[Deck] The Rock

[sdematt]

A set of Extirpates is like $20-25.

-Matt

[Valtrix]

@Valtrix
Very few High Tides use candelabra, since it's almost impossible to find, expensive, and the deck works very well without them. Even if that were the case, a good player would most likely play the candelabra in his turn, after he's played the high tide, thus rendering pulse useles.

I disagree. With the amount of discard that your deck is running and the limited number of untap effects spiral tide runs, they will probably want to play at least one out if they have it so it's not stripped from their hand. At the very least, pulse has got to be better than a maze of ith. I mean, neither are probably that great against them anyway.

As for making room for canonist, I don't think it's hard. Taking out a life from the loam is an easy first step, so I agree on that.

[Mirrislegend]

Fingers crossed that Legacy fires tonight. It definitely will tomorrow. Either way, the events will be small. But I'll try to keep you all updated on the performance

[sdematt]

Legacy did not fire for us last night, unfortunately. It was 28C outside, and I think people collectively decided that doing things outside > Legacy.

-Matt

[Julian23]

Are you talking about Magic Online? Have events started firing at least once in a blue moon again lately?

[sdematt]

I'm talking about weekly Legacy in my area, I'm not exactly sure what Mirri is talking about.

-Matt

[Sughayyer]

I could't attend to the legacy tournament today =/... I hope that store will hold legacy events this weekend despite the grand prix happening, so I can play saturday o/

[Artlee]

Are you talking about Magic Online? Have events started firing at least once in a blue moon again lately?

Its a shame, I was about to throw my money at mtgo for a legacy deck, but as it looks now it will never see any DE play anyway. I assume there are more legacy players on mws/cockatrice.

[damionblackgear]

Has anyone given any resent thought to Grave-Shell Scarab? It was a thought for a while but the cost and lack of raw power turned people down. It's not the worst considering the way the format is right now and that we can actually get to that cost. Even 6 (Zenith) against the control decks shouldn't be too much.

Why?
- It dodges both Swords and Terminus.
- You can 'protect' it from GY hate with a Top, Library, and/or Horizon Canopy.
- It's a 4/4 so it can not only fight but also provide a clock when un-opposed.
- It's fine to discard
- You can remove single cards out of your deck that you don't need anymore
- It's Green (GSZ)

[Artlee]

Using Green Sun for 6 is not as easy as you make it sound in my opinion. Most decks have changed from 50/50 splitting Spell Snare and Spell Pierce for the full playset of Spell Pierce, not to mention Daze. Even then you need to have 1 more mana for sacrificing it.

If there is one equipment that is being used in either main or sideboard, besides batterskull and umezawa's jitte, it's Sword of Feast and Famine.

4/4 is a clock, but at 5 cmc it's a rather late clock.

[damionblackgear]

Using Green Sun for 6 is not as easy as you make it sound in my opinion. Most decks have changed from 50/50 splitting Spell Snare and Spell Pierce for the full playset of Spell Pierce, not to mention Daze. Even then you need to have 1 more mana for sacrificing it.

If there is one equipment that is being used in either main or sideboard, besides batterskull and umezawa's jitte, it's Sword of Feast and Famine.

4/4 is a clock, but at 5 cmc it's a rather late clock.

GSZ@5 has a cost of 6.

You're using it as a card to come in against control (Same as Sigarda I mentioned earlier) so you've got the extra time to draw those lands. The good thing is that, as I mentioned before, when you're playing spells that late, you're usually able to have baited the counters out and forced your opponent to top-deck the new ones (and keep up a relevant hand) or lose.

Spell pierce is nice but it'll typically be brainstormed back to the top at you having 6 lands and Daze from a control deck is suicide. If you're playing the daze control deck beyond Round 1, something went horribly wrong or they got incredibly lucky. About the only counters I would be expecting that late is pure Counterspell and Force.

Also, at the 6th turn, everything's a late clock. That goes without saying. But a clock, is a clock, however. I'd rather be swinging for 4 than 2 or less (which is the limit of power for a majority of the creatures in my 75).

You're basically going to be using this against either Nic Fit - It allows you something large that can be reoccur'd and can't be deeded off to allow an easy swing. Also, they'll Ramp you to 6+ if you play your lands correctly. - and Miracle Whip - which is an abysmal match up when it comes down to it because, they're a deck of top-decks. That's something discard cant' beat.

------

On SoFF - I feel that this is actually one of the weakest swords available. We already have Lili, who does everything useful it does. In order of an overall for legacy (not thinking of what deck) I would rank the swords: SoFI, SoLS, SoBM, SoFF, SoWP. The 1st 3 are leagues ahead of the last 2.

Why do I think it's bad?

Discarding is something that most decks don't depend on and the ones that do already have the advantage of having a discard that finishes as removal and lifegain (every damage she takes is life you've essentially gained) all at the same time.

Untapping lands isn't as useful as it may seem. Yes, you can play more spells but most legacy decks have a cheap average CC meaning that if they draw a land or two extra they can play extra spells (but they typically don't want to since they'll get more advantage holding things most of the time). If it's in regards to counters that people are referencing, "THIS IS LEGACY!!!" (Please use your 300 voice, it makes it so much more fun). The counters of this format are typically free. And if you had the Sword of X and Y in your list, chances are you have SFM. That means you can drop them at instant speed (when it's safe) or keep them in hand if you need the counter. For us, it doesn't do anything. If you play sword and swing, that means that you had at least 4 mana. Why not just kill the thing and have something else useful in hand instead of play, equip, swing, untapp, kill. is forcing them to discard and killing a body (which had to tapped or Black/green) that important?

