[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

[kkoie]

Legacy open at our lgs this weekend (full moon games, Feb 24th) and I'll be piloting the following list. I've been playing landstill for a couple of months now and this build feels really good. My worst matchups appear to be really fast aggro and this latest revision.did better in testing.

3 Snapcaster Mage

4 Brainstorm
3 Myth Realized
3 Ponder
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Counterspell
4 Standstill
2 Council's Judgment
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Force of Will

4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
2 Tundra
3 Wasteland

Sideboard:15
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Chill
2 Disenchant
2 Rest in Peace
2 Back to Basics
1 Humility

[owerbart]

I went 5-0 with the list i posted a few posts above, only change was a dispel MD for the lucky charm 61st card, first time playing the deck on paper and it felt great :D

2-1 Burn
2-0 Burn
2-0 Sneaky Show
2-0 Storm
2-1 12post

By far the MVPs were the gitaxian probes. In this deck knowing what to counter is such a priority, and it felt great. Staying in two colors and consistently having mishras and wastelands meant standstills were much easier to enable. I still believe somewhere in the 60 should be some copies of azcanta... The card seems pretty great in this shell. I have nonclue what to cut tho :(

[Megadeus]

Both alphastryk and I played different standstill builds at a hundred man win a mox to pretty good success yesterday. The card seems pretty good in the field, and people still don't know how to play around it

[Erdvermampfa]

Both alphastryk and I played different standstill builds at a hundred man win a mox to pretty good success yesterday. The card seems pretty good in the field, and people still don't know how to play around it

Lists or it didn't happen.

[Megadeus]

Lists or it didn't happen.

Mines posted in the tourney report section on the source. Alpha got top 8 so it'll probably be up on Goldfish or TCdecks at some point.

[alphastryk]

Yep, I did top8 at our last quarterly / win-a-mox this past Saturday after not having played sanctioned magic in probably a year and a half.

I played this list (which will probably be on some site soon, I dunno):

1 Arid Mesa
1 Faerie Conclave
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
3 Wasteland
2 Blessed Alliance
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ponder
2 Search for Azcanta
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 True-Name Nemesis

Sideboard:
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Meddling Mage
1 Path to Exile
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Vendilion Clique

Went 6-1 in the swiss, 0-1 in top8, beating monoblack reanimator, junk, big red, czech pile, grixis delver, and miracles while losing to stoneblade twice (same opponent - in round 4 and in top8)

Deck seemed pretty solid but I felt a little awkward against resolved walkers (especially jace) if I didn't draw a manland in time. I'd consider splashing Red for blast and EE=3 or adding a councils' judgment in the 75 even though its hard to cast. I'm also not sure about playing 3 Counterspells off as few blue sources as I played - maybe Mana Leak is better here? Search for Azcanta was an all-star, I'd even consider playing a 3rd but I don't know what I'd cut.

Not sure when the next time I'll play magic is but this was pretty fun so I'll probably start with something like this.

[ventouza6969]

Yep, I did top8 at our last quarterly / win-a-mox this past Saturday after not having played sanctioned magic in probably a year and a half.

I played this list (which will probably be on some site soon, I dunno):

1 Arid Mesa
1 Faerie Conclave
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
3 Wasteland
2 Blessed Alliance
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ponder
2 Search for Azcanta
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 True-Name Nemesis

Sideboard:
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Meddling Mage
1 Path to Exile
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Vendilion Clique

Went 6-1 in the swiss, 0-1 in top8, beating monoblack reanimator, junk, big red, czech pile, grixis delver, and miracles while losing to stoneblade twice (same opponent - in round 4 and in top8)

Deck seemed pretty solid but I felt a little awkward against resolved walkers (especially jace) if I didn't draw a manland in time. I'd consider splashing Red for blast and EE=3 or adding a councils' judgment in the 75 even though its hard to cast. I'm also not sure about playing 3 Counterspells off as few blue sources as I played - maybe Mana Leak is better here? Search for Azcanta was an all-star, I'd even consider playing a 3rd but I don't know what I'd cut.

Not sure when the next time I'll play magic is but this was pretty fun so I'll probably start with something like this.

i just saw this list on tc decks and my first thing i did was to find out if there any thoughts about this list. tell me why only one jace and how good was the blessed alliance?

[pandaman]

Long time no Standstill, but my friend put me onto an interesting Aether Revolt uncommon: Restoration Specialist. Could there be a use for it in the deck? It recurs, notably, Engineered Explosives, Search for Azcanta, Crucible of Worlds, and Standstill, and can be card advantage because you can recur both an artifact and enchantment. You could even play around with Baleful Strix if you were a value fiend. Also, and I admit this is fringe, it is maindeck Dredge hate, because you can sacrifice it with no targets.

[Erdvermampfa]

It's rather clunky for 3 mana and to be honest, once Standstill let you draw 3 cards there's hardly much need for more CA. The deck shouldn't be further watered down with neat cards because you already have enough of somewhat suboptimal cards to make Standstill work (Standstill itself does nothing and it's enablers tend to be bad too). What I'm surprised about is that people haven't made more use of Myths Realized, this card seems to be as good as Delver in this deck but fits into the overall strategy a bit more.

[KobeBryan]

It's rather clunky for 3 mana and to be honest, once Standstill let you draw 3 cards there's hardly much need for more CA. The deck shouldn't be further watered down with neat cards because you already have enough of somewhat suboptimal cards to make Standstill work (Standstill itself does nothing and it's enablers tend to be bad too). What I'm surprised about is that people haven't made more use of Myths Realized, this card seems to be as good as Delver in this deck but fits into the overall strategy a bit more.

Myth is good, but all you are doing is putting a big beater down.

Doesn't further yoruself in the control aspects.

[Erdvermampfa]

Myth is good, but all you are doing is putting a big beater down.

Doesn't further yoruself in the control aspects.

What other means do traditional U/W Landstill control builds have left to break Standstill these days? Mishra's Factory appears somewhat outdated and always restricted the number of certain valuable cards like Counterspell. Myth Realized is a solid answer to opposing planeswalkers and allows for powerful early game sequences (T1 Myth, T2 Standstill).

[Megadeus]

Myth is fine, but it's just a dude. Also restricts your ability to play EE on 1 at times and is much worse in the mid to late game. It is sweet with wrath though.

[KobeBryan]

What other means do traditional U/W Landstill control builds have left to break Standstill these days? Mishra's Factory appears somewhat outdated and always restricted the number of certain valuable cards like Counterspell. Myth Realized is a solid answer to opposing planeswalkers and allows for powerful early game sequences (T1 Myth, T2 Standstill).

Thats a bad play if you do turn 1 myth, turn 2 standstill.

1. myth won't grow
2. you are leaving yourself open to problems and walking into counters dropping it in this instance.

[KobeBryan]

Myth is fine, but it's just a dude. Also restricts your ability to play EE on 1 at times and is much worse in the mid to late game. It is sweet with wrath though.

Thats how i feel. Its just a dude, that does NOTHING else.

UW landstill isn't about that option to just throw down a vanilla beater.

[alphastryk]

i just saw this list on tc decks and my first thing i did was to find out if there any thoughts about this list. tell me why only one jace and how good was the blessed alliance?

I know its super late, but I just saw this.

On only one Jace - with both Standstill and Search for Azcanta, its a little redundant. Helps to have one to attack from a different angle but I'm not really sure its needed.

Blessed Alliance was pretty good - 90% of the time its just Diabolic Edict but I'd definitely keep playing at least 1 for TNN decks. The second could maybe be swapped with the sideboard Path depending on what you expect to play against.

[Fox]

Thats a bad play if you do turn 1 myth, turn 2 standstill.

1. myth won't grow

For the record, you can force Myth to grow under a Standstill by paying 2:w: at instant speed.

Edit: to expand upon this, that it sits on the battlefield as a non-creature means you can still play Terminus. That's really what this deck is though, UWr miracles with inconsistency built in - just because you have Standstill, doesn't mean you can play it (this is not the case with Predict, Azcanta, and Counterbalance which are the main points of differentiation). The issue with Myth Realized has more to do with probably leading Tundra in a Wasteland format...throw in DRS and how you'll need white mana to answer it and it's probably Tundra #2 and hope they don't have Wasteland #2. The significant risk associated with Tundra first creates a cascading problem as you have these SCMs in your deck that are going to take that much longer to get to 3 mana (assuming here you want value, probably flashback StP).

For simplicity's sake we'll assume the list has 4x Factory, 4x SCM, and 2 slots of JTMS - how many more slots do you need as wincons? That answer is probably 2, and Myth Realized probably needs to be a bit higher to assure a consistent game plan - this is, at least, the lesson of Delver decks: 8x 1 drop threats, 3-4x 2-drop threats, and about 2-3x large threats (the 8x 1-drops is the key point though, where we count Factory as 1-drops). This is where Mentor comes in, and though it may come down after a Standstill, it allows you to establish basic lands (starting with Islands) and prove more difficult to deal with than a later game Myth.

Myth is better at enacting a Standstill plan that can play differently than miracles (incorporating mana denial for example), but Mentor is the higher quality/safer card (but you're just playing worse miracles without significant gain of function). The more interesting question right now though should be whether or not UWx Standstill provides a shell for ditching JTMS for Teferi, Hero of Dominaria? If yes, is it Mentor or Myth that best enacts this gameplan?

As far as the talk about Azcanta goes, it is likely meant to favor a build moving away from Standstill (down to a 3x) and towards Mentor. I would doubt that Azcanta and Myth are supposed to play well together.

[Fox]

Initial testing looking promising with Teferi at 2-0-1. The tie was a g3 that was going to end in a win, but the important thing was getting to run into 3x BUG decks in a row by sheer luck (Delver, Shardless, NicFit). The first two decks are sub-optimal presentations of decks that should either be Grixis Delver or Czech Pile, but it never really felt like any of these three approaches to BUG posed much of a credible threat. The room consisted of 2x UW control, 2x NicFit, 1x BUG Delver, 1x Shardless, 1x BR Reanimator, 1x Infect, 1x Angel Stompy (yes he melded Bruna and Gisela) and I think like 2x Grixis Delver. I'm probably missing a few decks but I don't remember seeing any DnT/Lands/Storm/red prison vairants/SnT/Elves. I want to say Infect got the 3-0 and I took second...

Lands: 23
4x Flooded Strand
4x assorted blue fetch
3x Island
2x Plains
2x Tundra
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
1x Karakas

Creatures: 5
3x SCM
2x Mentor

PW: 2
2x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Ice Age block: 19 :cool:
4x Brainstorm
4x Portent
4x FoW
4x StP
3x Counterspell

Spells: 11
4x Standstill
3x Terminus
2x Search for Azcanta
1x Council's Judgement
1x Blessed Alliance

SB:
2x CP
2x Surgical
2x Disenchant
2x Flusterstorm
1x Humility
1x Serenity
1x Powder Keg (not buying EE for a 2-color deck)
1x B2B
1x RiP
1x CJ
1x E-Tutor

In the main it's probably going to be a cut to 22x lands and -1 either Standstill or Azcanta, but more testing is needed (4x Factory necessitates 4x Standstill, and I really wanted to see how real Teferi's +1 is with double Azcanta activations). The second Mentor felt unnecessary, but that card wins out of nowhere and is probably the only way one is beating R/G Lands after donating 20 life with StP; even at 2 slots I like the theory of Magus of Entreat the Monks more than a 1-1 split with Entreat the Angels. Portent [with 23 lands, where I expect to naturally make land drops on turn 1 and 2] does everything we want between drawing through Leo, setting up Terminus, and late game shenanigans with Teferi -3 shuffles (or sandbagging). The theory behind Blessed Alliance being good vs TNN and Burn probably means I won't swap it out. The 3x Counterspell might stand out, but the premise being tested here is the idea that JTMS is good, but Teferi might be better. JTMS does a lot, but he doesn't move towards an ultimate win while accruing CA and he also does not directly contest opposing PWs (in a truly degenerate game remember that Teferi is a wincon as he keeps putting himself on top of deck to prevent loss by mill). Coming back to Counterspell, Teferi is one mana quicker when it comes to slam your walker, pass the turn (+1 untaps lands) and actual Counterspell whatever they do (or Blessed Alliance to kill the attacker).

As far as the sideboard goes the E-Tutor doesn't really need to be there, but I'm more confidant thinning Standstill/Azcanta when I know Tutor is coming in. I couldn't get to the point of Crucible [or an effect like Sacred Ground or Teferi's Response], but as far as utility lands go I wouldn't mind having Karakas #2/Ghost Quarter recursion and a spicy one like Kjeldoran Outpost or even actual Desert for enemy Strix/SCM nonsense. B2B may seem out of place, but it's a free roll with Teferi +1; in the same way Faerie Conclave is a little obsolete now if Choke was a main reason for its consideration. Serenity can be lumped in with E-Tutor as a package deal that stays or goes together. The SB isn't optimized vs Burn, but I'm sure a second copy of Blessed Alliance would be more than adequate were that a concern. There are plenty of cards you could choose from to improve both the Burn & red prison matchups like Hydroblast or you could even go really deep and add Infernal Tutor to the hated targets with a card like Flash Flood.

I'll get in another four rounds this saturday, but I do think Teferi in a Standstill shell might actually be optimal in the non-Myth Realized shell. I'd rather go mana positive with Teferi + Stasis, but doing this much nothing with Standstill was still a blast.

[KobeBryan]

Initial testing looking promising with Teferi at 2-0-1. The tie was a g3 that was going to end in a win, but the important thing was getting to run into 3x BUG decks in a row by sheer luck (Delver, Shardless, NicFit). The first two decks are sub-optimal presentations of decks that should either be Grixis Delver or Czech Pile, but it never really felt like any of these three approaches to BUG posed much of a credible threat. The room consisted of 2x UW control, 2x NicFit, 1x BUG Delver, 1x Shardless, 1x BR Reanimator, 1x Infect, 1x Angel Stompy (yes he melded Bruna and Gisela) and I think like 2x Grixis Delver. I'm probably missing a few decks but I don't remember seeing any DnT/Lands/Storm/red prison vairants/SnT/Elves. I want to say Infect got the 3-0 and I took second...

Lands: 23
4x Flooded Strand
4x assorted blue fetch
3x Island
2x Plains
2x Tundra
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
1x Karakas

Creatures: 5
3x SCM
2x Mentor

PW: 2
2x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Ice Age block: 19 :cool:
4x Brainstorm
4x Portent
4x FoW
4x StP
3x Counterspell

Spells: 11
4x Standstill
3x Terminus
2x Search for Azcanta
1x Council's Judgement
1x Blessed Alliance

SB:
2x CP
2x Surgical
2x Disenchant
2x Flusterstorm
1x Humility
1x Serenity
1x Powder Keg (not buying EE for a 2-color deck)
1x B2B
1x RiP
1x CJ
1x E-Tutor

In the main it's probably going to be a cut to 22x lands and -1 either Standstill or Azcanta, but more testing is needed (4x Factory necessitates 4x Standstill, and I really wanted to see how real Teferi's +1 is with double Azcanta activations). The second Mentor felt unnecessary, but that card wins out of nowhere and is probably the only way one is beating R/G Lands after donating 20 life with StP; even at 2 slots I like the theory of Magus of Entreat the Monks more than a 1-1 split with Entreat the Angels. Portent [with 23 lands, where I expect to naturally make land drops on turn 1 and 2] does everything we want between drawing through Leo, setting up Terminus, and late game shenanigans with Teferi -3 shuffles (or sandbagging). The theory behind Blessed Alliance being good vs TNN and Burn probably means I won't swap it out. The 3x Counterspell might stand out, but the premise being tested here is the idea that JTMS is good, but Teferi might be better. JTMS does a lot, but he doesn't move towards an ultimate win while accruing CA and he also does not directly contest opposing PWs (in a truly degenerate game remember that Teferi is a wincon as he keeps putting himself on top of deck to prevent loss by mill). Coming back to Counterspell, Teferi is one mana quicker when it comes to slam your walker, pass the turn (+1 untaps lands) and actual Counterspell whatever they do (or Blessed Alliance to kill the attacker).

As far as the sideboard goes the E-Tutor doesn't really need to be there, but I'm more confidant thinning Standstill/Azcanta when I know Tutor is coming in. I couldn't get to the point of Crucible [or an effect like Sacred Ground or Teferi's Response], but as far as utility lands go I wouldn't mind having Karakas #2/Ghost Quarter recursion and a spicy one like Kjeldoran Outpost or even actual Desert for enemy Strix/SCM nonsense. B2B may seem out of place, but it's a free roll with Teferi +1; in the same way Faerie Conclave is a little obsolete now if Choke was a main reason for its consideration. Serenity can be lumped in with E-Tutor as a package deal that stays or goes together. The SB isn't optimized vs Burn, but I'm sure a second copy of Blessed Alliance would be more than adequate were that a concern. There are plenty of cards you could choose from to improve both the Burn & red prison matchups like Hydroblast or you could even go really deep and add Infernal Tutor to the hated targets with a card like Flash Flood.

I'll get in another four rounds this saturday, but I do think Teferi in a Standstill shell might actually be optimal in the non-Myth Realized shell. I'd rather go mana positive with Teferi + Stasis, but doing this much nothing with Standstill was still a blast.

Why do you need the wasteland?

How are you dealing with terminus with 4 brainstorms?

How is teferi better for non-myth sells?

[Fox]

Why do you need the wasteland?

How are you dealing with terminus with 4 brainstorms?

How is teferi better for non-myth sells?

Wasteland offers a different angle of attack, which I value over cutting all three and replacing with 1x Island/1x White fetch/1x nonland flex slot. Also when you're on UW only, it becomes important to to destroy anything that casts Pyroblast. You don't really win games of UW vs. UWr if a Volc is used to cast and then flashback the same Blast. It's also often necessary to snipe opposing Wastelands under a Standstill to make way for a future Factory. More fringe benefits include contesting Depths, Post, Price of Progress, Port (I do play some WW sorc speed effects), and enemy Azcanta.

Terminus is the kind of card that usually ends games if it hits once and that's more true if a creature-based opponent cracked a Standstill at any point. Between the inherent swingy-ness of Terminus, having 8 cantrips/SCM, and 23 lands (+2 Azcanta)...the idea is loosely that it'll work or become castable while following the gameplan. In the games I've played so far I'm finding myself more concerned with finding one than having to set it up from hand. There are other options I considered like 2x Verdict/1x Settle the Wreckage (anti-TNN/Lage/Elves, but weak to soft permission); but I'm going to see more DnT in my meta, so these cards aren't going to work so well. I also really like the threat which begins on turn 3 of miracle Terminus, play land, Standstill, go. All that said, this is still a period of testing for ideal board wipes, and I'm only at 3 matches so far.

Teferi is a bit more ambitious on the mana and has this prevalent idea of resolve->+1, untap 2 lands->represent a two mana effect (currently set primarily as Counterspell). Nothing good is going to come of either Plains or Tundra to bring out Myth, as one of them can't help provide :u::u: and the other is gonna eat a Wasteland activation (and then you're going to have to answer an on-board threat, which means you doubling down on the lose to Wasteland plan as Tundra #2 comes out). So these are two very different opening strategies as the Cspell heavy strategy will prefer leading out with Island followed by fetchland, which will definitely grab Island #2 if opponent's board is passive and their play patterns compliant. When you look at these preferred openers, we're no longer gunning for white [in a vacuum] until turn 3 which coincides with Mentor. Myth Realized doesn't have harmonious timing in this case, and you have to work a whole lot harder to win with this comparatively low quality wincon; you are also probably donating more than 2 slots to Myth.

Myth Realized is all about teaming up with Factory to get under Standstill and about being a non-creature when Terminus resolves. This is hardly mana-intensive so you're free to play aggressive with cards like Wasteland/Stifle/Daze. While you're losing land drops, presumably burying your opponent, you're still playing with >20 lands and you should probably be playing 4x Terminus, and that's a context wherein JTMS makes more sense. Teferi isn't as good when the purpose is to take an aggressive slant to translate it into harder control elements (you probably don't want Myth to hit your hand after the midgame). As a card JTMS is more about making a synergy-based plan (i.e. combo) look like control. Myth Realized isn't pure draw-go, but it certainly is more true to that style than a deck like Counterbalance combo (i.e. miracles). A Myth list is still looking for JTMS as a way to avoid getting stuck with uncontrolling/situationally proactive elements, ignoring its dubious threat level under a Standstill. If the opponent isn't gonna crack it until they have 7, you're going to reach the point of discarding sooner. If you're going to fix the board with the -1 under Standstill, the odds are that was an etb value creature anyways. If you tick up for the win you either win or have very little to show for it if they kill it.

-------

More paper results:
We only had nine for saturday's legacy which moved it from 4 rounds to three. Decks were Shardless, Grixis Delver, Leo Prison (czech without red but adding in Depths combo, Loam/Crop Rot/a few other utility lands), Elves, Punishing TITI, B/R Reanimonster, R/G Lands, a deck I can't remember, and UW Standstill. Low turnout today, probably due to the city's yearly festival/parade which takes place a few blocks away. Shardless went 3-0, I finished 2-1.
R1 vs Punishing TITI: takes me about three turns to figure out what opponent is on (Turn one Strand->Volc, cantrip. Turn 2 Grove pass. Turn 3 Niv Magus which reveals the deck isn't Thieves and I know I'm up against lots of maindeck Fluster). Win first two games where white cards kill his threats or eat blue countermagic meaning any plan with my blue cards really isn't contested as long as I don't play into P-Fire and postboard Blasts. Game 2 was more heavily decided by RiP which completely shuts down their deck.
R2 vs Shardless: game 1 a Terminus will tag two creatures and Standstill goes up which effectively ends this game, though it will go on for like 15-20min. Games 2 and 3 are lost, but I was drawing lands like a champ - a rather ineffective way to stop a Goyf. I still think this is a pretty overwhelmingly favorable matchup both pre/post-board, particularly because they have to leave Decay in, but I just didn't see enough white cards.
R3 vs Leo Prisoon: game 1 Azcanta takes over to the point that I'm letting Crop Rot resolve to make the 20/20 which runs into Blessed Alliance; I take the most conservative lines with my Snapcasters and eventually a Mentor is drawn while nothing of consequence is resolving on the other side of the table. Game 2 is a little annoying where opponent has a nut draw, but I can't concede because if I topdeck a Terminus over the course of 4 turns I'd probably win. Game 3 opponent concedes with only Depths on board to Mentor, Azcanta, and a monk having been hit by 2 Wasteland and StP on DRS.

So the deck is 5-1 right now, but it's also only been up against different presentations of the "loses to Tundra" family of decks. It'll take a while to get more info as I won't be able to play in next week's 3-rounder nor our saturday 1k (Time Vault in Portland, for those wishing to come down from Seattle). I don't play online, but hope to get some testing in at some point vs different strategies in the future. Feeding this back into your question about Wasteland, these past three rounds had Grove, Tar Pit, and Tar Pit/Depths...so it's been amazing, but against the general field I think the theory is still solid. There's been a lot of Thoughtseize the planeswalker, but I'm not identifying many instances of "I wish this was JTMS" as I've been playing. I did make one change to the deck for this event and that was cutting a Factory for Noxious Revival.

[Fox]

Well things lined up this week for me so I was able to get in legacy on both thursday and saturday, even got a fifth round in on saturday since it was part of our store's open qualifier.
Thurs: 2-0-1
-R1 vs Eureka Tell: opponent on the play goes Petal, Ponder [no shuffle], pass. I respond with Island -> Portent targeting them, leave Eureka over Eureka over Show and Tell. Their next turn is Petal, Petal, City, Eureka and it resolves. They put in Omniscience and I dump in land, Standstill, and Teferi. I let them draw the two redundant combo pieces before the Teferi -3, and this one is over. They win the next game by doing their thing without having anything to cast with Omni in play, the turn before they would lose to Mentor (dumped in off SnT) they topdeck Grisel naturally and will go on to win via Emmy. Game three their mana comes under attack by Wasteland and I strip all their blue cards by directing white cards at Carpet of Flowers (the 4th effect gets them); at this point any wincon ends the game and I present one.
-R2 vs modern-ported Tezz Bridgewalker Thopter/Sword affinity lands with Chalice (it was a pile of things without much of a coherent plan, and none of the Cranial Plating & dudes plan): game one I don't fight over the Chalice on 1, nor the Bridge...counter the Tezz, resolve Mentor, and Teferi -3 on Bridge. Game 2 they get Powder Keg'd to oblivion [2 mana Rain of Salt and kill your Opal] and don't survive long enough to get hit by Serenity as well.
-R3 vs EsperBlade (no Leovold, unsure about a Savannah or Trop or Bayou): we draw intentionally because I have to go to work but play a game for fun; it's a pretty one-sided loss for me as I draw nothing after opponent resolves JTMS on turn 3 through Counterspell. This would probably be a reasonable matchup for me given opponent's mana base (which included Wastelands) and his maindecking Counterspell; not terribly hard to cut them off UU.
-Metagame best as I can recall: UWr CB miracles, Mono-U Martyr (the forecast one), Modern Tezz port, Leo Prison (read previous post for explanation), BUG Delver x2, Opposition Elves, Eureka Tell, Sneak and Show, EsperBlade, DnT, Turbo Moon deck [probably??], and 4 unknowns.

Sat: 4-1
-R1 vs DnT: they don't find Vial in either game and lose game one to removal into Terminus into Mentor (they also had to crack a Standstill and Teferi was becoming another insurmountable problem near the end). In game two their first play is turn 2 Thalia which eats StP, they fail to make land drop #3 and are immediately targeted by Portent which buries Horizon Canopy under Revoker and Thalia #2, and then I Waste them down to 1 mana; I have plenty of time to get to Teferi and they concede to 8 loyalty and revealing Brainstorm in hand vs three tapped lands and a summoning sick Recruiter.
-R2 vs Big Eldrazi (no Volt. Key variant): game one Wasteland and permission slow them down enough for Mentor to close the game out. Game two I have B2B in the opener and can't find any basics, by the time I can deploy it they tutor up Ulamog and have enough untapped mana to also cast it, I concede to Emmy tutor. Game three is a flurry of Wastelands, permission, and Disenchants; they are locked down to two mana for most of the game and Mentor wins on turn 5 of extra turns.
-R3 vs strange Grixis Delver (Tombstalker and Stifle): Game one their threats get taken out and they're cracking Standstills into an eventual loss. Game 2 I can't play around two Stifle even with Cspell backup on one and the game ends quickly. Game 3 they get whittled down by white cards and Factory beats and lose the game to a single monk token hitting for one over several turns while a Teferi was ticking up. Many TNNs were dealt with in game three iirc, never able to land a hit through CJ/Terminus/Blessed Alliance.
-R4 vs Grixis Delver: lose game one to triple Delver opener, unable to find a Terminus which probably would win on the spot if it resolved. Game two comes along and I stabilize vs the creature side of the board, but fail to draw any outs or cantrips (2 Teferi, 2 CJ still in deck) vs the Last Hope that's been ticking up; her ult ends the game. This opponent will go on to beat DnT in the 4-0 bracket, so big congrats to them on the event!
-R5 vs Czech Pile: game one opponent is forced to crack two Standstills over the course of the game as he's trying unsuccessfully to kill Factory; he has a JTMS for a while between those Standstills but all the bonus cards are getting fed into the Factory abyss; once JTMS finally falls he scoops to Teferi. Game two he's on a JTMS for ~12 turns brainstorming away vs my Azcanta, while my lock comes in - I RiP the fixing away from DRS, Waste the two Trops and he's out of green for good...Humility comes down and he can't get my life total down low enough to where I need to animate Factories into the removal he's been sitting on forever. The first CJ eats both of his Flusters, then the Terminus 3-for-1s, CJ #2 kills the JTMS, and then Teferi comes down with double Cspell protection and it's over (plan of tick up, nuke the mana, and then beat with the Factories).
-Metagame: Grixis Delver x3, Grixis Delver using Stifle & Tombstalker x1, DnT x3, Czech Pile x2, Maverick x1, Leo Prison x1, Big Eldrazi x1, Steel Stompy x1, Sneak & Show x1....there was also a Grixis Delver (I think in addition to the other 4) which was using Bomat Courier b/c he had a message to deliver, also there was Goblins where I look over and they play a sorcery that makes 2x 1/1 gobbos and the next thing I hear is Goblin Bomb (so kitchen table goblins). I'm missing about 2 decks, and there is a chance that there were only 2 copies of normal Grixis Delver.

11-2-1 (the intentional draw) currently, but still haven't run into Lands, ANT, Elves, UWx control, and a few other archetypes but the deck seems to be functioning as intended with both Teferi and Wasteland. None of my matchups thus far have felt unfavorable in the abstract, though there has been a fair bit of jank.

Edit: metagame filled in for 5 rounder.

[Fox]

Two Thursdays ago legacy failed to fire with only 7 showing up, so games were fairly casual. Saturday barely fired with 9 showing up and I went 0-2 drop losing to ANT and then R/G lands; three of those four games were definitely winnable on my end, but too hard to play correctly with only like 3 hours of sleep. :tongue:

Tonight we had 18 show up for our three rounder. Meta included DnT, Sneak & Show, ANT, Czech x2, RUG Delver, Grixis Delver, Aluren, NicFit, BUG control (i.e. Czech without red), Merfolk, quite a few unknowns, and then myself and a friend playing a similar 74 cards on UW Landstill.

R1 vs Czech: they win game one after a number of Hymns terminating in enough burn from K-Comms. G2 I'm on the play vs their mull to 6, their opener is Trop -> DRS; I cast StP on their EoT, untap and play Standstill to which opponent concedes. G3 RiP shreds any value the three SCMs he found could have assembled, beatdown plan of 3x SCM + 1x Strix meets Teferi resolution (no red mana for REB in hand on his side), then Portent sets up Terminus and Teferi untaps 2 lands; opponent loses board in upkeep [kills Teferi] and then topdecks Fluster. They concede next turn to Mentor into Azcanta. Protect your Azcantas in this matchup and it's pretty hard to lose; Mentor reliably creates fights they have to engage in and will generally cost them around 3 cards to clean up, after which point their deck collapses if you can turn off the Snapcaster value engine.

R2 vs RUG Delver aka Hootie and the ProFish (no Goose): in games one and two Stifle plays little role and I'm able to establish basic land presence; it's just kill spells into Standstill into anything wins both games. Really quite nice in this matchup to be able to sit back and let Sylvan Library resolve just to be outclassed by Standstill, saving interaction for cards that matter.

R3 vs BUG Control: game one opponent will crack 4 Standstills during a protracted fight between my Karakas and his Leovold, where despite him having Wasteland he can't touch Karakas b/c I'll flip Azcanta the moment he does. Game 2 will go to time where opponent has losing board state of Liliana-otV, DRS, SCM vs my 7 life and Teferi, Mentor, monk token, and flipped Azcanta. I won game 1 so once time is called opponent just calls for a draw and this match ends as a 1-0-1 win.

This deck's record goes to 14-4-1. My friend ended up going 2-1 tonight as well; the only different card in our lists was his Baneslayer Angel which was in place of a Surgical. He lost first round to Grixis Delver and I'm told he crushed ANT with the singleton Noxious Revival cutting threshold on a Cabal Ritual, then using Snapcaster to recast the Noxious forcing them to waste a second draw on topdecking a land. His third round was a win over Merfolk.

----

Saturday legacy barely fired with 8 players, so only a three rounder. Meta was JunkBlade, B/R Reanimator, Grixis Delver, JunkBlade w/ some blue (Atraxa and Leovold), UWr miracles, Czech x2, and myself.

R1 vs JunkBlade + Blue: run out of white cards and nearly die to Atraxa and Lilly-otV (loyalty counters proliferate), at one life I'm able to stabilize against ~30 life opponent with Sylvan Library; Mentor goes out of control and last attack I make is able to kill through Bskull gaining 6 (had SoFI equipped). Game 2 opponent gets hit by an early Terminus and loses Arbor + DRS and can't recover before we get to the Standstill cracked into Teferi portion of the game.
R2 vs Grixis Delver: opponent wins the die roll and does the Delver thing while dodging Terminus. Game 2 they run into white cards including a funny board state where they have Gurmag/DRS/Delver x2 vs double Mentor and they have to counter a Terminus - the monks from that help to overrun opponent, but they also couldn't have recovered from losing four threats. Game 3 I don't draw enough white cards, and opponent takes it down 2-1.
R3 vs B/R Reanimator: I'm on the play but no FoW vs Chancellor reveal -> turn 1 Sire and die. Game 2 controlling elements stop opponent while Factories go to work. Game 3 I have to FoW an Unmask to protect Surgical, opponent deploys Pack Rat. Next turn I deploy Factory and opponent gets a hit in for 2 (activate Pack Rat with Petal, dropping him to 2 lands); after this we stare at eachother for a few turns since opponent can't beat 3/3 Factory defense. Opponent eventually goes for a Thoughtseize and I respond with Brainstorm; they take Mentor and Reanimate, I untap and Terminus. Opponent concedes to a revealed hand of 7 cards that keeps them from going off before Factory would close out the game.

Overall record moves to 16-5-1.

[ashent]

Played Landstill last night at my Monday weekly and 3-0'd, Terminus doing its thing against 2 creature decks, and beating Aluren through a combination of countermagic and a lot of Swords + Standstill. Helps that I pilot Aluren quite often myself. I sided in Humility in every matchup and it won me every game I drew it. I was also happy with Mentor, previously playing a lot of Myth Realized off and on and this time playing 0 Myths and using that space for more spells and less pressure. I basically just had 2 Mentor, 3 Snap, 2 Jace and 4 Factories.

I'm curious about what just popped up in the weekly challenge at #16. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2018-06-25

I've never seen a lot of these choices, especially all thrown together at once.

[Fox]

@ashent looks like the deck you referenced is up on mtgtop8 now where it's easier to find (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19507&d=324693).

If you look at some recent UW Standstill ideas from vintage: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19417&d=323769&f=VI.

The deck from the challenge looks a little strange, adding Jace-AoT +1 to Humility seems like overkill with 3 Factory and 2 Myth (are people really attacking into you at this point in a game?)...shouldn't Jace-AoT just be a Karn to get a -2 effect to become a mildly less powerful +1? It seems like it might be a little difficult to win against DnT with so many payoff cards and prison elements coming in as 3-4cmc sorcery speed non-creature spells. Crucible and Emrakul are a bit more reminiscent of vintage builds, as is Verdict x2, and Humility maindeck (whereas it would Moat there). I'm skeptical of Myth Realized, but I'm sure the card draws Abrupt Decay away from Crucible and Azcanta in that list. It looks like the deck probably struggles to transition to planeswalker control portion of the game, helping to explain Jace-AoT being selected for the +1 ability; but all I see happening here is Verdict -> Jace-AoT unthreatened so -2 ability -> Kcomm get back destroyed creature, shock Jace-AoT. I'm not sure that Crucible is going to work out all that well in legacy, but it would certainly be nice in a UW mirror to protect Factory from StP/Terminus by self-Wasteland; if nobody is challenging graveyards I can see how it outvalues SCM recursion...but Snapcasters are going to be meeting up with Disenchant post-board, so it's not going to be around for long.

Concerning your list @ashent, what is your total land count with those four Factories, and are you running any amount of Wasteland? Are you seeing more success in games b/c you're not trying to play a white card on turn 1 off Tundra? Congrats on the 3-0 by the way.

[ashent]

Thanks for the replies-

I know this thread is slow and it's been mostly you replying to it, so I wanted to let you know I do appreciate reading your thoughts on the archetype.

Here's the list I ran on that Monday, as well as an Eternal Weekend Trial yesterday. I really messed up my first round and missed top 8 starting the day with a draw and then being matched up against Eldrazi Post the next round. Every time I play an extreme control list I dread seeing Eldrazi on-cast triggers.. also ran into Burn immediately after. Both of these matchups were something I would have loved to see if I had played ANT like I intended, but I really wanted to cast Standstill. I don't know if your findings are the same, but anything with Eye of Ugin is going to kill us here, and we don't have a fast enough clock to race Burn most of the time, though I did take an exciting game 1, winning at 1 life with a lethal Molten Vortex trigger on his upkeep.

23 Lands

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
2 Plains
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Portent
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Terminus
1 Council's Judgment

1 Jace the Mindsculptor
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

4 Standstill
2 Search for Azcanta

2 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage

[Fox]

Have some more results from Thurs and Sat. legacy:

Thurs was a little inbred in about 10 decks, DnT x3, UW Landstill x2, TurboDepths, Czech Pile, Grixis Delver, Maverick, and one unknown.
R1 vs DnT: able to keep them off the Vial plan both games and it's spot removal into Teferi into concede; maybe some Mentor in there. One sick play was stealing monarch: they cast Jailer with no targets, Port my Factory in upkeep (self animate in response) -> StP Jailer, Blessed Alliance to untap Factory and deal combat dmg to become the monarch and drop a Standstill just to be sure.
R2 vs DnT: both games they get on the Vial + Port plan and I can't get enough Wastelands. Game 1 Brightling made an appearance and won them the game by itself (but that was really more a function of 2x Vial on three and infinite white mana over like 10 turns - it was a really weird game. The card is quite annoying but Factories are good at stopping it; the annoying part is ignoring the equipment b/c you have to kill Vials and force this guy back onto the stack (without Cavern).
R3 vs Czech Pile: concedes to turn 2 Standstill. Game 2 and 3 are grindy, and g3 we're both on the same page about keeping in a higher density of countermagic in post-board. In both boarded games opponent is able to land Jace and I can't get Azcanta - there's more going on here, but this really boils down to 2x Azcanta (on top of Standstill) being incredibly important. Other consideration from Vintage is 4-mana Karn vs Czech; I'll be testing this out in the board as it offsets their ability to lean on REB (pulled one in a draft on Friday, the value is real!).

Incomplete knowledge of number of players and meta. Included were 3x UWr miracles (Counterbalance combo), 1x UW Blade (B2B main, employed Stutters and Spell Queller), Goblins, Czech x2, Grixis Delver x2, one guy [probably] on his usual blend of UW miracles with UB Tezz (CB, Thopter/Sword), and just me on UW Standstill this time. Other decks were there, and we got 4 rounds.
R1 vs Grixis Delver: Pretty quick 2-0 due to sufficient white cards to disperse the clock followed by insurmountable card advantage. Game 2 opponent was on a mull to 5 and scry'd to the top - my opening play was Portent targeting them, shuffling away TNN/Wasteland/Therapy.
R2 vs UWr miracles: their JTMS was a secondary concern, just died to CB twice in a row (they were able to find that before I could get on a Standstill or Azcanta plan).
R3 vs UW Blade: probably should have conceded game 1, but was an interesting 45-ish minute affair where I probably had a real shot at winning by their drawstep variance (no JTMS in play), but never really found the window to counter the Batterskull after forcing them to reset it about four times; B2B was annoying here as Factory was more than enough to take over. Game 2 they're stuck on lands and I'm Wastelanding their opening Tundras; their three basic plains can't hold back Factory and Mentor. Time runs out but there's no point for me to go into round 4 at 1-1-1 so I concede to opponent to give them a shot to cash with their [now] 2-1 record. This matchup is probably quite bad for them, especially leaving in B2B against a Teferi deck. These games reinforced why Blessed Alliance deserves a maindeck slot (TNN).
R4 vs UWr miracles: I'm able to get on the Standstill plan while they get on the JTMS/CB plan, but Teferi resolves and an Azcanta sneaks through on my side (I Wasteland theirs); they fail to pressure Teferi and but will put lethal Entreat on board -> CJ hits CB (actually resolving, which is always shocking) -> Teferi ults, Brainstorm to kill JTMS and their untapped lands -> Brainstorm to kill 3/5 angels -> they die to me drawing cards. Game 2 the Standstill plan is working well and Teferi allows me to disappear their CB a few times before dying, but they still have JTMS on board; opponent eventually gets to a point where they can't keep CB on board b/c they chose to fight over my Azcantas, I pick a fight with Standstill and win and Factories take JTMS out. Time runs out, but they will lose by default if/when I find a Surgical for Counterbalance (though damage probably ends game before that). Incredibly annoying being reduced to playing coin-flip: the gathering any time you pick the correct spot to challenge CB.

So 1-2 and 2-1*-1* (*the UW Blade game); composite record goes to 19-8-2. On thursday my friend on the same 74 went 2-1 again, this time beating Turbo Depths and something else. His loss was to Maverick, but after talking about the game it sounds like much of that came down to incorrectly assessing Sylvan Library as a threat vs an idea of followup Standstill - the FoW he spent here cost him a game that would have won the match. Versus Turbo it sounded like a pretty one-sided beatdown except for g2 where a Teferi was boarded out and a suspect hand (Wasteland only, Surgical as well) was kept, followed by a quick scoop to Dark Confidant.

@ashent try going down to 22 lands by cutting a Factory and having some sort of recursive element. Crucible is what they're doing in vintage, but seems incorrect vs a format with Delver, Kcomm, and DRS - it seems even less likely to work after game 1. I'm interested to hear how your 4 Terminus approach is going vs 3/1 split with Blessed Alliance. I don't particularly like Ponder since we should be better at hitting land drops than most, I also like setting up miracle triggers on their upkeep and ignoring Leovold with Portent.

I was thinking about another copy of Blessed Alliance in the board, but haven't run into burn yet; that little bit of lifegain (plus edict) probably makes a significant difference. Against Big Eldrazi what was going on exactly: unable to find a clock? Spyglass spam? JTMS unable to threaten them? Playing Standstill without enough pressure that they kept making land drops?

[ashent]

I wrote Ponder but I'm playing 0 Ponder. Sorry. They are Portents.

[ashent]

I was thinking about another copy of Blessed Alliance in the board, but haven't run into burn yet; that little bit of lifegain (plus edict) probably makes a significant difference. Against Big Eldrazi what was going on exactly: unable to find a clock? Spyglass spam? JTMS unable to threaten them? Playing Standstill without enough pressure that they kept making land drops?

I admit I feel like Blessed Alliance does not at all appear to be Legacy-worthy to me, but I can't back that up with testing. Just doesn't look like it does much. I would of course have loved to have drawn one against Burn yesterday.

Against BigEldrazi their entire plan beats ours naturally. Their deck is nothing but uncounterable game winning threats. I don't think it's actually possible to beat them here without a Back to Basics or recurring Wasteland plan. I could see occasions where you could get there against them with a turn 3 Mentor backed up by nothing but pressure and them having a slow start, but typically the game is Cloudpost, Cloudpost + mana rock, Cloudpost + Thought Knot or something, then Eye of Ugin into Eldrazis with all on-cast triggers where it doesn't matter if you counter them or not. They just begin casting Emrakul or Kozilek every turn.

I'm not that concerned with this kind of matchup, it's just funny that I ran into it with the only deck I feel it really has a perfect plan for.

[entreri_fans]

Wow, DRS and Gitaxian Probe are gone at the same time.

So it's time for us to become a pretty competitive deck again?:laugh:

[Sadasar]

Well i was running esper with 4drs so back to the drawing board I guess.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Fox]

Restarting the stats again post-Probe/DRS ban. Four round event meta consists of UWRb miracles (one Sea, 2 SB Thoughtseize, 1 Notion Thief) x1, RUG Delver x2, Team America x1, BUG Thresh x1, Turbo Depths x1, UR Delver x1, Merfolk x1, DnT x2, EsperBlade shenanigans (Academy Ruins) x1, EsperBlade x1.

R1 vs miracles 0-2. Counterbalance oracle: UU win the game. I'm going to toss out all games against Counterbalance combo because UW can't beat that card without running it. A separate tally will be kept, but there's little point pretending any card not called CB competes.
R2 vs BUG Thresh: 2-0. Able to play around Stifle and Daze both games and hit enough white cards to 'duress' blue out of their hand while controlling the board; eventual win via unchallenged blue cards (Standstill/Teferi/Azcanta mix).
R3 vs Team America: 1-2. Same concept as previous game. Both mull game 1 but they get there. Win mull to 6 game 2. Lose mull to 6 game 3. Favorable matchup due to their lack of burn but too many mana-screw mulls; close games though.
R4 vs EsperBlade: 2-0: Game 1 they technically lose to Mentor, but Teferi/Azcanta/Standstill are all on board at same time. Game 2 opponent can't find Fetchlands and tap down 3 duals for TNN to which I respond with B2B; Mentor outraces and Portent target them puts game way out of reach. Their deck no longer has DRS and doesn't really put down credible threats until 3 mana; very easy to Standstill once and win off the back of the draw 3 if you ever StP the SFM. Opponent got a little ticked off game 1 because I didn't play for the Mentor win (which would have been quicker), but there really wasn't anywhere near enough pressure to abandon a completely safe win by default (outdraw them 4:1 each turn, not counting Standstills) while they were stuck on land topdecks, Batterskull bouncing/recast, and Lilly-otV.

