[Archetype] Doran Rock (Deed-less Rock)

[Captain Hammer]

I did a survey of deckcheck.net and found 40+ B/G, G-or-B/W, and B/W/G Rock variants that don't play a single Pernicious Deed maindeck.

This makes sense. There are a number of very powerful or disruptive low casting creatures printed over the past few years...

Tarmogoyf
Dark Confidant
Tidehollow Sculler
Ethersworn Canonist
Vexing Shusher
Gadook Teeg
Eternal Witness
Doran, the Siege Tower

And Pernicious Deed has poor synergy with pretty much everyone of them. Perinicous Deed decks instead usually make due with high casting inefficent threats like Spiritmonger, or weaker (low power) regenerating creatures like River Boa in order to play around Deed. For the most part, these creatures either don't come into play as quickly or as big as Tarmogoyf, don't provide card advantage as surely as Dark Confidant, and don't disrupt the opponent as readily as Tidehollow Sculler.

Pernicious Deed also happens to use up two full turns worth of mana, which can slow you down significantly.

And last but not least, the meta has shifted as such where most of the popular decks rely on a small number of powerful threats (Tarmogoyf, Dreadnought, Tombstalker etc). Decks like Threshold, Dreadstill and Team America rarely have more than one creature on the board at a time. Why spend five mana and two turns just to kill a Tarmogoyf when a free Snuff Out or 1cc StP will do?

For those reasons, maindeck Deed isn’t nearly as neccesary or valuable as it used to be. And leaving out bombs like Tidehollow Sculler, Doran, Gadook Teeg and in some cases even Tarmogoyf just to support maindeck Pernicious Deed doesn't make sense to me.

Currently Rock lists that play Pernicous Deed and are built around Pernicious Deed are discussed right alongside Rock lists that don’t. This also doesn’t make sense.

When a Rock deck foregos Pernicious Deed, everything about the deck changes. It’s mana curve flattens, it’s gameplan becomes more aggressive and it’s goldfish turn decreases dramatically.

Where as the typical Rock list's curve is so high that other than Thoughseize and StP, playing multiple cards per turn is relatively rare, Deedless Rock variants play several cards per turn very frequently.

Therefore, I think it makes sense to have a separate thread for the numerous Rock decks that exclude Pernicious Deed in order to play the best creatures available to BWG, regardless of how they interact with Deed.

I did a survey of deckcheck and compiled a list of all the cards that appeared in Deedless Rock decks. Those cards that never appeared more than once were excluded.

I split up the remaining cards into three groups based on how frequently they showed up and into subclassifications within those groups based on what function they serve.


Group One: The Staples - These are the cards that showed up in a majority of the lists on deckcheck.net.

Disruption and Utility
4 Thoughtseize/Duress
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Vindicate

Creatures
Birds of Paradise
Tarmogoyf
Eternal Witness
Doran, The Siege Tower
Tombstalker

Mana
Dual Lands
Fetch Lands
Basic Lands


Group Two: The Popular - These are the cards that showed up in several of the lists on deckcheck.net.

Disruption and Utility
Sensei's Divining Top
Pithing Needle
Cabal Therapy
Hymn to Tourach
Gerrard's Verdict
Engineered Explosives
Diabolic Edict
Smother
Snuff Out
Krosan Grip
Umezawa's Jitte
Living Wish
Glittering Wish
Crime/Punishment
Profane Command
Garruk Wildspeaker

Creatures
Dark Confidant
Tidehollow Sculler
Gadook Teeg
Hypnotic Specter
Kitchen Finks
Loxodon Hierach
Spiritmonger
Shriekmaw

Utility Mana
Treetop Village
Nantuko Monastary
Horizon Canopy
Volrath's Stronghold
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Wasteland


Group Three: The Rare - These are the cards that showed up in more than one of the lists on deckcheck.net but were relatively rare.

Disruption and Utility
Aether Vial
Extripate
Reanimate
Unearth
Sinkhole
Sylvan Library
Phyrexian Arena
Oblivion Ring
Armageddon
Haunting Echoes

Creatures
Sakura Tribe Elder
Ethersworn Canonist
Vexing Shusher
Troll Ascetic
Ohran Viper
Mystic Enforcer

Mana
Chrome Mox
Dark Ritual
Manamorphose

The above compilation provides us a strong framework of the cards that are playable in BWG Deedless Rock builds.

I also want to hear your experiences with cards that you run or think are worth running that aren't already listed as staples above.

The staple cards from Group One should form the core shell of most lists. And a safe bet is to stick with other cards in the above list to build your deck.

Here is my list...

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Gadook Teeg
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Eternal Witness
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Tombstalker

4 Thoughtseize
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Vindicate

1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Savannah
3 Bayou
2 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
1 Treetop Village
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Windswept Heath
2 Scrubland
1 Nantuko Monastary
1 Volrath's Stronghold

I'll keep the second post of this thread updated with my latest list, any recent top 8s, matchup and reports and other information. Feel free to share any lists that you play, or any well performing lists that you stumbled onto.

[Captain Hammer]

I'll keep this post updated with the latest list, any recent top 8s, matchups and reports and other information.

There's numerous successful Doran Rock lists on Deckcheck.net but the Doran Rock top 8 from the biggest tournament that I can find is as follows...

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

The list is only a few cards off of the list in the OP.

It came in 4th out of 156 people just this past month.

And the rest of the top 8 consisted of...

2 Thresh lists
2 Dreadstill lists
1 Merfolk
1 Elfball
1 Fairie Stompy

So it seems to be a very well developed meta.

//My Current List

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Tombstalker

4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Vindicate

4 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
1 Savannah
3 Scrubland
2 Swamp
3 Windswept Heath
1 Nantuko Monastry
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Recent Update:
-3 Eternal Witness
+2 Dark Confidant
+1 Tidehollow Sculler

Currently Testing:
-4 Hymn to Tourach
+3 Cabal Therapy
+1 Duress

Here was a sample hand that I think illustrates how a typical game plays out...

Turn one - Birds

Turn two - Thoughtseize + Goyf

Turn three - Hymn + Tidehollow Sculler (could have instead been Edict, StP or any discard spell) (beat for 4)

Turn four - Vindicate + Dark Confidant (beat for 7)

Turn five - Eternal Witness + Replay Vindicate (beat for the game win)

That was a typical hand . No broken combos or interactions, just average. But it was one that allowed me take out every decent card in my opponents hand, kill every permanent they managed to get down on the board, and still managed to let me win by turn 5 without overextending.

This is what the high level of redundancy in the deck lets you achieve. You play 11 discard spells, 9 removal spells and many more large beatsticks. Thanks to this redudancy, hands like the one above are just the average for this deck. If this deck squeezed in the survival engine, it woudn't be anywhere near as fast or efficent.

What card choices do you agree with and disagree with and why?

[Roman Candle]

I don't mean to be "that guy," but isn't Deed the only reason to play Rock over Survival? I mean, the reason Survival can't run Deed is because it, y'know, destroys Survival. I thought the Rock's main appeal was the fact that it got to play with Deed... otherwise, it just seems like Survival without the versatility or CA engine of Survival.

[Captain Hammer]

We as a community need to stop this insane and completely worthless practice of comparing decks that have nothing in common with each other and saying one is better than the other. Seriously.

First of all, Survival kind of sucks when you don't actually manage get Survival into play (or if your opponent Needles or Grips it). A big chunk of the deck is built around survival. If you don't draw and resolve Survival of the Fittest, the deck ends up with roughly 16-20 subpar cretures that don't serve the function/role you want them to. Rock's creature base isn't comparable to Survivals. The creatures Rock runs are pretty much always useful, in every situation. Teeg is the only conditional creature in my entire list. But I can't think of more than 2 or so matchups where Teeg isn't extremely useful.

All the janky one of creatures, all the slots devoted to stuff like Squee, Goblin Nabob become worthless if you don't actually draw and resolve Survival of the Fittest.

Now, with Krosan Grip and Pithing Needles everywhere, it's not enough to just resolve Survival, you actually have to keep it in play and functional.

On top of that, the Survival combo eats up a ton of mana. You spend two mana to resolve it, two more to get access to the Squee engine, not to mention the mana you have to spend to actually cast the creatures once you get your hands on them.

If I wanted more versatility than what Vindicate + Thoughtseize + Tidehollow Sculler + Diabolic Edict + Swords to Plowshares already provide, I would be much better off playing Glittering Wish (or Living Wish) and a utility sideboard than squeeze the mana hungry Survival engine into here, waste slots for stuff like Squee and screw up the creature base in the process, all to have that go to waste the second my opponent resolves a Needle or Grip.

Glittering Wish can not only grab all sorts of utility creatures and beatsticks, but can grab stuff like Vindicate to boot.

But guess what, I don't run Wish, because I found that I haven't needed it. There really isn't anything that Thoughtseize + Tidehollow Sculler + Diabolic Edict + Swords to Plowshares + Vindicate can't deal with. Certainly nothing worth spending an extra two mana to grab, much less the four mana and two turns, and the screwing up of my whole creaturebase, and wasting slots on Squee.

So again, no this isn't comparable to Survival. And please, everyone, do the community a favor and stop comparing completely unrelated decks to each other.

[b4r0n]

First of all, deckcheck.net seems to disagree with you. It claims that Deed is the second most played card in The Rock, after Swords to Plowshares. Second of all, it doesn't seem necessary to create a new thread for a variant of an established archetype. Your deck is going to function much like every other build of The Rock, except without the power of Deed.

As for your last post:


We as a community need to stop this insane practice of comparing decks that have nothing in common with each other and saying one is better than the other. Seriously.

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Gadook Teeg
2 Eternal Witness
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares

That's a pretty big chunk of cards that the two decks have in common. And that's not even taking into account the cards that serve similar functions (e.g. Sculler vs. Therapy, Shriekmaw/BGH/Harmonic vs. Vindicate). The list you posted has a lot in common with Survival. And most versions of The Rock. Seriously.


First of all, Survival kind of sucks when you don't actually manage get Survival into play (or if your opponent Needles or Grips it).

No, actually, it plays just like your deck does. But when it gets Survival, it's vastly better. Hence, why people run the card.


Rock's creature base isn't comparable to Survivals. The creatures Rock runs are pretty much always useful, in every situation. Teeg is the only conditional creature in my entire list. But I can't think of more than 2 or so matchups where Teeg isn't extremely useful.

All the janky one of creatures, all the slots devoted to stuff like Squee, Goblin Nabob become worthless if you don't actually draw and resolve Survival of the Fittest.

This makes me think you haven't played Survival very much. None of the cards in the deck are worthless. Even Squee is useful as an infinite chump blocker.


On top of that, the Survival combo eats up a ton of mana. You spend two mana for it, then an indefinate amount everytime you use the ability.

Right. The idea is that you spend mana to create an overwhelming advantage for yourself and crush your opponent. Again, this makes me think that you haven't played Survival much.

In summary:


your arguments against Deed aren't convincing
your decklist doesn't differ much from accepted builds of The Rock
your decklist seems worse than both The Rock and Survival

[Captain Hammer]

I want to make this crystal clear...

Doran Rock is an established deck that's been around for an year now and has 500+ results on deckcheck.net in every single format including legacy. Tens of thousands of magic players in various formats know what Doran Rock lists look like. Tens of thousands of players know how Doran Rock plays.

It looks and plays like the list in the OP or the below list.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

The above linked list came in 4th out of 156 people just this past month in a very well developed meta...

The list is only a few cards off of the list in the OP.

But of all the different variations on Doran Rock...

There isn't a single Doran Rock list anywhere that plays Survival of the Fittest. Not one. Adding the survival engine to the deck completely changes how it plays. The deck becomes less aggressive, more controllish, and more vulnerable to all the splash hate popular in the format now thanks to CB+Top... Pithing Needle, Krosan Grip, Oblivion Ring, Seal of Cleansing, Vindicate and tons of other cards that hit Survival are more popular than they ever have been.

And as mentioned, by adding the survival engine, the deck ends up looking absolutely nothing like the Doran Rock lists that are already well established and that people are familiar with. In short, it becomes a completely different deck.

Just like how there isn't a single Team America list that plays Nimble Mongoose and Mystic Enforcer.

If you were to go post in the TA thread a list playing Nimble Mongoose and Enforcer, they would correctly tell you that your list goes in the Threshold thread, not the TA one.

Yes, some versions of the deck play Deed, and some don't (including legacy lists). But I explained in the OP why Deed is not worth playing and having to build around, and why it's not no longer as good now that the most popular decks are aggro control and play out a single threat at a time. That's precisely why Deed isn't in the list.

When a Rock deck foregos Pernicious Deed, the rest of the deck changes. It can play faster lower casting more disruptive creatures without having to worry about poor synergy. It’s mana curve flattens, it’s gameplan becomes more aggressive and it’s goldfish turn decreases. It actually starts to play out an aggressive creature base similar to the Doran Rock lists in other formats, all while allowing you to run far better disruption.

Tarmogoyf
Dark Confidant
Birds of Paradise
Tidehollow Sculler
Ethersworn Canonist
Vexing Shusher
Gadook Teeg
Eternal Witness
Doran, the Siege Tower

All these cards see play in Doran Rock. Pernicious Deed has poor synergy with everyone of them.

This is why the Doran Rock lists that don't play Deed get away with running a lot more disruptive and powerful creatures in their lists than the Doran Rock lists that do.

Pernicious Deed also happens to use up two full turns worth of mana, which can slow you down significantly.

And like I mentioned, the meta has shifted as such where most of the popular decks rely on a small number of powerful threats (Tarmogoyf, Dreadnought, Tombstalker etc). Decks like Threshold, Dreadstill and Team America rarely have more than one creature on the board at a time. Why spend five mana and two turns just to kill a Tarmogoyf when a free Snuff Out or 1cc StP will do?

----------------------------------
Doran Rock is an established deck and it has never played the Survival engine in any of it's lists in legacy. The survival engine is a horrible use of deck space.

All the janky one of creatures, all the slots devoted to stuff like Squee, Goblin Nabob become worthless if you don't actually draw and resolve Survival of the Fittest.

What exactly can you think of that Thoughtseize + Tidehollow Sculler + Diabolic Edict + Swords to Plowshares + Vindicate can't deal with? Certainly nothing worth spending an extra two mana to grab, much less the four mana and two turns, and the screwing up of my whole creaturebase, and wasting slots on Squee.

Now, with Krosan Grip and Pithing Needles everywhere, it's not enough to just resolve Survival, you actually have to keep it in play and functional.

On top of that, the Survival combo eats up a ton of mana. You spend two mana to resolve it, two more to get access to the Squee engine, not to mention the mana you have to spend to actually cast the creatures once you get your hands on them.

If I wanted more versatility than what Vindicate + Thoughtseize + Tidehollow Sculler + Diabolic Edict + Swords to Plowshares already provide, I would be much better off playing Glittering Wish (or Living Wish) and a utility sideboard than squeeze the mana hungry Survival engine into here, waste slots for stuff like Squee and screw up the creature base in the process, all to have that go to waste the second my opponent resolves a Needle or Grip.

Glittering Wish can not only grab all sorts of utility creatures and beatsticks, but can grab stuff like Vindicate to boot.

Again, do the community a favor and stop comparing completely unrelated decks that play out differently, and have completely different curves to each other.

[Captain Hammer]

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Gadook Teeg
2 Eternal Witness
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares

That's a pretty big chunk of cards that the two decks have in common. And that's not even taking into account the cards that serve similar functions. The list you posted has a lot in common with Survival.

Seriously that's your reasoning!!!

That I should be playing survival because survival and this deck share 19 cards in common, 12-18 of which happen to be played in every single f-ing deck that can support them!

Find me a deck with BWG in it that doesn't play...
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares

There's no way you were seriously wondering why my deck isn't playing Survival since it's already playing Thoughtseize, StP and Goyf.



In summary:

•your argument doesn't make much sense.
•many of your claims, including your claim that squee is a fine card even without survival in play because it can be used as a chumpblocker, makes me question exactly who you're trying to convince to say the least.

[b4r0n]

Seriously, find me a deck with BWG in it that doesn't play...
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares

That's kinda my point. You're playing a BGW shell but without the good cards: Deed or Survival.

[Captain Hammer]

Survival stopped being a good card back when Saviors of Kamigawa was printed.

And yes, Deed is a decent sweeper (albeit generally more mana intensive than most sweepers).

But it's a sweeper that doesn't let you play any of your good creatures with the sole exception of Tombstalker.

It doesn't make sense to play three copies of a card maindeck that screws over 19 other cards in your deck.

And it makes even less sense to forego playing 19 great cards in order to maindeck three copies of one very mana intensive sweeper.

A sweeper that also happens to be far more costly and generally inferior to targeted removal against the most popular decks in the format (TA, Dreadstill and aggro control decks in general).

[f|i[p]]

I'll keep this post updated with the latest list, any recent top 8s, matchups and reports and other information.

