[Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Constructing UBG Landstill

[JACO]

Hey all, we're back again with another article from Eternal-Central.com (http://www.eternal-central.com/), this time about a pseudo-under the radar deck:
Focus on Legacy - Constructing UBG Landstill (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=241)

I take a look at some recent finishes with the deck, available options, and bust out what I would play right now. I then talk about a plethora of sideboard options and some general playing hints. This will be the first in a two part series on UBG Landstill, with the second part focusing on playing Landstill against a few common matchups and some more talk about sideboarding.

As always, your criticism, ideas, and thoughts are appreciated. What did you like, dislike, and what would you like to see more of?

[Cthuloo]

Interesting topic choice. I played recently against the deck in tournament and found it very powerful. I think it's an excellent metagame choice at the moment.

About the Standstill issue: the strength of the deck is that it doesn't need to abuse standstill, since it already has two great sources of card advantage in Jace and Deed. Therefore, I think a minimal manland package could be sufficient (something like 3 factories, 3 waste, no mutavault), so that you can abuse 'still against slower deck and side it out without great regrets in the other matchups.

[denial]

All four of those decks you list run x4 Jace the mindsculptor. They should ban it before things get out of control.

[Wargoos]

I have to say I love the list and am actually building this in reallife after seeing it on deckcheck (the Schaffer version).
The changes you made to deck the however (which are actually minimal) I cannot 100% agree with.

1) Life from the loam (in the non-Wasteland build)
Ok, Life from the Loam is a very sick card fitting the gameplan in creating cardadvantage but you don't really have an engine for it and dredging
away those jaces,deeds and cantrips isn't a good move either. In the wasteland build I could see it as being great having the wastelands synergy but only here I see it playable. Also it of course protects one against stifle shenanigans but playing enough lands and cantrips (we probably do) should do it too.

2) The "I WIN NOW" button
After a serious amount of testing I have the feeling that after establishing boardposition (i.e. playing jace...)
I cannot guarantee the win with 100% [probably somewhere around 90% ;)] depending on the situation having to use the brainstorm ability to keep me on counterspells and getting me removal. Also that you have to fateseal the opponent for 5 turns to finish him off is sometimes a concern.
It's the I WIN NOW-thing I am a bit missing here that closes the game for sure in my favor which led me to try some stuff out.
The card I focus on in my testings at the moment is Haunting Echoes which was advised to me by Fred and which performed quite good so far although it has it'S downsides too.

3)Mutavaults
You should really make some points why you included the mutavaults.
Additional manlands is a ok-enough reason for me but I think I would rather go with more basics and for consistency here.
Sure there is the point that mutavaults can be insane playing against merfolk because they get pumped by their lords and can swing in with islandwalk but a board packed full with merfolklords opposing you isn't really a thing you want to let happen here, right?
Of course you can also do the manland math. You win against other decks playing manlands by having more manlands (or wasting them or recurring your own) but against merfolk your mishra's factories are mostly just better and bigger than the opponents mutavaults and games against other landstill decks are not decided by who races whom first.

Otherwise I have to say thank you for bringing this gem to the community (and big props to Tim Schaffer for creating this).

[menace13]

Good article and Deedstill is running rampant on MtGO currently at 4th place overall wins.

Nitpick: SavageBeatdown is the designer of the 4cc lists running around online and debuted his list in April. Link for ref: http://www.classicquarter.com/decks/deckview.asp?DecklistId=2204

And another 4cc was on deckcheck since december of 2009. http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=31263
Both lists are months ahead of any of the ones you posted.

The 4cc lists are alright against Wastelands if they run Stifles, otherwise though they do have a tendency to implode on its own colors if pressured hard enough early and as such a few pilots have switched to the 3cc base.

[Chrommox]

I have a DeedStill built when everyone else was playing UW(x) years ago. I guess the disappointing part about it was its lackluster performance against ANT and dredge. Counters were just duressed early and dredge killed in 2 turns without giving you time to play Deed and activate it. Also, Thresh was played in numbers back then so the hopes of surviving with Deed are oftentimes stifled. With their decline in number and the meta shift to aggro, this deck can be viable. Jace, TMS alone cannot make this deck tier overnight.

