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Thread: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

  1. #181

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Hymn attacks a resource that doesn't matter unless you're winning/poised to be winning. The moment they reach two mana and play any onboard value engine you are now losing. Hymn might be a "good" card b/c it's a 2-for-1, but they're drawing 2 cards a turn and you're not really addressing that issue by taking a turn off to Hymn. Trophy has multiple decision trees you can follow, one of which includes killing their turn 2 value engine such that you can do things like play a Delver again (looks pretty bad when opponent has a Wrenn, you Hymn them, and yeah...you still can't deploy a Delver while each turn Wasteland and Daze keep accruing irrelevance).

    This is one of those points where you need to look at your deck's composition and apply the theoretical scenario of "my opponent has a Wrenn." Of your 60 card deck 18 lands + 4 Delver + 4 Daze + 4 FoW + # of Drown/Hymn = 33'ish cards that can't really fix the problem. Then you add 8-10 cantrips and 4 Wraith, which will only be used to find Gurmag or Shadow. There's not any left over space in your deck to do things differently - so you now have this deck that can only be played one way; the result is that all your individual player skill doesn't really matter. You're simply managing a deck, and the opponent has the luxury of now playing against predictable forced moves. All your moves are pretty slow as well (sorcery speed and summoning sick); your deck is lacking tools to incite an opponent to enter your turn with any tapped lands.
    If my pile opponent plays a wrenn and ticks up and then I trophy it and they find a basic I've traded 2 mana for 2 mana and I am down 2 cards. Not interested. If my opponent is on RUG they can't find a basic but they are still up a card and they have Daze/Snare to fight over Trophy. So if my opponent resolves Wrenn against my Hymn deck then sure, I might be behind. The same is true if they resolve Jace against my UB creature deck (or Moon, or Chalice, or B2B, or whatever). Rather than panic and say "oh shit my deck must include clean answers to this resolved permanent" I am hedging towards making it difficult to resolve the Wrenn in the first place (with my 4x TS 4x Daze 4x FoW 4x Hymn deck). Maybe this approach is still not a winning strategy against the Wrenn decks, but I can't help but feel that if that is true then the solution must be "play a wrenn deck" not "play a bug deck with assassins trophy in it"

    Now Hymn can randomly win a game all by itself, it's just not reliably converting and we know that b/c the Hymn spammers are nowhere to be found.
    I wrote why I think Hymn is bad in Pile decks atm but could be good in aggressive strategies and you still haven't addressed it and just keep repeating this same vapid point over and over

    We're at a point in legacy where you need to attack a different resource with multiple card types, rather than wholesale hand destruction. When it comes to other Delver decks every single successful one is playing Wrenn, or Oko (which can kill a Wrenn), or Dreadhorde (the pseudo-PW) - so yes, I am saying that is the case. Delver + Hymn is a losing proposition, Delver + any [or all] of those is how you win.
    Your explanation for "why" here is meaningless ("we're at a point in legacy where you need to attack a different resource with multiple card types") so if you peel that away then what you're saying is "how you win is by playing these decklists that are currently winning" which is hardly a masterstroke of analysis.

    In terms of the UW example with Trophy, just let them begin the game with JTMS in play (turn 0) with this condition: you can't use white mana - this is a pretty easy win for Shadow. People that play UW understand that [if they have the tools] they have to fight over anything that threatens their access to white mana. Few decks outside of R/G Lands can really call them out on that weak point, but do understand that this is the weakest point of UW. Any time you make the white side of their deck count for nothing, they lose convincingly.
    Turn 0 JTMS with only access to blue mana might be losing but that's not a realistic analogue. If you're hitting 2 of their basic plains with trophy DURING A GAME then it means they must have had access to white mana at some point. They can make sure they don't get their W sources deleted for free by only fetching when they have a W spell ready to go. Trying to thread this needle with a counterable LD spell from a BUG delver/midrange deck is going to be pretty fucking hard. It's not like lands where you just recur Ghost Quarter for free over and over.

