[Deck] The Rock

I would like to know other people's thought's on this deck list. Specifically the IoK, Duress, and Surgical Extraction package MB.

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=2094&d=214616

22 LANDS
4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
3 Bayou
2 Swamp
1 Polluted Delta
1 Forest
1 Plains

14 CREATURES
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Stoneforge Mystic

20 INSTANTS and SORCERIES
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Vindicate
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Duress
3 Surgical Extraction

4 OTHER SPELLS
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

SIDEBOARD
1 Duress
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Karakas
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Perish
1 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Extirpate
1 Darkblast
3 Wall of Omens
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

tournament report. Linked so you can get to it easier.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...221#post599221

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hulk

I would like to know other people's thought's on this deck list. Specifically the IoK, Duress, and Surgical Extraction package MB.

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=2094&d=214616

22 LANDS
4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
3 Bayou
2 Swamp
1 Polluted Delta
1 Forest
1 Plains

14 CREATURES
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Stoneforge Mystic

20 INSTANTS and SORCERIES
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Vindicate
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Duress
3 Surgical Extraction

4 OTHER SPELLS
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

SIDEBOARD
1 Duress
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Karakas
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Perish
1 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Extirpate
1 Darkblast
3 Wall of Omens
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

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looks cuul ! I aprecihate ! It looks familiar ... hulkytalky
Wasteland + surgical game 1 is a strong play vs all tricolours decks.

But, Surgical can get countered. Why not play Extirpate, at that point?

-Matt

because surgical does not need mana and it give you the turn1 kill possibility
wasteland + surgical
or discard spell + surgical.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sdematt

But, Surgical can get countered. Why not play Extirpate, at that point?

-Matt

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I think at the point in the game when you want to best utilize it, the tempo gain outweighs the counterability. For turn 1 Duress -> Surgical, or turn 2 Hymn -> Surgical you're removing a dangerous 4x at a cost of 2 life. The counters they potentially have online to combat it are Force of Will and Daze both of which set them back for the benefit of countering the spell.

I'm not totally sold on the idea of mainboarding Surgical Extraction, but I can see the logic of using it over Extirpate. It is still a card that doesn't effect board state, if you're staring down Knight of the Reliquary and it could have been Vindicate #4 or something. It does have application against several archetypes though.

Can't say if the extipates or Extractions would be better but, the decks that are being run are only running a couple of real threats. being able to snag one of those could be helpful. The only issue I see is that we play swords... which doesn't work well with rfg effects.

On a side note, I've played in 2 smaller local tournaments this week.

3-1'd the first. Loss to Death and Taxes... forgot to maze a creature. went to -1 turn before I would've stabalized. :rolleyes: Played, Maverick (2-1), Merfolk (2-0), D&T (1-2), and Canadian Tempo Thresh (2-0).

4-0'd the second. Played - Reanimator (2-1), Mono Green (random guys) (2-0), AnT (2-0), and Zoo (2-1).

So I've been playing against a ton of Delver.deck, and I'll be honest: a flying Wild Nacatl is pretty good. With this in mind, I think two things:

a) Pernicious Deed, albeit slow, is good at killing Delver and Mongoose, or both :)

b) We need more 1 CMC removal; 4 Swords is pretty lacking. You also need removal for Maverick's Ooze (which can be annoying as fuck...)

c) Is SFM too slow? Again, I love SFM, don't get me wrong. When it goes right, it's great. But, I ran up against Tempo all day and they always had the Stifle, removal, Bolt, etc. It was really frustrating.

With this in mind, I also noticed a couple of things.

a) Even though Goyf use is on the decline, most of those aggro decks can't actually kill a Tarmogoyf or Knight. Interesting to say the least. My point: Add more Goyf.

b) Add more Knights. I was running 3 with 3 GSZ, but 7 isn't bad either.

c) Playing more land-heavy. Stifle and Wasteland are back with a vengeance like it's 2007, so I'd suggest running an extra land or two if you're at 21/22. I'd also run at least 1-of Birds or Noble.

d) My Vindicates got Dazed all day long. Getting up to 3 mana against a tempo deck, only to have my lovely Vindicates Dazed was also frustrating. I'm wondering if we should cut it back to 2 Vindicate, or possibly just more creature removal, since Jace is being pushed out of the format.

Thoughts?

