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Thread: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

  1. #121

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    In addition to the above, I'd also argue that Death's Shadow itself is much weaker as a card when it isn't surrounded by a tempo-oriented shell. A big dumb critter without evasion will actually be pretty ineffective in a lot of boardstates, for instance when it's staring down a board stall. If the opponent has a medium sized Goyf, ScOoze, a True-Name or some random assortment of chump blockers like Snapcasters with you at 5ish life your Shadow is mostly going to be on defense, though due to the life total situation your opponent is more likely to draw out of the stall and win. The best way to leverage Shadow as a card to me has been being aggressive and putting down so much pressure that your opponent needs to chump as early as possible. It only really wins races if you can force chumps, as a rule of thumb. And if you do get into board stalls between your Shadow and Goyf-like creatures your best win condition is usually a Delver flying over for 3 every turn, something the slower build is absolutely incapable of.

    That paired with the facts that JVP s not a Legacy playable card and that Hymn is a medium powerful value card that doesn't really have a place in a Tempo deck, plus the fact that There have been no notable results for the slower build speak for itself imo.

  2. #122
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I think JVP is plenty playable - but you have to be able to actually use him. If your plan is JVP recast a meaningless spell, you're going to lose. You tap him discarding a Grisel, -3 on FoW, and you make a Grisel (or any instantly dangerous card on that turn, which summoning sick not-tramplers simply will never be) - this is how you use JVP properly.

    You need to use the whole buffalo, so if JVP is in Shadow he better be there to turn off deathtouch and refire a comprehensive plan (that isn't passing the turn with a flaccid threat). That plan is mana denial - and I mean Sinkhole/Trophy.

    JVP is maybe-value, Snapcaster is value. The difference with JVP is that you're saying that you're burning land drops on Daze and Wasteland, such that you need the untap step to access the value...in a deck that is only winning by maintaining a low mana environment plan (which brings us back to JVP needing to refire that mana denial plan). Daze and Wasteland cannot afford to be undermined by Hymn - this works against combo, and nobody else.

  3. #123

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Every time you reach for Hymn, you reach for Snapcaster, meaning you play Czech Pile/Grixis Control/4c Wrenn b/c these decks just win more games. Solo-Hymn has never been an effective strategy with staying power - so even if you run JVP, you shouldn't be doing it. Here's the no-SCM Hymn peer group: Pox, Jund, BUG Delver. Shardless & occasional Aluren/Food Chain are too high on the mana curve for a comparison, and furthermore [non-Aluren] Shardless Agent is an obsolete Snapcaster (the only thing that ever made Shardless BUG playable was how SDT/CB warped the format in its favor, making cascade towards Decay a reasonable play).

    Solo-Hymn doesn't work, and cutting Delvers for JVP (or SCM) + Hymn turns you into a less-winning Grixis Control deck.
    "You must play Snap with Hymn"
    "Here are a bunch of decks that wouldn't want to play snapcaster or JVP for either strategic or colour reasons"
    "Anyway JVP plus Hymn makes your deck bad case closed"

    You just keep repeating your conclusion over and over without giving any argument to support it

    The problem of Shadow/Angler getting trounced by kill spell + SCM (especially bad if StP) has always been the problem. While it's not exactly effective to use Delver to duress StP from hand, it's better than sitting around in an aggressive deck with zero reach trying to Hymn those spells from hand
    Don't frame it as being an aggressive deck then, You're a control deck with a very low manacurve

    While they develop ever more unassailable mana (thanks to cards like Vista/Astrolabe/Wrenn) towards PWs taking over the game. Daze and Wasteland are getting worse in real time, and playing solo-Hymn just makes those two cards worse...You cut the Delvers [the only aggressive opener this deck has left] on top of this and it's over, you're in build-order loss territory b/c you've butchered any chance of Daze ever helping you.
    It might be the case that Wrenn makes Hymn strategies unplayable (if so I argue that all Shadow versions are suboptimal in the current meta because non-Hymn aggressive versions operate in the same space as better Delver decks). However I don't otherwise agree with the main thesis of this paragraph. Even if you cut the Delvers you still have enough high-power threats that your opponent is forced to play into your Dazes, and if the opponent holds cards in their hand waiting to draw lands to play around soft counters then discard becomes more effective. The attrition element of "I Hymned your extra land away and now you can't even play around Daze anyway" shouldn't be underestimated. I appreciate that it's hard to mentally overcome the "Daze in a 'control' deck with no aggressive 1-drop, hurrrrrr stupid", but Delver as an 'aggressive opener' has much less importance when your follow-up threat is on the order of a 7/7 or bigger that can win the game in 2-3 hits by itself.

