Back in Black and Blue: Death's Shadow in Legacy

Welcome to my first Legacy article in a while. I recently moved to another city in Spain: Valencia is way bigger than my previous hometown, which means a larger local Magic community and therefore some Legacy action! Thanks to a great friend, I managed to piece together a small card pool, so now I am ready to play, test, and write about one of the most intricate, intriguing, and interesting formats around.

Playing in a world full of removal such as , , and—what's worst— is a challenge. But the deck's discard and counter suite remains one of the strongest in the history of the game. There often is a path to victory, especially against Legacy's many combo strategies.

The State of the Metagame

Modern Horizons had a huge impact on the format. has made Temur Delver the new deck to beat. has found its home in Legacy once it got kicked out of Modern. is a cantrip and a mana fixer all in one. Mana bases have started to accommodate snow-covered basic lands, becoming more resilient to . The Astrolabe even provides a reliable target for 's minus ability.

Other impactful cards include , which complements as another free permission spell against unfair archetypes. Many blue decks are packing two between the main and the sideboard. is another great addition to search for basic lands rather than duals, and [Magmatic Sinknhole] offers a clean answer to big creatures and planeswalkers in red.

Shadow's Inception

Blue-Black Shadow first showed up in 2018 at Pro Tour 25th Anniversary, where Josh Utter-Leyton piloted it to a second-place finish. Previous incarnations started as rogue decks that toyed with the combination between , life-loss spells, fetch lands, and Ravnica duals to set up an alpha strike using . However, "wrapter" proved that the deck doesn't need a third color to function—quite the opposite. Being straight blue-black and able to work with just a couple of lands while being resilient to opposing s is a major upside.

I already covered the basic strategy back then, its main strengths, the budget factor that allows you to play Legacy without (m)any dual lands, and the drawbacks. Here's a summary of what remains true:

• Great matchups against combo decks due to the mixture of discard and counters
• Ability to end games quickly thanks to Shadow itself
• Worse against and go-wide decks

Another advantage when playing the pseudo-mirror versus Delver is that Temur or blue-red decks have a hard time dealing with our 5/5 Zombie Fish and the Shadow. Nevertheless there is a thin line where you have to lower your life enough to grow your Shadows, but not so much that they can finish you off via burn. Let's dig into the new additions the deck has gained in the past year and kick things of with the creature base …

Creature Suite

• 4
• 4
• 4
• 2

Nothing has changed here and our threats remain intact. Delver and Shadow are our primary ways to win. It is crucial to start pressuring our opponents as early as turn one, which Shadow cannot do. Normally, it's a good idea to start blindly with Delver, unless we already know which deck we are playing against and we have to develop our discard/mana denial instead. These days, we have to be careful not to expose our Human Wizards to . If you are on the draw, play around that card, or it will wreck your plans.

Gurmag Angler is our third threat that comes later in the game and naturally dodges removal like , , or . Additionally, there is a small chance you end up using on your own if you have the chance. Otherwise, it's pretty odd to cast the Wraith from your hand, unless the game goes super long and at that point you're probably losing.

 

Permission and Discard Spells

• 4
• 4
• 4
• 2

Here we find our only brand new main-deck inclusion. Force of Negation, as previously mentioned, is a great addition to Legacy and increases the number of free counterspells blue mages can pack to fight each other as well as unfair decks. This deck in particular suffers a lot if makes it onto the battlefield, it's almost impossible to win. Thus, having a total of six ways to counter that start is a huge improvement. Older versions tried out a wide variety of countermagic such as , , and . Denial is a must in every Shadow deck in Modern, but in this faster format the ability to counter something for free is too important to pass up. Besides, the new Force's casting cost is way more affordable compared to the older Force. The fact that it exiles the card it counters becomes relevant too when dealing with flashback cards like or dredgers such as , something to keep in mind.

The rest of the cards are pretty much usual suspects. Force of Will and are the bread and butter of every blue midrange shell, and is the perfect tool to break our opponents' plan while diminishing our life total on our path toward casting a deadly Shadow.

Rest of the Spells and Mana Base

Before we move onto the sideboard guide, let me give a quick reminder about the remaining instants and sorceries that round out the deck:

• 4
• 4
• 2
• 1
• 1

Again, the cantrips don't need further explanation. Some people run a single , but that's totally up to each player. I never felt it necessary at all, and looking at three cards is more powerful than scrying just two. This leaves four spots for removal, split here between a pair of Pushes and singletons of and . They all are maximally efficient, and the latter two can be paid, in part, with life to help grow Shadow. I have recently found Snuff Out overperforming against other Delver decks, when I was on the draw and wanted to dodge Daze on turn one to kill their Delver.

• 2
• 4
• 4
• 5 blue/black fetch lands
• 3

18 lands is the average for the archetype: a playset , three copies of so we can get our life under the magic number 13, between eight and nine fetch lands, and finally a couple of s. I have been running a basic and a for budget reasons in these last two slots. I also tried cutting one fetch land for a black Horizons land, but it wasn't worth it. I consider myself a big fan of basic lands and there are some spots where fetching basics saves you against recursive Wasteland or an early . However, you are paying a big price since sometimes you will need a dual land that doesn't hurt you. All in all, I felt comfortable playing zero and the deck can perform well without any, though I would recommend at least one copy of .

