[Deck] Pet Rock

[aisman132000]

I have been working on a more aggro build of the rock. I thought about putting it into the rock thread on the open forum but I feel like it deviates considerably from the lists posted there and I don’t want to clutter the thread. I don’t pretend for a second that my list is unique or anything I just wanted to get some more discussion starting about Maceyish rock because I think the deck could be very competitive. So without further ado I give you pet rock.

Pet Rock

//Lands
4 Bayou
6 Swamp
7 Forest
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded foothills

//Creatures
4 llanowar elves
3 elves of deep shadow
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Dark confidant


//Spells
4 Putrefy
4 Cabal therapy
2 Sword of fire and ice
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Duress
4 Call of the herd

//Sideboard
4 Pernicious deed
4 mesmeric fiend
4 Engineered plague
3 Krosan grip

Card choices:

Creatures:

llanowar elves/elves of deep shadow: these guys allow you to accelerate into a second turn troll or call of the herd. In the late game they are a crappy draw but they can carry equipment and are great candidates for cabal therapy flashback

Troll Ascetic: this guy is a beast against just about everything. Fantastic creature and an automatic 4 of.

Wild Mongrel: Solid beater that fills out your curve so you’re not SOL if you don’t have a first turn elf.

Dark Confidant: I’m actually sort of wishy, washy on this guy. He’s a great source of card advantage sure but in testing it hasn’t been that great. You have so many cards that cost three you end up taking like 6-8 damage from this guy. I’m not completely sold on him but then again I’m not sure what would take his spot.

Call of the herd: I really like this card as my second three drop as it often gives me a solid play on turn two and turn three (or turn three and turn four). If my opponent kills one of my elephants with a swords or bolt I’m fine with that as they pretty much just went down a card. Also he’s big enough to trade with mongoose.

Spells:

Putrefy: Good solid removal and artifact destruction. I’ll take 4

Cabal therapy/duress: by themselves they’re mediocre but together they’re absolutely devastating and highly unfair. Plus with all the elves you play therapy gets flashed back for more pain.

Sword of fire and ice/jitte: Huge sources of card advantage these cards are obviously good and they give your elves more late game relevancy.

SB

Pernicious Deed: I’m not sure if this exactly fits but is so strong I feel like I have to play it. Super good against threshold, counter sliver, fish, goblins, and jank.

Mesmeric fiend: I side these in against combo obviously and they have been very good to me. At the very least it’s like a bad duress with legs, which turns out is actually ok.

Engineered Plague: goblins exists in the metagame therefore these are necessary.

Krosan grip: Additional enchantment/artifact removal, I’m not sure if these are nessacary.

Match ups: (note the only testing I have been able to do has been on MWS so it is obviously suspect. If anyone wants to test I would be more than happy to.)

Goblins: I have found this to be fairly unfavorable at least in game one and more or less even in game two. You have bigger guys, and equipment the problem is you don’t really have an effective answer for turn one lackey when they are on the play. I feel like this match up is tough but winnable.

Threshold: I actually think you should be favored in this matchup. Your guys are big, you have equipment, and duress and therapy are pretty good against them. Call of the herd has been really good to me against threshold. After boarding you can bring in deed, which will wipe the board if you get in trouble.

Solidarity: I think you have a fairly favorable match up against them pre and post board and I haven’t lost a match yet. Although to be fair I have only played 4 matches against them and the workstation players are no doubt suspect. Duress, therapy draws are practically auto-wins for you, as your clock is fast enough that they can’t recover. After sb mesmeric fiend also helps out a bunch.

Other cards that a chose not to play:

Hypnotic specter: I’m sure many will want the inclusion of this card but honestly I think it is pretty mediocre. Specter is obviously great against combo but I found against everything else it just dies. The format can deal with an early lackey so it can also deal with an early specter. If I were to play these they would go in for call of the herd. I like call a lot better thou because while 3/3s are fairly easy to kill at least you can flash call back. All around I think call is a better choice. I may play these in the sb though because playing this guy turn two against combo is pretty much game winning.

Ohran viper: See specter, in testing all this guy ever did is die. I’d play him and my opponent would kill him. He’s nice with equipment though. I’m not sure, I might try him one more time.

Ravenous baloth: I play confidant so I can’t really play this guy.

Withered wretch: I like this guy a lot as his ability is very relevant in this format and if worse comes to worse he just carries equipment. I might play him instead of mongrel or confidant.

