Please read - any and all help is greatly appreciated!
A slightly different take on traditional Death's Shadow and a bit of a mashup with BG Rock. This is all very much a thought-experiment at this point, so I'd like to get everyone else's thoughts on if it's good, too clunky/gimmicky, too many/not enough of certain cards, cards that should/should not be in main/side, fixes to the manabase, etc. I have this listed as 'competitive,' but not PTQ/GP competitive, more so geared towards FNM competitive.
How the deck functions
Okay, so like I mentioned, this is a bit of a mashup of Death's Shadow and GB Rock: Shocklands, Thoughtseizes, Bobs, and Castle Locthwain to reduce your life to make Death's Shadow big and hit big with Temur Battle Rage. Or filter with Grim Flayer, Vantress Gargoyle, and Liliana to fill up your graveyard with Death's Shadow, 'goyf, and other Gargoyles to then Scavenge with Varolz onto Invisible Stalker/Creeping Tar Pit for unblockable damage or onto Grim Flayer for Trample, Gargoyle with evasion, or just any other creature to then pair with Temur Battle Rage.
Pretty typical hand disruption with Inquisition and Thoughtseize. Some permission with Stubborn Denial and Drown in the Loch. Some removal with Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, and Drown in the Loch. I don't have Fatal Push mainboard as I felt that there was enough removal already, but I'm open to suggestions on that front.
I suppose I could also move Temur Battle Rage and Blood Crypt to the sideboard so then I can have more slots mainboard for creatures/disruption/permission/removal. That might be a good way to catch an opponent off guard in game 2 that may board in graveyard hate to prevent Scavenging.
Card choices
I did seriously consider adding the Bauble as it's a free way to get a little info, very easily gets you one step closer to Delirium, and boosting 'goyf. I went for the Gargoyle instead because 1) it gets you to Delirium twice as quickly and boosts 'goyf twice as much (it's both an artifact and a creature), 2) it mills you and your opponent, again for reaching Delirium and growing Tarmogoyf and also for making Drown in the Loch even better, and 3) it's a big, evasive body that puts a definite clock on your opponent left unanswered that can also be Scavenged for five +1/+1 counters. Even with these reasons, there are still merits to Bauble and it might be correct to play the Bauble instead. I've also thought about Phyrexian Soulgorger as another huge Artifact Creature that makes a great creature to scavenge, but it'll most likely just sac itself on your next upkeep unless you have a disposable creature.
Grim Flayer is a pretty good card! It let's you Surveil 3 every time it hits, grows to a 4/4 when you reach Delirium, and is has Trample, so it's another great target for Scavenging +1/+1 counters. With all its merits though, I can totally see cutting them for more disruption/permission/removal/creatures/Planeswalkers (e.g. Bobs, 'goyf, Stalkers.
Snapcaster of course is one of the best blue cards in Modern and he does double-duty in this deck. With him, you can flash back removal, etc. so that you don't need as many slots for noncreature spells and he himself can be scavenged for a couple +1/+1 counters (admittedly, not much, but swinging with a 3/3 Invisible Stalker is certainly better than with a 1/1 one). I have two of Snappy because I don't want 3+ in the deck and to draw him and have him be dead in hand with no Instants/Sorceries to flash back, but because he can be scavenged later, I thought it was safe to include more than one.
Other thoughts
Thassa, God the Sea
There are a lot of cards that I thought about putting in here. Thassa, God the Sea fits nicely with this deck as it can make any of your creatures unblockable and lets you Scry each turn. I took it out though because it is relatively slow and doesn't have an immediate impact when it hits the board. Plus, I didn't think I had enough devotion to blue in the deck for it to reliably be a creature, so although it would be great scrying before you draw a card from Bob and making creatures unblockable, I still think it's too slow overall.
Infect
I also thought about making this an infect deck. If you can Scavenge Death's Shadow onto an Inkmoth Nexus or Blighted Agent and swing, you could win the game in one hit! I decided to go with Creeping Tar Pit and Invisible Stalker instead as there are already a number of heavy-hitting creatures in the deck and many people will take 3-4 damage each game from Fetch & Shocklands, so swinging with a pumped Stalker could end the game in one hit anyways.
Enchantments
I'm also toying around with playing Brain Maggot. Granted it's a pretty weak creature and an easy target for a myriad of removal spells, but it does still provide some disruption and it is an Enchantment Creature, meaning it's possible to reach Delirium even faster and make 'goyf even bigger (a max of a 7/8)! In addition to Thassa, God the Sea|Thassa and Brain Maggot, I also thought about Bident of Thassa as it's an Enchantment Artifact, could net you cards from Invisible Stalker, and could force your opponent into bad attacks. Overall though, it's much too slow.
Planeswalkers
I only have 2 Lilianas in there as I needed to cut cards and I wasn't sure which Planeswalker(s) to include. It may be that Oko, Jace, or other Liliana are the right choice - thoughts?
Sorceries/Tutors
I'm also toying with Traverse the Ulvenwald and Maelstrom Pulse. Pulse is yet another sorcery for Delirium/Tarmogoyf and is more removal. Once you have Delirium, Traverse the Ulvenwald lets you tutor for any creature or land you want. I didn't include it because I wanted to have more slots for creatures & removal. It could be that it's just better to run fewer creatures and instead run Traverse and/or Once Upon a Time to let you find the creatures/lands you need. Thoughts?
