[Deck] U/W/g Kaezur Landstill

[Hanni]

As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of Intuition/Loam engines. Recently, I've been toying around with ideas of combining both Intuition/Loam and Standstill into the same deck. I posted a list in the Togless thread that included a very rough untested list attempting to do this, but ultimately, I felt that it did not have all the elements that I wanted.

This deck/thread is an attempt to create a blue-based control deck with both Intuition/Loam and Standstill. Both engines are incredibly powerful and I think it is very possible to combine the two without diluting the deck.

I knew that I wanted Swords to Plowshares, but was unsure if I should bastardize the manabase by going 4c. I thought about what valuable cards black offered me, and what replacements there were in other colors for those valuable cards. I came to the conclusion that black, while extremely valuable, was an unecessary color splash, so I ended up with the U/W/g color combination.

Pernicious Deed is a very powerful card, but the disadvantages ruled it out for me. Not only would it force me into 4c, it also has bad disynergy with Counterbalance. I felt that it was necessary to include Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top, since that combination is such a powerhouse in a deck that wants to control the gamestate. Wrath of God and Engineered Explosives make a fine replacement for Pernicious Deed, IMO, and have more synergy overall with the deck and its gameplan.

I wanted to keep the Intuition/Loam engine very simple. By simple, I mean less Intuition targets, and more specifically, less singletons. This not only allows me to run only 3 Intuitions instead of 4, it gives me more space for consistency with my other business spells.

Most importantly, Intuition/Loam sets up consistent land drops. It easily replaces Crucible of Worlds for all intents an purposes, while being far more versatile and customizable. It also enables recurable win conditions without the use of Volrath's Stronghold (Gigapede aside), and Intuition can tutor for said win conditions (Factory/Monastery/Gigapede), as well as removal (Ruins/EE).

Anyway, here's the decklist I ended up with for the meantime:

U/W/g Kaezurstill

Lands (24)
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Windswept Heath
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Academy Ruins
1 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory

Creatures (1)
1 Gigapede

Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Standstill
3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
3 Counterspell
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
1 Dust Bowl
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Meddling Mage
3 Krosan Grip
4 Tormod's Crypt

Gigapede is by far the allstar of the deck, making Intuition -> Gigapede a powerful win condition. Gigapede is almost impossible to answer without graveyard hate, since he's out of normal Counterbalance range, out of EE range, untargetable, higher up for Deed range, huge at 6/1 (trading with almost everything), and just relentless at coming back for more.

Nantuko Monastery was my preferred third win condition, beating out Vedalken Shackles for several reasons. First of all, it taps for mana, giving it alternate purposes. It's still anti aggro (albeit less potent), and is still a useful win condition against decks without aggro. It's easier to recur than Shackles, my deck doesn't have as many blue mana sources to support Shackles as it should, and the 5th manland makes Standstill stronger. Overall, I'm just happier with Monastery.

As far as the curve goes, I'm hoping that 11 1cc spells and 12 2cc spells is sufficient for Counterbalance. I've only had limited testing so far, but it has seemed to work well enough for all intents and purposes (I'm not relying solely on the card, since I have other cards like Standstill to keep me going).

I don't think anything else in my list should really stand out, but if it does, feel free to ask questions. As it stands right now, I'm simply loving all of the synergistic designs within the deck almost as much as I'm loving Intuition/Loam, Standstill, and CounterTop all in the same deck.

[Wobbles The Goose]

A few comments,

1) No Wasteland or lonely sandbar?

2) Swords seems to be your only real reason to run white. I mean, it's a great card, but black has a ton to offer a loam intuition deck. Raven's crime, dark blast, and dark confidant all come to mind, in addition to deed and stronghold that you mentioned. You wouldn't need to go 4c to run them, just cut the swords.

[Hanni]

A few comments,

1) No Wasteland or lonely sandbar?

2) Swords seems to be your only real reason to run white. I mean, it's a great card, but black has a ton to offer a loam intuition deck. Raven's crime, dark blast, and dark confidant all come to mind, in addition to deed and stronghold that you mentioned. Obviously Swords is great, I'm just wondering if it's worth playing white for.

1) I had originally included 1 Wasteland in the maindeck, but had to cut it to make space for other cards. The problem with Wasteland is that the Wastelock requires me to waste (no pun intended) my land drop for the turn, where I really want to consistently make land drops.

I did, however, put 1 Dust Bowl in the sideboard. I figure Dust Bowl is more efficient for me, as a control deck, since I only need to cast Loam once every couple of turns to maintain a lock rather than every turn (and thusly wasting my drawstep for the turn). The only time I really want a Wastelock (or Dustlock in this case), is against the mirror (2-4c Landstill variants or other 4c control decks). That makes it sideboard material, IMO.

2) Well, not just Swords, although that was the biggest reason. Other reasons include Wrath of God (which could just as easily be Damnation), Meddling Mage (which could be Duress, I suppose), and Nantuko Monastery (which could probably become Mutavault or something).

