I like your Manamorphose build Spooly. I think its the right way for the deck, since I hated delirium as it is soo dependant on the matchup. With Manamorphose, getting an instant into the yard is the right way.
I think those things will get into the primer as soon as I am able to update it. Need to rethink sideboarding though.
Did you have any matchups where you sided out Manamorphose for example? I feel that those and Bauble never come out.
Never sided it out. I could see siding out a Traverse in some spots, and Street Wraith gets shaved in a lot of obvious matchups, but also against some grindy matchups. But those two I have a hard time seeing when I'd want to trim them. Maybe manamorphose gets trimmed against Thalia decks? That's the only possibility that occurs to me.
Did you miss Grim Flayer at all or is it just not necessary now that we have an easy time getting delirium?
Flayer would still be pretty good. You still get stuck with Traverse in hand but only 3 card types in your graveyard from time to time, even if it's less often. Plus, the card selection Flayer provides while racing degenerate matchups can be invaluable. Digging to TBR or the right piece of removal or countermagic or Fulminator is real. But there's just no room. I've considered cutting a piece of interaction for a Flayer, but haven't been able to bring myself to do it. Maybe an IoK.
I am running very close to the same list except with Opt instead of Manamorphose. Does the randomness of the card draw hurt a lot or do you find that so much of the deck is relevant that card selection just isn't that important?
I am running very close to the same list except with Opt instead of Manamorphose. Does the randomness of the card draw hurt a lot or do you find that so much of the deck is relevant that card selection just isn't that important?
The first key difference is that Opt costs mana while Manamorphose is "free." This allows you to fill up your graveyard for delirium and to make Goyf big without costing you tempo, which is very important. Turn 2 Manamorphose, Traverse for Shadow, play Shadow is a thing that happens with surprising regularity, while turn 2 Traverse for Shadow + play Shadow is a lot harder when you have Opt in your deck.
The second key difference is that Manamorphose fixes your mana. Yes, this is nice against mana denial and such. I don't want to discount that, but I want to focus on something else: the mana fixing of Manamorphose generates tempo as well. Often in 4/5 color decks you lose tempo because you can't cast two spells in a single turn due to color requirements, but one of the key strengths of Shadow decks in general is that they start double spelling on turn 2, which generates gobs of tempo. Suppose for example you have Breeding Pool + fetch in your opener, but you want to cast two black spells on turn 2. Discard spells, Fatal Push, Death's Shadow, who cares. If you don't draw another land, which is pretty common, you're likely to waste a mana on turn 2 with one mana spells in your hand. But with Manamorphose you get to double spell, which can often majorly put your opponent on the back foot.
To go further with the second point, when your 2 land hand has two fetches, often you feel compelled to not fetch the Breeding Pool just so you can cast all of the cheap black spells in your hand. If you never draw another land, you're going to be missing a color, and that might cause negative tempo later when you can't cast e.g. a TBR or a Stub, depending on how you fetched. But if you have a Manamorphose in your hand, you can safely get Blood Crypt + Breeding Pool, and save the Morphose for a key turn where you need BB or GG or whatever, and drastically reduce the risk of losing tempo.
Opt does provide much better card selection than Manamorphose*, but you have to compare it to the tempo Manamorphose gives you. And fundamentally, I think Death's Shadow shells are better suited to maximizing tempo than card selection. Though obviously I'd play brainstorm if you gave it to me :D.
*Manamorphose provides card selection for the same reasons that Street Wraith does - i.e. combine with Bauble and ways to shuffle your deck. But this comes up far less often than with Street Wraith since you usually cast Baubles immediately. But maybe sometimes you shouldn't when you have a Manamorphose in your hand!
But maybe sometimes you shouldn't when you have a Manamorphose in your hand!
I'm probably being retarded here but why shouldn't you? You can always crack it before the manamorphose to see what colors you need but there's nothing keeping you from casting it, right?
Took the build for a spin today, almost feels like I'm playing Storm at times.. Just insane.
But maybe sometimes you shouldn't when you have a Manamorphose in your hand!
