Top is garbage? Do yours have the same text on them as mine?Originally Posted by Tacosnape
Up until recently, I had always wondered how good Top would be in Landstill, but never bothered to shoehorn it into the deck. Finally, after losing enough matches to my opponents topdecking better than me in longer games, I made room and added Tops. I have not been disappointed.
Top actually makes a ton of sense in Landstill, since it is efficient enough to fix your draws early on in the game, but is even more powerful in the late game. The value of a Top increases continuously once it is in play, which means that the card is arguably better in Landstill than in any other deck!
Not only does it get better as the game progresses, but playing Standstill with Top already in play is like cheating, as you will hit all your land drops (and find your manlands to put pressure on them) while your opponent can no longer just wait for you to hit 8 cards and break Standstill on your end step since that won't happen.
Yeah, this is definitely worth noting. Having a Top in play makes it drastically safer to play Standstill against any deck this side of Rabid Wombat. You don't have to try to guess how many manlands or Wastelands your opponent might be running, or whether you should take the risk of he or she ripping them off the top faster than you.
With the recent surge in popularity of other decks that play Standstill, such as Dreadstill, using Top to enable your own Standstills can be pretty important.
Enable, that's a great word in the world of people who play Standstill. Manlands, Swords, and Top, yes Top will enable your Standstills. The last incarnation of BHWC I played ran Top. Peeking 3 cards ahead under a Standstill has enough value to warrant running Top with or without Counterbalance. My only complaint about Top was that I felt it made Fact or Fiction somewhat weaker. I don't think one can quantify how much weaker it makes your FoF, but FoF-ing into a Top while you've got a Top in play means you've FoF'ed into at least 1 dead card. Did that make sense?I know you can take the pile with the extra Top and get tricky with Deed to blow up Top and draw a card, but you really didn't want that extra Top in first place, right?
As good as Top is, I don't think it's incredibly helpful against another deck running Standstill. Now, I didn't say it wasn't helpful, but I do think the value is somewhat marginal in those situations. That might be because I haven't run Wasteland in BHWC since before GP Ohio, but the fact remains that it's dangerous to play Standstill against an opponent playing Standstill.
With Top, you know what you're going to draw and you obviously know what's in your hand, but you do not know how many Manlands and Wastelands your opponent has in hand or will draw and that luck/randomness can make you break your own Standstill and at that point you can probably kiss the game goodbye.
I think if you're opting to run Top in Landstill as Taco said CB has to be in your 75 cards, preferable sideboard. It will give you a much stronger combo MU postboard as well as Sligh/burn...I can't see if you're gonna run Top not to at least board CB.
UR Dreadstill creator and BRx WGD Combo Pioneer
Taco's problem is probobly that top while efficient and amazing, can also be a big giant pain in the ass sometimes. The worst case scenarios is multiple tops, so if you are going to play it, it should either be with counterbalance, or just 1 of. As an example the draw package I used to use was:
4standstill
4Brainstorm
2cunning wish
2ponder
1 sensei's devining top
thee top acts as a 3rd ponder with your fetches, provides filter and autodredging with LFTL when you may or may not need it, and if your looking for a force, paying one mana to filter a bit is never a bad idea.
From what I understand players who are better then I who pilot landstill say this:
Every deck has a weakpoint of control where they are most likely to be beaten. Landstills weakpoint traditionally is earlier in the game, so in the first few turns of a game you do not want to really drop a top as it will timewalk your aggro opponent right into their game winning play or cost vital mana you need to access other cards you need far more then top. As you play the game top becomes more valuable to you, but you still don't really want to see it, and its not really neccesary if your playing landstill the correct way.
Bottom line they don't like it.
That said I do want to mention that in a few matchups top is so rediculously good its a joke.
The mirror, minus your top getting gripped "which probobly isn't being sided in anyways" top acts as auto brainstorm fetching lands, countermagic, and win conditions. It also filters your swords back so that you dont draw them and can instantly top for them to remove that pesky mishra's early game or e dragon. Top is soo good in the mirror. Top is also amazing against decks like TA in my experiance because it gets you to four mana which is absolutely vital in that matchup. It also filters your swords to the top of your library "cheap removal" ect.
but top is severely dead against decks that feature challice and can only do you good on the play in those matchups for obvious reasons.
Bottom line top has incredible uses and horrible uses. its a 50-50 call, don't let anyone tell you it bad or good because you need to figure all these things for yourself.
