I know this will sound heretic, but hear me out. I've been playing with Mishra's Baubles in place of Thought Scours. I know the biggest downside of the slow cantrip is drawing it in topdeck wars, but otherwise the card has so many great interactions with Street Wraiths, fetchlands and Fatal Pushes. What I like the most about it is that I can freely cycle it in the early turns and dump my mana on discard and serum visions instead. I had no problems casting turn 2 Tasigurs and Anglers by just developing my plan. Also noteworthy is that I managed to have a functioning deck with only 2 lands in play. These land short hands are really rewarded by Bauble, while Scours often feel trapped in my hand.
Since I didn't see any mention to Bauble in the primer I figure I'd ask about it. Did anyone else give it a go? Are the disadvantages too big to be worth it?
I really appreciate your comments!
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Modern: BUR Grixis Death's Shadow/Control BUR & WBC Eldrazi & Taxes WBC
EDH: UG Edric, Spymaster of Goodstuff UG
I see where you getting at. Sometimes Thoughtscour is cool, sometimes it throws two non-land top decks and gives you a l land.
I also believe that if we have a Thoughtseize or a Thoughtscour and A Gurmag Angler or Tasigur, the Golden Fang on our starting hand, the correct strategy would be is to first disrupt their hand rather than play the Thoughtscour followed by the delving threat on turn two. The deck is designed to control their threats first via cheap, efficient disruption and removal then protect our limited threats to attack for the win most of the time.
Mishra's Bauble is great card but its a 4 of spell that can't be utilized by our Snapcaster Mage which I think makes this deck a blue one.
Yeah Mishras bauble is just plain bad in Grixis death shadow.
So I want to test Young Pyromancer in the sideboard as a 3 of, as some list have been running lately.
I would bring it in against all form of control decks and white decks by removing 2 gurmag angler and a though scour. I would also bring it against Jund for sure to edge against Lili of the veil.
I see where you getting at. Sometimes Thoughtscour is cool, sometimes it throws two non-land top decks and gives you a l land.
I also believe that if we have a Thoughtseize or a Thoughtscour and A Gurmag Angler or Tasigur, the Golden Fang on our starting hand, the correct strategy would be is to first disrupt their hand rather than play the Thoughtscour followed by the delving threat on turn two. The deck is designed to control their threats first via cheap, efficient disruption and removal then protect our limited threats to attack for the win most of the time.
Mishra's Bauble is great card but its a 4 of spell that can't be utilized by our Snapcaster Mage which I think makes this deck a blue one.
That first sentence says exactly nothing. The order in which the cards are on top of your library is most of the time random and the fact that you sometimes get unlucky with it doesn not say anything about the card.
Thought Scour is better in Grixis because we don´t need Delirium and have better card selection than the Jund version. Also it fuels our graveyard way better than Bauble. In the first 2 turns Scour is a Dark Ritual for Delve Threats, Bauble is more similar to Pyretic Ritual (adds only one mana).
Thus, especially for land-light hands Scour is more important because it generates more mana for the delve threats.
If your hand is 2 land Scour Seize and Delve threat, only one of those lands needs to be a fetchland to be able to cast seize on t1 and still scour into tasigur t2.
If both lands are fetches, you can even Angler. With Scour, you only need 5 cards (t1 play, 2 lands, Scour and delve threat) to resolve Angler or Tasigur t2. If you have Bauble instead, you need considerably more resources like more lands need to be fetches even for Tasigur or Street Wraiths.
Having spells in the graveyard for eot snapcaster is also important, but more importantly help fuel our Kommands if you play them and give you additional value for snappy by providing more options.
All I'm saying is the fact that Thoughtscour can sometimes mill out important cards because its random and yes, most of the time, we don't know what's on top of the library. I'm not saying the card is bad because it feeds the delve creatures that are cheap, big and most importantly, Fatal Push-Proof as early as T2.
What I'm pointing out is that the safe strategy would be to play a disrupt card on T1 especially if you don't know what deck the opponent is playing rather than Thoughtscour and play a disrupt and a delve threat on T2.
