Introduction
I've been playing Magic for more than 20 years and been always dragged towards hand-disruption. If you've also been there, you probably played Rack with the beautiful full set of Hymn to Tourach, a card that most of us miss when playing modern 8-Rack. This deck is my attempt at reviving that feeling.
8 Whispers of the Rack
Whispers of Emrakul is a card that can potentially achieve what Hymn to Tourach did. It's obvious that the conditions to be met are difficult and we need as many cards of the deck as we can to get that task done while still being useful on their own, so we have to prioritize those requirements when choosing which cards will make it to the mainboard.
Wrench Mind was the "to-go" replacement of the Hymn for quite some time, but we all know it's not such a good card. The more years pass by, the more useless is that card; specially now when everybody plays tons of artifacts. Players have replacing Wrench Mind with different better options, but it seems that no one has quite tried hard enough with the Whispers.
Objectives
- Disrupt our opponent's early strategy
- Getting our opponent's hand as empty as we can
- Feed our graveyard with 4 card types to get Delirium up
- Deal with our opponent's most important cards on the battlefield
- Generate card advantage / refuel
At their best (both discarding two cards), Whispers is infinitely better than Wrench. At their worse (both discarding one card), Whispers is still way better than Wrench. Having Delirium is something hard to build, but most Modern decks run artifacts so Wrench won't be a sure thing either; most importantly, it doesen't depend on us, while Delirium does.
Speaking of quality vs quantity, even if Wrench Mind could be discarding two cards on our second turn, Whispers of Emrakul could do much more damage randomly discarding one key piece from their hand. Wrench will always hit their worst and less needed card, while Whispers has only a small percentage of hitting their worst card.
Delirium
Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize or Raven's Crime will easily fill the "sorcery" spot on our graveyard. This is the easiest one since we run lot's of sorceries.
Fatal Push of Funeral Charm can fill the "instant" spot on our graveyard.
Mishra's Bauble plays a big part here, as it will assure "artifact" type on our graveyard for free (no-cost, instant speed, and replacing itself next turn).
Grief is another no-cost card that will assure another type ("creature") on our graveyard, while also disrupting our foe's early strat.
Marsh Flats or any fetch land will help filling the "land" spot at no-cost other than 2 life loss.
All of the above mentioned can be done on Turn-1! That's a lot.
On Turn-2, things get even easier. We can already play the Whispers of Emrakul if we were lucky enough to get Delirium on turn-1, or we can seal the deal playing any of the following:
Collective Brutality will fill "sorcery" spot while also enabling us to discard a desired type of card in order to get the Delirium ready for turn-3. This card was usually a sideboard pick and nowadays doesn't even make the cut for many rackers, but it synergizes very well in this strategy. It's a versatile card which will beheave according to what we are against. Versus control is very good, versus burn is a win and versus aggro is pretty decent. But it shines the most when we can Escalate it to cast Asylum Visitor with madness.
Small Pox will do wonders at filling our graveyard. Will tick sorcery, land and a third type we decide to discard.
Asylum Visitor can also fill the creature spot in the graveyard if we choose to discard it. It's a card that seems to have been tailored made for 8-Rack decks, it shines both when our opponent's have no hand or when we have no hand, helping to re-fuel after we've fulfilled our first objective. She can later on be brought back to life with Inscription of Ruin. Her Madness ability will generate advantage for us while discarding her to Liliana of the Veil ability, Smallpox or an escalated Collective Brutality.
Spice
Speaking of Inscription of Ruin, a versatile card that offers two of the main things we need: quantity discard and spot removal. Being able to potentially use it's third option with the Asylum vampire feels awesome. A singleton copy of it is, in my opinion, the way to go (not only because it's a 3-cost spell, but because we don't need it showing up on our opening hand, we want to draw it during the late-game). On many match-ups, it will also be able to bring back Dauthi Voidwalker from the graveyard to steal one extra spell, after sideboarding.
Mishra's Bauble is such a good card for a deck like 8-Rack that supports playing at Hellbent state (without cards in hand) so we don't suffer the self-discard from Smallpox and Lily's +1 ability and it helps triggering Asylum Visitor ability faster. It fills the artifact spot for Delirium right away.
If we've got Whispers of Emrakul on our opening hand, don't be afraid to rush Delirium, it can be devastating for the opponent. Either Smallpox or Collective Brutality allow us to pick whatever we need and ditch it into our graveyard. A turn one instant like Fatal Push into a turn two sorcery like Smallpox that will make us sacrifice a land and discard a card (maybe an early unwanted Rack, a sparing Liliana of the Veil ), and that's Delirium right there, ready to destroy on turn 3.
Urza's Saga is one of the most newest and powerful additions to 8-Rack and it goes well with playing Mishra's Bauble full set for the +1/+1 buff to the tokens. It also fits double spot in the graveyard for delirium, as enchantment and land.
Fatal Push will now be easier to buff, getting Revolt from Fetch lands, Smallpox, Urza's Saga and also to Mishra's.
Reaching 4 lands is not mandatory, but can be super useful in this deck due to being able to use Asylum Visitor + Smallpox
or Asylum Visitor + Collective Brutality
. Let's clarify that using her Madness ability to our own Smallpox will NOT cause her to be sacrificed since Madness states that the discarded card will remain exiled until the whole paragraph that belongs to the discarding effect completely resolves.
Why not full sets of some cards
It might seem rather awkward to see an 8-Rack version not running 4 copies of Liliana of the Veil or Smallpox , but we needed to make room and those two were the best options to be cut to 3 copies.
Considering we run 4 copies of Mishra's Bauble and 2 copies of Asylum Visitor we'll be drawing cards quite often. We've also got a Castle Locthwain for the same purpose. This means we'll have plenty deck digging.
Liliana of the Veil is an awesome card but it's not a card that we want duplicated in our hand. Specially if we're gonna Smallpox early because we'll need cheaper spells until we hit the third land.
Smallpox is amazing, but it also makes it difficult to reach 4 lands and this deck can take good advantage of that, not only due to Castle Locthwain ability, but also to the Asylum Visitor + Smallpox
and Asylum Visitor + Collective Brutality
combos.
Why not cutting the 2 copies of Shrieking Affliction instead? Well, because:
- I value the presence of enchantments as an option to force Delirium
- It's a 1-drop that races the opponent pretty well. This deck will have no trouble at getting our opponent's hand empty.
What are your thoughts? Is Hymn to Tourach worth it?
