I have been slowly putting together an 8rack deck and have way more time to read and watch things online than I do actually playing (paper cards only, friends' decks not really competitive). Is it viable to run a creature-less deck game 1, then swap out kill spells and maybe a bridge for surprise game 2 creatures like Nyxathid, Hypnotic Specter, Pack Rat, or Guul Draz Specter? Or even little helpers like Ravenous Rats? Of course it would all matter what kind of deck I'm going up against, but if they side out removal and put in artifact/enchantment hate, it could help, right?
I'm posting results and nothing else in here indefinitely. So many bad ideas, useless discussion, and ridiculous opinions; the actual productive, competitive discussion is near zero. If good players want my advice, PM me or contact me on Twitter.
That was my only gripe with the original shell/list. It's great at what it does, but this one concession it makes, having no plan at all except to take an opponent's top-deck to the face and race it or stall, it doesn't sit well with me. There has to be a better way to accomplish it without doing something silly and inefficient, like putting charm on an Isochron Scepter or just splashing enough blue to run 4 Vendilion Clique, which is cute but dumb for this deck. I don't think it can be done without changing the shell, which is far too rigid to permit any changes. That's why I prefer the out-of-the-box thinking your version has brought to the table.
This past tuesday I played Merfolk, UR delver, Melira pod, and hatebears. I lost to a nut merfolk hand, but still finished 3-1. Thats 3 4-0's and 2 3-1s, with a list I'm still fiddling with.
Initially your list, to me, looked like it didn't have a good plan that would work again Melira Pod, you even had a rough time with it in one of your earlier match reports. I'm curious how the matchup went for you this time around, if you could give some details.
G1: I'm on the play and pluck a voice of resurgence out of a hand of birds, voice, pod, chord, 3 lands, he birds and passes. I play a waste not and hope he didn't get another voice. He gets the early pod, but the game is over turn 3 as I smallpox, get a zombie and land a rack and just beat in for the win--he doesn't draw another land and I abrupt decay the voice and the token blocks the zombie. I land a rack right before what seems like a recovery, but he had to either play the card and lose to rack, or lose to my last attack step.
G2: I mull to six and keep a 3 lander with crime, loam, a tombstalker, liliana. Seems ok, I'm sure he's on the beatdown plan so this hand doesn't actually matchup well, and sure enough its true. He first turn birds and goes voice, which blanks my liliana play. I get a late waste not and tick up liliana but can't fully recover--didn't see any hate and my plan to -2 liliana was blanked by the first play. Didn't see any pods.
, and his hand was totally empty when he won without me really doing anything.
G3: This one was grindy, I thoughtseize his hand of 1 noble 1 bird, pod, angel of thune, melira, and 2 land--take the pod. I turn 2 smallpox away his noble, he discards the angel, and sacs his razorverge. He draws another land this time and plays a finks which looks like trouble except I have an abrupt decay for it. turn 3 I draw and slam a liliana who takes the finks, and ticks up up up and ults while I hold a maelstrom pulse and a tombstalker that I could play.
A lot of the sideboard is against affinity, but it also shores up weakness to pod who can topdeck like a champ and is largely able to evade abrupt decays holding back their development--so I pretty much bring in krosan grip, leyline of the void, and tombstalkers and it works out ok.
This talk of Zurs now is nothing more than the discussion coming full circle to a sentiment that's been voiced over and over again in the last 200 pages or so: There's nothing in the shell currently to deal with opponents in top-deck mode because every discard piece is sorcery speed. It's why cards like Funeral Charm and Piracy Charm kept coming up.
How effective do you think resource denial would be at deadening their topdecks? Something like death cloud?
I'm having good results (and fun!) with my budget version so far. I had to forego Thoughtseize because I am in a Burn heavy meta. I'm grabbing a playset of Darkblast and considering a white or red splash for places where I am unfamiliar with the players. Extirpate vs. Surgical Extraction has been fine so far but I will probably get them as well.