Thought Scour is our best cantrip by miles. There is so much graveyard utility in the deck from delve creatures, snappy and kcomm that it is almost always better to have cards in your graveyard than in your library. The grand exception to this rule is if you mill key shocklands and mana-screw yourself, but the odds of milling yourself out of a colour are ridiculously low.
I've been playing Grixis Shadow for the past 3 months, made 2 top 8s and a top 16 on regular events running different kinds of lists switching between the number of Fatal Pushes, Lightning Bolts, TBR and Kommands for a while.
One thing I can say is that the archetype made so many huge waves on Modern that the entire format had to adapt to it. I see quite regularly around here decks that tries its best to go wide, Death & Taxes variants and even the affinity players started to run more Etched Champions on maindeck so that they don't carelessly for running out of creatures. I've also seen opponents running lists such as Skred Red, RW Enchantments, etc.
Even on top tables, you can feel the waves that Shadow caused: Eldrazi Tron is one of the best decks in the format due to its capacity to run maindeck Chalice and still present a strong stream of threats.
Well, I'll try to get straight to the point: Decks adapted to Death's Shadow and I think the decks needs to adapt to them. I've been playing different lists almost every tournament I play, last week I even tried a 4-color variant splashing green for Decay nd Traverse, running only 4 Shadows as kill condition (Of which I fully regreted as soon as my opponent landed a Rest in Peace and I had 2 Traverse in hand), I've even tried more controlish builds running Cryptic Command and more Kolaghans. All of the gave me different results for different kinds of strategy.
So, I'd like to open up a few questions, as I feel that the more I'm testing the deck, the more I'm deviating it from its original list and leaning towards other options.
First and foremost, Most times i feel that 4 Delve threats are too much: Having two on the opening hand with few ways to use them at least on turn 3 feels really bad and most times it's a mulligan unless I have Scour and/or fetches or discard in hand.
As much as I believe that we need 8 threats, I am not sure if the really need the full 4. Perhaps we could look into other options ?
And since I'm talking about cutting delve threats, I'd like to say that I have a REAAALLY bad relationship with Thought Scour. It's like a recipe for frustration.
I mean, I understand all the pros of running it: Ramps out delve threats, fills the graveyard for Snapcaster, sometimes might save you from bad topdecking (such as he might simply take away 2 great answers/threats and give you a useless land or vice versa). But, if we cut 2 delve threts, could we run Opt instead ? We already have tons of fetches, discards and removals to fill out the graveyard and Opt only makes that difference if you REALLY need a threat by turn 2 (of which I admit, it happens quite often, specially against combo). I've been trying a list running only 2 Tasigurs as delve theats and I've been quite pleased with Opt.
Talking about threats, altough not a fast one, Liliana TLH has been making quite a great work on my lists as it stabilishes a strong late game clock, helps me replay my creature and refill my graveyard for either Snap or Tasigur/Angler. Also, her ultimate is the only one in a modern legal planeswalker with a reasonable cost that wins the game by itself. I've been running two, and the only MU I regret seeing her is against linear combo decks.
Another thing that I've been thinking is running 3 or 4 Lightning Bolts and 2 or 3 Fatal Pushes alongside Terinate.
Bolt doesn't kill a lot of threats that some of the top tiers but it works pretty well against the recent aggro decks on the surge and estabilishes a new clock for the opponent since you have potentially 6 to 8 bolt effects with Snapcaster Mage. Bolt Snap Bolt is incredibly threatening to a lot of players and helps you on both stabilizing the board and presenting a clock. Also, it kills Mirran Crusader.
On the number of disruptions. What are the thoughs on an additional IoK or two ? Most games we want discard on early turns and it also helps to protect or threats by giving more information before we land them. On the downside, discard is a bad topdeck, specially against agressive builds.
Well, that's all I've been thinking about. I'd like to hear your thoughts since I feel that I'm pushing the deck towards a lot of directions but I am not entirely sure of where the deck wants to be. I am sure we want, at least, the following
I spend some time in the beginning talking about Grixis Shadow, so it might be of interest to people here.
