Give her a try. I thought the deck looked unplayable with a 4of 4 drop, but it has seriously impressed me so far. The deck definitely plays differently than it did before, but it's not lacking in power.
I'm still pushing for the deck to be renamed Smash Mouth All Star.
Because once the BBEs start coming, they don't stop coming, they don't stop coming.
If you're playing BBE I think you have to either play 19 lands or play 18 and 4 manamorphose.
Spooly has made his opinion on manamorphose pretty clear, and I tend to agree with him.
The manamorphose isn't all upside though, and clearly the deck still works without them. So we will have to keep testing that.
But in general, I think you have to have the extra land when you're playing the 4 drops. It's okay, they make up for spell density, for sure. Haha.
@whocansay- it's possible that TBR is just so powerful that it's still worth including in the 75. The deck hasn't really been figured out enough yet to know. TBR is only a nonbo with BBE if it is the only creature you have. If you play goyf on turn 2, you're likely setting up a near lethal attack on turn 4 with TBR.
Sidenote:
BBE is way too much fun to play in paper, I feel like I've developed a mild a gambling addiction...
BBE does more than generate card advantage. She can do that, yeah, but what she really does is create board advantage. She helps you close the game on her own. After testing Jace, who is a just a pure card advantage engine, I wasn't very excited. He doesn't flip a board state. If you're behind, you're behind. And if you're even, you might still die after playing him because you spend 4 mana not really impacting the board, and if you're ahead, he doesn't shut the door quickly. BBE on the other hand is good at all positions of the game (other than being land screwed).
We need some card in our deck that lets us fight against the fair decks. BBE is the first one we have gotten that lets us just play 3 colors. Which is a way bigger boon than I first realized. The mana consistency alone has won me games that I would have lost if I was still playing 4 color, and getting to play BLOOD MOON in my shadow deck means I don't miss the blue countermagic.
It's possible that my current build isn't what we will actually end up on, but BBE has greatly overperformed for me so far. (And the silky smooth mana)
Oh and one tip. I'm not sure how familiar you are with Traverse Shadow. But in the previous version, every traverse was precious. But now, it's okay to "burn" a traverse to hit your land drops. BBE will make up for the lost tempo/threat density.
Oh gotcha. The collective brutalities are also solid there as additional hand disruption. Ad naus has a rough time with blood moon, and you can play a golgari charm for the leyline. Grishoalbrand and storm aren't happy about cage. Jailer does nothing against grishoalbrand but is pretty good against storm, as is the minister of pain because they are usually on the Empty plan.
But yeah, it's totally reasonable to swap the kcommands for more disruption. Good luck, let us know how it goes!
I think you need all 4 Traverse's because they allow you to hit your land drops. The Grim Flayer probably isn't needed anymore because our threat density is much higher now than it has ever been. The Seal of Fire's and Tarfire are totally reasonable, they are better at enabling delirium than the bolts, but the extra damage is sometimes important. The Blood Moons/Magus of the Moon in the board are fricken gas. No one is going to play around the Death Shadow deck playing Blood Moon, and it allows you get either free wins or prevent them from killing you with manlands, azcanta, valakut, urza's mine, field of ruin even.
You should be playing with Manamorphose. Just name G/B mana 90% of the time if you're unsure of what you're playing that turn. It allows you to play around mana denial, it enables delirium it lets us play a 48 card deck (which is insane).
The Yixlid Jailer and Minister of Pain are the slots I'm the least sure about so far.
You can change the K-Commands in my list into more 1 mana hand disruption/TBR if you're worried about combo. But I think the list I posted is a great place to start
I don't think you need more threats anymore. Though the BBE/Flayer synergy could be cool, I wouldn't be willing to cut a cantrip or an interaction piece for a Flayer.
A 3/1 split of BBE/Hazoret could be sweet though...
Hmm. That's something I never thought I would see coming from you.
You have always preached that if you want TBR at all, it should just be in the mainboard since your opponent is going to have more answers to your threats postpoard anyway.
Why is the situation different here? (not necessarily disagreeing with you, I would just like to see into your thought process here)
Yeah, I had already fit in a TBR for the 4th Kcommand before you brought up the manamorphose. Now I just have to figure out if I want to cut the 3rd Kcommand for the TBR.
