[Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

[Yan]

Hey!
I played UR Dreadstill yesterday in the Finnish Legacy Champs. 101 Dalma…er..players showed up and I finished 5-2, ending up on 19th place (bad tie breakers), just out of the prizes. A friend of mine played the exact 75 and also finished 5-2. It was a bit disappointing to find out, that all the players from 9th to 19th had 15 points, and my friend was 17th and me 19th. Naturally, the prizes were given to top 16. :)

Anyway, here is the list we played, the games and some thoughts.

4 Wasteland
3 Mishra’s Factory
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Grim Lavamancer

4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
2 Trickbind
4 Lightning Bolt

SB:
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Pithing Needle
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Misdirection
1 Grim Lavamancer
3 Sulfur Elemental
3 Pyroblast

Round 1, URW Delver (0-2, 0-1)
First game I mulligan to 5 because of no-landers. I have no idea what my opponent is playing, but I keep a solid hand with a turn 3 Dreadnought (if I draw another land) and minor protection. I play my nought and got him off guard with Trickbind, as he tries to Spell Pierce it. I get one hit in, but he naturally draws the Swords to Plowshares. I have mana to pay for his Pierce, but my Force and Daze are not enough protection, as he has them too.
Game two I mulligan to 4 because of no-landers (seriously?!) and he wastes me out of the game. What a nice start to a tournament.

Round 2, Infect (2-0, 1-1)
Luck pays back in a funny way this round, as my opponent mulligans to 5 or 6 in game one. I Stifle his fetch, play two delvers that flip naturally and then waste his only other land that he drew. Game 2 he mulligans to 4 but has a fine hand. Sadly the game is over before it ever even starts, with me having Lavamancer, Delver and a good package of mana denial and soft counters.

Round 3, Shardless BUG (2-0, 2-1)
Game1 he survives my early mana denial from Stifle and Wasteland and then goes for Deathrite in to Shardless Agent in to Decay, destroying nothing because I have nothing on board. Next turn I land my Dreadnought with Trickbind. I get one hit in before he makes me sacrifice it with Liliana. He’s at 6 and my hand is 2 Lightning Bolts and a Lavamancer (+useless cards), but his active Deathrite makes it harder than it looks. His Liliana is at 1, so I play the Lavamancer. Next turn he goes for Jace, and my Daze tricks him into tapping out the Deathrite, so no matter that Jace resolves and bounces my Lavamancer, the double Bolt still finish him on my next turn.
Game 2 I don’t remember this one so well, but I sided out Dreadnoughts and life notes suggest that there were some Delvers and bolts involved.

Round 4, URW Delver (0-2, 2-2)
Both games I mulligan to reasonable hands with exactly what I need for this matchup: Dreadnought with Trickbind and protection. But it’s just never enough, when all of my URW opponents seem to have just 3 Swords to Plowshares and 3 counters. I really fed him with Delvers and Lavamancers, which all got bolted or plowed, and still he had all the counters and a plow ready, when I finally went for the Dreadnought. I honestly don’t feel that this is such a bad match up, even if I lost to it two times in this tournament. TNN does basically nothing and their only way of removing Dreadnought is StoP. I feel I just got super unlucky in these 4 games and opponents got really lucky.