However, there is simply no replacement in black spot removal that even comes close to StP.

Dark Confidant and Darkblast would never find their way into this deck regardless, and Raven's Crime is really the only card I'd even want black for. Thoughtseize is great, but what would it replace without lowering my blue count too low, or without lowering my 2cc spell count for Counterbalance too low? I can't think of any black sideboard cards I'd want, I've already explained why I don't want Pernicious Deed, and I think StP > black spot removal + 1 Raven's Crime.

Raven's Crime is amazing against opposing control decks, but mostly lackluster against everything else. Since I already run CounterTop for the lock, I think Raven's Crime is not as necessary as it is in UGb Intuition Thresh and the like. I've already got Gigapede, which is a huge trump to opposing control decks, Dust Bowl in the sideboard, and this deck runs several card advantage engines as opposed to just one or two.

[frogboy]

Fifteen blue sources in your Counterbalance deck and twenty-four lands in a deck that is theoretically attacking with Mishra's Factories? Really?

I also feel like you might want some threes.

Your Intuitions don't look broken enough. All you can get is Gigapede and some Loam tricks, plus the other half of your lock.

[kabal]

Why no Eternal Witness?

[Hanni]

Fifteen blue sources in your Counterbalance deck and twenty-four lands in a deck that is theoretically attacking with Mishra's Factories? Really?

What else would you recommend, though? UWg are allied colors, allowing the allied fetchlands to grab basic lands. 3c and basic lands, IMO, is totally worth it. I'm only running 1 Plains and 1 Forest, which doesn't seem out of the question, and I'm running 1 Savannah for the times where I go turn 1 Island and want a green and white source on turn 2.

Other than that, what lands should I drop for more blue sources? I could see Ruins being dropped, since the only thing it's doing is recurring EE maindeck and Crypt sideboard. But the manlands? Those are pretty much mandatory for the gameplan.

I see alot of Landstill lists running 24 lands and 4 Factories, I'm not sure how this is radically different than that? Don't forget that this deck runs Intuition/Loam too, which enables consistent land drops every turn once that engine is online.

ITF's 4c 22 land manabase w/ 2 colorless lands is just as questionable as my 3c 24 land manabase w/ 6 colorless lands, if you ask me.

I can see how 15 blue sources would appear to weaken early Counterspells and Counterbalances, but what would you recommend? So far I've had no problems getting to 2 blue mana sources, which is all the deck really needs to function. Maybe -1 Counterspell, +1 Tropical Island? Maybe -1 Savannah, +1 Tropical Island? I dunno. Suggestions?


I also feel like you might want some threes.

Your Intuitions don't look broken enough. All you can get is Gigapede and some Loam tricks, plus the other half of your lock.

What threes do I need that I don't already have? EE is the only one that stands out, where Loam/Ruins/EE pretty much negates that anyway.

I've already expressed my feelings on the dependance of Intuition and its targets. I'm not trying to use Intuition to go broken, I'm using it to set up a long term card advantage engine with Loam while being far more useful (especially in multiples) than Crucible. Plus, if you ask me, Gigapede does make Intuition pretty damn broken.


Why no Eternal Witness?

He's a solid creature, giving me the ability to replay spells like StP and such, but as a 2/1, he's lackluster as anything else. Without Volrath's Stronghold, there is no way to recur him, so there's really no point to run him, IMO. Even with the recursion of Stronghold, I'd still be inclined to not include him; Volrath/Witness/x recursion is extremely slow.

[frogboy]

ITF's 4c 22 land manabase w/ 2 colorless lands is just as questionable as my 3c 24 land manabase w/ 6 colorless lands, if you ask me.


I see alot of Landstill lists running 24 lands and 4 Factories, I'm not sure how this is radically different than that?

It isn't, but that doesn't mean that their mana is right either. And at least ITF is actually capable of casting Counterbalance on the second turn. I'm pretty sure most hands with multiple nonblue sources are unkeepable.


I'm running 1 Savannah for the times where I go turn 1 Island and want a green and white source on turn 2.

How often do you really want to do this? I can sort of see the basics although I'm pretty sure I'd hate to actually draw them, but I can't think of a hand where I'd need Savannah.

I referenced threes in regards to the Counterbalance lock.

Using Intuition just to hit land drops is pretty underwhelming, and any sort of 'long term gradual card advantage' plan involving Loam should definitely also include Sandbar.

Gigapede is neat but the ability to tutor up your 6/1 recurring Shroud guy is decidedly not broken and could in fact be reasonably called 'fair.'

[Hanni]

It isn't, but that doesn't mean that their mana is right either. And at least ITF is actually capable of casting Counterbalance on the second turn. I'm pretty sure most hands with multiple nonblue sources are unkeepable.


Fair enough.


