Burn and Tron does get better by a good margin. I'm thinking at least 50/50.
The machups that you´ll see some sort of decay are BG/x for the most part, and UW Control. Jeskai isn't even that bad because they rely on Bolt to interact, and Nahiri(if they play it) is easily handled by Thoughtseize and Stubborn Denial.
Abzan Junk seems to be the biggest lose. Maybe Coco too since you don't win through blockers as easy as Jund DS by the lack of Battle Rage. Lilianas and Angers in the SB can make up for that.
About Whispers Of Emrakul, I have extensively tested an all in Jund DS delirium version with 2/3 Whispers in the MB to make them as much close to Hymn To Tourach as I could. It's not that good. Reasons? Most of the times, you want to be taking their spot removals and not depriving them of 2 random cards(not to mention that if they hit your yard the card is not even castable). Also, HtT is a great spell when you are casting it on turn 2 in Legacy, but here you can never cast in on turn 2. The condition that must be met for the card to be a Hymn is pretty much restrictive as well.
Yeah, I really can't see running Whispers in this deck, especially since the same slot could be filled with Rise // Fall, which can Hymn on Turn 2 (depending on what you saw in their hand turn one) and also has the versatility of returning a Shadow from your graveyard and a Snapcaster from the board.
I think there are a couple main points that we aren't all in agreement on yet. I want to give my arguments for them, and maybe we can see if we can come to a consensus.
The Tasigur/Angler split
I played Grixis Delver before this, and I've always been a proponent of the 3/1 split in that deck, but I think in this deck the 2/2 split is correct. There were two reasons to play more Tasigurs in Delver: he's easier to play on turn 2 and sometimes you get to 4 mana and get to activate him when you don't have something else to use your mana for. In Shadow, I feel like it's much easier to cast Angler on turn 2 than it is in Delver because of the high number of fetches and Street Wraith. With the closing speed of the deck, I also feel like you don't have as much unused mana to dump into Tasigur activations. So basically, the upsides to playing Tasigur over Angler are lessened in this deck. The upsides for Angler are the extra point of power, which can be relevant against your average sized Goyfs, and that it's not legendary, which is the real sticking point here. You can't play multiple Tasigurs. While I think I would still rather have one Tasigur over an Angler, I would rather have one of each or two Anglers over two Tasigurs. So that's why I feel like the 2/2 split is correct here.
The mana base and RR spells
I think if you want to play Anger and Stone Rain over Kozilek's Return and Fulminator, you HAVE to play 2 Blood Crypts and 1 Steam Vents (in fact, this might just be correct for everyone). It's not hard to hit RR by turn 3, but you often don't want to. Black sources are the most important thing to have because so many of our spells require black mana. I've watched a lot of games where someone fetched a Steam Vents early and then lost the game because they had 3 black spells they wanted to play on a turn but could only play 2. Without RR spells in the deck, I would probably fetch Grave, Grave, Crypt every time if I could. Playing RR spells means you have to fetch Grave, Crypt, Crypt and limit yourself on blue mana, or Grave, Vents, Crypt and limit your black mana (which is probably even worse).
For these reasons, I'm on Fulminator and Kozilek's Return(for now). Anger might still be the better card, but that RR by turn 3 is not free like people have been making it out to be in posts in this thread.
Fourth color splashes
I don't think this is correct to do in this deck. You can't search up your copy of Ranger of Eos like the GBx versions can with Traverse. Lingering Souls is a great card, but they play it because it gives them the ability to play a longer grindy game. We already have that ability with Snapcaster and Serum Visions fixing our topdecks. I just don't think the white splash really does anything for us.
Temur Battle Rage, yes/no?
I haven't been playing it, but I might try it as a 1-of in the main. The card is really good for helping you race when you need to win quickly. I think the ability to add a small comboish aspect to the deck might be worth the opportunity cost of a slot in the main.
