[Deck] UBGx Landstill

[Tinefol]

40 minutes rounds are awful, really. Anyway that wasn't a problem with the deck, the lack of stable win conditions was. Jace changes things. Given you play in a reasonable pace, there shouldn't be many problems.
Red instead of black just bad, because Pernicious Deed is THAT good. Humility is wrong wrong wrong. A deck that looks for BG hardly can support WW. Anyway, why would you need a Krosan Grip target?

[chmoro]

40 minutes rounds are awful, really. Anyway that wasn't a problem with the deck, the lack of stable win conditions was. Jace changes things. Given you play in a reasonable pace, there shouldn't be many problems.
Red instead of black just bad, because Pernicious Deed is THAT good. Humility is wrong wrong wrong. A deck that looks for BG hardly can support WW. Anyway, why would you need a Krosan Grip target?

Hi, I haven't play the new Jaces yet, but suffered them and they are really good for control, but your win conditions are actually mishra´s, and that is slow. I like Elspeth cause it gives more chances and when it comes into play, 3 or 4 turns the game ends.
And playing without humility... I can't figure it in this list.

[Tinefol]

Don't forget about Nantuko Monastery. Playing double nonblue colored 4cc spells is just plain wrong in this deck. You already have a fragile manabase, why would you suffer from not being able to cast your spells more? It may improve the explosiveness of the deck, but decreases the stability. Control decks look for stability. 2WW Spells are for UWx builds.

[chmoro]

Don't forget about Nantuko Monastery. Playing double nonblue colored 4cc spells is just plain wrong in this deck. You already have a fragile manabase, why would you suffer from not being able to cast your spells more? It may improve the explosiveness of the deck, but decreases the stability. Control decks look for stability. 2WW Spells are for UWx builds.

I'll test your decklist. I see it is very powerful and it deserves a testing.
Other things that would include are Academy Ruins. I think the recursion with EE works great.
I also like playing without wishes, they are to slow for actual meta, and let you have a "real" toolkit against the worst matchups.
And the SB, would be like 4 leyline of the void, 2 relic of progenitus, 2 ethersworn cannonist, 3 meddling mage, 2 pithing needle and something else?
Thanxx for your good explanations.

Tomorrow I'll write back.

[Tinefol]

Academy Ruins requires at least 2 (preferably 3) EE, and it is colorless. I wouldn't run more than 6 colorless lands. Unless you want to go with 25 lands, its bad. Drawing into more Pernicious Deeds is the better option than recurring EE. This deck has ton of draw, so why bother.

Wishes are doable, but they clog on the tight S/B slots. I've played with wishes in UWx, I do not think they belong there. Pernicious Deed already takes up the 3cc slot, you don't need additional utility.

SB:
3 extirpate (your main answer to Loam, useful in many matches)
3 Plague (if there's a lot of tribal)
4 Canonist / MMage or 2 Canonist + 2 Enlightened Tutor
2-3 Perish (progenitus at the very least needs to be handled more reliably)
1-3 Relic
1-2 CoP: Red if there's burn, since burn is a bad match up preboard.

Something along the lines.

[Tinefol]

Double post, but since its on a different topic, I think it's better to be separate.

According to the weekly MTGO analysis Landstill had gained a lot of popularity and sucess online, and its 4c: http://puremtgo.com/articles/look-legacy-may-5-12-threshold

Although I consider the Wasteland/Stifle approach (the one that's popular on MTGO) to be HIGHLY suboptimal for the obvious reasons, the deck still is very solid. Jace is just made for it, and I think it's time when people have finally found how good it is in a 4c shell, making it a serious contender once again.

[chmoro]

@Tinefol: yesterday I played your decklist in MWS. First against Zur the enchantress, it worked great, and then against monoblack with dark depths, It also worked great. Later I played with a friend, with a more aggressive deck, lot of small creatures with windbrisk heights and there a felt it went slow. Jace is absolutely "the card", it gave me some games.
I still think your list needs other win conditions and some speedup, maybe DoJ might be a possibility...

[Tinefol]

This deck should absolutely rape aggro (perhaps with the exception of merfolk), especially white weenie. Its like the easiest match.

[thefreakaccident]

Here's a list that's been giving me some great results in testing:

lands//24
3 wasteland
4 mishra's factory
1 nantuku monastary
4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
4 underground sea
3 tundra
3 tropical island

wincons//2
2 jace, the mind sculpter

spells//34
4 swords to plowshares
4 brainstorm
2 fact or fiction
4 force of will
4 counterspell
4 pernicious deed
4 standstill
3 innocent blood
1 life from the loam
3 stifle

sideboard//
4 relic of progenitus
2 perish//llawan cephalid empress
2 krosan grip
3 blue elemental blast
4 duress

The list is designed for a more aggressive metagame, but also has tools to fight control pretty damn well, and postboard, the combo MU is very manageable with a package of FoW/CS/stifle/duress and relic against ichorid as well as beb against belcher/TES

The stifle/waste package is huge, being able to bounce threats and waste lands against zoo is occasionally a back-breaker, especially if you have even more removal/permission to put you ahead. The sideboard isn't geared towards one specific deck, just the standard mix of general hate.

[Arsenal]

Lewis Laskin's UGBw Landstill deck was featured on SCG's Deck Tech for the Philly Open: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/19459_Deck_Tech_Lewis_Laskins_New_Take_on_Landstill.html. Pretty standard card choices, although Cunning Wish is normally used in the UWB Landstill lists from what I've seen on deckcheck.net. Thoughts?

[grahf]

Well Lewis has obviously tested his deck, and I haven't, however it's anything but "standard" card choices.

First and foremost I'm not sure I see the point of white with only 2 Plows. He admits Merfolk is a tough matchup, running more spot removal would help with that.

Random Isochron seems like a good idea actually, but Deed + Wish in the same deck is definitely new... or it's so old we've forgotten about it.

Tempest of Light in the wishboard is funny, but how often do you really run into Enchantress? Tsabo's Decree is even funnier, but aren't you already in a pretty good board state against tribal if you can resolve a 6 mana spell?

I do like that he has outs to Iona in every color, and several ways to deal with Shroud guys. Perhaps the best argument for keeping a white splash is the psychological effect of the Reanimator player seeing a Tundra, automatically assume 4 Plows, and name white w/ Iona.

Are 2 Loams necessary? Seems he might be overvaluing wastelock, and you never want to draw a second.

He says he wants to fit in a 4th Jace, but, I think some more 1cc spot removal or Edicts would serve the deck better.

Heck, what do I know, I'm just a goober on a message board.

[dearleader]

I imagine that Loam's function isn't primarily for a wastelock, but rather for card advantage and consistently hitting your landdrops against stifle/waste. In that respect, the second loam is like an additional land.

[fdiv_bug]

I imagine that Loam's function isn't primarily for a wastelock, but rather for card advantage and consistently hitting your landdrops against stifle/waste. In that respect, the second loam is like an additional land.

It can also help recur Mishra's Factories that get murdered, so that you're not left with zero win conditions apart from Jace 2.0's ultimate.

[grahf]

I agree that there's several uses for Loam, which makes it interesting that the "evolved" list cut Loam entirely. (as described in the recent article= http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/19549_Thirst_for_Knowledge_Landstill_In_Legacy.html) Still too slow perhaps?

[dawgie]

This is my first time to post here but I have been a member of these forums for a long time now. I have also been using 4C Landstill since it came out (with Stifles and Disenchant maindeck.) but switched to BGW rock for about a year because of Merfolks.

Anyway, here is a build that I used during the side event in GP Manila 2010 and I landed 8th spot out of 127 players (5-1-1). Sadly, it was just straight swiss because we had no time to do the top 8. If we did, we would finish later than the main event. lolz

Here was my build during the event:

4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Fact or Fiction
1 Misdirection

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Innocent Blood
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Humility
1 Decree of Justice
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

4 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Plains
1 Island

SB:
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wrath of God
1 Disenchant
1 Misdirection
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Extirpate
3 Ivory Mask
4 Leyline of the Void

There is no Jace because I don't have it (and I don't think I will spend that much) but if I was able to borrow one, I think I will remov 1 Humility. I really love the deck.

Let me explain some of the unusual cards in the deck.

Misdirection - our meta is really wacky because there are many legacy players that we don't usually see. One tournament, the meta was merfolks, then black with discarders during another tournament, next thing you know red in your face burn would come up in the next. Its really wacked so I always put the MD MisD. ?I know I only have 19 blue cards but there were times it helped a lot.

2 Humility - sometimes, I think P.Deed is too slow and there are times that I don't have the mana to clear the board at once. I chose Humility in cases of going against big creatures. Sometimes, Rock decks come up as well as Bant. There were many times that Humility has protected me against 10/10 KotRs or Progenitus. But sometimes, its also not that good of a card in hand. As I said, if I have Jace TMS, I would remove the other Humility.

SB:
I SBd against my weakest matchups. Leyline of the Void, Extirpate, and E. Truth for Ichorid and Reanimator, Ivory Mask and MisD for Red Burn and, even if it sounds silly, Ad Naus (many times have I protected myself and brought this card down), BEB for Gobs, Zoo, and Burn, Disenchant for artifact shenanigans, Wrath of God for extra creature kill (usually I board out 1 Humility and put in Wrath in case they have something for Humility)

Here were my matchups and a quick report:

Round 1 - Reanimator

Game 1 - I can't remember who played first but I think he did. He played fetch, cracked it, went for Underground Sea. He played Thoughtsieze which I Forced because I was holding a juicy hand of Innocent Blood and Standstill. He was done. He played Careful Study on his turn. He discarded a card and Sphinx of the Steel Wind. I played a fetchland. He Reanimates Sphinx and loses 8 life. It died with Innocent Blood. I was able to put Standstill in play and was able to control the game from there. He had no counters in hand and no business spells. Nantuko Monastery for the win.

Game 2 - In comes Leyline of the Void and it comes into play in turn 0. He was having trouble with it and I was able to build my mana base and I was pretty much confident I can protect it. My Mishra's Factory was sort of going all the way. There was Standstill in play when he broke it with Mystical Tutor calling for Show and Tell. I was ready on what will be put into play because if it was Iona, I was holding Innocent Blood, Swords, and Echoing Truth. He played Show and Tell, and he brought down Woodfall Primus. I brought down another Leyline of the Void which I got when he cracked Standstill. He destroyed the other LoTV, but still needed to deal with the new Leyline of the Void. I played Innocent Blood. Factory all the way to the win.

1 - 0

Round 2 - A rogue deck. UGW Hunting Grounds Thresh control

Game 1 - When he played a Seaside Citadel, I was wondering if he was playing Bant. I played a second turn Standstill. No lands came after that and he was on the roll with his lands. He was able to bring down Hunting Grounds and had lots of cards from his lands and Deep Analysis. I was pretty interested on what the deck could do as it also had Nantuko Monastery. He then played Living Wish and got Mystic Snake. I knew that if I played a spell, he will use Hunting Grounds and then bring down the Snake to counter everything. I tried to sneak out of the Snake by playing Standstill which he countered with the Snake. Then I thought that was good bait, I played Elspeth but he was holding another Mystic Snake. Eventually I lost because he had more lands, and he had a ton of counters (counterspell, Absorb, Memory Lapse, the works). I did notice though that he had no Force of Wills (or nothing came out), or Wastelands.

Game 2 - it ended in an instant. A judge came and he was asked for the legibility of his deck. He got a game loss for misregistering his deck. His deck was a total of 64 in the list and was only using 60. He wrote 4 Counterspell twice. Measly win for me. (not really proud of the win)

Game 3 - We were land dropping. I was able to get to 5 lands. And seeing how his deck worked, it had no removal for end of turn triggered shenanigans like cycling Decree of Justice for two and then playing Standstill on my turn. I think he tried to counter it but I was able to protect it. I was attacking for two when during his turn, he has decided to play Wrath of God to kill the two scldiers (he was far away from getting into Threshold for the Nantuko Monastery as he was not able to discard). From Standstill, I got Extirpate. I Extirpated his Counterspell first and removed a Counterspell in his hand. He had Memory Lapse. So I countered the Wrath to bait the Lapse and completely took out his counters. He Lapsed it and it was good. It was easy riding from there. Nantuko Monastery and Mishra's Factory came into play plus Elspeth.

2-0


Round 3 - Dredge

Game 1 - He played Gemstone Mine. I shivered because it was dredge. He was dredging to oblivion. I was thinking of stopping the horde with Engineered Explosives for 0, but he had 2 Ichorids, about 2 Narcomeobas, and a 7/7 Golgari Grave Troll. I scooped when I was down to 12.

Game 2 - I had Extirpate in my hand and was a risky hand. I played it. I think he mulled and during his turn, he just drew and said done. I played a land. He discarded Golgari Grave-Troll during his turn. I Extirpated it and found only in his hand is a Golgari Thug for a dredger, and a Putrid Imp. He did nothing on his turn to discard the Thug. I Extirpated it to delay him again. I was also able to hardcast Leyline of the Void. He then played a land, played Putrid Imp. I misplayed here because I could have played Standstill the turn before in order to draw some cards. In order to protect myself, I played Explosives for 1 to destroy the imp in case he topdecks Ray of Revelation (which I saw in his deck from Extirpate) and destroy LoTV. I was able to control the game here as Elspeth and Mishra's factory tag-teamed to victory.

Game 3 - It was a turn 0 Leyline. I was getting into control mode when time was called up. Mishra was my only beater in play and it was not enough. I wish I had Hatred in my SB so I could win. :P

2 - 0 - 1


Round 4 - BW Ale

Game 1 - He discards my hand to oblivion as I didn't know what deck he was playing until he fetched for a Scrubland. I lost as I was drawing no business spells. I was drawing the deck's specialty, land...

Game 2 - Humility came down. All of his creatures were 1/1. Problem is, he brought down to Bad Moons into play so everything went up to 3/3 from his end. I got Pernicious Deed. I blew up everything except for Humility. I won.

Game 3 - No business or draw spells. Just land. Yeah! I am proud of you Landstill! You live up to your job.

2 - 1 - 1


Round 5 - UG Faerie Goyf deck.

Game 1 - I played Standstill. He tried to Daze my Standstill, I countered it. He allowed it and Standstill goes through. He played Mutavault. I shivered. I thought I was playing Merfolk, a bad matchup for me (although still winnable). He attacked a few turns but I was able to play Mishra's Factory and stopped it. He then played Cloud of Faeries. It was killed. After dropping a few creatures and killing everything that comes into play, he conceded as there were no more cards in his hand and I had a load of manlands in my end.

Game 2 - the same thing happened in game 1. This time though, he was able to drop Goyf. Everything was killed. He ran out of juice and I won.

3-1-1


Round 6 - In-your-face Red (Possibly my worst matchup)

Game 1 - He played Mountain (I hoped it was Goblins) and he played Rift Bolt. Another bad matchup for me. Probably the worst. In-Your-Face Red is something that I cannot stop. I tried to race with my lone Mishra's Factory but eventually, I died.

Game 2 - He played a one land hand. He discards about 3 times. He discarded Price of Progress because it was uncastable. I made a misplay as I had Extirpate in my hand. I only realized it the turn after. I Extirpated Price of Progress only to find out he had 2 more holding in his hand. I thanked God for that. I was then able to play Ivory Mask. Yeah. From what I heard, red has no enchantment removal.

Game 3 - I was able to bring down Ivory Mask again but this time, he was now on a red creature beatdown. (Also forgot that Hellspark Elemental had trample and is not a spell when it comes from the GY). I was able to bring him down to 12 when the last 5 turns came up. Turn 1 was with him and he suspended Rift Bolt. On my turn, I went for an all out attack with 2 Nantuko Monasteries and a Mishra's Factory. I was down to 5 by this time. He was computing something when he played Volcanic Fallout. I knew something was up and it might be a double Volcanic Fallout (even though it might kill him) or something next turn since he had a lot of mountains. So I STPd my Mishra's Factory to bring me back to 5 life and he would still be at 2 life (2 Nantuko Monasteries and Volanic Fallout) so I can finish on my turn. During his turn, we thought that Rift Bolt would be fizzeld but it was stopped and backtracked. Good thing a judge was there. I asked if Rift Bolt should still be played as long as it had a legal target. Since I cannot be the target of Rift Bolt, he needed to target himself. She said that is correct. My opponent had to target himself. I won.

4-1-1


Round 7 - Countertop Slivers

Game 1 - He had a whole lot of land on his side. And he had Sensei as well. I guess he really had nothing as not a lot of slivers came into play. I killed Crystalline with Innocent Blood, and killed other one. Even if he had Counter-Top going, he was still playing lands. Humility came in to seal the deal. I won.

Game 2 - A Vial came into play on the first turn. I tried to FoW it. He Dazed it. I played Engineered Explosives for 1 as I can't get my engine going with that bothersome artifact. I was glad I was able to destroy it but he played another one. Good gracious. The only slivers he was able to drop were Muscle Sliver, the white version of Muscle Sliver, and Crsytalline. I was attacking with my Nantuko Monastery and he tried to chump block it. I was supposed to put it in my GY when it was noticed that Monastery has first strike and would not die to 2 3/3 slivers. He was able to drop another one I think but I played WoG (first time in the tournament to play my WoG). It lasted for a few more turns. I was really making the wrong plays here as I was threatened by Vial. I only noticed it some more turns that he had two counters on the Vial, and was not dropping a lot of Slivers. So after getting the right amount of land, I played Elspeth, Standstill. Next turn, I attacked with Nantuko Monastery with Elspeth's pump ability and brought him down to 1 life. When he drew his card, he conceded.

5-1-1

Most used cards from the SB:
Extirpate
Disenchant
Wrath of God
Echoing Truth

Well thats my short report (should this be in the reports section? I'm not sure because we still don't have the t8 decklists. Give me a warning if I'm wrong) I do have some questions when it comes to the experiences of other people.

1. Which would be better? Life from the Loam or Crucible of Worlds? Or do a 1-1 split between the cards and put them in the deck?
2. How does Academy Ruins work for everybody here? I like the recursion it does but sometimes, I want to rip it for drawing it too early.

[Arsenal]

Another BUG Landstill deck: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36662

No recursion engine as Jace allows for an alternate win conditions not contigent on anything other than a stable board. Thoughts?

[fdiv_bug]

Another BUG Landstill deck: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36662

No recursion engine as Jace allows for an alternate win conditions not contigent on anything other than a stable board. Thoughts?

It's identical -- card for card, even the sideboard -- to the list that Charles Gordon took 13th place with at the Star City Games Legacy Open in Seattle a couple weeks back. Which happens to be the list that I've also enjoyed the most in my recent testing. I like the simpler mana base compared with that from a version that also runs white, like Lewis Laskin's, and four Jace is absolutely correct (if terribly, terribly expensive at the moment).

The hardest matchup that I've tested yet has been ANT, since it basically comes down to whether I'm holding a counter for his Chant or enough of them to survive a Duress or Thoughtseize, but that deck is going to be much, much less prevalent shortly (about which I'm kind of sad, to be honest). I haven't done a broad variety of testing with it, though, to be perfectly honest, mostly just against the ones that show up most frequently at my local weekly events.

[CorpT]

Is anyone working on this still? It seems like it has potential, especially now that ANT is rotating. Will the removal package change though?

[fdiv_bug]

Is anyone working on this still? It seems like it has potential, especially now that ANT is rotating. Will the removal package change though?
I am, for what it's worth. I've been pretty happy with my main, for the most part. It's identical to the list Arsenal posted (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36662) above, except I've dropped one Wasteland for a second Island, which I'm not sure was the right decision. I might put the fourth Wasteland back in and drop a fetch instead, or maybe one of the Underground Seas. I've had really good success with it, except versus Dragon Stompy and New Horizons, the former of which absolutely wrecked me with early moons and chalices, and the latter of which got lucky Wasteland topdecks and kept me off my mana. I'm not sure what, if any, changes should be made to account for these matchups.

My sideboard has been in a state of constant flux, to the point where I can't even post what I ran because I don't remember. I'm thinking of putting in a few Life from the Loam to deal with Wasteland locks, and maybe running a Forest main. I dunno. I'm open to ideas.

[CorpT]

I am, for what it's worth. I've been pretty happy with my main, for the most part. It's identical to the list Arsenal posted (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36662) above, except I've dropped one Wasteland for a second Island, which I'm not sure was the right decision. I might put the fourth Wasteland back in and drop a fetch instead, or maybe one of the Underground Seas. I've had really good success with it, except versus Dragon Stompy and New Horizons, the former of which absolutely wrecked me with early moons and chalices, and the latter of which got lucky Wasteland topdecks and kept me off my mana. I'm not sure what, if any, changes should be made to account for these matchups.

My sideboard has been in a state of constant flux, to the point where I can't even post what I ran because I don't remember. I'm thinking of putting in a few Life from the Loam to deal with Wasteland locks, and maybe running a Forest main. I dunno. I'm open to ideas.

Cool. My group has been working on this too. We've changed around the removal suite a little to include Smother and not Innocent Blood. So far we've been doing pretty well with it. Our issue has been around Zoo with a lot of burn. I was playing Burn last night and it just seemed like pre- and post- board the Zoo match up was rough unless you drew a lot of spot removal so that you could stabalize at a relateively high total and then fight off the burn with counters.

Have you done much testing against Zoo? Any thoughts or expereince? The other aggro MUs weren't nearly as bad, even Merfolk, because none of them really had the isntant speed reach that Zoo has.

[fdiv_bug]

So, here's my most recent list, that I've been quite pleased with:

4 Standstill
4 Spell Pierce
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Innocent Blood
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 Life from the Loam
2 Ghastly Demise
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Island

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Propaganda
3 Perish
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam
1 Helm of Obedience

The two Loam main could conceivably live in the board full-time, depending on your meta; locally, we've got approximately 4 times as many Wastelands as players in any given event, so I've liked having them main. They come out against Zoo, CounterTop, and Dredge, among others. The single Helm in the board was a "Crud, I need a 15th card," kinda thing and is one of my pet combos, so it makes me giggle.


Have you done much testing against Zoo? Any thoughts or expereince? The other aggro MUs weren't nearly as bad, even Merfolk, because none of them really had the isntant speed reach that Zoo has.
I, personally, haven't had much trouble against Zoo, but I seem to get really lucky with my draws whenever I play that match, so I don't put too much stock in that. The creatures obviously aren't much trouble, what with 4 Deed main and 2 Explosives in the board, but you are right in that the instant-speed burn can be quite problematic. Perish is all right, but Propaganda usually doesn't cost them enough, and they can just Qasali Pridemage it out of the way. I've thought about maybe using Chill, but I'd be afraid that'd be too narrow. Maybe Blue Elemental Blast? That'd at least be good against Dragon Stompy as well -- moon effects kinda wreck us -- but I wouldn't know where to fit it in. I'm totally open to other suggestions, should there be any.

[Mister Agent]

I have been testing this build to good success lately.


3 Wasteland
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Innocent Blood
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard
3 Engineered Plague
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Counterspell
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Hydroblast
3 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus

It's been testing really well against merfolks because of EE and pernicious deed. I had another ghastly demise in there but decided to cut it for explosives as they have been much more versatile.

The countermagic suite has been working pretty well for me as it's well rounded and with the help of wasteland, standstills are much easier to cast.

Although, I am very tempted to add Tarmogoyf in the deck but I'll save that discussion for another time.

[fdiv_bug]

It's been testing really well against merfolks because of EE and pernicious deed.
I like the idea of two Engineered Explosives main. I think I'm going to try swapping out the two Life from the Loam -- which I've had in my main because of how prevalent Wasteland is in our local meta -- with the two Explosives I keep in the board.


Although, I am very tempted to add Tarmogoyf in the deck but I'll save that discussion for another time.
I can totally understand this, and you can certainly give it a go, but I think I wouldn't. Our deck almost completely blanking their creature removal is a big deal to me. Game one they're likely to use their Swords to Plowshares on my Mishra's Factories because there's really not much else they can do with them, but my experience has been that in game two or three they move them out in favor of more focused solutions. You could bring Tarmogoyf out of the board, which would be hilarious, but I personally don't think it'd be worth the slots in the 75. Let us know how it goes if you do test it, though. :smile:

What are the opinions on Landstill's viability for the expected metagame at GP Columbus? I'm anticipating a lot of Zoo, Goblins, and Merfolk, along with a fair bit of CounterTop (both Bant and Thopter) and New Horizons. As far as combo goes, I believe ANT is pretty well dead for the time being, but Belcher and Reanimator are still going strong, even though the latter's prevalence will be reduced as it's not quite as Cheatyface as it was with Mystical Tutor. I'm ginning up a sideboard that I will submit for consideration once I've gotten it pinned down to make sure I haven't missed anything, but I am curious about how people think the event is going to look.

[Mister Agent]

I also have been liking EE against zoo because it can kill multiple 1 drops and so you don't have to stress playing a deed until later. In other words, my list is metagamed to fight against any aggro deck.

With the results Ugb Landstill has been putting up lately, I would think Ubg Landstill seems like a pretty decent choice for GP Columbus. You seem to have alot of tools to fight goblins, zoo, and merfolks. Also, my testing results against New horizons has also been positive. Crucible, wasteland, innocent blood, spell snare, and EE/deed at 3 is great there. Not to mention, postboard, extirpating their wastelands helps quite a bit especially if you want to be in a good position at playing under standstill through Mishra's Factory.

[CorpT]

A few lists have been doing well:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/1414819
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/1414866

A summary:


Flooded Strand 3 3 4
Polluted Delta 4 3 4
Island 1 1 1
Mishra's Factory 4 4 4
Wasteland 4 4 3
Mutavault 0 1 0
Scrubland 1 1 1
Tropical Island 2 2 3
Tundra 2 2 2
Underground Sea 3 3 2

Brainstorm 4 4 4
Standstill 4 4 4
Jace, the Mind Sculptor 3 2 4
Counterspell 3 4 4
Force of Will 4 4 4
Spell Snare 0 3 4
Spell Pierce 0 3 0
Daze 3 0 0
Sensei's Divining Top 3 0 0
Crucible of Worlds 2 2 0
Life from the Loam 0 0 2
Engineered Explosives 1 0 0
Innocent Blood 2 2 2
Pernicious Deed 3 4 4
Swords to Plowshares 4 4 4

Counterbalance 2 0 0
Cranial Extraction 1 0 0
Hydroblast 3 2 4
Innocent Blood 1 1 2
Krosan Grip 1 0 0
Relic of Progenitus 3 0 0
Spell Pierce 3 0 0
Threads of Disloyalty 1 0 0
CoP: Red 0 3 0
Engineered Explosives 0 2 2
Extirpate 0 3 3
Life from the Loam 0 1 1
Tormod's Crypt 0 3 2
Ravenous Trap 0 0 1

[CorpT]

Some things to note from these lists:
All are using White. It seems that the W splash is worth it. I was still skeptical, but will need to try it.

Crucible v Loam: I watched quite a few games of these and the Crucible was very good. I've been playing Loam on the idea that Crucible dies to Deed and Loam doesn't, but after watching the games, I want to try Crucible instead. The power of it was amazing and much bigger than Loam.

I still don't like Daze. Top is interesting though.

Based on these, I think I'm going to try something like this:

Flooded Strand 3
Polluted Delta 3
Island 1
Mishra's Factory 4
Wasteland 4
Mutavault 1
Scrubland 1
Tropical Island 2
Tundra 2
Underground Sea 3

Brainstorm 4
Standstill 4
Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4
Counterspell 4
Force of Will 4
Spell Snare 4
Spell Pierce 0
Daze 0
Sensei's Divining Top 0
Crucible of Worlds 2
Life from the Loam 0
Engineered Explosives 0
Innocent Blood 2
Pernicious Deed 4
Swords to Plowshares 4

[fdiv_bug]

Based on these, I think I'm going to try something like this:

*snip*
First, thanks for ginning this up!

I tried this list and I was actually surprised by how much of a difference the white makes. I guess the four-of, instant-speed kill is worthwhile, but I wonder if we could simply reverse the number of Innocent Blood and Ghastly Demise and achieve a similar effect without having to extend further our fragile mana base. Please note, I am in no way saying that Demise is as good as StoP -- the only thing that can ever be compared evenly to StoP is Path, and that depends entirely on the deck it's in -- but just trying to look for similar effects without having to extend into a fourth color. The toughness restriction on Demise can occasionally be problematic, and the only frequently seen black creatures I can think of wanting to kill would be Bob and Tombstalker; being unable to kill the latter would be a big deal in the occasional game because of how high its CMC is, since by the time you've got enough mana to Deed it you're probably already dead.

I'm on the fence, still, with Spell Snare versus Spell Pierce. I really like the edge that Pierce gives me in counter wars, and I think with all the removal we run letting Tarmogoyf through -- among others, of course -- isn't the end of the world, but Spell Snare is obviously much more valuable mid- to late-game.

Mutavault is clever, since it islandwalks against Merfolk and can be pumped by Mishra's Factory. I also replaced the Scrubland with a second Island, and was pretty happy with how that turned out.


