What are our opinions on UB Rack? Where we use tempo cards to get card advantage (i.e. remand, counter spells, serum visions) , but more importantly I want to run 'Paradox Haze' specifically. Opinions?
What are our opinions on UB Rack? Where we use tempo cards to get card advantage (i.e. remand, counter spells, serum visions) , but more importantly I want to run 'Paradox Haze' specifically. Opinions?
What would you replace though?
The problem I see is you end up losing card advantage because you're incapable of trimming their hand down quickly enough, thus diluting your threats by having to add in more answers to threats they are now able to play because you couldn't eliminate their hand quickly enough.
Paradox Haze would be fun to stack on with Rack effects, but it would also aid their upkeep cards, Phyrexian Arena for example. Plus, I'm guessing, in order to make the blue splash work, you would have to insert Haze into spots presently occupied by Shrieking or Rack, thus eliminating the gain you'd get from the "double upkeep" effect and further hindering yourself by utilizing a 3 mana card instead of a 1 mana card.
*Edit for the following:
Thinking about the general strategy of 8rack, which is to control the game by controlling your opponent's hand. By splashing in blue, you're switching the strategy to be quasi hand control with increased stack control via counterspells etc., then adding in an element of card advantage through Serum Visions.
If you're looking for card advantage, you may as well stay in the black spectrum and use Phyrexian Arena or Dark Confidant, thus keeping with the overall 8rack theme/strategy.
I have to agree the best card in modern for card advantage with 8 rack is Dark Confidant. Splashing blue is not something I would consider as it doesn't have any spells that a:win me the game or b: make opponents hand smaller or c: deal with a card that stops me from doing a and b.
thanks for your answers. It comfort me to go with a mono-B deck.
I tested WB on xmage and I have been sanctioned immediately by a blood moon.
I see that even affinity is playing blood moon.
thanks for your answers. It comfort me to go with a mono-B deck.
I tested WB on xmage and I have been sanctioned immediately by a blood moon.
I see that even affinity is playing blood moon.
If you're playing mono-black to avoid blood moon, why are you playing fetches?
You may want to consider running 3 x Mutavault, 2 x Ghost Quarter, then dropping the fetches to 2 or 3. Your net non-basic land is about the same, but you also have at least 2 ghost quarters MB to deal with Tron or Scapeshift decks game 1. Additionally, it keeps the potential revolt triggers high enough, as you can use the ghost quarters for that, as well as the marsh flats.
From there, I'd consider dropping the Fulminators down to 2, increasing the extraction / extirpate count to 4. That would better balance the spell, creature, non-land/creature permanent hate out a bit better.
There's no doubt that running a couple of fetches and the non-basics, like vault, urborg, and ghost quarter do make you more susceptible to Blood Moon. However, if you keep the basic count high enough, you should be able to get around that early enough. Additionally, running mono B makes the mana correction issue less problematic, whether blood moon is in the game or not, and thus less likely that blood moon comes in from the SB.
I'll be considering a few things here, whether a White splash would have helped, how the mono-B performed, how I screwed up, and what changes I'll be making.
Game 1 - I fortunately drew into a really good mixture of removal via fatal push and smallpox, with rack effects early on in the game. He emptied his own hand quite quickly, leaving me with little work to do on that front. Fortunately, with my top decking and what I had in hand, I was able to strip most of his threats and then race with 1 Shrieking Affliction and 1 Rack in play.
Game 2 - I sideboarded in Bontu's, Push, Tendrils, Betrayal and removed Wrench Mind and Thoughtseize. Nothing he was playing was above 3 mana, that I had seen, and he was emptying his hand so quickly that Wrench was superfluous. He boarded in Leyline of Sanctity, which was in his opening hand and dropped right away. Uh oh...I top decked a Raven's Crime and had 1 in hand already, making those 2 cards dead. Fortunately, my other top decks were my removal spells and I had a Lili in hand, along with a Shrieking. He controlled the match for the first few turns, dropping me to 12. Then I had enough mana online to clear the board and take control. I stayed at 12 the rest of the game, top decking more removal and using Lili to make him sac his creatures. The rack effects did the rest of the work.
A white splash would have been nice here to remove the Leyline and help make my hand control cards useful. Fortunately though, I didn't draw into any inquisitions or blackmails game 2, so the 2 raven's crimes were the only dead cards in my hand all game, which I could use as discard fodder for Lili.
Jund - Easy, until I screwed up my sideboarding
Game 1 - He only managed to drop me to 17 and lost to a combination of rack effects and mutavault aggro. Controlling his hand and the board was easy.
Games 2 & 3 - I made the fatal mistake of sideboarding in permanent hate, via creature removal and ratchet bombs, then didn't correct it for game 3. Game 2 was close, as I was 1 turn away from lethal with rack effects. Game 3 was a joke, as he controlled the board/hand, while I fizzled with a bunch of creature removal that wasn't well suited for his strategy.
A lingering souls may have helped here, as Penner swaps them in for his play, but ultimately the failure was my piloting, and a white splash wouldn't have helped with that.
Death & Taxes -
Game 1 - I fizzled on mana and he resolved a Thalia. GG
Game 2 - Again, I sideboarded in a boat load of creature hate and lost control of the hand. He was able to resolve 2 Restoration Angels, which I didn't draw answers for. GG
Again, Lingering Souls may have helped here, allowing me to block the angels, but garbage piloting and a bad sideboard tactic was my fatal mistake.
CoCo Elves -
Game 1 - A surprisingly close game, as I drew into 3 rack effects and was almost able to win the race. Unfortunately, I didn't draw into creature removal.
Game 2 - I correctly sideboarded in a bunch of creature hate. Much like Allies in round 1, he controls the game for the first few turns, then I'm able to wipe the board and take control of the game quite easily.
Game 3 - More of the same.
A white splash wouldn't have helped here. Lingering souls blockers would be useful, sure, but equivalent mana board sweepers were more effective against a deck like this.
Overall, I was happy with the decision to remove the white splash. The only time I found myself truly wishing for it was against Allies and a T0 Leyline. Fortunately, I had made the correct sideboard choices and wasn't utilizing as many "Target Player" spells in that game.
Clearly, the biggest disappointment was my piloting and lack of faith in being able to control Jund and D&T at their hand, opting instead to try and control the board.
As for changes, I felt myself wishing for more removal in every game 1, whether it was a Thalia, Confidant, Elf, or whatever. I would definitely add back in the 4th Push and drop a Blackmail. The other thing that really bothered me was not having recurring threats, once I got to top-decking. There were a few games that I didn't have a Raven's Crime in my gy, nor did I have a Lili in play. That is not a good state to be in, whatsoever. Rather than add in a 4th Raven's Crime, I'm considering adding in an Infernal Tutor.
We really only need 1 Raven's Crime to be played in order to make the top-deck state a non-issue. Unless the opponent is running graveyard hate, then multiple copies become needed. However, adding in more to potentially draw and have as redundancies isn't ideal.
At this point, I'm considering having an Infernal Tutor to allow for a targeted search of the library for a specific answer, whether it's a Lili, Crime, Void, sweeper, or something else.
I will be adding in a 2nd Flats, for the singular purpose of the Revolt trigger on Push. 3 Mutavaults felt good. I was hitting them enough that I usually had them when needed, but not so much that I was short on B mana, same with 2 Quarters. However, I still felt short on Revolt triggers. There were definitely occasions where I was wishing I had a mutavault in play, but looking at the mana options I had, it would have been more detrimental to have the colorless source, rather than the B source.
Sideboard wise, Relic felt way too slow. Leyline of the Void in place of the Relic.
Those will be the changes I look to make for the next games and I'll see where that leads.
Interesting read Darkx87 just a couple things I think a bit differently about or perhaps would like to discuss more. What role do you feel EE has in this deck? You talk about bringing it in which match ups would it make the cut? Do you find fetchlands needed? I play mono black and it is very rare I want to trigger revolt and I cant. I honestly cant think of a situation it has come up in the last 4 months. Ratchet bombs is a clean answer to chalice and tokens plus a bunch of other stuff it can be a bit slow but ive never found it to slow for what its purpose in the sideboard is. I play 4 Dark confidants in my board and I can see a whole bunch of scenarios in your post where I would have brought them in its something to consider.
Interesting read Darkx87 just a couple things I think a bit differently about or perhaps would like to discuss more. What role do you feel EE has in this deck? You talk about bringing it in which match ups would it make the cut? Do you find fetchlands needed? I play mono black and it is very rare I want to trigger revolt and I cant. I honestly cant think of a situation it has come up in the last 4 months. Ratchet bombs is a clean answer to chalice and tokens plus a bunch of other stuff it can be a bit slow but ive never found it to slow for what its purpose in the sideboard is. I play 4 Dark confidants in my board and I can see a whole bunch of scenarios in your post where I would have brought them in its something to consider.
1) Fetch lands for revolt triggers
I've removed Dismember from the list, which is why the revolt triggers become more important. I agree that the trigger doesn't come up every game or even every 2nd or 3rd game, but I certainly did find myself needing it. That's why I think running 2 fetch lands, 2 qhost quarters, and having the legendary rules available will be enough to get the triggers when needed. Again, it's something I have to playtest more to really determine if the fetch lands are necessary, or if there's enough with the quarters and legendary rules.
2) Dark Confidant
I've seen this in a few lists and have thought about playing around with it. I'm not convinced that it's necessary because Raven's Crime and Lili should provide enough recurring threat to not need multiple draws per turn to keep the threat level high. Obviously, in my post I mention that I was short on that and, I'm guessing, that's where you would have brought DC in to the game.
At this point, I don't have enough hard data to say absolutely no to DC, but it just feels like you're too closely approaching a worse Jund or Death's Shadow deck by adding it to the list. BUT, feelings don't mean jack next to facts, so I'm not going to nix it as a possibility for the future.
The angelers come in against any control deck, or decks running leyline of sanctity and/or chalice of the void. Usually, opponents side out creature removal and they simply cannot deal with the fish. And my bridges usually come out. In my local meta there is a lot of artifact hate that gets sided in.to quote tom ross "People are sideboarding in artifact removal for The Rack anyway. I'd rather not walk into their sideboard plans." this mindset gets them in trouble with the gurmag
My SB guide is pretty simplified
Against Dredge:
Raven's Crime out, Leylines of the void come in
Against affinity:
Wrench minds and thought seize comes out, Disenchants, damnation, and souls come in
Against Burn:
thought seize comes out, anglers in. And pray. i don't actually mind the burn matchup. they empty their hand so fast, try to have at least 1 rack effect in opening hand
Against Jeskai / UW Control
bridge and smallpox come out, dark confidant, fulminator, souls, and angeler comes in
Against any Death shadow build:
bridge and thoughtseize out, leylines and ratchet bomb in. I really like the matchup against DS. smallpox is such a great tool against it
Against Eldrazi Tron:
funeral charm and wrench mind out, gurmag in, fulminator in
I play myself amulet titan. I think smallpox is the most powerfull card. You took the right decision, but it is important to try to win quick. Maybe is better a hand with a rack and 1 smallpox and wrench mind or ravens crime. Ones the Amulet player is able to land a titan, the bounce land will prevent you to hit through Racks.
I have another question!
I'm returning to 8 rack and I have issues against burn. What advice can you give to me?
My strategy is to try to hit an early collective brutality. I use to win with Nyxiathid but now Im still calibrating my play.
Regards!
against burn, i would drop the thoughtseize as you dont want to help them reduce your life total. i would replace them with collected brutality
also swapping bontu's for flaying tendrils sounds good as it hits everything they have and you get to untap =)
Can I get some sideboard help against G/W Company? They have so much answers idk what i can bring sideboard to tip things into my favor. I play B/R Rack
Do you run graf digger's cage? it can work as graveyard hate and company hate. also bontu's last reckoning and/or flaying tendrils usually does the trick
yes, i run BR rack. it's a very consistent deck tbh, i usually go 3-1 or 2-2, mainly due to my inexperience and lack of time to fully put in the work to learn the deck (i can only play magic once a week Frown ); however, I feel like there is potential. Right now i am tuning my sideboard. But feel comfortable with mainboard.
Like i've said throughout the thread, my only weakness is GW toolbox/company decks and Etron. Burn is 50/50 tbh. I feel like i need more Etron hate, idk what to add.
First up, you have 8 bloodstained mires in your main. also i think if you were running black/red, blightning and rise // fall are strictly better than bolt and terminate
also, why run a basic mountain if you have bloodmoon? run more swamps instead.
LGS Report -
He boarded in Leyline of Sanctity, which was in his opening hand and dropped right away.... The rack effects did the rest of the work.
The rack can't target them if they have a Leyline out. Something I didn't notice at first. Also I love the white splash because it's there when I need it. I also run the Bontu's mainboard and have rarely disliked the choice. I agree with Void and think at least 3 is the answer. It's the only way we can hope to win against dredge (and even then it's not 100%)
Ixalan gives us a new rack of sorts, in the form of Raiders' Wake. It is more of a machine gun rack as it is repeatable, giving a shock effect for each discard spell you play and successfully land. It also works when you attack. The only downside, the cost. Four mana might be too prohibitive for the current builds of 8Rack.
What would you replace though?
The problem I see is you end up losing card advantage because you're incapable of trimming their hand down quickly enough, thus diluting your threats by having to add in more answers to threats they are now able to play because you couldn't eliminate their hand quickly enough.
Paradox Haze would be fun to stack on with Rack effects, but it would also aid their upkeep cards, Phyrexian Arena for example. Plus, I'm guessing, in order to make the blue splash work, you would have to insert Haze into spots presently occupied by Shrieking or Rack, thus eliminating the gain you'd get from the "double upkeep" effect and further hindering yourself by utilizing a 3 mana card instead of a 1 mana card.
*Edit for the following:
Thinking about the general strategy of 8rack, which is to control the game by controlling your opponent's hand. By splashing in blue, you're switching the strategy to be quasi hand control with increased stack control via counterspells etc., then adding in an element of card advantage through Serum Visions.
If you're looking for card advantage, you may as well stay in the black spectrum and use Phyrexian Arena or Dark Confidant, thus keeping with the overall 8rack theme/strategy.
If you're playing mono-black to avoid blood moon, why are you playing fetches?
You may want to consider running 3 x Mutavault, 2 x Ghost Quarter, then dropping the fetches to 2 or 3. Your net non-basic land is about the same, but you also have at least 2 ghost quarters MB to deal with Tron or Scapeshift decks game 1. Additionally, it keeps the potential revolt triggers high enough, as you can use the ghost quarters for that, as well as the marsh flats.
From there, I'd consider dropping the Fulminators down to 2, increasing the extraction / extirpate count to 4. That would better balance the spell, creature, non-land/creature permanent hate out a bit better.
There's no doubt that running a couple of fetches and the non-basics, like vault, urborg, and ghost quarter do make you more susceptible to Blood Moon. However, if you keep the basic count high enough, you should be able to get around that early enough. Additionally, running mono B makes the mana correction issue less problematic, whether blood moon is in the game or not, and thus less likely that blood moon comes in from the SB.
Just my $0.02.
I'll be considering a few things here, whether a White splash would have helped, how the mono-B performed, how I screwed up, and what changes I'll be making.
2 Dismember
2 Funeral Charm
3 Fatal push
Sorceries (18)
2 Blackmail
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox
2 Thoughtseize
3 Wrench Mind
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 The Rack
Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil
Lands (23)
3 Mutavault
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Marsh Flats
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
13 Swamp
3 Death's Shadow
2 Bontu's Last Reckoning
4 Extirpate
1 Fatal Push
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Relic of Progenitus
CoCo Allies - Surprisingly easy -
Game 1 - I fortunately drew into a really good mixture of removal via fatal push and smallpox, with rack effects early on in the game. He emptied his own hand quite quickly, leaving me with little work to do on that front. Fortunately, with my top decking and what I had in hand, I was able to strip most of his threats and then race with 1 Shrieking Affliction and 1 Rack in play.
