Hello, I'm a Grixis Shadow player and former Esper Shadow player too. If you like tempo and elements of control without going full control then you should definitely play a Snapcaster Shadow deck. The Esper variant is the most control oriented of them all, you have hard removal and a lot of grind potential. I like it and played it a lot but it has some troubles closing games. You're hurting your life total for tactical advantange so you need to close games rather quickly, that's why people play Grixis. Temur Battle Rage is huge and now Bolt is a relevant removal again wich is great with Snappy. You can think the Grixis variant like an Aggro Combo deck, in wich you disrupt and remove early and then search for your wincons, and the Esper variant like an Aggro Control deck, in wich you stabilize and then slowly take the game. However, keep in mind that red deals with aggro swarm much better than white.
You will do fine with Esper shadow in your local meta because there are no Humans, and its great if you have the cards to switch between Grixis and Esper, but mostly I recommend you the deck because is super fun. Good luck!
Hey folks, I used to play a bunch of Grixis Delver a while back and I've been thinking of buying into Grixis Death's Shadow. Would it be viable to replace Scalding Tarns for Verdant Catacombs? I have most of the deck, except Tarns. The purchase of just 4 Death's Shadow and 4 Street Wraith is significantly easier to swallow.
Is there any guideline for 18 versus 19 lands? Like, how many cantrips one should run?
On cantrips, I notice most lists are running Serum Visions over Opt, which seems silly to me. Wouldn't you rather bluff having Stubborn Denial up and play Opt on their turn?
You can play the deck just fne and the Scalding tarn is the less important fetch of all of them. However, you will suffer maybe a 5-15% of games because you coldn't search your Steam Vents when you needed it. You also want to search for your island many times, so maybe you can swich between verdant catacombs and other island search fetch.
On cantrips, you can do fine with Opt, however, here's a few things that SV does better despite being a sorcery and may be the reason behind every decklist we see winning runs them.
- It can fix bad starting hands. You're playing a low land count deck, you'll usually keep 1 landers.
- You're playing 8 threats and NEED to find at least one.
- You're playing discard the first turns. Wich means that if you don't do anything relevant later your opponent will just draw what you took earlier. Card selection is huge here.
- You can find easier your Battle Rage combo.
- You can send lands to the botton when you don't want them anyomore.
- It's better againts grindy and control matchups.
- It just goes deeper.
I'm sure there's more, but I hope theese will help you to understand a little more, good luck!
Does someone have a SB/SCD (single card discussion) guide on the use of Temur Battle Rage? I mean, I understand what the card does functionally, but what are the best and worst MU's to bring it in? I don't have enough playtime under my belt to have a definitive answer on this. And I do think there are some nuances to it as well. For example, if someone says "take it out for grindy MU's" while pointing to playing against Jund, I think the argument does not apply when playing against a deck such as Mardu Pyromancer, since while it is a very grindy deck, being able to punch through Young Pyromancer tokens and Lingering Souls is important. Are people keeping it in against combo decks to race them? I kept them in against Amulet Titan and have no idea if that was the "correct" call.
I'm not an expert in this deck, I've been playing it for the last 3 months and recently began to have more success with it by switching some concepts of the cards it runs. First of all, you're not playing control, so Temur battle rage is the card that release you from the need to remove every single creature your opponent throws at you. Your removal is limited and should be used very careful. It also solves a lot of problems that old Death's Shadows version had, wich is evasion basically. That being said, the importance of Rage is that unlike removal it can be played against decks with few to 0 creatures like Tron or combo, because it can speed up the clock a lot.
In my experience, you want Rage when facing an army of tokens or little creatures, and when facing non interactive combo or big mana decks. The mardu pyromancer matchup is a tricky one, because is both interactive and go-wide, but in the matchs I played, I always wanted Rage because you eventually end up with a big guy in play against a bunch of little tokens no matter what. Hope it helps, good luck!
I was a casual player about 4 years ago, when the UR Delver was rocking with Treasure Cruise and Gitaxian Probe. Now, back in the game, I have decided to update my UR Delver deck with some of the newest cards and give it a try. I have been having some success in MTGO with the list below.
I know that my lands could be improved with the inclusion of Spirebluff Canal and Scalding Tarn, but apart from that do you have any advice/thoughts?
Also 3 Forked Bolt is too much I think, Its not bolt and may be dead in a lot of matchups. I would put another threat since you're winning by combat anyway. Also Bedlam Reveler is very bad with counters, I would move it to sideboard for grindy matchups.
Finally take in consideration that if you're playing Blood Moon you need all your 8 fetches to search for island, you can do totally fine with cheap ones like Flooded Strand and Polluted delta. Good luck!