    WotC made 3-4 color mana bases trivial, so to have a shot with a Daze deck you really need to have a focused gameplan. Stranding Delver by itself and looking for answers at 2cmc (which are opposed to creating a low-to-the-ground pro-Delver gamestate) means that the moment you consider it you're generally making a "cards I own" pile. These piles not only win less than value pile vs the field, they also lose badly to value pile. The days of pretending you've got a good matchup vs greedy value piles and Tundra decks are over - Wasteland stealing the game was the only way that ever worked out, and this just won't happen anymore.
    If resilient manabases are the norm then Delver versions become even worse, because your opponent can develop their mana to a place where they can fire off 2-for-1 removal on your creatures. (Snap-Plow, Kolaghans Command, JTMS, etc). In a deck with no burnspells and no hard-to-kill threats (like mongoose or TNN) this is a death sentence (i.e. why people say that the Miracles matchup is really hard). If wasteland is not effective then Hymn is one of the only ways you can keep both players starved on resources to leverage the fact that your spells are cheaper.

    In any 2c/3c shell a not-combo deck needs cards playing off each-other. Random 2-for-1's that don't do anything to synergize & advance a gameplan and fail to deal with on-board problems aren't effective, b/c everyone else is playing that same style with SCM on top of it all.
    To enable SCM you need a gameplan where you want to play 4 lands. This has a real cost associated with it. (Otherwise why wouldn't all delver decks just play high-power 3 or 4 drops)

    You don't even need to look at how bad Shadow is vs real Delver decks (Delver + Bolt) to realize that Hymn is the wrong card.
    The matchup wasn't even that bad, or even unfavourable (at least pre-Arcanist this was the case, maybe the additional reach from this is a problem, or being wastelocked by W&6). It's very difficult for a UR deck to deal with a 1-mana 7/7

    In addition to the above, I'd also argue that Death's Shadow itself is much weaker as a card when it isn't surrounded by a tempo-oriented shell. A big dumb critter without evasion will actually be pretty ineffective in a lot of boardstates, for instance when it's staring down a board stall. If the opponent has a medium sized Goyf, ScOoze, a True-Name or some random assortment of chump blockers like Snapcasters with you at 5ish life your Shadow is mostly going to be on defense, though due to the life total situation your opponent is more likely to draw out of the stall and win.
    This is partly true and is part of the reason why I in the last few tournaments I played with the deck I used Tombstalker over Angler, but you can make the same comment about any non-evasive attacking threat like Goyf or Mongoose that are currently seeing a decent amount of play.

    The best way to leverage Shadow as a card to me has been being aggressive and putting down so much pressure that your opponent needs to chump as early as possible. It only really wins races if you can force chumps, as a rule of thumb. And if you do get into board stalls between your Shadow and Goyf-like creatures your best win condition is usually a Delver flying over for 3 every turn, something the slower build is absolutely incapable of.
    True, but the slower build is also less likely to get into board states where the opponent has a bunch of creatures out because it has more ways to shred the opponent's cards (Hymn)

    That paired with the facts that JVP s not a Legacy playable card
    If you enjoy being 1 step behind the metagame forever then you can put your faith in the hivemind and consider all cards unplayable unless they top8ed a big tournament in the last 2 weeks

    and that Hymn is a medium powerful value card that doesn't really have a place in a Tempo deck
    Ok, don't call it a tempo deck then

    plus the fact that There have been no notable results for the slower build speak for itself imo.
    I'm not just theorising this post entirely out of empty conjecture, I have played both versions, think the Hymn/JVP version is better, and cashed the GP earlier this year with it. Maybe the deck is not good anymore, but I have no interest in Shadow+Delver decks because I think they are clearly worse than the Delver builds in other colours. (Having burn spells is such an important angle when your cheap threats have 3 power, and the extra colours giving you access to cards like YP/Goose/Arcanist/Wrenn means you have threats that need a better answer than "topdeck plow").

  4. #124
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    There are some things that stand out @kombatkiwi:

    On Hymn + Snapcaster vs Hymn without Snapcaster - the reason the decks without Snapcaster are losing is b/c of Hymn. Playing it alone is not enough value to compete in legacy - look at decks to beat...note how Hymn isn't there, but Hymn + Snapcaster has been. This is not a controversial observation.

    If you're a control deck with Death's Shadow, you're losing b/c your threats don't ETB as 2 for 1's nor do these threats have evasion. Look at UW Blade vs Grixis control/4c Wrenn, note how UW Blade is losing consistently. The reason for that is that the deck with more 2-for-1s is more favored, it's a pretty simple equation. There is a lesser arms race going on between the two (JTMS/REB, Plague Engineer/TNN), but that's really on the side. As a quick aside, expect Blade to start running a larger Spell Snare gambit to try and hang with Wrenn; note how Blade is going to pay for that gambit in long tournaments when SnT inevitably comes up.

