At 4cmc, and having either TBR and Stubborn Denial as possible cascade targets, I think that Traverse Shadow wouldn't want BBE on the deck's current form.
In Traverse Shadow's current form, BBE is a possible SB card for grindy matchups where TBR and Stub are typically sided out anyway.
I'm excited to play this deck. I currently have the Jund DS build as of now. I'm waiting for some cards to come in the mail to complete the main and I can piece the sideboard together. I currently only have 3 Snapcaster Mages until I get the fourth. Also I have no Scalding Tarns but I can make substitutions. I didn't like that Jund DS had only 8 creatures where this deck has a veritable 12. I was going to pick up some Grim Flayers but haven't yet. I also really wanted to play with Snapcaster. Obviously this deck looks complex to pilot. Also I know it was hovering around "the best deck in modern" but with DS variants and the emergence of Jeskai Control, who knows.
FWIW I prefer Traverse DS (whatever the color combo) because it has more threats. Snapcaster Mage is not a threat. Traverse the Ulvenwald sometimes is. (Also, Flayer is good in Traverse Shadow, can confirm). Not that GDS is bad - you should definitely try it if you're interested in Shadow archetypes. They have slightly different strengths and weaknesses, so it's worth having experience with both so you can play the best positioned one on any given weekend. Or, you know, if you just want to cast Snapcaster Mage like any red blooded magic player, just play GDS
Also FWIW, 3 Snapcasters is a perfectly reasonable choice for GDS. They can be clunky, especially when drawn in multiples.
Abzan is can be one of GDS's toughest matchups, depending on how they build their deck. Lingering Souls is already the midrange mirror breaker, but they're extra good against Shadow decks which start at 10 life or less. Plus they have plenty of planeswalkers, must kill threats, removal, manlands, and a plenty of sources of card advantage. Abzan is still the king of the midrange wars. It's hard to stick a threat against them, and if you don't deal with most of their threats you often lose on the spot. And if they play Siege Rhino, good luck. We could probably build GDS to have a reasonable matchup against them, but it's just not worth sacrificing the % points in all of the other matchups.
How do you guys approach the Abzan Midrange matchup? I always find their higher count of threats and answers an uphill battle to grind through.
In particular, I find the shadow deck weak to LotV, Abrupt Decay and Lingering Souls.
I will often aggressively discard/Stub Lingering Souls. The tokens are really hard to beat if you don't draw something like LtlH or Staticaster, while you can come back from simply being down a card. But the best strategy against Abzan is to dodge it
The thing about Mishra's Bauble as air is that it's free air - you don't have to spend mana, and therefore time, casting it. This was always my biggest complaint about the cantrips in Grixis.
I'm skeptical of EE too. This deck is super efficient, but EE is super inefficient. I've resigned myself to mostly losing to Humans though. Matchup is horrid, and changing which sweeper we have doesn't do much to move the needle.
Edit: I also like keeping IoK. My current 60 is his list, -1 Snap, -1 Stub, +2 IoK. I have a very different SB.
This is close to my latest version, +/- a few cards. But the basic principles I think are right: Baubles, more Gurmags over Tasigurs, TBRs. You really want to play TBR, and get some of the clunkiness out of the deck IMO, and this shell does that.
A big reason is that BUG has removal problems. If you want to kill anything that Push/Decay can't kill, your options are: Dismember, Murderous Cut, Victim of Night, Go for the Throat, etc. All of these have problems, while Terminate just doesn't care what you point it at. Second, red tends to give better SB options because you get to play sweepers like Kozilek's Return or Anger of the Gods, and artifact hate like Kolaghan's Command or By Force. Green gives you access to Decay and Pulse, which have their strengths, but probably aren't good enough to compensate.
FWIW I tried MDing YP awhile back, and didn't really like it. It's a threat, but not really a good one most of the time. I didn't like it much as a SB card either though.
If Rabblemaster is good, it's as an _additional_ threat. 8 threats is not very many, and in metagames where Rabblemaster is likely to get through without too much trouble, the extra threat would be very welcome.
