[Deck] The Rock

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I didn't realize you fellows couldn't see right from the start how inferior it really is compared to StP. Condescending apology accepted.

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[lavafrogg]

I didn't realize you fellows couldn't see right from the start how inferior it really is compared to StP. Condescending apology accepted.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Come on guys, this is the internet. Grow thicker skins and stop apologizing for things that no one did wrong.

Bee gave a response that was short and easily interpreted as negative, I didn't care. Now let's move on.

Bee- I understand that Fatal Push is inferior to swords to plowshare, it is obviously not as good as the best removal spell ever printed. That being said, Push kills almost every creature in the format and has the advantage of being on color.

With this being my favorite list:


4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Dark Confidant
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
14

3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Hymn to Tourach
8

3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Green Sun's Zenith
8


3 Lingering Souls
2 Sylvan Library
2 Painful Truths
7

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
2

2 Scrubland
3 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
22

61

Sideboard
2 Choke
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Bitterblossom
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Pithing Needle
1 Garruk Relentless
3 Surgical Extraction

You would lose 3 swords, 3 stone forge mystic, lingering souls and painful truths by cutting white. Out of the board gaddock teeg and zealous persecution are lost.

Now back to my question, if we replace Swords for Push what other cards cannot be similarly replaced in a straight GB list. He advantages of a stable Two color mana base are huge as you greatly reduce your chances for color screw and wasteland/blood moon issues with increased basics.

With the swords for push trade you would need to sideboard sacrifice effects(or dismember) if you plan on playing decks with fatties and you would lose points against reanimator and eldrazi game one. Going back to my question, is swords too important and does our deck hinge on having the one mana white spell available?

Also,

Since I asked the question, here is a first draft list:

Creatures(15)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Eternal Witness

Discard(6)
3 Thoughtsieze
3 Hymn

Removal(7)
3 Fatal Push
4 Abrupt Decay

Card Selection(6)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Sylvan Library
1 Life from the Loam

Planeswalkers(4)
3 Lilliana of the Veil
1 Garruk Relentless

Lands(22)
3 Swamps
3 Forests
3 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

I like the 4x Wastelands and the 1 loam to secure the wastelock and to break the discard with liliana in longer games, I like that it has a fighting chance against combo with thoughtsieze into hymn into Lilly.

Lilliana helps with the removal as she can hopefully edict away anything too big to push/decay.

With the extra wiggle room in the mana base I added the two towers endgame to play off of the loam and the witness as a Zenith target. Overall I feel like the deck flows together really nicely and I will most likely try it out next week at my local.

Thoughts?

[somethingdotdotdot]

I honestly believe giving up white is a mistake. Pretty much all of the cards you listed: sfm, lingering souls, painful truths, and gaddock teeg and a few other sb cards like containment priest, ethersworn canonist are game winning card advantage/virtual card advantage cards. I dont see anything in GB that can replace that suite. Furthermore, this deck has far from the greediest manabase in legacy. Not sure why a generally inferior removal card would justify removing the better removal card+ a whole suite of card advantage pieces.

[lavafrogg]

On the mana base: three colors plus wastelands is a greedy manabase. It might not be the greediest, but I have lost my fair share of games over the years to watseland/port/stifle/blood moon all of which can show up on any given day.

Also, being able to easily play 4 wastelands ourselves is just free wins on the cake.

What do you actually gain from the white cards?

Hate bears are not that effective against combo seeing how we don't play blue, so you are gaining minimal percentage points with canonist/priest. Lingering souls can be replaced with Bitterblossom if we really want tokens, but planes walkers do the same thing, which is pressure control opponents and stall the ground.

Gaddock teeg can be ran with 4 GSZ and deathrite to hard cast if needed.

Truths is good, but other card advantage spells exist.

Lastly is stone forge mystic, if equipment is so important running multiple pieces is an option. What matchups do you absolutely need a SFM 100% of the time?

[Richard Cheese]

On the mana base: three colors plus wastelands is a greedy manabase. It might not be the greediest, but I have lost my fair share of games over the years to watseland/port/stifle/blood moon all of which can show up on any given day.

Also, being able to easily play 4 wastelands ourselves is just free wins on the cake.

What do you actually gain from the white cards?

Hate bears are not that effective against combo seeing how we don't play blue, so you are gaining minimal percentage points with canonist/priest. Lingering souls can be replaced with Bitterblossom if we really want tokens, but planes walkers do the same thing, which is pressure control opponents and stall the ground.

