[Deck] The Rock

[damionblackgear]

I really like Curse. I'm just worried about it costing 5. Then again, I'm advocating for NoSB which only costs 1 less.

[zrbrt]

What about something like Dread of Night for those matchups? I have to admit that I haven't read this whole thread as of late; but, I'm thinking that you are looking for a solution to Mom/Thalia/Lingering Souls/... small.. white creatures?

[sdematt]

Oh, I've already jammed 2 between the main and side. Way ahead of you :P

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

What about something like Dread of Night for those matchups? I have to admit that I haven't read this whole thread as of late; but, I'm thinking that you are looking for a solution to Mom/Thalia/Lingering Souls/... small.. white creatures?

That's the card Matt had just suggested. It's fine if all you're planning on dealing with is Mom, Thalia and the rest but, I'd rather use something a little more versatile. That's where the hard part comes in.

The things that would resolve the issue permanently cost 4+ and the others are one time use or extreme restrictions (only white creatures). It's a similar argument as Extirpate effects vs Leyline effects. The exception being you can beat Ichorid with a properly placed Extirpate. There's no guarantee that you'll beat the other decks. So, permanent or play-ability?

-Edit-

So, I've decided that the best way to the current aggro scene is with an extra Jitte. Right now She's called Eternal Witness because I haven't had another Jitte to toss in. Witness, in the mean time, has been amazing all over the place though. She's been getting pulse(s) for tokens (and in one instance, double Stoneforge killing the Feast and Famine'd one), discard for Batterskulls (it's happened more than a couple times), and she will even cook you Steak!!

I started testing online and if we could get a daily to fire, I'd give you tournament a report.

[Elminister]

Someone please explain to me what role Liliana serves in this deck? I've tried her as a 2-of and she only ever served as 3 mana Cruel Edict. Which is very bad against a number of decks.

I don't see a good way of using her +1 ability. There's rarely any cards in my hand I would like to discard.

[BlackStarDeceiver]

Solid against all forms of combo, T1 Seize/Inqui T2 Hymn/Discard T3 Lilly is nothing to ignore.

She's good against blue control and sometimes you just got spare stuff to discard. I like her more in the Arena Builds though, because you keep the CA engine runnig more easily.

[damionblackgear]

Her role depends on what you're playing and what you're playing against. Like most of the deck, every choice can kick you in the sack.

So, what are you playing, and what are you playing against?

-Edit

Would anyone want to see video of the deck? I've been having a fun time playing against everything online and finally realized if people wanted, I could try to record it.

[thebyob]

I would love to see a video of how this plays out. I'm trying to get a hang of quite a bit of match ups and struggling on some.

[sdematt]

Yeah, I'd like to see a video.

School's done for me in a few weeks, so I'll be able to get working on this deck again :P

-Matt

[novatinhu]

I'd like to see a video too.

For reference, now Im playing with:

// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Marsh Flats
2 Scrubland
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Savannah
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Maze of Ith

// Creatures
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
4 Dark Confidant
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Birds of Paradise

// Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Vindicate
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawa's Jitte

[mordraid]

I'd like to see a video too.

For reference, now Im playing with:

// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Marsh Flats
2 Scrubland
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Savannah
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Maze of Ith

// Creatures
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
4 Dark Confidant
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Birds of Paradise

// Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Vindicate
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Seems more like confidant maverick than actual "the rock" but i like the list.

[comandantenorton83]

I'd like to see a video too.

For reference, now Im playing with:

// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
2 Marsh Flats
2 Scrubland
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Savannah
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Maze of Ith

// Creatures
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
4 Dark Confidant
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Birds of Paradise

// Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Vindicate
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Do you feel cutting the entire discard package is the way to go? The creature package seems very interesting indeed, but I don't know if I would want to lose the T1 thoughtseize/IoK that picks a key card and gives you vital information about the opponent's strategy.

[aljiichiban]

Just want to share/ Went 4-1 on a local tourney using this deck

RD 1: dredge
g1: I forgot how to play aginst this when piloting a non-combo deck.
g2: extirpate took care of golgari grave troll and he never recoverd
... g3: i manged to land 1 first engineered plague I have another one at hand but he comboed out on his turn.

RD 2: BYE( oh well)

RD 3: Reanimator
g1: elesh norn and gintitaxias plus fow. On to game 2
g2 and 3: the deck finally recognized it's master :)

RD 4: Punishing mavs (play for sweep)
g1: his board developed faster than mine. vengeant, elspeth, and kotr overwhelmed me.
g2: T1 duress foil T2 inquisition foil T3 Bob T4 stp T5 liliana with loam. on to g3
g3: duress and Iok took care of his threats and 2 of my 3 bobs at hand took care of his stp and pte. my sword and ptes and gfts took care of hist dudes. bob and sensei
went online to give me the advantage i needed.

