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Pioneer 8-Rack

Pioneer 8-Rack Attrition Competitive Control Discard Mono-Black Primer

Emyron5

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Deck Tech

Hello, my name is Emyron5, your friendly filthy 8-Rack player. I have been playing 8-Rack for nearly a year now, specifically in Pioneer, and I have fallen more in love with the deck every day. I want to go over the point of every card in my personal list, and some sideboard options, but this deck is not at all locked in. There are a few cards in the list that are strictly the best to play, such as Thoughtseize, but for the most part, every card in the list is extremely flexible. So rather than focusing on how my list works, I’m going to go over why I chose my cards to point you in the right direction if you want to brew your own version rather than just net deck me. So, without further ado, let’s get Rack’n!
8-Rack is an old Modern archetype based around the card The Rack. Put simply, it’s a control deck that uses discard spells like Thoughtseize to virtually counter your opponent’s spells before they even hit the stack, and then finish your opponent off with your Racks. However, if we were to get a bit more technical, 8-Rack is actually far closer to a hellbent deck. A hellbent deck is a deck that is looking to make your opponent and/or you empty-handed, or hellbent, as soon as possible. Hellbent decks are kind of like stax decks, except rather than making everyone sacrifice permanents, they’re making everyone discard cards. Now, I know, looking at our list it may sound weird to say that we are discarding cards along with our opponent, but in a sense, we are. A lot of our discard trades one for one with our opponent, so when we make our opponent lose a card with our Thoughtseize, we also spend a card by casting said Thoughtseize. So, in the end, once our opponent is in top-decking mode, usually, we’re also in top-decking mode.

Now, I know right now you’re probably asking: “but… why?” Well, like any stax deck, we have our deck built around our deck’s plan. Braids decks build around knowing they will have to be sacrificing their permanents every turn. They add in permanents that can get around having to be sacrificed every turn like Reassembling Skeleton, and payoffs to having their permanents get sacrificed such as Blood Artist. So, likewise, we can build a hellbent deck around being hellbent, such as adding better top-decks, mana sinks to spend our mana on, taking the draw, and pay-offs to us or our opponent being empty-handed. And yes, you read that correctly, taking the draw. I know, it goes against everything you’ve ever been taught as a magic player, taking the draw is bad, the die roll is overpowered, etc. Well, there are a few reasons to take the draw with this deck. For one, again, we’re going to be trading one for one with our opponent for most of the game, so taking the draw allows us to be up a card, gaining a form of card advantage over our opponent. Also, denying that card from our opponent helps us to get them hellbent faster. Finally, taking the draw tilts mulligans into our favor. If we take the draw and our opponent keeps seven and we take a mulligan, since we’re on the draw, we’ll draw back up to seven in our first turn, breaking parody with our opponent. Meanwhile, if our opponent mulligans and we keep our seven, then we’re starting with eight cards in hand after the draw, while our opponent is starting with six. So yeah, we almost always want to take the draw, we take the draw blind. Now, there are a few areas where we do want the play, but I’ll get to those later on.

So, with all of that having been said, let’s break down the deck!

Pioneer 8-Rack is mainly built around two cards: Shrieking Affliction and Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage. Both of these cards punish our opponent for being empty-handed: Shrieking Affliction will bolt our opponent every upkeep if they have one or fewer cards in hand, and Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage will shock them under the same conditions. These are our main wincons, dealing two to three damage each turn against our opponent is a rather fast clock, especially if we can get multiples on the field.

You’ll also notice that Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage has discard stapled onto him, which means that he can help keep our opponent on the Rack. This also means if we are trying to sneak Dave under a counterspell your opponent may have, we can also downtick him that same turn so we don’t lose any tempo.

Liliana, Waker of the Dead is Pioneer’s version of Liliana of the Veil, but with the added upside of acting as a Rack herself. She keeps our opponent hellbent with her plus, and even bolts them if they have nothing to discard. She also keeps their creatures in check with her minus three, and her ultimate is just good game, especially against a deck with a lot of good creatures.

She’s very important to the deck and has boosted its power level by a lot ever since she got printed, and luckily she is very cheap right now at only about four dollars a copy.

Removal is very subjective and definitely depends on what you’re expecting to see in your meta. However, I am really liking Fatal Push and Bloodchief's Thirst in Pioneer’s current post ban metagame. They both offer efficient removal in the early game against aggressive decks and also elves, and Bloodchief's Thirst can become much more flexible later on when we’re able to kick it.

But again, removal is very subjective and can really depend on your personal budget and the current meta you’re expecting to face.

