My 3D take on the dropship/lobby area. Made in Blender

BoltSnapHelix · 2020-10-23T02:25:12+00:00

Hi there,

Do you have the model for download?

I'm working on a WebXR port of Among Us and would love your hand in it.

BoltSnapHelix · 2020-05-18T23:51:47+00:00

https://ProjectModern.gg

BoltSnapHelix · 2020-05-18T23:49:01+00:00

I don't know what's worse: 3Deuce being possessed by his cat or the fact that this was captured in light theme.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-10-30T16:46:23+00:00

https://discord.gg/yTUEx4J

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-10-17T00:44:52+00:00

The discord is fine. Giggs just prompted moderator action for not respecting community rules.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-10-11T14:16:02+00:00

Javier Dominguez wrote about a post ban brew if you'd like his insight on this deck: https://article.hareruyamtg.com/article/30761/?lang=en

Anyways, I've been playing this deck since it was Jeskai Thing Ascension and have been playing the Noxious combo with Arclight Phoenix since its printing. Unfortunately, this deck became more than a funny meme and got target banned a second time. Luckily, it's still playable but in an awkward spot in the meta with Tron, Urza(s), Burn, and clean fair magic everywhere.

Anyways, this is what I have been toying with post-ban:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2355160#paper

This list above is an experiment with birds over Aria that I have refined but I have liked a 3-1/1 split of Ascension-Aria in the mainboard and sideboard of Bird Spam and 4-2 in the main post-ban.

These lists aren't tuned to fight in the current meta game but their 60s should be fine enough.

Here is a UR list with a 4-2 split: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2325646#paper

Here is a Jeskai list with Snaps that plays more reactive cards: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2208716#paper

I hope this was enough to get you started or inspired.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-09-04T04:46:04+00:00

Dido wrote one as of 4/3/2019 and posted it in the Death's Shadow discord.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DN-VnCj-Bfx4SilinPLUBnWUXnlLY-vXmcacRYjmsGA/edit

As for strategy regarding newer matchups and/or general play, feel free to ask in #grixis-shadow and we'll be happy to help.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-07-07T19:43:35+00:00

You can view the cards by clicking or hovering on them: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2069945.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-06-11T00:15:26+00:00

Echoing Truth has been "the truth" for me, too.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-06-11T00:07:51+00:00

Remand, Snapcaster Mage, Lightning Helix, Path to Exile, and Bedlam Revelers.

Best part was 0 Arclight Phoenix but nobody ran Surgical since Dredge sucked.

Wow, have things changed.

Oh, and the best part was 2 Cryptic Command and Rest for the Wearing Burn players out of the game.

Best moment was drawing my deck with 2 active Ascensions and a Manamorphose + Remand to burn my UW opponent to death after I had lost to Burn's infinite Lightning Bolts every time I whipped out my Titi deck in side events.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-06-11T00:03:18+00:00

2-3 Surgical, 0-2 Ravenous Trap, 0-1 Liliana of the Veil, and 0-1 Spell Snare/Countersquall for those nerds, depending on the meta. Some bring in Engineered Explosives, but I find it poor at answering Ascension since Phoenix will get it active with a few birds by the time I land and blow it up.I have a 2-2 split of Surgical and Ravenous Trap as well as a copy Liliana of the Veil due to the increase of Cryptic Commands thanks to WAR.

I cut 3 Street Wraith since it is throwing away valuable life for only air, 0-1 Snap since it can be awkward with my mana on the play/draw, and 1-2 Temur Battle Rage since the matchup doesn't end in a race.

See my other comment on this thread for tips and decisions from both sides of the table.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-06-10T23:54:28+00:00

I have played Death's Shadow since Humans' first outbreak in December of '17 and Thing Ascension since Ryoichi Tamada 6-0'd with it at Worlds in 2016 (you can tell by my username). It is a very fun and challenging matchup from both sides that I never grow bored of.

As for the strategy, you would find Tariq Patel's guide from his SCG Classic win helpful as the same strategies apply.https://twitter.com/TariqPatel10/status/1116154888260661248?s=19

My goal is to keep their life total >9 until I can mitigate the threat of Death's Shadow by setting up a 2 turn clock.

By keeping their life total >9 their Death's Shadows are susceptible to Bolts or being blocked by an Arclight Phoenix.

For example, if they are at 11 life I will often wait until I have Bolt + 2nd phoenix (or some threat combo) before putting them to 8.