I'm probably being retarded here but why shouldn't you? You can always crack it before the manamorphose to see what colors you need but there's nothing keeping you from casting it, right?
Took the build for a spin today, almost feels like I'm playing Storm at times.. Just insane.
Because you can't cast Manamorphose until turn two - maybe I should have made that explicit!
I'm picking up Shadow again after awhile away, I feel like I have a relatively good understanding of the way Shadow decks work. My question is more relevant to deck construction and how to approach grindy matchups. Metagames obviously differ from region to region, paper vs online. At my LGS the metagame is made up of a bunch of grindy midrange decks, there is a lot of Jund, and it is also made up of Jace decks (UWx control). Given that these are tough matchups for Shadow how would you approach? I agree with @Spooly that these are matchups where Lingering Souls certainly helps but doesn't move the needle by a lot. So I was wondering how you approach these matchups? Do you go hard on the Souls plan? are there other grindy cards which have served you well? is Tireless Tracker any good? How many Hazorets is too many? How do you attack Jace effectively?
But maybe sometimes you shouldn't when you have a Manamorphose in your hand!
I'm probably being retarded here but why shouldn't you? You can always crack it before the manamorphose to see what colors you need but there's nothing keeping you from casting it, right?
Took the build for a spin today, almost feels like I'm playing Storm at times.. Just insane.
Because you can't cast Manamorphose until turn two - maybe I should have made that explicit!
AKA we need to make some room for 4 simian spirit guides! On a somewhat related note, I managed to get myself down to the coveted 7 life minimum in turn 1 for the first time ever during FNM yesterday. Still lost against Titanshift though.
I'm picking up Shadow again after awhile away, I feel like I have a relatively good understanding of the way Shadow decks work. My question is more relevant to deck construction and how to approach grindy matchups. Metagames obviously differ from region to region, paper vs online. At my LGS the metagame is made up of a bunch of grindy midrange decks, there is a lot of Jund, and it is also made up of Jace decks (UWx control). Given that these are tough matchups for Shadow how would you approach? I agree with @Spooly that these are matchups where Lingering Souls certainly helps but doesn't move the needle by a lot. So I was wondering how you approach these matchups? Do you go hard on the Souls plan? are there other grindy cards which have served you well? is Tireless Tracker any good? How many Hazorets is too many? How do you attack Jace effectively?
Like Spooly said, get under them and stay under them. Disrupt, land a threat, counter theirs. Attack their mana with Fulminators to keep them from getting the upper hand. Tracker is slow and plays the grindy game just like Souls do - Jund is simply better at that so we don't want to get to that point to begin with. 2 Hazorets is too many, I'd say. Jace can be disposed of with Thoughtseize / Stubborn Denial / Delay, or attacked with Hazoret.
I'm picking up Shadow again after awhile away, I feel like I have a relatively good understanding of the way Shadow decks work. My question is more relevant to deck construction and how to approach grindy matchups. Metagames obviously differ from region to region, paper vs online. At my LGS the metagame is made up of a bunch of grindy midrange decks, there is a lot of Jund, and it is also made up of Jace decks (UWx control). Given that these are tough matchups for Shadow how would you approach? I agree with @Spooly that these are matchups where Lingering Souls certainly helps but doesn't move the needle by a lot. So I was wondering how you approach these matchups? Do you go hard on the Souls plan? are there other grindy cards which have served you well? is Tireless Tracker any good? How many Hazorets is too many? How do you attack Jace effectively?
To be honest, I'd maybe play a different deck. Punish them with Tron. If you still want to play a Death's Shadow deck, I think Grixis matches up much better against Jund specifically because 1) snapcaster allows you to go fairly toe to toe with them in card advantage, 2) they have surprisingly few ways to kill delve creatures, 3) you can MD LotV to become even grindier, and 4) you can SB either P&K or Godless Shrine + Souls which combined with the Snapcasters and LotVs, and some number of SB LtlH/K Command, allows you to maybe go over the top of them postboard. Just watch out for fulminator. Against other midrange decks, the major differences are how many ways they have to kill delve creatures, and if they play Lingering Souls or something similar.
