Interesting, thanks. Also, I've been going back and forth on running 2x Engineered Explosives or 2x Pernicious Deed. In addition, I run 4x Swords, 4x Vindicate, and 2x Maelstrom Pulse. Thoughts on the EE v. Deed debate? Which card is preferred more for which meta?
Cheers,
-Jimmy
In a control meta, run Deed. More aggro, run EE. Deed takes care of the Enchantress, Stax, Landstill, etc. builds, whereas EE is faster for aggro matchups.
-Matt
Makes sense, thanks Matt.
In the Enchantress matchup, the key is getting rid of their Sterling Grooves and Karmic Justices, other than that it's kinda easy, if you play around Replenish (as someone allready mentioned).
Went to the Jupiter Games tournament in Vestal yesterday, placed 19th out of 79, just a little short of Top 16 and prizes.
My list:
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Windswept Heath
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Scrubland
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Maze of Ith
1 Treetop Village (I wanted this to be Karakas, but I couldn't get one before the tournament)
1 Wasteland
4 Mother of Runes
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Sideboard:
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Sudden Spoiling
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Pithing Needle
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Relic of Progenitus
Other than the Treetop Village, the rest of my list is how I wanted it. On to the report!
Round 1: Pro Bant
Game 1: I get really ahead with some combination of Noble Hierarchs, Dark Confidant, Knight of the Reliquary, and Mother of Runes on turn three while he just has Noble Hierarch. Unfortunately, he plays the Natural Order on turn three and follows up with Tarmogoyf, which I can almost race with Mother + Knight but can't quite get there.
Sideboarding: -2 Dark Confidant -2 Umezawa's Jitte -4 Mother of Runes +2 Engineered Explosives +2 Pithing Needle +2 Sudden Spoiling +2 Gaddock Teeg
Game 2: I fall behind pretty early with a board of something like Pridemage and Noble against his Top and Goyf. I find a Knight of the Reliquary, though, who searches up a Maze of Ith before he gets Pathed. He finds more Goyfs and Rhox War Monks. We're trading blows, me swinging with 4 with Qasali, and him swinging with 4 with Goyf (me Mazing the War Monk). I find a Gaddock Teeg, which I find out later made my opponent shuffle away several Natural Orders. Unfortunately, this same Gaddock Teeg strands an Elspeth in my hand. One turn, he taps out to under four mana during his precombat main phase to Top or something; I use this opportunity to chump block with my Teeg, since he can't play Natural Order post combat. I play Elspeth next turn, which resolves, and start swinging in the air. On the last crucial turn, I'm at five, he's swinging with two 4/5 Goyfs and a Monk. I Maze the Monk, block the Goyf with my own Goyf, and block the last Goyf with my Noble Hierarch. This turns out to be a crucial mistake, as I'm one exalted trigger short of swinging for the win in the air. Due to my miscounting, I lose this game and the match. However, if I did win this game, we were out of time anyway, so the best I could have hoped for was a draw.
0-1
Round 2: New Horizons
Game 1: Don't really remember, he probably just gets more Knights than me and finds Engineered Explosives to clear my board of 2-drops.
Sideboarding: -4 Qasali Pridemage, -2 Elspeth, -2 Mother of Runes, +2 Pithing Needle, +2 Sudden Spoiling, +1 Bojuka Bog, +1 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Gaddock Teeg
Game 2: Don't really remember this one either, he gets stuck on mana for a while as I pre-emptively Needled Misty Rainforest (I saw one in his hand through Sculler). When he's at four, I bait him into fetching with Windswept Heath with a Needle, putting him on three, and I swing in with a 3/3 Sculler (exalted) pro-Green (Mother) for the win.
Game 3: We start this game with like 5 minutes left on the clock. Neither of us could eek out the win in so little time, although I think I could have won this game if it went longer. We have to settle with a draw.
At this point I am shocked that both of my rounds have essentially gone to time. I thought only control-style decks would ever have this problem, and I am determined to play a little faster in the ensuing rounds.
0-1-1
Round 3: New Horizons (again)
Game 1: He mulls to five, and I just overwhelm him with guys.
Sideboarding: more or less same as in Round 2
Game 2: I mull to six, and we're pretty even in board position until he gets a Crucible-Wasteland lock going, and gets the EE to wipe out my Mothers.
Boarding: I board in some Explosives to deal with Crucible and the War Monks and Cliques he boarded in. Possibly took out the other two Mothers.
Game 3: He mulls to six, Teeg on my side (as well as my Needle on Karakas!) means he has to find a Swords and an EE to wipe out my board, which he doesn't find. I overwhelm him with guys.
