 Hey everyone, Paul from PaulGoes. Welcome to League 1. So we're set to go here on the draw, terrible hand, we're obviously going to be throwing away. Oh dear. Oh dear. Might not be the most glamorous of games at the beginning. With 8 rack though, lands are at a premium and obviously drawing a Ravens crime is a really big out to this particular scenario that we're in. The rack is actually quite poor here. It's better than a land, but it's not actually that great. So I'm going to be greedy, put it on the bottom. I'm not even going to play the affliction. Ooh, hello. C-dryno type deal. Oh it does just run removable. I'm pretty happy overall that we are up against this particular deck actually. I don't know if we'll win game 1. Do much here. Alright, I think we just have to take this in that case. Path on end of turn. We know it's Resto, so I'm going to go ahead and get in. What does it do? Put a... You put C-dryno into his hand. Okay. Oh, thank you. I'll have one of them. Should I go for Resto here? I'll take the Rhino. Oh, okay. So he... I'm just not sure. There's two damage. I think I need to go for it. I need to go helpful over here. So he can go back up to 9, drops me to 3. And then he just plays it out again. Restoration Angel. I could top deck a discard spell though. I'll try and do better in game 2. I think I do like Layline of the Void. So it's 5 cards I'm interested in bringing in. I can't really think what I want to take out though. I think the deck more or less is configured the way I want it to be configured. So for those of you who've seen the other videos, I'm a going first guy. So we'll see if that ends up being... this is embarrassing. What happened there? Yeah, that's cool. Alright, this is what it is. I still arrogantly think I'm... despite these tragic errors that... like I'm still a decent shout at this when he's got 6 in hand. So I suppose lingering souls, yeah, definitely. It's looking very unlikely we'll be able to recover from this now. I know, there's just no way. That's so embarrassing. I'll stop beating myself up. Sometimes you make mistakes. Well, what am I going to do here, Lily? We're dead, we're dead. 5 plus 7 is 12. We left on... yeah, there's no way we can win this game. Alright, sorry again folks. Let's just pick it up in game 2 or match 2. On the draw, this is a keep. Concentration. Which elf? Oh, this is a tough decision. We can either dismember him or we can inquisition. I think it's inquisition here. In case his hand is bad. In which case, wrench mind makes massive, massive inroads and his hand is bad. So it's Arbor Elf here. Oh jeez, yeah, okay. So there goes a bird, so those are the two cards in his hand. So there you go. So, he hasn't. She's going to be stuck in his hand. If this is right or not, I'd love to get Bob down to try and find that land, but I just want to ride this pin that we have on him. He's missed. He has missed. That's interesting. What card could he possibly want more that he can't cast? I kind of want to keep the second copy of Lily. He deserves land. Come on now, even I as your opponent. I think that that's fair. Here she is. Okay. Stone reigns okay for us. It's not too bad. We can trade. We could... So one thing we could do here is let this connect. Then on our turn, use the remaining loyalty to destroy the elf. Replay the next Lily instead of trading out the thing. And I'm thinking that that's correct. Waste his resources. I'm going to always yield to Bob. Kiss that goodbye. That's easy to mess this up. Once you've degenerated, what was that? A land and he just played it? Plays a forest. Yeah. This is just where he's so powerful. He's so, so good. Very hard for us to lose this game now. You know, he's so good when you get to this point in the game. Like he pulls their arm over. It's really, really good stuff. Drop an inquisition. So I don't want to go ban smallpox. It's just I really want to minimise the chance of having two in hand. I want absolutely one at most in the course of the first, say, 10 or 11 cards. Against this guy. Good hand. Yep. This is just your classic jump line. Peer and Kieran's fairly terrible for us. We don't particularly want Peer and Kieran to happen. That's a really problematic card. Taking stone rain here. I've got to pray for another thought seize. This is our only chance to get it. So I'm going to take it and let him stone rain. This is okay. It's not super amazing. But maybe I should have played around stone rain on your moth, by the way. That's a thing. I think I think about. Oh goodness. Okay. Yeah. Maybe I should be hitting the elf before he gets to. Oh my goodness. Now we're just absolutely dead. Okay. Yep. Thought he's interesting. I'm not even sure if this is optimal or not. It's just, I've got no hope