Edit: About your sideboard. Magma spray is not got going to do a lot nowadays and you have a lot of artifact destruction redundancy. I'd recommend Abrade that can be used against different matchups and Ceremonious Rejection since you may suffer against Tron and Eldrazi. I would also just add a couple of Dispel too.
I have read many Grixis Delver guides saying that Aura's hexproof is nearly an impossible matchup, for Shadow is tough too but can be won through early discard, liliana, explosives, pyroclasm and temur battle rage. Infect is overall a good matchup to any grixis variant although I think is better for Shadow because hurting your life means almost 0 danger. UW control can be hard for both but again there's little danger in hurting your life and thoughtseize can take their supreme verdict wich for me makes a huge difference. I think nearly any combo deck has a worse matchup against Shadow than Delver because it can present a faster clock with stubborn denial and discard backup. However Valakut and Storm are tricky because they can win without comboing if your'e low. Finally I agree with the Affinity matchup, It's waaaay better with Delver.
Guys I'm having a hard time with the affiniy matchup. I know is rough game 1 but I'm not having great games 2 either. Should I play like control oriented or just go along with Battle Rage plan? Should I take out Thoughtseize and Street Wraith?. I have 1 Kozilek's Return and 1 Explosives sideboard, as well as the 2 Kommands, but they seem kinda slow most of the time and very punishing if I don't hit the 3rd land turn 3. Also there's the Etched Champion, Blood Moon RIP turn 2 problem, so what should I do? I'm kinda new with the deck and any suggestions are welcome, thanks!
So I've been comparing Traverse Shadow to GDS and saw many things that we can implement that may be the evolution of our deck. They only use green for the Traverse and the Goyf, so the concept is that we take advantage of everything else while still playing delve cratures that are difficult to kill:
-Only one basic swamp and 12 fetchs that search for it. I think this is great, I never liked the idea of the single island and now with Mishra's Bauble in our deck maybe there's no need for it.
-8 Discard spells instead of 6. I think is the way to go now, we really need to have impact early game with or without a threat and take away annoying things like Blood Moon and Chalice of the void.
I need some feedback and testing and the sideboard is a work in progress but overall I added a thrid Watery grave and swapped the Scaldings for the Flats, cut a Snapcaster and added a Bolt. This is because with Baubles is more difficult to make value out of Snapys so I like to have access to bolt snap bolt combo more frecuently. I will be testing this list in a local tournament but I'd like to read some opinions, thanks a lot!
I'm primarily a legacy player and I'm looking into buying into modern. My mainly player 12-post, infect, and Metalworker, but I guess cloudpost is banned, and from what I understand infect isn't positioned that well in modern.
Notable modern cards I own:
4x breeding pool
4x all allied fetchlands (delta, foothills, etc)
4x misty rainforest
4x noble hierarch
2x emrakul, the aeons torn
4x inkmoth nexus
3x chalice of the void
4x primeval titan
What decks I like? Anything with artifacts, ultra fast aggro, control, ramp, pretty much anything that makes people hate me.
Budget is around $700
I'm looking at either infect, affinity, tron, or lantern control. Out of these infect definitely would be the easiest for me to get, although I want to mix things up. I like affinity the most of all of these, with tron being a close second. I prefer g/x tron to eldrazi tron, but whatever is better I can do. The meta at my lgs is a little bit of everything, so I need good matchups across the board. My lgs is very competitive and I want to be as competitive as possible. If anybody has any different ideas, feel free to recommend. Thanks
I think you should play Bant Eldrazi. Looks like you like to play colors and you already have a set of Noble Hierarch. If it helps you, a friend of mine has a nice win rate with the deck and plays 4 copies of Eldrazi Skyspawner. The card is very good against Affinity and Grixis Death's Shadow, and can be cast over a resolved Blood Moon most of the time to give you a needed colorless mana token. Good luck!
I EXTREMELY recommend you to proxy your deck first to play with friends before spend any money. If you jump into buying stuff right away you'll end with no cash and a buch of cards that are just 1/8 of a deck, trust me.
There are many decks to choose, be sure to test the ones that may fit your playstyle and then start buyinng. Good luck!
Hello, I've asked some advice a few pages back and the answers were great, thanks!
I've been playing with the deck and had some issues.
I find that somehow I'm low on threats, sometimes I can't find any creatures and my opponent recovers from hand disruption/removal and I'm always of course at lower life, wich leads me to desperate draw situations. Sometimes I can't recover from a single removal spell that I coulnd't counter or discard.
