One thing I've done with the 17 land version is cut the Angers. It's too much of a liability and I always hated fetching double red. KReturn also hits everything in dredge except for amalgams anyway.
When plying this deck I always fetched double Watery Grave first, we only had 5 red spells in the deck max and U and B are way more important than the red. Then again I've also been playing with sleights for a while. The one thing about the deck that I didn't like was drawing a lot of the Kommands and Snaps in early turns when I wasn't ready to use them yet/couldn't. Sleight feels like a much more natural fix to that. Much like legacy decks, cutting lands for cantrips makes the deck more consistent but makes you more vurnerable to Chalice and LD. It's the price you pay. If you really aren't too keen on losing to these kind of decks you should probably stick with the 19 land version which is also a fine choice.
Ultimately I feel this comes down to a matter of preference. Kind of like how years ago there were 2 different camps of storm, we will come to a divide in our builds. Test both versions and see which one you like, you might end up being pleasantly surprised.
After looking at the numbers it seems that 6th to 19th place finished at X-2. So technically the reason why there was no Death's Shadow at all in the top 8 was because of bad breaks (or beets). It's why I prefer analyzing top 32's and even for big events like these a top 64 would have been nice since they show a better picture of what the top looks like, rather than some skewed results you would get by only looking at a top 8. Deck is still pretty nuts and would suggest you guys also try out this deck with Sleight of Hands, it's been feeling kind of like a legacy deck at this point.
Sorcery speed and not killing amalgams makes it super unappealing. Really wish amalgam was a 3/2 instead, would have made the transition so much easier. Not hitting manlands also hurts, as spooly said. I think the best way to go about it is a mix of these three mana sweepers. Maybe Owen was correct in no running any Staticasters.
Speaking of Owen's list, interesting thing to note is he ran 3 Dismembers and 3 Street Wraiths instead of Terminates. Could this combined with sleight of hand be the new way to run shadow?
Not sure how I feel about a playset of Sleight of Hands since it eats into Snapcasters and Kommands(which is the out to a resolved chalice) but it is nice to see someone else on the Sleight of Hand train. I'm still not sure how I feel about 17 lands, I've been on 18 and still gotten hurt by mana screw a few times so we'll see.
The affinity matchup seems fine with all the removal and Kommands and sweepers we bring in. I think the real reason the deck didn't quite convert as a combination of breakers and the white decks floating around. The top 32 had the hatebear decks, smallpox, abzan, and several decks that ran company. These decks are a lot more tough to fight than affinity. The only thing I can see to fight all of them would be Temur Battle Rage and more sweepers, but that only goes so far. I think this GP was more about decks metagaming to fight us and the results look a bit skewed because of it, so don't fear too much for your local metas.
Battle Rage is for decks that completely flood the board with creatures faster than you can draw/cast your spot removal. It also lets you race vs. any linear strategy for a super quick clock. The key to the card lies in when and where you cast the card. I would go as far as to say that at least 1 copy is necessary in your 75 if you are not running any copies of Tribal Flames.
Also this is what Pro Immanuel Gerschenson (who finished 11-4 at GP Copenhagen) feels about TBR in Shadow decks: "I have heard from lots of people who're not very fond of Temur Battle Rage anymore. Especially in the States, folks have been cutting the card. But really, Battle Rage is the main reason to run red in the first place, and essential to racing combo decks."
Please note that Grafdigger's Cage does nothing vs. Living End but is still a solid 1 of sideboard slot.
Also Temur Battle Rage > Fulminator Mage. LD is really slow and TBR is so much better right now. Card is phenomenal vs Dredge, Coco, Elves, Storm, Living End, Ad Nauseam, zoo, etc... Fulminator is better for a grindy deck like Grixis control, whereas this deck can race. If Brad Nelson had even just a single copy of TBR in his 75 it would have certainly helped him immensely when facing dredge and coco (he did still find a way to win but TBR would have made it a lot smoother).
