[Deck] The Rock - Adapted to Legacy

I see, well that is very interesting. I know if there were consistent, large tournament events close to me (most likely in Indianapolis), it would be my first choice, as that would give me some invaluable information being that I would get to play against varied decks. And I wish I could get to more than one tournament a week, but there seems to be a moat surrounding the area I live in in Illinois. Most are up around Chicago which is a good 2:30-3:00 hour drive for me and with school, that's hard to accomplish.

I've made a slight change to the list I posted earlier, in that, I cut one Sakura Tribe Elder for one Troll Ascetic from the board. I found last week that I would have the game completely controlled, but waiting for a finisher or swinging with the Elder until something came along. So far the change has been positively yielding results, and I'll get to try it out this Wednesday, along with WoB and my retooled SB. I went ahead and added some Life from the Loams to my SB for Deadguy. I talked it over with my friend last night and ,from what you had already mentioned as well, decided it would be hot against Deadguy. So those changes will be tested later this week.

I'd also like to encourage anyone else who would like to help to jump on in. It's much easier accumulating data that way then just Majestyk and I bouncing ideas off of each other. I'm sure he, as well as I, would love to hear some input or results from anyone trying this out. This is my current list for the record:

-Land-
4 Bayou
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Forests
3 Swamps
2 Volrath's Stronghold

-Creatures-
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Troll Ascetic
3 Ravenous Baloth
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Eternal Witness

-Other-
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Smother
3 Putrefy

-Sideboard- (still developing)
4 Engineered Plague
2 Eternal Witness
1 Ravenous Baloth
0-4 Hymn to Tourach
0-2 Life from the Loam

I just wanted to point out, that I have absolutely no experience with this deck, so if my suggestions are stupid, feel free to tell me. ;)

I noticed, that you are running Life from the Loam in the sideboard. Have you thought about including them in the maindeck (supported by some cycling lands)?

As I said, I have no experience with this deck, but I love this card... :)

I don't think it is smart to be using time cycling lands and playing Life from the Loam. The deck needs to be disrupting the opponent's hand, casting beaters, equipping and winning.

Oh wait, we're talking about two different decks here. If you're playing the more controllish version of Rock, I think Life is just fine, but if you're playing the more aggro version (like myself) I don't think Life has a place.

Whenever Life is mentionted, I always want to include Wasteland though. Just a though. And maybe a few more fetches.

I take no suggestions as stupid, because every little bit helps, and you may hit something I may not have thought of =) As for lftl, I think it can be super helpful against Deadguy, but against other decks, it kinda loses it's thunder. And I've never really felt the need for more draw, with WoB and Eternal Witness the deck is so redundant that I don't think the extra draw that the cycle lands produce is needed.
And like LAM said, if you're running a more aggroish version (how's that doing btw?) then it's kind of distracting to your goal.

I haven't tested that much against Deadguy, just that one match in the finals, and I felt like I did have the "Oops, I win." factor. Still, on retrospect, Life would have helped quite abit in that second game when I didn't have many lands and he drew all the LD in the world. I will test more against Deadguy when I'm able to, if he's at the store Wednesday, I'll play a few games against him, that is, if he hasn't shredded that deck.

The reason I included the 2 LftL in my version is that Wasteland is EVERYWHERE where I play Legacy. The problem with Wasteland for your opponents is that if they play it you can break the symmetry of it by undoing the damage they did to your manabase with LftL.

Even against Non-wasteland opponents the power to regrow even a single spent wasteland or single fetchland is invaluable. There are other times when I would find myself wontonly dredging LftL solely for the sake of fattening my graveyard so that the Witnesses I was regrowing with Genesis would have strong targets. You can essentially make sure that you never miss land drops with LftL too because if you dredge it you're pretty much guaranteed to drop a land into the grave that you can regrow and play. As far as the Cycling lands go I messed around with putting a couple in the MD (1 Barren Moor and 1 Tranquil Thicket) and even in the SB as a Living Wish target that I would immediately use to Dredge up LftL late in the game, but the Board is tight as it is. Also, the tempo you lose from having to play a CitpT land is a kick in the junk. If you're forced to play that on turn 1-2 when you need to be making mana you're going to cry. Don't even get me started on what would happen to you if you got one of those lands Wasted...

