Narset Standstill

Hello everyone! I was interested in making a deck using the synergy between Narset, Parter of Veils and Day's Undoing and I thought that the best shell to do it is a Standstill shell: with Narset on the battlefield, Standstill is non-symmetrical and so it's a great advantage. Obviously this adds also cards like Disrupting Shoal and/or Force of Negation to exploit the card advantage engine. Playing Day's Undoing at instant speed with Teferi, Time Raveler is also huge. So, my idea was that of playing UW with Swords to Plowshares, Terminus, Supreme Verdict and so on.

I tried a list with the cards I have, it's obviously not the best since I own only 1 Force of Will and the deck needs absolutely 4. Also, Back to Basics with Mishra's Factory is kind of a nonbo, since to win the game you have to bounce Back to Basics with the Teferi -3 ability.

1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
5 Island
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tundra

1 Back to Basics
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
4 Day's Undoing
4 Disrupting Shoal
1 Force of Will
4 Narset, Parter of Veils
4 Ponder
4 Standstill
1 Supreme Verdict
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Terminus

I tried the deck, just for seeing how it plays, but my opponent was playing Burn that is like the worst matchup for Landstill so it wasn't a great test. At least I can tell that the deck works and that playing Day's Undoing at instant speed is very satisfying.

Obviously the first change to make to the deck is: -1 Back to Basics, -2 Disrupting Shoal, +3 Force of Will.

What do you think? Is a strategy like this viable? I know that this won't be a tier 1 deck, but I hope this could work and maybe be the first Legacy blue deck I build... everyone has to do it once in his life ;)

I don't think that Terminus plays well with Standstill. You never want to play Terminus except when you draw it, and when you draw it, you might not want to play it because Standstill is on board. There's just not enough freedom of timing with Terminus, and I think you need that freedom of timing when you're playing Standstill.

I think you need a better win condition than just 3 Mishra's Factory. Monastery Mentor, Myth Realized and/or Jace seem to fit. Maindeck B2B is also terrible when literally your only win condition is manlands. Put them in the SB?

The 4th Force of Will and 3rd Force of Negation are better than the 1st Disrupting Shoal. I hope Shoal is just a placeholder for budget reasons.

4 Day's Undoing seems excessive. It's a cute interaction, but it's only good with Narset out. The interaction is also much weaker if you have many cards in hand and they have few (e.g. because you are Standstill control and they are a faster deck). Also drawing 7 cards doesn't win you the game unless those cards do something. So far all you can do with those cards is cantrip more, 2-for-1 counter a lot of spells, and wrath the board. With more win conditions or lock pieces those cards should give you more value.

Replace the Mishra's Factories with Field of the Dead. You can get to 7 different land names with Snow Basics and still run Back to Basics since it won't stop your win con. I think you also want Hall of Heliod's Generosity since it can recur Standstill. Some Wastelands and Crucible of Worlds feel like they should be in here as well.

Maybe a manabase of:

3x Island
2x Snow-Covered Island
2x Plains
1x Snow-Covered Plains
1x Tundra
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
3x Field of the Dead
4x Flooded Strand
3x Prismatic Vista
1x Polluted Delta

That's basically the same manabase you're using now, but it works with Field and turns all your lategame fetches into up to 2-6 2/2 zombies, half of which come into play at instant speed.

Agree with others that you don't really want Terminus in this deck. I don't know if it's worth splashing black for stuff like Kaya's Guile, Dead of Winter and Thoughtseize or not, but that's a set of effects worth considering here.

ETB tapped colorless is a pretty steep cost and it does nothing until he has at least 7 lands in play minimum (i.e. very lategame). Does he need more than 1-2 copies?

If he's playing ETB tapped lategame lands, should Celestial Colonnade be on the table? At least it fixes mana and survives Terminus/Verdict.

Others have made the argument that without Terminus Landstill just loses hard to D&T, since it can't get to enough mana to cast Verdict before losing (Wasteland, Port, Thalia, Vial), so another cheap wipe is needed: e.g. Toxic Deluge.

I love Field of the Dead, but it seems a bit slow and doesn't give you early blockers like Mishra's Factory does. Also, any Wrath effect takes out your team, where man-lands avoid that. I know I've won many games on the back of a couple of early Factories and controlling the opponents threats. Waiting until turn 7 to get your first creature could be challenging.

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Originally Posted by Grumpollion

I don't think that Terminus plays well with Standstill. You never want to play Terminus except when you draw it, and when you draw it, you might not want to play it because Standstill is on board. There's just not enough freedom of timing with Terminus, and I think you need that freedom of timing when you're playing Standstill.

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Yeah, I know this but commonly I don't play Standstill when I'm far behind on the board, 'cause I know the only way I have is to play a wrath to win

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Originally Posted by FTW

I think you need a better win condition than just 3 Mishra's Factory. Monastery Mentor, Myth Realized and/or Jace seem to fit. Maindeck B2B is also terrible when literally your only win condition is manlands. Put them in the SB?

