I was thinking of replacing 1x Watery Grave or 1x Flooded Strand 1x thoughtscour and 1x street wraith with 1 extra bolt and 2 opt.
Running 18 lands and 6 cantrips and two bolts.
Or maybe 1x terminate to the sideboard and replace one of those with bolt.
My flooded strand are off color but that's actually okay since most of the time I fetch for a basic island or a shockland.
I really don't like cutting Street Wraith. Seems far too important in the matchups where you need to apply pressure quickly. Same for Thought Scour. Both are important enablers to the deck's core plans.
Flooded Strand can't fetch Blood Crypt, which is a problem.
One question that crossed my mind, how many of you are running lightning bolts and versus what is it better against?
I'm currently playing one bolt and thinking on playing more, they might help against some matchups like burn, aggro decks, jeskai control and grixis shadow mirror.
Opinions?
One question that crossed my mind, how many of you are running lightning bolts and versus what is it better against?
I'm currently playing one bolt and thinking on playing more, they might help against some matchups like burn, aggro decks, jeskai control and grixis shadow mirror.
Opinions?
Don't know what you would cut for it. I personally like the extra copies of cantrips in form of Opt better here to draw me fatal push more consistantly which just seems better against Burn and Grixis DS alike.
Bolt is primarily better than the 4th push (or 3rd, depending on your numbers) against 3+ drops that die to bolt. Spell Queller, Reflector Mage, Kitchen Finks, Eternal Witness, Ezuri, Elvish Archdruid, Meerow Reejery, Mirran Crusader especially, 3 mana Thalia, etc. So decks like Elves, CoCo, and hatebears are where you really want to have access to bolt. The ability to randomly burn them out in the Shadow mirror is nice, but having another removal spell that actually kills important creatures is probably better.
I think the biggest difference between Jund (normal Jund) and Grixis Shadow is that Jund typically has more things they can bring in vs. Burn. Thoughtseize is a little better for Shadow than for Jund, but it's still not good.
Vs. Control I like to board out a few Street Wraiths, especially if they have access to Bolt. Games go long, life totals get low, and drawing one late can be a liability. Especially when they can just bolt you out. Vs. UW control specifically I'm less sure about that, because you can keep your life total lower for longer without risk of dying, and a quick large Shadow backed up by discard is a common path to victory. It might be correct to side out all of the Stubs for the same reason you side them out vs. mirrors and midrange. But given your 75, I might just go -2 Wraith, + 2 YP. Nothing else in your SB looks that great against them. You could bring in a LtlH just to threaten ultimate and if they don't hit you with RiP, it's plenty of card advantage. If they're running Logic Knot, Spellbomb isn't the worst in order to constrain that card some as well as Snapcaster. But again, less good if they're going to RiP you anyway.
Thanks for the extensive response. Yeah about YP, I would really like to run him to have an option to go wide, but not sure since mostly it doesn't quite fit in concerning SB in various matchups. But I have seen him in SBs already, so thats why I thought about him.
On TS vs. Burn, the thing is that I am in strong believe that TS is more or less a card that reads: Pay 1 mana, your opponent needs one less card to kill you, and you discard a card from the opponent, which mostly equals to: Pay 1 Mana, do nothing. I think its a big misconception that taking a Boros Charm with TS "heals" yourself for 2 life. So I would basically like to cut all of them vs. Burn. I played sweepers in Jund vs. Burn in the past, its decent, but not sure it workes out the same way in Grixis DS.
The SB plan vs. Control is the one I am most uncertain of. Not sure if I want Stubborns or Strokes, for the reasons you mentioned. I thought about cutting one Angler to leverage possible GY hate. It should be geared vs. UW Control and Jeskai Control.
I chose to cut Gurmags vs. Affinity mostly due to Paulor Vitor Damo Da Rosa's Article on Channel Fireball, and I think it makes kinda sense, but not sure. Here is the link: Click.
I often saw Grixis DS players leave in Denials against GBx to have an answer to LoTV. I always thought personally that this is a mistake, but thats what basically every Grixis DS player did who I met.
Thanks for your tips on sideboarding, I will have a look at them again and rework my plan!
