Mordel
03-06-2009, 04:26 AM
So, I personally think that survival rock is likely to be considered an established deck, but I don't really want to do up a primer(Edit:haha, boy was I wrong) based on the fact that I am pretty sure there is a lurker or two that have a lot more history with it than I and I also started using the deck relatively recently due to a burning desire to combat random jank.
I was posting about my experiences and thoughts on the deck on the TS thread and I started to realize that while some discussion points may be valid, others are completely non-compatible.
Here is my list anyway:
Turd Ferguson
// Lands
3 [R] Savannah
1 [ALA] Plains (1)
3 [ALA] Forest (1)
4 [R] Bayou
3 [ALA] Swamp (1)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
// Creatures
1 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
1 [EVE] Wickerbough Elder
1 [PLC] Big Game Hunter
3 [SHM] Kitchen Finks
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [CHK] Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 [AL] Krovikan Horror
1 [JU] Genesis
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [ON] Gigapede
// Spells
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
2 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [7E] Engineered Plague
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [7E] Duress
SB: 2 [8E] Choke
SB: 2 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 [LRW] Shriekmaw
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
So, there it is. All I really did is that I stumbled onto a list a while ago and tinkered with it and made some adjustments. As a sucker for nostalgia, this deck really floats my boat as far as feeling like the old school Mikey P. with the silver bullet aspect and the ability to dominate a late game with recursion, while not completely relying on it at the same time in other stages of a game.
->Key cards and some of their functions<-
+ Faerie Macabre: This card has been controversial at times. The reason for this is that it does not wipe out a graveyard altogether, but it removes trouble makers like loam largely and also utility lands when an opponent has a crucible out. Macabre has been randomly useful in breaking goyf stalemates and even as an extremely ghetto, but all the same evasive dork.
+ Wickerbough Elder: Some people prefer harmonic sliver because it is a often two turns faster than a wickerbough. My choice of preference though is the elder though because GWU thresh has a remarkable two cards that they can flip to counter it, once he has resolved only a stifle of a removal spell can stop his ability, elder can also be played proactively which is nice, dodges most deed activations and of course has a fat ass. If I begin seeing artifacts with any great frequency, I can see myself looking at a different card, but as a whole I am quite happy with elder.
+ Big Game Hunter: Another controversial slot. With the increase in competent players online that are testing for the GP, I have found him to be more useful than a shriekmaw in that he kills basically any creature that can't be blocked, gives too much life off an StP for my liking at the time or deed doesn't handle. If I get survival, Hunters are very nice. Fret not though, maw-lovers. I run Mr.Maw in the sideboard and he seems to like it in there. It ultimatel;y comes down to preference: I would rather be prepared for Tombstalkers, Dreadnaughts and fat goyfs and sideboard to make things against the rest.
+ Kitchen Finks: Great card all around because they recoup lost life in race-type situations, flashback therapies and weather board clearing. Sometimes I wish I had more in the deck, but things have come down to a fairly tight list and four of these is likely to be superfluous.
+ Sakura-Tribe Elder: Acts as a shuffle mechanism, acceleration and a means of getting a basic land. I think three is the correct number for these.
+ Krovikan Horror: Some people love this card and others hate it. I personally don't see at as anything but the better tool for the job. What I mean to say is that he can randomly pick off trouble dorks in the late game, allows for a fairly annoying threat versus control in that he comes back every two turns roughly when you are pressing the aggro and recoups card disadvantage from using the survival, which I will go into more detail with later.
+ Genesis: Sweet and sassy Genesis. This card is the reason there is survival in this deck as far as I am concerned. In most situations, once you have one of these in your graveyard, survival has done it's job and it can get gripped or deeded away for all I care.
+ Eternal Witness: The creature has no "special function" or whatever. They do what they do and what they do is fucking great. There are different sorts of imaginative things you can do with them. These plays largely depend on the game state and such, but in the end they go a long way for battles of attrition and work amazingly as a defensive card when fending off a swarm strategy until a deed comes online.