Overall record 2-1. Counterbalance tally: 0-1. I've been happy with cutting down to 1x Fluster in the board. Will probably cut another card from board to get Blessed Alliance #2 (8-9 copies of TNN over last three rounds) and simultaneously achieve better positioning vs Burn and Goose.

[polski]

Restarting the stats again post-Probe/DRS ban. Four round event meta consists of UWRb miracles (one Sea, 2 SB Thoughtseize, 1 Notion Thief) x1, RUG Delver x2, Team America x1, BUG Thresh x1, Turbo Depths x1, UR Delver x1, Merfolk x1, DnT x2, EsperBlade shenanigans (Academy Ruins) x1, EsperBlade x1.

R1 vs miracles 0-2. Counterbalance oracle: UU win the game. I'm going to toss out all games against Counterbalance combo because UW can't beat that card without running it. A separate tally will be kept, but there's little point pretending any card not called CB competes.
R2 vs BUG Thresh: 2-0. Able to play around Stifle and Daze both games and hit enough white cards to 'duress' blue out of their hand while controlling the board; eventual win via unchallenged blue cards (Standstill/Teferi/Azcanta mix).
R3 vs Team America: 1-2. Same concept as previous game. Both mull game 1 but they get there. Win mull to 6 game 2. Lose mull to 6 game 3. Favorable matchup due to their lack of burn but too many mana-screw mulls; close games though.
R4 vs EsperBlade: 2-0: Game 1 they technically lose to Mentor, but Teferi/Azcanta/Standstill are all on board at same time. Game 2 opponent can't find Fetchlands and tap down 3 duals for TNN to which I respond with B2B; Mentor outraces and Portent target them puts game way out of reach. Their deck no longer has DRS and doesn't really put down credible threats until 3 mana; very easy to Standstill once and win off the back of the draw 3 if you ever StP the SFM. Opponent got a little ticked off game 1 because I didn't play for the Mentor win (which would have been quicker), but there really wasn't anywhere near enough pressure to abandon a completely safe win by default (outdraw them 4:1 each turn, not counting Standstills) while they were stuck on land topdecks, Batterskull bouncing/recast, and Lilly-otV.

Overall record 2-1. Counterbalance tally: 0-1. I've been happy with cutting down to 1x Fluster in the board. Will probably cut another card from board to get Blessed Alliance #2 (8-9 copies of TNN over last three rounds) and simultaneously achieve better positioning vs Burn and Goose.
Can you share your list?

[Fox]

Can you share your list?

Pretty much same as before:

Lands (22)
Island x3
Plains x2
Tundra x2
Fetch (blue) x8
Wasteland x3
Factory x3
Karakas x1

Creatures (5)
SCM x3
Mentor x2

Spells (32)
Brainstorm x4
FoW x4
Portent x4
StP x4
Standstill x4
Terminus x3
Counterspell x3
Search for Azcanta x2
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria x2
Blessed Alliance x1
Noxious Revival x1
Council's Judgement x1

SB:
Surgical x2
Disenchant x2
C. Priest x2
Council's Judgement x1
Flusterstorm x1
Karn, Scion of Urza x1
E. Tutor x1
RiP x1
Powder Keg x1
B2B x1
Humility x1
Serenity x1

Karn is mostly a test card from the vintage version of this deck. He's fine in matches where I expect opponents to bring in REB, but Czech is gone and I've not yet seen any convincing evidence that an REB deck, which can overcome white cards, currently exists (that doesn't play Counterbalance). Counterspell isn't Mana Drain, and without it I think Karn loses the aspect of being generically good in a proactive sense and really only pays off as a reaction to the previous scenario for us in legacy. I'll keep testing him for a bit and make space for SB Blessed Alliance by dropping a Disenchant or Serenity; E-Tutor is just a little too good at finding the unfair deck killer for me to want to cut at this time. Another card I'm heavily considering at this time is Sacred Ground and Teferi's Response (my local meta skewed heavily towards DnT).

Everything in the maindeck has been working out well pre- and post-ban. Wasteland has been especially effective in fair matchups due to the Azcanta puzzle this deck poses. Azcanta just sits there in enchantment form and the opponent is eventually forced to activate Wasteland targeting Factory (or I just Waste their Waste); Tundra is usually good for killing a Wasteland earlier on as well - after that Azcanta just creates too much specific card advantage and finding Teferi just shuts them out with double activations...and then to be sure you Standstill on top of all this, and uh....they concede. Alternatively you flip Azcanta to vindicate an enemy Wasteland and drop a Factory + Standstill. The Mentors are there because they don't interfere with all this nonsense and Magus of Entreat the Monks randomly wins games for free. The deck has been very reliable when it comes to getting to these mana states consistently against diverse strategies, and even pre-ban I wasn't really having that much trouble hitting Teferi mana and hardcasting Terminus - if you miracle a single Terminus by the mid-game you're massively favored to go into a solved late-game where you're out-drawing them and they eventually have to face some of the highest quality wincons in the game. The single regrowth effect with Noxious has been working well before, but with DRS gone that perfect amount of recursion is very close to feeling like Vamp. Tutor.

[ashent]

Went undefeated tonight at my weekly (just 3 rounds) with the same list I last posted, haven't made alterations because it's been in my deckbox unplayed while I messed around with Turbo Depths for a while. Same win cons of 2 Mentor, 1 Jace, 1 Teferi, 3 Snap, 4 Factory despite Fox's suggestions :P

Matchups were Moon Stompy rd 1 and 2, Stoneblade rd 3. Basically got into position all 4 games with Red Stompy decks to just let Blood Moons resolve and win with Teferi activations. Mentor helps the aggro plan a lot when you can't wait forever. Deck is strong and fun. Drew 3 with Standstill 8? times, my favorite feeling ever.

Keep casting Standstill.

[Fox]

You running the same sideboard as me @ashent? Saw your maindeck list but didn't see anywhere you posted the board or how that's shifted with the bans.

[ashent]

3 fluster
2 surgical
2 blue blast
2 disenchant
2 rip
1 humility
2 containment priest
1 verdict

[fapsik]

Hello, I just 3:1 in MKM trial in Prague with this list:


1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Myth Realized
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Karakas
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
2 Wasteland
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Ponder
1 Council's Judgment
3 Terminus

1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Damping Sphere
1 Monastery Mentor
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Humility
3 Flusterstorm
1 Hydroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Disenchant
1 Supreme Verdict


I defeated Lands, Eldrazi and White Stompy (Helm combo and Thalia + Lodgestone Golem). I lost only the first game with lands, but I feel I could have won.

The was pretty nice and Myth Realized was great and played around many cards. Humility was also a perfect SB card.

[Erdvermampfa]

Can we get a little more elaboration on how Myth Realized "was great"? I'm honestly curious because the card always seemed to have potential in this deck from my perspective.

[fapsik]

Can we get a little more elaboration on how Myth Realized "was great"? I'm honestly curious because the card always seemed to have potential in this deck from my perspective.

Personaly, the main thing is, that it is not a creature when it comes to the play. It sits down and waits - so you do not need to play around removal (except Abrupt Decay obviously). You just slam it and prepare for activation. If you think they have bolt or Punishing Fire, wait until it has 4 counters, if you think they have Swords then just wait till you have an answer. That is one of the main advantages. The second one is that it "combos" with the Standstill. You put it down the first turn, then Standstill and even if you do not play spells it grows. It can beat some big fellows like angler or goyf. It does not die to your (or opponen's) Terminus or other mass removal.

This is why I chose the card and it looks good so far.

[ashent]

Myth Realized is fantastic when he's good, but also clogs up the decklist.

I've had positive results both with and without him, so I don't know what's right yet.

The main thing I'm thinking right now is that Myth Realized is less initial investment than casting a Mentor, and works through Standstill, AND dodges sweepers, AND dodges a lot of removal (but not all) until you activate him. Unfortunately though he doesn't leave behind monks when you respond to anything like even an Abrupt Decay, for example. Myth Realized as an 8/8 getting targeted with a Fatal Push is totally fine, that's great, and you probably already sussed out the Push anyway so you didn't activate it until you had a counter, so in that way he's very strong, but sometimes he eats a Decay or a enchantment removal early or something and you don't even get a little monk left behind.

Currently I am playing without him but I know I'll try again off and on in coming months. I sort of think it depends on what kind of removal the format has a lot of. Our list already makes targeted removal viable, unlike a lot of other UW control lists, simply because of Factory. We aren't going completely creatureless to negate these cards, so trying to do that is a little insane.. but dodging sweepers with Myth + Factories is very strong.

[Fox]

More post ban stats:

Had an 0-2 in a 3 rounder about a week back, no info on meta outside of my opponents.
R1 vs ANT 1-2: remember them being able to go off through a T2 Standstill, no FoW. Game 2 they are getting pressured by Factory/CP (I cut Mentors for CP in this matchup simply for flash), have to Ad Naus from ~12 life, with response Surgical LED, they drop themselves to zero. Game 3 my mana colors are a little off, and one blue mana from double Counterspell against a Tutor line which began with a Defense Grid.
R2 vs Aluren 0-2: Game 1 sculpted a hand that allowed Sylvan Library to resolve and only lost to Aluren/double FoW/2 creature combo (or ability to assemble combo) and they had it; don't think I change how I play this hand, letting them have Library vs my Standstill and save countermagic for the Aluren. Game 2 was just miscounting tempo/attacks allowed while keeping Aluren from resolving.

Tonight went 3-0. There were around 25 people playing which is abnormally high for a Thursday. There was 4x DnT, 2x RUG Delver, 2x Pox (one LoamPox), EsperStill, Aluren, Sneak and Show, Grixis Delver, UWx Blade, UWr miracles, and a lot of unknowns.
R1 vs Grixis Delver (Bomat) 2-0. In both games Bomat puts on too little pressure and dies before being activated for value. Delvers and Gurmags are getting cast, but without any need to address Bomat, I have plenty of removal for them.
R2 vs LoamPox 2-0. Game 1 we both mull to 6, FoW tags the turn 2 Smallpox into Mentor and game ends. Game 3 opponent gets stuck on mana then run into a few copies of Counterspell as I build to 5 mana and Teferi takes over.
R3 vs DnT 2-1. All three games are mulls to 6 for me. Game 1 not enough time to stabilize with Terminus/Bstorm since I can't find white mana in time. Game 2 they keep 1 land Vial hand vs Disenchant/Wasteland. Game 3 I have plenty of white removal and keep Vial off the table, and game devolves into long drawn out big Thalia/Karakas recast it like 5 times against my white cards until Teferi eventually comes online and draws Mentor into the win.

post-ban record goes to 5-3 and 0-1 (vs CB). Haven't added the second Blessed Alliance to board yet but did cut Karn for a Canonist.

[gibsonjunkie]

Spoiler from C18:

Soul Snare
W
Enchantment
W, Sacrifice Soul Snare: Exile target creature attacking you or a planeswalker you control.

Removal that gets under Standstill seems interesting.


Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[Fox]

@gibsonjunkie same mana issue as Myth Realized; either you open the game with Tundra (loss by Wasteland) or you accept that turn 3 is the first time you'd be able to play Counterspell. Directly competes with Myth Realized, and total cost of :w::w: which means it's competing with Path and Blessed Alliance.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Spoiler from C18:

Soul Snare
W
Enchantment
W, Sacrifice Soul Snare: Exile target creature attacking you or a planeswalker you control.

Removal that gets under Standstill seems interesting.


Sent from my SM-G920V using TapatalkWhere did you see this? It's not on mtgsalvation, are you sure it's confirmed?

[(nameless one)]

Spoiler from C18:

Soul Snare
W
Enchantment
W, Sacrifice Soul Snare: Exile target creature attacking you or a planeswalker you control.

Removal that gets under Standstill seems interesting.


Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Its not really a new card. Soul Snare.

But I am not sure if it has been play tested with Landstill or not. Honestly I don't think its good. Why would you preemptively play this then Standstill? Why not just Swords to Plowshare/Wrath the board before playing Standstill? And if you're worried about Man-Lands, isn't that what Wasteland is there for (or side out Standstill postboard)

[Fox]

Finally got around to playing more with the deck, 4 rounder.
-R1 vs DnT 1-0-1: Very long g1, opponent gets me down to 4 life before I stabilize with Terminus and a plan of killing Vials; once they have to start casting their threats into Standstills (2 equip on board doing nothing) it goes south for them. Game 2 went to time but opponent conceded, but there were some interesting plays like Flicker their Prelate to StP targeting Mentor, and next time they went to Flicker a Flicker I sent in C. Priest.
R2 vs Grixis Bomat Delver 2-1*: at 1-1 with a few min left opponent concedes; counting this one in the draw bracket. Bomat Courier is not good, I don't know why they play it both pre- and post-board...even when it hits the clock is too anemic to care about.
R3 vs RUG Delver 0-2: can't find the white cards game 1, and game 2 Winter Orb makes the game pretty funny but I lose patience and drop a Teferi and opponent has a Snare for RiP (Goyf). Interesting and fun games made possible by Stifle and Wastelands, the truest form of magic. :cool:
R4 vs miracles 0-2.

Record to 6-4-1 and 0-2 vs CB. Probably coming up on the end of testing, the deck can easily run 55-75% vs the field; but with CB legal and contaminating around 10% of overall matches, it's not really worth investing time into focusing on speed of play.

[ashent]

Jody Keith's UWr Landstill list from the Legacy Premier League is gas. Lots of fun.

He's in UW but not running Terminus and is instead slamming maindeck Supreme Verdict and EE into the midgame, supported by Swords, then still has the Humility there he was using before, but no Jace AOT anymore.

The only part of this build that I really don't like is the lack of Wastelands.

[RogueMTG]

Hey dudes, I tested out Myth Realized for the first time yesterday at a local 5-rounder (20~ participants) and I managed to get a top 4 split.

This was my first tournament since the Top banning, so I was pretty rusty, the list needs some fine tuning, I slapped it together based on some things I wanted to try out (Myth, terminus, etc). Still, UW Landstill has been my pet deck since 2006-7~, and it felt good getting to jam it again.

Some general impressions:

I think I'm going to stick with Myth for a while, it was pretty solid against everything not named Flickerwisp. It's a nice change of pace having a more proactive threat that "combos" with your sweepers and helps generate Standstill advantage.

I am in love with the counter-magic package. It seemed to be just the right balance of early game interaction and late game protection. Recurring Pierce/Snare/CS with Snappy as needed is also great.

I think it needs a 4th maindeck sweeper, either Terminus #3 or Verdict #2, maybe EE or Humility instead. I'm not sure yet, and I'm not sure how to fit it in. Maybe Crucible can go, but it does save your bacon in a lot of cases.

The SB and SB planning needs work, that was cobbled together 5 minutes before the event. I do really like E. Tutor + Targets though. It can also grab SS or Myth in a pinch.

Lands (22)
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
3 Tundra
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland

Draw (11)
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder

Counter (10)
4 FoW
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare

Removal (8)
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Council's Judgment

Utility/Win (9)
3 Myth Realized
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Jace, TMS
1 Crucible of Worlds

Side (15)
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Relic of Progentius
1 Rest in Peace
1 Containment Priest
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Humility
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Path to Exile
1 Disenchant
1 Volcanic Island
1 Negate


R1: Loss 0-2 - D&T
G1 - I make two critical mistakes back to back (playing wrong land, returning wrong order on brainstorm) that resulted in me not being able to sweep his board w/Terminus on the critical turn and I die. Rough shaking off the rust.
G2 - I have a 7 card hand of one land and no removal, but it does have FoW and Pithing needle, I decide to mull, but my 6-cards are not as spicy, and he has the T1 Vial, Ports/wastes, I don't get to play magic.

R2: Win 2-0 - Budget Goblins
G1/G2: He makes some dudes, I kill them and draw a billion cards.

R3: Draw 1-1 - Grixis Control
G1: He opens with back to back Hymn, but I have back to back Spell Pierce for the counter. He gets some dudes, I'm able to reset w/Terminus after committing Myth and follow up by getting Standstill online. From here there is a ton of back and forth, but I am able to eek out card advantage from SS & Jace. I think eventually I'm able to get there with Snaps/Factory and Myth attacks after burning through all four Standstills.
G2: I manage an early advantage and make a Jace, but I make a mistake not +2ing him right away and a turn or two later he eats it to a bolt which let's him get back in the game. We get into turns and I get got by an EOT Bolt, Snapcaster Bolt, swing with weenies.

R4: Win 2-0 - D&T
G1: I FoW his first SFM and follow up with a Standstill. He breaks it and still manages an early army with 3~ SFMs. I get taken low but eventually sweep it all away and start going to town with a Myth with Standstill protection. He gets down a Flickerwisp which resets the Myth counters, but I have more kill spells and Standstills and Myth eventually gets back up to 5/5 range and ends it.
G2: I get into some early trouble, but I sided in E.E.'s, the Volc to get them to 3, Humility, and E. Tutor. EE shows up to wipe two dudes and an equipment. Then I'm able to Tutor for Humility which locks up the game. 2/2 Myth & Factories hold strong against 1/1s until Jace pops.

R5: Win 1-0-1 - BUG Delver
G1: He has the Turn 1 Delver backed by some Stifle disruption for my fetches, it blind flips and starts beating. I snag a Goyf with Snare, but he commits a G. Angler and I get brutalized down to 1 life. I manage to stabilize with a Terminus, then Myth & Standstill. He has Abrupt decay for my Myth in response to the Standstill and we play Draw-Go for 4-5 turns while I don't see any factories. I build up a hand of counter magic + Jace and some Snaps. I decide it's time to try and win proactively as I don't want to be in a position where he breaks Standstill at my EOT and has a ton of threats for me to try and answer. I brainstorm at his EOT, break the standstill, causing him to discard, I enter my turn with 9 cards in hand to his 7. I drop Myth + Jace with counter back-up. He has tons of removal for my Myths and Factories, but I also have answers for all of his threats and follow-on standstills that he gets forced to break. We get into a zero threat game with both of us at 1 life, I eventually land a Snappy to seal the deal. G1 took probably 40 minutes.
G2: He builds a quick board of double delver and nails another fetch with Stifle. I manage set up Terminus with a brainstorm and protect it with Spell Pierce to stabilize the game and follow it up with Standstill onto an empty board. We run out of time.

3-1-1 is good enough for 4th seed.

Semi-Finals: Win 2-0 - Mono-Black POX
G1: I keep a hand with 4 lands, Brainstorm, FoW, and Swords. He opens turn 1 Thoughtsieze, I Brainstorm in response... into 3 more lands. Naturally I put my two spells on top and cause TS to whiff on all lands. The 7 land opener ends up being critical against POX as he goes on the land destruction warpath. I'm able to stay in it with all my lands + Standstill. I get there with Factory and Myth beats.
G2: I am far more choked on lands, but I have Snare to stop a Sinkhole which lets me get Standstill online. After a few turns I get Jace online and protect it.

Quarters: Split

[malfie13]

Hi all. I usually played mud, and still do. i also played rug threshold back in the day and can now again. Thats said, i also enjoy this deck archetype. I thought id post my list and see what more experienced players thought about some of my more non traditional additions. Here goes.

Deck: Legacy UBW Landstill.dec

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Creatures:3
3 Snapcaster Mage

Artifacts:8
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Chrome Mox
2 Mox Diamond
2 Crucible of Worlds

Sorceries:4
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Toxic Deluge

Instants:17
2 Counterspell
4 Daze
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Impulse
1 Intuition
4 Force of Will

Enchantments:3
3 Standstill

Others:3
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands:22
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:15
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Submerge
1 Seal of Cleansing
3 Leyline of the Void
1 The Abyss
1 Narset Transcendent

I believe that the intuition mb could also be another liliana the last hope with fewer abrupt decays in the meta, and could see another edict sb as well with all the sneak and show.

[Freundla]

Hello,

I took my Landstill deck to GP Prague last weekend, only to play Legacy-sideevents. The sideevents were always 3 rounds, but at 2-0 you could ID with your opponent and you get both the same value. So I played 6 of the sideevents over the weekend and had the following results:
2-0-1 (id),
2-0-1,
2-0-1 (id),
2-0-1 (id),
2-1,
2-0-1 (id)
Leading to a total score of 12-1-1 (without counting the IDs. I even played two of them for fun and won both). The deck felt awesome, almost unbeatable. The only match I lost to Goblins was a game 2 in which I had Crucible resolved, Wasteland + Fetch available, cycled 3 Brainstorms over three rounds and didn't find an anwser for opponents Vial. He also missed landdrops and I could have wasted his lands, if he had no vial, so a Disenchant/Teferi/Judgement probably would have won the game, but it wasn't meant to be. Conceded with my last BS resolving and had 8 Lands, 1 Fow, 1 Daze and 1 Standstill in my hand and that all with Crucible in play. Game 3 I keept Tundra, Misty Rainforest, Swords to Plowshares, Disenchant, Supreme Verdict, Terminus and Councils Judgement on the play, dropped my Misty T1, he played a Lackey, I go to my turn, played Tundra, sworded the Lackey, he Wastelanded my Tundra, played a Vial and I don't manage to find a Land in 4 Turns, had to discard twice and wasn't able to handle the Aether Vial the entire game, being on the play with Disenchant in my hand.

I am not sure, if I would change anything on the list, it felt really good. Sometimes that many colorless sources are bad, sometimes they are great, so I don't know if cutting the 4th Factory for a 4th Island or going up to the 4th Wasteland is a good decision. MVPs on the tournament were:

1. Search for Azcanta: It was many times the best card in the deck. Filters draws, especially under Standstill, synergizes with Crucible and the Sunken Ruin wins many games alone. I asked myself a lot of times, in which way this card is balanced.
2. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria: Both the +1 and the -3 abilites are great, generating card advantage, tempo and being an answer to almost every permanent you don't like is just insane and that is also combined with a great finisher. Even the possibility to -3 himself every turn and not letting you die to drawing from an empty library was relevant in one game.
3. Vendilion Clique: This card makes improves exactly the matchups, where you are preboard behind. Having a good beater with flash and disrupting your opponent is something that is really important when facing ANT, Show and Tell decks and in every control-matchup.

So here is my list:

Lands (23)
3 Tundra
4 Mishras Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Arid Mesa

Creatures (3)
3 Snapcaster Mage

Instants (17)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Counterspell
2 Daze
1 Flusterstorm

Sorcerys (7)
2 Ponder
2 Terminus
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Council's Judgement

Other (10)
4 Standstill
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
1 Crucible of Worlds

Sideboard
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Disenchant
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Council's Judgement
1 Supreme Verdict

[RogueMTG]

@Freundla

Thank you for sharing your experience and your list!

The search + crucible combo seems really strong.

Can you explain a little bit about your decision to run Daze? Any reasoning for playing that over Spell Pierce or Spell Snare?

Setting yourself back a turn on land drops seems a higher price in Landstill than with most decks, as you almost always want to hit 4+ lands on time.

[ashent]

My experiences with Daze have been very good for turn 2 "protected" Standstills in blue mirrors.

On the play against any blue deck a turn 2 Standstill with Daze backup is insanely strong. It also plays well into the fact that the more "free" spells you can get in the list, the better it is in midgame counter wars when they've broken a Standstill. It's always awkward to go up to 10 cards in hand, try to win the battle on the stack, use your mana efficiently, and try not to discard anything very good. Drawing Forces and Dazes off Standstill can answer all those concerns pretty cleanly.

That said, I usually play without it because it's hard to find slots for it in the deck and it's a pretty bad draw. Same as tempo decks in the midgame drawing air, but somewhat worse due to the role of the deck.

[Hanni]

I think Daze is a completely legitimate card to run, but I think if you are going to do that, you should also run Delver.

[Freundla]

Hello,

I totally agree with ashent, the first good reason are the control-mirrors, where having more manaless counters in a counterwar is just great and a "lost" landdrop is not that important. Also protecting a standstill on the stack with Daze is very good, because if the standstill then resolves, most of the times both players draw until someone misses landdrops. With daze you have one land back in your hand, what protects you from being the first player which misses landdrops in the long-term. The second good reason is, that the opponent gets punished for tapping out. Just the fact that you play Daze, makes a good opponent play around Daze, which is exactly what I want, because it will slow down the whole game and push it to the lategame, where my deck is better than the average creature/midrange deck. Spell Pierce and Spell Snare don't counter creatures as good as Daze does, which is really important and also cost one mana, which is additionally bad because of chalice. The third reason I play Daze is that it never gets bad, because I play Crucible + Wasteland main. I had several games where I managed to Daze something in Turn 10+, even Jace, Batterskull and Show and Tell because I wasted him the turns before. I am not sure, if I would play Daze without the Crucible, or having less than 3 Wastelands. Also if the opponent always plays around Daze, I just board them out Game 2 and 3.
@Hanni: I would never run Delver, we are not a beatdown deck. But also without Delver, Daze is a great card in my List.

[frustanani]

I'm using Retrofitter Foundry in another deck (mono blue with 4 Delver of Secrets & 4 Standstill) and I find it very strong. I think it is much better than Myth Realized
I am using it in a package

3 Retrofitter Foundry
4 Standstill
1 Crucible of Worlds

4 Mutavault
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland

Retrofitter Foundry can create a token each turn or "upgrade" Mutavault to a 4/4 Construct .. with also Crucible of Worlds it becomes quite funny.

Is anyone trying it ?

[Fox]

Played in ABU Games Win-a-dual series today; there was something like 14-16 decks iirc. Structure was 4 rounds, cut to top8.

Round 1 vs Merfolk (Cosi's Trickster, Reegerie, and 2x Standstill build) win 2-0. Game 1 Terminus 2x Silvergills, Plow 2x Lords, Waste a Mutavault, and TNN loses race to Mentor. Game 2 open up Wasteland on Cavern; slow game where opponent ends up with Trickster and Silvergill looking at Mentor (plus like 2 monks) and Humility - Azcanta took game over, scoop to Teferi.

Round 2 vs UWr Miracles, win 2-0. Both games opponent can't respond to multiple Standstill with Counterbalance, gg.

Round 3 vs UW Miracles, draw 1-1-1. Game 1 they get a CB. Game 2 CB dies to Disenchant, Surgicals ban JTMS, SCM, and Brainstorm; opponent won't ever have enough cards to resolve their last CB (should they have found it), scooping to Azcanta into eventual Teferi. Game 3 Counterbalance killed on the stack, banned from game with Surgical - the rest of their deck no longer matters, but we go to time.*

Round 4 vs LED Dredge, ID into top 8. We still played for fun, ended up going 2-0. Game 1 was a pretty funny cripple fight.

Top 8 vs UWr Miracles (different one), loss 2-1. Game 1 they get Counterbalance. Game 2 Counterbalance banned from game with Surgical, also tagged SCM and JTMS with Surgical. Game 3 they get Counterbalance.

Not sure why CancerBalance is still legal...anyways other decks in the room included Infect, Shadow (felt bad since room was overrun by team Tundra, so he was de facto out of top 8 contention when event started), at least one Sneak and Show, and I think a B/R reanimonster maybe. There were others but can't remember.

So same lesson as the last time I played this deck: JTMS <<< Teferi and UW Standstill is an easy contender for deep tournament runs...as long as you dodge CB [or CB gets banned]. :cool:

*legacy first, this opponent "can't make sense of my lands" and basically asks me to make mixed piles on a board where I have Wasteland, Azcanta, Karakas, 2 diff Fetches, some basic Islands, basic Plains, a Tundra, and a Factory....yeah uh, never been asked to actively hide/misconstrue information.

[ventouza6969]

Fox could you share your list?

[Fox]

Fox could you share your list?

Same list near top of page 265. Only change was SB Karn to Ethersworn Canonist.

[ventouza6969]

Fox
with 2 disenchant 1 council in the board whats for serenity?
ratchet bomb isnt be better from the power ked?
are you still playing noxius reveval?

[Fox]

Fox
with 2 disenchant 1 council in the board whats for serenity?
ratchet bomb isnt be better from the power ked?
are you still playing noxius reveval?

1)CJ is mostly there for control matches to kill PWs, or at least white-Hymn 2 blue cards (FoW) out of opponents hand. CJ has the added benefit of dealing with random problems (TNN, Teeg, untapped Mother of Runes, etc), and sometimes you want another copy. There's something of a trend in legacy where if FoW is bad post-board, then Disenchant'y effects are good to swap in on a 1-for-1 basis. Having 2x Disenchant/1x CJ is probably good enough, but I'm playing the 1x E-Tutor in the board anyways so why not throw the tutor'able Serenity (can play it off SnT, can't be Fluster'd, randomly dismantles stuff like artifact lands/Grim Monolith strats). The important thing is that I use E-Tutor as a way to increase the virtual size of the sideboard, which is probably among the more effective things you can do in UW since you won't have Pyroblast or discard-colored mana.

2)Powder Keg kills manlands/artifact lands, and it doesn't kill my own enchantments. I also don't like tapping down Ratchet Bomb to add a counter, just to have it removed/bounced; I prefer always having the activation up while forcing opponent's to make a move first against the trigger.

3) Yes I still play 1x maindeck Revival, it functions rather similarly to Vampiric Tutor the longer a game goes on, and allows SCM to rebuy any card type (particularly Teferi and Azcanta, which take over games).

[Mr. Safety]

I'm slowly putting this deck together, the only cards i'm missing are 2x force of will and 1-2x tundra. I've been tinkering with an enlightened tutor package, which seems strong for a control deck like this.

Starting point:

3x myth realized
4x standstill
2x search for azcanta
1x detention sphere
1x engineered explosives
1x crucible of worlds
1x soul snare
2x enlightened tutor

4x swords to plowshares
4x brainstorm
2x spell pierce
2x spell snare
2x force of will
2x counterspell
3x supreme verdict
2x jace, the mind sculptor


4x flooded strand
2x polluted delta
2x arid mesa
2x hallowed fountain
1x irrigated farmland
4x island
2x plains
4x mishra's factory
2x wasteland
1x karakas

Sideboard
1x rest in peace
1x ethersworn canonist
1x pithing needle
1x grafdigger's cage
4x misdirection
2x disenchant
2x sower of temptation
3x open

[ventouza6969]

I have played your list Fox enough games now and i have a few notices. Mentor does a huge difference than normal standstill lists without any copy of mentor. Many times i would like to have into my hand some cheep counter such as snare or pierce. And i think 4 portent is too many it might be better some ponders instead of portent. What do you think?

[Fox]

Sounds like money is going to be a bit of an issue for your deck @Mr.Safety, but it might help to put these in improvement batches.
1- Arid Mesa out, all secondary Fetches able to grab blue (8th or 9th Fetch is soonest we should see 1x Mesa)
2- 24 lands + 2x Azcanta is a little higher than it has to be, -1 Irrigated Farmland and -1 Factory. [+2 slots]
3- E-Tutors and Soul Snare main -> Snapcaster x3
4- Surgical x2 SB
5- Crucible to SB [+1 slot]
6- 3x Verdict and 2x Plains means you're probably never beating DnT (Thalia + single Port is going to make this difficult) -> Terminus x3
7- 2x Sower out, move in ~1x E-Tutor to SB. Cut 2x Misdirection for E-Tutor targets.
8- 2x Council's Judgement, 1x to main, other SB [+2 MD slots remain]
9- the expensive one: Tundra x2 and FoW x2

I don't really like Myth Realized vs Mentor; it's not that productive to go turn 1 white card in a Counterspell deck given Wasteland is a card. Main decision fork will be Terminus vs Verdict, if Terminus then try to fit in Portent (this is where the extra slot of 2x Mentor vs 3x Myth is another big difference). The Tundra issue is going to cost win %, but not having SCM will likely cost more wins than that. Look back a page @fapsik and @RogueMTG's Myth lists for other ideas. Another good source is Luke T's lists from MtG top8 site: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=20501&d=334675&f=LE. An all-Verdict build isn't necessarily bad, but it is a minority approach.

@ventouza6969 those changes all sound perfectly reasonable. Snare sounds like a generally better choice than Pierce, unless you're not expecting a ton of Counterbalance and Hymn. Portent was chosen to set up Terminus on their turn and for synergy with Teferi -3 -> shuffle it off (or re-bury another 3 down after 2 turns). Ponder/Portent comes down to personal preference. One last note about Pierce; I personally prefer not to play land-go (assumes Standstill in play) and then draw into soft permission that is likely already dead on arrival.

[Mr. Safety]

Sounds like money is going to be a bit of an issue for your deck @Mr.Safety, but it might help to put these in improvement batches.
1- Arid Mesa out, all secondary Fetches able to grab blue (8th or 9th Fetch is soonest we should see 1x Mesa)
2- 24 lands + 2x Azcanta is a little higher than it has to be, -1 Irrigated Farmland and -1 Factory. [+2 slots]
3- E-Tutors and Soul Snare main -> Snapcaster x3
4- Surgical x2 SB
5- Crucible to SB [+1 slot]
6- 3x Verdict and 2x Plains means you're probably never beating DnT (Thalia + single Port is going to make this difficult) -> Terminus x3
7- 2x Sower out, move in ~1x E-Tutor to SB. Cut 2x Misdirection for E-Tutor targets.
8- 2x Council's Judgement, 1x to main, other SB [+2 MD slots remain]
9- the expensive one: Tundra x2 and FoW x2

I don't really like Myth Realized vs Mentor; it's not that productive to go turn 1 white card in a Counterspell deck given Wasteland is a card. Main decision fork will be Terminus vs Verdict, if Terminus then try to fit in Portent (this is where the extra slot of 2x Mentor vs 3x Myth is another big difference). The Tundra issue is going to cost win %, but not having SCM will likely cost more wins than that. Look back a page @fapsik and @RogueMTG's Myth lists for other ideas. Another good source is Luke T's lists from MtG top8 site: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=20501&d=334675&f=LE. An all-Verdict build isn't necessarily bad, but it is a minority approach.

Thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it. My reason for 24 lands was to ensure I could reliably hit WW for Verdict and UU for counterspell/Jace. Budget isn't really the issue, it's availability. I strongly believe in supporting my LGS, so my MTG cash budget is in store credit at the LGS. I have $400+ in store credit, so Tundra is in my near future if they can get hold of one. Force of Will and the 2nd Tundra I am actively trading for with other legacy folks locally. Once the stars align, I'll get there.

1) I wasn't sure about the land mix, I can definitely get the blue fetch count higher. I can get Scalding Tarn into the deck easily enough. Follow-up question: how many fetches? I was thinking 8, but I can definitely go up to 9-10 (#10 would be Arid Mesa.)

2) I could possibly cut 1 land, I just wasn't seeing Factory/Wasteland/Azcanta as lands. I've played a lot of Pox and that always plays a ton of lands (24-27) with the realization that 6 in my list aren't colored mana sources. That leaves me with 18, which is probably ok given Standstill/Brainstorm/Search for Azcanta, but I am still uncomfortable with it. I'm not familiar with Landstill enough to know the land mix aside from just copying lists. Follow-up question: is Maze of Ith a consideration? It seems very good (not as a land, but as a 'spell'.)

3) E-Tutor I think I'm committed to trying for now. I can definitely see it as a sideboard tech, so I'll do that for now. I have the 3 Snapcasters so I can jam those in right away.

4) With Snapcaster, Surgical sideboard seems perfectly logical. I'll still have the E-Tutor board with RiP, etc.

5) Crucible sideboard is ok, but if I play it in the side I would likely drop the Wastelands. I like it maindeck, and with it only taking up 1 slot I think I'll keep it there. Again, I am not optimized until I get the forces/tundras.

6) I see what you mean about Port/D&T. I don't want to go the terminus route, because I don't want to jam Portent/Ponder. Given Verdict only, what do you suggest for white mana sources?

7) Totally understand the Sower out, ETutor board swap. Sower was for Sneak/Show, which I see often at the local.

8) Judgment I was foregoing for Detention Sphere, again because of the Etutor package. I'll work on getting those as well.

9) Understood!!!

The Myth lists are the ones putting up numbers, so I'm not sure where you are going with Mentor vs. Myth. If you are on Mentor and Terminus, isn't it better to just switch over to Miracles?

[Erdvermampfa]

Play Academy Ruins and Tolaria West.

[Mr. Safety]

So:

-1 Wasteland
-1 Island

+1 Academy Ruins
+1 Tolaria West

Is that what you're thinking? I'd be really tempted to play Maze of Ith with Tolaria West...

[Erdvermampfa]

I would even consider to increase the number of "lands" to 25 because Tolaria isn't really a mana source but a Demonic Tutor 4 landz n' stuff. I also suggest to defy the temptation of going too cute with stuff like Maze of Ith tbh. The manabase of Landstill is already fragile enough due to the obligatory manlands so cutting even more basics doesn't seem good to me either.

[Fox]

@Mr. Safety if you're dead-set on running Verdicts you probably need 4 basic Plains (given how bad that feels, maybe hide 1x in SB), if you want to have a shot at beating DnT. Even with enough plains to get WW in a main phase, I think you're still dead by the time you get 6 mana, which is what DnT will make Verdict cost. This is one of the bigger questions going forward; whether or not you want to even try to have a winnable DnT matchup. Playing that many Plains will eventually cost you win % against the rest of the field, and you'd also have to drop Wasteland as a tool.

As far as Fetchland numbers go, I think 8 is plenty but 9 with a Mesa is about equivalent.

Maze of Ith isn't a card I would play. If I wanted a utility land that wasn't Wasteland/Factory/Karakas, the next card at the top of the list is Desert by a large margin. As highly as I rank Desert, another Wasteland is still degrees of magnitude better.

To answer why play Standstill w/ Mentor/Terminus over miracles is subjective. I find that:
-miracles is a Counterbalance combo deck, not hard control
-playing with and against Counterbalance makes worse magic players
-miracles is boring, unchallenging, and at best a tier 2 strategy without Counterbalance
-there is little more pointless than playing games where both players have effects like Locus lands or AK. While games like those are 'stupid,' Standstill mirrors provide some of the highest caliber games with sharp board states

Objectively:
-Standstill is currently the best possible Teferi-specialized shell. [the hypothesis: this shell makes it a better choice than JTMS. ex: play Teferi, untap 2, Cspell their thing, and you probably just won]
-Azcanta is way better when you have the tools to snipe their Azcanta and distract/kill enemy Wastelands
-These former 2 points are multiplicative. With both in play you draw 4 [with substantial selection] per each 1 card opponents draw (remember Teferi untaps Azcanta). By itself Azcanta builds to this endgame with exceptional speed. This endgame is hardly necessary to win a game, it just so happens that this is what all the stabilizing elements (SCM/white spells) and the Standstill plan work towards without going out of their way.
-Mentor takes up 2 slots and works seamlessly with above 3 points because it's a poorly designed card.

So to me miracles doesn't really have a point other than surviving long enough to scum wins off Counterbalance. It plays slower than 'jammy jam' strategies, but it's pretty much the same no-strategy animal. I don't find decks without a unifying plan to be particularly fun or challenging as they do not present nor solve puzzles.

P.S. I would get plenty of reps in with a tuned list before using T. West and Academy Ruins. That's a RUG Lands thing last I checked, and I know of no convincing evidence that this is an effective way to win a game of legacy.

[ventouza6969]

Yesterday i played a couple of games. I like your list Fox is very enjoyable. I have made one change only -1 teferi +1 jace because i think at least one jace is a necessary evil and off course if there is any situation having in hand 2 copies of teferi i would rather choose whitch one is better to play in the current situation. But i have an interesting plays with noxious revival when my opponent cracked my standstill one the three cards was the noxious so eot i casted noxious to put into my library the standstill and in my turn i casted again...it was the game. And in the second match i set up a terminus from the grave to the top of my library with noxious...it was fantastic!
I think that noxious need more explore than it seems. It is not replace itself, it is green and we need to have at least 3 life to cast it but it provides a unique help into this deck

[Mr. Safety]

I ended up with this list for now, testing shall commence:

Creatures - 2

2x Snapcaster Mage

Enchantments/Artifacts - 12

4x Standstill
2x Search for Azcanta
2x Myth Realized
1x Detention Sphere
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Pithing Needle
1x Crucible of Worlds

Instants - 19

4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Spell Pierce
2x Spell Snare
2x Counterspell
2x Force of Will
2x Enlightened Tutor

Sorceries - 2

2x Supreme Verdict

Planeswalkers - 2

2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands - 24
4x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
2x Scalding Tarn
1x Arid Mesa
2x Hallowed Fountain
4x Island
2x Plains
3x Mishra's Factory
2x Wasteland
1x Tolaria West
1x Karakas

Sideboard
2x Disenchant
2x Blessed Alliance
2x Dispel
3x Misdirection
1x Rest in Peace
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Control Magic (this is America, I do what I want)
2x Surgical Extraction

[Erdvermampfa]

Imo this list is worse than the previous. The previous one was at least focused around Standstill by breaking its symmetry with sufficient number of Mishras and Myths. Now you threw Snapcasters into the pile which is hardly understandable because Snapcaster is a different engine than Standstill. There is only necessity and space for one engine. Tolaria West doesn't make much sense without Ruins either. The idea is to get inevitability through the combination of Tolaria, Crucible, EE, Ruins and Wasteland.

I like your reasoning for Control Magic though.

[Fox]

Imo this list is worse than the previous. The previous one was at least focused around Standstill by breaking its symmetry with sufficient number of Mishras and Myths. Now you threw Snapcasters into the pile which is hardly understandable because Snapcaster is a different engine than Standstill.

Just a quick note here: Snapcaster is stock in UW Standstill (3x copies at that). It is not opposed to the Standstill plan: ideally turn 2 Standstill -> draw some cards -> kill their threat on their turn (preferably with SCM flashback) -> re-Standstill w/ 2/1 on board. The other very important aspect of SCM is the throw-away 2/1 body means that you don't have to animate Factories or Myth into removal, so opponents are forced to lose an otherwise Factory-targeting resource to kill a Snapcaster.

Compared to the last maindeck, this one looks significantly better, though I would like to see wraths brought back up to 3 slots and Myth Realized brought back up to 3 slots. Myth builds don't really take down games at 2 copies or below. Though Myth is a pretty terrible topdeck (compensate by running Jace to flush out of hand, which is correct), you still want a reasonable chance to see it in opening hands. [I]The Myth numbers can perhaps be fudged a bit in this list because E-Tutor can act as virtual copies.

Past those three things [SCM, wrath, Myth], the structure of the deck is more or less fine given the financial constraints [Tundra and FoW]. The deck is doing this experiment of E-Tutor over Portent/Ponder, but this doesn't disrupt the "this is why UW Standstill works" skeleton.

[Mr. Safety]

Snapcasters and the 2nd jace were by far the best inclusions, so far. The 3rd Verdict is probably necessary, might cut the 3rd Spell Pierce for it.

Cutting to 2 Myths was how i got the snaps in, and with etutor i'm still functionally playing 4.

[Mr. Safety]

I finished up my set of Force of Will last Friday, so I'm really just missing a couple Tundras and I will have a fairly optimal list. I'm sold on the E-Tutor package for now, it's been super good at handling random garbage. ETutor also allows me to drop my Myth count while still having access to it. TWest has been very good at nabbing Wasteland, Karakas, Factory, and EE. Control Magic is for the Sneak/Show matchup, along with randomly being great against Depths and 12Post.

2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Myth Realized
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4x Brainstorm
4x Standstill
2x Spell Pierce
4x Force of Will
2x Counterspell
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Supreme Verdict
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Detention Sphere
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Search for Azcanta

3x Mishra’s Factory
2x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
1x Arid Mesa
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Hallowed Fountain
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Karakas
2x Wasteland
1x Tolaria West

Sideboard
1x Rest in Peace
1x Control Magic
1x Pithing Needle
1x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Blessed Alliance
2x Disenchant
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Misdirection
2x Dispel


Happy to hear any suggestions, especially for the sideboard. Misdirection, Dispel, and Control Magic are all flexible slots. With Azcanta and 2nd Jace I think I might be able to swing Terminus x2-3, but so far Verdict has been ok (still worried about the noted D&T matchup.)