Round 5, Imperial Painter (2-0, 3-2)
Game 1 I counter or remove all the stuff he plays that matters. He beats with some little Recruiters before I finally find the Stifle for my two waiting Dreadnoughts. First time the Stifle gets blasted but next turn I find Trickbind and he can’t find anything to deal with the mighty 12/12.
Game 2 he goes for Grindstone and I am presented with a tough choice: I don’t have any answer for his combo in hand and no way of trying to find something. I have 2 mana available and I could play Lavamancer, or just drop a Standstill with no pressure and hope I draw into a Factory. I know the opponent and know that he is a good player who wouldn’t break my Standstill, if there is no pressure. Still, I feel he will just combo me out next turn, so I go for the grinding game. He starts to grind my deck out, but I get lucky and draw one of the Factories quite fast. So I start to beat down and he keeps Grindstoning me, hoping to get some lucky double hits. He’s at 8 life and checks my grave, suspecting I have 2 bolts in hand (I have only 1, and around 12 cards left in my library), so he tries to bolt my attacking Factory. I draw 3 and try to Misdirect the bolt back at him. He has hand full of blasts to protect it. Next turn I think he makes a slight mistake, by playing a Blood Moon, which I gladly allow, as it gives me all the mana that I need (I didn’t have any fetchable lands left in my deck). Next turn I drop double Lavamancer + Pithing Needle on Grindstone and he can’t find enough Painters to get back into the game.

Round 6, Sneak and Show (2-0, 4-2) (Former world champion from 2008 :P )
I know what he’s playing and also have the knowledge, that he doesn’t play that much legacy. I keep his crucial resources at minimum and drop a Delver to start the beats. His main deck Blood Moon threatens to catch my off guard, but I have a counter ready to save my Volcanic, so I’m able to drop another Delver and finish him with bolts and double Delver.
Game 2 I keep a sketchy hand that is only lacking a fetch or a Volcanic (0 coloured sources, Delver, Needle, Blast, double Force, Factory and maybe Daze). I get “rewarded” and draw the fetch on my second turn. From there on, it’s not a fair game anymore and after a Standstill I end the game with 3 Force, 3 blue cards and a blast in hand.

Round 7, Jund (2-0, 5-2)
I hear a guy talking about his Jund deck just before the last round, and how lucky am I to sit to the table across the exact same guy, so I have perfect information what he is playing. Not feeling too confident or glad though. The standings look a bit rough, but with a win I might sneak in on prizes (50 store credit is still something). Game one I manage to keep his mana a bit in check for a moment. But he draws out of it and drops Confidant and Goyf. I go Lavamancer into Dreadnought into Standstill. He breaks the Still with Abrupt Decay and I draw the nuts and finally get to do the tricks I wanted to. After some Misdirection, his Goyf lies dead and Confidant is waiting for the same fate because of my mancer. He reveals a BBE and goes to 12 life, I destroy his duals with my spare Wastes (was waiting for Grove), so it’s time for game 2.
He strips my hand with discard but leaves the Standstill in my hand. He drops double Deathrite, which I answer with Pithing Needle + Grim Lavamacer and the Standstill comes after. He only has one land left after my Wastelands, so he can’t even break the Still and just starts beating with the shamans. I take few hits but then start to take control of the board. He finally draws some lands but I’m too far ahead already. I drop nought and have the Misdirection ready again, when he tries the Decay. Maybe I got slightly lucky, as this usually feels one of the hardest matchups.

All in all, I’m happy how the deck performed (10-4 in matches together with my friend, don't remember his matchups, maybe he'll post them ;)), but a bit disappointed for missing the prizes. I actually wouldn’t change anything from the deck, even if some of the sideboard choices were not used so often. The sideboard is balanced, so that I can replace all the dead cards in every matchup, so after that is only about what you happen to play against. Explosives is mostly against Chalice and some tokens (zombies, goblins, germs etc.), but it can have some other random uses too. Sulfur Elementals are of course mostly for DnT (nought is completely useless), but it’s also the perfect weapon to kill some Jaces.

On maindeck, the most important choices were the 4 Wastelands and the 2 Trickbinds instead of any other possible choices. Wasteland is just so strong right now, that I’m perfectly fine to go down to 3 Factories (7 colorless is already a stretch). Trickbind is just phenomenon. No-one really seems to remember the existence of this card, so it usually is a game when you get to play it on Dreadnought trigger. Lavamancer (or Delver) into Standstill also feels so unfair in this format and you are just too far ahead after it. Misdirection also performed as expected and I was happy to have the second one the board too. Crucible I only saw against Jund (not sure if it even was correct boarding), but I feel I need another trump card against control decks and Jace has always felt too expensive to cast, so it is still staying on the board.

