FoolofaTook
10-16-2008, 05:11 PM
I've been trying various Ubg Landstill lists recently with mixed success. This is a throwback to a simpler time in the Magic community. It mixes a bunch of counterspells with a bunch of sweepers and relies on a few under-costed threats and a few mid-game bombs to add some inevitability to the overall mix.
BTW, it's called Bugstill for esoteric reasons related to earlier versions of the deck. Renaming it doesn't seem right given that when I pick it up it still looks a lot like Bugstill did.
Creatures (4)
4x Tarmogoyf
Artifacts (9)
3x Darksteel Brute
2x Crucible of Worlds
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Nevinyrral's Disk
Enchantments (7)
4x Standstill
3x Pernicious Deed
Sorceries (2)
2x Haunting Echoes
Instants (14)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Counterspell
1x Spell Snare
Lands (24)
4x Polluted Delta
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Wasteland
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
2x Flooded Strand
2x Island
1x Bayou
1x Academy Ruins
Sideboard
2x Blue Elemental Blast
2x Hydroblast
4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Stifle
3x Pithing Needle
Card choices where not obvious:
Tarmogoyf is in, despite not having many creatures or sorceries in the deck, because the meta is defined by Tarmogoyf and I need to have an answer to the opponent's goyf while I setup a sweeper early on. Goyf also wins games accidentally so what's not to like?
Darksteel Brute is in because it lives through all the sweepers. The fact that I can safely put it in play early and then just leave it lurking until things are under control is also nice. It's not a particularly powerful card on it's own, because it's too mana intensive, but it fills the need here for a permanent source of damage that is easy to deploy and that lives through the mayhem the rest of the deck tends to create. I had two in when I put this together and I added a third when I realized I was never unhappy with it in the opening hand and I liked to have it come out almost every game. Being recurrable with Academy Ruins is kind of nice also. In the original build the brutes were Gigapedes, which I couldn't stand having in the opening hand.
Crucible of Worlds was not in the original build either. I had two Life from the Loam there in it's place because I was worried about sweeping my own recursion mechanism away with deed and EE which were the sweepers in the first build. I gradually realized that both deed and EE tend to go off at 2, not 3 and that Crucible was just a better card in the mix given that reality. Adding Nevy's Disk didn't change that equation enough to take the Crucibles out.
Nevinyrral's Disk had to be added as a mid-game catch-all sweeper. Particular problem cards that I couldn't manage well against in it's absence were Blood Moon effects, Gathan Raider, Tombstalker and the Planeswalkers that have become so prevalent in the meta. The disk + darksteel brute mechanism is slow as hell but it works. The disk also gets around Counterbalance fairly well if I have counter support in hand.
Haunting Echoes is a mid-game bomb for a deck that counters a lot of spells and sweeps a lot of permanents. The opponent's graveyard usually has ten cards in it by the time this gets cast and then another dozen or so cards are removed from his potential gameplan. This is not a tempo bomb so much as an inevitability bomb. The fact that Haunting Echoes doesn't effect the opponent's hand or the board makes it very hard to play in most themes, despite the fact that it is a crippler in a control context. This list seems to be able to exploit it because it has so much board control built-in. This is the card most likely to change at this point however it's causing a lot more trouble for the opponent than me to date so I'm keeping it for now.
Cards that were in at one point but have been removed:
Dark Ritual was in when three of the threats the deck played could take advantage of it. When I pulled the Hypnotic Specters from the mix it just went well below the point of viability in the overall theme. It was always iffy and then it became just plain bad.
Gigapede gave the deck it's name, along with the much heavier black presence that used to be there. I still like it in this type of theme, however it was another card I hated to see in the opening hand. The deck has a fairly high casting curve and too many uncastables were piling up in the opening hand. The Darksteel Brutes at least cast on turn two with very few issues, and if they're countered they can come back later with Academy Ruins.
Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach were replaced by a much heavier blue presence and lots of counterspells. Discard is just not worth a major effort at this point. Too many themes want to put cards in the graveyard and even against people who don't these are often lousy topdecks in the midgame, like 90% of the time.
Cards I'd love to get in there but have no room for:
Ponder is a card I really want in the deck. It just doesn't fit. I'd have to pull the Haunting Echoes, which might be a good idea, and a couple of counterspells or sweepers, which would not. I could also pull the Standstills, but that's fairly certain to be a loser of a move given the lack of card advantage elsewhere in the deck.
Harmonize is a card I looked at really hard and if the Haunting Echoes go they'll probably go for Harmonize.