Okay, so, we’ve seen what this deck’s main payoffs are: Shrieking Affliction, Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage, and Liliana, Waker of the Dead. Well, we need ways to enable these payoffs, and after all, what is a hellbent deck without ways to make your opponent hellbent? Enter the nineteen discard effects in this juicy pile of hate.
Thoughtseize is the premiere discard spell and a black staple in any format it’s legal in. For just one black mana and two life you get a peek at your opponent’s hand and unconditional removal of any nonland card in it. It’s possibly the most powerful removal spell in Pioneer currently… and also the most expensive piece at around twelve dollars each. However, Thoughtseize is such a staple card in every format it’s legal in, you might already have it. If not, and you’re considering buying them, again, they are so important to any black deck in Pioneer or Modern that I can promise you that if you do you will never find them rotting in a binder anywhere. However, if you can’t afford them, there are a few budget options in Pioneer that work as a replacement that I’ll go over later.
Agonizing Remorse is Pioneer’s Thoughtseizes five through eight. For two mana you get a peek at your opponent’s hand and get to exile any nonland card from it or their graveyard. What I love about this card is that it can exile from either hand or graveyard, meaning it can be a Thoughtseize or a Cling to Dust depending on what we need at the current state of the game. Plus, being able to exile things like Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger from our opponent’s hand or graveyard before it becomes a serious problem can really help.
Yarok's Fenlurker is just another discard spell but with some very nice upside. First off, it exiles, which is far less relevant with Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath having finally been banned, but it still isn’t meaningless. Lessening the amount of food we give the graveyard for Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Dreadhorde Arcanist, etc, is still important. On top of that, this card functions as a two for one. Your opponent loses a card when it enters, and we gain a creature. Also, Fenlurker fills another slot most every hellbent deck wants to have: mana sinks. Fenlurker can be pumped over and over again for three mana, giving us a place to dump all of our spare mana in a top-decking war, and also making this creature a serious threat in the late game that our opponent has to deal with. This also makes it a better top-deck later on in the game since, against a hellbent opponent, we can just use it to start clocking our opponent or to block an incoming attack.
Elderfang Disciple or Burglar Rat (just pick your favorite tribe/art) are here as some more discard but again stapled onto a creature. This again is a nice piece of early discard against our opponent that leaves behind a body to clock them or block some incoming attacks. This one doesn’t come with a pumpable body like Fenny does, but it is still a way to dish out some damage or stop our opponent from doing the same to us, and again, it makes our top-decks better once we’re in hellbent mode.
Inscription of Ruin is essentially this deck’s Boros Charm and also a piece this deck had been missing. This card’s main function is as our best two for one, our Mind Rot. It can help knock the last few cards out of our opponent’s hand to get them onto the Rack, and also gain us some card advantage over them at the same time. However, this card has three different modes attached to it, all very relevant. It can also return a creature with converted mana cost two or less from our graveyard to the battlefield, meaning it can reanimate a Fenlurker or an Elf/Rat to strip a card from our opponent’s hand and put a body on the field. This can set up a clock against our opponent (albeit it a rather slow one, but hey, damage is damage) or bring back a blocker if you need it. Finally, it can also act as a removal spell, destroying any target creature with converted mana cost of three or less. Fun fact, converted mana cost three or less hits a lot of stuff! Bonecrusher Giant, Scavenging Ooze, Tireless Tracker, etc. This card is a fantastic addition because of how flexible it is, which makes it a fantastic top-deck no matter what point of the game we’re in. Plus, in a deck as linear as 8-Rack, having a card that can function as a removal spell, a discard spell, or a way to buy back a creature is fantastic. It allows us to have more removal against aggressive decks, more discard against control, and just add a threat to the board when in top-decking mode. It’s also worth noting that it can be kicked for a total of seven mana to get all three modes, which is a very rare occurrence, but I will say, it is a major blowout if you’re able to do it.
Castle Locthwain is very important in the deck as a way to keep up with or even get ahead of the control and midrange player in a top-decking war. This card functions as a mana sink and card advantage engine when you and your opponent are topdecking for a win condition or a way out of being hellbent, and having an extra draw step for a couple of turns can really help you get ahead or stay in the lead. This card is also great for us to try to fight goodstuff piles, which is a difficult matchup because they have so many good top-decks, but if we can draw an extra card each turn, we might find our good top-decks at the same rate. TLDR: Castle Locthwain is a good magic card, who knew?
Crawling Barrens. I love this card so much I can’t even begin to express it! This is my favorite magic card ever printed, bar none, it is everything an 8-Rack deck has ever wanted: a land that is a great top-deck, and that’s a threat and a mana sink all in one. Every turn you can pump four mana into this sucker to put two counters onto it and then you may have it become a creature until end of turn, you may! Very easy to miss when reading the card, but also very important in this deck. This means we can keep pumping all of our mana into it every turn to keep growing it, but we don’t have to animate it until we know the cost is clear and that it won’t be yeeted into our graveyard out of nowhere. How do we know the coast is clear? Well, we’re a Thoughtseize deck so that’s one way, but also just waiting until our opponent is hellbent is, well, if they have no cards in hand then they definitely don’t have any tricks! I love this card so much, it takes over the game so quickly when left unchecked, and when in a top-decking war, that can happen very quickly and easily. Crawling Barrens go brrrrrrrr!
Sideboards are the most subjective thing in the entire game, but I will go over each card in it briefly to give justification as for why I’m running them.

Asylum Visitor is here to come in against midrange and control, basically our Bob or Phyrexian Arena. She can draw us up to two extra cards a turn for free, which is a great way to keep up with control and midrange, and she’s a 3/1, which is a very good body for two mana.

Collective Brutality just claps burn. For two mana and the two worst cards in our hand we get to destroy a creature, make them discard a burn spell, and swing two life. It’s also great against Rakdos Arcanist and Featherless Feather since they run a good enough split between creatures and spells that we can confidently use it to destroy an early creature and then take away their best spell. Very nice for just two mana.

Extinction Event is how we delete creature decks. That’s it really, I mean, there really isn’t much else to say, it deals with Indestructible Squirrels and 5/5s, and also deals with Garruk's Harbinger and similar creatures. Plus, exile deals with Phoenixes and other graveyard shenanigans when it comes to your opponent’s creatures. I mean, it’s just Pioneer’s Damnation, it’s great.

Murderous Rider is in here as a catch all removal spell and also doubles as a three mana lifelinker against burn. Simple as that.

Noxious Grasp is Noxious Grasp, it’s practically doomblade in Pioneer. It destroys nearly everything that our deck really cares about in the format for just two mana, awesome.

Pithing Needle is a must in Pioneer, it shuts down everything hard to deal with. There are so many planeswalkers in this format, as well as a ton of utility lands, especially Castles. So yeah, Pithing Needle is great in Pioneer and I always start every sideboard with two copies.

Soul-Guide Lantern because graveyards aren’t dead, not by a long shot, and we still need a way to deal with them. However, it’s a lot less intense now so I’m making some room by taking out my Leyline of the Voids and adding in Lanterns instead.