Crucible v Loam: I watched quite a few games of these and the Crucible was very good. I've been playing Loam on the idea that Crucible dies to Deed and Loam doesn't, but after watching the games, I want to try Crucible instead. The power of it was amazing and much bigger than Loam.
I like how Loam is very difficult to counter, and dredging it back isn't horrible with Brainstorm in the deck. I've even done it blind, and it wasn't too terribly risky with the number of four-ofs we run. But Crucible is a great card and frees up mana once it's on the table.


I still don't like Daze.
Me either, in this deck.

[CorpT]

First, thanks for ginning this up!

I tried this list and I was actually surprised by how much of a difference the white makes. I guess the four-of, instant-speed kill is worthwhile, but I wonder if we could simply reverse the number of Innocent Blood and Ghastly Demise and achieve a similar effect without having to extend further our fragile mana base. Please note, I am in no way saying that Demise is as good as StoP -- the only thing that can ever be compared evenly to StoP is Path, and that depends entirely on the deck it's in -- but just trying to look for similar effects without having to extend into a fourth color. The toughness restriction on Demise can occasionally be problematic, and the only frequently seen black creatures I can think of wanting to kill would be Bob and Tombstalker; being unable to kill the latter would be a big deal in the occasional game because of how high its CMC is, since by the time you've got enough mana to Deed it you're probably already dead.

We tried this for quite awhile and it just didn't work. We were at 4x Demise, 2x Innocent and kept running into situations where a Nacatl beat us down way too far. It doesn't look like it would make that much of a difference, but we were surprised how much it actually did. That's why we went back to 4x Innocent, 2x Demise. But after seeing all of the good Swords results, I'm going to continue with that for awhile. The instant speed seems very relevant as well.



I like how Loam is very difficult to counter, and dredging it back isn't horrible with Brainstorm in the deck. I've even done it blind, and it wasn't too terribly risky with the number of four-ofs we run. But Crucible is a great card and frees up mana once it's on the table.


I kept running into situations where I was grinding it out and wanted more land, but still wanted to keep mana open. Crucible just lets that happen so much easier. And the fact that you can keep recurring land under a Standstill is very important. I was just finding Loam to be too slow for me. It didn't help against the Aggro matchups where Crucible can. Just keep recurring blockers until you can find a Deed or more removal instead of spending 2 mana and losing a draw. It seems counter-intuitive to run Crucible, but I think I'm going to stick with it for now.

[Dr.Jones]

Hi everyone,

I have some experience with the deck already and I play the deck long enough that you might noticed me posting various results and decklists on mtgo (osmanozguney)

This is the 75 I played at the MOCS. I finished 3rd and lost twice to the same Survival deck at round 6 and the semis (1-2 both times).

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
2 Life from the Loam
2 Innocent Blood
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Scrubland
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

SB

4 Hydroblast
3 Thoughtseize
3 Extirpate
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Innocent Blood

and I went,

R.1-3 Bye
R.4 Death and Taxes 2-1
R.5 Merfolk 2-0
R.6 BG NO/Survival 1-2
R.7 Countertop Bant 2-1
R.8 Enchantress 2-0
R.9 Faeries 2-1
R.10 Zoo 2-0
R.11 New Horizons 2-0
R.12 BG NO/Survival 1-2

I was happy with my list all day long and if the MOCS were tomorrow i would play the same 75 (maybe switching the SB crypts for relics)

I believe that,

Swords power up this deck much more than the white splash weakens it. By simply replacing 2 U.Seas for Tundras and 1 Wasteland for Scrubland this list has 1 less black source than the traditionnal BUG and the same amount of white source.
The Instant speed and "remove from game" aspects all matters when u need to protect your life total from zoo and aggro. It matters when u need to protect Jace from manlands and hasty goblins. The lifegain matters since you can target your mishra's for some life if needed.

Life from the Loam not only have more synergy with deed but can be used as the 3rd land with fetches (or wasted lands). This has a huge importance when playing against decks with wasteland (goblins, merfolk, DNT, New Horizons...). I would have lost some of my matches to manascrew if my loams were crucibles.
Loam has better synergy with brainstorm and Jace than crucible since basically every loam becomes an ancestral recall.

Extirpate is a strong SB in actuel metagame. It stops top of library tricks, is good vs any graveyard strategy like dredge- reanimator but also vs mirror and counterbalance and some combo decks like doomsday or dreadnought-mossworth bridge.

The same versatility is true for thoughtseize which comes in vs all the combo based strategies. This is also important since there is such diverse field today that i cant justify playing something that is only good vs 1 archetype only like COP red or Llawan.

Gl if u play UBGW Landstill in your future events!

[fdiv_bug]

So I was up in Columbus for the Grand Prix this past weekend -- I was running Excalibur because I wasn't quite comfortable with any Landstill options available to me, even though it is my preferred deck, and went 5-4 on day one -- and in watching the Top 8 I saw this awesome UBg Landstill list being run by Jason Ford, who took 3rd/4th:

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
2 Ghastly Demise
4 Innocent Blood
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Life from the Loam
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Spell Pierce
4 Standstill
1 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

// Wishboard
1 Back to Nature
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
1 Forbid
1 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Stifle
1 Submerge
1 Tsabo's Decree

I put it together Sunday afternoon and was really pleased with how it performs. Love me some wishboard action! Can do some awesome stuff with it, like in my testing against the Ub Merfolk list that Saito won with, where I cracked Pernicious Deed, killing his AEther Vial, and then wished for an Extirpate to hit it with. In another game, we had both been sticking Standstill like mad, and so I had 10 cards in hand during his turn. He tried to cast something, so I wished for Forbid, and tossed some lands to buy it back. The next turn I dropped another Standstill. :smile:

Thoughts?

[klaus]

So I was up in Columbus for the Grand Prix this past weekend -- I was running Excalibur because I wasn't quite comfortable with any Landstill options available to me, even though it is my preferred deck, and went 5-4 on day one -- and in watching the Top 8 I saw this awesome UBg Landstill list being run by Jason Ford, who took 3rd/4th:

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
2 Ghastly Demise
4 Innocent Blood
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Life from the Loam
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Spell Pierce
4 Standstill
1 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

// Wishboard
1 Back to Nature
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
1 Forbid
1 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Stifle
1 Submerge
1 Tsabo's Decree

I put it together Sunday afternoon and was really pleased with how it performs. Love me some wishboard action! Can do some awesome stuff with it, like in my testing against the Ub Merfolk list that Saito won with, where I cracked Pernicious Deed, killing his AEther Vial, and then wished for an Extirpate to hit it with. In another game, we had both been sticking Standstill like mad, and so I had 10 cards in hand during his turn. He tried to cast something, so I wished for Forbid, and tossed some lands to buy it back. The next turn I dropped another Standstill. :smile:

Thoughts?

>One< basic land o0 ?

Submerge is made for tempo based strategies - I can't see where it'd shine in this shell

I don't like Leyline outside of Dark Ritual.dec, since it's way to unreliable/slow otherwise

In today's environment with games often times being decided by turn 3, I don't believe in the Wish approach. If you REALLY want to play it, 2 should be the correct number. I could see Maestrom Pulse replacing #3. Actually I'd go -2 Pierce -1 Wish +3 Spell Snare.

[Tinefol]

In fact, running one basic land is fairly pointless in this deck. You're not getting any benefit whatsoever (you're still getting wastelanded, you're still subject to blood moon, B2B, Price, etc), and it only worsens your colorbase.

Running multiple basic lands isn't much better either for exactly same reasons. I'd cut for a dual for sure. Also I consider 8 colorless lands to be about too many. I think 6 is the maximum you'd want. That way you can afford 3 basics without much harm.

And 4c shouldn't run any basics ever.

[Svenanole]

you need to throw in a blue blast sideboard because all of the red land hate

[SMR0079]

I'm surprised there's not more activity in this thread as the deck has had tremendous success lately at the GP and online.

A few points -

There is really no reason not to run 2 island 1 swamp. Mana denial/screw/ect. is one of the weaknesses that can be exploited against this deck.

On Standstill - we all love drawing cards on the cheap, but the card has never really been good in control. It's great after you just wiped the board, but control needs to draw cards to come back from being behind on board position.

If you have SCG premium I recommend you check out Sulivan and Thompson's latest articles where they address control in Legacy. One answer is to replace standstill for 2 top, 2 Intuition, 1 Loam, 1 Sandbar, 1 Ruins, 1 Waste, EE, Shackles. You no longer have to run multiple Wastes or the 2nd loam which open up space for the basics and card advantage with Ruins.

I haven't put in enough games to say whether this is right or not, I just know that standstill should not be the primary draw spell in control.

The combo match seems pretty difficult without a clock or lock. Any suggestions?

[Rune]

I'm surprised there's not more activity in this thread as the deck has had tremendous success lately at the GP and online.

A few points -

There is really no reason not to run 2 island 1 swamp. Mana denial/screw/ect. is one of the weaknesses that can be exploited against this deck.

On Standstill - we all love drawing cards on the cheap, but the card has never really been good in control. It's great after you just wiped the board, but control needs to draw cards to come back from being behind on board position.

If you have SCG premium I recommend you check out Sulivan and Thompson's latest articles where they address control in Legacy. One answer is to replace standstill for 2 top, 2 Intuition, 1 Loam, 1 Sandbar, 1 Ruins, 1 Waste, EE, Shackles. You no longer have to run multiple Wastes or the 2nd loam which open up space for the basics and card advantage with Ruins.

I haven't put in enough games to say whether this is right or not, I just know that standstill should not be the primary draw spell in control.

The combo match seems pretty difficult without a clock or lock. Any suggestions?


You can run Arcane Laboratory as your hate card against storm combo. If you don't have any hate for the matchup, I doubt you will beat any competent storm player as this deck is extremely slow. The Show and Tell/Emrakul/Mosswort Bridge decks get destroyed by Innocent Blood, Wasteland and Jace, so I don't think that's a hard matchup. Reanimator doesn't seem that hard either since you can bounce Iona with Jace or grab Echoing Truth if you have Cunning Wish in your deck.

I think Standstill is still very good. It obviously sucks against Vial decks and Ichorid, but even against the Vial decks it can be good lategame after you Deed'ed the board. I don't think the Intuition/Loam draw engine is too bad, but Standstill gives you an advantage faster. It either gives 3 cards immediately or it slows the game down so you can make your land drops.

[sauce]

I feel like Consume the meek is a great addition/replacement for Tsabo's decree in the Wishboard for Jason Ford's list.
Also, Rootgrapple should be considered imho. I have seen some landstill decks on modo run that card in the SB before.

[Svenanole]

Rootgrapple is awesome :)

I have messed around with the manabase, i needed more basics because of non-basic hate (wasteland and price of progress)

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland (Cut 1, needed more U sources)

Same Non-Land cards as the GP

Wishboard-
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Krosan Grip
1 Back to Nature
1 Rootgrapple
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Consume the Meek
1 Forbid
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Expirpate
1 Echoing Truth
1 Spell Pierce (I want to get up to 2 because of SB help for TES, I am thinking about dropping the Edict because there is no reason to have it beause decks where it is important are decks that run little creatures and you should be able to hold back on your innocent bloods)

[ivanpei]

Intuition -> Loam + cycle lands is very very slow, I tried it, but it never worked. Standstill is a must play unfortunately. It sucks occasionally but is golden whenever the board is clear. Standstill is bad vs fast aggro, intuition loam is even worse against fast aggro. I like the 4 colour lists with path and swords instead of the UBG ones because your removal is instant, which is very important with standstill because: On the play, stp/path turn 1 drop EOT (lackey etc) -> turn 2 standstill. On the draw, you can STP the worst threat on the table EOT (like goyf instead of the turn 1 lavamancer) -> turn 2 standstill (leaving maybe a 2/2 on the table which factory is bigger than or something that mutavault trades with).


My no frills list:

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of will
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
4 STP
2 PTE
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Deed
3 Jace
4 Factory
2 Mutavault
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Tundra
3 Trop
3 Sea

SB changes from meta to meta, usually a mix of meddling mage, extirpate, blue blasts, duress- the mentioned 4 hit a wide variety of things. Its funny how the entire board comes in vs TES. :) Looking forward to your thoughts on UWBG vs UBG deedstill. Cheers!

[Rune]

What's the best life gain sb card available to the Ugb build? Kitchen Finks? Don't wanna lose to the random burn and sligh decks in my meta :/

[Nizmox]

Forgive me if this is a really dumb idea, but has anyone considered running Regrowth in the UBg lists?
I thought it might be a good call as a 2 of in place of 2 spell pierces (moving these to the board). I can see it being useful to bring back Jace, Deed, Standstill, FoW. Also it has some synergy when you are dredging back Life from the Loam, allowing you to tutor from your graveyard.

[honestabe]

So I was up in Columbus for the Grand Prix this past weekend -- I was running Excalibur because I wasn't quite comfortable with any Landstill options available to me, even though it is my preferred deck, and went 5-4 on day one -- and in watching the Top 8 I saw this awesome UBg Landstill list being run by Jason Ford, who took 3rd/4th:

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
2 Ghastly Demise
4 Innocent Blood
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Life from the Loam
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Spell Pierce
4 Standstill
1 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

// Wishboard
1 Back to Nature
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
1 Forbid
1 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Stifle
1 Submerge
1 Tsabo's Decree

I put it together Sunday afternoon and was really pleased with how it performs. Love me some wishboard action! Can do some awesome stuff with it, like in my testing against the Ub Merfolk list that Saito won with, where I cracked Pernicious Deed, killing his AEther Vial, and then wished for an Extirpate to hit it with. In another game, we had both been sticking Standstill like mad, and so I had 10 cards in hand during his turn. He tried to cast something, so I wished for Forbid, and tossed some lands to buy it back. The next turn I dropped another Standstill. :smile:

Thoughts?

This is ELD's (New England T.O.) deck. (literally, he lent it to Jason for the GP). I've played against ELD with it and the thing is a beast. I'm not sure if I like the wished though. I always seem to be brainstorming them back or pitching to force. I've replaced them with another spell pierce and 2 thoughtseizes and like it a lot.

The reason it only runs 1 basic is because the mana costs are quite awkward and with 8 non colored lands, needs to make sure it can play everyingthing it needs to. wasteland isnt really too big of a problem because of loam. Im pretty sure the island is there just to allow you to play turn 1 brainstorm/spell pierce and still be able to make a 2-drop turn 2

[counterspell7]

What's the best life gain sb card available to the Ugb build? Kitchen Finks? Don't wanna lose to the random burn and sligh decks in my meta :/

I have found that the card Suffer the Past to be an excellent edition to the wish board. I have been testing it for about a week now and it has proved itself as an excelent wish target. I've been able to remove problem graveyard cards, gain alittle life when needed and it has even gone the distance and won several games.

[Svenanole]

nourish is the cheapest lifegain vs cmc. It is enough to pull out the win after you stabilize.

3 cunning wish is to many, I would either play 2 or 0. With having a slow meta, I feel that it is beneficial to play 2 to have hate cards game one.

I like the 3 extirpate/relic strategy instead of the Leyline strategy because you dont have to aggressively mulligan or lose and the extirpates hose control mirrors very well where leyline doesn't help out at all.

regrowth seems like a great idea, the thing about taking out spell pierces though is that we dont have an answer to a t1 vail other then force

[Nizmox]

regrowth seems like a great idea, the thing about taking out spell pierces though is that we dont have an answer to a t1 vail other then force

Yeah i'm definitely going to test Regrowth. I can see it having alot of potential and it means we don't have to run 4 copies of Jace. We can always bring him back if he bites the dust and Regrowth would never be a dead card given the other cards that can be recured (Standstill, FoW, Deed).

I know what you mean with Spell Pierce. I think Merfolk are probably one of this deck's worst matchups. Even if you are on the play with a spell pierce in hand, luck is still not in your favour because they run Daze and you both run FoW.

[Jiaozy]

I know what you mean with Spell Pierce. I think Merfolk are probably one of this deck's worst matchups. Even if you are on the play with a spell pierce in hand, luck is still not in your favour because they run Daze and you both run FoW.Merfolk is less worse than it seems, you can slow down their race a LOT and the focus of your game should be to resolve a Pernicious Deed.
With all their critters and Vial out of the way, the game for them is really hard.

Other blue decks have problems with Merfolk because they can't deal decently with a Vial, while this deck can.

[Nizmox]

Merfolk is less worse than it seems, you can slow down their race a LOT and the focus of your game should be to resolve a Pernicious Deed.
With all their critters and Vial out of the way, the game for them is really hard.

Other blue decks have problems with Merfolk because they can't deal decently with a Vial, while this deck can.

I agree, your best bet is to concentrate on resolving deed and clearing the board, I think you'll be lucky if you can counter the vial.
I guess engineered plagues in the board are useful also. I haven't faced any Merfolk in my testing unfortunately. I'm looking to run this deck at the Sydney GP Legacy side event.

[Jiaozy]

I feel like Consume the meek is a great addition/replacement for Tsabo's decree in the Wishboard for Jason Ford's list.
Also, Rootgrapple should be considered imho. I have seen some landstill decks on modo run that card in the SB before.Consume the Meek is decent against Merfolk but against Gobbos not so much, since they just need to hold on a Ringleader and they're back in the game, same goes for merfolk.
Tsabo's Decree is way better because it's not just a Wrath but a Wrath + Mindtwist.

Slowing them down won't be a problem with Deeds, counter and removal, the problem is that should they resolve a decent/good Ringleader you're in for a lot of hurt even after you Wrath'ed the board..

[DragoFireheart]

I'm confused: what does UBG landstill have over UWx landstill?

[sclabman]

It has Pernicious Deed which is amazing and sideboard options.

[Mana Drain]

Hello everyone! Long time lurker; first time poster!

Here is my version of U/g/b/w Still that I have been playing for some time after switching from U/W landstill.

3 Underground Sea
3 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island


3 Counterspell
2 Life from the Loam
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Path to Exile
2 Spell Snare
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed


Board

2 Path to Exile
3 Ethersworn Cannonist
3 Extirpate
2 Grips
1 Spell Snare
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Perish

Pretty standard 4c goodstuff control if you ask me. Some inclusions may need to be explained:

Ethersworn Cannonist: Extremely underrated right now in my opinion. Not only is it a hatebear vs Storm (albeit a relatively slow one) but it has a number of uses in other bad matchups. Against UG Vengvine Madness (which if anyone believes to be a fluke deck, I urge you to reconsider. The deck has a number of draws where it doesn't matter what 75 cards are in your deck.), it slows down the pace of the game to the point that you can swords their Vengevines without fear of daze or force and build up to a deed or perish sweep. Against any blue-based Show and Tell + Big dudes deck (I've found to be a hard matchup do to the speed and abundance of cheap disrution), it forces them to Duress/Thoughtseize one turn and hope you don't have more counters the next, basically voiding their countermagic as long as she is on the table. Against storm, it's obviously game-breaking if you can land her (storm decks don't win on t1 and t2 EVERY game, especially not through Spell Pierce and Force). Although I have not tested much if at all against many Aggro-Loam decks, in theory she could slow the game down long enough for a deed or a grip on Chalice/Pithing Needle.

Extirpate: More gy hate against Ichorid (in combination with relic), UG Madness, opposing heavy control decks (nailing a countered jace, force, brainstorm, or a wasted dual to block colors), Loam, random reanimator builds, and decent against storm. An all-around effective card that is never AMAZING but always solid.

3 MD Spell Pierce: A concession to u-based tempo stratagies. No basics in the deck, high mana curve, and 4 colors makes this a bad matchup in my experience (and one I find to be increasingly more common). Effective against storm and CB also, but I generally find it to be less than stellar most of the time. Looking for a replacement.

I'm having alot of trouble with tempo stratagies and sometimes U SnT decks, for reasons listed above. If anyone could give me some suggestions to give the deck more game against these matchups, I'd appreciate it. I'm thinking I want needle in the board somewhere, but can't quite figure out where.

Also: It could be a fluke, but I've enjoyed relative success against the Folk post-side. The combination of pierce, more sword effects and grip (for vial, equipment, and needle on deed) seem to be very effective, allowing you to survive long enough to sweep with deed, recover with loam (rarely do I see grave hate against me from folk), and eventually take control with jace, recurring factories and wastes, and efficient 1for1's backed up by serious card advantage. Maybe it's just my luck though.

[Svenanole]

Current list, any suggestions?

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill

4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce

4 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Sensi's Divining Top
1 Life From the Loam

Sideboard
3 Extirpate
2 Relic of Progentious
3 Engineered Plague
1 Perish
1 Nature's Ruin
3 Negate

[ivanpei]

I'd recommend some duress in the board in place of the negates and 1 relic. Then play a full set of extirpates by cutting the other relic. Extirpates are better in control oriented strategies because you want to deal with a problem permanently (ie exiling bridges vs ichorid and plague on horror etc). Also, duress combos with extirpate vs control/combo because you can use duress to peek at their hand and use extirpate to nail something else with that information. Hope that helps!

[Jiaozy]

I'm confused: what does UBG landstill have over UWx landstill?Pernicious Deed, really, just that.
In most games it's game breaking enough to warrant playing UBG over UWx, because it wrecks any Vial deck, any deck playing equipments and artifacts of various nature (Stax, Stompy and the like) and, having a cost that's not very likely to be hit by Counterbalance, it can hit those too.

It also deals very well with random.dec like Enchantress, Affinity and similar.

[Tortured Existence]

what do you guys think of this?

http://i55.tinypic.com/28jwupy.jpg

[ScatmanX]

Current list, any suggestions?
Add 4 more cards MD and 2 SB...
Suggestions would be Pernicious and Duress.

[Tinefol]

You don't have enough red mana to use Grove/Fire. The manabase hasn't enough blue. No instant removal. Bloodwitch just sucks. Weak, I'd say.

[Amon Amarth]

At least make the vampire... thing a 4th Jace TMS.

[xTrainx]

I would almost say to cut a Trop for another Volcanic if you want to support the Grove combo.

[Tortured Existence]

Originally it was a Drana because I liked the flavor text and the idea of a 5 mana dork beating the crap out a fully powered legacy deck, but it just got plowed even post board :(. Bloodwitch is alot better than Drana.

I'll try another volcanic, but to be clear the combo isn't supposed to burn someone out, I just need it to kill a gob/merfolk a turn once I start stabilizing, nor d I need it to kill a 3+ power creature as vs zoo I just get ruins/ee/loam instead.

[ScatmanX]

I have piloted UBG Landstill (for the 1st time ever) in a champ yesterday, and went freaking 6-0 (4-2 because I had to conceed to 2 teammates).
I must say, this is completely bonkers.

[jnosrati]

I am a long time zoo pilot finally looking at a second deck. so to start me off, i have some questions. what is the grove combo? what are the different starategies and what seem to be the matchup changes on them?
im usualy in a meta with merfolk and vengevine everywhere. some goblins and zoo as well.

im probably gonna play nonred, dont know what colors yet. i have all the cards though.
cards on my mind- jace, elspeth, both?
wrath?
misdirection?
moat vs humility? i have moats, and want to play them, but it seems that playing moat means depending on elspeth unless i try to play the new venser and blik my moat ro somthing (seems dumb)
swords v innocent blood v spell snare v spell pierce v ghastly demise v counterspell
sylvan library; can i make it work? seems better than top here
countertop? *note-im not gonna play dreadnoughts*
i assume daze and force are auto includes

thoughts from experienced players?


from my reading i feel that black and wishing is good because of extirpate alone. i really like extirpate in board.
b/g has deed
white has elspeth

what are all of the options for win cons
i can think of
elspeth beatdown under moat
jace ultimate
factory beatdown under humility
scepter/swords lock or counterspell lock seems good (seems better without innocent blood=sorcery)
maybe somthing with new elspeth
decree of justice jargon
...??

thanks a lot in advance, i know its a lot.

[Rune]

If you want to play the 2WW cards, you should probably look in the UW(x) Landstill thread because I don't really think they belong in Ubgw Landstill (the mana requirement is way too awkward). You basically have to choose between playing Deed or the white lategame bombs. The Ubg version is the one that performs the best at the moment, and I think that's mostly because Deed is so much better than the Wraths and Explosives that the UW decks play. The white win conditions aren't really needed now that Jace 2.0 has been printed. Jace is so good that I haven't even won with factory beatdown yet, people usually just scoop after a bit of fatesealing.

[Tortured Existence]

syvlan library is a big no no as is maindeck counterbalance due to pernicious deed;

as stated you can't play any ww cards that arn't complete hosers in this deck as your games usually require you to fetch your lands in such a fashion as to get deed as an option by turn 3 and with wastelands (they waste your tundras/scrublands first if they are an aggro deck) you will not get humility online until its too late; if you have lots of combo you can play md tops/sb counterbalances, and if you have lots of red aggro/burn you can play cop red/pulse of the fields sb; but no md ww cards or permanants that get deeded is a good rule to follow

new venser is terrible we don't have anything to blink and it doesn't affect the board

Daze is not auto inclue - in fact you shouldn't play daze at all; you goal is to hit every land drop from turn 1-6

Also Grove combo is the interaction between Burn of the grove willows and Punishing fire; its a recuring shock every turn for 1RR, basically a gaint fu to goblins/merfolk. Admittedly though its suboptimal for deedstill and works best in a UWgr landstill shell, as the red splash combos better with elspeth/humility/decree than the non existent synergy with jace/deed

[sdematt]

@ ScatmanX,

What list did you play? congrats on the finish!

-Matt

[Shimi]

Hi guys, I'm playing the standard list(1 loam , 4 jace , 24lands , 3 pierce , 3 snare...) but my SB is:
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
4 Engeneered Plague
2 Perish
2 Infest (i'm not sold yet about this one, but my meta is very aggro)

I was testing against BGW decks with Extipate and Needle pos-SB and I was a really hard matchup, if they waste and extirpate a Tropical Island then land a Needle for Jace I'm in serious problems since I can't remove the needle and just need to win with Mishra's.So I was thinking about a basic forest in my SB to avoid this situations, what do you guys think about it?And what should be a SB plan against this decks? I'm +2 extipates(for bob , vindicate or their extipates/needles) -2 Ghastly +2 Krosan(needle and top) -1 Deed -1 Spell Pierce.

[Svenanole]

how is infest good? Seems pretty bad. I would look into spot removal instead.

I would use relic to protect your wincons

[ScatmanX]

@ ScatmanX,

What list did you play? congrats on the finish!

-Matt

I played the list Shimi (2 posts above me) described, with that SB.
His deck actually =D

[Tortured Existence]

Hi guys, I'm playing the standard list(1 loam , 4 jace , 24lands , 3 pierce , 3 snare...) but my SB is:
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
4 Engeneered Plague
2 Perish
2 Infest (i'm not sold yet about this one, but my meta is very aggro)

I was testing against BGW decks with Extipate and Needle pos-SB and I was a really hard matchup, if they waste and extirpate a Tropical Island then land a Needle for Jace I'm in serious problems since I can't remove the needle and just need to win with Mishra's.So I was thinking about a basic forest in my SB to avoid this situations, what do you guys think about it?And what should be a SB plan against this decks? I'm +2 extipates(for bob , vindicate or their extipates/needles) -2 Ghastly +2 Krosan(needle and top) -1 Deed -1 Spell Pierce.

-2 krosan grip +2 EE fixes that very easily, you side them in against the same matchups and while grip gets b2b/choke aot better its notreally that big of a problem

[ivanpei]

I won't continue argueing on the benefits of 4c but I've made a couple of changes and wanted to bounce it out there if anyone has made the same changes. In 4c, I've gone down to just 4 manlands and 9 fetches, 4 tundra, 4 sea, 3 trops. Very little mana problems after this switch. I've noticed I kill with jace like 90% of the time anyway, so more manlands don't fix my "kill in time" problem. I've also gone down to 2 pierce and running a full set of 4 counterspells. I've realised after alot of testing that after the first couple of turns, I hated seeing pierce. And usually in those first few turns, snare does the same thing as pierce and later in the game, counterspell is just much better. I've had dead pierces sit in my hand far too often. Cheers, Ivan.

[galeng]

Hey all, I'm pretty new to the forums and back into magic after a long break. Here's my 4c landstill build that I've been working on for a while:

4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Stifle
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Cunning Wish

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Extirpate
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Tsabo's Decree

Any suggestions on the deck list? I've been testing Jace for FoF but it seems to blow unless you've got the game locked up already. Also the Merfolk (fish) matchup is pretty horrible. Anything I'm missing, or is it just a bad matchup?

