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Thread: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

  1. #141
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    @MScott you still only have 18 lands, so you can't really pull off the switch. The thing about going big with Delver decks is that you should cut Delver and turn into Grixis Control or 4c Wrenn preboard, b/c you're boarding into a worse version of that same strategy.

  2. #142
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    @MScott: I think the green splash looks pretty strong currently, but why not just keep it lean & mean in the board? @Fox is not wrong about your mana curve going to struggle with multiple Strixes & Snaps, plus up to 3 Hymns post-board. If you check MTGTop8 you'll see that green-splashing Shadow lists tend to up the land count. However, you could also just swap the SCMs for JVCs, cut the Strixes, stick the MB Hymn and Library in the board for 1-2 Force of Negation and/or a Snuff Out (even a Berserk if you're feeling frisky) in order to maintain the deck's explosiveness.

    Last year at some point I maindecked a single Ratchet Bomb and a Lim Dul's Vault to find it to help fight off Chalices, which worked ok but Decays are probably more elegant here. (The LDV tech could help tutor out Karakas, though...)

  3. #143

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Maybe this is just me but I thought that list looked pretty cool. I think another land over the MD hymn would be reasonable. And Strix is probably not the place to be for a while. But the concept is cool and I could see it working.

  4. #144

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Top 8ed a local 6-rounder this weekend.

    Overall the deck felt very strong against everything that wasn't a fair Brainstorm mirror. Most of those come with either Lightning Bolts or Swords to Plowshares, both of which are hard to beat for different reasons.


    R1 2-0 vs BW taxes

    I sort of just tempo him while killing all his Mother of Runes.

    R2 2-0 vs 4-color Loam

    Heavy mana denial gets me both games, including Snuffing a Dryad Arbor. The second game also involved me Proliferating his Chalice to 2 and him drawing his remaining 3 Chalices over the course of the next 5 turns. Had a hand full of permission in the end anyway, though.

    R3 2-0 vs mono-U Delver

    I keep TNN off the field both games and race his Flyers (Delver and Pteramander) with Shadows.

    R4 2-0 vs Death and Taxes

    Game 1 involves me TSeizing and Reanimating his Palace Jailer killing his only creature. Game 2 involves 2 Plague Engineers on Human.

    R5 1-2 vs UW Stoneblade

    I tempo his clunky draw by countering his cantrips game 1. He has 2 turns to rip a Plow for my two Shadows but fails to. Game 2 I mull and rip lands off the top. I never see a cantrip. Game 3 I'm once again unable to draw any cantrips and my turn 1 Delver doesn't flip for 7 turns in a row (25 spells in deck). He never saw an out to it, but didn't end up needing one.

    R6 0-2 vs UR Delver

    This matchup usually revolves around trading resources until both players have almost nothing left, at which point either Shadow wins because their creatures are bigger than theirs, or they win because they drew enough burn and the Shadow deck never saw a Shadow. Game 1 went exactly like the latter, and game 2 I'm unable to find a second land in 2 Wraiths, 1 Ponder and 2 Brainstorms (all of which resolved) and I play the one-spell-per-turn-game with 7 one-drops in hand until he topdecks a Wasteland. He's basically out of cards but I brick on land for three more turns before his Pyromancer kills me.

    Finished 5th with the highest opp score. Top 8 wasn't played out.


    Sort of an anti-climatic ending losing 4 games in a row after going 9-0 in games initially, but oh well. Got the harder matchups and my draws didn't cooperate at all in those last rounds.


    Thinking about boarding out all my Street Wraiths against UR Delver in the future, because of how miserable they are when you draw them mid game when you're already in Shadow territory.

  5. #145

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Izor View Post
    Thinking about boarding out all my Street Wraiths against UR Delver in the future, because of how miserable they are when you draw them mid game when you're already in Shadow territory.
    Yup

  6. #146
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Is there a sideboard primer out there?

  7. #147

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by MScott View Post
    Is there a sideboard primer out there?
    I don't think so, although even if there was I'm not sure that would be the right way to go about it- sideboarding is an imperfect art and picking your 15 cards is a constantly moving target of sorts. I think the main things you want to cover are like:

    Swords to Plowshares
    Chalice of the Void
    -----
    the various Delver mirrors
    being able to go long while keeping a low mana curve
    being able to add more meta-specific removal, whatever that calls for

    We're already pretty good against the more timeless combo (LED / Entomb / Show and Tell) decks so it's okay to shore up other MUs elsewhere instead. It's also getting to the point where T2 Thoughtseize on the draw is still good to hit W6 or keeping like 2 Daze in. Sometimes you just have to feel it out based on how your opponent plays.

