I would mulligan. This one is borderline. You could manage a turn 3 delve fatty, but you need to get lucky on your draws. On borderline 7s I generally default to mulliganning because a good 6 with a scry is so much better than a questionable 7.
5. Game 2 OTD vs. Abzan: Vents Shadow Push Leak Staticaster Tasigur Wraith
Mulligan. You can't cast any spells in your hand unless you find a black source. You don't have Tasigur coming down any time soon. The hand just doesn't do much.
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So Todd Stevens on stream just said that Grixis Shadow has no bad matchups... He actually said that Bant Eldrazi isn't favored against us. The delusionality among these ban-maniacs is intense...
The ban mania around Shadow is heating up... It's really ridiculous. The Modern weekend two weeks ago showed a really diverse format with no one deck dominating, but people still want to whip out their pitchforks for the perceived best deck. I almost hope Grixis Shadow gets shut out at Charlotte so people will calm the F down :/
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I'll never understand how people wouldn't play Serum Visions on turn one despite being on a single land in hand. It's pretty much the only option available, expecially against an unknown opponent.
If you read my post above yours, I showed how you have an equal chance of hitting your second land drop in this situation regardless of if you cast SV on turn 1 or 2 because you can basically build-you-own Preordain by cycling Street Wraith after casting SV. The difference is that Thoughtseizing T1 gives you information and can possibly snag a problematic permanent. In this particular situation, it lets you take their discard spell so they don't get to see your hand. I guess you get punished for the line if they top deck a discard spell and take your SV, which it's not guaranteed they would, but I think Thoughtseizing turn 1 is going to be better more often than not.
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That said, I would have played that turn differently. Given that we only have 1 land, I would Street Wraith first. If we don't find a land, I would fetch + shock for watery grave, then Serum Visions. If we do find a land, then I would Thoughtseize.
I think Thoughtseizing turn 1 is strictly better than your play. On your play, you get the Wraith draw, the Visions draw and 2 scries, and then the turn 2 draw to find your second land. That's 5 cards deep you get to dig. On the play I suggested, you get your turn 2 draw, Visions draw and 2 scries, and if you find a land with a scry you can draw it with Wraith, or draw the next card down if you bottom bottom, which is also 5 cards deep you get to dig. The difference is that you got to Thoughtseize the opponent first, and we agree that taking his Thoughtseize is probably the right play, so you get to know his hand and he won't know yours. If you SV on turn 1, your opponent instead gets to Thoughtseize you and possibly take yours.
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Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I thought the Delve Creature-Terminate dynamic to be too important in the mirror, even more so than protecting my Snapcaster from his Thoughtseize. So I took his Terminante, expecting to win the game with a topdeck Delve guy. But I am not 100% confident on the decision.
I think in this instance, Terminate is the wrong choice. He has two answers to your Shadow. If you take Terminate he almost assuredly takes your Shadow with his Thoughtseize. I think there are 3 possible choices here. Either you 1) take his Serum Visions because he's stuck on 1 land and relying on Visions to find him lands, 2) take his Shadow and leave him with no threats, or 3) take Thoughtseize and protect your own hand and information. I think the choice with the biggest upside is taking SV. If he bricks on land drops for several turns you probably just win the game because of it. The safest play is probably to just take his Thoughtseize. Your hand is good, and it lets you hide information. You'll probably have to wait on casting Shadow until you find a Denial and can get to 9 life, or until you find another discard spell to take his Terminate.
As to your last question in your article, I do think Thoughtseize on turn 1 was correct. On turn 2, if you don't naturally draw your second land, I would Visions and scry a land to the top if you find one, then cycle Wraith to hit your 2nd land on time. If you draw a land on your draw step, cycle Wraith first and then Visions.
please some thought on my Grixis Death's Shadow build with Delver of Secrets.
Goal is to have a more threat weight build to counteract drawing to less of them.
Snapcaster Mage: I reduced it as a 2-of. Think he is many times just to clunky and often times get enabled, when i want to play. I feel like i don't want to see him more than 2 times, mostly only one time in most of the games.
Delver of Secrets: I got 25 sorc / inst, so flipping the Delver shouldn't be a problem. Many times you can control it via Serums Vision. At the end, it's just a little gambling with him. Even when you play only him in a deck, you have the chance to draw a land. He plays his role as early threat pretty well and have evade in the late. Gives some extra dmg vs big mana and eats push in the mirrors.
