MTG Salvation

I am mean it disappeared for months on end so I don't think it got a quick dismissal from Tier 1. If a deck is not putting up any results and is meta share is shrinking for months on end then it deserves to get demoted from Tier 1 status if you ask me. It can be re-elevated to that level when it starts picking up meta share and Top 8s again. Lets not go full historical revisionism here and say that GDS has been delivering all year long based on the data it has not.

Lets see how GDS holds up with people considering it an actual threat again in the upcoming weeks before the next Ravnica Set comes out and maybe changes things again.

He meant that Humans and UW Control are bad matchups for Grixis Shadow, not that they are bad decks in general...

I will amend my response then but I don't think is all that clear in the wording quite frankly.

Quote from AUTUMNTWILIGHT »

I am mean it disappeared for months on end so I don't think it got a quick dismissal from Tier 1. If a deck is not putting up any results and is meta share is shrinking for months on end then it deserves to get demoted from Tier 1 status if you ask me. It can be re-elevated to that level when it starts picking up meta share and Top 8s again. Lets not go full historical revisionism here and say that GDS has been delivering all year long based on the data it has not.

Lets see how GDS holds up with people considering it an actual threat again in the upcoming weeks before the next Ravnica Set comes out and maybe changes things again.

I think this is a demonstration of the issue that people only consider decks tier 1, if they have the representation to be such.

Is Amulet still able to pull down a large event? 100%
Was Dredge, pre-Chill, still doing so? 100%
Was GDS 'bad' or simply out of favour due to meta?

These powerful decks do not just become 'bad'.

GDS is certainly hard to play. After jamming games with it and even winning most of them I don't know if I want to stick with the deck though. It's best played aggressively and that's not really my jam. Despite being a fair disruptive deck the nut draws of the deck can be ridiculous though. Just played a game where my opponent conceded at the end of my third turn since he was dead on board while I still had Stubborn Denial up. Game 2 I won through multiple Lingering Souls castings and a Emrakul, the Aeons Torn that was brought into play by a Polymorph. It's too bad I only play online since I can imagine the salt levels of my opponent being high after getting stomped so hard.

It's obvious why people love the deck but don't think it's something for me. I like my games going longer and getting to play with more powerful/expensive cards and it looks like UW/x and GB/x are still the best avenues for that. Granted Im intrigued by the UB Faeries/Control list that Yuta Takahashi played at GP Atlanta and GP Portland and has done very well with. Granted he is simply a very good player which would explain his finishes but there might be something more to it. Unfortunately it would cost me roughly 200 dollars to build it and that's a tough sell with the big unknown factor that looms over the deck.

Quote from gkourou »

As a player who was jamming GDS, when everybody were playing DSJ and were telling me that "hey, you play poor man's DSJ", I feel comfortable saying Humans is super bad. UW is also bad. Spirits though is a lot better.
Look, GDS is a solid deck and a powerful deck. It deserves the tier 1 status, no matter what. It's people who write decks off that easily, and are plain wrong. GDS is always a deck that can bring any event down, no matter what, it's just that it is too hard to navigate. I remember @KTKenshinx saying in the past that "when a deck is labelled as hard to navigate, it's usually not a Tier 1 deck to begin with". He was and still is mostly right. Well, GDS is the exception. If you know what you are doing, the deck can grant you a GP victory.

Personally, I feel very happy for my deck (GDS), because after my deck (UR Twin) got banned, I had nothing that felt right to me for a large amount of time. When DSJ made that 3ple top8, I immediately knew what I had to do. It's very important to have a deck you really love and play with.

Turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Thoughtseize X 2, turn 3, triple Death's Shadow. Why does everyone just accept that the Shadow player played so well? I personally think that the Storm player played better. Why? He made it with a deck that hasn't had good results outside of Caleb Sherer and Paul Muller for the past half year. It's a deck naturally with a target on it's back, with hate that hurts Tron (Damping Sphere) and Dredge (grave hate) hitting Storm hard. It's amazing that the Storm player went 14-1!

People always assume that Midrange strategies are tough to play when anyone can do the first play from Death's Shadow that I said. This is not aimed at you. I just see this perception that Combo like KCI is super easy to play while Jund is super tough to play. Jund is only harder to play right now because it is in a worse place in the current metagame. That's it. It's not tougher in any other way.