I like this deck a lot and I feel it has potential as it can simply beat decks with troll + equipment or duress + therapy. Please give me feedback I really appreciate it.

[Anarky87]

I remember Noobslayer and I working on an aggro version of The Rock called Dark Viper and it ran Troll, Bob, and Ohran Viper along with Jitte and Rancor and the mana elves to pump them out faster. The list looks pretty solid, and if I tinkered with it again, I'd most definitely include Call of the Herd.

[kicks_422]

If you want some card advantage and keep on getting hurt by Confidant (which I also think looks out of place here), you might want to run Eternal Witness instead of Bob. That would really lean this deck towards green though, so you might have to adjust your manabase accordingly.

I also don't think you'd need the Deeds in the board. Rock builds *should* have good game against decks with blue, and Plague is really all you'd need against MeatHooks, as you have discard. Against Goblins, you need to cast your creatures as well to survive the initial onslaught, so Deed might actually hurt you more as you've got less beaters.

[aisman132000]

I like witness for card advantage the only problem i have with it is it seems to overload my 3cc slots. That would give me 18 cards that cost three (sword, troll, call, witness, putrefy). I think i'll try it though as bob is getting to be really painful and i feel like there should be something better.

[Anarky87]

I don't think I ever had a problem with Bob, because Jitte offset the life, or my opponents would quickly nail him, or I'd just sac him to Therapy if I needed to. He never had to stay around for multiple turns, as long as he drew me into some more gas I was done with him. Also Viper was usually able to net me a few cards here there.

I went with a combination of Smother and Putrefy, and I also didn't run Swords, opting rather for Rancor and Jitte as my pump and utility. I believe I also had Treetop Village in the deck just to act as another pseudo-beater.

[Pinder]

I like the Orhan Viper idea that Anarky posted, and it reminded me of another snake that might be worth considering: Mire Boa.

If you ran 1-2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, then you could afford to run Wasteland and still tap it for black (which is just sexy), and it would have the fortunate side effect of making Mire Boas completely unblockable. Add to that the fact that they regenerate for G and carry equipment (SoFI comes to mind for card advantage), and you have yourself a pretty sexy package. That would give you 8 nigh-indestructable beaters maindeck that fit nicely into your curve.

It would need testing, but it sounds pretty damn good on paper.

[aisman132000]

by popular demand i'm going to put ohran viper back into the deck. Viper plus equipment is really retarded and i guess you don't have to worry about him if he's wearing jitte or sword of fire and ice. What do you guys think should come out? I'm thinking like this.

+3 Ohran viper
+1 elves of deep shadow

-4 wild mongrel

I know i expressed concern about dark confidant life loss earlier but there would be rediculous amounts of card advantage. Confidant, viper, therapy/duress and equipment equals good times. I'm seeing situations where i'm up like a billion cards. Also for some reason i never really thought about sacking confidant to therapy...i'm not really sure why. if only ohran vipers good be gotten cheaply. i looked on ebay and they're like 10 bucks a pop. I mean there good, but there not that good.


The other thing i'm thinking about is striaght up dropping mongrel for rancor. Mongrel has actually been pretty underwhelming all in all as often i don't have a lot of cards that i want to pitch.

[Anarky87]

I don't remember my exact list, but it was somewhere along the lines of:

4 Troll
4 Viper
4 Bob
4 Fyndhorn
2-3 ESG

4 Rancor
3 Duress
4 Therapy
3 Smother
2 Putrefy
4 Jitte

4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
2-3 Treetop Village
5 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Wasteland

More streamlined:

//Creatures-22//
4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Ohran Viper
4 Dark Confidant
3 Groundbreaker (Maybe, I don't know, I liked the idea in 'Zillas build)

//Other-16//
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Unearth
3 Smother
2 Putrefy

//Land-22//
4 Bayou
4 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstain Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
5 Forests
3 Swamps

Just a random list I threw together. I'd like to fit Witness in somewhere because she has mad synergy with just about everything. I'm not sure that with acceleration that you need 22 lands, so you might be able to cut some in favor of Witness.

[aisman132000]

your first list seems sort of threat lite to me however i like your second list and will probably run something like that. Only i'll run call instead of groundbreaker cuz groundbreaker seems kind of lame/overated. also i think that duress is really nessecary with cabal therapy as without duress therapy is pretty lame unless you get really lucky. by the way does anyone know how i can get viper at a discounted price, i know i mentioned it before but it is hideously expensive. i might play specter for the time being.

