MTG Salvation

I made a 5-0 this week!
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-league-2019-08-23#old-bag-o-bones_-

Thanks, this is my first primer so I don't know all the tricks yet. I'll add some spoiler tags.

I tried to reserve the primer for tested cards and keep comments for speculation on new cards.

Interesting list. I'm not sure I agree with just 1 LotV. She seems like a card you either want a lot of or none of and the question is usually how well you can utilize your own graveyard. Since you have Start // Finish and Lingering Souls I think you actually want more Lilianas. But on the other hand you don't want to dilute the number of token producers so maybe you don't want any more. I think the card is good in the deck though.

I've never been a big fan of Cast Out. It's very expensive and I almost always cycled it when it was in my hand. Anguished Unmaking is probably a better version of the effect. many decks will have nature's claim / cryptic (bounce mode) to deal with it. And nature's claim is likely coming in to deal with BB / Stony / RIP anyway.

I've found Zealous Persecution to be great, even in my token-light build. I most often use it as a sudo-board wipe but it can also win games. It's a great card. I've been playing 2 recently and really like it.

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Vampire Hexmage isn't a usual inclusion but may be worth it. Our worst match ups: Tron and UWx both use planeswalkers to accrue advantage that we can't keep up with. So having a way to destroy them is pretty important. Making them discard their planeswalkers is a good option in the early game but we don't have enough land disruption or a fast enough clock to keep Tron or UWx off the mana they need to play their walkers given they top deck them later in the game. It's not a terrible sideboard option since it shores up at least 2 really bad match ups but Chalice decks (which like someone else said isn't a popular strategy).

Ratchet Bomb is a more standard inclusion in the sideboard and it can be good. It cleans up tokens and it isn't terrible when you start ticking it up to 1 or 2. But it's often too slow if that's your plan so it's really only useful for tokens and chalice.

So the question becomes: what do we want help against: PWs or tokens? We have Bridge and Bontu's for Tokens and we don't have anything for PWs. So you need to decide if 1 or 2 Hexmages in the board really helps your UWx and Tron match ups enough to consider inclusion, or if an extra token board wipe will seal the match up.

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Hey guys! I went 2-1 at my lgs last night. Brought this list:



1-2 against Humans. All three games were very close! He just had infinite Mantis Riders which happens to be the hardest card in the deck to deal with for us I think.

Out: 1x Jace, 1x Search for Azcanta, Spellbomb, 2x Logic Knot, Thoughtseize
In: Explosives, Tendrils, 2x Kalitas, Clique, Pithing Needle

1-0 against UW Control. I won game 1 since my opponent drew like 10 lands early. Then we went to time.

Out: 3x Push, 3x Damnation, Dismember, 1x Spreading Seas
In: 3x Countersquall, Pithing Needle, Rain of Tears, 2x To the Slaughter, Clique

2-0 agianst Jund Blood Moon. game 1 was pretty easy since we just killed each other's threats and then I won the long game. Game 2 He got rid of all 4 planeswalkers that I kept in very early on, stuck a blood moon and then it was a slow grind. I ended up winning with 0 cards in my library. Very fun games!

Out: 2x Liliana, Thoughseize, Inquisition, 1x Damnation
In: 2x Kalitas, 2x Slaughterpact, Clique

Leylines never came up and I think more spellbombs would have been better in the match ups I face. I think Spellbombs are good enough against the graveyard decks too, especially if I have a lot of them. I think I'll switch out the Leylines for spellbombs. Pithing needle also wasn't very useful, and I don't think it's good enough against Humans.

I tried 2x Logic Knot in the mainboard and it was a bit awkward with Liliana but it was nice seeing counter magic slightly more often.

I don't think NDE works with Arena. NDE has an "intervening if" clause and so it will only go on the stack if you have 1 life at the beginning of your upkeep. I'm no judge though so I would double check with your local judge.

P&K is very similar to Bolas. It's got the same stats spread out over 3 bodies and avoids being 1-for-1ed. But it's more flexible in the midgame with the sac ability where Bolas nearly wins the game if you somehow have 7 mana at sorcery speed. I can't think of a match up where you can reliably get to a point where you have 7 mana and nothing to do with it. Also, I wouldn't want to try to activate this without counter backup so that's closer to 9 mana. I think the flexibility that P&K offers is more important in most match ups.

@Danr2000 ah, sorry, I misinterpreted some of what you were saying as being directed at me.
I understand that Faithless looting is an important card (and a very powerful card!) to the current deck you guys are discussing, I'm suggesting a very different deck though, one based a little less on the graveyard. I feel like graveyard hate may be on the rise again and I don't like being stuck under graveyard hate that I have to fight out of with cards like Ray of Revelation. The pros and cons of that can be discussed, but it's just not what I want personally.
I totally get the comparison to BG rock, but I wouldn't say strictly worse version. Clearly that has yet to be seen since it's an untested idea.
I looked into building the deck but the verdant catacombs are out of my price range right now unfortunately... and I don't think the deck functions very well without on-color fetches. Bloodmoon is pretty big right now so skimping on fetches could be really bad. So I probably won't be testing the deck anytime soon. Maybe in a couple months or something. But I'll update you guys if that changes.

