Hello, everyone; my name is Jose Emmanuel Argao, and I'm here to present an update to the Rock deck that was featured in my last article. The deck was designed to function in the Onslaught Block Constructed environment, and focused on gaining massive card advantage over a period of time in order to beat the opponent. I have made a couple of changes to the deck since that time, and the result was a deck that I feel can stand up to the best in OnBC. Before I give you the new build, let's look at what the deck originally looked like:
Creatures:
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Krosan Tusker
4 Bane of the Living
4 Festering Goblin
4 Nantuko Husk
4 Wall of Mulch
2 Nantuko Vigilante
Other spells:
4 Oversold Cemetery
4 Infest
2 Naturalize
Lands:
4 Barren Moor
2 Tranquil Thicket
10 Swamp
8 Forest
Sideboard:
4 Smother
4 Blackmail
2 Naturalize
2 Nantuko Vigilante
3 Undead Gladiator
I'll tell you right now that the above deck is already a solid contender as is, completely smashing almost any creature-based strategy while not auto-losing to control. It had trouble standing up to other Cemetery-based decks, though, as well as the incredible amount of removal in AstroGlide. It also contained sub-optimal cards like:
Nantuko Husk
The husk is an incredible creature, and works well to facilitate Goblin and Vigilante recursion, but the deck only has six creatures to sacrifice to it. Wall of Mulch would serve you much better when sacrificed to its own ability, and almost every other creature is simply better than Husk. Without a Festering Goblin or Nantuko Vigilante in play, it's not much more than a 2/2 for three. You have your morph guys for that.
Infest
While this card is amazing against Elves, Soldiers, and Goblins, it's dead against AstroGlide. It's also a turn too slow to deal with cards like Skirk Alarmist, which can get out of hand very quickly if they aren't destroyed ASAP. While Infest is a solid card, it may serve its purpose better from the sideboard.
By removing Nantuko Husk and Infest from the main, we free up slots in the deck for better cards. The cards that I replaced them with are:
Visara the Dreadful
My initial results when I first tried her out were horrible, but after playing with Visara some more she slowly won back my respect. Not only can Visara deal with any creature your opponent throws at you with her ability, she can also block and kill an Exalted Angel. With all the creature control in the deck, you shouldn't have much trouble casting her. Visara can also serve to distract most opponents, who tend to concentrate on killing her as soon as she hits the table. This buys you time to set up.
Nantuko Vigilante
AstroGlide is a very strong deck, and I've found that having six disenchant effects main helps a lot against it. Upping the Vigilante count to four was an obvious decision.
Smother
Smother is an instant and is one mana cheaper than Infest. It's a much better card in most matchups, and can kill morph creatures just like that. Just the threat of a Smother is often enough to force opponents to hold back casting their Exalted Angels, which is always a good thing.
I also changed the mana base, adding four copies of Grand Coliseum to help getting colored mana. I cut a forest, a swamp, and two Barren Moors to fit them in so as not to have more than eight lands that come into play tapped. The new build of the deck is as follows:
Creatures:
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Nantuko Vigilante
4 Krosan Tusker
4 Festering Goblin
4 Bane of the Living
4 Wall of Mulch
2 Visara the Dreadful
Other spells:
4 Smother
4 Oversold Cemetery
2 Naturalize
Land:
4 Grand Coliseum
2 Barren Moor
2 Tranquil Thicket
9 Swamp
7 Forest
Sideboard:
4 Silklash Spider
4 Infest
4 Silent Specter
1 Visara the Dreadful
2 Naturalize
The sideboard is pretty straightforward, with Spiders and an extra Visara for AstroGlide's fat and Infests against creature swarms. Silent Specter is good against random control decks, and the extra Naturalizes come in handy against decks like AstroGlide.
Here are the relevant matches (as of now) and how you should play them:
AstroGlide
Glide is the deck to beat right now, and rightfully so. It has consistency, it has card drawing, it has creature control, and it has Exalted Angel. The earlier build of the Rock that I made could beat earlier incarnations of AstroGlide by killing every Slide that hits the table and stalling until it can Bane for five every turn. However, against newer versions of Slide that have more fat, the old build had trouble competing. My initial efforts to adapt the deck to beat Slide came up short because I just couldn't race 4/5 creatures with Spirit Links.
That's when it hit me.
I didn't need to speed my deck up; I just needed to slow them down. Four copies of Silklash Spider went into the board for blocking purposes. With seven points of toughness, the Slide player would be hard pressed to remove it. By keeping with the old plan of killing every copy of Astral Slide the opponent plays, you'll be able to hold off those pesky angels indefinitely. With enough mana on the table, you'd even be able to kill them.
The inclusion of Visara into the deck also helped tremendously in the battle with Slide. She's your best threat game one, and the same remains true for games two and three. The new build wins against Slide at around 30% game one, but the results shoot up to 90% after sideboarding, even if they decide to use tricky sideboarding strategies that revolve around changing their deck to a dedicated big-creatures deck. Just remember that you can play around one Lightning Rift in play, but a Slide should be dealt with ASAP.