[Neo900]

Control Magic seems a bit unnecessary. But if you really want this type of effect, play Vedalken Shackles. It's more flexible and can steal stronger creatures over the game.
Containment Priest is a quite safe include. This card handles so many match ups and also Death and Taxes due to Vial and Flickerwisp.
I would add Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. Untaps your lands and gives card advantage. His ultimate is just madness with a Standstill.
I would change Dispel for Flusterstorm. Flusterstorm can deal with a combo match up and is overall a good card for a counter war.
Misdirection seems also quite unnecessary.
Rather add some Null Rod/ Stony Silence or Celestial Purge. Purge deals with nasty Lilianas out of any Grixis deck.
Detention Sphere is an okay removal but would add Council's Judgment which deals with everything. You can add Path to Exile if you need more Spotremoval.
You can add also some True-Name Nemesis. It offers the best protection avaible while pressure the opponent, great against control.
I don't play Standstill a lot, just a few games, but tend to have a similar sideboard in every UW Control deck. It looks like this:

2 Vendilion Clique ( Against combo and control also against Stoneforge Mystic)
2 Flusterstorm (great against combo and for counterwars)
1 Supreme Verdict (against creature heavy decks where Spotremoval is not good enough)
2 Disenchant (nothing to explain)
1 Ethersworn Canonist (just combo hate)
1 Celestial Purge (against Grixis and every black or red deck)
2 Surgical Extraction (grave hate, good against Grixis for Command+Snapcaster chains, Accumulated knowledge)
1 Containment Priest (Reanimator+Show&Tell for sure but also Green Sun's Zenith, Dredge, Aether Vial, Goblin Lackey)
1 Path to Exile (against grindy decks and Delvers)
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion (beat control sooooo hard)
1 Tormod's Crypt (Dredge and Reanimator mostly)


anyone plays a Stoneblade/Standstill list? Would be interesting to see

[Mr. Safety]

Thanks for the response!

Control Magic was there as an answer to Show and Tell while also being tutorable with Enlightened Tutor. One more mana than Shackles but Shackles is never stealing an Emrakul/Griselbrand. Detention Sphere over Council's Judgment is for the same reason Enlightened Tutor. Rest in Peace, ditto, ETutor synergy instead of Containment Priest.

The Elspeth is a great suggestion. I was thinking something big like that or Mobilization, something that can just dump out tokens. Teferi is a card I am considering, or even a 3rd Jace. Resolving the first Jace against control decks is usually very, very good.

Misdirection is for decks that rely on discard (Thoughtseize, Hymn, Duress) to force through their combos/bombs. Standstill recovers the card disadvantage really nicely, it's a fairly standard inclusion in Dreadstill (which plays Dreadnought and Force of will, both are card disadvantage.) I also have some pretty big flexibility with my sideboard because of the ETutor package maindeck. I can have a 'lean' toolbox and still have tons of redundancy with the other sideboard slots.

You clued in to why I'm playing Dispel: I don't have any Flusterstorms yet. Once I do it will be a straight swap, easy. Thanks for the reminder.

[Neo900]

Control Magic isn't the best card against Show and Tell neither is Shackles. They probably use Omniscience or Sneak Attack. Containment Priest is still better there. Also it's good against Reanimator where Control Magic is too slow. Also it denies Green Sun's Zenith.

I can understand your point about the Tutor but there are some points:
- Tutor is card disadvantage
- Instant and Sorceries are usable with Snapcaster Mage
I would play a Judgment somewhere in the 75.

Discard is sometimes a problem but Misdirection isn't the best solution. That's the job of the Standstills.

[Mr. Safety]

Control Magic isn't the best card against Show and Tell neither is Shackles. They probably use Omniscience or Sneak Attack. Containment Priest is still better there. Also it's good against Reanimator where Control Magic is too slow. Also it denies Green Sun's Zenith.

I can understand your point about the Tutor but there are some points:
- Tutor is card disadvantage
- Instant and Sorceries are usable with Snapcaster Mage
I would play a Judgment somewhere in the 75.

Discard is sometimes a problem but Misdirection isn't the best solution. That's the job of the Standstills.

What do you think is the best card against show and tell? I currently have maindeck Detention Sphere and sideboarded Control Magic. Both of those are lights out if I let S&T resolve. With 8 counterspells and 4 other ways (ETutor/DSphere/Karakas) to deal with Emrakul or Grizzle I would say that I'm fairly well prepare to be at least even with S&T. If they are trying to draw into enough counters to win the counter war, which takes time, I can Tolaria West into Karakas. Sideboard I can bring in Needle for Sneak Attack/Grizzle, Control Magic, and Dispel to win counter wars. I'm not that worried about the Sneak/Show matchup. I'm not sure Blessed Alliance is correct in that matchup, but it's another option.

Reanimator has to play around maindeck Karakas, 4x Swords to Plowshares, 4x Force of Will, Karaks, and 2x Spell Pierce. Sideboard they have to contend with all that plus Pithing Needle for Grizzle, Rest in Peace, Misdirection, and Surgical Extraction. Funny thing about Misdirection: if they have multiple targets in their graveyard I can redirect Reanimate to something I can deal with easier. Many times they will sideboard in Grave Titan. I can redirect it to something like Chancellor of the Annex. Misdirection on their discard spells is another turn zero play to rob them of their best way to interact with me.

ETutor is card disadvantage, yes, but I can afford it becase there is literaly a fuck-ton of other card advantage in the deck to compensate. Standstill, Snapcaster, Jace, Search for Azcanta, and Crucible of Worlds. You also haven't lived the dream if you've never played Snapcaster > Enlightened Tutor > silver bullet. It's actually really good at creating inevitability. Late-game Wasteland locks with Crucible or just digging out another Standstill to bury them is incredibly good.

With that out of the way, I do see an option of just sideboarding the ETutors and having a package there instead of maindeck. It's fairly compact and would let me jam a 3rd Snapcaster and a 3rd Myth Realized. DSphere becomes Counci's Judgment, Crucible becomes Spell Snare or just jamming another Spell Pierce.

[Neo900]

Your points are totally understandable and a small tutor package is also nice to have.
But you assume that your opponents do nothing.
Show and tell has so many tools and also reanimator.
A good Show and tell player takes his time which results in your loss.
All the Cardstock you mentioned do nothing if your opponent has omniscience. It blanks Karakas, control magic, detention sphere.

The most important thing against combo is to play pressure while disrupting your opponents pieces.
There is a reason why people are playing containment priest, ethersworn canonist, thalia etc.
They are proven to be good.
Also those cards are good in a wide variety of match ups, as I mentioned before.

[Mr. Safety]

Fair points. I would argue Detention Sphere is incredibly good against omniscience, however. I would also argue that against combo I can create a situation where my opponent literally can't win. From there the wincon is arbitrary; a single snapcaster or factory does the job.

Another reason for doing this is that i want to play something different. If i wanted a streamlined, perfect uw control deck i would be playing miracles.

I understand i need to advance my game, but with 2x myth, 3x factory, and 2x jace i have plenty of win conditions. Honestly Jace could become my primary wincon, and i would add another copy.

Last point: theory crafting is fine, but real games are the best developer for a deck. So far testing has been fantastic, but if it shows where improvements can be made, i'll definitely make them.

[TnA_Will]

What do you think is the best card against show and tell? I currently have maindeck Detention Sphere and sideboarded Control Magic. Both of those are lights out if I let S&T resolve.


I ran this deck when Myth first came out. I called it MythStill. I ran the E. Tutor package as well and oddly enough S&T was a matchup I hardly ever lost... I won because more than likely the S&T player would run out the critter instead of Omniscience, and I would have Humility as the answer... Humility does nothing to your man lands, or myth, but hoses everything else in the format.... game three can get annoying simply because of the player knowing they have to have an Omniscience and cunning wish to get the wipe away and it can go forever... I usually still ended up winning the match up pretty regularly.

The deck fell to Eldrazi pretty handily though (Chalice jus destroyed me!) but I was Esper not jus blue/white

It was posted in the "Esper Mentor" posts.... Here is the list I ran forever ago (as is evident by the bans that occurred) You can still get an idea for what my sideboard was though which should still hold up in today's meta
Spells
4x Force of Will
3x Gitaxian Probe
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Cabal Therapy
3x sensei's divining top
4x Brainstorm
4x Standstill
3x Myth Realized
2x counter balance

Creatures
4x Deathrite Shawman
2x Monastary Mentor
2x V Clique (or 2x snap casters, don't really like JTMS in this build, potentially running 1 JTMS and 1 Clique would make sense here)

Lands
4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Marsh Flats
3x Underground Sea
3x Tundra
1x Bayou
1x Creeping Tar pit
1x Plains

Sidboard:
2x Zealous Persecution
2x Flusterstorm
1x V. Clique
1x Karakas
3x E. Tutor
1x BitterBlossom
2x Ethersworn Canonist


Flex board slots ( completely dependant on the meta.... usually I like to include humility due to my Myth's and Factories being unaffected. But if Emarkul isn't running around in the meta a lot then there really isn't as much of a need for this card.)
1x Elspeth knight-errant
2x Containment Priest
2x seal of cleansing
1x Chill
1x Humility
1x Rest in Peace

[Mr. Safety]

Yeah, I'm definitely trying to obtain a humility for the board. I am also considering Venser/VClique to pair with the maindeck Karakas. Venser answers a lot of things and can be a pretty good lock against some decks with Karakas. If i do that i need to trim on a 4 drop, probably Verdict (4th to board.)

[Mr. Safety]

Esper is a really interesting idea, mostly because i like the idea of a 3rd color for explosives as well as Bitterblossom. I have to contemplate this, because i'm already short on the Tundras and USeas are a pipe dream at this point.

I'm not sure what other black cards are worth splashing. It would probably have to be included in the etutor package. Mana rocks like Talismans, maybe Vault of Whispers.

[Fox]

The issue with Esper is mana insecurity, you'd have to drop every utility land that wasn't a manland (Wasteland, Karakas). It's bad enough leading Tundra [into enemy Wasteland] to cast Myth into hold up Counterspell without also having USea openers. DRS was the most important part of getting away with 3 colors in @TnA_Will's list (on-board threat into guaranteed two mana, through Wasteland, for either Cspell or Standstill). Most of that list has been banned (DRS, Probe, SDT) and CB isn't a good card in [non-SDT] draw-go control. Those tools are now Jace/Teferi, Azcanta, Terminus (or other wrath which is mostly uncastable vs DnT), and Ponder/Portent. That list is mostly reduced to Cabal Therapy as the only maindeck contribution of black, and even this would have been cut with the loss of Probe.

Looking at the board it's Blossom (not great when Standstill's strategy is to wrath a few times) and ZP which could be a TNN & PW-killing card (Council's Judgement). Black definitely gives Thoughtseize if you want it, but you're not gaining too much other than SB options like Dread of Night [Mentor would not be in deck] or a subpar non-blue walker. If you're talking three colors for EE and compromising the mana, I don't think you can ever pass up red's Pyroblast.

[Mr. Safety]

The issue with Esper is mana insecurity, you'd have to drop every utility land that wasn't a manland (Wasteland, Karakas). It's bad enough leading Tundra [into enemy Wasteland] to cast Myth into hold up Counterspell without also having USea openers. DRS was the most important part of getting away with 3 colors in @TnA_Will's list (on-board threat into guaranteed two mana, through Wasteland, for either Cspell or Standstill). Most of that list has been banned (DRS, Probe, SDT) and CB isn't a good card in [non-SDT] draw-go control. Those tools are now Jace/Teferi, Azcanta, Terminus (or other wrath which is mostly uncastable vs DnT), and Ponder/Portent. That list is mostly reduced to Cabal Therapy as the only maindeck contribution of black, and even this would have been cut with the loss of Probe.

Looking at the board it's Blossom (not great when Standstill's strategy is to wrath a few times) and ZP which could be a TNN & PW-killing card (Council's Judgement). Black definitely gives Thoughtseize if you want it, but you're not gaining too much other than SB options like Dread of Night [Mentor would not be in deck] or a subpar non-blue walker. If you're talking three colors for EE and compromising the mana, I don't think you can ever pass up red's Pyroblast.

I agree. It was a talking point. I'm actually considering going back in time and slamming thopter/sword and a full set of etutors. I would drop all non-snap dudes, maybe even snaps, and possibly even play counterbalance. Eight ways to trigger cb with bstorm/etutor seems efficient enough to include 2 cb. Without sdt, as you say, its a little sketchy. Maybe cut the karakas for academy ruins and thopter sword. Its actually a pretty fast way to close out games and is excellent against depths strategies.

[Fox]

I mean those are all things you can do, and Foundry can play without adding black, but it's a lot of slots and you have to ask whether or not you'd rather have Azcanta at 2 mana and Teferi at 5 mana by themselves [and then together]. Once you start playing into Surgical, you probably keep digging a deeper hole by cutting E-Tutor for Intuition for Crucible/Academy/something or Thopter/Sword/Academy. I think you'd be banking heavily on dodging every fair deck with Hymn/Kcomm/SCM, CB, and Delver to garner advantage from the Thopter/Sword axis.

[Mr. Safety]

I appreciate the feedback. What is driving the conversation of a different approach is the fact that Myth Realized has been underwhelming. It's really only good t1 but it isn't strong enough to warrant multiple copies. I have found Factories and Snap/Clique/Venser beats to be just as reliable. The Enlightened Tutor package has been stellar, doing exactly what I want it to do. Mentor seems to be the logical step for threats, but I don't have the cantrip engine to feed him. It would have the same anemic effect as Myth Realized; I'm not cantripping a ton and I don't want to jeopardize the Standstill engine.

So here is my list currently with some open slots:

2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Vendilion Clique
1x Venser, Shaper Savant

4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Spell Pierce
2x Counterspell
4x Force of Will
4x Standstill
3x Supreme Verdict
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Detention Sphere
1x Engineered Explosives

3x OPEN Slots

4x Flooded Strand
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Polluted Delta
2x Hallowed Fountain
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Karakas
3x Mishra's Factory
2x Wasteland
1x Tolaria West

Sideboard
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Rest in Peace
1x Humility
1x Pithing Needle
1x Control Magic
2x Hydroblast
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Disenchant
2x Blessed Alliance
2x OPEN


So I have a 3rd Snapcaster I can include, no problem, but that still leaves me 2 more slots. I would love a finisher that can be tutored with ETutor, but Myth Realized isn't good enough. Is there another option? Torrential Gearhulk? Platinum Angel? Wurmcoil Engine? There really isn't anything at 4 or less that's powerful enough.

[Fox]

Without need to shuffle off dead cards (Myth) as much, you can consider Teferi over JTMS. Best use of three open slots probably 2x Search for Azcanta. Burst damage potential fairly specific to Mentor (Entreat not great with this strat) with last slot. Issue with tutorable wincons is that they aren't likely to be more powerful than Ballista (still lacks burst dog compared to Mentor), and using strange old tech like Phyrexian Processor as the finisher has the issue with being too low on life to leverage (and the whole mana cost thing).

Without moving to Mentor, I doubt you're going to find something better than +2 Azcanta and +1 SCM. Really long term power would be from Karakas in the mana base + 13/13 Emmy, but this isn't vintage. Likewise, DOM Karn also not great w/o Moxen and Mana Drain.

[Mr. Safety]

I had SfA in there earlier and I found it to be underwhelming. I like the Teferi idea, but I'm not sure it solves the finisher problem. Jace is actually my alternative finisher, one I've pulled on a bunch of times. I've found that with Clique, Venser, 3 Snaps and 3 Factories I've been finishing games alright. As you say, it's a slow deck by nature so having a 'fast' win condition isn't really the point. Anyways, snap #3 is locked in. That leaves 2 slots. You're probably right, SfA is likely the best choice.

I might try Retrofitter Foundry. It only allows for one token a turn, but with enough mana I can upgrade it quickly to a 4/4. I kinda like it.

[Erdvermampfa]

I still don't understand why you don't play a Academy Ruins with Crucible, EE and Tolaria in your list, especially now that you have open space left. If you think that it's an odd suggestion I suggest you guys look a bit deeper in this thread and consider some of the older lists where this combo has been staple for the longest time. Please remember that this is a control/lategame deck and that you should have some source of inevitability in such decks to make sense.

[Noctalor]

Given the creatures you play I would give a shot to
+1 Snapcaster Mage
+1 Riptide Laboratory
+1/2 Cavern of Souls

[Mr. Safety]

I still don't understand why you don't play a Academy Ruins with Crucible, EE and Tolaria in your list, especially now that you have open space left. If you think that it's an odd suggestion I suggest you guys look a bit deeper in this thread and consider some of the older lists where this combo has been staple for the longest time. Please remember that this is a control/lategame deck and that you should have some source of inevitability in such decks to make sense.

I like it, I can try it out. It has more to do with it being a colorless land than anything else. I already cut on Wastelands and Factories because the mana is unstable, so adding yet another colorless source is dangerous. I could definitely try it, but with only EE to recur I don't think it's worth it. I suppose I could run a sideboard Tormod's Crypt, but Rest in Peace is so much better.

I don't see the synergy as that important, good for sure, but slow as balls. Crucible gets me recurring Wastelands, reuses fetchlands, and lets me aggressively trade Factories. Engineered Explosives is great, but is it enough? Maybe. It puts a lot of stock into the graveyard, stock I don't know if I can wager money on.

So this is what I'll try:

+1 Snap
+1 Academy Ruins
+1 Myth Realized (I want to try it as a singleton fetch target. Multiples are bad, so maybe just 1 to fetch?)

I'll make the changes and re-post, I think I'll play this Friday at FNM. If ruins fucks up my mana I'm going straight to Search for Azcanta until something better comes along.

[Mr. Safety]

Given the creatures you play I would give a shot to
+1 Snapcaster Mage
+1 Riptide Laboratory
+1/2 Cavern of Souls

Do you think Riptide is better than Karakas? It has the same problem as academy ruins where it doesn't make colored mana. I haven't combined Karakas + Clique/Venser yet, but I know it's great synergy. Riptide seems good, but I don't know if I could afford that and Ruins. It would have to be one or the other, and ATM I'm leaning towards Ruins.

[Erdvermampfa]

Well Academy Ruins job is also to recur Crucible itself. The point is that Crucible, Ruins, Tolaria and EE all mutually protect and improve each other. Recurring Crucible is important since artifacts aren't very reliable these days due to stuff like KCommand, Decay or Trophy.

[Noctalor]

Do you think Riptide is better than Karakas? It has the same problem as academy ruins where it doesn't make colored mana. I haven't combined Karakas + Clique/Venser yet, but I know it's great synergy. Riptide seems good, but I don't know if I could afford that and Ruins. It would have to be one or the other, and ATM I'm leaning towards Ruins.

Well, firstly, as you read on the other thread, im not so sure about the deck in general.

Still, I can see recurring mainly snapcaster being good, and cavern would be pretty amazing mainly against miracle.
By adding what I suggested and what other suggested you are mainly getting an advantage against slower decks, while having possibly a much worst outcome against delver/taxes.
So the first thing would be consider your percentages against the meta, what do you feel you need more tools against?

[Fox]

I don't see how Academy Ruins grants inevitability. I mean sure, you can recur [insert self-killing artifact], but Teferi does the whole never deck out thing on a card that does something by itself, this is generally less self-destructive when having RiP in the board.

[I don't agree with the whole Crucible Tolaria aspect of @Mr.Safety's list, see previous posts] Advocating for another colorless land is not normal. Do you have some significantly different build? As is, the Academy suggestion conflicts with most to all iterations of UW Standstill in legacy and vintage which have been played to success. In the legacy format, you're inevitable for the most part once Teferi is double activating Azcanta, playing around decking with -3, and potentially sitting behind an emblem as well.

Standstill has early game stabilization, the CA do nothing plan, 2/1 beats, and some kind of walker plan. Where does Academy add novel benefit that outweighs something like the oops I win b/c Mentor. Interested to see the other parts you're surrounding Academy with @Erdvermanpfa.

[Mr. Safety]

Well, firstly, as you read on the other thread, im not so sure about the deck in general.

Still, I can see recurring mainly snapcaster being good, and cavern would be pretty amazing mainly against miracle.
By adding what I suggested and what other suggested you are mainly getting an advantage against slower decks, while having possibly a much worst outcome against delver/taxes.
So the first thing would be consider your percentages against the meta, what do you feel you need more tools against?

It feels incredibly strong right now, I've tested a bunch against Depths and Burn. I have tier decks proxied up, so my next steps are to test against Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Miracles, Death and Taxes, Show and Tell, and Eldrazi.

I feel that as the game goes longer the deck can just crush, but it's getting past the early-mid game. I do agree that D&T and Delver likely need to be tested extensively.

[Mr. Safety]

Lets say I cut the ETutor package and put it into the sideboard (2x ET, 1x EE, 1x DS, 1x CoW), that frees up 5 full slots. Without Crucible main I would likely drop the Wastelands as well.

What would I put in there? The sense I'm getting is that this is too far off the beaten path, so I'm going to streamline it. These are the cards I will change:

-2 Enlightened Tutor
-1 Engineered Explosives
-1 Detention Sphere
-1 Crucible of Worlds
-2 Wasteland

+2 Search for Azcanta
+1 Path to Exile (main)
+1 fetchland
+1 Mishra's Factory
+2 ???????? (Council's Judgment, Teferi, Spell Snare, Ponder?)

Sideboard would change drastically:

2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Rest in Peace
1x Pithing Needle
1x Detention Sphere
1x Humility
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Hydroblast (until I get Flusterstorm)
2x Disenchant
1x Blessed Alliance

[Mr. Safety]

Cool list from Jody Keith. I can get pretty close to it, so i will probably try it out (but still have the etutor board.)


https://youtu.be/ZVLgsAl9Z9g

Here's the list:

3x Snapcaster Mage
1x Vendilion Clique
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Path to Exile
2x Spell Pierce
4x Standstill
3x Counterspell
4x Force of Will
2x Council's Judgement
2x Supreme Verdict
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Crucible of Worlds

4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
4x Flooded Strand
2x Misty Rainforest
3x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Karakas

Sideboard
2x Containment Priest
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Vendilion Clique
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1x Null Rod
2x Disenchant
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Rest in Peace
1x Supreme Verdict

[Doishy]

Have been doing very well with this list locally with a pair of 3-1's and tempting someone else to build the deck!


4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Karakas
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland
4 Brainstorm
1 Council's Judgment
1 Counterspell
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Monastery Mentor
2 Ponder
2 Search for Azcanta
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vendilion Clique

Sideboard:
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
1 Fragmentize
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroblast
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Surgical Extraction

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Just miracles with wastelands and worse removal. Seems worse.

[Fox]

Just miracles with wastelands and worse removal. Seems worse.
Some issues exist with the build, dislike: the Volc, lack of wrath effects (looking at Crucible & EE stealing slots, to a lesser extent at Path), and there are questionable amounts of copies (Mentor, Cspell, Pierce, PW).

Standstill has a set amount of value it can generate (assuming it creates a favorable board before casting), whereas Counterbalance can be fired off at any time [no setup], without any symmetrical backlash, and anywhere from zero to limitless value. Choosing 2x Path + 2x EE over say Terminus [x3] and cantrip is a fairly minor point. One of those cards is “UU: win the game,” so ofc it’s better. The question we test when we play Standstill is “how well does hard control function in legacy” - we already know Counterbalance-combo (miracles) is the best way to win with Tundra (and CB should be banned, but w/e). Pointing out that miracles is better than Standstill doesn’t change that you’re comparing control to a combo deck people mistakingly qualify as control.

[Mr. Safety]

Just miracles with wastelands and worse removal. Seems worse.

Against a wide open field I would say it's a little worse, but against some decks it's better. I think the weak spot is Wasteland: if it's good, the deck is amazing. If Wasteland isn't good, the deck spins it's wheels. It's actually a very important angle of attack for this deck to be viable. Otherwise it's better to just play Miracles.

[Mirrislegend]

Was this ever discussed here?
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?32293-Riddle-Me-This-Rallier-Standstill-to-a-20th-Place-Finish

[KobeBryan]

Was this ever discussed here?
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?32293-Riddle-Me-This-Rallier-Standstill-to-a-20th-Place-Finish

Thats more of a bant deck.

[DracoOccisor]

Pointing out that miracles is better than Standstill doesn’t change that you’re comparing control to a combo deck people mistakingly qualify as control.

Is this a joke that I'm out of the loop on, or what?

[Fox]

Is this a joke that I'm out of the loop on, or what?

Gotta read the posts you're quoting from. UW Standstill is draw-go control, miracles is Counterbalance combo. The reason we don't see real control decks in legacy (and also don't really see Ux strict 2c decks) is because of the card Counterbalance. When a deck has a massive value engine (in this case CB), and that value engine is the only thing you really care about, it's a combo deck.

There is a lesser point about JTMS not being a draw-go control card; generally only showing up in Counterbalance combo or the tap-out & jam archetype (this same deck has many names: Shardless, Grixis "control," Blade...). Draw-go generally cares more about card quantity (preferably while winning, ex. Teferi) than the idea of Brainstorm every turn to fix hand or digging towards some way to win (or combo off of CB or a miracle card). Given the thread we're in, it's important to point out that JTMS is pretty anemic under a Standstill. JTMS does however show up in this deck when one deviates from hard control (playing higher variance wincons than Mentor with more slots, ex. Myth Realized), and also in Vintage where 4 vs 5 mana can matter more (ex. Land + Lotus openers) and the ability to draw raw cards for :u: (Ancestral, TC) adds incentive to dig towards a specific card.

[Fox]

Looks like we got a pretty good card with Teferi, Time Raveler. The main issues with the card are not being amazing in a vacuum (doesn't take over the game by itself), and combining that flaw with the need for ~2x slots (this is the main issue b/c it's not really allowing you to take something out).

Anyways how the card actually reads:
-opponent's can't crack Standstill on our EoT
-on our turn -3, pick up Standstill + draw a card, play a thing, replay Standstill
-cards in hand can't interact with Manlands [or Myth] at all on our turn, nor during the 5 steps of their combat
-it's a lot easier to kill opposing Mentor...and swing a 2/2 Factory at their Jace knowing they are going to have to trash that 1/1 monk as well.

This is in addition to the generic stuff: pick up SCM, instant-speed sorceries, and uncounterable spells. In terms of boring [borderline incorrect] use of this card, expect to see it show up in Blade and miracles as a generically sort-of good stuff flex card.
-In Blade it's an expensive JVP, which is more a misuse of what is clearly a Reanimator-style tool. I would also argue that in Blade, the deck probably gets better by cutting SFM, playing Wraths and then wishing for a Batterskull with new Karn (doubles as a Chalice killer) - but ya basically still just a less-winning way to play Tundra than miracles.
-In miracles they are running into the problem where this card, by itself, kind of does nothing to take over a game, and is meant to use A [Teferi] + B [CB] combo to change all sorcery cantrips into :u: Dismiss. Now most miracles players will still blow through sorcery-speed cantrips proactively for no extra Dismiss value...but the more suspect finding is that these Teferi slots are coming from cutting down CB copies...so it's a little bit self-defeating.

Of note is rule 304.5: If text states that a player may do something “any time they could cast an instant,” it means only that the player must have priority. The player doesn’t need to have an instant they could cast. Effects that would preclude that player from casting a spell or casting an instant don’t affect the player’s capability to perform that action (unless the action is actually casting a spell or casting an instant).
-Note how Infernal Tutor, hold priority, crack LED is still legal under new Teferi.

-----

In terms of other UW Standstill stuff, Karn, the Great Creator is basically a strict upgrade to Crucible (which will now live in the SB). Neat applications include +1 un-assemble an equip, and +1 it's now a Plow/Wrath target, and the aforementioned +1 Chalice killing. As cool as this is, the card is 4cmc, and unlike vintage there is no Mana Drain. So unless you're a holdout still playing Crucible, I don't think Karn will find a home here...but it turns off Vial so you definitely get some style points. So like if you have a good LGS that sells alcohol, you definitely get to tap the guy next to you and tell him/her to "hold my beer," then roll your sleeves up, and really stick it to DnT [results may vary].

Anyways I'm still working out the cuts to give new Teferi a try, but it's reaching a point where going above 1 slot main is tough to justify (have the other 1x in SB). Cutting down to 1x Mentor is about the only way I can see to get the 2nd one maindeck. The real issue is every new Teferi you add kinda ends up being -1 card that either kills or overruns a TNN (these lost slots also generally helped vs Burn). I'll try and play tomorrow and write up some thoughts.

[Kagehisa]

Have you thought about Blast Zone ? Playing strong removal under Standstill is not common. You can even free yourself from your own Standstill if it is needed. It can be replayed with Crucible of Worlds obviously and cannot be counterspelled unless opponent use Stifle effect. Not strictly better than Explosives, that can destroy Chalice and tokens though.

What if opponent plays their own Blast Zone ? Nimble Obstructionist already exists but it is not something to be worried about, I think, because who plays Blast Zone ?

[Fox]

@Kagehisa Blast Zone is one of those cards that looks good primarily because it can kill Counterbalance, but it’s 4 mana (plus a turn before of tapping down to go to x=2) and -1 land drop. Once you add in the bit about being unable to kill Chalice, Zone looks more suspect. So how I see this playing out is miracles goes turn 2 CB, then we lose 2 turns of all our mana, and while CB dies we’re now looking at Mentor or Jace.

This is where new Teferi makes more sense b/c it can be played before a CB, so miracles either has to discard a piece of countermagic immediately (i.e. can’t be used to help resolve CB) or give us free reign with unopposed countermagic that no longer needs to hit CB at all (b/c you just -3 to get it off table). Add to this that unlike Blast Zone it can also help vs Chalice, and it’s really hard to justify settling on Zone.

That assessment changes a little bit if the Landstill build includes Crucible; but that Crucible would be living in the board with Karn main...so even here you can have 1 untutorable Zone main, or more likely have the EE as a wish target. It’s probably fine to have the Zone main there, but I think with access to EE you might be better off running a Desert as long as DRS is banned. Zone is definitely more powerful, but that substantial negative tempo probably means we need to look at the card as being more closely related to Dust Bowl in terms of playability.

As to your other question, I play Wasteland that enemy Zone isn’t getting to x=2 and there’s no aggressive blue deck that can reliably detonate it. If they’re playing Zone in a non-blue shell then our white cards are resolving.

[Fox]

3-1 tonight, basically same list as I've posted in -1 Blessed Alliance, +1 New Teferi maindeck. -1 Serenity, +1 New Teferi SB.

Lands (22)
Island x3
Plains x2
Tundra x2
Fetch (blue) x8
Wasteland x3
Factory x3
Karakas x1

Creatures (5)
SCM x3
Mentor x2

Spells (32)
Brainstorm x4
FoW x4
Portent x4
StP x4
Standstill x4
Terminus x3
Counterspell x3
Search for Azcanta x2
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria x2
New Teferi x1
Noxious Revival x1
Council's Judgement x1

SB:
Surgical x1
Spiritual Focus x1
Disenchant x2
C. Priest x2
Council's Judgement x1
Canonist x1
New Teferi x1
E. Tutor x1
RiP x1
Powder Keg x1
B2B x1
Humility x1
Sacred Ground x1

-R1 vs Splinter Twin (2-0) Chalice and Moon are cards I can let resolve, counter the business spells and let SCM/Standstill and Big Teferi take over. In game 2 I killed 4 Blood Moons with Teferi ult so that was fun.
-R2 vs UB Shadow (2-0) Opponent Wastelands fail to steal game 1. I Waste them out of the game on turn 2 of game 2. This is a normal result for any deck with SCM/Plow; it really doesn't matter what the other 52 cards in your deck are called.
-R3 vs DnT (0-2) Able to avoid any mana issues both games but unable to find business spells soon enough.
-R4 vs Omnisneak (2-1) Opponent's first night of legacy, he's using UR-Shocks (which really doesn't impact how the game goes), but he has 2 Cunning Wish without a wincon wishboard. Nothing too much of note in how the matches went, but I did have both Teferi in play one game and had option (under Moon) to tap Plains EoT -> Teferi trigger untap -> get 2nd white and instant speed CJ, so that was fun.

Blood Moon kills: 5

Abnormal matchups (except DnT), but New Teferi kept coming in postboard vs all not-DnT opponents. Sadly I did not get to do the 'pick up Standstill, draw a card, cast a threat, replay Standstill, pass' line with New Teferi. I'm still skeptical about the viability of 2x maindeck.

Edit: also important to note, the round 4 opponent got to experience Humility and layers on his first night of legacy. :cool:

[PirateKing]

Fox, what is your thinking with running Portent over Ponder? Is it just to miracle Terminus on their upkeep? Or is because you can target them and hopefully stick them with running dead draws? Or something else that I'm totally missing? Thanks.

[Fox]

Aether Vial is legal, so Vedict is uncastable (vs DnT it costs ~6 mana, dead by turn 6), thus Terminus. As you've noted, Portent is better for setting up a Terminus than Ponder. We can spend a moment to note that New Teferi can turn on Ponder-Terminus, but this is a little bit magical christmas'y (also at that point we should be nearing 6 mana, and just +1 New Teferi and instant-speed hardcast Terminus).

Fringe benefits of Portent:
-Draw through Leo/Narset/Labyrinth
-Enter opponent's turn with 8 in hand
-Magical christmas New Teferi +1, respond to discard spell by casting [last card in hand] Portent
-Opponent on the draw mulls, scry to top -> Portent target opponent, shuffle (or dunk)
-Big Teferi -3 -> Portent target opponent, shuffle
-Has text vs Sterling Grove/Lim-Dul's Vault/Personal Tutor-type effects

Ponder can look for a land [most often] and play it that turn. Being turbo-linear makes Ponder a more powerful card, but it has pretty much zero off-label uses (at least without New Teferi on board). Ponder will favor combo (to include Counterbalance combo, aka miracles), and/or lower land count decks needing to find land #2 and play it on curve. In the same way JTMS favors lower land decks with dead combo/combo-ish draws (ex. redundant CB, Myth Realized in the midgame, SnT pieces), while Big Teferi favors higher land count, draw-go control. Just going to quickly re-emphasize that a UW MythStill build is a better home for Ponder + JTMS, and I'd still recommend Terminus there.

While my build is about as draw-go control as you can get in UW, it has a very specific force multipliers it is trying to hit - namely that Big Teferi, Azcanta, and Standstill all find eachother. Once they all meet up you're potentially out-drawing an opponent 7-to-1 (draw step, +1 tick, double Azcanta activations, Standstill crack), in a UW shell that is designed to not deck itself. Big Teferi is the most difficult piece to open up with, and Portent allows me (at 5 lands) to set up & then cast Terminus on their turn, untap/draw and play Teferi. Ponder has more variance at this stage in the game, not only because of the 1/2 turn delay - it also would require 6 mana on the turn I would ideally like to go for Big Teferi (+1 from Terminus). Once you get to late game, even Portent just used as blindly draw a card + force opponent to topdeck their worst card will win games that Ponder can't.

[PirateKing]

Thank you for the insight

[Kagehisa]

@Fox Oh I see. Thank you very much for the good explanation !

[Fox]

Failed to fire another win-a-dual series due to entry costs discouraging regulars unfortunately. Luckily another store in town was hosting $5 legacy around the same time so I got 4 rounds in.
-R1 vs casual/budget mill deck (2-0) both games ended with Teferi ult. New player to the format, great personality and seemed to genuinely enjoy his first legacy experience; hopefully he sticks with it and buys into the format.
-R2 vs DnT (0-2) mulls to 6 and 5 to find any land in either game.
-R3 vs Burn (2-1) game 1 Mentor gets there with 1 life left. Game 2 pretty sure I died on like turn 3. Game 3 flash bear (C. Priest) and Factory get there, aided by their Vortex.
-R4 vs Sneak and Show (2-1) opponent has bad opening hand luck all three games; mulls to 6 and 6 and 5. Game 1 he got there, but in games 2/3 he runs into too much hate and generally died to Humility (either in play or being priced into FoW E-Tutor since I'd hold it in hand waiting for SnT to resolve).

While testing new Teferi (loss of 2x Blessed Alliance) probably means I have to find room for CoP:Red in the board. That said, I'll probably be trying -4 slot SBs once Vista is out (+1 Mountain, +3 REB effect). New Teferi is good enough for further 1/1 split testing, but the board is going to be getting pretty congested. I really dislike the idea of CoP:Red, but I don't know if there's a better option with the SB space, so open to suggestions there.

[PirateKing]

I think my record is something like 1-84 against Burn.
It's mostly unwinnable in my mind, so I've been really tempted with CoP:Red or something like Aegis of Honor.
Impressed you were able to even get one game win in, let alone the match.

[PirateKing]

Do you think Hall of Heliod's Generosity is worth a colorless mana source? Recurring Standstill seems super awesome, but I'm worried it's greedy and only serves a winmore role when it does work. Losing a Search to countermagic or a Wasteland and having an option to return it isn't nothing also.
I already have a copy of Noxious Revival, and it does come up to let them crack the Standstill, counter their threats, deploy my own and recur the Standstill to lock them out with the advantage.
Any thoughts?

[thefreakaccident]

If we have some sick enchantments like humility to bring back, i'd totally be down to play it. Just bringing back standstill actually sounds almost good enough. Assuming of course that you're control elements are doing their jobs.

[Erdvermampfa]

It's probably not really worth it but if you plan on building on Hall of Heliod's Generosity more you could also try Soul Snare which has been discussed for U/W Landstill again and again because it allows to drop Standstill even in unfavorable board states. Hall might be a reason to give this some serious consideration.

[Fox]

If you're dead-set on using Heliod's, I'd pick an enchant that deals with TNN + Mother of Runes over Soul Snare; preferably one that can also kill >1 thing, or keeps them from playing a second threat (Porphyry Nodes). In terms of what you can get away with in terms of colorless lands, you have 6 slots at most to work with (3x are Factory). Add in Heliod's and you're either not playing any Wasteland, or you're only playing 2x (which isn't that reliable). The matchup against Dark Depths will worsen significantly. I still think I'd rather have recursion potential sitting on the 1x Noxious Revival since it can buy back the wincons (PWs), offer interaction, be recurred with SCM, and be found by Azcanta.

[Anelito]

Hi everyone, I got into Magic again after a very long break (~10 years), my favourite deck back then was UW Landstill with counter-top combo. After checking new cards and sifting a bit through this thread I tried to assemble a new list considering some budget constraints (no dual lands, tabernacle, etc).
A pretty interesting card is Narset, Parter of Veils, perfect for mirror matches with other control decks, and can help Counterbalance in case of a missing Top. I tried to board a flexible amount of removals both for creatures and other permanents, a couple of enlightened tutor would definitely help to pick the best artefact in every scenario but I can't decide what to exclude.
Going to the miracles, Terminus is very interesting and surprisingly bad when not instantly played, I just keep it for aggro, whilst Entreat the Angels is a perfect wincon for this deck.
Both Teferi, Time Raveler and Ashiok, Dream Render are on my watchlist, at least for the side.



Lands (23)
3x Island
2x Plains
4x Hallowed Fountain
1x Steam Vents
4x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
1x Academy Ruins
1x Karakas
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Wasteland

Counters (10)
3x Force of Will
1x Misdirection
2x Spell Pierce
2x Counterspell
2x Counterbalance

Artifacts (6)
2x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Vedalken Shackles

Removals (8)
1x Detention Sphere
2x Wrath of God
1x Terminus
4x STP

Misc (13)
1x Fact or Fiction
4x Brainstorm
3x Standstill
2x Mission Briefing
2x Jace TMS
1x Entreat the Angels

[jafar]

Mate,

Top is now banned...

Bye

[Fox]

Played some legacy tonight with a few modifications to old list:
+1 new Teferi, -1 Mentor
+2 Snare, -2 Cspell
+1 basic Island, -1 Tundra
+4 Vista, -4 [not-Strand] Fetch

SB changes:
+1 Ashiok, Dream Render, -1 new Teferi (moved to main)
+2 Hydroblast, -1 Disenchant, -1 Surgical
+1 Aegis of Honor, -1 CJ

There's a lot I don't like with Snare (mainly SnT), but we're at a point in legacy where you kinda can't not play it b/c Dreadhorde/Goyf/Wrenn/Snapcaster. Snare is at least friendlier to higher land counts and/or less mana-intensive payoff cards (a card like SFM for example). Snare probably a good deal less useful in a deck like miracles which has paired lower land counts [with >8 cantrips] and high cost payoffs - they have a more pressing need to cantrip towards that mana (i.e. tapping out of Snare on turn 1).

Cutting down to one Mentor definitely makes the solitary Mentor better (+1 prowess generating card), but the lowered odds of finding it will eventually cause losses to Burn and TNN. On the plus side, it's a little less miserable to only have one in the face of Plague Engineer's recent popularity. Getting new Teferi #2 in this slot has the benefit of turning Factories into better maindeck PW assassins. The prevalence of Wrenn necessitates the 2x Hydroblast, so I just threw the last slot into even more anti-burn w/ Aegis rather than having a random anti-TNN singleton (thanks for suggestion @PirateKing).

Vista is absurdly overpowered, and you're just racking up statistically significant losses by not playing it with this deck. Pairing this change with -1 Tundra has also noticeably reduced death by Tundra opening hands. As long as Wrenn is clogging up legacy, it's probably incorrect to try 2x Strand/2x Tarn/4x Vista + SB Mountain & REBs configurations.

Ashiok is mostly a test card, but my games against newer iterations of value piles turn rapidly into meaninglessly long, tedious, and boring affairs which generally end in one player milling out. The yard nuking and mill on Ashiok might be one of the more useful tools to speed these games along. Bonus utility vs GSZ/KotR, Reanimator, Loam, and Infernal Tutor/PiF/Cabal Rit. Between all the removal, Karakas, and maindeck permission, I figure that CP and RiP's absolute hate is probably good enough for Reanimator.

------

R1 vs TES (2-0): game 1 there is a questionable Thoughtseize taking Teferi over a FoW; of note his Empty for 8 gobbos was dealt with by Azcanta ramping to hardcast Terminus mana. Game 2 he mulls to 5 and will never have time to get out from under 3 Wastelands and Powder Keg killing Petal/Chrome Mox/Mox Opal.

R2 vs Maverick (1-1): game 1 opponent can't recover from 2x Terminus but plays about 10 fairly pointless turns until Mentor forces the concession - were this competitive REL, I would have held Mentor and elected to win by Teferi ult into using Teferi to never deck while they either conceded or milled out without any permanents. Game 2 opponent plays very well and is able to keep me from finding a window to cast Humility effectively.

R3 vs DnT (2-0): game 1 they have double Vial hand, but can't draw a Flickerwisp (or Recruiter) and concede to Teferi ult. Game 2 opponent's draws are really poor, and I have Karakas vs his Thalia; he concedes once Azcanta goes live.

R4 vs 4c Wrenn Delver: split and head home.

[crispymelee]

Hey Source Landstill Pilots

Came over here from mtgsalvation since the Landstill thread over there is literally non-existent. Thought I had lost my box of competitive decks and my binder almost 10 years ago; turns out it was just my binder and I found the box with my old MonoR Burn and UWr Landstill deck. Unfortunate that my story sounds like the other new guy and our lists our similar.

I'm hoping to put together the new primer for that site, as well as update my deck for the next month's Knight Ware event. Given that my knowledge and tech is woefully out of date, I'd love hear some feedback.



Manabase - 23
3x Tundra
1x Plateau
1x Volcanic Island
4x Flooded Strand
1x Arid Mesa
1x Scalding Tarn
2x Island
2x Plains
3x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
1x Tolaria West
1x Karakas

Denial - 11
4x Force of Will
3x Counterspell
3x Spell Snare
1x Fact or Fiction

Draw - 10
4x Brainstorm
4x Standstill
2x Jace the Mind Sculptor

Removal - 11
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x "Sweeper"
3x Engineered Explosives
2x Humility

Utility/Creatures - 4
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Eternal Dragon
1x Crucible of Worlds



Having looked at Fox's list and his posts, my most immediate changes would likely be:
- 1 Dragon
- 1 Fact or Fiction
- 2 4cmc Sweepers (Are Wrath, Day of Judgment, and Supreme Verdict considered that inferior to Terminus?)

+ 3 Terminus
+ 1 Azcanta

I'd love to include Teferi, Time Raveler, but I'm loathe to cut Elspeth, which seems the most likely candidate to be replaced to my old eyes. Probably just nostalgia. Anyways, any feedback would be appreciated, I've enjoyed reading and catching up on 1.5, even if my pet archetype isn't around as much anymore. Have lots of other questions but this post is long enough as it is for now. Cheers.

- cm

[Fox]

Manabase:
-if 3c Fetch x9 = 4x Vista, 2x Strand, 3x Tarn -> basic Mountain in SB. Extra Fetch comes from Wasteland cut.
-If 2c Fetch x8 = 4x Vista, 4x Strand.
-Tundra down to 1x -> +2 Island
-Volc and Plateau out
-cut Tolaria West, land count to 22.
[+1 slot]

Counterspells:
-3 Cspell, +2 FoN
-Snare to 2x
-cut FoF
[+4 slot]

Draw:
-Portent x4
-JTMS is fine, but 5cmc Teferi is more in-line with the goals of hard control.
[+0 slots]

Removal:
-Humility to 0x
-EE to 0x
-Wrath up to 3x. While Verdict is a better Wrath, you can't ever cast it against DnT's Port (and there is no room for the Astrolabe stuff, thus Terminus)
[+4 slots]

Utility/Creatures:
-Remove all 5 cards you had.
-Snapcaster x3
-Mentor x1
[+5 slots]

5 extra slots = 2x Teferi (3cmc), 2x Azcanta, 1x free slot. If you really love the Crucible, it lives in the sideboard and we put a Karn in the maindeck.

The two things that really matter to winrate are nuking dual land numbers down to 1 and adding 3x Snapcaster. Just doing these things will add ~10-20% winrate immediately.

[crispymelee]

/snip




Thank you for all the advice. I particularly appreciate the tidbit about the biggest bang for the buck change I can make is adding in SCM and Vistas. I'm guessing that this is because SCM offers virtual card advantage by virtue of reusing spent Instant/Sorceries and essentially reads as "1U, ambush target attacking creature", and the prevalence of non-basic hate? Would love to hear the insight behind some of the card choices.

It really looks like dropping to two colors might be the way to go, since I was only in R for the sake of REB/Pyroblast and Firespout to deal with Fish and Gobbo decks, and EE @ 3. What am I missing that's worth splashing R for?

I see how Portent is great for setting up an opponent turn Miracle or potentially disrupting their draw.

Dropping Humility seems scary to me as it has always felt particularly back-breaking against anything creature based, and because of how it lets us outclass most things with a Factory, but I guess I can put that into the leftover free slot. Are we at the point it's simply a "win-more" card, as opposed to something that can help us catch up?

Monastery Mentor I can see as a cheaper Elspeth, along with being a faster win-con, so that makes sense. Small Teferi and Azcanta in particular are cards I previously would have never considered, so reading up on those takes was neat.


EDIT: Where do Legacy players test builds these days? Way back when, Cockatrice was the platform of choice, but it was shut down.

[Fox]

If you play SCM x3 with 4x Swords, you're just going to win a lot of games of legacy regardless of the other 53 cards in your deck. On top of this, SCM is one of the best threats to have when followed up with Standstill; they lose a dude to flashback [usually] and then have to discard a removal spell to deal with SCM, if they have it, when you go to cast Standstill [which means Factory is that much harder to deal with]. You can do the ambush blocks as well, but the removal/wraths make the need for this play pretty uncommon.

Red would only be for the SB Mountain + 3x REB trick, and maybe a sideboard EE. There's so much going on at 2 mana though that Snare main and Hydroblast in board is going to be fine on 2c.

Portent also is just way better in a late game (screwing up opponent draws or shuffling off a [-3] big Teferi activation), and it invalidates Narset (and this is on top of 3cmc Teferi + manlands which can easily murder Narset).

Humility costs 4 mana & isn't blue; it also lacks text against a lot of decks. The card is fine, but it should live in the board so it's never drawn in a matchup it can't impact. What it's doing in game 1 is pretty well covered by Terminus, and Snapcaster recasting Plow (turning off SCM with Humility is higher variance). Once you get to the board there is no shortage of derpy artifacts and white cards. You have Deafening Silence [soon], Ethersworn, RiP, EE-type card, Humility, and others - it's just not that hard to play 1x of these and add 1x E-Tutor to the board to virtually manipulate numbers. Play big Teferi and you have zero incentive to not have a 1x B2B (and you also stop caring about wasting any resources on a Choke, remember you also have blue mana coming off Azcanta).

Other than paper, I don't think there is a way to test for free. I guess you could find someone to play with over Skype, and point webcams at playmats. :tongue:

[crispymelee]

If you play SCM x3 with 4x Swords, you're just going to win a lot of games of legacy regardless of the other 53 cards in your deck. On top of this, SCM is one of the best threats to have when followed up with Standstill; they lose a dude to flashback [usually] and then have to discard a removal spell to deal with SCM, if they have it, when you go to cast Standstill [which means Factory is that much harder to deal with]. You can do the ambush blocks as well, but the removal/wraths make the need for this play pretty uncommon.

Red would only be for the SB Mountain + 3x REB trick, and maybe a sideboard EE. There's so much going on at 2 mana though that Snare main and Hydroblast in board is going to be fine on 2c.

This makes sense. The more I read and think about the inclusion of Teferi, Time Raveler and SCM, the more I realize how ridiculous the synergy it has with SCM is. Or rather, just how absurd SCM is.




Portent also is just way better in a late game (screwing up opponent draws or shuffling off a [-3] big Teferi activation), and it invalidates Narset (and this is on top of 3cmc Teferi + manlands which can easily murder Narset).

Gonna assume you mean Narset, Parter of Veils. Is this a common hate card against control-archetypes, and who runs it?



Humility costs 4 mana & isn't blue; it also lacks text against a lot of decks. The card is fine, but it should live in the board so it's never drawn in a matchup it can't impact. What it's doing in game 1 is pretty well covered by Terminus, and Snapcaster recasting Plow (turning off SCM with Humility is higher variance). Once you get to the board there is no shortage of derpy artifacts and white cards. You have Deafening Silence [soon], Ethersworn, RiP, EE-type card, Humility, and others - it's just not that hard to play 1x of these and add 1x E-Tutor to the board to virtually manipulate numbers. Play big Teferi and you have zero incentive to not have a 1x B2B (and you also stop caring about wasting any resources on a Choke, remember you also have blue mana coming off Azcanta).

Other than paper, I don't think there is a way to test for free. I guess you could find someone to play with over Skype, and point webcams at playmats. :tongue:

This point brings up a great point; as a whole, is the Legacy-meta no longer dominated by creature-based decks? My understanding is that CB/Top Miracles did a fantastic job choking a lot of those out, but with the banning of Top, I would have thought they, or at least U-splash tempo decks would make a comeback (in line with what Delver.dek seems to be). It seems like the quality of creature cards only seems to have improved overall during my absence, so I'm interested in what you think your "average" metagame would look like.

EDIT: Disregard the above, spent some time in the main forum, am currently reading about how:

GB Depths
BR Reanimator
RUG Delver
Bomberman
ANT

seem to be the major players at the moment.

On to the "Karnboard" as I've come to call it; you've already mentioned CoW in the SB. Any other particular artifacts that you find particularly helpful that Karn can bring in?



Sideboard

Grave Hate
3x Faerie Macabre
1x Grafdigger's Cage

Storm Hate
2x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Spell Pierce

Other?
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Humility
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Back to Basics
2x Engineered Explosives


Appreciate your input as always. Expecting to get washed next month, but hopefully I'll be able to post some useful insights on my experiences there. I'll post up the list I eventually take and the results.

[Puggl3]

Manabase:
-if 3c Fetch x9 = 4x Vista, 2x Strand, 3x Tarn -> basic Mountain in SB. Extra Fetch comes from Wasteland cut.
-If 2c Fetch x8 = 4x Vista, 4x Strand.
-Tundra down to 1x -> +2 Island
-Volc and Plateau out
-cut Tolaria West, land count to 22.
[+1 slot]

Counterspells:
-3 Cspell, +2 FoN
-Snare to 2x
-cut FoF
[+4 slot]

Draw:
-Portent x4
-JTMS is fine, but 5cmc Teferi is more in-line with the goals of hard control.
[+0 slots]

Removal:
-Humility to 0x
-EE to 0x
-Wrath up to 3x. While Verdict is a better Wrath, you can't ever cast it against DnT's Port (and there is no room for the Astrolabe stuff, thus Terminus)
[+4 slots]

Utility/Creatures:
-Remove all 5 cards you had.
-Snapcaster x3
-Mentor x1
[+5 slots]

5 extra slots = 2x Teferi (3cmc), 2x Azcanta, 1x free slot. If you really love the Crucible, it lives in the sideboard and we put a Karn in the maindeck.

The two things that really matter to winrate are nuking dual land numbers down to 1 and adding 3x Snapcaster. Just doing these things will add ~10-20% winrate immediately.

Hi Fox, do you happen to have a list you’re running currently? Tried to piece it together from your previous comments and having trouble doing so. Thanks!

[Fox]

Island x4
Plains x2
Tundra x1
Karakas x1
Strand x4
Vista x4
Mishra's Factory x3
Wasteland x3

SCM x3
Mentor x1

small Teferi x2
big Teferi x2
Standstill x4
Azcanta x2
Brainstorm x4
Portent x4
Plow x4
FoW x4
Terminus x3
Spell Snare x2
FoN x1
CJ x1
Noxious x1

SB
E Tutor x1
B2B x1
RiP x1
Humility x1
Canonist x1 (change to Deafening Silence)
C Priest x2
Hydroblast x2
Powder Keg x1
Disenchant x1
Ashiok x1
Sacred Ground x1
Spiritual Focus x1
Aegis of Honor x1 (last 3 here change often)

Haven't played this deck since Scroll of Fate became legal, recent printings dictate UW Dreadstill is better positioned (better able to maximize small Teferi).

[KobeBryan]

Island x4
Plains x2
Tundra x1
Karakas x1
Strand x4
Vista x4
Mishra's Factory x3
Wasteland x3

SCM x3
Mentor x1

small Teferi x2
big Teferi x2
Standstill x4
Azcanta x2
Brainstorm x4
Portent x4
Plow x4
FoW x4
Terminus x3
Spell Snare x2
FoN x1
CJ x1
Noxious x1

SB
E Tutor x1
B2B x1
RiP x1
Humility x1
Canonist x1 (change to Deafening Silence)
C Priest x2
Hydroblast x2
Powder Keg x1
Disenchant x1
Ashiok x1
Sacred Ground x1
Spiritual Focus x1
Aegis of Honor x1 (last 3 here change often)

Haven't played this deck since Scroll of Fate became legal, recent printings dictate UW Dreadstill is better positioned (better able to maximize small Teferi).

In this meta with the depths decks....you need to play blood moon

[Fox]

Um, no. No reason to turn off Karakas and Wastelands. As built, that list rarely loses to Depths.

There is no reason to destabilize my list's mana to run a card I don't even want on the table...which also allows opponent to make a Lage with land drop [Depths into Moon] + removal for Moon.

[KobeBryan]

Um, no. No reason to turn off Karakas and Wastelands. As built, that list rarely loses to Depths.

There is no reason to destabilize my list's mana to run a card I don't even want on the table...which also allows opponent to make a Lage with land drop [Depths into Moon] + removal for Moon.

True...with 4 plows and 3 snaps. Thats plenty of ammo

[Fox]

True...with 4 plows and 3 snaps. Thats plenty of ammo

Those seven cards do something yes...

Then you add Karakas and Wasteland, then you add Portent/Terminus, then you add 3cmc Teferi (which is where the overkill begins, see also no more Crop Rot). The complete denial of Crop Rot response [Teferi] paired with Wasteland is a key difference between Standstill and any other 3x SCM/4x Plow deck. Even when those other decks [mis]use Teferi, their manabase [land count] will struggle to hardcast a Terminus at instant speed post-Teferi (ofc they also lack a plan to navigate this matchup to this point).

You get to the SB games and in come ~6 cards that are going to offer direct challenges to the Depths gameplan, on top of all the stuff the maindeck was already doing to them. Let's take a quick look over at Depths SB and make a note of how little Choke can do to an Azcanta +/- 5cmc Teferi and how useless Veil of Summer really is against 3cmc Teferi. About the only thing Depths does that can reliably matter is copy Factory and play the manland subgame...which is only a possibility if the Standstill pilot actually deploys one.

When you have discard [vs Brainstorm subgame] to try and break up Plow, Snap-Plow but you run into the Wasteland subgame into upkeep Terminus/Teferi/any number of nightmarish effects, the Depths player really has no great window of opportunity to go for it. Even if they try a Hexmage assassination, they're down 1 Lage-maker and Teferi is still alive while the ability is on the stack...so Waste your Stage or Depths, force them to make the 20/20 into Plow with locked-out Crop Rot. This build takes the opponent's skill and experience on Depths and invalidates it - it's not just that Moon is a wrong idea, but that by playing it you would be actively helping your opponent by giving them an out.

[Rood]

I dont think UW needs blood moon to deal with a marit lege. The deck already has swords+snap and whatever you bring in postboard. Plus they cant do anything about a baby teferi

[Puggl3]

Island x4
Plains x2
Tundra x1
Karakas x1
Strand x4
Vista x4
Mishra's Factory x3
Wasteland x3

SCM x3
Mentor x1

small Teferi x2
big Teferi x2
Standstill x4
Azcanta x2
Brainstorm x4
Portent x4
Plow x4
FoW x4
Terminus x3
Spell Snare x2
FoN x1
CJ x1
Noxious x1

SB
E Tutor x1
B2B x1
RiP x1
Humility x1
Canonist x1 (change to Deafening Silence)
C Priest x2
Hydroblast x2
Powder Keg x1
Disenchant x1
Ashiok x1
Sacred Ground x1
Spiritual Focus x1
Aegis of Honor x1 (last 3 here change often)

Haven't played this deck since Scroll of Fate became legal, recent printings dictate UW Dreadstill is better positioned (better able to maximize small Teferi).

Thanks! Couple interesting card choices, changes I would make -

Azcantra vs Narset, partner of Veils
Big teferi vs Jace, TMS

What do you think?

Also what is noxious?

[Fox]

Narset has issues with tapping out, getting to Impulse, then dying to Bolt. You're also putting a card in hand for an opponent to discard. Narset is good against monarch mechanic, Grisel (if you get to this point), and enchantress. She's rather average in blue mirrors as she will likely be taken down in combat.

I think that JTMS does precious little behind a Standstill. Also, I like ignoring Choke and being able to mitigate B2B (I would not run this in the board otherwise). JTMS is always going to be fine b/c he can draw cards, but he's meant for combo decks [Counterbalance] and tap-out-and-jam [Czech Pile types: Shardless, Blade, Grixis, 4c Wrenn, etc...]. If you're playing Myth Realized or constructing a non-harmonious deck (for example playing >2 Mentor, a card which is its own worst topdeck), then JTMS is better used.

The combination of cutting Azcanta and big Teferi is a linked choice away from a strategy of getting the most out of higher land counts. This likely puts a sequence into motion where you move towards Myth Realized, and potentially also towards Verdict (i.e. the never running into DnT gambit). Once you've lost the bigger land focus, you're playing mostly the same strategy as miracles...except your deck has more variance with manlands and Standstill [which can't be spammed into any board state like a Counterbalance].

If you're running JTMS in Standstill, it kinda has to be your only viable option for payoff. That's mostly UB Standstill; it should also be noted that they just gained Murderous Rider which you can just recur to hand with JTMS [-1], so they're at a point where Jace has never been better for them.

Noxious = Noxious Revival.

[KobeBryan]

Island x4
Plains x2
Tundra x1
Karakas x1
Strand x4
Vista x4
Mishra's Factory x3
Wasteland x3

SCM x3
Mentor x1

small Teferi x2
big Teferi x2
Standstill x4
Azcanta x2
Brainstorm x4
Portent x4
Plow x4
FoW x4
Terminus x3
Spell Snare x2
FoN x1
CJ x1
Noxious x1

SB
E Tutor x1
B2B x1
RiP x1
Humility x1
Canonist x1 (change to Deafening Silence)
C Priest x2
Hydroblast x2
Powder Keg x1
Disenchant x1
Ashiok x1
Sacred Ground x1
Spiritual Focus x1
Aegis of Honor x1 (last 3 here change often)

Haven't played this deck since Scroll of Fate became legal, recent printings dictate UW Dreadstill is better positioned (better able to maximize small Teferi).

Why do you believe UW is better?

[Fox]

Why do you believe UW is better?
I think we were talking about Marit Lage matchup, so going to answer why I think UW Standstill is better than any other UW deck vs Depths (though I think I answered this satisfactorily last time):

The other UW decks are less likely to run Wasteland, Karakas, and as many instant speed wrath-enablers (Portent and small Teferi). By itself, small Teferi butchers Crop Rot and Veil of Summer, which are responsible for boosting Depths‘ win %. Standstill has no problem running the not-Decay‘able Humility. Big Teferi + Azcanta means there is little to no reason to fight the Choke copies the opponent will be diluting deck with, and tapping out for. The end-game is big Teferi ult; if it gets to this point Depths has zero outs.

Every other UW deck has Swords and SCM (except for RiP/Helm, should be no SCM there), so they‘re all on the “hope this is good enough and please don‘t Surgical my Plows“ plan as well...but they don‘t have a solved late-game they get to work towards, where they win by default. Their on-board (i.e. not-discardable) tools/prison elements are worse.

[KobeBryan]

I think we were talking about Marit Lage matchup, so going to answer why I think UW Standstill is better than any other UW deck vs Depths (though I think I answered this satisfactorily last time):

The other UW decks are less likely to run Wasteland, Karakas, and as many instant speed wrath-enablers (Portent and small Teferi). By itself, small Teferi butchers Crop Rot and Veil of Summer, which are responsible for boosting Depths‘ win %. Standstill has no problem running the not-Decay‘able Humility. Big Teferi + Azcanta means there is little to no reason to fight the Choke copies the opponent will be diluting deck with, and tapping out for. The end-game is big Teferi ult; if it gets to this point Depths has zero outs.

Every other UW deck has Swords and SCM (except for RiP/Helm, should be no SCM there), so they‘re all on the “hope this is good enough and please don‘t Surgical my Plows“ plan as well...but they don‘t have a solved late-game they get to work towards, where they win by default. Their on-board (i.e. not-discardable) tools/prison elements are worse.

I see but do u think the dreadnought version is better right now with scroll

[Fox]

Oh that, a little off topic for this thread but UW Standstill ran out of slots is the main issue. You can't not play small Teferi, but each one you add makes deck worse vs TNN and Burn (no more room for Blessed Alliance). You can't really cut the big mana/big Teferi+Azcanta+Standstill pieces due to need to keep pace with Wrenn*. About the only area left to cut is the Portents, which means we'd need a combination ban of Terminus and Vial, allowing us to play Verdict x3 and gain ~1-2x slots [cuts to Portent] for cards targeted at Wrenn. It's just not really acceptable to have Vial/Thalia/Port + flood the board with dudes running around immune to wrath, from a game design standpoint. The other option would be to print a wrath at instant speed so you can stop the Port nonsense (Settle the Wreckage was a whiff).

When it comes to Dreadnought + Standstill, it's just better a better deck at maximizing small Teferi's passive. Scroll of Fate + Teferi is comical, and Dreadnought is far better at playing colorless/white mana hands + pitch spells. You also get to drop big Teferi for Karn, and you just randomly destroy helpless combo and Chalice decks - and all this time you're playing around REB, without losing access to murdering lands with your PW [particularly lands that tap for say...red]. The whole Karn -> Coating -> bounce a Walker with Teferi or animate + Plow any problem permanent is just dumb. Against linear decks without shields you have more ways to just 2-tap em out of the game happening before a Mentor would have started his first attack.

Value piles have always struggled against something as simple as unending parade of EoT 2/2s. If UW Standstill had a velocity positive way of tutoring a Field of the Dead effect, maybe it would fill the void against the not-Delver Wrenn users, though even that would be high variance against the Wrenn/Wasteland stuff. As it stands a card like Dawn of Hope is nowhere near competitively-costed [and I don't like dies to Spell Snare on such a bailout-style card], but that'd be the kind of card text we'd need to see. Who knows, maybe the next Elspeth will adequately do this at 3 mana without being blue. Gideon can't pull double duty against Burn; no lifelink and 4 mana is too slow.

*This bigger mana contraption that combines to recreate virtual Griselbrand (draw for turn + azcanta + big Teferi + drop Standstill + untap and re-fire Azcanta = 7 cards) is what makes the deck the deck sufficiently different from Counterbalance combo. While Standstill is a "bad" deck (i.e. inconsistency traded for raw power), it is not a "worse" deck than something that already exists. The "worse" trap is best exemplified by every UWx Blade deck ever made, which will ever be a way to win less games than Counterbalance or Czech Pile-type deck.

[Puggl3]

Oh that, a little off topic for this thread but UW Standstill ran out of slots is the main issue. You can't not play small Teferi, but each one you add makes deck worse vs TNN and Burn (no more room for Blessed Alliance). You can't really cut the big mana/big Teferi+Azcanta+Standstill pieces due to need to keep pace with Wrenn*. About the only area left to cut is the Portents, which means we'd need a combination ban of Terminus and Vial, allowing us to play Verdict x3 and gain ~1-2x slots [cuts to Portent] for cards targeted at Wrenn. It's just not really acceptable to have Vial/Thalia/Port + flood the board with dudes running around immune to wrath, from a game design standpoint. The other option would be to print a wrath at instant speed so you can stop the Port nonsense (Settle the Wreckage was a whiff).

When it comes to Dreadnought + Standstill, it's just better a better deck at maximizing small Teferi's passive. Scroll of Fate + Teferi is comical, and Dreadnought is far better at playing colorless/white mana hands + pitch spells. You also get to drop big Teferi for Karn, and you just randomly destroy helpless combo and Chalice decks - and all this time you're playing around REB, without losing access to murdering lands with your PW [particularly lands that tap for say...red]. The whole Karn -> Coating -> bounce a Walker with Teferi or animate + Plow any problem permanent is just dumb. Against linear decks without shields you have more ways to just 2-tap em out of the game happening before a Mentor would have started his first attack.

Value piles have always struggled against something as simple as unending parade of EoT 2/2s. If UW Standstill had a velocity positive way of tutoring a Field of the Dead effect, maybe it would fill the void against the not-Delver Wrenn users, though even that would be high variance against the Wrenn/Wasteland stuff. As it stands a card like Dawn of Hope is nowhere near competitively-costed [and I don't like dies to Spell Snare on such a bailout-style card], but that'd be the kind of card text we'd need to see. Who knows, maybe the next Elspeth will adequately do this at 3 mana without being blue. Gideon can't pull double duty against Burn; no lifelink and 4 mana is too slow.

*This bigger mana contraption that combines to recreate virtual Griselbrand (draw for turn + azcanta + big Teferi + drop Standstill + untap and re-fire Azcanta = 7 cards) is what makes the deck the deck sufficiently different from Counterbalance combo. While Standstill is a "bad" deck (i.e. inconsistency traded for raw power), it is not a "worse" deck than something that already exists. The "worse" trap is best exemplified by every UWx Blade deck ever made, which will ever be a way to win less games than Counterbalance or Czech Pile-type deck.

Any updates post the Wrenn ban? I was looking at a myth realized build and it looks quite fun.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Fox]

@Puggl3 no updates at this time. The slots are still too tight to deal with Oko profitably. Right now the Wastelands aren't at their best, but you also can't cut really them b/c of Depths. It's really rough, but I think the best thing you can do is cut Wasteland down to 2x and add a Volc for SB Blast x3. There's maybe the option to go down to no Wasteland, add 2x Trop and play your own Okos and SB Veil, but it seems kinda sketchy. The green approach is probably better (lifegain vs Burn and UR Delver), but I feel like Oko is getting banned in like 2 announcements so I won't advise buying him (and by proxy, zero interest in misleading people to buy ~2x Trop to enable a card I think is already on the way out).

On the banning stuff, lots of people are saying "ban Astrolabe," but the issue with that is that it would be a gigantic boosting of BUG Delver to the best Oko deck; and we just banned Wrenn to 'nerf' a best Delver deck...really don't think we're going to see BUG Delver boosted to tier 1 (or possibly tier 0). Oko is the ban here, and it leads to huge downward regulation of Astrolabe, which then cascades down to no more widespread playing of Teferi [3cmc].

I really don't like the REB approach off a Volc, but yes you can do it and it won't cost $100 (or w/e the going rate on 2x Oko is). In UW Landstill you'd be heavily incentivized to counter Oko on the stack with REB (can't let him animate an Astrolabe and snipe a Teferi or get a threat before you are about to Standstill), and despite it being a red card it will still lose decisively to Veil. I think it's still Dreadstill as the best UW Landstill list at this time.

[Fox]

Legacy_Council (Ark4n11) streamed UWr Standstill yesterday with @TheSemiotician and myself on the group call to a 4-1 finish. League was Cat, Snake, Kraken, Cat, Elves! - loss to Snake. The VoD can be found on Twitch (can’t link on ipad) :frown:

List was:
[21 land]
4x Vista
4x Strand
4x Snow-Island
2x Snow-Plains
1x Tundra
1x Karakas
3x Factory
2x Wasteland

[3 creature]
3x SCM

[4 PWs]
2x Teferi 3cmc
2x Teferi 5cmc

[32 spells]
4x FoW
4x Portent
4x Brainstorm
4x Plow
3x Terminus
3x Standstill
2x FoN
1x Snare
1x CJ
1x Shark’nado
1x Astrolabe
1x Sevinne’s
1x E Tutor
1x Azcanta
1x Noxious

SB all 1-ofs:
C. Priest
Mentor
Deafening Silence
B2B
RiP
Snow-Mountain
REB
Pyroblast
Active Volcano
Powder Keg
Blessed Alliance
Stony Silence
Humility
Ashiok
Surgical

Ran on my UW skeleton [updated with Dreadstill tech] with TheSemiotician’s cycle-Turtle build. He was running into trouble with inability to run Wasteland with 3c (cycle-Turtle is a legend, and lots of Karakas around), so we shifted back to the hard control shell without maindeck red. The deck still has some issues with lack of slots resulting in missing tools, but as long as Oko is hating out budget Delver (UR) and Burn, and Lurrus decks being unable to beat Terminus while drastically dropping TNN and Delver’s PW use, the deck has reasonable positioning. Both of those strategies using Veil and Decay continue to keep Counterbalance and Hymn hated out of the format to an acceptable degree.

Not much room to work with, but I like dumping Mentor to the SB (since it’s a miserable topdeck against Oko ult) in exchange for Sevinne’s. Getting cantrip clause on easy E-Tutor targets (Shark’nado and Astrolabe) creates its own space with a pretty free cut to the 4th Standstill, as you can now effectively cycle E Tutor with purpose. Astrolabe noticeably decreases mulligans (Plains hands are more keepable) and does the whole build you own Gush with 3cmc Teferi. Shark’nado* enables openers of E Tutor on opponent EoT -> turn 2 Standstill with a deployable threat in hand (which happens to play around Wasteland and can block a Delver), and occasionally you get to hardcast it, thus creating what is effectively The Hive...with Sharks! So just more of that old school draw-go control feeling than Mentor ever had. The CJ maindeck and triple Blast effects from the board are there to hate out Oko as much as is possible. Here Active Volcano reminds us that Veil counter REB (so use the destroy mode) while also letting us dumpster Infernal Tutor and bounce Yorion’s enchanted Isands** (all this when it’s not saving Tundra from a Wasteland). There is also the upside of 3 differently named Blast effects playing around Surgical and saying “no” to Meddling Mage nonsense coming out of UWR Lurrus.

I like that the SB was able to get back at least 1 copy of Blessed Alliance, but the rest of the slots are kinda hard to fiddle with as long as Oko remains legal. Too many artifact and manlands running around to pass up Powder Keg for EE. Most flexible spots are probably Surgical or Deafening Silence. In the maindeck, the only other idea we toyed around with was Field of Ruin since it’s mostly about killing Karakas, and it helps mana fixing (particularly red postboard). The one new effect to most seriously consider, despite the egregious cost, is Dismantling Wave vs Counterbalance nonsense. The counterpoint though would be that at such mana totals it should probably just be a 13/13 Emmy to combo with Karakas endlessly.

*Shark’nado for x=0 kills Bridge from Below; don’t miss this line when it comes up.
**remember that casting local enchantments like Abundant Growth requires targeting, which allows Active Volcano to deny the enchant itself as well as the draw trigger....as well as the later would-be Yorion flicker for draw trigger.

[thefreakaccident]

I have a feeling that landstill decks need to start playing lurrus immediately.

[Fox]

I have a feeling that landstill decks need to start playing lurrus immediately.
Giving up the PW made specifically for manland decks (3cmc Teferi) is highly dubious. The enchantment version of Thing in the Ice [Ominous Seas] is still Thing in the Ice at the end of the day (this is what is seeing play in these shells). Also just do a quick count of creatures in Standstill that cause opponents to discard removal spells so that Lurrus doesn’t immediately get tagged the moment he resolves. Next, count up the mana you need to play Lurrus and get value in this deck - that’s PW mana.

If you want to cheese wins off Lurrus it’s easier to spam CB into any board state and ride its infinite value as it counters all the kill spells the opponent’s hand will be full of at that time.

[AngryBacon]

Legacy_Council (Ark4n11) streamed UWr Standstill yesterday with @TheSemiotician and myself on the group call to a 4-1 finish.

Played a modified list yesterday but tried to stay as close to the original as possible for testing purposes :-) https://deckbox.org/sets/2650979




4 Flooded Strand
1 Karakas
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Tundra
2 Wasteland
1 Arcum's Astrolabe
4 Brainstorm
1 Council's Judgment
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Force of Negation
4 Force of Will
1 Noxious Revival
2 Ponder
2 Portent
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Shark Typhoon
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Spell Snare
3 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Terminus




1 Active Volcano
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Back to Basics
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Containment Priest
1 Deafening Silence
1 Humility
1 Monastery Mentor
1 Powder Keg
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rest in Peace
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Stony Silence
1 Surgical Extraction




I wanted to test a better manabase that would allow Mystic Sanctuary instead of Noxious Revival (obvious synergy with Active Volcano :>) as well as add a Volcanic Island in order to get more virtual red than the current 6 sources. Sideboard-wise I added From the Ashes right before my event, but in retrospect it should have been this Ajani, not that it mattered anyway.

I felt I needed a Pithing Needle at some point and Search for Azcanta felt very underwhelming even though I recognize its importance in the deck. But overall quite happy with the current 75. Some cards I'm considering for the sideboard:


- Gideon of the Trials
- Elspeth, Knight-Errant
- Pithing Needle
- Volcanic Island
- Meddling Mage
- Jace, Vryn's Prodigy


I'm also willing to try green instead of red to play Oko myself.


I have a feeling that landstill decks need to start playing lurrus immediately.

I would tend to agree with Fox here. Mostly because having less creatures than the rest of the field blanks removal. Lurrus could be a sideboard card however, where your opponent might side out said removal, but even then it doesn't rebuy enough of the deck so Sevinne's is almost always better.

[Fox]

The thing about Noxious is that it re-ups 5cmc Teferi, and as a game goes long it turns into Vamp Tutor [effectively]. I would also rather start a game with 1x Fetch + Noxious than Fetch + Sanctuary. Noxious also has quite a bit of text vs aggressive combo, starting on turn 0. The Shark'nado also provides a pretty good cycling option for Noxious.

The play patterns of Sanctuary and WW spells leads to poor decisions of passing the turn after finding Tundra too early, locking yourself [vs enemy Wasteland] into a multi-turn window of Daze being live. Sanctuary also incentivizes you to drop Vista, which would represent a highly noticeable loss of win %. If you're adding a land, it's probably Tarn x1 as 9th Fetch.

Both Gideon and Elspeth fail the Flame-Tongue Kavu PW test (lose to Oko's 3/3s and also cost 1 more mana).

Needle is one of those cards you have to name Oko with, no matter what the problem permanent is; this card would be narrow, coming in only against Grisel and specifically DnT's Vial. Not going to rely on Needle vs Merfolk, humans, and definitely not Goblins (most maindeck Shatter effects in legacy). The deck already has Wasteland and Karakas and Teferi (3cmc) and Plow/Terminus, so we don't really need more help vs Depths strategies. Remember that R/G lands was nice enough to begin abandoning Rish Port, and FoN exiles Loam so we don't need to worry about GQ lock (also they play Oko so that's the only card we could name).

JVP would be misused, this card is for UB Reanimator and Dreadstill (decks with heavier mana denial that need the untap step). Also unlike Dreadstill, you can't EoT him with Scroll of Fate with Teferi locking opponent off the stack. Also UWstill has no way to use JVP as Ensnaring Bridge hate (face-down Dreadnought, [+1] down to 0/2, declare attack, flip, take 10 Bridge user). This is the level of utility you need to have to justify JVP in not-Reanimator.

Meddling Mage is a creature, and doubles down on losing hard to Oko. What are you worried about naming/what matchups?

Oko I've talked about in this thread somewhere, but the moment you run him you're on Astrolabe/Uro/Ice-Fang, so you've lost all your space to be Standstill, so you just play 4c Oko.

[AngryBacon]

@Fox I agree with most points you've made except they're not as clear cut for me as they are for you (yet) so I'll just keep asking myself "Do I want this X to be Y?" whenever it comes up I think :-)
Needle is what I first though of against Oko mainly (since there's already a copy of Enlightened Tutor), with additional uses in other matchups, sure it will get decayed, but that would be one decay off my Teferi or Back to Basics if I decided to bring it against a Yorion pile for instance. This is how I see my hate pieces anyway, just a sum of disruption that my opponent has to go through before dealing with the functioning of my strategy. Meddling Mage would name whatever it is that I lose to, increasing by one the amount of steps my opponent has to take before winning. I like him versus combo in general and am hesitating between him and Lavinia. If I committed a slot of my sideboard to Meddling Mage for Oko, I would then name Oko. The reasoning is the same for Zirda and Gyruda matchups.

My point is that I like a diversified hate that doesn't all die to the same anti-hate my weak matchups would bring in.

Noxious Revival can act as Time Walk sometimes too but that's rare enough that I didn't mention it, more often it's graveyard "hate" as you hinted :-) I think I disagree about Oko forcing more than just 4 Arcum's Astrolabe however, I'll try and browse the past discussion before I think again about it.

Gideon is a target for Decay and this is what I dislike the most about it honestly, since you bring it for matchups where opponent will definitely side in Decays. Elspeth is a way to have a better edge against control matchups, haven't actually tested but that the reasoning behind it anyway.

I'll keep testing a little more before I make more changes regardless. Though I think I'll keep the split between Ponder and Portent since I've lost a couple games not being able to draw my land drops with Portent.

[Fox]

Oh you meant that Gideon, I thought you mean Gideon of the 2/2s. 3cmc Gideon is anti-storm only, but they printed a card 3x less expensive and an E-Tutor target (Deafening Silence).

On the Needle stuff, you need to be careful about going down a card to Needle Oko; you‘ve just given your opponent time to assemble 5 mana and cast a 4/5 that can draw them ~4x cards. Needle is one of those cards I wouldn‘t put in a SB without Karn in the main.

[AngryBacon]

3cmc Gideon is anti-storm only

I'm considering him (in addition, not in lieu of) against Thassa's Oracle decks, again, with added usage in other matchups. For instance, as a Doomsday pilot I'd rather see Deafening Silence than Gideon (very easily) especially from a blue deck because of its symmetry. I think I'd even be more afraid about Terminus than Deafening Silence. The double :w: on T3 is rather optimistic however...

[Fox]

I'm considering him (in addition, not in lieu of) against Thassa's Oracle decks, again, with added usage in other matchups. For instance, as a Doomsday pilot I'd rather see Deafening Silence than Gideon (very easily) especially from a blue deck because of its symmetry. I think I'd even be more afraid about Terminus than Deafening Silence. The double :w: on T3 is rather optimistic however...
There‘s only one way to beat Doomsday: having more style. You‘ve got Plow, Noxious Revival, Snapcaster, and the ability to Terminus at instant speed if they dawdle. We also have SB Ashiok which stops “search your library” preamble on Doomsday.

[FTW]

There‘s only one way to beat Doomsday: having more style. You‘ve got Plow, Noxious Revival, Snapcaster, and the ability to Terminus at instant speed if they dawdle. We also have SB Ashiok which stops “search your library” preamble on Doomsday.

How does creature removal stop Thassa's Oracle against a competent combo pilot?

Meddling Mage naming Doomsday (or later Oracle) seems like a relevant line.

[Fox]

How does creature removal stop Thassa's Oracle against a competent combo pilot?

Meddling Mage naming Doomsday (or later Oracle) seems like a relevant line.
You Plow their devotion to 0, then you put a card back in their library with Noxious (all this is aided by Snapcaster). If they take too long they get their duder and you Terminus in response to the trigger b/c Teferi [+1] is in effect. Post-board you play a walker with far greater utility vs the format than Gideon [Ashiok].

People in legacy freak out so much if someone “does the thing” - let them have their fun and focus instead on breaking the underlying presumption. An empty library is never empty, and putting a creature onto the battlefield for me to put back in your deck before the trigger resolves - deal!

Every bit of time they waste, particularly in a post-board game, the worse things get for them. Deafening will turn off Veil abuse, Humility will kill them, and good luck searching library. You don’t want to be playing Doomsday against opponents who can turn off your FoW, put cards back in your deck, and then pack all the SB shenanigans. Games like these don’t end well for combo.

[AngryBacon]

How does creature removal stop Thassa's Oracle against a competent combo pilot?

Meddling Mage naming Doomsday (or later Oracle) seems like a relevant line.

If you don't have other interaction than removal, we'll just make a pile that will consume the whole library. Meddling Mage alone doesn't do it either but it helps of course. If it names Doomsday, we can go off using Divining Witch, if it names the Oracle we can Unearth it, or beat the Meddling Mage and die trying. You want to multiply the number of axis you disrupt them on, it makes the pile more difficult to construct and/or slower to execute. Like Fox mentioned the list he's playing really has a lot of interactions for that matchup.

Also don't just rely on the can't search clause from Ashiok, Resolving a Doomsday at that time still lets you search in graveyard (then empty most likely), :b::b::b: to empty your library is relevant when you try to win off Thassa's Oracle :>

Pay attention to the exile pile if you happen to lose game 1, it lets you know what variant and what cards they run: eg. Predict, Unearth, Veil, Teferi, Counterbalance.

[kombatkiwi]

Some people are having success recently with a build with 0 manlands and more copies of Sharknado

https://twitter.com/luffy49170/status/1265319571696861184


4 Flooded Strand
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland

3 Myth Realized
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Standstill
2 Counterspell
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Force of Negation
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
3 Shark Typhoon

SB:
1 Path to Exile
1 Disenchant
1 Nature's Chant
2 Terminus
2 Flusterstorm
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Grafdigger's Cage

[Fox]

Looks like they got pretty lucky with matchups; they have no wrath effects and one of the worst PWs against Oko (JTMS). While it’s cool to recycle Shark with Heliod’s, it’s incredibly slow, and without any use for snow mana you kinda have to ask whether or not the basics should be split (non-snow names) and have the 1x land be a Field of the Dead, which is about as fast. With the problems in deck structure, you’re looking at averaging around a 2-3 record in leagues.

The main thing to note is that Shark’nado can win a lot of games by letting you slam Standstill while behind on board (especially against turn 1 Delver). While that’s a game-changer, Delver is posed to fall off a cliff against 4c spamming Uro/Oko/Coatl. The banning of Lurrus really hurt the decks position as Oko numbers will climb and Delver dwindles.

While you can potentially look at different things than Factory, you still need the wraths (3x Terminus, and 4x Portent maindeck) and Myth Realized is the cut...so you kinda still need the Factory for threat density (Sharks don’t play so nicely with wrath effects).

[Fox]

I have been testing some UBw Landstill, trying to fix the problems faced by UW and UWr Landstill/Standstill. A quick search only revealed BUGx thread, so this looks like the most fitting thread for it. The story so far with UW-heavy Landstill/Standstill:

The problem areas for UW revolve largely on lack of slots (taken by Teferi 3cmc, Shark‘nado, Sevinne‘s) leading to slot-saving tactic of 4x Portent [or Ponder] + 3x Terminus to 2x Ponder, 2x Verdict. The general trend doesn‘t address Oko, can no longer wrath a Vial deck, and less importantly has dramatically decreased its ability to handle a TNN; all of this is set on a background of a lack of lifegain vs Burn/CounterBurn. The mana-requiring counterspell suite is also confused in UW since the banning of Wrenn (no longer able to change 2cmc options to Spell Snare). Counterspell isn‘t an option, Dovin‘s Veto is okay-ish at best, and going above the 2 FoN isn‘t fixing too many problems (bigger blowouts by Veil). The options out there from 1-2cmc are largely restricted to non-creature only targets, with a backdrop of dwindling wraths and backups like Council‘s Judgement.

On UB-heavy Standstill:
The removal has always been more polarizing than UW‘s absolute nature; while Innocent Blood is a pretty absurd (vs. Leo, TNN, Emmy, etc), Plow has always been a more consistent kill spell. The options of Terminus and Verdict are also generally more reliable than paying life up-front with Deluge...but the presence of Oko has been exploiting the holes in UW‘s removal (a problem made much worse by the banning of Lurrus).

During this time black has picked up a number of tools including Dead of Winter (more castable vs Vial), an optimal mana-requiring counterspell (Drown in the Loch), maindeck’able anti-GY & lifegain/value (Cling to Dust), and the ability to reduce the polarity of its 1cmc removal (splitting Innocent Blood with Bloodchief's Thirst). This has all happened in colors with one of the best mana-fixing manlands (Creeping Tarpit), and in a time where players are spamming Carpet of Flowers (and Choke to a much lesser degree).

For all the progress in UB, the PW options are all rather horrid even before we put them in a head-to-head vs Oko. This is where white has all the edges with Teferi passive protecting manland attacks and, mixed with black, Kaya, Orzhov Usurper - both seen in the GY by Sevinne’s. As a color set UB also has some of the worst anti-artifact hate, which emphasizes the need to play Karn, the Great Creator. Note how, in a time of anti-Oko REB spam, we have this favorable trend away from blue payoffs (especially payoffs above 3cmc).

The trap would be thinking that the manabase can support Plow as your 1 mana removal, representing Drown on turn 2, and then going back to the heavy-white wraths in later turns. So if you can see Bloodchief/Innocent as Plow and Toxic/DoW as Terminus/Verdict, the UBw approach has little difference in play patterns as compared to UW/UWx. The loss of Heliod‘s and maindeck Karakas has definitely been felt however.

The list I was running:
Lands (22)
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Wasteland
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Snow-Covered Island
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand

Creature (3)
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Murderous Rider

Enchants (7)
4 Standstill
3 Shark Typhoon

PW (5)
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Karn, The Great Creator
1 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper

Spells (23)
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Cling to Dust
2 Drown in the Loch
2 Innocent Blood
2 Bloodchief's Thirst
2 Force of Negation
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Collective Brutality
1 Dead of Winter
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Tale's End

Kill spells: 10 (+1 if counting Kaya)
Lifegain: 5
Color fixing: 17 :u: // 14 :b: // 11 :w:
Cantrips: 6 (+3 if counting Shark‘nado)
Chalice killers: 3 (+2 Tef bounce)
Oko killers: 3 (+1 if counting Tale‘s End)
TNN killers: 4 (+6 if counting killing on the stack)
Uro to exile: 3 (+2 if counting Karn wish)
Dreadhorde blanking [without killing]: 4 (+3 if counting Kaya and Karn wish)

SB:
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Canonist
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Powder Keg
1x Pithing Needle
1x Liquimetal Coating
—
1x Karakas
1x Surgical
2x Ashiok, Dream Render
2x Unmoored Ego
2x Plague Engineer

For a while some VoD‘s of the deck can be seen (hc_fox); though I don‘t really recommend fighting mtgo’s UI and the chess clock, as it really gets in the way of enjoying and playing Landstill optimally. Trying to invert the deck to UWb runs into structural problems of too much reliance on having black on turn 2, and too few impactful black-requiring plays on 3cmc. As the singletons go, Kaya is amazing, Murderous Rider performed well, and Collective Brutality did it‘s job - all of these feed into the lifegain aspect (note though that Plow & Terminus would removes Kaya and Cling from lifegain targets). Tale‘s End is there to check the anti-Oko & anti-Thassa & anti-Veil boxes and consistently overperformed, though 2x would be too many. At no point did I ever want Eliminate, but a UWb build might value this card higher. Unmoored Ego has been quite good against SnT, Thassa decks, Lands, and Post; highly recommend in UBw or UWb.

[JackaBo]

Very well laid out reasoning. I like it and may test it. Maybe black is secretly back.


Skickat från min iPhone med Tapatalk

[FTW]

Interesting thoughts.

Is Bloodchief's Thirst really better than Fatal Push? There are no relevant 2 cmc planeswalkers so both do the same thing on face value. Is Revolt harder to set up than paying 4 mana? Is the kicker mode mainly for Oko?

Eliminate is a strong answer to Oko and most things, but unfortunately doesn't fit the 1cmc spot for curve and Snap utility.

The other big thing, which you already address implicltly, is your Marit Lage matchup is MUCH worse by running Bloodchief/Innocent Blood+Drown+DoW over Plow+Karakas+Terminus.