  8. #148

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by MScott View Post
    Is there a sideboard primer out there?
    Agree with Maximus. I didn't attempt to add a sideboard guide to the primer because sideboarding is so dependent on your specific 75 and guides quickly become outdated. If you have specific questions, I am sure we can try to help with those.

    Speaking of the primer, I intend to update it soon with some of the new cards that have come out. I am thinking of adding Plague Engineer, Force of Negation, and Contentious Plan. Any other suggestions?

  9. #149

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by aedrew View Post
    Agree with Maximus. I didn't attempt to add a sideboard guide to the primer because sideboarding is so dependent on your specific 75 and guides quickly become outdated. If you have specific questions, I am sure we can try to help with those.

    Speaking of the primer, I intend to update it soon with some of the new cards that have come out. I am thinking of adding Plague Engineer, Force of Negation, and Contentious Plan. Any other suggestions?
    It's not new but I think you could add Winter Orb to the list of possible sideboard cards.

  10. #150

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Won another dual with the JVP Version (decklist is on the previous page)
    R1 2-0 Sneak and Show
    R2 2-1 LED Dredge
    R3 2-1 Mimic Eldrazi
    R4 0-2 Slow Depths
    R5 2-1 RUG Delver
    R6 ID

    Top8 2-0 Slow Depths
    Top4 1-2 Medium Depths

    I think the way the meta has turned out after MH1 and the deck having access to plague engineer means that the upside of Tombstalker over Angler isn't as relevant anymore

    Edit: I might try the new 1U 5/4 Gargoyle for fun but I don't expect it to be much of an improvement, if any

    Pros:
    - Castable off waste + dual (compared to tombstalker)
    - Castable on turn2 not needing any delve (when it can presumably e.g. block delver immediately)
    - Pitches to forces
    - Enables Jace/Reanimate lines
    - Filter your own brainstorms/ponders

    Cons:
    - Opponent can set up their own Brainstorms/Ponders in anticipation of you using it (or in response)
    - Randomly putting cards in the opp's graveyard not great against Delve/Snapcaster/Dreadhorde/PIF/Reanimate/Wrenn etc
    - Conditional at attacking/blocking, especially against non-cantrip non-fetch decks that aren't going to put many cards in their graveyard
    - Gets wopped by RIP if RIP comes down after it (although if your opponent has RIP first you can at least play this and block whereas delve cards are uncastable so maybe it's a wash)
    - Dies to artifact removal, push/decay
    - Red blastable
    - 4 toughness worse than 5 (Goyf and TKS are the main ones, also it's an artifact itself so it pumps goyf)
    Last edited by kombatkiwi; 09-26-2019 at 08:13 AM.

  11. #151

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I played in a short tournament last night with my usual list -2 Tombstalker +2 Vantress Gargoyle.

    Result:
    2-0 Storm
    2-1 Miracles
    0-2 Lands

    The Gargoyle actually seemed pretty good
    Both times I cast it there was only 1 turn where it could not attack and I had to use the Ghoulcaller's Bell ability, and both of these times were before I would have been able to play a Tombstalker anyway. Having maindeck Hymn probably helps with this, compared to versions playing e.g. more counterspells or other reactive cards.

    Upping the blue count was also noted.

    I would probably say:

    Main Benefits:
    - Pitches to FoW
    - Always 2 mana without needing any Delve requirement (so you don't have to sequence around it, and it doesn't interfere with your graveyard for Reanimate/Jace)

    Small Benefits:
    - Can use wasteland to cast it
    - Doesn't have additional cost on casting it so it's better against bounce effects (e.g. Brazen Borrower or JTMS minus)

