[Deck] UW(x) Landstill [Archive] - Page 23

FTW

04-21-2022, 04:11 PM

W + a draw step is a real cost, and you won’t see your targets that much more since you only have one e tutor. There are best targets and worst targets in your etutor package. You aren’t reliably seeing that 1 etutor that much in a deck that’s isn’t running ponder. Either the cost is worth it and you should cut the worst targets for more tutors so you can see the better ones more frequently; or the cost isn’t worth it and you should cut the worst targets for 2x of all the better ones.

W + draw step would be the argument against too many ETutors.

But 1-ETutor + 1-ofs is better than a bunch of 2-ofs, as said before. You don't have to run bad tutor slots in the freed up space. That space could go to other cards. Saving SB space is still good. Suppose you board in ETutor + Canonist instead of 2 Canonists. You're going to see Canonist as often to hate on combo, except that some of the time you could choose to get Standstill or Pithing Needle instead of Canonist, and you never have to draw 2 Canonists in a row when it would be redundant, so you gain more flexibility. Without Ponder you won't see the 2-of that often either, and you'll have a harder time filtering away from the redundant 2 Canonist draws, so it's not like running 2 Canonist instead is somehow better.

Reeplcheep

04-21-2022, 04:19 PM

Reeplcheep

04-21-2022, 04:25 PM

If seeing the cards more often and consolidating sideboard slots is worth W and a Card, then the losing access to the worst card in your sideboard (say the 2nd veil) is worth accessing the best tutor target 50%! more. Saying that neither of the above options is true seems ludicrous.

It’s like those 4c loam players who played 1 dryad arbor and 1 GSZ. It doesn’t make any sense.

FTW

04-21-2022, 05:17 PM

The chance of you hitting both Canonists, and you not having a brainstorm, and you know the opponent has no way to answer the first one, is so small that I don’t understand why it’s even worth mentioning. Having a 50% chance of not having to pay W and a Card for the first one is way more impactful and likely.

Decks like this tend to draw through at least half the deck before finishing the game. Unlike a tempo deck or midrange deck that can play the odds and gamble against unlikely draw sequences, Landstill will draw its 2-ofs a non-negligible amount of the time, and it doesn't have the full Xerox package to smooth draws (like Bant Uro or Jeskai HullDay would). That leads to building Landstill differently than you'd build a UWx Xerox deck.

Fundamentally, Landstill has always been about choosing your 60 so that you can slam T2 Standstill with confidence that your random topdecks are favored over your opponent's random topdecks (more lands, more non-spell actions to take, opponent's deck full of dead draws), because Landstill is constructed for that kind of game while their deck isn't. If the opponent refuses your gambit, you go +3 cards in the fair game. You pick the 60 so both options are good for you and opponent is stuck with a lose-lose. It's a different engine, design, and play style. Landstill also gains some win% by constructing to have favorable late game draws and avoid these weird draw sequences while opponents can hit multiple dead draws; their decks are quadlasered to optimize the early game but can top deck worse in the lategame.

I think that's why Fox talks so much about Xerox decks losing "at deck construction" to draw sequences like multiple Expressive Iteration or multiple Dreadnought enabler. That's a very (narrow and specific) Standstill view of Legacy interactions, because those are the small edges where Standstill decks pull ahead of other fair blue. In general, a tempo player isn't going to care about those things, they just want the highest % of doing the thing on turn 2-3 against the other fast deck, then accept some losses to variance (sculpting with cantrips to avoid). Landstill's long games see those effects come up more often. Landstill prefers to minimize avoidable variance because that variance adds up over a much longer number of random draws. It's easy to forget that after so many years of playing Delver and Uro-type decks, but I'm getting back some of that old intuition after picking up Landstill again.

That's also why 2 Shark is fine. You don't need to quadlaser to have Shark. By the time we've stabilized the game and hit big mana, we've hit some threat. It's more important to save that space for tools to help stabilize than to go overboard on threats. We are pretty much always the control, not the aggressor.

For ETutor, the W cost is minor. Unlike the tap-out Ux decks that play at sorcery speed, Landstill makes a lot of reactive plays at instant speed. You pass with mana up, see what the opponent does, then decide to EOT ETutor into hate. You'll have open mana so it's a matter of using that mana on ETutor instead of some other action (Brainstorm? cycle? Construct?). That doesn't work in all decks, but seems fine here.

Paying a card is the relevant cost. It's not negligible, but it's a cost this style of deck can handle better than other fair blue decks, due to Standstill's draw engine (also how Dreadstill deals with the 2-for-1 12/12). We're OK temporarily going down a card to have a very strong play that shuts down the opponent's deck, particularly when that card is not a 1-for-1. If it fails, we can recover cards (Xerox decks would struggle more to do that). Landstill's weakness is stabilizing early, so it's worth sucking up the -1 card early if it means access to powerful tools that help stabilize.

Why not just play 2 Canonist and not go down the card? SB is 15 cards. 1 slot that essentially doubles all copies of Canonist, Humility, EE, Needle, etc saves space in the 15. Avoiding double Canonist or avoiding Canonist when you'd rather have Standstill are also useful modes, but the big one is SB space.

Give the deck a test run if you want to explore some interactions and card choices. I am curious about these green tools and if we can find some real value there.

Edit: I would not recommend the same construction choices for your Bumbleberry Pie. This is just a thing that tends to work in Landstill. I remember the old days of 1x Tolaria West tutor packages with 1x Academy Ruins 1x Dust Bowl into lategame 1x Mindslaver. Why not play more copies of them if they're that good or cut them if they're bad? That's tempo thinking. You rarely went for 2+ Tolaria because the 2nd tutor is much less useful and the ETB tapped land is bad tempo for early stabilizing. Still, having the 1x tutor increased access to those tools.

Fox

04-22-2022, 01:47 AM

To expand on what @FTW is talking about:
It's also worth pointing out that playing multiples of the same artifact/enchant SB things, usually means you can't put them onto the table at the same time (that's code for the redundant copies just get stranded in hand). If you were to put 2 Canonists into play at the same time, then you have both failed to apply a new prison effect & will lose them both to a single FoV.

It's particularly important for any deck to be able to stagger a prison effect the FoV-user must kill to progress, with cards like like Map/Soul-Guide/Standstill/etc. You make the gamestate intolerable for them, thus you make them discard FoV targeting 2 things on our schedule...and b/c it's all according to our plans and timings, FoV can't get a clean 2-for-2 vs the value stagger...so you let FoV go [b/c one of the targets cantrips] -> FoW their comeback card -> restart the intolerable prison effect plan. Ofc, we can also just FoW the FoV in that spot if it's favorable to do so. We don't stop there though - it's time to drive the point home to team FoV: we add Ashiok into our sequence.

Let's go back to the non-FoV users for a moment though. Note how by targeting FoV with deckbuilding theory of must-FoV effect -> Ashiok <--> cantipping prison effect sequence, that we are naturally set up to grief non-FoV users as well. We're not going to give them a moment to recover by flooding on the same prison effect. We're going to keep hitting them with different prison effects, and it will be their job to tell us which one is crippling them the most. They must telegraph what matters the most with spot removal [that's free info for us], and we will choose if it is worth letting that interaction resolve. While this is happening we will be throwing Teferi to Tourach at their blue cards in hand and take their agency with our now unopposed FoW/FoN...and if they can't stop Teferi, well then we just added another prison effect they can't tolerate.
---
@Reeplcheep I'm going to look past how horrifically bad of a strategy it is to take a perfectly good 7 card hand, then discard land to play -> discard Mox to play & discard a second land to yard -> discard Chalice to play -> yay I nuked my hand down to 3!!!

GSZ makes a thing. E Tutor doesn't. It is because GSZ makes a thing, rather than going down a thing, that it isn't comparable.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that "getting" people with 1 card name is regressive deckbuilding. It's not like AggroLoam is being held down because they couldn't topdeck a replacement Chalice after the inevitable Ending - they mind twisted their own hand to oblivion, and big surprise 3 card hands lose to 7 card hands. I mean this is a FoV format too, you can't seriously play a 75 that deckbuilt itself into a corner where it topdecked that second Chalice and had to put it on the table at the same time, that's decisively losing.

Since you're bringing up AggroLoam, let's be clear that these are the guys still saying "ban Griselbrand" and hopping on the MurkGoyf is a problem bandwagon. The problem with their deck is that the worst cards in it are Chalice, Mox, and KotR. Like for god's sake build the deck to have game versus Ending, Endurance, and FoV. Delver has AggroLoam's back too; they're making 7/7 to 8/8 flying dudes that kill Grisel, keeping SnT numbers low. It can't be that hard for AggroLoam to kill a power-crept Goyf, and turn the rest of their attention on what they're actually losing to.

Reeplcheep

04-22-2022, 08:30 AM

Decks like this tend to draw through at least half the deck before finishing the game. Unlike a tempo deck or midrange deck that can play the odds and gamble against unlikely draw sequences, Landstill will draw its 2-ofs a non-negligible amount of the time, and it doesn't have the full Xerox package to smooth draws (like Bant Uro or Jeskai HullDay would).

If you are drawing half your deck, you have a slightly less than 25% chance to draw both cards of a 2 of. You have a ~95% chance to draw a brainstorm to get rid of the extra one if you so choose.

Reeplcheep

04-22-2022, 08:33 AM

For ETutor, the W cost is minor. Unlike the tap-out Ux decks that play at sorcery speed, Landstill makes a lot of reactive plays at instant speed. You pass with mana up, see what the opponent does, then decide to EOT ETutor into hate. You'll have open mana so it's a matter of using that mana on ETutor instead of some other action (Brainstorm? cycle? Construct?). That doesn't work in all decks, but seems fine here.

Paying a card is the relevant cost. It's not negligible, but it's a cost this style of deck can handle better than other fair blue decks, due to Standstill's draw engine (also how Dreadstill deals with the 2-for-1 12/12). We're OK temporarily going down a card to have a very strong play that shuts down the opponent's deck, particularly when that card is not a 1-for-1.