    Hopefully we're understanding that Death's Shadow as a creature is one of the most fragile, high risk-low reward wincons a control deck could choose to run. Shadow becomes even worse when you elect to play cards that allow opponents to start playing PWs (which is now starting at turn 2). This reality needs to be respected if you want to brew a serious deck - opposing PWs are really bad for you, and you need to be able to pressure/kill them either on the field or on the stack. Solo-Hymn actively antagonizes Wasteland/Daze's ability to keep a deck competitive, as it deprives Shadow of a comeback mechanism. Blowing up peoples' hands is fun and all, but you end up losing to things on board - particularly value engines on board.

  5. #125

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    This is partly true and is part of the reason why I in the last few tournaments I played with the deck I used Tombstalker over Angler, but you can make the same comment about any non-evasive attacking threat like Goyf or Mongoose that are currently seeing a decent amount of play.
    You can't really make the same arguments because all those cards are much different in mainly 2 ways: 1) Shadow requires you to have a low life total and 2) Shadow can grow bigger than all of the others.

    In a board stall, this makes Shadow relatively worse, because it has no evasion and because it does not matter how much bigger it is than everything else as long as you still die on the crackback due to your low life.

    However, when you are ahead and applying tempo it makes Shadow relatively better because nothing can trade with it, and your opponent will be forced to chump until they die, making your low life total irrelevant.

    This is why I'd rather be the tempo deck than the deck that is slower and more likely to get into board stalls. If your plan to prevent that is hitting all your opponents' creatures with Hymn then you might be lucky enough for that to work, idk. For me it's too unreliable.

    I also don't want to to talk down on any good finishes you may have personally had with the deck. But JVP in general and Shadow lists without Delver just haven't put up anything near the top of the metagame. And if you think I'm copying lists and rejecting innovation in general then you are assuming things that simply aren't true. In each and any Legacy deck I've played in the last 15 or so years I made my own card choices, and I'm going to question any list I see online, no matter if it was built by a random forum user or someone who plays the game twice as well as me. If anything it is one of my few grievances with Delver Shadow that I can't find any room for innovation past the last 2-4 main slots despite trying my hardest. It just seems to be a common thing with any Delver decks in Legacy that no matter how much you try to innovate them you'll eventualle end up with that same frame that has always been the best in Legacy at playing tempo.

    Delver also doesn't stop being a tempo deck just because you put 4 different cards in and decide to call it differently... If you put 4 Delvers in Miracles, is it suddenly a tempo deck? No, it's just a worse miracles with 4 copies of a card that doesn't fit the gameplan. Same with Hymn to Tourach in Delver Shadow. It seems like a great idea and be sure I tested Hymn so much in the deck, but ultimately Fox is right in that it doesn't help the deck where it needs help, which is staying ahead on board and killing before the opponent deploys solutions. Sure you might hit Plow + Snapcaster and feel great, but you might also hit Jace + their 4th Land and feel miserable because you took your turn off to do it and had the Daze/Force/Stubborn Denial for the Jace anyway.

  6. #126

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    On Hymn + Snapcaster vs Hymn without Snapcaster - the reason the decks without Snapcaster are losing is b/c of Hymn. Playing it alone is not enough value to compete in legacy - look at decks to beat...note how Hymn isn't there, but Hymn + Snapcaster has been. This is not a controversial observation.
    It's also a missing-the-wood-for-the-trees observation that doesn't tell us anything relevant

    If you're a control deck with Death's Shadow, you're losing b/c your threats don't ETB as 2 for 1's nor do these threats have evasion. Look at UW Blade vs Grixis control/4c Wrenn, note how UW Blade is losing consistently. The reason for that is that the deck with more 2-for-1s is more favored, it's a pretty simple equation. There is a lesser arms race going on between the two (JTMS/REB, Plague Engineer/TNN), but that's really on the side. As a quick aside, expect Blade to start running a larger Spell Snare gambit to try and hang with Wrenn; note how Blade is going to pay for that gambit in long tournaments when SnT inevitably comes up.
    Your threats don't provide value or have evasion because they are so cheap. If you had a 1 mana 7/7 that drew a card on ETB it would be way too good. But the cheap threats mean that you can keep the curve low and preserve the strengths of both decks:
    - Grindy attrition value plan with JVP Hymn engine
    - Virtual CA Delver Brainstorm plan with low mana curve and fast clock

