[Deck] The Rock

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Claymore

Looks like a pretty stock list. The sideboard is...different. I'm a fan of tutor packages, but the choices like Zuran Orb and then singletons Thalia and Teeg seem awkward.

Did it beat Joe?

I would imagine it lost to Show and Tell.

---

It lost to Joe. 1 Gaddock Teeg and no way to protect it is no bueno.

I like the thinking behind the list, though. Most of the time you're either grabbing Batterskull or Sword of Fire and Ice. Jitte is usually bonus fun time otherwise, unless you're playing against DnT/Elves.

4 Goyf means you're super weak to Rest in Peace, but it's a damn good beater otherwise. I'm not sure why he kept Goyf in against Miracles, though.

4 Liliana is your hedge against TNN.

8x 1-CMC hand disruption seems like too much. Sure, I guess you use it to grab all the TNN's you can and it's decent against your combo matchups, but I really don't like it anymore for a few reasons. As the games get grindier and grindier, which they are as a result of TNN, topdecking your hand disruption is ATROCIOUS. In the long game, it's likely 7 dead cards in your deck, and you want as few as possible against TNN.

2 STP seems a little light, but okay.

He lost to resolved Jaces both times if I recall, so having a way to kill walkers is likely a good idea.

The Nature's Claims are likely great against the Equipment matchups, but awful elsewhere. No guarantee at killing equipment/as an Ancient Grudge replacement seems weak. I'd almost consider Grudge since you can produce Red mana once in a game if you absolutely had to. Otherwise, I'd rather have Grip.

Spellbomb is fine.

1 Thalia/Teeg seems light against Combo. The one thing I've learned about combo in my years of playing is that on top of their deck lies the win, and no matter how pimp your Thoughtseize is, you'll still lose to topdeck Ad Nauseum. Hate bears and/or lockpieces are better than hand disruption, and better, in a way, than Counterspells. If you're looking to reliably beat combo, 6 pieces of hand disruption, 2 Gaddock Teeg, and some Thalias/Canonists are what it's going to take.

Rest seems okay. Ooze is super juicy in the current metagame and is really undervalued. Deathblade is likely the best deck since they're packing the most TNN's and have all the right tools in the right colours to a) beat other TNNs, and b) fight combo preying on the usual TNN deck. I think we, ideally, want to have at least 50-55% against Deathblade, however we need to go about accomplishing that.

First thing I would do is cut 2 IoK for 1 Sylvan Library and 1 Maelstrom Pulse. Ups the curve a bit, but whatever.

-Matt

Or, if you're on the E. Tutor package and really set on Goyfs, run Seal of Primordium. Pump dem Goyfs.

-Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sdematt

8x 1-CMC hand disruption seems like too much. Sure, I guess you use it to grab all the TNN's you can and it's decent against your combo matchups, but I really don't like it anymore for a few reasons. As the games get grindier and grindier, which they are as a result of TNN, topdecking your hand disruption is ATROCIOUS. In the long game, it's likely 7 dead cards in your deck, and you want as few as possible against TNN.

---

I think this is working against what the point was. It's meant to protect the key pieces. Think of IOK as a more relevant STP that they don't gain life on, or an Abrupt Decay that only costs one mana and destroys spells. Taking counters/removal/TNN/knowing what's in your opponent's hand to plan around it. Turn 1 discard, into turn 2 bomb or more discard, into turn 3 Liliana.

Think about the turns in a game. The first few are the most important. If you start dominating in the early game with a SFM>Skull or Bob>cards or unthreatened Liliana the late game will go your way.

I'm not saying this is the best way to build Junk, or that it's not, I just think the knee-jerk reaction(which I also thought to myself) of removing some of the discard is going against the designer's agenda. There's a good point to using that much turn-1 discard, testing should always be done before making changes.

Getting consistent turn 1 discard is the gameplan of this deck imo. Getting more later doesn't hurt that much, and there's still plenty of late-game cards in the deck to not have to worry about a couple more bad topdecks.

And there's always "discard to Liliana".*

*Black's "it's blue so you can always remove it to FOW". lol

Sure, I agree discard does help you preemptively to deal with their threats, but these decks play Brainstorm and/or Ponder. Their threats can live on the top of their deck and the question is, as the game progresses, is it worth drawing those dead slots? I'm saying I don't think it is. I've played the deck enough and drawn enough discard spells against certain decks to know when it's worth it, or, as the game progresses, not worth it at all.

I'm not saying playing 8 is wrong per say, but I just feel like it's a little much. Just my two cents.

-Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sdematt

Sure, I agree discard does help you preemptively to deal with their threats, but these decks play Brainstorm and/or Ponder. Their threats can live on the top of their deck and the question is, as the game progresses, is it worth drawing those dead slots? I'm saying I don't think it is. I've played the deck enough and drawn enough discard spells against certain decks to know when it's worth it, or, as the game progresses, not worth it at all.

I'm not saying playing 8 is wrong per say, but I just feel like it's a little much. Just my two cents.

-Matt

---

FWIW, I once tried 8 one mana discard spells in Junk... It was really just to pre-emptively protect stoneforge from removal. It was clunky though, really bad topdecks. I shaved it down to a 3/3 split and added a pulse and an stp, and eventually realized I would rather just have hymn, so I went back to 4 thoughtseize, 3 hymn. following up a t1 thoughtseize with a t2 hymn is so much better than another targeted discard spell, it would just steal games. Even 7 discard seems like a bit much, 6 felt like the perfect number to me.

So it seems like running 2 Knights and the Dark Depths package isn't "all in" enough. It hardly ever comes together to do what you want it to do.

So I feel like you need to run 3-4 Knights otherwise it's not coming together often enough to be worth running. Which leaves us with going back to the SFM plan, which there's nothing wrong with. The common problem was that none of our creatures have beef beyond Goyf/Knight in the SFM package. Everything's like a 2/2 or something.

I'm thinking about cutting Knight entirely, which really makes me sad, but it's a 3-mana dude that tends to not do it in the fair matchups. He makes a huge difference in the SnT matchup, but I think we can still fight that matchup out of the board and not have to worry about it.

I also agree that the discard might be worth upping to 6 again. I'm hesitant, but dead draws are dead draws in the later game. I think keeping the Sylvan count up will help to mitigate drawing it all in the late game.

Creatures (17)

3 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Dryad Arbor

Planeswalkers (3)

3 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (22)

2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Bayou
2 Marsh Flats
2 Savannah
2 Scrubland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
2 Windswept Heath

Spells (20)

3 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

This is what I'm thinking for the moment. Cutting Jitte sounds a bit risky, but I'm basically only grabbing as the first thing against Elves, Gobbos, etc. Against any TNN deck, Merfolk, etc., I'm gunning for Fire and Ice, and if I need to be the aggressor, I'm just getting Batterskull. I can't fit the 3rd piece of hand disruption unless I cut a land, and I have to test to see if it's worth it or not. Karakas was cut since I'm not running Knight, but depending on the ratios, it may come back in, we'll see. I just want to try it for now. Knight being gone means I'm not tutoring for Wastelands, but I haven't been doing that since Knight went from 4 to 2.

For the sideboard, I'm thinking:

2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Thalia, GoT
1 Life from the Loam
1 Krosan Grip/Seal of Primordium
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Golgari Charm
3 Runed Halo

I'm actually toying with the idea of Runed Halo for a few reasons. One of the reasons I really liked E. Plague was because once it was there, it sat on the board. It stops all further TNN until it was stopped. But, the problem with this card was that if you ran into a situation where it was already Equipped, you had to destroy all further equipment on it to make it a 3/1 again, or kill their other creatures then Liliana.

So, what does Runed Halo do for us? First of all, it's unexpected. Second, if we can keep their other creatures off the table, they can't do damage to us, no matter how many Equipment they have. All the other cards that we have are very NARROW solutions. TNN isn't unbeatable, but there are situations where it sure feels like it.

Runed Halo will stop TNN and let us deal with their other threats, and in other decks, it has applications. They are:

Griselbrand, Tendrils, Progenitus, TNN, Liliana, Punishing Fires, Jace TMS, etc.

The main reason I like the card is that it doesn't worry about whatever condition the TNN is in. Blanking further TNN or relegating them to blockers is a good thing, and making them reorganize their Equipment to other creatures is a huge sorcery speed mana investment.


Thoughts on my craziness?

-Matt

After years of matts hard work junk is now a deck with an article on SCG.... And they still just want to call it white jund.... Junk'd ...no respect.

Dave's article was fine, the naming just kind of sucked. I'm glad people are posting finishes, but no credits to me or this thread seems blah.

-Matt

"Against any TNN deck, Merfolk, etc., I'm gunning for Fire and Ice"

Just one thing to note here: Against merfolk, I recommend to always grab Jitte, Sword is too slow. With jitte you can attack, get counters, requip it to some blocker and then get another counters when they attack. It puts the game out of reach very quickly.

I played in a tournament few weeks ago where I played against Merfolk in the swiss and then top 8 too and I lost one game because I fetched Sword of FaI, whereas if I had Jitte I'd win the game. So the next games I just went with Jitte and he couldn't deal with it

That's true. But, i still think there's merit to boarding it.

