What I really meant was that Faithless Looting tends to be fairly high variance, as there is nothing in particular that you want to actively put in the yard. Sometimes it is great and you can throw something useless in exchange for something less so, but other times you just end up looking at a bunch of useful cards and having to bin 2 of them. It is also an abysmal top deck if you are hellbent.
Perhaps you are not using the spell to its full potential. If your hand is full of good cards, you simply don't have to cast Faithless Looting. Stop making land drops (unless you have are completely resource flooded, ie. planeswalkers, snap/kommand, you rarely need more than 3-4). Eventually you will run out of gas and you can cash in the extra lands for real cards. If you keep drawing gas and the looting is just stuck in your hand, you are likely doing well in that game anyway.
It's extremely versatile - lets you power out anglers as well, dump dead cards in G1, dump life loss/discard spells/lands late game, dump GY cards when there is GY hate, dump hand disruption when there's a leyline. Sometimes you just need to see as many cards as fast as possible and you can pitch stuff like Bauble/SV/TS and keep the actual good cards, since that's all you're using the cantrips for anyway.
Playing this deck w/o looting I definitely feel a sharp decrease in card selection and consistency. I feel like the virtual card advantage this card can net you is very high.
I like playing 2 for G1, where I find it especially excels at making sure all the cards you have access to are relevant to the game, and boarding out the second copy post SB in some matchups.
After the success of my sultai whisper deck ( one time on steam i will admits, but localy has been pulling work), i will be trying to be playing a 4c version with manamorophose. http://www.metamox.com/deck/modern-jund-death-s-shadow/201703/ note: IoK can and will be replaced by Whisper in the list.
Might be awhile before i can tested it fully tho, having too much fun with Titi blue moon control in modern.
Been playing nearly exact same list minus SB for a little while; - 1 push + 1 dismember, and -3 IoK for 2 whispers and a tarfire. Also running a Stomping ground instead of 2 tombs.
I can't remember the last time a list that put up results actually ran Stomping Ground.
If you're going for Jund colors, Jund is simply the better option. If you're going for Sultai colors, you're missing out on TBR and a lot of matchups get a lot worse all of a sudden.
4c can be tough as far as mana goes, but if you practice your lines and learn how to play around Blood Moon and Field decks you'll be fine most of the time. Manamorphose is amazing in this regard.
The deck that won the modern MOCS or challenge or championship or whatever it was 2-3 months ago ran stomping ground. Straight Jund, 3 TBR main, tarfires, a truly aggressive list. One of the only top finishes Jund Death's shadow has had in a major event other than GP Vancouver in the year since that tournament. Stomping ground is rarely seen these days because the 4c lists are heavier on blue than red, with red being there just for TBR in many cases. Anytime you're running tarfire, stomping ground is a necessity if you want the deck to function consistently, and tarfire has fallen out of favour.
Adding manamorphose to this deck has really put it over the top against blood moon, between discard, stubs, abrupt decay, manamorphose, and simply being fast and getting threats underneath it, I haven't lost to the card in quite a lot of matches now. It's not something you ever really want to see, as you do have to deal with it, but the deck has more tools to deal with it (in a variety of ways) than anyone has blood moons.
Im personally not a big fan of 4c ds lists. I just hate having the manabase work against me sometimes, like i can def see the stomping grounds kicking you in the butt, cuz black is your highest mana color, but manamophase can help there. I think ds works best as Black Green deck splash X with X being either red or blue. Jund has been considered the best color to ally with, but as you can see sultai looks peaty good also.
The list that made T8 at the Modern PT ran 4 colors with a forest, and Jean-Emmanuel admitted afterwards that the forest should have been a breeding pool, as he would have won an extra 2 games. Not the same thing as stomping ground, but a similar philosophy. Many lists with the blue splash being the main colour are still running breeding pool + forest, with the Jund versions running stomping ground instead of Breeding pool. The result is the same, 2 lands that don't produce black mana, backed up by 11-12 fetches. This template has seen success for quite some time regardless of the card choices. The only time you're really in trouble is if the only land you have is one of the forests, or you have both of them. Something that may cause a few mulligans here and there, but comes up to bite you in a very small amount of games (I would guess no more than a deck like traditional Jund might encounter mana issues).
