Keep in mind MemoryLapse ran Deathrite Shaman when it was legal for awhile. Of course that does a lot more, but still. Imo, Grim doesn't do enough (including getting around Leyline), but you could do a lot worse. I do really like that it's a clock and removal. Try it out in any case, if you feel so inclined.
Hi, I play 8 rack in modern and I have always chosen to play, I consider using a turn 1 inquisition a key component of disruption, the ability to wreck your oponents first turn.
I was reading a diffrent forum about 8 rack and the quote was "you can and should chose to draw first" the reason was it puts your oponents 1 card less and the first person is more likely to muligan and thus help you.
Does any one who plays 8 rack have an opinion on this?
Shout out and give a 8 racer some help
Thanks,
Gary
In the Smallpox version, it might be correct to play first unless you're playing against a specific deck like Burn where it's not worth it. In non-Smallpox versions, play first unless you're playing against a specific deck where you can afford to draw (Living End might fit in this category).
There are likely improvements that could be made, but it's a good start. Others can feel free to chime in on that front. For now I will say that if you eventually improve the manabase, maybe add 1-2 Blood Moon to the board (probably swapping out Syphon Life and/or The Rack).
So as a huge fan of elves, I am desperately trying to find a way to play them in a modern meta that aggro almost never wins. The best i've ever done was 2nd place, and that was at 3-1-1
They have so much removal they can keep themselves alive by targeted removal on the right elves (these aren't amateurs killing the wrong ones) until they stabilize with a bigger creature that can block everything we throw at them. Tron sets up an O-stone loop as fast as humanly possible, Anything with blue sets up snapcaster loops with removal, and we are just not equipped to deal with their post-turn 4 threats (elesh norn, anyone?) with a bunch of 1/1 and 2/2s. How can we be more resiliant against modern control? We're not Affinity where if any one threat hits, they're up to 8 infect or down to 8 life, we need at least 3 of our creatures hitting to make much of a dent by turn 4. If they remove a creature every turn for the first 3 turns and land a fat goyf, we're done.
Three creatures gone is fine; we have a million. I don't care about Goyf because we go over the top. If you're not already, play Pendelhaven, Cavern, Horizon Canopy, Revoker, Elite, Ooze, Spellskite, and Visionary. Ezuri, Mirror Entity, and Company offer further resilience. You should be beating them before they get to Elesh Norn mana. If you haven't, the game is over no matter whether they play her or not.
Swapping Affliction and Rack counts is clever. I may well do that.
Edit: someone suggested Hangarback Walker to me on Twitter as a replacement for Pack Rat. I kind of like it a lot, partly because of the (potentially) low mana investment compared to Rat (which can be annoying sometimes). It does worsen our artifact removal weakness in a sense, though, and I'm not sure if it'd be good enough in general. Anyone want to test? (I can't for the foreseeable future)
Good point here. I had put aside my Elves deck for a while, basicly because my best friend has 3 decks: Twin, Tron and Wilt-Leaf Abzan, but he doesn't play vs. Elves with the latter because that's according to him (and I agree) an auto-loss for him. I really felt the deck was bad for a while, because I had such a rouch time beating him. Ofcourse I was wrong and judging only based on playing him...
The Tron match-up is defenitely winnable. Just hope they don't see Ugin, because that is an auto-scoop 90% of the time.
I don't think the deck is gonna rise to Tier 1 any time soon. A few reasons herefore:
The deck is difficult to master. Yes, it is, believe me. I've played against Elves players who didn't even realize Ezuri could let you regenerate other Elves, just to name an example (an extreme one, I know). The deck has been profiled a while ago as a low budget deck (that isn't entirely true anymore) and players picked it up for this reason, and then dropped it because "it's not good enough" and "the guy that won the gp must have had so much luck"
There isn't really a pro piloting this deck. Ok, this is not entirely true, but then again. The only pro that is really assosiated with Elves is LSV, and we all know he loves his foil Goyfs in Modern. All the results the deck had were by (with all the respect) unknown players. It's just more appealing to do what the pro's are doing, defenitely at big events like GP's
Similar decks in the format. There are many. Affinity and Merfolk are the first ones to think of, and those decks are around longer. We might have a good match-up against both, but why should I, as an 4 year long Affinity player, drop all that experience for a "new hype" like Elves? (This is an example, I think Affinity is a stupid deck and I will never ever pilot it ).
