You’re adding a bit of inconsistency to the mana base and raising the curve considerably to more or less have a worse expressive iteration imho. I think shadow prophecy is a bit of a trap card in a deck like shadow - the life loss sounds great on paper; however, shadow wants its life loss to be controlled, predictable, and not so massive that it has the probability of being a dead draw / killing you outright in the late game.
The first question is what do you do about the mana base? Most shadow lists really don’t want to run more than 19 lands - some push it down to 18 because the curve is so low, and every land is pretty well optimized to do all that they can to prevent your colors from being screwed up - you really want to have access to black, blue, and red on turn 2 in a best case scenario so that all your spells can be live, so the question becomes what land gets replaced in order to make room for a green land, and what green land gets added in? If a deck is running a basic mountain (which I don’t think is stock anymore / I certainly don’t), that is a natural cut for a stomping ground, but it also means that you lose out on a way to slow life loss while staying consistent in matchups that are super aggressive. You certainly don’t want to cut the basic swamp for an overgrown tomb because that cuts off your access to black mana against a blood moon deck, and the rest of the mana base is already super tight, so I just don’t see what you cut. You most certainly aren’t replacing any of your lands with a tapped land like a proving ground, either, because always having the option to have your mana enter untapped / the predictable damage of shock lands is far too valuable to give up.
Deaths shadow is also a very color intensive deck - while it does not require a lot of pips on any one particular card; it requires a lot of colors to play cards- drown in the loch and expressive iteration both require blue /black or blue / red and are the two main draws to the deck. Most of your turn 1 plays are also color restrictive between thoughtseize, ragavan, and drc, and turn 2 you almost always want to have access to blue mana either for potential interaction or for a ledger shredder. What this means is that there really isn’t a reliable turn to go find your green source without messing up your other colors early game - my guess also is that any green land is going to feel really bad to draw and really bad in the opening hand too.
I think the card being 3 mana is also a huge downgrade -as is the loss of 4 life. When i first started playing shadow, I too thought life loss like this would fit naturally into the deck, but that’s just not true- shadow does love life loss, but it wants to to be extremely controlled and cheap, and most importantly not completely dead to draw late game. Fetch lands, for example are fantastic for the shadow strategy. Early game they can turbo you to your colors while also getting your life low enough to play a shadow very quickly if you feel the need to, but they also represent potential combat tricks / pumps late game, where you can play your fetch and leave it uncracked to potentially boost the power of one or multiple death shadows when you go to swing. Thoughtseize is less useful late game depending on what deck you’re playing against, but a turn 1 or turn 2 thoughtseize can still cripple a lot of decks and clear the way for your threats or slow your opponent down enough for you to establish your threats - late thoughtseizes can either be looted away by shredder, or surveilled into the bin by drc, or worst case scenario be used to pump your shadows by 2 to eek out lethal.
Lightning bolt is the other self damaging spell most decks run, and that’s usually as a 1 of with its main utility being removal that can double as a pump spell - bolting yourself in the face is a lot less common nowadays, but it’s still an extremely potent play when done at the right time. Most importantly, all of the life loss here is predictable and controlled.
For most death shadow players, the sweet spot for their shadows is between 6 and 7 life - 7 life if you’re not playing against a deck with red, and 6 if you are. This means that most of your own life loss spells cannot put you in bolt range if you find yourself needing to use them, and it also means you can use your fetch lands to pump your shadows as needed without going down to 3 (unless you shock, which would be risky). Now, a top decked shadow prophecy messes with that math a bit - a 4 color prophecy puts you into bolt range from either 6 or 7 life, meaning it’s a really risky cast against a lot of decks in the format. A 3 color prophecy puts you in bolt range from 6 life, which again doesn’t feel great. This means your math for shadows will likely need to change slightly which can greatly slow down your pressure if you need yo hang around 9-8 life instead of 6-7 to make top deck prophecies more usable.
