[Deck] The Rock - Adapted to Legacy

[iOWN]

I've been testing Unearth in The Rock for a while. Still trying to come up with the optimal list, but the biggest penalty I've found with it is the limit to converted casting cost of 3. To maximize on this, I've only been running creatures that can be Unearthed. It does some nice tricks, particularly with Deed and Witness.

I've tested it versus Goblins and Deadguy (the inet's favorite decks) and have had about 50/50 results, since Troll isn't that tough. I included two Living Wishes to fetch a Baloth if necessary, but never used them. Overall, Unearth may weaken your aggro game, but improve your control game, but I don't know if it is ultimately better then Stronghold.

You don't need to cut Baloths for that (it is, the only typical maindeck creature to use with CMC over 4). I've been running Baloths and it doesn't get in your way at all, since you'll always be drawing other creatures that you can Unearth.

You can still run Stronghold alongside it, since Stronghold doesn't even help until mid and late game.

[Anarky87]

Yes, Stronghold is more of a mid/late game card. I beat a MUC deck with a bazillion counters based solely on me being able to recur a Troll/Baloth every single turn. I haven't tried Unearth, but it might be interesting in getting back things like Witness and Trolls.

I think the deck is catching on in my area. I played it non-stop for 3-4 months until I switched decks recently and it always won, or tied me for 2nd. Now when I finally went back last night, my first round was against a Rock varient of mine, my friend has almost all the cards for it now, and some other guy also has the cards for it. So it looks like I'll be playing against the Rock quite abit more now. It's a very good deck.

[Majestyk1136]

I hadn't thought of Unearth, but the possibilities are intriguing... Picture This: It's late in the game and you're in topdeck mode. You've had to chump a huge Piledriver with a Troll you couldn't regenerate and you have blown a Witness or two on a Flashbacked Therapy and chumping. You Topdeck Unearth. You Unearth Witness, Getting Back Unearth. You Unearth another Witness, Getting Back Unearth. You Unearth Troll. All for a total of 3 Black Mana. That could be sick, sick, sick, and exactly the sort of play that I've been looking for that is a total kick in the junk.

EDIT: I just want to compliment whoever came up with Unearth. This is a very "Rock-like" play. When you start using Unearth with Witness it's almost unfair. You can alternately get an infinite chump blocker for "B" or the world's cheapest Regrowth. When combined with Genesis/Stronghold it closes a loop with the Witness that allows you (at a very low cost) to begin reanimating your army with alarming speed. Bravo for innovation!!!

[Anarky87]

I hadn't thought of Unearth, but the possibilities are intriguing... Picture This: It's late in the game and you're in topdeck mode. You've had to chump a huge Piledriver with a Troll you couldn't regenerate and you have blown a Witness or two on a Flashbacked Therapy and chumping. You Topdeck Unearth. You Unearth Witness, Getting Back Unearth. You Unearth another Witness, Getting Back Unearth. You Unearth Troll. All for a total of 3 Black Mana. That could be sick, sick, sick, and exactly the sort of play that I've been looking for that is a total kick in the junk.

EDIT: I just want to compliment whoever came up with Unearth. This is a very "Rock-like" play. When you start using Unearth with Witness it's almost unfair. You can alternately get an infinite chump blocker for "B" or the world's cheapest Regrowth. When combined with Genesis/Stronghold it closes a loop with the Witness that allows you (at a very low cost) to begin reanimating your army with alarming speed. Bravo for innovation!!!

QFT, perhaps this is what the deck needed to push up into the lime light. I'm gonna pick some up, rework the deck, and see how the results turn out. This is what I'm gonna toy with:

4 Bayou
2 Wasteland (The number of targets for this has dropped alot in my meta, so I cut it to two)
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mires
5 Forests
4 Swamps
2 Volrath's Strongholds

4 Eternal Witness
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Wall of Blossoms
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Ravenous Baloth
2 Sakura Tribe Elder

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Duress
3 Unearth
3 Smother
2 Putrefy

[iOWN]

It's always better to run a fourway split of fetches in two color (well, if they don't have their own fetchland.) There's always a chance that they might drop a Pithing Needle first turn, forced to name the fetchland that they saw you drop because they have no idea what you're playing. You don't want any dead draws. I know, it's not a big thing, but I always like to spread it out just in case.