Personally, I like to run an equivalent amount of blue and red. Blue complements the core of the deck better for some matchups, and red the others. Decks like humans, affinity, company variants, etc, I like to have the option to board in to a straight Jund deck. Some control/midrange (grindy) matchups, I board in to a sultai deck. Combo matchups, burn, tron, all 4 colors are good and useful. Modern is just so wide open that you need 4 colors to really have good, powerful options to combat the field. As mentioned, manamorphose really is amazing, and facilitates being able to run all of these configurations so smoothly.
I think the mana becomes less of an issue with more experience. You don't need 4 colors of mana every game; the only blue and red cards in the maindeck are typically TBR and Stub. If you're playing against a creature based deck, you're probably fine skipping the blue, if you do have a stub, there's a good chance its low/no impact, so you can afford to wait to draw another fetchland and enable it later on if you really need to. Against a control deck, I'd do the opposite. Sometimes you can hold manamorphose to cast the card when you need it, especially for a card like TBR, a one time thing that just ends the game most of the time. Post SB in a lot of matchups you are cutting a good portion of one color and leaning on the other, so you can grab crypt/grave depending on your needs after the tomb. Sometimes you have to make a fetching decision and you don't have any blue or red cards yet, by knowing the matchup and understanding how the game is playing out and which cards you're going to need to win, you can decide to grab the color with the highest upside. Most games you just draw 3 fetchlands and it's easy!
I've played this deck so much in the past year, with so many different color configurations, I now feel that 3 colors is too simple. It can play another color for a lot of upside with very little to no downside. If you look at my monstrosity of a list a few posts back, I'm playing stub and tarfire, stomping ground and breeding pool, and I literally have never played a game with the list where I lost because of mana issues. One of my favourite aspects of the deck!
I've been thinking about Whispers for a while and the Hoogland stream inspired me to try my own version. It's better than I expected; both in terms of how good it is when it resolves against a variety of strategies, and how consistently it can be cast on turns 2-4 with delirium online. The sultai deck looks very solid, the numbers look tight and it was gas on stream. The things that stood out to me as not necessarily ideal were the opts (these type of cantrips feel too slow in the deck from previous experience), and not having battle rage, which is just too important against the wide-open modern field IMO.
This is what I've come up with, only about 10 matches deep but it's been smooth:
An extra lili of the veil and push are on the radar for the 75, likely sideboard. Wouldn't mind a Grim Flayer. If anyone tries this list or is running something similar would love to hear input on how to improve the list.
Is it really worth lowering life total, playing a bunch of cantrips/cards that interact badly with BBE, just to have traverse + shadow, with no TBR? TBR is what makes traverse shadow a good deck in this format, IMO. If shadow ever got out of hand, I think TBR is the card they could ban to neuter the deck. You can configure the deck to attack from multiple axis; hand disruption, removal, counterspells, etc, but TBR gives the deck the combo finish it needs in practically every single non-midrange matchup. How can you win consistently with this deck in modern, without TBR? BBE is a great card, I'm still not convinced it belongs alongside death's shadow/traverse.
I would recommend trying some noble hierarchs if you're on jace. It's proving to be quite a good card in the deck in general, certainly more impactful than adding jace himself to the deck. Like you said, he might just be a SB card, or a 1 of MD for respect of his power level, but either way, NH works well with him, and it works great with your big fatties and TBR. So far im 13-2 in leagues using that configuration, playing against a wide variety of archetypes.
Not a bad looking list at all. However, based on the meta, I think a few more proactive choices would be better against the open field. Grim flayer over snap, cut the breeding pool since you dont need UU, replace with stomping ground, cut a delta for a misty (to grab the ground), cut 1 stub (lots of matchups where its useless, 3 main too many), and then 2 of push/AD/Lili for 2 tarfire and a dismember.
That build gives you maximum aggression and consistency. Don't underestimate tarfire, card is great in the meta right now, I like a 1/1 LotV b/w main and SB, she has quite a few bad matchups too. The tarfires and dismembers ensure you can always have huge threats and TBR them while still having Stub backup and whatnot. Tarfire kills a lot of ***** in the current meta, queller and mantis rider being 2 of the misses, and even against decks like tron and valakut it typically stays in post SB depending on your SB, because it can clear Sakura, go to face and help goyf race, or go to your own face and let shadow race while fixing your graveyard.