[Anarky87]

Yeah, the first list was pretty rough as it was a starting point for the deck. I included Groundbreaker because he's a possible turn 2 swinger, with the possibility of middle game Unearthing him for an alpha strike, but CotH creates a permanent attacker/blocker so he may be better. I think I'd cut 3 lands and include 3 Duress because I believe your elves can carry you pretty far and 22 lands may lead to a flood.

I don't know where you could get Viper's for cheap. You could try trading for them if you have goodies and just be kind of an ass about their value. I do that sometimes. I know I've handled at least a set since they've been out, but I've traded them since then.

[aisman132000]

After tinkering with the deck some more this is what i came up with


Pet Rock

//Lands
4 Bayou
6 Swamp
7 Forest
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded foothills

//Creatures
4 llanowar elves
3 elves of deep shadow
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Dark confidant

//Spells
4 Putrefy
4 Cabal therapy
1 Sword of fire and ice
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Duress
4 Call of the herd

//Sideboard
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Loaming Shaman
4 Engineered plague
4 naturalize

Clearly this build isn't very different than my original. I added another jitte because i decided i actually liked it better than sword of fire and ice. Turn two troll/call, turn three jitte equip is too good. Also i decided to keep wild mongrel in the deck for a number of reasons. With all the elves and duress/cabal therapy that I play i was getting some dead draws near the end of the game. Wild mongrel turns dead draws into +1/+1. Also he was really helping me roundout my curve when i didn't have a turn one elf. When i was playing viper in place of mongrel sometimes i wouldn't have the turn one elf and wouldn't be able to do anything really relevant until turn 3. In the sb i decided to play 4 hypnotic specters over the mesmeric fiends because specter is super good against both control and combo while fiend is only useful against combo. I also dropped the deeds as i never really ever sided them in and replaced them with loaming shamans for the threshold matchup.

thoughts?

[The Lotus Eater]

I have been putting together a version of Pet Rock and what I came across was that the deck becomes a little more powerful when you have some creatures that are bigger than the average fatty in 1.5.

Using creatures like Iwamori of the Open Fist and Plague Sliver gives you an advantage over creatures like Werebear and Jotun Grunt which are used frequently in just about any meta you happen to be in.

Pet Sliver:

Land (21):
4x Bayou
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Windswept Heath
6x Forest
5x Swamp
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Non-Creature Spells (15):
4x Putrefy
4x Rancor
4x Duress
3x Cabal Therapy

Artifacts (2):
2x Umezawa’s Jitte

Creatures (22):
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Mire Boa
4x Troll Ascetic
3x Fyndorn Elves
3x Plague Sliver
2x Eternal Witness
1x Iwamori of the Open Fist
1x Mirri the Cursed

Sideboard:
4x Engineered Plague
4x Null Rod
3x Funeral Charm
2x Withered Wretch
2x Loaming Shaman

Mirri the Cursed is the last creature. Having a strong creature with evasion is always a bonus and the first strike will take out Mongoose and everything smaller. She becomes pretty nuts with a Rancor/Umezawa's Jitte attached. Even with all the goodness in this card, I'm still keeping my eyes open for something that might replace it. I've thought about adding the fourth Sliver (Although Iwamori is essentially the fourth Sliver), but they can become a slight problem in multiples, three seems to be the best number.

[noobslayer]

I've been working on the list still, and once I/we can get some of the more relevant post board matches, I'll be more than happy to post our results for everyone to see.

[Phantom]

Yeah, I started the thread for Dark Viper, and came up with the name (all though Pet Rock is cool) because I was intrigued by the drawing power of Dark Confidant, and Ohran viper. I stopped work on the deck, because it seemed impossible get decent matchups against tier 1 (ironically, much like The Rock).

I found the green and black disruption suite too specialized. I found myself wanting discard against combo, but not against aggro. Putrefy is a great card, but is often too slow to affect the Goblins matchup, and the 1cc targeted removal spells are even more narrow. I tried Deed as an all purpose answer, but found it to be on the slow side, and was often blowing up my own men.

Green and Blacks relevant threats are fairly high on the mana curve (mostly 3-4cc), so I tried running some accel. Sadly, there is really no good accel available for this kind of deck. Ritual, Tomb, and City are too mana specific, ESG and Mox kill your card advantage and play into Control and Aggro-Control's game plan, and mana elves are slow and destroy the Goblin matchup.

