nickvo$
01-12-2007, 03:54 AM
Ok, first off, my name is Nick Trudeau, I played this deck at Gencon's 2006 Legacy championship to a 4th place finish and more recently, at SCG Duel 4 Duals IV to 8th and 9th place finishes.
The 4C Landstill that would eventually evolve in to BHWC Landstill began as a creation of Mike Torrisi (SpikeyMikey), sometime after the change of the B/R list. His earliest versions of the deck had more draw and cantrips, and were even more reliant on Pernicious Deed than the current incarnation of this deck is. For reference, here's one of his lists from that period
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Standstill
3 Impulse
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Chainer's Edict
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Nantuko Monastery
4 Wasteland
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Glaciers
1 Serenity
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Abyss
3 Duress
3 Bottle Gnomes
2 Disenchant
I believe his main goal in designing this deck was to take the fullest advantage of the unbanning of Fact or Fiction and use Pernicious Deed as abusively as possible in a control deck. I think - at the time at least - he accomplished both those goals.
After the format began to settle and people recognized the strength of Survival decks, control decks began to come back into fashion and old archetypes began to receive new variations, such as Jack Elgin's Rabid Wombat and CavernNinja's "Not Quite Gro". To combat this new field, and because I needed something new to play, I took Mike's old list and revamped it. I included more ways to battle control, reworked the manabase, and took out alot of the draw. The result was a deck that was more versatile, albeit a little less streamlined. This is one of my earliest lists:
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Teferi's Response
2 Misdirection
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Chainer's Edict
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastery
3 Wasteland
1 Plains
3 Bottle Gnomes
3 Disenchant
3 Compost
2 Decree of Justice
4 Phyrexian Furnace
The manabase proved to be much more stable and has changed by only one card since this version. As for the sideboard, Mike preferred a toolbox sideboard that took advantage of one of the unbanned tutors and packed it full of enchantments. I have since lost the original sideboard and the above listing was a 'board used by a friend of ours who also played the deck. My own sideboard was built to combat the abundance of burn decks we saw at our local tournament in San Diego, as well as the occasional mirror match.
I piloted this version of BHWC Landstill at Gencon in 2005. Unfortunately, the kinks in the sideboard had not been worked out yet, and I was unable to make the top 8. By the time the Grand Prix rolled around, I had become bored with the deck, and opted to play ATS instead, with which I was able to make Day 2, and ended up in 27th.
A friend of our team, Lucas Michaels, chose to play our Landstill list at that tournament, and were it not for his lack of playing time with the deck, probably would have made Day 2. He ended up 4-2-1 dropping, but did give me some inspiration for a new sideboard. We had come to the realization that Engineered Plague was the best option against Goblins, and after a little playtesting, Lucas came up with this sideboard:
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Engineered Plague
4 Phyrexian Furnace
3 Duress
Some other changes came in the form of removing some of the cards we were using to beat other control decks, as aggro was once again on the rise. These were changed in favor of more removal.
Following GP: Philly, I took a break from Magic to pursue other interests and didn't return to playing until a few months before Gencon. After considering what the metagame had become, Lucas, Jason Jaco and I concluded that it was time for a return to BHWC Landstill as the deck of choice.
We did some preliminary playtesting and concluded that the manabase was the only part of the deck we had become uncomfortable with (surprise), so we looked for a way to stabilize it. Lucas suggested that we remove Teferi's Response, which had become clunky and too expensive in favor of Stifle, an underplayed card at the time. This is the list I took to Gencon:
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
3 Stifle
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Disenchant
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastery
3 Wasteland
1 Plains
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage
3 Duress
Stifle proved very powerful and became the perfect addition to the deck. As the deck has not changed much from this form, I'll go ahead and move on to some card choice explanations now.
"The Counter Suite"
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
The inclusion of these should be obvious, however there have been numerous occasions where our team has considered adding things like Mana Leak and the like. For a time we were playing Misdirection which proved highly useful against the slew of black decks being played about a year ago in San Diego. Eventually it was decided that the best answer to threats for this deck comes in the form of Pernicious Deed, and that the countermagic should be used to protect that card until it is able to eliminate the threats on board. After sideboarding Duress is included to disrupt opponents and proves very effective in handling Combo. I'll get to that matchup a little later though.
