Monthly Hassloch 11/09, 4th Place with Dreadstill

[Adan]

Preamble:

So I got my hands on a playset of Phyrexian Dreadnoughts by chance after sucking with Dredge in Mannheim, so I decided I might try something new.
Addionally, I don't feel like playing very interactive decks in the last time because reallife denies further energy- and time-investment on MtG.
And I currently have a phase where I'm loaded with misanthropy, so I don't want to interact with most of my opponents very much.

Therefore stomping your opponent with a 12/12 Trampler within 2 turns with a shitload of permission sounded nice.

So I played Rodney "Roodmistah" Hannigan's UR Dreadstill:

// Lands
5 [ZEN] Island (1)
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [TE] Wasteland
3 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (3)

// Creatures
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 [FD] Trinket Mage

// Spells
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [SC] Stifle
2 [TSP] Trickbind
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [NE] Daze

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DIS] Spell Snare
SB: 1 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 3 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [B] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [DK] Blood Moon

now for the matches:

Match 1 against Chistian Freiberger with Belcher

g1 he starts with Mox Tinderwall and plays a 2nd Wall on his Turn 2, then I play Standstill. After he breaks Standstill with a 2nd Mox and a 2nd Tinder Wall, I find 2 Explosives.

I blow up his 2 Tinder Walls, then his 2 Moxen. He has got no resources and then Dreadnought-Stifle ftw.

I sided in 2 BEBs and threw out a Trinket Mage and a Trickbind I believe.

He starts with a 1st Turn Belcher which I force. I drop my land and pass, he does nothing, I then play my 2nd Land, Dreadnought-Stifle, win.

2-0, 1-0-0

Match 2 against Martin "MSC" Schreiber with BW Rogue

I play the Landstill-ish line of play, so I tapped myself out for a Standstill, then he lands a Confidant which I can't Spell Snare. But my Mishra ensures that I don't get beaten down by him, so he reveals cards like Vindicate, Elspeth, Elpeth, Soltari Priest, Jitte until he dies. Meh.

I board out 1 Daze and board in 1 Snare.

Uhm, my life totals: 20, 18, 16.

His life totals: 20, 19, 7, 0.

I can't remember what happened, but obviously there was a Nought involved...

2-0, 2-0-0

Match 3 against Matrin Mueller with BW Pox:

Uhm I must have played a Trinket Mage on Nought, beat him twice with the Mage and then with the Nought and a Mishra as the life totals of him are: 20, 19, 17, 15, 0.

Game 2 I also win due to a fast Nought.

2-0, 3-0-0

Match 4 against Thomas "Yulyn" Dörner with RGW Goyf Sligh

Game 1 I drop a land an dpass the Turn, he opens with Mountain, suspend Rift Bolt.

I then blow out the Nought with STifle as I know he can't play a Qasali on his 2nd Turn.
He then plays a Goyf which I ignore, then I swing, he does down to 8, he play a Qasali, I Spell Snare, he blocky my Nought, tries a 2nd Qasali which I Spell Snare as well. GG

Game 2 I keep a opening hand with 5 Lands, Standstill and Something.
He has got early beats with Qasali and Goyf and Jitte, I can save my ass with EE and drop my Standstill, but then I get blown out of the water by PoP as he already got me down on 1 Life and I could not FoW.

Game 3 I drop a 3rd Turn Nought, Spell Snare his TSH, attack, Waste his land, Spell Snare his Qasali and he complains that he was 1 mana short on K.Grip. Hah!

2-1, 4-0-0

Match 5 against Nico Sorger with UBR Faeries-Stalker-Tempo-Pile...thing...

Game 1 we slowroll things and I beatdown with Mishra for a few turns, then land a Dreadnought which smashes his face in.

Game 2 he has like 3 Bitterblossoms, obv. one of them resolves and then he adds pressure with Tombstalker. I lose.

Game 3 was stupid, he manadenied me pretty hard and I had to buy time with Blood Moon. He draws a Swamp. Okay, so he was able to cast Terminate. Anyway, I would get raced by Bitterblossom, so I had to Nought-Stifle as I have been topdecking for ages. He then reveals a Terminate with Force Backup. Oh. My. Goodness.

1-2, 4-1-0

Match 6 against Fabian Freiberger with UGW BantSur

My mermory i pretty flawed, but in both of the games, there was a mix of Standstills, Balances and Spell Snares involved with Dreadnought for the coup de grace.

2-0, 5-1-0

I end up being 4th due to worse tiebreakers and I am frustrated because Kai Thiemann made it to Place 3 with the UGR variant (which I find terrible because it just plays 2 Daze maindeck. It's just irrational and bad, srsly).

And because he got 2 Scrublands and I just a Mox Diamond. And he's the worse player. But it's Hassloch!

Anyway, credits to Roodmistah for (t)his deck, it was fun to play. It was like pouring gasoline over my opponents, igniting them and then trample on them like they were on fire.
It's nearly as sadistic as Dredge. I liked it.

