Grixstill - Landstill UBR

[btm10]

Any reason for Smash over Smash to Smithereens?

[sawatarix]

Any reason for Smash over Smash to Smithereens?

Drawing a card matters - 3 damage does not.

[theBloody]

How good Sudden Shock has been in this deck !

I joined a legacy tournament yesterday at our store and finished 41 while beating maverick, death n taxes, elves, Omnitell and a draw versus miracle control.
I don't want to overhype Sudden Shock but i would have lost games against death n taxes and elves if they were lightning bolts.

Here is my current list for reference: http://decks.deckedbuilder.com/d/50011


Greetings, Kai

I like your decklist so much, especially because of low Standstill count and 3 Digs. Why did you decided for such configuration?

[klaus]

Also Standstill is a beating against combo in and of itself. Really, those are the matchups where I just windmill slam it as soon as I draw it and that approach seems to work quite well. Klobster's list is way more aggressive than mine and is probably capable of offering enough resistance game 1 to win with beats fairly often.

I used to be a die-hard LS player (having played UWx LS as my go-to deck for years) and I can assure nothing has changed about the fact that Standstill sucks against Storm Combo - if piloted by a skilled player that is.
Why? Because you give them all the time in the world to ramp up to 6+ lands and sculpt the perfect hand, then break your SS eot, having you discard back to 7 and just smash face. Most of the time this approach will pan out for them.

[btm10]

Drawing a card matters - 3 damage does not.

I disagree with you on that, but that might be because I burn people out a lot. Also, Snapping Smash back costs 5 without a resistor in play, and I'm not down with that. I've even considered Smelt in the slot, but I have found the damage to be pretty good.

On another stylistic note, I just noticed that you're packing zero Wastelands. I can't imagine that being right.

I like your decklist so much, especially because of low Standstill count and 3 Digs. Why did you decided for such configuration?

I can't speak for sawatrix, and haven't tested the 3 Dig/2 Standstill split (I'm still running 3 Standstill/2 Dig) , but I think the general logic behind running Dig and cutting back on Standstill is two-fold. First, Standstill isn't great against Miracles if they have an active Top, and having an extra Snap-able source of CA is important. The second factor is the more important one and that is that you really need some degree of card selection and Top doesn't play well with manlands. I've had too many cracked Standstills draw three lands when I needed business to go without Digs.

[sawatarix]

@3dig and 2 standstills: When i play the deck, i dont want to slamm standstill on turn 2 or 3 most of time. I would rather trade resources with my opponent and then cast either dig or standstill on the empty board while both players have 4-5 lands in play with either manlands or snapcaster mages in play.
This is like the best spot you can possibly be with landstill in general.
Drawing to many standstills is always not what you really want to do so i cut the third one in order to make room for additional countermagic/dig.

@wasteland: i tried to fit wastelands in this deck but with 4 colourless lands (factories) and many spells which require blue mana (counterspell for example) i dont think we wanna put more nonblue lands in there.
The only land i want to destroy is grove of the burnwillows but if i get paired against punishing jund i would rather board in slaughter games to get rid of punishing fire.

@ burn instead of draw: we are not a burn deck :D

[btm10]

I used to be a die-hard LS player (having played UWx LS as my go-to deck for years) and I can assure nothing has changed about the fact that Standstill sucks against Storm Combo - if piloted by a skilled player that is.
Why? Because you give them all the time in the world to ramp up to 6+ lands and sculpt the perfect hand, then break your SS eot, having you discard back to 7 and just smash face. Most of the time this approach will pan out for them.

This is true if you are all-in on the counter plan, but windmill slamming Standstill as a follow up to Thoughtseize/Therapy or EOT Clique is fantastic against combo in general. Jamming blind Standstill against Show and Tell decks is a relatively strong line game 1 becausr they have such narrow combo pieces, though I agree that it's suboptimal against Storm.