[ivanpei]

IMO, the cunning wish board is too slow, so is crucible. Stifles have been cut from most landstill lists recently in favor of spell snare. Stifle does little against Ad nauseum based storm combo as they can now duress you (from the billion cards drawn off ad nauseum) before casting the tendrils. Spell snare hits tutors/wishes and is more relevant in this MU. Protection from wasteland/stoneraining fetchlands are usually the only use for stifle other than some other fringe benefits. On that note, I've decided to cut the mana denial package of wasteland, crucible and stifle in favor of more answers and mana stability. Your list would do well in a slower aggro-control MU but against fish, I think you've already realised its hard to win. You play 8 colourless sources and only 6 fetches. I'm guessing a wasteland is enough to colour screw you most of the times? I'm playing just 4 mishra's, 9 fetches and 11 duals.

the crucibles and cunnings should be 2 path to exile and 2 engineered explosives. The format is very quick nowadays (folk and zoo especially), so quick, flexible answers are best. 26 land is alot, I'd cut 2 colourless sources for 2 spell pierce. I know that card isn't very hot, its the weakest slot for me IMO, but it's needed to save you from natural order, combo and various early game bombs like hymm to tourach, survival of the fittest/counterbalance. With the revamped MD, You now have less bombs and more answers, thus Jace TMS becomes more attractive. He is now easier to protect and is usually GG when he lands. By playing Jace, TMS, cutting your manlands to just 4 is also no problem as you can kill with Jace, and Jace kills as quick as a nantuko monastary (he is in essence a 4 power creature speed wise) and is immune to common removal like swords, just fate seal first before passing priority to pump him to 5 loyalty if you suspect bolt/chain lightning.

He is not only a brainstorm on a stick. He is an answer as well, he bounces Iona, opposing goyfs etc. Usually the line of play when under pressure is bounce, followed by brainstorming (waiting a turn frees up mana). His fateseal is amazing, You usually match what they draw with your hand. Can I answer it with my existing board/cards in hand? You can have it. I can't? Bye bye! Jace makes your goblins MU winnable (though still not positive) because he fateseals away matrons, ringleaders and SCG which you can only answer with force/counterspell and you might not always have one. They have 4 matrons, 4 ringleader, 2/3 SGC and are actually better at topdecking than you are. Jace soft locks them, giving them 1 for 1 cards that you don't care about or can answer with your insane amounts of removal. My 2 cents. Cheers!

[galeng]

IMO, the cunning wish board is too slow, so is crucible. Stifles have been cut from most landstill lists recently in favor of spell snare. Stifle does little against Ad nauseum based storm combo as they can now duress you (from the billion cards drawn off ad nauseum) before casting the tendrils. Spell snare hits tutors/wishes and is more relevant in this MU. Protection from wasteland/stoneraining fetchlands are usually the only use for stifle other than some other fringe benefits. On that note, I've decided to cut the mana denial package of wasteland, crucible and stifle in favor of more answers and mana stability. Your list would do well in a slower aggro-control MU but against fish, I think you've already realised its hard to win. You play 8 colourless sources and only 6 fetches. I'm guessing a wasteland is enough to colour screw you most of the times? I'm playing just 4 mishra's, 9 fetches and 11 duals.

the crucibles and cunnings should be 2 path to exile and 2 engineered explosives. The format is very quick nowadays (folk and zoo especially), so quick, flexible answers are best. 26 land is alot, I'd cut 2 colourless sources for 2 spell pierce. I know that card isn't very hot, its the weakest slot for me IMO, but it's needed to save you from natural order, combo and various early game bombs like hymm to tourach, survival of the fittest/counterbalance. With the revamped MD, You now have less bombs and more answers, thus Jace TMS becomes more attractive. He is now easier to protect and is usually GG when he lands. By playing Jace, TMS, cutting your manlands to just 4 is also no problem as you can kill with Jace, and Jace kills as quick as a nantuko monastary (he is in essence a 4 power creature speed wise) and is immune to common removal like swords, just fate seal first before passing priority to pump him to 5 loyalty if you suspect bolt/chain lightning.

He is not only a brainstorm on a stick. He is an answer as well, he bounces Iona, opposing goyfs etc. Usually the line of play when under pressure is bounce, followed by brainstorming (waiting a turn frees up mana). His fateseal is amazing, You usually match what they draw with your hand. Can I answer it with my existing board/cards in hand? You can have it. I can't? Bye bye! Jace makes your goblins MU winnable (though still not positive) because he fateseals away matrons, ringleaders and SCG which you can only answer with force/counterspell and you might not always have one. They have 4 matrons, 4 ringleader, 2/3 SGC and are actually better at topdecking than you are. Jace soft locks them, giving them 1 for 1 cards that you don't care about or can answer with your insane amounts of removal. My 2 cents. Cheers!

Thanks for the input. I've tried switching up the mana base and I like it a lot...

8 duals, 4 tundra, 3 trop 3 sea, 4 factory, 2 waste, 2 monastery.

I've also taken out stroke of genius in the sb for echoing truth.

My ad nauseum matchup is very favourable. Its just fish with vials and cheap counters to protect them that give me problems. It's like goblins with permission :frown:. Running less land seems a bit too thin unless I we're to cut wasteland. I get mana screwed often enough with 26. I can't see 4c landstill running efficiently with 24 land count, especially without stifle.

[galeng]

So I've been fiddling with some testing and I found engineered explosives to be better than it looks. Very flexible and answers a ton of stuff. I cut a tundra and stifle to include 2 of them. This is my current list:

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Stifle
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Cunning Wish

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Extirpate
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Tsabo's Decree

After a lot of testing with Jace, It just seems to overkill when you're ahead in tempo and a dead draw when you're not. Maybe I'm missing something. FoF just seems to help in every situation. Also realized that I'd have to run Jace If I we're to ditch Crucible due to removal, so that's out. I'm liking the build a lot. Any more pointers? I'll update later if something comes up.

[kirtash]

Hi! I went to a legacy tournament with UGB landstill and I've been 6º of 30 people. I've really liked this deck, I've found extirpate very useful but I felt very unprotected against merfolks. I didn't find pernicious and when I found it, it was late to kill the fish. This is my list:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [UNH] Island
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
2 [MOR] Mutavault
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [UNH] Swamp
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [R] Underground Sea

// Spells
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MM] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [US] Arcane Laboratory
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 2 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [TE] Perish

Round 1: Bye
Round 2: Goblins. Game 1 very strange, there were a lot of goblin tokens of Mogg War Marshal and I couldn't stop them. Game 2 and 3 Engineered Plague helped against them and pernicious were very useful.

Round 3: Elves Combo. Game 1. I killed all mana elves and that's all. Game 2. Engineered Plague and Perish were very important.

Round 4: Bant. Game 1. Tarmogoyf and progenitus defeated me. Game 2 and 3. He had progenitus in play, I had Jace and I made brainstorm with him. I was at 6 and I found Perish, later on I removed his library.

Round 5: Merfolks. Game 1 and 2 were very fast, I couldn't do anything because of his lords and Engineered Plague was very unuseful at that moment.

Do you thing I should change my sideboard?
Thank you!

[conboy31]

I can't believe the deck lists being posted with 0 basic lands or the cavalier attitude towards running a control deck with 0 basics. I let a friend use UBg Jacestill at the minneapolis legacy 5k and use it myself for testing purposes. He made remarks nearly every round about how useful they were (having played goblins, new horizons, and lands twice). Every top decklist with jace and 3 colors that I have seen runs at least one basic with many having two or three.
It is tough to imagine resolving 4 mana planeswalkers in a format with daze, spell pierce, and wasteland with 0 basics. Congrats if you can, I guess.

[Tinefol]

Its beating on a dead horse, but the Wasteland argument is moot. Unless you play the majorit of basics, you're still getting wastelanded, there is no way you can lay 4 basics in a first four turns. Moreover, if you are, its going to colorscrew you more than its otherwise worth.

[abraxas]

I don't why you guys are concerned with playing Jace TMS on turn 4. That is such a bad move. Unless their hand is near empty and the board has already been cleared (which wouldn't make sense since that would require a Pernicious Deed just played), you wouldn't play Jace so quickly.

People who attempt to play UW Control in Standard and want to play Sun Titan all the time on turn 6 are on the same boat.

Got to handle your resources, make sure you got decent card advantage going, maybe a counter or two back up, etc before you play Jace TMS.

I could only imagine increasing your basic land count from 1 to 3 being the most worth it.
My land count is currently:
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Island

I like what others have done and converted their U/B/g manabase to the following:
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Island
1 Swamp

However, I could imagine you still having problems not cracking the fetch for the Trop. at the correct time, or drawing into a Swamp, after cracking for a Sea, then seeing Pernicious Deed - thus without a green source available. Sad times.

That's why you got to utilize Life from the Loam at the correct time and if you use the Cunning Wish package, Extirpate that Wasteland or Life from the Loam of the other player's if you can (esp. if they are Aggro Loam). Otherwise you'll recover from a land or two being wasted with the Loam package and the amount of draw and fetches you use. I've never had a problem, but I haven't played a huge tournament filled with Loam and Stifle decks to complain currently.

[sdematt]

Obviously some matchups that attack your manabase can be rough, as you're a control deck. Playing against Aggro-Loam, you need to fetch some basics early. But, you also have Wastelands of your own to take the other side down a peg as well.

I'm playing a 3 basic list, with 2 Islands and 1 Swamp, and it's working fine. Most of the time, if you're in a Wastelock situation, you just have to sit on 3, but this allows you to cast Cunning Wish for Extirpate, or use Innocent bloods, etc. Then, when you hit Green, lay Deed/Loam.

Like I said, you can obviously get screwed over if you start a hand with 3 lands and you get Stifled, then Wastelanded, but that's life. You could be playing anything and the same thing could happen to you. What are you going to do, play 10 basics, then die in a fire when you can't get the right colours?

My land list looks like this:

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Islands
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island

I may cut a fetch for a 4th Tropical, as it's usually the colour that's cut off from you by Wasteland, but so far, I haven't had much issue.

Also, I've found cutting the 4th Wasteland for more coloured sources has helped me a lot. Honestly, you don't NEED 4 Wasteland, but you do NEED the right coloured mana to play your threats. And, since you have Loam anyway, you can still bring back those Wastelands.


-Matt

[galeng]

What do you guys think of Teferi's response as main deck tempo in landstill? Seems pretty devastating vs. wasteland, port, fire/ice, sinkhole, etc. I've yet to test it though. Probably be a 2x.

[abraxas]

Wouldn't that be a meta choice? Also, like Predict, I would figure it would be way too situational.

At a 2 CMC spell, the best situation to use it under would be with 2 lands untapped + a fetch in play. You crack fetch, play Teferi's Response. LOL.

Otherwise, everytime you have one or two lands into play -- with one of them being a fetch you are cracking -- and your opponent stifles your Wasteland, you just look at your Teferi's Response and cringe. It's become a dead card VERY quickly....unless of course they draw another stifle.

There is plenty of times where your opponent may stifle your wasteland in points of the game where you already have it locked up or are on your way to victory. Teferi's response just becomes a dead card very quickly.

[nedleeds]

IMO, the cunning wish board is too slow

If you commit to wish then you likely should be running the traps. Mindbreak and Ravenous. Even then getting 3 online to Wish-> Mindbreak is tough.

[Valtrix]

What do you guys think of Teferi's response as main deck tempo in landstill? Seems pretty devastating vs. wasteland, port, fire/ice, sinkhole, etc. I've yet to test it though. Probably be a 2x.

You shouldn't need teferi's response to not get blown out with one wasteland. Plus, it's wasteland recursion which is most fearsome, not countering the ability on one of them. And it might be devastating against the other mentioned cards, but really, how often are you going to run into that? Fire/ice and sinkhole see almost no play, and two decks play port, one of which plays loam in addition, so destroying a port isn't very useful.



At a 2 CMC spell, the best situation to use it under would be with 2 lands untapped + a fetch in play. You crack fetch, play Teferi's Response. LOL.

Otherwise, everytime you have one or two lands into play -- with one of them being a fetch you are cracking -- and your opponent stifles your Wasteland, you just look at your Teferi's Response and cringe. It's become a dead card VERY quickly....unless of course they draw another stifle.

I presume you're saying that you teferi's response a stifle on a fetchland or wasteland? If so, then Teferi's response does not work as you think, because at the point that you've activated either's abilities, they put an ability on the stack. As such, stifle is targeting the ability of the land, not the land itself, so teferi's response cannot target stifle.

If your main concern is land destruction just run more lands or life from the loam, both of which seem infinitely better than teferi's response.

[abraxas]

I presume you're saying that you teferi's response a stifle on a fetchland or wasteland? If so, then Teferi's response does not work as you think, because at the point that you've activated either's abilities, they put an ability on the stack. As such, stifle is targeting the ability of the land, not the land itself, so teferi's response cannot target stifle.

I didn't even realize this when I posted above until now. Whoops...!

[lotriderm]

Hi! I went to a legacy tournament with UGB landstill and I've been 6º of 30 people. I've really liked this deck, I've found extirpate very useful but I felt very unprotected against merfolks. I didn't find pernicious and when I found it, it was late to kill the fish. This is my list:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [UNH] Island
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
2 [MOR] Mutavault
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [UNH] Swamp
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [R] Underground Sea

// Spells
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MM] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [US] Arcane Laboratory
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 2 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [TE] Perish

Round 1: Bye
Round 2: Goblins. Game 1 very strange, there were a lot of goblin tokens of Mogg War Marshal and I couldn't stop them. Game 2 and 3 Engineered Plague helped against them and pernicious were very useful.

Round 3: Elves Combo. Game 1. I killed all mana elves and that's all. Game 2. Engineered Plague and Perish were very important.

Round 4: Bant. Game 1. Tarmogoyf and progenitus defeated me. Game 2 and 3. He had progenitus in play, I had Jace and I made brainstorm with him. I was at 6 and I found Perish, later on I removed his library.

Round 5: Merfolks. Game 1 and 2 were very fast, I couldn't do anything because of his lords and Engineered Plague was very unuseful at that moment.

Do you thing I should change my sideboard?
Thank you!

Is that 62 cards in the maindeck or did I miscount?

[galeng]

The Mindbreak Trap seems weak to me. When will an opponent realistically play 3 spells in one turn? Maybe combo but that's about it. Ravenous trap looks feasible, but I'm not sure if it's better than extirpate or if it's worth siding both. Anyone had good results with wish -> traps?

[blueneverfails]

So after watching the rise of Jace since its inception, I feel this is the best time to revive my favorite deck in legacy.... ITF. The reason I bring it in this board is because, first it fits the colors and also because it really is just a landstill deck that Gearheart decided to name differently. Here is the list of old.

Mainboard:

2 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Academy Ruins
1 Etched Oracle
1 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Intuition
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Life from the Loam
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard:

2 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
1 Hydroblast
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Engineered Plague


The main reason the list died was because of the quickness of decks and also because of oracle becoming worthless with new m10 ruling. Now with that I feel that the deck can now adapt to the envirement and be strong again. Here is the list that I propose.

2 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Academy Ruins

1 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Intuition

1 Life from the Loam
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Jace 2.0
1 (im still iffy on this cuz of the double ww) Sun titan

I feel with the addition of jace and also with intuition and sun titan, this could be a dominant deck again, what does everyone think?

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

So after watching the rise of Jace since its inception, I feel this is the best time to revive my favorite deck in legacy.... ITF. The reason I bring it in this board is because, first it fits the colors and also because it really is just a landstill deck that Gearheart decided to name differently. Here is the list of old.

Mainboard:

2 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Academy Ruins
1 Etched Oracle
1 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Intuition
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Life from the Loam
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard:

2 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
1 Hydroblast
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Engineered Plague


The main reason the list died was because of the quickness of decks and also because of oracle becoming worthless with new m10 ruling. Now with that I feel that the deck can now adapt to the envirement and be strong again. Here is the list that I propose.

2 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Academy Ruins

1 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Intuition

1 Life from the Loam
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Jace 2.0
1 (im still iffy on this cuz of the double ww) Sun titan

I feel with the addition of jace and also with intuition and sun titan, this could be a dominant deck again, what does everyone think?

Sun Titan is too Mana Heavy, especially with White being the smallest of the colors. With Land Disruption floating everywhere, I believe that is why this deck should be set back for a little longer. You could put Jace in Solidarity and it would make for a discussion.

(Go Drink some Four Lokos or something Bundey...)

[sa17dk]

Nice. Pernicious Deed with Countertop. So much synergy.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

Long-time player, just getting back into Magic after a considerable absence.

While trying to decide which deck to play in the Legacy Meta, Landstill seems (to me) one of the stronger/more consistent decks of the format. I've been reading through this thread and the thread on UWx Landstill and have pieced together the following list as a way to start this deck for myself:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins

4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Standstill
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Force of Will
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Stifle
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Decree of Justice

3 Extirpate
3 Krosan Grip
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Spell Snare
2 Tormod's Crypt


The sideboard is kind of generic and I have yet to see what a local tournament looks like as far as deck prevalency and what meta-choices are made.

Also, I have some questions about the general make-up of the deck. Most of them come from not playing competitive Legacy in about 2-3 years, so my knowledge of the format is not what it used to be.

What situations make you want Loam over Crucible? Loam seems mana/tempo hungry in strictly control deck. Crucible does die to Deed, which is an argument in favor Loam for sure, but how often in any match (except Gobos) do you Deed for cmc3 or more?

Has anyone tested Vedalkan Shackles in the deck? If so, how did it fare? I can see arguments for and against it at this point.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor seems like a "win-more" card at 2UU for me in this deck. I haven't been in Magic for awhile and maybe don't see the subtleties due to my unfamiliarity with the cards.

I opted for Decree of Justice in my build, which I don't see many people playing anymore. It just seems too good with the Standstill mechanics and a card that puts a ton of pressure on your opponent. Why did people move away from Decree for this deck?

[god_campbell]

Jace is amazing in this deck, as he allows you to bounce a problem creature, brainstorm for answers, or just control the game if you can get him onto a empty board and just top deck him into oblivion, and even if the board is gumed up, he allows you to top deck stuff you need or stop them from finding their out. Jace is def not "win more"

[blueneverfails]

Nice. Pernicious Deed with Countertop. So much synergy.

So I'll take the sarcastic tone in your post and reply, that anyone who has ever played the deck knows that the 2 cards work fine with each other, you should try it first before you criticize the choice. This deck did very well for its short run.

This isn't a countertop deck, this is a landstill build with countertop mixed in, you don't need and many of the times dont see the counterbalance, which is fine. That is the reason why the deck is so consistant, it doesn't always need a single card to win.

[Mizeri]

Mainboard:

2 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Academy Ruins
1 Etched Oracle
1 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Intuition
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Life from the Loam
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard:

2 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
1 Hydroblast
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Engineered Plague

Your new list

2 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Academy Ruins

1 Eternal Witness
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Intuition

1 Life from the Loam
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Jace 2.0
1 (im still iffy on this cuz of the double ww) Sun titan

I feel with the addition of jace and also with intuition and sun titan, this could be a dominant deck again, what does everyone think?

I think this looks like you took "Its the fear" and put it in the wrong forum. Its not in the Dtb forum for a reason. Go look at the established one. You also cut the best cards in the deck and added crap. Shackles are good. Draw power is good. You don't have standstill or even AK. Am I the only one seeing this?

-Miz

[blueneverfails]

I think this looks like you took "Its the fear" and put it in the wrong forum. Its not in the Dtb forum for a reason. Go look at the established one. You also cut the best cards in the deck and added crap. Shackles are good. Draw power is good. You don't have standstill or even AK. Am I the only one seeing this?

-Miz

Did you even read what I wrote????????? I said I took ITF and changed it, And It has the same style of play and build of standstill, just without the standstill. Also Im not sure why you think you can act better than me when you instantly think the deck has to have AK just because of inuition. This deck is a very good deck, it is just very hard to pilot, so most people stay away from it. I asked for advice, not for people thinking they are smart with their sarcastic posts and thoughts that have no help what so ever towards the discussion.

[Pippin]

Did you even read what I wrote????????? I said I took ITF and changed it, And It has the same style of play and build of standstill, just without the standstill. Also Im not sure why you think you can act better than me when you instantly think the deck has to have AK just because of inuition. This deck is a very good deck, it is just very hard to pilot, so most people stay away from it. I asked for advice, not for people thinking they are smart with their sarcastic posts and thoughts that have no help what so ever towards the discussion.

They are right though, your list is definitively in wrong thread. It doesn't have mandlands, nor standstills - both of which are used in UBg(w) Landstill, hence the name of deck.

[Mizeri]

They are right though, your list is definitively in wrong thread. It doesn't have mandlands, nor standstills - both of which are used in UBg(w) Landstill, hence the name of deck.

Look someone who can read! :D tbh, I did miss what you said about you about putting its the fear in the wrong forum. I shoulda flammed harder. My point still stands, you took out a shackles an intuition and a cb for 2 shiny jaces and a sun titan. WOW! That's groundbreaking. Let's make a new thread called "Its not the fear its landstill without..landstill" Its not the same deck at all, plays COMPLETELY different!!1! It haz jace! Well. I apologize for everyone else having to read that. Maybe I need to go mellow out.. *bubble bubble* *cough cough*

Your deck is awesome man. Go post it in the ichorid thread too. Should get lots of good feedback. Gl with your changes!

-.-

-Miz

[Ubiquitous Druid]

Did you even read what I wrote????????? I said I took ITF and changed it, And It has the same style of play and build of standstill, just without the standstill. Also Im not sure why you think you can act better than me when you instantly think the deck has to have AK just because of inuition. This deck is a very good deck, it is just very hard to pilot, so most people stay away from it. I asked for advice, not for people thinking they are smart with their sarcastic posts and thoughts that have no help what so ever towards the discussion.

Hate to be an echo (Echoing Truth?), but this doesn't belong in this thread. ITF plays a very different game than Landstill. ITF is more proactive, Landstill is more reactive. The counter suite is completely different, the threats completely different in conceptual terms, and Intuition and Standstill provide completely different card advantage pertinent to the synergies and strategies of their shell. This thread is not about shells that have Jace as a wincon or decks that contain UBgw, this thread is about decks that have a Standstill engine and the shell to support it. Standstill itself requires you to play the card in such a specific way to be beneficial, that a deck that does not contain the card will inherently play different.

I'm sure you can find a thread here on the source discussing ITF and its evolution. In fact, you might find people who want to talk about that deck constructively rather than point out you're posting in the wrong forum. So instead of starting a flame-war, just check out the other thread and you may get some positive feedback.

[mchainmail]

How does this deck do against Zoo and Fish? I've put it together, but I'm having a rough time against both of these matchups.

(Standard UBG list, 4 deeds, 4 jace, 4 blood, 2 demise, 2 spell pierce, 3 snare)

Without lifegain / a clock, zoo blew me out in response to a late-game standstill.

[Shimi]

How does this deck do against Zoo and Fish? I've put it together, but I'm having a rough time against both of these matchups.

(Standard UBG list, 4 deeds, 4 jace, 4 blood, 2 demise, 2 spell pierce, 3 snare)

Without lifegain / a clock, zoo blew me out in response to a late-game standstill.

Never lose to Zoo at a Champ(even when I got a GameLoss a started 0-1),at play testings I was like 70-30, Jace taking out their burns + factorys is the way to go, and try to save your life total insead of trying to do X-1 with deed.

About Merfolks I just played once and did 2-0, ScatmanX played my deck and did 2-0 too, and at play testing it was very good except they have a god hand with tons of vial,adepts,daze,fow and wastes/mutavaults.

[jayman1515]

@ shimi
this is the list of your board you posted a couple pages back
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
4 Engeneered Plague
2 Perish
2 Infest

what is your current/updated board?

my board currently looks like
3x extirpate
4x thoughtseize
2x perish
2x engineered explosives
2x blue elemental blast
1x hydroblast
1x innocent blood

please note that this is a Ubg landstill without cunning wish also only main deck 3 innocent blood

[Shimi]

@jayman1515:
I'm still testing many SB options but I go up to 3 Extirpate cause there is a great chance to find Ug Madness at top tables and top8 , changed relic for nihil spellbomb(not tested but seems better except against white leyline of dredge) , i cut infests(BB is too hungry) and Trap(for 3º extirpate), I'm packing 4 plague cause it is broken against goblins and merfolks.Seize is nice but I never really wanted to have it except for control MU but I'm winning control games anyway(mirrors not included).I think I would play a basic forest in SB cause waste + extirpate at tropicals can hurt alot against BG and BGW decks(which are good against merfolks and vines , so it is becoming more popular).Hydroblast and BeB can be very good against burn/zoo/goblins I would like to know if they really help against this decks.Is 4 Seize really necessary?
I think Sb is very meta dependent so it is up to you to refine it, as soon as I finish some tests I will try to post some results.

PS:I'm packing 4 innocent blood MD.

[Mana Drain]

Damn, when did this deck get put back in established? It still kicks ass.

Here's my tuned and refined list.

2 Strand
2 Tarn
2 Delta
2 Rainforest
4 Tundra
3 U Sea
3 Tropical
4 Factories
1 A Ruins
1 Island

4 BS
4 Standstill
4 Force
4 Snare
4 Jace
4 Swords
2 Path
4 Deed
2 Explosives
2 Life from the Loam
2 Tops


SB

1 Path
2 Explosive
3 Peacekeeper (MVP of the board)
2 Grip
4 Extirpate
3 Spell Pierce

Very Similar to Ivanpeis list. 4 colors is necessary for this deck to be truly competitive in a field of Madness, Fish, TES, CB, etc. Innocent blood and ghastly demise just suck. No if's, and's, or but's. Sword effects are neccessary to control, especially against fish and Madness. With 3 colors the deck STILL gets wastelanded' and gains nothing from it's supposed "stability". Life from the loam (or crucible if you prefer) REALLY help against the mana-denial stratagies and from getting manascrewed. I've loved Loam 85% of time I see it. Ensuring land drops, additional shuffles with fetches, extra factories to block with, dredge 3 if you have nothing but junk in your top 3, and the synergy with BS/Jace is nothing to scoff at.

4 Jace can be clunky, but more often than not, he either fogs+brainstorms giving me time to stablize and drop deed/explosives or he just wins the game. Double Jace openers can be annoying, but he always pitches to force, can always be shuffled away, and you always just drop him to bait a counter/removal piece or draw an attack. In this deck, with 2 loams and 2 tops to help with land drops, I will continue playing 4.
Besides, he's Jace, The Mother-Fucking Mind Sculptor.

Basic island is a necessary evil. As someone pointed out a couple pages back, it allows you to make sure you can drop t2 standstill/loam/spin the top.

Peacekeeper is off the hook. Flat wins games when you land it against Folk or Madness, both of which can be major headaches for landstill. Their just arent many answers to her in UG. There's echoing truth and not much else. Sower I guess? And even if they remove 1, you still have 2 more.
3 narrow cards dedicated to 2 or 3 matchups is something I don't like siding, but both of those matchups happen to be high-profile Tier 1 decks that blowout blue-based control (That's us!). With Peacekeeper, both matchups become significantly better, especially when backed up by extra EE's and Paths.

I still randomly get blown out by TES though. Maybe it's my bad luck, but I would like more than just 3 pierces and a couple extirpates in my board for them. Still looking for a versatile solution to this problem.

[ivanpei]

Nice list, the loams and tops are meta calls. Imo with 4 jaces, I think you're 2 tops are expendable. Swords and paths are a must, they are awesome. You only have 4 force, 4 snares as counters, which IMO is insufficient (hence the hard combo MU). I'd cut either the 4th Jace and 2 snares for 3 counterspells, or 2 tops and a snare for 3 counterspells to help the combo MU. Try it out! You really need the counterspells vs combos like show and tell/TES as well as natural order. VS show and tell, your only relevant card is force, same for natural order, you have no outs other than force. As for TES, chant rapes you, hence why counterspell is needed. I hate the card too as its often terrible vs fish/other aggro, but its a necessary evil. Cheers.

[rancOr_]

I'm testing the 4c lists aswell now,as I feel UBg has a very rough g1 against UG Madness. The other thing is that u can play Ethersworn canonist now as hate for TES. The only thing im not so sure about is the manabase. I play 2loams aswell,but like to have atleast some wastelands.
@ivanpei How did the wastelands work out and why did u cut them?Mana base not stable enough or slowing urself down too much,also do u play loams/crucible? I think the best counterpackage would still be something like 4FoW,3snare,3spell pierce,3counterspell(or -1pierce +1cs).
I wouldn't be playing with 2SDT or any tops at all when u play 4Jace though. How do u like the EE's?