Game 2 - I sideboarded in Bontu's, Push, Tendrils, Betrayal and removed Wrench Mind and Thoughtseize. Nothing he was playing was above 3 mana, that I had seen, and he was emptying his hand so quickly that Wrench was superfluous. He boarded in Leyline of Sanctity, which was in his opening hand and dropped right away. Uh oh...I top decked a Raven's Crime and had 1 in hand already, making those 2 cards dead. Fortunately, my other top decks were my removal spells and I had a Lili in hand, along with a Shrieking. He controlled the match for the first few turns, dropping me to 12. Then I had enough mana online to clear the board and take control. I stayed at 12 the rest of the game, top decking more removal and using Lili to make him sac his creatures. The rack effects did the rest of the work.
A white splash would have been nice here to remove the Leyline and help make my hand control cards useful. Fortunately though, I didn't draw into any inquisitions or blackmails game 2, so the 2 raven's crimes were the only dead cards in my hand all game, which I could use as discard fodder for Lili.
Jund - Easy, until I screwed up my sideboarding
Game 1 - He only managed to drop me to 17 and lost to a combination of rack effects and mutavault aggro. Controlling his hand and the board was easy.
Games 2 & 3 - I made the fatal mistake of sideboarding in permanent hate, via creature removal and ratchet bombs, then didn't correct it for game 3. Game 2 was close, as I was 1 turn away from lethal with rack effects. Game 3 was a joke, as he controlled the board/hand, while I fizzled with a bunch of creature removal that wasn't well suited for his strategy.
A lingering souls may have helped here, as Penner swaps them in for his play, but ultimately the failure was my piloting, and a white splash wouldn't have helped with that.
Death & Taxes -
Game 1 - I fizzled on mana and he resolved a Thalia. GG
Game 2 - Again, I sideboarded in a boat load of creature hate and lost control of the hand. He was able to resolve 2 Restoration Angels, which I didn't draw answers for. GG
Again, Lingering Souls may have helped here, allowing me to block the angels, but garbage piloting and a bad sideboard tactic was my fatal mistake.
CoCo Elves -
Game 1 - A surprisingly close game, as I drew into 3 rack effects and was almost able to win the race. Unfortunately, I didn't draw into creature removal.
Game 2 - I correctly sideboarded in a bunch of creature hate. Much like Allies in round 1, he controls the game for the first few turns, then I'm able to wipe the board and take control of the game quite easily.
Game 3 - More of the same.
A white splash wouldn't have helped here. Lingering souls blockers would be useful, sure, but equivalent mana board sweepers were more effective against a deck like this.
Overall, I was happy with the decision to remove the white splash. The only time I found myself truly wishing for it was against Allies and a T0 Leyline. Fortunately, I had made the correct sideboard choices and wasn't utilizing as many "Target Player" spells in that game.
Clearly, the biggest disappointment was my piloting and lack of faith in being able to control Jund and D&T at their hand, opting instead to try and control the board.
As for changes, I felt myself wishing for more removal in every game 1, whether it was a Thalia, Confidant, Elf, or whatever. I would definitely add back in the 4th Push and drop a Blackmail. The other thing that really bothered me was not having recurring threats, once I got to top-decking. There were a few games that I didn't have a Raven's Crime in my gy, nor did I have a Lili in play. That is not a good state to be in, whatsoever. Rather than add in a 4th Raven's Crime, I'm considering adding in an Infernal Tutor.
We really only need 1 Raven's Crime to be played in order to make the top-deck state a non-issue. Unless the opponent is running graveyard hate, then multiple copies become needed. However, adding in more to potentially draw and have as redundancies isn't ideal.