I was playing Grixis but given that my local meta is full of Eldrazi, others Shadow variants such as sultai, and control, I switched to Esper and it's been better for me, Lingering souls and Path to exile are just the cards I want for my meta. But I still like having access to red for the sweepers. What do you think of cards like Liliana, the last hope or Flamewake Phoenix mainboard to increase the number of threats? Thank you.
Hello, I recently became interested in this deck for its playstyle, but I'm not sure wich list to follow. I have some question of how to play and build the deck, maybe they are super basic and have been answered so I apologize in advance. I'd really apreciate your help.
1- I'm following my instinct of 19 lands and 3 Streer Wraith, Is there a common agreement of wich proportion of lands/wraith is the best? I've seen a lot of lists with 18/4.
2- Kolaghan's Command seems kinda weak right now, is it really necesary the 1 or 2 copies mainboard?
3- How do you deal with Aggro swarm strategies like Merfolk or Humans? I like Anger in the side but the two red may be problematic, I know that some list use Temur Battle Rage but seems hard to rely on.
4- Is the red splash way better than the white? I'm fond of cards like Path to exile, Lingering souls and Orzhov charm, but haven't seen recently any Esper Shadow in any competition.
I have played for a long time 18 land decks (Storm and U/R Prowess), and very frecuently you have to decide whenever to keep or not a 1 land starting hand, It sucks, so I'm keen on 19+ lands even in aggro decks (unless your'e playing mishras, street wraiths and RIP gitaxian).
I like your list, but having Monastery Swiftspear makes me wonder how do you deal with counters and control elements when you have both. I's a card that I love but I just don't see it in a reactive strategie unlike Delver.
Playing Storm I learned the value of Echoing Truth, and playing Prowess made me love Bedlam too, so I might give your list a try!
Toroks- I have found similar results with chart a course toroks. I just didn't like tapping out 2 mana at sorcery speed for additional card advantage. I often wanted to hold up Remand, Opt, Spell Pierce, burn, or a combination and felt like I was almost forced to cast the chart because I had attacked. Like you said, with electrolyze, cryptic, remand, bedlam reveler (in my case),snapcaster-opt, etc we do have ways to make a up a little card advantage. In addition, we aren't always a card advantage deck. I can definitely see chart working in the Disrupting Shoal decks and the pure tempo style builds as chart gives another 2 CMC blue target to pitch to shoal and mitigates the card "loss" from the shoal. It just didn't fit what I was trying to do.
Sei- I play a more aggressive version as well and only run 3 path to exile. However, I run 2 copies of Vapor Snag and one copy of Echoing Truth to deal with some of the more problematic permanents and creatures. They don't permanently deal with them, but they give us enough time to get through enough damage to kill them. I highly recommend giving snag and/or echoing truth a try. They are also great on defense and can bounce a snapcater mage or bedlam reveler to reactivate their enter the battlefield trigger (although it's not free because you have to cast them again). I don't think I would be comfortable with only 2 "answers" to larger threats currently since modern has shifted to having more beefier creatures with tarmogofy, prime time, delve creatures, and eldrazi running around. If I had to pick I would likely cut one remand and one helix for two copies of vapor snag or an additional path. However, everyone's game plan is different and if you want to just tempo and burn the opponent out in game one and then side in additional answers that is fine too.
I am also a huge opt fan and run 4 opts and 2 visions right now. I have gone 3 and 3 in the past as well, but opt really fits my deck/playstyle more I think. I have been an opt fan boy for awhile and actually wrote to WOTC before it was printed asking them to print it :). Serum Visions does help to flip delvers and that can't be discounted, but it's rare that I want to tap out after playing a delver on turn one. Delver normally flips by turn 3 anyways so I don't feel I am losing a lot of I typically want to hold up remand or spell pierce if I have them and opt lets me do that. It's also awesome with snapcaster mage as an instant speed target to get some card advantage.
I also love Boros Charm. It's so versatile and I can't tell you how many lilianas I have killed with it and how many times my opponent has been at 4 life instead of 3 and charm killed them. I think it's much worse in multiples so I only run 1 copy, but it's another card that fits the gameplan of versatility and speed that this deck thrives on.
I share your love for Boros Charm, its absolute amazing. Do you mind sharing the list of your deck? I'm very interested now! And are you having success?
