Dies to Removal

[deck]
4 monastery swiftspear
4 seeker of the way
4 goblin rabblemaster

4 raise the alarm
3 magma jet
4 lightning strike
4 hordeling outburst
2 mardu charm
4 crackling doom
4 stoke the flames

3 temple of triumph
3 temple of silence
2 nomad outpost
4 battlefield forge
2 mana confluence
4 bloodstained mire
1 swamp
5 mountain
[/deck]

Don't sleep on Mardu Charm. Another four damage spell to a creature is pretty nice, as is instant dudes and Duress.

Any green deck.

Oh, forgot about Utter End and Thoughtseize.

Rabblemaster isn't the problem against Abzan though. Swiftspear and Seeker are no better against Siege Rhino et al. The problem is/was that the other decks don't have the correct answers to deal with the cards Abzan is playing. Chained to the Rocks and Banishing Light aren't the best answers since they get removed by Utter End preboard and Erase postboard, but Glare of Heresy and Reprisal are great out of your board.

It could be that the answer is that RW just isn't good enough. I believe Jeskai is just a better deck, and even it has some issues against Abzan. If you're hellbent on not playing Jeskai, consider Mardu for Crackling Doom, Murderous Cut, and Despise. Hell, Ankle Shanker even seems interesting against what Abzan is trying to dom

For anything. It's a good card, and claiming it to be lackluster is being disingenuous.

Rabblemaster is fine.

11 Mountains for Chained is most optimal.

I don't like Erase. It hits Coarser and Banishing Light. A card that kills coarser is like a stoke the flames that can't go to the face.

This is a poor evaluation of Erase.

Rabblemaster has been fine for me. The key is that you don't want to run him out into open mana. There are a lot of games where I've just played draw-go until my opponent was finally forced to make a move just so I could play an unimpeded threat the following turn. This happens most frequently with Rabblemaster and Sarkhan.

Erase was awesome for me last night in my Jeskai burn deck. I suggest running two in the side because there are so many good targets for it. Courser, Banishing Light, Nyx-Fleece Ram, Herald of Torment, etc.

I think one is just okay, but any more maindeck isn't optimal in my opinion. Could you imagine drawing two in your opener? Almost a sure mulligan, whereas a card like Chained to the Rocks or burn spells that can target creatures are not only fantastic in multiples but aid your gameplan of sticking an early threat and doing damage with it over multiple turns. Get a hand with multiple Palm instead of removal and you have to completely change your gameplan.

Please don't run three in your 60. In fact, don't run any in your 60.

What's your reasoning please Val? I've found the card incredibly useful so far.

1) Not very good against aggro, and definitely terrible vs control though there aren't many control decks currently.

2) Reactive spell in an inherently proactive deck. Nonbo with Seeker of the Way and Monastery Swiftspear.

3) Only good in the late game against the decks that it's good against.

4) Very bad to draw multiples.

5) Very bad when behind on board.

I mean it's great that they all placed well but 1) it's States and 2) it's States.

And of course all have three maindeck Palm.

Please don't run three in your 60. In fact, don't run any in your 60.

Don't think of scry as sending bad cards to the bottom. Think of it as digging for good cards at the top. Mathematically speaking if you scry a couple of cards to the bottom then shuffle your deck you're only increasing your chances of seeing like cards by a small percentage. I'm willing to bet those percentages over 200 games would be less than the games you actually win due to having that extra Mountain.

Decks running Wind-Scarred Crag should be running Evolving Wilds instead to maximize targets for Chained to the Rocks.

Evolving Wild is rather bad for all the Scry'ing which occurs...

It's not the most synergistic, but running one to increase your Mountain count will win you more games than resetting your deck loses them.

We run Serum Visions with 9 fetches in UR Delver for a reason.

Decks running Wind-Scarred Crag should be running Evolving Wilds instead to maximize targets for Chained to the Rocks.