Street Wraith: Was my main reason for not playing Delver of Secrets, cause he decrease the sorc / inst count. After some testing, i don't see that anymore. In games where you have to rush, you'll need the lifeloss for DS and the card for tempo. In defensive games, you just can hold him up. Delver of Secrets would be killed anyway, you'll be fine with one removal gone and if he lives, he makes most of the times dmg, cause of evade. You can wait for your DS, for turning them on.
Stubborn Denial: I have 7 creatures to enable it. I don't need them for protecting a single Delver of Secrets. I want to protect my stuff later, when some of the big guys on board. Compared to classic Grixis DS with 8 big creatures, i think its nearly the same to enable it. I play it as a 3-of cause of my 2 Snapcaster Mage's - i want to ensure, that i see one every game.
By your own description, cutting Snapcaster to 2 is incorrect. If you want to have a good chance to see at least one per game, you need to run 3, and if you want a decent chance of seeing 2 per game you need the full 4. Also, I would cut a Tasigur before cutting an Angler. In my experience with the deck so far, Angler's 5th power has been relevant more often than Tasigur's one cheaper cost or activated ability. In Ari Lax's recent video with the deck, he actually discussed the possibility of going to a 3/1 Angler/Tasigur split in the stock lists. I would also drop a Bolt before dropping a Terminate. Other than that, what other people have said is valid. Delver doesn't really work with the rest of the Shadow deck, they're really two different strategies.
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I've been trying Anger again lately, and I'm pretty firmly back on Kozilek's Return. I don't think Anger moves the needle in any matchup like K Return does vs affinity, and both are pretty good in all the spots where you want a sweeper, with some exceptions for both. Most importantly, Anger doesn't seem to help the dredge matchup as much as I want it to.
Anger is huge against Dredge, which is a much worse matchup for us than Affinity is. In his Vs. Series video yesterday, Brad Nelson said he underestimated Dredge going into SCG Baltimore, and that he will definitely be playing Anger at SCG Charlotte. I think if you're only running 1 sweeper it should be Anger, but there's definitely a case for going with a split if you're running 2 sweepers.
My data was from May 4th to June 5th, all mtgo 5-0s and last week's paper tournaments. I didn't include the smaller local tournaments they post on mtgtop8.com just because I can't tell how representative they are. I think K Return is better if you expect a lot of Affinity, but Dredge is a worse matchup for us, so I think it might be worth it to try to help that matchup more than a somewhat even matchup. I do like K Return, though, I was playing it for a bit.
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Except that Kozilek's Return seems to be about as popular as Anger of the Gods. So it's really more of a "one sweeper" slot, depending on the expected meta.
These are the actual hard numbers, there's no guesswork here. If you want some statistics, 79% of players were playing at least 1 Anger, and only 30% played at least 1 K Return. So Anger is definitely the more popular choice.
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Almost every deck that's placed has shared these 10 cards. For the last 5 slots, the most popular choices, in order, are a second Surgical, Staticaster, second Spellbomb, EE, second Liliana, third Ceremonious Rejection, Kolaghan's Command, first and second Fulminators, and Temur Battle Rage. I plan to continue tracking these numbers so we can see how the sideboards are evolving.
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UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Also easy mulligan. Another 1 lander, but this time you don't have the blue mana to cast the cantrips you do have.
I would mulligan. This one is borderline. You could manage a turn 3 delve fatty, but you need to get lucky on your draws. On borderline 7s I generally default to mulliganning because a good 6 with a scry is so much better than a questionable 7.
I would keep. You might draw something off the Wraiths, and even if you don't you have a turn 2 Tasigur.
Mulligan. You can't cast any spells in your hand unless you find a black source. You don't have Tasigur coming down any time soon. The hand just doesn't do much.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
As to your last question in your article, I do think Thoughtseize on turn 1 was correct. On turn 2, if you don't naturally draw your second land, I would Visions and scry a land to the top if you find one, then cycle Wraith to hit your 2nd land on time. If you draw a land on your draw step, cycle Wraith first and then Visions.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
Almost every deck that's placed has shared these 10 cards. For the last 5 slots, the most popular choices, in order, are a second Surgical, Staticaster, second Spellbomb, EE, second Liliana, third Ceremonious Rejection, Kolaghan's Command, first and second Fulminators, and Temur Battle Rage. I plan to continue tracking these numbers so we can see how the sideboards are evolving.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW