This is wrong in a couple of ways. First of all, in a deck built to utilize it, Standstill functions perfectly fine when the board position is neutral, or even slightly unfavorable for the Standstill player. Elements in the deck such as manlands and Decrees allow Standstill decks to alter the board state without breaking Standstill, and that capability, along with any inevitability the Standstill deck can claim over the opponent, make Standstill an extremely strong play when the board is neutral.Originally Posted by morgan_coke
Secondly, a card cannot be properly described as "win-more" unless it only functions in games that you would win without it. Standstill's conditionality is much different; it becomes playable if, during any of your turns, at any point of the game, the board position is neutral or favorable. This condition is actually met in most games of Magic, often multiple times for both players, and rarely is it a reliable indicator of who will eventually win.
Describing Standstill as "win-more" in this way actually creates a paradox. By calling a card win-more because it can't help reverse an unfavorable board position, you are implying that you are guaranteed to win whenever you can achieve the opposite (a neutral or favorable board position). If this was true, than your opponent would naturally be able to claim the same thing, and thus you would never be able to win any game in which you faced an unfavorable board position, in the first place. No card could be expected to help you win unwinnable games!
This is more specious reasoning. Obviously, any card that lets your opponent make a choice is better against weaker players. However, that does not mean the card is certain to be suboptimal in competitive environments. Does Fact or Fiction not deserve all the high-level play it has seen?Standstill is an opponent skill card. That means its best against bad players and worst against good ones. Against good players you want every edge you can get. Playing cards that become less good in that situation seems like a disadvantage.
Honestly, though, I think you are far overstating the disparity between Standstill's value against good players and it's value against bad players. What, specifically, can a "good" player do to limit Standstill's effectiveness?
All cards are weaker against good players than bad players. That's more or less the definition of being a good player.
I think the point is mute. Deciding how strong a card is by relying on the competence of your opponent is not a good way to gauge that card's power-level. That's not how you should play Magic. You have to consider cards in their "worst" forms (ie, testing against high playskill). If your opponent happens to not be as skilled, well that's just an additional bonus that may make your game easier.
It's ironic, because trying to play this way is a sign of being an unskilled player yourself.
@ Forbiddian
Perhaps you've missed the point. Some cards scale with player skill better than others. The argument is about the impact of the differing degrees of skill-scalability of Standstill and Ancestral Visions. While the problem is difficult to measure, I think the issue is more complicated than you've implied.All cards are weaker against good players than bad players. That's more or less the definition of being a good player.
@ morgan_coke
I don't think 90% of Standstill's value comes from opponents playing unskillfully against the card (although that is a benefit against weaker players).I know Standstill is "teh bombs" or whatever, but after thinking about it a bit I think something like 90% of that cards value derives from your opponent playing badly against it. Sort of like Fact or Fiction and Gifts Ungiven getting a huge boost in playability because most people can't make good piles.
I think 90% of the Standstill's value comes from its ability to solidify gamestates, specifically stalemates and winning positions, easily reached by a deck with control elements, to enable your asymmetrical cards, like Wasteland/Manlands/Vial/Cyclers, to create further advantages that inevitably will overwhelm your opponent unless they just give you the 3 card advantage.
Most of Standstill's value is not derived from skill (on behalf of you or your opponent), but rather from the use of asymmetrical, game-winning cards under Standstill, already built into a deck (revealing not playskill, but deckbuilding skill), which almost always makes Standstill asymmetrical as well.
Eventually, your opponent has these options:
1.) Lose the game.
2.) Let my opponent draw 3 cards in response to one of my spells.
Standstill's ability to solidify the gamestate is very powerful (as its name would suggest). A resolved Standstill takes a snapshot of the gamestate, and makes it so that each passing turn puts your opponent in a worse and worse position as you generate advantage under the standstill. That snapshot upon Standstill's resolution is the best gamestate an opponent can hope to achieve when Standstill eventually triggers in your favor. If they wait, then your advantage only improves upon that snapshot when Standstill triggers in your favor. They are damned if they break it early, but even more damned if they don't.
This snapshot analogy has more implications though. Standstill has a clearer and easier to calculate future than AV. Standstill basically warps you through the turns, while the possibility of AV's advantage hangs in the balance.
AV takes 4 turns to draw you anything. This is 4 turns where the gamestate is in constant flux, enough turns where your opponent could just win before you generated CA at all. While AV's delayed effect may or may not end up in gratification, Standstill's solidification of the gamestate almost guarantees that whenever you draw those cards, the gamestate will be just as good, if not better, than the original Snapshot of the gamestate when you first resolved Standstill. In effect, this is practically the same thing as drawing 3 cards the moment you casted Standstill or better.
Essentially, Standstill warps you through time, to either an identical or improved gamestate, and it draws NOW. AV draws turns later, if you even live to see it or if it even mattered. Turns under standstill are starkly different than turns waiting for AV to resolve, and this is the reason Standstill is head and shoulders more powerful than AV in decks that are built around the cards.
Ancestral Visions doesn't even come close to achieving what Standstill can do, and this is very likely evident in the number of Standstills that see current play compared to Ancestral Visions. Ancestral Visions is worlds slower than Standstill, but more importantly, opponents have way more options against AV than they do against Standstill.
peace,
4eak
Last edited by 4eak; 01-30-2009 at 10:26 AM.
Nope, I didn't. I'm pointing out that it's an absolutely ridiculous argument to say, "I don't like Standstill card because it beats bad players."
... So? That's not an argument. That's a concession that Standstill is good. It's actually a good thing to beat bad players. If two cards are close to equal against skilled players, but one obliterates noobs, I'd gladly pick the noob-killer card. No matter how presumptuous I am about my playskill, I'll accept the fact that Piledrivers can go sideways and I could get into the 0-1 bracket (or even as late as 4-0, you're likely to run into bad players, still). It's simply a bad argument to ignore the first 4-5 rounds of the Swiss (and maybe even the first round of the T8) where you have a great chance of playing against players that make mistakes.
The argument that people are IMPLYING, and would have to make for the above argument to make any sense is "Standstill is bad against good players." But nobody is making that argument because that argument is just wrong and flies in the face of overwhelming evidence (like the domination of Landstill historically, the current domination of Dreadstill, and the contemporary return of Landstill, each is not only making top 8 but putting up high level finishes).
I'm sure that Standstill disproportionately screws over bad players (or as you say, "scales"). How is that a bad thing?
Wrath of God and Pernicious Deed definitely disproportionately screw over bad players. That's actually a good thing and one of the reasons why those cards see so much play. WoG is not a great card in the final round on the final table, but it's a card you really want to have in your deck when some preteen kid wins the coin toss and puts a mountain into play tapped. You want to be sure you can put the game away if he makes any mistakes.
I think you mean moot. Man, that is such a pet peeve of mine...sorry, I digress.
But yeah, one of the greatest strengths of standstill is being able to play it early in the game when the board is neutral (putting you way ahead of your opponent), and decks that abuse it have many ways to keep the board that way from turn 1 (i.e. spot removal such as swords to plowshares). Sure you have to utilize enablers to take advantage of it, but drawing 3 for 1 card is a very powerful effect. It also helps stop your opponent from playing counterbalance, which is pretty big.
With Visions, you can suspend it and you've just lost one more card to help you fight the turn 2 or 3 counterbalance from threshold. Then they can just counter visions with a land on top when it finally does go on the stack. With standstill, if you resolve it early, threshold is in a lot of trouble. I think this alone is a pretty huge mark in favor of standstill.
they haunt minds...
Everyone here is posting about all the times playing Standstill is better than playing AV.
But there are a lot of times when you can't play Standstill but can play AV.
I started this thread because I recently started testing Landstill decks and was blown away by how inconsistent Standstill was as a draw engine. The closest comp for it is probably Browbeat and the punisher mechanic in that it forces your opponent to make a choice with you benefiting from both choices, but in different ways.
The other thing that I really didn't like about Standstill was that it had to be boarded out in several matches, and it's not like Landstill has a great backup draw engine to board into. This strikes me as a significant design flaw. This isn't about whether or not the deck is already good, it's about making it better.