I think sensei is definitely worth a slot in landstill, especially in 4c.
@mossivo
4standstill
4Brainstorm
2cunning wish
2ponder
1 sensei's devining top
That seems to me as a good configuration. For me, I play the following list for about half a year and it works just perfect for me.
Deck (60)
1x Savannah
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Tundra
2x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
1x Island [Version 4]
1x Dust Bowl
1x Plains [Version 4]
1x Academy Ruins
1x Scrubland
4x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
1x Eternal Dragon
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Crucible of Worlds
3x Engineered Explosives
4x Standstill
3x Pernicious Deed
2x Humility
4x Counterspell
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Cunning Wish
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
2x Decree of Justice
1x Life from the Loam
Sideboard (15)
4x Meddling Mage
1x Engineered Plague
2x Circle of Protection: Red
2x Blue Elemental Blast
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Pulse of the Fields
4x Extirpate
To the list:
I'm very happy with the list but I'm thinking about some minor changes.
E-dragon:
The dragon was always for me: cycle and find a land. I had never ever used him as a win condition and I always finish with humility in play.
Maybe I should add a land or a cantrip/sensei here.
The E-Dragon looks like a strong win condition in the control mirror, but it would get sworded anyways.
Elspeth:
I will try out the lady, but dont know what to cut. A decree or what?
To the ponder - sensei split.
I thought about to play 2 sensei's, but ponders helps u immediately which might be important in some situations.
As the speed increased in legacy, landstill has to adjust itself.
The uwb version added spell snare's for the early game, where the 4c version has the option to add more card quality (ponder, sensei) to ensure the landdrops.
@Counterbalance
In my opinion counterbalance is terrible in landstill. That is not the style landstill plays.
1. U cant support the balance very well. Landstill plays many lands and additional dead cards like EE and e-Dragon etc.
2. It requires min. 6 slots. 3 sensei and 3 balance. I dont have these free slots.
3. When do u want to cast it? Turn 2? I would allways prefer to drop a standstill.
4. It has an antisynergy with deed.
5. Even as a sideboard card, it is terrible. U can drop the mages for balances to improve your combo matchup. That looks like a nice idea, but you are something missing: The mage IS a clock and it is nearly as good as the balance. For combo decks the matchup is only hard, when u have disruption AND a (fast^^) clock.
How "tricky" is it to pop a Top, and then activate a fetchland? If you look at the top three cards first, it's kind of like playing an Impulse, and I do it all the time.My only complaint about Top was that I felt it made Fact or Fiction somewhat weaker. I don't think one can quantify how much weaker it makes your FoF, but FoF-ing into a Top while you've got a Top in play means you've FoF'ed into at least 1 dead card. Did that make sense?
Regardless, it's pretty silly to say that Fact or Fiction somehow gets worse when you run Top. At that point in the game, a redundant Top is rarely worse than the best card on top of your library.
With a Top in play, I feel pretty confident about playing Standstill on a clear board against any deck that has a comparable number of Wastes and manlands (say, Dreadstill's 4x Wasteland/3x Factory vs. my 4x Factory/2x Monastery). You certainly can't make that play without Top.As good as Top is, I don't think it's incredibly helpful against another deck running Standstill. Now, I didn't say it wasn't helpful, but I do think the value is somewhat marginal in those situations. That might be because I haven't run Wasteland in BHWC since before GP Ohio, but the fact remains that it's dangerous to play Standstill against an opponent playing Standstill.
I agree with you that Counterbalance should be in the sideboard, but that is incidental to Top being in the deck. Counterbalance becomes such a great sideboard tool because you have Top in the main, and Top is worth running whether you have the enchantment or not.Counterbalance works out of the sideboard because it is so effective in some matchups. Sure, the card won't be as awesome in Landstill as it is in Threshold, but it will still wreck a Tendrils deck better than Meddling Mage, even if you can't find a Top to go with it. Counterbalance is also pretty effective against Goyf Sligh and similar decks. Pernicious Deed is not very good in either of these matchups, which makes the poor synergy between it and Counterbalance less relevant, and both matchups are rather difficult, and thus deserve some attention in the sideboard. Counterbalance fits in pretty damn well.
You are right that you need a clock against combo, but that is one of the reasons I play Tarmogoyf. Since you don't, I'm not sure what to tell you, but if not running one of the best cards in the format (Tarmogoyf) also happens to prevent you from boarding another one of the best cards in the format (Counterbalance), you might be doing something wrong.
