how do you guys feel about one or two copies of painful truths in the sideboard? i mean, the card can be very good in grind matchups
I have seen it in some lists in the past, but I'd rather have a Liliana planeswalker instead most of the time. I would also play Ancestral Visions over it, because mandatory lifeloss is not what I want in a grindy matchup. Grindy matchups are often against GB(x) decks that have numerous ways of dealing with Death's Shadow. A low life total is thus often more a liability than a boon in those matchups.
I think painful truths could be fine but it’s also not where I would be. I’d rather play a card that generates advantage that must be answered — as mentioned, Liliana is a good one for that slot.
Sometimes drawing three cards just doesn’t cut it these days
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One other thing I'd like to mention is that Temur Battle Rage is not particularly amazing in the mirror matchup after sideboarding.
Today on MTGO, I wondered why my opponent didn't put any pressure on me when I had a slow start. As it turned out, by turn six my opponent's hand consisted of a Stubborn Denial (which I took with IoK) and two TBRs. Next turn, my opponent drew and played a Death's Shadow only to have it killed by a Fatal Push (of which I had two in hand). My opponent also already knew that my third card in hand was a Dismember, which would also have been sufficient to shrink his Death's Shadow to a size at which TBR was not going to kill me. Still, my opponent called me a "bigg lucky a**hole" in the chat followed by "f y", which also didn't sound that polite. ;-)
After sideboarding, more than half of the nonland non-cantrip cards in the opponent's deck can get rid of a Death's Shadow in one way or another (discard, spot removal, LotV, Snapcaster Mage targetting removal spell etc.). Plus, opposing Death's Shadows can soak up a lot of damage and might not even die because of the trample.
TBR is fine against combo-ish decks with little interaction, but keeping multiple copies of it in the mirror doesn't seem that smart to me.
Tasighoul,
I agree that TBR seems poor in the mirror. I generally prefer to remove it when boarding against most removal heavy decks since I find sticking a threat to be more important than what is effectively a burn spell that requires a creature. Extra ways to protect a threat, ways to find threats, or additioanl threats all seem better unless it looks to be critical to power through chump blockers.
Replace it with some amount of both. If you're playing 12 fetches, I'd say 2 Verdants 2 Flooded Strands. I'm currently running 11 fetches, 5 shocks (1 Steam Vents, 2 Watery Grave, 2 Blood Crypt) and 2 basics.
This is close to my latest version, +/- a few cards. But the basic principles I think are right: Baubles, more Gurmags over Tasigurs, TBRs. You really want to play TBR, and get some of the clunkiness out of the deck IMO, and this shell does that.
Mishra's Bauble adds more air to the deck, which will inevitably result in more hands that look fine *if* we get a another land. I already have this problem with many hands that contain 2 Street Wraiths. I like that Mishra's Bauble can trigger revolt, but this comes at the cost of delaying a draw, which often makes it harder to plan ahead. My feeling is that Mishra's Bauble has better synergy with Serum Visions than with Opt.
Engineered Explosives feels so clunky in a deck that ideally wants to operate on three lands. I have been running a single copy for a while and have been underwhelmed by it more often than not. And that's coming from somebody who loved the card in Grixis Control. It's still OK-ish in GDS, but three copies seems over the top.
I used to be a huge fan of Kozilek's Return, but two damage on turn 3 or 4 often just doesn't seem to be enough anymore. Half of the board of the typical Humans deck usually survives it.
Rakdos Charm is another former pet card of mine. Kolaghan's Command seems so much better than Rakdos Charm against Affinity. It's nearly always a two for one trade and since Affinity is often hellbent after turn 2 and likes to cast its spells on sorcery speed, instant speed discard has been so good over and over again. Instant speed graveyard hate can be great, but most graveyard-centric decks are so low on interaction that it often doesn't seem to matter if they see it coming (Nihil Spellbomb) or not. Plus, about half of the graveyard decks actually run discard spells, so they can often see it coming.
A mix of Stubborn Denial and Inquisition of Kozilek seems better to me, because one of them tends to be a dead card in certain matchups.
The thing about Mishra's Bauble as air is that it's free air - you don't have to spend mana, and therefore time, casting it. This was always my biggest complaint about the cantrips in Grixis.
I'm skeptical of EE too. This deck is super efficient, but EE is super inefficient. I've resigned myself to mostly losing to Humans though. Matchup is horrid, and changing which sweeper we have doesn't do much to move the needle.
Edit: I also like keeping IoK. My current 60 is his list, -1 Snap, -1 Stub, +2 IoK. I have a very different SB.