Gaddock teeg can be ran with 4 GSZ and deathrite to hard cast if needed.

Truths is good, but other card advantage spells exist.

Lastly is stone forge mystic, if equipment is so important running multiple pieces is an option. What matchups do you absolutely need a SFM 100% of the time?

Reasons to run White:

StP
Thalia
Teeg
Canonist
Priest
Knight
Rhino
Pridemage
SFM
New Gideon?
Karakas

I honestly think you could make a better case for dropping black, because DRS is castable with only Green, and Decay is pretty splashable, like 1-2 lands plus DRS. Also historically, Maverick has had much greater success and much more recently than anything I can think of that was straight BG.

[somethingdotdotdot]

On the mana base: three colors plus wastelands is a greedy manabase. It might not be the greediest, but I have lost my fair share of games over the years to watseland/port/stifle/blood moon all of which can show up on any given day.

Also, being able to easily play 4 wastelands ourselves is just free wins on the cake.

The manbase stability seems to be the only gain by dropping white. I dont feel that it justifies the costs at all.

What do you actually gain from the white cards?

Hate bears are not that effective against combo seeing how we don't play blue, so you are gaining minimal percentage points with canonist/priest.
I disagree with this statement whole heartedly. It may be true that since the deck doesn't run as many hate bears as other decks (dnt/maverick), you're not as likely to see them in a given game compared to a blue deck; however, whenever one does hit the field, it requires the combo player to increase their combo by 1 (ie, they now require an answer card in addition to their combo).

Lingering souls can be replaced with Bitterblossom if we really want tokens, but planes walkers do the same thing, which is pressure control opponents and stall the ground.
Both walkers and bitterblossom have similarities with souls, but both are more polarized in what they can do. Bitterblossom applies constant pressure, but is pretty mediocre/terrible for defense since the tokens come after a turn and costs life. Walkers that produce tokens typically cost 4+ mana, making them extremely weak vs aggressive strategies. Essentially, both bitterblossom/walkers are better for applying pressure than for going on defense; souls is equally good on both. Flashback also makes it stronger vs daze/discard.

Gaddock teeg can be ran with 4 GSZ and deathrite to hard cast if needed.
If this is the case, why wouldn't you at least add 1-2 white sources to fetch to cast him? You really don't need to be playing 5-6 basics in a deck that only really needs like 4 mana total.

Truths is good, but other card advantage spells exist.
And most of them for this deck has tended to be white.

Lastly is stone forge mystic, if equipment is so important running multiple pieces is an option. What matchups do you absolutely need a SFM 100% of the time?
It's not just about running more equipment, because you can't feasibly run 5-6 pieces. The equipment also tend to be better/worse depending on the matchup. Stoneforge gives you selection and reduces terrible draws where you just get 2x jittes or something. Matchups where you want (because need is too strong a word) is pretty much every grindy creature-based matchup or matchup where you are racing (burn, death and taxes, maverick, elves, shardless, eldrazi, tnn-decks, and probably a lot of others i'm not thinking about).

I think you can make a much stronger case for dropping green cards (but i still wouldn't omit it) since goyf has seen much better days.

[sdematt]

Dropping any colour drops many advantages in each of them. Even dedicted two colour decks like Maverick, Deadguy, and Eva have all evolved into XY/z decks because the splash offers enough gain over manabase instability, esp. With the advent of DRS.

I think if you're worried about stability, run more GSZ, a Loam, more basics, and 4 DRS. You could even go back to Knight like my 2012 list, but I feel Souls and Sigarda and better positioned.

[lavafrogg]

Dropping any colour drops many advantages in each of them. Even dedicted two colour decks like Maverick, Deadguy, and Eva have all evolved into XY/z decks because the splash offers enough gain over manabase instability, esp. With the advent of DRS.

I think if you're worried about stability, run more GSZ, a Loam, more basics, and 4 DRS. You could even go back to Knight like my 2012 list, but I feel Souls and Sigarda and better positioned.

In an ideal world, we would all run single color mana bases and would be able to do everything we ever would want to do and part of the strength of many of the top decks in legacy are solid 1-2 color mana bases.

Maverick has devolved into the three color lists that we now know partially due to the danger of cool things, imo the current best maverick build is straight GW and takes advantage of both Thalia's, stoneforge and knight. On our side of the coin, I think the best rock deck will be straight GB with Bob, Goyf and DRS as the core, and we go from there.

