Anyone have any idea in how to deal with humans decks?
Faced one in the mkm series BArcelona that shutted down my possibilities to get into top 8 (was 5-1, faced him in the 7th round).
Maybe it's time to get in bolts again? maybe another form of massive removal in the side? Currently playing 2x Kozilek's Return in the side, but Humans get out of the 2 damage really fast...
Played against humans a few months ago and the match feels unwinnable.
Thalia makes sweepers slower, most of their creatures are non-fetch push-proof. Reflector mage is a pain in the ass and the new Meddling Mage + Freebooter plan can lock you out of the game entirely. I am not even sure if adding more maindeck bolts and Damnation on the sideboard is a good idea because the deck has so many ways to disrupt your gameplan;
It's a matchup that feels realy, REALLY bad for Grixis. Perhaps it's better for the 5 color jund version.
It's better but still not good. Right now my plan is Lingering Souls to buy time and hope to draw Temur Battle Rage. A big problem is that none of the sweepers are that great against them because of Thalia's Lieutenant.
I really like your "BUG based" list with a light red splash! Do you think there is a way to build a BUrg deck by just adding Goyfs, decay and maybe 1-2 Traverse to the grixis shell without going all in on the Delirium/Bauble plan?
If you're playing Traverse, you basically have to play Bauble. Maybe Thought Scour can bail you out if you play enough planeswalkers in the deck, but I think I'd rather have Bauble anyway just because it's free.
Congrats, spooly. I read that on reddit, a really fantastic write up. I wish more people wrote awesome stuff like that, the sideboard guide is really useful, too
I had been interested in playing jund shadow again now that the format isn't as overcorrected to fight off one deck.
I agree temur battle rage is such a good card and erases go wide strategies.
Why no rampager in the sideboard?
Is 4x stubborn not worth the whole sideboard?
Thanks! I'm not a huge fan of Rampager - without double strike it doesn't take a turn off the clock like TBR does, which is huge IMO. Having it as a traverse target does help vs. the decks with piles of chump blockers, but I'd honestly rather have another TBR to draw naturally instead.
The 4th Stub is fairly questionable because where you want countermagic the most is against the big mana decks, and Stub doesn't stop Primeval Titan or Wurmcoil Engine. Not that it's not good elsewhere. Adding another Stroke is pretty enticing though.
I understand your point of view.
What I mean is that Travesre the Ulvenwald is pretty much a dead draw against GY hate and, therefore, weaker vs. GY hate than Snapcaster that, on the very least, can trade with a creature or apply some early pressure. I agree that both are miserable but Traverse loses a lot of value when facing GY hate.
I don't think the difference between Snpacaster and Traverse under e.g. RiP is meaningful enough for it to really factor into deck selection though. The 2/1 is something, yes. But it's still awful. A 1/10 or 2/10 compared to a 0/10.
I'm wondering if we could have some kind of 4-5 color list running both Goyf, Shadow and maybe some fewer number of Snappy/Traverse.
This is exactly the sort of thing I think is drastically underexplored. I already have a couple sketches.
If graveyard/or all in threat is what you are concern about, why not just play young pyromancer in the main instead of angeler?
it doesn't turn on stubborn denial, requires you to have cards + spend mana to be good, and still dies to all the commonly played removal. it's fine, and if the format moves hard towards gy hate maybe it's worth it. but i'm not a fan right now.
[quote from="Spooly »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/tier-1-modern/774240-grixis-deaths-shadow?comment=1969"]
I've been thinking about this very thing: Both lists are weak to Graveyard hate and we DO need some kind o threat that isn't.
My issue with 5c Shadow is exactly that I think it is a lot more vulnerable to both graveyard and land hate...
Traverse is a great card alongside Shadows and even Goyfs, but I am note sure if this is where we want to be as Shadow players since it doesn't do anything when you've facing a leyline/RIP;
I don't think Grixis is meaningfully better vs. GY hate. Grixis has Snapcaster + delve creatures, Jund/5 color has Goyf + Traverse. Grixis has the edge vs. Rest in Peace because sometimes you can get a delve creature into play before it resolves, and a small edge from Snapcaster doing a little more than Traverse when under RiP or Leyline. 5 color has the edge vs. most non RiP graveyard hate because Goyf can rely on the opponent's graveyard - Leyline and Nihil Spellbomb being the two most common. So maybe 5 color is a little worse vs. graveyard hate on net, but there's not really much of a difference.
