[Deck] UW(x) Landstill [Archive] - Page 2

Meteora

07-20-2008, 03:06 PM

Just to report DIF: I went 5-1-1 using his current list in this thread, making 4th of 67 in Dülmen (Jan Sudmann was 2nd, playing the same list). I just had to replace Return to Dust with Dismantling Blow because I couldn't get any Return to Dust. I chose to play this deck and DIF's list because his good arguments in discussions regarding LS really persuated me to try out his list with some "strange" cardchoices, like no CoW etc.; I played against:

- Enchantress (2:0), G1 I can slow him by countering all his enchantres-effects und then I won with Eternal Dragon. Plays like: Humility is in play and he plays Argothian Enchantress and THEN Oblivion Ring targeting Humility made my day (resp StP obv). G2 I resolved Runed Halo on Words of War and Meddling Mage chanting Sacred Mesa and he conceded.

- 3c Rock (2:0), I got control fairly easy in both games due to CA from Standstill or wrathing multiple creatures etc. This game was the easiest today, it was just like having the superior deck.

- Affinity (2:1), G1 he was too fast for me, he had two Cranial Platings and I could just handle one. In G2 I drew everything you wish for as a LS player and G3 was very tight. It was very long because he was in topdeck mode and I used recurring EE to handle his threats until he played Myr Enforcer which I wasn't able to destroy with EE so I had to topdeck a StP or something similar and I did so, Wrath. He then begun to draw lands and I could stabilize on 1 life.

- Survival (2:1): Was against a friend (Windux) and we made some jokes etc. so I can't remember much except for my bad plays :P I lost G1 because he resolved SotF and could search for Squee, Genesis, Eternal Witness, won G2 because I drew 3/4 Meddling Mages and won G3 because he didn't find anything in SDT.

- Ichorid (1:1), although G1 took quiet long, in the end I wasn't able to defend myself against all the tokens and Ichorids. G2 he conceded because he had just 3 cards left in his library and wasn't able to win against me anymore, because Humility was in play und his Ichorids got extirpated, the same for BfB. 10 min. left for G3 I sideboarded out all win conditions and just played for a draw because I was sure that I couldn't win within 8 min anymore and wanted to protect against a quick start from him.

- Mirror (0:2) against Jan Sudmann who went 2nd at the end, with UWb LS too. :)
Well, control mirror, not very exciting to write about it. He won because he had the later DoJ and more tokens therefore.

- 5c Zoo (2:1). G1 I lost because he was too fast for me, G2 I was a bit lucky, because I drew the StP for his Bob twice after he played him and could win due to recurring EE. In G3 he had a more slower start, I had to deal with Vexing Shushers, which were not the big problem. As he was in topdeckmode I could wish for Pulse of the Fields and stabilize and won with a EOT Decree for 7 tokens after he burned himself down to 7 in order to get rid of pulse. :)

I'm very satisfied with the deck and can just recommend the list to everyone who doesn't know what list to play. The missing of CoW seems bad, but actually I never missed it and 3 DoJs were also great. Thanks at DIF for his great work and effort he's putting into the development of LS!

TeKo

07-20-2008, 04:10 PM

I went 5-2 making 12th (damn O-Score) today in Dülmen with my UWb "RichterStill" list:

Land (24)
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Island
3 Plains
1 Wasteland
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory

Creatures (1)
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Jace Beleren

Spells (35)
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshare
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Cunning Wish
2 Humility
2 Decree of Justice
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Oblivion Stone
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Fact or Fiction

Sideboard (15)
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Return to Dust
1 Hydroblast

1 Story Circle (not that good, but won me a game against D Stompy)
3 Extirpate
2 Runed Halo (really strong card) saved my ass against a Crusher and some other Stuff
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon (never boarded them)
2 Declaration of Naught (never boarded them)

Won against:
Rock
Loam
Dragon Stompy
Painter-Control ?
Bye^^

Lost against:
Affinity
LS

Declaration really sux ;)
So Ill play 3-4 M Mage and 1 Tormod_s Crypt maybe 1 Gaea's Blessing, but Painter Shit shouldn't be a problem.

FlavaSava

07-20-2008, 05:05 PM

Hi,
i went 4-2-1 in Dülmen.
I played "my" list with 1 Crucible and 1 Wastelandand 2 Dragons, i was 17th because of my bad os(lose first, lots of my opp. drops)
1. Stiflenaught 0-1 doesnt know
2.UB Control 1-1 lose the first becaus of jace and liliana, the second DoJ take the win 3rd was draw
3.doenst know aggro loam(?) 0-2 1st i forgot to put them Enlightened Tutor back into Sb. 2nd I went cardout because of his LotL recurres Cephalid C and his Haunting Echoes
4.Stiflenaught/PainterStone 2-0 I doesnt do any thing and all relevant was countered by me
5.Mono White Stax 2-0 both games he was scewed, in the second Meddling Mage chants Armageddon was take the win
6.MUC 2-0 He did nothing, i did nothing searches me lots of lands with Crucible and Eternal dragon
7.Aggro Loam 1-0 Crucible takes the win, i could recur after every wasteland and/or(later extirpated) Devastings-move because of Academy Ruins+CoW

gets 2 Price Booster (in one was a reflecting pool). I like the Deck more and more. Btw. i never tutors a Artifact by a Enlightened Tutor i always use wish for a Extirpate or 1 time slaughter pact

NQN

07-20-2008, 05:51 PM

I(Jan Sudmann) went 6-1 in Dülmen today. I played against:
HanniFish 2-0 Humility>Fish

Belcher 2-0 EE>Token

Dragonstompy 2-1 Humility>DS although I played bad

Belcher 2-0 Some Mages, some EE and Extirpate for his Belcher

3c Show&Tell+TideSpout Tyrant Selfbuild 2-1 If I can handle his Tyrant it´s easy. Nice deck tough allthough he would have lost against Humility which I didn´t get

Mirror(Meteora) As he wrote

Ichorid 1-2 Won the 2nd because of 1 Extirpate and lost the third because of 3 Bfb and 2 Narcos+some therapys against my Halo on Ichorid.

The Deck was as good as always and I was as bad as always. Still a quite funny tournament with a nice roadtrip ;)

Hanni

07-20-2008, 07:56 PM

U/W/b Landstill

Lands (24)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Faerie Conclave

Spells (36)
1 Decree of Justice
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
2 Humility
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
4 Counterbalance
4 Extirpate
3 Vindicate
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle

I haven't really read much of the thread but I don't understand why lists are only running 1 Crucible of Worlds. I would think that a card that builds your mana up would be a good thing for a control deck. It also recurs your manlands against Wasteland. I don't understand the point in running less than 3 Wasteland, especially with only 1 Crucible. However, I believe that a black splash is stronger than running Wasteland.

Top maindeck is a pretty good card since it can get played before Standstill and be used during a Standstill. Overall it's just a strong card quality engine anyway. It also opens you up to Counterbalance in the board against certain matchups like combo and burn.

Thoughtseize is a very strong compliment to countermagic strategies. The ability to know the opponent's hand, especially under a Standstill, is very strong. The knowledge of knowing what your opponent is playing is invaluable. Lifeloss is largely negated since Thoughtseize is 1cc spot removal anyway. It improves almost all of your matchups.

Extirpate is a strong sideboard card. It handles alot of problematic matchups. It can be used against other control decks, decks that rely around several cards, and decks that rely on graveyard strategies. 1cc uncounterable answers to those is extremely strong.

Vindicate blows up whatever you need to blow up. As a control decks, 3cc spot removal isn't bad when you can destroy a problematic permanent. It's not really necessary maindeck but it is very strong out of the sideboard.

I'm not sure whether or not I'd like to fit in FoF but I'm not sure that it's even necessary with everything else. The 2/4/3/4/3 [now 1/4/4/3/3] draw package seems strong enough to me already and I believe that Top is stronger in the deck than FoF, especially with Crucible/fetchlands. It also enables Counterbalance postboard.

EDITED the Decklist to up the blue count.

Citrus-God

07-20-2008, 09:28 PM

[Decklist]

Consider adding in more Blue cards for Force of Will. 15 is a tad bit too dangerous because there may be occasions where you're on the play and you're being comboed out.

I haven't really read much of the thread but I don't understand why lists are only running 1 Crucible of Worlds. I would think that a card that builds your mana up would be a good thing for a control deck. It also recurs your manlands against Wasteland.

But it does nothing against decks like Vial Goblins. Against Landstill, even if you have Crucible in play, you're only using it to increase your land count, not limit your opponent's option. Against Ichorid and Dragon Stompy, you're just wasting your time.

I don't understand the point in running less than 3 Wasteland, especially with only 1 Crucible. However, I believe that a black splash is stronger than running Wasteland.

You have CoW which can be fetched by Cunning Wish -> Enlighten Tutor. Wasteland can be fetched by Tolaria West.

Thoughtseize is a very strong compliment to countermagic strategies. The ability to know the opponent's hand, especially under a Standstill, is very strong. The knowledge of knowing what your opponent is playing is invaluable. Lifeloss is largely negated since Thoughtseize is 1cc spot removal anyway. It improves almost all of your matchups.

What if the opponent plays his own Top? Your Thoughtseize has just become weaker. What if your opponent topdecks a Goyf because he casted a Ponder the previous turn? What if you want to punch a certain card through? Thoughtseize is less likely to be better than Counterspell in that described situation.

Vindicate blows up whatever you need to blow up. As a control decks, 3cc spot removal isn't bad when you can destroy a problematic permanent. It's not really necessary maindeck but it is very strong out of the sideboard.

But you already have Engineered Explosives...

Hanni

07-20-2008, 09:44 PM

Yea, I'm really high and didn't even realize that, thanks.

That means I have to drop Top then and that sucks. Well...

-3 Top
-1 Decree
+2 Ponder
+2 Fact or Fiction

Guess that means the sideboard needs -4 Counterbalance +4 Blue Elemental Blast.

19 is close enough, though I normally prefer around 22. There's nothing else I'd really rather remove... maybe the Conclave for the 3rd Ponder but I don't know about that.

But it does nothing against decks like Vial Goblins. Against Landstill, even if you have Crucible in play, you're only using it to increase your land count, not limit your opponent's option. Against Ichorid and Dragon Stompy, you're just wasting your time.

What? I thought Vial Goblins ran Wastelands and Ports? Why would a mana production card be bad against a deck that uses mana denial? That makes absolutely no sense and Crucible recurs a Factory after Warren Weirding. Last time I checked, recurring 3/3's on defense is pretty good against Goblins.

I don't understand how Ichorid or Dragon Stompy make it so that the deck doesn't want to have land drops every turn. Your still a control deck, you still want land drops. Recurability (aggro-wise) isn't necessary vs everything but consistent land drops are.

You're arguments aren't making much sense to me.

Are those decks you listed even huge metagame threats anyway? I realize they are both strong decks but unless you're in a dominant Ichorid/DS metagame, I'm not sure what the problem is. Extirpate postboard hoses Ichorid and Thoughtseize answers DS.

You have CoW which can be fetched by Cunning Wish -> Enlighten Tutor. Wasteland can be fetched by Tolaria West.

3 + 1 + 3 for Crucible via Cunning Wish does not do it for me. The wishboard is extremely slow with a trade in lack of power for versatility. I can respect the wishboard in something like Tog where it quickens the goldfish via Berserk but I'm not a fan of Cunning Wish Landstill. Not only that, why run only 2 Cunning Wish if you're even gonna run Cunning Wish at all. If you're bastardizing your sideboard, it better be worth it. I'd never run less than 3 Cunning Wishes. The biggest strength of it I see is grabbing SB Extirpates and possibly Stifle, where it's not even worth paying 2UB for Stifle or Extirpate. Access to Krosan Grip is the only thing I can think of making Cunning Wish better and this deck isn't even green. If you want more Decree's, run more Decree's.

Wasteland being fetched by Tolaria West means you run 2 Wastelands and one of them costs you 1UU. That's not good to me at all. Either you commit to Wasteland with at least 3 or you don't run it all. Maybe 3 Wasteland +3 Stifle and I'd agree with Wasteland, but I'd never run [2] Wasteland and 1 Crucible.

What if the opponent plays his own Top? Your Thoughtseize has just become weaker. What if your opponent topdecks a Goyf because he casted a Ponder the previous turn? What if you want to punch a certain card through? Thoughtseize is less likely to be better than Counterspell in that described situation.

Right, and I'm still running 3 Counterspells. There are situations where Thoughtseize is infinitely better than Counterspell. I'm not even gonna list those situations because it's irrelevant. Both cards are useful at different stages of the game. What Thoughtseize does is worth the 4 spaces for it.

But you already have Engineered Explosives...

Engineere Explosives doesn't answer everything and I sill have 2 more EE in the board. The deck has stack control cards and permanent removal in the board. What would be better than Vindicate? That you actually need?

Citrus-God

07-20-2008, 10:35 PM

Yea, I'm really high and didn't even realize that, thanks.

That means I have to drop Top then and that sucks. Well...

-3 Top
-1 Decree
+2 Ponder
+2 Fact or Fiction

I never said Top was bad. I tested Top quite a bit in Landstill. It actually helps with the card quality in the deck.

19 is close enough, though I normally prefer around 22. There's nothing else I'd really rather remove... maybe the Conclave for the 3rd Ponder but I don't know about that.

Cut Conclave for Tolaria West. Heck, even Outpost is better than Conclave.

What? I thought Vial Goblins ran Wastelands and Ports? Why would a mana production card be bad against a deck that uses mana denial? That makes absolutely no sense and Crucible recurs a Factory after Warren Weirding. Last time I checked, recurring 3/3's on defense is pretty good against Goblins.

Yes, but if you run a decent mana base, Port and Wastelands shouldnt even hurt you. Remember that all decks in this format were designed with mana denial in mind. Right now, Landstill has 15 White sources and 16 Blue sources.

I don't understand how Ichorid or Dragon Stompy make it so that the deck doesn't want to have land drops every turn. Your still a control deck, you still want land drops. Recurability (aggro-wise) isn't necessary vs everything but consistent land drops are.

Yes, it's a control deck, but you want cards that do something in this match-up.

Are those decks you listed even huge metagame threats anyway?

Yes, they are huge metagame threats. Dragon Stompy is losing in popularity, but Ichorid on the other hand is becoming more of a force. The addition of Unmask has made it even more dangerous post-board.

Extirpate postboard hoses Ichorid and Thoughtseize answers DS.

Extirpate doesnt hose Ichorid because they might Unmask/Therapy it out of your hand. Thoughtseize only works 50% of the time in this case if you're on the play. If Dragon Stompy is on the play, then they'll drop Chalice, 3Sphere, or a Moon effect.

3 + 1 + 3 for Crucible via Cunning Wish does not do it for me. The wishboard is extremely slow with a trade in lack of power for versatility.

But the point of Landstill is to stall until you reach late game. From there, you use your superior manipulation skills to gain control of the game. So now you might ask me why it would matter because you should already be winning once you reach late game? The answer is simple, you already do a fine job surviving the early game. The format has gotten better at fighting mid-late game. It should be your job to gain control of the game and end it. Cunning Wish is good at this role because it has the potential to end the game or keep you from losing. Cunning Wish for E-Tutor for Humility can easily end the game. Sure, you made an investment of 8 mana, but you're dropping the Humility on Turn 5. Great, you won the game. Need life? Go for Pulse of the Fields. If your opponent is going to mana burn himself just to keep you from using Pulse, then DoJ and kill him.

I can respect the wishboard in something like Tog where it quickens the goldfish via Berserk but I'm not a fan of Cunning Wish Landstill.

Even Wishing for Berserk is slow. Why are you claiming that it's good in Tog then? To be honest, I cut Wishes from my Tog a long time ago because all it needed was the Loam Engine, Intuition, some Heavy Draw, 5 board sweepers, and like 14 counters.

Not only that, why run only 2 Cunning Wish if you're even gonna run Cunning Wish at all. If you're bastardizing your sideboard, it better be worth it.

So running cards that can be played maindeck is bastardizing it? Seriously, fetching cards like ETutor which you side in like crazy, Pulse which you also side in like crazy, Return to Dust which you can side in every once in awhile, Slaughter Pact which you side in occasionally, BEB/FoF which you side in frequently. Also, you run 3 Extirpates, which you also side in frequently.

I'd never run less than 3 Cunning Wishes. The biggest strength of it I see is grabbing SB Extirpates and possibly Stifle, where it's not even worth paying 2UB for Stifle or Extirpate.

I dont think many players care about Stifle. Extirpate, however, is amazing. Even for 2UB, it's a good price because now it can be pitched to FoW and still make card advantage somehow. It's also an instant, so blowing mana isnt that big of a deal.

Access to Krosan Grip is the only thing I can think of making Cunning Wish better and this deck isn't even green. If you want more Decree's, run more Decree's.

Done. It's had 3 Decrees for awhile. Also, if it wanted Green for SB Grips, you can cut a Delta and an Island for a Savannah and a Tropical Island.

Wasteland being fetched by Tolaria West means you run 2 Wastelands and one of them costs you 1UU. That's not good to me at all. Either you commit to Wasteland with at least 3 or you don't run it all. Maybe 3 Wasteland +3 Stifle and I'd agree with Wasteland, but I'd never run [2] Wasteland and 1 Crucible.

Here's the thing; I (and a plethora of others) have never like Wasting early. We usually use the singleton Wasteland to Waste Volrath's Stronghold... that's about it. We dont like mana denial. What we want the deck to do is survive and slowly take control of the game. Stifle/Wasteland is also quite speculative, so not sure if we want to run those cards.

As for Tolaria West, you can agree to disagree on this one. I usually dont care what others think of it. I run it because it grabs Academy Ruins, Factory, EE, and that random Wasteland. It's amazing because it doesnt need to grab Wasteland, it just adapts to the situation.

Right, and I'm still running 3 Counterspells. There are situations where Thoughtseize is infinitely better than Counterspell. I'm not even gonna list those situations because it's irrelevant. Both cards are useful at different stages of the game. What Thoughtseize does is worth the 4 spaces for it.

I just dont like the idea of fetching Black so early in the game. Usually, you fetch Tundra early in the game.

Engineere Explosives doesn't answer everything and I sill have 2 more EE in the board. The deck has stack control cards and permanent removal in the board. What would be better than Vindicate? That you actually need?

It answers most things better than Vindicate can. EE can at least remove Counterbalance. Vindicate, even with a CC of 3 might be countered when played against ITF.

dude 666

07-20-2008, 11:29 PM

19 is close enough, though I normally prefer around 22. There's nothing else I'd really rather remove... maybe the Conclave for the 3rd Ponder but I don't know about that.

What? I thought Vial Goblins ran Wastelands and Ports? Why would a mana production card be bad against a deck that uses mana denial? That makes absolutely no sense and Crucible recurs a Factory after Warren Weirding. Last time I checked, recurring 3/3's on defense is pretty good against Goblins.

I don't understand how Ichorid or Dragon Stompy make it so that the deck doesn't want to have land drops every turn. Your still a control deck, you still want land drops. Recurability (aggro-wise) isn't necessary vs everything but consistent land drops are.

You're arguments aren't making much sense to me.

Are those decks you listed even huge metagame threats anyway? I realize they are both strong decks but unless you're in a dominant Ichorid/DS metagame, I'm not sure what the problem is. Extirpate postboard hoses Ichorid and Thoughtseize answers DS.

3 + 1 + 3 for Crucible via Cunning Wish does not do it for me. The wishboard is extremely slow with a trade in lack of power for versatility. I can respect the wishboard in something like Tog where it quickens the goldfish via Berserk but I'm not a fan of Cunning Wish Landstill. Not only that, why run only 2 Cunning Wish if you're even gonna run Cunning Wish at all. If you're bastardizing your sideboard, it better be worth it. I'd never run less than 3 Cunning Wishes. The biggest strength of it I see is grabbing SB Extirpates and possibly Stifle, where it's not even worth paying 2UB for Stifle or Extirpate. Access to Krosan Grip is the only thing I can think of making Cunning Wish better and this deck isn't even green. If you want more Decree's, run more Decree's.

Wasteland being fetched by Tolaria West means you run 2 Wastelands and one of them costs you 1UU. That's not good to me at all. Either you commit to Wasteland with at least 3 or you don't run it all. Maybe 3 Wasteland +3 Stifle and I'd agree with Wasteland, but I'd never run [2] Wasteland and 1 Crucible.

Right, and I'm still running 3 Counterspells. There are situations where Thoughtseize is infinitely better than Counterspell. I'm not even gonna list those situations because it's irrelevant. Both cards are useful at different stages of the game. What Thoughtseize does is worth the 4 spaces for it.

Engineere Explosives doesn't answer everything and I sill have 2 more EE in the board. The deck has stack control cards and permanent removal in the board. What would be better than Vindicate? That you actually need?

To add on to what AntiAmerican said:

Why are you running ponder in Landstill? Early game you don't want to be looking for land drops, because believe it or not, cantrips do cost mana. That is mana you should be keeping open for counterspell and swords and what have you. The only reason brainstorm is included is...well yeah, you know already.

I'm not gonna really bash crucible too much, because I still run it as a 2 of, but the examples you listed aren't really the best. Crucible just rocks because it helps you get to the lategame by ensuring land drops, which really gives you the inevitability in the match, not to mention nasty shit like recurring wastelands, manlands, and destroyed lands.

Just as AntiAmerican said, Landstill doesn't try to gain tempo in the early game by using stifles and wastelands aggressively, wasteland is there to be tutored and to be recurred when necessary. Landstill is more about versatility, hence the wishboard and tolaria west. Versatility is important when trying to survive the early game, as well as locking the opponent out of the lategame. For example, if extirpate cost 2:u: :b: , no one would ever play it, but when you are playing against a loam deck game 1, you will be damn sure of paying 2:u: :b: for extirpate. The same thing goes for paying 8 mana for humility or 6 mana for krosan grip (or for a 1:u: :u: wasteland).

The thing about vindicate is that Landstill can't afford 1 or 1 trades (I know about swords to plowshares, but if you compare the two you are a fool), not to mention to whole sorcery-speed thing. Landstill tries to get favorable trades, like wrathing a few creatures away (deed works just as well here), or engineered explosives-ing whatever's on the board. Another awesome thing about engineered explosives is the possibily for recursion (also made twice as likely with a tolaria west in your deck).

Hanni

07-20-2008, 11:38 PM

Why are you running ponder in Landstill?

Well, I'd rather run Top but I needed blue sources for FoW. I'd still rather run 2 Ponder over 2 Cunning Wish. You say that Tolaria West and Cunning Wish are for the early game but I don't understand how that works when both of them cost 3cc and are only tutors (meaning the tutored spell still needs to be played). If you're grabbing E Tutor, you're essentially paying 4cc and relying on 2 tutors to get the card you want plus now it's actually card disadvantage. 8cc for Humility plus the card disadvatage doesn't sound that attractive. I'd rather run Intuition + engine cards for all that. Even Survival doesn't run E Tutor in most accepted builds and Survival is more important there than Humility or EE in here. I might run E Tutor if I ran Counterbalance MD, which I don't. Cunning Wish is versatile but I'm not a fan. I think it is highly lacking for the cost and effect. Maybe I'm just biased because of the power level difference between it and Intuition, I dunno.

Maybe Ponder isn't the correct card choice. I'm not going to add Cunning Wish in it's place, though. I'd probably just up the FoF count to 3 and maybe add a Counterspell or something so I'm still maintaining the blue count. Whether or not I like or dislike it is going to be dependant on trying it first.

Citrus-God

07-21-2008, 12:07 AM

Well, I'd rather run Top but I needed blue sources for FoW. I'd still rather run 2 Ponder over 2 Cunning Wish. You say that Tolaria West and Cunning Wish are for the early game but I don't understand how that works when both of them cost 3cc and are only tutors (meaning the tutored spell still needs to be played).[quote]

The cards you use for early game are Force of Will, Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares, and Standstill. Cunning Wish is for midgame.

[QUOTE]If you're grabbing E Tutor, you're essentially paying 4cc and relying on 2 tutors to get the card you want plus now it's actually card disadvantage. 8cc for Humility plus the card disadvatage doesn't sound that attractive.

Okay, paying 7 mana to draw 7 cards of Intuition/AK isnt attractive. Paying 6 mana for Wildfire isnt attractive. Paying 10 mana for 7 soldier tokens isnt attractive.

I'd rather run Intuition + engine cards for all that.

Keep in mind it requires more effort to set-up your Intuition engine and more vigilance to keep your engine going compared to dropping a tutored for Humility.

Even Survival doesn't run E Tutor in most accepted builds and Survival is more important there than Humility or EE in here. I might run E Tutor if I ran Counterbalance MD, which I don't.

Wrong; Survival doesnt run ETutor because of the printing of Pithing Needle; it also doesnt run Survival because the newer builds function are designed to function without Survival. If Needle hadn't exist, a deck like ATS would very well right now.

Cunning Wish is versatile but I'm not a fan. I think it is highly lacking for the cost and effect. Maybe I'm just biased because of the power level difference between it and Intuition, I dunno.

I dont care if you think Cunning Wish sucks, because to be honest, I care more about practice than theory. Theory is only there to reinforce and compare results during practice. If you feel that Cunning Wish is weak, then don't run it. The pioneer of the deck dropped Cunning Wish in favor of Krosan Grips a long time ago. I'm still running it because I value versatility over raw power.

Maybe Ponder isn't the correct card choice. I'm not going to add Cunning Wish in it's place, though. I'd probably just up the FoF count to 3 and maybe add a Counterspell or something so I'm still maintaining the blue count. Whether or not I like or dislike it is going to be dependant on trying it first.

There's the option of Mana Leak and additional FoFs.

Hanni

07-21-2008, 12:27 AM

I wasn't referring to Intuition/AK because AK is horrible. Intuition + Loam is alot stronger, IMO, than Cunning Wish + E Tutor. It's also stronger than Tolaria West. I don't see how requiring more effort matters... if you're going to pay 8 mana, you might as well get a recursion engine out of it that is difficult to answer. Though I wasn't suggesting Intuition for this deck because this isn't the deck for it.

Wrong; Survival doesnt run ETutor because of the printing of Pithing Needle; it also doesnt run Survival because the newer builds function are designed to function without Survival. If Needle hadn't exist, a deck like ATS would very well right now.

This deck is designed to function without Humility/Crucible. Not sure what you're getting at here aside from the Needle argument which doesn't make much sense since I think Krosan Grip is a bigger factor and affects both equally.

I dont care if you think Cunning Wish sucks, because to be honest, I care more about practice than theory. Theory is only there to reinforce and compare results during practice. If you feel that Cunning Wish is weak, then don't run it. The pioneer of the deck dropped Cunning Wish in favor of Krosan Grips a long time ago. I'm still running it because I value versatility over raw power.

I never said it sucks, I said I don't like it in here. And I'm doing exactly that, I'm not running it. So I don't understand why the idea is being labled as incorrect.

I think running Mana Leak is inferior to the 4th Counterspell. This deck has more than enough ability to access the UU needed for Counterspell rather than run a worse card. Additional FoF's sounds good though.

raharu

07-21-2008, 12:38 AM

Citrus-God

07-21-2008, 12:48 AM

I wasn't referring to Intuition/AK because AK is horrible. Intuition + Loam is alot stronger, IMO, than Cunning Wish + E Tutor.

Those were examples. Also, the Loam engine is extremely mana hungry. You're paying 3 for Intuition, 2 for Loam, 1-3 + potential land drop for like 3 cards per turn, assuming you dont want to start dredging away your deck.

Humility can potentially end the game, but if it gets removed, it's not the end of the world. Like if you Intuitioned for Land, Land, Loam, you cast Loam, they counter, eot cast Cunning Wish for Extirpate targeting Loam. Compare that to a Countered Humility; it's not he end of the world for you. Your deck functions without Humility because it was originally built with 4 WoGs and can still function of 3 WoGs. You have card draw, not an engine. Your deck isnt centered around a certain card. You're good.

It's also stronger than Tolaria West. I don't see how requiring more effort matters... if you're going to pay 8 mana, you might as well get a recursion engine out of it that is difficult to answer.

Because being Graveyard reliant sucks? I know that's why Landstill hates having to run things like Enchantments, Creatures, or Artifacts maindeck; because it opens up with your opponent being able to use their removal. Sure, we have Humility; but post-board, they'll have to board in worthless cards like Krosan Grip against you. All to what? Remove a Humility? Great stuff Landstill does.

This deck is designed to function without Humility/Crucible. Not sure what you're getting at here aside from the Needle argument which doesn't make much sense since I think Krosan Grip is a bigger factor and affects both equally.

You just said it; this deck is designed to function without Crucible or Humility. It's just that Humility is a threat; it stalls long enough for you to win. The point is that Humility is sort of like a Tempo card, as is Standstill; you're trying to slow the game down and move into late game where you're favored to win. Also, using this maneuver can help you actually beat decks like Vial Goblins. You can be it with just that standard configuration alone, but then you have to set up and counter Ringleader then Extirpate them, and even then, you have to risk saving counters while being bashed in the face by a Fanatic and a Matron in order to save a counter for SGC.

