I'd rather wait for esperino because he at least seems to be trying to find the cards that complement the strategy the most instead of pet cards that do with the need of a splash what Dakmor Salvage does by itself.
Look, I watch your vids, both matches and meta-assassins. The physics stuff is past me. I know you're a bright dude and a good player. You have to see that there is enough interest in this deck that people want it to be more than a meta-game option.
Getting a Top 8 at a large event is simply a numbers game. Its much more like a raffle than a chess tournament. The more raffle tickets you have the better the deck's chances are. In a tourney of 2000 players you would probably need 50 8rack players at a MINIMUM to have any kind of statistical chance of making it to Top 16, and that is assuming the build and pilots are solid and that the meta is generic and not specifically against you as you play your rounds.
I mean, sure I'd love for the deck to place high at a big event. Hell I would honestly be happy if it got hated into oblivion because of popularity, but I just do not see it happening. Why wouldnt it have happened by now? The deck IS a meta choice at the end of the day.
You are free to prove me wrong, with this radical variations. But at this point I want proof. Until I see some hard evidence, you cannot expect me to entertain these crazy ideas (which by the way break so many rules of deckbuilding I do not even know where to start). Give me your DCI number so I can look and see some kind of consistency in your FNM history. Or better yet, get out there and play some dailies so more than a small group of people are actively working at keeping the deck established.
If you do not know your DCI number you can look it up here: DCI lookup
I'd rather wait for esperino because he at least seems to be trying to find the cards that complement the strategy the most instead of pet cards that do with the need of a splash what Dakmor Salvage does by itself.
Life from the Loam does a lot more than Dakmor Salvage for Raven's Crime. It's like comparing Lightning Bolt to Shard Volley. Sure, they sort of do the same thing, but one does it a lot better than the other.
@Memorylapse: Looking up DCI numbers does nothing. You get the 5 most recent achievements and can look at yearly and seasonal points. You don't get much, if any information beyond that. You don't know what events or even what format they played in, how many rounds in each event, what deck or match ups they had. Unless they give you a report here, you have nothing to work with, and even then it's like you just want to verify their report. It's pathetic.
Another 3-1 daily. Standings screenshot; in-game screenshot. Lost to Pod, beat Pod, UW/Gifts Tron, Tribal Zoo. All close games, except a couple where they were mana screwed. Pack Rat stole a game against UW Tron. I'm learning it's a great card when they have a threat light hand; you can forget everything and go all in on it and it usually works out great. Testing out Torpor Orb instead of Cage; unfortunately I didn't see it or it wasn't much relevant in the Pod matches. However, it certainly made me play and discard differently, which I liked. I should maybe go 4x Extraction 3x Orb.
I really like the UW tron match (esp. compared to the RG tron), and I know exactly what you mean about going all in on Rat. In fact I think I have a daily vid versus UW Tron where I did the same thing and stole a game. Hows your win % feeling now that you have had some time with Rat? Have you done any testing with 2-3 Rats and a singleton Waste Not? I was thinking about going to 3 rats and a Waste Not.
I feel like strange-brew comments need to be deleted in order for this forum to make sense. If the Mods don't want to do that, that's their prerogative, but as a person who's been playing the base list - was initially interested in the base list - I've found that checking up on new technology/strategy in this forum is damn-near impossible in its current state.
As Memory Lapse noted, there haven't been any pros championing the deck outside of that one European Modern tourney and an occasional bump from an MTG article. I think that creates this feeling in the forum that just anyone off the street needs to come in and innovate the base-model. People hate on ol' ML's ornery, sometimes combative tone, but I get it. I've been reading this forum since May, or maybe earlier, when it was a lot more focused, and since then, the same suggestions for splashes, sideboards, etc. have been posted and re-posted with no results included, over and over and over. A skipping CD just repeating the same sentence.
If you want the deck to get better and this forum to do so, as well, test the real deck against real opponents (Cocktrice-like results should never count for anything, ever). Not willing to spend the money/time to find those local FNMs, GPQs, or play online? Then that's okay, and your decision, but stop adding "results" from those other sources. Kitchen-table play-testing has been done and done again on this forum. One reason I see the deck not getting off of its "plateau," as the mod put it, is because people aren't putting their money where their mouth is, buying those Lilis and taking it out for a spin in a GPQ.