1-1-1
Just need to win the next four to make Top 8! Not so hard, right?
Round 4: New Horizons (yes, again)
Game 1: He keeps a hand with Knight, Stifle, and some other lands including Wastelands. My swamp-->Thoughtseize start makes that hand look pretty bad. I play around Stifle, and he can't find enough guys to stop my offensive.
Sideboarding: Same as in Round 2
Game 2: He gets me into a really bad position, as I'm on five and he has three huge Knights against my one Knight and one Confidant. He attacks with all three Knights. I have two Sudden Spoilings in my hand, and am considering playing one for the blowout. I block with Knight and Confidant, and as I go to search my library for another black source, I find out I can just go get Bojuka Bog instead to let my Confidant die. I was even safe from Stifle, since he had tapped out his blue sources precombat to play Goyf or something. So I kill his two Knights with Bog, and his last one only does 2 to me. I get rid of his last Knight somehow (either due to Spoiling or StP) and find Relic of Progenitus. Unfortunately, I know he has Condemn in hand, so I can't attack with Knight. I attack with a 2/3 Noble Hierarch past his Goyf (because of Relic) for several turns, and eventually find the Thoughtseize to take the Condemn. Knight takes it from there.
2-1-1
Round 5: Burn
Game 1: Tidehollow Scullers and Umezawa's Jitte are pretty good against burn, I hear.
Sideboarding: -4 Thoughtseize -2 Dark Confidant -1 Elspeth +2 Enlightened Tutor +2 Engineered Explosives +2 Gaddock Teeg +1 Ethersworn Canonist
Game 2: He does some sketchy stuff while shuffling my deck after I fetch. He accidentally drops some cards onto the table while shuffling, which happen to be Umezawa's Jitte and forest. He puts those cards on the bottom and stops shuffling. Pssh, OK, put my Jitte on the bottom, whatever. I tutor up Jitte anyway and beat him.
3-1-1
At this point I'm pretty nervous, since it basically comes down to these last two rounds.
Round 6: Dark Depths
Game 1: I Thoughtseize to see that he's playing Dark Depths, which instantly makes me happy since I believe it to be not a great deck and an easy matchup for me. I play out a Knight on turn 3 or 4, and on his turn 5 he goes for the Hexmage-Depths combo. I forget that I can tutor up Wasteland with Knight and Waste the Depths in response to Hexmage's ability, and this costs me the game. I have to settle with tutoring up Maze instead, which holds him off for a while. I play Mother of Runes, threatening lethal (I have huge Knights and Marit Lage is black), so he has one turn to find an answer to Maze. He draws into Wasteland and wins. Oh, if only I had Karakas...
Sideboarding: -4 Mother of Runes -2 Umezawa's Jitte -1 Elspeth +2 Sudden Spoiling +2 Pithing Needle +1 Oblivion Ring +2 Engineered Explosives
Game 2: I keep a hand that includes Goyf and Swords, but not much else. I turn one Noble. He Thoughtseizes me, taking Goyf. Like a champ, I draw Knight and play it, and then next turn Elspeth. Meanwhile, he's played Counterbalance. He kills my Knight and Noble with Perish, I tutor up Wasteland in response. Next turn I play another Knight, having to tap my Wasteland to do so. He goes Hexmage-Depths next turn, and sets up his library with Ponder. I know he probably put a 1 on top for the Swords he knows I have, so I tap my Bayou and my White source to play Pridemage, reasoning I can blow up Counterbalance, use Knight to search up Maze, then swords the token next turn. He stifles the Knight's ability to my amazement, and the token swings in for lethal.
I am disappointed after this match, since I lost what I feel to be a good matchup and have no shot at prizes now. I still want to win the next round to maintain a positive record though.
3-2-1
Round 7: Lands
Game 1: I take his Loam with Sculler, and he goes for Mishra's Factory beatdown. I have the double Swords, leaving him with one Factory. Meanwhile, I've played Pridemage and Jitte. He goes to five before Intuitioning for Loam, Maze, Maze. I give him the Maze. I have one turn to draw something relevant before he locks me out with double Maze/Loam shenanigans. I draw Elspeth, give Sculler +3/+3, give Pridemage +4/+4 with Jitte, and swing for lethal.
Sideboarding: -4 Mother of Runes -2 Elspeth +1 Wheel of Sun and Moon +2 Enlightened Tutor
Game 2: I draw my seven that includes a fetch and Wheel of Sun and Moon, I consider keeping it since I have two draw steps to find a land to drop Wheel, but I figure it's too risky and mull. Top card was Horizon Canopy, oh well. I keep a six with two nonbasics. He goes insane with Loam and Wasteland, and I've essentially stopped playing on turn 3. I let him keep going though since I get to see 3 more cards of his deck every time he dredges, and find out he boarded in Crucibles and Smokestacks against me.
