You need to make the deck more Jund-ish, especially Deathrite Shaman , Tarmogoyf and other creeps. From what I see is you have a lot of attrition but no actual agro. By the time you resolve a LOTV ulti you'll be dead. Also the rack + discarding deck = really really unwinable and it goes against your win-con. If you want to play a discarding deck, try out the dredge mechanic. It lets you rig your hand with what you discarded. You can also splash reanimator cards to bring back massive things in your grave for funny plays.

please do not listen to the advices above, the rack archetype is excellent. It is mono-black typically. Here is the meat of the deck:

4 The Rack

4 Shrieking Affliction

4 Liliana of the Veil - she is expensive, but worth it.

4 Thoughtseize

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

This is your main ways of discarding. The first 12 cards up there are the real heart of the deck.

Think like you will never get 4 mana in this deck (i.e. no mutilate). You want a super low curve. Here how it will work best:

4 Raven's Crime

4 Vendetta

4 Victim of Night

4 Dismember

4 Duress

We want to keep it simple, so 8 more discard spells and 12 kill spells should suffice. For the SB try something like:

4 Despise

4 Bile Blight

4 Surgical Extraction

3 Sign in Blood

Thanks Boza I like a few of those ideas. Veil is to rich for my blood unfortunately so I may stick with my alternatives in Liliana vess and necrogen mists. I never thought of dismember for whatever reason. I'm ironically the most conservative paler for black there is so I probably won't play vendetta just because I feel like of take too many hits as is I'll consider it though. I love extraction much more than my current idea for artifact decks with the shattered dreams.

What's your opinion in Distress I personally like it but I never see any 8racks with it in there.

I also like the tutoring vess can do that I'm willing to give it a shot. But I may change my mind. I plan to try the deck at a gp so I got plenty of time to tweak it.

If you are taking it to a GP try to borrow some of Veil lilianas. They are really the lynchpin of deck and the only reason it is any good actually. Mists is decent, but does not have the versatility.

This deck archetype has taken part in major recent tournaments (PT Born of the Gods top 16 if i am not mistaken). Distress is not good at two mana for one card, Blackmail is the real deal if you want such an effect.

Many recent lists have taken a liking to Bitterblossom as well to get more mileage out of their hand taxation.

Some number of Dark Confidant would also not be amiss here, but pretty much anything at this point in terms of additions is not going to cheap.

Nice deck!!

Boza pretty much nailed everthing, but it cannot be stressed enough... Liliana of the Veil is the queen in this deck!!

I also see you run Rakdos' Return... Blightning might be a viable alternative. Although I understand the later game power of RR and that's probably why you have it in there...

thanks thats basically it though I've been tempted to swap them out for Quest for the Nihil Stone i do like Blightning though that may happen as well. my only problem with RR is that i find my playtests don't give it a chance to be played. may drop it in the sideboard and run either the dreadbores, or mutilates in the mainboard again/

Not a fan of Quest for the Nihil Stone at all, but it could work I guess.

That's why I suggested Blightning... at 3CMC you'll be firing it off left and right, while Rakdos' Return is essentially dead in you hand until turn 5 or so... I seriously think 2x Blightning would wreck face in here!!

Oh.. and I would definitely cut Distress (not good in my opinion) and Liliana Vess (I like the card, but I think it's way too slow for modern in general)

Inquisition of Kozilek (a MUST), Bile Blight, Surgical Extraction

would all be better as far as I'm concerned.

cheers!!

Yeah vess I think will go out too. I mean I haven't bought many cards for the deck yet and my play tests have her as a dead card. I just don't have the budget for the veil or confidant. Great cards by far (though I'm one of few who just doesn't like confidant that much.) blighting will go in I think. I just wanna have my own take on it by using a splashing of red for the deck. So I may end up cutting staples of the traditional 8 rack

Sounds good!

Blackcleave Cliffs is another card you might want to check out... not too expensive and they are great land for the modern format!! I ran them in my Jund deck and they where always excellent.

I'm not saying the Rack is a bad archetype, 'cuz it's good. It rules. But what if you replaced The Rack with Quest for the Nihil Stone , and replaced [Surgical Extraction with Night's Whisper . The idea is you keep up on your draw to ensure they never get a chance to get or keep anything and Quest for the Nihil Stone takes no time to activate and can destroy them. Regardless of my previous advice, Dark Confidant could be good in this deck too, but it's a bit expensive.

Ensnaring Bridge you really want four of these in yur deck, 8rack breaks this more than any other deck.

It does but for the top decks in modern it isn't too helpful like against Melira pod it doesn't help quite enough when the infinite loop exists.

Melira pod, actually all pods, are combo decks, which 8rack tends to whomp. A turn one Thoughtseize or Duress can grab the pod itself, and Inquisition of Kozilek can drop both redcap and finks. Bridge may npt be super usefull against all t1's, but it shuts down aggro which 8rack struggles against.

I may sideboard it. I'm still futzing with the build for certain cards here and there. Like lightning might go for something else. I wanna run that spite of mogis that deals damage to a creature equal to instants and sorceries in your graveyard.

4 Snapcaster Mage means every hand smack spell and creature splat spell is twice as much. Ravens crime sort of takes up it's place ATM. The current metagame probably calls for more creature control, so I would consider using snapcaster instead, since he also gives you 2 damage a turn potentially.

Take out spite of bogis, lightning bolt is likely the better choice, but I'm not super experienced with 8rack so yeah.

Don't use ashiok, she doesn't make a whole lot of sense IMO, but Jace Beleren might work.

I just put the ashiok in cause I'm curious and the whole stealing creatures is pretty funny in my opinion it's the only reason for the blue sources. And his -10 is a discard. The reason I like spite is when I playtested it was usually for 6 damage since my deck is nothing but instants and sorceries. Not sure about snapcaster though.

Snapcaster mage is pretty much the best 2 drop blue creature in the game, so yeah. He is basically the blue version of Tarmogoyf , Dark Confidant , and Stoneforge Mystic in that he is broken beyond belief in terms of power and encompassing everything that the color is good at for an efficient mana-cost.

The idea of 8rack is eliminate threats before they hit the board via discard. And also drain them as they top deck. Once you've hit 3 lands in an 8 rack deck you are happy because you don't need much beyond that and if a ravens crime is in your graveyard you can keep looping it in. I'm just not sold on snap caster because he doesn't fit as well as most cards. The blue is honestly only there to try out ashiok probably goes out after a playtest or two.

How about Pithing Needle , Grafdigger's Cage or Torpor Orb for the sideboard? Maybe try out Rise/Fall in the main.

OpenFire the Torpor Orb suggestion just made me laugh my ass off since that kills every modern combo deck that is big right now. Definitely will consider for the sideboard.

clowe304433 I've been pondering dreadbore for the sideboard it's just making the room.

O love a good Rakdos deck, +1, of course :)

Sowing Salt , Shatterstorm and Slaughter Games mint be good additions to the sideboard.

Take a look at my Rakdos Infection deck and comment if you like. There are some ideas that might be useful, depending on your meta :)

Thanks for the input Shatterstorm used to be in here but I took it out since it kills my own win con. Slaughter games may work. Not sure yet.