Primer

One of 8-Rack’s greatest strengths is just how unique and off the wall it is. Like I said, while the deck is considered a control deck, it’s a hellbent deck at heart, and how often when building a deck do you go “okay, so, what happens when I face off against a hellbent deck?” Yeah, 8-Rack is a rare occurrence in Magic, to the point where people rarely care to plan for it, and rightfully so, it’s just not worth the time or the effort. However, this allows us to occasionally remind our fellow planeswalkers that 8-Rack does in fact exist, and make them pay dearly for it. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had someone between games look at their sideboard and tell me “I don’t even know what to side in.” How do you fight control? Spells that can’t be countered or are hard to remove. How do you fight burn and aggro? More removal and add in some life gain. How do you fight 8-Rack? With cards so bad they’re not worth playing.

So many people think Leyline of Sanctity is the end all be all of 8-Rack, and sure, it is… if it’s in your first or second hand that is. Let’s do some math, if you mulligan to five for a card that starts in play that means you’ve effectively mulliganed to four already, and then on the play, you make your land drop, and you’re down to three cards in hand. I don’t need to Thoughtseize you! You’ve already Thoughtseized yourself four times! Even in a hand of six cards they’re going down to four in hand off of their first land drop, and even still we have some outs. Yarok's Fenlurker and Elderfang Disciple both say “each opponent,” so they don’t target, and the same is true for Liliana, Waker of the Dead Yeah, it’s a stretch, but again, this is assuming they had it in a hand of six. Hell, this is assuming our opponent is playing this card! It will happen sometimes, I won’t lie, I’ve felt the turn 0 Leyline off of a hand of seven, and it feels really bad, but this card is so rare, it’s not worth worrying about, and if your meta decides to start running it, fight it. Feed the Swarm is all you need to eat a Leyline, or if you want to get fancy, some Burglar Rats in the side is a fun way to just get around Leylines entirely.

Another massive strength that 8-Rack has is, like any stax style of deck, it goes in prepared to fight itself. Death and Taxes doesn’t bring fetchlands to the table because they know they’re running Leonin Arbiter, Mono-Red prison is mono red so that it doesn’t get hurt by its own Blood Moon. However, Modern players don’t care enough about Arbiter or Blood Moon to follow the same rules nearly as strictly. What I’m trying to get at is, any prison style deck is at its best when it’s built around its plan to force its opponents into bad positions, but avoid those positions itself. Likewise, 8-Rack is built to make sure its top-decks are as good as they can be while not straying from the main goal of getting your opponent hellbent. However, your opponents probably don’t build their deck around having better top-decks than the 8-Rack player. This gives us a major edge in the late game once our plan is in motion, while our opponent is struggling to find a worthwhile card, we’re stockpiling our hand with interaction, putting wincons on the board, or devoting all of our spare mana to one of our many mana sinks. Basically, our deck is usually far better equipped to fight a top-deck war than our opponent’s, which gives us a huge boost in the mid to late game once we’re in top-decking mode.

This deck’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: top-deck wars. Now, for the most part, we have better top-decks than our opponent. A burn player might be able to draw their way out of it, but that’s assuming they live long enough, and control and combo can’t top-deck worth a damn. However, there are some decks that can top-deck, and they can top-deck really well.

Ramp decks are hard to beat because they are just chock-full of great spells to cast with all of their mana. Furthermore, the more the ramp deck ramps the better they are at just casting whatever they draw. We have a good matchup against Mono-Green Walkers because we can kill their elves with removal, while also forcing them to discard all of their castable and relevant spells before they get the chance to cast them. Keeping them off of mana is what gives us such a good edge, but if our opponent is instead just casting Growth Spiral, Cultivate, and Fertile Footsteps over and over again, well, not only are they bettering their top-decks by ensuring they can cast everything, but also thinning their deck of lands, which in turn makes their draws better.

One other archetype we can have some difficulty with is, well, graveyard strategies. Obviously Thoughtseize gets a lot worse when it doesn’t actually remove what it’s trying to remove, and the same is true for the rest of the deck. This gets a lot more manageable post-board with our graveyard hate and Extinction Event is also a good way to fight Mono-Black Aggro since it stops them from being able to recur their creatures after we remove them. However, in game one it is certainly an uphill battle, but games two and three are much more balanced, though still far from easy.

Finally, Goodstuff piles are, well, they’re honestly polar. Whenever I see a goodstuff pile I find it either being that we eat them alive or they absolutely ruin our day, and it really does depend on the list. For example, in Modern 8-Rack would get its ass handed to it whenever it went up against Bant Snow Control, and we have a good matchup against control so that says a lot! I also find myself getting smacked by things like Jund Citadel since they have so many great top decks. Also, while they do ramp with elves, we can’t spend our removal on them too much since they have so many threats we need to deal with instead. Inversely, we have a great matchup against Sultai Ultimatum decks because they’re very slow and a lot of their interaction is bad against us. Similarly, we also have a pretty good matchup against Niv to Light since they run so many tapped lands, giving us quite a window before we have to worry about their haymakers so we have more time to just make them discard them instead. So yeah, when it comes to Goodstuff piles, it really depends on what their deck looks like compared to ours.

In order to get this deck on a budget you want to take out Thoughtseize… that’s it, the deck is about $50 minus the Thoughtseizes. If you wanted to go even deeper, budget the sideboard with Sorcerous Spyglass instead of Pithing Needle, and you could even drop Castle Locthwain if you needed to.

As for what to put in place of Thoughtseize, now that’s the tricky part. Despise is a fine replacement, and so is Duress, but for very different reasons, and you really have to consider your personal meta when choosing which one to play instead. Specter's Shriek is also an acceptable replacement when going into a meta blind, but I’d swap it out soon after unless it turns out your meta has a lot of black in it.

