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Thread: Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

  1. #1
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    Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

    I have wanted to find a way to take advantage of plunge into darkness for a long time. A few days ago I cracked the code.
    The idea is to get death's shadow or berserk in your hand along with plunge, then plunge for the other combo piece. You will be low on life and can berserk for the win the next turn. The deck can win on turn two but more often wins on turn three.
    In practice you'll eschew the combo win to play a grindy game with Goyfs and Death's Shadows and may win by using Plunge as a pseudo pump.

    4 Berserk
    1 hope of ghirapur
    2 Cabal Therapy
    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Death's Shadow
    1 Dryad Arbor
    4 Elvish Spirit Guide
    1 Forest
    4 Mishra's Bauble
    3 Nurturing Peatland
    2 Overgrown Tomb
    4 Plunge into Darkness
    3 Snuff Out
    4 Street Wraith
    2 Swamp
    4 Tarmogoyf
    2 Thoughtseize
    3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
    4 Verdant Catacombs
    3 Wooded Foothills


    Starting hands:


    1 Overgrown tomb, dark ritual, death's shadow (or) berserk, elvish spirit guide, plunge into darkness, any two other cards -This is a turn 2 win hand.
    1 verdant catacombs Dark ritual, Death's Shadow (or) berserk, plunge into darkness, any three other cards -This is a turn 3 hand.
    1 nurturing peatland,tarmogoyf, traverse the ulvenwald, snuff out, thoughtseize, any two other cards. This is a snap keep aggro hand


    Few things to note,
    The life loss from Plunge into darkness is part of the cost, it cannot be countered.
    Dryad arbor is good fodder for cabal therapy (and can be fetched with a fetchland).
    Traverse gets draw and pump in Street Wraith, aggro creatures with goyf and Shadow, and Protection with Hope of Ghirapur. It's a very diverse card.
    Berserk can be used as removal.

    Feedback welcome!

  2. #2

    Re: Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by median View Post
    The life loss from Plunge into darkness is part of the cost, it cannot be countered.
    Not correct

    People have tried to play Berserk in shadow before (i.e. as a BUG deck) and had some success, but most people don't seem to think it's optimal.
    I'm not sure that Plunge is good enough card at 2 mana to make this deck work. Ritual/ESG is also a lot of card disadvantage considering how fragile the combo is. If I wanted to play a deck in this vein, ie:

    - BG deck without counterspells, relying on discard as disruption
    - Combo involves making a big creature that's vulnerable to plow
    - Play some mana acceleration to get the combo out faster

    Then is this better than turbo depths?
    - Make 2020 eot to dodge oko / sorcery answer
    - Combo can be depths + stage therefore uncounterable
    - Tutors (Crop roto) can search for both half of the combo (whereas traverse can only get the creature but not the pump spell)

    You have this idea that in non-combo games you can play as a fair deck with tarmo/thoughtseize but it seems very hard to win via this route when your deck has a bunch of ritual/esg/berserk in it.

    It seems to compare unfavourably to infect in most ways as well.

  3. #3
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    Re: Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

    It's a cool idea, but it is a little more fragile than the other BG combo deck of the format: Turbo Depths. I like that Plunge is an instant, it sets you up really nicely on your opponent's turn. I don't know if it makes the strategy playable, but it's better than a sorcery.

    I understand completely the allure of a fast combo that opponent's aren't prepared for, its exhilarating. However, I think you would be better suited as a Shadow/Eva-green agro deck that has the potential for a fast win but usually just plays out as a regular mid-range agro deck. In order to do this you would need at least 6-7 discard spells, not the 4 you already have, and probably extend into Hymn to Tourach. I wouldn't hesitate to play Reanimate as additional copies of Shadow/enable Street Wraiths as threats. I think you can pull from the old Berserk Stompy deck idea as well and include some number of pump spells that allows you to boost Street Wraith into lethal territory. Might of Old Krosa comes to mind.

    Another cool avenue would be to splice Death's Shadow into the False Cure combo deck. Kavu Predator reward you for playing cards like Invigorate, which can also pump your other threats (Shadow/Street Wraith) into lethal territory. Kavu Predator also gives you another very important element: additional threats. Your deck currently is trying to get a Shadow ASAP, with tutors and Traverse to find them. The issue is that Shadow is vulnerable to all of the removal of the format currently played outside of Lightning Bolt.

    Infect also has some pretty cool tech you can borrow, most notably Glistener Elf and Inkmoth Nexus. They are threats that can also do a 1-shot win if you can work with a pump spell and berserk. Invigorate is the most efficient, but something like Might of Old Krosa or Vines of Vastwood work as well; you just need something that gives +4 to it's power along with berserk to do 10 poison damage. I think it makes sense to play this out fundamentally as a Berserk-based combo deck. The threats can be varied as long as one of them does the job. I think it would even be pretty good as a BG Infect deck with Shadow as the alternative win-condition.

    TL, DR: Shadow is a build-around card more suited as a value threat than a combo piece, but if you take ideas from other established decks you might be able to put together a deck that can overwhelm opposing removal and have a combo finish. I highly suggest Vines of Vastwood at a minimum to protect your Shadows an work as an additional pump spell to enable Street Wraith/alternative threat to win with Berserk.
    Brainstorm Realist

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    Re: Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

    I agree with above. "Death's Shadow Combo" looks like a bad version of Turbo Depths or Infect.

    You could still play Shadow and Plunge in a grindier deck with less card disadvantage. That way you don't get blown out so badly by a single StP/FoW/Fatal Push.

    The Eva Green strategy seems good. That can also run Varolz, the Scar-Striped to get extra value from Shadows.

    Another combo you could look at is a big Plunge into Children of Korlis, with some payoff for gaining a lot of life in one turn (like that new 3cc vampire). That deck could also pack a set of Death's Shadow.

  5. #5
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    Re: Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

    Cool ideas with Varolz and Childern of Korlis! Varolz could easily be DS #5+. I would want Phyrexian Dreadnought as well. Just play it, sacrifice it, then pay 1 more and make Varolz a 14/14.
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  6. #6
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    Re: Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

    I've looked at children in the past. It doesn't work. Children gives life for damage and you pay life for plunge.

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    Re: Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by median View Post
    I've looked at children in the past. It doesn't work. Children gives life for damage and you pay life for plunge.
    That is incorrect. Children of Korlis gives life equal to life lost, not just damage taken. It works with cards like Griselbrand and is used in Tin Fins.

  8. #8
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    Re: Death's Shadow Aggro/Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    That is incorrect. Children of Korlis gives life equal to life lost, not just damage taken. It works with cards like Griselbrand and is used in Tin Fins.
    Wow! That's right! I had a white pact/children version of this deck a while back, that might be better. I wish I had come here, I just ran it by some judges.

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