Rifter is the only deck that can reliably get away with that sort of play... and then not really. Playing Rifter is sort of like playing The Rock in that it's a great anti-aggression deck but has even less chance against combo decks! Orim's Chant and Abeyance do not a combo defense make. Even Rule of Law isn't all that great against the Combo decks as they'll just find a way to bounce it and continue winning. No, repeated savage blows to their head with a blunt instrument (hymn to tourach) is the best way to stop them.

@Anarky: We live in the hinterlands of Legacy, relatively speaking. Big events around here are just not that frequent. They all seem to be on the East Coast. But, on the plus side when I looked at the results in the "what's your metagame?" thread it was a rarity to see that there was not an entry for The Rock as a "1-2 of" for most people. I'd like to get a look at some of those people's lists.

@ everybody else: Thanks for posting in this thread. If you would be so kind as to spend some time reading the primer that I wrote and use that as a baseline that would at least give us a common starting point from which to discuss. Comments that you have would be appreciated. Also, then you would have perspective to understand the differences between Anarky and my builds and why we have gone in the directions that we have gone.

@Majesty: There's another build that you're forgetting, and I think it is an important one. I don't think that an Aggro Rock build is far enough from the builds here to warrant a different thread, but I think it is a different enough deck that it needs to be mentioned. I don't run a single threat over 3 casting cost, and I don't run Living Wish or Pernicious Deed, but the deck generates twice as much card advantage over the course of any given game, and has a much faster clock. In return for that, it loses some of the late game staying power and board sweeper of Deeds, but it gains a lot of tempo, which I think is more important in this format.

The list should be on one of the earlier pages, or I could post it again and talk about some of the choices if you'd like.

If you played wall of roots over wall of blossoms, you would be able to support stronger more relevent threats like Open Fist etc. I see little reason not to.

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Originally Posted by Lego_Army_Man

@Majesty: There's another build that you're forgetting, and I think it is an important one. I don't think that an Aggro Rock build is far enough from the builds here to warrant a different thread, but I think it is a different enough deck that it needs to be mentioned. I don't run a single threat over 3 casting cost, and I don't run Living Wish or Pernicious Deed, but the deck generates twice as much card advantage over the course of any given game, and has a much faster clock. In return for that, it loses some of the late game staying power and board sweeper of Deeds, but it gains a lot of tempo, which I think is more important in this format.

The list should be on one of the earlier pages, or I could post it again and talk about some of the choices if you'd like.

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I wouldn't mind if you went ahead and posted it, give us something to look at and see why you play what you do. I just know that in my meta, Deeds is a must, because there's nothing but cheap, fast aggro running around. But go ahead and post your list, as it might help in finding a more defined list. I'm going to be playing again tonight, so I'll be back here with the details later. Probably not a report, but just certain details that perhaps stood out like how my new SB worked or something.

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Originally Posted by Zeylon

If you played wall of roots over wall of blossoms, you would be able to support stronger more relevent threats like Open Fist etc. I see little reason not to.

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Wall of Roots would help you power out bigger threats, but that's not what I'm trying to accomplish in most games. I'm trying to control the board and supress my opponents game plan. I drain them of resources and early/mid game surge so that I can just drop a Baltoh/Troll and swing for the win while they're trying to catch their breath. Plus with my recursion, I can continually wipe the board as many times as I want until my Stronghold is taken care of. LAM's build, I presume, throws down a bunch of beaters and causes a disruption to his opponent that way, in that, they must deal with his creatures or lose. WoR may help in his build to power out a bigger threat or 1-2 smaller threats, but he may be using Chrome Mox for that, I don't remember so don't hold me to that.

I've never played this in Legacy, but this is basically a port of my Extended build. Here goes:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Dark Confidant

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Putrefy
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Chrome Mox

4 Bayou
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Wasteland
2 Volrath's Stronghold

20 Lands, 3 Chrome Mox, 8 mana-dudes means that I will consistantly drop a Troll or Hyppy on turn 2 and equip him on turn 3 or 4. Cabal Therapy and Duress are usually enough disruption, and Putrefy is the best removal I had available in Extended. Dark Confidant and SoFI provide the CA I need (along with Hyppy, of course) and Jitte is just a leftover from Extended.