No problem!
Thoughtseize is better than that vs. burn. Postboard they'll have Path and Deflecting Palm, and killing them with a Shadow is priority 1 in the matchup. Taking an Eidolon is also very good. And, yes, taking a Boros Charm does essentially gain you 2 life if they would have been able to resolve it otherwise - that's just the math. Not that Thoughtseize is good in the matchup, but it has its uses - and it's also the most skill testing card in your deck. Knowing when to cast it is very difficult. If we had more real cards to bring in vs them, it would definitely be the next cut after the Street Wraiths. But Kozilek's Return is not a real card in the matchup. We already have a pile of removal and not a ton of targets, and Return costs a whopping 3 mana in a matchup that can end before you can cast it. And most burn decks are lighter on creatures these days (not that K Return kills Nacatl, but the kitty does stretch your spot removal more). K Return often can't even kill Swiftspear.
I didn't understand PV's SB plan vs affinity when he published that article, and I don't understand it now. Cutting Stubs seems like it could be defensible, but I die to Galvanic Blast a lot vs them. Cutting a clock just doesn't make sense to me though. I get Blood Mooned far more often than I get Rest in Peaced out of affinity.
Edit: as a side note, if there's no Tron in your meta, you can switch the Strokes to Flashfreezes and have essentially the same spell vs Valakut, but more anti-burn cards in your SB.
Thoughts: Maybe replace one Push with a third Stubborn denial main, which would change one Stubborn from the SB into a second Rejection. Am not sure about the YPs yet.
What are your thoughts about this list, my meta consists mainly of: Control, Affinity, CoCO decks, Scapeshift, some ELves, burn and a little bit GBx.
Also, is my SB plan for these matchups correct?
Burn: Cut 4 Street Wraith and 2 TS for 2 CB, 2 Kozilek's and 2 Stubborn?
Control: Cut 2 Push 2 Stubborn and 1 Terminate, 1 Gurmag Angler, Bring in 2 YP, 2 Stroke, 2 CB?
Affinity: Cut 1 LoTV, 2 Gurmag, 2 Stubborn, Bring in 2 Kozilek, 2 LtLH, 1 Rejection?
CoCo decks: Cut 1 LoTV, 2 KCommand, 2 Stubborn, bring in 2 KOzilek, 2 CB, 1 LtLH
Scapeshift: Cut 4 Pushes, 2 KCommand, Bring in 2 Stokes, 2 CB, 2 Stubborn
Elves: Cut 1 LoTV, 2 Street Wraith, 2 Stubborn, 1 KCommand, bring in 2 Kozilek, 2 CB, 2 LtLH
GBx: Cut 2 IOK, 2 TS, bring in 2 LtLH, 2 YP.
Thanks for any feedback on this.
EDIT: Oh and Verdant Catacombs are replacements for Scalding Tarns, since I don't have them.
Liliana of the Veil is not particularly good in that meta. It really shines vs. other midrange decks, but it's pretty bad vs Coco, Affinity, and Elves. It's decent against control and better than nothing against Scapeshift though. Consider Liliana, the Last Hope in that slot instead, or perhaps something completely different. Adding 1-2 MD Mana Leak would help your Scapeshift matchup, for example, and they have a low floor in most other matchups.
I have a lot of comments about the SB plans, but notably I'm not entirely sure what to do with Young Pyromancer. I usually have Pia and Kiran Nalaar in that spot instead. I think I prefer YP as a MD card if it's in the 75 at all, but I haven't testing it enough to be sure.
I'd leave at least one K Command in vs Scapeshift (assuming it's GR Scapeshift) - they tend to have Chalice of the Void in their SB, and at worst it can help attrition them out. I'd probably cut the LotV instead. There's also an argument for -2 Snap, +2 YP just because you need to clock them. Or squeezing in the YPs some other way.
I'm not sure about bringing in Kozilek's Return vs Burn. I think I'd rather have the Thoughtseizes. Young Pyromancer, again, could be brought in as a clock / speed bump. Probably in place of some Thoughtseizes.
