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Editor: Joseph Tobin.
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| A Top Eight
with White Rock Extended Pro Tour Qualifier 10th December 2005, Perth Western Australia This article starts as a report on the PTQ Perth and will end with a discussion of my deck and some of its ideas in the current extended metagame.
Opponent- David Chamberlain playing Psychatog (without Dredge). Game One - I cast a Cabal Therapy that takes a Psychatog. I follow with a Vindicate on his City of Brass when he is largely tapped out and can’t counter. My look at his hand had revealed he needed that mana. This slows David enough for me to cast a Phantom Centaur and a Sword of Fire and Ice. David dies before he can find an answer. Game Two - Sideboarding - No changes. I cast a Phantom Centaur early when David is tapped out. I follow with a second Centaur, which is countered, then a Sword of Fire and Ice which is not. This combination again proves quickly decisive. A 2-0 victory and I am at 1-0-0. A good start.
Round Two Opponent - George Zhou playing CAL. Game One - My hand is ripped apart very early by Cabal Therapies. I expect this to prove decisive but I am facing a slow control deck and I have time to recover. It is a long game where I keep destroying George’s Dark Confidants and win conditions and he keeps killing my creatures. It is a war of attrition where I eventually come out on top. The Phantom Centaur’s durability allows one to survive long enough to inflict lethal damage. Game Two - My sideboard changes are- The idea of taking out the Eternal Witnesses and bringing in the Engineered Plague is to play the Plague set to human to automatically kill George’s Witnesses and Dark Confidants. It may well be a mistake. This game is not as long as the first but still lengthy. Again I destroy Dark Confidants the instant they appear; George does not draw one extra card in the match. At one stage George Burning Wishes in a Hull Breach and destroys a Stabilizer and an Aura Shards. I should perhaps have foreseen this and not put such an important enchantment and artifact in play at the same time. I have something of a mana flood. A Seismic Assault and lots of land kill me off. Game Three - This game starts at turn zero and is never going to produce a result. I would like to give more information about how my deck does against CAL. Unfortunately, this match is the only experience I have against this new, popular and powerful deck. My circumstances do not allow me to play test much. I can’t see this match up being bad as my deck possesses the tools to combat graveyard recursion and the weapons to deal a lot of damage quickly with hard to deal with creatures. I am at 1-0-1.
Round Three Opponent - Jarrod Bright playing Brain Freeze. Game One - I bring out a Phantom Centaur while Jarrod is tapped out. He tries to go off but the combo does not appear. Jarrod feels he probably erred fatally in this game. Sideboarding - Games Two and Three - I cannot recall the details beyond losing both games without getting a look in. I lose 1-2, doing better than I expected. This is a bad match for my
deck and Jarrod is a fine player, currently rated 2nd in W.A.
Round Four Opponent- Brandon Lau playing San Diego Zoo. Game One- Brandon brings out a Kird Ape, a Watchwolf and a Grim Lavamancer. I take a lot of damage but then sweep the board with a Pernicious Deed. Burn brings my life down to 5. I then bring out Loxodon Hierarch which does not survive but the life is a godsend. Brandon’s deck has run out of steam and I kill him off with a Phandom Centaur equipped with a Sword of Fire and Ice. That combination is almost indestructible and will kill an opponent with blinding speed. It is one of the most effective ideas behind my deck. Sideboarding- Vitu-Ghazi is just too slow here and my mana base can sustain losing one generic mana. The Loxodon Hierarch is sideboarded out because it is needed desperately! No really, the life gain can be vital, so it is what I will wish for. Brandon told me after the match he brought in Flametongue Kavus. I don’t know what he took out. Game Two- The start is virtually identical to the first game. However after the Deed goes off I have no Loxodon Hierarch to gain life and a Grim Lavamancer appears. I have no answers so I die. Game Three - Again I take early damage, this time to Savannah Lions and a Watchwolf. The difference is this time I have badly compromised Brandon’s hand with Cabal Therapy with the result he runs out of steam totally after the Deed goes off. I Living Wish in a Spiritmonger and equip it with a Sword of Fire and Ice. This game I win easily, not going below thirteen life. I win 2-1 and am now on 2-1-1. In marked contrast to the previous round this was a good match up for me. I should do well against Aggro, even a good Aggro deck played without apparent error. The only thing that would concern me about Brandon’s San Diego Zoo is the amount of damage he did to himself, 7 or 8 a game. Essentially irrelevant in his match with me, but against another Aggro deck….