RD 5: Dredge (play for sweep)
g1: wasn't able to do much
g2: i extirpated his ichorid to slow him down. then 2 engineered plagues took care of the rest
g3: wastelands slowed him down and I was able to establish board position before popping my spellbomb.

used this list

Lands: 22
4 wasteland
4 bayou
2 scrubland
1 savanah
4 marsh flats
3 verdant catacombs
urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
forest
swamp
plains

creeps: 14
4 dark confidant
4 tarmogoyf
3 stoneforge mystic
2 knight of the reliquary
eternal witness

disruption: 11
4 duress
4 Inquisition of kozilek
3 hymm to tourach

utility: 6
3 liliana of the veil
2 sensei's divining top
1 life from the loam

removal: 6
3 stp
pte
2 go for the throat

sideboard:
3 extirpate
2 nihil spellbomb
3 engineered plague
3 pernicious deed
2 kitchen finks
pte
diabolic edict

[novatinhu]

To be honest Im liking to play without any discard, but Im testing with 3-4 Seize main, and i always have 2-3 IOK in my side.

[aljiichiban]

Solid against all forms of combo, T1 Seize/Inqui T2 Hymn/Discard T3 Lilly is nothing to ignore.

She's good against blue control and sometimes you just got spare stuff to discard. I like her more in the Arena Builds though, because you keep the CA engine runnig more easily.

I've tried it together with life from the loam and it works wonders. Sure, it slightly shrinks KOTR, but it gives you card advantage over time. Plus it's devastating against control. It can also act as a replacement for edicts, therby increasing your card slots for main and sideboard.

[AggroSteve]

I've tried it together with life from the loam and it works wonders. Sure, it slightly shrinks KOTR, but it gives you card advantage over time. Plus it's devastating against control. It can also act as a replacement for edicts, therby increasing your card slots for main and sideboard.

you speak out of my mind^^

i still would allways prefer bob over arena

i tried her as a 2 off- in a mox build with a singleton loam, and nantuko monastery instead of volrath's stronghold
there were quite a few games where i either played
seize->hymn->liliana with +1/if necessary edicting and monastery did the job alone
or 1st turn hymn, second liliana with either a beater or cardadvantage engine

i can guarantee that this line of play criples a lot of opponents, my only problem was that the use we get out of loam is that strong like in aggro-loam decks

loam in this deck is just to get destroyed lands back, or wastelock opponent or feed liliana, i would love if there was a bit more flexibility in what we could do with loam since we cannot really use cyclelands as it slows us down a lot, and we do not have anything like seismic assault
the only thing hat comes to my mind in which way we could use loam otherwise would be something like zombie infestation, which is an awefull card, and even the zombies it creates are not really good

cabal pit is another thing that comes to mind, but IMO mediocre choice, but maybe usefull, but the lifeloss is not so good if burn is even a deck to beat now

liliana itself is maybe what this deck is made of, discard and removal in one card, IMO one of the best cards printed in the last set for this deck but her first ability is hard to abuse without bob or loam, and loam is not that strong in this deck if you ask me

what do you guys think?

[sdematt]

I think Cabal Pit is okay, but I feel it's perhaps a bit better in dedicated Loam decks, where you're milling more lands than good-stuff.

Good to see activity on here again. I think we might be better against EsperBlade than regular UW, due to Wasteland being more useful, and they don't play Wasteland.

-Matt

[capitacom]

Lingering souls is really annoying pre-board though, and with jace and quite a bit of removal I have found it to be pretty difficult pre-board. Post board it gets better.

I have been trying 3 lingering souls with 3 liliana and it has been pretty good so far. It stops you from some sideboard cards against maverick, but it gives you more card advantage and works well with stoneforge mystic + equipment.

[SheepToken]

Hi, I'm kinda new in this forum and been playing this deck archetype for almost a year, changing a few couple cards for the past of the year, so finnaly i came up this list and i'm really glad about it's results.

A few things of this rock deck I think should be mentioned.
I don't think Stoneforge Mystic have a place in here, so I dispense of them, for just a simple reason, we don't have any way to protect them (unlike StoneBlade and variants, GW Maverick is an exception because there is just a very good silver bullet, but not a solid wincon) and our creatures are large enough to win a game by themselves, also i prefer to have more slots removing equipments. I added a single Terravore featuring as the 5th Knight and a spicy finisher.

The loam have tons of sinergy with this build cuz, well, itself save us from lose against stifle and wastelands on early game, create a wastelock w/Knight, can cause some good results combined with Sensei's diving top, throwing to the graveyard some unnecesary thing in case don't have a fetch and w/Liliana we'll always have something to discard.
Volrath's stronghold is so good to recycle creatures, and w/loam creates an awesome mechanic.

I would like to see what you think about it ; )
Btw, sorry for my bad english, it's not my main language : /

LITTLE ROCK

/ / Creatures
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Terravore

/ / Instants
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Diabolic Edict

/ / Sorceries
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inkisition of Kosilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Vindicate
1 Life from the Loam

/ / Planeswalker
3 Liliana of the Veil

/ / Artifacts
2 Sensei's Diving Top

/ / Lands
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacomb
4 Wasteland
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
1 Volrath's Stronghold

[Mr. Safety]

Just asking a question: with Lingering Souls in the format do cards like Pernicious Deed and Maelstrom Pulse become options again?

Thanks in advance...