+ Gigapede: This card is basically the "multi-purpose face smasher" slot. Originally Spiritmonger was in the 'Pedes spot, but I found that Spiritmonger was a big vanilla piece of shit most of the time, so he got ousted for the 'Pede. Pede is awesome against anything with targeted removal, dodges deeds and counterbalance with no problem and to top it all off can come back to play every turn. Great card. Did I mention the 'Pede works great at turfing a genesis in situations that a survival is lacking?
+ Sensei's Divining Top: Smooths-out draws and insures you get what you need when you need it. There are a fair amount of shuffle effects in this deck, so they're pretty awesome in here. I find myself using tops to insure that I don't miss land drops early in the game, which goes a very long way.
+ Survival of the Fittest: This card serves a very unique function in the deck because it is more of a tool to get genesis, a horror(maybe), an answer critter and a beater. Once that has been done, survival can die for all I care. Opponents tend to focus on survival quite sharply too, so they act as a very nice diversion in that some opponents will mistakenly assume that my game plan is hinged on activating survival as much as possible. The deck has a comparatively low number of creatures compared to its kin and this is a double-edged sword in that survival is sometimes a bit of a cock tease in that you will have it out, but no creature to activate it with and other times it is great because the guy across the table from you is going all out and pitching a FoW to a FoW to keep it off the table and you weren't even planning on activating it once and follow it with a resolved goyf or what have you. Survival is a very strong card in this deck, but I have won many games without using it once.
+ Pernicious Deed: The reason to play black and green for me is first turn discard and Deed.
+ Cabal Therapy: Originally, I was a bit weary of this card at first, but it works as a way to get genesis in the graveyard at times and is an insanely strong play following a thoughtseize. Synergy with finks is always nice too as well as a random way to get a witness into your graveyard to get raised.
+ Swords to Plowshares: Makes it so I have a chance against turn one lackeys and is just a staple all around.
+ Thoughtseize: Sometimes the life loss from thoughtseize is a huge pain in the ass when things on my side of the board are moving slower than I would like. The potential rewards involved warrant it though.
->The engine<-
One thing that I think sets this approach to the survival archetype apart from ATS and such is that the survival engine in this deck is extraordinarily compact. What I mean to say is that once you have had the survival out for one turn, it can get pith'd or gripped and it doesn't matter because you will already have your genesis binned, have whatever bullet and/or beater.
With the compact nature of the engine, I am allowed to run Krovikan Horro, which is functionally, quite similar and once you get some practice under your belt with the horror, you can do some very techy stuff with it.
->The deal with mana<-
A simultaneous strength and weakness of this approach is that you [b]need[b] to draw plenty of land, while ATS can often do its thing with only three on the table. The advantages of having a large number of basics and less reliance on mana dorks is obvious to me, so I don't want to go into too much detail about that because I'd like to think most of the people that will be reading this will be familiar with what I am eluding to.
->Deviation in strategy from other more survival-reliant decks<-
The big deviation here is that RockSur has basically declined the explosiveness and huge utility that ATS and such tend to rely on for their wins in favor of a "Rock" game plan of aggro control with some discard. What this brings to the table in my opinion is a very stereotypical "Rock" match up percentages. That is to say that you have a 50/50 chance against basically everything except for storm combo, which will be touched upon at a later date. The stable mana base also goes a long way in that waste locks, though increasingly rare, Back to Basics and moon effects are absurdly easy to play around. Another interesting aspect of the deck is that if you play the deck conservatively in the first game(s) and you manage to not break out all of your toys, you can often capitalize on an opponent trying to hate out a survival deck by essentially converting your deck with the sideboard into a more or less normal Gbw rock deck. I largely play online, so this is a bit more difficult for me to do because I can't analyze my opponent's demeanor and such. I have pulled this plan off before though and it was absolutely awesome: my opponent(s) burnt needles on a card that wasn't in the deck anymore and sided in crypts expecting to thwart a genesis engine and in return they got chokes, Teegs and more discard...take that fucker! Good times.
->SB<-
I don't want to explain what every card does like some people do, so I'll try to be concise with what they are for:
Engineered plague: It used to be for goblins, but now it's mostly for elves. Yay. Randomly good against dredge in theory, but I never see that match.
They're probably good against merfolk, but are hard to fit in and I haven't really felt like the games would have been won by them handily.
Krosan Grip: Best green sideboard card ever. Great in the quasi-mirror.