For BR Reanimator you can lucksack into Innocent Blood and maybe trick them into naming white with Iona by fetching Tundra, but overall the removal suite will have a much harder time with them. Hogaak won't be great either.

For how UW can evolve to beat the Oko meta, check out my UW RipField thread. It's not Standstill, but it has some ideas that might be relevant. Oko beats fair creatures, artifacts and PWs but becomes a bad Garruk against an enchantment engine. Blue-free wincons dodge REB. Maindeck RiP shuts down all these GY value engines (Uro, Dreadhorde, Forager, Cling) while also policing decks like Reanimator and Hogaak. Energy Field helps with Vial aggro and TNN lower on curve than Verdict. You get to stay in white for Swords and Karakas. Biggest loss is no Snapcaster.

[Fox]

I doubt BR really wants to face 6 Force and 2 Cling maindeck. It gets far worse postboard with Needle, Surgical, Crypt, Karakas and then all of the 2-3 cmc cards. Hogaak, which is even slower isn't all that bad, and their whole combo is heavily reliant on Bridge from Below not getting nuked by a 0/0 shark.

Marit Lage has some problems versus getting life above 20, and the longer plans of Teferi cutting off Crop Rot, and enabling instant speed edict with [+1].

Fatal Push has the same problem as Innocent Blood, it's only good vs non-value dude strats. It is rare to run into decks where both Bloodchief and Innocent Blood can't contribute.

Against SnowOko you have plenty of time to kick Bloodchief, while against Delver's Oko a card like Murderous Rider can be cast to invalidate threat of being Bolt'd out when necessary. All PWs can buy time against Oko's food tokens while the deck draws towards answers it has.

The Eliminate cmc is the issue (same idea as trying to stop Elves using Abrade). UWb would gain a new effect by running Plow into Eliminate, but UBw just gains another copy of an effect it has three of, without any other gain of function.

Edit: also have Wasteland to delay Depths into higher mana turns.

[Reeplcheep]

Great brewing. I agree that the flexibility of drown in the loch is great in a deck that spams cantrips less than miracles. Kaya is also an overlooked card and has looked great in dougesontwitch's and achilles27's maverick decks.

Sorcery speed cards seems like they could be an issue in your standstill/snapcaster deck. Do you really want your sac effects to only kill marit lage when you have 3feri out? Has it been an issue with bloodchief's thirst?

I don't understand your focus on killing TNN. The control killer of choice right now is klothys not TNN imo, and you don't have many answers to that.

Additionally tales end looks suspect to me. If you want to increase the floor on stifle so you can maindeck it, drawing a card shadow of doubt seems much better than occassionally countering thalia/oko. And from a ceiling point of view winning the game vs doomsday seems better than maybe answering a oko/thalia.

I'm no standstill expert, but what are your thoughts behind 0 ponder?

[Fox]

Life is a resource. Taking a hit for 20 doesn’t matter much if you still end up above zero, untap and do whatever (Kaya/Teferi minus, or edict effect) - remember that a lot of 20/20 strategies put out Reclaimers that you just kill and turn into +3 life in response to a 20/20 attack. Any Dark Depths strategy also has to respect an untapped Wasteland. In the case of the Depths deck, their first layer of Stage is halted by Wasteland, and their second layer (Hexmage) isn’t beating Innocent Blood. Plow certainly feels safer early, but it’s also soft to protection effects (Steppe) later; a Plow-using deck rarely has lifegain tools allowing it to take the hit.

Given enough time there would be a scenario where they make a 20/20 and you have a Bloodchief in hand, but it is far more common to run into matchups where Innocent Blood (or Plow) isn’t the most useful spell. The head-to-head vs Turbo Depths is fine, and DnT (with it’s ~95% winrate vs Turbo Depths) is on the rise again, so not much reason to bend over backwards trying to fix something that isn’t really a problem. Depths out of R/G Lands is even easier to handle. Marit Lage is one of those things like dying to SnT’s Emmy/Grisel; if you lose it feels bad, but that feeling has nothing to do with overall outcome/which deck usually wins.

On TNN, it doesn’t matter if the card is played or not; if you’re a real control deck, you construct the deck to beat TNN simply b/c the card concept exists. TNN has many names: Bogles, Progenitus, Geist of St. Traft, Hexdrinker, Emrakul, Archetype of Endurance, etc. On Klothys, this card can be fogged for a very long time by Teferi [-3], Teferi [+1] & Sevinnes, Kaya [+1] (has lifegain as well), Karn (Crypt wishing or Liquimetal -> animate Klothys -> murder), and completely blanked by Cling to Dust for a long time (remember Klothys has no surprise factor, they have to play it and pass the turn). I am very comfortable with this deck juggling a Klothys for extended periods while going about my business, and it’s legendary so they can’t stack him.

Shadow of Doubt doesn’t hit Thassa. While it can work in response to the spell Doomsday, it doesn’t do anything vs Oops (or Paradigm Shift, Breakfast, Thoughtlash). It doesn’t kill Oko on the stack, and it doesn’t create intermediate moves like hitting a Fetch or protecting from Wasteland. The only thing Shadow of Doubt really has going for it is that it too beats the concept of Veil of Summer. While drawing a card is great, stopping a card/trigger is better for real control (drawing a random card doesn’t help you make the most informed decision in a moment). Also look over at the sideboard Ashiok x2 and recognize that the deck doesn’t need more “can’t search” clauses; we’ve got that covered. The only real debate is whether or not Tale’s End occupying the slot of the 3rd Drown is of overall benefit or not. Thassa was being encountered at rates exceeding 1 in 5 games (but mtgo is also inbred, and fast combo is overrepresented in leagues).

On Ponder & Standstill variants, it’s absence is a common finding. The slots where another deck might run Ponder are occupied by Standstill (higher power, higher variance). If you don’t have a specific concept you’re pursuing (like “I want to wrath a Vial deck, ergo I will play 4x Portent for these Terminus”), then Ponder isn’t really doing you any favors. What use is drawing a sorcery speed cantrip if someone is going to crack Standstill, putting you to >7 cards in your end step?

When we’re talking about the slot-saving trick where we swap from 4x Portent/3x Terminus to 2x Ponder/2x Verdict, the only real goal there is to help Vista & Strand fix :w::w: by turn 4 for Verdict, mostly versus Delver. None of this matters against Vial, but getting Verdict fixed around Wasteland will save life - the concept here is that with a high enough life total, you don’t have to fight Bolt with blue cards.

Edit: on sorc speed cantrips vs sorc speed removal & Standstill, the removal will recreate a boardstate favorable to followup Standstill. Keeping a card like Ponder, in the same scenario, pushes you closer to losing to soft permission as you have still have to fix the boardstate and re-deploy a Standstill while down a mana. If you’re really worried about discarding to hand size (despite instants like Murderous Rider and Drown), I’d be looking at cards like Discontinuity or Lat-Nam’s Legacy.

[Reeplcheep]

Life is a resource. Taking a hit for 20 doesn’t matter much if you still end up above zero, untap and do whatever (Kaya/Teferi minus, or edict effect) - remember that a lot of 20/20 strategies put out Reclaimers that you just kill and turn into +3 life in response to a 20/20 attack. Any Dark Depths strategy also has to respect an untapped Wasteland. In the case of the Depths deck, their first layer of Stage is halted by Wasteland, and their second layer (Hexmage) isn’t beating Innocent Blood. Plow certainly feels safer early, but it’s also soft to protection effects (Steppe) later; a Plow-using deck rarely has lifegain tools allowing it to take the hit.

Given enough time there would be a scenario where they make a 20/20 and you have a Bloodchief in hand, but it is far more common to run into matchups where Innocent Blood (or Plow) isn’t the most useful spell. The head-to-head vs Turbo Depths is fine, and DnT (with it’s ~95% winrate vs Turbo Depths) is on the rise again, so not much reason to bend over backwards trying to fix something that isn’t really a problem. Depths out of R/G Lands is even easier to handle. Marit Lage is one of those things like dying to SnT’s Emmy/Grisel; if you lose it feels bad, but that feeling has nothing to do with overall outcome/which deck usually wins.

On TNN, it doesn’t matter if the card is played or not; if you’re a real control deck, you construct the deck to beat TNN simply b/c the card concept exists. TNN has many names: Bogles, Progenitus, Geist of St. Traft, Hexdrinker, Emrakul, Archetype of Endurance, etc. On Klothys, this card can be fogged for a very long time by Teferi [-3], Teferi [+1] & Sevinnes, Kaya [+1] (has lifegain as well), Karn (Crypt wishing or Liquimetal -> animate Klothys -> murder), and completely blanked by Cling to Dust for a long time (remember Klothys has no surprise factor, they have to play it and pass the turn). I am very comfortable with this deck juggling a Klothys for extended periods while going about my business, and it’s legendary so they can’t stack him.

Shadow of Doubt doesn’t hit Thassa. While it can work in response to the spell Doomsday, it doesn’t do anything vs Oops (or Paradigm Shift, Breakfast, Thoughtlash). It doesn’t kill Oko on the stack, and it doesn’t create intermediate moves like hitting a Fetch or protecting from Wasteland. The only thing Shadow of Doubt really has going for it is that it too beats the concept of Veil of Summer. While drawing a card is great, stopping a card/trigger is better for real control (drawing a random card doesn’t help you make the most informed decision in a moment). Also look over at the sideboard Ashiok x2 and recognize that the deck doesn’t need more “can’t search” clauses; we’ve got that covered. The only real debate is whether or not Tale’s End occupying the slot of the 3rd Drown is of overall benefit or not. Thassa was being encountered at rates exceeding 1 in 5 games (but mtgo is also inbred, and fast combo is overrepresented in leagues).

On Ponder & Standstill variants, it’s absence is a common finding. The slots where another deck might run Ponder are occupied by Standstill (higher power, higher variance). If you don’t have a specific concept you’re pursuing (like “I want to wrath a Vial deck, ergo I will play 4x Portent for these Terminus”), then Ponder isn’t really doing you any favors. What use is drawing a sorcery speed cantrip if someone is going to crack Standstill, putting you to >7 cards in your end step?

When we’re talking about the slot-saving trick where we swap from 4x Portent/3x Terminus to 2x Ponder/2x Verdict, the only real goal there is to help Vista & Strand fix :w::w: by turn 4 for Verdict, mostly versus Delver. None of this matters against Vial, but getting Verdict fixed around Wasteland will save life - the concept here is that with a high enough life total, you don’t have to fight Bolt with blue cards.

Edit: on sorc speed cantrips vs sorc speed removal & Standstill, the removal will recreate a boardstate favorable to followup Standstill. Keeping a card like Ponder, in the same scenario, pushes you closer to losing to soft permission as you have still have to fix the boardstate and re-deploy a Standstill while down a mana. If you’re really worried about discarding to hand size (despite instants like Murderous Rider and Drown), I’d be looking at cards like Discontinuity or Lat-Nam’s Legacy.

I'll buy that your lifegain might justify innocent blood over triumph. But EOT snap triumph after they crack standstill seems much better than waiting till your turn.

If you need the stifle effect for muxus & TO, nimble obstructionist has a better floor (flash flying blocker or cycles when irrelevant) as well as several upsides (can't be pact'd/pyro'd/fow'd, can clock op, doesn't pop standstill, can't be misdirected)

[Fox]

I assume you're talking about Liliana's Triumph; anyways decks generally aren't breaking Standstill on our EoT with Triumph targets [Depths certainly isn't]. Even if they do, there are very few flash creatures worth hitting with an instant speed kill spell in that scenario (Shark'nado will generally outpace these in a 1-on-1). I really don't want 2 mana spells in the deck that have zero text vs decks without non-value dudes; I already have 2 wraths maindeck which would already be dead draws in that spot; at every point I'm going to choose Collective Brutality over Triumph (which means it has to earn a slot in a Karn SB, so it's too narrow for consideration).

Nimble costs 3 mana, so it's 1-2 turns too slow vs Thassa. I have flying blockers already well covered by 3x Shark'nado (such chump blocks expose 20/20s to sorcery speed window of Innocent Blood). It's cool that an opponent has to discard Nimble with Thoughtseize [Duress won't work], but the coolness factor doesn't counter Oko. Stifle has the same problem where it's faster than Tale's End, but it has the same anti-Oops + Thassa cost as the double-covered Cling to Dust; triple coverage via random Stifle doesn't make up for loss of ability to counter Oko.

There are 4 slots for 1 mana removal (Bloodchief & Innocent Blood), 4 slots for 2 mana counter/kill (Drown & highly similar substitutions, like Tale's End and Coll. Brutality), 2 slots for 3cmc wrath, and 1 slot for lifegain/kill hybrid (Murderous Rider, and Coll. Brutality double dips into this category even though it's a Drown placeholder), and the 6x Force effects. After this interaction suite, you have the Standstill/Shark bit, a synergistic anti-Oko PW selection, and a sprinkle of value~consistency with Brainstorm/SCM/Cling/Sevinne's. So you have 5 general categories (5th being the lands), and the biggest non-land category [interaction suite] has 5 subdivisions.

The two most important subdivisions of interaction are whether or not we're talking about 1 mana kill spells or 2cmc Drown/Drown-like cards. We're only ever comparing StP to Push to Innocent Blood to Bloodchief at the low end. At 2cmc every card has to demonstrate why it isn't just another copy of Drown in the Loch. When we bring up cards like Eliminate or Lilly's Triumph, they just kill things coming at the cost of being able to counter something, like say...SnT [so they're half of a Drown with a minor edge that can either tag a cheap PW or perhaps nab a 20/20]. At this 2 mana spot you're trying to hit every type of strategy played in the format, and Drown's comically broad wording provides the solid foundation to branch out from, should the list have access to black. When you select effects like Triumph/Eliminate in these slots, you're leaving yourself wide open to too many strategies. Real control can't really afford to build like this; it just turns into games you dropped at deck construction.
--
The one little wrinkle with Eliminate, is that if you dropped the the Blasts [Oko killers] of UWr and moved to UWb, there is a deck where you're considering Eliminate over CJ. If you do this, you're definitely not considering relying on Drown after coming off a turn 1 where access to Plow was most important. While Eliminate can come as early as turn 2, presenting the black is more of a turn 3+ plan, whereas Drown absolutely has to be there on turn 2 while still beating Wasteland. This play pattern of 3rd color only being actively integrated *after* the 2nd turn/2nd secure mana is a hugely important concept which wins games with the card Standstill. Abandoning this principle will reliably lead to game losses b/c you have played yourself into gamestates where topdecked Standstills can't be deployed reliably.
Losing access to Blasts is pretty significant, so in a UWb approach you're saying that Eliminate impersonating CJ + Kaya, possibly Cling to Dust, and SB Plague Engi (a nod to the fact that Verdict can't be cast against Vial, alongside some reclaimed ground in the battle to kill TNN) is a move that increases win %. The issue with the UWb stuff is that you still can't play Creeping Tarpit and you can't reliably put dudes in the bin for Cling and Kaya to fix the lifegain problems of UW.

@Reeplcheep do you have a more concise question where we aren't crossing over cmc/role subdivisions, or are sticking in one such subdivision? Did you mean Collective Brutality vs Triumph, rather than Innocent Blood?

[Reeplcheep]

I assume you're talking about Liliana's Triumph; anyways decks generally aren't breaking Standstill on our EoT with Triumph targets [Depths certainly isn't]. Even if they do, there are very few flash creatures worth hitting with an instant speed kill spell in that scenario (Shark'nado will generally outpace these in a 1-on-1). I really don't want 2 mana spells in the deck that have zero text vs decks without non-value dudes; I already have 2 wraths maindeck which would already be dead draws in that spot; at every point I'm going to choose Collective Brutality over Triumph (which means it has to earn a slot in a Karn SB, so it's too narrow for consideration).

...

@Reeplcheep do you have a more concise question where we aren't crossing over cmc/role subdivisions, or are sticking in one such subdivision? Did you mean Collective Brutality vs Triumph, rather than Innocent Blood?

Honestly I have difficulty understanding some of your unique aphorisms. I meant mostly that against creature decks they will often crack the standstill on their turn; not being able to snap removal on their turn seems quite award and effectively costs you 3 mana. If you want to compare to 1 cmc removal I guess the alternative to innocent blood would be fatal push?

[Fox]

Honestly I have difficulty understanding some of your unique aphorisms. I meant mostly that against creature decks they will often crack the standstill on their turn; not being able to snap removal on their turn seems quite award and effectively costs you 3 mana. If you want to compare to 1 cmc removal I guess the alternative to innocent blood would be fatal push?

In this situation where they're cracking on their turn, they're probably not winning anyways. You have sorc speed 1cmc kill spells and sorcery speed wrath to undo whatever they put on board. Going back to the turn they cracked Standstill, you have 3 kill spells in the list which are already instant speed kill spells (2x Drown, 1x Murderous Rider) which all allow the utilization of higher mana amounts directly preceding a fresh untap step, and the Drowns can be doubled up by SCM once at a 6 mana state. Everything in this hypothetical is heavily slanted in favor of Standstill, and sorcery speed on the 1cmc removal isn't going to change the outcome. Overloading on instant speed kill spells [which again, we already have 3-of] for already favorable hypotheticals like these has diminishing returns. If we needed more instant speed kill spell, we'd remove a placeholder (Tale's End or Coll. Brutality) and replace with another Drown [because Drown isn't a 1-dimensional kill spell, it has text vs combo].

Fatal Push is a StP with a huge amount of restrictions, and even if you choose to run Push over Innocent Blood you're losing %age points vs anything resembling shroud, hexproof, protection, and indestructible. Your matchup vs Depths, which was brought up a bit earlier, actually worsens b/c Urborg + Depths casting Hexmage still just loses to sorcery speed Innocent Blood. Putting all of this aside, if Plow + Terminus/Verdict isn't getting the job done, you're not going to start winning b/c you chose to play worse versions (Push + Toxic/DoW). Even when a 1cmc removal is instant speed, we're generally casting it at sorcery speed after a land drop is made to play around Daze. Standstill's gameplan is about warping tempo; you don't need to play all instants all the time when you're playing legacy at a not-normal speed.

[kombatkiwi]

Didn't have much time to test for EW so just played a brew for fun

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Porphyry Nodes
4 Standstill
2 Dovin's Veto
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Force of Negation
2 Thirst for Meaning
1 Detention Sphere
1 Dovin's Acuity
2 Replenish
4 Force of Will
4 Shark Typhoon

4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Polluted Delta
1 Tundra
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
1 Mystic Sanctuary
3 Snow-Covered Plains
5 Snow-Covered Island

SB:
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Rest in Peace
1 The Mirari Conjecture
1 Stony Silence
1 Deafening Silence
1 Dawn of Hope
1 Back to Basics
1 Humility
1 Pithing Needle
1 Celestial Purge
1 Supreme Verdict

Score: 6-4
Lands 1-2
Lands 2-1
RUG Delver 2-1
Stryfo Yorion 1-2
Elves 0-2
RUG Delver 1-2
RUG Delver 2-1
RG Eldrazi 2-1
UG Omni 2-0
Snow 2-0

Notes:

*** Maindeck: ***
- Eight 1-mana removal spells were very solid
- Nodes into standstill is a good sequence and I feel that it's better than other cards people have played for this purpose (e.g. Myth Realized, I don't think the deck needs extra maindeck wincons beyond 4x Sharknado)
- Thirst for Meaning was also great, instant allows you to hold up Negation/Veto. It's not a Faithless Looting that puts cards in the graveyard for Replenish, rather it's like a Predict/Brainstorm hybrid that is card advantage plus fixes your hand (e.g. Nodes is poor vs creature decks, Standstill can be poor if you are behind on the board etc)
- 2 Replenish main is unnecessary, it's only good as a haymaker in control mirrors, this should be cut to 0-1 and can be played in SB instead. (Cut Mirari Conjecture, which is cute in theory but you don't really want your 5 mana anti-control card to be blast-vulnerable)
- Teferi was kind of underwhelming, it felt too hard to protect and not enough of a payoff for tapping 3 mana in your own mainphase. Good in control mirror but otherwise underwhelming, would consider cutting to 0-1.
- Dovin's Acuity overperformed, lifegain is important in the deck because you tank damage while you wait to kill opposing creatures with nodes. In the lategame it can be a card advantage engine against decks like RUG where you need some way to pull ahead (both on cards and out of bolt range) but don't want to play super expensive haymakers, and you also want to play RIP so you can't get value from the graveyard. In situations where it's clunky you can ditch it to Thirst. Would consider adding a 2nd one.
- Dsphere pitching to Forces is good but being blast-vulnerable is not, unsure if this should just be e.g. Oblivion Ring or Cast Out instead and whether this effect belongs main or sb

*** Sideboard: ***
- I like the E-tutor package, at least 1 RIP, 1 Seal of Cleansing, Deafening Silence, B2B are all really solid. Stony Silence seems fine but idk if it's needed.
- Humility is okay but most of the time you want to cycle your Sharknados rather than cast them so making your singular big shark into a 1/1 is not great. It's therefore reasonable that this slot should instead be Moat, which is maybe slightly worse against TKS and Allosaurus Shepherd but against a wide board it does actually stop you from dying and it also is an answer for Field of the Dead which I think is something that the deck probably wants. (If it's FotD out of a snow deck it also stops Uro / elks attacking, which is nice).
- I think the deck does want some kind of alternate wincon to play around your opponent extracting your Typhoons but Dawn of Hope is too slow/low impact. If Humility is cut for Moat then it opens up the possibility of using something like Entreat instead. I don't know if there is an enchantment that does what I want for that slot (Luminarch Ascension is close, I also thought about Felidar Retreat)
- Pithing Needle is solid, it's good just to name Oko against RUG

[Fox]

Good work on the Fetches and having cards worth getting back with Sanctuary (most people have decks entirely made of 1-for-1s not worth rebuying). Don't like Plains #3, it's one too many. Ponder has significant problems with with Replenish and Thirst (14 enchants only); would suggest something like Cast Out in this spot (or any enchant that can Entomb itself from hand with cycling). You could also consider Omen of the Sea.

4x Nodes is excessive; you're going to flood out on cards that potentially have no text; at least one of these slots goes to maindeck E-Tutor. The moment we have the cluster of E-Tutor, Teferi [-3], >1 Plains in a dominantly blue deck, and ideas of casting Verdict, we're adding 1x Astrolabe to the maindeck (lands to snow); if you're skipping on easy include, the lands should be split (snow & not-snow) allowing for 1x Field of the Dead - which is far better than Fail'idar Retreat. The deck is missing 1x Sevinne's Reclamation; you're not allowed to rely on Heliod's without an effect like this. Three slots of Dovin's Acuity and Thirst is getting onto the excessive side. While I see what Acuity does [daring a deck like Delver to give you an excuse to cast a mainphase FoW in the mid-late game], I have to imagine there's a better way to work in lifegain.

I dislike the lack of >1 wincon, but if we're leaving the maindeck idea mostly alone: -1 Plains +1 Island or Karakas, all lands to snow, -2 P Nodes +1 E Tutor +1 Astrolabe, -4 Ponder +4 Cast Out, -1 Veto/Acuity/D Sphere/Thirst (choose one, probably Thirst) +1 Sevinnes. Really wouldn't suggest bringing something like this to a paper meta routinely, as you kinda just die on the spot to Slaughter Games/Surgical/Extirpate, if someone doesn't like playing against your deck. Cling to Dust would also be a huge problem for you, and it shows up often in maindecks with Oko.

For SB: -2 E Tutor (one in the main is enough), -1 RiP, -1 Mirari Conjecture (card is bad, real bad). Needle, Celestial Purge, and Dawn of Hope all look poor. I wouldn't cut Humility given how poor your deck is vs SnT; like maybe you could cut if you have Cast Out x4 to Show in. Ashiok should be in the SB vs Uro, GSZ, Post, Storm, Reanimator, etc & as a second wincon. Any time we start seeing lack of wincon and nonsense like Celestial Purge, you kinda have to ask why we're not adding in a little red for Nahiri, the Harbinger (ult target either Mentor or Emmy) - there's better ways to deal with Klothys and still address underlying structural flaws. If Delta is moved to Tarn, you can get away with just SB Mountain since you also have effectively 2 copies of Astrolabe.

Edit: just want to put this by itself - you need to be doing whatever you can to turn white mana into blue fixing, while advancing your gameplan. Cast Out uses white mana to draw into the blue, E Tutor/Astro does the same. Note how we're adding in a self-Entombing enchant for Replenish with anti-SnT/anti-REB/anti-Oko text, giving Teferi a [-3] target (Astrolabe), and opening a line of play where we go turn 1 EoT E Tutor for Shark'nado -> turn 2 Standstill. All engine, all the time, all with better mana; this is how Standstill is built.

[kombatkiwi]

Don't like Plains #3, it's one too many.
This is probably true


Ponder has significant problems with with Replenish and Thirst (14 enchants only); would suggest something like Cast Out in this spot (or any enchant that can Entomb itself from hand with cycling). You could also consider Omen of the Sea.
This is a reasonable concern but in practice it doesn't feel like a problem. I tested Cast Out but 3W is so expensive that it's very hard to cast so it's basically always cycled, so it's just a W tax to replace itself. Replenish doesn't need that much extra help to swing a game when it resolves assuming you can return at least 1 Sharknado. Thirst seems to work pretty consistently with this number of enchants and if you have to discard 2 it's not the end of the world. I wouldn't be against adding something like Omen of the Sea or Cast Out over some of the other cards that were underperforming but I don't think it's correct to cut Ponder.


4x Nodes is excessive; you're going to flood out on cards that potentially have no text
Again this is a reasonable concern but I didn't find this to be a major issue in practice because enough of the format plays creatures and you have Brainstorm / Thirst to fix it. As I'm sure you are aware the abundance of early removal is more important for this archetype to avoid being frequently stuck with uncastable standstills. In matchups where these cards suck you can standstill with impunity, which kind of makes up for it


at least one of these slots goes to maindeck E-Tutor. The moment we have the cluster of E-Tutor, Teferi [-3], >1 Plains in a dominantly blue deck, and ideas of casting Verdict, we're adding 1x Astrolabe to the maindeck (lands to snow)

When the consensus best deck is a tempo deck that snowballs off thin margins I don't think it's correct to play this kind of utility card disadvantage effect, especially when you don't have maindeck haymakers to search with it


if you're skipping on easy include, the lands should be split (snow & not-snow) allowing for 1x Field of the Dead - which is far better than Fail'idar Retreat.
I'm not convinced there are enough different lands for this to be reliable even with a snow split, but even then the non-flying zombies conflict with the moat idea. Unlike the other decks playing this card you also don't have uro/exploration for extra land drops. (At least it's nice that it's not a spell so it goes through standstill, but if I wanted to play something that was vulnerable to wasteland then it could even be idk, Celestial Colonnade)


The deck is missing 1x Sevinne's Reclamation; you're not allowed to rely on Heliod's without an effect like this.
I really liked Sevinne's Recalamation in a different deck I was testing that played History of Benalia and Estrid's Invocation. In this deck it can't return Shark Typhoon so with 2W you are mostly overpaying for Standstill or Nodes which doesn't seem great. I agree that it's a strong card but it seems maybe a bit weak without a glut of good 3-drops.


Three slots of Dovin's Acuity and Thirst is getting onto the excessive side. While I see what Acuity does [daring a deck like Delver to give you an excuse to cast a mainphase FoW in the mid-late game], I have to imagine there's a better way to work in lifegain.
Well if you can think of it then let me know. The other option I considered was playing like 2 SFM and a Batterskull which I think could be ok


I dislike the lack of >1 wincon, but if we're leaving the maindeck idea mostly alone: -1 Plains +1 Island or Karakas, all lands to snow, -2 P Nodes +1 E Tutor +1 Astrolabe, -4 Ponder +4 Cast Out, -1 Veto/Acuity/D Sphere/Thirst (choose one, probably Thirst) +1 Sevinnes. Really wouldn't suggest bringing something like this to a paper meta routinely, as you kinda just die on the spot to Slaughter Games/Surgical/Extirpate, if someone doesn't like playing against your deck. Cling to Dust would also be a huge problem for you, and it shows up often in maindecks with Oko.
The only thing I can fully get behind here is the Plains swap. Cutting ponders for cast out is putting too many eggs in the replenish basket which I think the deck should move away from. The etutor/astrolabe idea just doesn't make sense to me. If I was going to cut a card for Sevinne's it would definitely be 1 Replenish, 2 replenish + Sevinne is too much expensive value cards.


For SB: -2 E Tutor (one in the main is enough), -1 RiP, -1 Mirari Conjecture (card is bad, real bad). Needle, Celestial Purge, and Dawn of Hope all look poor.
Yea Mirari was basically just a fun of and I already agreed that Dawn of Hope was lacking. 2 RIP is solid I think because it's good against Hogaak/Dredge/RUG. Purge is good against Arcanist/Klothys but also was good against lands (Marit Lage and Valakut Exploration).


I wouldn't cut Humility given how poor your deck is vs SnT;
Will consider this going forward


Ashiok should be in the SB vs Uro, GSZ, Post, Storm, Reanimator, etc & as a second wincon.
Not totally convinced about this but it seems worth considering. I don't know if it's satisfactory as a "second wincon" though


Any time we start seeing lack of wincon and nonsense like Celestial Purge, you kinda have to ask why we're not adding in a little red for Nahiri, the Harbinger (ult target either Mentor or Emmy) - there's better ways to deal with Klothys and still address underlying structural flaws. If Delta is moved to Tarn, you can get away with just SB Mountain since you also have effectively 2 copies of Astrolabe.
Not sure how a 2 mana instant speed removal is more nonsensical than adding a 3rd colour for Nahiri the Harbinger


Edit: just want to put this by itself - you need to be doing whatever you can to turn white mana into blue fixing, while advancing your gameplan. Cast Out uses white mana to draw into the blue, E Tutor/Astro does the same.
This is not a very meaningful/relevant/necessary thing to aim for, I don't think. The mana is good enough already


Note how we're adding in a self-Entombing enchant for Replenish with anti-SnT/anti-REB/anti-Oko text
Adding Cast Outs is ~fine~ but again I don't think it's correct to cut ponder and you don't want to lean into Replenish so much because in a lot of matchups it's not a very good gameplan to aim for


giving Teferi a [-3] target (Astrolabe)
This is another upside for cards like Omen of the Sea, I agree this is relevant but not a major consideration


opening a line of play where we go turn 1 EoT E Tutor for Shark'nado -> turn 2 Standstill. All engine, all the time, all with better mana; this is how Standstill is built.
If the board is empty you can just slam the turn 2 Standstill with no Typhoon. There are 4 in the deck and you will draw it eventually

Edit: another thing I just realised is that the deck can also play Kaheera as companion, which might be okay on its own merits and you probably also get a small amount of equity in g1 mulligans from bluffing that you're playing ANT

[Fox]

The main point of Kaheera is that it allows you to free roll a 1x FoV in the board regardless of your colors; just pay :3: whenever you're in the mood to 2-for-1. More of a RiP/Helm type of tactic though.

At some point you're going to have to choose between Cast Out with Replenish or no Replenish at all or red splash with 1-2x Burning Wish/SB Blasts + 1x Replenish in SB. The deck is a little too slow around the 3 mana mark; while it may cast a 3cmc spell it's not really able to get ahead and leave something that the opponent has to deal with (your Teferi lacks a [-3] Astrolabe, Thirst just draws and will rarely find 2 things to good enough to bin right into untap Replenish, and Dovin's Acuity kinda just sits there). The moment they challenge Shark'nado (which can be as simple as Cling to Dust) you're going to struggle to recover any ground with Replenish.

While Cast Out is a pretty dubious card, it's kind of mandatory with Replenish...and you're throwing away your SnT matchup without it (and getting worse vs REB and Veil at the same time). On E Tutor, it cycles now, and you get to choose between Astrolabe [fewer mulls, combo with Teferi] and being a 5th copy of Shark'nado. Ponder isn't going to draw you into better plans with Replenish in the mix; you're falling behind by stopping to cast it when it could have been a mana-fixing, consistency positive combo piece. You don't want to sit there at the 3-5 mana point sinkhole'ing a mana [back into Daze range] to Ponder when you should be directly pursuing a way to win. The planning phase was many turns before this point, and you have combo pieces able to do all the heavy lifting early by making sure the mana development stayed on pace [even if the opening mana was white] without de-railing the train. It all comes back to Replenish; if you're going to do it, you really have to hit the gas pedal.

[kombatkiwi]

At some point you're going to have to choose between Cast Out with Replenish or no Replenish at all or red splash with 1-2x Burning Wish/SB Blasts + 1x Replenish in SB.
Yes, at the moment I am leaning toward no-replenish. (Although the burning wish idea is kind of cute lol)


The deck is a little too slow around the 3 mana mark; while it may cast a 3cmc spell it's not really able to get ahead and leave something that the opponent has to deal with (your Teferi lacks a [-3] Astrolabe, Thirst just draws and will rarely find 2 things to good enough to bin right into untap Replenish, and Dovin's Acuity kinda just sits there).
Maybe there is some misconception with how the deck plays. In my experience this is like a super reactive draw-go kind of control deck. You have removal and counters and card draw, eventually you remove/counter all their stuff then draw more cards so you can keep doing that and then you play a big cantrip shark and ride it to victory. So you don't really need to get ahead by playing a threat on turn 3. You want to leave up mana so that you can Thirst/Negation/Veto. The only matchups you need the Replenish help are the control matchups where they have good removal and can keep up on cards until the lategame so the plan of protecting 1 big shark is less viable.


The moment they challenge Shark'nado (which can be as simple as Cling to Dust) you're going to struggle to recover any ground with Replenish.
This could be an issue but cling/surgical is just another spell you can counter, if you have to.


On E Tutor, it cycles now, and you get to choose between Astrolabe [fewer mulls, combo with Teferi] and being a 5th copy of Shark'nado. Ponder isn't going to draw you into better plans with Replenish in the mix; you're falling behind by stopping to cast it when it could have been a mana-fixing, consistency positive combo piece.
You don't need to -1 yourself to find Typhoon, the deck doesn't need it in a hurry. Again the deck does not have "combo" pieces, it's not a "combo" deck. Just think of replenish like a 3W Jace. E tutor is still card disadvantage even if you're searching for a thing that draws cards. You can't say that Etutor + Astro leads to fewer mulligans, if you etutor for astro then you essentially did mulligan, and I'd much rather spend 1 mana turn 1 on ponder than on labe

[Fox]

You can't cast Ponder off of white mana, but you can E Tutor for Astro or cast Astro from hand or cycle Cast Out into blue sources. There's no reason to mull away winning hands, lose to Tundra in hand, and/or lose b/c Stifle hit your Fetch. If you have a serviceable hand, you do whatever you can to not mulligan with colorless lands, shame island [Sanctuary], Tundra, and multiple Plains waiting to ruin your second hand, turning the keep 7 into chain mulligans - these are avoidable losses, which Ponder won't help you avoid. After this, you do whatever you can to avoid killing yourself by Fetching Tundra. Death by mana is the single most avoidable source of unnecessary losses in Standstill, and it is significant.

You have Teferi in your deck (which you can barely use), Astro can help cast him while also avoiding mulls, and Astro is the only thing worth using the [-3] on (Dovin's Acuity bouncing is too slow to rely on, and off-curve). You will recoup any CA you think you've lost, and if that's not good enough, you can also transmute E Tutor into a Standstill's draw 3 when you're not needing to kill multiple dudes with Tutor on Porphyry Nodes. Taking a little time off doesn't matter if you're feeding into a larger strategy, and that's where Ponder fails; it's not even helping the early mana nor minimizing mulligans versus the combo plan of Replenish. It's also pretty embarrassing to be drawn above 8 cards by an EoT Standstill crack and be looking at a sorcery that should either be an E Tutor or a Cast Out (which has flash); this is just lost CA due to flawed construction.

If you're playing Ponder (so not a Replenish build), you're saying that your main concern is fixing :w::w: by turn 4 for Verdict [and finding a copy of your 2x Verdict] in a deck with far less white stuff going on. Such decks also have more time to do whatever with Snapcaster choosing between looking for land #4 or spamming Plow from yard.

You may try to play draw-go with Replenish, but it's not control. You are dying to Veil on the stack, lacking hard answers to Oko (or any PW for that matter), your Teferi is barely useful, and your deck is definitely threatened by GY hate. You're enchantment-reanimator the moment Replenish comes into the mix. When you accept auto-losses to common and predictable strategies, calling it control is just a meme. Your SB isn't transforming the meme into hard control either; you'd be boarding down on white while boarding into losing harder to Pyroblast.

If you want to cut Replenish and go harder on control with PWs and Verdicts, that's fine [you ofc can't ever beat Vial]...but no matter how many Blasts you put in the SB you're still dead to Oko and the hasted PW-killing AstroElk. UW/UWr is a really bad way to try and play hard control unless Oko is banned or they reverse the companion rules and unban Lurrus (which cuts Oko use down by ~50-75%). If you want to meme play ReplenishStill, if you want to play the best form of UWstill play Dreadstill, and if you want to keep losing to zero skill Oko/FIRE cards play UW/UWr Standstill/Landstill. If you want to play the same type of style as UW/UWr Standstill/Landstill, try UBw Landstill as it solves the lifegain, Oko, and Veil/REB problems to a higher degree.

Edit: we also need to break this habit of people playing Mystic Sanctuary with nothing to put on top but a 1-for-1, and then pretending it's somehow more amazing than cycling an E-Tutor on Astro or Shark'nado. It's the same thing, except Teferi can't [-3] on a Sanctuary and it ruins the manabase.

[kombatkiwi]

You can't cast Ponder off of white mana, but you can E Tutor for Astro or cast Astro from hand or cycle Cast Out into blue sources. There's no reason to mull away winning hands, lose to Tundra in hand, and/or lose b/c Stifle hit your Fetch. If you have a serviceable hand, you do whatever you can to not mulligan with colorless lands, shame island [Sanctuary], Tundra, and multiple Plains waiting to ruin your second hand, turning the keep 7 into chain mulligans - these are avoidable losses, which Ponder won't help you avoid. After this, you do whatever you can to avoid killing yourself by Fetching Tundra. Death by mana is the single most avoidable source of unnecessary losses in Standstill, and it is significant.
If you cast E Tutor for astrolabe and then cast astrolabe you went -1 cards and spent 2 mana just to fix your colours. If you have a 7 card hand without any blue sources then you can take a mulligan which fixes your colours by spending no mana and going -1 card.


You have Teferi in your deck (which you can barely use), Astro can help cast him while also avoiding mulls, and Astro is the only thing worth using the [-3] on (Dovin's Acuity bouncing is too slow to rely on, and off-curve).
I agree that teferi is not that good in the deck, I wrote that in the first post. I don't think a 1-of astrolabe helps it very much and would rather cut/trim teferi than significantly overhaul the deck trying to make teferi good


you can also transmute E Tutor into a Standstill's draw 3 when you're not needing to kill multiple dudes with Tutor on Porphyry Nodes. Taking a little time off doesn't matter if you're feeding into a larger strategy, and that's where Ponder fails; it's not even helping the early mana nor minimizing mulligans versus the combo plan of Replenish.
Both E tutor and Ponder "Take a little time off", they both cost 1 mana. (Etutor arguably makes you take more time off because you need an extra draw 1 before you get access to the new card). The difference is that E-tutor puts you down a card, and if the thing that you're searching for isn't going to seriously turn the game around (or it's a matchup where whatever you searched for has a high chance of being countered) then that -1 card is a big liability.

Of course cantrips help with early mana lol, I don't understand what point you are trying to make at all there


It's also pretty embarrassing to be drawn above 8 cards by an EoT Standstill crack and be looking at a sorcery that should either be an E Tutor or a Cast Out (which has flash); this is just lost CA due to flawed construction.
In theory yes, but this is almost magical-christmas land territory; if your standstill has sat in play for that many turns then probably you will be ahead anyway when this happens, I don't think the deck needs to be built with a greater focus on maximizing the payoff in this situation if it makes getting to that situation less likely


If you're playing Ponder (so not a Replenish build), you're saying that your main concern is fixing :w::w: by turn 4 for Verdict [and finding a copy of your 2x Verdict] in a deck with far less white stuff going on. Such decks also have more time to do whatever with Snapcaster choosing between looking for land #4 or spamming Plow from yard.
This is a pretty wild claim, I note that RUG delver decks also play ponder without playing 2 copies of supreme verdict and I believe storm decks are also in a similar situation?


You may try to play draw-go with Replenish, but it's not control. You are dying to Veil on the stack, lacking hard answers to Oko (or any PW for that matter), your Teferi is barely useful, and your deck is definitely threatened by GY hate. You're enchantment-reanimator the moment Replenish comes into the mix. When you accept auto-losses to common and predictable strategies, calling it control is just a meme. Your SB isn't transforming the meme into hard control either; you'd be boarding down on white while boarding into losing harder to Pyroblast.

If you want to cut Replenish and go harder on control with PWs and Verdicts, that's fine [you ofc can't ever beat Vial]...but no matter how many Blasts you put in the SB you're still dead to Oko and the hasted PW-killing AstroElk. UW/UWr is a really bad way to try and play hard control unless Oko is banned or they reverse the companion rules and unban Lurrus (which cuts Oko use down by ~50-75%). If you want to meme play ReplenishStill, if you want to play the best form of UWstill play Dreadstill, and if you want to keep losing to zero skill Oko/FIRE cards play UW/UWr Standstill/Landstill. If you want to play the same type of style as UW/UWr Standstill/Landstill, try UBw Landstill as it solves the lifegain, Oko, and Veil/REB problems to a higher degree.
Oko is definitely a relative weakness and the deck probably should to be tuned to respect that (e.g. replace the D Sphere with a nonblue option or play another Veto somewhere or a CJ etc). Veil is annoying for any blue deck (and maybe moreso for this one due to the reliance on veto) but the meta seems to have settled in a place where it isn't widely played in large numbers.

When I say cut replenish I don't mean overhaul the entire deck, I just mean cut 1-2 copies of the card replenish and replace it with 1-2 copies of something else. The rest of the list works fine without it. You seem eternally hamstrung by your eagerness to squash any new idea into one of your pre-existing mental bins ('ponder != replenish'), which can be a fine tool to simplify decision making around established concepts but when dealing with new ideas it seems to lead you to some pretty tenuous conclusions


Edit: we also need to break this habit of people playing Mystic Sanctuary with nothing to put on top but a 1-for-1, and then pretending it's somehow more amazing than cycling an E-Tutor on Astro or Shark'nado. It's the same thing, except Teferi can't [-3] on a Sanctuary and it ruins the manabase.
Casting enlightened tutor is card disadvantage but fetching a Mystic Sanctuary isn't, do you really not understand this? I agree that putting Sanctuary in your manabase has costs associated with it but the two cards are not really comparable

[Fox]

First things first, when I'm discussing Ponder I'm talking about Standstill decks. Other decks need Ponder to compensate for ambitious 3+ color plans, particularly in low land decks which will otherwise struggle to hit land #2 on turn #2 reliably. The dominant concern in UW Standstill/Landstill is not having land #2 on turn #2, but rather avoiding mulligans b/c your opening hand isn't able to produce dependable access to blue mana. This is worth repeating: when you have higher land counts, the second land drop isn't in question; instead color fixing is the early game question. In the case of Verdict, the cmc & fixing requirements are so extreme, on a spell so important, that Ponder can still be useful.

You don't get to play high variance cards like Standstill without mana & mulligan security. If can't count on your mana, you can't make turns-long decisions. If you can't enact those turns-long plans, you die over and over b/c you drew Standstills you can't deploy - this is a vicious cycle that is largely avoidable by allowing both colors to get the other online. On mulligans, a deck with Standstill usually plays 4x FoW and 2x FoN - so when you construct the deck it's important to do whatever you can to make as many hands as possible keepable. There's another vicious cycle here where mulligans not only punish 6 Force effects, but also risk generating new hands with bad mana (Tundra, Sanctuary, Heliod, Plains); so now the Force effects, Standstills you can't cast, and unreliable mana all combo together against you, resulting in a loss that could have been avoided by deliberately designing a deck to not mull itself to death.

