[Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

[Cenarius]

I know that Standstill is quite the opposite of a Tempo-card. However I believe that my lists needs Standstill in order to coop with the 2 card combo and the possible thread of going 2 for 1'd.
There are however several positions in the board where Standstill would be really great to drop even without a clock.

I don't think 4c Dreadstill is the way to go, clearly. Dark Confidant + Swords + Goyf is a fine combination of cards, it's just too much of a stretch if you ask me.

Furthermore, I don't believe that Cb/top is that important against Zoo. From my experiences with either Dreadstill and Countertop is that it's too slow. It's just too slow. I'm not even mentioning that your opponent might have played Nacactl and Qasali Pridemage/Tarmogoyf before your deck get the Cb/top.
I believe that Zoo won't be played enough, so therefore I might want to play this deck. I'm pretty sure the matchup is weak even with Cb/top.

I also believe that the original deck focusses to many on different strategies, either:
Dreadnought/Stifle
Cb/top
Standstill/Manlands

I'd prefer cutting one to get a more stable deck. I believe Manlands are a good call in this metagame, as is Standstill. Especially when boarding 3 Pithing Needle's against Vial decks.

So,

Conclusions:
Perish is bad against VVsurvival
Hibernation is good against VVsurvival
Perish is good against Zoo
Hibernation is ok/bad against Zoo

Are there any other sideboard cards that might help the Zoo matchup? I believe I have some open slots (1 Vendillion Clique, 1 Crucible) are the most likely to be unnecessary.

[The Atog Lord]

Cenarius:

I have not yet had the chance to test Hibernation, either against Zoo or against VVSurvival. Have you tried it? If so, how was it for you? Also, what about Perish? Did that test badly against VVSurvival? I've not yet had the chance to test it out.

You asked if you were missing any key synergies. I believe that you can get away with cutting Counterbalance right now. However, cutting Top is something I could not recommend. The key synergy you are missing is Top and Standstill. I think that Top leverages Standstill extremely well. Using the time Standstill affords to use Top to select cards and shuffle with Fetchlands is part of what makes Standstill so potent in this deck. By cutting Top, you are making Standstill a less powerful card.

The other issue with removing Top is that Confidant becomes worse. You are playing with some heft mana-costs. Part of the strength of Top is that it prevents you from dying to Confidant, by ensuring that only low drops sit atop your deck.

In light of these two issues, I would advocate playing Top. Do you really need that Clique? I don't think she's a bad card at all. But I think that Top would be a strong card there.

[Rico Suave]

Perish is a fine card against many of the Vengevine Survival decks.

The real point of contention is to stop Survival. Once that is accomplished, either through Spell Snare or Force or Pithing Needle or them not drawing it or some other equivalent device, what does their deck do? It casts green creatures. For thwarting this, Perish is unmatched.

[Cenarius]

@ The Atog lord

The CC is low enough to handle Dark Confidant.

Current CC totals:

0 cc: 20
1 cc: 21
2 cc: 12
3 cc: 1
4 cc: 2
5 cc: 4

With 4 brainstorm, 2 ponder, 2 jace to manipulate your draws.

About Top:

It might be good enough, though I really like ponders a lot.
There might be room for tops though, it might even bring trinket mage's to the list by going:

-1 Vendillion Clique
-1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
+2 Trinket mage
+2 Top's

However, I think the inclusion of Ponder + Clique + Dreadnought is superior than +2 Trinket +2 Top's. This ofcourse has not been proven by testresults, nor does the original list posted by me are backed with testresults.

I believe that Clique is a strong card that can win games alone. That was and is one of the reasons why I included one in the maindeck. It's pretty good at a large tournament, like the Dutch championship (about 217 people (which is huge in the Netherlands)).

@ Rico Suave

I might have to agree with you here. I have a lot of answers to survival, mainly because I'm afraid of the deck. Perish might be better than Hibernation, though u'll definately need to answer the Survival. Hibernation can be devastating when they try to all-in by spending all their mana to get 16 damage. Bouncing might save you for 1 turn, but not for 2 since they'll just discard the vengivine's and play their 2 rootwalla's again.