How often do you really want to do this? I can sort of see the basics although I'm pretty sure I'd hate to actually draw them, but I can't think of a hand where I'd need Savannah.

I'll go ahead and drop a Savannah for a Trop and see how it works out.


I referenced threes in regards to the Counterbalance lock.


Still kinda confused, since I run 3+ of both pieces.


Using Intuition just to hit land drops is pretty underwhelming, and any sort of 'long term gradual card advantage' plan involving Loam should definitely also include Sandbar.


Intuition/Loam is more than just land drops though. Everytime I cast Loam, it's +2 CA. Sure, it's just lands, but lands can be a very good thing. For example, Factory/Monastery are more than just lands. Recurring win conditions is strong, and the ability to Intuition/Loam for 2-3 beaters isn't a bad deal for 3 mana + 2 mana, amirite?

Sandbar is horrible and completely unecessary for turning lands in hand into business spells. The deck doesn't need to Loam every turn. I'm almost inclined to say that Intuition/Loam is as useful or more useful in here because of the manlands than it is in some of the other Intuition/Loam variations roaming around.

Plus, in allude to what you said about Gigapede, those extra lands from Loam can get used on him.


Gigapede is neat but the ability to tutor up your 6/1 recurring Shroud guy is decidedly not broken and could in fact be reasonably called 'fair.'

You can call it fair if you want. Problem is though, that the guy is rediculously difficult to deal with. 5 mana for a 6 power guy is pretty good on its lonesome, and eventually he's going to power his way through. Wrath of God -> Gigapede is the sort of inevitability that few decks can handle. Gigapede is everything I'd want as a finisher in a control deck just shy of his lack of evasion. Since most control decks these days are also running evasionless win conditions (Goyfs, Factories, etc), I don't find the lack of evasion any different than other available options.

[Mordel]

While intuition is nice for attempts at busted stuff, using it as a way to get an engine online consistently seems fine to me. A singleton crucible seems like something that could be useful as a loam back up for the off time when you don't want to be dredging or for if loam gets crypted or some noise like that.

I have no idea what you would remove to make room for one though. The only card that really strikes me as available to be chopped down a bit is wrath and that really depends on what sort of metagame you are aiming at.

Edit: When I initially eyeballed the list, I didn't notice the dustbowl in the sideboard, but are you sure things are too tight for one in the main. It does have nice sort of silver bullet quality to it in the sideboard, but it seems like a card that you will be siding in constantly...at least I would be siding it in a lot, so you might want to get it over with and agonize over what to remove to get it in the main.

[frogboy]

"threes" in the context of Counterbalance refer to "cards that cost three mana and can thus be revealed to Counterbalance to counter other cards that cost three mana."

I'm also not really sure why people don't play four Tops in their Loam decks OR their Counterbalance decks but whatever.


Intuition/Loam for 2-3 beaters isn't a bad deal for 3 mana + 2 mana, amirite?

If you're not actually planning on racing the other guy i.e. go get Demigods, it's actually not a particularly great deal compared to setting up an engine that lets you win all wars of attrition i.e. Eternal Witness or Etched Oracle.

Sandbar lets you use Loam to draw a land and another card every turn, sometimes multiple times a turn. If you actually wanted to just trade lands in for spells, get Oona's Grace in there.


Problem is though, that the guy is rediculously difficult to deal with.

He's only really good against other control decks, and they're all going to have a pretty easy time handling him postboard. He's also contained by the lock with Force of Will.

Also, my five drop should not be trading with their one drop.

[Hanni]

While intuition is nice for attempts at busted stuff, using it as a way to get an engine online consistently seems fine to me.

Agreed. At its worst, it's simply a replacement for Crucible that isn't dead in multiples.


A singleton crucible seems like something that could be useful as a loam back up for the off time when you don't want to be dredging or for if loam gets crypted or some noise like that.

I have no idea what you would remove to make room for one though. The only card that really strikes me as available to be chopped down a bit is wrath and that really depends on what sort of metagame you are aiming at.


I think a singleton Crucible is unecessary. I'd sooner run the 4th Intuition than try to fit in a single Crucible.

I would not recommend cutting WoG down to less than 3 unless you know your metagame is not going to have many aggro and aggro/control decks.


Edit: When I initially eyeballed the list, I didn't notice the dustbowl in the sideboard, but are you sure things are too tight for one in the main. It does have nice sort of silver bullet quality to it in the sideboard, but it seems like a card that you will be siding in constantly...at least I would be siding it in a lot, so you might want to get it over with and agonize over what to remove to get it in the main.

This was my response to that earlier:


1) I had originally included 1 Wasteland in the maindeck, but had to cut it to make space for other cards. The problem with Wasteland is that the Wastelock requires me to waste (no pun intended) my land drop for the turn, where I really want to consistently make land drops.

