MTG Salvation

Quote from MemoryLapse »

BTW guys, Painter's Servant works pretty well for us against Eldrazi. It turns off Temple and Eye and Even Ancient Stirrings! I wanted to mention something - Eldrazi is obsoleting Tron currently. This means that our worst matchup is being phased out in favor of this Eldrazi thing. Now Eldrazi is good and in no way to be considered a super easy match, but it's infinitely better than our Tron match was.

Check out these videos:

8Rack vs Eldrazi 1
8Rack vs Eldrazi 2

It went from an average of $10-$11 to $35 -_-* Without a doubt for that very reason.

Quote from weberbirding »

Hi everyone,

First off, thanks so much for all the discussion here, it has helped me a lot! I played at my LGS FNM last night (only my second Modern tournament), which had 40 people (and free play mats) and I went 3-2 coming in 12th (which earned me $6). I admittedly had some pretty easy match ups, and my two losses were both to Twin. I'm hoping to get some feedback on my deck (list below) and matchups. I'm currently going GB (my preferred) but I may splash white for Burrenton Forge-Tender and Mirror Entity, among other good white cards I may sideboard. Any suggestions are appreciated!

2 October 2015 Modern FNM

Round 1: 2-0
GW deck with birds and lots of other mana producers that aims to get card advantage with hideaway lands and cast Emerakul. He was too slow and said he is usually faster. I won game one with Champion forestwalk and game two with Nyx devotion --> Chord --> Craterhoof.

Round 2: 2-1
My most fun match of the night by far. GW CoCo deck with an infinite combo involving Finks and some card with the ability 'haunt' to give infinite life. It was a super fun race and fortunately he only CoCo'd into infinite in game two. I won game one with Ezuri and game two with Champion forestwalk. A good and similar deck, but as he said to me, my "clock is too fast!"

Round 3: 0-2
Spinter twin. Bad draws, a wrong choice on Thoughtseize game two (should have taken the creature that combos with Twin but instead took 1 of 2 copies of Twin in his hand; that just comes down to my inexperience). Very sad match up.

Round 4: 0-2
Spinter twin. Absolutely horrible draws, tried to mull into a choke or other sideboard card game two and ended up mulled down to 4.

Round 5: 2-0
Weird black deck that was based around making me discard cards and some creatures and enchantments that make me lose life if I have less than a certain amount of cards in my hand (which unfortunately is often the case after turn 2 with elves). Relatively easy win as I was much faster and had more of a solid plan. He forfeited game two mid-way because he had nothing in his hand and wanted to go home early.

Deck notes: I'm sort of on a budget, so my land base is lacking any more fetches, shocks, or Caverns at the moment; need to save up for those. However, my land base still seems a bit unbalanced and I can't always get B when I need it. I'll pick up another Tomb or Palace soon. I also only have Craterhoof in there (a remnant from my past combo version) until I get another copy of Ezuri. My sideboard needs the most help, but balancing out my main deck is also needed.

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Lands [18] 11 Forest 1 Gilt-Leaf Palace 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx 1 Overgrown Tomb 1 Pendelhaven 2 Windswept Heath 1 Woodland Cemetery Creatures [34] 1 Craterhoof Behemoth 4 Dwynen's Elite 4 Elvish Archdruid 1 Elvish Champion 4 Elvish Mystic 4 Elvish Visionary 1 Ezrui, Renegade Leader 4 Heritage Druid 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Nettle Sentinel 2 Shaman of the Pack 1 Spellskite	Spells [8] 4 Chord of Calling 3 Collected Company 1 Lead the Stampede	Sideboard [15] 2 Choke 1 Dismember 1 Essence Warden 1 Gaea's Herald 1 Inquisition of Kozilek 1 Lead the Stampede 2 Leyline of Vitality 1 Mirror Entity 2 Reclamation Sage 1 Thoughtseize 2 Vines of Vastwood

Thanks again!

lol I just mentioned like two posts back that I switched from that weird deck to elves. Btw it's called 8rack. 2 or less cards in hand and the rack does 1-3 damage and 1 or less cards in hand and shrieking affliction does 3 flat damage. It's my favorite deck but I can definitely see how it could be a poor match up for elves.

