[deck] BWx Shadow

[BloodyRabbit]

Is someone still playing it? I'm enjoying running Ranger-Captain of Eos right now.

This is the list I'm set on:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Lands (19)

4 Polluted Delta

3 Marsh Flats

3 Flooded Strand

2 Watery Grave

1 Godless Shrine

1 Hallowed Fountain

1 Swamp

1 Plains

1 Island

2 Silent Clearing

Creatures (18)

4 Street Wraith

4 Death's Shadow

4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

3 Ranger-Captain of Eos

3 Gurmag Angler

Spells (23)

4 Thoughtseize

2 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Stubborn Denial

4 Thought Scour

4 Path to Exile

4 Fatal Push

1 Collective Brutality

Sideboard (15)

2 Collective Brutality

2 Engineered Explosives

2 Celestial Purge

1 Disenchant

3 Nihil Spellbomb

2 Rest In Peace

3 Disdainful Stroke

Approximate Total Cost:

I'm enjoying the lone Brutality maindeck, as it both saves one slot for the sideboard and it edges a little bit the Burn/MRPhoenix matchup after the inclusion of Silent Clearing. I would also like to make space for three Yixlid Jailer, in spite of the two RIP and another card. But slots aren't free.

I play four Jace instead of Snapcaster for several reasons. First, this deck really lacks two drops. Unless we open with Scour-Angler or Discard (or the very rare moments when we deploy Shadow on turn two) we have no real openings. Jace act as either a lightning Rod or a filtering device, and when it flips usually we can profit from more than one flashback. Another point are the blue sources. We tend to fetch black and white aggressively, so it's difficult to have double blue available in the early game, and one of the most appealing aspects of Snapcaster is being able to flashback Stubborn Denial.

Let me know if you guys are also meddling with the archetype!

[Wolffman]

Is someone still playing it? I'm enjoying running Ranger-Captain of Eos right now.
Let me know if you guys are also meddling with the archetype!

Hi,

I'm still working on shadow, but I'm not sure if esper or mardu is the direction I'll be going in. I'm pretty convinced that between path to exile and the new cards Silent clearing and ranger-captain of eos we want to be B/W/x. A few copies of Unearth have really strong synergy with ranger captain as well and feel like a good addition.

Ironically I fell like the new horizon land is our biggest upgrade. Silent clearing has been amazing by giving us near perfect control over our life total as well as fixing a bunch of our mana problems. We can mitigate flooding by cycling the land later in the game and we can confidently run around 20 lands now to hit our first 3 land drops and have more keep-able opening hands. To me fixing these basic issues with the shadow archetype will fundamentally make us stronger and more consistent, even without a major power upgrade to other cards in the deck.

I agree with you that a 2 drop is something that the grixis lists have always been missing. I think JVP is fine up to 2 copies, but I'm not really down to play any more of any effect like that in a shadow deck. My gut says that Dreadhorde Arcanist may be the best two drop, which is pulling me in the direction of mardu. It can play a similar value game that JVP offers with repeated flashbacks, but I feel like it brings a more aggressive slant to the deck and snowballs similarly to Dark Confidant if not removed immediately. It may be my bias, but I feel that the deck wants to be aggressive and not play especially long games, so JVP doesn't feel on strategy for my play-style. The only other red cards I'm running in the main-deck are 2 faithless looting and 1 copy of temur battle rage making it a very light splash.

It feels like there is a lot of unexplored space with the new B/W shadow builds and it may be a while until we discover all of the different ways to combine the new cards into a cohesive strategy. I'm still working on my mardu list, but I can post it here for discussion when I finish my first draft. Maybe change the title of the thread to B/W/x shadow so people can share different ideas here and we can see how lists are developing?

[BloodyRabbit]

I also tried - intensively - Mardu. While I liked some points (Arcanist is a great card, the possibility of playing TBR is another) IMHO there's no way that playing less than four Stubborn Denial is correct. They are simply too strong in the metagame. Another point is having access to Delve threats quite consistently, and Mardu only really relies on Shadows (if they get Surgicaled, for example, you're pretty much done for). Jace acts as a slightly worse Arcanist, but I do like it in matchups where they sb Rest In Piece or Leyline of the Void, acting as a filtering for more useful cards.

