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Solpugid
12-21-2007, 09:14 AM
The following deck is a new project of mine, but one that's hardly changed since its initial form. I worry that I'm biased to the orignal cards, and therefore am reluctat to remove them, but that's where you all come in. It’s essentially a Green/Black Rock deck with a splash of Blue for intuition (hence the deck’s name). Interestingly, it didn’t come about as a spin-off of a traditional Rock deck. Instead, it’s a pet-deck that developed from someone else’s pet-deck.

For many months now (years?), Goaswerfraiejen has been fine-tuning a blue-based aggro control deck called Tarmotog (here’s the link (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6230)). It runs brainstorms and ponders to dig for spells and land, and intuition to tutor up the key synergies of the deck. After playing it myself for a few weeks, I began to feel uncomfortable with the small amount of control elements the deck actually runs: only four force of will to stop troublesome spells preboard. Even these were underwhelming because they forced me to run extra blue spells to support the free counter, which in turn cut into the number of actual spells I could run. The intuition engine, on the other hand, was spectacular.

Dropping the extra blue spells from the list, the cantrips (brainstorm and ponder), meant dropping the force of wills AND increasing the land count of the deck. I was fine with an increased land count, because the deck always felt mana-hungry to me. Getting off an early intuition set the deck up to explode with synergy, but the actual explosion required a lot of excess mana. I decided to accelerate this engine by including birds of paradise. Birds, in turn, justified the inclusion of cabal therapy (already a great choice with intuition), and the following deck was born.

River Rock v1.0, Decklist:

Creatures: 20

4 Birds of paradise
4 Nimble mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Ravenous baloth
2 Shriekmaw
1 Gigapede
1 Eternal witness
1 Genesis
1 Wonder

Other spells: 17

4 Cabal therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Life from the loam
4 Intution
1 Darkblast
4 Pernicious deed

Lands: 23

3 Bayou
3 Tropical island
3 Underground sea
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted delta
3 Wooded foothills
1 Volrath’s stronghold
1 Cephalid coliseum

Sideboard: 15

3 Krosan grip
3 Extirpate
4 Engineered plague
5 Metagame slots

(Before I go any further, let me just mention that this sideboard is giving me fits; I was never stellar at building boards, but I'm having lots of trouble here)

Below is an explanation of how each card choice works to further the deck’s goals. And yes, the deck looks messy, but each card is important.

Birds of paradise: As I mentioned before, the deck needs a lot of mana in the early turns of the game. Running birds allows explosive starts, which is important in this format.

Nimble mongoose: Could be werebear (suggested by Nihil), but I chose mongoose for its untargetability (er, I’m sorry, “shroud”). There are a lot of decks (and cards) that have a lot of trouble with mongooses, and being able to recur a blocker/attacker for four mana with genesis (instead of five for goyf) is very valuable. If it becomes expendable, it can always be sacrificed to cabal therapy.

Tarmogoyf: It’s tarmogoyf. Seriously. My deck alone can easily grow it to a 5/6, and if I manage to off an opponent’s artifact…well, he’s just awesome, ok?

Ravenous baloth: The four mana is pretty steep, but can actually be a huge bonus if I need to sweep the board with pernicious deed and want to keep him around. His main purpose is as a fat blocker that can keep me alive against an aggressive deck with burn. His sacrifice ability can also come in surprisingly handy, such as when I want to keep counters off of jitte or remove an opposing bridge from below.

Shriekmaw: I tried him in Tarmotog and hated him, because I rarely had five free mana to play him without evoke. This deck has a much easier time hitting that kind of mana, and instant-speed removal is less important (because I have fewer instants all around; why keep the mana open?). Besides all that, he’s just an amazing creature.

Gigapede: When I’m stuck with a wonder or genesis in hand and really want it in the graveyard, gigapede comes to my rescue. I originally underestimated him, but having a flying, recurring, untargetable, 6-power beatstick is surprisingly effective. His high cost again dodges deeds.

Eternal witness: If you have plenty of mana lying around, you can fetch her in your intuition pile. Otherwise she’s a great card to topdeck, giving you instant access to every spell you’ve used before. My most common play with her is bringing back cabal therapy, and using it two more times (by sacrificing her) to shred my opponent’s hand. Honorable mention: recurring a tarmogoyf.

Genesis: An engine in and of itself. The most common components of an intuition pile, genesis gives the deck a fantastic lategame and some much needed tricks. In a pinch it can recur itself and adopt the role of 4/4 face-smasher.

