@Fox: Awesome answer, thanks for the clarification. It's cool to see that the deck has evolved far beyond the 4x Stifle + 1-2x Trickbind package to cheat 'Nought into play, from lists I remember. I'm just a fan of anything running Standstill tbh.
@Rood: I remember your lists from waaay back in the day, awesome to see you still piloting and managing the deck here. Wish MTGS had people as dedicated. Thanks for letting us have a look at your most recent list.
Having not read the whole thread yet, what's the theory behind the R splash vs W or B? I can see R being far more beneficial in U-heavy/non-basic heavy metas and for a bit more reach with Bolts. Do W and B not offer enough to support/protect throwing down 'Nought vs combo/gy-based decks? Appreciate any insight you'd have, look forward to catching up in the thread.
Last edited by crispymelee; 09-26-2019 at 02:58 PM. Reason: fixing tags
great to see so much renewed interest in the Twelvers and all this activity in this forum. I've been on Stiflenought for about a year and would strongly advise new players to work their way back through the whole thread, it's such a deep well of knowledge & information. (also major props to @Rood, @Yan, @Fox & the rest for not defecting to Discord yet).
@Rood: List looks tight, thanks for sharing. (Alright, I'll try 4 Scrolls.) One question: When do you bring in the Dismembers? I'm assuming that it's pretty play/draw dependent and mostly against particular problem creatures like Thalia? Having access to black, I can't for the life of me decide on the correct number (0-3) of Pushes / Murderous Cut / Tyrant's Scorn in the side.
Matchups I tend to bring in Dismember against
Eldrazi
Midrange Rock (GRB, GRW)
RUG Delver (blows up Goyf)
Death's Shadow
Goblins
Elves
Death and Taxes
BUG Delver or midrange
Blood Moon chalice
Grixis control if on Gurmags w/ Baleful Strix (many builds have since cut Gurmags)
(Alot of the time some of these MUs it's okay to shave in just 2 Dismembers if you are on the play. But on the draw I like having all the extra removal)
ok, yea that makes sense. And have you tried Magmatic Sinkhole in that spot (or a split w/ Dismembers)? Kills PWs and easier on the life but might not be on right away. My other very modest suggestion for your list would be going with a mix of off-color fetches?
Blue fetches don’t matter in my list you can go 2/2/2/1 if you wanted. I dont run basic mountain. I’ve been wanting to test Sinkhole but i dont like the fact you cant clear a T1 threat with it off a turn 2 Standstill. Also being able to fetch basic island and not be vulnerable to wasteland is nice.
Having recently found a box with my competitive "1.5" decks from almost a decade ago, my curiosity got the better of me and I came back to checking out the Source and MTGS. While I'm bummed that major development in Salvation seems to have stalled, it's awesome to see players like Fox and Rood carrying the torch here on the Source, particularly in Landstill which was my poison of choice.
Looking at prices these days...I'll just say I'm glad I acquired my manabase 10 years ago, along with my set of judge Noughts
Bringing the post to being on topic; If I go Dreadstill instead of Landstill next month at Knight-Ware, it'll probably be something close to this, unless my look at the meta at the LGS favors R > W:
Lands - 20
4x Flooded Strand
4x Prismatic Vista
3x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
1x Tundra
4x Island
1x Plains
Creatures - 10
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
2x Snapcaster Mage
Instants - 22
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
3x Spell Snare
4x Brainstorm
4x Stifle
3x Vision Charm
Other - 7
4x Standstill
3x Scroll of Fate
1x [open slot]?
Couple questions/observations:
- Seems that 20 lands seems to be the optimized number for Dreadstill. I've taken a cue from Fox in the LS thread and went for a manabase that I hope will be resilient against non-basic hate.
- Scroll of Fate is essentially the fixed/new Aether Vial, right? What I like is that Scroll can turn "dead" cards into a Bear at least, so I guess drawing them late isn't as bad as drawing the old Vial. It reminds me of Top and Vial in that I want Scroll every game, but I don't want them clogging up my hand, so I'm thinking 3. Could easily be 4 though....
