It is not the position of the teacher to instill knowledge; but to instill the tools to acquire knowledge.
Extended Magic is an irritating beast. Without retreading all the same complaints about card availability versus card power, and possibly inciting the wrath of the dread Forum Beasts, there are some archetypes that are currently unplayable in the low-budget Extended environment. Even decks like BDW and Bests cost a pretty penny thanks to Fetchlands, and pricey Mirrodin-block cards that actually make the deck decent. If you could call Bests decent, I suppose. It just looks big and dumb and ugly, but I do love me a deck that fits that mold.
You know what else I love?
I love me some Rock.
Maaan, what an awesome deck that is. 4/4 fatties, incremental card advantage, card drawing dudes and recursion in a tight, neat package. Individual battles making for a colossal end to the war. No need to worry about The Combo coming together. No need to feel naked versus creature assaults. No need to do anything… and no chance above 50% to anything, apparently. But so many options! So much stuff! It can do things! Fantastic, really – every time a card is printed that can glean you card advantage in Green and Black, you get one more tool you can pop into your Rock Deck. Rampant Growth became Sakura-Tribe Elder. Cartographer became Life From the Loam… and such it changed over time.
Because Rock deck owners never put the deck away. They don’t. We just quietly have it, tucked behind all the others, in its own little deck box. It’s almost always got special sleeves, too. Not too new, don’t want people thinking we’re sleeving it up for the next tournament. That’d be silly, because, you know, Rock’s No Good Right Now. But like your favorite dancing shoes, or that embarrassing shirt with the slogan, or that beanie your grandmother gave you and you just can’t bring yourself to get rid of, you keep it. Intact from season to season, making little changes, testing a little, then putting it away again. Never the bridesmaid, Rock remains a fan favorite… and you wait for when it’ll be good again.
This is the beauty of Rock, as a pet deck. It’s always competitive-ish. It’s a deck that is composed of a group of Rock-like bits, and well, they just keep turning up in set to set. The core of Rock’s strategy, as it’s called in the modern sense is to gather momentum. You use creatures that glean you card advantage in some way or another, either by drawing, recurring, or killing, and you back it all up with Pernicious Deed.
Ah, Deed. What a magnificent card. Alongi praised it, the Ferrett has spoken of it so readily, and it crystallizes the Haves Or Have Nots of Magic Online so beautifully. A mere paycheck for a playset, the Deed’s the biggest stumbling block in playing this deck. Without the massive board-shaker, Rock is just a bunch of slightly lame creatures that can’t propel you to the late game nearly so effectively. Indeed, in formats where Deed is bad (like, say, a format defined by a Red deck that just wanted to hit you three times at most so it could burn you out from there) are the formats where Rock stops being Rock, and starts being something else… like a Sword of Fire And Ice deck packing the best incremental card advantage creatures around.
The Incremental Deck
This, milord is my father’s axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation… but is this not the nine-hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y’know.
I never set out to make this deck. I never planned to build it – it just happened piece-by-piece, over time, as I sought to make a Standard Favorite better in Extended. And as sets were added, cards were changed, until I realized I had a budget deck that could feel the same as Rock. No, it’s not Rock. It won’t ever be Rock. What defines Rock has changed over the years; once upon a time, Rock was Not Rock when it lacked Plaguelord. Then it was Not Rock when it lacked Hermit. Then it was Not Rock when it lacked Yavimaya Elder. While this deck is Not Rock, it is Not Rock in a way that could satisfy those who seek that little Rocky taste on their tongue.
Creatures (27)
- 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
- 3 Krosan Tusker
- 4 Twisted Abomination
- 4 Nantuko Vigilante
- 4 Werebear
- 4 Frightcrawler
- 4 Darkheart Sliver
Lands (23)
Spells (10)
In the whole deck, there are twelve rares. Pricing this on MTGO wasn’t that hard – the most expensive card is the lone Overgrown Tomb (there so Twisted Abomination can fetch a Green source).
Overgrown Tomb – 4 tix – 4 tix total
Oversold Cemetery – 1 tix – 4 tix total
Death Cloud – 1.33 tix – 3 tix total
Life From the Loam – 2 tix – 6 tix total
Darkheart Sliver – 0.0625 tix – 0.25 tix total
Total Cost – 18.25 tix
This deck could be made on the same budget as a Battle Royale Deck. And, remember, this is an Extended deck. When I started out on MTGO, and my money situation was different, this deck was Standard legal, and it had Baloths and Hystrodon and all sorts of chicanery. When OLS rotated, Llanowar Elves were introduced, the game became more about focusing on the early Hystrodon, and so on. It was still a fantastic, fun deck to play, but as time moved on, more things evolved out of it.