[kiblast]

currently i'm testing this list:

Deck: Untitled Deck (http://deckstats.net/deck-328838-a3c669e8cf2566f99401a65230767b47-en.html)

//Lands
4x Wasteland (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Wasteland)
3x Tropical Island (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tropical+Island)
3x Underground Sea (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Underground+Sea)
1x Bayou (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Bayou)
2x Polluted Delta (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Polluted+Delta)
4x Lonely Sandbar (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Lonely+Sandbar)
4x Mishra's Factory (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Mishra%27s+Factory)
1x Island (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Island)
2x Misty Rainforest (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Misty+Rainforest)
1x Volrath's Stronghold (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Volrath%27s+Stronghold)
1x Academy Ruins (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Academy+Ruins)

//Creatures
2x Shriekmaw (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Shriekmaw)

//Spells
4x Force of Will (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Force+of+Will)
1x Life from the Loam (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Life+from+the+Loam)
2x Intuition (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Intuition)
4x Counterspell (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Counterspell)
3x Pernicious Deed (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Pernicious+Deed)
4x Standstill (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Standstill)
4x Brainstorm (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Brainstorm)
3x Engineered Explosives (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Engineered+Explosives)
2x Innocent Blood (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Innocent+Blood)
3x Cunning Wish (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Cunning+Wish)
2x Ghastly Demise (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ghastly+Demise)

//Sideboard
1x Diabolic Edict (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Diabolic+Edict)
3x Tormod's Crypt (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tormod%27s+Crypt)
1x Fact or Fiction (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Fact+or+Fiction)
1x Mindbreak Trap (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Mindbreak+Trap)
1x Forbid (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Forbid)
1x Submerge (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Submerge)
1x Krosan Grip (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Krosan+Grip)
1x Tsabo's Decree (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tsabo%27s+Decree)
1x Ravenous Trap (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ravenous+Trap)
1x Back to Nature (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Back+to+Nature)
1x Extirpate (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Extirpate)
1x Echoing Truth (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Echoing+Truth)
1x Stifle (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Stifle)

http://i.hbtronix.de/chart_pie.png Display Deck Statistics (http://deckstats.net/deck-328838-a3c669e8cf2566f99401a65230767b47-en.html)

what do you think? i'd like to fit in here at least a couple of spell pierces, because i hate to see Countertop being resolved.
i just dont know what to cut.
Also what do you think of the wishboard?

[Tinefol]

Horrible manabase:
10 colorless lands (how are you going to cast anything?)
4 CIPT lands
Only 4 fetches (!)
The manabase is likely to scoop to a single Wasteland on colored source.

Sub-optimal sorcery speed removal (and it doesn't really have enough of it).
Overloaded 3cc slot.
Sideboard space wasted with a lot of almost always useless Wish stuff
Highly vulnerable win-conditions (no Jace).

[Tinefol]

Mana Drain
You seem to be missing a thing with Peacekeeper: both decks you mention it is good against happen to run mana denial. They don't need bounce. They Wasteland white source and its gone. The deck doesn't run basic Plains, and you can not always afford to fetch for multiple Tundras, since you still need that BG for Pernicious Deed. There is a Loam of course, but there are only two, you don't always have time and a fetchland.

[kiblast]

Horrible manabase:
10 colorless lands (how are you going to cast anything?)
4 CIPT lands
Only 4 fetches (!)
The manabase is likely to scoop to a single Wasteland on colored source.

Sub-optimal sorcery speed removal (and it doesn't really have enough of it).
Overloaded 3cc slot.
Sideboard space wasted with a lot of almost always useless Wish stuff
Highly vulnerable win-conditions (no Jace).


a part from the manabase, (never had particular screw problems in say 30-40 testing matches) do you realize what ''4 CIPT lands'' are? they're here to cycle, not to be cast. What do you suggest to improve spot removals? and i cannot see any useless wish stuff, could you explain yourself? Also ''needs moar jace'' is not a helpful hint.
You are on a forum, explain your critiques.
Useful comment indeed.

[DragoFireheart]

Alright, big question:

I've recently been testing a homebrew version of UWx Landstill. However, I find myself unhappy with the lack of ways to remove non-creature permanents. So, I want to play UBxx landstill with Pernicious Deed.

What are the advantages and disadvantages between UBg and UBgw? Which color combination do you feel is superior?

[kiblast]

in my opinion, Ubg is strictly more solid, and playing 3-4 pernicious maindeck gives us more catch-all answers maindeck. Personally i play 3, alongside with 2 EE.

[Rune]

I'd rather play 3 colors. Sure, you will get Wastelanded just as much, but it's harder for your opponent to cut you off a certain color.

[dahcmai]

Here's what I have been playing and it's been phenomenal so far.

1 Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
4 Brainstorm
3 Firespout
3 Spell Snare
4 Innocent Blood
4 Counterspell
4 Standstill
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Jace 2.0
4 Force of Will
2 Life From the Loam


4 Hydroblast
4 Leyline of the void
2 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
3 meta slots (usually Engineered plague or Drop of Honey)


I don't lose much at all anymore so it's hard to say what the bad match ups are other than I don't like playing against heavy burn.

[Tinefol]

a part from the manabase, (never had particular screw problems in say 30-40 testing matches) do you realize what ''4 CIPT lands'' are? they're here to cycle, not to be cast. What do you suggest to improve spot removals? and i cannot see any useless wish stuff, could you explain yourself? Also ''needs moar jace'' is not a helpful hint.
You are on a forum, explain your critiques.
Useful comment indeed.

Its inevitable to happen that you'd play the CIPT lands. And sometimes that's going to matter. If you run Intuiton shell, you hardly need more than two cycle lands. Your list runs seven double colored spells. You have 10 colorless sources and 4 cycle lands which you're intending to cycle. You only have 11 'real' blue-producing lands. That isn't enough for 4 Counterspells. Most of the time, a single Wasteland would cut you from Counterspell and/or a splash color spells (like Pernicious Deed), which could be and would be critical. Even if you're playing against Wastelandless decks, color issues are going to fire.

Two In. Bloods and two Demises are not enough. Mot UBG lists run at least 4/2. EE can not substitute spot removal completely since it sucks up a lot of mana (its really 3-4cc slot) and you need it for all other things (Wish, Deed, Intuition, having Counterspell mana up). More over, Demise can be very awkward earlygame, and you don't run a whole lot of fetchlands to make it live. I'd go with 4/2 at least, and perhaps consider Diabolic Edict/Smother/Doom Blade. And you also pack only 3 PerDeeds (?!), the only reason this deck is UBG. Jace is a necessary evil. Your list has very limited ways to actually win the game. 6 win conditions which are highly vulnerable to removal aren't going to do it. Therefore, 'need moar Jace'.

Wish board
1x Diabolic Edict - okay
1x Submerge - why not run some real removal? Like Slaghte Pact if you want a 0cc card. Why would you want more than one spot removal in wishboard?
1x Extirpate - okay
1x Ravenous Trap - okay, but again why would need to run more than one graveyard removal wish target?
1x Krosan Grip - okay


1x Fact or Fiction - once in a millenium, no its not a bad card, but when you're wishing, you're almost never wishing for FoF, you're wishing for specific answer cards. Not to mention, it eats a load of mana.
1x Mindbreak Trap - the application is quite questionable. I guess it can also work as a hard counter, but for the total 7 mana? Duh.
1x Back to Nature - since when was Enchantress that popular? Don't you already run Perdeeds and EE, which deal with it quite nicely?
1x Tsabo's Decree - costs 6 mana. Reeealy useful against mana denial/quick clock decks. Yeah, its totally going to work.
1x Echoing Truth - what for?
1x Stifle - what for?

Why clog your sideboard with 'once in year' stuff instead of running some real cards?

[Shimi]

Hi guys, I'm playing UBg (standard list w/o wish) with SB: 3 extirpates , 2 relic , 2 perish , 2 krosan and more SB stuff, but I'm having some problems with UG madness(vegenvine survival) pos and pre SB, any hint? SB plans? How are you dealing with this? The stifle , waste pack seems much more dificult than Intuition pack version.
Would you Sb out innoncent blood? or demise? and standstill pos-SB? Just need to share some thoughts and see if I'm really doing it right or if I'm not seeing something.

Thx

[Mana Drain]

Nice list, the loams and tops are meta calls. Imo with 4 jaces, I think you're 2 tops are expendable. Swords and paths are a must, they are awesome. You only have 4 force, 4 snares as counters, which IMO is insufficient (hence the hard combo MU). I'd cut either the 4th Jace and 2 snares for 3 counterspells, or 2 tops and a snare for 3 counterspells to help the combo MU. Try it out! You really need the counterspells vs combos like show and tell/TES as well as natural order. VS show and tell, your only relevant card is force, same for natural order, you have no outs other than force. As for TES, chant rapes you, hence why counterspell is needed. I hate the card too as its often terrible vs fish/other aggro, but its a necessary evil. Cheers.

My problem with Counterspell in a 4 color landstill deck is the availability of UU in the first 3 turns. I find that I want to be doing something better than spending a turn of tempo and a card to counter a spell. Spell Snare hits A VAST MAJORITY of cards I really don't want to see, for U. The difference between UU and U is significant enough to use Snare solely over CS. You are 100% correct that this does hinder my deck against things like NO and to an extent TES, but it gives me the speed I need to compete against more common and more powerful decks and cards.

The Tops have been so good, I want to cut a land for a 3rd, but can't decide which one. It significantly alters games when you have one on the table. Increasing your card quality in the lategame, and finding another land in the early make in an allstar. The synergy it has with loam is just a plus. Even with 4 Jace, I love top every single time I see it. To any non-believers, try 2 for the weakest 2 cards in you MD and post your results.


Mana Drain
You seem to be missing a thing with Peacekeeper: both decks you mention it is good against happen to run mana denial. They don't need bounce. They Wasteland white source and its gone. The deck doesn't run basic Plains, and you can not always afford to fetch for multiple Tundras, since you still need that BG for Pernicious Deed. There is a Loam of course, but there are only two, you don't always have time and a fetchland.

You're quite correct that both of these decks run mana-denial. That's why I run 24 lands, 2 loams, and 2 tops. That's in addition to the standard 4 BS. Plus, Peacekeeper is a Dude. As the standard 3-4 spell pierce come in against me(the landstill deck) from Fish and Madness, this is extremely relevant. It effectively gives the 4-7 counterspells including force to stop the early peacekeeper. I also run 4 Tundras because white mana is so precious. Finally, I run 3 for a reason: I expect them to get forced/removed somehow and I want to make sure I see one when I need it. Of course I can get manafucked or wasted out of the game, it just happens sometime. But I tried to build the deck with these two decks specifically in mind, and thus far have been successful in playing in a metagame filled with both.


I'd rather play 3 colors. Sure, you will get Wastelanded just as much, but it's harder for your opponent to cut you off a certain color.

While 3 colors is more stable, what you lose in options is significant. 3 color just can't handle Folk, Madness or Goblins without extra 1 mana removal or Firespout. Pernicious Deed is just isn't enough. Red gives you REB/Pyroblast(Boosting your Fish, Mirror, Combo, and Bant matchups) and Firespout (Boosting Tribal and Madness matches, in addition to random aggro decks). White gives you sword effects out the ass and peacekeeper. Plus the extra color gives you the ability to kill planeswalkers with your Explosives(if you choose to run it), which is highly relevant against Jace.dec.



@ dahcmai: I like the red list, but how has the 7 colorless lands been working for you with your early counterspell plays? Also, is 3 waste really necessary? Why not cut 1 for a Volc Island and throw some REB's in the board? It would certainly help against faster decks where red mana for fast firespout is most important.

[ivanpei]

@ Rancor: I play 4 factories as my only non-coloured land. Loams are metacalls. If you see alot of wasteland, they can be very useful. However, getting factories back is quite rare as they normally eat swords. Also, with Jace, killing with factories is also no longer necessary. Regarding wastelands, it destabilizes the manabase too much. Yes, wasteland screws over ambitious manabases once in a while, but it hurts against other decks that play wastelands like Folk, new horizons, goblins as it does not make coloured mana. 3c with wastelands is acceptable, 4c cannot play them. So the question is, do you want superior removal vs folk, goblins, new horizons, zoo (which are all very common MUs with folk and goblins being very bad MUs) or do you want to be able to occationally screw your opponent's manabase? I prefer superior removal.

@ EE, its versatile and very useful in many situations. It sweeps 1 mana cats in zoo, kills vial before it does too much damage, kills counterbalance, kills opposing jaces. Most importantly it kills stuff like needle and meddling mage which are naming deed. You don't always draw deed even if you run 4, EEs are mini deeds 5-6.

@ Manadrain: If you don't see show and tell, TES or Natural order much, 4 spell snare is fine, countersuits swap around depending on the meta. I've found a way to live with the clunkiness of counterspell and have not been disappointed with them so far. @ Top, I used to play it, that card is pretty busted in landstill, but I've cut it and not missed it. If I were to run top, I'd run it in place of spell pierce. However during testing, lack of gas/card quality was not a problem. Getting blowned out by early counterbalance/survival/show and tell/natural order/chant was the problem. If you don't see those as much and you want more gas/consistency, top is good.

My list for reference:
4 Counterspell
4 Force of will
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell pierce

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Jace TMS

4 STP
4 Deed
2 EE
2 Path to exile

4 Factories
9 Blue fetch
4 Tundra
4 Underground sea
3 Tropical Island

SB:
4 Extirpate
3 Duress
3 Blue elemental blast
1 Path to exile
4 Meddling mage

I honestly haven't had that much trouble vs fish with this list, but goblins is a handful. If against a good pilot, I can almost never beat goblins.

[Philipp2293]

Here's what I have been playing and it's been phenomenal so far.

1 Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
4 Brainstorm
3 Firespout
3 Spell Snare
4 Innocent Blood
4 Counterspell
4 Standstill
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Jace 2.0
4 Force of Will
2 Life From the Loam


4 Hydroblast
4 Leyline of the void
2 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
3 meta slots (usually Engineered plague or Drop of Honey)


I don't lose much at all anymore so it's hard to say what the bad match ups are other than I don't like playing against heavy burn.

I really dig this list, don't you ever find the 4th Jace 2.0 too much? I really dig the inclusion of Firespout though :)

[Ubiquitous Druid]

I want to bounce this idea off the wall and see what people think of it:

Is there room in this deck for Living Wish?

Living wish would allow for more of the situational colorless lands (Academy Ruins, Wastelands, etc) to be run in the sideboard, thus adding more room for colored land main-deck. LWish could add additional wincons outside of the limitations of the deck as it exists by adding a creature or two, and force opponents to be multi-dimensional in their sideboard strategies (to board swords or not to board swords). And, it could possibly open up new design space.

I could foresee running this as a board if Living Wish were in the main:
1 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (or Magus of the Tabernacle?)
1 Peacekeeper
1 Tarmogoyf, Etched Oracle, Tombstalker, or Gigapede (need to put more thought in this one, but in theory: a beater on the cheap or a creature that provides continual advantage)
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Extirpate
3 Krosan Grip
2 (meta choices and/or Wish Targets)

Just got this idea today, anybody tried this or have any thoughts?

[dahcmai]

@ivanpei - Try Drop of Honey like I mentioned in my sideboard. I added that just for Goblins and it works wonderfully well. They are forced to play into it, so it's usually a 5 for 1 or so. They can't afford to let you have a turn without pressure and if they do, well all's the better. It keeps running while you build and any removal like Innocent bloods that you draw, turn crippling for them. Works on Zoo also, but not as well as they will let it die and rely on burn.

It sounds like a horrid card, but you have to give it a shot to see. Just proxy it up and test boarded against some gobbo players and you'll see. I put it in for Spell Snare since there's few things you care about for that card.

[ivanpei]

Lol, drop of honey is actually a good card. Why that over porphyry nodes? I can understand playing it in the non white version though. If I see plenty of aggro, I'll play porphyry in the board. If I'm not mistaken, drop of honey costs a bomb.

[kiblast]

Its inevitable to happen that you'd play the CIPT lands. And sometimes that's going to matter. If you run Intuiton shell, you hardly need more than two cycle lands. Your list runs seven double colored spells. You have 10 colorless sources and 4 cycle lands which you're intending to cycle. You only have 11 'real' blue-producing lands. That isn't enough for 4 Counterspells. Most of the time, a single Wasteland would cut you from Counterspell and/or a splash color spells (like Pernicious Deed), which could be and would be critical. Even if you're playing against Wastelandless decks, color issues are going to fire.

Two In. Bloods and two Demises are not enough. Mot UBG lists run at least 4/2. EE can not substitute spot removal completely since it sucks up a lot of mana (its really 3-4cc slot) and you need it for all other things (Wish, Deed, Intuition, having Counterspell mana up). More over, Demise can be very awkward earlygame, and you don't run a whole lot of fetchlands to make it live. I'd go with 4/2 at least, and perhaps consider Diabolic Edict/Smother/Doom Blade. And you also pack only 3 PerDeeds (?!), the only reason this deck is UBG. Jace is a necessary evil. Your list has very limited ways to actually win the game. 6 win conditions which are highly vulnerable to removal aren't going to do it. Therefore, 'need moar Jace'.

Wish board
1x Diabolic Edict - okay
1x Submerge - why not run some real removal? Like Slaghte Pact if you want a 0cc card. Why would you want more than one spot removal in wishboard?
1x Extirpate - okay
1x Ravenous Trap - okay, but again why would need to run more than one graveyard removal wish target?
1x Krosan Grip - okay


1x Fact or Fiction - once in a millenium, no its not a bad card, but when you're wishing, you're almost never wishing for FoF, you're wishing for specific answer cards. Not to mention, it eats a load of mana.
1x Mindbreak Trap - the application is quite questionable. I guess it can also work as a hard counter, but for the total 7 mana? Duh.
1x Back to Nature - since when was Enchantress that popular? Don't you already run Perdeeds and EE, which deal with it quite nicely?
1x Tsabo's Decree - costs 6 mana. Reeealy useful against mana denial/quick clock decks. Yeah, its totally going to work.
1x Echoing Truth - what for?
1x Stifle - what for?

Why clog your sideboard with 'once in year' stuff instead of running some real cards?

Tinefol, after more and more (and more) testing, all i can say is that youre right. I cutted all the cycle lands...they clutter my manabase, and now i run more fetches. I also added more spotremoval and a decent win con, all by adding the 4th color, white.Basically Jaces are not in here for budget reasons, but i will see if i manage to get some, but i feel that Elspeth can be a valid alternative win con (and almost faster, in terms of playing time, too.).
this is how my list look for now, please tell me what do you think (and of course other members are welcome to do so):

Deck: Untitled Deck (http://deckstats.net/deck-331432-d5f8a9065e727f25a596702aba22d1d8-en.html)

//Lands
3x Wasteland (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Wasteland)
1x Marsh Flats (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Marsh+Flats)
1x Academy Ruins (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Academy+Ruins)
3x Mishra's Factory (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Mishra%27s+Factory)
1x Plains (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Plains)
3x Polluted Delta (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Polluted+Delta)
3x Misty Rainforest (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Misty+Rainforest)
3x Underground Sea (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Underground+Sea)
3x Tropical Island (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tropical+Island)
2x Tundra (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tundra)
2x Flooded Strand (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Flooded+Strand)

//Spells
4x Force of Will (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Force+of+Will)
1x Life from the Loam (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Life+from+the+Loam)
2x Intuition (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Intuition)
4x Counterspell (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Counterspell)
3x Pernicious Deed (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Pernicious+Deed)
4x Standstill (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Standstill)
4x Brainstorm (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Brainstorm)
2x Engineered Explosives (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Engineered+Explosives)
3x Cunning Wish (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Cunning+Wish)
4x Swords to Plowshares (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Swords+to+Plowshares)
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Elspeth%2C+Knight-Errant)
2x Ghastly Demise (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ghastly+Demise)

//Sideboard
1x Diabolic Edict (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Diabolic+Edict)
1x Fact or Fiction (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Fact+or+Fiction)
1x Forbid (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Forbid)
1x Submerge (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Submerge)
2x Krosan Grip (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Krosan+Grip)
1x Tsabo's Decree (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tsabo%27s+Decree)
1x Ravenous Trap (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ravenous+Trap)
1x Back to Nature (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Back+to+Nature)
1x Extirpate (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Extirpate)
1x Echoing Truth (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Echoing+Truth)
1x Stifle (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Stifle)
1x Rushing River (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Rushing+River)
1x Pulse of the Fields (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Pulse+of+the+Fields)
1x Slaughter Pact (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Slaughter+Pact)

http://i.hbtronix.de/chart_pie.png Display Deck Statistics (http://deckstats.net/deck-331432-d5f8a9065e727f25a596702aba22d1d8-en.html)

i just can't justify playing with 3 mishra's factory, it sounds like an heresy to me, but i just dont konw what to cut to add it, maybe i'll just play with 61 cards.In sideboard i added pulse of the fields, wich is a great card against fast clock decks.Enchantress can fastly recover from a sweeper (for example by drawing a single argothian plus a single wild growth ) so an additional one is sb is nice.Ravenous is very strong against dredge,or against other Loam-based engine decks. Fof if resolved lategame when you might be in topdeck mode is a game winner. Stifle is here for taking care of opponent's EE or Pernicious at 0 on my mishra's.

[Deadweight]

3 Wastes, 3 Factories with 4 Standstills? May I suggest cutting 1 Standstill and 1 Wish because most of the time they will be dead cards (especially Standstill) considering your current mana base.


edit: What's the reason behind the Mono Plains? to StP your way out of Magus lock? If so, why run only 3 fetchlands for it?

I thought that's what Cunning Wish is for, utility. May I suggest an Island?

[kiblast]

3 Wastes, 3 Factories with 4 Standstills? May I suggest cutting 1 Standstill and 1 Wish because most of the time they will be dead cards (especially Standstill) considering your current mana base.

i was thinking cutting 1 standstill for one factory. But i don't really know. Maybe as said above i'll play with 61 cards and 61st is the 4th factory. 4 wastelands.... we dont really absolutely need to see it as fast as we can like for Goblins or Merfolks or Canadian 3esh...and i cutted one for mana screw issues.I mean, 4color with 4 wastes and 4mishra's it's viable, but i'd need to run at least 27-28 lands.
I don't think cutting Wishes is a good idea because in 2x they become too situational. I want to see it consistently once a match, so i think 3 is the right number...



edit: What's the reason behind the Mono Plains? to StP your way out of Magus lock? If so, why run only 3 fetchlands for it?

I thought that's what Cunning Wish is for, utility. May I suggest an Island?

the mono plains is here because i absolutely need WW for elspeth at least in late game, so i need a non-tundra (ergo immune from wasteland) white source. Only 3 fetchlands because it's not my main fetch target, i mean i'm only going to fetch it in desperate cases. I used to run singleton island, but as for now i only have room for one singleton basic, so i deided for the plains because is the coulour i need for the main wincon. I already have plenty of U sources and a singleton basic island i dont think would make that difference in most cases. I think i would need a singleton in these cases:

-if i'm under magus as you said. here plains>island because of stp
-if i'm under wasteland or under wasteland lock, and i need to cast elspeth. here mono plains is > island because i can land the plains before, then on next turn land a tundra (off from a loam, or hand, or whatever)
-against wasteland aggros like merfolk and goblins, plains is almost equivalent to island...but stp is important.

[Deadweight]

I see your point. I guess it all depends on the build and what you want to achieve. I play maindeck snares and pierces to deprive my opponents of their key spells early in the game (Vial, Top, SotF, CB, Infernal Tutor, B.Wish). Without being hindered by a wasteland on my blue source, I can follow through with Brainstorm/fetch if I like. I can still deal with their critters later on in the mid-game.

How is the Elspeth plan going for you so far? I don't see it being as effective against the top tier decks as of now. But it will still depend on your meta.

[kiblast]

Elspeth is working very good. She produces chumpblockers, and while doing so she pumps herself. I like the fact that you can drop it early to fill both an offensive/defensive role. Also her loyalty goes faster away from bolts range. And i love the fact that,since standstill wins slowly, in a tournament with 50 minutes rounds, Elspeth is a valid wincon in average 4 turns while jace takes more time to accomplish his Fatality.

Could you post your list? i'd be very interested to fit Pierce / Snare in my list, since i got wrecked by Cb too often,and maybe additional counters would increase the chance of surviving the early game.Additional counterspell should be placed in Wishes slots?

[Tinefol]

Tinefol, after more and more (and more) testing, all i can say is that youre right. I cutted all the cycle lands...they clutter my manabase, and now i run more fetches. I also added more spotremoval and a decent win con, all by adding the 4th color, white.Basically Jaces are not in here for budget reasons, but i will see if i manage to get some, but i feel that Elspeth can be a valid alternative win con (and almost faster, in terms of playing time, too.).
this is how my list look for now, please tell me what do you think (and of course other members are welcome to do so):


Well, if you're adding a 4th color, things are getting both easier and tougher. I've played 4cc for a number of years, I know all the ins and outs. The 4cc mana base has to be the most stable thing you could squeeze out if it. Also, since you're not getting Jaces, it absolutely has to contain win-condition that many people cut in 4cc: Nantuko Monastery.
You don't want fancy things like Wasteland or Ruins or Basic lands. Sometimes they'd work, but maximum stability is all you want.

Here's what I've run for years:

3 [R] Tundra
4 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [JU] Nantuko Monastery
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
4 [R] Underground Sea


I've tried Elspeth. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. What I didn't like is that it makes you get double Tundra, which could (and sometimes did) hurt your B/Gl colored spells. I guess she's okay for budget reasons, but I'd just prefer Fact or Fictions instead (since the only require U, and you always have U).
As for the maindeck, this is what I've run before the JTMS came out:

// Creatures
1 [LRW] Shriekmaw // basically another attempt to squeeze in a wincon

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
4 [ST] Counterspell
4 [MM] Brainstorm
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
4 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
4 [OD] Standstill
2 [BD] Diabolic Edict
1 [DIS] Crime/Punishment // Win condition or removal depending on situation, replaces 2nd EE
2 [RAV] Life from the Loam
1 [M10] Jace Beleren // should be replaced with JTMS. Sometimes I've happened to win with old jace as well.
2 [IN] Fact or Fiction // should be replaced with JTMS

The list is quite streamlined and has no Wishes. I guess you could replace a Shriekmaw, 1 Loam and Jace Beleren to run Wish, but that cuts you of 3 potential win-conditions, what I don't really like. Anyway, if you're running Wish, here's the general wishboard rule:

1-2 Grave hate slot
1 Removal slot
1 Artifact/Enchantment hate
1 Utility (Forbid/Enlightened Tutor sort of cards. FoF falls there, but its very weak)
Perhaps 1 Life gain. Pulse is not going to work in 4c list, since it requires tons and tons of White mana, which list doesn't have, unlike UWx shells.

You might also wish for some normal sideboard cards, like, say, if you run 4x Hydroblast, but really if you run more than 5 wish targets - you run fancy things you'll almost never wish for.



just can't justify playing with 3 mishra's factory, it sounds like an heresy to me, but i just dont konw what to cut to add it, maybe i'll just play with 61 cards.In sideboard i added pulse of the fields, wich is a great card against fast clock decks.Enchantress can fastly recover from a sweeper (for example by drawing a single argothian plus a single wild growth ) so an additional one is sb is nice.Ravenous is very strong against dredge,or against other Loam-based engine decks. Fof if resolved lategame when you might be in topdeck mode is a game winner. Stifle is here for taking care of opponent's EE or Pernicious at 0 on my mishra's.

Pulse is not going to work. From my expirience playing against Enchantress, it barely has ANY chance to win a single game. Additional enchantment removal is quite unnecessary.
Mishra's can't be EEd, its non-land. You don't care if they get PerDeeded away, you have loam to bring them back.

[ivanpei]

@ Tinefol, I agree with your reasoning and your list looks very streamlined with little clunkiness. Some questions, are you still playing the edicts or have you switched to paths? Is reanimator/natural order/emrakul rampant enough in your meta to justify MD edicts? As for the loams, how are they? I've found loaming to be pretty irrelevant since Jace 2.0 was printed. I usually used them during the pre Jace days to bring back manlands for the kill. It seems unnecessary nowadays unless you see a lot of wastelands. Cheers!

[Tinefol]

There is a reason for Edicts. You don't really want to commit heavy in white. If you run a lot of STP effects, you have to, meaning you'd sometimes have less B/G than needed. With Edict you can cast it, fetching for black, and that black can still be used for Pernicious Deed. Hitting the 7/7, 10/10 and 15/15 is a bonus, of course.

If anything, Loams are better than they've been before. They work quite nicely with JTMS, loaming for 3, Brainstorming, then putting 2 on top and fetching. Their main application is still getting you out of mana problems though, and bringing you back your manalands.

[Deadweight]

Could you post your list? i'd be very interested to fit Pierce / Snare in my list, since i got wrecked by Cb too often,and maybe additional counters would increase the chance of surviving the early game.Additional counterspell should be placed in Wishes slots?

I'd be glad to post my actual 60 here. Nothing special short of a standard-4c, personally tweaked to counteract with tier1 decks around: aggro/tempo, Emrakul, Progenitus/Iona and friends, Counterbalance & T.E.S., with maxed permission and spot/non-targeted/mass removal spells. My sideboard is not included since it is continually being updated.

There's a lot missing from most U/w/b lists: Wrath of God, Moat, Humility, Decree, Elspeth, Cunning Wish, Ghastly Demise, etc.
I've picked my main 36 based on my own playing style, and play test results. I do not claim it's the superior list. :tongue:

Main 36:
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/2857/36maindeck.jpg

24 Lands:
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/9945/24lands.jpg

[kiblast]

what do you think is worth running in the dedicated removal slots? i run 4x Stp and 2x ghastly demise, and as mass removal i'm running 2x EE and 3x Pernicious. Sometimes, running only 6 spot removals and 5 mass sweepers (though EE is not technically ''mass'' sweeper) is too slow, and i lack removal efficiency in the first 2 turns, but if i menage to reach 4-5th turn, then i'm happy to see more sweepers and less targeted removal.
Should i cut one engineered for one more ghastly?