I was having consistency problems before adding the Phyrexian Arena and Liliana's Caress. I was running out of gas too soon or missing my wins by a few life points. Much more playtesting is in order for me, but this deck has definitely taught me the value of knowing how all the other decks work in a very "nuts and bolts" way. Nothing quite like the groan you hear when they discard all their combo pieces
Thanks for having this primer, it saved me a lot of wasted brewing time!
5) Forget them all and use Pack Rat and Mutavault.
Huge thanks for your insights destroyer (and also memorylapse). I really like Waste Not and will try testing a 2-2-2 variant for a bit. I have been testing the older lists of 8rack (from say, 6 months ago) with 2pc waste not and agree that it seems like the right number.
In your response you mentioned to extract ad nauseum. The problem is if they mull to a leyline you can't get the ad nauseum. In which case all you're pulling out is their filter. Ad Naseum tends to play low land count, I've found some moderate success in smallpox as it attacks their already stingy lands and slows them enough to where they just won't combo out. But I greatly appreciate your experience and will try the Pack Rats.
I also like the possibility of just pouring rats into the board. I'm curious how many game 1's do you win with pack rat? Considering there is quite a bit of removal in the format do you want to open yourself up to that removal from the get go? Considering that most decks will bring out removal in game 2 if they never see a creature.
My thought for testing is to pack in cards like waste not and removal into game 1. Then side out the appropriate pieces and bring in rats in game 2. Especially in the Ad Naseum list, it seems at any given moment I can bring out 8-10 cards in that matchup without worrying too much. For example
-4 bridge -2 victim -1 slaughter -1 darkblast (I play a darkblast in main because I face affinity more often than I care for) but then I could side out -2 waste not and then could bring in +4 leyline +3 surgical +3 pack rat.
Lastly I wanted to ask about Blackmail. I believe I mentioned this card a while back and the consensus was "screw it". I'm finding some moderate success with 1pc blackmail in place of a ravens crime. Especially with Waste Not it acts as a 5th thoughtseize that can nab lands which power more appropriate discard through waste not. I'm not convinced, and I'm sure the answer is still "screw it". But I just wanted to mention that.
I am building this deck on paper and I think it is best to start with ML's decklist on page 192(?) with rats.
I personally think that this deck is a surprise deck like Dredge in Legacy FOR NOW. A meta assassin as ML puts it. You don't use it too often but I could be wrong since there are lots of effort put into its improvement.
Feel free to shoot down this idea since I have not played the deck yet and haven't proven anything but I plan to use it once I finish the deck since I read comments and watched videos that goes down the wire and saw a lot of: "He would have been dead next turn", "He is down to one life", etc.
Since I don't want to be all talk I'll post my current list. I think it's a bit dated. I'll be playing it tomorrow which is why I'm asking a lot of questions. Want to optimize for a good night out.
forgive the lack of format, I'm pretty sure since you guys are all experts and this is the base last I don't need to separate instants and sorceries etc.
So, folks concerned about a top deck battle have a few answers. The isochron sceptre + charm can work, but so would lantern of insight + codex shredder. No splash either.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UB Tezzerator UBW Gifts B 8Rack
Legacy RB Goblins
Since I don't want to be all talk I'll post my current list. I think it's a bit dated. I'll be playing it tomorrow which is why I'm asking a lot of questions. Want to optimize for a good night out.
forgive the lack of format, I'm pretty sure since you guys are all experts and this is the base last I don't need to separate instants and sorceries etc.
You could cut a land for a third waste not and I think consistently having Ravens crime online is more impacting than one of Blackmail, drawing mmultiple Ravens crime isn't great but always having it when you need it...is. your list is stellar though, Id still pack 4x Surgicals.
Also, Ravens crime is a 4of even in lists that don't run Wastenot, but wastenot makes it even better. Deck curves at 3 and Wastenot offers some card draw, you can get away with 22 lands.
-1 Land +1 Wastenot, -1 Blackmail +1 Ravens crime, SB -1 DarkBlast +1 Extraction. My opinion.
I am building this deck on paper and I think it is best to start with ML's decklist on page 192(?) with rats.
