[Deck] The Rock

[damionblackgear]

Did choke just disappear from people's boards? The entire format is blue...

[bracer028]

Did choke just disappear from people's boards? The entire format is blue...

too many free spells. and with vial, tapping their islands isn't all that great. and its only good against blue.

[Arsenal]

If the hivemind appears, then I anticipate seeing more traditional blue-based control decks ala Drew Levin and Gerry T's UW Landstill approach that were piloted to two top 4 finished at the most recent SCG Open. Choke may be a good card to have as a 1-of in your Tutor board.

[sdematt]

I love the in-bred Top 16 of Orlando, and it proves SCG only shows popularity and not what's actually good. So many scoops, so little time, apparently.

So, a Reanimator deck placed Top 16 at BoM, as did Team America, Dredge, and the rest of the usual suspects. UBG Landstill placed first, and Levin and Gerry played U/w Landstill for 2/3rd place. I suspect GP Providence will reflect this quite a bit with, perhaps, more players getting out there and playing Landstill.

The nice thing about this is, we're usually alright against Landstill due to the early disruption. The bad thing about Landstill is that they have more counters and removal than we have threats. That makes it a tad awkward. But, most players who would just be picking up the deck now would be absolutely terrible for GP Providence, and it's certainly not a deck that pilots itself. This could make the metagame very interesting.

-Matt

[mdc1010]

If landstill gets popular you will see thrun and stronghold make it into more junk builds.

[Darkness]

I've recently adopted a GSZ variation and I'm in love with it. The ability to run my discard and vindicates/swords and still be able to find the right dude for the situation is amazing. One topic I'd like to push for is engineered plague vs. Merfolk. My sideboard is currently an Enlightened Tutor and I would like to get thoughts on E plague vs folk. Is it worth running, if so how many do I run? Is it worth it to put Deed instead and or in conjunction? Is Jitte the stronger call instead of E plague? I've always felt E Plague not shinning against folk due to the massive lords. Granted in if you can get them out early its pretty much an auto win. Just wanted to hear from some feedback from my fellow Junk players.

[ForlornEgoist]

I've recently adopted a GSZ variation and I'm in love with it. The ability to run my discard and vindicates/swords and still be able to find the right dude for the situation is amazing. One topic I'd like to push for is engineered plague vs. Merfolk. My sideboard is currently an Enlightened Tutor and I would like to get thoughts on E plague vs folk. Is it worth running, if so how many do I run? Is it worth it to put Deed instead and or in conjunction? Is Jitte the stronger call instead of E plague? I've always felt E Plague not shinning against folk due to the massive lords. Granted in if you can get them out early its pretty much an auto win. Just wanted to hear from some feedback from my fellow Junk players.

Running both would be the best way to take advantage of Merfolk. E. Plague really only has that "OMG I winZ!" against Goblins. Beyond that even weakening their Lords by 1 can mean anywhere from 1-5 damage prevented just by negating 1 Lord. Deed, similarly, is always a fantastic board sweep although sometimes annoying as you'll usually crack it on 3 which gives them an extra turn to pump through damage or respond with Echoing Truth.

Since you're running E. Tutor I would suggest you really only need a 2/2 split. You might also consider running Dueling Grounds as a stall tactic until you can dig for an EE or Deed.

I have to say I'm also falling in favor with GSZ. I've fit in 2 quite nicely (-1 Waste/Vindic) and have definitely found them useful in hastening the deck's clock when faced against more aggressive decks (the meta for me has shifted more towards aggro esp. tribal so in go the 3 Moxes as well ^^').

Forlorn Egoist

[sdematt]

Forlorn, have you tried it without the 3 Moxen? MY list has been playing plenty well, I reckon. I'm going to run it at a tournament tomorrow and see how I do.

-Matt

[ForlornEgoist]

I usually don't run Moxen in my build but I have found it to be a meta card. In metas with a lot of control the Moxen really aren't necessary whereas in more aggressive metas you need to be more proactive rather than responsive in terms of disruption and threats. My meta, unfortunately, has tipped into the tribal aggro which means that both Rock and Enchantress aren't doing so hot and I dislike running DS without a meta full of Thresh (lol :P). As a whole I've had mixed feelings with the Moxens. I'm still new to the GSZ's (having traded mine when they peaked at $12) and as such have yet to test them in the deck Mox-less.

However I am quite fond of your list. ~^^~

Forlorn Egoist

[AggroSteve]

i am actually running allmost the same list as matt, and love it, ... the only difference right now is that i am running only 23 lands (but probably will go up to 24 to add dryad arbor cutting 1 deed) and running 61 cards including 2 MD deeds

i really like this list way better over the ones with moxen, it is more consistent in my eyes and green sun's zenith is a very nice inclusion

one thing i would suggest if anyone is running quasali as a zenith target, run volraths stronghold, a recurring quasali helped me out in so many situations, it is awesome, it works allmost as a every-turn vindicate on troublesome permanents, plus stronghold makes blowing a deed on a full table a more assymetrical move, since you can recurr your beaters

[MoonDark]

Forlorn, have you tried it without the 3 Moxen? MY list has been playing plenty well, I reckon. I'm going to run it at a tournament tomorrow and see how I do.

-Matt

Woud love to hear about your results, I've been running 3 moxen in MTGO with fairly good results.

[sdematt]

What land from my list did you cut for Stronghold? I may want to give it a try.

Also, in terms of positioning, right now I'm not terribly sure where we stand. I haven't tried the deck against that Landstill build, but Team America seems favourable, and Merfolk isn't unwinnable (but it's not 75% favourable, let's put it that way).

Let me ask you this question: If you were spending $1500 to fly six hours to enter a tournament, would you play this deck? As much as I love and nurture this deck, I'm wondering if CounterTop Thopters is what I should play at the GP. Again, not shitting on what we've all created, but what would you play? Honestly? I love this deck and I know it like the back of my hand, but what are your thoughts?

-Matt

[mdc1010]

The right answer is to always play the deck you are the most comfortable with, and know inside and out. For me that is junk. However it's taken me a year to get to that level.

[sdematt]

That's what all of my friends said, is to play what you're most comfortable with.

I know the pro's are good players, but it seems like they can pick up decks and go with it and make Top 8. I guess it doesn't help they get infinite buys.

But I'm definitely leaning towards Rock. Seeing that Reanimator and Dredge did alright, I expect to see them in full force (at least Dredge) at the GP. Merfolk will obviously be there, as will Team America. I should sleeve those two or three decks up and grind them for a solid week, and see what I can do. It would also help me quite a bit if you guys tested against the Landstill builds that did well at Orlando, and we can combine our results together.

For those Rock players going to the GP, we could also meet up beforehand and talk tech.


-Matt

[Rainbow Maker]

i wish i could go... i haven't tested against the landstill list, but i'm not sure it would be very favorable. zenith would make the matchup more positive. snare hits a lot of the deck hymn, goyf, if you run pridemage, mystic jitte. Counterspell is very good as our deck curves out so high and we don't have a lot of redundancy. ultimately, they have jace. I think this format or atleast gerry thompson, realizes how nutz jace is. (he also used him in his teamamerica deck) jace is pesudo removal, ca, and virtual ca when it comes to yourself or your opponents, and lastly a win con. just by the sheer nature of the deck running 4 jtms it makes our life very bad. we rely on hand disruption then to drop a single threat; jtms doesn't allow that. Repeal is such an amazing card, the negeative tempo it creates for anyone of us is huge. i also could easily see people putting a 1 of academy ruins in that list. honestly, i do love playing junk, i just don't think it's really great. more than most decks it's very reliant on drawing and top. this is because of lands and usually 8 discard effects. i just think having the ability to say no, is much stronger. i would say take whatever you feel comfortable with,but, if you're as comfortable with thopters maybe think about taking that. if were talking about the pros, usually their deck is somewhat similar to what they played the week before. if it's very different they do and will make misplays such as when gerry was playing doomsday. i'm not saying theyre perfect, but they do test a whole lot, part of it is they are good magic players.

[bfeingersh]

Sdematt, I'm going to bring your list to our local event tonight and see how it goes. I'm growing increasingly unimpressed with Moxen.

[Ahdam]

Drop the 3 moxen. I did and have yet to miss them. Add 1 mana source and 2 redundency/threats. Blue is going to pick up strength and i feel the meta is going to go control. Zoo is already not making any creditable finishes and where is goblins? >60% of all the top 16s iv seen are packing blue.

[mdc1010]

Between yesterday and today I ran the new landstill vs junk and it's pretty easily in our favor with a stronghold. The key is to bait out their wastelands early, and sandbag the stronghold till midway through the game. Once you have an active stronghold it took 2 or 3 turns max to end the game. They simply can't counter it all. Once you have a threat stay on the table it's gg.

I am thinking of fitting a crucible of worlds in the side it not 2 of them as the stronghold has become so important against several decks.

[AggroSteve]

i do not remember anymore, i think i cut bojuka bog for volrath's stronghold, initially i did not like it very much as i used 4 thoughtseize, 2 inquisition, 4 hymn discard package and only the 12 standard threats, but from the moment i added GSZ and quasali to the list stronghold was awesome and as long as GSZ stays in the list stronghold will too

[sdematt]

What land did you cut for Stronghold? I'd have to run it in the main, so here's my lands:

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

I'm thinking probably cut a Swamp?

-Matt

[Ahdam]

Ya i dropped a swamp as the only thing in the deck that requires BB is the hyms, which u can cast on a basic + fetchland --> Dualland even if they have a wasteland on field.

[mdc1010]

What land did you cut for Stronghold? I'd have to run it in the main, so here's my lands:

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

I'm thinking probably cut a Swamp?

-Matt

Cut a swamp for a stronghold, and a scrubland or karakas for a arbor. You will never go back.

[AggroSteve]

i would have suggested the same... swamp for stronghold and a scrubland for arbor, even if arbor does not much, the added versatility plus speed with zenith is worth it

[lorddotm]

You can have it all if you play my list.

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

4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
2 Qasali Pridemage

2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Sensei's Top
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach


-Matt

I like the Deed rock builds a lot better than Junk. Do you have a list for that?

[sdematt]

You mean builds with Eternal Witness and usually 3-4 Deeds in the main? I can dig one up for you.

-Matt

[mdc1010]

i would have suggested the same... swamp for stronghold and a scrubland for arbor, even if arbor does not much, the added versatility plus speed with zenith is worth it

Admittedly at first I was very skeptical about the arbor in any version of junk. However after testing it pretty extensively I will always run it now. I also don't run the gsz version, but I did test it, and the arbor is even better in that version of junk. It's actually making me rethink about not running gsz.

Why the arbor shines in junk

It's able to be fetched by a fetch land

It can be fetched by a knight, or even saced by a knight ( which is a great combat trick, block two dudes with knight and arbor, activate knight, sac arbor, and put two more lands in the gy to pump knight)

It essentially acts like a Mox diamond if you have a gsz in your opening hand

If you run the stronghold it's even better because you can also keep recurring it every turn. This is a great way to save life from dying to bob. Or building up counters on a Jitte.

Again another good reason to run jittes

Against control decks it's a uncountable beater! GG landstill.

[AggroSteve]

plus if in your meta (like in mine) sac effects are quite common like gatekeeper of malakir, stronghold and arbor shine because you can recurr your beater or sometimes sac the arbor instead of your beater, it happened to me a few times that my opponent forgot the arbor when calculating with the sac effects, and thus i won some games because of that

obviously there are good sides to the card and some downsides as well, but after testing i will stick with on arbor in the deck, because the positiv effects of it outweight the negativ ones (wasteable, swordable) IMO

[mdc1010]

I also noticed that my opponents had me on NO bant or another variant and not junk for the first few turns. As a result they misplayed the first few turns except for when I opened with disruption on turn 1 lol. This won't continue to be the case if a junk adds it across the board, but it's defiantly a good way to throw a monkey wrench at the upcoming GP as well.

[Rainbow Maker]

i think arbor elf should be run if you use any equipment.

[lavafrogg]

Dryad arbor does not play well with deed and to an extent any other sweeper in the format. It gives tempo decks more ways to slow us down. if you want a ridiculous endgame, run loam or a witness engine, not a 1/1 forest and stronghold.

edit: if we are playing sweepers equipment also don't fit into the plan and if B/G are our main colors then deed should definitely be somewhere in the 75 for pure power reasons.

[sdematt]

I agree and disagree with arbor. A) It's another Bojuka Bog. If it's my only green source in my opener, I still keep, just I get screwed. I can't tap for Tarmogoyf that turn, and it asks for a Wasteland. That is both a good and a bad thing. To be perfectly fair, most of the time I'm using GSZ for more Goyf, or going for a Goyf to get around Spell Snare or something like that. B) I see the acceleration argument, but again, turn 1 I'd rather be dishing out the pain in the form of Thoughtseize. But, I'll give it a try.

Anyways, I placed second at the local Legacy, losing only to the 43-Lands nutdraw.

My list was:

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

4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
2 Qasali Pridemage

2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Sensei's Top
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach

Board:
3 E. Tutor
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Runed Halo
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Cannonist
2 E. Plague
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb


Round 1: Gavin with R/G Goblins

I figure Gavin's playing Affinity, so I keep a nice hand of Swords, Bob, Top, Goyf, etc. It's a sweet hand. When he pulls off turn one Lackey, I roll my eyes. I fetch for a basic Plains and Swords during his attack. I get going, but he Stingscourgers me twice against A Knight and a Goyf. Ugh. He puts huge power on board and drops Gang-Bang commander off of another Lackey. Goyf trades with an Instigator and a 2/2, and he has tons of pressure on board. I Deed on 1, leaving my Goyfs and Knights and leaving him with a singleton Siege Gang. He stays back and I put the pressure on with a Jitte. Jitte absolutely buries him, and I drop Goyf #2 to seal it.

Sideboard plan for Goblins on previous page.

I keep a very loose hand of Needle, Confidant, basic Swamp, basic Plains, Waste, Jitte, Knight. "Loose." If he dropped Lackey, I was basically done. He instead drops a Vial off of a Taiga. I go Swamp into Needle, he cringed. He drops a basic and passes. I drop a Wasteland and he stays on one mana for a few turns while I get Confidant up. Confidant swings with Jitte to build up 4 counters. He drops Matron for Warchief, but I'm blowing him out with Jitte. I eventually drop 2 Knights at 7/7 a piece and he dies in a fire. Take that.

2-0

Round 2: Adam with 43 Lands

Adam was borrowing my friend's pimped 43-Lands deck, and I knew this matchup was awkward. Game 1 he Ghost Quarter locks me, but I attempt to get there. If I had drawn a Wasteland at any point, I would have won. Boo.

Boarding for 43 Lands

Game 2 I got a great hand and RFG'd his graveyard twice, but he had backup Loams EVERY time. Ugh. He grinds me out, I scoop to grab dinner.

2-2 in games
1-1 in Rounds

Round 3: Enrico with NLT

Enrico is an excellent Canadian Thresh/NLT player, and I wasn't looking forward to playing him. We ground games like this at the prerelease a week before, and it was even. This time, I got Wastelanded, Stifled, but I came back. I ran out massive amount of discard and cracked fetched when he was tapped out or on his upkeep. He Mental Misstepped me once, but it didn't matter. I Vindicate and Waste away 2/3 of his lands, and he sits on two Geese. I run out a 4/5 Goyf, and trade one for a Goose and a Bolt. I run out another Goyf, then GSZ for another. I start swinging, he can't get any mana. I end that game at a comfortable 10 life.

Boarding for NLT (what I did)

+2 Deed
-1 Hymn
-1 I can't remember :)

I overwhelm him with discard, then drop Knights 1-3. At 5/5, he couldn't keep up. Discard wrecked him so hard, and he couldn't recover.

4-2 games
2-1 in Rounds

Round 4: J.I. with UWr CounterTop Thopter

The matchup I was dreading, since it was a mix of the Gerry T list with the Thopter Combo. Game 1 I wreck him up with discard, then beat him to death with a Qasali Pridemage and a Dark Confidant. He can't drop any relevant lockpieces, but then lands a Needle and a Moat, spinning his Top to do so. I carefully draw Vindicate and swing for lethal.

Boarding: +13 awesomesauce, -13 dead cards. I don't board in Cannonist or Crypt.

-4 Swords, -4 Hymn, + Deed, Plague, Tutor, Null Rod, Crypt, Needle, etc....

He comments about how many cards I'm boarding in, I obviously note I have too many good cards against him, and that I want to cut lands to fit in all the hate. We laugh, his girlfriend who had patiently waited for him to finish wondered if we were done. I replied with VERY soon :)

I open a hand of Teeg, Thoughtseize,, land, land, Dark Confidant, etc. I snap-keep and immediately take the Counterspell. I land Teeg to shut off his Humility and EE in hand. He tries to play the EE, but I remind him of Teeg. He gets frustrated. I run out Confidant and draw into Goyf, Knight, and a bunch of stuff. He shuffles and I noticed Tarmogoyfs in his deck. So awkward with no removal. It doesn't matter, I end up coming back from a brutal Back-Basics tapout and win the game with huge beatdown.

Afterwards, we talk Thopters and we improve his build, possibly.

I receive $20 for my efforts and then happily pay my entrance fee with my winnings :P

Props: GSZ and Jitte, hot damn. Null Rod would have been SO sick, but in 43 Lands, I wished it was Bog so many times. But, since that deck is expensive, hard to play, and goes to time every round, I don't really care. Props to Dark Confidant for drawing me my good stuffs. Props to basic lands for shutting out my opponents' Wasteland plays.

Slops: Not drawing Wasteland to attack for lethal against a Maze of Ith; going for Subway with the 43 Lands player still on game 1 with 20 minutes left, then coming back to have the next round already started since the opponent scooped. Bastard.

-Matt

[bfeingersh]

I played against Lands in our local event this week and I felt like game 1 was pretty hopeless, while games 2 and 3 were a relative breeze. I was playing sdematt's list with a different board, and I boarded -4 Swords -2 Jitte, +2 Extirpate +1 Bojuka Bog +1 Nihil Spellbomb +1 Tormod's Crypt +1 Pithing Needle.

a) I assume Loam is the first thing to Extirpate, but what's next? Is it build dependent?
b) What's best to needle? In my match I needled Tolaria West and EE, which felt pretty strong but may have just been good in that situation. Maze of Ith seems okay.

I was kind of just flailing around in the dark in that match but managed to come out on top. To state the possibly obvious, Extirpate was great.

[2Rach]

I played against Lands in our local event this week and I felt like game 1 was pretty hopeless, while games 2 and 3 were a relative breeze. I was playing sdematt's list with a different board, and I boarded -4 Swords -2 Jitte, +2 Extirpate +1 Bojuka Bog +1 Nihil Spellbomb +1 Tormod's Crypt +1 Pithing Needle.

a) I assume Loam is the first thing to Extirpate, but what's next? Is it build dependent?
b) What's best to needle? In my match I needled Tolaria West and EE, which felt pretty strong but may have just been good in that situation. Maze of Ith seems okay.

I was kind of just flailing around in the dark in that match but managed to come out on top. To state the possibly obvious, Extirpate was great.
A: Engineered Explosives.
B: Call Explosives(preferably) or Maze of ith(depending on game state). Basically, they have Waste/Port-lock and Explosives/Maze to slow you down until they get a finisher. Watch out for Academy Ruins. Needle's extremely good in this matchup.

Every time I face lands I feel like scooping, not because I'm losing, but because the matchup is so BORING. I'd almost prefer stabbing myself in the arm.


@Matt: Have you tried Runed Halo against that Canadian Thresh deck? Seems great against it. (BTW: NLT and Can Thresh are different decks. NLT being the Lavamancer/Trinket Mage version, it's how I understand it anyway.)

[sdematt]

I only tested against Canadian Pre-board. At the tournament I obviously played both versions.

@ Merfolk

So I ground Merfolk again today for about 5 hours. Preboard, with them having Mental Misstep but no Kira, we were even to favourable. Once I stuck Goyf and/or Knight, I usually won. I usually lost by landscrew or the nuts 4-lord draw. Postboard however, was a different animal. Sower, Submerge, and Kira came in, and out went I'm not totally sure. I boarded according to my previous posts (+2 Deed, + 2 Plague, +3 E. Tutor, +1 Needle; -3 Vindicate, -4 Hymn, -1 Qasali) but it didn't usually go over so well when he found Kira. The fact that I'm tutoring more times using E. Tutor only made Submerge THAT much better, and I found I was getting blown out many times due to surprise buttsex by way of Submerge. I really missed Hymn here, and with no Vindicates, all my Swords, after getting my Maze and Karakas Wastelanded, were essentially dead cards.

My thoughts are as follows. 1) E Plague can be decent if they take the Silvergill/Cursecatcher swarm, but most of the time, I didn't manage to achieve that. So, I question my inclusion of Plague here. 2) Kira is a beating no matter which way you slice it. Waiting for two removal versus just having one is brutal, as most of the time my Maze/Karakas didn't stick too long. 3) Submerge is REALLY good.

I'm thinking the best way to deal with the Kira/Submerge angle of attack would be to leave all the discard in. When they're in hand, I can hit them. In play, it makes it MUCH more difficult. Also, I think I have to cut some Vindicates to accomplish this, so as to not throw my curve into insanity. I think I can replace two Vindicates with two Deeds, and just naturally draw into them. With this, I believe Volrath's Stronghold becomes a better addition.

Second, I can deal with Submerge by way of Gaddock Teeg. They can't remove it once it hits, and it at least gives me SOME combat certainty. As well, it's a bear, and there's nothing wrong with more creatures against a creature deck. I know this isn't much, but also shutting off Force seems alright.

So, I was thinking this as my new way to sideboard against Bertoncini Folk (no Perish): +2 Deed, +2 Teeg; -2 Vindicate, -1 Pridemage, -1 Thoughtseize/Hymn.

Thoughts on this?

@ New Gerry T U/W Landstill

Well, I tested against this deck, and it's not a total pile of crap. That deck cycles through so many cards it's ridiculous. 14-15 mainboard counters, along with Standstills, Brainstorms, Shackles, Crucible, and Jace makes it a bit tough. I found my opponent just chained Standstills and buried me with counters, or bounced THEN countered my threats. Discard was good, but didn't mean much after multiple Standstills. Early on, however, it was fine. Suffice to say, it wasn't as easy as I thought.

I lost due to Jace/Shackles, as well as recurring Wasteland or blockers with Crucible. However, this deck is a freakin' pile against Merfolk, as we tested. Islandwalk your Jace? Check. More creatures than you can handle? Check.

As well, Stronghold would be much better as well, as recycling threats is usually good. Even if it doesn't last long, even getting a single return is worth it. I don't think Thrunn is needed though; I'll see. This would be one of the rare matches that I would need him in, and maybe NLT/Canadian. I don't think he's worth a slot, since UBG Landstill can easily Edict him away, and the other matches don't really care.

So, for this matchup, I'm thinking:

+2 Teeg, +1 Needle, +1 Runed Halo, +3 E. Tutor, +1 Null Rod/Crypt (if applicable).
-2 Jitte, -4 Swords, -1 Hymn?

Thoughts?

-Matt

[Elminister]

Hymn is crucial to deck. I would rarely board it out.

Remember, you can play over Submerge by going for non-forest lands if you have a Mox. Just be careful with Deed later, as it can leave you off Green color.

And Landstill is this deck's worst match-up imo.

[Arsenal]

Boarding it out for those times you're on the draw versus Merfolk is reasonable as (a.) they'll have Cursecatcher/Daze online by the time you get Hymn online and (b.) Merfolk (and all tribal decks for that matter) are just a bit too redundant for Hymn to truly matter; Hymn away a Lord and an Island? Cool. Drop another 2 Lords, pass. I can't tell you how many times I've Hymned Merfolk, only for them to shrug and thank me for not playing an actual threat.

[sdematt]

But what actual threat would you play? I'd rather Terror their Cursecatcher on T2 using my Hymn than they do it to my Vindicate on T3.

But, Submerge, with non Mox builds, gets better. Maybe a 1-of Birds would help...

-Matt

[bfeingersh]

I feel like I only take Hymn out against Dredge.

[Arsenal]

But what actual threat would you play? I'd rather Terror their Cursecatcher on T2 using my Hymn than they do it to my Vindicate on T3.

But, Submerge, with non Mox builds, gets better. Maybe a 1-of Birds would help...

-Matt

I'd much rather drop a Confidant/Goyf as my 2cc play than Hymn them. Also, why is Cursecatcher still in their hand when you're casting Hymn on the draw? And even if they led with Vial, you're still behind and Hymn isn't going to resolve through Daze.

EDIT: In my experience, I've found discard to be a poor avenue of attack against tribal strategies as tribal decks are often times incredibly redundant and recovers much, much faster from discard than other aggro-control decks. I want either more removal (Deed, EE, GftT) or more threats versus Merfolk, not discard that is only semi-effective early, and almost 100% dead later on.

[trilobite_hives]

@ New Gerry T U/W Landstill

Well, I tested against this deck, and it's not a total pile of crap. That deck cycles through so many cards it's ridiculous. 14-15 mainboard counters, along with Standstills, Brainstorms, Shackles, Crucible, and Jace makes it a bit tough. I found my opponent just chained Standstills and buried me with counters, or bounced THEN countered my threats. Discard was good, but didn't mean much after multiple Standstills. Early on, however, it was fine. Suffice to say, it wasn't as easy as I thought.

I lost due to Jace/Shackles, as well as recurring Wasteland or blockers with Crucible. However, this deck is a freakin' pile against Merfolk, as we tested. Islandwalk your Jace? Check. More creatures than you can handle? Check.

As well, Stronghold would be much better as well, as recycling threats is usually good. Even if it doesn't last long, even getting a single return is worth it. I don't think Thrunn is needed though; I'll see. This would be one of the rare matches that I would need him in, and maybe NLT/Canadian. I don't think he's worth a slot, since UBG Landstill can easily Edict him away, and the other matches don't really care.

So, for this matchup, I'm thinking:

+2 Teeg, +1 Needle, +1 Runed Halo, +3 E. Tutor, +1 Null Rod/Crypt (if applicable).
-2 Jitte, -4 Swords, -1 Hymn?

Thoughts?

-Matt

Played about 4 non-sideboarded games against this deck last night, and I must say that it's been quite a long time since I've played games that seemed this hopeless. I'm talking downright unwinnable. It seemed like a miracle any time I actually resolved any sort of relevant spell, and counting on a threat to connect if it did somehow manage to resolve was just laughable.

Maybe I just suck, maybe I was getting bad draws, maybe these games were outliers, maybe I should have just stuck with it and moved on to some sideboarded games. But I was playing almost your exact list and the games against this deck were some of the most un-fun, disheartening games of Magic I've played in quite some time.

It really bothers me that 2 of the people in my playgroup have started playing this deck, and I would LOVE to hear a more in depth plan for some way to beat this deck game 1. I think that might start with replacing either 1 or both Jittes in the main with Elspeths. Any other pointers you can give regarding this matchup would be very much greatly appreciated.

[Ozymandias]

Maybe Stronghold MD? It seems like if that card hits they have a hell of a time answering it.

Here is what I am planning to battle with on Sunday:
//Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
//Instants
4 Swords to Plowshares
//Sorceries
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Vindicate
//Enchantments
3 Pernicious Deed
//Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant.
//Artifacts
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Mox Diamond
//Lands
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Karakas
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
3 Scrubland
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland
//Sideboard
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Gaea's Blessing
2 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle
1 Phyrexian Revoker
2???

Thoughts:
I don't like Maze of Ith because it needs to take up a spell slot and doesn't actually answer threats in a format filled with Wastes.
I am considering Bojuka Bog in the MD, but it seems horrid to ever draw it.
Deed has been super-solid for me, especially versus Tribal decks, so I went from 1 to 3 pretty quickly.
I would rather maximize my chances of the mox diamond opener and draw a dead one later than actually wait.
I have 2 more SB slots--I would kind of like something against Burn, but I am open to suggestions. Maybe a Wheel of Sun and Moon would also be a good choice.

