Btw there is a small 8Rack deck tech on channelfireball, there are a few words about 3 Thoughtseizes
Watched 'Proper deck tech' by MemoryLapse. The right name is Biased Deck Tech. Because it implies that creature build is strictly better and omits most pros and cons. But we know that Pack Rat is not always better than Smallpox.
"critter bias" aside, at least I explained how the deck operates. And I'm not saying you HAVE to use pack rat. There are a LOT of options here. Bitterblossom. Main deck Death's Shadow. Asylum Visitor obviously...
There is never going to be a universal list. His list has merit but it is 6 cards off my stock list. Were splitting hairs, and were all on the same team for the most part I think. (finally).
ALl that said stay tuned for my next vid. I will do more non biased deck tech for the smallpox. I will try and explain why his build and linearity in general might be fine for scooping up a tourney like that, but for your average joe FMN 8Rack fan a different approach makes sense.
@FearDReaper Objectively speaking I think Elspeth has the most raw power but personally I would always pick Sorin (the good one from Khans of Tarkir) because the tokens he makes have built-in evasion and if you have even half of a Lingering Souls his +1 immediately ends the game against decks like Burn. He also only costs one white as opposed to Elspeth and Gideon and while this hasn't been a problem for me with this mana base haivng two white sources usually involves some pain. Gideon I see as a middle ground where you get Soin's more durable tokens and Elspeth's power of not being reliant on a pre-existing board state when they come into play.
@FearDReaper Objectively speaking I think Elspeth has the most raw power but personally I would always pick Sorin (the good one from Khans of Tarkir) because the tokens he makes have built-in evasion and if you have even half of a Lingering Souls his +1 immediately ends the game against decks like Burn. He also only costs one white as opposed to Elspeth and Gideon and while this hasn't been a problem for me with this mana base haivng two white sources usually involves some pain. Gideon I see as a middle ground where you get Soin's more durable tokens and Elspeth's power of not being reliant on a pre-existing board state when they come into play.
Interesting. I think I pretty much agree with that assessment. In a package that is running Lingering souls, Solemn Visitor is probably the strongest choice when taking cost into consoderation. I'm still not sure which is best in a list without lingering souls. Would you still consider Solemn Visitor without Lingering Souls? If no then which?
Without the Souls I would go with Elspeth if I expect to have something like a Rat in play to make it fly over... whatever and Gideon if I'm not expecting my things to stay alive and I would want to generate a stronger board. I think it goes without saying but for the sake of clarity, I believe planeswalker's ultimate abilities should not be a consideration when judging them.
This is an interesting discussion to be honest, now that I've given it some thought I find exploring the different options and how they fit into various builds very indulging.
So, for the sake of 8Rack Theory and defining some terms I would like to discuss the presumably infallible "core" to 8Rack.
Apparently I have not mastered the stragety of 8Rack and I have some learning to do. I'm Interesting in learning the knowedge I lack.
I am a pretty flexable deckbuilder who doesn't usually have any ridged preconceptions that a deck has to run certain cards or specific quantities of those cards. I will admit that certain cards are more reliable in more situations than others (in layman's terms "better cards") and that in all my 8rack deck variants there are certain cards and quantities that have always been there.
These are the cards that I have always used in every iteration of the deck (though I would never go as far to say they are immutable).
So if we want define a "core" for 8Rack the above list of 29 cards is roughly how I would personally define it. What do you guys think the core is? If you disagree with me I would really appreciate an intelligent argument explaining why.
Not going into my usual rant on how ridiculous it is to go under four Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek and Liliana of the Veil because (I think) I understand what you are saying and it's not that you are running all of those as three-ofs.
Instead, I am going to postulate the following: "In a 60-card main deck that already has four copies of Thoughtseizle, Inquisition of Koilek and Liliana of the Veil there exists no Modern-legal card that increases the win percentage, strategic coherence and overall strength of the deck by an ammount greater than the one lost by the exclusion of either of the aforementioned twelve cards in a generalized, unknown metagame."
This is the most intelligent argument I have on the matter, I give everybody permission to quote me. Nobody is obligated to take it for granted, feel free to test it for yourselves if you want to devote the time and effort I have put into exploring the core of the deck (roughly I would say slightly over 200 purely experimental and theory-testing games outside of playing the deck at FNMs, couple of PPTQs and other sanctioned local events). I can tell you other stats, too - for every Thoughtseize you cut, the ontly way to make up for it is to add two and a half copies of Inquisition or one Liliana to the deck in order to maintain the same winrate (oh yes, even against aggressive decks... yes, even against Burn). If you cut even a single Liliana, the winrate of the deck drops by at least 10% and not matter what cards you add (of which I tried many) there are 4% you can never get back, no matter what. {All of this is against a varied field of different decks across the three main most prominent archetypes in Modern - aggro, midrange and combo.} If anyone wants to provide other statistics, examples and arguments I think we will all be very happy to see them. Also I dare each and every person interested in doing so to disprove my claim, albeit I admint I won't bother looking at anything that is not supported by cold, hard, unbiased data.
Not going into my usual rant on how ridiculous it is to go under four Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek and Liliana of the Veil because (I think) I understand what you are saying and it's not that you are running all of those as three-ofs.
Instead, I am going to postulate the following: "In a 60-card main deck that already has four copies of Thoughtseizle, Inquisition of Koilek and Liliana of the Veil there exists no Modern-legal card that increases the win percentage, strategic coherence and overall strength of the deck by an ammount greater than the one lost by the exclusion of either of the aforementioned twelve cards in a generalized, unknown metagame."
This is the most intelligent argument I have on the matter, I give everybody permission to quote me. Nobody is obligated to take it for granted, feel free to test it for yourselves if you want to devote the time and effort I have put into exploring the core of the deck (roughly I would say slightly over 200 purely experimental and theory-testing games outside of playing the deck at FNMs, couple of PPTQs and other sanctioned local events). I can tell you other stats, too - for every Thoughtseize you cut, the ontly way to make up for it is to add two and a half copies of Inquisition or one Liliana to the deck in order to maintain the same winrate (oh yes, even against aggressive decks... yes, even against Burn). If you cut even a single Liliana, the winrate of the deck drops by at least 10% and not matter what cards you add (of which I tried many) there are 4% you can never get back, no matter what. {All of this is against a varied field of different decks across the three main most prominent archetypes in Modern - aggro, midrange and combo.} If anyone wants to provide other statistics, examples and arguments I think we will all be very happy to see them. Also I dare each and every person interested in doing so to disprove my claim, albeit I admint I won't bother looking at anything that is not supported by cold, hard, unbiased data.
See I don't have all the hard stats to like you, but I agree 100% because all that agrees with my personal experience and everything I have been saying.
To me, Thoughtseize is an automatic 4x. It hits everything. Everything. Even lightning bolt...
The core is the core, its been pretty well documented on this thread. I will go over it again I guess. Some cards are absolutes but some card are able to be laterally swapped out to suit personal tastes.
See I don't have all the hard stats to like you, but I agree 100% because all that agrees with my personal experience and everything I have been saying.
To me, Thoughtseize is an automatic 4x. It hits everything. Everything. Even lightning bolt...
The core is the core, its been pretty well documented on this thread. I will go over it again I guess. Some cards are absolutes but some card are able to be laterally swapped out to suit personal tastes.
This leaves 6 cards open. These 6 cards make a large difference in the lines of play.
Yea I think a lot of people don't realize that Thoughtseize is not bad against aggressive strategies since in over 90% of the cases it ends up saving you more life than it loses.
Anyway, just to be clear, I do agree on those other cards too (even though I sometimes find myself cutting a Crime) but I just haven't made enough experiments outside of the core to be able to claim with certainty that this is the case for them. As a fun fact, something I forgot to mention in the previous post, assuming the 4 removal spells are already Dismembers (or any other hard removal but this is my choice), going down to 3 Thoughtseize means you have to go up to at least 5 Dismembers in order not to be at a significant disadvantage against non-aggro decks. Because removal costs more and generally comes down later in the game it's more like 6, but that's beside the point. The thing is, in a normal game of Modern you are not allowed to have 5 or 6 copies of the same card. That's how I originally started mixing a singleton Murderous Cut, because it's my fifth removal and as a one-of I am statistically unlikely to have it before it costs B or 1B.
@FearDReaper If you are exploring token generation planeswalkers and/or are thinking about Souls in the deck (which I don't think I answered when you asked - they are slightly slow, as Souls are, but it's one of the most performing cards in the deck for me) I just want to make sure you have Vault of the Archangel on your radar. Personally I'm not running it right now, but if I had Sorin I would, it's so good when it goes off. Granted, it's a lot of mana, but a lot of the times with a few tokens out that 4 mana does more than any other card in the deck.
A one of Murderous Cut is so good, and I can say as I've always never been stocked with more than one, that it has always been at least effective. How come the stock lists do not have one MB or SB? I thought if we could always effectively utilize a resource aka delve that we should take advantage?
Also, how high would you grade Asylum Visitor vs the other flex spots like Smallpox, Rat, Shadow, Nyxathid, various
A one of Murderous Cut is so good, and I can say as I've always never been stocked with more than one, that it has always been at least effective. How come the stock lists do not have one MB or SB? I thought if we could always effectively utilize a resource aka delve that we should take advantage?