All of this logic applies to a 2nd or 3rd etutor too. I like tutor packages but significantly more targets than tutors is bad deckbuilding. It’s like those pox players with a million non-tutorable one-ofs, but in disguise.

alphastryk

04-22-2022, 08:37 AM

If you're going to go the E Tutor route, I think 2 copies of the tutor is the sweet spot.

Reeplcheep

04-22-2022, 08:37 AM

If you were to put 2 Canonists into play at the same time, then you have both failed to apply a new prison effect & will lose them both to a single FoV.

It's particularly important for any deck to be able to stagger a prison effect the FoV-user must kill to progress, with cards like like Map/Soul-Guide/Standstill/etc. You make the gamestate intolerable for them, thus you make them discard FoV targeting 2 things on our schedule...and b/c it's all according to our plans and timings, FoV can't get a clean 2-for-2 vs the value stagger...so you let FoV go [b/c one of the targets cantrips] -> FoW their comeback card -> restart the intolerable prison effect plan. Ofc, we can also just FoW the FoV in that spot if it's favorable to do so. We don't stop there though - it's time to drive the point home to team FoV: we add Ashiok into our sequence.

You know if they FoV the thing you etutor for that is a 2 for 2 all by itself, right? Also, by definition, a canonist and something you etutor for will also be exposed to getting hit by FoV. You either sandbag the second piece of hate or you don’t; the fact you tutored for it doesn’t change that.

@Reeplcheep I'm going to look past how horrifically bad of a strategy it is to take a perfectly good 7 card hand, then discard land to play -> discard Mox to play & discard a second land to yard -> discard Chalice to play -> yay I nuked my hand down to 3!!!

GSZ makes a thing. E Tutor doesn't. It is because GSZ makes a thing, rather than going down a thing, that it isn't comparable.

Yes, I took an example of terrible deckbuilding from a deck full of terrible deckbuilding choices… What is your point?

E tutor does make a thing, it just costs a card. The more important point I was trying to illustrate was that the amount of times you draw GSZ AND use it to get dryad is going to be significantly less than the times you draw dryad and it’s aweful. Assuming GSZ isn’t worth playing without dryad, you should be on either 0 gsz 0 dryad or 3-4 gsz 1 dryad. You are doing the same thing here.

Fox

04-22-2022, 10:10 AM

You know if they FoV the thing you etutor for that is a 2 for 2 all by itself, right? Also, by definition, a canonist and something you etutor for will also be exposed to getting hit by FoV. You either sandbag the second piece of hate or you don’t; the fact you tutored for it doesn’t change that.

Yes, I took an example of terrible deckbuilding from a deck full of terrible deckbuilding choices… What is your point?

E tutor does make a thing, it just costs a card. The more important point I was trying to illustrate was that the amount of times you draw GSZ AND use it to get dryad is going to be significantly less than the times you draw dryad and it’s aweful. Assuming GSZ isn’t worth playing without dryad, you should be on either 0 gsz 0 dryad or 3-4 gsz 1 dryad. You are doing the same thing here.

Not sure what you're missing here, but if you have the prison effect they can't tolerate (Canonist, for example), the FoV player will come out worse if the next prison effect is going to draw cards the moment they put FoV on the stack. That prison effect can be eating away at their yard, it can be the Map threatening to find Heliods, the Standstill, a card FoV can't hit (PW), etc... That's how you beat FoV in legacy; you don't ever give them agency by offering them the blowout. Them casting FoV is the gameplan because we are not all-in, and that's why we can afford to let them resolve it.

The mindset you're using is "I need this hate card to not die," so when they do something like blow up your Leyline and E-Bridge, you lose. What we're doing in Standstill is forcing the opponent do what we tell them to: trade poorly. They don't get to win b/c they had a way to trade; that's bad deckbuilding.

On GSZ the point is that GSZ isn't self-defeating. Multiple copies of GSZ don't cost the player velocity because each GSZ you cast makes a thing. E Tutor does not work like this. If E Tutor put the target in hand rather than top of deck, your analogy would work.

The only other time >1 E Tutor has worked well is when we could play 1x Astrolabe. This worked b/c Astrolabe cantripped (replacing E Tutor's velocity loss), while also ensuring white mana could find blue (variance reduction, mulligan reduction), while also being an easy way to get the most out of a Teferi vs REB/Ending-type opponents with nothing to bounce.

FTW

04-22-2022, 03:10 PM

The more important point I was trying to illustrate was that the amount of times you draw GSZ AND use it to get dryad is going to be significantly less than the times you draw dryad and it’s aweful. Assuming GSZ isn’t worth playing without dryad, you should be on either 0 gsz 0 dryad or 3-4 gsz 1 dryad. You are doing the same thing here.

That's tempo thinking. Narrowly thinking about the early game, ignoring the late game impact.

3-4 GSZ + 1 Dryad improves the chances of having T1 GSZ into Arbor for ramp. But it also means a much higher chance of drawing GSZs later when you don't want them. Dead draw steps = card disadvantage. For a control deck trying to win the long game, the long-term disadvantage hurts you, it isn't just about the early tempo boost. If you only care about the early turns, you either play a lot of GSZ or you play 0 GSZ 0 Arbor because you won't get the turn 1 play consistently enough. 3-4 GSZ is a no-brainer for Maverick and GW Depths that want early plays and have a lot of tutor targets, but perhaps a control deck would think differently. (I don't play Loam so I can't justify whether 1 GSZ 1 Dryad is overall a good idea, but you are ignoring disadvantages to extra GSZs when the GSZ could be dead)

Same thing applies here. 3 ETutor increases odds off having that hate piece early. But it also means drawing more ETutors later in the game. Each extra ETutor drawn is card disadvantage (either from using it or having a dead card in hand). Going down -1 card for a powerful prison piece is one thing. Going -2 or -3 cards for the game is another. Personally, I'm fine with the 2nd tutor, but with 3-4 copies that card disadvantage really adds up over the long game.

As Fox mentioned, the other factor is that we aren't dependent on that 1 hate piece to win the match. It's just 1 tool that swings that matchup, but we can fight on other axes without committing too hard to one direction.

Aggro decks are different. An aggro SB may have 3-4 Mindbreak Trap and 4 Leyline of the Void because it is absolutely dependent on that 1 hate piece to determine the match. If aggro doesn't draw it, they lose. If aggro draws it and opponent can't answer it, aggro wins. Therefore, aggro wants 4 copies to maximize the chance of seeing it early. Extra copies are not a big deal because opponent may answer the first and aggro absolutely has to have that hate piece to not lose. Aggro doesn't care about the risk of topdecking too many copies later in the game. That's negligible for them, because they just need to stick the first piece and end the game quickly. It's much more important that they draw that card early because the whole match depends on it. Stompy decks are similar. The game is decided by whether you can stick that lock piece early.

Control decks, particularly these Landstill builds, approach the game differently. Ethersworn Canonist is very strong vs combo and Elves, but it's not like Landstill will auto-lose if it doesn't draw Canonist the way aggro would if it doesn't draw Mindbreak or Stompy will lose if it doesn't stick a prison piece. Landstill can already fight those decks other ways. Prison pieces like Canonist are strong silver bullets for those matchups, but the game plan is less dependent on always having it. You have some piece of disruption that forces the opponent to stop what they're doing and warp their game plan around answering your disruption. That disruption could be Force of Will, FoN, Surgical, Canonist, Needle, or something else. You can disrupt in different ways. Combo player is forced to stop doing their thing and the game warps around them needing an answer for the disruption you present. You can then choose to fight over that, or you can let it go and disrupt on another angle, forcing them to find an answer to that other disruption piece. If you disrupt from 2 different directions (e.g. Prison piece + FoW, instead of all counters or all artifacts), then it's that much harder for the combo deck to keep finding answers to your disruption, because they'll need different tools instead of getting to use the same tool against everything you do. If they board in 3x FoV + 3x Veil of Summer to fight disruption on different angles, they've just diluted their deck and you've given them dead draws if you don't choose to pick fights on the angle they're prepared for. This is how control can outplay decks with decisions, instead of just gambling on random odds to see cards in the opening hand. Control tends to play that way, while aggro tilts towards gambling on the random odds. Basically, the Canonist is good but not essential enough to go down -3 cards or eat up a lot of SB space.

Yes, we will draw Brainstorm. But Brainstorm isn't always hanging out in hand waiting to fix a bad topdeck. We have to use Brainstorm for various things over the game. If we don't, then we're using that Brainstorm suboptimally and losing advantages in other areas just to fix a potential bad topdeck later. Xerox decks have more cantrips to fix bad topdecks. 4 Brainstorm isn't THAT much. Given that, drawing a dead card in 25% of games seems bad when it could be avoidable with other construction choices. If the game plan was absolutely dependent on resolving Canonist, then we might have to suck that up and play more Canonists or more tutors. But it isn't. It's just one tool.

alphastryk

04-22-2022, 03:30 PM

Thanks FTW, that was a really good explanation.

Its a bit of the same weakness I saw in the SB Crop Rotation -> Bog plan.

In theory, the fact that both tutors would find cards that progress our main strategy would allow the second copy drawn to not be a dead card. E Tutoring for Standstill, Saga, or Shark is a little underwhelming, but the real cost is going down a card because E Tutor goes to the top of the deck rather than to hand.

Fox

04-22-2022, 03:43 PM

E Tutoring for Standstill or Shark is a little underwhelming
^refining your statement.

This is an incorrect understanding. If the hand is Standstill or Shark'nado + E-Tutor, you have a very clear plan: find the missing piece [Standstill or Shark'nado] -> turn 2 slam Standstill.

This is a very good opener, but it gets significantly worse for each copy of E-Tutor you topdeck after that point. It's a lot like Library of Alexandra, in that a turn 1 Library can take over a game...but spamming a quad laser Library [were it legal] would cost you more games than you'd win due to self-inflicted mana instability. There are a lot of cards in magic where less is more.

alphastryk

04-22-2022, 03:47 PM

^refining your statement.