This kind of seems like nonsense. Top is faster at fixing your draws in the early game than Standstill, Cunning Wish, or FoF, and it does so as many times as you need it to. Ponder is faster than Top, but becomes much worse by the midgame, where you are still completely capable of losing.
I think the bottom line is that, considering how many mana sources Landstill has, and how long Landstill's games typically last, Top pretty much has to be amazing. The card quality it generates virtually replaces the card investment within just a couple of turns, even though it can actually replace itself whenever you need it to. The land drops Top ensures will usually pay for its activations, even though Landstill rarely taps out every turn, anyway. The card strengthens your midgame, which is important to winning a lot of your games, and it even strengthens your sideboard options. What the hell is not to like?
@I need extra turns
I agree with you regarding counterbalance. One of landstill's strengths is it is not heavily affected by counterbalance, but that of course means it can't support it's own.
@top and ponder
You wouldn't need either of these, or the eternal dragon if you dropped the basic plains and the utility lands and added more blue duals. A deck only needs mana fixing if it's mana isn't right to begin with, and i've recently subscribed to the notion that the utility lands are much better in the 2 and 3 color versions playing more basics. With so much land inconsistency it is more likely that you will lose to your own manabase (can't cast deed, extirpate or ee@3) than win via dustbowl lock or whatever. When I drop a standstill I would rather beat in with factories and monasteries and force my opponent to fumble around for an answer, giving me cards in the process than tap down three in my mainphase to transmute into dustbowl and start using my land drops to create tempo this deck can't take advantage of in the first place.
What Ob Freely said, ditto. Though, he said better than I.
Regarding Top, I agree, it's so good in Landstill you can run it without Counterbalance and it's still good (if you're running enough enough fetchlands). If you have Standstill on the board and no manlands, it finds them faster, shuffles away what you don't need; breaks open the mirror; just an all-around superb card if you have the time to exploit it, which you do.
Regarding Counterbalances, I realize it's controversial, but it's one of those rare cards that turns around several of Landstill's bad match-ups (Goyf Sligh, Burn, combo of many shapes and sizes) and makes your already positive Thresh m/u even better. It does a lot for a little investment and its interaction with Divining Top is too well known to repeat. Those who complain about the lack of synergy between Deed and CB have not played the two in the same deck enough, though I'll certainly concede the point on the theoretical level.
Regarding Tarmogoyf, it is one of the best cards in the game; it really helps vs. Goblins, as well as other aggro and aggro-control and gives you a much needed clock vs. combo. I think Landstill's positive combo-m/u has always been a bit overrated.
I've been having good results with this in my gauntlet:
"Grand Prix Landstill"
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Divining Top
4 Force of Will
3 Counterbalance
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Island
Sideboard:
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Hydroblast
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Counterbalance
1 Engineered Explosives
Still need a lot of work but has plenty of room for customization.
Honestly, I haven't tested Elspeth or any of the other Planeswalkers other than Jace.
Maybe I'm missing something, but is your only sweeper EE?
With Crucible, you don't need to pull fetches off the top as much, the 4/3 config is also a balance to not lose to Stifle. In a less Stifle-heavy environment, 4/4 is obv. correct.
@ 3Deuce - I have EE #3 in the place of the DoJ, but it's not built for a heavy aggro metagame. The thing about Landstill is how you can customize it for whatever you can reasonably expect to face. The deck supports Wrath, Humility, etc., so play with the slots as you see fit. I've never been a big fan of the 4c answers, especially as the format has sped up.
Ah, I see. Yeah in that build I would definitely have 3 wrath and 2-3 monastery. Also, in reference to you fucking killing folks, you only really need five or six fetches in a three color model because casting deed isn't a concern.
In testing you need 6-9 fetchlands to get the most out of Divining Top. That's what the fetchies are supporting, other than color-stability.
You don't "need" fetches "as much?" That sounds like an inadequate explanation, since we're trying to optimize something, not get it to barely work.
How does cutting one fetchland make you less vulnerable to Stifle? Chances are still excellent that you will lose a land to every Stifle they draw, but the chance that you will draw enough fetches to make up for the ones you lose is diminished. This logic is similar to that of people who cut spells because they "always get countered anyway."
