Wow they put our deck in the ***** tier. Why am I simultaneously surprised and not surprised.
I actually like it more this way. Keeps tier whores from even knowing the deck exists and grants us lots of easy wins on opponent ignorance alone.
I can agree with this. The most competent opponents will have done their homework, but to get to them you need to cut through the wannabes that have no clue how non-Tier 1 decks work.
Just the other day, an ex-pod player was asking me how I'd feel if they banned LotV. I told him I'd probably just run Necrogen Mists or maybe even gibbering descent depending on what the weird bizzaro world meta looked like. He had never heard of the cards before, so I looked them up on my phone for him. Another player walked over and was deeply confused by the cards. "But you'd be losing cards too. Gibbering descent won't protect you from losing cards during your upkeep because you'd need to have an empty hand in the first place."
To which I could only reply "Correct."
8rack is interesting in that it is frequently quite content to sit around with little to no cards in hand. That is antithesis to what many decks would consider a desirable position. I know I've played against several players who have had no idea what I was up to until the board was locked down. You can actually see the moment when their opinion of the game changes from "man, all this discard is annoying but at least they aren't playing anything threatening" to "...I'm actually going to lose."
Definitely wouldn't run pendent it is card disadvantage for increased card quality at a pretty steep mana investment. The card was kind of kool with the affinity keyword but by itself it is really weak.
I would rather splash blue for just serum visions and run a 9 land splash
4X dark slick shores
4X polluted Delta
1X Watery Grave
If the serum visions splash worked i would experiment with pushing blue a bit more using Creeping tarpit, and snapcaster
I hate to break it to you, but Tiering has to do with popularity. If a deck is widely played, it's going to be Tier 1. If it's moderately played, it's going to be Tier 2. If a deck sees little play, it's not going to be either. There are other things, such as tournament results and day 2 appearances in larger tournaments, that contribute to whether or not a deck is Tiered. If this deck thrives on being unpopular, than you should be thankful that it's not Tier 2 or better. That should only mean that it's beneficial for you as an 8rack player.
Continue on with your meta assassination from the shadows.
Birthing Pod was in Proven way before it managed even 1% popularity.
But ultimatedly it's true that anti-meta decks thrive with ignorance, although I sense misplaced sarcasm from that line. Bloom Titan would have had no chance at Omaha's brackets if people had seen it coming.
BB is awesome but it has the same inherent problem of a splash mana base...we can't consistently take the life loss. I have ran syphon life since the beginning and is not reliable as a 1 of to consistently compensate for BB and TS...nevermind surgical as well. 2 or more maybe...but I don't think that's what we want to be doing with all those cards and mana. Maybe a BB build with splash primarily for more efficient life gain cards would work...I don't know. It would have to be a cheap, hard to remove source that gave life each turn. Syphon has done this for me but its not cheap and therefore only usable later in the game, thus only a 1 of. I just find that all too often we stabilize too low to take any extra damage being discussed.
As for the tier discussion...I don't mind it being "out of tier" so to speak. It's a conundrum of wanting it to succeed and rise up, but in doing so it won't be as effective. Personally, I prefer the "shock and awe" approach and then receding into the shadows.
Birthing Pod was in Proven way before it managed even 1% popularity.
But ultimatedly it's true that anti-meta decks thrive with ignorance, although I sense misplaced sarcasm from that line. Bloom Titan would have had no chance at Omaha's brackets if people had seen it coming.
Bloom Titan is a great example of why popularity does, in large part, correlate to power. In the last quarter (9/22 - 1/19) it made up 3% of the MTGO metagame and had 2 T8 finishes at different GPs. In the period before that (July - September) it had 2.2% of the MTGO metagame. Before that (April - July) it had just under 1%. That's a deck that has been slowly creeping up as people have slowly realized its power. People did not expect it, it put up big results, and it STILL qualifies for tier 2 criteria because people did play it. RG Breach Trap is another example of this, a deck that we identified as meeting Established criteria before it ever even got to a GP. Then it made T8 at a GP and continued to put up respectable, although not extensive, MTGO results. It too is now Tier 2. Those decks both thrived on being unexpected and both of them put up huge results because of that.
I cannot name a single deck in the format, except apparently this one, that is supposedly an MTGO monster while also being both unable to perform in paper events AND unable to crack 2% on MTGO. If it can't do either of those things, then either 8Rack needs some super special criteria all its own to account for its hidden power (less likely), OR the deck just isn't as powerful as people believe (more likely).