    I understand that conceptually it is a pretty big leap to believe that this kind of in-between strategy can work ("Isn't this either just a worse X or a worse Y") but other archetypes don't have access to anything like a 2-turn clock for 1 mana

    Hopefully we're understanding that Death's Shadow as a creature is one of the most fragile, high risk-low reward wincons a control deck could choose to run. Shadow becomes even worse when you elect to play cards that allow opponents to start playing PWs (which is now starting at turn 2). This reality needs to be respected if you want to brew a serious deck - opposing PWs are really bad for you, and you need to be able to pressure/kill them either on the field or on the stack. Solo-Hymn actively antagonizes Wasteland/Daze's ability to keep a deck competitive, as it deprives Shadow of a comeback mechanism. Blowing up peoples' hands is fun and all, but you end up losing to things on board - particularly value engines on board.
    I can't address this comment without having any idea of the kind of decklist you are envisioning. I don't understand your own proprietary "Solo Hymn" jargon, just spend a few extra words typing out what you mean.
    Like what card do you think a JVP list is lacking that makes it difficult to deal with a turn 2 Wrenn (or PW in general?)

    This is why I'd rather be the tempo deck than the deck that is slower and more likely to get into board stalls. If your plan to prevent that is hitting all your opponents' creatures with Hymn then you might be lucky enough for that to work, idk. For me it's too unreliable.
    Ok fair enough, at least you show that you consider it.

    Delver also doesn't stop being a tempo deck just because you put 4 different cards in and decide to call it differently... If you put 4 Delvers in Miracles, is it suddenly a tempo deck? No, it's just a worse miracles with 4 copies of a card that doesn't fit the gameplan. Same with Hymn to Tourach in Delver Shadow. It seems like a great idea and be sure I tested Hymn so much in the deck, but ultimately Fox is right in that it doesn't help the deck where it needs help, which is staying ahead on board and killing before the opponent deploys solutions. Sure you might hit Plow + Snapcaster and feel great, but you might also hit Jace + their 4th Land and feel miserable because you took your turn off to do it and had the Daze/Force/Stubborn Denial for the Jace anyway.
    Again, it seems like we are talking past each other because we don't agree on what kind of decklist we are talking about. "Hymn to Tourach in Delver Shadow" I am deliberately not playing the card Delver of Secrets. Maybe you used "Delver Shadow" as a shortcut for "UB Shadow" or maybe you think that I want to play Hymn to Tourach in a version with Delver? (Which I have tried and had some success with, although I agree that overall it's probably not correct). Of course people have tried Stoneforge plus Delver and had success with it, sometimes these decks even play JTMS. Do you also want to call it a bad deck outright because it doesn't neatly match with existing labels?

    In the situation you describe with Hymn, isn't that situation actually fine? Obviously letting the opponent keep snap-plow is bad but this is worst-case Hymn result, and even if you had Delver instead of Hymn you're hoping that after your first threat gets plowed that your 1 Delver can kill the opponent before they deploy Jace and bounce it. I found this approach was generally less successful than the Hymn 2-for-1 in these situations.

    For reference this is the last list I played (only 1 page back)

    4 Shadow
    4 Wraith
    2 Tombstalker
    2 JVP

    2 Preordain
    4 Ponder
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Force of Will
    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Daze
    3 Hymn
    2 Dismember
    1 Fatal Push
    2 Reanimate
    1 Lili the Last Hope

    4 Watery Grave
    2 Underground Sea
    8 Fetchlands
    3 Wasteland

  7. #127
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I really can't make it any more clear: decks that play Hymn without Snapcaster (this is "solo-Hymn") suck. They are consistently poor performers. They will never break into tier 1 b/c their combination of cards aren't good enough. These decks cannot compete with the current card pool.

    Opponents are going to play Wrenn; if your response is solo-Hymn you may as well scoop the moment you figure out their deck has Wrenn in it. The zone you need to interact with is the board - you need Delver and a low mana environment.

    Firing Hymn into resolved/response Wrenn and going on to draw Wastelands and Dazes is a basically unwinnable. You're also advocating 10x cantrips in a deck that can't even pressure a Narset on-board; this hardly responsible deckbuilding. Chalice x=1 issues???

    ---

    Your list's only realistic wincon is creature damage, and you have don't have enough threats to achieve that goal. Also all those creatures have summoning sickness, no evasion, and no trample - that's why you can't ever be control. You're attacking on one axis, which also happens to be the easiest to disrupt.

    Not that it makes your list solvent, but we could cut 2x Preordain for 2x maindeck Surgical and cut 3x Hymn & 1x other card (probably Reanimate) to add 4x Delver and we'd have a much more stable deck.