Also, after trying the deck out a little, I wouldn't push the Elder count below 3 - they make great advantage right at the beginning of the game (and still a good Unearth target), and always provide an easy chump at the beginning (particularly against things like Piledriver).

[Anarky87]

It's always better to run a fourway split of fetches in two color (well, if they don't have their own fetchland.) There's always a chance that they might drop a Pithing Needle first turn, forced to name the fetchland that they saw you drop because they have no idea what you're playing. You don't want any dead draws. I know, it's not a big thing, but I always like to spread it out just in case.

Also, after trying the deck out a little, I wouldn't push the Elder count below 3 - they make great advantage right at the beginning of the game (and still a good Unearth target), and always provide an easy chump at the beginning (particularly against things like Piledriver).

Yeah, I might fix the Elder count after some more testing. Also no one owns Needles in my area and the ones I've come across have never called my fetchlands. Not that they never would, but not that it would really slow me down that much. In my original build, I ran 4 of the Elders, but found them showing up too often when I didn't want them, so I cut 1 for the 4th Troll and that has been working great.

[Citrus-God]

How does this look?


// Lands 20
2 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Windswept Heath
3 Savannah
3 Bayou
3 Scrubland
1 Plains
4 Forest


// Creatures 18
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Blossoms
3 Eternal Witness
3 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Troll Ascetic
1 Genesis


// Spells 22
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Living Wish
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Worship


// Sideboard 15
2 Cranial Extraction
1 Troll Ascetic
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Genesis
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Bone Shredder
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Kami of Ancient Law
1 Plague Spitter
1 Uborg Shambler
1 City of Brass
1 Dust Bowl
1 Withered Wretch
1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa

[Galroth]

So I'm probably going to get flamed for tossing this out there, but here's a twist on The Rock I've been toying around in my head with. Give me some feedback, tell me what you think. Additionally, I don't play The Rock, so if you want to flame, don't be threatened by my impressive stature.

--

The Rock (Land Destruction Variant!)

Land Destruction:
4 Sinkhole
3 Wasteland
2 Argothian Wurm
4 Living Wish

Draw:
4 Eternal Witness
4 Wall of Blossoms
3 Dark Confidant

Mana Fixing:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Elves of Deep Shadow

Control:
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Smother
2 Putrefy

Land:
4 Bayou
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Swamp
7 Forest

--

Card choices:

Sinkhole - Hot shit, especially in conjunction with Eternal Witness and Wasteland.

Living Wish - 4 more ways to find wasteland, argothian wurm, dark confidant, and your toolbox of toys.

Argothian Wurm - He replaces Ravenous Baloth as the fat. 6/6 with trample isn't bad, and his drawback... is it really a drawback with this deck?

Birds of Paradise and Elves of Deep Shadow - You need BB on your second turn. Between these two cards you're just about guarenteed it.

Putrefy - This is the one card I'm not so sure on. I've considered cutting it for a 3rd wurm and a 4th confidant. Your chances of plopping down a 3rd or 4th turn wurm really increase. It would disallow using a wish to find confidant, but I'm not sure how much you'll wish for confidant anyways.

--

This deck can pull some beautiful early plays for a control deck. Things like first turn bayou and birds, followed by a second turn sinkhole and wasteland... leaves them crying.

To be honest, I'm not sure this variant of the rock really improves any of the rocks matchups. I haven't tested it much. I'm guessing it's worse against solidarity because your only means of stopping them is sinkhole... of course you do have a sideboard.

What it does have... a cool factor of atleast x3. That and you can piss off your opponents by playing a land destruction deck.