Sideboard Guide

Now we get to the main order of business on today's agenda: how to adapt the deck after game one in the current metagame. I have some crazy ideas for you that have worked for me so far. Let me know your own choices when facing the top-tier decks in the comments!

This is my build at the moment, complete with sideboard. I will try to explain every inclusion, especially the new cards that have earned a place in my 15, as well as the boarding decisions for each of the major matchups.

RUG Delver (eight cards)

• In: 2 Explosives, 2 , 2 , 2
• Out: 4 , 1 , 2 , 1–2 (on the play/draw)

This matchup is a grindy resource war, where each deck has a powerhouse card to beat. Death's Shadow and Gurmag Angler are tough to answer, whereas we have to play around and the loop; that's where our basic lands shine.

Since card advantage is key, I get rid of every Force of Will. We have to deal with their walker, with eventual burn spells, and with which can win the game if uncontested. are great here since you can two-for-one them as they run ten 2 drops between Wrenn, Arcanist, and . is extra removal, and finally Plague Engineer naming Merfolk cleanly answers and can also trade with any other threat aside from Delver.

Blue-Red Delver (same eight cards)

This matchup works similar to RUG Delver with a bit more burn to the face and instead of Wenn and Six. The sideboarding doesn't differ, although it becomes more important to keep your life total as high as possible so they don't kill you with direct damage. Explosives are even better here. The card once again hits 2 drops, but can sweep away a bunch of Elemental tokens too.

Jeskai Mentor (ten cards)

• In: 2 , 2 Scorn, 2 Engineer, 2 Narset, 1 , 1 Liliana
• Out: 4 , 2 , 2 , 1 , 1

This is probably the matchup I want to see the least. is such an annoying card for us, able to kill a Shadow for free by giving us life. We need to play around that plus the fact that can replay it from the graveyard.

I side out all the creature removal since their main threat is ; Tyrant's Scorn can kill it and can bounce our guys to save them, so it's a very flexible card. Engineer comes in to kill the prowess tokens, so by naming Monk you are nerfing their whole plan with just one card. Finally, Narset shuts off their cantrip suite and might steal some games, if you protect it from and .

Black-Green Depths (five cards)

• In: 2 , 2 , 1
• Out: 2 , 2 , 1

Against this combo deck you are not as favored as with graveyard-based ones or Storm, since they can go for the kill over and over. Thus, it's all about disrupting and pressuring them as much as you can. Tyrant's Scorn is key here to get rid of Marit Lage; I have run in the sideboard to bounce tokens repeatedly, but once opponents see it, they can play around it, and Scorn is overall on color and way more flexible.

Another route to victory is to waste one combo piece and then to hit with . A skilled player won't put himself in the position to offer you that route, nevertheless it is still worth it to add the Extractions when sideboarding.

Ad Nauseam Tendrils (six cards)

• In: 1 , 2 , 2 Narset, 1 Engineer
• Out: 2 , 2 , 1 , 1

This is a real nightmare—for them! Basically, we have the perfect mix between countermagic and discard plus cheap threats. After sideboarding we can interact with the graveyard and Narset makes their cantrips worse. Finally, a single copy of can deal with the plan. My experience showed Blue Blast is not necessary, as it has few targets to hit.

Black-Red Reanimator (five cards)

• In: 1 , 2 , 2 Scorn
• Out: 2 , 1 , 1 , 1 Angler

Yet another good deck to be paired against. The idea is similar to the Storm matchup: board out the spot removal and bring some graveyard hate. This time, tough, we keep in to try to catch their fatties and make them join our side of the table, something that makes you feel filthy if you succeed doing that.

Sneak and Show (six cards)

• In: 2 , 2 Narset, 2
• Out: 2 , 2 Push, 1 , 1

This feels like a mix between Reanimator and , albeit without the graveyard angle. Apply the same recipe of hand disruption followed by pressure and countermagic. is less exciting here than elsewhere, but at least you can bounce .

Mirror (seven cards)

• In: 2 Scorn, 2 Engineer, 2 Narset, 1 Liliana
• Out: 6 Force, 1

For the mirror match I want as many grindy cards as possible. Engineer defends the ground, Narset is card advantage and difficult to deal with, and Liliana brings back creatures from the graveyard. I take out all the Forces, since I don't want to lose extra cards.

Conclusion

This has been my personal Shadow sideboard guide. As usual, those are my own thoughts and ideas, which differ from the norm in some respects. I know that more commonly this deck plays either or proliferate cards like to deal with . However, I am a big fan of Explosives and play them over any other choice.

Please feel free to tell me what you like or dislike about my sideboarding. Legacy has a wide range of decks and I haven't covered all of them, but I will continue to work on my list. As usual, thank you so much for reading and please leave your comments or questions below or hit me up on my shared Twitter account.

Until next time,
Rodrigo Martin

---

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily Cardmarket.