Also, how high would you grade Asylum Visitor vs the other flex spots like Smallpox, Rat, Shadow, Nyxathid, various
I had a hard time casting murderous personally but if you like it go for it. I would grade AV pretty much tops, but he works very nicely with rat which creates value in a different, complimentary way. Smallpox is fine if you want to just give up the idea of a Plan B. That may or may not be the right choice depending on what kind of meta you are talking about.
This is the most intelligent argument I have on the matter, I give everybody permission to quote me.
Not an argument, not intelligent, not supported by cold, hard, unbiased data. And its mathematically impossible for a fair deck to get +10% win rate by adding a fourth copy of a card.
Been on a roll with 8rack. Played against RWU control ("American Control") and Bant Eldrazi. Smoked both matches. I also tested against the RG deck with Valakut, Through the Breach, and Primeval Titan. I actually did very well against it and was about to win (we ran out of time, were testing). The only deck I seem to struggle against is Elves, which is my old arch-nemesis from last year. I beat it last year with Drown in Sorrow, Bile Blight, and Grafdigger's Cage. I'm using Flaying Tendrils right now and no Bile Blight... I also sideboarded wrong and kept two Bridges in my deck when I should have brought in Nyxathid.
Collective Brutality has been a workhorse for me, so far. If you haven't tested the card, I recommend giving it a whirl and helping out with some observations/data. I have played the card against Infect, Elves, and Control, and it has proven to be a workhorse. I would certainly bring it in vs. Burn.
If I had a say in the matter, I think the "core" is more of a philosophical core. I think the discard package into Rack effects is the philosophical core. Actual cards? For me personally, it's 4 LOTV, 4 IOK, 4 Thoughtseize, 3-4 Raven's Crime, 2-4 Wrench Mind. I don't think Wrench Mind is always a great card. A part of me wants to play with 2. It's another card I board out constantly. I will never play without 4 Thoughtseize in the deck again.
I also think the deck is a couple years old, right? It should be able to evolve with the other decks. I mean, I like the idea of having blue in the deck, and I feel like that would have been unheard of a year ago for people to post videos of it. So the deck is evolving! It's changing, and it's still viable. I have been kicking ass with it. I just have to get better against Elves and Affinity.
As a part-time Jund player, I will tell you there are arguments about the "core" of that deck all the time. You see Jund lists pop up in Top 8 with 3 Bobs or Huntmaster and Finks in the main deck... so I think these discussions are always good and healthy so we can identify how the deck is supposed to function.
How much do you folks like Night of Souls' Betrayal? Is it too slow for us? I have not put it into the sideboard because I'm afraid it's too slow.
Night of Soul's Betrayal is fantastic as long as you do it the right way in the proper build. It can cover a lot of weaknesses. Against tokens you can expect to have more time to deploy it, although against Infect and Affinity you are on a much shorter clock but then again if it ever lands on the battlefield the game is over. I can't think of other applications for it.
There is never going to be a universal list. His list has merit but it is 6 cards off my stock list. Were splitting hairs, and were all on the same team for the most part I think. (finally).
ALl that said stay tuned for my next vid. I will do more non biased deck tech for the smallpox. I will try and explain why his build and linearity in general might be fine for scooping up a tourney like that, but for your average joe FMN 8Rack fan a different approach makes sense.
goodone from Khans of Tarkir) because the tokens he makes have built-in evasion and if you have even half of a Lingering Souls his +1 immediately ends the game against decks like Burn. He also only costs one white as opposed to Elspeth and Gideon and while this hasn't been a problem for me with this mana base haivng two white sources usually involves some pain. Gideon I see as a middle ground where you get Soin's more durable tokens and Elspeth's power of not being reliant on a pre-existing board state when they come into play.BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
This is an interesting discussion to be honest, now that I've given it some thought I find exploring the different options and how they fit into various builds very indulging.
Apparently I have not mastered the stragety of 8Rack and I have some learning to do. I'm Interesting in learning the knowedge I lack.
I am a pretty flexable deckbuilder who doesn't usually have any ridged preconceptions that a deck has to run certain cards or specific quantities of those cards. I will admit that certain cards are more reliable in more situations than others (in layman's terms "better cards") and that in all my 8rack deck variants there are certain cards and quantities that have always been there.
These are the cards that I have always used in every iteration of the deck (though I would never go as far to say they are immutable).
2 The Rack
2 Shrieking Affliction
Targeted Dicard - Usually 8 but sometimes 7
3 Inquisition of Kosilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Raven's Crime
3 Wrench Mind
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
5 Swamps
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Instead, I am going to postulate the following: "In a 60-card main deck that already has four copies of Thoughtseizle, Inquisition of Koilek and Liliana of the Veil there exists no Modern-legal card that increases the win percentage, strategic coherence and overall strength of the deck by an ammount greater than the one lost by the exclusion of either of the aforementioned twelve cards in a generalized, unknown metagame."