This is an incorrect understanding. If the hand is Standstill or Shark'nado + E-Tutor, you have a very clear plan: find the missing piece [Standstill or Shark'nado] -> turn 2 slam Standstill.

This is a very good opener, but it gets significantly worse for each copy of E-Tutor you topdeck after that point. It's a lot like Library of Alexandra, in that a turn 1 Library can take over a game...but spamming a quad laser Library [were it legal] would cost you more games than you'd win due to self-inflicted mana instability. There are a lot of cards in magic where less is more.

I definitely should have included a little more context, that would indeed be a powerful opening hand (although the card disadvantage would grow if our Standstill failed to resolve).

Fox

04-22-2022, 03:54 PM

I definitely should have included a little more context, that would indeed be a powerful opening hand (although the card disadvantage would grow if our Standstill failed to resolve).

Not really. If they want to discard 2 blue cards to stop it, they're at parity, but down to a maximum of 5x Force permissions vs 6x still in our deck. If they were a Daze deck, they don't win by Daze targeting E-Tutor, and you just untap land drop and kill their dude paying for Daze; the Standstill can wait for land drop 3, so just....take your time.

alphastryk

04-22-2022, 03:55 PM

Not really. If they want to discard 2 blue cards to stop it, they're at parity, but down to a maximum of 5x Force permissions vs 6x still in our deck. If they were a Daze deck, they don't win by Daze targeting E-Tutor, and you just untap land drop and kill their dude paying for Daze; the Standstill can wait for land drop 3, so just....take your time.

Fair enough, and playing around Daze should be assumed when possible / relevant.

FTW

07-25-2022, 11:29 PM

Bosh N Roll finally runs UWr SagaStill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJCzE4Qjpwo
Very close to what we were discussing, including the red splash for blasts and the Saga -> Map -> Heliod tech.

Bosh N Roll version (4-1)

//Lands: 21
4 Flooded Strand
2 Prismatic Vista
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
3 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Karakas
1 Wasteland
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
3 Urza's Saga

//Artifacts: 3
1 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map
1 Retrofitter Foundry

//Enchantments: 8
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon

//Spells: 21
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
1 Force of Negation

//Creatures: 2
2 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 5
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 The Wandering Emperor

//Sideboard: 15
1 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Deafening Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Rest in Peace
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Force of Negation
1 Snow-Covered Mountain

It went 4-1. The only loss to Red Prison seems somewhat avoidable with more focus on basics. Unreliable red, 0 Verdict main, and lack of SB answers to permanents are all unnecessary construction choices.

I would probably play:
-4 Ponder, -1 Retrofitter, -1 Narset, -2 Emperor, -2 Shark Typhoon
+1 Vista, +1 Mountain, +1 Soul-Guide, +1 Sevinne's Reclamation, +1 Teferi, +1 FoN, +2 Supreme Verdict, +2 flex (Burning Wish, Karn, Snapcaster, other engine, instant cantrip)

The SB could be more efficient too. Brian says he overboarded for the MTGO combo-heavy leagues.
-3 Deafening Silence, -4 cards moved to main, -1 Cage, -1 RiP
+2 ETutor, +1 Ethersworn Canonist, +1 Powder Keg, +1 Alpine Moon, +1 Humility, +3 others (depends if on Wish or Karn or something else)

With 6 Forces to fight turn 1 wins, you should have time for T1 ETutor into T2 hate instead of needing to overload with 4 anti-storm and 5 anti-GY.

I've been watching his other Standstill runs for a while.
80-card RebelStill managed 4-1 even with 19 bad cards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtr4SDaIWw

RebelStill (4-1)

//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Lands: 27
4 Urza's Saga
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
0 Prismatic Vista
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
3 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
0 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
2 Wasteland

//Spells: 21
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
1 Force of Negation

//Rebels: 13
4 Ramosian Sergeant
2 Blightspeaker
1 Whipcorder
2 Lin-Sivvi, Defiant Hero
2 Mirror Entity
2 Big Game Hunter

//Enchantments: 10
2 Training Grounds
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon

//Artifacts: 6
3 Aether Vial
1 Currency Converter
1 Retrofitter Foundry
1 Nihil Spellbomb

//Planeswalkers: 3
0 Teferi, Time Raveler
0 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
2 The Wandering Emperor

//Sideboard: 14
4 Deafening Silence
3 Rest in Peace
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Plague Engineer
1 Force of Negation
1 Shadowspear

Just barely missing the 5-0 in R5G3 running out of gas vs Goblins (bad matchup). Imagine how much better it would be without 19 chaff cards!

A few months ago, he also got 5-0 with this cheesy UR MinotaurStill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVe71xtwIno

MinotaurStill (5-0)

//Lands: 20
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
0 Prismatic Vista
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Urza's Saga
2 Ancient Tomb

//Spells: 12
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

//Enchantments: 5
3 Standstill
2 Shark Typhoon

//Artifacts: 8
3 Chrome Mox
4 Didgeridoo
1 Retrofitter Foundry

//MinoLOLs: 15
4 Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion
4 Sethron, Hurloon General
4 Moraug, Fury of Akoum
3 Boros Battleshaper

//Sideboard: 15
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Brazen Borrower
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Abrade
2 Ruination

Clearly Standstill can win games. Even moreso if not memeing! That's a 13-2 record including meme tribal decks!

FTW

08-22-2022, 11:15 PM

BoshNRoll takes UWr Standstill to 5th at SCG Baltimore 5K, 115 players.
https://mtgmelee.com/Decklist/View/239384

//Lands: 21
4 Flooded Strand
2 Prismatic Vista
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
1 Wasteland
3 Urza's Saga

//Spells: 21
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
1 Force of Negation

//Enchantments: 8
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon

//Artifacts: 3
2 Currency Converter
1 Soul-Guide Lantern

//Creatures: 2
2 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 5
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 The Wandering Emperor

//Sideboard: 15
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Mountain
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Deafening Silence
2 Wear // Tear
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Containment Priest
1 Rest in Peace
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Supreme Verdict

He kept pretty much the same list as before, with notable changes:
-1 Retrofitter / +1 Currency Converter -> he clearly saw how much better Currency Converter is here
Soul-Guide to the main -> good meta call
-1 FoN / +1 BEB -> seems like a meta choice vs Delver/Pyroblasts
-2 Deafening Silence / +2 Wear//Tear -> less heavy boarding for combo, more answers to Chalice and other hate
+1 Containment Priest -> Is that too much grave hate? Maybe cut Rest in Peace?
-1 Expedition Map -> seems terrible with all the 1-of lands. Maybe it didn't come up in enough games, or maybe he hadn't abused the Heliod line enough. How are you supposed to use the 1 Wasteland when you need it without Map?

Notably there was Elves in the top 4 and he was on 2 Deafening Silence 0 Ethersworn Canonist. Don't know if that match happened, but it would have been punishing.

Fox

08-23-2022, 01:24 AM

Playing control with worse access to blue mana than a Daze deck is a bit suspect. Here's the numbers on this one from the hypergeometric calculator:
-25.9% chance an opening hand can't produce basic blue.
-83.7% chance to have any blue in opening hand.
-78.3% chance to open a hand with 2 lands.
-14.2% chance an opening hand land is Saga (i.e. going to die).

The first and last percentages are particularly concerning taken together in a format with Wasteland and Daze. This is a lot of risk for a card (Ponder) that only has a 39.9% chance of being in an opening hand. It gets a little bleak when you're "smoothing out the mana" as your main target is to not mull the 1 land hand that can both make a blue mana and have a Ponder.

^when you put Ponder into a Xerox'ified mana base, that specific 1-lander mulligan risk is what you're trying not to get called on. That, and color fixing (which 2c decks that can use colorless mana don't really need), is where Ponder makes win % rise.

It's a bit difficult to roll that scenario that Ponder can bail us out on [b/c 78.3% chance of 2 lands in opening hand]. But, let's say we roll the 21.7% 1-lander; we'll round that to 1 game in every 5...in this minority of games, we can minimally round the numbers to define 5 scenarios:
-scenario 1, 2, and 3: had a basic blue.
-scenario 4: had a nonbasic blue.
-scenario 5: had zero blue.

This is where you start questioning Ponder's 39.9% success rate to be in the opening hand. Just how much mana security are we getting going into turn 2 when we multiply a fail rate of 60% [Ponder] by a fail rate of 20% [no blue in the 1-lander] +/- that additional 20% failrate if you lose the nonbasic into hostile Wasteland lottery.

The currency Ponder is trading to generate winrate is already devalued (b/c we don't care that much about color reqs of our deck). So you have to wonder "what if I just played 23 or 24 lands instead? Which build loses more b/c it mulligan'd? Which build will have more synergy with Standstill - Ponders or Otawara?"

Run the numbers and you realize as Xerox'ing happens the lands go down, the Ponders go up, and the mulling also rises. This is ofc a stunning revelation to everyone who uses Xerox b/c "it's the best thing you can do in any blue deck ever, b/c look at the results all the best decks play it".

The part they're missing is that when you play Standstill and you mulligan or kill yourself on Wasteland, you don't get to ignore everything bad that happened b/c you Ponder'd into an [insert 1-card combo, like Uro] you can jam no matter what. Jam that Standstill after things go south, and you give your opponent 3 more cards - you *will* lose.

Xerox'ify the mana and bind yourself to Ponder and you go down with the ship: you have to fight Chalice, Leo/Narset/Labyrinth. The more of these battles you have to fight, the harder it is to make a window for Standstill...which means that all the consistency of Ponder = seeing more Standstills in your top 3 that you'll never be able to cast [without auto-losing]. That's not the good kind of consistency.
---
^This is why Currency Converter is the correct card. When you put yourself in a crappy position with Ponder in a Standstill deck, it becomes pretty important to be able to flush the trash:
-need to be able to get the 1 drop into play through Chalice (i.e. Saga find Currency Converter), so you can dump cantrip cartel for castables.
-need to be able to dump cantrip cartel without losing CA to Narset/Leo/Labyrinth
-need to be able to dump mid-late game Standstills your deck can't cast (b/c the effects that let you stabilize for Standstill had their spot stolen by Ponder).
---
Currency Converter is quite good, it got a Standstill deck into a reasonably-sized top8 despite running Ponder. Certainly a feat Retrofitter couldn't help with. :laugh:

FTW

08-23-2022, 02:10 AM

The currency Ponder is trading to generate winrate is already devalued (b/c we don't care that much about color reqs of our deck). So you have to wonder "what if I just played 23 or 24 lands instead? Which build loses more b/c it mulligan'd? Which build will have more synergy with Standstill - Ponders or Otawara?"