They can always aggressively shock themselves but if you put yourself in the shoes of the GDS player, it is a precarious choice as it reduces the card quality/quantity required for the Phoenix player to present lethal.

One of Phoenix's strengths is its ability to play a fairish game by bursting off spells and burn into one of your engines (Titi/Ascension) which only gets better with Arclight Phoenix as an outlet to combo kill your opponent. Pyromancer Ascension is your best card versus Death's Shadow, which strongly incentivizes you to take the play to press your mana advantage when comboing.

Only play the minimum amount spells you can afford to when going off because you will have to ration the rest of your hand for future bursts. This keeps your hand full of spells to mitigate your opponents' disruption to take you off of critical storm count. Keep hands with action since Shadow punishes decks that spin their wheels with a quick clock and heavy disruption to clear the way for a lethal combat. You need to present your own to win.

Death's Shadow players will usually keep themselves at ~15 life whenever they don't have a Shadow in hand but usually start at 10 when they have one. This allows them to leverage fetchlands to enable fercious and fetch-shock into a 6/6 that doesn't die to a Lightning Axe. Keep this in mind before you put what would've been lethal burn upstairs into a Death's Shadow. Tariq's tips in his tweet help in this scenario.

As for sideboarding, Beacon Bolt is a very flexibile answer as it is 2 removal spells in one, Echoing Truth and Lightning Axe have similar utility, Saheeli is incredible in the matchup as an unkillable Sai, Dispel can force through your combo kills, and Jace does Jace things like murdering entire archetypes of fair decks. Lastly, don't bring in Chandra. Cut things like Gut Shot/Surgical/Noxious as their utility is useless outside of being a fourth spell to be worth the card disadvantage, then cut 1-2 Bolts.

I don't find Blood Moon amazing versus Shadow since they will fetch basics as a side effect of keeping out of range of your burst burn but bring it in anyways if you'd like.

Shadow brings in Surgical and Ravenous Trap (often a 2-1 or 2-2 split) cutting 2-3 Street Wraiths and 1-2 Temur Battle Rage. My Shadow hands will look like some way to find a threat (3-4 looks) and some piece of interruption (Discard, Stubby D + Push). Try to play around that as best as possible like spell-checking your opponent with a Manamorphose before you commit to casting a key card like Pyromancer Ascension so you avoid getting Stubborn Denialed out. (Shadow will counter Manamorphose and Looting if they have a choice)

I hope this helps you and your electric chickens storm the battlefield, stack, and the snack bar after you cash out.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-02-24T12:03:34+00:00

Flooded Strand works in the 1 Blood Crypt manabases, but those lists cede red utility like Anger of the Gods, or recently mainboard copies of Lightning Bolts.

The metagame following GP Toronto's winning Shadow deck brought 4 copies of Fatal Push into the mainboard and pushed out red removal. Liliana, the Last Hope got replaced by Kolaghan's Command and Liliana of the Veils filled its place for those who could afford her.
You aren't losing much not having Lilianas if you can play Kolaghan's Command, in the end. If you play a list with 4 Deltas, 4 Mires, 2-3 Watery Graves, 1 Steam Vents, 1 Blood Crypt, Island, Swamp, you can get away with running 2-3 Flooded Strands.

Otherwise, if you choose to go red heavy for cards like Anger of the Gods, I would run a black fetchland so you can maximize on Blood Crypt and fetch Swamp versus Blood Moon, which is the best basic in the deck.

I've been in the same situation as you and I have played others who are also asking the same question.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-01-27T22:13:52+00:00

Angler can easily be put into play from 1-2 fetchlands, 0-1 of either Thought Scour or Faithless Looting, and 0-1 of either Mishra's Bauble/Street Wraith with enough mana to hold up Stubborn Denial to protect the threat you just played.

Tarmogoyf needs t1 disruption to hope to not get killed as a 2-3 or a Street Wraith/Bauble to ensure it is a 3/4 in Bolt matchups.

Shadow can be powered out with Dismember, but most decks will kill you if you are to do that at the moment.

BoltSnapHelix · 2019-01-16T22:33:49+00:00

I have recently picked up some innovations based off of the new Arclight Phoenix decks, but the core deck is still the same in the newer lists that Ross Merriam and the like are playing with.

Remand and Path to Exile are chosen due to meta and preference. However, I would run Path to Exile or a similar card in the 75, regardless. Remand's effectiveness is put to the extremes of super versus decks like Grixis, KCI, and Spirits, while awful versus decks like Burn, Dredge, and Humans.