I personally think that this deck is a surprise deck like Dredge in Legacy FOR NOW. A meta assassin as ML puts it. You don't use it too often but I could be wrong since there are lots of effort put into its improvement.
Feel free to shoot down this idea since I have not played the deck yet and haven't proven anything but I plan to use it once I finish the deck since I read comments and watched videos that goes down the wire and saw a lot of: "He would have been dead next turn", "He is down to one life", etc.
I ran Bump in the Night for a while with this rationale. It worked a few times, mostly I wished I had discard in my hand. Sign in Blood could do double duty if that is something you consistently run into with your build.
You should probably read the activated ability of the card. If you have ever played against it you would know people only "explode" the Relic if they are desperately digging for something. As soon as Loam get's in your graveyard you better say "bye bye" to it because it will be gone before you end your turn. And Relic will still be in play.
Except the only time that they can get Loam out of my yard without blowing the relic is if its the ONLY card in the graveyard. The activated ability reads "Target players exiles a card from his or her graveyard" not "Exile target card from a graveyard".
In Bathickey's deck he has 11 1 drops(2 of which dredge for 3), 4 smallpox which average putting 3 things in a graveyard, 4 Lilianas which fill up yards, 7 lands that easily hit the graveyard and 7 retrace cards (fills the graveyard).
So if you REALLY want to explain how there is nothing in the yard but Life from the Loam and I did that against an active Relic of Progenitus please go on (because if I got the Loam in the yard I cast it and got the lands I was needing anyway... or they used it before and got 1 of the 3 lands and I still got 2 lands out of the deal). If you're not going to do that, please at least try to come up with a plausible scenario where this could happen outside of where I stated that Relic is a regular graveyard hate engine...
/e : I never said BatHickeys list is the best I've seen, but without a great draw 8rack loses pretty hard to tron and sometimes can have problems racing affinity or burn. The green even just for Life from the Loam allowing you to get a lock in with Ghost Quarter against some decks and to really shut down Tron isn't something to be taken lightly.
This thread has devolved into a ******* mess that I barely even recognize. Thank you so much MTGS mods for opening the doors to this garbage. The weird thing is, if I EVER go into a thread and start suggesting radical ideas I get infractions and told to just leave the threads alone and let them handle it the way they see fit. ******* double standards.
Infraction for trolling. Please take any discussion of moderator actions to community issues. - Jay13x
This thread has devolved into a ******* mess that I barely even recognize. Thank you so much MTGS mods for opening the doors to this garbage. The weird thing is, if I EVER go into a thread and start suggesting radical ideas I get infractions and told to just leave the threads alone and let them handle it the way they see fit. ******* double standards.
Suggesting radical builds is fine. Being hostile to other users is not. This should not be a distinction that is difficult to understand. Users seem to understand it in more or less every other thread in Established, Proven, and Deck Creation.
I guess with Bump in the Night it replaces a discard and you need to splash red if you plan to use its Flashback ability. With Leechridden Swamp, it can replace 1 Dakmor Salvage for testing. I haven't thought of Sign in Blood since I believe the deck doesn't need it.
I guess with Bump in the Night it replaces a discard and you need to splash red if you plan to use its Flashback ability. With Leechridden Swamp, it can replace 1 Dakmor Salvage for testing. I haven't thought of Sign in Blood since I believe the deck doesn't need it.
Bump in the Night is basically an extra turn's worth of Shrieking Affliction for B. That said, it isn't great or even what I would call advisable because it is just a really crummy Lightning Bolt. So if it came to that...splash red and just play Lightning Bolt.
For Leechridden Swamp, tying up 2 lands for 1 point of life loss seems bad to me (maybe if it was damage that could be redirected to a Planeswalker but even then not great). I could be totally wrong. Sleeve it up, take it for a spin through 10 games or so let us know how it goes.
Regarding the forum author's most recent outburst:
Hmmmm.....let's go with,"Toddler brings his favorite Star Wars action figure to the playground, and cries when he sees that all the big kids are playing with Transformers."