I did, however, put 1 Dust Bowl in the sideboard. I figure Dust Bowl is more efficient for me, as a control deck, since I only need to cast Loam once every couple of turns to maintain a lock rather than every turn (and thusly wasting my drawstep for the turn). The only time I really want a Wastelock (or Dustlock in this case), is against the mirror (2-4c Landstill variants or other 4c control decks). That makes it sideboard material, IMO.

To elaborate on that more; what would you cut to fit one, and what matchups is it going to be useful in? To me, it would seem that the matchups where I want that effect are going to be limited, and therefore making it a sideboard choice seems more relevant.


"threes" in the context of Counterbalance refer to "cards that cost three mana and can thus be revealed to Counterbalance to counter other cards that cost three mana."

Ohhhhhh okay. I thought you meant tutorable 3-of's. Gotchya. Well, more threes would be relevant against some decks, like ITF, Goblins, and Stompy decks... but for the most part, 1-2 is the normal target range. I do have 6 3cc spells between maindeck and sideboard which should help out against ITF and Dragon Stompy... but against Goblins and Dragon Stompy, I'm boarding out my Counterbalances anyway.


I'm also not really sure why people don't play four Tops in their Loam decks OR their Counterbalance decks but whatever.

Eh, I dunno. I've always done the 3/4 split thingy and it's always worked out fine for me. I'm not going to say a 4/4 split is wrong, but I'm not quite sure that I'd want to drop anything I'm currently running for the 4th Top.


If you're not actually planning on racing the other guy i.e. go get Demigods, it's actually not a particularly great deal compared to setting up an engine that lets you win all wars of attrition i.e. Eternal Witness or Etched Oracle.

I don't see why racing would be necessary. Regardless, let me explain it differently. I want to consistently hit land drops, and both Crucible and Loam do that for me. I want recurable creatures, and both Crucible and Loam do that for me (with manlands). However, Crucible is pretty bad in multiples (if it isn't destroyed), and only fulfills one function. Intuition, on the other hand, grabs the singleton Loam (getting me the Crucible effect as though I was running 4 Crucibles) while not being dead in multiples, and serving other functions as well.

The example I provided about tutoring for additional manlands was simply to emphasize the use of Intuition outside of simply making standard land drops every turn. Why do I need to race when I'm a control deck? Multiple manlands help me stabalize the board against opposing aggro (by blocking) until I wipe them away (WoG/EE), and then become win conditions for me. Intuition for 3 manlands after I have Loam online is a relevant play and I don't understand how racing with Demigod is relevant to the control concept of this deck. In Intuition Demigod, sure, but in here, I run Factory/Standstill instead.

I'm not using Intuition to specifically win all wars of attrition. I'm using it to get an efficient yet subtle long term card advantage going, with the other uses of Inuition (manland recursion, Ruins/EE) being awesome additional benefits. Intuition/Loam may be somewhat slow and long term, but it is not even close to comparable in relation to how slow Witness/Oracle recursion is.


Sandbar lets you use Loam to draw a land and another card every turn, sometimes multiple times a turn. If you actually wanted to just trade lands in for spells, get Oona's Grace in there.


I'm not worried about using Loam with Sandbar to grab me a land and another card every turn because I have Standstill. Loam's function is to consistently give me land drops every turn and to give me recurable win conditions with manlands, with Intuition/Loam replacing Crucible of Worlds. Everytime I Loam I get +2 CA, which is awesome, but that doesn't mean I want to do it every turn, and doesn't mean I should run worthless cards like Sandbar that are only good with Loam (Sandbar isn't useless without Loam, but it's still bad). Oona's Grace is horrible; 3 mana to draw a card (or in actuality, to replace a card) defeats the entire purpose of paying 2 mana for 3 cards, IMO.


He's only really good against other control decks, and they're all going to have a pretty easy time handling him postboard. He's also contained by the lock with Force of Will.

Also, my five drop should not be trading with their one drop.


As a finisher, I think he's good against everything. By the time he finally gets to come down (turn 5+), I should probably have the board stabilized (I am the control deck, after all). A 6/1 is large for any deck to deal with. Sure, they can chump block him (if I haven't cleared their board for whatever reason), but how long can they chump block him before they cannot do it any longer? Gigapede is all about inevitability and provides recursion independant of Life from the Loam.

He is containable by Counterbalance lock via FoW, but how often is that really going to happen? Regardless, it's less likely for him to get countered in comparsion to Tarmogoyf and so forth.

A 5 drop trading with a 1 drop is a worst case scenario. It's a bad trade in terms of mana investments, I agree completely. Gigapede provides inevitability, though. Their Mongoose chumps Gigapede, next turn I replay Gigapede, Gigapede proceeds to smash face. Unless the opponent is consistently creating chump blockers (like Bitterblossom), Gigapede eventually gets in their and wins the game.

