Extended season is well over - but Extended's heavy-hitter, Psychatog, continues to dominate, even in Standard. Beyond Dr. Toothy, the other Extended decks have gone back into their boxes, to collect dust for a time-TurboLand, Oath, Lackey Sligh, Reanimator, Draco-Explosion, the Rock...

But wait - the Rock isn't gone either.

Sure, it's missing its Tutors, its Pernicious Deeds, its Spiritmongers... But so what? The Rock is an idea, not a pile of cards. It's all about black and green's synergy building up to roll an opponent over - and with that, I give you Type 2's Rock.

Main Deck:
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Ravenous Baloth
4x Mesmeric Fiend
3x Faceless Butcher
4x Nantuko Husk
3x Graveborn Muse

4x Duress
3x Cabal Therapy
4x Oversold Cemetery
3x Living Wish
2x Burning Wish

3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Wooded Foothills
9x Swamp
1x Mountain
6x Forest

Sideboard:
1x Elvish Lyrist
1x Elvish Scrapper
1x Spellbane Centaur
1x Braids, Cabal Minion
1x Visara the Dreadful
1x Phantom Centaur
1x Silklash Spider
1x Withered Wretch
1x Goblin Goon
1x Haunting Echoes
1x Mutilate
1x Tranquility
3x Naturalize

I've seen G/B Cemetery decks from around the net that focus on having a massive alpha strike with Caller of the Claw/Nantuko Husk synergy - and although I liked the overall idea, I didn't like the idea of having to rely on forcing through one titanic Husk. My deck is designed more toward the mid-to-late game, with early hand disruption, the potential for massive life gain through the Cemetery/Baloth interaction, and the"Nightmare Combo" to remove an opponent's hand/creatures from the game. For those of you not familiar with the aforementioned trick, I play a Mesmeric Fiend/Faceless Butcher and place its triggered ability onto the stack. I then sacrifice that same creature to the Husk, which then forces the Butcher's/Fiend's leaves play ability on the stack before the comes-into-play ability resolves. Thus, nothing can be returned, the creature is gone, the Husk is larger, and a creature or card in their hand is removed from the game with no way to get it back short of Wishing.

Only via hand disruption and creature tricks can Type 2's Rock maintain some level of board control. Wow, I miss Pernicious Deed.

Between those three ideas, the deck builds itself. A Cemetery in play means that a sacrificed Baloth in their end step will be back in play the next turn if necessary, ready to block and repeat the process if necessary, gaining you life and putting you out of range of almost all decks kill mechanisms until you are ready to bludgeon them. The Nightmare Trick can often deny decks a way to win, and nothing is as satisfying as a turn 1 Bird, turn 2 Mesmeric Fiend followed up by a Therapy.

That being said, I'll now talk about the two things in the deck that don't seem to fit with the others: Burning Wish and Graveborn Muse. My initial form of the deck had no red, one Haunting Echoes in the deck, and four Festering Goblins. I added the Muse first, seeing how easy it was for the deck to run out of cards very quickly without a Cemetery up and going. Beyond that, she's an unSmotherable 3/3 for four, which is nothing to frowned upon. The other point of contention I had with myself was over Burning Wish. As my build is now, it doesn't offer me a ton of solutions and such, however the three I have in there are three that can flat out win me games on occasion. Initially Tranquility was Creeping Mold, and may revert - but Slide is one of the deck's worst match-ups and I felt trading a Cemetery for a Slide and a Rift is an acceptable loss. Mutilate can often wreck, or at least stall, early creature rushes - my losses are inconsequential! (God bless Oversold.) And Haunting Echoes...Well, we know what that does to every deck in existence.

Regardless, the Muse is a lock in my deck. The Burning Wish? We'll see.

I've been play testing this deck for about a month now, pondering it as my Regionals deck. The gauntlet my group has assembled is consistent of:

• R/G Beats
• Psychatog
• Wake (Cunning Wish)
• Squirrel Opposition
• Astral Slide (R/W Burning Wish)
• MBC
• U/G Madness
• Sligh

These are the top contenders in the format right now, and any deck that could stand up to them would be an alright bet for a tournament surprise. Now, onto the match-ups...

