Okay, let me rephrase this. My SB plan for Etron is as follows:
IN
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Negate
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Condemn
OUT
4 Serum Visions
2 of either Leak or Wall
1 GotT
1 TT
So should I cut the walls or leaks, or a combination?
This seems like overboarding. What is Surgical Extraction for? I think Timely Reinforcements is also pretty bad, because your soldier tokens are outclassed so easily by Reality Smasher or taken care of so easily by Walking Ballista.
Right now, after the last GPT I was in, I want to fine-tune it a bit more. Big Game Hunter was originally there for the mirror and Eldrazi decks but it just doesn't do enough. My teammate and I have definitely come to the conclusion that Bant Eldrazi is, as far as popular matchups go, our worst one. Our problem is that they attack you from so many different angles and depending on how their draw lines up, you may be ready to fight against a Reality Smasher opener but they end up going Displacer into Drowner of Hope. When I've beaten Bant Eldrazi, it's usually been one of three ways: 1. I got significant hand disruption, usually Thoughtseize into Snap-Thoughtseize, 2. They flooded out, 3. They didn't draw enough lands. So theoretically, it might be right to put Fulminators back in because Bant Eldrazi struggle to deploy all their threats. Illness takes care of Scions with upside across the board for other matchups, but if you mill it, it's gone forever.
At this point, I'm probably cutting the 3rd Spellbomb and Big Game Hunter for two cards. I'm currently looking at a singleton Kozilek's Return for anti-token/affinity potential, and I really want at least one sweeper that is excellent against the battlefield, and then another removal spell for Bant Eldrazi. We're considering Dismember; I kinda like Vendetta, too, but it's bad in the mirror. We're not interested in Ceremonious Rejection because Bant Eldrazi's Caverns are so good.
re: Temur Battle Rage, we've debated trying Invigorating Rampage (1R from Aether Revolt, one target creature gets trample and +4/0, OR up to two target creatures get +2/0 and trample). Haven't tried it, but it's something a bit nicer than a Battle Rage against a deck that has pinpoint removal since it won't fizzle unless they have *two* removal spells.
You can definitely sub anti-token effects for Liliana like Electrickery or Staticaster or Illness in the Ranks or w/e, but her ability to recur is insane against Jund decks and the mirror generally speaking. You can't substitute the effect, so I'd prioritize getting your hands on some. She's worth it.
@westcoasthorus Thoughts on Rise // Fall? I do no own any Lily, Last Hopes. Also your findings are very helpful.
Rise//Fall felt just cute to us. My teammate experimented with it more than I did; I went to the Michael Majors 3 Bolt main (now 2 Bolt/1 Terminate) pretty quickly and never looked back. Like I said earlier, my philosophy with Shadow decks is I really really want to lean in on the efficiency of the cards in my deck. I want to force my opponent on the back foot as much as possible, and Rise//Fall is just a way to get more card advantage, which is not what I think the deck actually wants to be doing. Even though it can! Just like Abzan Company decks can also grind, but my philosophy with Company is that it's primarily a combo deck and you should be working towards the combo, not trying to eke out incremental advantage with things like Voice of Resurgence.
And second @bloodyrabbit_01 on Liliana, the Last Hope. She is the Liliana that Grixis Shadow decks want and she is totally worth the investment. If you don't have her in a mirror match you are significantly behind, and as Rabbit also pointed out, Liliana helping clear spirits matters a lot because they can slow us down a ton (I lost in the quarters of a GPT this weekend to an Abzan Souls deck - Spectral Procession and Lingering Souls and Nissa voice of Zendikar and Sorin is really, really annoying, let me tell you).
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.
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
Pre-board, you want a main-decked Scavenging Ooze as a Chord target because that's your leanest way to interact with your opponent combo-ing off, plus with how Abzan Company decks are designed to get some value from graveyard (EWits and Ralliers), Ooze lines up well there. Fiend Hunter is another slot in the main as another Chord target to break up the combo. Sometimes this matchup can be swingy and someone just gets ahead in terms of mana dorks, Company, and Chord and all that - I'd encourage you to look at this matchup as similar to a 4c Saheeli mirror in standard. You cannot play around the combo in the early turns of the game, so you just need to develop and if you lose, that's variance. Post sideboard of course you both get a lot more interaction and it tends to be more about value, hence why you want probably two Tireless Trackers in your 75, not only to draw removal but also because it is a ton of cards to see through clues, but it was a great way to put pressure in the board stalls that you often see in an Company mirror.