Again, Wrath of God and EE do a great job of ensuring that the opponent is limited to the amount of chump blockers they have. While Gigapede is a hefty mana investment in worst case scenarios, the fact that this deck should be capable of investing heavy amounts of mana by the time it's ready to play Gigapede should mitigate that factor. Besides, if I'm facing something like Bitterblossom or countless 1 drop chump blockers, I'm going to focus on Ruins/EE rather than Gigapede anyway (meaning, I'm not going to be attempting to get in their with Gigapede at that time).

Looking solely at worst case scenarios is not a fair argument anyway. Gigapede at its best is a total frickin house.

As far as control handling him postboard (graveyard hate), I won't be grabbing him with the first Intuition pile, obviously. It's another alternate recursion engine that I will tutor for once they Crypt/whatever my Loam/etc. Even in the face of multiple graveyard hate spells, I'm still playing the Landstill (Standstill) gameplan once my recursion engines are shut off. Plus the same can be said about my opponent if they are playing a graveyard based control deck too, since I'm packing the same 4 Crypt's that they are.

I can go on and on about Gigapede, but the best argument I can make for Gigapede is to just test it. Way back when, in my testing with Intuition Thresh, I was not a fan of Gigapede whatsoever. After extremely intensive testing over a long period of time, I eventually came around to Gigapede's inclusion and have never looked back since. The card is fucking awesome beyond all possible belief. Gigapede may look bad on paper and sound bad in theory, Gigapede may seem worthless in worst case scenarios. The fact that the guy is just a powerhouse that's difficult beyond belief to deal with gives him the niche this deck wants to fill with it's 1-of finisher spot.

I do greatly appreciate your feedback, Frogboy. Just wanted to let you know that. =]

[klaus]

To evaluate Kaezur Landstill I compared it to regular UWb LS.
Here are some conclusion that I worked out:

The Landstill mirror is unfavorable pre- and postboard. This is mostly due to your lack of Decrees, Elspeths, LD, Ponders and Eternal Dragons.
Sure, you have Gigapede and CB-Top but that doesn't tip the MU in your direction, really.
The same goes for the Dreadstill MU. With 4 Factories and 3-4 Wastelands, Dreadstill is able to operate much better under a Standstill, which makes it hard for you to stay on top.

Having Factory as your primary killcon is fine. With 1 Gigapede and 1 Monastery as your only other kill conditions you make yourself more vulnerable to Extirpate, well more vulnerable than UWb LS anyway.

The deck craves 2 Humilities - again a single Gigapede can't be the reason to drop that powerhouse.
I understand you run CB-Top in those slots. With Humilities gone every decent Aggro build you face will be really tough for you to win, though, especially since you have no means of life gain (i.e. P.O.T. Fields, Ajani). What is more, Intuition slows your deck down further, making it even harder to remain in control against Tribal.dec and the likes.

My question to you: What makes K. LS better than existing LS.decs?

[frogboy]

I would probably play just about any version of a Intuition-Counterbalance-Loam deck against just about any version of Landstill for just about any amount of money. You have all the bombs. Their best card (Decree) costs just about infinite mana, and you have Intuitions where they have cards like Humility.

My point is that Intuitioning for beaters is only relevant when you have to win because of time considerations. If you are actively trying to cast Intuition and immediately win with creatures, run Demigods. If you're trying to cast Intuition and prolong the game, get some broken Loam utility pile. I don't really see where getting Factories into the red zone is doing much for you. You can recur guys with Stronghold. You can secure the board by getting the EE pile. Whenever you try to use your lands to block you just turn all their otherwise-dead removal spells into cheaper Molten Rains.

Getting up on lands is awesome but at some point you actually sort of want to play spells. The marginal cost of Sandbar is tiny and when it's good it's pretty insane.

I don't really like Gigapede because I don't really like cards that claim to be win conditions but mostly just sit in my hand not being lands or removal spells. It's pretty awesome when you're trying to attrition out a control deck, but you are the control deck, etc.


What makes K. LS better than existing LS.decs?

Existing LS decks are garbage and this one at least plays Counterbalance and does things with Intuition instead of playing a bunch of removal spells and hoping to get there with Standstill.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Existing LS decks are garbage and this one at least plays Counterbalance and does things with Intuition instead of playing a bunch of removal spells and hoping to get there with Standstill.

@frogboy: How would you build a non-garbage LS deck besides the inclusion of Counterbalances and more lands?

[frogboy]

This belongs in a different thread, but the short answer is that I wouldn't. I don't think Landstill has any particularly powerful gameplans and I don't think it's that good at stopping people from trying to execute theirs. You end up playing a bunch of removal and hoping you can just run them out of cards, which is a pretty loose gameplan.