That was my misunderstanding. You guys are trying to maximize the quality of top, I was thinking from the perspective of color fixing, as two and three color landstill tends to play less fetches and more basics because it allows for a more forgiving manabase. But yes, if you're trying to maximize top then more fetches are ideal.
In that, once you have Crucible and have found 1 fetchland (which you have), any other fetchlands are unnecessary for the purposes of Top.
I've thought about it and agree that you're right. My logic was: "Yes, I will lose some fetches to Stifle, but I want, to greatest extent I can, to have 3 mana on the board on turn 3" (to cast CB or Standstill while having a land to pay for Daze). But, in trying to minimize one risk (Stifle on Strand/Delta), I'm just opening myself up to another (Wasteland on Trop/Tundra).How does cutting one fetchland make you less vulnerable to Stifle? Chances are still excellent that you will lose a land to every Stifle they draw, but the chance that you will draw enough fetches to make up for the ones you lose is diminished.
For the most part, a fetchland has greater value than a dual land at most points in the game (both are vulnerable to different, commonly-played forms of LD), fetchlands complement Top in a completely unfair way and are safer to keep on board in the face of Wasteland.
So yeah, agreed, 4/4 Strand/Delta is much better than 4/3. (List updated above.)
Nice list Bardo.
I don't think Bardo's GP Landstill actually requires 4c sweepers per se. Tarmogoyfs, Counterbalance, Engineered Explosives, and Swords to Plowshares are your removal spells and plenty at that. The deck also has the Wasteland + Crucible recursion combo to prevent later threats from coming online while counterspelling threats that bypass all other security installments. That said, this leaves you with more opportunities to play standstill.
Oblivion Ring seems like a strong card in the deck though. Making opposing Tombstalkers/Tarmogoyfs disappear while keeping your own threats seems efficient in my book. Unlike Wrath of God, Oblivion Ring does not put any obstruction on the manabase making it easily playable with a beneficial function.
Sure, the balance is effective vs. burn, goyf sligh etc. but for these weak matchups I have allready my board. I agree, that the balance is in your deck (Goyfs) a solid sideboard card, in my deck it makes just no sense.
Well, as I said above, two different decks. And I dont think that I might me doing something wrongYou are right that you need a clock against combo, but that is one of the reasons I play Tarmogoyf. Since you don't, I'm not sure what to tell you, but if not running one of the best cards in the format (Tarmogoyf) also happens to prevent you from boarding another one of the best cards in the format (Counterbalance), you might be doing something wrong.. Not every good card is good in every deck.
Have u tried Humility in landstill?
@bardo
Are the goyf landstill variants still called vorosh?
Anyway, I like your list - it looks pretty much like an american LS list^^.
I would play one land less and add instead the 4th counterspell or the 4th balance or the 4th EE.
I think 23 lands are definitly enough - u play 2 CoW, 3 sensei, 4 brainstorm etc... just test it.
@Tarmogoyf in Landstill
The goyf is not an auto-include in landstill. Sure it helps u in the burn, goyf sligh, zoo and combo matchup before boarding, but vs. burn a cunning wish -> Pulse is often enough for example.
Versus zoo, burn, goyfs sligh u should have a sideboard.
The combo matchup for non-goyf Lanstill is bad before boarding and maybe 50/50 after boarding.
The matchup vs goblins is good before and after boarding.
The matchup vs thresh is excellent.
In both matchups u just drop Humility (<=> platinum angel) and win.
For goyf-landstill I think the thresh matchup is still good but not as good as for non-goyf landstill. Thresh can here use their creature removal, which would be dead vs non-goyf landstill. And they run the faster deck, maybe u can sweep the board with EE or a deed but maybe they have the stifle and they play more spell snares for your key spells ( a resolved standstill should be enough in most games). Sure the balance wrecks thresh, but they play it on their own.
EDIT:
Well, in the american landstill variants for example vorosh or bardo's list planeswalkers would be crap.
FredMaster, look at my list, some post before and say what should I cut for elspeth.
Why?
I'd cut a Ponder and a Dragon/Decree. The problem with cutting the Dragon is that you would loose your good looking manabase - although 23 Lands look a bit narrow.
If you would cut the Cunning Wish, which isn't necessary anymore imo due to Relic of Progenitus and playing Deed maindeck, you can drop a Decree and the 2 Wishes for 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant and 1 Top/Enlightened Tutor/additional Land.
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