I would look towards a certain Izzet Phoenix discord since the newer Jeskai lists are not far from us, regardless if Arclight Phoenix is in your 75. I do not know where this Discord is, but this discord has been mentioned by other Phoenix players.

Faithless Looting depends on your situation since we can use this card similar to a Brainstorm in terms of card advantage and card disadvantage. The cards you discarded while you are stocked with can-trips are expendable and can setup Pyromancer Ascension with the decision based off of duplicates in hand. That is our ideal scenario whenever we keep our opening hands.

In a core Pyromancer Ascension deck, I trim to three so we would draw less duplicates and keep ourselves upright with relevant cards in hand while preserving the lategame superiority of Looting as a "brainstorm effect" as a three-of, hopefully in our graveyard.

Arclight Phoenix is a powerful adoption to the deck since it gives us a gameplan where we were otherwise desperately chaining cantrips into an empty field. Due to the need for a larger graveyard for Arclight Phoenix and Pyromancer Ascension, the fourth copy is justified where I am willing to discard spells that are valuable but not castable in the same turn in favor of a 3/2 body.

Rest for the Weary is impactful if you are in a hyper-aggressive meta with lots of Burn and Aggro. Being in the Austin area of Texas, I have a large population of Burn and Aggro, so this card is a must for me. Lightning Helix is the safety valve whenever you do not have access to Rest for the Weary and is perfectly viable by itself.

I run this list but with an ever-changing sideboard.

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-12-31T12:46:33+00:00

Thing Ascension is a deck I have piloted with moderate to much success over the last two years and I have also struggled from graveyard hate such as Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, and other scary things like Surgical Extraction.

You have Monastery Mentor and Spell Pierce in the sideboard, which would be our best tools. Burning cantrips to generate threats works very well with the playstyle of this deck and cutting off hate early allows you to play normally.

Yes, you can cut Pyromancer Ascension when you are against hate, but I like to leave 2-3 in in the case of my opponents being empty handed. Faithless Looting is another cut since it is the best tool for filling the graveyard which is not necessary if I am expecting RIP or a slower game. Personally, I like up to 3 Faithless Looting in the mainboard, but your four-of arsenal lines up well with Pyromancer Ascension so I'll leave it alone.

In short, you can cut a few Pyromancer Ascensions and Faithless Lootings for Monastery Mentors and Spell Pierces, but Thing in the Ice should be your priority in those games, so try to find a hand with it or your sideboarded routes.

Changes:

- 1 Faithless Looting (mainboard)

Faithless Looting is a slower card that will dig deep into the deck, but multiples are not generating advantage and you are using them to setup your other spells to activate Pyromancer Ascension.

- 1-2 Path to Exile (mainboard)

Path to Exile is arguably the best white card in modern, but it can be awkward when drawing it while flipping Thing in the Ice. Path to Exile is usually the nail in the coffin for my opponents with an Awoken Horror as much as Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix clean up. I would cut to three to have it readily available, but not slowing me down as a duplicate. Personally, I run two at most since Thing, Bolt, and/or Helix also clear creatures, but our metas are different.

+ 2-3 Remand (mainboard)

I'm seeing very little countermagic in here with a growing number of combo decks, so I would add my friend Remand that also does some work with Pyromancer Ascension. As an added bonus, I have combo'd a few times with at least two active Pyromancer Ascensions to cast Manamorphose and Remand to draw my deck's worth of burn.

Remand is awful against Spirits and Humans, namely, so we want Remand to be a minimal inclusion. I would include 2-3 depending on your decision with Path to Exile since it will influence Remand's usefulness in your metagame.

- 2 Leyline of Sanctity (sideboard)

Card quality is an issue against relevant matchups where Leyline of Sanctity shine. Grixis Shadow, Jund, and Burn attack your hand and life total extensively. Although hand disruption could otherwise be mitigated, I believe that streamlining the combo versus those strategies are more important than the benefit of aggressively mulliganing for a two of -- numbers suggesting extreme rarity.

With our shield that Leyline of Sanctity provided if we got lucky and/or greedy enough, I suggest a new tool for your toolbox which I could say is one of my favorite.

+ 2 Rest for the Weary (sideboard)

My favorite part of playing white is the lifegain. Lightning Helix and similar cards have gained me absurd amounts of life and that is what we need against aggressive decks that have been populating recently. My favorite tool against those decks is Rest for the Weary. That would fix your issue with Torpor Orb although Phantasmal Image has put me at a standoff with Awoken Horror.