As far as Kozilek's Return vs. Anger of the Gods, it seems like more often than not KReturn was a more solid choice. For dredge anger is better because it hits Amalgams but KReturn can hit everything else. For Coco it can be a blowout but keep in mind that they also bring in Burrenton Forge Tender. Also in one of the feature matches one of the players could not find a second red source and it was really hindering him since he essentially had this dead card in his hand. Double red for this deck by turn 3 is much more of a nuisance than a help, especially for 1 card. Grave, Grave, Vents/Crypt is the mana I always want by turn 3 and changing it up if I don't have to can effectively make me stumble a bit.
Both gp copenhagen and SCG were won by grixis shadow. They were not thrown away lol. This weekend has had a fantastic showing for grixis, which is bittersweet. While its awesome our deck won, we are now on the radar and everyone now knows about this version of the deck.
Lastly, I would also like to contribute to the 2 Vents - 2 Crypts discussion. I am totally sold on the 2 Vents type for one single reason. Imagine the following hand:
Inquisition
Thoughtseize
Serum Visions
Thought Scour
Tasigur
Death's Shadow
and Blood Crypt/ Steam Vents
You would never keep this hand with Blood Crypt, but you probably would with Steam Vents. Cantrips just make up for the lack of a black source, because you can just scry one on top and continue playing on curve. You could turn 1 serum visions, turn 2 discard and scour instead of just discarding turn 1 and hoping to find a land. Feel free to discuss the issue, though!
My thoughts exactly. The only scenario I can see myself keeping a 1 land Swamp/Crypt hand is if I had 4 Street Wraiths in it.
For the Delver vs Street Wraith argument, I've tested both versions before. Delver not flipping as much as I'd like it to was kind of awkward but the thing I hated the most was the fact that it made for a horrendous topdeck. Wraith doubles as a cantrip or a 3/4 unblockable(in the matchups when you do cast this guy he's unblockable let's be honest) which is much much better for a deck like this. Early or late game Wraith becomes an excellent draw, whereas Delver is super iffy.
For Gifts Storm you took out 5 cards but only added in 2. Assuming you also add in Countersquall and Nihil Spellbomb. I've found bolt to be quite effective in the Grixis Shadow mirror because we both go so low on life that Bolt Snap Bolt can just steal a game out of no where. These games can go fairly long so I prefer Denials over IOK but that's ultimately up to you. That match up is primarily all about removal and delve dudes since shadows just eat all the Fatal Pushes.
My friend and I have been on this deck for a bit and my friend feels that the deck is just a bit too threat light. I told him to throw in goyfs and he did it. He's now on this version of the deck. Also with some spicy Tribal Flames because he hates Lightning Bolt. Thoughts on this version? (Board is a work in progress currently) http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/grixis-domain-shadow/
Other options to deals with planeswalkers include various counterspells, Pithing Needle and Hero's Downfall. The latter 2 I have played at one point or another in some grixis list but not this one as of yet. Feel free to try one of these or Dreadbore if there's enough planeswalker decks in your meta.
Assuming everyone plays 11-12 fetchlands, 1 island, 1 swamp, 2 watery grave, 1 steam vents and 1 bloody crypt it ultimately comes down to which red dual you want. When it comes to blue vs black I feel that our deck is slightly more blue centered, mainly from our snaps and cantrips that fuel everything. I see blue as the catalyst to our deck and black as the finisher/cleanup crew color. Because of this I would slightly more often draw a blue source than a black source. I have kept quite a few hands where Island was my only land but I have never kept any hand where Swamp was my only land in hand.
That's just my reasoning but honestly if you preferred a 2nd Crypt over Vents that's also completely valid. Don't think you can go wrong with either really, though as much as I want it I know 3 grave 1 vents 1 crypt is ultimately the only wrong choice here.
I found this quiz from the older posts. People seemed to stop doing it, but it looks like fun so I'll take a crack at it.