In the end, I ended up with a deck that mixed all of these components and had a decent matchup against everything and a good matchup against nothing. If you guys can come up with a solid build I would certainly be interested in helping, but I don't envy your task or expect good results unfortunately.

[aisman132000]

Plague Sliver seems interesting but is it really better than phantom centaur or ravenous baloth? I would think that either one of those cards would be better than plague sliver. also i think you should drop the one of Mirri the Cursed and just play a second iwamori. Mrri dies to a single siege gang activation or grim lavamancer activation which seems bad to me.

[noobslayer]

Our version of the deck sported even pre-board matches with goblins and gro, and like all builds of this type, had a weakness vs combo (one I am trying to rectify by testing smallpox over putrefy). It had a surprisingly good Red Death Match as well. Fish was abit of an issue, but if Fish is large in your metagame you can run deed or Engineered Explosives (for two, it hits all their relevant threats), as a way to help the match-up. I would've suggested crime/punishment, but getting hit for 7 during my upkeep with a confidant isn't very kosher.

[The Lotus Eater]

Plague Sliver seems interesting but is it really better than phantom centaur or ravenous baloth? I would think that either one of those cards would be better than plague sliver. also i think you should drop the one of Mirri the Cursed and just play a second iwamori. Mrri dies to a single siege gang activation or grim lavamancer activation which seems bad to me.

I feel Plague Sliver does a great job at simply being a bigger creature than Werebear, Nantuko Monastary, and Jotun Grunt. It breaks late game stalemates and just becomes scarry with Rancor, but it also has the potential to come down early and really be a 'must deal with now' threat for your opponent.

Think you're right about Mirri though, just dies a little too easy. A second Iwamori could be used here, or I've been looking into other options like Razormane Masticore, Kokusho (works good with Cabal Therapy), Prowling Pangolin (Can be two Diabolic Edicts in one or a fatty, generally not bad either way), Sengir Nosferatu (Hard to kill and has evasion), Meng Huo, Barbarian King (A better Kaysa), Morinfen(WTF?) or Childhood Horror (Another WTF?). Really, I think almost any of these would work in the Mirri spot, just a matter of preference.

[Phantom]

I feel Plague Sliver does a great job at simply being a bigger creature than Werebear, Nantuko Monastary, and Jotun Grunt. It breaks late game stalemates and just becomes scarry with Rancor, but it also has the potential to come down early and really be a 'must deal with now' threat for your opponent.

Think you're right about Mirri though, just dies a little too easy. A second Iwamori could be used here, or I've been looking into other options like Razormane Masticore, Kokusho (works good with Cabal Therapy), Prowling Pangolin (Can be two Diabolic Edicts in one or a fatty, generally not bad either way), Sengir Nosferatu (Hard to kill and has evasion), Meng Huo, Barbarian King (A better Kaysa), Morinfen(WTF?) or Childhood Horror (Another WTF?). Really, I think almost any of these would work in the Mirri spot, just a matter of preference.

Sadly, I'm pretty sure that no 4cc creature really fits here. With the mild acceleration Pet Rock runs, Iwamori and his ilk are going to hit the board turn 3 or 4 (or even later against Goblins). That's too late to affect the Goblins or combo matchups. I mean, the only real 4cc creatures that have had any impact on the format are Ringleader and Enforcer. One is a draw 4 on a stick that is often played free of charge and with disruption backup. The other is a 6/6 flyer with pro:black. Nothing we can run @ 4cc can touch that kind of power, so I think we should concentrate on 3cc, where green and black shine, and beef up their stats with gems like Rancor and Jitte. Certainly, 5cc and up is completely out of the question.


Along with my previous point, I think I have an idea of how to improve the deck. When testing the old Dark Viper build, I ran into a ton of mana problems. I simply had too much to play and not enough mana. Turn 1, I wanted to duress, but I wanted to lay and elf. Turn 2, I wanted to Hymn, but I wanted to play Confidant, but I had to get rid of Lackey. Turn three, I desperately wanted to drop Troll, but I needed to Putrefy that Vial, etc, etc. My solution was to run a ton of accel (I think at one point I was up to a ten piece split b/t Mox, ESG, and Llanowar). This completely killed the control and ag-con matchups as well as leading to inconsistent draws (It did make the Goblin matchup awesome tho. First turn Viper or Troll is game)

So what can we do? I say we try to replace 4 mana elves with Aether Vial. We have a fairly steady mana curve, and a shit ton of quality 3cc choices (Troll, Witness, Hypy, O Viper) and the 2cc choices are solid as well (Confidant, Wild Mongrel, Rotting Giant?). In addition to leaving your mana open to play your disruption and control while dropping creatures, Vial can be used to pull off some sick combat tricks. It also works terrifically with card advantage creatures like Confidant, Viper and Hypy. Drop any of these against a tapped out, or recently duressed opponent, and watch as the creature immediatly pays for itself!