    It's important to step back after reading what a card does and figure out what it really means. In the case of Trophy you're not just backing up a train of dudes, you're looking to create a subgame your opponent has to sink resources into, such that they can't sit there focusing solely on killing your one-dimensional combat step wincon. You can't create that subgame by throwing raw power [Hymn] at them b/c it's already outclassed by their raw power [Wrenn/Oko mostly]. It's definitely easier to give up and just play Wrenn/Oko/Dreadhorde + Delver, but you can still play dudes-only if your spells are creating a virtual not-creature threat, while also having dual utility to support your dudes.
    Again, this is just a word salad, watch:
    In the case of Hymn you're not just backing up a train of dudes, you're looking to create a subgame your opponent has to sink resources into (either they get 2-for-1ed by Hymn or they have to spend resources fighting over it), such that they can't sit there focusing solely on killing your one-dimensional combat step wincon. You can't create that subgame by throwing removal [trophy] at them b/c it's only a 1-for-1 (or a 1-for-2 if the opp has basics) and you're trying to hit things that already provided value on etb [Wrenn/Oko mostly].
    This makes much more sense than shit like 'your power is outclassed by their power' as if it's some kind of DBZ episode

    Lim-Dul's Vault
    In a non-combo tempo deck there's zero chance I play a 2 cmc spell that's card disadvantage.
    I think Plunge into Darkness is probably better and I wouldn't play that either

  2. #182
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    {regarding Lim Dul's Vault} In a non-combo tempo deck there's zero chance I play a 2 cmc spell that's card disadvantage. I think Plunge into Darkness is probably better and I wouldn't play that either
    I would be playing Stifle + Dreadnought. I don't know if that is a strong enough reason to play Vault yet, but it has synergy with Death's Shadow by being a customizable life-loss tool while setting up a Dreadnought combo. If Stifle is dead in hand, Vault for a Dreadnought. If no threats, Vault for a Shadow on top while setting it up to be outside of Bolt range/bigger than a Tarmogoyf. If I have three mana, Vault + Brainstorm gets me whatever I need to protect Shadow/Dreadnought in specific situations. It also increases my odds of getting a key sideboard card (ie Ratchet Bomb against Chalice) while being a 2 mana way to do it, that plays around Chalice. I think this is tipping towards magical Christmasland, but I would still like to try it out. It may fail or underperform, and that's fine. Then I just move on with better tech like adding Spell Snare or Stubborn Denial back in.
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  3. #183
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    If you're playing Hymn to beat Wrenn & company, it's not going to work, and it doesn't matter how aggressive your strategy is. It's not a matter of if they get Wrenn, it's when - and that happens to be turn 2. Yes you can Hymn them after that, maybe you can even Hymn them twice and only hit spells and get a win b/c of it; but that doesn't make it reliable. That Wrenn on board is catastrophic for you; you just lost 12 of your best cards from having any future impact (Delver/Daze/Wasteland) until you fix that problem. Hymn just defers that problem to turns down the road (vs. a +1 that grows their hand) until you can potentially deploy a Shadow/Gurmag.

    This is not a vapid point; you can't get back into enough games from behind with Hymn and that's why the best Hymn decks dropped it. Your deck doesn't have a recovery mechanism, and Hymn doesn't change that. It's great and wonderful to say "I just won't let Wrenn resolve," but the thing is...RUG Delver is a better deck, and he will resolve. During deck construction you need to account for scenarios where opponents have a Wrenn (+/- other recent design mistakes).

    You're missing the point of Trophy - you see I know it's counterable. In that example, I actively want a UW player to play around it and be forced to trade cards with it and enter my turn tapped down; that is the point of an effective distraction. The last thing you want is to give opponents the luxury of sitting back and playing against exactly one thing [the dude train]. I certainly understand the sentiment that if they sit back you Hymn them, but their topdecks are way better than yours. Your threats don't exactly line up well against JTMS floating Plows, Snapcasters, Oko turning them into elk, Dreadhorde casting what you took from their hand anyway. This isn't like they just drew the right card and then we went back to a real game of magic, these cards persist and continue to be problematic. Once your low-to-the-ground + Hymn window of opportunity is gone, it isn't coming back.

    Wrenn takes over games reliably (even from behind), Hymn doesn't. One of these cards is more powerful and reliable and proactive by itself. As long as Wrenn is legal, he's has successfully power creep'd Hymn to the legacy has-been tavern where it can have a drink with Werebear and Mongoose and all the other cards whose era has ended. This has nothing to do with DBZ, there are two metrics for every legacy deck: power and consistency. You can have all the consistency you want with cantrips, but it really doesn't matter if you're cantripping into underwhelming tools (see every UW/x Blade deck). I wouldn't get too hung up on the word power, you can read it as payoff or value or whatever you want. The problem with using 2-for-1/1-for-1-type equivalents is that you're missing the need to identify angles of attack/power cores/points of strategic focus [or whatever you want to call it]. Shadow isn't playing x-for-x magic, it's a combo deck and you need to put tools together to create virtual advantage which can't really be enumerated in those x-for-x equivalents.

