[Deck] The Rock

[lavafrogg]

YEAHHHHHHHHHH!! *fistpump*

Guillaume Perbet took 1st place in Frankfurt with this:


3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Swords to Plowshares

2 Bayou
1 Forest
2 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls

Sideboard:
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Engineered Plague
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize


About time someone won with souls/therapy :D

This is either 2 in a row for him, or you are a page too late.

[.Ix]

aw, man! :( This is definitely the same list and tournament on Dec 30, so yes, I'm late. Sweet list though.

[lavafrogg]

Anyone know anything about the GP?

[Barbed Blightning]

Anyone know anything about the GP?

BUG's popular

[sdematt]

BUG's popular

Yeah, I went 4-4. I ran into a ton of RUG and TES, and never faced the Junk mirror (everyone I saw on Junk was running my list), BUG, nor Miracles. It was an awful run of matchups. Oh well.

Time to derdle around on Day 2 in the hall and play Cube and buy pimp.

In case some of you are here, I'm wearing the coloured dress shirts for the past several days (Charcoal, Black, and today is red).

-Matt

[feline]

How many Ad Nauseam Storm decks did you have to go against? From what it seems, ANT / TES strategies are a secret that everyone suspected would happen coming into the Grand Prix, while BUG was the most expected, it's kind of amazing how much the format has been impacted by Return to Ravnica just by a couple of cards.

[damionblackgear]

From what I saw, there was a lot of TES, some Bug, and a fairly large number of miracles. I saw a couple other Junk decks. Matt was right, they all used his build. I only played against 1 TES in Round 2 (no byes). He ended up dropping to Blood moons after fizzling. Game 1 I was able to force him to have short on killing me with Tendrills so he made gobo's. I had a pulse though. Ended 4-3.

[Amazing Larry]

I've been tinkering with a list that does very well against BUG. I've decided to drop Goyfs in favor of Lingering Souls. I find that against BUG decks fighting Goyf on Goyf is not always the best plan of attack. This is what I've bee testing:

4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Lingering Souls

4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Sylvan Library

4 Liliana of the Veil

23 Lands
3 Bayou
3 Scrubland
1 Savannah
1 Maze of Ith
4 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
3 Wasteland
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains

SB
2 Engineered Plague
2 Choke
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Gaddock Teeg
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Duress

I'm not the first to adopt Souls into Junk, but most of the people doing it thus far have been cutting Knights, which I disagree with. The Shaman allows this deck to focus a bit more on attaining good 3-drops like Liliana, Knight, and Souls. I'd like to fit Zealous Persecution somewhere in the 75, but I just cant cut Plague, maybe Choke can be replaced? Also, Duress could easily be Hymn, not sure on that yet either.

[.Ix]

I run that list with some changes:
-4 Thoughtseize
-4 Lili
+2 GSZ
+1 Arbor
+1 Jitte
+1 Ooze
+1 Sylvan Safekeeper
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
and a KOTR toolbox including 4 Wasteland, Gavony Township, Maze, and Karakas.

I face a lot of Show and Tell so cutting Knights isn't even a possibility for me and Goyfs are quite awful in my metagame. The safekeeper is great at protecting Knights, so Decay isn't that bad. I want 2-3 GSZ for additional acceleration because getting 3 mana on turn 2 in this deck is very powerful. Dryad Arbor is pretty decent in this deck because of the Therapies and Township. I haven't found a need for Liliana so far, and 8 Discard with 4 Therapy / Flashback is way too much in my experience.

[mishima_kazuya]

Is it appropriate to merge the Jund thread with The Rock? The Jund deck is basically the Junk shell, except it swaps white cards for red cards.

[Crust]

From what I saw, there was a lot of TES, some Bug, and a fairly large number of miracles. I saw a couple other Junk decks. Matt was right, they all used his build. I only played against 1 TES in Round 2 (no byes). He ended up dropping to Blood moons after fizzling. Game 1 I was able to force him to have short on killing me with Tendrills so he made gobo's. I had a pulse though. Ended 4-3.

Damion. What does your list look like nowadays?

[sdematt]

So far, this tournament basically told me nothing about any changes that needed to be made to my deck. However, infinite BUG and Miracles testing showed showed that my sideboard was good. Our TES matchup COULD be better, but it was just bad news for me when he topdecks the nuts and blind Cabal Therapies Gaddock Teeg. Boo.

-Matt

[KobeBryan]

So far, this tournament basically told me nothing about any changes that needed to be made to my deck. However, infinite BUG and Miracles testing showed showed that my sideboard was good. Our TES matchup COULD be better, but it was just bad news for me when he topdecks the nuts and blind Cabal Therapies Gaddock Teeg. Boo.

-Matt

How does your sideboard look against BUG and miracles?

[sdematt]

How does your sideboard look against BUG and miracles?

My sideboard that I brought to the GP was:

1 Ooze
1 Tracker
1 Pridemage
2 Needle
1 Elspeth
2 Deed
3 Hymn
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Surgical Extraction

BUG:
Bring in Ooze, Tracker, Needle, Elspeth
Bring out some hand disruption, random extras.

Miracles:
Board out irrelevant removal
Board in Needles, Eslpeth, Teeg, Hymn, Pridemage.

-Matt

[Kl'rt]

Is it appropriate to merge the Jund thread with The Rock? The Jund deck is basically the Junk shell, except it swaps white cards for red cards.

I hate to bring this up because Junk has been one of my main decks for a long time, but given Jund's recent success, is there a good reason to play Junk over Jund in today's meta?

The main differences from going to red from white appear to be Bloodbraid Elf and Lightning Bolt for Knight of the Reliquary and Swords to Plowshares. Knight is one of my favourite creatures, but with Deathrites everywhere, isn't she just not as strong as she used to be? StP is unconditional creature removal, but with Abrupt Decay, I don't think StP is as important to have. Bolts also deal with turn one must-kill creatures but also provide reach and can pick off planes-walkers if needed.

Is there a good reason to continue going GBW over GBR today?

[Amazing Larry]

I hate to bring this up because Junk has been one of my main decks for a long time, but given Jund's recent success, is there a good reason to play Junk over Jund in today's meta?

The main differences from going to red from white appear to be Bloodbraid Elf and Lightning Bolt for Knight of the Reliquary and Swords to Plowshares. Knight is one of my favourite creatures, but with Deathrites everywhere, isn't she just not as strong as she used to be? StP is unconditional creature removal, but with Abrupt Decay, I don't think StP is as important to have. Bolts also deal with turn one must-kill creatures but also provide reach and can pick off planes-walkers if needed.

Is there a good reason to continue going GBW over GBR today?

I think White or Red is completely up to the player, both work very well with the B/G base. White also gives you access to Lingering Souls if you wish. I've been finding that 7-9 maindeck removals in our deck means that opposing shamans are not as much of a problem as they are for say BUG tempo. I find that Knight is still very much a huge threat, and a great creature. Shaman has not ruined Goyf, and it will not ruin Knight either. In the combo fighting arena white gives us SB cards like Gaddock Teeg and maybe even Thalia in certain builds, while red gives us access to REB and/or Pyroblast. I do think that Jund is a bit weaker to combo, but it has been placing pretty highly in recent tournaments. I think that both Junk and Jund are great mid-range grindy decks that do very well against the many BUG variants out there, and either is a great choice. Also whichever way you go bring those Sylvan Libraries, they're just so awesome.

[damionblackgear]

Damion. What does your list look like nowadays?

I battled with this:

1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Eternal Witness
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Thrun, The Last Troll

4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Abrupt Decay

4 Thoughtseize
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Green Sun's Zenith

2 Sylvan Library

3 Mox Diamond
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

2 Liliana of the Veil

1 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp

Sideboard

1 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Duress
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Golgari Charm
2 Blood Moon
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Maelstrom Pulse


The Drownyard was tech vs miracles (beats top) but it did not come up. Blood Moon was for most poor manabases.
Thrun was a house all day, regardless of something being in his hand (equipment). All day people were picking him to discard over Bob or Lili (both playable the next turn and stuck). Witness pulled her weight all day long.

I didn't like Ooze at all. Batterskull was more important than Jitte (which could be replaced in the current meta).

There were limited instances where having the Decay;Pulse ratio changed in any way would've made a difference. Jace, Empty the Warrens, and against miracles (hitting top in response to fetch... this also cost me the game but was my mistake at not figuring things out before I took action).

I played against:
Maverick (0-2, drew dead both games. Matt watched parts)
TES (2-0, had to go for Gobo's instead of Tendrills. Then Blood Moon's for the win)
Merfolk (2-1 - Lords overwhelmed me game 1, 2 & 3 were overkill on my part)
Burn splash black (0-2, bad match-ups are bad. His black was for Bob, Bump, and Deathrite)
4 Color (2-0, Basically Bug with Stoneforge and Swords > Goyf and random stuff - Attrition war that I won both games due to Thrun)
U/G Enchantress (2-1, Game one I got Combo'd. 2 & 3 I beat up her manabase)
Miracles (1-2, 3 lands all game with 2 being Wastes game 1. Game 2 I decayed his top in response to a fetch and lost the game because of it).

Since the Blood Moons were more because of a challenge made in another thread, I've made some changes to the list. I basically took out Moon and Drownyard along with some other stuff that didn't do well and wasn't going to do well. I still haven't upped the Deathrite count. It wasn't an issue all day. I was able to get someone to for my diamond on the first turn. It kept them in the game for a while though. I had double thoughtseize into Bob otherwise.

[Claymore]

Game 2 I decayed his top in response to a fetch and lost the game because of it

This is a move I hadn't thought of before and it seems good...but why did you lose because of it?

Nephalia Drownyard seems pretty interesting tech against Miracles.

[sdematt]

Because an online Top for the Miracles player means bad times for their opponents.

For Junk vs. Jund, the main difference is the amount of 2-for-1's Jund has at the moment. BBE is a great 2-for-1, but also has haste, so it threatens Jace immediately. They won't have a turn to set up a Terminus or a Supreme Verdict; Jace is in immediate danger once the Jund player gets to 4 mana, making Jace a liability if unprotected. The burn in Jund gives them a bit more reach and also more ways to kill Jace, whereas Abrupt Decay cries because it can't hit Jace.

I still like white because you have access to better general sideboard cards and Knight. Knight tutoring Wasteland is still very much a thing, and don't you forget it. Sure he might be smaller, but he's still darn good.

I know I'll be alternating back and forth between Jund and Junk, but Junk will always be my favourite :cool:

I think our tech against Jund is just what we were talking about: Knight. They have Bob, Goyf, and Deathrite. So do we. They have Bolt for our little guys, and we have Swords for their big guys. They have Liliana, we have Liliana. It really comes down to the draws and playstyle and builds in all honesty. I think Thrun definitely crushes the Jund:Junk matchup, and Elspeth definitely has game. Needle on Liliana makes them cry a bit, and we just play more removal. I think it's basically: 1) Who gets and keeps Deathrite, 2) who can keep pressure on board.

-Matt

[godofallu]

White in most Rock lists I see is basically limited to Swords to Plowshares and KOTR. The swords really aren't needed anymore since abrupt decay is better, and maelstrom pulse is really good at the moment. Plus Liliana is basically removal which is also quite good.

If you want to run white over red the main reason is so you can fight combo through cards like Ethersworn canonist and Gaddock Teeg. As opposed to going all in on discard with hymns + thoughtseize. If you're going to run hymn in the sideboard and no white cards except for knight then yeah you might as well ditch white for blue or red. Not that those 3 decks should be merged into 1 thread. That would be dumb.

[sdematt]

White in most Rock lists I see is basically limited to Swords to Plowshares and KOTR. The swords really aren't needed anymore since abrupt decay is better, and maelstrom pulse is really good at the moment. Plus Liliana is basically removal which is also quite good.

If you want to run white over red the main reason is so you can fight combo through cards like Ethersworn canonist and Gaddock Teeg. As opposed to going all in on discard with hymns + thoughtseize. If you're going to run hymn in the sideboard and no white cards except for knight then yeah you might as well ditch white for blue or red. Not that those 3 decks should be merged into 1 thread. That would be dumb.

Swords isn't totally irrelevant considering it hits BBE, Tombstalker and other creatures Decay can't hit. The ways to beat Abrupt Decay are to go big (Moat, Jace) or overload on targets like when Zoo beat out MM (new example being Souls and Tribal).

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

This is a move I hadn't thought of before and it seems good...but why did you lose because of it?

Nephalia Drownyard seems pretty interesting tech against Miracles.

He had 4 lands (3 basics + a fetch, all up) Rest in Peace and Top on the field. 1 unknown card in hand.
I had Liliana (at 5), 4 lands (1 tapped, and one green source), and top. In hand: Aburpt Decay (x1), Surgical Extraction (x2) and land (x1).

He cracked his fetch. I decided that the odds were low enough that I could risk the decay on the Top in response. On my turn I'd Lili to ensure that RiP+Helm never happened. So, I Sent Decay at the top (he didn't save) and then he played Helm. I topped, nothing (Scrub, Zenith, and something else that wasn't a green) checked again after draw, nothing. He activated for 1 on the next turn.

The better play I didn't take into consideration - I should have let it go and save the Decay, the next turn I could have pumped Lili and forced the top to the top of his library every turn if he wanted to keep Helm or had the Decay for RIP if he had played it (with it on the stack - in case he had saved his top and drawn a land). After Seeing the Zenith I would've gone for Teeg. The next turn Geddon'd his lands by color with RiP and top in opposite piles (top with blue sources). I lose Lili but he either loses top (to the would be in hand decay) or his non-waste-able white sources. Aka, Game 2. So, that's my 'bad beat' story. Hindsight's 20/20.

Drownyard was a neat idea but, it didn't do the job and probably won't without a manabase to support it. I'm not willing to stretch my already greedy manabase more. It was better than Maze in the matchup but I think Stronghold will be a better thing in that board slot.

My two cents on the Jund/Junk comparison. Most of the Creatures pair up. They have the Extra Lili which are annoying but most of you have 3-4 Decay so she shouldn't be the worst of things to take care of. The biggest differences are the amount of removal we run vs Bloodbraid's pure spell advantage. Them being able to cast 2 cards is annoying. You should be able to limit their color production/hand-size though. That's the soft spot in the list. Needing RGBB isn't an easy thing when wastelands and swords are being used on most of your mana producing cards. The longer the game goes, the more likely it is to benefit us (my theory) and I think this is because we have SO much removal that we can even up post 2;1.

Vs other decks, Burn will always be good vs planeswalkers and that's the only real difference. That's also part of the reason I used Thrun. I do like they extra Lili they have to fight things like that and that's where Stronghold would come in. We should be able to deal with their Shaman.

Pray they never decide to merge with a good Flow Rock (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/search.php?searchid=930789) list. :tongue:

[crow_mw]

In his article, Matt made a bold (yet not widely opposed) statement, that Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman are the two cards, that turned Rock to a tier 1 deck. Those two cards however have better synergy with red shell than with white. Swords has anty-synergy with both +2 and -2 of shaman, where bolt not only allows you to burn him for 5 from one card, but also can provide your shaman with yummy food. The fact, that bolt can't kill goyfs and knights was a huge problem for red decks in general for a long time now, but that is supplemented by decays. While there are still occasional Tobstalkers between bolt and decay Jund player has a nice coverage. On the other hand in matchups that don't really depend on board presence, bgw player will often find him/herself sitting with 7 removal cards that don't do much. Those exact machups are the ones you need to race your opponent as well.

However while to Jund 'core' cards work better together, the main issue for it are all the other cards. I am surprised that in the Knights discussion noone brogught my main concern about changing white to red - Karakas. Attacking enemy with wasteland chain is a nice angle of attack, but you may always attack from different direction. Clinging to life with Maze of Ith sometimes wins games, but that is narrow as well. However there is nothing that singlehandedly changes some relevant machups - such as Show and Tell - from very hard to quite favored as much as Karakas does. Jund player must depend on Liliana here (or ultra discard disruption, but we all know that does not always work as well as one would hope for), but she is slow, clumsy and can't be s'n'told in. GY decks should be on a backfoot for a quite long time, but Bojuka Bomb requires a honorable mention here as well.

Another problem for Jund is that Bloodbraid Elf on top of causing your Lilianas, Jittes and Libraries to have anty-synergy with themselves, prevents you from running good cards such as Green Sun's Zenith. While you have much less to zenith for without white and many players don't play gsz in rock lists anyway the reason I mention it here is that between those two tutor effects (kotr and gsz) rock has achieved an unprecedented consistency. Jund is a swing back in a direction of 'if it works it is great, but often it just doesn't'. While I love playing red I feel that unless a really good Bloodbraid Elf replacement is printed in the next two Gruul sets, Jund will be highly inferior in 'good against all decks' department.

However, what may yet turn the tides of battle and I am really looking forward to is a Burning Wish Jund list. Wish however is very meta dependent and while it can Massacre Maverick, the deck is sadly on a backfood nowadays.

[HammerAndSickled]

The way I see it is: BGx, in any of its forms, trumps most of the "fair" decks with Hymn, Discard, Goyf, Decay, and Shaman, and tends to be poor against good combo decks. The splash of W, R, or U really just supplements that core, and you have plenty of card choices to add functionality in different ways. So you have two options: tool your BGx Midrange to beat the mirror if you expect it to be prevalent (which leads to Jund and Shardless BUG, with additional card advantage engines from Cascade) or to shore up the bad matchup and try to beat combo (BUG with plenty of counters.)

[sdematt]

I still think I want to play Junk on Thursday, but I'm a-tuning at this moment. I'll update if there's anything relevant that comes up.

-Matt

[sdematt]

So here's what I'm planning on playing tonight:

4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze

3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sylvan Library
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Garruk Relentless

Same regular list. Board might change:

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Golgari Charm/Zealous Persecution
2 Pithing Needle
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
2 Surgical Extraction

Ideally I'd like to grind the sideboard against Esper as well, but I don't have the time at the moment :/

-Matt

[Barbed Blightning]

So here's what I'm planning on playing tonight:

4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze

3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sylvan Library
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Garruk Relentless

Same regular list. Board might change:

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Golgari Charm/Zealous Persecution
2 Pithing Needle
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
2 Surgical Extraction

Ideally I'd like to grind the sideboard against Esper as well, but I don't have the time at the moment :/

-Matt

What does your manabase look like?

@Jund: I mostly agree with what has been said already, with the added caveat that BBE isn't anywhere near the same power level as kotr. Yes cascading into bob, goyf or lilly is quite good, but you can also hit useless multiples as stated earlier or ibto something useless like removal w/o a target, etc. It also does not belong in this thread

[damionblackgear]

I think it depends on how you looks at it[Junk;Jund comparison]. There was an overlooked point that was brought up above regarding knight also being it's land base that supports it. BBE has haste. That's your trade-off.

I'm not trying to make it sound like that's a bad trade-off by any means. The format is almost all Planeswalkers right now. Hasted creatures are a powerful thing vs them. They work at sorcery speed. that's part of the reason I picked Thrun. Only Lili interacts positively with him. BBE is the most efficient at his cost (which dodges decay).

I think figuring out how to battle planeswalkers is a relatively new thing for us. I say that because outside of Jace, Liliana, and Elspeth, there hasn't been any real planeswalker activity that's taken an active role in legacy. Jace was the most prevalent since he was blue and brainstormed, the others were here and there. This last GP showed that they are now (being) more heavily adapted into the format. At least, more than they were before.

[dballard]

I wanted to post what I'm running and get some feedback if anyone has any. Note that I don't own a Karakas or Tarmogoyf or Thoughtsieze.

4x Marsh Flats
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Scrubland
3x Bayou
1x Horizon Canopy
2x Wasteland
1x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Nantuko Monastery
1x Savannah
1x Dryad Arbor

4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
2x Eternal Witness

2x Vindicate
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Abrupt Decay
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Lingering Souls
3x Sylvan Library
3x Duress
2x Green Sun's Zenith

2x Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Zealous Persecution
2x Pithing Needle
2x Choke
2x Hymn to Tourach
1x Ulvenwald Tracker
2x Timely Reinforcements

Thanks.

[Crust]

So here's what I'm planning on playing tonight:

4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze

3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sylvan Library
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Garruk Relentless

Same regular list. Board might change:

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Golgari Charm/Zealous Persecution
2 Pithing Needle
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
2 Surgical Extraction

Ideally I'd like to grind the sideboard against Esper as well, but I don't have the time at the moment :/

-Matt

So how did you do in the torney Matt?

[sdematt]

So how did you do in the torney Matt?

Had to leave in Round 2 due to a family emergency, but don't worry, everything's okay.

-Matt

[Barbed Blightning]

I wanted to post what I'm running and get some feedback if anyone has any. Note that I don't own a Karakas or Tarmogoyf or Thoughtsieze.

4x Marsh Flats
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Scrubland
3x Bayou
1x Horizon Canopy
2x Wasteland
1x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Nantuko Monastery
1x Savannah
1x Dryad Arbor

4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
2x Eternal Witness

2x Vindicate
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Abrupt Decay
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Lingering Souls
3x Sylvan Library
3x Duress
2x Green Sun's Zenith

2x Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Zealous Persecution
2x Pithing Needle
2x Choke
2x Hymn to Tourach
1x Ulvenwald Tracker
2x Timely Reinforcements

Thanks.

List looks fine, but I definitely think that you need the thoughtseize and karakas first and foremost. Thoughtseize, unlike IoK or duress ensures you grab what is important in their hand guaranteed. Karakas is important since S&T decks are still very much a thing. Goyf has been debated as of late and while I love him, he's not necessary.

Question: if you're packing lingering souls, why not run cabal therapy? Esp. Alongside thoughtseize, therapy has a very potent reach if you know what your opponent has.

[Claymore]

I think for his list, cabal therapy can be a good replacement for Duress as opposed to Thoughtseize, especially given Lingering Souls. Later, replace IoK with Thoughtseize.

Everyone here who plays Therapies with Extirpate effects should check the nic fit thread for some sweet anti-brainstorm techniques.

[dballard]

Yeah I'd like to pick up a Karakas and a set of Thoughtseize but the price of Thoughtseize seems to have doubled in the last few months, maybe in the Modern Master's set? Cabal Therapy could be interesting, I only recently started playing Lingering Souls as an alternative to a "2 of" creature choice (was playing Terravores).

Thanks for the feedback.

[damionblackgear]

dballard - Since you're lacking some of the larger bodied creatures, Tracker seems as though it's a sub-par inclusion. I would look into adding something that would be a little more helpful to the matchups you see.

[dballard]

dballard - Since you're lacking some of the larger bodied creatures, Tracker seems as though it's a sub-par inclusion. I would look into adding something that would be a little more helpful to the matchups you see.