BBE doesn't fit it at all no matter how good a card it is. Too many situational cards, TBR, Stub, all the removal, Baubles, turned off traverse, etc. Not to mention 4 mana isn't even a consistent threshold you reach every game - if you're playing 4 copies your hand will be cluttered too often, and if you play less copies or use it as a traverse bullet then its a wildly inconsistent card in a deck that needs consistent results with the way you're managing your life total. Re-imagining the deck to fit BBE turns it in to a regular Jund deck with no shadows.
I see a lot of discussion on how Jace affects the deck, but all of it aimed at him being played against us. How about Jace in the deck? 4 mana is a lot, but I'd be looking at 2 copies max, maybe 2 main or a 1/1 split, and he would be much more powerful in Traverse Shadow than BBE @ 4 mana. The deck is loaded with fetches and traverse, has access to discard to pave a way for him, removal to keep the board under control, and the baddest threats in the format. Untapping with a resolved Jace seems like huge game to me, well worth re-configuring the deck fairly significantly IMO. His bounce is a great tool against delve threats and stuff like Mirran Crusader that demand specific answers that we don't have many of. Just seems great.
Here's a list I've put together - haven't had a chance to try it yet, waiting for it to hit MODO tomorrow.
Noble Hierarch is the card that stands out the most I think - I got the idea from an old video series with Michael Majors. It looked good for him but that was one matchup and he drew Jace every game. One of my obvious concerns with it is the fact that it doesn't produce black - but it's great with tarmogoyf and liliana especially, enabling T2 liliana or tarmogoyf + discard/removal/stub. Dismember, TBR, Jace, AD, Dismember, Liliana, Stub, Snap, Noble, Goyf, Flayer and potentially Street wraith are all MD cards that this helps cast. Another concern is the fact that we want to cast discard on T1 a lot of the time, and there are hands where the noble is essentially a useless card (ones full of cheap black cards). Exalted isn't irrelevant and why I started with Nobles, but if the mana accel proves valuable while the lack of black is troublesome, birds is always an option as well. I like that it's a creature as Liliana protection, you can brainstorm extras away with jace, or discard with lili. It fits the theme of the deck as an individually very powerful, 1CC card that enables explosive draws. Starting with 3, as you want it early but not in multiples, and I feel comfortable cutting a fetchland with 3 extra mana sources in the deck.
1 Grim flayer as I've absolutely loved the card at 2 copies, but want to play a 1/1 split with snap for more traverse options.
1 inquisition had to go to make room for all of the new stuff - since we have nobles to cast on T1 it made some sense, and snap allows us to buyback discard spells if those are what we really need in any given game.
Couple removal slots got cut as well (these were tarfires and a dismember for me, was running 2/2/2), but again a reason I like having the 1 snap available to buyback if needed. Never really felt like this is a deck that wants to kill every single creature that hits the board - usually just use discard to take out any creatures that may cause problems, let them cast something that's easily dealt with for tempo, and then dwarf everything else with huge threats. Jace can also be used a pseudo removal spell in some situations.
Cut 1 traverse, I find that they get stranded in your hand way too often at 4 copies, without tarfire (also, tarfire was amazing in this deck).
Speaking of tarfire, cut it because the deck is very minimal on red mana. I previously had the option the fetch a stomping ground and watery grave to turn on all 4 colors, but we have breeding pool now.
TBR stays in the deck, because it's just one of the most important cards for the archetype to have success in Modern IMO. 2 maindeck, 1 side has always felt perfect to me.
2x Stubborn Denial is where I want to be in Modern, with this deck. I definitely want 4 against some decks because it's just the best card, but there are quite a few matchups where it's just completely dead and drawing multiple is very likely a loss or mulligan.
Sideboard: Izzet Staticaster, another grudge are at the front of the list among many things to consider, with Kommand and lavamancer likely the first cuts.
Lots of flexible cards that can be used in a variety of matchups, going through sideboard plans quickly in my mind I feel like it is well configured to allow us to always have relevant cards to board in for any matchup and take out the bad cards.
Last thing to touch on is the manabase - 17 lands is different and a little risky, but the nobles actually put us up on mana sources overall - not counting it strictly as a land, but adding 3 of them and cutting 1 land seems reasonable. And the list is just so tight as it is, I want to keep it full of gas.
