Hey everyone!

I was hoping to come back with a sweet article discussing how Adam Wasburn-Moses, Piper Powell, and I made the Top 4 of the NRG Team 10K in Chicago last weekend, but that will only be part of the focus today. Some of the lessons from our dominant performance will no longer be relevant because Lurrus is now banned in Modern, but most of it will hold true.

Shadow brews will be my secondary focus today as Twitter has been a great resource for ideas.

The NRG Team 10K was a seven round event where we began 5-0 and took two intentional draws into the Top 8. We drew with former teammates of mine, Andrew Elenbogen, Max McVety, and Clay Spicklemire, in round six and went to get Chinese food. Adam highlighted the shenanigans that followed well on Twitter.

Clay Spicklemire and I were the delegates for the teams. Usually there's enough time to go eat after taking the first of two intentional draws into the Top 8, but there's a first time for everything.

I played Grixis Shadow in Modern. Hammertime is very fun, but I lost playing for Top 8 of two local 1Ks where a couple mistakes cost me. The deck has some easy wins with two Hammers on the second turn, but it's unforgiving in the close games. I talked to Will Kreuger about Hammertime over the weekend and he echoed this sentiment. If the Hammer master has the same issue with the deck, I should stick to the archetype that fits my play style.

Grixis Shadow | Modern | Kyle Boggemes

• Creatures (14)
• 2 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
• 4 Death's Shadow
• 4 Dragon's Rage Channeler
• 4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

• Instants (11)
• 1 Kolaghan's Command
• 2 Fatal Push
• 4 Drown in the Loch
• 4 Unholy Heat

• Sorceries (10)
• 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Expressive Iteration
• 4 Thoughtseize

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Dress Down

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Mishra's Bauble

• Lands (19)
• 1 Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1 Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1 Steam Vents
• 2 Watery Grave
• 3 Blood Crypt
• 3 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 2 Tourach, Dread Cantor
• 1 Fatal Push
• 2 Kolaghan's Command
• 3 Spell Pierce
• 2 Terminate
• 2 Dress Down

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I was extremely pleased with this list. Four Dress Down is recent technology that replaces the need for Alpine Moon and Engineered Explosives. Three Spell Pierce in the sideboard helps shore up Burn and Cascade matchups.

Fatal Push over Lightning Bolt was probably right the whole time because it kills Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, Omnath, and a big Death's Shadow. Lightning Bolt can hit planeswalkers, but it's still weak on those matchups.

In team events where the formats are different I'm less likely to play against fringe decks. Since Dress Down and Kolaghan's Command cover Urza's Saga the Alpine Moon is really there for Tron. I expected most teams to play the following decks:

• Hammertime
• Grixis Death's Shadow
• Living End
• Amulet Titan
• Izzet Murktide
• MonkeyPile

This is important to factor in when deciding to take a deck you see do well in a competitive event to your LGS. I'm more likely to face a variety of decks in my local Modern events.

Here are my matchups:

Round 1: MonkeyPile win 2-0

Round 2: Izzet Murktide win 2-0

Round 3: Living End win 2-0

Round 4: MonkeyPile win 2-1 I narrowly lost to a Wrenn emblem after the second W&6 was drawn.

Round 5: Azorius Hammertime win 2-1

Round 6: ID

Round 7: ID

Top 8: Omnath Bring to Light win 2-0

Top 4: Boros Prowess: lose 0-2

It wasn't until the Top 8 I faced a deck that wasn't on my list of expected matchups. Oddly enough I didn't face the mirror.

I left in all four Ragavan after sideboard against Hammertime to have an early threat against a potential Esper Sentinel on turn one. My opponent had turn one Sentinel both post board games and I had Ragavan. I don't think I would have escaped the early game without Ragavan and I felt the later turns would be where my Dress Downs and Kolaghan's Command would shine. To make room for Ragavan I cut a couple of Dragon's Rage Channeler because they shine in the late game where I don't need much help.

