Unless Liliana is out, at which point she is better than the crime since it can't be countered. I also run 3x myself but I don't use the dredge land. Didn't seem to work as well as a Lili when locking up the game and I don't want to risk dredging my ways to win, such as racks or mutavaults
I don't use Dakmor Salvage anymore either. The soft lock works with any topdeck, really - if it's a better effect than making the opponent discard one then... great. If it's not, then just retrace Crime.
In fact I do, but it has nothing to do with the amount of lands in the deck. Raven's Crime is a great card for 8Rack, don't get me wrong, but if you're using it to go 1 for 1 on non-targeted discard, it's not that amazing. The real reason we would play something like this is that it can turn any other card into discard from the graveyard. The infamous "soft lock" is a rather powerful position you can set yourself up in and things like lands or useless topdecks can be turned into an actual desirable effect.
From that point of view, I think you generally want to see this card during the game but not so much that you would always want it in the opening hand over other things. The correct number of copies for a card that meets those conditions in a deck without any draw is 3 copies and if you have cycling or draw effects, depending on how many, it could go down to 2. 8Rack generally doesn't run draw aside from Asylum Visitor and he's not present in most competitive lists, so I play 3 Crime and advise people to do so as well, simple as that.
Very nice, thank you for the report. I still haven't gotten the chance to actually play Bontu's Reckoning and I've been hearing decent things about it but still not convinced.
Hopefully people will listen to you more about not playing 24 lands.
Of the decks that you list only a couple are actually good matchups for a Smallpox deck. Death's Shadow, the most common form of which is Grixis, runs enough counterspells and recursion that your Smallpox is never going to resolve. Elves and Company flood the board, which Smallpox is notoriously bad against and Merfolk uses AEther Vial to play their dudes - you are getting the bad end of the bargain because they barely care about their lands as much as 8Rack does. Burn can operate on ever fewer resources even than 8Rack.
Eldrazi Tron is hindered, of course, but it's not nearly as much as you make it out to be. Obviously Smallpox is great against Gifts Storm.
8Rack, contrary to popular belief simply doesn't "break the symmetry" as well as people seem to think it does. It's biggest "advantage" is that it usually doesn't have a creature in play to sacrifice but lets not pretend like that's a good thing. That said, it's a lot better off taking advantage of Smallpox's devastating effect than most other decks. But at some point you have to wonder if that's actually worth it and I don't think so. White variants have Souls to either sac, discard or both while black versions should have a draw dork, which unfortunately I don't see in most lists, and that simply is in conflict with what Smallpox wants to do. If you're betting on it to "get you there", you will be symmetrically screwing over both yourself and your opponent and then get outdrawn by every single deck you face, leading to them recovering much quicker than you from the effect. It's just not worth it.
@esperino, Which deck would you play in a modern GP today? BW list in the primer?
Honestly, not too sure, right now I'm testing other decks.
But probably yes. The Primer decklists have to be updated soon when I have some more time on my hands, but yes. BW is better than any other version currently.
Name one nonland card in 8Rack that's worse on its own than Raven's Crime (on its own might be too harsh, use Crime + pitching a land to it instead). Just because the deck scrapes the bottom of the barrel for playable discard engines doesn't make a card it's playing "good" by any stretch of the imagination. Quite frankly, 8Rack is playing Crime because you have to submit a 60-card decklist and it has to be able to keep opponents hands empty, otherwise pretty much every removal or draw spell is a lot better.
As far as Smallpox goes, it's good when it's good, no arguments about that. But the problem is that it's never actually good. Here, take a look at the Modern metagame. Try to list all decks it's good against, all decks it's mediocre against and all decks it's bad against. If you understand matchups correctly or have ever actually played 8Rack against any of these decks (seriously beginning to doubt that, but let's stay positive here) you will know that it's absolutely irrelevant a third of the time, it hurts the player who casts it more another third of the time and against the other third of the decks it's effectiveness is questionable at best. Even against Tron (eldrazi version or not) it's a lot worse than people make it out to be, because the majority of the discussion is based around the theory that making them sac a land and a creature will somehow immediately win you the match, blissfully ignoring the symmetry of the effect. If you want to support your claim, do like others have and bring back some results.
Oh and by the way, if I wasn't clear, since that's apparently not obvious to anybody, I'm only bashing Smallpox in mono-black variants of the deck. I think it's pretty good in BW 8Rack and in fact the vast majority of good finishes have been with non-mono-coloured lists. Sorry if I didn't make this clear previously.
