Against GBx midrange decks, there should be an Island in 60 and about 2 or 3 red and 5 blue spells pretty much post board. They're likely to attack blue lands so it really shouldn't be a problem.
Are you sure you even want U against them postboard? They can Assassin's Trophy the island too if they draw multiples. I suspect the best plan against them postboard is to be GB only, and let the red/green lands be decoys. Look for your grindy cards in those two colors specifically. Temur Battle Rage and Stubborn Denial aren't great against them anyway, so there isn't a strong reason to rely on either of those colors for anything important in the matchup.
Also, I doubt Maelstrom Pulse is worth it once you're running Assasin's Trophy.
The K Commands and the Lingering Souls don't look great to me, and I've never been a fan of Ghor-Clan, but otherwise this list makes sense.
Btw, maybe the anti-control hate card we should play is Boil. I've been playing UW control lately, and been losing to that card repeatedly out of Mardu and elsewhere.
My problem with Stub in the mirror is that it's good while you're ahead, medium or worse while you're even, and bad while you're behind. Something that helps us catch up when things are spiralling is more appealing. Usually there's a removal spell or something in the 75 you could play instead of stub.
I don't particularly like lingering souls right now. Since Jund got BBE, Souls isn't the breaker in the matchup it once was, and it doesn't meaningfully help the Mardu or Control matchups, so I have a hard time justifying it. If you want to beat those decks, frankly, play a different deck.
Is it correct to ever board out some number of Mishra's Baubles? I felt like I always wanted to keep the in to help grow Goyf and turn on Delirium.
Never board out Baubles, IMO. Shaving Street Wraith is right in matchups where your life total matters, or in grindy matchups that go long, and shaving Manamorphose is sometimes right against Thalia decks (if you're playing it), but otherwise you shouldn't side out cantrips. You can side out more if you're bringing in Nihil Spellbomb since it cantrips, and this is usually right against e.g. Mardu, where you can shave 2-3 Street Wraith and bring in 2 Spellbomb.
Do we want to bring in the Stubs from the board vs Shadow decks? I was very unsure of this. On one hand I can see why it could be useful but with the hand hate I figured they wouldn't be needed. What do we board out of the main in Shadow match ups?
The mirror is very grindy and stubs are apt to be stuck in your hand dead. It's too easy for them to T1 discard away your only threat, leaving you with a dead card in hand. Usually any given 75 has better options, but sometimes it's right to have 1 or even 2 post board.
Would it have been a wrong move to bring in the Alpine Moons vs Infect? Maybe I'm just sore because I didn't find any removal.
Alpine Moon is way too narrow against infect.
Is there a extensive Side Board guide somewhere for me to study over?
hm, yeah, if you can only stub in force spike mode, then you probably do have to thoughtseize. You'll stub CoCo if he tries to cast it, maybe Chord, but maybe not, and not path.
I think I take CoCo there. He's, what, 40% to hit the land there? It just seems too likely.
That said, I'm not sure I tap out to Thoughtseize there (depending on how many lands you have, what's in your hand, etc). Holding up Stub, then Thoughtseize + hold up stub next turn might be the best play. Their most important spells tend to be instants.
Nice job on the T8. Against the aggressive creature based combo decks, I definitely would not board out the baubles. Speed is key there, so you want to hit that early threat, e.g. via Traverse. And cutting baubles is effectively cutting lands, which can be problematic. I would definitely bring in Collective Brutality against Vizier - killing literally anything and taking a CoCo is exactly where you want to be. Taking a path is also great, if they don't have a CoCo. Brutality seems good in theory against infect, but I could never figure out what to cut for it. I'm not sure what the best way to SB against them is. We just have an embarassment of riches when it comes to sb options.
what about the Secrets of Mausoleum ?
1B
Instant
Undergrowth - Search your library for a black card with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of creature cards in your graveyard, reveal it, and add it to your hand, then shuffle your library.
I think this card might be busted in the As Foretold / Living End / Goryo's deck. It gets Living End, no questions asked. And it's not a hard ask to make it find Goryo's Vengeance. Maybe they have to play Insolent Neonate to up the creature count, or build around a bit more. I'm less sure about it in Grisshoalbrand.