So my record against Abzan Midrange variants is something like 1-20. Lingering Souls gets me every darn time! I'm pretty sure I have enough answers to it, but I just cannot win. I'm starting to think I'm taking the wrong role in the match-up. Has anybody else had a similar experience? I'm also wondering how you approach the match-up. Do you shock yourself aggressively or do you try to play a slower game? Thanks all!
You can put Pia and Kiran Nalaar in your SB to help fight Lingering Souls to improve the matchup, and find space for MD Liliana of the Veil (you can shave the 4th Snapcaster and a removal spell). But fundamentally it's going to be a rough matchup. They're just better designed to grind than we are, and have access to better haymakers like Gideon and sometimes even Elspeth.
So my record against Abzan Midrange variants is something like 1-20. Lingering Souls gets me every darn time! I'm pretty sure I have enough answers to it, but I just cannot win. I'm starting to think I'm taking the wrong role in the match-up. Has anybody else had a similar experience? I'm also wondering how you approach the match-up. Do you shock yourself aggressively or do you try to play a slower game? Thanks all!
Are you running Temur Battle Rage? If not give it a try, allows you to run over Lingering Souls.
Temur Battle Rage is pretty bad in the matchup. They have too much point removal to rely on having a big threat down.
By the way, has anyone tested Pia and Kiran Nalaar yet?
I've been advocating 2 P&K in the SB for months - well before people started trying Young Pyromancer. It allows you to fight Lingering Souls, trumps midrange matchups against opponents that don't have Lingering Souls, is a threat that doesn't rely on the GY vs. UWx control (which will typically have RiP) and also demands a sweeper on its own, allows you to block Etched Champion and random dinky fliers vs. Affinity, etc. The card is great in GDS and criminally underplayed.
Also, it requires RR and 4 mana total. Can we reliably have this kind of mana total?
I didn't have much of a problem in the 19 land manabase with 3 red sources. You only bring it in against matchups that go long, and maybe against affinity where you have a million ways to slow them down and you highly value the colorless tokens.
You see better 2 pia and kira in he side that 3 lingering and 1 godless? To play against humans and creature decks sometimes I feel that 18 lands are too few to play more midrange / control. The idea of Pia I like but I feel that we would have to go up to 19 lands.
Splashing Lingering Souls would be better at fighting most of the battles that you want to fight with P&K, but it takes an extra SB slot due to the land (or destabilizes your manabase by replacing a land with a Shrine MD), and sometimes you'll mill your one white source with Thought Scour.
I'm not too fond of the 18 land lists with 2 Opts on top of the usual 12 cantrips anyway. Too much air. I prefer 19 lands.
While a bit clunky, i kinda like Engineered Explosives against Humans as most of their important stuff has a cmc of 2 or 3.
EE against Thalia sounds reeeeeal awkward. If you're going to pay 5 mana to take out their 2 drops, at that point Damnation starts looking a lot more attractive.
By the way, has anyone tested Pia and Kiran Nalaar yet?
I've been advocating 2 P&K in the SB for months - well before people started trying Young Pyromancer. It allows you to fight Lingering Souls, trumps midrange matchups against opponents that don't have Lingering Souls, is a threat that doesn't rely on the GY vs. UWx control (which will typically have RiP) and also demands a sweeper on its own, allows you to block Etched Champion and random dinky fliers vs. Affinity, etc. The card is great in GDS and criminally underplayed.
Stock Grixis lists get better as people move towards midrange/control decks. Stock 5 color lists get worse, but they can adapt by MDing Lingering Souls or something. If instead we see more Blood Moons out of _good_ decks, Death's Shadow gets worse. If the shift to big mana decks happens as a reaction to the midrange shift, then 5 color looks really good. If the shift to fast combo happens as a response to THAT, then both shadow decks look pretty good.
But it's really hard to predict metagame swings with any amount of certainty, especially past the first step. And those swings will only really happen at the GP/Open day 2 level and above - most people still mostly just play whatever modern decks they have, and swings here are harder to predict. So unless something really drastic happens, I'm content to stick to shadow builds and tweak a few slots while riding the metagame waves.