I never said it sucks, I said I don't like it in here. And I'm doing exactly that, I'm not running it. So I don't understand why the idea is being labled as incorrect.

Well said. But some people can say [insert subject here] sucks by just typing in an argument.

Serbitar

07-22-2008, 06:33 AM

Can we maybe get some reasoning from the guy who played 'RichterStill' (Enlightened Tutor and Oblivion Stone over Wrath and Fact/Decree)? I know this has already been discussed, but since it still is played (and with apparently not too bad results), I wondered if we could get some input from the player.

What is Oblivion Stone tech against? Dragon Stompy, Enchantress, Staxx? Why is it played over Nevinyrral's Disk (which would only hit your Humility and Crucible)?

@Hanni's List: That list has 62 cards if I'm not miscounting (I counted cause I really didn't see how you fit Thoughtseize in). While I don't like 'Seize - requires to fetch B early, lifeloss, has to replace standard slots -, the idea to run MD Top with SB Counterbalance against Burn/Combo/Thresh(?) deserves to be considered in my opinion.
But what to cut from an already tight MD? If you start from a DIF-like list you could start by cutting the 3rd Decree (Top helps you find winconditions), but from there it gets hard... maybe you would have to cut the Wishes to be able to fit Counterbalance in your board, but I wouldn't want to do that. Improving good (Thresh) and not really prevalent (Burn, Storm) matchups instead of bad ones (Loam, Ichorid) ... guess that would be a metachoice, dependant on how big combo/burn is. And, when it concerns Combo, whether the Meddling Mages you cut for CB are just as good. So maybe test a list for said metas like:

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Plains
3 Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
4 Mishra's Factory

1 Eternal Dragon
2 Decree of Justice
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
2 Fact or Fiction
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Humility
3 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives

Board:
4 Counterbalance
4 Extirpate
4 Meddling Mage (?)
3 Blue Elemental Blast (?)

TeKo

07-22-2008, 07:11 AM

Can we maybe get some reasoning from the guy who played 'RichterStill' (Enlightened Tutor and Oblivion Stone over Wrath and Fact/Decree)? I know this has already been discussed, but since it still is played (and with apparently not too bad results), I wondered if we could get some input from the player.

What is Oblivion Stone tech against? Dragon Stompy, Enchantress, Staxx? Why is it played over Nevinyrral's Disk (which would only hit your Humility and Crucible)?

Normally I play Clemens Build, but I wanted to test the Tutor List.
MD Tutor (most of the time) as Humility 3/4, but if you draw one with a Humility in play search Crucible, Standstill, O-Stone or EE.
O-Stone+Ruins (same with Disk, but slower in the late game)
O-Stone+Humility (not better then Wrath, but better then Disk)

O-Stone won me g3 against DS, he had about 3 Crtitters, Chalice@1 and 2, Blood Moon and Magus. I had a Story Circle in play with 3 W Sources.
I Topdecked O-Stone and won the Game for 8 with Factory in play.

Post Board you have 3 MD Tutors for GY Hate and Halo.

In the matches I lost Wrath, Stone or Disk wouldn't make any real difference, Landstill: normally O-Stone and Tutors should be better then Warths, but in Turn 4 or 5 my hand was "StP,StP,StP, Standstill, Standstill, Standstill" and draw no single Factory g1 against Crucible Waste with multiple Factories, g2 Halo@Factory but I scoop because I cant finish him in 5-10 Turns.

Affinity: O-Stone is a Turn Slower but kicks Vials, Drums and Winter-Orb (that card really sux). For the Germany Legacy Championship Ill play "Energy Flux" SB, because I expect some Affinity Decks (Extended Decks).

The Loam g1 I won by Turn 2 letting B-Wish resolve on Loam, T3 Wish on Extirpate and then Counter Wishes and Dreams + Humilty. Post Board Humility+Halo on Crusher

I expected more Stompy and Enchantress.

I think I played the FoF 2 times and boarded them out against most of the Decks, same for Jace.

Pelikanudo

07-22-2008, 12:30 PM

Hello my friends , the other day I played a torunaments by here in Spain , the first game I faced to a landstill 4 colured piloted by DukeLio a great player of landstill and then I noticed 2 main points:
1) loam is superior to crucible not only by its recurrency, as well , a single played life from the loam provides us 3 extra cards and makes their brainstorm authentic Ancestral recall
2) pernicius on its own handles 1. Mishras 2.Standstill 3.Decree while our wrth are quite useless.

this 2 issues makes this mirror match up slithgly inferior even my opponent had more extirpate than me in its sideboard.

Because, there are lots of ladstill by here in my meta I'd like to develop a Landstill that is strong in a Mirrors.Landstill infested meta.

The conclusion on how this archetype must be developed is that must go on the Zui Moshowsitz thread , I mean with E.Tutor, Counterbalance, Moat,seseis...
With this archetype we can face easily whatever kind of landstill , because the C.B-senseis engine is the best stuff to face any kind of control-combo. All agree?

I propose this archetype:

1 Eternal dragon
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterbalance // we want this card as soon as possible ,if we have too
//many for Fows cost

1 Oblion Stone // I needed more 3 cost cards and I found it ,this card is tricky
//and its plenty of utility we 'll get rid of annoying stuff leaving our
//counterbalance and moat in play, what do we want else?

1 Scroll rack // i find this card a must as 2cc in a build with c.b its like a
//permanent brainstorm making the c.b targets much more versatile

1 Pithin needle // for decrees, and mainly E.E
1 Humility // stops creatures in a way
1 Moat // stops creatures in the other way
3 Standstill
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives // in here i'm not sure if to take out 1 more...
2 Sensei's Divining Top // 2 enough + brainstorm+ E.Tutor + rack

23 lands
1 Academy Ruins
2 Faerie Conclave
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
3 Wasteland

60 cards

Sideboard:
4 Meddling Mage
2 Stifle
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Pithin nedle
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 chill
1 Energy flux
1 Arcane laboratoire
1 seal of cleansing
1 mindslaver

other options are:
1 Aura of silence
2 decree of justice
x spellsnares
x Blue elemental blastNevinirral disk

Well I need advice, suggestions about this archetype
Some points: You notice that this build dont run Drcre, simple, because playing decree we will have to taapout out and this is somethig we eill Ever NEVER do, this issue makes the decree quite a lot expensive to cast, we simply will kill with mishras and F.Concleve.

3duece

07-22-2008, 01:52 PM

Ironstickman

07-22-2008, 02:25 PM

Yes, perhaps its time to look again at the tutor version.
What I have found from my experience with the deck:

Enlightened tutor is powerful meanwhile yo run counterbalance. It is not worth it otherwise. (since not only does it bring the situational bombs e.g moat, humility but it becomes a hard counter)

There are times where counterbalance is not a good card: Stompy decks generally

Once established the balance-top engine, the deck has difficulties dealing with the early threats. That forces you tu use WoG that might harm your counterbalance curve.

You cannot rely exclusively in moat/humility since now decks are prepared to deal with it. Moat prevents damage and it enables you to have more powerful wincons rather than decree (which is powerful in itsel but does'nt suit the deck, whereas Humility shuts important creature ability's (goblins) but actually they might overcome you

Implementing counterbalance in the mana base is quite hard (and I have been quite unsuccessful at it) From a start I would'nt play wasteland anymore and use factorys exclusively (not conclaves) to support standstill.

The wincon for this decks is completely undefined, E. Dragon decree hoofprints, e.angel? I think this is quite a weak point,since counterbalance is not always decisive in the long -time I suggest the quickest win-con e.g angel

I would play 3 runed halo sideboard and 1 mB. A seal of cleasing or a O.Ring aswell
I would'nt consider this deck a landstill deck really since standstill is not you priority.

With this archetype we can face easily whatever kind of landstill , because the C.B-senseis engine is the best stuff to face any kind of control-combo. All agree?

I am not really sure this is true though, if your wincons are slow as they are, they'll actually overcome it.
At this point I think it is agreed that the Cunning UWb list is the most powerful, but i'll be glad to work in this list if you can give any new ideas to it.

P.D. Scroll rack is interesting but you already have brainstorm to do this unexpected.

Mister Agent

07-22-2008, 07:25 PM

There are a few reasons why I don't like the inclusion of ponder in landstill.

1. You are a control deck not a aggro control deck. On average ponder does not dig deep enough to actually find a utility card you need to gain a dominate position on your opponent.

2. You also don't have that efficient clock that threshold has either so casting a ponder will be inefficient compared to something like FoF or standstill.

3. Ponder isn't a land even though it can usually find one but making a land drop is not the samething. Constant land drops are of vital importance for landstill.

4. Consistent library manipulation can be good in landstill but it isn't as needed since brainstorm is good enough for that role. You also have shuffling/deck thinning effects in the form of E. dragon and fetchlands which becomes more vital when resolving a FoF or a standstill. Constant deck manipulation is less utility useful in that case.

5. As the later stages of a match unfolds your more then likely rather have a back breaking draw spell then a cantrip.

6. Cunning wish adds significantly more uncharted avenues to landstill then ponder can even hope. Since wish brings flexiblity and has multitude of roles while ponder is one dimensional.

thefreakaccident

07-22-2008, 09:24 PM

I absolutely agree with what Mister Agent has to say here...

I do not think ponder deserves to be in this deck, as you do not need or want cantrips, you want mass draw/CA to maintain control of the game... ponder is a good card, but it is not good here.

Citrus-God

07-23-2008, 03:23 AM

1. You are a control deck not a aggro control deck. On average ponder does not dig deep enough to actually find a utility card you need to gain a dominate position on your opponent.

I disagree. If a Fact or Fiction can dig through 5 cards to find what you're looking for, then Ponder can dig through 4 cards to find what you're looking for. So Ponder does dig for dominant position over the opponent; whether it may be digging for your DoJ, WoG, or Fact or Fiction.

2. You also don't have that efficient clock that threshold has either so casting a ponder will be inefficient compared to something like FoF or standstill.

I don't think the fact that Landstill doesnt have a clock makes Ponder bad; I think it's because it isnt card avantage, it's sorcery speed, and it's only card advantage when it can find you that particular card (WoG, FoF). This philosophy of BSS's use of Impulse (which is Ponder, but you know what I mean) is to use Impulse to find FoF against control, Powder Keg against aggro, and win conditions for your finisher.

3. Ponder isn't a land even though it can usually find one but making a land drop is not the samething. Constant land drops are of vital importance for landstill.

I think Ponder warrants testing because it can find lands. I for one think that Ponder would be awesome in a deck like Landstill after testing a deck that is reminiscent of Walamie's Operation Dumbo Drop.

4. Consistent library manipulation can be good in landstill but it isn't as needed since brainstorm is good enough for that role. You also have shuffling/deck thinning effects in the form of E. dragon and fetchlands which becomes more vital when resolving a FoF or a standstill. Constant deck manipulation is less utility useful in that case.

It finds lands, answers, and sets-up your next turn. I'm considering playing a set of Ponders in place of 2 FoFs and 2 other cards.

5. As the later stages of a match unfolds your more then likely rather have a back breaking draw spell then a cantrip.

You can play a Stroke of Genius/Haunting Hymn in the SB to be wished for. You use Ponder to set up your Stroke/Hymn so that it resolves.

6. Cunning wish adds significantly more uncharted avenues to landstill then ponder can even hope. Since wish brings flexiblity and has multitude of roles while ponder is one dimensional.

Wish is good for versatility. Ponder is good for efficiency and optimization.

Pelikanudo

07-23-2008, 07:22 AM

well , in first game we have absolutly all the puzzle to handle Standstill decks , thts my main goal:
1) we have c.b + senseis + S.R + Braintorm + Tutor to handle all their threats except E.Explosives
2) The main reason I run 1 single neelde is that this card handles our main trouble :E.E thats why I prefer not to play too many no more than 2 I think
3) in the second game for sure we'll face Krosan and extirpate and things like that , thats why in here Meddling mage is the best card we can fit in this archetype naming cards like the before one named and Extirpate
4) another point I AGREE with Zui is taht Moat is one of the best Secrets kept in legacy , because not only moat stops agro ,gobbos, etc ( nedle will be for the one taht tapping deals damage) stops as well decree tokens and if we are supposed we will play a nelde naming E.E , which we have in base too , we can't handle decree tokens unless we play moat.

Respect to the win conditions I really prefer to put in a win condition , not only the F.Conclave, that can be or Artifact or Enchantment , and it must have some kind of evasion. I propose :
bitterblossom :( well have to add 1 more color, it provides 1 flying creature each turn, one of the best option in my opinion)
masticore: not fan of this one, not flyes
Platinum angel : I like this , is artifact , flyes and we are inmortal unless it dies, and with a c.b in play we for sure won't die.
About scroll rack is a tutor option of 2 cc for c.b and as I said its like a permanent brainstorm.
Impresions?

Mister Agent

07-23-2008, 01:06 PM

I disagree. If a Fact or Fiction can dig through 5 cards to find what you're looking for, then Ponder can dig through 4 cards to find what you're looking for. So Ponder does dig for dominant position over the opponent; whether it may be digging for your DoJ, WoG, or Fact or Fiction. .

Ponder only filters cards while fact or fiction is a powerhouse in card drawing. Besides fact or fiction thins out the deck more considerably then ponder can ever do so then you will have a much better chance of finding what you need.

I don't think the fact that Landstill doesnt have a clock makes Ponder bad; I think it's because it isnt card avantage, it's sorcery speed, and it's only card advantage when it can find you that particular card (WoG, FoF). This philosophy of BSS's use of Impulse (which is Ponder, but you know what I mean) is to use Impulse to find FoF against control, Powder Keg against aggro, and win conditions for your finisher. .

Yeah that's what I essentially meant. Considering landstill is still viable because of its strong draw engine and ponder does not have any part in that.

thefreakaccident

07-23-2008, 08:12 PM

The main issue that ponder has with this deck, is that we usually want to be playing the reactive role early-midgame... which means taping lands on your own turn is bad... meaning, you will have to wait on your draw spell for a later turn (for fear of what the opp might do)... I think the draw spells should stay as they are, between FoF, brainstorm, and standstill...

I really do not see what the discussion is... ponder just isn't good enough for landstill, end of story.

Citrus-God

07-23-2008, 09:23 PM

Ponder only filters cards while fact or fiction is a powerhouse in card drawing. Besides fact or fiction thins out the deck more considerably then ponder can ever do so then you will have a much better chance of finding what you need.

Well... it's just that it kinda sucks to be unable to find the right answer without mulling into it. This is the reason why we run Brainstorm, but running Ponders in addition won't really be a bad idea.

Yeah that's what I essentially meant. Considering landstill is still viable because of its strong draw engine and ponder does not have any part in that.

It contributes to the amazing draw engine by finding you card draw. I'm sure that in T1 if BSS back then only functioned off 4 Impulse, 4 Fact or Fictions, and 1 Ancestral Recall, I'm sure Landstill can pull this off. What I'm trying to get at is that Ponder isn't bad in this deck; it's a speculation.

The main issue that ponder has with this deck, is that we usually want to be playing the reactive role early-midgame... which means taping lands on your own turn is bad... meaning, you will have to wait on your draw spell for a later turn (for fear of what the opp might do)... I think the draw spells should stay as they are, between FoF, brainstorm, and standstill...

I disagree. If you're on the play, Ponder can help find you FoW and Standstill to set-up your 2nd Turn against slower decks. To be honest, the only Turn you don't want to play this card is Turn 2. It can still aggressively be played Turn 1 because you can telegraph that you're playing Thresh, hence your opponent will more than likely skip his first turn and just make a land drop because of the fear of Daze. You got an easy 1st Turn which is lead up by a deceiving Standstill Turn 2. Turn 3, you can Tap one land out because you only ever need 2 lands open for Counterspell.

I really do not see what the discussion is... ponder just isn't good enough for landstill, end of story.

I know Ponder isn't that great in Landstill, but what I'm trying to defend here is that Ponder isn't that bad of a card in Landstill. The fact that we were so quick in shooting down such a speculatively powerful card makes me cringe.

Mister Agent

07-23-2008, 11:54 PM

Yeah I don't think there is anything wrong with running ponder in landstill at least for preliminary testing. I just don't think ponder is necassarily useful in landstill considering cantrips do nothing to opposing threats or creating other forms of beneficial CA in landstill.

Landstill has wide range of tools for the early game which can give little reason to include ponder. But even if the landstill player doesn't draw those early utility cards the deck is resilient enough to recover quite efficiently.

Citrus-God

07-24-2008, 12:41 AM

I just don't think ponder is necassarily useful in landstill considering cantrips do nothing to opposing threats or creating other forms of beneficial CA in landstill.

It does do something to opposing threats; it finds answers. Standstill doesn't do anything against opposing threats; it requires that you be in a dominant board position in order for Standstill to be played.

Landstill has wide range of tools for the early game which can give little reason to include ponder. But even if the landstill player doesn't draw those early utility cards the deck is resilient enough to recover quite efficiently.

What if you don't find those answers? Ponder at least does that, which allows you to move into midgame.

thefreakaccident

07-24-2008, 01:00 AM

What would you be cutting from the main decks to get the ponder into the list?

Utility spells? Power draw? Lands?

There isn't much to take out... without weakening the deck significantly in one way or another.

The lists are getting tighter and tighter nowadays... which is why I am so skeptical about trying to fit these additional cantrips into the deck.

Mister Agent

07-24-2008, 01:26 AM

Well like I said if you feel ponder should be tested in landstill then there isn't anything wrong with testing. If you feel that you think it's beneficial then run it. Either way though why fix something that isn't broken? Landstill is still capable of recovering against opposing odds with or without ponder.

Citrus-God

07-24-2008, 05:35 AM

What would you be cutting from the main decks to get the ponder into the list?

Utility spells? Power draw? Lands?

Exactly what this card is going to fill; utility slots. I'm saying Ponders are better than Stifles, if some people think Cunning Wish is clunky.

There isn't much to take out... without weakening the deck significantly in one way or another.

Of giving you more control over what your future draws will be.

The lists are getting tighter and tighter nowadays... which is why I am so skeptical about trying to fit these additional cantrips into the deck.

I doubt it. So many decklists have random slots that needed to be filled in. I just happen to think that Ponder might have a place there. I never really said run a playset of them.

Either way though why fix something that isn't broken? Landstill is still capable of recovering against opposing odds with or without ponder.

Because it needs to be explored?

Mister Agent

07-24-2008, 09:38 AM

Because it needs to be explored?

Well you certainly can test ponder in the other utility slots I never said I was against testing the cantrip.

One of the greatest aspects of landstill you can basically reshape the deck for your metagame. Landstill is a adaptable deck and the archetype continues to strive on innovation.

Pelikanudo

07-24-2008, 10:06 AM

@3Deuce and @IronStickman

Ive been thinkin that playing full set of Faeries instead mishras and lettin space for 4 wasteland+1 A.Ruins is the way to make a strong mana base because Factories are really clunkies is we really have a moat in play , for sure our opponent will have tons and tons of creaures in play , and what we need is evasion which F.Conclave provides, this land also produces blue in order to play c.b as soon as possible
the list will develop like this:
1 Eternal dragon
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell // in here I'm thinkin in cuttin 1 out instead 1 platinum Angel as supreme W.C
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterbalance

1 Oblion Stone
1 Scroll rack
1 Pithin needle
1 Humility
1 Moat
1 Oblion Ring // this is the slot of 1 less E.E

1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives // only 1, do not like because of nedle replaced by O.R
2 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Standstill // I'm not sure if 3 is the correct number mayb -1= +1 Jace .B

23 lands // Is 23 in this archetype enough ,I think so we run senseis and S.Rack
1 Academy Ruins
4 Faerie Conclave // four we want to draw them ALWAYS in our opening hand
4 Flooded Strand // 6 as minimum number of fetches
3 Island
1 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra // -1= +1 hallowed fountain? we wont be able to cast humil or moat if we are extirpate full set of Tundra...
4 Wasteland // to support mishras Factory we can really make an easy lock wasteland-crucible having access to 4 virtual crucible.

I really think Platinum Angel belongs to this archetype but I dont think what to take out, as well as a win cond the mindslaver, and now we'll have from 1 cost to 7 options to E.Tutor.

Ironstickman

07-24-2008, 12:59 PM

One thing we must decide first is wehter to play Humility OR Moat.
Humility has the advantage of shutting down many problematic abilities of creatures and works greatfully with factorys. However, it doesn't avoid 1/1 hordes and makes our win conditions substantially slower (decree).
Moat however, will prevent damage while it stays around and enables us to play better wincons: dragon, exalted angel> platinum angel (think it is not tutoreable but its a lot cheaper and it cant be dienchanted) and hoofprints (this last is NOT a decisive wincon). On the downside, it works awfully with factorys.
The only flaw I see in landstill as a deck is that it doesnt have a clock, this situation is even more critical in this deck since you must leave mana open for counterbalance while finishing of with a factory.
Another point is that this archetype is not particulary viable at the moment due to the numerous artifact-enchantment hate. However, as i said, it depends much on the metagame so I think its worth a try.
My decision about humility/moat?
Card availability is a matter when it comes to moat,
Humility is a bit better at the moment due to arrising decks like survival/painters
So this is a list I would play:

TOPSTILL (as the creator called it)

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Counterbalance
3 Standstill

4 Swords to the Plowshares
3 Enlightened tutor
2 Wrath of God
1 Humility
1 O.Ring
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered explosives
2 Decree of justice
1 Eternal dragon
1 Control Magic
2 Sensei' diving top

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's factory
1 Wasteland
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
4 Tundra
4 Island
2 Plains

Sideboard (Some players dillute it excesively, playing to many wish targets)

3 Hydroblast
2 Tormod' crypt
1 Cop Red
1 Cop Green
1 Seal of cleasing
4 Meddling Mage
3 Runed Halo

Obviously this is not defintive, there are other cards that might deserve inclusion (such as wheel of sun and moon). I have cut down needle since it will invalidate your own cards in the mirror, mage is a better card . PLease suggest any other cards you would include.
The deck needs some testing though (I won't be able to play this deck in the near-future however)

By the way, Factory>>>>>Conclave despite conclave giving blue. Think that factory is a 3 defence while conclave is 1.
If the mirror match-up is your concern, i think that the crucible is determinant. You'll have better access to it via tutor and it is recuerable via ruins (that can be fetched by tolaria west)
you'll be grateful of playing 6 basics when you test the deck:wink:
The Control Magc slot is personal preference but maybe I should put another 3cc blue enchantment such as propaganda or threads of disloyalty.
Oblivion stone is an interesting card (tutorable, good cc for balance), but perhaps it is too slow and it is not inmediate. WoG is always secure.

@Pelikanudo

I'll be happy to work and develop more thoroughly this archetype. It is quite risky to play a card like counterbalace however (at times it is quite inconsistent).:cry:
Any suggestion about the list? Perhaps if we decide upon a list we can start to look closer against other matchups. My testing time is quite limited though:cry:

Pelikanudo

07-24-2008, 02:37 PM

Ch@os

07-24-2008, 03:00 PM

Something like this: the one in the middle, second place (http://www.trader-online.de/turniere/Decks/2007-12-T15.html)

Ironstickman

07-24-2008, 03:43 PM

Well, the problem I see is that if you play both Moat and Humility all your wincons will be affected:
your decree and factory's will be a colorless land and a bad cantrip under moat, whereas your platinum angel or eternal dragon will be an overcosted 1/1. I do however, include dragon since it is a mana fixer and it is great when humility isnot around or gets destroyed.

On the other hand, there will be times where you'll have your adecquate wincon and the right enchantment... So i guess you might be able to play both in the same deck without conflict between them (as in the list Chaos gives). I'm not quite sure...

Why do you necessarily need your wincon to be tutoreable?, (crucible is by the way)

As for the list Chaos gives,
yes it is quite what we are looking forward to , though its sideboard is not convincing for me
note that it plays 3 wasteland, whereas I 1 waste + ruin + tolaria

torgar

07-24-2008, 04:38 PM

Just an observation. I've found that I like running x1 Nev. Disk in place of one Wrath of God since it allows you recurrable sweep with Academy Ruins.

That makes my creature control package

x2 Wrath of God
x1 N. Disk
x2 Humility
x3 EE
x4 StP

Funny enough, it helped me out versus an Elf deck. I've been playing this deck for a week now and haven't lost a full match.

My board is pretty standard for those running Wishes but I've been keeping one E. Plague in place of Pulse of the Fields since it's tutorable post-SB with Wish>E.Tutor. I haven't ever found a need for Pulse but I also haven't played against Burn. I still live in fear of Goblins.

Two general questions, how is the Goblin's MU and what is the boarding plan?
I assume standstill comes out because of Vial, M.mage comes in for blockers
I was thinking something like this:

-4 Standstill
-3 Cunning Wish
-1 Crucible of Worlds
-2 Counterspell
-1 D.o.J

+1 Engineered Plague
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Runed Halo
+1 BEB
+1 Slaughter Pact
+1 E. Tutor

One other question, do you generally choose to play or draw with this deck? When playing MWC I always choose draw (unless G2 vs combo) for the extra card... with this deck I feel better having access to counterspell and standstill sooner then getting the extra card.. When I started I was always choosing to draw but now i've been leaning the other way.

Ironstickman

07-24-2008, 04:49 PM

Well, if you choose play you'll be able to cast an early standstill more easilly since you have a more established board.

thefreakaccident

07-24-2008, 04:52 PM

It depends on the Match up... Against an unknown deck though, you should always chose to play, as it gives you more options when trying t answer early threats....

I usually choose to draw against opposing control decks, but that is usually about it.

Illissius

07-24-2008, 05:06 PM

Just an observation. I've found that I like running x1 Nev. Disk in place of one Wrath of God since it allows you recurrable sweep with Academy Ruins.

Do you really need that when you already have Engineered Explosives? I've found recurring Explosives to be brutal in a variety of decks, and it doesn't come into play tapped either. I'm not against diversifying the sweepers per se, I'm just sceptical of how much the "you can Academy it" argument is worth.

Adan

07-24-2008, 05:32 PM

Do you really need that when you already have Engineered Explosives? I've found recurring Explosives to be brutal in a variety of decks, and it doesn't come into play tapped either. I'm not against diversifying the sweepers per se, I'm just sceptical of how much the "you can Academy it" argument is worth.

Nevinyrral's Disk was a try to have a card in the MD that plays/acts like Pernicious Deed. In theory, they are both the same: You play them, pass the turn, take 10 damage and then ignite it the turn after ftw. (well, hopefully).

The thing is that you (actually) never want to tap out for Pernicious Deed in the same turn just to sweep everything for 4 (or 3, insert a ridiculously small amount of mana in here) and then not having mana open for Counterspell or Standstill (which would be great at that moment). Nevinyrral's Disk sweeps everything for 1 Mana, and it's also less vulnerable to Stifle and colorless.

So it's basically a proxy-Pernicious Deed which can be recurred, giving you a different, slightly worse Wrath-effect, but in exchange gives you a very effective out against Chalice-aggros and Stax. You can tutor it as well when needed, but this is an obvious one...

torgar

07-24-2008, 05:51 PM

Citrus-God

07-24-2008, 06:04 PM

Any comments on the Goblins MU/boarding style?

As for boarding against Vial Goblins, boarding in Meddling Mage against them is bad. Here's how you should board against them though;

-2 Cunning Wish
-2 Standstill

+1 BEB
+3 Runed Halo

Or something like that. You really shouldn't board in Mages because they're just a road block if you draw into them.

If you run E-Plagues in the SB, I recommend you replace Runed Halos for boarding. So yes, I'm saying run 3 copies.

ChiiMagic

07-25-2008, 03:25 AM

And having Disk can circumvent a Needle on EE. I just find it more versatile and I hate drawing two Wraths early...

And occasionally the deck wants to blow something up with a higher CC than 3.

Any comments on the Goblins MU/boarding style?

Nevi Disk is actually really good as a one or two of due to it's ability to dodge stifles in a thresh matchup, and it makes you mono white stax matchup better because you clear their whole board as opposed to one or 2 lock pieces.

As far as the goblins matchup is concerned, when on the draw, I almost always take out at least 3 standstills due to their powerful turn 1 and twos. Aether vial, goblin lackey, and piledriver can all hurt your standstill, if not make it completely useless. You need the STP if they play a lackey to make your standstill have any merit, or the FOW for the Aether vial.

On the play though, I will only board out 2 standstills because they only have one turn to ruin your turn 2 standstill hand.

What to bring in is completely dependent on what if at all you splash a third color, and what SB choices you make. I splash red and just pyroclasm them out of the game.

Citrus-God

07-26-2008, 05:27 PM

Nevi Disk is actually really good as a one or two of due to it's ability to dodge stifles in a thresh matchup, and it makes you mono white stax matchup better because you clear their whole board as opposed to one or 2 lock pieces.

Disk is only good if we started the game out with 40 life. Against Threshold, timing is extremely crucial because if a Disk resolves, you still have to take 8 damage, while compared to WoG, you can just wipe the board.

As far as the goblins matchup is concerned, when on the draw, I almost always take out at least 3 standstills due to their powerful turn 1 and twos. Aether vial, goblin lackey, and piledriver can all hurt your standstill, if not make it completely useless. You need the STP if they play a lackey to make your standstill have any merit, or the FOW for the Aether vial.

You can keep Standstills in only if you're boarding in Plagues or Circle of Protection: Red.

On the play though, I will only board out 2 standstills because they only have one turn to ruin your turn 2 standstill hand.

I believe you need alternative card draw for this. I say run Tops maindeck so Standstills dont look bad against Goblins.

What to bring in is completely dependent on what if at all you splash a third color, and what SB choices you make. I splash red and just pyroclasm them out of the game.

Splash Black for Extirpate which is good against Ichorid and Plague which is good against Goblins and Ichorid.

freakish777

07-26-2008, 05:50 PM

With Konsultant's recent win with UWg Landstill, what are people's thoughts of taking cards like Humility & Wrath out for something like Tarmogoyf?

Something along the lines of:

//lands (24)
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
3 Plains
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra’s Factory
1 Academy Ruins

//Control (17)
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Krosan Grip
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

//Win conditions (6)
3 Decree of Justice
2 Eternal Dragon
4 Tarmogoyf

//Digging (10)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction

You'd essentially be playing a deck similar in spirit to It's the Fear or VoroshStill, just with a heavy concentration on White for rediculous win conditions like DoJ and Dragon. Granted you would be losing the power of cards like Wrath & Humility in exchange for the ability to change roles into the beatdown with cards like Goyf when the opportunity presents itself.

Hanni

07-26-2008, 06:36 PM

Honestly, I think Humility is such a strong card against anything that runs aggro that it's better to just not run Tarmogoyf and simply run Humility. Very few decks actually win without aggro and Humility is a powerhouse since very few decks run answers to it maindeck.

Honestly, I think Landstill needs 4 Thoughtseize in the deck somewhere. The card is just so rediculously strong for the strategy of this deck and it improves almost every matchup. The ability to know what the opponent is playing on turn 1 of game 1 in a tournament is also invaluable.

3duece

07-26-2008, 07:00 PM

Good point. I have been wondering lately why I don't maindeck extirpate as it comes in against almost every matchup, although it would be tough to fit four.

Nihil Credo

07-26-2008, 10:26 PM

I have recently moved the humility to the board, as I am seeing less and less pure agro, and more and more agro control (both black and blue), which makes humility slightly less attractive, especially if they are only going to have 1-2 threats on board at a time... (why make them 1/1s, when you can just kill the crits?)

My, that's some backwards reasoning, isn't it? If they run fewer threats, then Humility becomes better, not worse, because they can't overwhelm you with lots of 1/1s. I have won through a Humility with Goblins several times; I don't remember that ever happening with Threshold.

Nihil Credo

07-26-2008, 10:55 PM

So you say that "Humility sucks because Grip exists"? Whether that's true or not, it's unrelated to the point I was making (Humility gets better the fewer threats your opponent runs). Unless you meant that few creatures = Tarmogoyf = Grips in the board, which doesn't really apply since EVERYONE boards Grip these days anyway.

Mister Agent

07-27-2008, 01:31 AM

Humility is one of the strongest reasons why landstill splashed white in the first place. If you are paranoid about 1/1 creatures causing you to lose games play more decree of justice. Even when your opponent boards in grips the disadvantage of that is minimal compared to the actual card advantage that humility provides.

thefreakaccident

07-27-2008, 01:35 AM

I apologize for the nonsense I was posting earlier.... Humility is strong, as I had said countless times.

How has the Ajanis been doing in people's sideboards?

In theory it is good (gaining a continuous stream of life, and force them to redirect additional burn to kill him is all around strong).

I was not of clear mind earlier, so please just ignore what I was saying :cool: .

torgar

07-27-2008, 03:19 AM

I think Ajani is too slow, too expensive and not effectual against a serious beatdown rush. If you want gradual life gain, I'd opt for Pulse because you can Wish for it. The sideboard is too tight as it is for Ajani. Just my opinion.

Another consideration- I might agree that Crucible isn't necessary in the main... I've been running one and I find in most matches if I'm abusing it, I'm winning already and I almost never use my first Wish to go E.Tutor>Crucible. The only MU I really want it is against control mirrors. I'm usually protective enough of my Mishra's as it is and using land drops for chump blockers isn't a winning strategy most times in early to mid stages.

I considered Shackles in that spot but the deck doesn't run enough Islands to consistently steal Goyfs.

Right now I've relegated my lone Crucible to the side (since it is powerful enough I want it in some MU) and replaced it with a Runed Halo. It's almost never dead and is tutorable as well. I don't know if removing Crucible justifies still running a single Wasteland main but I don't want to lose the option of taking out opposing Academy Ruins/Volrath's Strongholds. Perhaps maindecking a single Needle for Volrath's and randomness instead? Just some thoughts.

Citrus-God

07-27-2008, 04:39 AM

How has the Ajanis been doing in people's sideboards?

In theory it is good (gaining a continuous stream of life, and force them to redirect additional burn to kill him is all around strong).

It makes huge tokens on Turn 5 which swings on Turn 6. I've beaten Aggro-Loam like that in testing before. The constant Life Gain is better than Pulse of the Fields because it doesnt require mana and you dont need to be losing to abuse it.

The pump is amazing. It makes cycling Decree for a stellar amount into something lethel, like cycling DoJ for 5. Now that can't be dangerous, until Ajani does his thing.

Another consideration- I might agree that Crucible isn't necessary in the main... I've been running one and I find in most matches if I'm abusing it, I'm winning already and I almost never use my first Wish to go E.Tutor>Crucible. The only MU I really want it is against control mirrors. I'm usually protective enough of my Mishra's as it is and using land drops for chump blockers isn't a winning strategy most times in early to mid stages.

The only time I have never found Crucible win-more is against Threshold, ITF, the mirror, and LftL decks.

Right now I've relegated my lone Crucible to the side (since it is powerful enough I want it in some MU) and replaced it with a Runed Halo. It's almost never dead and is tutorable as well. I don't know if removing Crucible justifies still running a single Wasteland main but I don't want to lose the option of taking out opposing Academy Ruins/Volrath's Strongholds. Perhaps maindecking a single Needle for Volrath's and randomness instead? Just some thoughts.

If you want to combat Stronghold/Academy Ruins, I recommend you run Dust Bowl. As for Crucible of Worlds, you can always board it in. You only ever need it against Control decks really. A maindeck Needle would work too, but to be honest, I think I'd rather have Sensei's Divining Top in that slot. This deck really lacks late game leverage at times and SDT helps fix some of it. Running SDT also permits you to abuse velocity.

@Freakish777: When you run Goyfs, you should really consider cutting DoJs from the deck. You're doing this because you lack decent control cards for the early-midgame and they dont synergize with Goyfs.

I built a spin-off of Operation Dumbo Drop using Goyfs, Vitu-Ghazi, and Garruk.

// Lands 23
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
2 Plains
2 Island

// Creatures 7
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Garruk Wildspeaker

// Spells 30
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
3 Engineered Explosives

// Sideboard 15
4 Meddling Mage
3 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Runed Halo
2 Decree of Justice

The plan is to use Ghazi to produce tokens and protect Garruk until you can build up an assault of elephants, tokens, and Goyfs trampling over the opponent with Garruk's pump effect as the game stalls. This deck is extremely effective against Threshold and ITF in testing, but was terrible against Landstill unless it can resolve a Garruk, which can really win for you even if the opponent lands a Humility down. I might cut a Ponder and another card to fit in 2 Grips.

Ranarion

07-27-2008, 05:03 AM

The only time I have never found Crucible win-more is against Threshold, ITF, the mirror, and LftL decks.
I don't know your meta but my meta is full of Threshold and similar decks. There are many decks which use Stifle + Wasteland and you have to face at least one LftL oder Eternal Garden. That's why I wouldn't cut the Crucible.

Citrus-God

07-27-2008, 05:06 AM

I don't know your meta but my meta is full of Threshold and similar decks. There are many decks which use Stifle + Wasteland and you have to face at least one LftL oder Eternal Garden. That's why I wouldn't cut the Crucible.

Soo... we have an agreement? I always found Crucible good against Threshold, assuming I found a Wasteland.

thefreakaccident

07-27-2008, 06:22 AM

@ Citrus god--

That list seems interesting, and the inclusion of ponder for that build makes a lot of sense... you might even be able to cut a land for something... I have never been an advocate for goyf in landstill, but for each his own, he is still solid.

Your build may have merit, and it is very creative... Kudos to you sir.

freakish777

07-27-2008, 09:54 AM

@Freakish777: When you run Goyfs, you should really consider cutting DoJs from the deck. You're doing this because you lack decent control cards for the early-midgame and they dont synergize with Goyfs.

This doesn't make sense at all. The reason I'm suggesting Goyfs is to create a version that shifts the focus from not losing to actively winning. DoJ also wins games, hence keeping it and Dragons in. They have synergy in that they both reduce your opponent's life total. Additionally, DoJ + Goyf is useful in situations where your opponent has a two Goyfs down to your one. The attack, you cycle DoJ for 2, draw your card, take down a Goyf, and take no damage.

Against opposing control decks, you get to overload them with threats instead of drawing cards that only work when they play a threat of their own.

Wargoos

07-27-2008, 01:49 PM

What's about Wake Thrasher in a non-G Version?
Allows you to still play b without weaken your Manabase

Illissius

07-27-2008, 02:03 PM

Unlike Wake Thrasher, Tarmogoyf can also, you know, block.

konsultant

07-27-2008, 08:30 PM

I run the Humility in the MD despite Krosan Grip being everywhere because it's usually in the SB and MD Humility steals games. Half the time if I expect Grip to come in I board out the Humility despite the fact that they are good because I just put 3 dead cards into my opponents deck. If they don't board in the Grips and I don't take out Humility it's usually game. I run Ajani instead of running Goyf's because it has far better synergy with Landstill and doe's the same thing as far as making the deck better at going aggro faster.

Citrus-God

07-28-2008, 12:13 AM

This doesn't make sense at all. The reason I'm suggesting Goyfs is to create a version that shifts the focus from not losing to actively winning. DoJ also wins games, hence keeping it and Dragons in. They have synergy in that they both reduce your opponent's life total. Additionally, DoJ + Goyf is useful in situations where your opponent has a two Goyfs down to your one. The attack, you cycle DoJ for 2, draw your card, take down a Goyf, and take no damage.

Against opposing control decks, you get to overload them with threats instead of drawing cards that only work when they play a threat of their own.

I understand, but by not having cards that actually control the board, you're slowly turning the deck into Fish. I mean, look, you cut WoGs, which are fundamental to Legacy's approach to Landstill. WoG is how to wipe boards clean so you can play Standstill. If you're playing Standstill because you have threats in play, then it's more similar on the approach to that of Fish.

torgar

07-29-2008, 03:01 AM

I'm personally not a fan of including Goyf in this deck. It goes against the theme of controlling the whole board, locking the game down and winning with DoJ.

The way I win most games is by gradually pecking away with Mishra's and finishing with some Soldier tokens... after I've established control. The entire rest of the deck is dedicated towards this purpose.

Along the same lines, I see how Ajani can produce quicker kills via DoJ tokens. I've been testing him and he's fun. However, I usually find myself being busier using all my resources to establish firm control instead of dropping a turn 4 Ajani and following up with a DoJ soon after.

I've felt comfortable with x3 DoJ x1 E. Dragon x4 Mishra's as my sole means of actually closing the game. Packing more threats shifts the deck's focus away from control which I think is it the deck's strongest point.

This is the list I've been running. I've decided I want the option of accessing both Crucible and SDT in main so it's 61 cards... :-P

//Board Control
x4 Swords to Plowshares
x3 Engineered Explosives
x2 Humility
x2 Wrath of God
x1 Nevinyrral's Disk

//Counter
x4 Force of Will
X4 Counterspell

//Draw
x4 Brainstorm
x4 Standstill
x3 Cunning Wish
x1 Sensei's Divining Top

//Kill
x3 Decree of Justice
x1 Eternal Dragon

//Fetchable Uber-lock
x1 Crucible of Worlds

//Lands
x4 Mishra's Factory
x1 Academy Ruins
x1 Wasteland
x1 Tolaria West

x2 Polluted Delta
x4 Flooded Strand
x4 Tundra
x1 Underground Sea
x1 Scrubland
x3 Island
x2 Plains

Sideboard

x1 Enlightened Tutor
x1 Return to Dust
x1 Slaughter Pact
x1 Blue Elemental Blast
x1 Pulse of the Fields
x3 Extirpate
x3 Meddling Mage
x4 Runed Halo

Seems pretty standard. I might opt for more basic lands.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

07-29-2008, 03:59 AM

From a different thread, different deck, different forum, but still applicable;

Yeah, I would say that 4 kill conditions is too little. One of the conclusions that I came to playing at the PBG memorial tournament, after going 2-2-2 with MWC, is that decks that can't reasonably finish three games within 50 minutes inherently suck. Now, this is an observation that's been building over the years. Maybe it's a little obvious, but I've never heard it stated this forcefully before. These decks inherently suck. It's just math. Numbers average over time. If you play 1 game against a deck where you're 55% favored, you'll lose 45% of the time. If you play 3 games, however, you're- well, I'm not actually good at math, but it's considerably more. Theoretically, if you went to infinite games, you'd win every round assuming you were 50.01% favored. This means that on average, in an eight or nine round tournament, you're throwing away at least one round or more to draws that could've been wins. It's simply not worthwhile.

I'm not a fan of Tarmogoyf either, since it has zero resiliency, zero utility (doesn't have, say, Vigilance at least, so can't smash + block), and doesn't really take advantage of that late game mana. Sacred Mesa, however, seems to fit this deck fairly well, and doubles as a quasi Maze of Ith. It's also Wrath proof, if not Disk proof.

Also, in this deck, is Mishra's Factory really better than Vitu-Ghazi or Urza's Factory? The latter two wouldn't open you up to StP, and wouldn't suck against any form of creature removal and/or attackers without Crucible.

Pelikanudo

07-29-2008, 07:13 AM

Hello again,
respect to the deck I was developing in order to get a good matchup in mirror I mean vs LAndstill I'll post the following premises:

1) Its supossed that counterbalance is the best weapon we can have vs any kind of control deck
2) the counterbalance just makes a great pieze of the puzzle vs control mirror
3) the cards we can not handle with c.b are :
-E.Explosives :due to its ability of beeing played as a for instance a 5 mana converted cost
-Decree of justice :due to its cycling ability
-A pernicius played before a counterbalance lands the table
-Things with the split second ability (althouth the triggered ability of our c.b can counter that): we are suposed we won't face at least in the first game stuff like krosan or extirpate , therefore I found playing 4 meddlin mages in base naming those acrds are a must.

Because we play counterbalance that make a great piece of the puzzle , we NEED more cards that makes the puzzle, I have to say that in this deck the c.b MUST counter everything that are not the before things said.
well a great card that has whole synergy with c.b is Enlitghned tutor , and this card even provides an easier way to get the other parts of the puzzle.
Therefore to handle the other things we will need:

- Pithin needle: a must , it avoids mainly :1) E.E 2) a perni in play 3) decree
- moat : this mainly stops decree and the most of the meta creatures
- humility : this stops the creatures that moat can't handle
- Oblivion stone: this card is GREAT in testing : it provides a 3 cc. and a complete puzzle due not only to its ability of cleaning the board even it makes our cards in play stay in play.
- Oblivion ring: this card is another 3 cc and makes the puzzle against every thing that are not lands
- E.Explosives: this destroys opposite c.b.
- Senseis and scrollrack: the first one is obvious, the second one I' ve to say that is even better than senseis in synergy with c.b :why? because S.Rack allows us to get a bigger range of availability of cards between the cards IN HAND and the cards on the top.

I ve to say that I've tested wrath of god in this deck and I found it clunky because:
a) if we get to land a moat we really dont need to clean the board unless we cant attack with our creatures to give death to our opponent
b) its not searchable by one of our tutors so we HAVE to draw it : it can OR can not appear.
c) Having in mind that wrath just clean the board we really need creatures with evasion mainly Flying ability, thats why I preferred to play Faery conclave instead factory. For sure mishra is way better , but its not evasive a win cond .

Well therefore the conclusion of the deck is:
4 Swords to plowshares
4 counterbalance
4 FoW
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 Semseis d.t
1 scroll Rack // you all boys have to try this card ,shines¡¡ many times with
//c.b in play our oppon has played tarmo,hymn,anything of 2c.c and we in
//resp play tutor->scrollrack ->counter his 2cc and draw in next turn the
//most synergistic card in conjunction with c.b: this is a pricessless

1 Moat
1 Humility // somebody think that if we play moat we dont really need Humility but I
//think otherwise If we land moat the next card we WANT to land is, of
//course Humility
1 E.Explosives
1 Pithin nedle
1 Oblivion ring
1 Oblivion Stone
2 eternal dragon // great cards it provides even a sufle effect if needed
2 standstill // I find the 2 standstill 2 E.dragon the correct number instead of
//3 standstills
3 Enlitghned tutor
1 crucible of worlds.

Lands:
4 Islands
1 plain
1 academy ruins
4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
4 Tundra
4 wasteland // I really feel comfortable playing 4 of them
3 Faery conclave // before I plñayed 4 but we really need this card soon its
//our large term win cond.

Impressions: Seems to be the perfect deck of puzzle pieces to me, but I'd like to include 1 more plains or 1 more hallowed fountain , as before Imentioned I 'm really scaried of extirpate->tundra, even If our opp lands any kind of moon eff we never will be able to land a moat or humility due to its WW cost.

I need advice about the land configuration, I'm not yet working in the side but of course it at least will have:
1 C.O.P. Red : stops burn and gobbos
1 C.O.P green : stops tres and stompy
1 Energy Flux : stops Stax and Aff
1-2 Tormods crypt
1 Runed halo : due to the GREAT puzzle it provides vs combo
4 meddlin mage : Soooo great in this deck

cards that maybe will be in side :
- B.E.B
-wrath of god
- spellsnare : to avoid opp. c.b
- the card that by 3 mana destorys all Gobbos, I dont know its name
- ...

Oppinions Impressions?

bruno_tiete

07-29-2008, 10:19 AM

There is one huge problem with your strategy: they need to land a single Deed to neuter a lot of the cards you have as a 1-of.
I've had this happening to me a couple times. You get top, CB, Moat and crucible down to have the guy deed them all off. And now your deck is empty.

Moat is dumb strong against a lot of decks, but not ones packing EE, Deed or Burning Wish.

Anyway, if you want to play Tutor and targets, I'd add basics to the deck, cut a 3 wastelands and a delta for an off-color dual (scrubland seems to be the best one for Dragon, Explosives and SB options), a Tolaria West, an island and a plains. 7 basics with 2 plains let you cast your deck and do dragon tricks under wastelock and moons.

Also, Hoofprints of the Stag fits your tutoring plan and drives the beats with a Moat out.

Pelikanudo

07-29-2008, 10:37 AM

torgar

07-29-2008, 11:12 AM

cards that maybe will be in side :
- B.E.B
-wrath of god
- spellsnare : to avoid opp. c.b
- the card that by 3 mana destorys all Gobbos, I dont know its name
- ...

Oppinions Impressions?

That's Tividar's Crusade. No comment.

My opinion is your post is hard to read without getting a headache.

Also, in this deck, is Mishra's Factory really better than Vitu-Ghazi or Urza's Factory? The latter two wouldn't open you up to StP, and wouldn't suck against any form of creature removal and/or attackers without Crucible.

The advantage is the synergy with Humility. While StP CAN be very annoying, being able to outweigh all your opponents' creatures in one on one confrontations is very nice. For the most part, you just devote your counters to protecting Humility and Mishra's.

I don't think Vitu-Ghazi is strong enough to justify a splash. I wouldn't be objectionable to Urza's but I run a minimum of 5 basics as it is.

bruno_tiete

07-29-2008, 01:31 PM

well you' re ritgh at this point but in the deck I wrote above in base we have a solution to this trouble moreover the 8 counterspell effects: Pithin Nelde ,even we have 4 virtual nedles. Not problem at all man

Actually, if you are not counting on drawing your singletons, you are much more like having 7 CB, 3 scroll racks, 3 SDT's, 1 moats, 1 crucibles, 1 needle and 1 Explosives.

Seriously, you cant cut them all and them claim to have 3 tutors which become functional 4 of each singleton. It's like every single time you tutor for something, you reduce your odds of getting some other tutor target you may need in this same game. In that, having all 4 SDT help a lot in your not-tutored finds.

Are you gonna search up Needle before throwing Crucible out all the time in the control mirrors?

lebarion

07-29-2008, 01:40 PM

Hi,

Hello again,
respect to the deck I was developing in order to get a good matchup in mirror I mean vs Landstill

I think if you want a control deck with counterbalance, you can take a look at TEC (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8199) thread. Although I haven't tested it myself, it is supposed to be good against some builds of Landstill.

I'll post the following premises:

1) Its supossed that counterbalance is the best weapon we can have vs any kind of control deck
2) the counterbalance just makes a great pieze of the puzzle vs control mirror

I'm not sure I agree with these assumptions. The Landstill (and controls deck in general) curve varies a lot, so it's much harder to hit something with counterbalance than it is against Thresh. Besides, UWx builds usually have Eternal Dragon, manlands, DoJ and Engineered Explosives, among other cards that can work pretty normally against Counterbalance.
Of course the counter-top engine is awesome, I'm just not sure it is the best tool against Landstill. What you can say from your experience against other landstill builds?

I know it has already been discussed a little bit, but I also don't like the disynergy (is this a word?) betweeen Humility and Moat. I also think Faerie Conclave is too slow (CiP tapped) and mana-intensive (3 mana for 2 damage).

And Oblivion Stone seems so sloooooow, it just begs for stifle. Isn't Nevinyrral Disk a lot better?

TeKo

07-29-2008, 02:09 PM

O-Stone need more mana: YES!
O-Stone is slower: not really
play O-Stone 3rd Turn, activate 5th Turn.
play Disk 4th Turn, activate 5th Turn.

In the early game Disk is better because you have to tap out only once.
But in the late game O-Stone is better because you can activate it the Turn you played O-Stone and you can protect your humility.

Atm I play a 2/1 WoG/Stone Split.

torgar

07-29-2008, 02:53 PM

I think if you want a control deck with counterbalance, you can take a look at TEC (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8199) thread. Although I haven't tested it myself, it is supposed to be good against some builds of Landstill.

I'm not sure I agree with these assumptions. The Landstill (and controls deck in general) curve varies a lot, so it's much harder to hit something with counterbalance than it is against Thresh. Besides, UWx builds usually have Eternal Dragon, manlands, DoJ and Engineered Explosives, among other cards that can work pretty normally against Counterbalance.
Of course the counter-top engine is awesome, I'm just not sure it is the best tool against Landstill. What you can say from your experience against other landstill builds?

QFT. If you want a nifty deck with counterbalance and goyf and planeswalkers then this is what you're looking for TEC (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8199). It's a completely different deck though!

I recently played against that style deck that also ran Trinket Mage toolbox Crypt/Needle/EE alongside Countertop. The match was very intense, detail-oriented and LONG. Best of three took over 90 minutes on MWS. But like the primer said, UW Landstill has the advantage. Obviously the key is to not let them assemble Countertop which isn't too difficult being that they only run FoW help get it through. However, being able to operate under Standstill means you also have options under Countertop. For example, in the first game, I used Tolaria West to fetch Ruins giving me recurring EE pressure, baiting Countertop to put the Top on top of their deck with StPs at Goyfs allowing a EE to get through for two. Likewise, in similar fashion, if you can get off two spells with different CCs in the same turn you can usually get a spell through. Furthermore, countering Disk, Humility, FoW, Dragon, DoJ with a counterbalance is difficult or impossible. All except Dragon are very relevant in the MU. (This is because of their Shackles. Unless you assemble CoW/Waste but then you're probably winning already)

Landing a Humility is huge. Then their only serious weapon is that blue decking Planeswalker. You can win the game on the back of Mishra's/DoJ. But G2&3 I sided Halo since their only threats seemed to be Trinket Mage and Goyf. And, woweezowee, Halo works versus that Planeswalker guy too. Or you can just swing at it with tokens.

The only thing playing that MU makes me wish I had in my deck was Pithing Needle. I may replace a Halo in the SB with a Needle to bring in for randomness like Hoofprints, etc.

It is definitely a winnable MU if you know what you are doing and understand how their deck works.

I know it has already been discussed a little bit, but I also don't like the disynergy (is this a word?) betweeen Humility and Moat. I also think Faerie Conclave is too slow (CiP tapped) and mana-intensive (3 mana for 2 damage).

And Oblivion Stone seems so sloooooow, it just begs for stifle. Isn't Nevinyrral Disk a lot better?

All true, all previously discussed. Conclave and Stone are no good. Moat is ok if you're running Hoofprints but IMHO Humility+DoJ is much better way to go. Creature abilities can be a bitch.

On a different note, I was musing that if you added Petrified Field to the main deck and a Intuition to the sideboard. You could Cunning Wish for all your landlock pieces. This would be really helpful when you lose your legendary Ruins in the mirror-like MUs. I don't know if there is really room for this silliness tho.

freakish777

07-29-2008, 02:56 PM

I run Ajani instead of running Goyf's because it ... doe's the same thing as far as making the deck better at going aggro faster.

I don't really buy the Ajani giving you the ability to go aggro faster argument. I realize he does other things, like gives you some life and a turn they have to spend attacking him instead of you.

Let's look at scenarios with the the following hypothetical totally broken card {Stupidity Tutor, 0, Sorcery, Search all zones for a card you own, put that card in your hand. Then shuffle your library.}:

You have 0 Mishra's Factory in play. Assuming colored mana isn't an issue for, what card (that's Legacy legal) do you want to grab most (at what amounts of mana, clearly at large amounts of mana, this thought experiment loses any possible practical application)?
1 Mishra's Factory.
2 Mishra's Factories.
3 Mishra's Factories.
2 DoJ Tokens.
3 DoJ Tokens.
4 DoJ Tokens.
5 DoJ Tokens.

Essentially my argument is that at the lower amounts of guys you have in play, there's bound to be a large number of times where grabbing Tarmogoyf is a good play. Clearly with 4 and 5 DoJ tokens out, topdecking Ajani is a huge payoff in that you now have an army of vigilant 2/2s and just got in for 4 or 5 more damage the same turn. That payoff of including the card in the deck can only be capitalized on in the late game, though.

I'm just interested in which amounts of mana you "grab Ajani with Stupidity Tutor" in the above scenarios over "grab a card that's a threat on it's own."

Also for the record, I've only ever seen Planeswalkers last abilities activated after DeathCloud has resolved. If you have so much control that you can sit around waiting to power Ajani up to get an X/X token creature (while you have no other threats), then Goyf would have been just as good of a topdeck in a situation where you need a threat (it swings 3 times by the time the token swings once).

If you're playing Standstill because you have threats in play, then it's more similar on the approach to that of Fish.

How is this necessarily a bad thing? Subsequently I disagree with Wrath being "fundamental" to Landstills game plan. You need a way to control the board. From a strictly theoretical perspective, this could be achieved with any number of removal and card advantage spells. Whether it takes the form of Wrath doing both, or the form of Krosan Grip + Swords to Plowshares + Stroke of Genius (clealry, Stroke isn't a practical card in Legacy).

In any event, EE + Ruins is about the most lopsided thing you can do to any deck that relies on permanents to win. EE gives you the option of not hitting your own things (Tokens, Goyfs, etc), which is a plus. Obviously, with 3 colors, you aren't going to be taking out Rakdos Pit Dragons with it, but you really should have drawn a Swords to Plowshares or SB BEB by the time DStompy starts dropping it's game ending threats.

torgar

07-29-2008, 03:39 PM

How is this necessarily a bad thing? Subsequently I disagree with Wrath being "fundamental" to Landstills game plan. You need a way to control the board. From a strictly theoretical perspective, this could be achieved with any number of removal and card advantage spells.

Wrath of God [rath uhv god] -noun 1. Removal and Card Advantage Spell.

EE gives you the option of not hitting your own things (Tokens, Goyfs, etc), which is a plus.

EE = 0,1,2 and sometimes 3. Putting in permanents with these CCs means you'll be more apt to hit your own things or be forced to work around your own deck.

freakish777

07-29-2008, 06:09 PM

Wrath of God [rath uhv god] -noun 1. Removal and Card Advantage Spell.

Way to not read the very next sentence.

Whether it takes the form of Wrath doing both, or the form of Krosan Grip + Swords to Plowshares + Stroke of Genius (clealry, Stroke isn't a practical card in Legacy).

My point remains that based strictly on theoretical reasoning, Wrath is not "fundamental" to the strategy Landstill is implementing.

Is it a good card? Sure.
Is your deck somehow not qualifiable as Landstill if you don't play it? Hell no.