Planeswalkers
I think LotV is not right for the deck. We just have too many instant speed things we want to do on our opponent's turn, so I think you'll have too many instances where you don't want to uptick your LotV for several turns because you have a good card in hand you don't want to pitch. I could maybe see 1 in the SB for a matchup like Bogles, but I don't know if I love that
LtLH, on the other hand, seems great in this deck. I've been running 2 SB, but I've seen people running her MD. She's great in grindy matchups, and she's great in matchups where your opponent has a lot of X/1s. She very well may be MD-worthy, since even in matchups that aren't grindy or she's not killing creatures, she can provide fuel for delve and dig to threats.
I'm wondering, has anyone tried Ashiok in this deck? It seems like a crazy mirror breaker.
I think JVP is too slow for the deck. The only upside I can see is that people are probably going to side out their Bolts against you, so if they are using their Pushes and Paths on JVP instead of your actual threats then that's a win for you. I don't think he's worth it, though.
Tibalt is clearly a 4-of in the main deck.
Matchups
I'm not really sure from my own experience, but I can say what I've read from various people. Grixis Shadow supposedly has a good matchup against GBx Shadow. I've also read that Shadow instead of Delver improves the Burn and Tron matchups. From my limited experience with Shadow, it feels like the control matchup would be hard, likely worse than it is for Delver. That's all I really know, though.
I'm in agreement on the split of our Delve threats. 2/2 has worked wonders for me. I've never had a problem with Anger with the "standard" manabase (2 Grave, 2 Vents, 1 Crypt), because sometimes I find it worse to actually cast on Turn 3, instead preferring to wait until 4 or 5. I don't like the idea of a 4th color, personally, but that's me. I'm currently running 0 planeswalkers, mostly because I do not have access to them. If I did, I would perhaps run a one-of Last Hope in the 'board. I also agree that Tibalt must be a 4-of, every time. Always. #tibaltlyfe. My experience on matchups has been similar too what others have suggested, no need to rehash I suppose.
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How I like to win games:
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
SB: tried to prepare for a grindy so:
- 4 Street Wraiths
+1 Ashiok
+1 Painful Truths
+2 Countersquall
I think that this sideboarding plan is wrong for an attrition based matchup. Street Wraith is not a card to be underestimated here. As you experienced, your opponent had a hard time dealing with Tasigur, which is essentially a fatal push proof creature. You know what, Street Wraith is so too. I do play DS Jund rather than Grixis, but the concept remains the same, I often won games with just hardcasting Street Wraith which just couldn't be removed. Besides this, in DS mirrors, usually the player has the advantage which death shadows are bigger, so this means you could use the extra life loss and deck thinning. If you run the full 8 discard, I would cut 3 IOK instead. And I think that Stubborn Denial is a correct cut, since it is a grindy matchup, where threats and removal are higher in value. I think you don't want to land in topdeck mode topdecking your noncreature counters and your opponent slams a tasigur down. Against Delver variants leaving bolt in makes sense of course, but for delver less version I also think cutting bolt is not the worst.
Cards to bring in, depending what you have of course, is (in my opinion) all Liliana PWs (or ashiok in your case) you have, painful truths, Nihil Spellbombs, extra KCommands and extra terminates. I don't think its worth it to bring in noncreature counters here as I explained with Stubborn denial. That are my 2 cents.
I think FlyingDelver is right on that front. The only matchup where Street Wraith should ever be considered as a potential cut is Burn. And since I'm here, I thought I'd run my current list by you all and get your thoughts on it:
I think FlyingDelver is right on that front. The only matchup where Street Wraith should ever be considered as a potential cut is Burn.
I agree cutting all wraiths vs burn, but I recommend cutting 1-2 Wraiths also in swarm aggro matchups like BTE Zoo for example. The life loss will just knock you out with their blisteringly fast clocks sometimes.
I think FlyingDelver is right on that front. The only matchup where Street Wraith should ever be considered as a potential cut is Burn. And since I'm here, I thought I'd run my current list by you all and get your thoughts on it:
I've been considering the likes of Anger of the Gods or Pyroclasm in the board, but I'm unsure what to cut for them. Any thoughts?