I feel like Eternal Witness needs a place here, and there's too much equipment. Maybe Rancor could find a place, and Wild Mongrel could come back (he was in the old list.) Mesmeric Fiend was also in there for a while. I added Volrath's Stronghold because it's hot.

I don't know if Legacy is really the place for this, but I like it. Another possibility for the more controllish list is the White splash for Loxodon Hierarch and Mortify, but maybe I'm just thinking too much T2 here.

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Originally Posted by Lego_Army_Man

I've never played this in Legacy, but this is basically a port of my Extended build. Here goes:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Dark Confidant

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Putrefy
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Chrome Mox

4 Bayou
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Wasteland
2 Volrath's Stronghold

20 Lands, 3 Chrome Mox, 8 mana-dudes means that I will consistantly drop a Troll or Hyppy on turn 2 and equip him on turn 3 or 4. Cabal Therapy and Duress are usually enough disruption, and Putrefy is the best removal I had available in Extended. Dark Confidant and SoFI provide the CA I need (along with Hyppy, of course) and Jitte is just a leftover from Extended.

I feel like Eternal Witness needs a place here, and there's too much equipment. Maybe Rancor could find a place, and Wild Mongrel could come back (he was in the old list.) Mesmeric Fiend was also in there for a while. I added Volrath's Stronghold because it's hot.

I don't know if Legacy is really the place for this, but I like it. Another possibility for the more controllish list is the White splash for Loxodon Hierarch and Mortify, but maybe I'm just thinking too much T2 here.

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That looks like it could be a house in Extended, if we ever have any, I might just sleeve that up being that I have most of the cards, save for SoFI and Moxes. Of course, my knowledge of Extended is almost nothing, but it looks fun. I'm not sure which equipment I would swap out for Rancor, being that both of those are sweet. I might go with cutting the Jittes, just because SoFI shoots things and nets you a card. If you think you can, you could back down on some land and a Duress for 3 Witnesses, though never playing this, you would have more knowledge in that realm then I, having played it in Extended.

I split 1st and 2nd tonight against a deck that totally would have pwned me, in fact, I drew with him earlier. After the draw, we decided to play it out just to see, and he took me both games. He was playing a G/W....aggro deck? He ran Argothian and Verduran Enchantress for draw, along with that he played Ancestral Mask, Rancor, and Armadillo Cloak. For creatures, He must have had 4 Trolls and possibly 2 Endless Wurm. I tried hard the first game, but once he had 2 Trolls enchanted and swinging, I couldn't deal. Game 2 was pretty much the same. I don't think it will be a problem, as he said he never gets out on Wednesdays because of work, but it made me think. I also played against a budget version of Alluren in the 1st round. I beat him Game 1, then I didn't really get that much disruption Game 2 and he comboed off, then I Deeded him a few times while he was going off to win Game 3. And that's all I have, I handily beat Thresh in 3 games, would have been 2, but I kept a bad hand in Game 2 and that beat me. Thresh is just not a problem, nor is Goblins, and I actually think our group has successfully hated both Goblins and Thresh out of our meta. And with that, I'm out.

The reason I play so many mana sources is that I pretty much like to skip my two drop, and get a Hyppy or Troll on turn 3, equipped and swining ASAP.

I would be willing to put in the Witnesses, and if I took anything out for Rancor it'd be the Jittes. Swords are much nicer on a Bird :)

I'm still wondering if Mongrel fits the list. He's just got that whole fear thing that people can't handle. It doesn't matter if he is big, just that he could be.

The problem is that no matter what deck you play you're still going to lose to random.dec sometimes... That is not a strike against the deck it just means that somebody's conception of what the metagame would look like was accurate enough to beat it but probably would lose horribly to another Archetype. Rancor and opposing Trolls are definitely a problem for this deck. The only real solution that I can envision is using edicts or something to kill the opposing trolls. Or knock the trolls out of their hand before they play 'em.