    Neutral:
    - Has Ghoulcaller's Bell ability. (Sometimes this will be good to fill your graveyard to set up JvP/Reanimate lines, or filter through the top card of your deck when cantripping, or disrupt the top of the opponents library with Mystic Sanctuary/Counterbalance, or give yourself a Surgical target. It's bad if it puts cards in your opponent's graveyard that helps them (e.g. reanimate targets or delve fodder) or if they use the ability to set up the top cards of their library (e.g. they Brainstorm in response). Overall the impact of this ability is generally small because there isn't much decisions to be made around it. Anytime the opponent has <7 cards in the yard you basically have to activate it, and otherwise you are attacking.
    - 2 cmc for reanimate purposes. (Sometimes this will be good because you can't Reanimate Stalker if you are on 8 life or lower but sometimes you do want that massive lifeloss. Overall this is probably a slight negative because if you are super low on life you would probably rather Reanimate a Shadow instead, but sometimes you won't have one, or there are weird spots where you're on around 5 life but don't want to reanimate a Shadow, so you can cast another Shadow from hand if they Plow what you reanimated, etc

    Small drawbacks:
    - Bad against graveyard hate (but so is every Delve card, at least this one is relatively leyline-immune. Not that people should be boarding that in against you anyway but they do sometimes).
    - 4 Toughness rather than 5 is not a super important threshold in Legacy but it does matter against some things like TKS or Wrenn+Bolt etc
    - Has artifact type so it pumps opposing Tarmogoyfs when it dies, possibly putting them out of dismember range. (Maybe this is a bigger downside depending on the meta)

    Main drawbacks:
    - Low CMC means it dies to things like Decay, Push, Tyrant's Scorn, Drown in the Loch, EE, Blast Zone. (The significance of this is limited by the fact you will always have 4 Shadows in your deck as targets anyway)
    - Dies to artifact destruction (K Command is probably the worst one but also e.g. Abrade)
    - Red Blastable
    - Spell Snareable (but just as with Decay and Push, the deck has Hymn and JVP already)
    - Bad at blocking (this is a pretty aggressive deck that doesn't block often but Tombstalker was often good at e.g. stabilizing vs Delver of Secrets)

    Overall it seems that the graveyard-dependent ability of the Gargoyle is significantly less awkward than Delve, so that in addition to being blue (pitching to Forces is more significant than the blast vulnerability I think) I think it's likely that the Gargoyle is better than Tombstalker, even if it does have some other drawbacks

    Whether it's better than Angler (still the same issue of Tombstalker: 2 mana or 1 vs Flying or No) is still a different question but I'm happy to keep using the gargoyle for now

  12. #152

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    @ kombatkiwi

    Do you mind posting your list as it sits? I'm curious what your spell suite looks like to support what is at this point a pretty radically different threat base.

  13. #153

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Maximus View Post
    @ kombatkiwi

    Do you mind posting your list as it sits? I'm curious what your spell suite looks like to support what is at this point a pretty radically different threat base.
    4 Death's Shadow
    4 Street Wraith
    2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
    2 Vantress Gargoyle

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

    3 Wasteland
    4 Watery Grave
    2 Underground Sea
    8 Fetchlands

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

  14. #154
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Has there been a successful Grixis version of this deck? Is there enough value in red to splash it or is the stability of an only UB mana base too important?
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  15. #155

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    Has there been a successful Grixis version of this deck? Is there enough value in red to splash it or is the stability of an only UB mana base too important?
    A red splash got 7th Place at an SCG Classic in January. People also tried Dreadhorde Arcanist when that came out, but I haven't seen it lately.
    You can't argue with red blasts. However, when I've tried to splash, I've found the the mana very difficult. You often want to crack your fetches early to lose life, so you either expose your only splash source to Wasteland before you actually need the color or you risk not having access to a fetch later when you do.

  16. #156
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I think the issue with red is that while Bolt and Blast are cool, you never really fix the problems of Chalice x=1 and that your wincons are all colored non-tramplers. It's really hard for any 3rd color to compete with green's Sylvan, Berserk (doubles as removal), Decay, and Trophy (potentially maindeck anti-Depths).

  17. #157

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Splashing is generally very awkward in this deck, because most of the time you will end up losing full control of either your colors or your life total when fetching up lands. This is why I always regarded the shock lands in this deck as a kind of third color that taxes your fetching decisions.

    Red really only provides Lightning Bolt, which isn't even as great with Shadows and Anglers as it is in more traditional Delver shells. Anything else Red provides green usually provides as well, such as answers to Chalice and other artifacts, plus you get Berserk as a superior Legacy version of Battle Rage. As Fox said, it also doubles as a removal spell when needed and the life loss from that is not a drawback for us.