Yeah that's a fair assessment since I don't see a lot of match ups where I'd bring him in, the sideboard is always a work in progress.

[DLifshitz]

I think figuring out how to battle planeswalkers is a relatively new thing for us. I say that because outside of Jace, Liliana, and Elspeth, there hasn't been any real planeswalker activity that's taken an active role in legacy. Jace was the most prevalent since he was blue and brainstormed, the others were here and there. This last GP showed that they are now (being) more heavily adapted into the format. At least, more than they were before.

In the "Dark Maverick" lists that play 3-4 GSZ and 4 Deathrite Shaman - Sigarda, Host of Herons? Jund and BUG can't kill once it's in play. With Terminus on the wane it could be a techy GSZ target, if you can get to 6 mana that is.

[damionblackgear]

In the "Dark Maverick" lists that play 3-4 GSZ and 4 Deathrite Shaman - Sigarda, Host of Herons? Jund and BUG can't kill once it's in play. With Terminus on the wane it could be a techy GSZ target, if you can get to 6 mana that is.

I've always liked Sigarda. Her only negative was her cost. I think that the "Dark Maverick" versions are able to support her better than the Mox versions (I think I may be the only one still doing this...) as they are running more mana sources. Give her a shot, let us know how she is.

[Rune]

I've been running this unorthodox Rock(well, I'm not even sure if this can be considered a Rock deck anymore) pile to good results on MODO, 4-0'ing and 3-1'ing a bunch of dailies.

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Dark Confidant
3 Lingering Souls
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Batterskull
2 Sylvan Library
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Bitterblossom
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek

2 Chrome Mox
1 Swamp
1 Plains
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
3 Scrubland
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Bayou
4 Marsh Flats
1 Windswept Heath

Sideboard
1 Path to Exile
1 Pithing Needle
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Choke
3 Engineered Plague

I've ended up almost cutting all green cards entirely, but I think some of them are still great to have. Knight has been underwhelming for me since Deathrite. It's hard to keep it big enough to survive bolts and block Goyfs against other Deathrite decks (mostly Jund). It's also very bad against all the Lillianas being played right now. I cut Goyf because in about half the matchups it doesn't do enough. It has many of the same problems as KotR. This list is tuned to beat Jund and BUG because those decks are a big part of the online meta. Basically my goal has been to make my Lillianas much better than my opponent's, and have their Jaces be bad at the same time. Chrome Mox I have kind of a love-hate relationship with. I added it because sometimes all I needed was the speed to unload my hand in order to win, and it's pretty good in a deck with mono powerful 2 drops that I want to slam on turn 1. The list should probably have some number of Cabal Therapies.

[sdematt]

Just to note: Chains of Mephistopheles is great against all these Brainstorm/Jace/Visions decks. Say hello to never Brainstorming again!

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

Quicky on understanding Chains.

Oracle (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159823):

If a player would draw a card except the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step each turn, that player discards a card instead. If the player discards a card this way, he or she draws a card. If the player doesn't discard a card this way, he or she puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

Easier - For each draw, except the forced one in your draw step, that player must discard a card from their hand then draw. If a player can't discard a can't discard, They mill a card and don't get to draw.

So, if you have 2 Chains in play and Someone casts Brainstorm:

1st card: Discard a card. If you did, Discard a card. If you did, Draw a card. If at any point you failed to discard a card, Mill a card and move on.
2nd card: Discard a card. If you did, Discard a card. If you did, Draw a card. If at any point you failed to discard a card, Mill a card and move on.
3rd card: Discard a card. If you did, Discard a card. If you did, Draw a card. If at any point you failed to discard a card, Mill a card and move on.

To add more chains instances, just keep adding the "Discard a card" portion.

[Claymore]

Does that stop the 'eot, tap Top, miracle' play? Seems especially good if they have no hand due to Liliana. I thought it didn't affect the first card drawn period, but if it only ignores the draw step draw then I think it's going back into my sideboard.

[damionblackgear]

Does that stop the 'eot, tap Top, miracle' play? Seems especially good if they have no hand due to Liliana. I thought it didn't affect the first card drawn period, but if it only ignores the draw step draw then I think it's going back into my sideboard.

The only draw that isn't effected is the draw for the turn when they change into their draw step.
except the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step

[sdematt]

The only draw that isn't effected is the draw for the turn when they change into their draw step.

Correct, Chains triggers when they're drawing and it's not the first card drawn in their draw step.

So, if a Miracles player had no hand and tapped Sensei's Top to draw, they'd instead mill the top card of their Library, then draw the next card down, making it less intuitive to set up an EOT miracle trigger.

Brainstorms and Jace +0 now become: "Discard, Draw, Discard, Draw, Discard, Draw, Put back 2"

Activating Sylvan Library becomes: "Draw first card, Sylvan Triggers, Discard, Draw, Discard, Draw, Pay or put 2 back"

Cards like Dark Confidant are unaffected because they put the cards directly into your hand, and you don't actually draw them.

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

Activating Sylvan Library becomes: "Draw first card, Sylvan Triggers, Discard, Draw, Discard, Draw, Pay or put 2 back"

Best May ever. You can not draw from the activated library.

[Esper3k]

So, if a Miracles player had no hand and tapped Sensei's Top to draw, they'd instead mill the top card of their Library, then draw the next card down, making it less intuitive to set up an EOT miracle trigger.

They don't actually get to draw off of Top (presuming they're popping it on your turn) at all.

Since they can't discard, they just mill and don't draw (per Chains) a card.

[Claymore]

Sounds good, thanks for clearing it up. I guess it's also worth pointing out that they'll just do the miracle with their natural draw, but that sets you up for a Maelstrom Pulse during your turn. Seems like Chains is a good way to utilize Liliana to her fullest in decks that have her.

[Esper3k]

They can also get around Chains by just holding something like a land in their hand to discard to it.

[KobeBryan]

Is there a good list to start building off of without Goyf?

[Claymore]

Is there a good list to start building off of without Goyf?

A few unorthodox lists recently have started cutting Goyf and KotR for cards that are better vs a Terminus and Deathrite Shaman meta. Check out kikoo's list on the previous page, but I don't know of any lists that have placed without the goyf.

--

Just a thought I had...since it is most important to keep Miracles off of double white for Entreat and we already have Wasteland to hit nonbasics (and sometimes KotR to fetch more Wastelands), would it be reasonable to roll with Sinkholes in the sideboard to hit the basic Plains? Or is that far too narrow?

This more or less came up during my last Legacy finals vs Miracles where he was very vocally fetching only Plains to counter the land hate and very vocally fearing the likes of Aven Mindcensor, but only ever had 2 plains out and I believe a lot of Miracles lists only run 2 basic plains anyway.

[sdematt]

A few unorthodox lists recently have started cutting Goyf and KotR for cards that are better vs a Terminus and Deathrite Shaman meta. Check out kikoo's list on the previous page, but I don't know of any lists that have placed without the goyf.

--

Just a thought I had...since it is most important to keep Miracles off of double white for Entreat and we already have Wasteland to hit nonbasics (and sometimes KotR to fetch more Wastelands), would it be reasonable to roll with Sinkholes in the sideboard to hit the basic Plains? Or is that far too narrow?

This more or less came up during my last Legacy finals vs Miracles where he was very vocally fetching only Plains to counter the land hate and very vocally fearing the likes of Aven Mindcensor, but only ever had 2 plains out and I believe a lot of Miracles lists only run 2 basic plains anyway.

I was talking to Dan (nitewolf) at Denver on Day 1 and he said the Sinkhole plan was VERY good against the decks like Esperblade and Miracles. DRS.deck doesn't care about Sinkhole since you're producing mana all the time anyway. These other decks, however, use up to 10 Fetches to ensure they stay on target with dropping consistent mana. Even Vidi in his matches fetches his basics first to ensure stable mana development. Sinkhole kicks this in the teeth and makes higher CMC cards a liability (as you fall prey to Pierce and Daze in the Tempo decks).

I think if you are the Tempo deck, running Hymn (to hit lands in their hand) and Wasteland, then Sinkhole becomes a good card against these decks, but even better when you have taxing counters. I don't think we're a tempo enough of a deck (at least, the common builds being played) that it would make THAT much of a difference in the way Team America is using the card. However, for us, we could use it to, like you said, keep Miracles off a stable double white for Entreat. This doesn't stop them in keeping a Fetch uncracked to fetch a Tundra when they need it, though.

---

Not to let the cat out of the bag, but after Carsten Kotter's article yesterday, it's basically out of the bag. Punishing Maverick is quick possibly a deck. Why, you ask? I've been pushing Aven Mindcensor like a champ for the last little while. The card is balls insane against these decks running 10 Fetches and relying on topdecks. Hatebear.deck could be a thing, and the addition of Punishing Fire means you roast the opponent's Deathrite Shamans very nicely.

I was toying with:

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
2 Sylvan Library
4 Green Sun's Zenith
13

4 Mother of Runes
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Aven Mindcensor
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
4 Noble Hierarch
24

3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Savannah
1 Karakas
3 Forest
1 Plains
4 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
23

This version doesn't have Jitte, which is one thing I don't like, but I need to squeeze the Fires in. There isn't a full set of Thalia since you actually want to cast Fires repeatedly, and Thalia isn't amazing against Miracles (but good in other matchups) so I shaved one.

-Matt

[Kl'rt]

Knight has been underwhelming for me since Deathrite. It's hard to keep it big enough to survive bolts and block Goyfs against other Deathrite decks (mostly Jund). It's also very bad against all the Lillianas being played right now.

Just finished playing at a small local. I feel the same way about Knights. With Deathrites everywhere, she stays small almost all the time. It's very frustrating.

I think Lingering Souls is where this deck should be. GP Denver showed us that, just like in Modern, multiple Spirit tokens give Jund a very hard time.

[sdematt]

While Knights do stay smaller, they still tutor Wastelands and provide mana correction if need be. I think cutting them is fine depending on the meta, but I'm not ready to cut them yet, since Deathrite still hurts Lingering Souls.

-Matt

[KobeBryan]

I was talking to Dan (nitewolf) at Denver on Day 1 and he said the Sinkhole plan was VERY good against the decks like Esperblade and Miracles. DRS.deck doesn't care about Sinkhole since you're producing mana all the time anyway. These other decks, however, use up to 10 Fetches to ensure they stay on target with dropping consistent mana. Even Vidi in his matches fetches his basics first to ensure stable mana development. Sinkhole kicks this in the teeth and makes higher CMC cards a liability (as you fall prey to Pierce and Daze in the Tempo decks).

I think if you are the Tempo deck, running Hymn (to hit lands in their hand) and Wasteland, then Sinkhole becomes a good card against these decks, but even better when you have taxing counters. I don't think we're a tempo enough of a deck (at least, the common builds being played) that it would make THAT much of a difference in the way Team America is using the card. However, for us, we could use it to, like you said, keep Miracles off a stable double white for Entreat. This doesn't stop them in keeping a Fetch uncracked to fetch a Tundra when they need it, though.

---

Not to let the cat out of the bag, but after Carsten Kotter's article yesterday, it's basically out of the bag. Punishing Maverick is quick possibly a deck. Why, you ask? I've been pushing Aven Mindcensor like a champ for the last little while. The card is balls insane against these decks running 10 Fetches and relying on topdecks. Hatebear.deck could be a thing, and the addition of Punishing Fire means you roast the opponent's Deathrite Shamans very nicely.

I was toying with:

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
2 Sylvan Library
4 Green Sun's Zenith
13

4 Mother of Runes
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Aven Mindcensor
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
4 Noble Hierarch
24

3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Savannah
1 Karakas
3 Forest
1 Plains
4 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
23

This version doesn't have Jitte, which is one thing I don't like, but I need to squeeze the Fires in. There isn't a full set of Thalia since you actually want to cast Fires repeatedly, and Thalia isn't amazing against Miracles (but good in other matchups) so I shaved one.

-Matt

PFM is actually a great deck in this meta with so many abrupt decays, jund decks, and all these utility creature decks.

[lyracian]

but I'm not ready to cut them yet, since Deathrite still hurts Lingering Souls.
DRS is a problem if you have less than 5 mana; but otherwise surly you can just flash it back as soon as you get priority before they have a chance to remove it? You do not get the ability to split tokens over two turns but decks with DRS do not usually have sweepers.

[Crust]

Speaking of Jund decks? How do you guys SB against Jund?

[sdematt]

I think against any mirror match (at least, midrange mirror match) I usually take out Discard in favour of actual threats. Why? Well, discard is fine in the early game to disrupt, but as time goes on, you actually want consistent threats. You want every card to either be a threat or an answer. If I were boarding for Jund, I would go:

-3 Thoughtseize
-3 Inquisition
+2 Deed
+1 Elspeth
+1 Ooze
+1 Qasali
+1 Tracker

You're attempting to become the better control deck, and you can be. Sure, you don't have BBE and Liliana, but you can consistently muck their guys, sweep the board, and get in there.

-Matt

[KobeBryan]

I think against any mirror match (at least, midrange mirror match) I usually take out Discard in favour of actual threats. Why? Well, discard is fine in the early game to disrupt, but as time goes on, you actually want consistent threats. You want every card to either be a threat or an answer. If I were boarding for Jund, I would go:

-3 Thoughtseize
-3 Inquisition
+2 Deed
+1 Elspeth
+1 Ooze
+1 Qasali
+1 Tracker

You're attempting to become the better control deck, and you can be. Sure, you don't have BBE and Liliana, but you can consistently muck their guys, sweep the board, and get in there.

-Matt

same way i board against BUG, Junk and Jund when using bant.

[Crust]

Yeah I think that is a way to go. Better to have a handfull of threats than discardspells when the hymn hits you.
This is the list I'm playing tomorrow in a small local torney.

4 deathrite shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
4 tarmogoyf
1 elspeth, knight-errant
1 thrun, the last troll
1 engineered explosives
1 maelstrom pulse
2 inquisition of kozilek

2 sylvan library
2 sensei´s divining top
4 abrupt decay
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 savannah
2 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 plains
3 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Maze of ith
1 bojuka bog

SB
3 duress
3 Pithing needle
2 gaddock teeg
2 extirpate
1 scavenging ooze
1 nihil spellbomb
2 pernicious deed
1 Heroes' Reunion

Been liking the Pithing Needle against a lot of stuff for example plainswalkers, SDT, Aether Vial.
Tested the Heroes' Reunion against zoo och RUG and it was quite good. It's good for burn of course. Thinking of using it in the TES matchup as well.

[Claymore]

As an aside, does anyone have experience with GP side events? I'm looking to play in a few win-a-boxes and Legacy Challenges at GP Charlotte and I'm curious if it's a normal meta or if I should expect more combo.

[Barbed Blightning]

As an aside, does anyone have experience with GP side events? I'm looking to play in a few win-a-boxes and Legacy Challenges at GP Charlotte and I'm curious if it's a normal meta or if I should expect more combo.

Usually, there are a decent number of combo decks (roughly 20%) and an equal amount of control (i.e., blade/miracles). The rest is fairly random.

[sdematt]

So it seems like RUG is still a thing, apparently. It was the deck I lost to twice at Denver (due to awkward draws by me and nut draws by them, but whatever) and it seems like it can still do certain versions of BUG in.

I'm still thinking of retooling my board a bit.

3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Pithing Needle
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Surgical Extraction
+2

Again, Elspeth and Ooze are great, but is that one card going to make the difference? I've drawn it and won and I've not drawn it and won. I need to do more testing against Esperblade, Gobbos, and Jund to see if those two slots should be other cards or not. I really want to fit Chains of Mephistopheles in, but he doesn't do enough against the decks I want to see him in (Miracles and Esper) since I can't bring that many cards out to bring it in.

The real question is: Is there a card that hits both RUG and Esperblade? Ooze comes to mind again, but I'm not sure that's the answer. I know they're two entirely different decks, but I'm just brainstorming.

-Matt

[Claymore]

I would say Engineered Explosives to take down Geese or Delver and a variety of tokens, but you already have Pernicious Deed...

Another option would be Carpet of Flowers. Outrace RUG's taxing counters and LD, give yourself extra fuel to overwhelm Esper's counters and force a Bob or Sylvan Library onto the board. I'm not sure how effective it would be at x2, maybe better as x3. I played it in Nic Fit but haven't tested it here against RUG.

[Barbed Blightning]

So it seems like RUG is still a thing, apparently. It was the deck I lost to twice at Denver (due to awkward draws by me and nut draws by them, but whatever) and it seems like it can still do certain versions of BUG in.

I'm still thinking of retooling my board a bit.

3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Pithing Needle
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Surgical Extraction
+2

Again, Elspeth and Ooze are great, but is that one card going to make the difference? I've drawn it and won and I've not drawn it and won. I need to do more testing against Esperblade, Gobbos, and Jund to see if those two slots should be other cards or not. I really want to fit Chains of Mephistopheles in, but he doesn't do enough against the decks I want to see him in (Miracles and Esper) since I can't bring that many cards out to bring it in.

The real question is: Is there a card that hits both RUG and Esperblade? Ooze comes to mind again, but I'm not sure that's the answer. I know they're two entirely different decks, but I'm just brainstorming.

-Matt

Ooze and elspeth both have worked overtime for me in my testing, abd not just vs. RUG. BUG, Jund and any other deathrite deck have a hard time dealing with him and elspeth is beyond decay's reach. I won't be taking them out of my board for the forseeable future. Needle, on the other hand, has been garbage.

I don't see how we lose to RUG, though. Play smart & around daze, and our essentially limitless suite of removal should do the trick.

[Esper3k]

Stifle/Wasteland decks can be particularly rough on us because we are so dependent upon getting 2 specific colors of mana together. Even Deathrite Shaman isn't a guarantee since he'll typically just eat a bolt before we get any use out of him. Our Wastelands are also particularly bad in this matchup since it'll be rare that we actually mana/color screw them and much more common that it ends up sitting around giving us colorless mana when we need colored mana.

Playing around Daze also isn't always an option when our manabase is being attacked so aggressively.

[Barbed Blightning]

Stifle/Wasteland decks can be particularly rough on us because we are so dependent upon getting 2 specific colors of mana together. Even Deathrite Shaman isn't a guarantee since he'll typically just eat a bolt before we get any use out of him. Our Wastelands are also particularly bad in this matchup since it'll be rare that we actually mana/color screw them and much more common that it ends up sitting around giving us colorless mana when we need colored mana.

Playing around Daze also isn't always an option when our manabase is being attacked so aggressively.

I disagree, since I think stifle and wasteland can be played around. Yeah you'll be slower at starting, but once we stabilize, we'll lock them out. I've never had issues beating RUG

[.Ix]

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lingering Souls
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Gavony Township
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
2 Scrubland
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Sylvan Library
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Dark Confidant
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Engineered Plague
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution
SB: 4 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Oblivion Ring
SB: 1 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 1 Sylvan Safekeeper


Played this list at a very small local. While I think the deck is very powerful, it might just be too slow for tournaments. It ends up grinding way too much and can't beat other grindy decks in a reasonable amount of time. I ended 2-0-2, drawing my final match 1-1 against the Esperblade build that took first place. Lost game 1 after putting my opponent in topdeck mode with a series of therapies. He ripped a Jace off the top and I had only one creature in hand. Game 2 was a grindfest that I won with a resolved Sylvan Library. I think some number of Stoneforge Mystic might be good for speeding up the kill here.

[damionblackgear]

Played this list at a very small local. While I think the deck is very powerful, it might just be too slow for tournaments. It ends up grinding way too much and can't beat other grindy decks in a reasonable amount of time. I ended 2-0-2, drawing my final match 1-1 against the Esperblade build that took first place. Lost game 1 after putting my opponent in topdeck mode with a series of therapies. He ripped a Jace off the top and I had only one creature in hand. Game 2 was a grindfest that I won with a resolved Sylvan Library. I think some number of Stoneforge Mystic might be good for speeding up the kill here.

Stoneforge doesn't speed it up. typically it'll give you a little more power vs them via a reliable, recur-able creature. You'll end up hard casting the Batterskull more often than not. I also don't recommend Jitte (perhaps a second BS) for the current Meta. Everything that you'll want to kill will have been overrun already by your removal and 'larger' creatures.

[nodahero]

Stoneforge doesn't speed it up. typically it'll give you a little more power vs them via a reliable, recur-able creature. You'll end up hard casting the Batterskull more often than not. I also don't recommend Jitte (perhaps a second BS) for the current Meta. Everything that you'll want to kill will have been overrun already by your removal and 'larger' creatures.

Sorry if this is a beaten horse but with the increse of DRS the value of Knight and Goyf has notably decreased to me. Is it in turn logical that SFM would act as our replacment for them in the finisher sense? If so are there any thoughts on the value of the different swords or is Jitte better then each sword? Sorry if this is stupid. I am more of a combo player but wanted to switch it up.'

thanks

[KobeBryan]

Sorry if this is a beaten horse but with the increse of DRS the value of Knight and Goyf has notably decreased to me. Is it in turn logical that SFM would act as our replacment for them in the finisher sense? If so are there any thoughts on the value of the different swords or is Jitte better then each sword? Sorry if this is stupid. I am more of a combo player but wanted to switch it up.'

thanks

Deathrite shaman is good, but its not enough to cut your knights and goyfs out.

[crow_mw]

@Matt - Traditionally Choke is good against all blue decks, but while this is a big pain to RUG, resolving it is a pain as well...

@Barbed Blightning - I could actually use some pointers against RUG, so maybe you could share with us? How do you play against stifle, wasteland and daze at the same time?

[.Ix]

Stoneforge doesn't speed it up. typically it'll give you a little more power vs them via a reliable, recur-able creature. You'll end up hard casting the Batterskull more often than not. I also don't recommend Jitte (perhaps a second BS) for the current Meta. Everything that you'll want to kill will have been overrun already by your removal and 'larger' creatures.

My meta is different, and Jitte is still very relevant around here. I do want to play Batterskull, however. SFM gives me more threats for when my other attempts to put power on the board have been neutered. This is when the game slows down to a crawl anyway, and when this happens I am likely to have enough mana to hardcast the equipment in hand and dodge discard effects. I have to test more, but I have found myself drawing a lot more without SFM in the deck.

nodahero:

Generally SOFI, SOLAS, and SOFAF are the best, and the other two are far worse. Jitte is overall still the best equipment in the game, but it loses a bit of value in removal-heavy environments (Grim Lavamancer, Punishing Fire, etc).

[Barbed Blightning]

@Matt - Traditionally Choke is good against all blue decks, but while this is a big pain to RUG, resolving it is a pain as well...

@Barbed Blightning - I could actually use some pointers against RUG, so maybe you could share with us? How do you play against stifle, wasteland and daze at the same time?