For those of you who are brewers, don’t feel locked in. This deck is extremely flexible, in fact, there are only three cards that I consider to be locked: Thoughtseize, Inscription of Ruin, and Shrieking Affliction. Yep, that’s right, even Dave and Lili aren’t necessarily needed for the deck and can be replaced. Deathrite Shaman can function as a one mana Dave with added utility, and Rankle, Master of Pranks can replace Lili for a more aggressive take on the deck.

But that’s not all, you can even splash red for Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger or replace all of the exiling hand hate for more discard to work with Waste Not. Another fun option for the deck is Pack Rat, which is a very powerful card in our deck. All we need to do is resolve one Pack Rat and then all of our top-decks are gold! We can keep all of our good draws like removal and wincons, and turn all of our dead draws like lands and Thoughtseizes into more rats! It can also act as a defensive card against aggro, and an aggressive threat against control, so it’s very flexible and worth mainboarding if you can find the room.

Discard is also very subjective, there are a ton of options out there, but one thing I do just want to say is that your discard can’t just be discard. What I mean is, well, I said Inscription of Ruin is a locked piece for a reason. A lot of people look at Inscription of Ruin and say “yeah, that’s the best Mind Rot ever printed,” but it’s not, it’s just the only playable Mind Rot ever printed. Mind Rot doesn’t do enough to be considered in any deck, and the same is true for every other version, at least every other version legal in Pioneer. Arterial Flow, Heartless Pillage, and Tasigur's Cruelty are all unplayable, they have no extra utility and therefore just add bad top-decks into a deck all about having to top-deck. Unburden is the only one I consider to be somewhat okay since it can be cycled if it’s drawn later on, but I’d much rather have added utility to the card rather than just cycling it in hopes of a better top-deck.

Another example of a card that just does discard and therefore not enough is Vicious Rumors. This card may look like it does a lot, I mean, it deals a damage to our opponent, it makes them discard, it mills a card, and gains us a life, but in reality all this is just a one mana discard spell. I had been using this card in my Pioneer 8-Rack list for ages and it was doing pretty okay, but the second I took it I was actually beating Uros. Your discard needs to have some kind of bonus to it like coming with a body, or having some kind of added utility like random discard or extra modes to be good enough to run, otherwise, it’s just a discard spell, and therefore very bad in a top-deck war, and we need to make our top-decks as good as we can.

And that’s the deck, that is Pioneer 8-Rack. I love this deck, it’s my baby, and while it has been very bad during the Age of Uro, I couldn’t bring myself to play anything else. But now, Uro is dead, and, well, let’s talk about that for a moment shall we?

The recent Banned and Restricted announcement killed off T3feri, Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer, Wilderness Reclamation, and of course Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. All of these bans did only one thing for 8-Rack in Pioneer: they helped it, and they helped it a lot.

Okay, T3feri is a card that never directly affected the deck, not in the slightest. 8-Rack is basically sorcerySpeed.dek, so the static was just blank, and they’re only true target with the bounce is a one mana enchantment. So, all in all, T3feri was basically three mana to draw a card against us, not bad in the least. However, T3feri did have the incidental effect of making traditional control, such as Draw-Go, very bad in Pioneer, and as I went over above, control is a great matchup for us, especially Draw-Go. So, with T3feri in the format, one of our best matchups was all but extinct, which was very annoying, but with T3feri gone, Draw-Go is back, and 8-Rack eats Draw-Go for breakfast.

Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer created the lovely deck of Oops! All Spells, which was a combo deck we couldn’t fight very well because, uh… they could just top-deck the win out of nowhere. So, a deck that can literally just win during a top-deck war is dead, 8-Rack isn’t too sad to see that one go, not in the slightest.

Wilderness Reclamation and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, oh boy. Okay, first off, Wilderness Reclamation was one of the biggest ramp engines in Pioneer, and as I stated before, we have a tough matchup against ramp decks. Wilderness Reclamation was a bit different, we could fight it pretty well since all in all it’s a one card combo deck, so a turn one Thoughtseize taking their Wilderness Reclamation was usually enough to just end the game on the spot. However, I’m not sad to see it go, it’s just a very annoying deck for us to fight, and we no longer have to deal with it. And then there was Uro…. Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is the greatest threat to 8-Rack ever printed, yes, more so than Leyline of Sanctity, by far. Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath did everything 8-Rack hated to see all in one four mana 6/6 package. He drew cards, he gained three life (what a convenient number…), he put lands into play, and he never stayed dead. What did I say 8-Rack struggled against? Goodstuff piles, ramp piles, and graveyard shenanigans. Well, Uro was the embodiment of all of that, and then some. But Uro has at long last found a death it cannot escape from, and with his fall and Wilderness Reclamation’s demise, ramp is all but dead in Pioneer.

So yeah, we won a lot from this ban, and lost… nothing, we lost nothing. If there was ever a metagame for 8-Rack to truly be competitive I think it’s this one, and I’m excited to get Rack’n in Pioneer.

Okay, it's been a few weeks since the Monday Massacre, and the meta seems to have settled, at least for now, so I'm going to go over each individual matchup with what look to be the top decks of the format currently. First though, as I said before, sideboards are subjective and even this list isn't definitive. However, I am still going to go over sideboard swaps for post-board games just so that you can get an understanding of why I am not only running that card in my SB, but also so that you can get a general idea of what we want to use against each matchup. Alright, let's dive into it then.

Play/Draw: Draw

Sideboard:

What’d I tell you about the new Pioneer, eh? Dimir Control at the tippy top of the meta, our best matchup, woop woop! Dimir Control is a great matchup for us because, well, it’s a control deck, and furthermore it’s a control deck without the pesky planeswalker that Azorious brings along for the ride. Control is an amazing matchup for us because countering a discard spell doesn’t really work since our opponent will still be down a card. In the earlier turns you want to focus on using our targeted discard to take away their threats and their x for 1s. Above all else we really want to take away Shark Typhoon because it’s both, it makes a massive flying threat and also draws them a card. Aside from that we care about Dig Through Time though that card isn’t as detrimental against us as it may look. Whenever my opponent casts it and makes a pile of seven cards I feel sick, but then they take two cards and I just go “oh yeah, it’s just a two for one.” Granted, it’s the best draw two ever printed, but it’s far from the horror show that is Sphinx's Revelation.

