[Deck] The Rock

[lavafrogg]

This card seems terrible against Miracles. This is just another creature that can get hit by Swords to Plowshares or their many sweepers (Terminus and Engineered Explosives), or run into Counterbalance lock in late game. If you want to use the "Grim Lavamancer" ability, your opponent can fizzle you by responding with a Snapcaster Mage and then casting the targeted spell. Unlike Scavenging Ooze, this card requires you to tap to activate, so you can't re-activate right over the top of them.

This card seems too small to affect the board, too conditional for the life gain or life loss effects to be worthwhile, and too insignificant as a piece of gravehate. The ramp ability would be very nice, but again, it's dependent on lands being available in the graveyard (and I believe this is not a mana ability since it targets something, meaning your opponent can "fizzle" the mana production with an Ooze).

IMO, it might see some play in Rock (think Ulvenwald Tracker), but I highly doubt it will be a staple anywhere.

Shaman won't stop you from playing your own scavenging oozes and will in fact help you zenith out your ooze faster to go over the top of other oozes.

The shaman is a mostly constant mana dork, between fetches, wastelands, knights and lillianas, with graveyard control, life gain and is a win condition that doesn't use the combat step. He is our version of noble hierarch and will be just as important in eternal formats.

Against miracles he comes down much earlier than snapcaster and can start eating the yard before the caste is active, if they add this to their swords me list that it is one more creature that is not gaddock teeg eating swords and counters. He is also a creature that can attack over mox diamond that does nothing in longer games.

[sdematt]

So, 3 hours of Miracles grinding later, I'm back with meaningful results and paraphrasing of discussions I had with Nixon, a level 2 Judge and the best Miracles player locally.

We talked over a few different issues, mainly why I was losing. He joked about playing a garbage deck with 1 for 1's with answers and no way to dig for them, leading to many times when we'll die with the wrong answer in hand. While this might be slightly true in that we are a reactive deck with a lower count of card manipulation, I don't think be truly even against the field is necessarily a bad thing.

So, we discussed sideboards, maindeck configurations, swapping in and out, card selection, etc. The first conclusion we came to is Rock never has to lose to Miracles, ever. You can construct Junk in such a way that you will win the Miracles matchup way more often than not. However, you'd have to sacrifice so many matchups to do this, it may not be worth it. Point taken, and I have said this before. It's all about finding a middle ground where you're still doing well against the field.

We discussed Hymn over Inquisition, and we came up with the fact that in the main, you want Inquisition all day everyday. Why? Firstly, if you're on the play, you immediately Thoughtseize to take Top. Every game I won consisted of me nuking Top in some fashion, whereas the games I lost usually went into Topdeck mode with me having nothing, and him having nothing and a Top. Top/Library manipulation really controls how this matchup goes. Sylvan Library is also REALLY good here, and the same with Dark Confidant. The Miracles player has a touch time interacting on the Stack without Counterbalance, and Top just filters all the good things for better board and stack interaction. They MUST kill Dark Confidant immediately of face losing to not only beatdown, but you wrecking them with great answers.

You want Inquisition to take Top, Counterbalance, or another relevant card like EE/Shackles. Hymn, while in his words, "a very decent card against us," doesn't do enough to necessarily warrant its inclusion in the maindeck in a meta with a ton of RUG in it as well. You want the targeted discard to take the things you want, not strip a land + Land Tax or something like that.

Abrupt Decay should take over more slots was another conclusion. Abrupt Decay was ridiculously effective, taking out Counterbalances, Shackles, EE, Delvers, Goyfs, Cliques, and Equipment/Sylvan Libraries. It was highly effective against Counterbalance and I loved seeing it all day. The relevancy of uncounterable, instant speed Vindicate was incredibly relevant.

For now, I'm moving to 3 Decay 2 Pulse, since again, "Why is this a question? A 3-mana do nothing or a conditional, uncounterable 2-mana do something?" Now while this statement is a bit hyperbolic, the choice does makes sense. We have other ways to interact with Jace and Batterskull, so 2 Pulse is still fine since instant and uncounterable makes up for the shortfalls of 3-CMC or less.

Back to the Miracles matchup. We agreed that we need to attack on a plane not tangential to creature combat. Creatures are good, but laying 1-2 out at a time and applying pressure is easily the best answer when playing against 1-CMC Wrath effects. That's also how I won my games: apply enough pressure that there's a clock, but not enough to get blown out.

Discard, while good, isn't the end-all-be-all in this matchup. You can't assume you win because you play Discard, it just helps you out a bit, and doesn't stop anyone from Topping into the goodness.