*I guess I got oversensitive there, lol. It's been a tough week!

Quote from idSurge »

Quote from BlueTronFTW »

Quote from motleyslayer »

Grixis Deaths Shadow has put up a few good events lately, is it suddenly well positioned now or did they run hot? didn't get to watch much coverage

It's better. Humans and UW are rough, and both of them are seeing downslides with the rises of spirits and dredge. Humans have thalia and reflector mage, while spirits either runs zero of either or 1-2 each in their 75s. Shadow acting as midrange with a capable clock also serves it well against KCI. I don't play online, but I know that KCI is all but extinct there because of the program's limitations. In paper, though, where you may play against KCI a couple of times, shadow is a great option. Hell, even burn is reducing its meta presence in paper, and that is a tricky one to navigate for the shadow pilot.

Its weird, but I played KCI online twice yesterday.

Yea, in my experience it's actually more popular online than ever now. I think more people are begrudgingly picking it up because it is realistically the best deck and Wizards doesn't seem interested in banning it.

Quote from idSurge »

Quote from AUTUMNTWILIGHT »

I am mean it disappeared for months on end so I don't think it got a quick dismissal from Tier 1. If a deck is not putting up any results and is meta share is shrinking for months on end then it deserves to get demoted from Tier 1 status if you ask me. It can be re-elevated to that level when it starts picking up meta share and Top 8s again. Lets not go full historical revisionism here and say that GDS has been delivering all year long based on the data it has not.

Lets see how GDS holds up with people considering it an actual threat again in the upcoming weeks before the next Ravnica Set comes out and maybe changes things again.

I think this is a demonstration of the issue that people only consider decks tier 1, if they have the representation to be such.

Is Amulet still able to pull down a large event? 100%
Was Dredge, pre-Chill, still doing so? 100%
Was GDS 'bad' or simply out of favour due to meta?

These powerful decks do not just become 'bad'.

Well sure but I don't think not being Tier 1 make a deck bad. That is what Tier 1.5 or 2.0 is for right? I consider Tier 3 to be bad.

To me a Tier 1 Deck is relatively high in meta share and routinely pulling down Top 8s and winning.

If a Deck can sneak in once a month for Top 8s and wins that is more a Tier 2 or Tier 1.5 to me.

Also I mean the meta shifts and waxes and wanes thanks to new cards, unbans, bans and innovation so yeah a Deck that was Tier 1 can no longer be Tier 1. I mean GDS fell off due to new cards bolstering Humans and UWx Control. KCI or Amulet Titan were new innovations? I mean I don't think they got new cards of note recently. Dredge and the Izzet Decks have risen off Chill and Arclight. The Rock decks got a shot in the arm from Trophy.

I think part of the question is how many bad performances over what time length does a deck need before it loses Tier 1 status? Or how many good performances over what length of time does a deck need to rise to Tier 1? I am not sure but in my book GDS definitely fell from Tier 1 and one good week of performances after such a drought does not get it back Tier 1, IMO.

And that gets to another thing should a more established deck rise and fall faster like Dredge use to be great therefore I am more inclined to jump it back to Tier 1 way faster then I am to say Izzet Arclight is Tier 1. So for instance I think Dredge is Tier 1 as of today but Izzet Arclight? I am going to need to see more performances before I make such a definitive statement. However, Arclight and Chill the cards that boosted these decks came out in the same Set. So its tricky.

I believe that if GDS had a way to avoid the scenario where it just spins its wheels without putting pressure on the board, it would be the strongest deck in Modern. Looting attempts to mitigate this fairly well but clearly not well enough.

I played a bunch of Pauper, and there is a ton of simility between UB Delver in Pauper, GDS in Modern, and UB DS/Delver in Legacy.

Quote from Galerion »

GDS is certainly hard to play. After jamming games with it and even winning most of them I don't know if I want to stick with the deck though. It's best played aggressively and that's not really my jam. Despite being a fair disruptive deck the nut draws of the deck can be ridiculous though. Just played a game where my opponent conceded at the end of my third turn since he was dead on board while I still had Stubborn Denial up. Game 2 I won through multiple Lingering Souls castings and a Emrakul, the Aeons Torn that was brought into play by a Polymorph. It's too bad I only play online since I can imagine the salt levels of my opponent being high after getting stomped so hard.