Cut a Bolt, move a Terminate to the main. It's funny, after you do that our 75s will be within 1 card, I just have another Blood Crypt instead of the 3rd Bolt.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I'm still trying to feel out the land count. 18 has felt like a lot at times. The deck just sees so many cards in a typical game that any more than 18 feels unnecessary. I could see shaving a Bolt (or two) for Terminate in order to make room for sweepers, though.
what's going on with the 2 nihil spellbomb and 2 surgical extraction in the side boards
Spellbomb is very good against certain decks, like Storm, Dredge, or any deck playing Goyf. Surgical has tons of applications in a lot of matchups. It really improves your Tron matchup, is great against Abzan CoCo, as well as being good against the decks I listed for Spellbomb too. 4 might be too many, you might want just 3 slots for the two cards.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I'm still trying to feel out the land count. 18 has felt like a lot at times. The deck just sees so many cards in a typical game that any more than 18 feels unnecessary. I could see shaving a Bolt (or two) for Terminate in order to make room for sweepers, though.
I think if you go 18 lands you should either cut a fetch or the Island, not one of the shocks. I think just 4 shocks is too few. Especially if you're only running 2 red shocks and trying to play Anger in the board, it would be pretty awkward to mill over one of your red shocks. Of course, if you cut the Island then you're conceding your blue mana to Blood Moons, but you can lean on trying to strip them before they can be played and killing your opponent before it matters.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
what's going on with the 2 nihil spellbomb and 2 surgical extraction in the side boards
Spellbomb is very good against certain decks, like Storm, Dredge, or any deck playing Goyf. Surgical has tons of applications in a lot of matchups. It really improves your Tron matchup, is great against Abzan CoCo, as well as being good against the decks I listed for Spellbomb too. 4 might be too many, you might want just 3 slots for the two cards.
Surgical is a card you absolutely shouldn't board in for midrangy grindy matchups. So I would not board it against goyf decks or Death's Shadow decks at all. Often this just means mulliganing to 6 automatically if it is in the starthand and you got no target. Not to mention its a horrible topdeck later in the game. The only major reason spellbomb is ok to bring in for such matchups is because it cantrips.
I've been testing Grixis with Shadow, Delver, and both just to get a sense of how they all stack up against my meta. The tough thing is the lifeloss and lack of turn-1 clock from playing just Shadow is really rough against Affinity, which I kid you not is 20-25% of my local meta. The rest is mostly made up of tribal/aggro (Elves, Fish, Revolt Zoo) and big mana (mostly Eldrazi Tron with some Gx Tron and Valakut decks).
In my testing, I'm still favored vs. Affinity with Shadow, but Delver just straight-up murders the matchup. On the other hand, Delver is softer to the big mana decks, but I've found that Blood Moon and some extra maindeck counterspells make those matchups reasonably close. What would people recommend in terms of tackling this meta? How does Shadow feel to you vs. Robots? How about Eldrazi Tron? I thought I'd feel great against them, but in testing I've been underperforming both pre- and post-board.
I definitely agree on 2-2 Tasigur/Angler and 2 Bolt (3 being a possible flex). In answer to Rothgar's question about lands, I feel I'm too pinched on mana too often at 18. We're much hungrier for mana than Jund Shadow, with Tasigur activations and especially Snap-Kommand taking a heavy mana investment. I know lots of lists skip the basic mountain, but with lots of decks racing me down I feel like it's worth the 19th land spot to save a couple of life here and there.
I may go down to 1 or 0 Brutality SB, as I haven't seen that much burn lately and it may not be worth the slot. With no Dredge AFAIK and not needing to deal 3 with my wipes, Kozilek's Return seems great for hitting manlands and clearing Etched Champions. (Fish is the only deck where I'd rather go for Anger, but I think the pros of Return outweigh the two Fish players.) Explosives and Staticaster are both unusual choices brought over from Delver, but they're great against Affinity, many tribal decks, and the few folks who toss Lingering Souls around. Surgical may also get cut; presently it's insurance vs. the odd Abzan Company and/or Ad Nauseam deck.
The other card I'm really not sold on so far is Fulminator Mage. It's certainly nice to be able to Stone Rain a land, and with K-Command and Liliana, it's easy to recur. But I often find it's just not enough impact to justify bringing it in over more disruption (like a third Ceremonious Rejection). Maybe I've just had bad luck with it so far, though.