Round Five Opponent - Chris playing the Rock. The tournament situation is such that the winner of this match will very probably make the top eight. A draw will not be enough. Just as we are starting playing we are interrupted by the judge. One
of the players playing next to us had just been disqualified. A win would
put the disqualified person in the top eight and the person he was playing
was out of contention. He had offered to split any prize he won if his
opponent conceded the match. Game One - I get an early Living Wish and use it to fetch Genesis as soon as it becomes clear I have enough mana to cast it. Genesis is normally the best target for Living Wish in mirror matches or against any removal heavy deck. I cast Genesis and sacrifice it to flashback Cabal Therapy naming Beast Attack. He can still flash it back but I want Genesis in my Graveyard. I proceed to recur a creature from the graveyard in each upkeep. The card count advantage this gives me wins the game. Sideboarding - No changes Game Two - Duress and Cabal Therapy rip apart my hand like ravenous weasels. I topdeck
a Living Wish and again get Genesis which I somehow manage to get
into my graveyard. This only prolongs the game. I am being pounded by
Kokusho and a Grave-Shell Scarab. I keep recurring a Loxodon Hierarch
and blocking the Scarab. This keeps the rate of life loss very slow but
ties up nearly all my mana. Sadly, it is the only thing I can do. Eventually
I die. We are running short of time and both play fast. I again draw a Living Wish and fetch Genesis which I manage to get into my graveyard. The card advantage is of course excellent. I then draw another Living Wish and bring in a Spiritmonger. I recur Genesis itself seeking to win before time runs out. I have those two creatures in play, facing a Viridian Shaman, a Troll Ascetic and a Sakura-Tribe Elder which Chris has just cast, leaving only two mana untapped. I attack with the Spiritmonger which is blocked by the Troll, which regenerates. This was my plan. I cast a Pernicious Deed and set it off for three taking out all Chris’s permanents including the Troll he no longer has the mana to regenerate. I now have a 7/7 Spiritmonger and 4/4 Genesis and time is called. Chris has two draws to topdeck something to stop me killing him. He doesn’t. Chris would have gone top eight had he beaten me. His deck lacks, apparently, any Overgrown Tombs, Llanowar Wastes or Birds of Paradise. He has Ravenous Baloths, Pernicious Deeds, Cabal Therapy and Duress. He deserves credit for doing well despite lacking the cards to make the best build of his deck. The top eight is announced and I am number eight.
Quarter Final Opponent - Hayden playing Psychatog (with Dredge) Game One - Hayden gets Life from the Loam early and starts implementing his strategy,
dredging it back. I have no Living Wish to fetch my Withered Wretch. I
cast a Phantom Centaur while he is tapped out, then another that is countered
and a Sword of Fire and Ice which is not. Hayden can’t find anything
to deal with this in the short time before he dies. Game Two - Unfortunately my deck picks this moment to behave in a truly disgraceful fashion. I get a no land hand, Mulligan and get a one land hand with no Birds of Paradise so have to mulligan to five. Hayden gets Life from the Loam early and starts implementing his strategy, dredging it back. I have no Living Wish to fetch my Withered Wretch. Hayden had to mulligan to six and had something of a mana shortage which he sorts out by repeatedly dredging his Life from the Loam. This slow start would probably be fatal in normal circumstances. However, I have a modest amount of mana also and few cards to cast anyway. Hayden builds up a huge card count superiority with only a Stabilizer slowing him. I am eventually forced to destroy the Stabilizer myself with a Pernicious Deed to get rid of the Psychatog that is about to kill me. It is quickly replaced and I have no answer. Game Three - I keep a hand consisting of three lands, two Birds and two Witness. This is not great but not bad enough to mulligan. It will prove excellent if I draw some good cards to recur, awful if I do not. Hayden gets Life from the Loam early and starts implementing his strategy, dredging it back. I have no Living Wish to fetch my Withered Wretch. Exactly this has now happened three games in succession. Hayden uses Darkblast to kill my Birds and slow me down. This is a good play but he need not have bothered. I draw very few relevant cards in the game and Hayden deals with them easily given his card count superiority. Hayden is a good player, rated number three in W.A., played accurately and used his sideboard well, bringing in Darkblast, Innocent Blood, Chainer’s Edict, Meloku and even a Pernicious Deed improving his chances considerably after game one. Even so, this is still a match up I normally expect to win. Visions of the beaches and palms of Honolulu fade as I bow out. In the top eight aside from the two decks above there were two Heartbeat Combo Decks, Jarrod Bright’s and the eventual winner Shawn Rayson’s, one Goblins, one No Stick, one Affinity and another I am afraid I do not know.