As for the Surgical Extraction argument, again we came to the same conclusions - the plan in itself isn't inherently awful, it's just depends how you're achieving it. If you're boarding out 10 cards with nothing more to bring in except Surgicals, it's probably fine. If you're cutting relevant cards for Extirpate effects, you're going to have a problem. There's no real card advantage generated from Surgical Extraction. It's a strict 1-for-1 at the moment, and doesn't really provide virtual card advantage either. There isn't a Moat negating a bunch of Goblins, therefore providing virtual card advantage by making them less than optimal. This is basically nebulous card advantage where you hope to avoid seeing additional copies of that card in the future. This isn't a combo deck we're playing against. But again, if you're bringing out useless cards and bringing in Surgicals, it's not bad at all, but not NOT remove good cards to bring Surgical in, since it just isn't enough. I'm bringing out 6 slots to bring 6 in for my board, and there's no Surgicals coming in. There's some value in mucking Snapcaster, but not enough in my opinion.

The better hate cards against this deck are Gaddock Teeg, Choke, and Planeswalkers. My friend commented Choke mixed with discard, permanent removal, and Gaddock Teeg where the ideal mix of answers he doesn't want to see. Choke locking up a mana heavy deck, along with Gaddock Teeg sapping the power of his Miracles spells does do wonders on him. However, Gaddock Teeg will get bounced or removed, it will happen, so you need a mix of threats to get there.

We argued about the Thalia plan, and came to the conclusion that unless you're running a crap-ton of creatures, Thalia really isn't for you. Additionally, Thalia doesn't matter as much since the reason why you're playing Terminus is to be able to pay the Thalia tax and clear the board. It's better than nothing for sure, but perhaps not what you're looking for depending on your list that you're playing.

I argued we required a slot that was both good against Combo as well as Miracles. Thalia was one option, but so was straight up Hymn to Tourach. He said the card was decent against him, and probably better than other answers. Hymn doesn't slow you down in this matchup (Thalia would), and works to rip apart the hand. Hymn should complement additional targeted discard, not replace it. It's also good in the Combo matchup. Perhaps not quite as good as Thalia, but still pretty good.

I said I wanted more Chokes, but again, that doesn't help your combo matchup any more than dedicated blue-hate. Hymn does fill the role enough, and we have the slots to remove.

So, my sideboard looks like this:

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Virtue's Ruin
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Choke
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Life from the Loam

And seems to handle much of the meta where it sits as of right now. Against Miracles, I probably go:

-4 Swords
-1 Tracker
-1 GSZ
+3 Hymn
+2 Choke
+1 Gaddock Teeg

I don't like cutting the GSZ, but what else do you cut? You can't cut creatures, since you need pressure. You can't cut lands, since you need those too. Can't cut card advantage or manipulation, since whoever wins that battle finds the answers to win the war. You don't want to cut discard, either. I guess if you had to, you could cut 1 Inquisition, but I'd rather have the discard to get their Top. Again, this is where the match is decided some of the time. You need to get their Top.

Hopefully this rambling was helpful and maybe illuminated why I've been saying certain things.

-Matt

[Sughayyer]

Matt: going boldly where nobody has ever been to push Rock to its limits :p many nice infos!
@lavafrogg:
I understand what you mean about the shaman. While we might keep our reliquaries mostly safe (we can drain our opponent's GY), you realize he withers our own goyves? Otherwise it'd be great.

If we resoort to 6 pointed discards, we could go 4 stp, 3 decay, 2 vindicate/pulse, then, we could use 1 or 2 deeds and a planeswalker like elspeth or garruk, to provide constant beaters (since we usually only play 10-14 guys in a world where decks run 8 plowshares... :()
while we will not 2:1 his hand anymore, we will do so with the field (angel tokens still are cmc 0).

Well, I did too much rambling as well, hope it was undertandable :p

[Claymore]

Very insightful...I'm gonna borrow some of that and take it to Nic Fit!

[Arianrhod]

And now Claymore brought that over to Nic Fit, I'll bring some Nic Fit over here!

We've had a fair amount of success with Tsunami and Cranial Extraction -- for you guys, Choke is probably better, but be aware that some Miracles lists I've seen are starting to adopt Banishing Stroke as a way to deal with Choke. Cranial Extraction is probably the best true hate for them, because they lean almost entirely on Entreat and Jace TMS to win games. If you Cranial their Entreats, you should never have to worry about the matchup, and Cranial is good vs combo decks as well. I fully recognize that we get a lot more mana than you guys do in general, but Miracles is gonna be a slow matchup and you should be able to hit 4 mana easily by the time it matters.