"Drawing Cards"
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
Brainstorm's effectiveness with fetchlands is well documented so I'll move on to next two selections; Obviously Standstill is one of the namesakes of the deck, so it has to be here. I have questioned, however, whether it needs to be present in full force. There was a list I tested that only ran 3 Standstills and had Mana Leak in it. I ended up scrapping that list as I consistently found myself wishing I had more cards in hand to deal with threats. It seems that even though many decks are able to produce a threat before Standstill can be played, the amount of removal in the deck was able to compensate for the deck's lack of speed. I constantly found myself able to play Pernicious Deed, wipe the board, and put Standstill into play to regain control of the game. The simple power of drawing 3 cards for 2 mana cannot be overlooked or dismissed, and even though there are situations where this card is not playable, its power makes up for it in the long run.
Now, man cannot live on Standstills alone, so to keep digging through my deck even when Standstill is not a viable option, I look to one of the best draw spells ever printed: Fact or Fiction. Its mana cost can prove prohibitive, however its during the late game when this card really shines. After having exhausted my resources clearing my opponent's board, Fact or Fiction offers me a great way to refill my hand or dig for that Monastery to finish the game.
"Removal"
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Disenchant
Swords to Plowshares is the most efficient way to remove a creature, hands down; Auto-inclusion. Diabolic Edict provides another color with removal, as well as being able to kill creatures like Nimble Mongoose that might otherwise prove problematic. Diabolic was chosen over Chainer's so that we could kill Threshold's creatures during their endstep, and whatnot, hover if the metagame shifts to one with less control/aggro-control, Chainer's Edict could become a choice for this deck again.
Disenchant was brought in to deal with Pithing Needle naming Pernicious Deed, as well as to destroy cards like Blood Moon, which was being maindecked in the San Diego meta for a while.
Now we come to the heart of the deck. If anyone thinks this deck doesn't lean on Pernicious Deed like a cripple on crutches, stop kidding yourself and listen up. As I stated earlier, this deck was built to take advantage of Pernicious Deed in a format littered with cheap creatures and other permanents. Deed clears boards like no other card can, which is BHWC Landstill's most distinct advantage over other Landstill variants. Most games are based around managing the board until a Deed can be played to eliminate whatever the opponent has built up, and is one of this decks most important card advantage outlets. BHWC Landstill LOVES DEED. End of story.
"Miscellaneous Utility"
3 Stifle
2 Crucible of Worlds
Crucible was added due to its obvious synergy with fetchlands, Wasteland, and the manland win conditions. Originally we played 3 to ensure that we would draw as many as possible against the mirror, however as aggro became the prevalent deck this number was pared down to accommodate the next card in our discussion: Stifle. Stifle was originally seen as a sideboard option against Solidarity, but with the printing of Remand, this was no longer a reliable answer to Brain Freeze. Stifle eventually found a home in the maindeck though, as a way to combat opposing wastelands. Additionally, Stifle has many other uses including assisting Wasteland in denying land to your opponent, very often an alternate win condition for this deck.
Now, I've read alot of discussion about using Life from the Loam in this deck. Although I have done some playtesting with this concept, its not enough to be conclusive. What I have learned from that testing is this: the deck is too reliant on the recursion of its lands to trust that endeavor to a spell that requires color. I like the fact that LftL provides a better game against Deadguy Ale, and that it can be used to remove unwanted cards from the top of your library after Brainstorm, but beyond that it becomes a liability for the manabase to handle. Perhaps after some experimentation with the green mana count it will prove more playable however at present it is too much of a detriment to the deck. Also, killing your draw in order to preserve your manabase is very painful. Granted it does not need to be dredged back every turn, but losing that key removal spell at the wrong moment can be game ending. To reiterate: no for now on Life from the Loam.
"The Manabase"
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastery
3 Wasteland
I read some discussion just after the release of the decklist following Gencon that suggested adding more fetchlands and cutting a Tropical Island. After having played with various alternate configurations of this manabase, I can safely conclude that this is just the right number. This deck is obviously highly reliant on playing a land every turn, and thinning the lands out too much prevents this from happening. For a while I toyed around with a version running a Polluted Delta in addition to the Strands and found myself too often without a land drop during the mid-game. It is unnecessary too have more fetches as Crucible will come down in the mid to late game to allow you to thin out the deck and provide a constant stream of shuffle effects for Brainstorm. Comboing Brainstorm with a fetchland is very crucial to this deck, as it allows you to ensure the proper mana ratio and keep your hand full of answers or ways to get new answers. Being stuck drawing the same 2 cards or even just one of the 2 cards you put back can become a game-breaking play. I try to NEVER break a fetchland until I have a Brainstorm in hand, and conversely, I will almost never play a Brainstorm
unless I have a Strand in play. There are exceptions to every rule of course, but maintaining this objective as often as possible will go a long way toward helping you win games.