The deck’s genesis stems from Richard Feldman, talking about how it’s better to Clamp up a 2/2 for three who could kill your own Clamps accidentally than it is to draw two cards for one. More tellingly, he was right. Shortly after the bannings of Skullclamp, a U/B Death Cloud deck began doing the rounds – though it was even more hell-for-leather, shooting to Cloud as soon as it could and for as much as it could – and it didn’t really break Tier 2 while Onslaught was legal. Some forgotten Good Man back in those days, however, wrote an article where he laid out the central tenet I’ve used for this deck all the way through its evolution.
Whenever you Cloud, you Cloud for as much as you can. Therefore, you want to design every card in your deck to operate just fine on only three mana. Therein we find the core of this deck; every last card in it can be played and used for three mana or less, with only the Krosan Tusker as an actual “expensive” card, perched at three mana. The glory of the deck is that everything it does is still decent. Against control, you can attack, and against aggro you can block. If your creatures are blown up by Wraths, you don’t mind because you have recursion, card drawing, and more dudes to back them up. If your dudes stand in the way of militaristic Red-and-White weenies, they will do so and trade almost every time, until suddenly, Werebear isn’t just blocking, he’s blocking and surviving.
The glory of this deck for the designer is the breadth of open space it presents. I use Werebear and Sakura-Tribe Elder as my early mana-fixing, and I compliment them with Twisted Abomination and Krosan Tusker, because I want to never be behind in the race for mana. I want to make sure my deck is leading my opponent at every step, so that when I cloud, I can wipe out their board entirely. Numerous games this week have ended with an opponent who hadn’t a single permanent to his name. That’s not the only way to play, though – there’s a number of other creatures that have lived between the maindeck and the sideboard at some point. The short list for cards I’ve liked runs thusly:
Crypt Creeper
I’ve only wanted this guy once – and he turned up on time. I Clouded away an opponent, who, left with three lands to his name, dropped a Genesis and two Sakura-Tribe Elders into play. Not that he was in danger of doing my job better than I was, but the Genesis meant that my own strategy of recurring 4/4s wasn’t going to last long enough if he got a toehold. The Crypt Creeper turned up at that point, and suddenly, the problem went away. The options for this guy are pretty obvious – it’s Cremate that you can recur. Unlike Rampant Growth, however, that’s not always an effect you really want.
Nimble Mongoose
Better against Control than Darkheart Sliver, worse against aggro. This isn’t Legacy – a 3/3 blocker who comes back every turn isn’t going to win you an attrition war per se.
Genesis, Terravore
Too expensive to purchase, for my blood. If you can add ’em, do so, of course; they’re generally better than the options already in the deck, and reward the Life From the Loam plan better.
Ravenous Baloth, Spike Feeder
Spike Feeder is an easier-to-cast Darkheart Sliver. Trades with the same stuff, can occasionally throw a counter around to do something odd in combat, and dies at the drop of a hat, just like the Darkheart. In real life, Spike Feeders are relatively cheap; online, they’re not, as their purple rarity makes them harder to get. I can’t say for sure, though, but I think I’d prefer the Darkheart – coming online on turn 2 is a nice thing for a blocker to do, and it can soak up an attack from most anyone scary. Both die to Sudden Shock, no matter how you cut it, so there’s no point worrying about that.
I can’t remember any games where I Clouded, then drew a Baloth as my only card. That he costs four and not two (or three, if you run Spike Feeder) is a theoretical hole in my Design Blueprint of Endgame Incrementalisation [Was that Mike Flores Bingo I heard, Craig?], but at least when Goblins were the flavor of the month in Extended, the Baloth was a better beater to have. Now I’ve switched to Werebears instead of Llanowar Elves, however, the Baloth’s role as a 4/4 broadside was less necessary, and I recently shifted him over to the Sliver.
Sliver is the newest addition to the deck. Can’t say how good he is. Don’t know. But he’s working out just fine for now.
Shambling Shell
In a deck that nukes the board, putting +1/+1 counters on anything is a bit of a non-thing. However, if you run a land that can run off three mana (like a Blinkmoth Nexus or a Treetop Village), the Shell becomes a very nice addition, letting you speed your clock while not waiting for summoning sickness. I still am not sold on him, though – he’s more of a dedicated Dredge card. Shame, because I wanted to like the Shell so very much.
