MAINDECK: -1 Vent and -1 Rhino for +1 Hissing Quagmire and +1 Tireless Tracker, respectively. (It's become trendy to cut Tracker, which I think is a big mistake. We want games to go long enough for Tracker to be fantastic, and that usually happens.) If I had my druthers you'd cut both Rhino, but that's often a pet card and it seems good enough in your local meta.
SIDEBOARD: -2 Finks for +2 Feed the Clan. This is an overlooked gem for us -- it often counterfeits entire game plans when it resolves (and can't be Pathed or fall to your own Tendrils like Finks). I've had two in my board since I got tired of losing close games to Burn and I've never looked back.
I'm skeptical about the Blood Baron -- it's a fine card but doesn't scream "necessity" in your list. Given the way you described your meta, I'd recommend -1 Baron and -1 Stony Silence for +2 Fulminator Mage (or Ghost Quarter if those are unavailable). You seem unable to punish greedy mana bases. Even blowing up a land against Burn can make a huge difference. Grinding against fast decks can be too slow and grinding against decks like TitanShift can be meaningless if you can't disrupt them in the right way.
Lili the Last Hope is a meta dependent slot. I have plenty of CoCo nonsense to deal with, so I maindeck her to kill dorks efficiently. Your mileage may vary. She's not a great -2 prospect right off the bat -- Eternal Witness is a better candidate if you need that effect (because Lili will probably die at 1 loyalty anyway). I've fallen in and out of love with EWit but currently wouldn't leave home without her. She's great to rebuy discard or land destruction when that's what you need, which Lili the Last Hope can't always do.
I'm going to disagree with this as well. While tracker is a great card and I run 1 main 1 side, Rhino has won me so many games it's unreal. Sure, a 4/5 body doesn't match up well against e-tron's creatures and GDS creatures, it's still a great card. 2 Rhino is the perfect number IMO.
If you really want to beat burn, then you should play feed the clan. But if you want to have a better overall sideboard, Kitchen Finks is WAY better. I bring him in against control decks, mirror, anything with LotV, GDS, aggro decks, and burn. Way more versatile.
E-Witness is also a fine card, but our deck is already graveyard reliant, especially when we play Grim Flayers. So I think it's beneficial to use grindy cards like Tracker or Gideon in that slot that don't use the GY to hedge against cards like RiP or Relic.
I am playing Sol's list (first i'm thoroughly impressed in the current meta) except minus 1 decay for 1 victim of the night and here is the reason, i can't say enough about abrupt decay for one. Its that simple its insane and kills virtually everything right now, but that is the problem virtually not actually. So with that being said personally i feel a slight variance is in order and with the top decks being Etron, Affinity, Scapeshift, Gifts, burn and shadow the only thing that victim doesn't hit out of those is the Zombie fish (other notables :Huntmaster, Olivia, dredge things, Kalitas and mutavault). Notably it does kill the eldrazi menace, affinity everything, titan and man lands so its psudo your higher end push being instant speed. Overall its just really decently positioned right now i believe and worth a x1.
With all that said, the rest of the 59 are solid and spot on.
My sideboard is about 13 similar, non local specific. The differences are i do not run Gaze of granite instead i have opted for x1 Unravel the Aether, it is spot removal in place of global removal which in turn is abnormal however it costs less, is instant speed and gets rid of wurmcoil engine clean while still hitting things in affinity including lands and also deals with enchantments. Lastly my sideboard card of choice is x1 kitchen finks in place of the Bloodghast, being tutorable via traverse with the advantage it gives in midrange and burn matches is excellent.
I haven't tried Tracker out for myself, but have been super wanting 1 somewhere in the list--It just seems sweet on paper at least. Question on Tracker, though; Do I need to run a 9th fetchland or up my land count now that I'm running him?
To be 100% honest, I only had Rhinos in because 90% of lists ran 2. Rhino seems kinda too... One dimensional for this style of deck. Sure, gigantic monsters are fun, but he's not a very resilient threat, nor does he generate cards. Rhino strikes me as a glorified Tarmogoyf. That's not to say I won't take everyone's world on it and keep them in, but that's been my synopsis on the card.