- which brings me to the singleton question. Is the 4th Vision Charm a better card than some one-off finisher, bomb, or utility (ala Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Academy Ruins, E-Tutor, or even Karn, the Great Creator with Crucible + other artifacts in the SB)? I'm sure this will be meta dependent, but I've always favored a toolboxy approach to things.
- SB TBD
EDIT:
- forgot to add: I felt safe with the cutting back of the 4th Vision Charm and the 4th Scroll, due to addition of SCM in their place.
Last edited by crispymelee; 09-26-2019 at 08:55 PM. Reason: fixing tags
I would def run Gargoyle in that Vision Charm shell. Gargoyle and Vision charm are made for one another because of the mil effect. Id strait cut Snaps for him
@crispymelee
I've seen no positive correlation between UW winning and picking up lands with Daze in legacy in any archetype. For the time being, let's just say these are StP. I feel like your list is supposed to have white cards in it, but I don't see any??
Assuming you're trying to make a white list, the main thing you're gaining access to with white is not actually having to try and proactively win the game. It's pretty easy to sit behind Plow and spam Verdicts, and likely to be a more winning approach than playing Delver with only 22 cards to flip it. White cards are pretty linear and unimaginative, and why that matters is that they are rather antagonistic to pressuring a life total [ex. StP], so Delver is not really at home here. As a side note, SCM should never be in a list with Delver (especially if trying to Wasteland and Daze aggressively).
Gargoyle is fine, but as with Delver you're kinda saying you want to beat down in a color that doesn't like this plan (there is also a non-harmonious sideboard RiP issue with Gargoyle). Maybe some other color combo wants to use him, but I get the sneaking suspicion this guy is Pterimander 2.0. The idea of discarding a Vision Charm to ramp a Snapcaster opponent 4 cards towards a removal spell seems like a poor play pattern, as does growing a Goyf you're trying to race. Vision Charm is probably my favourite card in the game (not that one can separate it from Nought), but I've never been able to justify it in UW; for me this is a UB card. To play Charm you are assuming an offensive role; so again, the color mismatch with white comes back to the forefront. I think the 2x of a value dude is fine [order of increasing risk: SCM~JVP, Fathom Seer, Dancer, Hannah~Emry]. Regardless of build choice would cut 1x Vista for a Karakas.
Whether or not you're going to try and force tempo out of UW is a pretty big choice, but I think that ship sailed when they printed Teferi. This card is just too stupid with manlands to not play like ~3x in UW builds. The importance of totally free attacks for murdering PWs like Narset really can't be understated. Note the significant issues with trying to cast Teferi and picking up lands - even if the Teferi can be resolved in this situation, you'll want to have Verdict over Daze in your list. The upside of staying on the tempo side of things is that you're playing in one month, and a tempo build does not really require non-stop role evaluation; there will be fewer ways to make mistakes at the cost of really unlocking white's potential. If you have the cards, I think UR is still the most-winning tempo shell for Delver/Dreadnought - and this color is about to get a non-Duress'able bounce spell for Lage: Brazen Borrower (apparently creature in all zones except on stack as instant).
---
Concerning your question about R vs W vs B splash:
-Red has Bolt which is part of a count to 20 unifying strategy; the backup plan is removal. Red blasts in the board, option of maindeck Lavamancer (another card that counts to 20 and doubles as removal).
-White has Plow, Karakas, and Teferi so optimally you're sitting back and playing a control deck that can make 12/12s, but doesn't really have to (most similar to original Dreadstill playstyles, whereas current UR is counter-burn abbreviated by Standstills)
-Black is the most skill intensive competitive color combo (UG is higher skill, but lacks tools to compete at this time), but is also the most glass-cannon'y.