As for only 3 Wastelands, there needed to be enough colored mana so that you could reliably play all your spells, so some room needed to be found, thusly, it was determined that the deck only required 3 Wastes and with the assistance of Crucible, you have ample resources to keep your opponent off balance enough to win games.
The inclusion of Nantuko Monastery is probably the second best reason for playing green in this deck, as it allows you to win faster, deal with bigger threats, and provides a more efficient way to deal damage (3 mana for 4 dmg, as opposed to 4 mana for 4). People constantly tell me how Monastery was the card that prevented them from being able to attack through for the win, or how the first strike of Monastery kept them from being able to trade creatures. This card will win games by itself, just by going aggro and beating down. The lack of colored mana produced can be painful sometimes, but with the correct management of resources, it can be overcome.
The single Island was originally a Plains so that Disenchant could be cast through a Blood Moon, which was an oft played card in the San Diego meta. It has since changed as Blood Moon is no longer a concern in today's meta.
By the way, believe me when I say that green, not white, is the most important color in this deck. Without it, you are reliant on winning with a 2/2 creature that costs 2 mana a turn to attack and can only remove creatures, etc. on a 1 for 1 basis.
"The SideBoard"
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage
3 Duress/Sacred Ground
The BEBs and Plagues are self explanatory, although lately I've had to rethink what I side out against Goblins, as I find myself hurting for the second Plague far too often.
Meddling is the best option against Solidarity as it can come in under Remand and is very difficult to deal with when you hold counters in hand.
Duress has been my default for the extra slot, but if you saw my board for the first day of D4D IV, I ran 3 Sacred Ground, to help fight Deadguy Ale, a bad matchup for any control deck. Duress is useful in a number of matchups, allowing the disruption count to go up against Threshold, and providing a way to punch through a Meddling Mage against Solidarity.
Matchup Analysis:
Goblins
Oddly, you have a better time game 1 than you do post-board, thanks in large part to Pernicious Deed. The strategy here is to mulligan until you have an answer to a turn 1 Lackey, then use stifle to keep Wasteland from messing with your mana. If you draw your own Wastelands, save them for Rishadan Ports, do not, I repeat DO NOT use them on errant Plateaus or Taigas unless you can cut them down to 1 or 2 lands total, as Goblins is perfectly capable of operating off of 3 lands. Crucible actually proves to be key in this matchup, as all of your Factories can trade to keep your life total from dipping too low and combines with Stifle to keep your lands alive in the face of Wasteland.
Sideboard:
-4 Standstill
-2 Pernicious Deed
-1 Counterspell
-1 Fact or Fiction
+4 Engineered Plague
+4 Blue Elemental Blast
This is the board plan that I have been using since Gencon; however, I have been rethinking this strategy, after having had numerous matches either go to time, or been much more difficult than I expected. I have considered alternate board options to E. Plague, such as Sphere of Law and Tsabo's Decree, and would like to find a way to get around Goblins' board plan of 3-4xDisenchant and 3-4xREB. Decree gets around both of those cards, yet its high mana cost make it difficult to rely on, lest we be dead before it can be cast. If the E. Plague board strategy is to be kept, I feel that I would like to try leaving Standstill in over Fact. Further testing will of course be required, but I still feel that it will be a viable draw engine after boarding. An alternative sideboard might look like this:
-3 Fact or Fiction
-1 Counterspell
-1 Standstill
-3 Pernicious Deed
+4 Engineered Plague
+4 BEB
The main difficulty is the deck has trouble putting the game away against Pithing Needle. I like the idea of Tsabo's Decree as that would negate most of the peskiness of AEther Vial, as with no hand or board, a Goblins player is much less scary. The main key to the game post-board should be obvious: get Plague in play and protect it. Be wary of a lone card that seems to remain in their hand for a long time; if its not a Siege-Gang, its probably an REB. Once your manabase if fairly secure (Crucible in play or multiples of each color), Stifle can be used to keep Ringleaders and Matrons from resolving. I would try to save them early in the game if possible, using FOWs or Counters to stop Matron, etc., but if the need should arise, it can be a great way to prevent them from getting too far ahead of your removal ability. (Remember, you only have 2 Deeds now, so use them wisely!)