@LAM: The aggro plan is fine as long as you can out-Aggro the best aggro deck. I don't see how this is going to beat goblins more than 50% of the time because you're going to A) Be killing yourself with Confidant, B) using Putrefy is Slooooow against goblins, and C) if you get behind against goblins you have no real way of getting back ahead of them by ruining their board or punishing them for overcommitting. Sure in your board you'll be able to bring in Plague or whatever, but it seems like your overall card economy is hurt by only having Stronghold for recursion, and if that becomes annoying it'll get Wasted or be too expensive to use effectively. Your best play is still a Troll wielding a Sword or Jitte which destroys pretty much everything anyways. I hate being reliant on needing to combine cards to that large of an extent to have it be good/playable.

To see why equipment is sometimes poor one need only look at Angel Stompy and see that that deck simply runs out of threats and will sit there with equipment that can do nothing without a man to put it on. Granted, Troll is more impressive than say, Isamaru or Savannah Lions but that doesn't mean he's invincible.

EDIT: Congrats to Anarky for cleaning house at his local tournament again. BTW: Living Wish for Bone Shredder is Tech against teh fat. :D

I've actually been considering running 4 Edicts in my board to swap in for the 4 Smothers for situations like the one I had. But then when my friend took Mystic Enforcer out of his deck, I never made the change. And I really don't have a problem with fatties as I just Therapy them out of their hand or Putrefy them. I ran two Life from the Loam in my SB, but I never sided them, and I never played against the Deadguy....guy. I boarded in 3 Hymns against Alluren, but they were hardly needed. But I might fit the Edicts in my SB anyway, just so I don't randomly lose to stuff like that (And so does everyone else, meaning I HAVE to take him on).

But I'm really loving this deck, I even had one guy say after I beat his Threshold in the Top 4 (who's also a very good player), "That deck kicked my ass, I don't know why it isn't showing up in more places." And in the first round, everyone was wishing my opponent "Good luck" since he had to play me, because they knew.

Edit: My SB now consists of 4 Plagues, 4 Edicts, 4 Hymns, 2 Life from the Loam, and 1 Eternal Witness.

The answer of course is that the deck is beginning to show up in some form in a lot of places. It's impossible to know what those decks consist of as there are only a few of us posting here but there are plenty of people that report the deck's presence in their metagames. It's entirely likely that those people are simply porting their extended deck into the weekly Legacy tournament without really refining it for the format however so they're not placing highly or the people reporting the deck's presence simply classify any B/G deck as "the Rock" and call it good.

@ Majesty: You don't have to out-aggro the other decks because you're playing aggro-control, simply with more aggro than control. You have Duress and Cabal Therapy to slow them down (noted, Duress is horrible post-T1, and usually horrible then too, it goes out in G2 against most aggro) and Sword on any creature is pretty much the win. Goblins should be much harder in Legacy, but this deck tore apart Goblins in Extended, so I don't see why it should be able to do that in Legacy as well. Instead of saying that it can't win, how about we present some ways that it might be able to win. Better removal, more disruption, and we can still take the aggro approach, which I think does much better in other matchups.

Remember, for this to be good it doesn't have to out-aggro anything, it just has to disrupt them enough to beat for 20.

Goblins was awful in extended as witnessed by PT: LA. It just couldn't compete because it had neither the resilience or speed of the legacy version. If you find yourself in a situation where you're trying to race Goblins you're almost always going to come out on the short end of that stick. Trading 1-for-1 against goblins is a self defeating strategy at best because they will eventually just overwhelm you with card advantage and tempo. The trouble is that I can see you setting up the game winning play of Troll + Sword on the same turn that they're serving with fatal damage and you have to use the Troll you just played as a chump blocker in order to not die immediately.

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Originally Posted by Majestyk1136

The answer of course is that the deck is beginning to show up in some form in a lot of places. It's impossible to know what those decks consist of as there are only a few of us posting here but there are plenty of people that report the deck's presence in their metagames. It's entirely likely that those people are simply porting their extended deck into the weekly Legacy tournament without really refining it for the format however so they're not placing highly or the people reporting the deck's presence simply classify any B/G deck as "the Rock" and call it good.

