Goyfless Rock

[Pernacious_D]

Creatures:
X3 River Boa
x3 Specteral Lynx
X3 Jotun Grunt
x3 Exalted Angel
x3 Quasali Pridemage
x3 Birds of Paradise
x3 Dark Confidant

Hate:
x2 Engineered Explosives
x4 Swords to Plowshares
x3 Pernicious deed
x4 Cabal Therapy
x4 Vindicate
x2 Umezawa's Jitte

Land:
x4 Savannah
x4 Bayou
x2 Scrubland
x2 verdand catacombs
x2 Windsweapt Heath
x1 Marsh Flats
x1 Plains
x1 Forest
x3 Wasteland

Sideboard:
x3 Duress
x2 Tormod's Crypt
x3 Armageddon
x3 Krosan Grip
x4 Ghostly Prison

Deck Choices:
River Boa: Legacy has a lot of islands, so it's an unblockable 2/1 that doesn't die to engineered explosives or deed. It has an efficient mana cost and can block tarmogoyf all day. Troll Ascetic was considered in its stead, but that guy gets dazed a lot and can't attack through a tarmogoyf.

Specteral Lynx: Basically played for all of the same reasons River Boa is. I see two things in legacy more than anything else: islands and green creatures. So this guy's fun.

Jotun Grunt: Maindeck hate on Fit, tarmogoyf, ichorid, loam-aggro, and anything else that likes a graveyard. I can only think of a few matches in legacy where I would side him out... really underrated card I think.

EE/Deed: Most of my dudes regenerate, most other people's dudes don't. It's maindeck goblin and zoo hate. It hates a lot of things actually. I like them.

Cabal Therapy: To help my match against combo and anything that's trying to win with hand advantage. Also lets me sacrifice dark confidant if I need to, or a grunt if I know he's going to die next upkeep anyway.

Umezawa's Jitte: A lot of people don't maindeck this card anymore, and I never understood why anyone felt like it was a mandatory four-of in every legacy deck to begin with. But I feel like it's synergistic with dark confidant and my unblockable creatures. It helps against goblins, zoo, and burn. I don't want to overexplain it but I do see this as a card I'd side out some games, yes.

Exalted Angel: The choice was between this and Tombstalker. I chose angel partially for sentimental reasons, partially because I see burn as an aggravating match-up and I kind of don't want to auto-scoop to it game one. And it's mana cost is big enough to dodge my deed.


EDIT:
Anyone who's replying to call me a noob or casual for building a deck without Goyf, I explain my decision in post #11. Please keep that in mind as you publicly berate my spectral lynx.

I'll add a revised decklist to this thread shortly.

[the Thin White Duke]

This deck reminds me of this
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?4504-[Deck]-Rockin-Funkbrew
I played funkbrew for a bunch of tourneys (never did like the name, though) and did very well. This was before goyf became all the rage.
I'm not sure about Armageddon in the SB. Choke always served me well.

[Pernacious_D]

I also know the power of Choke, however! Geddon I find to be more versatile and helps versus mono red and such.

Thanks for pointing me to funbrew, by the way!

[stuckpixel]

So, what makes goyfless better than the goyf'd version?

Running 3x of all your creatures seems a bit odd. None of them were good enough to hit 4x?

[Pernacious_D]

What? This isn't Yugio? J/k. Plenty were good at four ofs, however I didn't want to cut my vindicates or my swords or my therapies or what have you to make them x4. I'd rather have a well-rounded team of creatures than to over-specialize. And what makes it better than the Goyf version is that against my deck, goyf is a 0/1 if it's on the table at all, and goyf can't get trough my team.

[Kangaxx]

Have you considered Vexing Shusher? Seems like he would be helping you land all of your crucial removal spells, in a format where FoW, Daze and Spell Pierce run rampant.

[Genericcactus]

I would recommend playing 4 Bobs. Also, what about Kitchen Finks?

[stuckpixel]

What? This isn't Yugio? J/k. Plenty were good at four ofs, however I didn't want to cut my vindicates or my swords or my therapies or what have you to make them x4. I'd rather have a well-rounded team of creatures than to over-specialize. And what makes it better than the Goyf version is that against my deck, goyf is a 0/1 if it's on the table at all, and goyf can't get trough my team.