I like the article and the reasoning but there are 2 questions that I keep asking myself.
How many 3-drops should there be in sideboard? Friedman plays 8 (2 Return, 4 Liliana, 1 Kolaghan's, 1 Staticaster, not counting Explosives which is mana-intensive too) whereas many lists play only 5/6.
Is it better to run 17 lands + 4 Bauble + 3 Opt or 18 lands + 4 Opts to reach the 3 manas you need after sideboard?
So far, playing against the Mishra's Bauble variant of GDS feels like playing against a bad version of 5C Shadow. Without access to Traverse the Ulvenwald, the deck has a hard time establishing a threat against a disruption-heavy opponent. Typically, the game came to a point at which they were frantically digging for another threat, cycling Street Wraiths and cracking fetches. Funnily enough, they still ended up being land-flooded about half of the time.
I do agree that there is a little inconsistency in saying that the less lands the better (which I agree) and then putting 3 EE in the SB.
I believe this deck operates more than ok with 2 or 3 lands, which makes EE be either a removal over 2 turns or simply not able to cast for the desired value if it is 3.
I haven't tried the Baubles, but they do seem like a good idea, will try these weeks and see where I go with it.
The 4 gurmag is something I personally would prefer to play a 3-1 split with Tasigur. Don't know if its just because I think its quite a bit easier to cast or its just me being uneducated in the matter since I haven't tried baubles yet.
The idea I most disagree with is K command being bad. Well, I think its not bad at all, I think its a very powerful card, it can surprise with instant speed discard, it can get back a thteat, it can destroy unwanted artifacts and/or be removal or burn. I think its extremely versatile and a tool I 100% like to have in any grixis deck I play.
Also the last idea is I would maybe play 1 or 2 IoK in the main, I think it is good to have early discard, since late game it can be dead, and upping the amount of discard is good for that.
Thats where I stand now, I will test the baubles and see where it takes me with a 17 land setup, I am very much enjoying this deck and have tons of fun playing it, it has so many lines and you can change it quite a bit to fit any player's style I think.
In my recent testing I have been increasingly impressed with TBR. I think it is more consistent with the deck's true identity as a disruptive tempo deck than a grindy fair grixis deck. I feel like there's just as much reason to include TBR in the deck as there is street wraith. Both of them are, by themselves, "bad" cards whose main purpose is to add velocity to the deck.
I am also a proponent for cutting terminate entirely and relying on dismember instead. Dismember is just so much more consistent with the overall gameplan of the deck and has a much higher ceiling than terminate. Being forced to fetch red is also not ideal. We really really want our first two lands to be watery graves and the third to be our red source, and terminate asks for our red source second.
I am currently looking towards a list that has something like 3 Street wraith / 2 dismember / 2 TBR / 1 Kolaghan's. Street wraith and TBR fit similar purposes and cutting the 4th street wraith gives us the little bit of extra life to work with to make 2 dismembers possible.
Hello everyone. I've been following this thread for a while and learning a lot from everyone's input. Tomorrow I'm competing in an IQ so I wanted to get some feedback on the deck I'm going to run. Thanks.
You need to add a land count and a street wraith since you have a lot of three drops, recommend taking out one snap caster since you have 2 k-commands already, ran a 3-2 split of it and it felt pretty good.
Hello everyone. I've been following this thread for a while and learning a lot from everyone's input. Tomorrow I'm competing in an IQ so I wanted to get some feedback on the deck I'm going to run. Thanks.
I have tested Mana Leak in place of IoK for a while and it's OK in a control-heavy metagame (they usually don't have 3 extra mana when they cast Cryptic Command). In Azzerith's list, I would play Lightning Bolt or a fourth Fatal Push over it, though. It's a common misconception that LotV can replace one of the 6 default creature removals. A turn two Dark Confidant or Young Pyromancer can become a nightmare if we miss our turn three land drop, which happens quite often with the 18-Land-4-Opt-Version.
The first week that I played it, I ended 1-3 (first match against some RG fringe deck, which I won, but then I had to play the mirror and 2 matches against Burn).
The second week I lost against Gx Tron, won a match against Burn, but then lost another match against Burn and had a draw in turns against MU Tron, ending 1-2-1
So, I am making some changes. I am taking out the Serum Visions and going just with 4 Opts, and replacing them with one extra land (Watery Grave) and a second TBR. I also changed the 2 copies of Tasigur, Golden Fang to Gurmag Angler to go with a full set. Even if they cost 1 more mana, I prefer a 5/5 over a 4/5... they are vulnerable to the same removal spells, but Angler is a slightly faster clock (1 turn faster), two more points of damage combined with TBR and I never found enough mana to use Tasigur's ability.
