MTG Salvation

So I've had the hardest time against Grixis Shadow, and I'm not sure exactly how to fix it. I know that I could start going with 4 maindeck Leylines, but that's only going to be a 33% chance of having it in the opening hand, at best. Even then, they can just win by landing a 5/5 on turn 2 and keep counters up for Bridge. It seems to me that that only way to really win this matchup is to have our hands and draws line up near-perfect against theirs.

What's everyone else doing about this matchup?

Discard of our own, leylines + magus post board. And ofc praying.

I am wondering if defense grid is good enough, as it seems the biggest problems with the shadow decks are the ~7 counters and snaps to recur them.

Honestly, Sanuri got it. Extra discard and Magus of the Moat. Their only out to Magus is Thoughtseize, or double Kolaghan's Command in hand (since they don't run enough lands for Kmd-Snap-Kmd).

Okay, so I started brainstorming to come up with a way to deal with this Death's Shadow meta. It appears that everyone except one other person at my LGS has jumped onto the Shadow bandwagon, which is miserable.

So I listed the things that must go right for our Lantern lock to work against them.
- We must draw the Lantern lock pieces.
- The pieces must not get discarded.
- The pieces must not get countered.
- After we've achieved the lock, we have to not die to the Shadow/Tasigur/whatever that they had in hand. Or, we have to do the three things above, but with a Bridge as well.

That's quite a few things that must go right, in the face of eight maindeck 1cmc discard spells and however many counters/Kolaghan's, etc.

Instead, I figured maybe I can do a sort of transformational sideboard against them. What if I mostly forego trying to get the Lantern lock to work out against them (it usually doesn't anyways due to all of their disruption/instant-speed card draw/shuffle effects), and go all-out on a disruption plan of my own?

I tested it out a bit ago (will try to upload the video sometime today or tomorrow), and it worked out. I focused on siding in big-swing disruption cards of my own. Leyline of Sanctity, Magus of the Moat, Ramunap Excavator, keeping my discard, Surgical Extractions, Pithing Needle, Padeem, Abrupt Decay, etc.

It turns out that their deck is still pretty weak if we neuter good portions of it. For example, rather than trying to use the Lantern lock to keep them off of Shadow, I used my discard to grab a Shadow and then Surgical them all. Leylines shut off all their discard, and the game was pretty much over as soon as I was able to use Excavator and Ghost Quarter to take out the few lands that they actually run that tap for mana.

It is a very small sample size, however, but it feels like it might be a decent direction to go in, while not having to totally transform the main/side for the matchup and then go on to be weaker against other decks.

thnkr, That is an awesome idea. I will be using this strategy in my GDS matches from now on. I've felt very helpless against them, but hopefully this helps somewhat!

Also, my review of Mechanized Production is live! https://reddit.it/6nohul

@Spkilla, Crucible is definitely a good mainboard card as it allows you to mill lands off the top of your deck and continue drawing spells and further lock pieces while also not missing your land drops every turn. Then in the later game you can use it for the shenanigans that you mentioned

@thnkr that plan was basically what I used. I figured that keeping in all the discard in will either take threats or counters to force a bridge, whichever seems the easier. Leylines blanks all of their discard and surgical is fine as they have 3 and 4ofs of the counters and oftentimes the only answer to a bridge is k.command. Magus of the Moat is pretty close to a win unless they keep in removal.

The JDS is a bit different. They don't have too many ways to attack us, as they do not have the counters. Only played that MU a couple times.

Quote from zcowan »

@Spkilla, Crucible is definitely a good mainboard card as it allows you to mill lands off the top of your deck and continue drawing spells and further lock pieces while also not missing your land drops every turn. Then in the later game you can use it for the shenanigans that you mentioned

At the very least, we need at least 3 mana(bridge) to get a lock going, without crucible, id be milling lands anyways, if i dont have 3 mana yet, i keep the land and play it.if im hellbent, im playing 1 spell a turn anyways, requiring 3 or less mana assuming i have a lock going. it just feels so meh to me, especially as a single copy

Death's shadow is one of the things that makes me want to try BLastRs. At the end of the day, DS decks are still trying to play 'fair' magic and just beat you down with creatures, so it folds to a bridge if you can get it to stick. Once you put XDS in a position where it has no means of attacking you the game is trivial. Of course, with an 8 of discard spell for bridge and multiple counterspells that makes things difficult. But XDS is a deck where BLastR can functionally be another copy of bridge once you hit a mill rock and lantern, they have no gameplan if you can keep them off creatures, of which they run relatively few. Even if they have stubborn denial for it, that's one more card that they'll have to counter which can help you stick the bridge that matters. Noxious revival is also huge in that matchup as it provides counterplay to thoughtseizes.

I think a lot of the trouble lantern has with the deck is that the creatures it does have dodge most of your removal. Sure Decay can hit the shadows, but there are bound to be more shadows than decays and we have nothing for angler or tasigur, which will clock you too fast while you're struggling to hit a bridge. BLastR helps shore up that weakness by giving you both removal for the things you can't normally hit and acting like extra bridges in the matchup. Maelstrom pulse is also looking like a card I want to sideboard now for that reason, it can two for one the shadows, which can be big, or it can handle a tasigur or an angler, which is something we don't normally have removal for. Once I get a couple, I'm going to try -2 Brutality +2 BLastR maindeck, and I've already squeezed the pulse into my sideboard.

I won't dismiss the reckoning right away, but to me it looks like another 3cmc spell that is worse than a bridge but still wont resolve unless they can follow it up with a new threat. My problem was never the threats. They didn't kill all that fast but ripping your hand and then keeping stubborn + snap untill we have lost. Of course I understand that more answers gives us more ways to draw these when facing numerous discard spells, but honestly I just want leylines to protect my spells, lots of discard for their counters and then a bridge or a magus.