Yeah, it seems pretty safe to go:
-4 Ponder
+1 Vista
+1 Otawara
+1 Map
+1 Verdict

I've never felt flooded on 23 lands. Especially when those lands include Urza's Saga & Heliod. Between that and Currency Converter and Shark Typhoon, there's always something for the mana to do.

Landstill has always operated better on higher land count rather than playing the low land count+Xerox principle that Delver uses. Every time you topdeck a land instead of Ponder under an active Standstill, the asymmetry tilts in your favor. You advance mana towards big plays and dodge the scenario of being forced to discard to hand size. Meanwhile UW(r) doesn't need T1 Ponder to fix colors. Landstill mitigates flooding by running non-spell mana sinks. You can go T1 Island T2 Saga Standstill and never run out of things to do with your mana, without ever casting a spell (Saga -> constructs -> Map -> Heliod -> Saga again -> more constructs -> Currency Converter & Saga again -> lol). Mana utilization will happen. Most at instant speed. Just play Draw Go and win.

FTW

09-01-2022, 07:03 AM

The popularity of non-HullDay UWr is so strange:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-jeskai-control#paper

A deck like this wants 2-mana card advantage so it jams EI, when it could so easily run Standstill instead.

It's almost the same shell. Jeskai spells, Snapcaster, Timeless Dragon, planeswalkers... and then 4x EI. But most of the time that EI is just playing a land or casting a cantrip, since the deck is so reactive compared to Delver. Meanwhile Standstill can be played on turn 2 and always draws 3 cards. Standstill + Shark Typhoon would be an upgrade. I think the format is sleeping on how good Standstill is if they're not on the Day's Undoing engine.

FTW

09-01-2022, 12:29 PM

Several UWr Standstill results made it on mtgtop8 recently: https://mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=34&meta=39&f=LE

Including 12th in the Aug 22nd Legacy Challenge with SharklessStill (and no Ponder)

//Lands: 24
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
4 Island
1 Plains
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Otawara, Soaring City
4 Wasteland

//Spells: 22
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
1 Force of Negation
1 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments:
4 Standstill

//Creatures: 6
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 4
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//Sideboard: 15
4 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
2 Dovin's Veto
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Pyroclasm
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 The Wandering Emperor

The same list came 2nd in a small paper event a few days earlier.

Instead of 2-4 Shark Typhoon 2 Timeless Dragon, this is just on the full set of Timeless. I wonder if that was to dodge Pyroblast. Timeless is a more aggressive clock too. Without the Saga lines, it's the best way to pressure opponent into cracking Standstill early. With that many Timeless and 24 lands, I'm surprised there isn't a 2nd basic Plains. 3rd Tundra is greedy! Maybe there's a subgame of baiting opponent into going down lands to Waste you when you're the 24 land Wasteland deck, but Blood Moon/B2B could shut this deck off WW.

Their answer to Saga and other value lands, instead of playing Saga, is to just play the classic 4x Wasteland.

Instead of worrying about a PW that doesn't die to Pyroblast, they just play the best one and plan to win every counter war (2x Fluster, 2x Veto, 10 MD counters + 2 Snapcaster, 3 Teferi). I wonder if jamming Jace is just better than playing a worse card to dodge hate. The plan looks better on 24 lands and that many counters.

redtwister

09-06-2022, 12:31 PM

Brian Coval just dropped this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-5wbTfUxnE

Yeah, I am not a big Saga fan either, I'm tinkering with this
//Lands: 23
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Prismatic Vista
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
2 Wasteland

//Spells: 22
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
1 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
1 Force of Negation
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Council's Judgment
1 Pyroblast

//Enchantments: 9
4 Standstill
3 Shark Typhoon
2 Dress Down

//Creatures: 2
2 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 4
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//Sideboard: 15
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Meltdown
1 Kozilek's Return
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
1 Hydroblast
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
2 Deafening Silence
1 Stony Silence
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Wear/Tear

Hall might be sketchy with only 9 enchantments.
Dress Down is extremely good against Saga decks and has utility against a range of other decks as well.
Council's Judgment, Baneslayer, Ashiok, and Stony are all specific to my local meta.

PirateKing

09-06-2022, 01:39 PM

I feel even without Urza's Saga, you'd still want Currency Converter. Its synergy with all the cycle cards plus operating under Standstill is just really really good.

FTW

09-06-2022, 02:32 PM

Fox

09-06-2022, 05:43 PM

Agree Currency Converter is strong. I assume you're avoiding artifacts because of 2x Meltdown 1x Stony Silence? Currency Converter gets value so quickly that it's probably worth it, and you can board it out.

Edit: Brian makes good points. If opponents consistently crack Standstill, Saga gets a bit worse. Saga's even harder on the mana when the deck has 20 lands 4x Ponder (need to Ponder into lands, conflicting with Saga usage). A suicidal land also makes a bigger difference on 20-21 lands vs 23-24 lands and without tech like Expedition Map & Sevinne's to avoid going down on lands. Without the Saga snowball tech you also lose the biggest upsides (only make 2 2/2s?) and get the bigger downsides (mana issues). I think Brian's mana issues with Saga disappear if you build in the direction we had above earlier (23-24 lands with more colored sources, Map, Sevinne's, no Ponder, no Wandering Emperor). But maybe the counterspell plan is still better?

Counterspell was briefly playable when 5cmc Teferi was printed (1 less mana to hold up compared to 6 mana for JTMS and Cspell). Then it was too slow to be reliable vs Wrenn, and it changed to 3x Snare. Then Wrenn got banned and 2 of the 3 copies of Snare immediately went to FoN (to stop losing to SnT). The last Snare was replaced by Ending (which effectively operates as a counterspell vs permanent spells).

The slot of Cspell should be a Verdict, the slot of Pierce should be a FoN. CJ to Sevinnes. Pyroblast to a reliable card (put it in the SB).

FTW

09-08-2022, 01:20 AM

UGW Yorion LandsStill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8somslPBns
3-2 in league

BoshNRoll's list
//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Lands: 32
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
0 Prismatic Vista
2 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Spara's Headquarters
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
1 Karakas
1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
1 Wasteland
1 Field of the Dead
1 Dark Depths
2 Thespian's Stage
4 Urza's Saga
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 23
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
2 Life from the Loam
1 Force of Negation

//Enchantments: 8
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon

//Creatures: 10
4 Elvish Reclaimer
3 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
1 Endurance
2 Timeless Dragon

//Artifacts: 7
3 Mox Diamond
3 Currency Converter
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
0 Expedition Map

//Sideboard: 14
3 Endurance
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Hydroblast
2 Deafening Silence
1 Force of Negation
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Blast Zone
1 Force of Vigor

This has too much cute stuff going on, but makes me wonder about the viability of green tech we discussed a few pages back. Yorion has little synergy beyond a free blue card. Maybe it could be distilled into something cleaner within 60 cards.

The biggest takeaway I got is that Elvish Reclaimer is strong with Standstill and the land toolbox. Currency Converter is also strong with all the cycling cards and channel lands. Going heavy on Mox Diamond + Loam + Uro seems like a mistake adding variance and walking into more hate, but a 1-of value Loam seems strong and can be boarded out when bad.

Draft 60-card version
//Lands: 23
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Forest
1 Otawara, Soaring City
2 Boseiju, Who Endures
2 Urza's Saga
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 20
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Living Wish
1 Life from the Loam
1 Force of Negation
1 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 7
4 Standstill
3 Shark Typhoon

//Creatures: 6
3 Elvish Reclaimer
2 Timeless Dragon
1 Colossal Skyturtle

//Planeswalker: 2
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Artifacts: 2
1 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map

//Sideboard: 15
2 Endurance
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
1 Shifting Ceratops
1 Containment Priest
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Hex Parasite
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Blast Zone
1 Veil of Summer
1 Hydroblast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Dovin's Veto

The maindeck green cards all function as tutors / utility / card advantage. The Saga package takes up minimal space while still having enough for a single unanswered Saga to win the game on its own.

Living Wish serves multi-purpose of turn 2 ramp (tutor for land), game 1 access to answers, and uncounterable threat (Ceratops, Uro). You can also "board out" the slow creatures and still wish for them.
Other possible Wishboard targets: Wasteland, Ramunap Excavator, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, 3rd Boseiju, Lotus Field, Carnage Tyrant, Meddling Mage

The tech seems cool but might still be worse than UWr for Pyroblasts and Ruination.

FTW

09-08-2022, 04:10 PM

I tested out the Bant version against some decks (UR Delver, GW Depths, BR Reanimator, Green stompy, Storm).

Overall the shell seems strong, winning against everything except Reanimator (and going undefeated against Delver over multiple matches). It has much more stable mana than Bosh N Roll's version. Bosh had few basics and 10 colorless lands, depending on Mox/Converter for fixing and risking blowouts to artifact hate. Many games he stumbled on mana. With more basics, fewer colorless lands, no Mox, and higher density of colored sources (almost the same number in 60 cards instead of 80), I've found the mana very stable. I don't stumble on mana and get to do the Standstill control thing consistently.

After a few matches I went down from 4 to 3 Reclaimers to add back FoN to improve the combo matchup. The shell needs more fine-tuning, but overall I like what green adds. Uncounterable instant interaction through Boseiju, Otawara and Skyturtle is strong. Reclaimer can tutor for toolbox lands, "counter" Wasteland (convert to another land in response), and convert Saga into another land in response to Chapter 3 trigger (to avoid going down on lands). Reclaimer also provides easier access to the Saga-Heliod tricks without having to flood on copies of colorless suicidal lands, while Wishing for Endurance lets you recycle cards to dig up again!