Game 3: He mulls to five and I keep a seven with Wasteland and Bojuka Bog as my only lands, but with a Relic. I go turn one Relic, turn two Bog, turn three Confidant. I Thoughtseize him, seeing Intuition and Smokestack (and no blue sources) and I take the Intuition, reasoning that he can't reasonably Smokestack me out. I'm playing like two creatures a turn due to Confidant, meanwhile he's gotten 2 Maze of Iths and is ramping Smokestack. The problem with ramping Smokestack is that I have more permanents than him. I attack him down to three before I'm forced to sacrifice all my permanents; he is forced to sacrifice all his permanents as well. The difference is I have a full hand of seven, while he has a one-card hand. I have saved a land and a Hierarch in my hand, which beats down for the last three points of damage.
4-2-1
Overall, I am very confident of the deck's power, but I think I need to practice more since I punted two games and had two of my rounds go to time. It's a hard deck to play; you have to remember what targets you have to get with Knight, Mother of Runes makes combat math and racing hard to figure out, and you have to play around mass removal like Perish/Firespout/EE. The only thing I would change is -1 Treetop +1 Karakas, but I already knew that. Treetop did nothing all day, while Karakas would have probably won me round 6. MVP was Knight of the Reliquary, which is just an insane card. MVP of the board was Sudden Spoiling, which I boarded in 5 out of 7 rounds and caused random blowouts in combat (unfortunately I didn't draw it in the round with Dark Depths, that card would have been sick there). Overall a very good day, and the deck is definitely something I would play again in the future.
played the Brad Nelson GP: Columbus list yesterday and was very pleased with it.
SB was a bit different, but felt right for the small tourney (16 players)
We played 5 rounds top 4, and went 3-1-1 into top 4 where i beat goblins heavily in the semi and split the final.
Only thing i would consider changing MB was the 3rd mox d, otherwise it is solid.
Has there been a decent version using Stoneforge Mystic in it? I have been trying to find something new to play for a while now and I figured this deck runs up my playstyle so I might as well start asking some questions, ya'know?
The Nelson list is pretty darn tight. He did say that he wanted something like a Treetop Village though. Makes sense since you grind opponents out and just need Knight to search up something sometimes. I'm thinking about cutting a Vindicate for it. Vindicate is a bit slow and having three of a solve all seems fine.Originally Posted by jedi_gof
Also, I want to cut a Bayou for a Forest. Getting your green Wastelanded and stranded of Knights and Goys is bad news against Merfolk/Goblins.
Can Runed Halo reserve a 1of spot in the S/b? I've been testing it with enlightened tutor in the side. Naming goyf, knight of the Reliqary, or tombstalker has been great. But does it reserve a 1of slot in the board?
I think it really depends on your meta, and how much you lean towards Enlightened tutor in your build. In most cases where it would be most useful would be against combo, usually naming Tendrils (naming Emrakul has no purpose, they'll just make you sac all your permanents, then get there).
Personally, I'm not running a tutor board so I won't use it, but if you are, it may be a decent addition.
-Matt
Hi guys,
I've been playtesting this deck for several weeks now and its somewhat okay, maybe you guys have any comments or suggestions on how i could improve it more.
Thanks
Lands [21]
4 verdant catacombs
2 wooded foothills
4 bayou
2 taiga
3 forest
2 swamp
1 mountain
3 wasteland
Creatures [19]
3 sakura tribe elder
4 wall of blossom
4 tarmogoyf
3 eternal witness
4 kitchen finks
1 progenitus
Spells [21]
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 cabal therapy
3 thoughtseize
4 smother
3 maelstrom pulse
3 firespout
3 natural order
SB [15]
2 duress
3 red elemental blast
2 pernicious deed
4 extirpate
1 tormod's crypt
1 ravenous trap
1 maelstrom pulse
1 krosan grip
Since your plan seems to be developing your mana while holding off an early rush with STE and Wall of Blossom until you wipe the board with Firespout and/or resolve Natural Order, I don't get why you run Inquisition of Kozilek. You want your discard to be able to hit FoW so that your Spout or NO can resolve. I'd just run 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Duress in your deck.
I'm not sure if the red splash is really worth it in this deck; Deed can do the job as well and allows you to stay in 2 colours.
If I were to splash red for Spout, I'd make it a more controllish build with Elspeth, Ajani Vengeant and less reliance on critters.