[CorpT]

Hymn and Thoughtseize can come out more often than you'd think. Definitely agree with Arsenal on this one. Decks that play lots of redundant spells, aka Merfolk type decks, are prime examples. I always want to overload on removal against decks like that and just grind them out of the game.

[oRen]

Hey,

I tested a lot and really like the deck a lot and think it is able to perform really well even in misstep heavy metagames so I started buying the cards.

I got to admit that I like the fact that I do not see a lot of Horizons Canopies in the recent lists. It is nice that you can cycle it in the lategame but the fact that it is a non fetchable GW source which pings you for tapping it for mana sucks IMO.

In the same direction goes my opinion towards Volraths Stronghold. When only having 12 creatures it seems really nice on the paper but finding it without a knight is incredibly random and using an active knight for finding it was never necessary for me.

Also I neither like Deed nor Zenit in this deck. Deed need a lot of setup - mostly 1 hole turn - while not even killing planeswalkers. I got to say that I like EE a lot more because it is by far more versatile while only not being able to blow up manlands which should never be a great problem anyway. Zenit might be alright with adjusted creatures - like in matt's last list - but it do not really see the point in running it because it can not get Dark Confidents which are MVPs to this deck.


"I would rather maximize my chances of the mox diamond opener and draw a dead one later than actually wait."

I totally agree - I never got it why people run only 3 Moxen when you clearly always want to have playable openers with Moxen. Also dead draws in the lategame and card disadvantage are easily compensated by confidant draws and hymns.

Heres my actual list - any thoughts on it would be nice :tongue:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
3 [A] Scrubland
2/3 [A] Bayou
0/1 [A] Savannah
1 [A] Plains
1 [A] Forest
1 [A] Swamp
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [DK] Maze of Ith
1 [LG] Karakas


// Creatures
4 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll

SB: 2 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 [TE] Choke
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [WL] Null Rod

SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog


I am pretty fixed on this list and did a lot of testing. I would love to run either 2 path or 2 extirpate in the board but it leaks space.
The only thing I am unsure about is whether to run 3 bayou 0 savanna or 2 bayou 1 savanna. Some times I felt like I need a tutorable GW source but I think 3 bayous should be better.

Thanks!

[sdematt]

There have been times where I've wanted a Savannah, but I'd prefer to go with 3 Bayou.

Zenith lets you tutor, though. Which can be nice, since it "virtually" gives you 6 Tarmogoyfs.

I'm also going to try and run some Thrun. I'll wait to see how Louisville is, but I've bought two Thrunns as of now. My board might look something like this if Landstill is a harsh rape-train:

3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Thrun, the Last Trollolloll
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Pithing Needle
1 Runed Halo
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Null Rod


---

Also, if any of you are in/near DC or New York, if you want to grind some games this week, let me know. I'll be in DC this coming Monday and Tuesday, and New York this Wednesday and Thursday. Hit me up with a PM asap so I can plan the driving route :)

-Matt

[novatinhu]

Good morning everyone, today I am here to say I got my invite to Brazilian Legacy Qualifier, yesterday I played the tournament and I do not regret having chosen this deck.


Decklist

Lands
4 Wasteland
3 Scrubland
3 Marsh Flats
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Volrath\'s Stronghold
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest

Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant

Spells
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
3 Vindicate
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Mox Diamond
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard
SB: 1 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Perish
SB: 1 Doom Blade (used to be an Go for the Throat, but i trade for Blade because i dont have any Black creature to worry and I have Artifacts to worry, Affinity and MUD and I needed to dodge Chalice for 1 and Mental Misstep)
SB: 2 Engineered Plague
SB: 2 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Dueling Grounds
SB: 2 Pithing Needle


Round 1: Goblins
Soft and highly controlled both matches, I did 2-0 fast

Round 2: Monogreen Ramp
Rogue deck and how we imagine it was an easy 2-0 victory

Round 3: Affinity
The Pernicious deed did all the dirty work and led me to win 2-0

Round 4: Elfball
A friend has this deck and was extremely coached against him, so it was a game fácil.2-0

Round 5: ID with another Junk

Top 8: The same Elfball of R4, again controlled the game until the end and bring both. 2-0

Top4: I came across my friend who was also playing Elfball and how he knew it was very hard to beat me, just let me pass.

Top2: with a guaranteed place (first and second place would earn the invite) I met again with another friend who was playing Zoo, I knew it would be an incredibly difficult, and indeed it was, I was in 2nd place with a invite to Brazilian Legacy Qualifier, it will be in November.


Thank you all for reading and hope this can help someone sometime.

[Rainbow Maker]

i think a couple of pages i assumed that new mono u landstill would be a hard matchup. I haven't tested it but i do think it's probably one of the worst matchups ever. this isn't solely due to mm. However there now is a problem between mm snare, force, and counterspell. this is for any deck. you have 8 potential counters to if you
re on the draw. your turn one they can play force or mm. t 2 they can force or snare. this makes this hard on any deck. next next problem is there are only a few key spells they need to counter. one of them being hymn and the others being bob, Goyf, and knight can be easily dealt with between ee, swords and the slew of counterspells. next 12 of those threats can be unsummoned by jace(which they run 4 of) or repealed; which is in essence a time walk. ultim
ately they could just sit behind a shackles or a wasteland/crucible lock. this matchup is ridiculousness hard for us. but it is a great deck in general

[mdc1010]

It's really not that hard. I've been playing against it for over a week now. There are two key plays for us. Grip their crucible ( which is a one of ) and then recur our threats with a stronghold. I've never had a game go past 3 turns once a active stronghold happened. If your not comfortable with that plan, then put Thrull in your side as well. That shores up the match even more so.

[Arsenal]

I've reverted back to the traditional Mox build and actually sorta like it again, although to be fair, I've had some great luck with Mox recently, so that's obviously biasing my opinion.

I also play UGB Jacestill, and playtest often against it, and I can say with confidence that Rock cannot win this matchup pre-board unless we get a godhand, and even then, nothing is guaranteed unless we can protect a threat. With MM allowing Counterspell and Standstill decks to creep back into the format, I don't feel good about the UGB Jacestill matchup pre-board. Post-board, I'm running the E Tutor package with Choke, Pithing Needle, etc and I may add 1/2 Thrun if Landstill starts taking off again.

Anyone else have experience with UGB Jacestill? Tips for game 1?

EDIT: Off-topic, but is there a spoiler tag feature on this forum? When I post decklists, it'd be less clutter if I could just use spoiler tags, that way, if someone actually wants to read the decklist, they can, and threads just won't look like 20 decklists scrolled into a page.

[Rainbow Maker]

well, once they waste your stronghold you are in a bad spot.it's funny i was wondering why they ultimately didn't run a one of academy ruins, i had heard they cut it. well since we are talking post board, they do run 2 crucible, they run needles for stronghold they also have submerge which seems like a near blowout with repeal. Thrun is really hard for them to deal with, i will give you that. That was gerry's list. If we look at the one with energy field... i guess we have vindicate and maybe a pridemage... also most lists are going to have a hard time with back to basics. In my old junk list i ran 5 basics and even i think this would have been a tough match as many of the cards are virtual card advantage. Post board it would get way worse... let's hope these landstill(decks with only counters) don't become popular, otherwise junk lists will have to change.

I have the same thoughts arsenal, he are a slow deck. Our "explosive" starts with mox diamond can be really awkward if they counter whatever you cast. then they just deed your diamond away which isn't good what so ever.

[ForlornEgoist]

Ugh, its been months since I played Rock (been giving Dragon Stompy some love) and after picking it up I totally crapped out on the tournament tonight. Went 1-2-1: Rock- Slivers/UR Control-Zoo.

I may just be rusty after all this time (I know I made multiple SBing mistakes) and I hate to post a decklist without either winning a rather large tourney or offering some new take on the deck but I thought I might get some suggestions to see if mayber there's a ratio I could fix or maybe some other critique that might improve the deck:


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

2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshare
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Vindicate

3 Mox Diamond
3 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Mother of Runes
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Qasali Pridemage
4 Dark Confidant
1 Terravore
4 Knight of the Reliquary

2 Go for the Throat
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Dueling Grounds
3 Extirpate
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Engineered Plague

Round 1 Monowhite Slivers
Game 1/2: I get stuck on 2 lands with a bunch of 3cc. When I finally get that 3rd land to drop the KotR/Goyf/Terravore in my hand he essentially goes, "Dur, drop 2 Sidewinder Sliver, bash in face with 4 3/4 Slivers." SB: -1 TS -1 Hymn -1 Qasali +3 E. Plague


Round 2 Mirror
Game 1: I keep a hand of Mox, Bayou, Scrub, Sava, KotR, KotR, Terravore. He Inquisitions my Mox, then triple wastes my lands. God thats an amazing feeling. After this he drops his own Goyf/KotR while I'm stuck on 1 dual. SB -1 TS -1 Hymn +2 GftT
Game 2: Pretty much a repeat of Game 1 except it was me mana screwing him over. :3
Game 3: He mulls to 5, I get a T2 Terravore followed by T3 KotR and a T4 Top/Bob. He can't answer this.

Round 3 UR Control
Game 1: He T1 Tarn, pass. I do a T1 Savannah, GSZ->Arbor. He does a T2 Waste, fetches for Volcanic, bolts my Arbor. WOW! I do a T2 Mox->Bayou, pass. T3 land, pass. T3 I attempt to crack a fetch which he Stifles, then I TS which he MM. Seriously? T4 Goyf. T4 land, Top (he MM this) then Mom (Daze's). 'Goyf gets there. SB: -1 TS -1 Hymn -1 Mom +3 Extirpate
Game 2: I TS-> FoW, then resolve a KotR T3. He drops a Goyf/2 Lavamancer and essentially burns me to death while I try and use my Top to dig for answers. He ends up Shocking me for 4 then Bolting ftw.

Round 4 Zoo
Game 1: I know he's Zoo so I do a T1 Bayou, GSZ->Arbor. He fetches a Taiga->Nacatl. I drop a T2 , Top, Bob, pass. He fetches a Plateau, drops a Qasali, swings for 4, no blocks. I use top, stacking Plains/KotR, drop KotR. T3 he drops a Goyf, PtE my KotR, swings for 4, no blocks. I fetch a Bayou, drop Terravore. At his turn he casts Price of Progress. WOW. MD Price and I have 3-4 nonbasics. He then bolts me and I cry. SB: -4 TS -1 Qasali -1 Waste +2 GftT +2 Ground +2 Extirpate
Game 2: I fetch a Swamp, Mox->Savannah, Bob. He T1 fetch->Plateau, pass. Reveal KotR off Bob, drop a Top. He T2 fetch->Taiga, drops a Qasali, pass. Reveal land off Bob, drop a Goyf. He T3 fetch->Taiga, Drops a Nacatl, drops a Null Rod (singleton I found out after). I top in response seeing KotR/KotR/Terravore. Wtf... I draw a card, stacking Top onto deck. From here I essentially Bob myself down to 3 life. I manage to get him to block my Goyf w/Qasali, I kill my own Qasali to kill Null Rod, and he gets 2 KotR's to my 1 KotR/Bob. His KotR are 8/8's to my 6/6. He attacks with both. I block Bob on one, then tutor up a Maze to negate the other. EoT I Extirpate the 1 KotR in his GY (I know he only has 1 left in the deck but it was either that or the Qasali and I decided KotR was harder to deal with; I needed more info in his deck/SB). I then drop a Terravore. He drops a Qasali and passes. I swing for 12 which he decideds to take. Down to 9. He topdecks a Bolt with me at 3 life. He declares, I win, and bolts me. I StP my KotR bumping me up to 9. Apparantly I win. SB: -2 Extirpate +2 Deed
Game 3: We were literally starting off at 5 minutes until the round was over. I was confident neither of us could win (esp. me) but he insists he thinks he can kill me in 5 minutes and 2-3 turns at end-of-round. I open up a hand of Mox, Savannah, Fetch, GSZ, Top, StP, Bob. He mulls to 5. I go T1 fetch->Forest, Mox->Savannah, GSZ->Arbor, Top, pass. He t1 Plateau, pass. I t2 Top@ Upkeep, stacking GSZ. I then draw from Top, drop a land, GSZ->Goyf, pass. He drops a land, Nacatl, pass. I T3 KotR, swing with Goyf. At this point we have 5 turns which he then declares "Yeah, I can't win." Which sucks because I'm pretty sure I could have if I had another 10 minutes.

Overall I don't think I performed too horribly but one thing that I've noticed thats annoying with Rock which you don't see when playing New Horizons is that our deck tends to get mana screwed much more easily than them as they have Hierarchs to fix their mana whereas we rely only on Moxen and tend to get much more damaged with black than they do by blue. I don't know what the hell I was thinking with Extirpate against Zoo. Against UR Control it made sense because I knew his creatures were 4 Goyf/4 Lavamancer/1 Metamorph/1 Revoker and a Jace 2.0 so Extirpating Goyf/Lavamancer removes 1/3 wincons for him which is relevant.

Terravore was an absolute MVP tonight. He can easily rip apart any KotR which is conveinant although if it weren't for the Moxen I wouldn't of been able to hand is GG tonight. I think I might also consider cutting 2 Flats for Windswept Heath like Matt does as most of the time I found myself needing G/W more than the black tonight.

@ 2 Mom. Don't have the other 2 'Goyfs yet. Yeah, I know, I should get the other 2. But at the moment bills unfortunately takes precedence. I plan to get the other 2 when I have the $. Fortunately, GSZ helps offset this somewhat. Not to mention Mom can actually find her uses, particularly in the Mirror.

Anyway, yeah, tips or suggestions would be appreciated. *Sighs* I miss the good ol' days when I could take a Mono-black deck w/Carnophage and Negator and go undefeated at an unknown meta. Damn you, WotC.

Forlorn Egoist

[BWM]

1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Forest

0 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Terravore
4 Knight of the Reliquary

2 Pernicious Deed
2 Dueling Grounds
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Engineered Plague

* I think you play too many basics, how many times do you want your opponent to play Path to Exile on your dude? When you have 1 Basic and 2 duals, your opponent can pretty much color-screw you with a single wasteland anyways.

* 0 Top seems like a typo.

* 1 Terravore + 4 Knight seems a bit much.

* Your sideboard screams Enlightened Tutor, I think there's not enough love for that card.


Round 1 Monowhite Slivers
Game 1/2: I get stuck on 2 lands with a bunch of 3cc. When I finally get that 3rd land to drop the KotR/Goyf/Terravore in my hand he essentially goes, "Dur, drop 2 Sidewinder Sliver, bash in face with 4 3/4 Slivers." SB: -1 TS -1 Hymn -1 Qasali +3 E. Plague

Not sideing in Dueling Grounds or Pernicious Deed looks like a mistake here.


Round 2 Mirror
Game 1: I keep a hand of Mox, Bayou, Scrub, Sava, KotR, KotR, Terravore. He Inquisitions my Mox, then triple wastes my lands. God thats an amazing feeling. After this he drops his own Goyf/KotR while I'm stuck on 1 dual. SB -1 TS -1 Hymn +2 GftT
Game 2: Pretty much a repeat of Game 1 except it was me mana screwing him over. :3
Game 3: He mulls to 5, I get a T2 Terravore followed by T3 KotR and a T4 Top/Bob. He can't answer this.
I dislike Hymn to Tourach on the draw in the mirror, so I would've sideboarded:
OTP: -2 Thoughtseize; OTD: -2 Hymn to Tourach


Round 3 UR Control
Game 1: He T1 Tarn, pass. I do a T1 Savannah, GSZ->Arbor. He does a T2 Waste, fetches for Volcanic, bolts my Arbor. WOW! I do a T2 Mox->Bayou, pass. T3 land, pass. T3 I attempt to crack a fetch which he Stifles, then I TS which he MM. Seriously? T4 Goyf. T4 land, Top (he MM this) then Mom (Daze's). 'Goyf gets there. SB: -1 TS -1 Hymn -1 Mom +3 Extirpate

You should've expected Daze and not walk into it at turn 4 or later. Also, you should've played Thoughtseize before attempting to crack the fetchland, but this looks like bad luck...


Round 4 Zoo
Game 1: I know he's Zoo so I do a T1 Bayou, GSZ->Arbor. He fetches a Taiga->Nacatl. I drop a T2 , Top, Bob, pass. He fetches a Plateau, drops a Qasali, swings for 4, no blocks. I use top, stacking Plains/KotR, drop KotR. T3 he drops a Goyf, PtE my KotR, swings for 4, no blocks. I fetch a Bayou, drop Terravore. At his turn he casts Price of Progress. WOW. MD Price and I have 3-4 nonbasics. He then bolts me and I cry. SB: -4 TS -1 Qasali -1 Waste +2 GftT +2 Ground +2 Extirpate
Game 2: I fetch a Swamp, Mox->Savannah, Bob. He T1 fetch->Plateau, pass. Reveal KotR off Bob, drop a Top. He T2 fetch->Taiga, drops a Qasali, pass. Reveal land off Bob, drop a Goyf. He T3 fetch->Taiga, Drops a Nacatl, drops a Null Rod (singleton I found out after). I top in response seeing KotR/KotR/Terravore. Wtf... I draw a card, stacking Top onto deck. From here I essentially Bob myself down to 3 life. I manage to get him to block my Goyf w/Qasali, I kill my own Qasali to kill Null Rod, and he gets 2 KotR's to my 1 KotR/Bob. His KotR are 8/8's to my 6/6. He attacks with both. I block Bob on one, then tutor up a Maze to negate the other. EoT I Extirpate the 1 KotR in his GY (I know he only has 1 left in the deck but it was either that or the Qasali and I decided KotR was harder to deal with; I needed more info in his deck/SB). I then drop a Terravore. He drops a Qasali and passes. I swing for 12 which he decideds to take. Down to 9. He topdecks a Bolt with me at 3 life. He declares, I win, and bolts me. I StP my KotR bumping me up to 9. Apparantly I win. SB: -2 Extirpate +2 Deed
Game 3: We were literally starting off at 5 minutes until the round was over. I was confident neither of us could win (esp. me) but he insists he thinks he can kill me in 5 minutes and 2-3 turns at end-of-round. I open up a hand of Mox, Savannah, Fetch, GSZ, Top, StP, Bob. He mulls to 5. I go T1 fetch->Forest, Mox->Savannah, GSZ->Arbor, Top, pass. He t1 Plateau, pass. I t2 Top@ Upkeep, stacking GSZ. I then draw from Top, drop a land, GSZ->Goyf, pass. He drops a land, Nacatl, pass. I T3 KotR, swing with Goyf. At this point we have 5 turns which he then declares "Yeah, I can't win." Which sucks because I'm pretty sure I could have if I had another 10 minutes.

* I don't see the power of GSZing a Dryad Arbor against Zoo on turn 1. Lands that he can bolt seem bad.

* I play maindeck Price of Progress in zoo all the time, it's awesome against all the bad match-ups (and Rock).

* I board out Confidant against zoo, they have so many answers and the life-loss only helps their clock. I use my Confidants as 1B Fogs against zoo most of the time. Especially since you have relevant cards in your sideboard after your boarding strategy (Wasteland; Pernicious Deed)

[Rainbow Maker]

actually 3 basics isnt too many. I havent played this deck in a while but i used to run 2 forest 2 plains and a swamp and i never got mana screwed. you just need to think about the land you fetch rather than grab a random dual land.
vorre is better than knight in most circumstances. he runs the vorre in the place of a vindicate.

I just have to say, i don't see the point really of dryad arbor without equipment or some way to abuse it.

[ForlornEgoist]

@ BWM:

Perhaps my list runs 0 Top 'cause I'm gosu like that. :O Yeah... definitely a typo.

After you said the Deed/Grounds just now I did a facepalm. I'm not quite sure why I decided not to SB them. I think an issue I have with this deck is knowing exactly how to SB. I'm so reluctant to take out certain cards because unlike New Horizons stuff like our discard package isn't a universal answer so sometimes I have trouble decided whether I need more disruption via discard or more control cards. In this instance, compromising disruption for control seems like it would've been better.

@ Arbor:

This was my first night using GSZ in an actual tourney so I wanted to see how it worked it. After using it in a real tourney beyond MWS and goldfishing I have to say I wasn't too fond of it. If I'm stuck with it in an opening hand I always think, "Awesome. I now get to essentially time walk myself." Against decks like Zoo I've now turned a Bolt into a Wasteland for them which slows down my tempo.

@ Zoo MU:

You're right, in retrospect I should have SBed out Bob, but unfortunately I got trapped in my love affair with him by how many MU's he actually wins me, although that having been said if I hadn't of had him game 2 I never would have digged deep enough to actually win that game so I guess I lucked out with him.

@ E Tutor:

I think I'll definitely look at going with an E. Tutor toolbox. I definitely dislike running 3 E. Plague and cards like Deed/Grounds are only 2-ofs and definitely cards I need to see whenever I SB them. I'll have to look into this more.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Forlorn Egoist

[sdematt]

First things first,

Does anyone want to play Legacy in the New York.NJ area tonight?

Second, 4 Goyfs are needed. But, if Landstill is going to become popular, I think you need to be running some hard trumps. I'm not sure if Grip is really needed in this metagame, because you have to ask if your opponents are running hard trumps in artifact form?

I think Qasali, Vindicate, and the like should be fine, although against Landstill they are counterable. I don't think Stronghold in the long game versus a Crucible-lock is the best form of action. I'd say up your basics and run Teeg/Thrunn/Needle.

I'll start running Thrunns over Plagues, considering Goblins is terrible and I can beat the other Tribal decks without Plague (Elves, meet my little friend, Deed :D ). Thrunn turns off Submerge, Repeal, Swords, Shackles, etc. Plus, he regens after Deeds of your own or opponents. Against BUG it's worse since they have Bloods, but that's fine.

I'm just wondering if I'll need to adjust my manabase and tilt more towards green. Perhaps instead of 4 Scrubland and 3 Bayou, I'll change to 3 Scrub 3 Bayou 1 Sav.

Thoughts? Thrunn also kills Rock mirrors as well.

-Matt

[Darkness]

First things first,

Does anyone want to play Legacy in the New York.NJ area tonight?

Second, 4 Goyfs are needed. But, if Landstill is going to become popular, I think you need to be running some hard trumps. I'm not sure if Grip is really needed in this metagame, because you have to ask if your opponents are running hard trumps in artifact form?

I think Qasali, Vindicate, and the like should be fine, although against Landstill they are counterable. I don't think Stronghold in the long game versus a Crucible-lock is the best form of action. I'd say up your basics and run Teeg/Thrunn/Needle.

I'll start running Thrunns over Plagues, considering Goblins is terrible and I can beat the other Tribal decks without Plague (Elves, meet my little friend, Deed :D ). Thrunn turns off Submerge, Repeal, Swords, Shackles, etc. Plus, he regens after Deeds of your own or opponents. Against BUG it's worse since they have Bloods, but that's fine.

I'm just wondering if I'll need to adjust my manabase and tilt more towards green. Perhaps instead of 4 Scrubland and 3 Bayou, I'll change to 3 Scrub 3 Bayou 1 Sav.

Thoughts? Thrunn also kills Rock mirrors as well.

-Matt

I've been playtesting with the 3/3/1 split and it works very well. I have yet to have to worry about the mana split. I am also going to test 1 thrun MD 1 SB. let me know how it goes.

[kubalonek]

Good luck everyone at GP Providence. At BoM I went 4-3-1 (Win/Loss/Draw) however some my misplays or lack of thinking made such not impresive result. In the time of MM this deck is a really nice machine. I play standard version without GSZ and E. Tutor package at sideboard.

[C Rayz Walz]

I have been running thrun for a couple of weeks and he has been really good for me. He helps in so many ways.

[Arsenal]

Considering that sacrifice effects are woefully underplayed right now, and blue-based decks are seeing an upswing in play due to Mental Misstep, Thrun is positioned quite well in the meta right now. The only caveat to that is UGB Jacestill (which I mentioned earlier is just a dreadful matchup for us) which maindecks 4 Innocent Blood, then brings Perish out of the board against us typically.

[trilobite_hives]

Tested out 2x Thrun in the sb and they were wonderful against Landstill. Their "tech" against him right now is Peacekeeper which I was slightly unprepared for, but shouldn't be a huge problem in the future if I just sandbag all my Vindicates with Thoughtseize backup. Definitely going to try out a Dueling Grounds, mainly for the Merfolk matchup.

Also, not sure if it's been discussed yet, but swapping out a Top for a Sylvan Library has been great for fighting through the barrage of Mental Missteps. Considering even going for 2 Libraries/1 Top. Not sure if that would be too drastic though. Anybody got any input on this?

[Arsenal]

If you're running maindeck Deed, this could potentially be a problem as Top could be "saved" through a Deed activation. The lifeloss seems to be the biggest factor in using Library; you don't need to grab an extra card, but that's one of it's main selling points (get 2 cards in a pinch), but Confidant/Thoughtseize makes that advantage less attractive. Just my initial thoughts (I too have been looking at Library as I find myself not having enough mana at the correct moments cuz I need to cast spells).

[trilobite_hives]

Top resolving at all has been the problem. Seems like it's been Misstepped every time I've tried to cast it since the card came out. You're right though, adding yet another card that sucks life from us seems awkward, but at this point I think at least 1 may be a necessity just for the card selection.

[Arsenal]

I stated earlier in this thread that it's almost always the correct play to lead with Top as your opening 1cc play... now with MM in every deck, perhaps drawing out the MM with Thoughtseize/IoK is now the correct play as they either (a.) MM the Thoughtseize/IoK, likely allowing your Top to resolve thereafter, or (b.) they don't have MM, you grab a goodie with Thoughtseize/IoK, then slam Top down like a champ.

Library doesn't seem as strong as Confidant or Hymn at 2cc, and if Library's your 3rd option, how warranted is it maindeck?

[novatinhu]

Grant Garvin - Grinder 3
Grand Prix-Providence 2011 Legacy Grinder

So, what do you think?



// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Scrubland
3 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Swamp
1 Maze of Ith

// Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Vindicate
3 Mox Diamond
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Enlightened Tutor


// Sideboard
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Choke
SB: 2 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 2 Pithing Needle

Missing 3 cards I probably add:
SB: 1 Runed Halo
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt

[Arsenal]

Looks pretty standard aside from 2 GSZ maindeck and a maindecked E Tutor (although since he dropped down to 1 Deed maindeck, the 1 E Tutor makes sense as it's a "virtual" 2nd Deed). 4 Vindicate is absolutely the right call in this slower, blue-heavy Jace meta; if we do not get rid of Jace before they untap, we actually lose.

[sdematt]

Hey all, I'm back at my hotel from the GP, and I have a delicious double tournament report.

Die Hard Games Sourcer's Meetup:

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Forest
3 Bayou
4 Scrubland
1 Maze
1 Karakas

4 Goyf
4 Knight
4 Bob
2 Qasali Pridemage

2 Jitte
3 Top
3 Vindicate
1 Deed
4 Swords
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 GSZ

Board:
2 Thrun
3 Tutor
1 Runed Halo
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Cannonist

Round 1: BUG Landstill

I notice this guy's got Summer basics, and I'm fairly interested. I have him on UGB Landstill due to his countersuite and duals; I put him on the BoM list. I crush him game 1 when he casts Standstill after my Bob lands through discard. I crush his Factories with Wasteland and Bob basically takes the game.

Game 2

Game 2 it turns into a Goyf/Bob battle on both sides, but I've kept my removal in due to not being a moron. I board in Teeg and Thrun, and basically keep him off Jace. I don't overextend into Deed, and I basically win the Goyf war with Thrun and Knight. Go go Thrun.

Record: 1-0

Round 2: Jeremy with Merfolk

I have Jeremy on Merfolk, and I keep a loose hand, and lose fast to triple lord nut-drwa with infinite counters.

Game 2

I board in Deed, Thrun, and Teeg for most of the discard and a Vindicate. I land Qasali and Teeg, giving me an edge against Submerge. I drop Goyf at 5/6, then Knight seals the deal behind my removal.

