[Deck] The Rock

[sdematt]

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Dark Confidant
2 Loxodon Smiter
17

3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Liliana of the Veil
7

3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Sylvan Library
14

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Bayou
2 Scrubland
2 Savannah
1 Maze of Ith
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Cabal Pit
3 Wasteland
23

3 Thalia
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Lingering Souls
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Golgari Charm
3 Open

I think I prefer this list a little better. It cuts back on the Liliana, which I think are the most fluid slots here. She could also be Garruk or something, but I think she's okay. I'd rather have something smaller in casting cost that sticks around.

Thalia, Teeg, and more Therapy are there to smash Combo.

Souls beats the midrange mirror, as does Smiter and Deed.

Charm clears tokens and kills off pesky control bombs and sweepers.

I think we're a bit weak to swarm decks. The decks to beat consist of Elves, goblins, Omni, Shardless BUG, Jund, Deathblade, Maverick, Miracles, ANT, RUG, BUG Control, and Death and Taxes. I think against Combo, we're okay. Miracles, Jund, Shardless? Okay. Omni? Okay.

I think where we might be a bit weak is Elves, DnT, and Goblins. 3 cards to add? We need something cheap and effective at knocking out small guys. Golgari Charm seems super good all around here...Or Plague, etc. Your call really.

-Matt

[Mr. Safety]

With Lingering Souls, I think I'm still hip to Zealous Persecution over Golgari Charm. *shrug* it has worked for me in the past.

Starting decklist to begin tweaking:

4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
3x Tarmogoyf
2x Knight of the Reliquary
2x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Stoneforge Mystic

3x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Liliana of the Veil
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Vindicate
3x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Batterskull

4x Wasteland
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Marsh Flats
1x Wooded Foothills
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Savannah
1x Treetop Village
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains

Sideboard (open, this is old):
2x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Lingering Souls
1x Pernicious Deed
2x Zealous Persecution
2x Pithing Needle
1x Gaddock Teeg (should be 2)
1x Life from the Loam
3x Surgical Extraction


I think the go-to option agianst combo is Thalia instead of Canonist now, which makes sense. I still love me some Sculler, but I know it's old tech. I haven't been playing Legacy lately, mostly just Modern. I like the maindeck Jitte, sideboarded ZP and Deed against swarm aggro. I feel like the IoK's should be Cabal Therapy for sure, and maybe maindeck a Dryad Arbor.

So essentially, the changes look like:

-Sculler
-IoK
-Treetop
-Swamp

+ Scavenging Ooze
+ Therapy
+ Maze of Ith
+ Dryad Arbor/Cabal Pit

EDIT: I forgot about GSZ, which isn't in my list. I think I'd have to drop the Mystic package for that, but I like Jitte against tribals...*shrug* I'm completely open to suggestions on which path to take.

Also, whatever happened to Karakas? Is that not worth slots anymore?

[AggroSteve]

hi guys

i just stumbled upon a possibly intresting card and wanted your opinion about it

fists of ironwood

it was often stated that our threats lack a specific ability, namely trample, to get the damage through to get a planeswalker killed or opposing players that chump block our knights and goyfs into eternity

this card would accomplish a few things in our deck

it would give our big guys trample
it gives additional bodys to maybe equip if running stoneforge package (allthough they do not fly)
it gives additional creatures to sac to a therapy / opposing liliana
it gives us additional blockers in the aggromatchups
if it goes to the grave it pumps our goyfs

basically the card works partly like lingering souls, sadly without the flying and flashback :P

so what do you guys think? i know its a crappy card, but it could work

[Megadeus]

I feel like rancor is better. Less mana, and you can get it back and put it on other dudes. Also lets you win the giyf war fwiw

[Asthereal]

fists of ironwood

so what do you guys think?

I feel it suffers from the usual aura issue, being that it doesn't work if the targeted creature gets killed in response.
And that issue is so big that even powerhouse auras like Rancor don't see play anymore.

[crow_mw]

Ok guys, lets talk problems.

Likely the lists posted above are among the optimal selections for the deck we currently discuss. However, whenever I try to put together a list I start ripping my hair out. While it seems options are many, every choice seems bad at the same time.

And it all starts with this girl crisis:



While some lists currently do not run KOTR at all, they are still descendants of what is in its core a Kotr deck. In its prime Kotr was the MvP of this deck. A big beater, Goyf killer, answer to graveyard based strategies, answer to Show and Tell or a wastelock against susceptible decks. From accelerating into her to GSZ to ferch her our ways of play, and card selection, were heavily focused around Kotr.