And, what is better? Ghastly, diabolic edict or innocent blood? i hate sorcery speed removal since doesnt hit manlands, while the nonblack clause on ghastly can sometimes be problematic. Sure player targeted sac removal is useful sometimes but can be narrow sometimes...

[ScatmanX]

Hi guys, I'm playing UBg (standard list w/o wish) with SB: 3 extirpates , 2 relic , 2 perish , 2 krosan and more SB stuff, but I'm having some problems with UG madness(vegenvine survival) pos and pre SB, any hint? SB plans? How are you dealing with this? The stifle , waste pack seems much more dificult than Intuition pack version.
Would you Sb out innoncent blood? or demise? and standstill pos-SB? Just need to share some thoughts and see if I'm really doing it right or if I'm not seeing something.

Thx

Having the same kind of problems here.
How this match has turned out for the other of you guys?

[Deadweight]

And, what is better? Ghastly, diabolic edict or innocent blood? i hate sorcery speed removal since doesnt hit manlands, while the nonblack clause on ghastly can sometimes be problematic. Sure player targeted sac removal is useful sometimes but can be narrow sometimes...

I prefer innocent blood cause it's cheaper than edict, StP is better than ghastly for non-shroud due to it being non-conditional. I usually let my wastes and factories deal with their manlands, I take damage like a champ until I find them or Deed or StP. EE usually goes into my sideboard now.

Against Vengevines, the single best card against them is Extirpate, Ravenous Trap and Leyline are my second guesses. Perish is not an answer since they can finish you off in a single turn. K. Grip can also be a turn too late as they can dump their vines in the yard by turn 3. They can play around relic and crypt since they are not up against a fast clock. Just keep their discard outlets from hitting the table, but more importantly SotF.

[Shimi]

Against Vengevines, the single best card against them is Extirpate, Ravenous Trap and Leyline are my second guesses. Perish is not an answer since they can finish you off in a single turn. K. Grip can also be a turn too late as they can dump their vines in the yard by turn 3. They can play around relic and crypt since they are not up against a fast clock. Just keep their discard outlets from hitting the table, but more importantly SotF.

Extirpate is the best solution, Tormod's and Relics are just to slow them down if you don't have Extirpate and can avoid Mongrel/Aquameba->Vine, you can even try to stop their Aquameba/Mongrel/SotF , but if they hardcast Vines(no so dificult with Noble and Basics) and them start dumping 2 creatures you will need many boardsweepers and are getting 4/5 each time they do it.Even pos-SB I'm having problems if I don't find Extirpate for Vines.
About SB, people side out all 4 Standstills or leave some to get CA?And about Innocent Bloods and Ghastily Demise, do you leave just one or a split?

[kiblast]

Tomorrow i'll have a small 15 man tournament. I'm new to this archetype, so i'd like to know what do you think of this list wich maybe is far from perfect. I've browsed this thread in the last days and i'm worried about some points:

-mana production, and denial. This manabase is correct? should i play wastelands instead of nantuko monastery? i'm forced to play the full set of tundras becouse i want to reach WW easily for elspeth midgame and i need W for early stp on ichorids and lackey.
-permission. 4fow 4 counterspell 3spell snare. I'm pretty convinced about the first 2 playsets, but i'm still in a limbo between spell snare vs spell pierce.I know it depends from the meta, but my meta is fairly wide with a majority of aggro/aggrocontrol,so i think snare is better.
-intuition: i mainly run them to get life from the loam late game, but i feel that often they are dead cards. Sometimes is a nice istant tutor for some counters or removal.In, or cut for some more removals/counter/draw?
-Engineered explosives. Running 2 of them means that i have to run 1 academy ruins too? i could split 1 academy with 1 nantuko monastery. Often i have to crack a pernicious deed only for a single Nimble mongoose while EE would do the same work for less mana. Is EE recursion necessary?
-sideboard: i'm expecting Goblins, Aggroloam, TES, elfcombo, Painter, Maverick, Bant Aggro, Canadian thresh, some random The rock mainly. I'm unsure about only 2 hydroblast. nihil spellbomb is very good as it combines the cantrip effect of a relic without hitting our grave like a tormod's.

What do you think?


Deck: Untitled Deck (http://deckstats.net/deck-334731-8f7459c7ac86769bce4bcd64d35fd1da-en.html)

//Lands
4x Mishra's Factory (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Mishra%27s+Factory)
4x Polluted Delta (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Polluted+Delta)
4x Misty Rainforest (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Misty+Rainforest)
3x Underground Sea (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Underground+Sea)
3x Tropical Island (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tropical+Island)
4x Tundra (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tundra)
2x Nantuko Monastery (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Nantuko+Monastery)

//Spells
4x Force of Will (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Force+of+Will)
1x Life from the Loam (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Life+from+the+Loam)
2x Intuition (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Intuition)
4x Counterspell (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Counterspell)
3x Pernicious Deed (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Pernicious+Deed)
4x Standstill (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Standstill)
4x Brainstorm (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Brainstorm)
2x Engineered Explosives (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Engineered+Explosives)
4x Swords to Plowshares (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Swords+to+Plowshares)
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Elspeth%2C+Knight-Errant)
3x Ghastly Demise (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ghastly+Demise)
3x Spell Snare (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Spell+Snare)

//Sideboard
3x Extirpate (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Extirpate)
3x Nihil Spellbomb (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Nihil+Spellbomb)
3x Engineered Plague (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Engineered+Plague)
2x Hydroblast (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Hydroblast)
2x Krosan Grip (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Krosan+Grip)
2x Perish (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Perish)

http://i.hbtronix.de/chart_pie.png Display Deck Statistics (http://deckstats.net/deck-334731-8f7459c7ac86769bce4bcd64d35fd1da-en.html)

[Mana Drain]

I prefer innocent blood cause it's cheaper than edict, StP is better than ghastly for non-shroud due to it being non-conditional. I usually let my wastes and factories deal with their manlands, I take damage like a champ until I find them or Deed or StP. EE usually goes into my sideboard now.


Deadweight, have you really found EE irrelevant enough to mitigate it to the sideboard? I can think of one match where I side my EEs out: Goblins. Against everything else in the format, it's amazing. Even with Deed, the ability to drop T1 EE at 1, T2 Standstill wins games. Also, having an out to a resolved planeswalker is tech. What do you do against resolved Jace TMD? Elspeth 1.0? Even Ajani Vengeant?

And why not replace 1-2 Innocent Blood with Path? It improves your game against Goblins, Fish, Madess, Zoo, etc. Innocent Blood is not terrible, but why run the full set in addition to swords when you already run white? IB is better than Path on the first turn of the game, maybe the second, the it's strictly worse than path from there on out. Is it a matter of black being the more important color over white? At the least, 4 Swords and 4 IB just looks to be overkill.

How have the 4 counterspell been in relation to the 4 factories and 3 waste? Can you reliably cast a turn 2-3 counterspell?


Extirpate is the best solution

Bolded for emphasis. Extirpate really slows down Madness to a crawl. It makes it impossible for them to bum-rush you in a single turn and turns their deck into UG Bears + Counters. In fact, Extirpate is a back-breaker in a bunch of matchups. To anyone not running it, try 3.

[Deadweight]

-intuition: In, or cut for some more removals/counter/draw?
-Engineered explosives. Running 2 of them means that i have to run 1 academy ruins too? i could split 1 academy with 1 nantuko monastery. Often i have to crack a pernicious deed only for a single Nimble mongoose while EE would do the same work for less mana. Is EE recursion necessary?

Intuition and Loam are dead cards early in the game, and in a meta where most decks win by turn 4-5, those cards serve no purpose in my opinion. Same goes with EE + academy recursion, i mean it's great when you can pull off the combo mid-late game but that is if you live that long. I think maindeck pierces are golden at the moment. Just my 0.02$.


Deadweight, have you really found EE irrelevant enough to mitigate it to the sideboard? I can think of one match where I side my EEs out: Goblins. Against everything else in the format, it's amazing. Even with Deed, the ability to drop T1 EE at 1, T2 Standstill wins games. Also, having an out to a resolved planeswalker is tech. What do you do against resolved Jace TMD? Elspeth 1.0? Even Ajani Vengeant?

And why not replace 1-2 Innocent Blood with Path? It improves your game against Goblins, Fish, Madess, Zoo, etc. Innocent Blood is not terrible, but why run the full set in addition to swords when you already run white? IB is better than Path on the first turn of the game, maybe the second, the it's strictly worse than path from there on out. Is it a matter of black being the more important color over white? At the least, 4 Swords and 4 IB just looks to be overkill.

How have the 4 counterspell been in relation to the 4 factories and 3 waste? Can you reliably cast a turn 2-3 counterspell?


I find EE as slow and conditional too and my approach was to have immediate response/answers instead that's why they're in the sb for the moment. Against a resolved Jace, I'll probably dig for my own Jaces and hope for the best. Against Elspeth/Ajani, I'll probably just scoop `em up. But then again I also have plenty of ways to prevent them from resolving.

I hate Path as it gives the opponent an additional land as a trade off. Path cannot handle Emrakul, Progenitus, and Iona whose favorite color is white or blue.

As for the UU counterspell issue, I cannot reliably cast it turn 2 but Force is always there and so are my snares/pierces.

This is my first time posting on this thread, so I don't know if what I'm saying here has been discussed before but I've been a fan of UBGx ever since and I'm just sharing my thoughts on my personal build.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

After some testing and moving around this is the list I plan on running:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland
1 Island

4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Spell Snare
3 Spell Pierce
4 Force ofWill
4 Standstill
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Life from the Loam
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Counterspell

4 Extirpate
3 Porphyry Nodes
3 Krosan Grip
2 Path to Exile
3 (Meta Slots) -> usually Blue Elemental Blast

After trying it, I do like Jace, but I also don't like dead draws. So I only include 2. Early game was giving me trouble, thus cut Counterspells for Spell Pierce and Snare. Spell Pierce has been awesome, I may even have to find a way to add the 4th copy. I'm thinking +1 Pierce, +1 Snare, -2 Counterspell. It's either Counterspell or the Divining Top. I'm leaning towards Counterspell right now, but counterspell has saved my ass in a number of situations where Pierce and Snare would have been too narrow. After reading this thread, Porphyry has improved all my aggro matches, I had forgotten about this card entirely and it has allowed me to streamline my sideboard a bit. I don't know how comfortable I am with deck yet, but part of why I picked it is the high learning curve paying off with increased effectiveness. Overall I am pretty pleased with this list though.

[Mana Drain]

Somebody mentioned Porphyry Nodes/Drop of Honey a page back. It looks solid against Zoo and Fish. I haven't found room in my board to test it, but I'm curious if someone could explain to me what matchups you bring it in and what time you generally play it (i.e. Turn 2/Turn 3 etc.). Does the opponent generally play into it and race, or let it wipe the board and rebuild once it leaves play?

[dahcmai]

@ Mana drain

I bring in the Drops against Goblins mainly. It stops the early rushes until you can either take over with the normal stuff or Engineered plagues if you run those. I haven't had much problem so i don't use the plagues, but I can see running them both with all the tribal stuff, especially if you have Cat Zoo around. Goblins bowls into it and they have to keep playing into it or lose. You take a bit of damage since most of the stupid red duders have haste, but getting 5 to 1's is never bad. It's at it's best in that one. If you hate goblins, then try it.

It does work on Merfolk to a point. They typically will pull back and wait for it to die. They can't afford to keep dumping guys into it. So it's essentially an Innocent Blood + Fog for G. Not too horribly bad even in that case. Zoo does the same thing.

Zoo is the roughest one to me. I hate playing against it, mainly due to the POP's. I tend to board in a couple though since it's still worth a fog and a free kill most of the time.


The biggest benefit of trying it out is messing with people's heads and watching them read it over and over. lol

Porphyry Nodes is perfectly fine if you use White and have no problem using it on turn 1 or 2. That's usually the best time to drop it. It's the same thing, I just don't use white hence the Drops.



Also from that page back, the 7 colorless lands rarely give me trouble, though I don't really want them early unless it's a mirror. Wasteland / Loam is the whole mirror match so I want as many Wastes as I can get. Whoever get's it first wins that. I haven't had much problem piecing together my colors. I guess it's no worse than trying to do it with the white version except i can spare more turns to find red since I'm not going to cast that Spout before turn 3 anyway.

I just hate playing against Zoo, that's my reason for the red splash. I don't auto-die to it anymore and it's doubly useful against merfolk. They fall over and die when you plop a spout backed up with a spell snare or force on them.

[Mana Drain]

I'm definitely trying the Porphyr Nodes. I'm going down to 3 Extirpate because I never side in more unless I'm playing Dredge or Lands, and we have other cards for those matchups anyway. So I'll give Nodes/Drops a shot. Goblins always ends up dropping Ringleader after Ringleader against me, and a way to slow them down a bit would be nice. Plus, we can always use extra cards against Merfolk.

[galeng]

I recently went to test the local legacy metagame in a tournament with this build:

// Lands (25)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland

// Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Stifle
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Cunning Wish
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// Sideboard (15)
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Duress
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Extirpate
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pulse of the Fields


Game 1 Merfolk (2-1)
Tough match up but I was able to pull through him overextending into pernicious deed game 2 by misreading the card and same story with EE game 3. Game 1 he rolls me over with counters for every spell I cast other than a turn two brainstorm.

Game 2 Ad Nauseam Tendrils (2-0)
Game 1 he wins the roll and goes off turn two with no duress and I stifle his fatal tendrils. Sb: +2 duress -2EE. Game 2 he has 2 duress's for me and an orim's chant on turn 3 to try and combo out but ponder misses what he's looking for and he scoops.

Game 3 Canadian Threshold (2-0)
He's running a weird build with grim lavamancer, burning tree shaman and not much permission. I steam roll both games resolving standstill/fact or fiction and a ton of removal. The deck simply can't deal with the card advantage.

Game 4 New Horizons (1-2) (ends up winning)
Very interesting build running 4 colors with confidants, goyfs, and KotR as threats and stifle, snare, pierce, daze, FoW for denial. In game one I mull to 5, he stifles 2 of my land and I have no chance after he resolves a knight. Game 2 we have a massive counter war mid game over a deed while he has goyf and knight on the board. It ends up resolving and after I take 9 in one turn the trigger resolves and he runs out of gas. I resolve jace and he scoops. Game 3 he continues to barrage my lands with stifles and wastelands. My stifle on a waste meets his spell pierce somewhere and I can't recover from his mana denial.

Game 5 Lands (0-2)
My absolute worst match up. Game one he starts tapping/wasting my lands until he can safely resolve a crucible and I scoop pretty fast. Sb: +4 leyline +2 duress -4 standstill -2 EE. I get leyline in my opening hand but I guess he anticipated it as he casts krosan grip turn two with mox diamond. Manabond comes next turn and he proceeds to win with life from the loam.


Overall I think the deck was great but cunning wish was a dead card way too often so I'm ditching the wish board. Here's the list I'm planning to test for next tourney (comments are appreciated!):

// Lands (25)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland

// Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Spell Pierce
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Hydroblast
2 Duress
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pulse of the Fields
2 Stifle

[dahcmai]

Pulse of the Fields was the only reason I had a wishboard at all. Makes you want it main if you have the white. Cunning Wish was sadly not fast enough for me either. Sucks too since I love the Judge promo picture and I have 3 of them.

[galeng]

I've been tuning my sideboard for this build according to my local metagame...

// Lands (25)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland

// Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Spell Pierce
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Engineered Plague
3 Hydroblast
2 Krosan Grip
2 Stifle

This is what I plan to sb...

Fish -> +4 Engineered Plague -4 Pernicious Deed
Goblins -> +4 Engineered Plague +3 Hydroblast +2 Stifle -4 Pernicious Deed -3 Spell Snare -2 Spell Pierce
Countertop -> +2 Krosan Grip -2 Engineered Explosives
Storm -> +2 Engineered Plague +2 Stifle -4 Swords to Plowshares
Dredge/Lands -> +4 Leyline of the Void -4 Standstill
Various Aggro-Control (New Horizons, Vengevine madness (haven't seen this yet), UW Tempo, Canadian Thresh, Bant zoo) -> Nothing??

What do you think of this plan?

I was also considering Vindicate as a main deck option. It seems very flexible, dealing with problem lands and plainswalkers, but it might be too slow. I'd probably go +2 Vindicate -1 Standstill -1 Fact or Fiction.

[ivanpei]

I would always play path as my 5-6th removal spell. I don't care about giving my opponents land (other than goblins, they need the land). Path is my prefered removal of choice because:

1. Its instant, so you can path a 1 drop on the play and drop a standstill T2. Similarly you can path a big 2 drop on the draw and standstill on your turn.

2. It RFGs, hence making vengevine recusion a non-issue. Very important in today's environment.

3. It's targetted, making it better vs zoo, merfolk, goblins, tribal.

The downsides are:

1. Can't kill emrakul

2. Usually can't kill Iona.

I would play innocent blood over path only if I see alot of emrakul/iona. However we bust combo decks that spit out the above 2 monsters anyway, so I doubt I would play innocent blood. My 2 cents. Cheers.

EDIT: In today's survival combo infested environment. This deck is what I will play in any big tournament. We totally bust survival's ass. Every answer we play is good against them. For those in UBG, please try the white for STP and path, you will not be worried about vengevine recursion anymore. And seriously, we need as many swiss army knife answers like EE as possible. A control deck needs to be flexible, being slightly slow is a downside that we have to live with.

[Deadweight]

There's more chances now that you'll be facing Iona in a Survival meta, you'd be relying only on Jace if you skimp on IB.

[Mana Drain]

I've been tuning my sideboard for this build according to my local metagame...

Fish -> +4 Engineered Plague -4 Pernicious Deed
Goblins -> +4 Engineered Plague +3 Hydroblast +2 Stifle -4 Pernicious Deed -3 Spell Snare -2 Spell Pierce
Countertop -> +2 Krosan Grip -2 Engineered Explosives
Storm -> +2 Engineered Plague +2 Stifle -4 Swords to Plowshares
Dredge/Lands -> +4 Leyline of the Void -4 Standstill
Various Aggro-Control (New Horizons, Vengevine madness (haven't seen this yet), UW Tempo, Canadian Thresh, Bant zoo) -> Nothing??

What do you think of this plan?

I was also considering Vindicate as a main deck option. It seems very flexible, dealing with problem lands and plainswalkers, but it might be too slow. I'd probably go +2 Vindicate -1 Standstill -1 Fact or Fiction.

I think you need some help on your board strategy. Against CB decks, keep the 2 EEs. They are another hard-to-counter out to counter/top, and CB decks run fewer threats than aggro-decks, so more removal is a good thing. Against Storm you should keep the swords in, because a T1 Xanthid Swarm/Dark Confidant beats you right then and there. Having an out to it is a good thing, and it allows you to Swords your own factories to mess up their storm math. With that list I'd side -1 Crucible -1 Fact for +2 Stifle and if you see Wish or Rite of Flame side an additional -2 Monastary -1 Fact for +3 Hydroblast. TES is by far the most common storm deck and hydroblast is an addition hard counter for you. Crucible is a do-nothing in this matchup and you don't need the 2 colorless lands for this deck when you have 23 others. Fact just does nothing until turn 4, so you side 2 out. Keep Standstill in and side out Facts and Crucible against Dredge. Dredge actually DOES have to cast spells to win, giving standstill the nod over the slow FoF. It will also help you recover from mulling to oblivion while trying to find Leyline.

I highly suggest you cut a Monastary for a basic Island. It may sound lame, but that little change is significant against decks with waste and a tempo strategy. Making sure you can cast a t2 Standstill is hot and it allows you to keep otherwise mana-light hands so you don't get blown out by a single waste. Also, you need more against Aggro-Control. UG Madness will just blow you out with a decent hand unless you get THE PERFECT HAND. Waste, Daze, Force, Spell Pierce, Survival, and t2 Vengevine all ruin your shit bad. Extirpate would definitely be superior to LotV in this case, and pretty much every other case barring Dredge. New Horizons/ UGx Tempo decks will just manafuck you hard. No basics,
8 colorless lands, no Tops, and just 1 Crucible is not enough. Spell Pierce is a hard counter against us and cards like Fact are not going anywhere in this match. I suggest more Spell Pierce in your own sideboard and the aforementioned basic Island change-up. If you can find the room, put a pair of Tops in the board or MD. It significantly helps the tempo match and is also good against other Landstill and random Eva-Green shit with discard.

Don't side out Deeds against Merfolk. Ever. It is the only board sweeper we have and is a damn good one at that. Every Fish deck I've played with Needle in the side puts them in specifically for this card. Drop it when you feel it can resolve and let it sit on the table. They will stop playing guys and try to beat you down with the ones they have now, allowing you to stabilize and eventually sweep there Vial, Mutavault, Lords, etc.
Fish also just doesn't care about Engineered Plague, unless you have two of them out. It basically reads " Prevent the next 2-3 Damage that would be dealt to you on your opponents turn". You need two to have any effect on the board state, and that means you have to resolve ANOTHER 3cc black enchantment, while dodging Spell Pierce, Force, and Daze. Deed is worth fighting to resolve, because a board sweep follows next turn if it resolves. Plague, not so much. The card is decent against goblins, but not even them so much now-a-days. The matchup it's best in is in fact Dredge, a deck we already beat without question. I suggest going for the third Path in the board and some Spell Pierces with something else of your choosing instead of the Plagues. It's just not relevant in the metagame.





There's more chances now that you'll be facing Iona in a Survival meta, you'd be relying only on Jace if you skimp on IB.

What makes you think your opponent would only have Iona without another creature like Hierarch or Fauna Shaman? Besides, Retainers/Iona is not a Plan A, it's a Plan B that sometimes works or sometimes wastes a turn of tempo and a card. They don't haul-ass to find Retainers and Iona every game, or even a third of games for that matter. I'd rather run Path to nail their Tarmogoyf, Knight, Fauna Shaman, or Gaddock Teeg rather than chance they won't sac their Hierarch/Birds of paradise/Pridemage to Innocent Blood.
IB is most definitely an answer to Iona and Emrakul, but a shitty, conditional one, that is inferior to Path in just about every match.

[galeng]

I highly suggest you cut a Monastary for a basic Island.

Could you elaborate a little more on how one island can help you play around wasteland/stifle? I used to run 1 island back in the day when I was building the deck and it sucked pretty hard. Maybe I'm missing something.


Don't side out Deeds against Merfolk. Ever.

I completely agree with this. I felt that e plague was often as good as or worse than deed, even vs. countless stifles and needles. I'm probably ditching plague for some more flexible options.

On another note what are some thoughts on enlightened tutor in the 4c build. I saw someone running it as a 2 of with a package of: 1 explosives, 1 pithing needle, 1 sensei's top, 1 seat of the synod, 1 crucible of worlds, as well as standstills and pernicious deeds.

[Mana Drain]

Could you elaborate a little more on how one island can help you play around wasteland/stifle? I used to run 1 island back in the day when I was building the deck and it sucked pretty hard. Maybe I'm missing something.


You're correct. Basic Island sucks ass 85% of the time you see it. But the times you need it, YOU NEED IT. Against Tempo stratagies (Team America, Tempo Thresh, Faries) Island allows you an untouchable land to ensure you can cast Standstill, BS, pay for Daze, and spin the top if you play them. You can't always expect to draw land when you need it, so having one that can't be messed with is a definite advantage when your digging for land. I know, I know, it does suck when you draw it against CB or combo. But it is awesome against some of our worst matchups: Wasteland+Blue mana denial.dec. I don't like playing it by any means, but when I fetch for it, there's a damn good reason. I think of it as a necessary evil.

Also, I am biased against colorless lands to a degree, so Monastary was my pick for the swap. This is landstill, so we run four factory as a given. Engineered Explosives recursion either wins the game(CB decks just scoop) or can get you out of a shitty situation, so I run one Academy Ruins. Everything else in my opinion is just unnecessary. Wasteland can be awesome sometimes, but I find that control would rather have a land that fixes my mana rather than set me and my opponent back a land.

Monastary is a colorless land that can beat, but only if you have the colors for it, and (most important here) only when you're already winning, the lategame. Factory can chump dudes or trade, and defend Jace when you need it. Monastary MAY be able to defend, but only in the mid-late game. The entire reason I play control is to have a strong late-game. I need something that can help me survive to see it, not POSSIBLY be relevant in the lategame. If you have success running it, by all means do. I just don't understand the point of the card in this archtype.

[kiblast]

You're correct. Basic Island sucks ass 85% of the time you see it. But the times you need it, YOU NEED IT. Against Tempo stratagies (Team America, Tempo Thresh, Faries) Island allows you an untouchable land to ensure you can cast Standstill, BS, pay for Daze, and spin the top if you play them. You can't always expect to draw land when you need it, so having one that can't be messed with is a definite advantage when your digging for land. I know, I know, it does suck when you draw it against CB or combo. But it is awesome against some of our worst matchups: Wasteland+Blue mana denial.dec. I don't like playing it by any means, but when I fetch for it, there's a damn good reason. I think of it as a necessary evil.

Also, I am biased against colorless lands to a degree, so Monastary was my pick for the swap. This is landstill, so we run four factory as a given. Engineered Explosives recursion either wins the game(CB decks just scoop) or can get you out of a shitty situation, so I run one Academy Ruins. Everything else in my opinion is just unnecessary. Wasteland can be awesome sometimes, but I find that control would rather have a land that fixes my mana rather than set me and my opponent back a land.

Monastary is a colorless land that can beat, but only if you have the colors for it, and (most important here) only when you're already winning, the lategame. Factory can chump dudes or trade, and defend Jace when you need it. Monastary MAY be able to defend, but only in the mid-late game. The entire reason I play control is to have a strong late-game. I need something that can help me survive to see it, not POSSIBLY be relevant in the lategame. If you have success running it, by all means do. I just don't understand the point of the card in this archtype.

i used to run singleton basic island, and i loved the fact that i could fetch it eot and have at least one solid land drop protected from wasteland. I'm currently running standard 25 land manabase, with 9 duals, no basics, 8 fetches and 4 mishra's + 2 monastery as manlands, plus 2 wastelands. Very rarely i'm screwed,although sometimes a singleton wasteland really mess up our plans... is good to always have that single mana wich could get you the brainstorm that saves the game...
So maybe i'll cut a single monastery (wich sometimes is useless for mana issues) for a basic island. Moreover, 99% of the times 2 monastery in play sucks.
For everybody else who play 25lands standard manabase: How could we fit a singleton academy ruins? i used to run that and as Mana Drain says, can really get us off from shitty situations. But how can we fit one in? considering that it is another colourless-non basic???
I also have noticed that many of you run only 4 spotremovals, and 4 pernicious. Currently i'm running 6-7 spotremovals, and 3 pernicious. What do you do if you're facing a lackey and you are on the draw? You can't always rely on FoW...i think we need AT LEAST 6 1CC spotremoval.

[Tinefol]

Personally I think that you shouldn't run more than 6 colorless+basics in 24, or 7 in 25. So, whatever you want to fit, should be in these 6 or 7.

Nantuko Monastery was a necessary piece before the printing of JTMS. The deck needed more win conditions, and needed to win in a decent pace, and Mishra's were too unreliable and slow. Thus, the monasteries. Now they're not strictly necessary, but I'd prefer to have at least one for quick beats. It did let me race Burn a couple of times.

I dislike ruins, because you rarely can fit it in your 6 colorless lands (I don't like cutting win conditions), because deck doesn't run enough EE, and mainly because drawing a card is almost always better than getting that EE. All in all, its going to matter so rarely, that it isn't worth running.

I'd run 7 spots (4 stp 3edict), 4 deeds, maybe 1-2EE.

[sdematt]

We had a tournament at my friend's house last night, and we built a 4C list based off of the UBG list that did well at SCG.

His list didn't run wishes, but some other crap, I still like a small Wishboard :D

UBGR Landstill

4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Mishra's Factory

4 Pernicious Deed
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Firespout
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Innocent Blood
4 Standstill
2 Cunning Wish

Board:
4 Extirpate
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Echoing Truth
1 Tsabo's Decree
1 Back to Nature
1 Krosan Grip
0/1 Mindbreak Trap
3/2 Open

I've dropped Wastelands due to it being a 4 colour deck, and I'm really not try to Wasteland my opponent out. Also, Life was dropped because of this, but I'll see about bringing it back. I've dropped the Ghastly Demises for Firespouts, which will help me use my Deeds a bit more sparingly. As well, I've upped the counter-suite by 1.

I've dropped a lot of the useless wishboard stuff, keeping in the most useful items (many of you argue against Decree, but with this deck, you're getting to 6 mana most of the time). I've kicked up the grave hate about 3 notches, and will usually side in 3 Extirpates and leave one to Wish for. Not sure about what to do with the open slots, as I haven't done enough conclusive testing against enough archetypes.

-Matt

[galeng]

I'd consider fire/ice if you're splashing red. The card still wrecks, especially in a goblins/zoo meta.