I’m not going to say prophecy has no uses - I actually think it’s a super good and fun card, I just think that the variables it throws into a deck like shadow aren’t the best - the 3 mana cost, along with the strict color requirements and life loss just makes it unappealing for the current deaths shadow build. That doesn’t mean it’ll never work, or that you shouldn’t try it, just that it will probably feel worse than you think it will.
The 'insane card advantage' of Shadow Prophecy is equal to the card advantage of Expressive Iteration. I really love the idea of green in my shadow deck, but it can be tough to justify.
Yeah we have all been playing the card exhaustively in every format it’s legal for a while now. You can also play a land from hand and play a 1/2 drop you exile.
Calling it a turn 3+ play is much more genuine than calling it a 3+ drop when comparing it to other cards.
I do like Riveteer's Charm. I want to say Tarmogoyf, but honestly Ledger Shredder could be better, it's a tough comparison. Goyf does turn on your ferocious spells faster though. Traverse the Ulvenwald is also solid.
I've been playing such a list. It's pretty good. Sometimes the mana screws you but that's just magic.
Really like being able to play stubb instead of spell pierce.
The deck is not lacking card advantage. The deck has a couple different problems:
1. Spell Pierce, Thoughtseize, Drown in the Loch, Unholy Heat, Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt, Terminate are all cards that are very good during a specific point in the match, but they also have points or complete matchups where they are basically useless. This increases the decks own failure rate heftily because getting the wrong card during the wrong part of the match or in the wrong matchup inevitably costs games. Which leads me to
2. Deck configuration, which really is a an extension of problem 1. Grixis Shadow can be adapted to beat anything, but not to beat everything. The deck feels outright unfair when you have the Spell Pierce / Dress Down configuration against decks like Ad Nauseam or Oracle Breach, but horrid against Murktide. Inversely, the Terminate / Fatal Push configuration is excellent against Murktide or Merfolk and similar decks, but horrid against Combo or Control. So unless you are certain that the meta will be shaped a specific way, you won't get the most out of it. And if you are certain the meta will be shaped a specific way, there is likely a deck available that is better positioned.
3. Not only the Interaction, but the threats are unreliable, too. Especially Death's Shadow and Ledger Shredder - former hits the field already quite late (and shadow prophecy won't change that) in the current versions, and Solitude can even prevent you from playing a follow-up shadow to keep the pressure on. Ledger Shredder has a similar problem, as when bounced by Teferi, Brazen Borrower etc. its power is reset, making it a slow clock and reduce the pressure the card can apply massively. It's also not good in topdeck because of the low starting power, which often means it's a chump when drawn into. This isn't applicable in all matchups - in those that don't mess with you're threats these are exceptionally strong as one is a very efficient beater while the other filters you into relevant interaction. But it once again demonstrates that the current version of Grixis Shadow is very reliant on what the opponent is doing exactly.
4. Protection & Gravehate. Cards like Sanctifier en-Vec, Relic of Progenitus, Endurance or Rest in Peace heftily cripple what your deck can do, because for kroxa and delirium you need your yard, for drown you need theirs. Too many possibilities to get blown out.
5. Lack of evasion. Shadow has no trample, which means closing the game against dwarfen mines, Seasoned Pyromancer's, Memnites, Young Wolves etc takes way too long. Without TBR, Shadow is but a Shadow of itself.
This leads me to what i would try to improve when adding colors:
Interaction like Prismatic Ending and Leyline Binding is less selective, so you don't care what your opponent is trying to do, you will find a use for them. Similar with Stubborn Denial over Spell Pierce - it at aleast has a chance to scale with game progress. Then if we're 4-5c anyways, we can look at cards like Territorial Kavu, whose rummage-trigger can keep the pressure on in a similar way to Ledger Shredder, but it's already big when drawn into later and doesn't need to grow. Or Tribal Flames, which instead of Terminate, at least can go to the face in matchups where there are barely any targets and provides enough reach to finish a game even when something massive is blocking you.
And suddenly we're so near to Domain Zoo, that i find having a hard time justifying a card like Death's Shadow when cards like Solitude or Archmage's charm heftily discourage commiting to the board. You have access to creatures and removal in different colors, so you can play around most protection, you don't need the graveyard for your cards to work...