Now, here comes Return to Ravnica and this guy:



When RtR came out, together with Deathrite shaman and abrupt decay, rock was among the first archetypes to incorporate those cards. Not surprisingly ofc, since they fit into our decklists from the get go and were often natural replacement for their predecessors.

Back then we have noticed that Shaman has an antisyngery with kotr, but we said ‘it is not that bad’. Indeed – those were the days of very successful rock runs resulting in archetype being promoted to DTB status and Matt’s article for Eternalcentral.

However, much of our success was the direct result of powerlevel of our new goodies. It did not take long for other archetypes to realize that and include them in their decklists. Suddenly antisynergy between shaman and kotr became even more painful, as the little bugger was often present not only on our, but also on the other side of the board. I am quite positive I am not the only one often catching myself leaning over the gaming table, asking question ‘why the hell is my kotr so small again’ or losing a damage race by mere few points.

Quickly other b/g archetypes rose to power. Shardless BUG, Team America or Jund all currently seem like a better all around decks than Rock. While RtR proclaimed a peak of our power for me it also was beginning of our downfall.

Why is that? Why do I claim other archetypes to be ‘better’? And why the card selection hair-ripping mentioned in first sentences?

The reason is within one of the fundamental rules of deckbuilding and probably obvious by this point of reading – card synergy, or lack of thereof.

When you look at b/g decks mentioned above you easily see that most cards interact well with one another. Jund has a very strong ‘trade 2 for 1’ theme written all over their cards. Cascades in Shardless BUG get the most of this mechanics and so on.

On the other hand – when I pick cards for a rock deck, a lot of the times I find myself not wanting it, due to bad synergy with other cards. The most blatant one is lack of synergy between shaman and kotr. Admitedly goyf-shaman antisynergy is not that bad, but still present. Swords have bad synergy with him as well. You want to add Cabal Therapy? Good, but where are your cheap sac outlets. Well they are in form of Lingering Souls? Splendid, too bad this is another card bad with shaman. Plus what do you do with your little 1/1 souls afterwards? You include Mystic and equipments. Nice. Too bad that running so many white cards makes your GSZs so much worse. And unless you replace it with subpar Zealous Presecution, your Golgari Charms from board suck a lot, if the fact that they kill your own bobs and dryad arbors wasn’t bad enough. And so on and so forth. Some of those antysynergies were present before, but

a) The Kotr crisis is terrible and
b) Decks comparable to Rock make better job of running cards synergetic with their powerhouse staples.

This is madness! Rock has its name due to rock-solid cards it plays, but also rock-solid synergy between them. From the times that precede my knowledge of Magic, card synergy was our strongest weapon! Why now am I always choosing between cards that do not interact with one another so well? Indeed now ‘junk’ seems like the more appropriate name for this archetype.

Now, the reason I am ranting here is to call for deckbuilders superior to myself, which are present in numbers in this thread, to suggest a new Rock approach. Maybe we should scrap the evolutionary deadend we are in and start by taking few steps back? I want to look at my deck again and lovingly recognize how beautiful interactions between my cards are. Or maybe I just want to be convinced I am wrong and our cards still interact with one another just fine.

[sdematt]

I have a good reply, but I keep getting the error "the files you want to upload are too large to process."

I'm not uploading anything, just writing a reply. Thoughts?

-Matt

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I have a good reply, but I keep getting the error "the files you want to upload are too large to process."

I'm not uploading anything, just writing a reply. Thoughts?

-Matt

Maybe it's too long a reply? Sometimes that screws things up. Try going advanced and posting it then.

[sdematt]

I am going advanced and it still won't let me. It's never done this before, and the reply isn't that long. No longer than crow's post.

[sdematt]

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Dark Confidant
3 Loxodon Smiter
18

3 Thoughtseize
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Liliana of the Veil
7

3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Sylvan Library
13

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Bayou
2 Scrubland
2 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
23


What's going on?

[Koby]

Matt, you can easily replace the 3rd Sylvan with a SDT. It gives you a variety of ways to filter, and an easy way to cash in on a key card without paying a huge chunk of life. I always recommend the 1st SDT in place of the 3rd Library.

Other than that, your list seems to have way too many 3 of's for my liking. Do we have a final answer as to the debate of how to split the 7 removal spells between Abrupt Decay and StP? Is it fine to add the 1st Maelstorm Pulse in place of the 4th Abrupt Decay? Go up to the 8th removal?