Another "oh and by the way" for @jrschnoebelen - online results don't mean too much, you can see a lot of whacky and crazy decks that do well occasionally. Look at big tournament finishes where a deck can go through multiple rounds of swiss and come out on top, I think the vast majority of those should be included in the Primer even if I missed something very recent. The "best versions" of the deck are currently BW and despite my opinion of the card itself, Smallpox ranges from decent to good (some times very good but that's not often) in those decks. Lingering Souls is one of the best cards you can be playing right now in Modern and fits really well in the deck.
Besides, 23 lands is more than enough for everything you would want to do, even if you were to play Smallpox for some reason.
How in god's name did you end up with that calculation?
I mean, I know you both stated the words "for some reason" in the same sentence as "Smallpox" and have earlier made it quite clear you have a few different views on 8-rack and playing Smallpox but seriously...?
No one benefits from false advise, and I would definately say that playing 23 lands is NOT more than enough if you want to play 4 Smallpoxes and run your deck successfully.
Especially if you still want to use Ravens Crime and/or Lilianas.
Since you managed to misunderstan what I said, I'm going to explain it again, hopefully without the need to repeat myself.
There has been plenty of research done on Smallpox (in fact, you can find a small writeup in the Primer regarding land counts in a Smallpox-oriented deck) and I'm fairly certain the "correct" number of lands is 24. Here I am, pulling a number out of my ass. Or rather, out of other people's donkeys, because I see it quoted over and over again by Smallpox players (you are correct, I personally see no reason to play this card, but I'm not saying others should share this opinion).
What I said is that 23 lands are more than enough for an 8Rack deck. The deck's curve stops at 3 (which is mostly due to a widely spread misconception, although for the reasons below it's not recommended to play many 4-drops), for which not very many lands are needed. The deck plays virtually no card draw, especially contempopary versions that don't feature either Dark Confidant or Asylum Visitor. You simply don't draw enough cards to notice the difference between 23 and 24 lands unless you play 100 games back to back. Nowhere do I say that "23 is more than enough if you want to play 4 Smallpoxes and run your deck successfully", per the words you try to put in my mouth. What I said is that you don't need to play more than 23 lands in your 8Rack deck, even if you were playing Smallpox. You will simply be flooded with lands rather than your actual cards. I guarantee you, any effect that you can pitch a land to is less powerful than a nonland card in your deck. Now, if you really want to run all 4 Poxes, maybe 23 lands will leave you a bit mana starved, but that's a choice you have to make. You will never see all 4 of them anyway (and it's very had to imagine drawin even 3). Going over 23 lands will hinder your deck quite significantly, given that 23 is already a high land count and the number I recommend is between 21 and 22, depending on how far out your curve goes, although I admit 21 might leave you land behind some % of the time because of the aforementioned lack of draw.
To engage in a reductio ad absurdum, by your logic you might want to play 30 lands because you have quite literally a dozen self-discard outlets. I mean, surely 24 won't be enough to draw, play and pitch to 4x Smallpox, 4x Raven's Crime and 4x Liliana of the Veil, right? Add to that Collective Brutality, which is better than both Smallpox or Crime, and you are starting to look at 16 cards that want you to pitch a land (because pitching other real cards would be madness indeed).
How much are you willing to screw up your draws and hinder your deck in order to play the coveted 4 Smallpox? Making a deal with the devil to become rich and powerful, ensure wealth for your family for a thousand generations and conquering the world seems like a fine deal, but purposefully making your deck worse just so you can play a full set of Smallpox is like making that deal to get an extra portion of fries on your next order.
Yeah, I am playing Smallpox.
Esperino, are you recommending that I drop a swamp and go to 23 lands and include the 4th Thoughtseize?
Here is my current build:
Well yes, that is what I'm recommending. I don't play Smallpox and most people who do say that 24 lands is the recommended number, but I disagree. 8Rack's curve traditionally stops at 3 mana, for which 23 land is more than enough for everything you're going to do. If you play 3 Seize and 24 land you are essentially giving up a significant increase in your chances to have Thoughtseize in your opening hand and instead replacing that card with a land that you don't even need.
Ensnaring Bridge was very good against Eldrazi, but the popular Tron version of the deck has ways to shut it down. This was the main reason to play it and now that the deck it's trying to beat has a way to deal with it, it's just not that impressive. Still has plenty of applications, of course, but meta-wise Eldrazi Tron is played as much or even more than all the rest combined.
The only reason not to play 4 Thoughtseize would be if someday we could have more than 4 cards with the same english name in a deck. If you're spending your time wondering how many Thoughtseize or Inquisition to play, you're doing something wrong. Besides, 23 lands is more than enough for everything you would want to do, even if you were to play Smallpox for some reason.
