I do admit that Tron is a pretty hit and miss matchup for this deck. We either set up well and fast for our opponent can't get Tron together to matter or they manage to have answers to out board and plan. In my local meta, we have a pretty big turnout with Tron variants (i.e., Eldrazi, Mono U, Gifts, R/G, G/W, etc.) and have noticed that Tron is usually a pretty hard matchup. I usually see Death's Shadow style decks run at least 2-3 sideboard Fulminator Mage to combat Tron along with also running Surgical Extraction and sometimes Extirpate.
That's unfortunate, Purkle. We all have bad days, tilt, and then tilt more because we were on tilt.
That being said, it's hard to know what happened without seeing what these hands look like in your openers. I was straight up bombing with the Shadow deck for a while despite a lot of time playing Jund/Junk, but it's really started to click. A lot of my games are close due to the nature of the deck, but I've started to get to the point where I can outgrind heavy removal.
I noticed you mentioned having traverse with no delirium, and that took me some time to pick up on the deck. You have to be very careful about the hands you keep, something like 1 land, 2 shadows, a traverse, and no way to fill up your graveyard or damage yourself may look deceptively fantastic, but you have to think
Can I pump out my shadow quickly?
Can I fetch a Shadow/Tarmogoyf quickly?
Am I racing, or do I have discard and removal to grind against this opposing interactive deck?
The hands are deceptive, but that being said, the deck mulls fine. I actually think the Flayer/Noble Junk decks mull a lot worse.
Death's shadow won a GP, the open the week after, and more top 8's, constantly on mtgo, along with 9% of the meta---that didn't just accidentally happen off the back of hype alone. The deck IS that powerful with relatively few bad matchups.
Outside of facing Abzan, your matchups were all 50/50 or better, AD Nauseum only wins by keeping a solid hand with leyline and you keeping a hand that involves mostly discard.
The deck doesn't lose to grindy matchups, I've beaten Jund, grixis, sultai, etc. Can you give us an idea on how you were sideboarding?
You're mainly a Tron player, right? Do you mainly play combos, midrange, or just an all around player? I've learned about myself that no matter how hard I try, I cannot play creature aggro decks no matter how much I try (hence, why I sold affinity).
The hands I was mulling (to answer you and the other comment immediately above yours) were stuff like:
- No lands, no baubles, no traverses, no Street wraiths; goyf, liliana, shadow, kommand, couple of discard spells. 100% can't keep. (very similar hands happened in round 1, 2, 4, 5 I think. I made notes I'll check them to confirm)
- Four lands, three discard spells (round 2)
- Four lands, three goyfs (round 4)
- basic swamp, 2x traverse, kommand, abrupt decay, push, push (round 3 against unknown opponent)
- Six lands. (can't remember what round)
Examples of hands I kept after mulliganing;
Mull to 5- One land, street wraith, inquisition, Goyf, thoughtseize (seemed fine in a vacuum, and I got my second land, but then I drew successive traverses and couldn't get delirium online, meanwhile my opponent drew gas and pushed my single threat, winning in short order)
mull to 6- thoughtseize, thoughtseize, land, land, shadow, shadow. (this seemed on the face of it to be a decent one-two punch of disruption into a very quick death's shadow. In reality my opponent was holding a grip of four removal spells and drew into threats while I topdecked Street wraiths, lands and traverses and didn't have delirium)
There's more but it all follows the same pattern;
- When I needed delirium I got stuck on land/creature/sorcery
- When I drew a balanced hand, the deck followed it up with jank and over a couple of turns this would let my opponent overwhelm my initial disruption or pressure.
- Or I just had to Mulligan to five or four.