    Edit: just have to be aware that Hymn lives in that pool of ~53 cards that isn‘t called “my only way back into the game“ [Gurmag/Shadow]. Doesn‘t matter how much consistency you jam into that pile; it‘s too dilute.
    Last edited by Fox; 11-08-2019 at 09:53 AM.

  4. #184

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    If you're playing Hymn to beat Wrenn & company, it's not going to work, and it doesn't matter how aggressive your strategy is. It's not a matter of if they get Wrenn, it's when - and that happens to be turn 2. Yes you can Hymn them after that, maybe you can even Hymn them twice and only hit spells and get a win b/c of it; but that doesn't make it reliable. That Wrenn on board is catastrophic for you; you just lost 12 of your best cards from having any future impact (Delver/Daze/Wasteland) until you fix that problem. Hymn just defers that problem to turns down the road (vs. a +1 that grows their hand) until you can potentially deploy a Shadow/Gurmag.
    - I'm not suggesting playing Delver and Hymn together
    - Hymn hitting lands is also fine because it keeps your Dazes/Waste/TS live and makes it harder for your opponent to find the mana to cast shit

    This is not a vapid point; you can't get back into enough games from behind with Hymn and that's why the best Hymn decks dropped it. Your deck doesn't have a recovery mechanism, and Hymn doesn't change that. It's great and wonderful to say "I just won't let Wrenn resolve," but the thing is...RUG Delver is a better deck, and he will resolve. During deck construction you need to account for scenarios where opponents have a Wrenn (+/- other recent design mistakes).
    The recovery mechanism against wrenn is "drop a big threat quickly", which the quote-unquote 'best hymn decks' cannot do. This is the point I was trying to make in the previous post. Again you insist that "X card must only be used in Y deck in Z role otherwise it's a mistake". (Regardless of whether it's not a smart plan in this specific instance, the argument carries no weight)

    You're missing the point of Trophy - you see I know it's counterable. In that example, I actively want a UW player to play around it and be forced to trade cards with it and enter my turn tapped down; that is the point of an effective distraction. The last thing you want is to give opponents the luxury of sitting back and playing against exactly one thing [the dude train].
    I emphasize the fact that it's counterable because of your questionable suggestion that you can colourscrew UW players off their white sources with it. If you somehow get into the exact situation that you can hail mary waste a card to Sea's Claim their final plains you're going to want to make sure that shit works. In 90% of situations it's just a Doom Blade variant that gives your opponent a land, which a lot of the time they will be happy to let happen. Even if it's targeting something seriously scary (e.g. Jace), the PW already gained value on ETB and now that play still put you slightly behind. You don't have better topdecks than them and are just delaying the inevitable.

    I certainly understand the sentiment that if they sit back you Hymn them, but their topdecks are way better than yours. Your threats don't exactly line up well against JTMS floating Plows, Snapcasters, Oko turning them into elk, Dreadhorde casting what you took from their hand anyway. This isn't like they just drew the right card and then we went back to a real game of magic, these cards persist and continue to be problematic. Once your low-to-the-ground + Hymn window of opportunity is gone, it isn't coming back.
    Trophy is also rubbish vs most of this, so I'm not sure what your point is. I guess (to borrow your language) I'm trying to maximise strength in the "low to the ground" window rather than spread my deck into a kind of protracted midgame topdeck situation, where you definitely aren't favoured even with a couple of BG removal spells. Like it might *feel* bad to sit through situations like "oh my opponent resolved X, I guess I'm dead", but skewing your deck by including removal to deal with this isn't correct if it makes you lose more games in the long run (even in those games where it kills an Okos or whatever it might not even be helping you that much).

    Part of this paragraph is why I think you're just on a totally different planet: "Your threats don't exactly line up well against JTMS floating plows". If you're using any Shadow build and your opponent has resolved a JTMS you are 99% dead. Including 2-mana Path-to-Jace-Exile in your deck is not going to change this at all, and the few games you do hit the perfect situation (you have 1 shadow and they're forced to tap out for Jace and they bounce your shadow and then you untap and trophy and go on to win the game) are not going to be worth the losses elsewhere.