Tendrils just seems bad. I'd run KReturn right now.
Could you explain why tendrils is bad right now? I'm confused about running Kozilek's return or anger of the gods...
Double black can be rough, but mostly instant speed is insane vs. Affinity, and can be really good vs. CoCo, Elves, and plenty of other decks where you'd want a sweeper. Anger is better when you don't expect affinity, basically. Tendrils is probably never the best option. The main reason to want Tendrils or K Return is against affinity because you want to kill Etched Champion, but if that's what you're interested in, then K Return is much stronger vs. them since it kills manlands. Tendrils is a sort of weird hedge card because it kills Etched Champion, but also exiles stuff like Finks and Voice. I can imagine metagames where this is what you want to be doing, but I don't think we're in that metagame. Most of the Finks + Voice decks we're pretty strong against already just because we have a pile of removal and creatures bigger than theirs.
Hey all. I am thinking of switching to a DS deck of some sort; debating between 5C and Grixis. Can anyone help me lay out some pros / cons of both versions? I've been play testing both, but I am having trouble making up my mind. I have a playset of catacombs and goyfs already, which is making me lean towards 5C.
<snip>
TL:DR
BGx Shadow
~ faster / more proactive
+ more powerful in a vacuum due to synergies
+ more busted nut draws
- easier to hate out
- higher fail rate (by comparison) due to necessary synergies
UBx Shadow
~ more controling
+ more resiliant against hate
+ lower failrate
- less busted nut draws
I disagree with some of this. I posted my response in the Jund Shadow thread (he asked the same question there) but I think it's worth restating it here. Roughly, Jund Shadow can be configured to do anything Grixis Shadow can do. You want to grind? Lingering Souls trumps Snap + stuff. Ranger of Eos is also very good. You want to be controlling or tempo? You can MD Stub and put Disdainful Stroke in the SB. Plus Tarmogoyf is better than the delve creatures in a vaccuum, Temur Battle Rage is much better in Jund builds, Jund is more threat dense due to Traverse instead of Snapcaster, and Abrupt Decay provides answers to lots of problematic things that Grixis can only hope to counter.
But all of this comes at a cost: your manabase. Jund is more susceptible to mana denial strategies when it tries to do the same things Grixis naturally does (though Ponza feels pretty favorable for 4-5c Jund Shadow IMO). Secondly, if everyone is running piles of Fatal Push, delve creatures are better than Goyfs. This is a major reason why Grixis overtook Jund initially. Push had just come out, and everyone was leaning very hard on that removal spell while cutting Terminates and Bolts. So Gurmag Angler suddenly looked like a resilient threat instead of just a generic 5/5. Then the metagame reacted to Grixis being the top dog, and Leonin Arbiter started showing up, which is bad for both shadow decks, but certainly worse for 4-5c Jund.
Since then, the format has shifted. Storm is taking advantage of all these dinky LD and/or Blood Moon decks, and stuff like Mantis Rider is exploiting the move towards Fatal Push. So people have reacted accordingly, making Tarmogoyf and 4-5 colors better options. For the moment, I think the 5 color builds that Spicklemeyer and Lantto have been playing are the best shadow builds, but that could easily change if the format shifts again.
In terms of resiliency to hate and the fail rate, I don't really see a difference between the two builds. If anything, Jund is better against GY hate because 1) Decay kills Rest in Peace, 2) Goyf is still worthwhile with Leyline of the Void in play, though occasionally you can sneak a delve creature in before other types of gy hate. In terms of fail rate, I find that Grixis fails more often because it has fewer threats - Snapcaster Mage is not a threat, but Traverse typically is. (Note that both are pretty poor vs. GY hate, though snap is slightly better). But otherwise, both decks have the same strong dependence on the graveyard, the same strong dependence on getting their life total low for Shadow, and the same susceptibility to mana denial and blood moon. 5c is more susceptible to land destruction specifically I guess, but again, Decay can save you vs. Blood Moon.
TLDR: Grixis Shadow is better to the extent that Push and mana denial strategies are prominent in the expected metagame. Other, some variant of Jund/5c Shadow is better, though which build to play is another question entirely.
I was just wondering if you guys bring in Disdainful Stroke against Ad Nauseam? It counters Ad Nauseam itself which is key card since they can't combo off without it but I'm not sure if it's worth just because of this because it doesn't counter anything else.
Absolutely worth it. They can't win without resolving Ad Nauseum, or some >=4 mana haymaker out of the board like Grave Titan.