I 2-0'd human at my last FNM (the one I did 5-0) so it's beatable..I guess (he finished 3rd)
I've beaten humans my fair share too. But it's a bad matchup unless you work REAL hard. MD bolts, SB sweepers (Radiant Flames is the best one), and SB Lavamancers makes it, idk, 50/50 maybe. Still not favorable. They're just really resilient, Thalia is a huge pain, and because we can't help but start at a fairly low life total, the fliers will get us. On top of that, Reflector Mage breaks up our plans of cheesing them out with TBR a lot of the time. Even when it doesn't, it can sometimes be hard for the TBR turn to present lethal through blockers because they're often still at 20. It's not a fun matchup.
Are you suggesting that they'll use Trophy to blow up our lands and keep us off a color? Because that's the only application I see for it against Traverse Shadow that Abrupt decay can't do.
Yes, I've been saying our manabase is fragile. That's precisely what I'm talking about. It probably keeps us from being 4 color in those matchups, or we risk getting e.g. Lingering Souls stuck in our hand with no way to cast it.
What do you think about Spell Snare in the main deck if BGx increases in popularity?
Snare is pretty interesting. It's still bad against Humans, because of vial and cavern, but occasionally you'll nab something with it. That's a big strike against it IMO. I focus on that matchup in particular a lot because if you solve that, without compromising the basic matchup profile of the deck, I think the deck is tier 1 despite the awful control and midrange matchups. Not that I think that's really possible, unfortunately, but it seems easier to do that than to fix the midrange/control matchups without screwing up everything else.
Yeah, Sultai + red splash for MD TBR and SB cards for non - UW / BGx mathcups was my first thought as well. We'll probably get crushed by humans though. And have more trouble with most other aggro decks than we would like.
Snapcasters would indeed help the matchup, especially if you're on the Lingering Souls plan too. Ok, things are making more sense now. But note, 2 Snapcasters and Lingering Souls is fairly atypical! Most people aren't playing all of those cards!
I found Snapcaster to be reeeally awkward in most other matchups though, which led me to abandon that plan (and eventually the deck). 3+ mana is just so much for the deck.
I still think you're underestimating the impact of people playing Assassin's Trophy against shadow builds of all flavors. Snapcaster and Souls may help the Jund matchup, but it's now much harder to have more than 3 colors to support all of these things, especially in the Jund matchup.
Classic Jund suffers much more the ‘I drew too many lands!’ than Shadow, though. If they aren’t able to cast Liliana - which is likely, in my experience, given a permission suite of 7 discards and 3 Stubborns, also means they cannot profit from her the same way they would like. Other than that, the a Tempo plan is strangely effective. Shadow on the board is the biggest creature, there’s no way out for them to outclass it. We play basically 8 Shadows (I’d say 10, given Snapcaster on Traverse). Street Wraith in the long run is also incredibly good, especially in the stalemate. I don’t think Jund has a 60-40 mu against Shadow, sorry. Maybe that’s also because I actually run Snapcasters, that are really good at grinding against BBE.
Eh, that's the plan, but they have all of the same discard + removal tools you have to slow you down, plus they go over the top with BBE, more planeswalkers, and the occasional unchecked Bob, plus you have to be careful to not die to random burn or a sudden go-wide attack (BBE and/or manlands) when you're trying to make that massive Death's Shadow. going about 50/50 in 15ish matches is certainly possible. But my experience has not been that good, and just on the merits of what each deck is doing, Jund looks pretty ahead. 60/40 or better.
I see now that Godrik's list is going waaay over the top, more than I've ever seen in a shadow list to be honest. I can see that list having much more game against Jund. However, it's giving up a lot to do that. Only 1 IOK! No TBRs. That drastically changes the matchup profile. And it's also the sort of build that looks terrible against the new card. The color requirements of that deck are very harsh. Lots of double blue, double black, and there isn't even a forest if they go after your green source. We will have to rebuild our manabases in light of this card to have more basics, which will make it harder to play so many cards in the 4th or even 3rd color.
50/50 or even favored against Jund? I don't really see how that's possible. BBE is just such a killer. Even trying to fight them with souls and such felt hopeless.
BGx is a horrific matchup though, and this will get more people playing GBx. And I do think it makes GBx even worse for us. They'll have no trouble killing our dudes even without Decay, so going long they now have another angle of attack --- try to cut us off a color.
Are you sure you even want U against them postboard? They can Assassin's Trophy the island too if they draw multiples. I suspect the best plan against them postboard is to be GB only, and let the red/green lands be decoys. Look for your grindy cards in those two colors specifically. Temur Battle Rage and Stubborn Denial aren't great against them anyway, so there isn't a strong reason to rely on either of those colors for anything important in the matchup.
Also, I doubt Maelstrom Pulse is worth it once you're running Assasin's Trophy.