Yeah, I expect an uptick of things like Grandpa Jund, Abzan, and Uxy control since they all pretty handily beat humans. Probably also some more Blood Moon decks, since that's a reasonable angle to attack them on, as long as you don't get too far behind and they don't draw Vial. Maybe UR Breach's stock is going up? Then, barring some unforseen shock*, we'll probably see the metagame react to that by moving toward more Valakut, Tron, and maybe Amulet decks to go over the top. Which then makes the faster combo decks like Storm look better, etc.
*There will probably be an unforseen shock. Humans itself was one.
In Traverse Shadow's current form, BBE is a possible SB card for grindy matchups where TBR and Stub are typically sided out anyway.
*not that I think this is a likely outcome
FWIW I prefer Traverse DS (whatever the color combo) because it has more threats. Snapcaster Mage is not a threat. Traverse the Ulvenwald sometimes is. (Also, Flayer is good in Traverse Shadow, can confirm). Not that GDS is bad - you should definitely try it if you're interested in Shadow archetypes. They have slightly different strengths and weaknesses, so it's worth having experience with both so you can play the best positioned one on any given weekend. Or, you know, if you just want to cast Snapcaster Mage like any red blooded magic player, just play GDS
Also FWIW, 3 Snapcasters is a perfectly reasonable choice for GDS. They can be clunky, especially when drawn in multiples.
I will often aggressively discard/Stub Lingering Souls. The tokens are really hard to beat if you don't draw something like LtlH or Staticaster, while you can come back from simply being down a card. But the best strategy against Abzan is to dodge it
I'm skeptical of EE too. This deck is super efficient, but EE is super inefficient. I've resigned myself to mostly losing to Humans though. Matchup is horrid, and changing which sweeper we have doesn't do much to move the needle.
Edit: I also like keeping IoK. My current 60 is his list, -1 Snap, -1 Stub, +2 IoK. I have a very different SB.
This is close to my latest version, +/- a few cards. But the basic principles I think are right: Baubles, more Gurmags over Tasigurs, TBRs. You really want to play TBR, and get some of the clunkiness out of the deck IMO, and this shell does that.
This list and mine are very similar to a recent list from MTGO: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/862965#paper
Mine was directly inspired by it.
I still like 5c shadow a bit more, but these builds have me interested in Grixis shells again.
You can put Pia and Kiran Nalaar in your SB to help fight Lingering Souls to improve the matchup, and find space for MD Liliana of the Veil (you can shave the 4th Snapcaster and a removal spell). But fundamentally it's going to be a rough matchup. They're just better designed to grind than we are, and have access to better haymakers like Gideon and sometimes even Elspeth.
Temur Battle Rage is pretty bad in the matchup. They have too much point removal to rely on having a big threat down.
I didn't have much of a problem in the 19 land manabase with 3 red sources. You only bring it in against matchups that go long, and maybe against affinity where you have a million ways to slow them down and you highly value the colorless tokens.
Splashing Lingering Souls would be better at fighting most of the battles that you want to fight with P&K, but it takes an extra SB slot due to the land (or destabilizes your manabase by replacing a land with a Shrine MD), and sometimes you'll mill your one white source with Thought Scour.
I'm not too fond of the 18 land lists with 2 Opts on top of the usual 12 cantrips anyway. Too much air. I prefer 19 lands.
EE against Thalia sounds reeeeeal awkward. If you're going to pay 5 mana to take out their 2 drops, at that point Damnation starts looking a lot more attractive.
I've been advocating 2 P&K in the SB for months - well before people started trying Young Pyromancer. It allows you to fight Lingering Souls, trumps midrange matchups against opponents that don't have Lingering Souls, is a threat that doesn't rely on the GY vs. UWx control (which will typically have RiP) and also demands a sweeper on its own, allows you to block Etched Champion and random dinky fliers vs. Affinity, etc. The card is great in GDS and criminally underplayed.
But it's really hard to predict metagame swings with any amount of certainty, especially past the first step. And those swings will only really happen at the GP/Open day 2 level and above - most people still mostly just play whatever modern decks they have, and swings here are harder to predict. So unless something really drastic happens, I'm content to stick to shadow builds and tweak a few slots while riding the metagame waves.
*There will probably be an unforseen shock. Humans itself was one.