How about Infernal Tutor instead of Blood Scrivener ?

Odds of u unloading ur hand fairly quick r high.

I've got a lot to follow up on here.

Electromancer: Augur of Skulls is decent, and I've had him in here before. He's not much to look at as a creature, and will probably eat a reamoval spell. The problem is that he lets your opponent know that they're about to discard, so they have time to drop their most important things. Wrench Mind works immediately. With an 8Rack base, Nezumi Shortfang makes 12Rack, which is too little discard. Hypnotic Specter is better, but too slow and easy to remove.

Busse, with enough discard, and removal for topdecked creatures, this deck can actually play pretty safely. I really do not want Nyxathid . Like Nezumi Shortfang , it often acts as addictional copies of The Rack , but in creature form, which is very easy to deal with. Plus, it's 3 mana, while The Rack and Shrieking Affliction are only 1.

ChiefBell, if I could afford them, I would edefinitely have 4 Liliana of the Veil and 4 Ensnaring Bridge . Unfortunately, I can't even afford any Thoughtseize s, so those can't go into this build. But thanks for the suggestion!

Overfluff, thanks! I'm hoping that Blood Scrivener will work as a decent Dark Confidant replacement (fingers crossed), so I'm testing that out. The card advantage he gives me is just insane, assuming he isn't removed (which could happen with reasonable frequency, but with all the discard spells here, including Funeral Charm , his acard advantage can help protect him).

APPLE01DOJ, Infernal Tutor would be pretty good, if it weren't almost $20.

Norn's Annex Is a budget version of Ensnaring Bridge that could work.

Kikai, that's a very intriguing idea. It has nowhere near the lock of Ensnaring Bridge , but it just might work. Of course, I have to take 4 just to get it out, which might not be worth it... I'll definitely consider it. Have you got anything else to persuade me? : )

Look at my deck Toll Rack for a few ideas.

+1 btw I like your take on it.

Kikai, what do you think of the Blood Scrivener ? It's a beast in conjunction with Necrogen Mists ... but it's an easily removable 2/1. But I don't hurt too bad if it gets killed, it can chump block if necessary... but it's the only creature in my deck, and it's a 2/1. If I were to add the Annex, that's probably what I would cut. What do you think?

Kikai, done. I was thinking about it, trying to decide if I wanted the Annex. Then I gave this deck to a friend and we played a game. Knowing the deck, I played an unkicked Gatekeeper of Malakir and started swinging for 2 each turn, holding everything else in my hand. Yeeaaahh, that's what Norn's Annex is for. I'm going to try it and see how I like it. Thanks again for the suggestion!

Not a problem. I left the Scrivener out since he was my only creature when I had him in for playtesting he always ate removal that would otherwise be a dead card in hand for my opponent. Although the argument can be made is that once game two starts they will side out all of the creature hate so you can then side him in.

take out Smallpox from the sideboard. your land base is not enough to support it. it's a strong card but it requires a deck built around it.

Hm... I originally had that in when I had 23 lands. I hadn't really thought that I can't support it, but I think you're right. I mostly want it for the creature sac effect, I think I'll go to Geth's Verdict or Gatekeeper of Malakir . Too bad Lili costs a boatload of money.

I would also put in a Smother or 2 instead of that many Dismember s.

Hm seems like a good call, I'll give one a spin. Any thoughts on maindecking Geth's Verdict ? One of the decks I see a lot is a Bogles-type deck, so a Verdict might be good to have.

Geth's Verdict is a strong card. go for it.

Ever thought of Waste Not ?

Waste Not doesn't really fit into the deck. it works with discard, yes, but it is not as strong as the other racks and not worth the 2 mana.

Thanks. My thoughts exactly, but more succinct.

Seems like this deck could use some card draw like Dream Salvage to take advantage of the low average cmc. I understand most awesome card draw in black cost a lot of money otherwise I'd recommend Bob.

Dream Salvage really isn't that exciting here; I've tried it before and it's not very good. The opponent almost never discards more than two cards per turn, and even two only happens once or twice a game, and you usually use all your mana to do it. It would probably only be good in a version with Waste Not because of the mana ramp, but then you'd have Waste Not to draw you cards. It's a neat card at face value, but it would work better in some control deck with Jace's Archivist or something.

To start off, I would replace Infest with the strictly better Drown in Sorrow .

The part here that looks the shakiest is the removal suite. Sacrifice effects instead of targeted removal make me nervous, so unless the sacrifice makes a huge difference in your meta I would swap a Geth's Verdict for a Victim of Night .

Past the first Necrogen Mists , you're hurting yourself more than your opponent. Taking one out for another removal spell or Norn's Annex variant would help.

20x Swamp is quite a lot of basics. Utility lands that could help include Mutavault , Buried Ruin , mainboard Bojuka Bog , or maybe Spawning Pool . The colorless sources do come in untapped, so that's helpful.

Blackmail is an alternate discard spell that can hit lands, but your current set looks fine.

(I'm guessing you still don't have/can't get any Liliana of the Veil /Ensnaring Bridge ?)

I run a similar build using a pair of Quest for the Nihil Stone as well as the normal 8 rack. I also run a full set of Smother in my removal suite. Have you considered Nyxathid over Pack Rat ?

williamgp99, you're right, Drown in Sorrow is going in. Geth's Verdict is in because one of the decks I face most in my meta is Bogles and I want a maindeck way to get around that. I have previously been running only 3 Necrogen Mists , but any other competent budget build I have seen runs 4. I went up to the full set but am perfectly willing to drop back down to 3. However, the added consistency of the fourth copy is proving to be very nice. I'm not willing to run colorless mana sources withut Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and the black mana sources coming in tapped slows the deck down too much. I will cut one Dakmor Salvage for one Bojuka Bog if graveyard hate becomes more important than Raven's Crime synergy (but it isn't now). Blackmail is a decent discard spell that works well with other targeted discard. However, I'm building this on a tight budget and Duress /Despise work almost as well. And no on Lili and Bridge. Technically I can afford them, but I don't play enough for it to be worth it to drop the $400+ to upgrade to the non-budget version of the deck.

brettgroves, Smother is a good card, but Geth's Verdict is more important in my meta. Quest for the Nihil Stone and Nyxathid are bad cards for 8Rack. Quest needs to be dropped early in the game, and Waste Not is just better here (of course, even Waste Not doesn't make the cut). Pack Rat is only viable in 8Rack because you only need to draw one and it will be able to make more and more copies. Each dead discard spell or land you draw late game turns into another Pack Rat , and a horde of Pack Rat s are much harder to kill than a single Nyxathid . I'm not willing to run either of those cards.

Why not run a full set of Blackmail instead of the 2 Duress, and the 2 Despise? in my opinion, Blackmail is way stronger than either of those 2 cards due to the fact that u can make them trash anything. I know that you probably don't like it as much because they only have to show you 3 of the cards that they have in their hand, but when you honestly think about the fact that you are running 8-Rack, how often do they have more than 3 cards in hand?

Only because I don't have any Blackmail. It is also significantly weakened by not having Thoughtseize in the deck to give me information about their hand and when to cast it. However, it is in most cases stronger than Despise and Duress. Thanks for the advice!

Have you tried this deck possibly online?