Sometimes drawing three cards just doesn’t cut it these days
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Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!
Today on MTGO, I wondered why my opponent didn't put any pressure on me when I had a slow start. As it turned out, by turn six my opponent's hand consisted of a Stubborn Denial (which I took with IoK) and two TBRs. Next turn, my opponent drew and played a Death's Shadow only to have it killed by a Fatal Push (of which I had two in hand). My opponent also already knew that my third card in hand was a Dismember, which would also have been sufficient to shrink his Death's Shadow to a size at which TBR was not going to kill me. Still, my opponent called me a "bigg lucky a**hole" in the chat followed by "f y", which also didn't sound that polite. ;-)
After sideboarding, more than half of the nonland non-cantrip cards in the opponent's deck can get rid of a Death's Shadow in one way or another (discard, spot removal, LotV, Snapcaster Mage targetting removal spell etc.). Plus, opposing Death's Shadows can soak up a lot of damage and might not even die because of the trample.
TBR is fine against combo-ish decks with little interaction, but keeping multiple copies of it in the mirror doesn't seem that smart to me.
There are several deck guide articles that show up when you google something like “scg grixis shadow”. The most recent one I see is:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36259_The-Procrastinator-s-Guide-To-Grixis-Death-Shadow.html
which should cover some more recent matchups like Jeskai.
Tasighoul,
I agree that TBR seems poor in the mirror. I generally prefer to remove it when boarding against most removal heavy decks since I find sticking a threat to be more important than what is effectively a burn spell that requires a creature. Extra ways to protect a threat, ways to find threats, or additioanl threats all seem better unless it looks to be critical to power through chump blockers.
Flooded strand or another black mana fetch like verdant catacombs?
Algo, 12 fetches or 11? What are you guys running?
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
Creatures (16)
4 Death's Shadow
4 Gurmag Angler
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
4 Mishra's Bauble
2 Dismember
4 Fatal Push
3 Opt
4 Stubborn Denial
2 Temur Battle Rage
4 Thought Scour
4 Thoughtseize
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Kozilek's Return
2 Rakdos Charm
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Collective Brutality
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36398_Fixing-Incorrect-Deaths-Shadow-Decks.html
BUR Grixis Death's Shadow/Control BUR & WBC Eldrazi & Taxes WBC
EDH:
UG Edric, Spymaster of Goodstuff UG
This is close to my latest version, +/- a few cards. But the basic principles I think are right: Baubles, more Gurmags over Tasigurs, TBRs. You really want to play TBR, and get some of the clunkiness out of the deck IMO, and this shell does that.
This list and mine are very similar to a recent list from MTGO: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/862965#paper
Mine was directly inspired by it.
I still like 5c shadow a bit more, but these builds have me interested in Grixis shells again.
Mishra's Bauble adds more air to the deck, which will inevitably result in more hands that look fine *if* we get a another land. I already have this problem with many hands that contain 2 Street Wraiths. I like that Mishra's Bauble can trigger revolt, but this comes at the cost of delaying a draw, which often makes it harder to plan ahead. My feeling is that Mishra's Bauble has better synergy with Serum Visions than with Opt.
Engineered Explosives feels so clunky in a deck that ideally wants to operate on three lands. I have been running a single copy for a while and have been underwhelmed by it more often than not. And that's coming from somebody who loved the card in Grixis Control. It's still OK-ish in GDS, but three copies seems over the top.
I used to be a huge fan of Kozilek's Return, but two damage on turn 3 or 4 often just doesn't seem to be enough anymore. Half of the board of the typical Humans deck usually survives it.
Rakdos Charm is another former pet card of mine. Kolaghan's Command seems so much better than Rakdos Charm against Affinity. It's nearly always a two for one trade and since Affinity is often hellbent after turn 2 and likes to cast its spells on sorcery speed, instant speed discard has been so good over and over again. Instant speed graveyard hate can be great, but most graveyard-centric decks are so low on interaction that it often doesn't seem to matter if they see it coming (Nihil Spellbomb) or not. Plus, about half of the graveyard decks actually run discard spells, so they can often see it coming.
A mix of Stubborn Denial and Inquisition of Kozilek seems better to me, because one of them tends to be a dead card in certain matchups.
I'm skeptical of EE too. This deck is super efficient, but EE is super inefficient. I've resigned myself to mostly losing to Humans though. Matchup is horrid, and changing which sweeper we have doesn't do much to move the needle.