The UW control matchup is pretty rough. I was wondering if there is anything to do about it ? Liliana, the last hope is great against them but thats about it. Any ideas ?
Pia and Kiran Nalaar is really good against them. Haymakers like that are what you want. But fundamentally the matchup is a bit rough.
I was thinking Lili was a good answer to Lingering Souls.dec, as I've heard that's a pretty hard card to work through for GDS.
I'm not totally sold on bringing MD discard to 4 from 6, but if I have issues with combo I'll consider it.
I was thinking about going 2/2 on MD Stubborns and Lightning Bolt, but I could see dropping Negate. I feel like it's nice to be able to have a "better" 1 mana counter against control, though.
Are Mom and Dad answers to Champions just because they give us 2 blockers? And if Shatterstorm isn't good enough against affinity, isn't a card that offers 2 blockers for the same price just as bad if not worse? (I'm also planning on going 2/2 Blood Crypt and Watery Grave after others' suggestions.)
P&K is pretty good against Lingering Souls too. Remember, you have K Command to recur it, though if the opponent is smart they'll prioritize their paths for P&K. LtlH is probably better against Souls and definitely better against stuff like CoCo and Elves. But it's worse against Affinity and against any non-Souls/CoCo grindy matchup. It depends on what you want to prioritize beating. Yes, the tokens from P&K block and kill Etched Champion if they attack with it (barring a Ravager). Shatterstorm is certainly good enough against Affinity. But if you want dedicated Affinity hate, there's better because 4 CMC is a bit steep. P&K is significantly worse as an anti-affinity card, but it comes in against far more decks. Note that I suggested cutting LtlH for P&K to improve your Affinity matchup. Not to cut Shatterstorm for P&K. I prefer Kozilek's Return over Shatterstorm, to be honest, because it's cheaper, kills manlands, and has many more applications (Elves, Merfolk, CoCo decks, even Lingering Souls and an out to Empty the Warrens vs. Storm). If you bring in, e.g., 2 Ceremonious Rejection, 1 Staticaster, 2 P&K, 2 Kozilek's Return, 2 Collective Brutality against Affinity for 4 Street Wraith, 4 Thoughtseize, 1 Stubborn D (using your original MD), you'll be able to consistently make the game go long enough to make P&K castable and should have a pretty solid post-board matchup vs them. The Stubs you leave in even insulate you against Blood Moon and late Galvanic Blasts.
Vs. Control, you mostly want haymakers and card advantage engines. Stuff like planeswalkers, k command, and P&K are your go-tos. Having access to a couple of counters that are not dead without a creature in play is good, but probably not enough to justify playing a Negate in addition to the obligatory 4 Stubborn D in the 75. Also, if you did really want to play Negate, Countersquall is probably worth the tougher color requirements.
Thinking of running a pretty standard list, what would you all suggest for an Affinity-heavy meta? (Also have Esper Draw-Go, TitanShift, Griselbrand Reanimator, Jeskai Ascendancy Combo.)
2x Kozilek's Return makes a lot of sense. Would Kommand be a good second cut to make room for it? I don't know if 2/1 is required; 3 mana is a lot for a 19 land deck.
(Only touching on things others haven't mentioned)
The Kommand in the SB probably isn't necessary with 2 MD. Also consider changing the Lilianas in the SB to Pia and Kiran Nalaar. Lily is only medium again affinity because most of their X/1s are manlands. P&K additionally gives you more outs to Etched Champion, plus it's still a great card to bring in vs. the grindy matchups. (This swap makes getting another red source in the deck even more important)
The Negate and Dispel in the SB seem redundant with 4 Stubs already in the 75. Stuff like Ceremonious Rejection (which is, again, useful against affinity), and Disdainful Stroke are better counters to have because they cover things that Stubborn Denial can't - Primeval Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Thought Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Etched Champion, etc.
With that much combo in your meta, consider -2 IoK, +2 Mana Leak MD. I admit this is my own idiosyncratic choice that no one else seems to be convinced by, but specifically against a combo heavy meta I think it's an improvement. (I like having them MD more generally, but I'm less certain about it) The tempo gain is very important, and IoK also misses stuff like Primeval Titan, Through the Breach, etc. Plus, some of those combo degenerates might SB in Leyline of Sanctity against you, so it's good to diversify your disruption a bit.
Mostly, though, get some games in. Practice is more important with this deck than the precise 75.