So last night I tried 8rack again at local FNM. went 2/2. I played almost exactly the Tom Ross version (even the sideboard) with necrogen mists substituting for lils.

Round 1) Won vs Grixis Control(midrange) 2/0.
Game 1: Used smallpox early to lock him out of crucial land. Dropped necrogen mists and kept his hand empty until the racks and mutavaults did their job.
Game 2: Had to mull to five due to lands hating me, then basically the same strategy only he got enough lands to activate his creeping tar pit so we ended up racing damage. Then I drew another smallpox and that 1 damage just barely put me ahead in damage for the win.

Round 2) Lost to Junk 2/1
Game 1) Won game 1, locked him out of mana early with smallpox and drew really well to keep his hand empty while racks did their job.
Game 2) Collected company + eternal witness + kitchen finks = outpacing my everything. Also blocked two of my mutavaults with snapcasters cause "why not" as he so eloquently put it.
Game 3) Almost the same as above only he almost at the classic pod combo on the field before he killed me, told me after the game that his sideboard more or less turns his deck into melera/afenza infinite.

Round 3) Won vs lantern control 2/1
Game 1) Lost this round. Admittedly I wasn't expecting to see the deck last night so I spent game one learning the mechanics of the deck and doing my best to hamper him in the process. Got 1 rack out but it wasn't enough.
Game 2) Got a rack out turn 1, and an affliction out turn 2. He destroyed one with Abrupt Decay but didn't have an answer for the other. I already had him to 6 before he drew the red spellbomb.
Game 3) opening hand had an affliction, a rack, and a Nyxathid. Dropped the affliction and rack turns 1 and 2 to bait out the abrupt decay. ended up getting thoughseize turn three so I removed it from his hand instead. dropped Nyxathid turn 4, by then he had one land in hand. And from that point on I just let all three cards work their magic till I had the game.

Round 4) lost to Esper Control. 2/0
Game 1) This was a strange hybrid of Esper control and Esper aggro. Looked like he was running Esper Control build with 2-3 Tasigur for the lols. Anyways he kept his hand at 5-6 the whole game so the racks never went off. Beat me down with colonnade.
Game 2) Almost the same as above only he seemed to like the irony of using esper charms to make me discard 2 as "punishment" for making me play discard. (his words not mine) In the end I Couldn't out damage Tasigur.

Still think smallpox is a ridiculously underrated card for this deck. It practically sets your opponent to turn zero if you go first and you play it turn 2. And since most decks are 2+ color in the format so smallpox hurts them a lot. I think to a degree it also messes with you opponent since they know you have the capability to play smallpox so they are more likely to keep a larger land hand then normal or mull down to try and get a particularly optimal hand. This seems to be the case at least from my observations at my local FNM.

Quote from Blame1987 »

Tnx Destroier, may teh rack be with you! Hahah.

@ nuclear: Mmm maybe you are true, but you have to choose to ply it or not, if u have a bridge in hand and want deploy it on turn 3 dont play a smallpox! But if you havent EB, the pox can slow your oppo and eat a creature on board, it's a 3 for 3 at turn 2 and you have to clean and empty yours and oppo hand! In lategame its simply a discard + removal! I'm not sayng it's a correct but I think it's worth enought to give it a shot!

Tnx all

Your english is perfectly fine my friend. As for smallpox yes its situational but its helped me so many times. If played against Say Infect, Zoo, or Burn it can severely set them back. Usually these decks will keep a low land hand figuring they will just empty in on the field in a few turns. Its their usual strategy and admittedly it usually works. But we are definitely not the sort of deck they usually expect. And that I would say is a definite advantage.

