[Deck] Landstill - Former DTB

[thecomedian]

What you say is true, as I mentioned they often don't matter/don't have to worry about it, but they are out there. And yes Prospector into Warchief is bad in general in a format with 1cc instant removal, and no not very many people play with Intuitions. Those that do play intuitions wreck you hard, especially if they come down turn 2 after a duress or Brainstorm finding a force to punch it through a counter. The matchup against Goblins is good in general, always has been. They can win though, especially if they manage to either keep you off double white or you don't draw swords(Wrath usually cuts it...) I basically miss foodchain, but it doesn't matter since landstill was already a bad matchup</off topic>
Standstill is a terrible draw engine, it was in the last format, it still is. The mirror is retarded with them, they can force you to discard cards, and they only really work if you are able to put threats under them. It is also 4 cards for a solid draw engine. That is why it's played, 4 cards as opposed to the 16 thousand required of Thirst and Intuition. You are right it doesn't help you on turn 2 unless the situations weird(I've done it when I had like, 3 factories in hand, and I had mulliganed and Forced.) Honestly I really want to see your build. It sounds like it may finally be an evolved deck beyond the Old metagame. You don't run wastelands, which is a liability in the mirror, but ridiculous against everything else, you run 3 Decree, which is solid, but what do you run in the way of Mana Base, it sounds like you are trying to run a really basic heavy manabase, and I really don't know why. ???

Moving right Along, Isochron, you are running 27 land, and 4 board sweepers, 2 of which have the critters stick around(bad situation if they manage to naturalize it). I might cut some land (the conclaves) and run more board sweepers.

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

I agree with you comedian that 27 lands is a bit much. I cut an island and a plains and am currently testing 2 Nevy's disks. I havent ran into many mana problems since then. Humility is actually quite nice, yes you can naturalize it.... but you can say the same thing for many other cards that can be targets of Naturalize or disenchant. Humility is nuts against goblins if followed by a wrath or decree cycling. Humility slows your opponents pace down, which is very helpful for you. I don't like the idea of taking out conclaves either... 3 conclaves work out quite nice and can often times swing over creatures for damage to the dome. If at some point during the mach I need to take the offensive, then conclaves are a perfect card to answer the call along with Mishra's factory. Plus, they produce blue, and blue is always nice. Thanks for your suggestion though, I might try testing without conclaves and adding more board clearing. :cool:

[thecomedian]

Umm, just so you know, discs are unfathombly slow. They are a turn 4 Artifact, that if you drop turn 4 you can't defend, and then don't blow until turn 5. I would suggest upping the Wrath count to 3 or four, if three then throw in another humility. Also, Humility + Conclave = pointless. thats why I suggested dropping them, and then adding 2 board sweepers and a wasteland. Oh, and if you need more help against Solidarity, then try running Orims chant. You'll have to learn when to cast it(I really have no advice here) but it's essentailly another stifle.

[midnightAce]

Also note that you are running mainboard Humility. Humility + Disk is not savage tech. Since the format is generally geared towards creature based decks, upping Wrath for Disk or switching Disk (4 mana trade with a Factory?) to Vengeance (Not dead in mirror match.) would be a good idea.

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

Wow, haha... I am an idiot thinking disk would run at all in my deck. Thanks for waking me up Ace and Comedian. That is soo true. Disk and humility are not friends at all. I have considered Orim's Chant and I will most likely test it with my friend when I get the chance. As for the more board sweeper issue, I planned on running a 3rd possibly 4th wrath at GP Philly seeing as how the meta-game looks thus far. I do not want to be run over by goblins all day Philly. :angry:

[Mhough]

If you are gonna run Rule of Law in the board why not Arcane Lab at least you will be making FOW easier to play I assume you'll board out something white in this situation and will be fetching for more blue than white against solidarity.

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

[oh] .. You're right.. i normally side out Wrath, humility, and StP's depending whether or not they are playing sorcery speed or instant speed. The only reason I am really running Rule of Law right now is because I don't own any and haven't been able to find any Arcane Laboratories. Greta suggestion though.

[pater]

What is in your meta that Powder Keg is useful for?

I would also say drop 1 Decree and 1 FoF mainboard to put in 2 Crucibles. From experience they help the deck alot with Wasteland/Manland lock. You only need 2 Decrees since they really only help late-game after you have control.

[dsg123456789]

Depending on how useful you find counters as compared to sweepers, you could consider cutting mana leak for more wraths/akroma's vengeances, see as how they can mop up scrubby aggro and certain archtypes better than a single counter can. Likewise, if your meta if full of developed control, you might consider 2-3 maindecked crucibles, because those allow you to ruin control, since you get recursive threats and wasteland-lock in game 1.

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

Pater= Powder keg is nice in the meta for a couple of things. One of which is the control mirror. For me to beat fellow control dekcs, I need to outplay their decrees with mine, or get the first curcible lock. And Powder Keg can be quite flexible when i am going for manlands,decree tokens, and possibly even crucible if need be. I also bring in keg against goblins. Powder Keg for 1-3 can be quite helpful to slow them down. Powder Keg is also very nice against Bruised Weenie.dec/Phil.dec. And it seems like every single week I play against the deck so powder keg for two blows up his mages,silver knights, soltari priests, and other 2 mana creatures which make up most of the deck's threats besides angel and a couple of different creatures. Also, at Millenium's meta game, there are several stompy decks. Which actually isn't a great matchup for me. Poweder keg on 1 or 2 sometimes can save the game so I can stabilize. About the dropping of decree and FoF, I am already cutting down 2 of my 27 lands for two meta slots, which will most likely end up being 2 crucibles. Thanks for your help.

DsG= Very true with the main deck crucible statement. I am most likely putting in the two crucibles in place of the 2 random land which I dont need at all. My meta used to be me being the main landstill player, but this past week all of a sudden everywhere I turned I saw control players. It was quite interesting. After I saw that turnout of control players. 2 MD Crucible seems spicy. :cool: As for the cutting of mana leak, I will possibly try that. I have been thinking about Vengeance anyways. It seems like a nice card and can be cycled away if it is a dead card in a certain matchup. Thanks.

-=ScEpTeR=-

[troopatroop]

If you need to beat opponents decrees in the mirror then just play stifle. It's better. When you play at a serious tournament, other then the jank you play against normally, play those.

[Kundalini]

In my testing i have found Zuran Orb very useful in one of the hardest matchup : Burn.
It has good sinergy with crucible, allows life gain recursion, which is also useful to slow down goblins and aggro decks.
I often feel the need for life gain when playing this deck against any burn/quick aggro deck... Landstill has answers to everything, why no life gain?
I think most lanstill players board in pulse for life gain; zuran orb is cheaper, weaker but has sinergy with crucible; which of the two is better?

[dsg123456789]

I do not maindeck Crucible because of my aggro-based meta, and so Zuran Orb is not too hot for me. Plus, pulse gains more life in a shorter amount of turns (without the huge setback of saccing all of your lands) and so I prefer pulse in my meta. In a control meta you could sideboard 2-3 orb to fight off good aggro that is not very common. Finally, Orb is vulnerable to artifact hate, which everyone and their mother sideboards (Disenchant AND Pithing Needle) and so it would be very, very, very, very easily shut down. Finally, Orb is card disadvantage, while pulse almost always offers card parity. My vote goes to Pulse, in the end.

[Destavi]

Pulse of the Fields>Zuran Orb
Sphere of Law>Zuran Orb
Cop:Red>Zuran Orb
Chill>Zuran Orb

This has been gone over before. I think it was around page 9-10 where we discussed the various options against Red strategies.

On a similar note, is there anything even left to discuss about this deck? I think most of us realize that FoW is good in Landstill, and that Mana Leak is better than every 3cc counter etc. etc. etc.

I suppose we could discuss why not Forcing a Lackey on turn 1 is bad because you have a Wrath, or because you think Forcing a Lackey is card disadvantage. Forcing a Lackey is almost always CA for you. They can drop a Matron, Ringleader, or Jeeky from the Lackey and it's instant CA for them. Even if all they do is drop SGC, Warchief or Piledriver, it gives them insane Tempo. Not to mention the fact that if they get off a Wasteland or an active Port you're Wrath is pushed off 1-2 turns, and even more if you don't hit all 5-6 land drops.

If $T4KS becomes a metagame concern we'll have to deal with that and fit in some better hate in the SB as that match can be difficult to win.

What do most people see Goblins doing nowadays concerning Port, SB Pithing Needle and the White splash for Disenchant. I've started boarding Teferi's Response to combat all the Ports I see. It's also great in the mirror to counter an early Waste or a Swords. The reason I want to get input on Needle vs. Disenchant is because I think Cop:Red is better in a vacuum against Goblins and burn for that matter. If they're all going to be playing Needle obviously Sphere is better. If they're playing Disenchant now I'd rather just have the Cops. Cop:Red doesn't compete with Wrath on turn 4 and is much less of a tempo loss if they do get rid of it.

[frogboy]

Card advantage isn't really anything remotely resembling the sacred cow it's made out to be. It's not a matter of "he who dies with the most friggin' cards in hand wins," it's a matter of "he who dies loses." Your opponent will probably end up accelerating out Matron or Ringleader or whatever, but at that point it's acceleration that's providing uncounterable card advantage. The problem with the blanket statement of "Forcing Lackey is CA" is, first, you're trading two cards for one, which isn't netting you cards any way you cut it (Remember, you still have to actually counter that Matron or Ringleader somewhere down the line) but rather is slowing your opponent down to a more manageable tempo that you can handle.

The contention I have is that you don't need to care about the Lackey because you're just going to murder it and it's friends on turn four or five anyway, and you want to save your Force for the relevant cards they'll play once you've made your stabilization attempt.

If you're playing such that Wasteland is setting your Wrath back a turn, you're probably playing wrong. That sounds harsh, but it's basically turned out true in testing both Extended last season, Legacy, and 1.5 before that.

I'm also still not totally sure FoW is right, but that's something to be discussed when I get around to testing it more. Mana Leak as a tertiary counter, however, is something I want to debate. The card is almost always dead in the late game. Your early game isn't nearly as much of an issue so much as the midgame once you're fighting to stabilize. Plus, once you have stabilized, Mana Leak often won't keep a problem spell off the board since it's so late, and you're back to fighting again. Forbid, however, is very nutty at keeping your opponent down, and is still good in the mid and even early game.

Teferi's Response is the actual nut high against Rishadan Port, Wasteland, Plow, Factory removal, and everything in between. Seriously, I was running like three or four maindeck in the old format because it was so good in the mirror and aggro matchups. There's less room now because of needing to run more Wrath effects main, but I'm tinkering with the Vengeance and Disenchant count to fit some.

What exactly does Pithing Needle hose in your deck?

Circle Red is inferior to Sphere of Law because once you play Sphere of Law, Goblins has five or six relevant cards in their deck. Piledrivers, Pyromancers, and Kings. Realize too that King isn't very amazing for the red men to be running, so it's more like five. You, however, have all your Plows, your permission, your Wraths, and your Disenchants for Vial. Turn four Wrath turn five go turn six Sphere go counter your Disenchant effect is almost invariably a game win. Circle ties up your mana, leaves you vulnerable to flurries of burn, and leaves you less counter mana if your opponent ends up playing Disenchant or Needle or whatever nonred hate they have. Plus, Needle kolds it.

[pater]

Anyone got a good idea for a GP Philly sideboard? I thought about it and realized this tourney is gonna have people from all over the place so we can't really rely on just our meta strategies. I'm trying to think of a SB that can cover a whole range of decks that may pop up:

3 Stifle
4 Meddling Mage
4 CoP: Red / Chill (haven't decided yet)
2 Disenchant (running 2 MD with 2 M. Tutors MD)
2 Reverence?

I really have no idea. SB's were never my specialty (neither was any other aspect of MtG deckbuilding). I was thinking something like this or maybe 5 3-slotters. Any ideas?

[frogboy]

The point of a sideboard is to have a coherent gameplan for the second and third games. Don't have fifteen slots and pick and choose; test your deck and figure out what cards you would add (Make sure you know what you will cut!) if you had infinite room. Do this for the decks you expect to see most. Say, Burn, High Tide, the mirror, Goblins, and Angel Stompy. Once you have that list, see what kind of tweaks you could make to save slots. For instance, Chill is good vs Burn and Goblins, but Sphere of Law is better against Goblins, and is still pretty strong against Burn, and then you'd open up slots for your other matchups. Don't just be like "well these seem good" and just run a random pile.

[etakspeelstae]

Anyone got a good idea for a GP Philly sideboard? I thought about it and realized this tourney is gonna have people from all over the place so we can't really rely on just our meta strategies. I'm trying to think of a SB that can cover a whole range of decks that may pop up:

3 Stifle
4 Meddling Mage
4 CoP: Red / Chill (haven't decided yet)
2 Disenchant (running 2 MD with 2 M. Tutors MD)
2 Reverence?

I really have no idea. SB's were never my specialty (neither was any other aspect of MtG deckbuilding). I was thinking something like this or maybe 5 3-slotters. Any ideas?
I don't see a huge use for Stifle. Meddling Mage *kinda* goes against what this deck is good at, and that is not protecting permenents (or rather, not having to, and thus having a nice advantege). COP Red and Chill are so situational, COP is bad against Goblins because it really isn't helping you win or controling the game. Sphere of Law is much better IMHO. As far as Chill, it can be played around via Lackey and/or Aether Vial, and while it's always nice to have blue spells, I would again suggest the Sphere. I wouldn't bother with more then 3 Disenchant post-board. Also, Mystical Tutor? Bad choice, my friend. I did test it a little, but quickly dismissed the idea, as I always wished it was actually the card I tutored for instead of just skipping a draw. As far as Reverence... I don't think I need to go there. It just sucks, big time. Moat would be better, although not playing bad 2WW casting enchantments would be best.

As far as good ideas for a GP Philly sideboard... I don't know if mine is good or not, but here is what I would run, if I actually played Landstill there :D

3 Sphere of Law - Goblins, Burn
1 Disenchant - Angel Stompy, Survival
3 Pulse of the Forge - Aggro, Angel Stompy, Burn, Goblins
2 Arcane Laboratory - Belcher, Iggy-pop, Solidarity, other combo
2 Rule of Law - See Arcane Laboratory
1 Crucible of Worlds - Mirror, decks with non-basics galor
1 Eternal Dragon - Control, Mirror
2 Tefari's Response* - Anything with Port and Wasteland, Mirror

*Subject to change, this is one of the more felxible spots in the deck. It owns Wasteland and Rishadan Port, and helps in the mirror when they have Crucible, alot of times it is just what I need to dig out of it.

I'm currently advocating the Red "splash" (although most think it changes how the deck plays, including me). You should check the thread in the Open forum if you havn't already.

[Destavi]

If you're playing such that Wasteland is setting your Wrath back a turn, you're probably playing wrong. That sounds harsh, but it's basically turned out true in testing both Extended last season, Legacy, and 1.5 before that.

Not only Wasteland but now 3-4 Rishadan Ports too. Also I'm not really sure what you mean when you say that someone is playing wrong if a Waste sets their Wrath back a turn. Almost all Landstill decks play 9 virtual basics, (5 real, 4 fetch) meaning over twice the land in the deck is nonbasic and vulnerable to Waste. Port can also make it difficult not only to get to the requisite 4 mana, but also cut off double white much more easily.

If you're saving the Force for what they play after you Wrath, then all you have to control the board from turns 1-3 is STP and Factory. Using Factory that early against Goblins almost assures its destruction and negates the whole point of the Wrath first gameplan. So it seems like you're relying only on STP to save you from Lackey. But then if you had STP in hand when they played Lackey 1st turn you wouldn't think about Forcing it. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like you're letting them have free reign until the turn you get to a main phase with 4 land with 2 white sources. Goblins can do nasty things before that happens.

If you could explain what usually happens in the aforementioned situation(s) for you we could understand your point better.


Circle Red is inferior to Sphere of Law because once you play Sphere of Law, Goblins has five or six relevant cards in their deck.
Not only Wasteland but now 3-4 Rishadan Ports too. Also I'm not really sure what you mean when you say that someone is playing wrong if a Waste sets their Wrath back a turn. Almost all Landstill decks play 9 virtual basics, (5 real, 4 fetch) meaning over twice the land in the deck is nonbasic and vulnerable to Waste. Port can also make it difficult not only to get to the requisite 4 mana, but also cut off double white much more easily.

I guess I hadn't realized it was so widely agreed upon that Sphere is better then CoP. I thought people started talking about it just because of Needle.

[frogboy]

Well I guess your basic count might be low if you're still playing Conclave for some reason, otherwise it's pretty fine.

Basically you don't Force a Lackey if you have Counterspell and Wrath and don't have like, double Tundra or something similarly obnoxious in your hand, because, well, it's not that big of a threat. I'm actually not 100% sure if I'd Plow a Lackey over, say, Piledriver or something. I probably would, but it'd depend on my hand.

Also realize you don't need to "control the board" immediately unless your opponent is like "derf derf dubs Piledriver beat face" in which case, yeah, you're not in good shape, but that happens some very small percent of the time. People seem to think Goblins is going to kill you on turn four unless you do something about it, and that's really just not that true, particularly with Counterspell and Plow in your deck.

[Destavi]

[quote="pater"]

3 Sphere of Law - Goblins, Burn
1 Disenchant - Angel Stompy, Survival
3 Pulse of the Forge - Aggro, Angel Stompy, Burn, Goblins
2 Arcane Laboratory - Belcher, Iggy-pop, Solidarity, other combo
2 Rule of Law - See Arcane Laboratory
1 Crucible of Worlds - Mirror, decks with non-basics galor
1 Eternal Dragon - Control, Mirror
2 Tefari's Response* - Anything with Port and Wasteland, Mirror
I wouldn't put Dragon in the SB. It's just not gamebreaking. The deck you're bringing it in against has 4x 1cc permanent answers to it and many more non permanent answers to it. DoJ is much more powerful. Doing it at eot eliminates Wrath and Vengeance for at least a turn, and STP is crap against it. After board they should have boarded out most Wraths anyway making DoJ alot safer.

For most people the Pulse of choice is of the Fields.

One thing I'd like to see is a couple of Crypts in there. It can deal with a variety of decks, ATS, RGSA, all threshold decks and even in the mirror to stop Dragon and slow opposing Crucibles. The most important reason for it is it slows down Birdshit and GRO to a manageable speed. I've been seeing less and less Survival but it's great against them, killing Squee, Anger and Genesis. A big threat a turn isn't good for the health of the Landstill player.

If you're worried about the mirror 2x Deep Analysis is good.

It's not even necessarily about having total control over the board, but all the cards they're up on you by the time you Wrath and all the damage dealt already. Lackey into Ringleader essentially negates the 4th turn Force. If you let the Lackey go unmolested it can do sick things.
1st turn Lackey
2nd turn Matron fetching Ringleader
3rd turn Ringleader netting x Goblins and that much more gas after the Wrath.

That's even a fairly mediocre hand that is pretty good for them. There's other reasons than the ones stated to Force a 1st turn Lackey. If you can Force it and then drop a Standstill you're in great position.

Even if you don't play Conclave, you've still got 12 nonbasics which is half the land.

I suppose you could drop Conclave and Waste for a more stable manabase. You'd probably want to drop Crucible then too for a few Teferi's Responses. If Goblins maintains its popularity this could be a great strategy. Response wrecks their LD. It seems like this would be too weak against the mirror though.

[etakspeelstae]

[quote="pater"]

3 Sphere of Law - Goblins, Burn
1 Disenchant - Angel Stompy, Survival
3 Pulse of the Forge - Aggro, Angel Stompy, Burn, Goblins
2 Arcane Laboratory - Belcher, Iggy-pop, Solidarity, other combo
2 Rule of Law - See Arcane Laboratory
1 Crucible of Worlds - Mirror, decks with non-basics galor
1 Eternal Dragon - Control, Mirror
2 Tefari's Response* - Anything with Port and Wasteland, Mirror
I wouldn't put Dragon in the SB. It's just not gamebreaking. The deck you're bringing it in against has 4x 1cc permanent answers to it and many more non permanent answers to it. DoJ is much more powerful. Doing it at eot eliminates Wrath and Vengeance for at least a turn, and STP is crap against it. After board they should have boarded out most Wraths anyway making DoJ alot safer.

For most people the Pulse of choice is of the Fields.

One thing I'd like to see is a couple of Crypts in there. It can deal with a variety of decks, ATS, RGSA, all threshold decks and even in the mirror to stop Dragon and slow opposing Crucibles. The most important reason for it is it slows down Birdshit and GRO to a manageable speed. I've been seeing less and less Survival but it's great against them, killing Squee, Anger and Genesis. A big threat a turn isn't good for the health of the Landstill player.

If you're worried about the mirror 2x Deep Analysis is good.
Double post merged - Frogboy

It's not even necessarily about having total control over the board, but all the cards they're up on you by the time you Wrath and all the damage dealt already. Lackey into Ringleader essentially negates the 4th turn Force. If you let the Lackey go unmolested it can do sick things.
1st turn Lackey
2nd turn Matron fetching Ringleader
3rd turn Ringleader netting x Goblins and that much more gas after the Wrath.

That's even a fairly mediocre hand that is pretty good for them. There's other reasons than the ones stated to Force a 1st turn Lackey. If you can Force it and then drop a Standstill you're in great position.

Even if you don't play Conclave, you've still got 12 nonbasics which is half the land.

I suppose you could drop Conclave and Waste for a more stable manabase. You'd probably want to drop Crucible then too for a few Teferi's Responses. If Goblins maintains its popularity this could be a great strategy. Response wrecks their LD. It seems like this would be too weak against the mirror though.
LOL, yes I meant Fields. The Eternal Dragons are really good in the mirror, but I never cast them. They are really good at setting up Decree of Jutice, which I already run 3 of maindeck.

Well, as I said with the flexible spots, you can put whatever in there to deal with your metagame. There's 2 Survival decks here (out of something like average 20 people) and it all depends on if they show up or not. My metagame is very competitive, with lots of Soidarity, Goblins, and Landstill making up a huge margin of decks, so that's what I need to focus on after the first few rounds.

[Odd Mutation]

Hi all,

My sideboard contains:

4 Meddling Mage
4 Sphere of Law
4 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Disenchant
1 Crucible of Worlds

The Mages come in against combo matchups. Most of the combo players will get rid of all their creature removal which makes it easier for the Mages to stick around.

The Spheres and the BEB are all for the goblin matchup. IMHO you HAVE to stop first turn Lackey! As has been mentioned before, if you can keep Sphere on the board there are like 5 cards in the Goblin deck that can hurt you. Although BEB can't touch Piledriver it makes sure you can keep your Swords to Plowshares for the critter. I know 8 cards is a lot to side in but I feel it's necessary to improve your odds. I take out:

- 2 Crucible
- 2 Standstill (you cannot always play them against the green men)
- 1 Decree of Justice
- 1 Forbid
- 2 Fact or Fiction

I know most of you don't play with Forbid nor with the Facts but I consider them more then powerful enough to play them main deck. The only matchup I don't want them is against Goblins!
I prefer 1 Forbid over 1 Mana Leak and I still play 2
Nevinyrral's Disk over any of the alternatives. I also have two Disenchants main deck.

The lonely Crucible is for the mirror but it could easily, and maybe preferably, become an extra Pulse of the Fields. Pulse of the Fields is amazing against so many decks it's scary. It's only bad in the control/combo matchup where you want the extra disenchants and the Mages. Right now I only have one Pulse main deck but I am thinking about changing one of the Facts into a second Pulse.

Odd mute.

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

I think this'll be my sideboard for the GP:

4 chill
3 sphere of law
3 Tormod's crypt
2 Decree
2 disenchant (running 2 main)
1 crucible (running 2 main)

I mostly expect to see survival variants, gobbos, and landstill, as well as the other jank that will undobtedly show up. If solidarity seems to be a growing concern, and it seems like it'll have a big turnout, I may run meddling mage or arcane lab instead of the crypts and the lone crucible. Only time will tell.
I opted for pulse MB in place of a 3d disenchant, as I'm running mysticals, and it always seems to be a good option. Plus, it gives me a bit of an edge game 1 vs. burn.

[dsg123456789]

I would build a sideboard something like this:

4 Sphere of Law
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Faerie Conclave
3 Pulse of the Fields
4 Meddling Mage

Sphere of Law is in there for the Goblins and burn matchup, and its virtues have been discussed to death.

Crucible of Worlds is currently Sideboarded in my deck, however, I am probably moving them to the maindeck in place of Wrath #4 and Vengeance #3, which will go to the sideboard in their place.

The Faerie Conclave is the 4th one in my decklist, and it is there for the Control matchup, whether it be against Tog, Landstill, or some other deck. 10 uncounterable win conditions that can recur are some good against many control decks now, but if the meta continues to progress the way it seems to be, this Conclave will be all but useless.

The 3 Pulses are my other hate for Aggro decks in general, and I have found them to be awesome and ridiculous in every case.

The Meddling Mages are to fight combo and randomness, because Mages against decks like Solidarity, Tendrils, Belcher, and other combo decks are often times GG or close to it.

Now, on to what I think is the most important issue currently facting Landstill:
From what I see about the current path of the Metagame, it seems that Control/Combo is becoming very popular as an archetype to explore. If this is the case, our measly 8-counter defense is not sufficient to save us from this archtype, which can draw more cards and often times provide a greater or equal number of counters to us. If we were to drop cards like sweepers to add more hard counters, we would worsen our unstable matchup against Goblins and other strong aggro, which are equally as popular. To maintain our viability in a sea of decks that can out-draw, out-counter, and out-race us, we need to fight back, and not with a reactive element.

I propose that we explore combination/fast kills that could fit into our deck without requiring us to change too much of the deck.

Obviously, the kill would need to be small, either a 2-card combo or a 3-card combo whose 3rd piece works fine on its own and contributes to our gamplan.

Possibilities along with their pros and cons:

Draco/Blinkmoth Infusion-Erratic Explosion

Pros: 2 Card Combo, finishes the game with one 3 mana spell
We already run Brainstorm, an important piece of this combo
We already run Man-lands, who can deal the damage to get them to 14-16 life
Some people (not I) run Mystical Tutor, which sets up Infusion/Explosion very well

Cons: Requires a tertiary color that not everyone runs
Destabilizes the manabase if you do splash it (however, you might be able to get away with 1-2 Volcanics+Crucible to keep them in play)
Takes up 6-8 Slots + Mystical tutor, less if you want to decrease the consistency

Other: Makes Sensei's Divining Top an attractive card, and the Top has synergy with Standstill and the no-destructable-permanents strategy

Flame Fussilade-Time Vault

Pros: Instantly wins no matter how dreadful your situation is
Can benefit from the inclusion of MD Enlightened Tutor, which some players have had success with

Cons: Requires a red splash (see previous proposal for why this isn't great)
Costs 6 mana which means you aren't going to push for a turn 3 kill
Cards are useless on their own
All in all, seems not-so-great in the deck

Exalted Angel

Pros: One card that gives you a better matchup against aggro decks because it is maindeck lifegain+fast clock
It is on-color
It is a really good card on its own, so it is rarely a dissappointing draw

Cons: Easily dealt with because it is a creature, and it is especially vulnerable when morphed
Doesn't really fit with our strategy of wince-free Wraths and Vengeances

Other: Some people run this and like it, but in the past it has been a meta call. Now, with a fast clock more important, this could become an important card in the deck.