It's better but still not good. Right now my plan is Lingering Souls to buy time and hope to draw Temur Battle Rage. A big problem is that none of the sweepers are that great against them because of Thalia's Lieutenant.
If you're playing Traverse, you basically have to play Bauble. Maybe Thought Scour can bail you out if you play enough planeswalkers in the deck, but I think I'd rather have Bauble anyway just because it's free.
Thanks! I'm not a huge fan of Rampager - without double strike it doesn't take a turn off the clock like TBR does, which is huge IMO. Having it as a traverse target does help vs. the decks with piles of chump blockers, but I'd honestly rather have another TBR to draw naturally instead.
The 4th Stub is fairly questionable because where you want countermagic the most is against the big mana decks, and Stub doesn't stop Primeval Titan or Wurmcoil Engine. Not that it's not good elsewhere. Adding another Stroke is pretty enticing though.
I don't think the difference between Snpacaster and Traverse under e.g. RiP is meaningful enough for it to really factor into deck selection though. The 2/1 is something, yes. But it's still awful. A 1/10 or 2/10 compared to a 0/10.
This is exactly the sort of thing I think is drastically underexplored. I already have a couple sketches.
it doesn't turn on stubborn denial, requires you to have cards + spend mana to be good, and still dies to all the commonly played removal. it's fine, and if the format moves hard towards gy hate maybe it's worth it. but i'm not a fan right now.
I don't think Grixis is meaningfully better vs. GY hate. Grixis has Snapcaster + delve creatures, Jund/5 color has Goyf + Traverse. Grixis has the edge vs. Rest in Peace because sometimes you can get a delve creature into play before it resolves, and a small edge from Snapcaster doing a little more than Traverse when under RiP or Leyline. 5 color has the edge vs. most non RiP graveyard hate because Goyf can rely on the opponent's graveyard - Leyline and Nihil Spellbomb being the two most common. So maybe 5 color is a little worse vs. graveyard hate on net, but there's not really much of a difference.
I spend some time in the beginning talking about Grixis Shadow, so it might be of interest to people here.
Double black can be rough, but mostly instant speed is insane vs. Affinity, and can be really good vs. CoCo, Elves, and plenty of other decks where you'd want a sweeper. Anger is better when you don't expect affinity, basically. Tendrils is probably never the best option. The main reason to want Tendrils or K Return is against affinity because you want to kill Etched Champion, but if that's what you're interested in, then K Return is much stronger vs. them since it kills manlands. Tendrils is a sort of weird hedge card because it kills Etched Champion, but also exiles stuff like Finks and Voice. I can imagine metagames where this is what you want to be doing, but I don't think we're in that metagame. Most of the Finks + Voice decks we're pretty strong against already just because we have a pile of removal and creatures bigger than theirs.
I disagree with some of this. I posted my response in the Jund Shadow thread (he asked the same question there) but I think it's worth restating it here. Roughly, Jund Shadow can be configured to do anything Grixis Shadow can do. You want to grind? Lingering Souls trumps Snap + stuff. Ranger of Eos is also very good. You want to be controlling or tempo? You can MD Stub and put Disdainful Stroke in the SB. Plus Tarmogoyf is better than the delve creatures in a vaccuum, Temur Battle Rage is much better in Jund builds, Jund is more threat dense due to Traverse instead of Snapcaster, and Abrupt Decay provides answers to lots of problematic things that Grixis can only hope to counter.
But all of this comes at a cost: your manabase. Jund is more susceptible to mana denial strategies when it tries to do the same things Grixis naturally does (though Ponza feels pretty favorable for 4-5c Jund Shadow IMO). Secondly, if everyone is running piles of Fatal Push, delve creatures are better than Goyfs. This is a major reason why Grixis overtook Jund initially. Push had just come out, and everyone was leaning very hard on that removal spell while cutting Terminates and Bolts. So Gurmag Angler suddenly looked like a resilient threat instead of just a generic 5/5. Then the metagame reacted to Grixis being the top dog, and Leonin Arbiter started showing up, which is bad for both shadow decks, but certainly worse for 4-5c Jund.
Since then, the format has shifted. Storm is taking advantage of all these dinky LD and/or Blood Moon decks, and stuff like Mantis Rider is exploiting the move towards Fatal Push. So people have reacted accordingly, making Tarmogoyf and 4-5 colors better options. For the moment, I think the 5 color builds that Spicklemeyer and Lantto have been playing are the best shadow builds, but that could easily change if the format shifts again.