I can see the deck needing a forest if the mana denial decks (UW in particular, Jund with fulminators) really pick up in popularity. But at the end of the day, I think it's just a weakness of the deck, and there are so many more games and matches where mana denial is irrelevant (even against these decks) and having the forest is a solid detriment. Anyway, cutting a card and adding a forest is the easiest solution if that's your concern, to stay on 17 lands and play forest isn't really something I want to do, having less than 5 shocks in this deck comes up as an issue quite often for me. Any game where you are managing your life total conservatively through the early turns can have you run in to the problem of not being able to turn on your shadows later on. There's also the corner case of having the 1 of mire and having already fetched a grave, but needing another blue source. Cutting down to 11 fetches is something I started doing a while ago and am comfortable with, but definitely not less than that.
That's a big wall of text, but I'm hoping to elicit some discussion and hear others ideas on this type of build. I love this archetype and the idea of adding a card as powerful and fun as jace to it has me really excited.
This seems to me like a great idea! Let us know how that worked out.
Works great IMO. I've spent a lot of time configuring it with all of the components I find the best from both Jund and Grixis shadow all in one deck. I'll provide a list and explain a lot of my thinking and reasoning behind the configuration of the deck. I've played a lot of shadow over the past few months, swapping back and forth from jund, grixis, and sultai, and I truly feel that the sultai deck is the most powerful overall. Obviously, I am one guy, likely the only one anywhere playing the deck, and it would benefit from more people giving it a try and adding their input. So hopefully someone will take the time to read this and be intrigued, with that being said, here is my current list, please note it is constantly evolving:
Maindeck:
4x Street Wraith
4x Death's Shadow
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4x Mishra's Bauble
4x Serum Visions
4x Fatal Push
1x Dismember
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Thoughtseize
2x Traverse the Ulvenwald
2x Liliana of the Veil
Sideboard:
3x Stubborn Denial
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Flaying Tendrils
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Collective Brutality
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Snapcaster Mage
3x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Temur Battle Rage
I love Jund's aggro element but feel it lacks the consistency of grixis having fewer cantrips. So running 4 serum to go along with bauble and wraith to boost it up to 12 total.
Have the full 8 discard - just great cards, serum helps prevent you from topdecking too many of them, and synergize great with goyf and LotV.
2 snaps + 1 in the board - just a great card especially when you have so many potent 1 mana spells, great late game card, only run 2 - it's a 3+ mana play and there are already 2 lili and 2 kommand. Tarmogoyf costing 2 rather than the 1 the Delve creatures typically cost make this more relevant.
I personally play a lot more against non-shadow/push decks than ones with them, so tarmogoyf just always seems great. Feels like a more consistent threat to me than the delve threats even if he dies to push and costs 2. Have a tasigur as well - sometimes you traverse for him as a push proof threat, or when in topdeck mode and you can make use of his ability. Heavy cantrip hands can let you even tutor and play him on turn 2 when you aren't yet low enough for shadow. Most often you just draw him once in a while as a 1 of and it is EXTREMELY rare that you don't have a graveyard to delve away. The deck can't support multiples of these but he's usually always a great card when you do draw him.
I'm currently on 17 land - 5 being actual lands - playing 4 colors - to me the riskiest and most inconsistent part of the deck. I rarely have actual mana issues, no more so than Jund or Grixis really, but it is definitely weak to decks like Merfolk and UW with spreading seas and ghost quarters. Hate bears less so - the matchup goes pretty well for me usually.
At the end of the day, I think the mana can be tweaked however you want it depending on preference. I tend to flood a lot and I find that 1 landers are some of the most successful and powerful hands with these decks because of all the cantrips - and you're just all gas. Perhaps my card choices are not ideal but I'm just one guy - there are many ways to approach building the deck, but 4 colors to me is the way to go IMO - you're taking the damage anyway and it gives you so many powerful options. The decks with spreading seas and whatnot are typically hard anyway.. not sure it really makes it too much worse - my config has 6 blue cards, 7 green cards (1 is abrupt decay) and 2 red cards main, rest being black. It's not really much more color taxing than the other decks that are only 3 colors but play more of the secondary and tertiary colors.
