Premodern: The Rock (Living Wish) - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

With Premodern available for Leagues on Magic Online (MTGO), this seems like one of the best times to revisit the history of Magic: The Gathering. As an enthusiast of the game's competitive history, the possibility of playing with archetypes from the past in a setting where their cards can still hold competitive relevance opens up a myriad of possibilities—and a dozen guides.

Today, the featured archetype is one of the most classic in Midrange history: The Rock.

In Premodern, the black-green version of the deck preserves its original identity: early game control, efficient resource trading, card advantage buildup through two-for-one trades, and a victory built on exhausting the opponent's resources.

This list represents one of the most classic iterations of the archetype, combining discard effects with ramp and efficient removal, but with an extra dose of flexibility using the famous toolbox with Living Wish, which diversifies the number of answers from Game 1 onwards and works towards more consistency in responding to the opponent in Games 2 and 3.

Maindeck

Birds of Paradise guarantees the explosion of the early turns, allowing fundamental sequences such as discard followed by a threat or paying higher costs with Pernicious Deed even if it costs the Birds itself in the process. In the mid-game, it becomes fodder for Cabal Therapy.

Wall of Roots acts as a blocker for aggressive decks and a mana accelerator on turn two that doesn't depend on tapping and, consequently, exposing its controller during combat.

Yavimaya Elder is one of the most efficient cards in this setup. It blocks, trades in combat, searches for lands, and generates card draw, all in one package. It's also excellent fodder for Cabal Therapy and helps accelerate Pernicious Deed.

Spiritmonger is the main win condition of the list as an immediate threat for five mana that protects itself from some spot removal and grows with each turn it trades in combat. Its high cost is an advantage, since we can commonly crack a Pernicious Deed and keep it in play to finish the game.

Living Wish allows us to transform the sideboard into an extension of the main deck, giving us more flexibility in responding to each matchup and accessing threats and resources with the right cards.

Cabal Therapy is a cheap disruption tool that rewards knowledge of the format. It allows attacking the opponent's hand, removing key pieces before they become relevant. We can use Flashback with some ease when we no longer need the mana dorks, and it also has good interaction with Yavimaya Elder.

Duress complements Cabal Therapy as a targeted discard. It removes answers, combo pieces, and control cards before they can interfere with the deck's plan but also provides the necessary information to extract the most from Cabal Therapy.

Naturalize offers direct answers against artifacts and enchantments that can win games on their own. Unlike other formats, it now seems like a must-have maindeck piece, as there is a wide variety of permanents in Premodern, with few games where it's a useless card.

Pernicious Deed is the deck's main control tool. Its ability to selectively clear the board helps maintain board state in our favor, contain Aggro decks at a relatively low cost, and in a slot that also provides the flexibility to deal with other troublesome permanents.

Smother acts as a timely answer to creatures that need to be removed immediately or escape the reach of Pernicious Deed through regeneration. The number of copies can increase if we want to respect more Aggro decks.

Llanowar Wastes is our only untapped dual choice and ensures quick access to both colors, allowing key plays to happen at the right time. The life loss is irrelevant compared to the control we seek to exert during the game.

Mishra’s Factory functions as a resilient threat and alternative win condition. It ignores board wipes and maintains constant pressure on stabilized boards, a role it shares with Treetop Village, whose greater power and evasion help finish games.

Sideboard

As exemplified above, our Sideboard is composed of a toolbox of Living Wish, meaning we diversify our range of creature and land-based answers as much as possible.

Genesis and Volrath's Stronghold are our resilience. Both allow us to return creatures from the graveyard and reuse their effects if they have any ETB ability or are simply impactful enough to punish the opponent.

Spiritmonger and Deranged Hermit are not specifically sideboard cards, but a way to complement our win conditions, with Hermit being an option to also deal with go-wide decks and/or to punish archetypes that only run spot removals.

Masticore and Ravenous Baloth are complementary threats that also solve problems against Aggro through life gain or recurring damage with the extra mana, which keeps archetypes like Goblins, Elves, and Mono Black Aggro/Discard in check.

Uktabi Orangutan and Nantuko Vigilante are extra slots against artifacts and enchantments. The split between them is due to the possibility of using Nantuko at instant speed through Morph.

Withered Wretch is the best graveyard hate creature we have in the format. The cost can be a challenge in some games, but between Birds of Paradise and Yavimaya Elder, it's difficult to have trouble accessing colors.

Dust Bowl deals with troublesome lands like Manlands, Serra's Sanctum, Gaea's Cradle, and others.

Graveborn Muse offers a card advantage tool in attrition games that bypasses the cost we normally use to remove Phyrexian Arena from the board, a common card in Midrange mirror matches.

In several games, you will notice that I don't include the exact number of cards I have in my Sideboard that serve as an ideal pick for Living Wish. In this list, the card functions as copies 2 through 5 of most of these pieces, and therefore having a copy in the Sideboard is necessary to be able to search for it.

Sligh

IN

OUT

Elves

IN

OUT

Psychatog

IN

OUT

BW Control

IN

OUT

Mono Blue Dreadnought

OUT

Azorius Landstill

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thank you for reading!