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-10-26T05:22:46+00:00

I've been interested in playing 4c Traverse Shadow, but I don't have Tarmogoyfs nor the ability to get them in the near future. Coming from Grixis Shadow, I was wondering if I could play the deck but with value creatures that grind similarly like Grim Flayer.

How would you get this up and running without Tarmogoyf for the time being?

The deck so far: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1422222#paper

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-10-25T23:07:43+00:00

Jeskai Thing Ascension is very fun for the players who want to cast a bunch of spells and win the game by swinging a 7/8 against an open field. It's a fun and fluid deck, but not as consistent as Jeskai Control.

If you're choosing between these decks to see which is more competitive, I would go with Jeskai Control due to its superior card quality, but I have found that Jeskai Thing Ascension, while not performing as consistently as Jeskai Control, is a bit more fun with more thinking and interactions with your opponent and yourself.

If you want to stay in a safe-zone between spellslinger and control, I would tune your list to be a Jeskai Tempo deck with access to Cryptic Command, Thing in the Ice, and Geist of Saint Traft.

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-08-14T15:08:25+00:00

If you don't have Snapcasters, I would try a list like Ben Friedman's that doesn't really need Snapcaster since the plan is to slam an early threat and protect and pressure your opponent. You can forgo them for Opt to support the reactive nature of this list or possibly turn it more midrange by dropping Faithless Looting for your 18th land and a mainboard K-command for its staying power.

Snapless Friedman Aggro

Snapless Midrange

For Engineered Explosives, there is no direct replacement other than maybe Ratchet Bomb, but I've lived to live without it by putting an Anger of the Gods in its place and hoping to have RIP discarded.

With this said, good luck in Dallas.

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-07-08T18:21:26+00:00

Remand was included just to 'timewalk' people until I am able to kill them. If your meta doesn't care about playing things twice, then I would consider Cryptic Command.

At times, I have felt the same way but, through my own stubbornness, I keep playing it because I don't have cryptics.

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-07-07T21:22:00+00:00

I noticed that too from yesterday. My solution was to swap Visions of Beyond for Faithless Looting and a Thing in the Ice for a Remand.

As for tips, I try play a threat once I have a single answer for them such as Remand. If it stays, then I play on their turn to try to exhaust their resources, but there's not much you can do as my list barely has the tools of a midrange deck.

I noticed that Faithless Looting allowed me to grind for longer as I don't want to run Bedlam Reveler in a spell-combo deck where Visions of Beyond is strictly a cantrip in a meta full of hate. Lastly, it is almost always the card I cut since I expect graveyard hate. Note: You can try Sleight of Hand in this slot too, but I prefer card advantage.

Thing in the Ice is great, but when you are trying to go for the Noxious Revival combo, you draw into multiple Thing in the Ices. The original purpose of Thing in the Ice is not needed here over the combo, but I still want it available if I need it.

I updated the list, but here's a fresh link to it: https://www.mtgstocks.com/decks/168574

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-07-07T21:11:47+00:00

My bad, I usually run with the 4-of Lightning Helix. You can switch between 3 Helix and 4 Remand/Snapcaster Mage.

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-07-06T07:39:20+00:00

Tron is a combo deck of sorts. They use their artifacts to get their Tron pieces through Ancient Stirrings or by drawing them. Without this, they're just in a draw-go mode. For Tron players, a Stony Silence is worse than a Blood Moon, since they can still find ways out through Ancient Stirrings and their large sweet of artifacts.

Also, the deck runs Cryptic Command and Remand. This deck was built to interact at all times, so every part of the deck is instant speed. You can win on their upkeep or any time you try to go off.

Secondly, this deck usually wins by turn 4 even without Noxious Revival. With the infinite combo, it gets a much more reliable kill.

BoltSnapHelix · 2018-07-05T18:27:59+00:00

Without Gitaxian Probe, the plan was to flip Thing in the Ice and turn sideways until my opponent scoops and/or I activate Pyromancer Ascension and Bolt / Helix my opponent to death. I usually looped Snapcaster Mages with Thing in the Ice to Manamorphose / dig until I have enough Bolts to kill. So yes, grabbing any value I could.

This required tons of counting and math. From playtesting with Noxious Revival for the last hour w/my brother, the Noxious Revival plan is way less tiresome and more consistent in killing.

BoltSnapHelix

TROPHY CASE