Ponder requires blue...but if your hand already had reliable blue mana, you don't really have problems b/c you can wait out the white (with all 8 Fetches pointed at basic Plains) through the combination of Brainstorm/Typhoon cantripping and free countermagic into jamming a Standstill. If you're adding Ponder to help blue find white even harder, you're kinda beating a dead horse while missing the main issue: white needs help finding blue, b/c this has always been the main source where loss to mulligan comes from. You really don't want to dice with death when playing the "hope I don't mull into this quarter of my manabase" subgame.
--
On Teferi, you can't really afford to not play it. There will be too many games where the weakness to yard hate requires Teferi passive to protect Shark'nado (and Heliod). You also need Teferi as the Daze neutralizer on curve, which aids Replenish followups. More generally we have focused mana agenda we can count on teaming up with a PW whose passive reduces undesirable interaction, so that in a deck with Standstill we have achieved a more secure ability to follow a turns-long plan. This is not a place for instant gratification where Ponder goes off and finds 1-card combo Uro/Dreadhorde/Oko; we're balancing multiple pieces/effects over long time periods to sustain gamestates where Standstill off the top isn't self-crippling.

In addition to reducing mulligans, that single Astrolabe/E Tutor adds that value edge which rewards you for playing the Teferi you're forced to play. You're attacking mulligans, mana security and hedging vs late game stagnation by turning Teferi into Gush. So again, everything going on is about establishing the ability to enact that plan where Standstill off the top can be cast.

That E Tutor can do other things as well, like doubling up effective copies of SB cards. The real key though is that what it finds probably goes to the graveyard eventually; where in the context of Replenish, we can refer to that card as being effectively Entomb'd. An important concept to understand if you're playing enchantment reanimator.
--
On Mystic Sanctuary, the Shame Island: it kills opening hands (the killer of Standstill), and can't even begin to be justified unless your deck is packing a necro target that generates CA or straight-up wins the game (in UW that's either a wrath, AK-type, Replenish, or Entreat). If you have such a spell to target and somehow get to 3 Islands, a Fetch, and haven't been stuck with Shame Island in hand...let's just take a moment and appreciate that we're trying to make turns-long plans while ticking those boxes...you better have something better to do than Noxious Revival a cantrip or a Plow. There's a name for putting a cantrip back on top of your deck, drawing it and casting to see three things: Mirri's Guile.

When you actively want an effect like Astrolabe on board or to self-Entomb a Shark'nado via cycling, you have a higher ceiling than anything Shame Island could be doing when it's rebuying a 1-for-1. Discard E Tutor for a cantripping target = draw the thing you want (a thing that goes in play) and draw a brand new card; that's discard 1 card, get 2 things. When people go Sanctuary into a 1-for-1 necro, they discard a card [land drop], then they don't get a thing that goes into play, and instead choose one of their best 3 cards or kill one enemy dude. When you're finding a thing that goes into play & cantrips, and there's a purpose behind it (like not mulling, giving Teferi a [-3] target, or a Shark token and an Entomb'd 6 drop), you're not losing resources.
-- [^Everything up here is more about ReplenishStill]
I've played more UW Landstill than most, and did all the work tuning it from Teferi [5cmc] through to the banning of Wrenn and replacement by Oko. The straight-up Landstill/Standstill UW/UWr deck isn't good enough b/c unfortunately Oko doesn't cost 2 mana - and that means you've got no response b/c Spell Snare spamming isn't going to work. Adding red for Blasts doesn't work either, b/c you can't afford to attempt the counter mode, as you will lose the Blast to Veil and then be forced to accept the fact that your PW is dead to a hasted 3/3. The mana-requiring 1-2cmc counterspell for the maindeck of UW/UWr is leagues worse than Drown.

When you talk about cutting Replenish and playing straight-up, it's just not going to work against Oko. It's certainly nice that you have an ability to do stuff like kill a TNN with Nodes, but it's a card that eventually fails in multiples due to having 0 life (the delay forces you to take hits). You're at this nasty crossroads where you need Verdict more than Nodes spam, even though it means you'll never beat Aether Vial. For all the Nodes, Thirst, and Dovin's Acuity stuff going on, it really doesn't help vs Oko. For this you need to look to Replenish and Cast Out over Ponder. It's really not fun to know that no matter what your top 3 cards are off Ponder, they will all say "you still lose to Oko."

Edit: if you're playing turbo-meme 4x Replenish/3-4x Lay Claim nonsense, a few Teferi will never save you from the blowouts you're going to suffer. Such a build is all derp all the time, and while it has Standstill in it, it barely qualifies as playing a Standstill deck.

[Qweerios]

I'm not sure if this is interresting to anyone but it has been very strong in my limited testing so far. Retrofitter Foundry is extremely powerful with Standstill and acts as an instant speed CMC1 Elspeth for the deck. It is undeniably stronger than Myth Realized. It also combos with Teferi for a quick bounce + replay as a 1 mana untap, and with Mutavault for a quick 4/4 and/or as a form of Wasteland protection. However, it is possible that Mishra is still better than Muta simply because it blocks Arcanist and Thalia.

I originally tested UB for Drown in the Loch, then it became clear a red splash was needed for SB blasts. Eventually I moved away from black because StP is crucial for the exile effect and Council's Judgment is an important catch-all that the deck needs to fix certain board states. I had Verdicts in the main, then board but without TNN in the meta I had no use for a CMC4 sorcery wipe. Adding 2 Bolts to the SB instead gave me important instant removal at CMC1 for Snap abuse and T2 Standstill openers against Aggro on the play. I tested Hall of Helliod for some Shark and Standstill recursion. While it was very strong when it worked, it was more often win-more and I would preffer another manland or Ponder instead. I've cut down from 4 Ponders to 2 in favor of a full playset of manlands in order to favor natural land drops because I would often be unable to fully abuse an early Standstill on an empty board when toping into cantrips. Furthermore, I ended up moving away from is Spell Pierce. While really strong when it works out, I would almost always preffer a hard counter given the current meta. Pierce is great against Oko from RUG but useless against all the Aggro decks in the meta, barely useful against the popular Combo decks (Hogaaks, Elves, and Depths) and easily played around by SnT and Storm. Premier Control decks using Oko instead of Jace, Coatl instead of Snap, and relying more on Uro than anything else really makes Spell Pierce lackluster without a strong aggro presence.

List:

Creature (3)
3 Snapcaster Mage

Spells (22)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
2 Force of Negation
4 Force of Will
2 Ponder
2 Council's Judgment

Other (12)
3 Retrofitter Foundry
4 Standstill
3 Shark Typhoon
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

Lands (23)
4 Mishra's Factory / Mutavault
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains

Sideboard
1 Containment Priest
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Rest in Peace
1 Blood Moon
1 Mountain


In terms of matchups I found most Aggro decks to be quite positive without any wipes with the exception of big eldrazi decks using Cavern of Souls. Having multiple ways to switch on the offense is very important here, so is pumping out 4/4's ASAP (nudge to Mutavault).

Oko/Uro Control decks are quite interresting and reward tight plays. Yes they have something like 2 copies of Veil in the board for some strong protection but we have Retro to match Oko, Blasts and Judgment for anything that slips through, Snap over Coatl and manlands instead of Astrolabes. We have answers to all their win conditions and we can more reliably play draw-go. A single Standstill will swing the game in our favor with about the same impact as a Veil on a counter war. Personally I find this matchup in our favor. The toughest variants to play against pack Decay and Teferi.

TLDR: Don't sleep on Retrofitter. It is the draw-go GOAT.

[Fox]

Some things in the list @Qweerios, I agree with the assessment of Spell Pierce; there‘s nothing more dubious than playing for a long game and shooting yourself in the foot with soft permission that will always be -1 card drawn in a long game. The combination of Spell Snare and Counterspell is however, quite poor; and it doesn‘t really get any better if you worked in Veto. Nothing to be done here though, all the 1-2cmc mana-requiring counter options are just pretty awful.

2x CJ is too much, and it‘s coming at the cost of wraths and onboard value engines (PWs) and Sevinne‘s [easily a top 3 reason to play white]. The lack of lifegain is also standing out in the list, and we have to note 10x Fetch as increasing this weakness. On the lands, there‘s no reason to kill yourself with Tundra more than you have to (copies down to 1x). The lack of Karakas is pretty damaging in the Depths, SnT, Reanimator, Gaak, and Uro matchups.

The colorless lands are fairly concerning. While you can at least utilize Teferi‘s passive, a big part of manlands is being able to play big Teferi (5cmc), going [+1] and untapping an elk-stopping 3/3 blocker [Factory]. The other thing about 5cmc Teferi is that he‘s a large part of justifying 2cmc counterspells (resolve PW, plus, represent permission); unlike Drown you can‘t come back to a problem that snuck through with cards like Counterspell/Veto and Snare. There are significant drawbacks to Mutavault in this regard [can‘t block as a 3/3 without help from Retro], and Plague Engi is going to be especially annoying. There‘s a lot of conflict here between colorless things, double mana pips, and needing multiple pieces to assemble a Mutavault-transmuting plan. The net effect exposes Teferi (3cmc) pretty heavily, since it‘s pretty hard to justify chumping to defend, and you can‘t really transition to a bigger play (like Teferi 5cmc and a board reset).

When you start going this heavily into colorless plans we really do have to compare your plan to that of UW Dreadstill, which has a much higher quality colorless outlets, a responsible approach to supporting Verdict, lifegain solved (StP = gain 12), a better plan vs nonsense (just kill quick with a 12/12), and is much more highly specialized around Teferi passive. The janky 1/1 generator that maybe makes some 4/4s at the cost of stable mana and has to let Oko resolve, then destroy him, and then still deal with the 3/3s has a lot of holes. For everything you‘re doing, you could play with more secure mana and hide the token generating battery on Heliod‘s. I just don‘t see the benefit of adding Retro/Muta variance for a level of power below that of 1-card combo Oko you‘ll need to compete against.

In terms of the SB, E Tutor should be in the main; you do need be able to unite Standstill with the token source (Shark or Retro) going into turn 2; there is no synergistic benefit to having Retro and Shark (or multiple Retro) in hand over just one of them and a Standstill. That scenario requires huge amounts of mana, and the end result is that Oko is still out-pacing you. Blood Moon is actively self-crippling, change to Alpine Moon. Cage is a wildly unreliable magic card, and you‘re a bit light on ways to stop SnT with an slew of dead cards (StP, Snare, Retro, CJ = 11 cards want to come out). For SB mapping you‘re going to need 2 Ashiok (vs Dreadhorde, REB recursion, Uro, GSZ, yard combo, DDFT, SnT‘s Firemind/Summons/Intuition/Call). You also need a better plan and mapping vs Vial; so another CP to help with the 11 card problem vs SnT, while also hitting Vial. There are other problems in the board, but you can really minimize these by fixing that SnT problem. To beat OmniTell‘s Veil spam you‘re running into SB space issues [looking at Bolt and Izzet] as Veil+SnT requires things like Humility and Deafening/Ethersworn.

[Fox]

Modified a Jordan Aisoka special (AisokaMTG - the vods are great), because sometimes you want to watch the world burn. Jordan's list was a good deal different, whereas this deck is looking to cheese Path of Mettle, because reasons.

Prismatic Vista x4
Flooded Strand x4
Scalding Tarn x1
Snow-Island x4
Snow-Mountain x1
Snow-Plains x1
Volcanic Island x2
Tundra x1
Hall of Heliod's Generosity x1
Karakas x1 [[20 slots]]

Lutri, the Spellchaser x1
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame x2
Teferi, Time Raveler x2 [[5 slots]]

Standstill x4
Shark Typhoon x3
Path of Mettle//Metzali, Tower of Triumph x2
Humility x1 [[10 slots]]

Force of Will x4
StP x4
Brainstorm x4
Spikefield Hazard x2
Silundi Vision x2
Force of Negation x2
Sevinne's Reclamation x2
Burning Wish x2
Pyroblast x1
E Tutor x1
Astrolabe x1 [[25 slots]]

Companion: Kaheera, the Orphanguard

SB (14 others):
Force of Vigor x1
Decree of Justice x1
Ruination x1
Supreme Verdict x1
Meltdown x1
Cave-In x1
Replenish x1
Alpine Moon x1
Stony Silence x1
Deafening Silence x1
Pyroblast x1
REB x1
Surgical x2

Option for something like Council's Judgement or a classic like Slice and Dice in board. Yard hates can be changed, but prefer to keep them one-sided; Jordan was running Phyrexian Furnace which is actually pretty good at filling the role and combos nicely with Sevinnes. Crpyt probably safer, but Furnace really captures the burning flavor. As always Blessed Alliance is always this card with lifegain you can almost add, but doesn't quite make the cut. If anti-Klothys desired consider Celestial Purge or Nahiri, the Harbinger.

The only real goal here is to have fun and play oh so much more magic than your opponent could ever dream of. The advantage always goes to the person with the elemental of surprise. All hail Lutri, the true king of legacy. Also wtf happens when you cast Sevinne's from yard and first target is Lutri....you don't get 3 things back do you? I really feel like you do.

[AngryBacon]

Also wtf happens when you cast Sevinne's from yard and first target is Lutri....

1. You target Lutri with Reclamation
2. Assuming it resolves, Lutri enters the battlefield
3. Lutri doesn't trigger
4. You put Reclamation's copy on the stack

[Fox]

1. You target Lutri with Reclamation
2. Assuming it resolves, Lutri enters the battlefield
3. Lutri doesn't trigger
4. You put Reclamation's copy on the stack

Edit: nvm "if you cast" on top of when ETBs. So you have to necro Lutri, tap Karakas, and then cast Lutri to re-copy lol.

[AngryBacon]

Edit: nvm "if you cast" on top of when ETBs. So you have to necro Lutri, tap Karakas, and then cast Lutri to re-copy lol.

If you reanimate Lutri with Reclamation, Lutri enters the battlefield before you even choose a target for the copy of Reclamation. There's no window to use Karakas yet so you have to wait for the copy to be put on the stack. Then you can Karakas Lutri, play it again on top of the Reclamation copy already on the stack. Doing so, you can copy the orignal Reclamation I believe, since it hasn't finished resolving yet. To be confirmed though I'm no judge. The difference being that copying the original Reclamation lets you trigger the copy as well, while copying a copy doesn't.

[Fox]

Now that Oko is banned the deck can be played again. Three competitive approaches are acceptable:
-Teferi + Karn Landstill (better as UBw)
-Teferi 3&5cmc + 4x Portent + 3x Terminus Landstill. You can throw away your matchup vs Vial and play 2x Ponder 2x Verdict.
-Teferi 3&5cmc + spell land (Spikefield Hazard) + 2x Verdict Standstill

Far less competitive builds include JTMS, Mentor, Myth Realized. Incorrect build choices include Shame Island (Mystic Sanctuary), outside of Burning Wish/ReplenishStill, and Moat. Again: Moat is wrong. We play Humility. Save your money.

Current build of TNMTstill:
Lands [25]
4x Vista
4x Strand
1x Tarn (or Mesa if you want to gamble)
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Mountain
1x Tundra
1x Volc
1x Karakas
1x Heliod
2x Spikefield Hazard
2x Wasteland
1x Azcanta (so like 24.5 land)

Dudes [4]
2x SCM
2x Yidaro, Wandering Monster

PW [4]
2x Teferi 3cmc
2x Teferi 5cmc

Enchantments [8]
4x Standstill
3x Shark'nado
1x Humility (pronounced Humilitas)
1x Azcanta (listed above in Lands, not counted towards 60 here)

Spells [19]
4x FoW
4x StP
4x Bstorm
2x Verdict
2x FoN
2x Spikefield (not counted here, counted in Lands)
1x Sevinne's
1x Cosmic Intervention
1x CJ

SB [15]
1x Ashiok w/ passive
1x E Tutor
1x Stony Silence
1x Relic
1x Ethersworn
1x Spiritual Focus
1x Porphry Nodes
2x Blessed Alliance
2x Nahiri, the Harbinger
1x Emmy, the Mind Slaver one
3x REB effects

Still waiting for them to print playable lifegain in white, so we are stuck with Blessed Alliance for a while. Nahiri is the correct way to beat Klothys and REB cheese. Spiritual Focus can be changed to another Ashiok or white Leyline. An entirely different sideboarding strategy can be employed to accommodate a card like RiP if you want more yard hate. While it wouldn't be great, Warmth could also be selected. If gunning for Thassa consider Tale's End maindeck or SB Angel's Grace.

So Emmy is obviously is Michelangelo (honorary turtle). We used to have triple Yidaro maindeck (Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael), but just like the movies, Raphael was kidnapped so it is the pilot's job to free him by defeating their opponent.

[Piproberts]

The deck above is a deck we have been tinkering on for a little while and yesterday we recorded a video to showcase the deck.
Please check it out and help us improve on the archetype.

https://youtu.be/Bnn9PB6tKNM

[kombatkiwi]

Thinking of taking this for a spin again

7 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
1 Mystic Sanctuary
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Tundra
[22 Lands]

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell (unsure, could be e.g. Mix of Counterspell / Spellsnare / Veto or something else but I feel it should be cheap interaction)
2 Force of Negation
2 Thirst for Meaning
2 Replenish

4 Porphyry Nodes
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon
2 Cast Out

SB
1 Kaheera, the Orphanguard
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Court of Grace (Possible Split 1 Grace 1 Cunning)
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Humility
1 Back to Basics
1 Pithing Needle
1 Stony Silence
1 Deafening Silence
1 Surgical Extraction
1 [Free slot]

- Relative lack of lifegain a minor concern but wasn't too happy about playing a card like Dovin's Acuity (I remember being fairly enthusiastic/happy with it last time but theorycrafting this list I couldn't justify cutting anything for it)
- Would like to fit a Search for Azcanta but possibly too greedy/hard to make space
- Not sure if 22 lands is too many but making land drops with standstill seems good and it's mainly on account of the 'spell' lands anyway (Hall / Karakas)
- Zero mini tef also might seem a bit weird but there is 0 Astrolabe / Omen of the Sea etc things to bounce with it, no early blockers to protect it etc so I think it's a little bit too fragile / situational
- Otherwise some of my thoughts going into this can be found on the last couple of pages

[Fox]

Lifegain remains the primary deficit of UW-based Standstill decks, but Timeless Dragon has made the mana real dumb - like stupid easy. These are the motifs and what you need to know about them:

4x Strand, 3x Vista, 3x Dragon. All of this mana fixing is pointless if you're only 2c; you get to play the best spell land for free now 2x Spikefield Hazard. Dragon demands nearly 2x plains cards per copy run (the rule can also be stated more precisely as n+2 plains cards), and the idiotic fixing of Dragon made it real easy to play 1x Tundra, 1x Plateau, 1x Raugrin Triome, and 2 Plains. You will also play 1x Volc, 4x Island, and 1x Mountain; after this you have some choices to make. You'll want to be coming out to about a 20+2 (spell lands) configuration. The last 2 slot I favor Karakas and Heliods, but you can jank out some with Urza's Saga (though I'd probably stop at 2 given the space it takes, and it's not exactly secure mana, even with Dragon, due to the mana being hidden behind a trigger). Wasteland x2 also an option. Shame Island remains terrible, don't play this card - play reliable Fetches and stop contaminating your opening hand. The real take home though is that white hands can find blue again, through the banning of our 1x Astrolabe and accompanying E-Tutor. Dragon isn't as fun or skill-testing as E-Tutor, but it's a good deal more abusive and linear.

On Urza's Saga, you should really just be on UR Dreadstill...but if you have to play it, don't kill yourself with excessive copies. Accept that Expedition Map can get the ball rolling or chain the two together. Relic should be a target, and you get one slot to meme with...so like Retrofitter I guess (better vs Depths than Cursed Scroll, which would be the runner up). Keep the Needle in the SB. You have to be very careful about flooding out, getting ruined by Blood Moon or FoV effects, and dying to your own mana when you go above two copies. The one exploit Saga has going for it is just ignoring large chunks of legacy strategies, particularly Choke and Port by siding in 1x Lotus Field. This may seem cute, but it's among the best things you can get out of a single SB slot that has 3 cards waiting in the main to tutor it; just free win %age. Remember the Choke users are diluting their decks with 3 dead cards, while you're making linear forward progress, which is highly uninteractive (game actions and hexproof).

On Wasteland, it isn't really needed anymore but you can run it, either as 1x with Saga tutor stuff or 2x without tutoring. Running it is going to be fine though, as it makes mana to cycle Dragon. Pretty much only care about hitting a Depths in-progress or save for exactly Karakas or Field of the Dead. The rest of your deck will determine if this is an interaction you need.

On 4x Plow, 2x Spikefield, 2x Prismatic Ending, we have 8x Ragavan killers on 1cmc now. Two are bonus lands and exile Uro, and the other two have PW kill written on them. Put Uro in exile count risen to 8x. The Prismatic Ending is a pretty big strike against going for >1 colorless land (Wasteland, Saga). That said, Saga finds Map finds SB Lotus = exiling 4 cmc is now on the table, so variance goes up alongside power, which is a reasonable exchange. The most important thing is that we're not losing anti-TNN type effects as Prismatic Ending is replacing the trashy mana-requiring counterspells which can't touch TNN anyway (Pierce, Snare, Tale's End, Fluster, or the high variance Pyroblast maindeck which does hit TNN).

On PWs beyond 2x Teferi 3cmc, you're going to be committing to your real deck direction. You have the Teferi 5cmc pathway and the Chandra, Acolyte of Flame pathway; the former commits you to Azcanta x1 + susceptible to Pyroblast, and the latter commits you to 2x Path of Mettle + susceptible to Prismatic Ending. Chandra is more aggressive and GY-slanted with her Snapcaster text, while Teferi 5cmc is complete control with total mana kills. Chandra obviously way better with Sevinne's, as you can endlessly loop all your business, whereas Teferi 5cmc isn't ever coming back from the yard. Whatever PW you're choosing, it needs to have reciprocal plays at 2cmc - preferably enchantment type. JTMS is still terrible; don't play bad cards. The double Teferi approach can be made pretty vicious with Flame Blitz (all your PWs can take this off the field when you're done massacring the opponent's PWs), and it has a higher incentive to play a 1x Lotus Petal Magus (Ragavan) for dash ambushes and to check typical SB strategies. Prismatic Ending has confused the need for typical strategy of boarding out Teferi 5cmc for 2x Nahiri vs REB + Klothys or Carpet users, but this is still an option.

Chandra is by far the more fun build b/c you just dumpster boardstates with a rather outrageous suite of Jordan Aisoka-inspired Burning Wish nonsense, but there's something to be said for working towards assembling a Griselbrand [the concept of outdrawing opponent 7 to 1 with Standstill, big Teferi plus, and double Azcanta activations]. The wrath suite is quite a bit different where Chandra skews red (Burning Wish and Mettle bridge to path to Verdict), while Teferi 5cmc skews towards Portent and 3x Terminus. The ability to exile Vial and depower Port abuse with Prismatic Ending allows Teferi 5cmc to finally move towards the superior wrath spell (Verdict) and free up slots from Portent. The question in Teferi 5cmc becomes how to profitably capitalize on the red mana in the maindeck and also postboard, making forward progress without turning on opposing Pyroblast. Not working too hard on the Teferi 5cmc side at the moment, since I've been having such a blast with this:
Lands (20+2)
4x Strand
3x Vista
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Mountain
1x Volc
1x Tundra
1x Raugrin Triome
1x Plateau
1x Heliod
1x Karakas
(2x Spikefield)

Dudes (5)
3x Dragon
2x SCM

PWs (4)
2x Teferi 3cmc
2x Chandra 3cmc

Spells (31)
4x FoW
4x Brainstorm
4x Plow
4x Standstill
2x Burning Wish
2x Prismatic Ending
2x Sevinne's
2x Path of Mettle
2x Shark'nado
2x Spikefield
1x FoN
1x Humility
1x Verdict

SB targets: Replenish, Ruination, Cave-In, Decree of Justice, Verdict, By Force. Still terrible colors for sorcery-based yard hate. Replenish is by far the least wished for, and should be another Prismatic Ending...but Replenish has more style points. It's also just better than anything ReplenishStill ever did, which currently is busy being unplayable vs Endurance.
Rest of SB: some blasts, Alpine Moons (mandatory), E-Tutor, Canonist, Stony, and flex slots for yard hate.

Main lessons: fix your mana, use Dragon, have 8x Ragavan/Uro kill spells (without playing bad cards that can only kill dudes in slots 5-8), maintain anti-TNN slots, don't play and don't play pointless PWs without reciprocal 2cmc plays they combo with, and don't submit a SB without Alpine Moon. Also don't ever play Moat over Humility.

[wolfstorm]

Still terrible colors for sorcery-based yard hate..

I know this list utilizes its graveyard quite a bit, but perhaps Morningtide could be a viable wish target vs dredge or other graveyard decks as a last-ditch answer?

[Fox]

I know this list utilizes its graveyard quite a bit, but perhaps Morningtide could be a viable wish target vs dredge or other graveyard decks as a last-ditch answer?

Can't really wait until turn 3 to grab then cast that. I'm also not interested in reseting my GY at the same time for no benefit (i.e. no board presence, no value, no flashback, no combo applications). When you look at effects like these, particularly the non-statics, they need to be hidden in the manabase (Bog, Desert of Progenitus).

[redtwister]

Why are the decks running Ethersworn Canonist instead of Deafening Silence?

e.g. these recent lists: Jeskai Monkey Still (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4159586#paper)

[Fox]

The easy answer is netdecking.

UWR Ragavan is based off of my UR Dreadstill list given to Ark4n. He took it in the direction of Ragavan over DRC, and I discussed the issues with disharmonious plan of Ragavan vs Dreadstill's systematic approach to the format. Ark4n skewed away from Dreadnought & Standstill, and towards unstable mana shored up by Ponder and monkey-Petals to enable Prismatic Ending and the over-slotting of Saga.

The SB choices are heavily based on the motifs of my UR and UW Dreadstill, and Canonist has been in there for 3+ years now. There are a number of reasons Dreadstill specifically chooses Ethersworn, but for the Ragavan derivative it is still overwhelmingly important to stop Elves - a matchup where Deafening is worse than useless. A deck trying to cheese Veil is not fast enough to capitalize on 1 mana vs 2, and Canonist can't be hit by Pierce from SnT. FoN is not relevant in this choice at this time. Against DDFT it is important that Thassa is the only spell they can cast that turn (into a Stifle).

[redtwister]

@Fox
Yeah, that totally makes sense, same reason DnT can't stop running Canonist as well. Thank you!

[Fox]

Played some UBw Landstill recently, the deck has been fun. Began with a bye today but ended up 3-0 beating UR Delver and Esper Vial. Same list as previous UBw except Drown #3 and 4 slots went from Tale's End and Coll Brutality to 2x Prismatic Ending. The lack of Timeless and Spikefield is pretty annoying in these colors, but the flip side is better lifegain (including Kaya), Drown, and better PW killers.

Game 1 vs Delver they got out ahead with DRC and Ragavan, attacked me down to 5 and lost by casting my Standstill. Teferi still in play and cycling Shark as 4/4 pretty much ended the game as they were forced to crack Standstill and pass into my Kaya (lifegain unbeatable as they already lost 2 Bolts getting me to 5). Game 2 they mulled to 5 looking for lands, lost their board and scooped to Standstill.

Game 1 vs Esper Vial they had the Vial and played into wrath heavily, but I couldn't find it. Game 2 they mulled to 5 and lost to CTP beatdown; also Ashiok confirmed heavy monarch all-in (Courts and Jailer). Game 3 they couldn't keep up in the monarch subgame they introduced and had a lot of 1/1 spirits from their 2x Courts - Plague Engi put a stop to this nonsense, and also took out a random Soulherder.

There is a misconception in legacy where people misidentify midrange decks as "control." While monarch tactics are very good against midrange [e.g. the Uro decks], they run into trouble when anti-midrange cards are brought in against real control.

[Fox]

Went 2-1 tonight. Narrowly lost to Burn in game 3, and won vs DnT and Food Chain Muxus. Event had 8 decks, others included Esper Mentor and BUG Stiflenought; unsure what last 2 decks were.

List felt great in all the games, even vs Burn (lots of maindeck lifegain). Just drew too many lands vs a Vortex I needed to knock out first in game 3. Only felt need to board 2 cards (EE in and Nihil Spellbomb to deny spell mastery).

Definitely got a free win off Muxus when colored mana screw met with 4-land reveal off Ringleader into a miss-6 Muxus. Really liked having access to 2x SB Unmoored Ego to name Muxus with, though that play didn't come up.

Games vs DnT were all fun, even on my mull to 5. Game 1 I almost decked but managed to fire the Kaya cannon for like 30. In game 3 Kaya, Teferi and interaction kept the ground clear until Plague Engi on human stranded 3x 1-toughness humans in hand [Esper Sentinel build].

[Beerpirat]

Hi dudes
Is there a discord for landstill?

Greedings

[kombatkiwi]

https://twitter.com/Marshal38117189/status/1506027286268727304?s=20

This deck looks pretty cool but am going to try some modification to it.
(1 obvious flaw with the list in the picture is 1 Plateau means the Deltas should be Tarns but thats not what I am thinking about).

First change is to alter the manabase because I think it's a bit too dual-heavy, change to the more 'stock' uwr manabase like this:
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
4 Strand
4 Vista
2 Tarn
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic

Then after my previous experience playing a deck with 4x Typhoons I think maybe 4x Typhoons + 3x Dragons is a little bit too much value/clunk, plus the Plateau disappeared with the manabase change so there are fewer Plainscycle targets, so I think I want to cut the Dragons down to 2.

I also feel like 3 Narset is too many so cut that down to 2.

I think those 2 maindeck slots I want to be 1 Sevinne's Rec and 1 Dressdown. Sevinne's Rec feels like a good grind option with the Narset/Tef pairing, can get Standstill back, etc. 1 Dressdown helps to cover some strategies that the deck is a bit weak to, opens some SB space, and the utility of having 1 copy seems high because you can bounce it with Tef and bring it back with Sevinnes etc.

So the maindeck is like this:

5 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
4 Strand
4 Vista
2 Tarn
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
2 Force of Negation
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Supreme Verdict

2 Timeless Dragon
4 Shark Typhoon
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Dress Down

For the sideboard I think I still like Etutor package for Jeskai so something like:
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Rest In Peace
1 Canonist (I had autopilot for playing Deafening Silence in this slot but then I remembered I'm not playing Kaheera anymore)
1 Blood Moon
1 Energy Flux
1 Court of Grace
3 Pyroblast
1 Pithing Needle
1 Humility
2 Dress Down
1 Surgical

Overall I think the deck looks very good vs fair blue (Delver or Jeskai/Bant/4C etc). Lands matchup seems hard, Standstill already lines up badly vs Field/Depths and now they can kill moon with Boseiju. Possibly sb should switch to magus of the moon / ruination

Anyway will try it at fnm this week I think

[Fox]

X+2 rule violation, deck needs another Tundra. Moreover you are trying to cast Verdict and would be totally unable to do so vs 1x Port and one Wasteland activation.

White mana issues magnified by lack of key effect: Karakas. Key effect needed vs Grisel, Emry/Sai, Progenitus (after Dress Down), Thalia.

Island #5 <<< Otawara.

Non-Standstill CA lacking, need 2x SCM. Teferi and Narset are not able to drown an opponent in CA. Narset slots to a PW which can imitate Jayemdae Tome's CA.

Ways to deal with Saga: 0x.

Cut the Ponders and fix the above problems. Cantripping doesn't matter if you can't draw into the needed effect.

[kombatkiwi]

Can see lack of W sources being a potential concern regarding verdict, will pay attention to that. Not sure how sensible "X+2" rule is, after you have all 3 plains from your deck surely you are at a point where casting 5/5 is preferable to getting another plains most of the time

Otawara/Karakas are fine suggestions, I guess cut 1 island for otawara is ok

If you want a PW that can repeatedly draw cards instead of narset which do you want to play? Jtms? Teferi Hero? Or something weird like Dovin Arbiter / Jace Beleren? Seems possibly unnecessary and/or just worse than Narset

SCM seems an okay card but idk if it changes things that much

Outs to saga is 1 ddown main and more in the board. Idk if it's realistic to expect a deck with 4x maindeck standstill to have a good matchup Vs saga G1 anyway so I'm fine with having limited options Vs it

I don't think your obsession with cutting ponder makes sense in decks not playing stifle

[Fox]

The issue with Narset is that you need to have a second card like Court of Grace to cover long-term CA. Then you have this janky dies to Bolt/Pyroblast effect to cover the possibility that the opponent becomes the monarch.

As far as Saga goes, you are not at all covered by Dress Down. They could make zero constructs and you are still so screwed by Saga tutor Needle name Shark'nado if you deployed a Standstill, or are trying to deploy a Standstill without having Ending in hand at that exact moment.

^scenarios like this or doing things like trying to play Replenish after the printing of Endurance are avoidable catastrophes. If you're walking into scenarios like this, you need to be changing Standstill to Iteration.

[FTW]

I tested this a bit in our gauntlet before some recent format changes. (My pet UW deck was not performing well in the meta, so it was fun to play Landstill again)

It was a blast to play. Is the Saga package too durdly?

UWr SagaStill


//Lands: 24
4 Flooded Strand
3 Prismatic Vista
4 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Mountain
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Karakas
3 Urza's Saga
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
1 Spikefield Hazard

//Spells: 19
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Force of Negation
1 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 7
4 Standstill
1 Search for Azcanta
2 Shark Typhoon

//Creatures: 4
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalker: 3
3 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Artifacts: 3
1 Expedition Map
1 Retrofitter Foundry
1 Soul-Guide Lantern

//Sideboard: 15
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Force of Negation
1 By Force
1 Alpine Moon
1 Serenity
1 Pyroclasm
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wasteland
1 Lotus Field
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage


There's a lot of late game synergy & durdle shenanigans with Hall + Saga/Sharks/Standstill, or Sevinne + T3feri/Standstill/Saga/Snappy, or with Saga & Map toolboxes.

Azcanta filtering plays well with the other GY stuff, then becomes a great CA engine late.

To make room for Saga, I couldn't afford maindeck Wasteland, so it does lack ways to interact with enemy Saga beyond trying to out-Saga them. SB has Alpine Moon, Wasteland and Needle. On the plus side, it is not easy for opponent to shut much down with a single Saga-> Needle. Too many different engines and wincons.

Is Spikefield Hazard still playable/good after Ragabanned? What about the Triome + Plateau (for Dragon) vs playing more basics and Tundra?

I don't miss Ponder. When Standstill gets cracked, I want to draw cheap instant interaction (FoW, Brainstorm, FoN, StP, Snapcaster, REB, Surgical, Spikefield, cycling) not sorcery cantrips. With 24 lands I don't need Ponder to dig for lands. Instead of Ponder I get to run more non-spell actions through Standstill:
-cycle Shark
-cycle Dragon & Eternalize
-Saga constructs
-Saga -> Retrofitter -> token spam
-Saga -> Lantern -> draw
-Heliod -> loop Saga or Shark
-Azcanta flip & dig
-3feri bounce

[Fox]

I think the biggest question with that list whether or not Saga is worth it. There is always the issue with Saga being suicidal, but the real cost is the 6 slots it's costing you. You're down 1x Verdict, 1x Timeless, 1x FoN, and you don't have a value engine PW (Teferi is only going to draw 1 per 4 turns). You're losing the ability to stabilize & the ability to get ahead after you've stabilized.
You're also missing Dress Down...and while that isn't a particularly good play vs DDFT's Daze playset, it's about as good as it's going to get. [If they ban Daze, it becomes much more reliable]

In terms of inefficient slots, the second Sevinne's should live in the SB and the maindeck slot should go to Burning Wish. We're always interested in going up on 2cmc plays; particularly ones we don't care about resolving (if they FoW, you just get it back with SCM later).

As far as the Saga vs SB goes, the only Saga-based card I really like in there is the Lotus Field (easy to find with Saga -> Map) juke to ignore Choke and Port. It also let's you ramp up the power if you want to, with cards you don't have to risk drawing if B Wish is in the main. Boiling Seas and Cataclysm seem fine if you've navigated the game into a Lotus Field.
Needle isn't really playable vs Ending decks, and even if you Needle name Saga you still have issues if they tutor up Retro. Cage doesn't stop you from getting dino-bashed, and it's unreliable vs Uro b/c of Ending.

Spikefield is still playable. Delver and DRC are both coming down as 1/1s, and exile starves them of delirium later. There is also Uro which goes straight to exile after first cast's sacrifice trigger. Remember also that an enemy Teferi player will likely respond to eteralized Timeless with playing Teferi & downtick, which conveniently puts Teferi on 1 loyalty. All of this on a card you can play as a land drop.
For all the issues UWr/UWR Standstill/Landstill has, the ability to support the third Dragon and include Spikefield remain the biggest unique payoffs: not ever getting mana screwed while both also have text while Standstill is in play.

We've been working at eliminating the mana variance for the better part of 20 years, so I don't like re-injecting it with Saga on principle. It also takes very few games with Daze picking up Tundra to realize that lost land drop strats don't end particularly well. There is however a lot of asymmetric shenanigans you can unlock with the Saga find Map -> Map find Lotus -> Burning Wish pathway. If we're adding Saga's variance, we need to see concomitant rise in power.
---
If I'm playing a list like yours, I'm cutting Saga #3, Teferi #3, Azcanta, Retro, Ending #3, and then moving stuff around.

Land (22 + 1)
4x Strand
4x Vista
3x Island
2x Plains
1x Mountain
2x Tundra
1x Plateau (or Triome, but prefer Plateau)
2x Saga
1x Karakas
1x Heliod
1x Lotus Field
1x Spikefield

Creatures (5)
3x Timeless
2x SCM

Spells (20)
4x FoW
4x BS
4x Plow
2x B Wish
2x Ending
2x FoN
1x Sevinne's
1x Verdict

Artifact/Enchant (8)
1x Map
1x yard hate*
4x Standstill
2x Shark'nado

PW (4)
2x Teferi
2x something**

SB:
3x REB effects
1x By Force
1x Verdict
1x Sevinne's
1x Ending (or CJ)
1x flex (probably Cataclysm)
1x Replenish or Humility
1x Clasm
1x Canonist
2x Alpine Moon (or split with E Tutor)
2x Surgical (or split with a Soul-Guide)

*would rather draw cards while hating their GY. Given Sevinne's focus, want to use own GY, and want for ongoing GY challenge I would play Phyrexian Furnace or Relic.
**I guess Nahiri Harbinger is still the best vs Pyroblast, even though she can't exile Kaldra... I at least like that you can't get got by Hullbreacher or Narset as the [+2] is a "may." There are worse things to blitz out than SCM or Dragon.

Still have the Dress Down problem vs slots. Almost at the point of cut Heliod, add 2x Dress Down and play 61.

[kombatkiwi]

The issue with Narset is that you need to have a second card like Court of Grace to cover long-term CA. Then you have this janky dies to Bolt/Pyroblast effect to cover the possibility that the opponent becomes the monarch.
1. I'm not at all convinced that having some kind of phyrexian arena effect is totally necessary, although I agree it's a reasonable suggestion, and 2. you still haven't suggested what card should provide that effect even though I specifically prompted you for this. Like are you suggesting I play maindeck court of grace? Or something else?

The threat of flash shark also makes casting monarch pretty awkward for the opponent I think. Narset is a good card, it's not just in the deck to shut down the opponent's monarch emblem.


As far as Saga goes, you are not at all covered by Dress Down. They could make zero constructs and you are still so screwed by Saga tutor Needle name Shark'nado if you deployed a Standstill, or are trying to deploy a Standstill without having Ending in hand at that exact moment.
If I have standstill in play and opp plays a saga, then the only realistic options to deal with it without giving my opponent 3 cards is something like boseiju their saga or wasteland their saga, and including those cards skews the construction of the deck way too much. In this situation there's no reason to consider the hypothetical of "even if the opponent doesn't make constructs" because why would they not? In most situations a dragon/shark token won't be able to race construct + shadowspear or construct + foundry, so I accept that my G1 vs saga is not very good, try not to cast SS vs them g1 and try to config the deck so that it can successfully play G2 and G3 while boarding standstills out OR by keeping them in and boarding into some moon or whatever


^scenarios like this or doing things like trying to play Replenish after the printing of Endurance are avoidable catastrophes. If you're walking into scenarios like this, you need to be changing Standstill to Iteration
Avoidable how? You haven't proposed any solution...
I 100% agree that "if standstill is backfiring against the meta too high % of the time then you should probably play EI instead" but where did anyone mention replenish?

Can you please figure out how to have a conversation like a normal human

[Fox]

Let's make this simple for you @kombatkiwi:
Saga could literally say nothing about making constructs at all, anywhere on the card. You'd still be screwed if you cast Standstill and they went Saga tutor Needle name Shark.

That is a massive deckbuilding error. It's equal to things like playing 4x Replenish main in a Standstill deck after Endurance was printed. You avoid this by not killing yourself at the point of deckbuilding, because you already know how you're getting blown out - and there ain't a damn thing you can draw to change any of this no matter how much you Ponder.

On Jayemdae Tome imitators: JTMS, Teferi 5cmc both have repeatable card draw. They also have the classic problem of dying to Pyroblast combined with not having a card to recur them; which is a structural deficit UWr Standstill decks cannot overcome with current card pool.

You have railroaded yourself into a deck without a real backup plan. If they effortlessly cut your Standstill angle, you have a Narset that can activate for a max of 2 cards, and a Teferi than can draw 1 card every 4 turns...and you are going to be stuck on these walkers after giving them 3 cards...and then what? You board out Standstill vs Saga decks and have one of the most anemic CA suites in legacy? What's the point of Pondering and stabilizing if you can't turn the corner?

The only way your style of deck works is b/c people are playing MindTwister (two banned cards rolled into one thanks to Narset passive + Day's). What they're doing with terrible CA + no ultimate PWs isn't real without banned effects. Never confuse Narset + Teferi Pw suite as being independently viable.

[kombatkiwi]

Again I agree with you that standstill matches up badly vs Saga and that I acknowledge that is a weakness with the way that the maindeck is configured

My answer is "I am okay with this problem G1 because I think standstill is a good pick vs the rest of the meta and I can fix the issue in the bad matchups after sideboarding"

Your answer is "just build your deck better 4head" -------> but how?


Avoidable how? You haven't proposed any solution...


Can you please figure out how to have a conversation like a normal human

- Do you want to splash for Boseiju to kill my opp saga through a standstill
- Do you want to play wasteland to kill opp saga through a standstill
- Do you want to play maindeck alpine moon or some shit
- Do you want to play maindeck sagas in the list to battle straight up vs opposing saga
- Do you think the deck is actually unfixable and you're just being vague/annoying


On Jayemdae Tome imitators: JTMS, Teferi 5cmc both have repeatable card draw. They also have the classic problem of dying to Pyroblast combined with not having a card to recur them; which is a structural deficit UWr Standstill decks cannot overcome with current card pool.
Huh, it's almost like I also didn't put those cards in my deck for some deliberate reason. Perhaps you could suggest what you would do instead?


The only way your style of deck works is b/c people are playing MindTwister (two banned cards rolled into one thanks to Narset passive + Day's). What they're doing with terrible CA + no ultimate PWs isn't real without banned effects. Never confuse Narset + Teferi Pw suite as being independently viable.
I think there is probably more than a grain of truth to this (and I give you credit for managing to describe things in a relatively straightforward way for once) but again WHAT WOULD YOU DO INSTEAD??

Like from this shell, what would your deck look like:

Minimum 20 lands, 0 saga

4 Plow
4 Ending
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder (hard for you to accept I know, just consider it as a mental exercise in suboptimal deckbuilding)
4 Standstill
4 Force
2 FON
0 Burning Wish

+14 blanks for you to fill in

[FTW]

Stepping in to translate....


Again I agree with you that standstill matches up badly vs Saga and that I acknowledge that is a weakness with the way that the maindeck is configured

My answer is "I am okay with this problem G1 because I think standstill is a good pick vs the rest of the meta and I can fix the issue in the bad matchups after sideboarding"

Your answer is "just build your deck better 4head" -------> but how?

I think what Fox is saying is that by playing 4x Shark Typhoon (instead of 2 Shark 2 other wincon) and no lategame PW engines (Jace TMS, Big Teferi), you're losing even harder to lines like Saga -> Needle on Shark Typhoon, when Saga is already bad for you. You could mitigate that by playing fewer Sharks and diversifying threats. In general, 4 Shark seems excessive now with Timeless Dragons.

In situations like that, cards like Ponder and Narset can only dig deeper, but the rest of the deck has a lack of things worth digging into that would save you. If Shark is shut off, digging into more copies of Shark won't help. Maybe you could avoid that by shaving Narset and 1-2 Sharks for some other engine that can take over the game. Jace dies to REB, but maybe it would still be better? Jace can at least take over a game, while Narset just digs and disrupts a bit.

Fox, what do you think? Jace > Narset?



- Do you want to play maindeck sagas in the list to battle straight up vs opposing saga

That was my attempt, although Fox pointed out vulnerabilities with running Saga. It does take up a lot of space and compromises the mana / land drops.