Max McVety was cutting through Grixis Death's Shadow all weekend with Boros Prowess. Burn is a close matchup, but Prowess is a bad matchup for Shadow. He crushed me in Top 4 and also took down Nathan Steuer in the finals on Shadow, too. Max also made the Top 8 of the Modern 5K Trial on Sunday with Prowess.

Boros Prowess | Modern | Max McVety

• Companion (1)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den

• Creatures (15)
• 3 Soul-Scar Mage
• 4 Dragon's Rage Channeler
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear
• 4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

• Instants (12)
• 2 Path to Exile
• 2 Unholy Heat
• 4 Lava Dart
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Prismatic Ending
• 4 Light Up the Stage
• 4 Reckless Impulse

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Mishra's Bauble

• Lands (20)
• 3 Mountain
• 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
• 2 Sacred Foundry
• 2 Wooded Foothills
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Inspiring Vantage
• 4 Sunbaked Canyon

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Alpine Moon
• 2 Chalice of the Void
• 2 Hushbringer
• 2 Kor Firewalker
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 2 Prismatic Ending
• 2 Soul-Guide Lantern
• 2 Wear // Tear

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Adam played Selesnya Depths in Legacy. I thought I had a good run by winning the first six rounds, but he actually never dropped a match the entire tournament. Selesnya Depths is a very powerful deck, but is a true toolbox archetype which rewards dedication. After a couple hours into the tournament, I assumed he was going to win the game in some fashion if Knight of the Reliquary or Elvish Reclaimer could activate.

Again, in team tournaments there's a very concentrated metagame of top decks. The Legacy seat can expect to face Izzet Delver, Death and Taxes, Uro Piles, and Lands. Top players piloting Izzet Delver artificially suppresses the popularity of Doomsday which bodes well for White decks.

The new challenger you can expect to face in the Legacy seat is Mono Blue Artifacts with Kappa Cannoneer. Adam beat this deck three times making Selesnya Depths a very good choice for the tournament since he was already heavily practiced with the archetype. It turns out using Green Sun's Zenith to find Collector Ouphe is pretty good.

Selesnya Depths | Legacy | Adam Wasburn-Moses

• Creatures (12)
• 1 Endurance
• 1 Outland Liberator // Frenzied Trapbreaker
• 1 Ramunap Excavator
• 1 Sylvan Safekeeper
• 4 Elvish Reclaimer
• 4 Knight of the Reliquary

• Instants (8)
• 4 Crop Rotation
• 4 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Prismatic Ending
• 4 Green Sun's Zenith

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Sylvan Library

• Artifacts (3)
• 3 Mox Diamond

• Lands (29)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Karakas
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Plateau
• 1 Taiga
• 2 Flagstones of Trokair
• 2 Savannah
• 2 Sejiri Steppe
• 2 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
• 3 Dark Depths
• 3 Thespian's Stage
• 3 Wasteland
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Endurance
• 2 Choke
• 1 Collector Ouphe
• 2 Force of Vigor
• 1 Glacial Chasm
• 1 Prismatic Ending
• 3 Red Elemental Blast
• 1 Torpor Orb
• 1 Tower of the Magistrate
• 1 Blast Zone

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Piper Powell, our final teammate, is a Limited specialist. Our sealed pool was pretty mediocre. Mixed format Limited tournaments have a less direct relationship between record and strength of sealed deck because the Constructed players can both win to advance. This is exactly what happened for our team so we were able to draw into the Top 8 even though we definitely lost the sealed lottery. This is now my favorite way to include Limited in tournaments.

It was humbling to hear Piper talk about Limited as I learned a ton sitting next to her for the weekend. There are some great players on the NRG circuit and I'm excited to see what comes of it. I was able to offer some unique input as I did play Neon Dynasty Limited when the set was released on Arena.

I thought our team was very strong and would run it back in the future. The event was a ton of fun. The rest of my car from Waterford, Michigan also made the Top 8. Their limited player, Hawaii, pictured below with blue-green hair, had a great sealed deck so they had the complete opposite journey as us to the elimination rounds.

Michigan Magic is in a great place and living in the midwest provides plenty of chances to shine.

