[deck] Damnstill

[Mystical_Jackass]

I've always been fond of running black control decks. This is basically an idea I've been tinkering with for a little bit; Since the new spoil from Zendikar, some of the new spells have convinced me to tempt something crazy like this. Let me know what you think...

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Land (23)
5 Fetch
4 Underground Sea
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgy
4 Island
2 Swamp
4 Factory
2 Wasteland

Tha' Spellz (31)
4 Damnation
4 Standstill
4 FoW
3 Spellsnare
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
2 Intuition
3 Snuff Out
2 The Abyss :eek: !
1 Crucible of Worlds

Creatures--sorta' (6)
4 Bloodghast
2 Sorin Markov
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General Concept:

Plays mostly like any Standstill deck. Early quick disruption, which allows you to build up your land-count and lock them out with your more powerful spells. There's actually a lot of similarities with Moat -->Abyss, Snuff Out --> stp, WoG --> Damnation, etc. funny enough.

Anyways, how to win? There's a couple ways of pulling it off. Obvious one would be locking opponent out with abyss, activating factories and swinging home free ftw. 2nd would be getting Sorin out, locking them out and finishing them with his abilitities. 3rd is sorta a combination of using Inution --> 3 bloodghast, 2 bloodghast/factory, etc. then its just a matter of sweeping the board with damnation, dropping a land activating factories and swinging ftw. No mistake there's obvious synergy between Sorin/Bloodghasts, and you can pretty much Abyss/Damnation over the top of them and they'd bounce right back to kick some a$$.
Thoughts?

[jebus]

Why Snuff Out? You're not going all-out aggressive on your turn anyway, so you could probably run something more conservative (Smother, perhaps?) which wouldn't be so expensive (4 life or 4 mana).

[pi4meterftw]

Why Snuff Out? You're not going all-out aggressive on your turn anyway, so you could probably run something more conservative (Smother, perhaps?) which wouldn't be so expensive (4 life or 4 mana).

Innocent blood is even better; costing B is a blessing for standstill. (it's part of why snuff out costing 0 was so important, the other thing was its CC was 4 avoiding CB) It hits black, untargettable, >3cc.

Intuition seems misplaced, but I guess that's because I'm about to suggest you cut bloodghast. Bloodghast can't block, so it's just a win con, and in that respect its not that great. You could run counterspells and FOF/skeletal scrying instead. It looks like you'll beat aggro except possibly for those that pack a lot of burn. (Counterspell will help)

You'll have an awesome combo matchup because you run 4 thoughtseize, 4 counterspell, spell snare, FOW, etc. etc.

Bloodghast doesn't make any matchups better. It just makes it so that when you're trying to win, it's also a 'cool' win.

[pointofinfo]

What I see as your major obstacle is that, primarily, your removal spells and win conditions suffer by moving to black. You are incredibly dependent upon Bloodghast working out for you, as he is otherwise a really terrible creature. He can't chump block or attack profitably into the format's relevant creatures barring Spellstutter Sprite and Dark Confidant. Nether Spirit seems better if you really like The Abyss' interaction with this guy.

The Planeswalker in this version is also inferior to Elspeth, as Sorin Markov doesn't protect himself against most of the relevant creatures in the format. Elspeth's tokens can at the very least keep you or her alive for a turn. Throwing two points of damage at a Tarmogoyf isn't doing anything to it once you are late enough in the game to have 6 mana, and the life gain is just taken away when it smashes you.

The amount of black in your build is disproportionate to the amount of white in Uw/Uwx Landstill. 10 of your spells require double black (counting Sorin, which needs triple), 4 require a black source on the first turn ideally, and the other two require a Swamp in play. Compare this to 4 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Humility/Moat/Wrath, 1-2 white win conditions. It may not look like such a stark contrast, but the difference in power between the win conditions and the loss of flexibility in the sideboard (UB has no enchantment/artifact removal) and dependence upon the graveyard as a primary means of victory.

As Jeebus mentioned, Snuff Out seems very detrimental to your health, as Landstill takes a beating during the turns before it stabilizes. 4 life may not push things over the edge either way, but that doesn't mean the card makes sense. It is theoretically cheap, sure, yet the four life it costs is certainly a greater cost than the extra 1 or 2 mana for a better spell.

Those complaints aired, I really like the concept of flipping Landstill into different colors, and the prospects seem killer. For one, you can run Psychatog and The Abyss, two of my favorite tourney cards. Furthermore, you can better abuse an Intuition engine thanks to Nether Spirit, Ghastly Demise, Tog, Soul Manipulation, Circu...Nemesis of Reason, Glimpse the Unthinkable...well, that's all I can think of right now, but something tells me that Tog is better than Eternal Dragon. You can also throw in Academy Ruins and go the Crucible route if you so wish.