Also, you might want to look into something like Phyrexian Arena. As Matt pointed out, the games you lose to Miracles are those games where you both run out of gas, but they can filter with Top. In my experience with Nic Fit, if you have a Phyrexian Arena out, you just bury them. Again, things are a little different because Nic Fit has a different bevy of threats to work with, most of which are hard/impossible to counterbalance, but you get the idea. Bobs are good, but fragile -- supplementing them with Arenas might not be terrible. If you can outdraw them, you can beat them -- they rely on card quality, not card advantage.

Just some thoughts from your big (mana) brothers =)

[ryn ball_2]

@matt: nice report matt!! some insights from a miracle player nice to hear those . I'm a little bit stubborn but i love to use hymn against RUG while not worrying to produce BB thanks mox diamond!, mox diamond is one of my cards that theoretically good at them 1) can provide extra black for double B cards, 2) wasteland proof, 3) in turn 3 my 2 cmc spells are daze-proof 4) can throw away fetches for mox so their stifles are dead cards.

Back again to miracle, @matt you new sb configuration is very interesting i'm sure that handles miracle match up very well . I hope i can grab another copy of teeg cuz i only have 1 and atm in my list i dont want to run GSZ so atm battling miracles this is what i commonly side-in/out

MB
4 thoughtseize
4 hymn to tourach
3 pulse
2 deed
3 mox
4 STP
I usually do -3 mox, -4 stp, +2 extirpate, +2 e tutor, +1 needle, +1 choke, +1 EE
I sided out mox diamond knowing miracle decks may not running wasteland so fetching for correct mana color is easy, i know 1 choke is really rough (consequence of running e-tutor package but that's fine for me)

@arianrhod and claymore: we love to see you guys dropping by here in The Rock thread, to be honest i always sneak to your own thread for some updates not to stole those informations but for the new advancement in nic fit, i play nic fit too BGW rector build and planning to adopt punishing nic fit. As for tsunami and cranial extraction--these cards are interesting w/ an assumption that miracle player doesnt run wasteland so i can drop this w/ ease but really hurts alot when flip by bob. Maybe i can test it cuz no harm in testing new ideas :)

[Sughayyer]

Played today with deadguy and left mid-tournament.... I'll just wait to get my decays to get back at the rock. I guess I just need some variations sometimes :)
I was talking to a friend of mine (member of the Brazilian mtg team) and he brought an interesting point: few GOOD decks nowadays play jace, we could go 4 abrupt decay MD.
I think I'll finally have time for some decent playtesting in the next week, and hopefully I'll get to a nice list.

[lavafrogg]

@lavafrogg:
I understand what you mean about the shaman. While we might keep our reliquaries mostly safe (we can drain our opponent's GY), you realize he withers our own goyves? Otherwise it'd be great.

In my testing with the Shaman I have been switching back and forth between goyf and SFM in the same slot. I have been very pro goyf for a while now and I am still not sure that the interaction between goyf and shaman is enough to make me shy away from the big green guy. With the selection of cards in graveyards it is easy to keep one of each card in someone's graveyard as the game goes on.

The hardest cards to keep if you get an early shaman are lands and creatures but I haven't needed to use the mana ability that much after turn 3-4 and the drain life ability becomes better the longer the game goes as the activations start to pile up.

Shaman plays really nicely with Liliana of the Veil, which after being dropped to a 2 of for a Garruk, is back up to a three of for the double discard/graveyard filling +1 ability.

Mox diamonds and my copy of life form the loam have been dropped and I am still playing the full four GSZ to ensure a turn one mana play, shaman or GSZ for arbor. With no land recursion maindeck anymore, when I get wastelanded I have the shamans fully fed to help stave off mana screw.

Finally, multiple late game Deathrite Shaman on the board are a beating. I gain a bunch of life and you lose a bunch of life kthx? The fact that it doesn't have to be activated for mana every turn and can always just eat extra instants/sorceries to drain or even swing for one for the fuck of it make this card super playable in all states of the game.

One last point, Shaman plays really well with a Scavenging Ooze of your own as the scavenging ooze still gets larger every time it eats a creature and the shaman eats everything else for even more effect. I usually zenith for ooze against more dedicated graveyard decks but the early shaman gets me until turn three/4 where I can zenith with mana up to nom nom a graveyard or pay a daze cost.

I will have a full list up shortly after I see how abrupt decay fits into my 75 and other new card goodies.

Matt- awesome miracle analysis! With 4x shaman that I am working on, how do you feel about thalias in your sideboard against miracles and combo? The creature count starts to climb with 4 shaman 4 thalia in addition to our 16 usual creature count, could be almost worth it.