Well, first and foremost I don't play GSZ or SFM. My list is essentially a quadlazer-style deck, and I feel like I'm less susceptible to their taxing counters (that one additional mana for GSZ makes a big difference, imo).

As far as playing against stifle, wasteland, and daze, it's something that comes with experience. Are you on the play? if so, you're usually fine with a turn one fetch into a basic (I grab a swamp or forest depending on my hand; usually forest so I can resolve my goyfs, but if you have a bob in hand, obviously grab the swamp) then I drop DRS regardless, since he is our best maindeck tool versus that deck. Turn two you can drop one of our power bears through a daze or a stifle (though obviously not through both). Sure, they can bolt your DRS on turn one, but that means your second fetch is guaranteed to hit your other basic. And if they play a Delver or goose and their first turn, well, you should have no problems getting what you need to beat them out.

From the board I bring in 2 ooze, a duress and a thalia from my board in favor of my 4 thoughtseize. Ooze just straight up murders their gameplan (GY and aggressive damage), Thalia slows them, and duress hits what I would want thoughtseize to hit anyway: submerge.

Also a fun fact: Liliana of the Veil is better than RUG's entire 75. -2 hits their very limited suite of dudes, esp. mongoose. +1 is actually my favorite to lead off with, since it automatically makes her immune to bolt and kills their ever-shrinking hand. -6 almost never happens, but if it does, you'll blow the game out. Just remember to play her after you've stabilized.

I mean, you're not ALWAYS guaranteed to beat Canadian (it's still tier one for a reason, after all), but I'd say you should be able to beat it eight times out of ten.

[Esper3k]

I disagree, since I think stifle and wasteland can be played around. Yeah you'll be slower at starting, but once we stabilize, we'll lock them out. I've never had issues beating RUG

Playing around Stifle/Wasteland/Daze is always easy to say, but much harder to do against an experienced Tempo player than it sounds.

Even if you're on the play decision trees are much harder than you think. If it's G1, do you fetch a basic or not? Given the multiple differing colored mana requirements our deck has, fetching a basic can often screw you over, especially if they have a Wasteland. Given that it's a G1, there's a very good chance you don't know what you're up against. A lot of times, 2 land hands are just fine but against tempo decks, you can just be dead from it regardless of playing around Wasteland/Stifle/Daze or not.

Second, we can't always count on having Deathrite Shaman T1. In your example from the previous post, you're talking about the best possible scenerio we have - T1 Deathrite on the play, have fetches that can get whatever basic we need.

The scariest thing a RUG / Tempo player can do is actually T1, play land, pass turn then lead into T2 Delver/Mongoose. Experienced Tempo players don't tap out unless they absolutely have to. Yes, we can sit and try to play around Stifle/Wasteland/Daze, but that usually takes 1) Time that you might not have due to an early Delver or 2) Cards we may or may not have in our hand.

[Barbed Blightning]

Playing around Stifle/Wasteland/Daze is always easy to say, but much harder to do against an experienced Tempo player than it sounds.

Even if you're on the play decision trees are much harder than you think. If it's G1, do you fetch a basic or not? Given the multiple differing colored mana requirements our deck has, fetching a basic can often screw you over, especially if they have a Wasteland. Given that it's a G1, there's a very good chance you don't know what you're up against. A lot of times, 2 land hands are just fine but against tempo decks, you can just be dead from it regardless of playing around Wasteland/Stifle/Daze or not.

Second, we can't always count on having Deathrite Shaman T1. In your example from the previous post, you're talking about the best possible scenerio we have - T1 Deathrite on the play, have fetches that can get whatever basic we need.

The scariest thing a RUG / Tempo player can do is actually T1, play land, pass turn then lead into T2 Delver/Mongoose. Experienced Tempo players don't tap out unless they absolutely have to. Yes, we can sit and try to play around Stifle/Wasteland/Daze, but that usually takes 1) Time that you might not have due to an early Delver or 2) Cards we may or may not have in our hand.

So, why not post your own solutions to this apparent RUG dilemma rather than picking apart mine? I've given what advice I can vs. Canadian given my experience against it in both testing and the field. I also don't know how some people don't understand how to play around Daze/Wasteland/Stifle. Have you not bothered practicing this matchup? Does it not exist in your metagame at all?

I would also argue that, even despite all the cantrips in the deck, RUG will not always have the "godhand" of delver, daze, waste AND stifle. It's just not always likely. Also, not every list runs stifle; some are favoring forked bolt/other burn as a method of dealing with DRS.

[damionblackgear]

My meta is different, and Jitte is still very relevant around here. I do want to play Batterskull, however. SFM gives me more threats for when my other attempts to put power on the board have been neutered. This is when the game slows down to a crawl anyway, and when this happens I am likely to have enough mana to hardcast the equipment in hand and dodge discard effects. I have to test more, but I have found myself drawing a lot more without SFM in the deck.

That's fair. Metagames vary from location to location. the thing to make sure of is that Jitte is what you really what. It's great 90% of the time but there are other options as you meantions. SOFI and SOLS are my two picks. I see no use towards SOWP and I view the alternate win condition potential more important than the untap and I'd rather have the 2/2 than the discard most of the time. The sword preference is my personal opinion. Everyone's will vary.

As for playing around stifle, sometimes the best defense is to wait. The later the game goes the better it gets for us. If they don't do anything with their fetch, don't do anything with your fetch. Sometimes you can catch them off guard and fetch in response to their fetch (or when they tap out). It's more about feeling them out (this analogy will not exist in parenthesis). Sometimes you'll just get that feeling that it's safe, trust it. you'll find out if you're wrong and that feeling will improve (you're basically learning to read people. It's a good thing. Keep learning how to tell until you think you've got it).

Daze is only important if they lead with a Delver. Then again, 3 damage isn't the end of the world. be patient with your swords. Make them double daze or pierce. Also, doing it at their end step isn't the worst either. If you can afford 6, take 6 and burn them out of the ability to respond to your next spell.

Wasteland isn't something you play around if you can't. If you can, do it. There's no reason to fetch non-basics if you don't have to. 2 land hands suck when you get wasted. Take the chance that you'll find something else and get your basics. Better to be able to cast something than nothing. This goes mute if you don't have the opportunity or you need the spell NOW.

[Esper3k]

So, why not post your own solutions to this apparent RUG dilemma rather than picking apart mine? I've given what advice I can vs. Canadian given my experience against it in both testing and the field. I also don't know how some people don't understand how to play around Daze/Wasteland/Stifle. Have you not bothered practicing this matchup? Does it not exist in your metagame at all?

I would also argue that, even despite all the cantrips in the deck, RUG will not always have the "godhand" of delver, daze, waste AND stifle. It's just not always likely. Also, not every list runs stifle; some are favoring forked bolt/other burn as a method of dealing with DRS.

From my own experience, both playing against it in the field & testing against it, I just do not agree that the matchup is as easy as you claim especially nowhere near 8/10 times.

Simply put, it's not a simple matter of playing around Daze/Wasteland/Stifle because in the field - there is only so much you can do to play around those spells. Most of the time, at some point, you have to test the waters and see if they have it.

For me, to help increase percentage points in the RUG matchup, I play slightly fewer fetches and more actual dual lands. Also, I try to play spells that don't multiple colors if I can help it (so I don't have to be as reliant upon dual lands). Playing less Wastelands and more actual colored mana sources also helps. Post-board, I actually keep many of the 1 mana discard spells because 1) it's critical in this matchup to have a 1 drop spell we can cast, but still isn't key to have it resolve. The 1 mana discard spells fit this role perfectly because if they do resolve, we gain valuable information while removing one of their threats. You very rarely want to lead off with a T1 StP because there's a pretty good chance (between Daze & FoW) of it getting stopped 2) typically, people board out the 1 mana discard spells for slower / more expensive cards which I believe is incorrect - it both screws up your mana curve as well as plays further into their mana denial / disruption plan.

If your meta is full of RUG / tempo decks, I actually think playing Tarmogoyfs and cutting Knights is likely correct. The multicolor cost of Knight makes it tougher to cast through Wasteland/Stifle since your primary colors to stabilize should be getting GB to get Abrupt Decay online. The 3 mana cost of it makes it tougher to cast under their mana denial plan. Post-board, they're going to be bringing in 3-4 Submerges which also makes Knights very bad since we have no way to protect her (unlike say Maverick with Mother of Runes). Tarmogoyf is a fine blocker for Mongoose and opposing 'Goyfs because our game plan should be to stall and develop our mana and allow our more powerful mid range spells / removal to take over.

Fundmentally, against RUG / Tempo decks, the early game should be spent focusing on developing our manabase and only exposing ourselves to Stifle/Waste/Daze if we have to stop pressure from early attackers, putting priority on Delvers, Tarmogoyfs, and Mongooses in that order to deal with.

Again, because of the nature of our deck (three colors, heavily dependant on getting combinations of different colors of mana together), it is inherently susceptible to the Stifle/Wasteland/Daze plan and so there's only so much you can do against that.

[sdematt]

This is the matchup where I used to have Life from the Loam for, but I just don't have the room anymore. DRS took that slot :P

-Matt

[Koby]

This deck and Maverick are close enough in composition that the following advice is valid:
Fetch basics. Develop your mana to 3-4 ASAP. Kill Delver but don't walk into Daze. KotR will carry you the rest of the way.

[Kich867]

Hey all, heading to Jupiter this weekend with Rock. Here's the list I'll be taking, it leans towards being very, very grindy. I notice a lot of lists right now lean towards being aggressive, I don't want that, not my jam with this sort of thing.

// List: 60
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Lingering Souls

2x Vindicate
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Swords to Plowshares

2x Life from the Loam
3x Duress
2x Inquisition of Kozilek

2x Sylvan Library
2x Sensei's Divining Top

2x Liliana of the Veil
1x Garruk Relentless

2x Savannah
2x Scrubland
2x Bayou
3x Wasteland
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Maze of Ith
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains

// Sideboard: 15
2x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Armageddon
2x Engineered Explosives
3x Surgical Extraction
3x Hymn to Tourach
1x Scavenging Ooze

I'll let you know how I do when I get back. I'm expecting a lot of Jund/Bug/Nic Fit/Rug/Elves, and not a lot of combo. I know for a fact there are like 5 Scape-wish Nic Fit lists going to be there and I have a good matchup main and a silly matchup postboard so that's refreshing (between Teeg, Armageddon, Hymn, and Surgical).

Combo will be annoying, but I'm hoping the Hymn/Extraction/Teeg plan will let me keep them down long enough to pull wins out / hoping I won't see them.

I feel pretty confidant against just about anything with this list right now, it really suits me. And duresses are because I don't have thoughtseizes.

[Koby]

Why Duress over Thoughtseize? The life loss isn't that big of a factor in you're expecting mid-range decks, but the ability to nab creatures will be more useful.

[dballard]

Or, as someone suggested to me, Cabal Therapy since you are playing Lingering Souls?

[Kich867]

Why Duress over Thoughtseize? The life loss isn't that big of a factor in you're expecting mid-range decks, but the ability to nab creatures will be more useful.

Last sentence ^_^, sorry haha.

Duresses are because I do not own thoughtseizes. Leaning towards Duress over IOK because I'm running 8 removal spells plus liliana and garruk, who are essentially removal spells. More worried about spells and combo decks.

Cabal Therapy is an interesting option, dredge is popular there and it would certainly help to be able to just up and kill a guy to blow up bridges..

[damionblackgear]

Why Zenith in the board? It seems like it'd be a card that if you're going to play it you'd rather have it in the main.

[Kich867]

Why Zenith in the board? It seems like it'd be a card that if you're going to play it you'd rather have it in the main.

Because the only relevant target is Knight, I generally only care about landing a DRS early.. it serves no other function other than being Knight's 5-6. That seems sort of pointless unless against decks where the long-game is clearly where it's going and redundant copies of knights are what I'm looking for.

More importantly, it lets me run virtually 6 copies of DRS, 3 copies of Ooze against graveyard decks, or 4 copies of teeg against combo, or 6 copies of knights against miracles where spot removal forces me to just slam knights until they give.

So it lets me run more copies of cards that I need and expands my sideboard to be worth many more cards than it should be.

[sdematt]

Then perhaps run the card in the main, since it's pretty fucking good. Cut a Duress and a Top, Add 2 GSZ and make it 3 Sylvan Libraries. You're a mana intensive build; you do not want to be derdling with Top.

-Matt

[crow_mw]

Thank you for all the input on Canadian *****. I am sort of surprised about the 'do not side thoughtseizes out'. Indeed I always side them out, with common reasoning 'no need to shock yourself' and I am suffering from too few 1 drops. Are other players here also keeping thoughtseizes in games 2 and 3?

[Esper3k]

Thank you for all the input on Canadian *****. I am sort of surprised about the 'do not side thoughtseizes out'. Indeed I always side them out, with common reasoning 'no need to shock yourself' and I am suffering from too few 1 drops. Are other players here also keeping thoughtseizes in games 2 and 3?

For me, it's worth 2 life to take their Tarmogoyf / Submerge / Countermagic, etc as well as give you valuable information on what cards (Stifle/Wasteland/Daze) you need to be playing around.

[Claymore]

Random thought, but a Ghost Quarter/Wasteland split would be an easy way to take out Miracle's double Plains, especially with KotR fetching.

[sdematt]

Random thought, but a Ghost Quarter/Wasteland split would be an easy way to take out Miracle's double Plains, especially with KotR fetching.

In all honesty I'd thought about this. Plus, makes them shuffle. EOT, muck your Plains, go search for an Island. Cool story. They'd have to Entreat or Terminus right then if they'd set up the Miracle, making that interesting as well.

Also, we're DTB now? Weird. I'm not even mad, but I just feel like we should put up better American numbers (Rock's doing well in Europe for sure) before we brag about DTB. It's up to us!

-Matt

[Kich867]

I think I can get behind that, sdematt, I can make those changes and add more combo hate (probably 2 more duresses or a duress+iok) to the side. I did like Top's interaction with Loam and Bob, but good use of Sylvan makes Bob fine as well, so I can agree with all of that. Redundant copies of Knights / Deathrites will probably be a better game 1 choice for the most part now that I consider the option.

I'll let you all know how this weekend goes, if my instincts are correct I think I'll do ok.

[lavafrogg]

Rock finally made it to DTB? AWESOME!!! Keep it up guys!

[.Ix]

Kich867:

Run some Therapy if you have souls. It's been awesome for me. It's ok even if you miss because you can find out which lands to waste or what to save Decay for. I suggest running Dryad Arbor and green fetch if you're running GSZ and therapy main for even more value. Turn 2s will get much better with acceleration as well. I agree with sdematt - a deck that heavy on the manabase can't afford to spin tops. 2 Library and 4 Confidant are enough for this deck IMO. This is around 8 cards off from the deck I played last week. I tested SDT there and I could barely spin it because my mana was all invested on ooze, DRS, souls, and the cards I drew off Bob.

[Dzra]

Is there any sort of consensus on what the typical Junk deck is running these days? I've seen everything from Lingering Souls and Liliana to GSZ and KotR... I suppose it depends on whether you favor the B or G side more..?

[dballard]

Is there any sort of consensus on what the typical Junk deck is running these days? I've seen everything from Lingering Souls and Liliana to GSZ and KotR... I suppose it depends on whether you favor the B or G side more..?

There seem to be two main variations; one leans towards Lingering Souls, Cabal Therapy and sometimes Jitte or some other equip. Another plays a little more discard and incorporates Liliana. Then again, some builds make more use out of GSZ and use a toolbox of creatures. The build varies, and should vary, depending on your meta and your play style.

There was a recent deck (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25486_Eternal-Europe-ndash-Week-One-Of-2013-Legacy.html) that won without KotR but that's an aberration, KotR is just about a staple in most builds.

Check this site (http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/index.php) out for a look at many different builds that have been successful.

[ryn ball_2]

Nice rock is at DTB section now!, It's been a busy months so i miss lots of legacy scenes in my local and here at the source and i want to revive/replenish my rock build. What is the current build that junk/rock holds? i've seen lingering souls+liliana plan, some builds GSZ+relentless plan.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Is there any sort of consensus on what the typical Junk deck is running these days? I've seen everything from Lingering Souls and Liliana to GSZ and KotR... I suppose it depends on whether you favor the B or G side more..?

"I'm so sick of these random Legacy deck names. I'm sure there'll never be a need to distinguish superficially similar decklists with unique and particular appellations." - Starcity


eta: I'm sorry, I meant, "Large online Magic card and strategy company."

[sdematt]

Won a local 12 man last night.

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
3 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Deathrite Shaman

4 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek

3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Life from the Loam
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sylvan Library
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Maelstrom Pulse

--BOARD--

1 Zealous Persecution
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Pithing Needle
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze


I went 3-0-1 against the newest Matt Nass Elf build, then played against Goblins, then Monoblack Pox, then tied with DDFT. I'll write a tournament report when I get back from getting my flu shot :/

I changed to build up to try some different cards, I'll let you know how they were. Loam was obviously amazing against Pox.

-Matt

[Arsenal]

sdematt -

How was your experience of 3x Sylvan and 0x SDT? I've pretty much always rocked 2-3x Top and 0-1x Library and found it to be quite awesome (Library is viewed as Bob #5 to me most times).

[sdematt]

sdematt -

How was your experience of 3x Sylvan and 0x SDT? I've pretty much always rocked 2-3x Top and 0-1x Library and found it to be quite awesome (Library is viewed as Bob #5 to me most times).

Sylvan is the best card in the deck. Sylvan is the best thing you can be doing on Turn 1 or Turn 8; the card is busted good whenever you play it (unless you're already dead). It's card advantage is HUGE against derdly decks like Miracles, and still has value against everything since it just helps you FIND the other cards you want. It's one of the few cards I've never boarded out a copy. People who talk about the diminishing returns of having too many Sylvans are correct that this CAN be an issue. However, with all the Abrupt Decay/EE/Detention Sphere, you'll want more than the one copy. It's the card I gun down in any BGx mirror, since whoever has Sylvan stick wins the game. Top is fine, but it's not the same.

-Matt

[Seraph2k]

Hey Matt,

why no liliana in your built? Is the zenith-path so much better?

[startyran]

Hey!

Long time follower first time poster. Been playing rock for 2-3 years now and just had a quick question.

How would I deal with esperblade pre and post board?

I have been having issues against my friend. Haven't won a single set yet =(

Thanks!

[Dzra]

"I'm so sick of these random Legacy deck names. I'm sure there'll never be a need to distinguish superficially similar decklists with unique and particular appellations." - Starcity


eta: I'm sorry, I meant, "Large online Magic card and strategy company."

Yeah, tell me about it. They've done a ton of good for Legacy, but deck naming isn't their strong suite.

So, from what I can tell it seems like most builds are something like a core of Goyfs, Bobs, and Deathrites with two of the following: KotR, Souls, GSZ, and Liliana (with Liliana being the more fringe of the four). A lot of the recent winning lists used Souls.

[chemicalstylez]

How many of you guys are running Sylvan over Tops? I feel out of date running 3x tops.... I'm seeing so many new decks lists without them :eyebrow:

[dballard]

I've slowly moved from 2 tops and 1 Sylvan to 3 Sylvan, saving mana to play with top just slows me down.

[baghdadbob]

Rock finally made it to DTB? AWESOME!!! Keep it up guys!

+1

[Esper3k]

I've always loved Sylvan Library. Green Necropotence + Top? Sign me up!

As others have stated, the card advantage you get from it (because your life total doesn't really matter) against Control gives them fits. The manipulation allows you to match their Tops & Brainstorms.

Against Aggro, it's not as amazing, but still very powerful because it allows you to find your removal when you really need to find it.

With multiples, the only time it's bad is if you draw another one before you get one down. Otherwise, it's a lot like multiple Tops - you're not going to draw any more unless you want to. As Matt pointed out, in the current meta where Abrupt Decay is all over the place, having multiples isn't really a bad thing either.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'm not actually into this deck (archetype?) particularly right now, but my general lean in Junk midrange builds has been 3 Top, 2 Library. Having the effect reliably is really important, it makes grinding infinitely easier. This particular split also reduces the number of dead cards in hand while making it very likely to have filtering available in any given game.

[sdematt]

Hey Matt,

why no liliana in your built? Is the zenith-path so much better?

At the moment, there is no Liliana in this build. Liliana and Green Sun's Zenith essentially are competing for the same slot.

Is GSZ better? I think it depends. In Jund, they cannot run GSZ because it leads to awful situations with BBE cascades, so they run Liliana instead. However, I think this is really up to the individual. With all the Lingering Souls, protecting a Planeswalker can be difficult. Liliana is very strong in her +1 and -2 abilities, but I also like the consistency of GSZ being able to fetch more Knights, Goyfs, or Deathrites than my opponent. I've always leaned for consistency over explosivity in my Junk builds. While this is not to say Liliana isn't consistent, I just feel like she's a little fragile compared to running a card that increases my creature threat density and allows different sideboard options (Gaddock Teeg being tutorable is a big deal).

I think this really come down to playstyle, in all honesty. Liliana has her benefits in dumping extra copies of things in the yard to feed Goyf, Knight, DRS (especially if you're running what IBA suggested, 3 Top 2 Library. Throwing an artifact or Enchantment in the yard means Goyfs gets big and can't be affected by an opposing DRS), and GSZ has benefits in tutoring bullets and throwing out more Goyfs and DRS than your opponents.


Hey!

Long time follower first time poster. Been playing rock for 2-3 years now and just had a quick question.

How would I deal with esperblade pre and post board?

I have been having issues against my friend. Haven't won a single set yet =(

Thanks!

Pre-board, I feel like the cards you really don't want to see is the Snapcaster-Swords to Plowshares shenanigans. That gets awful quickly. Remember to use your discard effectively. Making them discard a Brainstorm could be fine at the time, but i think the key is keeping DRS onboard to negate the effectiveness of Snapcaster Mage (who in turn negates the effects of your discard spells). Souls tokens are a beating since they chump your Goyfs, and then they just hook up equipment. Keep swinging in, and don't waste removal on tokens, but instead go for the Equipment.

Post-board, if you have E. Plague, bring that in. I usually board out Swords to Plowshares here (blasphemy!) and some hand disruption and bring in Deed, Qasali, Needle, Teeg, and Ooze. You're really just afraid of Snapcaster-STP and Equipment along with active Jaces. Take out the Jace and you're usually fine, since they're stuck with a bunch of 1/1's. For my build:

-3 STP
-1 LFTL
-1 IOK
-1 Garruk Relentless (too fragile)
-2 Thoughtseize (yes, it can muck their Equipment after they tutor with Batterskull, I know that, however, I just think there's better cards to bring in)

+2 Needle (for Jace, Jitte, etc. Not necessary, but it's not bad)
+2 Teeg (shuts off EE, Jace, Verdict, hardcast Batterskull)
+1 Qasali (tutorable Equipment removal)
+2 Pernicious Deed (muck their board)
+1 Ooze (for mucking Snapcaster and Souls)

-Matt

[Seraph2k]

That sounds logical. I think I will give gsz a chance in my deck.
Especially the ability to tutor for SB cards seems to be very strong...

