A great many years ago, a player by the name of MemoryLapse had an idea. When the set Return to Ravnica came out eons ago, for the first time in what seemed like forever, a new The Rack type effect came out: Shrieking Affliction. He thought to himself, “What if I could build a deck that utilized both of these cards as win conditions, and actually make those win conditions consistent?”
His idea took off with a start, building what was considered one of the first ever Mono Black Control decks in the newer Modern format. While MemoryLapse’s original decklist is nowhere to be found, many players since then have carried on his legacy and made X-Rack into a competitively viable deck.
After doing some research, the most basic X-Rack decklist on the Internet I could find was from 2016, and it actually serves as a very good baseline for the X-Rack Archetype. A precursor to this deck, made in 2013 by MemoryLapse himself, will be discussed later in the article.
Part 1: The Baseline List
As shown here, the X in X-rack equals 8, meaning that there are 8 total Rack-resembling pieces to help win the game. More recent decks have used a different X value, which I will get into later.
The main deck relies on 1 and 2 mana discard spells. Cheap hand disruption such as Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek help in 3 ways:
- Disrupt opponents’ early game plan.
- Set up for another discard spell.
- See when to deploy win conditions.
Raven’s Crime helps with flooding and reliably gets your opponent’s hand down to Rack-size.
In Modern, instead of the iconic Hymn to Tourach, we get Wrench Mind. Even though Hymn can take their best cards at random, Wrench is a decent replacement since it can still discard two cards for two mana, and Thoughtseize can take artifacts to set up Wrench Mind.
Some spells act as both removal and discard, like the flexible Funeral Charm or the land-hating Smallpox. Liliana of the Veil is a Rack and Black Control/Midrange staple as a planeswalker that both discards and sticks around after removing solo threats.
Dismember is a clean removal spell that scales in mana cost, and it can clear things for Edict effects.
For lands, Mutavault applies pressure especially late when your opponent’s health is in the red zone. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth lets Mutavault tap for black.
The sideboard is mostly more removal like Disfigure, Deathmark, and pseudo-boardwipes like Flaying Tendrils and Night of Souls’ Betrayal.
Relic of Progenitus and Leyline of the Void keep the graveyard clear, which can be a problem for a deck that focuses on controlling the opponent’s hand.
Death’s Shadow and Asylum Visitor are niche synergistic options, such as Visitor’s madness cost with a Smallpox or a Liliana of the Veil activation. Death’s Shadow lines up well against aggro decks and with Dismember’s life cost.
Lastly, Waste Not generates tons of value off of your discard spells.
Now that we have a baseline for what an X-Rack deck should look like, let’s compare it to some more current (and older) decklists.
Part 2: The Original List
Remember that MemoryLapse guy I mentioned earlier? His original version of the deck, as shown in a primer video in 2013, contains a lot of similar cards and materials, but it also has some more drastic changes since a lot of the cards I mentioned above hadn’t come out yet.
Small disclaimer: In the video, the manabase was not shown, so I have filled the rest of the empty deck space with basic Swamps. The sideboard is also unknown.
This deck mostly overlaps with the 2016 baseline version. The three changes from the baseline deck to this list are Geth’s Verdict as removal, Duress as more 1-cmc discard, and Ensnaring Bridge to prevent your opponents from winning with creatures.
Everything else remains the same, with the core of the deck staying as The Rack and Shrieking Affliction as the main win conditions, with Liliana of the Veil as a secondary wincon later on.
In 2013 there was not as diverse a selection of removal spells or better discard payoffs, but come Core Set 2015, Waste Not would appear as a possible inclusion to this type of decklist.
Part 3: The Pioneer Decklist
Speaking of Waste Not, the card itself has semi-spawned an archetype of decks with cards like Burning Inquiry and other “each player discards” spells in Modern, and with cards like Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger in Pioneer. However, this is an X-Rack article, and there is a version of X-Rack in Pioneer that uses Waste Not as one of the main win conditions.
I myself created a version that took the Untap Open League SNC PIO league by storm, pulling out a surprising Top 8 appearance and only falling short of glory to a topdeck, as sometimes happens to discard based decks. Sadly, you can’t discard the top of their deck.
While The Rack is not Pioneer legal, War of the Spark introduced Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage to go along with Shrieking Affliction.
Natural hate cards are included, such as Go Blank being a strictly better Mind Rot that also nukes the graveyard.
This deck also plays a much heavier Waste Not package, with discard spells stapled not only onto creatures such as Burglar Rat but also onto the uncounterable Geier Reach Sanitarium’s ability.
Vicious Rumors replaces Raven’s Crime as another 1 mana discard outlet. The classic Thoughtseize is included as well.
Fatal Push and Murderous Rider act as the main removal spells, and Rider also is a repeatable effect that can stabilize the board or apply pressure later as a 2/3 lifelinker.