In terms of resiliency to hate and the fail rate, I don't really see a difference between the two builds. If anything, Jund is better against GY hate because 1) Decay kills Rest in Peace, 2) Goyf is still worthwhile with Leyline of the Void in play, though occasionally you can sneak a delve creature in before other types of gy hate. In terms of fail rate, I find that Grixis fails more often because it has fewer threats - Snapcaster Mage is not a threat, but Traverse typically is. (Note that both are pretty poor vs. GY hate, though snap is slightly better). But otherwise, both decks have the same strong dependence on the graveyard, the same strong dependence on getting their life total low for Shadow, and the same susceptibility to mana denial and blood moon. 5c is more susceptible to land destruction specifically I guess, but again, Decay can save you vs. Blood Moon.
TLDR: Grixis Shadow is better to the extent that Push and mana denial strategies are prominent in the expected metagame. Other, some variant of Jund/5c Shadow is better, though which build to play is another question entirely.
Absolutely worth it. They can't win without resolving Ad Nauseum, or some >=4 mana haymaker out of the board like Grave Titan.
Not in my experience - at least in the 19 land builds. P&K (and MD LotV) has been crucial in control matchups for me.
Edit: it's a control matchup - the games will go long, and you'll hit your land drops.
Pia and Kiran Nalaar is really good against them. Haymakers like that are what you want. But fundamentally the matchup is a bit rough.
P&K is pretty good against Lingering Souls too. Remember, you have K Command to recur it, though if the opponent is smart they'll prioritize their paths for P&K. LtlH is probably better against Souls and definitely better against stuff like CoCo and Elves. But it's worse against Affinity and against any non-Souls/CoCo grindy matchup. It depends on what you want to prioritize beating. Yes, the tokens from P&K block and kill Etched Champion if they attack with it (barring a Ravager). Shatterstorm is certainly good enough against Affinity. But if you want dedicated Affinity hate, there's better because 4 CMC is a bit steep. P&K is significantly worse as an anti-affinity card, but it comes in against far more decks. Note that I suggested cutting LtlH for P&K to improve your Affinity matchup. Not to cut Shatterstorm for P&K. I prefer Kozilek's Return over Shatterstorm, to be honest, because it's cheaper, kills manlands, and has many more applications (Elves, Merfolk, CoCo decks, even Lingering Souls and an out to Empty the Warrens vs. Storm). If you bring in, e.g., 2 Ceremonious Rejection, 1 Staticaster, 2 P&K, 2 Kozilek's Return, 2 Collective Brutality against Affinity for 4 Street Wraith, 4 Thoughtseize, 1 Stubborn D (using your original MD), you'll be able to consistently make the game go long enough to make P&K castable and should have a pretty solid post-board matchup vs them. The Stubs you leave in even insulate you against Blood Moon and late Galvanic Blasts.
Vs. Control, you mostly want haymakers and card advantage engines. Stuff like planeswalkers, k command, and P&K are your go-tos. Having access to a couple of counters that are not dead without a creature in play is good, but probably not enough to justify playing a Negate in addition to the obligatory 4 Stubborn D in the 75. Also, if you did really want to play Negate, Countersquall is probably worth the tougher color requirements.
(Only touching on things others haven't mentioned)
The Kommand in the SB probably isn't necessary with 2 MD. Also consider changing the Lilianas in the SB to Pia and Kiran Nalaar. Lily is only medium again affinity because most of their X/1s are manlands. P&K additionally gives you more outs to Etched Champion, plus it's still a great card to bring in vs. the grindy matchups. (This swap makes getting another red source in the deck even more important)
The Negate and Dispel in the SB seem redundant with 4 Stubs already in the 75. Stuff like Ceremonious Rejection (which is, again, useful against affinity), and Disdainful Stroke are better counters to have because they cover things that Stubborn Denial can't - Primeval Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Thought Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Etched Champion, etc.
With that much combo in your meta, consider -2 IoK, +2 Mana Leak MD. I admit this is my own idiosyncratic choice that no one else seems to be convinced by, but specifically against a combo heavy meta I think it's an improvement. (I like having them MD more generally, but I'm less certain about it) The tempo gain is very important, and IoK also misses stuff like Primeval Titan, Through the Breach, etc. Plus, some of those combo degenerates might SB in Leyline of Sanctity against you, so it's good to diversify your disruption a bit.
Mostly, though, get some games in. Practice is more important with this deck than the precise 75.