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That's how my friend and I first started working on The Rock. We were looking for new decks to play, since he was just now getting back into the format. So he asked me, "How do you think The Rock would do in 1.5?" and I said I didn't know, so we drummed up a list, then tuned it for Legacy. After we had tested a few initial versions, we came up with the list I'm playing now, since during testing it was blowing everything away. But I do agree that people need to actually look at the format they're going to be playing in and tune accordingly.

I think it is starting to catch on at my shop though, as a guy I chat with alot there (the dude who plays Deadguy), asked me if I wanted to trade and I said yeah. As I was going through his stuff I saw the beginnings of deck in his stuff and I bet you can guess what was in it: 4 Pernicious Deed, 2-3 Trolls, 1-2 Baloth, 2 Eternal Witness :) And I had heard him earlier going around asking people, "Do you have any Bayous?" So I hope to have another partner playing The Rock in the near future here.

Anarky, your list looks pretty good but I have few questions.

Sakuri Tribe Elder seems like a card that should stay in standard. A 2cc 1/1 that can sac it self to become a forest. Whoopte doo, it just seems like a waste of a turn to cast him.

Frankly I would rather run a Llanowar Elf or Yavimaya Elder or something. Heck I think Werebear is a much stronger card (it's a mana source too).

Your deck seems very light on threats, especially considerign that you'll lose a couple to your own Deeds. Even baloth is just a 4/4 which means he cant even survive a 2cc werebear much less an exalted angel or masticore, is life gain really that important that you would rather play him over a 5/5 trample (Open Fist). Might you be better off playing solid threats over a cantriping wall?

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Originally Posted by Zelyon

Anarky, your list looks pretty good but I have few questions.

Sakuri Tribe Elder seems like a card that should stay in standard. A 2cc 1/1 that can sac it self to become a forest. Whoopte doo, it just seems like a waste of a turn to cast him.

Frankly I would rather run a Llanowar Elf or Yavimaya Elder or something. Heck I think Werebear is a much stronger card (it's a mana source too).

Your deck seems very light on threats, especially considerign that you'll lose a couple to your own Deeds. Even baloth is just a 4/4 which means he cant even survive a 2cc werebear much less an exalted angel or masticore, is life gain really that important that you would rather play him over a 5/5 trample (Open Fist). Might you be better off playing solid threats over a cantriping wall?

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No, I actually think Sakura-Tribe Elder belongs in the deck. He doesn't just 'fetch a forest', he blocks, kills Lackeys, attacks, fetches Forests, fetches Swamps, allows me to play around Wasteland, pulls 2-1's, overall, I have never been displeased to have him in my hand. Llanowar Elf only produces green, whereas the Elder gives me access to both green and black, something which I like to have available to me. Yavimaya Elder, I found through testing, clogs up your 3 spot. You have 4 Pernicious Deed, 4 Troll Ascetic, 3 Putrefy, and 2 Eternal Witness all gunning for the 3cc spot. When I'm tapping three lands, I want to be bringing down something devastating, YE just isn't. In fact, I had Yavimaya Elder in the original build, and he was most certainly the first creature I cut, Legacy was faster than him. StE comes down faster (without a Bird) and gives me a more effective game. And if I did include Werebear for his buffiness/mana, he'll get blown to bits from any relevant Deed activation, so I would, as you said, be losing more threats to Deed, right? Sakura-Tribe Elder works fine.


I've only ever lost a major creature of mine to a Deed once, because I dropped a Deed on my turn, he went 'teh nutz!' with the Goblin draw, and I had to blow the Deed without enough mana to regen. my Troll. Still ended up winning. You shouldn't be losing your beaters to Deed, most of the time my games go like, "Blow Deed for 3, in response to that, sac Elder and regenerate Troll."

Baloth actually does live through a 2cc Werebear, when it's not threshed. But most of the time, Werebear walks right into Deed/Putrefy/Smother/Baloth(which results in a dead WB and me with 4 life). And Baloth could never dream to combat Exalted Angel sense Baloth is sans flying...I've yet to see anyone in my area play Masticore, but if they did, I could probably kill it without too much trouble. Baloth also just farts up combat math, because he pulls so many different roles. And Open Fist is legendary, meaning I can't have multiples out at the same time whereas I can with Baloth. For most decks, that's too much to handle. I can safely say that I would take Baloth over Open Fist anyday.