I find this configuration is more aggressive along the lines of jund but eliminates a lot of the inconsistency that deck can suffer from, the serums are really powerful in these death's shadow decks for the draw smoothing, and snap provides a lot of late game punch that Jund definitely lacks. I find Grixis can spin it's wheels a lot with the cantrips, and it actually plays death's shadow much less consistently than Jund with the 4 traverse, and this deck which has 2 traverse and nearly the same amount of cantrips. Goyf can be played in multiples whereas multiple delve threats can be hard to get online. Green also offers some really nice sideboard options and versatile cards (grudge, decay, pulse).
You aren't playing any thought scours or tarfires, and all of your cards are truly good individually. Stubborn denial is a fine card, but I run it SB - it is a card that I find can be a blank a lot of times - it requires another card to make it powerful. Traverse is extremely powerful but running 4 of them you definitely run in to situations where it is blank and topdeck multiples, and you have to run tarfire to eliminate that inconsistency.
Claim//Fame is a possible powerful option, likely as a sideboard card against the mirror/midrange decks. I like the sideboard but obviously meta dependent.. there are certainly no shortage of options regarding sideboard cards for this deck.
Let me know what you guys think, and if anyone picks it up and plays with it sometime, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Has anyone tried this kind of shell just adding a blood crypt and kommand? That's what I've been doing. Seems an easy solution to really the only thing Sultai lacks. Kommand is really the only super powerful red card in any of the Shadow shells. Sultai red gives you access to literally all of the best cards from all of the variants to set up as you choose.
Perhaps you are not using the spell to its full potential. If your hand is full of good cards, you simply don't have to cast Faithless Looting. Stop making land drops (unless you have are completely resource flooded, ie. planeswalkers, snap/kommand, you rarely need more than 3-4). Eventually you will run out of gas and you can cash in the extra lands for real cards. If you keep drawing gas and the looting is just stuck in your hand, you are likely doing well in that game anyway.
It's extremely versatile - lets you power out anglers as well, dump dead cards in G1, dump life loss/discard spells/lands late game, dump GY cards when there is GY hate, dump hand disruption when there's a leyline. Sometimes you just need to see as many cards as fast as possible and you can pitch stuff like Bauble/SV/TS and keep the actual good cards, since that's all you're using the cantrips for anyway.
Playing this deck w/o looting I definitely feel a sharp decrease in card selection and consistency. I feel like the virtual card advantage this card can net you is very high.
I like playing 2 for G1, where I find it especially excels at making sure all the cards you have access to are relevant to the game, and boarding out the second copy post SB in some matchups.
Been playing nearly exact same list minus SB for a little while; - 1 push + 1 dismember, and -3 IoK for 2 whispers and a tarfire. Also running a Stomping ground instead of 2 tombs.
The deck that won the modern MOCS or challenge or championship or whatever it was 2-3 months ago ran stomping ground. Straight Jund, 3 TBR main, tarfires, a truly aggressive list. One of the only top finishes Jund Death's shadow has had in a major event other than GP Vancouver in the year since that tournament. Stomping ground is rarely seen these days because the 4c lists are heavier on blue than red, with red being there just for TBR in many cases. Anytime you're running tarfire, stomping ground is a necessity if you want the deck to function consistently, and tarfire has fallen out of favour.
Adding manamorphose to this deck has really put it over the top against blood moon, between discard, stubs, abrupt decay, manamorphose, and simply being fast and getting threats underneath it, I haven't lost to the card in quite a lot of matches now. It's not something you ever really want to see, as you do have to deal with it, but the deck has more tools to deal with it (in a variety of ways) than anyone has blood moons.
The list that made T8 at the Modern PT ran 4 colors with a forest, and Jean-Emmanuel admitted afterwards that the forest should have been a breeding pool, as he would have won an extra 2 games. Not the same thing as stomping ground, but a similar philosophy. Many lists with the blue splash being the main colour are still running breeding pool + forest, with the Jund versions running stomping ground instead of Breeding pool. The result is the same, 2 lands that don't produce black mana, backed up by 11-12 fetches. This template has seen success for quite some time regardless of the card choices. The only time you're really in trouble is if the only land you have is one of the forests, or you have both of them. Something that may cause a few mulligans here and there, but comes up to bite you in a very small amount of games (I would guess no more than a deck like traditional Jund might encounter mana issues).