With regards to variance, while I had a great start with the deck (nearly 2 months ago now) & it seemed to play out much like I saw on stream at the GP, with some fairly lucky or busted draws and a quick clock, this has seemed to falter and get worse over time. I've been focusing on getting in the reps with the deck (in fact yesterday was again an effort in getting in the reps and games with the deck as I fully intended to run the deck at the Modern GP in August) but the more I've played the deck over the past weeks, the worse my win percentage has got. The larger my sample size has become, the more the deck has been inconsistent and topdecked badly.
I make notes of my games and the number of marks next to losses which were out of my control are stupid. Stuff like not being able to get red mana all game, or not getting delirium and drawing traverse, or drawing too much of the mediocre "filler" in the deck like baubles when what I really needed was an impactful card on that exact turn.
I compare this experience to my first tournament with the deck (which I won). At the right moments I drew the answers I needed, I drew the impactful cards on time, and the fluff/filler part of the deck stayed hidden allowing me to push through removal or swing for large amounts with battle rage. I also managed to consistently get delirium on turn 1 or 2, and find threat-after-threat in the right order to win my games, backed up by disruption.
That tournament was lucky. When watching someone at the tournament yesterday who was doing well with shadow, the same thing was happening. He wasn't choosing particularly optimal lines of play or 'gaming' out his opponent skillfully (in fact I watched him miss a bauble trigger, GJ), he was just topdecking the battle rage on the turn before he died, or the singleton abrupt decay when literally nothing else would have saved him. He was lucky. The problem is though, that those lucky topdecks aren't what the deck does. The dude may have been winning, but on average the deck won't deliver those kinds of perfect-timing draws when you need them, because they are statistically exceptional. Meanwhile the 6 shadow players at the bottom tables were (as far as I could see) playing well, making good decisions but the deck was fully crapping out on them in a statistically average way.
I think one of the reasons I'm going to move away from the deck after investing so much time and money (tournament fees as well as the cards, easily over 120 matches) into the deck is because the individual card-quality in the deck is so low. It's a synergy-midrange deck and unfortunately with no proper card filtering, the synergy aspect of the deck lets it down. Unlike jund or abzan, your cards are individually much weaker, so anything except a decent starting hand (which seems tricky to come by) will result in a slower grindier game which you will most likely lose due to worse overall card quality than many other decks in modern. The fact you have to "switch on" half of the major parts of the deck in order for them to do *anything* has been a consistent issue during many of my games. The deck exists on a tenuous knife-edge between winning and losing almost 100% of the time and nothing makes you lose faster than drawing a completely dead card that doesn't do anything until it's "switched on".
Anyway it's not for me. I've seen people have good runs (and great luck) with the deck, and I've done well with it myself in an isolated instance, but I need to play a deck that either fixes its own consistency with filtering or has an overall higher card-quality for grinding out games (if that's its plan). I can't afford to have these issues at the GP and they are out of my control, so I'm going to put my hours into something else.
If you don't click with the deck, you don't click with it. I'd definitely go into a GP with something you feel really good about, you'd seriously regret it otherwise.
The deck is less of a good stuff deck than Jund or Abzan, but it also plays 6 less lands for them which means it's leaner and dangerous in a topdeck situation.
I dunno, I disagree with almost everything you said about this deck, maybe because I've been playing the GBx archetype in modern for a few years now
I've got a nice choice to pick from. One of the following:
Scapeshift (any version)
Tron (any version)
Eldrazi tron
Esper control
Turns (the spicy choice)
Delver (any variant)
Elves
Krark-clan ironworks
Jund (normal version)
Abzan
Eternal Command (the nostalgia choice)
Honestly I'm leaning towards scapeshift, tron or something wild like Turns at this stage. I feel like I want to be playing a deck that stomps grindy midrange rather than trying to battle it out with small increments, and can fight through a couple of discard spells, and that gets some small number of free wins. Those three decks do this, and I'm very good with all three, having thousands of games' worth in practice.
Will test KCI soon and see what that's about, as well, and I always come away from events with a disproportionately high record when playing eternal command, so there's always that option if I want to sleeve up some goyfs.
Cheers guys, see you round.