Living Wish also provides access to great tech without having to flood on copies. It's kind of like Timeless Dragons: dual role of threat or ramp from 2 to 3. Against blue decks, if it doesn't draw a counter, getting Shifting Ceratops is strong. I also like being able to curve T2 Wish T3 Uro in matches where Uro dominates, while you don't lose much to Surgical on Uro or can easily pivot away from Uro when it's bad. It gives the deck access to playable lifegain without the weaknesses and construction limitations of an Uro deck.

Edit: I tested UWr HullDay too. BantStill came out on top. This engine goes way over the top of their Narset/Jace/EI stuff, as long as Day's Undoing never resolves. Plus the green tech dodges blasts.

FTW

03-09-2023, 12:45 AM

With EI banned, Landstill looks in a good place to be a dominant fair blue deck.

Although the green tech was fun, red splash for Pyroblast is probably more competitive.

//Lands: 23
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Karakas
2 Urza's Saga
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 20
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Minor Misstep
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 7
4 Standstill
3 Shark Typhoon

//Artifacts: 3
2 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map

//Creatures: 4
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 The Wandering Emperor

//Sideboard: 15
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Force of Negation
1 Mountain
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Powder Keg
1 Back to Basics
1 Dress Down
1 Phyrexian Furnace

I like the potential of Snapcaster with Minor Misstep added. Otherwise that spot could be maindeck Dress Down.

2 Verdict main + 1 FoN SB is if the meta stays creature-heavy. If it shifts then Force should replace 1 Verdict.

FTW

04-30-2023, 04:13 PM

Bosh N Roll recently played a solid (non-meme) Standstill deck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXSFhGypum4

Featuring new tech: Staff of the Storyteller

Staff has a lot of potential with all the creature token engines: Currency Converter, Shark Typhoon loop, Timeless Dragon, maybe Saga.

//Lands: 20
4 Flooded Strand
2 Prismatic Vista
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Wasteland
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 23
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
2 Counterspell
1 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 8
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon

//Artifacts: 4
2 Currency Converter
2 Staff of the Storyteller

//Creatures: 2
2 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 The Wandering Emperor

//Sideboard: 15
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Hydroblast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Deafening Silence
2 Wear // Tear
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Ruination
1 Mountain

It looked decent but ran into some internal variance issues.

A few times the deck came up short on lands or tried to Ponder to stabilize weak mana. Seems better to cut Ponder and go up on lands (e.g. +1-2 Vista +1 Otawara). Builds like this (with Mountain SB) seem afraid to play more Vistas, since it can't fix red. But they have 0 red cards main! Just get basic Islands and Plains consistently. In game 1 there are enough ways to get a red dual for Ending X=3 (5 fetch + Timeless Dragon for Plateau + Currency Converter treasures). There is no reason to lose games due to missing blue or white.

I think those Narsets are much worse than Teferi. No impact on the board or stack. They got boarded out a lot or sat dead in hand.

Vs creatures he got punished for having only 1 Verdict and 0 Dress Down. Kozilek's Return seems bad.

FTW

05-16-2023, 02:12 AM

Bosh N Roll plays "A Shark's Tale": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU1VhKSS8CU

3-2 League

//Lands: 20
4 Flooded Strand
2 Prismatic Vista
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Wasteland
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 23
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
2 Counterspell
1 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 4
4 Shark Typhoon

//Artifacts: 6
1 Currency Converter
4 Staff of the Storyteller
1 Crucible of Worlds

//Creatures: 4
2 Faerie Mastermind
2 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 The Wandering Emperor

//Sideboard: 15
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Hydroblast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Deafening Silence
2 Wear // Tear
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Ruination
1 Mountain

Same deck but swapping out Standstills for Staff as the main draw engine.

The deck performed OK. The 4 Staff plan seemed mediocre. He never assembled multiple Staffs or drew 3 cards off one Staff. There's rarely the tempo to play out multiple Staffs before cycling Shark Typhoon (where the real profit happens), because that's such a durdly line. Maybe it's better as a 2-of. Staff also has worse synergy with Heliod (which never got activated once). Overall Standstill would probably draw more cards.

UWr Standstill?

//Lands: 22
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
4 Island
2 Plains
2 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 20
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Minor Misstep
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 7
4 Standstill
3 Shark Typhoon

//Artifacts: 4
2 Currency Converter
2 Staff of the Storyteller

//Creatures: 4
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 The Wandering Emperor

//Sideboard: 15
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
1 Mountain
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Powder Keg
1 Dress Down
1 Serenity
1 Alpine Moon

PirateKing

05-16-2023, 09:09 AM

Crucible of Worlds did more work that league than Staff did.
I'm confident Staff has a place in Legacy, but I don't think the Sharkstill shell is where ti will shine.
Seeing it in a Stoneblade list to both draw a few cards and be an emergency cheeky Batterskull holder to fly in for damage seems a better home.
Watching a player go nuts with M&B every turn is the kind of power you'd be aiming for. Unless you're netting an extra card every other turn at minimum I'd reconsider it as a core slot in the deck.

I like the list FTW, I know what he said about losing the mana from Urza's Saga hurting Shark Typhoon cycles too much to make it worth it, but I'm still thinking even 1-2 copies as offensive land outs compared to the defensive land outs of Otawara. Just so stalled board states a live out to make a construct and then fetch Currency Converter exist. Is that being too greedy?

Fox

05-16-2023, 09:53 AM

The issue you're seeing with Staff is that it's not a 2 mana play. You cast it from 2 mana into the Prismatic Ending format, and you're going to lose - you're UW-based, you can't win with combat damage off a 1/1 like UR can. Looks like a 2 mana play, but actually a 3 mana play requiring WW.

Key part of Standstill is that every 2 mana play targets the top of deck and drawing that next land. You don't have the luxury of hoping they don't Wasteland your white source or let you untap with a Staff still in play. High ceiling with CA sure, but the floor is unacceptably low. You also have to acknowledge the existence of the card Thassa - and every single Staff you see is stealing slots from Dress Down.

Never make the mistake of thinking Timeless Dragon is a combo with Staff. The presence of Dragon drives up total of unreliable white mana (dual lands). It's not going to be fun trying to draw your next land with Staff without white....but ya, eternalize makes a token that triggers Staff. The only sequence [read magical christmasland] that works here is cycle on 2, Staff on 3, eternalize after. Sequence-based magic + dubious mana + hard control doesn't add up to success.

On Saga (also Daze), losing mana doesn't end well with the card Tundra. Otawara decreases mulligans, Saga increases mulligans. There is no offensive advantage if you're mulling yourself out of competition. If you want to go up on colorless mana you need colorless plans (Dreadstill).

FTW

05-16-2023, 01:23 PM

Key part of Standstill is that every 2 mana play targets the top of deck and drawing that next land. You don't have the luxury of hoping they don't Wasteland your white source or let you untap with a Staff still in play.

Imho his manabase was the problem there. He runs fewer ways to get basic Plains and many UU spells, so the mana is more dependent on nonbasics. Then you see the deck engaging in lines that are weak to Wasteland or weak to turn 1 Ponder whiff, when a smoother manabase would have basic Islands & Plains in play most games. There were at least 2 games where he stalled on early mana development, and a game where he was reluctant to cast SB Ruination vs all nonbasics due to his own mana position (didn't even board in the basic Mountain, I think). Those are such avoidable problems for UWx control with no maindeck splash cards.

The issue you're seeing with Staff is that it's not a 2 mana play. You cast it from 2 mana into the Prismatic Ending format, and you're going to lose - you're UW-based, you can't win with combat damage off a 1/1 like UR can. Looks like a 2 mana play, but actually a 3 mana play requiring WW.

That's what makes it bad as a Standstill replacement. But what about occupying a slower slot?

If you run Staff instead of say Narset, then you get another 1XX draw engine. Instead of dying to Pyroblast, Bolt, and chump attacks, it gives a chump blocker to maybe trade with early damage. It's a turn 3 card engine that can be played on 2 lands, reducing clunky draws. The ceiling is high, especially with Currency Converter, but the floor is probably worse than Dress Down.

Staff is clunky with Timeless Dragon, but it does work better with Currency Converter, Wandering Emperor, and Urza's Saga.

Staff interactions with:
Currency Converter + Shark Typhoon -> */* Shark + draw card + 2/2 + draw 2 extra cards
Currency Converter + Timeless Dragon -> Plains + 2/2 + draw extra card -> future 4/4 threat + another extra card
Currency Converter 2 activations -> draw/discard + 2/2 + draw extra card
Emperor -1 -> 2/2 + draw extra card
Saga -> 2 Constructs + draw 2 extra cards (Saga into Expedition Map turns that into up to 4 Constructs & +4 cards; Saga into Currency Converter is also profit)

Unfortunately Bosh cut down on Currency Converters and boarded the 1 copy out most games, losing the best Staff interaction he had in the previous League.

Fox

05-17-2023, 08:43 AM

The problem is that it's winmore. Currency Converter + cycling is more than enough to win a game of legacy. You get the free pseudo-hasted 2/2 while gaining a turn 1 play and un-Daze'able 2 mana investments, decreased mana screw, more aggressive mana costs, and anti-discard.

On the flip side Staff slows down the deck, encourages more mana screw, decreased blue count for FoW, and plays into known interactions (Daze, Wasteland, discard, combo, Ending, artifact wipes, Karn, etc). For the most part Staff says your solution to every problem will be non-deathtouch Strix-types...which is super midrange'y and not controlling. Unless things go exceptionally well and you're drawing 2-3/turn, you're not really asking many questions of opposing decks. Let's also remember that drawing costs mana, so as you tank yourself back down to 2 free mana, what are you casting that moves the advantage bar?

It's the same issue all UWr midrange decks run into - they don't do anything at 1 or 2 cmc. Saga killing itself is just going to force you back down the mana states you know the deck can't do anything meaningful with (unless opponent is feeding them meaningful spot removal targets).

