Land Thieves (a play on landstill)

[apple713]

Very rough version of the deck but there are lots of new interactions that i thought worked well with some new cards and interactions.



Creatures

3 deathrite shaman
3 stoneforge mystic
2 vendilion clique
2 notion thief

Artifacts

1 Batterskull
1 umezawas jitte
2 crucible of worlds

Enchantments

4 standstill

Other

2 Jace the mind sculptor
3 spell pierce
4 force of will
3 swords to plowshares
4 brainstorm

Lands

3 dark depths
3 thespian stage
3 wasteland
3 mishras factory
2 tundra
1 scrubland
2 underground sea
4 polluted delta
4 flooded strand
1 urborg tomb of yawgmoth


Card interactions

Standstill is great if you land a DRS or stoneforge before. Now that notion thief has entered the mix you can also play it late game and draw 3 cards by breaking it yourself.

Notion thief works with standstill as previously mentioned, interacts on a huge level with other blue decks, brainstorm, JTMS, ancestral Visions, ponder, sylvan library... on and on. I have included it maindeck cause it works with can in my deck as well and is not dependant on their deck. Works with vendilion clique also.

Dark Depths called out to me to be added to the list with the new ruling. its combo piece is thespian stage.




Please criticize,

Am I trying to do too much with deck?

Doesit have potential?

[Poron]

play green and Knight of the Reliquary / Crop Rotation... why not?

[mifme]

Hmm interesting idea, i've mean musing around the same thing. I dont think you play the thespians stage and dark depths though ......... i think you go 4 wasteland and 4 factory instead and cut the land count slightly which will allow a few abrupt decays and/or discard like thoughtseize.

[WorldslayerGuy]

Notion Thief doesn't work with Standstill, unless it's already in play. Standstill triggers on the spell being cast. Playing thief to crack Standstill results in your opponent drawing, then thief entering play.

[KazinMtg]

Notion Thief doesn't work with Standstill, unless it's already in play. Standstill triggers on the spell being cast. Playing thief to crack Standstill results in your opponent drawing, then thief entering play.

I think he gets that, note he said for late topdeck standstills, meaning after notion thief is in play. Not a terrible idea really.

[Water_Wizard]

You might want to consider Living Wish and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea.

[apple713]

@ mifme


if i take out thespian stage i take out depths too. thats a 2 card combo for a 20/20. its not coming out. Kinda defeats one purpose of the deck.

@KazinMtg

yes you are correct. notion theif would already be in play

@Water_Wizard

living wish is a really good idea with mikoko. i dont want to run more than 3 colors.

so i guess it comes down to the following color combos

UBW - gets notion thief stoneforge discard for sideboard

BUG - notion theif crop rotation living wish possibly NO with a DRS, maybe Deed or liliana

GWU - KoTR, crop rotation, stoneforge, living wish, possibly NO


It seems like Esper is the least versatile with BUG and Bant being the most versatile.

If i centered the deck around just the depths thespian stage combo i would run UG

crop rotation
depths
stage

brainstom
ponder
preordain

spell pierce
stifle (wasteland is only real threat here since the combo is uncounterable)
force of will
misdirection

maybe living wish


This deck would not be landstill however and it might be more efficient at assembling the combo. I know it would and it would have more back up counterspells than any other deck in the format since the combo is so easily acquireable.

If you really wanted to bump up efficiency here you could add black for hexmage and play cavern of souls.

[Water_Wizard]

Pithing Needle is a better answer to Wasteland than Stifle.

4 colors isn't that hard to run. You could also consider Noble Hierarch in addition to DRS.

I don't think you need SFM and Dark Depths combo. You either play Bant w/ SFM, Esper w/ SFM or you go all-in on the Dark Depths and run Crop Rotation, KotR, and Living Wish. You don't need a 20/20 token and a Batterskull in play - only one will do quite nicely.

[apple713]

Pithing Needle is a better answer to Wasteland than Stifle.

4 colors isn't that hard to run. You could also consider Noble Hierarch in addition to DRS.

I don't think you need SFM and Dark Depths combo. You either play Bant w/ SFM, Esper w/ SFM or you go all-in on the Dark Depths and run Crop Rotation, KotR, and Living Wish. You don't need a 20/20 token and a Batterskull in play - only one will do quite nicely.

so i guess it comes down to , do i want to play esper landstill with notion thief, or depths combo in bant?

also, if im running depths with bant, am i just better running 43 lands with a possible turn 2 win?

[Dessyreqt]

Have you considered going full tilt on Notion Thief and running Vision Skeins instead of Standstill? I'm not saying it's a good idea, but the thought just occurred to me.

[Water_Wizard]

so i guess it comes down to , do i want to play esper landstill with notion thief, or depths combo in bant?

also, if im running depths with bant, am i just better running 43 lands with a possible turn 2 win?

How does summoning sickness work on the Marit Lage token? It would probably be turn 3 because I think that the token would be sick on turn 2 (unless you are going to dump your hand with Manabond on turn 1).

[apple713]

How does summoning sickness work on the Marit Lage token? It would probably be turn 3 because I think that the token would be sick on turn 2 (unless you are going to dump your hand with Manabond on turn 1).

Manabond of course

[Finn]

Notion Thief and Jace Beleren.

[Benie Bederios]

It's a pity you don't run a little more creatures otherwise Vial should be good for the deck... Good with Landstill and with a curve from 1 to 4 always something to drop.

[jhhdk]

Notion Thief doesn't work with Standstill, unless it's already in play. Standstill triggers on the spell being cast. Playing thief to crack Standstill results in your opponent drawing, then thief entering play.

With standstill in play can't you just play something like Brainstorm and then repond to trigger with Notion Thief for Draw 6 put 2 on top?

[Finn]

No. The act of casting Notion Thief would create a new trigger which would go on top of the stack. It would then resolve with Notion Thief not yet on the battlefield.