Death's Shadow

Creature — Avatar

This gets -X/-X, where X is your life total.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
PreDH	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (51)

capwner on A Means to an End

1 week ago

Yes that is correct, in fact it gets better because Death's Shadow's characteristic defining ability will amend its p/t as you pay the life so generally it will not die to Toxic Deluge even if you already had your shadow in play.

Balaam__ on A Means to an End

1 week ago

@capwner refresh my memory: the spell only affects creatures currently in play at the time it resolves, correct? So by casting a Death's Shadow afterward (should the mana be available), I wouldn’t kneecap my own creature?

psionictemplar on Self Damage

2 weeks ago

Definitely not sure what format you are looking for but Death's Shadow and life swapping strategies are some of the more common examples for what you are looking for.

TheVectornaut on King of the Skull Servants

3 weeks ago

As a fellow enjoyer of Grass Looking Greener (mostly Lightsworn but also some Zombie/Vampires, PK+Paleos, and Skull Servants), I do think the idea is interesting. You're always going to be in a bit of a battle between thematic consistency and power level. For instance, a grave-counting creature like Wight of Precinct Six or Nighthowler would fit the idea of King growing with more guys in the yard, but they would also be disappointingly weak right now since you don't have a lot of mass self-mill at the moment (Stitcher's Supplier and Overlord of the Balemurk are the first things that comes to my mind). On the subject of getting what you want in the GY, it probably is best to have a few more ways of getting specific targets buried at least. With Entomb off the table in modern, I could see Unmarked Grave being the best cheap option instead of or in addition to Buried Alive. This only negatively affects Maha who I already think is worse than reanimator staples like Archon of Cruelty or Sire Of Insanity. Fewer legendaries also makes Persist a great choice. There's also Lively Dirge if you want to stick to the low mana value plan and can afford to pay more mana. Finally, I'm partial to Burning-Rune Demon as a way to extend into more reanimations while being a reasonable threat in its own right. I think it would be cool to run more skeletons for the theme too, although most aren't that helpful. Cards like Reassembling Skeleton or Persistent Specimen could be sac fodder to a Victimize or Hell's Caretaker. Another one that I know can be good in black reanimator is Emperor of Bones, although he has some unfortunate anti-synergy with other cards in the deck like Twilight Diviner. Death Baron is always an option if you find the Corpses of the Lost backup plan doesn't have enough oomph.

Some final notes: It may be more consistent to focus on just the Xu-Ifit negated reanimations. That would involve going up to 4 Death's Shadow and adding in some similar options like Moonshadow or Yargle and Multani. The EDHRec page for Varolz, the Scar-Striped could be a place to start. That all said, having the more powerful effects of non-negated creatures may still be worth the inconsistency of the two plans not always meshing whan you need them to. You do want to have the best options available in either case though. My first cut suggestions would be Gloom Sower, Avatar of Woe, Inkwell Leviathan, and lastly Maha, Its Feathers Night. Finally, I second cutting some lands and would suggest Bitter Triumph as a replacement for Cast Down that comes with a Cabal Therapy option built-in.

capwner on Grixis moonshadow

3 weeks ago

I only see 4 shadows here, still a cool grixis aggro pile though. Because Moonshadow trigs on perms maybe Street Wraith could be good over Consider, then again Consider is good with DRC and this doesn't have OG Death's Shadow but does want more mill for Oculus. Ok hear me out this might actually be wild... Sinister Concoction??? lol

moo1234 on Card creation challenge

2 months ago

Euron, the black hearted {B}{B}{B}{B}

Legendary creature - human warlock

flying, deathtouch

Hellbent - whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent ~ deals X damage to target opponent where X is half that players life total round down each time, X cannot be less than 0

You can't win the game and your opponents can't lose the game

5/5

'It's not everyday you get to see a dead body, so you have to make the most of it'

---

I really like cards like Abyssal Persecutor One with Nothing and Death's Shadow. Going back to alpha the most powerful card ever printed can arguably be Contract from Below. I think these perfectly encapsulate how I view black in mtg, so I love hellbent as a mechanic.