It's obvious why people love the deck but don't think it's something for me. I like my games going longer and getting to play with more powerful/expensive cards and it looks like UW/x and GB/x are still the best avenues for that. Granted Im intrigued by the UB Faeries/Control list that Yuta Takahashi played at GP Atlanta and GP Portland and has done very well with. Granted he is simply a very good player which would explain his finishes but there might be something more to it. Unfortunately it would cost me roughly 200 dollars to build it and that's a tough sell with the big unknown factor that looms over the deck.

I'd give that Faeries deck a look. I was going to buy in, but I dont want to put out of the Bitterblossom, but otherwise I agree with you. I dont mind messing around with 'lol 4 Phoenix turn 2' or Bloo, or whatever, but its not my style.

I'd rather stop people from doing something busted (KCI that I just played against AGAIN online) and then win on the back of a Delver, or Mentor.

I don't know GKourou. I have played a little Grixis Shadow and yeah it was a bit tough. But nothing out of the normal for many other Modern decks. Death's Shadow faces what kind of hate? Graveyard hate? It doesn't hurt them when they just strip your hand and land some 8/8s. Most of the games I've played against Shadow have been like this. V

Quote from whocansay »

I believe that if GDS had a way to avoid the scenario where it just spins its wheels without putting pressure on the board, it would be the strongest deck in Modern. Looting attempts to mitigate this fairly well but clearly not well enough.

They do this and lose or find that double Shadow (or strip your hand enough after mulligans by you) to finish you off. Yeah there definitely is some life management, but anyone who plays Modern regularly and has played against Death's Shadow also knows this because they have to do it from the other side as well.

Winning with Death's Shadow is definitely a surprising accomplishment! But it is the same for any deck that is not in the top tier of Dredge, KCI, Spirits, Humans, and possibly Tron. Winning with any deck is an accomplishment of course. It takes some matchups, some luck, and some serious good play to win these types of tournaments. That one time when you actually draw well enough to win, you better play perfectly or you're probably out. But to me, honestly anyone winning a GP with Storm, outside of Caleb Sherer, and ban talk will 100% happen and I will be damn surprised. No ban talk for Shadow. Par for the course. Just another fair deck, lol.

Quote from gkourou »

@foodchainsgoblins, you see it like that, because GDS is only soo well equipped to demolish all of the combo decks.

Are you really looking for a police deck in Modern? Well, that's it. And Humans.

It's good to have a police deck. That, Humans, and Spirits are all good for the meta. I don't actually mind Death's Shadow that much. I haven't had much of a problem with them personally, outside of when I ran Titanshift (pretty poor draws; I realize it's 50/50 at worst).

I just envy those players that see their deck do well without worrying that a single person on a 1 trillion person planet will mention the word "ban." Meanwhile, a KCI player takes a bit too long going off and every 2 comments has 1 aimed at "ban KCI." Kind of sad.

GDS is definitely a high skill floor and high skill ceiling deck. I remember a certain streamer raging about how broken it was, and how it needed to be banned back in 2017, and he loaded up an MTGO league with it to show everyone, and he immediately went 0-3 drop. GDS is the type of deck where you're going to lose a lot when you first start to play it. Your decisions on the order you fetch your shocks matter. Sometimes you have to decide whether to deploy a threat or hold up interaction. You have to determine how low you can safely burn yourself. If you don't have a Shadow in hand, do you fetch shock even when you don't need the mana? There are a lot of little decisions like this where you lose yourself a lot of percentage points if you get them all wrong, but as you start to learn the right decisions and play patterns, the deck becomes very powerful.

Yeah, food chains, I'm gonna have to say thats the combo player in you catching feelings.

That scenario you mentioned isnt that common. That involves the opener being fetches, and several wraiths and seizes. You're naming Christmas land hands. I'm sure we could all take a combo you play and recite hands like that.

I mean, are we going to pretend GDS isnt in the top tier difficulty? Even in our good matchups we dont know how it will play. Will I slow down on life loss? Will I spin the wheels and hope to find a threat? Will I have to go with an all in strategy from my opener? Did me not shocking 3 turns ago screw me from beginning pressure with shadow? Did I lose myself this game because 4 turns when nothing was happening I shocked for 3 turns?

