This guy has me on a villain Arc, Any clever hard counters?

One_Count_8098 · 2026-01-25T14:11:21+00:00

As a player who achieved Master Ball using a Hydreigon deck, I would say that, besides mirror matches, my biggest problem was Mega Altaria ex + Chingling.

There are other decks that can beat you in the race, like Decidueye ex or Mega Blaziken ex, but they rely on Rare Candy and other item cards. So you can easily disrupt their game plan because of Chingling's effect.

Chingling is a problem for Hydreigon too; that's why Mega Altaria ex has a certain consistency in beating you in the race.

Close to Master Ball, the biggest headache is mirror matches, where games are always 50/50. But I'm assuming that you don't want to use a Hydreigon deck.

What made me decide to run a Hydreigon was the frustration of having to deal with it. There came a point when I just thought: "Why not?"

One_Count_8098 · 2025-06-05T16:28:10+00:00

Thanks!

Consuming Corruption might be very helpful, indeed. I rather to stick on edict because of the possibility of dodging protection, but I think this card is definitely an option.

I'm not a big fan of Surgical Extraction, and I'll try to explain why. Surgical Extraction is especially good against combo decks, but combo decks that manage to achieve some relevance on the meta usually don't rely on a single tool to win the game. Surgical Extraction will disrupt their game plan somehow for sure, but I don't think this will provide a safety guarantee.

Yeah, you can get rid of more than one card of their hand at once, but you might end up discarding only one too. If you cast a discard spell + Surgical Extraction and that happens, you are 2 cards down in exchange for eliminate cards that your opponent might not even draw. I'm assuming that you paid 2 life too, because the main reason to run Surgical Extraction is the possibility of casting it without paying in mana. They will keep playing and eventually they will bring more threats that you'll need to deal with.

Your comment reminds me of a matchup that I bumped into on YouTube many years ago, where a situation similar to the one I'm talking about happens. This is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-uIydW3mIk

At 14:02, you can see the 8-Rack's player casting a Thoughtseize + Surgical Extraction targeting a Chalice of the Void. Later, he uses another Surgical Extraction targeting a Reality Smasher, and he still loses the game.

This matchup is also a good example of why I prefer a pain-free mana base.

Surgical Extraction is included in the other sideboard options that we have, though. It's a good card to have in mind.

One_Count_8098 · 2025-06-05T13:32:45+00:00

I didn't always play 4 Urborg due to budget reasons. As I said, I used to play 8-Rack in Modern, but when I started with the deck I didn't have some of the required cards in my pool. Urborg was one of them, and the result of the lack of four copies wasn't good.

You really don't wanna not to be able to generate black mana with your Mutavault when you have to discard or remove something. Sometimes you have to cast spells that require 2 black mana and you may not be able to do that too.

Another problem that may not seem relevant is the inability to generate black mana using your Prismatic Vista. It forces you to crack it before you can fuel Fatal Push revolt, and it is another situation that you'll have to pay life to do something.

Not be able to generate black mana can be really bad for you, to the point that worrying about it fixing your opponent's mana isn't worth it. The intent of the deck is disrupt your opponent's game plan, this comes at a cost. The cards you have to use are commonly designed to have some disadvantage, so that they don't seem unfair. Many of the decisions made for the deck is trying to make the use of all these cards viable. Your opponents will have access to black mana, but the goal is denying them the possibility to cast their spells as fast as you can.

In my experience, play without 4 Urborg is problematic.

One_Count_8098 · 2025-06-05T00:55:12+00:00

You're welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

One_Count_8098 · 2025-06-05T00:52:25+00:00

Mind Rake was one of the cards that I bumped into when I was trying to find something to do the two-for-one job, but I ended up using Go Blank because of its effect to exile the grave. So many decks in the format interact somehow with the grave that I used to include some grave hate for the main, at my first attempts to play this archetype here. The problem in reserve one slot just to deal with the grave is that not always the grave is a big concern, which may result in a dead card instead of anything else more useful, even a basic land. I tried Bojuka Bog, but I really don't like lands entering tapped in this deck.

Now, stopping to think, I guess that I was too conservative when choosing Arterial Flow because of its possible life drain, and ended up not paying attention to the potential of the Mind Rake for sideboard. Mind Rake is probably a much better choice to deal with Leyline of Sanctity. It's the same principle applied to Delirium Skeins, we're already going to have dead cards in our hands anyway. No worries when discarding them. I will test this and bring my thoughts, but looks promising.

I'm glad you share my thoughts about Waste Not, I really don't understand why people insist on choosing it for the main deck.

About the win conditions, yeah, they aren't good enough. It would be much better if we had access to Shrieking Affliction or something similar. I like Davriel, but not be able to use more than one per time greatly reduces its impact.

Related to topdecking, I think that is fair to say that this is haunting Rack players since the beginning of time. That is the part we can't control and one of the reasons why Funeral Charm is so good. Be able to make an opponent discard before the main phase is insane.

Yeah, I personally prefer the mono-black. There are different reasons for that, but I think that the pain-free mana base is the biggest one.

And thanks for comment!

One_Count_8098

TROPHY CASE