I wouldn't cut any threats vs. Control. Cutting Stubborn Denials also seems bad, though I wouldn't max out on them either. Stroke doesn't even hit stuff like Supreme Verdict or 3 mana Gideon (though you didn't mention which control deck).
I wouldn't cut Gurmags vs. Affinity - you need the threats. Or the 2 Stubborns. They counter Plating, can slow down some T1 nut draws, and counter Galvanic Blast which often kills you. Cut the Street Wraiths, and you can additionally shave Thoughtseizes for more room. LtlH is only OK here, so bringing both in may not be the best (most of their X/1s are manlands).
Bring in both LtlH vs. CoCo decks. It's your best card. Leave a couple Stubborn Denials in too - they have CoCo, possibly Chord/Eldritch Evolution, and they'll have paths postboard. You can cut some Street Wraiths here because they game will typically go long and your have to be careful with your life total. The matchup tends to be grindy, so I like leaving K Commands in too. Maybe at least one. Young Pyromancer also seems decent here. If you go -4 Wraith, -1 LotV, -1 K Command, then +2 LtlH, +2 K Return, +2 Collective Brutality, I think you're in a decent spot. Not sure how to work YP in there though.
Vs. Elves, you can cut more street Wraiths for the Young Pyromancers. This is the perfect matchup for Peezy, and you can't really afford the life loss of Wraith.
Vs. GBx, the games will go long so shaving 2 street wraith is prudent. Also, they have a ton of removal along with Decays, so cutting Denials is is good idea. I'd leave in all of the discard spells. (I know this is counterintuitive for midrange mirrors in general, but Shadow plays out just a little bit differently since you can kill them so quickly. And discard is your best answer to things like Decay and LotV.)
Hi, I'm looking into getting back into Modern again after a hiatus and was thinking of trying this deck out since Grixis Control seems out of flavor/meta. My main question is what will deck lists look like now that Opt is now in Modern?
Hi, I'm looking into getting back into Modern again after a hiatus and was thinking of trying this deck out since Grixis Control seems out of flavor/meta. My main question is what will deck lists look like now that Opt is now in Modern?
I believe it's still to early to answer that question. Many People (including me) are high on trying out opt but there are no results yet to back this up. I'm testing a 4/4/2 Split on Serum/Scour/Opt with 3 Wraiths and i like it but i feel like there won't ever be a "stock" list for this deck because some mainboard choices will always be in flux depending on the playstyle and expected meta.
In any case the differences are small. Pick a stock looking list and start playing games. If you end up needing opts later or deciding you didn't need them after all, you can always make that change.
I agree. So, I feel like we should still be playing wraith; a lot of builds have been playing 1-2 Sleight of Hand, and I feel like those copies should be replaced by Opt.that puts our cantrip suite at:
4 Wraith
4 Serum
4 Scour
2 Opt
In my testing this has felt amazing, and also lets us keep hands more often. Opt has also felt superb in the mid game because it allows us to choose card quality at instant speed.
I haven't tested the 2 Sleight builds or Opt yet, but this seems reasonable to me. I could see shaving 1 Street Wraith even. I kind of want to get YP into the MD just to have another threat, especially one that is not susceptible to GY hate. (I like P&K much better than YP in the SB though) And shaving a Wraith for an Opt or some such makes that a little better.
So how do you guys feel about a street wraithless shadow? I've been thinking about playing a 16 land variant with young pyromancer and more cantrips over some number of fetches and street wraiths. I feel like street wraith has gotten worse now that most decks are equipped to handle our fast deaths shadow. Most of the time it feels bad when you don't actively have some number of shadow and I instantly board them out first in most matchups , I've been on grixis deaths shadow for about 8 months now. With the release of opt I've been testing it in a 14 land shell (currently with wraith) and adding two pyromancer cutting 1 snap , with 20 cantrips including street wraith and the deck just churns and finds whatever you need. I feel like street wraith is just a mediocre card at this point and I'm wondering if anyone else has cut them in favor of other cards. Opinions ?