Game 3

In this game, I push through two Deeds, and one sticks. I 4-for-1 him, then drop Thrun. Thrun won the game on his own.

Record: 2-0

Round 3: Jacob from KnightWare with Mono U Merfolk

Game 1, I mull to 4 and never see a land ever again.

Game 2, I board in like before, but I lose with landscrew.

Round 4: Josh with U/W Landstill

I lose in two long, close games. I never draw Thrun, and I try to grind him out. Oh well.

----


It's 1210am now, but I'll finish the rest tomorrow.

-Matt

[Arsenal]

Your R1 BUG opponent cast his Standstill after you had already stuck a Bob? Was he high?

[sdematt]

He had 3 Mishra's Factories in hand, so I guess he assumed he was okay. I also had 2 Wastelands, though :)

The Standstill, at that point, killed him. Even though I got greedy and cracked it, it was a huge swing for me :)

-Matt

[Evewalker]

Grant Garvin - Grinder 3
Grand Prix-Providence 2011 Legacy Grinder

So, what do you think?


This was me.

The three missing SB slots is a strange typo, I suppose. They were:

1 Thrun, The Last Troll
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

This build was good to me on Friday, as it has been in the past. I've been running variations on it since November, and it has brought me three top 8 GPT finishes heading into GP Providence, all three of which I was one standing position away from snagging byes. So, it was to the Grinders. :)

I tore through that grinder facing Merfolk, Belcher, Merfolk, B/U Merfolk, and RUG with a single game loss. The deck was very well positioned, and I was confident going into Saturday with it.

Third round I pulled a Deadguy Ale build coming right out of the byes, and after decisively taking game 1, I lost a ton of traction in game two and three dealing with multiple Mirran Crusaders and Sword of FaF in both games. In the end I couldn't keep up with Batterskull, and lost it after a very close game 3.

Round four was against a Stoneforge package Zoo build, which I came out strong against, but again was slowed down by a Mirran Crusader while I dug for a StP. Game two was lost on not seeing land in both hands one and two, and although I stabilized and actually almost pulled it out, I didn't have enough gas to bring it home on a 5 card mulligan.

Round five was another tough one, despite it being what I feel is a good matchup for Rock, Merfolk. It was a R/U Lavamancer build which I felt I could handle without a problem, and I probably could have, if the wheels didn't completely come off a force one land and the zero land mulligans in game 1 and 3. Game three would have been a victory still, but my opponent ripped a Submerge, the fourth copy no less, and swung lethal for a single point of damage with a minute and a half left to go in the round. If I had not been so aggressive on getting fetches into the graveyard to pump the Knight in the mid game when I had control, I probably would have faired better in terms of life total in the late game when the Submerges really started to take their toll. Between an active Bob and six fetches, I did a lot of damage to myself that ended up costing me the game. It's a harsh lesson that even while this deck has no problem stabilizing at low life totals, there a lot of tools out there that can trash your gamestate and pull a upset victory out of.

Despite a frustrating day, I felt that I had everything I needed to deal with the situations I ran into, and that rock is still a very viable deck in a world defined by Mental Misstep. My maindeck E Tutor has been invaluable, and I would recommend giving it a shot to see if it works for you. Tabernacle in the SB has also been huge against a large cross-section of combo and aggro decks, and I've won number of games on the back of it both searched off of a Knight and occasionally held as a backbreaker once I trash the mana base of an opponent.

In addition to just some terrible luck, if I played tighter on Saturday things may have gone better. Despite playing modern Legacy rock for over eight months almost exclusively, and the rock archetype for well over a decade, this deck absolutely demands skillful decisions which I probably could have handled better in retrospect. It's a really challenging deck, but equally as satisfying.

[bfeingersh]

Third round I pulled a Deadguy Ale build coming right out of the byes, and after decisively taking game 1, I lost a ton of traction in game two and three dealing with multiple Mirran Crusaders and Sword of FaF in both games. In the end I couldn't keep up with Batterskull, and lost it after a very close game 3.
That may have been me? I played against a Grant in round 4 who had byes and was playing Rock, and was from RI, but I didn't have SoFaF in my Deadguy (SoFaI instead). Turns out pro-green/black is good against a green/black deck :D Mirran Crusader did a ton of work for me all weekend as well as my friends playing it in other decks.

I think Rock was definitely a solid pick for this weekend, although I didn't end up playing it. There was a lot of Fish and Team America in the room, which I consider to both be good matchups (TA not as much but still favorable if you have the right board). I faced Ian Duke in round 7 or 8 and we were joking about how he was going to play basically the build of Deadguy I settled on but audibled to Rock, whereas I was going to play the build of Rock he had but audibled to Deadguy.

[Evewalker]

That was indeed you, and yes, I now remember that it was SoFaI. I got bitten by SoFaF in Round 2. That was an excellent set of games, and I'd love to get in a few more with you in the future at some point, especially when I'm running on more sleep and not mistaking a Therapy for Thoughtseize like an idiot from across the table on turn 1. :D

Deadguy is an archetype I've been wanting to take a shot at playing for a while, and that match was the impetus to pick it up and finally give a try. I've been a long time player of the midrange/rock family of decks, and Deadguy with the new toys it has been handed in the past six months looks like something I'd really enjoy playing.

[mishima_kazuya]

I made Day 2 and lost playing for top 64 in the final round. 11-5 with 4 of my losses being terrible punts because I'm not quite ready to be playing tournament magic for 2 days straight.

If anyone wants a tournament report or decklist let me know, otherwise I'm gonna be in my corner contemplating how I could punt so bad.

[Evewalker]

I made Day 2 and lost playing for top 64 in the final round. 11-5 with 4 of my losses being terrible punts because I'm not quite ready to be playing tournament magic for 2 days straight.

If anyone wants a tournament report or decklist let me know, otherwise I'm gonna be in my corner contemplating how I could punt so bad.

I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. Like I said in my previous post, this deck can break you, and it is extremely easy to screw up all sorts of combat and play order operations with Rock than can cost you games. Half of the deck's assets are designed to be able to deal with multiple threats, so that every single game with it requires a ton of threat assessment and forethought on every single turn of a game. After two days of Magic, that hurts.

I know where you're coming from, though. I've been wondering to myself how I could screw up a few critical turns so badly even after drilling with this deck for months straight against almost everything in the format. Look at it this way: at least you know you screwed up. A lot of people who punt games never admit to themselves that they do, and keep doing it.

[bfeingersh]

not mistaking a Therapy for Thoughtseize like an idiot from across the table on turn 1. :D
Haha yes that was awesome. Free Therapy hits for everyone!

[Gaius Darkfire]

I played rock/junk to a 4-3 finish on Saturday, losing once to reanimator and twice to W/B. Reanimator went to 3 games, game 1 I wasnt in it, 2 I crushed him, 3 he got a turn 2 Jin-Gitaxis that I couldnt deal with with 2 lands and in topdeck mode. Both matches vs W/B were very close until them blowing me out, both of which I feel I could have won had I been better prepared against the deck (fucking bitterbossom+elspeth). I won my matches against U merfolk, UW merfolk, Painterstone, and Team Italia.

I've been playing Junk pretty exclusively the last 6 months (it fits my playstyle so well), so I was confident with my deck choice, and my list felt solid all day. While I didnt do well, almost all of my opponents were fun to play against and chat with.

[Darkness]

I went 4-4 on Saturday

Decks I beat
Round 1 U/w Folk 2-1
Round 2 Hypergenesis 2-1 (only reason I won cause of top deck Karakas after emrakul lands.
Round 3 Enchantress 2-0
Round 4 Dragon Stompy 2-1
Round 5 U Folk 1-2 (misplayed like an idiot round 2 or i would have had)
Round 6 Protean Hulk combo 1-2 (Never took a look to see how this day works went into it not really knowing how to fight it.
Round 7 No RUG 1-2
Round 8 Affinity 1-2
Round 9 Dropped

This was the list I was running.
Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Thrun

Spells
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Vindicate
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Mox Diamond
3 Green Sun's Zenith

Lands
3 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
3 Bayou
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Savannah


Sideboard (15 cards)

1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Runed Halo
1 Choke

Looking back I wish I had more Progen hate. I'm not satisfied with my SB list completely but my MD is revamped.

Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg

Spells
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Vindicate
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Mox Diamond
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Lands
3 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
3 Bayou
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Savannah
1 Horizon Canopy


Sideboard (15 cards)

1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Null Rod
2 Perish
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Runed Halo

This is the new list and I'm pretty happy with the changes so far. My friend, who has been piloting the deck with me since December, has been telling me to try the 1 of Elspeth. I love it. Its a great way to deal with many decks you normally can't deal with game one. Helps with BUG landstill, U/W Landstill, Mirror, NO decks to fly over Progen, Helps with stalked Folk decks. I also like it because its an easy card to board out for decks like combo and such. I feel that UW batterstill is going to get big after this GP. Good news is, my friend put the deck together the on Monday and Junk is a good matchup for it, not to mention a fun one.

My Sideboard is in a good spot right now. 3 Deeds for aggro decks, it does a good job. Perish is for Progen, gonna try it since NO RUG/BANT are gonna get bigger IMO, Still iffy on null rod but good tutor card for metalworker or any equipment deck and even for an early affinity matchup ( I know deed is better ) Thrun for Landstill decks. GY hate for dredge, and the Come back of reanimator. Runed Halo for anything that randomly picks up.

I'm not opposed to changing my SB any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[mishima_kazuya]

Time to let the cat out of the bag...
I cut Mox Diamonds, expecting a metagame lacking of combo.
Mark Tocco told me to play SoFaF in the main since the metagame was full of green decks, but then Lucas Siow told me to run the SoFi and I stuck with SoFi. Of course SoFaF would've been SO much better. But Lucas did tell me to run a 3rd Stoneforge Mystic by cutting a Zenith so I did that and really liked the power of Stoneforge Mystic.

// Lands
1 [IN] Plains (1)
1 [US] Swamp (2)
3 [A] Bayou
2 [A] Scrubland
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [PT] Forest (3)
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [A] Savannah
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
1 [FUT] Horizon Canopy

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
2 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
1 [RAV] Birds of Paradise
3 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
2 [CFX] Noble Hierarch

// Spells
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
3 [AP] Vindicate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
2 [MBS] Green Sun's Zenith
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
3 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)
1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
SB: 1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
SB: 2 [TE] Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 [US] Duress
SB: 3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 2 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll

I lost Day 1 to Rb Goblins (I used too much mana to Top since I forgot what was on top of my deck and didn't have enough mana to pop Deed to keep myself alive. He had been slow rolling spells and just 2'ing me with Goblin Ringleader, so when he saw that I only had 1 mana up he ran out Goblin Warcheif and 2 Piledrivers to finish me off)
I also lost to the BGx Natural Order Protean Hulk deck, since I had close to no idea what his deck had. I should've spent Friday night looking up GPT decklists since my opponent was playing close to the exact 75 that won the GPT.

I lost the first round of Day 2 to Team Italia. I sided in Pernicious Deed for game 2 and blew him out. Of course since it was 9:30 AM in the day, I was still pretty groggy and I sided out Deed thinking he was going to play around it. The voices in my head told me I was reverse jedi mind tricking him :/. In game 3 I was killing him with Thrun until he tapped out for a Batterskull to go with his lonely Grim Lavamancer. I tanked on my turn and decided to pass turn with no attacks, which is terrible, since he was at 3 life I should've just attacked with Thrun since he would either lose his last Grim lavamancer or lose a Germ Token and it would tie up his mana on his turn since he'd need 3 to bounce skull and 5 to cast it. (I also forgot Thrun could regenerate...somehow)
The game goes long, he stops playing around the Deeds that I left in the SB and I die to a million creatures on turns.

I lost another match to Standstill mono blue merfolk. I basically threw away the match when I had a brainfart. I wanted to Hymn to Tourach him so I would need my KotR to sacrifice a land to get my second black mana, so instead of sacrificing my Scrubland to cast Hymn and then Wasteland his mutavault, I just played a Forest to be sacrificed. As a result I had to chump block his Mutavault with my Dryad Arbor and of course later in the game I died to 2/1 Silvergil Adepts that I could've traded Dryad Arbor with.

Lost the final round to BG Loam Rock. Can't really beat Life from the Loam.dec with removal, so if I just didn't lose the previous rounds I'd be in a better position to not play awkward rouge decks.

Anyways, my new idea.

/ Lands
1 [IN] Plains (1)
1 [US] Swamp (2)
3 [A] Bayou
2 [A] Scrubland
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [PT] Forest (3)
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [A] Savannah
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
1 [FUT] Horizon Canopy

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
1 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
1 [RAV] Birds of Paradise
3 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
2 [CFX] Noble Hierarch

// Spells
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
2 [AP] Vindicate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [MBS] Green Sun's Zenith
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
3 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
SB: 2 [TE] Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 [US] Duress
SB: 3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 1 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll

Tarmogoyf was the worst creature all day, so playing just 1 as a Zenith target is fine. Protection from blue against Jace decks is pretty good, so Sword of Body and Mind might actually be better than Sword of Feast and Famine.

[sdematt]

Are you Jean Paul? If so, you beat my friend playing Zoo (that was Plague Sliver), to give him one of his losses :(

Nice job, by the way!

-Matt

[mishima_kazuya]

I would be Jack Wang. I am not on the final standings since I was W. Jack on Day 1, but on Day 2 I submitted form to allow to TO to use my last name. The DCI program got confused and just bounced me when they tried to put my last name in.

[trilobite_hives]

Anybody got any good ideas for sb tech against Show & Tell + Hive Mind

[sdematt]

The key here is to beat a combo deck. Karakas for Emrakul, and use discard to rip apart their hand. Other than that, since we're not running counterspells, we have to just use those tactics. As well, Gaddock Teeg is good against a hardcast Hive Mind, and Extirpate on Show and Tell after discard could be fun.

Also, since the meta has moved away from CounterTop, I see a rise of Loam based decks, since they don't just get locked out by Counterbalance. I saw Lands do VERY well at the GP, as well as Aggro Loam on Day 2. Extirpate wouldn't be a bad card to pack, especially if you Thoughtseize away a Jace.

-Matt

[zalachan]

Extirpate trumps Intuition or so i heard. Other than that, mana denial plus Teeg is the best you can try to do. It seems that GSZ list would do better than the ones without.

[trilobite_hives]

So one of the Landstill players of our group (now on the Ancestral Vision bandwagon) has decided to add 3 Wraths to his sb to combat Thrun. Is this something we should expect from many people, or is this just a case of metagaming against each other because we saw each others decks? If this does become commonplace, the 2 sb slots I've dedicated to Thrun seem pretty pointless, especially if they're going to be running 3 Wraths. I didn't think there was any way this deck could afford to give 3 slots to a card like Wrath, but apparently they can. So what do we do? Thrun was just about the only thing that seemed like a good answer to this deck, in a matchup that is otherwise quite miserable.

His plan was basically to side out almost all of his counters/bounce against us and side in a bunch of removal, so our threats resolve but still do nothing, then drawing 4 cards a turn on turns 5-7 then Jacing us into oblivion. If this deck becomes as popular as it seems like it will, it could be a huge problem for us.

I am thinking of cutting StP's entirely for a Stoneforge/Batterskull/SoFI/Jitte package. The thought of a Swords actually resolving at any meaningful time against this deck or a BUG variant, or any deck running Blue at this point seems almost non-existant. Cutting the card just seems ridiculous, but cutting Vindicates (aka our only hope against Jace) seems worse, and Batterskull should keep our matchups against aggro stable. What do players that are better than me think of this idea?

[Dzra]

I'm testing a build right now where I cut/move to SB Thoughtseize and Deeds for 4 SFM, a SoFI, and a Batterskull. Against Landstill decks, I'd try to have Extirpates and Bitterblossums (and some Needle effect if playing against Deed).

[sdematt]

Yeah, Wrath and even Meddling Mage fuck Thrun pretty hard, but beyond that, there's not much we can do. I wouldn't say cut Thrun because of Wrath, though.

Stoneforge Mystic may be part of the way to go, but I think, in general, increasing threat density and not overextending into Damnations/Wraths/Deeds is key.

I'll eventually write a tournament report for the GP, but I'm uber-busy with school at the moment.


-Matt

[Arsenal]

The main problem I've come across playing the traditional Mox and non-Mox builds of The Rock is that we're too threat-lite; one StP on our threat can literally translate into 2-4 turns of us applying zero pressure on the opponent.... this is bad. GSZ is one avenue to explore to increase our threat density, and I think SFM + equipment is another. I ran 2 SFM + 1 Jitte/1 SoFI in earlier builds of aggro Rock (well before Brad Nelson popularized the 3 Mox builds that have been standard ever since), but found it was too slow. Perhaps in this slower meta, SFM + equipment would have more of an impact, especially since they printed Batterskull. Testing to commence...

[Basaka]

Why not keep the diamonds and SFM? I heard T1 Stoneforges are pretty strong. We may be able to cut some Tarmogoyfs, as it is probably our weakest creature...

[lavafrogg]

As soon as I get my hands on them I will be adding the SFM and Batterskull fever that has been going around into the deck. I feel like a turn 2/3/4 4/4 life-link vigilance stops aggro pretty hard.

[sdematt]

Turn 1 Stoneforge isn't NEEDED. Plus, you have to cut slots from somewhere. I'd rather be Thoughtseizing or playing Top that speedbumping my mana development with Moxen. Again, it comes down to: do you want some turn 2 plays turn 1 sometimes, or consistent development? You can rarely have both.

-Matt

[ForlornEgoist]

IMO Moxen aren't always included specifically for turn 2 plays. Albeit in aggro metas the added acceleration is incredibly viable (whereas in control metas I would opt to remove them) but as I'm sure you've discovered that particularly in metas with greater amounts of nonbasic hate sometimes color fixing is a necessity. On ocassion fetching a dual has become less than ideal so I need to tutor up a basic. The issue being, however, that whereas my creature base relies on green/white (Goyf/KotR/Terravore/Qasali/Mom) my spell base is more centered towards black. Granted I could up the basic count in response to this, but sometimes Moxen can definitely be powerful in that I can tutor up that 1 basic I need, pitch a dual to the Mox, and then essentially become color fixed for the rest of the game as few decks have the option/desire to remove a Moxen.

I've played the deck without Moxen and I acknowledge the deck can easily survive without it. But particularly for builds running Green Sun Zeniths Moxen can be quite valuable for the success of the deck.

In regards to SFM I agree with Matt as to my preference not to run it. Of course the package can be an allstar against aggro, however the problem with SFM is that at bare minimum to be successful you typically need to eat 5-6 slots in a deck, 3 SFM/2-3 equip, to really abuse it. Whereas Deadguy can fill these slots no problem, due to our 3 colors the manabase requires a much heaftier investment for something that depending on the gamestate/turn can take several turns to setup. Not to mention that against, say, the Landstill MU SFM becomes subpar. The necessity of GSZ is that it gives us a similar aggro edge in that it ups our standard creature counts by 2-3 as well as enabling us a creature toolbox (Revoker/Teeg/Qasali/etc.). Not to mention its a recurring spell which Top 101 says shuffling effects=nice.

Of course both are viable strategies but I'm just concerned by how much of a card investment you need for the SFM's as you are essentially removing a combination of discard/removal to run it.

Forlorn Egoist

[lavafrogg]

I am finding that in testing on MWS, horrible reference, that the SFM and Batterskull package is helping in both aggro and control match-ups, with the 4/4 life-link vigilance helping early and the recursive near un-killable threat in the late game.

p.s. please don't ever cut a tarmogoyf.

[CorpT]

I am finding that in testing on MWS, horrible reference, that the SFM and Batterskull package is helping in both aggro and control match-ups, with the 4/4 life-link vigilance helping early and the recursive near un-killable threat in the late game.

p.s. please don't ever cut a tarmogoyf.

It's the worst creature in the deck. Why wouldn't it be cut?

[makochman]

It's the worst creature in the deck. Why wouldn't it be cut?

Because there's absolutely no replacement? And no, GSZ isn't a replacement, it's an excellent complement to Goyf.

There's always a "worst" card in every deck, it doesn't mean it should be cut.

[mishima_kazuya]

In a vacuum tarmogoyf is a 4 of.

But right now the metagame is inbred with fair strategies and a lack of combo decks. As a result removal is rampant and Stoneforge gives you much more value than Tarmogoyf if it dies in a 1 for 1 trade.

And untapping with both creatures is pretty good, but Stoneforge Mystic steals more games.

Plus with Green sun's zenith you can get away with only playing 1 or 2 goyfs.

On a sidenote, don't forget that power creep exists. Every creature will eventually get outclassed. Before time spiral block, control decks never though win conditions were going to get cheaper on mana than Psychatog.

[sdematt]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think you should cut Tarmogoyfs. The deck is threat light as is. I'd rather play 4 Goyfs and multiple Green Sun's than 1 Goyf and 4 Green Sun's. Yes, you get variety, but this isn't that type of deck (unlike James R's list from the GP, the Force of Will-less Bant). You want threats in this deck, and the only reason you don't have more threats is because you have so many answers.

I'd honestly cut other stuff before all my Goyfs. I'd cut a Jitte for the Batterskull, and cut a Deed, Thoughtseize, and maybe a GSZ for 3 Stoneforges. Maybe I'd cut another Goyf for a piece of Equipment (Feast and Famine? Body and Mind? Jitte #2?), but you still want threats as well as answers.

I don't think I'll be playing Stoneforge right now, but I'll see where the meta goes. If my meta isn't infested with Batterskull Landstill, I'll stay as-is. If it shifts/if the deck becomes rampant enough, I'll switch.

On a side note, how many people's metas are infested with Batterskull Landstill as of yet? At the GP it was a bit of a surprise by the Channel-Fireball team, but I was decently prepared (Qasali, Teeg, Thrun, Vindicate).

With this switch to Batterskull, this also means we should switch to include more creature kill, to be honest. Taking out their Stoneforge ASAP severely decreases the usefulness of Batterskull, as it sits in their hand for a few turns, which leaves it vulnerable to discard. Has anyone considered the possibility of adding in Dismember/Smother/Go for the Throat, in addition to Swords?

As well, I think Krosan Grip deserves to be back in the board. Even though I love my tutor-board, with all the Crucible of Worlds, Shackles, Batterskull, and such ilk, Grip and Extirpate seem very good right now.

Thoughts?


-Matt

[Arsenal]

I'm running 1 Path to Exile as a supplemental "5th" Swords to Plowshares, and running we're already running 4 Thoughtseize in order to pluck Batterskull out of the opponent's hand after they've searched.

[lavafrogg]

Take the good with the bad i guess.... I just went 3-2-1 at the southern california mox emerald tourney toady using my loam-tombstalker build.

// Lands
4 [ON] Barren Moor
3 [R] Bayou
1 [LRW] Forest (2)
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [R] Savannah
1 [b] Scrubland
1 [8E] Swamp (4)
4 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
3 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [OD] Terravore
3 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (4)
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [b] Swords to Plowshares
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize

// Sideboard
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Smother
3 Gaddock Teeg
3 Vindicate
3 Runed Halo

I couldn't have been happier with the main deck but I feel that the fourth wasteland should be there somewhere. The sideboard was made when I saw the metagame at the event and also performed well.

I forgot to write down names but here is a brief report:
Round One(U/B Dark Depths)
Game One: I lead with a thoughtseize and a hymn and quickly follow that up with a terravore to apply some of the beats. He plays a dark confidant which is swords'd and a Jace which is irrelevant. I have no idea what is going on but get the easy win.
Game Two: Seeing how I put him on U/B control I sided in Gaddock Teegs for explosives, I thoughtseized him seeing the hexmage and by then it was too late and a 20/20 came to my side of the table to say hello.
Game Three: I keep a solid hand with two fast tombstalkers and a swords and he mulligans to five. On his turn two he combos off and meets the swords, on turn three he does it again. FML. 0-1

Round Two(Storm Combo)
Game One: He eats a double hymn and is never actually in the game, I am able to waste the two duals he plays and tarmogoyf/bob swing for the win.
Game Two: Turn One Gaddock Teeg turn two runed halo on tendrils....gg?

Round Three(Combo Elves)
Game One: I draw and play four thoughtseize this game, those remove a priest of titania, two natural orders and a perfect. That coupled with a swords and two goyf ended this game quickly.
Game Two: I keep a hand with swords and teeg and he keeps a fast natural order. With teeg in play he amasses an army of a perfect, two tokens and two other elf lords... I play and blow a EE for three and attack with the team to clear his board; he scoops the next turn.

Round Four(SDERock)
Game One: We trade some early disruption until wasteland/loam come online he is topping for mana sources while an untimely hymn empties his hand. A 13/13 terravore comes down to end the game very quickly.
Game Two: This game is similar to the first until I make my mistake of the day, which leads to this draw, with a knight in play I attacked with a huge terravore. For some reason I forgot bog existed and power cycled(no loams after siding) to ensure the vore would survive combat(I had the wasteland up for the maze). When he fetched the bog I face palmed and tried to salvage the game but he wound up top-shuffle-top for removal to seal the deal.
Game Three: This game was a beating with me drawing mass removal up the ass and trading 1-1 with deeds and explosives to run him out of gas. By the time I drew a threat to kill him, I had a tombstalker that was swords'd, the game was on turns and the vore could only do so much.

Round Five(G/W/u Mystic)
Game one:This game one went the way of so many game ones before it, with some wastelands being followed up by terravore and double tombstalker to seal the deal.
Game Two: In a role reversal my opponent plays turn one zenith for zero, turn two knight, turn three knight-fetch wasteland-wasteland me. Attack for 10......gg?
Game Three: I have answers for my opponents threats and he is color screwed, slightly wasteland induced, with a game breaking sower of temptation in hand.

Round Six(Elves...again)
Apparently elves believe in Karma because I got blown out these two games.
Game one: Turn 3 progenitus.
Game Two: Mulligan to five and I got the pleasure of watching my opponent draw a bunch of cards and play a bunch of elves...guess it wasn't meant to be.

All in all I had a great time and considering my lack of sleep and lack of competitive magic in the last three years I couldn't have been prouder of my performance. The store was great though i did feel for the 13 or so people that couldn't play due to table space. Thank you to all of the great people I talked to, traded and got to play today.

sdematt: your decklist is defiantly spreading and was played by quite a few people today across the room. I believe the junk list that top 8'd was your list and I have no idea what the aggro loam deck was.

my sideboard: perish for sure needs to go in the board as I saw green creatures left and right.

stoneforge mystic: this card was also everywhere and might actually be the real deal. Between the batterskull interaction and just fetching swords/jittes and attacking, the card is a very large threat when it is on the board and almost demands respect.

[sdematt]

Cool! Is there a website for the tournament with posted results? Nice job on the finish! :)

-Matt

[Arsenal]

I think people are discounting the ability to just go turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Goyf, turn 3 Goyf, smash face for the win; no tricky plays with Stoneforge, KotR, etc, just good ol' fashioned beatdown. Running less than 4 Goyf takes this line of play away from the deck, which is a mistake imo. We're threat light as is, and people are suggesting we cut threats to make room for threats... this does not compute.

[trilobite_hives]

Ali Aintrazi mentioned Defense Grid in his article as being useful against Landstill, and it seems like it could be pretty good. Not the perfect answer, but still pretty useful. I hopped on eBay real quick and picked up a foil, and may give it a shot. Has anyone tried this in an E.Tutor sb, or does anyone have any thoughts on Defense Grid?

Also, if any of the seasoned Rock vets could throw me what they would consider a good current list that uses Stoneforge Mystics, that would be really cool. Unless no such thing exists. But I suspect it may be the way we are forced to go if everyone else is running around with Batterskulls. Just about the only way to keep pace with that card is by playing your own, it would seem.