[sdematt]

That sounds logical. I think I will give gsz a chance in my deck.
Especially the ability to tutor for SB cards seems to be very strong...

So apparently Jund listed us as one of their worst matchups besides Storm Combo. I haven't really tested the matchup extensively (no hours-long grinding sessions yet), but this is most definitely a good thing.

-Matt

[Mr. Safety]

I have always supported Sylvan Library over Sensei's Divining Top. Against most decks a turn 1 Thoughtseize followed by a turn 2 Library makes me feel pretty good.


In the absence of Dark Confidant, I've been toying around with some straight up draw spells. Phyrexian Arena was in there for a while, but the 3 mana makes it awkward on the curve. Now I'm testing 3x Sign in Blood alongside 2x Sylvan Library. I want the 3rd Library though...so I may squeeze it in there by cutting a StP or Abrupt Decay.

[Amazing Larry]

So apparently Jund listed us as one of their worst matchups besides Storm Combo. I haven't really tested the matchup extensively (no hours-long grinding sessions yet), but this is most definitely a good thing.

-Matt

This makes sense. Both decks run the same base of creatures, 4 Bob, 3-4 Goyf, 4 Deathrite, and they have Bloodbraid Elf, while we have Knight. Both GSZ and Knight of the Reliquary are great tools against them. GSZ gets our stuff out quicker, and when we need it. Not to mention Knight is leagues better than Bloodbraid Elf. I've always considered Bolt and Swords to be even, but in this matchup sometimes their bolts won't kill all of our stuff. Lingering Souls is also a pain for them if you're running it. I've only played Jund a few times, but I've found the matchup to be quite favorable. The great thing is there is not much that they can board in to really screw us without screwing themselves as well.

[Seraph2k]

This afternoon I tested my new list, a variation of Matts list. I tried to find space for lilianas an finally found it. During testing LftL was amazing. When you find it your Shamans never run out of gas. And indeed the sylvan is great, due to the fact that the shamans push your lifetotal you can manipulate your library and draw extra cards.
Decklist is matts with the changes:
-1 IoK
-1Sylvan
- Garruk
+ 2 Liliana
--> 61 to 60 cards.

[Kich867]

Oke doke, so Jupiter happened, I went, and had a sort of rollercoaster time with the deck.

Here's the list I ran:

//Creatures:
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Dark Confidant
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Lingering Soils

// Spells:
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Vindicate
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Life from the Loam
2x Green Sun's Zenith

3x Liliana of the Veil
1x Garruk Relentless
2x Sylvan Library

// Lands:
2x Savannah
2x Bayou
2x Scrubland
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
3x Wasteland
1x Maze of Ith
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Swamp

// Sideboard:
2x Armageddon
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Duress
3x Hymn to Tourach
3x Surgical Extraction
1x Scavenging Ooze

My estimation of the meta wasn't terribly off, I just didn't hit any decks I wanted to actually play against. I think I just have to be smart and realize that Jupiter will always be heavily combo inundated. There was probably 8 or 9 people playing Storm, at least 1 guy playing spiral tide, at least 3 elves players, at least 2 sneak and show / omnishows, helm RIP combo, dredge.. It made up something like 1/4th of the room.

So of course, with this very grindy decklist, I start things off the fucking worst:

Round 1: Omni-Show by Some Nice Dude -- 0-1
-- Game 1 --
I get blown out by Emrakul turn 3.

-- Game 2 --
Omniscience into intuition into Emrakul turn 2.
Notes: There's not a lot to say here, he had everything he needed and blew me out, didn't see a therapy, couldn't really mull to it.

Round 2: ANT by Pretty Serious Dude -- 1-1
-- Game 1 --
I keep an ok hand, it has a therapy in it. I forgot to mention that over the course of playing Nic Fit for 6 months and spending hours on The Source daily, I am insanely good at playing Cabal Therapy and it's what is holding me to the deck right now. I was very ready to put this deck away and play Aggro Loam again by Round 5, but I trucked on and got my confidence back. I just had to get zen as fuck for awhile and actually reflect on the day afterwards, I didn't actually learn a lot about playing Rock today, I learned a lot about tilt and was acutely aware of it's affects on me, I won't let this happen anymore.

So anyways I keep this sweet ass hand with therapy in it. He wins the die roll, probes me, I'm like "Cool, storm or belcher? That's definitely what I want to be playing after Omni-show". Then he plays a lotus petal and cracks it for brainstorm, plays a fetch and passes. Definitely storm at this point.

Therapy on LED. Hits. His hand has very little action, I drop a deathrite and pass. He plays a land and passes. I drop a bob and beat for 1. His turn he burning wishes for Pyroclasm, but is one mana off casting it. I beat in for 3, cast lingering souls, flashback therapy on pyroclasm, he scoops I think. Cabal therapy is pretty good.

-- Game 2 --
I keep this hand: Deathrite x2, Bob, Duress, Cabal Therapy, Surgical, Bayou.

He opens with duress on Surgical. I duress, I hit something pretty relevant, I think it was a Dark Ritual. His hand is pretty much nothing though, it's a cabal ritual and that's about it. I draw a land so I also play deathrite and pass. He plays a land and passes, I strip his hand apart with Cabal Therapy. Therapy is pretty good.

At some point he gets 2 Bob's down, but I have Knight - Lingering souls token - 2x active deathrite - bob on the table. He's at 10 life. He draws LED and Dark Ritual off bob and I'm like "fuck." (Oh, I hit an AdNauseam with a therapy earlier, which is where the second soul token went away, but do they run 2? No idea) Nothing happens, he cracks a fetch and ponders. 9 life, EOT double shaman puts him to 5. Swing out, flying token puts him to 4, deathrites kill him. 2-0'd storm combo like a boss.

Round 3: Spiral Tide by Pretty Nice Dude -- 1-2
-- Game 1: --
I keep a hand that is definitely on the "Let's grind" plan. Turns out he's playing spiral tide, I don't do anything relevant and die.

-- Game 2: --
I am ultra tilted by playing 3 fucking combo decks in a row in the first 3 rounds of the tournament. I keep an awful hand that still could have won, but I was so tilted I wasn't thinking. I'm on the play VS a blue combo deck--you always name Brainstorm here. That's like, a fundamental rule to Therapy, you always name Brainstorm in this situation. I name Time Spiral on his mull to 6, which is strictly the worst thing ever, I don't have a surgical to use or anything, it was just bad. His hand? 3x Land, Brainstorm, 2x Merchant's Scroll.

The whole game goes to shit. Long story short, I was tilted, should have mulled a one-lander with a bunch of 3 drops and no action, and found a hand with more land + any of the 12 cards I boarded in against him.

Round 4: Pox by Pretty Upset Dude -- 2-2
-- Game 1: --
I guess he had been mulling a lot all day, he mulled to 6 this game. My hand is like patented "Ramp into Garruk" hand. Deathrite, Lingering Souls, Garruk, Cradle, 2 other lands, and a sword. I drop a deathrite, he drops the rack, I drop lingering souls, he surgicals them (Whatthefuck?!) and hits a second one that I drew, no bueno at all. Thinking bad shit is happening soon, I slightly panic. But then I slam garruk and remember how fucking awesome he is. Garruk makes 2/2 wolf tokens until he dies, Gaea's Cradle + Tokens = good. Therapy wasn't cast this game. It was next game though.

-- Game 2: --
He dark rituals into liliana. I therapy naming Bob. Hit. He puts liliana up to 5 and passes, I discard lingering souls (get rocked). I untap and abrupt decay her. He drops a mishra's factory at some point and gets some beats in. I wasteland it, drop my own liliana, drop a knight and bash him for 7. He goes to 9, does something and passes. I fetch into dryad arbor, sac it to therapy and hit him for lethal. Therapy + Arbor, hell yeah.

Round 5: Goblins by Pretty Normal Dude -- 2-3
-- Game 1 & 2 --
Goblins just does what it does, I rip his hand apart, but he gets double rishadan ports online, and apparently has infinity wastelands or something. I never go past 2 mana either game. Blind therapies hit both games.

Round 6: The Rock by Barbed Blightning -- 3-3
-- Game 1: --
Dwayne Johnson can't even smell what The Rock is cooking right here, it's a Junk mirror. Game 1 if I recall I hit a blind therapy on Swords, then have all the removal, land some stuff and win.

-- Game 2: --
He mulls to 5 I think. He leads with Deathrite, I therapy naming Bob: hit. I think I just slam like 4 waves of Lingering Souls with an active Knight on board, I find a Loam and waste lock him down to just a basic forest while beating in the air with lots of tokens. He doesn't find the Golgari Charm. =/

Round 7: Death and Taxes by Kinda Nervous Looking Dude -- 4-3
-- Game 1: --
Turn one bayou into DRS. He wastelands me. Weird. Turn 2 Land, eat a land, sylvan library (fuck yeah library). He swords DRS, but, library is online. I need to find lands though, I take 8 and draw double bob + swords to dig for land. I whiff on my blind therapy naming Thalia, because she'd suck. He doesn't really have anything relevant here and I breathe a sigh of relief. I think I just slam a bob, slam a knight, sword his dudes and beat until he dies.

-- Game 2: --
He has all the wastelands and ports and then gets a sword of light and shadow active. GG.

-- Game 3: --
Super awkward, super weird, but the relevant part is that he gets ultra stuck on lands after I waste him a couple times, I'm flooding but can't find any removal. Our board state gets like this:
He has Revoker on Lili, Stoneforge, Thalia, Vial, Rest in Peace. (RiP rapes our deck, by the way)
I have Bob, Deathrite, Liliana, Dryad Arbor, Sylvan Library.

He beats me from like 18 to 4 with Thalia, meanwhile I rip all 4 of my cabal therapies and blow his hand apart, I can't block her or I die to alpha swings, so I have to take the chip damage. I finally find Abrupt Decay + Sword on top of my library with library. I draw Abrupt Decay, decay the revoker, pump up liliana, lay a maze of ith and discard another land (at 6 lands anyways). Next turn, bob flips a sword and I draw a liliana. I sword his stoneforge, force him to sac thalia, drop my second lili and get the second sac off, start beats for three. I get him down to 10 and have all the answers every time, I'm at 3, he swords my Bob--fine, it was actually his only out at this point, me just killing myself with him.

I go up to 5, play lingering souls and pass. He draws nothing relevant and passes. I draw, pump liliana to 5 and discard a land, beat for 3, and say, "Look, can you even get out of this? I'm going to ultimate liliana and you're not going to be able to come back from it, the top 3 cards of my library are removal spells." He peeks at the top few cards of his library and scoops them up. I don't actually like doing things like this, but time had just been called, he very obviously wasn't going to win, and I honestly don't even know if he knew time had been called since he seemed pretty deep in thought about how the gamestate was. He was on a 4 turn clock and I had removal for the next 3 creatures he plays.

Deck thoughts in general:

So the list was pretty good... I boarded Loam out in every matchup except the mirror. So that can probably go, like, it rarely did what I wanted it to do. Maze of Ith fucked me way too many times, so that's leaving. And Vindicates just aren't really that useful compared to Maelstrom Pulse killing multiple things, which was wildly relevant throughout the day against things like Goblins and Lingering Souls tokens.

I got super tilted after playing 3 combo decks in a row, and my misplay cost me pretty dearly. Boarding in 12 cards (Armageddon, Surgicals, Hymns, Teegs, Duress) that help immensely in that matchup, I think it's actually not terrible when you're running Cabal Therapy. And seriously, hold on a moment...

Can we just talk about how fucking awesome Cabal Therapy is? I whiffed twice with blind therapies out of something like 12 of them. Thoughtseize, Inquisition.. just learn how to play Cabal Therapy as hard as you can--read Hollywood's article on it. If you can blind therapy people with about 70% accuracy, it's miles better than any other discard. It's just such a beast. Most of the games I won were due to completely abusing the shit out of Cabal Therapy on people.

After chilling out and getting some rounds in with a clear head, I looked back on my day at the tournament and realized that I actually, overall, played incredibly well except in rounds 3-5 where I was on tilt hard. I hit a wildly high percent of blind therapies, and only lost games due to personal play errors. The deck can be optimized, but I could have top 8'd had I not punted the game to Spiral Tide, or at least top 16'd. I thought combo was really abysmal for us, but honestly, the maindeck therapies can get there game 1 if you recognize the threat immediately and react accordingly. The board just needs to be heavily geared towards anti-combo, like almost exclusively focused on beating combo.

I regularly boarded in hymns against decks like Goblins and D&T that really need their opening cards because their dudes individually kinda suck, along with Engineered Explosives. But I don't know how I feel about hymns. They're cool against those decks but unnecessary in the face of tons of removal and big dudes anyways..

I believe I will drop the Hymn's and the Ooze for 1x Duress, 3x Thalia to have more to bring in against Combo. Either that or Ooze + the Duresses will go for Thalias. Not sure which yet. Sometimes Hymns just get there.

I cut Maze of Ith for a third Bayou. I cut Vindicates for Maelstrom Pulses. I want to cut Life from the Loam for something but not sure what. Probably a 24th land (another basic) and the third Sylvan Library. I think on second thought I'm going to cut Duress + Ooze from the board for 3x Thalia.

Sorry a lot of this is really disjointed, it's 2:30am and I just played magic for like, 26 hours of the last 2 days.

So here's the updated list: Pending--I may or may not be dropping LftL. Not sure yet. It very rarely did what I wanted it to do, which is wastelock people, that rarely seemed relevant.

// Creatures:
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Dark Confidant
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Lingering Souls

// Spells:
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Swords to Plowshares

3x Liliana of the Veil
1x Garruk Relentless
3x Sylvan Library

// Lands:
3x Bayou
2x Savannah
2x Scrublands
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
3x Wasteland
1x Plains
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Bojuka Bog

// Sideboard:
3x Thalia
2x Gaddock Teeg
3x Hymn to Tourach
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Armageddon
2x Engineered Explosives

[Seraph2k]

Why do you play LS > Goyf? He is so strong and tutorable. If I am going to cut a critter for LS I would take Knight, but then there are not enough beaters. Try goyf and knight and you will love it!

[lavafrogg]

I am waiting for a great BW card to come out to make this deck even better, if the vindicate dude was playable he would have been it.

[Barbed Blightning]

I just want a decent flier in this deck :/

I did poorly at Jupiter, primarily because I kept mulling into bojuka bog/maze/top hands. I've cut bog and top for this:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 DRS
4 Knight
4 Bob

4 Abrupt Decay
4 STP
1 Vindicate

4 thoughtseize
2 Therapy

3 Lilly

2 Library
1 GSZ

3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Verdant catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith

SB
2 Linvala
2 golgari charm
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 tidehollow sculler
2 Thalia
1 elspeth
1 teeg
1 deed
1 life from the loam
1 bojuka bog

[Kich867]

Why do you play LS > Goyf? He is so strong and tutorable. If I am going to cut a critter for LS I would take Knight, but then there are not enough beaters. Try goyf and knight and you will love it!

Lingering souls has far too much utility in my build. Its work with Cabal Therapy is stupidly efficient, it helps break the symmetry of liliana, it beats for 2-4 in air..eventually people have to burn removal on them, and I'll gladly lose a token for a sword etc.

I'm thinking about plopping 2x Jitte back into the deck somehow, but this will take some pretty careful consideration. It would improve the clock and work better with lingering souls.

[Esper3k]

@Barbed Lightning: How was Cabal Therapy without Lingering Souls? Did you feel like you had enough creatures to sac without it?

[Barbed Blightning]

@Barbed Lightning: How was Cabal Therapy without Lingering Souls? Did you feel like you had enough creatures to sac without it?

I'm currently testing it, but so far I like it. In the combo matchups, I'll gladly sacrifice a DRS or goyf if it means stripping out multiple pieces. In other matches, I see it more as a companion to Thoughtseize, or as a means of grabbing Jace/Batterskull (useful after a T2 SFM). I may go back to Iok, but it has been good so far.

I got the idea of running it from Kich after our match. He talked it up so much I think it deserves some consideration.

[Kich867]

I'm currently testing it, but so far I like it. In the combo matchups, I'll gladly sacrifice a DRS or goyf if it means stripping out multiple pieces. In other matches, I see it more as a companion to Thoughtseize, or as a means of grabbing Jace/Batterskull (useful after a T2 SFM). I may go back to Iok, but it has been good so far.

I got the idea of running it from Kich after our match. He talked it up so much I think it deserves some consideration.

Cabal Therapy is the best / my most favorite card in my deck. I win more games off the back of just correctly playing therapy than anything else. If you hit your first therapy, the game is so wildly in your favor it's stupid, because you WILL hit the flash back, or better yet, the next hard-casted one.

As a general statement, I'll 100% of the time sacrifice 1/4th of a card (lingering souls) for hitting 1-2 cards in their hand.

It does go very well with cards that give you information, but in my list, it basically lets me put 8 discard spells in 4 slots, and the list is too tight to fit anymore in. Right now I'm thrilled with this list, I misplayed horribly against Spiral Tide, but otherwise I felt super strong against ANT, and I should feel strong against Tide as well. Combo decks require certain cards to be in their hand or they should probably mull it, so the list of cards to name blind on them is actually pretty small.

Someone mentioned I should put it in my list with lingering souls in this thread, and I was like "nah". But after speaking with some friends (Rich who won the event, etc.) they convinced me to put it in for the tournament, and it'll never leave.

So thanks a ton to the person who recommended that, I'll edit your name in when I go back and check it out.

Overall the weekend was awesome. Six of us went to the tournament, and of our 6 2 made it into the top 8. One took first, one took fifth, and none of us played each other throughout the whole day haha.

EDIT: dballard--you're a boss. Cabal Therapy is the correct play.

[dballard]

Can't take all the credit, Barbed Lightning was the one that suggested it to me and like you said it's been awesome.

[godofallu]

My thoughts: Ith and Bog I cut a long time ago and haven't looked back. Ith is just a bad removal spell in a deck that has too much removal, and Bog is only needed in like 1 matchup which I never play against anyways.

Top I still think is terrible and too mana intensive.

Lingering souls is good but I went back to Tarmogoyf due to all the annoying dread of night/sulfur elementals running around. People caught on near me.

Cabal therapy sounds hot. I have never tried it but that's like 4 people in a row saying they love it. I was very wrong when it came to deathrite so maybe I should test it.

I don't think thoughtseize is as good as inquisition of kozilek. More and more matchups are running red and lots of burn, or at the least deathrites and other damage pingers. The life is worse than the possible Jace hit.

Life from the loam is terrible.

Maelstrom pulse is of course way better than vindicate.

[Kich867]

Yeah, I think the list I've moved to is going to be wonderful. I may drop the maindeck Bojuka Bog for a Scavenging Ooze, just to have another threat around, I'm not really sure..

Bog has been inconsequential to me so far, I think going up to 24 lands will be fine. I like having it just in case..

What's the opinion on Karakas by the way? Is it really that necessary? Generally show and tell decks have Omniscience these days, from what I've seen, and that's really the only applicable matchup for it. I think I'd rather lean on my Therapies and just put a clock on them.

[damionblackgear]

What's the opinion on Karakas by the way? Is it really that necessary? Generally show and tell decks have Omniscience these days, from what I've seen, and that's really the only applicable matchup for it. I think I'd rather lean on my Therapies and just put a clock on them.

Other ways to look at it are: "What do you gain by cutting it?", "How much does it hurt you to have it?", and "How does that compare with the card you're planning on replacing it with?"

I've had a non-basic Plains, Forest, and Swamp in the list since I started using Knight. Originally it was Nomad's Stadium. Karakas only really came into me playing it when Reanimator was first out. Now there are bigger threats that are also legendary. It's not all offensive uses though. Defensive maneuvers with Karakas have also been important. It may be it's time though.

[sdematt]

Other ways to look at it are: "What do you gain by cutting it?", "How much does it hurt you to have it?", and "How does that compare with the card you're planning on replacing it with?"

I've had a non-basic Plains, Forest, and Swamp in the list since I started using Knight. Originally it was Nomad's Stadium. Karakas only really came into me playing it when Reanimator was first out. Now there are bigger threats that are also legendary. It's not all offensive uses though. Defensive maneuvers with Karakas have also been important. It may be it's time though.

I think if you're playing in a local tournament, I tihnk if you know there isn't going to be any Show and Tell or Reanimator, you should definitely cut it for something else. However, in a big tournament, you should definitely run it, since you never know what you're going to face.

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

So, I completely forgot that today was a SCG weekend. Just in case anyone missed it, Rock took second (lost to sneaks show). List (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=52523)

[Amazing Larry]

So, I completely forgot that today was a SCG weekend. Just in case anyone missed it, Rock took second (lost to sneaks show). List (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=52523)

Sweet finish for Junk, but man what a weird list. I can't help but think that those maindeck Relics should have been Deathrite Shamans. The list looks like he was expecting a lot of Sneak & Show with 2 maindeck O-Rings & 2 Karakas. I find it odd though, that 4 Inquisitions were his only discard. Either way great finish.

[Esper3k]

I'm currently testing it, but so far I like it. In the combo matchups, I'll gladly sacrifice a DRS or goyf if it means stripping out multiple pieces. In other matches, I see it more as a companion to Thoughtseize, or as a means of grabbing Jace/Batterskull (useful after a T2 SFM). I may go back to Iok, but it has been good so far.

I got the idea of running it from Kich after our match. He talked it up so much I think it deserves some consideration.

Yeah I love Cabal Therapy in general, but I was just curious how you were finding it without Lingering Souls is all.


Sweet finish for Junk, but man what a weird list. I can't help but think that those maindeck Relics should have been Deathrite Shamans. The list looks like he was expecting a lot of Sneak & Show with 2 maindeck O-Rings & 2 Karakas. I find it odd though, that 4 Inquisitions were his only discard. Either way great finish.

Yeah definitely an odd list. It's almost like a Deadguy splashing Green list more than a Rock list.

[warfordium]

Yeah definitely an odd list. It's almost like a Deadguy splashing Green list more than a Rock list.

my thoughts exactly. must be a budget rationale—the lifeloss (combined with Bitterblossom) is surely irrelevant given Jitte, Batterskull, and Deathrite. no KotR, no goyf, no sylvan, no pulse, no deed..... this is deadguy with G for Abrupt Decay and DRS activations.