@3dig and 2 standstills: When i play the deck, i dont want to slamm standstill on turn 2 or 3 most of time. I would rather trade resources with my opponent and then cast either dig or standstill on the empty board while both players have 4-5 lands in play with either manlands or snapcaster mages in play.
This is like the best spot you can possibly be with landstill in general.
Drawing to many standstills is always not what you really want to do so i cut the third one in order to make room for additional countermagic/dig.

I agree with this assessment. That being said, I haven't felt flooded on Standstills to the point where I want to cut one.

@wasteland: i tried to fit wastelands in this deck but with 4 colourless lands (factories) and many spells which require blue mana (counterspell for example) i dont think we wanna put more nonblue lands in there.
The only land i want to destroy is grove of the burnwillows but if i get paired against punishing jund i would rather board in slaughter games to get rid of punishing fire.

I find Wasteland invaluabe against combo, Infect, MUD, 12Post, Death and Taxes, Lands, and Delver decks. It's also huge against opposing manlands.

@ burn instead of draw: we are not a burn deck :D

Put the damage aside. It's a real upside and I've used the damage from Smash to Smithereens to win more than one game and kill more than one planeswalker, but I'll go so far as to say I'd run Shatter over Smash. That's how much the third mana matters. A huge number of artifacts that you want to answer show up in situations where your mana is taxed, and the ability to Snap back the spell for 4 instead of 5 mana is very important. The only reason the slot isn't taken by Smelt or Shattering Spree is that I want my artifact removal to answer Chalice on 1 and be an instant.

[lambert101]

What about something like the following?


4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Lighting Bolt
3 Standstill
2 Counterspell
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Batterskull
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
2 Dig Through Time
3 Toxic Deluge

4 Wasteland
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Academy Ruins
3 Island
4 Mishara's Factory


Side Board:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Slaughter Games
3 Pyroblast
2 Graffdigger's Cage
4 Thoughtseize
2 Smash to Smithereens

[Razor]

Rolling Earthquake and/or Volcanic Fallout may be useful as sweepers, especially with Bloodghasts who want opponents under 11 life.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...?product=16229

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...?product=55241

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=166337

They serve similar roles as Terminus, Toxic Deluge and Supreme Verdict. If green is being splashed the following cards ought to be considered: Ancient Grudge, Abrupt Decay, Pernicious Deed and Raging Ravine.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=514991

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=413587

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...p?product=4692

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=171798

I do like the Academy Ruins' synergy with Engineered Explosives. They probably warrant maindeck slots.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...?product=42292

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...?product=27412

Crucible of Worlds and Batterskull are strong considerations.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...?product=27388

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=267669

I've seen Intuition do some cool things by getting cards like: Crucible, Academy Ruins and Life From the Loam.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...?product=32153

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...?product=39164

Cards like Extirpate and Slaughter Games seem very strong; however, Surgical Extraction may be preferrable in conjunction with Snapcaster Mage.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...?product=44258

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=413796

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=267808

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=287644

Celestial Colonnade may be worth considering in the Jeskai builds.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardd...product=171783

[theBloody]

Reading players ideas are always good, but please use tags if you want to link card images. It is much easier to read.
Usage:

[cards]Surgical Extraction[/cards]

Result: Surgical Extraction.

[B88]

What about something like the following?


4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Lighting Bolt
3 Standstill
2 Counterspell
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Batterskull
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
2 Dig Through Time
3 Toxic Deluge

4 Wasteland
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Academy Ruins
3 Island
4 Mishara's Factory


Side Board:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Slaughter Games
3 Pyroblast
2 Graffdigger's Cage
4 Thoughtseize
2 Smash to Smithereens

1) 3 toxic are too much i think....you cant lose too many life, you could replace one of them with one pyroclasm

2) And run under 3 snare would be a mistake because you need a counter for goyf and is the best counter when you run standstill

3) 4wasteland are also too many with crucible, 2or3 would be better

That are my advices

[FoolofaTook]

What about something like the following?