So I believe Perish is the better slot, especially when u look at the Zoo matchup.

[Mizeri]

So how do you guys feel about academy ruins? I always want to run it when i run 2 or more ee's. i dont really want to go up to 8 colorless lands tho. And 3 is still the right number of cb?

[Muradin]

Academy Ruins is a card that should only find a slot in Dreadstill in case you are not running Standstill and Mishra's Factory. Otherwise you have will be too low on blue sources (as the standard 14 blue sources Dreadstill runs are already very low). So, 8 colorless lands is no option.

I was running Academy Ruins in this list (maindeck is missing said Academy Ruins and 1 Jace)

http://deckcheck.org/?x=8QRflGWV2M4iF31hlGRfiavdN475q6

Academy Ruins is not very frequently used to return Dreadnought, but it is of course especially valuable to provide you some redundancy in terms of killing creatures, especially in matchups that are attrition wars (Bant, Zoo). Those are also the kind of matchups where your opponents tend to Krosan Grip your Sensei's Divining Tops, as soon as they notice you boarded out some of your Dreadnought plan (they should do so, unless they are terrible)

When I was still playing the deck I did a lot of testing against Vengevine Survival, and the matchup felt slightly favorable concerning Ug variants. Preboard Trygon Predator from the early lists was the only thing that kept their percentage ok.

Gw is a little bit worse, because they have Swords to Plowshares and won't die to Dreadnoughts most of the time. Postboard however, this becomes much better when you get access to Swords / Perish / Peacekeeper / Relic / Hibernation.... based on your list.

Still, Vengevine Survival is a strong deck and you'll always be having problems beating them consistently, even if you are favored.

[Rood]

Only play Academy Ruins in the sideboard never maindeck. It's best usage is postboard to make sure Dreadnought can return to K-grips which is the main reason I would use it from the board. Hibernation I prefer over Perish since it's instant you can EOT pop their board and pitch it to FoW in a pinch.

[keys]

I tried Academy for a while but it just didn't have as much of an impact as I thought it would. It seems great in theory with EE against aggro decks, but it never came up in play because the deck doesn't like to go to the late game if it doesn't have to. However I am playing 2 EEs maindeck instead of 1 now, just to deal with more resolved permanents.

As far as Hibernation vs. Perish goes, I think the former is better if you aren't playing Peacekeeper. Keeper is a house against UG Madness, but not as good against GW and GB. Versus GW, I tend to think Perish is better since it cleans up Goyfs, Knights, and Pridemages. It also has more applications outside of Survival, obviously, such as Zoo and Elves

It's hard to be prepared for every type of Survival deck (outside of Spell Snare), and that's part of why it's so powerful. I would like to have Hibernation, Perish, Peacekeeper, and Extirpate all in the board to use against each variety... but instead we just have to metagame intelligently.

[Tangle.Wire]

This thread almost became an awful circle of the same old questions again, can't we just leave it by the point that as well the traditional U/R list as UGR/BWU etc all have the power to be played and just stop repeating ourself?

The big secret of this deck is, dress your Dreadnought as Micky Mouse or Robo Cop, it still will be a Dreadnought ;)

[keys]

This thread almost became an awful circle of the same old questions again, can't we just leave it by the point that as well the traditional U/R list as UGR/BWU etc all have the power to be played and just stop repeating ourself?

The big secret of this deck is, dress your Dreadnought as Micky Mouse or Robo Cop, it still will be a Dreadnought ;)

I'm sorry, what?

Can you please be the last person to come shit in this thread for no reason?

[lorddotm]

i'm sorry, what?

Can you please be the last person to come shit in this thread for no reason?

neva!!!

[Tangle.Wire]

C'mon Keys don't take it to personal i just wanted to remember that some points are already overdiscussed and its just a matter of time until the thread will be inactive again for days cause we have nothing new to talk about.

[Beware]

So I am in love with Trickbind, has anyone contemplated a 3/3 Stifle/Trickbind split instead of 4/2? It may lower the chance of a t2 StifleNought, but it seems stronger against such a heavy Vengevival meta.

PS: Still waiting on some points on why Roodmistah decided against splashing white. :3

[J.V.]