    Wrenn takes over games reliably (even from behind), Hymn doesn't. One of these cards is more powerful and reliable and proactive by itself. As long as Wrenn is legal, he's has successfully power creep'd Hymn to the legacy has-been tavern where it can have a drink with Werebear and Mongoose and all the other cards whose era has ended. This has nothing to do with DBZ, there are two metrics for every legacy deck: power and consistency. You can have all the consistency you want with cantrips, but it really doesn't matter if you're cantripping into underwhelming tools (see every UW/x Blade deck). I wouldn't get too hung up on the word power, you can read it as payoff or value or whatever you want. The problem with using 2-for-1/1-for-1-type equivalents is that you're missing the need to identify angles of attack/power cores/points of strategic focus [or whatever you want to call it]. Shadow isn't playing x-for-x magic, it's a combo deck and you need to put tools together to create virtual advantage which can't really be enumerated in those x-for-x equivalents.
    We're back into word-salad territory. This sounds like "it's wrong to not play a Wrenn deck", which might be true (as I said in my previous post), but seems entirely separate to the Hymn/Trophy issue.
    It's meaningless to call something a combo deck when the "combo" gets nuked by Strix and Plow (also why I don't like LDV). You're an interactive fair deck with FoW and Thoughtseize, you certainly can reduce it to x-for-x magic. Yes, you can get virtual CA off your low land count but this is what delver decks have been doing forever, and nobody calls those combo decks. (In fact now with Wrenn people seem more likely to call them midrange decks). Just because you can attack with a 10/10 doesn't mean Shadow = Infect

    Edit: just have to be aware that Hymn lives in that pool of ~53 cards that isn‘t called “my only way back into the game“ [Gurmag/Shadow]. Doesn‘t matter how much consistency you jam into that pile; it‘s too dilute.
    This is just a different flavour of salad because you're not using the words "consistency" and "dilute" in ways that have clear meanings. What are the implications of the statement you are making?
    - Ways to get back into the game (creatures) are key, we must cut counters and discard for more creatures?
    - Should we cut cantrips too? Or are those considered an acceptable "dilution" of the pile?
    - Does extra removal actually count as a way back into the game? Are you just reiterating that trophy is good or do you mean something else? Which is what? I have no idea.
    It sure would be nice if you could provide a concrete illustration of your ideas (i.e. a decklist)

    Edit:
    This list just won the challenge
    It seems like a really solid version of the Delver list and I think it's a good metagame call in the modo meta of mostly RUG/Storm/Reanimator

    3 Grave
    2 Sea
    9 Fetchlands
    4 Wasteland

    4 Delver
    4 Wraith
    4 Shadow
    2 Angler

    4 FoW
    4 Daze
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Thoughtseize
    2 Push
    2 Snuff Out
    2 FON
    2 Reanimate

    SB
    2 Submerge
    2 Bomb
    2 Engineer
    2 Hymn
    2 Stub
    3 Surgical
    1 Nihil Spellbomb
    1 Lili's Triumph

    I think this is slightly too much gy hate in the SB and I'd like some more options against non-delver fair decks (which are the only matchups that really punish you for the "dude-into-dude-into-dude" plan, as our bombastic friend likes to describe it)
    Last edited by kombatkiwi; 11-11-2019 at 07:18 AM.

  5. #185

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I updated the primer.
    I added Basic_Swamp's lates 1st place list from the recent Legacy Challenge.
    I also added entries for Force of Negation, Plague Engineer, Mystical Dispute, Contentious Plan, Karakas, Liliana's Triumph, Winter Orb, and Submerge. I retired the entry for Throne of Geth as I think Contentious Plan basically replaces it. I am considering retiring Darkblast, Massacre, Toxic Deluge as they do not see much play anymore, but have left them for now. Any comments or suggestions for the primer are welcome.