Duress: This is a formerly combo hate slot that I chose to diversify into a general control hate slot. I play online, which means there is a lot of random jank out there. There are also matches where I really want the first turn discard spell. Against combo they are sometimes good, but chant would be better according to many with more experience than me probably, though ATS has a different game plan against combo in that they can but a clock on very fast, whereas RockSur is often forced to try to make the game virtually un-winnable by raping their hand. An issue for discussion, I'd say.
Choke: Self-explanatory as far as I am concerned.
Gaddock Teeg: Combo hate...I suppose, but he is mostly there for control matches. Sometimes I want to run more for the sake of making the resulting transformational deck approach in second and third games more consistent.
Shriekmaw: A controversial slot. Not because it isn't a good card, but because many feel that it should be in the main deck and Big Game Hunter be in its place. I disagree with this strongly because I like to be able to kill Tomb Stalkers, dreadnaughts and particularly sassy goyfs in an uncounterable way. I would rather be prepared for the best decks in the format and sideboard against jank or less common decks than the other way around. A topic for discussion I suppose.
Tormod's Crypt: An admittedly random sideboard slot. I found myself hating extirpates a lot, so I took them out. The result was that I had two slots left to fill and faerie macabre is less than adequate to handle all of my potential graveyard removal needs.
->A quick look at experiences with matches<-
+ GWU thresh(non-NO+P builds): I absolutely love this match so far. I have yet to lose on in fact. The majority of your business spells are three mana and you have the genesis engine. I haven't played a lot of ATS, but I would assume that it has a similarly strong match, though due to deeds and no real reliance on survival, I think that this match is more favorable for RockSur. I could be wrong here, but that is my experience with it anyway. GWU Thresh decks that run NO+P are irritating, but if they become common enough there is always COP:R, which can help against sligh which isn't a match I have a lot of experience with, but could be bad(?)
+ White Stax: As someone that has played stax a lot, I like to be able to win this match handily because losing to a deck you played a lot...especially stax, is absolutely soul crushing. Between the discard, deeds, mana base and recurring beaters either in the form of gigapede or genesis should one be so lucky, stax has not been a big deal so far. Oddly there was a rather large saturation of normal geddon stax on mws for a while, so I have played this match a fair amount. Dutch stax is a largely untested variant, which could be more difficult because of moat and humility with less reliance on synergies. I still think that Dutch Stax would be a favorable match up though.
+ ANT/Storm shit: I hate this match. This is one match where the deck suffers severely in sacrificing explosiveness for more Rockish trappings. This match could be made favorable probably, but it would take a strong sideboard and that still does not account for techy bastards that know how to play DDFT and more skill-intensive storm decks properly. If I was to be attending a cash tourney IRL, I would probably worry about this match more.
+ Merfolk: I need more info here. This is a deck on the rise though in my opinion and will have more info quite soon. I have won some and lost some. It often feels like I am playing against slivers except merfolk can be far more explosive at time and also boast a very troublesome mana denial strategy. Even as a pessimistic person, I honestly can't say whether this is a good or bad match. Which is somewhat reassuring in that 50/50 matches that are decided by skill and random bullets are what make this deck attractive. Frustrating cards to see in this match are the aforementioned ports and reejereys. The extremely solid mana denial game that merfolk combines with a small, but effective set of permission makes this a match that requires a great deal of thinking. Standstill is a card that I almost ignore in this match though. In that I am the most concerned with them countering my deeds or stuff that I get back with genesis.
Post sideboard while on the draw(I have won first matches most of the time), things change a bit in that a call needs to be made in regards to whether you want to risk walking into a relic or crypt and try to get survival online or if you want to sideboard and leave the elements that they are likely to be hating on behind. This strategy really goes both ways and I try to keep the same strategy a lot of the time to see what they bring in for me. In a tournament where 2-1 can lead to a finish just below the top eight(as a long time Rock player, I am quite familiar with this occurrence), you may want to go straight for the transformation plan.