Post-board we add in more instant speed removal to deal with end step sharks, and possible Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and/or Notion Thief if they boarded them in. We also put Asylum Visitor into the mix to gain a massive amount of card advantage once we’re in that part of the game, not to mention, it can clock our opponent as a 3/1, especially once they’re hellbent.

Aside from that, the game is pretty straightforward, but one thing to note is that we need to be much more careful with Crawling Barrens in this matchup since they have so many ways to interact with it at instant speed. They can cycle a big enough shark to eat/trade with it, or even just yeet it into the wind with a well-timed Fatal Push or Eliminate. Because of this, I tend to be more lenient on Castle Locthwain in this matchup until we have them hellbent.

Play/Draw: Play

Sideboard:

This matchup is weird and also the most luck-based, but you still need to sequence your turns well if you want to win. What’s interesting is that in this matchup our discard works as virtual life gain, but in a very odd way. If we cast Agonizing Remorse to exile a Boros Charm then we technically gained three life. Similarly, if they exile a Lightning Strike to a Yarok's Fenlurker then we also gain three life. It may sound wrong, but when you think about it it makes sense… but it’s still very weird.

However, again, these games are all about sequencing our plays correctly, getting our opponent hellbent, and then crossing our fingers. You need to determine when it’s better to cast a discard spell and get burn out of their hand and when you need to instead kill threats on the board before they untap and go nuts with a Monastery Swiftspear. However, I will add that we need to kill Bomat Courier on sight because, well, we really don’t want them to reload their hand.

Post-board we take out all four Thougtseizes because, well, shocking ourselves against burn is bad, very very bad, and bring in Collective Brutality and Murderous Rider. Collective Brutality just claps burn. For two mana and two cards (and yes, we always fully escalate this) we kill a creature, swing two life, and make them discard a burn spell. This card is brutal against burn and gains us so much tempo over them it’s wild, especially if we’re on the play. Murderous Rider is here less so as removal (since it does shock us if we do that) and more so just as a 2/3 life linking body. It blocks well and gains us life, not much else to say, and yeah, if need be, we can use it to kill a threat but I’d rather not do that since, again, shocking ourselves isn’t too appealing.

That’s it, again, this matchup is all about sequencing. You need to decide at every interval what play is best, and then once your opponent is topdecking just cross those fingers and pray for no Boros Charm.

Play/Draw: Draw

Sideboard:

At the end of the day, Yorion Lukka Fires is a combo deck: Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast + any creature. Furthermore, Fires Invention in of itself is a one-card combo within the deck as well. What I’m trying to get at here is, well, again, Lukka Fires is a combo deck, and 8-Rack eats combo decks for breakfast! This is a fantastic matchup for us, we can use all of our targeted discard to tear their combo apart and even get rid of Fires of Invention before it hits the table. Even if our opponent does slip a Fires of Invention past us, well, being able to double spell every turn for free doesn’t really matter when you’re topdecking, so yeah, again, this is a great matchup for us.

The main issue we have is not having enough instant speed interaction in order to mess with their Lukka activations. Basically, in case you didn’t already know, if you kill the creature Lukka is targeting with his minus before the ability resolves then it will fizzle and they won’t get an Agent of Treachery, unfortunately, we don’t have a ton of ways to do this in the main. Now, typically this isn’t a problem since, again, we can tear apart the combo with our hand hate, but it’s still nice to be able to deal with Yorions and Chariots. After sideboarding we can add in Murderous Rider as a way to interact with the tokens at instant speed and even deal with Lukka himself if given the chance. Noxious Grasp is much more efficient and can still hit a lot tokens and major threats like Yorions and Chariots, but it can’t kill a wall token or a Shark Typhoon token, so it’s kind of risky. Finally, Extinction Event is also a consideration since, well, this is a token deck, and all tokens have mana value zero, so yeah, it’s just damnation against this deck, but it is a bit slow and does miss Yorion and Agent if we choose even.

Finally, we side in both Needles every game because it just takes one to completely turn off the Lukka combo. Nothing much else to say about it, hell, it’s even good in multiples as the second can name Esika's Chariot or Castle Ardenvale depending on the board state. Overall, again, this is a fantastic matchup for us.

Play/Draw: Draw

Sideboard:

This a fine matchup, not particularly great, but not necessarily bad either. Either side is favored in this, it really does just come down to who plays it correctly. This is a matchup where you really want to remember that Agonizing Remorse can exile cards from our opponent's hand or graveyard. This is a good way to hose an Arclight Phoenix or two when we're in a topdecking war, and if your opponent has a phoenix in the yard and a hand full of ways to go off the next turn, sometimes it's better to just exile the Phoenix and get rid of their pay off.

Post-board we have Extinction Event and Soul-Guide Lantern, so... yeah. Soul-Guide Lantern hoses the hell out of Phoenix since we can wait until that crucial turn they try to go off and just hose everything they were working towards. And Extinction Event is probably the biggest middle finger ever printed against Phoenix. Finally, Treasure Cruise is possibly their best card against us as it's always Ancestral Recall, which is, you know, one of the most powerful cards ever printed, and we're also a discard deck. Granted it's not the end all be all against us, but it's a way for them to get back into the game if we let it rot in their hand so don't do that!

That's it, again, this matchup is all player dependant. If you play it right you should have a great game against the Phoenix player but there isn't too much room for error in this matchup.