Just because a deck has a good matchup against a good deck doesn't mean "It's the best!!" Lol magic is matchup based bra
If you have a good matchup against a deck that's holding such a large share of the metagame as Death's Shadow, then you are probably one of the best decks in the format. 8Rack has some very nice matchups between a lot of the 10 most played decks, but also some really poor ones. Shadow is not just "a good deck", it's currently "the best deck". World of difference there.
Also, what do matchups have to do with form-fitting undergarments designed to support a woman's breasts? I can't figure this out for the life of me.
Esperino> Fortunately for us we already have a really good matchup against Death's Shadow with monoblack, so I see absolutely no reason at all to go white to play Lingering Souls instead of keeping it monoblack and painless as BrandonJames16 stated.
Yeah, white has some really good SB-options we don't get by playing monoblack, but it also comes at a steep price. It's just ignorant to keep ignoring that fact.
SirFrancois> Yeah, but the problem with Bloodghast is that he wants us to play lands, otherwise he'll just stay in the graveyard... And in our deck we rarely wanna go more than 3 lands in play, the rest is kept as a fuel for Raven's Crime to keep our opponent in Hellbent-mode, so that our wincons do what they are meant to be doing.
What?! If 8Rack is so good against Death's Shadow decks, that would mean it's one of the best decks in the format and people should be winning Shadow-infested events left and right with it. We must let everybody know!
I've been telling people to play Lingering Souls since forever but nobody listens. It's one of the best cards in the format against Death's Shadow and going white also means your sideboard is roughly 815% better.
Out of everything from Amontkhet or in general, this is the most interesting and most reasonable suggestion I've seen in quite some time. With tags: Akuta, Born of Ash
I don't use Dakmor Salvage anymore either. The soft lock works with any topdeck, really - if it's a better effect than making the opponent discard one then... great. If it's not, then just retrace Crime.
In fact I do, but it has nothing to do with the amount of lands in the deck. Raven's Crime is a great card for 8Rack, don't get me wrong, but if you're using it to go 1 for 1 on non-targeted discard, it's not that amazing. The real reason we would play something like this is that it can turn any other card into discard from the graveyard. The infamous "soft lock" is a rather powerful position you can set yourself up in and things like lands or useless topdecks can be turned into an actual desirable effect.
From that point of view, I think you generally want to see this card during the game but not so much that you would always want it in the opening hand over other things. The correct number of copies for a card that meets those conditions in a deck without any draw is 3 copies and if you have cycling or draw effects, depending on how many, it could go down to 2. 8Rack generally doesn't run draw aside from Asylum Visitor and he's not present in most competitive lists, so I play 3 Crime and advise people to do so as well, simple as that.
Hopefully people will listen to you more about not playing 24 lands.
Eldrazi Tron is hindered, of course, but it's not nearly as much as you make it out to be. Obviously Smallpox is great against Gifts Storm.
8Rack, contrary to popular belief simply doesn't "break the symmetry" as well as people seem to think it does. It's biggest "advantage" is that it usually doesn't have a creature in play to sacrifice but lets not pretend like that's a good thing. That said, it's a lot better off taking advantage of Smallpox's devastating effect than most other decks. But at some point you have to wonder if that's actually worth it and I don't think so. White variants have Souls to either sac, discard or both while black versions should have a draw dork, which unfortunately I don't see in most lists, and that simply is in conflict with what Smallpox wants to do. If you're betting on it to "get you there", you will be symmetrically screwing over both yourself and your opponent and then get outdrawn by every single deck you face, leading to them recovering much quicker than you from the effect. It's just not worth it.
Honestly, not too sure, right now I'm testing other decks.
But probably yes. The Primer decklists have to be updated soon when I have some more time on my hands, but yes. BW is better than any other version currently.
As far as Smallpox goes, it's good when it's good, no arguments about that. But the problem is that it's never actually good. Here, take a look at the Modern metagame. Try to list all decks it's good against, all decks it's mediocre against and all decks it's bad against. If you understand matchups correctly or have ever actually played 8Rack against any of these decks (seriously beginning to doubt that, but let's stay positive here) you will know that it's absolutely irrelevant a third of the time, it hurts the player who casts it more another third of the time and against the other third of the decks it's effectiveness is questionable at best. Even against Tron (eldrazi version or not) it's a lot worse than people make it out to be, because the majority of the discussion is based around the theory that making them sac a land and a creature will somehow immediately win you the match, blissfully ignoring the symmetry of the effect. If you want to support your claim, do like others have and bring back some results.