At this point, I'm considering having an Infernal Tutor to allow for a targeted search of the library for a specific answer, whether it's a Lili, Crime, Void, sweeper, or something else.
I will be adding in a 2nd Flats, for the singular purpose of the Revolt trigger on Push. 3 Mutavaults felt good. I was hitting them enough that I usually had them when needed, but not so much that I was short on B mana, same with 2 Quarters. However, I still felt short on Revolt triggers. There were definitely occasions where I was wishing I had a mutavault in play, but looking at the mana options I had, it would have been more detrimental to have the colorless source, rather than the B source.
Sideboard wise, Relic felt way too slow. Leyline of the Void in place of the Relic.
Those will be the changes I look to make for the next games and I'll see where that leads.
1x Infernal Tutor
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Raven's Crime
4x Smallpox
2x Thoughtseize
3x Wrench Mind
3x Fatal Push
1x Funeral Charm
3x Ensnaring Bridge
4x The Rack
4x Shrieking Affliction
4x Liliana of the Veil
3x Concealed Courtyard
1x Godless Shrine
2x Marsh Flats
4x Mutavault
1x Plains
7x Swamp
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
Side (15)
1x Damnation
1x Dark Confidant
2x Disenchant
2x Fulminator Mage
2x Gurmag Angler
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Lingering Souls
1x Ratchet Bomb
1) Fetch lands for revolt triggers
I've removed Dismember from the list, which is why the revolt triggers become more important. I agree that the trigger doesn't come up every game or even every 2nd or 3rd game, but I certainly did find myself needing it. That's why I think running 2 fetch lands, 2 qhost quarters, and having the legendary rules available will be enough to get the triggers when needed. Again, it's something I have to playtest more to really determine if the fetch lands are necessary, or if there's enough with the quarters and legendary rules.
2) Dark Confidant
I've seen this in a few lists and have thought about playing around with it. I'm not convinced that it's necessary because Raven's Crime and Lili should provide enough recurring threat to not need multiple draws per turn to keep the threat level high. Obviously, in my post I mention that I was short on that and, I'm guessing, that's where you would have brought DC in to the game.
At this point, I don't have enough hard data to say absolutely no to DC, but it just feels like you're too closely approaching a worse Jund or Death's Shadow deck by adding it to the list. BUT, feelings don't mean jack next to facts, so I'm not going to nix it as a possibility for the future.
What did your matches look like for opposing decks?
My SB guide is pretty simplified
Against Dredge:
Raven's Crime out, Leylines of the void come in
Against affinity:
Wrench minds and thought seize comes out, Disenchants, damnation, and souls come in
Against Burn:
thought seize comes out, anglers in. And pray. i don't actually mind the burn matchup. they empty their hand so fast, try to have at least 1 rack effect in opening hand
Against Jeskai / UW Control
bridge and smallpox come out, dark confidant, fulminator, souls, and angeler comes in
Against any Death shadow build:
bridge and thoughtseize out, leylines and ratchet bomb in. I really like the matchup against DS. smallpox is such a great tool against it
Against Eldrazi Tron:
funeral charm and wrench mind out, gurmag in, fulminator in
against burn, i would drop the thoughtseize as you dont want to help them reduce your life total. i would replace them with collected brutality
also swapping bontu's for flaying tendrils sounds good as it hits everything they have and you get to untap =)
Do you run graf digger's cage? it can work as graveyard hate and company hate. also bontu's last reckoning and/or flaying tendrils usually does the trick
First up, you have 8 bloodstained mires in your main. also i think if you were running black/red, blightning and rise // fall are strictly better than bolt and terminate
also, why run a basic mountain if you have bloodmoon? run more swamps instead.
The rack can't target them if they have a Leyline out. Something I didn't notice at first. Also I love the white splash because it's there when I need it. I also run the Bontu's mainboard and have rarely disliked the choice. I agree with Void and think at least 3 is the answer. It's the only way we can hope to win against dredge (and even then it's not 100%)
This is correct. Also, Shrieking affliction still gets through as well.