[Arsenal]

Or we could start maindecking Pridemage. I currently have 3 flex slots (being occupied by 1 Path, 1 IoK, and 1 Elspeth). I could definitely start packing 3 Pridemage as it (a.) increased my threat count, and (b.) is a maindeck answer to retarded stuff like Batterskull, Standstill, Back to Basics, Pernicious Deed, Crucible of World, etc. True, we run Vindicate, but have 7 outs to a resolved Pernicious Deed is better than 4.

[trilobite_hives]

Running SFM/Batterskull just seems a lot better than adding another reactive card to this deck. We can't just run a deck of answers, and we certainly can never have the answers to everything. Batterskull is just such a brutal card and is now one of the premier reasons to run white, which is a color we have access to. Why not just run the cards?

[Arsenal]

Deckspace is pretty tight. What do you cut? You need 5-7 slots (3 SFM/2 Equip, 4 SFM/3 Equip).

[trilobite_hives]

I feel like maybe the Thoughtseizes? It's either that or Swords, but having less discard seems more tolerable than having no instant speed removal. MM has devalued both of those cards so much, and it's only going to get worse. All hyperbole aside, playing white right now and not packing SFM/Batterskull seems like bringing a handgun to a nuclear war.

[Arsenal]

I can get on board with that. 3 flex slots = 3 Equipment, -4 Thoughtseize +4 SFM. Seems reasonable, although I think I'd move 2-4 Thoughtseize to the SB as discard, even with MM, is a valuable tool versus control (and you can also use Thoughtseize to pluck their equipment after they run out their SFM turn 2) .

[trilobite_hives]

Absolutely. Like sdematt mentioned previously, as awesome as an E.Tutor sb is, it might be necessary to switch to a more traditional build like some number of Toughtseize, Extirpate/Surgical Extraction and Krosan Grip. I tested a maindeck build with SFM/Batterskull and wrecked Merfolk 3 out of 4 games. Not the most extensive session of testing, but still very favorable results. Swinging with a SoFI'd Batterskull germ against Merfolk is just fucking lol.

[Arsenal]

With the changes as suggested:

4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
3 Scrubland
1 Maze of Ith
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Swamp

4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Knight of the Reliquary

3 Mox Diamond
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Vindicate

[KobeBryan]

With the changes as suggested:

4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
3 Scrubland
1 Maze of Ith
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Swamp

4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Knight of the Reliquary

3 Mox Diamond
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Vindicate

I wouldn't do that...I feel insecure without targeted discard.

[ForlornEgoist]

Decklist

Since you've removed TS for the Stoneforge package you may want to consider:

-1 Wasteland
-1 Vindicate
+2 Removal (Go for the Throat/Smother)

Since you're relying solely on Hymn for discard you need to be able to compensate for less disruption by adding more removal. Albeit the equipment helps to offset creature-aggro you still might want disruption against opposing Bobs/KotR or other such threats if they resolve them before you resolve/equip.

Albeit I'm unfamilar with your meta but if your opting for the Stoneforge package I assume creatured-based aggro is most prominant so in such a meta Vindicate typically becomes a 3cc kill spell. 3 Top/8 fetches is sufficient enough to help you dig for a 1/3 Vindicate if the situation warrant such.

Running KotR lets you tutor up lands as needed so you can increase the chance/ability to grab Waste's when necessary, not to mention that in a creature-aggro meta there are more than sufficient basics to negate Wasteland and unfortunately in our deck tapping for colorless can be very detrimental to our tempo.

Forlorn Egoist

[trilobite_hives]

I wouldn't do that...I feel insecure without targeted discard.

Believe me, if you haven't faced it yet you will feel more insecure getting your teeth kicked in by a Batterskull. When was the last time you even resolved an early Thoughtseize? It's been a while for me.

I like this list a lot. I have SoFaF main over Jitte, but I face a lot of Team America. I think the 2 required equips are Batterskull and SoFI, with the 3rd being the flex slot and can probably be anything, I'd even consider SoBaM in some situations over Jitte. Jitte is amazing, but mostly against aggro and Batterskull has that more than covered.

[kubalonek]

Ali Aintrazi mentioned Defense Grid in his article as being useful against Landstill, and it seems like it could be pretty good. Not the perfect answer, but still pretty useful. I hopped on eBay real quick and picked up a foil, and may give it a shot. Has anyone tried this in an E.Tutor sb, or does anyone have any thoughts on Defense Grid?


Why not to play City of Solitude instead (only the matter of mana cost?)? For now the best weapon against control decks are in my opinion SFM/Batterskull and Thrun. Both are really big pain in the ...

[trilobite_hives]

Why not to play City of Solitude instead (only the matter of mana cost?)? For now the best weapon against control decks are in my opinion SFM/Batterskull and Thrun. Both are really big pain in the ...

That is a really spicy idea. I think I'll grab one of those as well! That's what I love about this format, there's always some random card out there that may help. I guess the problem with these cards is getting them to resolve in the first place, but if we could sneak this or a Defense Grid in before they crack a hundred Ancestral Visions overflowing their hand with counters, it could be pretty helpful. I think they are even cutting their number of Repeals down as well. In an E.Tutor board a card like this comes at the cost of only one slot and could be extremely useful in the right situation. I think it's worth a shot.

[sdematt]

That also means no Knight on your opponent's turn, no EOT Wasteland/Fetchland/Top, so no, it's a terrible idea, and look kids, it shuts off your EOT use Stoneforge to Vial in Batterskull. No can do, champ.

I think if you're going to run Batterskull, you should run something like:

8 Fetchlands
4 Scrubland
1 Savannah
2 Bayou
1/2 Forest (if you run Thrun, 2 Forest)
2/1 Swamp
1 Plains
3 Wasteland
1 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas
24

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
17

1 Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine (maybe in the board? I'm over by one with this in the main. Not sure, but gives you protection: germs :P)

4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Vindicate
4 Thoughtseize
3 Top
4 Swords
21

Board:
4 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate (42 Lands/Aggro Loam are back in action, ugh)
3 Thrun, the last Trolololol
3 Pernicious Deed (solves EVERYTHING)
2 Gaddock Teeg (stop their stuffs)


There's your deck, folks. No GSZ or fancy stuff, but it's a deck with cards. I'd love GSZ just to search for Teeg and your Qasali, but at this point, you've got a metric shit-ton of art/enchantment removal, you've got Thrun, Teeg, Grip, Deed, etc. You should be fine. Plus, Feast and Famine is going to get you there and let you play moar threats. I'd love to see a few Smothers, but there's literally nothing to cut, unless you cut Pridemages for Smothers/more creature removal.

Plus, the list gives everyone a flavour they want. Stoneforge? Check. Maxed out Goyf numbers? Check. Batterskull? Check. Lots of lands? check. No Moxen? Check.

Thoughts?

-Matt

[Arsenal]

Believe me, if you haven't faced it yet you will feel more insecure getting your teeth kicked in by a Batterskull. When was the last time you even resolved an early Thoughtseize? It's been a while for me.

I like this list a lot. I have SoFaF main over Jitte, but I face a lot of Team America. I think the 2 required equips are Batterskull and SoFI, with the 3rd being the flex slot and can probably be anything, I'd even consider SoBaM in some situations over Jitte. Jitte is amazing, but mostly against aggro and Batterskull has that more than covered.

True, but Jitte naturally drawn versus aggro is still decent whereas a naturally drawn Batterskull w/o SFM in play is terrible until you've moved into the late game.

Also, re: sdematt's list, I think that's the way to go if you're not running Moxen. I know that I disliked Mox builds for a long time due to it's inconsistency, but I've moved back to it recently to give it another spin and haven't wanted to back since (my non-Mox build relied on more 1cc spells as a turn 1 play, which has gotten considerably weaker due to MM).

[KobeBryan]

Creatures
1x dryad Arbor
3x tarmogoyf
4x dark confidant
4x knights of the reliquary
2x qusali pridemage
1x gaddock teeg

instant
4x swords to plowshares

socery
3x green sun's zenith
4x hymn to tourach
4x thoughtseize

others
2x sensei's diving top
3x maelstrom pulse
3x mox diamond

lands
1x bojuka bog
2x forest
1x maze of ith
1x plain
1x swamp
2x savannah
1x scrubland
3x bayou
4x wasteland
3x marshflats
4x verdant catacombs

sideboard
2x null rod
1x thrun the last troll
4x extirpate
1x pernicious deed
2x ethersworn cannonist
2x enlightened tutor
2x phyrexian revoker
1x tormod's crypt


I'm running a total of 61 cards in the deck.

I really dont' know what to do with regarding the 3rd sensei's which i want to run. Any suggestions?

[Bignasty197]

Creatures
1x dryad Arbor
3x tarmogoyf
4x dark confidant
4x knights of the reliquary
2x qusali pridemage
1x gaddock teeg

instant
4x swords to plowshares

socery
3x green sun's zenith
4x hymn to tourach
4x thoughtseize

others
2x sensei's diving top
3x maelstrom pulse
3x mox diamond

lands
1x bojuka bog
2x forest
1x maze of ith
1x plain
1x swamp
2x savannah
1x scrubland
3x bayou
4x wasteland
3x marshflats
4x verdant catacombs

sideboard
2x null rod
1x thrun the last troll
4x extirpate
1x pernicious deed
2x ethersworn cannonist
2x enlightened tutor
2x phyrexian revoker
1x tormod's crypt


I'm running a total of 61 cards in the deck.

I really dont' know what to do with regarding the 3rd sensei's which i want to run. Any suggestions?

You're running Zenith, so going to 3 Knights might be ok as far as making a cut. I would also switch the Maelstrom Pulses with Vindicates.

[KobeBryan]

You're running Zenith, so going to 3 Knights might be ok as far as making a cut. I would also switch the Maelstrom Pulses with Vindicates.

I can't afford the vindicates. And besides, pulses lets me kill in masses.

[tsoatt]

Artifacts 3
3 Top

Creatures 12
4 Bob
4 Goyf
4 KoTR

Instants 4
4 STP

Enchantments
2 Pernicious Deed

Planeswalkers
2 Elspeth Knight Errant

Sorceries 14
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn
4 Vindicate
2 Inquisition of Kozilek

Lands
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Scrubland
3 Bayou
1 Maze of ith
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Wasteland
1 Horizon canopy

SB
2 Thrun
1 Pernicious Deed
4 Extirpate
3 Peacekeeper
2 Kataki (probably will become grips)
3 Kitchen Finks

[sdematt]

So, if you wanted to still keep the tutorboard option, it could be:

3 Tutor
1 Spellbomb/Cannonist
1 Crypt
1 Null Rod
2 Deed
2 Teeg
2 Thrun
3 Grip (or 2 Grip 1 Cannonist 1 Spellbomb)

Here, you really have to pick your poison. You lose Runed Halo, Needle, and Cannonist for the Grips, essentially, but in most matchups, the Grips are better. I'd fit a Cannonist somewhere in the 75, otherwise combo can be pretty bad for you.

If you wanted to just go flat out with no tutors, I'm thinking, assuming you run GSZ:

4 Grip
3 Extirpate
2 Teeg
2 Thrun
2 Null Rod
2 Deed

And if you don't run Zenith...

4 Grip
3 Extirpate (take a Jace and profit?)
3 Teeg
3 Thrun
2 Deed

Thoughts?

-Matt

[kinda]

I was thinking something like this:

mana: 22
18 land
4 chrome mox

cratures 28:
4 dark confidant
4 stoneforge mystic
4 tarmo
4 tidehollow sculler
4 Qasali pridemage
2 gaddock teeg
4 kitchen finks
2 thrun, the last troll

other:10
2 lead the stampede
3 dismember
3 chalice of the void
1 Batterskull
1 umezawa's jitte

[tgDC$]

I was the Rock player that top8d the Mox Emerald event that lavafrogg attended. I feel pretty good with back to back top8s since switching to this deck, using a farely similar build for both. Mainly including the stoneforge package. For this tournament I added a 3rd mystic and the batterskull. I eventually lost to Deadguy in the Quarters in a long epic match that came down to my bad decision making biting me in the end =/

[lavafrogg]

Omg grats!!!! Post your list so we can all see your leet tech!!! I said it earlier but the meta in socal is perfect for junk/loam/rock anything that abuses wasteland.

[tgDC$]

My list ended up looking like this:

// Lands
1 [LG] Karakas
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
1 [ZEN] Swamp (1a)
3 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
3 [U] Scrubland
3 [U] Bayou
1 [ZEN] Forest (1)
1 [ZEN] Plains (3a)
1 [FUT] Horizon Canopy
1 [DK] Maze of Ith
1 [WWK] Sejiri Steppe
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
3 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
4 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant

// Spells
3 [AP] Vindicate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
1 [NPH] Batterskull

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 2 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
SB: 3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 [TE] Choke
SB: 2 [MI] Enlightened Tutor

I expected alot of merfolk and landstill variants but didn't run into a single one all day

[Arsenal]

Hmm. I'm assuming you value SFM over Top against Landstill as Top is best used for grind-it-out games, which Landstill will undoubtedly be better at. What about other midrange decks? There have definitely been games when the card quality that Top gives me versus midrange just buries them as I always have an answer or threat on the ready.

[Bignasty197]

I can't afford the vindicates. And besides, pulses lets me kill in masses.

That is understandable. When I played Rock, I often found myself Vindicating opposing Goyfs, Knights or Bobs and Pulse would have ultimately hurt me. Just based on my playing experience, I liked Vindicate. Perhaps it is a personal/metagame choice.

[Arsenal]

Vindicate gives you added versatility as land destruction. There've been games when I Wasteland, Wasteland, Vindicate their sole basic, then just win.

[KobeBryan]

Vindicate gives you added versatility as land destruction. There've been games when I Wasteland, Wasteland, Vindicate their sole basic, then just win.

I know what you mean, but with a resolved iona, you will be more versatile if he names white.

[Arsenal]

Iona isn't played, like, at all anymore. And even when she was being played, I still think Vindicate's versatility trumped the few times you'd be cut off from removal.

[kubalonek]

Come one do not bring this kind of argument that can rarely happen probably playing with dredge only. Vindicate is much more versatile card and is perfect against opponent Goyfs / KotRs or basic land if we decide to run land destruction plan.

[KobeBryan]

Come one do not bring this kind of argument that can rarely happen probably playing with dredge only. Vindicate is much more versatile card and is perfect against opponent Goyfs / KotRs or basic land if we decide to run land destruction plan.

Man vindicates are like 30 bucks each. I just traded my two away when i bought for 7.

[sdematt]

Vindicate is usually better. But, if you're never on the land denial plan, then it may not be a bad idea to run a 1-of, if you personally wanted to. Helps with tokens, breaks Goyf stalls, etc. I'm not a personal advocate, but I can see its merit.

Personally, I'd never go down to less than 2 Tops. I think 4 is too many, and 3 is just right, but try to find room for that Top, it can be SO good just to have the card quality your opponent doesn't.

-Matt

[KobeBryan]

Vindicate is usually better. But, if you're never on the land denial plan, then it may not be a bad idea to run a 1-of, if you personally wanted to. Helps with tokens, breaks Goyf stalls, etc. I'm not a personal advocate, but I can see its merit.

Personally, I'd never go down to less than 2 Tops. I think 4 is too many, and 3 is just right, but try to find room for that Top, it can be SO good just to have the card quality your opponent doesn't.

-Matt

Yea. I found my space for that one extra top. I will use Volrath's Stronghold. Then drop the Quasali Pridemage down to a 1 of.

[kubalonek]

My list ended up looking like this:

// Lands
1 [LG] Karakas
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
1 [ZEN] Swamp (1a)
3 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
3 [U] Scrubland
3 [U] Bayou
1 [ZEN] Forest (1)
1 [ZEN] Plains (3a)
1 [FUT] Horizon Canopy
1 [DK] Maze of Ith
1 [WWK] Sejiri Steppe
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
3 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
4 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant

// Spells
3 [AP] Vindicate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
1 [NPH] Batterskull

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 2 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
SB: 3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 [TE] Choke
SB: 2 [MI] Enlightened Tutor

I expected alot of merfolk and landstill variants but didn't run into a single one all day

I like the list very much however how to find place for at least one or maybe 2 tops. I would personally cut Jitte and sth I haven't figure out what yet. Additionally I would switch chokes for 2 krosan grips and 1 null rod. Additionally I'm not sure about Gaddock without GSZ.

[tgDC$]

Vindicate is usually better. But, if you're never on the land denial plan, then it may not be a bad idea to run a 1-of, if you personally wanted to. Helps with tokens, breaks Goyf stalls, etc. I'm not a personal advocate, but I can see its merit.

Personally, I'd never go down to less than 2 Tops. I think 4 is too many, and 3 is just right, but try to find room for that Top, it can be SO good just to have the card quality your opponent doesn't.

-Matt

During the whole tournament, the one card I missed the most was having sensei's top. I was seriously considering playing 61 cards to be able to play two tops maindeck.

@kubalonek - reason I wanted to play choke was I expected alot of BUG still and UW Stoneforge. It was a totally untested thought.

[kubalonek]

At BoM I had E. tutor board with one choke and I used it once in 8 rounds and it was not amazing at all that is why I suggested cutting it from SB or at least minimizing the number to 1. Null rod was amazing against ANT / Affinity and Decks based on Thopter Foundry. Wheel of Sun and Moon was MVP against dredge however I would think about it once again while there is bojuka. I'm interested in performance of sejiri steppe. Did this card peform well and a slot is worth for it? And what about cutting the number of fetches to 6. I guess that with only 1 top there was no need for a lot of manipulation with library other than fetches + SFM. Was Jitte also usefull or rather in the shadow of batterskull?

[Arsenal]

As we do not have access to cards like Brainstorm/Ponder, and we consist almost entirely, save for Hymn, of 1-for-1s, Top is pretty much a necessity in order to give us much needed card quality. Without Top, we flounder mid-late game and hope that our 1-for-1s dig us out of a hole/push us ahead on a slight advantage. I'd definitely run no less than 2, and pretty sure I'll always pack 3 Tops no matter what build I'm running.

[sdematt]

If you weren't at 61, you should've run 2 Tops for sure. This deck is fine at 61, because nothing is garbage and we're running mana heavy anyway.

I don't think Choke is as good as it could be, and I'd only play it if I were playing 4 in the board, as if you're counting on it to win the game, chances are they might have Force, or at that point in the game, it might be too late.

If you're playing against Landstill/Batterskull Landstill, I'd opt for a mix of hate, in the form of Teeg, Thrun, and Grip. Grip is so much better against them than, say, Qasali, but it also hits Shackles, Crucible, etc. Teeg helps as well, but as was said before, if you're not running GSZ, you should probably run 3 Teeg. If GSZ is included, 2 should be fine.

Teeg wins a ton of matchups on his own, as do cards like Null Rod and Cannonist. With Null Rod, Cannonist, Teeg, and tutors, your combo matchup increases to the point where you can possible win a game or two :)

@ Top

I agree with Arsenal completely. Because we don't have access to Brainstorm, you need lots of Fetchlands (7-8) and Top to help filter through your deck and see more cards. I wouldn't advise going down too many fetches, as they pump your Knight and allow you to select basics in the right colour when you need them. I'd rather add more fetches so I can always fetch basics rather than cut for duals, or something like that.

The strength of this deck is being able to either run out basics in the first few turns, or also power out with Moxen and be stable that way. Both ways are obviously viable, but without Loam, I'm not in favour of Moxen (as they also lead so stall draws). If you had a free slot, though, in a slow meta like now, a 1-of Loam wouldn't be terrible. It's not great, but getting back a pitched Maze or Wastelanded Karakas seems fine to me. Filtering junk off the top with a Dredge seems fine as well.

[trilobite_hives]

What about Crucible of Worlds? It's something I've been giving some thought as a 1-of, as my build currently has 1 flex slot that is being filled by a Deed. I feel as though I should have at least 2 Deeds main, or just sb all 3 copies as 1 will never be enough anyway against the decks that it destroys. Also, I feel that Batterskull alone is enough game 1 to hold down Merfolk, and possibly even Affinity (barring a nuts draw obv) although I haven't tested against that deck at all with my current build.

One thing I'm wavering back and forth on is the number of SFM/Equips. Is 3/2 good enough? If I went up to 4 SFM, would having only 2 Equips be acceptable? 4/3 just seems like so many slots to be giving up. I feel that at this point it is not a question of whether this card should be in the deck or not, but just what the correct numbers are.

[Arsenal]

I think 4/3 is the right call if you're planning on running SFM. I mean, if we're going to be on the SFM+Batterskull plan, then we should be on the SFM+Batterskull plan all the way. And I suppose that if we've moved into the mid-late game, naturally drawing into Batterskull isn't the most terrible thing this deck is capable of doing. So it's really 4 SFM + 2 equipment + 1 pseudo-equipment/pseudo-creature threat.

[Charos]

Hello Rockers, it has been a while since I posted here. I am playing Rock for some time now and have had great results, almost always in the money. I am going to modify my list a bit and try this in the next few tournaments.


4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
2 Qasali Pridemage

4 Hymn To Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Sinkhole
3 Vindicate
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

8 Fetches
6 Duals
4 Wasteland
3 Basic - one each
1 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas

(61 main)
SB:

4 Krosan Grip
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Vindicate (maybe something else)
3 Dueling Grounds
4 Extirpate


Any comments?

[KobeBryan]

Hello Rockers, it has been a while since I posted here. I am playing Rock for some time now and have had great results, almost always in the money. I am going to modify my list a bit and try this in the next few tournaments.


4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
2 Qasali Pridemage

4 Hymn To Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Sinkhole
3 Vindicate
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

8 Fetches
6 Duals
4 Wasteland
3 Basic - one each
1 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas

(61 main)
SB:

4 Krosan Grip
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Vindicate (maybe something else)
3 Dueling Grounds
4 Extirpate


Any comments?

WIthout green sun zenith, you will have a hard time digging up answers.

[mdc1010]

WIthout green sun zenith, you will have a hard time digging up answers.

He is running 4 Bob's, and 3 Tops. He is fine. GSZ isn't needed. His list looks more like a traditional Rock list which runs well.

[Arsenal]

Interesting inclusion of Sinkhole. As we're currently entering a slower meta that's leaning towards more "fair" interactions (ie. less combo running around), could a more focused land destruction approach pan out? Wasteland, Sinkhole, Vindicate, and even Hymn all are pretty brutal methods of denying mana. And the plus side of Mental Misstep is that many lists that were running 2-4 Spell Pierce and/or Daze (which largely turned me off to running Sinkhole) have now replaced those with Mental Misstep, making their lands un-Dazeable.

[Charos]

Interesting inclusion of Sinkhole. As we're currently entering a slower meta that's leaning towards more "fair" interactions (ie. less combo running around), could a more focused land destruction approach pan out? Wasteland, Sinkhole, Vindicate, and even Hymn all are pretty brutal methods of denying mana. And the plus side of Mental Misstep is that many lists that were running 2-4 Spell Pierce and/or Daze (which largely turned me off to running Sinkhole) have now replaced those with Mental Misstep, making their lands un-Dazeable.

My thoughts exactly. Slower meta means that Rock should go a little towards its roots. Daze is around somewhat still, but they will have used it already by the time you Sinkhole. Ideally you want:

T1 - Thoughtseize or Top (possible Misstep)
T2 - Hymn or Bob (Here daze would be used if available)
T3 - Wasteland and Sinkhole. (Hard counter needed)

[Nelis]

I would go Sinkhole before Bob.

[KobeBryan]

I would go Sinkhole before Bob.

Of course u go sinkhole before bob. Otherwise Bob will just get countered and you give the opposing player another turn for a land.

[Nelis]

Don't tell me! :-D

[sdematt]

Ugh, why did I cash in my Beta Sinkholes towards Beta duals just before they become playable?

-Matt

[Arsenal]

I still have doubts, but it does seem, on paper at least, that Sinkhole could see some legitimate play now that blue players are trading in their Daze and Spell Pierce for Mental Misstep. And keeping opponents off 4 mana seems more important than ever (Jace, Natural Order, etc)...

[KobeBryan]

I have been running 24 lands, including dryad arbor. It seems if i do not get my dark confidant or the sensei's in play, i'm losing the match.

With 24 lands its seems very easy to get flooded.

[tgDC$]

Thanks for the input everyone. Will definitely take them into consideration and start more testing. Theres another legacy tournament in a couple weeks and I will most likely play Rock again.

[lorddotm]

Ugh, why did I cash in my Beta Sinkholes towards Beta duals just before they become playable?

-Matt

Because it isn't playable. Daze is still in the format. Daze is a complete beating to Sinkhole, not to mention Spell Snare. Also, have fun top decking that Sinkhole on turn 12. It will do nothing.

[KobeBryan]

Because it isn't playable. Daze is still in the format. Daze is a complete beating to Sinkhole, not to mention Spell Snare. Also, have fun top decking that Sinkhole on turn 12. It will do nothing.

Yup...thats how i feel about Sinkhole. Its powerful only for the first 3 turns.

[mdc1010]

The same could be said about wasteland. We all know how that would go though.:rolleyes:

[KobeBryan]

Any help with a sideboard. I want to run Manriki Gusari but i don't know where to put him




Creatures (14)
1x dryad Arbor
3x tarmogoyf
4x dark confidant
4x knights of the reliquary
1x qusali pridemage
1x gaddock teeg

instant (4)
4x swords to plowshares

sorcery (11)
3x green sun's zenith
4x hymn to tourach
4x thoughtseize

others (9)
3x sensei's diving top
3x maelstrom pulse
3x mox diamond

lands (23)
1x bojuka bog
1x forest
1x maze of ith
1x plain
1x swamp
2x savannah
1x scrubland
3x bayou
4x wasteland
1x volrath's stronghold
3x marshflats
4x verdant catacombs

sideboard
1x null rod
1x thrun the last troll
4x extirpate
1x pernicious deed
1x ethersworn cannonist
3x enlightened tutor
2x Pithing Needle
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Qasali Pridemage

[lavafrogg]

There is a ton of sideboard discussion on the previous couple pages, i.e. tutor board vs non tutor board vs GSZ board. Additionally the sideboard of a deck should be tuned to decks that you are going to see, i.e. your metagame.

The sideboard you have right now looks like it is hurting in the artifact/enchantment removal department and due to the equipment fiesta that is going on right now probably should be addressed, more pridemages possibly?

Extirpate is also an interesting choice seeing how you can tutor for spell bomb or multiple bogs against graveyard reliant decks. If it is really bad you can add a loaming shaman to GSZ for.

[AggroSteve]

i would run maniki-gusari only if you are running SFM as well, to be able to fetch it

enlightned tutor may work as well
what to cut for it is your decision to make, depending on your meta.... since i do not know your meta i would suggest cutting either 1 extirpate or maybe wheel of sun and moon/relic of progenitus, 6 peaces of gravehate + 2 enlightened tutors is exagerated if you ask me

[kubalonek]

From my testing appeared that in all fields of action:

Pithing Needle > Phyrexian Revoker

[sdematt]

I was going to say, unless you're trying to make MM less useful, Needle is the way to go. Sometimes, you need to Needle Wasteland, Maze, Port, etc.

2 Cannonist and 6 pieces of gravehate are fine if that's a meta call, but if you were going to a GP say, I think you could go +1 tutor -1 cannonist, and perhaps cut an Extirpate or so. Also, you should never play Relic of Progenitus, only Nihil Spellbomb or Crypt.

@Extirpate
I do like Extirpate in the board for a few reasons. One: if you take their Jace against Landstill, and Exirpate it, you have a much easier game ahead of you. Taking any win condition of theirs is freakin' brutal. For that reason, I understand it, and also for the resurgence of Loam based decks that no longer get locked out with Counterbalance on 2. I was running games against Loam, and it's pretty kick ass, since they have a long term engine, and we need to beat that engine. Crypt and stuff is fine, but I think Extirpate is better in that corner case. We'll have to wait and see how the global meta shifts, as it is still in flux.

