The Best Death’s Shadow In Modern Is Not Grixis

At the conclusion of the Season Two Invitational at SCG CON Winter a couple of weeks ago, all eyes were on Pioneer. The new format has certainly gotten the lion’s share of the attention in Magic recently, and for good reason. It’s dynamic, fresh, and full of powerful interactive decks without being broken the same way as Modern. It’s got this sense of Wild West about it, where it seems like every other deck could be the next format-breaker. And it’s still relatively accessible, with decks like Mono-Black Aggro and Golgari Midrange offering top-tier power without costing $1000 (yet!).

Contrast that with Modern, where we’ve got Urza, Lord High Artificer smashing the competition, with occasional appearances by Mono-Green Tron, Burn, Humans, and various Death’s Shadow builds.

In fact, just this past weekend, Brian Coval won Grand Prix Columbus with his take on the Whirza archetype (now with Karn, the Great Creator instead of Whir of Invention!).

This is another step in the arms race that started when Whirza first vaulted to the top of the format in the wake of the Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and Faithless Looting bans. Now that Oko, Thief of Crowns has become the industry standard as the mid-game bridge to Urza, the next step is Karn, the Great Creator to shut down the opposition and lock out mirror matches.

Balancing the four-drops in a deck like this is critical, though, because at a certain point you can become clogged on Urza, Karn, or Cryptic Command. This arms race has created something of an Achilles’ heel in the Urza macro-archetype, one that might be exploitable.

Now, to be fair, this is going to be a tough nut to crack. Modern has a boogeyman, and the format would get a whole lot better with Mox Opal banned. But if there are a ton of expensive payoffs flying around the format at four mana, it seems like the right time to play cards that prey on exactly this type of strategy.

I’m talking, of course, about Stubborn Denial and Thoughtseize.

What a surprise! Quietly occupying five of the Top 16 slots in the Season Two Invitational was our own old favorite, Grixis Death’s Shadow. 

Even more interesting, all the lists were pretty much the same. The maindeck for Grixis Death’s Shadow has converged hard, with seventeen lands, one copy of The Royal Scions, and a single flex slot for a Kolaghan’s Command, a Serum Visions, or a fun-of one-of depending on whom you ask. Personally, I place the blame squarely at the feet of Ben Jones and Michael Rapp, who tirelessly advocate for Death’s Shadow all day long on Twitter while not brewing up different lists in their super-secret group chat. Those folks really know how to market a Death’s Shadow decklist, and though some of our choices on the flex slots may differ depending on the week, I have nothing but respect for their dedication to their game.

The revitalization of Grixis Death’s Shadow, which is stock and standard at this point, is not without a valid reason. The deck preys on ponderous Urza strategies. A perfect sequence of “discard, threat, counterspell” usually spells game over for Whirza, and Kolaghan’s Command is the perfect card to fight back against Emry, Lurker of the Loch or Gilded Goose at an advantage. In general, Grixis Death’s Shadow (especially with sideboard copies of Mystical Dispute) is a very strong choice to fight against Team Urza.

But a resolved Oko, Thief of Crowns is still a fairly impossible brick wall to fight through. It shuts off the big threats, downgrading the big creatures from Death’s Shadow into Elks. It gains life in a pinch, and churns out a massive army of 3/3 creatures nonstop.

There’s really only one clean answer for Oko in Modern, and we see it make an appearance here in Russell Lee’s 8-0 Modern deck from that Invitational:

Abrupt Decay (and to a lesser extent Assassin’s Trophy) is the answer to Oko. Oko is also a decent answer to Oko, if only by virtue of providing some counterplay with Elks of its own. 

Additionally, because of Traverse the Ulvenwald (and Once Upon a Time) the four-color deck actually has a noticeably higher density of creatures than the Grixis version, which is of critical importance when trying to overload an opposing Oko with multiple large creatures in one turn.

On the other hand, the downside of the Traverse version of Death’s Shadow is that it has no threats that are immune to Engineered Explosives. The powerful artifact can blow up Death’s Shadows or Tarmogoyfs with ease, and if Emry is on the battlefield, you can say goodbye to ever punching through damage.

Collector Ouphe was a pretty good answer to the Engineered Explosives madness, at least until Oko came along and brought a universal answer to hate creatures in a neat three-mana package.

Gurmag Angler, in theory, is the threat to beat all other threats in the matchup, though it’s just as vulnerable as anything to being Elked by Oko. 

One has to consider the semi-mirror as well. It’s gone back and forth over the years, as the Traverse version of the deck has shifted around from Jund to Jund splashing Lingering Souls to incorporating Stubborn Denial, to Jund with Wrenn and Six to today’s Oko Death’s Shadow.