Quote from Dizi »

Thks a lot for yours feedback both of you.
Now I have a doubt. I do not know if I splash white or if I invest in the mono black with 2 or 3 lili to replace Davriel ...
( I do not have the W cards yet )

List of the last night local meta :

1 Amulet titan
1 Bant eldrazi
1 WB Pikula
1 Spirit stoneblade
1 Mono W eldrazi
1 RG valakut
1 Goblins
1 10 rack
1 Bant stoneblade
1 Bant soulherder
1 G tron
1 U faeries
2 Jeskai stoneblade
1 UW Spirit
1 Jund

I made changes on the deck following your advice,
It could be cool this way I must tray it on untapin.

ty

@Dizi

Did you delete your new list ?

well, here are 4 articles written by Tom Ross itself, the 8 rack's Dad :
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/33726_Paint-It-Black-The-Complete-Guide-To-8-Rack.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/35890_The-Rack-Is-Back.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/34621_8-Rack-Makes-A-Splash.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/38488_12-Rack-Introducing-Davriel-Rogue-Shadowmage.html

You really should read them !
The third one treats the White splash and the last one introduces WAR cards like davriel.

Quote from ElvesotShelves »

It's like saying, oh I want to splash green in uw control, and pretending you didn't or shouldn't be in the bant control thread. Not everyone builds a deck like you. Some people enjoy the challenges of even a mono-colored deck. Let's even pretend your blue splash revolutionizes the deck. Are people going to call it orzhov control with a blue splash. No, they're going to call it Esper. And what you lost? People that want to build orzhov control are reading about Esper control. They're not going y
to contribute orzhov thoughts in an Esper thread. It is imperative that you see the big picture here and keep boards organized. It will keep the thread alive with people who may not have even played magic yet who simply want to build an orzhov deck.

You spit in the face of every orzhov player out there when you talk of colors that aren't orzhov in an orzhov thread.

You should probably chill the **** out. You “spit in the face” of every decent human being. Academy Award nomination for best actor in a drama, though.

I definitely wish teachings was better.
Before jace, I played a bug teachings deck on occasion that was a blast, but I don't think it quite cuts its anymore, which is a shame since trophy is a great addition to teachings, no longer requiring a bunch of different bullets.

Hey everyone. So, as I mentioned before, Experimental Frenzy seems to test very well, but the deck still had the same problems that I remember when I didn't resolve a Frenzy, in that sometimes the deck will just lose to itself as the opponents' topdecks will sometimes just help them turn the corner. I decided to put in some work to delve a little deeper into how we can tweak the deck.

The usual method that I prefer is to use a data-based approach. I've done this with a few decks in the past now (Lantern, Blue Tron, Taxes, and Skred) to very good results. I started doing the same with this deck, and so far I've entered 75 games of data into a spreadsheet.

My method is based on the idea that Modern is approximately a turn-four format. This isn't to say that the games are over on turn four, but that they are often decided by turn four. If one deck cannot maintain sufficient control over the course of the first four turns, then the opponent will be allowed to do so, and that will often lead to an overwhelming advantage. Thus, each player will see somewhere around 10 to 12 cards, depending on mulligans, to attempt to gain control over the direction of the game in those first four turns. This means that the opening hand, usually around seven or six cards, will account for approximately 60% to 70% of the resources that will be available to accomplish this task.

The spreadsheets that I use to take a look at how each card performs specifically compares win rates when there are specific numbers of each card in the deck in the opening hand. It then compares the win rates, and accounts for sample size by weighing these changes in win rates. The spreadsheet also accounts for diminishing returns on cards, so in some cases it's good to have a card in the opener, but having multiples might decrease correlating win percentages. I've also had it look at other data points with other decks, and have started to do the same with 8rack.

Anyways, here is my work so far. The data set is still not nearly as large as I'd like, but it's getting there. With the data set available so far, there are some interesting things to note:

Smallpox is, by far, the top performing card in the deck, followed by Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, and Liliana of the Veil, in that order. Mutavault is the next significant performer. These are all accounting for diminishing returns. The Mutavault data set is going to require some more, though, as it's somewhat skewed by the oddity of having a decreased win correlation when there is one in hand, but increased with multiples.
Ensnaring Bridge and Collective Brutality are the top performers for cards that currently have no diminishing returns data (no games with multiples in hand yet).
The Rack seriously underperforms, particularly compared to Shrieking Affliction. This seems to imply that Affliction is just more reliable as a win condition than The Rack, even though The Rack can deal damage sooner.

As I mentioned, I do think that we're going to need some more data if we really want to get closer to truthful and accurate numbers. I'm going to continue working on that, skimming videos on Youtube for the data. If anyone has any suggestions for additional data points to look at (combinations of certain cards and correlating win percentages with those combinations, etc.), feel free to let me know and I'll get it included. I'm hoping this could help get the deck performing better than it has been.

to timba and old bag o bones, many thanks for sharing your thoughts regarding the card, i've really missed the card advantage aspect when evaluating the card, thank you!

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