So I am in love with Trickbind, has anyone contemplated a 3/3 Stifle/Trickbind split instead of 4/2? It may lower the chance of a t2 StifleNought, but it seems stronger against such a heavy Vengevival meta.

PS: Still waiting on some points on why Roodmistah decided against splashing white. :3

You'll never get them, Rodney doesn't change his list, in all Seriousness his maindeck is about 4 cards different from the origonal list his ran when he created the list in early 2007. As for a 3/3 split if you really want three trickbinds, then go 4/3 Stifle is better because of its mana cost, keep in mind that Nought is not always what you are going for, you have to be ready to use your stifle/trickbinds aggressively on fetchlands and such.

For reference this is Rodney's original list...
Lands:20
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
2 Volcanic Island
5 Island

Creatures:7
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Trinket Mage

Noncreature Spells:33
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterbalance
3 Spell Snare
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Trickbind
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle

[Rood]

So Tormod's Crypts were still pretty useless again for me as were Red Blasts actually. I'll be making a few changes to the side I think that the list needs a bit of twinking. Survival still remains to be a somewhat decent matchup overall I'm 4-2 against Survival variant builds.

[keys]

Split top 4 at a 27 man tourney tonight, going 4-1-1. Matchups were GW Survival, Tribal Knights, Dredge, Survival Elves, Geddon Stax, and Ugrw CounterTop. I played the stock Ubw list card for card.

In round 1 I drew with GW Survival. It was the guy's first outting with the deck and he made a few mistakes, especially letting me daze his evoked Shriekmaw. Before time was called game 3, the board was my Peacekeeper, Crypt, and Jace to his mana elves and Fauna Shaman, but I couldn't kill him fast enough... frustrating way to start the tourney.

Round 2 against Tribal Knights I got out a turn 3 or 4 Dreadnought and Trinket Mage to defend against his two double striking knights. The next turn he played Elspeth and swung in the air with a double striker for 12... I didn't draw the land necessary to play Jace and bounce his creature so I wouldn't die the next turn (after killing Elspeth). Game two I got greedy and kept a hand with 2 mishras, a Top, Stifle, Nought, Counterbalance, and Brainstorm. First top activation revealed no lands... :( I eventually cast Nought but it got pathed and the game was over when a Knight Exemplary off of Vial put a stop to EE.

I lost game one to Dredge (go figure), then went on to win the next two with EEs, Peacekeeper, Crypt/Relic, and Noughts.

I eventually beat Survival Elves with Perish and Peacekeeper, although I lost game 1 to some pumped elves before I could cast Nought with Trinket Mage and Trickbind.

Versus Geddon Stax, game 1 I resolved Jace and protected it with Mishra's (that seems to be the easiest way to win against prison decks...). Game 2 I simply drew more Mishras and Wastelands, Pierced his Crucible.

I just barely made top 8 with a 3-1-1 record. My first match was against Ugrw CounterTop. Game one I drew 3 Wastelands and went to town on his manabase. I played Nought but he had the StP. Eventually I resolved a Jace and the card advantage bought me a Confidant, another Nought, and Standstill for good measure.

I don't remember everything that happened game 2, but eventually we were at a standstill with him at 2 life facing down my Trinket Mage with a Goyf. I was at 13 or something, and he topdecked the Clique and flew over for the win before I could find anything useful with my top. At some point I EEed away his CB that was locking me down along with a Goyf, but it wasn't enough.

Game three was pretty epic with us trading back and forth. I was extremely tired and hungover from the night before, and had yet to eat any food all day even though it was about 7pm. We each mulled to 6, but I kept something like FoW, FoW, Pierce, Jace, Island, Island, and then drew another Pierce. With all my permission I was able to resolve CBTop first. A savvy Trinket Mage countered a Grip, but he finally stuck a Jace. Luckily I still had a Mishra's to attack with. After a certain point he dipped to 2 life from fetching but I still attacked into Jace to kill it. That was embarrassing. Nevertheless, the Brainstorm and CB floating on top of my deck locked him out well enough.

Clique is such a PITA!! It bolted my Mishra's, broke up my combos, and took away a Confidant that I was supposed to play... Clique is one good card.

