Liliana's Rack (also known as 8 rack)

[Calamity]

I recently ditched my standard stuff in paper for a playset of Liliana of the Veil's to play this deck, it's a blast to play (and it makes your opponent hate you, especially storm/twin players). here's my current test list:

[deck]
Discard
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Wrench Mind
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Raven's Crime

Wincons (the racks)
4 The Rack
4 Shrieking Affliction

Removal/Protection
3 Victim of Night
1 Slaughter Pact
4 Ensnaring Bridge

3 Bitterblossom

Lands: 22
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
12 Swamp
2 Dakmor Salvage[/deck]

Blinkmoths are mutavaults in a lot of lists i see, but it's easier to get blinkmoth to attack under a bridge and it flies. Plus (I'm pretty sure) you can pump it after you declare it as an attacker if you have multiples.

Sideboard is under construction, cards I'm looking at:
Grafdiggers cage (
probably a 4 of)
Surgical Extraction (another 4 of)
Leyline of Sanctity
Darkblast
Drown in Sorrow
Pithing Needle

I also can't wait until Waste Not is printed this summer. I'm not entirely sure where it'll fit though, space is pretty tight. Bitterblossom is my gut reaction to cut, but Waste Not can't win on it's own, whereas a BB dropped on an empty or bridge protected board while hand is empty will win you the game by itself.

i dunno, maybe a new shell can be made to accomodate waste not. I'll need to test with it some more

[hamfactorial]

I've played against this deck a lot, and it's always a coin flip. If I can get a beater down, I usually can win, if I keep a slow hand I'm usually hosed.

BB is a nice addition, enables Smallpox if you're looking for that kind of effect.

[rcwraspy]

I had this sleeved in paper for a bit but always went with UR Delver in events, so have since broken it apart. One of the changes I made was that instead of bitterblossoms I had more removal and a 1-of Beseech the Queen. In testing I found that it served as the 5th copy of a Liliana or Bridge that comes down a turn late or a 9th Rack. Other options include Dimir Machinations if you're just concerned with Lili and Bridge or Infernal Tutor since the deck goes hellbent fairly often.

Some people also have a white splash for Lingering Souls, more removal options, and a more robust SB. If you run white and LS and want a tutor I'd probably go with Machinations.

[Calamity]

I'm not sure if the white splash for LS is worth it (I've not tested it though). I don't want to take damage from my mana, games vs. aggro are already shakey if i play too many thoughtseizes sometimes. LS is fuckin' good w/ Lily though.

If my local meta had a decent amount of aggro I'd probably splash Red (just add blood crypt, the BR scars land, and BR filter, no fetches) for terminate, lightning bolt, anger of the gods (or maybe pyroclasm), maybe blightning (though the 3 cmc slot is pretty clogged, most of the time turn 3 i want to lay down a bridge or liliana) but other than that I can't think of a reason to splash.

I might try the beseech the queen and more removal route until i get a hold of BB's in paper (still having trouble getting the bridges and urborgs, no one here wants to trade them or even HAS them)

@Ham: I haven't tried smallpox yet, would probably have to change the deck around to make it work.
It can be a pretty powerful card though

[rcwraspy]

yeah this isn't really a pox deck, though there are definitely similarities. One of the extra cards in my 60 instead of Bitterblossom is a 1x smallpox, actually. I like the effect but don't want to go all-in on it with this build. One neat little synergy is in the mid-game it can put a Dakmor into the bin if you had to play it to hit your land drops earlier.

[hamfactorial]

I played a guy online who splashed red to play Lavaclaw Reaches and better kill spells like Terminate.

[Jack]

I'd say that (based purely on speculation after 2 matches on Cockatrice), in this deck, Victim of Night>Terminate and Dreadbore>Terminate.

[Jack]

4 Urborg also seems wrong. You don't want the effect every game, they allow opponents to use their fetches without paying life, and you can only play 1 at a time.

[Calamity]

The deck has hefty black requirements, it MUST have double black by turn 3 and having double on turn 2 most of the time is also a requirement (there are some decks that straight up can't beat T1 IOK/thoughtseize into T2 wrench mind into T3 Bridge/Lily)

Drawing multiples of Urborg without other lands sucks but most of the time you can just pitch extra ones to Raven's Crime/Lily.

The benefits of running manlands as another clock besides BB/the racks (not sure if blinkmoth or mutavault is better TBH) outweighs the random times drawing multiple Urborgs and no other lands will screw you, at least in my experience.

[rcwraspy]

I agree with Calamity - this deck requires you to run the a number of Urborg equal to the number of colorless lands you're running (up to 4, obviously). Multiples can take advantage of the new legendary rule and both tap but sac one or, better of course, can help your Raven's Crime engine if you haven't hit a Dakmor yet.

I've preferred Blinkmoth to MM because you can swing 1 under a bridge and then pump it after it's been declared an attacker to get around Bridge. Having a flying man-land has also been great for me. The only advantage of Mutavault here is the automatic 2/2 body, but that can't swing into very many board states. Against decks like Merfolk, Affinity, and Zoo they'll have creatures on the board but hopefully you have a Bridge to keep them home. Our sorcery speed disruption can't take out all of their creatures, so flying over them with Blinkmoth is great.

[Calamity]

Yeah, that was my thinking for running blinkmoth over muta. It's pretty expensive to pump blinkmoth but when your hand is empty (or close to it) from Liliana you don't have much else to spend mana on.

[Chma]

I tried this deck online and didn't like it at all. I felt it was too dependant on your opening hand, that it was extremely linear and had very little chance of making a come back off of a bad start. The highlight was playing liliana, since it's such a strong card.
I just wanted to express my appreciation for the excellent name change, well done

[Calamity]

I dunno if I'd call the deck linear, you have to make the correct choices when you pick what to discard depending on what you've got in your hand. The aggro matches (in game 1 at least) seem like they can come down to whether you draw Bridge or not, but game two is usually better.

I will agree bad starts can be difficult to make comebacks, but the printing of Waste Not could fix that, i think.

[Chma]

I wasn't trying to bash the deck and I don't neccessarily think it's easy to play. You do indeed have to make the correct choices(well, at least with the revealing discard spells), what I meant was that your only angle of attack is discarding their hand and dropping a set of racks. You have no alternate lines to victory and, at least I found that, you are rarely in a position to play yourself into a win with tight decision making. Apart from your 8+ discard spells that actually let's you pick something.

I guess the BB version could technically beat someone out, but that seems slow at best.

I'm obviously biased since I didn't enjoy playing the deck almost as badly as playing against it