[kombatkiwi]

Stepping in to translate....

I think what Fox is saying is that by playing 4x Shark Typhoon (instead of 2 Shark 2 other wincon) and no lategame PW engines (Jace TMS, Big Teferi), you're losing even harder to lines like Saga -> Needle on Shark Typhoon, when Saga is already bad for you. You could mitigate that by playing fewer Sharks and diversifying threats. In general, 4 Shark seems excessive now with Timeless Dragons.

In situations like that, cards like Ponder and Narset can only dig deeper, but the rest of the deck has a lack of things worth digging into that would save you. If Shark is shut off, digging into more copies of Shark won't help. Maybe you could avoid that by shaving Narset and 1-2 Sharks for some other engine that can take over the game. Jace dies to REB, but maybe it would still be better? Jace can at least take over a game, while Narset just digs and disrupts a bit.

Fox, what do you think? Jace > Narset?

In the situation where you have no standstill in play and they get needle off saga you can just Prismatic Ending the Needle or bounce it with Teferi. The problem is that it doesn't matter what kind of diversified threat package you play in a situation where you DO have a standstill in play and your opponent plays a saga. If you have Jace in the deck instead of Narset you are still boned there regardless. Fox is acting like the Saga-Under-Standstill problem is some serious yet fixable flaw, but is not really giving any indication of how he would go about addressing it.

I think I would always play 4 Shark before the first Dragon, I'm surprised you suggest to play a split (although I could agree that 6 total threats playable under standstill might be unnecessary / too many)



That was my attempt, although Fox pointed out vulnerabilities with running Saga. It does take up a lot of space and compromises the mana / land drops.
I agree with this, and while it might be possible to make it work it's not something I am currently interested in exploring

[FTW]

I think I would always play 4 Shark before the first Dragon, I'm surprised you suggest to play a split (although I could agree that 6 total threats playable under standstill might be unnecessary / too many)

Shark is pretty bad on turn 2-3. Dragon fixes mana so it's never dead. Shark's amazing late game, but wouldn't you rather only see it late than draw too many copies early? That was my rationale for a split instead of 4 copies.

If you commit too much to Shark, like Fox said, it does also open you out to being hated out by Needle.



The problem is that it doesn't matter what kind of diversified threat package you play in a situation where you DO have a standstill in play and your opponent plays a saga. If you have Jace in the deck instead of Narset you are still boned there regardless.

Unless you have the PW in play before dropping Standstill. Then having a PW that can control the game could matter.

Or you might be forced to crack your own Standstill to beat their Saga board. If so, a card like Jace can actually dig you out of the hole. With only cards like Narset and Ponder, you're basically never coming back, there's no way to make up the card disadvantage, so you're boned whether you try to disrupt Saga or not.


If I'm playing a list like yours, I'm cutting Saga #3, Teferi #3, Azcanta, Retro, Ending #3, and then moving stuff around.

I like the Burning Wish package and spending less space on Saga. Is Azcanta really not good enough, even with the other GY interactions?

Is Dress Down that essential to fight Doomsday-Thassa?

What do you think about Jace or Dack Fayden in the PW slot? Is losing to Pyroblast too much? Gideon?

[Fox]

@kombatkiwi
This is what UWr/UWR has going for it: highly uninteractive, low variance mana progression. It's so good that it's actually difficult to lose a game to mana screw - in a deck with no Ponder.
This is the problem: you can't turn that mana into a reliable CA engine, and you can't gain life profitably (so you never escape having to throw blue cards away to counter Bolt).

Now if you add Ponder, you gain nothing you weren't already overloaded on [mana reliability]...which leaves less space to deal with the problem areas. If you add Saga, like @FTW was thinking, you compromise the mana security (and then there are also slot issues).

After all of that, you still have to give up 2 slots to Dress Down for Thassa...and this is kind of okay b/c it wipes constructs, and you just Ending the thing they tutor. The weak point is always going to be Saga finding Needle under Standstill if you're mono-cropping on Shark'nado. So there is a Saga issue you have to solve, and part of it can be having Otawara to bounce your own Standstill, in a deck with 6x Force effects (you pitch the Standstill you just picked up here), and adjusting your gameplan to a different strategy.

We can continue the scenario and credit the opponent with a Saga, and you should have a pretty easy FoW; now it's time for you to attack on a different angle and turn the corner. You probably don't have 6 mana to hardcast Shark. You are not going to get there by cycling some small Sharks after killing their Needle. You have a wrath that will resolve, that's a good thing. Now you need to turn the corner...except your PWs are both unable to do this. Now would you have a shot to turn the corner with a JTMS or 5cmc Teferi? Probably not. What if it was Nahiri? Probably not...but as long as your only counteroffensive plan wasn't just a flaccid Teferi + Narset, there would be an amount of games you could win.

^The key to solving the hostile Saga problem is knowing how to navigate the puzzle:
What happened -> did the tools in your decklist allow you to pivot -> is there a real gameplan after the pivot.

Edit: It's not particularly challenging to target Saga if you have solved the puzzles it creates. You seem to want a quick fix @kombatkiwi, but the answer is that your deck's foundation is flawed. Ponder will not find a card that covers the fact that you've got no comprehensive plan for Saga starting at game 1...and that Ponder is going to reveal more cards that can't help you out of that scenario. You will see Plows and Endings and FoWs and Teferi and Narset alongside your Standstills in your top 3. At best, these can buy time...but that's pointless if you don't have a comprehensive/systematic way to say "no" to Saga in an absolute fashion.
---
If you are looking at what the decklist looks like, just read up a few posts where I modified @FTW's list. I don't think Saga is really the answer in a UWr/UWR Standstill/Landstill deck, but I like my chances if I can at least play towards Lotus Field into a Burning Wish into a Cataclysm (all ignoring a Chalice on 1)...but...UWr/UWR still has primary deficits [having nothing to do with Saga] the card pool can't fix.

So when your question is "what UWr/UWR Standstill/Landstill list would be optimal" the final answer is: it's not playable b/c UBw Landstill, UR Dreadstill, and UW Dreadstill all run better win %s b/c they don't suffer from the primary deficits of UWr/UWR. The answer is also that Ponder is the absolute worst card to turn to in UWr/UWR [unless you don't actually want to play the card Standstill, and you want to learn the MindTwister deck before wotc wakes up and bans Echo & probably Day's...which is about as useful in the long run as learning to master Ragavan or Oko or Wrenn or DRS or Breach or Lurrus or DHA or DTT or TC or CounterTop].

The advantage of investing money and time Standstill-based decks is the decades-long stability and high resistance to being affected by FIRE design or power creep. So just scroll back a little in this thread until you find the UBw Landstill list, and add 2x Dress Down. Stop trying to reward UWr Narset/Day's cannons by playing their exact same deck, just worse, with the card Standstill. If you're not up to playing Dreadstill, it's time to tap 1UB and name Narset with Unmoored Ego, it's UBw Landstill time (and yes, you can name Saga too).

[kombatkiwi]

The weak point is always going to be Saga finding Needle under Standstill if you're mono-cropping on Shark'nado.
Opponent just playing a Saga under your standstill is always going to be a problem, I don't understand the hyperfixation on them tutoring needle with it


So there is a Saga issue you have to solve, and part of it can be having Otawara to bounce your own Standstill, in a deck with 6x Force effects (you pitch the Standstill you just picked up here), and adjusting your gameplan to a different strategy.
This is a reasonable answer to the question I have been asking but I don't think 1 Otawara is a consistent/reliable enough plan to "solve" the problem.


We can continue the scenario and credit the opponent with a Saga, and you should have a pretty easy FoW; now it's time for you to attack on a different angle and turn the corner. You probably don't have 6 mana to hardcast Shark. You are not going to get there by cycling some small Sharks after killing their Needle. You have a wrath that will resolve, that's a good thing. Now you need to turn the corner...except your PWs are both unable to do this. Now would you have a shot to turn the corner with a JTMS or 5cmc Teferi? Probably not. What if it was Nahiri? Probably not...but as long as your only counteroffensive plan wasn't just a flaccid Teferi + Narset, there would be an amount of games you could win.

Ok so I ask you what card would work and the answer is "Not Jace, not Teferi, and not Nahiri". amazing


Edit: It's not particularly challenging to target Saga if you have solved the puzzles it creates. You seem to want a quick fix @kombatkiwi, but the answer is that your deck's foundation is flawed. Ponder will not find a card that covers the fact that you've got no comprehensive plan for Saga starting at game 1...and that Ponder is going to reveal more cards that can't help you out of that scenario. You will see Plows and Endings and FoWs and Teferi and Narset alongside your Standstills in your top 3. At best, these can buy time...but that's pointless if you don't have a comprehensive/systematic way to say "no" to Saga in an absolute fashion.
Buy time to hardcast shark? It doesn't even sound unreasonable to me


If you are looking at what the decklist looks like, just read up a few posts where I modified @FTW's list. I don't think Saga is really the answer in a UWr/UWR Standstill/Landstill deck, but I like my chances if I can at least play towards Lotus Field into a Burning Wish into a Cataclysm (all ignoring a Chalice on 1)...but...UWr/UWR still has primary deficits [having nothing to do with Saga] the card pool can't fix.
Ok but by referring me to that list you are ignoring the 0 Saga 0 Burning Wish stipulation. You're never going to bring anyone on board with "play towards lotus field into burning wish into cataclysm"


So when your question is "what UWr/UWR Standstill/Landstill list would be optimal" the final answer is: it's not playable b/c UBw Landstill, UR Dreadstill, and UW Dreadstill all run better win %s b/c they don't suffer from the primary deficits of UWr/UWR. The answer is also that Ponder is the absolute worst card to turn to in UWr/UWR [unless you don't actually want to play the card Standstill, and you want to learn the MindTwister deck before wotc wakes up and bans Echo & probably Day's...which is about as useful in the long run as learning to master Ragavan or Oko or Wrenn or DRS or Breach or Lurrus or DHA or DTT or TC or CounterTop].
Just give me your ubw list then, most recent one is post 5408 in this thread, many of the points you make in that post seem to need re-examining post MH2 (not only adding 2 dressdown but also considering the fact that prismatic ending exists). Like if you think it's important to play Kaya over Narset (I don't even think this is a silly idea) you can just take a list like what I posted and switch the red mana for black. Playing Deluge and Dead of Winter in Murktide format seems super loose. Dropping Ending/Plow and playing Innocent Blood and Bloochief's Thirst just to support Drown 2x seems pretty silly. I'm not married to Jeskai but what is the core part of the esper deck's identity that you can't replicate in Jeskai? Kaya, Cling to Dust and Cranial Extraction?


The advantage of investing money and time Standstill-based decks is the decades-long stability and high resistance to being affected by FIRE design or power creep. So just scroll back a little in this thread until you find the UBw Landstill list, and add 2x Dress Down. Stop trying to reward UWr Narset/Day's cannons by playing their exact same deck, just worse, with the card Standstill. If you're not up to playing Dreadstill, it's time to tap 1UB and name Narset with Unmoored Ego, it's UBw Landstill time (and yes, you can name Saga too).

I don't think it's the same deck but worse, taking the good Jeskai cards and playing a Standstill package over the Hull/Day would appear to improve the delver matchup because you don't have:
1) a 3 mana dude that gets bolted
2) a 3 mana sorcery 'draw7' that you don't even really want to cast unless you have the other half of the A+B

Is this free? No, because there are matchups where standstill the card is bad. But due to the high% of delver in the meta it seems like a reasonable decision. Again if you think there is some particular black card(s) that are really important to pair with standstill then I think an Esper deck can be easily justifiable. What I think is a big(ger) leap is straying from the core of Ponder/Brainstorm/Force/Force/Plow/Ending

[FTW]

Tested out Fox's modified UWR. 4-0.


//Lands: 23
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Tundra
1 Plateau
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
1 Lotus Field
2 Urza's Saga
1 Spikefield Hazard

//Spells: 20
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Prismatic Ending
2 Burning Wish
2 Force of Negation
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 6
4 Standstill
2 Shark Typhoon

//Creatures: 5
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 4
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//Artifacts: 2
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Expedition Map

//Sideboard: 15
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 By Force
1 Pyroclasm
1 Cataclysm
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Prismatic Ending
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Alpine Moon
1 Humility
1 Ethersworn Canonist


GW Depths (2-0)
G1 I got lucky that they couldn't make a 2nd Marit Lage fast enough, still had to Wish for Verdict to stay alive.
G2 Humility shut down 1st Marit Lage (killed by Spikefield before they found a disenchant!). After Surgical on Stage, it was easy to pull ahead.

UR Delver (2-0)
Walkers died to Pyroblast and Bolts, but Saga & Sharks eventually got there. Lotus Field let me go greedy early. I embarrassed Murktides with Soul-Guide Lantern and Teferi bounce.

8cast (2-0)
Had to blow all my resources to keep threats off the board, but then came back from nowhere with Standstill -> Heliod -> return Standstill -> return Saga -> return Standstill -> return Saga -> etc
Did something similar in G2 with multiple Sharks

Storm Brew... lol (2-1)
G1 First loss! Wrecked by Defense Grid + Thoughtseize -> Infernal Tutor -> Peer -> Tendrils x 18 on turn 3
G2 slammed T2 Standstill, T3 cycle Dragon, T4 Dragon forcing them to play into Standstill quickly, and I drew enough counters.
G3 slammed T2 Standstill into Saga. Drew enough counters in time.

The deck ran smoothly. Losing a land drop to Saga isn't great, but I could usually sequence it to avoid manascrew and optimize mana usage (21 non-Saga lands + 3 Timeless).

I liked Jace, even though it died once to Pyroblast. Nahiri was harder for opponents to remove, but it did almost nothing. Not impressed.

A significant number of wins came from Saga (or Saga + Shark). The power level is high, perhaps enough to reward the variance. I missed Retrofitter, which allowed even bigger snowballs.
Saga -> 2 constructs -> Map -> Heliod -> Saga again -> more constructs -> Saga again -> more constructs
Saga -> 2 constructs -> Retrofitter -> Servos (making Constructs bigger)
Saga -> 2 constructs -> (opponent cracks Standstill) -> flashback Sevinne for Saga & Standstill -> constructs

Most of that is done without casting spells. Can be done with Standstill, while keeping hand loaded with interaction. The big thing is that you're not stuck on 1/1 dorks. There are lines to churn out more bodies and grow the constructs. They can chump block, keep off attackers, or go beatdown. Compared to the old Landstill with Factories, I found the Saga plan a lot more explosive and versatile. Saga could be hated out, but if they're boarding into Saga hate vs Landstill, they're still wide open to other lines of attack.

Lotus Field was strong in some matches, letting me be greedy vs Wasteland decks. It was a terrible draw early though. It also made midgame sequencing difficult, encouraging main phase tap outs and having to carefully plan which turn to go all-in on Lotus Field. I have mixed feelings about this card. I was never in a position where it made sense to go Lotus Field -> Burning Wish -> Cataclysm, because I could usually profit from keeping more lands out. Maybe it would come up in other game states when far behind.

I didn't get to abuse the Burning Wish package much, usually getting Sevinne's, but I could see how you'd need it to bail out of certain board states. That flexibility seems strong, especially when it can just grab Sevinne's or PEnding the rest of the time.

I still like Teferi. It can't pull you ahead in cards, but I missed having the Standstill+3feri lock as often. I relied heavily on Standstill to pull ahead. But that wasn't hard with Sevinne's and Heliod. In a couple games I made 4-6 Standstills.

[VolkswagonDragon]

Hi guys I would like to know if there was a Landstill discord ?

[Fox]

@FTW nice work on the 4-0. Just reading your report you're getting use out of the tools. The whole reason for B Wish is that there really isn't a better way to efficiently use 2 mana, and that's the mana value mainly being targeted in the hunt for playables. You waffle a little bit on different effects. I would keep the Lotus in; it's one slot and it shuts down Wasteland, Port, and allows the basically free option to cheese with Cataclysm.
On Retro, the card is just so awful vs Ending; at some point you have to say "I'm done losing a land and getting my constructs wiped by Dress Down into Ending the Retro" - at some point you have to be able to recover velocity.

Nahiri was really hurt by Prismatic Ending soft-banning Klothys from the format. Klothys was a diversity killer, mono-cropping decks onto itself as the payoff/top-end, generating a loses to Nahiri meta. It's also been harder to justify slots on Yidaro or a SB 13/13 Emmy for Nahiri ult. Unfortunately, Wandering Emporer was a flop, the card needed to read:
[+1] dude gets +1 power & lifelink until next turn.
[-1] dude
[-2] kill dude or exile kaldra + draw a card
Just kinda pointless to use blue PWs [outside Sevinne's range] for value right now...like I'd even play Emporer if it had that design above without flash.
---
@kombatkiwi Saga should not be a Saga surprise after an opponent takes their first turn as they should open with things like Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, Tomb, artifact land, Painter staples, etc. Against these, you should know not to play a Standstill on 2, and have a deck that wipes constructs [Verdict, Dress Down], deals with the tutor target [Ending, Kaya 3cmc if UBw], and has PWs/value pieces that take over the game (until hardcast Shark comes online).
If someone is playing slow, stealthy Saga they can't outpace Otawara bouncing your own Standstill. Having the Otawara isn't a reliable plan, but it's at least something for these corner cases.

Now there's all kinds of ways Saga games can go, but you absolutely must not be submitting a list that gets massacred by something so simple as Saga -> Needle quad laser Shark'nado. This is horrifically bad to have 8 cards (Standstill and Shark) clogging up hands. Regardless of what deck you play in legacy, avoid 8-dead-carding yourself. You have to set the bar higher for a Saga user to one-shot you with dead card variance - we do not yolo with 4x Sharks. Add different card names, e.g. Timeless, Otawara, Saga, etc.

On the recursive, or non-blue, payoff permanent for UWr, it doesn't exist at this time. This plus no playable lifegain is the problem with UWr. We are in a holding pattern. We know exactly what the card needs to do. We will identify it the second it is spoiled and buy it before modern catches on ruins the price. But yes, this is why despite the amazing mana of UWr, it's the least competitive of the serious Standstill-using decks.

On UBw Landstill, got zero problems gaining tons of life. Have lost 1 match to Murktide, and the only reason is that I didn't pay 13 for Deluge, which would have won. Murktide existing has vastly improved Standstill's meta position, b/c Standstill is built to not die to Goyf. You best believe I will Deluge with impunity vs Bolt-Delver on the back of Cling, Kaya, and Rider + kill spells that put dudes in the Cling zone. DRC is also a joke when it comes to pressuring life total vs UBw; nothing makes me happier than obliterating Daze with land drops at the low low cost of 1 life per turn.

Saga is certainly an annoyance for UBw, but it plays Wasteland and it's not hard to change Ending to March (we still have PW kill spells). So again it's just a question of what 2 things get cut for the 2x Dress Down. MH2 has failed to generate changes more significant than this. Main thing this deck was waiting on was the inevitable Ragavan ban. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3736016#online

[FTW]

On Retro, the card is just so awful vs Ending; at some point you have to say "I'm done losing a land and getting my constructs wiped by Dress Down into Ending the Retro" - at some point you have to be able to recover velocity.

What if I just board it out / don't tutor it vs Bant midrange or UW Dreadstill, but use it against other decks? The majority of Legacy decks don't run the combo of Dress Down + Prismatic Ending. If you see an opponent on that deck, it's easy to pivot to Map to avoid the land loss. There are other matchups where Saga into Retrofitter is strong at grinding out uncounterable bodies that overwhelm their spot removal. Just the existence of it in the deck forces them to play into Standstill quickly, especially a T2 Standstill. Otherwise there's less pressure on them to play into Standstill (takes a while for Shark or Dragon beatdown). That's the biggest benefit I found. I could jam Standstills aggressively because Saga forces action, even moreso than Factory used to.

I think the vulnerability you're talking about lies in decks that lean too heavily on 4x Saga with Retrofitter as the primary target (then Shadowspear or Needle). That's not happening here. If opponent concentrates all their resources into shutting down Saga + Retrofitter, that's such a small part of this deck's game plan. You can pivot around it, then board out Retrofitter.

A trick I used 1 game is to sacrifice Saga to Lotus Field after making 1 Construct, so you don't actually go down a land, but still get a free body out of it. Then Lotus Field powers out both casts of Sevinne's... many options possible.



Nahiri was really hurt by Prismatic Ending soft-banning Klothys from the format. Klothys was a diversity killer, mono-cropping decks onto itself as the payoff/top-end, generating a loses to Nahiri meta. It's also been harder to justify slots on Yidaro or a SB 13/13 Emmy for Nahiri ult.

Was Nahiri chosen to answer things like Klothys (exile enchantment) and Kaldra? 3feri bounce on germ also answers Kaldra well (and most Kaldra decks don't run Pyroblast). PEnding answers Klothys and other things that need to be exiled.

I found opponent can play around Nahiri by just not tapping creatures into it unless they have lethal. Then all you can do is +2 Rummage, which is a bit underwhelming for the investment of a 4cmc walker. One game I had a Nahiri on 12 counters that neither of us cared about.

Jace is more fragile, but at least did relevant things while it was out: Brainstorm into gas before dying, fateseal lock combo player, bounce Murktide (lol). I see Jace's weaknesses you've pointed out, but I'm not convinced a 2nd Nahiri is actually an improvement. Is there anything else?

In UWB, what walkers do you run other than Teferi? Kaya?

[kombatkiwi]

@kombatkiwi Saga should not be a Saga surprise after an opponent takes their first turn as they should open with things like Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, Tomb, artifact land, Painter staples, etc. Against these, you should know not to play a Standstill on 2, and have a deck that wipes constructs [Verdict, Dress Down], deals with the tutor target [Ending, Kaya 3cmc if UBw], and has PWs/value pieces that take over the game (until hardcast Shark comes online).
If someone is playing slow, stealthy Saga they can't outpace Otawara bouncing your own Standstill. Having the Otawara isn't a reliable plan, but it's at least something for these corner cases.
The issue is not that the opponent goes turn 1 reveal Yorion plains Mom, or turn 1 Emry or whatever, then I play standstill and my opponent plays Saga and I'm like "oh no how could I have seen that coming"; I agree that it's generally obvious very early which decks have saga in them. The issue is that from turn 1 once you know you are playing against these decks your primary card advantage tool essentially becomes an uncastable brick. This seems like a significant problem. Then as you say, some rogue decks might surprise you with a "slow" saga and your only barely-reasonable out is the 1 Otawara which doesn't sound great either.

My point was that it seems theres no way to build the deck that fully avoids this problem, despite your suggestion/implication otherwise. Vs the decks where you know they have Saga then you need "more brainstorm" to trade in your dead standstills for playable cards but cards like Lat Nams Legacy or Thirst For Meaning etc kind of suck. Against the surprise saga there aren't (any?) other Otawara-like cards you can play so the only reasonable approach is to play copies of wasteland and hope that you can waste their saga before it ticks up and kill them with shark/dragon before they find more, which is okay I guess but not a perfect solution by any means


Now there's all kinds of ways Saga games can go, but you absolutely must not be submitting a list that gets massacred by something so simple as Saga -> Needle quad laser Shark'nado. This is horrifically bad to have 8 cards (Standstill and Shark) clogging up hands. Regardless of what deck you play in legacy, avoid 8-dead-carding yourself. You have to set the bar higher for a Saga user to one-shot you with dead card variance - we do not yolo with 4x Sharks. Add different card names, e.g. Timeless, Otawara, Saga, etc.
This aspect seems overblown. The deck has quite a few ways to kill a needle (Tef Bounce or Ending / March), if you anticipate needle coming then you can just cycle Shark for minimum 2 mana to get it out of your hand, and even if you can't answer needle you can just play toward 6 mana and hardcast the Shark. If you were relying on the Shark to win through your Standstill, and then you got saga-needled, and now you can't answer the needle without giving opp 3 cards and you also can't cycle shark then I agree, you are fucked, but you were already fucked when the opp played a Saga into your onboard Standstill. It would still be really bad for you if your opponent ends up with 2 Karnstruct + e.g. Shadowspear instead of needle. I don't understand the panic about needle specifically.


On the recursive, or non-blue, payoff permanent for UWr, it doesn't exist at this time. This plus no playable lifegain is the problem with UWr. We are in a holding pattern. We know exactly what the card needs to do. We will identify it the second it is spoiled and buy it before modern catches on ruins the price. But yes, this is why despite the amazing mana of UWr, it's the least competitive of the serious Standstill-using decks.
I don't know that I necessarily agree with the conclusion but the premise is reasonable


On UBw Landstill, got zero problems gaining tons of life. Have lost 1 match to Murktide, and the only reason is that I didn't pay 13 for Deluge, which would have won. Murktide existing has vastly improved Standstill's meta position, b/c Standstill is built to not die to Goyf. You best believe I will Deluge with impunity vs Bolt-Delver on the back of Cling, Kaya, and Rider + kill spells that put dudes in the Cling zone. DRC is also a joke when it comes to pressuring life total vs UBw; nothing makes me happier than obliterating Daze with land drops at the low low cost of 1 life per turn.
I agree totally with the "standstill built not to die to goyf" comment but having your removal be almost universally terrible vs murktide seems concerning. (Edict bad if they have the 1/1 DRC, Thirst cost 3, Winter can't hit it, Ending can't hit it, Deluge so much life, Drown also awkward)

Overall I can see the usefulness of Cling/Kaya but I still think I would build toward UWb instead of UBw. Moving from Bloodchiefs Thirst / Innocent Blood to Plow / Ending and playing Verdict over the black sweepers feels like an upgrade, Drown doesn't excite me either

[Fox]

The issue with UWb is that black really doesn't have anything going for it as a tertiary color:
-You're not going to skip Verdict to pick up black's fast, color un-intensive 3cmc wrath.
-You're not able to use Cling effectively vs UBw where it is a reasonable way for black mana to find blue (in the same way that Timeless allows white to find blue).
-Unconditional PW kill spells are going to require double black pips, so that's out (stuck on Ending maxing out at 3 colors).
-You lose the best mana-requiring counterspell in the format (Drown). Really bad idea to aggro out a basic Swamp on turn 2, and even worse to lose on the spot by grabbing early Usea into death to Wasteland. You're also exiling everything with white spells, which is not a combo.
-Can't use CTP. Colonnade is not playable. No longer able to be Landstill.
-Not gaining any non-Pyroblast'able value engine. Loss of Karn, loss of SB space to REBs.

In UBw I already have the only good white spells, and these start on 3 mana. Ending can come down earlier ofc, but the only proactive spells in white are Sevinne's, Teferi, and Kaya. On UWb I would at least keep Kaya, but it's not like there is a great WB value engine at 4 mana. I don't think 5cmc Kaya is really the answer either. It's definitely cool to have Timeless Dragon and more generically reliable removal, but it really is just being done so I can play a 1x Kaya 3cmc + 1x Cling (at most) in the main, and 2x Plague Engi and 2x Unmoored Ego in the side. REB effects and Spikefield are going win more games, and the tiny black splash won't fix the lifegain nor the value engine problems.

I get that Plow/Ending/Verdict feel safer/less polarized than a UB-focused removal package, but you have nothing to play towards with the UW focus if the matchup doesn't favor casting Standstill. A UB focus has no issue stabilizing the board over and over and over, then transitioning to a late game win by Kaya-cannon or total mana denial/prison by Karn. Meanwhile UW is just like "I can hardcast Sharks..." which is still a line in UBx.

In UWr you're not going to find a hard answer to Saga, but you are able to "dance" around the problem with Wastelands, maybe some March, some SB Alpine Moons, not getting variance 1-shot'd by Needle naming quad Shark (b/c Standstills are almost certainly dead)...but at some point you need to divert mana into a real gameplan better than "I'll hardcast Shark and somehow get there." Adding a black splash to UW isn't really going to fix this. If your "value engines" are Teferi and Narset, you've died at deck construction.
---
@FTW remember you can ult Nahiri to pull out a SCM or a Dragon, both of which go back to hand and can generate value. Nahiri has significant wording issues and cannot downtick to exile Kaldra. The only playable card in legacy that actually kills Kaldra is March for x=7; otherwise you need a Stifle and the opponent has to go for a foolish flicker effect. Doesn't help that wotc "made legacy better" by taking away the indirect phasing + token exiled axis of interaction; the format is poorer for this exceptionally shortsighted update. Back to the value stuff, there really isn't anything from white or red. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame + Path of Mettle + Humility is sweet, but is more fun than good. Gideon and flash-Gideon (Wandering Emporer) just aren't good enough. Chandra, ToD has similar problems: we don't care about how it tries to win. We're not making progress by attacking life totals with 2/2s or shocks. For all the flaws, Nahiri is the most 1-card combo'ish and still feeds into the wincon method.

[FTW]

@FTW remember you can ult Nahiri to pull out a SCM or a Dragon, both of which go back to hand and can generate value.

I don't remember the exact details, but I'm pretty sure the board position was such that -8 for Dragon would have left Nahiri dead to attacks. I already had a Dragon in the graveyard and a plan to win that game, so suiciding Nahiri for 1 creature seemed unnecessary. In other hypothetical game states I could sacrifice Nahiri to get Dragon or SCM, but at that point why not have Nahiri just be a different wincon? It was a good example of how often Nahiri can be a "do nothing".

Maybe I just haven't gotten to cast it into a tapped Murktide/Griselbrand/Uro yet to really appreciate it. Before Prismatic Ending, I could see how exiling artifacts and enchantments would be useful. But Plow + Prismatic + Snapcaster is already plenty of exile removal, and now there's March too.


Nahiri has significant wording issues and cannot downtick to exile Kaldra.

Oh right. The creature isn't Vigilant, but the equipment stays untapped. Even worse then. If it could remove Kaldra, that would be a big point in its favor. With Klothys seeing less play, what is Nahiri for then?




Back to the value stuff, there really isn't anything from white or red. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame + Path of Mettle + Humility is sweet, but is more fun than good. Gideon and flash-Gideon (Wandering Emporer) just aren't good enough. Chandra, ToD has similar problems: we don't care about how it tries to win. We're not making progress by attacking life totals with 2/2s or shocks. For all the flaws, Nahiri is the most 1-card combo'ish and still feeds into the wincon method.

What about Keranos, God of Storms? Only Pyroblastable on the stack, which is easier to play around. Enchantment type has synergy with Heliod & ETutor. Pitches to Force.

Wandering Emperor's flash can at least exile Marit Lage, Murktide, Kaldra token, Griselbrand etc. before they deal combat damage. With Nahiri you have to take the hit first.


In UWr you're not going to find a hard answer to Saga

My point was that it seems theres no way to build the deck that fully avoids this problem, despite your suggestion/implication otherwise. Vs the decks where you know they have Saga then you need "more brainstorm" to trade in your dead standstills for playable cards but cards like Lat Nams Legacy or Thirst For Meaning etc kind of suck.

March of Otherworldly Light? If Saga and higher cmc permanents are a big enough problem to remove, why not swap some Prismatics for March?

[kombatkiwi]

The issue with UWb is that black really doesn't have anything going for it as a tertiary color:
-You're not going to skip Verdict to pick up black's fast, color un-intensive 3cmc wrath.
-You're not able to use Cling effectively vs UBw where it is a reasonable way for black mana to find blue (in the same way that Timeless allows white to find blue).
-Unconditional PW kill spells are going to require double black pips, so that's out (stuck on Ending maxing out at 3 colors).
-You lose the best mana-requiring counterspell in the format (Drown). Really bad idea to aggro out a basic Swamp on turn 2, and even worse to lose on the spot by grabbing early Usea into death to Wasteland. You're also exiling everything with white spells, which is not a combo.
-Can't use CTP. Colonnade is not playable. No longer able to be Landstill.
-Not gaining any non-Pyroblast'able value engine. Loss of Karn, loss of SB space to REBs.
This kind of summarizes the reasons why black doesn't impress me as a secondary colour either. Your argument is that you get
1) Reliably casting cling early
2) Drown
3) Tarpit
None of those things seem like very big attractions, then:
4) "Unconditional PW kill spells" (not even true that they require double black pips, you could just play Vindicate or the new uncounterable UBW one)
5) "Unpyroblastable value engine" Can't any build of the deck play Karn? ("loss of SB space to reb" doesn't make sense here because we're comparing it to UWb, not jeskai)


In UBw I already have the only good white spells, and these start on 3 mana. Ending can come down earlier ofc,
I feel like Ending/Verdict are pretty important


it really is just being done so I can play a 1x Kaya 3cmc + 1x Cling (at most) in the main, and 2x Plague Engi and 2x Unmoored Ego in the side. REB effects and Spikefield are going win more games, and the tiny black splash won't fix the lifegain nor the value engine problems.
I mostly agree with this characterisation of the limited utility of UWb but I still feel like UWr has more upside than UBw


but you have nothing to play towards with the UW focus if the matchup doesn't favor casting Standstill. A UB focus has no issue stabilizing the board over and over and over, then transitioning to a late game win by Kaya-cannon or total mana denial/prison by Karn. Meanwhile UW is just like "I can hardcast Sharks..." which is still a line in UBx.
I just don't find this argument very convincing (that against matchups where standstill is bad you are saved by having Karn/Kaya)
The point about hardcasting sharks is that if that is a sufficient plan then you wouldn't need e.g. Karn. It's not to say that it is an option exclusive to UWx


In UWr you're not going to find a hard answer to Saga, but you are able to "dance" around the problem with Wastelands, maybe some March, some SB Alpine Moons, not getting variance 1-shot'd by Needle naming quad Shark (b/c Standstills are almost certainly dead)...but at some point you need to divert mana into a real gameplan better than "I'll hardcast Shark and somehow get there." Adding a black splash to UW isn't really going to fix this. If your "value engines" are Teferi and Narset, you've died at deck construction.
It's not clear to me how UBw solves this problem either


March of Otherworldly Light? If Saga and higher cmc permanents are a big enough problem to remove, why not swap some Prismatics for March?
If you don't have Standstill in play then you have lots of options, you can March the saga or Dressdown the constructs or Prismatic Ending the 1 mana artifact etc. The problem I was describing is that vs a Saga deck what are you planning to do with your 'uncastable' standstills, or what are you planning to do that lets you respond to your opponent's saga when you already have standstill in play? March doesn't help with this.

If the main problem with Jeskai is supposedly lack of lifegain and lack of non-Pyroable value engine (these concerns seem reasonable to me) I'm surprised that Wandering Emperor is categorically "not good enough"

[Fox]

Cling is free/random maindeck yard hate, plus it helps black mana find blue, and it is a non-Pyroblast'able value engine. It is as important to black as Timeless is to white. These are Daze killers, which make them the most valuable type of cards in the format. It's important to understand how catastrophic it is for Delver to put anything in their yard on turn 1 (so like a Fetchland), because I'm going to go Daze hunting with Cling. If they fail to comply by strip mining themselves off their first land drop (massacring their ability to cast Iteration any time soon), then I'm drawing extra towards lands to ensure Daze remains dead and they are crippled in the hunt for delirium and delve 5. It also exiles Uro.

But remember, no matter how amazing Cling is, the only decent proactive play that entire color will give you mainboard is Kaya 3cmc...and if black is the tertiary color, there is no way you can safely & reliably build early towards the only mana-requiring counterspell worth playing in this format (Drown).

On Creeping Tarpit, the main challenge in all Standstill decks was sitting around for years, sometimes decades, waiting for colored mana on not 3x Factory. The win percentage you generate by dropping the 3x Factory for the 2x better mana manland is significant. The mana CTP can fix while acting as a game action threat is incredibly valuable, so much so that we'll play 2x despite the etb tapped part.

I would not compare simple PW kill spells to cards with lifelink on the back end of Rider (remember lifegain is a fundamental deficit of UWr). Nor would I compare a 1 mana kill spell (Bloodchief's) to 3 mana cards which are either counterable or have heavy color requirements.

If you are on UWr/UWR Standstill/Landstill with Karn, you've got a lot of bad matchups and that lifegain problem. When you start tallying, it becomes readily apparent that you're playing crappy UW Dreadstill or crappy UBw Landstill. Choosing the less winning shell is meme'ing; it is neither serious nor competitive.

On Ending/Verdict, they're very good spells...but they aren't proactive...and you can't really trust blue for proactive beyond 2cmc b/c of Pyroblast. You get to 3cmc and blue (Teferi) and you need the backup by not-blue (Sevinne's) to get away with that in this format. Otherwise you're not making competitive choices. There is maybe some competitive higher cmc blue PW stuff you can do if you have the black channel land doing a Sevinne's impersonation...but again that's a black land putting you on black as the secondary color, not tertiary.
---
Some minor points:
-if UWr changes Ending to March, they don't have the backup PW kill spells UBw has. You're creating a new problem for yourself.
-Plow/Ending is pretty safe and consistent, but it's also one-dimensional. UB-based removal has higher highs and lower lows, but it is multi-dimensional. They're both competitive removal packages, it's just that UBw doesn't have lifegain problems, nor as many Pyroblast problems as UWr; so there just isn't a good followup after you take the safe white removal package.
-on Wandering Emporer, if you ult you gain 2 life and have to wait 2 turns to do anything that impacts the board. The kill mode needs to draw a card and the lifegain has to be at least as good as Solitude each turn. In either case there is no value engine, which is what the slot needed to provide.

[FTW]

-on Wandering Emporer, if you ult you gain 2 life and have to wait 2 turns to do anything that impacts the board. The kill mode needs to draw a card and the lifegain has to be at least as good as Solitude each turn. In either case there is no value engine, which is what the slot needed to provide.

Wandering Emperor's ult gains 2+X life (X is power of attacking creature), since it can interrupt combat. That's a big deal for creatures like Murktide, Kaldra, Kappa, Constructs, Uro, Griselbrand, Emrakul, or Marit Lage. That could be 7 or more life. Even killing DRC/Delver is 5 life.

With Nahiri's exile ability you have to take the attack first (0 life gained vs X+2 life), then make Nahiri at sorcery speed and pass with Nahiri on 2 counters. That leaves Nahiri dead to anything else on board, trading 1-for-1 & 2 life. To use the removal you had to allow the attack and only got to do 1 thing.

Emperor cannot be attacked the combat you flash it, so it will probably survive no matter what opponent has on board. Then you untap and activate a 2nd loyalty ability before Emperor is vulnerable to attacks. 2 abilities in a row. If it would die to board, you can suicide to make a 2/2 (still 2-for-1 & gain X+2 life). If opponent has nothing else on board or you want to gain more life by diverting attacks, you +1 back up to 2 counters for long-term value. Either way you get options. Flash makes the card much better.

Emperor's other mode is ambushing a dork as a flash 2/2, then you attack back as 3/3 first strike vigilance. It's a pseudo-hasty Rogue Elephant vs enemy walkers.

Is that as good a value engine as Kaya or Jace (outside Pyro matches)? Of course not. But I don't see how it's worse than a 2nd Nahiri. Between the life and 2/2s, Emperor has a bigger impact on stabilizing. Nahiri's + ability is not a value engine. It doesn't generate free cards, just card selection, and Rummage is much worse than Loot. Many times I have opted to not dig, because my hand was already decent and a random card could make it worse.



If you are on UWr/UWR Standstill/Landstill with Karn, you've got a lot of bad matchups and that lifegain problem. When you start tallying, it becomes readily apparent that you're playing crappy UW Dreadstill or crappy UBw Landstill. Choosing the less winning shell is meme'ing; it is neither serious nor competitive.

What about Karn, Scion of Urza? Non-pyroblastable. Draws cards. Makes bodies. Doesn't take up SB space or look like a bad Dreadstill copy.

Another non-Pyroblastable value engine is Urza's Saga+Heliod. In my limited games with your build and my old build, Saga snowballs got me a lot of wins. Recurring Saga is a significant long-term threat and plays well with Standstill. The main answer is Wasteland, but you can Saga->Needle @ Wasteland, Surgical @ Wasteland, or use Sevinne's to keep bringing the lands back. Opponent could choose to fight harder on that axis, but you can pivot without having committed many resources. Saga also improves your options vs opposing Sagas, since you can out-value them if they refuse to crack Standstill. I want to test this out more. UWr may be the best color combo to pull this off, due to the more stable mana.



If you don't have Standstill in play then you have lots of options, you can March the saga or Dressdown the constructs or Prismatic Ending the 1 mana artifact etc. The problem I was describing is that vs a Saga deck what are you planning to do with your 'uncastable' standstills, or what are you planning to do that lets you respond to your opponent's saga when you already have standstill in play? March doesn't help with this.

If you have Standstill in play and opponent plays Saga (and you're on a non-Saga UWr build with slow threats like Shark and Dragon), then you have the following options:
a) Scoop cards. 0% win rate.
b) Don't cast spells and let Constructs + Saga target kill you. 0% win rate.
c) Cast a spell to disrupt Saga, cracking your own Standstill. 20-30% win rate.

None of the cards mentioned by you or Fox help A or B. So we're really talking about C in game 1, before boarding out Standstill. You slammed Standstill, opponent played Saga, much regret. At this stage giving opponent free cards still beats scooping to Saga, so you want ways to help come back in this game down cards. Control can still stabilize after falling behind cards (unlike the 1-for-1 decks). Your odds are bad, but not impossible. March is a clean 1-mana instant speed answer that prevents the tutor target and both Constructs, setting them back 1 land. Answering the Constructs and tutor target separately (Dress Down + PEnding, Verdict + Needle) costs more resources and makes it that much harder to stay in the game. Fox's argument about planeswalkers is a bigger point against March. But maybe some 2/2 or 3/1 split isn't a bad idea? March answers a few things that PEnding doesn't.

Value engines also helps you come back. Narset doesn't really, though it at least disrupts the draw 3 if you have to crack Standstill. I wouldn't trust Nahiri to save me.




On Creeping Tarpit, the main challenge in all Standstill decks was sitting around for years, sometimes decades, waiting for colored mana on not 3x Factory. The win percentage you generate by dropping the 3x Factory for the 2x better mana manland is significant. The mana CTP can fix while acting as a game action threat is incredibly valuable, so much so that we'll play 2x despite the etb tapped part.

In UW(r) Landstill circa 2010ish, I played Celestial Colonnade. It quickly became too slow for the format, but there were clear advantages to having manlands tap as duals instead of colorless. Evasion helped too. I can see why Tar Pit would be good in UBw.

Have you ever tested Shambling Vent (life gain) or Wandering Fumarole (un-Boltable 4/1) over the years? They're probably too weak, but just curious.

[Reeplcheep]

Urza’s saga is a core legacy card and your strategy fundamentally is weak to it. Like 12 post and wasteland (quad needle) or legacy lantern and brainstorm (quad chains?). You need many real answers to it before it makes sense to talk about anything else.

I might be out of the loop, but why are we not playing BANT-plenish? Collosal Skyturtle and Boseiju, Who Endures seems to be the most maindeckable ways of answering the card. Replenish is a big, non-blue must answer card. And skyturtle/shark typhoon/hall of heliod seems like a very resilient engine.

I like wandering emperor. Land still has Eot’d snap plow for a long time after the opponent cracks it, and this is the same thing but a bigger threat and not blastable.

[Reeplcheep]

Probably too weak, but Touch the Spirit Realm is another possible include.

[FTW]

The green stuff is hard to support in UWg.

UGw is an option. Boseiju, Skyturtle, Sylvan Library. The mana seems harder to support white removal and Timeless Dragon, which could be a stability issue. Fox?

Green does offer more planeswalker value options that dodge Pyroblast. Calix, Destiny's Hand? Nissa? Garruk? Wrenn and Seven?

Would that just be a worse version of Bant, when Bant gets to run Uro?

In UWr the answers are Alpine Moon, Blood Moon, March, Wasteland, Surgical Extraction, Dress Down, or own Urza's Saga -> Needle @ Saga OR Map -> Heliod -> more Saga.
Does black offer better answers?

[Reeplcheep]

I think you can afford a lot more basics in UWg than bant can. You can always play the first boseiju out as a green source for the next ones, and you are only using the regrowth ability of turtle in the lategame. Whereas uro really wants 2 green sources ASAP.

Replenish is also a lot stronger against specifically surgical and red blast than uro is, which is what delver uses to combat it.

[Fox]

The thing is that Wandering Emporer is 4 mana, so it's the same card as Nahiri on 4 mana (dead to Daze). Have to wait 1 more turn on Emporer to hit 5th land, and their attacking dude is tapped, so you're main-phasing Emporer just as you would the Nahiri to downtick and kill.
When you look at the rest of these two walkers you note that Nahiri downtick murders Saga (you're free to cast Standstill and let them play all the Sagas they want to), has wider targets, can shape hand, and can tutor SCM to imitate the downtick of Emporer. If someone plays Saga and threatens to make constructs, good luck shutting that down with Emporer (i.e. good luck having Emporer in play and ever being able to cast Standstill on top of it).
Nahiri will create more issues for an Uro midrange, Grixis Jammy Jams, and UWr MindTwister than making 2/2s into opponents who will have hands full of creature kill spells which lacked targets up to that point. Nahiri can also tutor up legends, which combine with Karakas to punish kill spell users. It's not much of a deckbuilding cost to add 1x Yidaro for instance.