As for EE, Wrath doesn't come back whenever you need it like EE does with Ruins out. There's two strategies against mass removal. Slow roll your threats and force them to one for one you, or bust all your guys on the board and hope you kill the opponent our put them in burn range before they draw/play Wrath. EE + Ruins allows you to completely shut out the first option as a viable strategy.

Citrus-God

07-29-2008, 07:00 PM

I don't really buy the Ajani giving you the ability to go aggro faster argument. I realize he does other things, like gives you some life and a turn they have to spend attacking him instead of you.

Well... there's also playing the Avatar token with it's power/toughness that are both equal to the amount of life you have. This should put the Aggro Loam player in a fix.

Essentially my argument is that at the lower amounts of guys you have in play, there's bound to be a large number of times where grabbing Tarmogoyf is a good play. Clearly with 4 and 5 DoJ tokens out, topdecking Ajani is a huge payoff in that you now have an army of vigilant 2/2s and just got in for 4 or 5 more damage the same turn. That payoff of including the card in the deck can only be capitalized on in the late game, though.

Or you make a ton of life, and throw a giant ass Avatar token into play if Humility gets removed.

Also for the record, I've only ever seen Planeswalkers last abilities activated after DeathCloud has resolved. If you have so much control that you can sit around waiting to power Ajani up to get an X/X token creature (while you have no other threats), then Goyf would have been just as good of a topdeck in a situation where you need a threat (it swings 3 times by the time the token swings once).

Or you can activate it because you can against a deck like Aggro Loam or Stax.

How is this necessarily a bad thing? Subsequently I disagree with Wrath being "fundamental" to Landstills game plan. You need a way to control the board. From a strictly theoretical perspective, this could be achieved with any number of removal and card advantage spells. Whether it takes the form of Wrath doing both, or the form of Krosan Grip + Swords to Plowshares + Stroke of Genius (clealry, Stroke isn't a practical card in Legacy).

Yes, but by following this approach, you're using your draw spells to help you fight 1-for-1 attrition wars. Sometimes you need WoG to help you reset the board state. I know EE can produce a lot of Card Advantage on it's own, but it's not enough usually. As for WoG, WoG is still good if your opponent assembles Counterbalance/Top. Goyf can't be played after that.

In any event, EE + Ruins is about the most lopsided thing you can do to any deck that relies on permanents to win. EE gives you the option of not hitting your own things (Tokens, Goyfs, etc), which is a plus. Obviously, with 3 colors, you aren't going to be taking out Rakdos Pit Dragons with it, but you really should have drawn a Swords to Plowshares or SB BEB by the time DStompy starts dropping it's game ending threats.

EE + Ruins is very lopsided indeed, but against decks like Vial Goblins or Aggro Loam, it might not be so hot.

As for EE, Wrath doesn't come back whenever you need it like EE does with Ruins out. There's two strategies against mass removal. Slow roll your threats and force them to one for one you, or bust all your guys on the board and hope you kill the opponent our put them in burn range before they draw/play Wrath. EE + Ruins allows you to completely shut out the first option as a viable strategy.

Or you could play a board sweeper and follow up with a Goyf. This should give you card advantage and a dominant position you can capitalize on, such as Goyf.

I mean, by playing Goyf, you're making the opponent's removal useful. You should use board sweepers as a back-up plan in case your opponent has removal. I know Tarmogoyf serves as virtual card advantage as a blocker, but sometimes it won't hold up very long simply because of the presence of some form of creature removal in every control and aggro-control list.

freakish777

07-29-2008, 10:52 PM

A couple points:

In all the instances where you have the time to make an X/X token, drawing and playing Goyf essentially does the same thing with the exception of not having gained some life in the process.

Against a deck like aggro loam, you're going to be bringing Crucibles and Tormod's Crypts in to mitigate the damage Wasteland can do. That said, I think there's a fair amount of the time you'd still have Ruins going with EE. It won't be pretty trying to go for 3 mana (because you really want Crucible sticking around), but at zero (Mox Diamond) and 2 (Goyf, Bob), you should be doing quite a damage and forcing them to draw more Vores/Crushers/Assaults then you draw Swords, Counterspell, and Krosan Grips just to force you to off your own Crucible to down their fatty, and have a Wasteland ready to go for the Academy Ruins on top of that. EE is a beating against them since their threats are clogged at 2 and 3, and their acceleration is at zero.

I will admit that against Goblins, that playing without Wrath is likely a poor choice (assuming you aren't playing the Cunning Wish version for something like Starstorm). However, I think the metagame has heavily shifted away from Goblins. It no longer commands anywhere near the 15% of the field marks we used to see. It usually works out that at a local tournament you see maybe 1 Goblin deck, and at a large tournament (33+) you see maybes 3. Furthermore, Goblins has such poor answers to Tarmogoyf. Obviously, not allowing them to have Vial is key, once that happens, you can typically afford to play the attrition 1 removal spell for 1 creature game against them by playing Standstills & Brainstorms, and not allowing Ringleaders or Seige-Gangs to resolve because Goyf, EE, Swords, DoJ, Factory & Dragon are better than cards like Fanatic, Matron, Warchief, Lackey.

In short, I'm unsure cards that cards the wipe all creatures are currently a necessity in Legacy. At the Syracuse 1k tournament we had the following T8:

Ichorid (doesn't care about Wrath)
ITF (doesn't care about Wrath)
Landstill (doesn't care about Wrath)
1 Red Thresh/Thrash (cares about Crucible more)
1 5 color Thresh (cares about Crucible more)
1 TES (doesn't care about Wrath)
1 Survival (cares about Krosan Grip and Tormod's Crypt more)
1 Dreadstill (cares about Krosan Grip more)

Survival for all intents and purposes cares about landing it's namesake. Otherwise against Landstill, it's really not doing a whole lot, whether you draw Wrath or not. Dreadstill seems 100% dead in the water against you with maindeck Krosan Grips, Wrath or not. They can't try to play the mirror under Standstill, you cycle DoJ and win the long game. That leaves Threshold. I think Threshold fears Engineered Explosives much more than Wrath as it can take out Counterbalance and Goyf simultaneously while dodging the 2cc card on the top of their library. Wrath is just going to be an over costed, sorcery speed Diabolic Edict against them essentially. Why not consider Goyf instead?

As far as testing goes, I'm a fan of playing against the gauntlet with a 4 proxies in a deck and whenever you play it you choose X (Goyf) or Y (Wrath) as the card you're playing. Then at the end of the test session, you see which you chose more often, and how often it was the right play.

Citrus-God

07-30-2008, 12:07 AM

In all the instances where you have the time to make an X/X token, drawing and playing Goyf essentially does the same thing with the exception of not having gained some life in the process.

They'll just play their down Goyf and block it all day. Then they'll follow that up with a Countryside Crusher and start dredging. If that Goyf had been that X/X token, then the opponent will be under pressure and then forced to block with his Goyf and Countryside Crusher.

Against a deck like aggro loam, you're going to be bringing Crucibles and Tormod's Crypts in to mitigate the damage Wasteland can do. That said, I think there's a fair amount of the time you'd still have Ruins going with EE. It won't be pretty trying to go for 3 mana (because you really want Crucible sticking around), but at zero (Mox Diamond) and 2 (Goyf, Bob), you should be doing quite a damage and forcing them to draw more Vores/Crushers/Assaults then you draw Swords, Counterspell, and Krosan Grips just to force you to off your own Crucible to down their fatty, and have a Wasteland ready to go for the Academy Ruins on top of that. EE is a beating against them since their threats are clogged at 2 and 3, and their acceleration is at zero.

I admit, against Aggro Loam, having Crypts, Crucibles, and EE is better.

I will admit that against Goblins, that playing without Wrath is likely a poor choice (assuming you aren't playing the Cunning Wish version for something like Starstorm). However, I think the metagame has heavily shifted away from Goblins. It no longer commands anywhere near the 15% of the field marks we used to see. It usually works out that at a local tournament you see maybe 1 Goblin deck, and at a large tournament (33+) you see maybes 3. Furthermore, Goblins has such poor answers to Tarmogoyf. Obviously, not allowing them to have Vial is key, once that happens, you can typically afford to play the attrition 1 removal spell for 1 creature game against them by playing Standstills & Brainstorms, and not allowing Ringleaders or Seige-Gangs to resolve because Goyf, EE, Swords, DoJ, Factory & Dragon are better than cards like Fanatic, Matron, Warchief, Lackey.

Just because a Goyf stands there doesnt stop Goblins from attacking with a ton of random dorks like Fanatics and Hooligans and Matrons. The point of Goblins is to take your life down to 0. It's going to be awfully hard trying to persuade the Goblin player not to attack because he's just going to refill his hand with more dorks if you don't stall until you wipe the board clean and have Goyf seal the game up. It's also going to be rather hard to use EE as midgame removal unless you get it going with Ruins because it's more than likely going to be used to blow up Lackeys and Vials.

Ichorid (doesn't care about Wrath)

Then in this case, Ichorid probably doesnt care about Goyfs either than. At least WoGs can wipe the board clean of Zombie tokens as an additional out to EE.

ITF (doesn't care about Wrath)

Goyf gets Countered by CB. WoG can at least wipe that Goyf off the board.

Landstill (doesn't care about Wrath)

Goyfs dont do much in the mirror either.

1 Red Thresh/Thrash (cares about Crucible more)

Your Goyfs can get Spell Snared and traded with. Crucibles dont help you survive. WoG can wipe the board clean of critters. Of course, I think Thresh cares more about Humility more than CoW or WoG.

1 5 color Thresh (cares about Crucible more)

I still don't see how Crucibles protect you from Goyfs and Enforcers. Crucible is a mana stabilizer and a win condition, not an answer. Also, they care about Humility more.

1 Survival (cares about Krosan Grip and Tormod's Crypt more)

I think they care about Humility more. Also, your Goyfs die to your own EEs as well in this MU.

1 Dreadstill (cares about Krosan Grip more)

I think Humility would solve a lot of problems here had you land that.

I think Threshold fears Engineered Explosives much more than Wrath as it can take out Counterbalance and Goyf simultaneously while dodging the 2cc card on the top of their library.

Yes, but then they'll bait every Swords, EE, and Counter out of you and will eventually Thoughtseize + Enforcer you ftw.

Wrath is just going to be an over costed, sorcery speed Diabolic Edict against them essentially. Why not consider Goyf instead?

And sometimes EE will be an overcosted sorcery speed Edict as well then. Also, Goyf dies to Counterbalance.

As far as testing goes, I'm a fan of playing against the gauntlet with a 4 proxies in a deck and whenever you play it you choose X (Goyf) or Y (Wrath) as the card you're playing. Then at the end of the test session, you see which you chose more often, and how often it was the right play.

I have not tested this yet. I will look into it. It might be play style in which we differ, because I want all my cards to be dead against my opponents. This is why I am also an advocate of not running creatures and boarding out Humility.

freakish777

07-30-2008, 10:22 AM

They'll just play their down Goyf and block it all day.

:rolleyes:

If they have creatures of their own that you can't counter/kill, then Ajani is awful anyways (read, gets attacked for card disadvantage). That's entirely my point. Ajani is only a threat against an open board. If you have an open board and no threats of your own in play, Tarmogoyf will suffice.

Just because a Goyf stands there doesnt stop Goblins from attacking with a ton of random dorks like Fanatics and Hooligans and Matrons.

This is wrong. Goyf doesn't stand there. He swings putting pressure on the Goblins player to block or to race. The idea is that if they try to race, they typically lose because you will have drawn Factories, Swords, EE's, BEB (out of the board), and DoJ to take out their guys. If they try to play the control (without Aether Vial), they lose because you will start forcing them to block Goyf. When they get to the point where they can actually take down a Goyf with their guys, you either win off of Swords keeping their guy from killing Goyf, 3 or 4 for 1'ing them, or by that point you don't mind trading your Goyf for 3 or 4 guys because you've drawn another Goyf, can drop Standstill post combat, are on 7 mana to make Dragon, etc.

The point of Goblins is to take your life down to 0.

My argument is that there's no point at which they have a way to do this without Aether Vial on the average draw. On the nut draw, yeah, they get there. They would have gotten their on the nut draw no matter what you were playing unless it had the potential to kill on turn 2.

Then in this case, Ichorid probably doesnt care about Goyfs either than. At least WoGs can wipe the board clean of Zombie tokens as an additional out to EE.

Both of these statements are wrong. Wrath won't do anything as you can't play it before turn 4 in this deck. Even if they're going DDD plan on you, you're screwed and Wrath is only stalling at best. Goyf at the very least presents a 4 turn clock against them if you're lucky enough for them to dredge nothing of use, or if you get lucky enough to draw the double StP, EE hand (you StP their Narcos or preferably their Ichorids in their draw step, and leave EE around so they can't combo, allowing you to swing with Goyf).

Goyfs dont do much in the mirror either.

This is 100% false.

Seriously, how did you come to this conclusion?

In the mirror:

Goyf comes down on turn 2, creating pressure. If he swings for 5 or more damage before dying, and trades 1 for 1 with an opponent's removal spell, he's done his job.
Further, Goyf draws StP, allowing Dragon to do it's job (never die).
Goyf creates opportunities to capitalize on opponent's poor luck (Wrath does not) by pushing into the red zone.

Your Goyfs can get Spell Snared and traded with.

So because something can happen, means I shouldn't play a card? Bryant's Burning Wishes after he sacrifices Lion's Eye Diamond can get Force of Willed. Do you know when the last time I saw Bryant play a non-TES deck in a Legacy tournament was (GP Flash and it's grinders don't count)?

Crucibles dont help you survive.

For starters, if it lands it does help you survive by ensuring that their tempo from Wasteland and Stifle are temporary. Next, it helps you survive by playing your own Wasteland and cutting them off of green mana, so they can't resolve Goyfs and Mongeese of their own. If you both have Goyfs staring at each other, it allows you to cut them off of Red mana ensuring they can't try to trade a Bolt with your Goyf, or bluff the Bolt to get in for 5 with their Goyf.

I think Thresh cares more about Humility more than CoW

I'm about 75% certain this is incorrect. Thresh basically scoops it to Crucible + Waste, or Crucible + Factory (barring Krosan Grip). In comparison, Thresh scoops to Humility + Factory, assuming you get to 4 mana (against the versions with Waste + Stifle).

I still don't see how Crucibles protect you from Goyfs and Enforcers.

Simple. They never play Goyfs or Enforcers because they have no lands. Trust me, Threshold cares much more about getting locked out of the game, then they care about their guys turning into 1/1s.

Also, your Goyfs die to your own EEs as well in this MU.

Only if you're an idiot. EE is only going to come down with 2 counters when you have a Goyf of your own out if it's going to trade 2 (Goyf + EE) for 2 (Goyf + Goyf/CBalance) or better. This is a trade you can live with. Threshold plays cantrips, you play card advantage. More likely it's going to come down pre-emptively on 2, forcing them to hold back, allowing you to make up tempo, and drop a Goyf after you blow it.

I think Humility would solve a lot of problems here

What problems do you have against Dreadstill? Seriously. The only scenario in which I can envision Landstill losing to Dreadstill is them resolving and protecting their 12/12. Humility, like Wrath, in this situation is probably too slow. Seriously. Dreadstill should never be a problem for Landstill, especially a version with maindeck Krosan Grips.

Yes, but then they'll bait every Swords, EE, and Counter out of you and will eventually Thoughtseize + Enforcer you ftw.

Highly unlikely. Have you played this match up without Wrath before? I have, Landstill still wins when it gets to 5 mana (Goyf + Standstill around Daze), or alternatively when it sticks Crucible + Waste. Enforcer never sticks even without Humility and Wrath.

And sometimes EE will be an overcosted sorcery speed Edict as well then.

Sometimes. Not all of the times (since it has the potential to take out Counterbalance also).

Also, Goyf dies to Counterbalance.

This is the same as your Spell Snare argument, not logically sound.

torgar

07-30-2008, 12:57 PM

This is wrong. Goyf doesn't stand there. He swings putting pressure on the Goblins player to block or to race. The idea is that if they try to race, they typically lose because you will have drawn Factories, Swords, EE's, BEB (out of the board), and DoJ to take out their guys.

I don't think you can race Goblins with a Goyf. I haven't actually tested this, but given they don't land a Ringleader and unless you get either EE or Factory (both mana-hungry early) and StP for Piledriver to seems pretty unlikely.

I'm not sure how it could be argued that Goyf is better than WoG in the Goblin MU.

Wrath is pretty useless against Ichorid.

In the mirror:

Goyf comes down on turn 2, creating pressure. If he swings for 5 or more damage before dying, and trades 1 for 1 with an opponent's removal spell, he's done his job.
Further, Goyf draws StP, allowing Dragon to do it's job (never die).In the mirror, I'd also rather have Wrath then Goyf.

Eh, I'd still rather have Wrath then Goyf in the mirror. I don't really fear Goyf that much because I do have so much removal. I'd rather make my opponents removal dead then putting in a card that surely will trade 1 for 1 with a removal spell and possibly never even swing/resolve. As far as Dragon goes, I almost never win the mirror with him. (Or most matches as he's a x1) I win off of a slew of uncounterable Solider tokens. And in the mirror the best approach against this defending this is (in order):

1. EE for 0. But any non-comatose opponents is going to clear board of EE before cycling DoJ. Also, two players running Ruins means I might not have recurrable EE at my disposal.

2. Cycling my own DoJ and defending. Ick. This is supposed to be my win card, not my not-lose card.

3. Take the hit and Wrath next turn.

I'll discuss the Thresh MU later.

freakish777

07-30-2008, 03:46 PM

I don't think you can race Goblins with a Goyf.

You just said you haven't test this. I have. Goyf allows you to race against Goblins. Your priorities are:

Don't allow Lackey to connect.
Keep Vial from hitting 3 mana. Still winnable if it does, but basically unwinnable when it hit 4.
Counter Ringleader and Siege-Gang Commanders. It is possible to allow SGC to resolve, but only if they're tapping out to do so and you have the Swords ready to go for him.

If you can manage that, Goyf allows you to race as you'll be drawing removal spells for their Piledrivers and Warcheifs. The cards you really care about from them are:

Vial (out tempos you, allows them to play their game)
Lackey connecting (unlikely after turn 3 or so).
Ringleader (is a Fact or Fiction)
SGC (gives them reach, blockers, attackers, etc)
Warcheif
Piledriver

Again, the top 4 are your priorities. Killing of Warchiefs and Piledrivers should be fairly straight forward as you should just be able to draw into StPs, EEs, and Factories to block with. In this match EE on 1 and 3 are your preemptive settings (@1 Vial, Lackey, Fanatic, @3 Warchief, Matron, occassionally Incinerator if they're a bad player).

I'm not sure how it could be argued that Goyf is better than WoG in the Goblin MU.

My argument isn't that it's better than Wrath against Goblins. My argument is that Goblins is still a manageable match up with Goyf over Wrath, and that Goblins metagame presence is so diminished at this point, so why are we clinging to board sweepers if Goblins is the only reason we want them when we can test other cards that help more in other match ups?

Eh, I'd still rather have Wrath then Goyf in the mirror. I don't really fear Goyf that much because I do have so much removal. I'd rather make my opponents removal dead then putting in a card that surely will trade 1 for 1 with a removal spell and possibly never even swing/resolve.

So, you'd rather play dead answers (Wrath) than threats that will likely die (Goyf)?

If your opponent Counterspells Goyf your chances of winning should be greatly increasing as that's one less Counter they have to fight with over cards like Crucible, Fact or Fiction, and Standstill.

As far as Dragon goes, I almost never win the mirror with him. (Or most matches as he's a x1) I win off of a slew of uncounterable Solider tokens.

Sure, that doesn't negate the fact that Goyf drawing Swords is actually a good thing for you by giving more options later on (1 in terms of life, ie you can fetch more, afford to race, etc, the other in terms of not being stuck without the ability to recur Dragon).

I've played the mirror a lot. Taking the hit and Wrathing the next turn is about the worst thing that can happen. All of a sudden you're on 6 life and are forced to draw a DoJ for their next one, and are forced to draw a Swords for their Dragon. If you don't have a DoJ to answer their tokens (or a pre-emptive EE@0), you're usually screwed.

Here's a sample hand for the mirror:

1 Brainstorm
1 Island
1 Flooded Strand
1 X
1 Standstill
1 Wasteland
1 Counterspell

Seems reasonable/average right? You're telling me you'd rather that card were Wrath than Goyf?

Even if my opponent's hand is something brutal (not allowing you to Go -> Goyf, Standstill on subsequent turns), like:

1 Swords
1 Tundra
1 Polluted
1 Misrha's
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Counterspell
1 Force of Will

I'd rather have Goyf there every time in the mirror. Your opponent's removal turning into live spells in exchange for your dead spells turning into live spells is a trade off worth investigating at the very least.

Nihil Credo

07-30-2008, 04:38 PM

Just thought I'd drop by to tell how I've lost the finals of an 87-person online tournament with UWb Landstill with the best brain fart ever:

It's the second game, I have won the first. I'm at 2, with a full hand including multiple FoWs and a Cunning Wish. I have Humility in play and lots of lands, all tapped.

My opponent plays Meddling Mage. I think about Forcing it, then decide to let it resolve since I can just Wish into Pulse of the Fields and easily ignore the 1/1 beatdown, and i can hardcast the FoWs to protect that instead.

I say "Ok, resolves". The opponent asks how Mage works under Humility. I tell him that he still names a card, but the ability doesn't do anything until Humility leaves the table.

He says "Ok", thinks for a bit, and names Cunning Wish.

Two turns later, I die to 1/1 beatdown with Wish still in hand.

I only realise my mistake after losing game three...

Mister Agent

07-31-2008, 01:33 PM

Actually goblins doesn't really care about goyf since they will swing regardless it's part of their strategy. Unless you have an time walking engine like engineered plagues or pyroclasms tarmogoyf would be no threat to them. On the other hand, humility can be quite devastating against goblins especially since it nullifies almost all of the card advantage they have instilled in them. When playing landstill for me I'd rather take consistency/resilency over power as referring to tarmogoyf.

torgar

07-31-2008, 02:53 PM

Ok, I went and threw in Tarmogoyfs in place of WoGs despite a nauseous feeling in my stomach that he totally didn't belong and played a match vs Goblins.

No no no no no no no no no no.. There is no chance that's viable. You can't win versus Goblins. I'd much rather drop Standstill on turn 2 then a mediocre blocker. You can't even fill the graveyard fast enough to make him relevant. You'll usually get an instant and maybe a fetchland.

If you're determined to get rid of the primary white control core of the deck (Humility/Wrath) you need some other form of control which would probably come in the form of Shackles.

As far as Goblins having a diminished presence in the metagame, Goblins will always be around in decent numbers and it's a good standard to judge how your deck fairs against creature-based strategies.

Removing Wrath and Humility is a mistake. You can't say I haven't tried now!

thefreakaccident

08-02-2008, 09:52 PM

If you are going to run anything in place of wrath/humility, then run disk, contrary to common belief, it is pretty cool to sweep all the opposing crits/CBs/whatevers... and it is unstifleable (well, stifle doesn't stop it forever at least)...

I actually find the card very good in a stompy/threshold meta (kills all the other shit as well as the creatures) while still being able to play it/ use it when and if a bloodmoon is online...

Needless to say, if no humility, then disk, if you are running neither, then you are insane... or playing deed :tongue:

undone

08-04-2008, 11:14 AM

How does this deck (The standard UWB cunning still) fair against UBG landstill what are key cards, and how does that matchup play.

lavafrogg

08-06-2008, 04:58 PM

Just like every landstill mirror it depends on mana development and board superiority.
Cards like crucible of worlds and life from the loam will be huge in that they can regrow manlands and wastelands.
Importants cards being exterpate(remove recursive elements) and eternal dragon(recursion and flies over the gummed up ground)
It is possible that cunning wish can be a huge boon to counter the slow clock of a landstill deck (pulse).
Pernicious deed at the wrong time can cause you to have a sad day but what ever board sweeper you are using (which should proably be sided out) can cause the same thing.
Either way it will come down to who starts recurring wastelands and win conditions first so cunning wish>exterpate is some good.

undone

08-06-2008, 08:37 PM

Thanks, I was curious how relivant counter top was in that matchup, as it seems like that resolved makes counter wars go drasticaly in his favor also makes games be lost on sheer lack of resolved waste locks. Is it bettter or worse game 2 (MMages help or not worth it)

(I know the mirror is all about Crucible man lands and wastes)

It seems ichorid the mirror and lands are the difficult matchups, Extirpates seem to help EVERY ONE of these, whats the next best extirpate (As an instant)

Serbitar

08-07-2008, 07:09 AM

Citrus-God

08-07-2008, 02:10 PM

From my feeling the UWb vs Ubg Mirror should be about manasuperiority first (where UWb has Dragon/Crucible and Ubg has Crucible/Loam/Wasteland). And, if Ubg can't lock UWb out of mana, the white deck should win because of Decree (and Dragon). Cunning Wish for Extirpate is obv. also very strong.

The question is whether UGB wants to break the Standstill first. If it does, then UW would probably win because UGB blinked, otherwise, it'd be land drop go under Standstill. If UGB finds Wasteland and decides to go LftL on you, then you can just cast Cunning Wish -> ETUtor for a Crucible of Worlds and just sit back and protect yourself or you can Extirpate it.

Counterbalance can help stop opposing Wishes/Crucibles from resolving, but I think more importantly can Top help you establish mana superiority.

Top helps establish mana superiority. Of course, I doubt Counterbalance is going to do much here still, to be honest. You still have to deal with cards like EE.

freakish777

08-07-2008, 03:57 PM

If you are going to run anything in place of wrath/humility, then run disk, contrary to common belief, it is pretty cool to sweep all the opposing crits/CBs/whatevers... and it is unstifleable (well, stifle doesn't stop it forever at least)...

Wouldn't Oblivion Stone or Akroma's Vengeance be better (OStone gives you the possibilities of playing and activating in the same turn)? I realize OStone here actually isn't very good, but my point is essentially that Disk is way out-dated/classed against recently printed threats.

raharu

08-07-2008, 04:51 PM

Wouldn't Oblivion Stone or Akroma's Vengeance be better (OStone gives you the possibilities of playing and activating in the same turn)? I realize OStone here actually isn't very good, but my point is essentially that Disk is way out-dated/classed against recently printed threats.
Well, Disk is faster than Vengance (turns wise) and has better payment distribution then O. Stone, but I presume that's a matter of preference. I like Disk, personally, it's just nice (although I find myself wishing most of the time that Vengance was 5cc instead of 6).

torgar

08-07-2008, 04:58 PM

Disk-

Pros
Faster in the early game.
Dodges CB better since it's 4 instead of 3.
Destroys artifact lands/manlands
Looks like the pit of Sarlacc

Cons
CIPT sucks

O Stone-

Pros
Faster in the late game once you have 8 mana
Can save your own stuff (Humility/Crucible)

Cons
Doesn't blow up manlands/artifact lands
Costs 5 to activate

I prefer Disk because it kills more stuff, costs less and is usually something I cast whenever I can and let it sit there til I need it. If you've made it to 8 land drops then you're usually doing pretty good and won't need emergency O-stone in one turn. Disk lets me blow stuff up and still have mana for counters.

Citrus-God

08-07-2008, 05:37 PM

Getting to 6 mana is nothing. I personally like that Vengeance wipes the board clean as you play it. I also like Vengeance because it cycles.

I used to have Vengeances in the Sideboard. I don't think I have ever been disappointed in them. Sure, Disk activates on Turn 5, but outside of that, it's a crappier topdeck than Vengeance.

torgar

08-07-2008, 05:42 PM

You also can't tutor or recur Vengeance.

Citrus-God

08-07-2008, 06:08 PM

You also can't tutor or recur Vengeance.

Yes, but Vengeance is what we call the perfect card for Landstill; post-board stupid decks board in nasty cards like Krosan Grip and other forms of artifact and enchantment removal. Vengeance gets around those cards and makes them dead. Post-board, I always board out Humilities for the 4th WoG and 2 Vengeances if I see Green.

torgar

08-07-2008, 06:26 PM

What does your board look like? Are you running Wish-board? My slots are tight enough as it is to fit in more board control into the SB.

My sideboard currently:

x1 Enlightened Tutor
x1 Pulse of the Fields
x1 Return to Dust
x2 BEB
x3 Extirpate

x1 Tormod's Crypt
x1 Engineered Plague
x2 Runed Halo
x3 Meddling Mage

I'd like to fit in another BEB if possible to help against Goblins/Dragon Stompy.

Citrus-God

08-07-2008, 11:03 PM

raharu

08-08-2008, 12:20 AM

My Sideboard at the moment is

1 Return to Dust
1 Enlighten Tutor
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Fact or Fiction
3 Extirpate
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
2 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Wrath of God
2 Ajani Goldmane

I might cut the Ajanis and/or WoGs for something else and the 4th BEB. I'm not running Runed Halos because I want my opponent's Grips to be dead post-board. If you're up against tough players with great Sideboards, this can be a tough match-up. Making Krosan Grips dead against you is an amazing start though.
What are your thoughts on Vengnces in the MD? I'm sure that they're too slow to use against agro, but they're just too... Neat? to not use somewhere.