//The Current List

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Gadook Teeg
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Eternal Witness
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Tombstalker

4 Thoughtseize
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Vindicate

1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Savannah
3 Bayou
2 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
1 Treetop Village
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Windswept Heath
2 Scrubland
1 Nantuko Monastary
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Feel free to post away. What does your list look like? If you don't play Deedless Rock, what would your list look like?

What card choices do you agree with and disagree with and why?

I had a list similar to this, but since I didn't want to shell out money for thoughtseize, I didn't want to bring this to a tournament having duress to replace it because of having goblins in my meta.

But in my list I didn't have any birds of paradise and gaddock teeg, I had Confidants and senseis divining top instead to add draw and make sure I dont draw into tombstalker via confidant. Confidant usually gets hit by removal,so this helps goyf tombstalker and doran. This makes thooughtseize/duress or sensei my only 1 drop. Im not sure if this is good however. I never really like birds of paradise..

I don't think teeg is actually needed maindeck. THoughtseize,hymn and sculler can help you enough. Having eternal witness as well boosts your discard slots by 3 if ever.

I was also thinking of having some eng. Explo. maindeck for versatility. Maybe as a 2 of.

Having the opponent resolve a counter balance can be a head ache though.. Having so many 1 and 2 cc. But I guess this is where vindicate helps.. or K.grip on the side.

[Captain Hammer]

;319534']I had a list similar to this, but since I didn't want to shell out money for thoughtseize, I didn't want to bring this to a tournament having duress to replace it because of having goblins in my meta.

But in my list I didn't have any birds of paradise and gaddock teeg, I had Confidants and senseis divining top instead to add draw and make sure I dont draw into tombstalker via confidant. Confidant usually gets hit by removal,so this helps goyf tombstalker and doran. This makes thooughtseize/duress or sensei my only 1 drop. Im not sure if this is good however. I never really like birds of paradise..

I don't think teeg is actually needed maindeck. THoughtseize,hymn and sculler can help you enough. Having eternal witness as well boosts your discard slots by 3 if ever.

I was also thinking of having some eng. Explo. maindeck for versatility. Maybe as a 2 of.

Having the opponent resolve a counter balance can be a head ache though.. Having so many 1 and 2 cc. But I guess this is where vindicate helps.. or K.grip on the side.

Good post.

Yeah, Confidant + either Top or Sylvan Library function very well in the deck too.

I just couldn't find the room for them, but if you want to replace Birds and Teeg for them, that's fine.

Teeg isn't a neccesary part of the deck, it's just really good against a lot of decks. Basically a GW Meddling Mage.

Yeah Vindicate is a monster, and the sideboard helps too. Currently by board contains Grip, Needle, Choke and some utility creatures (Canonist, Shusher etc). But I'm trying to remember the name of that one card that says...

3G
Destroy all Islands.

I'll try to snag a playset sometime and replace Choke with it.

[Jak]

Survival stopped being a good card back when Saviors of Kamigawa was printed.

And yes, Deed is a decent sweeper (albeit generally more mana intensive than most sweepers).

But it's a sweeper that doesn't let you play any of your good creatures with the sole exception of Tombstalker.

It doesn't make sense to play three copies of a card maindeck that screws over 19 other cards in your deck.

And it makes even less sense to forego playing 19 great cards in order to maindeck three copies of one very mana intensive sweeper.

A sweeper that also happens to be far more costly and generally inferior to targeted removal against the most popular decks in the format (TA, Dreadstill and aggro control decks in general).

Pithing Needle made Survival bad? WTF are you on? It's obvious you haven't even played the deck so whatever.

And a big thing about creating new decks and posting them in the Established Deck Section is that they have to be worth playing over other decks. Yours looks worse than both Survival (BWG, Taco's old build) and The Rock, but I'll give it a shot to make you happy and so you hopefully won't complain anymore about people testing.

Anyway, about the list.

Why are you playing Birds? Since you don't run bad cards like Survival and Deed (...) why do you need the acceleration?



3G
Destroy all Islands.

I'll try to snag a playset sometime and replace Choke with it.

Tsunami.

[Loxodon Baileyarch]

Why are you playing Birds? Since you don't run bad cards like Survival and Deed (...) why do you need the acceleration?

So he can overextent into a Pernicious Deed :cool:

[sco0ter]

I am not understanding all of those BGW versions, but isn't this deck called Tombstone, Rocking Funkbrew or just Doran Rock and aren't there already threads for that? If not, what's the difference to those decks? Woohoo, yet another "Rock" version, which gets labeled with a new name!?!

[Nihil Credo]

To stop all the whining:

This is not a deck thread, and it isn't here for the purpose of discussing C.H's (unexplained) list at the end of the opening post, or anybody else's list.

This is an archetype thread, like the ones we have for Survival and Loam, where you compare different approaches to a general style of deck and bounce ideas off each other. I renamed the thread to make this clearer. Incidentally, this is also the sole reason it is allowed to be in Established: Doran Rock decks are fairly popular, and so far there hasn't been a successful attempt to boil the differences down to a single list +/- a dozen or so cards.

Archetype discussions can certainly include whether the whole archetype is worth playing or not - in this case, whether it can be correct to play with neither Deed nor Survival. You are expected to be as civil in this as anywhere else. Warnings will strike if you fail at this.

[Captain Hammer]

Thank you for correcting the thread's name Nihil. This thread is indeed to discussing the whole archeatype.

Jak, for the upteenth time, Survival is not a good fit here.


Pithing Needle made Survival bad? WTF are you on?

Reality. Needle did make Survival bad. Half the decks in the format played Needle. And now, the other half plays Krosan Grip. Devoting multiple slots to Squees and Survival and a third of the deck to an engine that everyone already has multiple answers to doesn't make sense for this archeatype.

Especially when there is absolutely nothing at all the survival engine gives you an answer to that your Discard + StP + Vindicate doesn't already answer.

If you want card advantage, play Dark Confidant. It provides card advantage for just two mana. And that's it, no additional mana required, instead of sucking up 4 mana, and more mana each turn, and requiring you to bastardize your entire creature base in order to support it.


Why are you playing Birds?

Because this deck likes to play more than one card per turn. This deck plays Birds because it has a curve that actually lets it play out multiple cards each turn.

Here is a sample opening that illustrates this...

Turn one - Birds

Turn two - Thoughtseize + Goyf

Turn three - Hymn + Tidehollow Sculler (could have instead been Edict, StP or any discard spell) (beat for 4)

Turn four - Vindicate + Dark Confidant (beat for 7)

Turn five - Eternal Witness + Replay Vindicate (beat for the game win)

This is what the low cc curve and the BoP helps you achieve. Essentially, opening with Birds generates 5-8 extra mana for you in the course of a game. And it speeds you up by several turns as a result.

But I have also considered played Aether Vial in Birds slot. It's just that only two of the lists I found actually played Vial. I do think Vial deserves testing however.

[Jak]

Sure, accelerating yourself into more disruption plus threats is good, but there are also cons. This deck isn't mana intensive at all so I don't see the pros of playing Goyf + Thoughtseize outweigh the cons of dead draws in the late and mid game and also eating up a turn one play where disruption is probably the better choice in a deck like this.

And would you please explain to me why Survival is bad? The only argument I have heard against it is that it takes up 16-20 slots of bad creatures. Obvious exaggeration is obvious. The only one ofs that survival even plays are:

1 Squee
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 BGH
1 Shriekmaw
1 Masticore
1 Artifact/Enchantment Destruction
1 Rofellos
1 Quirion Ranger

9 is a lot different from 20 and most of the one ofs pull their weight without Survival. Land a Survival and you are ahead. Hardly anyone plays Pithing Needle MD let alone SB and Krosan Grip costs three. you do play discard and Eternal Witness to make sure it lands and you get use out of it. You don't even need to play silver bullets. They do call it Survival Advantage for a reason. You can pitch unnecessary Birds or Scullers to get fat or a Shriekmaw, or a Wickerbough Elder. You have an engine.

Right now, it looks like your deck runs out of steam fast. The Rock is supposed to be resilient and I am seeing a deck that runs out of gas because of the lack of decent draw to refill its hand after playing out all the little dudes and disruption. At least play Dark Confidant.

[Captain Hammer]

Jak, I already play Dark Confidant (the list is in the second post) and I already outlined several times why Survival is too slow, too many intensive and too vulnerable for this deck and why cutting by your own admission atleast 13 cards (realistically closer to 18) from the deck to make room for the survival engine is a bad idea (and what would you give the boot to without slowing it down significantly or diluting it's disruption or threatbase). You didn't address any of this.



1 Squee
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 BGH
1 Shriekmaw
1 Masticore
1 Artifact/Enchantment Destruction
1 Rofellos
1 Quirion Ranger


Along with 4 Survival, and that is just the minimum. If other Survival builds are any indication, making room for these cards involves cutting Hymns, Vindicates and basically the best creatures and the best disruption spells in the colors.

This is precisely why Deedless Rock is NOT Survival. So please don't spam about it in a thread that clearly has nothing to do with survival. If you want to discuss BWG Survival, please post in one of the many many actually relevent threads...

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5453&highlight=survival

Just stop spamming this one.

If you aren't interested in discussing the merits of 4x SotF + bullets vs. {insert whatever cards you could play instead} in the Aggro-Rock archetype, it's your prerogative to abstain.

But Jak is making valid points and the argument is substantial. He is not spamming and you should not accuse him of such just because he disagrees with you. - NC


Would it not be spam if I started posting repeatedly in the merfolk deck that they should play goblins? What he is proposing turns this into into a completely different and significantly slower more controllish deck that exposes it to a whole slew of weakness that weren't there before.

The point Jak and others are trying to make is precisely that adding Survival does not make an Aggro Rock list significantly slower and does not significantly change the game plan. You can argue the opposite...

Adding the Survival engine to the deck completely changes the list.

You can't introduce a completely new engine to the deck that the deck revolves around, an engine that changes how the deck plays, how it functions and completely changes what the deck's strengths and weaknesses are. And yet claim that it's the same as a deck that's already very well established.

Doran Rock as a deck is extremely well known over a long period of time. The cards in my list are all staples of Doran Rock lists. The survival engine is not. and it changes the deck's gameplan, it's strengths and it's weaknesses.

... or you can argue semantics and precedent, like you just did above. The latter will get deleted and, if uncontrollable, will get the thread locked. This is an archetype thread: its entire purpose is to search for the optimal approach to B/G/W disruptive aggro, which may or may not include Survival. If you want to stick to a decklist give or take a few minor changes, that's what deck threads are for.

Now, this is what I'm going to do with the rest of the thread: I'll delete everything that argues over names (e.g. "but people have always done it this way!!!" "but plenty of people play aggro Survival too!!1!"). I'll leave posts that contain substantive arguments, such as the ones you make below.

I noticed that the thread took a more positive bent in the last few posts. If the contentless back-and-forth returns, however, there will be Warnings for Spam and lockage.


NC, with all due respect...

You don't seem to realize that Doran Rock is already a deck. Thousands of people are already familiar with how this deck looks and plays.

Doran Rock has 500+ lists on deckcheck.net. Decks don't get 500+ showings on deckcheck.net overnight. It has top 8ed in large major legacy tournaments.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

Even as a mod, you can't take a deck that already exists, a deck that thousands of people across magic are already familiar with and completely alter how it looks and plays and claim it's the same deck.

Just like how thousands of people are familiar with how Eva Green looks and plays. It's already a deck. Introducing the Survival engine into it changes it into a different deck. One that both looks and plays differently.

And yet another reason why survival doesn't work...

With every deck inserting a gameplan to blow up enchantments in response to Counterbalance, with every deck sideboarding multiple Pithing Needles and Krosan Grips along with playing Seal of Cleansings, Vindicates, Oblvion Rings, and Trygon Predators, I can't think of a worse time than now to build a deck around Survival of the Fittest.

For the reasons below, there is no logical way one could claim that this deck can play Survival without turning it into a completely different deck. Even B4Ron pointed out that more than half the spells would have to get the boot before this deck becomes Survival.

His suggestion boils down to the deck cutting out the majority of it's spells, abandon it's current gameplan, in order to squeeze in an engine that turns it into a completely different deck, one that plays differently strategically, operates on a different curve completely, has a different gameplan, has different strengths and weakness (very relevent weaknesses now that every decent deck in the format is equipped to deal with enchantments in reaction to Counterbalance) and by neccisity has to cut out a big chunk of disruption (vindicate, hymn, edict) and threats to make room for the engine.

And there is also no way that anyone can claim that survival is strategically superior to Doran Rock when anyone can think of dozens of matchups where Survival is a bad card to build a deck around. (Any deck equipped to get rid of Counterbalance for starters, which translates to a big chunk of the format).

It's very obvious to anyone that played survival that a big chunk of the deck is built around abusing the engine. It doesn't play out anything like Deed-less Rock. It doesn't run as much discard, removal and doesn't even play vindicate.

It's also clear to anyone that played survival that it is a much slower deck than this one, that the survival engine eats up a lot of mana over several turns to do it's thing. It's more akin to a control deck. Where the focus here is to disrupt early and often, lay some threats, beat with them, and disrupt some more until you win, ideally before you even reach the midgame.

Furthermore, there's already SEVERAL threads to discuss Survival lists, literally dozens where his posts would be on topic. So how exactly is ignoring the relevent threads and instead posting in a thread that has nothing to do with survival and has a wholly different game plan, and very different strengths of it's own, not spam?

Would it not be spam if I started posting in the thresh deck that they should play Dreadstill? So how is it not spam to post in a Rock thread that the deck should instead play survival considering that doing so alters the decks gameplan completely and adds to it a whole slew of weaknesses that weren't there before?


Hardly anyone plays Pithing Needle MD let alone SB

Wow, that statement is so wrong on so many levels, as was much of the rest of your post, that I see no point in discussing this with you further.

P.S: Double posted below

[TooCloseToTheSun]

Here is a sample hand to illustrate how a typical game plays out...

Turn one - Birds

Turn two - Thoughtseize + Goyf

Turn three - Hymn + Tidehollow Sculler (could have instead been Edict, StP or any discard spell) (beat for 4)

Turn four - Vindicate + Dark Confidant (beat for 7)

Turn five - Eternal Witness + Replay Vindicate (beat for the game win)

That's a very typical hand.

so that is:
Birds
Thoughtseize
Goyf
Hymn
Tidehollow Sculler
Vindicate
Dark Confidant
Eternal Witness
and 5 lands
= 13 cards

There is no way that is a typical hand. There is no way you can even have 13 cards in hand over five turns without being on the draw. Even then you typically have no hand by turn 5 and have a land drop for each of the first five turns?

[Captain Hammer]

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/rav/81.jpg
Dark Confidant

I suggest reading the text on the card.

Edit: I see you edited your post. Regardless the below still applies.

There is nothing atypical about the hand I posted. Everyone of the cards in the hand serves a function that many other cards in the deck serves. You can replace lands with discard or threats or removal. You can replace goyf with either Doran or Tombstalker. You can replace the vindicates with StP or Edicts, the Hymns with thoughseizes or Tidehollow and the game still plays out the same way.

You intially disrupt your opponent and take out any relevent removal they have with your discard/scullers, you lay down a few of the 18 threats (BoP doesn't count as a threat or it would've been 22) and start beating with them, and you follow it up with removal to take out anything your opponent actually manages to resolve and discard to disrupt them further until they're dead. You can swap around the cards I used with others and still end up with the same result.

Proxy up the list and try it out yourself.

[Jak]

4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
4 Forest
1 Swamp

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Dark Confidant
2 Eternal Witness
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Squee
1 Genesis
1 BGH
1 Shriekmaw
1 Loxodon Heirarch
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Doran, the Siege Tower

4 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest

SB
Grips, Chants, Extirpates, Crypts, Plagues, etc

[b4r0n]

For the reasons below, there is no logical way one could claim that this deck can play Survival without turning it into a completely different deck. Even B4Ron pointed out that more than half the spells would have to get the boot before this deck becomes Survival.

I'm not sure how you managed to misunderstand my point, but I'll reiterate it for you: this "archetype" that you're defending functions just like Survival or The Rock, except it lacks Survival/Deed. It has the same shell. It is not "completely different."

[Captain Hammer]

this "archetype" that you're defending functions just like Survival or The Rock, except it lacks Survival/Deed. It has the same shell. It is not "completely different."

No it doesn't. R/G Beats functions just like Zoo. TA functions just like Eva Green.

Regardless, they all have seperate threads as they well should.

But Deedless Rock does NOT function like Survival. Not even remotely.

It has a much faster clock, more disruption, a compeltely different gameplan, plays differently strategically, operates on a different curve completely, and has different strengths and weakness (very relevent weaknesses now that every decent deck in the format is equipped to deal with enchantments in reaction to Counterbalance).

Survival is is a much slower deck than Deedless Rock. It eats up a lot of mana over several turns to do it's thing. It's more akin to a control deck. Deedless Rock's focus here is to disrupt early and often, lay some threats, beat with them, and disrupt some more until you win, ideally before you even reach the midgame.

Saying the two decks are the same is nonsense, pure and simple.