Against the control decks, I suspect traverse is better though. Like whocansay said, get under them and stay under them with Fulminator, especially to knock off pesky manlands. The best way to handle Jace is to force them to play it on a precarious board state, or to lure them into playing it into a surprise hasty Hazoret. Hazzy really shines as a Jace killer, though Purge & Path will sometimes get you. You could certainly play two Hazzy if you wanted, but more than that is a lot. Also, Jace is on your own side is great in these matchups, especially to the extent that they don't have many creatures. After they expend all of their resources dealing with your initial onslaught, Jace is usually a KO.
So I am guessing our worst matchups right now center around Jund and Control Decks.
I am going to start testing out a semi transformational sideboard versus these 2 decks to give us more threats.
Some combination of Bedlam Reveler & Bloodbraid Elf to see how they work. I think I can reasonable give 6-8 cards as a whole to these two matchups and not have the sideboard suffer versus the rest of the field.
Storm, Titanshift, Tron, Bogles, Affinity, Infect all feel slightly favorable to me and 1-2 sideboard slots help keep it favorable.
Humans and Dredge still seems slightly unfavorable and that is probably the matchups I choose to not devote anything too (Outside of 1-2 sweepers that come in versus other decks.
I'll report back when I have some results but if anyone wants to join me in testing I think it could prove beneficial.
I've adopted the 4 manamorphose 0 Lilly maindeck list and have been very impressed with it as I find I'm hitting my TBRs more often and winning more against stuff like Elves and affinity in game one. For the board I've got 2 Lilly and 4 lingering souls which is what I bring in for control and Jund. I've been liking this configuration quite a lot especially because I find myself stealing a lot of game ones against bad matchups with discard into shadow into TBR.
Lingering Souls seems much better positioned against this metagame than Stubborn Denial, but this list is heavy on the blue. Manamporhose also wants a more proactive gameplan and Souls is a better fit.
Thoughts on 4 Manamorphose going forward?
Oh hey, that's me
I've been advocating for 4 manamorphose in this thread for a long time (ok, since the PT). It turns on delirium and helps fight through the mana denial running around. For example it won me g3 of the last round of that league by allowing me to cast TBR with only a Forest and a Breeding Pool in play vs. mono white taxes. Plus, you see your most important cards more often. TBR is now 2/48 cards in the deck instead of 2/52. You will find it even more often.
I really like this MD going forward, except -1 Watery Grave, +1 Overgrown Tomb. The extra blue source was a concession to being able to cast Jace through Field of Ruin, but I'm not entirely sure I want Jace in the SB anyway. I really like the 2 decays right now because of all the Bogles running around.
The SB is a bit of mess, but some quick thoughts:
Grim Lavamancer often feels too slow / not really what this deck want to do. I'm thinking of cutting it. But it's occasionally very strong. Radiant Flames, on the other hand, I'm more apt to cut. I'd like to get 2 Abrade in the SB, and that's the first thing to go. Maybe the Lavaman too, maybe not.
Fulminator is your plan against grindy decks, especially control. Try to get under them and stay under them, and prevent manlands from being so obnoxious. It's also the plan in the pseudo-mirror. Can't lose to Lingering Souls if they can't cast it. We're still a dog in most of the grindy matchups, but I'm fine taking my lumps there and beating up on the rest of the format.
Delay has been super impressive. The downside still hasn't come back to bite me, except that I don't side Delay in vs Uxy control where I might side Stroke in. On the other hand, Delay comes in vs. Burn, Bogles, Living End, etc., where Stroke doesn't, and I keep winning games vs Tron variants because Delay can counter stuff like Relic, O Stone, Chalice, etc. I also expect it to be good vs. Amulet in the same way, but I haven't run into them yet.
Jace has only seemed good against the control decks, but less so against stuff like Jund or the pseudomirrors. If that's really the case, he probably isn't worth it --- too narrow. Hazoret, on the other hand, has been gas. I've been calling her Hazoret, the Jace Killer. And she's even better against Jund and the like.
