok with a Stoneforge or Preordain unban. Ancestral Vision did nothing but give us false hope.
1
Just some idea's mostly. Oh and I really dig that Princess Mononoke alter!