[Alex_Van_R]

You aren't playing the cards the Rock needs to play: Duress/Cabal Therapy. At least, play some handdisruption, because landdestruction only isn't the way to win. The only good matchup I can see with your decklist, are some sloooooow controldecks and maybe aggrodecks, if you can stall the game long enough. That's just because of the landdestruction. But from what I've experienced, most deck can recover from landdestruction.
All your other matchups are a lot worser with your decklist. Because of the lack of handdisruption, you'll lose against combo. (Actually, this makes the controlmatchup worser as well.)
Your matchups against aggro are good as long as you can play Deed, Smother and Putrefy. Then you can come in with the big wurm. However, the drawback can still be a drawback. It's only good when the opponent doens't have any or at least not much land. Either the wurm doens't hit the table, or either the wurm will be removed. Alos, I'd still rather see Ravenous Baloth against aggro/burn.
I'm not a fan of Elves of Deep Shadow. It gives you 1 damage each time you tap it for mana, which makes aggromatchups worser. (The 1 damage each turn can really make the difference!!!)
Cut those Overgrown Tombs. You're already playing 11 nonbasic lands. It makes you vunerable for opposing Wastelands and lookalikes. Play 2x Wooded Foothills + 2x Bloodstained Mire instead.
Now you have a few targets, which allows you to play Life from the Loam. It's a very good card. Try it. Recurring Wastelands and fetch. Hmmmm...
However, if you really want to play landdestruction, I'd simply cut the black and start playing monogreen Landdestruction with Terravore as a wincondition.

[Majestyk1136]

What it does have... a cool factor of atleast x3. That and you can piss off your opponents by playing a land destruction deck.

Or perhaps my opponent would laugh - Nelson-Like - in my face for playing a terrible deck and then proceed to stomp me with a Vial and a bunch of red men.

[Anarky87]

Or perhaps my opponent would laugh - Nelson-Like - in my face for playing a terrible deck and then proceed to stomp me with a Vial and a bunch of red men.

Truthery. Just because you put the colors green and black together in the same deck does not automatically make it The Rock. My list, MajestyK's, and Alex's are all well tuned attempts at beating the current meta, and have been proven time and again. The deck so far has not needed any splashes or random LD effects outside of Wasteland, which is enough. The simple idea of massive creature destruction, board sweepers, hand destruction, recursion, and efficient creatures is what makes the deck 'rock' solid. Adding untested things to the deck just dilutes this idea. We should be working on how to further improve upon the original idea, rather just posting random decklists with unneeded inclusions.

[Galroth]

A question: I've seen Dark Confidant posted in a few builds, but not in most. For those of you who play The Rock alot, why or why haven't you included it.

Anarky, you post quite a bit, why isn't it in your build?

[Alex_Van_R]

Dark Confidant is only good in a deck that's fast enough to beat the opponent before confidant lets you suicide. It's only being played in the aggrobuild of the Rock. The controlversion is way too slow to use it. Note that the aggroversion doesn't use Pernicious Deed, so confidant won't die. (They normally spoken only play Cabal Therapy to get rid of it.)
Another reason why you shouldn't play Confidant in the controlversion, is because of the manacurve. The controlversion has a lot of cards with coverted mana cost 4 or 5, and the lifeloss you get from it is too big. The aggroversion plays cards with converted manacost of 3 or less. I think they don't even use Baloth. (They do use Phantom Centaur.)

[Anarky87]

A question: I've seen Dark Confidant posted in a few builds, but not in most. For those of you who play The Rock alot, why or why haven't you included it.

Anarky, you post quite a bit, why isn't it in your build?

Because I'm playing the control version, as Alex said. Not only is he a ginormous bull's eye for removal, but he costs me life that I don't really need to lose. And when I get Deed down and decide to blow it, he'll be toast. Not to mention I run alot of 3-4 cc stuff. I can understand him in the aggro version which doesn't run Deed or Baloth, but alot of 3cc stuff and lower. Lego_Army_Man has an aggro version which he ran in Extended that I think ran DC along with Hyppie and equipment.

The Confidant has his place in certain decks, but not every deck. And in The Rock I just don't find him any useful.

[kicks_422]

Here's the build I'm running...

4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
6 Forest
4 Swamp
2 Volrath's Stronghold

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Eternal Witness
2 Ravenous Baloth

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Putrefy

SB
2 Ravenous Baloth
4 Hymn To Tourach
2 haunting Echoes
4 Engineered Plague
3 Tormod's Crypt

It's more aggro-ish than the builds posted here... Very consistent too, with all of those 4-ofs... It's been doing pretty good, having trouble with Burn though...