Props:

- Dreadstill. Didn't expect it to be so good and funny and strong.
- Schnitzel for saving me from starvation

Slops:

- Dreadstill for being fast as hell, most of my matches were over after 5 Minutes, I was always bored like hell.
- Bad luck against that Faerie pile.
- People like Fabian Moyschewitz and Stefan Czolk sucking out due to random crap.
- The season. Most people are ill and this time I had to drive to Hassloch by myself.
- Contact lenses for creating strange light-effects which are just annoying as hell when you are driving back home while it's dark outside.

[yankeedave]

Congrats on the Great finish, just wondering tho, in Match 5, you state:

Game 1 we slowroll things and I beatdown with Mishra for a few turns, then land a Goyf which smashes his face in.

I was just wondering about this?!?!

[Enigma]

Good job Adan.

I sided in 2 BEBs and threw out a Trinket Mage and a Trickbind I believe.

I'm pretty you didn't sided-out Trickbind against Belched, did you?

And smashing with goyfs? Probably meant PD?

In any case, gratz for beating zoo and Bant Sur, being 2 decks that are packing Qasali + Grip, it doesn't look like good MU's.

P-M

[Adan]

Good job Adan.


I'm pretty you didn't sided-out Trickbind against Belched, did you?

Actually I have no clue whether I boarded against Belcher at all, I think just boarded in the Needles for some Spell Snares...

And smashing with goyfs? Probably meant PD?

Precisely. Edited.

In any case, gratz for beating zoo and Bant Sur, being 2 decks that are packing Qasali + Grip, it doesn't look like good MU's.

P-M

Qasali Pridemage can be annoying, but it's not very tragic because it has to hit the board before Counterbalance or Dreadnought.
It's pretty much a question which card resolves first. As a answer to Counterbalance or Dreadnought, Qasali Pridemage is garbage or inefficient.

I still don't know why people think that the existence of QP destroys Dreadstill: I have Forces, Spell Snares and other Stifle effects, under some circumstances Daze and Counterbalance to keep that guy off the table.

Postboard Needle is also okay against him as well as Engineered Explosives.

Only Grip can really throw you back.

[deadlock]

Congrats on your finish young-schnitzel padawan. After the tournament would you change anything? Especially what about the second EE (in the main), the 4rd Standstill and the 4rd Nought - compared to something like the 4rd CB / 3rd Top or other additions. Also did you ever missed Goyf?

[Adan]

Congrats on your finish young-schnitzel padawan. After the tournament would you change anything? Especially what about the second EE (in the main), the 4rd Standstill and the 4rd Nought - compared to something like the 4rd CB / 3rd Top or other additions. Also did you ever missed Goyf?

Well, with that amount of Aggro in our meta 2 EEs are just essential.

4 Dreadnoughts are also important because there are a lot of matchups where you just want to blow it out asap as it snuffs the opponent like... instantaneously?

I also don't feel that 4 Counterbalances are necessary. They are good, but not necessary. They are actually crap in multiples, so 3 are fine.

And no, I did not miss Goyf at all. I can imagine Dreadstill to be way more aggro-controlish with Goyfs, but I already got assraped by that Tempo-Faeries-Thing with UR, now I don't want to imagine how it would have raped me if I would have been playing UGR along with it's worse manabase. O_o

But I'm certain that Disrupting Shoal needs to be tested. I often want Standstill to cycle through my deck to complement Stifle-Nought and Disrupting Shoal would be the best way to get through a 2nd Turn Standstill even more efficiently. And it's like FoW No. 5-7.

I'd try:

4 Force of Will
3 Disrupting Shoal
4 Spell Snare
3 Counterbalance

[deadlock]

While it looks tempting to push through a turn two Standstill / Nought with Shoal, you wont always have the hand for it.
The thing which makes Dreadstill great is, that i can play the busted early game with the mentioned plays (beside mana denial hands), but also has a good midgame through CB/Top, Trinket Mage and Goyf in the Ugr version.

Some people push this midgame power through adding 4 CB / Top and the Goyfs, while cutting down on the Dazes. Your proposal is the other extreme, i think a good balance between both has to be found.

About your board choices, dont you think that Lightning Bolt is more versatile than Blue Blast, it looks stronger except against opposing Blood Moons (more concerning for Ugr).
Have you thought about Spell Pierce? It can protect a fast Nought from removal and can stop stuff like Chalice / Trinisphere, also its another card which stops CB. On the other hand like Submerge, its clearly tempo oriented, which isnt the only option for Dreadstill as mentioned.

[J.V.]

Qasali Pridemage can be annoying, but it's not very tragic because it has to hit the board before Counterbalance or Dreadnought.
It's pretty much a question which card resolves first. As a answer to Counterbalance or Dreadnought, Qasali Pridemage is garbage or inefficient.

I still don't know why people think that the existence of QP destroys Dreadstill: I have Forces, Spell Snares and other Stifle effects, under some circumstances Daze and Counterbalance to keep that guy off the table.

Postboard Needle is also okay against him as well as Engineered Explosives.

Only Grip can really throw you back.

Well first off, Congrats Adan! And thank you this is what I've been saying since day one of everyone saying Dreadstill is dead.