R/G Beats (7 for 11)
Many consider this"the deck" to beat, so I figured I'd tackle it first. The Rock did surprisingly well against it, thanks to one guy: Ravenous Baloth. He can trump Call of the Herd tokens and can get you out of burn range - so give him a cookie, he wins you the game. Hand disruption can snag some of their burn and the always-painful Elephant Guide, which makes this match-up not nearly as bad. The Cemetery is usually the nail in the coffin, as recurring Baloths is something they can't deal with in match one.

As for boarding, I pulled out the two Burning Wishes and a Fiend and put in the three Naturalizes - come on, we all see the Compost or the Ensnaring Bridge coming a mile away.

-2 Burning Wish, -1 Mesmeric Fiend
+3 Naturalize

Psychatog (8 for 12)
Dr. Toothy does not like to sit across from me if I'm going first - he can feel the disruption to his hand, just sitting in the cards you're holding. Going first gives you a massive advantage, as either a Bird or a Duress is not what they're wanting to see. Going second isn't nearly as fun, as Force Spike can ruin your plans to slaughter their hand.

After that, it's time to race. They're going for eight land, you're going for the kill...Or are you? Racing them from twenty to zero can work, but it's not guaranteed. If you're looking to play it safe, and they let you slip a Cemetery in, then it's simple: Keep recurring the Baloth until you are out of range of those sharpened little teeth. If they keep countering you from that move, fine! Wish for Echoes and give them the pleasure of holding on to those counters.

For sideboarding, there isn't a lot to do with the deck in its current state - with the addition of Burning Wish, the Composts got cut. We'll see if that stays the same.

Wake (6 for 7)
Wake is a beast... If it gets going. The solution? Don't let it. You're packing Duress, Therapy, and the Fiends... It shouldn't even be close. The loss I had was to sitting with a Duress and a Fiend and only drawing forests-it was a tragedy.

-3 Faceless Butcher
+3 Naturalize

Squirrel Opposition (4 for 8)
Disruption is, once again, a marvelous thing - but if you don't draw it, it gets ugly. Turn 4 Opposition is usually lights out for you, and my friend has crazy top-decking goodness, which made for more locks than I'd like. It's not fun, but it's do-able. After boarding, it can be gruesome. Compost is not a fun thing, and neither is sideboarding - it's a hard call, but I pull out the Muses in favor of the Naturalizes, but this is still a gray area and I'm not quite sure which is correct here.

-3 Graveborn Muse
+3 Naturalize

Astral Slide (Burning Wish, W/R) (3 for 10)
This is painful. You must have the hand disruption or you've most likely lost before it started. My opponent had Cleansing Meditation in the sideboard, which was a real problem. Tranquility is your gamebreaker, as is Haunting Echoes, depending on the state of the game. Silklash Spider and Braids are both huge in this game, making it you versus their enchantments. You can win, but let's just hope for another match up.

-3 Faceless Butcher
+3 Naturalize

MBC (4 for 6)
This one is strange, and it comes down to three things: Getting out of Corrupt via the Baloth is a huge boost. Then it comes down to disruption; you have to nail all of their Haunting Echoes with disruption and pray for them to lack top-decking skills, and they have to nail your Cemeteries. Although the testing was in this deck's favor, it was very, very close every match.

U/G Madness (6 for 13)
Well, everyone has to do it as a rite of passage: Taking on the monster that is U/G. It was close to 50/50 between these two, which almost any tournament deck has to have at the least. If they don't drop Wonder into the yard without you having a Wish for the Wretch, it's close - if you can clog the lanes and get to turn 6 or 7, you should be in good shape. U/G has to kill you early, as the late game is all about your recursion. After boarding, you go further into the hole, with their enchantment kill of choice coming in to harm you. You can win, but it takes more than a little luck.

Sligh (8 for 10)
This one is usually in your favor - a Baloth is not what they want to see visit. I do miss the Festering Goblins in this match, as they made it virtually impossible for Sligh to win this one. It's hard as it is, though I do wonder. I've seen some people playing with Clickslither, and I think he's a solid card. I think he would massively help Sligh in this matchup, but I'll have to get back to you on that one.

And with that, you have it - the Rock lives on in Type 2, and isn't too bad at that. With the exception of Slide, it has no awful matchups, and has all the components in place to make it to Tier 1 with a bit of tweaking. Thanks for reading, and remember that the Baloth, and his Millions (of recurred creatures) are coming for you!