I’ve been playing a lot of modern recently, and unsurprisingly i have determined that in order to succeed you absolutely have to be able to beat Grixis Shadow. I have been having some success with a Jeskai deck  which has a favourable Death’s Shadow matchup, largely since they have to lower their life total quickly to get under your control plan, which leaves them vulnerable to your burn spells.

The beauty of this deck is that you are able to play as a control deck in some games, but at other times you are a very effective tempo deck and are more than happy to use Cryptic Commands to tap their team just to get in with a Snapcaster or two. You’re also able to switch between these roles very quickly. You aren’t as quick as the more traditional burn decks, but you can slow your opponent down enough that it shouldn’t matter.

Here is the original list by Ryoichi Tamada.

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Cryptic Command

4 Electrolyze

4 Flooded Strand

2 Hallowed Fountain

2 Island

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Lightning Helix

4 Logic Knot

1 Mountain

4 Path to Exile

1 Plains

1 Sacred Foundry

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Serum Visions

4 Snapcaster Mage

4 Spell Queller

4 Spirebluff Canal

1 Steam Vents

2 Ceremonious Rejection

1 Dispel

3 Grim Lavamancer

1 Jace Beleren

1 Negate

4 Spreading Seas

2 Vendilion Clique

1 Wear // Tear

The original changes I made included replacing 2 of the Logic Knots with Mana Leaks since I thought drawing multiple Logic Knots would be very bad, and if you don’t draw a fetchland a Logic Knot won’t counter anything on turn 2. I thought the Mana Leaks were better early, but I wanted to keep some number Logic Knots because they’re way better late. The other change I made was switching a Spirebluff Canal to a 2nd Steam Vents because I wanted access to more fetchable red sources to make it easier to cast multiple burn spells in one turn. Finally I changed the sideboard Jace Beleren to a Jace, Architect of Thought because I wanted to shore up a weakness to Lingering Souls.

After some testing I determined that the Spreading Seas in the sideboard were not a coherent plan with the rest of the deck against the big mana decks. They were trying to “destroy” lands, but none of the other cards help this, they all directly answer their threats. I ended up cutting the Spreading Seas for two Disdainful Strokes and two Stony Silence. Finally I found room for a set of Rest in Peace in the sideboard by trimming a Grim Lavamancer, a Wear // Tear, a Dispel and a Negate. This proved necessary to counteract very difficult matchups against bothe Storm and Dredge. Rest in Peace improves both significantly post-board. It is possible that it is correct to move to 2 Rest in Peace and 2 Anger of the Gods, because Storm often tries to win with Empty the Warrens post board and currently I have no good way to answer it. The obvious downside to this being the nonbo with Spell Queller, it should however be possible to sequence plays to minimise this.

The biggest tip I can give on playing this deck is to remember that you aren’t a typical control deck where you have to kill everything then stick a big win condition. You only need to kill enough things to narrowly win the race, which conveniently leaves you burn spells in hand to close out the game faster.

This is the list I would recommend moving forward:

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Cryptic Command

4 Electrolyze

4 Flooded Strand

2 Hallowed Fountain

2 Island

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Lightning Helix

2 Logic Knot

2 Mana Leak

1 Mountain

4 Path to Exile

1 Plains

1 Sacred Foundry

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Serum Visions

4 Snapcaster Mage

4 Spell Queller

3 Spirebluff Canal

2 Steam Vents

2 Ceremonious Rejection

2 Disdainful Stroke

2 Grim Lavamancer

1 Jace, Architect of Thought

2 Rest in Peace

2 Anger of the Gods

2 Stony Silence

2 Vendilion Clique

Sideboarding

VS: Grixis Death Shadow

In

2 Vendilion Clique

2 Rest in Peace

1 Jace, Architect of Thought

Out

4 Electrolyze

1 Snapcaster Mage

There are two ways this matchup goes, and your opponent gets to decide which. They either play very loosely with their life total to get down an early Death’s Shadow, at which point you will not need many burn spells to kill them. Or, they can play very conservatively with their life total, which means they don’t get to play out their Death’s Shadows and you can hopefully Path to Exile their Tasigur, the Golden Fang or Gurmag Angler.

VS: Eldrazi Tron

In

2 Disdainful Stroke

2 Ceremonious Rejection

2 Stony Silence

Out

4 Electrolyze

1 Lightning Bolt

This can be a difficult matchup since your removal lines up so poorly. Though they can struggle to deal with your fliers if you can force them into a race. The Ceremonious Rejections are obviously very powerful here and should be used carefully.

VS: Affinity

In

2 Ceremonious Rejection

2 Stony Silence

2 Grim Lavamancer

1 Jace, Architect of Thought

Out

4 Cryptic Command

2 Logic Knot

1 Mana Leak

In general, this matchup is favourable since you’re very good against swarms of creatures ,with Electrolyze particularly powerful. Etched Champion can be a problem since you can’t remove it whilst metalcraft is active, however it only truly becomes a problem when combined with a Cranial Plating since otherwise it doesn’t present too much of a clock and should be relatively easy to race.

If you are already looking ahead to the upcoming Modern PPTQ season, or are getting in some early testing for Grand Prix Birmingham i recommend giving this deck a try. If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know in the comments.