I'm also not entirely convinced this is an either/or situation. A mix may end up being the best combination of all.
Likewise, there are a lot of times when you can drop a Standstill, but you'll have to wait 4 turns for an Ancestral Vision. I think the question is whether waiting four turns is better or worse than having to compensate for board position. In my opinion, it seems easier to manage board position than turns. Plus, if you're in a position where dropping a Standstill would be a bad play, then suspending an Ancestral Visions is probably not going to be any better.
I think that this is actually worse than running either one or the other.
Ancestral Vision + Standstill = Synergy Fail
The best thing that can happen to a Landstill player is having your opponent wait to break Standstill. The downside of Ancestral Vision (having to wait 4 turns) is THE EXACT upside of Standstill! AV is a solid card, but it is strictly worse in a deck built to abuse Standstill.
Standstill forces your opponent to rethink how they are going to handle or play the game when it drops onto the ground.
It is either going to work in your favor or work against you.
Visions, eats up too much time and is vunerable to being blocked out rather than working into your favor in terms of time and resources...
I think most of us can agree that Brainstorm would probably be a better secondary draw spell in most Landstill decks than Ancestral Visions... I mean, most Landstill decks already run a couple fetch-lands, right? Why not capitalize on that and find Standstill faster rather than sit around and wait for Ancestral Visions to (potentially) resolve.
A.V. isn't a bad card, but it just seems bad in this deck.
Uh, I think Brainstorm is not a secondary draw spell, I think it's the primary one. Standstill / Ancestral Visions is the secondary one.
The Source: Your Source for "The Source: Your Source for..." cliche.
In my experience with landstill brainstorm is just a filter card with the 'small' benefit of becoming a crappy ancestral recall with a fetchland. I like fact or fiction with standstill. Both of them draw so many cards it becomes very easy to string them together.
I'd suggest reading this recent article by Zac Hill. The excerpt regarding Brainstorm is this:
tl;dr: Brainstorm is awesome. Even in Landstill.
/Shameless necro.
But, what if WotC made a card called Mental Misstep? Is it ok to play Standstill now?
Wow, do people actually believe this? Pointing out that a card gives your opponent an extremely good target for his card is a perfectly valid argument.
If the only out is Force of Will, it's not *AS* valid (because Force can generally counter anything, although it's still a very valid argument when discussing making a deck that relies on an expensive spell -- like say Ad Nauseam). Still, even pointing out Force of Will in Standstill vs. Ancestral Visions is quite valid. You have quite a bit more time to react to Ancestral Visions to find the Force and/or a worse Blue spell (if you were going to counter the Standstill/Ancestral Visions in the first place).
At any rate, Standstill gives your opponent several turns to draw hardcounters, Stifle, or his own Standstill. So all these cards are much better against Ancestral Visions decks than Standstill decks.
Given that ancestral visions has recently taken over from standstill in the online meta, I'd just like to resurrect this thread to remind everyone of how prescient I am.
And to tell everyone who disagreed with me that you're fucking morons.
This message has been brought to you by "Smug" Inc.
And it only took two years!
But seriously, there's not enough synergy within those decks to justify Standstill as a draw engine. Factory has gotten weaker since 2009, and no one is playing Decree of Justice. People want to win fast, so flashing in a Batterskull is perceived as more awesome (even if it hinges on a Squire). If you can't configure your deck to abuse Standstill, then it can't be played. I don't think it makes AV "better."
Delver enthusiast and avid practitioner of blind flipsmanship.
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Lol. I'd be one thing if the meta didn't change over the past two years, but it has so saying you were right now =/= you being right then. I'm not saying you were incorrect, but coming back here after the meta has changed enormously and calling everyone "fucking morons" for defending a card, that until recently was the CA spell of the format, is retarded.
Yeah, one of the big reasons why Ancestral Visions is so insane now is that there is no more Counterbalance around (or so it seems...) to counter it for next to nothing. MM just made it even better. You can suspend it and still 1 for 1 your opponent. Awesome. I don't particularly like Standstill in more controlling, slower Blue decks.
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