Points of Fact:
1.) Straight Black hasn't made a single appearance in even one of the top 8 State Championships in all 50 States hosted by TCGplayer. Actually, it happened once, but it was an infect deck, /sad trombone. Tallied: top 400 decks & no mono-black 8 rack.
2.) According to the Moderator of MTGsalvation, not me, over the last 6 months, in the last 1,400 top 8 finishing decks in all premier, paper tournaments, mono-black 8 Rack appeared 3 times.
3.) 3-1/4-0 finishes in a daily MTGO Pod don't constitute Deck legitimacy. It's time to stop making excuses for a one-trick pony deck that can not win in large scale, long form tournaments requiring varied abilities to best a broad field of competitors.
Let's keep the innovation going, and cease the "Only 1 card per season is allowed to be up for debate: Winter: Dark Confidant, Spring: Bitterblossom, Summer: Pack Rat". If your deck has discard and racks, and you believe you have something to contribute, welcome! My latest Black/blue Rack deck is soon to follow....
This is what I'm using right now:
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Raven's Crime
4x Thoughtseize
4x Wrench Mind
2x Mutilate
4x Ensnaring Bridge
4x The Rack
Enchantment (10)
4x Necrogen Mists
4x Shrieking Affliction
2x Waste Not
2x Bile Blight
2x Geth's Verdict
Land (21)
21x Swamp
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Infraction for trolling. - Jay13x
Initially your list, to me, looked like it didn't have a good plan that would work again Melira Pod, you even had a rough time with it in one of your earlier match reports. I'm curious how the matchup went for you this time around, if you could give some details.
UR UR Storm UR
G Infect G
Legacy
RG Goblins RG
Commander
UBR Sedris, the Traitor King UBR
UR Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind UR
UR Jhoira of the Ghitu UR
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic WUB
G Omnath, Locus of Mana G
As for the state of discussion, lets not forget Pack Rat was originally panned, hard.
Spirits
G1: I'm on the play and pluck a voice of resurgence out of a hand of birds, voice, pod, chord, 3 lands, he birds and passes. I play a waste not and hope he didn't get another voice. He gets the early pod, but the game is over turn 3 as I smallpox, get a zombie and land a rack and just beat in for the win--he doesn't draw another land and I abrupt decay the voice and the token blocks the zombie. I land a rack right before what seems like a recovery, but he had to either play the card and lose to rack, or lose to my last attack step.
G2: I mull to six and keep a 3 lander with crime, loam, a tombstalker, liliana. Seems ok, I'm sure he's on the beatdown plan so this hand doesn't actually matchup well, and sure enough its true. He first turn birds and goes voice, which blanks my liliana play. I get a late waste not and tick up liliana but can't fully recover--didn't see any hate and my plan to -2 liliana was blanked by the first play. Didn't see any pods.
, and his hand was totally empty when he won without me really doing anything.
G3: This one was grindy, I thoughtseize his hand of 1 noble 1 bird, pod, angel of thune, melira, and 2 land--take the pod. I turn 2 smallpox away his noble, he discards the angel, and sacs his razorverge. He draws another land this time and plays a finks which looks like trouble except I have an abrupt decay for it. turn 3 I draw and slam a liliana who takes the finks, and ticks up up up and ults while I hold a maelstrom pulse and a tombstalker that I could play.
A lot of the sideboard is against affinity, but it also shores up weakness to pod who can topdeck like a champ and is largely able to evade abrupt decays holding back their development--so I pretty much bring in krosan grip, leyline of the void, and tombstalkers and it works out ok.
How effective do you think resource denial would be at deadening their topdecks? Something like death cloud?
I was having consistency problems before adding the Phyrexian Arena and Liliana's Caress. I was running out of gas too soon or missing my wins by a few life points. Much more playtesting is in order for me, but this deck has definitely taught me the value of knowing how all the other decks work in a very "nuts and bolts" way. Nothing quite like the groan you hear when they discard all their combo pieces
Thanks for having this primer, it saved me a lot of wasted brewing time!