Definitely wouldn't run pendent it is card disadvantage for increased card quality at a pretty steep mana investment. The card was kind of kool with the affinity keyword but by itself it is really weak.
I would rather splash blue for just Preordain and run a 9 land splash
4X dark slick shores
4X polluted Delta
1X Watery Grave
If the Preordain splash worked i would experiment with pushing blue a bit more using Creeping tarpit, and snapcaster
yess another guy who wanna splash blue come on guy!!
please if you ll get some test on Bu 8rack try monastery siege and forgot tarpit unless you dont play bridges
last year i tried some deck with waste not snapcaster wisthful thinking taar pit but without bridges it' s very difficult to make advantage against aggro
i abandonned this idea that was inconsistent yu'd have to make spellskite main board removal like damnation etc etc
I do just want to put in that Preordain is banned. The only cantrip that works is Slieght of Hand or Serum visions.
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What i always found to be underrated, was mystic speculation. Digs the deepest for 1 and if it's late game or you don't have much to do, buy it back and you can do it again later.
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The answer is purple because ice cream has no bones.
Definitely wouldn't run pendent it is card disadvantage for increased card quality at a pretty steep mana investment. The card was kind of kool with the affinity keyword but by itself it is really weak.
I can't agree with the steep mana investment comment. I mean it's not Top, but it shouldn't be. Did you watch my videos with it? It doesn't "get in the way" with its costs at all. And I love that it's great against permanent removal (when they wipe us with say, Engineered Explosives, we still have Pendant to recover).
Yeah i saw the videos and i see how it fits into the curve using "wasted mana". My point was that historically there has been a few cantrips @ 1 mana that give you 2 turns of this effect plus a card.
Another thing to note is that we can tap the Polluted delta for mana with Urborg in play to prevent some damage.
Hey guys, first time posting. I just got back from SCGDC playing 8-rack. Started off 2-0 but finished 4-4. Considering it was my first time at a big event, I'm quite satisfied with my performance. Here is my list and considerations:
Game 1 vs Affinity: win
Game 2 vs Affinity: win
Game 3 vs Dredge: lose
Game 4 vs Affinity: win
Game 5 vs Boggles: lose
Game 6 vs Burn: lose
Game 7 vs Jund: lose
Game 8 vs storm: win
Affinity: My deck is already well geared towards affinity. With Funeral charms to kill early threats, this gave me time to find ensnaring bridge or drown in sorrow to stabilize.
Dredgevine: This was a difficult game 1 since my discard spells only helps with dredge. Game 2 I put in all my creatures and took out all discard spells. Still couldn't race the deck. I should've aimed for the ensnaring bridge lock instead.
Boggles: I really could've won this game. Game 1 I decided to take his rancor instead of his lifelink aura. He ended up out-racing 4 shrieking afflictions with his huge lifelinker. Getting bridge out asap and liliana is crucial.
Burn: Very bad matchup for me. With his early game creatures being x/2, Funeral Charm couldn't kill anything. Need to look into leylines or stronger early removal.
Jund: Jund/Abzan has the early beats with Tarmogoyf and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Even has abrupt decay to take out bridge. Looking into mainbaord spellskite and stronger removal.
Storm: Easy win for me. Sided in Necrogen Mists to counter his leylines game two.
In the end, I felt my transformational sideboard was lackluster. It caught opponents off-guard when they took out their creature removal for game 2. But my sideboard has no real plan against Burn / Jund and Abzan. As my main board is, Affinity is a walk in the park for me. But anything higher than x/1 toughness is a real pain.
I agree with destroyer, pendant has been amazing for me over the last few days. And on that note:
@ktkenshinx, how is the testing coming along? I'm very interested in how pendant works for you in your matches.
Testing stalled in the last few days because of forum updates, but I plan on wrapping these up soon. I think I have 10 more game 1s to test, 5 on the play and 5 on the draw. If I remember correctly, my win rate is hovering between 45-50% and Pendant has mostly been pretty decent. I have been tracking the games where it has either contributed to a win, contributed to a loss, where I haven't seen it at all, where it was just win-more, and where I was screwed regardless of Pendant.
Pendant has really shined in games where I had an active Bridge and needed to dig for a clock or a second Bridge while the Junk player hopes to topdeck a Decay/Pulse. As expected, Pendant has not been great when BGx gets a fast start and goes into beatdown mode. That's when I would just prefer some more removal or some more immediate card filter/draw.
20 land seems a bit low...don't you find yourself frequently mana screwed?