This deck isn't about exploding with huge creatures kicking your opponent in the balls, if you want that, go play Goblins. This is a control deck with a creature finish. You control the early/middle game with Deed, Smother, Putrefy, then lay down your beats and go ftw. The deck isn't an aggro deck with some control thrown in, I would lose giving it that role (and I'm sure there's something about misassigning roles in there somewhere). The deck is about punishing creature decks who will have no other choice, but to overcommitt for even a chance at winning. Or ripping Control's hand appart with recurring discard, blowing up anything they've decided to play, and swinging with an untargetable and a huge life gaining beatstick.

In summation, I don't really think I need anymore huge beatsticks to win, as I've been doing just fine without them so far ;) WoB is a good tempo card that's a pain for aggro and a good ground staller. I don't see him getting replaced by a fatty that I may or may not be able to cast anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by Zelyon

Anarky, your list looks pretty good but I have few questions.

Sakuri Tribe Elder seems like a card that should stay in standard. A 2cc 1/1 that can sac it self to become a forest. Whoopte doo, it just seems like a waste of a turn to cast him.

Frankly I would rather run a Llanowar Elf or Yavimaya Elder or something. Heck I think Werebear is a much stronger card (it's a mana source too).

Your deck seems very light on threats, especially considerign that you'll lose a couple to your own Deeds. Even baloth is just a 4/4 which means he cant even survive a 2cc werebear much less an exalted angel or masticore, is life gain really that important that you would rather play him over a 5/5 trample (Open Fist). Might you be better off playing solid threats over a cantriping wall?

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I can't really add anything to what Anarky has said already. Playing control seems like it must be utterly foreign to you though to make such comments. This isn't extended from 4 years ago when you could get away with playing a guy like Yavimaya Elder. Sure, he's a Draw 3, but at what price? 5 mana. You're not going to get there in any sort of a hurry in this format with all of the mana denial running around and 2 of the cards you draw are going to be land guaranteed even if the third card isn't. You seem to be fixated on the Open Fist in every thread... If there were ever a Guy that needed to stay in T2 it would be him. He doesn't really satisfy any of the design constraints of Legacy because he neither bolsters your resources or attacks theirs (except for life) and even that isn't all that great of a plan because he's so easy to remove or ignore. By the time your Open Fist is coming online a Tendrils deck is storming you to death. At least the Baloth makes it more interesting by forcing them to storm up to 12 or so (if you can even survive to the point of playing a Baloth) in order to win. Brain freeze decks ignore both of them with aplomb anyways because your threats don't matter unless you can smash their hand and win as an afterthought. Shaving maybe 1 turn off of your kill is not relevant in those matchups because you aren't winning very quickly anyways. That said, Baloth is better in 99% or better of the relevent situations.

Finally, against Goblins if your opponent knows you're playing the Open Fist they'll tutor up Kiki-Jiki to really piss you off too. The downsides outweigh the upsides by such a wide margin that even considering it is sort of silly.

As far as the Elder goes... I would think about playing Rampant Growth or Nature's Lore in this deck if Elder weren't available. Elder is (obviously) strictly superior to those spells because he has the ability to generate this little thing we call "tempo." Whether he's chumping a huge Goblin or stopping a Lackey from smashing into you he's buying critical time for you to get your bombs online and then setting up the ultimate method of winning: Mana Superiority closely followed by card superiority. He's so important in almost every matchup merely because he's a 1/1. That kills almost all of Thresh's men prior to them getting Threshold! That in itself is a victory. He allows you to play Wasteland with fewer consequenses to your own mana development and he fetches out any color Basic Land which is so important in a Wasteland dominated metagame. Absolutely uncuttable.

You don't lose threats to Deed. Period. You're either sacrificing your men in blocking mode prior to setting off a Deed so you can preserve your life total or you're using them to Flashback a Therapy or something prior to that thing going off. So what if a wall or two die to a Deed... Genesis or Stronghold will get it back so it can wreak more havoc.