I do not feel stoneforge and souls are 100% must haves and if we can drop swords for the new push, hen white is suspect.

I feel very strongly about the power level of Liliana, I know Matt doesn't feel the same way, and the best card to help feed liliana is going to be life from the loam(and dark confidant).

Obviously souls and sigarda are targeted towards miracles, and souls plus equipment... and double teeg, and if we can up the Liliana count, the must kill count, and even include another planeswalker, we could become a miracles worst matchup.

But I know this is the source, I will build and test a list and hopefully discuss later with anyone who wants to.

[Megadeus]

In an ideal world, we would all run single color mana bases and would be able to do everything we ever would want to do and part of the strength of many of the top decks in legacy are solid 1-2 color mana bases.

Maverick has devolved into the three color lists that we now know partially due to the danger of cool things, imo the current best maverick build is straight GW and takes advantage of both Thalia's, stoneforge and knight. On our side of the coin, I think the best rock deck will be straight GB with Bob, Goyf and DRS as the core, and we go from there.

I do not feel stoneforge and souls are 100% must haves and if we can drop swords for the new push, hen white is suspect.

I feel very strongly about the power level of Liliana, I know Matt doesn't feel the same way, and the best card to help feed liliana is going to be life from the loam(and dark confidant).

Obviously souls and sigarda are targeted towards miracles, and souls plus equipment... and double teeg, and if we can up the Liliana count, the must kill count, and even include another planeswalker, we could become a miracles worst matchup.

But I know this is the source, I will build and test a list and hopefully discuss later with anyone who wants to.

Maverick is three colors because decay and deathrite are needed in the meta. And black sideboard options are basically necessary to be competitive. Dropping white in this deck makes the mana slightly better and that's really it. But you lose a lot more than you gain. You lose sfm which helps make all of your shitty dudes into slightly less shitty dudes. Souls and truths are the cards advantage needed to beat miracles and BUG, and swords is just the best removal spell ever printed. Push is something for non white decks more than anything, but you probably never want the first push before the fourth swords, and after that you want decay anyway

[lavafrogg]

Maverick is three colors because decay and deathrite are needed in the meta. And black sideboard options are basically necessary to be competitive. Dropping white in this deck makes the mana slightly better and that's really it. But you lose a lot more than you gain. You lose sfm which helps make all of your shitty dudes into slightly less shitty dudes. Souls and truths are the cards advantage needed to beat miracles and BUG, and swords is just the best removal spell ever printed. Push is something for non white decks more than anything, but you probably never want the first push before the fourth swords, and after that you want decay anyway

I am going to start testing and working on GB, I will let you know if I can come up with anything.

I would just like to note that Stone forge, souls, swords and Truths are good cards... but we are still a tier two deck that cannot beat top decks consistently.

I feel like we are underestimating that value of a stable mana base in today's legacy.

edit: also for the record, I have played swords to plowshares in every deck since GUw thresh and have been a huge advocate for BGw Rock for years. I love Stoneforge, Teeg, Souls and Swords.

[damionblackgear]

Full circle I see. I'm interested if you go more the agro route the deck has become or back to the more controlling style the deck was designed as.

It might help to look at the archives to see how they did it. Granted it was a Nic Fit deck then. The current builds would be closer to the archived RockGuy decks. I'll try to remember to come back and update this with links later.

Edit - Older Rock Thread and another.

[sdematt]

I think a straight GB Suicide list starts with 4 Goyf, 4 DRS, 4 Confidant, 4 Negator... ;)

But srsly.

4 DRS
4 Goyf
4 Confidant
2 Tombstalker
4 Negator

4 TS
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Decay
4 Fatal Push
3 Sylvan Library

Etc.

God, I want to play Negator. But Bolt.... :/

[lavafrogg]

I think a straight GB Suicide list starts with 4 Goyf, 4 DRS, 4 Confidant, 4 Negator... ;)

But srsly.

4 DRS
4 Goyf
4 Confidant
2 Tombstalker
4 Negator

4 TS
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Decay
4 Fatal Push
3 Sylvan Library

Etc.

God, I want to play Negator. But Bolt.... :/

Suicide?!? Eva Green?!? Awesome.

No love for Dark Ritual or Gurmag Angler?

[Hmmm_Really?]

I think a straight GB Suicide list starts with 4 Goyf, 4 DRS, 4 Confidant, 4 Negator... ;)

But srsly.

