To say that War of the Spark is pushing is out of the format is hyperbole. The deck is currently sitting 6th in the mtg goldfish meta and has a 6% share on MTGTop8. We have plenty of game against the meta, but may need to adapt the deck to not fall behind at some point soon.
If we get Daze, Force of Will or Toxic Deluge, we will be very well positioned. If not, we will still be ok.
I will be regularly using 2 Liliana's Triumph out of the board because it is an instant speed edict. It can be a good tool against Primeval Titan decks, Bogles, Tron and the mirror. This is a highly situational card however, so it will not fit everyone's play-style/ every meta.
I'm afraid everything else on that list is far too slow for my liking. Angrath's Rampage is flexible, but I would rather have Abrade personally.
What I really meant was that Faithless Looting tends to be fairly high variance, as there is nothing in particular that you want to actively put in the yard. Sometimes it is great and you can throw something useless in exchange for something less so, but other times you just end up looking at a bunch of useful cards and having to bin 2 of them. It is also an abysmal top deck if you are hellbent.
Opt is a solid choice, but for some reason the whole Shadow community moved away from it over the last year. I agree that the instant speed draw is nice, but it only digging 1 card deep is a drawback. Good luck with your testing and welcome back
I've been away from the archtype since the Humans takeover that occured last year. Now it's becoming more appealing to come back to play GDS but I've missed the latest developments on the deck.
Can someone explain to me the pros and cons of the SV/Opt/Looting/Bauble/TScour splits? There is hardly any consensus and I find it interesting to see everyone's PoVs on the matter. Personally I'm not a fan of SV at all so I didn't play it back then, but what about the rest? Is looting just a better TScour? Is Looting the TScour 5+? Do we really need to play Bauble? How many should we play? The full playset or just 3 like many do?
Looting is worse than scour in most spots because it nets you -1 card in hand, whereas scour is card neutral. The copies that we run are there to help maximise the chances of a turn 2 Angler. The other reason you might run 2 Lootings is when you have Leyline of the Void in your sideboard. Leyline is not favored over surgical at the moment, but if you do run them, you want to be able to discard them later.
I am a big advocate of the full 4 Thought Scour. Card is just great.
Mishra's Bauble gives multiple benefits to this deck and should be run as a 3-4 of. On the first few turns it allows you to power out angler, targeting your opponent gives you more information for resolving your Thoughtseizes, targeting yourself allows you to psuedo-scry for your street wraith draws and lastly you can hold them as Revolt enablers for your Fatal Pushes.
Serum Visions is favored over Opt because it helps to sculpt your draws in a more controlled manor. It also allows you to access the two scryed cards via street wraith. If you do not want visions in your deck, I suggest maxing out on scour and baubles with at least 1-2 lootings.
My personal split is 1x Faithless Looting, 2x Serum Visions, 3x Mishra's Bauble and 4x Thought Scour. I have found it to be a good mix.
Lightning Bolt basically does nothing in the matchup as it cannot kill Thing in the Ice or Crackling Drake and only delays the pheonix for a turn. I tend to trim bolts and a few wraiths to max out on Stubs and surgicals.
10 out of 17 lands in our decks are fetchlands, if we pre game scry 3 we would likely have to shuffle on turn one anyway. Just a classic bit of SCG hyperbole.
Any beginner tips for someone new picking up this deck? I feel a lot of my game losses are from not being able to find a threat to close the game out. How aggressive are you with your life total if you haven’t found a shadow? Thank you in advance
In addition to the above, this deck will reward you for knowing exactly what your opponent's deck does. I spend a fair amount of time checking out modern videos on youtube to get a feel for the modern meta. Doing your research can help you to understand which card is best to Thoughtseize away, or what you want to hold up Stubborn Denial for to disrupt your opponent's plan.
On a different note, with Izzet Pheonix as prevalent as it currently is, I think now is a great time to be bringing 1-2 copies of Echoing Truth in the side - as multiple flying haste creatures make our life total dificult to manage.
Aside from that one matchup, truth is powerful against a lot of other strategies like hollow one and an answer to sticky on board locks (looking at you, Worship)
Archanz is right, it can only tutor for black cards. If it was a functional Demonic Tutor with undergrowth I would be much higher on it.
On a different topic, I have heard some conversation about using Apostle's Blessing in the deck to protect your threats and push through damage on a gummed up board. Anybody got any experience testing the card in GDS?
Bauble is great, it has a number of flexible uses and fuels a fast Gurmag Angler start.
