So one of the rogue player's darling's in the format has started coming into it's own, this being the heavy-discard based "8 Rack" deck. I'm here to both inform you of the goals of the deck and to give my updated take on the deck overall. First some history:
I played 8 Rack for a bit back before the recent banning/unbannings to reasonable success, but the deck was wildly different then. The entire format centered around the little one-drop that could: Deathrite Shaman.
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The entire deck was subverted by this one card. It wasn't running a ton of bad cards to beat it but the deck did run a good amount of Disfigures and 4 Smallpoxes to handle this scourge. It also shoved all but one of the Ensnaring Bridges to the sideboard to handle this menace. It also only ran 6 racks as "aggro rack" was not an oft needed strategy. The deck was a solid machine, crushing combo (except pod), holding it's own vs the "fair" decks, but giving affinity a bye. This was acceptable at the time as affinity was good but not everywhere and could be "dodged", then the ban occurred. I initially assumed the deck should stay mostly the same and cursed the deck tech at the Pro Tour. (found here: http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=63825 )
How wrong I was. With a format of decks trying to kill you quickly instead of a grind like Jund you need to be able to steal wins. Immediately this means the count of Ensnaring Bridges can no longer be one, you need to use these as a lock piece and the risk of getting blown out by Abrupt Decay in this format is MUCH lower. The number of Racks must be 8 up from 6 because you simply have to steal those wins. However, my initial gut reaction that something was amiss in that deck was still correct.
This brings me to my favorite card in the archetype and one that seemed to be missing from most lists: Funeral Charm. This card can swing many affinity matches your way, it can sneak some extra Mutavault damage in, but most importantly, it can Time Walk the opponent. Calling a card a Time Walk is usually an overblown claim, but with the opponent at zero cards in hand and a threat light board if they rip a sorcery speed card you get to make them quite sad. You slam this old school beauty during their draw step and they simply do nothing that turn, in a world where you are up to 8 racks this should be an auto-include. We need to cut something to fit in these extra cards and the first place to look is Smallpox, a complete removal may be an overreaction but the card puts such a strain on the mana base and currently, without DRS, the card just isn't what it used to be. I treat this card as a 3 drop due to what it does to the mana base so cutting down to 2 seems ideal. Without further ado here is the list:
The sideboard is built to improve the deck for many match-ups with cards like Blackmail that can replace conditional discard spells for either land heavy decks or to replace Thoughtseize in nightmare scenarios like the burn match-up. It can even be swapped for the fourth Bridge and the third and fourth Smallpoxes for the creature match-ups. The deck also has real "door-closers" like Nihil Spellbomb, Leyline, and Torpor Orb that go in for the obvious match-ups.
As for match-ups it hold a respectable position in the current field. With the changes made to the deck since the banning of DRS Affinity has been testing quite well. Twin is also a rather strong match-up BEFORE the Torpor Orbs are added, which speaks volumes. Pod can be quite rough, but is far from unbeatable, and honestly every deck holds some poor match-ups. I will be continuing to test the deck going forward and will try to have a tournament report from either myself or a friend posted within the next few weeks. I do truly believe this deck is a strong choice for the current meta game and if it fits your style then you should absolutely be playing it. Compared to the other current competitive decks this one is rather cheap. Good luck and happy racking!
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