of winning now. So 3-2. Been testing in the last week or so. This and other just modern decks. I keep having to fight this same opponent over and over. Okay. Not bad. Not great. I don't want to really cast Raven's Crime now. It should normally be a no-no. But yeah. I'm not going to cast Raven's Crime now. Good. That is exactly what we want. Yep. Alright. This is a pretty good spot for us to be in. Happy to go down to two lands here. Opportunities online. Stone rain is not good enough. Very big trouble. Good game. Okay. So. Sometimes I like to go back and watch replays of my games and all my matches and stuff. But yeah. Again. Him going first and getting that momentum in game two seemed so good for him. So. Yeah. I'm increasingly convinced that it's... Maybe it's just against that matchup that it's a thing that going first is right. But. I'd love to play yug-yug again. I have a funny feeling that was a good matchup for us too. It certainly looks good. Ooh. High stakes hand. So spreading seas is a disaster for us. This is a really all-in sort of hand. Yeah. We'll keep. We'll be brave. Certainly not going to mulligan it. This is quite popular at the moment. Maybe the proclamation of rebirth version. He's probably going to draw another dork. So. I'll take a martyr. That's fair enough. That's exactly what he should be doing. I think this is okay. I'm going to force him to activate. I think that's his hand. Okay. Go ahead. I can't stop that. I pay four life so that you can gain nine. Trust me. I'm building up to something here people. I don't do much yet. That's cool. Ranger danger. Taking him. Yeah. I'm cool with this. If you want to path this, it's totally fine. Very satisfying. That's totally fine. Wow. Dude playing a bit mill. Blue black mill. Before I started recording the videos. And yeah. Like good on you. You know. Consider ultimating. Even when. You know. We won't have an ability to. Force a sacrifice. I have to decide. That's going to be an interesting decision to make next turn. I think they go in his hand. Right. They don't come out onto the field. Back out again. Two martyrs. Why? Why dude? Do that. He suitably ages away from. Oh ghost quarter. Yeah. That was a good play after all. Ghost quarter was threatening to. Open up a clear path to. To Lilliana. So now he can attack. He can ghost quarter. Two of my mutavolts. But. Oh and he can field the third one. Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm cool with this. I still think it was correct to plus there. That was a mistake he made. In retrospect. Maybe it was a mistake I made. As well though. He'll be annoyed with himself there. I know I do. But there's nothing I can do about that. That's just mean. Which really isn't good. I think now is the right time to ultimate. You can either have ghostly prison. And a. Land. This is fine. I mean it. You know if he plays a card that doesn't gain life. He dies. So. Okay. So. Oh geez. Um. And. Normally I don't panic too much against Leyline. I. You know. Smallpox and Liliana. They're both very strong at just drawing. You're clear of Leyline. Yeah. If it does pull off a Serra Ascendant. A 30 life fatal or get us there. Just remember won't. The only other thing this member hits is. Ranger of Eos. Against Leyline. 25 seconds left here. Ranting and rambling. I'm going to keep two bobs. I'm going to drop a smallpox. That's going to do it. Interesting. Bob and Bond too. Okay. I'm going to keep. Maybe a little bit greedy. Probably don't need to be greedy. But I'm going to be. Thoughts these turn one. It's so sweet. I don't want a smallpox. Yeah. It's got to be squadron. So the big thing with squadron of course is. Squadron Hawk. Comes into play and allows him to put three copies of itself in his hand. Which is a massive, massive problem. It's like it's it's worse than. Ancestral visions. It's it's horrendous. It's exactly what it's going to do. Okay. Yeah. So land is at a massive premium for us in our hand. The particular hand that we have. Raven's crime wants to discard them. Smallpox wants to destroy them. And Liliana also requires three of them to be on the battlefield. So is Bond too. So we are begging for land basically. So trading Bob for a card and a free land is great. Corefire walk is not very useful. Here. This is fine. And ghost quarter. Right. So he still has o-ring in hand. On that basis do I want to make him pitch it? It's like it's annoying that we had to. Yeah. That's cool. Oh, mate. What is that? Don't play the card. Well, this doesn't feel like a very, you know, you know, it feels a bit like. It feels a bit harsh. So I don't want to be too cocky here or whatever about how fantastic my deck is. My strategy's been, he's clearly a new player who's just coming into the format. Is there