4 DRS
4 Goyf
4 Confidant
2 Tombstalker
4 Negator

4 TS
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Decay
4 Fatal Push
3 Sylvan Library

Etc.

God, I want to play Negator. But Bolt.... :/

Abyssal Persecutor, instead of Phyrexian Negator, with Cabal Therapy, Fatal Push, Deed and Phyrexan Tower? But surely that's been tried before with Innocent Blood, hasn't it?

[lavafrogg]

Okay,

Went 4-0 tonight at a weekly, which doesn't say much... but is better than 0-4.

New draft to the much hated GB Rock list, the first draft was further up the page.

I started with the best GB library manipulation/card advantage engine I could find and went from there.

Creatures(16)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Eternal Witness
1 Dryad Arbor

Discard(8)
3 Thoughtsieze
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Hymn to Tourach

Removal(7)
3 Fatal Push
4 Abrupt Decay

Card Selection(7)
3 Sylvan Library
1 Life from the Loam
3 Unearth

Planeswalkers(2)
1 Lilliana of the Veil
1 Garruk Relentless

Lands(21)
2 Swamps
2 Forests
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Phyrexian Tower

Sideboard(15)
3 Lost Legacy
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dismember
1 Fatal Push
3 Choke

I beat Miracles round one 2-0. round two was Merfolk 2-0, Nic Fit 2-1 and Death and Taxes 2-1.

For the most part I was just the deck with all of the removal... i.e. against Merfolk and Death and Taxes.

The Miracle player had no idea what I was going to do the whole game and countered 2 Dark Confidants and 1 Sylvan Library before the second Library stuck to drown him game one. Game two I cast the same Lost legacy 3 times to strip him of win cons(Jace, Entreant, Mentor) for the scoop.

My losses were to a DnT where I drew no win conditions the entire game(goyf) and a game to Nic Fit where he went over the top, swords would have been nice...

Obviously SFM would have been awesome to help against Dnt and swords would have been nice against Nic Fits large dudes, but overall I did not feel like I needed to have the splash. The mana base felt awesome and Eternal Witness is jjust a really dumb card. Therapy-Witness-Therapy-Unearth-Therapy-Therapy also happened over the course of several turns against the Nic Fit player to ensure he never had gas.

Unearth was super fun but I could see cutting 1, Life from the Loam was not stellar since I dropped the Lilliana count to 1, Thoughtsieze was also pretty bad. I never drew the Garruk but wanted to several times throughout the night.

Anyone who is interested, what do you think?

p.s. I should be able to play again monday/tuesday.

[kinda]

Good work! How has lost legacy been? I'm considering them.

[lavafrogg]

Good work! How has lost legacy been? I'm considering them.

Lost legacy was fun, I could see it getting play against decks where we have no real way to stop their inevitably like the jace from Miracles or Loam from Lands.

I am going to try -3 Eternal Witness -3 Unearth, +3 Tireless Tracker +3 Noxious Revival to hopefully get a little more muscle without losing the recursion.

[Asthereal]

(interesting take on Junk)

Good work! Couple of questions:
1. Why not more Liliana? Do you feel you don't need her?
Could be me, but I'd list at least three before starting to actually think about what I would want in such a list.

2. Why no Green Sun's Zenith?
Could be good to add more beef. It makes Arbor better, and you could add a Reclamation Sage to complete the toolbox.

3. Have you considered a second Garruk Relentless?
You mentioned never drawing him, but wanting to draw him on occasion. A second seems good against most of the meta right now.

[CptHaddock]

@lavafrogg

Were the 21 lands enough? I tried something similar and always felt like I didn't have enough lands when I didn't get a loam online. My landbase was also a little crappier because I was splashing teeg in the board. I played a few games on Cocatrice (yes I know) and the deck felt pretty good. Most fair matchups you can usually just overload on removal and win the game because your opponents never have anything on the board. You're still a complete dog in the combo matchups but i'm not really sure what to do about that without splashing another color. Ended up getting crushed by sneak and show.

Anyways I think i'm going to go towards a straight GB, more loam oriented build with my late game threat being a combination of goyf + tireless tracker. I'm going to try this a list like the one below at my locals. Not 100% on the manabase.