[sdematt]

my thoughts exactly. must be a budget rationale—the lifeloss (combined with Bitterblossom) is surely irrelevant given Jitte, Batterskull, and Deathrite. no KotR, no goyf, no sylvan, no pulse, no deed..... this is deadguy with G for Abrupt Decay and DRS activations.

Yep, my thoughts as well. BW tokens feat. Abrupt Decay.

-Matt

[godofallu]

BW tokens is a fine deck however. Honestly I like inquisition more than thoughtseize too, and that has nothing to do with a budget.

The O rings do look quite bad though. I used to run detention sphere in Bant which is a strictly better version of O-ring, but found it to be pretty bad and ended up cutting them 1 at a time. They aren't even all that good against show and tell since sneak, omni, and gristle all win right through it.

All this talk of cabal therapy and lingering souls makes me want to whip out my old Token Rock list and update it some though. Bitterblossum is a great card when you run equipment.

Edit: I did in fact update my token list which you can find in my sig. I think the list looks sweet and I can't wait to try it out soon. Any thoughts on the list before I test it?

[Esper3k]

O-Ring is actually really good against Sneak / Omni Tell decks. Even if they drop Griselbrand and draw 7-14, there is no guarantee they can go off again and they can very well be dead on your return hit if you have any pressure on board.

If they drop Omniscience, they're even more dead since anything of relevance they would play is only castable at sorcery speed.

Sneak Attack is the only thing that really gets around O-Ring and they have to do it with an extra mana open to do so.

[Nihilis]

Yep, my thoughts as well. BW tokens feat. Abrupt Decay.

-Matt

Yes, it's exactly that.
It has a mildly active thread over at Salvation in the control section, called BW(x) Stoneblade. The BWg list has become pretty popular after RTR, for obvious reasons.

[Claymore]

I absolutely do not like Inquisition (or Thoughtseize for that matter) at all in that Deadguy Rock list. He has plenty of expendable creatures to throw away to Therapy. If you're going to only play x4 discard you better have a good reason not to play Therapy when your creatures are so expendable.

With some anecdotal evidence, he would have won the finals match if Inquisition was Cabal Therapy, especially here:


Will started with Misty Rainforest and Lotus Petal, clearly playing around Inquisition... which Mark had on turn 1. Fetching in response, Will went hiding with Brainstorm before revealing Lotus Petal, Ponder, Sneak Attack, Griselbrand, and City of Traitors. Apparently he'd drawn a lot of low-cost cards!

Mark doubled down on his play with Surgical Extraction on Brainstorm, shuffling away the Show and Tell on top of the library but leaving Will in reasonable shape.

-Inquisition can't hit Sneak Attack, which Therapy could
-If SnT Brainstorms in response to Therapy, you Surgical the Brainstorm to get rid of their shuffled cards and you get a free look before you resolve Therapy, effectively ending the game right there against Show and Tell if you have a clock.

Game 1 he could've flashed back a Therapy by killing Confidant to kill Sneak Attack as well.

Edit: My Deadguy friend says they've been taking out Therapies over there since it is more important to get a guaranteed hit.

---------

I think Deadguy could have been a non-budget decision to play. By avoiding Goyfs and DRS #3-4, you lessen how vulnerable you are to Rest in Piece and Relic, which probably got over played there to knock out all the BUG lists. Maybe that's why he didn't run Therapy? Who knows...

[Esper3k]

I absolutely do not like Inquisition (or Thoughtseize for that matter) at all in that Deadguy Rock list. He has plenty of expendable creatures to throw away to Therapy. If you're going to only play x4 discard you better have a good reason not to play Therapy when your creatures are so expendable.

With some anecdotal evidence, he would have won the finals match if Inquisition was Cabal Therapy, especially here:



-Inquisition can't hit Sneak Attack, which Therapy could
-If SnT Brainstorms in response to Therapy, you Surgical the Brainstorm to get rid of their shuffled cards and you get a free look before you resolve Therapy, effectively ending the game right there against Show and Tell if you have a clock.

Game 1 he could've flashed back a Therapy by killing Confidant to kill Sneak Attack as well.

Edit: My Deadguy friend says they've been taking out Therapies over there since it is more important to get a guaranteed hit.

---------

I think Deadguy could have been a non-budget decision to play. By avoiding Goyfs and DRS #3-4, you lessen how vulnerable you are to Rest in Piece and Relic, which probably got over played there to knock out all the BUG lists. Maybe that's why he didn't run Therapy? Who knows...

Given that you're pretty unlikely to hit something significant like that off of a blind Cabal Therapy, that IoK would've been best if it was a Thoughtseize in G2.

[damionblackgear]

I think therapy is both a help and a hindrance, as skill test cards typically are. The more information you have the better you are. Example, if you don't know what you're playing against, you may to hold it or risk missing entirely (in which case you get information). If you do, your odds go up as you can limit the cards by archetype, color, or threat potential. Therapy into Brainstorm is a nightmare of a psychology game. What does your opponent think you're going to call? Will they hide it from you? The flashback is typically considered the better part of the deal, even at the cost of a creature. Reason? You have some information to go off of. It is a true skill tester card that I don't recommend for anyone just getting into legacy. People should learn the format (or at least have an idea of what cards go to what decks) first and go from there.

In the scenario provided, from the looks of the hand, and barring bad play, all that would've changed in that game is that the brainstorm would'n't have hid the Show and tell on top of the deck. He would've been able to call Show and Tell or Sneak Attack (most likely Sneak Attack) to try and nab a SnT the next turn (coverage stated he had inquisition available on turn 2). Unfortunate for him, his opponent would've had the mana to SnT the Demon into play and let it go to his turn. Damned if he did, damned when he didn't [have Therapy]. The only things that could have saved him were either Thoughtseize or if he called Grislebrand. There was no way he could have known that over Emrakul (who also would've been disastrous on his 2 and was also a 4-of).

Game 1 I'm pretty sure that there were mistakes made, as it's hard almost impossible to play a perfect game. The coverage said that Bob "earned" a trade with Force so that wasn't a possibility for him to sac to therapy, from what I read. I guess he could call Force with the Therapy but I don't think I would in that match (although some may). I, personally, would rather deal with "real" cards in a potentially speedy match-up. Lucky for me, Sneak attack is more of a threat than SnT - in general, single use effects are easier for us to deal with than ones that can be used multiple times - so I'd call that and would've hit. Then Extraction (during his draw) or Bob could trade for forces and we could "play" magic.

On scenario a little deeper - A Thoughtseize would've been Forced game 1 (any SnT player worth their salt would tell you that). Therapy may have been countered - probably not, it leaves the impression that their hand is bad and they don't have it or are proof to it. The probability should come into how hard/long they look at their hand in response to the spell and a couple other factors - but it's not 100% that you call the right card. If you don't name the right card, you lose because there will be no second chance (barring you naming Force). I do agree that his list can support Therapy. I just don't know if I'd add them.

I'm skipping game 2. I have to run and it takes me a while to recap my own writing errors. Instead I'll just put, he won game 2. That's good enough for me. - If you're wondering why there's more, I don't write in order. My thoughts and, due to that, paragraphs are written in random orders.

Complaints on the name - As many of you have stated, the deck is not a prime example of Rock/Junk. Let's be honest though, This color combination (BGW) is impossible to not be called Rock/Junk. It's the reason that so many decks end up here, regardless of differences. The SCG Naming convention - important because they're the most sizable regularly broadcast legacy events at present time - doesn't allow for there to be anything else (barring Nic Fit... I won't comment on that deck anymore. I think I've done that enough). How do you think a deck, not playing Deed, a list of meta-driven utility creatures, or large (high CC) threats, is able to be classified as Rock/Junk? So, we'll just have to get over names (although I'll be holding a grudge inside). The token deck, will belong to us because it's BGW. If you want to call it something else, that's fine. Just know that it'll be Rock/Junk everywhere you go.

[sdematt]

I think the obvious next move for us is to bring back Phyrexian Plaguelord. With all the tokens we can run, you can just muck the other team and then swing in.

-Matt

[Barbed Blightning]

I think the obvious next move for us is to bring back Phyrexian Plaguelord. With all the tokens we can run, you can just muck the other team and then swing in.

-Matt

... I'm not certain if you're serious.

[sdematt]

I'm 100% not serious. :tongue:

-Matt

[Claymore]

Plaguelord certainly would turn the tides in Goyf battles...

[sdematt]

Hold your horses there, let's not turn this into a real discussion about Plaguelord's inclusion :P

-Matt

[Barbed Blightning]

With all this talk of plaguelord, why not bring back Spiritmonger?

[Mr. Safety]

Naw, Deranged Hermit is the tech you're looking for.

I recently traded into some Bobs...I sacrificed a couple of Jaces to do it, but I don't play blue very often anyways.

Current list:

PW Rock

Creatures
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
4x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Tarmogoyf

Sorceries
3x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Hymn to Tourach
2x Green Sun's Zenith

Instants
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Swords to Plowshares

Enchantments
3x Sylvan Library

Planeswalkers
2x Liliana of the Veil
1x Garruk Relentless
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Lands
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
2x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Savannah
4x Wasteland
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Treetop Village
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains

(note: 61 cards)

Sideboard
3x Timely Reinforcements
3x Surgical Extraction
4x Mindbreak Trap
1x Vindicate
2x Pernicious Deed
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Eternal Witness


I'm not feeling the Witness and Vindicate...they are basically filler. What has everyone else been doing for sideboard tech?

[dballard]

I'm not feeling the Witness and Vindicate...they are basically filler. What has everyone else been doing for sideboard tech?

Still main a Witness myself, just love the options it gives me. I'm wondering about all the lists I see running 4 Wastelands, I just don't see the need with 4 KotR. I'm just more concerned with getting my mana right than worrying about screwing theirs.

[Barbed Blightning]

I love witness, and I'm considering adding her. What situations has she been better than goyf for you?

[jin]

I'm 100% not serious. :tongue:

-Matt

When we cast him, we MUST announce, "Finally, the Rock, has come back..."

[dballard]

I love witness, and I'm considering adding her. What situations has she been better than goyf for you?

I play her over a DRS, I guess I'm still not sold on running 4 DRS. Just being able to grab STP, Decay, discard or a Wasteland as needed, it always helps. I'll often GSZ into her too so it's like tutoring for anything in your graveyard.

[Seraph2k]

Witness was a house in my the rock. But that was before DRS was printed... now the graves are under permanent attack and I think at the moment it's not the best choice we can make. There are other more important cards which should be in our deck.

[sdematt]

I play her over a DRS, I guess I'm still not sold on running 4 DRS. Just being able to grab STP, Decay, discard or a Wasteland as needed, it always helps. I'll often GSZ into her too so it's like tutoring for anything in your graveyard.

And by anything, you mean you hope they don't have an active DRS? This is my main beef with Witness now. The card's great against grindy decks, but against DRS, not so much, unless you're recurring non-instant, sorcery, land, or creature.

-Matt

[sdematt]

New list I'll be trying Thursday:

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas (but this may become Savannah #2 in my local meta, since no one plays Sneak or Reanimator)
3 Wasteland (or 2 Waste 1 Ghost Quarter)
1 Maze of Ith
23

4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tarmogoyf
15

3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Life from the Loam
3 Sylvan Library
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Garruk Relentless
23

I could cut 2 cards to fit in Liliana of the Veil, but that would most likely be Swords #4 and a random, but I don't REALLY want to cut anything. I cut an Inquisition for the 4th Swords, and an Ooze for the Loam. The loam has definitely done work, even if you only get to use it once; it's VERY handy for bringing back Wastes.

The basic Plains has been really sore the past few times. I've drawn it and it's been a do-nothing for the last little while. I know I like being able to cast EVERY spell in the deck off basic lands for stability, but it's actually been ridiculously unreliable as of late. I got to do some brewing with some friends and we talked about cutting the basic Plains for another Forest or a Savannah. The deck's outs to Blood Moon rely on having BG (or BGx), so I think that's where I want to be at the moment. This also came up when I sat down to do the mana-math to recheck my distributions (which I honestly haven't number-crunched in a while) and I had WAY too much white mana for the amount of white cards I'm playing between the main and side.

With the addition of Loam, you can reliably buyback lands that do get Wasted, and new ways to abuse Liliana OR clear chaff off the top again. Even if it gets slurped by a DRS, one use seems fine. The Ghost Quarter may be used to bust up the basic land plan other decks are running, since they're usually only running 1 of each, meaning you can throw them off colour and recur it with Loam. Maybe it's cute, but I'll give it a shot.

If I were to add Liliana, I'd cut Swords #4 and maybe Decay #4. This does muck my removal count, but Liliana is basically removal anyway. I'm a bit hesistant though with all the Lingering Souls still, since Planeswalkers are a liability against tokens.

Just brainstorming while the Professor does review.


-Matt

[Kich867]

This is the list that I'll be testing over the coming weeks to prepare for the next NELC:

//Creatures: 15 + 3 (counting lingering souls as a creature spell)
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
3-4x Knight of the Reliquary
3-4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Lingering Souls

// Spells and stuff: 19
2x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Swords to Plowshares
4x Cabal Therapy

1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa's Jitte
3x Sylvan Library

2x Liliana of the Veil

// Lands: 23
3x Bayou
2x Scrublands
2x Savannah
3x Wasteland
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
1x Forest
1x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Bojuka Bog

// Sideboard: 15
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Gaddock Teeg
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Armageddon
3x Hymn to Tourach
2x Engineered Explosives

I may replace Cradle, I want to replace Hymn and EE's with better things. Pulse does what EE does, but having backups isn't terrible I suppose. Jitte though will cover most of my token-cleaning up needs. And Hymns just don't seem amazing versus combo, which is sort of why I had them there. I'd almost rather just run 3 duresses to go alongside cabal therapies post-board. But no idea what to drop EE's for, maybe I'll just keep them as a concession to Empty the Warrens and Bridge from Below.

And I'm tinkering between running 4 stoneforge 3 knights, or 4 knights 3 stoneforge. I used to run Jitte's in the deck, and sorely missed the power of a single Lingering Souls token just taking a game over as quickly as it does. More stoneforges lowers the curve a little, is more consistently grabbing equipment which is kind of a big deal.. I'll have to tinker with it.

[razvan]

So apparently Jund listed us as one of their worst matchups besides Storm Combo. I haven't really tested the matchup extensively (no hours-long grinding sessions yet), but this is most definitely a good thing.

-Matt
I should have qualified that statement. Much like other decks, both Junk and Jund have the ability to change their maindeck to achieve certain goals.

A Junk deck running stuff that's immune to a single Lightning Bolt, or Abrupt Decay, is a huge problem. Hero of Bladehold, while I don't think adopted widely, is a huge problem, and every time I had one cast against me, it's a knightmare (get it? har har).

It's basically an attrition match-up, where you have something Jund cannot easily kill. I really do not know if Junk wants those cards (I also include Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls and equipment), but those builds are very difficult for Jund to deal with. There are a few players locally, especially one that I KNOW reads this thread, Wilkin, that only loses to me when I get lucky. He has discard and removal, except his removal can hit everything of mine (except BBE), but mine cannot hit his Lingering Souls/Bitterblossoms and especially that Hero.

And let me tell you, BBE pales when compared to those.

[Barbed Blightning]

I like 4 knight, 3 sfm, since between bob and library, the search effect isn't always needed. I too have found hymn lacklustre of late

[dballard]

And by anything, you mean you hope they don't have an active DRS? This is my main beef with Witness now. The card's great against grindy decks, but against DRS, not so much, unless you're recurring non-instant, sorcery, land, or creature.

-Matt

Yeah that's a fair statement, but that's why we play the removal that we do, right? I mean with that logic we shouldn't play KotR cause they're just gonna hose all of our lands. I'm also of the belief that all of the DRS play will eventually level off and he won't be splashed as much as he is now. Hope I'm not wrong.

[Claymore]

And Hymns just don't seem amazing versus combo, which is sort of why I had them there. I'd almost rather just run 3 duresses to go alongside cabal therapies post-board.

I think that would be good. However, I will say that I have been enjoying a 6 maindeck targetted discard (4 IoK, 2 Thoughtseize) and 3 Hymns from the sideboard. Your 6 1cc discard spells have a good chance at being drawn early to take out the win condition, and if you're lucky you can follow it up with a devastating Hymn for pure card advantage against their combo enablers (and hopefully nuke some lands).

I may switch to Therapies over Inquisition if I start rolling with Lingering Souls.

[sdematt]

I think if you're running Souls, you run Therapy. If you're not, then you run Hymn.

-Matt

[Mr. Safety]

So what's the general consensus about Witness? I'm hitting a local in Maine this saturday (Crossroads) and I want to have a decent sideboard. Meta-game is completely unknown, but I'm guessing a healthy mix between tier decks and altered versions/homebrews.

I'm considering a strong PW focus with Elspeth, Garruk, and 2 Lili's.

[Kich867]

So what's the general consensus about Witness? I'm hitting a local in Maine this saturday (Crossroads) and I want to have a decent sideboard. Meta-game is completely unknown, but I'm guessing a healthy mix between tier decks and altered versions/homebrews.

I'm considering a strong PW focus with Elspeth, Garruk, and 2 Lili's.

Not a huge fan of her. She's not a huge beater and generally to abuse her value you have to wait a turn. I think her tricks are a little too cute. Though, Therapying someone and then Witness'ing it back only to recast and then sac her to therapy is -quite- the hand raping. But that's asking a lot of someone by turn 4.

I probably wouldn't do it, no idea what you'd side her in against.

Teeg, discard, graveyard hate, combo hate, tribal hate. That's generally what I look to my sideboard for.

-- Quote from a friend, "Why would you run Eternal Witness? She's just a bad snapcaster." Never thought of it that way, but it's very true.

[lavafrogg]

Witness is a card that is always near and dear to my heart. If you are playing a long, drag em out, grind em down style of play than witness is awesome at what she does. Against a deck that will not kill you by turn 4 she is a monster, just ask any miracles/stoneforge player. Hymn, witness, hymn... or even swords, witness, swords is house.

The reality is that she is just not fast enough against goblins, zoo, combo, rug and neither is snapcaster in most instances.

Im still playing 4 GSZ and 3 Lilliana's and trying a list with Souls over Knights.

[Barbed Blightning]

-- Quote from a friend, "Why would you run Eternal Witness? She's just a bad snapcaster." Never thought of it that way, but it's very true.

I've always seen it as the opposite: fetching back a wasteland for a quasi-loam effect, fetching back a Bob/Library to draw out of your opponent or fetching back a lilly to lock someone out are things snapper can never do. Not to mention bringing back an instant or sorcery.

She belongs in a list that it more control/grind-oriented.

[lavafrogg]

another junk top 8 this weekend with junk taking 2nd at the scg open. it was a Stoneforge souls list with 2 bitterblossoms to keep the tokens pumping... I personally hate the list but it shows the power of these new b/g shells.

one good b/w card is all I wanted, why is thrull parasite so bad, if they gave it hex parasites ability it would be super awesome an fantastic. A 1 drop that murders have on sight would have been a dream come true, especially one that made top a win condition....

that being said, the new root maze stops sneak and show quite efficiently, they can't emrakul instant kill you anymore. also with top every two mana is a drain for one! could be usefull.

[.Ix]

Can we just talk about how fucking awesome Cabal Therapy is? I whiffed twice with blind therapies out of something like 12 of them. Thoughtseize, Inquisition.. just learn how to play Cabal Therapy as hard as you can--read Hollywood's article on it. If you can blind therapy people with about 70% accuracy, it's miles better than any other discard. It's just such a beast. Most of the games I won were due to completely abusing the shit out of Cabal Therapy on people.


THIS. Therapy is good on its own, and in a Souls deck it is, like you said, 8 Discard spells in 4 slots. It's not too hard to call Legacy anyway because there are LOTS of multiples. Whiffing is fine if the card you really want to hit is not in hand anyway. Abrupt Decay made this much easier as well. You can call stuff above 3CC or cards that Decay can't kill, and let it deal with the rest.

As for Show and Tell, having 3 Oblivion Rings SB has been pretty good for me. 8 answers to Show and Tell (including Knights and Karakas) is decent enough IMO. We run 4 Therapy, Souls, and Library to buy time to find the Rings. I used to run EE but I didn't really like it much. Doesn't work like it should in the Goblins matchup. I'm running E.Plague instead. EE is great against Merfolk and tokens, though!

[Kich867]

THIS. Therapy is good on its own, and in a Souls deck it is, like you said, 8 Discard spells in 4 slots. It's not too hard to call Legacy anyway because there are LOTS of multiples. Whiffing is fine if the card you really want to hit is not in hand anyway. Abrupt Decay made this much easier as well. You can call stuff above 3CC or cards that Decay can't kill, and let it deal with the rest.

As for Show and Tell, having 3 Oblivion Rings SB has been pretty good for me. 8 answers to Show and Tell (including Knights and Karakas) is decent enough IMO. We run 4 Therapy, Souls, and Library to buy time to find the Rings. I used to run EE but I didn't really like it much. Doesn't work like it should in the Goblins matchup. I'm running E.Plague instead. EE is great against Merfolk and tokens, though!

They should totally be o-rings. That sounds ideal. Good call.

[Arsenal]

In the grindy, controllish games where Witness shines, wouldn't you just want to run something bomby-ier (albeit more expensive)? I see people's lists running stuff like Baneslayer Angel and Gideon Jura in the SB for those slowroll type games. I'd much rather run Reveillark or Life from the Loam (or BSA or Gideon or some bomby 3-5cc card) over Witness if I'm in an attrition battle against a grindy deck.

[dballard]

In my experiences with Witness, when I play her and fetch something (usually removal) it almost always gives me board advantage. I'm not saying she is always the best play but personally I'm struggling to find something else worthy of that slot. That said, I wouldn't have her in my side. Either main her or don't play her at all IMO.

[sdematt]

So I ran the Jund grinds last night against Junk, and there are some interesting results. This is the list I ran against (I built this Jund list, since it's what I'd play in this meta). I'd rather play a better version of Jund as my test partner than a worse version:

23 lands
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
4 Grove of the Burnwillows

4 Bloodbraid Elf (damn this guy's good against Miracles)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman

3 Bolt
3 Punishing Fires
4 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
3 Liliana of the Veil

Basically, when Jund got Fires online, I died. Bolt was nice in removing my little guys or changing Goyf on Goyf math. Deathrite wars were SUPER annoying, and cascading into Liliana was a fucking pain in my neck. My Knights were fucking fantastic when they were good, and Bolt-bait when they were bad.

Basically, games were usually: each player empties their hands, destroying EVERYTHING, and then we both go into topdeck mode. If they hit BBE, they win, but if I hit anything, I win. It was really 50:50.