  8. #128

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    While I too was never a fan of that list he did say he wasn't sure whether it was still good in the new metagame, so I wouldn't take W6 and other such cards as big arguments against his reasoning of the last 2 pages.

    I've been testing my list against Plug, Pile and other W6 decks a lot lately and tempoing them out has given me an over 50% win rate overall, which I'm happy with for now.

    After toying around with basics in the deck for a while (W6, B2B, Bloodmoon being prevalent) I'm now back on 5 duals, though I still haven't discarded the idea entirely. The deck just needs too much black, so basic Island always felt like the worst card in the deck, and Swamp doesn't cast Daze. I'm still considering playing just a Swamp as my basic, because post-B2B/Moon you usually cast mainly black spells and keep blue cards for Forces a lot of the time anyway, but I'll see. This is the list for reference:

    9 black Fetches
    3 Watery Grave
    1 Underground Sea
    1 Swamp / 2nd Underground Sea
    4 Wasteland

    4 Delver of Secrets
    4 Death's Shadow
    2 Gurmag Angler
    4 Street Wraith

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    1 Force of Negation
    2 Dismember
    2 Snuff Out
    4 Thoughtseize
    2 Reanimate
    1 Stubborn Denial

    I'm back on the most aggressive choice of removal spells because I think they're great in the meta right now, with close to zero relevant black creatures around and tons of green based GSZ piles as well as Tundra decks.

    EDIT: Sb:

    2 Plague Engineer
    1 Contentious Plans
    1 Ratchet Bomb
    1 Vampire Hexmage
    2 Surgical Extraction
    1 Tormod's Crypt
    2 Hymn to Tourach
    2 Liliana, the Last Hope
    2 Liliana's Triumph
    1 Force of Negation

    Splitting my anti-Chalice measures to test out which I like the best right now. Hexmage doubles as anti-walker tech against UW/W6. Been going down from 4 to 3 and now 2 Hymns in my 75 over time for the reasons stated above. Might cut them entirely in the near future, because they don't fight fair decks as well as they used to with those decks playing to the board more with more pws and the like.

  9. #129

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    I really can't make it any more clear: decks that play Hymn without Snapcaster (this is "solo-Hymn") suck. They are consistently poor performers. They will never break into tier 1 b/c their combination of cards aren't good enough. These decks cannot compete with the current card pool.

    Opponents are going to play Wrenn; if your response is solo-Hymn you may as well scoop the moment you figure out their deck has Wrenn in it. The zone you need to interact with is the board - you need Delver and a low mana environment.

    Firing Hymn into resolved/response Wrenn and going on to draw Wastelands and Dazes is a basically unwinnable. You're also advocating 10x cantrips in a deck that can't even pressure a Narset on-board; this hardly responsible deckbuilding. Chalice x=1 issues???

    ---

    Your list's only realistic wincon is creature damage, and you have don't have enough threats to achieve that goal. Also all those creatures have summoning sickness, no evasion, and no trample - that's why you can't ever be control. You're attacking on one axis, which also happens to be the easiest to disrupt.

    Not that it makes your list solvent, but we could cut 2x Preordain for 2x maindeck Surgical and cut 3x Hymn & 1x other card (probably Reanimate) to add 4x Delver and we'd have a much more stable deck.
    Yes Wrenn is good against Wasteland decks, Delver is hardly a panacea though because if you play turn 1 Fugitive Wizard on the draw and your opponent resolves turn 2 Wrenn then they just downtick and kill it. Then in UB you have no Bolts to follow up on this either. At least an extra cantrip gives you a chance to find FoW/Daze, and not having Delver in the deck means there's less opportunity cost to just Thoughtseizing their Wrenn on turn 1.

    The Narset thing is an interesting point that I hadn't considered but at the end of the day it's just another problem 3 drop that you're trying to get under anyway (like TNN or Moon or similar).
    UB with Delver also has huge problems with Chalice (admittedly the Delver version is more favoured, because you can sometimes sneak Delver under a chalice and go on to win with Daze/Waste, but the matchup is still bad)

    True, there aren't many threats, but other Delver decks successfully win via only creature damage and still have fewer threats than e.g. Zoo. This just takes the 'trim threats for disruption (or cantrips) and protect the wincon' idea 1 step further.

    I get that preordain does nothing when the opponent has Narset, but suggesting I cut them for a spell that does nothing about 90% of the time regardless of what the opponent is doing seems questionable at best. By your own "decks with No-Snap-Hymn logic are consistently poor performers" logic I challenge you to find successful Delver decks playing maindeck Surgical Extractions, and there's no way cutting cantrips for this makes the deck more "stable" (whatever this means).