  6. #186
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by aedrew View Post
    I updated the primer.
    I added Basic_Swamp's lates 1st place list from the recent Legacy Challenge.
    I also added entries for Force of Negation, Plague Engineer, Mystical Dispute, Contentious Plan, Karakas, Liliana's Triumph, Winter Orb, and Submerge. I retired the entry for Throne of Geth as I think Contentious Plan basically replaces it. I am considering retiring Darkblast, Massacre, Toxic Deluge as they do not see much play anymore, but have left them for now. Any comments or suggestions for the primer are welcome.
    I think with the banning of W6 Death and Taxes will be played in large numbers again, so I wouldn't cut out the mass removal section just yet.
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  7. #187

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    New list to test for no-Wrenn format

    4 Vantress Gargoyle
    4 Deaths Shadow
    4 Street Wraith

    4 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Hymn to Tourach
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder

    2 Dismember
    1 Fatal Push
    2 Stubborn Denial
    1 Reanimate

    4 Wasteland
    2 Underground Sea
    4 Watery Grave
    8 Fetchlands

    Notes:
    - Cut Jace and added 3rd and 4th Gargoyle for what I expect is a slight power-level upgrade and also making all the creatures bolt-immune
    - Cut 1 Reanimate for 4th Hymn to Tourach as without Jaces it's harder to have double-hymn when you want it and Hymn is also the best combo with Gargoyle
    - Cut 2 Preordains for 2 Stubs. Without Jace it's less necessary to fill your graveyard quickly so cantrips are slightly less important and stub is better as a tempo play with Gargoyle
    - Cut Maindeck FON for 4th Wasteland: 2 fewer cantrips mean adding a land is semi-warranted (ok it's not really a 'land' but it does help cast gargoyle and it's 0-mana interaction) and without the Jaces you are slightly less insulated against 2-for-1ing yourself so losing the FON seems reasonable

    SB is basically the same as before something like
    2 FON
    2 Ratchet Bomb
    2 Last Hope
    2 Surgical
    1 Infernal Contract
    X Removal depending on meta (Submerge, Edict, 3rd Bomb, DON, Engineer, Submerge, Darkblast etc etc)

    Losing the jace for whats basically a vanilla beater might make the midrange / control matchups slightly worse
    This could be addressed by adding more haymaker cards in the SB like Narset or something but I think the 2 Liliana and the Infernal Contract are probably enough

  8. #188
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    How problematic is Veil of Summer for this deck? I've been toying around with maindeck Toxic Deluge to avoid the hexproof problem of Veil. Barcelona had Bant Miracles take 1st place, i think it will gain traction moving forward in this new metagame.
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  9. #189

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    How problematic is Veil of Summer for this deck? I've been toying around with maindeck Toxic Deluge to avoid the hexproof problem of Veil. Barcelona had Bant Miracles take 1st place, i think it will gain traction moving forward in this new metagame.
    I think probably a lot

    I think the deck relied on Hymn for grinding vs other fair decks and that's not a realistic plan anymore. Before, you could go under the RUG decks and get some virtual CA when the #1 removal spell in the format was Bolt and your threats were bigger than Goyfs. You're still a deck that aims to play efficient threats and 1-for-1 the opponent, except now the efficient threats die to the top removal spell (plow not bolt) and the 1-for-1 with discard/counters plan lines up really badly against Veil. (They're playing icefang coatl too which is also super annoying).

    Id like for this to not be true and it's possible that there are different sb options to fight the new versions of miracles but I'm not feeling super confident about it at the moment.
    Also, not having green in your deck to play your own veils is a big opportunity cost. (It's possible that there is a reasonable version of BUG shadow but I haven't put much thought into it).

    I wouldn't cut push/dismember for maindeck deluge though (3 mana is really a lot and if your opponent is playing a creature for you to kill it's more likely that they're tapping out anyway).

  10. #190
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    I think probably a lot

    I think the deck relied on Hymn for grinding vs other fair decks and that's not a realistic plan anymore. Before, you could go under the RUG decks and get some virtual CA when the #1 removal spell in the format was Bolt and your threats were bigger than Goyfs. You're still a deck that aims to play efficient threats and 1-for-1 the opponent, except now the efficient threats die to the top removal spell (plow not bolt) and the 1-for-1 with discard/counters plan lines up really badly against Veil. (They're playing icefang coatl too which is also super annoying).

    Id like for this to not be true and it's possible that there are different sb options to fight the new versions of miracles but I'm not feeling super confident about it at the moment.
    Also, not having green in your deck to play your own veils is a big opportunity cost. (It's possible that there is a reasonable version of BUG shadow but I haven't put much thought into it).