Top 4 split so we could go home and I could finally eat (thanks lorddotm for the burrito).

I don't have that many comments about the deck right now. I'm content with Standstill because I continue to play people who don't know how to play against it (dredge made me discard it, elves tried to K Grip it...), and because I love attacking with Mishra's. Peacekeeper was definitely useful but sometimes too slow to win before time. Spell Pierces definitely held their own, saving me from Stax pieces, Counterbalances, and Jace...

[Jackehehe]

Heh, funny, I made it to top 8 in a local 27 man tourney as well with this list:


// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [DDE] Swamp (1)
1 [10E] Forest (4)
2 [B] Underground Sea
2 [B] Tropical Island
4 [IN] Island (1)
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [FD] Trinket Mage

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [10E] Pithing Needle
1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [DIS] Spell Snare
4 [BD] Brainstorm
1 [TSP] Trickbind
4 [DD2] Daze
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 4 [FNM] Engineered Plague
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip


it can hardly be accounted for being dreadstill, more likely "Stiflenought" but I guess it is of interest, somehow. This tourney was quite an experience for me. First of all, it was my first top 8 ever (yes I'll admit that) so that was a huge success for me, secondly, my deck surprised me quite a lot by performing both underwhelming and overwhelming.

Quick analysis and explanation: I was expecting shitloads of goblins and in general tribal decks but didnt face any of them except for 1 'folk deck. I knew there were at least 5 goblin decks (see my sideboard) and did not expect a lot of vengevine either and I was correct on both accounts, didnt face any of them though.

First match was affinity where I admittably was really lucky, affinity is definately something to be watchful of. Yes, a resolved dreadnought is gg against them but so is a resolved equipment (whatever its called +1/+0 based on artifacts on play) 2-1 to me

Second match was against my "team mate" and we drew this one, albeit not intentionally. He played thopterfoundry, a pretty decent matchup with my deck considering he really has to deal with every confidants, goyfs and noughts i.e 12 threats. He was also very vulnerable to stifle on fetches etc. Also, postboard with extirpate in main this match up becomes a walk in the park if played properly (for instance, extirpating tutor after it has resolved and searched for foundry, or even better, extirpate the foundry and its gg). We ended up 1-1 but never started third game due to time

third match was vs jacestill, slightly unfavorable pre-board for sure since he can wipe my board with deed, EE and plow my threats. Jace is obviously a nightmare here as well vs nought. Extirpate was pretty fucking awesome this match as well since he pretty much only has 1 win-con (no mishra's in this deck for some reason) and that is Jace. Also, extirpate on deed isnt bad either. 2-1 to me

4th match was vs merfolks. My inexperience with this game shined through this match up. I didn't really know what to board in vs this guy, engineered plague is too slow especially vs spell pierce and I realized that a tad late. I lost 1-2 fairly quickly.

5th match was vs faires, a deck I really didnt expect although it wasnt very hard with early nought game 1 and engineered plague game 2 and wasting his coloured mana sources. 2-0

3-1-1 was sufficient for top 8. Sadly, I faced The Rock which oblitered me with ease. I did have some luck top-decking, wasting his removal mana source but it just wasnt enough. The board controll from him was immense with chainer's edict, vindicates, plows and witnesses, phyrexian arena (so playing deed was of no commitment to him)

I know my deck is a bit controversial not having countertop lock in it. I just feel that it isnt enough vs the tribal-meta I was expecting and honestly, I do not think it would have helped that much either in the games that I lost (merfolk and the rock). jace was also pretty much useless for me throughout the tourney, 2 is too few to find him when you really need him, and 3-4 is too much when you cant really protect him. I imagine Jace is good with the white-splash-peacekeeper, but he didnt really fit into my list. Extirpate exceeded my expectations and I'd definately run it as a 4-of in SB it is GY-hate but more flexible than tormods and relic. With peacekeeper in SB I imagine replacing crypt/relic with extirpate shouldn't be a problem.

Engineered plague was a disapointment. Didnt help vs merfolk, thus becoming too narrow. pretty much only helping vs goblins (I dont expect to see fairie decks anytime soon.