I would think 3-4 Darkblast main should cover an Affinity heavy meta instead of Charms and Drowned. Other generic spot removal like Victim of Night or Dismember I think is more important to cover most other matchups.
I feel that 4 Necrogen Mist is way too many sb slots at 3cmc. I'm running one for if I run into Leyline.
The deck only needs to see 3 lands which 20 lands can dependably provide 3 mana on turn 3.
I like your suggestion with the removal package. I'll probably have to add in one more urborg to accommodate for Victim of Night.
I need 4 Necrogen Mists since the deck cannot function against a turn 0 leylines. Also, dropping multiple necrogen mists hastens the clock against slower decks much faster. Back when delver was around, necrogen mists pretty much nullified any top deck Treasure Cruises.
The deck only needs to see 3 lands which 20 lands can dependably provide 3 mana on turn 3.
20 lands is 64% on the play and 72% on the draw... a bit shy of what I would call dependable. Get into a better (85)% by turn 5-6 (draw-play) with 20 lands.
23 lands leads to 75% on the play and 83% on the draw, which is closer to where I would rather be when if you have a liliana or bridge by turn 3 (79% as 4-ofs) you definitely want to drop it to get out from under some pressure. Ravens Crime helps mitigate flooding out pretty well if you can get one in hand/yard.
Population Size = Deck size
# of success = the # of copies you are running
Sample Size = total # of cards you have drawn (Including opening 7)
# of success in sample = # of copies you want to draw
I can agree with this. The most competent opponents will have done their homework, but to get to them you need to cut through the wannabes that have no clue how non-Tier 1 decks work.
Just the other day, an ex-pod player was asking me how I'd feel if they banned LotV. I told him I'd probably just run Necrogen Mists or maybe even gibbering descent depending on what the weird bizzaro world meta looked like. He had never heard of the cards before, so I looked them up on my phone for him. Another player walked over and was deeply confused by the cards. "But you'd be losing cards too. Gibbering descent won't protect you from losing cards during your upkeep because you'd need to have an empty hand in the first place."
To which I could only reply "Correct."
8rack is interesting in that it is frequently quite content to sit around with little to no cards in hand. That is antithesis to what many decks would consider a desirable position. I know I've played against several players who have had no idea what I was up to until the board was locked down. You can actually see the moment when their opinion of the game changes from "man, all this discard is annoying but at least they aren't playing anything threatening" to "...I'm actually going to lose."
Definitely wouldn't run pendent it is card disadvantage for increased card quality at a pretty steep mana investment. The card was kind of kool with the affinity keyword but by itself it is really weak.
I would rather splash blue for just serum visions and run a 9 land splash
4X dark slick shores
4X polluted Delta
1X Watery Grave
If the serum visions splash worked i would experiment with pushing blue a bit more using Creeping tarpit, and snapcaster
Birthing Pod was in Proven way before it managed even 1% popularity.
But ultimatedly it's true that anti-meta decks thrive with ignorance, although I sense misplaced sarcasm from that line. Bloom Titan would have had no chance at Omaha's brackets if people had seen it coming.
As for the tier discussion...I don't mind it being "out of tier" so to speak. It's a conundrum of wanting it to succeed and rise up, but in doing so it won't be as effective. Personally, I prefer the "shock and awe" approach and then receding into the shadows.
Bloom Titan is a great example of why popularity does, in large part, correlate to power. In the last quarter (9/22 - 1/19) it made up 3% of the MTGO metagame and had 2 T8 finishes at different GPs. In the period before that (July - September) it had 2.2% of the MTGO metagame. Before that (April - July) it had just under 1%. That's a deck that has been slowly creeping up as people have slowly realized its power. People did not expect it, it put up big results, and it STILL qualifies for tier 2 criteria because people did play it. RG Breach Trap is another example of this, a deck that we identified as meeting Established criteria before it ever even got to a GP. Then it made T8 at a GP and continued to put up respectable, although not extensive, MTGO results. It too is now Tier 2. Those decks both thrived on being unexpected and both of them put up huge results because of that.
I cannot name a single deck in the format, except apparently this one, that is supposedly an MTGO monster while also being both unable to perform in paper events AND unable to crack 2% on MTGO. If it can't do either of those things, then either 8Rack needs some super special criteria all its own to account for its hidden power (less likely), OR the deck just isn't as powerful as people believe (more likely).
I do just want to put in that Preordain is banned. The only cantrip that works is Slieght of Hand or Serum visions.