    I wouldn't cut push/dismember for maindeck deluge though (3 mana is really a lot and if your opponent is playing a creature for you to kill it's more likely that they're tapping out anyway).
    I think the deck would have to go to 19-20 lands to viably play Deluge maindeck. I also think that there isn't a lot of room for cutting spot removal for Deluge. It would have to be Hymn that gets cut down for the Deluge (and it kills your own delvers.) Sideboard only I think for this deck, but I think it gets a lot more important in the sideboard.
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  11. #191

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I won a box playing a small locals event (10-11 players) with the maindeck from my previous post
    SB:
    2 Submerge
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Force of Negation
    2 Ratchet Bomb
    2 Liliana, the Last Hope
    2 Plague Engineer
    2 Liliana's Triumph
    1 Infernal Contract

    2-0 LED Dredge
    2-0 Eldrazi Stompy
    0-2 Elves
    2-1 RUG Sneak and Show
    Top4: 2-0 Elves
    Finals: 2-0 LED Dredge

    Seems ok
    The plan of "Hymn them and stub the veil" worked against the Show and Tell player

  12. #192
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    I won a box playing a small locals event (10-11 players) with the maindeck from my previous post
    SB:
    2 Submerge
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Force of Negation
    2 Ratchet Bomb
    2 Liliana, the Last Hope
    2 Plague Engineer
    2 Liliana's Triumph
    1 Infernal Contract

    2-0 LED Dredge
    2-0 Eldrazi Stompy
    0-2 Elves
    2-1 RUG Sneak and Show
    Top4: 2-0 Elves
    Finals: 2-0 LED Dredge

    Seems ok
    The plan of "Hymn them and stub the veil" worked against the Show and Tell player
    Nice! It's interesting that you went 0-2 against Elves in the swiss, then went 2-0 in t4 against Elves. What changed? I'm assuming with a small event it was the same player. I'm also giving a big hooray for beating Eldrazi, which seems to be a pretty tough matchup.
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  13. #193

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    Nice! It's interesting that you went 0-2 against Elves in the swiss, then went 2-0 in t4 against Elves. What changed? I'm assuming with a small event it was the same player. I'm also giving a big hooray for beating Eldrazi, which seems to be a pretty tough matchup.
    Luck
    I know the mu is favoured which is why I agreed not to split the top4 even though I lost in the swiss.

    That eldrazi was the small aggro version with like Endless One and stuff which is much easier to beat than any of the bigger versions (monolith / post) that can reliably pay for an Eye of Ugin activation

  14. #194
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    How do you feel about only playing 9 threats (I'm counting Reanimate as a threat because it can bring back a Wraith/DS/Gargoyle)? It seems pretty thin. Most Shadow lists are playing the typical threshold template of 12 (4 Delver, 4 Shadow, 2 Angler, 2 Reanimate.) I'm curious about using Gargoyle over my current fascination with Stifle + Dreadnought. It's less fragile and the beats are real at 5/4. However, I worry about it being too conditional. It didn't perform very well in my tests in Dreadstill.
    Last edited by Mr. Safety; 12-30-2019 at 09:57 AM.
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  15. #195

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    How do you feel about only playing 9 threats (I'm counting Reanimate as a threat because it can bring back a Wraith/DS/Gargoyle)? It seems pretty thin. Most Shadow lists are playing the typical threshold template of 12 (4 Delver, 4 Shadow, 2 Angler, 2 Reanimate.) I'm curious about using Gargoyle over my current fascination with Stifle + Dreadnought. It's less fragile and the beats are real at 5/6. However, I worry about it being too conditional. It didn't perform very well in my tests in Dreadstill.
    It's 5/4 unfortunately, not 5/6
    # of threats hasn't been an issue
    4 Hymn 4 Thoughtseize is useful to make sure the opponent's cards go to the graveyard, I'm not sure which numbers of these you had in your Dreadnought deck but that is a factor.
    I was previously playing a version with 4 Shadow 2 Stalker 2 Reanimate which is even fewer threats (depending on if you count jace as a threat or not).

