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
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
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Niko9 on Using shrazarad

7 months ago

I've never played with it, but what about a Death's Shadow build? If you lost half your life, cool, if your opponent loses half, maybe better. The fact that there no lifegain and somebody has to lose something might be useful.

legendofa on Duskmourn

8 months ago

Would the 13-lands (does anyone have a better name?) make a difference in Death's Shadow decks? The fetch + shock pattern works well, and Death's Shadow decks don't exactly have huge mana requirements. So probably not.

DreadKhan on The Mimeospasm [Reanimator Terminator] - primer

9 months ago

I feel like it's always better to hold up less mana, but if you're not holding up U people will be more likely to step on the rake you've left out, so there is that. I think I'd go with Stifle if you want to be able to deal with abilities.

The biggest difference would be it can be a tad harder to get Death's Shadow into the graveyard, but I'd think you'd benefit from either similarly, so Death's Shadow would be a cheaper solution. I think I didn't think of Death's Shadow because it doesn't work for Kresh the Bloodbraided, so I filed it under 'doesn't synergize as expected'! Glad you noticed it!

Andramalech on Delirium Shadow (retired)

10 months ago

Holey crap this is super pushed, and super duper cool! Can't believe it's just come up on my radar. I've only recently put together a Death's Shadow deck and I noticed how you've taken advantage of the Goyfs. Really love not only what you have put together here, but previous iterations of this deck. Splendid stuff, +1.

Crow_Umbra on The Charnel Army

11 months ago

You and I seem to be on such similar wavelengths when it comes to brewing lol. I also started brewing Coram recently, but took a break to make some MH3/M3C updates to existing decks.

I'm digging what you have so far! I def had some slightly different options for beaters, like Death's Shadow, Malignus, & Yargle and Multani. I also play in a meta with plenty of aggro beatdown, so I don't think I'd be short for options.

wallisface on gond gate and black gate …

1 year ago

The Black Gate

Gond Gate

Most gates have a replacement effect on themselves that says they enter the battlefield tapped. On those Gates, you can choose to have them enter the battlefield tapped or untapped, by ordering replacement effects.

In the case of The Black Gate, you can have it enter untapped even if you don't pay the 3 life. You may also pay that 3 life if you still want to (for example, if you're trying to grow a Death's Shadow)

wallisface on Why Do Some Players Keep …

1 year ago

jethstriker i‘m not convinced that legendaries were ever deliberately made to be more powerful because of their inherent drawback - this feels like something that players would intuitively expect to be the case (because it would make sense), but looking through magics history of the strongest cards in formats, we don’t see that to be true - moderns past is littered with staples like Snapcaster Mage, Tarmogoyf, Death's Shadow, Siege Rhino, Arcbound Ravager, Goblin Guide, Bloodbraid Elf, Stinkweed Imp, Fury, Solitude, and Orcish Bowmasters. Yes there’s stuff like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, but I don’t think there’s enough density/evidence to conclude legendaries are inherently built stronger.

I would also be sceptical of this being the case because it would be weird for Rosewater to be wanting to remove the Legend rule if it served a mechanical purpose

This might be a question for Blogatog?

wallisface on Is WotC Being Inconsistent in …

1 year ago

I don't see any inconsistency here?

The "once per turn" or "activate only as a sorcery" text on cards aren't technically a downside, they're baked-in text to allow Wotc to strengthen the effect of the card itself - without that text they'd presumably be changing how the card functions (i.e. it'd be a completely different card), so the text isn't an upside-or-downside, just a tool for card-execution (I do get that when players read this text, that it's easy to assume its a setback on the card).

So purely on Wotc stance on downsides, I'm not seeing a dichotomy here.

Personally I'd also like to see more cards with downsides and/or restrictions - as these cards require more deckbuilding care and consideration instead of just being "auto-includes" in every goodstuff deck (some examples of cards I think have great downsides are Death's Shadow, Goblin Guide, and Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, as all of these cards downsides aren't debilitating, but require you to build around them to avoid having a bad-time. And they're actually playable).