The deck doesn't need to be tier 1 for me. As long as now and then we get a few new good cards (like Origins) I'm a happy guy.
It's not difficult to master. Some here think it is but they should try 8Rack, Amulet, Lantern, Scapeshift, etc. It's a pretty straightforward deck with a few nuances. The only part I find difficult with it really is remembering all my toolbox creatures and Chording for them at the appropriate time. But that's something that comes with practice, and I haven't had any recently.
That doesn't mean much if we don't know what your friend was playing or how good he is at navigating the different matchups. I'm not sure it is tier 1, in any case. It's definitely explosive but Jund, Grixis, and Tron keep us in check. A lot of people have expressed issues with the Twin matchup as well. I feel like we're about at the stage Merfolk was at roughly a year ago, and we need our Harbinger of the Tides to push us upward.
I don't have a ton of experience with it but based on what experience I do have, I believe the Tron matchup is overblown and really isn't all that bad if you know what you're doing and have a solid list. I could well be wrong but that's my feeling for the time being.
I should've said Mutavault also doesn't care about hand size, which can be very relevant. We don't want more than 7-8 actual Rack effects.
Agreed about Fen and lands. I thought about that after. Also, Bridge is great at stalling and getting us to the point where we can use it. Not sure how much it would actually help here though overall, because Bridge is either sticking around in which case we don't need Fen, or it's getting blown up regularly, in which case it'll be difficult to stall. But who knows. Testing needed. Definitely sweet against Eidolon. Didn't think of that. Burn is so fast, though, so seems like a fringe case.
Mutavault can act like another Rack, which is great to speed up your clock, or to give you a clock at all when you can't find a Rack. And sometimes it buys you time to find a Bridge. It's also another way around Leyline. We don't care if it gets removed because it's a land. If we need the land and we're worried about removal, we just don't activate it.
In the Smallpox version, it might be correct to play first unless you're playing against a specific deck like Burn where it's not worth it. In non-Smallpox versions, play first unless you're playing against a specific deck where you can afford to draw (Living End might fit in this category).
For the sideboard, I'd start with this:
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroclasm
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Bile Blight
1 Syphon Life
3 Nyxathid
1 The Rack
There are likely improvements that could be made, but it's a good start. Others can feel free to chime in on that front. For now I will say that if you eventually improve the manabase, maybe add 1-2 Blood Moon to the board (probably swapping out Syphon Life and/or The Rack).
Three creatures gone is fine; we have a million. I don't care about Goyf because we go over the top. If you're not already, play Pendelhaven, Cavern, Horizon Canopy, Revoker, Elite, Ooze, Spellskite, and Visionary. Ezuri, Mirror Entity, and Company offer further resilience. You should be beating them before they get to Elesh Norn mana. If you haven't, the game is over no matter whether they play her or not.
Edit: someone suggested Hangarback Walker to me on Twitter as a replacement for Pack Rat. I kind of like it a lot, partly because of the (potentially) low mana investment compared to Rat (which can be annoying sometimes). It does worsen our artifact removal weakness in a sense, though, and I'm not sure if it'd be good enough in general. Anyone want to test? (I can't for the foreseeable future)
It's not difficult to master. Some here think it is but they should try 8Rack, Amulet, Lantern, Scapeshift, etc. It's a pretty straightforward deck with a few nuances. The only part I find difficult with it really is remembering all my toolbox creatures and Chording for them at the appropriate time. But that's something that comes with practice, and I haven't had any recently.
I don't have a ton of experience with it but based on what experience I do have, I believe the Tron matchup is overblown and really isn't all that bad if you know what you're doing and have a solid list. I could well be wrong but that's my feeling for the time being.
Agreed about Fen and lands. I thought about that after. Also, Bridge is great at stalling and getting us to the point where we can use it. Not sure how much it would actually help here though overall, because Bridge is either sticking around in which case we don't need Fen, or it's getting blown up regularly, in which case it'll be difficult to stall. But who knows. Testing needed. Definitely sweet against Eidolon. Didn't think of that. Burn is so fast, though, so seems like a fringe case.
Transgress isn't worth addressing imo.