Collective Brutality is super medium in this deck. You rarely want to be gaining life, the spell is a sorcery, it only kills very small things and more importantly it costs 2 mana. Ideally the deck should be mostly 1s and 0s with some snaps and tbr at the top of the curve. If you want more removal, I would add another push or bolt.
Are you sure you want to run Secrets?
We don't have a whole lot of creatures, and we typically only end up with them
in the yard on accident. I suppose you can tutor a Surgical on 0, but otherwise even
Getting to 1 for a Shadow/push/thoughtseize can be tricky. If you want this type of effect you
Should probably just play Traverse
Surgical has a CMC of 1 despite having an alternate cost of 2 life, so it requires at least 1 creature in the graveyard.
We have 4 street wraiths and at least 3 thought scour to turn the spell on, but the main drawback in my mind is that the deck is currently focused on a very low cmc curve, which secrets disrupts by costing 2.
Also between 15+ cantrips and these 2 copies of secrets, there are a lot of spells in the deck that don't effect the board in a meaningful way so I would prefer to retain lightning bolts personally.
If we get Daze, Force of Will or Toxic Deluge, we will be very well positioned. If not, we will still be ok.
I'm afraid everything else on that list is far too slow for my liking. Angrath's Rampage is flexible, but I would rather have Abrade personally.
Opt is a solid choice, but for some reason the whole Shadow community moved away from it over the last year. I agree that the instant speed draw is nice, but it only digging 1 card deep is a drawback. Good luck with your testing and welcome back
Looting is worse than scour in most spots because it nets you -1 card in hand, whereas scour is card neutral. The copies that we run are there to help maximise the chances of a turn 2 Angler. The other reason you might run 2 Lootings is when you have Leyline of the Void in your sideboard. Leyline is not favored over surgical at the moment, but if you do run them, you want to be able to discard them later.
I am a big advocate of the full 4 Thought Scour. Card is just great.
Mishra's Bauble gives multiple benefits to this deck and should be run as a 3-4 of. On the first few turns it allows you to power out angler, targeting your opponent gives you more information for resolving your Thoughtseizes, targeting yourself allows you to psuedo-scry for your street wraith draws and lastly you can hold them as Revolt enablers for your Fatal Pushes.
Serum Visions is favored over Opt because it helps to sculpt your draws in a more controlled manor. It also allows you to access the two scryed cards via street wraith. If you do not want visions in your deck, I suggest maxing out on scour and baubles with at least 1-2 lootings.
My personal split is 1x Faithless Looting, 2x Serum Visions, 3x Mishra's Bauble and 4x Thought Scour. I have found it to be a good mix.
Lightning Bolt basically does nothing in the matchup as it cannot kill Thing in the Ice or Crackling Drake and only delays the pheonix for a turn. I tend to trim bolts and a few wraiths to max out on Stubs and surgicals.
I can tell you it, but unfortunately it won't make it true.
In addition to the above, this deck will reward you for knowing exactly what your opponent's deck does. I spend a fair amount of time checking out modern videos on youtube to get a feel for the modern meta. Doing your research can help you to understand which card is best to Thoughtseize away, or what you want to hold up Stubborn Denial for to disrupt your opponent's plan.
Aside from that one matchup, truth is powerful against a lot of other strategies like hollow one and an answer to sticky on board locks (looking at you, Worship)
In addition to this, they ran a 1/1 split between dismember and terminate. (Also 2 Collective Brutality in the side)
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1514718#paper
On a different topic, I have heard some conversation about using Apostle's Blessing in the deck to protect your threats and push through damage on a gummed up board. Anybody got any experience testing the card in GDS?
Collective Brutality is super medium in this deck. You rarely want to be gaining life, the spell is a sorcery, it only kills very small things and more importantly it costs 2 mana. Ideally the deck should be mostly 1s and 0s with some snaps and tbr at the top of the curve. If you want more removal, I would add another push or bolt.
Surgical has a CMC of 1 despite having an alternate cost of 2 life, so it requires at least 1 creature in the graveyard.
We have 4 street wraiths and at least 3 thought scour to turn the spell on, but the main drawback in my mind is that the deck is currently focused on a very low cmc curve, which secrets disrupts by costing 2.
Also between 15+ cantrips and these 2 copies of secrets, there are a lot of spells in the deck that don't effect the board in a meaningful way so I would prefer to retain lightning bolts personally.
To be honest, it sounds kinda like the deck ends up more like a grixis delver list of old, but with delver swapped out for shadow.
Also, thought scour becomes pretty bad with no delve creatures, faithless looting?