any reason to not- So I really can't see Bond too mattering now. Probably has the right answer with all this. Good game, my man. Good game. I think we're ready to go. Join match. We will keep. And this is a very tough match for us. Yeah. Oh. Oh, okay. So it's John. It's just normal John, which is actually quite good for us. So his Liliana is worse than our Liliana. That's the rule of thumb when you're up against John. I think the pick here is fairly easily going to be. Well, yeah, I think it's still lose though. I think it's still lose. Let's see if this turns out to be right or wrong. I think Liliana of the last hope is Liliana comma the last hope rather is the more scary card for us. Crime, crime, double crime. So if it's straight up John, yeah, I'm liking this bit better. So will I live to regret this maybe? But I'm going to deny both of us Erborg is. So you can see what I'm talking about like with the degeneration. If I have a rack effect out, you know, he just can't get out of it in time. Do I care? So. Hissing quagmire. He has. Okay. I can't see from here. I think it's got two power. Death touch. Keeping four lands seems like I'd be on about 12 life by now in his head. There's absolutely no point taking that at this point. I might as well just. So I wonder, does it play germag anglers or just wondering about switching out the dismembers for fatal push? He has so much land. There's just nothing I can really draw that helps much. I've had no rack effects. How many attempts have I made to draw? Yeah, quite a lot. Oh, he does have to. Ask and you shall receive. And he can activate as well, which is terrible. I think I think this is a fine game to lose. We've just drawn. We've just drawn worse than him and swallow that. That's all right. Yeah. Okay. Finally, we can finally we can concede. Oh, juicy, juicy. Now what do we do? Fatal push I do think is good. I don't want lay line. I love smallpox. I haven't actually brought her in yet in any of the games we've played so far. All matches. Blackmail seems good. Blackmail seems quite good, actually. 24 seconds left. Yeah, I think blackmail is strong here. Yes, not too much removal, please. Oh, come on, man. Dear idea. Sorry, everyone. I think it's a keep. I've done it now, but as I said, I do think it is a keep. I'm desperate for a swamp. Oh, dear. Well, this might be the legitimate loss. The one that, you know, is supposed to be supposed to happen. We have to be okay with. I can take a ooze as well. You mentioned it. Probably. Yeah. I'm not 100% sure, which was right there. Given that I've got a second in position coming up. Thank God. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, well, maybe expect something. I don't think I'm doing well with him. The experienced player is going to play into it. Okay. Forced me to have it. That's amazing. I can maybe hit the bin. That was a heap of fun the last time, wasn't it? Did he miss a landrop on purpose? Is that what happened there? The inquisition becomes quite bad, and he's, oh, what on earth? Maelstrom pulse. Oh, what a catch. That could be the difference between having a chance of winning and not here. Really could. That was a huge pickup. She is going to be annoying, but she's discarding, so you're putting yourself to a virtual 10 by doing that. You see, she's just on his side of the table. She doesn't have the same... Oh, Jesus, this is terrible. Okay. Had everything his own way. Um... This is a problem for him. Yeah. And tried to go ultimate. So he has to horde, and that's a good thing for us, so we need to just draw some discard pressure. Wow. Why on earth would you concede there? Why would you concede? All you had to do was... You didn't have to... Right, is this too much? Is this removal package too much? Is there too much going on here? Surely. Unless you're saying to me, but what about smallpox and these three creatures? Well, let's find out if it matters. Let's see, shall we? Now we are going second. And in the Inquisition War, you really... You had another reason to go first and to be wanting to go first. I'll go first, Inquisition, you and stop what you're doing. He's Maltesix, that's good. Can't get used to this artwork. And now, is it just me, everyone? Or is this... Does it look a little bit edgy? It just looks a little bit rough, like it's been torn off or something. It doesn't look like this wonderful, you know, heraldic... I don't know if that's a word, but you know what I mean? It doesn't look that great. And every single legendary card is going to look like this now, really? Oh! Well, actually, this is a bit of a sh... I mean, if this... You know, if this ends up dictating the match, it's... It's not really... Yeah, I'm not convinced by the artwork. I mean, I suppose it would be