Solo MTG: Playing my Creature, Death's Shadow

 



Wow, this was first time actually using my creature Death's Shadow in my green-black deck of elves! And guess what, it brought me some sweet victory!

I really had to learn how to just take some damage, but no too much. I played against this challenge deck, "Journey into Nyx: Defeat a God," and it is a HARD one. Xenagos has quite a few minions that allow him to attack twice. He can attack me directly for 6, so I had to time really carefully when to cast Death's Shadow. 

One thing to note about this challenge deck is that Xenagos and his Revelers cannot attack me or my creatures unless he casts a spell that explicitly says so. If you want to learn more about how this challenge deck works, feel free to read my other blog where I cover it here. My plan was to cast as many elves as I can so then they can either help me ramp or to take damage when I know I couldn't take it as a player just yet.

Death Shadow's ability: "Death's Shadow gets -X/-X, where X is YOUR life total." So, you guessed it... my life total has to be realllly low to utilize his ability.

I wanted to utilize Death's Shadow's attack value as much as I could. I was left with 2 health points at this time, so I knew I should just use it soon. My issue was that Death's Shadow only had 11, and I needed 13 to end Xenagos and his creatures. So I cast my Enchantment, Frantic Strength and applied it to Death's Shadow. 

Frantic Strength's ability: "Flash, enchant creature, enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and trample."

That gave me +2/+2 AND Trample, so it was PERFECT. That enchantment helped me to get 13/13 without loosing more health and went into my combat phase and defeated Xenagos.

It was soooo tricky to learn when was the right time to lose health, but not too much. I really like having Death's Shadow in my deck of elves for perfect moments like this one, when I know I'm low on health and defeat is just around the corner... this was such a satisfying play.  

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