I didn't actually know that ETron deck were putting back Wail in the main, IIRC they ran dismembers because it also dealt with delve creatures.
Usually, the Wails come from the side. I lost quite a few Dark Confidants to it when playing my other deck. But I guess if Young Pyromancer doesn't show up in game 1, it is pretty much save from Wail because they don't know that we are running it.
The goal is to limit the number of red spells in the deck at a given time and I have to hedge. The whole point of playing YP is to have yourself a hedge against chalice while having more threats and reducing the number of clunky/dead cards.
This plan appears to have a flaw, though: The one tier 1 deck that is running four copies of Chalice of the Void maindeck is Eldrazi Tron. Unfortunately, Young Pyromancer is not very good in this matchup because of Walking Ballista, trample on Reality Smasher, All is Dust and even Warping Wail.
I agree with you, however, that one good reason for running Young Pyromancer is reducing the dependency on the graveyard. The second good reason is IMHO the recent rise in popularity of LotV.
I'm happy that Spooly is doing well with the 2 LotVs. While I don't fully agree with this choice, I like to see some diversity.
And it may actually be the right choice for a metagame with lots of midrange. Reducing the dependency on the graveyard is something I'm also striving for. That's why I, unlike some other posters, wasn't enthusiastic about Claim // Fame when it first was spoiled.
I tested Pia and Kiran Nalaar a while ago as well, but hitting four lands by turn four is not what the deck usually wants to do. The fourth land would otherwise be a natural candidate for discarding through LotV's +1 ability, so this doesn't seem overly synergistic.
Me, too. It usually requires an early Death's Shadow or multiple Stubborn Denials/IOKs, and they might win even then, but it's nowhere near impossible.
Eternal Scourge does not beat non-revolted Fatal Push. And it's pretty bad against Flickerwisp, which is often played alongside Mirran Crusader. Path to Exile is good against it, too. So I don't think it's going to be good enough against decks that typically run Mirran Crusader. I would rather have Lightning Bolt or Electrolyze instead.
If I was also worried about Etched Champion, I would play an extra Kozilek's Return or Flaying Tendrils over Eternal Scourge.
If they didn't have Aether Vial in hand, I would also take Cursecatcher. But they don't know about my land situation yet and I just signaled to them that I'm fine by casting Thoughtseize, so I fully expect them to cast Aether Vial on turn 1.
I don't consider Merfolk such a bad matchup. I beat it numerous times with just a single Kozilek's Return, an Engineered Explosives and two LotVs as my main SB options. EE was often even more backbreaking then Kozilek's Return, because Merfolk has an overcrowded CMC2-slot. Getting rid of most of their lords and Spreading Seas in one go is pretty sweet and can dramatically reduce the number of tokens they get from Master of the Waves.
I would keep that hand, fetch Watery Grave, then cast Serum Visions to maximize the chances of not missing my turn 2 land drop. Merfolk is a swarm deck with access to Spreading Seas. So I really want that second land and a third land soon. Hitting a second fetch land with either Serum Visions or turn 2 Thought Scour would allow for a turn 2 Angler, providing a nice clock. I would then Thoughtseize on turn 3, looking for Harbinger of the Tides.
The land I would fetch on turn 2 would be another Watery Grave to minimize the damage Spreading Seas can do. This might even discourage them from casting Spreading Seas on turn 2 because the impact is minimal and a mean-looking zombie fish is about to race them by then. I wouldn't care much about Anger of the Gods at this point, because fixing my land situation would be my top priority. With so few lands, Anger will be hard to resolve anyway against a playset of Cursecatchers.
If I thoughtseized on turn 1 like you did, I would take Spreading Seas for reasons explained above. If I had multiple lands in hand, I would prefer taking Silvergill Adept here, but with just one land, I feel that this isn't really an option.
That's basically what I predicted and if it stays that way, it will be yet another argument against a ban. In his ban mongering video after GP Vegas, Luis Scott-Vargas claimed (pun intended) that Claim // Fame will be (I quote) "extremely good" for the Grixis Shadow deck.
Leyline of Sanctity nullifies 6 cards in our maindeck and maybe 3 or 4 cards in our sideboard. As Echoing Truth doesn't get rid of it permanently, we will likely have to spend an additional card to achieve this.
In many cases (not always obviously), siding out a few discard spells is a decent countermeasure. Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand can also help reducing the number of discard spells we draw when Leyline of Sanctity is online.
We can't have a solution for everything in 15 SB slots, unfortunately.
This is probably the most notable example of LotV in Grixis Shadow to date. I like how two extra discard spells were also added to the list instead of just randomly throwing in LotV in the flex slots. This is the kind of tweaking I was referring to earlier.
You can see how I might be confused. Here and before you called it "one of the more difficult matchups" - easy to interpret that as calling it a bad matchup! But I guess you're talking about how difficult it is to play the matchup? Or maybe you think that we have so many good matchups that "one of the more difficult matchups" is an apt description for a matchup that is roughly 50/50, depending on deckbuilding choices?