  16. #196
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    My threats:

    4x Shadow
    3x Dreadnought
    3x Dark Confidant
    2x Brazen Borrower

    I'm trying to build it so it ends up being a decent mid-range deck with the option to occasionally win fast with a Dreadnought. I have found that the Dreadnought plan tends to be risky against fair decks, so I made it a smaller emphasis. It's important to note that I am playing 0 Reanimate/Street Wraith and I'm instead trying to gain card advantage with Bobs rather than the Wraith/Reanimate tempo plan. I have a few flex spots I can mess around with, one of them might become Reanimate. Unearth is also an option for my version because I don't have anything above 3 mana and Bob has less predictable life-loss than Wraiths.

    If I went with Gargoyles I would straight swap with Dreadnought, drop the Stifles and play more Hymns.
    Brainstorm Realist

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  17. #197
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I'm curious if anyone has been piloting this deck lately. I did a test with Phyrexian Dreadnoughts, which didn't go as well as hoped, so I'm on a fairly 'stock' list of UB Shadow ATM. It has been really fun, and a ton more consistent than anything I've done with Dreadnought.

    List:

    4x Delver of Secrets
    4x Death's Shadow
    2x Gurmag Angler
    4x Street Wraith
    4x Brainstorm
    4x Ponder
    4x Thoughtseize
    2x Hymn to Tourach
    4x Daze
    4x Force of Will
    1x Force of Negation
    2x Fatal Push
    1x Dismember
    1x Drown in the Loch
    1x Reanimate
    4x Polluted Delta
    3x Misty Rainforest
    1x Marsh Flats
    4x Watery Grave
    1x Island
    1x Swamp
    4x Wasteland

    Sideboard
    2x Bitterblossom
    2x Ratchet Bomb
    1x Liliana, the Last Hope
    1x Toxic Deluge
    2x Surgical Extraction
    1x Nihil Spellbomb
    2x Diabolic Edict
    2x Blue Elemental Blast
    2x Brazen Borrower


    Borrower has been spectacular, just love that card. The big conundrum at this point is whether to play Hymns or not. I haven't run into that many Veil of Summer yet, but it would be a blowout if I don't have Force/Daze to protect it. I also want to get a 2nd Reanimate into the deck, it has been just nutty good. I could cut a Daze I guess, but the only other spot is Hymns really. The blue count for the Forces is only at 22, which seems a bit low for a deck that basically always wants to cast it for 'free'. That's why I haven't cut the Force of Negation from the maindeck yet, it's just so good to have 5 forces against some decks.
    Brainstorm Realist

    I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner

  18. #198

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    HJkaiser Grixis Delver has been having a lot of success with the SB plan of 1 Mystic Sanctuary and 2 Painful Truths
    In this deck you can do a similar thing with Infernal Contract, which is very appealing to me
    I already thought that Infernal Contract was really good in the UWx fair matchups and the ability to recur it with a fetchland (or daze your Sanctuary to keep it going) seems really cool

    Overall though I think this deck struggles a lot more against UWgx Coatl/Oko decks compared to Grixis because it can't grind with its creatures (it only has vanilla attackers and nothing like Dreadhorde Arcanist / Young Pyro / Bedlam Reveler)

  19. #199

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    As sad as that is, Between Oko, Coatl and Veil of Summer being in almost every fair deck at the moment UB Shadow just doesn't have a place in Legacy beyond being a Budget Tempo deck. All of those cards are absolute gamebreakers whenever they resolve against us.

    Like, you can do reasonably well in tournaments, just like you can always have the Daze for Oko and Coatl and your opponent never drawing any Veils, but if anything else happens you lose. Wasteland is probably worse than it ever was in Legacy right now too. The only Delver strategy that sort of lives up to the metagame right now is the one with removal spells that don't get Veil'd and that can burn an opponent out from behind an Oko and some Coatls. All of those Oko decks lose vs powerful combo decks, so I guess all we can do is wait and hope that those combo decks push Oko out of the format for a while, at which point we have our niche back as the best fair deck against combo decks.

  20. #200

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I am of the opinion that this deck has gotten considerably worse over the course of the last year. UBx Delver decks have pretty much always been an amalgamation of Good Cards and will likely be around for a long time to come, but I think that mostly means evolving up to Grixis or Team America (and that thread is woefully outdated). There's a lot to be said between our threats not being diverse enough like kombatkiwi mentioned, a snapcaster land making STP better than ever, wasteland being worse than ever, and 2019 power creep in general. Adding red or green seems the best way to solve this, but in doing so we forfeit our namesake card.

    Again, this is legacy and you can run anyone over with anything. This is just what I have been considering in the past few weeks.

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