-Matt

about runed halo: there was some talk in the death & taxes thread about this card.

appearingly they dismissed it though as not good enough, but still i like the card, as it can perform as hate in a lot of matchups, allthough i am not sure if there would be better options than runed halo.

i really like the fact that you can protect yourself from planeswalkers as well, specially liliana :) making her really crappy

in death and taxes they use meekstone as TNN-hate. it is lighter on mana requirements, and if it comes into play after they attacked with a TNN you could even hinder them from ever using them as a blocker again as well, but meekstone is restricted as creature hate

True, but I think DnT has a better TNN matchup ANYWAY since they have Vial and more evasive creatures. I think for them, they're just decent against them anyway and don't need Runed Halo at all, whereas I think we MAY need it.

I think it's also possible to name token names to protect yourself, or am I wrong? Can I name "Angel" against Entreat? It's really late here.

-Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sdematt

True, but I think DnT has a better TNN matchup ANYWAY since they have Vial and more evasive creatures. I think for them, they're just decent against them anyway and don't need Runed Halo at all, whereas I think we MAY need it.

I think it's also possible to name token names to protect yourself, or am I wrong? Can I name "Angel" against Entreat? It's really late here.

-Matt

---

no you cannot name "angel" against an entreat, nor can you name tokens of other kinds

the card says, that you need to name a card from which you have protection, so it would NOT even work on a batterskull as well

what i was wondering about though is:
what happens if you name emrakul,.... do you have protection from his annihilator trigger?

No you wont, the trigger doesn't target (allthough you choose in a 2-HG game).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sdematt

Dave's article was fine, the naming just kind of sucked. I'm glad people are posting finishes, but no credits to me or this thread seems blah.

-Matt

---

No doubt, especially since it seems like a lot of the points he makes were lifted right out of this thread, unless he independently came to the same conclusions as people here did.

Here are the relevant decks that made top 32 in Nashville:

14th: Depths Junk - http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=63450

7 Discard (3 Duress, 4 Thoughtseize), 3 Depths main, one more side, 4 Crop Rotation, 4 Living Wish, small ETutor package split between main and board with Spirit, Tutor, and Pithing Needle main with hatebears side, no Goyf.

27th: Junkblade - http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=63436

4 Thoughtseize, 3 Hymns, no Knight, 2 Swords and a Jitte (no BSkull), 4 Souls, 1 Golgari Charm main, general sideboard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Claymore

Here are the relevant decks that made top 32 in Nashville:

14th: Depths Junk - http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=63450

7 Discard (3 Duress, 4 Thoughtseize), 3 Depths main, one more side, 4 Crop Rotation, 4 Living Wish, small ETutor package split between main and board with Spirit, Tutor, and Pithing Needle main with hatebears side, no Goyf.

27th: Junkblade - http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=63436

4 Thoughtseize, 3 Hymns, no Knight, 2 Swords and a Jitte (no BSkull), 4 Souls, 1 Golgari Charm main, general sideboard.

---

I didn't even notice the 27th place finish. Interesting choices. So many Souls, though. Infinite 3-drops. 9x 3-drops to flip to Confidant seems bad, but I like the design. The point behind no Batterskull also seems sound: he's a ground pounder most of the time, and TNN is just going to block it unless you spend infinite mana to Equip to a flyer, whereas the Swords are less mana intensive. Interesting choices.

I just really hate the sideboard a bit. There's no reason not to play Teeg, and I think the 1-of Humility is loose. I think if you're planning on running the Humuility in a deck with 4 Souls, why not run at least 2?

Anyway, good job to this guy, the Depths guy, and Davy for the article.

-Matt

Placed 3rd at a 24 person tournament in Spain or Portugal:

Creatures [18]
3 Loxodon Smiter
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf

Instants [5]
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay

Sorceries [9]
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize

Planeswalkers [3]
3 Liliana of the Veil

Artifacts [3]
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands [22]
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Savannah
2 Marsh Flats
2 Scrubland
2 Swamp
2 Windswept Heath
3 Wasteland
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs


1 Bitterblossom
2 Golgari Charm
1 Extirpate
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Krosan Grip
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Swords to Plowshares


-Matt

That Junkblade deck has a lot of the ideas I was thinking of, ever since I got in my new Scrublands.

One thing I really want to work in is at least 1 Sylvan Library, because I think it is just too good not to run, especially with Confidant. I am thinking of replacing one of the Souls with it.

Sylvan Library is just too dirty to clean its act up.

-Matt