Sligh
Sligh is easy to beat game one, and an absolute pushover in games two and three. You're bringing in Infests to complement your already extensive arsenal of creature removal, while all they can do is bring in a forest and Naturalizes for your Cemeteries. With all the walls and Baloths in the deck, surviving until you can play all your fat is easy. Once you have Visara and/or a Tusker on the table and a Baloth waiting to gain you life, they're dead. The only way Slide can possibly hope to beat you is by getting a nuts draw with Goblin Piledriver and friends - and even then, a well-timed Smother or Infest after sideboarding will ruin their perfectly laid plans. I even tried playing against a Standard build of Sligh and won nine games out of ten. Sligh is the second most popular deck in the format right now, and you're always happy to be sitting across from it.
Alarmist/Plasm
The new Skirk Alarmist/Dermoplasm decks that have appeared lately have been slowly gaining popularity. Know that if they bring down a fatty on turn 4, you'll have a tough time beating them. That said, they will be taking a huge risk whenever they try to do so. If you can kill their early drops, you will win. The trick is simply surviving until you can play Visara and lock up the game. They also have less removal than Slide so you can afford to play Bane a turn before you plan to activate him. Their lack of real enchantment removal also makes playing Cemetery pretty safe.
Granted, sometimes they will get the nuts draw and bring down a monster before you set up but they usually take until turn five or so before doing anything nasty. By then, you have already played your own beaters and can race them for the win. With Baloths on your side, winning this race is a very real possibility. If you can play Visara and keep her alive, that's game right there. Basically, this is a very luck-based match but the odds are usually on your side.
Swarms
Soldiers, Elves, Clerics, and other weenie decks fall into this category. The strategy against all of them is simple; destroy everything every chance you get. You have reusable mass removal in the form of Bane, so don't hesitate to use it. If they're using cards like Oversold Cemetery to recycle their creatures, destroy those too. Sooner or later, they'll run out of steam and you'll win.
Clerics in particular used to be a very tough match, with their Rotlung Reanimators turning every mass removal spell into a one-sided deal. With the inclusion of Visara, however, the match became much better. You'll be winning most of your matches against these decks. Clerics can bring out Scion of Darkness on turn two, but they won't be doing that very often. If they try to release Scion later, Dark Supplicant will usually have died long before it can activate. Late game, even if they play Scion from their mana, Visara will take care of it easily.
Mid-range aggro
Beast decks and other decks with medium-sized creatures designed to beat down fall into this category. Just do the same thing you do against swarms. Run them out of steam and you'll win the game through Cemetery recursion. Visara can also lock up the game all by herself. This is a mostly easy match to win.
Control/Combo
there haven't been definitive builds of any of these decks that I've seen. Keeper of the Nine Gales remains almost unplayable (but you have Spider to deal with it anyway). I've seen a couple of U/W builds but after testing against them I found that they were tier 2 decks at best. For now, combo and non-slide control are not serious threats.
I've also built a Standard build of the Rock. I built it when my friends started a small Standard tournament (which is really just a couple of guys pooling their money to buy a booster pack and playing to win it) and I only had my OnBC deck with me. After borrowing a couple of cards that I thought would help the deck, I joined the"tournament" and played to win a single Onslaught booster pack.
I didn't really think I stood a chance, but after beating five Sligh decks, two AstroGlide decks, and one MBC deck I found myself the proud owner of an Onslaught booster (which contained a Death Match, much to my dismay).
I didn't take any notes, because I never expected to win, but the experience gave me the idea that maybe I could play Rock in standard and win. Here is the decklist, slightly tweaked since the first time I played it.
Creatures:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Krosan Tusker
3 Bane of the Living
3 Nantuko Vigilante
3 Ravenous Baloth
2 Wall of Mulch
1 Visara the Dreadful
1 Genesis
Other spells:
3 Oversold Cemetery
4 Living Wish
4 Chainer's Edict
1 Buried Alive
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Haunting Echoes
Land:
4 Grand Coliseum
4 City of Brass
8 Swamp
8 Forest
Sideboard:
1 Visara the Dreadful
1 Bane of the Living
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Withered Wretch
1 Genesis
1 Silent Specter
1 Duress
1 Haunting Echoes
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Silklash Spider
The addition of mana acceleration and the Living Wishes reduced the need for Walls and eliminated the need for Festering Goblins. The Haunting Echoes should be treated as an alternative win condition, since resolving it makes most opponents scoop. The wishes can act as extra copies of key cards like Bane or be used as fetchers for silver bullets like Silklash Spider. Remember only to side in three copies of the spider against U/G Madness, as you need one copy in the board to wish for. Having essentially seven ways to draw Baloth and multiple ways to recur him make the Sligh matchup very good. Its main problem right now is Mirari's Wake, but boarding in the extra disruption helps. I'm not sure if this deck is tier 1 in Standard, but it's definitely no lower than tier 2.
That concludes my article. I can be reached at ukyo_rulz@edsamail.com.ph if you have any comments or suggestions. Thanks for reading.
Jose Emmanuel Argao
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