[Mana Drain]

Decklist + Post explaining some choices


Matt, how did the 3 Spell Pierce work out for you? I love it in the SB but maindeck I find that it is either irrelevant or too little, too late. Also, are 4 Extirpate really insufficient GY hate? The only deck I could imagine siding in that much hate for is dredge, and I find it to be at least 50-50 with Extirpates, Deeds, Swords, and Forces. Have you tried Consume the Meek in your wishboard? I've never played wish in UGBx, so I don't have any experience regarding the effectiveness of Tsabo's Decree, but CtM just looks more versatile. It can't stop Progenitus, or Vengevine, but it blows away everything in Zoo, Merfolk, everything but SGC and Ringleader in Goblins. So, a lot of stuff dies to it is my point. And it's a mana cheaper, which is the bigger point.

[sdematt]

Obviously there are matches were Spell Pierce won't matter (Zoo is not as good, Merfolk somewhat relevant, mostly for countering their Forces on your relevant stuff, countering a first turn vial with you on the play, etc), but in the matchups it's good against, like Stax, Dredge (against Breakthrough and Dread Return), Storm and the like, it's a real house. I love seeing it most of the time, and if not, it pitches to Force :D

I side in 3 Extirpate and 4 Leyline against Aggro Loam, Dredge, Vengevine, etc. I know we have a good matchup already, but I hate leaving the matchup to chance. In my experience, the matches I always hate losing the most and really make me tilt and lose my edge in a large tournaments are the favoured matchups. For me personally, I want to be extra sure my good matchups are locked down, and my bad matchups are covered as well. It's almost like you get frustrated with yourself for losing a game you should have won, you know? Point being, it's good hate, and siding in 3 and leaving one to Wish for has been extremely solid. Mind you, I did lose a game to Dredge with 2 Leyline in play and 2 Extirpate in hand: He beat me down with a hardcast Sphinx, and I drew no counters or creature kill, just 10 lands in a row.

I've never tried Consume the Meek, but I'll give it a shot.

With Decree, it's a house. Give it a try, you'll feel like a champ when you cast it. It severely hoses Merfolk and Goblins, and they have to enter topdeck mode versus you usually having Deed/Jace/Pressure.

Mind you, I'm still tweaking the deck, so more changes may come around.

-Matt

[ivanpei]

I think this thread needs a bump. BTW how are everyone's testing result vs survival (WG or Ug)? I've been having fantastic results with my UWBG list pre and post board. I don't board for the WG lists (extirpate just shuts down the venge combo) while I board extirpates in vs the UG versions because without Venges, the deck is terrible. Anyone else having the same results?

[Xiang]

@ivanpei: I'm playing Ubg and UWb landstill and both perform really well - funny that cunning wish became a really good card again after the rise of vengevine.^^
Actually Survival may be one of the best Matchups you can get (from my experience)

[ScatmanX]

@ivanpei: I'm playing Ubg and UWb landstill and both perform really well - funny that cunning wish became a really good card again after the rise of vengevine.^^
Actually Survival may be one of the best Matchups you can get (from my experience)

What do you have in your SB to Wish for against Survival in your UGB list?
Do you run MD Spell Pierces?

[Ubiquitous Druid]

I think this thread needs a bump. BTW how are everyone's testing result vs survival (WG or Ug)? I've been having fantastic results with my UWBG list pre and post board. I don't board for the WG lists (extirpate just shuts down the venge combo) while I board extirpates in vs the UG versions because without Venges, the deck is terrible. Anyone else having the same results?

This match has been nothing but excellent for me. My counter suite looks like:
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell

Sweep with:
2 EE
4 Pernicious Deed

Block with Nantuko Monastery. Remove with StP. Side in Extirpate, krosan grip, and sometimes stifle (vs GW version)

If you can prevent the vines from hitting the table they got a bunch of underwhelming bears.

[sdematt]

I recently scrubbed out of a local Legacy tournament going 1-3, but I faced all Tribal (Goblins and Zoo), and they ALL drew 3-4 Wastelands per game, and always had the nuts Countermagic against me. Maybe I drowned some kittens, but I'm pretty sure it was just them drawing the nuts and me not so much.

Anyways, I've been playing with 4 Extirpate and 4 Leyline in the board, and 2 Wish main and I haven't looked back. It rocks Dredge, Loam, Lands (if you can get the mana up to do so, or postboard) and Survival. I'll continue to play the deck though, as it's really fun to play. I'm considering adding Consume the Meek to the board, as it's a smidge faster than Decree, but I love me Decree too much to get rid of it yet :tongue:

I find we have problems again Zoo. Since we're a bit slower, in the first three turns they can hit hard unless we counter basically everything, and then we have to save counters until they play Price of Progress. In general, there's not much we can do against Burn, and we don't really have an awesome clock. I think if we're splashing white, Leyline of Sanctity is great, but if not, any tips? I know Zoo isn't as popular, but is this just a bad matchup in general?

-Matt

[Wess]

Hey Matt...still working on the landstill deck. Well, since you helped me build it, I've made some revisions, and it doesn't lose much...to anything.

I swapped out the LFTL's for sensei's diving top's, and I run 3 firespout maindeck. For zoo (and combo), I've been siding in 4 counterbalance and its gg.

BTW...you coming out tonight for Legacy? Have a couple new faces coming (I won't be playing landstill).

My List:

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce

3 Firespout
4 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise

3 Sensei's Diving Top
4 Perniscious Deed
4 Standstill
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Sideboard

1 SDT
4 Extirpate
2 COTW
2 BEB
2 REB
4 Counterbalance

Thinking of testing out Vendillion Clique in the sideboard, would up my 3 count for counterbalance, and it seems deadly in theory. EOT Clique, then drop landstill.

~Wess

[sdematt]

Can't come out unfortunately, I've got some homework that needs to get done. The list looks decent though. I'm not entirely sold on SDT in this deck, but I'll most definitely give it a shot.

-Matt

[ivanpei]

I'm glad everyone's having plenty of success against Survival with landstill. I find that this deck is the absolute best at wrecking survival. I run the following countersuit:

4 Force
4 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare

And Just in case anything sneaks past:

4 Deed
2 EE
4 STP
2 Path

I made zero changes to my MD to combat survival, these cards were naturally just there and they all wreck survival. I advise all players to pick up this deck in this survival infested meta. Lets beat back the tide people!

@ Matt, how's your list like? Mine has the above counter/removal suit and I have no problems vs zoo. Targeted instant removal whites gives is just awesome vs them. @ Goblins, nothing much we can do, that is a nuts hard matchup.

[sdematt]

I'm not playing white, so I lose the advantage of Swords but gain Firespout. Firespout allows me to use Deeds more sparingly, but sometimes you get caught offguard with a 10/10 KoTR staring you down with no Countermagic, Deed, or Jace. I guess we have to lose sometimes :P

-Matt

[ivanpei]

Yeah bad beats happens, :( Firespout is better vs folk, white with targetted is better vs zoo's monsters. Oh well, can't win em all, better luck next time!

[Slime]

Hi. I've been lurking this board for quite a while, but never had been posting.

In the last couple of weeks I've come upt with the following Uwgb list. My local metagame seemes to be quite normal, consisting of Vengevival, Zoo, Goblins, some TES and Reanimator and quite a few Landstill decks, both UWb and BUG.

Lands (24x)

3x Tundra
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Flooded Strand
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland

Spells (36x)

4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
3x Spell Snare
2x Spell Pierce

4x Sword to Plowshares
1x Path to Exile
2x Vindicate

3x Pernicious Deed
2x Engeneered Explosives

4x Brainstorm
3x Standstill
2x Fact or Fiction
2x Jace, the Wallet Sculptor

Sideboard (15x)

3x Relic of Progenitus
3x Extirpate
2x Krosan Grip
2x Engeneered Plague
2x Hydroblast
1x Pithing Needle

Card Choices:

The Counterspells: Going a little bit counter-heavy with 13 counterspells total seems to work really fine. I really like the 4 counterspells. Having definite answers to the slower bombs in the format (Jace, Natural Order, Show and Tell and the like) is worth the slots, despite beeing not able to obtain UU constantly on Turn 2. 3 Spell snare seems to be accepted nowadays with the roaming SotF decks. The two Spell Snare give that little extra consistancy against the very strong two drops when you're on the draw (again SotF, Tarmo, ...) in addition to improving your combo matchup and stopping nasty one drops on the play (Lackey, Vial).

Spot Removal: 5 sword-effects - we don't have to argue about how good StP are - just if it's worth running white at all. I really do think it's worth it. If there wouldn't be vengevines, it would be much closer. The 2 vindicates are a not so common choice. I know that 3cc at sorcery speed is quite a pain, but these are the only 2 slots where i forgo consistancy and speed in favor of flexibility.

Mass Removal: I used to run 4 Deeds and 1 EE and despite Deeds beeing the bombs we all know them to be, EE are just one turn faster an can save you against the aggro decks where deed would come to late.

Draw: I'm just running 3 Standstills because the manland/standstill trick isn't what it used to be and this deck features just 4 Factories to interact with them. So no Decree of Justice, no other manlands. I think because of this and the power of Jace, 3 is the ideal number. I'm running the old fashioned Fact or Fiction in a 2/2 split with Jace instead of all-Jace because, again, sorcery speed is such a pain and Fact or Fiction can also win you games without the need to tap out.

Manabase: I'm totaly convinced that basic lands do not belong in a 4 color deck. The single island does nothing, because even without it cutting you from UU is still harder than cutting you from any of your other colors. The only alternative would be to also run a Plains, Forest and Swamp, which I think is out of discussion. The 3 Wastelands may seem weired in a 4 color deck and I'm not totaly sure about it. But the only alternatives are another dual (which I don't think I need), another manland (which I don't think I need, because I have Jaces as win-conditions) or another utility land that produces blue and is needed (which I don't know).

So these are my thoughts about landstill. Any comments and/or criticism are very appreciated!

[Xiang]

@ScatmanX yes I run 2 Spell Pierce main (actually how do you know?). I wish for extirpate against UG Vengevine (siding in 3 extirpate), after extirpating mostly creature hate or forbid (if I've the time), against GW I don't side in the extirpate and adapt with wishing for the situation (depending on situation extirpate, submerge (iona on black - rareley happens, they shouldn't get the engine working in the first place ), grip, slaughter pact, edict or forbid(extremely lategame) ). Don't know it's nothing special but I'm not innovative anyway^^.

[ivanpei]

I think Jace should definitely be at least a 3 off. I'm actually considering running the 4th. He is that busted. I find that I can't kill quick enough/close out the game if I don't land him. By running just 2, there's a risk you don't draw him. I know he's clunky, but if you don't play nantukos, I think there's no choice but to play the 3rd Jace. I 'd cut a fact for the 3rd Jace, TMS. My 2 cents. Cheers!

[Mana Drain]

I think Jace should definitely be at least a 3 off. I'm actually considering running the 4th. He is that busted. I find that I can't kill quick enough/close out the game if I don't land him. By running just 2, there's a risk you don't draw him. I know he's clunky, but if you don't play nantukos, I think there's no choice but to play the 3rd Jace. I 'd cut a fact for the 3rd Jace, TMS. My 2 cents. Cheers!

ivanpei, run the 4th Jace. I as long as your not cutting a Force or a Brainstorm, whatever other card you cut is inferior to Jace. In all honesty, he's by a long shot the best win condition I've ever seen for Control decks, especially with the removal package you run to protect him. He answers all sorts of problems by himself, or can help you dig to find answers he cant solve. He can be clunky at times, but always pitches to Force, can always be shuffled away, and if you have 4 mana, he is a Brainstorm+Fog effect. Plus, with 4 you're never afraid to pitch him or run him out to an early death because you know you have more. I've been running 4 now for about 3 months, and never looked back.

I've also been testing with Nature's Claim in the spot of KGrip, and have been impressed with my results. The only matchups where Grip is superior is the Counterbalance and other U-based control matchups. Everywhere else, it's generally to slow. I've been siding in Claim against Folk (for there Needles and Vials), Madness (for Survival and Needles), Enchantress (duh), Burn (in emergencies, nail one of your Factories to gain 4), and even Storm (to preemptively blow up Moxen and Diamonds). Even aggro-decks nowadays run something to hit with it, and the cards you hit are more than likely very bad for you (Vial, Survival, Needle, Jitte, etc.). It's a really versatile card and the life gain is either irrelevant (you should be killing people with Jace) or a blessing (blowing up your own stuff to gain 4). Hope other people give the card a shot, as we already have a favorable matchup against CB decks.

For reference, my current list:

4 Strand
2 Rainforest
2 Delta
4 Tundra
3 U Sea
3 Trop Island
4 Factory
1 Island
1 Plains

4 BS
4 Force
4 Standstill
4 Jace
4 Deed
4 Swords
2 Path
2 EE
3 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
2 Top

SB
1 Path
2 EE
3 Peacekeeper
2 Claim
3 Extirpate
1 Spell Pierce
2 Hydroblast (Flex Slot)
1 Random Card (Flex Slot, often another Claim or Hydroblast)

Loam is still a great card in the deck, but sometimes it just doesn't do very much, so I went for something with a little more action in it.
I've since moved the Spell Pierce to the main for more early-game action and reinforcement against Combo. Almost every deck in the format besides Goblins has targets to hit with Pierce. Plus, it allows you to force through an early Jace and just take control of the game. It has also opened up room in the sideboard for Hydroblast (anti-Goblins and decent against TES), but I'm always looking for suggestions on the flex slots.
Any ideas?

[sdematt]

You could run Duress in those slots. Helps the Survival matchup even more, can help you take down BWG Rock (take their Vindicate or something), Landstill mirror, Aether Vial, and helps you more against combo. Otherwise, I'd say just keep it a meta slot, and change it around according to who's playing what ex. Chill if you're seeing a shit ton of Mono Red Burn, or something like that.

-Matt

[ivanpei]

I usually run a mix of Duress, Meddling mage, extirpate and BEB. I would recommend the 3rd BEB for your 3rd flex because Goblins is a really bad MU. It also helps against zoo decks with Price of Progress and TES decks that pack burning wish etc. Its a very versatile card and one of the most commonly boarded in cards for me. Against 4 colour countertop, I board the BEBs in G3 if I see REBs from their side G2. They run 3-4 REBs, so having BEBs in the Jace Battle is very useful. @ 4th Jace, I'm definitely going to try that. Cheers, its an awesome card.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

Loam is still a great card in the deck, but sometimes it just doesn't do very much, so I went for something with a little more action in it.
I've since moved the Spell Pierce to the main for more early-game action and reinforcement against Combo. Almost every deck in the format besides Goblins has targets to hit with Pierce. Plus, it allows you to force through an early Jace and just take control of the game. It has also opened up room in the sideboard for Hydroblast (anti-Goblins and decent against TES), but I'm always looking for suggestions on the flex slots.
Any ideas?

If you don't see a lot of mana-denial in your metagame than that seems pretty reasonable. Loam, Fact or Fiction, or even Jace are the cards I least want to see in my opening 7, so I try to minimize the possibility of that. Fetching for Tropical Island with another Tropical Island and Loam in hand have saved my ass too many times to count though. The mana-base is precarious enough without it being assisted by dedicated LD strategies.

Also, with the SB strategies. That flex spot could easily be the Extirpate number 4. The format is predicated on graveyard strategies right now and I find it too useful not to have 4.

[kiblast]

no love for elspeth as a win con? i'm currently running it for budget issues. I currently run 2, and they're very good. Only thing that i worry about is that needs WW to be cast, and we don't always have WW as much as we have UU for jace.
Also, i don't run FOF. Instead i'm trying 2 vindicate.

here's my list:

4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest
3 u sea
3 tundra
3 tropical island
3 wasteland

4 FoW
4 Counterspell
4 StP
4 standstill (since i don't run the 5th manland anymore, should i cut one?)
4 brainstorm
3 spell snare
3 spell pierce
3 pernicious deed
2 vindicate
2 Elspeth 1.0
2 EE
1 ghastly demise

sb work in progress

3 extirpate
4 nihil spellbomb
3 engineered plague
3 BeB
2 duress

i found that Burn is a difficult MU. Very often we dont have enough answers and so i increased to 3 the number of Beb, plus 2 duress. Beb also helps against goblins wich is a pretty difficult MU too,even post side.

suggestions? i'm very interested in running 2 FoF maindeck...but i have to find room. Maybe -2 vindicate +2 Fof?

Also -2 vindicate + 2 life from the loam could be useful to get quickly WW for elspeth and to recover manlands.

[galeng]

This is the list I've been running for the past few weeks and it's been treating me very well in testing and small tourneys...

// Lands (25)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland

// Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam


I'll just quickly note on the non-standard pieces of the deck:

Nantuko Monastery
Has been and still is amazing. I'd actually possibly consider cutting factories for it as it's strictly a better threat after threshold. It's quite a beating and worth testing.

Wasteland
2 seems like the right number for answering problem lands in specific situations. The card still kicks as in this deck as long as your manabase supports it.

Spell Snare/Pierce
This is pretty huge for denying early game bombs. These often get sided out vs. specific match ups, and kinda suck mid/late game but that's what FoW is for :wink:.

Engineered Explosives
Best removal other than your 4 swords/4 deed and extremely flexible. It's viable vs. pretty much every matchup. I would consider swapping this for edict/smother/path to exile in a very skewed meta.

Life from the Loam
Best as a 1 of since multiples suck hard and the card is really situational. Running wasteland and 6 man lands along with fetches definitely makes it worth it.

Jace, the Format Sculptor
It took me a while to finally let go of FoF but it was worth it. His clock is pretty decent and lets me finish matches pretty consistently (9 win cons + loam does the trick). Jace becomes better than FoF the longer you keep him alive, plus he's much more flexible. I do miss the instant card advantage of FoF and the potential jedi mind tricks though :cool:.

[ivanpei]

I'm glad attention has shifted back to this list especially since UWBG landstill rapes survival and countertop. Some observations of recent lists, you really want at least 3 Jace TMS, that card helps you stabilize with fateseal and kill fast. It's the best possible 4 drop for this deck, don't bother with FoF. I play this list:

4 Force
4 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce

4 Swords
2 Path
4 Deed
2 EE

4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
3 Jace TMS

9 Blue fetch
4 Tundra
4 Sea
3 Trop
4 Factory

Sb:
4 Extirpate
1 Path
3 BEB
4 Meddling Mage
3 Duress

I don't play any fancy tricks in my list. Its basically card draw, counterspells and removal/sweepers. The 4th Jace I'm still testing instead of the 2nd EE and I've liked it so far (Thanks manadrain). The flex slots are 2 Spell Pierce, 2 EE. Spell pierce is easily the worse card in the deck, but with so much survival, show and tell, natural order running around, its good to be safe. I dislike edict, and I think its a meta call if you see reanimator/show and tell etc. But seriously, anything less than 3 Jace, TMS is suboptimal. Also I only play 4 factories as colourless, everything else makes colored for maximum consistency. With Jace, we don't need manlands to kill anymore, he kills faster most of the time, so IMO 4 factories are just enough to enable Standstill. Playing 20 coloured sources means very little trouble against manadenial, especially wastelands.

@ Kiblast, elspeth makes for a so-so replacement for Jace. I'd play mutavaults/nantukos instead of wasteland though, you need the killing speed since you don't have 3 Jaces. Against burn, honestly theres not much that can be done. I think Nihil spell bomb is overkill for gravehate. I run meddling mage instead because it gives you a much needed clock from the board that disrupts. The problem against burn/combo is not a lack of answers, its not being able to kill fast enough before they over run you with burn/chant effects. Having a disruptive bear naming price of progress is excellent. Also extirpate, duress and meddling mage all combo together. You can use duress/extirpate to peek at their hand and name something with mage using the information you got from the peek.

[Mana Drain]

@ Ubiquitous Druid: I may try the 4th Extirpate again. It is amazing against a multitude of strategies. And I agree that Loam has allowed me to stay in so many games I should have lost due to manafuck, but kept me fed with plenty of mana to get back in the game. It is still a powerful card.

@ kiblast: Keep the 4 Standstill. It's a great card against everything but Merfolk and Goblins, and is still a powerful draw engine.
Also, are 7 pieces of gravehate really not enough? What grave-based matchup is so bad that just 4 Extirpates can't significantly alter? I personally would change the 4 Spellbomb to +1 Extirpate, +2 Perish/Natures Ruins, and either +1 Spell Pierce or +1 Engineered Plague. Those help the matchups we should really be worring about, such as Merfolk, Goblins, Pro-Bant/any NO deck, and Storm Combo. Extirpate stomps Loam based decks, is still effective vs. Dredge, and can be sided in a bunch of different U matchups. 7 pieces of GY hate just seem overkill, unless your meta is entirely GY based, which is unlikely.

@ galeng: Nice list. Glad to see you've joined the cult of Jace. You'll find he's a great and powerful god to worship. ;)

@ ivanpei: As always, solid list. You don't really need to run the 4th Jace in this list, as you have so much counter-backup. I personally just play a very aggressive control game and like just throw him out there and see how my opponent will contort to remove him. #4 for the 2nd EE looks to be the best choice for him, and I hope he continues to be beneficial. I would still keep EE #2 in the sb somewhere though, the card is just so versatile in slower matchups. Especially with 4 colors, where it can randomly answer opposing Jaces/Elspeths. But I suppose Duress could serve the same purpose. To each his own.

Also, after looking at your sb, I couldn't help but wonder how your Merfolk matchup is? While the deck fares *ok* G1, G2 I find to be difficult without some type of specialized hate. In my case, that's 3 Peacekeeper + extra Path and EE's. I find that early Needle on Deed and later Needle on Jace to be quite back-breaking against me, thus the EE's come in REAL handy. It looks to me like the only card you would benefit from in the SB is your extra Path, leaving you with mostly-dead Standstills and Spell Pierces. Could you elaborate on the matchup?

[ivanpei]

G1 I don't have headaches against Merfolk. I just learned to "not be greedy", ie holding back sweepers until they overextend etc. We play so much gas and they are very tempo based so forget about squeezing everydrop of CA you can from your cards. Just run the sweepers out there. Also another problem is standstill. I NEVER ever drop them against folk, unless you are looking to commit suicide. Its best to pitch them to force. Even on an empty board and you have a factory and they have no manlands, I would never drop standstill. They have 4 vaults, 4 wastelands, you have 4 factories. The odds of them drawing into more relevant lands is higher than you. I've been blown out plenty due to this mistake, I learned it the hard way. Post board I just chop the standstills for path and 3 duress. They bring in more hate against you like back to basics etc so I like having duress to nab their hate/counterspells. Play out the game as usual by point removing and sweeping when relevant. Its not very difficult. Just always bear in mind that B2B can come down anytime to ruin your day. That's why I love white, instant speed removal is so golden. If they drop a lord before attacks, feel free to path/swords. If they don't drop anything and just swing, take the damage and keep mana up to counter their bomb hate. If they pass, just path/swords EOT. My 2 cents.

[kiblast]

thanks for response guys.

@ ivanpei (is your name some alteration of anime character named Sanpei? if so, kudos to you) i'll try more manlands for sure. In fact, my version is really slower at winning because elspeth guys can be chumpblocked, sworded, bounced etc etc while jace's abilities can only be stifled by opponent in order to prevent him losing the game. Basically more manlands mean more chumpblockers, mean more aggressive plan and mutavaults work great with their lords- gobbo or merfolk- and preventing them flooding table. Also adding more manlands means additional security under standstill.

@Mana drain ty for your sb thoughts, you basically confirmed what was i thinking about in the last days. I'll go -4 bomb +1 engineered +2 perish +1 spell pierce.

@ ivanpei again : correct plan against merfolks. I never play standstill unless i got 3 manlands and they got none...and even in that case is risky.
The same can be said for gobbos, they play 7-8 land hate maindeck so it is almost the same situation, but in the long distance theyre forced to break standstill if they only have ports and wastes on the table.

[Rune]

I think this thread needs a bump. BTW how are everyone's testing result vs survival (WG or Ug)? I've been having fantastic results with my UWBG list pre and post board. I don't board for the WG lists (extirpate just shuts down the venge combo) while I board extirpates in vs the UG versions because without Venges, the deck is terrible. Anyone else having the same results?

I've been testing this matchup on both sides, playing Ubg Landstill and Survival, and in my experience this matchup is really lopsided in Survival's favor. I can't tell if the white splash changes anything because I haven't tested it, but so far it has always been easy for me to defeat any kind of Landstill or Thopter deck with Survival.


Has anyone considered some number of maindeck Extirpate? It will obviously help against Vengevines, but it's also good against some other matchups that are very bad post-board, like Dredge and Loam decks. In control mirrors and combo matchups it's also very strong because it can be an instant speed, uncounterable Duress. It will probably be dead in half the matchups you face, but in the rest it will be insane. Cunning Wish is too slow and hard to push through Daze and Spell Pierce that I don't consider it a feasible way of beating Vengevines in g1.

[Mana Drain]

I've been testing this matchup on both sides, playing Ubg Landstill and Survival, and in my experience this matchup is really lopsided in Survival's favor. I can't tell if the white splash changes anything because I haven't tested it, but so far it has always been easy for me to defeat any kind of Landstill or Thopter deck with Survival.


Has anyone considered some number of maindeck Extirpate? It will obviously help against Vengevines, but it's also good against some other matchups that are very bad post-board, like Dredge and Loam decks. In control mirrors and combo matchups it's also very strong because it can be an instant speed, uncounterable Duress. It will probably be dead in half the matchups you face, but in the rest it will be insane. Cunning Wish is too slow and hard to push through Daze and Spell Pierce that I don't consider it a feasible way of beating Vengevines in g1.

I really believe that the Survival matchup comes down to 2 things: 1) If they got a fast Survival hand with counter-backup, it is difficult to live through it. 2) What cards we have in our sb for G2 and G3 weigh HEAVILY on the outcome of the match.

Sometimes, #1 just happens and you lose just like any other deck would. But by running cards like Spell Pierce and Spell Snare in addition to splashing white for Sword effects, you have a dramatically better chance of stopping a T2 Survival or living long enough to blow a deed and take control. This matchup is where slower cards like Counterspell and Innocent Blood can be a significant hindrance, due to being slow or untargeted.
#2 is far more significant and in our control. Running a minimum 3 Extirpate is beneficial, in addition to siding in Grips/Claims, Spell Pierces/Spell Snares, and if you run white, additional Paths/Peacekeeper (this match is where PK shines the brightest). With my sb (see previous page), I put in +1 Path, +3 PK, +2 Claim, and some number of Extirpates to put the odds in my favor. Remember, if you can remove the VVs, the deck is just a bad Survival deck, playing stuff like Basking Rootwalla for beaters. Also, if you run it, Perish helps immensely.

On MD Extirpate, I believe that is unnecessary. You would have to cut a more versatile MD card for a relatively narrow SB card that would effectively be and instant-speed Telepathy in many matchups (like Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins, etc.). It's an amazing SB card, but just doesn't sound so hot in the MD unless you expect HEAVY amounts of Aggro-Loam, Lands, Dredge, Reanimator, and possibly VV Survival. It's just suboptimal in matchups where you desperately need your cards to do something productive. And I feel as though Dredge is a good matchup post-board and pre-board. With Deeds, heavy counters for the draw spells, and good 1-drop removal, you can slow the deck down to a crawl. Even if you lose G1, you have Extirpates, Engineered Plagues, Spell Pierces, Duress, and others to side in for them. At the same time, all they can side in for us is Claim/Chain/ and maybe Grudge. If you are having problems with Dredge/Loam-decks, post your list and SB and maybe someone here could help you with a SB strategy for those matchups.

Good luck!

[Xiang]

@kikoo: how do the ubg list and the survival list look like? (which kind of survival?)

[kiblast]

in the last 2 days i went 5-2 preside and 2-0 post side against goblins. More manlands help a lot against their 8 denial lands. Post side i run 4 engineered and 2 beb. Is that ok to loose 65% of games pre side and leave it all to post sb?

[Ubiquitous Druid]

In this survival infested meta-game, I have this to ask everyone playing some version of Landstill:
What adaptations are you making to your 75 to make this match good/better?

My list is tuned to a combo/vengevine meta because: a.) vengevine is strong, b.) combo beats vengevine. So, having a maindeck packed with cards that benefit most matches is optimal. I propose a list like:


4 Brainstorm
4 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Standstill
2 Life from the Loam
3 Counterspell

4 Pernicious Deed

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Force of Will
2 Engineered Explosives

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monastery
1 Island

4 Extirpate
3 Nature's Claim
3 Diabolic Edict
2 Duress
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Isochron Scepter




The first thing anyone would notice is that this list is front-heavy on both permission and removal (I organzied cards by CMC in the list to illustrate this point). This is a conscious decision based on the speed of the format as it stands. On the play, there are 14 answers to Survival and on the draw 11. These are cards that most people would agree are strong in the combo match as well (Snare, Pierce, FoW CS).

I also split the wincons between Monastery and Jace. This is mostly to sure up some matches that the front-heavy version suffers. The front-heavy version dilutes its win-percentage against aggro due to the high proportion of Spell Pierce. Monastery is a house against aggro and servicable as a wincon, so it gets the nod for this meta. Something has to get cut for my 6 colorless land. That cut is Wasteland. I'm not finding Wasteland relevant enough in bad matches to warrant including in this deck.