We can name a lot of ways to trigger Staff, but you need to add pressure as you make plays. Reproducible inevitability doesn't really come from back-weighted payoffs. You've listed off all the interactions Currency Converter/Shark/Dragon already has; do we really need more value and the cost of having the tools to extend the game?

FTW

05-17-2023, 09:39 AM

Good point. Probably win-more.

The 1/1 blocker does a weak job of extending the game. I was comparing it to Narset, but that slot could be something else like Dress Down, Force of Negation, or a better planeswalker.

FTW

09-09-2023, 01:20 AM

Court of Ardenvale seems very strong here as a draw engine / Sevinne on a stick. Maybe as a 1-of or 2-of? Maybe it could take the spot of a 4 cmc planeswalker for UWr. It functions as a non-Pyroblastable "I win" button to pull ahead without casting spells.

//Lands: 22
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 20
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
1 Minor Misstep
1 Force of Negation
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 10
4 Standstill
2 Dress Down
2 Court of Ardenvale
2 Shark Typhoon

//Creatures: 4
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Timeless Dragon

//Artifacts: 2
2 Currency Converter

//Planeswalkers: 2
2 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Sideboard: 15
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Powder Keg
1 Serenity
1 Torpor Orb
1 Blood Moon

FTW

09-10-2023, 10:35 AM

I tested Court at 2 copies. It took over every game it resolved in.

In one game I hemmorhaged my hand (FoW + FoN) to resolve Court on an empty board, after getting Standstill disrupted. But then Court replayed Standstill every turn (uncounterably for 0 mana and no missed draw, much faster than Hall of Heliod) and it quickly became impossible for opponent to play Magic. I drew 5 cards per turn with 0 mana tied up. Returning either Standstill or Teferi is insane. Might play 3rd Teferi.

A white 4cmc enchantment is fairly difficult for Grixis and UB to interact with (bounce?). In other colors, anyone on Abrupt Decay instead of Trophy is punished. Prismatic Ending needs 4 colors, which is disruptable (lol SB Blood Moon).

Enemy Urza's Saga is still a problem, so the deck probably needs at least 2 Wasteland. I had to use an Otawara on 1 of 2 3/3 Constructs, felt bad. Then next turn I was 1-mana short of eating the 2/2 with Shark Typhoon (due to using Otawara). Had to trade as 2/2, opponent plays 2nd Saga, and I scoop.

FTW

09-11-2023, 08:33 AM

Updated version:

//Lands: 23
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Raugrin Triome
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Karakas
2 Otawara, Soaring City
2 Wasteland
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 18
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
1 Force of Negation
2 Supreme Verdict

//Enchantments: 10
3 Standstill
2 Dress Down
2 Court of Ardenvale
3 Shark Typhoon

//Creatures: 4
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Timeless Dragon

//Artifacts: 2
2 Currency Converter

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Sideboard: 15
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Powder Keg
1 Serenity
1 Null Rod
1 Torpor Orb
1 Blood Moon

Court returning Powder Keg over and over was very powerful!
It can now Wastelock people too!

Manabase:
16 blue
13 white + 2 plainscycle
Red accessible from any fetch
Only 4 lands that don't tap for blue or white
6 lands that can be used as spells to avoid flooding

The sideboard is geared towards ETutorable old cards that shut down entire strategies, getting around the problem of recent power creep:

Torpor Orb - Grief scam, Bowmasters, Initiative, Thassa, Solitude, Stoneforge Kaldra, Golos, Muxus, Yorion...

Null Rod - The One Ring spamming, Staff control, Helm combo, artifact mana, Wishclaw Talisman, Soul-Guide Lantern

Blood Moon - all your greedy nonbasics are shut off. Marit Lage (have to be careful not to lose to Force of Vigor), 4c/5c decks that would go over the top of this, Urza's Saga decks, Field of the Dead, 12post, Creative Technique sol land decks, random manlands that attack through Standstill, greedy MDFCs, greedy decks splashing Bowmasters

Serenity - destroy all your artifact & enchantment spamming. Saga decks. The One Ring Forge decks. Beanstalk decks. Serenity can even be recurred with Court or Heliod

Powder Keg - go wide strategies. Saga artifact spam decks. Staff token decks. Elves. D&T. Random aggro. Recurrable with Court for soft-lock.

Canonist - play many spells strategies. Storm. Doomsday. Elves. Any combo deck trying to protect with counters or Veil.

Cage - cheatyface strategies. Reanimator. Grief scam. Cute Reanimate packages. Uro. Zenith decks. Elves. 4monic tutor.

Dress Down - Bowmasters, Saga constructs, hatebears, Thassa, Initiative, other random abilities

I'm thinking about switching Grafdigger's Cage to Soul-Guide Lantern/Phyrexian Furnace to get the recurring graveyard hate, but Cage hating on Zenith/Elves is useful.

PirateKing

09-14-2023, 12:31 PM

Fox

09-14-2023, 02:59 PM

I like your list FTW, I'll still double down on non-zero copies of Urza's Saga.
Grabbing a Currency Converter and being replayed though either Hall or Court all under Standstill just seems too useful to pass up.

Lost land drops is a big problem in hard control. Even in midrange decks with Tundra we do not see Daze for a reason. There is also a limit to how much colorless you can play; with the understanding that the primary reason Standstill decks lose has nothing to do with opposing strategies, but rather dying to your own mana not coming together. We also note that cycling Lorien into Currency Converter is, by itself, more than enough to win. Casting Brainstorm into your Standstill is a big yikes.

Would only play Volc in UWr as a 1x if Lorien 2x was in the deck. Otherwise vastly prefer Plateau.

@FTW the only thing Brainstorm is good for from the Standstill perspective is decreasing mulls due to 5 and 6 land hands. It does some other things on the side, but the more lands you play the smaller the hand (and the more likely the remaining hand is action spells you don't want to put away). When you run the number on odds of 5-6 land hands vs mulls due to 1 land can't keep, it becomes rapidly apparent that Lorien is a much much much better use of that slot by the numbers (particularly when running colorless lands and not-blue basics).

Due to how much better Lorien is at reducing mulligans than Brainstorm, the most slots Brainstorm gets in my lists is 2x - and this is before factoring in how horrifically bad it is to Brainstorm into 40% Bowmaster format.

tldr: Brainstorm and Saga are the stuff mulligans come from. Play Lorien, decrease mulls and go up on virtual Standstill copies (hardcast draw 3).

FTW

09-15-2023, 06:16 AM

@PirateKing: I used to play 2 Sagas. I cut them for the same reasons Fox mentions.

Early Saga is great when they don't pop Standstill, but most players will pop Standstill immediately these days, especially once you play Saga (they'll see the writing on the wall between Saga & expected Shark Typhoons). Early game you can't afford a disappearing land or tying up all your mana to get value out of Saga. You need that mana available to interact and stabilize in an increasingly power-creeped format.

Constructs are also worse with more decks maindecking Dress Down, including this one!

Also, you can only fit in so many colorless lands while keeping the mana stable (Saga will eventually stabilize colors through Currency Converter or Expedition Map, but that takes a few turns). So Saga means cutting another colorless land (Wasteland, Heliod, Mountain). My older builds had Saga over Wasteland. Wasteland is just better in this meta. It answers a lot of things that could kill you through Standstill. Court now lets you present Wastelock against greedy manabases, even better! If there's room for more colorless, it probably goes to Wasteland #3 first. Heliod is an amazing lategame engine with Shark Typhoon, Standstill, Dress Down, Serenity, or Court (most things that answer it are "counter" or "destroy"), and Saga would be worse without Heliod. Mountain could perhaps go. A lot of players don't play it maindeck. Since this build is on Blood Moon and Wastelock instead of Back to Basics or Ruination, it's less punishing to not have basic Mountain. I personally like basics.

@FTW the only thing Brainstorm is good for from the Standstill perspective is decreasing mulls due to 5 and 6 land hands. It does some other things on the side, but the more lands you play the smaller the hand (and the more likely the remaining hand is action spells you don't want to put away). When you run the number on odds of 5-6 land hands vs mulls due to 1 land can't keep, it becomes rapidly apparent that Lorien is a much much much better use of that slot by the numbers (particularly when running colorless lands and not-blue basics).

Due to how much better Lorien is at reducing mulligans than Brainstorm, the most slots Brainstorm gets in my lists is 2x - and this is before factoring in how horrifically bad it is to Brainstorm into 40% Bowmaster format.

tldr: Brainstorm and Saga are the stuff mulligans come from. Play Lorien, decrease mulls and go up on virtual Standstill copies (hardcast draw 3).

Interesting. So this is how you're playing around the Bowmaster format? 2 Brainstorm 2 Lorien instead of 4 Brainstorm?

I guess Brainstorm has been becoming more of a liability for a while anyway with UWr Days running 4 Narset. It's just hard to cut on principle, with it being the pillar for blue for decades. But it is getting worse.

With Lorien, Volc seems better than Plateau? Raugrin Triome is already the "Plateau" to get with Timeless.

Fox

09-15-2023, 08:34 AM

I've only run UWr Triome in the meme builds where red is more either more important (cycle turtle) or I need to hit RR (3cmc Chandra). It's also a card was used before we got better mana tools like Otawara, Converter, and Lorien. Triome is pretty high variance since you can't rely on it to be your second mana [can't lead basic then Triome and play the 2 drop that finds the next land], and Triome + Lorien is not a keep.

Before Lorien the mana base was: 8x perfect Fetch, 3x Island, 2x Plains, 1x Mountain, 2x Tundra, 1x Plateau, 2x Otawara, 1x Karakas, 2x Wasteland + 1x flex slot (not a Volc). With Lorien the flex slot is a Volc. These setups meet the x+2 Plains rule for Timeless Dragon played as a 3-of.