My LCS has one twin player. Over 50% are running Grixis Control. 10-15% are running some variation of CoCo or Burn. The rest are, more or less, running tier 2/fringe decks. Like Bloom Titan, Grishoalbrand, etc.
I don't like going up against BloomTitan. A dislike that was re-enforced even further last week when I got killed by a Titan turn 2 round one. And then two Titans Turn two of the following round thanks to some stupid hi jinks with two amulets on the field and trigger tricks. I don't know, I understand that there are answers to the Titan deck. That it's hugely based on luck. And that they can ironically enough mana screw themselves. But I still feel the deck would be a whole lot fairer if the Amulet were removed.

Quote from Phantomswagger »

It takes two to TANGO LANDS

This man has my vote

Quote from lioncourt123 »

I also hear it called Hate Rack very often. I usually have to talk people down from a certain frustration level, especially the Boggles players, when they see Ensnaring Bridge and pick it up to read it, and then pick it up again, and then they draw a card and say GO. I know some players just generally do not like the feeling, and I can understand it. So yeah, a lot of people HATE Rack.

I am stuck on the stock list. I only played Ross Rack a few times and lost a lot. I don't think I used Smallpox well. I am very uncomfortable with Waste Not, for the most part, so I have it in the sideboard once in a while and then switch it back out. I like the Ensnaring Bridge lock, despite all the mainboard artifact hate. I struggle against Grixis badly, to the point where I have learned that Victim of Night, although a good removal spell, really, really sucks against Gurmag Angler.

Yeah I get the same reaction from players. I have probably had a quarter of the players at my LCS tell me I was a horrible person for playing the deck. And I think quite a few of them aren't lying, you can kinda see it in a person's demeanor and their eyes. I have hit the point, as of recent, where if I'm asked to not play it I will more often them not switch decks. In the end I go to FNM to have fun, if other people can't expect to have roughly the same experience I feel like i'm doing something wrong. However I will play it if I know someone is playing storm because its my leave favorite deck to play against.

Quote from Esperino »

Don't think you are breaking some sort of new ground here. The last 10 pages have basically been people new to the deck "rediscovering" things about 8Rack, except going through the process of discussing all the bad cards about discard. The difference this time is that there are actually those who are convinced they are playabe. OK, yea, Destroyer is running Pack Rat, which is completely unplayable in competitive Modern, but in the tier space this deck is right now it might as well have Force of Will-levels of power. You, on the other hand, are running Dreadbore... so as long as you have things like that in your list there can be no discussion. I at least wouldn't take somebody who's playing sorcery-speed removal seriously.

I have a 190 posts only on 8Rack and have played with the deck since the original Primer thread. Let me give you a friendly advice here - you are way off. Way, way off of something playable outside the limits of the kitchen table. If you want to prove something you need testing and results. And after that - more testing. Theoretical deckbuilding and a minor following from other people newer to the deck than yourself won't get you anywhere. There is room for BR Rack, sure. In the current meta I even find it slightly more powerful (if built correctly, of course) because it has more interaction points with other decks. However, the mono-black list from the primer is not far behind (except that it's playing Pack Rat) and will get you to just as many places. Believe me when I say this, with not bad intent whatsoever - you aren't bravely mapping uncharted seas to distant, rich and fertile lands, you are lagging behind, drawn to the depths by the tide of all the junky discard-related cards.

I am very new to this deck and sadly cannot afford what I only can consider the best make or break cards (aka Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Liliana of the Veil) to make this absolutely fantastic as adding a playset of each would more then quadruple the current cost of my deck. So my choices, in my mind, are try to find substitutions to fill in the gaps or just say screw it and play a different deck.
But what I do know is that in my local meta, I have have had several people tell me that I am the worst kind of person for playing this type of deck. And on top of that I frustrated one of the top players in my area to the point of dropping after out after his match with my sub par deck. So I take that to mean I'm doing something right.
Granted I see where you are coming from, running sub optimal-irrelevantly under powered cards doesn't usually help people improve. But at the same time new decks cannot be discovered without experimentation and someone has to be willing to fail to see how their idea does in a real match. Otherwise everyone would be running Artifact Affinity, some variation of Zoo, or some variation of Tron cause those are proven decks. But it would also be a very dull game if this were the case.
And with that said I do not pretend to be the best player in the world. I often forget the upkeep trigger for Wolf-Skull Shaman in my Elf deck. I say I end my turn and realize that I forgot to play a land that turn. I know that I still have much to learn about this game. But I still like to see other people's ideas toward this archetype. Because it's through these sorts of interactions I feel that this game improves. "Looking at a card suggestion and saying to one's self "heh I never would have thought of that."
I shall get off my soap box now.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Thanks. I'm running 4 IoK in place of your Despise and I think Surgical Extraction could be a good option for knocking out combo pieces. I may have to go 4 SE in my SB. I'll keep those other two cards in mind. Maybe someone else could suggest a better alternative or another budget alternative. I'm all about budget cards for sure.