[klaus]

I would probably play just about any version of a Intuition-Counterbalance-Loam deck against just about any version of Landstill for just about any amount of money. You have all the bombs. Their best card (Decree) costs just about infinite mana, and you have Intuitions where they have cards like Humility.
Against regular LS you cannot generate any CA beyond CB+Top, which you have to assemble in the first place. Your CA mashine (read: Standstill) is a dead draw, since you cannot operate even half as well underneath it, period.
You have no means of mana denial, UWxLS does. Recurring land via LftL costs mana each time, recurring land via Crucible doesn't.
K.LS puts no pressure on the table without its singleton Gigapede, which gives the UWxLS player the time he needs to assemble infinite mana to cast a lethal Decree (Fetch+Crucible, E. Dragon do their job neatly there). Also, I'll bet my butt that against K.LS a Decree with an investment of merely 8 mana will be lethal most of the time.
I agree that some Intuition-Loam decks have positive MUs against the LS archetype (ITF to name one). This one doesn't.



Existing LS decks are garbage and this one at least plays Counterbalance and does things with Intuition...
Doing things with Intuition is mana hungry deluxe. In a world with T.A. (this beast has only just started to redifine the format), I'll pick removal over Intution tricks any day.


...instead of playing a bunch of removal spells and hoping to get there with Standstill.
Packing creature hate in the main to consistently beat Aggro while using your SB to beat combo has worked fine for me for years now and I still consider it a decent meta call unless 43lands.dec, ITF and Aggro Loam dominate the scene.

[frogboy]

Doing things with Intuition is mana hungry deluxe. In a world with T.A. (this beast has only just started to redifine the format), I'll pick removal over Intution tricks any day.

You know an awesome way to beat the mana denial decks that are really threat light when all your removal spells are insanely cheap?

Play more land.

(stipulated, it's awkward when you draw all the Deeds and they draw all Tombstalkers, but it's not like you don't have Plows and Forces)


Your CA mashine (read: Standstill) is a dead draw, since you cannot operate even half as well underneath it, period.

I'd definitely cut Standstills from this, but I didn't think Hanni would even entertain the idea so I decided to settle for making it as not bad as possible.* I suppose this version might be a dog to Landstill, but honestly, I doubt if it's even that far behind.

You're also way underrating Top.

*wuvu, Hanni

[xsockmonkeyx]

This belongs in a different thread, but the short answer is that I wouldn't.

...


...which is a pretty loose gameplan.

wut


You're also way underrating Top.
Truth. Many deck could get away with playing 4, but don't out of legacy tradition or something else I dont understand.

[Hanni]

Well, I've done alot of testing with this archtype lately and have found out some very critical things.

First and foremest, Intuition has been very lackluster for me in comparison to its uses in Intuition Thresh. In Intuition Thresh, Loam is alot stronger; the deck runs 19 lands, and the +2 CA of Loam (2 lands) is very relevant. In a Landstill shell, 2 lands isn't that strong; the deck easily draws into tons of lands already. The other missing part is the additional card advantage Genesis provides; in this deck, the only other possible CA engine is Ruins/EE when EE hits multiple targets, which is so expensive to setup that it's not even worth it (2U + 1G + 2U + 2 + 1-3). Recurring manlands is not worth the wasted spell spaces, and even though Gigapede is a tremendous powerhouse, it still hasn't "felt" worth it.

I'm still all about Intuition/Loam in the right decks. I'm just not convinced that Landstill (at least this current version) is worth it.

What I've been more pleased with is CounterTop. I've played Landstill and a ton of different variants for a very long time, and I must say that after my new experience(s), I'd never play Landstill without it again. Top itself has been better for me than Fact or Fiction ever was. Counterbalance improves so many bad matchups that it's rediculous (Burn, Goyf Sligh, ANT, etc). The fact that CounterTop perpetuates a control positioned gameplan is massive, especially in a control deck that wants to pwn the board and gamestate. Aside from being a lock that shuts opponent's down greatly (isn't that something we want?), CounterTop creates card advantage, and Landstill is all about CA.

So I've decided to make some changes, although now the deck is really just a Landstill variant and probably deserves to be merged into the U/W/x Landstill thread (I'm still considering this variant to be Kaezurstill though):

U/W/g Kaezur Landstill

Lands (25)
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Windswept Heath
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory

Creatures (2)
2 Eternal Dragon

Spells (33)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Sensei's Divining Too
4 Counterbalance
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Wrath of God
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Meddling Mage
3 Krosan Grip
4 Tormod's Crypt

I've been playing this build for a few days and wrecking face. Elegance in simplicity. Devastation with synergy.

The deck lacks Crucible/Loam in its 75, but I don't think it's necessary unless the metagame has alot of LD decks. Even against Aggro Loam, with the heavy amount of basics this deck has, 25 lands, and 2 Eternal Dragons, the manabase is extremely stable. In fact, the splash of green is only for 1 maindeck Nantuko Monastery and 3 sideboard Krosan Grips.

U/W with Wrath of God is savage. I do not, for the life of me, understand why ITF runs Deed and not WoG. I've had so many times where I've drawn EE, had it (very) usable at 2, and haven't wanted to blow it up because I have CounterTop. EE is a necessary evil, but the disynergy that Deed brings to the table is awful. WoG answers just about everything I want out of Deed in most situations, and has no drawbacks for me whatsoever. Not only that, it's faster than Deed.