Wonder: Another common intuition target, mostly because it allows the deck to instantly go on the offensive (while still playing strong defense). Do NOT underestimate this card, it single-handedly wins so many games.

Cabal therapy: I’ve been talking about it forever, and why not? This card is amazing. Getting a read on what your opponent is playing and what they have in hand is valuable information for when you cast intuition, regardless of whether or not you hit it. The gravy is, of course, getting to sacrifice a creature to further damage your opponent’s hand. This happens incredibly often, usually by sacrificing birds and mongooses that will die in a deed activation; or often to get eternal witness in the graveyard to be returned by genesis again. Seriously, this card is just as sick as tarmogoyf.

Thoughtseize: The other half of my disruption suite. Casting this first turn and therapy+mongoose second turn can result in an empty handed, and very frustrated, opponent, but it’s great regardless. As long as you have the skill to know what card to pick, thoughtseize is golden 95% of the time. The life loss is not insignificant, however, and in some metagames this should probably become duress.

Life from the loam: Loam forms a secondary engine of the deck (the first being genesis), in combination with coliseum. Those two together can tear through your deck for answers, and both are useful on their own. Loam in particular safeguards against mana-screw and can dredge cards to reach threshold for mongoose.

Intution: Well, I called genesis and loam the engines of the deck, but intuition is the card that enables those engines. The card takes practice to play correctly, but when you tutor for the right cards this deck can just hum. It beat out gifts ungiven for its place for a few reasons: four mana is a LOT more than three mana, don’t doubt that. For what this deck wants to accomplish, intuition is just more efficient. Intuition can also search for three cards of the same name. These moments come up a lot, and grabbing 3 tarmogoyfs, deeds, or therapies is often the right play.

Darkblast: A singleton that pulls tons of weight. It gives the deck an easy (self-recurring) way to kill dark confidant (since shriekmaw doesn’t) and allows you to dominate the goyf-on-goyf fights. A great add-in to the intuition piles.

Pernicious deed: Pernicious deed should need no explanation. As far as Rock decks go, this one has a lot of cheap creatures that die to deed, so I was reluctant to put in the full four. However, it’s relatively easy to hold extra creatures until you pop deed, and the stragglers can be fed to therapy, so deed becomes an important tool here as well. Besides, this deck has recursion, making deed much less double-edged.

Volrath’s stronghold: A pseudo-genesis that denies you a draw, but can be picked up by loam AND produces mana (did I mention this is a mana-hungry deck?); simply supplemental recursion.

Cephalid coliseum: A fantastic card-advantage engine when combined with loam, and gives you a discard outlet for incarnations stuck in your hand. Holding lands (when you have enough in play) is often a strong way to play mind-games with opponents; the presence of coliseum in this deck makes the play that much better.

Playing the deck:

The deck truly shines with an intuition in hand, but if you can’t find one no problem. Start the game by laying some little green creatures, and protect them (and yourself) with your hand control spells. If they get outclassed, sweep the board with deed and start again. By the mid-game you will have drawn into larger creatures (goyf or baloth), a recursion engine, or an intuition (to fetch said engine). From here the deck can take its time, playing a game of attrition until your beaters go all the way (often through the air in one turn).

After the initial aggressiveness of the deck, your creatures become utilities instead of attackers. Remember, if you can control the field and hand to a great enough degree your army can fly in for the win later on. Don’t worry about blowing a few guys up with a deed if it will buy you more time, but if you don’t have a genesis or stronghold this can be chancy. Maindeck graveyard removal can be troubling, mostly because it’s unexpected, but this deck can win just fine without the graveyard. Just beware of the ability to remove wonder, since it invalidates the strategy I mentioned above.

This deck has outs for most any situation, as long as you play correctly. Do not be afraid to intuition for three goyfs if you think ending the game quickly is the best option. Ditto with three deeds, if you really just need to reset the board. However, the vast majority of the time you will tutor for variations on the following two intuition splits:

1. Genesis, wonder, gigapede
2. Life from the loam, cephalid coliseum, volrath’s stronghold

They are in that order because option 1 is usually the best. It sets you up for a spectacular late-game, and will guarantee both incarnations end up in the grave. If you have one of those pieces in hand you can instead grab a darkblast or loam.