If your opponent combos to X life, remember that as long as they don't have the combo in play to do it again, you can kill them with either an Archangel/Feeder combo or having Melira AND Anafenza from your combo in play. This is very unlikely to happen as they can just scry to something at the top of their deck that'll finish you off next turn, but who knows.
In playing the couple of mirror matches I did at GP Vancouver, I found that having the Archangel main gave me a significant advantage over my opponents because with an Ooze and an Angel they were effectively locked out of the game and I was guaranteed to win the "long game", and it could apply pressure that was nearly unstoppable, because you grew your team faster than your opponent can Gavony Township while still holding up mana yourself.
A note: if your opponent is playing Voice of Resurgence, I tended to ignore those until I absolutely had to. The game really is not about Voice of Resurgence in my experience, it was about assembling the combo with protection or disruption your opponents.
Being able to hit an early Hierarch or Bird with Twisted Image can slow them down a ton. Since Eldrazi aren't colored, it's not worth trying to do other things. You want the Dismembers to take out Spellskite or Thought-Knot Seer and just put the pedal to the metal. Dryad Arbor can be a combat trick against them with the right pump spells.
I won a PPTQ with Owen Turtenwald's exact list this weekend; went 5-0 in the Swiss and was able to draw with a friend round 6 to place me at #1 seed for the entirety of top 8, which was magical. I went 2-0 in every match in the top 8. Love the deck, a lot more than the older Turtenwald list with Dispel. Having a full playset of Spell Pierce was excellent.
I can see putting Blossoming Defense in there over the Groundswell, but I wouldn't change too much from there. Apostle's Blessing is an important effect, Vines is an important effect. Defense can't get redirected by Spellskite so it seems great against any deck playing Spellskite since Defense + Hierarch/Pendelhaven is enough to wipe out a Spellskite with -1 counters, and Groundswell didn't show up at all for me in the tournament.
This seems like overboarding. What is Surgical Extraction for? I think Timely Reinforcements is also pretty bad, because your soldier tokens are outclassed so easily by Reality Smasher or taken care of so easily by Walking Ballista.
My current list is very stock:
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Street Wraith
2 Gurmag Angler
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Terminate
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Thought Scour
4 Fatal Push
4 Serum Visions
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Blood Crypt
2 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Stubborn Denial
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Terminate
3 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Collective Brutality
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Engineered Explosives
Right now, after the last GPT I was in, I want to fine-tune it a bit more. Big Game Hunter was originally there for the mirror and Eldrazi decks but it just doesn't do enough. My teammate and I have definitely come to the conclusion that Bant Eldrazi is, as far as popular matchups go, our worst one. Our problem is that they attack you from so many different angles and depending on how their draw lines up, you may be ready to fight against a Reality Smasher opener but they end up going Displacer into Drowner of Hope. When I've beaten Bant Eldrazi, it's usually been one of three ways: 1. I got significant hand disruption, usually Thoughtseize into Snap-Thoughtseize, 2. They flooded out, 3. They didn't draw enough lands. So theoretically, it might be right to put Fulminators back in because Bant Eldrazi struggle to deploy all their threats. Illness takes care of Scions with upside across the board for other matchups, but if you mill it, it's gone forever.