Quote from 4554551n »

@thinkr
Why ranumap over crucible?

My guess is that it does not get countered by either stubborn denial or ceremonious rejection.

Hey everyone I just finished monday night modern at my LGS. I was wondering if you could offer advice in how to play against burn?
My decklist is:
1 Spire of Industry
4 Blooming Marsh
2 Inventors' Fair
1 Concealed Courtyard
1 Collective Brutality
1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
1 Infernal Tutor
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Codex Shredder
4 Ghoulcaller's Bell
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Mox Opal
2 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Academy Ruins
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Pithing Needle
1 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Lantern Of Insight
4 Glimmervoid
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Ensnaring Bridge

Sideboard
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Spellskite
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Nature's Claim
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Pithing Needle
2 Welding Jar
2 Sun Droplet
1 Collective Brutality

I apologize for not posting it with the deck option but I can't figure it out... but anyhow, I had leyline of sanctity in my opening hand and they were still able to win through destructive revelry. I think part of it is also that I don't know what a good hand for that matchup looks like..

Other than that the deck was a huge success against a green/black zombie deck, a UB faeries, and eldrazi tron.. all of which I won 2-0 with slight frustration in them stalling the games out without having any outs left. Thank you guys!

Awesome thank you! As for the sun droplets, what do you think would be a good option to fill those two spaces given my sideboard?

2 more leylines. Like he said, the correct number is 4 or 0. I run 3 at the moment just because it's a money issue.

It can be correct at times to run 3 leylines due to the concept of diminishing returns, which thnkr can explain a lot better than I ever would. Also keep in mind that Burn is completely winnable without any Leylines at all.

Instead of Sun Droplet, I highly recommend Quiet Disrepair. This card can gain you more life than Droplet, and do it more consistently than Droplet. In addition, it pulls double duty as enchantifact removal. I recommend switching out at least one Droplet for one Disrepair, and maybe even going to two Disrepair or using Nature's Claim like another user suggested if Burn is a big problem for you.

Death's Shadow is one reason why I've been testing several alternative cards, chief among which are Set Adrift mainboard and Dispatch sideboard. Set Adrift in particular has come in extremely handy in a multitude of scenarios. I'm really liking thnkr's plan of becoming extremely aggressive post-board by trying to kill all their creatures and keeping them off threats instead of worrying about landing Bridge. I do agree that Reckoning may go a long way towards that goal, and may be worth testing out. We might even consider the likes of Big Game Hunter to have something that's immune to their countermagic.

Having a bunch of millrocks turn 2-3 and no lantern but have surgical in hand, do i start blind milling myself hoping to thin deck to increase chance of drawing bridge/lantern? or do i blind mill opponent and hope to surgical something. I still do not know what opponent is playing. Should i be milling myself, i could mill my own lantern/bridge, and it would backfire? if they had surgical. which they do as deck ended up being w/b smallpox

sorry for dumb question, still new to the deck

On Blind milling your opponent: Without any pressure on your life total I think you mill the opponent and don't mill yourself. Milling them gives you information so you can figure out what you really need. You can also fire off a surgical on anything you mill from them so you can peek at their hand and library for more information.

On Blind milling yourself: Basically the only card you absolutely don't want to draw is another copy of surgical extraction, so you have enough live draws in this situation that i don't think blind milling yourself is all that necessary. However, once your life total is under pressure, desperation blind milling becomes an option.

Thank you everyone for the advice! Especially Spkilla! I proxied burn up and have been playing against it and I think adding a fourth leyline was infinitely better than having 2 sun droplets. I think I'm going to keep one just because it is such a good response to decks with small creatures that can occasionally sneak under the bridge. However I also like the multiple collective brutality in sideboard option since Gifts Storm is a big thing in my area and it is just so good with all options being cast.
As for the blind milling conversation, if I can jump in. I've been playing the deck a lot lately and have to say that it is dangerous to blind mill too much unless you know the deck you are going up against from getting some information. Personally when I first started it felt like aggressively ripping cards from the top of their deck as soon as possible was the right thing but there are so many decks in the current metagame that thrive on that. Doing so turns on Delve for Grixis death shadow, allows for snap caster shenanigans, and pretty much hands Dredge and Living End style decks the win. I think it's just better to set up with early hand hate and pithing needles on current board threats until you can find a lantern.

you almost always mill yourself, a few pages back kanister explained the rare circumstances that you would not, basically if they have a rip in play or if you have surgical in hand (and surgical is good in the matchup, vs something like burn I'd probably still fire off mills on myself and use surgical to remove my own thoughtseizes or something).

don't ever think of milling as "thinning," it's functionally the same as milling from the bottom of your deck so even if you desperately want a bridge and you ended up milling a bridge, don't feel bad, that self-milling was still correct and you should think of it yanking cards randomly out of your deck

Has anyone tried Nihil Spellbomb as a sideboard option against Grixis Death's Shadow? It's really good because you can cycle it if you see with your Thoughtseize/IoK that they don't have relevant graveyard utility cards (Delve or Snapcaster). However, if you see a Snapcaster you can just leave it there threatening to cracking it and even tap out! I think it's a super useful graveyard hate card against GDS because unlike Grafdigger's Cage, it's never a dead card. Also, Cage is bad against Delve creatures and only good against Snapcaster. One of the most backbreaking plays GDS has against us is Ceremonious Rejection/Stubborn Denial into Snapcaster but with Nihil Spellbomb you break the Snapcaster part. And if you're unsure if they have Snapcaster you can just crack it and get some tempo by making their Delve threats come a turn or two later. Also, it's good against Dredge (but not useful against Company decks like Cage is).