[Jak]

No it doesn't. R/G Beats functions just like Zoo. TA functions just like Eva Green.

Regardless, they all have seperate threads as they well should.

But Deedless Rock does NOT function like Survival. Not even remotely.

It has a much faster clock, more disruption, a compeltely different gameplan, plays differently strategically, operates on a different curve completely, and has different strengths and weakness (very relevent weaknesses now that every decent deck in the format is equipped to deal with enchantments in reaction to Counterbalance).

Survival is is a much slower deck than Deedless Rock. It eats up a lot of mana over several turns to do it's thing. It's more akin to a control deck. Deedless Rock's focus here is to disrupt early and often, lay some threats, beat with them, and disrupt some more until you win, ideally before you even reach the midgame.

Saying the two decks are the same is nonsense, pure and simple.

You aren't even describing The Rock anymore. The Rock is supposed to disrupt and lay large beats. It is supposed to be resilient. It is not supposed to run weak Grizzly Bears and call it a fast clock.

Since you need some help understanding, I'll lay it out for you how you like it.

Turn 1 - Birds
Turn 2 - Thoughtseize, Survival
Turn 3 - Discard Squee, Play Goyf, Therapy, FB Therapy
Turn 4 - Doran, dicard Squee and get anything you would need from your tool box.

That's a very typical hand. No broken combos or interactions, just average. But it's one that allowed you take out every decent card in your opponents hand, kill every permanent they manage to get down on the board, and still manage to let you win by turn 5 without overextending.

[Jaynel]

If you were to go post in the TA thread a list playing Survival of the Fittest and several utility creatures, they'll tell you that your list belongs in a different place.

But that's exactly you guys (Jak, Loxodan and b4r0n) are arguing by insisting on posting Survival lists in the Doran Rock archeatype thread and continuing to insist that they are one and the same.

...

By that same logic, it's fine to post lists playing Survival of the Fittest and multiple utility creatures in the Team America thread. It's fine to post threshold lists in the Zoo deck. It doesn't matter what a deck's name is. It doesn't matter if two decks have completely different gameplans, completely different strategies, completely different strenghts and weaknesses. Any list can go anywhere you want it to as long as they share the same colors.[/b]

Those are fallacious arguments. Team America is a tempo deck. Neither Survival nor Rock is a tempo deck. It's obviously a completely different strategy. However, both decks presented here were mid-range, aggro-control decks. They function differently only in the way of generating card advantage, and you have yet to make a solid argument as to why the Survival engine is worse.

[Captain Hammer]

No Jaynel, Doran Rock is an early game deck. It plays disruption, beats, and removal with a single minded purpose.

You use your disruption to remove removal and threats from your opponents hand, lay down you beats, and you beat with them for the win, all the while playing removal and more disruption to take out any threats that your opponent manages to resolve. It's goal is to do the bulk of the damage in the early game and win on average by turn 6-7 at the lastest. And Doran Rock happens to share this same strategy with most of the five hundred Doran Rock lists that appeared on deckcheck. Jak's list alters the deck significantly. His list cuts 1/3rd of the discard in the deck so you can't disrupt your opponent as readily.

In addition to the fewer disruption, his list cuts Vindicate so you can't remove your opponents threats as readily, and more importantly, Jak's deck is no longer capable of winning the game if you opponent resolves a Moat or Ensnaring Bridge or Humility or Prison or one of the many many cards in the format that shut down aggro cold. Doran Rock plays 4 maindeck answers to these cards. Jak's list plays none.

Jak's list doesn't even play any cards that let it destroy a resolved Pithing Needle which shuts down his engine completely. Not one way to answer artifacts or enchantments. He sacrified 4 slots that were this deck's only way to deal with artifacts and enchantments and doesn't play any way to blow up Needle, much less Moat, Ensnaring Bridge, Humity, Prison or any of the really bad cards for this deck.

And Jak's list's threats are fewer, slower and more expensive to boot. It turned into from a relatively early game deck to a midgame deck. All this serves to make the deck into something that neither looks anything like it's five hundred previous iterations.

And it serves to make the deck less disruptive, less resilient to hate, less aggreesive, less capable of blowing up blockers, and slower to boot. It alters the deck's goal and strategy and turns it into something that looks and plays very different from Doran Rock.


You aren't even describing The Rock anymore.

Turn 1 - Birds
Turn 2 - Thoughtseize, Survival
Turn 3 - Discard Squee, Play Goyf, Therapy, FB Therapy
Turn 4 - Doran, dicard Squee and get anything you would need from your tool box.

That's a very typical hand. No broken combos or interactions, just average. But it's one that allowed you take out every decent card in your opponents hand, kill every permanent they manage to get down on the board, and still manage to let you win by turn 5 without overextending.

Of course I'm not describing The Rock, as it seems you haven't noticed, this isn't The Rock thread. This thread is for Doran Rock, which is a very specific deck that has put up 500 results and top 8s in every format in magic, and neither looks nor plays absolutely anything like that list you posted.

Also thanks for illustrating exactly how the Survival engine slows this deck down by multiple turns.

Because, no, if you read your own example, even with you making the assumption that you already happened to have a Squee in hand, you didn't play a single bit of removal.

Unlike in the previous example, you didn't kill anything that your opponenent played.

And also, despite you saying so you did not win by turn 5 in your own example. Your goyf was too small and had nothing to back it up early on to deal some extra damage.

Instead of killing your opponent by turn 5, and instead of killing your opponents creatures or blowing up their permanent, you invested 4 mana into the Survival engine over the first four turns, for benefits that you won't actually see till the midgame or later. In your own example, had your survival been any other cards in my deck, you would've been able to actually kill your opponent's permanents or creatures, or would've actually managed to deal 20 damage to your opponent by turn 5.


you have yet to make a solid argument as to why the Survival engine is worse.

Bull shit.

Pithing Needles, Krosan Grips, Trygon Predators, Oblivion Rings, Seal of Cleansings, Vindicates and all the other splash damage from Counterbalance running around.

Everyone of them is a reason not to build a deck around the Survival engine.

[Jaynel]

Bull shit.

Pithing Needles, Krosan Grips, Trygon Predators, Oblivion Rings, Seal of Cleansings, Vindicates and other splash damage from Counterbalance running around.

Everyone of them is a reason not to build a deck around the Survival engine.

Then how do you explain the presence of Survival in the DTB forum? It's been played since the lists split and has been performing well: just because people are running hate for Counterbalance doesn't mean that Survival is invalidated.

[Jak]

You posted that I never gave a solid argument as to why the Survival engine is worse.

That statement by you was in fact a lie. In fact, I gave several solid arguments, multiple times through out the thread, on both pages, why the Survival engine is bad in this deck. I was just pointing that out.

So they Needle Survival. You can blow the Needle up or not care because you still run solid cards (Goyf, Doran, Discard, Removal, etc).

You have discard and removal for all the other cards mentioned. The deck doesn't rely on Survival at all and you assuming that just shows how little you have played Survival in a deck.

And the "~20 brand new cards" server similar functions.

-Sculler/Teeg got replaced by Therapy and a Duress
-Vindicate got replaced by Shriekmaw, BGH, and Harmonic Sliver
-Tombstalker got replaced by other beefy threats like Heirarch and Shriekmaw

The fact that Survival gives you flexibility and ends up finding you more copies of the beef makes it good in this deck.

You seem to be the only one not understanding this so seriously man, think.


And for the hundredth time. Doran Rock is an established deck with numerous top 8s on deckcheck.net across every format including legacy. None of the lists have ever played Survival of the Fittest or a collection of utility one of creatures. If you're going to play Survival in the deck when none of the versions of this deck ever have, call your deck something else and either post it in the survival thread, or start a new thread for it.

This is suck a horrible argument. This deck is relatively new, hence only 7 top 8's. Stop stifling innovation by saying cards can't be in the deck because they haven't been worked with.

Also, you keep saying it's an established archetype, yet you are trying to change it up by cutting Deed, which none of the Doran Rock top8's have done. I think you need to get some sleep so you can think clearly before you post next.

[Jak]

Read the bolded parts above your post.

In addition to that, I already explained, atleast a dozen times in the past two pages why Survival doesn't fit this deck's gameplan and dilutes it of some of it's speed and disruption.

I'm not saying that your list is a bad deck. I'm saying that your list doesn't look like Doran Rock, doesn't play like Doran Rock and doesn't share Doran Rock's strengths or weaknesses, and thus belongs somewhere else.

Survival does fit the deck's game plan. It isn't the only game plan the deck has but it is a strong engine card that just makes the deck nuts. I know you aren't saying the list is bad, I could care less about that, but it does belong in this thread because that deck is The Rock.

Your deck isn't any faster than mine, we play about the same amount of disruption (yours plays more, Therapy can FB though so w/e) and the speed is a ridiculous argument because you play 5 bears. The only thing you have that I doon't in terms of beaters is a 5/5. I make up for that with a card that gets my 5/6, 5/5, 4/4, etc. I also run more Dark Confidants.

[nastynate]

Captain I think you're getting bent out of shape over nothing. The core of Doran Rock when it saw extensive play in Extended was discard (thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy), board control (smother, pernicious deed, and vindicate), and undercosted beaters (tarmogoyf and doran). It was then filled out with various utility creatures (BoP, Confidant, STE, Witness).

There is room for a card advantage engine in the deck, be it pernicious deed, survival of the fittest, harmonize, or what have you. What people here obviously want to know is why don't you want one?

[citanul]

I find it interesting that you cut Deed claiming it has bad synergy with other cards in your deck such as Tarmogoyf, Confidant, Teeg and more low CC. I agree and disagree. It is true that Deed will blow up your own cards but think about it, if you have a Tarmogoyf in play and are forced to use a Deed then you're probably still getting the better end of it.

I myself run Rock for a long time now. My list isn't in the other topic anymore as the original post is still bugged. I run Tarmogoyf, Jotun Grunt, Confidant as low CC cards but also Deed. My only high cc cards are 2 Tombstalker and 3 Shriekmaw. Anti-synergy, I think not but it seems to be a word commonly used to defend a persons opinion. Either they tell me to run higher CC cards, cut Confidant and Grunt as it has a bad synergy or cut Deed.

I think the main reason for not running Deed in this deck is the game plan. It wants to win fast while destroying any blockers/ grabbing removal from the opponents hand. Deed is not a part of that plan and is therefor not a part of the decklist.

The arguments you give annoy me though. Don't start talking about other formats, they are not alike. They have a different card pool, different metagame and different results for each deck due to that.

As for card choices, here are my opinions:
- Gaddock Teeg has no place in Legacy, especially not the maindeck. Soem people run it sideboard against combo but why maindeck? The only staple cards it stops are Engineered Explosives, Force of Will, some combo cards. Is it worth running it for those? You did cut them from your newer list, so a good adaptation to Legacy.
- Hymn to Tourach. It's a bad card when drawn later in the game but this card might have the right spot in your list for early disruption with the fast early kill.
- Eternal Witness, I don't see the good of that card in a fast deck such as Doran Rock.
- Why 3 Polluted/3 Windswept/1Bloodstained and not a 3/4 split? Windswept can get 2 of your 3 colours while Polluted/Bloodstained can only get 1.
- Singleton Treetop/Monastery. Monastery is a good card but I dislike Treetop while you need the mana as fast as you can and not wait a turn.
- Tidehollow Skuller: Great card, deserves the spots in this deck.
- Dark Confidant: You speak highly of this card in several posts, even included it in your unrealistic sample hand yet you only run 2. Some people think this card is not fit for an agro version, I myself like the card as it keeps threats coming, i'd run more of these over Hymn to Tourach.

[Captain Hammer]

Nastynate, I already explained why neither card fits in the deck but fine, here are a few more reasons...


I think the main reason for not running Deed in this deck is the game plan. It wants to win fast while destroying any blockers/ grabbing removal from the opponents hand. Deed is not a part of that plan and is therefor not a part of the decklist.

Well said, that is how Doran Rock functions and that is indeed that is one of the reasons I don't feel Deed belongs maindeck. I'm clearly not the only one that feels this way as some of the other legacy versions of Doran Rock including lists that top 8ed on deckcheck opted not to play Deed.

In addition to that, with all the undercosted and disruptive beatsticks this deck plays, and all the aggro control decks that only play one creature at a time that most legacy players play, the number of situations where Deed is actually superior to Vindicate or your other removal are fairly rare. Swarm decks aren't popular in legacy these days. Aggro control decks that play few creatures are. So maindecking Vindicate and other removal makes a lot more sense than maindecking Deed.

Those occasional times that you run into swarm decks, you can always bring in Deed (or Infest) from the sideboard.

I think you might be right about Eternal Witness not being worth it.

I'll try cutting it to make room for
+1 Sculler
+2 Confidant


and the speed is a ridiculous argument because you play 5 bears. The only thing you have that I doon't in terms of beaters is a 5/5. I make up for that with a card that gets my 5/6, 5/5, 4/4, etc. I also run more Dark Confidants.

The core of Doran Rock is explained in the OP.

Of the 5 bears my Doran Rock list plays, 3 are walking Thoughtseizes, and 2 are walking Phyrexian Arenas. They both beatdown and disrupt your opponent or draw you into more disruption. That's why I'm saying my Doran Rock list is a lot more disruptive than your survival list. It's not just the 4 Hymns and 4 Thoughtseize. And this disruption ensures that my opponents removal doesn't hit my creatures, so I have an easier time keeping creatures on the board than your list as well.

In addition to that, my Doran Rock list plays a lot more removal than survival lists. It plays 4 StP, 4 Vindicate and an Edict to ensure that potential blockers don't stay in play and thus even the bears get in for a lot of damage each turn.

And yes, the 2cc 5/5 flyers (Tombstalker) that I play is a pretty big deal as far as beat down is concerned. By the time you play Survival, fetch a Goyf with it and lay it down, that 5/5 already managed to swing once or twice.

This is why I'm saying that Survival slows down the deck, dilutes its disruption and removal base, and makes you vulnerable to enchantment destruction to boot. Where as the Doran Rock lists manage to be extremely consistent, disruptive, and quick. Try it out if you don't believe me.

But whatever, I'm going to bed.

Any additional questions you have, I'll answer them tom, but odds are they were already answered in the previous two pages somewhere.

[Jak]

Your disruption: 4 Seize, 4 Hymn, 3 Sculler
My disruption: 4 Seize, 1 Duress, 3 Therapy (these FB)

I have just as much as you.

Your removal: 4 Swords, 4 Vindicate, 1 Edict
My removal: 4 Swords, 1 Shriekmaw, 1 BGH, 4 Survival

I have just as much if not more.

I was refering to 3 Sculler, 2 Teeg as your bears, but you cut those so fine.

Also:

T1 - Birds
T2 - Survival, tutor for goyf
T3 - Goyf
T4 - smash

T1 - Fetch, Thoughtseize
T2 - Fetch, Thoughtseize, Thoughtseize
T3 - Fetch, Tombstalker
T4 - smash

I fail to see how you can get it out faster? Even with the ideal hand, you can't get it out faster. Therefore, your argument of slowing the deck down is BS.

Edit-

Forgot about this

Your engine: 2 Confidant
My engine: 4 Confidant, 4 Survival

[Captain Hammer]

Jak,

You will be interested to know that I did briefly try out your list.

And I can say that Survival does infact slow down the deck and makes it less disruptive. And it generally feels less consistent.

The removal is worse, the disruption is rarer and less disruptive, and threats are generally slower and less aggressive compared to my Doran Rock list.

I'll do my best to explain why I think this is the case in this post.

And actually, your list is a lot more vulnerable as well. You don't have an answer to cards like Counterbalance, Humility, Moat, Ghostly Prison Ensnaring Bridge and lots of other random cards for one thing. And many of those cards shut down your deck completely.

11 discard spells are indeed more disrupton than 8 discard spells.

And it doesn't make sense to count Therapy twice. Hymn takes out two cards. Therapy many times doesn't even hit a card the first time unless you were lucky enough to pair it with a Thoughtseize/Duress, and will need you to sac a creature in order to hit the second one. Saccing a creature slows down your clock and also means that you lose the mana you invested in the creature. You don't always have a creature you want to sac to Thoughtseize. So no, you don't get to count Therapy as two discard spells.

You say that I run 9 removal spells to your 6-10 removal spells. But your removal spells other than the Swords are narrow. And Survival if counted as a removal spell is a very mana intensive removal spell.

If you count Survival as removal, then you have to take into account that using it as removal initially costs you 5-6 mana total. It ties up your mana for two full turns. My list often manages to win by turn 5-6. Your list can spend two of those turns just to kill a creature. This doesn't make the deck aggressive.

And inspite of spending so much mana for your removal initially, your removal isn't as flexible as Vindicate.

Vindicate can blow up opposing Counterbalance, Humility, Moat, Ghostly Prison Ensnaring Bridge and lots of other random cards that show up and screw up your plan. Your list plays absolutely nothing that can deal with these cards. Basically, the deck folds over and loses.

So yes, your removal is slower, and less versatile than Doran Rock.

Playing your list did however convince me that 4 Dark Confidant is not a bad thing.