This is the most intelligent argument I have on the matter, I give everybody permission to quote me. Nobody is obligated to take it for granted, feel free to test it for yourselves if you want to devote the time and effort I have put into exploring the core of the deck (roughly I would say slightly over 200 purely experimental and theory-testing games outside of playing the deck at FNMs, couple of PPTQs and other sanctioned local events). I can tell you other stats, too - for every Thoughtseize you cut, the ontly way to make up for it is to add two and a half copies of Inquisition or one Liliana to the deck in order to maintain the same winrate (oh yes, even against aggressive decks... yes, even against Burn). If you cut even a single Liliana, the winrate of the deck drops by at least 10% and not matter what cards you add (of which I tried many) there are 4% you can never get back, no matter what. {All of this is against a varied field of different decks across the three main most prominent archetypes in Modern - aggro, midrange and combo.} If anyone wants to provide other statistics, examples and arguments I think we will all be very happy to see them. Also I dare each and every person interested in doing so to disprove my claim, albeit I admint I won't bother looking at anything that is not supported by cold, hard, unbiased data.
To me, Thoughtseize is an automatic 4x. It hits everything. Everything. Even lightning bolt...
The core is the core, its been pretty well documented on this thread. I will go over it again I guess. Some cards are absolutes but some card are able to be laterally swapped out to suit personal tastes.
4x Thoughtseize, 4x IoK, 4x Lili, 4x Raven's Crime, 4x Wrench Mind*, 4x Removal, 4x Rack, 4x Shrieking, 22 lands.
This leaves 6 cards open. These 6 cards make a large difference in the lines of play.
Yea I think a lot of people don't realize that Thoughtseize is not bad against aggressive strategies since in over 90% of the cases it ends up saving you more life than it loses.
Anyway, just to be clear, I do agree on those other cards too (even though I sometimes find myself cutting a Crime) but I just haven't made enough experiments outside of the core to be able to claim with certainty that this is the case for them. As a fun fact, something I forgot to mention in the previous post, assuming the 4 removal spells are already Dismembers (or any other hard removal but this is my choice), going down to 3 Thoughtseize means you have to go up to at least 5 Dismembers in order not to be at a significant disadvantage against non-aggro decks. Because removal costs more and generally comes down later in the game it's more like 6, but that's beside the point. The thing is, in a normal game of Modern you are not allowed to have 5 or 6 copies of the same card. That's how I originally started mixing a singleton Murderous Cut, because it's my fifth removal and as a one-of I am statistically unlikely to have it before it costs B or 1B.
@FearDReaper If you are exploring token generation planeswalkers and/or are thinking about Souls in the deck (which I don't think I answered when you asked - they are slightly slow, as Souls are, but it's one of the most performing cards in the deck for me) I just want to make sure you have Vault of the Archangel on your radar. Personally I'm not running it right now, but if I had Sorin I would, it's so good when it goes off. Granted, it's a lot of mana, but a lot of the times with a few tokens out that 4 mana does more than any other card in the deck.
Also, how high would you grade Asylum Visitor vs the other flex spots like Smallpox, Rat, Shadow, Nyxathid, various
Legacy: Pox, R/B Goblins
Commander: Mono Black, Mono Blue
Pauper: Goblins
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
Collective Brutality has been a workhorse for me, so far. If you haven't tested the card, I recommend giving it a whirl and helping out with some observations/data. I have played the card against Infect, Elves, and Control, and it has proven to be a workhorse. I would certainly bring it in vs. Burn.
If I had a say in the matter, I think the "core" is more of a philosophical core. I think the discard package into Rack effects is the philosophical core. Actual cards? For me personally, it's 4 LOTV, 4 IOK, 4 Thoughtseize, 3-4 Raven's Crime, 2-4 Wrench Mind. I don't think Wrench Mind is always a great card. A part of me wants to play with 2. It's another card I board out constantly. I will never play without 4 Thoughtseize in the deck again.
I also think the deck is a couple years old, right? It should be able to evolve with the other decks. I mean, I like the idea of having blue in the deck, and I feel like that would have been unheard of a year ago for people to post videos of it. So the deck is evolving! It's changing, and it's still viable. I have been kicking ass with it. I just have to get better against Elves and Affinity.
As a part-time Jund player, I will tell you there are arguments about the "core" of that deck all the time. You see Jund lists pop up in Top 8 with 3 Bobs or Huntmaster and Finks in the main deck... so I think these discussions are always good and healthy so we can identify how the deck is supposed to function.
How much do you folks like Night of Souls' Betrayal? Is it too slow for us? I have not put it into the sideboard because I'm afraid it's too slow.