The Sideboard: Since the maindeck is tuned for combo, I tuned the sideboard for aggro and a variety of survival strategies, inlcuding Iona/Emrakul shenanigans. The Sideboard also allows the substitution of the most specific and efficient hate for a multitude of strategies.

Isochron Scepter in the Sideboard: This is an idea I stole from the "Format / Article Discussion" anti-vengevival thread from metalwalker. I am still testing this to see how it stands. But theoretically, Scepter from the board can maximize a specific type of hate in shell full of scepter targets and is also coupled with the format's broadest sweeper (Perncious Deed) against a broad range of strategies.

Any thoughts/criticism on my above thoughts?

[rancOr_]

@kikoo
I have been playing Ubg landstill for quite some time,but I switched UWb because of the vengevines. G1 if u dont play white ur chances of winning are very small,the Ubg version wins with Jace and mishra but has no remove from the game effects. Even if the best scenario occurs(countering a survival) u still have a very hard time. Deed is often too slow(4cc) against them.

@ivanpei
Do you feel that 4c landstill works out better for you then just simple UWx? I've been playing 4c aswell but sometimes u just lose to some random wasteland/stifle,not to mention recurring wastes.I feel that even though u have a hand with plenty of mana just some waste/port can delay u too much.The versions with cunning wish aren't so great for me either,as they are often just too slow for the current metagame. For me atm I really dont see the benefits u get from playing 4c landstill over UWx,but maybe im wrong.

[sdematt]

4 Colour landstill gives you either the benefit of extra sweepers or Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile, which are both excellent. Have 6 targeted 1 CMC removal spells significantly increases your chances of trouncing Vengevine, as well as taking out Knight of the Reliquary, Tarmogoyf, and other creatures not hit by Firespout.

Firespout gives you the benefit of sweeping the board against Merfolk, Zoo (except their larger stuff), and Goblins. It allows you to save Deeds for more pressing matters, and get the most out of them. Deeding for one guy is usually terrible, so you want to save them up.

I would say the minimum Jace number anyone should be playing is 3. He's your win condition, you need him. He also does everything from Brainstorm to julienne fries. You really want to have him all the time, even if he not gaining loyalty from being attacked. Fatesealing them until you hit a bomb is still pretty good.

Regarding Cunning Wish: it depends on your build. I'm using two slots for Cunning Wish, with 4-5 Wish targets. It is slow, but you're a slow deck anyway: fetching something to break their back Game 1 or even after sideboard can be devastating. Having access to Game 1 Extirpate, Back to Nature, Echoing Truth, or Tsabo's Decree can be game-breaking. As well, what else could you put in those 2 slots? Only thing I can think of would be either Engineered Explosives, or maybe Top if you wanted to.

I've found Goblins and Zoo to be hard matchups if you're not playing White. You don't have the same amount of targeted removal, and you have no way to stop direct damage aside from counterpower. But, is it worth siding 4 Engineered Plague in? That I can't be sure. It'd be especially good against Goblins, and to some effect with sweepers especially, Merfolk. But, what do you cut? If you're not running a Wishboard, then it's probably not as issue. If you are, Do you cut Gravehate or Wish power? Also, you have to remember you're running Deed. Once you run out 1-2 Plague, is Deed dead at this point? I guess it depends on your game-state, but I certainly wouldn't want to be blowing up my own crap with Deed. So I'm thinking if you're going to run Plague, take out Deed when you side? I'm not sure here.

Also, I notice very few basics, is any in the 4 colour lists splashing white. I know you can run through Wastelands since we play so many coloured sources, but have you ever felt the need for basics, or do you stand by what you said before? I just really hate Blood Moon and the Magus, so I'm always hesitant to run 0 basics.

-Matt

[Mana Drain]

@ivanpei
Do you feel that 4c landstill works out better for you then just simple UWx? I've been playing 4c aswell but sometimes u just lose to some random wasteland/stifle,not to mention recurring wastes.I feel that even though u have a hand with plenty of mana just some waste/port can delay u too much.The versions with cunning wish aren't so great for me either,as they are often just too slow for the current metagame. For me atm I really dont see the benefits u get from playing 4c landstill over UWx,but maybe im wrong.

I know this question was directed at ivanpei, but I feel I can give an experienced and tested answer to it, as I play both Uwgb Deedstill AND UWr Landstill. Both decks can be tuned to different metagames almost equally in effectiveness, but it really comes down to the fact that both of them can be built almost identically to each other, sans a few namesake cards. For instance my 2 Landstill decks are only different in -4 Deed and -2 Duals for +2 Firespout, +2 EE, +1 Top, and +1 Ruins. Other than the manabase, the SB, and those mentioned cards, it's the same damn list, and I like running it that way because I've had success with the formula. You can run basics of necessary colors in both lists if you so choose, but this reduces the colorless lands to compensate. I find 4 Factories enough for the most part.

The main difference I see between the lists is UWr has a much better Goblins, Merfolk, and Zoo matchup due to Firespout. 3 mana WoG's that you don't have to wait another turn on are pretty good I hear. Also, the addition of REB in the SB is extremely useful against half of the format, especially Merfolk. On the other hand, Deed and Extirpate give you a much better game against Vengevine Sur. The two cards in conjuction really ruin those decks gameplan and slow them down enough for you to wipe the board with Deed and drop a win-con. Extirpate also being great against Loam-based decks is just another perk.

Honestly, if I was going to a big event today, I would play UWr, because I feel that the Tribal/Zoo matchup would be more common and dangerous than the VV Sur/Loam matchup. But as I said earlier, both decks can be tuned heavily and any card choices out of the ordinary should be in response to a predicted metagame at the current event/tournament. If you have a hard time scouting/predicting/metagaming for a tournament, you probably shouldn't be playing this type of deck, regardless of your skill level.

Edit: Also, if you're running into a lot of Waste/Port decks or Tempo based decks, either play Loam MD or play UWx. Deed is very mana intensive in quantity and color. Plus, 4 colors vs. 3. Which is easier to get?

[death]

Deed is very mana intensive in quantity and color. Plus, 4 colors vs. 3. Which is easier to get?

True. But having played Deedstill for a while, I would say Deed is worth the investment. It's the reason I even bother to play Landstill. It destroys ALL annoying permanents like Vial, CotV, SoFI, SoLS, CB/SDT and SotF. Something which Firespout/Maelstrom Pulse can't do and even EE is conditional. If you wan't to stick with Uw, I would suggest disk instead:

http://orb1.ocnk.net/data/orb1/_/70726f647563742f356239313261333430612e6a70670032353000534f4c44204f5554.png

[ivanpei]

I have played both UWBG and UWx landstill and they both have their pro's and cons. I think both are fine against survival and both are good decks. UWx was good previously because it can afford to run basics and play around wasteland. You are less likely to be screwed by landhate in just 2 colours (splash the 3rd). I still prefered UWBG because deed is just such a house, its not as efficient at sweeping compared to firespout but it's a catch all answer that is seldom dead. It catches counterbalance, survival, aether vial, thopter foundry, enchantress, the list goes on. I prefer having a versatile sweeper compared to one that just sweeps weenies (firespout).

However, with the printing of Jace, UWBG can now drop extra manlands and run 20 coloured sources. This redundancy of coloured mana makes it easier to play through (though you can't play around) wasteland. The MD is ultra compact now as you don't have to play decree of justice/any other win condition and just play Jace FTW. I also have a strong dislike for UWx's curve. Any UW list should start like this @ the 4, 2 Jace, 2 Elspeth, 2 humility. That's alot of 4 drops and I think it's a pretty big clog @ the 4. Usually you'd play 3 EE's to accompany your removal suite in UWx as well but I still prefer having deeds. Both have pros and cons, but I'm solidly in UWbg's camp right now.

I won't touch cunning wish at all, its too slow in today's meta. There might be a time when versatility is needed, but if you need versatility, just play more deeds/ees. Wishing for extirpate is too slow in most relevant MUs. Cheers!

[Kanabo]

Has anybody tested Tolaria West in the UBG version?

[Ubiquitous Druid]

Tolaria West can essentially get a land or Engineered Explosives. TWest is slower than a a fetchland and if you are needing to dig for Engineered Explosives you probably need it right now rather than paying 3 mana, at sorcery speed. I can't think of an obvious situation where it would be good.

If you want a toolbox/tutor plan at 3 mana, I would go with Cunning Wish unless of course you build around a TWest shell. I think this would end up diluting the deck's overall power for a very rigid, narrow, and slow tutor.

[Kanabo]

Ok that makes sense, but im also still trying to figure out why no one runs academy ruins? seems to be good with EE in Landstill...

[Mana Drain]

Ok that makes sense, but im also still trying to figure out why no one runs academy ruins? seems to be good with EE in Landstill...


1) Because relatively few people run EE in Ugbx, opposed to 3 being an auto-include in every UWx build. I run 2 EE for it being randomly effective and rarely a bad card to see, but I also run a heavy removal build. Others may just think it unnecessary, which may be true.

2) Because it's yet another colorless land in a 3-4 color deck that also runs at least 4 other colorless lands. Randomly blowing up in you face when your opponent drops theirs happens too. I run 1 Ruins because EE recursion literally wins the game when topdecking. Also just wins the game against pretty much any CB deck. But I will admit to starring at it in my hand, wishing it was some other land.

[Shimi]

Hi , played UBG Landstill at Brazilian Legacy Championship and made a 3-3 Drop.

Match 1: BG Dark Depths , tought matchup , volrath + loam + hexmage , but Jace + wasteland at g1 and 2 mishras at game 2 get there.
2-0

Match 2: Zoo with punishing fire.Just killed one drop , get some bash , deed and jace at game1.Game2 was wastelock + 3 removals + Jace.
2-0

Match 3: TES
Sit back at counters and Jace two times.Ghastily demise was useful against xantid and extirpate at his protecs(chant + duress).
2-0

Macth 4:Goblins Rb(top8ed)
Keep a hand with 3 lands , jace , removal , brainstorm.He on play opened with vial and them 2 waste + port get him time enought to cheat guys when I play Deed to estabilize it is too late.
Again I mull to a not very good hand and he goes crazy but now with 3 waste + port.
0-2

Match 5: Goblins Rb(top8ed)
I just fight , estabilize and lock him with 3 lands and I have Jace but just 5 life , he has piledriver and play lackey + piledriver.I use fetch to shuffle the top 3 cards that I knew, then draw and have 6 lands at table and fetch and brainstorm at hand.Just used Jace's brainstorm and find no deed(left 3 on library) and no removals(left 6), then fetch and brainstorm and did not find removal or deed.
Again I mull to island , tropical , sea , ghastily , plague , countespell.I play island go , he playes lackey and I did no find a fetch so could no kill lackey with ghastily , then I just punt and play sea , realize that it was a big mistake I just think about taking it back to my hand immediatelly and playing tropical but didn't cause of "my fairplay", he them connects lackey droping matrom for warchief , waste my sea and I in big trouble if I did not find a black source , I then draw innocent blood and I played tropical , go.He connects lackey again an drop warchief , I draw deed , then connects to piledriver without playing nothing from hand.Draw seconde plague , he bash an I'm very low life , and if I draw a black source I could play plague , go to 1 life and then play 2nd plague and win.But again I drew no lands.
0-2

Match 6:Merfolks(Ub)
Game 1 I mull to 4 with loam and almost won that game but I lose cause when I estabilize I'm at 1 life and could not use more fetchs to play Jace/Deed at hand.He drew all 4 wastelands LOL.
Game 2 I smash him with no mercy as usually.
Game 3 I mull and play seize at T2 and see no counters , then he waste my sea , I play 3 brainstorm and could not find a black source for my 2 removals and 2 plagues at hands while I just die to mutavault + lv4 coralhelm.
1-2

Sad , Goblins is this deck worst matchup for me but I think I just had bad luck and made 1 error that take me out of top8ed cause if I win against Goblins at 3-1 I could made 5-1-1(best 3-1 standings).

I will play the 4th plague at SB but could not figure out a way to get Goblins match better, is BeB useful against others matchs?

[Ubiquitous Druid]

@Shimi: If you are having trouble with your Goblins match you could try Porphyry Nodes or Drop of Honey. There was some discussion of it a couple pages back and some of us have had success with it in our Gobos matchup. Either it's a 2 for 1 (essentially Innocent Blood + Fog), or they keep playing into it and you get absurd card advantage. It can be a little mediocre in other agro matchups though.

@kanabo: It really all depends how you have your sweepers set up. With black and green Pernicous Deed is just the most efficient card to run. Also as is mentioned above, you reduce access to colored mana in a deck that has very specific mana-requirements. Wasteland hurts even more when all you are drawing are colorless sources. In UW it should be an auto-include, but having access to Deed (and being able to cast Deed consistently) is a higher priority for a list running black.

[arcboundravager2]

hey guys. im fairly new to this deck though ive been testing it for a few weeks. i just went 3-0-1 and drew for first at our local tournament playing this list

// Lands
1 [IN] Swamp (2)
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
3 [U] Tropical Island
3 [B] Underground Sea
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [M10] Island (2)
1 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [ON] Barren Moor

// Spells
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
4 [BD] Counterspell
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
4 [OD] Standstill
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
1 [RAV] Darkblast
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [6E] Perish
SB: 1 [LG] The Abyss
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [FNM] Engineered Plague
SB: 2 [10E] Pithing Needle

i played u/w control in the first round and managed it 2-1,then bant survival 2-0, then bant natural order 2-0, and i drew in the last round

now some thoughts:
i feel 4 deeds may be too many as drawing multiples is terrible, also id go -1 darkblast/ +1 ghastly demise (that card is pure gasoline)

no this post was very undetailed but its 4 in the morning and as i lack a lot of experience with this deck and also dont want to sound like a jackass making unwarrented/ ill thought out suggestions. but i will continue to test make observations and do my best and report my thoughts.

[Arsenal]

That list seems very vulnerable to fast aggro and Vengevine shenanigans. Have you considered adding +2 Tundra and +4 Swords to Plowshares?

[sdematt]

I was thinking about the sideboard for the version with white. Is Goblins basically our absolute worst matchup, along with Zoo/Burn shenanigans?
Goblins seems pretty terrible for us in the hands of a good pilot, so what about running Tivadar's Crusade in the board? I know it sounds hokey, but if that's the matchup we're really faltering, maybe we should shore it up a bit more.

-Matt

[DragoFireheart]

I was thinking about the sideboard for the version with white. Is Goblins basically our absolute worst matchup, along with Zoo/Burn shenanigans?
Goblins seems pretty terrible for us in the hands of a good pilot, so what about running Tivadar's Crusade in the board? I know it sounds hokey, but if that's the matchup we're really faltering, maybe we should shore it up a bit more.

-Matt


Wouldn't Merfolk be much worse?

[dahcmai]

You could try out what I have been touting for a while now. Drop of Honey makes goblins cry. Between that and Engineered Plague, you should always smile when you see a lacky.

[Arsenal]

For the UGBw players, I'd look into what The Rock players have been discovering versus fast aggro; Dueling Grounds. Costs the same as Engineered Plague, but impacts the board in a much more meaningful way.

[Mana Drain]

I was thinking about the sideboard for the version with white. Is Goblins basically our absolute worst matchup, along with Zoo/Burn shenanigans?
Goblins seems pretty terrible for us in the hands of a good pilot, so what about running Tivadar's Crusade in the board? I know it sounds hokey, but if that's the matchup we're really faltering, maybe we should shore it up a bit more.

-Matt


Wouldn't Merfolk be much worse?

Both of them can be difficult. If you're running white, Peacekeeper is a good option in the SB for Merfolk, and also useful against VVSur, Show&Tell decks, and Dredge. But it is effectively dead against Goblins, with Incinerators, Stingscourgers, Wierdings, and Matrons+Ringleads to find all these cards. EPlague on the other hand pretty much beats the whole goblin deck. 1 Kills all Lackeys, Matrons, War Marshals, Tokens. 2 kills their whole deck. Just remember to keep in spot removal for Goblin Chieftain/Goblin King.

Unfortunately, EPlague isn't as effective as PK or something else against Merfolk, but it does help stem the bleeding. You really need multiples, in addition to other cards in the board for the matchup. But EPlague still comes in against Dredge (naming Horror or Illusion), random elf decks, Tempo Faeries, etc.

I'm currently useing 4 Engineered Plague instead of my ususal 3 PK and something else. I'm just tired of losing to Goblins when I'm playing a control deck. Our VVSur matchup is already even and Merfolk can be adjusted to with SB cards. A good tribal matchup is mighty important due to the probability of facing a tribal deck in a tournament. Although at this point in time I don't really know which results I'm happier with due to a lack of serious testing.


****IMPORTANT****
Guys, please remember that in about 2 weeks, the banned list MAY change (Survival or VV, duh), so don't focus too much on our current lists. If Survival decks do get neutered in one way or another, there will be some radical metagame shifts involved. And seeing how this deck is more of a metagamed-control deck, it's important to just sit back and watch what's happening. I'm suggesting everyone just relax and wait for a little while so we can see what we're up against in the very near future. I for one know that if VV or Sur gets banned, I'm changing my list quite a bit.

Good luck everyone!

[sdematt]

True, but you have admit: You know you want to play Tivadar's Crusade at an SCG Open just to watch people read the card. You know you do :D

-Matt

[luma]

Guys, please remember that in about 2 weeks, the banned list MAY change

More like one month; the next B&R announcement should be on December 20th. Anyways, you have a good point.

What do you sb against Merfolk if you don't have Peacekeepers?

[Mana Drain]

True, but you have admit: You know you want to play Tivadar's Crusade at an SCG Open just to watch people read the card. You know you do :D

-Matt

Believe it or not, about 5-6 years ago, Tivadar's Crusade was a 2-of in every single UW Landstill SB around.


More like one month; the next B&R announcement should be on December 20th. Anyways, you have a good point.

What do you sb against Merfolk if you don't have Peacekeepers?

Don't quote me on this, but I believe that the BnR list is ANNOUNCED on the 1st. It comes into effect on the 20th of December. I think there are 2 more SCG Opens that occur between now and the 20th.

If you don't have any PKs, you'd best side in 3+ Plague, plus some number of REBs/Paths/PithingNeedles/etc. Merfolk is a very beatable matchup, but you have to be prepared for it. Always remember to keep in your Deeds though. All their guys are 3 or less, so it's a much easier sweep. Goblins almost requires Plagues, as Deed is just to slow and mana intensive. The good news is most lists are Mono-R or RB, so they generally can't stop the Plague. Just keep your manabase alive in the meantime!

[luma]

Don't quote me on this, but I believe that the BnR list is ANNOUNCED on the 1st. It comes into effect on the 20th of December. I think there are 2 more SCG Opens that occur between now and the 20th.

It used to be this way, but two years ago the schedule changed so that the announcement is on Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec 20th, and effective date the 1st of following month: Link (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/17)


We have chosen to change the schedule of banned and restricted list announcements. The new announcement dates will be March 20, June 20, September 20, and December 20 with effective dates of April 1, July 1, October 1, and January 1, respectively.

[ivanpei]

The problem with Goblins is not the initial onslaught, its that gobbos can recover from sweepers FAST. The problem cards in goblins are ringleader/matron/SGC. These are the must answer CA generators for gobbos. Most sweepers will not help, what you need is a permanent solution to the horde. Dueling ground is a good option. I doubt you'll be ableto get green and white vs wastelands and ports fast enough though. Drop of honey etc can help you survive into the mid game, but then their CA will begin to overwhelm you. Slowing down gobbos is not the solution, answering them permanently is. Thats why people used to play engineered plague. Double plague = GG. The problem now is: Goblin chieftain. All gobbo decks run a couple of copies. That just cancels out your plague, making plague much less effective. You can kill it/ counter it sure. But gobbos is just so fast, you're usually just struggling to survive.

I play BEBs, strategy is to shoot everything down and counter the bombs while praying. BEB shoots early lackeys and counters late ringleaders. Perfect fit. If I wanted to be 100% sure I beat gobbos, I'd then play propaganda. I know that Dueling grounds is much better, but getting GW is very difficult. Getting a single blue is much easier. Extras stack or pitch to force. You can hold off a goblin with factories, one at a time. Propaganda is better if you play more manlands though. I won't run it if I don't have at least 6 manlands (mishras and nantukos). Cheers!

[Mana Drain]

I like the Dueling Grounds idea. Rock decks have been using it forever, and it looks to be a versatile card. GW is no harder to get than GB in most builds splashing W, so that issue is rather irrelevant. I don't really like using EPlague for the reason you stated above, and the fact that it is soooo narrow. It's only useful in the 2 tribal matchups (where it can be GameOver or a Thunderstaff) and the Dredge matchup, where it is actually pretty bad-ass, but I have next to zero Dredge in my meta. I think there are maybe 4 decent options for these matchups in the 3cc slot: EPlague, PK, Dueling Grounds, and Propaganda/Ghostly Prison. And really, all of those cards have major drawbacks and are pretty narrow. Just remember, if you're siding in Propaganda against Gobs, that they could very well have some number of Pyro/REBs in their deck somewhere, so watch out for the alpha-strike!

In all truth, this is a hard time to play Landstill, regardless of color choices. VVSur, while a completely beatable deck for us, has skewed the metagame to the point where every deck out there is operating at the fastest possible level just to kill the Sur decks. In my meta, all the tribal lists are heavy on their disruption, the Zoo lists are fast as shit, more and more TES variants are sprouting up, and I've found the DarkHorizons/3cRock/whatevertheycallthedeck to be a difficult matchup. Not even Jace, Superman Himself, can stop these decks at the rate they just shit-out fast dudes.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but until either an act of god (Banning) or a serious metagame shift, I feel this deck is having way to hard of a time winning. I don't like having to run MD Spell Pierce and Spell Snare to prevent my opponents from killing me on the 3rd turn. And this is from an AGGRO deck. It just doesn't feel right. I hope you guys are having more success in your meta than I'm having in mine.

My MD has stayed the same for the last month or so, but my SB is always up in the air:

1 Path
1 EE
3 Extirpate
4 E Plague
1 Perish
1 Spell Pierce
2 Natures Claim (Try this in your KGrip slots. I find it to come in against a boatload of different matchups, including Aggro)
2 Little Jace Jr. (Amazing against other Blue-Control. Stops their Jace, draws cards, easy to protect with countermagic.)

Good luck all!

[mchainmail]

Plague is also really good against Thopters, as it shuts off their combo and basically makes the matchup a Jace war.

[Jim Higginbottom]

True story. =/

[MrShine]

Hey guys,

I just put the deck (BUG) together and I like what I'm seeing so far: good game against Vengevine :) What I wanted to flesh out was the strategy for combo; presuming people are smart (they may not be), more TES/ANT should be popping up. Is the plan just to race with factories? I was thinking of trying 3 Vendilion Clique in the board as additional disruption and a faster clock.

MrShine

[luma]

I played Ubgw at Finnish Legacy Champs today. I went 5-1-1 in the swiss, losing to Zoo and winning Enchantress, another Zoo and three times TES. All wins against TES were Factory beatdowns. I lost in the quarterfinals to UGW Vengevine Survival: in G2, I failed to draw a green mana source for Deed after Extirpating Vengevines, and lost to Rootwalla/Memnite beats.

Here's the list I played:

4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2/2/2/2 Fetch
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Nantuko Monastery

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Path to Exile
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Engineered Explosives

SB:
4 Extirpate
3 Peacekeeper
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Duress

[ivanpei]

Congrats luma! I like your list, its like 3 cards different from mine MD, I play -1 Nantuko, - 1 trop, -1 Jace, + 1 fetch, , + 1 Counterspell. You play 61 cards md?

I've sort of switched to countertop thopther for now. This is not a nice meta for landstill. Storm combo will be very popular due to survival so UWg thopthers is my current meta deck of choice. Bridge-> Survival. Thopters murders storm combo too. Its also excellent vs fast aggro.

[Shimi]

Hey guys,

I just put the deck (BUG) together and I like what I'm seeing so far: good game against Vengevine :) What I wanted to flesh out was the strategy for combo; presuming people are smart (they may not be), more TES/ANT should be popping up. Is the plan just to race with factories? I was thinking of trying 3 Vendilion Clique in the board as additional disruption and a faster clock.

MrShine

Storm is a dificult matchup if played against an experienced player , cause they can slow down and use your counters to ToA for 20.I try to keep some pressure(mishra's , jace) hand that don't lose to duress, wastelock is very good and some disrupt at SB can help.Just hope they did not draw the ToA and try to counter their BW if you see they setting up big hand for mass disrupt + ToA.

[luma]

Congrats luma! I like your list, its like 3 cards different from mine MD, I play -1 Nantuko, - 1 trop, -1 Jace, + 1 fetch, , + 1 Counterspell. You play 61 cards md?

Yeah, the Monastery was a last-minute add, during testing I often wanted a fifth manland but didn't want to cut a colored land for it, so I just added it as the 61th card. I didn't draw it except in two games however, one of them was the Zoo that I lost (he had a really fast start both games, my Deeds were too slow and I didn't reach threshold in time for Monastery to help). I'm not sure if it's going to stay.

The fourth Jace was awesome. The only time I was unhappy to see a Jace was when I drew a third copy against Storm Combo.

[Ozymandias]

I've been tweaking a Ubg version of the deck, and I ended up here:

4 Brainstorm
4 Spell Snare
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Ghastly Demise

2 Innocent Blood

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Standstill
4 Pernicious Deed

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Academy Ruins
2 Tolaria West
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest

I noticed that Vengevines were a problem not on the first go-round, but on the recursion, so I added in some Tolaria Wests/Tormod's Crypt to help with that. Crypt is good in a lot of matchups, allowing me to break up loam recursion, shrink Knight of the Reliquary and Tarmogoyf, pull ahead in the mirror, and Tolaria West can find me Waste, EE, Crypt, and Factory, giving me a lot of options for not a huge cost. A few questions

1: Do I need more MD removal or spell pierce? I guess I would cut 1 counterspell and 1 pierce to fit them in, but space is tight as is.
2: Do I want a MD Volcanic Island to ramp EE to 4 counters?
3: What should my sideboard look like? Right now, I'm leaning towards 2 Extirpate, 2 Yixlid Jailer as my GY hate, 4 Engineered Plague for tribal, 3 Krosan Grip as a catch-all, and then 4 spare slots that could be anything from spell pierce to chalice of the void. Any suggestions?

[sdematt]

I was wondering about what you guys thought about a maindeck Abyss. I used to run it in Train Wreck, and this plays very much like Train Wreck without counters. It was a house then, because once you stopped the initial onslaught, they lose one guy per turn for the rest of the game, and you never usually Deeding on 4+ anyway. Thoughts?

Also, has anyone found there's not enough draw? I don't mean Standstill, I mean Brainstorm/Top type stuff. It might be I'm so used to playing Rock with Top and Dreadstill, but I'm trying an extra 2 Brainstorm effects (Preordain or Ponder) and I'll tell you how it goes. So far it looks like this:

3 Jace
3 Deed
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
3 Spell Pierce
4 Swords
2 Path
1 Abyss
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Preordain/Ponder

1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
8 Fetches
4 Factory

[galeng]

How's our Team America match up? I've been having a lot of trouble vs. good pilots. For those who are unaware, it's the whole discard/land removal/counter package with bobs/tombstalkers as finishers.

[Mana Drain]

@Matt, I think the matchups The Abyss is good against, The Abyss is just too slow. Against Thresh, TA, New Horizons, it would be a beating, but it is a 4 mana enchantment against decks that run massive land hate and counters. Porphyry Nods/Drop of Honey (ivanpei's tech here) is a more-or-less functional equivalent that comes down way earlier, and is much more useful because of the mana cost. It's a great card in all sorts of aggro matchups, forcing an over-extension or killing a dude+ Fog, which is still solid for 1 mana. For what it's worth, I've never tried Abyss due to the cost, and that may very well be why there hasn't been much (if any) discussion about it.

I definitely feel the need for extra card-selection. I prefer Top, but Preordain/Ponder could also be quite useful for digging for lands in the early game and only gets better in the late-game. Good idea.

@galeng: White would be pretty useful here. 1 mana removal that targets black dudes is pretty good against a deck with a low threat density and a Tempo stratagy. If you don't want to run white, MD 4 Innocent blood, and maybe a few Diabolic edicts in the SB could help. Also, Pithing Needle on Wasteland would definitely be of value. Loam as a 2-of in the MD/SB has been a great help for me in Tempo matchups.
But these decks (TempoThresh, TA, TempoFaeries) are really just bad matchups period. They were made strictly to beat slow control decks like us, and are damn good at it. It's just the food chain of Legacy really.

[Tinefol]

This deck absolutely folds to early Wasteland + some clock. Get Wasted twice, and your chances are very slim. Merfolk is nightmare. Pass a turn with Knight of Reliquary on battlefield and you are likely to be out of the game. Aggro Loam is almost an auto scoop preboard. Anything with Stifle/Wasteland is extremely hard. It doesn't help if they also pack black to rid you of our colored sources with Extirpate after S/B.