Haha, the deal with Blood Baron being in the board was mostly a holdover from one of my previous Eldritch Evolution decks that used to board him. It's really just a silly pet card.
And finally, I want to know why cutting a Path or Push is ok. They seem like an auto 4 of.
I have A LOT of games where a top decked Rhino wins the game. The life drain on ETB is really good, and 4/5 trample is nothing to sneeze at
Most lists only run 8 or 9 removal spells (I'm on 1 Pulse, 2 Decay, 3 push, 3 path). And you also have confidant and tracker to help you draw into them
That frees up some space for meta calls (I run 1 Nihil Spellbomb main deck, because it's relevant at my LGS and saves me SB space for other relevant MUs)
Cut the baubles for lands, replace a Flayer with a Nihil Spellbomb, maybe 2. Or instead of cutting the baubles, you could try moving a lingering souls and brutality to the SB.
But either way, you definitely want those lands. I'm on 22 lands 3 Nobles and I find myself wanting to go up a land or a noble pretty often
If you have a lot of CoCo, you might want a 3rd thoughtseize over a 4th inquisition
I haven't tried Tracker out for myself, but have been super wanting 1 somewhere in the list--It just seems sweet on paper at least. Question on Tracker, though; Do I need to run a 9th fetchland or up my land count now that I'm running him?
To be 100% honest, I only had Rhinos in because 90% of lists ran 2. Rhino seems kinda too... One dimensional for this style of deck. Sure, gigantic monsters are fun, but he's not a very resilient threat, nor does he generate cards. Rhino strikes me as a glorified Tarmogoyf. That's not to say I won't take everyone's world on it and keep them in, but that's been my synopsis on the card.
Haha, the deal with Blood Baron being in the board was mostly a holdover from one of my previous Eldritch Evolution decks that used to board him. It's really just a silly pet card.
And finally, I want to know why cutting a Path or Push is ok. They seem like an auto 4 of.
Again, thanks everyone!
You're going to pretty much lose against any super heavy GY related decks without a good hand, but sometimes you have to make a meta call on what you expect to face. Hopefully you don't run into something like Dredge, Goryos at your PPTQ and start off 0-2 or anything.
Sometimes that's the GBx life, you hedge on what you expect to face.
My honest opinion is that you should play Shadow at the PPTQ since you're just picking up this deck. Tournaments are not the time to start learning a deck, thats what FNM's and MTGO is for.
However, if you're truly insisting on this deck
I'd cut down on surgicals, I don't think it's that amazing. A good Valakut player isn't going to expose their land, and regular Tron is less than 2% of the meta. I'd try recommend Cages instead, which Hatto played.
Don't play 2x Damnation, do yourself a favor and either play 1x Flaying Tendril or EE for that second slot. Flaying has been popular.
I dislike surgicals. You could use 1 or 2 slots for something else you'd like to see in sideboard games.
You're also playing 1 white source...
If you play E-Tron or UW Control you'll have 3 dead cards in the deck, along with bad removal game 1.
You're landbase seems off, too.
Honestly, if I were you, I'd test this deck out and tune it, playing it at a PPTQ and doing poorly will just sour you on the deck and thinking, "what if..."
Nothing Abzan, Jund or Rock will do will beat them on that axis.
I even played someone on mtgo who had 4x fulms, 3x Ramumap Excavators, and 4 GQs lose to me on game 3
You need to plop down a Bob and overwhelm them with CA or play a large Goyf with LOTV.
Don't try to battle against their lands, pressure them, they aren't RG Tron or Titanshift.
I'd focus on other grave hate or other matchups you're interested in winning
It's not a great matchup, but it isn't so bad you need to warp your deck or your sideboard.
Your games probably won't be short outside of the hands I described, however don't hesitate to blow up an early Temple if it doesn't set you back too much
When the game gets grindy, they're going to tutor up Sea-Gate Wreckage. If you allow them to draw from it, you will absolutely not win, every single threat minus their Reshapers are must answers.
