Budget Deck: Shadow Shades (Magic World)

Hey hey. It's your favorite writer back at it again with some budget stuff. Shadow Shades are a deck. They are quite the deck. Back in the DDD era of Buddyfight, they were a decent force, although it looks as though 72 Pillars generally saw more success (not pictured, me searching "Buddyfight Shadow Shade Cardlist" to find official tops for the deck). After that era, though, they saw absolutely no relevance over the course of X from what I'm aware.

Buddy Legends, one of the first Booster Set Alternatives of the Ace era, however, changed all of that. Shadow Shades went from a pretty boring big dude do a sit deck to being able to toolbox any card from the drop zone and refuel the soul of your center guy turn after turn through a grand total of... Four cards. Wow. Let's pause for a second, though. These four cards made the deck tier one. That means one of two things: 1) Shadow Shades were on the verge of playability for years and this is what pushed them over the edge or 2) These four cards that were just released carry the deck on their own, making it easily accessible. I'm writing about the deck, so no prize for guessing which one it is.


I'll be handling this in a similar way to the Executioners post by dividing it into sections. Let's ride.

Part 1: The New Cards

Three cards, right? Well, let's see them. Three of these are easily accessible, the third is from a recently released preconstructed deck. Luckily, the one from the preconstructed deck is not as essential as the first three.

Shadowform Magician, Silhouette Joe Illusion is, to put it bluntly, stupid in combination with the old Shadow Shade stuff and the second card we'll be talking about. On his own, Joe is still really good. He's decently statted (9/2/6 double attack) and having access to the ability to refill his soul and burn turn after turn is good enough. However, the ability to nullify burn damage (this includes Penetrate, as that's damage by an effect) is just icing on the cake. Let's move on to what makes him really crazy, though. Run 4.

Illusion the Shade is the card that breaks Joe. Let's lay it out. This card lets you basically grab anything you want from the soul for free each turn. It also prevents souls from being dropped by effects, not that that's as common as it's been in the past. This card is also not limited in how many you can set. Essentially, you can set like two of these to get two cards from the soul to your hand each turn. Joe lets you get anything from the drop zone to the soul. Any card. This means you can just get whatever you want from your drop zone to your hand for free each turn. This interaction makes this deck a nearly unkillable monster once you get everything set up. Let's not forget - this is Magic World. "Get everything set up" is easier in Magic World than just about any other thanks to the sheer depth of its drawing card pool. Run around 3 or 4, as you want to see it and don't mind seeing it in multiples.

Artist of Shadowform, Silhouette Olivar puts in work. It's very quiet and very subtle, but it's there. Every time your opponent's turn rolls around, they have to consider whether or not they can get through Joe enough times that a gauge, life, and draw card isn't meaningful. In Shadow Shades, you'll basically force that effect to be meaningful. Plus, if you've got everything you need already in your soul, why not just put Olivar back with Joe, huh? Olivar's also not a dead draw since you can slide him into the soul as an Act skill. He also bestows Double Attack and Penetrate with 3k power, for whatever reason. While he's not necessarily as crazy as some of the other cards in the deck, Olivar really adds an extra layer of longevity to the deck that it honestly might not otherwise have. He's also one of the two cards in the deck that's above Rare. I personally play 4.

Great Spell Circle of Deity Dragon is the last card we need to talk about for this section. It's not as necessary as the first three, but it's one of the tools that makes Shadow Shades such a force at the moment. The second effect to retrieve a spell is generic. That should be all I need to say, really. I'd honestly say it's worthy of being called a Magic World staple at at least one copy for the foreseeable future, so make sure to pick it up whenever you can. I play 2, some builds play less. You might see it at 3, but that seems rather uncommon.

Part 2: The "Necessary" Older (Shadow Shade) Cards

Shadow Shades have a select few cards you still need to run at this point, so I'll go over them now. Frankly, you can either skip or replace almost any of these, within reason. Your deck might feel a little clunky compared to the full-built deck, but you realistically only need Joe, your set spells, and some stuff to retrieve in order to get rolling.

Little Light is a Foolish Burial or even better depending on your opening hand. It might sound useless, but it's necessary to ensure you'll open a path to your Joe. I'd run 3, personally, because don't want to see multiples in your opening hand. Later in the game, though, burying Olivar can be nice.

Silhouette Sinbar retrieves your Joe and is the second piece in the Little Light puzzle. Run 4, if you can find it (I'm waiting to see if the seller in France I ordered mine from is going to be able to get them to me). If not, Trio! might work, but you'd have to go -2 to retrieve Joe rather than just a -1. Trio! is clunkier but more accessible, while Sinbar is almost impossible to find but outright better.

The Shade is an older card. It's your relatively standard charge-and-draw card. I run 4 and it seems to work for me. It's sort of skippable, though, as it can be difficult to obtain at times. Really suffers from being released before the X era where we had more sellers out and about.

Dancer of Shadowform, Silhouette Joe can act as a secondary Joe if you want him to. I've seen some lists running him, but I've had enough success without him that I'd say he's skippable. It's completely reasonable to pick him up if you have the spare cash, though.

Part 3: The Necessary Older (Other) Cards

This part should go by quickly. Basically, there are some Magic World staples and Generic cards (you read that right) that you'll want to pick up for this. Together, these form a really solid shell that you can honestly drop just about any Magic World stuff into and probably expect it to work. In addition, just about all of these cards are available in high quantities if you look in the right places and are Rare and below, meaning you can get them with ease and save a lot of money on any future Magic World endeavors. The only exception is the Lost Deck I'll mention, so you'll want to pick that up as soon as possible. I'm surprised the special set isn't out of stock at the time of writing this post, to be honest.