Finally, I want to comment about some other Landstill builds and other color splashes, since it is very relevant to the sucess and evolution of this particular build.

In regardes specifically to this deck, I want to discuss Humility and Decree of Justice. I could easily drop 2 Eternal Dragon and 2 WoG for 2 Decree and 2 Humility. I've played alot with Decree and Humility, honestly, and those two cards were one of the biggest reasons I favored U/W/x Landstill over the 3-4c U/g/b or U/B/g/w Landstill variants. However...

Decree of Justice is lackluster without Humility. At least in comparison to Eternal Dragon when you compare them standalone, anyway. Decree requires alot of mana to be worthwhile, which makes it slow and only truly a bomb in the late game. It's also only a 1 time use. Dragon, on the other hand, is useful early on by essentially being a land. The additional shuffle effect of Dragon for Top is really good. The fact that it is a recursive beater, which is in fact card advantage when recurred, is huge. Barring StP (which can be answered by countermagic or CounterTop), it's very difficult to answer, and a 5/5 flyer is a very strong win condition.

Humility is fairly bad on its own. If the opponent has a couple of creatures in play and you drop a Humility, the opponent still has a couple of creatures in play. Humility requires that you either have manlands or Decree tokens to truly be effective, regardless if it minimizes the damage done by the opponent, where WoG would have been better. It also restricts the use of amazing creatures like Eternal Dragon.

Decree + Humility is very strong, but it's a 2 card combo. Either card on their lonesome is weaker than Dragon or WoG on their lonesome. With only a 2/2 split, it just doesn't seem worth it. The deck already runs a bombshell combo with Top/Counterbalance. On a consistency level, and with the synergy of the rest of the deck, Eternal Dragon + WoG has been much better for me.

The other Landstill configurations I'd like to discuss are UWb Cunning Landstill and U/W/x Enlightened Landstill (since I don't like 4c Landstill, or think that 4c Landstill is relative to this variant).

I'd like to discuss Enlightened first, since I think it sucks. Enlightened Tutor itself is card disadvantage. That is completely the opposite of the entire concept of the deck, which is card advantage. That alone pretty much seals up that idea for me. However, it is necessary to dig a little deeper. What exactly is Tutor getting? Humility? CounterTop? Why not just run those instead, rather than have a slower, DCA, versatile toolbox, cluttering the deck with tons of 1-ofs and 2-ofs? More to be discussed on this if it is warranted.

The other variant is Cunning, which is a very solid version. The biggest stengths that deck has is its ability to have answers to many akward situations. However, I've had a good bit of experience with Cunning Wish before. I've found the card far too slow for its effect, and it weakens the sideboard immensely. I think Landstill can easily have answers to most situations by running maindeck spells that do so, shore things up with the sideboard, and not slow the deck down or bastardize the sideboard.

Anyways, this has been my conclusive results. If the thread needs locked now, so be it. Voroshstill still has its own thread, so maybe we can keep this alive. If not, I understand. Regardless, this is what I think the strongest version of Landstill is, if not the strongest pure control deck we have at the moment. This deck is so strong, is so consistent, and has been wrecking so much face, that I would seriously choose this deck over everything else to pilot at a large tournament.

@ Klaus

After my new results, I ask you the same question: What do those other versions of Landstill have or do that make them better (in whatever abstract you want to apply that to), than this one?

[chokin]

U/W/g Kaezur Landstill

Lands (25)
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Windswept Heath
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory

Creatures (2)
2 Eternal Dragon

Spells (33)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Sensei's Divining Too
4 Counterbalance
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Wrath of God
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Meddling Mage
3 Krosan Grip
4 Tormod's Crypt


It's green for 1 Monastery? At least Goyf it up if you're going to go green. Or -2 Tropical Island, -1 Monastery, -3 Windswept for +3 Polluted Delta, +2 Island, +1 Plains. Eternal Dragon kinda sucks when you can only really get a total of 6 lands with it in the build you're running.

Why are you running green again? <--biggest question.

[Jak]

You're curve doesn't look really good for a CB deck.

0 cc = 27
1 cc = 11
2 cc = 12
3 cc = 0
4 cc = 4
5 cc = 4
6 cc = 0
7 cc = 2

Looks pretty horrible.

[frogboy]

I do not, for the life of me, understand why ITF runs Deed and not WoG.

It's a three and it kills the other guy's Counterbalance.

[Hanni]

It's green for 1 Monastery? At least Goyf it up if you're going to go green. Or -2 Tropical Island, -1 Monastery, -3 Windswept for +3 Polluted Delta, +2 Island, +1 Plains. Eternal Dragon kinda sucks when you can only really get a total of 6 lands with it in the build you're running.

Why are you running green again? <--biggest question.