If you want to hose E-Tron, play 3x Stony Silence, it's brutal
A good E-Tron player won't overload on too many artifacts against you, but I've found a shocking amount of E-Tron players that don't even think or realize that
Just got back home after a hour and 1/2 drive, and placed 2nd at a PPTQ! I submitted the list I posted last on the previous page. Super burned out right now, but the quick rundown is;
2-1 against Skred
2-0 against Burn
2-1 against Affinity
1-2 against Eldrazi Tron
2-0 against Merfolk
TOP 8
2-1 against Affinity
2-1 against Sultai Death Shadow
1-2 against Grixis Death Shadow
Thanks for the assistance, everyone, every bit of input is greatly appreciated! Goodnight, my fellow wizards.
I felt like I was getting more and more chests online, so I went back and checked my matches. Since I switched to Rock I'm 35-15 in friendly and competitive leagues. That's like the best winrate I have ever had with any deck (I even had a winstreak of 10 games at one point, sadly between 3 leagues, so only one 5-0 for me so far...). Feels good to be on BG(w) right now it seems. Sure Valakut and Tron are ***** (tron is not prevalent online though), but everything else is definitely manageable
congrats mate!mind sharing your list?
I play only IRL and my current record with BG Rock is 11-2-0 atm.
This is the list I'm playing:
First and foremost, from testing the Tireless Tracker + Courser of Kruphix + Knight of the Reliquary suite is phenomenal. All three play so well together and generate some serious CA. They are all out of neutral Fatal Push range and they all are hard to bolt, and best of all they kind of neutralize Path as a removal spell.
In fact there might be instances where pathing your own creature could swing the game with some of these cards out.
Here are some cards I'm looking at for this build:
Running a singleton Sylvan Advocate Gives me a really solid late game finisher against control. Dropping him and beating down with man lands is definitely an option and gives me a solid top deck to hit late game. I don't think I'd run more than one though.
Lingering souls is mostly an anti aggro card, and I feel like I don't need both Kitchen Finks and Souls in a deck running Courser of Kruphix already, who is a super good anti aggro card already.
Thus I think I may want to cut kitchen finks to the SB for aggro matchup, and run something else instead.
Also if I go Sylvan Advocate route I think I should have 4/23 of my cards be manlands, but then again with Knight of the reliquary I might not need to have so many since she can fetch them up.
There's some discussion about it in the Jund forums, but I wanted to have it hear as well, about the new Planeswalker "legendary" rules change, which will allow us to have both Liliana of the Veil and Liliana, the Last Hope in play at the same time. I think that Abzan is too clogged at the 3-drop slot to really take advantage of it, but I think that the straight G/B decks that have been picking up popularity could take advantage of it.
PLANESWALKERS OF LEGEND
(Editor's Note: This section has been updated to address Commander.)
Have you seen the planeswalkers in this set? Let's check out Jace!
Well check out that fancy new type line! Legendary Planeswalker — Jace. You must have many questions. Let's pec away at them.
Starting with this set, all planeswalkers past, present, and future will have the supertype legendary. They will also be subject to the "legend rule." The "planeswalker uniqueness rule" is going away. What does this mean? In short, everything that's true about legendary permanents will now be true about legendary planeswalkers. Also note that this does not mean legendary planeswalkers can be your Commander unless an ability says so.
Under the new rules, if a player controls more than one legendary planeswalker with the same name, that player chooses one and puts the other into their owner's graveyard. This means that if you control Jace, Unraveler of Secrets and cast Jace, Cunning Castaway, both Jaces can exist under your control.
Planeswalkers will continue to have planeswalker types (Jace, Nissa, Bolas, and so on). However, those subtypes won't be used by any rule to determine what a player can retain control of. Cards like Jace's Defeat will continue to be able to refer to those subtypes.
I'm going to disagree with this as well. While tracker is a great card and I run 1 main 1 side, Rhino has won me so many games it's unreal. Sure, a 4/5 body doesn't match up well against e-tron's creatures and GDS creatures, it's still a great card. 2 Rhino is the perfect number IMO.
If you really want to beat burn, then you should play feed the clan. But if you want to have a better overall sideboard, Kitchen Finks is WAY better. I bring him in against control decks, mirror, anything with LotV, GDS, aggro decks, and burn. Way more versatile.