Whoops. I slapped that list together while at work. Your recommendation is exactly what was on my brain, but just didn't make it onto the post ("free" slow being 4th StP. I knew something looked "off".
+4 StP
-2 Vision Charms
-1 Spell Snare
I'd love to fit either Teferi or even JtMS in, but Rood's right, slots DO seem pretty tight for Dreadstill lists.
Makes sense. If I actually was running that many VC, it'd totally make sense to run what I assume to be Vantress Gargoyle. As it is, that was definitely a typo. :P
First off, thank you for the thoughtful response; this goes for Rood and Tobi as well. You've given me a lot to think about. Regarding the "Don't pair Delver and SCM" statement, I came up with this: SCM likes to have mana around to fully take advantage of Flashback. Tempo decks (esp those with Delver) tend to have very limited access to mana between Daze costs, Wasteland, etc. In short, the archetypes Delver and SCM support individually, tend to not play nicely together. Am I on the right track here?
Some more silly questions while I'm getting back up to speed
- I've seen "RiP" get mentioned several times, in this thread and elsewhere. What is this?
For a summarized version if anyone happens to be following, this is what I've gleaned:
- Vision Charm is versatile; if you run more than 2, it plays nicely with Vantress Gargoyle. Downside is that you could play into gy.dek/Goyf/SCM for "just" a 5/4.
- UR, UW, UB are certainly all viable
- UR is the most "straightforward" version of the deck. Bolts for some extra reach, removal of a critical target, etc.
- UW lends itself to a more "read and react" version; definitely more similar to Landstill. UW should be seen as a control that happens to be able to drop a 12/12 beater, as opposed to a tempo-deck with control elements.
- UB; not gonna consider at the moment, since I don't have the relevant cards to support it anyways haha.
I cannot imagine that playing fewer than a full playset Scoll of Fate is correct while this card is legal. It just fixes to many problems, and even enables a grindy backup-plan to win on the back of an endless stream of 2/2s. The only game that I lost decisively so far was when my opponent Pithing Needled my Scroll and I had no means of dealing with that (and no alternative win condition came up in time).
Actually had some extra time so I got to play legacy, 10 people showed up so 4 rounds! Ended up 3-1 today. Decks in the room were:
-UW-OmniTell
-Jessica Mentor
-Hootie and the ProFish
-UR value-ish Delver/Arcanist (had Stifle, which kind of turns it directly into worse than UR Dreadstill - never play Arcanist with Stifle)
-Wrenn and Strix (4c Snow Jammy Jams)
-Elves!
-Maverick w/ Depths/Mox (kinda like AggroLoam except no Loam or Chalice)
-Moon Stompy (may not have had any Goblin token makers)
-B/R Reanimator
-and myself on Manifest Destiny
R1 vs UW-OmniTell (0-2). This is a pretty good matchup, just didn't have land drops, followed by Standstills whiffing on lands and permission. Of note, they don't lose quite as hard to Humility with Teferi.
R2 vs Moon Stompy (2-0). They lose both games to Karn lockout (Chrome Moxen dead, no lands in play) and 2/2 beats from Factory and Scroll.
R3 vs Maverick w/ Depths (2-1). They win game one after a pretty clutch Azcanta ramp into Verdict, responding with Crop Rot for the 20/20; no Plow so I couldn't take any different lines. Game 2 they die to fast Nought, all their resources [hand] went into 2x Needles which did nothing. Game 3 is another 2 Needle game, but 2x uncracked Vista on board vindicated Needle #1; I played other lands and opponent eventually died to Teferi into Teeg dies into Karn tutors Powder Keg. They also Path'd me into blue mana while dropping Needle #2 onto Scroll of Fate (this is what really unlocked the losing to Teferi spiral -> Karn wishes back Path'd Nought, etc...). Teferi really butchers their deck's power sources [Crop Rot and Veil of Summer], adding on Scroll and all their removal dies too.