On Karn Scion, it's bad against Delver. Daze problems, and the payoff is you get a 1/1 and it dies to Bolt, yay. Like you've noted, Saga is basically the same thing, just better, faster, less interactive, and recursive (Heliods, Sevinne's).

Shambling Vent is double off-color, so it may as well tap for colorless. Manlands like this increase mulligans. Fumarole costs way to much to animate + has no protection. UR Dreadstill is much more aggressive than any other Standstill deck, and cannot afford to lose the early tempo of a tapped land that won't improve any matchup.

[Fox]

I think you can afford a lot more basics in UWg than bant can. You can always play the first boseiju out as a green source for the next ones, and you are only using the regrowth ability of turtle in the lategame. Whereas uro really wants 2 green sources ASAP.

Replenish is also a lot stronger against specifically surgical and red blast than uro is, which is what delver uses to combat it.

Competitive legacy is key. There is a card called Endurance, and it cannot be ignored. The only correct way to play Replenish is to Burning Wish for the 1x - preferably with Teferi in play. There is no UWG Replenishing, you need 4c at this time.

[Reeplcheep]

I don’t see where you are seeing all these endurance’s. The top tables are delver, jeskai, 8cast and reanimator. You don’t need to commit to the replenish, you can bait with hall of heliod until you force action.

[FTW]

I don’t see where you are seeing all these endurance’s. The top tables are delver, jeskai, 8cast and reanimator. You don’t need to commit to the replenish, you can bait with hall of heliod until you force action.

Endurance is just one. Replenish still walks harder into all grave hate in a format that has to be prepared for T1 Grief-Griselbrand or T1 Oops into Thassa.

You commit by having -1 hand size all game. That's avoidable with the Wishboard. You don't have to lose a card to Replenish until you force a state where Replenish would be profitable (Wish can be converted into PEnding or Sevinne or trade with a counter for less mana than 3W). Heliod + Sevinne shenanigans are easier to play around hate without committing as much, and Heliod is usually already enough to take over a game.

[Reeplcheep]

Ok that’s fair. Heliod + shark typhoon is already a pretty strong engine and Skyturtle provides insurance.

[FTW]

Ok that’s fair. Heliod + shark typhoon is already a pretty strong engine and Skyturtle provides insurance.

Yeah.

Heliod -> EOT return Standstill
Cast Standstill (if countered, repeat until Standstill sticks)
Cycle Shark
Heliod -> return Shark

Lategame that's already very hard for opponent to deal with. You can arbitrarily outdraw and outbody them. You can hide Shark Typhoon in hand unless Standstill is out, so it's never exposed to grave hate without feeding you free cards as compensation (can't do that with Replenish). Teferi's passive reduces their GY hate interaction window even more. Most of those are uncounterable actions that can be done at instant speed. If they kill Heliod, stuff like Skyturtle and Sevinne can bring it back. Most of the time that's already enough. You can get there through an active Standstill, without having to run 4-mana sorceries that could be dead cards.

[Fox]

While Turtle is cool and all, we've already got everything covered with Sevinne's re-up Heliod, Heliod re-up enchants, Burning Wish gaining another pair of 2 mana plays + re-up Heliod by Wish target Sevinne's + re-up enchants with Wish target Replenish (saving about $450 on doomed to fail copies 2, 3, and 4).

The recursion loops are already set, so why are we grabbing green cards? What are we gaining? Why are we contaminating the best mana in the format? How is our non-Pyroblast'able value engine and lifegain issue being solved? Uro is not a card we play with Standstill, b/c it doesn't work.

Like don't get me wrong, you can play no green mana at all except 4x Boseju in an otherwise strict UW deck and have let's say 1x channel Turtle. The point of the green being purely for Ending's 3rd color and magical christmasland where each turn you have a green mana -> rebuy best card with channel Turtle -> necro Turtle to top of deck with Heliod -> repeat ad nauseum.

^This is a pretty tough ask b/c no problems were solved and we lost Burning Wish & sideboard Blasts....and that loss of Burning Wish means your down a few 2 mana plays and Replenish is gone for good (tack on another $150 penalty).

When you talk about going all in on ReplenishStill, aka Enchantment Reanimator, we should probably take a look at the very dead miner's canary: LED Dredge. We don't need to sleeve up a deck and brew because team Dredge donated their unpaid hours to our stat mine; they failed, so we know *how* not to repeat their mistake.

Now you might have a timing to play yolo-Replenish to some degree of success, but it has nothing to do with the inherent viability of Replenish spamming. What we have right now in legacy is total hand destruction having a narrow window where they can beat Goyf [Murktide] and FIRE [Uro]. Total hand destruction being: Hymn in Grixis and Day's Undoing in UWr MindTwister. Both strategies can one-shot FIRE b/c Uro requires a yard they're exiling with HSR or shuffling away with Day's.

^now let's refine that information:
-Endurance presence skyrockets once Uro comes back.
-Uro is coming back the moment wotc wakes up and realizes Mind Twist and Timetwister are on the banlist, yet somehow Day's (and Echo) aren't...and in either case they act as not just Mind Twist, but also Timetwister at the same time.
-But right now in legacy, today, both Grixis and UWr are suppressing Uro (and thus Endurance)...by nuking graveyards.
-So while it's preferable that the GY wipes 3 cost mana, are sorcery speed, and play into FoN; rather than 0 mana, flash, creature Endurance...it doesn't look good for Replenish spam.

Take all your stats and add every single deck with Day's, Echo, HSR, Endurance and figure out how much is left in the meta...with the understanding that a large chunk of the leftovers are going to play Saga (maindeck Soul-Guide) or will be UR Delver with Daze. There isn't much left of the legacy format for you to predate with Replenish.

[FTW]

While Turtle is cool and all, we've already got everything covered with Sevinne's re-up Heliod, Heliod re-up enchants, Burning Wish gaining another pair of 2 mana plays + re-up Heliod by Wish target Sevinne's + re-up enchants with Wish target Replenish (saving about $450 on doomed to fail copies 2, 3, and 4).

The recursion loops are already set, so why are we grabbing green cards? What are we gaining? Why are we contaminating the best mana in the format? How is our non-Pyroblast'able value engine and lifegain issue being solved? Uro is not a card we play with Standstill, b/c it doesn't work.

Like don't get me wrong, you can play no green mana at all except 4x Boseju in an otherwise strict UW deck and have let's say 1x channel Turtle. The point of the green being purely for Ending's 3rd color and magical christmasland where each turn you have a green mana -> rebuy best card with channel Turtle -> necro Turtle to top of deck with Heliod -> repeat ad nauseum.

I think the reason Green came up is Boseiju, Who Endures cleanly answers Urza's Saga and other problems through Standstill, while the other 4 colors have a harder time doing it without casting spells (Wasteland does too, but Boseiju hits more things). Uro, PEnding, and turtle engine plan A are not the reasons.

Boseiju would require Bant colors instead of red or black. Once already in Bant, 1-of Skyturtle is easy value. It loops with Heliod, casts Petty Theft on land-go strats through Standstill (Marit Lage, Constructs), and eventually wins the game. You lose Wish and Replenish, but Boseiju and Colossal Skyturtle are both 2 mana plays.

What do you gain? Boseiju. Green also offers non-Pyroblastable value engines through Sylvan Library or planeswalkers. Are there any green or GW walkers that are worth it?

[Fox]

I think most of those PWs are Ajannis and/or dude-centric. The best green PW last time I checked is Grist followed by Nissa of the 5/5s. It'd be really tough to beat out Nahiri's ability to spam [-2] exile your Saga. The PW would have to be able to be played, then have a Standstill cast on top of it, and never have to pay attention to hostile Saga.

[Reeplcheep]

Why do we need planeswalkers when we can answer the opponent's sagas through a standstill?

For engines we can loop anything we want with hall + skyturtle + shark typhoon without breaking standstill.



-But right now in legacy, today, both Grixis and UWr are suppressing Uro (and thus Endurance)...by nuking graveyards.

This isn't true. Jeskai is beating uro decks through the combination of draw hate + exile removal.

UWR delverblade for 3rd in the Saturday Challenge (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2022-04-17#davy_rd_place) 0 gy interaction g1, only 1 rip 3 etutor in g2
UWR control for 4th in the Saturday challenge: (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2022-04-17#ozymandias_th_place) 0 gy interaction g1, only 2 surgical in g2
The Grixis list in 21st: Only 3 histsegu, but has 7 narset/hullbreacher in g1. (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2022-04-17#reshield_st_place)

[FTW]

This isn't true. Jeskai is beating uro decks through the combination of draw hate + exile removal.

UWR delverblade for 3rd in the Saturday Challenge (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2022-04-17#davy_rd_place) 0 gy interaction g1, only 1 rip 3 etutor in g2
UWR control for 4th in the Saturday challenge: (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2022-04-17#ozymandias_th_place) 0 gy interaction g1, only 2 surgical in g2
The Grixis list in 21st: Only 3 histsegu, but has 7 narset/hullbreacher in g1. (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2022-04-17#reshield_st_place)

The third deck is a bad example because the HullDay combo nukes graveyards (as well as hands). Plus it has 3 Histsegu.

The other two do run low GY hate. But most Jeskai control with draw hate also runs HullDay.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-jeskai-control#paper

This 4c list is on Endurance:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-4c-control#paper

You say nuking graveyards isn't a thing, yet your primary deck runs 4x MD Leyline... Nuking graveyards is good in this format.

The bigger point here is that Replenish just loses to too many things that are already mainstream in Legacy:
-Wasteland/Daze/Rishadan Port/Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (must resolve 4-mana sorcery)
-Force of Will/Force of Negation/Drown in the Loch (counterable spell costing much tempo)
-incidental GY reshuffling from Echo of Eons combo or HullDay decks
-dedicated graveyard hate (Endurance, Leyline, RiP, Saga-> Soul-Guide, Karn -> Crypt, Crop Rot -> Bog, Ashiok)
-discard effects while Replenish is durdling in hand waiting to be usable
-fast combo where critical turns are before 4 mana

In the early game and mid-game Replenish is -1 hand size (do nothing card you don't want yet), which can be a big disadvantage for stabilizing. Hiding it in the Wishboard is cleaner.

Replenish just doesn't add enough value for the drawbacks and weaknesses it comes with. Heliod + Sevinne already does so much, while coming with more early game flexibility too. Even when you could pull off Replenish, it's often win-more. What matchups would it win that would otherwise be issues?

Meanwhile if opponent sees Replenish then they're definitely boarding in total GY hate like Leylines or prioritize Crypt effects as tutor targets, but they may not do that vs fair blue with just a couple Snapcasters and Heliod thrown in. It can be easier to still cash in those cards for incidental recursion value without painting a big bullseye on the GY.

[Fox]

Let's review how Uro decks work: they tap out and jam like any midrange strategy -> they mill 5 lands from GY to exile with their Uro -> then they Endurance over and over, until every card in their deck is an Endurance, a PW, a counterspell, or a kill spell. This is their end stage inevitability.

To beat Uro midrange, you need to make sure Uro is forced to exile the cards they ideally want to recycle into their deck with Endurance. This is how HSR attacks Uro midrange, they grind their GY into the exile zone -> Uro deck mills out b/c they were unable to leave Endurance enough goodies to recycle.

For UWr-based decks the exile effects targeting Endurance and Uro all helps; this is an easier pathway than Grixis navigating destroy effects and the 2-turn setup of HSR hitting the yards. They [the UWr group] run into problems however b/c Uro decks will have a few subgames to avoid this:
-1: get a Teferi down -> Karakas bounce Uro, usually repeatedly casting from hand.
-2: get to 7 mana, don't pass priority -> get two Uro casts before opponent is in a position to discard a card to deal with an Uro that just drew 2 cards...and when they exile it they can't Surgical it, so we repeat this dance each time a new Uro is found.
-3: play real value engine PWs vs an opponent who has Narset and Teferi and can't keep up.

^These subgames all fold to the 2-in-1 banned effects of MindTwister. The Uro player definitely has to work harder against Plow/Ending than they do vs Grixis, and it's gonna take so long to navigate those subgames vs UWr, that the MindTwister is always going to be found...and the moment it is, it's going to erase the whole [insert number of turns in game] of progress Uro was trying to assemble. This is the absolute endpoint of Uro midrange vs UWr MindTwister.

It is incredibly unfavorable for the Uro side, which is why Uro is declining...which means Endurance from blue decks is also going that direction...but you're talking about playing Replenish versus a bloc of legacy players who are all Uro midrange gamers at their core. They are on Uro [Endurance], or they are on Grixis [HSR], or they are on UWr [Day's]. It's all the same type of player, all on tiny variations of the same deck, and every single one of them murders the GY Replenish was trying to use...and that's all that matters. You can't spam Replenish in 2022.
---
On the decks you brought up: Standstill cares very little about what tier 2.5 decks do. Mentor, SFM, America Delver decks are all consistent and underpowered, i.e. consistently underpowered. They still play staples and can win events...but they're playing an outdated 1-card combo, and in the case of America Delver a less-winning color combination of Delver that can't pressure our life total with Bolt.

Standstill/Landstill/Dreadstill are built to compete with Goyf [Murktide], total hand destruction [Hymn, CB, Echo/MindTwister], and FIRE [Uro]. This covers anything tier 2.5 does. ReplenishStill is rocking a solid 0% vs these.

Replenish is not competitive b/c it's trying to roll back to back to back matchups against an ever-dwindling minority of decks. There's no point trying to brew a Replenish spam deck when you can't possibly have a good matchup vs Endurance, Echo, Day's, HSR, Soul-Guide [Saga], or Daze [Delver]. No matter what way the next bans go [Daze, Day's, and/or Echo], Endurance from blue decks is poised to return to it's previous level.

[FTW]

The thing is that Wandering Emporer is 4 mana, so it's the same card as Nahiri on 4 mana (dead to Daze). Have to wait 1 more turn on Emporer to hit 5th land, and their attacking dude is tapped, so you're main-phasing Emporer just as you would the Nahiri to downtick and kill.
When you look at the rest of these two walkers you note that Nahiri downtick murders Saga (you're free to cast Standstill and let them play all the Sagas they want to), has wider targets, can shape hand, and can tutor SCM to imitate the downtick of Emporer. If someone plays Saga and threatens to make constructs, good luck shutting that down with Emporer (i.e. good luck having Emporer in play and ever being able to cast Standstill on top of it).
Nahiri will create more issues for an Uro midrange, Grixis Jammy Jams, and UWr MindTwister than making 2/2s into opponents who will have hands full of creature kill spells which lacked targets up to that point. Nahiri can also tutor up legends, which combine with Karakas to punish kill spell users. It's not much of a deckbuilding cost to add 1x Yidaro for instance.

On Karn Scion, it's bad against Delver. Daze problems, and the payoff is you get a 1/1 and it dies to Bolt, yay. Like you've noted, Saga is basically the same thing, just better, faster, less interactive, and recursive (Heliods, Sevinne's).

I don't see how 4-mana Flash is somehow weaker to stack interaction than 4-mana sorcery speed. Or even the same?

All 4 mana walkers are weak to mana denial and soft counters. Flash at least lets you try to sneak it in when they're tapped out. Or you can play at EOT, then untap and use mana for something else (Standstill?) before opponent gets a main phase, following the DrawGo plan.

Nahiri always has to wait for the creature to damage you first, while Emperor can kill a creature before it damages you or can ambush block as 2/2. Even if the creature is already damaging you, Flash is still better than sorcery speed for holding up mana and dodging 1 attack (sorcery speed lets the PW be attacked). After Nahiri exile, Nahiri is vulnerable to other attacks (probably dead on 2 loyalty, trading 1-for-1). After Emperor exile, you get to activate another loyalty ability before opponent can attack. You can uptick (try to keep alive) or cash in a 2/2 (2-for-1 before opponent gets an attack step). You made good points about Nahiri murdering enchantments like Saga, but the "tapped" clause does make it awkward against artifacts and creatures, while Flash is useful in many scenarios. I think you're undervaluing Emperor. A lot of players are getting value from it in other decks. I'll test a 1-1 split for now.

So far I've just had multiple games where I ended up burying Nahiri with Brainstorm because I wasn't ready to tap out 4 mana sorcery speed and wanted to hold up mana and instant speed interaction. I like that Wanderer doesn't force you into sorcery speed tap-out lines.

Realistically, all 4-mana walkers are bad vs Daze and Delver, and I board them out anyway. Against Delver my value engine is Saga not expensive PWs. The only walker I keep in is Teferi, because Teferi/Sevinne can still Hymn them for 3 mana by forcing out the Forces. Otherwise I shave the curve down to 1-mana interaction. The PW slot is for grindier matches, not decks with 4 Daze 4 Pyroblast. In that case... maybe 1 Jace is fine? There's still things like Jeskai HullDay or Painter, but a good chunk of decks you want to grind against don't run Pyroblast. Is that good enough? May test out 1 Jace too. Another option is 6-mana Chandra. RR is hard, but it's uncounterable and unPyroblastable.

[Fox]

What I'm saying with Daze is that if I'm against a Delver deck, both are 5 mana PWs. The flash bit matters a bit less this late. If we trace Emporer's best case scenario we save 1 hit and gain 2 life...and then we make a useless 2/2 or have some weird every other turn vigilance elk on a very, very Bolt'able Oko. Otherwise we're looking at flash in -> kill, gain 2 life -> uptick 4x in a row (no targets) -> now the PW can take the 3 from the next Delver/DRC and have enough to downtick and kill it. At some point I'd like to pull ahead.

The other issue is I have about zero faith in Emporer on board to let me play Standstill and feel safe from Saga. I'd be leaving myself with a lot of dubious topdeck risk.

I see Emporer and I'm immediately asking why that isn't a Solitude (if I'm not looking at Nahiri). I'm happy to pick up points vs Lage, Emrakul, and Daze; while gaining late-game magical christmasland lines like EoT Solitude your dude with Teferi passive -> untap lifelink for 3 -> Teferi [-3] Solitude.

[FTW]

What I'm saying with Daze is that if I'm against a Delver deck, both are 5 mana PWs. Bolt'able... next Delver/DRC

Don't you want neither PW vs Delver? Any 4 cmc sorcery is bad there. It's the other matchups that should matter.


The other issue is I have about zero faith in Emporer on board to let me play Standstill and feel safe from Saga. I'd be leaving myself with a lot of dubious topdeck risk.

True, but that risk is somewhat mitigated by running our own Saga or by green splash with Boseiju. It's a bigger deal without either of those lines.

For UWr, realistically I was not in many board states where I wanted to tap out sorcery speed for Nahiri and then drop Standstill after. It was often awkward to tap out for Nahiri, or I would jam Standstill earlier.


I see Emporer and I'm immediately asking why that isn't a Solitude (if I'm not looking at Nahiri). I'm happy to pick up points vs Lage, Emrakul, and Daze; while gaining late-game magical christmasland lines like EoT Solitude your dude with Teferi passive -> untap lifelink for 3 -> Teferi [-3] Solitude.

Maybe it should just be Solitude? That would solve UWr's lifegain problem.

[kombatkiwi]

Yeah I think solitude is a fine idea.

I think both of you make pretty relevant/correct points about both of the 4 mana walkers (Nahiri / Emperor) being kind of weak cards. I can see Nahiri minus being able to hit Saga as a big upside, but I don't think this is a very reliable play pattern g1

My main problem is that I'm still unconvinced that the "Nonblue Obnixilis" is an effect that the deck strictly needs in g1

I can see playing like 2 Nahiri in the SB as a Obnixilis / Court of Grace type card. Solitude is also not an awful target to get with the ultimate.

[alphastryk]

I'm having a little trouble picturing the "Green for Boseiju and a value Turtle" concepts, can somebody rough out a list for that?

[Fox]

I'm having a little trouble picturing the "Green for Boseiju and a value Turtle" concepts, can somebody rough out a list for that?

You take a stock list, cut into the utility land and Ending fraction and cut the basic Mountain. Add 4 Boseju, swap Plateau to Savannah to maintain x+2 Plains where x = 3 Timeless. Make 1 cut for channel Turtle. The deck is no longer able to use red.

[Reeplcheep]

I think you can make more changes than that. You can be more shark typhoon reliant when you have uncounterable needle answers, and expedition map means you don’t need the 4th legendary land.

Taking FTWs last list:

Red to green:
Mountain -> forest
Plateau -> Savannah
Lotus field -> 3rd saga
Spike hazard -> boseiju
Nahiri -> emperor
3 blasts -> 3 carpet
1 Alpine Moon -> 1 Pithing Needle

You ain’t afraid of needle anymore:
2 snap -> 2 sharks
1 JTMS -> boseiju
2 bwish -> verdict and a boseiju
1 sevinnes -> turtle

No more wishboard
1 pyroclasm -> 1 seeds of innoncence
1 by force -> 1 Seeds of innoncence
1 sevinnes -> 1 etutor
1 Supreme -> 1 Graftdiggers cage
1 ending -> 1 etutor


//Lands: 25
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Forest
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
3 Boseiju
3 Urza's Saga

//Spells: 18
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Prismatic Ending
2 Force of Negation
2 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 8
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon

//Creatures: 4
1 Collosal Skyturtle
3 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 The Wandering Emperor

//Artifacts: 2
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Expedition Map

//Sideboard: 15
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Seeds of Innoncence
1 Graffdiggers Cage
1 Cataclysm
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Humility
1 Ethersworn Canonist


This deck should be able to jam standstill into any board state t2, which I assume is needed to make standstill compete with other CA engines. All of our gy interactions are uncounterable and avoid cage.

[alphastryk]

Thanks for sharing - I think we may have been all imagining slightly different variations of how to add green to the mix, so having concrete lists to discuss helps.

[FTW]

Taking FTWs last list:


//Lands: 25
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Forest
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
3 Boseiju
3 Urza's Saga

//Spells: 18
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Prismatic Ending
2 Force of Negation
2 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 8
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon

//Creatures: 4
1 Colossal Skyturtle
3 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 The Wandering Emperor

//Artifacts: 2
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Expedition Map

//Sideboard: 15
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Seeds of Innocence
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Cataclysm
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Humility
1 Ethersworn Canonist



Yeah, that's pretty much what I had pictured for the main, except -2 Shark +2 Sevinne's (or 1 Sevinne's 1 Prismatic/Snapcaster) and a green walker or Solitude over Wandering Emperor. Looks worth testing.

Fox's obsession with Saga into Needle isn't the only problem with 4x Shark. It's also just a clunky card to have early. With both Timeless Dragon and Urza's Saga, plus ways to reuse Shark Typhoon, there's no need to go 4x Shark anymore. The deck has enough threats. 7 cycling finishers is too many, and Dragon is the better one to cycle on turn 2. 2-3 Shark should be fine.

Meanwhile Sevinne's just does so much: Standstill, Teferi, Saga, Heliod, SB cards, fetches. Even if the first cast baits a FoW, the flashback is strong. Unless they used FoN, they have to interact with both uses (2 counters, 1 counter + 1 GY hate, or you get value). It fills a different role than Skyturtle or Replenish, especially in the midgame development. At least 1 Sevinne's seems important.

I hadn't thought about the SB yet. The Saga and ETutor targets seem reasonable. Veil of Summer deserves consideration over 3x Carpet. Although we can use the mana, we also don't struggle with land development vs Delver due to high land count, basics, and Plainscycling. Carpet's timing is a bit awkward compared to when we usually use mana sinks (opponent's end step or combat). Carpet does play well with Sevinne's though. Maybe 2 Veil 1 Carpet?

Edit: 2 Seeds of Innocence seems bad due to GG cost. 1-of Energy Flux is ETutorable. Serenity or Engineered Explosives deserves a look. Serenity does kill our stuff too, but it's tutorable and Heliod can get it back to completely lock out artifact decks.

Edit2: Cataclysm doesn't belong without Burning Wish + Lotus Field or a value planeswalker. The point was to exploit the asymmetry without maindeck variance (Wishboard). Otherwise the effect doesn't help. Lotus Field is still worth considering. Map -> Lotus Field is a strong line against the Wasteland + Port decks.



This deck should be able to jam standstill into any board state t2, which I assume is needed to make standstill compete with other CA engines. All of our gy interactions are uncounterable and avoid cage.

Yeah, that's what I was playing towards with the Saga tech. Boseiju should help. From past experience with Landstill, the deck shines when it can just jam T2 Standstill on an empty board and know it's in a favored position.

[Fox]

@Reeplcheep we're not really getting anything worthwhile from the entire green color, it is not getting a basic Forest slot. It wouldn't even get a Savannah slot were it not for Timeless Dragon. Prismatic Vista can't get green, but it's fine we have 3 slots of Boseju as the green source for Prismatic Ending; the fixing hasn't been compromised.

Mountain -> Boseju
Plateau -> Savannah
Spikefield -> Boseju
B Wish x2 -> Verdict, Humility
Lotus -> Boseju
-1 Brainstorm or -1 Standstill -> +1 channel Turtle

^Just note that we've lost the utility of Wish and Pyroblast, and have crippled our deck's position vs the meta. Adding more Saga and going to 4x Shark'nado is regressive (this has been discussed exhaustively over the last 2 pages). Any excess slots are going to SCM and Dress Down.

On the SB:
-Humility came to the maindeck
-E Tutor will only ever stay at 1x
-We can no longer use Cataclysm (no Wish and no room for Lotus to exploit the asymmetry)
-Seeds is a bad magic card, and has :g::g: color reqs. We don't have to play Seeds b/c we have white cards, and we have no problem killing a Kappa. We want cast'able cards, in either UW or colorless, and we want them to beat Chalice. Once we know Chalice is out of the equation, we find cards that obliterate the hand of 8cast as they panic-spew Force pitching a draw 2 (or a Kappa). Then we obliterate their hand again on 3 mana with Teferi - and now we have FoW superiority and Verdicts. This is how you beat 8cast, this is how you beat Kappa. We invest money on cards like Serenity or Powder Keg or EE, not Seeds. Note how Powder Keg and EE have text vs Elves, Delver, etc.
-Carpet is a bad magic card. The last thing I need to be drawing when I'm trying fix the battlefield for a Standstill deployment is Carpet. Even worse is resolving Carpet and then topdecking more Carpets. I'd only play 1x Carpet...except I really doubt I'd ever E Tutor for it...so it's not getting a slot. Now if Carpet has extra text like "pay 8 mana, sacrifice, draw 2 cards" then I'd be less hostile to a singleton.

Green is pretty worthless as a SB color when you don't have the critical mass of green cards to pitch-cast Endurance and FoV. I mean I guess you can troll a local meta/small room full of discard spammers with SB Veils, but there isn't much benefit to be had here. 2x Crop Rot and a Bojuka Bog is powerful I guess, but too much loss of SB space. A single Uro is fine vs opponents on slow decks without Wasteland. Doubt I want to board 2x Ice-Fangs. Don't see a reason to have Loam. Flyabolic Edict seems redundant. Sylvan Library would be fine if we somehow had life gain (Uro doesn't work with Standstill). An amount of green cards can beat Thassa by putting cards back into the deck (Noxious, Memory's Journey), but these are super narrow and all basically outclassed by Fractured Sanity. Return to Nature is reasonable. Ground Seal is technically fine. None of this is worth losing red blasts for.

[Reeplcheep]

Sure I was just posting so we are talking about something concrete. I don’t think the loss of red sideboard cards is that big compared to the entire premise of your deck not working (standstill + empty board = draw 3) against a third of the meta.

Carpet is generally considered the strongest card in the format against delver and we have plenty of mana sinks. Sure maybe I went over board on sharks. I like being able to run harrder hate in cage; maybe more turtles instead of sevinnes? Removal spell for creatures through standstill seems helpful.

I’m fine if you cut the forest to help enable verdict. I don’t understand the point of a etutor package if you are only running 1 etutor. Why not just run more of the best effects?

[alphastryk]

I think the discussion is ultimately this - is having maindeck access to Boseiju (and Turtle) worth giving up on the Burning Wish package and blasts (and Spikefield Hazard)?

Tweaking the mana to make either work is doable

[FTW]

I agree Carpet is bad here. Carpet is good vs Delver for every other deck that lacks adequate mana development, to fight Daze + Wasteland. Landstill is already designed to have stable mana vs Delver and build towards mana superiority, and it doesn't want sorcery speed mana dumping like Uro decks do. Lands.dec doesn't board in Carpet either.


Green is pretty worthless as a SB color when you don't have the critical mass of green cards to pitch-cast Endurance and FoV. I mean I guess you can troll a local meta/small room full of discard spammers with SB Veils, but there isn't much benefit to be had here. 2x Crop Rot and a Bojuka Bog is powerful I guess, but too much loss of SB space. A single Uro is fine vs opponents on slow decks without Wasteland. Doubt I want to board 2x Ice-Fangs. Don't see a reason to have Loam. Flyabolic Edict seems redundant. Sylvan Library would be fine if we somehow had life gain (Uro doesn't work with Standstill). An amount of green cards can beat Thassa by putting cards back into the deck (Noxious, Memory's Journey), but these are super narrow and all basically outclassed by Fractured Sanity. Return to Nature is reasonable. Ground Seal is technically fine. None of this is worth losing red blasts for.

If we're losing REB, I can't imagine not having Veil. It's the closest thing to compensation. You lose the Vindicate mode, but Veil has other edges in counter wars. Trolling Hymn decks is just a secondary mode.

What's wrong with 1-of Loam? With Saga and Boseiju, there's a lot of value land going to the graveyard. Then you might want SB Crop Rot into Bog too. You can't Loam through Standstill, but opponent also cannot Surgical your Loam through Standstill (replace 1 of the draws with Dredge). 1-of Wrenn and Seven could add to a land engine.

There might be some other walker or enchantment that makes Sylvan Library viable. Haven't looked through the GW card pool enough.




On the SB:
-Humility came to the maindeck


Seems bad for the Saga builds, due to anti-synergy with Constructs and other wincons. Why not keep in SB as a tutor target?


I like being able to run harrder hate in cage; maybe more turtles instead of sevinnes? Removal spell for creatures through standstill seems helpful.

I like Turtle, but Sevinne's does fill a different role even though the cards look similar. Turtle returns to hand. Sevinne's returns to the battlefield. Turtle is good for slow grindy recursion through an active Standstill. Sevinne's is better tempo for building towards an advantageous position in the midgame, before deploying Standstill. For 3 mana you can try to put Teferi on the battlefield, discard 2 blue cards from opponent's hand, ramp +1 land, ramp & return utility lands, or put Standstill back in play. Most of those lines develop your board position and progress you towards a place where you can cast the 5-mana flashback for more value. It's a flexible card that almost always finds a way to push you forwards.

Engines like Turtle shine more in the late game or if you get into a staring contest after slamming T2 Standstill, but they're bad tempo in that midgame when you're trying to stabilize or develop. At least 1 Sevinne's seems good. Try it out. We can still run the SB Cage.


Tweaking the mana to make either work is doable

4 colors is not stable. It might be doable, but forcing 4 colors without Astrolabe (banned) will destabilize the mana and create other weaknesses where Landstill would have been strong. For example, you can't rely on SB red blasts vs Delver if they can just waste you off the 4th color. Better to focus on just 1 splash. So it comes down to whether Boseiju outweighs the red tech.

[Fox]

The thing about channel Turtle is that is isn't removal (unless you're hitting a token). You still need to answer the problem, so you're down a card and you need a second card to actually answer what you bounced, versus an opponent who has the same number of cards. This is why Brazen Borrower is a really poor use of a slot in Standstill decks. It's the same reason O-Ring effects are pointless, b/c you know the opponent is going to get their thing back [they're gonna play Teferi, Boseju, Ending, Skyclave, shatter-bear, Otawara, Brazen, FoV, etc]. You can't win as a control deck if you're gifting opponents blowouts like these. The real question is why we are doing this green detour when we just moved an Island to an Otawara, which can protect PWs and pick up our Standstill if we have to (on top of being a mana source if we need one). We didn't have to cut a hard-kill spell (or access to one via Burning Wish) to make room for this effect when it's on a land.

When you look at new things like channel Turtle, it's important to remember that Sevinne's is basically legacy-legal Yawg Will; and we're not cutting our Yawg Will, even though the channel mechanic is hard to interact with. The Turtle-Heliod uber late game loop can at least impersonate Yawg Will, but it takes so long to unlock, and adding more Turtle does not make it happen anywhere near the 3 mana mark of Sevinne's.

On E-Tutor, there are many cards in magic where that card can take over the game. The worst enemy of such cards is drawing additional copies of themselves. Cards like Vial, Aluren, Opposition, Carpet, RiP in Helmerator, etc... The whole point of E Tutor is to increase the effective copies of effects like these without ever killing yourself by flooding. While E Tutor is powerful, flooding out on it isn't. So while one E Tutor can make up for lost CA by finding the perfect card, drawing multiple E Tutors is very likely to kill you with unsustainable levels lost CA. Also, it costs 1 mana, and if you play multiple you are increasingly rewarding opponents for playing Chalice-type effects.

Diversity is the key in control. We don't need to overkill one narrow thing; instead we need to complete a checklist. First things first: don't die to Goyf [Murktide], don't die to total hand destruction [Hymn, CB, Echo, MindTwister], don't die to FIRE [Uro].
After that the legacy control checklist is easy: don't die to untargetables, don't die to Burn, don't die to E-Bridge, don't die to Thassa, don't die to mana tampering (Wasteland, Daze, Port, Thalia, Moon, etc), don't die to SnT, don't die to Marit Lage, don't die to Saga, don't die to GY-using combos, don't die to stack-using combos (storm), don't die to Cavern/Vial, don't die to Sol land/Chalice, don't die to go-wide dudes, don't die to recursive spells (Loam/Pfire), and like a couple other minor things. This last part of the checklist is pretty easy to fill out, and that's how you make a competitive deck - focus on having agency.

Agency comes from having access to a single E Tutor targeting things like Ethersworn, Humility, Standstill, Shark'nado, Nodes, EE, Keg, Stony, Torpor, Relic/Soul-Guide, RiP, B2B, Alpine Moon, and so on. Agency can also come from Burning Wish and Karn wish. Having the ability to find a tool doesn't matter if you don't run the tool you need...and it really doesn't help if the search effect is sabotaging it's own efficacy by flooding out on extra copies of itself...while also taking slots from the effect you needed to tutor. This is the worst kind of double whammy.
---
@FTW Veil is great at brutalizing enemy FoW/FoN, and it's reasonable at clearing the way for Ending target Teferi (ofc they're up a card and we're down 2 cards, so that won't end well)...but it has a really low floor when we need to create a favorable scenario to cast Standstill. Like if your hand is a Standstill you can't currently cast, and then you draw a Veil...That's a variance positive deckbuilding choice with a high ceiling and a low floor. This is at a time when the card making Standstill uncastable could easily be MurkGoyf, and if that Veil was a Pyroblast, we'd be winning that game by having the agency to force the opponent to trade resources on our terms.

On W7, I have no interest in activating that [+1] unless I am forced into a corner and need to spin the wheel to hit a Sevinne's or a Timeless. There are significant cmc and green pip problems, but if you mash that [+1] button you are not control; you are either going to mill out, lose to yard hate, mill over a critical effect you'll never get back, and so on. That effect also comes online at cmc 2 with Azcanta and Library. If Wrenn was 5 mana to make a hexproof unblockable dude that phases out when Dress Down is cast, I'd consider it. If we built for double green pips, it kinda needs to be Nissa of the 5/5s (but that requires Lotus Field for the 'whoops 5/5 hexproof PW-kill' cheese). For many of the same reasons I dislike Loam, and would rather have a Crucible in the board I could see with E Tutor in a postbaord game, for instance.

Saga and Humility is fine. Saga makes a two dudes, and we can recur it (Map -> Heliod). I'm willing to take the bet that the opponent can't keep up under Humility; and I'm also willing to bet that anyone else using Saga is more all-in on it (bigger constructs). We also have Timeless to make 2x dudes [hardcast and eternalize] and Shark'nado token spam. It's all about quantity, not quality. The thing about FIRE is that they must cast FIRE, and that FIRE needs to do what it says in the text box. Humility and Standstill are the perfect counters to the illegitimate nature of wanton power creep.

Dress Down wipes constructs. Humility makes them 1/1s. Casting Dress Down at constructs protected by Humility does nothing.
^The real payoff though is when they attack my Teferi on 1 loyalty while I have 2 mana up and Humility in play. You best believe I'm cycling Shark'nado for 0 to block with my brand new 1/1 shark. This is so soul-crushing that they usually concede on the spot. This is so much more fun than derping someone out with SnT or Grisel.

[Reeplcheep]

The thing about channel Turtle is that is isn't removal (unless you're hitting a token). You still need to answer the problem, so you're down a card and you need a second card to actually answer what you bounced, versus an opponent who has the same number of cards. This is why Brazen Borrower is a really poor use of a slot in Standstill decks. It's the same reason O-Ring effects are pointless, b/c you know the opponent is going to get their thing back [they're gonna play Teferi, Boseju, Ending, Skyclave, shatter-bear, Otawara, Brazen, FoV, etc]..

The point is removal through standstill, which is why the borrower example is not appropriate. Its closer to a maze of Ith that can be pitched to fow. It’s not card disadvantage if they have to crack standstill to put it back into play. you have verdicts, Plowshares and endings if standstill is not in play; do you really need more efficient removal in that situation?

The ability to cast standstill into 1 on board threat is very valuable. For example t1 plains, go t1 volc delver, eot plow delver they daze. With turtle you can just go island standstill, whereas that play is too risky otherwise unless you have dragon and a bunch of lands in hand.


The real question is why we are doing this green detour when we just moved an Island to an Otawara, which can protect PWs and pick up our Standstill if we have to (on top of being a mana source if we need one). We didn't have to cut a hard-kill spell (or access to one via Burning Wish) to make room for this effect when it's on a land.
I don’t understand how you plan to beat saga with a 4 mana bounce spell. We have already many other ways to stabilize at 4 or 5 mana. The important thing is having immediate and cheap answers like boseiju and turtle.


Say your opponent has a port, a plains and a vial. Can you really spend 2 on a wish and then 1 or 2 on the ending? Then you have to deal with all the other things s they poop out in the meantime while standstill is rotting in your hand. Whereas the green build can just jam standstill, boseiju the vial and there are no more threats except maybe a mom.

[alphastryk]

4 colors is not stable. It might be doable, but forcing 4 colors without Astrolabe (banned) will destabilize the mana and create other weaknesses where Landstill would have been strong. For example, you can't rely on SB red blasts vs Delver if they can just waste you off the 4th color. Better to focus on just 1 splash. So it comes down to whether Boseiju outweighs the red tech.

Definitely didn't mean you can make both work! have to pick one color and it honestly feels like it's close depending on what decks you expect to face.

I think the red splash is more understood which is why I'm interested in fleshing out the green splash and seeing where that gets us. At the end of the day, red may still be better but its worth exploring in my mind. Red Blasts are not easily replaceable, as it has 2 modes.

We do want to keep in mind that we can't really cast anything that costs more than a single G, especially before turn 5, which rules out things like Seeds of Innocence (or even just say Courser of Kruphix)

On specific green cards:

Sylvan Library is powerful but we likely would rarely draw more than 1 card from it so its probably not worth trying to fit in. The only obvious life gain I see we might want to run Is Shadowspear maybe? Not sure if that makes sense

I agree Carpet of Flowers is significantly less valuable here than in other decks because the role it fills to gain mana vs Delver just isn't needed.

Life from the Loam is a little awkward with an active standstill, but if we're getting value out of the graveyard with a mix of Dragons, Hall, Turtle etc it can still be worth dredging it for value even if its not castable through Standstill. Feels like it might be a win-more with all the other existing long game value engines already in the deck but I wouldn't totally rule it out yet

Crop Rotation is interesting, its instant speed Bojuka Bog and also finds various value lands already in the deck when relevant (Karakas, Urza's Saga, Hall of Heliod's Generosity). Might allow for Field of the Dead somewhere as another long game value engine / win condition? (with some snow basics mixed in)

Veil of Summer Is the closest red blast replacement we have, but it only covers the stack half (while having some added value vs discard). Probably need to find another card to cover the "destroy" half of the blast functionality.

Some other cards that I have not seen mentioned yet:

Ground Seal Decent GY hate but shuts down our engines. Not worth it.

Drop of Honey isn't really new because we already have Porphyry Nodes in white already

Endurance GG and we don't have enough green spells to support the alternate cost

All the green planeswalkers seem underwhelming.

Edit: Really rough list with some of the ideas discussed in this thread and thoughts outlines in my post (knowing Field might be too cute but jammed it into this list for now):

2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Plains
1 Savannah
2 Tundra
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
3 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Karakas
3 Urza's Saga

1 Colossal Skyturtle
3 Timeless Dragon
1 Solitude

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

1 Expedition Map
1 Soul-Guide Lantern

4 Standstill
2 Shark Typhoon

2 Teferi, Time Raveler


Sideboard:
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Crop Rotation
1 Dress Down
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Field of the Dead
1 Humility
1 Pithing Needle
1 Powder Keg
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
2 Veil of Summer


Edit #2 - a more streamlined version without trying to get too cute:


3 Island
2 Plains
1 Savannah
2 Tundra
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
3 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Karakas
3 Urza's Saga

1 Colossal Skyturtle
3 Timeless Dragon
1 Solitude

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

1 Expedition Map
1 Soul-Guide Lantern

4 Standstill
2 Shark Typhoon

2 Teferi, Time Raveler


Sideboard:
2 Crop Rotation
1 Bojuka Bog

2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Dress Down
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Pithing Needle
1 Powder Keg

2 Veil of Summer

1 Supreme Verdict

2 ?

[FTW]

Yeah, that's similar to Reep's list and looks like a good start. Before fine-tuning slots, I think the big question is if green can offer anything other than Boseiju to justify the color.

OK, W7 is too slow and not enough value. Crop Rot package is probably not good enough without other land tech in the deck (Loam, Crucible).

I think 1 Loam deserves a look because it critically puts Boseiju and Otawara back in hand, instead of onto the battlefield. Crucible can't do that. I wouldn't mindlessly dredge Loam here like other decks do (and that doesn't work through Standstill anyway). But we can still use it as a "1G - Draw 3" (Standstill #5), bringing back Saga + Boseiju + fetchland or something like that. Reusing Boseiju and Saga is good long-term value. Then we can just leave Loam in the GY until we need it again. Playing Loam into Standstill guarantees land drops and non-spell tech to use through Standstill. Meanwhile that Loam in GY is safe, because if opponent tries to exile it then Standstill gets cracked and Loam goes back to hand. You don't have to go all-in on Loam. 1-2 value casts could be good.

Once on Loam, 1 Lotus Field and the Crop Rot package are easier to support. Lotus Field then enables Nissa.

Even without REB there are plenty of answers to Murktide. StP, Verdict, Humility, Soul-Guide, Teferi bounce, Skyturtle bounce, Shark ambush... Sure, we have even more answers to murder Murktide with REB, but it shouldn't be a huge weakness. We could further make up for lost REB with 1-2 Run Afoul. That helps with Murktide while also picking up win% vs stuff like Marit Lage and Reanimator. That leads to more draw variance vs UR Delver (Veil + Run Afoul vs 1 card that does both), but also adds value vs black decks where REB does nothing.



I don’t understand the point of a etutor package if you are only running 1 etutor. Why not just run more of the best effects?

I don't necessarily agree with only 1 ETutor, but even 1 copy adds much value. You could play 2 Ethersworn Canonist or 1 Canonist + 1 ETutor and have the same access to the SB effect either way. As soon as you add a 2nd target, that 1 ETutor both saves SB space and increases card selection. Why play 2 Canonist + 2 Humility + 2 EE when you could play 1 ETutor + 1 Canonist + 1 Humility + 1 EE + 2 other cards? Control would much rather have a mix of 1-of powerful specific answers than have to play 2-3x each effect just to ever see it.

For example, why bother trying to draw into multiple copies of Seeds of Innocence and gift 20 life to the Kappa+Thought Monitor player to draw into more threats when ETutor->Serenity followed by Saga->Map->Heliod basically locks them out of the game, and costs barely any space in the 75? Or you can play 1 Keg/EE and have a slot that helps against tribal aggro too.