+ Eva Green-type deck(including TA as far as I am concerned): As far as I have found these matchups are definitely decided by the dice and who draws better quality cards. I don't see either of these decks too much anymore, but when I have run into Eva Green it has been a match that started out quite badly for me and then top decks happened and I stabilized into the late game eventually and it things worked out because RockSur lives in the later part of the midgame and lategam. Luck was obviously a factor, but often times Eva Green is very easy to run out of steam. TA has a very similar strategy and playing around stifle and daze is annoying at least and difficult other times, but overall I have not seen the deck a lot at all. I won the one match against it that I had by a complete blow out because of numerous basic lands, being on the play, getting a thoughtseize off and following it with a survival the following turn, but I would not consider that to be representative of the match up as a whole. I would consider TA to be a less favorable and fairly difficult match, but still quite winnable.
+ Dreadstill: I almost never see this match anymore. As far as I am concerned it is either a half-assed MUC deck or a half assed aggro control deck. Four wastelands and stifles are pretty easy to play around, but shit can happen. The dice and early discard is very important in this match up. Another very "Rock" match up in that the odds are in your favor, but not heavily so. Things will come down to skill and knowledge of what your opponent is playing. In the latter, I would consider the RockSur player to have advantage in that most opponents will rightly assume that they are against a more or less typical surivival deck.
+ Canadian Thresh: I have never run into this deck yet as far as I can remember. If I did, it was not a memorable match at all. Off of the top of my head, I would consider this to be a good match because while Canadian Thresh is insanely consistent, their clock is not lightning fast exactly. Swans could complicate things alot though. More info would be good here.
+ Slivers: Fucking slivers. I find that this deck is on the rise online. The deciding factor in whether this is a good or bad match is hibernation slivers. While hibernation slivers are not great for long term battles of attrition, they are absolutely annoying beyond belief in the short term when they have drawn enough life that you can't try to race them or devote all of your resources to getting a genesis engine online. This is one match where I would actually like to see extirpate, but alas they suck most of the time for me. In any even, I consider this to be for the most part a pretty good match in that their permission is sparse, crystallines mean little and all of their shit gets popped by a turn five deed. In second games I don't really change my deck around a lot other than slipping a 'maw in and maybe a choke or two. Everything you need to win this match is in the main deck, you just need to make the right decisions.
+ Faerie Stompy: I have yet to meet SasB or Eld on mws. lol
Seriously though, I have never played this match yet. I have no idea how it would end up. I assume the biggest factor would be whether they have real faerie stompy player luck or if they have some scrub that dl'd it off of deckcheck/magic-league luck, which in most cases is piss-poor.
+ Landstill: A match I see very little of, period. I ran into what looked like a UWB speedstill build and it was a very close match with very tight games, but I won on the back of a genesis engine. It was extremely close though and it could have been anyone's game as far as I am concerned. I chalked this up as match where siding out elements of the deck that may be hated on heavily would be very viable to get the game two win. Things worked out in this way and a choke never resolved, they were pivotal as counterfodder and led to a gigapede eventually resolving. If this game had been in a sanctioned tournament, things would have gone to time before the second game finished. I imagine things would be quite different with other landstill builds, but I just don't have any data to substantiate those suspicions.
+ Survival Elves: I like this match a lot. It always seems like a challenge at first, my life goes fairly low and then a deed gets popped and it's all over from there on usually. This is an over-simplification obviously, but I haven't lost to survival elves yet. I have played this match a fair amount, but not enough to say it is a complete blow out or anything like that: I have lost games, just not matches yet. Elves are very explosive and the mirror entity combo has smashed me before. I am not trying to make light on how quickly they can recover from having the board cleared either. Elves are a scary, but favorable game as far as I have seen so far.
+ Aggro loam: Never ever ever ever played against it online. I'm completely serious.
So I started hammering this thread out about two hours ago or so and it ended up turning into a half-assed primer. Go me. Anyway, I would really like to sort of issue a call to anyone else that plays this deck or has experience with it to bring their thoughts, ideas and arguments to the table because this deck really does needs its own thread, so people like me are not contaminating the ATS thread anymore.
To get the ball rolling on particular cards...
-Vindicate: pure sex or no? Do you run it? Would you run it? How would you fit it in?
-Necrotic sliver:Tech or cool thing to beware of?
-The storm menace in general?
-Missing info on matches or info on matches not covered?
Edit: I like to give credit where it is due and a lot of testing for the more or less identical build that this list came from was probably done by a fellow named Arne Fricke. I don't know if he is on this site or not, but thank you very much.
I was posting about my experiences and thoughts on the deck on the TS thread and I started to realize that while some discussion points may be valid, others are completely non-compatible.
Here is my list anyway:
Turd Ferguson
// Lands
3 [R] Savannah
1 [ALA] Plains (1)
3 [ALA] Forest (1)
4 [R] Bayou
3 [ALA] Swamp (1)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
// Creatures
1 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
1 [EVE] Wickerbough Elder
1 [PLC] Big Game Hunter
3 [SHM] Kitchen Finks
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [CHK] Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 [AL] Krovikan Horror
1 [JU] Genesis
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [ON] Gigapede
// Spells
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
2 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [7E] Engineered Plague
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [7E] Duress
SB: 2 [8E] Choke
SB: 2 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 [LRW] Shriekmaw
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
So, there it is. All I really did is that I stumbled onto a list a while ago and tinkered with it and made some adjustments. As a sucker for nostalgia, this deck really floats my boat as far as feeling like the old school Mikey P. with the silver bullet aspect and the ability to dominate a late game with recursion, while not completely relying on it at the same time in other stages of a game.
->Key cards and some of their functions<-
+ Faerie Macabre: This card has been controversial at times. The reason for this is that it does not wipe out a graveyard altogether, but it removes trouble makers like loam largely and also utility lands when an opponent has a crucible out. Macabre has been randomly useful in breaking goyf stalemates and even as an extremely ghetto, but all the same evasive dork.
+ Wickerbough Elder: Some people prefer harmonic sliver because it is a often two turns faster than a wickerbough. My choice of preference though is the elder though because GWU thresh has a remarkable two cards that they can flip to counter it, once he has resolved only a stifle of a removal spell can stop his ability, elder can also be played proactively which is nice, dodges most deed activations and of course has a fat ass. If I begin seeing artifacts with any great frequency, I can see myself looking at a different card, but as a whole I am quite happy with elder.
+ Big Game Hunter: Another controversial slot. With the increase in competent players online that are testing for the GP, I have found him to be more useful than a shriekmaw in that he kills basically any creature that can't be blocked, gives too much life off an StP for my liking at the time or deed doesn't handle. If I get survival, Hunters are very nice. Fret not though, maw-lovers. I run Mr.Maw in the sideboard and he seems to like it in there. It ultimatel;y comes down to preference: I would rather be prepared for Tombstalkers, Dreadnaughts and fat goyfs and sideboard to make things against the rest.
+ Kitchen Finks: Great card all around because they recoup lost life in race-type situations, flashback therapies and weather board clearing. Sometimes I wish I had more in the deck, but things have come down to a fairly tight list and four of these is likely to be superfluous.
+ Sakura-Tribe Elder: Acts as a shuffle mechanism, acceleration and a means of getting a basic land. I think three is the correct number for these.
+ Krovikan Horror: Some people love this card and others hate it. I personally don't see at as anything but the better tool for the job. What I mean to say is that he can randomly pick off trouble dorks in the late game, allows for a fairly annoying threat versus control in that he comes back every two turns roughly when you are pressing the aggro and recoups card disadvantage from using the survival, which I will go into more detail with later.
+ Genesis: Sweet and sassy Genesis. This card is the reason there is survival in this deck as far as I am concerned. In most situations, once you have one of these in your graveyard, survival has done it's job and it can get gripped or deeded away for all I care.
+ Eternal Witness: The creature has no "special function" or whatever. They do what they do and what they do is fucking great. There are different sorts of imaginative things you can do with them. These plays largely depend on the game state and such, but in the end they go a long way for battles of attrition and work amazingly as a defensive card when fending off a swarm strategy until a deed comes online.
+ Gigapede: This card is basically the "multi-purpose face smasher" slot. Originally Spiritmonger was in the 'Pedes spot, but I found that Spiritmonger was a big vanilla piece of shit most of the time, so he got ousted for the 'Pede. Pede is awesome against anything with targeted removal, dodges deeds and counterbalance with no problem and to top it all off can come back to play every turn. Great card. Did I mention the 'Pede works great at turfing a genesis in situations that a survival is lacking?