-Matt

Matt,

I agree about Pernicious Deed being a house right now, not only against thresh but also MUC, CounterTop, and all of those other nasty control decks that we usually scoop to. I played in a 36 man local tourney yesterday and lost to the three above mentioned decks. Brought my 2 deeds from the board in each post game-1, and wish I honestly had 4 in there. Thinking about cutting something to make room for 2-3 main.

On another note, Surgical Extraction was an absolutely boss. Again, ran 3 in the board but I think I literally brought them in EVERY game 2 and game 3 in 6 rounds of play. Kinda want to make room for those guys in the main as well...

@sdematt

Maybe Darkblast as the additional 1cc removal?

Darkblast is cool since it gets Birds, Grims, Hierarchs, Mother of Runes, Lackeys, Bobs, Snapcasters, Cliques and can occasionally get 2 toughness guys if you play it upkeep and dredge it back draw step like to take out a SFM or something.

The fact that it can be recycled at the cost of a draw is pretty killer against the decks it's good against - Tribal, Delver Thresh (UG b/r), and Maverick primarily.

I agree SFM is clunky at the moment, if you're playing midrange w/o Aether Vial there is a lot of tempo invested in this card and w/o counters a bunch of 1cc spells can potentially bury you. If you want to stick with the equipment package, maybe running 2 pieces of equipment and 1 SFM would be descent, maybe have a 2nd in the board against removal light decks like Merfolk or w/e. It's a powerful card, but it's slow and hard to protect. I think it lends itself better to being a late game top deck in this archetype.

I agree with you also that Tarmogoyf is good right now. Knight of the Reliquary is even better, I definitely think it should be 4x. Running more land isn't a bad idea to combat Waste+Stifle. Horizon Canopy is a solid pick since it helps avoid flooding in the later game.

Rock needs to go back to it's original principles, being a card advantage/quality machine. The green sun zenith's and stoneforges are cute but they are just too slow and yes SFM is card advantage but it is also a 1/2 and if the equipment it gets is killed it is kinda useless. We play a "fair" deck according to some but the real power to the deck is that every single card is seemingly unfair. The deck needs to play deeds mainboard because of all of the tempo and aggro, it also needs more lands because of how powerful wasteland is again and the need to hit three lands fast. I don't understand why people aren't playing vindicate as a four of as well, this card is fantastic it has won me games even when it isn't that good in the match up because, it is at worst a three mana strip mine. We need to go back to the classic build and then make changes from that.

The main problem is that the format has sped up, so playing Deeds and Vindicates are super slow. I'm not saying they're not good, but 4 Vindicate with MD deed is pretty rough, unless we were to start playing 8 basics lands, so we could consistently just run off basics like a champ, which might not be a bad idea...

-Matt

I don't think the format is too fast for SFM or Zenith (especially since I opted to not t8 in KC with SFM and GSZ). Vindicate costs 3 and with the inclusion of Knight and the loss of a true accelerate we can't afford to run as many 3cc spells. The last one was Sakura-Tribe Elder and it was great for it's era and may deserve a comeback but where in the list? With that taken into consideration:

3-4 Knights
1-2 Deeds
3-5 Vindicate/Pulse
0-3 Zenith (@2+)

Makes for 7-14 3cc spells.

Adding to the land count is a fine idea as well but, be careful. With adding lands in the deck you increase the risk of flooding. Wastelands are always around. I think that instead of running more lands, fetching basics when possible may be a better option than going up to 25+ lands.

We don't have the draw/filter that some other decks have so we can't swap lands for spells later on when the game is getting to the wire.

Side Note: Mox lists are typically running 3 Mox so, +3 to their late-game dead draws.

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For removal, I'd advise looking into Dismember. -5/-5 is pretty big and even if you're not always able to kill a bigger creature, it may be that little advantage your team needs (shrinking their creature) to win. It doesn't always cost 4 life and can be used regardless of moon effects.

True, Dismember is a relevant spell under Blood Moon, which is also why I'd never play Magus of the Moon now.

I also think Mox is bad in the sense of I want maximal threat density, especially late game. The acceleration is excellent, but comes at the cost of some consistency, as I'm sure all of you have noticed. I'd personally, at this juncture, opt for additional removal. I think if you make the switch from Thoughtseize to Iok (considering Jace isn't as prevalent with all the Lightning Bolt in the format), running Dismember will be more viable considering opposing direct damage and Dark Confidant damage.

I'd also consider Ghastly Demise. Sure, it does die to grave-hate a bit, especially with an opposing Ooze, but, it doesn't accelerate your opponent like Path does, and it doesn't cost 2 like Smother or Go for the Throat (a primary concern when facing Spell Snare.deck).