Ninja edit: I'm intentionally not trying to grind people out with Lingering Souls or BBE because I think Shadow decks will be naturally disadvantaged at that. It's mostly playing right into UWR or Jund's hands to try to prolong the game, because they have much better cards than us going long, plus manlands. Lingering Souls is still very good against them and does improve both matchups, but I don't think it moves the needle enough to be worth it. The BBE builds are a different story, but I kept losing to random bolts + manlands (especially Tar Pit and Colonnade) even when I was grinding them into the dust with BBE, so I'm a bit skeptical there too.
Pretty interested on your thoughts on Abrade if you care to share?:)
Abrade is amazing vs. BR Hollow One and Affinity, is a much needed removal spell that kills both Mantis Rider and Mirran Crusader against Humans, is a piece of artifact destruction against Lantern and Chalice decks, is better than a Thoughtseize against Burn (and we have A LOT of bad things to side out), and is otherwise a removal spell for when it's good to have another one of those (Elves, Merfolk, Zoo, Counters Company, etc.). It's just so flexible and helps in so many matchups.
Spooly - could we get something akin to a rough sideboarding guide for your current list? I value your opinion the most in this thread and would love to get some general guidelines on it as I'm not always sure what makes sense. Do we keep Stubborn Denial in against Jund since we want to go under them and protect our threats? What's the correct Wraith / Seize split against Affinity? Etc...
Thanks in advance.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Never sided it out. I could see siding out a Traverse in some spots, and Street Wraith gets shaved in a lot of obvious matchups, but also against some grindy matchups. But those two I have a hard time seeing when I'd want to trim them. Maybe manamorphose gets trimmed against Thalia decks? That's the only possibility that occurs to me.
Flayer would still be pretty good. You still get stuck with Traverse in hand but only 3 card types in your graveyard from time to time, even if it's less often. Plus, the card selection Flayer provides while racing degenerate matchups can be invaluable. Digging to TBR or the right piece of removal or countermagic or Fulminator is real. But there's just no room. I've considered cutting a piece of interaction for a Flayer, but haven't been able to bring myself to do it. Maybe an IoK.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
The first key difference is that Opt costs mana while Manamorphose is "free." This allows you to fill up your graveyard for delirium and to make Goyf big without costing you tempo, which is very important. Turn 2 Manamorphose, Traverse for Shadow, play Shadow is a thing that happens with surprising regularity, while turn 2 Traverse for Shadow + play Shadow is a lot harder when you have Opt in your deck.
The second key difference is that Manamorphose fixes your mana. Yes, this is nice against mana denial and such. I don't want to discount that, but I want to focus on something else: the mana fixing of Manamorphose generates tempo as well. Often in 4/5 color decks you lose tempo because you can't cast two spells in a single turn due to color requirements, but one of the key strengths of Shadow decks in general is that they start double spelling on turn 2, which generates gobs of tempo. Suppose for example you have Breeding Pool + fetch in your opener, but you want to cast two black spells on turn 2. Discard spells, Fatal Push, Death's Shadow, who cares. If you don't draw another land, which is pretty common, you're likely to waste a mana on turn 2 with one mana spells in your hand. But with Manamorphose you get to double spell, which can often majorly put your opponent on the back foot.
To go further with the second point, when your 2 land hand has two fetches, often you feel compelled to not fetch the Breeding Pool just so you can cast all of the cheap black spells in your hand. If you never draw another land, you're going to be missing a color, and that might cause negative tempo later when you can't cast e.g. a TBR or a Stub, depending on how you fetched. But if you have a Manamorphose in your hand, you can safely get Blood Crypt + Breeding Pool, and save the Morphose for a key turn where you need BB or GG or whatever, and drastically reduce the risk of losing tempo.
Opt does provide much better card selection than Manamorphose*, but you have to compare it to the tempo Manamorphose gives you. And fundamentally, I think Death's Shadow shells are better suited to maximizing tempo than card selection. Though obviously I'd play brainstorm if you gave it to me :D.
*Manamorphose provides card selection for the same reasons that Street Wraith does - i.e. combine with Bauble and ways to shuffle your deck. But this comes up far less often than with Street Wraith since you usually cast Baubles immediately. But maybe sometimes you shouldn't when you have a Manamorphose in your hand!