+ Sensei's Divining Top: Smooths-out draws and insures you get what you need when you need it. There are a fair amount of shuffle effects in this deck, so they're pretty awesome in here. I find myself using tops to insure that I don't miss land drops early in the game, which goes a very long way.
+ Survival of the Fittest: This card serves a very unique function in the deck because it is more of a tool to get genesis, a horror(maybe), an answer critter and a beater. Once that has been done, survival can die for all I care. Opponents tend to focus on survival quite sharply too, so they act as a very nice diversion in that some opponents will mistakenly assume that my game plan is hinged on activating survival as much as possible. The deck has a comparatively low number of creatures compared to its kin and this is a double-edged sword in that survival is sometimes a bit of a cock tease in that you will have it out, but no creature to activate it with and other times it is great because the guy across the table from you is going all out and pitching a FoW to a FoW to keep it off the table and you weren't even planning on activating it once and follow it with a resolved goyf or what have you. Survival is a very strong card in this deck, but I have won many games without using it once.
+ Pernicious Deed: The reason to play black and green for me is first turn discard and Deed.
+ Cabal Therapy: Originally, I was a bit weary of this card at first, but it works as a way to get genesis in the graveyard at times and is an insanely strong play following a thoughtseize. Synergy with finks is always nice too as well as a random way to get a witness into your graveyard to get raised.
+ Swords to Plowshares: Makes it so I have a chance against turn one lackeys and is just a staple all around.
+ Thoughtseize: Sometimes the life loss from thoughtseize is a huge pain in the ass when things on my side of the board are moving slower than I would like. The potential rewards involved warrant it though.
->The engine<-
One thing that I think sets this approach to the survival archetype apart from ATS and such is that the survival engine in this deck is extraordinarily compact. What I mean to say is that once you have had the survival out for one turn, it can get pith'd or gripped and it doesn't matter because you will already have your genesis binned, have whatever bullet and/or beater.
With the compact nature of the engine, I am allowed to run Krovikan Horro, which is functionally, quite similar and once you get some practice under your belt with the horror, you can do some very techy stuff with it.
->The deal with mana<-
A simultaneous strength and weakness of this approach is that you [b]need[b] to draw plenty of land, while ATS can often do its thing with only three on the table. The advantages of having a large number of basics and less reliance on mana dorks is obvious to me, so I don't want to go into too much detail about that because I'd like to think most of the people that will be reading this will be familiar with what I am eluding to.
->Deviation in strategy from other more survival-reliant decks<-
The big deviation here is that RockSur has basically declined the explosiveness and huge utility that ATS and such tend to rely on for their wins in favor of a "Rock" game plan of aggro control with some discard. What this brings to the table in my opinion is a very stereotypical "Rock" match up percentages. That is to say that you have a 50/50 chance against basically everything except for storm combo, which will be touched upon at a later date. The stable mana base also goes a long way in that waste locks, though increasingly rare, Back to Basics and moon effects are absurdly easy to play around. Another interesting aspect of the deck is that if you play the deck conservatively in the first game(s) and you manage to not break out all of your toys, you can often capitalize on an opponent trying to hate out a survival deck by essentially converting your deck with the sideboard into a more or less normal Gbw rock deck. I largely play online, so this is a bit more difficult for me to do because I can't analyze my opponent's demeanor and such. I have pulled this plan off before though and it was absolutely awesome: my opponent(s) burnt needles on a card that wasn't in the deck anymore and sided in crypts expecting to thwart a genesis engine and in return they got chokes, Teegs and more discard...take that fucker! Good times.
->SB<-
I don't want to explain what every card does like some people do, so I'll try to be concise with what they are for:
Engineered plague: It used to be for goblins, but now it's mostly for elves. Yay. Randomly good against dredge in theory, but I never see that match.
They're probably good against merfolk, but are hard to fit in and I haven't really felt like the games would have been won by them handily.
Krosan Grip: Best green sideboard card ever. Great in the quasi-mirror.