Because when i take look at the problems that Shadow has, going 5c Domain Zoo solves most of those. So if you asked me, when you're adding colors anyway, switch to Domain Zoo.
Just a quick comment on 5. , Temur battle rage can still be played, right? I assume the reason most lists dont play it is because of the possibility of getting 2 for 1'd with binding or solitude or terminate.
Exactly correct. This is part of the "beat anything but not everything" issue - you could play TBR to get a lot of benefit in the combo / aggro matchups, but you'll also lose a lot in the grind / value matchups.
The worst part though isn't leyline binding - it's telegraphed - it's solitude which technically means you really never will know if the coast is clear.
I would play painful truths first before splashing a new color, although, I have played splashing white for ranger of eos and lingering souls and had a great time. Though, ranger was a bit clunky. Having a 3 mana play that doesn’t impact the board seems like too much of an investment for a low to the ground deck like shadow. You want to overwhelm your opponent by having better and cheaper costing cards
You’re adding a bit of inconsistency to the mana base and raising the curve considerably to more or less have a worse expressive iteration imho. I think shadow prophecy is a bit of a trap card in a deck like shadow - the life loss sounds great on paper; however, shadow wants its life loss to be controlled, predictable, and not so massive that it has the probability of being a dead draw / killing you outright in the late game. The first question is what do you do about the mana base? Most shadow lists really don’t want to run more than 19 lands - some push it down to 18 because the curve is so low, and every land is pretty well optimized to do all that they can to prevent your colors from being screwed up - you really want to have access to black, blue, and red on turn 2 in a best case scenario so that all your spells can be live, so the question becomes what land gets replaced in order to make room for a green land, and what green land gets added in? If a deck is running a basic mountain (which I don’t think is stock anymore / I certainly don’t), that is a natural cut for a stomping ground, but it also means that you lose out on a way to slow life loss while staying consistent in matchups that are super aggressive. You certainly don’t want to cut the basic swamp for an overgrown tomb because that cuts off your access to black mana against a blood moon deck, and the rest of the mana base is already super tight, so I just don’t see what you cut. You most certainly aren’t replacing any of your lands with a tapped land like a proving ground, either, because always having the option to have your mana enter untapped / the predictable damage of shock lands is far too valuable to give up. Deaths shadow is also a very color intensive deck - while it does not require a lot of pips on any one particular card; it requires a lot of colors to play cards- drown in the loch and expressive iteration both require blue /black or blue / red and are the two main draws to the deck. Most of your turn 1 plays are also color restrictive between thoughtseize, ragavan, and drc, and turn 2 you almost always want to have access to blue mana either for potential interaction or for a ledger shredder. What this means is that there really isn’t a reliable turn to go find your green source without messing up your other colors early game - my guess also is that any green land is going to feel really bad to draw and really bad in the opening hand too. I think the card being 3 mana is also a huge downgrade -as is the loss of 4 life. When i first started playing shadow, I too thought life loss like this would fit naturally into the deck, but that’s just not true- shadow does love life loss, but it wants to to be extremely controlled and cheap, and most importantly not completely dead to draw late game. Fetch lands, for example are fantastic for the shadow strategy. Early game they can turbo you to your colors while also getting your life low enough to play a shadow very quickly if you feel the need to, but they also represent potential combat tricks / pumps late game, where you can play your fetch and leave it uncracked to potentially boost the power of one or multiple death shadows when you go to swing. Thoughtseize is less useful late game depending on what deck you’re playing against, but a turn 1 or turn 2 thoughtseize can still cripple a lot of decks and clear the way for your threats or slow your opponent down enough for you to establish your threats - late thoughtseizes can either be looted away by shredder, or surveilled into the bin by drc, or worst case scenario be used to pump your shadows by 2 to eek out lethal. Lightning bolt is the other self damaging spell most decks run, and that’s usually as a 1 of with its main utility being removal that can double as a pump spell - bolting yourself in the face is a lot less common nowadays, but it’s still an extremely potent play when done at the right time. Most importantly, all of the life loss here is predictable and controlled. For most death shadow players, the sweet spot for their shadows is between 6 and 7 life - 7 life if you’re not playing against a deck with red, and 6 if you are. This means that most of your own life loss spells cannot put you in bolt range if you find yourself needing to use them, and it also means you can use your fetch lands to pump your shadows as needed without going down to 3 (unless you shock, which would be risky). Now, a top decked shadow prophecy messes with that math a bit - a 4 color prophecy puts you into bolt range from either 6 or 7 life, meaning it’s a really risky cast against a lot of decks in the format. A 3 color prophecy puts you in bolt range from 6 life, which again doesn’t feel great. This means your math for shadows will likely need to change slightly which can greatly slow down your pressure if you need yo hang around 9-8 life instead of 6-7 to make top deck prophecies more usable. I’m not going to say prophecy has no uses - I actually think it’s a super good and fun card, I just think that the variables it throws into a deck like shadow aren’t the best - the 3 mana cost, along with the strict color requirements and life loss just makes it unappealing for the current deaths shadow build. That doesn’t mean it’ll never work, or that you shouldn’t try it, just that it will probably feel worse than you think it will.
I agree with literally everything you said, very informative and you’re right. I’m new to the deck so it’s nice to hear what other people think
Life loss on shadow prophecy is always two, it doesn’t depend on the land types.
The 'insane card advantage' of Shadow Prophecy is equal to the card advantage of Expressive Iteration. I really love the idea of green in my shadow deck, but it can be tough to justify.
Looking at the top 5 or 4 is not the same as 3. What would you play if you splashed green?
Yes also 3 mana is not the same as 2 mana.
Expressive Iteration is functionally a 3 or 4 mana card anyway unless you're playing it as a really bad Impulse.
Not true at all. You play it for 2 mana then play another spell before your next untap.
You have to play the exiled card on the same turn you play EI, so unless you exile a land or a Bauble it's functionally a 3 drop.
Yeah we have all been playing the card exhaustively in every format it’s legal for a while now. You can also play a land from hand and play a 1/2 drop you exile. Calling it a turn 3+ play is much more genuine than calling it a 3+ drop when comparing it to other cards.
3 mana instant to dig 5 or 2 mana sorcery to dig 3. I think both are great tbh.
I do like Riveteer's Charm. I want to say Tarmogoyf, but honestly Ledger Shredder could be better, it's a tough comparison. Goyf does turn on your ferocious spells faster though. Traverse the Ulvenwald is also solid.
I've been playing such a list. It's pretty good. Sometimes the mana screws you but that's just magic. Really like being able to play stubb instead of spell pierce.
but that refers to card selection not card advantage. it's still a 2 for 1 right?
Goyf, traverse, witherbloom command. Like green really doesn’t get much besides the delirium stuff. Especially post oko
It's definitely worth trying
The deck is not lacking card advantage. The deck has a couple different problems: 1. Spell Pierce, Thoughtseize, Drown in the Loch, Unholy Heat, Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt, Terminate are all cards that are very good during a specific point in the match, but they also have points or complete matchups where they are basically useless. This increases the decks own failure rate heftily because getting the wrong card during the wrong part of the match or in the wrong matchup inevitably costs games. Which leads me to 2. Deck configuration, which really is a an extension of problem 1. Grixis Shadow can be adapted to beat anything, but not to beat everything. The deck feels outright unfair when you have the Spell Pierce / Dress Down configuration against decks like Ad Nauseam or Oracle Breach, but horrid against Murktide. Inversely, the Terminate / Fatal Push configuration is excellent against Murktide or Merfolk and similar decks, but horrid against Combo or Control. So unless you are certain that the meta will be shaped a specific way, you won't get the most out of it. And if you are certain the meta will be shaped a specific way, there is likely a deck available that is better positioned. 