Your article says:
I won’t go so far as to say that 5 Color Shadow is strictly better than Grixis Shadow. There are two main advantages that Grixis has over 5 Color – resistance to Fatal Push and Abrupt Decay, and better against mana denial. If the format is loaded with Blood Moons, Grixis or maybe some other three color build is the better bet. If the format is loaded with Fatal Pushes and Abrupt Decays, delve creatures might as well have hexproof. But under most circumstances, if you think Grixis is the better build, I recommend thinking about how you might build 5 Color Shadow to accomplish the same goals. On the other hand, there’s probably a lot of space to experiment with adding colors to Grixis Shadow. Or adding Snapcaster Mage to 5 Color Shadow. At some point the decks just blend into each other and it’s not clear where to draw the line between the two. Both decks do have trouble with dedicated graveyard hate, so if the format is loaded with Rest in Peace, it’s probably time to juke and just Valakut or Affinity them. This is the secret vulnerability of the modern format: if you find a legit threat to pair with Death’s Shadow that does not depend on the graveyard, you probably just broke the format. No, it’s not Delver of Secrets. I said legit threat.
I've been thinking about this very thing: Both lists are weak to Graveyard hate and we DO need some kind o threat that isn't.
My issue with 5c Shadow is exactly that I think it is a lot more vulnerable to both graveyard and land hate than its 3 color counterpart, aside from its natural resistance to Fatal Push/Decay.
My issue with Grixis Shadow is the very same issue you have: Sometimes we spend too much turns doing absolutely nothing because we don't have threat.
Traverse is a great card alongside Shadows and even Goyfs, but I am note sure if this is where we want to be as Shadow players since it doesn't do anything when you've facing a leyline/RIP;
[quote from="Spooly »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-1-modern/774240-grixis-deaths-shadow?comment=1969"]
I've been thinking about this very thing: Both lists are weak to Graveyard hate and we DO need some kind o threat that isn't.
My issue with 5c Shadow is exactly that I think it is a lot more vulnerable to both graveyard and land hate...
Traverse is a great card alongside Shadows and even Goyfs, but I am note sure if this is where we want to be as Shadow players since it doesn't do anything when you've facing a leyline/RIP;
I don't think Grixis is meaningfully better vs. GY hate. Grixis has Snapcaster + delve creatures, Jund/5 color has Goyf + Traverse. Grixis has the edge vs. Rest in Peace because sometimes you can get a delve creature into play before it resolves, and a small edge from Snapcaster doing a little more than Traverse when under RiP or Leyline. 5 color has the edge vs. most non RiP graveyard hate because Goyf can rely on the opponent's graveyard - Leyline and Nihil Spellbomb being the two most common. So maybe 5 color is a little worse vs. graveyard hate on net, but there's not really much of a difference.
If graveyard/or all in threat is what you are concern about, why not just play young pyromancer in the main instead of angeler?
it doesn't turn on stubborn denial, requires you to have cards + spend mana to be good, and still dies to all the commonly played removal. it's fine, and if the format moves hard towards gy hate maybe it's worth it. but i'm not a fan right now.
If graveyard/or all in threat is what you are concern about, why not just play young pyromancer in the main instead of angeler?
First, because it doesn't turn on Stubborn Denials, which is a huge upside of every threat DS decks want to play.
Second, Pyromancer is counterintuictive with the deck's line of play: You want to first disrupt your opponent and then land a threat. Pyromancer is better if you drop it first and then disrupt your opponent through removal and countermagic.
[quote from="Spooly »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-1-modern/774240-grixis-deaths-shadow?comment=1969"]
I've been thinking about this very thing: Both lists are weak to Graveyard hate and we DO need some kind o threat that isn't.
My issue with 5c Shadow is exactly that I think it is a lot more vulnerable to both graveyard and land hate...
Traverse is a great card alongside Shadows and even Goyfs, but I am note sure if this is where we want to be as Shadow players since it doesn't do anything when you've facing a leyline/RIP;
I don't think Grixis is meaningfully better vs. GY hate. Grixis has Snapcaster + delve creatures, Jund/5 color has Goyf + Traverse. Grixis has the edge vs. Rest in Peace because sometimes you can get a delve creature into play before it resolves, and a small edge from Snapcaster doing a little more than Traverse when under RiP or Leyline. 5 color has the edge vs. most non RiP graveyard hate because Goyf can rely on the opponent's graveyard - Leyline and Nihil Spellbomb being the two most common. So maybe 5 color is a little worse vs. graveyard hate on net, but there's not really much of a difference.