Nice One! is the same hard once per turn draw 2 for 1 gauge spell it's always been and is so old it's not even worth linking. Anybody who's played Buddyfight and read a Magic World card knows this one. Run 3 or 4. 3 is probably the best since you have enough draw power anyway and don't want to draw multiples.

Sephirot's Lectures is the newest addition to the lineup for generic Magic World stuff. Run 3 or so, as being Upstart Goblin on steroids at counter speed is stupid, but hard once per turn is annoying. You could honestly probably get away with 4 if you really wanted to.

Solomon's Wall is a good card. Mad respect. Run 4, as you'll sometimes run into times where you need to protect your Joe.

Great Spell Circle of Reservoir has been established as a good Magic World card ever since its release. Gauge and stat reduction are both things Magic World benefits from. Shadow Shades benefit a lot from the gauge, I can tell you. In combination with the counter speed tools the deck has, you can typically get a pretty unkillable Joe rather easily.

Time Sale and Buddy Help are the two Generic representatives. I've not found Buddy Help to be that great, but Time Sale has been fantastic. The deck has enough spare gauge that you can use Time Sale whenever you want, but Buddy Help is a little bit more limited. I've found that I can generally only use it after I'm already set up, which is after I need the draw power in the first place. 3 Time Sale has been going rather well for me.

You'll want to run a Lost Deck with this if at all possible. With the sheer amount of stuff you draw and put into the soul, you run the risk of decking out. Plus, being able to field more dudes with your Joe is always nice. Don't worry, you don't need to invest in anything major. I've found that the Special Set deck along with two more copies of Zascyth, a set of Vanity Cells, and some copies of Vanity Zero Blazer!! goes a long way. In short, you'll want to make your Lost Deck closed center. Shocking, I know. Just be aware that the Special Set deck is open center, read some C to R Lost World cards, and pick up what you think will work. Honestly, Lost World being based on having broken cards kind of means you can get away with some sub-par choices and probably still come away with decent results.

Part 4: The Optional Stuff

Here's the section where I talk about cards you could consider running or should get a hold of if they're available. This shouldn't take terribly long, either.

That's How I Roll is literally just an attack negate when your opponent attacks Joe. Unreasonably inaccessible for what it is, but it's simple and clean. It also gives you more ways to cast Lectures during your opponent's turn.

Abra Cadabra is a 2-gauge spell negate. A spell negate's a spell negate. Its use varies between matchups and formats. It just got reprinted, so it should be relatively available, in theory. It's not a necessary card, but I'm sure it could be nice for testing.

Infector prevents your Joe from getting dunked on by card effects for the turn it's activated (Zascyth dodging, anyone?). It's a good card that I've seen pop up in various builds in Japan. Like That's How I Roll, the card's difficult to obtain. Run it if you have access and want to, but it's also not necessary.

Silhouette Joe, "Illusion Shadow Dragons" is the Shadow Shade Impact Monster. He's kind of showing his age lately, but he can come out of nowhere in some games and Olivar gives him Double Attack and Penetrate, meaning you have 4 damage spread out in two attacks that don't care about a center monster. The counter speed popping is also cool, but you don't want to sit on Impact Joe. I'd say to run 2 if you want to and have the money, but once again it's skippable.

Wararior is stupid. It's a precon-exclusive card, though, so it's probably going to be a rare find, unfortunately. I'd run as many as possible, be it 0 or 4. Bouncing any card without an inkling of a once per turn clause is absolutely stupid.

Terruca-le! (or Telcare! if you're more familiar with the translation we were working with before January 7th) is a really good card. Run it if you can get it. The resting effect is generic.

Demon Realm Architect, Gamigin searches set spells. Funny guy. If you can get your hands on all 3 set spells, I'm sure the consistency Gamigin offers would be a nice addition. He's kind of expensive, though.

In Closing

I'd like to apologize for the linking in this post. I tried to go with Buddyspoiler wherever possible, but some of the translations there were out of date at the time of writing, meaning many of the links would have changed and the same situation went for the Wikia links. Perhaps next time I could write a post more than a week before a fresh set with support cards in it.

Price: $40+, depending on where you get your cards and how much tech you decide to play, especially from before the X era.

Viability: As of writing this, the deck is tearing things up. It's pretty common to see the LGS victories on Twitter show off this deck and I know at least one Worlds participant is planning on taking it. It's unlikely it'll ever get hit on any kind of banlist, so it's a worthwhile investment unless power creep gets really out of hand. Plus, as mentioned before, the generic Magic shell can be applied to almost any list, so it's money well spent, in my opinion.

Final Words: Shadow Shades kind of deserved it, in my opinion. They were the one Magic World archetype I can say hasn't received much love in its lifetime. Their time in the spotlight was brief compared to 72 Pillars and they don't have access to some of the same stuff that Wizards do like their turn skip Great Spell. I'm glad Bushiroad is capable of creating such well-made legacy support and give Shades a niche of their own.

Also, I've opened a Ko-fi. It's like Patreon but not a subscription. If you think I can tackle a good post and want me to get on it as soon as possible, a $3 fee should be enough to get me to take the deck for a spin and write something up or to write about whatever concept you see fit. Alternatively, you can just leave a tip if you think my work's worth supporting. Anyway, that's all for today. Stay frosty.