Deckbuilder's Challenge XIX (Poll): Otter this World

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This deck is a riff on 8-rack strategies inspired by a deck I played back when Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage was Standard legal. It turns out we don't particularly mind if our Racks cost 3-4 mana as long as they're able to sit there and burn the opponent out of the game for having an empty hand or even discarding via Megrim effects like Fell Specter and Liliana's Caress. As a result we get to use some really weird overlooked jank like Lavaborn Muse and Skullcage to fill out our rack selection. While Megrim effects can work in this deck I tried to use them only to up the number of racks as needed as I feel a low-hand size is easier to guarantee to 8-rack.




For our "Planeswalker" selection of repeatable discard we turn to Liliana of the Veil backed by some unusual budget alternatives like Scepter of Fugue and Necrogen Mists to pressure the opponent and force an empty hand. Planeswalkers like Liliana, Waker of the Dead and Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage pull double duty by being both repeatable discard cards and Racks.



Our 1 mana discard spells are pretty much just almost every 1 mana discard spell that fits with our gameplan - not much to write home about here. If anything it's more interesting to talk about the rejects - we try and avoid spells like Shattered Dreams that are simply too narrow or cards like Specter's Shriek that don't actually synergize with our deck's gameplan. Piracy Charm backed by Avatar of Will was a consideration here but Blue simply doesn't do enough of what 8rack wants to do for it to worth stretching the manabase (and it forces the list to go into Legacy legality when I'd rather have it legal for relatively lower powered formats - this deck may have a real chance at doing well in a Modern FNM, if you happen to have the cards lying around.) With that said, there were enough niche or narrow cards that allow you to change up your strategy that it's actually possible to form a flexible budget sideboard out of alternate removal and discard spells, so I've included it here because it might help you win Bo3's you might not have expected to.



The inspiration of this deck is actually based on the idea that Lutri, the Spellchaser can copy something like Smallpox to really devastate the opponent. We include several spells like Mind Rake to help further this idea that we are okay with massive discard swings that make us discards so that we can fuel things like [acard ]Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger[/card] and Whispers of Emrakul. Alternatively, we can also just get a lot of value out of copying things like Blightning or Kolaghan's Command and/or other 2-card discard spells and removal.




Removal is an interesting proposition as we have to back our more expected picks like Fatal Push with older or more narrow removals like Dreadbore or Victim of Night. Something nice about running Lutri is that he essentially doubles as a pseudo boardwipe by letting us copy removal to nuke two creatures with one spell if we can afford the mana. Combined with flexible cards like Ensnaring Bridge and Mizzium Mortars we're prepared to hit things both big and small.