1) Do you play pure Grixis or do you splash White as your 4th colour? Plain ol' Grixis, tride and true. I.....also seemed to lose my copies of Lingering Souls so I couldn't play it even if I wanted to lol. 2) If you play pure Grixis, do you prefer 2 Watery Grave or two Blood Crypt? 2 Watery Grave, it's the best land in the deck by far. I've been tempted to go 3 grave - 1 vents - 1 crypt at times. Now if the question is between Crypt and Vents, I would probably have to lean more towards vents because more turn 1 plays are Blue. The threats are Black though so I see 2 Crypt also acceptable, especially if you run Molten Rain and Angers in the side. 3) How many Fatal Push and how many Terminate and Lightning Bolt in the maindeck? How many in the sideboard? 4 Fatal Push in the main, 1 Terminate, and 1 Dismember. 2 more Terminates in the side for stuff like Eldrazi and the mirror. 4) Do you prefer 3 Fulminator Mage or some mixture of it and Molten Rain as your land destruction package? I'm not really a fan using this type of land destruction in our deck, so I have more counters in the side and Temur Battle Rage. 3 mana cards to hit a land seems so slow, even if you can Kommand/Snap it back. I would rather just race since this deck has the potential to do so. So I guess technically TBR is my anti-big mana deck strategy. 5) Can you find RR to cast Anger Of The Gods? Do you like the card or Damnation? I could definitely see myself getting RR for post board games but I would much rather have out double Watery Grave than anything. Damnation also seems like a fine choice, though it seems more awkward for this deck opposed to Grixis Control. 6)What do you like more in the Grixis version than the other ones(Jund, Junk, Esper, Shardless, etc)? Other than the fact that this version only cost me less than 50 bucks to finish, it's obviously the blue cards. While we don't get 8 copies of Shadow, we do get access to 8 one mana dude bro beat sticks and half are immune to Fatal Push! Cantrip Dark Ritual is nuts. Oh yeah, Snapcaster Mage and Stubborn Denial are also pretty decent cards and totally not insane in the brain or anything. 7) What's your MD card you side out more often? Toss up between Push and IOK depending on the MU. If you don't run Liliana, the Last Hope in your side what cards are currently replacing it? I currently am running a Kolaghan's Command and Izzet Staticaster in place of Liliana currently. I will look to pick up my copies after they rotate out of standard.
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Swamp
1 Island
Creatures
4 Death's Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Thought Scour
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Stubborn Denial
4 Fatal Push
1 Terminate
1 Dismember
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Stubborn Denial
3 Ceremonious Rejecttion
2 Collective Brutality
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Temur Battle Rage
When plying this deck I always fetched double Watery Grave first, we only had 5 red spells in the deck max and U and B are way more important than the red. Then again I've also been playing with sleights for a while. The one thing about the deck that I didn't like was drawing a lot of the Kommands and Snaps in early turns when I wasn't ready to use them yet/couldn't. Sleight feels like a much more natural fix to that. Much like legacy decks, cutting lands for cantrips makes the deck more consistent but makes you more vurnerable to Chalice and LD. It's the price you pay. If you really aren't too keen on losing to these kind of decks you should probably stick with the 19 land version which is also a fine choice.
Ultimately I feel this comes down to a matter of preference. Kind of like how years ago there were 2 different camps of storm, we will come to a divide in our builds. Test both versions and see which one you like, you might end up being pleasantly surprised.
Speaking of Owen's list, interesting thing to note is he ran 3 Dismembers and 3 Street Wraiths instead of Terminates. Could this combined with sleight of hand be the new way to run shadow?
The affinity matchup seems fine with all the removal and Kommands and sweepers we bring in. I think the real reason the deck didn't quite convert as a combination of breakers and the white decks floating around. The top 32 had the hatebear decks, smallpox, abzan, and several decks that ran company. These decks are a lot more tough to fight than affinity. The only thing I can see to fight all of them would be Temur Battle Rage and more sweepers, but that only goes so far. I think this GP was more about decks metagaming to fight us and the results look a bit skewed because of it, so don't fear too much for your local metas.
Also this is what Pro Immanuel Gerschenson (who finished 11-4 at GP Copenhagen) feels about TBR in Shadow decks: "I have heard from lots of people who're not very fond of Temur Battle Rage anymore. Especially in the States, folks have been cutting the card. But really, Battle Rage is the main reason to run red in the first place, and essential to racing combo decks."