Duress: This is a formerly combo hate slot that I chose to diversify into a general control hate slot. I play online, which means there is a lot of random jank out there. There are also matches where I really want the first turn discard spell. Against combo they are sometimes good, but chant would be better according to many with more experience than me probably, though ATS has a different game plan against combo in that they can but a clock on very fast, whereas RockSur is often forced to try to make the game virtually un-winnable by raping their hand. An issue for discussion, I'd say.
Choke: Self-explanatory as far as I am concerned.
Gaddock Teeg: Combo hate...I suppose, but he is mostly there for control matches. Sometimes I want to run more for the sake of making the resulting transformational deck approach in second and third games more consistent.
Shriekmaw: A controversial slot. Not because it isn't a good card, but because many feel that it should be in the main deck and Big Game Hunter be in its place. I disagree with this strongly because I like to be able to kill Tomb Stalkers, dreadnaughts and particularly sassy goyfs in an uncounterable way. I would rather be prepared for the best decks in the format and sideboard against jank or less common decks than the other way around. A topic for discussion I suppose.
Tormod's Crypt: An admittedly random sideboard slot. I found myself hating extirpates a lot, so I took them out. The result was that I had two slots left to fill and faerie macabre is less than adequate to handle all of my potential graveyard removal needs.
->A quick look at experiences with matches<-
+ GWU thresh(non-NO+P builds): I absolutely love this match so far. I have yet to lose on in fact. The majority of your business spells are three mana and you have the genesis engine. I haven't played a lot of ATS, but I would assume that it has a similarly strong match, though due to deeds and no real reliance on survival, I think that this match is more favorable for RockSur. I could be wrong here, but that is my experience with it anyway. GWU Thresh decks that run NO+P are irritating, but if they become common enough there is always COP:R, which can help against sligh which isn't a match I have a lot of experience with, but could be bad(?)
+ White Stax: As someone that has played stax a lot, I like to be able to win this match handily because losing to a deck you played a lot...especially stax, is absolutely soul crushing. Between the discard, deeds, mana base and recurring beaters either in the form of gigapede or genesis should one be so lucky, stax has not been a big deal so far. Oddly there was a rather large saturation of normal geddon stax on mws for a while, so I have played this match a fair amount. Dutch stax is a largely untested variant, which could be more difficult because of moat and humility with less reliance on synergies. I still think that Dutch Stax would be a favorable match up though.
+ ANT/Storm shit: I hate this match. This is one match where the deck suffers severely in sacrificing explosiveness for more Rockish trappings. This match could be made favorable probably, but it would take a strong sideboard and that still does not account for techy bastards that know how to play DDFT and more skill-intensive storm decks properly. If I was to be attending a cash tourney IRL, I would probably worry about this match more.
+ Merfolk: I need more info here. This is a deck on the rise though in my opinion and will have more info quite soon. I have won some and lost some. It often feels like I am playing against slivers except merfolk can be far more explosive at time and also boast a very troublesome mana denial strategy. Even as a pessimistic person, I honestly can't say whether this is a good or bad match. Which is somewhat reassuring in that 50/50 matches that are decided by skill and random bullets are what make this deck attractive. Frustrating cards to see in this match are the aforementioned ports and reejereys. The extremely solid mana denial game that merfolk combines with a small, but effective set of permission makes this a match that requires a great deal of thinking. Standstill is a card that I almost ignore in this match though. In that I am the most concerned with them countering my deeds or stuff that I get back with genesis.
Post sideboard while on the draw(I have won first matches most of the time), things change a bit in that a call needs to be made in regards to whether you want to risk walking into a relic or crypt and try to get survival online or if you want to sideboard and leave the elements that they are likely to be hating on behind. This strategy really goes both ways and I try to keep the same strategy a lot of the time to see what they bring in for me. In a tournament where 2-1 can lead to a finish just below the top eight(as a long time Rock player, I am quite familiar with this occurrence), you may want to go straight for the transformation plan.