Unearth is obviously strong, but imho it's a winmore. And winmore cards should be avoided. We already have several ways to deploy a threat without making ourselves even more susceptible to Grave hate, I do agree on Silent Clearing, it's pretty much a major change for the archetype.

I don't know if it's correct to discuss about BWx Shadow variants in the same topic, it would be fine by me, but I dunno if it would be the same for mods.

[Wolffman]

I figured I would post my working draft for mardu here in case anyone is interested:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Lands

3 Bloodstained Mire

4 Marsh Flats

3 Arid Mesa

1 Sacred Foundry

2 Godless Shrine

1 Blood crypt

1 Swamp

1 Plains

4 Silent Clearing

Creatures

4 Street Wraith

4 Death's Shadow

3 Dreadhorde Arcanist

3 Ranger-Captain of Eos

2 Gurmag Angler

Spells

4 Thoughtseize

3 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Path to Exile

2 Fatal Push

2 Lightning Bolt

4 Mishra's Bauble

2 Faithless Looting

2 Unearth

1 Temur Battle Rage

Sideboard

2 Collective Brutality

1 Plague Engineer

1 Grim Lavamancer

3 Surgical Extraction

1 Wear

1 Abrade

1 Kolaghan's Command

2 Nihil Spellbomb

3 Lingering Souls

Approximate Total Cost:

I think that the high number of fetch-lands, street wraiths, and baubles make a couple of delve threats an option without dipping in blue for thought scour, which I don't like as I feel that bauble is so much better for 0 zero mana. I like that this build has a higher threat density than grixis and am hoping that it has the ability to get on-board more consistently and clock the opponent fast enough to make up for the loss of stubborn denial. I'll try to do some play testing to see if my first take on these numbers needs to be tuned at all. Let me know what you think.

[BloodyRabbit]

I had another good result (3-1) with the Esper list.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Lands (19)

4 Polluted Delta

3 Marsh Flats

2 Flooded Strand

2 Watery Grave

2 Godless Shrine

1 Hallowed Fountain

1 Swamp

1 Plains

1 Island

2 Silent Clearing

Creatures (18)

4 Street Wraith

4 Death's Shadow

4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

3 Ranger-Captain of Eos

3 Gurmag Angler

Spells (23)

4 Thoughtseize

2 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Stubborn Denial

4 Thought Scour

4 Path to Exile

4 Fatal Push

1 Teferi, Time Raveler

Sideboard (15)

2 Collective Brutality

2 Engineered Explosives

2 Celestial Purge

1 Teferi, Time Reveler

3 Nihil Spellbomb

2 Rest In Peace

3 Disdainful Stroke

Approximate Total Cost:

I lost the initial match against Elves (1-2), won the three after vs Mardu Shadow (2-0), 8-Balls (2-1) and UW Control (2-0). The list felt great, again. I would love running some real cantrips (Opt or Sleight), but there's truly no room for improvement.

In the lonely single spot I consider 'non-fixed' I tried several things in the recent past. Collective Brutality is very strong in a field of Red Prowess, Humans and Burn. Unearth was too often useless, due to Grave hate from the opponent or because I already had several threats on the board, Orzhov Charm was better most of the time, but I was still unsatisfied by it (especially not running Snapcasters, given the ability to bounce them provided by the card). Teferi, Time Raveler has been very good. While it's on par with Brutality on terms of utility, it also answers things which would otherwise make us concede in g1 (Chalice, Moon if it's not yet on the field, Bridge - even though Jace helps). The 'bounce + discard' pseudo combo was cute. I'll try to fit a second maindeck, but I don't want to cut anything else from the initial 60.


#####


Concerning Mardu, I think Tidehollow Sculler is actually the best two drop the deck can run.

[Beyondnoxx]

as a returning player I have not seen this deck before, but it looks very fun.

what it have any very bad matchups?

[BloodyRabbit]

as a returning player I have not seen this deck before, but it looks very fun.

what it have any very bad matchups?