Oh and by the way, if I wasn't clear, since that's apparently not obvious to anybody, I'm only bashing Smallpox in mono-black variants of the deck. I think it's pretty good in BW 8Rack and in fact the vast majority of good finishes have been with non-mono-coloured lists. Sorry if I didn't make this clear previously.
Another "oh and by the way" for @jrschnoebelen - online results don't mean too much, you can see a lot of whacky and crazy decks that do well occasionally. Look at big tournament finishes where a deck can go through multiple rounds of swiss and come out on top, I think the vast majority of those should be included in the Primer even if I missed something very recent. The "best versions" of the deck are currently BW and despite my opinion of the card itself, Smallpox ranges from decent to good (some times very good but that's not often) in those decks. Lingering Souls is one of the best cards you can be playing right now in Modern and fits really well in the deck.
Since you managed to misunderstan what I said, I'm going to explain it again, hopefully without the need to repeat myself.
There has been plenty of research done on Smallpox (in fact, you can find a small writeup in the Primer regarding land counts in a Smallpox-oriented deck) and I'm fairly certain the "correct" number of lands is 24. Here I am, pulling a number out of my ass. Or rather, out of other people's donkeys, because I see it quoted over and over again by Smallpox players (you are correct, I personally see no reason to play this card, but I'm not saying others should share this opinion).
What I said is that 23 lands are more than enough for an 8Rack deck. The deck's curve stops at 3 (which is mostly due to a widely spread misconception, although for the reasons below it's not recommended to play many 4-drops), for which not very many lands are needed. The deck plays virtually no card draw, especially contempopary versions that don't feature either Dark Confidant or Asylum Visitor. You simply don't draw enough cards to notice the difference between 23 and 24 lands unless you play 100 games back to back. Nowhere do I say that "23 is more than enough if you want to play 4 Smallpoxes and run your deck successfully", per the words you try to put in my mouth. What I said is that you don't need to play more than 23 lands in your 8Rack deck, even if you were playing Smallpox. You will simply be flooded with lands rather than your actual cards. I guarantee you, any effect that you can pitch a land to is less powerful than a nonland card in your deck. Now, if you really want to run all 4 Poxes, maybe 23 lands will leave you a bit mana starved, but that's a choice you have to make. You will never see all 4 of them anyway (and it's very had to imagine drawin even 3). Going over 23 lands will hinder your deck quite significantly, given that 23 is already a high land count and the number I recommend is between 21 and 22, depending on how far out your curve goes, although I admit 21 might leave you land behind some % of the time because of the aforementioned lack of draw.
To engage in a reductio ad absurdum, by your logic you might want to play 30 lands because you have quite literally a dozen self-discard outlets. I mean, surely 24 won't be enough to draw, play and pitch to 4x Smallpox, 4x Raven's Crime and 4x Liliana of the Veil, right? Add to that Collective Brutality, which is better than both Smallpox or Crime, and you are starting to look at 16 cards that want you to pitch a land (because pitching other real cards would be madness indeed).
How much are you willing to screw up your draws and hinder your deck in order to play the coveted 4 Smallpox? Making a deal with the devil to become rich and powerful, ensure wealth for your family for a thousand generations and conquering the world seems like a fine deal, but purposefully making your deck worse just so you can play a full set of Smallpox is like making that deal to get an extra portion of fries on your next order.
Well yes, that is what I'm recommending. I don't play Smallpox and most people who do say that 24 lands is the recommended number, but I disagree. 8Rack's curve traditionally stops at 3 mana, for which 23 land is more than enough for everything you're going to do. If you play 3 Seize and 24 land you are essentially giving up a significant increase in your chances to have Thoughtseize in your opening hand and instead replacing that card with a land that you don't even need.
If you have a good matchup against a deck that's holding such a large share of the metagame as Death's Shadow, then you are probably one of the best decks in the format. 8Rack has some very nice matchups between a lot of the 10 most played decks, but also some really poor ones. Shadow is not just "a good deck", it's currently "the best deck". World of difference there.
Also, what do matchups have to do with form-fitting undergarments designed to support a woman's breasts? I can't figure this out for the life of me.
What?! If 8Rack is so good against Death's Shadow decks, that would mean it's one of the best decks in the format and people should be winning Shadow-infested events left and right with it. We must let everybody know!
Out of everything from Amontkhet or in general, this is the most interesting and most reasonable suggestion I've seen in quite some time. With tags: Akuta, Born of Ash