It's been awhile, but after big move for a new job, I'm back to writing for Dead on Board. And might pester them about getting the podcast going again. :) In this article, I start off by doing some theorizing about why my favorite Modern deck isn't so great, and what would need to happen to change that. But I have some non-Death's-Shadow content planned as well.

https://deadonboardmtg.com/2018/11/13/deaths-shadow-has-a-pest-control-problem/

The TL,DR? Blame Humans. But you should read it!

So i just went through the process of installing and fixing everything according to the installation guide. I configured mcm and ticked begin adventure. I create a character and when i spawn requiem wants to install. It installs and then im free for 3 seconds and then i fall to the ground and this message pops up: "The shadow of death has fallen upon you, load a previous save to continue"

I try loading the previous save but it's just the same. I do not understand this. Is it an error? Did i do something wrong during installation? I installed using express and the only error i found was in MO and it says. "There are files in your Ovrwrite mod directory : No guided fix"

Any help is appreciated. I dont want all these hours i spent installing just to be a waste.

I understand that you who have to chose between Arbiter and Thalia because they counter the fetch shock or the cantrips to play delve threats. do you think it would be possible?

Interior shot

Inside house

Zoom on TV

Mom, dad, i found cigarettes in greg's jacket.

Greg, were you smoking cigarettes?

No, dad!

well, he's lying, there no doubt about that. Greg, i'm afraid your punishment will be 4 hours in the snake pit.

Aw, man.

That'll teach him.

And luane, you've earned a day in the chamber of fire for tattling on your brother.

back to house

Augh, smoking. How does a boy like that go so wrong?

Well, they live in a crummy neighbor, lois.

The bradys?

Oh, yeah they got robbers, thugs and drug dealers, oh, you name it.

Y'all folks want some pancakes?

Eh, no thank you! See that's the worst we got is Jemima's witnesses.

Ok, so a while back I had ran Shadow of the demon Lord, using the Tales of the Demon Lord premade campaign. Personally, I really liked it, but my players did not. I'm told the main reason is because of how weak characters felt compared to other games, and how easy it was to die.

I'm currently running an unrelated game, but at some point would like to try running Zweihander. Now, to my understanding, this game is also deadly and such, being based off Warhammer Fantasy roleplay. What I want to know is it it's deadlier, or a bit more forgiving.

If it's deadlier or about the same, are there any games you guys would recommend that is similar in theme, but less deadly?

Go fuck yourself Spanish medias :)

https://twitter.com/hadrien_grenier/status/1053394626416181248

Hello. I was wondering if others here had thoughts on whether death's shadow is currently viable in historic (Arena) and if not, what do people think is missing from the format that would make it viable. I played a fair amount of orzhov, grixis and mardu death's shadow in the format before the Strixhaven archives (STA) and Jumpstart historic horizons (J21) sets added a bunch of modern and commander cards to the historic format. The deck won a decent amount of games but was never particularly great in the format. After the recent set additions, it seems to do much worse. I have tried some variations that look promising in theory, like these: https://mtgdecks.net/Historic/bolas-death-s-shadow-decklist-by-covertgosimic-1215679 and https://mtgdecks.net/Modern/rakdos-shadow-decklist-by-andrew-eckermann-1219334 (modified for historic). However, the decks do not seem to get off the ground like they did before the set additions.

It seems like historic is missing some modern pieces for death's shadow to really work, particularly since other modern pieces have been added that improve other decks, but not this one. These cards seem like they may be needed in historic: [[monastery swiftspear]], [[stubborn denial]], [[lightning bolt]], fetchlands. Does anybody here have other thoughts, or possible substitution ideas? How critical are the fetchlands in modern to making a 3 color deck work? With only shocks and checks, it seems like the mana base is often too slow to reliably get the necessary third color.

EDIT: I added it in the comments below, but here is my personal latest grixis idea. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4371231#paper it's pretty experimental and I am not sure delver really works the way I want, or grixis for that matter. the Bolas stuff from that web list seems odd on further reflection.

EDIT 2: I added my current (very experimental) mardu list in the comments. Welcome any thoughts. The comments have had some great ideas - thanks everyone. It sounds like the widespread view is that the historic mana base does not do a great job supporting three color builds for death's shadow without fetch lands. However, there are a couple really interesting 4C builds in the comments using territorial kavu. Orz

When they added the candy bowl for the Halloween "Trick or Treat" event I knew I needed to build something around it using the "random switch". For anyone that's never played around with it the random switch comes from the advanced connector plan and every time you turn it on it will choose (randomly) to power the connector on the right or the left of the switch - which makes it ideal for Trick or Treat.

So I built a Mothman church and filled it with worshiping mothmen. But the mothman demands sacrifice. Beyond the parishners you'll find the room where the game begins. Players are presented with a button with doors labeled "Trick" and "Treat". Once they flip the switch there's a 50% chance that the door for "Treat" will open, revealing the candy bowl and an exit from the room. But there is also a 50% chance that the door for "Trick" will open and the entire room will be filled with a fast killing radiation. Whether you live or die, it's entirely up to chance... or perhaps the Mothman:

Trick or Treat with the random switch

Notes about the build:
In order to prevent people from spam flipping the switch I put it behind a powered door that would close as soon as the switch was flipped (blocking it from being accessed). You'll notice actually every time someone flips a switch, both this door and the entrance close. The secret behind this is using powered speakers (which you can hear sometimes when the switch is flipped) to re-route which objects receive power. This essentially routes power away from these 2 doors (which take 1 power each) and towards powered speakers (which take 1 power each) on either side of the random switch.

He rushed travels aether into shard and split push side lanes with q and e. When wave hit tower he just ults it. Eventually he got refresher + lvl 20 and it was so hard to defend since he could shackle you if u defended to make more snakes, and they had 3 health.

Im not sure if he even had aghs cuz it seems unnecessary for a rat build. The fact that it cant even be countered by cleave or aoe or even crimson guard is so annoying. Eventually he had full build and just bkb and double ult our throne and it was impossible to def 5v5. Glyph doesnt even attack the snakes either.

So, basically the title. What happened to the U/B Death's shadow deck? Have the unfair decks knocked out the fair decks like ds, mono w taxes and maverick? Is the disruption no longer effective vs the top decks like lands, sneak and show and the others? Looking for answers of the questions because I am wondering myself if the best way to enter legacy is through buying U/B Death's shadow because I have the most cards from it or just buy out the lands deck.

???????