This was the list I was running:

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
3 Wasteland
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith

4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf (should be 3 Goyf 1 Ooze with all the Fires around)
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman

3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Pulse
3 GSZ
3 Sylvan
1 Garruk

We didn't do postboard, but I felt like I needed an Ooze to go get with GSZ. 4 AD and 4 STP felt like too much removal (if there is such a thing), I'd reel it back to 4 Decay 3 STP.

More on this after my homework :P

-Matt

[crow_mw]

I'm a bit surprised, that Punishing Fire was that much of an issue. During my testing Goyf quickly got to 4/5 and knights got big relatively fast as well. This was my main issue on the Jund side - Rock big guys don't die to bolt, not to mention p.fire, whereas their guys die to all our removal (well, BBE doesn't die to Decay, but 3/4 of our guys kill him in direct combat). All in all games still often boiled down to who managed to keep their bob longer or resolve library faster, but resilience to Jund removal was what pushed Rock far ahead.

[Kich867]

I'm also surprised that PFire was such an issue with deathrites, with their ability to eat it in response to the trigger. It seems like resolving one stops it pretty hard, or better yet just slamming knights back to back to back.

[sdematt]

Deathrite only helps if PFire is in the graveyard. If it's in their hand, not much we can do :/

Goyfs do get out of range of Bolts and such, but blocking Goyf to Goyf is so much more dangerous (since they Bolt/Fire your Goyf post-combat), and we can't always afford to take 4 or 5 off their attacks.

The problem is Burn also gives them reach. Sure, if we get going it's fine, but recurrable removal for our Dark Confidants is kind of boo.

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

If it's in the yard and they don't have a grove out, that'll work but, because Shaman's a 1 time use them having a grove in play locks up your Shaman. If you EVER try anything, they recur and can burn it out. If it's in hand, you're screwed. It's not too hard for them to deal with you since they're pretty much operating at 1 mana less than normal (built like us, to be able to get to higher mana levels. So ,1 isn't going to typically kill them).

they have the same issues that we have (limited threats). I'd actually aim Extractions post board at creatures (it's what I do in the mirror and you'd be surprised at how effective it is). You'll be able to deal with them before they 20 you via fires via goyf/knight.

As a big finisher, I'd use Sigaarda right now. I'd be a little more informative on that but tied up for time (work).

[Mr. Safety]

Going to a local this weekend, but my Bob's haven't arrived yet. My plan is a straight swap with Tidehollow Sculler. Given 5 targeted discards (3 Seize, 2 IoK), 3 Hymns, and 2 Lili's I think I can support Sculler as an additional way to attack my opponent's hand while beating face. Probably not the best option, but so far *not bad at all* in testing. I think at the local level, it will be decent.

Sideboard looks like this:

1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Umezawa's Jitte
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Engineered Plague
2x Pernicious Deed
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Pithing Needle
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Kitchen Finks

Maindeck has Eternal Witness x1...I've been liking what she does for card advantage.

[sdematt]

Almost placed first in a tournament tonight, but my opponent had the topdeck of the century and beat me with Progenitus. My list:

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Karakas (should be Forest #2 if you don't expect Sneak)
3 Wasteland
1 Maze of Ith
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Dark Confidant

3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek

3 Sylvan Library
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Lingering Souls
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Abrupt Decay

--BOARD--

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle
1 Life from the Loam

Round 1: Aaron with Doomsday

Game 1 he gets ripped apart by discard and I beat in with Goyfs. He sets up the Combo, but he doesn't complete it through a well-timed Decay.

Game 2 he fizzles again after I Needle, Cabal, etc.

+2 Needle, +2 Surgical, +3 Cabal Therapy, +2 Gaddock Teeg (wasn't sure if he was on DDFT or whatever, so it was for safety)
-3 STP, -1 Souls, -1 Goyf, -1 Knight, -2 Pulse, -1 AD

2-0

Round 2: Edward with Esperblade

I know Edward well, and we both know what we're on. I get Library online, while he's on the SFM into Batterskull plan. I lay down some Souls after Thoughtseizing the Batterskull, and he Supreme Verdicts. I climb back with Library and pummel face.

+2 Needle, +2 Teeg, +1 Ooze
-2 IoK, -3 STP,

Game 2 comes close. I Needle an active Jitte, but he fetches a Sword of Feast and Famine and I brick drawing lands for 5 turns. Cool.

Game 3 I'm on the Wasteplan plan. I Thoughtseize, Wasteland, cast Deathrite, Wasteland, etc. I Needle his Marsh Flats and it's game over. His hand is Perish, Verdict, Swords, Snapcaster, Snapcaster, Jace, SFM.

4-1

Round 3: Eduardo (Shimi on the Source with ANT)

I came out to play tonight since Shimi was visiting Vancouver. He has a really pimp ANT deck, so we duked it out in the 2-0 bracket.

Game 1, he destroys me with Tendrils on Turn 4 after carefully going off through mild disruption.

+2 Teeg, +1 EE, +3 Cabal Therapy, +2 Surgical Extraction
-1 Pulse, -4 AD, -1 Souls, -1 Knight, -1 STP

Game 2 I drop Thoughtseize, Confidant, Teeg, Cabal Therapy, Souls, Flashback, etc. He can't keep up and dies.

Game 3 we both mull to 5 or 6. I Thoughtseize, he hides cards after fetching using Brainstorm. I take his Ponder and Surgically Extract his Brainstorms, leaving him with a hand of Inquisition, Lotus Petals, and lands. I get my Sylvan Library taken. We go back and forth. I find Dark Confidant, and find Cabal Therapy and flash it back. I then keep pressure with a Goyf. I manage to draw enough discard and apply enough pressure to stop him before he goes off. Turns out, he was one mana short.

6-2

Round 4: Max with Deathrite Elves with Natural Order

Game 1 I crush with infinite pieces of removal.


+2 Needle (not sure for what, but maybe the Insect guy?), +2 Teeg, +2 Deed, +1 Explosives, +1 Ooze
-3 Thoughtseize, -2 IoK, -3 Souls

Game 2 I get Craterhoof Behemoth'd on Turn 4 for 30+ damage.

Game 3, I keep a decent hand, but he has the Abrupy Decay for my Gaddock Teeg AND the Natural Order for Progenitus. Boo. I die to Hydra beats.

7-3

--------------------------

All in all, I passed go and collected $20. Yay! Lingering Souls was very good.

-Matt

[Barbed Blightning]

Also seems like therapy was good as well; was it better than hymn?

[sdematt]

It was different. In that Combo matchup, it was certainly better (I think). I didn't hit anything blind off of it yet.

-Matt

[Barbed Blightning]

I heard Hollywood wrote an excellent guide to therapy (someone mentioned it here, maybe?). I know I'll be looking it up.

Personally, I've found hymn to be a bad fit in the deck. It shines against nic fit, but seems weak overall.

Would you say souls are a definite inclusion in the main, or are they ok for sb?

[sdematt]

I heard Hollywood wrote an excellent guide to therapy (someone mentioned it here, maybe?). I know I'll be looking it up.

Personally, I've found hymn to be a bad fit in the deck. It shines against nic fit, but seems weak overall.

Would you say souls are a definite inclusion in the main, or are they ok for sb?

The Souls seem to contribute to the mid-range strategy of the deck. With that, we are a midrange deck, so I'm running them to further our agenda, and so far, so good. Their inclusion was mostly to pressure Planeswalkers, but it also has the added benefit of providing chump blockers as well as causing people to mis-sideboard (bringing in Plagues against us if they have them).

So far, I'm liking it. I found Garruk was too fragile in a Jund-heavy meta, but he might show up in the board.

-Matt

[Koplinchen]

Matt, why no Liliana?

[lavafrogg]

Took 2nd at our local this week with the following:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze

4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Life from the Loam

3 Lilliana of the Veil

3 Sylvan Library

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay

4 Wasteland
3 Bayou
3 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
6 Fetches

Sideboard:
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Lingering Souls
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Quasali Pridemage
1 Mystic Enforcer
3 Pithing Needle
3 Umezawa's Jitte

The card selection is just ridiculous between the libraries and the Zeniths you always have the options to wreck your opponents world. The lack of knight hurts in some match-ups, like jund, but the lingering souls wreck jund's world right now.

I want more graveyard hate in the board but this was the first list I played in my new set up. The loam is there to just give long game advantage with Lilliana, lingering souls and deathrite fuel. The jittes are in the board for fast aggro matchups where shaman need to pick up sticks and defend my honor, also double against miracles by giving you another angle of attack(souls plus jitte).

i didn't take notes but here is the just of what happened.

Round One: Elves! 2-0
I had removal. Lots of removal. Game two I had an active jitte super early and the board stayed empty. Decay/Explosives and Jittes came in, loam/library/souls came out.

Round Two: BUG 2-0
We are just the scarier grind em out deck with lingering souls...their planeswalkers cannot stay alive and they have trouble with libraries as well as active lillianas. I took out the thoughtseize and brought in abrupt decay, mystic enforcer and abrupt decay... game 2 my opponent almost died laughing when I dropped a thresholded batman. I left therapies in for the random strip your hand blowouts they cause.

Round Three: Elves! 2-1
Same as round one but he had a turn three progenitus and I could not find the Lilliana in time game two... Explosives at one ruined his day game three.

Round Four: Miracles 2-0
Lingering Souls plus big dudes plus libraries, I never felt behind except for a truly miracled entrant to just kill me. That card is scary. Junk has too much good stuff to kill for miracles right now, Shaman/Bobs/Goyfs all have to be plowed and souls are there to counter terminus. Game two I dropped a turn three lingering souls, cabal therapy for force of will hit and then play jitte for the win...He did not bring in any artifact removal.

Top 8
Semi finals: BUG again.... 2-0
Life from the loam wrecked his day game one and game two was a grind, with a Lilliana taking half of his board to seal the deal. Scavenging Ooze let me win the shaman war.

Quarterfinals: Goblins, I thought people stopped playing this deck 2-1
I lost game one to a caverns, lackey, stingscourger to bounce my shaman hand when he dropped a Seige gang on my face(followed by a Krenko) Fucking A. Games two and three were fairly one sided as he played vials turn one both games and proceeded to get them blown up/needled and then fucked by goyf... Goyf>goblins

Finals: Omniscience 1-2
I hate this deck. I hate how easy it is for a 16 year old trust fund baby to just cast a 3 CC sorcery and just fucking win. Stupid. Pondered into Show+Omniscience after discard. I just couldn't get a clock fast enough in the two games I lost. The game I won was a turn two goyf and then turn 3+4 discard. Show and tell is dumb.

[sdematt]

Congrats on the finish! The list looks great :)

@ no Liliana for me

There's no room in the list. Lavafrog is running both, but my Liliana slots are either Souls or GSZ at the moment, since I'm still on Knights. Knights are REALLY good, whereas Liliana is good, but can be a bit fragile with Lingering Souls around. Now that I also have Souls that is lessened, but the amount of Bolt-based removal, along with PFire, concerns me a bit, so I'm not running her.

-Matt

[nedleeds]

Finals: Omniscience 1-2
I hate this deck. I hate how easy it is for a 16 year old trust fund baby to just cast a 3 CC sorcery and just fucking win. Stupid. Pondered into Show+Omniscience after discard. I just couldn't get a clock fast enough in the two games I lost. The game I won was a turn two goyf and then turn 3+4 discard. Show and tell is dumb.

Hahahahaaha I LOL'ed. I may sig. I often ask ... if everyone in the room play XXXXXX deck would anyone even want to play Magic? Omni-gimp-tell definitely qualifies.

[crow_mw]

For me most unique thing about Lavafrogg list is only 20 lands and that is with 4 wasteland. Could you share your thoughts on why 20 lands and how did that fare for you? The report does not mention this being an issue at any point and I recon you are running a singleton Life from the Loam, but most lists here run 23-24 lands.

Could other players also share their thoughts on amount of lands? This is always one of the hardest deckbuilding aspects for me - it is always tempting to cut one more land for some business, but it is hard to predict the impact on mana consistency...

[AggroSteve]

reguarding the landcount, in this deck, i would say the need for lands will be shown through a lot of testing. I tried a landcount of 21, 22, 23, and 24.
The amount of lands you need is defined by the spells you are running, and which gameplan you want to follow.
I run a fairly high amount of CMC 3 cards in my list, so a Landcount of 23 + 4 DRS is fine for me. Another thing that defines how many lands you should run is if you are running wastelands,.... in this case i would suggest running a bit more lands, because wasteland can actually be seen as a spell, that can produce mana if needed.
The most important thing IMO is, that it is better getting flooded than manascrewed, simply because i hate to mull good hands because its a 1-lander, and later in the game you should have a certain amount of filtering so you will draw business instead of lands. Obviously you will allways draw lands you will not need,.... this is the reason i love liliana so much as i can transform my lands into business with her +1 ability.

basically, if you ask me, it is better having more lands than to few, but testings will exactly tell how many lands your specific list will need, and your playstyle will require

[Barbed Blightning]

Tweaked my list for NELC and hopefully SCG Edison (if I can find a means of travel there). Still very much in love with Liliana of the Veil, since I don't see my opponents focusing on disposing of her as a problem at all (a bolt her way rather than at a creature or my head is fine by me).

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate

4 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy

3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Sylvan Library
1 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland

SB: 2 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Lingering Souls
SB: 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog


Been liking its performance thus far, wish I could fit in more souls and loams, esp. for the Jund and BUG matches.

[sdematt]

Tweaked my list for NELC and hopefully SCG Edison (if I can find a means of travel there). Still very much in love with Liliana of the Veil, since I don't see my opponents focusing on disposing of her as a problem at all (a bolt her way rather than at a creature or my head is fine by me).

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate

4 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy

3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Sylvan Library
1 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland

SB: 2 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Lingering Souls
SB: 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog


Been liking its performance thus far, wish I could fit in more souls and loams, esp. for the Jund and BUG matches.

I see you've been reading my mind regarding Linvala :P

-Matt

[lavafrogg]

Responses to my last post:

1. The kid just bought the deck. He went on SCG and paid for everything in cash from his parents. He was talking to his friends about it.

2. 20 land is a reasonable amount for an aggressive/midrange deck. I have 3 cards that need to be played for 3cc and the rest are at 1-2, which is awesome. Lilliana is 3 cc as is non flashed backed lingering souls and GSZ for tarmogoyf/ooze/teeg. With 8 turn one mana dorks getting to 2-3 mana for the early/earlymid game is not a hard problem and with deathrite/loam getting locked out is a slim possibility. Last but not least hitting one of 7 draw/filter spells on turn two will help hit the 3+ mana mark. If anything I would cut wastelands for fetches/more mana sources to stabilize my mana base instead of add more mana sources.

[Mr. Safety]

Attended the local event today, went 4-0 (8-1 games). I only had one game loss (forgot to sideboard g2) but I was really surprised how well I did. Drew the nuts all day long. Only 13 players, not cut to top 4/8, best record was the winner (which surprised the hell out of me when I was announced with best record.) I got a jank rare and 3 packs of RtR for a prize, but hey, I got into the event for free because it was my first time. Overall, not bad at all.

The list I played:

Creatures - 14
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Tidehollow Sculler
1x Eternal Witness
1x Tarmogoyf

Sorceries - 11
3x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Hymn to Tourach
2x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Vindicate

Instants - 7
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Abrupt Decay

Enchantments - 3
3x Sylvan Library

Planeswalkers - 3
2x Liliana of the Veil
1x Garruk Relentless

Lands - 23
4x Wasteland
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Marsh Flats
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Savannah
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Treetop Village
1x Dryad Arbor

(maindeck = 61 cards)

Sideboard
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Engineered Plague
1x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Pithing Needle
2x Pernicious Deed
2x Rule of Law
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Kitchen Finks
3x Surgical Extraction
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant


(Notes on sideboard: I tried to get 2x Ethersworn Canonist before the tournament, but couldn't scrounge any up. Rule of Law was the 'passable' substitute, but I didn't side it in at all. Extraction was a better sideboard plan against Omni-Tell)

Match 1 (Buget Bomberman)
Game 1 - I use targeted discard/Scullers, land Lili and the rest is history.
Game 2 - I StP his Auriok Salvagers in response to activating LED. I grind him out with Deathrites.

Match 2 (The Gate)
Game 1 - we trade Hymns early, he sticks a threat, I have the StP, Lili lands and I ultimate him TWICE in this game
Game 2 - I side in Jitte & Finks, draw neither, but still get there on the back of massive amounts of discard and removal. Sculler beats, FTW

Match 3 - (Myr Tribal/Kuldotha Forgemaster Combo w/Mishra, Artificer Prodigy)
Game 1 - He gets mana-screwed, but not by my Wastelands. I kill his early myrs, Abrupt Decay a few others, swing in with double Sculler, Treetop Village, and Knight FTW.
Game 2 - I forget to sidboard, he gets double Myr Galvanizer and does myr tribal beats, kills me in two swings. Mishra is nuts when you play one of something and find another.
Game 3 - I remember I have a sideboard and side in E-Tutor, 2 Deeds, and Engineered Plague. I get an early Tutor for Plague, ride removal and Deathrites. He Forgemaster combos into a Wurmcoil Engine and I've spent 3x Swords to Plowshares. I double draw off Library because it's crap and I need fresh cards (I don't have a fetch to re-shuffle), next turn I rip my 4th StP from Library's card selection. He hits once with Wurmcoil but it hits exile from StP and I grind back for 5 a turn with a Sculler, Dryad Arbor, and activating Shaman.

Match 4 - (Show and Tell/Omniscience)
Game 1 - Sculler grabs an Omniscience, he still plays Show and Tell for Griselbrand, I play Knight. EOT, StP on Griselbrand, he draws 7 in response, I still outrace him with Thoughtseize providing support.
Game 2 - I fan out a hand of Wasteland, Verdant Catacombs, Thoughtseize, double Surgical Extraction, and Deathrite Shaman. Keeper...and turn one has me at 16 and him without Show and Tell. It takes a little while, he Forces a Vindicate on one of his lands, but that lets me get Liliana into the game...which sees Daze, lol (I tapped out) I play it safe once I know Daze is in the mix, get a Library active, and ride exponential card quality to the end.

Overall, great experience, but quite a blur. This is all I can remember from the games. I faced 3 low-tier decks and 1 tier deck, and did well all-around. Best cards for me: Liliana, Library, and Tidehollow Sculler. Small note: only mulligan-ed once the whole day, and that was my g2 loss in round 3. The deck was as consistent as I could ask of it.

[Barbed Blightning]

I see you've been reading my mind regarding Linvala :P

-Matt

What's not to love? Impermeable to Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay, a flier that kills Delver, Clique and tokens, while shutting down Maverick, DRS, and Goblins' scarier creatures? AND is legendary, meaning you kill opposing copies and can save it with your own Karakas? Linvala is a HOUSE, and I honestly don't see why we aren't running her right now (on the whole).

[sdematt]

What's not to love? Impermeable to Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay, a flier that kills Delver, Clique and tokens, while shutting down Maverick, DRS, and Goblins' scarier creatures? AND is legendary, meaning you kill opposing copies and can save it with your own Karakas? Linvala is a HOUSE, and I honestly don't see why we aren't running her right now (on the whole).

I posted exactly this in December. Let's acknowledge your comment but then hush so as to not reveal the tech :tongue:

-Matt

[H0tmilk]

I ran 2 side last month at mythic and it was a good choice as it is just devistating to many things including the mirror.

[sdematt]

Very true.

Congrats to Lavafrog and Mr. Safety!

-Matt

[Barbed Blightning]

@ lavafrogg and Mr. Safety : did you miss goyf or knight in your respective builds, or were souls enough? I've been experimenting recently, but found myself missing their raw P/T

[lavafrogg]

@ lavafrogg and Mr. Safety : did you miss goyf or knight in your respective builds, or were souls enough? I've been experimenting recently, but found myself missing their raw P/T

I dropped knight because I feel he is too slow for many of the non interactive decks that I want to beat. Against combo you want a goyf/bob on turn two and therapy fodder after that. If I am waiting till turn three to drop a knight then I am not attacking till turn four and even then he will not be super huge due to the early state of the game. Goyf is the best beater in the game... I can't cut him.

In the matchups where knight is good, miracles, souls is better, jund, souls is just as good, rug, souls is arguably just as good as it can block delver/clique and keep you out of bolt range.

Knight is straight up better against rouge decks where they can't beat him and against goblins where he eats their board.

They both offer great disruption elements and a strong clock, wasteland vs therapy and four 1/1 flyers vs a 7/7 beater is an arguement when plows/decays are everywhere.

[sdematt]

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTuJXAKCalaGq_JUSjD9VGnDZtPod2RisMQXw_d3rJKz-RmZ24zFg

[Asthereal]

I'm thinking about going back to The Rock. Lots of combo in my meta though, hence my sideboard, and the lack of 'slow' stuff like Lingering Souls and Zeniths. Who can help me finetune?
Notes: 1. As an 'old school' Rocker, I'm still a sucker for Top. Fits nicely in the curve, and it doesn't die to Deed. 2. Elspeth I consider too slow, same as Liliana. I recon we need to put early pressure where we can.
My list:

ROCKY '13

Creatures:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary /16

Spells:
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Vindicate
2 Pernicious Deed /21

Lands:
3 Bayou
3 Scrubland
1 Savannah
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
1 Karakas
2 Wasteland
1 Maze of Ith /23

Sideboard:
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Shriekmaw
1 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Gaddock Teeg
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben /15

[sdematt]

Why Shriekmaw in the sideboard?

If your list is for a Combo meta, then I think this is fine, but I'd actually want Hymn to Tourach. I'd move 2 Deed and 1 Vindicate to be Hymn to tourach in the main, and take the Thoughtseize and IOK out of the board for the Deeds. It'll give your game 1's against Combo much more gusto. Vindicate should also be Pulse to either force the Tendrils kill, or just muck them if they decide to get lazy and go with Goblins.

-Matt

[sdematt]

So here's what I'm thinking of playing in the next big Legacy tournament I'm entering:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
16

4 Abrupt Decay
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Maelstrom Pulse
9

2 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
5

3 Lingering Souls
3 Sylvan Library
3 Green Sun's Zenith
9

1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
3 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
23

SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Duress/Garruk Relentless/Open
SB: 1 Ulvenwald Tracker

-Matt

[Barbed Blightning]

So here's what I'm thinking of playing in the next big Legacy tournament I'm entering:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
16

4 Abrupt Decay
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Maelstrom Pulse
9

2 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
5

3 Lingering Souls
3 Sylvan Library
3 Green Sun's Zenith
9

1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
3 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
23

SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Duress/Garruk Relentless/Open
SB: 1 Ulvenwald Tracker

-Matt


Hmmm, those basics look familiar...