100+ games , you only need one mana in your opening hand to function (14 land version with wraiths) I have 4x sleight 4x opt 4x wraith 4x serum 4x thought scour 8 fetches 6 non fetch. I've done zero testing with a wraithless version outside of a random decklist I threw together and played a few matches with, the idea is to take your first few turns finding the lands you need and playing out your disruption , then finding specific cards to tilt the MU in your favor. The hands with multiple lands feel broken , and imo your midgame is much stronger due to the amount of cantrips. This is the wraith version , wraithless I feel like would be similar in theory , just not aggressively killing yourself early on.
I've also been playing the ari lax 4x sleight version for awhile now , I think it's just the better deck when compared to the stock 18-19 land versions.
The big downsides for Ari Lax's 4 Sleight / 16 cantrip / 17 land version were always 1) Chalice, and 2) mana denial strategies. You end up much more susceptible to both. In an open metagame, I like it better than the stock 19 land version. But IMO in the MTGO/SCG open/GP metagames there's too much Spreading Seas, Blood Moon, Smallpox, Stone Rain, Ghost Quarter, etc., running around.
Edit: to be clear, I thought Lax's list was great until the format adjusted to the presence of Death's Shadow. If your local metagame has not, it might be your best bet.
But as far as a 16 cantrip build with Opt replacing Street Wraith, you still have both problems. In fact, you're even worse vs. Chalice now. But the biggest problem is that your Death's Shadows will be far less explosive. This will hurt a lot in matchups like Storm and Valakut. So will having to spend mana to cantrip a higher percentage of the time - e.g. when you're digging for lands, but you also need to cast Thoughtseize or a threat. Then adding Young Pyromancer on top of it is sketchy. YP is essentially a 3 mana card. You can play him on 2, but you really want to play him then get immediate value. But cutting lands and adding cantrips makes it harder to hit 3 mana on turn 3 consistently without spend all/most of your mana on your early turns cantriping. Part of the beauty of Grixis Shadow is that it gets to interact on turns 1, 2, and sometimes 3, then cast a threat for 1 mana with more interaction held back.
Your 14 land, 20 cantrip version is insane to me. You have about a 13.9% to have an opening hand with 0 lands. If only 13 of your lands are blue sources (say you play a blood crypt), you have about a 16.3% chance to have an opening hand with 0 blue sources, which is almost certainly a mulligan. At 12 blue sources, it's 19.1%. That's a whole lot of mulligans due to not having enough land in the deck. Plus, so many of your games you have to spend all of your mana in the first 1-3 turns looking for another land. Modern punishes people who don't interact with their opponent in the first couple turns.
i have trimmed a ceremonius rejection and a collective brutality in the side for 2 disdainful strokes.
They come in a lot of matchups as most of the haymakers in modern cast 4 and up.
Off the top of my head I know I side it in tron decks, titan decks, control decks and even a one of for corner case scenarios for gifts ungiven.
I get that the deck is very efficient and all, but the issue is that the flooding is contributing directly to losses. Drawing several lands in a row or a high volume over a period of turns is manifesting itself into results. Just yesterday, I scooped a game with multiple lands in my hand.
What I'm really trying to see is if there are ways I can alleviate that. Maybe I play certain cards that help deal with flooding. Maybe I cut lands and add cheap spells to alleviate needing multiple lands. I'm just trying to see if that's actually something to do. Perhaps shaving a land to play a copy of Opt is good. Perhaps changing out some cheap spells for more powerful, more expensive cards could alleviate this as well. I'm just here trying to see how I can manage this.
You can alleviate it by cutting lands and adding selection - opt or sleight. But you can't really go under 17 lands. And you also become more susceptible to mana denial, which is fairly prevalent right now. Mostly, I think this is a small sample size issue. You'll get a few matches in a row where you just flood out every now and then. If that doesn't happen, you're luckier than you deserve to be.
1) To beat Lingering Souls midrange decks, put Pia and Kiran Nalaar in your SB. It's your best bet to go toe to toe with them. Liliana, the Last Hope helps too, but she takes some time to deal with all 4 tokens. For most purposes, btw, I like P&K a lot better than Young Pyromancer. The main exception is vs fast go wide decks like Elves, but notably P&K is better against affinity because flying matters a lot, and so does blocking Etched Champion. P&K is essentially the best way to win grindy matchups, including the mirror, Jund, Abzan, and control decks. YP can do it, but topdecking a YP on an empty board with an empty hand is pretty lackluster. Not so with P&K.
