[Primer] UB Death's Shadow

[kombatkiwi]

I've seen lists like this (the second one) and I don't like the fact that there is the tension between milling yourself (Angler) and milling the opp (Drown, Gargoyle). The Shadow list with Angler and Scour also has this problem (and you're making extremely questionable trims to fit all of this, like only playing 3 Wraiths and 3 Ponders etc). The upside of playing e.g. 4 Gargoyle and 0 Angler (or vice-versa) in a list with thoughtscour is that you always know who you want to be targeting.

I agree that there is probably a deck that can afford to play both Angler and Gargoyle but if I have to play so many Thought Scours to enable it I'm probably not interested. I agree that even in a list without scour its probably correct to have at least 1 angler split with gargoyle because it's 'better' and the first 1-2 are without a significant drawback.

But yeah overall I don't like Scour much, I think it makes more sense not to play Delver in UB and then it seems better to have Hymn as a sufficient "put 2 cards in my opponent's graveyard" effect. Spending 1 mana just to cycle and mill 2 is not really something I'm interested in doing

edit: I will say that the drawback of "it's so underwhelming when you play this turn 2 vs combo and it can't attack" is possibly overstated because the comparison is with Delve cards that aren't even typically castable in this timeframe. At least gargoyle gives you the option to play it on turn 2 if you have nothing else to spend your mana on and then hold up countermagic for later turns