Play/Draw: Draw

Sideboard:

Whenever I see a greedy pile like this I think one of two things: either we clap them, or they clap us. Here, nine times out of ten, we clap them. This was a pretty decent matchup even before Uro was banned, but now that Uro is gone, this matchup is great. Now, I know what you're thinking, a deck revolving around getting your opponent hellbent fights the deck built around slamming a five mana 6/6 dragon that draws you a bunch of cards. Seems like it’d be a great matchup for the other guy, not us, and I thought the same thing too, but the more I played it the more I realized that Niv to Light is just a one-card combo deck, and guess what? We eat those for breakfast. Turn one Thoughtseize, see Niv-Mizzet Reborn, take Niv, pass turn, problem solved. However, a cast Niv isn’t unbeatable either, and that’s not a joke, I’ve fought my way through quite a few, and it’s mainly because Niv’s ETB is very much like Dig Through Time. Sure, they get to look at ten cards and that can put your stomach in knots, but when they only pick three, you realize that you are definitely still in this game.

Post-board we take out our Fatal Pushes and add in better removal. Fatal Push is completely blank in this matchup since Sylvan Caryatid has shroud and we don’t have the means to consistently trigger revolt against things like Omnath, Locus of Creation. Meanwhile, Noxious Grasp can deal with literally everything in their deck, it’s awesome, and Murderous Rider is also more efficient than Bloodchief's Thirst in this matchup so we swap one out for it.

This matchup is usually pretty great, but we can definitely get screwed over by a handful of the cards they play. Because of this, taking Niv-Mizzet Reborn isn’t always right. As I said, we can sometimes fight through its ETB, and if we see it early with a Thoughtseize or Agonizing Remorse then we might have some time before we even need to start worrying about it. However, we have no chance in hell at fighting through a Klothys, God of Destiny or The Prismatic Bridge. So, if you see these early on, you might need to take them instead and just worry about Niv-Mizzet Reborn or Bring to Light later. Also, always consider your hand and your opponent’s hand while you’re picking with Thoughtseize or Agonizing Remorse. If you see you have an answer to one creature, like Omnath, Locus of Creation, but not enough for both Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves and his friendly wolf, then it’s best to take Tolsimir instead. Counting your opponent’s mana is also extremely important in this matchup because they might even be missing a color for Niv or Omnath so you don’t have to worry about them just yet, making them less of a priority, especially if you have ways to answer them in the future.

One final note, if your opponent has very few cards in hand, like one or two, and all you have left as a discard spell is Thoughtseize or Agonizing Remorse, cast it and check their hand. I’ve seen one card hands with a Niv-Mizzet Reborn or Bring to Light just chilling out waiting to be cast once they untap. So always, always check and make sure you aren’t about to get Nived the next turn, it’s more than worth it every time, even if you only see a land, it’s worth making absolutely sure.

Play/Draw: Play

Sideboard:

  • In: oh no...
  • Out: oh no...

Oh no... alright, fine, I'll give you a real breakdown. Okay, the best way to beat Spirits is to pray. This our worst matchup, bar none, nothing else comes anywhere close to how badly we crumble in the eyes of a Spirits player. We lose the turn they play Mausoleum Wanderer, it's hopeless... but, I'll at least explain why, because this one's a bit weird.

First off, this is a tempo deck, and like pretty much every other tempo deck on the planet, they play at flash speed. That right there is enough to seal our fate. When an instant speed deck goes up against a pile of sorcery speed interaction, well, you can probably guess how that goes. Beyond that, Spirits is just flying tribal, I mean, they even have a lord for flyers, and that means that our Fenlurkers and Elderfang Disciples are next to useless. In aggressive matchups, such as this one, we would want to use them as blockers to preserve our life total and help protect our Planeswalkers, but that doesn't work when they're on the ground and everything is attacking in the sky.

That really does sum it all up, we don't have enough instant speed interaction to fight them, and they have way too many ways to protect their board from sweepers from Mausoleum Wander to Spell Queller, so we really don't stand a chance. You might be able to fine-tune it to fight at instant speed more reliably, but I think every deck, especially a deck as linear as 8-Rack, is aloud to have a match or two it knows it can't win.

Play/Draw: Play

Sideboard:

Looks like Jund Food is a deck in Pioneer now... f-ck. Well, I have yet to play against this deck in Pioneer, but if it at all resembles the matchup in Historic... f-ck! Yeah... yeah, this matchup is far from desirable for us. They're a goodstuff deck, for one, but they also have way too many cards that completely dick us over. Korvold, Fae-Cursed King draws a million cards, and so does Trail of Crumbs. Woe Strider is also obnoxious since it sets up their topdecks, and I don't even want to get into the hell that is Cat + Oven.

I don't really have a lot of advice to give when it comes to this matchup, we really don't stand much of a chance. Your best bet is to try to out tempo them, instead of using discard we lean towards board control. Pithing Needle can turn off Witch's Oven at least, and from there we really need to not die and kill them first. Oh man, I hate this deck so much, I hate this deck so much! Yeah, that's it really, we have a terrible time against this deck, so try your best but this is far from a good matchup for us.

Play/Draw: Play

Sideboard:

Game one is very difficult, not impossible, but very very difficult. We need to time our removal and discard very well if we want to be able to win.

Post-board, on the other hand, we are super favored. Basically, we want to swap out a chunk of our discard for more removal so that we can just out tempo them and make sure nothing sticks. Agonzing Remorse is too slow here and also hurts us, whereas Yarok's Fenlurker and Elderfange Disciple are not only painless discard but also leave a blocker on the field for defense. We're still leaving in our four Thoughtseize since we want a way to deal with things like Apostle of Purifying Light and Lurrus of the Dream-Den before they hit the table and take over the game. But aside from that, holy crap! Noxious Grasp is great against this deck, hits almost everything on the table for just two mana, and gains us life. Murderous Rider is also a great way to deal with their creatures and can even turn into a lifelinker later on. Finally, there's Extinction Event, and holy shit this card! Indestructible? Lol! Protection? Lol! Graveyard recursion? LOL! This card is the end all be all of the decks like this, and with our more efficient removal can warp the board towards a certain mana value, be it even or odd, to make this a Damnation but better. Trust me, this card is fantastic.