I'm just as responsible - or at least I was earlier in the year - for posting some ideas that had already been posted. There are probably 1000 posts on this forum like that, though ... so everyone (including myself after this), build your alternative 8 Rack (include Racks), take it to at least an FNM to test it ... THEN REPORT. Not before. This place would probably be a lot less noisy.
I really like the UW tron match (esp. compared to the RG tron), and I know exactly what you mean about going all in on Rat. In fact I think I have a daily vid versus UW Tron where I did the same thing and stole a game. Hows your win % feeling now that you have had some time with Rat? Have you done any testing with 2-3 Rats and a singleton Waste Not? I was thinking about going to 3 rats and a Waste Not.
It's a good, tense match; Gifts is a brutal card, but as I've said, well-timed Surgicals blow them out (partly why I'd like 4). Rat seems to have improved my win percentage at least a bit, but also I'm just playing better overall. I have no doubts we need at least 2 Rat mainboard.
I've tried the 2x removal 2x Rat 2x Waste Not package and liked it, although I think the 4x removal 2x Rat package is probably more consistent. 1x Waste Not could definitely be correct; soon I'll try 3x removal 2x Rat 1x Waste Not. I feel you on the consistency of having 4x Rat but my feeling is consistency must be weighted against optimization; seeing Rat all the time is nice in a way, but feels bad if it just dies half the time you play it or makes for awkward sequencing half the time it's in your hand (which was my experience). 2 Rat has been feeling great to me; it comes when I can start exploiting it immediately or quickly, and almost never feels awkward.
I agree this thread was much more productive and focused before the influx of new people came in after we moved to Established.
I feel like strange-brew comments need to be deleted in order for this forum to make sense. If the Mods don't want to do that, that's their prerogative, but as a person who's been playing the base list - was initially interested in the base list - I've found that checking up on new technology/strategy in this forum is damn-near impossible in its current state.
As Memory Lapse noted, there haven't been any pros championing the deck outside of that one European Modern tourney and an occasional bump from an MTG article. I think that creates this feeling in the forum that just anyone off the street needs to come in and innovate the base-model. People hate on ol' ML's ornery, sometimes combative tone, but I get it. I've been reading this forum since May, or maybe earlier, when it was a lot more focused, and since then, the same suggestions for splashes, sideboards, etc. have been posted and re-posted with no results included, over and over and over. A skipping CD just repeating the same sentence.
If you want the deck to get better and this forum to do so, as well, test the real deck against real opponents (Cocktrice-like results should never count for anything, ever). Not willing to spend the money/time to find those local FNMs, GPQs, or play online? Then that's okay, and your decision, but stop adding "results" from those other sources. Kitchen-table play-testing has been done and done again on this forum. One reason I see the deck not getting off of its "plateau," as the mod put it, is because people aren't putting their money where their mouth is, buying those Lilis and taking it out for a spin in a GPQ.
I'm just as responsible - or at least I was earlier in the year - for posting some ideas that had already been posted. There are probably 1000 posts on this forum like that, though ... so everyone (including myself after this), build your alternative 8 Rack (include Racks), take it to at least an FNM to test it ... THEN REPORT. Not before. This place would probably be a lot less noisy.
Thank you for this, and I completely agree. I am trying my best to communicate with Mods through reports and private messages these sentiments. Its seems completely unfair that users who are interested in updates and discussions on the stock lists that are in the original post should have to sift through all this unproven garbage. That doesnt happen in any other thread, yet for some reason its being allowed here.
I am trying to fix it, but apparently the rules can be interpreted in such a way as to allow all of this garbage in here, but no where else.
I feel like strange-brew comments need to be deleted in order for this forum to make sense. If the Mods don't want to do that, that's their prerogative, but as a person who's been playing the base list - was initially interested in the base list - I've found that checking up on new technology/strategy in this forum is damn-near impossible in its current state.
Thank you for this, and I completely agree. I am trying my best to communicate with Mods through reports and private messages these sentiments. Its seems completely unfair that users who are interested in updates and discussions on the stock lists that are in the original post should have to sift through all this unproven garbage. That doesnt happen in any other thread, yet for some reason its being allowed here.
I am trying to fix it, but apparently the rules can be interpreted in such a way as to allow all of this garbage in here, but no where else.
