For anyone who’s been paying attention to Modern recently, it’s pretty apparent that Death's Shadow has become the card that defines the format. We’ve now gotten to the point that Death's Shadow decks are beginning to change splash colors in order to be better prepared to fight against other Death's Shadow decks. The last time we have a top tier strategy that was good enough to spawn archetypical variants specifically built to win the mirror was the various iterations of Caw Blade back in Scars of Mirrodin Standard. So what’s the best version of Death's Shadow? Here’s AJ Sacher’s take:

Sultai Death?s Shadow - Modern | AJ Sacher

• Creatures (18)
• 1 Gurmag Angler
• 1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
• 2 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
• 4 Death's Shadow
• 4 Street Wraith
• 4 Tarmogoyf

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Liliana, the Last Hope

• Instants (14)
• 1 Dismember
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 3 Stubborn Denial
• 4 Fatal Push
• 4 Thought Scour

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Collective Brutality
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Thoughtseize

• Lands (18)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Creeping Tar Pit
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Misty Rainforest
• 2 Watery Grave
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Verdant Catacombs

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Abrupt Decay
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Fulminator Mage
• 1 Hurkyl's Recall
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 1 Stubborn Denial
• 1 Threads of Disloyalty
• 1 Vendilion Clique
• 2 Dispel
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb

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However, recently, we’ve seen some takes swapping Red for White in order to gain access to Path to Exile, Lingering Souls, and all the powerful sideboard options affiliated with White. We’ve also seen Grixis builds which lose Tarmogoyf and Traverse the Ulvenwald in favor of Thought Scour, Snapcaster mage, and various delve creatures.

However, it may be that AJ’s Sultai build manages to capture the best of all of these worlds. Staying in Green means that you get to play Tarmogoyf and Abrupt Decay. The ability to play both Tarmogoyf and delve creatures means that you’re less dependent on Traverse the Ulvenwald to find one of eight or so threats. However, this build still gets to utilize Snapcaster Mage and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to ensure that you have more removal spells that opposing Death's Shadow decks. Liliana, the Last Hope even helps to ensure that you have more threats than they do too.

Perhaps the biggest addition to this deck from Blue is Stubborn Denial. This is a card which is enormously powerful in Modern and particularly in this deck. The ability to protect your threats or counter key Planeswalkers, sweepers, or combo pieces for a single Blue mana is enormous, and for Death's Shadow variants, the ferocious limitation is all but trivial.

If you’re looking for a flexible iteration of the Death's Shadow deck that retains most of the aggressive elements while adding some of the best control elements, look no further. AJ’s deck still has the ability to just murder opponent’s with a quick Death's Shadow plus Tarmogoyf, but adds another dimension of rebuying removal and counterspells to win a more protracted game.