The second option is weaker because it requires threshold, eats land drops, and doesn’t immediately affect the board. However, if you have neither engine online by turn 7 or so (and there is a board stalemate) this is probably better. Loam+coliseum is HUGE card advantage, and will quickly draw you into all the gas you’d want (and dump the incarnations in the grave along the way).

A third common split is shriekmaw, tarmogoyf, tarmogoyf. It’s most common against an opposing goyf, and is superior to goyf, goyf, goyf because it gets you the exact same creature (a goyf) but makes a topdecked genesis or stronghold much better by providing more options.

As you can see, playing intuition correctly is incredibly difficult, but the card makes this deck a force to be reckoned with. Although it doesn’t have any easy victories (like TES against White Weenie), River Rock is an all-around solid deck for a varied metagame.


Sideboard strategy:

Krosan grip: A necessary evil against countertop, Survival of the fittest, and other random artifacts and enchantments. This could be cut to two if room needed to be made (especially since it isn’t always boarded for countertop; see below).

Extirpate: Boarded in against Survival, Loam-based decks, and Threshold. Against most builds of Threshold, removing tarmogoyfs not only eliminates their best win condition, but also a solid 40-50% of their offense. Many other random decks are also hosed by this card.

Engineered plague: Goblins still exist, and run this deck through if you come unprepared. Plague can also kill ichorids and Cephalid Breakfast creatures, making it a versatile answer to a lot of decks. They also replace deed against storm combo as a permanent answer to goblin tokens from empty the warrens.

The board also has five metagame slots. These can go toward Duress if you see a lot of control decks (like Landstill), Hydroblast if burn and goblins are rampant, or Daze/Stifle as a surprise tactic. They can also be devoted to random hosers like Null rod, Darkheart sliver, Gaea’s blessing, or other cards. The truth is, the maindeck is so tightly built that sideboarding is very difficult. The trick is to find matchups you’re likely to face, and lose to, and see what cards would improve them (duh). Those are the extra cards you want in the side. As a quick bit of info, here’s what I’ve determined are good sideboarding techniques for some commonly seen decks.

Against Threshold:
+3 Extirpate
-2 Ravenous baloth
-1 Wooded foothills

Kind of a strange switch, but it works very well. The extra life is rarely necessary because your deck is slightly more aggressive. The high cost of baloth also lends it to get countered by daze, which can be devastating tempo disadvantage. Dropping a high-cost creature from the deck alleviates some of the deck’s mana problems, but daze still has to be considered. Extirpate is awesome because it takes out the most important (few) spells your opponent runs. Tarmogoyf and counterbalance are highest on this list, because without them the deck wastes mana on cantrips to draw into spells that are all weaker than yours. Krosan grip can be brought in for some other cards (to hit countertop), but I really don’t find it necessary. However, if you expect shackles or control magic coming in as well, the grips would most likely be worth siding in (even for a deed or two).

Against Goblins:
+4 Engineered plague
+1 Krosan grip
-2 Pernicious deed
-1 Thoughtseize
-1 Eternal witness
-1 Other card (often loam)

Forgo the tricks here, you just need to stay alive. Witness and loam are both too mana-intensive to help early-game (where you need the most help) so they should probably go. If you’re running hydroblast, swap them for the thoughtseizes. A few deeds come out because they are rather clumsy, and often hurt your tempo more than theirs. However, because killing aether vial is very important, I bring a krosan grip in to help out. This may or may not be the right boarding plan, but it’s worked quite well so far in my (admittedly limited) testing.

Against Cephalid Breakfast:

+3 Extirpate
+4 Engineered plague
-6 Engine pieces (genesis, gigapede, witness, wonder, loam, coliseum)
-1 Ravenous baloth

I told you the decklist was tight! The cards in breakfast (force of will, aether vial, lim-dul’s vault, etc.) often yield card disadvantage for them, so your engine pieces are less crucial to owing the late-game. Granted, keeping genesis would be nice, but extirpate and plague are more important (i.e. more damaging). Your control pieces handle their combo quite well, as long as you don’t get cocky and start with a bird on the draw. Mulligan aggressively, and this matchup isn’t so bad. Oh, and by the way, if your opponent brings in tormod’s crypt or extirpate against you, then guess who has the last laugh?

Just as a note, I don’t have any match-up percentages because I haven’t played them enough. Plus, it has a lot to do with play skill on both sides of the table.


So that’s the deck; I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's criticisms, and suggestions on how to improve the deck. Enjoy!