Comments? My only problem is all of those BB's and GG's in the casting costs...

[Anarky87]

Here's the build I'm running...

4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
6 Forest
4 Swamp
2 Volrath's Stronghold

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Eternal Witness
2 Ravenous Baloth

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Putrefy

SB
2 Ravenous Baloth
4 Hymn To Tourach
2 haunting Echoes
4 Engineered Plague
3 Tormod's Crypt

It's more aggro-ish than the builds posted here... Very consistent too, with all of those 4-ofs... It's been doing pretty good, having trouble with Burn though...

Comments? My only problem is all of those BB's and GG's in the casting costs...

If you go: -4 Hyppie's, -1 Witness, -1 Tribe Elder, -1 Duress, -1 Putrefy, -1 Forest and +4 WoB, +4 Smother, +1 Baloth, you'd have my exact build ;)

In my build, I'm kinda like a green deck that splashed black for removal and hand disruption, so my mana base leans more toward supporting GG, with the only BB being the Hymn's in my SB. I would try to focus on one color like that. Otherwise I'd say you should add, say, Chrome Mox to help with your double mana requirements. But then you'll have to put up with the wickedly bad synergy of Deed and Mox.

[Fistandantilus]

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=418

Maindeck (60):
Spells (38):

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Living Wish
2 Ravenous Baloth
4 Wall of Blossoms
2 Yavimaya Elder
3 Eternal Witness
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Loxodon Hierarch

Lands (22):

4 Bayou
4 Forest
1 Plains
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Swamp
2 Treetop Village
2 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Windswept Heath


Sideboard (14):

1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bone Shredder
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Engineered Plague
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Orzhov Pontiff
3 Tsunami
1 Virdian Zealot
1 Withered Wretch

[Majestyk1136]

Ack. This list is all over the place... from the white splash to the presence of Yavimaya Elder (:?) The Elder I guess can fetch the lone Plains and a Swamp/Forest to get out of the Wasteland problem. The recursion engine is limited to the Stronghold, opening him up to being shut out of recursion by Wasteland (barring Witness.)

It seems far from optimal in my opinion, but the result seems to speak for itself. I mean, if you're going to be that deep into white why not go for the full 4 Hierarchs as in most cases they are strictly superior to Baloth? Was Cranial Extraction a big consideration in the Meta? The biggest thing that sticks out in my mind is the lack of Troll Ascetic and the extra fatties/Swords.

It could use a little tuning but I don't see any reason why you'd want to open yourself up to the possibility of land screw for the mere possibility of playing with a marginally better fatty (Hierarch) and slightly better removal (Swords.)

[Anarky87]

Ack. This list is all over the place... from the white splash to the presence of Yavimaya Elder (:?) The Elder I guess can fetch the lone Plains and a Swamp/Forest to get out of the Wasteland problem. The recursion engine is limited to the Stronghold, opening him up to being shut out of recursion by Wasteland (barring Witness.)

It seems far from optimal in my opinion, but the result seems to speak for itself. I mean, if you're going to be that deep into white why not go for the full 4 Hierarchs as in most cases they are strictly superior to Baloth? Was Cranial Extraction a big consideration in the Meta? The biggest thing that sticks out in my mind is the lack of Troll Ascetic and the extra fatties/Swords.

It could use a little tuning but I don't see any reason why you'd want to open yourself up to the possibility of land screw for the mere possibility of playing with a marginally better fatty (Hierarch) and slightly better removal (Swords.)

Have you played The Rock recently at all, Majesty? I was just curious, I've kinda taken a hiatus from it for awhile, but it is a very potent deck. Though I'm not seeing the 'awesomeness' that the white splash brings.

[Alex_Van_R]

The only awesomeness the white splash brings, are wrecked manabases and creatures and removal that you don't need to win.
Some changes I will make in my version:

4x Wasteland maindeck (if I can find them somewhere)
1x Dustbowl in the side as a wishtarget

(This is ment for the Thresholdmatchup.)

The deck also needs a good creature with evasion. Kokusho is too easily targetted and removed (StP). Any other suggestions?