4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Lighting Bolt
3 Standstill
2 Counterspell
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Batterskull
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
2 Dig Through Time
3 Toxic Deluge

4 Wasteland
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Academy Ruins
3 Island
4 Mishara's Factory


Side Board:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Slaughter Games
3 Pyroblast
2 Graffdigger's Cage
4 Thoughtseize
2 Smash to Smithereens

The problem with lists like this is that they're slow with no big bang at the end of the day. They don't have a fast payoff for the tempo plan when that's what presents itself and they don't have enough counters to say no to everything that will kill them if it resolves.

The successful Landstill lists recently have avoided Ponder to thicken up the counters, threats and removal and to create a wider range of threats and answers in the process.

The Academy Ruins is also problematic because it's another non-blue source in the lists. 4 Mishra's, 4 Wastelands and an Academy Ruins leaves you with just 15 blue lands and staring at a 43% chance of having 1 blue land or less in your opening hand. Ponder and Brainstorm help out a true tempo list that can run off of 1 blue land forever but they don't help a Control list to get to solid ground often enough and so the 1 blue landers become really problematic. They force you to fetch for an Island against many opponents and that creates the potential for your creature removal to go missing until the game is decided. When you do fetch a Volcanic because you have to answer an early play and they waste your only blue source things get grim.

12-14 counters with at least 10 hard counters in the mix is the right number with the number and type of threats you are playing. 4 Force of Will, 3 Counterspell, 3 Spell Snare is a good place to start with additional Spell Pierces.

I went into detail only because I've played this archetype, blue-x draw-go for more than 20 years now and I've seen the pitfalls of trying to play a reactive list in metas in which the power level is very high and people will beat you on any opening that you present them. If you're going to play draw-go-no you must have the no or it's all going to fall apart too often.

[B88]

The problem with lists like this is that they're slow with no big bang at the end of the day. They don't have a fast payoff for the tempo plan when that's what presents itself and they don't have enough counters to say no to everything that will kill them if it resolves.

The successful Landstill lists recently have avoided Ponder to thicken up the counters, threats and removal and to create a wider range of threats and answers in the process.

The Academy Ruins is also problematic because it's another non-blue source in the lists. 4 Mishra's, 4 Wastelands and an Academy Ruins leaves you with just 15 blue lands and staring at a 43% chance of having 1 blue land or less in your opening hand. Ponder and Brainstorm help out a true tempo list that can run off of 1 blue land forever but they don't help a Control list to get to solid ground often enough and so the 1 blue landers become really problematic. They force you to fetch for an Island against many opponents and that creates the potential for your creature removal to go missing until the game is decided. When you do fetch a Volcanic because you have to answer an early play and they waste your only blue source things get grim.

12-14 counters with at least 10 hard counters in the mix is the right number with the number and type of threats you are playing. 4 Force of Will, 3 Counterspell, 3 Spell Snare is a good place to start with additional Spell Pierces.

I went into detail only because I've played this archetype, blue-x draw-go for more than 20 years now and I've seen the pitfalls of trying to play a reactive list in metas in which the power level is very high and people will beat you on any opening that you present them. If you're going to play draw-go-no you must have the no or it's all going to fall apart too often.

the problem for the deck are the 7cards that open in hand. i mean: open with 3remuvals and you are against combo and you have only bs for change something.

your guide lines are perfect, i agree!!! for the same reason i cutted ponders for add Sensei wich is much more better to find lands and is great under standstill, i don't know yet if 3 is the right number, maybe yes
i run 10counters and i'm trying to figure out wich is the right number between spot and sweepers remuval. like miracles that plays 4/5 spots and 4sweepers

some advices?

[theBloody]

If blue count is not a problem and you are playing both Mishra's and Wasteland then Sensei's is way to go. I'm personaly playing bug variant where blue count is a problem so I'm taking Ponder.

[FoolofaTook]

the problem for the deck are the 7cards that open in hand. i mean: open with 3remuvals and you are against combo and you have only bs for change something.

your guide lines are perfect, i agree!!! for the same reason i cutted ponders for add Sensei wich is much more better to find lands and is great under standstill, i don't know yet if 3 is the right number, maybe yes
i run 10counters and i'm trying to figure out wich is the right number between spot and sweepers remuval. like miracles that plays 4/5 spots and 4sweepers

some advices?

Heavy on counters, at least 6 turn 1-2 spot removals and a couple of sweepers. Scoop fast game 1 when you have to go get your sweepers out of the board because unless you're playing Terminus you're not going to beat Elves, D&T or other Control lists trying to put out a TNN often enough to play out game 1 and make game 3 a dim possibility to finish. The third case is especially true for Ur which has no good ways to interact with a resolved TNN game 1. BUG at least has a couple of Innocent Blood in the build to allow them to save game 1 against UWx Blades builds.

[pandaman]

How good Sudden Shock has been in this deck !

I joined a legacy tournament yesterday at our store and finished 41 while beating maverick, death n taxes, elves, Omnitell and a draw versus miracle control.
I don't want to overhype Sudden Shock but i would have lost games against death n taxes and elves if they were lightning bolts.

Here is my current list for reference: http://decks.deckedbuilder.com/d/50011


Greetings, Kai

Popping in to check on you, Kai, and how you did at GP Kyoto. Did you end up playing GrixStill? Or are you actually the Kai who made Top 8 with Storm? If you played GrixStill, would love to hear about your experience.

[sawatarix]

Yeah it's me: Kai Sawatari, who Top 4ed GP Kyoto.

Casting cheap spells is exactly what I want to do in Legacy so my Decks are Storm, Grixstill and Delver decks :)
The last 2 decks are more or less fun decks to be honest.

[pandaman]

Well, congratulations on your finish. Although I confess I'm a tad disappointed you didn't make it there with GrixStill, I understand that Storm is, in all likelihood, the strongest combo deck in the format. Enjoy your Pro Tour experience!

[Pilhas]

Been trying this version instead of BUGstill for quite some time, and I really prefer it.
My current list is
Land (23)

1x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Island
2x Mishra's Factory
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
3x Volcanic Island
4x Wasteland

Instant (24)

4x Brainstorm
3x Counterspell
3x Dig Through Time
4x Force of Will
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Spell Snare
2x Thought Scour

Planeswalker (3)
[CARDS]
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Liliana of the Veil
Creature (3)

2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang

Sorcery (2)

2x Innocent Blood

Enchantment (3)

3x Standstill

Artifact (2)

2x Sensei's Divining Top



The thought scours are in testing and I still can't figure out if they are worth it or even needed.
I want to include a Crucible of Worlds and at least one Vendillion Clique somewhere so maybe I'll replace the thoughtscour with them.

I run the Toxic deluge in the sideboard and want to test a Kolaghan's Command. I also would love to include a Keranos somewhere, but I think is more cute than anything.
Any feedback is appreciated

[B88]

hi everyone!
here a little report of Ovinosping tournament here in Italy with Grixstill!

T1- Miracle (2-1)
T2- Miracle (2-0)
T3- UWR stonebalde (2-0)
T4- Miracle (1-1)
T5- Most (2-0)
T6- Miracle (1-1)
T7- Miracle (Johannes Gutbrod) (1-1) but i conceded because he probably could win that game.
T8- Uwr stoneblade (1-2)

that is the list:
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Underground Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Dig Through Time
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Standstill
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Counterspell
3 Wasteland
1 Innocent Blood
1 Terminate
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Swamp
1 Damnation
2 Pyroblast
1 Toxic Deluge

SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Rakdos Charm
SB: 2 Slaughter Games
SB: 2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
SB: 3 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Dread of Night
SB: 2 Thoughtseize

i need to find a good finisher or to be more aggressive! after this experience i want run MD Vendilion in 2/3 copies!