</blockquote>
I understand your point of view.
What I mean is that Travesre the Ulvenwald is pretty much a dead draw against GY hate and, therefore, weaker vs. GY hate than Snapcaster that, on the very least, can trade with a creature or apply some early pressure. I agree that both are miserable but Traverse loses a lot of value when facing GY hate.
I'm wondering if we could have some kind of 4-5 color list running both Goyf, Shadow and maybe some fewer number of Snappy/Traverse.
I understand your point of view.
What I mean is that Travesre the Ulvenwald is pretty much a dead draw against GY hate and, therefore, weaker vs. GY hate than Snapcaster that, on the very least, can trade with a creature or apply some early pressure. I agree that both are miserable but Traverse loses a lot of value when facing GY hate.
I don't think the difference between Snpacaster and Traverse under e.g. RiP is meaningful enough for it to really factor into deck selection though. The 2/1 is something, yes. But it's still awful. A 1/10 or 2/10 compared to a 0/10.
I'm wondering if we could have some kind of 4-5 color list running both Goyf, Shadow and maybe some fewer number of Snappy/Traverse.
This is exactly the sort of thing I think is drastically underexplored. I already have a couple sketches.
I understand your point of view.
What I mean is that Travesre the Ulvenwald is pretty much a dead draw against GY hate and, therefore, weaker vs. GY hate than Snapcaster that, on the very least, can trade with a creature or apply some early pressure. I agree that both are miserable but Traverse loses a lot of value when facing GY hate.
I don't think the difference between Snpacaster and Traverse under e.g. RiP is meaningful enough for it to really factor into deck selection though. The 2/1 is something, yes. But it's still awful. A 1/10 or 2/10 compared to a 0/10.
I'm wondering if we could have some kind of 4-5 color list running both Goyf, Shadow and maybe some fewer number of Snappy/Traverse.
This is exactly the sort of thing I think is drastically underexplored. I already have a couple sketches.
Would you mind sharing some ideas here or on PM ? I've been extensively testing a large amount of ideas on DS And it'd be nice to see where other players are going, Specially someone who won a Regionals and seems to have a great understanding of the deck.
Your list seems pretty similiar to my current sketch, except for Baubles (of which I don't own them atm, waiting for Iconic's release to get my playset, I used Serum Visions on that spot) and Liliana OTV, whereas I use Liliana TLH for the reasons I mentioned before. Also, I run 19 lands, cutting a Traverse for another Watery Grave.
The deck ran smoothly but had some difficulty against D&T, and I had to cut Traverse and Wraiths entirely against a Mardu Burn, since I was already taking too much damage from my lands.
I know this will sound heretic, but hear me out. I've been playing with Mishra's Baubles in place of Thought Scours. I know the biggest downside of the slow cantrip is drawing it in topdeck wars, but otherwise the card has so many great interactions with Street Wraiths, fetchlands and Fatal Pushes. What I like the most about it is that I can freely cycle it in the early turns and dump my mana on discard and serum visions instead. I had no problems casting turn 2 Tasigurs and Anglers by just developing my plan. Also noteworthy is that I managed to have a functioning deck with only 2 lands in play. These land short hands are really rewarded by Bauble, while Scours often feel trapped in my hand.
Since I didn't see any mention to Bauble in the primer I figure I'd ask about it. Did anyone else give it a go? Are the disadvantages too big to be worth it?
I really appreciate your comments!
BUR Grixis Death's Shadow/Control BUR & WBC Eldrazi & Taxes WBC
EDH:
UG Edric, Spymaster of Goodstuff UG
I also believe that if we have a Thoughtseize or a Thoughtscour and A Gurmag Angler or Tasigur, the Golden Fang on our starting hand, the correct strategy would be is to first disrupt their hand rather than play the Thoughtscour followed by the delving threat on turn two. The deck is designed to control their threats first via cheap, efficient disruption and removal then protect our limited threats to attack for the win most of the time.