3 Goyfs and 3 Smiter also seems a bit at odds.
I can agree with 3 KotR because it is late game card.

I would consider a Voice of Resurgence in place of one of either Goyf or Smiter. It's synergy with Cabal Therapy is pretty cool, but vulnerability to StP is a kind sad.

Anyways, just some thoughts from our last brainstorm session.

[sdematt]

I think I'm still having trouble posting, so I'll keep it short and sweet.

We need to build against the midrange decks as well as the Combo decks, which makes it very hard. I think Loxodon Smiter may be something you guys should look into, since a few of us have been testing it to good results against the other midrange decks.

-Matt

[.Ix]

I am quite positive I am not the only one often catching myself leaning over the gaming table, asking question ‘why the hell is my kotr so small again’ or losing a damage race by mere few points.

This hasn't been a problem for me since I started playing Depths/Stage. I only care about KOTR's P/T when I play against Lightning Bolt decks. With Depths in the deck, she suddenly becomes a 3-or-less turn clock without having to attack at all.

Why is Souls bad with Shaman? I don't get it.

[sdematt]

You're unlikely to get full value out of your Souls, but it DOES mean they have to use their Deathrite main phase to eat your stuff, leaving you to either freely accelerate with your own DRS or do something else.



-Matt

[.Ix]

Right, I didn't realize he was still talking about the Shaman from opposing decks in that paragraph.

[Chaplan]

So I lurk here a lot, and don't post much. But I really wanted to back up what Matt said about the Loxodon Smiter. He and I have been swapping lists/emails back and forth for a few weeks, and we've both enjoyed the Lox.

We've been testing the Smiter in our group, and he turns a lot of matchups around, specifically any match-up that uses discard, countermagic, or tries to attack the graveyard.

-Jund has a hard time with him due to Hymn/Thoughtseize/Liliana +1/Punishing Fire being unable to deal with him. Normally a Hymn or an established Liliana can lock a game, but Loxodon turns those 2 cards in your favor.

-The same thing happens when playing against Shardless Bug. All of a sudden those Hymns aren't as scary, and Liliana's +1 can actually work FOR you. Counterspells aren't nearly as scary, and having an extra body to eat up Abrupts or Trade with Goyfs is hard for them to deal with. Once a combo of Knights/Goyfs/Loxodon hit the table for you, they start scrambling to find Abrupts and Strix in a hurry.

-When playing against Delver decks (RUG and Patriot are the big ones we're testing right now), Dazes are no longer scary on turn 3, as you can drop the Lox and know that they can't deal with him. And when he hits the board? Lightning bolt usually can't deal with him unless they also want to trade a creature. All of a sudden those threshed Mongooses are afraid to swing in.

-He also has nice play for us against Countertop, for obvious reasons.

-VS. the control decks, he comes down the same time a Knight would, and early in the game, depending on lands you've used (or not used) for Shaman, is a better clock than either she or goyf (who usually sits at 3/4 early in that match up).

What we're finding is that Junk, in the current meta, needs to rely on its 3-4 swords/3-4 abrupt package to keep enemy bodies off the table, while Goyf, Knight, Bob, Shaman, and Loxodon put in their work. No one else has access to the spot removal W/G/B provides(when you compare it to the removal the other mid-range decks are running), so we can normally keep large opposing bodies off the table, where the other mid-range decks are relying on burn or counterspell to keep that from happening. If you can get large bodies to the board, you can normally grind out the win due to your superior removal package.

We also tried Lingering Souls at first (it's one of my pet cards since my days of learning Legacy on Dead Guy Ale), and while it's good, it can also be hit by Shaman (as you guys pointed out), and it can also be hated out by the normal graveyard hate, which is already in place to hate our Shaman/Knight/Goyf. Loxdon skips the GY hate, and keeps swinging. It's a weird piece of tech that seems pretty underwhelming at first, but we've enjoyed it in our testing against the usual suspects.

A lot of times, it's another body that needs to eat a swords or an abrupt, which means that's a piece of removal not hitting a Goyf, a Knight, a Bob, Shaman, or my personal favorite, Sylvan Library.

My list is essentially Matt's, I'm still moving things around to find the right place for my meta. The only major difference between our decks is that I run a MD Teeg due to all the combo in my area.

[crow_mw]

While maybe this is going a bit over the top to prove ones point, I do believe that Lingering Souls have bad synergy with Shaman, or at least lack a good synergy (on top of being susceptible to opposing shamans). Usually it is not a problem, but once you have souls in your yard you need to pick whether you feed your shaman with them or do you flashback. Moreover, while Souls take a creature slot in this deck, they fail to provide shaman with creature food for +2. And while lack of food for -2 is rarely a problem, on top of enemy creatures being taken out by Swords to Plowshares lack of food for +2 is encountered much more often.