If you had the patience to read until here, I thank you for that. I’m still going to keep pushing this masterpiece, even if most of the people call it a relic, fossil or a dead deck. I just feel it has quite a good game against everything and most of all, it’s never boring to play and you get to do fun and different things all the time. If someone has any questions about the build that I didn’t quite cover, I’ll be following the thread as always (sorry, mostly a lurker) and I’ll be happy to answer.

EDIT. Rough metagame breakdown from the official coverage:
15 Delver (8 URW, 5 RUG, 1 URB, 1 UR)
9 Team America (some with Tombstalkers, some with TNN, some other variants)
8 Sneak & Show
6 Jund
6 Blade (2 Esperblade, 3 Deathblade, 1 Patriot)
5 ANT
5 Elves
4 Shardless BUG
4 Death & Taxes
3 Cloudpost
3 MonoB Pox
3 UR Dreadstill (1 without Standstill)
3 Imperial Painter
3 Belcher (1 with black, Spanish Inquisition?)
2 UW Miracles
2 Bant Aggro
2 UW Control
2 Rock
2 Maverick (1 Dark Maverick)
1 Dredge
1 Burn
1 Omnihalls
1 Lands
1 BUG Standstill
1 Sneak Attack (no SnT)
1 WUB
1 Seismic Assault combo
1 URB Control
1 Food Chain combo
1 Infect
1 Kobold Grapeshot combo

[Jackehehe]

WOW! Impressive finish, too bad you and your mate had bad tie-breakers. I also liked your list, I've been looking for a way to incorporate lavamancers, they do so much for this decks, they deal with Deathrite shaman (GOD I hate that card lol), and pesky little elves etc etc. Also, 1 cmc drps together with standstills is obviously awesome. I wouldnt play pierces though (although this is obviously a personal preference of mine), and I run vision charm instead of second trickbind. And 4 daze is a must!

[Yan]

WOW! Impressive finish, too bad you and your mate had bad tie-breakers. I also liked your list, I've been looking for a way to incorporate lavamancers, they do so much for this decks, they deal with Deathrite shaman (GOD I hate that card lol), and pesky little elves etc etc. Also, 1 cmc drps together with standstills is obviously awesome. I wouldnt play pierces though (although this is obviously a personal preference of mine), and I run vision charm instead of second trickbind. And 4 daze is a must!

Thanks.
Lavamancer is great of course, and one of the big reasons for this deck to be so good. I wouldn't play it without them. For the three Dazes, I mostly surf between three and four, and this time I wanted more Pierces.
On Vision Charm, I have to agree with Roodmistah, that it is basically garbage. If you want something against Abrupt Decay, then Misdirection or Apostle's Blessing are the way to go. (Anyway I think you don't want to fight the Decay decks by protecting Dreadnought, but siding them out and relying on the aggro-control game with Standstills) I would like to have room for some Blessings on the board, but I feel that it's most of the time just too narrow, so Misdirection has been my choice.

[Juice11]

I'm interested in trying out a patriot dreadstill list with some geists. Does anyone have a list of what it might look like?


I've been working with
4 Wasteland
2 Mutavault
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Geist of Saint Traft

4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Daze
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stifle
2 Trickbind
4 Lightning Bolt

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Crucible of worlds
1 Pithing Needle
2 Misdirection
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Pyroblast
3 Meddling Mage
1 Jace the Mind Sculptor

[Rood]

Im thinking this is the new direction we want to take the deck for UR

// Lands
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (2)
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [R] Volcanic Island
4 [IN] Island (1)
3 [JGC] Wasteland
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn

// Creatures
4 [ISD] Delver of Secrets/Insectile Aberration
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 True-Name Nemesis

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [JGC] Stifle
4 [NE] Daze
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
3 [MMA] Spell Snare
1 [TSP] Trickbind
4 [B] Lightning Bolt

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [4E] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [OD] Divert
SB: 2 [NPH] Dismember
SB: 2 [US] Curfew
SB: 3 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce

Maybe a jitte in the main or SB

[SupREME-10]

So it appears that American Delver is a real issue for this deck from what I see in the past 3-4 posts.