Here are usually my three reasons for not playing Vial:

1) It takes up 4 creature slots.
2) Every Deck is prepared for it thanks to Goblins.
3) It prevents you from boarding in needles against Goblins and naming Vial.

Reasons why these don't apply here:
1) It's replacing 4 mana elves. Still a hit, but mana elves shouldn't be missed too much.
2) Well, if they are running Needles for it, we have Putrefy main and Grip out of the board for them.
3) And I quote "we have Putrefy main and Grip out of the board for them".


Still, I'm not sure if it's a great idea, but I think it's def worth a test.

[noobslayer]

Mine and Anarky's answer to that dilemma was to run more mana elves. I think at last count I had 5 or 6 in the deck. I did test ESG at one point, but the fact that it only generated a generic 2/2 if you had to cast it sucked.

[nitewolf9]

I am working on a very similar list to this only I splash white for stp and loxodon hierarch.

Here it is:

3 elves of deep shadow
3 llanowar elves
4 troll ascetic
4 dark confidant
3 loxodon hierarch

3 call of the herd
4 swords to plowshares
4 duress
4 cabal therapy
4 rancor
3 umezawa's jitte

2 polluted delta
4 windswept heath
4 savannah
3 bayou
1 plains
1 swamp
6 forest

board:
4 engineered plague
4 flesh reaver
3 harmonic sliver
3 tormod's crypt
1 loxodon hierarch

Rancor is the stupid nuts on a troll ascetic, hierarch is very good and offsets lifeloss along with jitte, and swords is obviously the best removal you can have...it answers the first turn lackey as well, which putrefy does not (putrefy is way too slow I think).

Harmonic sliver is better than naturalize I think out of the board simply because it can wear equipment/rancor and can feed therapy.

Anyway, that's what I'm working with. I am going to try to test it Friday...troll is very underused in this format I think.

[Phantom]

Certainly a white splash is very viable, but here's my problem: You have a whopping 7 creatures that are going to even have a chance of living more than a turn against Goblins (and most likely Red Death). And you'll probably never be able to cast Hierarch through their mana disruption, so now you're down to 4. That's not good.

[noobslayer]

I agree, stay with green and black. Baloth is much easier to cast than Hierarch is. Smother, Jitte, and Smallpox in my testing so far have all been fast enough to help hold off goblins.

[The Lotus Eater]

With Future Sight spoilers coming out, I think there are three cards that should be looked into for this deck.

Tarmogoyf
Tombstalker
Street Wraith

Tarmogoyf fits the curve of the deck and fills the role of a solid mid-range fatty. The deck runs instants, sorceries, lands, creatures, artifacts, and enchantments as well as using discard spells to fill your opponents graveyard with different types of cards as well.

Tombstalker could be a great finisher as this deck's graveyard usually fills up pretty quickly with discard spells, fetchlands, and mana elves. Clearly using Tarmogoyf and Tombstalker in the deck wouldn't be the best idea normally, so either one or the other.

Stret Wraith works best in the builds that run Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth since they would make full use of the card with it's swampwalk ability. This card could be used easily with either Tarmogoyf or Tombstalker as it jumps into the graveyard and replaces itself. And to top it off it's an unblockable beater if you run Urborg.

Land (21):
4x Bayou
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Windswept Heath
6x Forest
5x Swamp
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Non-Creature Spells (15):
4x Putrefy
4x Rancor
4x Duress
3x Cabal Therapy

Artifacts (2):
2x Umezawa’s Jitte

Creatures (22):
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Mire Boa
4x Troll Ascetic
3x Tarmogoyf
3x Street Wratih
2x Eternal Witness
2x Fyndorn Elves

//////////////////////////////////////

Land (21):
4x Bayou
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Windswept Heath
6x Forest
5x Swamp
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Non-Creature Spells (15):
4x Putrefy
4x Rancor
4x Duress
3x Cabal Therapy

Artifacts (2):
2x Umezawa’s Jitte

Creatures (22):
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Mire Boa
4x Troll Ascetic
4x Street Wratih
2x Eternal Witness
2x Fyndorn Elves
2x Tombstalker