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I made Day 2 and lost playing for top 64 in the final round. 11-5 with 4 of my losses being terrible punts because I'm not quite ready to be playing tournament magic for 2 days straight.
If anyone wants a tournament report or decklist let me know, otherwise I'm gonna be in my corner contemplating how I could punt so bad.
I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. Like I said in my previous post, this deck can break you, and it is extremely easy to screw up all sorts of combat and play order operations with Rock than can cost you games. Half of the deck's assets are designed to be able to deal with multiple threats, so that every single game with it requires a ton of threat assessment and forethought on every single turn of a game. After two days of Magic, that hurts.Quote:
Originally Posted by mishima_kazuya
I know where you're coming from, though. I've been wondering to myself how I could screw up a few critical turns so badly even after drilling with this deck for months straight against almost everything in the format. Look at it this way: at least you know you screwed up. A lot of people who punt games never admit to themselves that they do, and keep doing it.
Haha yes that was awesome. Free Therapy hits for everyone!Quote:
not mistaking a Therapy for Thoughtseize like an idiot from across the table on turn 1. :D
I played rock/junk to a 4-3 finish on Saturday, losing once to reanimator and twice to W/B. Reanimator went to 3 games, game 1 I wasnt in it, 2 I crushed him, 3 he got a turn 2 Jin-Gitaxis that I couldnt deal with with 2 lands and in topdeck mode. Both matches vs W/B were very close until them blowing me out, both of which I feel I could have won had I been better prepared against the deck (fucking bitterbossom+elspeth). I won my matches against U merfolk, UW merfolk, Painterstone, and Team Italia.
I've been playing Junk pretty exclusively the last 6 months (it fits my playstyle so well), so I was confident with my deck choice, and my list felt solid all day. While I didnt do well, almost all of my opponents were fun to play against and chat with.
I went 4-4 on Saturday
Decks I beat
Round 1 U/w Folk 2-1
Round 2 Hypergenesis 2-1 (only reason I won cause of top deck Karakas after emrakul lands.
Round 3 Enchantress 2-0
Round 4 Dragon Stompy 2-1
Round 5 U Folk 1-2 (misplayed like an idiot round 2 or i would have had)
Round 6 Protean Hulk combo 1-2 (Never took a look to see how this day works went into it not really knowing how to fight it.
Round 7 No RUG 1-2
Round 8 Affinity 1-2
Round 9 Dropped
This was the list I was running.
Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Thrun
Spells
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Vindicate
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Mox Diamond
3 Green Sun's Zenith
Lands
3 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
3 Bayou
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Savannah
Sideboard (15 cards)
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Runed Halo
1 Choke
Looking back I wish I had more Progen hate. I'm not satisfied with my SB list completely but my MD is revamped.
Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
Spells
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Vindicate
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Mox Diamond
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Lands
3 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
3 Bayou
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Savannah
1 Horizon Canopy
Sideboard (15 cards)
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Null Rod
2 Perish
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Runed Halo
This is the new list and I'm pretty happy with the changes so far. My friend, who has been piloting the deck with me since December, has been telling me to try the 1 of Elspeth. I love it. Its a great way to deal with many decks you normally can't deal with game one. Helps with BUG landstill, U/W Landstill, Mirror, NO decks to fly over Progen, Helps with stalked Folk decks. I also like it because its an easy card to board out for decks like combo and such. I feel that UW batterstill is going to get big after this GP. Good news is, my friend put the deck together the on Monday and Junk is a good matchup for it, not to mention a fun one.
My Sideboard is in a good spot right now. 3 Deeds for aggro decks, it does a good job. Perish is for Progen, gonna try it since NO RUG/BANT are gonna get bigger IMO, Still iffy on null rod but good tutor card for metalworker or any equipment deck and even for an early affinity matchup ( I know deed is better ) Thrun for Landstill decks. GY hate for dredge, and the Come back of reanimator. Runed Halo for anything that randomly picks up.
I'm not opposed to changing my SB any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Time to let the cat out of the bag...
I cut Mox Diamonds, expecting a metagame lacking of combo.
Mark Tocco told me to play SoFaF in the main since the metagame was full of green decks, but then Lucas Siow told me to run the SoFi and I stuck with SoFi. Of course SoFaF would've been SO much better. But Lucas did tell me to run a 3rd Stoneforge Mystic by cutting a Zenith so I did that and really liked the power of Stoneforge Mystic.