On a side note anyone have any thoughts on Infinite Obliterationjust out from Origins as a possible sideboard card to remove those pesky combo piece creatures?

Yeah I wish I had grabbed a playset of IoK before they spiked. Now they are ever so slightly out of my price range for the moment. Then again I also wish I had bought Thoughtseize at $11 dollars when the RTR rotated out. But I didn't have the foresight and was running Elves exclusively at the time. Oh well.
Infinite Obliteration Is an interesting card. Though personally I'm not sure why you would use that over Surgical Extraction or Extirpate since it cost 2 more, only hits a creature, and is sorcery speed.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Hello there, a couple of quick questions. Glad you had fun with it BTW.

How did you like 4x of Surgical Extraction? Did you find it catching the important pieces of combos or dangerous cards or was it hit and miss? I've thought about 4 SE as well.

Secondly, why Haunting Echoes or Death Cloud? They seem a bit pricey to play CMC wise. I'd like to know your justification out of curiosity, I'm not knocking it at all. My deck list is very similar to yours.

It worked surprisingly well. Since metas tend to run multiples I would Despise them then turn around and Surgical Extraction something hopefully useful. Or wait a few turns, get some cards in their graveyard them take my pick.

As for the Death Cloud/Haunting Echoes. It's kinda a place holder for the moment. I wasn't really sure what to put there. Though I can say that both games that I won week two were in large part due to me holding out to turn 5-10 then dropping haunting Echoes on the field and tearing their deck apart. So for now it's carrying its weight till I can find something else.

Wow, thats GREAT News Ajani in GW as you can conclude from my Signature d:)

I hope he finally makes Tokenz.

Ajani, Wildborn 2GW (3 Loyality)

+1 Create a 2/1 White Cat Creature Token.
+1 Put a +1/+1 Counter on target Creature you Control. That Creature gains Flying & Vigilance.
-2 Destroy target Artifact or Enchantment. You gain Life equal to ist manacost.

Quote from Axelthefox »

It's like a character to them. Some just like the art,some like the hobby and such.

That's fair. Some like the art, some like the hobby, and some truly believe they were meant to be born a different species and act that out as much as possible. Of the latter group, factor in that 99% of people are sexual in one way or another and you've got yourself a fetish. The actual definition of a fetish is someone enjoying sexual pleasure in a way that is not inherently biologically natural to humans (homosexuality and trans-sexuality are actually exempt from that definition, as both are biologically normal to us, albeit relatively rare).

Furries straight-up didn't exist before the internet. This series of tubes we all enjoy created the community, and the fetish attached to it, however small a percentage of the overall community that may be. For that reason, furries are going to be stigmatized, however unfairly, for a long damn time, and it ain't like I don't get your plight. I'm a nonexclusive sexual sadist and I have no expectation of admitting that and having people being okay with it.

Quote from destroyermaker »

I don't think there's much more to be said right now about the stock version, but the Smallpox version could use a lot more data, yes.

Yeah, this deck does very well in my local meta. It's basically always a good FNM deck because FNM tends to be quite varied, and low on BGx (which is very expensive).

I have played the smallpox version extensively and I'll give you as much info as I can think of right now. This is my exact list.