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
I can't agree with the steep mana investment comment. I mean it's not Top, but it shouldn't be. Did you watch my videos with it? It doesn't "get in the way" with its costs at all. And I love that it's great against permanent removal (when they wipe us with say, Engineered Explosives, we still have Pendant to recover).
Another thing to note is that we can tap the Polluted delta for mana with Urborg in play to prevent some damage.
@ktkenshinx, how is the testing coming along? I'm very interested in how pendant works for you in your matches.
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
14 Swamp
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of kozilek
4 Wrench Mind
4 Raven's Crime
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 The Rack
4 Shrieking Affliction
3 Funeral Charm
2 Dismember
2 Drown in Sorrow
1 Slaughter pact
4 Necrogen Mists
4 Pack Rat
3 Tombstalker
2 Oona's Prowler
1 Darkblast
1 Funeral Charm
Game 1 vs Affinity: win
Game 2 vs Affinity: win
Game 3 vs Dredge: lose
Game 4 vs Affinity: win
Game 5 vs Boggles: lose
Game 6 vs Burn: lose
Game 7 vs Jund: lose
Game 8 vs storm: win
Affinity: My deck is already well geared towards affinity. With Funeral charms to kill early threats, this gave me time to find ensnaring bridge or drown in sorrow to stabilize.
Dredgevine: This was a difficult game 1 since my discard spells only helps with dredge. Game 2 I put in all my creatures and took out all discard spells. Still couldn't race the deck. I should've aimed for the ensnaring bridge lock instead.
Boggles: I really could've won this game. Game 1 I decided to take his rancor instead of his lifelink aura. He ended up out-racing 4 shrieking afflictions with his huge lifelinker. Getting bridge out asap and liliana is crucial.
Burn: Very bad matchup for me. With his early game creatures being x/2, Funeral Charm couldn't kill anything. Need to look into leylines or stronger early removal.
Jund: Jund/Abzan has the early beats with Tarmogoyf and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Even has abrupt decay to take out bridge. Looking into mainbaord spellskite and stronger removal.
Storm: Easy win for me. Sided in Necrogen Mists to counter his leylines game two.
In the end, I felt my transformational sideboard was lackluster. It caught opponents off-guard when they took out their creature removal for game 2. But my sideboard has no real plan against Burn / Jund and Abzan. As my main board is, Affinity is a walk in the park for me. But anything higher than x/1 toughness is a real pain.
Testing stalled in the last few days because of forum updates, but I plan on wrapping these up soon. I think I have 10 more game 1s to test, 5 on the play and 5 on the draw. If I remember correctly, my win rate is hovering between 45-50% and Pendant has mostly been pretty decent. I have been tracking the games where it has either contributed to a win, contributed to a loss, where I haven't seen it at all, where it was just win-more, and where I was screwed regardless of Pendant.
Pendant has really shined in games where I had an active Bridge and needed to dig for a clock or a second Bridge while the Junk player hopes to topdeck a Decay/Pulse. As expected, Pendant has not been great when BGx gets a fast start and goes into beatdown mode. That's when I would just prefer some more removal or some more immediate card filter/draw.
I would think 3-4 Darkblast main should cover an Affinity heavy meta instead of Charms and Drowned. Other generic spot removal like Victim of Night or Dismember I think is more important to cover most other matchups.
I feel that 4 Necrogen Mist is way too many sb slots at 3cmc. I'm running one for if I run into Leyline.
I like your suggestion with the removal package. I'll probably have to add in one more urborg to accommodate for Victim of Night.
I need 4 Necrogen Mists since the deck cannot function against a turn 0 leylines. Also, dropping multiple necrogen mists hastens the clock against slower decks much faster. Back when delver was around, necrogen mists pretty much nullified any top deck Treasure Cruises.
20 lands is 64% on the play and 72% on the draw... a bit shy of what I would call dependable. Get into a better (85)% by turn 5-6 (draw-play) with 20 lands.
23 lands leads to 75% on the play and 83% on the draw, which is closer to where I would rather be when if you have a liliana or bridge by turn 3 (79% as 4-ofs) you definitely want to drop it to get out from under some pressure. Ravens Crime helps mitigate flooding out pretty well if you can get one in hand/yard.
Thirst for Knowledge % to hit artifact
Edit: and for a stock Junk list?
http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx
Population Size = Deck size
# of success = the # of copies you are running
Sample Size = total # of cards you have drawn (Including opening 7)
# of success in sample = # of copies you want to draw