List looks strong, though I personally would cut GSZs 2 and three for another knight and goof.

Also, Therapies over Thoughtseize, and only 5 (not counting flashback) targeted discard?

[sdematt]

Hmmm, those basics look familiar...

List looks strong, though I personally would cut GSZs 2 and three for another knight and goof.

Also, Therapies over Thoughtseize, and only 5 (not counting flashback) targeted discard?

Copying and pasting your list with revisions was easier than rewriting my list entirely :P

Yeah, no room for 6 pieces of targeted discard, which gets worse over the course of a long game, versus having Souls #3 was basically the tradeoff. 17% less discard vs. 50% more Souls.

-Matt

[dballard]

Hey all, looking for some strategy/opinions on two cards ...

First Cabal Therapy - I'm just wondering what people are guessing when you have no clue what your up against, like that 1st turn Cabal. I usually go Goyf or Confidant or FoW, not doing great on the blind guessing and starting to think maybe I'd be better off with guaranteed hits. I play Souls but I'm not always loving sacrificing one for the flashback.

The other card is Liliana. I know some play with her and some do not. I'm finding that more often than not she just serves as removal and then gets removed herself (Decay or Bolt). Really starting to see why Matt prefers Garruk. Any thoughts/opinions?

[Kich867]

Hey all, looking for some strategy/opinions on two cards ...

First Cabal Therapy - I'm just wondering what people are guessing when you have no clue what your up against, like that 1st turn Cabal. I usually go Goyf or Confidant or FoW, not doing great on the blind guessing and starting to think maybe I'd be better off with guaranteed hits. I play Souls but I'm not always loving sacrificing one for the flashback.

The other card is Liliana. I know some play with her and some do not. I'm finding that more often than not she just serves as removal and then gets removed herself (Decay or Bolt). Really starting to see why Matt prefers Garruk. Any thoughts/opinions?

You just don't super blind cabal therapy people on turn one, play something else or pass and use it when you have a better idea. If you absolutely have to, Brainstorm is the #1 best guess you could shoot for, but otherwise, you're going to whiff hard.

After they play their turn 1, if you have to cabal therapy them and you now know what they're playing, narrow down their list and pick one of two things: their most common removal spell (if you plan on playing Bob next turn) or their best two-drop (if you plan on playing library next turn). Against combo it's trickier, Storm combo you probably name LED or Infernal Tutor, High Tide if they don't brainstorm name brainstorm--if they do brainstorm probably name merchant scroll or high tide, Show and Tell is always show and tell unless they brainstorm, then Emrakul probably.

If you're on the play and you know what they're playing, name their best one-drop. Deathrite Shaman, Brainstorm, etc.

Liliana, I mean that's fine--you killed a creature and they bolted her, not one of your guys and not your face, you still 2 for 1'd them with her. Garruk can equally be killed by bolt and when he flips he has 0 casting cost and dies to abrupt decay just as badly.

[Asthereal]

Turn one completely blind Therapy seems bad. If you had to play it regardless, name Lion's Eye Diamond or Infernal Tutor. Those actually have you killed on turn 1-2, so removing those gives you a chance against something that would otherwise probably be unwinnable. But still, if you don't have Veteran Explorer, using a turn one blind Therapy is just a play error.
Since I don't like Therapy without info, I usually just play Inquisition/Seize/Duress in The Rock.

About my Shriekmaw: it's a bit of a long shot, but at least it kills dudes, and can help against Show and Tell. Multi purpose, but the weakest slot in the board.
The Hymns are good, but in the current meta I prefer targeted discard. Then again, if I encounter Burn, Hymn is a LOT better. I'll try them.
Cutting Vindicate for Pulses seems a fair idea. They wreck the Goblin tokens, and I almost never blow up lands anyway. Only against merfolk sometimes, but that seems a long shot considering Pulse improves my combo matchup. Good suggestion.

[dballard]

Yeah I agree the blind Therapy is not a great play but I feel like if I wait then I miss my opportunity. Gonna have to rethink that card because I think I like more of a sure thing.

On Liliana, yeah it is a 2 for 1 and yes the removal on her would just get used on something else, just feel like I want something with a little more kick. Maybe Elspeth but the 2 white make me hesitate.

[sdematt]

Garruk, in my opinion, is a REALLY good Planeswalker, but neither are great when Bolts are flying around. Both die to Abrupt Decay, so that's kind of meh. Back when Jund wasn't a deck a few months ago, Garruk was a house, especially against BUG, Maverick, Merfolk, etc. Now? Not quite as good due to being a bit more fragile. If I had room I'd still be playing him.

-Matt

[Mr. Safety]

@ lavafrogg and Mr. Safety : did you miss goyf or knight in your respective builds, or were souls enough? I've been experimenting recently, but found myself missing their raw P/T

I didn't miss Goyf at all, and I played all 4 Knights. I had to work a little harder at finishing games, but that was my plan anyways. I was playing control all day long. The few times I landed Goyf it was from nuts drawing it, not with GSZ. GSZ almost always got me Deathrite. Deathrite + Liliana is basically a lock, no joke. I was always getting full value out of my mana, but in a much more controlling way. I would completely lock opponents out of the game and then just grind with Deathrites, Sculler beats, and a fat Knight if I drew it.

For my approach, Sylvan Library is clearly a better green 2-drop than Goyf. Dumb beats weren't really needed, I needed to play control. Against a different slew of decks I may have a totally different perspective, but I'm happy for now with playing 1 Goyf, 2 GSZ. More than anything I'm really happy I finally got Dark Confidants...those are much more important than Goyfs, IMHO.

Note: I played NO lingering souls. I feel that LS are much better supported by Stoneforge Mystic, and I don't play Mystic.

Regarding Garruk: he's getting cut, one of the casualties of squeezing in the playset of Bobs. I didn't draw him once in 9 games, and honestly, I didn't need him. I didn't play Merfolk or Goblins though, two matchups that he excells at. I was *never* unhappy to draw a Liliana. The difference is Tidehollow Sculler, which adds up to 10 targeted disruptions in my deck. Following that kind of sniper action with Liliana is pretty boss. She won me several games with Deathrite draining as my offense.

[Mr. Safety]

Turn one completely blind Therapy seems bad. If you had to play it regardless, name Lion's Eye Diamond or Infernal Tutor. Those actually have you killed on turn 1-2, so removing those gives you a chance against something that would otherwise probably be unwinnable. But still, if you don't have Veteran Explorer, using a turn one blind Therapy is just a play error.
Since I don't like Therapy without info, I usually just play Inquisition/Seize/Duress in The Rock.

About my Shriekmaw: it's a bit of a long shot, but at least it kills dudes, and can help against Show and Tell. Multi purpose, but the weakest slot in the board.
The Hymns are good, but in the current meta I prefer targeted discard. Then again, if I encounter Burn, Hymn is a LOT better. I'll try them.
Cutting Vindicate for Pulses seems a fair idea. They wreck the Goblin tokens, and I almost never blow up lands anyway. Only against merfolk sometimes, but that seems a long shot considering Pulse improves my combo matchup. Good suggestion.

If you're going to play Shriekmaw, I would play a maindeck Volrath's Stronghold. Once you have four mana online, it's a machine gun. It's slow, but it can also beat face. I almost put Shriekmaw in my sideboard for Emrakul decks last Saturday, but then just took my chances and shored up other matchups. I still faced Show and Tell, but I did some tricks with Deathrite to exile him from the graveyard off an Intuition.

I'm a fan of a miser's VStronghold, but I also play a maindeck Witness. Putting the two together makes for a hell of a late game.

[Sughayyer]

Hey guys!
I wasn't able to play in the past few months, but now I'm returning.
I've read the few last pages and I'm glad that the rock is now a dtb!
I'll start brewing and testing this week, but I'd like opinions on this:
I've seen token builds and creature builds, but can I start from something like
4 shaman
4 bob
4 goyf
4 souls
3 blossom

3 seize
3 therapy

2 top
1 library

4 stp
3 decay
1 pulse

2 liliana

I thought about this after seeing frog's list. In this case, white would be only for stp and souls.

Based on the current meta, is it worthwhile?

[Esper3k]

If you're playing such a heavy tokens list, then I think you really need to run SFM.

Re Tarmogoyf: I've been testing against RUG and Team America (Signorini's list) and I'm finding that in the RUG matchup, I've been missing Tarmogoyf. Knight is amazing if it sticks, but her being at 3 mana and non-Abrupt Decay colors has been a pain for me. 'Goyf has been doing its wall impression until I can stabilize and ram through a couple 3 drops.

[Mr. Safety]

I completely understand this, and it's the reason I am thinking about investing in more Goyfs.

[lavafrogg]

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTuJXAKCalaGq_JUSjD9VGnDZtPod2RisMQXw_d3rJKz-RmZ24zFg

Not enough room?

I think the meta has moved past knight being good and is much more of a grind than it was last year when maverick was knight stomping all over the metagame. Goyf is just the goto beater in legacy and souls grinds out games much better. If the meta continues this was I will go back to cutting goyfs for SFM's but currently combo is too prevalent for SFM to succeed, she is about a turn too slow. Eventually a weenie rock list could be viable with SFM, Confidant, Souls and Shaman but it would be a dog to combo with no clock to speak of.

Ideally I would play knight, goyf, souls, SFM, confidant and shaman all together as one big family but we cannot have that. I am too happy with my non creatures right now to make room for so many creatures.

Current List:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze

4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Life from the Loam

3 Lilliana of the Veil

3 Sylvan Library

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay


4 Utility Lands (Dust bowl, wasteland, more basics, more duals, more fetches, volrath's stronghold, yavimaya hollow, cycle lands, horizon canopy)
4 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
6 Fetches

Sideboard:
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Lingering Souls
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Quasali Pridemage
1 Mystic Enforcer
3 Pithing Needle
3 Umezawa's Jitte

The only white cards in the list are swords, souls and in the board. I am looking at changing the wasteland slot to something techie. Im currently looking at 4x horizon canopy as additional white sources and ways to get lands in the yard for shaman or the misers loam. If you hit a late game loam for 3 canopies you just win. I do not think that wasteland is pulling its weight in todays meta, especially without knight to chain them together in matches where it mattered.

[sdematt]

Not enough room?

I think the meta has moved past knight being good and is much more of a grind than it was last year when maverick was knight stomping all over the metagame. Goyf is just the goto beater in legacy and souls grinds out games much better. If the meta continues this was I will go back to cutting goyfs for SFM's but currently combo is too prevalent for SFM to succeed, she is about a turn too slow. Eventually a weenie rock list could be viable with SFM, Confidant, Souls and Shaman but it would be a dog to combo with no clock to speak of.

Ideally I would play knight, goyf, souls, SFM, confidant and shaman all together as one big family but we cannot have that. I am too happy with my non creatures right now to make room for so many creatures.

Current List:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze

4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Life from the Loam

3 Lilliana of the Veil

3 Sylvan Library

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay


4 Utility Lands (Dust bowl, wasteland, more basics, more duals, more fetches, volrath's stronghold, yavimaya hollow, cycle lands, horizon canopy)
4 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
6 Fetches

Sideboard:
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Lingering Souls
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Quasali Pridemage
1 Mystic Enforcer
3 Pithing Needle
3 Umezawa's Jitte

The only white cards in the list are swords, souls and in the board. I am looking at changing the wasteland slot to something techie. Im currently looking at 4x horizon canopy as additional white sources and ways to get lands in the yard for shaman or the misers loam. If you hit a late game loam for 3 canopies you just win. I do not think that wasteland is pulling its weight in todays meta, especially without knight to chain them together in matches where it mattered.

Enforcer seems like an interesting "go big" choice.

-Matt

[lavafrogg]

Enforcer seems like an interesting "go big" choice.

-Matt

Without threshold he is a non decay-able threat against jund and BUG that has random protection from all other black spells as well. With threshold he is a fucking nightmare for anyone across the table. A 6/6 flying pro-black beater is the largest thing in the skies in 95% of your matches (griselbrand is a 7/7 that cannot block enforcer) and is zenith-able like a boss. I bring him in against all of the new BG(r/u) decks that are running around that are not playing swords to plowshares in that they have no way to easily kill him(delver plus flashed in clique blocks, double bolts, triple fires).

Seemed like a good idea.

[damionblackgear]

On Enforcer - Pro black is irrelevant vs most of the format as the main targeting black spell is decay and the other is pulse/vindicate (played as a 2-3 of in some lists). So you're more-so paying 4-5 for a 6/6 flier when threshed. Playing it beforehand allows you to dodge Bob, Deathrite, and Sam Black's Zombies (honorable mention: Tombstalker). Not to knock it, just an observation.

Personally, I'd rather have Sigarda (at the premium) as she's pro swords as well as always flying.

I'm finally going to cut Mox and Mystic (at least for a little bit). I'll have an updated list later on. I'm not sold on Souls but only testing will tell if that's the right call or not.

[Sughayyer]

Thanks for the answers!
So based on what you said, I put together 2 different lists: one sfm+tokens based, the other with fat guys. The lists follow:

tokens:
3 cabal therapy
2 thoughtseize
2 inquisition of kozilek

4 stp
3 abrupt decay

2 sensei divining top
1 jitte
1 sword of fire and ice
1 batterskull

4 deathrite shaman
3 bob
3 sfm
3 blossom
4 souls

2 liliana

on the sideboard: zealous persecution, o-ring, and - tarmogoyf, for punishing fire and combo match up. Also some grave hate.

The other list:

4 thoughtseize
3 hymn to tourach

4 swords to plowshares
2 abrupt decay
3 vindicate

2 sensei divining top
1 sylvan library

4 deathrite shaman
4 bob
4 goyf
4 reliquary

2 liliana

on the side, pernicious deed, lingering souls, and probably o-ring...

The fisrt idea is to render most opponents cards useless via souls and blossom - I remember when I played deadguy a few months ago these were great vs jace and liliana.
The second idea is to GRIND (hence vindicate chosen over pulse, and the presence of hymn)

Is any of these a decent start or should I dismiss both?

Also it seems redundant to say, but I have no idea about the current meta.

Again thanks for the patience! :)

edit: what if I went full bg only splashing W for souls?

[Esper3k]

@Sughayyer: Your first list is pretty similar to many Deadguy lists as you mentioned. You may want to look at the 2nd place list from SCG Fort Worth - that's something fairly close to what you're running there. The second list you posted is a fairly traditional Junk list. Just the best big dudes, removal, and hand disruption (which is fine). Either list is fine although with the first list, you may run into some problems dealing with fast aggressive bigger dudes (since all your tokens will die in combat without trading).

[lavafrogg]

On Enforcer - Pro black is irrelevant vs most of the format as the main targeting black spell is decay and the other is pulse/vindicate (played as a 2-3 of in some lists). So you're more-so paying 4-5 for a 6/6 flier when threshed. Playing it beforehand allows you to dodge Bob, Deathrite, and Sam Black's Zombies (honorable mention: Tombstalker). Not to knock it, just an observation.

Personally, I'd rather have Sigarda (at the premium) as she's pro swords as well as always flying.

I'm finally going to cut Mox and Mystic (at least for a little bit). I'll have an updated list later on. I'm not sold on Souls but only testing will tell if that's the right call or not.

I'm not sure what you said here that is knocking on Enforcer, it has protection from pulse/vindicate was well as any terminate/dreadbore you might see. I do not want him against miracles where he can be removed because Teeg is a greater threat to them. Sigarada trades with a tombstalker which is something I have specifically targeting as a pain in the ass and I would like to avoid my over the top card losing/trading to theirs.

Again 4 vs 5 is a big deal when I plan on only having 3-4 lands(plus Shaman) out for most of the game ad forget about 6 to GSZ for her. In the matchups I bring in enforcer the extra mana will be hard to come by and Enforcer is the better card. Sigarada is better against Miracles but thrun is arguable better than Sigarada and he does not see much play currently(especially when some of us are splashing souls with jittes in the board).

[Arsenal]

With Team America gaining steam (DtB status), Enforcer also trumps Tombstalker. Just throwing that out there.

[Barbed Blightning]

The day dreadbore/terminate become legacy's commonplace removal is the day I'll quit the format. You can say enforcer has protection from murder and violent ultimatum, but that doesn't make it better than sigarda--a card I genuinely hate to see my opponent drop. She grants you immunity to lilly, can't be touched and flies. Try it before you knock it. I wish I could justify her in my 75

EDIT: Also, knight and wasteland and are still VERY good in a meta full of tricolor decks.

[damionblackgear]

I'm not sure what you said here that is knocking on Enforcer, it has protection from pulse/vindicate was well as any terminate/dreadbore you might see. I do not want him against miracles where he can be removed because Teeg is a greater threat to them. Sigarada trades with a tombstalker which is something I have specifically targeting as a pain in the ass and I would like to avoid my over the top card losing/trading to theirs.

Again 4 vs 5 is a big deal when I plan on only having 3-4 lands(plus Shaman) out for most of the game ad forget about 6 to GSZ for her. In the match-ups I bring in enforcer the extra mana will be hard to come by and Enforcer is the better card. Sigarada is better against Miracles but thrun is arguable better than Sigarada and he does not see much play currently(especially when some of us are splashing souls with jittes in the board).

I didn't realize Tombstalker was in your meta. I feel better about at least giving it an honorable mention. I haven't run into one for almost a year. It's been weird. The good thing about Tombstalker is that the decks that play her, don't play many creatures. So Liliana should be able to deal with the demon, without much help. Granted, some of the lists that use her are playing her as well (which it sucks for us to get stuck behind her too).

Mana costs are different for you and I. I tend to have that 4-5 land (I'm still on 23) so I can reasonably expect to cast/zenith her. I'm also planning on Maindecking her as a finisher, thus returning to a more traditional Rock build than previously. I'm also debating adding Spirit Monger or other More traditional finishers as well.

My reasoning for Sigarda - As mentioned, Thrun's (and Enforcer) susceptible to Liliana. Sigarda is not (I expect to see More Lili than TS). I hate seeing opposing Liliana (pretty much all of us do). Sigarda's great vs Bug (which is a deck we play against now) and backed with a stronghold, she's almost impossible for them to deal with (stronghold also creates a hindrance on the use of Shaman).

Our lists are different though, 5-6 isn't something that can be considered with 20 lands. It's almost out of range at 23 but I'll take the risk. Here's the list I've been working on:


3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay

1 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
1 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Green Sun's Zenith

2 Sylvan Library

1 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Liliana of the Veil

1 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp

59 Total
Sideboard

1 Duress
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Golgari Charm
2 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Pernicious Deed

13 Total


There are 3 cards missing and I'm still going over their possibilities. The maindeck card's job is probably going to be to win (in which case I'm looking at an efficient creature like Goyf or Knight) or to draw (in which case I'd rather not go with Library#3 and instead Top#2). Both options may be entirely wrong and I may not need anything of the sort. I'm also testing the singleton Loam right now. I don't think it will stay but there are always possibilities and I'd prefer to try it and know if I like it, or not.

For the board, I'm thinking about alternative options to deal with Lingering Souls (either the card or the tokens). Having a blocker will be nice but I won't always have her out there to stop them. Scattershot Archer, Illness in the Ranks, and Raking Canopy have been the biggest ideas I've had regarding that front (I'd prefer something that's a 'permanent' solution). A small LD package may be a better idea though. Armageddon would be my first thought for those control matchups. Provided I can have a threat down, and a way to deal with any Jace that made an appearance.

If you're wondering why I'm using Duress over Inquisition or Therapy the answer's simple. I want to be able to cast it on turn 1 (fully blinded) and I need it to grab something relevant when I have to. There are a couple creatures that I may want to grab but I should have enough removal to deal with singles.

2 Knights - She's not the Swiss Army Knife she use to be. There are too many fronts to fight on and too many cards that now interact with her. I've got her for what I'm hoping is going to be a utility win-con slot. Although, utility is the priority part of that. In her place I'm using the third Liliana (Which can also deal with SnT but can't be put into play).

3 Thalia - There is a lot of more traditional Combo coming back and Thalia was the best answer to that. She's also useful against Burn. She's not the greatest vs the SnT decks but I don't intend her to be used against them or Miracles. Hand Disruption and Liliana should be able to take care of those.

Finks is a way to fight Liliana which can also be disguised as a Knight. Paired with the Stronghold, it's able to pseudo replicate the old Rock strategy with Wall of Blossoms.

[crow_mw]

Damionblackgear - Illness in the Ranks might double up as hate for empty the warrnes, but overall I think
Dread of Night is a better choice. On top of getting rid of souls it also has other minor impact, such as preventing Mystic from swinging with Jitte and also doubles up as great hate against Maverick. I do not know if your list isn't too heavy on white creatures for that though.

@all recent lists - I have been trying Matt's 3 swords, 4 abrupt decay and it has been working really well for me. I do however mostly play against decks where uncounterability is super important and I have not run into Tombstalker for quite some time. The fourth swords is in the board and comes in against aggro decks.

[dballard]

I think the variety of builds for Rock is both a curse and a gift. I love to see all the lists as it gives me different ideas about what may or may not work for me. Obviously we're all trying to find the right balance of everything and what works for one person may not work at all for another, based on play styles or the meta. Example - Sigarda is a great card but pulling off 5cmc or 6 with GSZ is asking a lot in wasteland heavy metas, don't think I could do it. I'm playing Thrun in that slot myself but he's pretty lackluster at times ... the search continues.

An aside - anyone buying a box of Gatecrash when it comes out? Any opinions on anything Legacy worthy in the set? Not seeing much myself.

[Barbed Blightning]

Extort seems good in sealed, but not in legacy. No cards like Deathrite Shaman or abrupt decay, but what can you do?

[Esper3k]

I think the variety of builds for Rock is both a curse and a gift. I love to see all the lists as it gives me different ideas about what may or may not work for me. Obviously we're all trying to find the right balance of everything and what works for one person may not work at all for another, based on play styles or the meta. Example - Sigarda is a great card but pulling off 5cmc or 6 with GSZ is asking a lot in wasteland heavy metas, don't think I could do it. I'm playing Thrun in that slot myself but he's pretty lackluster at times ... the search continues.

An aside - anyone buying a box of Gatecrash when it comes out? Any opinions on anything Legacy worthy in the set? Not seeing much myself.

I wouldn't waste my time with Gatecrash especially now that they've announced Dragon's Maze is going to have nonbasic lands (Guild gates / shocks / mythic lands) in the old basic land slot of boosters.

[dballard]

Has anyone looked at Nath of the Gilt-Leaf? The 5cmc is a bit much but those are Planswalker type abilities.

[sdematt]

What's Dragon's Maze?

-Matt

[coraz86]

What's Dragon's Maze?

The third set in RtR block.