[Sughayyer]

Frog, I'm not saying it is bad. But, for instance, if you play four of him and 6 1cc discards.... What would you play in turn 1? Him or a discard? Also, he has even less synergy with deed than mox (our loam retrieves the "lost" land if needed). Again, I'm not saying it is bad, it DOES seem interesting, but maybe it leads to a different kind of build?

[lavafrogg]

It is for sure a different direction for the deck, deed would be a no-go but I have been more of a fan of engineered explosives over deed for a while now.

As for the 1cc discard vs him, I would easily play him and then discard plus 2 drop on turn 2 if it was a blind matchup. If i knew what I was playing then maybe discard first would be optimal but I think against the field having him active opens up a lot more options for the junk player. It also plays nicer with all planeswalkers in that it can ramp up to their mana costs sooner, especially through wastelands and other disruption.

SFM with jitte, shaman gives a relevant attacker to swing with...all creatures are threats with a jitte on the board.

[sdematt]

Matt- awesome miracle analysis! With 4x shaman that I am working on, how do you feel about thalias in your sideboard against miracles and combo? The creature count starts to climb with 4 shaman 4 thalia in addition to our 16 usual creature count, could be almost worth it.

Thanks!

I think if you're getting to the 20ish creature point and above, much like Maverick, Thalia seems perfectly fine.

Frog, I'm not saying it is bad. But, for instance, if you play four of him and 6 1cc discards.... What would you play in turn 1? Him or a discard? Also, he has even less synergy with deed than mox (our loam retrieves the "lost" land if needed). Again, I'm not saying it is bad, it DOES seem interesting, but maybe it leads to a different kind of build?

Well, I think it depends what you're playing against. If you're against Miracles, you Discard. Combo? Discard. RUG? Either discard to clear removal for shaman, or just shaman to bait removal. If you have no idea? Discard to gain information. But, you're right, there will be conflict over him or Deed. However, the chances of you starting with both one of both Deathrite and Discard is about .16, but you also have to assume Top is in there, so more like .25 for some combination of Top, Shaman, or 6 pieces of discard. The statistics here are really not that accurate, but as close as i could remember how to do it.

He has infinite less synergy with Deed, I agree. But, it depends if you want to run EE or not instead of Deed. Plus, you can run Virtue's Ruin instead of Perish here, so you avoid mucking your own guy. Success!

SFM with jitte, shaman gives a relevant attacker to swing with...all creatures are threats with a jitte on the board.

This is true.

-Matt

[Mirrislegend]

Regarding Hymn:
-Someone mentioned it being not so hot against RUG. Yes it doesn't save you from immediate pressure. But given their lack of card advantage, it tends to be CRIPPLING against them.
-Against Miracles: yes, they play better off the top of their library than any other deck. However, that is still very much more limiting than having a hand full of options. Hymn may not be the optimal discard vs Miracles, but it's still very worth playing.
-Hymn BLOWS OUT Maverick.
-Hymn severly wounds the random tier 1.5/2 decks that make up a fair amount of any field.
-Hitting the Big 3 and the ever-present random for great value is why I alway play Hymn

I've been a very vocal proponent of Hymn for a while. Please note that all my input is relative to my deck: Hymn is not for every build. I play a much more aggressive version of Rock than sdematt does. As a result, I'm less equipped to handle the enemy's cards when they hit the board. Thus, hitting their threats, answers, and general resources while still in the opponent's hand is very advantageous for me. Meanwhile, sdematt is more than happy to let the opponent vomit their hand onto the board and then blow it away. Please keep this variation of tactics in mind when evaluating Hymn's viability in your deck.

[Okipa]

What do people think about the deck that came in fourth in the most recent NELC? Not sure if this is a worse Maverick, a worse Rock or a good hybrid, but did place well in a strong 90 player field. The number of humans for Cavern is interesting.

Main Deck:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Lingering Souls
3 Vindicate
4 Thoughtseize

1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Umezawa's Jitte

1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Savannah
2 Scrubland
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Duress
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Stony Silence
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile

[tsoatt]

I Haven't played the Rock in a few months but, I have been keeping up with this page.
I feel like this deck is moving away from what made it great, having every card be a must answer. We keep adding cards that work well in other decks that water down our strategy. Cards like stoneforge mystic and GSZ are good but they aren't overwhelming. Cards like vindicate and pernicious deed are. I posted my old list a while ago and got very little feedback even though it was a good list I am going to throw an updated list out because I think it is a good answer to this meta.