To illustrate how this one went with life totals: they lost maybe 1-2 life on Fetches in game 3, then a hit for 3 from an animated Scroll, and on their last turn they played KotR and EoT I dump Dreadnought into play face-down (Needle had died the turn before) -> untap, Teferi bounce KotR and it's a swing for 17 (Dread + Scroll as 3/3 + Factory), and they can't cast any spells.
R4 vs B/R Reanimator (2-0). Game 1 they're on a mull to 5 and run into a Noxious Revival; this is a long game where I can't get any mana; they will eventually get a Grisel and draw 14, lose Grisel to Plow then lose Tidespout to Plow as well, then Grisel #2 loses the race to Factory + 12/12 b/c I have 15 life. Game 2 I mull to 6 vs an opener of on-the-play discard to handsize plan from oppo; they run into Crypt and Noxious and timely Dreadnought x2 duress both Decays from their hand so they can never get rid of the yard hate which has become Ashiok. Time is bought for Karn to come out and wish up Nought #3 [from the board] and they concede. Of note here, I have zero dudes they can steal - this is critically relevant in this matchup.
@colo sort of on the Scroll, for UW the optimal is closer to 1x main, 1x SB. The best way to maximize the Scroll is to be doing something else with your deck which takes pressure off Scroll (and Dreadnought) to perform. That's the issue with mono-U (I assume you're on), it's kind of impossible to move towards winning without directly answering cards that antagonize Scroll, and while phasing out Needle for a turn (or bouncing once Borrower is legal) does something, it's pretty all-in as you probably needed 2 connections.
@Fox: I don't feel that mono U is as reliant on Scroll as you seem to paint the picture here - my list still has 7 pieces to enable "hardcast" Phyrexian Dreadnought, and with enough counter(balance) backup, that often seems to be enough. I would appreciate another avenue towards winning (apart from beating down with Stratus Dancer ;)), but I feel like the deck has the necessary tools to make one of the existing and included strategies work well enough in most cases. Maybe Brazen Borrower can fill that role, albeit probably not as decisively as I'd want to.
I haven't seen much success from hardcast Dreadnought since DTT was legal. You can have all the cantrips you want, but when you keep using them to find a self 2-for-1 (which mono-U is really reliant on) you do run out of cards, ending up with a hand without a plan. You definitely have to keep in cards Dancer in mono-U to try and virtually increase the size of your hand.
I assume your list has Vision Charm so Needle should be the least of your worries. I'd be much more concerned about too many cantrips + too much reliance on Scroll vs C. Priest, Narset, and non-artifact Null Rod effects. There's a lot you need to be able to answer which was traded for Stratus Dancer doing things like countering K-Grips for days.
just dropping my quick take on what an updated Mono-U list might look like from ELD forward (piggybacking on @Rood's remark on the new threat suite from a few days ago).
12 Dreadnought | Gargoyle | Scroll
2 Dancer
1 Borrower
24 BS | Ponder | Force | Daze | Stifle | V Charm
1 Misdirection
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Wasteland
7 Fetches
7 Islands
I'll be holding on to UB with discard & JVPs for the time being, but the pure fire power here looks pretty scary.
EDIT: I also very much like the Counterbalance version, which gets a huge upgrade in Mystic Sanctuary (so strong with Daze!), although I'd probably splash red (2 Volcs, no mountain) for Bolts over Vision Charms there.
I’ve been tooling around with the mono U list, and I just have to say that Fathom Seer is insane. Still trying to figure out the Delver MU though, I tried red splash for magmatic sinkhole and Abrade and it was ok, but still a lot to manage in that matchup
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This may just be the threat of the future for this deck. Delver might just be worse then Gargoyle in the Vision charm builds. I wanna test him for sure. Blinking him in off Scroll seems totally busted as well
@Brazen Borrower: This card is bananas but I strictly like it in the Standstill builds and for the ponder builds in the board. I think it just plays so well blink into Standstill
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)