"The Rock & His Millions" decklist and discussion

Beyond Dominia: The Type 1.5/1.X Magic Mill: "The Rock & His Millions" decklist and discussion

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By pete on Wednesday, December 26, 2001 - 07:50 pm:

first off, this, or close version of this, placed 3 of top 8 in GP Las Vegas:

creatures:
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
4 Spike Feeder
2 Spike Weaver
4 Spiritmonger
4 Wall of Roots
4 Yav. Elder

spells:
4 Duress
1 Living Death
2 Vampiric Tutor

enchantments/arifacts:
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Recurring Nightmare

land:
4 Bayou
4 Treetop Village
8 Forest
5 Swamp
2 Dust Bowl

sb:
varied quite a bit for the 3, with many "one of" to be tutored out.
choke
bottle gnomes
diabolic edict
emerald charm
planar void
tsunami
uktabi orangutan
volrath's stronghold
massacre
stench of evil
living death

the quick mana from wall and birds, combined with duress, pernicoius deed, and furnace for control obvoiusly make this an excellent deck. i am looking for weakness, and about the only one i can find is it would be susceptible to green hate - perish, hibernation, etc since all but one of its creatures is green. any help from anyone that has played with or against this deck, especially on how best to beat it with oath, would be greatly appreciated.


By Pernicious Dude (Pern) on Wednesday, December 26, 2001 - 09:23 pm:

Don't count too much on Perish.
Spiritmonger can be any color,
and the Villages won't be creatures on your turn.

Swords to Plowshares are your friend,
as is graveyard disruption,
and non-basic hate.


By Gix on Wednesday, December 26, 2001 - 10:13 pm:

The deck is good, but by far not great. After all, two Meddling Mage, one on Pernicious Deed and one on Living Death, is almost game. A regenerating Spectral Lynx or River Boa can stall Spiritmonger from ever being able to kill.


By 0027 on Wednesday, December 26, 2001 - 10:17 pm:

they have the plauge lord to get rid of the small regenerators like boa and lynx...and they still have ways of dealing with meddling mage, oath is usually a bad matchup for this deck due to the deck relying on creatures for the kill so the oath slows down the early development of this deck....just my 2 cents...

0027


By WuRaider on Thursday, December 27, 2001 - 03:47 pm:

Just had to comment. I love type 1.5 and I love wrestling, so when I saw a deck named after a wrestler I just had to check it out and see if I could modify it for type 1.5 tourneys in my area. I renamed mine "The Sock and his Dozens" (anyone who watches wrestling gets this joke). It is practically the same as The Rock, but I took out and added a few things that I liked:

The Sock and his Dozens

4 Pernecious Deed
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Blastoderm
4 Spiritmonger
4 Wall of Roots
3 River Boa
3 Spike Feeder
3 Yavamiya Elder
2 Deranged Hermit

4 Duress
3 Victimize (Dont have Recur. Nightmare)
2 Addle

6 Forests
8 Swamps
4 Llanowar Waste
4 Treetop Village

Yes, there are 62 cards in the deck, but I have never had problems with decks that go past 60. Most decks I make are 61 cards. If you can tweak it down to 60, go right ahead. The only major changes are the addition of Blastoderm, Deranged Hermit, River Boa and Victimize. I dont have Recur. Night. or Liv. Death so I just play Victimize.
I played it at a local tourney over the weekend and did win first. It was only 8 people though, but still good decks. White Weenie, Sligh, Black land Destruction, Suicide Black and Fish.
I just got a kick out of making a deck named after a wrestler, even if it has nothing to do with the wrestler. I am currently working on a type 1.5 or maybe type 2 R/U/W deck called "Red, White, and True" or "Kurt -Angel-" (of course named after Kurt Angle). Any ideas on this kind of deck?


By Big Kavu on Friday, December 28, 2001 - 02:39 pm:

By the way, for those not very familiar with the WWF, here is a little explanation of the names.

Deranged Hermit is The Rock. The Squirrels are the millions and millions of his fans.

Phyrexian Plaguelord is The Undertaker.

UBC and older type two versions featured Albino Troll, who is Stone Cold Steve Austin.


First of all, I really encourage everyone who hasn't playtested this deck to give it a try. It looks horrible on paper, it really does. Even after playtesting thoroughly, it still looks bad on paper to me. But it plays brilliantly. Walls and spikes do a good enough job at stalling the board out for you to stabalize with Deed/Spiritmonger or Living Death. It has no problem with purely aggro decks.


The only problem I have with Trix is when they have maindeck morphlings. Even then, its not a horrible matchup, but the morphs make it a lot more frustrating.

Oath, as someone mentioned, is bad times. Especially when you go first and lay a bird. Not much you can do about it first game, just gotta rely on the SB for that one. Fortunately, Oath is not very popular right now. If your local metagame has a lot of Oath, don't play this deck.

I love the maindeck Choke. It has one me quite a few games, and far outweighs the occasional dead draws I get from it. I'm thinking that Tsunami in the side is better than extra chokes, though, because it gets around merchant scroll for hack. They'd have to have the one hack in hand when you Tsunami, which rarely happens. I've won quite a few games vs. Trix via Tsunami, when I would have lost if I just laid a Choke and gave them time to recover.