Basically, half of the metagame nowdays runs 'Strip Mines'. This is really bad. And no, Loam helps only to some extent, because you're still getting blown out by massive tempo loss. I've had games where I was mana flooded (a bunch of lands in hand), had Loam, but still lost because I couldn't get past 2-3 mana.

[Mana Drain]

This deck absolutely folds to early Wasteland + some clock. Get Wasted twice, and your chances are very slim. Merfolk is nightmare. Pass a turn with Knight of Reliquary on battlefield and you are likely to be out of the game. Aggro Loam is almost an auto scoop preboard. Anything with Stifle/Wasteland is extremely hard. It doesn't help if they also pack black to rid you of our colored sources with Extirpate after S/B.

Basically, half of the metagame nowadays runs 'Strip Mines'. This is really bad. And no, Loam helps only to some extent, because you're still getting blown out by massive tempo loss. I've had games where I was mana flooded (a bunch of lands in hand), had Loam, but still lost because I couldn't get past 2-3 mana.

Tempo loss/gain doesn't mean anything without a *fast* clock/threat on the table. This is why Merfolk is much more popular than non-fish tempo decks like TT, TA, Faeries. Many games have I starred down a 3/4 Tarmogoyf or Nimble Mongoose from TT for 3-4 turns before stabilizing and winning. They have to get you to a certain point or they will surely lose after stabilizing. TA's main threat is hand-rape. Thoughtseize/Spell Pierce for Swords, Deed, Force, or other cheap answer is what gives them the time to put the beats on. But they have to back it up with an early Tombstalker or a fat (4/5) Goofy.
All of these decks are bad matchups, but they are not un-winnable and your odds can be made much better by preparing for them in you MD and SB choices. Also, from my testing, my results with Loam have been largely successful against those decks for the reasons stated above. I'll take a hit or two from a Goofy if it means land-drops for the next 3 turns.

[Rune]

Also, has anyone found there's not enough draw? I don't mean Standstill, I mean Brainstorm/Top type stuff. It might be I'm so used to playing Rock with Top and Dreadstill, but I'm trying an extra 2 Brainstorm effects (Preordain or Ponder) and I'll tell you how it goes. So far it looks like this:

Imo, Top is pretty nutty in Landstill and much better than the blue, non-Brainstorm cantrips. If you have Top in play, it actually means you can play under Standstill vs Merfolk sometimes. I've been toying with the idea of 2 maindeck tops + 4 Counterbalance and 1 additional top in the SB. Most of the time you won't be able to beat good storm players with a Landstill deck unless you have some kind of hate permanent, so that might as well be CB. CB also beats a lot of other random decks, including burn, which I think is an otherwise crappy matchup (it's also a deck I think will be heavily played due to Survival/death of CB decks).

[sdematt]

I played a few practice games tonight, and I really liked having the extra bit of draw. I used 1 Ponder 1 Predordain, just to see which I liked better. In some cases, I liked being able to sculpt future draws more like Brainstorm, whereas some I preferred Ponder. I might run 1 of each.

Obviously double Wasteland against most decks early on backed with a clock hurts. Unless you're playing all basics, double Wasteland sets you back two turns, I hear. That's also why we play 25 Lands, 2-3 Basics (at least, I am), and 6-8 pieces of 1-CMC removal. I mean, I'm not saying we're always going to be able to pull out, but let's face it, it's better than nothing.

RE: The Abyss. I know it's four mana, but I played it today against Goblins and it was good. I mean, obviously they can rape your face, but I was able to Swords first turn Lackey, Counterspell second turn Piledriver, drop 3rd turn Deed followed by 4th turn Abyss. Mind you, I don't expect this to happen all the time, but at the time it was pretty good. I can't remember if I tried Nodes way back when, but having it die when they have no creatures sucks. This is the time you want to be dealing with stuff. It makes them play 2+ creatures to have one live, so it plays right into the card advantage of Deed. I'm going to try it more obviously, but I'd say give it a shot. Even at a 4-drop, it's very good at protecting Jace and stalling out. I'm going to try it against Rock, as they only run 12 threats. Having Abyss online means they can't ride a single Confidant on the board forever.

-Matt

[ScatmanX]

This deck absolutely folds to early Wasteland + some clock.
No it does not.
If you're losing to Wasteland so easily, you're doing something wrong.
Actually, I think Merfolk is quite easy, just like Agroo Loam.
Just run some basics. I have 4, and Waste is quite never an issue.



Swords first turn Lackey, Counterspell second turn Piledriver...
Why did you counter a turn 2 Squire, with Deed in your hand?

[Tinefol]

No it does not.
If you're losing to Wasteland so easily, you're doing something wrong.
Actually, I think Merfolk is quite easy, just like Agroo Loam.
Just run some basics. I have 4, and Waste is quite never an issue.

If you think Merfolk is quite easy, perhaps your opponents are doing something wrong? Really, declining that this deck has problems with wastelands, cheap counters and very quick clock is a sign of ignorance.

[sdematt]

Countered it just for spite, as I remember. Not the best play in the world, I just hate Goblins that much.

[ScatmanX]

If you think Merfolk is quite easy, perhaps your opponents are doing something wrong? Really, declining that this deck has problems with wastelands, cheap counters and very quick clock is a sign of ignorance.

I don't think that their clock is that quick when their facing a deck with 7 1cc removal, cheap counters and 4boardsweepers.
If they're doing something wrong, I hope they keep doing it...


Countered it just for spite, as I remember. Not the best play in the world, I just hate Goblins that much.
Hey! I'm a goblin player here!

[Shimi]

If you think Merfolk is quite easy, perhaps your opponents are doing something wrong? Really, declining that this deck has problems with wastelands, cheap counters and very quick clock is a sign of ignorance.

Sorry but I played many times against Merfolks with BUG and lost just once( mull to 4 game1 , win game 2 , and dead game 3 cause mull to 6 + 3 brainstorm did not found me a fetch/Usea).

Goblins is a problem , cause they really have great land disrupt(port + wastes) and lackey which makes the diference.

[galeng]

It helps that a ton of folk players are pretty bad given that folk is the #1 recommended deck for legacy beginners, but it's generally an unfavorable match up I'd say.

@ Manadrain
I'm playing the standard 4c build. Seems that as soon as 3 (maybe 2 depending on my hand) mana disruption spells resolve, it becomes an uphill battle from there. The creatures aren't a problem. It's the 12 land removal effects that the deck runs (Team America)

I'd just like to note that one wasteland early should not be a problem for the deck ever. If it is, you're probably keeping super thin hands, casting brainstorm incorrectly, etc.

[Mana Drain]

On TA: I know from experience that Spell Snare is huge in the Tempo matchup, and I've also had a success with Spell Pierce against them (either in the MD or the SB). I agree that if they draw a nut hand of 2 land, Stifle, Waste, Sinkhole, and a threat, our shit usually gets ruined at that point. Thankfully, there are a lot of 1 mana cards that can make the matchup easier, like the aforementioned counters, Needles, extra Paths in the board, Loam. Also, being as conservative as possible with your fetchs really helps, but is not always possible. It forces them to keep U up during their turn, which they would rather use to be casting Ponders/BS or threats. But like I said in my previous post, this is just a shitty matchup to begin with.
Every deck has bad matchups, this happens to be ours.

On Fish: If you don't take proper SB precautions, Fish will blow you out with a decent hand or with Standstills. I win G1 maybe 35-40% of the time, but end up siding in like 6-8 cards and that turns the matchup in our favor. PKs, extra Paths, Engineered Plague (not that effective but still helpful), Spell Snare (for Standstill and certain fish), and EE all help push the favor to us. Completely winnable, but pack hate. It's probably the most common matchup you will play in even a "kinda" developed metagame, due to the cost, ease of play (auto-pilot), and the fact that it beats U most of the time (>50% of the format), so packing plenty of hate is a good investment.

[sdematt]

@Mana Drain

Not sure if you were here when we talked about it, but have you tried Nodes/the Abyss?

Edit: Ah, I see you did discuss it, but have you actually tried it?

-Matt

[Mana Drain]

I've tried Nodes/Drop of Honey, and was somewhat impressed by it's usefulness. It's helpful in fast aggro matchups like Tribal and Zoo, and is a possible out to a resolved Progenitus (granted you can survive a swing from him). I also found some use in Tempo matchups where being 1 mana was huge (also being able to hit Mongoose is pretty useful). Basically, it's either 1) a delayed action removal spell + Fog or 2) a continuous removal engine that forces the other guy to overextend into a Deed sweep. Either outcome is profitable, but what I don't like is that it generally sucks in the lategame when you're at a lower life total and taking a turn to remove something just doesn't cut the mustard.

Whether something like Perish or additional Paths/Demise/Edicts would be better I don't fully know. It definitely has it's merits if drawn early enough.

On The Abyss, my position still stands: In the matchups where you want it, it's too little, too late (Goblins, Merfolk, Zoo) and in the matchups where you can consistently live to cast it, it's relevance is diminished (or it's easily removed, like against Rock or Bant). I'm not saying it's a bad card, just too slow to have a significant impact on the gamestate in the matchups where you really need the effect. Also, it doesn't help that it's cost (both mana and $$$) is similar to Jace, and the power-level between the two should be obvious...

One final note, the fact that it can't hit untargetable creatures (Prog, Mongoose, reanimator creatures) is definitely lame for a 4 mana removal card. Humility, Moat, or WoG seem just more consistent and reliable.

[Mackan]

I recently picked this deck up... Been playing various blue decks for a while but never Jacestill.
My metagame is full of Wastelands and Survivals so with a proper manabase this seems like a good choice.
With all the manadenial and my unhealthy urge for consitency I choose to play 4 basics over the usual splash or wastelands. And without wasteland I don't think Loam is any good... and the only reason I want waste is to kill manlands, but let's see how this manage.
I included 2 tops to make up for the lack of spotremoval and stuff to do under standstill.
I wonder if Pierce is really worth it...? conditional taxing counters seems out of place in this deck.
Im not sure about tormod's crypt vs relic vs spellbomb. With top and brainstorm I prefer tormod's crypt against dredge but relic otherwise.

ENCHANTMENTS (8)
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Standstill
SORCERIES (4)
4 Innocent Blood
INSTANTS (16)
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
PLANESWALKERS (4)
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
ARTIFACTS (4)
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Engineered Explosives
LANDS (24)
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
SIDEBOARD
3 Extirpate
3 Hydroblast
2 Perish
2 Duress
2 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Krosan Grip

[thefreakaccident]

I've been having great success with this list:

lands//24
4 mishra's factory
1 island
3 grove of the burnwillows
4 underground sea
3 volcanic island
3 tropical island
3 flooded strand
3 polluted delta

board control//12
4 innocent blood
4 punishing fires
4 pernicious deed

draw//11
4 brainstorm
4 standstill
3 jace, the mind sculpter

permission//12
4 force of will
4 counterspell
4 spell pierce

life from the loam//1

sideboard//
3 krosan grip
3 firespout
4 extirpate
3 blue elemental blast
2 red elemental blast


The deck has a lot of removal, as well as threats, permission, and draw. Punishing fires really changes a lot of difficult MUs, and makes the deck's midrange aggro MU incredible.

This list does not lose to merfolk. After boarding it gets even worse for them with the addition of firespout, which dramatically effects their ability to deny mass removal with wasteland.

Vengevival has at least 20 creatures that die to punishing fires, and most of their critters usually die to two punishing fires. If they allow you to go to the mid-late game you can keep them on a clear board forever. Spell pierce usually eats up early survivals game one and forces them to either slow roll them or go for the much slower, much more vulnerable fauna shaman in games 2 and 3.

Spell pierce also slows down counterbalances by enough turns to let you land standstill or deed under them, dramatically decreasing it's impact on the game.

I play extirpate in the board to help in the survival and ichorid MUs... People seem to disagree with this for some reason, but I find that if I remove bridge from below I can usually beat ichorid with landstill of any color combination. The addition of punishing fires can really slow down a bloodghast/ichorid beat down plan, and can clean up any left over zombies.


I am in dire need of a good goblins player and a good combo player to test against on MWS, so if anyone would be willing to test with me that would be awesome.


The deck has been struggling with knight of the reliquary in the midgame, as a bunch of 1cmc guys deprive innocent blood, and they are usually far to big to punishing fires, which opens zoo variants up to a nice timing attack around the turn 4-6 mark for a massive amount of damage sometimes. Firespout comes in postboard, but I think the deck needs a bit more than that, does anyone have any ideas to solve that problem?

[Mana Drain]

freakaccident, I'm not going to lie, that list is straight ballin'. I love the addition of Punishing Fire, and I have been fooling around with a bunch of different blue lists with it trying to make it work, but have yet to test it in Deedstill. It's an amazing engine and gives us a lot of reach for opposing PWs and utility dudes/enablers like Confidant, Noble Hierarch, Fauna Shaman, LoA, etc. I'm also glad someone else is having luck with the MD Spell Pierce. The card is great for slowing down the game and stopping serious early-game threats like other Standstills, NO, Vial, Equipment, etc. I'm going to try a list using yours as a base, but including white. STP/Path is just so many miles better than IB that I still think it warrents inclusion regardless of other color choices. If it goes anywhere I'll post the list.

[dahcmai]

I have to admit, I like that a lot. I already play red in mine since I am in love with my main deck Firespouts, but Punishing Fire might take it's spot since that's not a bad way to go at all. I will definitely try your list out.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

I definitely need to try that list out. There may not be a better list for an aggro metagame. I also like the ability to have access to Red Elemental Blast out of the sideboard when switching to an anti-control, anti-combo package.

[ivanpei]

Have not tested punishing fire -grove. Seems like it improves your merfolk matchup alot and is good against opposing walkers/bobs. Losing paths/swords hurts though. Difficult to deal with tarmo/venges/ quick kitties as well as having more non-blue lands. 17 blue sources in a 4 colour deck that runs counterspell is a bit wonky to me. Deck has 10 black sources, 12 red, 12 green. I don't want to sound like a sour grape that ruins the party but generally in any deck I play I like to have at least 12 sources of any single colour and 14 of the dominant colour. To reach this in landstill, I play 9 fetches plus 3/4 of any dual and that works for me. By playing grove, you're colour distribution is skewed towards R/G. I advise cutting an island and a trop for 2 more fetches.

This combo seems promising, any extra reach/CA in a control deck is always welcome. At worse it's a 2 mana shock. I'm still not sold on it as IMO it puts more strain on an already vulnerable manabase and STP/path is just too important IMO.

On a constructive note, why not play UWRG? Black is essentially for innocent blood/ deed. By cutting black and deed, you can chop you're trops and essentially become a 3 colour deck MD splash green. This manabase looks much more reliable:

9 Fetch
4 Tundra
2 Volc
1 Trop
1 Island (Or 2nd trop)
3 Grove
4 Factory

12 Green, 13 White, 14 Red, 17 blue.

You have access to swords/path but lose deed. Deed is the mvp house for the deck so it's a heavy loss but maybe its worth testing. I'd go, -4 blood, -4 deed, + 4 Swords, +1path, + 3 spell snare. Spell snare helps nab some of the non-creature stuff that deed was supposed to nab like balance, survival. You start hurting slightly vs vial, but the reach of grove/fire should be enough to counter that. Also, STP works with punishing fire. :) Food for thought.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

I don't like the reliance on Innocent Blood over Swords or Path, but the sheer card advantage pushes this list over the top in an aggro metagame.

If your metagame is all combo and control this is obviously not the way to go because you are substituting the power and versatility of Spell Snare and Engineered Explosives for the ability to completely break aggro.

This is a great meta choice though.

[Monochrome]

Just placed 6th at the TOGIT Lotus event with ivanpei's exact list from a few pages back. Only difference was going to 4x Jace and only 1x EE. Here's a report:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19497-6th-at-the-TOGIT-Lotus-event&p=507309

[galeng]

What are our strategies vs folk? My record is god awful bad (like 20%) and I'm not sure if that's normal. I was considering the red splash for that entire reason but I hear the white version can manage. Btw my vial goblins MU is around 60% based on a large sample if that means anything. Here's the list I'm very used to:

// Lands (25)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland

// Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam

// Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Hydroblast
2 Duress
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pulse of the Fields
2 Extirpate

[Mana Drain]

What you use against Fish depends on your colors.

If you're straight UGB, use 4x EPlagues, and if you have additional cheap removal in your board (Diabolic Edicts, Ghastly Demises'), side those in too for LoA and other lords. EPlague isn't the greatest against Fish, but it still helps tremendously. UGB is by far the weakest against Fish, even though it has a relatively stable manabase.

If you're in red, 3x Firespout between MD/SB in addition to the Deeds, and at least 2-3 Pyroblasts/REBs in there somewhere is about all you need.
This combination (sans the blasts) is also very useful against Goblins.

If you're in white, addition Paths and 2-3 Peacekeepers will do it for you. I've had great success with Ugbw, mainly due to PK just blowing out decks. Folk has just no way of removing it other than counters, so just trying to land it through whatever means possible is actually an extremely solid strategy. The best color combination for fighting Fish, but you'll run into problems with Goblins as PK is useless there.

Remember to side out your Standstills. Dropping one against Fish will almost always backfire on you unless you're already winning.

[galeng]

I'm going to look into peacekeeper in testing for the next tourney. It's hard to decide what to cut, but it seems worth it. Fish is a large part of my meta as well as survival, so it seems like the pick.

[jparula]

For the Ubg version what do you guys think of including ivory tower in the sideboard? (since we don't have access to pulse of the fields)
On another note, has anyone tested counterbalance+top on the sideboard against combo? They're not that good with deed but against combo you should board deeds out anyways.

Regards

[Mana Drain]

For the Ubg version what do you guys think of including ivory tower in the sideboard? (since we don't have access to pulse of the fields)
On another note, has anyone tested counterbalance+top on the sideboard against combo? They're not that good with deed but against combo you should board deeds out anyways.

Regards

CB in the board is great, if your running at least 3 Tops MD. Although, unless you're in some twisted metagame where combo was like 50%+ of the enviroment, I wouldn't SB 3/4 CB AND 3 Tops. I think that's way to much space to dedicate to any matchup. If you're not running any Tops MD, more Duress/Spell Pierce/Meddling Mage would do what you need to do, while also being effective in other matchups. Look at ivanpei's SB for some ideas.

On Ivory Tower, I haven't the slightest idea. The card was straight raw, about 12 years ago. Whether it would be worthwhile now to buy an additional turn or two is worth testing. How many are you thinking should be tested in the SB?

[jparula]

CB in the board is great, if your running at least 3 Tops MD. Although, unless you're in some twisted metagame where combo was like 50%+ of the enviroment, I wouldn't SB 3/4 CB AND 3 Tops. I think that's way to much space to dedicate to any matchup. If you're not running any Tops MD, more Duress/Spell Pierce/Meddling Mage would do what you need to do, while also being effective in other matchups. Look at ivanpei's SB for some ideas.

On Ivory Tower, I haven't the slightest idea. The card was straight raw, about 12 years ago. Whether it would be worthwhile now to buy an additional turn or two is worth testing. How many are you thinking should be tested in the SB?

Well the problem with playing duress/spell pierce (i can't play meddling mage since i'm Ubg), is that you end up siding out your creature removal and combo gets you with xantid swarm & co. I've tryed 4xduress and 4xdispel/spell pierce and i still lost to xantid swarm cause i didn't get to creature removal. So you actually need to draw the "right" answers in this case whilst if playing counterbalance it works every time (even top alone is good cause you can hide that FoW on top of Library and they can duress and thoughtseize you all they want).

Ivory Tower is versus Burn/RW steppe lynx/fast zoo kind of decks, in which deeds and pulses are not great (too slow). What happens to me in these match ups is being able to stabilize at 2-5 life and then trying to control the top of their decks with jace, but that doesn't always work and i need a way to recover life overtime without playing white. Besides Ivory Tower is actually card advantage against these type of decks sometimes and combined with jace drawing instead of controlling the top of their decks seems pretty good. In addition those fetch and dual lands you keep in hand at the end of the game to avoid PoP actualy give you life with ivory tower.

[honestabe]

I've been having great success with this list:

lands//24
4 mishra's factory
1 island
3 grove of the burnwillows
4 underground sea
3 volcanic island
3 tropical island
3 flooded strand
3 polluted delta

board control//12
4 innocent blood
4 punishing fires
4 pernicious deed

draw//11
4 brainstorm
4 standstill
3 jace, the mind sculpter

permission//12
4 force of will
4 counterspell
4 spell pierce

life from the loam//1

sideboard//
3 krosan grip
3 firespout
4 extirpate
3 blue elemental blast
2 red elemental blast



This list is straight heat. The only thing is, I miss Wastelands. Is running them in the board awful?

Also, I added one UR and one UG filterland to make grove more synergistic with counterspell and Jace

[honestabe]

I split the finals of a small event with this:

3 Waste
4 Factory
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
3 Strand
3 Seas
3 Trops
1 Tundra

3 Big Poppa Jace

3 Innocent Blood
2 Loam

4 FoW
3 Counterspell
3 Pierce
3 Snare
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Swords
4 Brainsteeze

4 Standstill
4 Pernicious Deed

SB:
4 Engineered Plague
1 thoughtsieze
1 duress
1 Darkblast
2 K-Grip
2 Tormods (should have been extirpates, but mine got stolen)
1 Mindbrrak trap
1 BeB
1 Smother
1 Persecute



Round 1, vs Adam w/ Stiflenought

Game One: He plays an early confidant, which I decline to force, due to the 2x innocent blood and deed in my hand. At his EOT, I brainstorm, and put one of them back. On my turn, i play blood, spell pierces, I force, He forces back. Crap. I have to wait until next turn to play the deed in my hand, and then the turn after that to pop it. However, he stifles the trigger, but counterspell comes to the rescue. My opponent is visibly upset that I countered his stifle with a white-bordered counterspell, but at this point, his bob has pulled him ahead, and I'm just trying to fight back. On his next turn, he plays a trinket mage, gets a top, and casts it into my spell pierce. On my turn, I innocent blood the mage, and drop a standstill. He immediatly breaks it for a threat. I answer it and drop another standstill. All the while I'm beating his down with factories. In his final hour, he gets desperate and starts stifling the activations of factory (ok...pay 1 mana again???). He scoops at 8 life to 2 factories and another standstill.

At this point, everyone else is done with their match, and they're only about 12 minutes left in the round. I already consider myself 1-0, because there's no way he's winning next game

Game 2: He tries to go balls to the wall with a dreadnought, but I have wayyy too much removal and counter for that to work. I'm sitting pretty with 2 deeds in hand vs his board of nothing. He plays a bob, which resolves, then a trinket mage, which also resolves, then a needle on deed, which he forces through my wall of countermagic. Uh-oh. I rip an innocent blood, so its just his bob vs my 2 factories. He flips a force to his bob (the only damage he took from it the entire match), and suddenly, I think I can actually just beat him down with factories and win the race. I get him to 8 before he rips his 2nd wasteland of the game. this changes my plan from win, to not die within the next 5 minutes. He then rips his 3rd wasteland, which kills my blocker. I proceed to draw all lands that don't turn into 2/2s and die in turn 4 of time. BOOO

0-0-1

Round 2, Micah, with countertop Dreadnought

Game one, my spell pierces and snares eat him alive, and my wasteland is laughing at the Dark Depths he just played. I drop a jace on turn 4, who immediatly begins sealing Micah's fate. He scoops early, as a deed joins the party.

Game two: Starts a lot like the first, as i get him with a spell pierce, and then get him with the duress effects i boarded in. His hand had a lot of spell pierces, dazes and stifle effetcs, but i just played around them, baited his spell pierces with a deed, baited his stifle effects with waste and fetchlands, and stuck a Jace to clean up the mess I left behind.

1-0-1

Round 3, ?? with UB Ad Naus

Game one: I'm pretty sure he's on storm, so I keep a hand w/ a deed, 5 lands, brainstorm and force. I then draw 2 lands in my next 2 turns and decide i need to blow the brainstorm, which nets me a spell pierce and 2 more lands.....I start beating down with factories, and he tried for an EOT ad Naus, which gets spell pierced. On my next turn, i drop a standstill, and continue to bash. He broke it, for a ponder, as i drew land, land, land. HE then shipped the turn. on my next go-round, I drop another standstill, which he breaks on his turn (guess what i drew.....)He starts blowing rituals, and chaining tutors, as the storm gets pretty high up. Luckily, all these lands mean i can hardcast my FoW, but I miscounted the number of cards in his hand, which allowed him to tutor up tendrils with 9 storm. He cast it, and I swordsed a factory to save myself at 1 life. I then beat him down from 22-0 life with my 2 factories.

Game 2: I hit him with an early thoughtsieze, then spell pierce, then duress, as my factories chip away at his life. Not before long, he's at 8 life, and is forced to go for the miracle ad naus, which just didn't get there.

2-0-1

Top 4

We discuss splitting, but the guy I'm paired up against really doesn't want to. I have no idea what he's playing, so off we go.
Game one: He mulls to 5 on the draw, and makes the first move with a utopia sprawl. At this point, I realize he's playing Enchantress, which I've never tested against, because honestly, who the fuck plays enchantress in real life? The lack of testing means I have to read all of his cards. His mulligan really hurts him, as i counter everything he does until he runs out of gas, then i drop a Big Poppa Jace, who wraps things up quickly.

Game two: I really wish I didn't let my teammate talk me out of running the miser's Back to nature in the board, so i just bring out innocent bloods, for 2 grips and darkblast (for his enchantress). He has a turn 2 enchantress, which i triumphently swords at the end of his turn :facepalm:. Like I said, I'm really unfamiliar with that deck. Regardless, I pretend to have nothing, and let him overextend the board. Things got scary with a choke and luminarch ascention, but I then drop one of the two deeds I've been gripping, followed by a Jace. At his point, I'm in good shape, and he scoops to my 2nd deed, which i play preemptivly along with my jace.

Top 2: we're tired, and split. Hooray


Overall, I love the deck. Getting on color mana was sometimes annoying, but ultimatly never cost me any games. That being said, I was scared a few times, so I think next time, I'll cut a basic Island for another fetch. 3 waste seems like the right amount to me. With all the card manipulation, you'll always have one when you need one, and loam allows you to waste multiple times if you need to.

Any questions??

[jrp]

Good report, thanks for that.

Question about the list. If you're getting into a fourth color (white) for Swords, why only play 1 Tundra and 2 Swords? It seems more stable to stick to 3-color and just use Innocent Bloods/Ghastly Demises - or more powerful to switch your Swamp to a Plains add another Tundra, and just play 4 Swords. I also like to play a Crime//Punishment or some EEs to suppplement my Deeds, but that's more of a personal preference.

[honestabe]

Good report, thanks for that.

Question about the list. If you're getting into a fourth color (white) for Swords, why only play 1 Tundra and 2 Swords? It seems more stable to stick to 3-color and just use Innocent Bloods/Ghastly Demises - or more powerful to switch your Swamp to a Plains add another Tundra, and just play 4 Swords. I also like to play a Crime//Punishment or some EEs to suppplement my Deeds, but that's more of a personal preference.

Honestly, I just copied the manabase and removal suite from Lewis Laskin, one of the deck's pioneers. I must admit I did cut a few non-basics for basics, but the gist of it is still there.

I like the option of having all of the different removal spells, as they're an awesome way to get around meddling mage, and simaler disruptive cards. Using different colors for removal is also good if your opponent goes after your manabase. They might try and take out your tundra to get around swords, so you use your sea to play innocent blood. Innocent blood is also the stone cold nuts against reanimator, creatures with shroud and decks that run few threats, such as 4 color counterbalance, and new horizons, while swords and ghastly demise are stronger against swarms, notably merfolk and gobbos.

As far as the one white mana source goes, as long as you're not stupid about fetching up lands, it just isn't really a problem. Even if they do waste it, you'll more likely than not have a loam to just get it back.

[Mana Drain]

Congrats on the finish. The list looks solid, but I have to agree with jrp on the Sword/white issue. If you're going to run Swords, run 4. If not, stick to UBg. Swords is too powerful to run less than 4, but it does shake the manabase a bit to include white. I think you should run 4 or none.

Also, that counter-suit is a beast. I really like having those early-game Snares/Pierces too. They're extremely useful in matchups like Tempo, Dreadstill, Zoo, and especially Combo. Good call on that one.

[Antonius]

wow. Ubgr with punishing fires looks so so gangster.

Have you ever considered throwing 2 intuition up in there? Being able to prep for the late game by putting two fires and a loam in yard seems pretty damn good to me. I have to say though, i agree with others that say no wasteland really sucks. It hurts the consistency of the standstill engine... I would consider dropping 1 standstills for some other kind of draw, or removal, pulse or ghastly...maybe even terminate. Have you considered running CB in your 75? You could drop the MD pierces for 2 top, 2 intuition, then put 1 Top and 4 CB in your board. Bringing CB in against burn improves that matchup tremendously.

[Fuzzy]

Game two: I really wish I didn't let my teammate talk me out of running the miser's Back to nature in the board, so i just bring out innocent bloods, for 2 grips and darkblast (for his enchantress).

Any questions??

Enchantress has Shroud. Why side in Darkblast and side Innocent Blood out?