Those are the only faster win conditions I can think of off the top of my head. Discuss the future of Landstill.

[etakspeelstae]

I would build a sideboard something like this:

4 Sphere of Law
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Faerie Conclave
3 Pulse of the Fields
4 Meddling Mage

Sphere of Law is in there for the Goblins and burn matchup, and its virtues have been discussed to death.

Crucible of Worlds is currently Sideboarded in my deck, however, I am probably moving them to the maindeck in place of Wrath #4 and Vengeance #3, which will go to the sideboard in their place.

The Faerie Conclave is the 4th one in my decklist, and it is there for the Control matchup, whether it be against Tog, Landstill, or some other deck. 10 uncounterable win conditions that can recur are some good against many control decks now, but if the meta continues to progress the way it seems to be, this Conclave will be all but useless.

The 3 Pulses are my other hate for Aggro decks in general, and I have found them to be awesome and ridiculous in every case.

The Meddling Mages are to fight combo and randomness, because Mages against decks like Solidarity, Tendrils, Belcher, and other combo decks are often times GG or close to it.

Now, on to what I think is the most important issue currently facting Landstill:
From what I see about the current path of the Metagame, it seems that Control/Combo is becoming very popular as an archetype to explore. If this is the case, our measly 8-counter defense is not sufficient to save us from this archtype, which can draw more cards and often times provide a greater or equal number of counters to us. If we were to drop cards like sweepers to add more hard counters, we would worsen our unstable matchup against Goblins and other strong aggro, which are equally as popular. To maintain our viability in a sea of decks that can out-draw, out-counter, and out-race us, we need to fight back, and not with a reactive element.

I propose that we explore combination/fast kills that could fit into our deck without requiring us to change too much of the deck.

Obviously, the kill would need to be small, either a 2-card combo or a 3-card combo whose 3rd piece works fine on its own and contributes to our gamplan.

Possibilities along with their pros and cons:

Draco/Blinkmoth Infusion-Erratic Explosion

Pros: 2 Card Combo, finishes the game with one 3 mana spell
We already run Brainstorm, an important piece of this combo
We already run Man-lands, who can deal the damage to get them to 14-16 life
Some people (not I) run Mystical Tutor, which sets up Infusion/Explosion very well

Cons: Requires a tertiary color that not everyone runs
Destabilizes the manabase if you do splash it (however, you might be able to get away with 1-2 Volcanics+Crucible to keep them in play)
Takes up 6-8 Slots + Mystical tutor, less if you want to decrease the consistency

Other: Makes Sensei's Divining Top an attractive card, and the Top has synergy with Standstill and the no-destructable-permanents strategy

Flame Fussilade-Time Vault

Pros: Instantly wins no matter how dreadful your situation is
Can benefit from the inclusion of MD Enlightened Tutor, which some players have had success with

Cons: Requires a red splash (see previous proposal for why this isn't great)
Costs 6 mana which means you aren't going to push for a turn 3 kill
Cards are useless on their own
All in all, seems not-so-great in the deck

Exalted Angel

Pros: One card that gives you a better matchup against aggro decks because it is maindeck lifegain+fast clock
It is on-color
It is a really good card on its own, so it is rarely a dissappointing draw

Cons: Easily dealt with because it is a creature, and it is especially vulnerable when morphed
Doesn't really fit with our strategy of wince-free Wraths and Vengeances

Other: Some people run this and like it, but in the past it has been a meta call. Now, with a fast clock more important, this could become an important card in the deck.

Those are the only faster win conditions I can think of off the top of my head. Discuss the future of Landstill.
No way. Never. Angel is already in my Sideboard, but combo-kills DON't, I repeat, DO NOT work with Landstill. Why? Because it's LandSTILL. That means you run StandSTILL. Get it? You don't play Standstill and sit there waiting for your combo-kill. I mean it can help your aggro match, but you already stomp on them. And against Solidarity, you would have to board out your draw engine, to prevent them from just going off in resposne to you trying to get your combo off.

I'm not saying don't explore combo-control decks, just don't use Standstill or a Landstill base. I already posted a UR Flame Vault in the Developmental Forum, go post there (please :D )

Sorry if I'm coming off harsh. It just had to be said. :;):

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

Agreed. Transformational sideboards are cool, but do not belong in landstill. Boarding in 4 exhalted angels is about the extent that I would change my gameplan, because after that, you're going to have about half a hardcore control deck, and half a mediocre combo deck.

[etakspeelstae]

Yeah, I bring in 3 Exalteds to speed up my Solidarity clock so I don't get fucking owned like usual :D

[smeagol]

Wouldn't Pyrostatic Pillar be a good Sideboard choice for U/R and U/R/W Landstill against Solidarity/Spring Tide?

I've made some good results with pillar in an aggro-control deck in vintage. I know the whole legacy isn't vintage stuff, but basically solidarity/spring tide is almost the same deck in both formats...
I have tested my U/W/R Landstill quite a bit, and pillar almost completely shuts down storm combo from going off (and even wishing for a bounce spell deals 4 damage to the combo player), thus being a definite must counter threat. Angel doesn't seem to be such a good clock against combo, with the life gain being absolutely unimportant in this match up.

[etakspeelstae]

Wouldn't Pyrostatic Pillar be a good Sideboard choice for U/R and U/R/W Landstill against Solidarity/Spring Tide?

I've made some good results with pillar in an aggro-control deck in vintage. I know the whole legacy isn't vintage stuff, but basically solidarity/spring tide is almost the same deck in both formats...
I have tested my U/W/R Landstill quite a bit, and pillar almost completely shuts down storm combo from going off (and even wishing for a bounce spell deals 4 damage to the combo player), thus being a definite must counter threat. Angel doesn't seem to be such a good clock against combo, with the life gain being absolutely unimportant in this match up.
Uh, no. Pillar is probably one of the worse cards against them. Sirocco is 8 million times better. With a SLOOOOOW clock, Pillar is very easily played around. I just board in REB and Angel in URW Landstill, and it improves the match up alot.

[Destavi]

Is this thread going to be discussing permutations of Landstill other than U/W? There are threads for U/R/W, and U/R, so it seems like if you want to talk about those there are threads for that discussion. It seems like U/W is the only version of Landstill that is a DTB at this point in time. Talking about the options Red Landstill has against Solidarity is pointless if this is to be a U/W thread.

Now that that's out of the way, what is the current thinking about Gaea's Blessing as a two of in the board? I realize it's possible for them to Stroke you out in response, but if they don't have that much gas it seems like a lifesaver. I've also played against opponents who will fire off a Brain Freeze after I counter a draw spell of theirs and/or play one of my own. In that situation it would be great to Brainstorm it back on top. I'd rather not devote 4+ board slots to the match and I don't like Angel.

[Mhough]

My board is
3 Gaea's Blessing
4 Chill
3 Pulse of the Fields
3 Tormod's Crypt/Phyrexian Furnace(haven't decided wich for this weekend yet)
2 Decree of Justice

So basically I'm set up well against everything but the mirror but I really don't see how to make anymore room to take on the mirror match w/o being weak against something else.

[etakspeelstae]

Is this thread going to be discussing permutations of Landstill other than U/W? There are threads for U/R/W, and U/R, so it seems like if you want to talk about those there are threads for that discussion. It seems like U/W is the only version of Landstill that is a DTB at this point in time. Talking about the options Red Landstill has against Solidarity is pointless if this is to be a U/W thread.


[DTB] Landstill

Not called UW.

The only problem with Gaea's Blessing is that your clock is SO god-awfully slow. Solidarity will just sit there and make their hand perfect, then win.

@Mhough: How has Chill been working for you? It seems really easily played around via Lackey/Vial in Goblins and REB/Pyroblast in both Goblins AND Burn, as well as anything else that has Red. I would suggest Sphere of Law in this spot, since if you could protect a Chill, wouldn't you just rather win? :;):

EDIT: Edited stupid noob typos...

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

So how 'bout In the eye of chaos as anti-solidarity tech? It's worked for angel stompy, it can work for us, maybe better (counter the bounce spell...MWAHAHAHAhaha....heh...hmm). Sounds better than arcane lab/mage/blessing, anyway.

[etakspeelstae]

So how 'bout In the eye of chaos as anti-solidarity tech? It's worked for angel stompy, it can work for us, maybe better (counter the bounce spell...MWAHAHAHAhaha....heh...hmm). Sounds better than arcane lab/mage/blessing, anyway.
Great idea, let's make all our instants cost double ???

If we didn't run counters... Then yeah it's an obvious inclusion.

2 Rule of Law and 2 Arcane Lab are best IMHO.

[Citrus-God]

Don't you forget Chris Pikula now.

He can do shit. All you need to do is have at least two in play.

1st Mage, calling High Tide.
2nd Mage, calling Cunning Wish.


Stifle I think is also good against other decks, as well. Like the Landstill mirror. Just to stop the Standstill from popping.

But sad to say, and forget about Echoing Truth for a second. I think Arcane Lab should be ran at least 1 more copy over Rule of Law. Simply put, synergizes with FoW.

[frogboy]

The purpose of this thread is to find the most optimal build of Landstill. Colors played is not relevant. I might keep a UR list separate from the lists that run white simply because the two decks have fairly divergent gameplans and end up playing a lot differently.

Stifle will not work against Standstill, it will merely trigger Standstill again. Since Standstill is not sacrificed until the ability resolves, your Stifle does nothing.

Arcane Lab's ability to be pitched to Force of Will and not require white to play makes it by far superior to Rule of Law. Rule is only good if you are running it as Lab #5+. Lab rocks ITEOC because it serves the same function except better plus your permission is a lot more insane.

Blessing tends to suck against High Tide because once they're comboing you typically can't stop them and they can just Stroke you for your library.

I'm curious how Exalted Angel helps your gameplan against Solidarity. It seems like you tap out two turns in a row to play it, means you can't run other hate out on turn three, and still don't actually kill them until turn eight.

[Mhough]

Chill works really well for me because I md 3 disenchant and fow obviously so I'm not to worried about vial.

I'm seriously thinking about taking out decree and the crypts for Pithing Needle they should handle what I planned on boarding doj and crypt in for anyway.

"Great idea, let's make all our instants cost double ???

If we didn't run counters... Then yeah it's an obvious inclusion"

Yeah but it's ultimately impossible to beat solidarity with counters so this might not be as bad as you'd think first glance.
I must admit I've never tried it. Just a thought.

[LeRoux]

Stifle will not work against Standstill, it will merely trigger Standstill again. Since Standstill is not sacrificed until the ability resolves, your Stifle does nothing.


What I mean't by popping the Standstill is like this...

Me: Play a spell.
Oppo: Pops Standstill.
Me: I throw Stifle out.
Oppo: Fuck you!

Yeah, he knew what you meant, and he's still right. What would happen would look more like:

Me: Play a spell.
Oppo: Spell Triggers Standstill
Me: I throw Stifle out
Oppo: Stifle Triggers Standstill
Oppo: Pops Standstill
Me: Fuck you!

See, it's looks quite the same... :p Stifle is still decent in the mirror as you gain the Land Advantage if you can pop it on a fetch land, or a Waste.

[Citrus-God]

Take out Crypt, but don't take out Decree. It's a very powerful card in the mirror...

Plus, you only need 3 Needles to work.

[Citrus-God]

Stifle will not work against Standstill, it will merely trigger Standstill again. Since Standstill is not sacrificed until the ability resolves, your Stifle does nothing.


What I mean't by popping the Standstill is like this...

Me: Play a spell.
Oppo: Pops Standstill.
Me: I throw Stifle out.
Oppo: Fuck you!

Yeah, he knew what you meant, and he's still right. What would happen would look more like:

Me: Play a spell.
Oppo: Spell Triggers Standstill
Me: I throw Stifle out
Oppo: Stifle Triggers Standstill
Oppo: Pops Standstill
Me: Fuck you!

See, it's looks quite the same... :p Stifle is still decent in the mirror as you gain the Land Advantage if you can pop it on a fetch land, or a Waste.
Good point. Because Landstill is pretty damn Mana hungry, Stifle can screw it up a lot in many ways of Tempo disadvantage...

[Geet]

I have found Meddling Mage to be the best option for the board vs. Solidarity. Yes, you may find other options that work a little better, but all the other options can pretty much only be used for Solidarity matchups. Mage, on the other hand, can be used in ANY matchup. I have found that in every matchup, there is at least 2 dead cards in the main deck. I can ALWAYS swap the dead cards out for Meddling Mage, b/c at the very least he's a 2/2 beater that may or may not slow the opponent down.

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

Great idea, let's make all our instants cost double ???

If we didn't run counters... Then yeah it's an obvious inclusion.

Hmmm...didn't think that one quite through did I? So...don't listen to me, play arcane lab over ITEOC.

[midnightAce]

I think the reason for having 2 Lab and 2 Rule is that you want to have both down against Solidarity, that way, they need to bounce twice in succession with 2 different spells over the course of 2 turns, or else it's almost a hard lock. The problem of slapping down multiple Lab or Law is that Echoing Truth takes care of all the copies of Lab and Law, while Law does not pitch to FoW, but against Solidarity, you are going to remove a lot of cards anyways, most of them isn't blue to start with.

[etakspeelstae]

I think the reason for having 2 Lab and 2 Rule is that you want to have both down against Solidarity, that way, they need to bounce twice in succession with 2 different spells over the course of 2 turns, or else it's almost a hard lock. The problem of slapping down multiple Lab or Law is that Echoing Truth takes care of all the copies of Lab and Law, while Law does not pitch to FoW, but against Solidarity, you are going to remove a lot of cards anyways, most of them isn't blue to start with.
Yup, completly right. While you don't want any bounce to resolve, a Truth on 2 Arcane Labs is much worse then on a Lab with a RoL still out.

[Ewokslayer]

I think the reason for having 2 Lab and 2 Rule is that you want to have both down against Solidarity, that way, they need to bounce twice in succession with 2 different spells over the course of 2 turns, or else it's almost a hard lock. The problem of slapping down multiple Lab or Law is that Echoing Truth takes care of all the copies of Lab and Law, while Law does not pitch to FoW, but against Solidarity, you are going to remove a lot of cards anyways, most of them isn't blue to start with.
Yup, completly right. While you don't want any bounce to resolve, a Truth on 2 Arcane Labs is much worse then on a Lab with a RoL still out.
There should never be 2 of these enchantments in play.
Why would you ever play another spell the rest of the game besides Counterspell or Force of Will?

[dsg123456789]

I was considering that Landstill currently seems to be losing some of its dominance, and how that can be fixed, and this is what I came up with: Maindeck Crucible.

Although it was rejected in the past, now, with increased mana denial and Goblins as a threat, Crucible serves two important purposes that solve both of these problems (somewhat, at least)

1) Crucible lets you reuse wasted color sources and fetchlands, allowing you to reach whatever mana you need in order to beat Goblins

2) Crucible lets you recur Mishra's Factory once you hit the midgame, which gives you plenty of chumpblockers for Piledrivers and detterents to stop Warchiefs from attacking. This is obviously a very good thing.

It seems almost as if Landstill is running in a cycle. First, we maindeck Crucible. Then we cut it to run more sweepers. Aggro responds by running mana denial, so we can respond by maindecking Crucible once again, allowing our remaining cards to be more effective.

[etakspeelstae]

I was considering that Landstill currently seems to be losing some of its dominance, and how that can be fixed, and this is what I came up with: Maindeck Crucible.

Although it was rejected in the past, now, with increased mana denial and Goblins as a threat, Crucible serves two important purposes that solve both of these problems (somewhat, at least)

1) Crucible lets you reuse wasted color sources and fetchlands, allowing you to reach whatever mana you need in order to beat Goblins

2) Crucible lets you recur Mishra's Factory once you hit the midgame, which gives you plenty of chumpblockers for Piledrivers and detterents to stop Warchiefs from attacking. This is obviously a very good thing.

It seems almost as if Landstill is running in a cycle. First, we maindeck Crucible. Then we cut it to run more sweepers. Aggro responds by running mana denial, so we can respond by maindecking Crucible once again, allowing our remaining cards to be more effective.
uh, I don't know anybody who doesn't currently run Crucible main... So where is this imaginary land with no MD Crucibles?

Warned for repeated use of spam. This is the LMF, people, unless it's a really succinct point like a rules clarification, put some thought into your posts.---Frogboy



Edited By frogboy on 1127866692

[midnightAce]

I think the reason for having 2 Lab and 2 Rule is that you want to have both down against Solidarity, that way, they need to bounce twice in succession with 2 different spells over the course of 2 turns, or else it's almost a hard lock. The problem of slapping down multiple Lab or Law is that Echoing Truth takes care of all the copies of Lab and Law, while Law does not pitch to FoW, but against Solidarity, you are going to remove a lot of cards anyways, most of them isn't blue to start with.
Yup, completly right. While you don't want any bounce to resolve, a Truth on 2 Arcane Labs is much worse then on a Lab with a RoL still out.
There should never be 2 of these enchantments in play.
Why would you ever play another spell the rest of the game besides Counterspell or Force of Will?
You are right. It's much more prefered to be holding a counter for whatever bounce they throw at the Lab/Law, but a lot of times, mana restrictions as well as card restrictions prevents that ideal setup.

Plain, Tundra, Factory, Wasteland. Such combination of land drops is not uncommon. It's entirely possible that on turn 4, or even turn 5, there is only one U avilible to the Landstill player. In those instances, he would want to cast a second Lab/Law to strengthen the lock, that's where the 2 Lab, 2 Law comes in.

There are also instances where the Solidarity might have failed to combo once already, as Landstill runs low on counters, again, it's a good idea to cast down a second peice of "one spell restriction" to keep the lock in place.

There are even instances where Landstill draws no counters. That is especially true for the UW version. UR at least gains REB, UW gains jankier stuff like Stifle. Again, those are the instances where 1 Lab + 1 Law can virtually win the game right there.

These things seems trivial to some, but I believe every little bit like these will contribute to the deck's overall percentages. The deck has already gone way pass "well done", now we are just grilling it some more and really really fine tuning it.

[quodo]

Here is the list I am currently running, and that I may strongly play at Lilles (well, it will depend on Philly of course).

UWR Landstill Explosion
Lands
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
1 Plains
3 Island

Spells
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Standstill
3 Fire/Ice
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Fact or Fiction
2 Stifle
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Brainstorm

Sideboard
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Teferi's Response
3 ? ? ?
3 Exalted Angel


Card explanation :

I'll explain just the choices tat make my version different from others.

Engineered Explosives
A card that should definitely see play in any UWR Landstill (and not in UW or UR, because of the lack of versatility in it).
It is sometimes a spot removal (Usually on Vial/Lackey/Add a dangerous 1 drop here). It can also be used under Standstill if the counters are 0, 1 or 3, and that's sometimes really usefull. In the late game, you can play and trigger it in the same turn. Otherwise (before turn 4 in most cases), You will only be able to trigger it one turn after you drop it.

How I usually use it :
- T1, drop it, T2 explosion
- T2 drop it, T3 explosion
- T3 drop it explosion or drop it T4 explosion
- T4 drop it explosion
- T5 drop it explosion
One advantage of this card is that it doesn't need a double colored mana, contrary to WoG. And also that it can kill artifacts and enchantments as well.

Lightning Bolt
What have we got here ? One of the best red spells ever. And easiliy playable in this deck. In any aggro-based meta, it is really usefull, because it can kill some potential threats quite easily, includingthe whole goblin deck, a non-thresholded Enforcer/Bear, But it can also help in the WW matchup, and mirror too (in order to drop the opponent's life quickly, or to kill it's factories).

The other cards are the usual, beside Stifle, which I like very much because it kills opponents Wastelands and Fetchs, and other things like Solidarity.

The sideboard is based on the fact I am encountering a lot of land hate from decks like Fish, and that I am foreseing a lot of "slow combo" decks, including Solidarity, but also Aluren. I will also surely encounter some belcher (at least 3 people I know intend to play it, and they can't posibly be alone :) )
Other decks I will encounter may strongly be Gobos, Raffinity and Gro.

I'm done for now, feel free to discuss and help me improving my build.

(also, if anyone can explain me why my post doesn't appear on the main page ??? )

[colsmack]

What do people think about Lightning Helix in UWR builds? It doubles as removal and life gain, plus it gives the deck a little bit of reach if needed.

[scrumdogg]

I was going to ask the same question after reading Quodo's list (and a good call on the EE btw, I have had success running EE in 3 color decks over the last year, I don't see why that would be a problem in 3cc Landstill). Traditionally, Burn or burn heavy Sligh/RDW have been Landstill's worst matchup (other than Solidarity...). Is the additional 1cc & dependence on two colors enough of a disadvantage to disqualify Lightning Helix? Landstill has a number of advantages over other decks trying to run the Helix (like Burn and SDZoo) in that it does not require it early to win and can not only search as much (if not more...) but recur lands with Crucible. Helix being an instant, unlike Pyroclasm, means that Port or even Wasteland can't stop it. They can dictate when you cast it, but not truly stop Helix.

[Neoprout]

Thanks for the UWR build quodo, it seems pretty stable.

The addition of burn spell gives you more spot removal against quick aggro deck, stifle and explosives gives the deck a lot of flexibility.

Here are my suggsestion:

-3 bolt;+1StP,+1 F//I, +1 Brainstorm : StP is way better than bolt, F//I gives you more versatility + it may remove 2 targets + it raises up the number of blue cards.

-2 island;+2 conclave : i know cip tapped sucks, but w/out any DoJ or ED you require more than just 4 win condition. It is better if you need to race your opponent.

In SB:
Disenchant is necessary against survival: if you fail to destroy, Survival of the Fittest just after opponent played it, he will fetch for Mystic Snakes, Genesis, Kiki-Jiki, Xantid swarm, then he plays a hunting ground (gg).

Pyroclasm is cheap and great against any aggro deck.

Slice and dice, is certainly great against mirror. Take this example:

me: standstill in play
oponent: cycle a DoJ
me : cycle a SnD


To Scrumdogg: it is kind of situational to have both a tundra + a volcanic in play at the same time at the 4th turn. I prefer playing lightning bolt on a 1st turn lackey.

[midnightAce]

Thanks for the UWR build quodo, it seems pretty stable.

The addition of burn spell gives you more spot removal against quick aggro deck, stifle and explosives gives the deck a lot of flexibility.

Here are my suggsestion:

-3 bolt;+1StP,+1 F//I, +1 Brainstorm : StP is way better than bolt, F//I gives you more versatility + it may remove 2 targets + it raises up the number of blue cards.

-2 island;+2 conclave : i know cip tapped sucks, but w/out any DoJ or ED you require more than just 4 win condition. It is better if you need to race your opponent.

In SB:
Disenchant is necessary against survival: if you fail to destroy, Survival of the Fittest just after opponent played it, he will fetch for Mystic Snakes, Genesis, Kiki-Jiki, Xantid swarm, then he plays a hunting ground (gg).

Pyroclasm is cheap and great against any aggro deck.

Slice and dice, is certainly great against mirror. Take this example:

me: standstill in play
oponent: cycle a DoJ
me : cycle a SnD


To Scrumdogg: it is kind of situational to have both a tundra + a volcanic in play at the same time at the 4th turn. I prefer playing lightning bolt on a 1st turn lackey.
Welcome to The Source.

Before I go any further, could you explain why a Tundra and a Volcanic is needed by turn 4? Since the deck already runs Fire/Ice, it's much better to fetch for a Volcanic and sit on it with F/I. The Helix can act as a late game reach, or a medium speed removal the turn after Wrath resolved. (Turn 5/6) Like Scrumdogg said in his post, Landstill is in no rush to cast its burn spells.

The only beef I have with this deck is the lack of Wrath. While I understand EE and Disk fills its role, but honestly they are both situational and slower than Wrath, and Disk requires protection as well.

[dsg123456789]

I'm running a list like the one on the first page of this thread, but I want to add crucible back in. What cards should I cut/move to the SB? I know that I would cut at least one Akroma's Vengeance, but what other card could be cut in favor of a Crucible? Disenchant seems like the next most likely target for being cut. What about going to 3 Wraths? Is that safe?

Finally, that UWR Landstill looks really good, and the way the you built it really reduces the nessecity of the W component, which is good. I think that Lightning Helix should be run over Lighting Bolt, b/c the Helix's lifegain is good in that it slows the game. Also, another win condition like Faerie Conclave or even DoJ could be very powerful. Turn 10, Cycle DoJ with only one white mana for 4-5 tokens is a powerful option. Also, DoJ can three or four for one goblins with ease.

[quodo]

The main problem I have in UWR Landstill, is having 2 White mana on turn 4 (or more if I already used/got targeted by a wasteland). So Wrath is a bit too dangerous I think to be used. I know that decks like Fish have the same problem, even if playing only 2 colors (look at Godzilla's list on the Fish thread : it uses Gallina's Knight instead of Siver Knight just because of that.) And if you start diluting the creature threats by exploding just those who matters, you should then have no problem waiting for the disk.

On the Helix point, I have to test. I know the 6 point difference (3 lifegain+3 damage done/prevented by killing a creature) is huge, but I don't know if it worth the color problem. If only we had a WR fetch :laugh:

Neoprout, about removing the Lightning Bolt, I don't think it's a good idea, seeing how many time Fish or Gro can use their Meddling to shut down StP and F/I.
I would'nt include more than 1 Conclave, and only to be able to resist 4 StP into the opponent's deck. I sometime killed my own manlands with blasts just to avoid an RFG effect and abuse Crucible.
I don't think Pyrocasm will be in my sideboard, nore will be Slice. Pyroclasme is good, but only against deck that have no Pro-Red (that is to say Goblin... And that's all). Slice is a good option, but there again, too situationnal. Playing a card to kill a single deck, and not a strategy (understand : to kill Landstill, and not Control decks) is a lack of versatility.

I think Disenchant may get the 3 sideboard slots, but I'm not really sure, as I can already use EE and Disk to destroy a SotF.

Edit :
@dsg123456789
Lookingat the first page list, I think you can easily cut one brainstorm and one dragon, it should just go well. That would make 2 Crucibles in, and with the facts, brain and Stanstill, you should draw them just when you want them.

[Artowis]

For a queston that actually matters.

What steps, if any, are going to be implemented to deal with Flame Vault decks?

Meddling Mage becoming standard in the board comes to mind, but what else can be done?

EDIT: Spatula suggested Abeyance and that's not a bad idea for the board either.



Edited By Artowis on 1127950934

[TorpidNinja]

As I posted in the devoted Vault thread, I don't see this as the worst problem for Standstill considering the flexibility of the main and sideboards.

Pithing Needle
Suppression Field (boarding in Exalted too)
Null Rod
Countering the Flame (unless they're running Overmaster)

I really think there's something that I'm missing because not only this deck but this format is sufficiently adaptable to deal with this combo.

[Artowis]

The main problem is those are the wrong solutions. Pithing Needle and Co only matter if you can put pressure on the opponent. Goblins can and Landstill cannot. They do nothing to address the critical issue of getting outdrawn at 2-1 ratio or worse and then getting run over.

I said Meddling Mage was good, because it can actually shut off draw or Burning Wish while providing some sort of pressure. Abeyance is a stop-gap solution, but at least it cantrips.