// Lands
1 [IN] Plains (1)
1 [US] Swamp (2)
3 [A] Bayou
2 [A] Scrubland
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [PT] Forest (3)
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [A] Savannah
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
1 [FUT] Horizon Canopy
// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
2 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
1 [RAV] Birds of Paradise
3 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
2 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
// Spells
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
3 [AP] Vindicate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
2 [MBS] Green Sun's Zenith
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
3 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)
1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
SB: 1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
SB: 2 [TE] Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 [US] Duress
SB: 3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 2 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll
I lost Day 1 to Rb Goblins (I used too much mana to Top since I forgot what was on top of my deck and didn't have enough mana to pop Deed to keep myself alive. He had been slow rolling spells and just 2'ing me with Goblin Ringleader, so when he saw that I only had 1 mana up he ran out Goblin Warcheif and 2 Piledrivers to finish me off)
I also lost to the BGx Natural Order Protean Hulk deck, since I had close to no idea what his deck had. I should've spent Friday night looking up GPT decklists since my opponent was playing close to the exact 75 that won the GPT.
I lost the first round of Day 2 to Team Italia. I sided in Pernicious Deed for game 2 and blew him out. Of course since it was 9:30 AM in the day, I was still pretty groggy and I sided out Deed thinking he was going to play around it. The voices in my head told me I was reverse jedi mind tricking him :/. In game 3 I was killing him with Thrun until he tapped out for a Batterskull to go with his lonely Grim Lavamancer. I tanked on my turn and decided to pass turn with no attacks, which is terrible, since he was at 3 life I should've just attacked with Thrun since he would either lose his last Grim lavamancer or lose a Germ Token and it would tie up his mana on his turn since he'd need 3 to bounce skull and 5 to cast it. (I also forgot Thrun could regenerate...somehow)
The game goes long, he stops playing around the Deeds that I left in the SB and I die to a million creatures on turns.
I lost another match to Standstill mono blue merfolk. I basically threw away the match when I had a brainfart. I wanted to Hymn to Tourach him so I would need my KotR to sacrifice a land to get my second black mana, so instead of sacrificing my Scrubland to cast Hymn and then Wasteland his mutavault, I just played a Forest to be sacrificed. As a result I had to chump block his Mutavault with my Dryad Arbor and of course later in the game I died to 2/1 Silvergil Adepts that I could've traded Dryad Arbor with.
Lost the final round to BG Loam Rock. Can't really beat Life from the Loam.dec with removal, so if I just didn't lose the previous rounds I'd be in a better position to not play awkward rouge decks.
Anyways, my new idea.
/ Lands
1 [IN] Plains (1)
1 [US] Swamp (2)
3 [A] Bayou
2 [A] Scrubland
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [PT] Forest (3)
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [A] Savannah
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
1 [FUT] Horizon Canopy
// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
1 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
1 [RAV] Birds of Paradise
3 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
2 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
// Spells
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
2 [AP] Vindicate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [MBS] Green Sun's Zenith
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
3 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
SB: 2 [TE] Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 [US] Duress
SB: 3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 1 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll
Tarmogoyf was the worst creature all day, so playing just 1 as a Zenith target is fine. Protection from blue against Jace decks is pretty good, so Sword of Body and Mind might actually be better than Sword of Feast and Famine.
Are you Jean Paul? If so, you beat my friend playing Zoo (that was Plague Sliver), to give him one of his losses :(
Nice job, by the way!
-Matt
I would be Jack Wang. I am not on the final standings since I was W. Jack on Day 1, but on Day 2 I submitted form to allow to TO to use my last name. The DCI program got confused and just bounced me when they tried to put my last name in.
Anybody got any good ideas for sb tech against Show & Tell + Hive Mind
The key here is to beat a combo deck. Karakas for Emrakul, and use discard to rip apart their hand. Other than that, since we're not running counterspells, we have to just use those tactics. As well, Gaddock Teeg is good against a hardcast Hive Mind, and Extirpate on Show and Tell after discard could be fun.
Also, since the meta has moved away from CounterTop, I see a rise of Loam based decks, since they don't just get locked out by Counterbalance. I saw Lands do VERY well at the GP, as well as Aggro Loam on Day 2. Extirpate wouldn't be a bad card to pack, especially if you Thoughtseize away a Jace.
-Matt
Extirpate trumps Intuition or so i heard. Other than that, mana denial plus Teeg is the best you can try to do. It seems that GSZ list would do better than the ones without.
So one of the Landstill players of our group (now on the Ancestral Vision bandwagon) has decided to add 3 Wraths to his sb to combat Thrun. Is this something we should expect from many people, or is this just a case of metagaming against each other because we saw each others decks? If this does become commonplace, the 2 sb slots I've dedicated to Thrun seem pretty pointless, especially if they're going to be running 3 Wraths. I didn't think there was any way this deck could afford to give 3 slots to a card like Wrath, but apparently they can. So what do we do? Thrun was just about the only thing that seemed like a good answer to this deck, in a matchup that is otherwise quite miserable.