+ Eva Green-type deck(including TA as far as I am concerned): As far as I have found these matchups are definitely decided by the dice and who draws better quality cards. I don't see either of these decks too much anymore, but when I have run into Eva Green it has been a match that started out quite badly for me and then top decks happened and I stabilized into the late game eventually and it things worked out because RockSur lives in the later part of the midgame and lategam. Luck was obviously a factor, but often times Eva Green is very easy to run out of steam. TA has a very similar strategy and playing around stifle and daze is annoying at least and difficult other times, but overall I have not seen the deck a lot at all. I won the one match against it that I had by a complete blow out because of numerous basic lands, being on the play, getting a thoughtseize off and following it with a survival the following turn, but I would not consider that to be representative of the match up as a whole. I would consider TA to be a less favorable and fairly difficult match, but still quite winnable.
+ Dreadstill: I almost never see this match anymore. As far as I am concerned it is either a half-assed MUC deck or a half assed aggro control deck. Four wastelands and stifles are pretty easy to play around, but shit can happen. The dice and early discard is very important in this match up. Another very "Rock" match up in that the odds are in your favor, but not heavily so. Things will come down to skill and knowledge of what your opponent is playing. In the latter, I would consider the RockSur player to have advantage in that most opponents will rightly assume that they are against a more or less typical surivival deck.
+ Canadian Thresh: I have never run into this deck yet as far as I can remember. If I did, it was not a memorable match at all. Off of the top of my head, I would consider this to be a good match because while Canadian Thresh is insanely consistent, their clock is not lightning fast exactly. Swans could complicate things alot though. More info would be good here.
+ Slivers: Fucking slivers. I find that this deck is on the rise online. The deciding factor in whether this is a good or bad match is hibernation slivers. While hibernation slivers are not great for long term battles of attrition, they are absolutely annoying beyond belief in the short term when they have drawn enough life that you can't try to race them or devote all of your resources to getting a genesis engine online. This is one match where I would actually like to see extirpate, but alas they suck most of the time for me. In any even, I consider this to be for the most part a pretty good match in that their permission is sparse, crystallines mean little and all of their shit gets popped by a turn five deed. In second games I don't really change my deck around a lot other than slipping a 'maw in and maybe a choke or two. Everything you need to win this match is in the main deck, you just need to make the right decisions.
+ Faerie Stompy: I have yet to meet SasB or Eld on mws. lol
Seriously though, I have never played this match yet. I have no idea how it would end up. I assume the biggest factor would be whether they have real faerie stompy player luck or if they have some scrub that dl'd it off of deckcheck/magic-league luck, which in most cases is piss-poor.
+ Landstill: A match I see very little of, period. I ran into what looked like a UWB speedstill build and it was a very close match with very tight games, but I won on the back of a genesis engine. It was extremely close though and it could have been anyone's game as far as I am concerned. I chalked this up as match where siding out elements of the deck that may be hated on heavily would be very viable to get the game two win. Things worked out in this way and a choke never resolved, they were pivotal as counterfodder and led to a gigapede eventually resolving. If this game had been in a sanctioned tournament, things would have gone to time before the second game finished. I imagine things would be quite different with other landstill builds, but I just don't have any data to substantiate those suspicions.
+ Survival Elves: I like this match a lot. It always seems like a challenge at first, my life goes fairly low and then a deed gets popped and it's all over from there on usually. This is an over-simplification obviously, but I haven't lost to survival elves yet. I have played this match a fair amount, but not enough to say it is a complete blow out or anything like that: I have lost games, just not matches yet. Elves are very explosive and the mirror entity combo has smashed me before. I am not trying to make light on how quickly they can recover from having the board cleared either. Elves are a scary, but favorable game as far as I have seen so far.
+ Aggro loam: Never ever ever ever played against it online. I'm completely serious.
So I started hammering this thread out about two hours ago or so and it ended up turning into a half-assed primer. Go me. Anyway, I would really like to sort of issue a call to anyone else that plays this deck or has experience with it to bring their thoughts, ideas and arguments to the table because this deck really does needs its own thread, so people like me are not contaminating the ATS thread anymore.
To get the ball rolling on particular cards...
-Vindicate: pure sex or no? Do you run it? Would you run it? How would you fit it in?
-Necrotic sliver:Tech or cool thing to beware of?
-The storm menace in general?
-Missing info on matches or info on matches not covered?
Edit: I like to give credit where it is due and a lot of testing for the more or less identical build that this list came from was probably done by a fellow named Arne Fricke. I don't know if he is on this site or not, but thank you very much.