The Aim of the Deck Design This is now going to metamorphoses into a deck article of sorts. I am going to pass over card choices entirely normal in a deck of this type and comment only on notable choices, why were made and to what extent I recommend them to others.I was going to a PTQ at a time when the metagame appeared to me to be in a very fluid state. The rotation in of Ravnica with many powerful cards and out of older sets had changed matters in ways that were as yet not fully determined. A few things seemed clear to me. Psychatog was the most popular deck
and lots of decks were making use of their graveyards. CAL, Boros Deck
Wins, Affinity and Aggro Rock I also expected. Control or Aggro/Control Rock are normally good against Aggro decks generally. This is true of my deck too but more needs to be said. Decks that just try to deal damage with fast creatures, like a traditional White Weenie deck, are not much of a problem and Affinity is even less. Aggro decks that supplement creatures with other strategies, such as disruption and card advantage (Aggro Rock) or burn, or better still burn and land destruction (Boros Decks) are more dangerous. The matches against these two decks range from somewhat favourable to even depending on the build. A reader adopting my deck should be aware of this. These decks are popular because they are powerful and my White Rock deck is not so good it will win every game.
Card Analysis I have not seen this creature in the Rock before though it may well have been done. They are just brilliant in the current meta. Most removal in the format either can’t target them or merely removes a counter. Psychatogs are everywhere and they are black. Equip a Centaur with a Sword of Fire and Ice and they are virtually unstoppable. It can be seen from the game descriptions how effective this proved. Centaurs are splendidly durable, great against Tog, great against Aggro, good in the mirror and never bad. They won me game after game. I recommend them in any Control or Aggro/Control Rock build at the moment. Further I believe they should be considered for most decks with green.
One of the best things about these is they convert small, relatively
harmless creatures into significant threats and placed on a creature that
is threatening anyway they make them so much harder to deal with. They
provide added creature control and card advantage. There is a lot of blue
and red in the metagame and those ubiquitous psychatogs
are blue.
Living Wish and Wish Sideboard Using a Wish Sideboard in the Rock is certainly not an original idea. In the current Metagame a lot of players run three or four Withered Wretch main deck as so many decks are making use of their graveyards. In my opinion the best option is to run four Living Wishes, rather than the more common three, with the Wretch in the sideboard. That gives you access to four Wretches from game one without having to carry a 2/2 creature with an awkward casting cost in those matches where its ability is irrelevant. The Living Wishes can also fetch two more typical sideboard cards, Boseiju, Who Shelters All and Kataki, War’s Wage, a total wrecking ball against Affinity. You can get a Windswept Heath, which can turn into mana of any colour you may need. That means you are effectively running 33 mana for the purposes of avoid
mana droughts (as long as you have 1G) and 29 mana for the purposes of
avoiding mana floods. Therefore your deck will function properly significantly
more often, a big advantage, and you can safely run only 21 land, rather
than the 22 or 23 you expect in three colour Rock. It does cost you tempo and sideboard slots but is more than worth it. The last rotation took away Vampiric Tutor and Living Wish is the best replacement in these colours.
Sterling Grove and the Enchantments in the Sideboard This was another idea I believe to be original that I wanted to test out. The idea was to run two Sterling Groves and four single enchantments in the sideboard, and use the Sterling Groves to tutor up the other enchantments or a Pernicious Deed. In the PTQ I did not sideboard the enchantments in that often and I didn’t draw them much when I did. In retrospect I suspect that the deck may be better served without the Sterling Groves and with the kinds of cards more normally found in a Rock sideboard.
Drawbacks and Improvements As just mentioned the Enchantment portion of the sideboard may well not be best. The best sacrifice/fetch land to use is Windswept Heath, followed by Wooded Foothills and these should be used. I was limited by my card collection here. I have set out what the Deck was intended to be strong against. In choosing
cards to target Tog, graveyard recursion strategies and Aggro decks in
general, something had to suffer. What got reduced was disruption which
is limited to four Cabal Therapies in the main deck with nothing more
in the sideboard. As a result some matches against Control and Combo decks
can be poor, aside from those there are specific cards in the deck to
hurt.
How good is this Deck? In building my deck I set out to build a deck which had good matches
against Tog and the Aggro decks currently in Extended, had the tools to
combat Graveyard recursion strategies and also be generally competitive.
I think I was reasonably successful. Alternatively, there are some ideas in this article that can be adopted in Rock decks without white or even any deck with green.
Conclusion I enjoyed the Pro Tour Qualifier despite a frustrating loss in the quarter final. I derived a lot of satisfaction from taking an original build to such an event and see it work well. I hope there was something here to entertain and inform my readers and good luck to anyone who chooses to use my deck or some of its ideas.
Allan Jackson
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