[deck]
4 IOK
3 thoughtseize
3 wrench mind
2 funeral charm
4 raven's crime
4 smallpox
4 the rack
4 shrieking affliction
4 liliana
4 dismember

11 swamp
1 dakmor salvage
4 urborg
4 ghost quarter
4 mutavaults

sideboard
2 disfigure
2 deathmark
1 damnation
1 black sun zenith
2 night of souls betrayal
3 leyline of the void
4 pack rat

I made a few changes to his list, i took out the nyxathid and waste nots for pack rats without really even testing them originally, i just knew this deck wanted pack rats. With 4 cards it brings an explosiveness that the deck can really use at time, and they can semi protect themselves. many decks cannot handle a pack rat that starts to get out of control. I went with the 3 leylines because grixis is really big right now and the matchup is pretty lopsided when you have a leyline out. I like black sun for the fact that it can stop persist on finks, but if there are tons of finks in your meta, this is probally not the deck for you.

24 lands is a minimum. I have been running the 4 ghost quarters main and i really like it. It isn't even for the tron matchup because it is boderline unwinnable anyway, but there are so many utility lands and situations that GQ really shines. One matchup against jund I GQ'd his forest as i was building a pack rat Army to keep him off maelstrom pulse, knowing they only run one basic forest in the deck. it does hurt your consistency a bit, but i have tested both and I am much more comfortable with the 4 gqs

Your good matchups are control decks and decks like jund, infect and boggles that want to ride on threat to victory. Twin is actually a really good matchup, They really need all of their cards and we run a lot of cheap disruption, plus night of souls betrayal in the not only stops their combo plan cold, it turns off a big part of their beats plan (snapcaster/pestermite). Speaking of which, I can't tell you how important Raven's crime is to this deck, at first I was running 4 thoughtseize and 3 ravens crime thinking that TS was a better card, but once you start playing this deck there are SO many times that you NEED a raven's crime. Also why it is important to run 24 lands, once you hit 3-4 lands in play you want to hold your extra lands so when you draw a ravens crime you can decimate their hand. Bloom is actually a winnable matchup assuming that you can disrupt them. Taking their key cards leaves them with a lot of nonsense. A trick to remember is hold ur ghost quarter activation until they play a bounce land, with the amulet trigger on the stack, hit the bounce land, so they dont get the untap, and they still have to bounce one of their own lands.

Smallpox is probally my favorite magic card next to nether void. You can cripple decks early who try to be greedy and not a lot of people expect a land kill spell on turn 2 and tend to keep 1 or 2 landers on the blind. its a big reason to play this version of the deck. This is one of the main ways you beat decks like burn and zoo which can really be tough.

Tom ross is right when he said you always play on the draw with this deck. I actually talked to him at an IQ about this deck in legacy, i wish I had more time to ask him about the modern version. It might be possible to want to be on the play VS zoo, being able to take a threat with a 1cc discard and smallpox turn 2 can really set them back, I have not tested the matchup enough to know if being on the play or draw is correct.

Your bad matchups are tron, burn and zoo. Tron is designed to prey on midrange and control decks like ours. Don't even try and change the deck to beat it, simply not worth it. I pull my wrench minds and 2 dismembers for a damnation and 4 pack rats. Try and keep them off tron as long as possible and put pressure on them, but really, this matchup is terrible. Burn and zoo are really bad because it can take time to stabilize and they have inevitabilty of top decking burn once u stabilize. One way we win is if they are mana screwed from an early smallpox. Burn doesn't run a basic plains or forest, so you can use your ghost quarters to keep them off Boros charm or Atarka's command/become immense. Against Zoo you can use your ghost quarter to hit a plains/mountain and while the trigger to search is on the stack Disfigure a Nacatl, which I have had to do a few times. the 3 toughness is actually a problem a lot of times (can't trade with a mutavault and doesn't die to disfigure)

One deck that isnt really played but I have ran into quite a few times is the mono white enchantment deck. We really dont' have any way to interact with their enchantments and I have lost every time I have played against it. The mono green tooth and nail also is pretty poor matchup as well, try and use your discard to hit key cards while applying pressure.