Threshold/Gro
This matchup is probably the easiest you will have all day. With no way to gain real card advantage, Threshold relies upon gaining tempo through cheap creatures with big power and cheap denial spells. One of the more important parts to this matchup is to play around Daze as often as possible. Your strategy from that point should be to use Deed to clear the board after they've spent their hand getting creatures into play or keeping them in play. Provided they are not running Stifle, this should be a cake walk. Also, should a Mongoose get into play on turn 1, go ahead and play Standstill over the top of it. Not only do you run enough ways to kill it without breaking Standstill but this play will buy you time to develop your manabase to sufficiently combat Daze and the like. In testing, I broke my own Standstill twice in this very situation and won the game with little difficulty.
Sideboard:
This will only apply if you are running the Duress version.
-3 Stifle
+3 Duress
Post-board the match only gets worse for Thresh. The game plan doesn't change, you just get to play with 11 disruption spells to their 6 (Remember you're making Daze irrelevant). The only thing you worry about from their sideboard is Pithing Needle, which is why Disenchant stays in. Just keep in mind that they have no way of getting card advantage and you run multiple outlets for it. Additionally, you can let your life total go as low as 1 without worry(except against the red version), meaning you don't need to stop every attack, just keep them from taking advantage of the tempo and you should be alright.
Solidarity/High Tide (or whatever you want to call it)
Admittedly, this is a near impossible matchup game 1, which is why you should concede within 7-8 minutes of the round starting. This may sound crazy, but after VERY thorough playtesting for this matchup, it was decided that the best way to win this match is to concede game 1 to conserve time.
Your only real strategy for the first game should be to determine how competent your opponent is, and play the game very aggressively; Fact as soon as possible, play Standstill asap, force them to kill you through counters and hope they can't do it. You have Stifle main, so there is always the chance that they will play right into it, allowing you to win a game you shouldn't have. If that fails, don't worry - your sideboard plan will be nearly unbeatable in the next two games.
Sideboard:
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Diabolic Edict
-4 Pernicious Deed
-1 Disenchant
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Duress
+4 Blue Elemental Blast
Obviously, all of your removal is dead in this match, so out that goes. Meddling Mage is the perfect option against combo; it stops them from going off and provides a clock. Duress is fairly straightforward, allowing you to know if they plan on winning and allowing you an extra out to Brain Freeze, provided you can get them all. BEB comes in to provide a replacement for the extra removal that was taken out, as it can be Forced with.
The main thing to remember is that you are not necessarily the control deck after boarding. High Tide can bring in 4x Disrupt giving them 12 counters to your 11. Add that to the fact that there is no pressure for them to win quickly and you get a very difficult game. I have never lost after boarding though, so as long as you can win 2 games in 42 minutes or less, you should be ok. Just be timely in your play and aggressively mulligan for a Mage (6 cards with a Mage is better than 7 without one).
BW Aggro (Deadguy Ale)
This is your worst matchup. In one session we did 22 games of playtesting and BHWC Landstill did not win a single game. The only thing I can say is to keep their creatures off the board. Counters are not very good in this matchup, so try to use them to keep Deed and StP in your hand for their creatures.
Sideboard:
Only applicable if playing Sacred Ground.
-2 Disenchant
-1 Pernicious Deed
+3 Sacred Ground
This is still a very difficult match games 2 and 3. After testing this matchup alot before SCG D4D IV, we found the best card to board in was Sacred Ground, as their attack on your manabase is the hardest thing to deal with. Sacred Ground can also be brought in for matchups like Angel Stompy and Rifter, as they tend to sideboard in Armageddon. All in all, just hope there's not too much of this in your tourney, or else you might need to play one of the older versions of this deck (Teferi's Response and Misdirection are pretty good against Sinkhole, I hear).
In general I feel like the deck plays alot like the 4 Color Control deck from vintage about 2 years ago. Use removal to trade 1 for 1, and occasional board sweeper, draw alot of cards, win in 3 turns. As this deck is not really just one person's creation but rather the result of a collection of minds, I'm always interested in peoples' ideas to improve it.
So there it is; it took a while but I got around to it. This might be a little on the lengthy side, but I felt there were a lot of issues I wanted to cover and since it took so long I thought it best to address as much of the deck's points as possible. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I have, and hopefully we'll see each other in a top 8 soon!