Private Mod Note
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I had a majority of the staples in modern and sold them off, I decided I wanted to focus just on GBx and keep burn on the side. I feel like I'm diluting myself playing too many decks, since modern is more about what you know than what the flavor of the month is. I did foil a lot of my GBx cards though, since I love the archetype so much.
Ironworks straight up closes to Stony Silence, Taking Turns is a crap deck, Tron is in a really bad spot, in my opinion. Esper Control will continue to be bad bad until SFM is unbanned, or at least a preordain.
Titanshift or Eldrazi Tron could spike a tournament if you dodge some matchups, although Titanshift doesn't do well against Death's Shadow, which is almost impossible to dodge in a big tournament.
I actually think Bant Eldrazi is in an awesome spot for a GP.
I don't really recall DS Zoo having such grave issues with inconsistency. Obviously Swiftspear got worse without Probe, but it had nearly double the threats and could play both the midrange and aggro games. I'm wondering if the disparity created in this jump toward midrange can be mitigated a bit more . I'm not really talking midrangey-blowout creatures, but just a few more to shore up the aggro angle (looking at Reid Duke's recent list, 10 creatures instead of 8, x2 Grim Flayer). Duke's list cut the red entirely, which I'm not crazy about, but maybe there's a compromise somewhere.
Just for your information guys: I finished with the Primer for the deck and messaged crexalbo to hand me over the primer so that I can implement my work. I need to contact the mods for how to do it actually. Last time in the Jund threat a simple swap was not possible and the threat had to be reopened, but I hope this time around things have changed in that regard. But I guess this can be the worst case and I want to mentioned it at this point.
I`ve seen a few lists running 1-2 Grim Flayers, this might be a good inclusion in the future if the main way to combat DSJ becomes / stays 1 for 1 removal instead of graveyard hate.
Yeah, Graveyard hate is only ok to run if its Nihil Spellbomb, as it cantrips. Other than that, its just attrition and grind that define those games.
So I was handed the primer for this deck and implemented primer for it. Please feel free to comment on it and give constructive feedback anytime! Hope this guide helps a bit.
I tested a ton of maindeck Ranger, it's extremely slow and I don't recommend it. When you want Ranger, you REALLY want him, but if he's in your opener against a deck you need to win fast against, it's almost like having a 6 card hand. He's purely a sideboard bomb.
Yeah, I don't necessarily like W cards mb. I've liked flayer in the deck mb befor. Even as a 2/2, if you can connect, you get to dig 3 cards and probably turn on delirium. He's also more copies of "goyf" to a less extent.
Grixis should be good in the mirror, yeah. I guess they are more resiliant than us, they don't need delirium, they don't need Bauble and don't need Tarfire. They can have more individual powerful cards. Their delve threats are quite a problem, for which reason I would never leave my house with a Terminate/Maelstrom Pulse in the SB. I even consider going up to both cards in the SB.
If Grixis splashes white, they shouldn't do it for Ranger at least since they don't have Traverse. But Souls makes sense.
Yeah, they've been running the package though. Ranger seems strong late game any shadow list nabbing 2 more shadows for you. I'll probably test grixis before Vegas, but I love Jund.
Yeah I agree. What I really like about Jund is TBR getting to steal games. Grixis doesn't run the card as they cannot make use of it as often as we do. Due to this, I think we have a slightly better game vs. Big Mana decks.
The meta is adjusting to Jund Shadow, honestly, we should consider that a blessing, because right now the decks reaching like 13-16% meta shares which is definitely going to get WOTC's to panic ban.
Decks like UW Control are literally creating decks to prey on Shadow. Did you see the deck Cheon posted, I don't see how Death Shadow ever beats that deck, like ever.
Oh, wow, looked on mtgo, you weren't kidding, it hasn't shown any 5-0 results lately.
Fine with me, I don't want the deck to do so well it see's a ban.