Mesmeric Fiend, Nezumi Shortfang
These guys offer some hand destruction, the thing a normal Rock deck has that this deck lacks. While I like them, the Shortfang is very, very slow – I’d consider him as a sideboard card to throw against the grill of a serious control strategy. The Mesmeric Fiend suffers from being a mere 1/1 when he’s done stripping your opponent’s hand, and he’s worse still because post-cloud, he can actually give them back their card. If you opt for a build that wants to make more tactical Clouding decisions, perhaps only going for 1-2 as a kind of super-sized edict, the Fiend is okay, but I still fear that kind of play. If you put Equipment into your deck he might yield better results.
The Shortfang has better late-game topdeck potential, too. Post-Cloud, ripping a Shortfang off the top, then munching what’s left of your opponent’s hand to create a 6/3 attacker will close what little game remained. And I do love me a Stabwhisker.
Dark Confidant
If Bob enters the deck, you have to take out the Tusker and the Abomination. You still have a fairly mean deck, but you don’t have the same long-game plan. Bob accelerates your early game plan, though, so there’s an obvious value to the trade. I don’t like playing this kind of deck these days – the brakes-off policy of Witchetty Gwub is easier to enjoy when you’re playing Blue – so I have left my Confidants aside. Like the Mesmeric Fiend above, he wants to swing a sword of some variety to improve his chances of surviving – and in this deck, Sword of Light and Shadow can replace the Oversold Cemeteries.
Additions
The thing is, with this deck, there’s just so much more you can do. You can cut the Death Clouds and just go for a dedicated Cemetery deck. You can up the Black content and use Bane of the Living to do your end-game bashing, and use Svogthos as a late-game recurring threat through Life From the Loam. You can cut the Oversold Cemetery engine and instead opt for dredge creatures that recur themselves. You can up the spell count and run a more niche group of threats, relying less on Oversold Cemetery to bleed out an opponent’s answers and instead use proactive cards like Cabal Therapy and Duress to protect your small threat base.
The entire reason I bring this deck to the attention of the public isn’t because it’s amazingly good – but because as Extended season winds down and people play less competitively and cutthroat with their five-year monsters, a budget alternative for those of us who primarily play Standard might be nice to see. Finding I had an Extended deck that cost less than some of my Battle Royale lists was a shock, and one I felt many a reader would be interested to see. Yes, Adriaan, when I said I was working on Extended, it only took this long for me to get around to posting my results.
With that, I know Sol Malka and Jeroen Remie, if they read this, are running to the forums to tell me how what I know of As Rock is in fact, Wrong. This is because this is very serious, and what information I have put out here is going to be taken as gospel law by the poor, impressionable lambs of my flock. Perhaps we’ll see some other Rock-Like decks in the forums. I know Flores has produced a few lately, and I know I’m a big fan of the Batman deck he had a while ago.
Skeletal Vampire for life, etc.
Si Chapin pro nobis, quis contra nos
Talen Lee
talen at dodo dot com dot au
A Really Big PS
Hey, Vintage players. I know you’re out there, and I know some of you must read my work, because, let’s face it, masochism can manifest anywhere. I want to ask you a question, and I want to ask it of you because I feel that no other group of players is really capable of answering it in a meaningful fashion.
Would this be better than Dark Ritual?
The question is three stages, really. Let me phrase them so:
A. If this card were released today and added to the card pool, would it have an impact equal to or greater to Dark Ritual’s current impact?
B. If A, would it replace or supplement Dark Ritual?
C. If this card existed and Dark Ritual didn’t, ignoring the changes along the way (such as the universe of difference in Will Abuse in the past and now), assuming all other cards were designed the same way, would Storm Combo be nearly as good or as powerful as it is now? What other Vintage decks would be majorly deformed?
I ask this question of you, Vintage Players, because I have come to be of the opinion that nobody but Vintage players seems to have a clue about how to use Dark Ritual. I tabled the card at one point and the best card that people could concept using with it was the totally stellar Blood Moon. Turn 1 Blood Moon! WHOOOO! Oh yeah, right, that’s broken. Then there was talk of it making Dragonstorm more consistent, which is neat and all, but that’s one, very specific deck, and it’s in the light of Standard Play – a small environment that’s relatively easy to tidy up.
This is just something that’s been bugging me. I don’t know how to play Dark Ritual, and I don’t think most people who’ve never played it from their yard do either. So you tell me.
Please?
I promise I won’t make fun of you for a while.
A little while, at least.