Nick Trudeau
BHWC
The 4C Landstill that would eventually evolve in to BHWC Landstill began as a creation of Mike Torrisi (SpikeyMikey), sometime after the change of the B/R list. His earliest versions of the deck had more draw and cantrips, and were even more reliant on Pernicious Deed than the current incarnation of this deck is. For reference, here's one of his lists from that period
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Standstill
3 Impulse
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Chainer's Edict
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Nantuko Monastery
4 Wasteland
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Glaciers
1 Serenity
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Abyss
3 Duress
3 Bottle Gnomes
2 Disenchant
I believe his main goal in designing this deck was to take the fullest advantage of the unbanning of Fact or Fiction and use Pernicious Deed as abusively as possible in a control deck. I think - at the time at least - he accomplished both those goals.
After the format began to settle and people recognized the strength of Survival decks, control decks began to come back into fashion and old archetypes began to receive new variations, such as Jack Elgin's Rabid Wombat and CavernNinja's "Not Quite Gro". To combat this new field, and because I needed something new to play, I took Mike's old list and revamped it. I included more ways to battle control, reworked the manabase, and took out alot of the draw. The result was a deck that was more versatile, albeit a little less streamlined. This is one of my earliest lists:
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Teferi's Response
2 Misdirection
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Chainer's Edict
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastery
3 Wasteland
1 Plains
3 Bottle Gnomes
3 Disenchant
3 Compost
2 Decree of Justice
4 Phyrexian Furnace
The manabase proved to be much more stable and has changed by only one card since this version. As for the sideboard, Mike preferred a toolbox sideboard that took advantage of one of the unbanned tutors and packed it full of enchantments. I have since lost the original sideboard and the above listing was a 'board used by a friend of ours who also played the deck. My own sideboard was built to combat the abundance of burn decks we saw at our local tournament in San Diego, as well as the occasional mirror match.
I piloted this version of BHWC Landstill at Gencon in 2005. Unfortunately, the kinks in the sideboard had not been worked out yet, and I was unable to make the top 8. By the time the Grand Prix rolled around, I had become bored with the deck, and opted to play ATS instead, with which I was able to make Day 2, and ended up in 27th.
A friend of our team, Lucas Michaels, chose to play our Landstill list at that tournament, and were it not for his lack of playing time with the deck, probably would have made Day 2. He ended up 4-2-1 dropping, but did give me some inspiration for a new sideboard. We had come to the realization that Engineered Plague was the best option against Goblins, and after a little playtesting, Lucas came up with this sideboard:
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Engineered Plague
4 Phyrexian Furnace
3 Duress
Some other changes came in the form of removing some of the cards we were using to beat other control decks, as aggro was once again on the rise. These were changed in favor of more removal.
Following GP: Philly, I took a break from Magic to pursue other interests and didn't return to playing until a few months before Gencon. After considering what the metagame had become, Lucas, Jason Jaco and I concluded that it was time for a return to BHWC Landstill as the deck of choice.
We did some preliminary playtesting and concluded that the manabase was the only part of the deck we had become uncomfortable with (surprise), so we looked for a way to stabilize it. Lucas suggested that we remove Teferi's Response, which had become clunky and too expensive in favor of Stifle, an underplayed card at the time. This is the list I took to Gencon:
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
3 Stifle
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Disenchant
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastery
3 Wasteland
1 Plains
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage
3 Duress
Stifle proved very powerful and became the perfect addition to the deck. As the deck has not changed much from this form, I'll go ahead and move on to some card choice explanations now.
"The Counter Suite"
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
The inclusion of these should be obvious, however there have been numerous occasions where our team has considered adding things like Mana Leak and the like. For a time we were playing Misdirection which proved highly useful against the slew of black decks being played about a year ago in San Diego. Eventually it was decided that the best answer to threats for this deck comes in the form of Pernicious Deed, and that the countermagic should be used to protect that card until it is able to eliminate the threats on board. After sideboarding Duress is included to disrupt opponents and proves very effective in handling Combo. I'll get to that matchup a little later though.