I'm not a native speaker, so I may not always get the nuances right.
What I meant is that Affinity is the kind of matchup where I want all of the pieces of my deck to work in concert. LotV is more like a diva that likes to play her own little games. Even against Affinity, she might occasionally be great. But more often than not, I expect her to be a clunky CMC3 card which soaks up a few points of damage. That's not what I want for this matchup.
I think I think about the card and matchups generally in a different way. I want to increase my chance to win the tournament any way I can. I don't care about which specific decks I gain % against, except to the extent they're represented at the top tables. Taking a 50% matchup to 60% is more valuable than taking a 35% matchup to 40%, all else equal. I agree that Junk is a tougher midrange matchup than the other midrange decks, but so what? If I can gain win % against the metagame without impacting the Junk matchup much (or even losing % there), I will do it.
This is not really a good example, because it's 5% increase vs. a 10% increase. In this case, we would probably both go for the 10% increase. But I still think that our approaches are different, because I don't care that much about winning the tournament anymore. I have won a few tournaments in the past, but nowadays deck construction is the most fun part of the game for me. I strive for a well-rounded deck that can win not only against the top 5 archetypes of the format, but against most of the top 20 archetypes. I usually play rogue decks or add twists to existing archetypes. I'm in the process of making my own rogue Shadow deck, but it is taking a while because Grixis Shadow is really good as it is.
With that in mind, I like 2 MD LotV right now because she gives you major gains in most fair matchups, while her +1 pressures many of the unfair matchups in a worthwhile way. Discard into threat into Lily is the classic Jund strategy against degenerate nonsense, and it works here too. Even against Eldrazi Tron this works ok because you can use discard to pick off the hangerbacks, then pressure their resources with LotV. The only fair matchups where she isn't an all star have some ability to go wide, but even against Junk she's still very good. You just need to dodge / answer Lingering Souls. Against control, again, she's very good simply because most control strategies aren't well equipped to deal with a resolved planeswalker. Outside of stuff like tokens, elves, and affinity, she's at least decent. LotV won't blow you away against death and taxes or dredge, but we weren't winning those matchups anyway without a significant commitment of deck/sb slots anyway - a commitment I'm not willing to make.
Thank you for the detailed explanation. Maybe I don't appreciate LotV enough, I have not extensively played her despite owning several copies.
But note that I'm not interested in her as a SB card - I specifically want her MD. If you want a SB card to beat midrange specifically, there are better options that are just as strong against Junk as against other midrange decks. My current favorite is P&K Nalaar as a way to go wide, and also have applications against Affinity and Elves, but you can go very deep here.
I would also rather MD than SB her. I like to have narrow SB cards and flexible MD cards. LotV is flexible enough for the MD and not narrow enough for the kind of SB I'm aiming for.
I was talking about LotV's +1 ability. Her -2 ability can obviously be backbreaking.
She's tough to play against in Junk because they can back her up with tokens. Jund heavily relies on her, so we can often focus our entire game plan on beating LotV. Snapcaster Mage is indeed a key card here, but an immediately minused LoTV also dies to Kommand with minimal card disadvantage. I also run two MD bolts and usually have a Dreadbore in the sideboard. Jund is also one of the few non-combo matchups where I bring in my Surgical Extractions. If I manage to take out LotV with it, my opponent will be left with a very threat-light deck. This means that I can afford to keep all my discard spells and a few Stubborn Denials despite heading for an attrition battle. In longer games, LtLH's -2 ability can also sometimes balance out LotV's -2 ability, and LtLH's ultimate can be truly game ending.
All things considered, I'm doing pretty well with my setup and don't feel an urge to dedicate a sideboard slot to a LotV of my own.
I don't consider Grixis Shadow to be the "best deck". Maybe it was, before the metagame adapted, but not anymore. I would rather play Titanshift or Eldrazi Tron right now, but I still play for fun and those decks aren't fun for me.
Spooly I didn't call Affinity a bad matchup. It's one of the more difficult matchups IMHO, because games can play out different depending on what they are working with. Sometimes it's all about the Plating, sometimes Edged Champion rears its shiny head, sometimes a swarm is coming from the air. It's a matchup I personally like.
Of the midrange decks, I'm mostly worried about Junk. And in this matchup, I prefer LtLH over LotV because of Lingering Souls.
I don't like attrition battles, at least not with this deck. So maybe I don't appreciate the ability of making them discard their worst card enough. I have played against LotV many times and her +1 ability has been rarely backbreaking. Sometimes it can even be exploited to get certain cards in the yard.
The meta is massively hateful right now, the MTGO practice rooms literally feel like anti shadow decks.