Thoughts?

-Matt

Quote:

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I'd also consider Ghastly Demise. Sure, it does die to grave-hate a bit, especially with an opposing Ooze, but, it doesn't accelerate your opponent like Path does, and it doesn't cost 2 like Smother or Go for the Throat (a primary concern when facing Spell Snare.deck).

Thoughts?

-Matt

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I think Demise is a good option as well. My only beef with the card is that it's still got a non-black clause attached to the graveyard restriction. We can't be the pickiest though. Swords has a drawback that we don't care about and is helpful at times (burn). I don't think they'll be printing anything that focus'd again for a while (since path isn't swords since it can screw you over more often than not).

I don't see many mirror matches (archetype mirrors) so I don't know how often it's going to be relevant that Demise can't hit a Black creature (Bob's the only one I can think of right now). The bigger restriction is the graveyard restriction. If you see a Knight, assume there is a bog somewhere in the 75. If you see a Zenith, assume there is an Ooze. You can use the other removal on them but, be aware that They (Knight and Ooze) can change the value of your Demise limit if you're in a pinch.

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I think the Mox is fine. It's more meant to help the deck not have to get to the late game than be a late game draw. I do agree, it is usually terrible late game and I'm constantly shuffling them around the top 3 cards or flipping them to Bob.

I'm still willing to sacrifice those 3 slots to land a Bob, SFM, or Library on the first turn. To be honest, there are a lot of games that I'm actually casting GSZ for 1 on the first turn so that I can do increasingly absurd things on turns 2-4 (ei. T2 Liliana+wasting. T3 Jitte+Equip and swing with the turn 2 play). Even being able to Top on the first turn isn't bad. It's a judgement call though.

I do think the deck requires either some type of acceleration or a way to slow your opponent. We're no where near how slow we used to be a couple years ago but, neither is anyone else.

As far as the 1 cc removal isn't disfigure a possibility? It takes out Bob, Lavamancer, Stoneforge, and Clique, a Nacatl on turn 1 and Goblin guide. Hits mishras factory like a champ as well.

Building my deck against reanimator i change my MD to fit more removal whitouth white (Iona), and im liking the currents builds:

Option 1:
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Maelstrom Pulse

or

Option 2:
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Putrefy (instant cast, hit Iona to white)
1 Victim of Night (kills everything)

Tsoatt - I think with how the meta is right now, yes. Disfigure becomes an option. Just realize that you won't be able to kill the larger creatures (or Zoo) with just disfigure. You can however use it to aid a creature to kill something it shouldn't (Bob>Kird Ape).

Novatinhu - What's the rest look like? There may be other things you can do to assist. I think that the variance is a good thing. Just don't want to advocate a change to the mana requirements do to an alteration in the removal. I like the Pulses though. They can also just be Putrefy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by damionblackgear

Tsoatt - I think with how the meta is right now, yes. Disfigure becomes an option. Just realize that you won't be able to kill the larger creatures (or Zoo) with just disfigure. You can however use it to aid a creature to kill something it shouldn't (Bob>Kird Ape).

Novatinhu - What's the rest look like? There may be other things you can do to assist. I think that the variance is a good thing. Just don't want to advocate a change to the mana requirements do to an alteration in the removal. I like the Pulses though. They can also just be Putrefy.

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Im playing with DephtsRock, but now Im testing new builds, currently the list looks like:


// Lands
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Wasteland
2 Scrubland
2 Bayou
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Swamp
1 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dryad Arbor

// Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
1 Birds of Paradise
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Knight of the Reliquary

// Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Batterskull
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Maelstrom Pulse

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Angel's Grace
SB: 2 Diabolic Edict
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Qasali Pridemage
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed

3 Slots on the SB

I guess the only changes I would make would be able to suggest is the inclusion of Liliana (new) over 2 Hymns (her edict ability is very helpful and they don't always go off turn 2. and perhaps switching from Inquisition to Thoughtseize (so you can take the force).

Between the packages, I'd go with A. you already have it main-decked. Why change it? Also, what about swamping the counts on edicts to extractions. That would give you an out to them being able to go pull a fatty back.

What're you typically siding against them? Me? With your list, I'd probably...

-4 Hymn (it's too slow... if that makes any sense)
-1 Goyf (Your Bird seems more helpful, ironically)

+3 Extraction
+2 Edict.

The only other thing I could think of, would be swapping another card for the Pridemage (Animate Dead).