Generally speaking, the most difficult matchups are go-wide strategies and graveyard based. Which means, between the viable decks, that you have a 40-45% chance against Dredge, Hogaak, Elves, Humans, Affinity (the normal one, Hardened Scales is actually more popular and it is way easier to handle for this list).

The good matchups are things such as Izzet Phoenix, Vizier Combo, UW Control, Infect, Amulet Titan.

But most of the metagame is between 45 and 55%, is a very balanced deck with very few lopsided matchups (in a way or another).

[Beyondnoxx]

That Sounds amazing. Is b/w token dead ?

[BloodyRabbit]

That Sounds amazing. Is b/w token dead ?

Pretty much. The only viable 'tokens' strategy in the format is Mardu Pyromancer (Young Peezy + Seasoned Pyromancer + Lingering Souls), which is already not in a good spot right now,

[Beyondnoxx]

Thats to bad. Loved b/w tokens. Might be the next Best thing. Thank you

[Wolffman]

Glad to hear the esper build is still working for you, I may try my hand at esper later and see what I can come up with.

Can we talk about tidehollow sculler for a minute? In favor of the card it's another form of disruption and a way to get on board on turn 2. It's also a 2/2 for 2 which isn't amazing, but it's on par with the other 2 drops we've been talking about (1/3 and 0/2). It seems more consistent that the other 2 drops since it does something immediately, but I'd say the ceiling is much lower than the other, repeatable effects. Why would this be the best 2 drop for mardu? Is it playable in esper since it's on color there too? I've seen it show up in some lists recently and am wondering what people think of the card and if it is really the best option at 2 mana.

[BloodyRabbit]

The point is simple. In Mardu, unlike Grixis or Esper, you can't rely on Stubborn Denial, which means that you're softer to spells that actually kills you. Sculler is another form of interaction that, even when the opponent actually have no cards in hand, unlike a cc1 discard is a critter. It beats the opponent down.

Now, I do like Arcanist quite a bit. But 1/3 and Confidant style ability < 2\2 body and istant value, in several occasions. The ceiling is much lower? Definitely. But it plays better - imho - with the other cards we play and the whole strategy.

I wouldn't run them in Esper cause Vryn's Prodigy is (even if it doesn't look like) one of the best spell in the deck, and it's a recursive Looting effect when the opponent has graveyard hate online. Eliminating all the Snaps in favor of them was one of the primary reasons why I'm having good results again with the deck.

[Wolffman]

Those are some good points regarding sculler. I could see playing a couple since they are generically good against almost every opponent.

I think you are hitting on something important with JVP which is the power of looting effects in shadow. There are so many cards that don't have value depending on the stage of the game or the opponents deck. Part of this is the fair deck syndrome where we have answers that don't line up with our opponents plan, but part of it is simply how shadow is constructed. Off the top of my head these are some of the times where looting is amazing:

• fatal push dead in hand against creature-less decks like tron
• stubborn denial dead in hand against creature decks like humans
• TBR dead in hand with no threat in play
• discard spells in hand on turn 5+ when opponent has no cards in hand
• lands 4+ in hand when we only ever need 3 to operate
• cards in hand that cost life like wraith or Thought Seize when we can't afford it

The ability to convert dead cards to something else is seriously a big deal for shadow and part of the reason I think faithless looting is good despite being card disadvantage. JVP may be a better, but slower way to loot that has big upside once it transforms. I can't say too much since I haven't played with the card. Do you ever feel like 4 copies are too many with the legendary rule? Does it ever just feel too slow at what it does?

[BloodyRabbit]

Honestly, being a turn two play that can die from removal, four copies are the perfect fit. You can also discard duplicates, if you have another in hand. But most of the time I tend to transform it, flashback a spell, play another, wait until I can flashback a second spell + transform the second Jace. Don't forget that it has some additional utility in bypassing Ensnaring Bridge and being a recursive pseudo removal spell.

Faithless Looting is definitely a good option for Grixis and Mardu, I always tend to play a pair of copies whenever I don't have Jace in my Shadow deck.