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My friend Francisco Pawlusz is one of the Premodern format's most visible and successful brewers. He's largely responsible for everything from putting Meddling Mage (and later Last Breath) into your Dreadnought deck, to winning the first big online event with Gruul Ponza. Recently, Fran put out a version of The Rock with Gamekeeper that I just had to try.
... a version of The Rock with Gamekeeper...
Well.
I suppose that is indeed a sentence.
Lets unpack it.
What kind of deck is The Rock?
The Rock is Magic's quintessential midrange strategy. Generally Black and Green, "The Rock" is short for The Rock and His Millions. Made popular by wrestling fanatic (and Grand Prix Champion) Sol Malka, "The Rock" was this guy...
And "the millions and millions of The Rock's fans" referred to the Squirrel tokens produced by this one...
It's catchy, easy to say, and ultimately only two short syllables, so the name "The Rock" stuck even though Phyrexian Plaguelord hasn't seen play since 2001 and even in Premodern Deranged Hermit can be a question mark. Today's deck, for instance, doesn't play Deranged Hermit.
Cards that were printed years after Sol first innovated the deck have kept the strategy popular, most notably Cabal Therapy. Which brings us to Fran's exciting new Premodern deck...
Gamekeeper Rock | Premodern | Francisco Pawlusz
- Creatures (7)
- 3 Terravore
- 4 Gamekeeper
- Instants (3)
- 1 Smother
- 2 Skeletal Scrying
- Sorceries (16)
- 2 Innocent Blood
- 3 Living Wish
- 3 Call of the Herd
- 4 Cabal Therapy
- 4 Duress
- Enchantments (4)
- 4 Pernicious Deed
- Artifacts (2)
- 2 Phyrexian Furnace
- Lands (28)
- 5 Forest
- 8 Swamp
- 1 Dust Bowl
- 1 Phyrexian Tower
- 2 Pine Barrens
- 3 Treetop Village
- 4 Llanowar Wastes
- 4 Wasteland
- Sideboard (15)
- 1 Bone Shredder
- 1 Plague Spitter
- 1 Terravore
- 1 Uktabi Orangutan
- 1 Withered Wretch
- 1 Smother
- 3 Naturalize
- 4 Engineered Plague
- 1 Phyrexian Furnace
- 1 Dust Bowl
What happens when you add Gamekeeper to The Rock?
Sadly, the answer isn't "only good things" or "millions and millions of dollars fall from the skies, like The Rock's own veritable fans." Sadly.
Instead, you get a cool new proactive plan, plus the ability to make some cheap cards good.
Gamekeeper itself has a couple of things going for it. First of all, it is a creature; so whatever comes after Gamekeeper is on the bonus. Because you want Gamekeeper to go to the graveyard, you get to play Innocent Blood to great effect. You and the opponent both sacrifice a creature, but you come out of it with a free follow-up creature; presumably they don't. It's also great Cabal Therapy fodder.
Otherwise, Gamekeeper is kind of a proactive Oath of Druids in this deck. Yes, it costs twice as much as Oath of Druids. Yes, sometimes you will flip over another Gamekeeper instead of a Terravore payoff. But you also don't need the opponent to "play into your Oath" in order to have something nice happen for you.
If you're going to run this deck you do need to pay the deck-building gods. You can't run the usual Cabal Therapy staples like Wall of Blossoms. You can't buttress your life total with life gain like Spike Feeder or Ravenous Baloth. Those cards all slow down the Terravore engine of the deck too much. But in return you do get to aspire to a higher ceiling than most midrange piles.
Unlike most versions of The Rock that can struggle to close games for several turns where they look like they are way ahead, you can presumably finish it in just one or two swings.
Presumably.
How did my games go?
I played Fran's deck at the weekly Premodern League in New York City and found out a few pretty surprising things.
Round One: Chris with Mono-Blue Dreadnought
Recently Chris has been focused on the boogeyman of the Premodern format - Good old 12/12. He's been on a roll with it, most recently making Top 4 of the Backroom Brawl on Long Island.
Game 1
I got a quick Phyrexian Furnace and Wished for an Uktabi Orangutan.
That was kind of it.
The Phyrexian Furnace did two things. First it did what it was supposed to do - limit Chris's flexibility around his powerful graveyard cards. It didn't keep him from drawing anything with Accumulated Knowledge or Flash of Insight, but it did make things kind of annoying for him; and it did keep him from ruining me with those cards.
1997's famous Sex Monkey just got in for two a bunch of times after that.
I never drew Gamekeeper. I also never put any lands into my own graveyard. So, with the Furnace going on Chris's graveyard I kind of learned why Fran started with a few Windswept Heaths, et al in his version. Those cards just looked like a good way to deal myself damage. But they would have made Terravore a non-non-card.