"Drawing Cards"
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
Brainstorm's effectiveness with fetchlands is well documented so I'll move on to next two selections; Obviously Standstill is one of the namesakes of the deck, so it has to be here. I have questioned, however, whether it needs to be present in full force. There was a list I tested that only ran 3 Standstills and had Mana Leak in it. I ended up scrapping that list as I consistently found myself wishing I had more cards in hand to deal with threats. It seems that even though many decks are able to produce a threat before Standstill can be played, the amount of removal in the deck was able to compensate for the deck's lack of speed. I constantly found myself able to play Pernicious Deed, wipe the board, and put Standstill into play to regain control of the game. The simple power of drawing 3 cards for 2 mana cannot be overlooked or dismissed, and even though there are situations where this card is not playable, its power makes up for it in the long run.
Now, man cannot live on Standstills alone, so to keep digging through my deck even when Standstill is not a viable option, I look to one of the best draw spells ever printed: Fact or Fiction. Its mana cost can prove prohibitive, however its during the late game when this card really shines. After having exhausted my resources clearing my opponent's board, Fact or Fiction offers me a great way to refill my hand or dig for that Monastery to finish the game.
"Removal"
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Disenchant
Swords to Plowshares is the most efficient way to remove a creature, hands down; Auto-inclusion. Diabolic Edict provides another color with removal, as well as being able to kill creatures like Nimble Mongoose that might otherwise prove problematic. Diabolic was chosen over Chainer's so that we could kill Threshold's creatures during their endstep, and whatnot, hover if the metagame shifts to one with less control/aggro-control, Chainer's Edict could become a choice for this deck again.
Disenchant was brought in to deal with Pithing Needle naming Pernicious Deed, as well as to destroy cards like Blood Moon, which was being maindecked in the San Diego meta for a while.
Now we come to the heart of the deck. If anyone thinks this deck doesn't lean on Pernicious Deed like a cripple on crutches, stop kidding yourself and listen up. As I stated earlier, this deck was built to take advantage of Pernicious Deed in a format littered with cheap creatures and other permanents. Deed clears boards like no other card can, which is BHWC Landstill's most distinct advantage over other Landstill variants. Most games are based around managing the board until a Deed can be played to eliminate whatever the opponent has built up, and is one of this decks most important card advantage outlets. BHWC Landstill LOVES DEED. End of story.
"Miscellaneous Utility"
3 Stifle
2 Crucible of Worlds
Crucible was added due to its obvious synergy with fetchlands, Wasteland, and the manland win conditions. Originally we played 3 to ensure that we would draw as many as possible against the mirror, however as aggro became the prevalent deck this number was pared down to accommodate the next card in our discussion: Stifle. Stifle was originally seen as a sideboard option against Solidarity, but with the printing of Remand, this was no longer a reliable answer to Brain Freeze. Stifle eventually found a home in the maindeck though, as a way to combat opposing wastelands. Additionally, Stifle has many other uses including assisting Wasteland in denying land to your opponent, very often an alternate win condition for this deck.
Now, I've read alot of discussion about using Life from the Loam in this deck. Although I have done some playtesting with this concept, its not enough to be conclusive. What I have learned from that testing is this: the deck is too reliant on the recursion of its lands to trust that endeavor to a spell that requires color. I like the fact that LftL provides a better game against Deadguy Ale, and that it can be used to remove unwanted cards from the top of your library after Brainstorm, but beyond that it becomes a liability for the manabase to handle. Perhaps after some experimentation with the green mana count it will prove more playable however at present it is too much of a detriment to the deck. Also, killing your draw in order to preserve your manabase is very painful. Granted it does not need to be dredged back every turn, but losing that key removal spell at the wrong moment can be game ending. To reiterate: no for now on Life from the Loam.
"The Manabase"
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastery
3 Wasteland
I read some discussion just after the release of the decklist following Gencon that suggested adding more fetchlands and cutting a Tropical Island. After having played with various alternate configurations of this manabase, I can safely conclude that this is just the right number. This deck is obviously highly reliant on playing a land every turn, and thinning the lands out too much prevents this from happening. For a while I toyed around with a version running a Polluted Delta in addition to the Strands and found myself too often without a land drop during the mid-game. It is unnecessary too have more fetches as Crucible will come down in the mid to late game to allow you to thin out the deck and provide a constant stream of shuffle effects for Brainstorm. Comboing Brainstorm with a fetchland is very crucial to this deck, as it allows you to ensure the proper mana ratio and keep your hand full of answers or ways to get new answers. Being stuck drawing the same 2 cards or even just one of the 2 cards you put back can become a game-breaking play. I try to NEVER break a fetchland until I have a Brainstorm in hand, and conversely, I will almost never play a Brainstorm
unless I have a Strand in play. There are exceptions to every rule of course, but maintaining this objective as often as possible will go a long way toward helping you win games.