    That only leaves red blasts as a reason to splash red. Imo Mystical Dispute is currently a very underrated card for non-red blue decks that will often do the same thing as red blast while being worse sometimes and better very rarely. The mana situation is just too bad for me to consider adding a color for this small upgrade.

    So in my eyes, if you really need the combo-finish from Berserk and/or Decays because your metagame is full of prison decks,green is an option. Otherwise, stay UB.

  18. #158

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I have played some more with the JVP version with Gargoyle in the 'Angler' slot, and Gargoyle has been performing pretty well.

    One of the major justifications for playing a split of 2 Angler and 2 Jace was that you can't afford to play 3+ Delve creatures, because you won't have enough cards in grave to exile and will brick. JVP was added both because its cardadvantage function does make sense in the deck, but also because you wanted a certain minimum density of proactive cards and there wasn't any other viable non-delve 'threat' play that exists at the 1-or-2-mana range in UB colours.

    Now with the existence of Vantress Gargoyle you can easily play 4 'Tarmogoyf', when this is not really something the deck could do before.

    For example

    4 Deaths Shadow
    4 Vantress Gargoyle
    4 Street Wraith

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Force of Will
    4 Daze
    4 Thoughtseize

    14 Blue Sources

    14 "Flex Slot" (certainly including some number of removal and wasteland)

    The matchups where Jace is clearly weaker than Gargoyle are those matchups where its 2 toughness is a liability and it dies easily. This includes Bolt decks, some of the most popular archetypes at the moment (RUG / UR Delver) but also Lands (Punishing Fire). By playing a maindeck like this with 4 Gargoyle there are no creatures that die to Lightning Bolt, which is a strong upside. Sometimes Jace is also weak to Karakas but DNT isn't super popular at the moment. (Sometimes Legendary is just annoying because you draw both of them).

    The matchups where Jace is better is against those matchups where your opponent has a lot of removal that indiscriminately kills all creatures. For example, flipping Jace against miracles can lead to a lot of card advantage over the course of a game because it's harder for that deck to kill a PW than a creature, and it lets you play multiple 'threats' onto the battlefield without having to worry about getting swept by Terminus. Jace's creature-form is equally vulnerable to UW removal as gargoyle so the 0/2 body is not a drawback here. Similarly, against decks with Baleful Strix [removal that only works on creatures that get into combat] Jace is highly effective as it doesn't need to attack to be useful, and it even nulls Strix to allow your other creatures to attack.

    Against combo decks it's difficult to be certain. For example against storm, Jace might allow you to flashback a Thoughtseize or even a Hymn, which is very strong, but casting Gargoyle instead might mean that the opponent loses the game 1 or more turns earlier. You can make similar judgments against most other kinds of decks e.g. Depths or Stoneblade where in different situations either card could be stronger. In general Jace is probably the more powerful card if the low toughness doesn't matter, but because Bolt is so popular at the moment it seems like it could be worth making this switch and then maybe adjusting the other numbers to compensate for the fact that the maindeck will inevitably slant more aggressive.

    For example, the list I recently played was the above (with 2-2 Jace/Gargoyle) with

    3 wasteland
    2 Dismember
    1 Push
    2 reanimate
    3 hymn
    1 Force of Negation
    2 Preordain

    Losing the Jace makes me possibly want the 4th Hymn as another source of card advantage against control decks. It also helps to put cards in the opponents graveyard so that Gargoyle can attack. In my experience it's rare that you want to cast the Gargoyle very early when it can't attack, as you typically want to soften the opponent up with TS/Hymn first, then land Gargoyle after, and usually by this time Gargoyle can attack naturally (without having to activate its tap effect). I don't think it will be necessary to play many (if any) cards like Thought Scour to enable it. Reanimate is possibly not necessary (or at least, it is less necessary) because we have already increased the number of attackers in the deck by 2. I will probably keep playing the same mix of removal, although some people are having success with Snuff Out.

    The other thing that I think might work well with Gargoyle is Stubborn Denial, both because it makes sense with a more aggressive tempo plan (-2 CA engine +2 Flying beatstick) but also obviously that gargoyle is an unconditional 5/4 that enables Ferocious easily from turn 2. One drawback with Stub in my previous build is that it didn't synergize well with Jace (JVP doesn't enable Ferocious and can't really flash it back).