I'm glad they're announcing there'll be non-basic lands in it; I was briefly concerned it would be Alara Reborn all over again. Although at least that gave us Maelstrom Pulse, which I guess isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to Rock players.

[Sughayyer]

I playtested today in the afternoon, and I really enjoyed the tokens route... Combat wasn't much of an issue since they fly and are often equipped with something, and our Rock shell deals well with aggro decks. I faced only one combo (ant) but the discards (and the goyf from sb) helped me get there. However I know the deck is vulnerable to deed, pulse (sort of) and cards like zealous, dread of night, etc. (that's a second reason I sneaked 3 goyf on the sb).
I'm inclined in using it as my comeback list, at least for a while.

[lavafrogg]

I playtested today in the afternoon, and I really enjoyed the tokens route... Combat wasn't much of an issue since they fly and are often equipped with something, and our Rock shell deals well with aggro decks. I faced only one combo (ant) but the discards (and the goyf from sb) helped me get there. However I know the deck is vulnerable to deed, pulse (sort of) and cards like zealous, dread of night, etc. (that's a second reason I sneaked 3 goyf on the sb).
I'm inclined in using it as my comeback list, at least for a while.

The token route is super grindy and bitter blossom fucks miracles a new one so in the right meta I can see the tokens list being super strong.

[sdematt]

I think if people are still playing straight up Miracles, then they're losing, so fucking them up isn't a bad thing.

I think most people are going to make the switch to the Helm version or to Esperblade, since they're that much better.

-Matt

[Mr. Safety]

EDIT: Also, knight and wasteland and are still VERY good in a meta full of tricolor decks.

Still rockin' Knights here, with a full set of Wasteland. It is usually smaller now with Deathrites in the format, but getting a 5/5 for 3 that fetches Wastelands isn't bad at all. Knight also supports my late game grinds with Volrath's Stronghold/Eternal Witness.

[damionblackgear]

Jumped in last nights Legacy Daily (about 12 hours from the time of this post for a better time explanation). Ended up going 1-2 drop.

Round 1 - Death and Taxes (2-1). turn 4 Sigarda ended up being the end if it. Game 2 I almost won from the Mull to 3 (first lands) but he finally built Mangara lock, two turns before I would've found another piece of removal. Game 3 wasn't ever out of reach from the overload on control.
Round 2 - Omnishow (1-2) - Girlfriend decided she wanted attention game 3 and forced a mis-click on a non-black land to fetch. Lost with 3 pieces of discard and 2 Tidehollow in hand.
Round 3 - UR Burn (1-2) - I got burned... Game 3 Double delver + Goblin Guide + Miracle burn spell = loss

Decided to play some games in the 2-man queue afterwards.

I don't remember the first 2... I know I won.
Belcher - 2-1 - Game 1 he made goblins, I played Shaman then pulse. Lili finished it off. Game 3 he couldn't go off on 1 and I murdered his hand.
Jund - 0-2 - Game 1 I kept Waste, Scrub, Bob, Sword and decided to go with it. Wasted his bayou into nothing and Thoughtseized on 2. Left him with Waste, Waste Hymn Hymn. Never saw another land. Game 2 I Thoughtseize and left him with library? Don't know why I did that, just did. Library's card selection is too much for me to keep up with.
Esper - (2-0) - Sigarda beat the tokens. Knight fetched Stronghold after Karakas got legend ruled.
Thresh - (2-1) - Tossed out spells to bait for counters (library, bob, etc). Bog kept the Goose in check (play your spell into the counter before you play the bog). Game 2 modo Glitched and I didn't get to sideboard. Game 3 I choked him and hid behind infinite removal into I found a top which found me a library, which found me the top I shuffled back in, which found me another library... It was about 4 turns with nothing until... Sigarda vs 4/5 Goyf. Opponent took the Moral victory by countering me Decay on Goyf.

Overall, I ran 2 Chokes and an Ooze in the open slots in the list. The chokes were fine, the Ooze still needs to go. I think I would've gotten the same effect from Squire as I did Ooze. Everything else did it's part.
I liked having the Tidehollow. The ability for them to get the card back wasn't the greatest but the only time that came into play was Omnishow to get rid of Thalia, Bob, Deathrite, and Sculler.
Loam never came to be useful. I had it a bunch of the time and just wanted it to be something else. ANYTHING ELSE. So now I guess I have 2 slots to adjust...
Fun Fact: Did you know Sigarda Flies? Turns out she can block Emrakul and let Lili finish the job.

[dballard]

Damion, if I recall correctly, you only run 20 lands right?

Edit - Nope, sorry that was Lavafrogg

[Koplinchen]

Lavafrogg - I really like your list. I tried it tonight in my local store and it was as good as I expected it to be. I think it is reasonable not tu run Knight nowdays, Dark Confidant is better than ever and Lingering Souls are absolutely fantastic!
Instead of maindeck Life from the Loam I run Umazawa's Jitte because I feel it is more maindeck staff.


I guess you know this one: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9882&iddeck=72047
That was my original inspiration but only when I saw your list with Libraries and Lilianas I knew it was exactly what I was looking for.

I went 3-0-1 tonigt beaitng Bant, Bant, Ant (all 2:0) and only 1-1 aginst Esper Blade. The only game I lost was to Clique eq. with Batterskull and EE+Academy Ruins lock. Deck seems really solid.
I played some nice games against Ant - he Ad Nauseam game 1 - with no mana in pool failed to find Lotus Petal (on 4 life), kept "ideal" 7 and passed. I play Cabal Therapy discarding Infernal Tutors... easily winnig from there.
Game 2 I mulliganed down to 5 - 2xBayou, Cabal Therapy, Surgical Extraction, Dark Confidant. I drew another Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize, Shaman, Dark Confidant and Wasteland for one of his two lands. I made it. :)

Later tonight I playtested against Canadian ******** and I couldnt belive how good it is. If they do not kill our lands they almost can not win. (6-1)

What is your sideboard plan? I feel I want all the cards all the time (almost). Dont like basic Plains but it is probably neccessary evil. I guess we want 4 Wasteland all the time.

[Final Fortune]

On Enforcer - Pro black is irrelevant vs most of the format as the main targeting black spell is decay and the other is pulse/vindicate (played as a 2-3 of in some lists). So you're more-so paying 4-5 for a 6/6 flier when threshed. Playing it beforehand allows you to dodge Bob, Deathrite, and Sam Black's Zombies (honorable mention: Tombstalker). Not to knock it, just an observation.

Personally, I'd rather have Sigarda (at the premium) as she's pro swords as well as always flying.

I'm finally going to cut Mox and Mystic (at least for a little bit). I'll have an updated list later on. I'm not sold on Souls but only testing will tell if that's the right call or not.

I think you're seriously underestimating protection from black in this format, besides protecting Mystic Enforcer from terrtiary removal like Vindicate and Maelstorm Pulse it effectively has protection from Lingering Souls and Baleful Strix, which means it's impossible for aggro-control to stop a Mystic Enforcer by chumping once it's online.

[damionblackgear]

I think you're seriously underestimating protection from black in this format, besides protecting Mystic Enforcer from terrtiary removal like Vindicate and Maelstorm Pulse it effectively has protection from Lingering Souls and Baleful Strix, which means it's impossible for aggro-control to stop a Mystic Enforcer by chumping once it's online.

I don't think I'm underestimating it all that much, and I definitely don't think I'm 'seriously underestimating' it. I'm going to use Enforcer since it's the creature of interest.

Souls get to chump it (those tokens are white) until they can deal with it with a non-black or non-targeting removal (4 turns is a long time in legacy). I did forget about Strix. Strix is a card that's more fringe that anything (partially due to card availability). It's use, in the format, also doesn't compare to some of the 'removal' you'll see (overall, not in specific matches). Some examples: Swords to Plowshares, Submerge, Jace, The Mind Sculptor, Liliana of the Veil. Granted, you can hold off the Strix until you can deal with it using Enforcer.

Again, I'm not saying Enforcer's a bad idea. I'm saying I, personally, still prefer Hexproof, at cost of an additional mana, over Protection from Black.

[lavafrogg]

Lavafrogg - I really like your list. I tried it tonight in my local store and it was as good as I expected it to be. I think it is reasonable not tu run Knight nowdays, Dark Confidant is better than ever and Lingering Souls are absolutely fantastic!
Instead of maindeck Life from the Loam I run Umazawa's Jitte because I feel it is more maindeck staff.


I guess you know this one: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9882&iddeck=72047
That was my original inspiration but only when I saw your list with Libraries and Lilianas I knew it was exactly what I was looking for.

I went 3-0-1 tonigt beaitng Bant, Bant, Ant (all 2:0) and only 1-1 aginst Esper Blade. The only game I lost was to Clique eq. with Batterskull and EE+Academy Ruins lock. Deck seems really solid.
I played some nice games against Ant - he Ad Nauseam game 1 - with no mana in pool failed to find Lotus Petal (on 4 life), kept "ideal" 7 and passed. I play Cabal Therapy discarding Infernal Tutors... easily winnig from there.
Game 2 I mulliganed down to 5 - 2xBayou, Cabal Therapy, Surgical Extraction, Dark Confidant. I drew another Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize, Shaman, Dark Confidant and Wasteland for one of his two lands. I made it. :)

Later tonight I playtested against Canadian ******** and I couldnt belive how good it is. If they do not kill our lands they almost can not win. (6-1)

What is your sideboard plan? I feel I want all the cards all the time (almost). Dont like basic Plains but it is probably neccessary evil. I guess we want 4 Wasteland all the time.

Glad you liked the list, I am having a blast with it at the moment.

My board last week was:

3 Engineered Explosives
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Lingering Souls
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Quasali Pridemage
1 Mystic Enforcer
3 Pithing Needle
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Against the top decks:

Miracles -1 lilliana -1 ooze -3 cabal therapy +1 souls +3 jittes +1 teeg
They play great through disruption and off of the top so discard is less effective. They can only swords a teeg and jitte really fucks up their day.

Esperblade -4 GSZ +1 Decay +1 Souls +1 Therapy +1 Jitte
It is a tough match and you just need to draw gas not zeniths. Bring in relevant stuff and a misers jitte

Storm -1 ooze -1 loam -3 decay +1 gaddock teeg +1 cabal therapy
Teeg, discard and beats...good luck
Show and Tell -1 ooze -1 loam -3 decay +1 gaddock teeg +1 cabal therapy +3 pithing needle(for griselbrand/sneak)(bring in pridemage if omniscience is in)
Matchup varies from list to list but you need your discard and your teeg, needle can be randomly good as can pridemage. Just disrupt, beat and pray.

Jund -3 thoughtseize +1 abrupt decay +1 lingering souls +1 Enforcer
Lingering souls is house against them as they have few ways to interact with the flyers, enforcer should be GG if he comes out threshed with souls on the board.

RUG -3 Lilliana -2 GSZ +3 EE +1 Abrupt Decay +1 Souls
Clog up the board and clear away flying delvers, shaman ftw.

Maverick -3 cabal therapy -3 thoughtseize +3 EE +3 jitte
EE away mom's and nobles when you lose the war of one drops, win the battle of the graveyards with shaman and ooze, jitte over the top

Elves -3 Lilliana -1 loam -3 GSZ +3 EE +1 decay +3 jitte
stop them from going off with discard and removal seal the deal with a jitte

Goblins -3 lilliana -3 cabal therapy -3 thoughtsieze +1 souls +3 jitte +1 decay +3 EE +1 pridemage.
Go super control with the endgame being an active jitte and a scoop.

NicFit -3 abrupt decay +1 pridemage, +1 souls, +1 Therapy
Just get ahead, therapy away their hand and lilliana lock them, goyf beats will end it.

BUG- -3 GSZ +1 Souls +1 Decay +1 Enforcer
Lilliana or library will grind them out if they are team america, they cannot kill an enforcer if they are control.

Needles rarely come in and are mainly for random or are switched out for crypts/orings.

[Final Fortune]

I don't think I'm underestimating it all that much, and I definitely don't think I'm 'seriously underestimating' it. I'm going to use Enforcer since it's the creature of interest.

Souls get to chump it (those tokens are white) until they can deal with it with a non-black or non-targeting removal (4 turns is a long time in legacy). I did forget about Strix. Strix is a card that's more fringe that anything (partially due to card availability). It's use, in the format, also doesn't compare to some of the 'removal' you'll see (overall, not in specific matches). Some examples: Swords to Plowshares, Submerge, Jace, The Mind Sculptor, Liliana of the Veil. Granted, you can hold off the Strix until you can deal with it using Enforcer.

Again, I'm not saying Enforcer's a bad idea. I'm saying I, personally, still prefer Hexproof, at cost of an additional mana, over Protection from Black.

Ah you're right, I thought the Lingering Souls tokens were black, that's unfortunate.

[lavafrogg]

I never said it was good against souls tokens, but I would never bring him in against a souls deck as those decks play swords. I have been bringing him in against Jund and BUG who both have no real way to remove a giant flyer, and he trumps tombstalker which the aggro BUG lists in my area are playing.

If i wanted to play a 5 mana creature, than Sigadra would be my go to bomb.

[Koplinchen]

lavagrogg - Thank you! My bit on the Enforce issue It is definetly amazing against Jund, but it is not so great against bug delver since they bring Submerge against us.

I like some of your plans - like Miracles (they can only kill us if game is too long and they can entreat; it sounds great to extract their StP) or Jund and Maverick

ANT - But are you sure you want to drop Scavenging Ooze against Ant? I play a lot against it and I think it is one of the best card completely shuting down their PiF plan. You want to keep in Abrupt Decays (I even added one from side) so you can kill random Confidant but especialy to kill LED. Sometimes they missplay and cast LED during the kill turn in advance and then you blow them out. Sometimes they dont want you to discard it and they play it turn two earlier. AD should definetly stay in. If you have slots even random explosives are possible since our discard often forces them to go Empty the Warrens route.

RUG - I know it is not the best but do you really want to side OUT Liliana against RUG? I always felt it is one of the better cards. If you play it on empty board you almost can not loose. It is very versatile. I like it a lot. I agree with dropping some GSZ and mabye some Thughtseize...

Goblins - discard is one of the strongest plays against them. I would leave it in. Evene if you cant kill/block Lackey you can Thoughtseize away their bomb. Liliana is nice (not all 3 thought) as well. You waste them, kill Vial and then you can +1 away they ringleaders. Jitte is good but not as game ending as it looks since they can quickly recover. Matron or Ringleader will tell you what to Target with Therapy.

Esper - all I am sure of is that they die to Jitte horribly. I will think about this one. You want all the cards you posted for sure.

Show and Tell - Mabye we should run those 3 Oblivion Rings (Humility) - seems like very good plan against them.

I dont know what to do with Pithing Needle. Jace, Top, Deed... Mabye one of.


I hope you take these comments as a constructive debate. :-)


Tom

[Esper3k]

I'll keep some discard against Goblins and other midrange decks as well. Against Goblins, we actually can get overrun by their card advantage once a SCG or Ringleader hits the board, so preemptively discarding them is key, imo.

Against other midrange like Jund or BUG, again forcing them to discard their card advantage spells (BBE, Bob, Shardless Agent, Strix, etc.) is better than just playing a bunch of answers for them after they hit the board.

Just my $.02.

[lavafrogg]

Board what feels good, side boarding is an art sometimes you look like a rockstar and sometimes you look like a jackass.

[sdematt]

I'll keep some discard against Goblins and other midrange decks as well. Against Goblins, we actually can get overrun by their card advantage once a SCG or Ringleader hits the board, so preemptively discarding them is key, imo.

Against other midrange like Jund or BUG, again forcing them to discard their card advantage spells (BBE, Bob, Shardless Agent, Strix, etc.) is better than just playing a bunch of answers for them after they hit the board.

Just my $.02.

In the BGx mirrors, I'd say you bring in threats instead of answers, and most of the time you bring out hand disruption. Problem with discard is if you're drawing it in the late game, it's SO awful to have.

Against Jund, I'd bring out Maelstrom Pulse (for being slow) for an Ooze and a Tracker, and 2 Thoughtseize would become 2 Linvala. I'd keep the Cabal Therapies since I'm keeping in the Lingering Souls.

Came 2nd last night.

Bug: 1-1-1
Helm Combo Deck: 2-0
Esperblade: 2-1
MonoB Pox: 1-1-1

Came second and won my own Misty Rainforest!

-Matt

[Esper3k]

In the BGx mirrors, I'd say you bring in threats instead of answers, and most of the time you bring out hand disruption. Problem with discard is if you're drawing it in the late game, it's SO awful to have.

Against Jund, I'd bring out Maelstrom Pulse (for being slow) for an Ooze and a Tracker, and 2 Thoughtseize would become 2 Linvala. I'd keep the Cabal Therapies since I'm keeping in the Lingering Souls.

Came 2nd last night.

Bug: 1-1-1
Helm Combo Deck: 2-0
Esperblade: 2-1
MonoB Pox: 1-1-1

Came second and won my own Misty Rainforest!

-Matt

Sure, but that's the problem with discard almost always regardless of what deck we're playing against. It's awesome on T1-2, terrible late game.

I think going down to 4-5 discard is fine, but I don't like boarding all of it out.

Do you really like Linvala against Jund? I'm surprised by that since she doesn't really do much against them other than shut off Deathrite?

[Barbed Blightning]

Sure, but that's the problem with discard almost always regardless of what deck we're playing against. It's awesome on T1-2, terrible late game.

I think going down to 4-5 discard is fine, but I don't like boarding all of it out.

Do you really like Linvala against Jund? I'm surprised by that since she doesn't really do much against them other than shut off Deathrite?

I would add that she is abrupt decay/bolt-proof, flies, and blocks 3/5ths of their creatures and survives. We can also save her via Karakas from a post-combat bolt.

[Esper3k]

I would add that she is abrupt decay/bolt-proof, flies, and blocks 3/5ths of their creatures and survives. We can also save her via Karakas from a post-combat bolt.

No, I understand that (what creature doesn't she block well other than 'goyf?) but I'm just saying can't we find a better option vs Jund than Linvala? I would think that cards like Thrun or Obstinate Baloth would be better against Jund (not that I think we really need many cards since I think the matchup is pretty favorable for us to begin with).

[Barbed Blightning]

No, I understand that (what creature doesn't she block well other than 'goyf?) but I'm just saying can't we find a better option vs Jund than Linvala? I would think that cards like Thrun or Obstinate Baloth would be better against Jund (not that I think we really need many cards since I think the matchup is pretty favorable for us to begin with).

Agreed. I like the Baloth & Thrun, but Flying is what seals the deal for me. Being able to strike down Liliana and then cast your own is very powerful, and shutting off their Ooze and DRS so yours can go to town? icing on the cake.

Plus, she's nuts with Jitte.

[Esper3k]

Agreed. I like the Baloth & Thrun, but Flying is what seals the deal for me. Being able to strike down Liliana and then cast your own is very powerful, and shutting off their Ooze and DRS so yours can go to town? icing on the cake.

Plus, she's nuts with Jitte.

Sure, I just feel we're really wasting the main reason to play Linvala (her ability) in the Jund matchup.

Most of our dudes are nuts with Jitte since they're usually just big dudes ('goyf or Knight) or there's a swarm of them (Spirit tokens).

[Mr. Safety]

Jumped in last nights Legacy Daily (about 12 hours from the time of this post for a better time explanation). Ended up going 1-2 drop.

Round 1 - Death and Taxes (2-1). turn 4 Sigarda ended up being the end if it. Game 2 I almost won from the Mull to 3 (first lands) but he finally built Mangara lock, two turns before I would've found another piece of removal. Game 3 wasn't ever out of reach from the overload on control.
Round 2 - Omnishow (1-2) - Girlfriend decided she wanted attention game 3 and forced a mis-click on a non-black land to fetch. Lost with 3 pieces of discard and 2 Tidehollow in hand.
Round 3 - UR Burn (1-2) - I got burned... Game 3 Double delver + Goblin Guide + Miracle burn spell = loss

Decided to play some games in the 2-man queue afterwards.

I don't remember the first 2... I know I won.
Belcher - 2-1 - Game 1 he made goblins, I played Shaman then pulse. Lili finished it off. Game 3 he couldn't go off on 1 and I murdered his hand.
Jund - 0-2 - Game 1 I kept Waste, Scrub, Bob, Sword and decided to go with it. Wasted his bayou into nothing and Thoughtseized on 2. Left him with Waste, Waste Hymn Hymn. Never saw another land. Game 2 I Thoughtseize and left him with library? Don't know why I did that, just did. Library's card selection is too much for me to keep up with.
Esper - (2-0) - Sigarda beat the tokens. Knight fetched Stronghold after Karakas got legend ruled.
Thresh - (2-1) - Tossed out spells to bait for counters (library, bob, etc). Bog kept the Goose in check (play your spell into the counter before you play the bog). Game 2 modo Glitched and I didn't get to sideboard. Game 3 I choked him and hid behind infinite removal into I found a top which found me a library, which found me the top I shuffled back in, which found me another library... It was about 4 turns with nothing until... Sigarda vs 4/5 Goyf. Opponent took the Moral victory by countering me Decay on Goyf.

Overall, I ran 2 Chokes and an Ooze in the open slots in the list. The chokes were fine, the Ooze still needs to go. I think I would've gotten the same effect from Squire as I did Ooze. Everything else did it's part.
I liked having the Tidehollow. The ability for them to get the card back wasn't the greatest but the only time that came into play was Omnishow to get rid of Thalia, Bob, Deathrite, and Sculler.
Loam never came to be useful. I had it a bunch of the time and just wanted it to be something else. ANYTHING ELSE. So now I guess I have 2 slots to adjust...
Fun Fact: Did you know Sigarda Flies? Turns out she can block Emrakul and let Lili finish the job.

A fellow Tidehollow Sculler player!!! Tidehollow has been treating me pretty good lately, I've been using it instead of Hymn to Tourach in my maindeck (and boarding it out for Hymns against Burn/zoo) How many do you run? I'm currently using 4, but mostly for sideboarding flexibility. Very curious to see your list, especially because you mention Volrath's Stronghold, too (which I also use.)

EDIT: I found it one page back. We have very similar lists. The main difference is that I play Sculler maindeck, and a single Eternal Witness. Witness + Stronghold is a ball-buster of a late-game combination, and gives opponents fits when Liliana is involved.

[sdematt]

No, I understand that (what creature doesn't she block well other than 'goyf?) but I'm just saying can't we find a better option vs Jund than Linvala? I would think that cards like Thrun or Obstinate Baloth would be better against Jund (not that I think we really need many cards since I think the matchup is pretty favorable for us to begin with).

Sure Thrun is better in the Jund matchup, but I have Linvala in there for the BUG match as well as the Elves and other creature matchups. Shutting off Deathrites is huge, flying is also good.

-Matt