[dsg123456789]

I don't think Landstill wants to be running Suppression Field ever, considering that it hurts Fetches, Wastes, Manlands, and anything that can cycle (DoJ, Vengeance). Meddling Mage would be good except that many Flame Vault decks run MD Fire/Ice and 8 Counters, and so they have more answers to the Meddling Mage than you do ways to protect it, and by more answer I mean that they will have an answer every single time due to their draw/search/sheer number of answers (wish-->pyroclasm, fire, counterspell, FoW).

Ghost Lit Warder, Last Word, and Blue Elemental Blast, looking purely at cards that answer Flame Vault while being difficult themselves to answer, seem like very viable options. The former two are uncounterable counters, which can stop the first 1-2 Flame Fussilades. The Warder can also be hardcast and disrupt their gameplan for a while. BEB counters Fussilade and only costs one mana, and it is flexible in that it is fine against goblins as well.

disclaimer: I'm just trying to brainstorm and get new ideas mixed in, so even though the cards I suggested are probably not the best cards, they are decent against an unsuspecting Flame Vault player.

[scrumdogg]

Abeyance is fine as it essentially counters the Flame Fusillade while cantripping. Also in White, Gilded Light is a potential option that can also be useful against other combo (ID, Belcher) and the Nemesis - Burn. Meddling Mage is fine and in testing against the FlameVault deck has provided the best answers to date - although better when backed by counterspells (Gro was tested more than Landstill) or Mom (a more controlling version of Angel Stompy). Even then, the decks were splitting evenly - and full Fire/Ice tech had not been run in the main yet. This is going to be a lot like Solidarity - there will have to be some options maindeck and 7-8 cards to come in from the board. The good news is that UWR Landstill can already run the 8 Blast Plan, unfprtunately that would be 4 of each color :p meaning 4 REBs for Solidarity & 4 BEBs for Flame Vault, although the Meddling Mages would make an even 8 cards for each deck....

[quodo]

Something just hit my mind : what about replacing White and Red by Green and Black ? I think it could be really usefull, giving us tools like Pernicious Deed, Putrefy and others. And even a secondary kill embodied by Nether Spirit. It could also be very good against combo, as we could play Duress or Therapy maindeck.

I'll throw a list in a few hours, when i'll consider it "not too bad".:laugh:

[Boogy_Boy]

I was thinking...

What about splashing for Green for Life from Loam? It seems like an uncounterable Crucible?

1G, Sorcery, Rare, Ravnica
Dredge 2
Return up to 3 target lands from your graveyard to hand.

I mean. That would probably work very well with Intuition. Maybe it does not fit in Landstill. But then I thought it may worth a mention.

I am thinking of testing
Something like adding a little side kick engine:

3 Tropical Island
1 Forrest
3 Windswept Heath.
1 Life from Loam.
1 Intuition.
1 Regrowth
2 Wasteland (For a waste,waste,Life)

How's that?

Tropical Island and Windswept heath both can act as U source. Life from Loam is uncounterable, so one's enough.
Intuition acts as a second Life from Loam. Or ite can fetch something with regrowth if the situation is desperate.
Regrowth can always be nice as it is redundancy (which this deck builds upon).

??? What do you guys think? or is it not worth it?

[Slay]

What matchups would adding Life add?

Moreover, what actually useful cards would you cut to add in the engine?
-Slay

[Nightmare]

Green is bad in Landstill. You don't gain anything you don't already have, and most of what you do gain is just win-more. Life from Loam is not uncounterable, in fact, it's quite counterable, and nets you zero card advantage if you dredge it. (I know, if you dredge out land, you return it to your hand. You're better off just playing a draw spell.) It also breaks a Standstill, where Crucible does not. If your adamant to splash, splash red. It's much, much better in almost every situation.

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Nightmare on this one, I just can't see green playing a viable role in landstill. The syngergy just doesn't flow with the rest of the deck. Just out of curiosity, How many of you plan on bringing landstill to GP Philly? ???

[SenilePack]

The only tools i can really see getting from green are pernicious deed (since gobbos cant really kill it), putrefy(maybe), and treetop village.

[Nightmare]

Your first two cards are both B/G. 4 color Landstill has a terrible manabase. This deck has enough issues with its mana in 2 colors, adding to that is not usually a good idea.

@Isochronic - I still haven't decided what to take. I think it depends on how well I perform in the GPTs.

[LinkXwing]

Ok, beyond the obvious every person and there mother siding in 10 millions disenchant effects post SB...which they do anyway against Landstill if they run them SB...and price issues, which we ignore when trying to create the most optimal decklist, how about replacing 4xWoG with 4xMoat MD in UW Landstill. They have exactly the same casting cost, are both sorcery speed, but Moat seems a more permenant answer than WoG. I see Goblins doing a complete recovery after a WoG in 1-2 turns while Moat would shut them off from everything but Sharpshooter/Fanatic/SCG combo out which can easily be prevented if that is all you need to use your counters on.

Perhaps Moat would allow the N. Disk/Vengence slot to turn into a blue card such as Stifle or Teferi's Respose to help out the lack of blue cards in standard UW Landstill to support FoW better and protect your own manabase so you can reliably cast Moat every time you see it.

Now it might be that getting WW up before you're dead might be the problem in itelf and therefore neither Moat, WoG or Vengence are viable anymore now that the average fundamental turn (specifically of Goblins, but the format as a whole too) has been increased a hair in the past 3-4 months. Discuss plz, I'll get to testing myself as soon as I can to test this theory this weekend.

BTW: Yes, this is completely ripped/inspired by Smmenen's discussion on Starcity today.

[scrumdogg]

Am I off-base or would Humility + Moat shut everybody down? I do realize that now Landstill would not have a win condition....at least until late in the game when they disenchant their own effect...but since when has Landstill cared about anything except getting to the late game? Teferi's Response should absolutely be a miandeck card with goblins running not only at the top of the format but 25-35% of the format. Goblins specifically imported Port and Wasteland to deal with the Landstill matchup, why has the 'adaptable control king' not done so? Don't get me wrong, I hate Landstill & now have my pet deck beating it consistently but if people are going to run it, why not run an effective version?

[LinkXwing]

Ok, new list time:

4 Mishra's Factory
2 Janky Conclave
4 Wasteland
2 Plains
4 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
1 Eternal Dragon

4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Teferi's Response
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Moat
3 Akroma's Vengence
2 Decree of Justice

Sideboard:

4 Disenchant
4 Sphere of Law
4 Arcane Labratory
2 Wrath of God
1 Decree of Justice


After a crushing defeat at our local GPT playing Solidarity and being able to borrow 4 Moats I got to work on Sunday playtesting this version of Landstill vs. Vial Goblins. We played 5 matches and I took Landstill on a winning streak vs. Gobs. I only lost 1 game where my opponent went Lacky that I couldn't answer into SCG + Wasteland. Granted, this is heavily metagamed against current goblins builds but it still retains almost all of the elements that it had before. Moat does almost everything WoG does but better and is a more permanent answer against gobs. Granted, WoG is better against matchups where opponents really don't swing with their creatures, like ATS comes to mind, but Goblins is the most played deck in the format at the moment.

As a sidenote - I would probably change the Teferi's Response to Stifle (but definitely NOT a white card to keep the blue count up for FoW) in a more varied metagame. Response is just very specific to the 4 wasteland 3-4 rishidan port metagame. That and I couldn't find my stifles after looking for like 20 minutes while my playtesting partner was sitting and twiddling his thumbs.

P.S. For reference, this is the goblins version I tested against:

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Goblin King
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Seige-gang Commander
1 Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker

4 Wasteland
3 Rishidan Port
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Plateau
9 Mountain

Sideboard:

4 Disenchant
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Blood Moon

[Citrus-God]

Maybe if you can't afford Moat, you could use a Ghetto version of Moat, that can also be pitched to FoW; Teferi's Moat.

That is the card I am currently running to deal with Goblins! It can't be played earlier, but at least it can be pitched...


And Linkxwing. I think your Goblin build has a problem against Landstill, because it's missing S2P, and Pithing Needle, in the SB. IMO, I think it's very important that it runs those cards in the board, against Landstill. I know it might not sound a lot, but I've friggin lost to RG Beatz because of those damn Needles...

[LinkXwing]

And Linkxwing. I think your Goblin build has a problem against Landstill, because it's missing S2P, and Pithing Needle, in the SB. IMO, I think it's very important that it runs those cards in the board, against Landstill. I know it might not sound a lot, but I've friggin lost to RG Beatz because of those damn Needles...

So Goblins is going to side in REB, Disenchant, Pithing Needle, Blood Moon and Swords to Plowshares?

Obviously this is an exaggeration, but I removed Pithing Needle from the goblins board last week to test the white version with Needle being replaced by Disenchant. Every one of those five cards is good in the Landstill matchup. Which 2 or 3 are the most useful? I don't have the answer to that, but that is to be discussed in the goblins thread.

[Danger]

Congrats on the interesting deck LinkXwing. I think Moat is a natural evolution for Landstill in this Goblin dominated environment, but I have have some questions about your build that I think need to be addressed and I hope they could possibly improve the build after more testing (I want Gobos to lose to my manlands just as much as the next control lovin fellow). Also, let me add I have not tested this version but I have consistantly dominated my local legacy scene for the past couple months with a Landstill version slightly modified from the one on the first page (-1 ED, -1 FoF, and -1 Wasteland cause nonbasics are harder to come by in my meta and +2 Crucible, +1 Island)

First I think some of the cards in the deck need to change for synergies sake... The first one is Mishra's Factory. I know this may sound silly cause its landstill but Moat will stop the assembly workers all day while the conclaves' fairies can fly right over. This means when you are relying on moat to hold off an enemy army, you will have to wait for a Vengence to destroy your own moat before two-thirds of your manlands can attack. Whats worse, what if the enemy just builds up his own hand while waiting for you to destroy your own Moat then attacks once the Moat is out of play. Of course the Landstill player can just hold off on the Vengence until they have another Moat in hand, but this seems like more waiting than Landstill wants to do. Also, destroying your own cards with more cards isn't the best of synergy either.

Also, how can enough pressure effectively be put under a standstill so as to force the oppenent into breaking it if two thirds of your manlands can't get over Moat. Whats more, even the DoJ can't cycle to create a threat over the Moat. This means you will have to play around the Moat even more because only three of your threats can get over it. In testing did you ever find this to be a problem?

If it is a problem, I would suggest using only threatst that can get over the moat to make the most out of each and ever one of your cards... even if this means upping the count of "janky conclaves" or some other flyer... Ivory Gargoyle is coming to mind because he can get over Moat and come back from the dead. Of course the drawback is devestating (espically if they get a cursed scroll or lavamancer going). Eternal Dragon might be better for the same reason but he is just so expensive...

Also, three FoF? IMO FoF is one of the least nesscessary cards in Standstill. It is very powerful, but I think Standstill has plenty of draw with just the four standstills. You are also running Responses which are even more card drawing... I understand the want of blue cards, but I think sometimes ppl can be a little FoW trigger happy. I personally run 13 blue cards other than FoW and I don't have a problem with it. Sure, more blue cards are always nice, and FoW is damn hot, but adding in cards that are not hot in the majority of the matches to pitch to FoW is not so hot. I think this also forces me as a player to make sure everytime I use FoW it is on a card that really cannot come into play.

Plus even my pal Zvi (who is not really my pal, but I like to pretend we are on a first name basis) thinks FoF is unnesscessary... not that his word is gold or anything.

I don't know. I think your decklist is a large step in the right direction. But I think we are not at the mark yet. Please resond to my questions and tell me if I'm way off. Thanks.

P.S. Oh, and sorry for any spelling mistakes... I looked it over a second time, but there has to be some...

[LinkXwing]

Moat will stop the assembly workers all day
True, Moat stops Factories from attacking, but that is really not the point, Factories block as 2/2s and 3/3 the vast majority of the time compared to the times they are attacking. When I play a Moat against goblins, I'm playing it to stop a lethal attack from happening next turn. In all of those situations I wouldn't be attacking with a factory or two into an army of gobs to begin with, they'd be on defensive duty like they are most of the time. Plus if for some reason Moat does get destroyed by your opponents, the factories can at least help a little quelling the onslaught. Moat acts as a win condition in itself against gobs. You just cast and protect it and you'll eventually win. In those games I won it was mostly win an extremely late game hardcast decree of justice for 3 or 4 angels. I never cast vengence destroying my own Moat just to swing a time or two with my factories.


Also, how can enough pressure effectively be put under a standstill
You don't need to be swinging for four under a standstill (though it's cool) to put pressure on your opponent. Just the fact that inevitably you will swing for 20 under a standstill if they never cast another spell should be enough. You'll kill them before you deck yourself. With a Moat in play goblins can't win unless they get Siege-gang commander (which they only have 1-2 of and you can swords even if it's vialed in) and activate it several times. Or sharpshooter you out, but that is pretty unlikely w/o skirk prospector in gobs anymore. Just sit on a moat for infinite turns until you win. It isn't that hard.


Also, three FoF? IMO FoF is one of the least nesscessary cards in Standstill.
Yes, personal preference, but I'm a HUGE fan of having ten million good draw spells in a deck. In addition I wish for the blue card count to be at least 20, and even then I don't think that is enough. In the past few months UW Landstill has evolved into Mono-white control with a couple counters and a couple draw spells. This seems counter-intuitive to last year when I played UR or Uwr Landstill with 30+ blue cards in the deck. I frequently find myself with a FoW and no other blue cards in hand, this makes me feel like my deck is built very poorly and even when have another blue card in hand I never want to pitch it. Choices to pitch for FoW in most current builds right now are: FoF, Standstill, Brainstorm, Counterspell and other Forces. I don't know about you, but I never really want to pitch ANY of those to Force of Will.

For any given matchup some cards are stronger than others. Well, when choosing what to ditch for Force ideally I'd like to pitch whatever is a dead card in the matchup. I wish I could toss WoG/Moat in the High tide matchup but I can't because there are SO damn many white cards in the deck. I'd like to brainstorm for the dead card and pitch it to force rather than have to ditch the brainstorm itself because most likely Brainstorm won't find me the dead BLUE card in the matchup. I want to have 2 FoWs in my hand and have it mean that I can tap out and have 2 counters up, not just one because I have to pitch force to itself. In Zvi's tournament report from Gencon he mentioned having to FoW twice on turn 2 to prevent a survival from resolving. Well, with only 17 blue cards total in the deck that seems extremely highly unlikely that he'd have 2 forces AND 2 othe blue cards to pitch. In 99.9% of games that just doesn't happen.


Plus even my pal Zvi (who is not really my pal, but I like to pretend we are on a first name basis) thinks FoF is unnesscessary... not that his word is gold or anything.
If FoF is unnescessary then what blue card can replace it? Every time I cast FoF it practically wins me the game. The only downside to FoF is the 4 mana casting cost.


I don't know. I think your decklist is a large step in the right direction. But I think we are not at the mark yet.
I agree. This was just a test run to see if Moat was as good as I thought on first inspection. In short:

-white cards (which ones? I don't know.)
+blue cards (I don't know which ones, but more is good, or why not just play Wombat.)
Moat is good

My thoughts.

[Citrus-God]

Also, three FoF? IMO FoF is one of the least nesscessary cards in Standstill.
Yes, personal preference, but I'm a HUGE fan of having ten million good draw spells in a deck. In addition I wish for the blue card count to be at least 20, and even then I don't think that is enough. In the past few months UW Landstill has evolved into Mono-white control with a couple counters and a couple draw spells. This seems counter-intuitive to last year when I played UR or Uwr Landstill with 30+ blue cards in the deck. I frequently find myself with a FoW and no other blue cards in hand, this makes me feel like my deck is built very poorly and even when have another blue card in hand I never want to pitch it. Choices to pitch for FoW in most current builds right now are: FoF, Standstill, Brainstorm, Counterspell and other Forces. I don't know about you, but I never really want to pitch ANY of those to Force of Will.

For any given matchup some cards are stronger than others. Well, when choosing what to ditch for Force ideally I'd like to pitch whatever is a dead card in the matchup. I wish I could toss WoG/Moat in the High tide matchup but I can't because there are SO damn many white cards in the deck. I'd like to brainstorm for the dead card and pitch it to force rather than have to ditch the brainstorm itself because most likely Brainstorm won't find me the dead BLUE card in the matchup. I want to have 2 FoWs in my hand and have it mean that I can tap out and have 2 counters up, not just one because I have to pitch force to itself. In Zvi's tournament report from Gencon he mentioned having to FoW twice on turn 2 to prevent a survival from resolving. Well, with only 17 blue cards total in the deck that seems extremely highly unlikely that he'd have 2 forces AND 2 othe blue cards to pitch. In 99.9% of games that just doesn't happen.


Plus even my pal Zvi (who is not really my pal, but I like to pretend we are on a first name basis) thinks FoF is unnesscessary... not that his word is gold or anything.
If FoF is unnescessary then what blue card can replace it? Every time I cast FoF it practically wins me the game. The only downside to FoF is the 4 mana casting cost.
I agree with the FoF thing. FoF Wins Mirrors. The card has a great digging power, and ends games really fast.

Currently, I'm running 19 Blue cards, plus FoW. I have always ran 3 FoF, hoping to make space for 4, because of so many Mirrors in my meta...

I have had the same problems you did. Can't being able to find a Card to Pitch to FoW. Among all the Games I played, I pitched FoF like twice in my lifetime, Standstill dozen of times, a lot on another FoW, and a lot on Counterspell, and the most of the things I ptich; Brainstorm...

[lyle h]

I was just wondering why you would be playing Moat, when we now have access to a tool that I think is better than Moat, Reverance. It still lets your own creatures attack while still shutting down Joblin decks . It doesnt shut down some of the other agro decks, but landstill can already deal with many of those and Reverance will atleast slow them down.

[LinkXwing]

I was just wondering why you would be playing Moat, when we now have access to a tool that I think is better than Moat, Reverance. It still lets your own creatures attack while still shutting down Joblin decks . It doesnt shut down some of the other agro decks, but landstill can already deal with many of those and Reverance will atleast slow them down.
In most situations when you would play Moat/Reverence the opponent does have critters on the board, generally lots of them. In these situations which happen alot, why would you want to attack with a factory?

When would wanting to attack with a factory like that outweigh the advantages of having moat shut down 90% of random aggro decks too. Not that Landstill has a bad matchup against random aggro but I like having a single card that says "I win" when resolved against RGSA, Suicide, Burn/Sligh's critters, 1/2 of fish decks, 80% of the critters in Gro decks, Elves and other random crap.

Besides the price of Moat (which is considerable), I really don't see where Reverence is better than Moat.

[lyle h]

It just appears to me that after you play a wrath, Moat considerably hinders your ability to start swinging with factories to end the game.

.......Ok wow, I just realized you are not playing Wrath, sooo, that makes sense and it makes me feel a lot stupider for not noticing that.

[Bryant Cook]

Has anyone considered MD humilty yet? I know it's not as powerful as moat but it sure as hell ruins goblins. Shut's down there whole deck so they can't sharpshooter/ siege gang commander you out. This was just a thought due to moat being expensive, and Teferi's Moat being extremely crappy. Also why not take a different route with landstill make it an E.tutor friendly deck, humilty, reverance, cruicible, standstill, maybe moblization over decree (just a thought becuase you can tutor for it.) Landstill needs to change for the better since the deck lost it's dominance, lets look for a new way to revive it instead of adding 1-2 cards to the deck.

[LinkXwing]

When discussing attempting to find an optimal decklist, honestly, we need to ignore a cards cash value. Now, Humility, Reverance and other such cards may prove to be actually better than Moat after considerable playtesting and certainly cards like those may easily be excellent replacements for Moat if Moat indeed does turn out to belong in this deck. People can substitute Adarkar Wastes or other such cards if they can't afford a playset of Tundras and fetchlands. In those cases replacements work, you just are playing a sub-optimal deck until you can get your hands on the real thing.

The idea is simply to find the optimal decklist for the current metagame in all circumstances.

Now, as for your suggestions, Elightened Tutor has been tried and dismissed several pages/threads/months ago, not to say it doesn't warrent more testing/discussion. Some people liked Enlightened Tutor, most dismissed it. The problem I see with E. Tutor is that even though it provides nice silver bullets, the idea is that we are playing a control deck that wins through slow, grinding actual and virtual card advantage. I see the mirage tutors as great cards for combo-esque decks, but Landstill in it's nature is built on redundency and that grinding card advantage to find the specific answer it needs at any given time.

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

@Wasted Life. Haha, actually I have tried MD Humility in one of my most recent landstill builds. You are very right about it hurting goblins. Not to mention it is nice against Survival decks. My current build doesn't run Humility and it runs more board removal. For some reason, i was still getting overrun even when Humility was in play, and also, with enough board removal, I can beat goblins either way and the board removal cards Ie.) disk,vengeance,wrath are also very good in other matchups. I am still currently testing builds with Hummility in it though.

[midnightAce]

I agree with LinkXwing that money should not be a consideration when it comes to finding the optimal list. However, there is something I would like to point out:

While Reverence and Moat serves idential functions, Humility is quite different. While it does not "lock out" Goblins, it does slow them down considerable via the removal of Matron and Ringleader's come into play abilities, and Warchief's haste. It also allows for Factory to swing, (whether as a 1/1 or 2/2, I'm waiting on some huge rule's clearification, everything just seem screwy after they changed the layer system.) and most of all it prevents "combo win" via Seige-gang or Sharpshooter, something that both Moat and Reverence cannot do. So it should be tested throughly before dismissing it as a cheap sub for Moat.

[LinkXwing]

I agree, Humility is slightly different in function than Moat and Reverence and should be tested.

In the playtest games I had with goblins when Moat hit the board Goblins only option was to go disenchant it (only post SB) and go for the sharpshooter/SCG plan. Keep in mind though that the 'combo' plan for gobs is now very difficult to achieve for them because gobs now doesn't pack Skirk prospector which means they run out of mana for SCG real quick and most likely don't have enough mana to kill you the instand SCG is dropped into play, therefore it gives Landstill an oppotunity to Swords it even if it was Vialed in.

With Moat in play and knowing this was goblins only win condition left I just changed my gameplan accordingly and eventually got the HUGE DoJ off for the win alot faster than they could draw into SCG and vial it in with 10 million mana open.

[Whit3 Ghost]

What really stomps goblins is running Ghostly Prison/Propaganda in the main, backed up with spot and mass removal. My friend who played MWC did that to me. I tried to wait it out and just go Sharpshooter/Seige Bang but a Wrath just made me pick it up.

[LinkXwing]

Ok, if he had Wrath AND Ghostly Prison MD, what did he cut?

[LinkXwing]

This seemed more relevant in this thread:

Sorry, LinkXwing, I did saw your list in the Landstill thread, your list was one of the ones that I liked very much, because it ignored money issues, added the Moat, and went straight for what should be done, and that is protecting the mana base.

However, the problem I have with ALL enchantment based answers is the fear of Disenchant/Naturlize. It breaks down to the following:

Assume you got Ported and Wasted, finally manage to cast a Wrath on turn... 6. The only possible way they can kill you is Warchief + Piledriver or some combination of Goblins, or Ringleader to refill the hand.

Now the same situation applies, finally cast a Moat on turn 6. Probably tapped out by then, if not, Ported out, a timely Disenchant pretty much seals the game unless you have a FoW to back that up. That's my beef with enchantments as opposed to Instants and Soceries. Enchantments can be killed... and they have bad interaction with Vengeance and Disk.
Keep in mind they still have no answer to it game 1. In game 2 this becomes much more relevant. However, in game 2 I side in 4 Sphere of Law against gobs so they now have 8 enchantments to disenchant/naturalize/anarchy away. Also against Gobs and most ground based aggro decks Moat is a catch all answer. Now, Disk and/or Vengence has exactly 0 synergy with enchantments but when the enchantment has already hit the board you've won the game. All 8 of your counters go towards protecting that enchantment because they can't win with it on the board. All the card draw and dig in the deck goes towards finding and resolving that catch all answer. I really don't waste my counters (especially FoW) on anything short of a lethal swing from a recently cast Warchief in game 2 because I have 8 copies of a card that simply win me the game.

Also keep in mind Goblins must top deck every disenchant effect it has. Their draw engine, though powerful can't find the cards they need to break out of my 'lock'. I have 14 card drawing effects to find my 4-8 enchantments. After a Wrath effect, gobs still have 30 cards left in the deck to kill you. After a Moat they have 2-4 preboard and 2-4 + 4 disenchant effects to your 8 counters. By the numbers any way you cut it Moat seems like an infinitely better card that wrath against Goblins.

To sum up and answer your question, when I do cast Moat early game turns 4-6, yes I do tap out, but in the vast majority of games I do have FoW back up becasue off all my draw and not wasting it on the early gobs/vials plus by that time they only have a 50% chance or so to have the disenchant effect.

[cupajoe]

I'm certainly not a Landstill expert, and this might be heresy to suggest, but I was wondering about the high casting costs of Decree of Justice and Akroma's Vengeance.....

Everybody always complains about this deck being too slow for goblins.....

What about

-3 Akroma
-2 Decree

+3 Propaganda
+2 Blinding Angel

I know Blinding is an unconventional choice, but once it hits, and attacks for the first time, that shuts your Goblins/Random Aggro opponent down big time.....It's basically like a neverending Wrath because they don't ever get an attack phase....Plus it helps you win.....

Just some food for thought.....

[scrumdogg]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Blinding Angel is 5 mana (WW3) for a 2/4 flyer, that becomes active on Turn 6...just Like Akroma's Vengeance...except it doesn't actually destroy anything, can be Sparksmithed, Gempalmed, Siege Ganged away and suffers the same double white problem that all of Landstill's spells seem to have versus a modern goblins build running Wastelands and Rishadan Ports. It is an interesting idea, but doesn't seem particularly viable. Propaganda (instead of Ghostly Prison to keep the blue card count up?) seems like a much better idea, especially since it is cheaper (therefore easier to cast, with only a single colored mana), permanent, and not removable Game 1. Removing actual win conditions, though, seems like a poor plan.

[URABAHN]

@LinkXWing - How is Teferi's Reponse working for you? I was thinking something along the same lines to protect vs. Wasteland.

Has anyone here tried 3 or more Stifle in the maindeck? Stifle seems like a good counter to Wasteland, works against Storm, stops the Goblin Ringleader effect, and counters the "X" effect in DoJ.

The problem I'm having against aggro is getting to 4 mana. Sinkhole, Wasteland, and Rishadan Port all keep me under that 4 mana flashpoint. Landstill has answers to Sinkhole and Port, but nothing for Wasteland. Is Stifle a good answer?

[Jesus]

@, URABAHN: I tried Duece stifle in the maindeck... It's a good hardcounter in many ways it takes out Fetch lands. WasteLands and yes Brainstorm and come into play effects that give your opponet card advantage, However i like disenchant maindeck more.

I'm curious however i've been testing saccred ground over Response.. I'm not sure what everone else think's drop me some feedback.

[LinkXwing]

@LinkXWing - How is Teferi's Reponse working for you? I was thinking something along the same lines to protect vs. Wasteland.
Response has been working great. However I actually wanted to test a build with Stifle in it's place and also a build with both. I love having both in the deck but that really cuts into our sweepers and other white cards (which may be a good thing). Though in Landstill's original incarnations for 1.5 back in late 2003 all builds were running 3-4 stifle and 3 response MD. Response at best destroys a Port and at worst counters creature removal aimed at Conclaves and Mishra's Factory. However, like standstill itself, Response can only be used when your opponent wants you to use it.

Also, when it comes to Stifle, I like it and always have. It's universally useful and there are ALWAYS targets for it, but it always seems underpowered to me and this is why most people started cutting it from the deck to begin with.

[cupajoe]

OK, obviously Blinding Angel was a bad idea, but what about taking out Akroma's Vengeance and putting in 3 Propaganda.....

If you get a Propaganda before Moat, you can use it to stall out your opponent long enough to get a Moat.....If you get it after Moat is in play, it would be good FOW food

Plus, you're replacing 6-casting cost cards with 3-casting cost cards....

As far as Moat goes, it's a great card and all, but what about decks that play with flying creatures?.....Maybe they're not enough of a concern, but I'm just wondering what people have experienced....

[scrumdogg]

What decks playing flying creatures concern you? They would have to be either blazingly fast or extremely redundant to overwhelm your STPs, Wraths, Eternal Dragons, Decree Angel tokens and possibly Exalted out of the board. Some Fishy type deck might qualify, but don't they have almost as much trouble with Goblins as Landstill? Landstill (the U/W models anyway) seems ideally poised to take advantage of Moat with flyers & board control. Ironically it would make Conclaves more relevant again after their long fall from grace.... The only concern is again acquiring (for many of us) a set of Moats.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

So I caved in and decided to fix Landstill, despite the fact that I prefer playing and working on Rabid Wombat. Flames deleted---Frogboy


Anyway, here's the decklist;

Lands
8 Island
4 Flooded Strand
5 Plains
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Tundra

Spells
4 Wrath of God
2 Dismantling Blow
3 Teferi's Response
3 Decree of Justice
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Humility
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm

You'll notice a number of things about this list

- The mana base doesn't suck. A lot more basics and colored sources. This is inherently tied in with the fact that;

- There's no Crucible. Don't get me wrong, Crucible is a strong card. But what happened with Landstill is that people ended up fucking over their mana bases and running terrible lands just to justify running it. It also doesn't answer Port, which brings us to;

- Teferi's Response is back. The time is right for the card. It's good against most decks right now except Solidarity, which you have to sb heavily against anyway. It also brings the Blue count up to 19 without having to resort to crap like Fact or Fiction or other late game shit that you can't really afford to fit in if you want to beat Goblins.

- More DoJ. Hell, up it to four if you want. DoJ is the best manland ever invented.

- Humility is maindecked. You should've been doing this before. On top of the new rules interactions with manlands, there's no good reason at all not to maindeck this card.

- Dismantling Blow is better than Disenchant. Welcome to the world of drawing cards.

- Eternal Dragon. No, I love the Dragon, I just couldn't fit it in. And I'm not going to run 61 cards like some bad New York player or something. Alack.

- No Akroma's Vengeance. See above. Plus it has negative interactions with Humility, although if I were to take this to a tournament I'd definitely side at least 2x Vengeance.


And that's all. If you still lose to Goblins with this build, you're just a bad player.



Edited By frogboy on 1132100733

[LinkXwing]

Ok, great. You've fixed the gobs matchup. Now for the hard part. You need to fix the High Tide/Storm matchup too.

EDIT: The presideboard matchup.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Ok, great. You've fixed the gobs matchup. Now for the hard part. You need to fix the High Tide/Storm matchup too.

EDIT: The presideboard matchup.
Why? The deck has always had trouble with Solidarity. There's no way to fix this and keep the deck intact in other matchups, and Solidarity isn't that prevalent anyway. Goblins, on the other hand, is everywhere, and should be a favorable matchup.

[AnwarA101]

Ok, great. You've fixed the gobs matchup. Now for the hard part. You need to fix the High Tide/Storm matchup too.

EDIT: The presideboard matchup.

I like the new list I would liek to see stifle main though.
Though Terefi's Response is an amazing card, its still fairly narrow. I think it should be cut for Stifle. Stifle can still protect against Wasteland, but at same time can hit so many other things including the Storm Mechanic - which affects Solidarity. Though itsn't that effective against Solidarity if they have gone off - it still helps if they are only able to Brain Freeze for just enough cards.

[Zilla]

I brought the exact same point up to IBA on AIM when he first showed me the list. He claims that he's tested both and that Response is better. The argument goes that Response keeps your Factories alive against creature removal, where Stifle doesn't, and it draws you a card. I still like Stifle's versatility myself, but it doesn't cantrip and it doesn't protect your win conditions from all threats. so it's a tough call.

[URABAHN]

- There's no Crucible. Don't get me wrong, Crucible is a strong card. But what happened with Landstill is that people ended up fucking over their mana bases and running terrible lands just to justify running it. It also doesn't answer Port, which brings us to;

- More DoJ. Hell, up it to four if you want. DoJ is the best manland ever invented.

- Dismantling Blow is better than Disenchant. Welcome to the world of drawing cards.
Exactly how did people fuck over their mana bases? Which lands do you consider terrible? Doesn't recurring Wasteland seems like a good answer for Port?

Speaking of good answers, how is DoJ a good answer for Goblins? 5 mana to create 2 soldier tokens that have to answer to Sharpshooter, Mogg Fanatic, Gempalm, Bolt, and Gang-Bang tokens. I've enough trouble getting to 4 mana against Goblins, much less 5 and I've been considering cutting DoJ because it only seems good in the mirror and vs. Wombat. What am I missing here?

If 4 and 5 mana is difficult to reach, then so is 6 for Dismantling Blow.

To make room for Teferi's Response, I might just start with your suggestion and cut Crucible, but I'm concerned that weakens your non-aggro matchups too much.

[Slay]

Dismantling Blow is a horrible idea. Consider this mental exercise. You're on the draw, with a Blow in hand. Your opponent casts a turn 2 Survival. You play a land and pass. Your opponent goes Anger-> Rofellos and gets whatever the hell he wants. He passes. You play Blow. He gets Witness in response. How lovely did that Disenchant look now?

In fact, I don't think there is a single situation where you shouldn't already be winning that D-Blow is better than Disenchant.
-Slay

[LinkXwing]

Why? The deck has always had trouble with Solidarity. There's no way to fix this and keep the deck intact in other matchups, and Solidarity isn't that prevalent anyway. Goblins, on the other hand, is everywhere, and should be a favorable matchup.
Because your 'new' Landstill deck is Wombat with counters. What are the counters good for anyway if it doesn't help against combo and control matchups then? If Wombat can smash everything but combo and Landstill has the same mathups, but a little worse because we have to run 2 colors, why are we even playing blue to begin with?

I'll tell you why. Because counters are actually supposed to help deal with crap that StP, disenchant and Humility can't deal with. Stuff such as...I don't know...high tide maybe? Belcher? Flashfires? Tendrils of Agony? Massive card advantage from the opponent from FoF, Deep Analysis, Thirst for Knowledge, Meditate, Flash of Insight, Intuition, AK, Scepter-chant and other such things.

All your build of neo Landstill/Wombat is doing is making Wombat vulnerable to REB.

I can easily make a build of Landstill that will kick the shit out of Solidarity. It would include 4 Counterspell, 4 Force of Will, 4 Mana Leak, some force spikes and a combination of Arcane Lab, REB and Orim's chant in the sideboard. Guess what though? That isn't gonna hold up in a varied meta game and would get smashed by Goblins, survival varients and mirror matches.

We need a Landstill deck that will deal with Gobs AND Solidarity AND RGSA AND ATS AND AND Wombat AND Tendrils Combo/Belcher AND Burn. Not just 1 or two of them. Sure, all decks are allowed to have a bad matchup or two, but if we want Landstill at tier 1 it really can't have a bad matchup against more than 2 of those decks and preferable only have a bad matchup against 1 of them.

[AnwarA101]

We need a Landstill deck that will deal with Gobs AND Solidarity AND RGSA AND ATS AND AND Wombat AND Tendrils Combo/Belcher AND Burn. Not just 1 or two of them. Sure, all decks are allowed to have a bad matchup or two, but if we want Landstill at tier 1 it really can't have a bad matchup against more than 2 of those decks and preferable only have a bad matchup against 1 of them.
I think you are being fairly unreasonable. The cards that make you good against Goblins will neccessarily make you bad against Solidarity. The reason for this is that the two decks have almost nothing in common. The fact that Wrath of God is amazing against Goblins gives you nothing against Solidarity. If you played a more control oriented version with Mana leaks and more countermagic this would make you worse versus Goblins that resolved especially those on turns 1 and 2. You can't have your cake and eat it too! You have to make tradeoffs, if there were some cards that were amazing against both decks don't you think that everyone would be playing them.

As a side note, I think Stifle is probably the only card that is actually good against both decks. Playing Stifle on a Ringleader, Matron, or Siege-Gang is very good. As is stilfling a fetch land against Solidarity (and if you draw it too late against Brain Freeze.)

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Why? The deck has always had trouble with Solidarity. There's no way to fix this and keep the deck intact in other matchups, and Solidarity isn't that prevalent anyway. Goblins, on the other hand, is everywhere, and should be a favorable matchup.
Because your 'new' Landstill deck is Wombat with counters. What are the counters good for anyway if it doesn't help against combo and control matchups then? If Wombat can smash everything but combo and Landstill has the same mathups, but a little worse because we have to run 2 colors, why are we even playing blue to begin with?

I'll tell you why. Because counters are actually supposed to help deal with crap that StP, disenchant and Humility can't deal with. Stuff such as...I don't know...high tide maybe? Belcher? Flashfires? Tendrils of Agony? Massive card advantage from the opponent from FoF, Deep Analysis, Thirst for Knowledge, Meditate, Flash of Insight, Intuition, AK, Scepter-chant and other such things.

All your build of neo Landstill/Wombat is doing is making Wombat vulnerable to REB.

I can easily make a build of Landstill that will kick the shit out of Solidarity. It would include 4 Counterspell, 4 Force of Will, 4 Mana Leak, some force spikes and a combination of Arcane Lab, REB and Orim's chant in the sideboard. Guess what though? That isn't gonna hold up in a varied meta game and would get smashed by Goblins, survival varients and mirror matches.

We need a Landstill deck that will deal with Gobs AND Solidarity AND RGSA AND ATS AND AND Wombat AND Tendrils Combo/Belcher AND Burn. Not just 1 or two of them. Sure, all decks are allowed to have a bad matchup or two, but if we want Landstill at tier 1 it really can't have a bad matchup against more than 2 of those decks and preferable only have a bad matchup against 1 of them.

So in other words, you want a deck that beats every other deck in the metagame pre-board.

Stop wasting my time.

I merely provided a version of Landstill that worked by cutting extraneous crap that had grown up around the deck. It's a simplification. It still beats all kinds of combo because of the counterspells. It's not Wombat at all in that regard. But it's still going to lose to a competent Solidarity player. Nothing will fix that that also fixes the Goblins match. Live with it.





Dismantling Blow is a horrible idea. Consider this mental exercise. You're on the draw, with a Blow in hand. Your opponent casts a turn 2 Survival. You play a land and pass. Your opponent goes Anger-> Rofellos and gets whatever the hell he wants. He passes. You play Blow. He gets Witness in response. How lovely did that Disenchant look now?

In fact, I don't think there is a single situation where you shouldn't already be winning that D-Blow is better than Disenchant.
-Slay

Consider the following scenario

- It's any other point in the game.
- No one plays Survival
- And as a 2x, second turn Disenchant is going to be rare at any rate.

Two-ofs aren't "I will draw these exactly when they're useful" cards unless your name is Mark Perez. They're there for mid-to-late game cards. And frankly, I could give a shit less about Survival anyway. The deck will beat the crap out of Survival regardless. Dismantling Blow is better because late game is double-cantrips, finding you more answers.



Exactly how did people fuck over their mana bases? Which lands do you consider terrible? Doesn't recurring Wasteland seems like a good answer for Port?

Speaking of good answers, how is DoJ a good answer for Goblins? 5 mana to create 2 soldier tokens that have to answer to Sharpshooter, Mogg Fanatic, Gempalm, Bolt, and Gang-Bang tokens. I've enough trouble getting to 4 mana against Goblins, much less 5 and I've been considering cutting DoJ because it only seems good in the mirror and vs. Wombat. What am I missing here?

If 4 and 5 mana is difficult to reach, then so is 6 for Dismantling Blow.

To make room for Teferi's Response, I might just start with your suggestion and cut Crucible, but I'm concerned that weakens your non-aggro matchups too much.
Wasteland seems less good than Responses against Port, to be honest. And it only relies on drawing the Response, rather than the Crucible + Wasteland.

I consider any deck that wants UU, 2WW, and then runs 8 colorless sources of mana and four lands that come into play tapped to have a fucked-over mana base.

DoJ is actually decent against Goblins, but mainly it's just a better "manland" under Standstill than any of the other options. It's not specifically for Goblins, just a very strong card all around.

Four or five mana is not difficult to get to in my version of Landstill.



Edited By TheInfamousBearAssasin on 1130355747

[Slay]

Can you give me a single other scenario where Dismantling Blow is better? It would have to be:

Late game, board position is equal or a little bit worse, you have nothing better to do with 6 mana. In every single other scenario Disenchant is better. There is not a single artifact/enchantment that you fear that doesn't make an effect within the first several turns, other than Time Vault or Illusions. And even then, their draw engine is better and they have more countermagic. And you've jsut left yourself with less mana open because you're playing more expensive spells. It's difficult to fend off Jittes and Goblins at the same time as it is, no need to give them any more advantages.

Just because your matchup with Survival is better than decent is no reason to sabotage the matchup. Playing 3x Humility doesn't mean you can always have it against a Survival deck, especially since ATS has counterspells too. It also means that if they get Survival going, and you don't have Humility, you will lose. Disenchant stops that. Disenchant is a better card. If oyu have 6 mana to kill their Survival with, you've probably already won, or already lost. 2 cards won't make a difference, and 3 extra mana means they kick your ass with a Mana Leak.
-Slay

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Can you give me a single other scenario where Dismantling Blow is better? It would have to be:

Late game, board position is equal or a little bit worse, you have nothing better to do with 6 mana. In every single other scenario Disenchant is better. There is not a single artifact/enchantment that you fear that doesn't make an effect within the first several turns, other than Time Vault or Illusions. And even then, their draw engine is better and they have more countermagic. And you've jsut left yourself with less mana open because you're playing more expensive spells. It's difficult to fend off Jittes and Goblins at the same time as it is, no need to give them any more advantages.

Just because your matchup with Survival is better than decent is no reason to sabotage the matchup. Playing 3x Humility doesn't mean you can always have it against a Survival deck, especially since ATS has counterspells too. It also means that if they get Survival going, and you don't have Humility, you will lose. Disenchant stops that. Disenchant is a better card. If oyu have 6 mana to kill their Survival with, you've probably already won, or already lost. 2 cards won't make a difference, and 3 extra mana means they kick your ass with a Mana Leak.
-Slay
Jitte can't get active before turn 3, and that's only if they have both a Vial and a one drop to go along with it. Equipment in general is a turn slow enough that Dismantling Blow's extra mana will rarely make a difference there. At every other situation it is better, as it draws more cards to answer further threats in the late game. Control doesn't play where it has lots of cards that let it tap at each turn late game, and so the extra three mana on Dismantling Blow is a huge burden. Late game you often have nothing better to do with that mana, but given the choice between going 1-for-1, or going 3-for-1, you generally want the latter.

You also overrate the deadliness of an active Survival. I've let decks get Survival active before without Humility and still beaten them, because Survival is slow, and it only grabs creatures, who ultimately aren't that scary.

[midnightAce]

Are we all forgetting that DB can be cast regularly for just 1 more mana than Disenchant? There is normally very little difference between turn 2 Disenchant and turn 3 Disenchant. (Other than answering first turn Vial.) Don't get too hanged up on the whole "if I don't play kicker, it's bad" notion.

The list obviously is not perfect, but what IBA has done is something that a lot of us has been saying for the past few month.

Step away from the high white count, back to blue, back to verstile counters and multi purpose cards like Stifle and Response. Essentially, IBA's version draws more cards than any other current Landstill, and it has a more stable mana base than any other Landstill lists. Those two are positive facts that we should be concentrating on. Disenchant vs DB and such are just personal preferences.

Put that aside for now, see if we can fit in 2-3 Response AND 2-3 Stifles, because I believe that will help Landstill greatly. Stifle has application against both Gob and Solidarity, while Response has application against Waste, Port, StP, Disenchant, and every other creature spot removal under the sun. They'll also keep the blue count high, ensuring FoW at the most critical times.

And after all that, before we go on bashing individual card choices, let's test it on MWS first, if it does indeed improve Gob match, then we isolate the cause, Resposne doing its job? Stifle doing its job? Humility doing its job? Then let's go from there.

[Slay]

Can you give me a single other scenario where Dismantling Blow is better? It would have to be:

Late game, board position is equal or a little bit worse, you have nothing better to do with 6 mana. In every single other scenario Disenchant is better. There is not a single artifact/enchantment that you fear that doesn't make an effect within the first several turns, other than Time Vault or Illusions. And even then, their draw engine is better and they have more countermagic. And you've jsut left yourself with less mana open because you're playing more expensive spells. It's difficult to fend off Jittes and Goblins at the same time as it is, no need to give them any more advantages.

Just because your matchup with Survival is better than decent is no reason to sabotage the matchup. Playing 3x Humility doesn't mean you can always have it against a Survival deck, especially since ATS has counterspells too. It also means that if they get Survival going, and you don't have Humility, you will lose. Disenchant stops that. Disenchant is a better card. If oyu have 6 mana to kill their Survival with, you've probably already won, or already lost. 2 cards won't make a difference, and 3 extra mana means they kick your ass with a Mana Leak.
-Slay
Jitte can't get active before turn 3, and that's only if they have both a Vial and a one drop to go along with it. Equipment in general is a turn slow enough that Dismantling Blow's extra mana will rarely make a difference there. At every other situation it is better, as it draws more cards to answer further threats in the late game. Control doesn't play where it has lots of cards that let it tap at each turn late game, and so the extra three mana on Dismantling Blow is a huge burden. Late game you often have nothing better to do with that mana, but given the choice between going 1-for-1, or going 3-for-1, you generally want the latter.

You also overrate the deadliness of an active Survival. I've let decks get Survival active before without Humility and still beaten them, because Survival is slow, and it only grabs creatures, who ultimately aren't that scary.
Not at every other situation it's better. When you have to kill a Vial/Jitte/Survival/x and maintain countermana, or activate a Factory to block, the extra mana is incredibly relevant. Landstill already has difficulty surviving the early game, no need to make it harder.

Again, I'll say it. If there's any time in the game when you have 6 mana to burn and there's not any better things you can do with your mana, you've already won. The card is simply a bad card that's only good when it's win-more. The only time I can think of that the ability is actually relevant in the lategame is with something like Cursed Scroll.
-Slay

[kirdape3]

That last list is about what I had when I stopped and rebuilt Landstill to make it not awful. I still had Eternal Dragons in the list, though, where the Teferi's Responses are in this one. Who cares if they blow away your Factories when you can just overload them with a Decree for a billion?

[Mhough]

So Link just a question here. How exactly is your list any better verses solidarity than IBA's? Seriously I don't even understand why you're so diligent about degrading his list when yours isn't very different except for the humility being moat which is actually only really good against Goblins whereas humility is good against many decks.

[LinkXwing]

So in other words, you want a deck that beats every other deck in the metagame pre-board.

Stop wasting my time.
Yes! The entire idea of a deck sitting at the top of a tier structure by definition means that it beats almost everything with decent matchup percentages with very few 50/50s and only 1-2 unfavorable matchups. Is it too much to ask from the best deck of the format? That's what we are trying to make correct?

Goblins fits this criteria. Solidarity currently fits this criteria. Why do we expect less of Landstill? If the deck physically cannot achieve this goal, then it cannot be tier 1.

Let's keep all the discussion civil from all users---Frogboy


So Link just a question here. How exactly is your list any better verses solidarity than IBA's? Seriously I don't even understand why you're so diligent about degrading his list when yours isn't very different except for the humility being moat which is actually only really good against Goblins whereas humility is good against many decks.
Both lists seem to be very good against goblins. Like IBA, I created a list that specifically would hose gobs just to see if it was possible. It was and goblins got crushed.

The next step is to maintain what was so good against goblins and still make it good vs. the decks other matchups. My list is in absolutely no way the end-all be-all of landstill lists that beats everything. It was just an experiment.



Edited By frogboy on 1132021113

[URABAHN]

These are the following things I see in IBA's build:

Wasteland cut for Basic Lands. Faerie Conclave cut for Basic Lands. From what I can see of IBA's version, DoJ becomes much better since there's more land in the deck.

No Crucible, No Dragon. That leaves 4 copies of a win condition in your deck. Doesn't that seem rather fragile?

Swap Disenchant for Dismantling blow. One more mana for a Disenchant effect doesn't seem to make a bit of difference (unless you're playing against STAX).

Add Teferi's Response and another DoJ. Will 3 Teferi's Response and your other counters be enough to stop Sharpshooter, Mogg Fanatic, Gempalm, Bolt, and Siege-Gang?

[Mhough]

Aside from md stifle I really don't see how to improve Landstills matchup against Solidarity game 1 and maintain a good matchup w/ Goblins. Although I'd really like to find a build that is good against both it just doesn't seem as though there isn't a way to make one matchup better w/o weakening another one.
The only think I can think of is improving the win condition to actually put pressure on the solidarity player instead of them having a ton of turns to sculpt their hand before having to go off.

[midnightAce]

These are the following things I see in IBA's build:

Wasteland cut for Basic Lands. Faerie Conclave cut for Basic Lands. From what I can see of IBA's version, DoJ becomes much better since there's more land in the deck.

No Crucible, No Dragon. That leaves 4 copies of a win condition in your deck. Doesn't that seem rather fragile?

Swap Disenchant for Dismantling blow. One more mana for a Disenchant effect doesn't seem to make a bit of difference (unless you're playing against STAX).

Add Teferi's Response and another DoJ. Will 3 Teferi's Response and your other counters be enough to stop Sharpshooter, Mogg Fanatic, Gempalm, Bolt, and Siege-Gang?
Technically, there is 7 win conditions, 4 Factory and 3 DoJ. If game one for some reason all your kill condition gets obliterated (pun intended), then side in some Angels and the additional DoJ, that usually will help with the kill condition count, but most of the time, 7 is really enough.

Please note that the inclusion of Teferi's Reponse here has 2 functions:
a) bump up blue count for FoW;
b) protect the Landstill mana base until a Wrath is being ready to cast, and then protect the Factories.

No, response will not be able to deal with all these things you have said, but Wrath and Humility will, getting those resolved is the problem, and the problem originates from 4 Wasteland and 4 Ports. Response fights that problem, and Stifle does too, that's why I'm personally advocating 2-3 Response AND 2-3 Stifles mainboard.

PS. Response draws TWO cards, countering a turn 2 Wasteland on draw has the equalvelent card advantage as an Ancestral Recall. :cool:

[MasterBlaster]

Against goblins has anyone here tested maze of ith?

Pros-Holds back opponents best creature until you have a permanent answer.
Forces them to overcommit to the board, making wraths more powerful.

Cons-Slows down mass removal 1 turn.
Wasteland hits it.

I've had a U/W Landstill play a Maze of Ith against my AngelStompy. It easily threw the game into Landstill's favor. Might be good against goblins as well.

[kimberley]

I have revived the UR Landstill thread (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2674) ... if anyone is interested. :)

[scrumdogg]

Goblins runs Wasteland and Rishadan Port...neither Maze of Ith nor Quicksand will be of much utility against them. The reason it was good against Angel Stompy was the lack of mana disruption inherent in the accepted version of the deck.

[B is for Big Job]

Goblins runs Wasteland and Rishadan Port...neither Maze of Ith nor Quicksand will be of much utility against them. The reason it was good against Angel Stompy was the lack of mana disruption inherent in the accepted version of the deck.
True, but quicksand can help out with goblins, if they dont have a port in play. Its just basically ~play this land, kill target goblin~ giving more removal instead of just swords and WoG.

Maze on the other hand is something that is probably not worth playing since it doesnt add mana and its just begging to be tapped down or blown away with wasteland.

[scrumdogg]

Goblins runs Wasteland and Rishadan Port...neither Maze of Ith nor Quicksand will be of much utility against them. The reason it was good against Angel Stompy was the lack of mana disruption inherent in the accepted version of the deck.
True, but quicksand can help out with goblins, if they dont have a port in play. Its just basically ~play this land, kill target goblin~ giving more removal instead of just swords and WoG.

Maze on the other hand is something that is probably not worth playing since it doesnt add mana and its just begging to be tapped down or blown away with wasteland.
Sadly that is not the case or I would be advocating Quicksand in every deck whose mana base could support it....Quicksand can only take down an attacking creature. That means, in practical terms, that your opponent must A) not have a Wasteland or Rishadan Port B) be thick as a brick to attack into revealed removal or C) be baiting you into using it. I have been using Quicksand with Crucible of Worlds in several test versions of control decks and it has been just fine, except those decks were either heavier black or much heavier white with other significant cheap disruption elements. I don't believe that Landstill can A) support either Maze or Quicksand in it's current manabase nor B) does it provide enough additional cheap disruption to make them effective long game.

[MattH]

I have been using Quicksand with Crucible of Worlds in several test versions of control decks and it has been just fine, except those decks were either heavier black
If you're usiing Crucible with a black deck, Cabal Pit is probably much better than Quicksand.

[Dessyreqt]

Well, given the results of GP:Philly, I think red should be reintroduced to the DTB version of Landstill. Noah Long's GPT winner and Alex Lieberman's 10th place build both have red in them. Red seems important in two aspects: redundant quick removal, and good sideboard options (like REB and Pyroclasm.)

The removal such as Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice are never dead cards, but if you look at a lot of recent lists in this forum, you see decks full of 4xWrath and 4xSwords, some with other creature hosers such as Humility and Moat maindecked. This is not such a bad idea, but I think we're pushing it too far just to beat Goblins. I think we need a less anti-Goblins maindeck and a better sideboard plan in general. Red lets us do this, while still maintain a decent match against Goblins game one.

I think we should be more flexible in general. If you'll notice, Goblins was the only decklist out of our current DTBs (Goblins, Landstill, RGSA, and Solidarity) the made top 8 of GP:Philly. Everything else seemed to turn 4xWrath into overkill. (Humility, however, is a great idea.) Maybe it was just the players, but I would've liked to see my favorite deck in the Top 8. And it looks like the best shot we have at the next big event is a red splash.

[Zilla]

Do you happen to have access to the 10th place decklist? Was it U/R or U/R/W?

[Dessyreqt]

Straight from the GP: Philly coverage on the WotC website:

Alex Lieberman - Landstill
GP Philadelphia


Main Deck
60 cards
2 Volcanic Island
3 Plateau
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Faerie Conclave

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24 land


1 Decree of Justice
2 Wrath of God
1 Moat
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Standstill
1 Isochron Scepter
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Counterspell
3 Fire // Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
36 other spells


Sideboard
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Hydroblast
3 Pyroblast
1 Disenchant
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Cursed Totem
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Warmth
1 Rule of Law
1 Energy Flux

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15 sideboard cards

As you can see, it's UWr, and uses Enlightened Tutor for more of a toolbox approach. You'll also note it only has 3 Standstills, also probably due to the Tutors, although I'm going to be testing 3 Standstills in a version without. Personally, I've found it very handy to board out Standstills in favor of cards that decimate certain matchups, including Goblins. But that's just me.

Also, I don't like how the list contains absolutely zero basic lands. It got 10th by losing to the eventual winner, Vial Goblins with full Wastes and Ports.

[Deep6er]

Don't forget that I played against him too. I don't actually remember where I heard his name from but he was familiar to me when I played against him round 5 I think it was. Just one thing to note though, game 1 he plays Fact or Fiction at the end of my turn and I kill him with it. Game 2 he gets Rule of Law backed by double counterspell (which, looking at it now is really lucky since he didn't tutor it up). Game 3 he plays Fact or Fiction at the end of my turn again! Seriously, it killed you the first game, it might not be the best idea to do it now. I definitely think that may not have been a wise idea and am curious as to why he did that. I understand that it's difficult for Solidarity to go off on its own turn, but when you give them such a great target to Twincast, then perhaps it may not be the best idea. Anyway, if you can find Timothy Sutton's decklist, he gave me quite the issue round 3 of Day 2 and he was also playing U/r/W. It might be worth it to take a look at his decklist.

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

I also took landstill to GP Philly. I went 3-2-1 drop in day 1. I will take the time soon to put up my list with full match descriptions and card choices, but I basically ran the U/W version with 3 MD Stifle and 2MD Teferi's Responses. Similar to Lieberman's build, I only ran 3 Standstills. They seemed quite bad against Goblins which was said to be the heaviest deck there. With 3, I never really got them when I didn't want them. If they have vial out or other little red men, Standstill is really the last thing you want to draw unless u have wrath followed by standstill. My losses were to Goblins and Not Quite Gro. I also ran more basics than lieberman, and I cut conclave because it pretty much sucks against goblins and to be honest, I'm not a fan of it at all and I'm probably going to end up keeping conclave on the bench unless I see a reason to put it back in over the all so valuable basic lands. Again, I shall post in more detail later.

props
*Bacon buffet to kick off day 1
*Lots of hot cards and vendors willing to bargain
*Fellow Rochestarian Phil Stolze for taking home 900$ and an invite to Hawaii at 14th place.
*Sleeping on a bed
* FEEDING THE MONKEY!!!
*Meeting Ben Thompson
*Taking home half a box after splitting in the finals of 8-man for a box
* Finding my long lost twin brother.

slops
*Having the judges mess up my match points and then fixing them and i still got to play the same opponent, but then I still lost to the opponent who's record was alot worse than mine
*For leaving all of my leftovers from Chili's at the damn restaurant.
*Zach Fine not knowing the differences between instants and sorceries
* FEEDING THE MONKEY!!

[themaninnavyblue]

I have found that this card "teferis response". works better then stifle, because the only thing stifle is good for in landstill is to counter wastland and/or strip mine or dust bowl, but with teferis response you can draw 2 cards whilst countering those lands and even destroying them, teferis response is just better overall then stifle in a landstill deck, it can stop sword to plowshares, any kind of land destruction, and so on. for one more coloerless mana you can counter and stifle and draw 2 cards.

[Burnout]

I have found that this card "teferis response". works better then stifle, because the only thing stifle is good for in landstill is to counter wastland and/or strip mine or dust bowl, but with teferis response you can draw 2 cards whilst countering those lands and even destroying them, teferis response is just better overall then stifle in a landstill deck, it can stop sword to plowshares, any kind of land destruction, and so on. for one more coloerless mana you can counter and stifle and draw 2 cards.
Well I spendt some days to discuss this things out!
Against Goblins stifle is better (Goblin Ringleader, Matron, Goblin Incinerator, Wasteland, Port....)

Against Solidarity Stifle is better

Against Grow aka Threshold stifle is better (or at least the same way as teferi's response...)

Against Belcher Stifle is better............

Well I think stifle is one of the best Cards of this Format, but there are some situations i wish i would have Teferi's Response instead, but this situations are really rare.

[Slay]

A properly metagamed Landstill build should probably include both of them.
-Slay

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Both cards tend to have effects bigger than the card themselves, if played correctly. If you have on blue mana, people will tend to hold fetch-lands because of The Fear of Stifle. Similiarly, using a Port when you have to mana available becomes a dangerous move if they know you have Response. What I'm saying is you can get away with 2 of each, let's say, and they'll still function as more than 2 of's most of the time.

[Slay]

I think the proper configuration is 3x Stifle and 2x Response, since Stifle is useful against a whole lot of decks, and if you don't draw it soon enough, it will no longer be land destruction for U. It's also randomly awesome, and no one suspects it coming, since no one plays it. It's inconspicuous because it looks like a EOT Brainstorm. Also, some people just have good enough hands that they'll charge headfirst into Stifle because they can back it up.

The question is whether you can run this package and still maintain the optional goodies like the E-tutor toolbox or the Crucible/Waste jank or the red splash.
-Slay

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

Slay hit it right on the head. I have done testing with different combinations of stifle and response. 3x Stifle and 2x Response are what I currently run in my U/W Landstill build. Yesterday I got the deck into top 7 of "WIn Ed Fear's Lotus" tournament and alot of it was due to both Stifle and Response blindsiding the opponent across the face. I can't say how many times I Stifled fetches and stifled Lacky's ability to get an extra turn. I also smashed Matrons and Ringleaders with stifle. Response worked very well as well. Against wasteland it was very effective, especially when I tricked them into attempting to wasteland one of my lands. In one of my matches I actually secured a game by Responsing STP on my Factory. Overall, 3x Stifle and 2x Teferi's Response is happiness.

:D

Cheers.

[Tao]

Look here:

About Stifle (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2674)

Read everything about Stifle MD, and how it is good and stuff. Then ruin the deck by adding 4 Pyroclasm to the MB, because Clasm is such a "good" card. Then lose to Gobbos because they Ported your red Mana and complain about the deck and the bad luck.

[Whit3 Ghost]

Look, I got into an arguement on SCG over 'Clasm. In a field where at least 35% are playing Goblins, Clasm should be maindecked, at least in 2-3 copies. Zilla has said it before, R is much harder to be kept off of then WW. Honestly though, if you wan't to play URW(what I am working on) run Engineered Explosives.

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

run Engineered Explosives.
QFT. Seriously, this card is NUTS on a 1, 2, OR 3 drop VS gobbos (although, 2 is probably worst, nailing only piledriver), and an excellent drop on 1 or 2 VS gro. It takes out big mongooses, werebears, and mages, as well as dryads.

[Bryant Cook]

Why!?!?!? Did you play disk after rotation? naturalize, disenchant, and now needle. I'm aware that Engineered Explosives doesn't CIPT but still it has the same hate as disk. Now you don't want to tap 5 on your own turn to blow it either, so I don't want to hear but you can do it during the turn you play it. Test it I promise it will be awful I tried it when the format rotated.

[frogboy]

For clarity, I always found the problem with EE was it didn't kill the Lackey, Warchief, Piledriver draw. God help you if a Ringleader is in the mix, because then you have approximately zero good options.

[Lego]

I think you just lose to the Lackey, Warchief, Piledriver, Ringleader draw anyway. Throw in a vial, maybe some Wastelands and Ports, and we'll send it home. What's the sense in talking about God Hands?

But on a more serious note: How many first turn options does this deck actually have for Lackey? On the draw, I see two, on the play, I see three. I suppose that's 8 cards on the draw and 12 on the play to answer 4 cards in the opposing deck, but it still makes me sad. I'm going to go play Gro now. :(

[frogboy]

Well, if you go Wrath, Standstill on that draw they're reasonably kolded. Even if they have mana denial you can still stabilize from that position if you have a Plow. EE doesn't kill their entire team or turn one Lackey. That's the main issue.

[Whit3 Ghost]

KillerWhiteRabbit and I are testing EE in a build with more maindeck spot removal then what most landstill players are used to. Anyway, here's the list

4 brainstorm
4 standstill
2 FOF

4 Fire//Ice
4 STP
3 Engineered Explosives
2 pyroclasm
4 conterspll
4 FOW

2 crucible
2 DOJ
1 eternal dragon

1 mountain
1 plains
2 island
4 mishra's
4 waste
3 tundra
3 volcanic island
2 plateau
4 flooded strand

SB:
1 pyroclasm
3 phyrexian furnace
3 disenchant
3 sphere of law
2 pithing needle
3 BEB

[ISOCHRONIC_SCEPTER]

... Does anyone agree with me that Engineered Explosives is balls? I personally think the card doesn't deserve a slot in landstill at all. Even if you are running U/W/R. Whit3 Ghost: In my opinion you should replace Engineered Explosives with 3 Stifles. See, Engineered explosives can be a pain in the ass to set up, also... it only kills non-lands equal to the sunburst. I remember goblins running several 1,2,and 3 drops. I personally see disk as a better choice over EE because if you have any control utlity in your hand you should be able to set off a disk. Also think of the advantages stifle has over EE. EE is nice and all but it doesn't stop matron, or ringleaders ability for brokeness. Stifle can make your opponent feel like an idiot for casting a 3 mana 1/1 with no ability. I actually run U/W Landstill and I run Powder Keg in the board. It works really well against vials and lackeys until I can blow up a disk or a WOG. Perhaps your build does suit well with EE, but I'd be interested to see some results with the deck.

Cheers.

[quodo]

As you can see, from GP Lille, Landstill is not totally dead. One of my friends just finished last of the T8 with it, losing againt the winner, who also defeated him during day 1.

Here is his list :

Francois, Nicolas
UW Control

4 Tundra
2 Plains
3 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand

2 Exalted Angel

3 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
4 Fire/Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm
2 Moat
3 Decree of Justice


Sideboard :
2 Pulse of the Fields
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Sphere of Law

About sideboard choices : He told me he would have remove the 3XTormod's, and would have replaced them with Wrath of God, because it is much more lethal to Gro than trying to temporize it.

Now, I don't know for sure if his decklist is the best one, but he went 12/3 so it musn't be the worst one:D

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

Further testing has revealed to me (and probably white_Ghost) that EE isnt what we're looking for. I'm ready to admit that one.

@Quodo: I really like your friend's list, but have to say, why disk over wrath?

I haven't given up on the UWR idea, though. If we want to perhaps optimize this, let's at least start with a shell. I'll try to make this non-controvercial.

UWR landstill shell V1.0

4 STP
4 brainstorm
2 fact or fiction
4 counterspell
4 force of will
4 standstill
24 land

That's 46 cards. IN the other 14 slots, there needs to be mass removal, but the other slots are pretty open.

Mass removal:
Wrath of god (requires a white-heavy manabase)
Akroma's Vengence (slow as death)
Pyroclasm (narrow...)
Disk (easily neutered)
EE (easily neutered, as well as narrow)
Earthquake (this might not suck. more on it in a second)
starstorm (requires RR)
Moat (I suppose this counts. Still, easily neutered, and WW cost)

That's about all I can think of for mass removal at the moment. Now, earthquake. Why don't we use this card? It can sewwp gobbos board turn 3, we can play angels, it essentially goes to the dome against combo. Only problem, it's a sorcery. But so are everything else listed here. I know I'm going to consider this. *I did not suggest rolling earthquake because I want to play angels. Not because I don't know about it. Besides, what flyers do we really have to have mass removal to get rid of?

So, now other stuff:

other stuff
Angels
Phyrexian furnace (CANTRIPZ)
fire/ice (force foddler, can 2 for one, cantrips in a pinch)
Crucible of worlds
Decree of justice
Eternal dragon
Disenchant
Stifle
Tefferi's response
Meddling mage (not so much)
lightning bolt
Pulse of the fields
Mystical tutor
E. tutor
About a million other things.

(Making this up as I go along at this point)

My proposed list (for MY metagame)

Skeleton+
4 fire/ice
4 earthquake
2 angelz
1 eternal dragon
2 decree of justice
1 crucible

Now to the manabase. It seems like there are two distinct schools of thought concerning this, no basics, and cautious (with basics). The first is very agressive, and often has no trouble getting colors, but is VERY vulnerable to wasteland. The latter can be built to be powerful, and it's much less vulnerable to hate. Given that I chose earthquake as my sweeper, I'll go with the latter.

Manabase skeleton:
4 mishra's factory
4 flooded strand
4 wasteland

Durrr. This leavs 12 slots left that can be filled with...whatever.

Lands to consider:
Dust bowl
faerie conclaive
island
plains
mountain
plateau
volcanic island
tundra
Windswept heath
Polluted delta
barbarian ring
Bloodstained mire
Wooded foothills
And a billion others

I think for myself, I will use:

Skeleton+
1 dust bowl
3 tundra
1 plateau
3 volcanic island
2 island
1 mountain
1 plains

So that finishes the Main board. Now to the ever present Side Board. For this there won't really be a skeleton, but more of a series of things the cards have to do.

Pwn gobbos: Pyroclasm, other small damage removal, sphere of law, moat, reverence

Pwn threshold: Graveyard hate. Furnace, crypt, whatever works for you. Reverence.

Pwn combo: Arcane Lab, rule of law, chalice of the void, pillar, whatever.

Then there are your metagame slots. Some stuff to consider:

Tefferi's response
stifle
spiritual focus
COP: red
extra crucibles, or decrees
pulse of the fields
chill
disenchant
almost anything else

I think I'll use

3 chalice
2 pulse of the fields
3 sphere of law
4 furnace
2 spiritual focus
1 crucible

Any thoughts?

[Whit3 Ghost]

Looks good, hopefully this time we can actually test it. I've said it time and time again, Dust Bowl is slow as balls, and doesn't give you a colored mana. I've lost games as a result of it. Anyway, I'd probably run another Crucible over Dragon, but again, that's just me.

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

Dust Bowl is slow as balls, and doesn't give you a colored mana
Recurring wasteland that works without crucible. More an anti-controll thing.


Crucible over Dragon
My thought on dragon is that it essentially acts as land #25, as well as a recurring beater late game. Not sure I want to cut the one, or want to play more, if you know what I mean.


hopefully this time we can actually test it
...I tested the last one. it sucked.

[Zilla]

@Quodo: I really like your friend's list, but have to say, why disk over wrath?
Goblins is going to have a hell of a time keeping you off colorless mana. Keeping you off WW when you're playing 3 colors and 8 colorless lands on the other hand? Easier than Jander's mom.

More to the point, why Disk over Pyroclasm? Disk gets shut down by Needle and it has poor synergy with Exalted Angel. Doesn't answer other permanents, but what other permanents are you concerned with really?

[Slay]

Werebear. Nimble Mongoose. Mystic Enforcer. Fledgling Dragon.
-Slay

[quodo]

I think that Disk is far superior to Wrath or Pyro in the main just because :

- The meta is currently 1/4 Goblins, 1/4 *****, and neither of the 2 alternatives are preferable against both decks. Pyro cannot kill Mongooses or treshed creatures, whereas Wrath has difficulties getting its 2 colored mana.

- You sometime have to deal with decks such as LoamConfinment in which Disk can remove their main victory condition.

I think he made the right choice (and its Top 8 place confirms it :laugh: )

[Dessyreqt]

Alright, this is going to be rather lengthy. I compiled a list of every notable Landstill deck on the Wizards' Tournament Center, and listed every card, and in what quantity it appears in each deck. The cards are divided by function, and any card with multiple funtions is in multiple catagories, with an asterisk following any that have already been mentioned.

The first number in the list belongs to Nicolas Francois (8th Place GP Lille), the second is Andre Mamadi (88th Place GP Lille), the third is Jerome Vilm (42nd Place GP Lille), the fourth is Noah Long (1st Place GP Philly Trial, but is deck list is slightly wrong on the website), and fifth is Alex Lieberman (10th Place GP Philly). So why look at these lists? They did relatively well in a very competitive and varied metagame.

Now for the list:

Mana:
2/2/0/0/0 Plains
3/2/0/2/0 Island
4/4/4/2/4 Tundra
3/0/4/4/2 Volcanic Island
0/0/1/1/3 Plateau
4/4/4/4/4 Mishra's factory
0/3/1/2/3 Faerie Conclave
4/4/4/4/4 Wasteland
0/1/0/0/0 Dust Bowl

Mana Fixing:
4/4/8/4/4 Flooded strand
0/1/0/0/0 Eternal Dragon

Mana Denial:
4/4/4/4/4 Wasteland*
0/1/0/0/0 Dust Bowl*

Attackers:
4/4/4/4/4 Mishra's factory*
0/3/1/2/3 Faerie Conclave*
0/1/0/0/0 Eternal Dragon*
2/0/0/0/0 Exalted Angel
3/3/2/2/1 Decree of Justice

Life Gain:
2/0/0/0/0 Exalted Angel*
0/1/0/0/0 Pulse of the Fields

Draw:
4/4/4/4/3 Standstill
4/0/4/0/3 Fire/Ice
4/4/4/4/4 Brainstorm
2/2/2/3/2 Fact or Fiction
3/3/2/2/1 Decree of Justice*

Spot Removal:
4/0/4/0/3 Fire/Ice*
4/4/4/2/4 Swords to Plowshares
0/0/0/3/0 Lightning Bolt
0/2/0/0/0 Disenchant

Counters:
4/4/0/4/4 Counterspell
4/4/4/4/4 Force of Will
0/0/2/0/0 Stifle
0/0/0/3/0 Mana Leak

Mass Removal:
2/0/0/0/1 Moat
3/0/2/3/0 Nevinyrral's Disk
0/2/0/0/0 Akroma's Vengeance
0/0/4/0/2 Wrath of God

Recursion:
0/1/0/3/2 Crucible of Worlds

Toolbox:
0/0/0/0/3 Enlightened Tutor

Other (Toolbox Strategy):
0/0/0/0/1 Isochron Scepter
0/0/0/0/1 Null Rod
0/0/0/0/1 Pithing Needle

By taking the median usage of all the cards, we can extract a useful shell. This is not unlike KillerWhiteRabbit's shell, and contains every card he listed in his shell. Way to go, KWR! This provides what is generally common in some of the top performing decks. (note the KWR's shell is listed first, and then the nonzero median of every other card in the above list.

Base Land (24):
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand

2 Faerie Conclave
2 Island
4 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau

This manabase can probably apply to almost any landstill with a red splash. Plateau is useful as a way of getting red mana with Eternal Dragon, if you choose to run it, Conclave, while generally considered clunky, has its advantages:

- It flies.
- It's produces blue mana. (quite good in a blue deck, or so I hear)
- It can't be Disenchanted or Naturalized.
- It's a manland. (Can't be killed with sorceries (in most cases), trumps Humility, etc.)
- It's probably not very high on your opponent's priority of things to kill. (And if they do kill it, it's still really your worst land, which is all right considering how flexible it really is.)

Base Spells (30):
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

2 Decree of Justice
3 Fire/Ice
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Crucible of Worlds

Why run Decree of Justice?
- It cycles
- It produces more kill conditions, as an instant and under Standstill
- It can produce a flyer or two if need be

Why run Fire/Ice?
- It cantrips
- It can 2 for 1
- It can be sent to the dome

Why run Nevinyrral's Disk (Especially over other effects)
- No color dependency (which makes it superior in a three color build in my opinion)
- It's really inexpensive when it comes online.
- It destroys everything you want it to, and as an instant.

Why run Crucible of Worlds?
- Recurring Wastelands are good.
- Recurring Factories are even better.
- Recurring Fetchlands are hot.

This small set of cards should take the shell and make it a lot more flexible, the remaining six slots are for your personal taste and metagame.

Most of this has been said, and is common sense, but it's nice to compile it all every now and again. Of course, this isn't written in stone, but it's what all the versions of landstill that have been doing right (and have GP results to back it up) have been doing.

Other things of note looking at these lists:
- Eternal Dragon is not very prevalent. Maybe it's just under the mark, but I've always had a problem with his high recursion cost. Not that I haven't won games with him, he's just expensive to use to his fullest.
- The median amout of kill conditions is 8. This number is covered in my extended shell, but the highest placing decks stick really close to that number.
- The median amount of card-drawers is 13. That's almost a third of your deck that can replaces itself, or more. This does not include Fire/Ice. The extended core has 12. Atleast one of your six cards should be your favorite card-drawer.
- Fire/Ice and Swords are all you need for spot removal. Spot removal just isn't that good. You need to use cards that give you card advantage, not just a trade-off. And Fire/Ice can even fit that role. Not only that, but more untargetable seem to be showing up (Nimble Mongoose; while that's only one card, that's four in one in every four decks you might play. Plus random stuff like Troll Ascetic in RGSA, etc.)
- Force of Will and Counterspell are good enough for counters. Anything else is too situational. Ideally, I wouldn't want dead mainboard cards in any matchup (except those really bizarre ones where you can't help it.) And you just don't need that many counters when you are killing so much stuff. The only dek that ran Stifle was not running Counterspells, and the deck that ran Mana Leak lacked spot removal (only 2 Swords? Why???)
- The median of mass removal cards is 5. Take your 2 disks, add 3 more of your favorite mass removal (1 more disk woun't hurt) and you've got a good base.
- Crucible is mostly a matter of taste. It's good, it's a little slow, but all in all, decks seem to be as good with or without, depending on how the rest of the deck is built. Purely a matter of preference.

To sum up:
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Island
4 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau

4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Decree of Justice
3 Fire/Ice
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Crucible of Worlds

+1 Card drawer
+3 Mass removal
+2 Whatever you want

This is flexible, and offers some personalization. Honestly, I want to test Earthquake. It's a 'clasm for 3 mana, but at 5 mana, what isn't going to die? (Rhetorical question; point is, it seems good when you have the mana, and is still good at 1, when you need to cast it fast.) If you have life gaining effects, the damage dealt to you is negligible anyway. But those are just my thoughts.

[blacklotus3636]

I understand that the U/W/R build uses swords and fire/ice to hold off the hordes until a sweeper comes online but wouldn't pyroclasm do the job better than fire/ice? All the important goblins outside of lackey have 2 toughness which means fire/ice will usually cost the same mana as clasm but it only destroys one creature. I know the instant speed removal is important because of vial and the haste from warchief but pyroclasm is such a tempo stealer that you should be able to hold off goblins long enough to disk away the board.

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

Honestly, I want to test Earthquake. It's a 'clasm for 3 mana, but at 5 mana, what isn't going to die? (Rhetorical question; point is, it seems good when you have the mana, and is still good at 1, when you need to cast it fast.) If you have life gaining effects, the damage dealt to you is negligible anyway. But those are just my thoughts.
I have tested. About 20 games VS gobbos. Pretty optimized gobbos. 10 games SB, 10 not.

Win:14
Lose:5
Draw:0
lose intrest, have pizza:1

gro, had less positive (still positive, but less so, mind you) going 60-40 pre board and 50-50ish post board. Earthquake really took 'em by surprise :D One just has to remember to save counters/swords to take care of enforcers/dragons.

uses swords and fire/ice to hold off the hordes until a sweeper comes online but wouldn't pyroclasm do the job better than fire/ice?
it's much more narrow, doesn't cantrip, and is just plain dead in some matches. My reason for switching colors was to lessen the amount of situational cards.

[Dessyreqt]

Pyroclasm falls under the catagory of 'mass removal'. You can run it alongside Fire/Ice, but you shouldn't take out Fire/Ice for it; they have different functions. And even though it has the potential to kill off more creatures, its uselessness in other matches relegates to a sideboard card at best, in my mind. I think there should be a fair amount of instant speed removal; just having Swords isn't enough, and Fire/Ice is really the next best card.

[Magic Trick]

I understand that the U/W/R build uses swords and fire/ice to hold off the hordes until a sweeper comes online but wouldn't pyroclasm do the job better than fire/ice? All the important goblins outside of lackey have 2 toughness which means fire/ice will usually cost the same mana as clasm but it only destroys one creature. I know the instant speed removal is important because of vial and the haste from warchief but pyroclasm is such a tempo stealer that you should be able to hold off goblins long enough to disk away the board.
Fire/Ice is better because it does more than just "Fire" it also has Ice. . .

Lets compare just the two red cards. Pyro has a mass removal, but what about other decks that only have a few creatures? Fire can hit the face for 2. It's an instant. It can also kill 2 1/1's.

But the biggest advantage to Fire/Ice is that it's BLUE!! It can be pitched to FoW in matches where it's dead. Ice can tap a lethol creature, and it cantrips, or can even be a turn 2 timewalk if you go first against a manascrewed player.

As KWR said, pyro is just too narrow, and Fire/Ice is almost never dead (although there are games where you draw it and say, "damn. . .").

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

(although there are games where you draw it and say, "damn. . .").
you were losing those games anyway :;): It's always at worst a cantrip that taps a land (or force foddler).

Has anyone else explored earthquake? I'm very happy with it so far, but I'd like to get some other's thoughts on it as well.

[Evil Roopey]

Isn't Rolling Earthquake strictly better than Earthquake? Or do you want your Dragon to not die when you cast it for greater than 4, which I seriously doubt is going to happen.


Roop

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

I want to be able to cast it for large amounts, and not have my angels die. Besides, what flyers do we really want to hit? I think protecting our flyers is far more important.

[Whit3 Ghost]

Mystic Enforcer and Fledgling Dragon. They both kill our Angels dead and we only have 4 STP to deal with them.

[Evil Roopey]

Mystic Enforcer and Fledgling Dragon. They both kill our Angels dead and we only have 4 STP to deal with them.
I think he hit it right on the nose. Gro is probably the best deck in the format now, I think you might want to prepare for it. Not preparing for the meta is never a good thing.

Roop

[Lego]

Well, if you go Wrath, Standstill on that draw they're reasonably kolded.
As has already been said, it's hard for you to hit Wrath on turn 4 through Goblin's disruption package, and even if you do it's likely that they'll drop a threat that prevents you from playing Standstill. (This might just be my newfound hatred for Landstill. I'll pick it up again in a couple weeks and refind my love for it.)

@ KWR: are you playing 4 Wasteland, 4 Port in that Gobs deck? And is that a UR Landstill or a UW Landstill deck you're packing? (there's a UR Thread in the Open forum)

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

@ KWR: are you playing 4 Wasteland, 4 Port in that Gobs deck?
yes. Like I said, it's pretty close to optimized.


And is that a UR Landstill or a UW Landstill deck you're packing? (there's a UR Thread in the Open forum)
UWR. Different splashes have been discussed at great length on THIS thread, so I assume it's ok to follow suit. That, and it doesn't specify kind of landstill. :p


Mystic Enforcer and Fledgling Dragon. They both kill our Angels dead and we only have 4 STP to deal with them.
And we'll really have a chance of hitting a rolling earthquake for 5/6 (turn 6/7 at best) without being either A.) dead or having it B.) countered? You're right, though. We do need some gro hate. Desperately. Perhaps another look at MB furnace is in order? Sure they could hit it with a needle, but then you have wasteland against them. If they hit wasteland, they'll have a hell of a time hitting threshold. I don't really think there's any good way to go about that match other than resolving an early furnace, and disrupting thier manabase to no end. (DUST BOWL) WIng shards could work, but that has the problem of being really hard to cast.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

And we'll really have a chance of hitting a rolling earthquake for 5/6 (turn 6/7 at best) without being either A.) dead or having it B.) countered?
The odds of this happening, combined with the odds of running into small flying critters like Hyppie, Flying Men, Birds of Paradise or Tradewind Rider are significantly greater than the odds of running into a situation where you have an Exalted Angel in play and are facing down threats with toughness of 5 or greater that Angel can't simply race.

[Lego]

And we'll really have a chance of hitting a rolling earthquake for 5/6 (turn 6/7 at best) without being either A.) dead or having it B.) countered?
The odds of this happening, combined with the odds of running into small flying critters like Hyppie, Flying Men, Birds of Paradise or Tradewind Rider are significantly greater than the odds of running into a situation where you have an Exalted Angel in play and are facing down threats with toughness of 5 or greater that Angel can't simply race.
QFT

This is a control deck. You shouldn't be playing sub-optimal cards to protect your own dudes. You should be winning by the time you drop that dude, or shortly thereafter because of him.

What the deck needs is not turn 5/6/7 answers to Gro, it needs turn 1, 2, 3 answers. Wasteland does that, but I think something like Furnace might be very useful against the deck. The other possibility is splashing something else, like Green or Black, for other answers.

[Dessyreqt]

The most effective card I can think of right now against Gro (for the early game) in either Green or Black is Diabolic Edict. And I think it would be a great splash card for it. We'd probably have to cut red, as we're pretty much only splashing it for Fire/Ice (and some sideboard cards.)

The only question is: are answers like Diabolic Edict and the like that can be found in Black able to cover areas that we longer cover but need to by dropping red?

[KillerWhiteRabbit]

Okay, rolling earthquake seems superior. Especially after a few games against deadguy ale, WWW, and one against fish.


The most effective card I can think of right now against Gro (for the early game) in either Green or Black is Diabolic Edict.
Did I miss something where we needed it to be green or black? It seems like phyrexian furnace would do the job of being a thorn in gro's side plenty well in the early game. Why do we need a different color?

[Dessyreqt]

I'm not saying we need Black. I'm saying if we decide it would be better to run Black, Diabolic Edict should be included as a combative measure to Thresh. I think creature removal is more effective than graveyard removal against Thresh because most builds are light on creatures, whereas every other spell they play (and a huge chunk of their lands) fills their graveyard. I think Edicts plus Swords could tide us over until some mass removal comes online, which I think is the bigger wrecking ball against Thresh (and it's not dead against our other big aggro deck, Goblins.)

And now that I think of it, Standstill might not be so bad as a four-color control. I'm liking black more and more (back to Thresh, Perish seems like good SB tech.)

[Lego]

4-Color Control? That seems crazy susceptible to Wasteland (and Port) but I don't know. It doesn't matter how good your cards are if you can never play them.

[clavio]

Has anyone tried out light of day for the deadguy matchup? All they would have left to use to win would be cursed scroll.

[Evil Roopey]

It seems like you shouldn't be running such narrow cards. Also, in that case I would assume Karma to be strictly better. They are both bad though because of the fact that they are way to narrow. Running something like Sacred Ground would be a much better option.

[Rastadon]

@Dessyreqt: Forget Diabolic Edict, Inoocent Blood also deals with Lackey.

[Lego]

I think black splashes should be discussed somewhere else. I don't think we should take an already shaky manabase (which is one of the reasons, imo, that this deck isn't viable) and make it worse. I think what needs to be done to make a viable control deck is to leave all the cuteness out and just play the good stuff. That means no more Landstill, and a return to Draw-Go, UW Control, or Wombat. I think Landstill tries to do too much at once, and therefor fails to do anything. Dissension should give us some good stuff.

[Zilla]

Landstill with the black splash is called Duck Hunt (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=878). Please discuss the black splash there. This thread is for discussion of U/W and U/W/R builds. - Zilla

[Jesus]

Does anyone know the Landstill list from top 16 at philly?

[dontbiteitholmes]

I know you guys love Landstill and all, but isn't it time to move this to open discussion. Landstill has done next to nothing in forever that I can see and I'll also be the first to say it was never really the best deck in the format anyways, just everyone was unoriginal and played it. The Rock was just better if you ask me, and once Pithing Needle came out and let Goblins beat ATS, well the rest is history. The only way I see this deck becoming viable again is if Lackey or Vial get banned in March, both of which seem likely to me...

[Nightmare]

I know you guys love Landstill and all, but isn't it time to move this to open discussion. Landstill has done next to nothing in forever that I can see and I'll also be the first to say it was never really the best deck in the format anyways, just everyone was unoriginal and played it. The Rock was just better if you ask me, and once Pithing Needle came out and let Goblins beat ATS, well the rest is history. The only way I see this deck becoming viable again is if Lackey or Vial get banned in March, both of which seem likely to me...This discussion is currently taking place. Expect to see a new LMF soon.

[Zilla]

What Nightmare said. In the future, this line of commentary belong in PM's with the Mod staff, by the way. It's distracting to the actual conversation.

[Citrus-God]

So, do you guys think Chalice of the Void is a strong SB option for Landstill? Ray D 3 did that awhile back, as well as the guy who top 8ed at GP Lille. It looks like it could shut a lot of things down. Even Burning Tog used Chalices in the SB.

[Lego]

Chalice of the Void is probably a good sideboard card in basically any deck that can handle it. Unfortunately, Landstill can't play it on turn 1, but I'd board it in on the play against a bunch of decks, because even a turn 2 Chalice for 1 will shut down a lot of stuff. Not as good as decks that are playing Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, etc. but still a possibility :)

[Getsickanddie]

Chalice of the Void is probably a good sideboard card in basically any deck that can handle it. Unfortunately, Landstill can't play it on turn 1, but I'd board it in on the play against a bunch of decks, because even a turn 2 Chalice for 1 will shut down a lot of stuff. Not as good as decks that are playing Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, etc. but still a possibility :)

While landstill is unable to power out a first turn chalice, it is better suited at protecting it, which is often more important. With that said, I don't think Landstill needs any new uber techy cards to win in the current meta game. The deck still has very strong matchups against most of the top decks in the format (esp. the U/W/R).

[Adan]

Yeah,but i've been thinking about Chalice of the Void, too.
It can shut down many things:

NQG: Swords/Lightning Bolt,Nimble Mongoose,Cantrips

Solidarity: No Tide,No Combo

Goblins: Can be good to prevent Vials,Lackeys,Moggs,whatever

Loam Decks: It hurts to play Chalice with 2 Counters,because this will disable you to play Standstills,Fire/Ice,Counterspell,but it Stops the key card of that annoying deck. And Confinements/Seismic Assaults can be handled with Disk.

Fish: Chalice 1 rules

Boros Deck Wins/Angel Stompy: Chalice 1 shuts down Lavamancer,Lions,etc.

2 Land Belcher: Chalice 0 and 1 wins very often.

So Chalice is very good against the atm strongest decks. That's my opinion. i dunno how the Meta in America looks like,but i'm playing in germany and we don't have a Meta here yet (i'm playing in a small city in Germany and we are trying to make a tournament every month. saturday will be the first tournament in Speyer). But that's why i prefer Chalice OVER Engineerd Explosives,because i think Chalice prepares you well against a lot of Decks.

edit: i should mention that i'm playing U/R landstill,because sometimes,the Sweepers of U/W are just dead Cards. Anyway,the removal in U/R Landstill can be used to burn the opponent. Maybe Chalice isn't that good in U/W/R,i dunno.

[Boogy_Boy]

Ahem... I've a slight variation on Landstill, and maybe you guys can take a look for me. So far I am quite happy with it.

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=62099#post62099

It's basic game plan is 100% control 0% beatdown...

[Jesus]

I was thinking we could revamp the list a bit perhaps we could add red to the U/W List get rid of Wrath as a whole, perhaps even add Helix any other ideas?

[Citrus-God]

Yeah,but i've been thinking about Chalice of the Void, too.
It can shut down many things:

NQG: Swords/Lightning Bolt,Nimble Mongoose,Cantrips

Solidarity: No Tide,No Combo

Goblins: Can be good to prevent Vials,Lackeys,Moggs,whatever

Loam Decks: It hurts to play Chalice with 2 Counters,because this will disable you to play Standstills,Fire/Ice,Counterspell,but it Stops the key card of that annoying deck. And Confinements/Seismic Assaults can be handled with Disk.

Fish: Chalice 1 rules

Boros Deck Wins/Angel Stompy: Chalice 1 shuts down Lavamancer,Lions,etc.

2 Land Belcher: Chalice 0 and 1 wins very often.

So Chalice is very good against the atm strongest decks. That's my opinion. i dunno how the Meta in America looks like,but i'm playing in germany and we don't have a Meta here yet (i'm playing in a small city in Germany and we are trying to make a tournament every month. saturday will be the first tournament in Speyer). But that's why i prefer Chalice OVER Engineerd Explosives,because i think Chalice prepares you well against a lot of Decks.

edit: i should mention that i'm playing U/R landstill,because sometimes,the Sweepers of U/W are just dead Cards. Anyway,the removal in U/R Landstill can be used to burn the opponent. Maybe Chalice isn't that good in U/W/R,i dunno.


I'm playing Ray D 3's version. I find the deck to be the most solid piece I have ever seen. Ur Is nice, I'm running additional 2 FoFs and 2 Reponses in mine. Also, Chalice is solid in UWr, only card that would get countered is S2P. Brainstorm is shit in UWr because your only shuffle are Strands and/or Dragons. FoF is strong in Landstill and IMO should be ran in 3s because it does such a good job at cutting your bad topdecks, as well as extreme card advantage and insane deck thinning.


// American Pie
// Mana 24
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Faerie Conclave
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Plains
1 Island


// Creatures 2
2 Eternal Dragon


// Spells 35
4 Standstill
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Leak
4 Fire // Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wrath of God
3 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Decree of Justice


// Sideboard 15
3 Disenchant
3 Sphere of Law
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Wrath of God/Pyroclasm
3 Exalted Angel

[Boogy_Boy]

Now, not trying to advertise my own decklist or anything... BUT....

I think Landstill is fundamentally going in a wrong direction. Having net-decked all sorts of different lists, I have to say that it's trying to do what it's not best at.

Landstill should be a control deck. How effecient are Landstill's threats? Not even slightly effecient both in terms of cost/tempo. So how can it ever play any beat down without losing the control of the game? Every time it taps it's valuable mana to attack, it risks letting a threat resolve due to not having enough mana left to counter stuff.

When it's paired with a REAL aggro deck. Having to Wrath a Troll Ascetic is probably something ONLY a deck like Landstill does. All other control decks have other outs. To be a control deck, it can't even properly control.

Then, when it's paired with a REAL control deck, it can't beat-down for shit. There's no way any other control decks are going to tap out in their own turn simply just to deal a measly 4 to 6 damage. If an opponent sitting across you has a Haunting Echo in hand, do you really dare to attack even with a Faerie Conclave because you will get hit by a Haunting Echo forced through with counterspells.

Lastly, there's simply NO threat in Landstill that's anywhere remotely worth tapping out in your own turn to play, yet tapping out is what Landstill does alot.

Nevinyral's Disk/Crucible cost prohibitivly high, and at the same time fragile. The worst thing is it doesn't even win you the game right there, and it puts you in a risk of losing the board control. Even a scepter imprinted with a counterspell/draw spells have a much larger impact on the game while costing less.

May I remind you that how many times have you died to Goblins the very next turn after succefully wrathing the board? (lucky not having hit by wasteland/port) By a Warchief + Piledriver + a one drop. That's what's called losing control of the board. Wrathing the board only to get killed the very next or next 2 turns because you can't counter a ringleader.

Then the man lands.

Faerie Conclave should not be in here! If a creature says "2/1 Flying, upkeep 1U, you can't play a land the turn it comes into play. If you don't pay the upkeep, Faerie Conclave cannot attack" would you play it? I don't really think so. So why is everyone playing Faerie Conclave? Not to mention if there's an active Sharpshooter on the board (Survival/Goblins all pack sharpshooters) FConclave might as well read "Island, comes into play tapped"

Factories are alright as they are not so easily burn-able, especially if a few are on the board. So I didn't cut them.

The thing is, would you be happy to bolt a land? Yes I thought so. Would you want more wasteland targets in an opponents deck? Would you want your opponent's land to die to a mogg fanatic? If yes, why would you do the exact same things?

Faerie Conclave REALLY needs to get the boot.

Sure it can come down under standtsill, but so can Decree + Factories. Not to mention FConclave has pretty much the same clock as a Decree. Playing a Conclave turn 1 and attacking every turn yields a 12 turn clock. 1 Decree can quite easily hit that clock with missing out a few land drops here and there during the 12 turns. I'll leave the maths to you guys.

Fundamentally,
1) Landstill taps it self out too much, and too often plays sorceries/artifacts that are not worth what it cost.
2) Gets lands burned/smothered/disenchanted all too often and get outsourced eventually.

That's my 2cents....

[Anusien]

Why are Landstill decks still running only 24 lands with 4+ manlands, <4 basics and only 4 cantrips? Are you people in metagames without Wastelands, or are you maining 3 Pithing Needles and 2 Teferi's Response. I'd only count a manland for half a land, and I'd consider 4 Island + 2 Plains a minimum for basic count, simply because of the rise of LftL decks with Wasteland, as well as Goblins with 4 Port 4 Waste and Stax on the fringes. Personally, I feel that Factory is becoming outdated since the fundamental creature is moving from the 2/2 to the 3/3 via Threshold, Zoo and Zilla Stompy. I'd make my manabase this:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Flooded Strand
6 Island
2 Plains
4 Tundra
2 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

That's 26 lands and a solid manabase. It's really hard to fit in the red splash, and I'm wondering if black wouldn't be better. You swap Infest out for Pyroclasm, get Therapies and other goodies, and get a manabase like this:

4 Mox Diamond
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
6 Island
2 Plains
2 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
4 Wasteland

This way you run less duals but have a much more stable manabase, as well as getting better pinpoint removal (Bolt sort of sucks compared to the options in black), and you can even get a decent combo matchup with Therapies in the board.

[Boogy_Boy]

Why are Landstill decks still running only 24 lands with 4+ manlands, <4 basics and only 4 cantrips? Are you people in metagames without Wastelands, or are you maining 3 Pithing Needles and 2 Teferi's Response. I'd only count a manland for half a land, and I'd consider 4 Island + 2 Plains a minimum for basic count, simply because of the rise of LftL decks with Wasteland, as well as Goblins with 4 Port 4 Waste and Stax on the fringes. Personally, I feel that Factory is becoming outdated since the fundamental creature is moving from the 2/2 to the 3/3 via Threshold, Zoo and Zilla Stompy. I'd make my manabase this:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Flooded Strand
6 Island
2 Plains
4 Tundra
2 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

That's 26 lands and a solid manabase. It's really hard to fit in the red splash, and I'm wondering if black wouldn't be better. You swap Infest out for Pyroclasm, get Therapies and other goodies, and get a manabase like this:

4 Mox Diamond
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
6 Island
2 Plains
2 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
4 Wasteland

This way you run less duals but have a much more stable manabase, as well as getting better pinpoint removal (Bolt sort of sucks compared to the options in black), and you can even get a decent combo matchup with Therapies in the board.

HAHAHA!!!! Exactly what I said as well. Ok, not exactly... But I think we are on to the same thing here. Simply put, the "land" in "Land"still simply isn't very solid.

One thing I question is Mox Diamond though? It never really made the cut into decks considering it's just as fragile as Manlands (if not more), and it is card disadvantage.

[Tao]

HAHAHA!!!! Exactly what I said as well. Ok, not exactly... But I think we are on to the same thing here. Simply put, the "land" in "Land"still simply isn't very solid.

One thing I question is Mox Diamond though? It never really made the cut into decks considering it's just as fragile as Manlands (if not more), and it is card disadvantage.

1. Now after flaming on Manlands. What are these better Win-Conditions you talk about?
2. So do you still play standstill? If not, discuss it in another threat.
3. What is your gameplan after resolving a standstill? Hoping that your opponent doesn't know that you don't play Manlands? Putting down lands and then EoT DoJ. Seems like bad tactics.

Some points:
- Why would you wrath away a Troll? All he does is doing you 3 damage each turn, you shouldn't care about this and find your 2nd Factory, so you can block him. Then the opponent will have to play more threats and you Wrath.
- Landstill doesn't tap out do deal ~6 damage. It only taps 3 or 4 of it's lands to deal 3 or 4 damage each turn. So they have about 7 lands untapped in the lategame.

@Anti-American: Cutting Brainstorm is a bad idea. The immense Card Quality in the Lategame and the early dig really help the deck. I think you should cut one land, one Fact and 2 other cards to get them back again.

[Lukas Preuss]

...3. What is your gameplan after resolving a standstill? Hoping that your opponent doesn't know that you don't play Manlands? Putting down lands and then EoT DoJ. Seems like bad tactics. ...

Yeah. That is why Wombat has such a bad Landstill matchup, right?


Just to make this clear: That was sarcasm. Rabid Wombat has a very good matchup against Landstill. I wouldn't call cycling Decree of Justice under a Standstill 'bad tactics'...

[Tao]

Yeah. That is why Wombat has such a bad Landstill matchup, right?


Just to make this clear: That was sarcasm. Rabid Wombat has a very good matchup against Landstill. I wouldn't call cycling Decree of Justice under a Standstill 'bad tactics'...

Unnessecary Sarcasm...I played the Wombat Landstill matchup before. Of course is DoJing under Standstill not bad, but I call it a bad tactic to have it as your only or even main win condition. To do this you have to play many Dragons, many Decrees and some Cycle Cards. Then you have a bad Wombat splashing U, which will be even slower than normal Wombat.

[Lukas Preuss]

Unnessecary Sarcasm...I played the Wombat Landstill matchup before. Of course is DoJing under Standstill not bad, but I call it a bad tactic to have it as your only or even main win condition. To do this you have to play many Dragons, many Decrees and some Cycle Cards. Then you have a bad Wombat splashing U, which will be even slower than normal Wombat.

Right. I never said you should play Landstill, since I never really thought the deck was very strong.

And, basically, you're right, in the German meta, Mishra's Factories are just awesome since nobody runs Wastelands (at least in Western Germany). I've already noticed that, and I already plan on winning the next big tournament with Mishra's Factories in play... :)

But we're talking about the general (and the US-) meta here, which means that there are Wastelands all over the place. It's not very smart to rely on Manlands only, if the meta is flooded with Wastelands.

[Lego]

It seems counterproductive to argue about how unplayable this deck is. If you think it's unplayable, either don't post on the thread, or try redesigning the deck to make it more playable.

Fundamentall, Landstill is a deck that wins with lands and draws cards with Standstill. I suppose you can take out some of the manlands, as long as you leave in the Standstills. If you take those out, you're simply running UW or UR or UWr control, and that's a different story all together. I'm not saying that would be a bad deck, I'm just saying this probably isn't the place for it.

All of the being said, let's start over and approach the current metagame as we've seen it in the past few large tournaments. I don't think the manlands are a bad way to go, at least not 4 Factories, maybe Blinkmoth can take the place of the Conclaves (although that's upping the colorless count, which I don't like to do).

Maybe running 3 Pithing Needle and 2 Teferi's Response isn't a bad thing to do. Running Crucible can help a lot with the Wasteland issue, and it can allow you to play the Waste lock yourself. And other options like the Green splash and the Black splash are options as well.

All in all, I don't think this deck should be discounted all together, I think it just needs to basically start over. It already has a solid manabase and a pretty good draw engine (I've rarely had a game that my opponent didn't immediately break a Standstill, and if they don't, it's creating some tempo advantage for you anyway). I'll take the bad matchup against Wombat, because I think Landstill built correctly can have a good matchup against both Goblins and Gro. Splash Black it can probably do well against Combo, too.

Discuss.

EDIT: After attempting to throw a list together, I finally convinced myself that this probably isn't the time for Landstill. In fact, there probably never was a time for it. But here's my attempt anyway:

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Island
2 Plains
3 Tundra
4 Wasteland
1 Dust Bowl
4 Mishra's Factory

2 Eternal Dragon

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Terferi's Response
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Pulse of the Fields
2 Decree of Justice
2 Pithing Needle

I don't think 26 lands are actually needed with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Standstill, and 2 Crucible of Worlds. I think the Crucible can be great to get more land, recur Factories, and Wastelock your opponent. Eternal Dragon and the Factories combine with Decree of Justice as your win conditions here, but I wonder if that isn't enough. The rest of the choices are pretty standard, but while I was putting it together I just felt like there wasn't enough room to include everything I wanted to include. The Teferi's Responses can go out if you don't have need of them in your meta, and they're probably the weakest card in the deck anyway. Pithing Needle takes the place of the old Disenchant spot, and Pulse of the Fields has always been a game winner for me. Dust Bowl is there because it was always great, especially with Crucible, but if you don't have need for that either, feel free to drop it.

The sideboard will completely depend on your meta, but should have the 4th Wrath, possibly 1 or 2 more Pithing Needles, some number of Blasts, Tormod's Crypt, and maybe Arcane Lab.

[Bane of the Living]

I was testing this deck pretty heavily before Philly cause it was the deck was I planning to take. My only win conditions were 7 man lands. I never really had a problem. Sure games when long but it gave the deck the dedicated control cards needed to keep alive. I definitly dont think man lands + 2 Decree is too few win conditions.

[Citrus-God]

1. Now after flaming on Manlands. What are these better Win-Conditions you talk about?
2. So do you still play standstill? If not, discuss it in another threat.
3. What is your gameplan after resolving a standstill? Hoping that your opponent doesn't know that you don't play Manlands? Putting down lands and then EoT DoJ. Seems like bad tactics.

Some points:
- Why would you wrath away a Troll? All he does is doing you 3 damage each turn, you shouldn't care about this and find your 2nd Factory, so you can block him. Then the opponent will have to play more threats and you Wrath.
- Landstill doesn't tap out do deal ~6 damage. It only taps 3 or 4 of it's lands to deal 3 or 4 damage each turn. So they have about 7 lands untapped in the lategame.

@Anti-American: Cutting Brainstorm is a bad idea. The immense Card Quality in the Lategame and the early dig really help the deck. I think you should cut one land, one Fact and 2 other cards to get them back again.


Tao, I love you. Anyway, I cut Brainstorms because of the lack of shuffle effects. I know Brainstorm has great digging power but that's because UW Landstill lacks answers. Besides, back when Landstill was undeveloped, they never ran Brainstorm. Even back in old 1.5 it wasn't ran. Just 4 Standstills, and 3 Responses. So what I'm trying to say is, I'm not running Landstill because I have tons of answers. Also 4 FoFs allow me get get the capacity to cut bad topdecks so I dont have to deal with drawing Lands constently.

@LAM: That's actually a very good list. I like how you have like 6 Fetches in there. MDed Pulse of the Fields is a bad idea, any competitive aggro deck can race that card like Burn and Goblins.

[Lego]

I like to half as many shuffle effects as possible with those fetchlands, that's why I ran so many. It makes Brainstorm all that much better, and most of them are essentially basic lands.

As for Pulse of the Fields, I suggest at least testing it. It's not there to end the game, it's there to stall for a few turns to draw into your answers. Against Goblin it will buy you 2-3 turns while you are drawing into your Wraths or answers from the board. I remember non-permanent based burn being a pretty bad matchup for you preboard, so here it can hopefully buy you a few turns to get a Dragon or a hardcast decree for the win. All in all, it's not a card that will win you the game, but it can hopefully buy you a few turns.

[Boogy_Boy]

1. Now after flaming on Manlands. What are these better Win-Conditions you talk about?
2. So do you still play standstill? If not, discuss it in another threat.
3. What is your gameplan after resolving a standstill? Hoping that your opponent doesn't know that you don't play Manlands? Putting down lands and then EoT DoJ. Seems like bad tactics.

Some points:
- Why would you wrath away a Troll? All he does is doing you 3 damage each turn, you shouldn't care about this and find your 2nd Factory, so you can block him. Then the opponent will have to play more threats and you Wrath.
- Landstill doesn't tap out do deal ~6 damage. It only taps 3 or 4 of it's lands to deal 3 or 4 damage each turn. So they have about 7 lands untapped in the lategame.

@Anti-American: Cutting Brainstorm is a bad idea. The immense Card Quality in the Lategame and the early dig really help the deck. I think you should cut one land, one Fact and 2 other cards to get them back again.

1) Yes I flamed Manlands. I flamed it for being used as an aggresive tool. NOT as a defensive tool. You even pointed it out yourself, two factories can stop a troll. But a troll can also stop two factories.
Now instead of them playing more threats for you to wrath, why won't they just sit on a troll and wait for you to play more threats? The only reason being the inevitability, Decree.
But Faerie Conclave doesn't do that. It's just begging to get burned.
2) Yes I still play Standstill, but I already started another thread in the New and Developement. Wombat with u splash for Standstill isn't a bad idea tbh.
3) My gameplan after resolving a standstill? Why would I really need one? If your deck is an aggro deck, would you let your opponent landstill lay down tons of mana? Don't think so. If a control deck have a lot of mana, it's usually game over for aggro decks. Usually also the case with combo, but it's obvious the current state of meta is a little different.

[Citrus-God]

In case you didn't notice. Back in T1 it was considered an aggro control deck because your win condition (And very slow) is on the board already. Have you read Oscar Tan's Keeper is Aggro? Well to simplify it when your win condition is on the board, your going aggro control.

[Amon Amarth]

In case you didn't notice. Back in T1 it was considered an aggro control deck because your win condition (And very slow) is on the board already. Have you read Oscar Tan's Keeper is Aggro? Well to simplify it when your win condition is on the board, your going aggro control.

Landstill is aggro control... my head hurts so much that a witty reply is impossible.

[Citrus-God]

And that back then Landstill was designed to beat control decks, and still consistently losing to Combo. I mean think about it, Factory runs around counters, just not removal...

Okay, what I'm trying to say is, this is a good deck, but just taken to the wrong direction...

[Boogy_Boy]

And that back then Landstill was designed to beat control decks, and still consistently losing to Combo. I mean think about it, Factory runs around counters, just not removal...

Okay, what I'm trying to say is, this is a good deck, but just taken to the wrong direction...

I also believe that Landstill need to move in a different direction. Legacy has changed so so much, and I see no reason why a deck that only made some marginal changes can survive in a new environment.

[Citrus-God]

IMO, the Win Conditions are fine, but the one that Top 8ed at Lille was one of the most solid builds I have ever seen. I mean it has an aggresive win condition (Angel), ways to actually shut decks down (Moat) with some removal to back it up (S2P, Fire // Ice), and Win Conditions that bypass the shut down (Hardcasted Decree, Angel, Factory against Control). I know that build is slow, but it's extremely power, and has the power to stall the game out in it's favor with early game answers (Fire // Ice), and locks the redzone with Moat, then wins with Angel or a Hardcasted Decree.


Also, theres a Reaon why Wombat and Rifter is so good. They bypass random shut downs.

[-BK-]

As you want to take the deck to a new dircetion i simply will post a more or less strange build that did quite well in a tournament at germany.

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
4 Decree of Justice
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Eternal Dragon
3 Exalted Angel
2 Humility
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Wrath of God


Lands (21):
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Plains
3 Savannah
2 Tundra
3 Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree

Sideboard:(15)
4 Disenchant
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Naturalize
3 Null Rod
4 Quirion Dryad

I think, that humility is the reason why rift does so well, because it simply shuts down all creaturedecks like survival, goblins, affinity and if it resolves against grow the other player has a problem, too.
He added green to the deck for vitu.ghazi, the random type 2 card.
But see, it has great synergy with the humility and standstill.
He also has 4 eternal dragon to do like rift the "recurring-dragon-plan".
but in my opinion the exalted angel has a huge anti synergy with the humility.

i posted this to give you something to think about.
of course its not perfect but there are some quite good ideas in it.

[Lego]

Francois' list is quite interesting. It packs no Wrath maindeck or sideboard, and splashes red for the sole inclusion of 4 Fire/Ice. I'm not saying these choices are wrong, just interesting.

I'd be willing to take my build in that direction, as it's not very far from Francois' list, but I'd be hesitant to add the red in a Waste-filled meta. Swap the Dragons for Angels (which I've considered for a while), throw in some Moats, Disk over Wrath, drop the maindeck Pulses, and you've basically got the same list, sans red. I like it, and I'll test it out. We'll see if red needs to be included again.

In my meta, I'm thinkin black might be an interesting 3rd color for the benefit to the combo matchups. Has anyone tested this?

[Citrus-God]

I like the Disks. After the board sweep, you can start bashing with Factories. Or if you don't want Moat around, it seems like a logical explanation. Fire // Ice may seem like a logical choice, but wouldn't you also splash for REB? ehh, anyways, may be Chalice got in the way...
If you look later in the Thread, one of our member's friend was considering to take out Crypt from the SB for WoG... looks interesting...

Oh, did I mention that when they play Wasteland, they will never aim at your Volcanic Islands. While I played versus Goblins, they wouldn't set me off Red, but rather tap/waste my manlands or tap Tundra. So in resp. I just throw FoF down, and hope for the best... Or I hit DIsk down since it's so hard for them to cut my Tempo.

[Myrrodin]

@ -BK- w/ his green landstill: I actually think this is the direction this deck should be heading. Landstill has an immensely powerful threat base if you can hide under a humility. Vitu-Ghazi is amazing simply because the tokens will trade with almost anything under Humility. Also, one of its biggest bonuses is that you don't have to tap any mana on your turn to get use out of it. Another plus to the green splash would be the ability to play treetop village, which is a very strong win condition. Again, this card can abuse humility by becoming a 3/3 (I think the trample sticks right?) and Nantuko Monastery, which could give a lot of power to the deck, something it seems to be lacking right now.

On another note: do you guys think compulsion could be strong in this deck (sorry if this was already discussed)? It can be an amazing draw engine with Crucibles, so you just dump the land you would play to draw, then play it anyway. This deck isn't really lacking the control, just the ability to win after it controls and not allow the opponent to recover. This is probably why the decks that are doing well right now have stronger win conditions, and more of them.

[MattH]

Is Vitu-Ghazi better or worse than Kjeldoran Outpost?

[bigbear102]

It seems to me that people who want to add Moat/Humility to the deck should be against Disk. What happens when you don't want to get rid of Moat, but have to blow disk???

The beauty of Landstill came from it's synergy. You could play Disk cuz you had no permanents, you played standstill cuz you won with lands, also comboing with response. Wrath of God saw play after Crucible seemed good. It seems to me that without this synergy, landstill is just a bad control deck.

I believe landstill should go back to the U/R base. It gives you everything you need, removal in burn, mass removal in disk/pyroclasm, lets you play fire/ice, and if you want to splash white for angel/moat/wrath/dragon/decree it's still possible, because you should be playing several fetches anyway.

Personally I believe that the deck should play as few permanents as possible and try to go the original route to keep the synergy.

[Lukas Preuss]

3 Exalted Angel
2 Humility

Talking about synergy... this is as non-synergetic as it gets (as BK already pointed out). It's either one, not both. If you want to run Angel, try Moat, as well.

I think Humility definitely has a place in this deck though, since suddenly all of Landstill's Manlands are huge in comparison to other critters... Humility is the lone reason, why Control (Wombat, Rifter) does well in Legacy... Landstill should use this card, too.


Oh, Vitu-Ghazi is better than Kjeldoran Outpost, because, if it gets wasted, you only loose one land instead of two...

[Bryant Cook]

Oh, Vitu-Ghazi is better than Kjeldoran Outpost, because, if it gets wasted, you only loose one land instead of two...
The two years I ran landstill, I was the biggest advocate for kjeldoran outpost the card is amazing and it's the reason I ran crucible the card wins games all on it's own. Not to mention that shitty ravinca land requires green and you have to tap 5 lands which leaves you open for your opponent to ream you dry.

[Citrus-God]

Listen to WL. Outpost is like, way better than City-Tree.

1. It's cheap. It's cost is not a problem, so you just spend the whole game making chumb blockers, or just simple making win conditions. All fine.

2. It synergizes with Humility.

3. Plays like Counter-Post with better draw, and win.

4. WL, you do the rest...

[Lego]

The Outpost is better if you're running Crucible. Otherwise I wouldn't take the risk. Oh, and run Crucible. It's really good.

If I ever pick this thing up against I'll test the Outpost. Let me know how you guys find it. Right now I'm playing too much 5 Color Good Cards to have time :)

[Bryant Cook]

The Outpost is better if you're running Crucible. Otherwise I wouldn't take the risk. Oh, and run Crucible. It's really good.

If I ever pick this thing up against I'll test the Outpost. Let me know how you guys find it. Right now I'm playing too much 5 Color Good Cards to have time :)
If you can cast cruicible and get an active outpost you will never ever lose a game against goblins. My list ran 3 cruicble, 1-2 outpost leaving 1-2 decree, 3 humilty, 4 wrath. I cut vengance and disk and just ran 3 MD disenchants to deal with artifacts because let's be honest who wants to nuke thier own board?

[Zilla]

If you can cast cruicible and get an active outpost you will never ever lose a game against goblins.
Sharpshooter? Port? Rage Pits? Your statement seems overly general and not particularly well supported by actual testing.

[PunkRocker1134]

Why is there even an arguement on which is better Outpost , or City when we still need to worry about our Goblin match. I always have been for Moat, and personnaly like it in testing. I dont know if this was mentioned earlier but we need a mass-removal that costs three mana or less. I say this because Goblins on turn 4 would love to port or wasteland you. So normally three mana is what you have to work with. Personnaly I think ether Red or Black is needed. So lets look at what both have to offer, compared to white.

Red:
1) Burn
2) Pyroclasm (great against gobbos)
3) Burning Wish (might be an option

Black:
1) Creature removal (best creature removal around, including infest which is a pyroclasm that costs on more mana)
2) Draw (nights whisper mainly, althought this is going to worsen the aggro match)
3) Discard (more of a buffer against combo)
4) Sideboard E. Plague

White:
1) best Creature removal (Wrath, Moath, Humilty, the later might as well be removal)
2) Best Finishers (Decree, Angel)
3) best Enchantment/Artifact removal

I would personnaly prefer to run it three colors. the only problem is Wasteland. Now if i were to run three colors it would be Black White and obivously blue. I like Black and White as the best spalsh becuase of what they offer. WHite has the finishers and better creature removal, where Black has suport creature removal in Infest, and other such removal. Black also offers Sideboarded E.Plague and Sideboard Duress against combo. So personnaly I would run a list something like this.

Three Color Landstill:

Manabase: (21)
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
2 Scrubland
4 Mishra's Factory (Actually Outpost Could go here to, but the sacing the land is probably hurtful)
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island

Creatures(2):
2 Eternal Dragon

Counters: (11)
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Teferi's Response

Draw: (6)
4 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction

Removal: (16)
4 Infest
2 moat
4 Humilty
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Vendetta

Other: (4)
4 Decree

Board: (15)
4 Duress
2 moat
2 Vendetta
4 E. Plague
3 Mana Leak

First on cutting Brainstorm: Not enough shuffle effects to make it truely effective. Response works against wasteland as well, so i like its inclusion along side the other draw of Fact or Fiction and Standstill.

Removal: i run as much removal as I could run. I like the 4 mana removal, but i run 10 ways to remove a creature under 4 mana as well. I think this should help the goblin match,sorry i have no testing at the moment to back this.

Coutners: I wish i could run more hard coutners but at the moment there isn't enough room, this explains the mana leak in the board. Its mainly against Combo and Gro, in fact thats all its against.

Ok ramble over, sorry if this is all a repeat.

[Boogy_Boy]

@ the Decklist with Green Splash.
Why? There's not even a single green card in that deck. Why splash for green?

Three cards I see using the green mana:
1) Token Land
2) Quirion Dryad
3) Naturalise.

How are those 3 cards going to help in Landstill's bad matchups?

Let's start with Goblin. The city tree start pumping token at turn 5 earliest. Assuming you didn't a) miss a land drop and did not get b) wastlanded. Quirion dryad, at best, stops a Lackey when you are on the play. As for naturalise, well... Just so that you know, there are only 4 Aether Vials in a Goblin deck.

Solidarity? Token Land? Quirion Dryad? (With absolutely 0 cantrips to pump it up mind you) Naturalise?

"But Moat and Humility stop goblins." Well, if that's really the highlight of the deck, how hard would be to work those two enchantments into a normal UW or UR or URW Landstill?

A green splash may be viable, but I don't think it's the one shown above.

I wouldn't be so negative if the deck packed some really stunning tech, but, correct me if I am wrong, I don't see ANY. You could theoretically change Counterspell to Mana Leak/Miscalculation and shift the dependency of color away from blue, then pack Tsunami against Solidarity.

But really, 4 disenchant + 3 naturalise? Am I missing something?



@ UWB Landstill

How are you going to get rid of a Lightning Rift? or Sulfuric Vortex? Or any problematic enchantment for that matter? I see 0 artifact/enchantment removal, and Lightning Rift is currently sitting in the LMF.

Also, a Nimble Mongoose over the threshold will go a LONG way against you. Especially with counter/enchant removal back up from Gro, you are going to need a lot of luck resolving moat/humility and keeping it on board.

Oh, and I'd be very interested in seeing your matchup result against solidarity. I really don't think duress + counters are going to cut it. You could atleast SB a few Phyrexian Negators? Chant? Gilded Light?



@ Cutting Brainstorm.

You got to be kidding. I'm not going to do this wild exclamting remark of "OMFG ZE BESTA BLUE DRAW SPELL YOU NEED 4!!111". But seriously, if you don't have enough shuffle effects then I'd recommend you make there some. The kind of draw smoothing it can do on your first and second turn is incredible, and you really need that draw smoothing survive in such a fast paced environment.




Sorry for no constructive criticism, but that's just my 2cents.

[Tao]

The G-Splash-list: The list is crap. It won a tourney here in Germany, but the deck was thrown together in like 10 minutes before the tourney by a type1-player, so that their team could start in the team competition (Standard, Legacy, Vintage). This means not, that the G-Splash at all is bad, but the list is not a useful base to discuss.

The B-Splash list: This is a pile even worse than the G-Splash-list. It includes way too much creature removal and a horrible mana base. There is nothing vs. Artifacts or Enchantments, too, not even in the Board. Turn 2 you want UU for counterspell. Turn 3 1BB for Infest or Turn 4 2WW for Wrath/Humility/Moat. Ya, good luck with lousy 21 lands and no brainstorm *cry. Just stop posting untested and obviously bad decklists, it is just annoying.

Cutting Brainstorm: STOP THAT! I am so tired of reading it. Cutting it is the worst thing you can do. Just adding 4 more spells and cutting Brainstorm is just pointless, as Brainstorm will draw better Spells. First it makes your draw smoother, like Boogy Boy stated and furthermore it gives you insane Card Quality in the lategame. Draw 3, shuffle back 2 Lands is just an Ancestral Recall in the Lategame. If you cracked all your fetchlands at this point you are just a bad player.

I would like an admin to forbid any discussions on "4 Brainstorm" because the discussion about cutting it is stupid and does not help improving the deck.

[Boogy_Boy]

I would like an admin to forbid any discussions on "4 Brainstorm" because the discussion about cutting it is stupid and does not help improving the deck.


Agreed.

[BlindMage]

I have a Suggestion. This is only ment to generate discussion. I just came up with it while bored. At any rate, UG Landstill:

24 Land:
4 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Faerie Conclave (possibly a 2/1 split between conclave/treetop)
2 Island
1 Forest


46 Other Spells:

(19 Blue)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Leak

(12 Green)
4 Constant Mists
4 Hail Storm
2 Naturalize
2 Rude Awakening

(13 Brown)
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Isochron Scepter
4 Phyrexian Furnace
3 Nevinyrral's Disk


Like I said, it's very off the top of my head, and I'm sure it has more than one Obvious Problem, like the Rifter matchup. I wrote this list mostly with Goblins and Gro in mind. That being said, one could put a couple sets of creatures in the board, for those matchups like rifter and wombat that will force you into the beatdown role. Anyway, this is mearly to generate discussion that is not about removing Brainstorm.


EDITED FOR RETARTED TYPING ERRORS

[Citrus-God]

This deck is too much in the defensive side, it already has problems, due to lack for removal and control elements. If you want to play Landstill with Green, you may as well switch to turboland, and cut the Standstills while your at it...

[diffy]

The Decklist:

After carefully studying diverse Forums on the net and after evaluating the results of the last Grand Prix, I have come up with a Enlightened Tutor based Landstill Variant which I would like to present and introduce to the discussion:




////Enlightened Landstill

/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// 23 Lands

4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
2 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Plains

4 Mishra´s Factory
1 Faerie Conclave

4 Wasteland

// 3 Creatures and Win-Conditions

1 Exalted Angel
1 Decree of Justice
1 Eternal Dragon

// 9 Draw Spells

3 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm

// 11 Permission

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Mana Leak

// 6 Removal

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wrath of God

// Miscellaneous (Toolbox)

3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Moat
1 Humility
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing

/// Sideboard (15 cards)

1 Disenchant
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Rule of Law
1 Arcane Laboratory
1 Circle of Protection : Red
1 Null Rod
1 Tormod´s Crypt
1 Phyrexian Furnace
2 Wrath of God
3 Divert
2 Misdirection


Particular Choices:

I wrote the decklist with the ambition to come up with a totally modified Landstill that can compete in any Meta and have an at least even Matchup with any of the known archetypes pre and post sideboarding.

Maindeck:

1 Seat of the Synod : I added this artifact Land because of the relatively low Mana curve and the low land count. To ensure a land drop can be worth gold in an archetype relying strongly on its Mana base.

1 Exalted Angel : Although the Angel seems to have no particular interaction or synergy with my (few) mass- removal spells in the maindeck, the possibility to go agro and to race the slower agro decks can lead to victory… also against control because after defeating their first wave, the combo player could settle back and create a perfect hand for his second wave because no pressure came from the opposing Landstill player.

2 Fact or Fiction : I know that this draw spell has fallen out of the favor of many Legacy players, but I found its sheer power to mill 5 cards and to get the cards needed in the situation worth gold. If the fact revealed a Force of Will while played in response to an opponent’s threat, the opposing player would nearly for sure make the 4/1 repartition without knowledge of your other Counterspell in hand… If the fact revealed only crap, at least you wouldn’t draw it over the next five turns.

2 Wrath of God : Many players play more mass- removal spells of this category, but I found the wrath in addition to the Moat and the Humility in the toolbox to be a good number of destruction spells. The Wrath is more cost efficient than the other removals (Disk, Vengeance) and doesn’t kill your own, vital, enchantments. In addition to this, the Landstill player playing my decklist would only have about 7-8 dead cards against combo, unlike the old- school players ^^.

1 Pithing Needle : The needle gives the skilled player a dreadful tool but I considered that there isn’t actually so much to needle that couldn’t be handled efficiently other wards… except the mean Aether Vial which the needle can be a good solution against if tutored on the End Of Turn or in the Upkeep of the first turn. Although some other archetypes run more Needles, it’s only because they need to draw them and have no possibility to tutor them.

1 Seal of Cleansing : The Seal is on one hand a tutorable disenchant with sorcery speed, but on the other a threat to the opponent, stopping him from playing his vital enchantments (Crucible…) and therefore acting towards our goal: stall.

Sideboard:

1 Disenchant / 1 Seal of Cleansing : I chose to play one Disenchant over the 2nd Seal because some players would lay down a Needle on the Seal after boarding and would then be able to go off without possibility of stopping them. Although this occasion seems rare, the possibility exists and the probability of drawing one of either disenchant, tutor or Seal is barely affected by my choice.

1 Null Rod : This card has proven to be a good sideboard choice against a number of decks like Affinity, Belcher and Bomberman. Although this card does nothing in the last two Matchups that the needle wouldn’t do (at least not for the key spells), it provides a more consistent draw of either tutor, needle or rod and is extra security if one of the players manages to destroy the lonely needle.

1 Phyrexian Furnace / 1 Tormod´s Crypt : I chose the 1/1 split because of the omnipresence of needles in grow decks and because each of these tutorable cards has pro and cons. The sheer power of the Crypt might be a solution, but only for a limited time… maybe not enough to take control of the situation… The Furnace might not be a help in the emidiate situation but provides more power over time because of its consistence.

3 Divert / 2 Misdirection : I added this card with an eye on the difficult Homebrew Matchup which it eases but it has proven to be strong against a number of decks either running counters, burn, oxidizes for your needles or null rods (see point above)… These are the most versatile cards in my sideboard because they just come in and replace the bad cards in the maindeck even if they aren’t the perfect solution for the Matchup.

Final notes:

This list is far from perfect, but I think that it is a step into the right direction (as has shown the results of GP Philadelphia)… The people who really bother about the future of Landstill as an archetype should start from here and playtest, playtest, playtest.

Please comment the list, feel free to criticize it and to post your playtesting results!

Meet me at MWSplay.net

Der_Imaginäre_Freund

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I have a Suggestion. This is only ment to generate discussion. I just came up with it while bored. At any rate, UG Landstill:

24 Land:
4 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Faerie Conclave (possibly a 2/1 split between conclave/treetop)
2 Island
1 Forest


46 Other Spells:

(19 Blue)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Leak

(12 Green)
4 Constant Mists
4 Hail Storm
2 Naturalize
2 Rude Awakening

(13 Brown)
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Isochron Scepter
4 Phyrexian Furnace
3 Nevinyrral's Disk


Like I said, it's very off the top of my head, and I'm sure it has more than one Obvious Problem, like the Rifter matchup. I wrote this list mostly with Goblins and Gro in mind. That being said, one could put a couple sets of creatures in the board, for those matchups like rifter and wombat that will force you into the beatdown role. Anyway, this is mearly to generate discussion that is not about removing Brainstorm.


EDITED FOR RETARTED TYPING ERRORS


... are you suggesting running 68 cards on purpose, or are you just miscounting horribly?

[Jander78]

....Enlightened Tutor.....
I like you version of this deck as I have appreciated most versions of Landstill making use of Enlightened Tutor. But in today's meta, and with the influx and great performance of Threshold decks, Enlightened Tutor seems more like a liability. I've run into and have had to play around more Predicts and Portents than I'd like to remember playing any of the Mirage tutors. Both of those cards will make you either wish you hadn't cast E. Tutor or wish you weren't staring at it in your hand. Other than this issue, I do think your build has the ability to perform very well in a mixed meta that doesn't have to face any Threshold decks.

[Bane of the Living]

Not every thresh deck plays Portent and Predict. Besides Portent is sorc speed. If you play the Tutor eot then even if your opponent Predicts it away and gets their cards they most likely tap out. All I'm saying is I've never been the casualty of Predict.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Not every thresh deck plays Portent and Predict. Besides Portent is sorc speed. If you play the Tutor eot then even if your opponent Predicts it away and gets their cards they most likely tap out. All I'm saying is I've never been the casualty of Predict.
The greater problem with Mirage tutors against Gro is the card you lose by playing one of them. If the Gro player can't Predict your Tutor target, he will happily get into a counterwar over it when you play it, and you will rarely be in a good position to protect it (especially since the best Tutor targets are both permanents that cost 2WW). This loss of card advantage and tempo is devastating in that matchup.

That said, Enlightened Tutor and the toolbox it offers seem beneficial to Landstill in many other matchups. Theoretically, it improves both the versatility and the effectiveness of the deck's answers, and the list our imaginary friend posted features an attractive set of Tutor targets.

That list does appear to have a dangerously low land count, though. 23 is several lands fewer than most older lists, and there are only 13 blue sources (unless you count Dragon). Freund, have you had any issues with the manabase?

Lastly, you mentioned that your goal was to create a deck capable of going at least even against the entire upper tier. In your testing, how close have you come to reaching this (optimistic, if I may say so) goal? Although your list looks strong in a varied metagame, I'd guess that it still has problems with Solidarity and that it fails to boast an overwhelmingly positive percentage against Gro, as well.

[Jander78]

Not every thresh deck plays Portent and Predict. Besides Portent is sorc speed. If you play the Tutor eot then even if your opponent Predicts it away and gets their cards they most likely tap out. All I'm saying is I've never been the casualty of Predict.
I didn't realize that Portent was a sorcery. I stand corrected. Predict is still an issue as I haven't run into too many Thresh decks not running it, but that may be restricted to my personal meta.

I see Landstill in general as having issues described by Ob. Freely. It doesn't have the disruption to deal with Solidarity and has trouble keeping threats low from Threshold decks.

[diffy]

@Obfuscate Freely


That list does appear to have a dangerously low land count, though. 23 is several lands fewer than most older lists, and there are only 13 blue sources (unless you count Dragon). Freund, have you had any issues with the manabase?

In some matchups i do have some problems with mana (well, Hombrew oO) but the 23 lands + dragon worked ok for me. I would add another land but i can&#180;t decide what to cut ^^


Lastly, you mentioned that your goal was to create a deck capable of going at least even against the entire upper tier. In your testing, how close have you come to reaching this (optimistic, if I may say so) goal? Although your list looks strong in a varied metagame, I'd guess that it still has problems with Solidarity and that it fails to boast an overwhelmingly positive percentage against Gro, as well.

Well, on MWS I win most of my matches against the upper tier and in normal playtesting i&#180;m doing ok... grow isn&#180;t much of a topic after boarding and i think only a matter of luck/skill ^^
I&#180;ve got a counter for each of theirs and after boarding 5 more, and i&#180;ve got a sword/wrath fot each of their non flyers... if the moat resolves.

In the last local tourney i played, i won 2 out of 3 matches against grow (win: GUBw, GUW ; loose: GUr)... the enchantments really help in that matchup.

@Jander78


I see Landstill in general as having issues described by Ob. Freely. It doesn't have the disruption to deal with Solidarity and has trouble keeping threats low from Threshold decks.

I see Landstill having trouble with Hombrew rather than with those 2 decks... against solidarity you just have to counter their key spells which works fine after boarding or protect your lab/rule and against grow, they actually are the player with little threats... moat and humility can both be concidered as threat as well as angel, furnace, cryt etc

@All

1 Misidirection in the Side has been replaced with 1 sacred ground

Is anyone of you actually using MWS to playtest?

[Eldariel]

Just about Solidarity-match up, the big problem is that their keyspell is named 'Brain Freeze' which usually soaks up between 8 and 16 counters. Also, each time you counter one of their spells, you only succesfully add 1 to their storm-count. Traditionally, the problem is that unless you can generate a sufficient clock, they can just wait until they have 8-10 lands in play and 7 cards in hand and just play out their hand, turning every card into a must-counter and then just Brain Freeze the living hell out of you the turn before you'd go lethal.

[Bane of the Living]

Yea if your looking for better anti Solidarity tech go with Mana Maze. You can drop it before they combo off even if your on the draw, and its alot harder to bounce than lab.

[MasterBlaster]

As long as we're talking about an Enlightened Tutor Landstill, I'd like to know what people think of the new enchantment Counterbalance in the deck.

[diffy]

Yea if your looking for better anti Solidarity tech go with Mana Maze. You can drop it before they combo off even if your on the draw, and its alot harder to bounce than lab.

Agreed.

Change in Sideboard: -1 Arcane Lab, +1 Mana Maze

They can both be pitched to force... but I dont know if Lab is inferior to the rule... any ideas anyone?? Lab can be ReBlasted but that doesn&#180;t really matter in the solidarity matchup ^^


As long as we're talking about an Enlightened Tutor Landstill, I'd like to know what people think of the new enchantment Counterbalance in the deck.

I havn&#180;t tested counterbalance, but at first sight it looks... let&#180;s say "interesting" but I don&#180;t think that this card wil ever make it into a competitive deck because of it&#180;s drawback at randomness.

[diffy]

////Enlightened Landstill

/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// 23 Lands

4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
2 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Plains

4 Mishra´s Factory
1 Faerie Conclave

4 Wasteland

// 3 Creatures and Win-Conditions

1 Exalted Angel
1 Decree of Justice
1 Eternal Dragon

// 9 Draw Spells

3 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm

// 11 Permission

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Mana Leak

// 6 Removal

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wrath of God

// Miscellaneous (Toolbox)

3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Moat
1 Humility
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing

/// Sideboard (15 cards)

1 Disenchant
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Rule of Law
1 Mana Maze
1 Circle of Protection : Red
1 Null Rod
1 Tormod´s Crypt
1 Phyrexian Furnace
2 Wrath of God
3 Divert
1 Misdirection
1 Sacred Ground


Hey everyone!

I want to take the above described decklist to a major tournament on August 10-13 in Germany (German Legacy Championships 2006) and I still want to change the deck a little:

-I want to fit in an additional land in the maindeck, so I ask you what to cut
-I don´t know if the 2 Wrath of God in the Side are needed or totally overkill, please post your thoughts and ideas what to replace one with

My meta is unknown / random but I still want to fit in additional tech against Grow, the most played deck in Germany.

Any comments welcome

Thanks in advance for your quick replies,
Time is of the essence

Der_imaginäre_Freund

[scrumdogg]

Several questions....why Rule of Law instead of Arcane Lab? Same card, but one pitches to FoW... Also, what is your plan against Gro? Could the random Disenchant become another Crypt or Furnace? Why not just add a land to get to 24? If you are dead set on 60, can you live with 10 permission & drop a Mana Leak? Good luck at the Championships, kick Gro in the junk for all of us :)

[diffy]

@ Scrumdogg


Several questions....why Rule of Law instead of Arcane Lab? Same card, but one pitches to FoW...

Rule of Law isn&#180;t ReB/Pyroblastable, Arcane Lab is ^^



Also, what is your plan against Gro? Could the random Disenchant

The random disenchant replaced the 3rd Seal in the board because of the probablility that some $74X player would say seal with his needle game 2.



another Crypt or Furnace?


On other forums the ideas have come up to cut the 2 wrath for 1 crypt and 1 Engineered Explosives, I think that this is the right way.



Why not just add a land to get to 24? If you are dead set on 60, can you live with 10 permission & drop a Mana Leak?


Good sugestion ^^



Good luck at the Championships, kick Gro in the junk for all of us :)


I hope that I won&#180;t disapoint you ^^

@All

Keep on Commenting pls, still 14 days to change the deck!

And

See the other landstill threads:

- http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=280716&start=25

-http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=28969.30

On which people try to actually improve the deck, as well as we are. Their ideas could be helpfull

[diffy]

As far as the discussion of changes goes on, several good ideas have emerged:

-up the card count to 61 to add one additional island
-cut one WoG in the Side to give place to an Engineered Explosives
-cut one WoG in the Side to give place to an additional Crypt/Furnace/stabilizer

So I ask you to give me your opinions to this topic:

-Regarding my built, what is better, crypt or furnace?
-Is the 61 card count acceptable?

Thanks

[scrumdogg]

I am an advocate of the 61 card school, so my opinion is biased ^^ I like the additional versatility of the added Explosives + Crypt, as to which is better, that depends on how fast your graveyard control needs to be (can you afford the time investment of Phyrexian Furnace?) and how prevalent Needle is in your meta. One other question I have, back to the Rule of Law vs Arcane Lab question, A) how much REB/Pyroblast do you see in your meta? and B) how many of the decks where you would add in Rule/Lab do you expect to see the REB/Pyroblast? I may be missing something, but what deck fears them and runs REB/Pyroblast, other than Burn, which since you have no life gain mechanism should beat you anyway? Burn also has the ability to bring in Anarchy, so the 'evasion' of Rule of Law is questionable anyway... Enlighten me? Please? Thx ^^

[diffy]

Hello,

A couple of days before the great tournament, a playtesting friend of mine gave me a Hombrew, Deadguy deck and told me that I could take it to the tournament.
Now I am undecided which deck to take.
Pikula´s Deck looks very smooth and has a positive matchup against most of the field but, hum…
I know this is a little bit off topic but, COULD YOU PLEASE HELP ME decide which deck I should take to the competition with a meta of:



Mostly Grow, couple of Rifters and Homebrew decks…


I would either take this landstill build:



////Enlightened Landstill

/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// 23 Lands

4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
2 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Plains

4 Mishra´s Factory
1 Faerie Conclave

4 Wasteland

// 3 Creatures and Win-Conditions

1 Exalted Angel
1 Decree of Justice
1 Eternal Dragon

// 9 Draw Spells

3 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm

// 11 Permission

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Mana Leak

// 6 Removal

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wrath of God

// Miscellaneous (Toolbox)

3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Moat
1 Humility
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing

/// Sideboard (15 cards)

1 Stabilizer
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Rule of Law
1 Mana Maze
1 Circle of Protection : Red
1 Null Rod
1 Tormod´s Crypt
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Wrath of God
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Divert
1 Misdirection
1 Sacred Ground


With some changes that will emerge as the discussion goes on

or

This Homebrew Deck:




////Maindeck: 60 Cards

///21 Lands

7 Swamps
4 Scrubland
1 Tainted Field
4 Wasteland
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta

/// 5 Killers

3 Nantuko Shade
2 Withered Wretch

/// 4 Draw

4 Dark Confident

/// 16 Discard

4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourarch
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Gerrard´s Veridct

/// 8 Land Destruction

4 Sinkhole
4 Vinidcate

/// 6 Utility

4 Dark Ritual
2 Cursed Scroll

//// Sideboard: 15 Cards

2 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Plagues
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Disenchant



I know that this is totally off- topic, but I can´t decide which deck to pilot because both have advantages and dissadvantages.

Thanks for all sugestions

Keep on commenting

Notes: 1 Disenchant in the Side was replaced with 1 Stabilizer because of following arguments:



1 Stabilizer / 1 Seal of Cleansing : I chose to play one Stabilizer over the 2nd Seal because decks like Rifter are considered as an auto-loss and because this card just shuts them down… completely. I chose to play the Stabilizer over another Seal because the Seals would mostly be boarded in against Rifter… and so I would have an additional card against that Matchup and wouldn´t loose too much to the other Matchups.

[diffy]

(can you afford the time investment of Phyrexian Furnace?)

I tutor the Furnace in specially sircumstances like the early game to keep their graveyard low on cards, periodically, over the long term.
The Crypt´s one shot effect might be mighty, but I like the Furnace´s consistency.
If time is of the essence, I tutor a Crypt. That´s it ^^



and how prevalent Needle is in your meta.

The problem is that we don´t have a fix meta except for some rough outlines. But all in all, everyone who can afford a playset plays them.



One other question I have, back to the Rule of Law vs Arcane Lab question, A) how much REB/Pyroblast do you see in your meta?


A lot ^^^



and B) how many of the decks where you would add in Rule/Lab do you expect to see the REB/Pyroblast?

Uhm, there´s a point.


I may be missing something, but what deck fears them and runs REB/Pyroblast, other than Burn, which since you have no life gain mechanism should beat you anyway? Burn also has the ability to bring in Anarchy, so the 'evasion' of Rule of Law is questionable anyway... Enlighten me? Please? Thx ^^

Well, I have never ever lost a match to burn.
Maybe ^rarely game 1, but never the following.
Plug the Angel and win
Get CA and win
And I actually played burn myself for a while...

[Oathmaster]

Hello,

I would not give up a misdirection for a sacred ground. I would trade one of my diverts for it. I love the idea of sacred ground. The next question would be what is more important, misdirection or divert and what ratio. Divert is great if you go first so you can drop that island, if not you can possibly see the first turn swamp, dark ritual, hymn. At least with misdirection you can turn that hymn around and nail your opponent. In this case they would go from a starting hand of 7 to 2 with one land in play. That is an extreme advantage especially for a format where deadguy ale and mono black shows up frequently.

I like landstill better than deadguy. I think landstill has more diversity to handle a wider range of decks then deadguy. I had both decks built and after playtesting and many many tournaments. I decided to tear apart deadguy because it does not run as "smoothly" as it appears. I also had problem with rogue decks and extremely fast aggro. Land destruction and hand destruction could not save me.

Good luck with the deck

[diffy]

The Decklist

After carefully studying diverse Forums on the net and after evaluating the results of the last Grand Prix, I have come up with a Enlightened Tutor based Landstill Variant which I would like to present and introduce to the discussion:




////Enlightened Landstill

/// Maindeck (61 cards)

// 24 Lands

4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
3 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Plains

4 Mishra´s Factory
1 Faerie Conclave

4 Wasteland

// 3 Creatures and Win-Conditions

1 Exalted Angel
1 Decree of Justice
1 Eternal Dragon

// 9 Draw Spells

3 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm

// 11 Permission

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Mana Leak

// 6 Removal

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wrath of God

// Miscellaneous (Toolbox)

3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Moat
1 Humility
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing

/// Sideboard (15 cards)

1 Stabilizer
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Rule of Law
1 Mana Maze
1 Circle of Protection : Red
1 Null Rod
1 Tormod´s Crypt
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Wrath of God
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Divert
1 Misdirection
1 Sacred Ground

Particular Choices:

I wrote the decklist with the ambition to come up with a totally modified Landstill that can compete in any Meta and have an at least even Matchup with any of the known archetypes pre and post sideboarding.

Maindeck:

61 Cards, 24lands >60 Cards, 23lands: I chose to pack 61 cards and one additional land because of two major factors: the probabilty of drawing the needed cards is nearly not changed by adding a 61st card and because of the additional security that provides 24 lands: nothing is worse than to be screwed with a blue based control deck.

1 Seat of the Synod : I added this artifact Land because of the relatively low Mana curve and the low land count. To ensure a land drop can be worth gold in an archetype relying strongly on its Mana base.

1 Exalted Angel : Although the Angel seems to have no particular interaction or synergy with my (few) mass- removal spells in the maindeck, the possibility to go agro and to race the slower agro decks can lead to victory… also against control because after defeating their first wave, the combo player could settle back and create a perfect hand for his second wave because no pressure came from the opposing Landstill player.

2 Fact or Fiction : I know that this draw spell has fallen out of the favor of many Legacy players, but I found its sheer power to mill 5 cards and to get the cards needed in the situation worth gold. If the fact revealed a Force of Will while played in response to an opponent’s threat, the opposing player would nearly for sure make the 4/1 repartition without knowledge of your other Counterspell in hand… If the fact revealed only crap, at least you wouldn’t draw it over the next five turns.

2 Wrath of God : Many players play more mass- removal spells of this category, but I found the wrath in addition to the Moat and the Humility in the toolbox to be a good number of destruction spells. The Wrath is more cost efficient than the other removals (Disk, Vengeance) and doesn’t kill your own, vital, enchantments. In addition to this, the Landstill player playing my decklist would only have about 7-8 dead cards against combo, unlike the old- school players ^^.

1 Pithing Needle : The needle gives the skilled player a dreadful tool but I considered that there isn’t actually so much to needle that couldn’t be handled efficiently other ways… except the mean Aether Vial which the needle can be a good solution against if tutored on the End Of Turn or in the Upkeep of the first turn. Although some other archetypes run more Needles, it’s only because they need to draw them and have no possibility to tutor them, at least I think that ^^.

1 Seal of Cleansing : The Seal is on one hand a tutorable disenchant with sorcery speed, but on the other a threat to the opponent, stopping him from playing his vital enchantments or Artifacts (Crucible…) and therefore acting towards our goal: stall.

Sideboard:

1 Mana Maze/ 1 Rule of Law : I chose to play Mana Maze over the known Arcane Laboratory because of the difficulty to bounce it… against the hard solidarity Matchup this is a big plus… as well as the fact that a real lock can be achieved with both of the enchantments in play. I chose to play the Rule of Law over the Arcane Laboratory because of two main reasons: the Arcane Lab is ReB/Pyro-Blastable and one doesn’t want to tap a blue source against solidarity.

1 Stabilizer / 1 Seal of Cleansing : I chose to play one Stabilizer over the 2nd Seal because decks like Rifter are considered as an auto-loss and because this card just shuts them down… completely. I chose to play the Stabilizer over another Seal because the Seals would mostly be boarded in against Rifter… and so I would have an additional card against that Matchup and wouldn´t loose too much to the other Matchups.

1 Null Rod : This card has proven to be a good sideboard choice against a number of decks like Affinity, Belcher and Bomberman. Although this card does nothing in the last two Matchups that the needle wouldn’t do (at least not for the key spells), it provides a more consistent draw of either one tutor, needle or rod and is extra security if one of the players manages to destroy the lonely needle.

1 Phyrexian Furnace / 1 Tormod´s Crypt : I chose the 1/1 split because of the omnipresence of needles in grow decks and because each of these tutorable cards has pro and cons. The sheer power of the Crypt might be a solution, but only for a limited time… maybe not enough to take control of the situation… The Furnace might not be a help in the emidiate situation but provides more power over time because of its consistence.

3 Divert / 1 Misdirection : I added this card with an eye on the difficult Homebrew Matchup which it eases but it has proven to be strong against a number of decks either running counters, burn, oxidizes for your needles or null rods (see point above)… These are the most versatile cards in my sideboard because they just come in and replace the bad cards in the maindeck even if they aren’t the perfect solution for the Matchup.

1 Engineered Explosives : I love this card – periode -. It is very flexible, can be boarded against a lot of other archetypes and provides most frequently an instant speed wrath for 2 mana.

Rejected Cards:

Many players may not like my deck and the changes that I introduced to the former Archetype we’re trying to improve here… Here a list of Cards that many players would include in the deck and a brief explanation why I didn’t:

Arkoma’s Vengeance: I am not playing this card because of a simple matter of slowness. This card comes down turn 6 if one doesn’t miss any land drops… turn 6, the turn by which all tier 1, non- control decks (e.g.: Iggy Pop (average Kill: turn 3), Goblins (average Kill: turn 4-5), SalGame (average Kill: turn 5), Solidarity (average Kill: turn 4-5), Grow/R and Grow/W (average Kill: turn 6)) of the format should be either in a position in which they would immediately win, or have done this until now, even with our counters.
Some players may now argue that the vengeance cycles… yes she does, but for the overcosted price of 3 Mana, a number that would rarely be open at an end of turn.
For my opinion Wrath of God or Disenchant do the same, one shot effect, for less Mana.

Nevinyraal´s Disk: Although the Disk comes down a turn earlier than it’s big sister Vengeance, I still think that this is a sub-par card in the modern Legacy MetaGame where speed defines the winner. At earliest Turn 5 for a board sweeper allowing creatures to regenerate is too slow because some decks would have overwhelmed the player by then.
Although I rate the Disk higher than the Vengeance, I still think it’s sub-par not only because of it’s slowness and of it’s one- shot effect, but also because the opposing player can just needle/disenchant/naturalize/stifle the activation and swing for the win. This inconsistency and the possible card disadvantage created by the card (if one has to protect it during the opponents turn, with no Mana open and so obliged to FoW) eliminate this card from my repertoire.

Stifle: This card is fun, no question with that. It provides a more aggressive feeling and it’s just worth any price seeing the fetchie/storm combo player ´s face while presenting him this card, but apart from an annoyance factor, this card does nothing vital which couldn’t be done otherwise with a tutorable enchantment such as Mana Maze or Rule of Law.

Accumulated Knowledge: This card provides an enormous card advantage, but mostly, with no way to tutor for it, only in the late game, by which the Landstill player would either be in such a good position to win anyways, or be dead and buried by then. Keep this card for the Tog players who can at least take advantage of one or two copies sleeping in their grave, we can’t.

Decree of Justice: I never play more than two copies of this card in Landstill. Never Ever. Even if this card has great synergy with Standstill, it is absolutely slow and provides me most of the time nothing but chump blockers for a turn and I mostly board it out after Game 1. We are not trying to put together a theme deck with the theme to act under a Standstill… but a deck which should win. The Standstill would mostly be cracked right away, anyways, and the Humilit+ManLands should provide enough security under the Standstill if needed.
The uncounterability of the card is fine, but a single plus not weighting enough for my matters to make it into the deck more than 1-2 times.

Teh Sideboarding Tech:

(I’m not sure about the proper ways of boarding against the most commonly spread archetypes, so I would be pleased to hear your suggestions.)

Mostly boarding in with this deck is plainly simple so the discussion should mainly focus on what to board out. [The cards marqued with a star will replace those with a star as would those with 2 stars replace the cards with 2 stars.]

Vs.Grow(both variants)

Needed:
*+1 Tormod’s Crypt
*+1 Phyrexian Furnace
*+1 Engineered Explosives

Possible:
**+3 Diverts
**+1 Misdirection

Board out:
*-1 Swords to Plowshares
*- 1 Seal of Cleansing
*- 1 Pithing Needle
**- 2 Fact or Fiction
**- 1 Decree of Justice
**- 1 Swords to Plowshares or Wrath of God

Vs. B/W Disruption aka Ale Deadguy aka Pikula.deck aka A Homebrew

Needed:
*+3 Diverts
*+1 Misdirection
*+1 Sacred Ground

Possible:
**+1 Engineered Explosives

Board out:
*-1 Decree of Justice
*-1 Seal of Cleansing
*-1 Wrath of God
*-1 Fact or Fiction
**-1 Wrath of God

Vs. Solidarity aka HighTideReset

Needed:
*+1 Rule of Law
*+1 Mana Maze

Possible:
**+3 Divert
**+1 Misdirection

Board out:
*-1 Pithing Needle
*-1 Wrath of God
**-1 Wrath of God
**-1 Moat
**-2 Swords to Plowshares

Vs. SalvagerCombo aka SalGame

Needed:
*+1 Null Rod
*+1 Tormod’s Crypt

Possible:
**+1 Phyrexian Furnace
**+1 Misdirection
**+1 Rule of Law

Board out:
*-1 Seal of Cleansing
*-1 Wrath of God
**-1 Decree of Justice
**-1 Fact or Fiction
**-1 Standstill

Vs. BURN!1!1

Needed:
*+1 Misdirection
*+1 Mana Maze
*+1 Circle of Protection: Red

Possible:
**+2 Diverts

Board out:
*-2 Wrath of God
*-1 Seal of Cleansing
**-1 Moat
**-1 Humility

Vs. R/W Control aka Rifter

Needed:
*+1 Stabilizer

Possible:
**+1 Seal of Cleansing
**+1 Circle of Protection: Red
**+1 Misdirection
***+1 Phyrexian Furnace

Board out:
*-1 Standstill
**-1 Humility
**-1 Decree of Justice
**-1 Standstill
***-1 Fact or Fiction

Vs. Vial Goblins (R/g and R/w Variants)

Needed:
*+1 Circle of Protection: Red
*+1 Wrath of God

Possible:
**+1 Misdirection
**+1 Divert
**+1 Engineered Explosives

(Definitely loads of 1off boarding ^^)

Board out:
*-1 Standstill
*-1 Seal of Cleansing
**-2 Fact or Fiction
**-1 Pithing Needle (?) or Decree of Justice

Vs. all kinds of Survival of the Fittest based decks (ATS and R/G Survival Advantage)

Needed:
*+1 Seal of Cleansing

Possible:
**+1 Engineered Explosives
**+1 Phyrexian Furnace

Board out:
*-1 Decree of Justice
**-2 Fact or Fiction

Vs. Iggy Pop

Needed:
*+1 Mana Maze
*+1 Arcane Laboratory

Possible:
**+1 Tormod´s Crypt

Board out:
*-2 Wrath of God
**-1 Pithing Needle

Debatable Slots:

Maindeck

1) 61 Cards, 3 Mana Leak or 60 Cards, 2 Mana Leaks
I found that the 61st card doesn’t really change the proportions in which needed cards are drawn, but adds flexibility.

Sideboard

1) 3 Divert, 1 Misdirection or 2 Divert, 2 Misdirection
I am not sure over this point because even if the Divert has a better cost/effect ratio than the Misdirection, the MisD allows one to be on the draw and to redirect that Hymn and to be more efficient in the late game.

2) Rule of Law > Arcane Laboratory
Allthough the Laboratory might be the better choice at first glance, I think it isn’t because of two main reasons: the Lab is ReB/Pyro blastable (never actually minding a lot) and one doesn’t want to tap an island against Solidarity to cast the possible game winner. I think that the ability to pitch the Lab doesn’t count as a plus because one never wants to pitch his boarded bullets.

Final notes:

This list is far from perfect, but I think that it is a step into the right direction (as has shown the results of GP Philadelphia)… The people who really bother about the future of Landstill as an archetype should start from here and playtest, playtest, playtest.

Please comment the list, feel free to criticize it and to tear apart my boarding decisions :P (as said, I don’t really know how to board out properly^^)!

I would enjoy enlarging this discussion and to introduce some personal play tech/boarding talk… and don’t hide behind the s

Meet me at MWSplay.net

Der_Imaginäre_Freund

[diffy]

@all

After getting nearly only positive feedback on diverse american/english/anglophone forums, I was pretty shoqued after a rather depressing reply on a german forum in which my deck was pretty much torn appart…
So i ask you to reconfort me :P please *snif
Here the decklist the two writers thought supperior to mine:

4 Island
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Plains

2 Humility
4 Counterspell
3 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
3 Repeal
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Eternal Dragon
2 Decree of Justice
2 Pulse of the Fields
4 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will

SB: 3 Disenchant
SB: 4 Spellsnare
SB: 4 Meddling Mage
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void

I ask you if it is supperior to my built, which i don’t assume.
The flamers did also tear appart the enlightened tutor variant in it’s very concept :-( which will lead me to my next point:

Is the oldschool Landstill more viable than the enlightened tutor variant?

Thanks for your replies

P.S.: for those who know a little German: here a link to the forum http://www.zkforum.de/showthread.php?t=37080&page=6&pp=15

[VeniVidiVici]

IMO all of your MD silver bullets need to be useful outside of their niche roles (the SB bullets being narrow is fine, as that's what a sideboard is for). I've been working on a variant of the BHWC Landstill list as my backup deck (my first choice for tourneys being Goblins), and Enlightened Tutor is great in there, grabbing Deed and Vedalken Shackles in addition to Standstill and Crucible. The sideboard is geared towards E. Tutor, sporting Arcane Laboratory, Humility, Seal of Cleansing, COP:Red, Energy Flux and Ivory Mask. I like the versatility it provides and acts as more ways to access my key cards (I always want Standstill and Pernicious Deed).

I heartily endorse the SB Diverts, as I find the Deadguy/Red Death matchup near-unwinnable without them and Force of Will.

Regarding the non-ET list, it seems stellar, but I have to ask, is Wrath worth it anymore? I found with traditional Landstill that tapping 4 mainphase was horrendous, as Ringleader or Enforcer typically resolved next turn (or against Gobs/RDW I would get Price of Progressed out of the game. I know this seems hypocritical coming from a guy who plays Deeds, but I found the ability to nuke the board whenever was a big asset (and the fact that Deed came down earlier was often helpful).

[Citrus-God]

I gor bored with a friend of mine, and we made this weird crap...


// Mana 27
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
1 Wasteland
3 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Lonely Sandbar
1 Cephalid Coliseum


// Spells 34
3 Intuition
4 Standstill
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
2 Forbid
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Darkblast
1 Life from the Loam
2 Solitary Confinement


// Sideboard 15
1 Wrath of God
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Life from the Loam
2 Solitary Confinement
3 Decree of Justice
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Disenchant


Frankly... I got bored... So me and a friend decided to toy around with 004 Drop. Of course, we hated the deck. So I thought, Landstill with Solitary Confinement! The lftl engine is broken as hell, and Standstills are nuts early game! Nantuko Monastery is quite the monster. Another problem we had, was the fact Wasteland sucks, and is only sexy when it's recurrable, so it became a 1-of so you can fetch it with Intuition.

So me, being a long time Dredge-a-Tog player, and my friend, a former Landstill player, we had this. Now, dont you dare get this confused with the list that T8ed the 1.5 Champs, as our gameplan is completely different, and is slightly more aggrsssive unless Confinement is active. This deck usually wins around turn 9-12, which I doubt is slow, because Landstill wins on turn 20-ish.

The SB is crap, and is still imcomplete...

[Shriekmaw]

I'm a big fan of the traditional version of Landstill rather than the enlightened one. I do believe the enlightened landstill deck variant is well designed, I just find it more inconsisent than the traditional build of the deck.

I have found a few holes in white/blue version of landstill and decided to just splash a little bit of red in the deck to make it more consisent.

Current List:

4 flooded strand
4 tundra
4 wasteland
4 mishra's factory
3 island
3 volcanic island
2 plain
4 standstill
4 brainstorm
4 force of will
4 counterspell
4 lightning bolt
4 wrath of god
4 swords to plowshares
2 crucible of worlds
2 nevinyrral's disk
2 decree of justice
2 eternal dragon

The sideboard is still up for debate with the metagame that your expecting. Even though many people think landstill is dead, there is a reason why it was so dominant before,

I believe it can be dominant once again when people start playing it again.

[Citrus-God]

Nickrit, your only running 16 Blue Cards to support FoW. It's not very healthy to run 16 Blue cards, as it makes FoW inconsistent. I think you should replace the 2 Dragons and 2 other random cards for Fire // Ice. It's a cantrip, it pitches to FoW, and it can kill random creatures. Plus, Survival is getting big again.

[quicksilver]

Survival is getting big again.

It is!!! Where are you getting that little fact from? As much as I have seen it has been consistantly making up only around 2-3% of the tournements.

[Shriekmaw]

Nickrit, your only running 16 Blue Cards to support FoW. It's not very healthy to run 16 Blue cards, as it makes FoW inconsistent. I think you should replace the 2 Dragons and 2 other random cards for Fire // Ice. It's a cantrip, it pitches to FoW, and it can kill random creatures. Plus, Survival is getting big again.


The traditional white/blue version of landstill run around 18 blue cards, so I don't believe that 16 blue cards is that much of a stretch. I'm not a big fan of getting rid of win conditions such as eternal dragon from the deck. I don't have many win conditions and would like to keep them.

I was thinking about running fire/ice in the main deck, but there was no room. I want to have both swords and wrath of god in the deck.

Let me know if you have any better suggestions to cut from the deck to add fire/ice because as of know, I don't see any.

[Whit3 Ghost]

Wizards finally posted the list

//Lands 24
4 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Plains
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastary

//Spells 36
4 FOW
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
3 Stifle
4 Standstill
3 FOF
4 STP
2 Edict
2 Disenchant
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Crucible of Worlds

//Sideboard
4 E Plague
4 BEB
4 Mage
3 Duress

To me, this list is perfectly metagamed, and is running great cards to shore up the Goblins/Solidarity match both maindeck and sideboard.

I love Nantuko Monastary.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I love how much the entire top 8 just gave Wasteland the bird. No respect at all. Skyshroud Elite is a house again.

[Citrus-God]

It is!!! Where are you getting that little fact from? As much as I have seen it has been consistantly making up only around 2-3% of the tournements.

I know, and it Top 8's like a champ too. You almost got Top 8 at the DLD, and Mulletus got Top 8. See, that makes Survival bigger than usual.

@nickrit: I dont know what to cut either. Dragon is a pretty solid lategame card I admit.

@Trudeau's List: So friggin' sexy. I love Monastery too, and it makes a pretty good Midgame beater!

[JACO]

Wizards finally posted the list
...
To me, this list is perfectly metagamed, and is running great cards to shore up the Goblins/Solidarity match both maindeck and sideboard.
It's good to see this deck is drawing interest finally. This 4C Landstill is the 'BHWC 4C Landstill' that made so many top 8 appearances in San Diego the last 2 years, basically in the hands of Nick and I, and then various 'pupils' in the area.

Nick and I are currently writing a mini-primer for the deck, which we'll share with you all very soon.

[Whit3 Ghost]

Nick, congrats on the double top8.
I'm definately waiting for the primer.
PS- How well can this deck give waste the bird?

[Tacosnape]

Wizards finally posted the list
(Snip)
2 Crucible of Worlds


Is there any reason, given that Crucible is the only thing in the entire maindeck you run that succumbs to deed and that it's vulnerable to artifact hate and countermagic, and that you're running green, that this isn't 2 Life From The Loam?

I'm curious to know.

[JACO]

How well can this deck give waste the bird?
Well, with 3 Stifles and 2 Crucible of Worlds main deck, the deck does not succumb to Wasteland. Nick plays 1 basic Plains in the deck, and when I run it I play 1 basic Plains and 1 basic Island, so it's really not much of an issue.


Is there any reason, given that Crucible is the only thing in the entire maindeck you run that succumbs to deed and that it's vulnerable to artifact hate and countermagic, and that you're running green, that this isn't 2 Life From The Loam?

I'm curious to know.I thought of this as soon as Life From the Loam came out, but quickly dismissed it. There are a few reasons not to run Life From the Loam in here.
1) You really don't want to dredge away business spells in this deck, because it has no synergy with the rest of the deck, and no recursion. All the business in here is usually pretty gassy, so it makes no sense to toss Force of Wills and Fact or Fictions in the bin, when instead I can have a static ability that says "recur Wasteland or Flooded Strand."
2) You don't want to tie up mana, especially your off color green, when you could have just spent 3 colorless (manlands always cast this) one time. The Tropical Islands are better served as being tapped to activate Nantuko Monastery, tapping to cast Pernicious Deed, or laying in wait untapped to cast a response (Counterspell, Stifle, Fact or Fiction, etc.).
3) For Life From the Loam to matter, you need to be playing cycling lands, or it's just a waste of tempo. This deck's manabase and business spell vs. mana source ratio doesn't leave room for cycling lands.