Shadows over inistrad has been fully spoiled, rotation is near and as such a new season of standard brewing are upon us!
Seeing as the manafixing in the new standard is levels below what we have gotten used to with fetchlands and battlelands, I've strayed away from brewing 3-color decks and looked towards more stable 2-color decks. One of the cards I really want to play in the new standard season is Sylvan Advocate, which is at its best in color combinations with man-lands. This left GU or GB as the color combinations of choice.
The Gitrog Monster quickly caught my eye, and I started brewing a graveyard-centric GB rock deck. Utilizing the graveyard to generate value from the good ol' combo of Den Protector and Deathmist Raptor as well as turning on delirium for new cards like To the Slaughter, Traverse the Ulvenwald and Mindwrack Demon the deck is able to apply tons of pressure as well as go for the long, grindy game. Card advantage can also be obtained with The Gitrog Monster via Evolving Wilds or Gather the Pack.
I could see ramp as one of the big challenges for this deck, as it is not the quickest of decks. To help this matchup 4 Transgress the Mind are in the sideboard. These 4 however also play a role in most control matchups, alongside 2 Duress and 2 Ob Nixilis Reignited. 5 spots of the sideboard is dedicated to aggro decks, which historically are strongly represented early on in most standard seasons. The 5 spots are scattered across a 3rd copy of Dead Weight in the 75 and a full playset of Flaying Tendrils. The last 2 spots of the sideboard are 2 copies of Languish, which are dedicated to various midrange matchups, especially with cards like Thunderbreak Regent and Goblin Dark-Dwellers in mind.
I would love any and all feedback on the deck, happy brewing people
Edit:
After a little testing I felt like the deck needed more land and had a little to many spells, which did not affect the board. Traverse the Ulvenwald felt quite bad when playing on curve and it felt more cute than actually good. As a result of this i've made the following changes:
