Modern Mayhem: Dimir Shadow (Modern, Magic Online)
Its been a minute since we played some Modern. Death's Shadow is back on the rise so we had to try a Dimir variant that cuts the red to try out some other cards with the free deck slots!
Gameplan
By now we've seen Death's Shadow decks running around punching themselves. The difference this time is we're removing the red. We're still playing the midrange style but by cutting red we have a smoother manabase which means we can load up on Islands so that means we can play Mystic Sanctuary !
With Mystic Sanctuary, we'll be able to play Cryptic Command multiple times as one of my favorite lines of play is to Cryptic Command and then bounce the Mystic Sanctuary back and draw a card or counter a spell. We follow that up with either a Thought Scour or something to immediately draw our cryptic and etc. Also we get all of our removal spells all over again which is relevant as we don't have something like Temur Battlerage to win out of nowhere. Speaking of removal....
Drown in the Loch feels perfect in a Shadow deck as we have so much removal and disruption that it shouldn't be hard to fill an opponent's yard up. This isn't even counting how fast opponents will also fill up their own yards. The versatility of this card has been amazing.
Another card that seems fun to try out is Brazen Borrower. I'm a huge fan of this card so any chance I can play this, I probably will. Its just another versatile card that can buy us the tempo that we need to swing the game back in our favor. Its also a 3/1 flying threat which isn't a joke considering that it doesn't easily get Fatal Pushed.
Matchups
We play a little more like a control deck with all of our counter and removal spells but the nice thing is we can turn the corner with a big Death's Shadow so I imagine our Tron matchup will be okay. We just need to be ready for the Chalice of the Void because that card wrecks us. Luckily, we have Cryptic Command to help bounce it. However, the one thing we don't have is a sweeper so if a deck like Humans goes wide, we're in a lot of trouble. Luckily we have three copies of Plague Engineer but be careful to not fall too far behind. Oh, and Burn can be a weird back and forth dance as we don't really have the Temur Battle Rage to close out the game randomly so try not to shock randomly. Lastly, the artifacts deck is a rough one and almost unbeatable once their engine is online so make sure you're absolutely prepared to beat an Oko, Thief of Crowns. Not having access to Kolaghan's Command means our recursion comes from Tasigur, the Golden Fang.
Conclusion
The deck finished with a record of 3-2. We might've been able to go to 4-1 had I not misclicked but it happened and I can't take it back. However, I absolutely love Drown in the Loch and the Brazen Borrower. I feel the power that red brings is much better as I sorely missed having something like a Kolaghan's Command. Also, The Royal Scions and Temur Battle Rage gives us trample and ways to not just get chump blocked by small creatures. The Thought Erasure was just another discard spell that could help us fix our draws but to be honest, as a singleton I can't give a clear answer if its good enough for modern or if it could just be an Inquisition of Kozilek. Here's a rough draft of a Grixis build I'd like to try at some point
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
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