Also, why are you considering cutting the Ajani (Ajanis? Janice, rofl)? I'd think that with a token-producing win-condition that you would like Ajani a lot more than you do now. With HotS as a two-of, Ajani would be pretty dumb. Seriously, that second ability is just godly.

Citrus-God

08-08-2008, 02:20 AM

What are your thoughts on Vengnces in the MD? I'm sure that they're too slow to use against agro, but they're just too... Neat? to not use somewhere.

I would consider using them in the maindeck. They aren't bad, they're just versatile cards that not only kill creatures but artifacts and enchantments as well. It's a crappy pseudo Deed, but it's a decent replacement; it can't be Needled, Stifled, or Balanced, only hard countered. I'm not running it maindeck at the moment because I'm running Cunning Wish which does what Vengeance tries to do but not all at once, just a flexible card. I will run Vengeance if I decide to cut Cunning Wish from the maindeck because of it's power.

Also, why are you considering cutting the Ajani (Ajanis? Janice, rofl)? I'd think that with a token-producing win-condition that you would like Ajani a lot more than you do now. With HotS as a two-of, Ajani would be pretty dumb. Seriously, that second ability is just godly.

I'm cutting Ajani because I needed to make room for better cards. I will use Ajani in an unknown metagame, but in a known meta, better cards than Ajani can take it's place. I realize that Ajani is amazing, but there are better cards.

As for Hoofprints, I think the card sucks. I don't want to explain it because I'm lazy, but I will stand by it sucking.

diffy

08-08-2008, 07:24 AM

I'm not running Runed Halos because I want my opponent's Grips to be dead post-board.

I don't like this strategy - playing less powerful cards (and boarding out absolute powerhouses like Humility) only to gain some virtual card-advantage does not seem good to me especially since Krosan Grip will never be fully dead against you because it can still hit Mishra's Factory or a carelessly played Engineered Explosives. I'd rather flood my opponent with targets for Krosan Grip until one sticks and wins.

I'd like to fit in another BEB if possible to help against Goblins/Dragon Stompy.

You can cut a Runed Halo for the third Blue Elemental Blast - if you really want Halo in a specific matchup you can always board in the Wishboard Enlightened Tutor too. You'll then have the same virtual amount of Runed Halos (1+1 = 2) while maintaining flexibility. This boarding plan gets even better if you play some Enlightened Tutors main (I currently have one main).

For reference, my list (including current sideboard) can be found here (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgbs8px8_0grhzd6dg).

What are your thoughts on Vengeances in the MD? I'm sure that they're too slow to use against aggro, but they're just too... Neat? to not use somewhere.

Engineered Explosives is Legacy's Akroma's Vengeance.

On a more serious note: the deck is already horribly slow/clunky as it is and you're already loosing games due to your lack of speed. If you add another extremely slow card, you're just worsening the situation even further i.e. you'll loose more which obviously is not a good thing. All the recent modifications of the list (inclusion of Ponder, cut of the third Cunning Wish, cut of Fact or Fiction) try to make the deck faster and give it a better early game - this recent development away from the 'lategame control' deck is in my opinion the correct path to take if you want Landstill to remain competitive in the field and shouldn't be abandoned.
If you want to play Akroma's Vengeance, you should try 4c Landstill with Pernicious Deed which does everything Vengeance does but at a better cost (you can split the 6 mana you'd normally have to pay). The comparison between Deed and Vengeance brings me to another point against its inclusion: there are just not enough relevant non-creature permanents out there to justify playing a Deed-effect.

As for Hoofprints, I think the card sucks. I don't want to explain it because I'm lazy, but I will stand by it sucking.

Hoofprints is bad because it's a wincondition that does nothing but win - all your other winconditions (Crucible of Worlds, Decree of Justice, Eternal Dragon) also do something to get you out of a loosing situation. Also, if compared to your other winconditions, Hoofprints is just a weak wincondition too: it is slower than your other winconditions (you basically need a Brainstorm or a Standstill for it to do anything) and a much worse topdeck than any one of them.

Nihil Credo

08-08-2008, 10:07 AM

@DiF: What's up with the 3x BEBs postboard? With the 3x Runed Halo configuration, I can't think of a red deck that gives me big problems - some Red Thresh builds being the exception, but not because of the red spells.

Also, what's the purpose of Dust Bowl? With Crucible online it's strictly worse than Wasteland; without Crucible, there are few situations where I'd want to destroy multiple lands (as opposed to, say, killing a Volrath's Stronghold or something). It can help in the mirror to win the manland war under Standstill, but it dies to their Wasteland just like Wasteland, and you may not be able to destroy another land in response.

diffy

08-08-2008, 10:33 AM

What's up with the 3x BEBs postboard? With the 3x Runed Halo configuration, I can't think of a red deck that gives me big problems - some Red Thresh builds being the exception, but not because of the red spells.

Blue Blasts have mainly been added for the Aggro Loam matchup which they improve tremendously. They're basically replacing the Runed Halos which were, after closer consideration, winmore as they were only really good in already good matchups (aggro control).
I really like them so far.

Also, what's the purpose of Dust Bowl?

Dust Bowl is awesome in the mirror - it wins games on its own (Anti~American can tell tales of this). It's also great in the lategame when you can wastelock someone without needing Crucible (especially important against random lands.deck).
It doesn't really have any disadvantages over Wasteland as most of the time you only want to use Wasteland in the lategame anyway where you have access to the plenty of mana you need for Dust Bowl.
It has also been very good so far.

torgar

08-08-2008, 11:57 AM

@DiF: What's up with the 3x BEBs postboard? With the 3x Runed Halo configuration, I can't think of a red deck that gives me big problems - some Red Thresh builds being the exception, but not because of the red spells.

They are there primarily to combat Blood Moon/Magus effects. You need to answer DS's 8 Moon effects. (Unless you plan on boarding Demigod of Revenge, HA! NO) They also help against DS creatures, especially if they have an active Sword of Light and Shadow. Also good very good against Goblins, helps against Burn. Oh yeah, and Aggro-Loam.

@Der_imaginäre_Freund: I'm glad you've taken to the single x1 E.Plague and dropped Slaughter Pact. That single E. Plague is great vs ETW tokens, Ichorid horrors, Elves, Goblins, and randomness.

Mister Agent

08-08-2008, 01:59 PM

Citrus-God

08-08-2008, 04:14 PM

It would be also important to note that akroma's vengeance still does not have the cost efficient range to bypass gaddock teeg. Which should be looked considering I could see more threshold players utilitzing teeg in their respective sideboard. Especially when they want to have a better chance against the rising of UWb landstill.

Nobody in the states plays Teeg yet, so we should be good.

Pernicious deed is probably the most logical alternative to engineered explosives as Clemens stated previously. Clemen's 4c landstill can make full use of deed considering his deck has a flexible manabase and you have easy access to any color you want via E. dragon and multiple fetchlands. Also the fact that dustbowl would seem awesome to me with life from the loam.

I dont think Dust Bowl would be very good with Life from the Loam. The fact that you cant get around Standstill and disrupt people kinda ticks me off. The LftL is better off being a ETutor.

Edit. W00t! I'm the guy who persuaded DIF to add in Dust Bowl and Ponders.

raharu

08-09-2008, 01:51 AM

RE: RE: Akorma's Vengance: Yeah, I figured it was too slow for the MD, I was just wondering how CG (formerly Anti-American) felt in gards to their relative speed.

RE: RE: HotS: DIF is right, but I was simply sugesting that they would make Ajani better. Srsly, that second ability is a absolute beast.

lavafrogg

08-10-2008, 12:57 AM

I just won a 22 man tourney for 4x Goyfs...list and report to follow

Horray for Arizona Legacy...
Today was definatly the most fun Ive had in a mall based card shop in a while.

I was playing Uwb landstill....

4 Force
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Swords
3 Decree
2 Eternal Dragon
3 Counterbalance
3 Top
4 Counterspell
4 E Tutor
1 EE
1 Pithing Needle
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Aura of Silence

4 Mishras Factory
3 Tundra
3 Flooded Strand
1 Wasteland
3 Islands
3 Plains
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
2 Underground Sea

Sb
3 Exterpate
2 Engineered Plauge
3 Runed Halo
2 Exalted Angel
1 Chill
1 EE
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Threads of Disloyalty

Might be a card or lwo off but thats about right. My goal was to be a good counterbalance deck without being exposed/weakened by the card too much.

Round One U/W control mirror
He plays mainboard scepters which I dont think is very good and disapprove of.

Turn two he plays a scepter>counterspell... I counter he forces and the next turn I drop a pithing needle on him while hes tapped out. I play crucible and waste him out of the game. He has mainboard mages but they get out muscled by my lands. There was some dragon and have to recur it a few times but no big fuss.

Game two a quick counter balance lock ends anything fun he would have done. He destroys one and I cycle decree for five dudes and another one off the draw. Some people just dont come prepared. Halo on mage and I never see another win condition. I also cycled another decree for eight or so...drawing cards and dudes= so good

Fun fact my opening hands in both games had 3 forces and I never cast a single one

Round Two 5c Silvers
Game One
I tutor for balance turn one play it turn two and top turn three... some good... factories finish the job. I saw no distuption and EE cleared the board

Game two
I have a swords heavy hand and make a play mistake and let a crystaline sliver resolve... two plauges counter two pump slivers and I slowly get overwhelmed...I then spend the next couple turns digging for a EE and get one while I was at 3 and it was the third card under the top(how lucky). Again no disruption where do people get these decklists and how did he win round one???

Round Three Classic Red Sligh

Game one- I get burned down fast EE some jackle pups resolve counter top miss two incinerates and die to a friggin ball lightning

Games two and three... Turn one E tutor turn two chill turn three morph... Thats all I really have to say runed halo on ball lightning and he had 3x in his hand at the end of the game. game three runed halo was on bolt and incinerate...he drew 2 of each before the end of the game

Round Four Beserk Stompy

Game one swords to plowshares and EE recursion stablize the board while I was at 5. I literally killed everything with recurring explosives.

Game two I force a turn one winter orb and counterbalance his world away although I did stop 2x riverboas with a runed halo and runed halo on goyf

After round four I was the only undefeated player so round five was not needed

The prize support was 4 goyfs to the winner and nothing else so I had the store owner split my prizes throughout the top 4 so I got 100 in credit 2nd got 75 3rd got 50 and 4th got 25. Im a nice guy spent 50 of it and gave the rest to the store owner.

EE and Runed Halo were MVPs all days but really counter top rocked and its ability to protect your hosers is awesome.

PS Runed Halo is awesome in aggro matchups it counts as removal for all copies of a card

I cycled eternal dragon alot and never really cast/saw decree of justice. They were boarded out most games for halos and any aplicable hoser... Angels came in almost everygame due to the aggro nature of my opponents. The meta was really bad but I was never in any danger of losing any game except against burn game one(which I lost). Every tiered deck I saw lost to the pure randomness that was present.
This makes me feel better about the deck in that metagame control decks usually lose to random.

TeKo

08-10-2008, 05:17 AM

You have no black Manasource for Extirpate and Plague.

Jak

08-10-2008, 05:35 AM

I also count 62 cards.

klaus

08-10-2008, 06:37 AM

@lavafrog :
Congratz on the finish!

Looking at your list really made me wonder how you could have withstood any sort of dedicated aggro?
Setting up the CB-Top engine is not much of an option then - it will simply take up too much time.

Without Wrath effects - and a single EE as you only sweeper you don't put much in the way of sligh decks (assume your CBs either thoughtseized or K. gripped g2/3).

If you cannot counter or STP a first turn Lackey you have no way to get back into the game. Post board 2 Exalted Angels, 2 Plague, 1 Needle, 1 Chill will make a difference for sure but more traditional LS lists running 3 Wrath, 2 Humility and 3 EE MB, and 1 tutorable E.P., around 2 BEBs ,1 wishable Pulse of the Fields etc.. in the SB, still have a hard time battling against the little green men.

--
Just my 2 pence.

PS: were you happy with a full playset of Enlightened tutors?

lavafrogg

08-10-2008, 04:38 PM

The tutors were golden all day... in testing against goblins I pulled about 50/50 which I am ok with in that I didnt expect to see it in the tourney at all.
Tutor is better that thoughtsieze when you are trying to lock down a sligh/aggro deck which is what I saw all day long. It allows you to have the balance without having it in your hand(top is played on 1st turn).

Additionaly the tutors allow you to choose what you need to do better than the cunning wishes...I was able to get a crucible and set up infi 3/3 blockers while the goblins player was dropping 1 threat a turn(chill). I beleive the numbers need to be adjusted and I will try to find room for wrath or humility but most importantly I need to squeeze in 1 or 2 more explosives.

Also in testing I brought in the runed halos against goblins...protection from piledriver and siegegang is pretty good I here. Again with the four tutors it is like running 6x plauges followed by 5x chill and 7x halo and they interchange with eachother when you need them to.

One tech play of the day was to tutor a standstill on the top of my deck...counterbalance a goyf and play the standstill the next turn(who says the tutors are disadvantage)

There is alot of versitile hate in this deck.

But again all I played was 1 mirror match and three sui-aggro matchups.

TeKo

08-10-2008, 04:46 PM

I would like Balanced Still, but I think the Landstill shell smiply can't support CB Top with about 23+ Lands, and you have to take out Counters or Board Control elements for it what imo is not good for the deck.

May be you can build a list with less then 3 CB/Top with your MD Tutors to have the Space for the other important Stuff.

list follows in a couple of minutes

EDIT:
work of some minutes
// Lands
3 [U] Tundra
3 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (3)
3 [U] Underground Sea
1 [U] Scrubland
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [UNH] Plains
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [FUT] Tolaria West
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [UNH] Island

// Creatures
1 [SC] Eternal Dragon

// Spells
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
3 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
2 [TE] Humility
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [SC] Decree of Justice
4 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [MM] Counterspell
2 [MR] Oblivion Stone
1 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [AL] Force of Will

cc0 24
cc1 13
cc2 11
cc3 3
cc4 4
cc5 4
cc7 1

Still not a perfect curve for CB.
2 O-Stone because I tutor for them and I needed Stuff in the cc3 Slot.
only 2 Sensei because I have Brainstorms, can tutor for them and can recur them with Academy.
The SB would contain some Silverbullets like Needle, Chill/CoP, maybe Energy Flux, Crypt...

lavafrogg

08-10-2008, 04:55 PM

I felt three was correct because it is hhuge in so many matchups Counter top essentially cuts your opponent off of 1cc and 2cc in the deck with the savage ability to turn enlightened tutors into counterspells.

I have hit threes and fours with the deck (crucible, aura, DoJ) and with all of the shuffle effects you can see alot of cards with the top alone.

With all of the 1s and 2s out of your opponents deck it becomes alot easier to use the rest of your control elements to win the game from there.

I am considering some runed halos main for their overall usefullness in matchups where people want to hurt you...

100th post HOOT

Illissius

08-10-2008, 08:35 PM

With 4 Enlightened Tutor I'm pretty sure there's no defensible reason not to run 1 Humility or Moat.

lavafrogg

08-11-2008, 02:16 AM

I think if I could I would run a humility main over the aura of silence. I wanted a 3cc out to counterbalance or pithing needle(on explosives) though.

I dont like moat due to the fact that it shuts down the majority of my win conditions. Humility is a bomb that shuts down any creature based decks but nil against combo.

I actually am considering mainboard halos... im working on it now.

Conversely I ran off of three lands on more than one occasion due to opposing wastelands the only card in my list that costs more than three being decree(can be cycled) and dragon(can also be cycled). I beleive this is unique for a dedicated control deck like mine. The dragon and the decree are there to win the mirror and to get through opposing contertops.

Ironstickman

08-11-2008, 07:36 AM

the counterbalance converted mana cost is not that terrible since you have to add + nº enlightened tutors you run to cmc 2 and 3 (and 4)
I would only run 1 Humility mainboard to tutor it specifically against those matchups where it shines (perhaps I would add one to the side)

Oblivion ring is a good choice for 3cmc.

The decks real flaw is that its mass removal is quite limited though.
I play 2 Wraths, 1 EE 1 O.ring 4 swords + a control magic or threads of disloyalty.

I have not tested Oblivion stone but it seems a bit slow in paper and conflicts with our permanents.

As for the reasons to splash black,
tutorable E.plague for goblins/faries/ichorid/elves and EE for 3
any more? Extirpate
is it really woth it? a more solid mana base is preferable?

This is the sideboard of the list I posted a few pages ago just to give an idea of a UW version (+ added humility)

4 Meddling Mage
2 Runed Halo
1 Humility
1 Cop Red
1 Cop green
1 Seal of cleasing (it has more reach than EE)
2 Tormod's crypt
3 Hydroblast

@lavafrogg
congrats first of all!

CoP' Red is much better than chill, since goblins can play around it with lackey/vial/chief.
In your version you have only 3 fetchlands!, 5-6 are necessary to maximize top.
It is a great idea to have the alternative wincons you have(E.angel)

Citrus-God

08-11-2008, 05:52 PM

One small note;

@IronStickMan: Instead of CoP: G, run Story Circle instead; it can be sided in against Goblins to get around Pithing Needle and keeps you safe from Goyfs.

slaiter

08-12-2008, 01:47 PM

My list:

//Lands
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Island
3 Plains
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
4 Mirsha's Factory
//25

//Creatures
1 Eternal Dragon
//1

//Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
3 Engeneered Explosives
2 Humility
2 Decree of Justice
//34

Suggestions?

TeKo

08-12-2008, 02:06 PM

Imo 25 Lands are to much, atm I play only 23 with 1 Dragon and I would never play more then 24.
If you play Wastelands you can think about play more Lands.

-Polluted Delta
+Decree of Justice
Decree is really strong if you draw multiple early simply cycle for 0 or 1 and draw a card.

-Hallowed Fountain
You don't want any Lifeloss besides fetchlands
+Tundra/Basics/Wasteland/Dust Bowl(Clemens and CG's Secret Tech)
or
+Crucible
imo Crucible is really strong it wins the mirror/Loam and other Decks which attack your Lands

Thats the list I play:
I still think MD Tutors are good, you can find gamebreaking cards like Humility or Crucible and PostBoard I play some SilverBullits with 3 E Tutors.
// Lands 23
2 [UNH] Island
3 [UNH] Plains
1 [FUT] Tolaria West
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (3)
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [U] Scrubland
1 [U] Underground Sea
3 [U] Tundra
1 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures 1
1 [SC] Eternal Dragon

// Spells 36
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
2 [JU] Cunning Wish
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [SC] Decree of Justice
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [OD] Standstill
1 [MR] Oblivion Stone
2 [TE] Humility
4 [MM] Counterspell
2 [10E] Wrath of God
1 [IN] Fact or Fiction
1 [10E] Crucible of Worlds

Would you guys play the 3rd Plains or Island?
MD I have 4x UU and 4x WW (6 with Return to Dust and Pulse)
Post Board + Story Circle and Halo
So I would play the Plains.

raharu

08-12-2008, 05:46 PM

I like the MD Tutors. I've taken a similar aproace in other decks, and it works out nicely, having things that work in the deck at regular numbers and then having a E. Tutor or two to act as more flexible extra copies of each, as opposed to an overload of E. Tutors and a toolbox. I'd recomend against the Oblivion Stone though, I'd elect for another Explosives or a Nevin's Disk, but I personally just don't like O. Stone, so take that with a grain of salt.

@ basic lands, I'd say the third Plains, as your flexible, permanent answers are mostly WW, which is a little more important than Counterspell (although Islands are mandatory, of course, permission only stops a threat, Humility, RtD, Pulse, and Wrath stop >1).

Also, what does your board generally look like?

TeKo

08-12-2008, 06:12 PM

I think at the "Deutsche Legacy Meisterschaft" Ill play something like this:
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 [SHM] Runed Halo
SB: 1 [TSP] Return to Dust
SB: 1 [DS] Pulse of the Fields
SB: 3 [IA] Hydroblast (Goblins/Loam/DStompy)
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 1 [10E] Story Circle (Mono Colored Aggro)
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle (Vial, Deed maybe Equipments)
SB: 1 [UL] Engineered Plague (some Tribal Shit)
SB: 1 [MM] Energy Flux (Affinity, Staxx or even DStompy)

Ill expect an extreme random meta with some Affinity, random Aggro Decks + many Tier 1 and 2 Decks (LS/Thresh/Dredge/Dragon Stompy maybe Enchantress/ITF).
There will be T2 and EXT players who probably play Budget Decks.

Ch@os

08-12-2008, 06:52 PM

Hey, iam playing exact the same list but,

MB:
- 1 [MR] Oblivion Stone
- 1 [IN] Fact or Fiction

+ 1 Vedalken Shackles
+ 1 EE, [maybe a third Wrath iam not sure]

SB:

- 2 [IA] Hydroblast
- 1 [MM] Energy Flux
- 1 [10E] Pithing Needle

+ 4 Meddling Mage

and surprise also at the "Deutsche Legacy Meisterschaft".

I expect a very random meta, every kid will grap his deck and come along.
But your Sb is a very good one, i'll test it.

TeKo

08-13-2008, 05:09 AM

I still like O-Stone.

I would play the 3rd Wrath over the 3rd EE because you can tutor for them and recur with Academy.

Shackles could be good in a Random meta but with an Island count of 6 stealing Goyf could be a problem.
But its still a nice Tutor target and nice with Academy.

I have to test Ponder in the FoF Slot, if Clemens play them they have to be good especially with a low landcount ;)
But I really like FoF in some situations, your opponent cast a spell, you FoF in response and he makes 1(Counter)/4 piles you take 4 cards and play the counter in your hand, thats CA. :cool:

Maybe Ill play TES at "DLM" I do not want do play the mirror every round ;)

Mister Agent

08-15-2008, 01:53 PM

I dont think Dust Bowl would be very good with Life from the Loam. The fact that you cant get around Standstill and disrupt people kinda ticks me off. The LftL is better off being a ETutor.

I actually like LftL with dustbowl mainly since you don't have to sacrifice itself for obvious utility against the opposition. I also like the redundancy that loam acknowledges mainly since it's resilient to countermagic and other form of disruption. But then again I include a singleton crucible of worlds as well. This topic should probably be discussed further in the alternative landstill thread mainly because I am referring to a 4 color build I have been working on. Where recurring lands becomes more prominant especially for oppositional generic disruption/utility(example: stifle and wasteland).

However, you stated a relevant reason with crucible operating under a standstill. This is justifiable of course since breaking your own draw engine can be an oxymoron.

Pelikanudo

08-16-2008, 09:52 AM

Hello with respect the list I posted UI refer to:
4 Swords to plowshares
4 counterbalance
4 FoW
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 Semseis d.t
1 scroll Rack
1 Moat
1 Humility
1 E.Explosives
1 Pithin nedle
1 Oblivion ring
1 Oblivion Stone
2 eternal dragon
2 standstill
3 Enlitghned tutor
1 crucible of worlds.

Lands:
4 Islands
2 plain
1 academy ruins
4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
4 Tundra
3 wasteland
3 faerie conclave

I ve been playin several games with it and I find several problems I'll expose:
1)I most of the times loose vs decks which carry counterbalance, its true if you dont have FoW you'll losoe allways to a RESOLVED opposing counterbanace.

2)I supposed to win stablishing some kinf of lock via : moat- hu,milty in order to win at least vs decks of creatures.

3) My main and almost lonely win cond if the flying land creature Faerie conclave, wich is too slow: I mean I feel comforatble starting to attcck with at least 7 lands in play ... not productive I need 10m more turns to win¡¡

4) I thouth that the hu,mulity-moat locks didnt affect to conclave and you know what? true its a 2/1 body but LOOSES fliyng.
NOT problems:
1) O-Stone is great : iis equalityly as fadst as N.Disk ena makes our permanents stay in table and we in this deck have a lot

2)definately S.Rack > S.D.Top in synergy with c.b
3) with this deck having been confectionated to get the most of the great card c.b I even have won to a survival deck.

CONCLUSIONS:
1)we need something vs opposin c.b: snares is the main option
2) Turning the deck to a U/B/W version gwould give us B.Blossom and exytripate mainly.
3) we have to chose between humility and moat at least we change the win condition. I opted for the 2nd option . I found this list wich did inspire to create the following deck;
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=5994

Taurelin

08-16-2008, 08:41 PM

4) I thouth that the hu,mulity-moat locks didnt affect to conclave and you know what? true its a 2/1 body but LOOSES fliyng.

That's not correct. With Humility in play, each activation of Conclave will set a new timestamp, thus making it a 2/1 creature AND granting it flying.

The only way Conclave won't have flying is if it's activated and Humility enters play after that.

Ch@os

08-17-2008, 05:44 AM

There is a good version of the deck:

http://www.trader-online.de/turniere/Decks/2007-12-T15.html

Moatility

Mandalore

08-17-2008, 10:57 AM

That's not correct. With Humility in play, each activation of Conclave will set a new timestamp, thus making it a 2/1 creature AND granting it flying.

The only way Conclave won't have flying is if it's activated and Humility enters play after that.

Right, to be more detailed, when two continuous effect interact on the same layer the one which predominates on the other is the newest on timestamp order, so:

here the "flying ability" is granted to conclave on layer 5
humility modifies that on layer 5, removing all abilities,
BUT, the timestamp order allows conclave to have the "flying ability" overwriting the humility effect on the same layer.
THEN conclave becomes a 2/1 (instead of 1/1), this is due to the interaction of 2 effect on the same layer (6b), and thus timestamp is applied.

In conclusion, if you activate conclave, when humility is in play ALREADY (even if you didn't play it in the same turn), you'll have a 2/1 beater with flying.

Nice, isn't it?

diffy

08-17-2008, 08:13 PM

Just wanted to keep people informed: I played my newest list (2 Ponder, 1 Enlightened Tutor, 3 Counterspell, 3 Factory) at yesterday's Hassloch event and finished with a horrible 3-2-1 record.
I played against Vaka Pox (2:1), Burn (2:0), TES (2:1), NQS feat. Stiflenought + FEB packages (1:1), Aggro Loam (0:2) and Ugb Tempo Thrash (0:2 - wtf. This should really not happen), in this order.

What really annoyed me all day long was how incredibly clunky the list still is despite all my recent changes - I just can't figure how people can get away with playing Deed/Fact/Oblivion Stone when already my rather streamlined build has trouble with its own Curve.
As for the positives: Ponder was the second best card in the deck all day long (right after Brainstorm) and deserves to be more than a 2off.

Changes after the event:

-2 Couterspell
+2 Spell Snare

More copies of Counterspell got the axe because they were horrible all day long (again) - they are terribly slow, especially in the face of Daze and Wasteland and never really feel strong enough as they will trade with something as expensive as themselves most of the time.
I'm currently trying some Spell Snares in the Counterspell slot and they are pretty decent taking care of almost everything Counterspell normally counters at a discount price - you just have to be a little more careful with what to Force as you aren't that flexible with your Permission anymore.

-1 Enlightened Tutor
-1 Decree of Justice
+2 Ponder

Tutor was okay but never really overwhelming - I'll rather take the consistency of Ponder over it: playing more blue cards is always great and a better early-game is more important than the random possibility to tutor up a Crucible of Worlds or to play a more flexible sideboard.
Brehn suggested to cut the Decree which seems reasonable: with 8 cantrips you have a better earlygame than with more (clunky) DoJs while still being able to dig into it whenever you need it.

-1 Wrath of God
+1 Engineered Explosives

This change was basically implemented to have more outs against Chalice and Counterbalance to whom you expose yourself more by playing less clunky stuff. Also, playing less colour intensive spells is always nice considering the horrible manabase.

-1 Plains
+1 Island

This change ensues from the migration towards a more Blue-based maindeck.

The full list I'm going to test/play from now on can be found here (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgbs8px8_0grhzd6dg).

klaus

08-18-2008, 01:01 PM

Here's my latest report.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10736

@D.I.F.
I liked the inclusion of Ponder. I only ran a single copy [like the coward I am] and was never unpleased to rip it off the top.
So you're upping your Ponder count to 3..sounds OK to me - I think it might be neat to add another Delta for more shuffle effects in that case.
[Side note: Since Ponder is a mana fixer, too I guess 4cc LS might profit from it even more.]

Going down to 1 CS in favor for 3 Spell Snare seems radical to me. I used to play 3 CS, 2 Spell Snare back in the day and was never really too pleased with that split. The overall meta has shifted to a speedier environment so Spellsmare might be a feasible call. I might try a 2-2 split in the near future and see how it flows..

the 4th EE looks reasonable in the face of more 1cc spells that make you more vulerable to CB. Needle on EE will suck even more.

Keep up the good work!

--

@all:

What do you think about Konsultant's latest UWg list?
Ajani...4 Wrath...
I going test his list with the following changes:
MB:
-1 Dragon
+1 Monastery

SB:
-1 Wrath
+1 ?

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=18339
Klaus

Mandalore

08-18-2008, 03:15 PM

Citrus-God

08-18-2008, 08:16 PM

Mmmh, I'm wondering if the green splash for krosan grip only is worth of it.