[JACO]

1) Life from the loam (in the non-Wasteland build)
Ok, Life from the Loam is a very sick card fitting the gameplan in creating cardadvantage but you don't really have an engine for it and dredging
away those jaces,deeds and cantrips isn't a good move either. In the wasteland build I could see it as being great having the wastelands synergy but only here I see it playable. Also it of course protects one against stifle shenanigans but playing enough lands and cantrips (we probably do) should do it too.I suppose I could have spelled this out better in the article, but even when you don't have Wastelands a Life From the Loam basically amounts to Ancestral Recall in here. It helps bring back fetches/duals/manlands, and is usually a 3 for 1. The fact that you don't have a Dredge engine isn't really a big deal, because if you're getting 3 for 1 in any case you're doing pretty well for yourself. I think 1-2 is correct even in non-Wasteland builds for this reason. It's just more incremental card advantage that can smooth your mana, bring back manlands (your alternate win condition), etc.


2) The "I WIN NOW" button
After a serious amount of testing I have the feeling that after establishing boardposition (i.e. playing jace...)
I cannot guarantee the win with 100% [probably somewhere around 90% ;)] depending on the situation having to use the brainstorm ability to keep me on counterspells and getting me removal. Also that you have to fateseal the opponent for 5 turns to finish him off is sometimes a concern.
It's the I WIN NOW-thing I am a bit missing here that closes the game for sure in my favor which led me to try some stuff out.
The card I focus on in my testings at the moment is Haunting Echoes which was advised to me by Fred and which performed quite good so far although it has it'S downsides too.The problems with something like Haunting Echoes are two-fold. For one, it does nothing early to help you get to the point where the rest of your deck matters, and two, it is NOT and I WIN NOW card against a lot of things (like Zoo). I've seen it occassionally pop up as a singleton in older UBG and UBW Landstill lists, but the fact that it is so often dead or useless early, coupled with the fact that Jace 2.0 is most often your I WIN NOW card, has relegated Haunting Echoes to the bargain bin.


3)Mutavaults
You should really make some points why you included the mutavaults.I'll touch on this in the second part of the article. Thanks for the questions!


Nitpick: SavageBeatdown is the designer of the 4cc lists running around online and debuted his list in April. Link for ref: http://www.classicquarter.com/decks/deckview.asp?DecklistId=2204

And another 4cc was on deckcheck since december of 2009. http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=31263
Both lists are months ahead of any of the ones you posted.

The 4cc lists are alright against Wastelands if they run Stifles, otherwise though they do have a tendency to implode on its own colors if pressured hard enough early and as such a few pilots have switched to the 3cc base.I can't verify any claims about the online 4C version with 1 Scrubland main (and 1 Mutavault), but I'm guessing you're spot on there.

As to the real life 4C lists, Nick Trudeau and I had tuned Mike Torrisi's original pile way back in 2004-2005. This was a spawn of the (at the time very healthy) San Diego legacy scene, where we had both been destroying people with it for a year and a half probably. This culminated in Nick taking the deck to GenCon in 2006 (I was unable to attend) and Top 8'ing the 2006 Legacy World Championships and gaining national exposure, and once the decklist was out there we could no longer hide that beast. Make no mistake, BHWC were the founders of that deck. I think pretty much everyone agrees that Mutavault and Jace are the logical replacements for Nantuko Monastery and Fact or Fiction in modern Landstill decks though. As new more efficient cards get printed they naturally get slotted into existing decks. ; )

But this article wasn't about 4C Landstill, but UBG Landstill. The 4C Landstill article may be in the near future though if I feel ambitious (most like after GP Columbus though). Thank you for your comments. What did everybody else think?

[dan who?]

I enjoyed it, it was easy to read and had good explanations on card choices. I really like that you suggest cards to add to the deck so you let the reader decide what fits their playstyle and what they like instead of just providing a list (you've done this for the other articles as well). It got me a little more interested in landstill in general (just wish Jace wasn't so expensive). Looking forward to the follow up article.

[SpikeyMikey]

Even before GP Chicago, I felt that Landstill was too slow to be viable. I played 4c Landstill anyway because it's all I had the cards for and I couldn't afford to upgrade to ANT, which is what I wanted to play. After Chicago, I no longer felt the deck was too slow, I was absolutely convinced of it. So when Jaco told me about UBG Landstill, I was very skeptical. But I was in Chicago last night and played against it, and I'm now a firm believer. It's a very solid deck. It's not the Landstill I'm familiar with, the ponderous juggernaut that draws cards, counters everything it can and blows up everything else. It has game right from the opening turn and focuses on merely surviving until the mid-game when it just explodes out and creates an insurmountable advantage with Jace or LftL. It's good stuff.