Hello, I'd like some feedback on my list. I'm trying to make this deck extremely tempo oriented, so I'm playing 4 Remands and a lot of burn. Boros Charm has been nice and the couple of Dispels seems fine in the current meta. I only play 2 Path to exile because I don't like seeing them in the early game. The deck has a nice curve and can finish games rather quickly. I found that I dont like wraths and angers very much, so I've been testing with Magus of the Moat and it works. I usually take out the Geist for the Magus and improves a lot the match against Dredge and Aggro swarm strategies without hurting my own creatures. Overall I'm happy, I struggle a bit against hard control, Eldratron and burn, so I'll be happy to hear some advice, thanks!.
Serum Visions is pretty mandatory with delver to set up the flip. They are also the best card to find your 20 lands, which is a bit few considering your high curve of 12 3+ drops, counting snappy. I would go up to 21 with that curve, and switch out Opts for Serum Visions. 4 Remands are probably a bit much these days, as they are weak in many matchups. I would switch out some with leak or knot.
How do you deal with Death's Shadow, Tasigur, Angler, Goyfs, Thoughtknot Seers etc etc without paths?
Well I think that's the point, you don't have to deal with everything when playing tempo. That's why I still think that Remand is the way to go with Delver strategies, I only find it weak against super aggro matchups, but almost all countermagic is. For example the other day I was playing against storm, he started casting rituals, he was full of mana and played gifts, I placed Past in flames in the graveyard and then Remanded the flashback, he conceded there. I couldn't have done it with mana leak/logic knot. There are many matchs that are T1 Delver T2 Remand T3 Queller T4 Snap Remand etc and its over. Sometimes I ignore the Goyfs and big creatures because I'm going for 5 every turn and have lots of burn.
However I still have that 2 Path for emergencies and get what you say, maybe its a matter of playstyles. The mana base is something that needs work, sometimes I get screwed and sometimes I get flooded, I can't seem to find the balance. I understand the serum and delver sinergy but I don't like playing sorcery speed cards other than Delver and Geist, but maybe the serums can help me with the mana problems like you said, I'll test them out, thanks!
You will do fine with Esper shadow in your local meta because there are no Humans, and its great if you have the cards to switch between Grixis and Esper, but mostly I recommend you the deck because is super fun. Good luck!
You can play the deck just fne and the Scalding tarn is the less important fetch of all of them. However, you will suffer maybe a 5-15% of games because you coldn't search your Steam Vents when you needed it. You also want to search for your island many times, so maybe you can swich between verdant catacombs and other island search fetch.
On cantrips, you can do fine with Opt, however, here's a few things that SV does better despite being a sorcery and may be the reason behind every decklist we see winning runs them.
- It can fix bad starting hands. You're playing a low land count deck, you'll usually keep 1 landers.
- You're playing 8 threats and NEED to find at least one.
- You're playing discard the first turns. Wich means that if you don't do anything relevant later your opponent will just draw what you took earlier. Card selection is huge here.
- You can find easier your Battle Rage combo.
- You can send lands to the botton when you don't want them anyomore.
- It's better againts grindy and control matchups.
- It just goes deeper.
I'm sure there's more, but I hope theese will help you to understand a little more, good luck!
I'm not an expert in this deck, I've been playing it for the last 3 months and recently began to have more success with it by switching some concepts of the cards it runs. First of all, you're not playing control, so Temur battle rage is the card that release you from the need to remove every single creature your opponent throws at you. Your removal is limited and should be used very careful. It also solves a lot of problems that old Death's Shadows version had, wich is evasion basically. That being said, the importance of Rage is that unlike removal it can be played against decks with few to 0 creatures like Tron or combo, because it can speed up the clock a lot.
In my experience, you want Rage when facing an army of tokens or little creatures, and when facing non interactive combo or big mana decks. The mardu pyromancer matchup is a tricky one, because is both interactive and go-wide, but in the matchs I played, I always wanted Rage because you eventually end up with a big guy in play against a bunch of little tokens no matter what. Hope it helps, good luck!
I would take out Slip through space and bring some Twisted Image. They're great with Stormchaser Mage, can kill Noble Hierarch, Birds of Paradise and a lot of Affinity creatures, you already have evasion and your'e not playing combo.
Also 3 Forked Bolt is too much I think, Its not bolt and may be dead in a lot of matchups. I would put another threat since you're winning by combat anyway. Also Bedlam Reveler is very bad with counters, I would move it to sideboard for grindy matchups.
Finally take in consideration that if you're playing Blood Moon you need all your 8 fetches to search for island, you can do totally fine with cheap ones like Flooded Strand and Polluted delta. Good luck!
Edit: About your sideboard. Magma spray is not got going to do a lot nowadays and you have a lot of artifact destruction redundancy. I'd recommend Abrade that can be used against different matchups and Ceremonious Rejection since you may suffer against Tron and Eldrazi. I would also just add a couple of Dispel too.