Have any of you guys played Grixis Shadow, how do you like it in comparison?
I wanted to try pure Abzan because it seems slightly better in the mirror (less bad cards than the Jund-based version) and against grindy matchups, but it has less straight removal for the matchups where you need to kill everything. In particular, I was hoping to play against Merfolk, Affinity, and Abzan Company. I got 1 out of 3, and the deck felt fine. I felt like I was playing normal Abzan midrange with much larger creatures. Some random thoughts on specific cards:
My experiences with the Jund version of the deck made me want more threats in the main. The extra Grim Flayer were extremely relevant and also Bolt-resistant, which was very relevant in the Jund matchup. Game 1 his hand was full of K-Command and Bolts, while my field was Goyfs, Flayers, and Lingering Souls. Flayer also plays well with Bauble and Street Wraith, and helps fuel delirium for Traverse.
I liked the 2 Souls in the main, and I was very happy to have the full 4 in the 75. Jund and Affinity were notably easier because I was just drawing Lingering Souls. I'll likely keep the 2-2 split for now.
Man did I miss Abrupt Decay. I've slowly been creeping up the number over the past few weeks, and for the games I played having 3 was a good thing. It's possible that the third one wants to be something like a Dismember, and at one point I'd toyed with it being a Maelstrom Pulse, which I'm still trying to find room for. I don't want it to be Path to Exile because my deck is so light on white cards in the main, I don't usually fetch up white mana game one unless I already have Souls in hand or just have a bunch of fetches.
I think that I want a Path to Exile instead of a Dismember in the sideboard. Dismember is there to solve bigger creatures, but I think that Path would have solved the same problems. Additionally, I like Path out of the side because I'm going to be bringing in other white cards (generally) in the matchups where I'd want Path (Affinity, B/G/x, U/B/x, Eldrazi) and my life total isn't under pressure in the matchups where I'm only bringing in Path (Valakut). The only matchup I can think of where I'd want Path, but none of the other white cards, and my lifetotal is under pressure is Merfolk.
I tried out a Flaying Tendrils in place of a third Stony Silence because I've played against either Merfolk, Affinity, or Abzan Company every week for the past several. Sure enough, it was a huge blowout against Affinity and it even took down an Etched Champion, so I'm inclined to keep it for now. I might not run it for a larger event, though.
I really liked having access to an Ooze in the side, and I would recommend it for anyone not currently playing one. I'm running him over my second Surgical.
Overall the list felt great, the only change I want to make right now is to swap the Dismember in my sideboard with a Path to Exile. Since it's something we've discussed before, I did cut all 8 discard spells against Jund and was happy with the result. It felt like I had enough threats that required a wide enough range of answers that I was able to just grind through removal instead of having to worry about picking it off.
The hands I was mulling (to answer you and the other comment immediately above yours) were stuff like:
- No lands, no baubles, no traverses, no Street wraiths; goyf, liliana, shadow, kommand, couple of discard spells. 100% can't keep. (very similar hands happened in round 1, 2, 4, 5 I think. I made notes I'll check them to confirm)
- Four lands, three discard spells (round 2)
- Four lands, three goyfs (round 4)
- basic swamp, 2x traverse, kommand, abrupt decay, push, push (round 3 against unknown opponent)
- Six lands. (can't remember what round)
Examples of hands I kept after mulliganing;
Mull to 5- One land, street wraith, inquisition, Goyf, thoughtseize (seemed fine in a vacuum, and I got my second land, but then I drew successive traverses and couldn't get delirium online, meanwhile my opponent drew gas and pushed my single threat, winning in short order)
mull to 6- thoughtseize, thoughtseize, land, land, shadow, shadow. (this seemed on the face of it to be a decent one-two punch of disruption into a very quick death's shadow. In reality my opponent was holding a grip of four removal spells and drew into threats while I topdecked Street wraiths, lands and traverses and didn't have delirium)
There's more but it all follows the same pattern;
- When I needed delirium I got stuck on land/creature/sorcery
- When I drew a balanced hand, the deck followed it up with jank and over a couple of turns this would let my opponent overwhelm my initial disruption or pressure.