Overall the tourney was fun but my deck did feel underwhelming since it performed so poorly against merfolk and my SB definately could have been better. I think I'm going to leave my dreadstill archetype on the shelves for a while and see what happens. I know rodney made a top 8 recently in a big tourney but he played vs 3 combo decks and no tribal decks and since my meta is clogged with the latter, I dont think dreadstill will perform sufficiently.

Sorry if my post is a bit incoherent, it was written in haste.

[Rood]

Standstill and Countertop are just too good not to play. In my experience testing against Rock if you're playing neither of these engines it's generally an unwinnable matchup. The absence of red in general is the reason Merfolk was so hard for you. Red is an absolute beast SB color for Dreadstill and especially good in that mathcup.

[spartan117]

On Sunday I won a 40 man tournament with a particular ubr build which is putting up solid results here in Italy.

I'll post the list so that you can see what I'm talking about.

MD

4 phyrexyan dreadnought
3 dark confidant
2 grim lavamancer

4 force of will
3 spell snare
3 daze
4 stifle
2 trickbind
3 standstill
3 sdt
3 counterbalance
3 brainstorm
3 lightning bolt

6 U fetchlands
3 underground sea
4 volcanic islands
2 island
3 wasteland
3 mishra's factory


Sideboard

3 perish
1 firespout
3 reb
2 pithing needle
3 extirpate
3 spell pierce


I was expecting no prison decks and that's why I didn't play EE.
I also have to say that here in Italy the most played version of zoo is Big Zoo, which you can't handle with EE and firespout, and that explains the 3 perish, also given the fact that dark horyzons is raising up in number of players at every tournament.

I played against:

round 1 MBC with persecutor: 2-1
round 2 Probant: 2-1
round 3 Dark Horyzons: 2-1
round 4 GW tempo aggro: 2-1
round 5 I.D.
round 6 TES 0-2 (mulliganed both games to five to find a decent hand. Wasn't able to find a single counterbalance or two counterspells in the same hand... pretty disappointing for me...)

Top8 Dark Horyzons 2-1
Top4 GW tempo aggro 2-1
Top2 Split and win by drop against Dark Horyzons


The deck is pretty impressive for its draw power and amount of bombs.
I especially like the fact that while siding out confidant or standstill, you're always keeping one of them in the maindeck to guarantee a source of card advantage in ecery single MU.

I personally found myself very pleased for the deck running so smoothly, but I'd like to hear any suggestion from you because I'm sure that this list could be improved.

[keys]

Grixis is an interesting combo because you get Firespout, REB, [and Lavamancer] to help with the merfolk matchup, but you lose Swords to Plowshares and Peacekeeper.

I agree that Confidant is really strong in this deck. He diverts removal from Nought, is an alternate source of card advantage from Standstill, and can beat down along with the other 2/2 buddies. The average cmc of the deck is so low that he hardly does any damage.

However, I seriously question the decision not to include Trinket Mage, EE, and Jace. I realize that if you aren't playing EE, the tutor ability of Trinket Mage is less needed. However, without these 3 cards, your matchup against combo and dredge suffers, and matchups against Stax type prison decks and control are significantly worse.

EE provides an out to zombie tokens, goblin tokens, Chalice, and Counterbalance (when played at a high cmc). Trinket Mage works wonders against Innocent Blood and other edict effects when trying to protect Nought, and is a castable creature under Bloodmoon, Chalice@1/2 and Trinisphere, that can block opposing Mishra's, morphed creatures, and Maguses. He gets you your 1-of Crypt against 43Lands and Dredge, or your Needle against landstill.

Jace is your best win-con along with Mishra's and Trinket Mage after a Chalice@1 resolves. I have yet to lose a match against Dragon Stompy or Stax in which I resolved him. They just fold to repeat fateseals. Jace is also king in all control matchups, whether it be countertop or landstill, but I think that is common knowledge by now.

If it were my call, I would move the Lightning Bolts and Lavamancers to the sideboard to make room. Only if your meta is overrun with Merfolk would it make sense to me. If you really don't see any MUD, Stax, or Stompy type deck then you might not need the Spell Pierces in the Sideboard.