Blackmail

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Blackmail

Sorcery

Target player reveals three cards from his or her hand and you choose one of them. That player discards that card.

legendofa on infinite rats

10 months ago

Pulling from my own Rat tribal deck (Modern-ish casual, not EDH):

Karumonix, the Rat King gives you an out against lifegain-heavy decks. I don't recommend going deeper than that with poison (i.e. don't add Ichor Rats or Septic Rats), but Karumonix adds a layer to your attacks and keeps rats coming.

I haven't gotten Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm yet, but I want to. It looks amazing. If your budget can handle it, I'm recommending it just in theoretical grounds.

I personally am not impressed with Swarm of Rats (Rat Colony is pretty much all-around better) and Pestilence Rats, but they might work better in EDH, where you always have access to a fear-granting effect. How have they worked for you?

Ratcatcher is a free tutor for a rat every turn. Highly recommended.

Memoricide is a little odd, since it can only hit one card that isn't in play. Is this a meta choice? Do you have a specific target for it that you know you'll see?

Unless you see a bunch of Voltron, Battlecruiser, or other decks with one big creature, I would diversify the removal a little bit. You have a lot of single-target creature removal. I'm a big fan of discard, so I'm recommending based on what I like at this point. Cabal Therapist, Mind Slash, and Sadistic Hypnotist turn your rats into hand removal. Feed the Swarm offers enchantment removal with a very evocative name for this deck. Try some of these in place of Cast Down or Ultimate Price or something. Also, Despise isn't great if you're just fishing. If you want a T1 discard effect, Thoughtseize is best, Inquisition of Kozilek and Blackmail are solid, and Dread Fugue is pretty good.

Following up on that, I see a good set of mass removal and graveyard recursion, and Marrow-Gnawer lets you rebuild quickly. This part looks solid.

wallisface on

11 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • 20 lands feels really low for a deck running Smallpox, that also needs 3 mana reliably, and ideally 4 mana for Tourach, Dread Cantor. Personally, i'd go up to 24 lands, and then run a playset of Raven's Crime so that you can still make use of any excess lands you might draw later in the game. (i'd drop the Hypnotic Specter for those extra lands, as the card just validates your opponents killspells too much)

  • I'd suggest running the full playset of Smallpox as it can just prove soo valuable for messing with your opponent, particularly if you're on the draw (which 8rack decks often want to be).

  • I'd ditch Megrim in place of some kind of killspell. between Shrieking Affliction, The Rack, and Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage you already have enough ways to punish an empty hand - and the opponent might not even have any cards in hand to discard after turn 3 anyway. You also want to be able to killspell the opponents board to force them into having to play more cards and get lower on resources. I think Fatal Push would be a lot more useful than Megrim here.

  • Duress can be really problematic in that it might not find a card to discard. I'd suggest running 3x Blackmail instead, and then 1 copy of Bontu's Last Reckoning. Blackmail is a lot stronger in that it will at least be guaranteed to force a discard, and the single copy of Bontu's Last Reckoning can come in clutch for getting out of gross situations (though I don't think you want to be running more than 1 copy because drawing 2 in a game is probably not helpful)

Jett2112 on

1 year ago

Very cool deck, I love the specter aesthetic! I'm gonna try Blackmail in my deck Pox Diamond. I would reccomend from your maybe board Drown in the Loch and Vandalblast for sure Grixis staples. Also have you ever considered Painter's Servant? Its got synergy with your commander making them discard all spells plus it makes cards like Pyroblast, Aether Gust, and Leshrac's Sigil even better.

Ouroboros_47 on Discard Shenanigans Competitive

1 year ago

There's lots of cheap legacy cards that you should consider. Dark Ritual, Hymn to Tourach, Smallpox, Blackmail, The Rack, and Shrieking Affliction to name a few. Tourach, Dread Cantor is pretty good to.

wallisface on For Honor and Glory!!!

2 years ago

lhetrick13 Yeah i don’t know of any good tools for calculating mana needs sorry. I generally just follow my gut based of playing a lot of modern.

I would suggest swapping Blackmail out for more killspells.

With Prismatic Ending, keep in mind there are very few cards people play costing more than 3 mana in modern. Also keep in mind it can remove more than just creatures.

wallisface on For Honor and Glory!!!

2 years ago

Some thoughts:

  • your land count feels pretty liw considering your quantity of 3-and-4 drop cards. I would have thought you’d need 23 as a minimum, and probably 24 to function well.

  • Blackmail feels really out of place here. You’re unlikely to be able to use it to snatch the opponents best cards, and you generally have no reason to be mainboarding discard effects here.

  • Heliod's Intervention is a sideboard card, at best (its barely even worth having there, tbh). It has no place mainboard.

  • You’re running 3 colours, so i’d suggest Prismatic Ending over Path to Exile. In any case, whichever one you choose, you should be running a playset of the card.

  • Kinsbaile Cavalier feels pretty “meh” for 4 mana. I’d say ditch it, and run the full playset of Collected Company.

Se7enfoot on No-Hand Job

2 years ago

middle andlate game Blackmail comes in very handy

zapyourtumor on 8 rack grief

2 years ago

I've been playing a Grief 8-rack build for some time and I have some comments on your build that I hope you find helpful.

For one thing, Feign Death is strictly worse than Undying Evil, except with multiple copies on the same creature. More about the creature/flicker package: If you flicker a Kroxa with Ephemerate the rebound is wasted since it still dies either way. And you don't have a further target if you topdeck another flicker spell/undeath spell later. Also, you have to wait until t3 to get any value from the flickering. This is why I suggest running a creature like Burglar Rat or Elderfang Disciple instead. Also, you have 10 flicker cards but only 8 creature targets. While the flicker cards are dead cards by themselves, the creatures aren't, which is why I advise going down on the flicker cards and going up on the creatures.

For the discard suite, you currently have 12 targeted hand disruption spells, 4 Grief, IoK, and TS. This seems really overboard for me, since those spells tend to be bad late-game topdecks (and this deck aims to put the game into topdeck mode asap). I suggest cutting down some on those and putting in some Blackmail and/or Raven's Crime. Also Liliana of the Veil is a really powerful card in any 8rack build. I'd move them from the sideboard to the mainboard, leaving up more space for hate cards in the sideboard.

About the manabase. You also have barely any lands. Even without Smallpox, 18 lands is really low. I would recommend 20 at the bare minimum. Not sure why City of Brass is there either. And you have 4 Urborgs and no fetches. For a three color deck, CoB should not be needed and I highly recommend you go with a fetch shock manabase with Bloodstained Mire and Marsh Flats (and maybe one Savai Triome. Mishra's Factory is also generally better than Mutavault.

Using Ensnaring Bridge to defend against creature-based strategies is a complete nonbo with the deck's strategy of attacking with Grief and Kroxa. You also have no spot removal in the entire deck, which means it is really difficult to deal with creatures you want to remove that don't attack. I suggest swapping out the Bridges for some spot removal. Also you're in mardu colors which means you can run Prismatic Ending along with Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push.

About the sideboard: Feed the Swarm is played in most monoblack lists because it is the only enchantment removal in monoblack. You're mardu, not mono-B, which means you have better options like Fragmentize, Fracture, Rip Apart, and Prismatic Ending. Grafdigger's Cage completely shuts down all of your Kroxa, Feign Death, Malakir Rebirth antics which makes it a terrible choice for graveyard hate. One sided hate like Soul-Guide Lantern and Leyline of the Void would be much better choices here.

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