    So I suggest a speculative build like
    3 Wasteland
    4 Hymn to Tourach
    2 Dismember
    1 Push
    2 Stubborn Denial
    1 Reanimate
    1 Preordain (or maybe a thought scour)

    It would be fun to play a card like Deep Analysis in the preordain spot to try and Brainstorm it to the top and then mill it with the gargoyle, but this is probably too silly. Field of Dreams / Lantern would be a similarly daft idea. (The idea of a Lantern lock isn't terrible but it's too hard to get multiple Gargoyles). It's possible that the 4th wasteland could be added over a reanimate/preordain. Not having Jace means that the deck can more reasonably afford to play Cage in the SB, which is notable.

    The deck is not using its own graveyard at all now (barring Reanimate), so it's possible that this is a missed opportunity, and should still be playing 1 Angler or something.

    The SB should still be mostly the same, with the hope that the stubs and the 4th Hymn can make up for the loss of the Jaces against control decks.

    Anyway I will try out this version of the deck this week, let me know what you think of this idea. I'm also very tempted in this meta to try to fit 1-2 basic lands but I'm not 100% sure.

  19. #159
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Izor View Post
    Splashing is generally very awkward in this deck, because most of the time you will end up losing full control of either your colors or your life total when fetching up lands. This is why I always regarded the shock lands in this deck as a kind of third color that taxes your fetching decisions.

    Red really only provides Lightning Bolt, which isn't even as great with Shadows and Anglers as it is in more traditional Delver shells. Anything else Red provides green usually provides as well, such as answers to Chalice and other artifacts, plus you get Berserk as a superior Legacy version of Battle Rage. As Fox said, it also doubles as a removal spell when needed and the life loss from that is not a drawback for us.

    That only leaves red blasts as a reason to splash red. Imo Mystical Dispute is currently a very underrated card for non-red blue decks that will often do the same thing as red blast while being worse sometimes and better very rarely. The mana situation is just too bad for me to consider adding a color for this small upgrade.

    So in my eyes, if you really need the combo-finish from Berserk and/or Decays because your metagame is full of prison decks,green is an option. Otherwise, stay UB.
    I really like the Berserk idea, it's definitely appealing. Having access to Abrupt Decay and Sylvan Library could be amazing. Berserk would be pretty amazing to finish off games (especially where I'm trying to jam Dreadnoughts in my list instead of Anglers.)
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  20. #160

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I've been tinkering with Vantress Gargoyles as well and the card has been performing very well, though I think I wouldn't want to miss out on Thought Scour to power up both Gargoyles and Anglers. Otherwise it's a really bad card in a lot of matchups, especially against combo decks where it really hurts when it can't attack early on. Just tapping it every turn is very slow.

    I've been testing two different approaches with Gargoyle. One is similar to kombatkiwi's above, with Gargoyle as my 3rd creature of choice besides Shadow and Angler. I don't see a reason to cut Anglers from the deck because Gargoyle actually helps it and Thought Scour powers up both of them as well as Reanimate and Liliana potentially. I've been testing something like this:

    4 Shadow
    3 Wraith
    2 Gargoyle
    2 Angler

    4 Force
    3 Daze
    4 Brainstorm
    3 Ponder
    3 Thought Scour
    3 Hymn
    1 Liliana
    1 Reanimate
    4 Thoughtseize
    1 Stubborn Denial
    1 Drown in the Loch
    1 Push
    1 Dismember
    1 Snuff

    18 Land (4 Waste, 3 Grave, 2 Usea, 1 Swamp, 8 black Fetch)

    The other approach I've been taking is playing something more similar to the UB Delver lists that have been putting up some 5-0s lately. They use Gargoyle to complete their mostly evasive creature base and play a more standard Delver game while sticking to two colors and I've been having good results with that. Not having to start games at 10 life is a real relief when you've played Shadow for so long. It's something like this:

    9 Fetch
    1 Swamp
    2 Island
    2 Usea
    4 Waste

    4 Delver
    3 Gargoyle
    3 Angler
    2 Brazen Borrower

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Thought Scour
    5 Force
    4 Daze
    2 Drown in the Loch
    4 Thoughtseize
    3 Push

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