Anyways, thanks for the great discussion! Love to hear people's thoughts!
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
What are people's thoughts on sweepers? I have 1 slot dedicated to Staticaster for sure as there's many matchups where it's very useful (Death's Shadow variants with souls, Dredge, Affinity, Abzan, maybe storm, maybe merfolk, Abzan Company, Elves, Faeries)
I'm personally keen on dedicating two more slots to sweepers (would like to hear if this overkill, but I think there's a wide enough range of applications and these swarm strategies tend to be some of our hardest). I've looked at Anger of the Gods, Flaying Tendrils, and Kozilek's Return. They all have their pros and cons, which are generally speaking:
*mana requirement
*exiling
*1 more point of damage
*instant speed hitting manlands/surprise factor
*hitting etched champion et al.
*corner case applications of getting past selfless spirit etc
Right now I am favoring two Anger of the Gods+1 staticaster because double red tend not to be a problem for me (I play 1 vent and 2 crypts), the extra point of damage matters vs tribal strats and dredge, and exiling really matters vs dredge/coco
I'm personally doubtful about the need for white but if we do make use of the white for SB cards, I'm wondering if unlife/grace could be good cards. I've seen a few 5-0 finishes where the grixis shadows player splashes white for souls, ranger and unlife and am intrigued as our games usually come down to inches. Will test and see how it goes.. although I'm not sure it's clear what kind of matchups unlifes/graces would come in for other than the obvious ones
I've had the same feeling about Stone rains in general in this deck and Delver. They are not impactful enough and don't deal against the fast draws that the Valakut,Tron,Eldrazi player can come up with. And if your SB isn't helping there, you might need a different route. Maybe using them only on the play and on the draw just hope that your Counters and Surgicals get there?.
I also do not think fulminator is the axis I'd like to attack those decks from. I'd rather dig for and play hyper mana efficient threats and attack their life total while leaving up mana to Reject/Denial/Terminate whatever threats they play.
Spreading Sea's is quicker even though it's an enchantment. I too consider Fulminator/Stone Rain/Molten Rain to be too slow. I'm not sure how you attack them. Just play more Terminate and kill spells?
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
So to comment on some of these, since me and a teammate have been working a lot on Grixis Shadow, including the mirror. We've played probably 50 matches between the two of us on Shadow, and we're doing very well locally:
- We're both off white as a splash option. It works much better in decks that are green because you have 1-2 basics that Traverse finds and we're milling ourself frequently with Thought Scours to delve away threats.
- The Grixis Shadow Mirror: we've found that Terminate followed closely by Snapcaster tends to be a huge deciding factor in those games. Fatal Push isn't sideboarded out, so your Shadows don't tend to live long, but the un-Push-able threats are really challenging. Those threats also are crucial to Stubborn Denial being online, so often times our Lilianas are targeting each other's delve threat so as to turn off Stubborn Denial.
- For sweepers, we're both in on Kozilek's Return, since our local meta has a sometimes annoying amount of Soul Sisters, but we're also acutely aware of the mana requirements in the deck. We're talking about potentially upping these from one copy to two since there seems to be an increased number of token strategies as people try to meta game against Shadow. There's also an increasing number of Affinity decks it seems and being able to clear Etched Champions is great, since one starts to slow you down annoyingly and two feels nearly impossible to break through.
- I do think that 2 Crypt, 2 Grave, 1 Vents is the correct land base now.
- We're not into Liliana of the Veil. Reason being that LOTV is great in the green decks because they run "more downhill", as it were; they curve out more neatly and tend to emphasize presenting threats that your opponent has to answer, which means LOTV is a great way to clear the way for them. Since we have counter-magic and Snapcaster, we're a bit grindier already, and removing one blocker doesn't mean that much for us, at least not as much as it does for the green based versions. Liliana the Last Hope should be a 2-of in the sideboard; the ability to have her around matters a ton in the mirror as well.
- My teammate is on two Terminate main, I'm on one with two more in the board. You need at least 3 to deal with Eldrazi related decks. We're talking about adding a Dismember as another option in the board; I've been considering Vendetta as well, though it doesn't help in the mirror.