1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Street Wraith
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Polluted Delta
1 Stomping Ground
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
1 Dismember
3 Fatal Push
3 Kolaghan's Command
4 Manamorphose
2 Temur Battle Rage
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Tarfire
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Abrade
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Stubborn Denial
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Collective Brutality
3 Lingering Souls
1 Godless Shrine
The K Commands and the Lingering Souls don't look great to me, and I've never been a fan of Ghor-Clan, but otherwise this list makes sense.
Btw, maybe the anti-control hate card we should play is Boil. I've been playing UW control lately, and been losing to that card repeatedly out of Mardu and elsewhere.
I don't particularly like lingering souls right now. Since Jund got BBE, Souls isn't the breaker in the matchup it once was, and it doesn't meaningfully help the Mardu or Control matchups, so I have a hard time justifying it. If you want to beat those decks, frankly, play a different deck.
Never board out Baubles, IMO. Shaving Street Wraith is right in matchups where your life total matters, or in grindy matchups that go long, and shaving Manamorphose is sometimes right against Thalia decks (if you're playing it), but otherwise you shouldn't side out cantrips. You can side out more if you're bringing in Nihil Spellbomb since it cantrips, and this is usually right against e.g. Mardu, where you can shave 2-3 Street Wraith and bring in 2 Spellbomb.
The mirror is very grindy and stubs are apt to be stuck in your hand dead. It's too easy for them to T1 discard away your only threat, leaving you with a dead card in hand. Usually any given 75 has better options, but sometimes it's right to have 1 or even 2 post board.
Alpine Moon is way too narrow against infect.
I have a sideboard guide for a lot of matchups in my old regionals report: https://deadonboardmtg.com/2017/11/08/the-ultimate-deaths-shadow-primer-and-tournament/
It's a bit old, so the decklist is out of date and some current matchups are missing, but it still might be helpful.
That said, I'm not sure I tap out to Thoughtseize there (depending on how many lands you have, what's in your hand, etc). Holding up Stub, then Thoughtseize + hold up stub next turn might be the best play. Their most important spells tend to be instants.
I think this card might be busted in the As Foretold / Living End / Goryo's deck. It gets Living End, no questions asked. And it's not a hard ask to make it find Goryo's Vengeance. Maybe they have to play Insolent Neonate to up the creature count, or build around a bit more. I'm less sure about it in Grisshoalbrand.
I've beaten humans my fair share too. But it's a bad matchup unless you work REAL hard. MD bolts, SB sweepers (Radiant Flames is the best one), and SB Lavamancers makes it, idk, 50/50 maybe. Still not favorable. They're just really resilient, Thalia is a huge pain, and because we can't help but start at a fairly low life total, the fliers will get us. On top of that, Reflector Mage breaks up our plans of cheesing them out with TBR a lot of the time. Even when it doesn't, it can sometimes be hard for the TBR turn to present lethal through blockers because they're often still at 20. It's not a fun matchup.
Yes, I've been saying our manabase is fragile. That's precisely what I'm talking about. It probably keeps us from being 4 color in those matchups, or we risk getting e.g. Lingering Souls stuck in our hand with no way to cast it.
Snare is pretty interesting. It's still bad against Humans, because of vial and cavern, but occasionally you'll nab something with it. That's a big strike against it IMO. I focus on that matchup in particular a lot because if you solve that, without compromising the basic matchup profile of the deck, I think the deck is tier 1 despite the awful control and midrange matchups. Not that I think that's really possible, unfortunately, but it seems easier to do that than to fix the midrange/control matchups without screwing up everything else.
I found Snapcaster to be reeeally awkward in most other matchups though, which led me to abandon that plan (and eventually the deck). 3+ mana is just so much for the deck.
I still think you're underestimating the impact of people playing Assassin's Trophy against shadow builds of all flavors. Snapcaster and Souls may help the Jund matchup, but it's now much harder to have more than 3 colors to support all of these things, especially in the Jund matchup.
I don't think we're going to convince each other.
I see now that Godrik's list is going waaay over the top, more than I've ever seen in a shadow list to be honest. I can see that list having much more game against Jund. However, it's giving up a lot to do that. Only 1 IOK! No TBRs. That drastically changes the matchup profile. And it's also the sort of build that looks terrible against the new card. The color requirements of that deck are very harsh. Lots of double blue, double black, and there isn't even a forest if they go after your green source. We will have to rebuild our manabases in light of this card to have more basics, which will make it harder to play so many cards in the 4th or even 3rd color.