@ Krosan Grip
If you're looking to do some damage against Landstill, running Null Rod and Grips against them would be fine as well. Gripping Batterskull, Crucible, Shackles, etc. would be just fine. I suggest finding some room in your 75 for some. My sideboard has shifted to look like this, reflecting the more "global" meta (not my own):

3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Null Rod
1 Cannonist (can be a Grip if I don't run into combo, but it's the best hate out there)
2 Deed
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Thrun
2 Krosan Grip
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb

So far, it covers most of the matchups well enough. Right now, Loam is also REALLY good, since the meta has slowed considerably. If you can find a cut, running it as a 1-of just for attrition isn't a terrible idea. Plus, with Top, which most Loam deck don't run, if you have the top 3 card of your library being garbage, you can Dredge and clear out the clutter :)

Mind you, this could also be personal bias, since I played Aggro-Loam for 7 hours yesterday.

Even though it's not completely relevant, we should be trying to test against a list like this, just to see:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
3 Seismic Assault (an absolute beating)
2 Dismember
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Terminate
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Go for the Throat (or 1 Go for the Throat 1 Sylvan Library)

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Terravore

4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Wasteland

Board:
3 Grip
4 Pyroblast
3 Deed
3 Extirpate
2 Thrun

This is what I played yesterday for testing, and I ground Landstill and Bant into the dust most games. I still have to play it against Merfolk, but Seismic Assault is a huge beating with Loam online. If you have a Cycling land, it's basically a lot of damage. As in, you need 3n mana to cycle-dredge and Play Life from the Loam n times (assuming you don't start with it in hand, otherwise), and you deal 4n+2 damage per Life from the Loam (you net two card per LftL, as you have to cycle one to Dredge it back, except on the last one, and you deal two damage per card; 2x(2N +1)).

-Matt

[KobeBryan]

Why run Nihil Spellbomb instead of Relic of Progenitus?

Edit: Nevermind, I see the difference.

[trilobite_hives]

What are Rock players thoughts on the G/W Maverick deck that I just became aware of within the last day or so? This feels like the direction I am going toward by cutting the Thoughtseizes for SFM, so maybe I should just go all the way? Black seems really great, but if this Maverick deck is doing so well and would give me a better shot at the decks that are currently giving me fits (Landstill, and to a lesser degree Team America) I am considering the strategy. I am going to pick up the cards I need for a G/W build regardless because there are so few that I need, but can any of you Rock vets give me some insight on the pros/cons? That would be awesome. You guys have been a great help, by the way.

[KobeBryan]

What are Rock players thoughts on the G/W Maverick deck that I just became aware of within the last day or so? This feels like the direction I am going toward by cutting the Thoughtseizes for SFM, so maybe I should just go all the way? Black seems really great, but if this Maverick deck is doing so well and would give me a better shot at the decks that are currently giving me fits (Landstill, and to a lesser degree Team America) I am considering the strategy. I am going to pick up the cards I need for a G/W build regardless because there are so few that I need, but can any of you Rock vets give me some insight on the pros/cons? That would be awesome. You guys have been a great help, by the way.

Playing Maverick, you will get raped up the butt even by the most beginner type combo decks.

[trilobite_hives]

Playing Maverick, you will get raped up the butt even by the most beginner type combo decks.

lol. I feel like I already get raped in the mouth at the very best playing Rock against combo, even with Thoughtseize. But I guess that beats being raped up the butt. I'm also pretty okay with losing to combo. I want to stop losing to heavy Control/Permission. Would this Maverick deck be any better against that?

[KobeBryan]

lol. I feel like I already get raped in the mouth at the very best playing Rock against combo, even with Thoughtseize. But I guess that beats being raped up the butt. I'm also pretty okay with losing to combo. I want to stop losing to heavy Control/Permission. Would this Maverick deck be any better against that?

Counterbalance at Two will really wreck you. Maverick beats aggro decks, like Merfolk, Zoo, and Black Suicide.

[sdematt]

Maverick is like Zoo or B/w Discard, but without Burn or Discard. You know what wrecks them? Deed. Know what BUG Landstill plays? Deed. Know what we play? Deed.

They play zero hard counters, so everything you do gets there. They play minimal removal and a bunch of large creatures. I was running the list that won the GP against my friend playing my Rock build. I lost so horribly, it wasn't funny. Batterskull meant nothing (Vindicate=frowntown), my creatures were discarded or removed from play, and Deed blew me out EVERY time. Suffice to say, Maverick is a good deck, especially against other creature based decks, but against Control type strategies, which Rock is, it can get hosed. I'm not saying I didn't win ANY games against Rock, but I lost most.

B/w Aggro on the other hand is a different story. Revoker stops your Deeds, they also have discard, and more creatures than you have removal; suffice to say, it's not a great matchup for us.

@ Relic vs. Spellbomb

Okay, you saw what's what. Nevermind :P

-MAtt

[KobeBryan]

Life from the Loam makes this deck very nasty.

[sdematt]

Nasty like a hooker with VD or nasty like an AA-12?

Also, The Hangover Part 2 is alright, but nothing amazing.

-Matt

[KobeBryan]

Nasty like a hooker with VD or nasty like an AA-12?

Also, The Hangover Part 2 is alright, but nothing amazing.

-Matt

nasty like Dirk Nowitzkis one legged fade away jumper

[sdematt]

I have no idea who that person is. I'm a Magic player, not a person who pays attention to popular culture :P

I'm almost done my tournament report, I just need to get all the photos together. It's quite a read. You guys interested?

-Matt

[stealth]

I'm almost done my tournament report, I just need to get all the photos together. It's quite a read. You guys interested?

-Matt

Hell Yes, always keen on a report espicially with photos!!

[Porkbelly33]

Keep the rock rollin' ! I don't get to play too much, but this is by far, my deck of choice. I'll be attending my weekly legacy tourney tomorrow, went 3-1 (split top 4) last week, hope to equal that this week. I prefer the mox-less/gsz-arbor version, it treats me well. Going with the singleton Volrath's stronghold this time, expecting good results.

[KobeBryan]

Keep the rock rollin' ! I don't get to play too much, but this is by far, my deck of choice. I'll be attending my weekly legacy tourney tomorrow, went 3-1 (split top 4) last week, hope to equal that this week. I prefer the mox-less/gsz-arbor version, it treats me well. Going with the singleton Volrath's stronghold this time, expecting good results.

I've decided to go a 3 wasteland package, a total of 23 lands, including arbor for a 1 of life from the loam.

It makes a very nasty package.

[lavafrogg]

OMG!!!! Look someone is trying to put Life from the Loam into rock lists.....

[sdematt]

My word! It's not unlike something you're doing!

No, I just think it's not a terrible 1-of just to get Wastes and discarded lands back, and to clear the top 3 of dismal crap so you can Top better.

-Matt

[Ahdam]

Iv added 2 Gatekeeper of Malakir into the creature suite.

4 KotR
4 Goyf
4 Dark Con
2 GoM


At first i was concerned with the BBB cost, but so far its been no issue out of maybe 50 games.

It stops NO --> Prog blowouts and has very good sync with Stronghold. Those 2 slots are also my sideboard slots when needed.

Im also interested in Loam but jesus.. the list is just SOOO tight.... no room.

[sdematt]

I'm not worried too much with No Pro at the moment, but sac effects like that, for me, haven't worked. They always have something else to sac, and much of the time, they run 2 Dryad Arbors, and just fetch it to sac it.

-Matt

[makochman]

I still have doubts, but it does seem, on paper at least, that Sinkhole could see some legitimate play now that blue players are trading in their Daze and Spell Pierce for Mental Misstep. And keeping opponents off 4 mana seems more important than ever (Jace, Natural Order, etc)...

I have some very bad experiences with Sinkhole from my time playing Eva Green in 2010, it was always very inconsistent... Even if Spell Snare and Daze are becoming less common, I would just play Maelstrom Pulse or more creature removal to free up Vindicates to destroy lands, or else play LftL, rather than play dedicated land destruction.

I hear that Tabernacle also puts heavy pressure on manabases... and Junk can probably use it well, since it only plays a few big beaters.

[KobeBryan]

Has any tried using a Noxious Revival as a 2 of?

helps get back the cards we already lost.

[ForlornEgoist]

@ Noxious Revival:

What exactly would you want to get back that couldn't be drawn with Bob/Top or recurred with Volrath's Stronghold? It's free which is cute but I can hardly think of a recurring situation our deck is put in that would warrant it.

So lately I've decided to playtest something a little... silly. SFM + GSZ + Zuo Ci, the Mocking Sage
. I randomly was able to trade for a Zuo Ci which I had planned to use for an EDH general until I thought 'Oh, hey, I could totally use this in Rock!" Half-shroud/unblockable seems viable when combined with equipment abd GSZ, being the ever-awesome MVP that it is, permits me to keep him as a 1-of. He's also a testament to why a Horsemanship-based card can utterly annoy people sitting on X/X KotR/Emrakul/Terravore/Crusher/Prog/'Goyf. Take that!

Forlorn Egoist

[AggroSteve]

hmm, can you explain the horsemanship thing to me?, i do not get the thing with unblockable...

[sdematt]

I think you misread the card. He doesn't HAVE Horsemanship, but can't be blocked by creatures WITH horesemanship.

@ Horsemanship

It's exactly like flying. Creatures with Horsemanship can't be blocked by creatures without it, like flying. But, they can block a creature that doesn't have it. It's EXACTLY like a different version of flying, but flying cannot block Horsemanship.

-Matt

[ForlornEgoist]

Wow, epic misread. I guess I saw what I wanted to see and read "can't be blocked except by creatures with horsemanship." Okay, nevermind then. =(

Forlorn Egoist

[KobeBryan]

@ Noxious Revival:

What exactly would you want to get back that couldn't be drawn with Bob/Top or recurred with Volrath's Stronghold? It's free which is cute but I can hardly think of a recurring situation our deck is put in that would warrant it.


Forlorn Egoist

Noxious helps get that one plow when you need it. It makes all your cards a 5-6 ofs.

[kubalonek]

On the other hand it creates card disadvantage and I think that deck is so tight right now (SFM or GSZ package) that you would not find another slot to find room for such card. If this would be return to hand then maybe but on the top sucks ;)

[sdematt]

The only problem is, the Rock lists are tight as...well...you get the idea. There's literally no room. I don't have room for the stuff I want, nevermind cute extras.

Anyone interested in the tournament report without the pictures, and I can add the pictures by Thursday? Or perhaps wait til it's all together?

-Matt

[Seems Good]

What is the general consensus on Sejiri Steppe (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Sejiri%20Steppe)? I keep justifying it because yes, you can pitch it to Mox, but in the starting hands without mox/drawing in to it seems awful. I appears to be in about a quarter of top 16 lists I see lately...thoughts?

[Arsenal]

Whenever I'm deciding on a borderline card in a deck that doesn't have access to Brainstorm, I always ask myself "If I had this card in my opening 7, would I be okay with that?". The answer I always come to re: Sejiri Steppe/Bojuka Bog is "no".

[Seems Good]

I hear that. The only reason it is justified is because I play 3 Mox Diamond (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Mox%20Diamond) in my list and I've found that a lot of the time when I start with a Steppe, I also start with a Mox. It's the games when that's not the case that it's a big problem. I'm just trying to gauge peoples' opinions of the pros of it (silver bullet for your Knights of the Reliquary (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Knight%20of%20the%20Reliquary)) vs the cons (opening with it, drawing in to it).

[Arsenal]

Not gonna lie, being able to KotR-tutor for the alpha strike seems enticing. But like I said, having it as one of your opening 7, or even drawing into later sorta sucks and defeats the whole purpose of having it in your deck (honestly, KotR-tutor is the sole reason to play 1-of lands).

[AggroSteve]

i'll give some feedback to sejiri steppe......... i have testet it a lot, even before i used bojuka bog (right now dismissed both)

sejiri steppe is "awesome" in only 2 scenarios:

1. saving your KotR or other creature from spotremoval
2. being able to go for the alpha-strike (which obviously you will not be able to do with KotR but another creature instead)

to 1: saving your KotR from spotremoval seams great on paper and has quite a surprise effect on opponent, but it is way to situational as i needs an untapped KotR, and that is not the way to go... if i have a KotR i want to attack with it => sejiri steppe is not good enough IMO

to 2: being able to alpha-strike is a nice thing, a really nice thing, but we are a very threat-light deck, and to be able to alpha strike you need at least 2 creatures on the field with at least one of them being a KotR, so your alpha-strike will probably be for only 5 damage (goyf), if you are lucky for more if you have 2 KotR on the field, but to me having 2 big beats on the field often just seems like overextending, and this only to alpha-strike => sejiri steppe is again not good enough IMO (better alternative would be elspeth for example, also enabling to alpha strike with flying, for far more damage, and the card itself being strong)

hopefully my thoughts on this matter were clearly anderstandable^^

[sdematt]

My friend put playing Steppe in Legacy like this: Sure, sometimes it'll be fine, but most of the time, you'll feel like, "Why am I playing this card in this format? This could be a good card." Most of the time (not all, but most), that's very true :)

-Matt

[Seems Good]

Good arguments on both ends. Honestly, I don't see the alpha strike as a legitimate bonus, for reasons spelled out by AggroSteve, I mostly see it as the KotR being able to generate card advantage by nullifying a piece of spot removal (which particularly hurt us, because, as mentioned, we are threat-light).

But one of my very legacy savvy friends did put it that way sdematt, that argument makes the most sense to me. I think I will be swapping mine out for a Savannah/Scrubland.

On to the next utility-land question: Maze of Ith? (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Maze%20of%20Ith) I basically see the same arguments for and against applied, and it makes me want to cut that also.

[Arsenal]

Maze of Ith is a tad bit different for me. If I see it in my opening hand, I'm not thrilled, but I'm not super bummed as I would be with Steppe/Bog. Maze of Ith is at least "spot removal" in that it can nullify a Nacatl, Steppe Lynx, Lackey, etc. early on while you're digging for permanent solutions.

[2Rach]

Wow, epic misread. I guess I saw what I wanted to see and read "can't be blocked except by creatures with horsemanship." Okay, nevermind then. =(
If you really want to try it, there's Silhana Ledgewalker.


I think a one-of Life from the Loam in place of a fourth Wasteland is a good idea to test out.

EDIT:
What Arsenal said about Maze. Although I do hate the Land/Maze hands.

[Arsenal]

Yeah, I mean, I'd much prefer not drawing Maze of Ith as one of my opening 7, but if I do, I'm not really that pissed off if I know my opponent is going to drop a 3/3 Nacatl on his first turn. Whereas with Bog/Steppe, it's almost an automatic mulligan unless my other 6 cards are gdlk.

[sdematt]

Maze is actually a bit different. I'll agree it's not a card you want to see in your opener, but neither is hand full of 3-drops (but it can happen).

Maze provides you massive card quality in a few ways.

1) It can untap an attacking creature, which can keep you off the ropes for a little while. No allowing a huge Terravore, Tombstalker, or something else through can be huge. Even stopping an Exalted Goyf is really good.

2) It untaps creatures you usually can't block. This leads directly back to point 1. Coralhelm Commander, Vendilion Clique, Tombstalker, something with Horsemanship, or even Trample can't/isn't worth blocking, so you get some value by not taking those hits, and making them block, which they'll usually die to, as our creatures are generally bigger.

3) It lets you untap a creature after dealing combat damage. Again, insane value. Attack with a 10/10 Knight, make them block essentially or face death, then untap and have a 10/10 blocker.

4) It can be fetched with Knight, leading to surprise plays where you untap a large creature you can't block, then kick the other creature in the nuts with Knight.

5) With Jitte, you can attack in, gain counters, then untap to have a blocker with Equipment.

Maze allows us to stretch our small attacking force into a more potent attack and defense force, otherwise, we'd have to constantly leave a Goyf back to be a blocker, which isn't always good when you want to win games.

With this much quality, I can sacrifice the fact it doesn't make mana.
------------
I'm also thinking about possibly cutting the Jittes (oh noes!), or something to that effect (a card that's weak in a control matchup) for Loam. Again, I think Loam is good here. Aggro Loam is becoming my (second) favourite deck at the moment. So fun to blow out the opponent with Seismic Assault :P

-Matt

[AggroSteve]

maze of ith actually IMO is an awesome addiction to our deck, .... basically we are a lot of times in the control role, in which as allready said by arsenal maze of ith serves as a pseudo removal, ... i really cannot count the number of games i won on the back of maze

and if we are actually not in the control-role, we can actually race our opponent thanks to maze... attacking and blocking with a lets say 8+/8+ KotR makes maze a very troublesome land to deal with

another plus for maze is that thanks to it we can handle flying creatures for a while even without spotremoval..... on the ground this usually is not needed since most of the time we got the bigger beats


hehehe funny.... sdmatt was faster... and provided the same thoughts in a more sorted way, easier to comprehend than mine^^

summa summarum, i would never cut maze, it gives us options, and from my experience with the deck, the real strenght of this deck is that we have lots of options and a lot of all-situation-handlers, maze simply gives us the time to dig for them

PS: as for my list i run 5 different "utility-lands", 4 of em being 1-offs, and this are the ones i believe to be the strongest: maze of ith, karakas(metaslot, could be a dual or a manland as well, in this case preferrably nantuko monastery), volrath's stronhold (depends a bit on the build but helps a lot since we are very thread-light + recurrable quasali is awesome), dryad arbor (because of GSZ) and the awesome Wasteland (no need for explanations)

EDIT:
hehehe .... sdmatt was faster... and provided the same thoughts in a more sorted way easier to comprehend than mine^^


_________________

still one thing is still bothering me...., came to mind because sdmatt spoke of aggro loam, compared to that deck for example (i love that deck as well) we lack recursion/ reusability of allready used things/further card advantage (sure we got stronghold,.... but its sooooo slow, and cost sooo much mana....... isn't there a better way)

[2Rach]

Maze is the number one utility land for the deck. (Wasteland doesn't count) Then, Karakas depending on your meta, Horizon Canopy is a general mainboard +1, Bojuka Bog for the sideboard, and Dryad Arbor for GSZ and/or Mystic(don't underestimate surprise body for dropped equip or blocker) builds.

Maze is really good against all the equips too. It's essentially a 1:2 because they have a creature and an equip that doesn't do much.

A perfect game is Kotr->Maze->Attack/Maze->Waste->Attack/Maze->Waste along with Vindicates and win the game.

[Koby]

Maze is the number one utility land for the deck. (Wasteland doesn't count) Then, Karakas depending on your meta, Horizon Canopy is a general mainboard +1, Bojuka Bog for the sideboard, and Dryad Arbor for GSZ and/or Mystic(don't underestimate surprise body for dropped equip or blocker) builds.

Maze is really good against all the equips too. It's essentially a 1:2 because they have a creature and an equip that doesn't do much.

A perfect game is Kotr->Maze->Attack/Maze->Waste->Attack/Maze->Waste along with Vindicates and win the game.

It might just be me, but I feel like this line of play is win-more. You have knight out for 2 turns (why haven't you won yet?). You have an equiped creature out for 2 turns (why haven't you won yet?). Saying that Mazing your own creature to play both aggressor and defender is great utility is like saying that Vigilance on Batterskull is back-breaking.

I don't really buy the argument for Maze when there's enough bombs to be played. Knight. Will. Race. By. Attacking. No need for any fancy thrills to make him untap. Spend the first few turns wasting them back to the stone age, then bash face with a 10/10. GAME OVER.

[Seems Good]

I agree with what people are saying, I just find myself drawing in to it and going "meh." I think that's mostly due to my meta/testing pool being predominantly control/combo/prison. I would imagine shines more in an aggro-dominant meta

[sdematt]

You'd be correct. It comes out against Combo and other non-interactive decks, like Stax :P

-Matt

[Nelis]

Hi guys, last sunday I played the following list at my local tournament (only 10 players)
I went 4-2, Lost to Merfolk twice. I won against Dream Halls (2-1), Cawblade (2-0, he was manascrewed twice), Goblins (2-0, one was a close call), Deadguy Ale with Phyrexian Obliterator (2-1)

Deck:

Creatures (16)
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Eternal Witness
2x Terravore
3x Knight of the Reliquary

Instant & Sorcery (18)
3x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Hymn to Tourach
4x Swords To Plowshares
4x Thoughtseize
4x Vindicate

Artifacts & Planeswalkers (3)
1x Elspeth, Knight Errant
2x Sensei's Diving Top

lands (23)
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Savannah
1x Karakas
2x Scrubland
3x Bayou
3x Wasteland
1x Volrath's Stronghold
3x Marshflats
2x Windswept heath
4x Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard
1x Null Rod
1x Dueling Grounds
3x Engineered Plague
2x Pernicious Deed
1x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Wheel of Sun And Moon
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Loaming Shaman

After that reasonably good record I had good hopes for the tournament I played this Monday (about 30 people). I made some minor deck changes. I took out Elspeth and added a Pernicious Deed in the main hoping that would help me in getting an edge over merfolk (2 more in SB). I also decided to change the Dueling Grounds into the 4th Engineered Plague. I figured that Merfolk could just fly over my guys with a Coral Helm Commander, Zoo would have enough ways to remove it and I figured I'd rather have Goblins die by the hand of (multiple) plague(s). Unfortunately Things did not go at all like I expected since I went 1-1-4. But I feel this was mostly because my deck wasn't working with me.

(short) Tournament report:

Round one I drew against goblins after an amazing first game in which i was in control but eventually lost. I was on 4 life my opponent on 6 (I had a 6/7 Goyf and some other stuff in play including a KotR) My opponent had a Siege-gang in play which he could activate on his next turn. I had to dig deep to find an answer. So at the end of his turn I topped which didn't reveal anything. So I activated my KotR and Topped, again revealing nothing. In my upkeep I activated my Kotr again but still no answer. I drew a fetch land which I played and used. A 4th Top activation again revealed nothing so unfortunately I had to pass the turn. Instead of burning me to death he decided to attack me but it was enough for him to kill me. Game 2 I beat him very quickly while he was manascrewed. Game 3 I was able to keep him off long enough with the help of a Engineered Plague to survive the 5 extra turns to make it a draw.

Round two I played Jacestill which I lost (0-2) without ever having a chance. I did have some manascrew issues though.

Round three I won against Belcher (2-0). Before we started my opponent told the judge he wouldn't be needing the full 50 minutes so I put him on combo. When I saw 2 Thoughtseize in my hand I knew I was going to keep that hand. Those Seizes hit Empty the Warrens and Belcher. Needless to say this wasn't a really good opponent at all. :-) The Gaddock Teeg which I searched for with GSZ was enough to shut him down for me to win. The second game I again had a Teeg and some other hate to win. I guess he was right in his statement that he wouldn't be needing the full 50 minute since I beat him in about 15. :cool:

Round 4 I lost to Merfolk (0-2) One time due to mulligans and mana screw. And one time because I didn't stand a chance.

Round 5 I lost to Bant. I had to mulligan a lot and just was very unlucky in general also. At one point I was at seven life. I only had a Kotr in play. He had no lands in play (i killed those) but he did have a Qasali Pridemage, a V. clique and eventually 4! Noble Hierarch in play. I was able to bounce his attacking Clique with Karakas to keep him from winning when I was on 7 life. But of course I didnt draw anything but lands and 2 Confidants. I didn't dare to put a Confidant in pay because of my low life total. Eventally he was able to kill my lone KotR and beat me with a 7/7 exalted Pridemage. Maybe I should have taken a chance here and play a Confidant but I was afraid that after all those lands a drew I would reveal non-lands with Confidant.

Round 6 I lost to Doomsday Tendrils because I was manascrewed again. I can only remember the second game. I was able to Hymn and Thoughtseize him to keep him from going off but it took me ages before I could put down any pressure. I think I went through half my lands (and went to 11 life) before a Terravore hit the table. Unfortunately he was able to kill it immediately. The Tarmogoyf that followed a few turns later took him to 4 (including having it bounced once) But it wasn't enough, he drew another Doomsday for the win (there was one already in his grave already because of a well placed Hymn early in the game).

All in all a very disappointing day for me. But at least one of the guys I was with won the Legacy tournament with Merfolk. He split the final but played it anyways and he won.

Even though it was a terrible day for me I am still convinced that the Rock is a good deck. I like that it has answers to everything. I also think the anti combo package I run in the sideboard is more than adequate to fight both graveyard and storm based combo. But I feel that some changes have to be to made stand a better chance against Merfolk and Jacestill. So this is what I have decided to do.

Main deck:
-1 Terravore (maybe even taking out the 2nd one to find room for something else like a Thrun, Mystic Enforcer or a 3rd Sensei's Divining Top.)
-1 Volrath's Stronghold (too slow and doesn't give colored mana)
+1 Hymn to Tourach (being able to put up more pressure game one vs combo and control)
+1 Bojuka Bog (this opens up SB space and adds another needed black mana source)

SB:
- 1 Loaming Shaman (shuffling back graveyards so that combo can draw their discarded cards again is terrible)
-1 Bojuka Bog (going to main)
-1 Pernicious Deed (2 should be enough with 2 E. tutors in the board as well)
+ 2 Choke (to fight Jacestill, Merfolk decks and other random blue decks)
+ 1 Thrun, the Last Troll.

So what do you guys think about these changes?

[JonBarber]

Hi guys, last sunday I played the following list at my local tournament (only 10 players)
I went 4-2, Lost to Merfolk twice. I won against Dream Halls (2-1), Cawblade (2-0, he was manascrewed twice), Goblins (2-0, one was a close call), Deadguy Ale with Phyrexian Obliterator (2-1)

Deck:

Creatures (16)
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Eternal Witness
2x Terravore
3x Knight of the Reliquary

Instant & Sorcery (18)
3x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Hymn to Tourach
4x Swords To Plowshares
4x Thoughtseize
4x Vindicate

Artifacts & Planeswalkers (3)
1x Elspeth, Knight Errant
2x Sensei's Diving Top

lands (23)
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Savannah
1x Karakas
2x Scrubland
3x Bayou
3x Wasteland
1x Volrath's Stronghold
3x Marshflats
2x Windswept heath
4x Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard
1x Null Rod
1x Dueling Grounds
3x Engineered Plague
2x Pernicious Deed
1x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Wheel of Sun And Moon
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Loaming Shaman

After that reasonably good record I had good hopes for the tournament I played this Monday (about 30 people). I made some minor deck changes. I took out Elspeth and added a Pernicious Deed in the main hoping that would help me in getting an edge over merfolk (2 more in SB). I also decided to change the Dueling Grounds into the 4th Engineered Plague. I figured that Merfolk could just fly over my guys with a Coral Helm Commander, Zoo would have enough ways to remove it and I figured I'd rather have Goblins die by the hand of (multiple) plague(s). Unfortunately Things did not go at all like I expected since I went 1-1-4. But I feel this was mostly because my deck wasn't working with me.

(short) Tournament report:

Round one I drew against goblins after an amazing first game in which i was in control but eventually lost. I was on 4 life my opponent on 6 (I had a 6/7 Goyf and some other stuff in play including a KotR) My opponent had a Siege-gang in play which he could activate on his next turn. I had to dig deep to find an answer. So at the end of his turn I topped which didn't reveal anything. So I activated my KotR and Topped, again revealing nothing. In my upkeep I activated my Kotr again but still no answer. I drew a fetch land which I played and used. A 4th Top activation again revealed nothing so unfortunately I had to pass the turn. Instead of burning me to death he decided to attack me but it was enough for him to kill me. Game 2 I beat him very quickly while he was manascrewed. Game 3 I was able to keep him off long enough with the help of a Engineered Plague to survive the 5 extra turns to make it a draw.

Round two I played Jacestill which I lost (0-2) without ever having a chance. I did have some manascrew issues though.

Round three I won against Belcher (2-0). Before we started my opponent told the judge he wouldn't be needing the full 50 minutes so I put him on combo. When I saw 2 Thoughtseize in my hand I knew I was going to keep that hand. Those Seizes hit Empty the Warrens and Belcher. Needless to say this wasn't a really good opponent at all. :-) The Gaddock Teeg which I searched for with GSZ was enough to shut him down for me to win. The second game I again had a Teeg and some other hate to win. I guess he was right in his statement that he wouldn't be needing the full 50 minute since I beat him in about 15. :cool:

Round 4 I lost to Merfolk (0-2) One time due to mulligans and mana screw. And one time because I didn't stand a chance.

