The Lurking Shadow

Many Black spells in Magic are extremely powerful and with a relatively low mana cost; however the downside is that very often these spells require the caster to also spend their life points in addition to mana. With the printing of Death's Shadow, it turns life loss into an advantage. In fact, the more life you lose the stronger Death's Shadow will become. Today's deck is focusing on the interactions between life costing spells with Death's Shadow. Let us examine this deck list together.

The Lurking Shadow 

Creature (8)

4x Death's Shadow

4x Geralf's Messenger

Sorcery (12)

3x Duress

2x Infernal Contract

4x Night's Whisper

3x Rite of Consumption

Instant (14)

4x Dark Ritual

2x Diabolic Edict

2x Dismember

4x Fatal Frenzy

2x Plunge into Darkness

Enchantment (4)

4x Death's Shadow

Land (22)

4x Dragonskull Summit

3x Sulfurous Springs

12x Swamp

3x  Tainted Peak

This deck is essentially played like a control deck that uses Duress as a hand disruption which at the same time controls the board with creature removal spells such as Diabolic Edict and Dismember. The disruptions clear the way to ensure that Death's Shadow can strike your opponent without any hindrance.

Obtaining key cards to defeat your opponent is vital to the victory of this deck. The combination of Night's Whisper, Infernal Contract and Plunge into Darkness allows you to draw the key spells more efficiently while at the same time making your Death's Shadow stronger.  

The original design of this deck was intended to make use of Berserk which can provide trample and a sudden power surge to Death's Shadow, so that your opponent would be destroyed with one attack. However, Berserk is a very expensive card that does not fit into budget deck building. Instead, Fatal Frenzy is used to replace Berserk. Although Fatal Frenzy costs three mana, it is worthwhile considering the unstoppable effects it is able to grant to your creature. In addition, Fatal Frenzy works extremely well with Rite of Consumption, together they could elicit a massive amount of damage and rejuvenate your life points for casting more life costing spells.

The muscles of this deck consist of Death's Shadow, Lurking Evil and Geralf's Messenger. Death's Shadow is the MVP in this deck as it is able to get very strong with other supporting spells that you are casting. However, it is still possible to defeat your opponent by simply using spells such as Fatal Frenzy on Lurking Evil or Geralf's Messenger.

Lurking Evil is a formidable 4/4 flyer with only three mana. Lurking Evil 's ability may be activated even when it has already become a creature. Which means you are able to repeatedly halve your life total to allow Death's Shadow to reach its full potential. The creature that has the most interactions with the supporting spells is Geralf's Messenger. Its ability to cause pain whenever it enters the battlefield and Undying allow it to interact perfectly with Fatal Frenzy and Rite of Consumption.

The mana fixing for this deck is assisted by an variety of budget Black/Red dual lands. Although this deck is composed of almost entirely Black spells, the Red mana produced by these lands is essential for us to cast Fatal Frenzy at the critical point of the game. Dark Ritual dramatically improves the speed of this deck by allowing you to have a very powerful turn one play by casting Lurking Evil, Geralf's Messenger, Infernal Contract or an combination of 

Plunge into Darkness plus Death's Shadow :).

Though keeping your life total low may be a dangerous play, this deck can often cause a massive amount of damage that is often enough to defeat two players' life total at the same time. A fun deck to pilot if you like to play a game with high stakes.

Until next time keep on surprising your opponent with a frenzied Death's Shadow!!