The deck is a little too threat-light for me. Spike Weaver has been complete garbage for me thus far, so I swapped them for hermits, which makes Phyrexian Plaguelord and Recurring Nightmare both nuts, while serving as an additional threat at the same time.

The version that swapped walls for elves and used Phyrexian Negators is interesting, but I don't think it would work in the beatdown-heavy PTQ environment.


This is my current list:


4 Bayou
2 Llanowar Wastes
3 Treetop Village
2 Dustbowl
1 Volrath's Stronghold
6 Forest
4 Swamp

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Roots
4 Spike Feeder
4 Yavimaya Elder
4 Spiritmonger
2 Deranged Hermit
1 Phyrexian Druglord

4 Duress
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Vampiric Tutor
2 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Living Death
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Choke


--Big Kavu


By Michael in Osaka on Monday, December 31, 2001 - 12:27 am:

Add a Rancor or two maindeck. It really helps in the mirror match up and against junk. Engineered Plague deals with lynxes, finkles boas and most of slighs creatures. I added just one to my SB because I can grab them with my Vampiric Tutors.

--Michael


By platipus on Thursday, January 03, 2002 - 12:40 am:

Ashes to Ashes is another great card to run one of in either the main deck or in the sideboard. It can take care of many problem creatures, such as opposing spiritmongers, spectral lynxes, river boa's, and large black creatures. The life loss isn't really that big of an issue anyways, since the deck runs four spike feeders.


By Brandon on Thursday, January 03, 2002 - 01:38 am:

Anyone ever thought of Cannibalize as a sideboard for the mirror match? It removes Spiritmonger from the game so it can't be brought back with Death/Nightmare.


By Shayne on Friday, January 04, 2002 - 05:14 am:

I too reached the the conclusion that Ashes to Ashes and Cannibalize are potential answers to the difficult how to kill spiritmonger question. But I think the double black in Ashes casting cost can make it a dead card early. It can also be too painful to cast when you are under serious pressure on your life total, which a good agressive deck can do with the help of wastelands and a 2/1 followed by lots of critter removal. Note that sligh decks are picking up on sorching lava and how good it can be with kicker vs. regenerators and yavimaya elder.

Cannibalize is almost useless if the only creature other than treetop villages the opponent has is a spiritmonger. Which can happen with deeds going off all the time. Cannibalize requires two targets as a sorcey. And when you don't have an enemy spiritmonger to remove with it or a wall to put the counters when you're removing somthing else, then the counters on the oppenents creature really can be annoying.

For example, here are some common pairs of critters on the board. Pup and fanatic, lynx and elephant token, feeder and bird of paradise, 2+ Zombie tokens. How many times would you want to pay 1B and a card to remove 1 of your choosing to make the other +2/+2? Even if you just want to side the cannibalize strictly for the rock mirror matchup, you will still find yourself holding it until it gets duressed since its often only really good if it gets rid of a spiritmonger. That and you take away slots from what might be more broadly useful SB cards.

I think thats why we have yet to see the pros using these cards. Though if my local metagame was full of rock and light on aggro decks I might try Ashes to Ashes in the side.


By Big Kavu on Friday, January 04, 2002 - 01:48 pm:

Damn! I plan on playing the Rock for the rest of the season, and I was hoping no one else caught on to Ashes to Ashes. :( It really is a great card, though I think it should be relegated for the sideboard. I personally think two is the right number. It is amazing in the mirror match, and is good against other decks, too (Junk and Miracle Grow). The great thing about it is that you only take damage if the spell sucssesfully resolves, like vendetta. So if you side it in against MG and they force, no life loss. With Feeders, the life loss has never been an issue with me.


--Big Kavu


By platipus on Friday, January 04, 2002 - 01:50 pm:

I think Ashes to Ashes is definately better than cannibalize. Also, you would never play ashes vs. a sligh deck so its pointless to say that you lose too much life too sligh, because you would never side it in, in the first place. It would only be sided in vs. the mirror, reanimator, secret force, and decks like junk. Taking down a monger and a boa or lynx or even two lynx's or a lynx and a boa would be good as the lynx is hard to block anyway and you will probably lose the five life if you don't kill it.


By Xequecal on Friday, January 04, 2002 - 05:13 pm:

I've considered Dark Sligh, and while it is better vs. Secret Force and Rock, it has no enchantment removal. Dark Sligh has no way of stopping Illusions of Grandeur other than Pyroblast. Dark Sligh is worse than this version against Benzo, because Terminate won't break the Nether Spirit/Contamination lock, and a Terminated Verdant Force can just be animated again. Benzo has more animation cards than "search your library and put card in graveyard" cards.

About Fireblast, yes, I know that there aren't enough mountains to use this too effectively. There are no other good burn spells to replace it with. Pyrokinesis is the only card which comes close, but in the current extended metagame it's a dead card in like 33% of all matchups.


By Xequecal on Friday, January 04, 2002 - 05:19 pm:

Doh, I'm an idiot. Ignore that last post, it was supposed to go in the other thread.


By shimrod on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 08:01 pm:

I suggest adding Diabolic Edict maindeck.
It combos really well with the deed, and works wonders against the big nasties (like morphling).


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