The deck plays like a control deck, trying to survive the first few turns with counterplay in order to setup a strong mid-game and inevitability late. It has trouble with storm combo and can get over-run by early creature-based aggro. It does fairly well against other control themes and if it survives the first few turns it does well against most of the field.
BTW, it's called Bugstill for esoteric reasons related to earlier versions of the deck. Renaming it doesn't seem right given that when I pick it up it still looks a lot like Bugstill did.
Creatures (4)
4x Tarmogoyf
Artifacts (9)
3x Darksteel Brute
2x Crucible of Worlds
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Nevinyrral's Disk
Enchantments (7)
4x Standstill
3x Pernicious Deed
Sorceries (2)
2x Haunting Echoes
Instants (14)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Counterspell
1x Spell Snare
Lands (24)
4x Polluted Delta
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Wasteland
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
2x Flooded Strand
2x Island
1x Bayou
1x Academy Ruins
Sideboard
2x Blue Elemental Blast
2x Hydroblast
4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Stifle
3x Pithing Needle
Card choices where not obvious:
Tarmogoyf is in, despite not having many creatures or sorceries in the deck, because the meta is defined by Tarmogoyf and I need to have an answer to the opponent's goyf while I setup a sweeper early on. Goyf also wins games accidentally so what's not to like?
Darksteel Brute is in because it lives through all the sweepers. The fact that I can safely put it in play early and then just leave it lurking until things are under control is also nice. It's not a particularly powerful card on it's own, because it's too mana intensive, but it fills the need here for a permanent source of damage that is easy to deploy and that lives through the mayhem the rest of the deck tends to create. I had two in when I put this together and I added a third when I realized I was never unhappy with it in the opening hand and I liked to have it come out almost every game. Being recurrable with Academy Ruins is kind of nice also. In the original build the brutes were Gigapedes, which I couldn't stand having in the opening hand.
Crucible of Worlds was not in the original build either. I had two Life from the Loam there in it's place because I was worried about sweeping my own recursion mechanism away with deed and EE which were the sweepers in the first build. I gradually realized that both deed and EE tend to go off at 2, not 3 and that Crucible was just a better card in the mix given that reality. Adding Nevy's Disk didn't change that equation enough to take the Crucibles out.
Nevinyrral's Disk had to be added as a mid-game catch-all sweeper. Particular problem cards that I couldn't manage well against in it's absence were Blood Moon effects, Gathan Raider, Tombstalker and the Planeswalkers that have become so prevalent in the meta. The disk + darksteel brute mechanism is slow as hell but it works. The disk also gets around Counterbalance fairly well if I have counter support in hand.
Haunting Echoes is a mid-game bomb for a deck that counters a lot of spells and sweeps a lot of permanents. The opponent's graveyard usually has ten cards in it by the time this gets cast and then another dozen or so cards are removed from his potential gameplan. This is not a tempo bomb so much as an inevitability bomb. The fact that Haunting Echoes doesn't effect the opponent's hand or the board makes it very hard to play in most themes, despite the fact that it is a crippler in a control context. This list seems to be able to exploit it because it has so much board control built-in. This is the card most likely to change at this point however it's causing a lot more trouble for the opponent than me to date so I'm keeping it for now.
Cards that were in at one point but have been removed:
Dark Ritual was in when three of the threats the deck played could take advantage of it. When I pulled the Hypnotic Specters from the mix it just went well below the point of viability in the overall theme. It was always iffy and then it became just plain bad.
Gigapede gave the deck it's name, along with the much heavier black presence that used to be there. I still like it in this type of theme, however it was another card I hated to see in the opening hand. The deck has a fairly high casting curve and too many uncastables were piling up in the opening hand. The Darksteel Brutes at least cast on turn two with very few issues, and if they're countered they can come back later with Academy Ruins.
Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach were replaced by a much heavier blue presence and lots of counterspells. Discard is just not worth a major effort at this point. Too many themes want to put cards in the graveyard and even against people who don't these are often lousy topdecks in the midgame, like 90% of the time.
Cards I'd love to get in there but have no room for:
Ponder is a card I really want in the deck. It just doesn't fit. I'd have to pull the Haunting Echoes, which might be a good idea, and a couple of counterspells or sweepers, which would not. I could also pull the Standstills, but that's fairly certain to be a loser of a move given the lack of card advantage elsewhere in the deck.
Harmonize is a card I looked at really hard and if the Haunting Echoes go they'll probably go for Harmonize.
The deck plays like a control deck, trying to survive the first few turns with counterplay in order to setup a strong mid-game and inevitability late. It has trouble with storm combo and can get over-run by early creature-based aggro. It does fairly well against other control themes and if it survives the first few turns it does well against most of the field.