Anyway, the Orangutan eventually got there. I assume it was joined by a Treetop Village or maybe Elephant token, but mostly I didn't die to a 12/12.
Game 2
I got off a fantastic opener. Duress into Duress + Cabal Therapy. The Therapy ate three - three - copies of Stifle!
Chris reassembled with a Vision Charm and killed me a few turns later.
That's the thing about Dreadnought. You can be ahead a ton but they string together a paltry two cards. B protects A; and A just kills you.
Game 3
This was a really long and interesting one. At some point I had all four of Chris's Phyrexian Dreadnoughts in the graveyard but was still terrified I was going to lose. I'd start with a Cabal Therapy. He'd Counterspell. I'd think really hard and pass the turn. Then we'd do the same dance again.
You see, I was worried that he had a Brain Freeze. I didn't want to give him more Storm fuel, so I limited my spells until I could (eventually) get a look at his hand.
Game 3 went really long. I was behind a Tsabo's Web the whole time, so never attacked with a Treetop Village even though I had all four in play. Chris had no targets for Wasteland or Dust Bowl, but I also didn't really want to tap them. Most oddly I had every Treetop Village, Llanowar Wastes, and Wasteland in play, but never drew a Forest. So, I had to put myself in a spot where a single Dreadnought hit was going to kill me, essentially the whole game.
Chris never drew the Brain Freeze, and Llanowar Wastes did eventually produce an Elephant token or three.
1-0
Round Two: Luis with UZI (Blue Zombie Infestation)
UZI is a new deck that has recently performed in Europe. It has some of the same DNA as Psychatog, but is less vulnerable to a single Pyroblast or Swords to Plowshares. Instead, it gets to do cool things like Intuition for Squee, Goblin Nabobs or even Wonder to help build its Zombie army.
The secret kryptonite of UZI is that it is a slow graveyard deck. Most Premodern graveyard decks either use their graveyards briefly (here is my Akroma) or just kill you outright (here is my Sutured Ghoul). Survival of the Fittest decks might expose Squee, Goblin Nabob or Anger, but they're also getting sweet two-for-ones and building a powerful or at least synergistic trap on the battlefield. UZI is just making power and toughness, two points at a time. If you let it go unchecked, UZI will eventually have a lot of 2/2s (that fly).
That's a big "if" though.
Both games went the same way. I Living Wished for Withered Wretch and then got it to resolve via hand destruction.
"I think we have uncovered a structural flaw in this deck."
-Luis
Withered Wretch is also just a 2/2. But backed up by Pernicious Deed? Against a deck of all zero cost tokens? It's enough.
2-0
Round Three: Versus Medvedev Burn
Game 1
Was Our Hero going to come away with the trophy?
It sure didn't look like it.
Any Burn deck is going to be problematic for Gamekeeper Rock. As I said above, we don't have Spike Feeder or Ravenous Baloth to pad our life total. We don't have Ravenous Rats to stall the battlefield. We do however have a deck designed to accumulate cards slowly, with a bazillion nonbasic lands in play. We're vulnerable both to Price of Progress and...
That's what my opponent played on the first turn.
I don't know how many other burn cards he was going to need, but he had them. The Vise was going to deal like fifteen by itself.
Game 2
This was a super interesting one. I got kind of low going into the midgame, while he had a Mogg Fanatic, a Jackal Pup... And a Pyrostatic Pillar.
What's a girl to do?
I played a 4-drop.
Yes, that is a 2/2 for four. No, it doesn't trigger Pyrostatic Pillar. No, you probably also don't want to run your Jackal Pup into it.
The first Gamekeeper bought me a turn.
So, I played another one.
Ultimately, I had two 2/2s to his 1/1 and 2/2... And Pyrostatic Pillar. He couldn't really kill a Gamekeeper and he couldn't really block. So, I just attacked for two a bunch of times until I started attacking for four.
This is another mode on Gamekeeper - It doesn't trigger Pyrostatic Pillar.
Eventually Jackal Pup did have to trade with a Gamekeeper, so Terravore, seven games into the tournament, finally made an appearance.
Game 3
My opponent went first but did not have a one-drop.
I Duressed him for Pyrostatic Pillar, revealing a pair of Incinerates.
I then had a thought I assume no one has ever had before when facing Burn: "Please draw a one-drop."
He drew a 1-drop. It was a Mogg Fanatic, leaving up only a single Red mana.
Boom! Cabal Therapy! Two for one!
At that point I played both sides of a Call of the Herd, he got behind his own Pyrostatic Pillar, and Gamekeeper Rock won an improbable 3-0.
Fran went 5-0 to win his first MTGO League with the deck. So, my 3-0 (even without fetch lands) puts the deck at 8-0 in League play across digital and now paper formats.
Perfect deck. No notes.
LOVE
MIKE