Round 5 I lost to Bant. I had to mulligan a lot and just was very unlucky in general also. At one point I was at seven life. I only had a Kotr in play. He had no lands in play (i killed those) but he did have a Qasali Pridemage, a V. clique and eventually 4! Noble Hierarch in play. I was able to bounce his attacking Clique with Karakas to keep him from winning when I was on 7 life. But of course I didnt draw anything but lands and 2 Confidants. I didn't dare to put a Confidant in pay because of my low life total. Eventally he was able to kill my lone KotR and beat me with a 7/7 exalted Pridemage. Maybe I should have taken a chance here and play a Confidant but I was afraid that after all those lands a drew I would reveal non-lands with Confidant.

Round 6 I lost to Doomsday Tendrils because I was manascrewed again. I can only remember the second game. I was able to Hymn and Thoughtseize him to keep him from going off but it took me ages before I could put down any pressure. I think I went through half my lands (and went to 11 life) before a Terravore hit the table. Unfortunately he was able to kill it immediately. The Tarmogoyf that followed a few turns later took him to 4 (including having it bounced once) But it wasn't enough, he drew another Doomsday for the win (there was one already in his grave already because of a well placed Hymn early in the game).

All in all a very disappointing day for me. But at least one of the guys I was with won the Legacy tournament with Merfolk. He split the final but played it anyways and he won.

Even though it was a terrible day for me I am still convinced that the Rock is a good deck. I like that it has answers to everything. I also think the anti combo package I run in the sideboard is more than adequate to fight both graveyard and storm based combo. But I feel that some changes have to be to made stand a better chance against Merfolk and Jacestill. So this is what I have decided to do.

Main deck:
-1 Terravore (maybe even taking out the 2nd one to find room for something else like a Thrun, Mystic Enforcer or a 3rd Sensei's Divining Top.)
-1 Volrath's Stronghold (too slow and doesn't give colored mana)
+1 Hymn to Tourach (being able to put up more pressure game one vs combo and control)
+1 Bojuka Bog (this opens up SB space and adds another needed black mana source)

SB:
- 1 Loaming Shaman (shuffling back graveyards so that combo can draw their discarded cards again is terrible)
-1 Bojuka Bog (going to main)
-1 Pernicious Deed (2 should be enough with 2 E. tutors in the board as well)
+ 2 Choke (to fight Jacestill, Merfolk decks and other random blue decks)
+ 1 Thrun, the Last Troll.

So what do you guys think about these changes?

You should reallyy be playing a full set of knight of the reliquary. Cut a tarmogoyf before you cut a knight.

[comandantenorton83]

Hi all! I love reading this forum, always played Rock when I used to play Magic frequently. Now, unfortunately, I have little time to play, and just enjoy reading about this deck and trade some cards using some web pages in order to get all the neccesary tings.

I am a big fan of 2 cards that are not being used in this deck, but I'm not sure why. The first is Bitterblossom (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Bitterblossom), and the other one is Doran, the siege tower.

For sure, most of you know the reasons for not be playable in this deck, but I don't. I think Bitterblossom is great, because it plays a defensive role perfectly, and is useful to attack, especially if you have some equipement/elspeth in play.

What are the main problems about these two cards?

Thanks for all these pages discussing cards, strategies, sideboards and match-ups, they kinda keep me connected to the game.

------------
Jesús

[sdematt]

@Nelis

Your decklist:

4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Eternal Witness
2x Terravore
3x Knight of the Reliquary

Instant & Sorcery (18)
3x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Hymn to Tourach
4x Swords To Plowshares
4x Thoughtseize
4x Vindicate

Artifacts & Planeswalkers (3)
1x Elspeth, Knight Errant
2x Sensei's Diving Top

lands (23)
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Savannah
1x Karakas
2x Scrubland
3x Bayou
3x Wasteland
1x Volrath's Stronghold
3x Marshflats
2x Windswept heath
4x Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard
1x Null Rod
1x Dueling Grounds
3x Engineered Plague
2x Pernicious Deed
1x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Wheel of Sun And Moon
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Loaming Shaman

My thoughts:
-2 Terravore
+1 Knight of the Reliquary
+1 Hymn to Tourach
+1 Top
-1 stronghold
+1 Maze of Ith
-1 Eternal Witness (if you're meta is slow though, then it's fine. It's great for grinding out long games)

Board:
-3 E. Plague (you don't need these to beat Merfolk, in fact, unless they're all in on the Silvergill/Cursecatcher draw, you're not getting there. This could be more removal. I do agree with a 1-of dueling grounds, though, especially with Maze of Ith)

-1 Bog (unless you have a lot of Knight of the Reliquary decks in the meta)
-1 Loaming Shaman

+3 Krosan Grip (really good against Jacestill, since they never blow the Deed immediately, you have time to Grip it)

+2 Thrun/Extirpate (should give them some headaches, either way. Extirpate will also up your game against 43 Lands, aggro Loam, Jacestill (remove Factory, Jace, Tropical Island, Wasteland, Dust Bowl, etc. Thrun is great against Fish since he can't get submerged, and he regenerates).

@Norton83

There's nothing wrong with Bitterblossom, but the deck loves its life. Between it's mid-cost curve (usually 2+), Dark Confidant does get painful, and losing more per turn isn't a good thing. As well, Bitterblossom is best in something like Mono Black or something that can take more advantage of a 1/1 flyer. If you were running more equipment, I could see the viability. But, at the moment, the list is tight and there are better cards for the current meta. But, you could most certainly play it, and I'm sure do well with it.

Doran is a great card, but was quickly replaced by Knight. Knight is bigger, less coloured mana requirements, and you gain life off the Swords to Plowshares they sometimes eat. If you wanted to run another beater in addition, I'd probably consider Doran, as Terravore just begs your opponents to bring in grave-hate to wreck you (it'll also neuter your Goyf and Knights, to an extent).

-Matt

[comandantenorton83]

@Nelis

@Norton83

There's nothing wrong with Bitterblossom, but the deck loves its life. Between it's mid-cost curve (usually 2+), Dark Confidant does get painful, and losing more per turn isn't a good thing. As well, Bitterblossom is best in something like Mono Black or something that can take more advantage of a 1/1 flyer. If you were running more equipment, I could see the viability. But, at the moment, the list is tight and there are better cards for the current meta. But, you could most certainly play it, and I'm sure do well with it.

Doran is a great card, but was quickly replaced by Knight. Knight is bigger, less coloured mana requirements, and you gain life off the Swords to Plowshares they sometimes eat. If you wanted to run another beater in addition, I'd probably consider Doran, as Terravore just begs your opponents to bring in grave-hate to wreck you (it'll also neuter your Goyf and Knights, to an extent).

-Matt

Thanks for your thoughts.

From my (poor) testing (I know MWS is not a valid environment), Bitterblossom has given me more victories than life problems. To be honest, there have been some matches where I lost due to life loss, but maybe 4 out of 100. On the other hand, I won many matches attacking with faeries, either carrying jitte or attacking massively with them "naked". And they have bought me some precious turns, being able to sit and wait behind a wall of flying 1/1, until I got a big beater.

Obviously, when using bitterblossom, I had to replace deeds with engineered explosives.

But I have to admit that there is no room for everything in the deck. Using bitterblossom, GSZ and SFM package is simply not possible.


-------
Jesús

[Nelis]

My thoughts:
-2 Terravore
+1 Knight of the Reliquary
+1 Hymn to Tourach
+1 Top
-1 stronghold
+1 Maze of Ith
-1 Eternal Witness (if you're meta is slow though, then it's fine. It's great for grinding out long games)


I'm not sure if I'm willing to let go of the Witness just now. I really like its versatility my meta is not too fast but also not too slow.

But it's especially important to me that the deck is ready for an unknown meta. Unfortunately that makes it hard to add all of your suggestions. What would changes do you suggest if I want to keep the Witness?

Also I'm no fan of Maze of Ith because it can't be tapped for mana. If I add them it would mean there's basically only 22 lands in the deck. I already find 23 lands one too little. Its a tough decision which I'm not decided on yet. I'm inclined not to run Maze but every one I talk to seems to think the opposite.



Board:
-3 E. Plague (you don't need these to beat Merfolk, in fact, unless they're all in on the Silvergill/Cursecatcher draw, you're not getting there. This could be more removal. I do agree with a 1-of dueling grounds, though, especially with Maze of Ith)


The Plagues are mainly meant for Goblins. I could exchange them for spot removal which I agree is better vs Merfolk. But would that be enough to handle Goblins as well? Maybe my fear of Goblins is ungrounded especially with the current metagame but it seems to me Goblins is still very much loved in The Netherlands. What removal would be best? Smother, Go for the Throat or maybe Vendetta (nice and fast since it only costs one mana)?

I didn't think of the synergy of Maze and Grounds, I'll have to ponder on that for a while.



-1 Bog (unless you have a lot of Knight of the Reliquary decks in the meta)
-1 Loaming Shaman


Noted :-)



+3 Krosan Grip (really good against Jacestill, since they never blow the Deed immediately, you have time to Grip it)

I probably have too little experience against Jacestill (or Im using the wrong deckname) but I just lost to counterspells and removal (and multiple Standstills) and when the Jace landed it was game over, no chance whatsoever. Having to kill Deed with Krosan Grip doesn't seem too relevant top me and there's always Vindicate.



+2 Thrun/Extirpate (should give them some headaches, either way. Extirpate will also up your game against 43 Lands, aggro Loam, Jacestill (remove Factory, Jace, Tropical Island, Wasteland, Dust Bowl, etc. Thrun is great against Fish since he can't get submerged, and he regenerates).

Is Thrun THAT good vs Fish? Coralhelm Commander just flies over it and it seems a bit slow. I'm leaning towards Extirpate atm.

[sdematt]

If you keep the Witness, cut something else and add a land and go to 61.

I think against Goblins, Deeds are slow, but fine. If you can Deed on 3, then the rest don't matter on their own. Keep all your Swords in, maybe take out a Vindicate, bring in Deed, Dueling Grounds, and Tutors. Take out a Hymn or two, and a Thoughtseize if on the draw. Goblins can also pack 4 Chieftains in the board, which nullifies your Plagues nicely.

Against Jacestill, you try to save your Vindicates for Jace, not for all the other artifacts and Enchantments they might have. That's what the Grip is for: Batterskull, Shackles, Crucible, Deed, etc.

Thrun is good against Fish because you have combat certainty. He doesn't get bounced, he's a threat (which we're light on), he doesn't die in combat, survives all Deed activations without regeneration (since you Deed on 3 or less), and doesn't get Submerged, which is HUGE in the Merfolk matchup.

Extirpate is also a good choice as general hate, plus it ups your chances against the poor people of the world who play Dredge :P

-Matt

[sdematt]

Pics should be coming on Thursday or Friday. But, here's the 14-page draft.

I figured I’d finally write that tournament report now, as I finally have a bit of time between midterms. I’ll basically do the whole trip, with the GP being towards the latter end of it. I’ll do a quick recap of the journey to the GP. Our journey has us leave Vancouver BC for Toronto, then Greyhound to Buffalo, then drive to DC, then New York, then to Providence, then back to Buffalo.

We leave Vancouver bound for Toronto on a super cheap flight due to familial links to the airline. Plague Sliver, myself, and Destroying Angel gear up and head the terminal and wait for departure. The weather isn’t bad, and the flight is pretty uneventful. “The Mechanic” isn’t a terrible film, in case you haven’t seen it.

We land in Toronto and have 4 hours to kill until the Greyhound leaves for Buffalo. We take the transit system and save tons of money, and it isn’t terrible. We notice that the East Coast isn’t much different from the West Coast, and continue on our bus travels, lugging all of our, well, luggage. We eat at a place called “Big Smoke Burger.” I have their signature burger, and it’s pretty damn good. We take the next bus to the Greyhound depot, and sit around. It’s a pretty dingy place, and most of the people are pretty sketch. I keep my Ipod stowed away, in fear of poor people. We board the bus and it’s onwards to the US.

The US border guard gives me little hassle, except she asks how I’m paying for an expensive trip. I do work, and it’s good enough. We cross the border and head into Buffalo at 10:30 PM. We hail a cab, with an Asian driver dressed to the nines like the most gangster rapper, and he blasts the rap music as we sail down the freeway towards the Budget car depot at the airport. We upgrade to a Kia Sportage due to the presence of an MP3 jack and my love of all wheel drives. We start driving towards DC via some interstate.

For a full eight hours we drive through rural Pennsylvania and New York, blasting tunes all the way to stay awake. We briefly stop for some Canadian salvation at the Tim Horton’s in the middle of Pennsylvania. We fill the car at some random truck stock loaded with school aged kids at 2AM. One kid tries to cut the line to buy candy, but I’m trying to buy gas. I put the kaibosh on such an attempt, and I remark how I feel like I’m in Venezuela – gas is super cheap beyond all belief. I can fill the tank for less than a hundred dollars!

We blast and sing along to Lady Gaga all the way through most of Pennsylvania, being the three straight whiteys we are. We eventually hit the outskirts of DC near 5AM, and we stop for breakfast at some truckstop that was pretty great. Great food, nice people, wonderful olive oil soaps on display, etc. The others sleep in the car while I keep watch and blast my Ipod.

For eight hours, my friend, Plague Sliver, had been driving and was really tired. As in, weaving in and out of traffic and sleep talking to me when I asked him questions. I decide this is total BS, and we pull over. I force him to yield and I take the wheel. He sleeps while I navigate the Bayou surrounding DC and all the traffic it entails.

We drive all the way into DC along Pennsylvania Avenue, but I note to my sleeping navigator we’re supposed to be in Virginia, 40 minutes south. I turn it around and remark at the sites of the city, but also at the freaking traffic. I backtrack for forty minutes and we check into the hotel at about 9AM. We drop our crap off and head back into DC, and do much sightseeing.

If you’ve never been, you have to see: Union Station, Lincoln Memorial, the Great Phallus of Washington (the locals call it, “The Washington Monument,” apparently…), the Smithsonian Institute, the National Archives, the Capitol Building, the Vietnam Memorial (the wall of names), The Archives (Declaration, Bill of Rights, Constitution, etc.), and of course, the White House. All are REALLY great to go see. DC reminded me of the green zone in Baghdad: lots of concrete blocks, cops with assault rifles, and an eerie feeling.

I was kind of ticked off I got tons of dirty looks for wearing a jacket in 90 degree weather with 80% humidity, but hey, no “random” security checks for the whitey! I was kind of ticked about being asked by some random teenage boy for my phone number for their friend while waiting in line for the American History museum. I’m not sure if it was an actual come-on by their gay friend, or an insult due to my jacket with popped collar in such heat, but I remarked that they should think about putting their heads in a deep fryer. The gentleman left me alone, suffice to say.

On Tuesday night we left DC bound for New York, and got stuck in a massive traffic jam outside of Baltimore, where the highway was entirely closed off and we all had to exit at the offramp. Our GPS wouldn’t give us any alternate routes except more and more elaborate U-turns that led us back on the highway. So, we locked our doors and headed into the heart of the ghetto: Baltimore.

We ate at this lovely little Italian place (name?) (not sure if it was a chain or not), run by a guy named Jim. After saying “please” and “thank you,” he remarked that we must be foreigners, and we talked about the economy, the state of the current generation, how his son works for the power grid, etc. Nice guy, food was decent. I don’t like buying pasta in restaurants, as it’s the biggest rip-off. Noodles? $1 or less. Sauce? $1 or less. Heat? A few cents. Labour? Virtually no cost for illegals? Cost? $14. So awkward. Food was good, I can’t complain, and they had Dr. Pepper, a beverage virtually non-existent in Canada. We continue driving and grab some Starbucks.

We make it to New Jersey, Autism capital of the world, at about 3AM. We crash in our room and wake up early to sightsee in New York. New Jersey is a bastard – we must have spent over $100 in tolls over the next two days. Pay it on my income tax, how about that? Traffic in NYC is absolute hell, so we ditched our car at some underground parking for a (cheap) cost of $50. I figured the valets wouldn’t jack our ride, since they were also parking Porsches and SL500’s. We see: Central Park, Empire State building, the WTC hole, Wall Street, Katz Deli (a must attend, I suggest the hot dogs and Pastrami on rye), NY Metropolitan Museum (an absolute must see, just don’t buy the food), Times Square, and a few other places. Cons to NYC are the stupid transit system and the freaking traffic. Cabs travel in packs, and there are no rules. All in all, a must see.

The next say we try to see the Statue of Liberty, but the ferry left 12 minutes before we got there, so we had to see it from shore. The circling attack helicopters and Ospreys were pretty cool. A site to see, considering many people’s grandparents came through Ellis Island, mine included. We haul ass onto the freeway to make it to Providence by a decent hour, but we hit traffic like champs. We get there near 6PM instead of the scheduled 3PM. There, we dropped our bags off and run over to Pawtucket to hit up the Die Hard Games Sourcer’s get-together I kind of organized with Dave.

I got to meet CDR (Chuck), and a few other people. We played a cool tournament, I liked it. The report comes now:

DHG Tournament Report

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

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Green Sun’s Zenith
3 Vindicate
3 Top
4 Hymn to tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Pernicious Deed
BOARD
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Runed Halo
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ethersworn Cannonist

Round 1: Chris with BUG Landstill

I win the die roll, and immediately Thoughtseize. He has a few decent cards, but I take his Top. I put him on Landstill, but I see no black at the moment. Next turn, I safely land Confidant. He proceeds to play Factory into Standstill. I’m not sure why, but I guess he think he can keep Confidant from attacking with Factory, and then force me to blow through Standstill. I make a note about his Summer Island, but then I just Wasteland his Factory, and the beating begins. He takes 8 damage from Confidant before another Factory comes down, but I have another Wasteland. He plays something to kill my Confidant, but I just puke out my hand of Jitte, Goyf, Hymn to Tourach, etc. He dies very quickly.

Since the BoM lists just came out, I had him on the BoM Bug list. I figure he’s boarding in Confidants and Goyfs, so I keep conservative and keep my removal in. I take out a Hymn and something else for Thrun and Teegs. He runs out Confidants, I remove them. We get into a huge Goyf Standoff, but I have Deed, then lay Thrun. He has only Deed to deal with Thrun, but I can regenerate. He has Jace in this game I believe, but I just attack his face instead of the Jace. Top keeps Jace from being useful, and I plow through his Goyf wall with double KotR at 10/10. He tries to Shackles one, but I swords. Back and forth, but I claim victory. I congratulate him on his pimp cards and move on.

Round 2: Jeremy (a judge at the GP iirc) with Mono U Merfolk

Jeremy’s a really nice guy, and I see him throughout the weekend. I see an island while the shuffle goes down, so I know to keep aggressive hands for the fishies. I open with Thoughtseize, but he has the Misstep. He then lays down Quadruple lords with infinite counterspells, so I die.

I board in Deeds and Teegs and Thruns. Teeg gives me certainty in combat against Submerge and neutralizes Force of Will. I Thoughtseize taking Daze to be able to land and T2 Confidant. I do, and the ball gets rolling. He plays Cursecatcher, but I have pressure. I land Goyf, I vindicate some stuff, and eventually Thrun strolls through and wins the freaking game.

Game 3 I Thoughtseize on the draw, taking a Lord. I then drop Deed on T3, but it gets Forced. I land another one T4, and blow out his team. I regroup with Teeg and a Tarmogoyf, then Knight joins the fray. Knight is an 8/8 at this point, so I sit and pull Knight tricks to get Wastelands for Mutavaults and Maze for me. I bash him to 4, then he swings and gets me to 6. He has lethal next turn, but I threaten lethal now with my Knight (Goyf is gone iirc, or something like that. I think I lose it to a Submerge when I cracked a fetch before I had Teeg. Now, I have Teeg and KotR for sure). I swing with only Knight, and he Submerges my Knight, looking for the handshake. I tap Gaddock Teeg ever so casually and extend the handshake for my victory.

Round 3: Jacob (from KnightWare in LA, also judged the GP) playing Mono U Merfolk

We talk casually about Knightware, since I know of a few people who attend, and he comments that my attire (a shirt and tie) is quite intimidating. We comment back and forth, and present. I mull to 4 with no lands in my 4, so I play it out. I die to Coralhelm Commander.

Game 2, I get shit draws again, and lose fast to bad Bob flips and pressure. 20-17-13-9-4-0. Bob made me take 7 of that. Ugh. Thrun + vindicate. Oh well. This would have let me have Top 8.

Round 4: Josh with U/w Landstill
Josh seems like a nice guy, and has been playing Legacy for a while. It’s a long attrition war and he Jaces me.

Game 2, we don’t have much time left, and I get locked out by Wasteland, Shackles, Jace, Crucible, AND he has 3 Factories. Ugh.

Round 5: Jeremy? With Burn
I have no idea what I’m playing against, and after that Landstill matchup, I don’t care. I keep a crap hand and figure out I’m playing Burn. I tap out for a Knight, he using Price to kill me. Ugh.

I board in Thrun and Deed, and just more guys in general. I lose and frankly don’t care, since I’m more interested in watching a guy play L.A. Noire.

I didn’t really feel like I scrubbed out, I just had some bad luck. Burn isn’t a real deck, so I’m cool with that. If it becomes a problem, I’ll pack COP: Red to handle it. My friend places in the Top 4 with 43 Lands, taking almost 2 hours, and keeping everyone in the store until 2:30AM to finish Game 2 of the first round of the finals. Dave wants to close the store, Destroying Angel closes the game on Turn 5 of final turns with a Zuran Orb, boosting himself to 40+ life to Jacob from LA’s (Knightware Games) Merfolk deck. Angel’s in the money, but I’m beat so we go home. We note that Pawtucket is a freaking ghetto, with broken chain link fences, cars on blocks, and naked black children running through the streets. We get out of there pretty quick.

Friday we decide to head to the event site around noon to sign up early and get playmats. We do so, and end up walking through and perusing the dealer’s tables. No one has Beta duals except StarCityGames, but they want infinite. I try to deal, but the guy running the booth shuts me out. I end up seeing a few people I recognize, and approach them. I met Zakman86 and a few others on the Friday.

I decide to sign up for a grinder since I’m bored, and I throw together BUG Landstill. As I’m building, JACO (bigballashotcalla) comes over and starts looking at the deck. He remarks his name is JACO, I immediately recognize him from here and Eternal Central. I introduce myself, and we talk about BUG Landstill. He says The Abyss is too cute, I remark it’s a fucking house. I add it in, he rolls his eyes a bit, knowing that’s not the best idea. He tells me to run Loams, I agree. I enter the Grinders, and only lose to Hypergenesis. I can’t remember this guy’s name, but he’s REALLY tall, really nice, and I saw him throughout the day on Saturday. He did pretty well, iirc.



Grinders tournament report

4 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra’s Factory
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Go for the Throat
2 Repeal
1 Life from the Loam
3 Pernicious Deed
1 The Abyss
4 Brainstorm
4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
4 Spell Snare
+4 I can’t remember, but probably good things
BOARD
1 Repeal
3 Perish
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Submerge
2 Thrun
4 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Deed
+ cant remember

Round 1: Peter with the Rock

Peter seems like a quiet guy, playing in a hat and sunglasses. We shuffle up, and I keep a super spicy hand. Game one, I grind him into the dust with the Abyss and Jace, along with infinite counterspells. He dies from Jace ultimate. I know he’s playing Rock, and he’s playing a version similar to mine. I know the deck well, you think?

Game 2 I get super Hymned into Oblivion, but fight back. He has too many creatures, and I never see Deed. Evar.

Game 3, I do what I do best: grind. I start the factory beat down and don’t let him have one step. I counter key spells but leave some creatures to Perish away. I know what cards count, so I know what to do. Again, the Abyss is fantastic against this Deck. Vindicate, Qasali, or lose.

I tell him good games, and tell him to take off the glasses for next round to lessen possible leverage against him, not knowing it’s single elimination. Awkward, sorry Peter. He’s a nice guy, and I tell him to drop the Mox Diamonds and run more awesome cards. I tell him to look up the thread on the Source. He says he’s been reading it, I introduce myself, etc.

Round 2: Nicholas with U/w Landstill

I know he’s on Landstill, I saw him play from a few seats away last round when I got bored game 2. Game 1 he gets me since I draw like shit, but I’m on the way back. I board in Thruns against him, and I know how to kick him in the nuts with Crypt, and some other goodies. I make a huge misplay in Game 2 and use Counterspell instead of a Misstep I had in my hand. Awkward, since he casts something that needs a Counterspell.

I get down to 11, and he’s starting to take me out with Dust Bowl. I fire back with Crucible, which is countered, then Loam. I Loam, he gets kicked in the nuts. I triple Wasteland him, and don’t let him land Crucible. I slowly start the Manland beatdown, but he gets Collonade. I still have Wasteland, and I get there. His dad shows up to watch him, but I unfortunately Thrun him to death.

Game 3, I land Thrun on T4, and he can’t do a damn thing about it. He tries to Peacekeeper, but I have Deed. Oh well. He’s a nice kid, I figure about 15-17, and I wish him best of luck for the main event. I see him throughout the day on Saturday, and it seems like he did fine.

Round 3: L with Hypergenesis (Liam? Luke? I only have “L” in my notes. Nice guy, though)

In game 1, he lays out turn after turn of garbage Invasion lands, which I wasteland. I have zero clock, and he accrues six or so lands. He goes for Hypergenesis, I sigh. We get into a counterwar, I win at first, but I draw zero threats. Eventually, after 4 attempts and multiple counterwars, he has 2 Angel of Despair. I lose. He calls a judge since I cast Jace into that Angel that force spikes my stuff using only 4 mana, but I concede the game anyway. Abyss never lands :(

Game 2 I have my notes going from 18 to 3 to 0. I think I died to Emrakul here. Oh well. I watch Michael Caffrey play Lands, and I walk around to the dealers’ tables.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




I was pretty happy with the build of BUG, since it was tuned against random decks and U/w Landstill, but I know Rock like the back of my hand, so I decide to play it. I can play either, but in a large tournament, I’d rather not think at all, as thinking usually leads to poor decision making. We head back to the hotel and grab some Wendy’s at 1AM, and sleeve up our decks.

We wake up *somewhat late* on Saturday, but we’re still fine. We grab breakfast and drive over to the site, park, and walk in. Our whole team was dressed up. I was on the green side (but blue flight), furthest away from the dealers. I was wearing the black shirt and purple/pink/indigo tie. Pairings go up, and so it begins.

GP: Providence Tournament Report
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Scrubland
3 Bayou
3 Wasteland

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
2 Qasali Pridemage

2 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Green Sun’s Zenith
3 Vindicate
3 Top
4 Hymn to tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Pernicious Deed
BOARD
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Runed Halo
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ethersworn Cannonist

Round 1: Matt with U/B SuperStax: 2-1 (1-0)

We find our tables and I’m on the end. Very nice. My opponent comes and takes a seat and starts to shuffle, but he drops an Island. That’s not much of a tell, but it’s better than nothing. He says he’s playing something I’ve never seen, so Rock vs. Rogue? Sign me up. He opens with Ancient Tomb, Chalice on 1. I know he’s playing Super Stax. Fine. I plow through him most of the game, but he gets a Jace online for while, I Vindicate. He then gets Tezzeret and the Abyss online, and turns his chalice into a 5/5. I have Deed, but don’t have enough to blow it on 4 after Vindicating the Tezz. The problem here is as follows: I’m at 7 with an uncracked fetch, but 6 lands total. I have no Top, but I have Swords, and some creatures. I’m at 7 at this point. To crack the fetch and blow the Deed on 3 puts me to 6, but if I wait I’m at 1 or 2 life. I decide to play it safe and blow the Chalice at 3, taking him out, but leaving the Abyss. The rest of the game, I regret it, as he lands Jace and bounces 1 out of my two creatures, and I have to sac the others. I scoop it up, having no more outs.