Now that the team event is out of the way we have some big news to discuss: Lurrus is banned in Modern.

They did it. They finally did it. The cat used up all nine lives. The companion mechanic is still around so we will have to suffer Yorion, but Modern is going back to a more normalized format where excluding a friend isn't a massive downside.

Where to go from here?

Lurrus being banned will shake up the format as players will try new companions and more expensive threats. This can create a midrange arms race, but we need to be careful about slowing down too much only to be run over by Tron, Amulet, and Cascade.

Death's Shadow will still be a major player in Modern, but we have plenty of avenues to investigate. Lurrus essentially created a soft ban on Murktide Regent, Street Wraith, and Ranger-Captain of Eos in the archetype.

Aspiringspike took a cool Mardu Shadow deck to a 5-0 finish in a MTGO League:

Street Wraith allows for a more consistent path to casting a Death's Shadow on the second turn. Grixis Shadow required two fetch lands and a Thoughtseize to get to twelve life.

Gurmag Angler is not the powerhouse it once was in Modern, but happens to have an odd casting cost to fit a new companion, Obosh. It can be a weak threat in the face of an influx of Murktide Regents, but isn't the worst singleton.

Obosh isn't as powerful as Lurrus, but can be a legitimate threat. Ragavan's treasure is weaker without a companion mana sink. Mardu Shadow including Obosh makes a ton of sense as Drown in the Loch and Expressive Iteration were the reasons to play even-costed spells in Grixis Shadow.

Ranger-Captain of Eos creates additional ways to deploy Death's Shadow. It also provides an incentive to exclude Blue while still having a passable Cascade matchup as you can sacrifice it with Violent Outburst or Shardless Agent on the stack.

Seasoned Pyromancer will certainly see more play with Lurrus banned. Not only did Lurrus restrict the three-mana permanent from being in the same deck, but there was always a play to add your companion to hand at that point on the curve. Modern fair decks now need something to do on the third turn.

Another way to build Shadow is the existing take on Grixis and swap companions. I found this list on Kanister's Twitter. Jegantha is extremely weak compared to Lurrus, but it's still a mana sink in a grindy deck.

Jegantha takes us down the familiar path of Shadow because we can't play Street Wraith and Murktide Regent. The Grixis Lurrus Shadow deck happened to be able to play Jegantha already so nothing needs to change.

I would want to include more Terminates in the sideboard as Murktide Regent is an early winner of the Lurrus ban.

The split of Soul-Guide Lantern and Nihil Spellbomb comes from Living End playing Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard. Most shells of linear decks will remain close so we can't get too wrapped up in getting cute with our newly freed 3-drops.

Tourach, Dread Cantor is also a winner as Solitude can now be played in more White decks. Yorion being the best companion in the format is a huge boon for MonkeyPile. Tourach having a single Black in the casting cost is cute despite it typically costing .

MTGO grinder, Ari Zax, had some early success with the Shadow list above. He removed the companion in favor of playing Murktide Regent and Street Wraith. This version of the deck seems the hardest to build and I suspect many iterations will come out over the next few weeks.

Murktide Regent requires us to rethink the mana base as Blue was previously the splash. A nineteen-land deck with Street Wraith will also need to change. I think eighteen is a good number. Murktide also requires us to now care about instants and sorceries while Channeler wants a diverse set of card types.

Temur Battle Rage is also a throwback to 2018 Shadow with Gurmag Angler. It combines well with Murktide Regent, but is at odds with Dress Down, the hammer against Hammer and Amulet. Murktide and TBR are also 2-drops so we can't play Kroxa and likely need a smaller amount of Drown in the Loch.

Ragavan and Dragon's Rage Channeler weren't printed the last time a classic Grixis Shadow deck existed which creates tension of what color will be the splash.

We have the tools to build a fresh take on Shadow, but it's not as obvious as it appears at first glance.

I'm looking forward to what the Modern format will look like in the near future. A lot of experiments will fail, but it's a good time to be a brewer.

Thanks for reading!

-Kyle