Also, citunal made a good point about playing fewer Eternal Witness and more Confidants.

Eternal Witness is indeed very slow and not very aggressive.

As per his recommendation, I'm adding two more Confidant and the 4th Sculler (has been absolutely incredible so far) to the list for a full playset of both

I'm testing this spellbase from now on.

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Tombstalker

4 Thoughtseize
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Vindicate

That's 12 discard spells to your 8.

And the creature base I run is a lot faster and more aggressive than your creature base anyway you look at it.

Pretty much all of my creatures cost 2 mana, and the Doran cost 3 mana. Other than Goyf and Confidants and the 1 of sliver, your creatures cost 3, 4 or 5 mana, and they're usually smaller and less aggressive to boot.

Yes, some of my threats are bears, but they're 2cc bears so they come out early and cheaply, but thanks to discard and all the low cc removal this deck runs, the bears still beat for two damage each turn.

So yes, your deck is slower, less disruptive, less capable of dealing with resolved permanents, and generally less aggressive.

The only thing you're getting for all this is the survival engine, which at the end of the day costs you a lot of mana and is extremely vulnerable right now thanks to all the splash damage designed to deal with Counterbalance.

Based on all this, I see no justification for playing the Survival engine in what is designed and meant to be a fast and aggressive deck.

[Jak]

At least you are changing your list for the better. Thanks for listening... sort of.

Edit-

Actually, I really don't like your theorizing here. There is a big thing called cohesion and Survival helps with that nicely. You are underrating the ability of Survival, a card that has made an impact on this format for years which is just stupid and shows your lack of playing with the card. We are talking about The Rock here, a mid game deck. This isn't you Doran Suicide deck. Your deck is supposed to be resilient, disruptive, and packed with CA and the rest creatures. Your list is neither resilient or packed with CA. Cool, you run Tombstalker. Well, I run Witness to recur removal. Cool, you run Vindicate. Well, I run Harmonic Sliver. You may run more big guys, but I can find more big guys than you.

Also, Survival costs 1. How is that too much.

And I am calling BS on you winning turn 5. You should try doing that in an actual game of Magic.

[Captain Hammer]

Whatever it is, Survival doesn't work well here.

This isn't The Rock, this is Doran Rock. It's in a seperate deck for a reason. It plays aggressive low casting cost creatures. It foregos playing Deed and instead plays low cc removal precisely for this reason.

It's closer to Suicide decks than it is to the Rock, and no it's not a midgame deck. It deals the bulk of it's disruption and damage in the early game and finishes off the opponent in the early midgame similar to most sui black decks. And I didn't claim that the deck wins on turn 5 with any consistency. But you do in fact win as early as turn 5, usually turn 6 or turn 7 if something doesn't go horribly wrong. Survival doesn't fit here very well for precisely these reasons.

I was kind enough to try your Surivival build. Please be kind enough to actually try my Doran Rock build before making any more predictions.

I'll test out 3 Cabal Therapy any maybe a single Duress in place of the Hymn. I wasn't at all impressed with Cabal Therapy in the survival list. Even with good blind guesses, Cabal Therapy only hit something less than half the time. But that list only plays 5 thoughtseize effects. My current list plays 9 Thoughtseize effects, so guessing should be rare and Therapy be able to hit cards a lot more consistently.

[citanul]

I don't get the discussion over Survival in this topic. What's the relevance?
Rock, Survival or Rock with Survival is a mid/lategame deck with a bunch of utility trying to survive the early game and winning later on through card quality and a limited amount of card advantage.

Doran Rock, looking at the list, has a different game plan. It sacrifices a part of the midgame and a lot of the lategame to have a stronger early game. Doran Rock wants to spend mana on creatures/removal/disruption, trying to win now where Survival and classic Rock wants to spend mana on ways to slowly gain the advantage. The only card in the decklist posted here that does not send that message is BoP. The only reason why it's there is for the mana fix I guess. Lots of cards cost double coloured or even triple with Doran so it might be needed, can't say as I have not tested it. Isn't that new card from Conflux superiour then as it has Exalted or is the possibility to produce black from a BoP needed?

I'm not defending Doran Rock here, I prefer my own list but I just want to try and stop the mindless rambling about the inclusion of Survival in the wrong deck. The benefits of Survival do exist but it's not the idea behind this deck.

[Captain Hammer]

I don't get the discussion over Survival in this topic. What's the relevance?
Rock, Survival or Rock with Survival is a mid/lategame deck with a bunch of utility trying to survive the early game and winning later on through card quality and a limited amount of card advantage.

Doran Rock, looking at the list, has a different game plan. It sacrifices a part of the midgame and a lot of the lategame to have a stronger early game. Doran Rock wants to spend mana on creatures/removal/disruption, trying to win now where Survival and classic Rock wants to spend mana on ways to slowly gain the advantage. The only card in the decklist posted here that does not send that message is BoP. The only reason why it's there is for the mana fix I guess. Lots of cards cost double coloured or even triple with Doran so it might be needed, can't say as I have not tested it. Isn't that new card from Conflux superiour then as it has Exalted or is the possibility to produce black from a BoP needed?

I'm not defending Doran Rock here, I prefer my own list but I just want to try and stop the mindless rambling about the inclusion of Survival in the wrong deck. The benefits of Survival do exist but it's not the idea behind this deck.

Thanks citanul, it's good to have some more voices of reason in the thread. I am bewildered by the interest in fitting mid and late game cards into what is clearly an early game deck as well.

BOP's ability to produce black mana was indeed important to the deck. But now that I'm testing Cabal Therapy/Duress in Hymns place, and am refining the manabase. Noble Hierach might end up being worthwhile though I'm not too convinced of this. Hierach seems iffy. Or maybe I'll think of something that works better than either card.

I was also considering Manamorphose in the deck to...
a.) color fix with no mana cost/mana investment
b.) effectively play a 56 card deck
c.) fill the yard some more for Tombstalker and Goyf, the deck only plays 5 instants so it can be useful in pumping Goyf too.

But so far, I've found the mana accleration that BoP provides to be worthwhile.

Either way, good night, I'm going to bed.

[citanul]

Well as the thread title says, Deed-less Rock. Okay, so The Rock without Deed. How does Survival not work in that. All I am trying to get at is there are different ways to build an dplay the deck and I think all should be represented here.


I understand, but Doran Rock in general is trying to be an agro-control deck like Treshhold. It uses hand control and some removal to make sure their beats come through. Using Survival of the Fittest for utility would just slow you down and give the opponent more time to recover.

It is of course possible to add Survival in Doran Rock but the entire game plan will be different and a heavier focus on midgame/lategame than the earlygame. It's pretty much two different decks you speak about. The addition of Survival will slow the deck down, no matter how you look at it. You will also be down a card for a limited amount of time, a Survival in play will not generate card advantage unless it's combined with Squee/Genesis/other forms of recursion so it takes mana and time to set up.

[Roman Candle]

I understand, but Doran Rock in general is trying to be an agro-control deck like Treshhold. It uses hand control and some removal to make sure their beats come through. Using Survival of the Fittest for utility would just slow you down and give the opponent more time to recover.

How does Survival of the Fittest give them a chance to recover? If it's online, and the opponent can't stop it, you get too far ahead in beaters and in CA over the course of only a few turns.


It is of course possible to add Survival in Doran Rock but the entire game plan will be different and a heavier focus on midgame/lategame than the earlygame. It's pretty much two different decks you speak about. The addition of Survival will slow the deck down, no matter how you look at it. You will also be down a card for a limited amount of time, a Survival in play will not generate card advantage unless it's combined with Squee/Genesis/other forms of recursion so it takes mana and time to set up.

Vampiric Tutor also put you down a card. There's a reason that saw play.

Also, I don't buy that this is an early-game deck at all. Goblins, X-Land Stompy and Eva Green are examples of early-game decks, and those kill turn 5-6 at the latest, but you're bogged down with disruption and 2-power-for-two creatures that I can't see you winning that fast.

I'm not saying disruption is bad, but it lends itself to a separate gameplan, a more midgame-oriented gameplan, in which Survival shines.

[citanul]

How does Survival of the Fittest give them a chance to recover? If it's online, and the opponent can't stop it, you get too far ahead in beaters and in CA over the course of only a few turns.

You slow down the clock with at least turn by investing mana in the mid/lategame over (a) creature(s). Also discarding a creature, getting Squee, discarding Squee, getting a creature, get squee back turn after, discard. That's 5 mana before you even hit card parity.

Adding Survival also calls for other creatures such as Squee, Genesis and maybe some utility creatures. Without survival, some of these are death cards. You complain about a 2/2 with a nice CiP effect yet you'd want to pay 2R for a 1/1 or 4G for a 4/4? I doubt it and thus you have a death card only slowing you down.



Vampiric Tutor also put you down a card. There's a reason that saw play.


Can't really compare Survival with Vampiric can you? Vampiric is a stand alone card, only 1 mana needs to be invested and gets you anything. Survival costs more mana, is limited in it's use, requires other cards in your deck to become efficient.



Also, I don't buy that this is an early-game deck at all. Goblins, X-Land Stompy and Eva Green are examples of early-game decks, and those kill turn 5-6 at the latest, but you're bogged down with disruption and 2-power-for-two creatures that I can't see you winning that fast.


Stop hacking on the poor 2/2! It can't help that it's so little, j/k. Seriously though, the card is good. It speeds up your clock, grabs a card from your opponents hand, don't dish it!

I'd call this an early game deck which has sacrificed a bit of speed for disruption and a good midgame. Stompy has insane speed but a very bad mid and lategame, Eva green the same, Goblins has sacrificed a bit of it's speed for midgame. Yes, Goblins can win fast with Lackey but has sacrificed a great deal to increase the midgame. Goblins also tries to prolong the early and midgame by disrupting the opponents manabase. Doran Rock seems to do the same by using hand destruction combined with some removal package for opposing creatures or even Vindicate on lands.

I'm not all against Survival you know. I just think that the extra cards needed for it to be good and the mana investment would slow the deck down.

[Jak]

Thanks for cleaning up the thread Nihil. It was getting out of hand.



Thanks for taking the time to play and get to know how the deck actually functions citanul. I wish more people would before posting.

Did you not read where I had said I did play your list? Oh, right, this is how you like to argue. Nice straw man again.

Your deck that you posted is a mid game deck. Please tell me how you can possibly win turn 5 frequently? How, in this format, do you not come across, disruption, removal, blockers, etc to win turn 5?

You are the one making this thread get out of hand with your limited views that aren't even correct. Multiple times you said Survival can not be included due to not seeing play in any of the 7 (7!) top 8 lists but yet you are including stuff like Tidehollow Sculler? There is obviously room for innovation and change, but you aren't allowing that. Please stop saying I am spamming this thread or that other people telling you the same thing are acting crazy.

Since your deck is a mid game deck, why not add a card that excels in the mid game? Sure it costs one extra mana, but now when someone Wraths or removes your creatures you have Squee and Genesis to get them back.

I look at yours and see a Sui Black deck. I play with yours and it's clunky. There is no way to just get an advantage that Survival allows. Multiple times when I needed something I topdeck a Birds or Sculler. Maybe it needs Top, but as you keep saying, too slow.

I guess Tidehollow Sculler is a fucking bolt of lightning, being so fast.

[Captain Hammer]

The deck's fundamental turn, that turn that defines whether you will win or lose, is often on turn 2 or turn 3, which is very early. And the mark of fast aggressive decks is an early fundamental turn. This is the turn where you empty your opponent of the relevent removal in their hand, resolve a threat that they no longer have a means to deal with it and/or kill any important permanents they do manage to resolve . And that's why this is an early game deck.

The changes you make push this fundamental turn back by several turns, because this is precisely what happens when you cut away disruption, removal, and aggressive creatures for the survival engine, which by your own admission is a midgame engine.

No, I didn't see where you said that you tried the deck. And the multiple false statements that you made about the deck seem conscipicous to say the least.

But tell me where I said that the deck always wins on turn 5. That's the only straw man argument I see on this page. What I said was that this deck sometimes wins as early as turn 5 and many times wins by turn 6 or 7 in those games that your discard and removal proves very effective. The discard and removal is effective and thus this is actually the case fairly frequently.

Thats why the deck plays so much discard and removal, because these give it the tools to deal with opposing removal and blockers and help secure an early win.

Your build cuts away a big chunk of this disruption- both removal and discard, cuts some key aggressive creatures, and makes the deck slower and turning it into something it's not.

I'm not the only person that has told you that your changes make the deck slower, less aggressive and turn it into something completely different. So if you don't want to listen to me, atleast listen to them.

[Jak]

That's a very typical hand. No broken combos or interactions, just average. But it's one that allowed you take out every decent card in your opponents hand, kill every permanent they manage to get down on the board, and still manage to let you win by turn 5 without overextending.

I take that as you saying you win the game by turn 5. If that's not how you meant it, then learn to communicate better.

This deck isn't an aggro deck. Sure, it runs beaters, but the goal is to get control of the game and then win. Using discard and removal to keep things clear for Doran and Goyf to get through. How is that not a mid range deck? When you are using the first 2 turns of the game to set up the mid game (ie Birds, discard, etc) it is a mid game deck.

There is a reason decks like Landstill, Dreadstill, and Thresh play cards like Standstill, Brainstorm, Fact or Fiction, Top, etc. Do they need to cut down on disruption and removal to put those cards in? Yes they do. Does it improve the deck by cutting disruption and removal for CA spells? Yes it does.

And to use what you said a bit...

I'm not the only person that has told you that your deck suffers from lack of any engine that would not make the deck slower, less aggressive or turn it into something completely different. So if you don't want to listen to me, at least listen to them.

[Captain Hammer]

LOL, so you take one specific example hand I showed where I happened to win on turn 5, and extrapolated to mean that I always win the game by turn 5? That's a pretty big leap of logic. :laugh:

I reiterate...

"The deck's fundamental turn, that turn that defines whether you will win or lose, is often on turn 2 or turn 3, which is very early. And the mark of fast aggressive decks is an early fundamental turn. And that's why this is an early game deck.

The changes you make push this fundamental turn back by several turns, because this is precisely what happens when you cut away disruption, removal, and aggressive creatures for the survival engine, which by your own admission is a midgame engine."

[Jak]

LOL, so you take one specific example hand I showed where I happened to win on turn 5, and extrapolated to mean that I always win the game by turn 5? That's a pretty big leap of logic. :laugh:

You did call that perfect hand "typical" and "average". Was I supposed to believe something else? Stop back peddling.

[Captain Hammer]

It WAS a typical hand. It was not a god hand. There were no double Goyf or triple Goyf plays. There was no special combo or interaction that made it possible. Several cards in the hand could have been different cards and they still would have had the same effect on the game.

You're the one that extrapolated this mean that since one typical hand allowed me to win by turn 5, every single hand that I draw must let me win by turn 5.

Here's a hint, that's not how magic works. Not every typical set of 13 cards will win you the game on the same exact turn as every other typical set of 13 cards. If it was, if every average hand you draw played out the same way, a lot fewer people would play magic.

[Jak]

It WAS a typical hand. It was not a god hand. There was no special combo or interaction that made it possible. Several cards in the hand could be different cards and it would have had the same effect.

You're the one that extrapolated this mean that since one typical hand allowed me to win by turn 5, every single hand that I draw must let me win by turn 5.

Here's a hint, that's not how magic works. Not every typical set of 13 cards will win you the game on the same exact turn as every other typical set of 13 cards. If it was, no one would play it.

Dude stop with the straw mans. It is ridiculous how you keep misunderstanding and misrepresenting what I am saying.

What I said is that you will hardly ever win the game by turn 5, hence me calling it a mid range deck. You will always want to disrupt the opponent.

Fundamental turn? Can you please give me a game where your fundamental turn was turn 2, 3, and 4.

Also, you never addressed this:

There is a reason decks like Landstill, Dreadstill, and Thresh play cards like Standstill, Brainstorm, Fact or Fiction, Top, etc. Do they need to cut down on disruption and removal to put those cards in? Yes they do. Does it improve the deck by cutting disruption and removal for CA spells? Yes it does.

Can you please tell why that logic doesn't apply to this deck.

[Captain Hammer]

Because Landstill, Dreadstill, and Thresh usually have their fundamental turns well in the midgame or even late game. Decks don't all work the same way, and they don't all have the same gameplan.

And you can't just cut out a big chunk of a deck's threats, disruption and removal base out to play the Survival engine, and then claim that the deck still retains the exact same speed, the same gameplan, and has no new weaknesses.

Regardless, if Brainstorm was black or green or white, I would probably play it here. But spending one mana is completely different from playing an engine that usually costs you a minimum of four mana, doesn't bear fruits till the midgame, and takes up bare minimum a full fourth of all the slots you have for your entire spellbase.

Jak, it's obvious that this isn't going to get anywhere. So what do you say we just drop this topic and move on. If you want to continue this discussion, PM me.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

I kind of like the idea of a survival engine in a rock type deck. If you ever test it out could you post a list/results. Having that kind of utility seems beneficial but if you have to you can control the board long enough too get it on line.