Overall, our matchup here is pretty bad in game 1, but post-board we stand a far better chance, even on the draw. Again, this is all about timing our removal and making sure that we don't let them get into a position where they can protect Lurrus forever. Sram, Senior Artificer is a massive threat against us so we need to deal with it as soon as possible, and the same is true with Hateful Eidolon. Also, we all know the cheap of the trick of "let them try to enchant the creature then I'll cast my Fatal Push and two for one them, hahahaha!" but do that with 8-Rack. We're 8-Rack, we'll get those auras out of their hand one way or another, but trying for the good old fashion auras two for one is playing with fire and it just isn't worth it.

Play/Draw: Draw

Sideboard:

Oh man, I love this matchup! This is about as close as we'll ever get to a real mirror because the actual mirror (8-Rack versus 8-Rack) is horrible, it is horrible, but this matchup is so much fun! However, at the same time, this matchup is very hard, but on both sides. As I said, this is very much like a mirror for us, and mirrors are usually very fun to watch and play because it all comes down to one thing: skill. This particular matchup is pretty odd though because rather than getting rewarded for seeing and executing very specific and very clever lines of play, each side gets brutally punished for their misplays. There is very little room for error in this matchup on either end, you might get away with one mistake, but each player really needs to sequence their turns and plays very well if they want to stand a chance at beating the other.

Post-board we have Soul-Guide Lantern to keep their graveyard empty, and nothing else is really worth changing. What's interesting is that, in most cases, when you play against a Thoughtseize you typically side out your own Thoughtseizes since, well, Thoughtseizing those decks rarely ever works out in your favor. However, since in this matchup we are both the Thoughtseize deck, we both want to keep all four in post-board, which can make for some really interesting games where you're each trying to figure out when best to cast your Thoughtseizes, especially since both decks have such a low curve, meaning Thoughtseize can become blank very quickly. I love this matchup, it's so much fun to play and to watch, but you really do need to be careful about how to play it or things could go awry very quickly.

Quick tips:

  • Dreadhorde Arcanist is always the biggest threat unless their graveyard is empty or has nothing relevant, but the odds of that are... well, just always kill Dreadhorde Arcanist first.
  • You want to play your Soul-Guide Lantern early if you can, even if the etb doesn't get any value because otherwise, they could just Thoughtseize it which would suck. From there we really want to save it for when Kroxa shows up if we can since he is such a pain to deal with and we can very easily just kill a Dreadhorde Arcanist if it's threatening to use the graveyard.
  • As I said before, turn one Thoughtseize isn't always correct in this matchup, especially when you consider Lurrus of the Dream-Den. If you don't have a way to remove him or their graveyard is chock-full of things to buy back with him if he does resolve, it might be better to save your Thoughtseize or Agonizing Remorse in order to deal him rather than firing them off on curve.
  • Agonizing Remorse exiles, and can even exile from the graveyard, so we always want to use it to deal with Kroxa if given the opportunity.
  • Finally, Crawling Barrens is an insanely good win condition in this matchup, but is also a liability since Arcanist runs a playset of Fatal Push. Barrens is a great finisher against Arcanist since they can't deal with it outside of Fatal Push, but you really need to be careful and not animate it until you know the coast is clear or you absolutely have to.
Play/Draw: Draw

Sideboard:

This is a great matchup for us, Mono-Green Walkers crumbles at the face of Fatal Push and Thoughtseize decks. First up, always, always Push the Elf. If we're able to kill their elves before they get to use them we're in a much better position, especially since it gives us a much larger window to use our discard against them and take away all of their haymakers before they hit the table.

Post-board, Noxious Grasp is Doomblade, just kills everything they play against us (except for Karn, the Great Creator, don't forget that. Pithing Needle also comes in because, well, it ain't called Mono-Green Walkers for nothing! Really depends on the position of the game when it comes to what we name with Pithing Needle, but Karn, the Great Creator and Nissa, Who Shakes the World are always at the top of the list. Aside from that, again, we just need to keep them off of their ramp and make sure they discard their haymakers before they get the chance to cast them. Garruk's Harbinger is a freaking pain in the ass, but Crawling Barrens is a good way to fight it, but I'd much rather make them discard it if we can. Finally, we Nissa, Who Shakes the World is the scariest threat against us because, well, it's freaking Nissa! Granted, we don't have to immediately take her with a Thoughtseize the turn we see her, but it is important that we know we have a way to deal with her before our opponent gets a chance to untap with her.

That's it, again, this is a fantastic matchup for us, we just need to make sure they can't ramp us out of existence and that we don't let any of their threats stick, at least not for too long.

Play/Draw: Play

Sideboard:

This is another matchup where we really struggle in game 1 but have a far better chance after sideboarding. In game one we really need to be careful and and make sure to only kill the relevant creatures: Rankles, and Spawns, and Knights, oh my! Everything else either doesn't matter or will just keep coming back so there's no reason to bother with them. We really want to just try to deal with their major threats (of which I just listed above) and then try to stall the board with our Fenlurkers and Elves. From there we want to race them with our racks and use Crawling Barrens to take over the late game when we're both topdecking.

Post board we have a much better matchup. Murderous Rider is just extra removal along side our pletherora of other ways to deal with their creatures, and also becomes a lifelinking blocker/attacker later on. Extinction Event is also one of the few sweepers that Mono-Black Aggro is actually soft to, hence why I actually run three in the side. These can clean up a lot of their early plays, and since it exiles they can't just annoy us with all of their pidly 2/1s that never seem to die.

Again, this is a game where we are far from favored in game 1, but turn the tide after sideboarding. This match up is still far from easy even after we've boarded in our sweepers, but we stand a far better chance once we have our deck set to really fight them.