Counterbalance is a painful card to handle. This might be the reasoning.

Besides, I don't like very much ajani, if I picked up a plainswalker I'd choose Garruk without any doubt, this second ability is really too much powerful to be ignored, and even the third ability doesn't cost so much fidelty counters, ajani's third ability isn't as powerful as could seem, mainly because the avatar doesn't have any evasive ability, so, I don't know, to be honest I'd never splash green only for 3 cards which remains 3/60 even post board (with 2/3 wish even 3 instant card could be 5-6/60).
However keep us updated with your tests :wink:

The reasons to run Ajani is

1. Within your primary color.
2. Makes Life.
3. Turns innocently cycled for 3 soldier tokens turn into 2/2 one turn, 3/3 the next.
4. Forces them to kill Ajani or else the arrival of the Avatar token will kill in one swing.

Mister Agent

08-19-2008, 07:59 PM

Citrus-God

08-19-2008, 11:50 PM

I have been testing out the 2 counterspell/3 spell snare permission configuration earlier and I must say DIF landstill has more of a responsive interaction in the early game. This permission configuration also creates more flexbility for brainstorm/ponder to deal with a variety of threats in the early phases as well. With a more general view of course, this flexilibity allows you to play more lenient against decks that can outplay you on early tempo advantage.

Not saying you should always push for the late game but with better cost efficient utility tools you have more freedom to pick and choose your spots. This paradigm overall can make landstill a more consistent deck especially on tight ropes against a influx of opposing odds.

I still see it as right to run at least 2 Counterspells. Some players will stall Standstill so that when they do decide to break it, you have UU open and you will probably be more than able to counter it without pitching a card to FoW or walk into Daze.

The new list looks like it's better at combating early-mid game; of course, you usually want to move your opponent into late game so you can outplay him. Apparently, DIF's new list doesn't play anything like UW Landstill, but more like the UR Landstill in vintage if you replace "disrupt" with "answer."

konsultant

08-20-2008, 10:26 PM

Mmmh, I'm wondering if the green splash for krosan grip only is worth of it.
The strange thing I noticed is that cunning wish is missing, so I can't realize how he can get the grip when he needs it, obviously the splash is also for the third e.e. counter, but, imho, the better splash is black, even without wish.

Maybe I'm wrong, surely in his meta he seems to rock...

Besides, I don't like very much ajani, if I picked up a plainswalker I'd choose Garruk without any doubt, this second ability is really too much powerful to be ignored, and even the third ability doesn't cost so much fidelty counters, ajani's third ability isn't as powerful as could seem, mainly because the avatar doesn't have any evasive ability, so, I don't know, to be honest I'd never splash green only for 3 cards which remains 3/60 even post board (with 2/3 wish even 3 instant card could be 5-6/60).
However keep us updated with your tests

The Green splash is definetly worth adding Grip. The Muc match up becomes a joke with them not able to protect Back to Basics and with the surge of Imperial Painter and the Epic Painter in my area Grip has become MVP. The one Grip in the SB obviously wasn't meant to be wished for since I wasn't running Wish but my SB strategy against alot of decks included boarding out the 2 Humility and boarding in the 4th Wrath and 3rd Grip. Mostly if they saw Humility game one and I expected Grip to come in for them I would board out Humility. The other reason for the single Grip in the SB was I hated drawing multiple's game one against decks where it wasn't relevent. Only running 2 MD while having access to the third for games 2 and 3 seems to be working quite well. Muc and Painter are obviously only a couple of reasons to play it, I have always favored Disenchant effects MD for the versitility of MD removal. They are almost never useless and have given me a number of games.

The 3rd color is needed for EE regardless of what color it is, I felt Grip was more relevent than Extirpate and so I switched to Green. I do miss the Extirpate's in the SB against Ichorid and Loam but Grip hits a much broader part of the format and I am running Crypt. I am trying to add Green and Black but I don't know if I can make the Mana Base work in UW/xx.

Regarding Ajani, PLAY THIS CARD. If you are still trying to justify whether or not to run it, it means one thing, you haven't tryed playing it yet. It appears to be only somewhat usefull but this card is game breaking. The avatar token does have evasion in the form of Wrath of God, then make token. Landstill being able to swng for a full 20+ points of damage in one swing without tapping any mana is ridiculous. Your worst case scenario is they keep dropping chump blockers and you don't have STP or EE and they have to deal with an Abyss. The Abyss effect is pretty damn good for Landstill. I have had my avatar's STP'd a few times as well and going to 50+ life has never been bad for me. Let's not forget you can keep making avatar tokens for free over time whitch is exactly what Landstill gives you. You can't run Garruck on 3 sources of Green Mana in the deck and the untapping of 2 lands is irrelevent most of the time unlike the 2 life whitch is almost always relevent. The main power of Ajani lies in the +1+1 counters with vigilance, one factory can swing for 4, soldiers double in power and can still chump block. I can't imagine anybody actually playing Ajani in a few events and being disappointed with it. Ajani gives Landstill the explosive aggro effect that people were looking for by trying to add Goyf to Landstill but Ajani has huge synergy with Wrath of god and still functions well with Humility in play.

I do admitt that I lost to Ichorid and Aggro Loam at worlds and Extirpate would have fixed both those match ups alot but I could have beaten both of them with the cards I played, I am working on getting a build together that can run Grip and Extirpate AND still have a solid Mana Base against non-basic hate. At the moment I am testing some ideas but nothing has been working as good as I would like it to quite yet.

raharu

08-21-2008, 12:52 PM

Citrus-God

08-21-2008, 03:24 PM

raharu

08-21-2008, 04:59 PM

I presume that is a metagame call and a matter of personal preference. WoG isn't relevant against enchantress, doesn't hit CB, etc., etc.

Citrus-God

08-21-2008, 05:06 PM

I presume that is a metagame call and a matter of personal preference. WoG isn't relevant against enchantress, doesn't hit CB, etc., etc.

How often do you play against Enchantress in a standard metagame and Krosan Grips/Cunning Wish/EE should already answer Counterbalance.

raharu

08-21-2008, 07:14 PM

How often do you play against Enchantress in a standard metagame and Krosan Grips/Cunning Wish/EE should already answer Counterbalance.
Jitte, Chalices, Blood Moons (although that's seriously not ever going to happen with any amount of frequency), Crubicle of Worlds, sitting EEs, Aether Vials, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Survival of the Fittist, Artifact lands, and WoG doesn't supress man-lands.

Citrus-God

08-21-2008, 11:49 PM

Jitte, Chalices, Blood Moons (although that's seriously not ever going to happen with any amount of frequency), Crubicle of Worlds, sitting EEs, Aether Vials, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Survival of the Fittist, Artifact lands, and WoG doesn't supress man-lands.

That's a good list of cards. But bastardizing your mana base to fit in non-basics just to combat Stax kind of puzzles me. I may consider it when Blood Moons disappear. The mana base I would run would be

1 Tolaria West
1 Dust Bowl
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Island

2 Eternal Dragon

Which is a fairly stable mana base. The only problem I have with this list isn't Wasteland, it's Blood Moon. When that leaves the format, I'll got back to running Deeds.

raharu

08-22-2008, 12:21 AM

That's a good list of cards. But bastardizing your mana base to fit in non-basics just to combat Stax kind of puzzles me. I may consider it when Blood Moons disappear. The mana base I would run would be

1 Tolaria West
1 Dust Bowl
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Island

2 Eternal Dragon

Which is a fairly stable mana base. The only problem I have with this list isn't Wasteland, it's Blood Moon. When that leaves the format, I'll got back to running Deeds.

Truth. Also, I didn't think that Staxx used most of those cards when I drafted the list :laugh:

Yeah, Moon effects are gay :frown:, not a whole lot to do there... Personally I think that the sweeper depends on the deck's strategy, so I like WoG myself (as it's less mana intensive and doesn't hit CB and whatnot, which I have a tenancy to run in most decks I play with blue sources in them), but I'll readily concede that it's the sweeper of choice, in an ideal setting, but a Moon-infested meta is far from ideal.

Citrus-God

08-22-2008, 12:25 AM

Truth. Also, I didn't think that Staxx used most of those cards when I drafted the list :laugh:

Yeah, Moon effects are gay :frown:, not a whole lot to do there... Personally I think that the sweeper depends on the deck's strategy, so I like WoG myself (as it's less mana intensive and doesn't hit CB and whatnot, which I have a tenancy to run in most decks I play with blue sources in them), but I'll readily concede that it's the sweeper of choice, in an ideal setting, but a Moon-infested meta is far from ideal.

In Counterbalance based deck, I'd rather have Pernicious Deed because you can just win once you wipe the board clean of pesky cards like AEther Vial and Bitterblossom, so you can safely cast Counterbalance and Top and win.

klaus

08-22-2008, 04:13 AM

I presume that is a metagame call and a matter of personal preference. WoG isn't relevant against enchantress, doesn't hit CB, etc., etc.

Wrath of God is actually your 2nd best namesake hate right after EE.
STP is worthless that's for sure..

undone

08-22-2008, 11:54 AM

Counterbalance is a painful card to handle. This might be the reasoning.

Counter top really is hard to deal with But I dont agree, counterbalance should be relativly ignored in the standard UWb lists. As decks running it bunch up at the 1/2CC spots. The best thing to counter here is top. Keep top off the table and CB is worthless to them. (it will counter 1 spell at most honestly)

If I had Grip I would probably grip top over CB any day. Most lists run more CB then tops anyway.

Also vs Moon based decks deeds mana requirement is what makes the UWb version exist. UWb is strictly weaker when the mana base is not under attack.

However when it is under attack its strictly better.

In Counterbalance based deck, I'd rather have Pernicious Deed because you can just win once you wipe the board clean of pesky cards like AEther Vial and Bitterblossom, so you can safely cast Counterbalance and Top and win.

EE @ 2 paying 1 colorless mana costs 1 the same but can be put on top of your deck with ruins. Yes it leaves vial out there but vial doesnt do anything when there is recurring EE. Deed is amazing but The problem is you want to run 19-20 blue cards and humility and decree. Greedy mana bases=fail. Hence my sig.

klaus

08-22-2008, 02:41 PM

@ DIF_&CO.:

I have tested and pondered on Spellsnare. And I came to the conclusion that sticking with CS is most likely the best call.
I mean look at it that way: ~60% (anyway more than half in any case) of the spells that Spellsnare wants to counter are permanents**. But.. since we're running 2-4 EE, 2cc permanents usually shouldn't be tough to deal with.
I mean countering a turn-2-Confidant (on the draw) is nice and all but I wouldn't trade this plus for consistent lategame brutality.

Goblins, The Rock, Aggro Loam and other "50-50" MUs would most likely suffer from a shift towards Spellsnares.

I'm not saying Spellsnare sucks in general, all I'm saying is control>speed (even more so since those 2-3 Ponder fill the speed/consistency gap well enough, imo).

**I'm aware there are a couple of bothersome non-permanent targets (Life From the Loam, Burning Wish, Hymn to Tourach etc..), too.

Illissius

08-22-2008, 03:29 PM

From my experience playing Spell Snare in similar control decks but not this one, I don't like it. Threshold isn't the only deck in the format. People always play spells which don't cost two mana, and I look at the Spell Snare in my hand and wish it were anything else; when they do play something for two mana, I'm like "oh thank God". A card where you're thankful when it's not dead and the circumstances when you can finally use it are determined by your opponent isn't a paragon of strength.
I've used it as additional countermagic past the standard eight (I'd never cut Counterspells for it); not sure what else is viable for that role. (Dromar's Charm!)

Mister Agent

08-22-2008, 06:40 PM

After some testing with DIF with his landstill this morning. I tend to have mix feelings about the inclusion of spell snare over counterspell. When I was testing against aggro loam about half of the time I'd felt like spell snare was better. But that's because DIF runs a set of engineered explosives and the inclusion of humility was able to neuter just about any threat. As well as spell snare was less mana intensive then counterspell in the face of land disruption.

Keeping this in mind, I was then able to acknowledge the fact that I can efficiently disrupt the utilization package of burning wish and devastating dreams. Counterspell of course, became a tad less relevant with the boarding of blue blasts but can still make a sigificant impact in problematic situations.

The goblin matchup on the otherhand, was not as nearly as sweet as I thought it would be. Especially with the inclusion of mad auntie and Earwig Squad which totally negate the fact that spell snare and blue blasts are countermagic/psuodo removal. In this case, I like the inclusion of blue blasts and counterspell since both countermagic spells are relevant against a good portion of threats goblins has in their arsenal. But this is obviously preferred when I have other cost efficient cards that can manifest into card advantage such as engineered explosives, humility, et cetera.

Hanni

08-22-2008, 08:24 PM

I've been playing with UBgw, UBg, UWb, UWg, and UW Landstill all day for the last several days and I've come to like UWb the best.

On topic of Spellsnare: Unless you need more blue count or you aren't splashing black, why run Spellsnare over Thoughtseize? Thoughtseize hits far more targets and gives you invaluable information about that opponent's hand. It also adds proactive disruption to compliment the decks reactive disruption, allowing the deck to attack multiple dimensions of the game.

I'm also unsure of why people are either running CounterTop or having problems against it. This deck operates largely outside of the 1cc-3cc curve that most CounterTop decks utilize, therefore making running CounterTop a bad idea and playing against opposing CounterTops not as difficult. I wouldn't bastardize the deck by dropping FoF, WoG, Humility, and Decree to fit the CounterTop engine in. This deck should usually contain some amount of EE's maindeck and gains either Vindicate or Krosan Grip postboard to deal with opposing CounterTop locks. Considering that both Factory and Decree completely get around Counterbalance anyway, I don't see Counterbalance being a serious issue.

Also vs Moon based decks deeds mana requirement is what makes the UWb version exist. UWb is strictly weaker when the mana base is not under attack.

I strongly disagree with this. Even when the manabase is not under attack, the 4c lists oftentimes have problems of assembling the right color requirements at the right times. Aside from that, I wouldn't necessarily say that Deed is stronger... both Deed and Humility have different niches. If opposing artifacts/enchantments are not a concern in a given matchup, WoG/Humility are much stronger cards to play. Considering that EE can be run in UWb Landstill to have a very similar effect to what Deed does (namely artifact/enchantment removal), I would argue that UWb Landstill is in fact stronger than 4c Landstill. Using the word 'strictly' is a pitfall that I'm not going to stumble into.

---

Anyway, here's the list I've currently been playing and have been loving thus far:

U/W/b Landstill

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [U] Tundra
2 [B] Underground Sea
1 [B] Scrubland
2 [RAV] Island (2)
2 [9E] Plains (3)
1 [SHM] Swamp (2)
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (3)

// Spells
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [OD] Standstill
3 [FNM] Fact or Fiction
4 [MM] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
3 [10E] Wrath of God
2 [TE] Humility
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [SC] Decree of Justice

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ARC] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [FNM] Duress
SB: 2 [AP] Vindicate
SB: 2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds

raharu

08-22-2008, 11:36 PM

Hanni, what's with the Duresses in the SB?

Ironstickman

08-23-2008, 06:31 AM

Hi,
I believe it is a great idea to include thoughtseize maindeck for all of the reasons you stated. It really looks nice in the mainboard. Spell snare is not a good card for this deck unless your are playing exclusively against threshold.

however, how do you fell about these changes:
-2 fact or fiction + 2 cunning wish (with apropiate sideboard modifications)
-1 fecthland +1 Eternal dragon
-1 Wrath +1 E.explosives
-1 fetchland +1 tundra

The manabase is quite strong (8 fetches are too much though) so we might want to dispense of tolaria+wasteland+academy pack and crucible mainboard.
It can be problematic when facing decks with recursion playing things like volrath's stronhold however.

About running wishes over FoF I think it is really necessary because they give the extra 'reach' to the deck, having acces to pulse,blast,extirpate is most of the time more important than getting +n card advantage where actually you might not get the answer needed.

On the sideboard i would play a standard list:

4 Mage
3 Hydroblast
1 pulse
1 return to dust/ Dismantling blow
3 Extripate
1 E.plague
1 Runed halo/ E.plague
1 E.tutor

Do you feel vindicate is the right card for this deck?, I mean all of your cards maindeck are able to deal with what vindicate is going to destroy,and it is quite mana intensive aswell.

I guess Duress is there for combo matchups, but mages, although slower, are capable of shutting most of the combo's down, and they'll have to invest many resources to get rid of it, while duress only gives a more temporary solution, and landstills awful clock is not going to be able to profit it

As for recurring wastelands, crucible might be ok but extirpate is much better since it is more easily castable, and against mirror, mage is a better critter than trying to recur manlands (which will actually be sworded)

Anyway, I think thoughseize is a good improvement for the deck, and I wonder how it takes so long to implement some cards into these strategys. So congrats for not being conservative about the deck!

P.D. I've trying to implement counterbalance with deceiving results, `bastardize´ is probably the appropiate expression XD! for it.

Hanni

08-23-2008, 05:05 PM

Hanni, what's with the Duresses in the SB?

The Duress come in for certain matchups, all depends on what the opponent is playing. They obviously come in against most combo, usually getting replaced by the WoG's. They also come in along with the 4 Blasts for Burn and actually make games 2 and 3 very winnable. They usually come in against the mirror/other control decks, too.

They can come in against alot of stuff really, it all depends on whether or not they are effective against the opponent's strategy and whether or not there are any dead cards maindeck.

I prefer them over Meddling Mage because Meddling Mage really doesn't answer combo all that well anymore, and is also removable. Mage is pretty strong if I lead with Thoughtseize first... but if I don't, it usually is only mediocre (most decks have multiple win conditions and also have ways of removing the Mage). Considering this deck doesn't have a clock like Fish, I don't think the speed bump of Meddling Mage is going to concern combo all that much, where I'd rather just hit them with additional discard and then know what I should Counterspell next. I realize the additional 2/2 body helps quicken the clock, but I've honestly not had a problem with combo simply bringing in just the 3 Duress. Combo matchups have been very good for me; the black splash definitely helps with that.

The other big thing is that Meddling Mage doesn't do much against burn, where Duress is an all-star... and yes, I actually do run into Burn matchups quite often.

I believe it is a great idea to include thoughtseize maindeck for all of the reasons you stated.

Thanks. =]

however, how do you fell about these changes:
-2 fact or fiction + 2 cunning wish (with apropiate sideboard modifications)
-1 fecthland +1 Eternal dragon
-1 Wrath +1 E.explosives
-1 fetchland +1 tundra

I don't like Cunning Wish. I've tried it before and it's always too slow for what it does. I realize the power in having access to Extirpate in game 1 against alot of decks and I realize the versatility/utility of the spell... and I still don't like the card because it's too slow. 3UW to destroy an enchantment, 2UB to Extirpate someone, 3UB to cast Diabolic Edict... those are all really expensive for their effects and they also require sideboard space.

The fact that I can instead pay 1 more mana and actually get card advantage out of Fact or Fiction makes it a far superior spell, IMO. I've won so many games because of EOT Fact or Fictions drawing into what I need. This deck already has a ton of answers to pretty much everything that it can simply draw into it rather than "tutor" for it with Cunning Wish.

Again, that is just my opinion.

The manabase is quite strong (8 fetches are too much though) so we might want to dispense of tolaria+wasteland+academy pack and crucible mainboard.
It can be problematic when facing decks with recursion playing things like volrath's stronhold however.

I'm a big fan of the 8 fetchland manabase, especially in UWb. The lifeloss is typically inconsequential. The stability that 8 fetchlands grant to the manabase is unmatched. Yes, it opens the deck up to Stifles slightly, but it makes the manabase far stronger to Blood Moon/Wasteland/etc by giving the deck greater access to its basics. I could really care less about opposing Stifles... I'd rather my fetchlands get Stifled than the opponent drop a turn 2 Dreadnought that I don't have an early answer for or Stifle my EE when I need to blow it up.

The manabase is very solid. Very.

Tolaria West/Dust Bowl is something I really don't need. Tolaria West itself isn't bad since it can grab EE/Ruins but I don't feel that this deck needs recurring EE... it's very slow (1UU for Tolaria West, 2U to recur EE) and the deck can just as easily draw into more removal if it needs to.

Dust Bowl is entirely unecessary... the only matchup it's going to improve is the mirror/other control decks, where I'd rather just concentrate on Extirpate. I can still bring in Duress/Crucibles depending, too. As a control deck, I feel that destroying my own land to destroy the opponent's land is somewhat counterproductive.

Opposing Academy Ruins isn't going to do shit to me. Opposing Volrath's Stronghold can be somewhat problematic depending on what the opponent is recurring... StP rfg's most stuff and Humility makes me not care that opponent is recurring. Postboard, I get additional answers in Extirpate and Vindicate if I need them.

Do you feel vindicate is the right card for this deck?, I mean all of your cards maindeck are able to deal with what vindicate is going to destroy,and it is quite mana intensive aswell.

Why wouldn't it be? My sideboard is exactly the same as my 4c list except in the 4c list, I have Krosan Grips in the Vindicate spots. It answers some things that EE does not and can also compliment EE against things like opposing Counterbalances. It's also extremely versatile, acting as additional spot removal in situations where the opponent doesn't have any artifacts/enchantments in play. It can even destroy those Volrath's Stronghold's that I don't have Dust Bowl for. Why wouldn't Vindicate be a good card in the sideboard? (For the record, Vindicate is the same cc as Krosan Grip, so it's not any more or less expensive).

4 Mage
3 Hydroblast
1 pulse
1 return to dust/ Dismantling blow
3 Extripate
1 E.plague
1 Runed halo/ E.plague
1 E.tutor

Sideboards are sideboards; they are very rarely going to be the same amongst multiple individuals and are largely dependant on the metagame.

My sideboard is just a generalized sideboard that has answers for most of what you'd be likely to face in a large tournament. I maxed the Blasts and Extirpates because both of those spells improve very problematic matchups (Ichorid/Survival/Intuition Thresh/Aggro Loam, Burn/Goblins/Dragon Stompy/Goyf Sligh).

---

EDIT: I'm actually going to drop 1 Underground Sea for 1 Tundra and I'll edit my above list to reflect that change. Minor change, but it should increase the consistency of hitting WW and should have minimal to no effect on casting early Thoughtseizes or black spells out of the sideboard.

Ironstickman

08-24-2008, 02:02 PM

Well, after some testing I have come to some conclusions:

Thoughtseize is the strongest early game play besides a turn two standstill with a clear board.
It enables you to anticipate your opponents play and you'll know when and how you must play your answers (Setting EE etc).Taking the most relevant card from your opponent's hand will most of the time ensure you reach the lategame with moderate board control.

Thoughtseize is a useful spell in the midgame- since it will help removal do its job without disruption and it can still be a threat removal on its own.

Thoughtseize is not a great card when the opponent is topdecking (which is generally late-game. Many times it will be quite unuseful since the quality of the card you'll take won't be worth the cost, or otherwise, he'll play each card he draws. The deck, however, provides many other cards that will prevent this fact from being too critical: counterspells,WoG, wishes or FoF,still are so strong in the lategame that thoughseize mediocre draw won't be that bad.

In a more general note, Thoughtseize is great because you'll always have the right 'answer' since it can grab anything, whereas SoP (for example) is more specific and focused. Tgz is the card to answer any randomness.

Post sideboard, Tgz is your best card against hate. You'll be able to land your humility safe from the first Krosan grip!

Just to add something more to the Wish/FoF discussion XD!:

I am a bit concerned of the lifeloss all our fetch/fow/tgz cause. I see pulse of the fields as the necessary key to avoid losing once you've established control.
Ok, Wish is really a mid-late game card, unless your wishing for massacre pact (which is better supported now by the way) and it behaves as such.
Fact or fiction does alike. The difference between them really relies in:

FoF: gives c.advantage + generic removal the deck runs

C.wish: (-1 colorless) Strong/specific/cheap removal + Utility (pulse, extirpate)

I find the decision quite hard to make, for one side, you'll get the tools to deal with things that your maindeck can't, and on the other, a generous amount of CA and digging effect.
However, there are three reasons that lead me to finally choose wish:
1) A I said, the lifeloss starts to become an issue-pulse
2) The deck already has strong ways of gaining CA through stanstill. Brainstorm and recently ponder, are great at digging for our generic removal aswell.
3) Having the right answer to the right threat (although truly overcosted).

Anyway, I'm sure that each one has its own opinions and it all really depends on the board situation/ matchup etc, so I believe there can't be a correct or incorrect choice.

Another point is the wasteland/ruins/tolaria/ crucible. Although it looks great on paper, realistically it is far to slow to be profitable. All of them feel a bit too useless when in my hand. It is much better to stabilize the manabase the way Hanni has done.

So this is the list I've come up to:

Land

4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Island
2 Plains

Wincon

2 Decree of Justice
1 Eternal Dragon

Draw/Tutor

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Ponder
3 Cunning Wish

Permission/Disruption

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Thoughtseize

Removal

4 Swords to the Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Wrath of God
2 Humility

Sideboard

4 Meddling Mage
3 Extirpate
3 Hydroblast
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Massacre Pact
1 Return to dust
2 Engineered plague

I'm unsure of how to fit the 4 tgz. 6 cantrip effects seem great at fixing mana and at getting answers. With a now lower curve I've cut to 22 lands (really -1 Tolaria). I play 3 cunning since it is pain if you fetch one to FoW at some point and you have a relevant card in the sideboard.

Well I am afraid I'm going to be unable to do tournament testing for the time being, but if I manage to do so I'll give my impressions.
Any suggestion and discussion is welcomed!

konsultant

08-24-2008, 04:45 PM

Konsultant: is there any reason not to run Pernicious Deed after you are playing black and green? I'm aware that Wrath would/ could be easier to cast, but if you're already running 4 colors, why not make the manabase less W-heavy and play the superior board sweep?

I have put together my 4 color build and played it yesterday going 6-0 for the day. I don't feel that Deed is needed and I think it would put an unnessasary strain on an increasingly fragile Mana base to have the correct color's at the correct times. For the time being my only off color cards will be Grip and Extirpate although I am looking into alternate ways to get rid of Teeg after losing multiple games in the past couple of months to Teeg plus Extirpate on STP. The white Mana is always going to be needed even if I drop Wrath as I always want to have 2 white on turn 2 to drop Halo against TES and Ichorid. I only run basic's for Blue and White meaning if I switch to deed I lose another way to get rid of Magus of the Moon. Apparently not everyone is aware of this but Magus of the Moon still Bloodmoons your lands while Humility is in play. I'm not a judge and not good with the technical jargon but it has to do with where the layers are applied. Losing Wrath would make Magus a very serious threat against Landstill in my opinion.

I agree with Hanni regarding Wish, I keep trying to make it work hoping things have slowed down enough to warrent running it again and everytime I start testing I find the card to be too slow. I think FOF is solid enough for additional card advantage that Landstill can survive without the tutoring ability of wish and focus more on redundency and card quantity advantage. Hopefully my newest list will incorparate all the power of running Grip and Extirpate without having Mana issue's. If the list does what I think it can I don't believe Lanstill would have a single bad matchup. It worked exceptionally well for me yesterday and hopefully it will continue to do so at the upcoming Beta Trop event this Saturday.

TeKo

08-24-2008, 05:05 PM

You should post your list :cry:
Or PM it ;)

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s235/revmyspace2/graphics/Greeting/Please/please_please2aaap.gif

raharu

08-24-2008, 06:57 PM

I have put together my 4 color build and played it yesterday going 6-0 for the day. I don't feel that Deed is needed and I think it would put an unnecessary strain on an increasingly fragile Mana base to have the correct colors at the correct times. For the time being my only off color cards will be Grip and Extirpate although I am looking into alternate ways to get rid of Teeg after losing multiple games in the past couple of months to Teeg plus Extirpate on STP.
If you were running Cunning Wish still (which I've infer you've dropped) you could run a Slaughter Pact in the side, but without wish the best I can advise is Oblivion Ring, if you're looking to avoid black. It also has the boon of being another (probably, I don't see playing it in the side) answer to artifacts and enchantments in the MD in addition to extra creature removal. That would be nice against Dragon Stompy, I presume.

I agree with Hanni regarding Wish, I keep trying to make it work hoping things have slowed down enough to warrant running it again and every time I start testing I find the card to be too slow. I think FOF is solid enough for additional card advantage that Landstill can survive without the tutoring ability of wish and focus more on redundancy and card quantity advantage. Hopefully my newest list will incorporate all the power of running Grip and Extirpate without having Mana issue's. If the list does what I think it can I don't believe Landstill would have a single bad matchup. It worked exceptionally well for me yesterday and hopefully it will continue to do so at the upcoming Beta Trop event this Saturday.

Where do you play your K. Grips? In the side? I remember you had them main for a while, and I was wondering if you would test Oblivion Ring in those slots, if you felt inclined to.

Citrus-God

08-24-2008, 07:29 PM

Or just go back to running Spell Snares in the Sideboard. That somewhat deals with Teeg, kinda.

raharu

08-24-2008, 07:57 PM

: \

This seems unsatisfactory. Oblivion Rings do more. ofc, Snares are more helpful in the combo MU...