E-Witness is also a fine card, but our deck is already graveyard reliant, especially when we play Grim Flayers. So I think it's beneficial to use grindy cards like Tracker or Gideon in that slot that don't use the GY to hedge against cards like RiP or Relic.
With all that said, the rest of the 59 are solid and spot on.
My sideboard is about 13 similar, non local specific. The differences are i do not run Gaze of granite instead i have opted for x1 Unravel the Aether, it is spot removal in place of global removal which in turn is abnormal however it costs less, is instant speed and gets rid of wurmcoil engine clean while still hitting things in affinity including lands and also deals with enchantments. Lastly my sideboard card of choice is x1 kitchen finks in place of the Bloodghast, being tutorable via traverse with the advantage it gives in midrange and burn matches is excellent.
Looking through everything, and bringing it all to my deck, this is the new list. I have a PPTQ this weekend, and I'll let you all know how it went!
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Siege Rhino
1 Tireless Tracker
//Spells
4 Lingering Souls
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Path to Exile
3 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Blooming Marsh
2 Shambling Vent
1 Stirring Wildwood
3 Stony Silence
3 Fulminator Mage
3 Collective Brutality
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Damnation
1 Engineered Explosives
I haven't tried Tracker out for myself, but have been super wanting 1 somewhere in the list--It just seems sweet on paper at least. Question on Tracker, though; Do I need to run a 9th fetchland or up my land count now that I'm running him?
To be 100% honest, I only had Rhinos in because 90% of lists ran 2. Rhino seems kinda too... One dimensional for this style of deck. Sure, gigantic monsters are fun, but he's not a very resilient threat, nor does he generate cards. Rhino strikes me as a glorified Tarmogoyf. That's not to say I won't take everyone's world on it and keep them in, but that's been my synopsis on the card.
Haha, the deal with Blood Baron being in the board was mostly a holdover from one of my previous Eldritch Evolution decks that used to board him. It's really just a silly pet card.
And finally, I want to know why cutting a Path or Push is ok. They seem like an auto 4 of.
Again, thanks everyone!
No your land count is fine for Tracker
I have A LOT of games where a top decked Rhino wins the game. The life drain on ETB is really good, and 4/5 trample is nothing to sneeze at
Most lists only run 8 or 9 removal spells (I'm on 1 Pulse, 2 Decay, 3 push, 3 path). And you also have confidant and tracker to help you draw into them
That frees up some space for meta calls (I run 1 Nihil Spellbomb main deck, because it's relevant at my LGS and saves me SB space for other relevant MUs)
But either way, you definitely want those lands. I'm on 22 lands 3 Nobles and I find myself wanting to go up a land or a noble pretty often
If you have a lot of CoCo, you might want a 3rd thoughtseize over a 4th inquisition
Think about Grixis Shadow, that deck is mainly 1 and 2 mana spells with 4x wraths, 4x Serums and 4x Thoughtscours, and they run 18 to 19 lands...
So, you realize your deck building is absolutely off, right?
Cut the Baubles for 2 lands, at least.
Cut the Leyline of Sanctity from your SB, your deck isn't synergetic, you don't care about discard, and you should be beating burn.
I don't like Sorin, too slow, too clunky, but I have a feeling I won't be able to convince you on that.
I suppose the list would be fine from there.
You're going to pretty much lose against any super heavy GY related decks without a good hand, but sometimes you have to make a meta call on what you expect to face. Hopefully you don't run into something like Dredge, Goryos at your PPTQ and start off 0-2 or anything.
Sometimes that's the GBx life, you hedge on what you expect to face.
However, if you're truly insisting on this deck
I'd cut down on surgicals, I don't think it's that amazing. A good Valakut player isn't going to expose their land, and regular Tron is less than 2% of the meta. I'd try recommend Cages instead, which Hatto played.
Don't play 2x Damnation, do yourself a favor and either play 1x Flaying Tendril or EE for that second slot. Flaying has been popular.
I dislike surgicals. You could use 1 or 2 slots for something else you'd like to see in sideboard games.
You're also playing 1 white source...