Play/Draw:

Sideboard:

I wouldn't go as far as to say that this is a bad matchup for us, but it is a hard one (though not nearly as bad as Jund Food, thank the lord). This is another matchup where we really need to be careful about how we play out our hand and determine when it is best to deal with our opponent's board versus when we need to fight their hand. With our hand hate, above all else, we need to take Bolas's Citadel and Collected Company since we can't stop these later on. From there, we really want to out tempo them, match each threat with an answer, and with them being a CoCo deck, Inscrition of Ruin can kill any threat they throw at us, which is fantastic when playing the game in this manner. Also, always kill Zulaport Cutthroat on sight, no need to take it with a Thoughtseize, but you can't let it stick, I've made this mistake before and regretted it every time.

Post board we take out most of our creature discard since x/1s aren't all but irrelevant against a deck running Mayhem Devil. Now we have more removal with Murderous Rider, but more importantly, we have Extinction Event now! Most of Jund Citadel's curve lies in 1 drops and 3 drops thanks to it being a CoCo deck. Because of this, we can use our hand hate and spot removal to warp the board to where an event naming odd hits everything. Plus, exile means that, not only will death triggers not happen, but Woe Strider can't sacrifice itself, so we don't have to worry about it escaping later on.

As I said, while this matchup isn't bad, it's not easy, and we really need to work for it if we want to come out on top.

Play/Draw: Draw

Sideboard: - In: 2x Murderous Rider, 2x Pithing Needle, 1x Asylum Visitor - Out: 1x Bloodchief's Thirst, 2x Fatal Push, 2x Elderfang Disciple

Great matchup for us, as are most control decks because, well, countering Thoughtseize doesn't do shit. We always take their wincons with our hand hate first, and then we'll want to deal with their draw spells. (Note: if they're playing Sphinx's Revelation or Elixir of Immortality, those cards are wincons so take them before they can use them.) If your opponent gets enough breathing room to stock their hand, don't worry, blue-white control players cry at the sight of Crawling Barrens. An ever-growing threat that I can't exile with Cast Out and even dodges Doomskar? How could this be!? Yeah, lots of interaction in Azorius says "nonland permanent," so that's nice... for us I mean, it sucks for the Azorius player. Now, they could be running a couple of Field of Ruins so that's annoying, but we run a playset of Barrens so who knows? Maybe we'll find out just how many Fields they run. Azorius Charm is obnoxious but a risk worth taking, especially since they'll probably cycle a couple of them early on while they try to set up their hand, getting rid of them for us.

Post board we slot in Murderous Rider since it not only kills Planeswalkers but is also instant speed removal against Shark Typhoon tokens, not to mention it leaves behind a body. Pithing Needle can name a lot of cards against this deck: Castle Ardenvale, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and even Shark Typhoon, hell, it can name Field of Ruin to make sure our Crawling Barrens survives. Needle is the best in Pioneer... well, except for Thoughtseize. Asylum Visitor almost always comes in against control since it's just a way to drown them in card advantage, and oh man but nothing ticks off the control player more than making them discard their hand and then drawing more cards then they ever could!

Nothing else to it really, again, this is a fantastic matchup for us, control mages curse the names of 8-Rack players!

Play/Draw: Play

Sideboard:

8-Rack eats combo for breakfast so... this is a good matchup for this particular list, but that's because my meta doesn't really have any Lotus players so I didn't plan accordingly. However, if you do expect to see this deck, don't worry, I'll give you some better SB options when we get to that part. In game one though this match is pretty fantastic, want to get them topdecking as soon as possible, and we also need to kill any and all Baral, Chief of Compliance. Take Sylvan Scrying first and foremost, and Fae of Wishes is our other high priority target. If we can get them topdecking with the combo on board we should still be able to kill them before they're able to draw into what they need, and if the combo isn't there when we get them empti-handed, well, that may as well be goodgame.

Post board this particular pile would bring in Soul-Guide Lantern to keep their Recoveries   blank, and Pithing Needle can name Vizier of Tumbling Sands, turning it off completely which really limits the number of draws that can keep them chaining. Needle can also name Thespian's Stage if given the opportunity, to take away their combo entirely. However, if you really expect to see Lotus Combo in your meta, Damping Sphere is an easy addition, and Necromentia is a very fun way to completely give them the middle finger. Finally, we take the play here so that we have an opportunity to take Sylvan Scrying with Agonizing Remorse incase we don't draw Thoughtseize, and the card disadvantage hardly matters in this matchup so it's a fine trade-off.

There isn't much else to say about this matchup, get 'em hellbent as soon as possible and pray they don't draw the nuts before you can lock them out of the game.

Play/Draw: Play (duh)

Sideboard:

Great matchup so long as we play it right. Very similar to Boros Burn, but now we don't have to worry about Lurrus or Boros Charm! Thoughtseize is usually a blank in our hand since, well, shocking ourselves for the burn player isn't too appealing, but everything else in the main is pretty solid. Just like Boros Burn, we just need to look at each turn and consider when we should fight the board or the hand given the current state of the game.

Post board, again, just like Boros Burn, we have Collective Brutality as a way to just clap burn. 2 mana and 2 cards swings 2 life, kills a Monestary Swiftspear and takes a bolt? Hell yes! Murderous Rider, while can be used as removal, is mainly here as a 2/3 lifelinker to buffer our life total once we've worn down their board and hand and no it will stick and not just immediately get hit by a Lightning Strike.

That's it really, great matchup, just don't get cocky and take time with your plays to make sure you're making the right one.

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Casual

97% Competitive

Date added 3 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Pioneer legal.
Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

13 - 10 Rares

22 - 5 Uncommons

3 - 0 Commons
Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.03
Tokens Day, Emblem Liliana, Waker of the Dead, Night
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