The K-commands are definitely expensive, but they do allow the deck to do something it didn't have before:
You can actually grind your opponent to nothing. Before, we usually won by by finishing our opponent off before they stabilize. The 4 BBE, 4 Traverse, 3/4 Kcommand package starts what I call the BBE Freight Train. I found that once I casted the first BBE, the rest just seemed to jump out of my deck. You end up with sequences like:
t4: BBE into Goyf
t5: Traverse into BBE into Bolt
t6: KCommand back my BBE + make you discard, and cast a Shadow
t7: BBE into Traverse that gets another BBE
That's not unreasonable. It happens almost every game that just gets to 4 mana. This one doesn't really feel like the Shadow deck from before. Instead this feels like an aggro version of Snap/Kcommand value loops but your deck is so thin (and has 1 mana tutor) that once it starts you can just cast BBE's every turn until your opponent dies.
So this one feels favored against every fair deck deck except maybe UW (its hard to chain if you cant cast your spells, although maybe manamorphose changes this). The amount of 1 mana removal lets you keep parity against the little creature decks, and the Blood Moons are big game against a lot of decks. I know Blood Moon doesn't beat Tron on its own, but pressure+moon does, and this deck can very consistently apply the pressure.
The K-commands are one of the few ways we can kill Hollowed One which is on the rise. I know we can play dismember and such, but they also have 4 delve creatures which means we can't ever have enough removal spells for the amount of threats they have. K-command is slow, but it gives us some outs.
So in summary, I've felt I've gained percentage against the majority of the field, and lost some percentage against the spell based combo decks. Of which there are basically 2. Ad Naus and Storm. I still feel okay against storm overall (grafdigger's cage and brutality are still good), and Ad Naus also randomly has a rough time beating a Blood Moon. I'm okay with taking a small hit to a small part of the metagame and gaining percentage basically everywhere else.
I've been jamming the BBE Jund list that was posted last page (with a few tweaks) and I'm just crushing. I know its a 4 drop, and I know its random, but seriously BBE trains are crazy. You're totally fine with the Traverses hitting your land drops in the early game because once you start casting BBE's you don't stop until their dead. You lose percentage points against the unfair decks in game 1 because you're playing less disruption, but I'm just crushing any creature based matchup or Jace deck. UW is obnoxious, but I've been able to run them over most of the time before they can kill our manabase. Post sideboard you have the 4 Collective Brutalities for the spell based combo and you get MAGUS AND BLOOD MOON which is great against a large percentage of the field. The mana feels so silky smooth after playing 4/5c Shadow for so long.
I really can't suggest the 4 BBE+4 KCommand decklist enough.
Funny, I've been testing with a very similar list. I didn't play the 4th color though, that was a little too ambitious for me. (I played a 3rd jace so I could see him enough to know if he's good). The 4th color might be possible though.
But I can confirm that manamorphose is gas though.
Lastly, this deck also has felt like the most powerful jace shell I have played so far. Which seems silly. But if he is just a finisher in a control deck, he has only felt okay. He's a powerful card, sure. But he won't ever flip a board state, he really "only" gains more card advantage or finishes your opponent off if you're already ahead.
Death's Shadow doesn't often get into board states in which it's behind, it usually loses because of its lack of card advantage. Jace is yet another threat for our opponent to handle as it will draw us 3 cards a turn with 15 shuffle effects.
The BBE version feels insane in a grind in my testing though. That deck plays so many "copies" of BBE because of the traverses and kcommands. But that deck isn't great against combo and big mana because it has so little disruption.
I'm still pushing for the deck to be renamed Smash Mouth All Star.
Because once the BBEs start coming, they don't stop coming, they don't stop coming.
Spooly has made his opinion on manamorphose pretty clear, and I tend to agree with him.
The manamorphose isn't all upside though, and clearly the deck still works without them. So we will have to keep testing that.
But in general, I think you have to have the extra land when you're playing the 4 drops. It's okay, they make up for spell density, for sure. Haha.
@whocansay- it's possible that TBR is just so powerful that it's still worth including in the 75. The deck hasn't really been figured out enough yet to know. TBR is only a nonbo with BBE if it is the only creature you have. If you play goyf on turn 2, you're likely setting up a near lethal attack on turn 4 with TBR.
Sidenote:
BBE is way too much fun to play in paper, I feel like I've developed a mild a gambling addiction...
We need some card in our deck that lets us fight against the fair decks. BBE is the first one we have gotten that lets us just play 3 colors. Which is a way bigger boon than I first realized. The mana consistency alone has won me games that I would have lost if I was still playing 4 color, and getting to play BLOOD MOON in my shadow deck means I don't miss the blue countermagic.