This thread is unbelievable.
Everywhere else in the forum, in literally every thread I can find, none of this is a problem. People can freely post deck ideas with or without having taken them to an FNM. They can freely discuss a few different (albeit overlapping and complementary) ideas while still maintaining a core purpose and deck, and without getting called out for trying to be different. In Burn, we see discussion about creature-heavy RDW decks, and spell-heavy traditional burn decks. In BG Rock, we see BG Obliterator and BGw Souls. In Established, Faeries has a variety of color permutations under discussion, as does Wx Death and Taxes. I've seen Soul Sisters lists splashing for Black and for Green, BUG and UG Infect lists being talked about simultaneously, Kiki Control and regular UWR Control both being discussed in the UWR Control thread, and countless other examples just in the Modern Proven/Established areas.
Why can't this happen here? There are two explanations I can think of.
Explanation 1 is that 8Rack is a deck that has such a rigid, unalterable core that no other options can be discussed. That's ridiculous to me. It's obviously one thing to suggest going down to 3Racks and playing Goyf, but it's entirely something else to drop some discard and add in a few Decays. Or Bolt. Or Path. There are hundreds of variations we could make to 8Rack and the deck would still definitely be an 8Rack deck. And no, no one should have to pass some arbitrary standard of tournament success to post those ideas. This thread, like every other thread in the forum, should be open to anyone who is willing to think through their idea and test it out in some context, whether that's with their friends, in practice rooms, in dailys, in events, etc. If they just flat out refuse to test it after weeks of being asked to, that's another story. But given that this thread only reopened 5 days ago, I don't think we are there yet.
It is also a ridiculous explanation because this is hardly a competitive, tournament killing monster. I've tracked data from about 1450 T8 decks at paper events with more than 40 players in the past 6 months. How many 8Racks? 3. There were 3 8Racks in about 1450 decks. If the deck has an unalterable core, then that core probably needs some alterations to get better. I challenge any of you to find a real, so-called "meta assassin" deck that has a T8 appearance rate like that. Legacy Dredge, the archetypical deck like this, or Modern Bogles, another example, all have a ton more success.
That brings me to explanation 2: There is a cultural problem in this thread that makes it a hostile place to old and new users alike, and/or a place that breeds trolling and flaming. Given the insane number of infractions that this thread gets, not to mention reports on posts that are no better or worse than any number of posts surrounding them, this is probably the issue. It's a problem with tone, it's a problem with egos, it's a problem with sensitivity, etc. Figure out how to self-regulate. If someone keeps posting Loam lists and you think they suck, post some test results that show it. Or keep challenging them to show results and, if they don't, then just ignore them. Or edit the OP to include some commonly suggested cards and why they don't work, along with explanations. Or develop some semi-stock response to those ideas and just use it whenever a questionable suggestion is made. This is not hard. It works in every other thread. Figure out how to make it work here.
Someone comes in here with a 3 Rack list packing Goyf and Scooze? Not 8Rack. They keep coming back? Report it; it's spam. But if someone puts in Loam and Decay in place of 5 other cards from the core, that's more than welcome here, just as you are more than welcome to talk about Kiki/Resto UWR Control and Snapcaster/Keranos UWR Control in that thread.
Ultimately, this current version of the thread needs to become a place that is welcoming and respectful. If it can't, it's going to be shut down and reopened with stricter rules and oversight.
I can't really see us having enough cards in the yard to be an efficient card. If that's what you're looking for I'd go with something like Damnation, or a Drown in Sorrow which would hit their board more reliably.
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Currently Playing: R8whackR WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
I also 'like' the delve cards, but I can't figure out how to make them work in this deck. The only ones I want are the blue ones, and they compliment my builds loam plan really well--but I DO think that bug rack is too much of a stretch.
I'd try hooting mandrills, but I actually played with the card and barely like it in draft--same with scavenger. Tombstalker however, is solid and shows up in my SB--but honestly it is my pet card. I'd cut it if I didn't keep up consistently good results in the games where it came in.
Do you guys honestly not see how life from the loam/raven's crime is super powerful? Memorylapse, did you test any BG splashes with 3/4 loam and a playset of abrupt decay yet? I recall a few pages back you were saying you were going to put it together to put this issue to bed but I haven't seen anything yet unless you update the OP for these sort of things.