If you play E-Tron or UW Control you'll have 3 dead cards in the deck, along with bad removal game 1.
You're landbase seems off, too.
Honestly, if I were you, I'd test this deck out and tune it, playing it at a PPTQ and doing poorly will just sour you on the deck and thinking, "what if..."
Not one bit.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
E-Tron needs serious dedicated land hate. I've had people surgical my lands and thought-knots and they lost from diluting their decks.
You need to get a turn 2 threat with an LOTV to win. Turn 2 Bob is also devastating to them if they can't kill him within a turn or two.
It's reasons like this I don't suggest anyone ever playing a new deck in a tournament.
Abzan is trending upwards though
Nothing Abzan, Jund or Rock will do will beat them on that axis.
I even played someone on mtgo who had 4x fulms, 3x Ramumap Excavators, and 4 GQs lose to me on game 3
You need to plop down a Bob and overwhelm them with CA or play a large Goyf with LOTV.
Don't try to battle against their lands, pressure them, they aren't RG Tron or Titanshift.
I'd focus on other grave hate or other matchups you're interested in winning
It's not a great matchup, but it isn't so bad you need to warp your deck or your sideboard.
Your games probably won't be short outside of the hands I described, however don't hesitate to blow up an early Temple if it doesn't set you back too much
When the game gets grindy, they're going to tutor up Sea-Gate Wreckage. If you allow them to draw from it, you will absolutely not win, every single threat minus their Reshapers are must answers.
If you want to hose E-Tron, play 3x Stony Silence, it's brutal
It shuts down
Ballistas, maps, relics, mindstones, ratchet bombs, collars, hangarback walkers
A good E-Tron player won't overload on too many artifacts against you, but I've found a shocking amount of E-Tron players that don't even think or realize that
2-1 against Skred
2-0 against Burn
2-1 against Affinity
1-2 against Eldrazi Tron
2-0 against Merfolk
TOP 8
2-1 against Affinity
2-1 against Sultai Death Shadow
1-2 against Grixis Death Shadow
Thanks for the assistance, everyone, every bit of input is greatly appreciated! Goodnight, my fellow wizards.
congrats mate!mind sharing your list?
I play only IRL and my current record with BG Rock is 11-2-0 atm.
This is the list I'm playing:
4 Dark Confidant
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tireless Tracker
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Fatal Push
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Collective Brutality
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Mishra's Bauble
4 Blooming Marsh
3 Hissing Quagmire
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Swamp
2 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Illness in the Ranks
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Golgari Charm
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Gaze of Granite
2 Duress
1 Collective Brutality
UR Twin - RIP
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Courser of Kruphix
3x Kitchen Finks
3x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Tireless Tracker
Spells (17)
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
2x Thoughtseize
3x Fatal Push
3x Path to Exile
3x Liliana of the Veil
4x Blooming Marsh
2x Forest
1x Godless Shrine
4x Marsh Flats
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Plains
2x Shambling Vent
2x Swamp
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
First and foremost, from testing the Tireless Tracker + Courser of Kruphix + Knight of the Reliquary suite is phenomenal. All three play so well together and generate some serious CA. They are all out of neutral Fatal Push range and they all are hard to bolt, and best of all they kind of neutralize Path as a removal spell.
In fact there might be instances where pathing your own creature could swing the game with some of these cards out.
Here are some cards I'm looking at for this build:
Running a singleton Sylvan Advocate Gives me a really solid late game finisher against control. Dropping him and beating down with man lands is definitely an option and gives me a solid top deck to hit late game. I don't think I'd run more than one though.
Lingering souls is mostly an anti aggro card, and I feel like I don't need both Kitchen Finks and Souls in a deck running Courser of Kruphix already, who is a super good anti aggro card already.
Thus I think I may want to cut kitchen finks to the SB for aggro matchup, and run something else instead.
Also if I go Sylvan Advocate route I think I should have 4/23 of my cards be manlands, but then again with Knight of the reliquary I might not need to have so many since she can fetch them up.
Thoughts?
This just means the UW Control matchup got worse for all GBx decks.
(Top list): http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-mocs-2017-08-28