Pro Black and/or Green isn't that useful anyway unless you play against us where it's only moderately helpful. That is, seeing as our main removal is Swords and, most lists are running Pridemage in addition to their Vindicates/Pulses to make sure those pesky swords don't get out of hand. So you essentially only average 1 card from a non-control deck where Lili just outshines in just about every way possible...

[Sughayyer]

That may sound ultimately silly and unsinergycal but.... how about tombstalker? Bad call?
Sigarda looks great. If too much uw "does nothing" start appearing in my meta I'll probably use one.

I came to notice that terminus is far worse vs a GSZ deck. GSZ is recursive, and you'll just have to fetch the creature back. seems nice.

[Thorondor]

don't see how a terminus vs rock putting back ooze, dryad arbor and confidant is "far worse", it is often a 1 for 3 for them and put us so far behind that we can't come back.

[Mirrislegend]

Miracle Whip - which is an abysmal match up when it comes down to it because, they're a deck of top-decks. That's something discard cant' beat.

I'm convinced we can beat them if we can keep them from dominating the board completely. That's why I'm gonna try those Surgical Extractions. Once the 8x StP are out of the way, they can't control the field effectively without Terminus. And we all know how to play around sweepers

On SoFF - I feel that this is actually one of the weakest swords available. We already have Lili, who does everything useful it does. In order of an overall for legacy (not thinking of what deck) I would rank the swords: SoFI, SoLS, SoBM, SoFF, SoWP.

SoFI is an INSANELY good card. But I'm not sure how relevant it is for us. When I ran it, it directly won maybe two games, out of many many many. I switched to SoLS and it's already directly won me 3 games, and I've played way fewer games with it.

Recurring creatures is INSANE, so I can often bait blocking with SoLS (and if they chose not to, free critters!). Also, pro-StP and pro-Gristlebrand is nice. The 3 life is not the most efficient lifegain available to us, but it is still good, allowing you to swing and decrease the impact of the swing-back.

[damionblackgear]

Mirrislegend - I agree. There are typically more cases in the current meta that, for us, SoLS is better than SoFI. I, however, admit I would not have thought about Griselbrand blocking with SoLS as it is a random occurring to have both Bird and sword on the field.

My rankings though were based on a general Legacy basis and not our own deck. Depending on the deck the order switches but, I hold my earlier statement to be truthful according to my eyes.

... The 1st 3 are leagues ahead of the last 2.

My thoughts Sigarda vs Scarab - Post casting (vs Miracle Whip), once you have lands up, Scarab is probably the better choice as it dodges Terminus as well as Swords. The Hexproof can be outdone with cost of the ability (sac ability is part of the draw cost so they can't re-target with a second removal spell until it's been re-cast) and the no sac can be lightly matched against the No-Sacrifice clause. The flying and 5/5 are the only things matched but at that point in the game, 5/5 isn't all that far off from 4/4.

I'll be trying out the Scarab online for a while and see where things go. If you're going to test out Sigarda, please let us know how she is. I haven't actually tried her yet.

[ForlornEgoist]

That may sound ultimately silly and unsinergycal but.... how about tombstalker? Bad call?

Tombstalker isn't necessarily a bad choice for Deadguy Ale builds (I myself am currently running several in my build) however, he isn't optimal for Rock. The reason being, firstly, is that even after color fixing you sometimes need to make a decision as to how to color fix your land, and sometimes having to go BB can hurt more than help, particularly when you're against nonbasic hate. You'll also note many builds have sacrificed Hymn in exchange for more targeted removal via IoK/Duress/Therapy.

Secondly, unlike Deadguy Rock cares much more about its GY as said GY is what powers up KotR/'Goyf. Even if you're smart about what you Delve you're still sacrificing the potential power of your other creatures.

Finally its important to note that running Tombstalker with Bob requires you have sufficient fixing via Top/Library to protect against a topdeck'ed Tombstalker via Bob. Even in ideal circumstance I gurantee at least several games you will lose flat out to this event.

Understand, I'm not saying that Tombstalker is bad by any means as a 5/5 Flyer for BB can often times end games flat out as beyond "Cheat," creatures he will be the biggest in the air, however, Rock already runs big creatures. Its not Deadguy. So, tbh, Tombstalker really isn't the right fit for the deck.

Forlorn Egoist

[sdematt]

Rock places first in a 34 person tournament in Spain:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...7&iddeck=63257

-Matt

[damionblackgear]

Rock places first in a 34 person tournament in Spain:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...7&iddeck=63257

-Matt

I'd guess that the meta is all aggro and control. No Teeg, Thalia, Cannonist typically means a good field for us. Congrats to Juan Rubio for the good choice.

This should put a bit of a thorn in the side of the "Need" for GSZ and SFM crowd (Even if I'm still running both). I think it'd be a good thing for us all to remember that there is nothing that's set in stone and our "Beliefs" of the best version should change to being "Ideas". Ideas are easier to change.

Video's up

[lavafrogg]

He beat Miracles in the finals and the quarters! Take that!

[damionblackgear]

He beat Miracles in the finals and the quarters! Take that!

That's fine. I'm not knocking him on performance at all. I'm pointing out that the list is cold to combo (compared to the typical lists) and congratulating on winning.