Also Temur Battle Rage > Fulminator Mage. LD is really slow and TBR is so much better right now. Card is phenomenal vs Dredge, Coco, Elves, Storm, Living End, Ad Nauseam, zoo, etc... Fulminator is better for a grindy deck like Grixis control, whereas this deck can race. If Brad Nelson had even just a single copy of TBR in his 75 it would have certainly helped him immensely when facing dredge and coco (he did still find a way to win but TBR would have made it a lot smoother).
As far as Kozilek's Return vs. Anger of the Gods, it seems like more often than not KReturn was a more solid choice. For dredge anger is better because it hits Amalgams but KReturn can hit everything else. For Coco it can be a blowout but keep in mind that they also bring in Burrenton Forge Tender. Also in one of the feature matches one of the players could not find a second red source and it was really hindering him since he essentially had this dead card in his hand. Double red for this deck by turn 3 is much more of a nuisance than a help, especially for 1 card. Grave, Grave, Vents/Crypt is the mana I always want by turn 3 and changing it up if I don't have to can effectively make me stumble a bit.
My thoughts exactly. The only scenario I can see myself keeping a 1 land Swamp/Crypt hand is if I had 4 Street Wraiths in it.
For the Delver vs Street Wraith argument, I've tested both versions before. Delver not flipping as much as I'd like it to was kind of awkward but the thing I hated the most was the fact that it made for a horrendous topdeck. Wraith doubles as a cantrip or a 3/4 unblockable(in the matchups when you do cast this guy he's unblockable let's be honest) which is much much better for a deck like this. Early or late game Wraith becomes an excellent draw, whereas Delver is super iffy.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/grixis-domain-shadow/
That's just my reasoning but honestly if you preferred a 2nd Crypt over Vents that's also completely valid. Don't think you can go wrong with either really, though as much as I want it I know 3 grave 1 vents 1 crypt is ultimately the only wrong choice here.
1) Do you play pure Grixis or do you splash White as your 4th colour? Plain ol' Grixis, tride and true. I.....also seemed to lose my copies of Lingering Souls so I couldn't play it even if I wanted to lol.
2) If you play pure Grixis, do you prefer 2 Watery Grave or two Blood Crypt? 2 Watery Grave, it's the best land in the deck by far. I've been tempted to go 3 grave - 1 vents - 1 crypt at times. Now if the question is between Crypt and Vents, I would probably have to lean more towards vents because more turn 1 plays are Blue. The threats are Black though so I see 2 Crypt also acceptable, especially if you run Molten Rain and Angers in the side.
3) How many Fatal Push and how many Terminate and Lightning Bolt in the maindeck? How many in the sideboard? 4 Fatal Push in the main, 1 Terminate, and 1 Dismember. 2 more Terminates in the side for stuff like Eldrazi and the mirror.
4) Do you prefer 3 Fulminator Mage or some mixture of it and Molten Rain as your land destruction package? I'm not really a fan using this type of land destruction in our deck, so I have more counters in the side and Temur Battle Rage. 3 mana cards to hit a land seems so slow, even if you can Kommand/Snap it back. I would rather just race since this deck has the potential to do so. So I guess technically TBR is my anti-big mana deck strategy.
5) Can you find RR to cast Anger Of The Gods? Do you like the card or Damnation? I could definitely see myself getting RR for post board games but I would much rather have out double Watery Grave than anything. Damnation also seems like a fine choice, though it seems more awkward for this deck opposed to Grixis Control.
6)What do you like more in the Grixis version than the other ones(Jund, Junk, Esper, Shardless, etc)? Other than the fact that this version only cost me less than 50 bucks to finish, it's obviously the blue cards. While we don't get 8 copies of Shadow, we do get access to 8 one mana dude bro beat sticks and half are immune to Fatal Push! Cantrip Dark Ritual is nuts. Oh yeah, Snapcaster Mage and Stubborn Denial are also pretty decent cards and totally not insane in the brain or anything.
7) What's your MD card you side out more often? Toss up between Push and IOK depending on the MU.
If you don't run Liliana, the Last Hope in your side what cards are currently replacing it? I currently am running a Kolaghan's Command and Izzet Staticaster in place of Liliana currently. I will look to pick up my copies after they rotate out of standard.