Citrus-God

08-25-2008, 05:33 AM

: \

This seems unsatisfactory. Oblivion Rings do more. ofc, Snares are more helpful in the combo MU...

Post-board, they board in Krosan Grips against you. If they do set-up Counterbalance, they'll just leave Grips on top to keep other Grips, Oblivion Rings, and Cunning Wish from resolving.

raharu

08-25-2008, 06:45 AM

Post-board, they board in Krosan Grips against you. If they do set-up Counterbalance, they'll just leave Grips on top to keep other Grips, Oblivion Rings, and Cunning Wish from resolving.
Don't you then get to effectively ignore the CB as it's just a chalice @ 3, and an ineffectual one at that? Also, I doubt that most of the decks playing CB have a reasonable chance at 'Balancing the 3cc slot, and if they do leave a 3 on top for grip (which is useless, they'll Grip after the draw/ topping so they don't hit the 3 card) then they can't counter other manacosts (also note that it's a rather... well, stupid concept, to attempt to 'Balance a K. Grip. You're protecting a 0 return investment, who's only purpose now it to protect itself and not do anything really... relevant, because it's involved in attempting to protect itself).

Snare don't to much here either.

Citrus-God

08-25-2008, 06:56 AM

Don't you then get to effectively ignore the CB as it's just a chalice @ 3, and an ineffectual one at that? Also, I doubt that most of the decks playing CB have a reasonable chance at 'Balancing the 3cc slot, and if they do leave a 3 on top for grip (which is useless, they'll Grip after the draw/ topping so they don't hit the 3 card) then they can't counter other manacosts (also note that it's a rather... well, stupid concept, to attempt to 'Balance a K. Grip. You're protecting a 0 return investment, who's only purpose now it to protect itself and not do anything really... relevant, because it's involved in attempting to protect itself).

Usually when players do set up for the 3c slot for protection, they tend to have a secondary card such as a 2cc card and a 2nd Top in play. Besides that, post-board, they board in 3 Grips, which is more than enough to fight Landstill. ITF also runs many cards in the 3c slots as well.

Snare don't to much here either.

I know, but the Krosan Grips worry me. If I want an answer to Teeg, I'd probably play Cunning Wish.

Nihil Credo

08-25-2008, 07:46 AM

An interesting option is to sideboard Vindicate or Mortify, which handle both Gaddock Teeg and Counterbalance in one neat package. Mortify's instant speed enables you to kill Teeg without risking them dropping a second copy in their main phase, and makes it slightly more likely to resolve against an active Balance; Vindicate, on the other side, works similarly to Runed Halo in that it can come in against pretty much everything to replace your worst MD cards.

klaus

08-25-2008, 07:55 AM

I know it might be redundant but Mortify is "wishable".

Citrus-God

08-25-2008, 08:05 AM

Nihil Credo

08-25-2008, 08:16 AM

I know it might be redundant but Mortify is "wishable".
I meant it for konsultant's Wish-less version. Wish lists should just run a better Disenchant effect and a better spot removal effect, since they can pick according to the situation.

Citrus-God

08-25-2008, 08:20 AM

I meant it for konsultant's Wish-less version. Wish lists should just run a better Disenchant effect and a better spot removal effect, since they can pick according to the situation.

Yes, but Mortify is a Disenchant/Slaughter Pact they can board into the maindeck without it being completely dead, but rather, more versatile.

Mister Agent

08-25-2008, 05:05 PM

Addition of mortify does sound rather interesting in cunning landstill. I think another disenchant effect in the board does seem strong to me. Considering the alternative option of removing card advantage relational creatures like countryside crusher, dark confidant, and of course gaddock teeg.

klaus

08-25-2008, 05:18 PM

Part of the problem that I see in Mortify is its casting cost.
Making it a worse Dismantling Blow or a slightly better Slaughter Pact.
The board is already densly packed with efficient stuff and does not leave much room for additions.
But..
Since it actually combines 2 spells it might be worth testing at least.
Yeah, this is a question only testing can answer.

Edit:
What troublesome enchantments beside Counterbalance come to mind that get used in various archetypes and really pose problems? Does CB warrant Mortifie's inclusion on its own?

I'm also pondering on what SB slot Mortify could take in an unknown/diverse meta.

Here is a standard UWb SB:
4 Meddling Mage
2 Runed Halo
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Extirpate
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Dismantling Blow/Return to Dust
1 Engineered Plague (personal choice)

I could see Mortify in the Plague slot or replacing a Halo or a Mage. Some of their functions are close to identical and I kind of like the idea of having a wishable creature removal that pwns Ghastly Demise and Slaughter Pact regarding their effect.
Ah I don't know.

Lemme know whatcha think..

Mister Agent

08-25-2008, 05:29 PM

Edit:
What artifacts that get used in various archetypes really pose problems beside Crucible of Worlds?

Mainly pithing needle which shuts down one of your most efficient cards in engineered explosives and that is huge in most cases. Engineered explosives is one of the main reasons why Landstill is still a viable control deck in my opinion.

In the Landstill board I like incorporating in more blue blasts mainly because they can cover up your Achille's Tendon in your problematic matchups such as aggro loam and goblins.

raharu

08-26-2008, 05:51 AM

If you aren't going to run Mortify in the side of a Wish-list, why not just run O-Ring instead? It's easier to cast and more versatile, so I really don't think the Instant speed is super-relevant.

konsultant

08-27-2008, 09:08 PM

I was running 3x Oblivion Ring this past week and I'm not certain that it was the right call. Against anything that can't get rid of O-Ring it is definetly the best card to be playing the problem is it can be Gripped off or Stifle'd. With me already running Humility the Grips are already being boarded in and I think O-Ring might be the wrong call. Personally I have been looking at Mortify and I think it would probably be the best call unless Plainswalkers start being played in whitch case Vindicate is obviously the best call. I toyed with running Spellsnare again but it wouldn't do me any good after Teeg resolve's and since they are running 4x Thoughtsieze and 4x Cabal Therapy keeping counters in my hand is usually a problem. The Wish for Slaughter Pact or my RFG'd Swords was the reason I started messing with Wish again but I still just find it too slow. The only other card I looked at that wasn't mentioned was Dromar's Charm. Deals with Teeg and is relevent in a number of match up's. I would like to be able to run the charm but Mortify seems like it's the best call.

lavafrogg

08-28-2008, 01:43 PM

Im in class right now but has anyone ever tried a red mini splash for fire and ice main and pyroclasm out of the board as the sweeper of choice.
My build right now(tutor version) has three halos main and tormods and wheels out of the board against graveyard strategies and the pyroclasms seem like a godsend against all of the goblins/faeries/elves/merfolf that I have seen lately.

With 6x wheels and 5x recurring tormods crypts I have not had the need for exterpate lately and clasm seems to hurt the weenies more than a constant -1/-1

Out of class:

My current list right now is

Lands 22
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polutted Delta
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic
2 Islands
3 Plains
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
1 Dust Bowl
4 Mishras Factories

Instants 22
4 Force of Will
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords
3 Fire//Ice
3 Counterspell

Stuff 14
3 Counterbalance
3 Top
3 Runed Halo
2 Standstill
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Seal of Cleansing

Dudes 2
2 Eternal Dragon

Sideboard
3 Pulse of the Fields
3 Pyroclasm
2 Exalted Angel
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Threads
1 Aura of Silence
1 Tormods Crypt

since i dont work today (woohoo days off) im going to do a mini chronicalling of some MWS games(game by game). I dont think anyone else has done this but it is just crazy enough to work.

Game One ClockTime GWB Ravens Loam

He starts the game with some quick ravens criming life from the loady goodness which a runed halo quickly puts a stop to. Fearing wasteland I tutor up my crucible and play it accordingly. He quickly follows suite with his first mox diamond and an armageddon. With the crucible I am able to rebuild faster especially when counterbalance joins the mix to stop his loaming shenanigans. Two BB tombstalkers quickly decide to go farming and I then proceed to do mean things like EE his mox diamonds(2) and then dustbowling his nonbasic land supply until one mishras factory can finally bring him from 20 to 5 to 15 to 0

Through his dredgings I saw wild mongrols goyfs (i fired a bob) and some EE of his own. He splits and there is no game two which would bring in crypt and wheels.
P.S. I saw resolved and drew off of both standstills the first I saw off a top tapped to draw and played and the second I tutored for and played with an empty board horray for 1U tutorable ancestrals.

Game Two Tempest Mono Black Pox
Turn one from me is land>top and he plays a smallpox off of a dark ritual which I force. Turn three I eat a real pox but the top ensures I continue to make my land drops. With the pox hurting our life totals I go into factory beat down on three lands until the factory eats a sinkhole. Top finds me my second one as I lose a tutor to a duress. I kept a polluted delta in play most of the game to not shuffle away a swords on the top of my library. Another pox takes us both dangerously low on life and with him at two my factory eats an edict. The next turn I draw off of the top crack the polluted delta for a volcanic and burn him out... what a cheesy way to win:)

I never saw a win condition but I did see smallpox, pox, sinkhole, edict, duress, ritual and top.
2-0 We did not play a sideboard game but I would not board anything in as I believe countertop>this deck

Game Three Gebby B/U Reanimator
I mulligan on the play and open with a top and he comes out strong with duress>swords. Turn two is land go for me and dark rit>buried alive for him fetching three huge dudes. I enlightened tutor for balance and top EOT and then draw and play balance on my turn. An exhume from him is balanced away with another counterbalance on the top of my deck and I float it their the rest of the game. He slowly learns that he will never resolve the exhumes or hyms he throws my way and is quickly beaten down by mishras.

His disruption was cabal therapy and hymm and had the standard reaminator spells.

At one point he plays exhume which I almost let resolve(swords in hand) and then decide to check his graveyard, dragon in mine, and see the pro white akroma.

Sideboard would have brought in crypt and the wheels for explosives,crucible and a dragon.

3-0
Game Four A. Puppet Mono U Stasis

I keep a hand of tundra, brainstorm, counterspell x2, swords x2 counterbalance and keep thinking the storm can get the lands and my hand can hold anything off and balance can luck me through any combo matchup. I see a delta off of the brainstorm and then get dazed, forced and thwarted to hell as I try to resolve multiple counterbalances. I am low on lands but he has no pressure. I resolve top and a standstill that I was sandbagging and he breaks the standstill with an ebony owl and a enlightened tutor for ee keeps me from taking 4. The ee for 2 keeps a hypothetical stasis and when he finally tries to bounce his owl I blow it up and then force his stasis. The big turn of the game was a fight over a stasis with a frozen aether and forsaken city in play but force times 2 ended his assault. Eventually I drew mishras x3 and the game was over shortly after.

His deck was thwarts, daze, force, brainstorm, ponder, chain of vapor, owl, stasis, ensnare nothing too special.

Interesting fact: I beleive that he cannot win with a ruined halo on the board.

4-0

I am really waiting for tier 1 decks but that is MWS for you...

Game Five MT Dragon Stompy
Horray a good deck...but also a horrible matchup. A turn one chalice for one and then a magus of the moon makes me frown. EE for zero and then a swords gets me back in the game. I answer all of his threats and begin the beats with a factory. A gathan raiders sticks but eats a runed halo. Dust bowl keeps him low on mana and then my top fails to draw anything relavent for fifty turns...no shuffle effect and no dragon. A blood moon sticks and I cannot counterspell due to a chalice at 2. The whole game I could not find a way to recur the EE. Eventually a reckless wurm gets jitted and two turns later I am dead.

Sideboard would bring in more EEs and exalted Angels for the counterbalances and pyroclasms for the counterspells.

I felt in control the entire game and then I drew dead for 6+ turns while he drew threats... thats magic.

4-1

Round Five AJ Styles Mono U Something
A Kira Glass Spinner is early followed by a teferi a bunch of force of wills later I am dead... what an assbeating. I dont even know what to say. Pyroclasm would come in because I beleive it was a fish deck. I drew lots of lands and not much buisiness(nothing that resolved)

4-2

For My Last match of this event I played a best of three game against Rbg Vial Goblins
Game One- He sees an early vial forced and has very little gas after that. I get down some halos on key elements but just really dont have a shot at winning this game... if rounds were timed I would have scooped early.

in-pyroclasm and exalted angel for counterbalance and counterspell- I wanted to focud on the game instead of waiting to try and counter spells and balance is just about useless

Game 2- he starts out porting me as I build my mana base... slowly I get a crucible into play and he gets a matron and hooligan into play. These two bite a fire ice as he sees the first red source and card from my deck. Ports keep my mana down while top(MVP) of this matchup keeps the goods a flowing. Rined halo keeps piledriver from bashing my skull in and eventually pyroclasm 6 for ones him. Pyroclasm number two gets a four for one and an exalted angel takes it away from there.

Game Three- My hand was land swords x2 and angelx2 and a tutor. I swords a lackey and top my way into more lands, swords then gets exterpated and a magus of the moon is allowed to see play because not only does he give me red mana for my fire ice he keeps the opponent from wasteland and porting me out of the game. I have two basic plains on the board so angel number one starts swinging. Eventually he reached critical mass and he gangbangs the angel(halo on SGC prevented me from being domed) I untap with an empty board and pyroclasm his dreams away off of the red mana the magus gives me. He vials in a kiki jiki in response to copy a matron to get a wort but it is fired away before resolution. He draws and says go and I untap hardcast an exalted angel and outrace his attempts to mount a counterattack easily.

Horray for tier one... runed halo is such a beating but I felt I had little chance to win the first game. Games two and three pyroclasm gave me a huge upper hand. Im considering wrath of god now just for that reason(main). I really feel any deck has a hard time outracing a morphed angel and fire/ice was golden as well( he wound up exterpating it game two)

Top was so big again... I beleive game two I tutored for it turn one...no it was game three. It is a huge beating against ports in that you top with your excess mana and dont even feel bad about the situation. I think the deck needs one more red source im just not sure where.

Final for the night 5-2(6-3) not bad for MWS. Losses coming to dragon stompy and random blue scrubbiness.

Thanks for reading...

lavafrogg

08-29-2008, 04:22 AM

saved for edits

klaus

08-29-2008, 02:18 PM

Uwb_LS takes 2nd at "TheSource online-tournament".

Here is my report:
[It gets betters towards the end]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10897

toxic@venger

08-30-2008, 06:07 AM

Hi Klaus

Congrats for this excellent second place
I´m playing almost the same deck mainboard. The only diferences are:

-1 jace
-1 FoF
+2 ponder

-1 wasteland
+1 island

Jace is good agaist control decks, but is sucks against agro decks, so I don´t want random cards in my list. With Fact or fiction yo draw and profundize, and Ponder works on the similar way, and it also helps you a lot on your initials hands when you have doubts about to ake or not mulligans.....I,m happy with this inclusion.
What are your changes against agro-loam decks? you replace humilities by Halos?

klaus

08-30-2008, 05:44 PM

What are your changes against agro-loam decks? you replace humilities by Halos?

Humilities stay.
They board in 3 Grips and I want more "targets" than that! :wink: (2 Halos, 2 Humies, 1 Cruci, EE, Crypt).

undone

09-04-2008, 10:53 PM

Heres my new list

4 FoW
4 Counter spell
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning wish
1 Jace

2 Humility
3 WoG
3 EE

4 Swords to plowshares
2 Decree of justice
1 E dragon
1 Crucibel

4 tundra
2 Sea
1 Scrubland
4 UW fetch
2 UB fetch
4 Mishras factory
1 Tolaria west
1 Acadamy ruins
1 Wasteland
2 island
2 plains

SB
4 Extirpate
4 MMage
1 Crypt
1 slaughter pact
2 Enlightened tutor
1 COP red (burn and d stompy heavy metagame)
1 Pulse of the feilds
1 Return to dust

What if anything can be changed and or needs to be.

3duece

09-05-2008, 10:31 AM

I was wondering if you guys could help me tweak my deck just slightly. I run a blue/white build with black and green splash exclusively for sideboard options. I want to add two pernicious deeds to the build to help alleviate problems with counterballance and dragonstompy's high curve. What should I cut to allow for this addition without wrecking the deck? And how can I change my manabase to support an early deed without removing the basics?

4 standstill
4 brainstorm
2 fact or fiction
4 counterspell
4 force of will

4 swords to plowshares
3 wrath of god
2 humility
2 decree of justice
1 eternal dragon

3 engineered explosives
2 crucible of worlds

4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
4 tundra
2 underground sea
1 scrubland
1 tropical island
1 savanna
4 mishra's factory
2 island
2 plains
1 wasteland
1 academy ruins

sb
3 krosan grip
4 extirpate
4 hydroblast
4 runed halo

Frenger

09-05-2008, 11:02 AM

klaus

09-05-2008, 11:06 AM

@3duece

4 standstill
4 brainstorm
2 fact or fiction------test 2 Ponder in those slots and see how it works. Going 4color needs plenty of mana fixing +Ponder digs almost as well as FoF. Standstill should give you enough C/A anyway.
4 counterspell
4 force of will

4 swords to plowshares
3 wrath of god
2 humility
2 decree of justice
1 eternal dragon--------I've cut Dragon from my list. It was a "slow land" or 1/1<most of the time.

3 engineered explosives
2 crucible of worlds------Either cut one Crucible, move it to the SB (like Konsultant) or replace 1 with LftL.

4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
4 tundra
2 underground sea
1 scrubland
1 tropical island
1 savanna
4 mishra's factory
2 island
2 plains
1 wasteland
1 academy ruins

25 lands + Dragon is overkill, especially with Ponder added. I run 24 land without a Dragon and never felt that I need more than that.

sb
3 krosan grip
4 extirpate
4 hydroblast
4 runed halo----------Mage is better in the Combo_MU for multiple reasons: Can name spells that don't target you (i.e.Doomsday) + is a clock.
Consider a 3-2 split

Overall, and many LS players will confirm this: it's simply not worth it splashing 2 colors for SB options and EE alone. I tried it myself and didn't like it, most of all because I had to mull more frequently due to color screw. I mean did you realize that you play 10 non-blue lands in a heavy blue deck?

But if you really want to hit that route, cut 1 land or Dragon & 1 Crucible or CS to fit in 2 Deeds - then again you don't need 3 Grips in the side..

Bottom line is cut one color: there are several ways to make up for the lost cards (i.e. -4 Extirpate +3Crypt +1 Wheel of Sun and Moon)

Klaus

3duece

09-05-2008, 11:59 AM

Okay, good points. I looked at the lists in the uwxx thread and I don't understand how they function under moon effects with only 1 island and 1 plains, even with wish for hydroblast. So I think I may go with the list below. I guess it doesn't belong in this thread anymore, but what do you guys think?
4 standstill
4 brainstorm
2 ponder
4 counterspell
4 force of will

4 swords to plowhares
2 wrath of god
2 humility
2 decree of justice
2 pernicious deed
1 life from the loam

3 engineered explosives
1 crucible of worlds

4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
4 tundra
2 underground sea
1 scrubland
1 tropical island
1 savanna
4 mishra's factory
1 academy ruins
1 dust bowl
2 island
2 plains

klaus

09-05-2008, 12:07 PM

I like that list. :)

With 1 Crucible, LftL AND Ponder you won't need 25 land though.
I'd cut a Plains - you dont need 2 Plains with 2x WoG being your only WW spells - unless of course there's 2 Ajani in your side and an additional WoG + 2-3 Halos :)

---
And yeah, switch to the UW/X/X threat :)

Frenger

09-05-2008, 12:10 PM

Okay, good points. I looked at the lists in the uwxx thread and I don't understand how they function under moon effects with only 1 island and 1 plains, even with wish for hydroblast. So I think I may go with the list below. I guess it doesn't belong in this thread anymore, but what do you guys think?

Moon effects are 4c's achilles heel. You pretty much force it g1 or pray to topdeck a basic and an out (cunning wish).

g2 you can board in BEB's and try to mull to one, or just mull to a FoW.

3duece

09-05-2008, 12:39 PM

Yeah, I don't get why they can't work more basics in. On a related topic, how does 3c landstill deal with dragon stompy? What are correct plays against bombs like chalice @1, moon effects and high cc creatures on turns 1 and 2 with no swords or force in hand? It seems like stompy is specifically designed to nuke this deck, 3c or 4. I haven't gotten to test against much except various thresh builds, agro-loam and muc.

thefreakaccident

09-05-2008, 01:24 PM

I have yet to loose to Dstompy with DiF's version of landstill... they just have no way with dealing with your CA/quality, aside from hoping they screw you... most of the time, you will be able to FoW/swords an early creature...challice @1 isn't too scary, as you have explosives for that and moon (which incidently gives you the third color to kill the moon a good number of times)...

My old build would run disk, which totally rapes these such decks.

undone

09-06-2008, 11:44 AM

The biggest problem I have is that I suck at winning the roll, and in my metagame there are 3 DS decks which are each lucky and always seem to go "2land, red mana moon effect." I am still 50/50 with them, but its because they are lucky. This has caused me to reinsert the 1 BEB in the board so I have 3 more outs to BM.

TheGodOfHouse

09-06-2008, 01:26 PM

I played my first tourney with UWb Landstill today in Braunschweig/Germany and finished with a rather disappointing 1-2-1. I went with a near exact copy of klaus' list (another Cunning Wish instead of Jace + 3rd Halo instead of 4th Meddling Mage).

1st round vs. Dreaded Baseruption: Draw
I don't remember much, but it was annoying as hell. He countertops, stiflenoughts, needles and I answer with Humility, Wrath and Return to Dust until the extraturn and we end up drawing.

2nd round vs. Welder Survival: Win
1st round I pwn him with Humility after he admits that he has ne maindeck answer to it. 2nd round I start with Crypt in hand and remove his graveyard after I countered his Survival, which he fetched with Intuition. I do continuous Mishra beatdown until he plays Platinum Angel, but I topdeck Wrath and go in for the win.

3rd round vs. Moon Survival: Lose
I pwnt myself in Game 1. I knew he was maindecking 3 Magus of the Moon and I could have won Game 1 but I put down Engineered Explosives for 2 (in fear of Survival) instead of 3, so guess who's coming down the moment I realize my mistake? Magus beatdown FTL...
Game 2 he resolves a Survival, lays down Gaddock Teeg, extirpates my Swords to Plowshares and Decrees and I die to weenie beatdown...

4th round vs. Burn: Lose
Game 1: death by burn!!! Game 2 he burns me down to 7 and I manage to stay alive by swording my Mishras, but my Cunning Wish for Pulse of the Fields gets BEBed and I die...

All in all it was a neat little tourney and despite my bad performance, I really had fun playing the deck. Unfortunately I wasn't paired against all these nice little Aggro Decks in the tourney. :frown:

klaus

09-06-2008, 05:19 PM

I played my first tourney with UWb Landstill today in Braunschweig/Germany and finished with a rather disappointing 1-2-1. I went with a near exact copy of klaus' list (another Cunning Wish instead of Jace + 3rd Halo instead of 4th Meddling Mage).

1st round vs. Dreaded Baseruption: Draw
I don't remember much, but it was annoying as hell. He countertops, stiflenoughts, needles and I answer with Humility, Wrath and Return to Dust until the extraturn and we end up drawing.

2nd round vs. Welder Survival: Win
1st round I pwn him with Humility after he admits that he has ne maindeck answer to it. 2nd round I start with Crypt in hand and remove his graveyard after he countered his Survival, which he fetched with Intuition. I do continuous Mishra beatdown until he plays Platinum Angel, but I topdeck Wrath and go in for the win.

3rd round vs. Moon Survival: Lose
I pwnt myself in Game 1. I knew he was maindecking 3 Magus of the Moon and I could have won Game 1 but I put down Engineered Explosives for 2 (in fear of Survival) instead of 3, so guess who's coming down the moment I realize my mistake? Magus beatdown FTL...
Game 2 he resolves a Survival, lays down Gaddock Teeg, extirpates my Swords to Plowshares and Decrees and die to weenie beatdown...

4th round vs. Burn: Lose
Game 1: death by burn!!! Game 2 he burns me down to 7 and I manage to stay alive by swording my Mishras, but my Cunning Wish for Pulse of the Fields gets BEBed and die...

All in all it was a neat little tourney and despite my bad performance, I really had fun playing the deck. Unfortunately I wasn't paired against all these nice little Aggro Decks in the tourney. :frown:

What did your boarding plans look like?

TheGodOfHouse

09-06-2008, 08:04 PM

What did your boarding plans look like?

vs. Baseruption:
-3 Standstill; +3 Runed Halo

vs. Welder Survival:
-4 Standstill, -1 Fact or Fiction; +2 Extirpate, +1 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Runed Halo

vs. Survival:
same as with Welder Survival

vs. Burn:
-3 Wrath of God, -2 Humility, -3 Engineered Explosives; +3 Runed Halo, +2 Extirpate, +3 Meddling Mage

Nihil Credo

09-07-2008, 05:36 AM

vs. Baseruption:
-3 Standstill; +3 Runed Halo

Why? Standstill is a great draw spell here. If you really wanted to bring in Halos (which is debatable, given all the EE@2 you'll blow up, and that Baseruption has a more diversified threat base than Thresh) why not cut Wrath instead?

vs. Welder Survival:
-4 Standstill, -1 Fact or Fiction; +2 Extirpate, +1 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Runed Halo

vs. Survival:
same as with Welder Survival
Again, they can't play around Standstill, so there's no reason to cut it. Secondly, I see little purpose in boarding in Runed Halo, given that their threats are so diversified (unless you meant to name Cabal Therapy with it, but I'd rather have a Draw 3 against it anyway).

It's difficult to say what you should side out here, because everything in your deck is good against them (that's what's called "a good problem to have", btw). But -1 Crucible of Worlds, -1 Cunning Wish, -1 Fact or Fiction, +2 Extirpate, +1 Crypt seems a better plan than the one you used.

TheGodOfHouse

09-07-2008, 06:52 AM

Why? Standstill is a great draw spell here. If you really wanted to bring in Halos (which is debatable, given all the EE@2 you'll blow up, and that Baseruption has a more diversified threat base than Thresh) why not cut Wrath instead?

You're probably right about the Standstill but I was somehow afraid of mox-powered T1 Dreadnought/Confidant, so boarded out Standstill preemptively. The Halos were great against Dreadnought and Tarmogoyf, especially since my EEs got needled. :mad:

Again, they can't play around Standstill, so there's no reason to cut it. Secondly, I see little purpose in boarding in Runed Halo, given that their threats are so diversified (unless you meant to name Cabal Therapy with it, but I'd rather have a Draw 3 against it anyway).

Again I felled Standstill was a little to slow, next time I'll keep em MD. I think I boarded it in against big artifact critters, but I never one besides Platinum Angel.

It's difficult to say what you should side out here, because everything in your deck is good against them (that's what's called "a good problem to have", btw). But -1 Crucible of Worlds, -1 Cunning Wish, -1 Fact or Fiction, +2 Extirpate, +1 Crypt seems a better plan than the one you used.

As I said before, it was my first (Legacy) tourney and I'm still quite inexperienced with the deck, so your comments are helpful to me. Thanks!

undone

09-07-2008, 10:46 AM

Citrus-God

09-07-2008, 05:53 PM

unless your opponent is packing factorys and or mutavault, boarding out standstill is like boarding out ancestral recall, Just not a good idea. Cunning wish FoF and either wrath or crucible usualy get the boot.

Actually, if your meta is starting to run more and more cards like Factories, Mutavaults, and Treetop Village, it's recommended that you cut your Tolaria West, Academy Ruins, and Dust Bowl for 3 WASTELANDS! Holy crap, why am I running that crap again? Well, even without Ruins, you should beat Thresh anyway, and of course, Wastelands greatly aid your mirror + other random stuff. I beat a deck with Treetop Villages not too long ago at a tournament.

thefreakaccident

09-07-2008, 08:31 PM

Actually, at my local just last friday night, I actually lost to a green deck (very terrible, I was upset at loosing) simply do to that fact that I top-decked into all four of my standstills after my opponent had gotten a treetop on board...

The irony was that it was the loss that put me out of contention; and that this is like the only time that drawing excess SSs would be bad :frown: ...

Oh well, win some, lose some, that's why we play them out.

Omega

09-07-2008, 08:32 PM

I think i only cut standstill in the mirror and against deck that use manlands. I tend also to cut them if my opponent play with Aether vial.
To sum up :
standstill goes out against
landstill
43.land deck
goblin : Aether vial/Goblin lackey are major problem, since it allows them to play around standstill. Id rather have blue blast (oh yes, i play those blast, because i am a bad player :))
fast aggro deck that has a lot of 1cc drops. IE elves, WW.
and any other deck using manlands

sandstill is such a powerful card both in terms of card advantage but also in term of psychological advantage that i see no reason cutting them. If opponent gets intimidated by Landstill, you are gaining a major advantage there.