- I am personally not sold on Fulminator Mage and think we do fine against big mana strategies without it. I hate Fulminator Mage in Shadow lists because we're trying to emphasize mana efficiency and taking a whole turn off to kill one of my opponent's lands doesn't really do anything for me, usually. Like I'd much rather be presenting another Shadow and a cantrip plus holding up something on that turn rather than tapping out for a 2/2. I don't even bother with land destruction because I'm trying to leverage efficient threats behind efficient, redundant disruption (I like to Snapcaster-Thoughtseize a lot).
- As an Abzan Company player, I'd say the things I hate more than Surgical Extraction is Collective Brutality. Killing my mana dork and taking the Company out of my hand sets me so, so far behind. It is far more brutal against a good Abzan Company player than a Surgical Extraction, because a good Company player can prep another Chord to get a 2ndary finks or I have a backdoor Archangel/Spike Feeder combo.
Things we've experimented with in the sideboard:
- Jace, Vryn's Prodigy as Snapcaster #5
- Rakdos Charm as additional artifact/graveyard hate
- Anger of the Gods, but not keen on it
I think one of the things that interests me most about Death's Shadow in general is the different ways to play it, and my philosophy with it is that I'm the beatdown in almost every matchup. I really emphasize getting a Shadow big to close out the game and put my opponent in what GerryT and Michael Majors call "the abyss", where they have no resources but the top of their library and can never develop traction on the board. So I tend to go for a very early Death's Shadow against burn because my philosophy in that matchup is: they win through a combination of 3 burn spells spent over the course of my end-step and their next turn. So if I let them get to that point, my chances are high that I'm losing, so I need to put them on chump duty very quickly. And if they can play out an Eidolon, that's one of my most favorite creatures to see across the table now so that I can play out some cantrips, Fatal Push the Eidolon, and almost assuredly clock them for lethal.
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The machups that you´ll see some sort of decay are BG/x for the most part, and UW Control. Jeskai isn't even that bad because they rely on Bolt to interact, and Nahiri(if they play it) is easily handled by Thoughtseize and Stubborn Denial.
Abzan Junk seems to be the biggest lose. Maybe Coco too since you don't win through blockers as easy as Jund DS by the lack of Battle Rage. Lilianas and Angers in the SB can make up for that.
Yeah, I really can't see running Whispers in this deck, especially since the same slot could be filled with Rise // Fall, which can Hymn on Turn 2 (depending on what you saw in their hand turn one) and also has the versatility of returning a Shadow from your graveyard and a Snapcaster from the board.
I'm in agreement on the split of our Delve threats. 2/2 has worked wonders for me. I've never had a problem with Anger with the "standard" manabase (2 Grave, 2 Vents, 1 Crypt), because sometimes I find it worse to actually cast on Turn 3, instead preferring to wait until 4 or 5. I don't like the idea of a 4th color, personally, but that's me. I'm currently running 0 planeswalkers, mostly because I do not have access to them. If I did, I would perhaps run a one-of Last Hope in the 'board. I also agree that Tibalt must be a 4-of, every time. Always. #tibaltlyfe. My experience on matchups has been similar too what others have suggested, no need to rehash I suppose.
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
Legacy:
Burn
B/R Reanimator (slowly building
EDH:
Sedris Control/Reanimation
I think that this sideboarding plan is wrong for an attrition based matchup. Street Wraith is not a card to be underestimated here. As you experienced, your opponent had a hard time dealing with Tasigur, which is essentially a fatal push proof creature. You know what, Street Wraith is so too. I do play DS Jund rather than Grixis, but the concept remains the same, I often won games with just hardcasting Street Wraith which just couldn't be removed. Besides this, in DS mirrors, usually the player has the advantage which death shadows are bigger, so this means you could use the extra life loss and deck thinning. If you run the full 8 discard, I would cut 3 IOK instead. And I think that Stubborn Denial is a correct cut, since it is a grindy matchup, where threats and removal are higher in value. I think you don't want to land in topdeck mode topdecking your noncreature counters and your opponent slams a tasigur down. Against Delver variants leaving bolt in makes sense of course, but for delver less version I also think cutting bolt is not the worst.