2) Going down to 3 Snapcasters is something I've been doing for awhile. I essentially cut one for a MD Liliana of the Veil (and another LotV in one of the flex spots). You delve away your entire graveyard a lot and don't often get a ton of mana together to Snap + K Command, so Snapcaster is not as good here as it has been in other blue tempo decks in modern (e.g. Twin, or UWR Geist).
3) Collective Brutality is primarily for Burn, Storm, and Chord/Coco decks where 2+ modes are very good. It also functions as additional removal vs Affinity, Merfolk (notably kills Master of Waves), Elves, and in similar matchups, and as additional discard vs. Ad Nauseum, Valakut (though it may not always come in here, depends on the 75 I think), and a variety of other spell based combo decks.
4) Liliana of the Veil deals with Chameleon Colossus, and is very good in the MD (note some Valakut decks MD a Colossus).
5) Claim to Fame seems real bad in this shell. There are only 7-8 targets, and you can't afford to have spells stuck in your hand in the early game waiting for something to happen before you can use them. Snapcaster already has that problem somewhat, but at least all it requires is you to hit 3+ mana and have cast some spells. Claim to Fame requires your creatures to die (not get pathed), or get milled by Thought Scour. Good luck.
@Farban: The relativly low amount of red cards, imo, isnt because the red cards are bad, or we don't want them, but because space in the deck is really tight and for the amount of space we can allocate to "offcolor" cards the red ones are the best bang for our buck.
Having 1-2 Command maindeck and potentially access to more commands, anger of the gods, Kozilek's return, By force, Temur Battle Rage helps immensly in a lot of popular matchups right now.
Due to space being scarce our "offcolor" cards have to 1) have a significant impact in low numbers and 2) have applications in a broad number of matchups.
The second point is why I believe red is the better spash color right now: all of the above mentioned cards are high impact without being super narrow like for example Stony Silence.
On the other hand, while the maindeck white cards (Souls and Path) are more powerful than the red ones, they also require you to allocate a lot of space to them to make it worth.
Playing 1-2 Path to exile or 1-2 Lingering Souls just feels wrong to me, dunno.
Lastly, why not just straight up UB? for one, especially if you dont play cards like Deprive, the 3rd color is pretty much free. You don't want more basics and you are getting at least 3 colors of mana from your fetchlands alone since you want ~12 fetchies anyway.
Further you want 5 shocklands most of the time so you`ll get a 3rd color that way anyway also.
UB also has huge holes in their sideboard cards which makes a 3rd color worth it.
One of the biggest reasons to play red is terminate, which kills Delve creatures without a major downside. Without red, you have to rely on stuff like dismember, murderous cut, and go for the throat, which all have major downsides. White has path, but it turns out that ramping the opponent isn't so great either, and the red SB cards are better for UB shadow shells.
Do u guys side in Disdainful Stroke, last Hope against Bant Eldrazi? Is Anger of the Gods any good?
Gonna be honest I don't remember the last time I've even played against that deck, seems to have been entirely replaced by e tron at least where I am. That said stroke might be good but if I remember correctly that deck runs more cavern of souls so you risk it becoming a dead card pretty quick as the only targets they have are creatures.
I really like anger and sweepers in general in that matchup but I think lili might be too low impact, depends how many cards you're cutting. The key is to do your best to keep the board clear since they have a very real tendency to flood out and have horrible top decks that don't do much on their own unlike e tron. I think I'd be more comfortable going into the late game against that deck for that reason, our creatures are almost always bigger and there's no troublesome planeswalkers or sweepers to worry about.
It is, but I would still side Stroke and Rejection in. It's a bad matchup, and the countmagic at least allows you to beat their non-cavern draws. Stroke also counters Worship, which is usually impossible to beat.
@Spooly
I disagree with your assessment that the grave won’t be filled by natural interaction.