I don't decrease Brainstorms in favor of Lorien b/c Bowmasters exists. I do it b/c it makes the mana better. Invalidating Bowmaster is just a random benefit. In a 23 land setup there a 13.8% chance to have a 1-lander vs a 6.83% chance to have a 5, 6, or 7 lander (0.06% of that 6.83% is a 7 lander). So it's much more important to increase 1 land keeps (Lorien) than it is to decrease mulling 5 and 6 landers with Brainstorm. From the Standstill perspective, a slot invested in Lorien is more than twice as good as Brainstorm.

In terms of Brainstorm representation, I play 2x in UR Dreadstill, 0x in UBw Landstill, and 0x in UWr Standstill. The setup for UR Dreadstill is 2x Lorien, 1x Furnace, 1x Currency, 2x Brainstorm. The setup for UWr Standstill is 2x Currency, 3x Lorien. The setup for UBw Landstill is 1x Currency, 2x Cling, 2x Lorien.

Concerning the sequence of opening hands with at least 2 lands into always get 2 mana into always have cards that use that 2 mana to grab the next land off the top...UR runs 15 slots (not counting Brainstorm or Saga find artifact), UBw runs 13 slots, and UWr runs 16 slots.

Reeplcheep

09-15-2023, 09:01 AM

FTW

09-15-2023, 09:12 AM

How often is Lorien better than Razortide Bridge or Sea-Gate Restoration? If you care about wasteland, bridge produces 2 colours through wasteland instead of 1. If you care about pitch count, sea gate can do that while providing untapped mana.

Lorien can combo with your 2 of converter and occasionally be hard cast. That seems way less important than letting you keep “0-landers” (not counting the card itself).

Bridge enters tapped.

Lorien can get basic or dual, cycles through Standstill (cantrips don't), makes a 2/2 with converter, costs 0 life for the slow control deck, and does "draw 3" late more often than Sea Gate is useable. I definitely see the arguments for Lorien. I was just surprised it came with cutting Brainstorm.

FTW

09-15-2023, 09:23 AM

Before Lorien the mana base was: 8x perfect Fetch, 3x Island, 2x Plains, 1x Mountain, 2x Tundra, 1x Plateau, 2x Otawara, 1x Karakas, 2x Wasteland + 1x flex slot (not a Volc). With Lorien the flex slot is a Volc. These setups meet the x+2 Plains rule for Timeless Dragon played as a 3-of.

So we're on almost identical pre-Lorien mana.

I'm on just 2 Timeless, so only 2 white duals needed. I've found the 3rd Shark better than the 3rd Timeless, though I appreciate Timeless helping mana stability. Maybe with less Brainstorm the 3rd Timeless is needed, forcing Tundra x2.

I originally had 1 Tundra, 1 Volc, 1 Plateau. I recently turned Plateau into Raugrin due to a few too many hands without blue and other games drawing too many lands in a row (cycling!). Lorien would fix that even better. The ETB tapped is annoying.

Reeplcheep

09-15-2023, 09:24 AM

Bridge enters tapped.

Lorien can get basic or dual, cycles through Standstill (cantrips don't), makes a 2/2 with converter, costs 0 life for the slow control deck, and does "draw 3" late more often than Sea Gate is useable. I definitely see the arguments for Lorien. I was just surprised it came with cutting Brainstorm.

In a hand with 1 other land and a 2 drop, tapped and paying 1 to cycle is equivalent. You have 0 mana t1 but 2 t2.

FTW

09-15-2023, 09:28 AM

In a hand with 1 other land and a 2 drop, tapped and paying 1 to cycle is equivalent. You have 0 mana t1 but 2 t2.

True. But it only has that mode, while Lorien includes other modes too. They're equivalent on turn 1 but Bridge leads to more flooding late (higher number of non-spell lands).

Edit: Compared to Sea Gate, Lorien can access more colors and is castable more often.

Reeplcheep

09-15-2023, 09:53 AM

Fox

09-15-2023, 10:02 AM

It's not close. Lorien is vastly better than Sea Gate and Razortide; every deck across every archetype that runs the landcyclers tells us this (because they don't play those over landcyclers). Razortide is just a land, that's all it can ever be. Lorien is a land, it's a pitch card, it's a draw 3 (very often actually b/c we have basics and we get to this mana level routinely), and it has internal combos. Also when it cycles it increases the likelihood that we don't flood out on lands by virtue of taking a land out of the deck.

Concerning Sea Gate, it costs life in a color set that is really bad at gaining life (there are very few competitive cards white has that do this). It costs more than Lorien, and by the time it is castable you're probably drawing at best equal cards to Lorien since you needed 6 lands in play. Again the card suffers from not reducing chance of flood.

Fox

09-15-2023, 10:07 AM

Brainstorm is way better at getting rid of excess lands than Lorien. If the issue is that brainstorm isn’t quite as good as Lorien at finding lands early, the solution is not to cut brainstorm for lorien. The solution is to run more actual lands and less spells.

You don't seem to understand this concept: if Standstill opens a hand with 2-4 lands, we're playing all of them. If we have a land, we're playing it. We are not a midrange deck, we have action at 0,1,2,3,4,5,6, and higher mana. We are not going to have large hands with excess lands to Brainstorm away; this is a very uncommon scenario, and one that would have been addressed by Currency Converter.

The one thing we care about with Brainstorm is that it lets us keep 5 and 6 land hands that have a Brainstorm. After that, we really don't need it - especially with Bowmaster at 40%.

Imagine a midgame where you've played all your lands. Your hand has no lands. You by definition have a hand that is just action. Let us suppose it is a 3 card hand, and 1 card is a Brainstorm. If I cast the Brainstorm and replace it's spot in hand with a Fetch (i.e. not action), I end the turn with less action than I started with.

Cards like Otawara are very important in this equation as well since we historically would have flooded, but now that land is a spell. So again, that flood protection Brainstorm offers us is decreasing as time progresses.

FTW

09-15-2023, 10:58 AM

Imagine a midgame where you've played all your lands. Your hand has no lands. You by definition have a hand that is just action. Let us suppose it is a 3 card hand, and 1 card is a Brainstorm. If I cast the Brainstorm and replace it's spot in hand with a Fetch (i.e. not action), I end the turn with less action than I started with.

Cards like Otawara are very important in this equation as well since we historically would have flooded, but now that land is a spell. So again, that flood protection Brainstorm offers us is decreasing as time progresses.

I suppose they're imagining a Delver midgame where you've been sandbagging lands to return with Brainstorm. Landstill never does that. You keep playing out lands most of the time, so in the lategame you'd rather just Draw 3 instead of draw 3 and return 2, and you'll either have the mana to pay 3UU or can afford to cycle into more land - much like Timeless Dragon.

I still like Brainstorm for efficient hand filtering (including nonlands), but that may be out of habit and nostalgia than necessity. I'll try testing a 2/2 split with Lorien first and see how that goes. It looks like you've just replaced 4 Brainstorm with 3 Lorien 1 Timeless. If so, then I see your argument about it still fixing the early game mana (with less pressure on turn 1 blue that's been present post-Astrolabe) while giving more relevant action late. The only place you'd suffer is the 5-land opening hands or some other early tempo plays where you need to convert the wrong action into the right action.

Reeplcheep

09-15-2023, 01:19 PM

I think you misunderstand me. The comparison is not Lorien to brainstorm, it is Lorien and {worst blue spell in deck} to brainstorm + more actual lands/sea gate.

There are 7 cases.

You have the 2 cards + 5 non lands. Lorien + spell is a forced null, the brainstorm + land hand is risky but functional.

You have the 1 of the cards + 6 non lands. Probably a mull for both.

You have 5-6 lands and the “land”. Not doing anything until t5 is not a real plan, so mull for both Lorien and actual land.

You have 5-6 lands and the “spell”. Brainstorm fixes that hand, [worst spell] doesn’t.

You have 1 land and the “land”. An actual land/sea gate lets you go t1 plow, t2 standstill. Or t1 converter, t2 timeless dragon. Whatever your strong early plays are. Lorien does not.

You have a nice mix of everything and the “land”. You aren’t going to spend 5 mana drawing with a good hand, so untapped land wins here.

You have a nice mix of everything and the “spell”. Brainstorm does require you to spend an extra mana for a spell compared to having it, but spells aren’t always useful. Plowshares is going to sometimes be dead but brainstorm won’t be. Slight win for spell here.

Brainstorm + land is strongly better in one of the flooded cases, 1 of the good hand cases, and 2 of the screwed cases.. Spell + Lorien is strongly better in the lategame topdeck as you mentioned, and slightly better in the good hand situation.

FTW

09-15-2023, 01:54 PM

Brainstorm + land/Sea Gate vs Lorien + worst blue card:

There are already 23 lands. More lands that don't have a spell-mode lead to flooding, so that option is out. The land needs to be a "spell". Ideally colored or it doesn't help the early plays. 3rd Otawara is sketchy due to legend rule. What's the land, Sea Gate?

Sea Gate in place of that "land" is just worse than Lorien, might as well be Lorien instead. Then both Loriens cancel out.

Unless you have a better spell-land to play, the comparison reduces to Brainstorm vs worst blue card. Tbh that worst card may be Brainstorm in a format with 50% on Bowmaster or Narset. There might be an argument to keep Brainstorm over other blue cards. That's a separate issue.

Sea Gate vs Lorien
Sea Gate's only advantage is it can enter untapped for blue at the cost of 3 life. That's an acceptable cost for fast decks. 3 life is punishing for UWr control.

If Sea Gate enters tapped, then Lorien outclasses it multiple ways. Lorien fixes for any color, not just blue. Lorien can get a basic vs nonbasic hate. Lorien thins lands out of the deck improving lategame draws. Lategame Lorien draws cards at a more reasonable cost (3UU), while 4UUU is still difficult. Lorien is guaranteed to draw 3 while lategame topdeck Sea Gate may draw 1-2 if you've played out 7 lands. Lorien makes a 2/2 with converter, Sea Gate doesn't. The only thing Sea Gate can do better is untapped blue for 3 life, and control wants that less than other decks do. This is not a controversial opinion. 4c/5c Yorion decks are all on Lorien and 0 Sea Gate. Preferring Sea Gate is tempo thinking vs control thinking.