Green is for Krosan Grip sideboard; Monastery is just there because I already have green splashed, otherwise it could be Mutavault. Since I find Monastery to be alot stronger than Mutavault, and I'm already splashed green, I run Monastery instead. Krosan Grip is incredibly strong in a control deck that easily ramps to 3 mana, and split second is critical against a wide variety of things.

Additionally, there is very little weakening of the manabase by splashing a 3rd color. In fact, it is almost necessary to do so to make Engineered Explosives stronger.

Eternal Dragon doesn't need more than 6 lands that it can grab; how is that any different than most other (Landstill) decks that run him? It's like not I'm going to have every single Plains in play before I see him, and if I do, I'm more than likely putting him into play rather than Plainscycling anyway. I've never Plainscycled more than twice in a game, and I've never had issues with the land count in regards to Eternal Dragon.


You're curve doesn't look really good for a CB deck.

0 cc = 27
1 cc = 11
2 cc = 12
3 cc = 0
4 cc = 4
5 cc = 4
6 cc = 0
7 cc = 2

Looks pretty horrible.

See, you say that, and so maybe it looks bad on paper, but it's really not. If you're talking purely on blind Counterbalance reveals, then maybe... but I still have Brainstorm to manipulate the top, and Counterbalance still has the ability to blindly hit things on occasion. The fact that the deck has 27 1cc drops makes it huge against ANT and other Tendrils storm combo decks, which would otherwise be a bad matchup preboard.

I've never had issues with CounterTop not being devastating everytime I've drawn it, and I'd never played Landstill again without Top. Counterbalance without Top isn't phenomenal, but it isn't bad either, and there are still other uses and functions for it in the deck without Top. 11 1cc and 12 2cc has proven in my testing with the original Intutition variant and now this variant, to be perfectly fine for me. Even 2 blind reveals throughout the game gives Counterbalance a 2-for-1 CA that makes it worth it.

CounterTop is so god damn powerful that there's absolutely no reason to not run it, Top is amazing on its own, and Counterbalance itself is far from being a dead draw. The current curve has proven effective for me in my playtesting with it. The only thing I can suggest is to test it and see for yourself; otherwise, what would you do to fix that? (Other than dropping it, because if you feel it doesn't belong in the deck, you clearly didn't playtest it enough.)

I agree that the curve is not as well established as the curve in a deck like Threshold, but by no means does that rule it out. You also need to remember that this deck doesn't need to use CounterTop as a soft/hard lock by any means; the deck has answers to (almost) everything regardless, and has the means to generate card advantage in other ways to keep it ahead of the opponent. Rather than looking at CounterTop's effectiveness as a soft/hard lock, look at it as a means of generating some very big card advantage over the course of a game.


It's a three and it kills the other guy's Counterbalance.

Isn't a four just as relevant as a three in most cases? I can see the case for blowing up an opponent's Counterbalance, but EE preboard Grip postboard should be more than enough, considering that Deed (and EE) are symetrical; yea sure, they blow the opponent's Counterbalance up, but it still blows your own up. And if you wanna get technical about it, it's somewhat asymetrical (purely looking only at Counterbalances right now), since you function better under their CounterTop lock than they do under yours.

I've played ITF, I like the deck, I'm not by any means saying it's a bad deck whatsoever. I'm simply saying that Deed + Counterbalance has obvious disynergies, and that WoG + Counterbalance fixes alot of that.

[frogboy]

Fours don't counter much. I like having threes because they're awesome in the mirror, still pretty good against random decks, and because you usually have at least eleven ones and a dozen twos anyway, so with all your manipulation it's not hard to lock someone out.

[Hanni]

Fours don't counter much.

I agree that threes counter more things than fours, but fours still counter some things. Regardless, this entire area of discussion is poised to discuss WoG vs Pernicious Deed (right?), and I don't think the cmc for Counterbalance is as relevant as WoG offering far more synergy to the deck.


I like having threes because they're awesome in the mirror

I don't run any threes anymore, the opponent does have a slight advantage because they have Deed (where my WoG is less effective). Against KGrip in general, I can see more threes being relevant; but since it would require myself to run Deed to up the three count, which essentially blows up my Counterbalances when I need to pop it anyway, I don't see the advantages over running Deed.

Against very few decks is Deed going to be better than WoG; against far more decks, the synergy between WoG + Counterbalance is much better than the disynergy between Deed + Counterbalance.

Not only that, Deed wrecks the manabase by forcing it into a 4th color. I suppose the deck could become U/B/g by replacing StP's with black removal and replacing Dragon with Tombstalker (and replacing WoG with Damnation or Deed), but I think it would be subpar to do so.

The few matchups where threes are relevant outside of KGrip tend to be matchups where Counterbalance gets sided out anyway (Goblins, DS, etc).


and because you usually have at least eleven ones and a dozen twos anyway, so with all your manipulation it's not hard to lock someone out.


I agree completely.