I didn't say it won't be filled by natural interaction. I said sometimes it won't and gave an example of a specific situation where it wouldn't. Like when you have a hand full of removal against Ad Naus, or Valakut. Or if you draw a bunch of Snapcasters. If this never happens to you, you're luckier than I am. The extra Thought Scour makes early delve threats a little more consistent in those spots.
Again, after having said all this, I have since went back to 4 after testing 3, because it smooths out the Gurmag Angler openers. I just disagree with your assertion about how good Thought Scour is. 4 is probably the right amount, but I could see 3 being alright in conjunction with some number of Opts since Opt gives you card selection at the cost of a very slightly increased chance of needing to take a mulligan because you have a Delve threat in hand with no means to quickly rush him out. If Mental Note was legal in modern, I doubt it would be correct to play any copies of it though.
I think I fundamentally value getting to the board and being aggressive more than you. Modern is a format of degeneracy. The most important thing your deck should do (any deck) is kill the opponent (or lock them out) quickly.
I really don't like cutting Street Wraith. Seems far too important in the matchups where you need to apply pressure quickly. Same for Thought Scour. Both are important enablers to the deck's core plans.
Flooded Strand can't fetch Blood Crypt, which is a problem.
Bolt is primarily better than the 4th push (or 3rd, depending on your numbers) against 3+ drops that die to bolt. Spell Queller, Reflector Mage, Kitchen Finks, Eternal Witness, Ezuri, Elvish Archdruid, Meerow Reejery, Mirran Crusader especially, 3 mana Thalia, etc. So decks like Elves, CoCo, and hatebears are where you really want to have access to bolt. The ability to randomly burn them out in the Shadow mirror is nice, but having another removal spell that actually kills important creatures is probably better.
Vs. Control I like to board out a few Street Wraiths, especially if they have access to Bolt. Games go long, life totals get low, and drawing one late can be a liability. Especially when they can just bolt you out. Vs. UW control specifically I'm less sure about that, because you can keep your life total lower for longer without risk of dying, and a quick large Shadow backed up by discard is a common path to victory. It might be correct to side out all of the Stubs for the same reason you side them out vs. mirrors and midrange. But given your 75, I might just go -2 Wraith, + 2 YP. Nothing else in your SB looks that great against them. You could bring in a LtlH just to threaten ultimate and if they don't hit you with RiP, it's plenty of card advantage. If they're running Logic Knot, Spellbomb isn't the worst in order to constrain that card some as well as Snapcaster. But again, less good if they're going to RiP you anyway.
No problem!
Thoughtseize is better than that vs. burn. Postboard they'll have Path and Deflecting Palm, and killing them with a Shadow is priority 1 in the matchup. Taking an Eidolon is also very good. And, yes, taking a Boros Charm does essentially gain you 2 life if they would have been able to resolve it otherwise - that's just the math. Not that Thoughtseize is good in the matchup, but it has its uses - and it's also the most skill testing card in your deck. Knowing when to cast it is very difficult. If we had more real cards to bring in vs them, it would definitely be the next cut after the Street Wraiths. But Kozilek's Return is not a real card in the matchup. We already have a pile of removal and not a ton of targets, and Return costs a whopping 3 mana in a matchup that can end before you can cast it. And most burn decks are lighter on creatures these days (not that K Return kills Nacatl, but the kitty does stretch your spot removal more). K Return often can't even kill Swiftspear.
I didn't understand PV's SB plan vs affinity when he published that article, and I don't understand it now. Cutting Stubs seems like it could be defensible, but I die to Galvanic Blast a lot vs them. Cutting a clock just doesn't make sense to me though. I get Blood Mooned far more often than I get Rest in Peaced out of affinity.
Edit: as a side note, if there's no Tron in your meta, you can switch the Strokes to Flashfreezes and have essentially the same spell vs Valakut, but more anti-burn cards in your SB.
Liliana of the Veil is not particularly good in that meta. It really shines vs. other midrange decks, but it's pretty bad vs Coco, Affinity, and Elves. It's decent against control and better than nothing against Scapeshift though. Consider Liliana, the Last Hope in that slot instead, or perhaps something completely different. Adding 1-2 MD Mana Leak would help your Scapeshift matchup, for example, and they have a low floor in most other matchups.