    While I too was never a fan of that list he did say he wasn't sure whether it was still good in the new metagame, so I wouldn't take W6 and other such cards as big arguments against his reasoning of the last 2 pages.
    If I was going to play a Delver list I would probably play something like yours or the list from basic_swamp in the recent MTGO 5-0s

    Creature (14)
    4 Death's Shadow
    4 Delver of Secrets
    2 Gurmag Angler
    4 Street Wraith
    Sorcery (10)
    3 Ponder
    1 Preordain
    2 Reanimate
    4 Thoughtseize
    Instant (18)
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Daze
    2 Fatal Push
    2 Force of Negation
    4 Force of Will
    2 Snuff Out
    Land (18)
    2 Bloodstained Mire
    1 Flooded Strand
    4 Marsh Flats
    1 Polluted Delta
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Verdant Catacombs
    4 Wasteland
    3 Watery Grave
    60 Cards
    Sideboard (15)
    2 Blue Elemental Blast 2 Contentious Plan 1 Engineered Explosives 2 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 1 Marsh Casualties 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Plague Engineer 2 Stubborn Denial 2 Submerge
    It seems like there are hardly any decisions to be made in the maindeck
    4 Delver
    4 Shadow
    4 Wraith
    2 Angler

    4 Ponder (or 3-1 Preordain split)
    4 TS
    4 Brainstorm
    4 FOW
    4 Daze
    4 Removal
    2 Flex Counterspell (FON/Stub)
    2 Reanimate / Flex

    18 Land with 4 Wasteland and 8 fetches, decide whether you want 3-3 Sea Grave, or 2-4, or 1-1-4 with a basic, or 2-3 with an extra fetch or whatever
    I like the addition of maindeck Force of Negation, and maybe in the Wrenn meta this list will be more successful than trying to Hymn/JVP people, but I'm not committed to playing a Watery Grave deck, and not being able to play Wrenn/Bolts and having access to only shitty UB sideboard cards means I have very little interest in playing a deck like this

  10. #130
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    @kombatkiwi I would take it a step further: no matter what deck you're on, if you play solo-Hymn you're deck is not successful (because you are running Hymn). The one little exception to this would be Pox b/c Ashiok as a repeatable Tormod's + mill wincon is really strong against 4c value piles - even then though, Pox has too much internal inconsistency and bad matchups to threaten a run to tier 1. To go back to a previous post BUG Delver is a great poster child for losing b/c solo-Hymn simply doesn't cut it anymore.

    As far as Delver decks go, 4x BS and 4x Ponder are plenty of cantrips. The issue with your deck is that your attack is too one dimensional that it is easy to blunt. The idea that spamming 2 extra cantrips to reassemble a flawed plan will lead to success isn't realistic. Here's what your Preordains will reveal:
    -I have no pressure on board
    -Opponent has a value generator on-board I'm losing to
    -Seeing Wasteland/Daze will be depressing, but seeing Hymns as well (which are completely opposed to Wasteland/Hymn, and won't get you back into the game) was an avoidable deckbuilding error
    -You finally find a threat and either they'll kill spell from hand, flash one back from yard, or just bounce it back to hand 3x with a Jace if they're desperate

    The key to all this is that the thing you needed to care about and interact with was on board - possibly before you even got a turn 2. Now Wrenn isn't always going to survive a discard and/or countermagic opener, but if he resolves you lose. If your solo-Hymn resolves, you don't win on the spot and you will have failed to deal with an existing on-board value-generating problem.

    Just want to restate this so we're clear: using cantrips to find assemble an ineffective plan is not a winning strategy.

    On maindeck Surgical note the lead-in "Not that it makes your list solvent" - I was simply giving advice that would make your deck better. When the advice of just add some maindeck Surgical improves your list, there is a fundamental problem in deck construction. I find trying to cheese wins off Wasteland -> Surgical, Surgical Loam, Surgical Grisel, Surgical Plow (so my last 5 dudes can't die that way to the other 3 copies and 3x SCM), to collectively improve your list's win %. I'm not fixing your list towards a final form, I'm just pointing out that you'd win more games off the high-variance Surgical play than solo-Hymn and Preordains.

    Playing legacy with underwhelming tools (for example BUG Delver, Blue Moon, etc...) isn't like playing a bad deck, it's more like playing a worse deck. A bad deck struggles with consistency, but has the power to win games of legacy. Worse decks are consistent, but use that consistency to find obsolete/underpowered strategies. If you find yourself playing a worse deck in legacy, Surgical cheese can only make it more powerful.

  11. #131

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Okay so let me preface this by saying that I haven't read this thread for like 8-9 months and am just getting caught up.