I know once that my opponent cut the standstill while playing against me (i was UGW ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh). That was a huge mistake in my opinion. ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh simply does not have enough threat to make standstill "ueseless". He still won the game, but it took a hell lot of time, because he was working on topdeck. It's just incredible to be able to wipe everything with a pernicious deed, and then drop a standstill. That is the most incredible play imo :)

Robert

NQN

09-08-2008, 06:13 AM

I actually never side out every STandstill. Even against Goblins and decks like WW you still need some CA to keep up with cards like Ringleader. You don´t need them until turn 1-4/5 so it´s right to take 1-2 out but after you wrathed/humilated theyre board they still are Ancestrals.

thefreakaccident

09-08-2008, 10:03 AM

abbeyroad

09-08-2008, 07:32 PM

I wanted to bring this decklist to a local tourney. I decided to build UWb landstill and was wondering whether this list is optimal for a meta that consists primarily of thresh, dreadstill, dragon stompy, TES, and Ichorid.

Main board//

Lands:

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
2 Islands
2 Wasteland
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Academy ruins
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Tolaria West

Spells:

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Standstill
3 Wrath of God
3 Humility
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Cunning Wish
2 Decree of Justice
2 Crucible of Worlds

Board//

4 MMage
4 Extripate
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Shattering Spree
1 BeB
4 Lelyne of the Void

konsultant

09-08-2008, 07:33 PM

I don't board out Standstill against anything other than Ichorid. Standstill is a bomb against any aggro deck, what's the reasoning for taking it out against Goblins? Aether Vial? We run 4x Force of Will and 3x EE, I've never had a problem keeping Vial out of play. Atleast in my build I also have Humility whitch can allow for later game plays of Standstill with Vial still in play if you are holding a Decree.

The deck wins with the cards gained from Standstill, if someone is playing something that is preventing you from casting Standstill, play cards that will allow you to deal with the problem and allow you to cast Standstill. My builds are posted all over this thread and other than Ichorid I see no reason to take out Standstill against anything I have ever played against.

Things like Vial and Bitterblossom are the reason I have always run Disenchant effects in the MD. If you board out Standstill you are turning the deck into a subpar multi colored control deck with a lame draw engine of Brainstorm and 2-3 Fact or Fictions. We play a very situational draw engine that requires deck tayloring to include forethought for certain board conditions, it's the price of playing Standstill. In my opinion atleast if you aren't boarding into a different draw engine, your SB needs to include answers to anything that could stop you from being able to cast Standstill. Ichorid of course being the exception.

Omega

09-08-2008, 07:40 PM

Jak

09-08-2008, 07:47 PM

I usually side out the Standstill to get more removal in the aggro matchup. Yes it gives CA. But it does suck to wait until you resolve EE/Deed before playing it.

In the mirror, i dont keep the Standstill. Why? If he get more mishra's out, im screwed. If he gets more wasteland, im screwed. These are situations that happen. And because of, that i feel that it is better to side them out.

Against fast aggro : Standstill are only good if they have nothing. So that means that to get a standstill in play, you need first to wipe out the bord first. So until you can get the bord cleaned, your deck, as you describe, is a subpar control deck. That's just too much condition for me. Id rather get extra removals.

Oh sorry, i didnt played UGW landstill. I played the 4c with goyfs and Tombstalker to get faster kill. That can make a difference, i guess.

Robert

You need CA in the mirror.

You need CA against aggro to keep drawing removal and counters.
Just trading one for one against aggro is bad.

konsultant

09-08-2008, 08:05 PM

You need CA in the mirror.

You need CA against aggro to keep drawing removal and counters.
Just trading one for one against aggro is bad.

Agreed!!!!

I have had as much success with this deck as anybody I have ever met or heard of and I promise you that boarding out Stanstill is a horrible idea, reconfigure the deck to deal with your issue's.

Horde's of creature's? Wrath of God? Who the hell care's if you draw 3 extra cards on turn 2 or turn ten, it's still a 2 mana Ancestral in Legacy. In most games you can win of the card advantage of one single Standstill but they need to be in the deck for it to work.

Landstill is horrible in the attrition war, granted it gets better if you have a threat in Tombstalker or Goyf but you still have an incredibly high land count that will screw you over time without card quantity draw. If you are trying to play Standstill in an aggro control shell then you are in the wrong forum.

My builds include UW, UWG, UWB, UWGB not just the one in the most recent post and I switch back and forth between them as the Meta shifts and none of thier SB strategies against anything include boarding out Standstill.

Citrus-God

09-10-2008, 06:51 AM

Agreed!!!!

I have had as much success with this deck as anybody I have ever met or heard of and I promise you that boarding out Stanstill is a horrible idea, reconfigure the deck to deal with your issue's.

Horde's of creature's? Wrath of God? Who the hell care's if you draw 3 extra cards on turn 2 or turn ten, it's still a 2 mana Ancestral in Legacy. In most games you can win of the card advantage of one single Standstill but they need to be in the deck for it to work.

Landstill is horrible in the attrition war, granted it gets better if you have a threat in Tombstalker or Goyf but you still have an incredibly high land count that will screw you over time without card quantity draw. If you are trying to play Standstill in an aggro control shell then you are in the wrong forum.

My builds include UW, UWG, UWB, UWGB not just the one in the most recent post and I switch back and forth between them as the Meta shifts and none of thier SB strategies against anything include boarding out Standstill.

Do you still board out FoF anymore? I usually find boarding out FoF bad because of the lack of card advantage, especially applied to the UWg lists with 18 Blue cards maindeck. I always love seeing myself being able to draw cards so I can prepare for threats before they appear. Also, FoF splitting also gives me an idea of whether my opponent might be slow-rolling their threats or not.

konsultant

09-10-2008, 08:51 AM

Do you still board out FoF anymore? I usually find boarding out FoF bad because of the lack of card advantage, especially applied to the UWg lists with 18 Blue cards maindeck. I always love seeing myself being able to draw cards so I can prepare for threats before they appear. Also, FoF splitting also gives me an idea of whether my opponent might be slow-rolling their threats or not.

I stopped boarding out FoF along time ago, when I was running Wish I would board out 1 in certain match up's but without Wish I can't think of any match where they would be bad.

DuKeLiO

09-11-2008, 06:30 AM

I usually side out the Standstill to get more removal in the aggro matchup. Yes it gives CA. But it does suck to wait until you resolve EE/Deed before playing it.

In the mirror, i dont keep the Standstill. Why? If he get more mishra's out, im screwed. If he gets more wasteland, im screwed. These are situations that happen. And because of, that i feel that it is better to side them out.

Against fast aggro : Standstill are only good if they have nothing. So that means that to get a standstill in play, you need first to wipe out the bord first. So until you can get the bord cleaned, your deck, as you describe, is a subpar control deck. That's just too much condition for me. Id rather get extra removals.

If you play the deck in this maner, you are playing it wrong. I've won a ton of games in which my oponent played a 2/3 Tarmogoyf in turn 2, and I played a Standstill in my next turn only to stablish a position five or six turns after. Then I cycle a Decree with some tokens or broke my own standstill EOT to force my oponent discards, play a swords to plowshares on Tarmogoyf, and play another Standstill or Humility for the win.

It is not neccesary to have a empty board to drop standstill. In a lot games it is more important the time gaining than the three or four cards. Also Landstill play more lands than mostly decks, so you start discarding later than they.

undone

09-11-2008, 07:47 AM

Citrus-God

09-11-2008, 08:37 AM

Boarding out standstill is horrible, never, EVER do this (The only possible acception would be the straigh up UWb mirror where they run +1 decrees then you) In any matchup other then straight up mirror (or possibly the 3 crucible version o UBGw) landstill on the table is like ancestral recall targeting YOU, the only time its bad is if it gets countered.

Not always that; in the mirror, you can drop Standstill because you run Wasteland effects as removal against opposing Factories, so it's not always about DoJ.

FredMaster

09-11-2008, 11:18 AM

I always board out Standstills against Dreadstill actually, is that wrong?

Pelikanudo

09-11-2008, 11:44 AM

I always board out Standstills against Dreadstill actually, is that wrong?

course its wrong , man Your opponent Will side out its Standstills because he has no decrees and its suposed you develop better the game with a standstill in play than him . Conclusions : DOn't board out them¡¡

On the Source we require a better posting quality than this, and doubly so on the DTBF. Don't bother posting if you can't take the time to write properly. - Nihil Credo

Nihil Credo

09-11-2008, 01:08 PM

I always board out Standstills against Dreadstill actually, is that wrong?

I usually board out two, more if I have relevant cards to sideboard in.

The reason is that, in the early game, Dreadstill with its 3 Wastelands can play without spells better than you, and if it lands a Top it will hit land drops much better than you. However, later on, when your Decrees and Eternal Dragon start mattering (let alone Crucible of Worlds), the tides begin to favour you, and playing Standstill becomes a much safer bet.

Because of this, I consider Standstill as a late-game card (that just happens to cost two mana) and accordingly play fewer copies of it.

@Peli: Whether Dreadstill keeps its own Standstill or not is completely irrelevant to the question: "Will I want to play a Standstill here?"

undone

09-11-2008, 07:13 PM

Because of this, I consider Standstill as a late-game card (that just happens to cost two mana) and accordingly play fewer copies of it.

This is the problem, standstill is a "When theres not pressure" card. People not being able to analize this is why the card isnt as good to some.

If your boarding it out and its not a matchup like... dredge (HEY I GET TO PLAY DDD AND YOU WANT TO AS WELL!!! lol) Ill grant you in the Dredge MU, you board them out, but I cant think of any other matchup where I would consider it.

Nihil Credo

09-11-2008, 08:59 PM

This is the problem, standstill is a "When theres not pressure" card. People not being able to analize this is why the card isnt as good to some.

Please detail your argument a bit more. Do you disagree that, against Dreadstill, your Standstill is considerably likely to misfire if played before turn 5 or so?

Rood

09-11-2008, 10:43 PM

Having tested this matchup extensively I can say that I've almost never experienced a Standstill problem playing against the Landstill player. If they drop it chances are you can win under it or match them. Boarding out at least 2 seems to be correct. They have a decree edge under the Standstills but you have the Wasteland advantage to most builds. So it's really even to be fair.

Citrus-God

09-11-2008, 11:24 PM

undone

09-11-2008, 11:25 PM

Please detail your argument a bit more. Do you disagree that, against Dreadstill, your Standstill is considerably likely to misfire if played before turn 5 or so?

Actualy Given the option I would always play it on turn 2 if the board is clear, they have between 4 and 8 cards that matter. You have between 7 and 10. however the differance is, you want to get to late game you want to wait and sit, they dont.

There are situations where you drop it with nothing, they have 3 factorys and beat the crap out of you. But this is the exception to the rule.

Keep the following in mind, factorys block other factorys ALL DAY, they need to draw 2 to beat 1, where as 1 decree can stop them hard.

Having tested this matchup extensively I can say that I've almost never experienced a Standstill problem playing against the Landstill player. If they drop it chances are you can win under it or match them. Boarding out at least 2 seems to be correct. They have a decree edge under the Standstills but you have the Wasteland advantage to most builds. So it's really even to be fair.

Keep in mind the following, if your playing draw go, and not dieing litteraly right this second, your winning. You can wait, they cant. You have game breakers they dont. I do play 2 wastelands so I cant speak for every one but my threat count under standstill is

2 Decree
4 factory
2 wasteland
1 tolaria west

Vs 4 wastes 4 factorys.

Yours are varied and decree is just better. Yes rarely you will misfire but that is tipicaly not standstills fault its shufflings fault. You have a higher better threat count.

many people discount the tolaria but its just as good as a factory.

Seriously If standstill is in play, and you didnt play it while the board was cloged/deeded, your fine. Standstill misfireing is a rare occurance because waiting for standstill to build a mana base is a BAD thing.

Nihil Credo

09-12-2008, 06:23 AM

I think the crucial point where I have to disagree with you is how long it takes to reach the late-game by naturally making land drops. Considering that Wastelands are going to eat a few of both players' land drops, it takes until at least turn 9-10 before your Decrees of Justice actually become gamebreaking (4+ tokens); in that interval, an advantage of a single extra Factory can, if not outright kill you, at least bring you within Goyf striking range.

Also, if Dreadstill drops a Top, I hope you'll agree it's better to just forget about Standstill.

(I also run -1 Wasteland compared to your configuration, but that's less relevant.)

DuKeLiO

09-12-2008, 06:26 AM

Citrus-God

09-13-2008, 04:29 PM

Eternal Dragon also is a threat under standstill. When you have the 5 mana to reuse it, you will drop a land every turn, than it is a huge advantage beacuse when the standstill breaks you will win counters wars. Also it helps Decree to be larger.

I usually start recurring Dragon when I hit 7 mana. Leaving yourself tapped out against good players willing to break Standstills suck. Although, this has not happened to me against Dreadstilll, I've been seeing this often used against the Landstill mirror.

undone

09-13-2008, 06:27 PM

I tipicaly hoard forces in hand so that the moment I hit 5 i start dragon recursion. Top in play is FAR (not that top isnt great) less relivant then dragon being cycled each turn Dragon is +1 CA every turn on the turn, top is +3 CQ every turn.

Also with the factory beats, all you have to do is slow them, if your at say 8 at the end when the first standstill is cracked that is FINE, provided you dont die the turn after its broken, you should win easily.

tafit

09-14-2008, 04:38 AM

Hi everybody!

It's my first post here... so please, I hope you'll understand that my english is not very fluent. :laugh:

Here is my list:

Lands: 23
3 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
3 tundra
3 plains
1 academy ruins
4 mishra
1 Underground sea
1 scrubland
1 tolaria west
3 island
1 wasteland

Creature: 1
1 eternal dragon

Spells:
4 force of will
4 counterspell
3 Decree of justice
3 engineered Explosives
2 humility
3 wrath of god
1 crucible of worlds
2 cunning wish
4 standsill
4 sword to plowshares
4 brainstorm
2 ponder

My Sb looks like that:
3 Blue elemental blast
1 pulse of the fields
1 slaughter pact
1 return to dust
3 extirpate
4 meddling mage
1 engineered plague
1 enlightened tutor

The new card in this deck is ponder. It's a great card, and I think it's better than Fact or fiction (even if i love this card...).
This list seems very classic. But I have some questions...

Wasteland Vs Dust Bowl? I don't know why some people prefer dust bowl. Can anybody explain me?
I'm running for 3 DoJ, do you think it's too much? If I choose to cut one, i will probably add a ponder/Nevynral Disk or anything else...

I want to know what do you think about the SB. I think Plague can be cut to add another Beb-like (for the both Mu's against Goblin and Agro-loam).

Thx for reading me.

NQN

09-14-2008, 05:56 AM

Dust Bowl is better because it´s a soft-lock on it´s own. The only time you need waste-a-like effects is in the mirror and against Slow-Control Decks. In those Matchups it´s far better to sacc some "bad" lands like a Plains to destroy for example a Factory. 3 Decrees is okay, 2 is the minimum. My sideboard actually looks like this:
4 Beb
3 Extirpate
4 Meddling Mage->sometimes 2 Ajani 2 Runed Halo depending on where I play
1 Return to Dust
1 Pulse
1 E.Tutor

abbeyroad

09-14-2008, 12:23 PM

@ Tafit

1) I personally find wasteland to be better, it is better against tempo decks , and it works great under crucible. Dust bowl is only good against slow decks, which landstill should crush anyway.
2) I think you should run at least 2 wastelands, one wasteland is really not enough, even w/ tolaria waste.
3) You should run at least 2 crucible of worlds, it is a fantastic soft lock w/ wasteland.
4) 3 Doj seems too much, I would probably replace Doj with a humility.
5) Ponder doesn't seem that great in landstill. The sorcery speed of ponder just doesn't seem to fit the instant spell-base of landstill. Also, I think that cunning wish provides better card quality than ponder does. It seems better to replace one of your ponders for a Cunning wish. The other one should probably be replaced for another underground sea, 1 just doesn't look enough.

NQN

09-14-2008, 02:42 PM

Ponder is okay. And Crucible isn´t that great. I use to play 0-1 cause it´s only necessary against Landstill/Dreadstill. If you face a tempo deck it´s not good to sacc one of your lands just for doing nothing. Destroying one land won´t stop any tempo-based-archetype. Your list is fine as it is.

Citrus-God

09-14-2008, 02:50 PM

abbeyroad

09-14-2008, 04:12 PM

since when does traditional thresh run md stifle

Citrus-God

09-14-2008, 09:16 PM

since when does traditional thresh run md stifle

Exactly, so therefore, you don't even need Wasteland because whatever you waste away will be found and replaced via Top + Cantrips.

Also, traditional Thresh isn't a Tempo deck; it's a Midgame Aggro-Control deck. They use big creatures to establish board control while Counterbalance locks the opponent; doesn't sound very "Tempo" to me.

Also, here is what you should be doing with Wasteland;

1. Nail random lands like Treetop Village, Volrath's Stronghold, Academy Ruins, Rishadan Port, Dust Bowls, and the like.

2. Create a soft-lock with Crucible of Worlds.

Now here's what you can do with Dust Bowl:

1&2 (Saying 3 mana per turn just to destroy a land that's expensive is a terrible excuse because you run Crucible as a 1-of, therefore your intention for playing Crucible is mid-late game.)

3. Destroy lands under Standstill, and independently make an attempt to soft-lock the opponent without even having to cast Crucible.

I playtested a mirror match against DIF awhile back. I suggested Dust Bowl to him, and he was playing it. As the game played out, DIF won because he destroyed all my manlands and slowly forced ME to break MY OWN STANDSTILL so that I can survive. Let's just say it didn't last very long.

The point of this post isn't to persuade you to run Dust Bowl yourself. I could care less if you think that card is good or not. I'm only giving people who want to win with this deck a reason to run Dust Bowl over Wasteland because testing has shown Dust Bowl's power. In fact, even Marius " Wasteland" Hausmann made 5th at the Deutsche Legacymeisterschaft 2008, and he was running Dust Bowl. I hope this does not interfere with your opinion, but this is my defense of Dust Bowl.

tafit

09-15-2008, 01:48 AM

Ok!

Thx all for your answers! Now I know difference between wasteland and dust bowl. I got a week to test this in order to play it (or not) next saturday @ Annecy.

Moreover, I'm happy to see that you find the list classic, and with no "strange" slots...

J.V.

09-16-2008, 04:21 PM

Citrus-God

09-16-2008, 05:13 PM

Is this a joke?
Elspeth, Knight Errant
2ww
Planeswalker - Elspeth Mythic Rare
+1: Put one 1/1 white Soldier token into play.
+1: Target creature gets +3/+3 and gains flying until end of turn.
-8: For the rest of the game, all your enchantments, artifacts, creatures, and land are indestructible.
4 Loyalty

What... the... fuck? I'd love to just keep pumping him until I can make Humility indestructible... and creature tokens... and more shit... wtf? That thing like totally swings for 4 each turn... wtf?

undone

09-16-2008, 05:22 PM

What... the... fuck? I'd love to just keep pumping him until I can make Humility indestructible... and creature tokens... and more shit... wtf? That thing like totally swings for 4 each turn... wtf?

Do indestructable planeswalkers loyalty counters matter?

MULocke

09-16-2008, 05:24 PM

Honestly, I feel like there are better win conditions, and costing 4 mana need to win the game immediately (i.e. Humility). He just doesn't do enough, as the indestructible part isn't a big deal (Crucible, academy ruins) and 1/1s need to come in bulk (decree) to be useful. He'd need to come down just before standstill to be good, and in that respect I'd rather have a Sacred Mesa or something. Still, though.... 5/5 Flying Factories FTW!

Citrus-God

09-16-2008, 05:26 PM

Do indestructable planeswalkers loyalty counters matter?

Apparently, Planeswalkers don't count... but seriously... having my opponent being unable to destroy my shit is awesome. I have like infinite blockers and shit.

Nihil Credo

09-16-2008, 06:03 PM

thefreakaccident

09-16-2008, 06:53 PM

This card just seems too stupid good with humility... seriously, making a 1/1 every turn and randomly giving a giant growth ftw can be seriously good...

Also, it can make games really silly with that whole indestructible board thing.

Although, that last ability seems a little irrelevant for this deck at that point in the game... Just saying.

Lord_Cyrus

09-16-2008, 08:18 PM

The planeswalker seems amazing... He/She (?) is a natural pair with Humility, perhaps even moreso than Decree of Justice. He gives you 1/1's, a means to pump them so they can beat any creature in combat, and a way to not only protect your Humility but also all your other win conditions. Also I think it is important to consider the virtual lifegain associated with playing him. By forcing your opponent to concentrate on another entity with lifepoints or risk being overwhelmed, you are able to effectively divide their resources to a certain extent and reduce your opponent's effectiveness as a whole.

Oberon

09-17-2008, 03:46 PM

This card just seems too stupid good with Humility and Nev Disk

freakish777

09-17-2008, 04:03 PM

Elspeth, Knight Errant
2ww
Planeswalker - Elspeth Mythic Rare
+1: Put one 1/1 white Soldier token into play.
+1: Target creature gets +3/+3 and gains flying until end of turn.
-8: For the rest of the game, all your enchantments, artifacts, creatures, and land are indestructible.
4 Loyalty

I'm actually going to go out on a limb here and say this won't see Legacy play (or will see little play at best among Landstill lists) after the dust has settled from testing.

4 turns is too long to wait to get the thing you really want online (after having sunk 4 mana into it). The token production is nice, I won't disagree with that (in fact it appears to be better than Mobilization in most cases).

All this said, Nev's Disk plus this guy's last ability seems like it'll be hilarious in casual games.

Ironstickman

09-17-2008, 04:43 PM

The planeswalker seems interesting and worth testing;
However, I don't think it is superior to decree.
It is a better fog early game, no doubt, but it doesn't have the impact decree has in the late game (laying 4/5 soldiers + cantrip). Moreover, the planeswalker can be burned, vindicated or attacked.
The last ability is not really profitable unfortunately.

klaus

09-17-2008, 05:03 PM

Though Ajani G., who has seen serious LS_UW_X play and that new chick serve different purposes I think it's still worth comparing them.

Ajani G.:
+1 you gain 2 life
-1 put a +1+1 counter on each creature you control, those creatures gain vigilance until eot
-6 Put a white avatar token into play with P/T each equal to your life total.
(4 Loyalty counters)

As for the first ability:
-> A chump blocker a turn grants us a slightly higher life saver/gainer average in a normal metagoyf. (exception: VS burn.dec) - the best part: those tokens serve to protect her from combat dmg.

-> Ajani's second ability really only rocks with a resolved Decree, making it conditional and slightly win more, while Elspeth's 2nd ability is self-synergistic (giant-growthing her own babies).

-> Ajani's 3rd ability is a game breaker, but will win games against control decks mostly, while Elspeth's 3rd can win against control and most other stuff.

Just my 2 pence..

MULocke

09-17-2008, 05:09 PM

It's nice with Humility and Disk. Okay, but what about without? When I drop Humility, I don't need any more help winning; it just comes naturally. I'd just rather have a factory or two. Without, a 1/1 will do nothing but chump goyf, as the pump is sorcery speed. Thus, this card is horrible on defense. Decree is good both on defense for suprise blockers and on offense as an uncounterable win condition. It just doesn't seem like something I'd ever want to tap 4 mana for because of the protection it requires for the first 5+ turns.

klaus

09-17-2008, 07:05 PM

The last ability is not really profitable unfortunately.

Aggro/aggro-control decks do have to handle your Humilities in order to win 90% of the time. Guess why Grips have invaded all kinds of SBs over the past 2 months?

konsultant

09-17-2008, 08:34 PM

I have been a large advocate for running Plainswalkers in Landstill but I don't believe the new white one is powerful enough to play. I eagerly awaited the release of the Plainswalkers on the spoiler but I am quite dissapointed with this newest addition. Let me try to elaborate:

The power of Plainswalkers rests in two things, the limited ability of opponents to destroy them due to the card pool in the Legacy meta currently and the one time Mana investment for an effect of your choice every turn.

As with all cards in Landstill any card worth playing must be versatile and useful against the current meta. Remember there are no dead cards in any tweaked Landstill list currently and so any addition needs to trump something else currently being played.

The first ability is incredibly powerful and useful for Landstill. Mobilization that can't be gripped and require's only a one time mana investment of 4 is very powerful. We don't run Mobilization we run Decree of Justice. This card is nowhere near as powerful as Decree. Not even in the same damn category as far as power level or synergy with Standstill or Humility. Decree make's X tokens at instant speed, that can't be countered plus you draw a card and let's not forget you can play Stanstill and then cycle decree unlike Elspeth. If you are running Mobilization merry xmas your wet dream just came true, for the rest of us not playing that many win conditions let's continue to look at things.

The second ability, absolutly useless for a control deck. Perhaps if it was able to be used at instant speed allowing for more powerful Factory blocks I could see some use in it but as far as killing your opponent faster go's it isnt a substantiol increase in damage, it only increases the power of something already in play, granted it is capable of putting things into play but let's not forget it takes an entire turn for each one of these activations. At best this ability will only be situationally good and like I stated before we don't exactly have a surplus of card slots in this deck.

The third ability, has the potential to be game breaking but ONLY if paired with other cards whitch can all be game breaking on thier own. If I really wanted to protect Humility from Grip I would run Sterling Grove not something that costs 4 Mana and takes 4 turns before it has it's effect. It does have great Synergy with Disk but if you have Disk out and have made it to turn 9 how many games are you really losing at that point that anybody feels this is actually better than what is currently being played.

My summary on Elspeth is this. the only true power in this card is the first ability with situationally useful abilities for the second 2. The prime match up where this card would be good is the mirror whitch should warrent consideration but is it really worth detracting from another match up to play this card. Since the only real slot that I see available for Elspeth would be the Ajani slot let's take a look at what he brings to the table for some comparison.

Ajani's first ability - gaining 2 life. Situationally useful as well but if ever expect to beat burn you must run some form of life gain somewhere allowing Ajani to compete with the Pulse of the Fields slot. Personally I prefer Ajani to Pulse because it's less conditional and a much smaller Mana investment. While life gain is only situationally game breaking it aswell as the 1/1 soldier is almost always a relevent effect on the overall game in a vast number of match ups.

Ajani's second ability - +1+1 and Vigilance. First off the pump is in the form of a counter allowing for more powerful attacks every turn and the "all creature's you control" part is ridiculously good with X in Decree. The vigilance is also a powerful effect for Landstill allowing you to attack with a number of soldiers while still having them all available for blocking. Let's not forget the power of +1+1 counters on creatures with Humility in play. Granted the effect is still situational in that you need to have creatures to pump but unlike the one time pump of 3 it has a much more signigant effect on how much damage you are capable of doing and the effect is permanent.

Ajani's third ability - Avatar token. The ability to put a potentially one turn clock into play with no Mana investment on the turn you do it as early as turn 7 is amazing. Hands down one of the best abilities of any of the Plainswalkers. It has an immediate impact on the game and requires no other cards to be factored in for it's ability to be relevent. The only downside of the avatar is the dissynergy with Humility but paired with the +1+1 ability it still is capable of being lethal even with Humility in play.

I stand fully behind the idea of running Plainswalkers in Landstill but they still have to be better than an effect we are already playing. I would like to see somebody do something good with Elspeth or any of the other one's even but in the end the only one that is powerful enough and still relevent in the meta seems to be Ajani. Any of the Plainswalkers can be a house in the control mirror but Ajani is useful in both the control mirror and against aggro. I would like to see use of Lilliana but even that one doesn't seem to have slot available.

This is all just my opinion on things but I have been extensively testing Plainswalkers since they came out and until the print one's with some sort of removal as part of thier abilities they just don't seem to be quite good enough to replace one of the extremely tight deck slots in Landstill.

thefreakaccident

09-18-2008, 11:00 AM

I don't mean to be totally off-topic with the rest of the current topic (planeswalkers)... But I had a crazy idea last night, and it actually seems solid.

Anyways, since me and my team have the same card pool, sometimes I will not have any/most of my card until the night before, or the night of a tourney, which really restricts some of my card choices, as sometimes I do not know if I will get the cards I need/want for my deck...

Anyways, this led me to do some testing with a card that I usually would not:

Challice of the void

I have been testing agro-loam a lot recently, and just loved how the deck is able to utilize it to close the gap in a lot of MUs.

Since my meta has lots of burn, and a few combo decks (along w/ a few threshold, but that has no account here), I decided to test it.

Against these decks, you generally want to be able to shut them down, which is what this card does, by itself.

I generally put it at 0-1 against combo decks, and 1 against burn... this leaves you in perfect position to constrict their plays, and be able to shut off the now limited options they do have.

Against both of these decks, challice @ 2 is usually really good (tutors/pop), but it also happens to shut down your couynterspells and standstills.

Anyways, the card has been giving me good results in the limited testing I have done w/ the card here. Please tell me what you guys think...

For reference, here is my current board:

3 extirpate
1 pulse of the fields
1 slaughter pact (no dragon stompy anymore)
1 dismantling blow (again, no stompy, good against thresh/survival)
1 enlightened tutor
4 challice of the void
4 runed halo

Pithing needle would be hot in my meta right now, but I do not know their whereabouts :rolleyes: .

Anyways, tell me what you think guys.

EDIT: also, when I am expecting ichorid, I bring a few propagandas in my board, what is the juries' verdict on that one?