Red Rocks (B/R/G midrange control)

[SpikeyMikey]

The following deck is something I created a few days before the SCG Invitational in Indy. I nearly played it in the Open that weekend, but didn't for two reasons. One, it was literally 3 days old with maybe a dozen games of testing as of Sunday morning and two, I wanted to play the Bant listing I've been in love with for the last 6 months, even if I knew it was poorly positioned against the metagame. Of course, people have played listings that they've concocted on the car ride to an event before with no testing and done well and being married to a listing you know is destined to lose is never a good idea. But hindsight being what it is...

So I'm going to do something I almost never do and share a list publicly. The metagame right now is ripe for this listing and since I'm in the process of selling out and won't be playing anymore, there's no point in hoarding it for myself.

Right now, in order to win, you need to beat 4 decks. Fish is always a factor, being one of the most common decks and having gained a lot of ground with the recent printing of Mental Misstep. No matter what you're aiming to beat, if you can't beat Fish as well, you're wasting your time. This puts some interesting constraints on deck design, as the big dog to gun for right now is UW(x) control. Beating Fish requires a lot of removal, a very weak category of spells against the UW decks whose only creatures are a few wimpy Kor's and a couple of Germ tokens. The best way to accomplish this is to limit actual creature removal spells and load up on flexible removal (Oblivion Ring, Deed, Pulse, vindicate, etc.) and burn (poor in a Tarmogoyf-heavy field but pure sex against Fish and the utility bears that are dominating right now), especially Grim Lavamancer, who kills the two most important creatures in the format right now, Dark Confidant and Stoneforge Mystic. It's also good against one of the other serious contenders, NO RUG (and just NO decks in general). Burning out their Hierarchs and Arbors forces them to slow their NO plan, giving a deck time to put itself in a position to race either Progenitus or the multiple Tarmogoyfs that a deck packing 4 GSZ's can tutor up at any moment. The final category of deck that you need to beat is B/W midrange. I've never been a fan of Deadguy, as the deck just lacks swingy bomb-type cards. It plays the aggro-control game without the explosiveness that Fish has and without the actual good control cards that Rock runs. It's somewhere in between in the zone of decks that aren't actually good at anything, but right now it's positioned to play spoiler to the decks that would otherwise prey on the existing field.

When designing this deck, I tried to keep in mind that I needed a lot of removal to deal with B/W and Fish, enough of a clock to race NO consistently and enough cards that generated incremental advantage to outlast the early counters of U/W and avoid getting blown out by Jace and/or Batterskull. It's a daunting task, but then again, this is Legacy and the format has always had factors pulling decklists in multiple and often mutually exclusive directions. The trick is to find the compromise cards that give you game against multiple strategies (like the aforementioned Lavamancer).


4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Troll Ascetic

4 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
2 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sword of Feast and Famine

4 Bayou
4 Badlands
3 Taiga
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wasteland
1 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Swamp

SB
4 Extirpate
3 Krosan Grip
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Choke


The deck plays like a more aggressive version of Rock (not surprising, as Rock is the kind of balanced deck that performs well in slow fields with a broad range of strategies), trying to establish an advantage in the early game with discard and Sensei's Top and cement the advantage in the midgame with Bob and the equipment. The deck eschews acceleration pieces like the Moxen or mana critters because it wants to avoid, as much as possible, dead draws late game. Because you're mostly trying to force your opponent to match you 1-for-1 on cards, you can't afford to lose a card (or two in the case of the moxen) in order to accelerate into anything. You don't have the massive beaters that a deck like Rock or Team America has in Knight/Stalker to play fast disruption followed by a heavy hitter. With the exception of combo, where you are forced to try and establish an early clock, every matchup you play you want to take the control role, trading resources until your opponent misses a step and draws dead, allowing you to get ahead.

A few notes on the odder card choices:

Bloodbraid Elf - It's a weak play at 4 mana, at least, when compared to 4 mana playables in Legacy. Natural Order, Jace TMS, Humility, even Elspeth outclasses it. However, what it does is generate incremental advantage and it provides a body to carry swords. I'm not 100% sold on the card in theory, but I've never been unhappy to see it so I haven't touched it.

Troll Ascetic - In the current, slower field, Troll is not a terrible play. 6 months ago, I wouldn't have touched this card with a ten-foot pole (despite the nostalgia I have for it). Now, it makes an excellent wall against more aggressive decks as well as providing a nearly impossible to deal with sword carrier against Landstill decks. I debated running this vs. Thrun (which is leagues better on the board) but stuck with the original because it's available to cascade into and fills a better slot in the mana curve. If I were to cut Bloodbraid at any point, these would most likely take that spot in the curve as Thruns, a stronger play against Batterskull.

Terminate - It's been a long time since this card has seen play, in large part because B/R is not exactly a popular color combination. The fact that it's unconditional makes it the best choice although it's a close run race between this and Smother, with the difference being that Smother has a better casting cost and Terminate can hit Tombstalker (there aren't any other relevant creatures that Smother can't hit).