As for only 3 Wastelands, there needed to be enough colored mana so that you could reliably play all your spells, so some room needed to be found, thusly, it was determined that the deck only required 3 Wastes and with the assistance of Crucible, you have ample resources to keep your opponent off balance enough to win games.
The inclusion of Nantuko Monastery is probably the second best reason for playing green in this deck, as it allows you to win faster, deal with bigger threats, and provides a more efficient way to deal damage (3 mana for 4 dmg, as opposed to 4 mana for 4). People constantly tell me how Monastery was the card that prevented them from being able to attack through for the win, or how the first strike of Monastery kept them from being able to trade creatures. This card will win games by itself, just by going aggro and beating down. The lack of colored mana produced can be painful sometimes, but with the correct management of resources, it can be overcome.
The single Island was originally a Plains so that Disenchant could be cast through a Blood Moon, which was an oft played card in the San Diego meta. It has since changed as Blood Moon is no longer a concern in today's meta.
By the way, believe me when I say that green, not white, is the most important color in this deck. Without it, you are reliant on winning with a 2/2 creature that costs 2 mana a turn to attack and can only remove creatures, etc. on a 1 for 1 basis.
"The SideBoard"
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage
3 Duress/Sacred Ground
The BEBs and Plagues are self explanatory, although lately I've had to rethink what I side out against Goblins, as I find myself hurting for the second Plague far too often.
Meddling is the best option against Solidarity as it can come in under Remand and is very difficult to deal with when you hold counters in hand.
Duress has been my default for the extra slot, but if you saw my board for the first day of D4D IV, I ran 3 Sacred Ground, to help fight Deadguy Ale, a bad matchup for any control deck. Duress is useful in a number of matchups, allowing the disruption count to go up against Threshold, and providing a way to punch through a Meddling Mage against Solidarity.
Matchup Analysis:
Goblins
Oddly, you have a better time game 1 than you do post-board, thanks in large part to Pernicious Deed. The strategy here is to mulligan until you have an answer to a turn 1 Lackey, then use stifle to keep Wasteland from messing with your mana. If you draw your own Wastelands, save them for Rishadan Ports, do not, I repeat DO NOT use them on errant Plateaus or Taigas unless you can cut them down to 1 or 2 lands total, as Goblins is perfectly capable of operating off of 3 lands. Crucible actually proves to be key in this matchup, as all of your Factories can trade to keep your life total from dipping too low and combines with Stifle to keep your lands alive in the face of Wasteland.
Sideboard:
-4 Standstill
-2 Pernicious Deed
-1 Counterspell
-1 Fact or Fiction
+4 Engineered Plague
+4 Blue Elemental Blast
This is the board plan that I have been using since Gencon; however, I have been rethinking this strategy, after having had numerous matches either go to time, or been much more difficult than I expected. I have considered alternate board options to E. Plague, such as Sphere of Law and Tsabo's Decree, and would like to find a way to get around Goblins' board plan of 3-4xDisenchant and 3-4xREB. Decree gets around both of those cards, yet its high mana cost make it difficult to rely on, lest we be dead before it can be cast. If the E. Plague board strategy is to be kept, I feel that I would like to try leaving Standstill in over Fact. Further testing will of course be required, but I still feel that it will be a viable draw engine after boarding. An alternative sideboard might look like this:
-3 Fact or Fiction
-1 Counterspell
-1 Standstill
-3 Pernicious Deed
+4 Engineered Plague
+4 BEB
The main difficulty is the deck has trouble putting the game away against Pithing Needle. I like the idea of Tsabo's Decree as that would negate most of the peskiness of AEther Vial, as with no hand or board, a Goblins player is much less scary. The main key to the game post-board should be obvious: get Plague in play and protect it. Be wary of a lone card that seems to remain in their hand for a long time; if its not a Siege-Gang, its probably an REB. Once your manabase if fairly secure (Crucible in play or multiples of each color), Stifle can be used to keep Ringleaders and Matrons from resolving. I would try to save them early in the game if possible, using FOWs or Counters to stop Matron, etc., but if the need should arise, it can be a great way to prevent them from getting too far ahead of your removal ability. (Remember, you only have 2 Deeds now, so use them wisely!)