Compare this to say Hymn to Tourach in Jund. Not only it provides a lot of food to Shaman, but also grows their goyfs faster. Furthermore Hymn has good synergy with Bloodbraid Elf, as while cascading into it is often suboptimal they both provide you with card advantage, as they both give you 2 for 1 value. That in turn works great with Liliana which is not only devastating when cascaded into, but also since you are running so many 2 for 1 effects her +1 hurts your opponent much more than it does you. Everything works together perfectly.

Loxodon Smiter is a nice card tech, and while it may be the step in right direction it does not address the issue of lack of good interactions between our cards.

I admit I have not played much with DD combo, but again - while it allows the knight to be a three turn clock, we are adding cards that do nothing with our other cards (well, DD feeds Shaman, but at that point of the game...). Do any card other than Knight interact in any way with DD? Do we run other lands we would really like to clone with Thespian Stage? Are we running anything that works well on its own, while also protecting the flying Cthulu? Surely with DD we would like to run some hexmages, which also take care of enemy planewalkers. But again - would they interact with anything else than DDs?

[sdematt]

Both the other midrange decks have cascade creatures, we don't. That's the problem.

-Matt

[Kich867]

I've been wondering if my experiments with The Brew (deck I recently posted in developmental) has really just been a thought experiment to flush out what's wrong with The Rock, because I really love The Rock. And my biggest, most vivid discovery while playing The Brew was that Dark Confidant is -surprisingly- bad compared to Stoneforge Mystic, who in my eyes now share a spot. Dark Confidant may draw you more cards if he survives longer, but what's he do for your board presence? He's a 2/1, you don't ever want to sac him to a Cabal Therapy and you never want to chump with him because you're hoping he draws you more cards.

Stoneforge Mystic on the other hand tutors one of the most powerful creatures ever, Batterskull, then plays it at instant speed. It's often the case that Dark Confidant, on average, will draw between 0 and 1 cards. If he would draw 2 or more cards it's likely you were going to win the game anyways and he devolves into this win-more. Stoneforge on the other hand is so much more proactive for the deck, it demands answering and it only needs to not die for one turn before shit starts getting pretty terrible for the opponent.

I'll be experimenting later with a Bob-less Rock. It's a slot I think needs to be examined more--I don't think it's right to run both Bob and SFM, when you could cut Bob and run SFM + Goyf + Knight.

Something like this:

// Maindeck:
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Stoneforge Mystic

3x Lingering Souls
3x Thoughtseize
3x Cabal Therapy
1x Maelstrom Pulse

3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Abrupt Decay

3x Sylvan Library
1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa's Jitte

2x Liliana of the Veil

// 23 lands

// Sideboard:
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Thoughtseize
2x Golgari Charm
2x Nihil Spellbomb
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Gaddock Teeg
2x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Pithing Needle

I'd try something along those lines out.

[Chaplan]

I've been wondering if my experiments with The Brew (deck I recently posted in developmental) has really just been a thought experiment to flush out what's wrong with The Rock, because I really love The Rock. And my biggest, most vivid discovery while playing The Brew was that Dark Confidant is -surprisingly- bad compared to Stoneforge Mystic, who in my eyes now share a spot. Dark Confidant may draw you more cards if he survives longer, but what's he do for your board presence? He's a 2/1, you don't ever want to sac him to a Cabal Therapy and you never want to chump with him because you're hoping he draws you more cards.

Stoneforge Mystic on the other hand tutors one of the most powerful creatures ever, Batterskull, then plays it at instant speed. It's often the case that Dark Confidant, on average, will draw between 0 and 1 cards. If he would draw 2 or more cards it's likely you were going to win the game anyways and he devolves into this win-more. Stoneforge on the other hand is so much more proactive for the deck, it demands answering and it only needs to not die for one turn before shit starts getting pretty terrible for the opponent.

That's an interesting point. I know that, for me, when playing against the other mid-range decks (or anything that's trying to play the board), Dark Confidant/Sylvan Library are 2 of the strongest cards I can put on the table. If they aren't answered, we're able to keep up with the cascade card advantage that Jund/BuG have. I'm always open to testing new things though, so I'll give that a shot and see how it feels.

As Matt said, the biggest issue with the other mid-range decks is that they see so many more cards than Junk over the course of a game, due to their cascade creatures.