[b4r0n]

The deck's fundamental turn, that turn that defines whether you will win or lose, is often on turn 2 or turn 3, which is very early. And the mark of fast aggressive decks is an early fundamental turn. And that's why this is an early game deck.

The changes you make push this fundamental turn back by several turns, because this is precisely what happens when you cut away disruption, removal, and aggressive creatures for the survival engine, which by your own admission is a midgame engine.

Incorrect.


For beatdown or combination decks, the FT is the turn you kill your opponent. It's an easy concept and you have one number. For a control deck, each aspect can be said to have an FT. But the most important one is the turn in which the deck's strategy begins to work and you make up for any early disadvantage.

source (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3688.html)

Your deck has disruptive elements that you can use to slow down your opponent, but they are not going to let you take control of the game. You don't have a fundamental turn of 2. You're playing aggro-control. You're a midgame deck.

Anyways, I don't think that anyone is going to be able to convince you of the merits of Deed or Survival. You seem to be stubbornly rooted in your belief that neither of the cards would be beneficial to your "archetype." Do what you want. But at the very least, it would behoove you to learn more about the format and the basics of Magic.

[Captain Hammer]

B4r0n, where in heavens name did you get the notion that this is a pure beatdown deck?

By your logic, Suicide Black and Eva Green also count as mid-game decks just because they oftentimes don't win until turn 6-7.

Would cutting a big chunk of the threats, removal and disruption to squeeze in the Survival engine not slow down Eva Green either?

[Berzerked]

Here's my current incarnation of the deck that I've been testing for a little while:

3 Birds of Paradise
4 Dark Confidant
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker

3 Diabolic Edict
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Vindicate

3 Bayou
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
1 Plains
3 Savannah
3 Scrubland
2 Swamp
3 Windswept Heath

3 Birds for sure. They aren't good in multiples, and you don't necessarily need or even want to play one first turn. They have good interaction Therapy and Doran and provide good color/mana smoothing, so that's why they are here.

4 Confidant really shouldn't be a question.

3 Finks just recently replaced Witness. Recurring key spells can obviously win a game, but Witness is so weak physically it basically ends up being chump and Therapy fodder...which Finks does better anyway. The slightly more aggressive body, resilience, interaction with Therapy, life gain (in this already semi-suicidal build), and better play off turn 1 Birds puts Finks over Witness in this build. More controlling builds of Rock (especially ones with Deed and Genesis/Stronghold) is where Witness shines.

2 Tombstalker because of the full set of Confidants and a lack of SDT.

3 Edicts I have found to be great additional removal to the already great Targeted Removal suite. It picks off plenty of pesky little things.

1 Duress because I wanted more turn 1 discard for those turn 2 Goyfs and Confidants.

Some form of Choke, Grip in the board, maybe Needle, Crypt.

Anyway, it's a great early-to-mid range BGW Aggro deck with a balanced discard/removal suite.
It can have insane early starts, but more than likely you fiddle around a little bit for the first couple of turns (disrupt, lay a Bird, get rid of opposing creature ect.), then proceed to drop bombs with discard and removal aas backup.
I'd say, for a typical game, here's how the turns play out:

Turns 1-3: Setup
Play discard, Birds, Confidant.

Turns 4-7: Apply Pressure
Time to play Goyf, Finks, Doran, Stalker, with interspersed discard.
You can definitely win in this frame of turns.

Turns 8- : Win
Beat, replay Confidant if needed.

Obviously opponent interaction can delay or impede this, but this deck is very resilient and has plenty of answers. The fundamental turn can very well be turn 3-5.

[Captain Hammer]

I like the list alot, and esp like the manabase. I might try something like that instead of playing one of utility lands like Volrath's Stronghold and Horizon Canopy.

The one card that doesn't make sense to me is Kitchen Finks.

The deck already plays so much disruption and creature kill that I've almost never once felt like I needed lifegain in my deck.

So why play a slow 3cc creature that neither disrupts your opponent, nor contributes greatly to your clock.

I'll try out your list, it definately looks interesting. I might replace Kitchen Finks with maybe Tidehollow Sculler though just because I haven't felt like I needed lifegain but had never been unhappy about getting disruption. But if I ever feel like I need Finks, I'll bring it back in.

[from Cairo]

You're playing aggro-control. You're a midgame deck.


B4r0n, where in heavens name did you get the notion that this is a pure beatdown deck?

Are you even reading what people are posting any more?

Jak. and B4R0N have both been saying you're a mid-range agro-control deck all along. You don't have a fundamental turn two, there isn't a single card or aspect of your deck's strategy begins to secure you a W on Turn 2. As Zvi discusses for example Turn 4, Wrath of God in UW control is an example of FT 4. In Legacy control oriented Rock one could look to a Turn 3 Pernicious Deed, and untapping Turn 4 in other Rock lists similarly. This is the point where "you make up for any early disadvantage".

The deck you're discussing is an aggressive deck with disruption. In the article B4R0N linked Zvi is discussing 3 types of decks Control, Combination Decks, and Beatdown. Beatdown is a loose term but clearly your list falls more so into the classification of beating down with creatures, the list doesn't run any control bombs that generate card advantage (IE: Pernicious Deed, Survival, card drawing, wrath effects, etc) and you're not a combo deck. Thus it's FT is "the turn you kill your opponent". Which is NEVER turn 2.

[Captain Hammer]

So by your faulty logic, Suicide Black and Eva Green also count as mid-game decks just because they oftentimes don't win until turn 6-7.

How does that make any sense? It doesn't. Eva Green and Sui Black are NOT mid game decks. And neither is this. It doesn't matter that Sui Black and Eva Green often don't win until turn 6-7. Neither this deck, nor those are mid-game decks.

In the same fashion as this deck, Sui Black and Eva Green play the bulk of their removal and discard as well as a threat that puts their opponent on a very short clock, all in the early game and this discard and removal clearing the way for the threat and picking of your opponent's removal is what defines the deck's speed.

Would cutting a big chunk of the threats, removal and disruption to squeeze in the Survival engine not slow down Eva Green either?

[TooCloseToTheSun]

But the difference is that those decks are actually established, this deck seems like an untested, under-developed deck and I don't know why it has a thread of its own.

[Berzerked]

No, this deck is an aggro deck. But a more mid range one than, say, Sligh/Zoo.
It also packs discard, which either is or isn't a form of control that you could argue all day, and removal. Pretty standard stuff.

I explained Finks, but


So why play a slow 3cc creature that neither disrupts your opponent, nor contributes greatly to your clock.

Finks directly replaces Witness. Both are 3cc, neither disrupt your opponent, and Finks contributes much more to your clock, being 3/2, then eating a spell/creature/Therapy before it is 2/1 (the size of Witness).
We are the aggro deck. Finks out aggroes Witness every time, and imo provides more relevant utility (through free Therapy, trades, and lifegain) than Witness does. Again, I'm not sure if you read, but I prefer Witness in more controllish builds with Deed and Genesis/Stronghold.
The fact that it can actually be dropped off a turn 1 Bird is highly relevant in our aggressive gameplan, and depending on what land you see on the table across, is a very good play.

[Captain Hammer]

Berzerked, yes it's an aggro deck, and I found it to be roughly the same speed as Eva Green.

I've played Eva Green for over an year. Both decks play remarkably similarly. They both have the same gameplan, and win on pretty much the same turn. This is why I wasn't pleased with Witness.

I agree with you that Finks is more aggressive than Witness. But that's why I wound up cutting Eternal Witness from my list (the most current list is in the seocnd post).

Yes I'm not sold on Finks. But you bring up an intersting point with Cabal Therapy. Still though, the main reason to run Finks over a more aggressive 3cc creature seems to be for life gain. And it rarely felt like a function this deck needed. But I'll keep Finks in mind if I end up getting rid of one of the current cards for some reason.

TooCloseToTheSun, Doran Rock is an established deck. It has several top 8 finishes in every single format in magic. And they all follow this same gameplan.

[from Cairo]

Dark Ritual allows both of those decks to make much more broken plays on Turn 1. Where Doran Rock can manipulate the game fairly early with Thoughtseize and Sculler, and follow it up witha threat on Turn 3, Doran or Tarmogoyf. The black decks have the power to push Thoughtseize + Sinkhole/Hymn on Turn 1, then either apply a threat or play another element of disruption.

The black decks both realize that they're weaker in the mid-game than Survival or The Rock and thus compensate for it by packing explosiveness, and overloading on disruption to delay the mid game as much as possible. Doran Rock can play that game too, but not as well. You're not running Wasteland to complement Vindicate (and Vindicate is a turn slower than Sinkhole), so it's less likely that the opponent will be kept off their mana base.

[Berzerked]

The black decks both realize that they're weaker in the mid-game than Survival or The Rock and thus compensate for it by packing explosiveness, and overloading on disruption to delay the mid game as much as possible. Doran Rock can play that game too, but not as well.

Exactly. This deck uses the early turns to set up for high pressure in the later turns (4-7)

[Jaynel]

Exactly. This deck uses the early turns to set up for high pressure in the later turns (4-7)

Then we get back to the question of why to not run the Survival engine.

[Jak]

@ Mods, please don't delete any of the stuff about deck namings because it does end up mattering. Doran Rock (the versions on deckcheck.net) are clearly different then his list so I feel the need to explain.


Exactly. This deck uses the early turns to set up for high pressure in the later turns (4-7)

Which makes Survival a good fit in the deck.

And why are we talking about Eva Green now? Are you comparing Doran Rock to a Sui Black deck? First of all, one is all about the early game and its opening hand. It runs no forms of CA or manipulation because it isn't trying to get the game into the later stages. It wants to quickly disrupt via mana or hand and then beat.

The Rock (any variant including Doran Rock) should be built around CA, disruption, and beaters. You are severely lacking in the CA which makes the deck as potent as it is (see Tombstone or any other version of The Rock).

If your deck doesn't want that then I wouldn't be calling it Doran Rock and telling people to go to deckcheck to look at results which are clearly of a different deck.



TooCloseToTheSun, Doran Rock is an established deck. It has several top 8 finishes in every single format in magic. And they all follow this same exact gameplan.

Are you kidding me? Do I really need to go to deckcheck.net to show you how different your list is from the ones that have put up results?

Also, could you please refrain from editing your posts after people reply to them.

[Berzerked]

Sure, it's not true, back-in-the-day Rock but decks go through stages of evolution. Threshold now runs a total of 4 Threshold creatures, and has a much less focus on actually achieving threshold. I mean, replace Doran with Lynx and you can call it Funkbrew (or Rocking Funkbrew).

[Jak]

Sure, it's not true, back-in-the-day Rock but decks go through stages of evolution. Threshold now runs a total of 4 Threshold creatures, and has a much less focus on actually achieving threshold. I mean, replace Doran with Lynx and you can call it Funkbrew (or Rocking Funkbrew).

Threshold still has the same fundamental strategy. Bad comparison.

[Captain Hammer]

Where did you get the idea that the ones that put up results look nothing like my list?

This list for example came in 4th out of 156 people just this past month...

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

The rest of the top 8 consisted of...

2 Thresh lists
2 Dreadstill lists
1 Merfolk
1 Elfball
1 Fairie Stompy

So good luck arguing that this was an undeveloped meta.

And Doran Rock lists across all the different formats have the same fundamental strategy as Eva Green.

Jak, if you actually looked at Doran Rock lists, taking samples from all 500+ top 8ed Doran Rock lists out there, instead of constricting to a sample set of seven lists, which is too small a size to draw conclusions from, you would see that every single card I play is a staple of the deck. My list is Doran Rock, and yours isn't plain and simple. My list plays all the same cards and runs the same game plan as hundreds of other Doran Rock decks.

The trouble you seem to be having is that you think a sample size of seven is large enough to understand all the tiny variations of a deck. It's not. If you want to understand Doran Rock, what the deck actually is and what it's gameplan is, you have to look at all the different versions of it and compare it's speed to relative speed of the respective format that the list is played in.

CA is not major component of Doran Rock. 4 Dark Confidant is more than enough CA for the deck. If you really wanted more card advantage, play Hymn to Tourach like Eva Green does. But don't sacrifice the entire early game and much of the disruption to introduce a mana intensive mid game engine. That's just not how the deck functions. That's not Doran Rock. None of the Doran Rock lists have ever sacrficied a big chunk of their disruption, removal and threat base for a slow midgame engine. And considering that there's 500+ of them, that should be a pretty big clue to you that adding the survival engine to Doran Rock turns it into a different deck completely.


Are you comparing Doran Rock to a Sui Black deck? Yes, I am. Like I said.

I've played Eva Green for over an year. Both decks play remarkably similarly. Disrupt, Threat, Disrupt some more. And they both win on pretty much the same turn.

[Jak]

Jak, if you actually looked at Doran Rock lists, all of them, instead of constricting to a sample set of seven lists, you would see that no, this deck is not at all different from Doran Rock. It plays all the same cards and runs the same game plan

I guess I am confused what you are looking at. I go to Adv Search, fill in the necessary stuff (Format = Legacy, Deck name = Doran Rock), click search and I get 7. Are we talking about all formats? That's silly.

Here is the link to make it easier for you.

http://www.deckcheck.net/find.php

Fun facts!

6 out of 7 play Deed

3 out of 7 play Top

5 out of 7 play Eternal Witness

6 out of 7 play Dark Confidant

[from Cairo]

The black decks both realize that they're weaker in the mid-game than Survival or The Rock and thus compensate for it by packing explosiveness, and overloading on disruption to delay the mid game as much as possible.Exactly. This deck uses the early turns to set up for high pressure in the later turns (4-7)

OK just so I'm sure I'm following this...

Eva Green / Suicide Black both have weaker mid-late game than Survival or The Rock (implying The Rock with some form of mid/late game CA be it Tombstone style or Pernicious Deed, w/e).

Doran Rock has a weaker base for maintaining the early game than Eva/Sui.

Doran Rock has a weaker mid-late game than Survival or The Rock.

Survival / The Rock has a better mid-late game than Eva/Sui and Doran Rock.

So there's no reason anyone would bother to run this deck? Because it's a worse early game Agro-Disruption deck than the B/x decks. And it's a worse mid/late game Agro-Control deck than Survival and The Rock.

[Captain Hammer]

That's why you shouldn't make ridiculous assumptions from cairo.

The deck has an early game just as aggressive and disruptive as Sui Black/Eva Green. By turn 4, the deck on average played as much disruption and aggressive threats than Eva Green does on average by then.

But the deck has a mid and late game as Eva Green does.

That's why I play the deck, because I get about the same aggression and disruption that Eva Green provided early game, but I got a better mid-late game to boot.




6 out of 7 play Deed

3 out of 7 play Top

5 out of 7 play Eternal Witness

6 out of 7 play Dark Confidant

Never mind that you managed to miss several different lists that're a lot more similar to mine.

This list for example came in 4th out of 156 people just this past month...

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

The rest of the top 8 consisted of...

2 Thresh lists
2 Dreadstill lists
1 Merfolk
1 Elfball
1 Fairie Stompy

So good luck arguing that this was an undeveloped meta.

But the fact, is everyone of the cards you listed were considered in the deck in OP. I explained in detail in the OP why Deed didn't make the cut. You can read that if you want reasons as to why I'm not a fan of Deed in the deck.

Note the absense of a slow midgame engine, both from your limited sample set, and the full sample set of all top 8ed Doran Rock lists. This is why your survival list is NOT Doran Rock.

[Jak]

Which is precisely why every single one of those cards was considered for the deck.

Note the absense of a slow midgame engine, both from your limited sample set, and the full sample set of all top 8ed Doran Rock lists. This is why your survival list is NOT Doran Rock.

I explained in detail in the OP why Deed didn't make the cut. You can read that if you want reasons as to why I'm not a fan of Deed in the deck.

Then why do you continue to say your deck has put up results? You have changed the deck considerably.

Also the reason I did those was because they either provide CA for the deck or in Top's case allow you to manipulate your draws.

[Captain Hammer]

And so does Dark Confidant (and Hymn).

CA advantage is only a small aspect of Doran Rock. It can fill that need with either Hymn or Confidant.

But what you're advocating with your Survival list is not a small amount of CA. What you're advocating is that the deck free up anywhere from ten-eighteen slots, cutting disruption and removal and threats, to make room for a mid game engine that costs a lot of mana and slows the deck down.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you're talking about a completely different deck.

[Roman Candle]

I find the attempts to draw a comparison between Doran Rock and Sui-Black/Eva-Green laughable. Sui-black/Eva Green don't play 2/2's for two, they generally don't even play 2/2's for one. They forgo utility for explosiveness. They run Dark Ritual, which gives you rediculous turn 1's whereas Doran Rock plays Birds of Paradise, which provides mana at a slower pace.

To call Doran Rock an aggro deck because it plays disruption is not a sound argument, just because Eva Green/Sui-black does.

[Captain Hammer]

I find the attempts to draw a comparison between Doran Rock and Sui-Black/Eva-Green laughable.