Mishra's Bauble is great card but its a 4 of spell that can't be utilized by our Snapcaster Mage which I think makes this deck a blue one.
So I want to test Young Pyromancer in the sideboard as a 3 of, as some list have been running lately.
I would bring it in against all form of control decks and white decks by removing 2 gurmag angler and a though scour. I would also bring it against Jund for sure to edge against Lili of the veil.
What have been the match ups where he shines ?
All I'm saying is the fact that Thoughtscour can sometimes mill out important cards because its random and yes, most of the time, we don't know what's on top of the library. I'm not saying the card is bad because it feeds the delve creatures that are cheap, big and most importantly, Fatal Push-Proof as early as T2.
What I'm pointing out is that the safe strategy would be to play a disrupt card on T1 especially if you don't know what deck the opponent is playing rather than Thoughtscour and play a disrupt and a delve threat on T2.
Some interesting article that can read through for analysing the meta deck. But, I am not convince to the GDS build in the article for playing 4 Opt.
However, strategy against Etron by attacking their mana indeed is a bad idea, i rather get answer for their threats instead of their lands.
I've been playing Grixis Shadow for the past 3 months, made 2 top 8s and a top 16 on regular events running different kinds of lists switching between the number of Fatal Pushes, Lightning Bolts, TBR and Kommands for a while.
One thing I can say is that the archetype made so many huge waves on Modern that the entire format had to adapt to it. I see quite regularly around here decks that tries its best to go wide, Death & Taxes variants and even the affinity players started to run more Etched Champions on maindeck so that they don't carelessly for running out of creatures. I've also seen opponents running lists such as Skred Red, RW Enchantments, etc.
Even on top tables, you can feel the waves that Shadow caused: Eldrazi Tron is one of the best decks in the format due to its capacity to run maindeck Chalice and still present a strong stream of threats.
Well, I'll try to get straight to the point: Decks adapted to Death's Shadow and I think the decks needs to adapt to them. I've been playing different lists almost every tournament I play, last week I even tried a 4-color variant splashing green for Decay nd Traverse, running only 4 Shadows as kill condition (Of which I fully regreted as soon as my opponent landed a Rest in Peace and I had 2 Traverse in hand), I've even tried more controlish builds running Cryptic Command and more Kolaghans. All of the gave me different results for different kinds of strategy.
So, I'd like to open up a few questions, as I feel that the more I'm testing the deck, the more I'm deviating it from its original list and leaning towards other options.
First and foremost, Most times i feel that 4 Delve threats are too much: Having two on the opening hand with few ways to use them at least on turn 3 feels really bad and most times it's a mulligan unless I have Scour and/or fetches or discard in hand.
As much as I believe that we need 8 threats, I am not sure if the really need the full 4. Perhaps we could look into other options ?
And since I'm talking about cutting delve threats, I'd like to say that I have a REAAALLY bad relationship with Thought Scour. It's like a recipe for frustration.
I mean, I understand all the pros of running it: Ramps out delve threats, fills the graveyard for Snapcaster, sometimes might save you from bad topdecking (such as he might simply take away 2 great answers/threats and give you a useless land or vice versa). But, if we cut 2 delve threts, could we run Opt instead ? We already have tons of fetches, discards and removals to fill out the graveyard and Opt only makes that difference if you REALLY need a threat by turn 2 (of which I admit, it happens quite often, specially against combo). I've been trying a list running only 2 Tasigurs as delve theats and I've been quite pleased with Opt.
Talking about threats, altough not a fast one, Liliana TLH has been making quite a great work on my lists as it stabilishes a strong late game clock, helps me replay my creature and refill my graveyard for either Snap or Tasigur/Angler. Also, her ultimate is the only one in a modern legal planeswalker with a reasonable cost that wins the game by itself. I've been running two, and the only MU I regret seeing her is against linear combo decks.
Another thing that I've been thinking is running 3 or 4 Lightning Bolts and 2 or 3 Fatal Pushes alongside Terinate.
Bolt doesn't kill a lot of threats that some of the top tiers but it works pretty well against the recent aggro decks on the surge and estabilishes a new clock for the opponent since you have potentially 6 to 8 bolt effects with Snapcaster Mage. Bolt Snap Bolt is incredibly threatening to a lot of players and helps you on both stabilizing the board and presenting a clock. Also, it kills Mirran Crusader.