easy for them to go back and switch back if there was enough. Nothing on turn two. Oh dear, we're in a long way ahead here now in terms of material. Tassaga and Lily. Tassaga and Lily. I didn't love him having a Lily, and like, having her put repeated pressure on this is... Well, not amazing. And having her dominate Bob, so I'm going to take Lily, let him play Tassaga. Oh, he's not even going to get to do that. Oh! I didn't even realize this. I completely forgot that I had a raven's crime coming up, so... Now he's got to just pray for, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's just got to pray for land so he can do his thing. Yeah. So pitching Inquisition here, and then into... Oh, this is just harsh. So harsh. Let's see that expression on this guy's face here. I understand. He's on 19, but you know what? I understand. I understand why he would want to quit there. This is what White Tiger Zord is doing right now. Wherever he is in the world, and I'm not trying to be an arse, you know, saying that, like, but, yeah, typical Jundie-style Liliana against 8-Rack is a good matchup for 8-Rack. Yeah. Yeah. And the only other thing worth touching on, I suppose, in that game is the whole point about the rant I was going on about the Inquisition war, which is yet another scenario where I believe going first gives you a massive advantage. If you Inquisition first mess up his plans, get to the second mana, get to the third mana first, get your good stuff down, that that is worth the card disadvantage that you give up by having him go second. Yeah, by having him go second and yourself going first. If he goes first in Inquisitions, you know, sometimes with 8-Rack, you'll keep a hand that's like, you know, land, land, land, Liliana, Rack, Shrieking Affliction. And you're playing to your Liliana, you're looking at her going, well, look, it's not very exciting, but I can get to my Liliana. And then he goes turn 1 Inquisition. Bang! No, you're not. Oh my goodness. What could this be? Wow. Okay. Gravecrawler is a problem. We like putting things in the graveyard, so if he's got a bunch of stuff that wants to go there... Okay. I don't know what to take here. I'm sorry I'm taking so long, everyone, but you've got to cast the two creatures to bring it back. I'm going to take the glimpse. I have no idea if that's right. Like that... Bloodgast in general, and this guy by extension, you know, very strong against us, you know, we're so, so good. Yeah. Like, you're desperate to put... I mean, Dredge is just such a hilarious match. It's... The one thing I didn't explain in the primer maybe is that if you're met a game, if you're playing in paper or whatever, has lots of Dredge, this deck is a complete... like, 8 Rack is just a joke. It just crumbles. It's almost not worth trying, you know, you can bring in your one Liliana with Void and just pray to find it, but... Yeah. See what I mean. With French Mind. Yeah. A very tough match for us. Oops. Yeah, this could just be a bit of bad luck at the end that we've come up against a Dredgesque sort of deck, but... Yeah. Desperately for Liliana of the Void. Without it, I don't think there's any hope. Sad way to end, actually, because I was having fun, but this is the most unfun experience you can have as an 8 Rack player. That was all he wrote. Dear, oh dear. If he plays Graveclaw on his first turn, surely it's okay to have it in, but then it fights with, yeah. You don't bring in three Bontus unless you're taking out smallpox. Okay, alright. Sanity prevails. Yep, as unplayable as the rest of the hand is, I'm going to keep... I don't know. Four is a lot, like it takes up a lot of room. Having said that, how often have I wanted my Silent Visitor, my third Bob? How often have I wanted Funeral Charm? Practically never. Tomeskower me? Fine. Is that even... What does that do? Does that draw him a card? Oh, hey, by the way, if anyone knows, why when I click this does it not show me the card? In the old versions of the client, I used to be able to click Tomeskower and it'd tell me what the heck it was and what it did. Tiger Play puts the top... Oh, man, how can you run that card, man? I suppose I should keep this open and keep an eye on what's been... How do I pin this back? Do I press this little arrow? There we go. Yeah, he's got Prizedare. He's got it all. He's got the whole package of stuff. Wow, look how much he loves his Graveyard. Go, Mag. Yeah. So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I need to be... Maybe I need to just actually face facts here that Leyline of the Void is your only hope against these decks and as a result, you should be running for as opposed to Marginal Cards that just helps some of your matchups a little bit. He's just trying to mill me to