Getting a Top 8 at a large event is simply a numbers game. Its much more like a raffle than a chess tournament. The more raffle tickets you have the better the deck's chances are. In a tourney of 2000 players you would probably need 50 8rack players at a MINIMUM to have any kind of statistical chance of making it to Top 16, and that is assuming the build and pilots are solid and that the meta is generic and not specifically against you as you play your rounds.
I mean, sure I'd love for the deck to place high at a big event. Hell I would honestly be happy if it got hated into oblivion because of popularity, but I just do not see it happening. Why wouldnt it have happened by now? The deck IS a meta choice at the end of the day.
You are free to prove me wrong, with this radical variations. But at this point I want proof. Until I see some hard evidence, you cannot expect me to entertain these crazy ideas (which by the way break so many rules of deckbuilding I do not even know where to start). Give me your DCI number so I can look and see some kind of consistency in your FNM history. Or better yet, get out there and play some dailies so more than a small group of people are actively working at keeping the deck established.
If you do not know your DCI number you can look it up here: DCI lookup
Life from the Loam does a lot more than Dakmor Salvage for Raven's Crime. It's like comparing Lightning Bolt to Shard Volley. Sure, they sort of do the same thing, but one does it a lot better than the other.
@Memorylapse: Looking up DCI numbers does nothing. You get the 5 most recent achievements and can look at yearly and seasonal points. You don't get much, if any information beyond that. You don't know what events or even what format they played in, how many rounds in each event, what deck or match ups they had. Unless they give you a report here, you have nothing to work with, and even then it's like you just want to verify their report. It's pathetic.
FREE BLOODBRAID ELF
4x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Liliana of the Veil
4x Mutavault
2x Pack Rat
4x Raven's Crime
4x Shrieking Affliction
1x Slaughter Pact
13x Swamp
4x The Rack
4x Thoughtseize
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3x Victim of Night
4x Wrench Mind
4x Darkblast
4x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Surgical Extraction
4x Torpor Orb
As Memory Lapse noted, there haven't been any pros championing the deck outside of that one European Modern tourney and an occasional bump from an MTG article. I think that creates this feeling in the forum that just anyone off the street needs to come in and innovate the base-model. People hate on ol' ML's ornery, sometimes combative tone, but I get it. I've been reading this forum since May, or maybe earlier, when it was a lot more focused, and since then, the same suggestions for splashes, sideboards, etc. have been posted and re-posted with no results included, over and over and over. A skipping CD just repeating the same sentence.
If you want the deck to get better and this forum to do so, as well, test the real deck against real opponents (Cocktrice-like results should never count for anything, ever). Not willing to spend the money/time to find those local FNMs, GPQs, or play online? Then that's okay, and your decision, but stop adding "results" from those other sources. Kitchen-table play-testing has been done and done again on this forum. One reason I see the deck not getting off of its "plateau," as the mod put it, is because people aren't putting their money where their mouth is, buying those Lilis and taking it out for a spin in a GPQ.
I'm just as responsible - or at least I was earlier in the year - for posting some ideas that had already been posted. There are probably 1000 posts on this forum like that, though ... so everyone (including myself after this), build your alternative 8 Rack (include Racks), take it to at least an FNM to test it ... THEN REPORT. Not before. This place would probably be a lot less noisy.
It's a good, tense match; Gifts is a brutal card, but as I've said, well-timed Surgicals blow them out (partly why I'd like 4). Rat seems to have improved my win percentage at least a bit, but also I'm just playing better overall. I have no doubts we need at least 2 Rat mainboard.
I've tried the 2x removal 2x Rat 2x Waste Not package and liked it, although I think the 4x removal 2x Rat package is probably more consistent. 1x Waste Not could definitely be correct; soon I'll try 3x removal 2x Rat 1x Waste Not. I feel you on the consistency of having 4x Rat but my feeling is consistency must be weighted against optimization; seeing Rat all the time is nice in a way, but feels bad if it just dies half the time you play it or makes for awkward sequencing half the time it's in your hand (which was my experience). 2 Rat has been feeling great to me; it comes when I can start exploiting it immediately or quickly, and almost never feels awkward.
I agree this thread was much more productive and focused before the influx of new people came in after we moved to Established.