I'm still not seeing why this deck is better without goyf. You say that goyf is normally a 0/1 with this deck, but that seems just incorrect. The only way you have main-deck of dealing with goyf's food is jotun grunt. It seems pretty clear that he'd normally be a decent beatstick.

Beyond that, if you are dedicated to not running goyf, you should certainly be looking at running tombstalkers over jotun grunt (or at least, tombstalkers somewhere in the main).

Dark confidant should be at 4x. Period. He's the only draw engine your deck has.

Spectral Lynx and River Boa both seem terribad. The only thing they have going for them is regeneration - which shouldn't be an issue if you're playing intellegently anyways. Tombstalkers would dodge both EE and P-deed, whereas you have to sink mana into your 2/1s to keep them alive through the ordeal.

Cabal Therapy is probably better as thoughtseize or even duress.

[Pernacious_D]

I would recommend playing 4 Bobs. Also, what about Kitchen Finks?

I strongly see your point about Dark Confidant being x4. Kitchen finks is fine, I'll have to test with it. I also thought about Eternal Witness.

What do you think should be cut for them?


Stuckpuzzle:
I've played goyf in enough decks. If you have any other questions, please refer to the name of this deck. I'm building a deck WITHOUT goyf. Maybe some other time I'll totally lack imagination and carbon-copy a goyf rock list from the internet, but now's not that time. Also, once you know a format, I think cabal therapy becomes the best discard spell.

[Roman Candle]

Stuckpuzzle:
I've played goyf in enough decks. If you have any other questions, please refer to the name of this deck. I'm building a deck WITHOUT goyf. Maybe some other time I'll totally lack imagination and carbon-copy a goyf rock list from the internet, but now's not that time. Also, once you know a format, I think cabal therapy becomes the best discard spell.

In this format, you need a damn good reason not to play Goyf, and declaring that it lacks imagination is not one of them. You posted the list in a competitive forum, so we're going to try to make the deck as competitive as possible. If you don't want your deck as competitive as possible, post in the casual forum. There's no middle ground.

I also second Thoughtseize over Cabal Therapy. Its just more consistent, especially in a format with dozens of viable decks.

[Pernacious_D]

My reason for not playing goyf is that I'd like to play a deck that has a lot of answers to goyf and creatures that are efficient against it, banking on the fact that everyone else will be playing him. Legacy seems to be a choice between playing a deck with Goyf or some kind of Storm Combo. Even merfolk tribal plays goyf. So making a deck that shows him a little hate isn't necessarily a bad idea in my opinion.

I mean, I'm not saying I'm right, I haven't tried this deck yet. But humor me. Pretend it's possible to not play goyf in a legacy deck and tell me what I should play instead.

[damionblackgear]

What does Birds net you that 3 more lands wouldn't? Also, Why so many lands with so few fetches?

How're Armageddon's working for you? I'm found them to be great but they come out a lot (mine are main).

[Pernacious_D]

What does Birds net you that 3 more lands wouldn't? Also, Why so many lands with so few fetches?

How're Armageddon's working for you? I'm found them to be great but they come out a lot (mine are main).

I'm considering your point about birds of paradise. I was hoping they''d accellarate me into a vindicate and make me less dependant on nonbasics for mana. In some situations I'd rather they be a land, like, when my opening hand is one land and two birds of paradise which doesn't accellarte into anything. It also blocks lackey if it has to. I don't know. Do you think the accellaration and mana fixing doesn't make the cut?

As for armageddon, it was sideboarded in favor of maindecking Cabal Therapy (or thoguhtsieze/duress which others have suggested I consider playing in its stead) because they help my match against Tendrils combos when geddon doesn't really. The one-black-discard helps me in the same matches geddon helps me, but sometimes Geddon is just better. Some decks absolutely cannot recover from that so I pretty much have to play it sideboard. Do you suggest I side therapy and maindeck geddon instead?

[Greenpoe]

How about Arbor Elf instead of BoP? At least it can deal damage or block & kill that Lackey.

[Roman Candle]

Have you thought about maybe Abyssal Persecutor in the Exalted Angel slot? He's big, and you have sweepers and spot removal to get rid of him. Exalted Angel kinda sucks anyway.

Also, a Stoneforge Mystic package seems solid here, I know a lot of other Rock builds are trying him. Digging out a SoLaS for a regenerating landwalker could be sexy.