The swords - Very few decks pack equipment without Stoneforge Mystic anymore (a testament to the power of the little Kor) and those that do generally run a pair of Jittes. However, this deck eschews Jitte in favor of swords because the creatures tend to be a little underpowered on their own. This means that getting counters on a Jitte would often involve losing the creature it's attached to; an unacceptable proposition in a deck focused entirely on incremental advantage. The swords provide a little beef, some relevant abilities and some very relevant protections. While Sword of Fire and Ice is generally considered the de facto best sword, the lack of evasion in this deck makes connecting with it an iffy proposition at best. Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Light and Shadow provide protection from 90% of the creatures you'll see out there. If you don't take my word on anything else, take my word on this; you don't want Sword of Fire and Ice here.

If anyone is interested in the deck's board plan, let me know and I can post it; I just didn't want to waste the space listing it out if nobody is interested in it.

[Bignasty197]

Even with a more aggro approach to Rock, do you think Pernicious Deed has a place somewhere in the 75? I feel like it is too good of a card not to run if you are in the colors. If not, possibly Engineered Explosives?

[SpikeyMikey]

Even with a more aggro approach to Rock, do you think Pernicious Deed has a place somewhere in the 75? I feel like it is too good of a card not to run if you are in the colors. If not, possibly Engineered Explosives?

Originally the two Pulses were Deeds; the change was made Friday night while assembling the deck (I had wanted to have it available just in case I gave in to common sense and ditched the Bant deck) on a suggestion from Jason Jaco. In testing it seemed like a solid change and it was definitely the difference between a loss and a win in one of the Legacy win-a-boxes on Saturday afternoon. I could definitely see Deed in board, especially if you're expecting a decent amount of Affinity, in the Kitchen Finks slot. Finks is better v. Zoo, Deed is better v. Affinity.

[Grollub]

Sexy deck.

Tried Sylvan Libraries? Since you don't run deeds main there's not the usually dissynergy as in traditional Rock.

[SpikeyMikey]

Sexy deck.

Tried Sylvan Libraries? Since you don't run deeds main there's not the usually dissynergy as in traditional Rock.

Never even occured to me. It could go in the Sensei's Divining Top slot (since SDT and Sylvan don't play that well together). It doesn't work as elegantly with Bob, but it also doesn't tie up your mana once it hits. This deck is very mana hungry what with Swords and color intensive spells and activation costs all over.

[ScatmanX]

Top and Sylvan seem bad flips over Bloodbraid. Nevertheless, they can set-up it quite nicely.

If you want to go super aggressive, I wonder if Grafted Wargear is not a good card here. T3, hit with a 5/3 Bob. Or you can Cascade and attach it the same turn for free. Seems quite explosive.

I certainly dig Bolts/Terminates/Pulses...

Another random one: what about Putrid Leech?

[nedleeds]

Double black and double green and tons of multi-color spells seems tough. I see no reason to go to GG just for Troll.

[Grollub]

Never even occured to me. It could go in the Sensei's Divining Top slot (since SDT and Sylvan don't play that well together). It doesn't work as elegantly with Bob, but it also doesn't tie up your mana once it hits. This deck is very mana hungry what with Swords and color intensive spells and activation costs all over.

It might be beneficial to keep 1 Top simply to give the possibility to dig 6 cards deep in one turn.

[Mr. Safety]

I think Eternal Witness needs some love...possibly in Troll Ascetic's spot (but I understand the equipped beats potential there easily enough)

This deck reminds me of Aggro-Loam...without the loams, lol. It's more controlling than Aggro-loam, but less controlling than Rock. It looks like it would have a generally even matchup vs. the field, but not anything stellar vs. anything (other than decks like CounterTop, which would most likely roll over to this sort of mid-range approach)

I think your missing ingredient is Loam x1-2, and potentially Countryside Crusher or Terravore instead of Bloodbraid Elf. I think the idea of Loam + Wasteland is VERY sexy right now, given the greedy mana-base of Team America/Bug lists. 1-3 cycle lands wouldn't be bad either, as Loam has classically been really good at providing card advantage/mana acceleration with the cycle lands/fetchlands.

Love the Finks in the sideboard...great stuff.

[Dzra]

I would suggest dropping the Terminates for 2 more Pulses. Dropping the trolls for another Hymn and another Bloodbraid and dropping the Swords for Mox Diamonds. You probably should squeeze in another land or two, Grim Lavamancer can probably be a 2 or 3 of.

Mox Diamond should help you get to Pulse and Bloodbraid faster and it synergies with Lavamancer.

Terminate is ok at 2 mana, but Pulse is better at 3, especially since you need more reliable answers to things like Batterskull and Planeswalkers. Bolt should be able to handle your early removal needs.

Swords are slow and clunky even if you're running Mystics. There's no need to clog slots with any of these.

Use CA tools like Hymn, Pulse, Bloodbraid, (Bitterblossom?), etc to make up for the Mox Diamonds because you can't afford to run without the acceleration.