Thank you for this, and I completely agree. I am trying my best to communicate with Mods through reports and private messages these sentiments. Its seems completely unfair that users who are interested in updates and discussions on the stock lists that are in the original post should have to sift through all this unproven garbage. That doesnt happen in any other thread, yet for some reason its being allowed here.
I am trying to fix it, but apparently the rules can be interpreted in such a way as to allow all of this garbage in here, but no where else.
This thread is unbelievable.
Everywhere else in the forum, in literally every thread I can find, none of this is a problem. People can freely post deck ideas with or without having taken them to an FNM. They can freely discuss a few different (albeit overlapping and complementary) ideas while still maintaining a core purpose and deck, and without getting called out for trying to be different. In Burn, we see discussion about creature-heavy RDW decks, and spell-heavy traditional burn decks. In BG Rock, we see BG Obliterator and BGw Souls. In Established, Faeries has a variety of color permutations under discussion, as does Wx Death and Taxes. I've seen Soul Sisters lists splashing for Black and for Green, BUG and UG Infect lists being talked about simultaneously, Kiki Control and regular UWR Control both being discussed in the UWR Control thread, and countless other examples just in the Modern Proven/Established areas.
Why can't this happen here? There are two explanations I can think of.
Explanation 1 is that 8Rack is a deck that has such a rigid, unalterable core that no other options can be discussed. That's ridiculous to me. It's obviously one thing to suggest going down to 3Racks and playing Goyf, but it's entirely something else to drop some discard and add in a few Decays. Or Bolt. Or Path. There are hundreds of variations we could make to 8Rack and the deck would still definitely be an 8Rack deck. And no, no one should have to pass some arbitrary standard of tournament success to post those ideas. This thread, like every other thread in the forum, should be open to anyone who is willing to think through their idea and test it out in some context, whether that's with their friends, in practice rooms, in dailys, in events, etc. If they just flat out refuse to test it after weeks of being asked to, that's another story. But given that this thread only reopened 5 days ago, I don't think we are there yet.
It is also a ridiculous explanation because this is hardly a competitive, tournament killing monster. I've tracked data from about 1450 T8 decks at paper events with more than 40 players in the past 6 months. How many 8Racks? 3. There were 3 8Racks in about 1450 decks. If the deck has an unalterable core, then that core probably needs some alterations to get better. I challenge any of you to find a real, so-called "meta assassin" deck that has a T8 appearance rate like that. Legacy Dredge, the archetypical deck like this, or Modern Bogles, another example, all have a ton more success.
That brings me to explanation 2: There is a cultural problem in this thread that makes it a hostile place to old and new users alike, and/or a place that breeds trolling and flaming. Given the insane number of infractions that this thread gets, not to mention reports on posts that are no better or worse than any number of posts surrounding them, this is probably the issue. It's a problem with tone, it's a problem with egos, it's a problem with sensitivity, etc. Figure out how to self-regulate. If someone keeps posting Loam lists and you think they suck, post some test results that show it. Or keep challenging them to show results and, if they don't, then just ignore them. Or edit the OP to include some commonly suggested cards and why they don't work, along with explanations. Or develop some semi-stock response to those ideas and just use it whenever a questionable suggestion is made. This is not hard. It works in every other thread. Figure out how to make it work here.
Someone comes in here with a 3 Rack list packing Goyf and Scooze? Not 8Rack. They keep coming back? Report it; it's spam. But if someone puts in Loam and Decay in place of 5 other cards from the core, that's more than welcome here, just as you are more than welcome to talk about Kiki/Resto UWR Control and Snapcaster/Keranos UWR Control in that thread.
Ultimately, this current version of the thread needs to become a place that is welcoming and respectful. If it can't, it's going to be shut down and reopened with stricter rules and oversight.
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
I'd try hooting mandrills, but I actually played with the card and barely like it in draft--same with scavenger. Tombstalker however, is solid and shows up in my SB--but honestly it is my pet card. I'd cut it if I didn't keep up consistently good results in the games where it came in.
Do you guys honestly not see how life from the loam/raven's crime is super powerful? Memorylapse, did you test any BG splashes with 3/4 loam and a playset of abrupt decay yet? I recall a few pages back you were saying you were going to put it together to put this issue to bed but I haven't seen anything yet unless you update the OP for these sort of things.
Please continue the discussion in the new 8Rack deck thread here.