Glaze for black aside make another black card that gets more powerful as you get weaker in some way (you may use hellbent or the above cards for inspiration)

Balaam__ on A Means to an End

4 months ago

Thank for posting, CommanderNeyo. I suppose there are other options, but I liked the reciprocity between The End costing less @5hp and the way Death's Shadow decks play, so it only felt natural to pair the two. I’d like to keep the combo intact even if there are other, arguably better approaches.

SaberTech on mimeo

4 months ago

I saw your post asking for help with cuts to the deck. Mimeoplasm decks are fun and there's all sorts of interactions to play around with so I get how it's tough to trim the list down.

I don't know what exactly you personally consider fun to play and what cards you are more inclined to keep in, so I think that it might be easier to just highlight what looks to be the core of the deck and try to build outwards from there.

Win-Cons:

• Necrotic Ooze + Phyrexian Devourer: I'm not sure when the change happened, but on Oracle the errata's text for the Devourer's activated exile ability now reads "Remove the top card of your library from the game: Put X +1/+1 counters on Phyrexian Devourer, where X is the removed card's converted mana cost. If Phyrexian Devourer's power is 7 or greater, sacrifice it." Before, you never had to worry about the sacrifice part because it was a triggered ability so the Ooze didn't copy it. Now that the self-sacrifice effect is built into the activated ability it means that the Ooze will kill itself if it activates the ability and ends up going to 7+ power. I don't think this combo is feasible anymore and that you can cut it.

• Blightsteel Colossus: You don't have a way to reanimate or copy this at instant speed in response to its shuffle trigger when it is put in your graveyard, so your only way for it to stick on the board is if you hard-cast it. I don't think that it's worth the effort. And I think that most games will end before you risk decking yourself and needing the Colossus to keep shuffling itself into your library. I'd cut it from the deck.

• Blighted Agent/Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon + big creatures under Mimeoplasm: This is what I would consider your main means of knocking players out. Death's Shadow, Impervious Greatwurm, Lord of Extinction, Titanoth Rex, and Yargle and Multani are your main targets to remove for counters on Mimeoplasm, so these are 7 cards that should definitely be staying.

• Jin-Gitaxias, Core AugurGC: Reanimating this early in the game and getting it to stick is a backup win condition. Buried Alive, Entomb, Fauna Shaman, and Frantic Search are your best ways to try to get Jin into the graveyard. Animate Dead, Necromancy, Reanimate are your best ways to reanimate Jin early. So that's 8 cards you should definitely keep. Victimize helps too but it is a little unreliable early due to needing 2 targets in your graveyard. Still worth running in my opinion.

So that's 16 card + your commander that you know that you want to run to help you win. From there you can mark out the slots for land, ramp, draw, and interaction. What slots are left goes to what best supports you reaching your win conditions. You'll need to really consider which cards help you reach your win conditions and which are there more for fun.

Looking at your list, some things that I can note are:

• You shouldn't count thinks like Conduit of Worlds as ramp since they don't help you get ahead in mana. They just help make your land drop each turn. Matzalantli, the Great Door  ^Flip and Aftermath Analyst also don't help ramp you in the early game. So on the whole your deck is actually suffering from a pretty notable lack of cheap ramp.

• Cards that mill opponents but not you like Mindcrank, Psychic Corrosion, and Ruin Crab do technically help you by getting cards into your opponent's graveyards that you can reanimate or exile with Mimeoplasm. However, they are less useful to you overall than cards that can also mill you because you know that milling yourself helps you reach your deck's build-in win conditions while milling opponents is a gamble.

• Memory Plunder can be fun but you might be better off running a card you are pretty certain that you can use than gamble on useful opponents' cards ending up in the graveyard in a timely manner.

• Archon of Cruelty isn't as impactful in multiplayer games as it is in 1v1. It's still an ok reanimation target if you don't currently have anything better.