3 Funeral Charm
Sorcery (15)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Raven's Crime
2 Smallpox
4 Wrench Mind
2 Consuming Vapors
Enchantment (13)
4 Shrieking Affliction
3 Liliana's Caress
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 The Rack
3 Ensnaring Bridge
Land (23)
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Dakmor Salvage
13 Swamp
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Geth's Verdict
3 Extirpate
3 Pack Rat
3 Pithing Needle
2 Blackmail
2 Victim of Night
1/2 of the Turn One Thoughtseize podcast
Twitter: @t1thoughtseize
Huge thanks for your insights destroyer (and also memorylapse). I really like Waste Not and will try testing a 2-2-2 variant for a bit. I have been testing the older lists of 8rack (from say, 6 months ago) with 2pc waste not and agree that it seems like the right number.
In your response you mentioned to extract ad nauseum. The problem is if they mull to a leyline you can't get the ad nauseum. In which case all you're pulling out is their filter. Ad Naseum tends to play low land count, I've found some moderate success in smallpox as it attacks their already stingy lands and slows them enough to where they just won't combo out. But I greatly appreciate your experience and will try the Pack Rats.
I also like the possibility of just pouring rats into the board. I'm curious how many game 1's do you win with pack rat? Considering there is quite a bit of removal in the format do you want to open yourself up to that removal from the get go? Considering that most decks will bring out removal in game 2 if they never see a creature.
My thought for testing is to pack in cards like waste not and removal into game 1. Then side out the appropriate pieces and bring in rats in game 2. Especially in the Ad Naseum list, it seems at any given moment I can bring out 8-10 cards in that matchup without worrying too much. For example
-4 bridge -2 victim -1 slaughter -1 darkblast (I play a darkblast in main because I face affinity more often than I care for) but then I could side out -2 waste not and then could bring in +4 leyline +3 surgical +3 pack rat.
Lastly I wanted to ask about Blackmail. I believe I mentioned this card a while back and the consensus was "screw it". I'm finding some moderate success with 1pc blackmail in place of a ravens crime. Especially with Waste Not it acts as a 5th thoughtseize that can nab lands which power more appropriate discard through waste not. I'm not convinced, and I'm sure the answer is still "screw it". But I just wanted to mention that.
I personally think that this deck is a surprise deck like Dredge in Legacy FOR NOW. A meta assassin as ML puts it. You don't use it too often but I could be wrong since there are lots of effort put into its improvement.
Feel free to shoot down this idea since I have not played the deck yet and haven't proven anything but I plan to use it once I finish the deck since I read comments and watched videos that goes down the wire and saw a lot of: "He would have been dead next turn", "He is down to one life", etc.
Leechridden Swamp
forgive the lack of format, I'm pretty sure since you guys are all experts and this is the base last I don't need to separate instants and sorceries etc.
4 The Rack
4 Shrieking affliction
4 thoughtseize
4 inquisition of kozilek
4 wrench mind
2 waste not
3 raven's crime
1 blackmail
4 liliana of the veil
4 ensnaring bridge
2 victim of night
1 darkblast
Lands
15 swamp
4 urborg
2 mutavault
2 buried ruin
4 leyline of sanctity
4 grafdigger's cage
3 darkblast
1 slaughter pact
3 surgical extraction
It's a workable strategy for this deck, but smallpox does it better I think. Curves better too.
UR UR Storm UR
G Infect G
Legacy
RG Goblins RG
Commander
UBR Sedris, the Traitor King UBR
UR Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind UR
UR Jhoira of the Ghitu UR
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic WUB
G Omnath, Locus of Mana G
UB Tezzerator
UBW Gifts
B 8Rack
Legacy
RB Goblins
You could cut a land for a third waste not and I think consistently having Ravens crime online is more impacting than one of Blackmail, drawing mmultiple Ravens crime isn't great but always having it when you need it...is. your list is stellar though, Id still pack 4x Surgicals.