-Only one basic swamp and 12 fetchs that search for it. I think this is great, I never liked the idea of the single island and now with Mishra's Bauble in our deck maybe there's no need for it.
-The possibility of running one Godless Shrine in the sideboard for cards like Lingering souls. It will be even greater for us because we play Thought scour.
-8 Discard spells instead of 6. I think is the way to go now, we really need to have impact early game with or without a threat and take away annoying things like Blood Moon and Chalice of the void.
So I came with something like this:
4 Street Wraith
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Gurmag Angler
1 Tasigur, the golden fang
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Stubborn Denial
4 Thought Scour
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
1 Temur Battle Rage
1 Dismember
3 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
3 Lingering Souls
2 Kozilek's return
1 Radiant Flames
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the last hope
1 Collective Brutality
I need some feedback and testing and the sideboard is a work in progress but overall I added a thrid Watery grave and swapped the Scaldings for the Flats, cut a Snapcaster and added a Bolt. This is because with Baubles is more difficult to make value out of Snapys so I like to have access to bolt snap bolt combo more frecuently. I will be testing this list in a local tournament but I'd like to read some opinions, thanks a lot!
I think you should play Bant Eldrazi. Looks like you like to play colors and you already have a set of Noble Hierarch. If it helps you, a friend of mine has a nice win rate with the deck and plays 4 copies of Eldrazi Skyspawner. The card is very good against Affinity and Grixis Death's Shadow, and can be cast over a resolved Blood Moon most of the time to give you a needed colorless mana token. Good luck!
I EXTREMELY recommend you to proxy your deck first to play with friends before spend any money. If you jump into buying stuff right away you'll end with no cash and a buch of cards that are just 1/8 of a deck, trust me.
There are many decks to choose, be sure to test the ones that may fit your playstyle and then start buyinng. Good luck!
I've been playing with the deck and had some issues.
I find that somehow I'm low on threats, sometimes I can't find any creatures and my opponent recovers from hand disruption/removal and I'm always of course at lower life, wich leads me to desperate draw situations. Sometimes I can't recover from a single removal spell that I coulnd't counter or discard.
I was playing Grixis but given that my local meta is full of Eldrazi, others Shadow variants such as sultai, and control, I switched to Esper and it's been better for me, Lingering souls and Path to exile are just the cards I want for my meta. But I still like having access to red for the sweepers. What do you think of cards like Liliana, the last hope or Flamewake Phoenix mainboard to increase the number of threats? Thank you.
1- I'm following my instinct of 19 lands and 3 Streer Wraith, Is there a common agreement of wich proportion of lands/wraith is the best? I've seen a lot of lists with 18/4.
2- Kolaghan's Command seems kinda weak right now, is it really necesary the 1 or 2 copies mainboard?
3- How do you deal with Aggro swarm strategies like Merfolk or Humans? I like Anger in the side but the two red may be problematic, I know that some list use Temur Battle Rage but seems hard to rely on.
4- Is the red splash way better than the white? I'm fond of cards like Path to exile, Lingering souls and Orzhov charm, but haven't seen recently any Esper Shadow in any competition.
That'll be all for now, thanks a lot.
I like your list, but having Monastery Swiftspear makes me wonder how do you deal with counters and control elements when you have both. I's a card that I love but I just don't see it in a reactive strategie unlike Delver.
Playing Storm I learned the value of Echoing Truth, and playing Prowess made me love Bedlam too, so I might give your list a try!
I share your love for Boros Charm, its absolute amazing. Do you mind sharing the list of your deck? I'm very interested now! And are you having success?
Well I think that's the point, you don't have to deal with everything when playing tempo. That's why I still think that Remand is the way to go with Delver strategies, I only find it weak against super aggro matchups, but almost all countermagic is. For example the other day I was playing against storm, he started casting rituals, he was full of mana and played gifts, I placed Past in flames in the graveyard and then Remanded the flashback, he conceded there. I couldn't have done it with mana leak/logic knot. There are many matchs that are T1 Delver T2 Remand T3 Queller T4 Snap Remand etc and its over. Sometimes I ignore the Goyfs and big creatures because I'm going for 5 every turn and have lots of burn.
However I still have that 2 Path for emergencies and get what you say, maybe its a matter of playstyles. The mana base is something that needs work, sometimes I get screwed and sometimes I get flooded, I can't seem to find the balance. I understand the serum and delver sinergy but I don't like playing sorcery speed cards other than Delver and Geist, but maybe the serums can help me with the mana problems like you said, I'll test them out, thanks!