I'm probably being retarded here but why shouldn't you? You can always crack it before the manamorphose to see what colors you need but there's nothing keeping you from casting it, right?
Took the build for a spin today, almost feels like I'm playing Storm at times.. Just insane.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Because you can't cast Manamorphose until turn two - maybe I should have made that explicit!
I'm picking up Shadow again after awhile away, I feel like I have a relatively good understanding of the way Shadow decks work. My question is more relevant to deck construction and how to approach grindy matchups. Metagames obviously differ from region to region, paper vs online. At my LGS the metagame is made up of a bunch of grindy midrange decks, there is a lot of Jund, and it is also made up of Jace decks (UWx control). Given that these are tough matchups for Shadow how would you approach? I agree with @Spooly that these are matchups where Lingering Souls certainly helps but doesn't move the needle by a lot. So I was wondering how you approach these matchups? Do you go hard on the Souls plan? are there other grindy cards which have served you well? is Tireless Tracker any good? How many Hazorets is too many? How do you attack Jace effectively?
AKA we need to make some room for 4 simian spirit guides! On a somewhat related note, I managed to get myself down to the coveted 7 life minimum in turn 1 for the first time ever during FNM yesterday. Still lost against Titanshift though.
Like Spooly said, get under them and stay under them. Disrupt, land a threat, counter theirs. Attack their mana with Fulminators to keep them from getting the upper hand. Tracker is slow and plays the grindy game just like Souls do - Jund is simply better at that so we don't want to get to that point to begin with. 2 Hazorets is too many, I'd say. Jace can be disposed of with Thoughtseize / Stubborn Denial / Delay, or attacked with Hazoret.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
To be honest, I'd maybe play a different deck. Punish them with Tron. If you still want to play a Death's Shadow deck, I think Grixis matches up much better against Jund specifically because 1) snapcaster allows you to go fairly toe to toe with them in card advantage, 2) they have surprisingly few ways to kill delve creatures, 3) you can MD LotV to become even grindier, and 4) you can SB either P&K or Godless Shrine + Souls which combined with the Snapcasters and LotVs, and some number of SB LtlH/K Command, allows you to maybe go over the top of them postboard. Just watch out for fulminator. Against other midrange decks, the major differences are how many ways they have to kill delve creatures, and if they play Lingering Souls or something similar.
Against the control decks, I suspect traverse is better though. Like whocansay said, get under them and stay under them with Fulminator, especially to knock off pesky manlands. The best way to handle Jace is to force them to play it on a precarious board state, or to lure them into playing it into a surprise hasty Hazoret. Hazzy really shines as a Jace killer, though Purge & Path will sometimes get you. You could certainly play two Hazzy if you wanted, but more than that is a lot. Also, Jace is on your own side is great in these matchups, especially to the extent that they don't have many creatures. After they expend all of their resources dealing with your initial onslaught, Jace is usually a KO.
4 Death's Shadow
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
3 Fatal Push
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Temur Battle Rage
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Breeding Pool
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
1 Fatal Push
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Collective Brutality
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Golgari Charm
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Seal of Primordium
Traverse and Snapcaster lets you turn Traverse into a spell and Snapcaster into a creature.
BGWAbzanBGW
GBGB RockGB
BGRJundBGR
I am going to start testing out a semi transformational sideboard versus these 2 decks to give us more threats.
Some combination of Bedlam Reveler & Bloodbraid Elf to see how they work. I think I can reasonable give 6-8 cards as a whole to these two matchups and not have the sideboard suffer versus the rest of the field.
Storm, Titanshift, Tron, Bogles, Affinity, Infect all feel slightly favorable to me and 1-2 sideboard slots help keep it favorable.
Humans and Dredge still seems slightly unfavorable and that is probably the matchups I choose to not devote anything too (Outside of 1-2 sweepers that come in versus other decks.
I'll report back when I have some results but if anyone wants to join me in testing I think it could prove beneficial.
Pretty interested on your thoughts on Abrade if you care to share?:)
Thanks in advance.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki