[ATW] Landstill

[Tacosnape]

Engineered Explosives versus Crime//Punishment is a pretty close battle, actually.

Objectively, here are the biggest reasons to play one over the other.

Engineered Explosives:
1. You can split the mana cost for using it and do part of it as an instant.
2. It's slightly easier to quickly pull off an EE for 0, 1, or 2, as you don't need Green and Black.

Crime//Punishment:
1. It can't be Needled or Stifled.
2. Crime wins games. Best things I've ever crimed: Genesis, Lightning Rift, Helldozer, Decree of Silence, Sliver Queen
3. You can cast Punishment above 4. This actually will be a factor if you play long enough. I've won a game because after Stifling the first one's trigger, I was able to Punishment off two Helldozers.

Now, in defense of Engineered Explosives, the Pithing Needle thing isn't as relevant as it seems, because very few decks run 4 Pithing Needles. If you don't run either EE or C//P, you autolose to Needle on Deed, Needle on Factory, Needle on Monestary. A lot of decks run three Needles. When a teammate of mine played the deck, this exact situation happened to him in a Gro matchup. In this situation, drawing either one gets you out of the lock (He got out with C//P backed up by a Force)

However, running Engineered Explosives makes you vulnerable to the strategy of Needling Deed and EE and ignoring the manlands altogether. While not crippling, this shuts down your ability to deal with artifacts and enchantments, as well as large armies of creatures.

I'd stick with Crime//Punishment, personally, and mostly this is because of Crime itself. If it were strictly between Punishment and EE, I believe I would take EE for the fact that it fits into the mana curve a little better. Crime, however, is a complete monster and will win you games.

EDIT: Oh, also, I agree with Zulander. I run 3 Fact or Fictions, but in exceedingly fast metagames, loaded with non-goblin aggro, burn, or fast combo, running 2 is probably a good idea. I generally board anywhere from one to all three out against decks that won't recover if they don't beat me in the first few turns.

[Melwis]

Coming to think of it: What is the downfalls of using Putrefy instead of EE?

Sure EE has a possiblity of killing multiple targets and when this happens that could be pretty damn nice.
However Putrefy can kill those rather big creatues/artifacts without costing to much mana and as with the Crime / Punishment debate isnt able to be stifled nor needled.

Perhaps the problem lies in the mana cost of Putrefy. But I find myself having both green and black mana pretty quick (want to get Deed out) so this shouldnt be to much of a problem altough sometimes it will be for sure.

So what do you think? Putrefy, hot or not? :)

[honz]

I actually tried putrefy in the EE spot, mainly because i was using EE to kill one creature / artifact most the time. What it came down to, was putrefy is pretty limited. It can't handle those pesky enchantments that can really control a game.

That leads to the question, why putrefy over vindicate? You honestly want black just as much as green; meaning neither is really a better color. Vindicate is obviously better, once the color isn't a factor. I haven't tried vindicate yet, but i imagine it would work nicely as a 2-3 of.

I can't help it, but i find myself loosing to random aggro alot. The SB has no real answer for non-tribal aggro. Sure, deed is a huge bomb, but too often i end up not drawing into deeds, or not having the colors to play it. I don't really have a solution, but i thought i would point that out; see if anyone has some suggestions as to random aggro MUs.

[Oathmaster]

The main reason to run EE over targeted spells like putrefy and vindicate is that EE takes out those pesky 16 to 24 goblin tokens that TES or any other storm based deck with Empty the Warrens can do on turn 1 (unlikely) or turn 2-3 (very likely). EE is also very handy against Affinity. In a metagame that is uncertain or in larger tournaments, EE is the way to go because, probablity wise, it should be more effective against more decks.


Those are my $.02

Thanks
Justin

[Anarky87]

I played Vindicate at the GP in this list and it wasn't really all that spectacular. It blew up a Grunt and a Mage. That was it. Otherwise I was shuffling them away because they weren't useful and were most of the time overcosted creature kill. I would have rather had either C/P or EE (I also would have liked not having Wasteland in there and probably 1 less color, but I did what I could :wink:)

As for the random aggro, I don't know how you're losing that much to them. You're pack 4 Swords, 4 Deed, 3 Edict, 1 C/P and a whole suite of control magic, so what's happening? The only aggro I lost to at the GP was Fish (Because I never drew above 3 lands both games) and Goblins. I lost one game to a sligh deck because I kept an opening hand of 2x Swords and some other stuff, and he drew and played all 4 of his Blood Knights....Beyond gay. But I play pretty aggressively if I know I'm playing against aggro. I'll usually throw all my removal and control at them at the beginning to stop their rush, FoF into the goods and then win the game. You could try that route.

[Tacosnape]

Putrefy and Vindicate both suck.

Putrefy is a highly narrow overcosted single-target removal spell. Vindicate is less narrow, but a Sorcery. Your board sweepers and your counters are more than enough to take care of any problematic artifacts or enchantments.

EE and C//P give you outs against Empty the Warrens tokens, Multiple Pithing Needles, and generally rock at card advantage.

Anarky's right. The SB has no answer to non-tribal aggro because the deck beats non-tribal aggro. If you're losing consistently to any non-tribal aggro deck in existence, I'd wager you aren't playing it correctly and I'd like to see a list. The only non-tribal aggro I've ever had problems with are the ones packing about 16 burn spells, in which case Blue Elemental Blast helps a lot. On occasion, Suicide Black or Red Death will steal a game from you with a very strong hand, but they steal games from almost everything with those hands.

EDIT: For what it's worth, if you have trouble against aggro, run all four Edicts like me.

[jazzykat]

I have played a ton of BHWC 4 color landstill to quite a few local first and second place finishes and feel qualitifed to comment on a point.

WRT LftL vs. CoW: I just wanted to point out that with a mana hungry deck like landstill I really don't think that loam is the right way to go for 2 reasons:

1. Not having a green mana source means you are cut from loam. This sometimes happens regardless of what anyone says.

2. CoW is a 1 time 3 mana investment that does not cost a draw. LftL can be made better by adding cycling lands but I don't think the deck can afford to wait for lands that come into play tapped. You need mana for counterspells, drawing cards, and activating man lands I don't believe that it is a good use for your mana.

[Tacosnape]

Not having a green mana source means you are cut from loam. This sometimes happens regardless of what anyone says.

Not having 3 mana total also happens sometimes, and here Crucible is useless where Life from the Loam can win you the game.


CoW is a 1 time 3 mana investment that does not cost a draw.

What you don't seem to realize is that Life From the Loam, more often than not, is a 1-time 2 mana investment that does not cost a draw. Perhaps one game in twenty do I need to cast Life from the Loam more than once.


LftL can be made better by adding cycling lands but I don't think the deck can afford to wait for lands that come into play tapped.

Life from the Loam doesn't need to be made better or supported. It's an insurance card that will either snag your fetchlands for replay or refill you on threats. It also digs for the threats as an absolute last resort. Just because Loam is in a deck doesn't mean you should be trying to cast it every turn and build the deck around it. In 4C Landstill's case, its Dredge is just insurance that you can't stop it.


You need mana for counterspells, drawing cards, and activating man lands I don't believe that it is a good use for your mana.

You aren't tapping to play Loam every turn. There's no reason to do so.

You also need those Counterspells and those cards you draw. You'll never have to spend those resources protecting Loam. You will have to spend them protecting Crucible from enemy Tin Street Hooligans, Duresses, Cabal Therapies, Hymn to Tourachs, Krosan Grips, Force of Wills, and even your own Pernicious Deed. You will not have to protect Loam from any of this. Not only that, but simply by having Loam in your deck, you don't have to protect your manlands unless facing Extirpate, either.

The worst they can do to your Loam is remove it from your graveyard. Graveyard hate, outside of the ever annoying Extirpate, does not hurt this deck badly. The only thing it needs the graveyard for at all is Nantuko Monestary and Life from the Loam. Therefore as all it affects is your kill conditions, you can deal with the graveyard hate at your leisure.

In the event they run Extirpate, they won't aim for your Loam anyway. They'll aim for either your counters or your manlands. And if they get your manlands, neither Loam or Crucible's going to help you for shit. At this point you need Living Wish, which we don't run. (Yes, I tried it.)

[Nihil Credo]

Correction: they do aim for Loam. And they do cry when they discover they just played a non-cantrip Cremate ;)

[jazzykat]

Not having 3 mana total also happens sometimes, and here Crucible is useless where Life from the Loam can win you the game.



What you don't seem to realize is that Life From the Loam, more often than not, is a 1-time 2 mana investment that does not cost a draw. Perhaps one game in twenty do I need to cast Life from the Loam more than once.



Life from the Loam doesn't need to be made better or supported. It's an insurance card that will either snag your fetchlands for replay or refill you on threats. It also digs for the threats as an absolute last resort. Just because Loam is in a deck doesn't mean you should be trying to cast it every turn and build the deck around it. In 4C Landstill's case, its Dredge is just insurance that you can't stop it.



You aren't tapping to play Loam every turn. There's no reason to do so.

You also need those Counterspells and those cards you draw. You'll never have to spend those resources protecting Loam. You will have to spend them protecting Crucible from enemy Tin Street Hooligans, Duresses, Cabal Therapies, Hymn to Tourachs, Krosan Grips, Force of Wills, and even your own Pernicious Deed. You will not have to protect Loam from any of this. Not only that, but simply by having Loam in your deck, you don't have to protect your manlands unless facing Extirpate, either.

The worst they can do to your Loam is remove it from your graveyard. Graveyard hate, outside of the ever annoying Extirpate, does not hurt this deck badly. The only thing it needs the graveyard for at all is Nantuko Monestary and Life from the Loam. Therefore as all it affects is your kill conditions, you can deal with the graveyard hate at your leisure.

In the event they run Extirpate, they won't aim for your Loam anyway. They'll aim for either your counters or your manlands. And if they get your manlands, neither Loam or Crucible's going to help you for shit. At this point you need Living Wish, which we don't run. (Yes, I tried it.)

I think we'll agree to disagree. All of your points are correct and valid but then again so are mine.

One last thing, are you still running wastelands if not, then I think loam is probably better than CoW but I still prefer it in the wasteland builds.

[honz]

I am not sure what builds everyone is running, but i have found crucible to be alot better in my Ubg build. This mainly comes from not having access to monestaries. A crucible with a factory gives you a "free" chump blocker that keeps coming back, allowing you to draw into what you need. This has been a factor many games for me, however a 4/4 first strike certainly changes things...

[Tacosnape]

Correction: they do aim for Loam. And they do cry when they discover they just played a non-cantrip Cremate ;)

Lmao. Agreed. But they shouldn't aim for Loam.

Seriously, though. Aiming for the Loam instead of the Lands itself is pretty stupid, and while I hate to use that word due to having it reserved for a select few people, there's not much else that fits. Extirpate should either be aimed at the kill lands or aimed at a specific resource Landstill has. Advisory6000, for instance, is our local Train Wreck player. He aims at my Counterspells and Force of Wills in order to guarantee resolution of Haunting Echoes, and usually accomplishes exactly that.

It can also be correct at times to aim for Landstill's card draw or for the color-producing duals.


I think we'll agree to disagree. All of your points are correct and valid but then again so are mine.

One last thing, are you still running wastelands if not, then I think loam is probably better than CoW but I still prefer it in the wasteland builds.

No Wastelands. I quit running Wasteland about six months ago and a lot of 4C Players are wisely doing the same. Interestingly, not running Wasteland skyrockets your consistency of having the green for Loam.

I agree with you that it's hardly even disputable that Loam is stronger in 4C without Wasteland. I'd still argue Loam is stronger in 4C even with Wasteland, but I could definitely see the arguments on the other side in this case.

[Anarky87]

I am not sure what builds everyone is running, but i have found crucible to be alot better in my Ubg build. This mainly comes from not having access to monestaries. A crucible with a factory gives you a "free" chump blocker that keeps coming back, allowing you to draw into what you need. This has been a factor many games for me, however a 4/4 first strike certainly changes things...

I have Crucible in my Ubg build too, but I'm also running 2 Wastelands as well. Though tonight driving out to eat I pondered about whether to go ahead and run LftL since I'm already in green and the anti-synergy between Deeds and Crucible would disappear. I haven't decided yet, I think I still have the Crucible in there.

I've been kinda enjoying the UBG Landstill quite a bit here recently.

[honz]

I've been kinda enjoying the UBG Landstill quite a bit here recently.

Well i'm glad not everyone has been seduced by tacosnape (yet).

After testing both list, a couple things have become obvious. Firstly, the 4-color takes alot more skill, and thought to pilot correctly. Secondly, the 4-color is better if things fall into place. However, i run into some trouble at the "things fall into place" part; i end up randomly loosing because of color-screwed hands, terrible top-decking, and waste / ports at the worst possible time.

The 3c's mana base is (obviously) more solid. Also, I feel the 3c list still has room to grow, and improve; i haven't really seen a set list. Regardless both lists have been performing well for me, and i guess it is up to personal prefrence as to which you like most.

[Anarky87]

Well i'm glad not everyone has been seduced by tacosnape (yet).

After testing both list, a couple things have become obvious. Firstly, the 4-color takes alot more skill, and thought to pilot correctly. Secondly, the 4-color is better if things fall into place. However, i run into some trouble at the "things fall into place" part; i end up randomly loosing because of color-screwed hands, terrible top-decking, and waste / ports at the worst possible time.

The 3c's mana base is (obviously) more solid. Also, I feel the 3c list still has room to grow, and improve; i haven't really seen a set list. Regardless both lists have been performing well for me, and i guess it is up to personal prefrence as to which you like most.

While I may not be able to decide on which lists I want to play from now on, there is one thing for sure: I <3 Landstill. I just have a blast playing the deck and I think it's tons of fun.

I've been switching back and forth testing UWb and UBg Landstill builds. Honz, would you mind PM'ing me your UBg list? I'd like to compare it with mine and see what you're running.

[Joe Eigo]

I gave 4-Color-Landstill another try this weekend, but the metagame was just sick. At least 1/3 was all about combo.

1. Round: Mono W Angel Stompy (2:0)

It's a bye. I crimed an Exalted Angel, but he removed it with Parallax Wave and i forgot that it would return on his side, so i was in trouble for like 2 turns. But other than that he can't come up with that much removal and draw. (Fact revealing another Fact which reveals another Fact is sooo sick =] )

2. Round: Mono W Angel Stax (2:1)

I win the die roll and get multiple Standstill in game 1. I'm able to Counter all relevant spells like Geddon and Somestack and thats it.
In 2nd he lays down Defense Grid and Exalted which i just concede against, to have more time in the 3rd.
There i goddraw all my 4 FoW's get some Standstills down and Stick Geddon with MMage. Theres not much he can do from there.

3. Round: Solidarity (0:2)

First game i just can not win.
2nd game he just waits till he as everything (after me beating him to 5 with ManLands) and i draw nothing relevant. (Drawing Meddling Mage on turn 4-5 does not really help..)

4. Round: Solidarity (1:1:1)

First game i just can not win.
2nd game he draws too much land i have 3 Counterspells to disrupt his combo.
3rd is timeout and he fails to combo of in extra turns. I think i would've lost this in the long term.

5. Round: Mono Red Burn (0:2)

My first starting hand is pretty bad for this matchup. He has a single mountain and throws 3 to me each turn. He fnds his 2nd and 3rd land in time to finish me off... :/

2nd: Here i got punished for playing a Bayou over Tropical Island (just own 3) so i'm not able to counter his PoP backed up by a REB, myself holding BEB in hand. Damn... i wish i'd thrown in just another Fetchie :[

I'm happy i threw out Wastelands (look at my matchups o_O ) for a better base, which really helped.

I have a a question to you: What do you do against Solidarity ? Mulligan agressively into Meddling Mage ? Even Extirpate seems not really to help here, since he can go off with like 8 islands in play and not needing Resets at all...

The Deck for reference was:

3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island + 1 Bayou
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra

4 Mishra's Factory
1 Nantuko Monastery + 1 Treetop Village

3 Diabolc Edict
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Krosan Grip
1 Crime/Punishment

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Life from the Loam

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Stifle

SB
3 Extirpate
4 Meddling Mage
4 Engineered Plague
4 BEB

[Tinefol]

Joe Eigo
Considering there were no goblins and nothing that relies on the graveyard, I would've moved out Plagues and Extirpates and added something like Arcane Laboratory.

[Tacosnape]

I have a a question to you: What do you do against Solidarity ? Mulligan agressively into Meddling Mage ? Even Extirpate seems not really to help here, since he can go off with like 8 islands in play and not needing Resets at all...


Solidarity is your absolute hardest combo match. But it's not an unbeatable one. I get to play this match a ton as I own both decks in real life. Here's some things you can do to help the situation.

1. Run a pair of Orim's Chants in sideboard. Solidarity is where you'll want the chants the absolute most. Don't throw the Chants until midway through the combo / counterwar (Obviously, do it before a Meditate resolves if you can't stop the Meditate.)

2. Don't counter High Tide. Your clock is too slow for High Tide to be a crucial spell to counter. Also, every High Tide they resolve gives you all the more blue mana to cast your counters.

3. Stop the Draw spells. The bulk of your countermagic should be aimed at their card-drawing spells. Early Extirpates should be aimed at their cantrips, like Brainstorm or Impulse (But not Opt unless you're sure they run four, and not Remand if you think they boarded in Twincast.) When they're going off, let them Tide and Untap all day long, but stop Meditate.

4. Mage with a plan. There isn't ever a correct thing to Mage for at all times. It depends on your hand. If you're very counter-light, you might want to name High Tide until you draw into more counters. If you're packing Forces and Counters, I prefer to name Meditate. Also, if you have a second Mage backing the first one up, consider naming Cunning Wish and following it with Brain Freeze (Don't do this against Red Tide, though, as the lock will get eaten by Sudden Shock.)

[bigbear102]

Ok, I've been toying with a URB version of Landstill. Here it is so far, very very unrefined, but each card has its uses:

4 Force
3 Counterspell
2 Mana Leak
4 Duress
3 Stifle- previously diabolic edict, not sure yet.

4 Bolt
3 Fire/Ice
3 Pyroclasm

4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
3 Burning Wish

3 Delta
1 Strand (don't have a 4th delta yet...
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
3 Volcanic
3 Underground
4 Mishra's Factory

Wish Bombs:
Echoes
Perish
Massacre
Clasm

Plagues are also in the board, after testing goblins today it is apparent that something permanent is needed to keep them down.

The 60th card is either a land or an Echoes, haven't decided yet.

I really like this build because it can handle both aggro and combo, but it does kinda scoop in the control mirror. That's why I think I want another Echoes main.

Duress: good against combo. TES doesn't normally have a duress proof hand while you are holding force/counterspell backup. With the increase in combo decks and aggro/control I think duress is very good in a deck with counterspells. Duress lets you pick gro's counters out before you echoes/perish them.

Bolt/Fire/Ice, mainly used as removal, but can go to the dome. It is almost exclusively removal though.

Pyroclasm: It deals with goblins, takes out warrens tokens, and beats up on survival's early game. Coming online turn 2 is very nice.

I am playing Mana Leak in here because I want the swamp and mountain. 3 counterspell and 2 mana leak fit very nicely in here, giving me just enough counters, and with duress I have more counters than most other control/aggrocontrol.

The problem with the deck is that 4 Mishra's factory are really hard to win a game quickly with. I have been testing ETW in my board as a wish target to get the game over quicker. I know it is pretty janky, but surprisingly, it works well. I don't normally cast it till late game, and with Duress/brainstorm can get it to 6 or 8 tokens pretty reliably. If anybody has any other ideas for a finisher throw 'em out there, I could use them.

[honz]

@ Bigbear - Firstly, it has been my expierience that 8 counterspell slots is enough. 4 of those are obviously FoW, and the other 4 are either rune snage, or counterspell. If you think you can't find the UU for counterspells, go with rune snag, however i think it would be best to commit fully to one or the other. Have you tried 8 counters and found it to be not enough? Have you tried rune snag at all (most people haven't)?

I have never played a red version of the deck, but i think you would need atleast 2 engineered explosives; is there any reasoning against this? Also, i think 4 duress is uneeded, and you would rather have 4 diabolic edict in that slot. Once you have EE, you don't need duress as much. I tried MD duress in my UGB, and was never happy with it. \

Also, you might try a single faerie conclave, it has been decent for me.

just some suggestions...

[Oathmaster]

Hello,

Pretty interesting deck. I agree that generally 8 counters is enough. I would lose the mana leaks to add 1 more counterspell and use the last spot to go towards a Engineered Explosives. I would want to run 2 engineered explosives so I would use your last card slot for that instead of the echoes.

I agree with you on the duress. It is excellent to use against TES and many fast combo decks that might give you a hard time in the early stages of a game. I wouldn't drop them.

Did you think about using damnation since you are playing black as a board sweeper?

[Tacosnape]

I would replace the Perish in your Sideboard with a Damnation. Perish isn't particularly amazing in Landstill given how easily you can shut down Green Threat.Dec easily with Diabolic Edict (God, please tell me you've got those back in your list somewhere.)

I'd also consider a Cranial Extraction in your board. Landstill struggles mightily with Life from the Loam based decks, and this could give you a huge weapon against them, leaving you with only the task of shutting off Burning Wish.

Mana Leak sucks. You -will- reach a point in most games where your opponent has 3 mana to pay for every spell in his deck.

And in UBR? Engineered Explosives. Lots of them. They're artifact removal, enchantment removal, Tarmogoyf removal, and Empty the Warrens removal. Pretty sexy.

[bigbear102]

Yes, explosives is needed in the deck, i meant to change the list to show that.

What do you guys think about Stifle MD? I'm pretty sure the Edicts are going back in over them. Also, the Perish could easily become a Damnation. Cranial Extraction is also another card that is in there, but I don't actually have so it wasn't on the top of my head when typing last night.

What do you guys think of Promise of Power as a Wished for finisher? I can't find much else.

[Nightmare]

Just as an aside - Mana Leak very much does not suck. In fact, it's been better than Counterspell in my testing. I barely ever reliably have UU on turn 2, and in fact, I'd rather have UW, so I can StP or begin to set up Wrath. In either instance, Leak is far, far better. Past turn 4, you rarely have anything that needs countering, as you can generally deal with it through board control. The exception is possibly Deed (not a big deal) or Haunting Echoes (oops.), but you still have 4 Forces and an asston of Draw to find them.

Again, this is based on my UWg build, which is better equipped to deal a significant amount of damage faster, and deals with creature-based threats more readily. (Oh, and it runs basics.)

[Oathmaster]

Hey Bigbear,

I am a huge fan of stifle maindeck. Edict only stops creatures where stifle can play great tricks on many decks. Against goblin it is a sinkhole for one blue because you take out wasteland. Also what deck does not run fetches, where you can stifle the ability?

The decks that see a lot of play in the cuse area is goblin and survival. They should have multiple creatures on the board so edict will read "Get rid of the worst creature in play, like that birds of paradise or mogg fanatic."

I personally would go with stifle.

Thanks

[Tacosnape]

Although it's less relevant of a point in a deck without a true mass board sweeper like the URB build, Diabolic Edict isn't generally played as a top choice early in the game. It's much stronger after you've already swept the board of all the smaller threats. Engineered Explosives can take care of said weak creatures, though, as can the burn.

I think Diabolic Edict is the stronger choice of the two, but I think not having both maindeck in the modern meta is very risky. I think Edict is a far stronger choice than, say, Fire//Ice.

[Muradin]

What do you think of this list?(by Marius Hausmann)

3 wasteland
4 mishras factory
4 flooded strand
4 tundra
2 island
1 plains
1 scrubland
2 underground sea
2 polluted delta

2 eternal dragon
3 engineered explosives
2 crucible of worlds
4 standstill
4 brainstorm
4 counterspell
2 stifle
2 fact or fiction
4 swords to plowshares
1 pulse of the fields
3 wrath of god
2 decree of justice
4 force of will

SB:
4 meddling mage
4 engineered plague
3 extirpate (against loam, frequently played in europe)
2 dismantling blow(cc against counterbalance)
2 pulse of the fields

[honz]

MD pulse the fields seems aggresive at best. I would much rather have a 3rd stifle or 3rd FoF in its place. How has pulse been treating you?

Just a small point, but dismantling blow seems weak at best. If you fear counterbalance, seal of cleansing is a much better option (just play it before you let them resolve a balance). It also hadles other thresh problems, like top, and pithing needle. Seal has other uses as well, like survival, and chalice aggro (if you can drop it early). I havent personally tried it out, but it seems like a good fit...

Other than that it looks good. I would go with a different SB, but i don't know the european meta at all.

[Nantuko88]

I have been playing Landstill variants since around 2005. I have only re-started playing mtg recently, and this is the deck I threw together and played at a local Legacy event. I don't believe it to be Tier 1 material, but I thought I would share it. Keep in mind that I built this to beat random aggro.

Land:
4 Flooded strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Island
2 Plains
4 Mishra
2 Conclave
2 Maze of Ith

Counter:
4 FOW
4 CounterSpell
2 Forbid

Draw:
4 Brain Storm
4 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
1 Ancestral Vision

Spot Removal:
4 Swords

Mass Removal:
3 Wrath of God
2 Akroma's Venegance
2 Disk

Utility:
2 Decree of Justice
1 Life From The Loam

SB:
4 Stifle
2 Mage
4 HydroBlast
4 Blue E. Blast
1 Pulse of the Fields

I faired well and managed to secure first (and fist full of boosters). The only tier 1/2 decks I faced were Fish and Zoo, I beat both, but they were very close matches.

Thanks!

[Van Phanel]

@ honz: The maindeck Pulse is most often used to put you out of range of the goblin-player. Usually against Goblins, you either loose G1 pretty fast or get to stabilize at around ten life. Then they start bleeding away your life total slowly with single hastgoblins/fanatics backed up by Port/Wasteland to get around you manlands. Thats where Pulse jumps in and forces the Goblinplayer to overcommit which makes him very vulnerable to Wrath.

It also has its uses in other matchups especially NQG/r where it stops them from burning you out after you stabilized the board and aggro-loam, which you can win only (mulligan to less then 5 and incredible bad luck on the loam players side excluded) by having a StoP for each of his Terravores, a counter/EE for each of his Seismic Assaults and then either kill them by decking if they Loam for Wasteland to aggresively or via a Dragon/huge Decree if they don't. As you usually have to take some damage early on, the Pulse is mandatory to stop them from burning you out (with their Terravores swordsed you'll get the Pulse back as often as you want)(everything i said about aggro-loam is only true if you manage to stick a crucible otherwise you never win at all).

The sideboard is built to have a winnable goblin-matchup (which is not really good, but I'd say playable) and to win against loam.

For the Counterbalance-Problem: If you really want a preemptive answer against the Balance, you can always cast EE/2, thats not the Problem, but the cool thing about Blow is that most Fish-Players have literally nothing at CMC 3 (they haven't quite started using Vindicate over here) and you actually get a chance to pay the kicker in some games. The single additional mana is not a problem at all, as you are probably going to have some time with the opponent playing a Counterbalance and trying to abuse it.

I know the guy who designed that version pretty well and he has tested it and it does work. He was Top8 at the last Bazaar-Liga-Tournament(on July 1st) again with nearly that build (at that time playing disenchants) and with Blow he'd probably have gone third as he had to draw against an active Counterbalance in the last round.

@ Muradin:

Marius runs CoP: Red over Pulse in his Sb, what made you going for additional Pulses instead of those?

@ Nantuko88:

a) I'd guess your Goblin-Matchup should be at like 25-75 preboard and what do you board out for those blasts? You need some solution to Vial that is faster than Disk/Vengeance. G2 and 3 you probably still lose against his Vials.

b) If you run Green for Loam already, why on earth wouldn't you play Nantuko Monastery over Faerie Conclave?

c) how often have you been able to pay buyback for the Forbids? I'd guess very rarely.

@ all:
Are Deed and Monastery really that good to run green? I'd guess G/B is not easier to get then WW for Wrath and at the time you can savely swing with a Monastery its not a problem to cast a Dragon or Cycle a big Decree for the win. What exactly makes 4-color-Landstill better than the build posted by Muradin?

[Tacosnape]

that[/B] good to run green? I'd guess G/B is not easier to get then WW for Wrath and at the time you can savely swing with a Monastery its not a problem to cast a Dragon or Cycle a big Decree for the win. What exactly makes 4-color-Landstill better than the build posted by Muradin?

Yes. Deed and Monestary are worth it for Green.

Pernicious Deed is the single absolute best board sweeper in magic. Not only will it Wrath their board, it'll do it at instant speed where Wrath can't, and it'll take out artifacts and enchantments with it. Cracking a deed will more often than not leave you with absolutely nothing but Land on the board, which is 4C Landstill's dream come true. The fact that Deed functions as your Disenchant-style effect lets you dedicate what would be those Disenchants to Counters or more Spot removal.

Monestary is worth it because very little can swing through it. Midgame, it will force aggro decks to extend multiple threats on the board in order to mount an assault to get safely through it. This, of course, is exactly what you want, and allows you to crush it with Deed.

Muradin's build isn't bad by any means, though. It's one of the best builds I've seen in awhile.

[Nantuko88]

@ Nantuko88:

a) I'd guess your Goblin-Matchup should be at like 25-75 preboard and what do you board out for those blasts? You need some solution to Vial that is faster than Disk/Vengeance. G2 and 3 you probably still lose against his Vials.

b) If you run Green for Loam already, why on earth wouldn't you play Nantuko Monastery over Faerie Conclave?

c) how often have you been able to pay buyback for the Forbids? I'd guess very rarely.




Thanks for the reply.

a.) I faced vial a few times against the fish build. In this match up I made sure to save counter force or hope to draw mass removal in time. You are right though.

b.) I didnt play monastery so I could support a flier and have the extra blue mana, also if you dont hit thresh monastery is dead.

c) Against zoo the buy back saved my life. Between the 4 Stand still 2 Fof and 1 Ancetral vision, the buy back was never difficult. I also would toss lands away and loam them back. I really like forbid, its just really slow though.

[Citrus-God]

I still see many reasons to run UW over UWg or UWb, UBg, or even UWbg. Like a slightly more stable and forgiving mana base. Let's not forget that Faerie Conclave also produces Blue, so you'll have UU by Turn 2.

Landstill has also done very well in the past. I know Geoff Smelski and others played a Crucible-less build, which intrigued me. He rejected MD Crucibles, which freed up lots of room.

I playtested the list a while back against Goblins, and I was suprised. I think we should look into those colors again.

[Nightmare]

Geoff is actually playing UWbg now. He runs Cunning Wish and a host of Pacts in the board, along with Extirpates and Harmonic Convergence.

Oh, and my article on UWg Landstill is up on SCG. Link here (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14461.html).

[Solpugid]

I've been toying around with 4c Landstill for a while, and have been less than satisfied with my 2nd pinpoint removal spell (that would be diabolic edict; StP is obviously awesome). The 2cc is a tad prohibitive if I want to be activated manlands as well, and the fact that it can miss the real threat is rather annoying.

Of all the creatures that edict hits over targetted removal (mongoose, troll ascetic, akroma [if the removal is black], simic sky swallower, etc.) only mongoose is played extensively. And mongoose dies to blocking manlands and a deed popped for >0. So, I personally (at least for my metagame) would like to rework that slot. I'm currently trying out ghastly demise, and I will see if I fill my graveyard fast enough to handle creatures like tarmogoyf. If not, smother might go in (the cost again is 2cc, but at least it targets).

I've also been unhappy with stifle, at least maindeck. My meta doesn't have a wasteland in sight so I don't need stifle for land protection. Storm combo is also rather low at the moment. However, I have no idea what to put in its place. Suggestions are very welcome at this point, though I want to keep it blue so I have enough spells to pitch to Fow.

[honz]

I have loved edict for the longest time. In fact, i would take edict over StP against many decks. However, if you feel unhappy with it, you have other options. Ghastly demise has worked nicely in my 3-color build. My graveyard always grows with the size of threats. The only problem is a turn 1 lackey, and you got nothing in grave. Innocent blood works as well, if you found edict's curve too high. Innocent blood takes a little more skill to play with, but ussually has the same effect. Terror is another thing that comes to mind. However, the non-black part comes into effect alot more than you would imagine. Vendetta is another option, although i would almost always take ghastly over this. You could always run humility, moat. Something i always wanted to try out was Porphyry Nodes / drop of honey.

If you dislike stifle, i guess you could run more draw or more counters. Maybe a pulse the fields, or more creature hate (like above). More EE, and possibly a disk are other option as well. I am sure i am overlooking something, but that is all i can really think of...

[Tacosnape]

I've been toying around with 4c Landstill for a while, and have been less than satisfied with my 2nd pinpoint removal spell (that would be diabolic edict; StP is obviously awesome). The 2cc is a tad prohibitive if I want to be activated manlands as well, and the fact that it can miss the real threat is rather annoying.

Of all the creatures that edict hits over targetted removal (mongoose, troll ascetic, akroma [if the removal is black], simic sky swallower, etc.) only mongoose is played extensively. And mongoose dies to blocking manlands and a deed popped for >0. So, I personally (at least for my metagame) would like to rework that slot. I'm currently trying out ghastly demise, and I will see if I fill my graveyard fast enough to handle creatures like tarmogoyf. If not, smother might go in (the cost again is 2cc, but at least it targets).

I've also been unhappy with stifle, at least maindeck. My meta doesn't have a wasteland in sight so I don't need stifle for land protection. Storm combo is also rather low at the moment. However, I have no idea what to put in its place. Suggestions are very welcome at this point, though I want to keep it blue so I have enough spells to pitch to Fow.

Take a cue from Honz and try out Innocent Blood as your other removal spell instead of Diabolic Edict. Swords and Deed will satisfy the instant-speed removal, and Blood's 1 mana cheaper. I ran Innocent Blood for quite a long time and in certain metagames he's still the right call. Ghastly Demise blows in the first few turns when you need it to shine the most. Also, it's bad enough when a Threshold-eater (Like Jotun Grunt or Tormod's Crypt) delays your kill capacity. The last thing you need it doing is hurting your removal also.

Targeting is overrated. In almost every matchup, there's only going to be one creature to Edict, or you aren't going to care which one goes to the Edict.

If Stifle has virtually no use in your metagame, try Spell Snare in its place. Snare >> Legacy.

[AnduYn]

Hey everyone,

the Stifles didn't seem to be worth playing in my metagame as well, so I dropped them for 2 Enlightened Tutor 1 Humility and 1 Vedalken Shackles.

I took the deck to one of the biggest legacy tournaments in Germany, and it preformed really well. I went 5-1-1 and made it to the fourth place (of 69 guys).

The tutors were insane, the got me Humility when I had the double white, or they got me the Deeds when I needed them. They can search crucible/standstill/shackles and all the Sideboard cards you need (I played CoP:Red,Plagues,Engeneered Explosives).

The only real problem is that you have less blue cards, but the metagame was less combo and more aggro/aggro control.

Andu

[honz]

congrats on the results.

How did the MD shackles do for you?, i was never happy with them SB or MD...

I was playing against some random deck the other day (i wasn't playing landstill though), when he played a Drop of Honey. I couldn't help but think that this (or its brother, prophy nodes) deserves a place in landstill. For starters, it is 1cc and the right color(s). It would absolutely destroy goblins, or any aggro (sligh, stompy, elves, RG beats...etc). If playing against aggro-control, you could drop it a bit later in the game, once your creature hate is used up. Maybe a SB slot against aggro.

Just a thought, maybe it is a win-more. Wondering if anyone had tried it out...

[Ch@os]

As a first turn drop the aggro or gobbo Player just play one Turn no Creature and your Drop of Honey is gone. It buys you one Round.

And in the Mid/Lategame the Drop is very slow, against many decks he will sacrifice the week Creatures and rip of you ass ;>.

[honz]

If you were to adjust your statagy, to play moats, ghostly prison and humility; you could run nodes much more effectively. If humility is in play, you get your pick of what to kill off.

Also, a late-game drop of honey is not weak; the abyss sees alot of play in landstill (duck hunt), and that is definately a late-game drop. The abyss has been really good for me, so i thought maybe drop of honey would be nice as well.

Once again, just a thought. I realize it has some problems, but W for destroy a creature each turn is pretty damn nice. Turn 2-3 against gobbos and they are gonna have some problems.

[Tacosnape]

As a first turn drop the aggro or gobbo Player just play one Turn no Creature and your Drop of Honey is gone. It buys you one Round.

And in the Mid/Lategame the Drop is very slow, against many decks he will sacrifice the week Creatures and rip of you ass ;>.

In defense of the card, what actually happens against Goblins (or other aggro) is far better than this. If, for example, your opponent has played a turn one Lackey and you answer it with Drop/Nodes, your opponent is presented with a choice: Sacrifice the Lackey -and- lose a chance to play a Piledriver or another small threat, or commit to killing you with the initial rush of the Lackey connecting (Which from testing, they'll absolutely never do with a Drop/Nodes out combined with your other removal unless the initial hit drops a Siege-Gang Commander, and even then it can be recovered from more often than not.)

Against other Aggro, you get a similar setup, only this time they absolutely have to choose to sacrifice and skip the turn. So essentially you're getting rid of a creature for 1 mana at the expense of taking one hit from it while strongly compelling your opponent to not play a creature for a turn.

That said, I don't think Drop or Nodes entirely belong in this deck unless you're running Pulse of the Fields. Without Pulse of the Fields, you absolutely cannot afford to take the hits. 4C Landstill and many 3C builds have absolutely no lifegain short of STP'ing their own Manlands.

However, if you want to try it out in 4C, I recommend you give it Engineered Plague's slots. In a recent match against a skilled player on MWS, I was quite sleepy and somehow forgot to board in the Engineered Plagues. Much to my surprise, I was still able to pull off a pretty clean game 2 victory off the Blasts and Mages and launching into Deed/Standstill combinations. Although this might be a stretch basing this on one game of testing, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to contemplate replacing Engineered Plague with Drop of Honey or Porphyry Nodes, each of which would still contribute somewhat against Goblins.

Also, in a side-note that isn't Landstill related, I've been working on a super secret deck that runs the full eight, 4 Drops and 4 Nodes, to solid success thus far.


If you were to adjust your statagy, to play moats, ghostly prison and humility; you could run nodes much more effectively. If humility is in play, you get your pick of what to kill off.

If you've got a Humility or a Moat in play, why exactly do you need the Porphyry Nodes?

[Anarky87]

Concerning SB's for the 4c Landstill, what is everyone running in their SB's? I'm kind of in a pickle because I can't really decide on what to have in there for Gencon. So far I have:

4 Engineered Plague (The only concrete set in there)

The rest I've been deciding on are among:

4 Mage
4 Leyline
4 Duress
4 BEB
3 Extirpate

Plague seems pretty obvious because I know there will be Goblins, but I've been considering the rest of the board to be:

4 Plague
4 Mage
4 Duress
3 Extirpate

But this board doesn't address things like Burn/Goblins/Red Stuff (BEB) or Ichorid (Leyline). I've also tried a board of:

4 Plague
4 BEB
4 Mage
3 Extirpate

Getting rid of Duress completely, but I like having Duress to board in against combo, aggro-control, and other control decks. Does BEB deserve spots in the SB at all? I know they help in the Gobs match too. As you can see, this is my conundrum.

[Tacosnape]

BEB also helps in combo matchups like Epic Storm and Belcher, which is where you'd mostly need Duress. This to me makes it the more attractive option.

[konsultant]

I still see many reasons to run UW over UWg or UWb, UBg, or even UWbg. Like a slightly more stable and forgiving mana base.

Landstill has also done very well in the past. I know Geoff Smelski and others played a Crucible-less build, which intrigued me. He rejected MD Crucibles, which freed up lots of room.

I playtested the list a while back against Goblins, and I was suprised. I think we should look into those colors again.



Geoff is actually playing UWbg now. He runs Cunning Wish and a host of Pacts in the board, along with Extirpates and Harmonic Convergence.



I strongly agree that the deck can ONLY support 2 colors. I have splashed black and green ONLY for versatility with cunning wish targets and the very needed 3rd to 4th colors for engineered explosives. The main deck is entirely blue/white, all of my side board cards that get boarded into the deck are also only blue/white.

Honestly the format is closer than ever at getting back to the way it was when Landstill was the only really viable deck.

With this in mind you must play expecting to face other Landstill decks. I have tested all of the various builds that have sprung up in the last 2 years and the only one that is really viable against everything is blue/white.

Any deck can be built to beat 2-4 different tier one decks. The amazing power of Landstill is its ability to beat all the decks you face in the first half of the tournament and still be set up to hose the tier one decks in top 8.

As a side note I would like to discourage the playing of mana leak. Landstill almost by definition is meant to go to the late game. Counterspells are the backbone of the deck and need to be reliable at all times. As far as having the 2-blue mana to cast it, Landstill can support 7 colorless sources of mana, that's it. [trust me i have tested it alot]. You more or less have the choice of playing 3 Monastery or 3 Wasteland, either way if you are playing more than that you are going to lose whether you are playing Mana Leak or not.

Since this is my first post this is Geoff Smelski.

[Wasteland]

Hi all, my name is Marius Hausmann, i did finish the last Bazaar-Liga in Germany again with Top8ing ( 5. from 76 players )...
Here the Build: http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=9582
Following i want to explain some card-choices and before this clearly say, that i know the strength of pernicious deeds in 4colour builds but nevertheless dislike them, cause 1.) your mana-base gets quite week ( ecspecially if not running cruicibles ) and b.) deeds can be often handled by a disenchant, a needle or a stifle ( which is omnipresent in TES-times )...
Further it is not really faster then a WoG, cause you can blow it up earliest in round 4 ( as WoG too... ). The advantage of having the possibility to kill vials and Decks like Affinity is not worth adding 2 Colours in my mind... ( and deeds are worthless against theese bad Rock-Decks, featuring Hierarchs :cool: )...
To my Deck:
Most choices should be clear, i added Black for having postboard good chances against LftL-Decks, for the plagues and of course for the possibility to blow up EE for 3. For theese i have cutted the mostly too late coming vengeances and the disk ( EE > TES / Vial ). Further EE are the best card ever against Counterbalance, since you can simply pay UUUW, having a cc of 4...
2 Fact or Fictions are nice, while i definitely miss the 3. Stifle... 1 Pulse of the Fields is a Must, since you will probably find it with Brainstorms / Standstill / Fact or Fictions. I would say, this modifications of the classic build are quite necessary but actually i like the Deck a lot ( i would have made the 2. or 3. place with it, if i had had 2 more turns in the last round )...
So long, Greetz from Germany and sry for my bad English^^
Marius

[Nightmare]

I strongly agree that the deck can ONLY support 2 colors. I have splashed black and green ONLY for versatility with cunning wish targets and the very needed 3rd to 4th colors for engineered explosives. The main deck is entirely blue/white, all of my side board cards that get boarded into the deck are also only blue/white.

Honestly the format is closer than ever at getting back to the way it was when Landstill was the only really viable deck.

With this in mind you must play expecting to face other Landstill decks. I have tested all of the various builds that have sprung up in the last 2 years and the only one that is really viable against everything is blue/white.

Any deck can be built to beat 2-4 different tier one decks. The amazing power of Landstill is its ability to beat all the decks you face in the first half of the tournament and still be set up to hose the tier one decks in top 8.

As a side note I would like to discourage the playing of mana leak. Landstill almost by definition is meant to go to the late game. Counterspells are the backbone of the deck and need to be reliable at all times. As far as having the 2-blue mana to cast it, Landstill can support 7 colorless sources of mana, that's it. [trust me i have tested it alot]. You more or less have the choice of playing 3 Monastery or 3 Wasteland, either way if you are playing more than that you are going to lose whether you are playing Mana Leak or not.

Since this is my first post this is Geoff Smelski.
Geoff, as I'm certain you know, I both agree with, and disagree with many of your points.

First of all, UW is becoming better and better in today's metagame. I still like splashing green (although, my build splashes it almost as little as yours) for Monastery and Krosan Grip, but that debate is an article in itself.

I'm not convinced that you really need to be set up to win the Landstill mirror, even today, in a large event. From what I've experienced, there will be a handful at best amount of players with the deck in a 50+ player tournament, and you can play the odds against the mirror - well, unless you're me (For those not in the know, in the last 5 events I've played in - both local and large - I've played Geoff in 4, and lost every time. He is literally the reason I say my build can't win the mirror). I don't think the general metagame has really gotten the message that control is viable again, despite my best efforts. Until we start seeing a few control builds in the top 8's of events as often as Thresh or Goblins, the mirror can be a throwaway. I'm fine with that being my glass-cannon strategy.

The issue of Mana Leak is one we'll have to agree to disagree on. Our decks are very different, despite their similarities. As we've discussed in person, your deck has the overall style of the reactive and defensive control deck, which dips late into a game and seeks to dominate the board position as late as possible. Mine is much more agressive, and has access to a win condition that ends the game in a much more timely fashion - Monastery. The duplicitous nature of our decks is the reason I can afford to use Mana Leak while you can't - I can utilize it as a tempo card, while you can't capitalize on the tempo it provides. This is the same reason I can more readily use Stifle. It's also the reason you are much better equipped to win the match vs. me - I am forced into the beatdown role, because your build is better equipped to play the control role. Playing the aggro deck is obviously not something my deck does well.

[Anarky87]

So what does your list look like now exactly, Geoff? I'm curious as to what you're running. As Landstill is the only deck I play in Legacy anymore, I'm curious as to any updates or changes.

[Nightmare]

So what does your list look like now exactly, Geoff? I'm curious as to what you're running. As Landstill is the only deck I play in Legacy anymore, I'm curious as to any updates or changes.I'll take a stab at it from what I can remember, if he sees this anytime soon he can fix it.

Geoff Smelski Landstill 2k7

4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
3x Cunning Wish
2x Fact or Fiction

4x Brainstorm
4x Standstill

4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Wrath of God
3x Engineered Explosives

4x Decree of Justice (Could be 3)
2x Eternal Dragon

4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
4x Tundra
1x Scrubland
1x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
4x Flooded Strand
2x Island
2x Plains

SB
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Pact of Negation
1x Intervention Pact
1x Return to Dust
1x Pulse of the Fields
Xx Extirpate
2x Crucible of Worlds
2x Disenchant
2x Harmonic Convergence
Xx ?

[Tacosnape]

I strongly agree that the deck can ONLY support 2 colors.

I agree with everything you just said except this.

Nobody has, as of yet, given any good or logical reason why with the proper manabase Landstill cannot support splashing White, Green, and Black.

The 4C Splash is perfectly viable. It's led me to four tournament 1st or 1st/2nd Splits out of four times I've played it, with only one actual match loss yet, and currently no draws (Though I'm sure this trend will end eventually). It's also lead my teammate to a tournament win, and it's led me to 4-0-1 in The Source tournament against some pretty capable opponents.

[Solpugid]

Tacosnape, are there any interesting things you've learned about playing or building 4c Landstill for this tournament that you'd like to share? I'm in the process of getting it put together myself, and any extra tips before I unleash it on others would be excellent.

Just to add something, I would agree that 4 colors is perfectly viable. During my (admittedly limited) playtesting I found land hate easy enough to work around. And if rishadan port is really that much of a problem, run a few teferi's responses in the board. Having four colors means you can play pretty much anything you want, so solutions are bound to exist for your particular meta.

[DuKeLiO]

In the BHWC Landstill, with Pernicious Deed the mana base is very weak. You are forced to fetch quickly an Tundra to play Stps, and after you have to have Tropical Island and Underground Sea to play Deed. This use to be hard. I believe the UWg is a very good approach. I play with only a green card, LftL, and 2 Monasterys. I play with a lot of Silver Bullets, and so I can beat anything (I used to play UWr and had some troubles with LftL decks and so on). My version is also very strong in the mirror due to the uncountereable land-recursion of LftL to recur Wasteland and the two Lonely Sandbar. My decklist:

4 Force of WIll
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Stifle
3 Intuition
2 Trinket Mage//Spell Snare --I'm not very happy with wathever I put in that slot

4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Life from the Loam

3 Engineered Explosives
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt

1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
2 Lonely Sandbar
2 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
1 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Island

SB
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Spell Snare
2 Porphiry Nodes
2 Disenchant
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Life from the Loam

It is very nice to have a secundary draw engine. It is so good against the mirror and against decks with a lot of manlands. I can search for my silver bullets with Intuition+Tolarian Ruins+Life from the Loam.
aggro: T. Ruins, LftL, Engineered Explosives/V. Shackles
control: LftL, Sandbar, Sandbar/Wasteland
I can also go for 3 of whatever in an emergency, like 3 Fow, 3 Counter or 3 Swords, but I do not like doing it if I have another path to deal with the treath. Also can win decking my opponent with Tolarian Ruins (I had to do it against Life once).

[konsultant]

I'll take a stab at it from what I can remember, if he sees this anytime soon he can fix it.



Geoff Smelski Landstill 2k7 [fixed]

4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
3x Cunning Wish
2x Fact or Fiction

4x Brainstorm
4x Standstill

4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Wrath of God
3x Engineered Explosives

3x Decree of Justice
2x Eternal Dragon

4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
4x Tundra
1x Scrubland
1x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
4x Flooded Strand
2x Island
2x Plains

Side Board
1x PULSE OF THE FIELDS

Your sideboard choices should be determined by your own personal play style and your local metagame. Pulse is literally the only reason I run Cunning Wish. Having 3 cards that can get me Pulse game 1 has won me more games than any other single card. Most importantly, with Cunning Wish I have been able to return Landstill to answer.deck. It's more difficult to win the first few rounds of a tournament against random rogue decks, than it is to face the tier one decks you are readilly prepared to see. With the variety of removal/draw/counter you gain access to with Cunning Wish, combined with the staple cards of Landstill, I have yet to run into a random deck and lose 2-games.




Nobody has, as of yet, given any good or logical reason why with the proper manabase Landstill cannot support splashing White, Green, and Black.



I splash both off deck colors, I do not however need to see either color to cast anything. Personally I find Pernicious Deed to be a win-more card in Landstill. I play green and black mostly for the Engineered Explosives, but i do usually run an Extirpate in my board. The extra board space created by playing Cunning Wish allows for a considerably more diverse side board. You also have access to the majority of the cards game-1.

Thanks for the updated list, Geoff. Please, please, fix the grammar and spelling though. It's one of the main rules in the Forum Rules (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/announcement.php?f=24). ~ Nightmare

[sammiel]

why do you run 3 wasteland and no crucible MD?

Why the green splash without monastery?

why not include a singleton volcanic and have some red in the wishboard too?

[konsultant]

why do you run 3 wasteland and no crucible MD?

Why the green splash without monastery?

why not include a singleton volcanic and have some red in the wishboard too?

Honestly I have never run Crucible MD. I have found it useless in most match-ups. I run the Wastelands for the mirror-match and the random person playing Volrath's Stronghold. (mostly the mirror)

The green splash could very well be changed to a red splash. I have done some testing with Price of Progress in the SB as a way to beat the 43-Land decks. It actually worked pretty good. It really all just depends on what you want as Cunning Wish targets.

[Tacosnape]

Tacosnape, are there any interesting things you've learned about playing or building 4c Landstill for this tournament that you'd like to share? I'm in the process of getting it put together myself, and any extra tips before I unleash it on others would be excellent.

To fly in the face of both Dukelio and Konsultant's posts, what I learned, or reaffirmed, was that Pernicious Deed is the single best card in Landstill, not a win-more card, and that the manabase is completely solid (I had -one- game where I had mana troubles, which I think for 10 games played on MWS is completely acceptable, and I still won that game. (I'm not counting where I got my Tropical Islands Extirpated, though I won that game too.)

Beyond that, not much to add that I haven't added already. I won two games because of Crime and another because of Punishment that I wouldn't have won otherwise. C//P is so ridiculous it's immeasurable. As far as advice, the golden rules of Landstill, as far as I'm concerned, are not to counter anything that you don't absolutely have to, and not to be too quick to remove lesser threats with STP/Edict that you can sweep with Deed. And to get a solid feel for when you can and can't afford to play a Standstill.

EDIT: It is worth noting that as a buffer against MWS I went up to 7 fetchlands and only 3 Tropicals, and it seems to have worked out fairly well, so I've been trying it in real life as well.


In the BHWC Landstill, with Pernicious Deed the mana base is very weak.

Agreed, and you're making it worse. Get rid of Lonely Sandbar, get rid of Academy Ruins, and get rid of Wasteland. 4C Landstill should run a grand total of seven lands and no others. Tropicals, Seas, Tundras, Deltas, Strands, Factories, and Monestaries. Maybe a Scrubland (I've been considering this.), but probably not.

[konsultant]

To fly in the face of both Dukelio and Konsultant's posts, what I learned, was that Pernicious Deed is the single best card in Landstill, not a win-more card

4C Landstill should run a grand total of seven lands and no others. Tropicals, Seas, Tundras, Deltas, Strands, Factories, and Monestaries. Maybe a Scrubland (I've been considering this.), but probably not.

Have you done any testing against decks with considerable land disruption? I don't understand how playing a build that literally loses to a resolved Bloodmoon, is better than one with a more stable land base.

I agree that if you were going to play that build of the deck, you would need to play exactly that mana base.

Perhaps I am thinking to far into the future of the format. I firmly believe landstill is going to make a very large come back into Legacy. As a very experienced player of the deck, I would find it nearly impossible to fight through some of the SB hate cards people used to play against Land Still with the list you are running.

[Anarky87]

Have you done any testing against decks with considerable land disruption? I don't understand how playing a build that literally loses to a resolved Bloodmoon, is better than one with a more stable land base.

What decks are packing these Blood Moons though? Burn? Sligh? A Goblin list I haven't seen? Red Death (Except I play Magus, which is easier to answer)? Red Thresh kinda screws itself in the ass dropping one on you unless they fetched out all their basics by then. I would fear a more dedicated LD strategy like RD or Deadguy more than a Blood Moon, because it's rare you'll see it.

And if it did start showing up significantly, you can alter the deck to include an out to it. Not that difficult. The original list ran 1 Plains and 2 Disenchant's MD, if need be, you could always move back to that.

[Tacosnape]

Have you done any testing against decks with considerable land disruption? I don't understand how playing a build that literally loses to a resolved Bloodmoon, is better than one with a more stable land base.

I agree that if you were going to play that build of the deck, you would need to play exactly that mana base.

Perhaps I am thinking to far into the future of the format. I firmly believe landstill is going to make a very large come back into Legacy. As a very experienced player of the deck, I would find it nearly impossible to fight through some of the SB hate cards people used to play against Land Still with the list you are running.

I have never, ever, ever lost to a resolved Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon. And I've seen at least ten of each attempted to be played. Magus of the Moon is incredibly easy to deal with, as all you need to do is float the mana to remove him. Blood Moon's a little tougher, but succumbs to Blue Elemental Blast (A basic Island could be run if this became a popular thing to do, but right now it isn't.) and also is useless if you already have a Deed on the board.

Wasteland is no bother thanks to Stifle unless recurred with Loam, and most Landstill decks die to decks packing Loam pre-board anyway. Fortunately, Loam is heavily heavily favorable postboard with Mage, Extirpate, and Blue Elemental Blast leading the charge. Sinkhole and Vindicate are easily countered, ignored, or recurred from, unless they aim Extirpate at your colored lands, and if they do, it's not the end of the world generally.

EDIT: Also, for what it's worth, the second the Mirror becomes relevant in the metagame, I already have my 4C Tech lined up to be inserted: Quagnoth. Any Landstill variant not packing Green (Or heavy double-white for Wrath/Humility) loses to Quagnoth. Quagnoth swings through a Monestary, is immune to STP, Immune to Engineered Explosives, highly resilient to your own Deeds, immune to Force and Counter, and the only spell Landstill tends to run that gets rid of him, Diabolic Edict, can be circumvented simply by tapping a Mishra's Factory.

[Solpugid]

I did some extra testing with 4c Landstill, and I'm more and more impressed with it. The stifles and edicts, again, aren't my favorite slots, but they work quite well at rounding out the deck. I might try smother in place of edict though.

One thing I've realized is that although land-hate can cut you off of a color of mana (green, for instance), the deck can still function from this position. I believe Tacosnape mentioned this , at least in passing, in a recent post. The power level of the cards in this deck is so high that you often don't need them all to win. For instance, without green you have no deed, loam, or monastery. But you still have all your pinpoint removal, counters, draw, and mishra's factory to finish the job. (I chose green because I think it's the best color to cut off, since without loam you can't get the color back).

I'm also going to retract my past criticism of life from the loam (over crucible), since I recurred lands prior to deeding for 3+ multiple times (which, as you can tell, would destroy crucible). I haven't played any post-board games yet, since I don't have a board built, but I was thinking this:

4 Meddling mage
4 Blue elemental blast
3 Extirpate
4 Empty slots

I don't want the empty slots to be plagues since goblins are less common than generic zoo in my meta.

The power and versatility this deck has to offer will almost certainly bring it some attention soon. And until land hate becomes more prevalent (and in much greater quantities within the decks) this deck seems to have little to fear. I would like some ideas for the empty slots in my board considering a meta of zoo, burn, countersliver, solidarity, MUC, affinity, stax, and survival. Also, is smother really a good idea or should I just stick with the edicts and be damn grateful?

[DuKeLiO]

Agreed, and you're making it worse. Get rid of Lonely Sandbar, get rid of Academy Ruins, and get rid of Wasteland. 4C Landstill should run a grand total of seven lands and no others. Tropicals, Seas, Tundras, Deltas, Strands, Factories, and Monestaries. Maybe a Scrubland (I've been considering this.), but probably not.

I can't understand why this mana base:

Academy Ruins
Wasteland
2 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Lonely Sandbar
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
1 Island
1 Plains
5 Fetchs

is weaker than:

12 Duals
6 fetch
6 colorless manlands

Ok, my mana base has more colorless mana, but my spells is so less colored mana intensive than yours. I can search for basics lands to have 3 mana and cast Intuition (maybe in my upkeep against Rishadan Ports) into LftL. Sometimes Wasteland also protect my land from enemy Rishadans and allow me deal with multiple manland in the mirror or go for the mana-denial route.
From there I don't care mana denial. At least here in Spain aggro is the most frecuent matchup, in any form, from Goblins to RG to WW of whatever. Against goblins, sure, you can ignore the firsts goblins to catch all with Deed, it is quite possible than you were dead then. And if you have to fetch Tundra, first, it is very easy you can't have the GB neccesary to cast Deed in the third turn.

However when I wrote last time against your 4C approach, I really wasn't thinking in your mana base, I am thinking in the Paul's Nicolos with Wasteland and 3 monasterys. Maybe with the 12 duals MB your deck are less mana problems, but you have the problem that can´t deal with some lands, but it can be a minor problem beacuse these lands aren't so used.

[from Cairo]

Is there a reason so many lists here are packing Edict over Innocent Blood? The only one I can think of is Chalice of the Void for 1, which is rough for sure, but it seems the ability to take out turn one Lacky and to a lesser degree Mongoose on the draw would outweigh the Chalice risks.

Lands:
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
3 Nantuko Monastary
3 Wasteland
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand

Spells:
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Fact or Fiction
3 Stifle
2-3 Innocent Blood
2-3 OPEN - Currently testing 1 Crime//Punishment, 1 Teferi's Response and the 3rd Blood

I'm currently testing a pretty similar build to all the ones in here, still fooling around with a few last spots, but the Crime//Punishment seems like a pretty nice tech piece to have in there, nothing else has really jumped out at me, so been going a little heavy on removal with the extra Blood and Response seems good enough for a 1 of since there's a pretty good chance that our land base will be targeted at some point either by early disruption or by removal, and if its not being targeted we're generally in ok shape anyway, plus its a pitchable card to FOW at worst (like in a situation against combo).

[Tacosnape]

Once again, there are several reasons for Edict over Innocent Blood. And trust me, I've played both for over four months, so I have some semblance of what I'm talking about.

The first and biggest reason is that Innocent Blood does not get along with Meddling Mage at all. And this will prove key in any matchup where you board in Mage and leave Edict/Blood in, most notably but not limited to Survival. This would also be a factor in matchups like Cephalid Breakfast, Death and Taxes, or what have you. Blood will worsen a ton of your rogue matchups.

The second is that Diabolic Edict is an instant and thereby capable of dealing with certain threats that Innocent Blood struggles against (A hasted Warchief, Mishra's Factory, the first piece of the Cephalid Breakfast combo in response to the second one, the random rogue Ball Lightning, whatever.)

The third is, as you mentioned, Chalice for 1. This really isn't a big deal, but if it's known you run Blood, Faerie Stompy can lock you down fast with a Needle on Deed followed by a Chalice.

That said, there are situations where you want that Innocent Blood in order to have the removal a turn faster. The two turn-one creatures you'll wish you had Blood against? Goblin Lackey and Hypnotic Specter. Lackey can be solved with STP or Blasts, and Specter can be Swordsed or Forced and they have to have a Ritual to go with it, but either one is a complete nightmare if it hits you.

[Anarky87]

Well I took the 4c deck to a 5-0-1 1st place win today in a 14 man tournament. The list and SB I used was:

4 Tundra
4 Seas
3 Trops
3 Delta
3 Strand
4 Factory
3 Monastery

4 StP
4 Deed
4 Edict
1 C/P
4 FoW
4 Counterspell
3 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 FoF
1 LftL

SB: 4 Plague
SB: 4 Hydroblast
SB: 4 Mage
SB: 3 Extirpate

I get there around 1:00 and see my friends Travis (who I haven't seen in forever) and Jeremy are already there. We chat about Legacy decks before signing up and getting the tournament underway. I'll just preface this by saying the skill level of the tournaments, as well as the decks, aren't really that high. So this report isn't worth very much other than 4c Landstill >>> Bad Players.

Round 1: Ron with B/G Poison creatures (This is what was referencing to)

Game 1: He plays some weak, overcosted creatures with Poison and I either Edict, StP, or Deed them away and beat with a Factory, shortly followed by Monastery after a FoF (Just to get Thresh).
Game 2: See game 1. I didn't take any damage except from a fetch.

Round 2: Don't remember his name with Mono Red...Accelration into Puzzle Box and Creatures.

Game 1: He spits out an early Puzzle Box to which I Deed away, then counter all his relevant spells and win with Monastery.
Game 2: I literally had a counter for everything he played pretty much (Aside from creatures, I just killed them). At one point he threatens with the red Akroma that can't be countered or StP'd. So I just cast Edict and beat him down with manland beats, countering what seemed needed.

Round 3: Jeremy with Mono Green Beats from Standard. (All he had)

Game 1: He gets early beats powered out through Magus of the Vineyard. The only down side is this lets me play a Deed off 1 :b: He gets me down to 7 before I clear his board, stabalize, and win with Monastery.

He says he's bringing Tsunami. I didn't know if he was joking, but I brought in Mage anyway. -3 Stifle, +3 Mage

Game 2: He mulligans into a 6 card hand and keeps. I don't see a Mage, but he again plays a turn 1 Magus, to which I lay down a turn 1 Deed, which pretty much hosed him for the rest of the game, as he couldn't get above 2 lands (1 of which was Treetop Village). There were some Standstills and FoF's before I beat him in with Monastery and Factory.

Round 4: Travis with Rifter. We ID. We're both undefeated and decided it's just cooler to draw.

T4: Mike with U/G Madness.

Game 1: My Standstills, Brainstorms, and FoF's reveal nothing but crap to stop his beats. He also Trickbinded one of my fetches to get a Trop, and I never saw another Fetch or Trop and lose to a horde of creatures holding LftL and Deed...Boo...Of course game 2 is where the shit hits the fan...

I board out 3 things I can't remember and bring in the Extirpates, thinking I'll just counter/kill his creatures and then nerf the important ones and Wonder.

Game 2: Nothing interesting happens for most of the early and middle game. He has a Rootwalla attacking and I'm building my manabase and hand. Eventually I StP the Rootwalla and then I think cast FoF. On his turn he plays some Enchantment that he boarded in that does 1 damage for each non-basic I control during my upkeep. My board is exactly this on my turn and my hand contains a Stifle and Deed:

1 Monastery
1 Factory
2 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea

I Stifle the trigger of the Enchantment, so I can play Deed without a ton of damage, so I tap the Tundra, leaving me with 6 lands untapped and me thinking I'll have to blow it next turn. I draw a Tundra for my turn and think, "Great, I can drop and blow Deed this turn for 4 (cost of the Enchantment)."

So I play the Tundra, tap a Monastery, Sea, and Trop for Deed, and then tap 2x Tundra, the remaining Sea, and the Factory to Deed for 4. He asks what that even destroys, to which I kinda point obviously at his Enchantment. He then asks if I had enough land to do that, to which I showed how I had tapped and he said ok and passed the turn. He draws crap and passes to me, I draw Stifle and beat for 6. He plays a Looter, passes to me, I draw Edict and beat for 6.

On his turn he suddenly goes on a rageful tangent that I didn't have enough lands to kill his 'tech' (I'm guessing because his draws were awful and he was gonna lose). I ask, "How so?" showing him, yet again, how I played/tapped my lands and that I hadn't played any lands since that turn. My friend Jeremy is beside me telling Mike exactly what I'm telling him, because he's seen my hand the whole two games. But he throws his cards together and storms off shouting that he, "Won't play like that!!!" (Insinuating I was cheating...even though I never have since I've known him). So I apparently win that game and the next, because he concedes in the other room I hear.

Finals: Travis with Rifter. At this point I'm kinda not enjoying playing anymore, but finish anyway.

Game 1: I keep him off Rifts, StP a Dragon, and Stifle a Decree. This match is bad for him, because he has a bunch of dead cards like Humility and Wrath. This is good for me.

-4 Edict, +3 Extirpate and +1 Plague (As a joke, because all 3 of us had been joking about it)

Game 2: Pretty much the same as game 1, except in this one he beats me down to 10 before I drop my singleton Plague on Solidiers and Extirpate his Eternal Dragons and again keep him off Rift and win out.

So after this we chat for a bit before moving out to the main store area. The store owner's wife essentially tells my friend Travis and I that we can't come and play in anymore tournaments at the store. This is because the 'kids' aren't wanting to play anymore, because we show up and win all the time with good decks, while they're losing with their casual decks because they want to have 'fun'. We go back and forth for awhile with us stating that 'fun' can mean different things to different players, and that we shouldn't be punished because we have fun being comeptitive and the players there refuse to play anything resembling a competitive deck.

In the end, we can only come back and play in the tournaments if we also play bad decks and play poorly, like everyone else. That's what she said in a nutshell. Pretty miffed and frusterated we leave and I go pick up my g/f for dinner and recount my day to her. Overall, the deck played very well, except the one game against Madness where I didn't draw a Trop. Otherwise I liked the list and I'll be playing it again in another Legacy tournament run by my friend Jeremy. Thanks for reading.

[Tacosnape]

Yeah, there's definitely a shortage of sanity in card shop owners. That sucks about that.

Congratulations on the solid finish, though. Landstill's biggest strength is being amazing against all the random jank people can show up with, and I think your results proved that pretty well.:cool:

Rifter can be tough at times, though. I'm impressed you rolled through it so easily. (I assume you were clever enough to not drop Standstills?)

[Anarky87]

Yeah, there's definitely a shortage of sanity in card shop owners. That sucks about that.

Congratulations on the solid finish, though. Landstill's biggest strength is being amazing against all the random jank people can show up with, and I think your results proved that pretty well.:cool:

Rifter can be tough at times, though. I'm impressed you rolled through it so easily. (I assume you were clever enough to not drop Standstills?)

Yeah, I don't understand their logic, but apparently their reasons seemed good to them. But whatever.

And yeah, the deck just has the power to plow through any sort of random garbage you come across. Which is not always true with something like Thresh or Fish.

I dropped Standstill a few times, because he didn't really understand how Humility doesn't affect manlands, so I'd throw down a Standstill knowing he'd drop a Humility into it. And he'd break it for stuff like Rift. Other than that, I just used them for FoW. I didn't really feel threatened at all during that match, but maybe his SB didn't have Landstill in mind. The only thing that took awhile was that he had StP and Wing Shards for my manlands. So I had to LftL quite a few times. I like the deck though.

[Adan]

Yeah, there's definitely a shortage of sanity in card shop owners. That sucks about that.

Congratulations on the solid finish, though. Landstill's biggest strength is being amazing against all the random jank people can show up with, and I think your results proved that pretty well.:cool:

Rifter can be tough at times, though. I'm impressed you rolled through it so easily. (I assume you were clever enough to not drop Standstills?)

Why are you impressed? Rifer is an easy Matchup.
Dropping Standstill isn't that good since you can get fucked suddenly by a DoJ. So you should only drop a Standstill when you got a Pernicious Deed and everything's alright.

Then, you can Crime his Eternal Dragons. And you got enough Counters to handle the Lightning Rifts.

So there's absolutley no problem in winning this matchup.

[Tacosnape]

I dropped Standstill a few times, because he didn't really understand how Humility doesn't affect manlands, so I'd throw down a Standstill knowing he'd drop a Humility into it. And he'd break it for stuff like Rift.

Be careful if you aren't loaded on Manlands at the time. A good Rift player will Decree of Justice you out of your shorts if he can.

[Adan]

Be careful if you aren't loaded on Manlands at the time. A good Rift player will Decree of Justice you out of your shorts if he can.

That's the reason why you should backup with Deed beforce dropping Standstill.
If you do this it will gain you much time to build up a good boardposition.

[Anarky87]

Be careful if you aren't loaded on Manlands at the time. A good Rift player will Decree of Justice you out of your shorts if he can.

Yeah, that happened in the 2nd game, the only reason I was at 10. In game 1 I never saw Deed, so I just Stifled 2 DoJ's. But yeah, them getting Decree under Standstill is bad. With it being their only out really under Standstill and requiring a huge investment to be worth it, I just decided to go for it. Most likely because I was pretty bummed from the previous 'fiasco' and I didn't care at that point. Otherwise I would have boarded them out for the blasts, but he didn't play any Boil or REB I believe.

The only really tricky cards come after SB, because your game 1 is really solid I think against them. They essentially need Lightning Rift to have a chance. Because the majority of their removal is dead while all your removal is pretty relevant. Deed+Stifle answers Decree and Rift, StP and Edict handles Dragon (Because even casting Edict means they need to spend another 12 mana to play a 5/5 the following turn) and all your counters can protect your lands. Boil, REB, etc. are probably pretty tricky post SB though.

[Adan]

Yeeha, I got kicked out of the Eliminations.

This is the build that brought me to a 5-1 record:

// Lands
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [RAV] Mountain (1)
2 [RAV] Island (1)
3 [UL] Faerie Conclave
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
4 [R] Volcanic Island
1 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [TE] Wasteland
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire

// Spells
4 [AT] Lightning Bolt
4 [AP] Fire/Ice
3 [GP] Repeal
2 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [CS] Counterbalance
3 [BOK] Disrupting Shoal
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [MR] Thirst for Knowledge

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 [4E] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [4E] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [BOK] Threads of Disloyalty
SB: 3 [SC] Stifle

This is actually my experimental build. I was doomed to play with it because I misclicked in MWS when I registered for the tourney and sent the Security Code of this build.

Actually i was supposed to play "my" final build:

// Lands
3 [UL] Faerie Conclave
3 [TE] Wasteland
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [A] Island (1)
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)
4 [B] Volcanic Island

// Spells
2 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [AP] Fire/Ice
3 [BOK] Disrupting Shoal
3 [MR] Thirst for Knowledge
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [GP] Repeal
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [A] Nevinyrral's Disk
4 [A] Lightning Bolt

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
SB: 4 [B] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [CS] Counterbalance
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [BOK] Threads of Disloyalty

Solid Deck, it has got overall good matchups. I'll explain some things tomorrow. I'm fucking tired...

[URABAHN]

Yeah, that happened in the 2nd game, the only reason I was at 10. In game 1 I never saw Deed, so I just Stifled 2 DoJ's. But yeah, them getting Decree under Standstill is bad. With it being their only out really under Standstill and requiring a huge investment to be worth it, I just decided to go for it. Most likely because I was pretty bummed from the previous 'fiasco' and I didn't care at that point. Otherwise I would have boarded them out for the blasts, but he didn't play any Boil or REB I believe.

DoJ is a pain, if I have any suspicion that my opponent is playing it, I won't play Standstill. Sometimes, after I've Stifle'd a Soldier trigger or two, I'll play a Deed, then a Standstill. I don't think Rifter will show itself this weekend in Annandale, VA or the following week in Indianapolis.

[konsultant]

DoJ is a pain, if I have any suspicion that my opponent is playing it, I won't play Standstill.

I know i am one of the only people preaching to play the blue white version of the deck, but in the standstill mirror I am the one who gets to leave standstill in my deck. I really don't think Deed is that needed.

I won a Dual Land Draft today with the list I previously posted. My final record was 6-1-1. My draw was with an Alluren Deck that I would have won had I had only one more turn. My only loss for the day was against an ATS deck that I defeated 2-0 in the finals.

[Whit3 Ghost]

I know i am one of the only people preaching to play the blue white version of the deck, but in the standstill mirror I am the one who gets to leave standstill in my deck. I really don't think Deed is that needed.

I won a Dual Land Draft today with the list I previously posted. My final record was 6-1-1. My draw was with an Alluren Deck that I would have won had I had only one more turn. My only loss for the day was against an ATS deck that I defeated 2-0 in the finals.
You and DI in the top 2, I'm assuming.
Congrats to the both of you.

Anyway, I have one major complaint with your list:
I've played 3 games on MWS, and I got brutally landscrewed in 2 of them. I think that one of the DoJs could be a Life From the Loam. I also think you run too many white duals.

Also, have you considered Mystical Tutor and Reclaim in your sideboard? I've been running both in mine and it has set up some pretty crazy card chains.

[Tacosnape]

I was quite aware of the Deed/Standstill play, I assure you. I've also managed to walk into a Disenchant on Deed in response to Standstill, and upon Countering it, having my counter Pyroblasted. Then I lost to the giant Decree of Justice. All I meant to imply was that you have to be incredibly careful with your Standstills. And with Landstill I generally prefer to err on the side of caution.

[Nightmare]

All I meant to imply was that you have to be incredibly careful with your Standstills. And with Landstill I generally prefer to err on the side of caution.
This is a definite difference between your build, and the UW build. You have to be careful with Standstill, because you can't really win with it on the table if you're behind. The heavy white version has Decree to force the opponent's hand, which is a huge boon, and helps them be more proactive with Standstills.

[konsultant]

Anyway, I have one major complaint with your list:
I've played 3 games on MWS, and I got brutally landscrewed in 2 of them. I think that one of the DoJs could be a Life From the Loam. I also think you run too many white duals.

Also, have you considered Mystical Tutor and Reclaim in your sideboard? I've been running both in mine and it has set up some pretty crazy card chains.

First let me start by saying this, I don't test on MWS. I have heard from several people that you have to add 1-2 extra land into decks on MWS to get even draws. Whether that is true or not, I honestly don't have mana issues with my build. It's 60 cards with 23 Lands and 2 Eternal Dragon's. On top of that you have the 4 Brainstorms to help fix opening hands short on Mana. The deck only needs to get to 4 Mana and the Fact or Fictions and Wrath of God's come on line. I strongly suggest playing a FOF in the board as a Cunning Wish target, this more or less gives the deck 5 FOF's. If that wasn't enough to fix your Mana issues I would recommend running a Tithe in your board.

I currently am not running Life from the Loam because of the low amount of green mana in the deck. I do however play an Extirpate in the board for opposing Life from the Loam's.

The White Duals are in there because if I need Green or Black Mana the Eternal Dragon can fetch them. Also I consider Landstill to be primarily a White control deck.

As far as board targets go, Yes I have considered both of those. I am currently running other cards because I haven't felt the need to run either of them in our current meta.


This is a definite difference between your build, and the UW build. You have to be careful with Standstill, because you can't really win with it on the table if you're behind. The heavy white version has Decree to force the opponent's hand, which is a huge boon, and helps them be more proactive with Standstills.

I have found in my years of playing this deck that the only way the deck loses is if you can't play Standstill. I don't mean to come across sounding that you can't win with the Deed versions of the deck. I have tested way to many games to count with the Deed version and it is an extremly solid deck. In the end though I have found my wins to be easier and more often with the Blue/White build.

The main reasons were this:

1. I get to play Pulse of the Fields.

2. I don't care about opposing Dissenchant effects or Pithing Needles

3. My win conditions all require something different to stop them.
a} Eternal Dragon requires Graveyard removal or STP
b} Mishra's require instant speed removal [plus Graveyard removal or STP if you board in the Crucibles]
c} Decree requires mass removal


I am about to start testing against the Ichorid decks that have been popping up lately. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what works and what doesn't? The only thing I can really think of would be to run Ghostly Prison or Moat.

[Anarky87]

3. My win conditions all require something different to stop them.
a} Eternal Dragon requires Graveyard removal
b} Mishra's require instant speed removal [plus Graveyard removal if you board in the Crucibles]
c} Decree requires mass removal
d} All of them are fairly immune to counterspells

1. Only if you decide to tackle it from the GY, otherwise StP stops it cold. Until then, it's just a :2:: land fetcher.

2. Are also hit by StP, or any other removal, considering you have no recursion for them until post-board games.

3. Mass removal or Stifle, both of which the 4c plays. More people are playing with EE which handles DoJ and the Stifle is present almost everywhere.

So really, your win conditions don't really require much more answers than what's already being played. Not that that takes away from your deck, but it seemed like you were saying that's what made your version better. But all your win conditions are handled by the other 4c version.

[konsultant]

So really, your win conditions don't really require much more answers than what's already being played. Not that that takes away from your deck, but it seemed like you were saying that's what made your version better. But all your win conditions are handled by the other 4c version.

You are missunderstanding me, those are the reasons I prefer Blue/White against everything else. Obviously Landstill plays all the cards needed to take care of my win conditions, that quite simply is why we are playing the deck. Also the versitility of win conditions, was only one of the reasons listed as to why I prefer Blue/White.

The mirror match is probably the most complicated match to play in all of the legacy match ups that could happen. The Landstill mirror could easilly become it's own thread. I prefer to focus on my match ups outside of the mirror, but for what it's worth, I have found Blue/White to win in the mirror against 4-color.

The mirror is determined just like every other match, card advantage. Sure you can stifle DoJ, but it shouldn't be cycled without a Standstill in play. Let me point out that even if I let the Stifle resolve, this is a 4 card advantage move in my favor. EE and Deed I can see in play already, kinda hard to walk into those, not to mention they give me something to use my own EE for and are another target for Disenchant/Krosan Grip. More or less what usually ends up happening is the decks go card for card for awhile, building up mana bases, but in the end the Blue/White decks cards are usually more powerful. For example, Blue/White still plays a turn 2 standstill. 4-color either boards them out or hopes to have them at the exact right time when they have some kind of board control established, like crucible in play, if not they sit as dead cards in hand. This is not even mentioning the fact that Blue/White still runs good old Crucible/Wasteland lock. Sure 4-color has access to Extirpate and Krosan Grip. I also play those same cards. Extirpate is easy enough to get around if you have 2 Wastelands, you simply make sure one stays in play. With the 4-color decks not running Wasteland this becomes even easier to do. Not to mention that if you can pull it off, they lose all of their win conditions to 2 extirpates. Honestly on top of all that, usually the more skilled player ends up winning.

[Tacosnape]

The mirror match is probably the most complicated match to play in all of the legacy match ups that could happen. The Landstill mirror could easilly become it's own thread. I prefer to focus on my match ups outside of the mirror, but for what it's worth, I have found Blue/White to win in the mirror against 4-color.

For what it's worth, as someone who's probably the biggest supporter of the 4-color build as I think it's far stronger than any other build against a completely random field, Konsultant is right. 4C Landstill does not hang with UW Landstill in the mirror. It's a winnable match due to Extirpate alone, but it's a very hard one to win, and even Quagnoth won't help you against UW where it might against a lot of other Landstill mirrors.

[Adan]

For what it's worth, as someone who's probably the biggest supporter of the 4-color build as I think it's far stronger than any other build against a completely random field, Konsultant is right. 4C Landstill does not hang with UW Landstill in the mirror. It's a winnable match due to Extirpate alone, but it's a very hard one to win, and even Quagnoth won't help you against UW where it might against a lot of other Landstill mirrors.

I think you are wrong. Other Landstill variants run Crucible. And resolving Crucible-Waste can be fatal for 4C LS. The only thing I then need is to cut you off from your green manasources to deny P.Deed and Punishment.

Also, in a random field, it can also randomly lose against combo (and yeah, I did. I played a small tourney with 4C LS and went 3-1, only lose against Solidarity).

It also lacks flexibility compared to my UR Landstill, but you won't pay any attention to it, so it doesn't matter at all.

But I get more and more attracted by 4color Landstill, since it really can generate a situation of "total control". UR Landstill is more the "trick"-type and lacks sweepers like Pernicious Deed.

Pernicious Deed fits perfect into the deck since it got a similar effect like Standstill: The opponent doesn't dare to play a threat since it can be blown up.

But that random LftL is currently the only thing that's nagging me.
What exactly is the purpose of it as a 1of? Manafixing? I don't think that it can be used as Manafixer as it's just a 1of that you must first draw through Standstills and FoFs.

4color Landstill was kinda "invented" by Nick Trudeau, and he said that 4C LS was composed to have a Landdrop every turn, constantly. So I think there's no need for LftL.
You will anyways have tons of mana. I often wished for a random-win rather than life. I was thinking about something stupid like Decree of Justice or Death Grasp.

But LftL is important to recurr dead Mishra's or Nantuko Monasteries...

But anyways, can you explain me that Taco?

[Tacosnape]

The purpose of the random LFTL is mostly insurance. Unlike Crucible, Loam is incredibly difficult to get rid of, and the presence of one in the deck helps to ensure that your opponent won't be able to beat you by destroying all your manlands. This can still be gotten around, of course, but with considerable difficulty.

[konsultant]

The purpose of the random LFTL is mostly insurance. Unlike Crucible, Loam is incredibly difficult to get rid of, and the presence of one in the deck helps to ensure that your opponent won't be able to beat you by destroying all your manlands. This can still be gotten around, of course, but with considerable difficulty.

I agree, in the 4-color build I have assembled, I run 1 MD and 1 SB. I have recovered from what I would have thought would be a loss, more than once, solely because of the power of Life from the Loam.

If I didn't consider Extirpate such a usefull tool as a Cunning Wish target, I would be only splashing green and running Life over Crucible in my SB. I must admit though just this past week I wished for extirpate 3 times and it won me each game. I pulled the Allurens out of an Alluren deck. Then in game one of the finals I pulled Cabal Therapies out of my opponents deck with multiples in the Graveyard. Then in game 2 of the finals I pulled the Survivals out of his ATS deck.

[Tacosnape]

I agree, in the 4-color build I have assembled, I run 1 MD and 1 SB.

What do you board the second one in against?

[Nantuko88]

I agree, in the 4-color build I have assembled, I run 1 MD and 1 SB. I have recovered from what I would have thought would be a loss, more than once, solely because of the power of Life from the Loam.

If I didn't consider Extirpate such a usefull tool as a Cunning Wish target, I would be only splashing green and running Life over Crucible in my SB. I must admit though just this past week I wished for extirpate 3 times and it won me each game. I pulled the Allurens out of an Alluren deck. Then in game one of the finals I pulled Cabal Therapies out of my opponents deck with multiples in the Graveyard. Then in game 2 of the finals I pulled the Survivals out of his ATS deck.


Could you post a list? I have been trying to work Cunning Wish in Somehow.

[from Cairo]

Could you post a list? I have been trying to work Cunning Wish in Somehow.


Top 8 decklists:
1st
Geoff Smelski

4 Brainstorm
4 standstill
2 fact or fiction
3 cunning wish
4 counterspell
4 force of will
4 swords
4 wrath of god
3 decree of justice
2 eternal dragon
3 engineered explosives

2 island
2 plains
4 strand
4 tundra
1 tropical
1 underground
1 savannah
1 scrubland
4 mishra’s factory
3 wasteland

Sb
3 spellsnare
1 pact of negation
1 fact or fiction
2 orims chant
2 disenchant
1 pulse of the fields
1 extirpate
1 slaughter pact
1 return to dust
2 crucible of the worlds

[morgan_coke]

I've been messing around a bit lately with URW Landstill and had fairly good, though not spectacular results with it. I also seem to run a version thats much more board control oriented than what most of you are. In some ways its almost a hybridized Trinket-Angel deck.

(24 lands total if you're wondering)

Win Conditions
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Faerie Conclave
2x Decree of Justice

Removal
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Pyroclasm
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Wasteland

Counters
4x Force of Will
3x Counterbalance

Recursion
2x Crucible of Worlds
1x Academy Ruins

Search/Draw
4x Brainstorm
4x Standstill
4x Intuition
1x Tolaria West
1x Sensei's Divining Top

Mana
3x Tundra
1x Volcanic Island
1x Plateau
2x Plains
2x Island
4x Flooded Strand

Miscellaneous
1x Zuran Orb
1x Tormod's Crypt

Sideboard
4x Meddling Mage
4x Orim's Chant
3x Disenchant
4x Not Sure Yet (probably Divert/Misdirection, possibly Cataclysm/Armageddon, Sirocco and ReB are also possibilities. or just more crypts/crucibles and fewer of the above cards)

For a while I considered running Thirst for Knowledge or Trinket Mage over Intuition, but the simple fact that Intuition could do the job of both made it the better choice imho. I'm still pretty unsure about the maindeck Tolaria, I'm sometimes tempted to pull it, the orb, and the crypt for three more counterspells, but I'm just a huge fan of all the interactions between crypt and ruins and between orb and crucible. Orb is also a nice way to "counter" an StP or other RFG effect targeted at one of your lands (or Price of Progress). Against combo the Mages and Chant's come in for the Swords and 'Clasms and the E.E.'s go for the last board slot or Disenchants. Against Goblins you don't really have to board much, the maindeck is specifically geared for them. Vs. Thresh some Disenchants might come in for Needle's naming Explosives.

Basically its a removal-centric control deck that cheats on its numbers of win conditions with manlands and has counters for backup. The removal suite is specifically tuned to Legacy, with very few threats being immune to the Explosives/Wasteland/Pyroclasm/Swords/Crypt combo. Kjeldoran Outpost is a very intriguing possibility, but I think DoJ outclasses it.

Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing what some of the more experienced Landstill players on here think of this (and especially what I should do with the last board spaces).

[alakar]

LIST

I actually like this list a lot. If I get time I might try testing this before gen-con.

[Tacosnape]

For those keeping track of 4C Landstill, my current list is as follows:

4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monestary

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Diabolic Edict
1 Crime // Punishment

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Stifle
1 Quagnoth

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Life from the Loam

SB:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
2 Engineered Plague

The dropping of 2 Plagues might drop my Goblin match down to 50/50 or possibly even a little worse than 50/50. I'll have to test it awhile. But the presence of Deed and the Blue Blasts has often been sufficient lately (I got Goblins 2-0 in the Source Tourney with no Plagues.) What's more is that there's only so much you can board out in the Goblin match. I think the two Plagues might hold for a little while, especially with the Quagnoth providing a maindeck kill condition that doesn't die to Rishadan Port.

The single Quagnoth has been in testing for awhile. He's pretty sexy. He's a kill condition that's hard to get rid of. You can't hit him with STP or any counterable removal, you can't counter him, you can't knock him out of hand. You can try to Edict him, but activating a Mishra's Factory often fixes that (So if you suspect Edict, leave a mana or two open when you cast him.) He's 4/5, the perfect size in Legacy to live through a confrontation with almost anything, including Nantuko Monestary in mirror matches. He's out of EE range. About all he fears terribly is Pernicious Deed, Humility, and mass kills like Wrath/Damnation. Time will tell if I keep him on board or not, but I like him for the time being.

The two Krosan Grips in the board have become necessary. There's too much Counterbalance, Survival, and other problematic artifacts and enchantments for Deed and C//P alone to handle. I wanted these in almost every matchup in the Source tourney.

[Anarky87]

For those keeping track of 4C Landstill, my current list is as follows:

4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monestary

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Diabolic Edict
1 Crime // Punishment

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Stifle
1 Quagnoth

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Life from the Loam

SB:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
2 Engineered Plague

The dropping of 2 Plagues might drop my Goblin match down to 50/50 or possibly even a little worse than 50/50. I'll have to test it awhile. But the presence of Deed and the Blue Blasts has often been sufficient lately (I got Goblins 2-0 in the Source Tourney with no Plagues.) What's more is that there's only so much you can board out in the Goblin match. I think the two Plagues might hold for a little while, especially with the Quagnoth providing a maindeck kill condition that doesn't die to Rishadan Port.

The single Quagnoth has been in testing for awhile. He's pretty sexy. He's a kill condition that's hard to get rid of. You can't hit him with STP or any counterable removal, you can't counter him, you can't knock him out of hand. You can try to Edict him, but activating a Mishra's Factory often fixes that (So if you suspect Edict, leave a mana or two open when you cast him.) He's 4/5, the perfect size in Legacy to live through a confrontation with almost anything, including Nantuko Monestary in mirror matches. He's out of EE range. About all he fears terribly is Pernicious Deed, Humility, and mass kills like Wrath/Damnation. Time will tell if I keep him on board or not, but I like him for the time being.

The two Krosan Grips in the board have become necessary. There's too much Counterbalance, Survival, and other problematic artifacts and enchantments for Deed and C//P alone to handle. I wanted these in almost every matchup in the Source tourney.

I'm diggin the list and I was actually thinking today about swapping an Edict for the Quagnoth after hearing you mention him. I've also been beating Goblins without having to rely heavily on Plague. Even through 2-3 Ports I've been pulling games out. I also like the the Grips in the SB. I'll make the swaps and give the deck a go from there. Congrats on your finish.

[jazzykat]

You know, with all this discussion about this deck I am mystified by the fact that no one has mentioned Teferri's Response. While I realize it's narrow, it much less narrow because you rely on lands for everything and an opponent that has a chance of beating you has to either A. Totally ignore you and run you over (i.e. combo) B. Effectively deal with your kill condition.

Anyway, I put 2 in the board and I can't tell you how funny they are to side in and always have the opponent wondering if their bolt or wasteland is going to turn into an ancestral recall for me!

[Solpugid]

Wasteland isn't all that detrimental, unless recurred, and bolt can't even kill monastery so teferi's response may be overkill. But against rishadan port it's THE best answer. Not only does it stop the land from being tapped, and draw you cards, it destroys the port. I could therefore see running two in the board, but no more than that. How many were you considering?

[jazzykat]

Wasteland isn't all that detrimental, unless recurred, and bolt can't even kill monastery so teferi's response may be overkill. But against rishadan port it's THE best answer. Not only does it stop the land from being tapped, and draw you cards, it destroys the port. I could therefore see running two in the board, but no more than that. How many were you considering?

2 in the board is what I have used to some success. It stops everything that target your land (that can be responded to) STP, sinkhole, wasteland, port, smother, parallex wave, etc.

[AnduYn]

Hey guys!

I've been playing this deck for a couple of weeks now and i really love it!

But there were always two cards that seemed to be less powerfull than the rest of the deck.

Diabolic Edict and Stifle. They can be really good in certain situations, but they don't have the words "I win" written on them like pernicious deed, and I really wanted to have more cards that finish your opponent right away or bring you into a game position where it is only a matter of time until you can finish the game. So I slightly changed the 4C Landsstill, inspired by the Wish Landstill posted a few days ago:



Enlightened Wish Landstill:

Lands:

3 Polluted
4 Strand
1 Savannah
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
3 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's factory

Spells:

4 Swords
4 Brainstorms
4 Force of will
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
2 Fact of Fiction
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Humility
1 Engeneered explosives
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Cunning Wish
2 Enlightened Tutor

SB:

3 Engeneered Plague
3 Leyline of the void (metagame call could be 2 meddling mages and 1 Arcane Laboratory if you fear combo)
1 Planar Void (One planar void, to be able to search it with enlightened tutorand play it on your second turn to beat Loam and Ichorid)
1 Circle of Pro: Red
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pact of negation
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Pulse of the fields
1 Disentchant
1 Extirpate
1 Enlightened Tutor



Humility is kind of hard to cast, but if you have the right mana, it wins every aggro/aggro-control matchup on its own, and keeps your opponet down permanently, not just for a few turns like pernicious deed. And if you really can't cast it, just fetch something else with the enlighened, or the wish.

The wishes and the enlightened tutors offer you answers to almost everything. And you can easily get you silver bullets, like CoP:Red,Planar void, Extirpate,Humility,Vedalken Shackles,Pulse etc..

I have not tested the cunning wishes that much, that`s why I want to hear some voices weather or not they are playable. That far they were awsome, even against Gobbos, where you can fetch the enlightened and then search the humility.


The only Problems I see so far are that you wreck your sideboard and that the wish makes Landstills mid to late game better, but that`s where the deck shines anyway.I am more confident with Enlightened Tutor and Humility they seem to be matchwinner you need against all creature based decks. So why is noone playing them in 4c Landstill?


I hope I will get some replys, what people think about adding Enlightened Tutor and/or Cunning wish to this deck! Thanks!


I am open for all forms of replys, feel free to criticize my build, or make suggestions for tuning it, because it is far from being perfect. My meta is full of Belcher, Fish, Thresh, Zoo, Mono Black and Life from the loam decks, but Loam is more common then combo.


Apology for my awful English.:rolleyes:

Greetz!

[Anarky87]

Went 3-2 today at a tournament, losing to a Sligh deck and a burn deck with MD Price of Progress. Still made third though. The Sligh deck then boarded in Price of Progress. I beat Aluren, some RG deck, and a 5c Sliver deck.

[Shriekmaw]

H

Enlightened Wish Landstill:

Lands:

3 Polluted
4 Strand
1 Savannah
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
3 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's factory

Spells:

4 Swords
4 Brainstorms
4 Force of will
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
2 Fact of Fiction
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Humility
1 Engeneered explosives
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Cunning Wish
2 Enlightened Tutor




I would like to mention a few quick points about the decklist above. The don't believe Humility is a good enough card in order to main deck in Landstill. I believe its a great sideboard card, but I would not run it main.

The mana base scares me a little for two reasons. First, I believe the fetch lands a a little high by 1 or 2, I believe sometimes you might get stuck finding the right color land especially since your thinning the deck out by quite a bit by running all those fetches. I believe the mirror match is quite awful, since all your mana sources are susceptible to wasteland.

Maybe, your metagame is a lot different than the one that I'm used to in Syracuse, but this deck in incapable of winning the mirror which is why I wouldn't be too trilled if I actually played it in a local tourney over here.

Here are the improvements I would recommend. I would totally drop the enlightened tutors from the deck to provide more room for explosives. I absolutely love this card in Landstill. Forget about the green in the deck for monastery and sideboard usage, and strictly focus on a more stable mana base. I really believe decree of justice and eternal dragons is pretty essential in this deck. I'm still up in the air on cunning wish, but I believe it does make the deck very versatile against a changing metagame.

[Tacosnape]

In light of my recent loss with 4C Landstill, I've been on search of a means to diversify my kill conditions. I don't believe Mishra's Factory and Nantuko Monestary alone are enough.

So I've been trying everything, and I mean everything, from a lone Faerie Conclave, to Quagnoth, to Decree of Justice, to Eternal Dragon, to Haunting Echoes, to Blinking Spirit, to Rude Awakening, to Vorosh. All of this testing in mostly Landstill mirrors.

What I've come up with is this:

1. If you want to win the Landstill mirror, you have to be packing at least one Wasteland, and it helps drastically to have either Decree of Justice or Engineered Explosives. Extirpates in multiples help, and Vedalken Shackles is pretty good, too.

2. Run Gifts Ungiven.

The biggest knock on Gifts Ungiven is that for 4 mana, unless you have three different approaches to something, Gifts won't automatically grab you the card you need. The second biggest knock on it is that it's competing for slots with Fact or Fiction and Intuition.

To which I say "So what?" and "Gifts is better," respectively.

Gifts does what Intuition does with Loam, only better. Gifts will grab Life from the Loam and all your techy 1-of lands, be they Wasteland, Cephalid Coliseum, Factory, Monestary, Conclave, Maze, Academy Ruins, Mirrodin's Core (Techy against people who Extirpate Dual Lands!), or whatever. This lets you get your anti-control engine rolling.

If you're missing a color of land, Gifts gets it, by grabbing Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, the Dual of that Color, and any other card.

Gifts refills your hand of random staples, especially when your opponent doesn't know what you're holding. A Gifts for STP/Counterspell/Deed/Edict will net you -something- useful against all the random jank in the format.

Gifts also lets you run all kinds of random 1-of's. A single Chainer's Edict becomes pretty good in Landstill. A single Engineered Explosives can be added to allow a guaranteed Deed/CrimeandPunishment/EE/??? Gifts. Vindicate and Krosan Grip become intriguing single shots.

This leaves us with Gifts against Fact or Fiction.

Gifts will always get you exactly two cards. Fact or Fiction will -usually- get you two, because most players will leave you with a 2/3 split where the 2 is slightly better than the 3. There are exceptions, of course. Fact or Fiction will sometimes get you 4 if you seem to be in a situation where you're holding an answer card (Deed) and Fact or Fiction into a Deed and 4 other cards. You can then take the 4 and play the Deed in your hand. But most players will minimize the damage by sending a weaker card to stand alongside the Deed.

Gifts, however, will get you weapons in the right build. I think it's definitely worth trying as the compromise between Fact or Fiction's mega draw power and Intuition's Loam tech.

EDIT: I know that I said the only lands you should ever run in 4C Landstill are ones that produce colored mana or kill your opponent, but when I said this, hardly anybody in the country played Landstill. Now it's growing on trees. I still keep my personal build minimized though.

[from Cairo]

Wouldn't Cunning Wish open up alot of similar options as Gifts without clogging up MD slots with cards you don't want to randomly be drawing (read as: Krosan Grip, Vindicate, Extripate, etc) and it would cost one less mana to guarentee that you're getting the answer you need into your hand rather than 2/4ths of your choices. I mean you can run a Terror/Edict/Smother, and Krosan Grip/Dismantilling Blow, some Extripate, Stifle, Tefari's Response, Fact or Fiction maybe an Argivian Find for getting back an Explosives/Deed. Each of these cards excels at what it's supposed to do, but is probably too limited to warrant MD spots, it seems like Cunning Wish does the silver bullet thing better, since it leaves the MD clear of situational utility draws, and allows access to more specialized answers.

I'm just thinking if you're staring down a Tarmogoyf, and cast Gifts for Swords, Edict, Deed, Explosives, chances are you're not getting Swords, or Edict if they only have the Goyf out, so you're spending :3: :u: on Gifts, and :2:-:1::g::b: on EE/Deed plus :2: on activating it, so :8:-:9: mana, when you could Cunning Wish for Smother, and spend :5:, granted you're getting another card, but it's always going to be the two least useful cards in the eyes of you're opponent.

And its not going to be specialized cards, it's generally going to be more broad cards, that as a result of having wider use are more expensive to cast. I'm having a hard time phrasing that part, but I mean the MD runs answers that are more general than limited so that it has less dead draws, so as a result you're going to be tutoring for more expensive, less specialized answers. I think if going a silver bullet route Cunning Wish > Gifts.

[Tacosnape]

I'm just thinking if you're staring down a Tarmogoyf, and cast Gifts for Swords, Edict, Deed, Explosives, chances are you're not getting Swords, or Edict if they only have the Goyf out, so you're spending :3: :u: on Gifts, and :2:-:1::g::b: on EE/Deed plus :2: on activating it, so :8:-:9: mana, when you could Cunning Wish for Smother, and spend :5:, granted you're getting another card, but it's always going to be the two least useful cards in the eyes of you're opponent.

You're missing the point.

Yes, Cunning Wish is ungodly at Silver bullets, and so is Intuition. The point of Gifts is that you actually net card advantage from it where you don't from the Wish or Intuition. Gifts Ungiven isn't really a tutor unless you're tutoring for your Loam engine. It's a card advantage engine, much like Fact or Fiction, with the added bonus of being able to snag Loam and any three bullets you want to abuse with Loam.

About 90% of the time, you're already going to have the answer to that Tarmogoyf in your hand. Your opponent probably doesn't know what answer you have. Therefore they're either going to counter the Gifts Ungiven, in which case your answer is far more likely to get rid of the Tarmogoyf, or you can grab some random combination like STP/Edict/Standstill/Force.

This puts the opponent on a choice. Either they have to hand you the perfect answer to that Tarmogoyf in STP or Edict, or give you a Standstill and a Force for 4 mana. I'll take fetching a Standstill and a Force for 4 mana, considering with all the hordes of removal in my deck, chances are I've got at least 1, and now I have a Force backing it up, and if I kill that Goyf, I'm getting 3 more cards from Standstill.

[from Cairo]

Yea, I guess if you just look at it as a Fact or Fiction replacement its ok, I don't know that its better than Fact or Fiction or not, but its another option to consider. Fact digs 5 cards out versus 4, but the Gifts 4 are all going to be business cards (assuming you want them all to be) and FoF will hit land and such.



Gifts also lets you run all kinds of random 1-of's. A single Chainer's Edict becomes pretty good in Landstill. A single Engineered Explosives can be added to allow a guaranteed Deed/CrimeandPunishment/EE/??? Gifts. Vindicate and Krosan Grip become intriguing single shots.


I was mostly responding to the above part where you were suggesting running random 1 of's: Krosan Grip, Vindicate, etc., which as it was presented seemed like you were using it as a toolbox/tutor effect. I think diluting the MD with cards like that is a weaker choice than running a real tutor, Cunning Wish, and using part of the SB for it. But that aside, if you were just replacing Fact or Fictions with them the difference seems like it would probably be minimal or a question of preference.

I would tend to lean towards prefering Fact or Fiction, because you get to make the choice rather than your opponent, if for whatever reason they know what your holding from previous discard effect or something, then with FOF you can pick the two most powerful cards, where as with Gifts they will feed you the two least useful.

[Illissius]

Gifts is an interesting idea. I went with Intuition mainly because I expected to use it for finding a Deed, but that never happened. I did get triple Factories when I already had Loam, and while I don't think I got Loam and double Maze, that's only because I already drew one of them. (That's irrelevant if you don't have a hardon for the card like I do, though, and are running fewer copies). In any case, worth testing.

Gifts Ungiven would let you use Crucible-Academy-Petrified Field as your recursion engine instead of Loam. That sounds rather weak to me, but it's there if you want it. (Crucible is markedly more powerful at recurring a single Wasteland or Coliseum once you actually have it in play).

Mirrodin's Core seems really bad, but the problem is a valid one. I'd rather run something like a Bayou.

If you're using Loam instead of Crucible, wouldn't a single Dust Bowl be preferable to a single Wasteland? The mana and land requirements are similar, but Dust Bowl doesn't make you skip your draws and doesn't deck you. (Wasteland is more useful if you draw it randomly, though).

[jamest]

I've been running Intuition over FOF for a while now. But just as this thread is moving towards Intuition/Gifts, I'm moving back to FOF, because the emergence of Cephalid Breakfast will likely make graveyard hate more relevent in the format, and therefore graveyard-dependent strategys like Loam will get caught in the crossfire.

By the way, I think Intuition is better than Gifts, because it's one mana cheaper. I don't think the extra card that Gifts nets you is worth the tempo sacrifice, because once Intuition for the Loam engine resolves, you will get plenty of cards anyway.

[Illissius]

I'd love for people to board in graveyard hate against Loam*. I'll just beat them down with the 59 other cards in the deck.

* Other than Extirpate, but that's not usually an anti-Loam weapon anyways.

[jamest]

If you just have Loam, no one is siding in graveyard hate against you. But if you also have Monastery, Sandbar, Intuition ...

[Illissius]

One of my opponents in the Source tournament did board in Crypts and Furnaces against me (I was playing UGB Landstill with an Intuition engine). They didn't do shit. I loved it. I only used the Intuition engine in something like half my matches, anyways* -- and the only one where it was truly important was the Landstill mirror.

Monastery is a good point (I wasn't running those), but still, every single one of these cards besides Loam is still quite useful without a graveyard -- Monastery, Academy, Coliseum, and cycling lands tap for mana, and Intuition finds you a useful card (or pitches to Force). If my opponent wants to spend entire cards shutting off some secondary uses of some of mine, which I may not have used anyways, I'm more than happy to let them.

* Yeah, it wasn't great. Not bad, either, though. Still not entirely sure what the best way to fill the long term card advantage role after Standstill is.

[jazzykat]

Depending on how heavy you lean on intuition, or gifts Deep Analysis begins to look good. And before everyone goes, the loss of life etc. etc. consider your meta first it may be good for some and not others.

[jamest]

One of my opponents in the Source tournament did board in Crypts and Furnaces against me .... They didn't do shit. I loved it.
Maybe your opponent made a mistake boarding in gy hate against your deck. Maybe it wasn't a mistake and you got lucky. It's a one game sample size. But there are certain matches where you'll need the Loam engine (otherwise it's a mistake to maindeck it) and a greater presence of gy hate makes that engine more vulnerable.


If my opponent wants to spend entire cards shutting off some secondary uses of some of mine, which I may not have used anyways, I'm more than happy to let them.
If Monastery only tapped for mana, it'd be a pretty bad card. If there was no graveyard, Intuition and Sandbar would be pretty bad too. If I'm your opponent and siding in gy hate makes a bunch of your cards really bad (but not completely dead), then I'm more than happy to do it.

[blacklotus3636]

I recently acquired a tabernacle at pendrell vale. I know how everyone feels about interesting lands but perhaps tabernacle should be an exception to the rule. Its obviously amazing against aggressive decks like goblins, puts pressure on decks like thresh and happens to handle empty the warrens tokens pretty well. I understand cost being a factor but if it wasn't an issue should it be run as a 1 of?

[Tacosnape]

I recently acquired a tabernacle at pendrell vale. I know how everyone feels about interesting lands but perhaps tabernacle should be an exception to the rule. Its obviously amazing against aggressive decks like goblins, puts pressure on decks like thresh and happens to handle empty the warrens tokens pretty well. I understand cost being a factor but if it wasn't an issue should it be run as a 1 of?

No. It doesn't tap for mana and it doesn't do enough.

Empty the Warrens shouldn't be a problem for you, anyway, regardless of what Landstill build you run. Between Deed, Engineered Explosives, Crime//Punishment, Stifle, Spell Snare, Force of Will, and later Meddling Mage and Counterspell, you have a pretty damn good barrage of resources to handle Empty the Warrens.

Goblins Wastelands it. And if you have your Loam engine going and your manabase is solidified, not only did you live through the important turns and have a good chance of winning anyway, but Goblins is now developing the mana to simply pay for the goblins.

Oh, and, we don't lose to Threshold.

When you get right down to it, I can't think of a single match where I'd want the Tabernacle. If I'm going to play a land that can't even produce mana, I'll pick Maze of Ith.

[Anarky87]

I went 5-2 with the 4c list yesterday in the Legacy Champ Prelims, making 10th place out of 80 some people. My losses were to another UR Landstill deck, but I only got to play one game, as I got a game loss after a deck check showed I had left out the LftL (Which wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't had to hurry through my registration because they gave the sheets out a minute and a half before collecting them). Then I lost to a U/G Thresh deck with MD Wastelands. I just got bad draws really too. I'm playing it again today, so I hope all goes well.

[Bane of the Living]

Oh, and, we don't lose to Threshold.


Then I lost to a U/G Thresh deck with MD Wastelands.

I find this very interesting. What kind of cards did he run to fill the void of Bolt/StP, Mage ect??

Wasteland sounds very powerfull in Threshold now that it has a better clock.

[Tacosnape]

I find this very interesting. What kind of cards did he run to fill the void of Bolt/StP, Mage ect??

Wasteland sounds very powerfull in Threshold now that it has a better clock.

We -still- shouldn't lose to Threshold that often. Granted, a straight U/G version would probably be tougher, as white splashes don't serve up anything remotely scary outside of boarded Armageddons. Every now and then you can lose to anything.

[konsultant]

Taco could you post a current list with your Gifts additions in it?

I have been following the last couple of pages of posts, and the problems that people seem to be encountering are all answered in the list I am running. I have won the last 4 Tournaments I have entered with the exact same list, including a Dual Land Draft. Has anyone actually put my list in sleeves and tried running it? With the list I am running I don't have a "Bad" match-up, including the mirror.

I don't mean to come off sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, but there are several builds of landstill that can beat everything in the format. The mirror is where the individual build you are playing is critical. The build I have posted has all the answers you can really afford to run for the mirror and still beat everything else.

[diffy]

Has anyone actually put my list in sleeves and tried running it?


I did actually build your exact deck with a slight alteration (replacing the Green Duals with Red ones for Sideboard Pyroclasm) and handed the deck to a total stranger to Legacy for our last Tournament. He went 2-1-1 which wasn't too bad seeing how he'd never played the deck or any Legacy event before.
From what I can recall he drew the Landstill mirror (the other Landstill was splashing green for Exploration) first round, lost against Angel Stompy (he was color screwed... not being able to counter cataclysm is not good) and won against Red Splashed ******** and against a bad Counterslivers build without Counters.

From testing your list I found it very powerfull but I am having incredible problems in the Goblins Matchup like not being able to win more than a game out of many... Could you maybe give me some advice how to go into that Matchup?
Even if I can stop the inicial onslaught, I have severe problems at dealing with their mana denial plan (like not being able to cast Wrath or Explosives and activate them on the same turn) and their engine like card advantage (Aether Vial, Siege-Gang, Ringleader, Warchief being the main problems)... As I tend to drop low on life early due to the inicial rush, I have to wish for a PotF more often than not and then they'll have enough time to strenghten their board position with Vials & co to put me under constant pressure... I am mainly testing against a Green and Black splashed build with 4 Mainboard Cabal Therapy, 4 Sideboard Duress and Pernicious Deed (so much better than Explosives in that Version by the way) which is a rather unconventional build and might pose the Landstill additional problems.

For refference, here's the sideboard I play with:

1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Extirpate
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Disenchant
2 Orim's Chant
4 Meddling Mage
4 Pyroclasm

I really like the feel of the deck but I can't really convice myself of playing it in a larger tournament before I can't consistantly beat Goblins.
Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me on how to encounter that Matchup.

[konsultant]

From testing your list I found it very powerfull but I am having incredible problems in the Goblins Matchup like not being able to win more than a game out of many... Could you maybe give me some advice how to go into that Matchup?

I really like the feel of the deck but I can't really convice myself of playing it in a larger tournament before I can't consistantly beat Goblins.
Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me on how to encounter that Matchup.

Alright let me start by saying that I could do a considerably better job at this in person, but I'll give it a try.

When this is all said and done you should be winning about 80% of your goblin match ups.

An important note is that my list is based on testing against Red/Green Goblins. Locally I haven't seen Goblins with Therapy in it since the days of Goblin's with Bidding in it. Thankfully I do have some useful advice from the past I can share.

First the reasons you are losing are these.
1. You are having difficulty securing card advantage with Standstill
2. Cabal Therapy is a Bitch
3. Pyroclasm is not as "Game Winning" as it might appear
4. These problems combined with Land Disruption are overwhelming

The major problem are the Therapies. The answer to this is simple. Drop the 4-Pyroclasm and the 1-Slaughter Pact from the board. In their place add 3-COP Red and 2-Humility. Both of these cards can be huge against goblins even if you only draw one of them. More importantly they are going to be replacing the slower cards in the deck after you board, leaving you with a considerably higher percentage of solid cards in the deck for this match up. They also are huge card advantage cards on thier own, not to mention they make it considerably easier to play standstill. The COP Red's aren't as versatile as the Pyroclasms in other matches but the Humilities can be used in a number of different match ups.

Alright when you board
- 3 Cunning Wish
- 2 Fact or Fiction
- 1 Force of Will
+ 3 COP Red
+ 2 Humility
+ 1 Pulse of the Fields

It may seem a strange board move, but consider this, Landstill is a combination of 2 different decks. First it's a Blue Counterspell Countrol Deck. The part forgotton by most is that it's also uses the control pieces from Mono White Control. Mono White will crush Goblins all over the place. You just need to utilize some of thier cards and this is a much easier match up.

When you are playing remember these tips

1. Aether Vial is probably the reason you lost the games you were losing, stop it at all costs.

2. When you are playing first, pro-activly play EE for 1. It allows you to play turn 2 standstill even if they drop an Aether Vial on turn 1.

3. Protect your COP Red's at all costs they can hand you the win by themselves. Consider mulling a mediocore hand without one in it in hopes of drawing one.

4. Remember this the most, Landstill favors the more experienced player, this can mean your opponents. You can lose to something as simple as fetching the wrong land on turn 3 because you never drew another white source for your Wrath of God seven turns later. When you lose try to see if you could have won had you used the same cards you had, but by playing them differently.

5. Learn from your mistakes.

Well I hope that was of some help, Let me know how you fair or if you have any further questions. I am certain I forgot all sorts of other things that could be helpful, but without actually testing against you that's what I could come up with off the top of my head.

[sammiel]

so if U/G thresh with stifles and wastes picks up, is that another reason to stick with U/W landstill? Stifle and Wasteland are less powerful plays against you, wrath can't be stifled, and the lack of removal means your win conditions will get damage through more frequently

[Bane of the Living]

Has anyone actually put my list in sleeves and tried running it? With the list I am running I don't have a "Bad" match-up, including the mirror.


Actually since that dual for duals I built/proxied and sleeved up your deck card for card so my team could playtest against it. It's very solid.

I would say it struggles with Cephalid Breakfast and Ichorid a bit. Both of these matchups come down to how much graveyard hate your packing and Landstill has none.

Ceph B can be slower than Ichorid and a strategy of Cunning Wish -> Extirpate can be very effective but even then an opposing FoW for the Cunning Wish can stop you there. Or out of the sideboard comes Abeyance slammed in your face.

Ichorid is just plan fast. It wont let you get to your narrow Exi which wont save you since its 'combo' is diverse. Other than getting killed turns 1-2 the deck can just slow roll you by going to discard phase and never even playing a spell, attacking with endless barage of Ichorids. Engineered Explosives against zombie tokens is great but its nothing compared to the fact they dont lose bridges due to your lack of creatures.

I dont really see the need for green in your build either. I know it enables Explosives at four but in testing I always wish it was another black or blue or white mana almost always. Are you still running a Savannah and an underground Sea? Wouldnt just a Sea be enough?

[Bardo]

So, I'm thinking of taking Landstill to a local tournament this weekend. The metagame from the last tourney at this spot was all Slivers and Threshold, with a smattering of other shit, so I thought this would be a good occasion to take out my Thresh-smashing version of Landstill.

Mostly Monoblue Control
by Bardo

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Spell Snare

3 Pernicious Deed
3 Vedalken Shackles
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Crucible of Worlds

2 Smother

4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Island
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
1 Maze of Ith

Sideboard
4 Engineered Plague
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Duress
3 Planar Void
1 Chalice of the Void

Fact is pretty awful in the current metagame, with Daze ubiquitious and drawing two cards for four mana not being a game-buster. Tarmogoyfs are in the sideboard, because, hell, why not? Otherwise, the sideboard is prepared for Ichorid, Thresh, Slivers, Goblins and other control decks.

Any suggestions to make it better?

[konsultant]

Actually since that dual for duals I built/proxied and sleeved up your deck card for card so my team could playtest against it. It's very solid.

I would say it struggles with Cephalid Breakfast and Ichorid a bit. Both of these matchups come down to how much graveyard hate your packing and Landstill has none.

Ceph B can be slower than Ichorid and a strategy of Cunning Wish -> Extirpate can be very effective but even then an opposing FoW for the Cunning Wish can stop you there. Or out of the sideboard comes Abeyance slammed in your face.

Ichorid is just plan fast. It wont let you get to your narrow Exi which wont save you since its 'combo' is diverse. Other than getting killed turns 1-2 the deck can just slow roll you by going to discard phase and never even playing a spell, attacking with endless barage of Ichorids. Engineered Explosives against zombie tokens is great but its nothing compared to the fact they dont lose bridges due to your lack of creatures.

I dont really see the need for green in your build either. I know it enables Explosives at four but in testing I always wish it was another black or blue or white mana almost always. Are you still running a Savannah and an underground Sea? Wouldnt just a Sea be enough?


I agree with the conclusions you guys have come to. I have already made some adaptions to my list, I just hadn't posted them yet. First I dropped all the Green Mana in favor of more Black. Second I added 2 more Extirpates [3 total] and 2 Humilities to my SB.

Also you can animate Mishra's Factory and then Wasteland it to get rid of Bridges.

[Madmaniac21]

Hey Bardo, why the 3/2 Deed/EE split? Wouldn't you just prefer to have the 4th deed? It sweeps all cc's as opposed to just 1, and for anything above 1 it's just more cost efficient.

I'm also curious about the CotV. You're running 11 counters - including spell snare - and the deeds, EEs, and shackles. What are you planning to run CotV at?

With threshhold only running 12 cards you have to stop (their creatures), I really think you would be better off with draw in that spot. While I can see how fact is awful in your meta, you should strongly consider impulse. It digs deep and will help you find that backbreaking bomb (deed or EE) more often than not.

Take advantage of running 26 lands by running more draw. Landstill should (hopefully) never miss a land drop, so you have to make sure you have plenty of ways to refill your hand.

Why the maze in the main? I could see it for a very goblin heavy meta, stopping that early lackey, but not sure about thresh n slivers.

Another consideration that I have been testing; Energy field. In a thresh/slivers heavy meta (where presumably they aren't playing wasteland), energy field can be invaluable in buying you 3-5 turns and getting you a full grip before busting your fetches and dropping/using deed.

[Bardo]

Why the 3/2 Deed/EE split? Wouldn't you just prefer to have the 4th deed?

The split was to avoid the pain of dealing with a Pithing Needle naming "Deed," and to boost the number of EEs for recursion with Ruins. EE is also a mana cheaper if you need to drop a quick sweeper to answer ETW tokens.


I'm also curious about the CotV. You're running 11 counters - including spell snare - and the deeds, EEs, and shackles. What are you planning to run CotV at?

It all depends; against Salvagers and decks running a lot of 0-cost arti-mana, you can drop it for 0 and mess up their plans; against Thresh, Burn and other aggro-control decks, you'll usually drop it for 1. It's a nut-buster at 1 for Thresh, for obvious reasons, but also keeps opposing decks from Plowing or Extripating your manlands. And have you seen what Chalice for 2 does against Fish and B/W? Sickening. So, mainly 0, 1 and 2--with most of the action spells in Vorosh costing 3, you avoid countering your own spells.


With threshhold only running 12 cards you have to stop (their creatures), I really think you would be better off with draw in that spot. While I can see how fact is awful in your meta, you should strongly consider impulse. It digs deep and will help you find that backbreaking bomb (deed or EE) more often than not.

Well, Thresh isn't going to play all 10-12 threats, they'll only play 4-6, depending on the length of the game.

The way I look at EE, Deed, Shackles and Crucible in this deck, it's as if they are draw spells, since each of these cards generates their own card advantage, and relevantly so (i.e. not just making your hand size arbitrarily larger).


Take advantage of running 26 lands by running more draw. Landstill should (hopefully) never miss a land drop, so you have to make sure you have plenty of ways to refill your hand.

The land count is really closer to 24--Maze doesn't tap for mana, and Tolaria West is mainly a tutor (EE, Wasteland, Chalice) that you can play as a land if it's really needed. Anyway, I don't count Tolaria West as a mana-source in this deck.

Regarding draw, I had two Fact or Fictions in there for a while, but eventually dropped them since they were so underwhelming. Brainstorm and Standstill seem to be enough.


Why the maze in the main?

Tarmogoyf, etc. It's an extremely obnoxious card to play against. :) And it's great at stalling the board until you draw into Shackles, Deed, Smother, etc.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Tacosnape]

So back for a minute to the great discussion of what should be the third draw spell in Landstill (Brainstorm and Standstill are the first two.)

We've seen Fact or Fiction, Gifts Ungiven, and Intuition all have their cases made.

I've got two other suggestions.

What are the thoughts on Meditate?

I can't think of a deck that really does less on its turn than Landstill except maybe Solidarity. Meditate, like Standstill, nets you a card advantage of 2. It does it at an affordable 3 mana, with only one colored symbol, making it castable if your manabase is misbehaving. Granted, it's not what you want if you're facing an immense beatdown, but it does let you be more aggressive with your resources early in the game so that the board is more stable when you refill your hand.

And Meditate is nuts in the mirror. It's a powerhouse thats drawback is minimized by the fact that your opponent isn't going to do a lot with his turn either.

The second concept is a little jankier. Pursuit of Knowledge. It's a risk when it's out there, but it's ridiculous with a Brainstorm or a Standstill (Or even a Thirst for Knowledge, maybe.) You can negate the drawbacks of the Brainstorm by skipping the draws if you have no cards in hand to put back, then you can refill your entire hand with ease.

Thoughts?

[zulander]

I think meditate is horrible unless you plan on winning the turn you play it or you can lock your opponent down completely. I think Fact or Fiction is the better call, however the flexibility with gifts ungiven is pretty amazing.

[Bardo]

What are the thoughts on Meditate?

I don't know if it's a good idea--but it's definitely "outside the box." :) I agree that it's probably a good card in the mirror or against anything else that wouldn't prize taking two turns in a run in exchange for +2 cards (1 card replaces Meditate and your opponent gets a draw step that you don't). Given the unlikelihood of making it worth the effort, it's probably not a good card here. Tide uses to keep its combo flowing and because 1) you won't get the extra turn, or 2) if you do, you probably won't get another.

For an extra mana, Fact is all upside (relatively) and I'm not that keen on Fact these days.

[Mister Agent]

I know this 4c landstill build that I am about to show all of you probably will bring up some questions especially about the manabase and lftl instead of crucibles. This is anarchy's 4c landstill build that he took to the 2007 legacy champs and got 10th overall out of 80 players for the prelims.

// Lands
4 [U] Underground Sea
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [U] Tundra
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [JU] Nantuko Monastery

// Spells
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
1 [DIS] Crime/Punishment
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [OD] Standstill
3 [IN] Fact or Fiction
3 [TE] Diabolic Edict
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [A] Counterspell
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [4E] Swords to Plowshares

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [IA] Hydroblast
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 2 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 4 [PS] Meddling Mage

I personally think the build is pretty solid but like all control decks they are metagame decks and this particular build of anarchy's is meant to have a solid game against threshold as well as goblins too. I was surprised that I did not see any crucibles but Anarchy told me he had his reasons. I personally tested this deck a few times and I definetly liked the feel for the deck.

[Nihil Credo]

That build is Tacosnape's 4C Landstill, with a few minor tweks. And yes, it's pretty solid as long as you don't get paired against another Landstill deck.

Moving on, Maze and Tabernacle are both powerful lands, were it not for their lack of mana production - have you tried playing a couple of Urborgs? In a heavy-black deck like Duck Hunt, they could be worth the extra Wasteland target.

[noobslayer]

@ Bardo. This is the UBg list I've been testing:

// Lands
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (3)
2 [UL] Faerie Conclave
3 [TE] Wasteland
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
4 [B] Underground Sea
4 [B] Tropical Island
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta

// Creatures
1 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
2 [IN] Fact or Fiction
3 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
1 [OD] Haunting Echoes
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [SC] Stifle
4 [B] Counterspell
4 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [OD] Standstill

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [US] Arcane Laboratory
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 4 [US] Duress

I'm going to try and work Tarmogoyf in the main or the side board, and also try to fit one or two basic Islands somewhere into the list. Vedalken Shackles also seems like a good call.

[Phantom]

What are the thoughts on Meditate?

Pursuit of Knowledge.

Nothing wrong with throwing some new cards out there. I think Meditate is too risky though. Too much can happen when you give the opponent a time walk. Wasteland can hit that blocker you were planning on using or three cards that you want to counter can be played (and you don't get an untap phase, so that's no fun).

Pursuit of Knowledge. I think you nailed its weaknesses. It's great with Brainstorm, but Brainstorm is already great. Without it, you either need them to break a Standstill (and I really don't like that you have to power out a 4cc enchantment before dropping Standstill) which once again is already nuts, or you need to skip three draws and pray they don't Needle, Disenchant, Stifle or god forbid Krosan Grip the thing.

To continue the conversation, what about Foresee? Digs deeper than Fact, gives away nothing to the opponent, can set up your draws in a way Fact or Gifts cannot, and gets you two quality cards, which is usually what Fact does.

[Nihil Credo]

To continue the conversation, what about Foresee? Digs deeper than Fact, gives away nothing to the opponent, can set up your draws in a way Fact or Gifts cannot, and gets you two quality cards, which is usually what Fact does.

I played with the card in Standard and Block, and I have to say I'd much rather test Careful Consideration, which was usually better as long as you had UU available. In a control deck, you often end up with dead or redundant cards, making Consideration more effective, plus the ability to synergize with graveyard recursion (even minimal, like Loam/Crucible in Legacy or Teachings in T2/Block) and to work as an EOT card filter when you don't want to tap out give it the edge.

[Tacosnape]

I know this 4c landstill build that I am about to show all of you probably will bring up some questions especially about the manabase and lftl instead of crucibles. This is anarchy's 4c landstill build that he took to the 2007 legacy champs and got 10th overall out of 80 players for the prelims.

I personally think the build is pretty solid but like all control decks they are metagame decks and this particular build of anarchy's is meant to have a solid game against threshold as well as goblins too. I was surprised that I did not see any crucibles but Anarchy told me he had his reasons. I personally tested this deck a few times and I definetly liked the feel for the deck.

It's my deck to the card except for the fact he cut Edict #4 for Stifle #4, and for awhile I was only running 2 Monestaries (I've since gone to 2 Monestaries and a Conclave due to the fact that 50% of my metagame runs Extirpate and several maindeck it, but on average I think 3 Monestaries is the right call.) I'm highly curious to know how that 4th Stifle worked out. Also, any word of how Anarky did in the regular tourney? I sort of want to hug him for the 10th place in the prelims. I've never had someone run a decklist of mine before.:cool:

Also, Anarky, did you play Goblins and did you win? I haven't had the leisure to extensively test since adding the pair of Grips.


That build is Tacosnape's 4C Landstill, with a few minor tweks. And yes, it's pretty solid as long as you don't get paired against another Landstill deck.

Yeah, tell me about it. Illissius slaughtered me in the qurterfinals of The Source tourney. I'm trying everything I can think of to fix that without ripping the core of the deck. Right now about the best I can pull off is sneaking in a single Quagnoth or Decree of Justice, but I've still got my eyes open for random tech that might give me a fighting shot in the mirror.


To continue the conversation, what about Foresee? Digs deeper than Fact, gives away nothing to the opponent, can set up your draws in a way Fact or Gifts cannot, and gets you two quality cards, which is usually what Fact does.

Foresee's a Sorcery. If it were an instant, I'd be pretty keen on it.

[Phantom]

Yeah, I somehow forgot that FoF is an instant (what were they thinking!) which is extra dumb since I played it in Faerie Stomy fo so long (although that deck doesn't care too much about timing).

I'd like to help with the near mirror problems, but I'm unclear about the actual problem. What about UW Landstill wrecks you so much?

[Anarky87]

It's my deck to the card except for the fact he cut Edict #4 for Stifle #4, and for awhile I was only running 2 Monestaries (I've since gone to 2 Monestaries and a Conclave due to the fact that 50% of my metagame runs Extirpate and several maindeck it, but on average I think 3 Monestaries is the right call.) I'm highly curious to know how that 4th Stifle worked out. Also, any word of how Anarky did in the regular tourney? I sort of want to hug him for the 10th place in the prelims. I've never had someone run a decklist of mine before.:cool:

Also, Anarky, did you play Goblins and did you win? I haven't had the leisure to extensively test since adding the pair of Grips.

Yeah, when I got there, I talked it over with the people I came with and decided to add the 4th Stifle, in case there was a lot of combo. I can't say it was really awesome, and to be honest, I think I should have switched back to the 4th Edict for the Champs.

As for the actual Champs, I went 0-2 drop. A combination of horrible hands and little to no sleep really worked me over. I played /R Thresh round won, won game 1 and then lost game 2 and 3 when I only seemed to draw land after land (And no, not the good kind...). Then I played against Goblins Round 2 and kept a decent hand, but he had double Lackey, double Waste and a Port, so I lost before a Deed could clear his board. Game 2 I just had to keep mulliganing because the hands were terrible. I played Goblins in round 7 of the Prelims and crushed it both games. So I don't know, win some lose some.

After the drop from the champs I entered a 4 round Legacy event and went 3-1 and got some packs. My records for the weekend were 5-2 (Prelims), 0-2 (Champs), 3-1 (Side Event), 2-2 (Side Event, having to play my friend with Terrageddon and Genesis. Not good times). I really liked the deck, and I think it has a lot of potential, but my mulligans and no sleep, I know, caused me to make some mistakes. I'll continue to test the list though, since I bought/traded for a lot foils for the deck while I was there. :tongue:

[Tacosnape]

As for the actual Champs, I went 0-2 drop. A combination of horrible hands and little to no sleep really worked me over. I played /R Thresh round won, won game 1 and then lost game 2 and 3 when I only seemed to draw land after land (And no, not the good kind...). Then I played against Goblins Round 2 and kept a decent hand, but he had double Lackey, double Waste and a Port, so I lost before a Deed could clear his board. Game 2 I just had to keep mulliganing because the hands were terrible. I played Goblins in round 7 of the Prelims and crushed it both games. So I don't know, win some lose some.

Lack of sleep will cause anyone to lose with anything.

Sounds like you just faced the ridiculous god draw from Goblins in game one though. Good to know you managed to get some serious crushing in on Goblins in the prelims though.

[diffy]

Well I hope that was of some help, Let me know how you fair or if you have any further questions. I am certain I forgot all sorts of other things that could be helpful, but without actually testing against you that's what I could come up with off the top of my head.


First of all I would like to thank you for your insight/tech... I'm trying out the configuration you suggested right now in addition to 3 sideboard Extirpates.

Meanwhile I've discussed your list with Marius Hausman, one of the more experienced Landstill players of Germany and he has suggested just playing Engineered Plagues in the sideboard because they are pretty versatile too (good against Fish, Ichorid, Goblin(tokkens) & others)... what is your perspective on this card?

[konsultant]

First of all I would like to thank you for your insight/tech... I'm trying out the configuration you suggested right now in addition to 3 sideboard Extirpates.

Meanwhile I've discussed your list with Marius Hausman, one of the more experienced Landstill players of Germany and he has suggested just playing Engineered Plagues in the sideboard because they are pretty versatile too (good against Fish, Ichorid, Goblin(tokkens) & others)... what is your perspective on this card?

I was running Plague for a short while. I found the card to be great except that most everyone else around here is running Plague and so most of the Goblin decks are running Krosan Grip. More or less becuase of that I went in the Cunning Wish for Pulse of the Fields direction. Since you are looking to add more hate for your goblins match, Plagues could help and would be considerably more versatile than running COP Red. The thing with COP Red is you can stick it down on turn 2 and safly hide behind it for a very long time assuming you are not playing against Red/Green Goblins. Goblins aren't very popular around here latly, If you would expect to see Goblins more than once in a tournament around there I would stick with the COP's if not you could be safe with the plague's. Either way you go I recomend adding the 2 Humilities.

Fish should be a fairly easy match up with my list, board out the 3 Cunning Wishes and board in the 3 Spell Snares, this should speed up your defenses and help you play around Daze. Keep Bob off the board and you should be able to win through card advantage pretty easily.

I had never considered Plagues for Ichorid, Honestly with boarding in the 3 Extirpates and the 2 Humilities I don't seem to have a bad match against Ichorid. They wouldn't hurt in this match but I don't know what you would take out when boarding.

I played in a Mox Saphire tournament yesterday, I took home the 2nd place prize [4 Underground Sea's, 4 Tundra's] with my only loss for the day being against Cephalid Breakfast in the finals. I find before board I am losing game one consistently in this match. After boarding I can almost 100% stop them from going off with the combo, the problem is I am dying to those damn Tarmogoyf's. I took my deck to a 5-1-2 record for the day only to lose to the damn deck that I board in 10 cards for in the finals. My 2 draws were both due to lack of time in round but I had a considerable board and card advantage and I am certain that short of me shooting myself in the head I would have won both of them as well. Does anyone have a stratagy that is working well against this deck?

[Tacosnape]

Yeah, I somehow forgot that FoF is an instant (what were they thinking!) which is extra dumb since I played it in Faerie Stomy fo so long (although that deck doesn't care too much about timing).

I'd like to help with the near mirror problems, but I'm unclear about the actual problem. What about UW Landstill wrecks you so much?

They run Decree of Justice and Wasteland and I don't, meaning that without a Deed down first, they get the advantage in Standstills. In addition, they run Eternal Dragon. UW simply outclasses me in the midgame and has more ways to kill me than I have to kill them.


Does anyone have a stratagy that is working well against this deck?

Extirpate is good against the Tarmogoyf version. At times, they'll roll into a Narcomoeba/Therapy setup before you even see a Goyf or a Dread Return, but if you see either one you can fire off the Extirpate with confidence.

I do fairly well in this matchup in large part due to Diabolic Edict and STP backed up by Countermagic, but sometimes they just run too much disruption to do much about.

[Phantom]

They run Decree of Justice and Wasteland and I don't, meaning that without a Deed down first, they get the advantage in Standstills. In addition, they run Eternal Dragon. UW simply outclasses me in the midgame and has more ways to kill me than I have to kill them.


What's your boarding plan? Do you go so far as to board out the Standstills? I'm assuming Needle (for DoJ and Dragon) is golden, and Extirpate for the Wastes?

[Tacosnape]

What's your boarding plan? Do you go so far as to board out the Standstills? I'm assuming Needle (for DoJ and Dragon) is golden, and Extirpate for the Wastes?

Keep in mind this is only my strategy for UW, not for all Landstill mirrors, and not for UW that's really UWB or UWBG after a Cunning Wish.

First of all, I don't run Needle to board in. I also board depending on how my opponent played game 1, how much time is left, and whether or not I won game one.

My general strategy isn't to Extirpate their Wastelands. It's to Extirpate their kill conditions or most harmful cards. Wasteland itself doesn't do a whole lot against me. It's when you combine it with Crucible of Worlds that it becomes a problem, and I can usually stop 2-3 Crucibles with Countermagic, Pernicious Deed and especially Krosan Grip. Extirpate's top target will be those pesky Eternal Dragons. Decree of Justice can be handled effectively by Pernicious Deed, Stifle, and Engineered Plague, but if they cycle one early for a card, I won't hesitate to Extirpate it either. I'm also not above Extirpating Swords to Plowshares if my opponent demonstrates himself to be the sort who simply wants to run me out of kill conditions.

With that said, though, I will Extirpate a Wasteland in a heartbeat if I have any reason to believe it will give me an edge under a Standstill I'm holding. (IE, he's hurting for mana and I've got 2-3 Factories, or I've already Extirpated Decree of Justice, or I have a Deed down already to take down the tokens.)

I generally only bring in Grip, Plague, and Extirpate. If my time is running low, I -might- bring in Meddling Mage as a sneaky last resort, name Swords to Plowshares, and try to wreck any Factories I come across with Grip/Deed or even Edict. This is only useful for one game and in a pinch, though, as you're counting on your opponent to board out all of his sorcery speed removal and things like Humility.

I've actually got a pretty solid fighting chance in games 2 and 3 here, but I get massacred game one.

As for boarding out the Standstills, I'll always board out at least two. Whether I board out four just sort of depends on whether I won game one and how much time is left and how bad it would be for me if I won game 2 only to draw on time before anything happened on game 3.

Versions which pack Cunning Wish or black at all get far worse, as then I've got to worry about them packing Extirpate also.

[FredMaster]

What do you guys think about this version? My only problem will be a resolved Magus of the Moon :S
First the deck - choices afterwards.

//Lands
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Faerie Conclave

//Finisher
1 Tombstalker
1 Quagnoth
1 Haunting Echoes

//Boardcleaner/Removal
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Innocent Blood

//Rest
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Stifle
2 Fact or Fiction
2 Crucible of Worlds

//SB
4 Duress
4 Engineered Plague
4 Spell Snare
3 Extirpate

Choices:
Lands:
2 Conclaves, for the case that an opponent removes my factories with Extirpate.

Finishers:
Tombstalker is just amazing. He can get online very fast and is a solid 4turn clock for the opponent.
Quagnoth is really hard to be removed for the opponent and although he isn't that strong he does the job faster than the factories.
Haunting Echoes is one of my favorites, it just allows you to strip the entire deck of your opponents. Incredibly strong.

Removal:
Deed should be obvious. I run 4 because it is oftentimes stronger than the explosives, destroying the opponents Chalices or Mox Diamonds/Chrome Moxes as well.
I thought about Crime/Punishment as well. But i'd only run it as a one off, for the case that the opponent has multiple needles online.
I don't wanna run more than 1 because i can't use the entire potential of this really kewl card.
Explosives is also pretty nice against for example combo. The Innocent Blood is just kewl against things like Gro with that untouchable Mungo.

The rest should be pretty clear i think. MD stifle against combo and to annoy the opponent to death :laugh:

Sideboard:
Plagues against Goblins / Meathooks / Combo.
Duress against Combo.
Spell Snare against pretty much every modern Deck. That card is really amazing against things like: Hymn, Confi, Goofy, Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Survival and so on.
Extirpates mainly against the enemy's Goyf or Confi. Or Survival. Etc...

Things i thought about:
Smother - Innocent Blood just seems to be better in the early game, where i have most of my problems.
Counterbalance - I just don't wanna waste good cards to have the right Manabreakdown.

I guess that was my part. Now it's up to you ;)

[Joon]

After playtesting the Deck, I assume the only bad Matchup is Vial Goblins which appears less in the last time, so I think Landstill is very decent choice atm. I know Landstill with Deed only as UWbg, but this version seems to work too (with white you lose Monasterys and Swords, both would be nice but acceptable to cut). A Matchup which could be not that good is NQGr with Burning-Tree Shaman (which is played here sometimes). I don't know exactly if Spell Snare is better than Threads of Disloyalty here. The only thing you can't handle with Threads are Hymn to Tourachs, so why not play Threads? I mean stealing the Goyf of you Opponent seems smarter then counter him?

[Bane of the Living]

Here's an issue for all you Landstill players..

Tarmagoyf is on his way to have dominance over our format which means aggro control will be nice to prey off of. Goyf is still a problem himself though.

I hate to swords him and give the opponent 5 life.

A single goyf can go the distance through your manlands making Monastary lack luster.

Wrath sucks against decks who's strategy becomes :1::g:.

This seems to be one of the decks in the goyfmat that needs to adjust by adding its own copies. Does anyone else feel this way?

[Nihil Credo]

No. Landstill is not the only blue-based control deck in existence, you know. If you feel the need to play Tarmogoyfs of your own, then you drop the entire manlands+boardsweepers+Standstill synergy that the deck was founded upon. It's like trying to fit in Tarmogoyf in CounterSlivers: even if it were an improvement, you are no longer playing CounterSlivers.

You need to find a different game plan altogether; a good starting point might be this (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6230).

[Peter_Rotten]

Please note that because of the current DTB update, Landstill should be considered a DTB; however, because of the various lists T8ing (UWB, UWG, UR, BHWC, UWB, UWBG) and the lack of a current thread to specifically discuss a single build, Landstill will remain an ATW.

[Tacosnape]

Here's an issue for all you Landstill players..

Tarmogoyf

If your Landstill build can't handle Tarmogoyf, fix it.

Seriously. We run combinations of Swords to Plowshares, Pernicious Deed, Engineered Explosives, Force of Will, Counterspell, Diabolic Edict, Spell Snare, Meddling Mage, and Extirpate. The only times I remember having serious creature problems with Landstill other than occasional fluke games are when the opponent is playing like, 28+ threats (Goblins) or when they have a means of generating threats with ridiculous longevity (with Survival or Genesis).

Goyf is a creature like any other to this deck. In fact, he is no harder to get rid of than a Cloud of Faeries unless you're running Red (or, well, Faerie Conclave). And giving your opponent 5 life off a Swords to Plowshares isn't a major deal. You're going to have the game well in control by the time you start hacking away at your opponent's face.

[AngryTroll]

And Wrath, and Nantuko Monestaries can double block him with First Strike.

I've held off Goyfs with a Monestary and a few Decree tokens until I stabilized and won.

[URABAHN]

Here's an issue for all you Landstill players..

Tarmagoyf is on his way to have dominance over our format which means aggro control will be nice to prey off of. Goyf is still a problem himself though.

I hate to swords him and give the opponent 5 life.

A single goyf can go the distance through your manlands making Monastary lack luster.

Wrath sucks against decks who's strategy becomes :1::g:.

This seems to be one of the decks in the goyfmat that needs to adjust by adding its own copies. Does anyone else feel this way?

I'll play StP targeting Tarmogoyf all freakin' day long, I'll Wrath away Tarmogoyf all day long, I'll Deed away Tarmogoyf all day long, I'll sac E.E. dialed up to 2 all day long, I don't care if he's a 7/8 beater and my opponent gains 7 life, I want him GONE! My problem with 'goyf in Landstill is he doesn't come back from dead. I am in favor of recurring manlands.

[Anarky87]

If you're having a trouble dealing with one creature with a deck that's meant to handle numerable creatures, I think that's more of a player problem than a deck problem.

[Wynk]

First, sorry if anyone has already brought it up, but I did the search function and it seems it hasn't been mentioned in this thread.

Has Hatching Plans been thought about in Landstill as a 2 of sorts?
Given the number of boardsweepers in deed/EE, it seems to be an effective and cheap card drawer.

Just my 2 cents.

[czeluff]

This is my current list on MWS, and it's been working well so far. I'm posting cuz i'm kind of tired of people whining about Tarmogoyf. He's not that big of a deal, whether you Swords him, counter him, Innocent Blood him, kill him with Deed.

//Land (24)

4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Nantuko Monastery
3 Wasteland

//Spells (36)
4 Force of Will
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
3 Stifle
2 Innocent Blood
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Cunning Wish

//Sideboard
1 Stifle
4 Extirpate
2 Harmonic Convergence
1 Intervention Pact
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Return to Dust
1 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Disenchant

I still really like using Cunning Wish and playing Landstill as a toolbox deck. 90% of the time, I go for Pulse of the Fields. Against burn, they give up. Against a deck with Goyf, you've just counteracted the negative affects of STP'ing their Goyf, and its amazing life gain. Landstill should run enough mana to use it a few times per turn if necessary.

[Mister Agent]

@konsultant: Hey do you mind showing us your most updated landstill list?

[konsultant]

@konsultant: Hey do you mind showing us your most updated landstill list?

This is the build as of this past weekend.

Konsultant Landstill:

MD:

4 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Decree of Justice
2 Eternal Dragon

4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction

3 Engineered Explosives

23 Land

SB:

3 Extirpate
3 Spellsnare
2 Disenchant
2 Crucible of Wolrds
2 Humility
1 Return to Dust
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Fact or Fiction

I too am running into issues with Tarmogyf. It isn't really the creature that's the problem it's more the decks he is being played in and the fact that for some stupid fucking reason he only costs 2 mana, nice job with that one WOTC.

Deck 1 is the Cephalid Breakfast. I believe this deck is ruining Legacy in the same way that Flash did. It's way to powerful and to easy to get into play. Thankfully it is more disruptable [only if you are playing control, not really sure what the hell goblins are really supposed to do] than Flash was. I am not really running into problems with stopping the combo, my problems are more with dealing with the "distracting" Tarmogoyf's after I had to board out my Wrath's. I am testing out some new theories that seem to be working better. The adding of Humility in the SB was with this problem in mind. Some of the other ideas I have been trying seem to be working in testing, I'll post more on them if they work in some actual tournament play in the near future.

Deck 2 is Threshold [specifically the build that won worlds]. I have never really considered any Grow deck to be a "bad" match up for Landstill but it did knock me out of the top 4 this past weekend 2-0. Since then I have done some extensive testing and the problems I have found are these:

1. Spellsnare is great at stopping Standstill's and Counterspells.
2. 4 Wasteland's and 4 Stifle's are great at screwing up your Mana Base.
3. Tarmogoyf's are not easilly stopped by Mishra's or Decree [like any 2 mana creature with out any real drawbacks should be]
4. It is nearly impossible to play Standstill with Tarmogoyf in play, unlike Werebear or Nimble Mongoose.
5. With all of the things disrupting your ability to play Standstill and your Mana Base if they can overpower you for a few turns and stick a Tarmogoyf in play they will probably win.

I do however firmly agree with Tacosnape that Landstill will not lose to a deck that plays creature's, unless you beat yourself by not drawing land like I did this past weekend. Threshold is the other deck that I am keeping in mind as I am toying with my current list. I have found Innocent Blood to be very usefull against the Grow Deck but not really needed in any of my other match ups. This deck is another one of the reasons I added Humility into my SB. If anyone else is having trouble with the Threshold Deck, After way to much testing I have found that boarding in the Crucibles is the way to win this match. They can negate the early damage done to your Mana Base, whitch is really the only way Threshold is gonna win this match. They also give you the option of repeatedly blocking a Tarmogoyf to buy you the time to find the removal.

[diffy]

I played UW Cunning Landstill to a 5-2-1 record at Germany's Legacy Champs... just missing top8
Here's a report (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6844)that might be interesting.

For refference, this is the list I played:



UW Cunning Landstill by Clemens Wolff, influenced by Geoff Smelski

Mainboard (60 cards)
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Wasteland

2 Eternal Dragon
3 Decree of Justice

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell

4 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Cunning Wish
2 Fact or Fiction


Sideboard (15 cards)

1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Disenchant
3 Extirpate
2 Humility
3 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage



With the current sideboard, I don't find Cephalid Breakfast to be that of a bad Matchup especially with Plague on Wizard (stops the Cephalid Illusionist and Dark Confidant), Extirpate (I usually go for Tarmogoyf) and Meddling Mage chanting Dread Return...

My current board plan against Cephalid Breakfast is:

-3 Cunning Wish (too slow)
-4 Wrath of God (too slow)
-2 Fact or Fiction (too slow)
-1 Standstill (not so good with Vial around)
+3 Engineered Plague
+3 Extirpate
+4 Meddling Mage

From above list I would only cut the Sideboard Fact or Fiction as the Cunning Wish into FoF is so clunky and isn't really worth the effort and replace it with a removal (Condemn (http://magiccards.info/10e/en/13.html)or Ghastly Demise (http://magiccards.info/od/en/139.html)).
I'd also like to incorporate Vedalken Shackles into Landstill as it just seems like a very potent card and excellent solution to Tarmogoyf as well as speeding up your clock/stalling the opponent into not playing creatures/forcing the opponent to overextend into Wrath... in short it just does everything you'd always wanted.

[jamest]

I am not really running into problems with stopping the combo, my problems are more with dealing with the "distracting" Tarmogoyf's
Right now, I have Leyline of the Void and Planar Void in my sideboard. Both cards help address the Cephalid combo and Tarmogoyf at the same time. They also prevent flashback cards like Cabal Therapy and Crippling Fatigue. I'm unsure how good Meddling Mage is here, because you often want to set EE at 2 to remove Goyf. Plus, Mage can only stop one card at a time, whereas gy hate can affect multiple cards.


Deck 2 is Threshold
I think that your deck has too many slow spells i.e. Wrath, Decree, Wish, Fact. Your answers need to be more mana efficient when you're up against a deck like Threshold packing Dazes, Stifles, Wastelands, etc.

[konsultant]

Right now, I have Leyline of the Void and Planar Void in my sideboard. Both cards help address the Cephalid combo and Tarmogoyf at the same time. They also prevent flashback cards like Cabal Therapy and Crippling Fatigue. I'm unsure how good Meddling Mage is here, because you often want to set EE at 2 to remove Goyf. Plus, Mage can only stop one card at a time, whereas gy hate can affect multiple cards.


I think that your deck has too many slow spells i.e. Wrath, Decree, Wish, Fact. Your answers to need to be more mana efficient when you're up against a deck like Threshold packing Dazes, Stifles, Wastelands, etc.

I agree with not playing Meddling Mage. The only deck I ever used him against was Reset. Against anything else there are usually better options. My Main Deck is more set up to beat Goblins or Random Decks than it is for these 2 Decks specifically. The Main Deck is capable of taking the win but it boards in several cards to help ensure the game 2 and 3 wins if needed.

I also agree with the speeding the deck up to beat threshold, in fact that is exactly why there are Spellsnares in the SB. My board transition is minus 2 Fact or Fiction and 3 Cunning Wish and in go the 3 Spellsnares and 2 Crucible's.

I have been arguing with Landstill player's for years about Decree of Justice and whether it's to slow. I don't know exactly what other player's stratagie's are but Decree is exactly why I play removal, It is what I am stalling the game to reach that eventual Decree for the win. The Eternal Dragon's are my alternative to Decree when they have to be but if you ask anyone that ever watches me play I don't attack with Mishra's they are there as blocker's for the most part. Really the only time Mishra's go aggro is when Standstill is in play and I have Counter's in hand with plenty of open Mana to spare.


I played UW Cunning Landstill to a 5-2-1 record at Germany's Legacy Champs... just missing top8

UW Cunning Landstill by Clemens Wolff, influenced by Geoff Smelski



Congrat's on your success with the list, Have you made any adjustmant's to it since the Tournament?

[Mister Agent]

@geoff: I actually like your list alot. Seems streamlined enough to beat decks like breakfast, ichrorid, threshold, and probably still have a solid game against goblins after boarding. I want to go to the mana leak open 3 and if i do which there might be a good chance I will probably play with your exact list. Ive always been a big fan of your landstill builds Geoff and Ive played landstill and other control decks since I started legacy back in 2004.

Thanks for the list Geoff.

[diffy]

Have you made any adjustmant's to it since the Tournament?


From my report:



- Fact or Fiction is way to slow to warrant a slot in the Wishboard

[...]

Without further testing I’ll make this change to the Sideboard:

-1 Fact or Fiction
+1 Ghastly Demise


I chose to play Ghastly Demise or Condemn over something like Slaughter Pact because with only 3-4 black sources paying the Upkeep cost against decks like Goblins will be a real pain.
I'm not sure on which removal is best right now as Comdemn can kill an Attacking Mystic Enforcer but can't hit utility creatures.

Also I've never really liked to draw a Wasteland without having the Crucible... I think the mana base consistence issues really arn't worth the occasional possibility to color scew your opponent and/or to remove a single manland as those are nearly always acompanied by a way to reccur them... So I'd either cut down a Wasteland or try to incorporate Crucible of Worlds.
I'm currently testing a Hallowed Fountain in the 3rd Wasteland slot as it's really not that much worse than a Tundra because you can always fetch it at End of Turn if you've nothing better to do.

Something one might want to look into is Marius Hausman's last list which he piloted to a 5-3 finish in the Legacy Champs:



UW Cunning Landstill by Marius Hausman

Mainboard (60 cards)
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Wasteland

2 Eternal Dragon
2 Decree of Justice

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell

3 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Cunning Wish

2 Stifle
2 Crucible of Worlds


Sideboard (15 cards)

1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Extirpate
2 Humility
3 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage


Another interesting list is this (http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=10647). It's the second place list of the German Legacy Champs which eventually lost to a weird RecSur build in the finals despite having access to Humilities before sideboarding... The look of the list is pretty nice but I really don't like the Enlightened Tutor in there as it's just plain carddisadvantage.

[honz]

The UR list from gencon (placed around 20th) really caught my eye. Most notably, 3 md phyrexian furnaces. It seemed really janky at first, but i have been playing around with the deck, and have really liked them. I am interested as to what other people think of it. With 2 crucible, 3 disk, 2 EE, and 3 furnaces (plus needles and crypts from the board) you could justify running 1 x academy ruins.

UR lists in general have been doing pretty well for me. The burn really gives you some amazing reach, and flexability. That is just a first impression though, maybe im missing something?

[Adan]

The UR list from gencon (placed around 20th) really caught my eye. Most notably, 3 md phyrexian furnaces. It seemed really janky at first, but i have been playing around with the deck, and have really liked them. I am interested as to what other people think of it. With 2 crucible, 3 disk, 2 EE, and 3 furnaces (plus needles and crypts from the board) you could justify running 1 x academy ruins.

UR lists in general have been doing pretty well for me. The burn really gives you some amazing reach, and flexability. That is just a first impression though, maybe im missing something?

I always said that UR Landstill is good, but there has to be a american T8ing with it somewhere first beforce the deck receives attention or what? :wink:

And Academy Ruins = MY tech (see Doug Linn's article about Legacy in Europe where he introduced my UR List from Karlsruhe. But I threw them in spontaneously, actually they are not THAT good).

The only thing I don't really like about the GenCon List are the 2 Lavamancers . Running creatures in Landstill was never good (except Eternal Dragon which can also be recurred or Quagnoth which can't be handled by removal and is not affected by P.Deed).

And I'm also not a friend of Counterspell and Fact of Fiction, that's old-fashioned. But the old-school Stifles seemed to be very effective.
Stifle is also good against combo. Here's "my" latest list of UR LS.
But I will think about returning back to Stifles instead of Repeal (Repeal's also good against Counterbalance and has got some nice synergies with Wasteland and Standstill obv.).

// Lands
3 [UL] Faerie Conclave
3 [TE] Wasteland
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [A] Island (1)
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)
4 [B] Volcanic Island

// Spells
2 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [AP] Fire/Ice
3 [BOK] Disrupting Shoal
3 [MR] Thirst for Knowledge
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [GP] Repeal
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [A] Nevinyrral's Disk
4 [A] Lightning Bolt

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
SB: 4 [B] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [CS] Counterbalance
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [BOK] Threads of Disloyalty

I run Thirst for Knowledge over fact or Fiction because I think it's more flexible. In the past i often used Fact or Fiction just as a tutor for the final burnspell.
And in many matchups Disk were not good or dead, so you could turn it into CA.

Disrupting Shoal allows you to play Standstill more aggressiveley and you can tap yourself out to attack without losing the possibility to counter soem nasty stuff.

Also watch the CB-tech in the SB :cool:

[honz]

I was actually refering to this list which placed 21st, and i agree that lavamancers are terrible.

2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fire // Ice
4 Stifle
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
3 Phyrexian Furnace
3 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Crucible of Worlds

Sideboard
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Smash
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroclasm
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blue Elemental Blast



The furnaces being the crazy tech that caught my interest. This runs 10 MD artifacts, with 5 SB which i think should be enough to make ruins worth it. The lack of a strong draw engine could be a problem though, but you might be able to fit in 2 FoF / Thirst (-1 disk, -1 stifle).

I have actually played with a similiar list to adan's, and found the tops very lacking without counterbalance. Also, i never liked disruptive shoal, i would probly take mana leak / counterbalance over it. I don't like repeal either, its only real use is against a sutured ghoul / belcher.

UR seems to have a worse thresh MU, but better gobbos / ETW combo MU. I guess it is just a meta choice...

[thefreakaccident]

To be honest, Whenever I pilot landstill nowadays, I simply pilot Bel's landstill from a long time ago. I beleive it is still the best lanstill varient (although maybe slightly outdated).

lands//26
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Faerie Conclave
4x Flooded Strand
4x Tundra
4x Volcanic Island
4x Wasteland
1x Island
1x Plains

spells//
4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
4x Standstill
3x Nevinyrral's Disk
3x Swords to Plowshares
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Fire/Ice
3x Fact or Fiction
2x Stifle
2x Teferi's Response
2x Crucible of Worlds
1x disenchant


Sideboard//

1x Nevinyrral's Disk
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Fire/Ice
1x Stifle
1x Teferi's Response
3x Disenchant
2x Misdirection
2x Red Elemental Blast
1x Pyroclasm
1x Blue Elemental Blast

[Mister Agent]

To be honest, Whenever I pilot landstill nowadays, I simply pilot Bel's landstill from a long time ago. I beleive it is still the best lanstill varient (although maybe slightly outdated).

lands//26
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Faerie Conclave
4x Flooded Strand
4x Tundra
4x Volcanic Island
4x Wasteland
1x Island
1x Plains

spells//
4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
4x Standstill
3x Nevinyrral's Disk
3x Swords to Plowshares
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Fire/Ice
3x Fact or Fiction
2x Stifle
2x Teferi's Response
2x Crucible of Worlds
1x disenchant


Sideboard//

1x Nevinyrral's Disk
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Fire/Ice
1x Stifle
1x Teferi's Response
3x Disenchant
2x Misdirection
2x Red Elemental Blast
1x Pyroclasm
1x Blue Elemental Blast

I clearly remember when i used to playtest against Bel way back in the day thats the same exact list he used. I agree I think uwr landstill is clearly better then 4c landstill IMO as well as probably the best landstill list out in the meta. IMO bel is probably the best of the best with piloting landstill decks. Not to mention UR landstill is still a strong choice in the current meta as well.

[Adan]

To be honest, Whenever I pilot landstill nowadays, I simply pilot Bel's landstill from a long time ago. I beleive it is still the best lanstill varient (although maybe slightly outdated).

...



And what are your arguments for running such a build? 1 random Disenchant?
Nevinyrral's Disk when you are 3colored ( EE > Disk?!)? And, WTF, TEFERI'S RESPONSE?!
You got2b kidding. We are in 2007. Run Stifle Nr. 3 and 4.

It's simply UR Landstill with a worse manabase for 4 white cards (3 StoP and 1 random Disenchant).

So, supporting Plains also sucks.

There's absolutley no reason why that UWR Landstill should be superior to other Landstill variants, especially the UR one.

UR has got one advantage over the other Landstill Types: You can play aggressiveley, utilizing your removal as burn to the head, tapping yourself out without losing the possibility to counter (Force and Shoal).

Swords to Plowshares SUCK when you also run Burnspells as a secundary kill-condition beside manlands.

[thefreakaccident]

The swords is a must, beleive it or not... you need a way to deal with Tarmogoyf, as well as other random threats like jotan grunt and pro-red critters.

Disk is slow, but so is landstill... I run it out of preference and laziness (I haven't changed the list in years). What are they going to target with removal/stifles/wastelands... your lands, Teferi's response has been CA... cantrip twice and counter something... how lovely.

The maindeck disenchant gets rid of problem cards like needle, solitary confinement, and survival.

The one and 2 ofs are threre in the sideboard to shore up missing hate that isn't already present in the maindeck... That's why it looks like that.

The plains is necessary, being able to swords/disenchant something that's shutting down something is vital... you can't always burn your problems away (although you might in RL... I know I am a pyro).

Shoal isn't that great of an arguement, seeing as it can be used in every landstill varient... what you should really find is a card that only UR landstill can utilize/abuse that makes it better than argue it is better due to that respect.

Take what you will, I don't have to convince you guys... Me and Kev will know the truth.


This deck is a juggernaut, whether or not you are willing to see it.

[Mister Agent]

And what are your arguments for running such a build? 1 random Disenchant?
Nevinyrral's Disk when you are 3colored ( EE > Disk?!)? And, WTF, TEFERI'S RESPONSE?!
You got2b kidding. We are in 2007. Run Stifle Nr. 3 and 4.

It's simply UR Landstill with a worse manabase for 4 white cards (3 StoP and 1 random Disenchant).

So, supporting Plains also sucks.

There's absolutley no reason why that UWR Landstill should be superior to other Landstill variants, especially the UR one.

UR has got one advantage over the other Landstill Types: You can play aggressiveley, utilizing your removal as burn to the head, tapping yourself out without losing the possibility to counter (Force and Shoal).

Swords to Plowshares SUCK when you also run Burnspells as a secundary kill-condition beside manlands.

The deck already runs 2 stifles and one in the board. Also since threshold decks run stifle and wastelands to combat landstill then I don't think terferi's response is a bad idea not saying its the most solid card choice to put in that card slot though.

I disagree I don't think swords to plowshares suck with burnspells. Mainly because the more removal spells you can run especially in landstill the better considering playing a standstill as soon as you can is critical.

[Adan]

This deck is a juggernaut, whether or not you are willing to see it.

I never saw a UWR variant having any succes in any T8.

I also have 1 long year of experience with UR. I think I know how the deck works,how to play against Threshold and how some cardchoices are.

It almost began with this:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=290&highlight=1#place1

continued to develop to this:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=467&highlight=5#place5

That was almost the begin of UR Landstill in Germany.

I played it here:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=356&highlight=5#place5

here:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=377&highlight=4#place4

And I got better:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=385&highlight=2#place2

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=406&highlight=1#place1

Then, after some time, I chose to play it again in Karlsruhe (this is the list Hi-Val mentioned in his artivle where I played Academy uins for stupidness):

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=523&highlight=4#place4

Believe me, Swords to Plowshares DO suck in Ur Landstill since it it completley contra-productive against the concept of UR Landstill.

[Nihil Credo]

Please explain why that list does not run Brainstorm.

[Adan]

Please explain why that list does not run Brainstorm.

LOL, I also didn't noticed that!!!

So umm...QFT!

[thefreakaccident]

It is a dinosaur of a list... brainstorm isn't as powerful in this deck, seeing as it only plays 4 fetches to abuse brainstorm. You will rarely need to dig for lands, seeing as the deck has 26... you also have power draw in the forms of standstill, FoF, and Teferi's response (to a degree). Simply put, you don't need brainstorm in order to function properly.

That statement is kinda confusing to me as well, seeing as I fit brainstorm in to very other blue deck as a four of first (right after FoW).

[Jak]

It is a dinosaur of a list... brainstorm isn't as powerful in this deck, seeing as it only plays 4 fetches to abuse brainstorm. You will rarely need to dig for lands, seeing as the deck has 26... you also have power draw in the forms of standstill, FoF, and Teferi's response (to a degree). Simply put, you don't need brainstorm in order to function properly.

That statement is kinda confusing to me as well, seeing as I fit brainstorm in to very other blue deck as a four of first (right after FoW).

It says fucking draw 3. Play it.

[Citrus-God]

It says fucking draw 3. Play it.

Who plays Wasteland anymore? Exactly, play more Fetchlands for the sake of Brainstorm.

[Tacosnape]

Personally I think it's flat out moronic and completely unbefitting of the LMF to defend any deck with the attitude "I know it's great, it doesn't matter what you think." There's no logical basis to defend the ancient UWR list and no grounds to claim that it's superior to 4C Landstill or any other Landstill build.

In fact, any claim I've ever heard about any Landstill color scheme being superior to any other Landstill color scheme is completely subjective and relative to the scenarios in which the deck is being presented.

For example, if you tell me that any Landstill deck packing Lightning Bolt is good in the current metagame where Threshold and Ichorid are running rampant, I'll tell you that you're wrong. Lightning Bolt is barely on the playable side of the invisible line that divides playable and unplayable in Legacy, and 600 decks packing Tarmogoyf didn't make it any better. 4C Landstill, however, will have a much easier time slaughtering the Tarmogoyf brigade as in addition to STP, it also has Edict and Explosives where the Bolts would be and Deeds instead of the Disks.

That's just a single example of how, with clever writing and a little bit of reasoning, you can present any Landstill deck to be superior over any other Landstill deck.

[HSCK]

What do you all think of Gaddock Teeg in the SB in place of Meddling Mage? It is a great way to hinder a lot of the combo decks that usually have their way with Landstill and backed up with significant amounts of permission he can end the game on turn 2.

[Nightmare]

What do you all think of Gaddock Teeg in the SB in place of Meddling Mage? It is a great way to hinder a lot of the combo decks that usually have their way with Landstill and backed up with significant amounts of permission he can end the game on turn 2.How would that be good? Teeg is actually terrible for you, I can't imagine what matchup you would board him in for.

[HSCK]

He stops Tendrils, EtW, Charbelcher, Dread Return, while shutting off your FoWs and FoFs. Board out something useless against those decks and bring in 4 Teeg and 3 Duress for those combo matches and suddenly Landstill has a much better chance of winning. He can be burned like Mage but the decision on which card to stop becomes much much easier because he shuts down multiple win conditions. I play 4C Landstill so I wouldn't lose nearly as much as UW/UWR.

[Nihil Credo]

If you have Duress - and, I guess, Extirpate - along with maindeck FoW, Stifle, EE and Counterspell, then more combo hate seems pretty much overkill.

[thefreakaccident]

Personally I think it's flat out moronic and completely unbefitting of the LMF to defend any deck with the attitude "I know it's great, it doesn't matter what you think." There's no logical basis to defend the ancient UWR list and no grounds to claim that it's superior to 4C Landstill or any other Landstill build.

In fact, any claim I've ever heard about any Landstill color scheme being superior to any other Landstill color scheme is completely subjective and relative to the scenarios in which the deck is being presented.

For example, if you tell me that any Landstill deck packing Lightning Bolt is good in the current metagame where Threshold and Ichorid are running rampant, I'll tell you that you're wrong. Lightning Bolt is barely on the playable side of the invisible line that divides playable and unplayable in Legacy, and 600 decks packing Tarmogoyf didn't make it any better. 4C Landstill, however, will have a much easier time slaughtering the Tarmogoyf brigade as in addition to STP, it also has Edict and Explosives where the Bolts would be and Deeds instead of the Disks.

That's just a single example of how, with clever writing and a little bit of reasoning, you can present any Landstill deck to be superior over any other Landstill deck.


I may have been a little aggressive with my posting.... The build is strong, and has a much easier time with dealing with Tarmogoyf than UR. It is a lot more stable and consistant than most other 3c and 4c landstill builds I know of (especially BHWW). I know the deck is old, but it is like my old faithful... feal like getting first, eh I play landstill.

Landstill has always had a strong thresh MU, and with goblins on the decline (this deck has a pretty good MU anyways) the deck is even more suitable for the meta.

I just don't understand why older decks are considered inherently weaker when sometimes it is simply the obvious reverse. I play old school, and teach a lot of lessons because of unsuspecting meta.

You guys could be right, about the disks and disenchant... but the list has never led me astray before, so I am far from willing to change it without proper cause.

[Citrus-God]

Taco style Landstill


// Lands 26
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastery
1 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Island


// Spells 34
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam


// Sideboard 15
4 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage
4 Duress
3 Hydroblast

[mustang8907]

got a question for every landstill deck out there. what do you do against 42 land decks???? no matter how many times i try i have not won the first game ever. and with a little bit of side change, i have a better chance but it is still hard. does anyone have any suggestions? im running the 4c build exact to the deck that made top 8 at gencon cept diff side.

This is the fourth time I've deleted or edited one of your posts in this thread because of grammar and spelling. Infraction issued for failure to obey site rules. Be aware, this is your second infraction. Three strikes and you're out. ~ Nightmare

[diffy]

What do you do against 42 land decks????


Uhm... You basically pray that they've all been paired against combo in the first round.
Really, there isn't much you can do with the 4c List because they attack your mana base pretty badly, because your Creature Hate is only about a fog and because all your winconditions are stopped by their Mazes.
Even postboard, I don't really see any hope of an improvement in the Matchup because there's just very little you can do about their deck (yey, you Extirpated/Maged their Life from the Loam, wath how they go broken with manland beatdown).

If you plan on playing Landstill in a field from which you know that it contains a significant proportion of Life from the Loam decks (which is a very very bad idea), you should be playing an UWb build similar to mine (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=158201&postcount=402) or to Hausman's (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=158356&postcount=406) and include at least 2-3 Crucibles of Worlds, 3-4 Wastelands and access to Extirpate in game one (eg. via Cunning Wish)... even then, Life from the Loam/Lands based aggro is your very nightmare matchup (even worse than the rest of Life from the Loam based decks which arn't a really good Matchup to beginn with).

[Tacosnape]

I think your best bet for 42/43Land.dec is to just pretend it doesn't exist and don't spend any effort weakening your other matchups. You're going to lose. It undermines your win plan by being better at it than you are, and it can beat you without resolving a spell. Good luck.

Ordinary Loam Control decks can be a different story, though. With Extirpate and some good use of Meddling Mage, this isn't an unwinnable match in the second and third games. You're probably going to lose here also, but it's not a complete waste of time.

If you're paired against 43 Land and you don't have a loss*, I'd seriously scoop the match, go get a snack, go for a short walk or jog, and take the rest of the round time to rest and relax your brain. It'll pay off more in the later rounds.

*Obviously, if scooping takes you out of top 8 contention, fight it out.

[mustang8907]

With my sideboard being this:
3 leyline of the void
3 pithing needle
4 tarmagoyf
3 meddling mage
2 extripate




ive actually found myself able to have the upper half against every deck i have fact after sideboarding:

goblins: i bring in tarmagoyf, this change right now with many of the goblin decks in my area are green(krosan grip) and white(disenchant). and with engineered plague in the format soo much, goblin players have found a way around it.
iggy pop: i bring in 3 meddling mage and 2 extripates. this with the maindeck 3 stifles, is usually enough as long as you know what you are doing.
threshold: i bring in leyline and tarmagoyf just to stop the goose and to counter act their tarmagoyf. ( havnt lost one of these yet)

and for any aggro deck i always bring in the tarmagoyf and maybe something else if needed, but the tarmagoyfs are usually enough to either slow them for me to get control or even a kill mech.

42 land: i bring in well everything.


does anyone have any thoughts about my side????

[honz]

tarmogoyf over E-plague is a terrible thought. Yes, they do run disenchant / grip, but they also run this card called gempalm incinerator. Gempalm is tutorable via ringleader and matron, while disenchant / grip is dependant on topdecking.

Goyf is also in your deed / EE range. Deed is your best card against gobbos, and you dont want cards with poor synergy.

[bigbear102]

Goyf actually isn't a horrible idea, although not necessarily in place of E. plague. Goyf makes the goblin player over extend. To kill the goyf they have to have at least 4-5 goblins in play, which then makes your deed/wrath effect that much better. It also gives you a nice clock once you stop them so that they don't have infinite time to build back up.

Along with slowing goblins, which is not really a huge issue right now, you also stop opposing goyfs, again, causing your opponent to over extend. The card acts as more spot removal, letting you wait longer before you sweep, making your sweepers much more effective. Also, in the mirror he alleviates some of the time issues.

[Citrus-God]

Goyf actually isn't a horrible idea, although not necessarily in place of E. plague. Goyf makes the goblin player over extend. To kill the goyf they have to have at least 4-5 goblins in play, which then makes your deed/wrath effect that much better. It also gives you a nice clock once you stop them so that they don't have infinite time to build back up.

Along with slowing goblins, which is not really a huge issue right now, you also stop opposing goyfs, again, causing your opponent to over extend. The card acts as more spot removal, letting you wait longer before you sweep, making your sweepers much more effective. Also, in the mirror he alleviates some of the time issues.

Goyf can be like a cheaper Exalted Angel. If you think about it, it is always better to go for a threat after a board sweeper, so you can actually apply pressure towards opponent once you've kept them off beating your face in. Also, Goyf is really good as a Goyf-Wall and random blocker against Goblins too.

[mustang8907]

Goyf can be like a cheaper Exalted Angel. If you think about it, it is always better to go for a threat after a board sweeper, so you can actually apply pressure towards opponent once you've kept them off beating your face in. Also, Goyf is really good as a Goyf-Wall and random blocker against Goblins too.

you hit it right on the button for what goyf is ment for. i always brought in as a blocker, not as a kill mech. because in thresh decks, goyf with counterspell back up are hard to remove and when you do you usually lose card advantage. goyf is great for any match up other than combo and some combo it is good like ichorid.

Banned for repeated failure to follow site rules. Proper capitalization, grammar, and spelling are absolute requirements on these boards. - Zilla

[luckymartyr]

Has mox diamond ever been considered in this deck. I know it doesn't have the greatest synergy with pernicious dead, but it would speed up the deck and smooth out the manabase a little more. Turn 1 standstill seems pretty good.

[Adan]

you hit it right on the button for what goyf is ment for. i always brought in as a blocker, not as a kill mech. because in thresh decks, goyf with counterspell back up are hard to remove and when you do you usually lose card advantage. goyf is great for any match up other than combo and some combo it is good like ichorid.

Grammar-related discussion removed. - Zilla

And: Tarmogoyf is good against combo, because he is a fast clock.
Having a fast clock beside disruption is very important.
Against combo, you have to win as fast as you can in general.
Tarmogoyf allows you to do so.
It wins within 4 or 5 turns. Without Goyf, you need 20+ turns (exaggerating, but you know what I mean).