Hello
Discards
Inquisition of Kozilek hits 80% of cards being used in legacy. Thoughtseize is nice but the minus life is ouch especially against zoo decks, while duress is almost a deadcard against aggro decks. cabal therapy doubles as a hymn effect and an out for progen if you drew it.
Sweepers
Yeah deed is almost identical to firespout but firespout is much quicker to cast as it only needs 3 mana while deed needs 5-6 mana for it to resolve and activate it. Casting deed without mana for its activation will most like be killed off by your opponents pridemages which is very very common in the current meta.
WR Splash
Are you suggesting that i go BWR ? If so do you have a build in mind ?
Thanks
I understand Inquisition hits most cards in our format but the fact that it doesn't hit FoW seems contraproductive with your goal of winning through a resolved Natural Order.
The life-loss of Thoughtseize will hardly be of relevance especially since you do not run Bob. A lot of Rock decks run both cards as a 4-off without any problems.
As for the splash, I never played NO-Prog in the Rock (don't really like it in this deck) so I wouldn't know whether a red splash is better or worse than a (normal) BGw build. What I meant is that I could see a red splash in a build with a lot of sweepers, Planeswalkers and less reliance on creatures. I know people tried this in the past and I'm sure there are some threads floating around this forum somewhere. But that's a completely different deck from yours.
The issue between Inquisition and Thoughtsieze i guess is up for debate but if your meta has tons of zoo, i would pick inquisition over thoughtseize.
The reason behind i play NO-Prog in the deck was to solve its problem in having a significant clock. Before the nat-progen combo i used 2 obstinate and 1 ravenous baloth with 2 grim discoveries and 2 deed pre firespout. It solved the problem against burn and zoo decks but against blue decks with creature steal techs its almost an autoloss. Another problem that NO-Prog solved was its recovery after a sweep without a significant clock decks will most likely recover after a sweep or burn you down.
BGw rock has almost no sweeper expect for deed which needs 4-5-6 mana atleast with no some sort of accel the only hope of BGw to fend an early swarm is via spot removal or quickly get a jitte online. The fat creature its has and other creatures are there to finish the game via jitte. The red splash offers you a 3cc sweeper that could be very useful against early swarm but the problem with it is that your threat base becomes weak because the deck needs to be in a control shell to ramp up mana for its sweeper and removals, etc. thus other control decks will eventually gain board position thats why i played the NO-Progen to give it a significant clock.
Has anyone been using Extirpate on your sideboard? Would you mind sharing your results with it?
Cheers,
-Jimmy
I use 4 in my sb and its okay, you just have to know when to use it and what to remove.
I think that with the Vengevival decks gaining popularity (at least in my meta) Extirpate is our best choice when it comes to graveyard hate. Crypt/Relic can be played around by that deck or hit by Stifle while Extirpate is really good against them.
You seem to be talking about a very specific list of BGw Rock while this is one deck that you really can't pin a standard decklist on as there are so many different approaches one might take when building GBw Rock (even ending up with different archetypes; I've seen aggro, midrange and control rock lists).
For example; something like this should do alright against early rushes of aggro decks even without a sweeper:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36829
While this one uses a different approach; letting aggro overextend to then blow the board and put down a 4-turn clock:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36901
What I mean is, there are so many different directions you can take with this deck, you should try to find what works best for you, your playstyle and your meta. I don't understand though how you can lack a significant clock in this deck; you have access to Goyf, KotR, Tombstalker and Elspeth (which can turn even Bob into a 4 turn clock) to name the most obvious ones.
I never felt the need to put NO-Prog into the Rock, I fail to see which matchups it improves especially in the current meta when each deck seems to be prepared to handle a Prog/Emrakul or plays it itself.
ZZZ just pointed out, what is essential for building a rock deck, use your own approach and adapt to your meta
i myself am just toying around with a Astral Slide Rock list, but it is still in developement, other people build a entomb rock, Brad Nelson, build a Rock which is heavy on discard and uses in total 8 big beater to finish the crippled opponent after stealing away his hand, some other list do not use discard at all........
Partly for this, the Rock is an awesome and fun deck to play, because the opponent can never really know how your rock looks like
Hey
this is my current rock list. It sort of plays like jund but it as all the goodies of rock.
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Blightning
4 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Bituminous Blast
3 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
2 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
3 Wasteland
Sideboard:
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Krosan Grip
3 Great Sable Stag
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Duress
Bloodbraid elf is nasty. I know 4 manas is a lot to ask for, but if i can get a sakura to resolve, i can usually do a turn 3 BBE which is nasty because almost everything in this deck is a relevant cascade
Right now, my weakest link seems to be Bituminous Blast. Any suggestions?
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