1 Cabal Pit
1 Karakas
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Barren Moor
1 Tranquil Thicket

4 Mox Diamond

1 Sylvan Library

3 Liliana of the Veil

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
2 Tireless Tracker

4 Abrupt Decay
3 Fatal Push
2 Life from the Loam
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Thoughtseize
1 Crop Rotation

Sideboard:
2 Choke
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Crop Rotation
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Leyline of the Void

[lavafrogg]

Good work! Couple of questions:
1. Why not more Liliana? Do you feel you don't need her?
Could be me, but I'd list at least three before starting to actually think about what I would want in such a list.

2. Why no Green Sun's Zenith?
Could be good to add more beef. It makes Arbor better, and you could add a Reclamation Sage to complete the toolbox.

3. Have you considered a second Garruk Relentless?
You mentioned never drawing him, but wanting to draw him on occasion. A second seems good against most of the meta right now.

I was responding this but then the Super Bowl suddenly became a game again.

Thanks for the comments!

1. Why not more Liliana?
A big problem that I have with GB decks, and most tier 2 decks in general, is that they durdle too hard. I love Liliana but my problem is with the cards that we can use to break the Liliana symmetry. We need a usable GB utility card that can make Liliana not symmetrical and I think that Life from the Loam is just durdles too hard in this current list. I think the right number might be 2 when it is all said and done because I think she is a house.

2. Why no Green Sun's Zenith?
GSZ is another card that I absolutely love, especially as a 4 of. When I build traditional Junk I start with 4 DRS and 4 GSZ and go from there. With this deck as a more old school "Rock" list, I felt card advantage is more important than card selection so I went with the full set of Bobs and the triple Sylvan Library. Also, I am valuing the power of Goyf + Discard in the combo match ups.

3. Have you considered a second Garruk Relentless?
No. I think he is a good option in a lot of match ups but as a 4 drop that grinds I don't think seeing multiples is something that we want.

@lavafrogg

Were the 21 lands enough? I tried something similar and always felt like I didn't have enough lands when I didn't get a loam online. My landbase was also a little crappier because I was splashing teeg in the board. I played a few games on Cocatrice (yes I know) and the deck felt pretty good. Most fair matchups you can usually just overload on removal and win the game because your opponents never have anything on the board. You're still a complete dog in the combo matchups but i'm not really sure what to do about that without splashing another color. Ended up getting crushed by sneak and show.

Anyways I think i'm going to go towards a straight GB, more loam oriented build with my late game threat being a combination of goyf + tireless tracker. I'm going to try this a list like the one below at my locals. Not 100% on the manabase.

1 Cabal Pit
1 Karakas
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Barren Moor
1 Tranquil Thicket

4 Mox Diamond

1 Sylvan Library

3 Liliana of the Veil

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
2 Tireless Tracker

4 Abrupt Decay
3 Fatal Push
2 Life from the Loam
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Thoughtseize
1 Crop Rotation

Sideboard:
2 Choke
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Golgari Charm
1 Crop Rotation
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Leyline of the Void

In a similar vein to the cards above, I love Life from the Loam but I find that the deck just does nothing too much of the time. In my opinion, your list suffers from the danger of cool things. I promise you that all of the cards in your list sit in a box on my desk and I cycle through all of them when I am deck building. My personal problem with the GB Zenith decks is that they do not have Knight to search up as a end all be all target. Maybe Tracker is a replacement, but I do not know for sure at this point.

That being said, I love your list but I feel that is too graveyard dependent and if you are going to be that yard based, you might as well play GB Depths for the sweet combo finish. We are both in a similar place though, please let me know if you make any progress.

This is where I am at after some gauntlet testing with friends tonight.

Creatures(16)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Dryad Arbor

Discard(8)
3 Thoughtsieze
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Hymn to Tourach

Removal(7)
3 Fatal Push
4 Abrupt Decay

Card Selection(7)
3 Sylvan Library
1 Life from the Loam
3 Noxious Revival

Planeswalkers(2)
1 Lilliana of the Veil
1 Garruk Relentless

Lands(21)
2 Swamps
2 Forests
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Horizon Canopy

Sideboard(15)
3 Lost Legacy
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dismember
1 Fatal Push
3 Choke

The Revivals are really fun and the Tracker is a great control win con as he draws cards and gets large. The plan of the deck is to get control through discard and removal and then establish a card advantage engine to win the game. Sometimes you just win with Goyfs, which is fun.

21 lands is enough for me as I am not looking to Loam every turn or discard lands to diamond/Lilly constantly.

I am having trouble with the last 3 cards in the list, he revivals, and my 2 utility lands.