On the number of disruptions. What are the thoughs on an additional IoK or two ? Most games we want discard on early turns and it also helps to protect or threats by giving more information before we land them. On the downside, discard is a bad topdeck, specially against agressive builds.
Well, that's all I've been thinking about. I'd like to hear your thoughts since I feel that I'm pushing the deck towards a lot of directions but I am not entirely sure of where the deck wants to be. I am sure we want, at least, the following
8 threats
3-4 Snapcaster
6-7 Discard
2-3 Denials
12-14 cantrips
8-10 removal and/or interactive spells such as Kommand
0-2 TBR
18-19 lands.
I am just not sure on what or how we should build our decks or adapt to the current metagame with GDS. So please, help me out with this one
I spend some time in the beginning talking about Grixis Shadow, so it might be of interest to people here.
Your article says:
I've been thinking about this very thing: Both lists are weak to Graveyard hate and we DO need some kind o threat that isn't.
My issue with 5c Shadow is exactly that I think it is a lot more vulnerable to both graveyard and land hate than its 3 color counterpart, aside from its natural resistance to Fatal Push/Decay.
My issue with Grixis Shadow is the very same issue you have: Sometimes we spend too much turns doing absolutely nothing because we don't have threat.
Traverse is a great card alongside Shadows and even Goyfs, but I am note sure if this is where we want to be as Shadow players since it doesn't do anything when you've facing a leyline/RIP;
I don't think Grixis is meaningfully better vs. GY hate. Grixis has Snapcaster + delve creatures, Jund/5 color has Goyf + Traverse. Grixis has the edge vs. Rest in Peace because sometimes you can get a delve creature into play before it resolves, and a small edge from Snapcaster doing a little more than Traverse when under RiP or Leyline. 5 color has the edge vs. most non RiP graveyard hate because Goyf can rely on the opponent's graveyard - Leyline and Nihil Spellbomb being the two most common. So maybe 5 color is a little worse vs. graveyard hate on net, but there's not really much of a difference.
it doesn't turn on stubborn denial, requires you to have cards + spend mana to be good, and still dies to all the commonly played removal. it's fine, and if the format moves hard towards gy hate maybe it's worth it. but i'm not a fan right now.
First, because it doesn't turn on Stubborn Denials, which is a huge upside of every threat DS decks want to play.
Second, Pyromancer is counterintuictive with the deck's line of play: You want to first disrupt your opponent and then land a threat. Pyromancer is better if you drop it first and then disrupt your opponent through removal and countermagic.
Congratulations on your win! was a very informative and entertaining read.
I understand your point of view.
What I mean is that Travesre the Ulvenwald is pretty much a dead draw against GY hate and, therefore, weaker vs. GY hate than Snapcaster that, on the very least, can trade with a creature or apply some early pressure. I agree that both are miserable but Traverse loses a lot of value when facing GY hate.
I'm wondering if we could have some kind of 4-5 color list running both Goyf, Shadow and maybe some fewer number of Snappy/Traverse.
I don't think the difference between Snpacaster and Traverse under e.g. RiP is meaningful enough for it to really factor into deck selection though. The 2/1 is something, yes. But it's still awful. A 1/10 or 2/10 compared to a 0/10.
This is exactly the sort of thing I think is drastically underexplored. I already have a couple sketches.
Would you mind sharing some ideas here or on PM ? I've been extensively testing a large amount of ideas on DS And it'd be nice to see where other players are going, Specially someone who won a Regionals and seems to have a great understanding of the deck.
Your list seems pretty similiar to my current sketch, except for Baubles (of which I don't own them atm, waiting for Iconic's release to get my playset, I used Serum Visions on that spot) and Liliana OTV, whereas I use Liliana TLH for the reasons I mentioned before. Also, I run 19 lands, cutting a Traverse for another Watery Grave.
The deck ran smoothly but had some difficulty against D&T, and I had to cut Traverse and Wraiths entirely against a Mardu Burn, since I was already taking too much damage from my lands.