Thus I do not feel that Grim Lavamancer should be cut as he helps in that match up with his potential to take out threats. Correct me if I am wrong; and I like Geist and TNN, but I think they are not worth cutting Grim completely.

[syfilisx]

Yan's report is not to be taken as like that UWR is a bad matchup. He had to mull to 5 & 4 other match and also mulligan in later round and they just had three stops & counter magic for his double protection.
In my experience that is not such a bad matchup.

[tride]

So it appears that American Delver is a real issue for this deck from what I see in the past 3-4 posts.

Thus I do not feel that Grim Lavamancer should be cut as he helps in that match up with his potential to take out threats. Correct me if I am wrong; and I like Geist and TNN, but I think they are not worth cutting Grim completely.

I'm the other player who went 5-2 at Finnish Champs. I won two Team Americas (2-0 and 2-1) but lost to Shardless Bug 1-2 due to not knowing DRS's first ability isn't mana ability like LED. That happens when you play legacy in tournaments twice a year. I really don't think that bug decks with Decay are bad matchup with our 75. Their manabases are really weak (>7 fetch, no basics) if they don't stick a DRS, to which we have 7 answers in the main deck and 3 Needles in the sideboard. That's a reason to run 4 Waste and 3 Factory. They are also weak against Standstill and we can really ride to victory by 1-2 of them. I got little lucky and drew 9 cards from Standstills in one game and it wasn't really fair. It's just a matchup where you can't land a Dreadnought and pray they don't have a Decay.

Starting with Grim Lavamancer is really good against them. Twice in the tournament I got my Lavamancer Decay'd and then dropped Dreadnought. You could say the opponents played bad, but after wasting one of their lands they really had to stick that DRS to keep casting spells. Misdirection is also great against bug decks: Decay, Hymn, Ancestal Vision.

I also lost to UWR player (0-2) who had at least 3 Stops in both games. In second game he stopped two of my Factories before I had the courage to drop a Dreadnought with Fow backup. It wasn't enough.

[HammafistRoob]

I've been an advocate of 4 Wasteland, 3 Factory for a very long time and I'm positive it's correct. I also think Lavamancer is pretty huge right now because he helps a ton in tough matchups like Elves, D&T, Maverick and other random decks.

Rood- Curfew? Seriously? That is god awful sir. Just load up on REBs if you're that afraid of Fake-Name.

[mini1337s]

Can't this deck go heavy on the UB plan and shore up it's bad creature matchups with Toxic Deluge? I'm sure it could run the old 4 Dreadnought, 4 Hunted Horror plan from a few years back.

[Yan]

I've been an advocate of 4 Wasteland, 3 Factory for a very long time and I'm positive it's correct. I also think Lavamancer is pretty huge right now because he helps a ton in tough matchups like Elves, D&T, Maverick and other random decks.

Rood- Curfew? Seriously? That is god awful sir. Just load up on REBs if you're that afraid of Fake-Name.

Couldn't agree more. For a long time I was playing with 3 Waste + 4 Factory, thinking it was essential for Standstill to work even better. For this tournament we changed it and I'm convinced that it is surely the way to go (probably had been for quite some time too). Nothing wrong with free wins from Wasteland+Stifle. I second the Lavamancer comment too.

I honestly don't understand all the fuss around TNN. It's 6-7 turns clock and ours is 2. Why do we even have to remove it? The best plan is not trying to fight it, just ignore it and go over the top (also those red blasts are good at countering it, if the situation needs it). My matches from the tournament are by no means a good example of how it should go, but sometimes it just happens. And I'm not even sure that TNN even landed in any of those matches, so that is definitely not the problem card for us. I'll probably test the matchup more tomorrow.