And I find your attempts to draw conclusions when you so clearly have no experience with this deck a lot more laughable.


Sui-black/Eva Green don't play 2/2's for two

Tidehollow Sculler isn't just a threat, it's also Thoughtseize 5-8. If Sculler had a cc of BB so Sui Black/Eva Green could play it, you bet your ass they would.

Eva Green was my deck of choice for over an year. And this deck wins just as quickly as Eva Green does, and plays every bit as much disruption/removal.

Eva Green qualifies as an aggro deck, and so does this.

[Roman Candle]

I find your attempt to draw conclusions when you so clearly have no experience with this deck a lot more laughable.

Eva Green was my deck of choice for over an year. And this deck wins just as quickly as Eva Green does, plays every bit as much disruption/removal.

Eva Green qualifies as an aggro deck, and so does this.

I don't have to sleeve up a deck to know that 2/2's for two mana and Birds of Paradise are slower than Dark Ritual and fatties.

But even if (and the IF is hypothetical, I still disagree) its true that Survival doesn't fit the deck strategy, then I guess the next question is, would it make a better strategy? Like, Tarmogoyf might not fit in to the game strategy of my Grizzly Bears.dec, but it does make it better.

[Captain Hammer]

I don't have to sleeve up a deck to know that 2/2's for two mana and Birds of Paradise are slower than Dark Ritual and fatties.

I guess the next question is, would it make a better strategy? Like, Tarmogoyf might not fit in to the game strategy of my Grizzly Bears.dec, but it does make it better.

God your ignorance amuses me.

Tidehollow Sculler isn't just a threat, it's Thoughtseize 5-8 that also beats for 2. If Sculler had a cc of BB so Sui Black/Eva Green could play it, you bet your ass they would.

BoP already generates more mana by turn 4 than Dark Ritual ever could. This is probably the reason why on average, you end up playing just as much disruption by turn 4 with this deck, as you do with Eva Green.

As for your suggestion that this deck plays fewer fatties, are you really that unfamiliar with Eva Green? This deck runs every one of the same fatties as Eva Green. The only difference is that where Nantuko Shade used to be, you now have Doran. Which is guess what, a lot fatter than Shade.

[TooCloseToTheSun]

I don't think they would play tidehollow if they could because they play this:
http://vandel.dk/magic/black/Hypnotic%20Specter.jpg
see it hits their hands multiple times and they never get those cards back.

[Roman Candle]

God your ignorance amuses me.

[QUOTE]Tidehollow Sculler isn't just a threat, it's Thoughtseize 5-8 that also beats for 2. If Sculler had a cc of BB so Sui Black/Eva Green could play it, you bet your ass they would.

I believe that, if that were true, they would have looked at either Distress or Mesmeric Fiend... and neither of those cards has even been looked at.


BoP already generates more mana by turn 4 than Dark Ritual ever could. This is why you end up playing just as much disruption by turn 4 with this deck, as you do with Eva Green.

But I thought you said your fundamental turn was turn 2-3? Shouldn't you have already effectively won or lost by turn 4?


As for your suggestion that this deck plays fewer fatties, are you really that unfamiliar with Eva Green? This deck runs every one of the same fatties as Eva Green. The only difference is that where Nantuko Shade used to be, you now have Doran. Which is guess what, a lot fatter and more aggressive than Shade.

Alright, upon looking at the Eva Green thread, I'll give you the fact that they play just as many threats as you do. However, they seem to have a more effective disruption package than you, which translates into their fatties "getting there" more reliably.

[Captain Hammer]

Yes, and by turn 3, many games, you have indeed played multiple Thoughtseize/Therapy/Sculler effects that both emptied your opponent of any removal they have and disrupted their gameplan, and have also played either a Goyf, a Doran or a Tombstalker. And in those games, yes, you have effectively sealed up the win by turn 3.

A 2/2 is far more of a threat than a 1/1. Try telling Zoo players to replace Isamaru, Hound of Konda with Mother of Runes and see what reaction you would get. In spite of Mother of Runes having an extremely useful ability, the one difference in power makes that much of a difference.

That's why Fiend only rarely shows up. But even being just a 1/1, Fiend actually does replace Hyppe in some Sui Black lists and even some Eva Green lists. It just isn't common because Mesmeric Fiend is a small fraction of the threat that Sculler is. Unlike Fiend, Sculler actually does put a pretty huge dent into your opponents life total by turn 5/6.

Hyppe costs more mana, doesn't take a card until your next turn, and the card that it does take is chosen randomly. Which means that odds are, 4 times out of 5, you won't get the card that you actually wanted to get.

If you're convinced that Hyppe is better than Sculler, then fine, play Hyppe in place of Sculler. Nothing is stopping you. I've found Sculler to be better than Hyppe, and that's why I'm playing it in Hyppe's slot. But you're free to go back to Hyppe.

[Jak]

Yes, and by turn 3, many games, you have indeed played multiple Thoughtseize effects that empty your opponent of any removal they have, and have also played either a Goyf, a Doran or a Tombstalker. And in those games, yes, you have effectively sealed up the win by turn 3.

Lol. Such a ridiculous statement, especially coming from someone who has played with discard soooooo long. :rolleyes:

I showed you a list that does not take up 10-18 slots.

1 Sliver
1 Genesis
1 Squee
1 Heirarch
1 BGH
1 Shriekmaw

And most of those cards you won't even mind seeing without a Survival on the field. You are getting pretty silly with your exaggerations.

And I really don't want to have to keep telling you that adding Survival does not mean you lose out on your removal or disruption. 8 discard spells, 4 Swords, 1 Maw, 1 BGH, and then 4 Survival to tutor them up. I also have the benefit of being able to Witness them back also.

You keep saying things that are really untrue and you seem to be the only one believing it.

[Captain Hammer]

Did you really play the deck?

There's absolutely nothing ridiculous about being able to resolve 2 thoughtseize effects and a very beefy threat by turn 3. You do that frequently, with or without BoP. You play 12 thoughtseize equivalents, and 10 beefy threats, and six mana is more than enough to play pretty much any and every combination of two of those thoughtseize effects and a threat by turn 3.


I showed you a list that does not take up 10-18 slots.

1 Sliver
1 Genesis
1 Squee
1 Heirarch
1 BGH
1 Shriekmaw


Jak, even that pared down engine you posted takes up 10 slots from the deck.

Or do you not count the 4 Survival of Fittest as part of the survival engine for some reason? :really:

And I'm not questioning your creature choices. My concern is the fact that your engine costs a lot of mana and slows this deck down.

And it does, there's no use arguing that point. I've played both lists, and if you have too, then I don't see how you could think the Survival engine and having to play stuff like Squee and Genesis doesn't slow the deck down.

But we ran in circles for long enough. Let's drop the topic and move on. If you really want, we can continue this via PMs.

[Jak]

Did you really play the deck?

There's absolutely nothing ridiculous about being able to resolve 2 thoughtseize effects and a very beefy threat by turn 3. You do that frequently, with or without BoP. You play 12 thoughtseize equivalents, and 10 beefy threats, and six mana is more than enough to play pretty much any and every combination of two of those thoughtseize effects and a threat by turn 3.



Jak, even that pared down engine you posted takes up 10 slots from the deck.

Or do you not count the 4 Survival of Fittest as part of the survival engine for some reason? :really:

And I'm not questioning your creature choices. My concern is the fact that your engine costs a lot of mana and slows this deck down.

And it does, there's no use arguing that point. I've played both lists, and if you have too, then I don't see how you could think the Survival engine and having to play stuff like Squee and Genesis doesn't slow the deck down.

But we ran in circles for long enough. Let's drop the topic and move on. If you really want, we can continue this via PMs.

Uhhh you said you basically win the game when you resolve 2 discard spells and a Tarmogoyf over the course of 3 turns. How is that not ridiculous? There are topdecks, Brainstorm, having more than 2 relevant spells in hand, etc. What do you play against?

WTF when is Survival ever a dead draw? Why would I include it in that list? That is the whole list, uncut, and 4 (sometimes 6) out of the 6 cards I never mind drawing.

You keep saying it costs a lot of mana and slows the deck down as if it is actually true. It costs one additional mana to get a Goyf or any answer you would need. If you really cared about speed that much, why are you running 2/1s and 2/2s? Obviously speed can be reduced to play cards that fit the deck.

And no, we will not finish this in PMs. If you are embarrassed about your inability to understand, then that sucks for you.

[Captain Hammer]

Uhhh you said you basically win the game when you resolve 2 discard spells and a Tarmogoyf over the course of 3 turns. How is that not ridiculous?

No, I said that in several matches, not all the matches, not even the majority of matches, just several of the matches, I ended up winning almost entirely because I resolved 2 discard spells and a threat (Goyf, Doran, or Stalker).

Because that is exactly what happened.

In several of the games I've played, two pinpoint discard spells, a threat, and maybe some removal was all that I needed to win. And everything else that I drew didn't even end up mattering.


Why would I include it in that list? That is the whole list, uncut...

It costs one additional mana to get a Goyf or any answer you would need.

Dude, the 4 Survival of the Fittest are part of the freaking Survival engine.

You need to cut at bare minimum 10 cards from this aggro deck, to play the survival engine. That's what I said.

And you're actually arguing that Survival doesn't count!? That's a pretty ridiculous argument. Those Survivals don't appear by magic, you've had to cut four other cards to make room for them.

That's all I'm saying.

And also, you can't ignore the fact that you have to pay mana to play the Survival in the first place. You say that it costs one mana to get a creature as if that's all the mana that it costs. It's not. You have to actually play Survival first. And then you usually have to also spend mana to get your hands on a Squee first.

So the first time you do it, you're basically spending 4 mana to replace one creature in your hand with another creature. After that point it gets better, assuming Survival isn't hit by a Pithing Needle or one of the dozens of splash damage enchantment removal from CB hate running around. So yeah, Survival works in a controllish deck. But this is an aggressive deck. It aims to and does win the same turn that Eva Green wins. And in neither this deck nor Eva Green does the game go on long enough to be worthwhile to invest 4 mana into an engine initially just because the engine gets cheaper afterwards.


If you really cared about speed that much, why are you running 2/1s and 2/2s? Obviously speed can be reduced to play cards that fit the deck.

Because, as it should be blatantly obvious to anyone. Those 2/1s and 2/2s aren't there just to deal ~8 damage to your opponent by the fifth turn (assuming you draw enough removal spells (you play 9) to take out blockers).

The 2/1 is a 2cc Phyrexian Arena that beats for 2, and the 2/2 is a 2cc Thoughtseize that beats for 2.

It's not hard to figure out why they're worth playing.

Or do you seriously not see how spending two mana on a 2/1 that draws a card each turn is more worthwhile in a fast aggro deck, than spending initially 3 mana on an enchantment that doesn't do any damage, then an extra mana each turn, in order to tutor for a creature each turn.


And no, we will not finish this in PMs. If you are embarrassed about your inability to understand, then that sucks for you.

I want to finish this via PMs because anytime I get an actual discussion going with people that actually play Doran Rock, you manage to interrupt to talk about your midgame survival deck that plays nothing like Doran Rock.

[Jak]

You aren't understanding... again. You keep bringing up speed, how Survival is slow all of it. Cool, you want the deck to be fast. However, you did end up running slow cards because their effect is beneficial. Survival may be slow but it is worth it. It fits perfectly into a Rock deck.

Now, the Survival package allows you to trim slots. I don't need to run 10 big dudes (4 goyf, 3 stalker, 3 doran). I can efficiently run 7. I don't need to run Vindicate. I can run stuff like Shriekmaw, BGH, Harmonic Sliver. They end up doing the same things but Survival allows the deck to have a CA engine while still being able to have the flexibility of Vindicate and the power of running 10 big dudes.

Also, awesome, my deck plays discard and a Goyf so theoretically, I could win the match by the third turn also. Good to know.

This is the actual discussion so please let us continue. You also forgot to respond to a few things.

Roman Candle

But even if (and the IF is hypothetical, I still disagree) its true that Survival doesn't fit the deck strategy, then I guess the next question is, would it make a better strategy? Like, Tarmogoyf might not fit in to the game strategy of my Grizzly Bears.dec, but it does make it better.

And the other thing was the fact that your deck does not resemble any other Doran Rock deck that has put up results? Why do you continue to say your list has put up results?

You keep speaking of this deck as if it is an established archetype in Legacy. It isn't, so automatically saying a card doesn't fit is horrible, especially when you have changed the lists that have put up results.

[Captain Hammer]

I think you need to learn how to use the deckcheck.net search function Jak. There's several dozen Doran Rock lists on deckcheck that are just a couple of cards away mine.

Just within the past month, this list came in 4th out of 156 people...

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

The rest of the top 8 consisted of...

2 Thresh lists
2 Dreadstill lists
1 Merfolk
1 Elfball
1 Fairie Stompy

So good luck arguing that this was an undeveloped meta.

And that's just one recent example.

I already responded to RC's and your questioning as to why I play the 2/2 and the 2/1


as it should be blatantly obvious to anyone. Those 2/1s and 2/2s aren't there just to deal ~8 damage to your opponent by the fifth turn (assuming you draw enough removal spells (you play 9) to take out blockers).

The 2/1 is a 2cc Phyrexian Arena that beats for 2, and the 2/2 is a 2cc Thoughtseize that beats for 2.

It's not hard to figure out why they're worth playing.

Or do you seriously not see how spending two mana on a 2/1 that draws a card each turn is more worthwhile in a fast aggro deck, than spending initially 3 mana on an enchantment that doesn't do any damage, then an extra mana each turn, in order to tutor for a creature each turn.

Note how neither card is as slow as Survival, neither card is anywhere near as mana intensive, and can deal as much as 10 damage before you get to the midgame to boot.

[Jak]

Okay, that was called The Rock. Can you show me anymore? Wait, nvm here is some.

http://www.deckcheck.net/find.php

I did a search for Tarmogoyf, Doran, Tombstalker, Thoughtseize, and Dark Confidant.

I got 4 results. All of them played Deed.

They are not the same deck as yours. Even the list you you showed me has a lot of different choices then yours (ie No Tombstalker, Eternal Witness, etc). Good luck arguing that one.

[Captain Hammer]

For godsake Jak, just because you're completely ignorant of all formats aside from Legacy doesn't mean everyone else is.

Anyone even remotely familiar with Extended has heard of Doran Rock, and knows that this list is near identical to all of the Doran Rock lists that populate extended.

You're the one that argued that Doran Rock hasn't top 8ed in Legacy in a developed meta. When in fact, there's numerous Doran Rock list that have.

This list top 4ed out of 156 decks, alongside 2 Thresh lists, 2 Dreadstill lists, a merfolk, and elf and a Fairie Stompy list.

You're the one that argued that no deck playing Tidehollow Sculler top 8ed in Legacy.

Yet this deck's spellbase consists of...

4 Dark Confidant
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tidehollow Sculler

4 Swords to Plowshare
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize

And yet you continue to make false statements and insist that Doran Rock as a deck doesn't exist. You're wrong, and all your screaming that Doran Rock should be a midgame survival deck instead of the aggro deck that it infact won't make it so.

In all this time that you wasted arguing that Doran Rock isn't a deck, despite 500+ results on deckcheck to the contrary, you could have just started your thread for BWG Survival and discussed your list there. It was funny at first but now it's just annoying.

[Jak]

You're the one that argued that Doran Rock hasn't top 8ed in Legacy in any developed meta

When the fuck did I say that?

And no, I will not acknowledge other formats where this deck has top 8s. You want to know why? They are different fucking formats. No Deed, no force, different cards and decks. Stop with these bull shit arguments where you try to make it look like the deck is amazing. It may be in Extended, but this is Legacy.

Cool, one list plays Sculler.

Oh and I found 2 that play Survival.

http://www.deckcheck.net/find.php

Now will you please refute my last post using only Legacy data.

[Rood]

Sorry if I'm butting in from you guys having a good time, but...

Seeing as Prog is pretty much the most broken thing since French Toast why not run Natural Order as a 4x?

Lands
4 [R] Savannah
6 [9E] Forest (3)
2 [ON] Wooded Foothills
2 [MR] Plains (4)
4 [A] Bayou
4 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
2 [FD] Eternal Witness
4 [LRW] Doran, the Siege Tower
1 [CFX] Progenitus
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [4E] Birds of Paradise

// Spells
3 [EVG] Harmonize
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [PT] Natural Order
4 [FNM] Duress
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [7E] Engineered Plague
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg

That's what I've been working with so far. NO-->Prog gives the deck insane outs against so many things. Thoughts?

[Captain Hammer]

Rood, it's a really cool idea. Good find.

You're basically playing a 4cc 10/10 Unblockable in the slots typically given to one of the beatsticks.

It sounds like it would function well...

What I will say is, there's absolutely no good reason to play Harmonize in place of Dark Confidant.

Dark Confidant is faster and a lot more aggressive than Harmonize, and usually draws you more cards earlier, and for half the mana, all while hitting your opponent for 2 every turn.

