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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
For Crying Out Shroud
February 2, 2009

For all the decks I've fixed here at Pojo, I've built surprisingly few of my own. I also don't usually respond to requests for decks built from scratch. Normally I have a policy of "at least try yourself before sending it to me", but since it gives me the opportunity to be a bit more creative, I decided to suspend it this time.

Hello my name Is Wes and I was wondering if you could create a “Shroud” deck my friends find me a threat a lot so whenever I play in groups of 3 or 4 they always seem to target me and my creatures first, they mainly use blue and black spells to kill my creatures and I haven’t seen a shroud idea in your list so I was wondering if u could make one?

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Alright, Wes, let's see if this will fly.

Now, the colors of shroud have traditionally been blue and green. Green has plenty of creatures with shroud, and blue has plenty of ways to give creatures shroud. Since we'd rather not spend mana to just give shroud for a turn, or have to apply it later, let's stick with green creatures and maybe some blue as needed. A simple search in those colors produces plenty of options for us: Humble Budoka, Pincher Beetles, et cetera. But there's a bit of another problem.

You see, it's one thing to be unable to be targeted, but it's another thing to be powerful. Humble Bodoka, for example, is safe from any kill spell an opponent might want to fling at him, but as a 2/2 with no other ability, would an opponent even bother? The Budoka is still quite vulnerable to being blocked by a creature big enough to kill it. We need to find some way of getting big, untouchable creatures.

First of all, there's recently-printed Algae Gharial. It starts off as a 1/1, but gets a +1/+1 counter whenever a creature is put into a graveyard from play. Meaning it could easily grow to draconic proportions with nobody able to bump it off with a removal spell. This also takes advantage of an interestign quirk of multiplayer games: if your opponents can do something, but not to you, they'll usually do it to someone else. With all your opponents' kill cards blanked against you, it's very likely that your opponents will start throwing them at each other. So Algae Gharial definitely earns a place here.

Now, the normal way for green to power through enemy lines is with Giant Growth tricks. But if all your guys have shroud, then you can't use those tricks on them because they target! Well, there are two options to solve that. One is to use Overrun effects that don't target, just affect "creatures you control". The other is to use green's "one-sided shroud", featured on Troll Ascetic and Slippery Bogle, to name a few. Troll Ascetic especially has earned itself great acclaim for being able to be the target of a Blanchwood Armor but not a Terror.

Since Slippery Bogle begins to bleed us into blue anyway, we may as well look there, and once there we find Isleback Spawn, another answer to this problem. As a 4/8 with shroud, the Spawn is immune to kill spells and to most combat damage. Don't be afraid to attack with it-- it's not going to die. It may even grow to be a 8/16-- rivalled only by Algae Gharial, and only if a LOT of creatures die.

And in both green and blue, we have Simic Sky Swallower-- a 6/6 with flying, trample, and shroud. This bad boy makes opponents cry.

With that many creatures in the deck, the rest can be filled out by utility spells-- some blue card draw, some green pump, maybe some removal blue-style, and we get something a bit like this:

Scream Out Shroud

Creatures: 23
4 Slippery Bogle
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Algae Gharial
3 Isleback Spawn
3 Simic Sky Swallower
3 Quagnoth
3 Gigapede

Spells: 14
3 Overrun
4 Teling Time
4 Gaea's Anthem
3 Simic Signet

Lands: 23
3 Simic Growth Chamber
12 Forest
8 Island


If someone wants to build something like that and playtest it for me, I'd appreciate it.

In an environment where it's not kill spells you're looking to shroud your creatures from but burn, this deck risks that your opponent can just target you instead. To solve that, you'd need to add white for Ivory Mask et al, but then that would also give you access to things like Deft Duelist, Calciderm, and of course Empyrical Archangel if you can get your hands on that. The only reason I don't mention True Believer here is the same reason I didn't add Murkfiend Liege to the deck-- the Believer gives you shroud, and the Liege is another non-targeting pump effect, but they're both creatures without shroud. If all your creatures are kill-proof, you're oppoennt is gonna have some kill spells dead in his hand most games. As soon as you drop a valid target, it's as good as dead. Why even bother?

So that's my take on Shroud.dec. Let me know what you thought, and if you'd like to read more articles of this nature-- I can relax my policies if it makes my garage better overall.