For the UB version: I'm not a fan. Lavamancer and Bolt are just that good, so black will have hard time trying to replace those (= it can't). And the Hunted Horror version never was a real deck :P (maybe [MAYBE] with Vision Charms and Tombstalkers or then just Confidants it is doable, but certainly I wouldn't advice it.)

[monovfox]

Not REALLY dreadstill, but I like this version of the deck a bit, so here it is

UB stiflenought

3 Tombstalker
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Disfigure
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Ponder
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Marsh Flats
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Vision Charm
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Mishra's Factory
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Dismember
SB: 2 Misdirection
SB: 1 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Spell Snare
SB: 2 Submerge
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Duress



I kinda am stuck on what I want to play. I know I want tombstalker, delver, and nought. The disruption and the lands could definitely use some help, as I am building this as my second legacy deck (been playing DnT for about a year now)

[Rood]

I'm doing both, I'm going to be playing with True-Name while running as many answers to it as humanly possible as well. I think It works fine in this deck...I don't see a reason not to try it out at least. Toxic Deluge seems pretty sick..I like that card alot.

[B88]

i don't think play nemesis in this deck is a good choice, for a simple reason: you are going to reduce the number of remouval target! if he play his decay to your lavamncere/delver after he couldn't have another one for your dreadnought!
anyway let me know if i worng

[Jackehehe]

I also fully agree that nemesis isn't needed. The only reason I can see why one would want to play nemesis is to use him as a finisher in mid/late-game, running him as a 2-off in one's list. He simply contradicts our tempo plan, being the slow creature he is. While it is true that other tempo decks such as the multitude of delver decks seem to be running him, I think this is because he is unblockable. With dreadnought having trample, we simply dont have the same need of playing him. I do agree that it is beneficial for our deck to have more threats and I think delver is a testiment to this, this deck is much better positioned now than it has been for years. That being said however, I think grim is the better option here since he is so good vs so many decks (elves comes in mind especially, being a DTB and all) and creatures such as delver, confidant, and of course the dreaded Deathrite shaman. We also dont need to play TNN to "counter" opposing TNNs. Conclusively I think that we neither have the need nor the room for TNN in our deck.

[Darkenslight]

The question is probably less one of "Does TNN fit this deck?" and more one of "Can we fit it in to a viable SB plan?" And, whilst I would consider that the answer is still No, I believe that it warrants a brief testing session to see if it increases your clock when you don't have the Dreadnought.

[monovfox]

Should I be playing misdirection in my maindeck? seems kind of bad when you can just your factory beats on.

[Yan]

Should I be playing misdirection in my maindeck? seems kind of bad when you can just your factory beats on.

Maybe the UB lists don't need it, but at least in my list, I've been liking the "fifth force". But your list is definitely missing Wastelands and I would start by adding those first.

[kingtk3]

Reguarding curfew: I like this card because of its versatility. I don't see it as an answer to TNN, but more as:

• hate vs Sneak&Show
• hate vs Reanimator
• a mean to improve tempo plan against other tempo decks or TNN
• a mean to save one of our creature (how many times you had multiple stilfe/trickbind and the only dreadnought you draw is beign decayed?)

As such, I would test curfew because on paper looks very good.

[monovfox]

Maybe the UB lists don't need it, but at least in my list, I've been liking the "fifth force". But your list is definitely missing Wastelands and I would start by adding those first.

I switched to a more standard list with standstills and wastelands. Still UB, though.

my current list that I am building. 2 forces down, 2 to go.


4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Disfigure
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
2 Thoughtseize
1 Marsh Flats
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Standstill
2 Trickbind
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland
4 Brainstorm
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Tombstalker
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Misdirection
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Dismember
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Swan Song
SB: 2 Perish
SB: 2 Dread of Night