Artifacts:
3 Top

Creatures:
4 Dark confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the reliquary
1 Scavenging ooze

Instants:
4 swords to plowshares

Enchantments:
3 Pernicious deed

Sorceries:
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to tourach
4 Vindicate
2 Inquisition of kozilek

Lands:
3 Bayou
3 Badlands
4 Wasteland
1 maze of ith
1 karakas
1 swamp
1 forest
1 plains
8 fetches

SB.
3 Worldly tutor
1 thalia
1 teeg
1 kitchen finks
1 kataki war's wage
3 timely reinforcements
3 extirpate
2 open slots depending on meta

I know people are going to claim that worldly tutor is card disadvantage but, it is a full turn faster than GSZ and it can grab non-green creatures making one of's of thalia and kataki viable. When a card is your silver bullet card advantage matters little especially when a card like teeg can just shut off an entire deck. I also believe that vindicate is better than pulse because I won many games on the back of knight plus vindicate taking out my opponents lands, this makes it not a dead card game one versus combo decks.

[lavafrogg]

As far as all cards are concerned, not playing any GSZ is just wrong. I also strongly disagree with 3 maindeck pernicious deeds as combo is actually a thing right now and it is another dead draw in addition to swords. GSZ vs SFM is pretty much the debate with the inclusion and exclusion of tarmogoyf being thrown in to the mix.

I will divulge more after I get back from work.

[Sughayyer]

Frogg, tsoatt's list is the same as mine when I started playing. In theory it SMASHES combo (10 MD discards) and has a great MU vs aggro. But, I learned that using moxen make my game faster (that list had 11 3-drops and that's a lot, almost 20% of the deck). If mox goes in.... Deed usually gets out.
HOWEVER if we jump to the full tempo list, we MUST run vindicates. Four. Because we will want to break the lands. Goyf shines on early game, and dark horizons was devised to make your opponent stay in his first turn forever.

[tsoatt]

Deed gives this deck game against dredge and if you haven't noticed that many T.E.S. decks and ANT decks are running mb empty the warrens. IMO GSZ is a good card in decks that aren't the rock, test out this list it is slow and grindy the way the deck is supposed to be played.

[ryn ball_2]

@mirri: i agree w/ you, i'm not bandwagoning the hymn to tourach but it is still the best card in my 75 as well as in my list
"Please keep this variation of tactics in mind when evaluating Hymn's viability in your deck. " --thank you mirri well atm not most build of rock hymn will be suited w/ ease but still i respect every list of rock

@tsoatt: i like your list, i bet it is 3 scrublands not badlands right? anyways i suggest that -1 wasteland, +1 bojuka bog (fast GY hate via KOTR), i think -2 IOK and +2 liliana of the veil she is really good. My question is do you have some problems generating correct mana for your early spells in first 7 cards? i fear that there are sometimes that you drew scrubs but your spells are in green-splash if you have some problems correcting manabase i would suggest adding mox diamonds but i would love to hear some reports based on your initial list

@sug: about deeds and mox diamonds, in my current list i ran 3 mox diamonds, 2 deeds, pretty insane right? at my normal games i usually use up 1 mox diamond for manabase and the other copies are food for liliana +1 ability, whenever i would like to hit deeds in the field i always fetch for basics lands even mox diamond would be destroyed still i can cast my spells w/o worrying being wastelanded and being mana-screwed afterwards. Issues about vindicate i have the feeling that after decay will be legal in legacy i think i will go back to vindicate (decay and vindicate MB), in my own reasons token decks are isnt that rampage in my local meta plus decay is really significant hitting 3 cmc relevant and threatening spells just like what pulse did (w/o echo) and now the purpose of my vindicate is to pop lands of my opponent, it can hit planeswalkers too but we will see after i test my hypothesis

[Sughayyer]

@ryn
I'm testing 3 moxen + 2 deeds (plus, 4 abrupt decay). Didnt play too much but I liked it. About tsoatt's early spells, 8 fetches + 5-6 duals ensure them, but the deck is in fact prone to wastelocks (that's why the moxless versions often run 24 lands)

[ryn ball_2]

@ryn
I'm testing 3 moxen + 2 deeds (plus, 4 abrupt decay). Didnt play too much but I liked it. About tsoatt's early spells, 8 fetches + 5-6 duals ensure them, but the deck is in fact prone to wastelocks (that's why the moxless versions often run 24 lands)

True non-mox build ran 24 lands, i also test it but still they are times wasteland really hits hard and i want to play green spells but off the color of the duals so from that moment i went 23 lands+3 mox build and never change it until now. Even RTR hits my land+mox configuration stays the same but my initial plan is 4 stp+3 decay+2 pulse/vindi and 2 deed are coming from side and my theory against aggro it will stays the same as like w/ MB deeds cuz we have thoughtseize and hymn acts like a pseudo-creature removals . What do you think sug?