The 4th Force of Will and 3rd Force of Negation are better than the 1st Disrupting Shoal. I hope Shoal is just a placeholder for budget reasons.

4 Day's Undoing seems excessive. It's a cute interaction, but it's only good with Narset out. The interaction is also much weaker if you have many cards in hand and they have few (e.g. because you are Standstill control and they are a faster deck). Also drawing 7 cards doesn't win you the game unless those cards do something. So far all you can do with those cards is cantrip more, 2-for-1 counter a lot of spells, and wrath the board. With more win conditions or lock pieces those cards should give you more value.

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Myth Realized is a good idea, I can maybe play 2 of them. Jace also is powerful but for now it's out of budget. I know that here we should build the deck at its best, so maybe I can test with some amount of Jace and then buy them. I feel like the priority is buying Force of Wills though...

Back to Basics was an error, I know it's anti-synergy. I never cast it in the games I played. I think it belongs to the sideboard.

Yeah, Disrupting Shoal is obviously there for budget reasons. I wasn't sure whether to play Shoal or Force of Negation: which is better in your opinion?

Day's Undoing is good with either Narset or Teferi out. I also noticed that there are maybe too many in the deck: I could play 1-2

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Originally Posted by morgan_coke

Replace the Mishra's Factories with Field of the Dead. You can get to 7 different land names with Snow Basics and still run Back to Basics since it won't stop your win con. I think you also want Hall of Heliod's Generosity since it can recur Standstill. Some Wastelands and Crucible of Worlds feel like they should be in here as well.

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I don't like Field of the Dead, it seems slow and a bit clunky cause it forces to play suboptimal cards... I don't know, I think Mishra's Factory is better

How do you kill

Seems to be Mishra's Factory beats. Could probably use another threat or two. As I learned last night, surgical extraction can really mess up your plan.

The start of most every Tundra deck that competes in legacy is StP x4 and SCM x3. There is a fringe starting point of Tundra as RiP/Helm which does not use SCM. The next place for improvement is -4 Delta, +4 Vista (or -1 Mesa, -3 Delta); this assumes you want to play pure-UW w/o Mountain and REB effect x3 in SB.

Make those two changes and the win % increases steeply. The main issue remaining is the Narset/Day’s Undoing stuff which is sitting there doing the opposite of what the rest of the deck is trying to accomplish. Sure it’s a powerful combo, but all you’re accomplishing is not decking out at the cost of your opponent also not decking out....and this assumes you are able to assemble two turns of 3 mana in a deck that has 1 in 6 cards which is doing nothing (outside FoW fodder) until you’ve gotten your 3rd land drop. The plan might be okay, but you’re using too many slots.

I wonder if Day's Undoing is necessary at all. Standstill is a powerful engine on its own, Narset is very impactful in Legacy on her own, and they're fantastic together. Throw in some Crucibles, manlands, a few copies of Hall of Heliod's Generosity, and some flash threats (Vendilion Clique synergizes with Narset's passive, Restoration Angel reuses Clique and Snapcaster) and I think you have a great shell that doesn't need Day's Undoing.

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Originally Posted by Mirrislegend

I wonder if Day's Undoing is necessary at all. Standstill is a powerful engine on its own, Narset is very impactful in Legacy on her own, and they're fantastic together. Throw in some Crucibles, manlands, a few copies of Hall of Heliod's Generosity, and some flash threats (Vendilion Clique synergizes with Narset's passive, Restoration Angel reuses Clique and Snapcaster) and I think you have a great shell that doesn't need Day's Undoing.

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Just a couple notes on your observations. Agree that Day’s Undoing + Standstill probably not really meant to play together (alas, this is the premise of the thread). Disagree on Narset being impactful on her own - she comes down a turn later than Azcanta for example; furthermore this will happen: get to 3 lands, play Narset, -2 -> find Standstill -> still behind on board & can’t play the card you impulsed to find. I think at best the deck could support 2x Narset, 1x Day’s Undoing (I just don’t see why this is better using 3 slots than 2x Azcanta which is offering to come down earlier and boost mana output towards a 4-5cmc payoff walker).

On Crucible, always change this to Karn that wishes Crucible out of the SB (it’s not really good, but it has text vs Chalice, Vial decks, and ANT’s LEDs especially). Heliod’s isn’t really necessary (there’s still this issue of decking out being problematic, and you can’t afford to replay a necro’d Standstill from there), also the effect is pretty much entirely covered by one copy of Noxious Revival (+SCM). Clique is fine, more defensible with Narset but need to be cutting 1x Plains for a Karakas if doing that. Would not use Resto Angel - would rather have flash-Serra (flip-Avacyn) and even more than that [flash-Serra] it should just be a PW.