[TheCramp]

Regarding red builds of Landstill.

Has anyone ever tried Shard Phoenix? With goyf running arround, red-still is weak, and Phoenix isn't a solution. So I guess its not much of a idea. When I first started playing legacy, Red Landstill was the deck I built, and I tried it. It was pretty effective, I used it as a bogerden pyroclasm if you will. I could block a werebear, or a mongoose and sac it to kill them. I guess this is not relevant now, unless someone has a playable substitution I don't know of.

[mustang8907]

And: Tarmogoyf is good against combo, because he is a fast clock.
Having a fast clock beside disruption is very important.
Against combo, you have to win as fast as you can in general.
Tarmogoyf allows you to do so.
It wins within 4 or 5 turns. Without Goyf, you need 20+ turns (exaggerating, but you know what I mean).

Grammar-related discussion removed. - Zilla

goyf is great at making a clock, but makes it hard to choose what to take out. why would you want to take out your control to the combo to force them to go off when teh combo will go off before you kill them anyway.

[Adan]

If you can't read what I am writing, then go back to first grade.

goyf is great at making a clock, but makes it hard to choose what to take out. why would you want to take out your control to the combo to force them to go off when teh combo will go off before you kill them anyway.

What to take out? Is THAT really such a difficult question for you?

What about dead removal like 4 Swords, 2-3 Edicts and the useless Life from the Loam?

That would make 8 Slots for Meddling Mages and Tarmogoyf.

Deeds, C//P and EE are kept against thingy...Empty the Warrens.

Grammar-related discussion removed. - Zilla

[sammiel]

Grammar-related discussion removed. - Zilla
The Goyf man-plan is not a terrible idea in the SB of landstill, maybe you should develop some actual experience with landstill variants before you try to come across as an expert.

[Anarky87]

Grammar-related discussion removed. - Zilla

Folks, if people are posting with terrible grammar, spelling and whatnot, just report it and we'll take care of it. Grazi. (Our forum rules. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/announcement.php?f=24)) - Bardo


goyf is great at making a clock, but makes it hard to choose what to take out. why would you want to take out your control to the combo to force them to go off when teh combo will go off before you kill them anyway.Well, if by 'the combo' you're refering to Belcher/TES, then that's why you have FoW/Counterspell/Stifle/EE/Pernicious Deed. All of those cards will either make them fizzle or deal with their kill condition after it's been executed. EE and Deed help against EtW if they pull one off and you don't have the counter pre-combo. Post-board you're going to want to take out the weak cards like StP's, Edicts, maybe FoF for the better cards in Mage and, in your case, Tarmogoyf.

Taking out the dead cards means your post-board disruption are also beaters, which quicken your deck's clock so you don't give them all the time in the world to go off again. Because lets face it, it's easier to rebuild if you're combo when staring down a 2/2 for 10 turns than it is a couple 5/6's.

[thefreakaccident]

So if you don't run green the man plan is kind useless... you get grunt?

I honestly don't understand why you guys want a man plan in the first place, goblins, threshold, and combo are already positive match ups for the deck.

In tournament play, the only decks I have lost to were other control decks and resilient decks such as LFTL and other dredge decks (makes it difficult to get rid of their kill cons).

Of coarse I have lost a couple games to thresh and the like, but a great majority of those matches have been won by landstill and will continue to be so... I actually think goyf will weaken your matchups against combo, you have an opening hand of a few lands, draw spells, goyf, and a counterspell... you force a fizzle, then they combo once you've dropped your pants playing goyf.

We don't play daze, making it a lot more dangerous when we tap out.

[Tacosnape]

It seems to me that Goyf is being largely discussed in the spot of Plague as an anti-combo card.

If so, this is incredibly stupid. Plague is a house against every combo deck in the format right now.

Goyf's an option, but not in Plague's slots.

[thefreakaccident]

Plague : Shut down ETW tokens, and shut down goblins once you have 2 on the board w/ countermagic.

Tarmogoyf: Annoy goblins, and does nothing to tokens.

[Anarky87]

I don't condone adding Tarmogoyf to the SB, only replying to a comment earlier. It would take a world of convincing to make me even THINK about dropping Plague from my board.

[Mister Agent]

I personally do not think tarmogoyf is necassary in landstill since I think it has plenty of win conditions as well as it seems more of a win more type of card in my opinion. Also tarmogoyf is not as brilliant as lets say decree of justice or nantuko monastery in the late game which any good landstill deck strives on since its control and not aggro-control.

[thefreakaccident]

In any splash they need a boon against goblins in the board, whether it be plague for those of you running the black splash, or pyroclasm for those of us running the red splash, or moat/wrath for those of you running the white splash (or even perhapes tivdar's crusade).


If at any moment anyone ever considers to take any of those cards out of their respective boards, they are simply a fool. Plague and pyroclasm are also very good against ETW tokens, which seem to be everywhere these days. Tarmogoyf doesn't stop goblins dead in its' tracks and it sure as hell doesn't do anything against ETW tokens.


I don't even know why he was even brought up here.

[jamest]

... brainstorm isn't as powerful in this deck, seeing as it only plays 4 fetches to abuse brainstorm. You will rarely need to dig for lands, seeing as the deck has 26... you also have power draw in the forms of standstill, FoF, and Teferi's response (to a degree). Simply put, you don't need brainstorm in order to function properly.
I was contemplating cutting Brainstorm too. It's weird, because I think of Brainstorm as possibly the strongest card in Legacy. So, I was testing against Kronicler running the UG Thresh list with Stifle and Wasteland. The mana disruption is really dangerous against Landstill, since this deck is really mana hungy and slow, so any tempo hit can be game ending. So, I tried cutting fetchlands down to 4 (I was previously running 8) to be less vulnerable to Stifle. But without fetchlands, Brainstorm loses a lot of its power. Then, I started thinking, one of the big reasons why Brainstorm is so strong is that it allows you to shuffle back excess lands, but Landstill wants a million lands in play, so that use of Brainstorm is not so important anyway. The fact I have such a high opinion of Brainstorm in the abstract prevents me from cutting it, but my experience with Landstill tells me Brainstorm is not so great here.

[Kronicler]

For the record, it was UGR Thresh with Stifles and Wastes, and the red can actually make a difference as mana denial + efficient creatures is dangerous, but when you add burn into the mix, thereby significantly speeding up the clock, the tempo gained from wasting a duel or stifling a fetch can literally cost landstill the game.

Kronicler

[Raider Bob]

With the new set just around the courner, has anyone messed around with the Plainswalkers?

Pro's -
They are a midgame threat (Perfect for Landstill)
They will draw fire from your opponent (Buying you time)
The Black one is Card advantage/Quality
They are not Wrathable, Deedable, E.Explosivable or STPable.
They are card Advantage, if they last more than one turn.

Con's -
Finding Deck Space as it is at a premium already.
At 3XX to play them they run high on the mana curve.
They are hit by Pithing Needle (As is much of the rest of the deck)


This is just an Idea, to stop the Flaming on it now. 8)

[Kronicler]

They don't all cost 3XX. Heck, the blue one only costs 1UU!

Kronicler

[konsultant]

With the new set just around the courner, has anyone messed around with the Plainswalkers?

Pro's -
They are a midgame threat (Perfect for Landstill)
They will draw fire from your opponent (Buying you time)
The Black one is Card advantage/Quality
They are not Wrathable, Deedable, E.Explosivable or STPable.
They are card Advantage, if they last more than one turn.

Con's -
Finding Deck Space as it is at a premium already.
At 3XX to play them they run high on the mana curve.
They are hit by Pithing Needle (As is much of the rest of the deck)


This is just an Idea, to stop the Flaming on it now. 8)

They seem like a very powerful possible addition to the deck, but I don't think the deck has any space left to add more late game cards. The format is getting closer and closer to Vintage and there just isn't the time in the game to play more late game cards. I don't really think they are any better than running Future Sight would be.

To the people suggesting to run Tarmogoyf in Landstill, please stop trying to add creature's into the Landstill lists. The only creature's that warrent a spot are the Eternal Dragon's in the MD and possibly the Meddling Mage's in the SB. Landstill is a Control Deck only. While you can win with one of the Aggro-Control versions of the deck, I have never seen a Aggro-Control list that didn't have an auto-loss to something. Even if you can beat everything else in the format the Aggro versions get crushed against the more controlling version that I have built.

I have solved my difficulties against Tarmogoyf's through other Control based idea's. To anyone having difficulties against them still, I suggest running something with a more permanent effect against them. Try Moat, The Abyss, or Humility. Speeding up your attrition cards helps alot here as well. Try Spellsnare or Innocent Blood in addition to EE and STP. We have to accept that Tarmogoyf is going to require some kind of SB space and a solid boarding stategy to effectivly deal with it. There is no reason that landstill should be running creature's with-out control based abilities. If you want to run a creature as an answer to Tarmogoyf try running Preacher. As far as using Tarmogoyf against Goblins, If you are playing Landstill against Goblin's you should have other answer's to Goblin's then adding a creature that they have several way's to get rid of. Moat, Humility and The Abyss are all very powerful against Tarmogoyf decks and Goblin decks.

[thefreakaccident]

I agree with konsultant entirely, creatures are never a good way to go with landstill (I never even liked dragon in some builds, but whatever)... Landstill should never have to need bigger creatures, you have inevitability on your side with manlands (and burn if you run red like me). You shouldn't have to board in a tarmogoyf for combo (I have had great success against combo with the list I have been using), and goblins is cake when piloted correctly and with an optimal list.

That said, I feel that you guys are trying to bring the walkers in for the same reasons as you guys are trying to incorperate goyf.



I personally think that this just falls into the 'danger of cool things' catagory, and it shouldn't seriously be considered.

[Anarky87]

I agree with konsultant entirely, creatures are never a good way to go with landstill (I never even liked dragon in some builds, but whatever)... Landstill should never have to need bigger creatures, you have inevitability on your side with manlands (and burn if you run red like me). You shouldn't have to board in a tarmogoyf for combo (I have had great success against combo with the list I have been using), and goblins is cake when piloted correctly and with an optimal list.

That said, I feel that you guys are trying to bring the walkers in for the same reasons as you guys are trying to incorperate goyf.



I personally think that this just falls into the 'danger of cool things' catagory, and it shouldn't seriously be considered.

Honestly, I've only seen two people talking about adding creatures into Landstill. And one of them was just banned, so I don't think there's really need to keep further discussing why not to include creatures in Landstill.

[Tacosnape]

I completely disagree with the notion that including creatures and including planeswalkers are fundamentally similar in any way beyond the fact that it's an attempt to address a lack of kill conditions.

People run lots of creature removal. People don't run a lot of Planeswalker removal.

I don't think Ajani's going to make the cut. Except for UR variants which I know little about, that leaves Liliana, Jace, and Garruk.

Jace is okay. I think he's playable, but I don't know that he's amazing or anything. All he's going to do is increase your chances of winning a long game in a situation where you wouldn't otherwise, whether it's a better control deck or just plowing through a land pocket. Most creatures will kill Jace in one hit. Jace pitches to Force, though.

Liliana is interesting, but garbage in certain matchups, like ones where they don't run creatures. The tutoring effect is intriguing, however.

Garruk intrigues me the most, I think. "Untap two target lands" is good for casting things like Deed and Standstill and then preparing to counter things. And making 3/3 Beasts until the end of time is pretty freakin' savage. The :g::g: is the biggest detriment to Garruk, but I'm contemplating trying him out.

[Nihil Credo]

Still talking about Lorwyn, we have received a nice Akroma's Vengeance spin-off:

White Command

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/images/smilies/mana4.gifhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/images/smilies/manaw.gifhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/images/smilies/manaw.gif Sorceryhttp://mtgsalvation.com/images/spoiler/lorwyn-rare.gifChoose two - Destroy all enchantments; or destroy all artifacts; or destroy all creatures with a converted mana cost of 3 or less; or destroy all creatures with a converted mana cost greater than 3.
The versions running Deed have no use for this one. But for UWg or UWb, it looks pretty damn interesting. Some stuff it can do that Akroma's Vengeance cannot:

- Kill all creatures without hurting your Crucible of Worlds
- Kill fatties, let your Decree tokens live
- Kill opponent's creatures, let your Dragon or maybe even a postboard Exalted Angel live
- Kill opponent's Jitte and creatures, let your Humility live

[thefreakaccident]

Looks a little too pricey, even for landstill... 6 mana is a little slow against anything in the format as of right now.

[Tacosnape]

Let's open a little debate here on Stifle versus Spell Snare maindecked.

In 4C, I've recently come to the conclusion that unless you're playing against Goblins, Spell Snare is good, period. It crept into my sideboard first, then I started maindecking it to test. Now I'm caught in a quandary.

I'm fairly sure from extensive play with the deck that it's safe to say there's only room for three to four copies of one narrow counterspell at the most, whether it's Stifle or Spell Snare. The only possible exception I could imagine might be a 2/2 split.

Spell Snare is almost always good, and it's good a lot more often than Stifle. However, there are a lot of situations where Spell Snare is good and Stifle is better.

I've found that in any Landstill deck not packing Wasteland, Stifle is weaker than if it were in a build that does pack Wasteland, because mana denial is less of a plausible strategy excluding very early against a fetchland for tempo. Where Stifle earns its keep, I feel, is against Wasteland, against Storm, and just being generally bizarre and useful.

Snare is less useful than Stifle against Storm Combo, but still useful nonetheless, being able to hit Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Desperate Ritual, Cabal Ritual, or whatever. Against Cephalid Breakfast, Stifle is limited to stalling against a Vial or mana-screwing them for a couple turns, whereas Snare can stop Eladamri's Call, Abeyance, Tarmogoyf, or Cephalid Illusionist. Against Ichorid, Stifle and Snare are both crap: Stifle can slow an Ichorid or stop one Zombie, whereas Snare can't really do much.

Snare, I might also mention, is a complete powerhouse against Survival (especially on the draw!), which will soon see a significant boost from Lorwyn.

So I guess the questions / things to ponder are as follows:

1. Has Goblins diminished enough to where cutting Stifle (And dropping the game one percentage from about 40/60 to about 25/75) for Spell Snare is a good idea?
2. If Stifles aren't maindecked, should there be Stifles in board and how many? When would we board them in?
3. How do we defend ourselves against Wasteland without Stifle maindeck? Additional Land recursion?
4. How do we defend ourselves against Storm Combo without Stifle maindeck?
5. Are there any other situations that Stifle bails our asses out of that we can't deal with?

[Zach Tartell]

Spell snare doesn't stop deel analysis; it deals with converted mana costs, not flashback costs.

I think that Snare is extremelly narrow. It counters alot of good stuff:
-Burning Wish
-Infernal Tutor
-Tarmogoyf
-Standstill
-Survival of the fittest
-Counterbalance
-Chalice @1
-Life from the Loam
-Cabal Ritual
-Desperate Ritual
-Dark Confidant
-Meddling Mage
-Various janky Zoo cards, from silver knight to boros swiftblade to... watchwolf

Stifle hits:
-Storm combo cards (ETW, Tendrils of Agony, Brain freeze... grapeshot?)
-Fetches
-Ringleader
-Matron
-Lackey
-There are a million other things, but I didn't list them one by one like I did with spell snare.

I think that stifle is way better. I can't think of a matchup where it is completely dead, whereas snare isn't good against some decks. It's amazing against black based disruption, but sucks pretty hard against landstill. Sort of. It still hits standstills and counterspells. I guess I can't really make a good argument of it while I'm re-enforcing that spell snare is good.

[URABAHN]

I'll tell you what I've observed from Stifle, but I haven't tested with Spell Snare.


1. Has Goblins diminished enough to where cutting Stifle (And dropping the game one percentage from about 40/60 to about 25/75) for Spell Snare is a good idea?

While you may find Goblins on the side of the Legacy Milk Carton, I still believe in Stifle. I certainly wouldn't play with Spell Snare in this matchup.


2. If Stifles aren't maindecked, should there be Stifles in board and how many? When would we board them in?

No Stifle in the board, keep it at 3. I don't like the idea of using 1-3 sideboard slots for Stifle.


3. How do we defend ourselves against Wasteland without Stifle maindeck? Additional Land recursion?

I'm not so sure Landstill needs some sort of defense for Wasteland. How many competitive decks are packing Wasteland?

Goblins (hardly seen)
Red Death (hardly seen)
5/3 variants (hardly seen)
Forty-X Land.dec (rising in popularity)
Landstill (rising in popularity)
Gro (the most successful builds don't run it)

Am I missing anything? Other than decks that can setup Wastelock, I'm not sure there's cause for alarm.


4. How do we defend ourselves against Storm Combo without Stifle maindeck?

Storm Combo decks

Belcher
Belcher has issues with Force of Will, Deed, and Engineered Explosives. Every now and again 1st Turn Goblin Charbelcher will resolve and kill you. I'd say Stifle isn't very important in this matchup.

TES
Haven't tested very much against TES and the decklist seems to change every few weeks. I think the guys in NY have modified it to win more games against Landstill. I'd say Stifle is very important in this matchup.

Permanent Waves (hardly seen)
Landstill players are lucky they resolve more relevant cards in this matchup than the Solidarity matchup. Stifle hits Candelabra, Gigadrowse, Fetchlands, Brain Freeze, and maybe something else I'm forgetting. Krieger worked closely with Anwar to build it to compete with Landstill. In early testing, Anwar got crushed nearly 70% of the time. Last I checked, it's something more like 55% Landstill's favor.

Solidarity (hardly seen)
YOU LOSE Game 1 90% of the time, YOU LOSE Post-board 80% of the time. At least Stifle is a tiny bit more useful in this matchup. If you really want to know more about this matchup, feel free to email Deep6er--he loves to talk about himself.


5. Are there any other situations that Stifle bails our asses out of that we can't deal with?

Stifle is really good against Pernicious Deed, Decree of Justice, and Engineered Explosives. It's not as useful against EE because EE doesn't destroy Lands, but you might Stifle the effect to save your Deed or Crucible. Sounds like Stifle is worth having in the mirror match, but you can easily point out where Spell Snare would be useful.

[jamest]

I cut Stifle a few months ago. At first, I replaced it with Mana Leak. Now it's Prohibit.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I cut Stifle a few months ago. At first, I replaced it with Mana Leak. Now it's Prohibit.

Very interesting choice. How often do you wish it was Mana Leak? How often are you glad that it's Prohibit?

[Zach Tartell]

Prohibit actually looks pretty hot. Can't hit force or misdirection at all, and hitting Ill gotten gains, D-returns, smokestack, and... Enchantress' Presence early. That could actually be a problem. But another 3 or 4 hard-counters against thresh (on account of their low curve) would be pretty hot.

Also, Allen, I think it's a bit too much to say that Goblins is hardly seen. I understand that at Eli's (nice job showing up, btw) there was a whopping one goblins deck, but at larger, un-meta'd events, I expect that we can count on seeing at least like one in ten decks being goblins. Sure, that guess is going to be way off, but let's look at the facts:

1. Goblins was, until like may, the Deck to Beat. Period.
2. Goblins is still the cheapest very competitive Legacy deck.
3. Goblins takes (relative to other decks now being offered in the format) little play skill.

I think that we can expect to see a healthy portion of Goblins at large events by psuedo-causals and former legacy players who haven't had the time to update to Breakfast, the cash to update to Thresh (and Breakfast, now that I think about it), or the gaul to play a combo deck.

[HSCK]

For URW Landstill players out there (I'm flip-flopping between that and BHWC) what do you think of running Goblin Trenches as a kill condition in addition to Conclaves and Factory?

[jamest]

Very interesting choice. How often do you wish it was Mana Leak? How often are you glad that it's Prohibit?
Leak is better in the early game, since it will counter anything then. If your opponent plays a lot of key stuff that cost more than 2 (like what lonelybaritone mentioned), Leak is also better. Right now, the top decks like Thresh and Breakfast tend to have very low curves around 1-2cc, and in this situation, Prohibit is better. As a game goes into the late game (which Landstill games tend to do), Prohibit becomes more useful than Leak, because it's a hard counter.

[URABAHN]

For tonight's local Legacy Tournament, I swapped out the 3x Stifle and replace it with 3x Spell Snare. The results were positive, but I'm not going to go crazy and tell you it's the bee's knees after 4 Rounds of swiss.

Round 1 v. Zork playing Goblins (Win)
Spell Snare hit Turn 2 Goblin Piledriver in Game 1 and Game 2. It probably won me the match. When I was testing the 2 and 3 color variants of Landstill, Goblin Piledriver was my 2nd most feared Goblin. Other than Goblin Lackey, there isn't a Goblin out there that can take your life total from 20 to zero as fast as Piledriver (well, maybe Goon and Mutant, but we'll not go there). I was very happy to be able to counter Goblin Piledriver for 1 mana.

Round 2 v. Deep6er playing GAGroll (Win)
Even though Spell Snare only hit a couple of Dark Confidants, it was way more useful in this matchup than Stifle.

Round 3 v. Bovinous playing Ichorid Combo (Loss)
Spell Snare sucks in this matchup, so does Stifle.

Round 4 v. Obfuscate Freely playing Domain Zoo aka 2-drop.dec (Win)
There are a few things Spell Snare hits in this matchup, just about all of them are worth countering for 1-mana. Stifle wouldn't have been as good in this matchup.

Tribal Flames
Boros Swiftblade
Watchwolf
Umezawa's Jitte

Obviously much more testing needs to be done, specifically against TES, Belcher, Permanent Waves, and even IGGy Pop.

[Amon Amarth]

Round 3 v. Bovinous playing Ichorid Combo (Loss)
Spell Snare sucks in this matchup, so does Stifle.


Actually, Stifle is really good against a deck that has a buttload of activated abilities like Ichorid. Being able to stop Ichorids, Coliseums, and FKZ is really good. Spell Snare is just a blank against them. Regardless, that matchup is really bad for Landstill... so it's kind of a moot point.

[mossivo1986]

At the moment I've been working on an effective standstill list.

This is what i've come up with.
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
9 [UNH] Island
7 [UNH] Plains
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
1 [SC] Eternal Dragon
1 [CHK] Meloku the Clouded Mirror

// Spells
4 [OD] Standstill
3 [SC] Stifle
2 [IN] Fact or Fiction
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [SC] Decree of Justice
3 [US] Back to Basics
2 [9E] Wrath of God
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 4 [SOK] Descendant of Kiyomaro
SB: 3 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
S[B]B: 2 [US] Arcane Laboratory

:Note: The arcane laboratory could easily be switched for virtually anything else. Since I have very little disruption for high tide I figured this might help give me alittle time.

The 2 spots could easily be switched for a number of cards including

2 pulse of the field
1 wrath 1 crucible

ect ect ect. The main point I wanted to make from this post is that u/w standstill still has it's effective matchups and by reducing the chance for an opponents disruption you actually increase the late game probobility which you should almost always win anyways.

[konsultant]

Actually, Stifle is really good against a deck that has a buttload of activated abilities like Ichorid. Being able to stop Ichorids, Coliseums, and FKZ is really good. Spell Snare is just a blank against them. Regardless, that matchup is really bad for Landstill... so it's kind of a moot point.

First off I don't view any matchup as so bad that you shouldn't consider a stategy for it, atleast when you are playing Landstill that is. I currently am running 4 Extirpate's in my SB. They seem to help fix most of my "bad" matchups including Ichorid, anything playing Life from the Loam and Cephalid Breakfast. If you are running Control and there is something that is that bad of a matchup for you, consider changing your list.



TES
Haven't tested very much against TES and the decklist seems to change every few weeks. I think the guys in NY have modified it to win more games against Landstill.

The TES build I faced this past weekend was very anti-landstill. He was running Orim's Chant, Abeyance, REB and Pyroblast. While I am certain they were not all 4 of's they were all played against me.

I have been running Spellsnare's over Stifle since I came across it in my search for anti-flash cards. The card has treated me very well in a vast assortment of matchups. I do think it should remain in the SB though. The risk of it being utterly useless is too much for my taste. The card is priceless in my Grow/Tarmogoyf matchup. I have also found it useful against Death and Taxes, Survival, Solidarity, TES, Belcher, Burn, Fish, Sky's, Black Suicide, Cephalid Breakfast and I'm sure that I have forgotten some.

As a side note, while I do not run Stifle for Combo hate, I do run Orim's Chant due to it's ability not to be REB'd.

[Tacosnape]

@Mossivo: What incentive does your opponent have to ever break your Standstill?

@Konsultant: What's your sideboard currently look like? I'm in the process of overhauling mine some, and I'm intrigued by the 4 Extirpate idea.

[Waikiki]

Hi, I've been reading alot on this forum about landstill and tweaked it towards my personal references. My meta contains mostly Aggro. Aggro/Controll and a little Controll/Combo. The thing I'm not sure of is the sideboard. If anyone has some advice for me I'd be very thankfull.

The list:

// Lands

2 [OD] Island (2)
2 [U] Plains (2)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)
1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (2)
1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (3)
3 [TE] Wasteland
2 [U] Underground Sea
4 [U] Tundra
1 [U] Scrubland

// Creatures
1 [SC] Eternal Dragon

// Spells
3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [OD] Standstill
3 [SC] Stifle
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [A] Counterspell
1 [IN] Fact or Fiction
4 [IA] Brainstorm
2 [JU] Cunning Wish
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares
3 [B] Wrath of God
2 [SC] Decree of Justice

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [IN] Fact or Fiction
SB: 4 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 2 [TE] Humility
SB: 3 [B] Circle of Protection: Red
SB: 1 [DS] Pulse of the Fields
SB: 1 [IN] Dismantling Blow
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate

I'm not sure cunning wish is the way to go. But so far it hasn't been dissapointing.

[diffy]

The list


Your list looks alot like one of the first incarnations of the Cunning Wish Landstill builds we fuddled around with over here in Germany. It's solid, but I've some comments to make.

First of all, I'd really recomend you to drop the Stifles. You don't really need the mana base protection as it is very solid and the Stifle-> fetch isn't really a good play as you don't have a dedicated Mana Denial strategy (you can't really use the tempo as efficiently as possible) and because you want to have a maximum of mana open to do other stuff.

-3 Stifles

Also, I'd recomend you to drop that one lonely Fact or Fiction in the mainboard as it is painfully slow and because you already have Cunning Wish to sort of create Card Advantage.

-1 Fact or Fiction

With regards to your mana base, I'd drop one Wasteland because its only really usefull in combination with Crucible of Worlds (you want to hit every single one of your landdrops) because mana bases tend to be more stable nowadays (thanks to Goblins era of dominance) and a single Wasteland that isn't acompanied by more Mana Denial is just not giving you that great an advantage over the mist land drop. Oh, and having too much colorless manasources is plain and simply not good.

-1 Wasteland

Now I'd start adding in an additional land in that Wasteland slot (23 is the right number).

+1 Hallowed Fountain

Now that choice might seem odd but you only splash black for cards in the Wishboard so you don't really need that much black sources. You can always fetch for the Fountain at the End of Turn if you've nothing to do and if not, the 2 life won't really hurt you that much.

To add some further stability to your mana base, I'd then go

+1 Eternal Dragon

Not only does the Dragon offer a guaranteed land drop, but also it recurrs in the lategame to thin out your library and if everything goes wrong, you can always go aggro with him... you'll nearly go to time every round you play so you'll be happy to have some fat, recurable and evasice beatstick to win quickly with.

Next up you really want to add in one other copy of your swiss army knife aka Cunning Wish going up to 3 as you really want to see one copy of it every game.

+1 Cunning Wish

With your revised wishboard (which I'll adress later), Cunning Wish just gets you the right tool for every situation and is just plain and simply flexible... This is why Landstill has a fighting chance against reccurable threats (Gigapede etc) and recurrable card advantage engines (Life from the Loam).

I'll treat the next two in a pinch as they really are staples of this deck and dont need an extra elaboarte explanation.

+1 Wrath of God
+1 Decree of Justice

The fourth Wrath of God is there to absolutely turn ******** (and random aggro by the way) into an absolute *BYE*... they may Needle your Explosives, but then your mass removal comes in and trades most of the time at least 2 of their very few threats against just one lonely card in your hand.
The Decree of Justice is there to win the mirror and to just randomly be cycled to kill a guy and draw a card (just make sure to block with more Soldiers than you actually need if possible to not let your removal plan be neutered by spot removal).

Now, concerning your Sideboard...

First of all, you really want to get rid of that lonely Slaughter Pact. At first glance it seems nice to be able to kill a guy without having to pay mana, but you are really giving your opponent a Time Walk if you cast it turn 3 (you have to tapp out next turn) and after turn 3, the alternatives are just plain and simply better.

-1 Slaughter Pact

Next, those Humilities and Circle of Protection: Reds are really better of as something else. Yes they are quite efficient at beating Goblins, but so are the alternatives that I'm going to suggest and they are less mana intensive and more broadly usable.

-2 Humility
-3 Circle of Protection: Red

So what to add after all.