At this point, I'm probably cutting the 3rd Spellbomb and Big Game Hunter for two cards. I'm currently looking at a singleton Kozilek's Return for anti-token/affinity potential, and I really want at least one sweeper that is excellent against the battlefield, and then another removal spell for Bant Eldrazi. We're considering Dismember; I kinda like Vendetta, too, but it's bad in the mirror. We're not interested in Ceremonious Rejection because Bant Eldrazi's Caverns are so good.
re: Temur Battle Rage, we've debated trying Invigorating Rampage (1R from Aether Revolt, one target creature gets trample and +4/0, OR up to two target creatures get +2/0 and trample). Haven't tried it, but it's something a bit nicer than a Battle Rage against a deck that has pinpoint removal since it won't fizzle unless they have *two* removal spells.
edit: forgot KCommand from the main
Rise//Fall felt just cute to us. My teammate experimented with it more than I did; I went to the Michael Majors 3 Bolt main (now 2 Bolt/1 Terminate) pretty quickly and never looked back. Like I said earlier, my philosophy with Shadow decks is I really really want to lean in on the efficiency of the cards in my deck. I want to force my opponent on the back foot as much as possible, and Rise//Fall is just a way to get more card advantage, which is not what I think the deck actually wants to be doing. Even though it can! Just like Abzan Company decks can also grind, but my philosophy with Company is that it's primarily a combo deck and you should be working towards the combo, not trying to eke out incremental advantage with things like Voice of Resurgence.
And second @bloodyrabbit_01 on Liliana, the Last Hope. She is the Liliana that Grixis Shadow decks want and she is totally worth the investment. If you don't have her in a mirror match you are significantly behind, and as Rabbit also pointed out, Liliana helping clear spirits matters a lot because they can slow us down a ton (I lost in the quarters of a GPT this weekend to an Abzan Souls deck - Spectral Procession and Lingering Souls and Nissa voice of Zendikar and Sorin is really, really annoying, let me tell you).
- 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
First off, I'll reference Eric Severson's report: https://www.massdrop.com/talk/1285/in-good-company-top-8-at-gp-vancouver because he was on a Brad Rutherford variation (Rutherford loves the main-decked Archangel).
Pre-board, you want a main-decked Scavenging Ooze as a Chord target because that's your leanest way to interact with your opponent combo-ing off, plus with how Abzan Company decks are designed to get some value from graveyard (EWits and Ralliers), Ooze lines up well there. Fiend Hunter is another slot in the main as another Chord target to break up the combo. Sometimes this matchup can be swingy and someone just gets ahead in terms of mana dorks, Company, and Chord and all that - I'd encourage you to look at this matchup as similar to a 4c Saheeli mirror in standard. You cannot play around the combo in the early turns of the game, so you just need to develop and if you lose, that's variance. Post sideboard of course you both get a lot more interaction and it tends to be more about value, hence why you want probably two Tireless Trackers in your 75, not only to draw removal but also because it is a ton of cards to see through clues, but it was a great way to put pressure in the board stalls that you often see in an Company mirror.
If your opponent combos to X life, remember that as long as they don't have the combo in play to do it again, you can kill them with either an Archangel/Feeder combo or having Melira AND Anafenza from your combo in play. This is very unlikely to happen as they can just scry to something at the top of their deck that'll finish you off next turn, but who knows.
In playing the couple of mirror matches I did at GP Vancouver, I found that having the Archangel main gave me a significant advantage over my opponents because with an Ooze and an Angel they were effectively locked out of the game and I was guaranteed to win the "long game", and it could apply pressure that was nearly unstoppable, because you grew your team faster than your opponent can Gavony Township while still holding up mana yourself.
A note: if your opponent is playing Voice of Resurgence, I tended to ignore those until I absolutely had to. The game really is not about Voice of Resurgence in my experience, it was about assembling the combo with protection or disruption your opponents.
I'd recommend reading their thread - they're afraid of us.
-1 Spell Pierce, -2 Apostle's Blessing
+1 Twisted Image, +2 Dismember
Being able to hit an early Hierarch or Bird with Twisted Image can slow them down a ton. Since Eldrazi aren't colored, it's not worth trying to do other things. You want the Dismembers to take out Spellskite or Thought-Knot Seer and just put the pedal to the metal. Dryad Arbor can be a combat trick against them with the right pump spells.
I can see putting Blossoming Defense in there over the Groundswell, but I wouldn't change too much from there. Apostle's Blessing is an important effect, Vines is an important effect. Defense can't get redirected by Spellskite so it seems great against any deck playing Spellskite since Defense + Hierarch/Pendelhaven is enough to wipe out a Spellskite with -1 counters, and Groundswell didn't show up at all for me in the tournament.