Solpugid
12-21-2007, 09:29 AM
I'm somehow unable to edit my first post, so I'm posted this here (sorry for the double-post; can a mod merge these please?):

I don't think I gave enough credit to Goaswerfraiejen for all the work he put into Tarmotog. Without it, I never would have had the inspiration for this deck. So mad props, dude.

TheCramp
12-21-2007, 09:33 AM
I don't have time to post anything of substance, no advice. But I love this deck. I like all the cards in it, and will (once christ's mass/gradschool application season passes by) put this together and try it out. Props man.

Nihil Credo
12-21-2007, 10:03 AM
Against Goblins:
+4 Engineered plague
+1 Krosan grip
-2 Pernicious deed
-1 Thoughtseize
-1 Eternal witness
-1 Other card (often loam)

WTF? You've still got Thoughtseizes and Gigapede in the main and you cut Deeds? This is insane.

Another suggestion I have is that, if not part of the manabase itself, a singleton Wasteland should definitely be in the SB.
You won't often be able to use it for pure mana denial, but it's golden against Landstill (either kill their manlands, or cut them off their splash colours), four-colour Thresh, Baseruption, and even Loam decks (complementing Extirpate, since if you take too long to remove their LftL you'll still get pwned by Ports, Mazes and manlands).

Solpugid
12-21-2007, 12:20 PM
@ Nihil

Oh, I do still have gigapede in! That's just a mistake on my part. You're right, deed is better. I don't like taking thoughtseize out, though. Hitting matron or ringleader first turn can prevent a lot of headaches later. It also takes care of vial or piledriver before either goes nuts. Yeah, the life loss sucks, but until I choose to run ostracize I think it's better to stay in. Deed, as I mentioned, is a tad slow to keep me alive early game. Late-game, given enough mana, I can recur them with witness, and in this case having one is enough.

Wasteland could definitely be in the board, but not in the main. As a one-of it would be an excellent intuition target; I think I'll add that to my current board, thanks.

nitewolf9
12-21-2007, 12:37 PM
Have you considered psychatog as a one of? It seems like this deck can set up him up pretty well, especially with wonder. Being able to kill your opponent in one swing is pretty nice, although it could be unnecessary with all the other creatures. Still a strong option.

Solpugid
12-21-2007, 01:00 PM
@nitewolf9

Yeah, I have, although not extensively. I played him as a one-of in Tarmotog, and he certainly won me a fair share of games. However, there were many times when he felt greedy (that is, goyf would have done the job almost as well, without losing me the game in the face of a StP).

That said, I would still like to fit him in. The problem is, where? In place of a thoughtseize? A land? A deed? He just seems worse than anything he would replace. If anyone has a good idea of how to get him in (maybe from the board) that would be great. Thanks for the suggestion.

Solpugid
07-31-2011, 09:21 PM
I apologize for the necro of this thread, I have taken a 2 yr hiatus from the game for grad school and I'm trying to get back into it (thus, I picked this deck up where I left off). I revamped the decklist for what I can gather of the current metagame, and I was hoping for some constructive criticism.

Lands: 22
4 Verdant catacombs
2 Misty rainforest
1 Polluted delta
3 Bayou
3 Tropical island
2 Underground sea
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Cephalid coliseum
1 Volrath's stronghold
1 Wasteland

Creatures: 15
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Birds of paradise
3 Shriekmaw
1 Eternal witness
1 Genesis
1 Wonder
1 Kitchen finks

Other: 23
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal therapy
1 Raven's crime
3 Pernicious deed
2 Go for the throat
2 Mental misstep
1 Life from the loam

Sideboard: 15
4 Blue elemental blast
3 Nihil spellbomb
3 Spell pierce
2 Nature's claim
2 Damnation
1 Phantasmal image

I removed the gigapede, nimble mongooses, and some other odds and ends for a more mid-range creature base and slightly less reliance on the graveyard (plus extra control). I'm a bit concerned that the 5 terror-effects are too many, and dropping a shriekmaw may be warranted. The birds of paradise also seem weak, but this deck has needed them in the past.

The sideboard is thrown together, with extra control pieces for combo, damnation for creature decks and Progenitus, and phantasmal image for tough opposition (Progenitus, Emrakul, etc....seriously, big creatures have gotten ridiculous in the past few years).

I would love any comments from the community, or direction to another thread if this deck is now some form of plagiarism.