For finishers, Liliana of the Veil was reprinted into Pioneer, so it was a natural inclusion, and Rankle, Master of Pranks houses both discard, edict effects, and card draw.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth fixes your Mutavault and Sanitarium mana. Hive of the Eye Tyrant applies both graveyard hate as well as pressure as a 3/3 menace creature late. Takenuma, Abandoned Mire is used as a free selection “spell” that can’t be countered and is occasionally discounted with Rankle.
The sideboard is matchup-oriented. (Editor’s note: remember, this is from 2023)
- Bontu’s Last Reckoning: 3-mana(!) board wipe that hurts Humans, Spirits, Aggro, and any other go-wide deck
- Collective Brutality: Extremely versatile discard spell that hurts Lotus Field, or any 2-toughness creature
- Damping Sphere: Combo hate for Lotus Field, Storm, Prowess, Burn (but be careful, it can sometimes hurt yourself more than your opponent)
- Legion’s End: Cheap removal that hurts Mono-G’s mana dorks, Spirits, any pesky tokens
- Leyline of the Void: You can never have enough free graveyard hate
- Liliana, the Last Hope: Serves as another win condition if you can ult her late. Also is a repeatable shrink outlet against token decks that snipes Thalia’s Lieutenant and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- Noxious Grasp: The Wandering Emperor hate as well as a sniper for Angels and Humans alike
This deck, while not having the same tools that the Modern version does, serves as a more midrange-y and grindy game plan rather than just straightforward hand hate.
Part 4: X<8
Back to Modern; so far, all the decks I have covered have the X value in X-Rack being X=8. What about if the X value were smaller?
This list, piloted by Itabashi Seishu, doesn’t have a direct focus on the Rack gameplan. Instead, it revolves around Smallpox, though it still runs the full playset of The Rack and 2 Shrieking Affliction to help drain the opponent to death.
It replaces the baseline list’s Dismember with Bloodchief’s Thirst, as it can also snipe planeswalkers and Murktide Regent later in the game.
It only uses 2 Liliana of the Veil in favor of more creature-based discard, such as Augur of Skulls which is a 2-mana Mind Rot if it sticks.
The newest card to this build is Orcish Bowmasters as draw-hate, plus the Orc token is good fodder for Smallpox.
The manabase uses Mishra’s Factory as a manland instead of Mutavault, since if you have multiple on the field it can attack as a 3/3 or pump itself while blocking. It also contains the very powerful Urza’s Saga, which provides not only a beatdown plan but also acts as four additional Rack copies, and can also tutor for Pithing Needle and Nihil Spellbomb.
In the sideboard, Path of Peril serves as a flexible board wipe, and you can cast it for its Cleave cost later on thanks to 4 copies of Fetid Heath in the manabase.
Collective Brutality serves a similar purpose as I mentioned above for Pioneer, and Fatal Push’s Revolt can be enabled with Smallpox.
Of course, the classic Leyline of the Void is there too.
Delirium Skeins is a conditional card that gets around Leyline of Sanctity, and Bloodghast can follow up your discard as a recursive threat.
Lastly, Break the Ice is a massive hate piece against Tron, as if you can Overload it late, it effectively serves as an Armageddon for your opponent’s lands.
Part 5: The Legacy List
Lastly, let’s take a quick look at a Legacy decklist, where X-Rack doesn’t see much play at all, especially since Legacy has this funny little thing called “Fast Mana.”
This deck combines nearly all the tools I have talked about above, with all the classic discard spells and yet again the playset of Liliana of the Veil.
This list removes the 4th copy of Shrieking Affliction for Retrofitter Foundry, which serves as a win-con on its own by spitting out endless tokens It, along with The Rack, Nihil Spellbomb, and Pithing Needle serve as the Urza’s Saga targets.
To complement Urborg in the manabase are 4 Wasteland, since there are more nonbasic lands in Legacy than you can count.
The sideboard plays more specific win condition hate, like Extirpate and Surgical Extraction sniping combo pieces and general utility cards from your opponent’s graveyard after you discard them.
Plague Engineer and Engineered Explosives serve as your board wipes for this deck, as both are very versatile in hitting many different haymakers in Legacy.
A couple more copies of Pithing Needle in the sideboard make hitting power cards more redundant, and who could forget the classic 4-of Leyline of the Void as well.
Part 6: The Futuristic Conclusion
OK, we’ve covered all the bases of different formats, and we’ve now seen how the past 10-11 years have shaped the general X-Rack archetype. Even though it has dwindled in popularity, there are still the select few who enjoy making people cry at their local game store or in online leagues by ripping their hand to shreds. This deck uses tons of proactive strategies and synergies to eventually grind your opponents down into the dust with a suite of discard and removal spells.
This article has focused on many things from the past, but what about looking ahead? In the future, with Wilds of Eldraine, Rankle’s Prank could become a new haymaker for these kinds of decks, that could serve as not only the final blow to your opponent’s life total, creatures, or hands for four mana.
In the right hands, dreams of 5-0ing an MTGO League or taking first at your Modern Monday or FNMs can be made real. As MemoryLapse himself put it: “Control The Hand, Control The Game.”