If the reason you opted to play Harmonize in Confidant's slot is because of Progenitus, the odds of Confidant revealing Confidant will happen once every 50 draws, and even then doesn't kill you.

In a deck like this, imho if you spend 4 mana on something, it should win you the game singlehandedly. Natural Order does that. Harmonize doesn't.



Cool, one list plays Sculler.

Oh and I found 2 that play Survival.

http://www.deckcheck.net/find.php

Do you even realize how transparent you are Jak.

First you argued that Doran Rock lists didn't top 8 in legacy, only in the other formats.

When I pointed out that several have, you decide to latch onto the fact that none of them play Tidehollow Sculler and thus how could my list which plays Tidehollow Sculler be related to Doran Rock lists that don't play Sculler.

I don't know, could the limited number of lists that play Sculler have anything to do with the fact that the card was freaking printed just this past set and has had barely any time to make it's way into the format.

But yet you decided to use that extremely lame and transparent arguement, and when I pointed out a Doran Rock list that does play Sculler, your arguement is, find me more lists with Sculler!

Look dude, you're wrong. Doran Rock is a legacy deck. It has already been ported over to Legacy. It has already top 8ed in legacy multiple times. And it neither plays nor looks remotely anything like your survival list. Doran Rock is an aggro deck and the survival engine doesn't have a place in it. Just accept it and move on.

I also love how your deckcheck link doesn't even work.

[Jak]

Do you even realize how transparent you are Jak.

First you argued that Doran Rock lists didn't top 8 in legacy, only in the other formats.

When I pointed out that several have, you decide to latch onto the fact that none of them play Tidehollow Sculler and thus how could my list which plays Tidehollow Sculler be related to Doran Rock lists that don't play Sculler.

I don't know, could the limited number of lists that play Sculler have anything to do with the fact that the card was freaking printed just this past set.

But yet you decided to use that extremely lame and transparent arguement, and when I pointed out a Doran Rock list that does play Sculler, your arguement is, find me more lists with Sculler!

Look dude, you're wrong. Doran Rock is a legacy deck. It has already been ported over to Legacy. And it looks absolutely nothing like your survival list. Just accept it and move on.

I also love how you deckcheck link doesn't even work. It's like the cherry on top.

Haha more and more straw mans!

I never said it didn't top 8. I did say that it is relatively new and had only a handful. I also said they look nothing like your proposed list, which they don't.

Sure I said they don't, but I also said they play other cards like Deed, Eternal Witness, Top, and even Survival. You continue to say these cards don't work but from the handful of results this deck has put up those cards do see play.

I never asked you to find more lists with Sculler so I think you need to focus on understanding my and others posts before responding.

If I am wrong so are all the other people coming in here trying to help you out with your deck. I don't see anyone saying you are correct with the direction you are taking this deck, so why do you think I am wrong?

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=19839

There is one. I am sure with a little time we could help to fine tune it and you will see more results :)

[Captain Hammer]

Sure I said they don't, but I also said they play other cards like Deed, Eternal Witness, Top, and even Survival.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=19839

There is one. I am sure with a little time we could help to fine tune it and you will see more results :)

Jak, the linked deck's name is Survival and the list neither looks nor plays anything at all like Doran Rock.

I only say that because you're the one who brought deck names back up and requested the mods to allow the discussion "because it does end up mattering" last page. So I just want to make this clear...

Tens of thousands of magic players in various formats know what Doran Rock lists look like. Tens of thousands of players know how Doran Rock plays.

It looks and plays like this list.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

and my list in the OP.

A simple search of Doran Rock on deckcheck will show you numerous other lists that are all within a few cards of each other.

Anyone of thousands of people who play or played Doran Rock could look at the list in the OP, or any of the above lists and instantly know that it's a Doran Rock list.

If you played Doran Rock in any format where the deck is popular, you would know how the deck plays. And it doesn't play out anything like that survival list or your survival list.

If you read my OP, I specifically mentioned Witness, Top and Deed. I gave reasons why I personally don't think Deed makes sense in the deck.

The only card that I didn't mention is Survival. Because guess what, no Doran Rock list has ever played Survival. Nor should it. It's an aggro deck with disruption. It can't devote 10+ slots to a card draw engine.

The GBW Survival lists that you posted don't look and play at all like any of the Doran Rock lists people are familiar with. So calling that list Doran Rock makes about the same amount of sense as playing Survival in an Eva Green deck and still continuing to call the deck Eva Green.

-----------

Jak, you're the one who brought the issue of deck names back up, but whenever you're ready to drop this debate, I'm happy to do so. I have no problem with you as a poster. So as much fun as this is, I have no desire to go back and forth on this with you forever. Anytime you're ready to agree to disagree and drop this whole argument. That's fine by me.

[citanul]

I hoped this discussion would've ended by now but I guess not. Both of you seem to be pretty strong about your own arguments. Both have flawed logic.

Survival:
It costs a lot of slots and will end up in dead draws.


I showed you a list that does not take up 10-18 slots.

1 Sliver
1 Genesis
1 Squee
1 Heirarch
1 BGH
1 Shriekmaw

Combined with 4 Survival that's 10 slots no? Sliver with no target kills your Survival, even with a target it's a 1/1 for 3. Squee, 1/1 for 3. BGH and Shriekmaw are death or pretty bad P/T if there's no target. Can run Finks over Hierarch but Hierarch is still a nice card, no argument there. Genesis provides a good lategame but without other ways to discard besides Survival rather bad.

I also don't see how you can claim that adding survival won't slow the deck down. Sensei's Divining Top will slow you down, Sylvan Library slows you down, Mirri's Guile slows you down, Harmonize slows you down. Every card that is about card advantage and not damage that requires a mana investment will slow you down.

Doran Rock:
The deck lacks the explosiveness of agro decks, just accept it and move on. It's not because other decks are faster that Doran Rock suddenly becomes worse.

Your gameplan is about disrupting the opponent, throwing beater(s) and winning by damage before they draw a solution. The problem with Doran Rock is that it is very draw dependant and I agree with other people that it might need some manipulation, I just don't feel that Survival is the best way.

You can try adding Sensei's Divining Top which increases your turn1 plays. By the time you spend the same mana as Survival to hit Parity, which SDT never suffers, you will have had 4 top activations. SDT will also increase the consistency and will draw answers to your opponents strategy faster, be it removal, discard or more creatures. It will never generate CA though, just card quality.

Another possibility, one that I have never tested, is Sylvan Library. It costs the same as Survival, has an effect the turn after it came into play and can generate CA by paying 4 life a card. I find it inferiour to SDT but needs less mana investment and has a similar effect.

[Captain Hammer]

I agree.



You can try adding Sensei's Divining Top which increases your turn1 plays. By the time you spend the same mana as Survival to hit Parity, which SDT never suffers, you will have had 4 top activations. SDT will also increase the consistency and will draw answers to your opponents strategy faster, be it removal, discard or more creatures. It will never generate CA though, just card quality.

Another possibility, one that I have never tested, is Sylvan Library. It costs the same as Survival, has an effect the turn after it came into play and can generate CA by paying 4 life a card. I find it inferiour to SDT but needs less mana investment and has a similar effect.

Yes, both SDT and Sylvan Library are mentioned in the OP. And they do work well with Confidnat. But honestly, I just haven't felt the need for them.

The current list already plays 4 Confidants, and honestly, I have had no desire to play any additional card draw beyond that.

Here is the current list I play by the way...

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Doran, the Siege Tower
3 Tombstalker

4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Vindicate

21 Lands

Jak, I ended up adopting the 3 Cabal Therapy 1 Duress instead of the 4 Hymn configuration you ran when I tested your Survival list, and I've liked the Therapy's so far. I didn't particular like it in your list as you play 5 Thoughtseize effects. But since this list runs 9 Thoughtseize effects, Cabal Therapy hits a lot more consistently.

[Jak]

It wasn't about the names, it was about how Doran Rock (the ones that have placed in Legacy) are different then yours. They run CA in Witness, Deed, Confidant, and Top also (deck manipulation is just as good). You keep calling it aggro, but the ones that have placed are definitely not. They are mid range, aggro control decks.

Could you please explain to me what Doran Rock is? You posted an unconventional list, call it an aggro deck, and keep telling about 500+ results but only a small fraction of those are in Legacy. That small fraction doesn't even look like your list at all. The list I linked does. It plays the same game as all the others.

You keep going back and forth between saying you are an aggro deck and saying you run sooo much disruption and removal. I don't quite understand this.

@citanul

I already said that playing Survival means you give up speed to run an incredibly powerful card.

10 slots... Survival allows me to trim up numbers for Survival and cards that perfrom the same role as Vindicate.

And lol at you saying Harmonic is a dead draw with Survival in play. You obviously wouldn't play it. Have you read Survival? All those dead draws turn into Goyfs or Dorans.

Now, it seems people have tried to help you two, but you just won't even listen. You result to calling other people ignorant and spamming. Reminds me of Radley.

[Captain Hammer]

Citunal laid out several good reasons, why Survival doesn't fit here. You're the one that's refusing to listen, or address the actual points he made.


That small fraction doesn't even look like your list at all. The list I linked does.

No, your list doesn't Jak. Not even close.

I already showed you top 8ed Doran Rock lists that look near identical to the list in the OP. You have yet to show me any Doran Rock list that either looks or plays anything at all like the list you posted. Show the list in my opening post to anyone at all familiar with Doran Rock in any format, and they would instantly recognize that as Doran Rock. Show them your list. They'll call your list Survival or BGW Survival or whatever, but they sure as hell wouldn't call what you posted Doran Rock.

Anyways. I'm not going to do this with you indefinately. So if you're enjoying this as much as you seem to. I suggest finding someone else for you to argue with.

[Jak]

Wave the white flag, my friend, wave it.

My list and the one from deckcheck both fit the classifications of Doran Rock. An aggro-control deck packing discard, creature removal, big beaters (Doran, Goyf, etc), and CA (Confidant, Witness, Deed, Survival, Top, etc). Just because it runs Survival does not make it a different deck.

When did I not address his points. He said creatures were dead draws with a Survival in play (?). Without Survival, I admit you will ocassionally draw a Squee. However, the power of having Survival in play is worth the risk of drawing a one of.

I could turn it around and say you will end up having dead draws or bad draws. Birds, Sculler, Hymn are all bad when you top deck them later in the game. At least Survival turns my "dead draws" into powerful creatures.

This is fun. I enjoy talking about Magic. So please, give me another bull shit reply.

[Captain Hammer]

Have you even seen the list that you're talking about!?...

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=19839

The fact that the list not only looks but plays completely differently, has a different name, different mana curve, different clock and has completely different strenghts and weaknesses, is why it's a different deck.

The fact that it the 2/3rds of the list's creatures are 1 ofs and 2 ofs sacrificing consistency completely just to support a mid-game engine that slows down the deck and is extremely vulnerable right now to every form of enchantment removal (which every deck worried about Counterbalance already plays) is why it's a different deck.

And the fact that you seem to be completely oblivious to Doran Rock and yet keep insisting that the list in my OP isn't Doran Rock but that your Survival list somehow is, makes it pretty clear that you love to post bullshit. That's why I have no desire to waste anymore time with you.

[Jak]

Have you even seen the list that you're talking about!?...

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=19839

The fact that the list not only looks but plays completely differently, has a different name and has completely different strenghts and weaknesses, is why it's a different deck.

The fact that it devotes almost half of it's spell base to a mid-game engine that slows down the deck and is extremely vulnerable right now to every form of enchantment removal (which every deck worried about Counterbalance already plays) is why it's a different deck.

And the fact that you seem to be completely unaware of Doran Rock and keep suggesting that the list in my OP isn't Doran Rock but that your Survival list somehow is, makes it pretty clear that you love to post bullshit. That's why I have no desire to waste anymore time with you.

The deck you had me look at was called The Rock so let's stop arguing about semantics.

What are the strengths and weeknesses? How are they different. So they needle Survival; you still have Goyf, Doran, Loxodon, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Therapy, Swords, etc. The deck doesn't just shut down. It plays the way a Rock deck should play, it just has different ways to gain card advantage over the opponent.

Your list isn't Doran Rock. I don't know what to call it because it is that different. I've shown you how your list differs from the ones that are on deckcheck and you don't seem to get it. The lists that have results are not aggro. They run creatures but they are not aggro.

Keep replying with this shit I love it.

[Captain Hammer]

People have already covered all of that with you atleast 20 times so far.

People have told you on multiple occasions that your deck is slower than Doran Rock, has a far less than optimal threatbase, plays a lot less disruption, plays fewer, far less flexible removal spells that cost you a lot more mana to get and use, and all this to support a midgame engine that takes a lot of mana and is insanely vulnerable right now to boot. And for the most part, you simply ignore them.

You still haven't even gotten around to explaining why even a single one of Citanul's points all the way back in the first post of page 3 are wrong. Instead you just pretend that none of that stuff matters and insist on repeating the same bullshit.

[Jak]

Links don't work.

And besides you and citanul, no one has agreed with you. You post a thread for the archetype of Doran Rock and my list meats every qualification. Yours however...

I don't get the discussion over Survival in this topic. What's the relevance?
Rock, Survival or Rock with Survival is a mid/lategame deck with a bunch of utility trying to survive the early game and winning later on through card quality and a limited amount of card advantage.


Doran Rock, looking at the list, has a different game plan. It sacrifices a part of the midgame and a lot of the lategame to have a stronger early game. Doran Rock wants to spend mana on creatures/removal/disruption, trying to win now where Survival and classic Rock wants to spend mana on ways to slowly gain the advantage. The only card in the decklist posted here that does not send that message is BoP. The only reason why it's there is for the mana fix I guess. Lots of cards cost double coloured or even triple with Doran so it might be needed, can't say as I have not tested it. Isn't that new card from Conflux superiour then as it has Exalted or is the possibility to produce black from a BoP needed?

I have said this a few times, but whatever.

"Looking at the list...", is that your list or the ones that have put up results and are a Rock deck? Yours is not a Rock deck and you have yet to say why it is. The Rock is not an aggro deck. It controls the game through board superiority and CA. Yours is lacking.

[Captain Hammer]

Yours is not a Rock deck and you have yet to say why it is. The Rock is not an aggro deck.

See yet again you mix up The Rock with Doran Rock. I will say it again. This is not the freaking Rock thread! How hard is that to understand? That's why there's two seperate threads. One for the Rock, and one for Doran Rock.

You clearly have no experience at all with Doran Rock in any format, if you did...

There's absolutely no way you would continue to insist that this list isn't Doran Rock.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

There's no way you would continue to insist that the list in my OP isn't Doran Rock.

And there sure as hell is no way you would claim that either list is not an aggro deck.

Here's a tip. If you never heard of a deck before, if you never played with it, then it's best not to make bullshit assumptions about it.

[Xenocide]

I have been more-or-less following the discussion and I have 1 nit-pick. The smallest survival engine doesn't require 10+ slots. It takes 4.

(these are changes from the 2nd post on the thread which is supposed to be kept up to date)

-2 Dark Confidant
-1 Tidehollow Sculler
-1 Edict
+3 Survival of the Fittest
+1 Squee/Krovikan Horror

Personally I think this looks stronger than the current configuration (granted I have done zero testing). Hitting Tombstalker off Dark Confidant seems... well, bad. Also, with this list you wouldn't be trying to toss out SotF turn 2, but instead you would usually wait until your resources are exhausted before playing it.

I think that this is a good medium between making the deck to "controllish" and being more aggressive.

[Captain Hammer]

Yeah, I think as long as you're not gutting the deck of it's discard, removal (and the incredibly versatile Vindicate), and threat base and instead simply substituting one CA engine with another, the deck would continue to function similarly well.

That said, having played with both the list in the OP and with Survival, I disagree with your claim that it doing so makes the deck stronger.

I personally think you're undervaluing Confidant. Unlike Survival it doesn't require additional mana investment each turn. Unlike Survival, it's card advantage is not vulnerable to all forms of enchantment destruction that is popular these days. Your opponent is forced to choose between killing Confidant, or instead kiling your Goyf. Tombstalker is rarely a problem. But if you're worried about it, cut one so that you only play 2 Tombstalker. You'll only hit a Tombstalker with a Confidant once every 25 times. Essentially, every 25 cards that you draw off of Confidant, you take 8 damage to a Tombstalker. That's definately worth the trade off.

And perhaps most importantly, Confidant actually beats for two each turn assuming that either your discard or removal did it's job well. This ends up mattering pretty often. By turn 5, Confidant singlehandedly takes out a third of your opponent's life total, which is often the extra push needed to finish them off a turn or two turns earlier.

[citanul]

I find it rather harsh that you keep associating me with Captain Hammer, like I stand behind every point he makes. Even worse, comparing me, and Captain Hammer for that matter, with Radley.

I play my own version of the Rock for over a year now, had 6 top8 finishes out of the last 9 tournaments (26 people and more) in the biggest tournaments in Belgium. I'm ranked 42nd of my country so no, I'm not a bad player.