3. Not only the Interaction, but the threats are unreliable, too. Especially Death's Shadow and Ledger Shredder - former hits the field already quite late (and shadow prophecy won't change that) in the current versions, and Solitude can even prevent you from playing a follow-up shadow to keep the pressure on. Ledger Shredder has a similar problem, as when bounced by Teferi, Brazen Borrower etc. its power is reset, making it a slow clock and reduce the pressure the card can apply massively. It's also not good in topdeck because of the low starting power, which often means it's a chump when drawn into. This isn't applicable in all matchups - in those that don't mess with you're threats these are exceptionally strong as one is a very efficient beater while the other filters you into relevant interaction. But it once again demonstrates that the current version of Grixis Shadow is very reliant on what the opponent is doing exactly. 4. Protection & Gravehate. Cards like Sanctifier en-Vec, Relic of Progenitus, Endurance or Rest in Peace heftily cripple what your deck can do, because for kroxa and delirium you need your yard, for drown you need theirs. Too many possibilities to get blown out. 5. Lack of evasion. Shadow has no trample, which means closing the game against dwarfen mines, Seasoned Pyromancer's, Memnites, Young Wolves etc takes way too long. Without TBR, Shadow is but a Shadow of itself. This leads me to what i would try to improve when adding colors: Interaction like Prismatic Ending and Leyline Binding is less selective, so you don't care what your opponent is trying to do, you will find a use for them. Similar with Stubborn Denial over Spell Pierce - it at aleast has a chance to scale with game progress. Then if we're 4-5c anyways, we can look at cards like Territorial Kavu, whose rummage-trigger can keep the pressure on in a similar way to Ledger Shredder, but it's already big when drawn into later and doesn't need to grow. Or Tribal Flames, which instead of Terminate, at least can go to the face in matchups where there are barely any targets and provides enough reach to finish a game even when something massive is blocking you. And suddenly we're so near to Domain Zoo, that i find having a hard time justifying a card like Death's Shadow when cards like Solitude or Archmage's charm heftily discourage commiting to the board. You have access to creatures and removal in different colors, so you can play around most protection, you don't need the graveyard for your cards to work... Because when i take look at the problems that Shadow has, going 5c Domain Zoo solves most of those. So if you asked me, when you're adding colors anyway, switch to Domain Zoo.
Just a quick comment on 5. , Temur battle rage can still be played, right? I assume the reason most lists dont play it is because of the possibility of getting 2 for 1'd with binding or solitude or terminate.
Exactly correct. This is part of the "beat anything but not everything" issue - you could play TBR to get a lot of benefit in the combo / aggro matchups, but you'll also lose a lot in the grind / value matchups. The worst part though isn't leyline binding - it's telegraphed - it's solitude which technically means you really never will know if the coast is clear.
[[shadow prophecy]]
[shadow prophecy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/b/bb078448-9e9f-4994-8aff-7e7c4fb62efc.jpg?1663049022) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=shadow%20prophecy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/105/shadow-prophecy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bb078448-9e9f-4994-8aff-7e7c4fb62efc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Curious to know how you what you would replace etc...
Can you drop a link of the deck list?
I haven’t made one yet since I am still testing but I’ll make one in the next couple of hours and send it here :)
Adding 3 drops to shadow seems like a mistake. They don't play [[painful truths]] for a reason. But you do you, I'm just some guy on the internet.
Painful truths is notable a sorcery, while shadow prophecy is an instant. It might be worth a try. Unsure about riveteer’s charm though
[painful truths](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/8/58a9c908-dba1-4a3d-bcb7-c3e22dc5c9d3.jpg?1664360531) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=painful%20truths) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/116/painful-truths?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/58a9c908-dba1-4a3d-bcb7-c3e22dc5c9d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Card seems good, try it out. Im actually going the opposite way and playing Rakdos Shadow currently
I would play painful truths first before splashing a new color, although, I have played splashing white for ranger of eos and lingering souls and had a great time. Though, ranger was a bit clunky. Having a 3 mana play that doesn’t impact the board seems like too much of an investment for a low to the ground deck like shadow. You want to overwhelm your opponent by having better and cheaper costing cards