GW LandFall Rock

kaamos · Joined: 08 Nov 2006 Posts: 288

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
10 [M10] Forest (1)
10 [M10] Plains (1)
4 [M10] Sunpetal Grove

// Creatures
4 [ARB] Enlisted Wurm
4 [ARB] Knight of New Alara
4 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
4 [ZEN] Lotus Cobra
4 [ZEN] Rampaging Baloths
4 [M10] Baneslayer Angel

// Spells
4 [ZEN] Harrow
4 [ZEN] Day of Judgment
4 [ZEN] Khalni Heart Expedition

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
SB: 4 [M10] Celestial Purge

Meant to cycle lands for mana, and drop the big guys early, powerfull in my theory, havent playtested yet. Made a few deck ideas today so, more on the playtesting later-wayyy later.

pascal3000 · Joined: 02 Sep 2009 Posts: 20

1. Rock or "The Rock" is the codeword for the color combination GB. Your deck isnt any Black in it, so it isnt a "Rock" deck.

White was only connected to Rock through the popular "Doran Rock", which was running doran, a GBW creature with a small splash of creatures and spells (qasali pridemage, gaddock teeg and wilt-leaf liege mostly, with PTE and Behemoth Sledge being spell splashes, aswell as zealous persecution), while heavily relying on the Green and Black core a normal Rock had.

Called a BGW deck or even a GWb deck Rock wouldnt be wrong, but your deck doesnt even have Black in it.

2. Your deck is basically a "Naya Lotus Angel" build, cutting out the red. That makes you miss:
a. Cascade in the form of BBE
b. Some of your most aggresively costed creatures (woolly thoctar)
c. Some of your versatile burn spells (bolt and burst lightning)

I dont see how the GW version would give you any additional stability that Naya cant, atleast not in a form that it would warrant missing those awesome factors giving you tempo and card advantage.

3. Playing Lotus Cobra in itself is risky and will rarely pay off, but if youre not even using her full potential, playing a deck WITHOUT fetches, then you will get stomped eitherway. In a deck like this, Noble Hierach or Llanowar Elves would probably do better than Lotus Cobra.

The Naya deck is so good (well, it isnt really, but it gets it strenght ...) because it can abuse fetch + cobra to speed up BBE + Baneslayer which then again cascade into more tempo and give you a huge creature advantage. Its not as dominating in terms of card advantage, not having Blightning, Bit Blast, Broodmate and Maelstrom Pulse at its disposale, but the aggresive creatures Ranger + Nacatl, BBE + Thoctar and Baneslayer give it its place in the metagame.

Running Knight of the Reliquary is certainly viable in such a fetch based deck, but in a non fetch deck he just wont be able to shine.

Fetchlands are the main reason hes so good in Extended Zoo, simply because he comes into to play in tarmogoyf regions of P/T when you play him on turns 3-5.

4. Your fatties, while they might be impressive have 2 major problems.

1. They are weak to removal as all fatties based decks are.
2. They dont adress any of the problems this metagame is giving you.

Your 2 main threats right now are going to be Jund and Boros with a splash of Mono W, Mono G, GR Elves, Cruel/GWR, Vampires, Crypt Combo, GW Tokens, Naya Zoo and Lotus Rock (aka Mike Flores Trash Ramp).

I dont see how your maindeck adresses any of these problems. The main reason why todays cruel control decks rely more on tapping out and playing cheap creature removal (PtE, Bolt, Burst, Maindecked Celestial Purge, Terminate) instead of going for countmagic (in combination with the lack of instant speed card draw), is the insane speed of this format.
Boros decks can goldfish turns 3-5 and you dont have ANY instant speed reactions to adress this.
Seeing as the main provider of tempo for your deck (the cobra) dies to any of the 12 removal spells boros has at END OF TURN, i dont see how you can keep up with them.
They will have killed you before you even have the mana for a baneslayer.

5. Lastly, though a bit random, why play a knight of new alari in a deck with 12 monocolored and 8 multicolor creatures.

That leaves you with 16 nonpowered and 8 powered creatures as long as you have a single knight in play, and it has a less than ideal body to begin with ...

kaamos · Joined: 08 Nov 2006 Posts: 288

I stand -Edified-

Though today my deckmaking has been catalysed by my lack of sleep in the last 24 hours... so even though everything you said makes sense, to me it isnt computing to a constructive degree.

Overall I agree Naya is basically the Real version of this, I dunno, i wanted to do something with GW alone so I did, this and that cantrip deck are what I came up with ;p

When I think of "Rocks" i think of a deck with mostly rare and hard hitting special effects creatures/cards and some mana ramp so thats what this, is supposed to be, i think.. lol

I work in 4 hours, maybe I should take a nap... lol