I have a lot of comments about the SB plans, but notably I'm not entirely sure what to do with Young Pyromancer. I usually have Pia and Kiran Nalaar in that spot instead. I think I prefer YP as a MD card if it's in the 75 at all, but I haven't testing it enough to be sure.
I'd leave at least one K Command in vs Scapeshift (assuming it's GR Scapeshift) - they tend to have Chalice of the Void in their SB, and at worst it can help attrition them out. I'd probably cut the LotV instead. There's also an argument for -2 Snap, +2 YP just because you need to clock them. Or squeezing in the YPs some other way.
I'm not sure about bringing in Kozilek's Return vs Burn. I think I'd rather have the Thoughtseizes. Young Pyromancer, again, could be brought in as a clock / speed bump. Probably in place of some Thoughtseizes.
I wouldn't cut any threats vs. Control. Cutting Stubborn Denials also seems bad, though I wouldn't max out on them either. Stroke doesn't even hit stuff like Supreme Verdict or 3 mana Gideon (though you didn't mention which control deck).
I wouldn't cut Gurmags vs. Affinity - you need the threats. Or the 2 Stubborns. They counter Plating, can slow down some T1 nut draws, and counter Galvanic Blast which often kills you. Cut the Street Wraiths, and you can additionally shave Thoughtseizes for more room. LtlH is only OK here, so bringing both in may not be the best (most of their X/1s are manlands).
Bring in both LtlH vs. CoCo decks. It's your best card. Leave a couple Stubborn Denials in too - they have CoCo, possibly Chord/Eldritch Evolution, and they'll have paths postboard. You can cut some Street Wraiths here because they game will typically go long and your have to be careful with your life total. The matchup tends to be grindy, so I like leaving K Commands in too. Maybe at least one. Young Pyromancer also seems decent here. If you go -4 Wraith, -1 LotV, -1 K Command, then +2 LtlH, +2 K Return, +2 Collective Brutality, I think you're in a decent spot. Not sure how to work YP in there though.
Vs. Elves, you can cut more street Wraiths for the Young Pyromancers. This is the perfect matchup for Peezy, and you can't really afford the life loss of Wraith.
Vs. GBx, the games will go long so shaving 2 street wraith is prudent. Also, they have a ton of removal along with Decays, so cutting Denials is is good idea. I'd leave in all of the discard spells. (I know this is counterintuitive for midrange mirrors in general, but Shadow plays out just a little bit differently since you can kill them so quickly. And discard is your best answer to things like Decay and LotV.)
In any case the differences are small. Pick a stock looking list and start playing games. If you end up needing opts later or deciding you didn't need them after all, you can always make that change.
I haven't tested the 2 Sleight builds or Opt yet, but this seems reasonable to me. I could see shaving 1 Street Wraith even. I kind of want to get YP into the MD just to have another threat, especially one that is not susceptible to GY hate. (I like P&K much better than YP in the SB though) And shaving a Wraith for an Opt or some such makes that a little better.
The big downsides for Ari Lax's 4 Sleight / 16 cantrip / 17 land version were always 1) Chalice, and 2) mana denial strategies. You end up much more susceptible to both. In an open metagame, I like it better than the stock 19 land version. But IMO in the MTGO/SCG open/GP metagames there's too much Spreading Seas, Blood Moon, Smallpox, Stone Rain, Ghost Quarter, etc., running around.
Edit: to be clear, I thought Lax's list was great until the format adjusted to the presence of Death's Shadow. If your local metagame has not, it might be your best bet.
But as far as a 16 cantrip build with Opt replacing Street Wraith, you still have both problems. In fact, you're even worse vs. Chalice now. But the biggest problem is that your Death's Shadows will be far less explosive. This will hurt a lot in matchups like Storm and Valakut. So will having to spend mana to cantrip a higher percentage of the time - e.g. when you're digging for lands, but you also need to cast Thoughtseize or a threat. Then adding Young Pyromancer on top of it is sketchy. YP is essentially a 3 mana card. You can play him on 2, but you really want to play him then get immediate value. But cutting lands and adding cantrips makes it harder to hit 3 mana on turn 3 consistently without spend all/most of your mana on your early turns cantriping. Part of the beauty of Grixis Shadow is that it gets to interact on turns 1, 2, and sometimes 3, then cast a threat for 1 mana with more interaction held back.