Threshold/Gro
This matchup is probably the easiest you will have all day. With no way to gain real card advantage, Threshold relies upon gaining tempo through cheap creatures with big power and cheap denial spells. One of the more important parts to this matchup is to play around Daze as often as possible. Your strategy from that point should be to use Deed to clear the board after they've spent their hand getting creatures into play or keeping them in play. Provided they are not running Stifle, this should be a cake walk. Also, should a Mongoose get into play on turn 1, go ahead and play Standstill over the top of it. Not only do you run enough ways to kill it without breaking Standstill but this play will buy you time to develop your manabase to sufficiently combat Daze and the like. In testing, I broke my own Standstill twice in this very situation and won the game with little difficulty.
Sideboard:
This will only apply if you are running the Duress version.
-3 Stifle
+3 Duress
Post-board the match only gets worse for Thresh. The game plan doesn't change, you just get to play with 11 disruption spells to their 6 (Remember you're making Daze irrelevant). The only thing you worry about from their sideboard is Pithing Needle, which is why Disenchant stays in. Just keep in mind that they have no way of getting card advantage and you run multiple outlets for it. Additionally, you can let your life total go as low as 1 without worry(except against the red version), meaning you don't need to stop every attack, just keep them from taking advantage of the tempo and you should be alright.
Solidarity/High Tide (or whatever you want to call it)
Admittedly, this is a near impossible matchup game 1, which is why you should concede within 7-8 minutes of the round starting. This may sound crazy, but after VERY thorough playtesting for this matchup, it was decided that the best way to win this match is to concede game 1 to conserve time.
Your only real strategy for the first game should be to determine how competent your opponent is, and play the game very aggressively; Fact as soon as possible, play Standstill asap, force them to kill you through counters and hope they can't do it. You have Stifle main, so there is always the chance that they will play right into it, allowing you to win a game you shouldn't have. If that fails, don't worry - your sideboard plan will be nearly unbeatable in the next two games.
Sideboard:
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Diabolic Edict
-4 Pernicious Deed
-1 Disenchant
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Duress
+4 Blue Elemental Blast
Obviously, all of your removal is dead in this match, so out that goes. Meddling Mage is the perfect option against combo; it stops them from going off and provides a clock. Duress is fairly straightforward, allowing you to know if they plan on winning and allowing you an extra out to Brain Freeze, provided you can get them all. BEB comes in to provide a replacement for the extra removal that was taken out, as it can be Forced with.
The main thing to remember is that you are not necessarily the control deck after boarding. High Tide can bring in 4x Disrupt giving them 12 counters to your 11. Add that to the fact that there is no pressure for them to win quickly and you get a very difficult game. I have never lost after boarding though, so as long as you can win 2 games in 42 minutes or less, you should be ok. Just be timely in your play and aggressively mulligan for a Mage (6 cards with a Mage is better than 7 without one).
BW Aggro (Deadguy Ale)
This is your worst matchup. In one session we did 22 games of playtesting and BHWC Landstill did not win a single game. The only thing I can say is to keep their creatures off the board. Counters are not very good in this matchup, so try to use them to keep Deed and StP in your hand for their creatures.
Sideboard:
Only applicable if playing Sacred Ground.
-2 Disenchant
-1 Pernicious Deed
+3 Sacred Ground
This is still a very difficult match games 2 and 3. After testing this matchup alot before SCG D4D IV, we found the best card to board in was Sacred Ground, as their attack on your manabase is the hardest thing to deal with. Sacred Ground can also be brought in for matchups like Angel Stompy and Rifter, as they tend to sideboard in Armageddon. All in all, just hope there's not too much of this in your tourney, or else you might need to play one of the older versions of this deck (Teferi's Response and Misdirection are pretty good against Sinkhole, I hear).
In general I feel like the deck plays alot like the 4 Color Control deck from vintage about 2 years ago. Use removal to trade 1 for 1, and occasional board sweeper, draw alot of cards, win in 3 turns. As this deck is not really just one person's creation but rather the result of a collection of minds, I'm always interested in peoples' ideas to improve it.
So there it is; it took a while but I got around to it. This might be a little on the lengthy side, but I felt there were a lot of issues I wanted to cover and since it took so long I thought it best to address as much of the deck's points as possible. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I have, and hopefully we'll see each other in a top 8 soon!
Nick Trudeau
BHWC