It's possible that my current build isn't what we will actually end up on, but BBE has greatly overperformed for me so far. (And the silky smooth mana)
But yeah, it's totally reasonable to swap the kcommands for more disruption. Good luck, let us know how it goes!
4 Death's Shadow
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Bloodbraid Elf
Cantrips
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Manamorphose
4 Street Wraith
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
Disruption/Removal
4 Thoughtseize
3 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Fatal Push
2 Dreadbore
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Collective Brutality
2 Blood Moon
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Yixlid Jailer
2 Fatal Push
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Minister of Pain
1 Ancient Grudge
I think you need all 4 Traverse's because they allow you to hit your land drops. The Grim Flayer probably isn't needed anymore because our threat density is much higher now than it has ever been. The Seal of Fire's and Tarfire are totally reasonable, they are better at enabling delirium than the bolts, but the extra damage is sometimes important. The Blood Moons/Magus of the Moon in the board are fricken gas. No one is going to play around the Death Shadow deck playing Blood Moon, and it allows you get either free wins or prevent them from killing you with manlands, azcanta, valakut, urza's mine, field of ruin even.
You should be playing with Manamorphose. Just name G/B mana 90% of the time if you're unsure of what you're playing that turn. It allows you to play around mana denial, it enables delirium it lets us play a 48 card deck (which is insane).
The Yixlid Jailer and Minister of Pain are the slots I'm the least sure about so far.
You can change the K-Commands in my list into more 1 mana hand disruption/TBR if you're worried about combo. But I think the list I posted is a great place to start
A 3/1 split of BBE/Hazoret could be sweet though...
EDIT: OOps! sorry about the double post D:
You have always preached that if you want TBR at all, it should just be in the mainboard since your opponent is going to have more answers to your threats postpoard anyway.
Why is the situation different here? (not necessarily disagreeing with you, I would just like to see into your thought process here)
I'm just greatly enjoying the silky smooth manabase and the blood moon free wins
You can actually grind your opponent to nothing. Before, we usually won by by finishing our opponent off before they stabilize. The 4 BBE, 4 Traverse, 3/4 Kcommand package starts what I call the BBE Freight Train. I found that once I casted the first BBE, the rest just seemed to jump out of my deck. You end up with sequences like:
t4: BBE into Goyf
t5: Traverse into BBE into Bolt
t6: KCommand back my BBE + make you discard, and cast a Shadow
t7: BBE into Traverse that gets another BBE
That's not unreasonable. It happens almost every game that just gets to 4 mana. This one doesn't really feel like the Shadow deck from before. Instead this feels like an aggro version of Snap/Kcommand value loops but your deck is so thin (and has 1 mana tutor) that once it starts you can just cast BBE's every turn until your opponent dies.
So this one feels favored against every fair deck deck except maybe UW (its hard to chain if you cant cast your spells, although maybe manamorphose changes this). The amount of 1 mana removal lets you keep parity against the little creature decks, and the Blood Moons are big game against a lot of decks. I know Blood Moon doesn't beat Tron on its own, but pressure+moon does, and this deck can very consistently apply the pressure.
The K-commands are one of the few ways we can kill Hollowed One which is on the rise. I know we can play dismember and such, but they also have 4 delve creatures which means we can't ever have enough removal spells for the amount of threats they have. K-command is slow, but it gives us some outs.
So in summary, I've felt I've gained percentage against the majority of the field, and lost some percentage against the spell based combo decks. Of which there are basically 2. Ad Naus and Storm. I still feel okay against storm overall (grafdigger's cage and brutality are still good), and Ad Naus also randomly has a rough time beating a Blood Moon. I'm okay with taking a small hit to a small part of the metagame and gaining percentage basically everywhere else.
Oh and I'm not sure you want/need the fulminators. The Blood/Magus of the Moon have been GREAT.
I really can't suggest the 4 BBE+4 KCommand decklist enough.
But I can confirm that manamorphose is gas though.
Lastly, this deck also has felt like the most powerful jace shell I have played so far. Which seems silly. But if he is just a finisher in a control deck, he has only felt okay. He's a powerful card, sure. But he won't ever flip a board state, he really "only" gains more card advantage or finishes your opponent off if you're already ahead.
Death's Shadow doesn't often get into board states in which it's behind, it usually loses because of its lack of card advantage. Jace is yet another threat for our opponent to handle as it will draw us 3 cards a turn with 15 shuffle effects.
The BBE version feels insane in a grind in my testing though. That deck plays so many "copies" of BBE because of the traverses and kcommands. But that deck isn't great against combo and big mana because it has so little disruption.