Hanni
07-31-2011, 10:02 PM
Welcome back! ALOT has changed in two years.

Anyway, Goas already beat you to the punch: UGB River Rock (formerly Intuition-Thresh) (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19683-UGB-River-Rock-(formerly-Intuition-Thresh))

EDIT: I take that back. Your thread started back in 2007, so it was you who beat him to the punch. ;)

Anyway, have you given Vengevines or Bloodghasts any consideration?

Solpugid
07-31-2011, 10:12 PM
Holy crap, that's one hell of a primer! We seem to have settled on a lot of the same card choices, but I'm currently incapable of purchasing natural orders (not sure how they affect matchups).

The River Rock name was originally from me, I'm surprised (but glad) to see it caught on in some small way.

Thanks for the link, btw, I'll need to contact Goas to bounce ideas.

Edit: I don't think I can reliably use vengevine with such a low creature count. Bloodghast seems much more likely, but I'm worried about its inability to block. This deck can be a little slow against aggro sometimes. That primer did provide some decent ideas though. I need to see about fitting terravore or tombstalker in (although again, I'm concerned, as these force me to rely even more on the graveyard). Has lorescale coatl ever proven to be good enough for a slot?

******Edit 2:

Did some very quick MWS testing (I'm very rusty), here are the results:

GW natural order (0-2): I drew very poorly, and got stomped both games by Progenitus. Game 1 I had no chance, but game 2 he topdecked the NO after I made him discard his whole hand and killed all but 1 noble hierarch.

W Painterstone (2-0): The discard really hurt, and deed prevented any last-minute wins. Isochron scepter came down game 1, but with an active deed out.

GB natural order (1-2): Game 1 I drew terribly and lost to Progenitus (ridiculous). Game 2 I set up recursion with shriekmaw and cleared his board. He couldn't use NO because of phantasmal image, and I eventually beat him to death. Game 3 he started with leyline of the void, thoughtseize on damnation, etc. I used spellbombs for cycling (should have targeted me, but I suck) and then drew 0/1 goyfs for a few turns. I died to vengevine and double exalted birds of paradise.

More testing to come, and hopefully some more promising results.

Goaswerfraiejen
08-01-2011, 11:35 AM
Welcome back! ALOT has changed in two years.

Anyway, Goas already beat you to the punch: UGB River Rock (formerly Intuition-Thresh) (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19683-UGB-River-Rock-(formerly-Intuition-Thresh))

EDIT: I take that back. Your thread started back in 2007, so it was you who beat him to the punch. ;)



Just to clarify: this deck started as a spinoff of my TarmoTog, which has since evolved into UGB Intuition-Thresh and now UGB River Rock (a NO BUG deck). I did indeed borrow this deck's name (with Solpugid's consent), since I couldn't keep calling it 'Intuition-Thresh', and because 'NO BUG' seemed like a boring description of the deck's content. I wonder if I might not be choosing all the wrong names, though, since they never seem to spark much interest. :p


@Solpugid:

Welcome back! Just a few quick thoughts:

*I think that the creature package needs some kind of overhaul--either with Vengevine, Bloodghast, Witness/Unearth, or something. Right now, it looks largely underwhelming. One other (easy) option would be Worm Harvest.
*Is it worth running just the two Missteps? They're not backed up by any other counterspells, or even other Missteps... how useful have they been?
*Have you considered eliminating blue entirely? You could use Wild Mongrel and Buried Alive to support some kind of Vengevine/Bloodghast package (although you'd lose access to Wonder). I've been trying something along those lines in the spirit of Hanni's 'GB Veggies' deck, and it's been working pretty well (I'll be posting there sometime in the next few days, when I've tuned it a bit more).

Solpugid
08-01-2011, 01:18 PM
@Goas

That's right, I remember you contacting me about the name. River rock probably means more to me as a name than to anyone else, since I just got my masters in aquatic ecology (starting my PhD in the same field in a month), so maybe that's why it's failing to catch on. Not sure. The creature package has been surprisingly good so far, with wonder and the birds being weak slots I may alter. Wonder just seems so important these days to allow the deck to win over a cluttered board. I had considered worm harvest a couple times during testing (thinking "I wish this was just a worm harvest"), but I have been hit by grave hate (and even kept off of 5 mana) so often, I'm not sure it's a viable option at the moment. I'll be trying things out, though.