- Or I just had to Mulligan to five or four.
With regards to variance, while I had a great start with the deck (nearly 2 months ago now) & it seemed to play out much like I saw on stream at the GP, with some fairly lucky or busted draws and a quick clock, this has seemed to falter and get worse over time. I've been focusing on getting in the reps with the deck (in fact yesterday was again an effort in getting in the reps and games with the deck as I fully intended to run the deck at the Modern GP in August) but the more I've played the deck over the past weeks, the worse my win percentage has got. The larger my sample size has become, the more the deck has been inconsistent and topdecked badly.
I make notes of my games and the number of marks next to losses which were out of my control are stupid. Stuff like not being able to get red mana all game, or not getting delirium and drawing traverse, or drawing too much of the mediocre "filler" in the deck like baubles when what I really needed was an impactful card on that exact turn.
I compare this experience to my first tournament with the deck (which I won). At the right moments I drew the answers I needed, I drew the impactful cards on time, and the fluff/filler part of the deck stayed hidden allowing me to push through removal or swing for large amounts with battle rage. I also managed to consistently get delirium on turn 1 or 2, and find threat-after-threat in the right order to win my games, backed up by disruption.
That tournament was lucky. When watching someone at the tournament yesterday who was doing well with shadow, the same thing was happening. He wasn't choosing particularly optimal lines of play or 'gaming' out his opponent skillfully (in fact I watched him miss a bauble trigger, GJ), he was just topdecking the battle rage on the turn before he died, or the singleton abrupt decay when literally nothing else would have saved him. He was lucky. The problem is though, that those lucky topdecks aren't what the deck does. The dude may have been winning, but on average the deck won't deliver those kinds of perfect-timing draws when you need them, because they are statistically exceptional. Meanwhile the 6 shadow players at the bottom tables were (as far as I could see) playing well, making good decisions but the deck was fully crapping out on them in a statistically average way.
I think one of the reasons I'm going to move away from the deck after investing so much time and money (tournament fees as well as the cards, easily over 120 matches) into the deck is because the individual card-quality in the deck is so low. It's a synergy-midrange deck and unfortunately with no proper card filtering, the synergy aspect of the deck lets it down. Unlike jund or abzan, your cards are individually much weaker, so anything except a decent starting hand (which seems tricky to come by) will result in a slower grindier game which you will most likely lose due to worse overall card quality than many other decks in modern. The fact you have to "switch on" half of the major parts of the deck in order for them to do *anything* has been a consistent issue during many of my games. The deck exists on a tenuous knife-edge between winning and losing almost 100% of the time and nothing makes you lose faster than drawing a completely dead card that doesn't do anything until it's "switched on".
Anyway it's not for me. I've seen people have good runs (and great luck) with the deck, and I've done well with it myself in an isolated instance, but I need to play a deck that either fixes its own consistency with filtering or has an overall higher card-quality for grinding out games (if that's its plan). I can't afford to have these issues at the GP and they are out of my control, so I'm going to put my hours into something else.
The deck is less of a good stuff deck than Jund or Abzan, but it also plays 6 less lands for them which means it's leaner and dangerous in a topdeck situation.
I dunno, I disagree with almost everything you said about this deck, maybe because I've been playing the GBx archetype in modern for a few years now
What deck(s) are you thinking of focusing on?
Scapeshift (any version)
Tron (any version)
Eldrazi tron
Esper control
Turns (the spicy choice)
Delver (any variant)
Elves
Krark-clan ironworks
Jund (normal version)
Abzan
Eternal Command (the nostalgia choice)
Honestly I'm leaning towards scapeshift, tron or something wild like Turns at this stage. I feel like I want to be playing a deck that stomps grindy midrange rather than trying to battle it out with small increments, and can fight through a couple of discard spells, and that gets some small number of free wins. Those three decks do this, and I'm very good with all three, having thousands of games' worth in practice.