My list:


Creatures:
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Jotun grunt
3x Shriekmaw
4x Dark Confidant
2x Tombstalker

Artifacts/Enchantments:
3x Sensei's Divining Top
3x Pernicious Deed

Sorcery/Instant:
4x StP
4x Vindicate
4x Thoughtseize
3x Life from the Loam

Land:
1x Volraths Stronghold
3x Mishra's factory
4x Windswepth Heath
2x Bloodstained Mire
3x Wasteland
1x Savannah
2x bayou
3x Scrubland
2x Forest
1x Plains
1x Swamp

Sideboard:
4x Thorn of Amethyst
4x Choke
4x Tormod's Crypt
3x Krosan Grip


As you can see, it's not even close to the list posted here. I will never play the list here either as I found it to be inconsistent and needs serious fixing (no offense). So no I don't support the deck posted here for several reasons.

First of all, I hate luck in every game, such as poker (don't start on this please!) so I try to make the odds of bad draws as little as possible. Therefor I hate cards like Hymn to Tourach which is complete randomness and a bad card when drawn later in the game. So in my list you'll find very few cards that are situational. I run 3 Life from the Loam without any form of cycle land just to avoid getting mana screwed by bad luck and guess what, it works wonders.

This doesn't mean I'm not opposed to adding Survival. You are against a 2/2 with a nice ability that does see (limited) play yet you'd be willing to play a 1/1 for 1WG. Survival is a bomb card, don't get me wrong, I've often been annihilated when it hits the table just by the advantage and utility it gives to the opponent but the package that comes with it creates a luck factor of having to draw Survival or be stuck with several death cards.

Doran Rock is death once it hits late game. It's very draw dependant and I stated before that I would prefer a form of deck manipulation in the deck. Doran Rock is also slower than agro decks, you said that yourself and I agree completely but the changes you would make would push the deck into an even slower strategy which I doubt to be good. The good thing it does is create a consistency when Survival is on the board but create an even more inconsistency when Survival isn't on the board.

[Captain Hammer]

Citanul, yeah i don't know why he mixes us up either. Your list would make more sense in the Rock thread, it doesn't play many of the staples of Doran Rock, like Doran for example.

My OP covers Deed pretty well but I have questions about several of the other cards in your list. I'll start with the two of the cards that imo seem the most questionable...

Why play Jotun Grunt, esp along side Goyf and Stalker when he has such poor synergy with them both? Doesn't he die rather fast? Esp in a build with Goyf and Tombstalker, it just seems like a really poor choice. Why not play a threat like Doran that sticks around and has good synergy with Goyf and Tombstalker? Or in your particular list, since it's The Rock, have you considered Knight of Reliquary?

Why play Wasteland (and Loam + Factories) for one? It doesn't make much sense for your list to go for a mana disrution strategy.

Regardless, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts, though I've found a couple of them to be inaccurate.

[citanul]

Your list would make more sense in the Rock thread, it doesn't play many of the staples of Doran Rock, like Doran for example.


It wasn't ment for this topic, neither is it a Doran Rock. I just posted it to illustrate that I play a different type of Rock. And I know where it goes as I wrote the opening post of the Rock, which has been borken for several months now *waves fists in anger at admins*.

Wasteland is just a great card, even without Loam I'd play them. It's not about mana denial, it's about winning random games by denying a colour from your opponent when he keeps risky hands. With Loam the card just becomes better and even gives a possible gameplan of destroying your opponents manabase.

As for Factory, which is probably the most debatable choice in the deck, it kills! After a Deed you can instantly attack, it stops a lot of agro decks from going to town by providing an extra blocker after the use of that mana is gone.

Jotun Grunt has poor synergy, so does Confidant with Tombstalker/Shriekmaw, Deed with several low CC cards, 7 colorless mana in a 3 color deck and probably more things you can come up with. It doesn't mean it's not worth running. Grunt's upkeep disrupts a lot of graveyard based strategies, including Survival *sly wink*. Not only that but it's also a big creature for a low CC, giving me time to setup other stuff or bring a fast clock to the table when I gained control.

[Captain Hammer]

Lol, I was wondering why the OP of The Rock is completely blank.

Any ideas on when you will post a new primer for that deck? Also, I had a few more questions...

Edit: Nvm, I'll just ask you the questions I have about your Rock list over in The Rock thread as that's more on topic.

[Jak]

See yet again you mix up The Rock with Doran Rock. I will say it again. This is not the freaking Rock thread! How hard is that to understand? That's why there's two seperate threads. One for the Rock, and one for Doran Rock.

You clearly have no experience at all with Doran Rock in any format, if you did...

There's absolutely no way you would continue to insist that this list isn't Doran Rock.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

There's no way you would continue to insist that the list in my OP isn't Doran Rock.

And there sure as hell is no way you would claim that either list is not an aggro deck.

Here's a tip. If you never heard of a deck before, if you never played with it, then it's best not to make bullshit assumptions about it.

You do call this Deed-less Rock. Maybe that's why.

Sorry citanul. I wasn't intending the second part to include you.

Anyway, Captain, you keep posting that same list. You keep telling me about so many results but you only post that one. Why? Also, I have the same threat count as that deck, even more actaully with Heirarch. You keep saying that is a disadvantage of my build (which is untrue, Survival is broken). You also call mine slow but you keep citing a list that plays Eternal Witness. Eww didn't you cut that because it was soo slow?

Also did you just say Survival was easier to hate on than Confidant? Lol.

[Loxodon Baileyarch]

This thread should be either A) Locked because noone is getting ANYTHING done in it, or B) Locked because it's a waste of time to read people argue about nothing.

[Sims]

Question.

Why in the hell would you take a deck from extended, port it into this format, and deny yourself the tools available in this format that aren't accessible in the others which would improve your deck.

Reasoning? Is it a pet deck? Do you really feel that playing extended decks in Legacy without giving yourself the tools available is really the best idea? You're denying yourself access to Pernicious Deed or Survival of the Fittest for what reason? Deed doesn't play nice with Sculler/Doran or Goyf? Doesn't play nice with CB either but I seem to recall It's the Fear making splashes around the world. Survival is too slow? The resiliency and overpowering card advantage granted by the engine allows you to win games that you might in other cases run out of steam. I think it would be one or the other, but what my main boggle has become is trying to figure out what strengths or benefits there are in forgoing two of the most powerful cards available to the archtype that are no longer in extended, that would certainly still impact extended were they legal.

It just doesn't make any sense!

tl;dr version: How is this version of BGW Disruptive Aggro any better than the options that are currently available, and why wouldn't this deck benefit from the addition of things available in our cardpool that are not available in the formats you're porting this deck from?

[scrow213]

Truth

I have to agree with Sims here. Until I see a detailed list of why exactly this is better than the Rock, I won't take it seriously. I mean, Deed is too much of a powerhouse to not play. And Survival is a house as well. Yes it can be removed, but if I recall, Survival plays tutors and Witness to get Survival back online in short order.

I want a list of why this is better than the Rock or Survival.

[Captain Hammer]

Deed doesn't play nice with Sculler/Doran or Goyf? Doesn't play nice with CB either but I seem to recall It's the Fear making splashes around the world.

Survival is too slow?

Yes and yes. And for a dozen other reasons that I already explained multiple times.

This is Doran Rock, this is NOT It's the Fear. So why are comparing it to It's the Fear?

Doran Rock is a deck that generally win on the same turn as Eva Green, and it does it while playing cards like StP and Vindicate. That's why I play the deck.

It seems you don't realize this, but It's the Fear is a CONTROL deck.

Why are you asking why control cards are not in an aggro deck?

This deck adopts all of the aggro tools that Legacy gives it, including StP.

Asking why an aggro deck doesn't adopt control elements doesn't make any sense.

If you want to play It's the Fear, play It's the Fear.

If you want to play The Rock, play the Rock.

It's not like Rock players and It's the Fear players don't have your threads for your own decks.

This thread is for people who want to play Doran Rock so that it can continue to top 8 in legacy.

If you are interested in playing, in further developing and in refining Doran Rock, then and only then should you post in this thread.

If you instead opt to play It's the Fear. That's fine. But discuss that deck in it's own thread.


I want a list of why this is better than the Rock.

I already explained this multiple times throughout the thread...

Once again, if you want to play The Rock, play the Rock.

For the dozenth time The Rock is a different deck. It has it's own thread. Why is that so hard for you guys to understand?

Doran Rock is a deck that generally win on the same turn as Eva Green, and it does it while playing cards like StP and Vindicate. That's why I play the deck.

It's not hard to figure out the situations where an early game deck is preferable to a midgame deck.

This thread is for people who want to play Doran Rock so that it can continue to top 8 in legacy.

If you are interested in playing, in further developing and in refining Doran Rock, then and only then should you post in this thread.

If you instead opt to play The Rock. That's fine. But discuss that deck in it's own thread. Not here.

[Roman Candle]

Archetype discussions can certainly include whether the whole archetype is worth playing or not - in this case, whether it can be correct to play with neither Deed nor Survival.



If you are interested in playing, in further developing and in refining Doran Rock, then and only then should you post in this thread.


We're not hating on the deck for no productive reason. We're trying to decide whether its worth playing without Survival or Deed... in effect, we're trying to refine the list and decide what is optimal (Deed, Survival, none of the above)

[Jaynel]

Why are you asking why control cards are not in an aggro deck?

This deck adopts all of the aggro tools that Legacy gives it, including StP.

Asking why an aggro deck doesn't adopt control elements doesn't make any sense.


Swords to Plowshares is hardly an aggressive card.


B4r0n, where in heavens name did you get the notion that this is a pure beatdown deck?

By your logic, Suicide Black and Eva Green also count as mid-game decks just because they oftentimes don't win until turn 6-7.

You seem to think you're playing a pure beatdown deck now.

[scrow213]

Dodging questions

I didn't once say I wanted to play the Rock. I didn't say I want to play ITF. You can settle down a little bit, breathe, and calmly explain to me how this deck is superior to either of those, or Survival. That's what I asked for, not a rant about how "It's different!!! OMG NOT THE SAME!! LOLZ!!!1!1!"

Take a deep breath and say "Here is how this deck is better than X or Y. This is how it fares. This is why I don't play Deed or Survival, even though many other decks that run the same cards do."

Relax. It's just a game.

[Captain Hammer]

You're welcome to read the OP, where I explained in detail multiple times why Deed doesn't make sense in the deck.

You're welcome to read the multiple times through out the thread where I explained in detail why Survival doesn't make any sense in the deck.

Everything you're asking for has already been answer a dozen times already.


Swords to Plowshares is hardly an aggressive card.

Okay then, why don't you go have that discussion with Zoo players.

They seem to be under the impression that they play an aggressive deck. But clearly you know better.

[Roman Candle]

Okay then, why don't you go have that discussion with Zoo players.

They seem to be under the impression that they play an aggressive deck. But clearly you know better.

Zoo actually has been cutting StP lately, because of the life gain aspect.

[Jaynel]

Okay then, why don't you go have that discussion with Zoo players.

They seem to be under the impression that they play an aggressive deck. But clearly you know better.

From deckcheck.net, of which you seem to be rather fond:

Most played Cards for this Deck-Type (Zoo): (that are not Basic-Lands or Snow-Basics)

Kird Ape · Wooded Foothills · Wild Nacatl · Tarmogoyf · Lightning Bolt · Windswept Heath · Dark Confidant · Lightning Helix · Gaddock Teeg · Krosan Grip · Taiga · Tribal Flames · Jötun Grunt · Vexing Shusher · Vindicate · Plateau · Bloodstained Mire · Gaea's Might · Tin Street Hooligan · Chain Lightning

[Captain Hammer]

And you're now arguing that Zoo doesn't play StP.

Good for you. But you should tell the players here that as well...

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12624

Because just about all of them seem to be making the mistake of playing 4 StP in every single zoo deck they run.

If you tried the list, you would realize just how remarkably similar to Eva Green this deck plays out. Eva Green doesn't play Deed, though it plays the same colors. This deck adopts a similar strategy and wins on the same turn as Eva Green.

[Sims]

Yes and yes. And for a dozen other reasons that I already explained multiple times.

This is Doran Rock, this is NOT It's the Fear. So why are comparing it to It's the Fear?

Doran Rock is a deck that generally win on the same turn as Eva Green, and it does it while playing cards like StP and Vindicate. That's why I play the deck.

It seems you don't realize this, but It's the Fear is a CONTROL deck.

Why are you asking why control cards are not in an aggro deck?


You're mis-representing the statement. I made a comparison about using a card that is one of the strongest tools available at removal, i.e keeping things from eating your face, and one of the main arguments I've found is that you do not like that blowing a deed will destroy your Sculler/Goyf/Doran. The comparison I made was to another deck that uses Deed to keep things from eating it's face, despite the anti-synergy with permanents it uses to win the game. Yes, ITF is a control deck (and a good song), but it also relies on low casting cost permanents to win the game such as Goyf and CB. Your deck relies on low casting cost permanents to win the game (Sculler, Goyf, Doran, Bob, etc.)... Seeing a comparison here? Yes, they win in two completely different manners, but they still both must resolve low-cc permanents to win the game. One still successfully employs Deed despite the anti-synergy, I fail to see why your deck could not benefit from the same tool. I believe one person said it in this thread already, but if losing a Goyf means keeping a horde of Zombies, Goblins, More Goyfs, Grim Lavamancers, Merfolk, Faeries, Soldier Tokens, Angel Tokens, Grindstones, Painter's Servants, et al, from destroying your face or killing you.... Where's the problem?

It seems as if you are trying to take an extended deck, put good lands in it, and say "Hai bee, letz change the world tomorrow with this shuper shweet new deck, kay guise? el oh el Ron Paul!!one1!" without actually putting any of the teeth into the deck that the Legacy cardpool provides.

Legacy gives you Deed. Legacy gives you Survivial. Legacy gives you more options and a chance to run with a really wide range of decks that can win anywhere from turn 1 to 20, and a lot that do it in 1-4... Why gimp yourself at the sake of maintaining that you are an individual archtype that is nothing more than an underpowered bastard child of two other archtypes? You can stay Doran rock and run Deed. You can stay Doran rock and run Survival. You're sounding like me when I was winning with Vial Goblins (sans Lackey) and people were telling me to run Lackey anyways back in 04/05 after the list split. Take some advice, just because you can doesn't mean it's optimal, and cards that will make your deck stronger and more resilient are not a bad thing nor is adding cards that your cardpool provides that extended doesn't. That's why they call them ports.

[Captain Hammer]

Legacy gives you Deed. Legacy gives you Survival.

Legacy gives you Pyroclasm. How many goblin decks do you see playing Pyroclasm?

Just because Legacy gives you a card doesn't mean you should play it. You have to consider if the card actually fits the decks game plan.

As for your other questions. Just read the OP! Every single question you ask about, I already answered there.

--------------------------------------------

Inspite of top 4ing this past month out of 156 people in a meta filled with decks like threshold, dreadstill, fairie stompy and merfolk, absolutely no one here seems even remotely interested in discussing anything similar to the list.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23005

In spite of it being made clear that this is an early game aggro deck that aims to win by turn 7 all while disrupting your opponent and removed their threats, unlike The Rock or Survival which are designed for the midgame, people prefer to talk about their own midgame decks lists of Survival and The Rock inspite of already having their own threads for doing so.

I'm requesting the mods to close the thread.

I or another poster will keep you posted on any other other top 8s the deck achieves in large tournaments (100+ participants) over in the tournament thread.

And the OP will still be available for the players that want to learn more about the deck. And legacy players that actually are interested in Doran Rock are free to PM me to share more information.

But for all The Rock, Survival and the It's the Fear players. You'll have to go back to your own threads to discuss your decks. I know those threads have not been very active recently. But that's not on me.

[Rood]

Such a heated argument over 2 cards makes no sense. Deed and Survival are going to be brought up if you make a Rock thread Hammer it's unavoidable you mind as well just bother not replying then getting worked up over it. GWB Doran Survival is similiar to this deck in alot of ways so it's not really that big a deal if people bring it up. Deed is the never-ending force card Rock has been created on since the beginning of time so you have to expect people to throw that card out there, whether it be right or wrong. While you can disagree that those cards don't belong in this deck I think you should have a more open mind about discussing them.

[scrow213]

Legacy gives you Pyroclasm. How many goblin decks do you see playing Pyroclasm?

Just because Legacy gives you a card doesn't mean you should play it. You have to consider if the card actually fits the decks game plan.

I already explained detail in the OP why Deed hurts the deck more than it helps it. If you want to play 3 copies of Deed in the deck. Fine, go ahead. But imho, you're making a mistake.

If Deed is such a must play here. Why isn't it played in Eva Green?

If you tried the list, you would realize just how remarkably similar to Eva Green this deck plays out.

Sure a builds of Eva Green play Deed. But they shouldn't. For the same reasons why they shouldn't play it in Doran Rock. The same reasons I enumeratd several times here.

I think he made a very good point about why you should run Deed. Pyroclasm isn't run because it doesn't shore up trouble matches.

[Bardo]

Closed upon request of poster who started this thread.