First of all, I'd add in another Extirpate because that card is just ridiculous against so many decks (Life from the Loam, Cephalid Breakfast, Iggy Pop, Ichorid etc).

+1 Extirpate

As your random removal slot, there are two options, each with their own pros and cons. You could add either Ghastly Demise or Condemn where Condmen can hit a Mystic Enforcer but can't kill utility creatures... It's really a matter of preference. I personally prefer the Demise.

+1 Ghastly Demise

Then you'll want to fill up the last remaining slots with Goblins hate.

+4 Engineered Plague

Now the good thing about Plague is that it is also very good in other Matchups such as the Cephalid Breakfast matchup (just name Wizards), everything with Empty the Warrens, random Tribals etc.

For a better overview of the deck, here is my list as of today:




// Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Tundra
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

// Creatures
2 Eternal Dragon

// Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Cunning Wish
3 Decree of Justice
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Wrath of God

// Sideboard
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Dismantling Blow
3 Extirpate
4 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage


Sorry for this being rather longish... Hopefully it was some help.

[Waikiki]

First, thank you for your advice. I agree the stiffles are not really worth it but I did replace them with spell snare. So far they worked okay for me.

Im not too sure about removing another wasteland.

My opponent mostly names factory with his/her needle. and I dont think a 4th wrath of god is needed.

so Mainboard for now I'll be testing
-3 stiffle
+3 spell snare
-1 FoF
+1 Cwish

For the sideboard.

Humility has always been awesome for me I rather not cut those. they are multifunctional compares to the engineered plague.

I do agree the circle of protections have to go. (burn was pretty much present in the meta but not anymore)

so ill be trying to use this board

2 humility
1 pulse of the fields
1 Fact or fiction
3 Extirpate
4 Meddling mage
1 Slaughter pact
1 Condemn
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Open slot

[hall0n]

Hi! Well, it's my first post in here. I started playing T1.5 couple month's ago and ended up with Landstill. It's almost the same build that Der Imagin&#228;re Freund posted just a while ago. I played in one Legacy-tournament but it didn't go too well (I didn't have all the cards back then) and now I'm building that UW-landstill with wishes. My wishboard is something like that:

1x Crucible of Worlds *I have only one in MD, it's not that good in all matchups
1x Swords to Plowshares *Only three in MD
1x Pulse of the Fields
1x Disenchant
2x Extirpate *Should make room for third copy somehow
3x Orim's Chant *Combo is too popular in my meta
3x Engineered Plague
1x Echoing Truth
1x Stifle *good against TES and iggy - which are popular in here
1x Hurkyl's Recall *There are couple affinity-decks and Angel Stax or something.

My MD is almost the same with Der Im&#228;gin&#228;re Freund, except that I have only one Crucible in main. I also play 24 lands because I really want that landdrop every turn. And I have added two Fact or Fictions, because games are won with card-advantage.

[sammiel]

humility is for stuff like survival, not just goblins.

I wouldn't cut it from the list at a large tournament.

[konsultant]

@Konsultant: What's your sideboard currently look like? I'm in the process of overhauling mine some, and I'm intrigued by the 4 Extirpate idea.

I was perfectly happy with the list I had previously posted until Cephalid Breakfast came along.

Currently I am testing 3 different builds of Landstill.
1. Fairly close to the version I had posted.
2. A similar version minus Cunning Wish for some Metagame Hate MD.
3. A very Black based version using Thoughtsieze and Duress paired with Extirpate as my Combo/Control hate.

The only thing that remains 100% consistent are the 3 Spellsnare's and the 4 Extirpate's.

Both cards are extremely useful in way to many different matchups not to play. They are great at speeding up my defenses in the match's where I need it.

[thefreakaccident]

Have you come close to a finalized build (for the heavily black splashed version you were just talking about)... I have been waiting on that for some time.

Does anyone have a BU or BRU build they could post up? I have been playing URW for a long while now and wanna switch it up with some black in there.

[URABAHN]

Have you come close to a finalized build (for the heavily black splashed version you were just talking about)... I have been waiting on that for some time.

Does anyone have a BU or BRU build they could post up? I have been playing URW for a long while now and wanna switch it up with some black in there.

I'm not sure if you're talking about cutting white or playing a 4c UBRW build. I wouldn't dare cut white, Swords to Plowshares is just too damn good, and Nantuko Monastery is the best manland right now.

After reviewing the results of the EPIC DLD, I have a few questions of my own for the Landstill community. I'm trying to predict the meta for the Mana Leak Open and The Ultimate Magic Weekend and would like some feedback.


Dean Bilz-Dryad Sligh
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Tarmagoyf
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Dart
4 Rift Bolt
4 Seal of Fire
3 Lava Spike
4 Incinerate
3 Fireblast

Jesse Robinson-Goblins (R/g/w)
SB:
2 Bloodmoon
1 Magus of the Moon

Bryant Cook- T.E.S.
SB:
3 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast

Is 4x Blue Elemental Blast/Hydroblast now a must-have in your sideboard? I'm seeing a lot more players packing Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon and I'm a little worried. Anyone else have trouble with these cards?


Brian Diefendorf-Survival

2 Wearbear
4 Tarmagoyf
4 Eternal Witness
4 Burning Wish
4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Flametongue Kavu
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Genesis
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Tin-Street Hooligan
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
5 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
4 Bayou

SB:
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Hull Breach
1 Reverant Silence
1 Rough//Tumble
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Tsunami
1 Regrowth
1 Anarchy
1 Boom//Bust
3 Engineered Plague

Are Survival decks a problem for Landstill players? I haven't played against RGBSA since Quicksilver from Rochester played in my area. I don't remember how favorable it was for Landstill.


Phil Stolze-Aluren

3 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
2 Man-O'-War
4 Brainstorm
1 Serum Visions
3 Raven Familiar
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Coiling Oracle
1 Spike Feeder
4 Aluren
4 Wall of Roots
2 Eternal Witness
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
3 Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
3 Windswept Heath
3 Polluted Delta

SB:
2 Deep Analysis
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Life From the Loam
1 Hydroblast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Krosan Grip
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Leyline of the Void

Is Aluren a problem for Landstill players? What little testing I did when Obfuscate Freely was running Aluren left me with the impression that it's a beating for Landstill. Therapy + Force of Will isn't the best of times for a Control deck. How do you all combat Aluren?

[Anarky87]

I'm not sure if you're talking about cutting white or playing a 4c UBRW build. I wouldn't dare cut white, Swords to Plowshares is just too damn good, and Nantuko Monastery is the best manland right now.

After reviewing the results of the EPIC DLD, I have a few questions of my own for the Landstill community. I'm trying to predict the meta for the Mana Leak Open and The Ultimate Magic Weekend and would like some feedback.



Is 4x Blue Elemental Blast/Hydroblast now a must-have in your sideboard? I'm seeing a lot more players packing Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon and I'm a little worried. Anyone else have trouble with these cards?



Are Survival decks a problem for Landstill players? I haven't played against RGBSA since Quicksilver from Rochester played in my area. I don't remember how favorable it was for Landstill.



Is Aluren a problem for Landstill players? What little testing I did when Obfuscate Freely was running Aluren left me with the impression that it's a beating for Landstill. Therapy + Force of Will isn't the best of times for a Control deck. How do you all combat Aluren?

I don't know what to tell you about Burn/Sligh except to pack Pulse of the Fields or CoP: Red and the blast. I've never been able to properly combat it. Survival was always kind of a struggle for me and I lost to it at Gencon in a side event when I was playing 4c Landstill.

I've played Aluren exactly two times. The first was at GP:C when I played Phil Stolze and lost 1-2 in like round 5. I had too many dead cards game 1 and he just combo'd off pretty easily. Second game I got down a couple Mages naming Aluren and Deed, I think, and beat in. In game 3 I got 2 Mages down on Aluren and Deed and went to drop my 3rd Mage and named CoV, but he drew the Manowar and bounced my Deed Mage and destroyed me from there. The second time was at a local tournament and he just drew really crappy the first game and game 2 I had Plague down on Beast and Mage on Aluren. I won 2-0.

I think it could be a tricky match, but sometimes they just don't have the hands that can get past your control. This has been my experiences at least. I've since gone back to UWb, and alternate between Cunning Wish or other things.

[Tacosnape]

First of all, Blue Elemental Blast is probably the most underappreciated card in the universe. I can't tell you how much this improves Goblins, Random Janky Red Aggro (See Dryad Sligh), and any combo match that relies on any form of Red Acceleration. It also stops Blood Moon, which is crucial. (Note I said Blood Moon, not Magus of the Moon, which is janky and retarded and floating white or black for STP or Edict or already having a Deed in play is sufficient to axe that idea.)

Survival is a hard match to pinpoint because depending on the build, it can go anywhere from 70-30 Landstill to 70-30 Survival. Game one, winning is as simple as keeping Survival off the board and keeping Genesis out of their graveyard. In subsequent games, you get tools such as Extirpate, Krosan Grip, and (if you run it) Spell Snare, all of which help drastically here. Crime//Punishment, if you run it, will shine here, allowing you to steal Genesis out of their graveyard and in the event they find a way to kill him, Swords the bugger. RGBSA is not a match worth panicking over. It's no worse than even if skill level is even, and it's highly unlikely you'll see it anything but once or not at all in a given tournament, making metagaming heavily for it a questionable proposition.

Aluren I've never found to be all that bad. Therapy and Force or not, almost every card in your deck is useful against Aluren in some capacity, and they have to resolve Aluren to beat you. Aluren might be able to beat some decks down in a pinch, but it's not going to do it to one with the creature hate capacity of Landstill. I think a lot of the bad results from Aluren are because for some unknown reason nobody ever takes the time to playtest against it and learn what they're up against. I've seen very solid players play like complete idiots against Aluren, and I'm no exception.

[hall0n]

The Legacy Champs are approaching and maybe I could make my deck a lot better (I know it's pretty same than the other builds posted in here. But here haven't been very much talking going on about Landstill) now that Lorwyn is going to be tournament-legal and all. So here's my list:

2x Eternal Dragon

4x Brainstorm
4x Counterspell
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Cunning Wish
3x Wrath of God
3x Decree of Justice

3x Engineered Explosives
2x Crucible of Worlds

4x Standstill

4x Tundra
4x Flooded Strand
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Island
3x Wasteland
2x Underground Sea
2x Plains
1x Scrubland
1x Polluted Delta

SB:
3x Orim's Chant
3x Extirpate
3x Engineered Plague
2x Humility
1x Disenchant
1x Pulse of the Fields
1x Stifle
1x Hurkyl's Recall?


I don't know (yet) what the meta is going to be like. I guess combo and control will be more popular than aggro, except that uwb-fish was rather played last year.

I'm most afraid about getting against decks with 8 Duresses, Teeg isn't that bad because he can be swordsed and blown away with explosives.

I have tested a lot against Iggy Pop, and that doesn't seem too bad (or my opponent was poor) with Orim's Chants and Extirpates, and I guess same is true for TES.

[diffy]

Deck


I'd definetely cut a Wasteland for a Hallowed Fountain. I've made this change some time ago and I never wanted to go back... Mana development & stability are ust way more important to this deck than the eventual screw... If you don't have Crucible, Wasteland is like hurting yourself more than your opponent most of the time.

-1 Wasteland
+1 Hallowed Fountain

Also, 23 lands is all you need with 2 Eternal Dragons and all that card draw.

-1 Island
+1 Wrath of God

I've found 4 Wrath of Gods to be essential as you always want to draw at the very least one and drawing more never hurts.



Sideboard


First of all, you don't really need the Chants in here... replace them with Meddling Mage as that is actually a clock/must handle and not only a defense for a turn.

-3 Orim's Chant
-1 Stifle (you'll always have better targets as CWish->Stifle is 4 mana for a way too weak effect... You want to wish for bombs)
+4 Meddling Mage

Also, run Dismantling Blow over Disenchant. The mana difference might look like a pain but once you play against CounterBalance Aggro-Control, being able to get rid of their Balance without being interupted (3cc is mostly the weak spot in their manacurve) is really worth it. Also, being able to generate CA is important in Matchups like the mirror.

-1 Disenchant
+1 Dismantling Blow

Hurkyl's Recall is basically the same thing as Stifle... and too conditional in my oppinion. Just run some guaranteed CA in its spot.

-1 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Fact or Fiction

Also, I like to play a Removal in the Wishboard and found Humility to be basically worse than a fourth Plague, but that's just me and Marius Hausman basically... call it German prefference. (We like the abbility to have a reliable foil to Combo/Goblins that comes down when it matters over the added versatility of Humility which really only makes a difference in the Survival Matchup which isn't all that bad with Extirpate)

-2 Humility
+1 Ghastly Demise
+1 Engineered Plague



I don't know (yet) what the meta is going to be like. I guess combo and control will be more popular than aggro, except that uwb-fish was rather played last year.


So basically you have made an excellent Metagame choice with Landstill. If you do expect a lot of Uwb Fish (Hanni Fish) definetely do run 4 Eningeered Plagues in the Sideboard though... They kill Dark Condidants and neuter Shadowmage Infiltrators (set on Wizard) and kill Mother of Runes which is rather huge depending on the situation.
You could also try to fit in 2 Vedalken Shackles as they are plain and simply awesome against Fish as they can't attack without loosing a guy with it out and stealing a Dark Confidant is just plain and simply nasty. Also, it gets around Mother of Runes.



I have tested a lot against Iggy Pop, and that doesn't seem too bad (or my opponent was poor) with Orim's Chants and Extirpates, and I guess same is true for TES.


I personally find nearly all non Solidarity combo to be a rather good Matchup for Landstill.

[URABAHN]

Nihil posted a decklist from a recent Italian tournament that was Landstill-ish. It had 4x Sensei's Divining Top and 4x Counterbalance in the main. I wouldn't play those cards if I were playing Pernicious Deed, but I wonder if there any value in having Counterbalance in the sideboard.

[diffy]

I wonder if there any value in having Counterbalance in the sideboard.


I personally think that this isn't that a good idea, at least not in the 4c or UWb Versions because the CounterTop plan takes up loads of slots in the very tight (if you play the Cunning Wish) sideboard (6-8) and is rather win-more because it makes already excellent matchups (NQG) better.
If you want to play a CounterBalance transformational sideboard, I'd recomend to play Adans Ur Landstill. It can abuse the Mainboard SDTs way better by discarding excess ones to Thirst for Knowledge and it hasn't that a good Aggro-Control Matchup so the addition actually makes sense.

A list would look something like this:



// Lands

3 Faerie Conclave
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills

1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Volcanic Island
1 Steam Vents

// Spells

4 Force of Will
2 Disrupting Shoal

3 Repeal
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fire/Ice
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
3 Engineered Explosives

2 Crucible of Worlds

// Sideboard

4 Pyroclasm
3 Threads of Disloyalty
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Pithing Needle
3 Counterbalance


Also, Edited post above (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=169207&postcount=483).

[slyfer]

Hi americans! :tongue:
I want to share a tech sideboard card to win vs burn!
it's aegis of honor, cost only W, is enchantment with an ability that is GG vs burn! :cool:
At the moment I'm playing the UWb build with wishes, but there is a white wishable card that in many case can act like extirpate: honor the fallen.
It's a bomb vs icorid (take away all dredges, gain life, just need to wrath/explosive the board of zombie), and also to take away annoying genesis (i don't see living wish anywhere) that makes recursions.

[diffy]

Hi americans! :tongue:


There so aren't only americans on this site! (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7250)



I want to share a tech sideboard card to win vs burn!
it's Aegis of Honor (http://magiccards.info/od/en/1.html), cost only W, is enchantment with an ability that is GG vs burn!


I don't really see a problem in the Burn matchup as a Pulse of the Fields generally is a real pain for them... not that they can't win through it, but it usually buys you ages and gives you the time to beat them down so I don't really see the need in having a very narrow card in the Sideboard that's required to be at least a 3 off to be effective.



There is a white wishable card that in many case can act like extirpate: Honor the Fallen (http://magiccards.info/mm/en/21.html).


That's actually quite a nice find... I didn't think of the ability to take away the Dredgers at first but again, this card is rather narrow and the bonus of Extirpate over Honor the Fallen is that it's also usefull in the Combo and Loam matchups where the Honor just sucks.

Normally one might think that a Wishboard is just there for having narrow bombs against certain Matchups, but the board in Landstill is way different. As Cunning Wish is very slow, it is boarded out in quite a large number of Matchups (fast combo, ******** etc) and replaced by the card it would normally fetch. Therefore you need to have a reliable chance of drawing the tutor targets even without the wish.
The reasoning behind this is that Cunning Wish was first of all only added to have access to a single card in the sideboard in the first game: Extirpate against Life from the Loam.
Now the Wishboard has been made a little broader (Ghastly Demise, Pulse of the Fields, Fact or Fiction, Dismantling Blow, Extirpate) but that's partially only to free slots in the main and to make Cunning Wish a less dead card outside of particular Matchups...
You can't really make the wishboard that much bigger because you still actually need the other slots (Meddling Mage, (Humility,) Engineered Plague, additional Extiraptes) or you'll strongly hurt your second and third games against a vast majority of the field.

[Berzerked]

Question to those of you playing Decree of Justice:

How often do you find yourself using it just as a cantrip earlier game to dig for something more useful at the time?

I find myself doing this quite often. In fact, I side them out almost every game:
Breakfast/Ichorid: (along with the Wishes and Dragons) for 3 Extirpate + 4 Meddling Mage/4 Engineered Plague
Threshold: (along with Wishes) for 3 Extirpate + 1 Ghastly Demise + 1 Fact or Fiction
Goblins: (along with Dragons) for 4 Plague

____________________________________________________________________

Heading home from class...more when I get home

[diffy]

Question to those of you playing Decree of Justice.


As I absolutely love this card in Landstill, my following points/view might be biased.



How often do you find yourself using it just as a cantrip earlier game to dig for something more useful at the time?


I nearly always hold onto Decree of Justice until the last possible moment... the more you wait the better it gets. I often use it in the mid- to late game to kill an attacking guy and leave behind some chump blockers and then in the late game to put a short clock on the opponent.
Even against very fast combo, I'll always keep hold till I can produce a 4-6 turn clock instead of wasting it and 3 (!) mana to draw a single card.



In fact, I side them out almost every game:


This is true. If you're playing against combo. if not, Decree of Justice is just awsome being an uncounterable removal/wincondition. You do board out some copies though as they are mainly in the Main because of their versatility/usefullness in many matchups.



Sideboarding


This is what I'd do (based upon the non-Humility sideboard).

Ichorid
-3 Decree of Justice
-3 Cunning Wish
-2 Eternal Dragon
-1 Standstill
-2 Wrath of God
+3 Extirpate
+4 Meddling Mage
+4 Engineered Plague

Non CounterTop Threshold
-3 Cunning Wish
-2 Decree of Justice (stifle and co)
+1 Ghastly Demise
+1 Fact or Fiction
+3 Extripate

CounterTop ********
-2 Decree of Justice
+2 Extirpate

I'm not set on boarding Extirpate against ******** yet, but it sounds like a good idea seeing their low threat count.

Goblins
-1 Standstill
-1 Decree of Justice
-2 Counterspell
+4 Engineered Plague

[b4r0n]

I'm not set on boarding Extirpate against ******** yet, but it sounds like a good idea seeing their low threat count.

From my testing, Extirpate has been pretty good against Thresh. Wasting a Tropical Island then Extirpating it can randomly win the game. Of course, getting rid of half their threats (either Mongeese or Goyfs) also makes the deck more manageable, as it loses a lot of its aggressive power. The only potential problem for Extirpate is that more and more Thresh lists are running Counterbalance, which can be a little tricky to play around.

I noticed that you board Plague against Ichorid. What do you tend to name first? What about subsequent Plagues?

[diffy]

More and more Thresh lists are running Counterbalance, which can be a little tricky to play around.


That's why I play Dismantling Blow over Disenchant in the Wishboard... NQG/Balance lists tend to run very few or none at all 3 mana spells so you can basically kill their CounterBalance undisruptedly with the Dismantling Blow.



I noticed that you board Plague against Ichorid. What do you tend to name first? What about subsequent Plagues?


Stefan Czolk (spiritofthewretch) who just won Iserlohn with Ichorid and I figured out during testing that it's best to straightforwardly name Zombie with the first two Plagues because the recurring hordes are the biggest problem for this deck in that Matchup (if you name Ichorid he'll still get the tokkens, same for Illusion). If you do manage to get rid of the Bridges from Below (Extripate, Waste your Factory) prior to seing a Plague, you'll definetely name Horror (Ichorid) instead though.

So basically this comes down to:

Bridge form Below in deck/graveyard?

----Yes
------>name Zombie, Zombie, Horror, Illusion

----No
------>name Ichorid, Illusion, Imp, Human

[Berzerked]

What do you name with Meddling Mage? Dread Return? Cabal Therapy?

[Lukas Preuss]

Do you really leave Standstill in the deck when boarding against Ichorid? I have only played the matchup a few times, but whenever my opponent cast a Standstill (not knowing what I was playing), they had lost on the spot or had to break it themselves a few turns later. Ichorid doesn't need to cast a single spell and can operate much better and faster under Standstill than Landstill.

Of course, it pitches to FoW, but that's the only thing you can use the card for in this matchup. I think I'd much rather have Wrath of God in the deck... at least it can occassionally do something.

[Berzerked]

Well, I run Wrath of God in the deck anyway. Just for reference, here's the list I've been testing:

2 Eternal Dragon

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
2 Stifle
4 Swords to Plowshares

2 Decree of Justice
3 Wrath of God

4 Standstill

2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Engineered Explosives

4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland

Sideboard:
4 Meddling Mage
3 Extirpate
4 Engineered Plague
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Fact or Fiction

But you're right, Standstill doesn't help much. It will still break on a Dread Return, hopefully answering your prayer for a Force of Will (and maybe an Extirpate/EE for the following turns).

[DuKeLiO]

This Saturday I make 3rd in the Pro Tour Valencia side event over 190 people with a 4C approach. I went 7-1 on matchees and 15-2 on games. This was my build:

4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Stifle
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Cunning Wish
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Quagnoth
1 Life from the Loam
4 Pernicious Deed

2 Wasteland
2 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island

SB:
4 Meddling Mage
3 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
1 Teferi's Response
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Misdirection
1 Slaugther Pact
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Pulse of the Fields

The deck was a blast to play. I win over Goblins Rw, 2 Threshold, Bomberman, Whitestax, Burn and Pikula. I lost to Iggy.
The deck performs very well against Threshold, I used to Extirpate counters, specially Force of Will, to play all my responses against creatures easily. Quagnoth also proves as a very useful finisher, not to play more, but one is very good to draw. He is untouchable and he kills every creature in the format except Tarmogoyf.
Siding against Threshold:
+2 Krosan Grip
+3 Extirpate
-3 Stifle
-1 Counterspell (they usually play a lot Spell Snares)
-1 Cunning Wish
I really don't like side out all the wishes, they are useful against almost all pairings aside from combo: against threshold they are a removal spell (pact or Edict) or card drawing spell in late game (fact or fiction), against aggro they usually are the Pulse of the Fields that buy a lot of time to do my Pernicious Deed more powerful.

[Tacosnape]

In Landstill, or 4C Landstill at least, versus Ichorid, the matchup is pretty good. You do the following: (Assuming you run Multiple Plague, Mage, Extirpate)

1. Board in your Plagues, Mages, and Extirpates. Kill Standstill. It's garbage and you lose for playing one. I've even seen Ichorid decks RUN Standstill because almost no other deck in the format is better under a Standstill than Ichorid. What you kill beyond that is up to you. I personally ditch Counterspell, because I don't find it to be all that amazing in this matchup.

2. You Plague for Illusions First, Horrors second. You don't Plague for Zombies ever under any circumstances whatsoever unless it's the only way you can live a turn. Plague-ing the Zombies and Extirpating Ichorid/Narcomoeba is the wrong strategy, as every creature they hardcast will come back with Zombies.

3. You Extirpate Bridge From Below first and Ray of Revelation second. You either go for Ichorid or Grave-Troll third, depending on your Plague situation.

4. You Mage for Ray of Revelation. Cabal Therapy and Dread Return are also options, depending on the situation.

5. You Swords to Plowshares Ichorid first and GGT second.

Obviously you might have to adjust your strategy according to what you draw. If you were to draw 3 Extirpates and no Plagues, then Extirpating Narcomoeba and Ichorid after Bridge would certainly be a decent idea.

[spirit of the wretch]

Stefan Czolk (spiritofthewretch) who just won Iserlohn with Ichorid and I figured out during testing that it's best to straightforwardly name Zombie with the first two Plagues because the recurring hordes are the biggest problem for this deck in that Matchup (if you name Ichorid he'll still get the tokkens, same for Illusion). If you do manage to get rid of the Bridges from Below (Extripate, Waste your Factory) prior to seing a Plague, you'll definetely name Horror (Ichorid) instead though.

So basically this comes down to:

Bridge form Below in deck/graveyard?

----Yes
------>name Zombie, Zombie, Horror, Illusion

----No
------>name Ichorid, Illusion, Imp, Human

Clemens is right. The best move is to get out two Plagues at Zombie and extirpate their Ichorids.
I would always set my Plagues at Zombie first (and second of course), as you can deal with the Ichorids via Swords (and Extirpate of course), while the masses of zombies will stomp you even if you plagued Horror and Illusion (they still come into play and trigger the Bridges).
So basically you have more answers to Ichorids (Swords + Extirpate), than you have to the Bridges (only the Extirpate) and therefore I think naming Zombie is the better move.

[Adan]

Clemens is right. The best move is to get out two Plagues at Zombie and extirpate their Ichorids.
I would always set my Plagues at Zombie first (and second of course), as you can deal with the Ichorids via Swords (and Extirpate of course), while the masses of zombies will stomp you even if you plagued Horror and Illusion (they still come into play and trigger the Bridges).
So basically you have more answers to Ichorids (Swords + Extirpate), than you have to the Bridges (only the Extirpate) and therefore I think naming Zombie is the better move.

Don't forget that wasting your own activated Factory can also be a out for Bridges, but not really effective since you first have to draw one out of two Wastelands. A single Plague can also be effective since the token then only do 1 damage and can be blocked by Mishras. And Decree of Justice then suddenly begins to shine.

[bigbear102]

Taco, can you explain some of your points a bit more? I agree with some, but am confused also.

1. Why would you cut Force over your other counters? You are going to be tapping out almost every turn to deal with their threats, so why would you cut the free counterspell instead of the ones you pay for? I agree with Standstill, that's a no-brainer.

2. Wouldn't Plaguing Illusions/Horrors just give them more zombies to kill you with? I would think (other than bridge/dredgers depending on when) you would want to get rid of Ich and Moeba to stop them from making the zombies. I guess you have a lot of ways to deal with zombies, but you have to live long enough to do so. Obv. if you have an explosives out for 0 you don't need to plague zombies right away. If you have no way to deal with bridge, then I would definitely name zombies.

3/4. Extirpate and Mage are completely game-state dependent. Depending on what you need to deal with at the time is what you hit. You're probably right generally though.

5. Makes sense, basically hit what's gonna hurt the most. Again, game-state dependent.


Also, on your comment about RGBSA earlier, there were at least 3 RGBSA at EPIC DLD, with 1 placing 2nd, and I believe there were 5/6 survivals total. At least 3 were in contention the whole time.

On a side note, I believe that 4c w/ deed is gonna be the way to go once Teeg becomes legal, depending on how many decks throw him in as combo hate, cuz he also hits wrath and humility.

[diffy]

On a side note, I believe that 4c w/ deed is gonna be the way to go once Teeg becomes legal, depending on how many decks throw him in as combo hate, cuz he also hits wrath and humility.


I so agree with this.
The UWb list with Cunning Wishes has just 7 answers to him aside from countering (Swords to Plowshares, Cunning Wish -> Ghastly Demise) and 3 of them are incredibly slow. He basically cuts you off all your removal.

I've started playing around with a 4c List based on Taco's these days but I don't have any data up to now as I'm too buisy with school and stuff... God, I hate being in the second last year as it just cuts you off all your time for hobbies and such.

Anyways, here's my first draft of a remoded 4c list:



// Lands
2 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea

// Spells
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction

4 Pernicious Deed
2 Crime/Punishment
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Vindicate
1 Vedalken Shackles

2 Crucible of Worlds

// Sideboard
4 Engineered Plague
3 Extirpate
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Gaddock Teeg
1 Meddling Mage


No stifles for the reasons stated above in this thread.
The lone Shackles are a test slot as they should be great in the lategame but I don't want to run any more because the 6 non-Islands make them 'not killing a Tarmogoyf' (aka bad) in the early game.
Vindicates are the random Krosan Grip/Dark Banishing slot which used to be Disenchant in the original BHWC version.
I'm not sure about the sideboard yet, especially not about the Teeg/Mage distribution.
There's also some newly stirred up discussion of this archetype here (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=34753.0).