death, is he? Okay, well, that's a tall order. That is a very tall order. I'm not going to be too precious here. I'm just going to do this very, very tough room to get out from under here. I'm not going to be too precious here. I'm just going to do this very, very tough room to get out from under here now. He's on a ver... If he does nothing, he's on a virtual 5. Oh, he's doing something. Perhaps playing out the Nakamiba there was just abandoning all hope and why not? So, yeah, like... If we get lucky and find out Leyline again, we can still have a chance, but... Oh, boy, without it, are we... Are we in trouble without it? We've got a few... It's possible we're 25% equity or something like that in this game. Going second. We have a few more answers to him here, though, or temporary answers. I don't know if I care about that thing. I really feel like his mill plan is... Why wouldn't you just dredge instead? Alright, fingers crossed, everyone. Come on. My string constant is still out of date. Thankfully, that's not a fatal error. Come on, now. Give me... Yuck. Okay, we have to mulligan. I think we mulligan this in a vacuum. Game 1, we don't know who our opponent is. This is a hand you would always mulligan. It has no discard pressure. This hand... He doesn't have an answer to Bob, so Bob is good. We might be able to... Bob, we might even be able to hardcast it not that it'll help. She's probably... We'd probably put her on the bottom. I guess he could have caught a thingy there as well. Like a... Oh, I didn't need that. If anyone's seen this dick and knows it, maybe it's a well-celebrated version. It's just crazy bizarre. I pray for a reckoning on the second crack from the Angler. So that actually seems like the thing I want to do. I'm going to try to maximize my Bond 2's reckoning by allowing Bob to live. I mean, he might remove him, obviously, and that's just something I have to accept and live with if that's what happens. So really hoping to hit a swamp here off these two cards. Need a little bit of luck. There's a land. So here I can crime and wrench and then chump the Angler. Okay. So I'm kind of trying to do this sneaky roundabout move. Vengevine. Oh my goodness. So he has no hope of hardcasting Vengevine ever. He's so nice if I could get these afflictions down, actually. He might mistakenly play out his hand. He is. Well, maybe he gets a prize at Malgram though. Oh, he does. Yeah, okay. So now I'm in very big trouble. I'm pretty proud of myself though. I think I've played this correctly. He doesn't get it yet. Comes out at the end of his turn, I think, doesn't it? Gee, I tell you what. Going affliction affliction here is so tempting. Okay, so if I go to 12 here I'm certainly not going to 6, so this is an easy decision. He attacks. Bob took a wilder step forward there. He's a bit reluctant. Wasn't he? Down you go. Down the gobb. I'm thinking here. I can drop him to 7 life. He then cracks back for 10 with his prize at Malgram. I'm prized amalgam. It's an amalgam of different body parts. That's why it's called that. Is that correct or should I tap out for Bantu's last reckoning? Oh. Does he get Vengevine as well here, maybe? I don't know. What to do? Oh, juicy. Because he dies on his second upkeep before that second card comes out. Alright, I'm going to take a chance here. I'm going to go for it. Yeah, sorry pal. Taking too long to decide as usual. But I don't think you can beat this. I think we're racing and I'm winning. It's got to be collective brutality. I just cannot think of what else he could top deck here that wins in the game. What's it going to be? Please, please let me go for one. Glimpse. Yeah, what does that do? Nothing? Blood ghasts. It did nothing. Are we getting there? Take 10? That is sweet. That is very sweet. Being able to beat a deck like this as admittedly that's a very roguy sort of build. Like, yeah. If you take away the if you take away the crazy mill strategy here, right? If you take away the useless cards in his hand which were kind of like glimpsing the unthinkable really was. I mean, he got one tome scour that gave him a free prized amulgat. Amalgam. Get that right one day. But that, so yeah, looking back over the matches really definitely this one and bear a candy are the two that really stand out in terms of lessons learned. I think my theory about smallpox and bantu not going together is kind of true. I mean, in the sense that if you're bringing in all three bantus don't be smallpoxing because you know, you've got four lilies presumably as well and there's just too much you're asking too much of your land base to survive the smallpoxing to get up there. Okay, that'll do it for the first league of our 8-Rack Odyssey. Thanks again everyone and I'll see you next time.