The Truth about Death’s Shadow

Death’s Shadow can’t win anymore; There are no good matchups and people have figured out the deck.

I began to believe in that statement. After pouring my heart and soul into Traverse Shadow, I began to accept that it no longer had favorable matchups across the top decks of the format.  The emergence of Humans took a large chunk out of my win percentage. On top of that, Hollow One rose to prominence, pushing Traverse Shadow further out of the format. I put down Shadow for the Star City Games Team Open in Baltimore, grabbed Humans, and put up a measly 5-3. My team would end up missing Day Two.

I was really frustrated that my deck was no longer had a place in the format.  

A couple weeks later, I saw Grixis Shadow trending upwards, despite my own reservations with the deck. I thought it was an inbred version of Traverse Shadow and was, ultimately, an inferior deck overall, but had better game against fair decks. The versions I began to see had Mishra’s Bauble in it, a card that was very near and dear to my heart. So I decided to take it for a spin and was getting decent results. Then I saw Ben Friedman Top 8 GP Vegas.

Ben Friedman's Death's Shadow

Creatures (16) 4 Gurmag Angler 4 Death's Shadow 4 Snapcaster Mage 4 Street Wraith Spells (23) 1 Fatal Push 2 Temur Battle Rage 3 Stubborn Denial 2 Faithless Looting 4 Thought Scour 2 Dismember 2 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Thoughtseize 3 Lightning Bolt Artifacts (4) 4 Mishra’s Bauble

Lands (17) 2 Scalding Tarn 2 Blood Crypt 1 Steam Vents 2 Watery Grave 4 Polluted Delta 4 Bloodstained Mire 1 Swamp 1 Island Sideboard (15) 2 Abrade 1 Ceremonious Rejection 2 Liliana, the Last Hope 2 Collective Brutality 2 Kolaghan’s Command 1 Stubborn Denial 1 Disdainful Stroke 2 Engineered Explosives 2 Grim Lavamancer

I liked what Ben’s deck was doing. Having six cards that fill up the graveyard and four Baubles meant that Nasty Gurmasty was showing up turn two more often than normal. After playing a few leagues, I began to notice some flaws in his list: it was less consistent at finding interaction without Serum Visions. Thought Scour is a very odily designed cantrip and the actual cantrip aspect of the card is pretty weak; It basically just cycling one. What makes Thought Scour playable is the enabling of Gurmag Angler and Snapcaster Mage. Because of this, it was difficult to set myself up without the ability to Scry.  Ben’s Snapcasters were also weaker than in previous iterations because of the specific card selection and play style of the deck. Faithless Looting is both a spell that you don’t want to flash back and doesn’t play well aside Snapcaster Mage. Snapcaster is often three mana play, but after sideboard it becomes a four or five mana play. Faithless Looting wants you to discard lands that are necessary to enable Snap + Flashback spell, so there’s a natural tension with Snapcaster.

After a few leagues I began testing this:

Dylan Hovey's Death's Shadow

Creatures (15) 4 Death's Shadow 4 Gurmag Angler 4 Street Wrath 3 Snapcaster Mage Spells (25) 2 Dismember 2 Faithless Looting 2 Fatal Push 2 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Stubborn Denial 2 Temur Battle Rage 2 Thought Scour 4 Thoughtseize 2 Lightning Bolt 4 Serum Visions Artifacts (3) 3 Mishra's Bauble

Lands (17) 1 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 1 Island 4 Polluted Delta 3 Scalding Tarn 1 Steam Vents 1 Swamp 2 Watery Grave Sideboard (15) 2 Abrade 2 Ceremonious Rejection 2 Engineered Explosives 2 Grim Lavamancer 2 Kolaghan’s Command 2 Liliana, the Last Hope 2 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Stubborn Denial

I was winning a lot, which quite frankly surprised me, I didn’t think the deck was well positioned and I thought that people had figured out Shadow. I didn’t want to get to excited about my results. Instead, I wanted to find the truth and not be clouded by own bias. To do this, I decided to run the deck through 100 matches on Magic Online while keeping statistics. In order to control the test, I figured that I had to keep the same list (even though I switch a Scalding Tarn for a second Blood Crypt for the last 15 or so matches). I would drop as soon as I had three loses due to the lower quality of opponents and decks, and track my constructed rating throughout the process to make sure that if I was winning I was just dominating inferior competition. The results were great; my rating hovered between 1770 and 1825, while maintaining a 67% win rate. The statistics began to paint a picture:

It’s a small sample size with respect to individual matchups, but the total volume of games is enough to get a feel about what’s important and how the cards line up. While I may not have the true matchup percentages, a win rate of 67% (while streaming some of those) definitely shows that deck is inherently powerful. I still believe that Thoughtseize, Street Wraith, and Death’s Shadow is the most powerful core of any Modern deck and I believe these numbers can back that up.

I was surprised with a lot of these numbers, particularly the Control, Humans, and Hallowed matchups. I came into this project thinking that Humans and Hollow One were poor match ups as that’s how it was with Traverse Shadow. My wins against Humans were mostly 2-1s where my sideboard saved the day. I went 1-7 against Humans in game one while picking up quite a bit of percentage points after sideboard. Death’s Shadow has so many dead cards against Humans, so the Faithless Looting really shines. Despite my game one record being poor, all of my games where I drew looting were close as I’d filter out the duds. Hollow One was also a surprise, the games played out very odily I felt behind in the early in game, but ahead once I removed their first large creature or played Death’s Shadow that could tangle with big fish. I found that my advantage wayned the longer the game went, Bloodghast ultimately gave my opponent the inevitability, so it was important to quickly turn the corner.  Something worth noting: before the project I did add some sideboard cards for the matchup (Nihil Spellbomb and Abrade), as well as creating a very good sideboard plan.

Finally, I really beat up on the Control decks, which was surprising, my only two losses were to UW control (likely the worst match up in the format). Uncounterable wraths and mana disruption is too much to overcome. I did beat UW once, but it was a weird build and I didn’t see a Spreading Seas in three games. I went 3-0 against Grixis Control and 2-0 against Jeskai Control. The real key to those matchups was to just trade up on mana. Stubborn Denial is so back breaking for these kind of decks; I routinely could get under them as long as I dealt with Supreme Verdict and Snapcaster Mage. I was surprised how easy it was to put the Jeski players into scenarios where they had no good options with their damaged based removal. Often times, my creatures were too large and burning my face was also dangerous. Overall, I don’t think that these match ups are as good as my win percentage shows but I do think that Grixis Shadow has game against the three color control decks due to a superior efficiency and tremendous clock. The poor matchups for the deck are Jund, and UW Control. Their card quality is too high and they have just enough disruption to drag the game into deep water.

Join me tomorrow as I talk about sideboarding and discuss some tips and tricks for the deck.

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