That's true and I find it somewhat entertaining. The metagame share of all Death's Shadow based decks combined has stabilized around 15%. My feeling is that many players try to turn Grixis Shadow into a favorable matchup because they have given up on beating the land based decks (Eldrazi Tron, traditional Tron, Valakut) already. If they lose 70% of the matches against those decks and manage to beat us 70% of the time, they may arrive at a win rate of 50% and can enjoy the warm and fluffy feeling of having beaten the "best deck".
I agree with you, however, that one good reason for running Young Pyromancer is reducing the dependency on the graveyard. The second good reason is IMHO the recent rise in popularity of LotV.
And it may actually be the right choice for a metagame with lots of midrange. Reducing the dependency on the graveyard is something I'm also striving for. That's why I, unlike some other posters, wasn't enthusiastic about Claim // Fame when it first was spoiled.
I tested Pia and Kiran Nalaar a while ago as well, but hitting four lands by turn four is not what the deck usually wants to do. The fourth land would otherwise be a natural candidate for discarding through LotV's +1 ability, so this doesn't seem overly synergistic.
If I was also worried about Etched Champion, I would play an extra Kozilek's Return or Flaying Tendrils over Eternal Scourge.
I don't consider Merfolk such a bad matchup. I beat it numerous times with just a single Kozilek's Return, an Engineered Explosives and two LotVs as my main SB options. EE was often even more backbreaking then Kozilek's Return, because Merfolk has an overcrowded CMC2-slot. Getting rid of most of their lords and Spreading Seas in one go is pretty sweet and can dramatically reduce the number of tokens they get from Master of the Waves.
The land I would fetch on turn 2 would be another Watery Grave to minimize the damage Spreading Seas can do. This might even discourage them from casting Spreading Seas on turn 2 because the impact is minimal and a mean-looking zombie fish is about to race them by then. I wouldn't care much about Anger of the Gods at this point, because fixing my land situation would be my top priority. With so few lands, Anger will be hard to resolve anyway against a playset of Cursecatchers.
If I thoughtseized on turn 1 like you did, I would take Spreading Seas for reasons explained above. If I had multiple lands in hand, I would prefer taking Silvergill Adept here, but with just one land, I feel that this isn't really an option.
In many cases (not always obviously), siding out a few discard spells is a decent countermeasure. Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand can also help reducing the number of discard spells we draw when Leyline of Sanctity is online.
We can't have a solution for everything in 15 SB slots, unfortunately.
What I meant is that Affinity is the kind of matchup where I want all of the pieces of my deck to work in concert. LotV is more like a diva that likes to play her own little games. Even against Affinity, she might occasionally be great. But more often than not, I expect her to be a clunky CMC3 card which soaks up a few points of damage. That's not what I want for this matchup. This is not really a good example, because it's 5% increase vs. a 10% increase. In this case, we would probably both go for the 10% increase. But I still think that our approaches are different, because I don't care that much about winning the tournament anymore. I have won a few tournaments in the past, but nowadays deck construction is the most fun part of the game for me. I strive for a well-rounded deck that can win not only against the top 5 archetypes of the format, but against most of the top 20 archetypes. I usually play rogue decks or add twists to existing archetypes. I'm in the process of making my own rogue Shadow deck, but it is taking a while because Grixis Shadow is really good as it is. Thank you for the detailed explanation. Maybe I don't appreciate LotV enough, I have not extensively played her despite owning several copies. I would also rather MD than SB her. I like to have narrow SB cards and flexible MD cards. LotV is flexible enough for the MD and not narrow enough for the kind of SB I'm aiming for.
She's tough to play against in Junk because they can back her up with tokens. Jund heavily relies on her, so we can often focus our entire game plan on beating LotV. Snapcaster Mage is indeed a key card here, but an immediately minused LoTV also dies to Kommand with minimal card disadvantage. I also run two MD bolts and usually have a Dreadbore in the sideboard. Jund is also one of the few non-combo matchups where I bring in my Surgical Extractions. If I manage to take out LotV with it, my opponent will be left with a very threat-light deck. This means that I can afford to keep all my discard spells and a few Stubborn Denials despite heading for an attrition battle. In longer games, LtLH's -2 ability can also sometimes balance out LotV's -2 ability, and LtLH's ultimate can be truly game ending.
All things considered, I'm doing pretty well with my setup and don't feel an urge to dedicate a sideboard slot to a LotV of my own.
I don't consider Grixis Shadow to be the "best deck". Maybe it was, before the metagame adapted, but not anymore. I would rather play Titanshift or Eldrazi Tron right now, but I still play for fun and those decks aren't fun for me.
Of the midrange decks, I'm mostly worried about Junk. And in this matchup, I prefer LtLH over LotV because of Lingering Souls.
I don't like attrition battles, at least not with this deck. So maybe I don't appreciate the ability of making them discard their worst card enough. I have played against LotV many times and her +1 ability has been rarely backbreaking. Sometimes it can even be exploited to get certain cards in the yard.