Cards to bring in, depending what you have of course, is (in my opinion) all Liliana PWs (or ashiok in your case) you have, painful truths, Nihil Spellbombs, extra KCommands and extra terminates. I don't think its worth it to bring in noncreature counters here as I explained with Stubborn denial. That are my 2 cents.
4 Death's Shadow
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Instants (16)
4 Fatal Push
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Stubborn Denial
4 Thought Scour
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
4 Thoughtseize
Lands (18)
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
2 Collective Brutality
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Terminate
I've been considering the likes of Anger of the Gods or Pyroclasm in the board, but I'm unsure what to cut for them. Any thoughts?
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I agree cutting all wraiths vs burn, but I recommend cutting 1-2 Wraiths also in swarm aggro matchups like BTE Zoo for example. The life loss will just knock you out with their blisteringly fast clocks sometimes.
Cut a Bolt, move a Terminate to the main. It's funny, after you do that our 75s will be within 1 card, I just have another Blood Crypt instead of the 3rd Bolt.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Spellbomb is very good against certain decks, like Storm, Dredge, or any deck playing Goyf. Surgical has tons of applications in a lot of matchups. It really improves your Tron matchup, is great against Abzan CoCo, as well as being good against the decks I listed for Spellbomb too. 4 might be too many, you might want just 3 slots for the two cards.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I think if you go 18 lands you should either cut a fetch or the Island, not one of the shocks. I think just 4 shocks is too few. Especially if you're only running 2 red shocks and trying to play Anger in the board, it would be pretty awkward to mill over one of your red shocks. Of course, if you cut the Island then you're conceding your blue mana to Blood Moons, but you can lean on trying to strip them before they can be played and killing your opponent before it matters.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Surgical is a card you absolutely shouldn't board in for midrangy grindy matchups. So I would not board it against goyf decks or Death's Shadow decks at all. Often this just means mulliganing to 6 automatically if it is in the starthand and you got no target. Not to mention its a horrible topdeck later in the game. The only major reason spellbomb is ok to bring in for such matchups is because it cantrips.
In my testing, I'm still favored vs. Affinity with Shadow, but Delver just straight-up murders the matchup. On the other hand, Delver is softer to the big mana decks, but I've found that Blood Moon and some extra maindeck counterspells make those matchups reasonably close. What would people recommend in terms of tackling this meta? How does Shadow feel to you vs. Robots? How about Eldrazi Tron? I thought I'd feel great against them, but in testing I've been underperforming both pre- and post-board.
I definitely agree on 2-2 Tasigur/Angler and 2 Bolt (3 being a possible flex). In answer to Rothgar's question about lands, I feel I'm too pinched on mana too often at 18. We're much hungrier for mana than Jund Shadow, with Tasigur activations and especially Snap-Kommand taking a heavy mana investment. I know lots of lists skip the basic mountain, but with lots of decks racing me down I feel like it's worth the 19th land spot to save a couple of life here and there.
Here's the list I've tuned to. Notable includes based on the meta are the third K-Command, 2 Ceremonious Rejection in the board, and a 1-1 split of Liliana, the Last Hope with 1 Liliana of the Veil in the board.
4 Death's Shadow
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
Planeswalkers: 1
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Instants: 15
3 Thought Scour
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Fatal Push
2 Terminate
3 Kolaghan's Command
4 Serum Visions
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
Lands: 19
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Mountain
2 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Kozilek's Return
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Collective Brutality
I may go down to 1 or 0 Brutality SB, as I haven't seen that much burn lately and it may not be worth the slot. With no Dredge AFAIK and not needing to deal 3 with my wipes, Kozilek's Return seems great for hitting manlands and clearing Etched Champions. (Fish is the only deck where I'd rather go for Anger, but I think the pros of Return outweigh the two Fish players.) Explosives and Staticaster are both unusual choices brought over from Delver, but they're great against Affinity, many tribal decks, and the few folks who toss Lingering Souls around. Surgical may also get cut; presently it's insurance vs. the odd Abzan Company and/or Ad Nauseam deck.