Also, Ravens crime is a 4of even in lists that don't run Wastenot, but wastenot makes it even better. Deck curves at 3 and Wastenot offers some card draw, you can get away with 22 lands.
-1 Land +1 Wastenot, -1 Blackmail +1 Ravens crime, SB -1 DarkBlast +1 Extraction. My opinion.
I ran Bump in the Night for a while with this rationale. It worked a few times, mostly I wished I had discard in my hand. Sign in Blood could do double duty if that is something you consistently run into with your build.
1/2 of the Turn One Thoughtseize podcast
Twitter: @t1thoughtseize
Except the only time that they can get Loam out of my yard without blowing the relic is if its the ONLY card in the graveyard. The activated ability reads "Target players exiles a card from his or her graveyard" not "Exile target card from a graveyard".
In Bathickey's deck he has 11 1 drops(2 of which dredge for 3), 4 smallpox which average putting 3 things in a graveyard, 4 Lilianas which fill up yards, 7 lands that easily hit the graveyard and 7 retrace cards (fills the graveyard).
So if you REALLY want to explain how there is nothing in the yard but Life from the Loam and I did that against an active Relic of Progenitus please go on (because if I got the Loam in the yard I cast it and got the lands I was needing anyway... or they used it before and got 1 of the 3 lands and I still got 2 lands out of the deal). If you're not going to do that, please at least try to come up with a plausible scenario where this could happen outside of where I stated that Relic is a regular graveyard hate engine...
/e : I never said BatHickeys list is the best I've seen, but without a great draw 8rack loses pretty hard to tron and sometimes can have problems racing affinity or burn. The green even just for Life from the Loam allowing you to get a lock in with Ghost Quarter against some decks and to really shut down Tron isn't something to be taken lightly.
Thirst for Knowledge % to hit artifact
Infraction for trolling. Please take any discussion of moderator actions to community issues. - Jay13x
Suggesting radical builds is fine. Being hostile to other users is not. This should not be a distinction that is difficult to understand. Users seem to understand it in more or less every other thread in Established, Proven, and Deck Creation.
I guess with Bump in the Night it replaces a discard and you need to splash red if you plan to use its Flashback ability. With Leechridden Swamp, it can replace 1 Dakmor Salvage for testing. I haven't thought of Sign in Blood since I believe the deck doesn't need it.
Bump in the Night is basically an extra turn's worth of Shrieking Affliction for B. That said, it isn't great or even what I would call advisable because it is just a really crummy Lightning Bolt. So if it came to that...splash red and just play Lightning Bolt.
For Leechridden Swamp, tying up 2 lands for 1 point of life loss seems bad to me (maybe if it was damage that could be redirected to a Planeswalker but even then not great). I could be totally wrong. Sleeve it up, take it for a spin through 10 games or so let us know how it goes.
1/2 of the Turn One Thoughtseize podcast
Twitter: @t1thoughtseize
Hmmmm.....let's go with,"Toddler brings his favorite Star Wars action figure to the playground, and cries when he sees that all the big kids are playing with Transformers."
Points of Fact:
1.) Straight Black hasn't made a single appearance in even one of the top 8 State Championships in all 50 States hosted by TCGplayer. Actually, it happened once, but it was an infect deck, /sad trombone. Tallied: top 400 decks & no mono-black 8 rack.
2.) According to the Moderator of MTGsalvation, not me, over the last 6 months, in the last 1,400 top 8 finishing decks in all premier, paper tournaments, mono-black 8 Rack appeared 3 times.
3.) 3-1/4-0 finishes in a daily MTGO Pod don't constitute Deck legitimacy. It's time to stop making excuses for a one-trick pony deck that can not win in large scale, long form tournaments requiring varied abilities to best a broad field of competitors.
Let's keep the innovation going, and cease the "Only 1 card per season is allowed to be up for debate: Winter: Dark Confidant, Spring: Bitterblossom, Summer: Pack Rat". If your deck has discard and racks, and you believe you have something to contribute, welcome! My latest Black/blue Rack deck is soon to follow....