When there was no planeswalker better than Liliana of the Veil for the Traverse version to play, the Snapcaster Mages of Grixis Death’s Shadow put it a half-step ahead in the semi-mirror. The fact that Fatal Push hits all of the creatures in Traverse Death’s Shadow but misses Gurmag Angler from Grixis Death’s Shadow also mattered a lot.

Then with Nurturing Peatland and Wrenn and Six, the matchup shifted around again, as a stuck Wrenn and Six will quickly snowball into an insurmountable advantage for the Jund version of the deck.

Now Oko fills a similar role, but the real mirror-breaker is Veil of Summer, which flips Fatal Push on its head and makes a lot of Grixis Death’s Shadow’s sequencing incredibly awkward and vulnerable. Getting a removal spell countered and falling down a card is just a massive kick in the teeth. 

Considering all the differences, there are a few options that pop out. The first is to stick with classic Grixis Death’s Shadow, but the issues inherent in beating a resolved Oko make it a bit dicey. Add in the lack of a proper Nurturing Peatland alternative (as Fiery Islet really doesn’t cut it) and the higher fail rate, and Grixis Death’s Shadow looks less and less appealing.

The second is to pick up a list similar to Russell Lee’s build. With Traverse the Ulvenwald and Once Upon a Time, the consistency has never been higher. This deck will not miss its critical third land drop as often, nor will it fumble around with Thought Scours in an attempt to churn up the cards it needs. 

I can’t overstate enough my dislike for Assassin’s Trophy as a card, though, and recommend Abrupt Decay unreservedly as the removal spell of choice for killing Oko. A mix of Dismember, Decay, and Fatal Push is certainly sufficient, unless there’s a specific need to combat Tron.

(Side note: even against Mono-Green Tron, Assassin’s Trophy isn’t that great. You’re spending a turn and a card to keep them off Tron, but their entire deck is full of cards that find them their pieces, and you aren’t pressuring them when you cast a Trophy. Better to rely on Damping Sphere and a fast clock.)

The third option is to sidestep Oko and move back on Wrenn and Six. Jund Death’s Shadow is always a solid option, and it does not get the attention it deserves. In fact, in recent months I’ve only heard a few people advocate for it, most notably Andrew “The Monarch” Jessup and recent Mythic Invitee Kat Light. But it’s still enough to make me sit up and pay attention. Obviously Stubborn Denial is a major loss when it comes to fighting Mono-Green Tron and various Urza decks, but the simpler manabase and grindy Wrenn-Peatland engine is worth quite a lot. 

Consider the following:

The sideboard is, of course, a work in progress, but the idea is to be sort of like a Jund deck that just plays Death’s Shadow instead of clunky Bloodbraid Elf. Bloodbraid Elf and Lightning Bolt are just not that great right now, and by lowering the deck’s virtual land count, we have created a Jund list that doesn’t flood and doesn’t get manascrewed, while simultaneously presenting a high density of threats.

Think of it like Jund, but you get to cut all the bad or slow cards for cheap or broken cards.

And yes, you get to sideboard in Veil of Summer against them, but the opposite isn’t necessarily true. Also, in the battle of the Veils (Veil of Summer against Liliana of the Veil), Veil of Summer comes out looking pretty darn strong.

The truth is, there are more and more reasons to be green in Modern nowadays, and fewer to be Grixis. Green gives multiple cheap or free avenues for card selection on par with blue’s, and the countermagic in green is more powerful (if a bit narrower) than blue’s.

Consider Once Upon a Time against Serum Visions. The upside of Once Upon a Time is that it costs zero mana on the turn you need it to cost zero mana, and it digs deeper for the threat you need in the mid-game. In exchange, you can’t dig for Temur Battle Rage or Fatal Push or a counterspell with it, you’d need to have creatures that fill a similar role (such as Ghor-Clan Rampager or Plague Engineer).

Or consider Veil of Summer against Stubborn Denial. In exchange for being narrow and only working against removal, counterspells, and discard, Veil of Summer is always “on” (compared to needing ferocious for Stubborn Denial) and, more importantly, it draws a card. That’s insane.

We’re trading flexibility for power when we shift from blue cards to green cards, and it’s worth it in contemporary Modern.

Not to say that Grixis isn’t fully capable of winning a tournament these days, but if I were going into battle tomorrow, I’d look to tune a green-based version of Death’s Shadow as much as possible and prepare for lots of Oko decks. Think Sultai splashing Temur Battle Rage, Jund, or even some weird amalgamation that incorporates Oko and Wrenn and Six (if the manabase can be made sturdy enough to support those two in a Death’s Shadow deck).

That, or just play some blend of Oko and Urza myself. The deck really is dumb, basically a “who’s who” of all the stupid-good cards printed in 2019: Oko; Emry; Urza; Arcum’s Astrolabe; and even Karn, the Great Creator. Top it off with the most powerful card in Modern (Mox Opal) and you make a good case for a true Tier 0 deck.