Your 14 land, 20 cantrip version is insane to me. You have about a 13.9% to have an opening hand with 0 lands. If only 13 of your lands are blue sources (say you play a blood crypt), you have about a 16.3% chance to have an opening hand with 0 blue sources, which is almost certainly a mulligan. At 12 blue sources, it's 19.1%. That's a whole lot of mulligans due to not having enough land in the deck. Plus, so many of your games you have to spend all of your mana in the first 1-3 turns looking for another land. Modern punishes people who don't interact with their opponent in the first couple turns.
Also Ad Nauseum
You can alleviate it by cutting lands and adding selection - opt or sleight. But you can't really go under 17 lands. And you also become more susceptible to mana denial, which is fairly prevalent right now. Mostly, I think this is a small sample size issue. You'll get a few matches in a row where you just flood out every now and then. If that doesn't happen, you're luckier than you deserve to be.
1) To beat Lingering Souls midrange decks, put Pia and Kiran Nalaar in your SB. It's your best bet to go toe to toe with them. Liliana, the Last Hope helps too, but she takes some time to deal with all 4 tokens. For most purposes, btw, I like P&K a lot better than Young Pyromancer. The main exception is vs fast go wide decks like Elves, but notably P&K is better against affinity because flying matters a lot, and so does blocking Etched Champion. P&K is essentially the best way to win grindy matchups, including the mirror, Jund, Abzan, and control decks. YP can do it, but topdecking a YP on an empty board with an empty hand is pretty lackluster. Not so with P&K.
2) Going down to 3 Snapcasters is something I've been doing for awhile. I essentially cut one for a MD Liliana of the Veil (and another LotV in one of the flex spots). You delve away your entire graveyard a lot and don't often get a ton of mana together to Snap + K Command, so Snapcaster is not as good here as it has been in other blue tempo decks in modern (e.g. Twin, or UWR Geist).
3) Collective Brutality is primarily for Burn, Storm, and Chord/Coco decks where 2+ modes are very good. It also functions as additional removal vs Affinity, Merfolk (notably kills Master of Waves), Elves, and in similar matchups, and as additional discard vs. Ad Nauseum, Valakut (though it may not always come in here, depends on the 75 I think), and a variety of other spell based combo decks.
4) Liliana of the Veil deals with Chameleon Colossus, and is very good in the MD (note some Valakut decks MD a Colossus).
5) Claim to Fame seems real bad in this shell. There are only 7-8 targets, and you can't afford to have spells stuck in your hand in the early game waiting for something to happen before you can use them. Snapcaster already has that problem somewhat, but at least all it requires is you to hit 3+ mana and have cast some spells. Claim to Fame requires your creatures to die (not get pathed), or get milled by Thought Scour. Good luck.
One of the biggest reasons to play red is terminate, which kills Delve creatures without a major downside. Without red, you have to rely on stuff like dismember, murderous cut, and go for the throat, which all have major downsides. White has path, but it turns out that ramping the opponent isn't so great either, and the red SB cards are better for UB shadow shells.
It is, but I would still side Stroke and Rejection in. It's a bad matchup, and the countmagic at least allows you to beat their non-cavern draws. Stroke also counters Worship, which is usually impossible to beat.
I didn't say it won't be filled by natural interaction. I said sometimes it won't and gave an example of a specific situation where it wouldn't. Like when you have a hand full of removal against Ad Naus, or Valakut. Or if you draw a bunch of Snapcasters. If this never happens to you, you're luckier than I am. The extra Thought Scour makes early delve threats a little more consistent in those spots.
I think I fundamentally value getting to the board and being aggressive more than you. Modern is a format of degeneracy. The most important thing your deck should do (any deck) is kill the opponent (or lock them out) quickly.