The other card I'm really not sold on so far is Fulminator Mage. It's certainly nice to be able to Stone Rain a land, and with K-Command and Liliana, it's easy to recur. But I often find it's just not enough impact to justify bringing it in over more disruption (like a third Ceremonious Rejection). Maybe I've just had bad luck with it so far, though.
Anyways, thanks for the great discussion! Love to hear people's thoughts!
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
I'm personally keen on dedicating two more slots to sweepers (would like to hear if this overkill, but I think there's a wide enough range of applications and these swarm strategies tend to be some of our hardest). I've looked at Anger of the Gods, Flaying Tendrils, and Kozilek's Return. They all have their pros and cons, which are generally speaking:
*mana requirement
*exiling
*1 more point of damage
*instant speed hitting manlands/surprise factor
*hitting etched champion et al.
*corner case applications of getting past selfless spirit etc
Right now I am favoring two Anger of the Gods+1 staticaster because double red tend not to be a problem for me (I play 1 vent and 2 crypts), the extra point of damage matters vs tribal strats and dredge, and exiling really matters vs dredge/coco
Also, how are you feeling with 3 Snapcasters?.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
- We're both off white as a splash option. It works much better in decks that are green because you have 1-2 basics that Traverse finds and we're milling ourself frequently with Thought Scours to delve away threats.
- The Grixis Shadow Mirror: we've found that Terminate followed closely by Snapcaster tends to be a huge deciding factor in those games. Fatal Push isn't sideboarded out, so your Shadows don't tend to live long, but the un-Push-able threats are really challenging. Those threats also are crucial to Stubborn Denial being online, so often times our Lilianas are targeting each other's delve threat so as to turn off Stubborn Denial.
- For sweepers, we're both in on Kozilek's Return, since our local meta has a sometimes annoying amount of Soul Sisters, but we're also acutely aware of the mana requirements in the deck. We're talking about potentially upping these from one copy to two since there seems to be an increased number of token strategies as people try to meta game against Shadow. There's also an increasing number of Affinity decks it seems and being able to clear Etched Champions is great, since one starts to slow you down annoyingly and two feels nearly impossible to break through.
- I do think that 2 Crypt, 2 Grave, 1 Vents is the correct land base now.
- We're not into Liliana of the Veil. Reason being that LOTV is great in the green decks because they run "more downhill", as it were; they curve out more neatly and tend to emphasize presenting threats that your opponent has to answer, which means LOTV is a great way to clear the way for them. Since we have counter-magic and Snapcaster, we're a bit grindier already, and removing one blocker doesn't mean that much for us, at least not as much as it does for the green based versions. Liliana the Last Hope should be a 2-of in the sideboard; the ability to have her around matters a ton in the mirror as well.
- My teammate is on two Terminate main, I'm on one with two more in the board. You need at least 3 to deal with Eldrazi related decks. We're talking about adding a Dismember as another option in the board; I've been considering Vendetta as well, though it doesn't help in the mirror.
- I am personally not sold on Fulminator Mage and think we do fine against big mana strategies without it. I hate Fulminator Mage in Shadow lists because we're trying to emphasize mana efficiency and taking a whole turn off to kill one of my opponent's lands doesn't really do anything for me, usually. Like I'd much rather be presenting another Shadow and a cantrip plus holding up something on that turn rather than tapping out for a 2/2. I don't even bother with land destruction because I'm trying to leverage efficient threats behind efficient, redundant disruption (I like to Snapcaster-Thoughtseize a lot).
- As an Abzan Company player, I'd say the things I hate more than Surgical Extraction is Collective Brutality. Killing my mana dork and taking the Company out of my hand sets me so, so far behind. It is far more brutal against a good Abzan Company player than a Surgical Extraction, because a good Company player can prep another Chord to get a 2ndary finks or I have a backdoor Archangel/Spike Feeder combo.
Things we've experimented with in the sideboard:
- Jace, Vryn's Prodigy as Snapcaster #5
- Rakdos Charm as additional artifact/graveyard hate
- Anger of the Gods, but not keen on it