I'm playing an aggressive deck. am I cutting 1 wraith, 2 or 4? How many gurmags do I cut knowing my opponent is on grave hate?

Do I play a turn 2 gurmag or wait later on to have a denial up and fall behind in tempo.

Did that serum visions scry right?

Did I forget mishfas baubles stupid ass trigger?


Come on, man. GDS is very difficult to play well consistently. More so than s majority of moderns combo decks.


Also, gds has been quietly having good results. It did very well in regionals, mtgo dailies. You could clearly see its results bolster.

Until power creep occurs, GDS is too powerful to truly be tier 2 in power level. It's a legacy deck in modern.

Quote from idSurge »

I played a bunch of Pauper, and there is a ton of simility between UB Delver in Pauper, GDS in Modern, and UB DS/Delver in Legacy.

Quote from Galerion »

GDS is certainly hard to play. After jamming games with it and even winning most of them I don't know if I want to stick with the deck though. It's best played aggressively and that's not really my jam. Despite being a fair disruptive deck the nut draws of the deck can be ridiculous though. Just played a game where my opponent conceded at the end of my third turn since he was dead on board while I still had Stubborn Denial up. Game 2 I won through multiple Lingering Souls castings and a Emrakul, the Aeons Torn that was brought into play by a Polymorph. It's too bad I only play online since I can imagine the salt levels of my opponent being high after getting stomped so hard.

It's obvious why people love the deck but don't think it's something for me. I like my games going longer and getting to play with more powerful/expensive cards and it looks like UW/x and GB/x are still the best avenues for that. Granted Im intrigued by the UB Faeries/Control list that Yuta Takahashi played at GP Atlanta and GP Portland and has done very well with. Granted he is simply a very good player which would explain his finishes but there might be something more to it. Unfortunately it would cost me roughly 200 dollars to build it and that's a tough sell with the big unknown factor that looms over the deck.

I'd give that Faeries deck a look. I was going to buy in, but I dont want to put out of the Bitterblossom, but otherwise I agree with you. I dont mind messing around with 'lol 4 Phoenix turn 2' or Bloo, or whatever, but its not my style.

I'd rather stop people from doing something busted (KCI that I just played against AGAIN online) and then win on the back of a Delver, or Mentor.

Yeah I just saw it in your signature. Sweet.
I toyed with an Esper deck playing stuff like Monastery Mentor, Myth Realized and Narset Transcendent when those cards were released. It was decent but probably nothing more but obviously that was in a time where things were a bit chaotic in format. Im actually a big fan of Mentor in general despite not being the greatest fan of creatures. The card is badass on all fronts. Great art, great flavor text and obviously the card itself closes out games very quickly. He is great in Legacy and Vintage but they obviously have so much cheap powerful cards that we simply don't have in Modern currently.

I appreciate the work ESPER is my favorite color trio. Here hoping Ravnica Allegiance gives Azorius and/or Orzhov something that makes it good or at least viable.

Esper is definitely my favorite too if my signature hasn't given that away already.
It's a bit of a funny color combo though along with Sultai because you would think those would be a great color combos if you look at all the power that is in those colors but nothing has really panned out yet.

Well it's like I was saying. Is Infect weak? Is Bloo weak? How about Jund?

A lot of time we (I do it all the time) get hung up on Top 8, Top 16, whatever, but the reality is you could prepared for Humans, and KCI and Tron, and play nothing but Burn, Grishoalbrand, and GW Hatebears.

If you are playing powerful cards, especially in a world with less things like Twin, you can find success.

I'm winning more than losing.

Quote from Galerion »

Esper is definitely my favorite too if my signature hasn't given that away already.
It's a bit of a funny color combo though along with Sultai because you would think those would be a great color combos if you look at all the power that is in those colors but nothing has really panned out yet.

Two things lack of powerful multicolor cards based on the color the pairs and the third being okay and not great at weakness covering. I think especially it boils down to UB and UG only wanting one color these days Red and White respectively basically its important to rate the power of Color Pairs not just the Individual Colors.

Quote from Galerion »

Esper is definitely my favorite too if my signature hasn't given that away already.
It's a bit of a funny color combo though along with Sultai because you would think those would be a great color combos if you look at all the power that is in those colors but nothing has really panned out yet.