His plan was basically to side out almost all of his counters/bounce against us and side in a bunch of removal, so our threats resolve but still do nothing, then drawing 4 cards a turn on turns 5-7 then Jacing us into oblivion. If this deck becomes as popular as it seems like it will, it could be a huge problem for us.
I am thinking of cutting StP's entirely for a Stoneforge/Batterskull/SoFI/Jitte package. The thought of a Swords actually resolving at any meaningful time against this deck or a BUG variant, or any deck running Blue at this point seems almost non-existant. Cutting the card just seems ridiculous, but cutting Vindicates (aka our only hope against Jace) seems worse, and Batterskull should keep our matchups against aggro stable. What do players that are better than me think of this idea?
I'm testing a build right now where I cut/move to SB Thoughtseize and Deeds for 4 SFM, a SoFI, and a Batterskull. Against Landstill decks, I'd try to have Extirpates and Bitterblossums (and some Needle effect if playing against Deed).
Yeah, Wrath and even Meddling Mage fuck Thrun pretty hard, but beyond that, there's not much we can do. I wouldn't say cut Thrun because of Wrath, though.
Stoneforge Mystic may be part of the way to go, but I think, in general, increasing threat density and not overextending into Damnations/Wraths/Deeds is key.
I'll eventually write a tournament report for the GP, but I'm uber-busy with school at the moment.
-Matt
The main problem I've come across playing the traditional Mox and non-Mox builds of The Rock is that we're too threat-lite; one StP on our threat can literally translate into 2-4 turns of us applying zero pressure on the opponent.... this is bad. GSZ is one avenue to explore to increase our threat density, and I think SFM + equipment is another. I ran 2 SFM + 1 Jitte/1 SoFI in earlier builds of aggro Rock (well before Brad Nelson popularized the 3 Mox builds that have been standard ever since), but found it was too slow. Perhaps in this slower meta, SFM + equipment would have more of an impact, especially since they printed Batterskull. Testing to commence...
Why not keep the diamonds and SFM? I heard T1 Stoneforges are pretty strong. We may be able to cut some Tarmogoyfs, as it is probably our weakest creature...
As soon as I get my hands on them I will be adding the SFM and Batterskull fever that has been going around into the deck. I feel like a turn 2/3/4 4/4 life-link vigilance stops aggro pretty hard.
Turn 1 Stoneforge isn't NEEDED. Plus, you have to cut slots from somewhere. I'd rather be Thoughtseizing or playing Top that speedbumping my mana development with Moxen. Again, it comes down to: do you want some turn 2 plays turn 1 sometimes, or consistent development? You can rarely have both.
-Matt
IMO Moxen aren't always included specifically for turn 2 plays. Albeit in aggro metas the added acceleration is incredibly viable (whereas in control metas I would opt to remove them) but as I'm sure you've discovered that particularly in metas with greater amounts of nonbasic hate sometimes color fixing is a necessity. On ocassion fetching a dual has become less than ideal so I need to tutor up a basic. The issue being, however, that whereas my creature base relies on green/white (Goyf/KotR/Terravore/Qasali/Mom) my spell base is more centered towards black. Granted I could up the basic count in response to this, but sometimes Moxen can definitely be powerful in that I can tutor up that 1 basic I need, pitch a dual to the Mox, and then essentially become color fixed for the rest of the game as few decks have the option/desire to remove a Moxen.
I've played the deck without Moxen and I acknowledge the deck can easily survive without it. But particularly for builds running Green Sun Zeniths Moxen can be quite valuable for the success of the deck.
In regards to SFM I agree with Matt as to my preference not to run it. Of course the package can be an allstar against aggro, however the problem with SFM is that at bare minimum to be successful you typically need to eat 5-6 slots in a deck, 3 SFM/2-3 equip, to really abuse it. Whereas Deadguy can fill these slots no problem, due to our 3 colors the manabase requires a much heaftier investment for something that depending on the gamestate/turn can take several turns to setup. Not to mention that against, say, the Landstill MU SFM becomes subpar. The necessity of GSZ is that it gives us a similar aggro edge in that it ups our standard creature counts by 2-3 as well as enabling us a creature toolbox (Revoker/Teeg/Qasali/etc.). Not to mention its a recurring spell which Top 101 says shuffling effects=nice.
Of course both are viable strategies but I'm just concerned by how much of a card investment you need for the SFM's as you are essentially removing a combination of discard/removal to run it.
Forlorn Egoist
I am finding that in testing on MWS, horrible reference, that the SFM and Batterskull package is helping in both aggro and control match-ups, with the 4/4 life-link vigilance helping early and the recursive near un-killable threat in the late game.
p.s. please don't ever cut a tarmogoyf.