    To my understanding, these are the latest debates:

    - We want to get under a bunch of 3-drops / Chalice / Wrenn / other surprises.
    - We (always) want to protect our relatively low threat density
    - It has to be more reliable than Hymn to Tourach
    - It has to work on a very low mana curve
    - Ideally we want to do so in a way that still enables Delver / Shadow / Angler

    Maybe this is silly, but why not just transition the two flex slots to more proactive disruption? Force of Negation is a reasonable guess but I think Inquisition of Kozilek could be better. It's not as good as Thoughtseize here, but it still does the desired things listed. Also, Shadow / Angler are almost always coming down turn 3 and after, so it totally supports any sequence that looks like

    Thoughtseize / Inquisition > Shadow / Angler / Reanimate

    Super Obvious Decklist Inclusion:

    14
    4 Delver of Secrets
    4 Death's Shadow
    4 Street Wraith
    2 Gurmag Angler / Tombstalker

    28
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder / Preordain
    4 Force of Will
    4 Daze
    4 Removal (whatever the meta calls for)
    6 Thoughtseize / Inquisition of Kozilek
    2 Reanimate

    18
    4 Wasteland
    9 UB Fetch Lands
    3 Watery Grave
    2 Underground Sea / Basics

  12. #132

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    If we could play Thoightseize 5 and 6 I would see an argument for dedicating those 2 flex slots to more discard, however, not being able to hit stuff like Karn, the Great Creator, Urza, Auriok Salvagers, Force of Will as well as all Delve spells and fringe cards like Chandra and Mystic Forge are strong arguments against Inquisition. In addition, 4 discard feels like a good number to me and I'd have to test if the deck wants more cards that are proactive but don't affect the board, and the fact that things like Chalice and other lock pieces as well as explosive starts from RB Reanimator need to be answered turn 1 on the draw make me think Force of Negation is the much better option right now. I'm still playing 1 Denial and 1 FoN in the 2 flex slots, but I'm already testing 2 FoN instead.

    I also think, and always thought, it funny that this little miser's Preordain CFB put in the original list keeps popping up and people still aren't really questioning it. Playing the exact 3-1 split always seemed random, with apparently noone questioning if not 2-2 or 4-0 could maybe be better overall.

    Until there's any actual evidence for that one Preordain being better than the 4th Ponder, beyond the inventors playing it which may have easily been a Just-Because-move, I'd safely assume that this deck falls in line with each and every other deck in Legacy that plays fetchlands and has some additional interest in stacking the top (aka Delver flips, Miracles spells, etc), and should therefore play 4 Ponder before even thinking about touching the first Preordain.

    I always imagine the CFB people still laughing about how long that random tweak has not been questioned since the beginning.

    In all seriousness though. Play 4 Ponders.

  13. #133

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Yeah IoK misses some stuff but it still hits most of our real problem cards, which are basically:

    Chalice of the Void
    Swords to Plowshares
    Snapcaster Mage
    Baleful Strix
    Blood Moon

    Missing out on Lingering Souls and Fireblast sucks but I think it's probably still better than finding alternatives in counters.

    Force of Negation also has some holes, not being able to ensure landing a threat or having even more -1 CA in a deck that doesn't really recover well from that kind of trade. Like I said, I could see either way, but I think our proactive gameplan makes it a better Thoughtseize Deck than a Force of Will Deck between the two. I've already tried a split of 4 Thoughtseize / 2 Inquisition and it's played out pretty well.

  14. #134
    Member

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    182

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Izor View Post
    If we could play Thoightseize 5 and 6 I would see an argument for dedicating those 2 flex slots to more discard, however, not being able to hit stuff like Karn, the Great Creator, Urza, Auriok Salvagers, Force of Will as well as all Delve spells and fringe cards like Chandra and Mystic Forge are strong arguments against Inquisition. In addition, 4 discard feels like a good number to me and I'd have to test if the deck wants more cards that are proactive but don't affect the board, and the fact that things like Chalice and other lock pieces as well as explosive starts from RB Reanimator need to be answered turn 1 on the draw make me think Force of Negation is the much better option right now. I'm still playing 1 Denial and 1 FoN in the 2 flex slots, but I'm already testing 2 FoN instead.

    I also think, and always thought, it funny that this little miser's Preordain CFB put in the original list keeps popping up and people still aren't really questioning it. Playing the exact 3-1 split always seemed random, with apparently noone questioning if not 2-2 or 4-0 could maybe be better overall.

    Until there's any actual evidence for that one Preordain being better than the 4th Ponder, beyond the inventors playing it which may have easily been a Just-Because-move, I'd safely assume that this deck falls in line with each and every other deck in Legacy that plays fetchlands and has some additional interest in stacking the top (aka Delver flips, Miracles spells, etc), and should therefore play 4 Ponder before even thinking about touching the first Preordain.