I hope this helps if there are any questions let me know

Extraction is easily your best sideboard card. It's something that stays throughout all versions of 8Rack, unless you are playing white for those heavy duty answers/hate. At the whopping cost of 0 mana it's an instant speed answer to a lot of problems and something that improves more matchups than it should be allowed to. Unless you are running some sort of engine, like Bob or whatever, this should hover around 3 or 4 copies in your average sideboard, depending on what you're doing with the rest of it.

Quote from Axelthefox »

Soriel, i wonder if you ever saw the art of Ladycybercat or Tailsrulz. I have a art print by tailsrulz and a signed original by cybercat. Of course i found the furry fandom way back in 1997,and it has changed a lot from then. I notice a lot of stuff that used to be tolerated in the furry fandom in the confurence days is no longer tolerated. Hopefully people like Uncle Kage will help improve the image of the fandom.

Such as? It seems like where furry art draws the line appears fairly bottomless.

Thought I'd weigh in on this subject.

Much of my art does involve "animal people," so people have labelled me a furry. I think to a layman, being in my position is enough to at least be peripherally in the subculture. I don't personally consider myself a furry because beyond my artwork, I don't really subscribe to the subculture at all, but at this point I'm not really bothered if that's what people think. I do have friends who are furries, some of which I have met through sharing my artwork online.

I do think that there are a contingency of people in this subculture who are generally unpleasant to be around, be it strange sexual fetishes or identifying as some sort of animal. As someone else mentioned, there's also the whole social awkwardness element to it as well. Certainly it's understandable that people have an aversion to this sort of strange behavior, as am I. However, I think like most groups, uncharitable assumptions are often made from the most extreme behavior in that group. It's not just subculture reactionaries who do this. Ideological groups, political parties etc. have a bad habit of "othering" based on the most inappropriate behavior of their detractors. Must be a survival instinct or something. *shrug* There's also the element of furries just kind of being an easy target for mockery. Certainly internet culture helps fan the flames of negative stereotypes.

I can only really speak to my personal experience, but the furries I've met are generally nice, approachable people. I think if people would get past the barrier of their interests, they might realize furries are like most anyone else. Ultimately, if they're not hurting anyone, I don't really care.

Quote from Axelthefox »

A furry is someone who is a fan of cartoon animals,like the cartoon animals in zootopia,disney's robin hood,or such and egyptian mythology or likes stuffed animals. I know some furs who have stuffed animals.

That's not what I asked. Certainly some furries like stuffed animals, and some people who like stuffed animals are furries. But liking stuffed animals isn't what makes someone a furry. It's not the case that everyone who likes stuffed animals is a furry. Nor is everyone who likes egyptian mythology a furry. Nor cartoons with animals. So what separates a furry from someone who just likes stuffed animals?

It takes two to TANGO LANDS

Quote from Soriel »

Exactly what I meant. Most peoples see sexuality where there is none. It's that exact mindset that destroy the hapinnes of others. Remove the mindset of sexuality by popular ''knowledge'' and destroy the discrimination trought appearance and religion and you end up cleaning up most of the bad **** going out in the world! I consider myself to be halfway there since I have a huge problem with religions (not a believer, gods don't exists, only spirits who come in three categories: neutral, good and evil, religions should not exist and every religion should be destroyed to prevent more mass killing because of the beliefs of others), but I control what I consider to be sexual and not sexual (believe me, not as simple as you think, I once was a teenager bubling away with hormones trought the roof) as well as don't judge on appearance.

One step closer to breaking free of the chains that ties us to the normal mindsets communities try to hammer into our brains for generations, one step closer to true peace of mind. True peace can only happen if we can all agree to compromise. But the human race is stupid, will probably take a few centuries till that happen. Better pass along my mindset to future generations.

What about the killings and such that weren't done in the name of religion? Ho Chi Minh,Joesph Stalin and Mao were actually atheiest and they did very bad things.