Personally, I like to run an equivalent amount of blue and red. Blue complements the core of the deck better for some matchups, and red the others. Decks like humans, affinity, company variants, etc, I like to have the option to board in to a straight Jund deck. Some control/midrange (grindy) matchups, I board in to a sultai deck. Combo matchups, burn, tron, all 4 colors are good and useful. Modern is just so wide open that you need 4 colors to really have good, powerful options to combat the field. As mentioned, manamorphose really is amazing, and facilitates being able to run all of these configurations so smoothly.
I think the mana becomes less of an issue with more experience. You don't need 4 colors of mana every game; the only blue and red cards in the maindeck are typically TBR and Stub. If you're playing against a creature based deck, you're probably fine skipping the blue, if you do have a stub, there's a good chance its low/no impact, so you can afford to wait to draw another fetchland and enable it later on if you really need to. Against a control deck, I'd do the opposite. Sometimes you can hold manamorphose to cast the card when you need it, especially for a card like TBR, a one time thing that just ends the game most of the time. Post SB in a lot of matchups you are cutting a good portion of one color and leaning on the other, so you can grab crypt/grave depending on your needs after the tomb. Sometimes you have to make a fetching decision and you don't have any blue or red cards yet, by knowing the matchup and understanding how the game is playing out and which cards you're going to need to win, you can decide to grab the color with the highest upside. Most games you just draw 3 fetchlands and it's easy!
I've played this deck so much in the past year, with so many different color configurations, I now feel that 3 colors is too simple. It can play another color for a lot of upside with very little to no downside. If you look at my monstrosity of a list a few posts back, I'm playing stub and tarfire, stomping ground and breeding pool, and I literally have never played a game with the list where I lost because of mana issues. One of my favourite aspects of the deck!
This is what I've come up with, only about 10 matches deep but it's been smooth:
4x Street Wraith
4x Death's Shadow
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Architects of Will
Artifacts (4):
4x Mishra's Bauble
Sorceries (12):
4x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Whispers of Emrakul
4x Traverse the Ulvenwald
Instants (14):
2x Fatal Push
2x Dismember
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Temur Battle Rage
1x Tarfire
3x Manamorphose
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Bloodstained Mire
2x Polluted Delta
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
1x Stomping Ground
1x Breeding Pool
1x Swamp
1x Grim Lavamancer
2x Stubborn Denial
1x Collective Brutality
1x Temur Battle Rage
1x Abrade
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Kolaghan's Command
1x Kozilek's Return
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Hazoret the Fervent
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
An extra lili of the veil and push are on the radar for the 75, likely sideboard. Wouldn't mind a Grim Flayer. If anyone tries this list or is running something similar would love to hear input on how to improve the list.
That build gives you maximum aggression and consistency. Don't underestimate tarfire, card is great in the meta right now, I like a 1/1 LotV b/w main and SB, she has quite a few bad matchups too. The tarfires and dismembers ensure you can always have huge threats and TBR them while still having Stub backup and whatnot. Tarfire kills a lot of ***** in the current meta, queller and mantis rider being 2 of the misses, and even against decks like tron and valakut it typically stays in post SB depending on your SB, because it can clear Sakura, go to face and help goyf race, or go to your own face and let shadow race while fixing your graveyard.
I see a lot of discussion on how Jace affects the deck, but all of it aimed at him being played against us. How about Jace in the deck? 4 mana is a lot, but I'd be looking at 2 copies max, maybe 2 main or a 1/1 split, and he would be much more powerful in Traverse Shadow than BBE @ 4 mana. The deck is loaded with fetches and traverse, has access to discard to pave a way for him, removal to keep the board under control, and the baddest threats in the format. Untapping with a resolved Jace seems like huge game to me, well worth re-configuring the deck fairly significantly IMO. His bounce is a great tool against delve threats and stuff like Mirran Crusader that demand specific answers that we don't have many of. Just seems great.
Here's a list I've put together - haven't had a chance to try it yet, waiting for it to hit MODO tomorrow.