Will test KCI soon and see what that's about, as well, and I always come away from events with a disproportionately high record when playing eternal command, so there's always that option if I want to sleeve up some goyfs.
Cheers guys, see you round.
I had a majority of the staples in modern and sold them off, I decided I wanted to focus just on GBx and keep burn on the side. I feel like I'm diluting myself playing too many decks, since modern is more about what you know than what the flavor of the month is. I did foil a lot of my GBx cards though, since I love the archetype so much.
Ironworks straight up closes to Stony Silence, Taking Turns is a crap deck, Tron is in a really bad spot, in my opinion. Esper Control will continue to be bad bad until SFM is unbanned, or at least a preordain.
Titanshift or Eldrazi Tron could spike a tournament if you dodge some matchups, although Titanshift doesn't do well against Death's Shadow, which is almost impossible to dodge in a big tournament.
I actually think Bant Eldrazi is in an awesome spot for a GP.
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
Yeah, Graveyard hate is only ok to run if its Nihil Spellbomb, as it cantrips. Other than that, its just attrition and grind that define those games.
So I was handed the primer for this deck and implemented primer for it. Please feel free to comment on it and give constructive feedback anytime! Hope this guide helps a bit.
I'm glad you gave up on traditional jund and came here (don't be actin like you didn't, you left those guys for dead).
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
Haha, thank you!
I will never leave Jund for good, its my duty to take care of the primer!
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
Grixis should be good in the mirror, yeah. I guess they are more resiliant than us, they don't need delirium, they don't need Bauble and don't need Tarfire. They can have more individual powerful cards. Their delve threats are quite a problem, for which reason I would never leave my house with a Terminate/Maelstrom Pulse in the SB. I even consider going up to both cards in the SB.
If Grixis splashes white, they shouldn't do it for Ranger at least since they don't have Traverse. But Souls makes sense.
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
Decks like UW Control are literally creating decks to prey on Shadow. Did you see the deck Cheon posted, I don't see how Death Shadow ever beats that deck, like ever.
Oh, wow, looked on mtgo, you weren't kidding, it hasn't shown any 5-0 results lately.
Fine with me, I don't want the deck to do so well it see's a ban.
Have any of you guys played Grixis Shadow, how do you like it in comparison?
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Forest
1x Godless Shrine
4x Marsh Flats
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Swamp
1x Temple Garden
4x Verdant Catacombs
Instant (7)
3x Abrupt Decay
4x Fatal Push
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Lingering Souls
4x Thoughtseize
4x Traverse the Ulvenwald
Creature (14)
4x Death's Shadow
2x Grim Flayer
4x Street Wraith
4x Tarmogoyf
Artifact (4)
4x Mishra's Bauble
Planeswalker (3)
3x Liliana of the Veil
2x Collective Brutality
1x Dismember
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Flaying Tendrils
3x Fulminator Mage
2x Lingering Souls
1x Ranger of Eos
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Stony Silence
1x Surgical Extraction
I wanted to try pure Abzan because it seems slightly better in the mirror (less bad cards than the Jund-based version) and against grindy matchups, but it has less straight removal for the matchups where you need to kill everything. In particular, I was hoping to play against Merfolk, Affinity, and Abzan Company. I got 1 out of 3, and the deck felt fine. I felt like I was playing normal Abzan midrange with much larger creatures. Some random thoughts on specific cards:
Overall the list felt great, the only change I want to make right now is to swap the Dismember in my sideboard with a Path to Exile. Since it's something we've discussed before, I did cut all 8 discard spells against Jund and was happy with the result. It felt like I had enough threats that required a wide enough range of answers that I was able to just grind through removal instead of having to worry about picking it off.