The missteps have been underwhelming at times, and indispensible at others. I like having a bit of maindeck blue control, and I chose misstep over daze and spell pierce mostly because it doesn't set back my board/engine development. I could see dropping a card for 3, but then I might switch to a combo of the above cards. What do you think?

I have considered cutting blue, but thought better of it because of intuition. Buried alive doesn't get a loam engine online, which has actually been more important than genesis in the games I've testing because it secondarily protects from a land denial plan and dredges for dudes to recur. Blue also makes for some great sideboard options I'd be reluctant to lose. Basically, there are plenty of flexible slots in there to toy around with, but cutting a color is (currently) out of the question.

I'll leave with a few more testing results; maybe these will help figure out the ideal list. Note that in all 3 of these matches, my opponent either left after the first game or my internet crapped out.

Snow-based countertop (1-0): He assembled an early countertop, but I used deed to clear 'balance, and mental misstep to counter the top on the way back in. Kitchen finks attacked for the win.

UW stoneforge/equipment (1-0): I think by this game I started getting comfortable with the deck (i.e., this was the first game I had without an obvious play error in hindsight). Clique landed and took my witness, but deed was able to clear a germ token and two mystics to prevent any heavy attacks until genesis + shriekmaw cleared the flyer. Finks and goyfs beat for the win.

Black stax (1-0): He landed a turn 1 smokestack, but I played first so I was able to land a goyf and play enough lands to pay for the stack. He dropped a nether spirit, but a thoughtseize pulled another from his hand and goyf beat for the win. Mental misstep was dead in hand.

***Edit:
I decided to drop the missteps and raven's crime (too much cute stuff) for 3 dazes. We'll see if that's a mistake. I have since had time for a single MWS match, against white stax. Discard stopped a lot of scary spells early, and eventually wonder beat him to death (through two ghostly prison). Daze was drawn, and served (along with life from the loam) to save me from an armageddon. I like this matchup a lot when I can cast loam preemptively.

Hanni
08-02-2011, 12:40 AM
Has lorescale coatl ever proven to be good enough for a slot?

You know, I had never really considered it before, but thinking about it now... I can totally see Lorescale Coatl being this decks Countryside Crusher if you build the deck around him properly.

Brainstorm, Sylvan Library, and Jace TMS are all fantastic cards on their own, that happen to have amazing synergy with Lorescale Coatl. If you have a Coatl on the board, an Intuition pile of Loam/Wonder/Coliseum can easily turn the game around, giving Coatl flying, and +3/+3 a turn. Coliseum itself is -1 CA, but Loam itself is +2 CA; turning Loam into a +1 CA engine for 1UG + land drop, digging into three fresh cards a turn, sounds pretty fucking potent.

With Mox Diamond (which you should be running over Birds of Paradise), you can power out turn 2 Coatls/Intuitions and turn 3 Jaces. Sounds pretty good to me.

With Mox Diamond, you should also be running some number of Lonely Sanbar. It's a perfect pitch target for early Mox Diamonds, and gives the deck additional cantrip effects without sacrificing from the spell count (since you need at least 23 lands for Mox Diamond). Lonely Sanbar is just a good card to run anyway. Cycling Sandbar grows Coatl +1/+1, and postboard, allows the deck to dodge Crypt/Relic from RFG'ing Loam.

I don't think the deck should run Deed maindeck. It blows up your own Moxes/Libraries/Goyfs/Coatl's. With access to Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives seems alot better.

Deeds should come in postboard for matchups like Goblins, Merfolk, and Affinity.

I really don't think this deck needs any additional protection other than 4 Force of Will and 1 Raven's Crime. This deck isn't an aggro/control deck in the same sense as Tempo Thresh or Team America. This deck is an Aggro Loam deck (or Rock if you prefer), and should focus on that first. The deck can bring in additional countermagic postboard, like Spell Pierce, to improve its combo and control matchups.

The deck has access to some really good removal spells, too. Shriekmaw, Maelstrom Pulse, and Engineered Explosives would be my main go-to's, but I can see cases being made for Ghastly Demise and/or Smother. The deck has some strong postboard removal options too, like Cabal Pit, Darkblast, Deathmark, Fleshbag Marauder, Pernicious Deed, Damnation, and maybe even Perish.

Between 4 Lorescale Coatl, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Intuition, 4 Force of Will, and 1 Wonder, the deck is at 17 blue spells already. Insert at least 3 Jace TMS, and you hit the 20 mark.

I'll draft up a list later when I get time.