Game 2, I bring the pain with Qasali, Gaddock Teeg, Deed, and discard. Chicka-yeah. Qasali and Gaddock Teeg actually get there.

Game 3 has a similar ending, but I GSZ for Teeg on T3, shutting off his Chalices from coming online in the future. He had plans to play a Jace, but I show him the Vindicate. I lose one life this game, and I beat him down with Exalted Qasali, who eventually kills a Crucible, I wasteland his Academy Ruins. Super nice guy, but 4 maindeck Abyss is tough stuff.

Round 2: Scott with Affinity :2-0 (2-0)

Scott’s a nice older guy, probably in his 40’s or 50’s. He notes his kids are also playing, and he’s from Detroit and he does real estate. He also informs me he drove down his children, along with their friend Ari (Lax). We chat back and forth, but it’s time to start. He pukes his hand on turn 1, but doesn’t have much offense. I Swords his Signal Pest, but he has 3 Ornithopters and the Protection from all colours guy. I decide to just run out T3 Deed on 0, blowing out his whole board except Springleaf Drum. I land Knight, and Knight gets there in 3.

I board in Tutors, Deeds, and Null rods. He starts with a steady opener; I play a Scrubland and pass. EOT I tutor for Deed, and then just pass. He lays out a few guys, but doesn’t over commit with Deed in hand. He beats me to 15, I deed away his board. He plays M. Opal and a Springleaf, and then passes. I drop Null Rod and Goyf, he scoops at 20 life. He takes my name down, how he died, the deck name, etc. He seems really into doing something with his kids, and I see him throughout the weekend. Really super guy, and apparently his kids read the Source/Mtgsalvation. Hello there if you’re reading!

Round 3: Lucas with U/r Landstill: 2-1 (3-0)

Lucas seemed like a bit of a smug player. He played pretty tight, and I saw Faerie Conclave on T2. I had him possibly on that Tombstalker/Faerie build, or some random Landstill variant. It was more like Mono U control with Lightning Bolt and REB. Game 1 he controls the game like he should and he hits everything he needs.

Game 2 changes things. Teeg and Thrun get in the game, and he is scrambling a bit. He has no out, except Disk, to a resolved Thrun. He attempts to land Jace, but it makes no difference. Thrun gets there in 3 turns after some quick Tarmo beats.
Game 3 gets more interesting. I have him going 20-17-15-14-13-9-8-4-3-0. I get in there for a bit with something obviously, and then he cracks some fetches. He’s on the ropes this entire game, as I think I had an early Teeg after a Thoughtseize. I attempt to land Null Rod, but to no avail. I follow it up with Thrun, and he removes Teeg and lands Jace. He starts brainstorming like a madman, and finally lands a Disk. Unforts to say, it’s CitP tapped. I swing for lethal, and he decides to blow Disk. This is where the desperation play comes in.

He asks if the ability of Disk resolves. I reply with, “I’ll regenerate Thrun at some point in time, avoiding death by Disk.” He replies with, “So the ability resolves?” I call a judge and explain what I’m trying to do. I honestly tell him I haven’t regenerated since before Sixth Edition, and have no idea how it works anymore. He explains it properly, so I ask him how I should do it to keep my Thrun. The judge can’t tell me exactly, but I get the gist of how it works. I regenerate before the ability, and then he tries to dig for a Stifle, running through two fetches and two Brainstorms. He concedes, and says the Stifle would have got me. I flash him my 7 card hand full of Goyfs and Knights. He sighs. I manage to achieve victory!

Round 4: Eli with Merfolk (with Dismember): 0-2 (3-1)

Eli is another friendly guy I meet, and we shuffle up and discuss Legacy. He pulls his deck out of his box, flashing a Dismember from the board, and a Jitte and Island in the main. Merfolk, great. So, we shuffle up, and I see a judge just standing there. Before we present, I check my board and my main, reshuffle, and present. Then, the judge comes rumbling in yelling, “Stop!” I have no idea what’s happening, but he’s says we’re getting deck checked. Fuck. Fine, here you go. We sit there making small talk, while I’m watching other people play.

Ten minutes later, we get our decks back and I get pulled aside. The judge tells me my sleeves could be used to cheat, yet I’m using Ultra Pro Matte sleeves. Apparently, not all the sleeves were the same length. But, it’s not by much, only less than a millimeter. I argue they’re all out of the same package, and how can I fix that if that’s the way they come? He says I need to change my sleeves after this round, and says the dealers will let me open sleeves to check if they’re all fine. Yeah, sure they will.
Anyway, we get started and I’m off to a great lead after losing game one to the insane nut draw and bad mulls by my.

Game 2, however, is where the wheels fell off the bus. I Thoughtseize, and open a hand of Dismember, Wasteland, Vial, Silvergill Adept, Sower of Temptation, Jitte, and Island. I take Vial, as I have. I draw another Seize, taking Dismember, and pass. I Vindicate his Island, and Waste his Waste. He’s on the ropes, and I drop Thrun. He eventually drops Silvergill and Lord of Atlantis, but I’m in control. Due to some sloppy notes, I have dismember, Wasteland, Silvergill, Jitte and such crossed off, with Sower in the middle, not crossed off, but messy. I look at the notes quickly to verify if I know his hand. I think I don’t, and run out a 5/6 Tarmogoyf. I pass, and he Sowers it, and I don’t have Swords. Goyf there ended the game for me. I had him at 5, and he needed to block there. Goyf started swinging in, and I had nothing. At that point, I shook hands, and went on full tilt.
-----
Pissed with myself, I decided to go get those sleeves and they would only let me open them if I bought them. Great. I replaced sleeves and watched little AJ Kerrigan do his thing. He has a pretty cool “Awkward Turtle” playmat. I’m pissed that I gave up a round I basically had in my grasp, so I look for others at this point. Ten minutes later, it’s ten minutes to round end, so I start wrapping up and heading over. Pairings go up.

Round 5: Nick with Bant: 2-1, (4-1)

We shuffle up and talk about our bitter defeats. He runs out Noble Hierarch and I have him on Bant. I don’t draw anything good past the first seven, and die to 3 Tarmogoyfs.

After siding in Deeds, Teegs, and Thruns, I get control on this game. We go back and forth, especially with Rhox War Monk. He lands Jace, but I get the Vindicate. I keep green creatures off the table in fear of Natural Order. I stabilize at 16 while a large Knight manages to sit there and beat face.

In game 3, it’s very interesting. I run out Top, and pummel him with discard. He lands 3 Noble Hierarch and a Dryad Arbor, and beats me for 4 a turn. I put out two Goyfs, but he puts out a Goyf as well. I put another, he puts out another as well. I land Deed, and decide, even with the huge Goyf stall, to Deed at 1. There was a point where I could have untapped and Deeded for two, and landed another creature, but I wanted my Goyfs on the board. I Deed for one, taking away any huge advantage, and start slogging him down. 5/6 Goyfs are nothing to sneeze at, and we get deadlocked until I land Knight. Knight goes for Maze, and it start to end there. We trade multiple Swords until I have a Goyf and a Knight, and he has 2 Goyfs. I plow in with the Knight, and untap after combat. At 8/8, he can’t do much. He has to block eventually, and dies. It was a hard fought round, but he said he didn’t want Day 2, so he was glad I won. Thanks Nick!

Round 6: Dave with Mono Red Burn: 0-2, (4-2)

I soon realize he’s playing Mono Red burn in the 4-1 bracket. So awkward. Dave was a pretty nice guy, but I basically tell him best of luck against decks with counters. I’m just a bit bitter. He’s a good sport though, and we watch a game between a Landstill guy and a girl playing Metalworker with Thoughtcast.

Afterwards, she and I discuss the deck and the advantages of blue versus Red splash for Welder in that deck. I’m a fan of Welder due to sheer redundancy in a counterheavy meta, but she sticks to her guns on Thoughtcast for the card draw. We disagree, but she seems to know what she talking about. She’s obviously not here as a girlfriend, but to compete. Pretty cool stuff. Perhaps I should have done something about it, but I’ve got games to win, considering I’m at 4-2.

Round 7: Jimmy with UBGW Landstill: 1-2 (4-3) (in spirit 6-1, stupid Merfolk and landscrew)

Jimmy’s a really cool guy, and turns out he’s played since 1.5 like me. We talked about the good old days and shuffle up. Turns out he’s the greediest man alive, playing 4C Landstill. Not good. I die in due to infinite counters and multiple Jaces. Ugh.
Game 2 I win with Thrun and Teeg. Not much to say. No one seems to mind you GSZ’ing for two, but when they realize it’s Teeg, different story.

Game 3, I open a nice hand of Forest, Fetch, Thrun, and 4 other good cards. Problem being? I literally don’t see another land. Ever. He has no clock and a bad hand, but I can’t get off two lands. He had nothing, and the game went draw-go for ten minutes. Had I had the mana, Thrun would have won, and that’s why I’ve listed my score as Match:Tournament:In spirit. I should have won this, but my deck shit on me. All my lands were clumped even after a good shuffle.

I feel like I’ve met Jimmy somewhere before, but I’m not sure where.

Round 8: Chris with Team Italia: 1-2 (4-4) (7-1)

Chris is actually a Source member (PunkrockChris) and has been on the site. I try not to say too much, we talk about Hockey, Magic, etc. I see a Figure of Destiny, and put him on Italia. Game 1 I narrowly lose due to sheer equipment barrage, but I take Game 2 easily. Game 3 I drop due to losing interest in the match and not drawing lands. Again, he didn’t have anything special, but I had it worse. Oh well. At this point, I want to drown my sorrows in Beta duals, so I go looking at the dealer tables.
Round 9 pairings go up, and I haven’t eaten or had any water in 9 rounds. I’ve got a terrible headache, and I really don’t want to play.

Round 9: S (Shane? Sean?) with Bug Landstill: 0-2, (4-5) (7-2)

At this point, I don’t care. I make small pleasantries, but just throw my deck at him. I Thoughtseize and see he’s playing BUGStill, and I don’t want to do another round of this crap. I gives him the 2-0 victory so I can watch my friends play/grab some water. Nice guy, but I’m just not interested at this point. BUGstill would have been iffy, depending on the build, but I might have been able to get him.

Round 9: Plague Sliver (Zoo) vs. Nightmare (Batterskull Landstill) (I observed this round)

I find my friend battling for Day 2 against a fellow Sourcer, Adam Barnello. I watch the game, and cringe in horror as a play is made that cost my friend Day 2. It was very close, and well fought by both parties. We discuss the match after the crowd around the game dissipates. I say hello to Nightmare, but have no time to introduce myself, as he runs off to get ready for day 2. We decide to party and wallow in our defeat, and drink a decent amount of Whiskey in the process. But, apparently our hotel room didn’t have whiskey tumblers, so I had to drink whiskey and ice out of a plastic cup. I felt so…poor.


All in all, barring really unfortunate land issues, I probably would have gone 7-2, depending on what I encountered after playing Merfolk. Maybe I wouldn’t have hit Burn, ffs. Point being, the deck did what I wanted it to do. Deed was amazing, and I boarded it in a lot, but most of the time, I was also taking out some stuff. Does Deed deserve three slots in the main? No, but definitely in the 75.

The E. Tutor package was great, but I didn’t need the tutors in all the matchups. Thrun was a house, but can be easily answered by Wrath, and I felt Teeg was great. I would have liked to have had Grip, as Needle and Halo were terrible all day long. With the way the meta has shifted, Plague in the board is no longer necessity, but Extirpate may be. Taking away Jaces from Landstill is brutal, and Grip takes out Batterskull.

I didn’t face any Dredge and only one Affinity, both of which I would have crushed. I was overprepared for decks I felt those getting into it would be playing. But, I hate people trying to slip into the format by playing cheap decks, so why not hate on the poor? I’m obviously joking, but I was hoping to play against more Affinity and Dredge.
I don’t know where the meta is headed locally, but for now, I’ll be playing this list, possibly with Stoneforges, but who knows?

Day 2 I saw some fantastic players and fellow Sourcers. I got to watch people play with Beta duals (only one guy I saw), met up with some people from MOTL (JACO, Andrew777, Hukstor, OGB, Zakman86, etc.) and I think we had a blast. We went from dealer to dealer, seeing what they’d pay on taped duals. Pastimes told us they wouldn’t give us a penny from their “Take a penny, leave a penny” jar for it. It was pretty hilarious. I got talking to Troll and Toad about if they had Beta duals, and they said they sold the one NM Beta Tundra they had to Jupiter.

I got to meet Eli Kassis and congratulate him on taking Rock to Top 2, and I asked about Beta duals. He pulled out the best binder I’d seen all weekend up to that point (except for Andrew777 and another guy form MOTL with an almost complete Beta dual playset and 30+ pieces of Power). He looks at my binder, and a meeting of the mutual admiration club commences. We both point at pretty cards we want, and I lay out hard cash. We disagree on the NM Tundra, but find a common point in a deal for a Tropical, Plateau, and Badlands for my cash and 2 Scrublands.

I then traded my signed Beta Taiga for a nicer condition unsigned one, and Andrew and I have good laughs over food stamps. A few people recognized me from my trade binder, and we have a good chat about Poxy and what an amazing artist he is.
All in all, the GP was pretty successful for me. I feel I basically made Day 2, and that’s fine for me. I met a bunch of friends, and made a bunch of friends (I think).
We start driving back to Buffalo Monday afternoon, and see a bit of the American countryside.

We Greyhound it back to Canada, and fly back to Vancouver Tuesday morning, using the last four seats on the airplane via standby seating. The flight back was decent, as Scott Oakes was on the plane (yes, the hockey reporter, you Canadians). “Unknown” isn’t a bad movie at all, and I think I’d actually recommend it. “No Strings Attached,” of the half-hour I saw, again, wasn’t terrible. Just so you know, getting skipped over for refreshments sucked, so I made sure to stock up on the second pass.

All in all, it was an excellent trip, and I’d gladly attend another GP. I’m not going to do props and slops, as I believe I’ve gone through them enough.
Hopefully I’ll see some of you guys in SCG Seattle, or possibly SCG LA if I feel motivated, and if I feel really dangerous, GP Amsterdam. Thanks for slogging through a 14 page Word file, aptly titled, “Get your shit off the fucking Ottoman: A true GP Providence story.”

-Matt

[Namida]

Wow, epic misread. I guess I saw what I wanted to see and read "can't be blocked except by creatures with horsemanship." Okay, nevermind then. =(

Forlorn Egoist

As a side note, this does remind me of a friend of mine who plays a one of Riding the Dilu Horse. I'm not sure it's worth it, but it sure is hilarious--everyone has to read that card at least twice to get it.

[stealth]

Nice report sdematt, cant wait for some photos.

[2Rach]

It might just be me, but I feel like this line of play is win-more. You have knight out for 2 turns (why haven't you won yet?). You have an equiped creature out for 2 turns (why haven't you won yet?). Saying that Mazing your own creature to play both aggressor and defender is great utility is like saying that Vigilance on Batterskull is back-breaking.

I don't really buy the argument for Maze when there's enough bombs to be played. Knight. Will. Race. By. Attacking. No need for any fancy thrills to make him untap. Spend the first few turns wasting them back to the stone age, then bash face with a 10/10. GAME OVER.
I completely disagree with this. I've had different experiences. You say I should win in two turns, but then say in the next paragraph that we should be Wasting instead of attacking ftw. Anyway, some decks can swarm better than we can or get hands that enable them to do this. Or we take damage early on with Confidant or earlier beatings and sometimes we can't just attack or race effectively. I don't think the maze/knight/waste chain is win-more, it shaves two turns off your win, which is big imo. Effectively, instead of just Wasting for a couple turns then attack ftw a couple more, you can delay that a turn and do both after, it's like taking extra turns while ensuring your opponent can't remove kotr or play creatures to block.

If I didn't know you and that you played Kotr I'd think you were theorizing. Though the decks are different-Kotr in Bant/Maverick /= Kotr in Junk. Different considerations are needed.

I'd also like to add, that even assuming this scenario is win-more(which, again, I disagree with), it doesn't make Maze of Ith a win-more card that shouldn't be in the deck.

The equip example I was talking about was having to do with an opponent's creature+equip, not my own.


EDIT:
Added and elaborated.

[KobeBryan]

Has anyone tried using Phyrexian Metamorph as a one-of in the sideboard. This card helps fight Jitte, progenitus, emrukal, and other legend cards.

Its definitely fetchable with enlightened tutor.

[sdematt]

Second page? I think not.

With all this Hivemind BS running around, I'm definitely leaning towards having Cannonist in the board. Cannonist and Grip, along with Vindicate, Qasali, Teeg, and discard, should be able to slow them down enough to hammer out games in Games 2 and 3. Plus, Extirpate would be an absolute beating :P

Cannonist gives us one turn to Grip or Qasali the Hive Mind away before they get priority.

-Matt

[Koby]

I completely disagree with this. I've had different experiences. You say I should win in two turns, but then say in the next paragraph that we should be Wasting instead of attacking ftw. Anyway, some decks can swarm better than we can or get hands that enable them to do this. Or we take damage early on with Confidant or earlier beatings and sometimes we can't just attack or race effectively. I don't think the maze/knight/waste chain is win-more, it shaves two turns off your win, which is big imo. Effectively, instead of just Wasting for a couple turns then attack ftw a couple more, you can delay that a turn and do both after, it's like taking extra turns while ensuring your opponent can't remove kotr or play creatures to block.

If I didn't know you and that you played Kotr I'd think you were theorizing. Though the decks are different-Kotr in Bant/Maverick /= Kotr in Junk. Different considerations are needed.

I'd also like to add, that even assuming this scenario is win-more(which, again, I disagree with), it doesn't make Maze of Ith a win-more card that shouldn't be in the deck.

The equip example I was talking about was having to do with an opponent's creature+equip, not my own.


EDIT:
Added and elaborated.

I'm not saying that Maze of Ith is a dead card against aggro - it's highly useful. I just don't agree that it's maindeck material. The only justification for its inclusion maindeck is some trickery with KotR to go double duty in attacking/fetching; but I think that the slot itself could be used for more disruption.

I am referring to the fact that you have Knight of the Reliquary out for several turns - this is enough to win on its own. Same thing with an equipped creature. Sure, it's nice to have them untap after combat, and might even help win faster, but especially in the case with Jitte, you can re-equip to an untapped guy, use the counters to pump, block, and acquire more counters.

The point is that if you're able to maintain KotR, or an equipment out for several turns, then you don't need any extra help from Maze of Ith. I consider it a Danger of Cool Things. It does some interesting stuff, but not to the point that it achieves victory on its own merit. It's only good when combined with other, better cards.

For instance, in Matt's last list that eschews Mox Diamond - Maze of Ith now becomes a true liability in opening hands that requires mana. This is often worse situation than the useful ability to control combat.

[damionblackgear]

So I haven't been paying attention much, but is there a reason that no one wants to play a Zenith package alongside the Mystic package? I enjoyed punting a round in Denver only to trump almost everyone else (reminded that I forgot about Teeg when we were replacing the random forest I found in the board at the beginning of the tournament).

I ended up X-2 from my punt and then being reminded that I forgot Teeg against TES (Yes, I did Zenith @2). I never ran out of cards (unless I was baiting counters) and nothing seemed to be able to function according to it's plan. I played against: U/W -> Affinity -> Dead Guy -> TES -> Bant(control?) -> Dead Guy -> Folk.

I will play Spore Frog and it pulled its weight the entire day. The Frog even held affinity at bay for 12 turns (with a couple Vindicate effects) while I found an answer to his threats and later when Merfolk couldn't find an answer to him before I was Running over a couple fish every attack. It also doubled over as main'd Dredge hate, although I didn't play Dredge... I sat next to it a couple times though.

-----

Cannonist is only a good answer if you are playing Grip (Which there are enough destroy effects naturally built in that it shouldn't be an issue) or if there is already a Pridemage on the board. If Hivemind lands, and you have a Cannonist, they'll just pact the next spell you play - unless you play 2 and don't pass priority but, seeing how Swords is about the only instant played... Good luck. Angel's Grace would be much better since it's usable against all the pacts, split second, and their copy isn't as relevant unless: You're going to win that turn. 2) They're holding enough to pay for their pact. 3) They have another usable pact in hand.

There are some other restrictions for the third option: 1) The second limitation of Angel's Grace must be met. 2) If it's the blue pact, they have to be able to play another spell. 3) You can't have mana up to pay for it.

Mind you, if they play Show and Telling, you're going to drop in Knight or Karakas if you have it. Since angel's grace would allow for both (Karakas is white), thus fighting both the Emrakul and Hive Mind Show and Tell. I you don't, you were cold to 1 anyway and losing to it regardless of which board option you chose.

If you have a top in play you can even use it on your upkeep to look for the Angel's grace and, hopefully, have a white up to play it.

Whatever way you go the best way to fight them is with discard. Getting rid of the Hiveminds or pacts from their hand is always going to be option 1. If they don't have it, they can't do it.

Oh, and if you're boarding an Extirpate effect, play that too. Intuition isn't the best if the card gets taken from you.

[Borealis]

Maze of Ith is definitely staying put in my build. My friend has a similar Junk list to mine and his turn 1 Maze kept my Zoo deck off damage for 2 or 3 turns, which was plenty of tempo for him to win. So even in your opening 7, it's good.

As for with KOTR, it's often the case that the Knight is our only major threat on the board, or possibly acting solo. Searching for Maze of Ith is almost always the first thing I want to do with Knight, regardless of my opponent's board. Say the Knight is only a 5/5 and you want to make it bigger. You can search up a Fetchland or Wasteland and the Knight will be a 7/7 on the next swing. Or you can search up a Maze, nullifying a possible attacker (while still being able to block another), and the Knight will still be a 7/7 on the next attack. The combo is just too powerful not to abuse.

[Basaka]

Hey all, there's a legacy tournament next week for a playset of FOIL mental missteps.

I'm thinking of taking GWB Junk/Rock due to the large number of Merfolk and Zoo players I expect. For example, last time we had a tournament (16 people) the meta was like:

1 TES storm
1 Belcher
1 Bant (no NO)
1 Team America
1 Combo Elves
1 Uw Landstill
2 Dredge
3-4 Zoo
A lot of merfolk

My proposed deck:

Land [23]

4 verdant catacombs
2 marsh flats
2 windswept heaths
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
3 Wasteland (I have 2, lent 2 out to the bant player, so I'll probably get one back)
1 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas
1 Dryad Arbor (since I don't have the 4th Wasteland)

Creatures [13]
4 Goyf
4 BoB
4 KotR
1 Qasali Pridemage

Artifacts [6]
3 Mox diamond
2 Sensei's top
1 Jitte

Spells [18]
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn
4 StP
2 Vindicate
2 GSZ
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Deed

SB [15]
3 E. Tutor
2 Deed
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Null Rod
1 Serenity (I know my friend will play Enchantress)
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Thrun
2 Teeq

Another thing is how I should SB. I know there will most likely be Bant, Enchantress, Dredge, Affinity, and a lot of Folk/Zoo.

Against Folk:
- hymn - mox +Tutor + deed + dueling grounds, + thrun + teeq?

Zoo:
-bob -mox + deed + tutor?

Enchantress:
- mox + deed + tutor + serenity?

Affinity:
-mox + deed + rod + tutor + serenity

Bant:
- mox + deed

This is what I'm thinking of, any SB help will be appreciated :)

[stealth]

@ basaka. Im thinking if you need to sideboard out MoxD in that many matchups maybe it shouldnt be in the main.

[sdematt]

Again, if you're boarding it out, don't bother. I'd also up your Forest count by one, since you'll be playing Thrun. Arbor only seems good if you're running GSZ. But, I'd go to 24 lands without Mox. As well, GSZ will allow you to fetch for your Teegs and Thruns, so if you're no sure with the Moxen and since you're only at 1 Jitte, -3 Moxen -1 Jitte +2 GSZ +2 creatures/removal/etc.

Also, Dismember is a great card, I was playing it today in Loam. Very solid card.

Most definitely go +1 Top as well, even if you have to go to 61.

I'll paste my sideboard stuff I did a while back, let me find what I did for the GP and worked well.

Against Landstill, especially with Batterskull, Grip is also VERY good. As much as you may love Serenity, Grip is great in other matchups.

-Matt

[Basaka]

Well, I'm thinking mox diamonds give a really good tempo boost if it's in your main, allowing you to drop confidants, hymn, and other things on the first turn. I'm planning to put in the SFM package eventually, and the idea of a T1 stoneforge seems pretty appealing to me.

However, against decks like Merfolk/Zoo, we're playing control, not the beatdown, and thus it'll be better to side mox out.

That's what I think anyway...

@matt: I've only seem the landstill deck once (and I was playing TES against it, god damn.), so I'm not sure if it'll show up.
Also, already have 2 GSZ's in my deck, don't think I'll need 4.

If I keep in the moxes, what would be the suggested boarding against the other decks?

[Dzra]

This is what I've been testing lately. Basically I'm trying to lower my curve and maximize cards that generate CA, which will hopefully add more consistency and better mulls. I'm very mana-heavy, but I believe that all the CA that I produce should be able to make up for this.

Land 24
4 Wasteland
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Scrubland
3 Bayou
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Bloodstained Mire

Creatures 14
4 Dark Confidant
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Phyrexian Metamorph

Spells 22
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Gerrard's Verdict

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Vindicate

4 Mox Diamond

2 Bitterblossom

1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull


Sideboard
4 Extirpate
4 Engineered Plague
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Sword of Body and Mind or Sword of Feast and Famine


KotR beats Goyf, but SoBM/SoFF beats both. KotR also encourages a land tutor package. While this has the potential to be blowout occasionally, it can also lead to awkward hands/mulls.

Phyrexian Metamorph is there for a catch-all to anything big and scary that can't be easily removed or dealt with otherwise. Removal that doubles as a threat seems good. I was debating making this slot targeted discard, Teeg, or more Bitterblossoms.

Bitterblossom is too good. It generates CA like crazy and plays nice with equipment.

I'm somewhat debating on whether to drop the 24th land for another Bitterblossom or equipment (one of the pro-green Swords). I'm also not sure which Sword is better.

SoFF is pro-germs, which isn't irrelevant, but might be cute. Pro-Black in general seems better than pro-Blue (especially since I already have SoFI). The discard isn't bad, especially against control MUs, but it probably happens too late to be backbreaking.

SoBM generates tokens, which is always good. The milling also synergies well with Goyf (and Extirpate?), but is a liability VS Dredge, Reanimator, Loam, and Enchantress (which is why I disagree with people MDing it).

I'm also not convinced I need the Engineered Plagues in the board since I run SoFI main, but I'm at a loss of what to add. Deed doesn't play nice with all my 2-drops and equipment.

[sdematt]

Didn't see you had 2 GSZ already. Whoops :P

I think Stoneforge AND GSZ is fine, but you'll have to commit to one more than the other. Even if you don't land SFM on T1 with Mox, it's about as solid of a T2 play as you can get.

You have to consider pro-Germ, pro-Go for the Troat, pro-Dismember, pro-Smother: all cards played in Landstill. It also has pro Pulse, pro-Vindicate, pro-Goyf, pro-Knight, pro-Confidant. We're looking at a lot of card here. There's even more advantage when you actually hit.

Your decklist looks really good. I mean, it's an all-in Stoneforge list, which is different from the lists we've seen previously (either not or partly committed to SFM), but it looks good. REALLY good. I understand why there's no Thoughtseize/Deed, but that's the only thing I hate not seeing :P

Keep at 24 lands with the Moxen, or even 25. I tihnk SoFI in the main should be FF, but that's me. I'd also suggest Thrun, but you're REALLY B/W Heavy. It's very similar to B/w Aggro with Goyf, which I approve of :)

I'm not sure if Plague is the best thing at the moment; I'd actually suggest Grips.