4x Polluted Delta
4x verdant Catacombs
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Swamp
1x Blood Crypt
1x Overgrown Tomb
2x Watery Grave
1x Breeding Pool
Creatures (17)
4x Street Wraith
4x Death's Shadow
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Snapcaster Mage
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Grim Flayer
4x Thoughtseize
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Stubborn Denial
3x Fatal Push
1x Dismember
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Liliana of the Veil
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Temur Battle Rage
3x Traverse the Ulvenwald
Artifacts (4)
4x Mishra's Bauble
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Temur Battle Rage
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Grim Lavamancer
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Kolaghan's Command
2x Stubborn Denial
1x Fatal Push
2x Collective Brutality
Noble Hierarch is the card that stands out the most I think - I got the idea from an old video series with Michael Majors. It looked good for him but that was one matchup and he drew Jace every game. One of my obvious concerns with it is the fact that it doesn't produce black - but it's great with tarmogoyf and liliana especially, enabling T2 liliana or tarmogoyf + discard/removal/stub. Dismember, TBR, Jace, AD, Dismember, Liliana, Stub, Snap, Noble, Goyf, Flayer and potentially Street wraith are all MD cards that this helps cast. Another concern is the fact that we want to cast discard on T1 a lot of the time, and there are hands where the noble is essentially a useless card (ones full of cheap black cards). Exalted isn't irrelevant and why I started with Nobles, but if the mana accel proves valuable while the lack of black is troublesome, birds is always an option as well. I like that it's a creature as Liliana protection, you can brainstorm extras away with jace, or discard with lili. It fits the theme of the deck as an individually very powerful, 1CC card that enables explosive draws. Starting with 3, as you want it early but not in multiples, and I feel comfortable cutting a fetchland with 3 extra mana sources in the deck.
1 Grim flayer as I've absolutely loved the card at 2 copies, but want to play a 1/1 split with snap for more traverse options.
1 inquisition had to go to make room for all of the new stuff - since we have nobles to cast on T1 it made some sense, and snap allows us to buyback discard spells if those are what we really need in any given game.
Couple removal slots got cut as well (these were tarfires and a dismember for me, was running 2/2/2), but again a reason I like having the 1 snap available to buyback if needed. Never really felt like this is a deck that wants to kill every single creature that hits the board - usually just use discard to take out any creatures that may cause problems, let them cast something that's easily dealt with for tempo, and then dwarf everything else with huge threats. Jace can also be used a pseudo removal spell in some situations.
Cut 1 traverse, I find that they get stranded in your hand way too often at 4 copies, without tarfire (also, tarfire was amazing in this deck).
Speaking of tarfire, cut it because the deck is very minimal on red mana. I previously had the option the fetch a stomping ground and watery grave to turn on all 4 colors, but we have breeding pool now.
TBR stays in the deck, because it's just one of the most important cards for the archetype to have success in Modern IMO. 2 maindeck, 1 side has always felt perfect to me.
2x Stubborn Denial is where I want to be in Modern, with this deck. I definitely want 4 against some decks because it's just the best card, but there are quite a few matchups where it's just completely dead and drawing multiple is very likely a loss or mulligan.
Sideboard: Izzet Staticaster, another grudge are at the front of the list among many things to consider, with Kommand and lavamancer likely the first cuts.
Lots of flexible cards that can be used in a variety of matchups, going through sideboard plans quickly in my mind I feel like it is well configured to allow us to always have relevant cards to board in for any matchup and take out the bad cards.
Last thing to touch on is the manabase - 17 lands is different and a little risky, but the nobles actually put us up on mana sources overall - not counting it strictly as a land, but adding 3 of them and cutting 1 land seems reasonable. And the list is just so tight as it is, I want to keep it full of gas.
I can see the deck needing a forest if the mana denial decks (UW in particular, Jund with fulminators) really pick up in popularity. But at the end of the day, I think it's just a weakness of the deck, and there are so many more games and matches where mana denial is irrelevant (even against these decks) and having the forest is a solid detriment. Anyway, cutting a card and adding a forest is the easiest solution if that's your concern, to stay on 17 lands and play forest isn't really something I want to do, having less than 5 shocks in this deck comes up as an issue quite often for me. Any game where you are managing your life total conservatively through the early turns can have you run in to the problem of not being able to turn on your shadows later on. There's also the corner case of having the 1 of mire and having already fetched a grave, but needing another blue source. Cutting down to 11 fetches is something I started doing a while ago and am comfortable with, but definitely not less than that.
That's a big wall of text, but I'm hoping to elicit some discussion and hear others ideas on this type of build. I love this archetype and the idea of adding a card as powerful and fun as jace to it has me really excited.
