MTG: Modern Rock

Let me show you something embarassing, and old.

Back in 2007 – ten years ago, dear god, Lee Sharpe Ken Nagle and Kelly Digges all work for Wizards now what have I done with my life – I wrote an article for StarcityGames about Rock. Rock, the deck, Rock, the archetype, Rock the type of deck that isn’t really defined by what’s in it – not really – but is really more about how you relate to it.

I wrote about this deck, as a deck that I had had since it was an Onslaught-legal standard deck, with [mtg_card]Oversold Cemetery[/mtg_card] returning [mtg_card]Ravenous Baloth[/mtg_card]s.

[d title=”Ten Year Rock” style=”embedded”]Creatures
4 Darkheart Sliver
4 Frightcrawler
3 Krosan Tusker
4 Nantuko Vigilante
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Twisted Abomination
4 Werebear

Support
4 Oversold Cemetery
3 Death Cloud
3 Life from the Loam

Lands
9 Forest
4 Swamp
3 Barren Moor
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Tranquil Thicket[/d]

This deck was weird. Looking back on it I mostly remember it being kind of awkward about some of its draws, based on a deck Richard Feldman spoke about once upon a time that was about using Skullclamps to Not Draw Two Cards. It was a different time, but with one lesson I never really got rid of in my deck building.

I like to think this is about having a plan but it’s a little more bald than that: The lesson I learned is that if my deck wants to cast Death Cloud, I want to make sure that every card I draw is okay after a Death Cloud.

This lesson bears out in a lot of other decks I make; I try to think in terms of what I’m trying to do, and then if that plan holds together; does anything work against it? It’s a decision process that sometimes leads to seeing things others do as suboptimal – I don’t like, for example, running expensive cards alongside Dark Confidant, even if the math of it and the play of it works out. I never added Golgari Guildmage to my build of this, even if it was a bear after the Cloud, because it was just a bear. Even Werebear was an iffy include in this deck – because it meant I sometimes wanted to Death Cloud for not as much as possible – because that would leave me with only 2 mana on the board.

The cards that left this deck over time as Extended turned to Modern were cards that were replaceable – [mtg_card]Frightcrawler[/mtg_card] – and cards that very much weren’t – [mtg_card]Barren Moor[/mtg_card]. Strangely, despite what you’d think, nothing ever stepped up to take the place of Oversold Cemetery, a card that lives through a cloud and rebuilds after it; a card that gives you a way to hang on before the cloud and a way to blow out after a cloud. I thought, at first that surely a Planeswalker existed which could take this spot – even just some three mana walker that could ruin an opponent’s face after a cloud, but I’m really surprised to find that there isn’t. Maybe I could splash for [mtg_card]Gideon of the Trials[/mtg_card], he laughed, but even [mtg_card]Liliana The Last Hope[/mtg_card] doesn’t seem to fit.

When I first penned this article, Ixalan was on the horizon, full of potential. It had the possibility of adding a exciting Vraska planeswalker, perhaps, a 3-mana GB planeswalker that resembled, say, [mtg_card]Nissa, Steward of Elements[/mtg_card], you know, some filtering, some card advantage, some way to be useful after a Cloud. This has, unfortunately, not proven to be the case. I was hoping there’d be something I could present from Ixalan that would serve as an object lesson how it plays into the plan, but the problem is that there’s almost nothing that could. Sure there are creatures that could be put in the deck, because they cost 3 mana or less and are green and black. None of them do things to advance the plan of the deck, though. [mtg_card]Tishana’s Wayfinder[/mtg_card] is not meaningfully better than [mtg_card]Civic Wayfinder[/mtg_card], for the purpose of the deck’s plan, after all, and I stopped running that a while ago.

Still, there surely must be something, he told himself, rummaging for an option, until he came to [mtg_card]Deadeye Tracker[/mtg_card].

Now look.

Deadeye Tracker superficially looks like it could belong in this deck. It costs less than 3, and its abilities – 2 mana+1 mana – tie together nicely to make a 3 mana cost. In a world with haste that would be very efficient unlike some other creatures that tried for this spot like Nezumi Graverobber or [mtg_card]Nezumi Shortfang[/mtg_card]. Plus, after a Cloud, it will absolutely have fodder to feed its exiling ways. If that happens it’ll start fuelling my own card selection and, if not, provide me with more lands as a way to rebuild. It compares favourably to something like Phyrexian Arena.

Problem is, before the Cloud it’s stone worthless. Well, it’s nearly stone worthless.

I do not hold hopes for this one-mana 1/1 to meaningfully beat up other creatures. It will not stand in the path of bears, it will not trade with anything and it will not slow tramplers. It is, before a cloud, not a mid-rangey card, and does not stick with the plan. The plan wants to draw the game out and make a Cloud happen… and the Tracker isn’t going to be any good getting to there. What that means is that if I’m putting this in the deck it’s for the same reason the deck once had a lone [mtg_card]Crypt Creeper[/mtg_card]; it was because I wanted, nay needed, at times, a way to flush out something troublesome from an opponent’s graveyard. Is it better than [mtg_card]Nezumi Graverobber[/mtg_card], that could trade up, and maybe even flip if it ever somehow did? Probably not.

I was really hoping this format would shake up this little modern toy of mine. Alas, alack, and we move on.