There are a lot of reasons for this, but a major one is the lack of red. If Bolt was banned in some godforsaken other realm, BUG and Esper would rise up quite a bit.

I was thinking about all this while I was sweating to death in my sauna, and its borderline relevant to the discussion above about GDS and 'difficulty'.

Difficulty is to me, simply about how many choices you have. If you are playing a Xerox deck, you have choices, and often many of them throughout a game.

Is Seize, Seize, Double DS with Stubborn up 'hard'? No, but thats not normal either. Mountain, Steam Vents, Manamorphose, double Faithless, 'Go to Combat, 4 Phoenix Triggers' is not 'hard' either. Thats magic.

I do believe that choices are what makes or breaks a deck being hard, but it also makes things smoother, by giving you those choices

That said, I'm sure someone can point out I'm just a biased Blue mage elitist...

Yeah Red has good cheap direct damage for getting that last bit of reach on life totals and clearing out small weak creatures and its pretty good at killing artifacts. Plus Rakdos provides some very nice spells in Terminate, Dreadbore and of course K-Command. Granted Golgari also has some nice cheap and effective dual color cards which quite frankly is what lets most color pairs down. How many good 2 or 3 cost spells can most color pairs actually count on?

The scenarios that are described don't seem any harder than playing Dredge. I play Bogles, Titanshift, Amulet, KCI, and I think Dredge is a super easy deck to play. People act like Shadow doesn't have free wins just like any other deck in the format.

I don't play MTGO, but honestly I wish I could just watch someone do a League with GDS while I can comment. Other than that, there really is no way to prove anything. It's okay to agree to disagree. I am a Combo player, yet, KCI is a deck that I would goldfish before I play it. In fact that's what I did for 2 weeks. GDS is a deck that I could just pick up and play. As long as I take a certain time to think out decisions, try not to miss the few triggers (compared with Dredge) that are around, I should be fine. I was watching a GDS player play last FNM when my match was over. I thought, he should definitely keep up Disdainful Stroke instead of deploying a threat. Sure, he had 2 mana only, so he's not furthering his board, but his opponent was on Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl. You have to prepare for the spell that will cost 4 mana next turn. …….

Here's the thing FCG, nobody is (or lol should) be saying KCI is easy. Its not. Its slow, awkward, and requires knowledge of loops that are not intuitive, a big reason for that is choices.

GDS has PLENTY of room for choices. It also has room for brain dead hands as we all know, but thats nearly every deck in this game. Not format. GAME.

People get a little defensive about their pet decks. This game is not rocket science at the level in which most of us are playing.

Mulligan when you should.
Know the decks you are playing AGAINST.
Know the deck you are playing.

It's not that complex after that, it just isnt.

My best friend plays Dredge, so I've played his deck quite a bit, and it's not even close between that deck and GDS. The mulligan decision is usually the most important decision you make on Dredge, because once the game starts you basically follow the same formula: get a dredger into the graveyard, dredge until you hit a loam, getting your free ***** in the process, start loaming your lands to build up for a big Conflagrate. The only really skill intensive thing you can do with Dredge is knowing when to decline your Bloodghast triggers to play around sweepers like Anger. Otherwise the deck basically plays itself.

As for GDS, sure, you could pick it up and play, but you won't play it well. You'll lose a lot, and you'll think to yourself, "Why do people think this deck is good? I can't win an f'n game!" For instance, in the example you gave I'm absolutely deploying the threat. First, you have to kill your opponent before he ramps into the really scary stuff. I'm also not really worried about the 4 drops from green devotion or ponza, I'm more worried about the bigger stuff they want to ramp into. Even if I counter like a Garruk, he's still going to have 4+ mana the next turn and possibly have another scary thing. Basically, the game isn't getting better for you if it keeps going long, so you need to end the game quickly.

And yeah, Shadow does have some free wins where you land two Shadows on turn 2 and kill your opponent on 3, but those draws are pretty rare. I played the deck for a year and a half, and I think I only got a turn 3 kill like once or twice. The typical good draw is a turn ~4.5 kill if you're not interacted with.

Eh...I've now deleted 3 posts.

I dont think anything is gained by discussing the merits or difficulty of 'decks'.