@Damion

I think you can play both, it's just you get a little diluted when you get into both. I was thinking something like:

24 Lands

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
3 Stoneforge Mystic
15

1 Batterskull (what an amazing card. It returns to your hand too? I didn't realize this the first time :P)
1 Jitte/SoFF
2

3 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 GSZ
3 Top
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Gerrard's Verdict (you've become more white heavy, and you don't necessarily want to go BB on turn 2 for Hymn if you also have Stoneforge)
4 Thoughtseize
20

Board:
2 Teeg
2 Krosan Grip
2 Thrun
2 Extirpate
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Gravehate
1 Cannonist
2 Deed

Thoughts? Sure you don't get Qasali, and you're not "maxing out" the potential of GSZ, but you're basically just using it as Knight #5 and Goyf #5.

-Matt

[sdematt]

At the GP, I had boarding plans like this for Zoo, Enchantress, Merfolk, Affinity and Bant (with old sideboard including Needle and Runed Halo)

Affinity:
+ 2 Deed
+3 Tutor
+1 Null Rod
-4 Hymn to Tourach
-2 Jitte

Bant:
+2 Deed
+2 Teeg
+2 Thrun
-2 Hymn
-1 Top
-2 Thoughtseize
-1 random

Enchantress:
-2 Jitte
-1 Maze
-4 Swords
-1 Goyf
-4 Hymn
+3 Tutor
+2 Deed
+1 Runed Halo (now Grip)
+1 Needle (now Grip)
+2 Crypt (1 Crypt 1 Spellbomb)
+1 Cannonist
+2 Teeg

Merfolk:
-4 Hymn
-1 Vindicate/random
+2 Deed
+2 Thrun
+1 Teeg

Zoo:
+3 Tutor
+2 Deed
-1 Bob
-2 Hymn
-2 Thoughtseize

[C Rayz Walz]

I don't really like GSZ in that list personally. I would much rather still run 4 hymn and maybe another copy of top or or another equipment. One of my friends play Stoneforge rock a lot more then I do, but lately I have been playing his list to help our other team mates play against it since people near our area have been playing this style of deck. I also play it so I can give him my view on his list. I do play rock(Normally I play deathcloud rock which I have done well at some large events with.) but I really like his list and would play it if I didn't find my deck more fun to play.

He actually runs 3 equipment which are Batterskull, jitte, and sofi. I think it is a toss up between sofi and soff meaning I am actually leaning towards soff while he likes sofi. He does have another batterskull in the board since that card is extremely strong vs aggro and I strongly recommend you guys try it. He is also thinking about going up to 4 Stoneforge and we are both unsure if that is wise to do. We both say though when we play the deck we do always want to see them since we both think they are so powerful in this list.

I like your enlightened Tutor board a lot, but I think the deck might need another grip in the board to help fight other batterskull and stoneforge base decks. I do like a couple of deeds in the board like you have. Maybe a couple of needles in the board too help deal with jace since I find that card to be a problem if we don't answer it early. Thoughts on these ideas?

[sdematt]

I did try Needles, but most oft he decks that are playing Jace also have Deeds or stuff to destroy our Needles. Not to say don't play Needles, but I have zero room for them as well :P

Definitely stopping Jace is a good thing, so if you're facing tons of Landstill, Revoker or Needles are never bad to bring in.

Against Jace, you're also hoping Teeg helps you get there for the time being unless you establish more board presence.

I think if you go all-in on the Stoneforge plan, with 4 SFM and 3 Equipment, you can't play GSZ, and you have to adjust for your slightly white heavy manabase.

I have the Extirpates in there to also help against Jace. If you can nab a Jace with a Vindicate, attack him to death, discard, etc., Extirpating him is really good. Taking out Jace, Factory, Tropical Island, etc. are all great plays. But, these could also be Needles. Just watch out for Mental Missteps :P

-Matt

[C Rayz Walz]

Do you think playing 4 Stoneforge mystics is the right call? or is 3 a good number. I personally like 4 but just looking for other people's thoughts. I was just talking to my friend who plays this and he was thinking about sword of body and mind which doesn't seem like a bad idea. I can see it being pretty good actually. I think sols and sowp are not as good as the other 3, but I could be wrong on that. which sword do you guys think is the best overall for this deck?

Yea, I mean we have answers to jace in the main deck which is really nice. I do feel that needle is never a bad card to have but now with misstep maybe revoker is better. This list does run equipment so revoker does sound pretty nice actually.

[sdematt]

I think if you want to maximize Stoneforge, than 4. It means you'll see one to two every game. 3 means you'll probably see one throughout the game. But, 4 means you're all-in on Stoneforge and no in with GSZ. It's basically personal preference. If I were to play Stoneforge, I'd play 3 so I could also play GSZ and have the best of everything. But for consistency, it won't be as consistent in getting Stoneforge as a 4-of build would.

-Matt

[ForlornEgoist]

-4 Hymn/ +2 Teeg

I'm not sure why you would trade discard for Teeg against Enchantress. As an Enchantress player I can honestly say thats going to do far less against us. If you were running both together then yes, you could justify adding Teeg, but taking out Hymn for Teeg is a less-than-effective strategy. Teeg shuts off 3 primary cards: Moat, Replenish, and Sigil of the Empty Throne. While you do have to watch out for Moat the average Enchantress player can't afford the $250 investment on the card so you typically luck out with them not having it. Shutting of a win-con is great but we also run Emrakul/WoW and typically don't cast a win-con until theres nothing you can do to stop us.

Leaving Replenish as the primary target of Teeg of which most Enchantress players run as a 1-2 of (majority being 1 but I go for 2). Not that Deed/KGrip don't increase our need for Replenish but an early Hymn can completely wreck us. True that Enchantress will SB in Leyline of Sanctity but landing a Hymn early can essentially win you the game as our deck relies heavily on the opening 7 to provide the card advantage that lets us draw/tutor for the things we need. Of course, if we drop a Leyline T0 then that makes 8 discard spells useless so I suppose you're SB out was justified. I'm just being picky because so many people forget that Extirpate/Engineered Plague and even Needle/Revoker are good against us (my meta on ocassion has 3-4 Enchantress to which I respond with Harmonic Convergence as I'm pretty much the only Enchantress player who spends hours on end learning how to best stack my library to come back from it :tongue:). Honestly IMO the best way you can screw over Enchantress is to just up you Ethersworn Canonist which is doubly effective against combo as well.

Forlorn Egoist

[damionblackgear]

I think you can play both, it's just you get a little diluted when you get into both. I was thinking something like:

24 Lands

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
3 Stoneforge Mystic
15

1 Batterskull (what an amazing card. It returns to your hand too? I didn't realize this the first time :P)
1 Jitte/SoFF
2

3 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 GSZ
3 Top
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Gerrard's Verdict (you've become more white heavy, and you don't necessarily want to go BB on turn 2 for Hymn if you also have Stoneforge)
4 Thoughtseize
20

Board:
2 Teeg
2 Krosan Grip
2 Thrun
2 Extirpate
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Gravehate
1 Cannonist
2 Deed

Thoughts? Sure you don't get Qasali, and you're not "maxing out" the potential of GSZ, but you're basically just using it as Knight #5 and Goyf #5.

-Matt

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of this Zenith build. It makes me think of a while back, when people were first starting to think of a Knight package and what lands to use with it. Those land targets were very limited. They were trying not to change. I'm not going to argue, Knight is amazing and Goyf is good - only good, it's big but it usually stares at other Goyf(s) across the field - but they can't be the only targets.

I advocated This List (http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011/06/don%E2%80%99t-muc-around/) at the beginning of the month. I left it as a shell that would hopefully start to promote change. We don't need 4 goyf (let the stoning begin) when you can search your deck for them or another creature who's going to be better. Knight's still usually the best creature. I can be quoted as saying, "An active knight wins the game." and I still think it's true. You just need to have the answer in the land package.

I agree with not having Jitte in the list. It's not really needed. If our Rock isn't dealing with threats, it's either all in on one plan, or it's losing pretty badly. Jitte's a win-more in our deck. Although, it's life-gain is extremely welcome against decks with reach.

In all, I don't think the deck will survive by just shoving things in. Without taking advantage of the things we have, we limit the things we will be. try tinkering with the numbers and variety.

Oh, and don't worry about going back in time. Volrath's Stronghold may deserve another second look. As may Eternal Witness.

-----

On the Moxes and 24 lands - The deck still needs an accelerate. You may do well with it a couple times or against the slower more control oriented decks but, there is - and will always be - Aggro and Combo in the format. Being able to push out a threat a turn early is going to be needed if you can't effectively counter their spells.

While the deck can function without the Moxes and just 23(ish) lands, they're there to allow for strong t1 plays (Bob, Hymn) and to fix mana. With mental misstep out there, it might be a good idea to keep them in and play your 2cc spells. Force them to either remove them, or risk them just not being effective.

I honestly think that with the meta as it is, Crucible + Exploration would be stronger. Mana-bases are extremely fragile for a lot of decks. The only thing I have on that is that a lot of people only have the memory of being Waste-locked or Mooned out of a game. Regardless, re-buying canopy is still card advantage.

-----

@Drza, Not messing around with those discard spells, are you? Why no Thoughtseize/Inquisition? Targeted discard is really strong. Especially when you're playing random discard to follow it up.

You mentioned the Knight's Tutor Package but there isn't anything there to tutor for... outside of wasteland and things to pump the Knight. The is Legacy. The only format greedier than this is Vintage. You'll be OK.

Metamoprh seems more like a response to them playing something busted and you trying to imitate it. Yes, it will kill Legends but it will lose to control right now (since they're playing a limited amount of creatures). Yes you can copy your creatures, but do you really want to? If you want to play it, wouldn't the metamorph be better in the board as an answer for something you can't beat, instead of a copy of things you can?

Why isn't SoLS an option for the extra sword spot? It gains you back Blossom life as well as recurring a lost creature. It also provides protection from swords and knight. You may not be able to swing past a Goyf, but you can swing over it and then replay your own.

E. Plaugue requires you to land 2 against just about every deck you'd bring them in against. It also requires you have an answer to multiple lords. A sideboard card shouldn't force this. If you're looking for Folk answers, try something that forces them into a bottleneck. It's not as bad if they can't swing in force.

Also, Dredge is either being underplayed or played incorrectly right now. You shouldn't need 4 extirpates. Run a Bog for your Knight if it's that much of a problem. That'll help if you're really worried about it.

-----

@Maze conversation - Etched Champion is a pain if you don't have a colorless answer. Single aggressors are stopped. In fact, if they have something that flies, Maze. If you do decide to play this with a SoFF you essentially give any attacker Vigilance. Either way, you're not playing it to pump your Knight. You're playing it as defense.

The first lists used Kor Haven instead - Mainly because if left the creatures tapped and only prevented its damage so you could swing past or kill them - but people decided that having an actually mana cost to activate the ability was worse than not producing a mana.

[Basaka]

I might end up not getting the Moxes in time, so I may as well cut it.

I'm guessing:

-3 Mox -1 Jitte
+1 top +1 GSZ +1 forest +1 teeq (someone suggested it, can be a blowout G1)

SB:

-1 teeq -1 serenity
+2 Grip

I might want a Kitchen Finks somewhere in the 75 against zoo since I'm running the GSZ package.

[Koby]

I might want a Kitchen Finks somewhere in the 75 against zoo since I'm running the GSZ package.

I highly recommend this plan. At minimum 2 against red-based aggro plans. Finks are also great against BUGstill in that they are difficult to get rid of, while providing a decent clock. These guys shine in many matchups where non-Exile removal is common.

[KobeBryan]

Do you guys think its a good idea to put one Phyrexian Metamorph in the SB with enlightened tutor package?

[kubalonek]

I have hard choice to make and cannot decide. I will try next tournament to run 3 SFM + 2 equips: batterskull and sword of ... I don't know which one here. And there is also a question if it is necessary to have one extra sword in sideboard. I'm hestitating between main : SoFaF, SoBaM or SoFaI. Any hints?

[sdematt]

Damion, nice article! I didn't even know you wrote for them.

Your deck is definitely a bunch more control-slanted than regular builds. Speaking of Crucible+Exploration, have you thought about the inclusion of maindeck Crucible? I can get behind Mox Diamonds if we run enough lands, and if Crucible is involved, but otherwise, it's a crapshoot in my experience.

I do like the Thrun, and you don't screw around with ways to kill Jace. I agree in a slower Meta, Eternal Witness has suddenly becomes more viable than in the previous year. I'm running one in Aggro Loam and it's been fantastic, but I have yet to run one in this build.

Also, for Kitchen Finks, remember guys it also survives a Deed. That's pretty crucial. Gaining life isn't terrible, either. Also, there's a green Withered Wretch coming out in the Commander decks that deserves some thought.

For MetaMorph, it's not a terrible idea in having a way to kill Progenitus, especially if you have a slot. Or, it also gives you another beater. I believe there was a list on here that had one main, and that isn't a bad idea, as it just gets better once Tutors get boarded in.

@Stoneforge
I'm slowly coming over to the light side and liking Stoneforge, but that's also because I ground 3 hours of games against Edgar Flores' Thopter/Stoneforge Esper build. The deck is good, but is basically B/W aggro with Brainstorm. My friend and I are tweaking it, and we've also tweaked and found a nice list for not really a Rock deck, but more of a Maverick build.

I think Damion is right in that Tarmogoyf is a big dumb beater that stares at other Goyfs, but having less of them when your opponent has more is of slight concern. I'll be honest, Goyf doesn't do anything except be a 3/4 to a 5/6, on average. But most of the time, it's enough. I see where you're coming from, Damion, but I think decreasing threats is bad, but you're diversifying, so, in theory, I agree. My question is, is two Stoneforge worth it? Should it be 3?

-Matt

[KobeBryan]

Would u take out dryad Arbor for the phyrexian metamorph?

[Dzra]

I'm hestitating between main : SoFaF, SoBaM or SoFaI. Any hints?

I'm having something of the same problem. I was initially leaning towards SoFI main, but I think sdematt makes a good suggestion about SoFF MD.

Against Merfolk and Goblins, Batterskull is usually better than SoFI already, so perhaps it would just be better to MD a pro-Green Sword in that slot. SoFI is definitely the best Sword in a vacuum, but the pro-Green might be more advantageous. I'm not even sure which MUs I'd ever want to board in SoFI since against aggro I'd rather just have a 2nd Batterskull (Goblins and NO? Perhaps Control?).

The main reason for no Thoughtseize is the life loss. The reason I don't MD Inquisition is because there seem to be very few decks that are hurt more by the removal of one targeted card than are hurt by losing two random or even chosen cards. NO is one deck that can shrug off loss of CA by NOing, which is part of why I'm MDing Metamorph.

In any event, all the MD discard I'm running is being used solely for CA purposes rather than removal. Swords, Vindicate, and Metamorph are all very versatile removal that will rarely topdeck poorly. Targeted removal is being reserved for combo MUs when I have to board out permanent-removal.

[Bignasty197]

I'm having something of the same problem. I was initially leaning towards SoFI main, but I think sdematt makes a good suggestion about SoFF MD.

Against Merfolk and Goblins, Batterskull is usually better than SoFI already, so perhaps it would just be better to MD a pro-Green Sword in that slot. SoFI is definitely the best Sword in a vacuum, but the pro-Green might be more advantageous. I'm not even sure which MUs I'd ever want to board in SoFI since against aggro I'd rather just have a 2nd Batterskull (Goblins and NO? Perhaps Control?).

The main reason for no Thoughtseize is the life loss. The reason I don't MD Inquisition is because there seem to be very few decks that are hurt more by the removal of one targeted card than are hurt by losing two random or even chosen cards. NO is one deck that can shrug off loss of CA by NOing, which is part of why I'm MDing Metamorph.

In any event, all the MD discard I'm running is being used solely for CA purposes rather than removal. Swords, Vindicate, and Metamorph are all very versatile removal that will rarely topdeck poorly. Targeted removal is being reserved for combo MUs when I have to board out permanent-removal.

I think Sword of Fire and Ice main is the best option right now. Batterskull is very good versus Merfolk and Goblins, but I hate when my Germ token gets Stingscourger'd. It's obnoxious. I would rather have Infini-blocks on Piledriver and the ability to swing through and kill Merfolk Lords and drawing extra cards while I do it. The extra card draw that SoFI brings shouldn't be overlooked. You don't need to face red or blue decks for it to be good. Feast and Famine should be sideboard, in my opinion.

[lavafrogg]

When did we decide jitte wasn't worth the cut? As far as I'm concerned it is the most ridiculous equipment in creature based match ups.

Actually an active jitte is just super versatile and helps in most match-ups, helping either raise your life total away from the tendrils or burn player, picking off goblin welders or painters in the grindstone match-ups or just owning creature combat like it was its job.

Sword of fire and ice is probably better in an attrition match-up against jace where the card draw actually matters, but still jitte would get the job done by shortening the game with the pump ability.

[Dzra]

When did we decide jitte wasn't worth the cut? As far as I'm concerned it is the most ridiculous equipment in creature based match ups.

Honestly, when people first starting running SFM in Junk, I was completely against it. Equipment was slow and clunky. Batterskull changed all that though. Batterskull is active the first turn it comes down and if they remove the creature its attached to, you simply bounce and replay it. Vigilance + Life Link wins any race easily. There's no need for you to waste your time killing their creatures with Jitte because there is no way that an aggro deck can profitably attack into a Batterskull. Batterskull does everything Jitte wants to do, but better.

[lavafrogg]

Sorry for the miscommunication but the batterskull is always equipment number one, I am arguing that the 2nd equipment should be jitte and the 3rd spot belongs to the sword of choice.... My bad for not being clear, batterskull is what makes sfm playable in legacy.

[Dzra]

Ah, I think then that people simply go for more flexibility. If Batterskull is always better, then why would I ever fetch a Jitte? Why not either have a second Batterskull or some other silver bullet in that slot?

[lavafrogg]

Jitte is the cheapest without a mystic active, which matters quite alot, it also attaches to creatures in instances where a 4/4 just won't cut it( and you don't have 5). Jitte is better when you absolutely need to kill the confidant or welder and also rules creature combat. The other swords can be chumped for no trigger and no effect.

The protection is good but most removal should be aimed at the germ and then at creatures on the field( let alone the sfm).

[sdematt]

You have to consider if you're playing a deck with removal. Jitte is also better to draw into, and easier to cast. Fetching Batterskull against your opponent's Swords is great for a free shuffle, but means your Batterskull sits for 3+ turns in hand. That's a little awkward.

I'd probably run Batterskull and Jitte if I ran two, just so I had something that was more hardcastable. But, I could also see myself swinging to the side of Sword, Batterskull, and Jitte. The problem is, Sword and Jitte are less clunky, but still clunky even with SFM. Batterskull is only good because of Living Weapon. if it didn't have it, it'd be useless (somewhat).

It's really a bit of a debate, but Drza is right: equipment used to be clunky, but Batterskull changed the game by way of Living Weapon. Any of the Swords were considered bulky. I'd rather hav the Jitte since it wasn't too bad before SFM, so I know it's a reasonable Topdeck and it's great in combat. Not everyone will be running Batterskull.

I love the fact we're also decent against Stoneforge based decks. Removal and discard? So fun taking their Batterskull with Thoughtseize :P

@ Dryad Arbor and Metamorph
They serve two totally different roles. One's a land, one isn't. Don't cut lands in this deck, please, but you may want to change it to a dual or basic land.

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

Matt, Thank you.

I don't know if I'd play 3 in Rock. It's nice to see but, sometimes you need more than a 1/2 and you also run the risk of drawing the equipment. Without Card manipulation, Mystic's value drops each time you draw an equipment. Granted, It's still drawing a good card.

Awkwardly enough, adding mystics doesn't change her value. You can only run up to 4 of her and, if you play 4, with less than 4 equipment, the extra's are literally like playing squires. And if you draw a piece of equipment, that's another squire added to the deck. Granted: The more we play; the more tutors we have, but a tutor with no target is just a wasted spell.

As for Crucible. I'm still looking for a spot for it. I loved running it before and it provided a ton of game against a lot of decks via wastelock and recurring other utility lands (Maze, Kor Haven, Tabernacle, Karakas, Dryad Arbor...). It also made it easy to thin the deck allowing me to swing more often with Bob as I could almost guarantee that I was drawing business the next turn. Fitting it in becomes an issue because there are 3 different packages currently in my build - Knight, Mystic, Zenith - and there isn't much room to cut.

Cutting Goyf does seem odd but it's also not really that much of a cut. You'd Rather have a Knight since it's just better and you're still running a couple of GSZ's to fetch out the your own Goyf (effectivly running 4 without having to play 4). While you are still literally running 1-3, you can make it seem as though you are running 4. Which allows them to participate in the staring contest all the same... Wait! Why do we want that? I'd rather just have a way to cheat at the contest. Give me a Knight.

I also added Stronghold and E.Witness back into the deck. So, losing guys isn't the worst and I can always GSZ for witness to get back removal or a creature. It's a smaller creature but it can't really be threatened by the others as it will just recur something else again.

-----

On Metamorph as an E.Tutor target - Seems fine. It's a quick easy was to kill a Progen or Emrakul. I'm opting for Spore Frog + Sworded Creature for Progen and Karakas for Emrakul, but it seems better to count on a single card for both. I'd say it's worth trying.

I should mention that I really don't like the E.Tutor package in the board but this may swing me. Progen has been an issue for this deck since our answers were limited and usually killed our team as well. My biggest fear would be a counter on either but I've usually depleted my opponents counters by turn 2-3 via baiting so this shouldn't be an issue to land.

-----

@Jitte. When you look at Jitte are you trying to keep it in the main because it's name is Umezawa's Jitte or because it seems great as an equipment? I'll give it to Jitte, It's the strongest equipment they've every printed. It kills, pumps, and keeps you alive at a very minor cost. All of that aside, that's what we're supposed to be doing ourselves.

We run 6-12 maindeck targeted removal spells with 0-4 sweepers so the kill aspect isn't that popular. Our aggressive threats are bigger than I'd say 80% of legacy, so we don't need the pump (except in staring contests... WHY ARE WE STARING?!).

Life gain is going to be a little tricky to explain. Usually that ability is only used when Jitte is going to be destroyed. Decks like Zoo and burn exists (as do others with 'reach') and you always can't just drop a Batterskull against them (sometimes) but, if you're not able to drop the Skull, chances are they you're already in trouble.

While a naturally drawn Jitte is stronger than a Batterskull, you aren't going to be drawing either of them constantly. Especially since you're probably going to run 1 of either in the main (possibly a second of either in the board). If you do draw it naturally, "My Congratulations," probability happens. Chances are though that you're tutoring for it though.

If you are tutoring for it on turn 1 or 2 (diamond) then the Batterskull and the Jitte are gaining you life on the same turn respectively but, the Skull offers the chance to block something on their turn, before the Jitte goes active - as you can Vial down the skull a turn earlier than you can equip the jitte.

Both are equally fragile since your opponent will most likely kill the mystic than the germ. The Skull has a built in safety (rebuy) feature that also gives you a self contained recurring creature.

Skull also gains the life at damage, meaning that you are gaining it regardless of the destroy effect (K.Grip) form your opponent. Natural vigilance offers you the ability to double to your life-gain without Maze tricks. The +4/+4 allows you to use it against a deck like Ant extremely effectively (forcing an Igg loop over Ad Nauseam quickly) while still gaining the life.

Essentially, in our deck, because of the printing of Batterskull, Jitte's usefulness was severely hindered. All of it's abilities are amazing. I'm not going going to argue that but, We already did everything except gained life. Now, we do that with a recurring threat. Lastly, I've never wanted to Jitte a Bob and swing into any deck that I wanted Jitte's life against unless EVERY other option was exhausted. So that took out 4 creatures unless I was at risk of being FAR behind.

Instead of cutting it though, I'd suggest that it be moved to the board. The best way to fight The decks that you do want the life against, is to play additional(s) that do gain you life. Jitte is naturally tutorable for the SFM builds and as such, allows for that life to be gained quickly. In late(r) game, it can be tutored/played/equipped in the turn. That's something the Skull can't do - No, you're not going to get to 10 mana-sources without something VERY wrong having happened.

[KobeBryan]

I'm sick of fighting stupid weenies. think we should put in Arena to deal with all those annoying stoneforges etc.

[mdc1010]

@damionblackgear

I am very glad to see someone else running the stronghold. It's proved to be the best land next to the utility of arbor.

What's your current 75 look like? Been toying around with adding gsz but I haven't been overly happy with it yet, especially when trying to squeeze in a stone forge package.

[sdematt]

I've been running Batterskull in G/w Maverick with Gaea's Cradle, and it's been great, since I can tutor for Cradle with Knight and hardcast if need be. In that deck, it's very easy to hardcast.

What about 2 SFM 2 Equipment? Ups our game, shuffles, etc. Plus, usually most people play 4, and they may over-sideboard for a piece of the puzzle that isn't there as much as they'd think (similar to running 2 Daze, and thinking you're running 4). If we cut 1 Jitte and Qasali, we can run the 2 SFM and add in a Batterskull, or both Jittes for Skull and Sword, either way. That way, I don't have to cut Goyf, or I can cut a Goyf for a Crucible, or even Life from the Loam. Also, Deed isn't amazing at the moment in the main, so we could just run Crucible instead of Deed in the main if that floats your boat. Deed can always come out of the board, but being a singleton in the main at the moment leaves something to be desired.

Thoughts?

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

I played This in Denver,

1 Birds of Paradise
1 Spore Frog
4 Dark Condifant
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Tarmogoyf
1 Eternal Witness
3 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Vindicate
2 Green Sun Zenith

1 Sylvan Library

3 Mox Diamond
2 Sensei's Diving Top

1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

1 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scubland
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dyrad Arbor
1 Karakas
2 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp

60 Total
Sideboard

1 Orim's Chant
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Choke
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Thrun, The Last Troll

15 Total

The board had some things that weren't supposed to be there as I realized at the tournament site that I put the 60 together but only 13 of the required 15.

The Chant was supposed to be a Gaddock Teeg and 1 Extraction was supposed to be a Deed. The Teeg I think would have made a difference.

I played against

UW (on camera so you can watch me kamikaze bob into an active factory and a couple other things. Since there's video I can tell you where and at what times if you really want me to critique my play)
Affinity (went in with a Game loss for bad decklist... turns out you can't just write the numbers and leave the names blank... Batterskull)
Dead Guy Ale (Took me about 2 days to remember. The affinity match was rough)
TES (Reminded that it was supposed to be a Teeg. I did Green sun for 2+ both games...)
Bant (Game 1 he seemed like the UW deck splashing green... learned otherwise game 2. Crucible+Waste locked games 3)
Dead Guy Ale (Against a buddy):
Merfolk... You guys aren't still having issues with this are you?

----

Thing's I would most definitely change:
SoFF is out. There isn't anything I really felt like doing with it. SoLS would be better, especially with the Spore Frog.

The Deed's, like Matt said, doesn't pull it's weight anymore. I don't think it's needed. Targeted removal seems like it would be better in it's place. Possibly Oblivion Ring or Faith's Fetters if you want more life-gain.

Chant was supposed to be deed. I finished writing my deck-list as I was sitting for the player meeting... I had an extra forest.. ?!

While Crucible's are nice, I don't think they were needed for this list. Still going over options.

Library was nice... Not sure if it's supposed to be in there and I think the format would allow for another vindicate/pulse over a swords.

[sdematt]

Let me be clear: I don't think Deed pulls it's weight in the main. I think the card is absolutely required to beat decks like Fish, Goblins, Affinity, Elves, and random decks like Stax. In the main, however, it is a questionable slot, to say the least. In the landstill matchup, it honestly doesn't help that much. I'd much rather it be Crucible, or even Pulse.

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

Sorry Matt, I didn't mean to say that you were saying Deeds weren't needed, just that it wasn't preforming as it use to.

I AM suggesting that we drop them as they don't pull their weight. I did bring it in against Affinity but never drew it. I actually played about 10 rounds in a matter of minutes (including shuffling) and actually thinking of how much my opponent was plotting out his turn.