Works great IMO. I've spent a lot of time configuring it with all of the components I find the best from both Jund and Grixis shadow all in one deck. I'll provide a list and explain a lot of my thinking and reasoning behind the configuration of the deck. I've played a lot of shadow over the past few months, swapping back and forth from jund, grixis, and sultai, and I truly feel that the sultai deck is the most powerful overall. Obviously, I am one guy, likely the only one anywhere playing the deck, and it would benefit from more people giving it a try and adding their input. So hopefully someone will take the time to read this and be intrigued, with that being said, here is my current list, please note it is constantly evolving:
Maindeck:
4x Street Wraith
4x Death's Shadow
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4x Mishra's Bauble
4x Serum Visions
4x Fatal Push
1x Dismember
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Thoughtseize
2x Traverse the Ulvenwald
2x Liliana of the Veil
4x Polluted Delta
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Bloodstained mire
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
1x Blood Crypt
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Watery Grave
1x Breeding Pool
Sideboard:
3x Stubborn Denial
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Flaying Tendrils
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Collective Brutality
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Snapcaster Mage
3x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Temur Battle Rage
I love Jund's aggro element but feel it lacks the consistency of grixis having fewer cantrips. So running 4 serum to go along with bauble and wraith to boost it up to 12 total.
Have the full 8 discard - just great cards, serum helps prevent you from topdecking too many of them, and synergize great with goyf and LotV.
2 snaps + 1 in the board - just a great card especially when you have so many potent 1 mana spells, great late game card, only run 2 - it's a 3+ mana play and there are already 2 lili and 2 kommand. Tarmogoyf costing 2 rather than the 1 the Delve creatures typically cost make this more relevant.
I personally play a lot more against non-shadow/push decks than ones with them, so tarmogoyf just always seems great. Feels like a more consistent threat to me than the delve threats even if he dies to push and costs 2. Have a tasigur as well - sometimes you traverse for him as a push proof threat, or when in topdeck mode and you can make use of his ability. Heavy cantrip hands can let you even tutor and play him on turn 2 when you aren't yet low enough for shadow. Most often you just draw him once in a while as a 1 of and it is EXTREMELY rare that you don't have a graveyard to delve away. The deck can't support multiples of these but he's usually always a great card when you do draw him.
I'm currently on 17 land - 5 being actual lands - playing 4 colors - to me the riskiest and most inconsistent part of the deck. I rarely have actual mana issues, no more so than Jund or Grixis really, but it is definitely weak to decks like Merfolk and UW with spreading seas and ghost quarters. Hate bears less so - the matchup goes pretty well for me usually.
At the end of the day, I think the mana can be tweaked however you want it depending on preference. I tend to flood a lot and I find that 1 landers are some of the most successful and powerful hands with these decks because of all the cantrips - and you're just all gas. Perhaps my card choices are not ideal but I'm just one guy - there are many ways to approach building the deck, but 4 colors to me is the way to go IMO - you're taking the damage anyway and it gives you so many powerful options. The decks with spreading seas and whatnot are typically hard anyway.. not sure it really makes it too much worse - my config has 6 blue cards, 7 green cards (1 is abrupt decay) and 2 red cards main, rest being black. It's not really much more color taxing than the other decks that are only 3 colors but play more of the secondary and tertiary colors.
I find this configuration is more aggressive along the lines of jund but eliminates a lot of the inconsistency that deck can suffer from, the serums are really powerful in these death's shadow decks for the draw smoothing, and snap provides a lot of late game punch that Jund definitely lacks. I find Grixis can spin it's wheels a lot with the cantrips, and it actually plays death's shadow much less consistently than Jund with the 4 traverse, and this deck which has 2 traverse and nearly the same amount of cantrips. Goyf can be played in multiples whereas multiple delve threats can be hard to get online. Green also offers some really nice sideboard options and versatile cards (grudge, decay, pulse).
You aren't playing any thought scours or tarfires, and all of your cards are truly good individually. Stubborn denial is a fine card, but I run it SB - it is a card that I find can be a blank a lot of times - it requires another card to make it powerful. Traverse is extremely powerful but running 4 of them you definitely run in to situations where it is blank and topdeck multiples, and you have to run tarfire to eliminate that inconsistency.
Claim//Fame is a possible powerful option, likely as a sideboard card against the mirror/midrange decks. I like the sideboard but obviously meta dependent.. there are certainly no shortage of options regarding sideboard cards for this deck.
Let me know what you guys think, and if anyone picks it up and plays with it sometime, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.