To solve the spot removal issue, the following spells are viable alternatives:
-Ghastly Demise and running more fetches.
-Smother kills everything you commonly see except Dragon Stompy's bad creatures and Tombstalker.
-Vendetta doesn't really change anything at all, but makes it less painful to kill dudes early.
-Diabolic/Chainer's Edict gets around Shroud and being a black creature, but they are less accurate when you fire them.
-Doom Blade kills the same guys as the other spells without life loss, but with the restriction regarding color.
-Innocent Blood is essentially the best compromise in that it deals with shroud and black creatures and is only one mana.

Good luck with this build, and try Jace!

[LostButSeeking]

I really, really agree with Point of info's analysis. You give up a lot, and gain very little. Elspeth is AWESOME, swords is really good, and decree of justice is an uncounterable win condition under standstill that forces them to break it.

That being said, I've also toyed with this idea. I had hoped that Sorin would be able to take Elspeth's place, but I just don't see that happening. Still let us know how the testing goes.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Innocent blood is even better; costing B is a blessing for standstill. (it's part of why snuff out costing 0 was so important, the other thing was its CC was 4 avoiding CB) It hits black, untargettable, >3cc.

That's a good idea and it makes sense now. So does smother, think possibly run 4 removal and 3 Standstill instead?


Bloodghast doesn't make any matchups better. It just makes it so that when you're trying to win, it's also a 'cool' win.

I guess we'll have to see. I'm sure there are other better win cond's I just haven't heard any better yet to tell the truth? Tog, in this deck.. with Abyss? nty I refuse to run that AIDS (unless it turns out to be good, then I'm totally running it ROflol)
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What I see as your major obstacle is that, primarily, your removal spells and win conditions suffer by moving to black. You are incredibly dependent upon Bloodghast working out for you, as he is otherwise a really terrible creature. He can't chump block or attack profitably into the format's relevant creatures barring Spellstutter Sprite and Dark Confidant. Nether Spirit seems better if you really like The Abyss' interaction with this guy.

If you read what I had written on the finishers, I dont buy that. How can my removal suffer, I run every bit of U/B disruption accessible early on, plus Damnation, plus Abyss, plus manlands. That isn't enough? :{

And the whole too dependent on bloodghast I dunno man, he is the aggro part of the deck but just as any Standstill I can sweep board, drop Standstill, beat down with factories ftw or use planeswalker while Abyss/Damnation locks them out.


Throwing two points of damage at a Tarmogoyf isn't doing anything to it once you are late enough in the game to have 6 mana, and the life gain is just taken away when it smashes you.

If the goyf is alive in this deck, I haven't done my job anyways.

That's the point I'm making.. with enough mass destruction they shouldn't have creatures, and the few I run are man-lands or infinitely recur is the idea.


The amount of black in your build is disproportionate to the amount of white in Uw/Uwx Landstill

I do run 2 Urborg, which can help a little bit with that. But otherwise.. the critters can be dropped in with Intuition, Sorin comes a little bit later. You're right though, prolly have to play around with it a bit, maybe add another fetch?

Yeah, I see your point. There's less disenchant since black... well, howevever it does have its good points :) Running like 4 Extirpate SB allows you to counter those key spells, then just banish them from the face of the earth; Allows Engineered Plague, just to add insult to injury against tribal; Let me think.. haunting echoes. I dunno, you lose some you gain some :)


Those complaints aired, I really like the concept of flipping Landstill into different colors, and the prospects seem killer

Thank you, I deffinitely appreciate the help just defending my case but maybe there's much better ideas for finishers and I'm deffinitely open to hearing your guys' thoughts and all. Thanks

~MJ

[morgan_coke]

Actually, I really like Bloodghast as a win condition in a Landstill type deck.

EDIT: I think Bloodghast beats would be a lot better if you had a way besides intuition to discard them. Unfortunately all i can come up with is running a red dual and Rix Maadi, but I'm fairly certain there's better options available than that.

However, since you're in black instead of white, I think you really need to look at splashing green solely for Krosan Grip, because there are several enchantments/artifacts which would just own you if they resolved, and you have absolutely no way to deal with them.

If you don't want to splash green, then I think you need to consider the Disk/Ruins combo as a solution.

Finally, if you're already in black and running crucible, why on earth are you not running Raven's Crime and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Tendrils/Corrupt? I mean, tendrils/urborg is one of the best combinations available to a black control deck. And if you're already running intuition, a singleton raven's crime means every time you would play a land from your hand, you get to force an opposing discard. You might not abuse the card as much as an LftL deck does, but it still generates a heck of a lot of CA.

[Mystical_Jackass]

What about Sharding Sphinx as win condition?

It's an artifact, so it has synergy with The Abyss & Factories.

[Shanghi Knights]

its mana heavy but "landstill esqe' as this deck looks a 6 cost flying sharding sphinx would work. plus making tokens for all the better. If you got the sharding sphinx route maybe add a blinkmoth nexus as another flyer to add to the token making ability. But seems kinda clunky as i think about it.