Edit: I also like keeping IoK. My current 60 is his list, -1 Snap, -1 Stub, +2 IoK. I have a very different SB.
How many 3-drops should there be in sideboard? Friedman plays 8 (2 Return, 4 Liliana, 1 Kolaghan's, 1 Staticaster, not counting Explosives which is mana-intensive too) whereas many lists play only 5/6.
Is it better to run 17 lands + 4 Bauble + 3 Opt or 18 lands + 4 Opts to reach the 3 manas you need after sideboard?
I believe this deck operates more than ok with 2 or 3 lands, which makes EE be either a removal over 2 turns or simply not able to cast for the desired value if it is 3.
I haven't tried the Baubles, but they do seem like a good idea, will try these weeks and see where I go with it.
The 4 gurmag is something I personally would prefer to play a 3-1 split with Tasigur. Don't know if its just because I think its quite a bit easier to cast or its just me being uneducated in the matter since I haven't tried baubles yet.
The idea I most disagree with is K command being bad. Well, I think its not bad at all, I think its a very powerful card, it can surprise with instant speed discard, it can get back a thteat, it can destroy unwanted artifacts and/or be removal or burn. I think its extremely versatile and a tool I 100% like to have in any grixis deck I play.
Also the last idea is I would maybe play 1 or 2 IoK in the main, I think it is good to have early discard, since late game it can be dead, and upping the amount of discard is good for that.
Thats where I stand now, I will test the baubles and see where it takes me with a 17 land setup, I am very much enjoying this deck and have tons of fun playing it, it has so many lines and you can change it quite a bit to fit any player's style I think.
URBGrixis ControlBRUURBGrixis Death's ShadowBRU[
URBGrixis TwinBRUGWUGWx VizierGWU
UWRJeskai NahiriRWUGBBG RockBG
I am also a proponent for cutting terminate entirely and relying on dismember instead. Dismember is just so much more consistent with the overall gameplan of the deck and has a much higher ceiling than terminate. Being forced to fetch red is also not ideal. We really really want our first two lands to be watery graves and the third to be our red source, and terminate asks for our red source second.
I am currently looking towards a list that has something like 3 Street wraith / 2 dismember / 2 TBR / 1 Kolaghan's. Street wraith and TBR fit similar purposes and cutting the 4th street wraith gives us the little bit of extra life to work with to make 2 dismembers possible.
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
1 Island
1 Swamp
Creatures (15)
4 Death's Shadow
2 Tasigur, Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Street Wraith
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Fatal Push
1 Dismember
1 Terminate
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Mana Leak
4 Opt
2 Serum Visions
4 Thought Scour
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Collective Brutality
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Young Pyromancer
2 Kozilek's Return
I started playing GDS just a couple weeks ago, and went with a very standard list, with 18 lands, a split of 4 Opts/2 Serum Visions and a split of 3 Fatal Push/1 Lightning Bolt (plus 1 Terminate and 1 Dismember)
I was also playing 1 Temur Battle Rage main.
The first week that I played it, I ended 1-3 (first match against some RG fringe deck, which I won, but then I had to play the mirror and 2 matches against Burn).
The second week I lost against Gx Tron, won a match against Burn, but then lost another match against Burn and had a draw in turns against MU Tron, ending 1-2-1
So, I am making some changes. I am taking out the Serum Visions and going just with 4 Opts, and replacing them with one extra land (Watery Grave) and a second TBR. I also changed the 2 copies of Tasigur, Golden Fang to Gurmag Angler to go with a full set. Even if they cost 1 more mana, I prefer a 5/5 over a 4/5... they are vulnerable to the same removal spells, but Angler is a slightly faster clock (1 turn faster), two more points of damage combined with TBR and I never found enough mana to use Tasigur's ability.
I also changed Kozilek's Return in the SB to Flaying Tendrils, just for the exile clause.
Comments, suggestions? I definitely need more practice... I really like the deck, but it's still a little difficult to pilot.
Thanks in advance,
Daniel.
3x Bloodstained Mire
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Blood Crypt
2x Steam Vents
3x Watery Grave
1x Island
1x Swamp
Creatures (16)
4x Death's Shadow
4x Gurmag Angler
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Street Wraith
3x Fatal Push
1x Dismember
1x Terminate
1x Lightning Bolt
Disruption (8)
4x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Stubborn Denial
Cantrips (8)
4x Opt
4x Thought Scour
Other (3)
2x Temur Battle Rage
1x Kolaghan's Command
2x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Collective Brutality
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Flaying Tendrils
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Kolaghan's Command
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Stubborn Denial
Link to deck @ TappedOut.net