    I always imagine the CFB people still laughing about how long that random tweak has not been questioned since the beginning.

    In all seriousness though. Play 4 Ponders.
    I think their intent behind the single preordain is that since you are fetching aggressively to make a threat preordain can still clear cards on its own. I think they covered it in one of the first ish primers. you can probably dig up the reasoning. There are pros and cons of both.

  15. #135

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Event report from this weekend

    List
    4 Death's Shadow
    4 Street Wraith
    2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
    2 Tombstalker

    4 Ponder
    4 Brainstorm
    2 Preordain
    4 Force of Will
    4 Daze
    4 Thoughtseize
    3 Hymn to Tourach
    2 Reanimate
    2 Dismember
    1 Fatal Push
    1 Liliana, the Last Hope

    4 Watery Grave
    2 Underground Sea
    3 Wasteland
    8 Fetchlands
    (Same maindeck as GP Niagara Falls lol)

    SB:
    3 Ratchet Bomb
    2 Plague Engineer
    2 Liliana's Triumph
    2 Force of Negation
    2 Surgical Extraction
    1 Liliana, the Last Hope
    1 Infernal Contract
    1 Darkblast
    1 Submerge

    (Compared to Niagara Falls this is:
    -1 Pierce
    -1 Surgical
    +2 Force of Negation
    -3 Diabolic Edict
    +2 Liliana's Triumph
    +1 Submerge
    -1 Deluge
    -1 Dread of Night
    +2 Plague Engineer)

    R1: 2-1 Sneak and Show (Omni build)
    R2: 2-1 Bomberman
    R3: 2-1 Moon Stompy
    R4: ID
    R5: ID
    Top 8: 2-0 Hogaak Depths
    Top 4: 1-2 4C Delver
    Prize: MP FWB Taiga

    I think I was happy with the decklist overall
    There is some flexibility in the numbers between Tyrants Scorn, Liliana's Triumph, and Submerge
    I think 1 Snuff Out in the 75 might be good also
    Liliana was the least exciting card throughout the day but I didn't really see the right matchups for it.
    Ratchet Bomb was great.

  16. #136

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    Event report from this weekend
    What's your impression of Tombstalker over Gurmag Angler?

  17. #137
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Maximus View Post
    What's your impression of Tombstalker over Gurmag Angler?
    Don’t know that you’d want to try Tombstalker without a basic Swamp; this becomes a question of basic Swamp in a Daze deck.

  18. #138

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    Don’t know that you’d want to try Tombstalker without a basic Swamp; this becomes a question of basic Swamp in a Daze deck.
    Well, his list doesn't have a basic swamp.

    However, mine does. It's good that you pointed that out though since they are definitely related. Good catch.

  19. #139

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Flying is relevant against TNN and Plague Engineer (and some other creature decks in general like Goblins/DNT/Elves etc, or situations vs Bomberman with Mentor, random Khalni garden tokens it matters more often than you might think)

    Extra B in the cost is mostly worse against Daze/Wasteland pressure, which might be more important now that Delver decks with Wrenn are a thing. The likelihood of having to cast Tombstalker 1 turn later than Angler because you only had 1 untapped black source available is very rare and much of the time it doesn't matter anyway

    If you are playing anything like Stubborn Denial or Spell Pierce then Tombstalker becomes much worse (because it's much harder to pay BB and leave U up than pay B and leave U up), also if you are playing a Delver build without any other 2-drops (JVP Hymn etc) then Tombstalker is also worse, because it creates a demand for the 2nd, 3rd land but with no other 2 drops there is still very little payoff for having those.

    Having a basic swamp would also help with playing Stalker but it's obviously not essential

  20. #140
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    Posts

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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I played this deck when deathrite got banned, and am trying to get back in it, and was wondering if anyone had any feelings about splashing green?
    My list I have been testing is

    4 Death's Shadow
    4 Delver of Secrets
    4 Street Wraith
    2 Gurmag Angler

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Force of Will
    4 Daze
    1 Hymn to Tourach
    2 Reanimate
    2 Abrupt Decay
    2 Dismember
    1 Sylvan Library

    4 Wasteland
    3 Watery Grave
    1 Underground Sea
    1 Tropical Island
    1 Bayou
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Misty Rainforest

    Sideboard
    2 Snapcaster Mage
    1 Liliana, the Last Hope
    2 Baleful Strix
    2 Hymn to Tourach
    2 Surgical Extraction
    1 Abrupt Decay
    1 Karakas
    2 Flusterstorm
    1 Plague Engineer
    1 Hydroblast

    The idea is that it can switch to a more control heavy build postboard.

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