The 7 cases aren't all equal
As Fox's math showed, the 5-6 land cases where Brainstorm wins are much less probable than the 1-2 land cases. Those scenarios don't get equal weights. The 1-land hands happen more often.

The 1-lander with Lorien is keepable, since the deck has many 2 mana plays to find land 3. The 1-lander with just Brainstorm is less keepable (high risk of Brainstorm lock into game loss).

The 1-lander + Sea Gate theoretically lets you curve out T1 spell T2 Standstill; the Lorien hand would mean you can't play action on T1 to jam T2 Standstill. But this is not a tempo deck, you're not forced to jam. Paying 3 life to jam faster is not what control wants. If the coast is not clear you can slow down a turn to manage the board and then T3 Standstill, ahead 3 life and drawing into better topdecks.

Reeplcheep

09-15-2023, 04:14 PM

Brainstorm + land/Sea Gate vs Lorien + worst blue card:

There are already 23 lands. More lands that don't have a spell-mode lead to flooding, so that option is out. The land needs to be a "spell". Ideally colored or it doesn't help the early plays. 3rd Otawara is sketchy due to legend rule. What's the land, Sea Gate?

The 7 cases aren't all equal
As Fox's math showed, the 5-6 land cases where Brainstorm wins are much less probable than the 1-2 land cases. Those scenarios don't get equal weights. The 1-land hands happen more often.

The 1-lander with Lorien is keepable, since the deck has many 2 mana plays to find land 3. The 1-lander with just Brainstorm is less keepable (high risk of Brainstorm lock into game loss).

The 1-lander + Sea Gate theoretically lets you curve out T1 spell T2 Standstill; the Lorien hand would mean you can't play action on T1 to jam T2 Standstill. But this is not a tempo deck, you're not forced to jam. Paying 3 life to jam faster is not what control wants. If the coast is not clear you can slow down a turn to manage the board and then T3 Standstill, ahead 3 life and drawing into better topdecks.

You kinda beg the question though with your first point. You can’t discount running more lands. My whole premise is that brainstorm deals with flood better than Lorien deals with screw, so you should just play brainstorm and more lands. If land drops are so important that you can’t Give them to find gas, why are you pitching your lands to fow? If force is not a concern, than yah just play tundra or a fetch.

Basically any 1 drop in the game is going to do more damage than a lava spike nowadays. I’m not just jamming; the reality is that control needs to have 2 answers before t3 a lot of the time. If your opponent goes saga, petal, Emry, and you have fetch Lorien plow dress down, which would you rather give up? Not plowing on t1 so Emry gets something, not holding up dress down t2 so you get smacked by a giant construct and they get 2 cards from thoughtkeeper , or 3 life because that Lorien is a sea gate?

Fox

09-15-2023, 10:30 PM

The 1-lander + Sea Gate theoretically lets you curve out T1 spell T2 Standstill; the Lorien hand would mean you can't play action on T1 to jam T2 Standstill. But this is not a tempo deck, you're not forced to jam. Paying 3 life to jam faster is not what control wants. If the coast is not clear you can slow down a turn to manage the board and then T3 Standstill, ahead 3 life and drawing into better topdecks.

There's also almost nothing to jam for :u: in this deck...except for Lorien or Currency. We're not going to play aggro -3 life Island to slammajamma Brainstorm before turn 2.

FTW

09-18-2023, 07:16 AM

You kinda beg the question though with your first point. You can’t discount running more lands. My whole premise is that brainstorm deals with flood better than Lorien deals with screw, so you should just play brainstorm and more lands. If land drops are so important that you can’t Give them to find gas, why are you pitching your lands to fow? If force is not a concern, than yah just play tundra or a fetch.

Basically any 1 drop in the game is going to do more damage than a lava spike nowadays. I’m not just jamming; the reality is that control needs to have 2 answers before t3 a lot of the time. If your opponent goes saga, petal, Emry, and you have fetch Lorien plow dress down, which would you rather give up? Not plowing on t1 so Emry gets something, not holding up dress down t2 so you get smacked by a giant construct and they get 2 cards from thoughtkeeper , or 3 life because that Lorien is a sea gate?

Again, this isn't a controversial opinion. Look at top non-Standstill UWr lists or other fair blue control lists. They're on Lorien but 0 Sea Gates & 0 tapped artifact lands. You only see Sea Gates in fast decks like 8cast and combo, decks that care more about tempo. Control doesn't want to pay 3 life to power out untapped lands. The land-thinning, color fixing , 0 life, and 3UU draw 3 is overall better.

You do pay some small cost in the exact scenario you presented where Sea Gate/Lorien + white source are your only mana sources, opponent has many fast plays, and you want to curve out T1 Swords T2 Dress Down/Ending @ 2 or else you'll fall behind more than 3 life. In that exact scenario, you'd be OK with paying 3 life for faster mana. But in a ton of other scenarios your curve out isn't affected much and Lorien does more useful things that Sea Gate cannot: fixing colors, getting basic, making 2/2, drawing cards more efficiently in topdeck mode. Lorien is a modal card. It's not strictly better. But overall the value of those modes outweighs that Sea Gate might accelerate you in one narrow scenario.

Brainstorm isn't enough to smooth out the bad scenarios because statistically you'll see that Sea Gate/land without Brainstorm much more often than you see it with Brainstorm.

If you can't curve out answers fast enough, it's not the end of the world. Control has ways to "catch up" if it didn't keep up with a fast deck's tempo on turns 1-2. Control doesn't have to 1-for-1 match each play. Cards like Supreme Verdict catch up. However control needs to have higher quality topdecks. The game will go 20 turns, and you cannot let a tempo or midrange deck outdraw you. You have to be favored in the long game. Otherwise the entire strategy of disrupting and extending the game is futile. Sea Gate or extra land are much worse topdecks than Lorien. Sea Gate or extra land are worse in the land flood cases. In the 1-land cases Lorien is usually enough. It's only worse if the rest of your hand & opponent's plays dictate you need a line like T1 Swords T2 Dress Down. But keep in mind both Brainstorm and Ponder also fail to play fast enough in those 1-land hands, yet blue players still play those hands. Cantripping also costs 1 mana of early tempo. They don't see that as a reason to cut Ponder for more lands (even if Brainstorm can fix the flood).

At this stage Lorien is a tested, proven and uncontroversial choice.

The controversial thing is whether to cut Brainstorm. Like I said, that reduces to a separate analysis of Brainstorm vs worst other blue card in the deck. Maybe Brainstorm still deserves a spot over that. I'm not convinced Brainstorm is dead yet and am testing a split. But Lorien is better than Sea Gate.

Brainstorm is generally worse in Standstill than it is in Xerox decks, because the underlying deck mechanic is different. Cantrips don't play well under Standstill. You prefer non-spell actions like cycling. Standstill doesn't depend on cantips to hit land drops or fix colors the way Xerox does: Standstill is less greedy with colors, plays more lands, and plays other ways to fix mana. Standstill also doesn't sandbag lands like most other blue decks do, so Brainstorm usually only converts nonlands to other nonlands. It loses the common case of converting extra lands into action. Brainstorm is still cheap hand sculpting. But it does do less here than in typical Xerox decks. Meanwhile the meta is full of Brainstorm hate, punishing Brainstorming in a deck already full of "draw" effects, so Fox may be onto something. Remember that other Brainstorm decks aren't on 6+ other "draw 3"s too. You can only board out so many slots vs 4 Bowmaster/4 Narset decks. Draw3 into Bowmaster is -6, in a slow deck with no lifegain. The other draw 3s at least put you +2 cards to compensate for the risk, while Brainstorm leaves you +0 cards (sometimes worse) just to sculpt. So if you have to trim on draw3s vs hate, Brainstorm has the worst risk-reward tradeoff.

FTW

11-07-2023, 11:58 AM

The Enigma Jewel, aka blue Sol Ring, looks like it has potential here. It curves out turn 1 under Standstill, pitches to Force, and pays for all the many activated abilities.

I've been testing this and it was running well. I went greedier on the Saga package because of the extra mana boost.

//Lands: 22
4 Flooded Strand
3 Prismatic Vista
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Urza's Saga
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 16
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
1 Force of Negation
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Lorien Revealed

//Enchantments: 8
4 Standstill
4 Shark Typhoon

//Artifacts: 8
3 The Enigma Jewel
3 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map
1 Immovable Rod

//Creatures: 3
3 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Comet, Stellar Pup

//Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Alpine Moon
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Serenity
1 Powder Keg
1 Dress Down
1 Humility

Sol Ring pays for:
Saga
Currency Converter
Timeless Dragon
Shark Typhoon
Hall of Heliod's Generosity
Map
Otawara
Lorien
Immovable Rod (unplayable without Sol Ring)

Useful abilities it can Craft & double up:
Comet (needs 0 loyalty to activate)
Teferi - (if Comet added loyalty)
Currency Converter both
Immovable Rod
Relic

PirateKing

11-07-2023, 12:34 PM

Do you have a dungeon strategy for Immovable Rod?
Or is the plan for it to never untap?

FTW

11-07-2023, 01:09 PM

Depends on the game state. I've gone for both Lost Mine and Dungeon of the Mad Mage so far. Tomb of Annihilation is too suicidal.

Between Lost Mine and Dungeon, it really depends on how long it looks like the game will go, how much mana you have, and which abilities you may need sooner. There isn't always time or mana to go through a full dungeon.

Once at 6 lands + Jewel, I usually activate every turn (4 lands free). Before that I just lock down 1 thing and don't untap until I have a better answer.

What I like even more is that it forces them to overcommit into Verdict and turns off annoying passive abilities. It can also pick off lands to color-screw them.

FTW

11-07-2023, 02:17 PM

Other useful tech in this build...

Many proactive turn 1 plays that curve under T2 Standstill: Jewel, Currency Converter, Rod

T1 Jewel curves into T2 EOT 2/2 Shark. In general, Sharks can get online earlier or grow larger.

T1 Jewel, T2 cycle Timeless into 2nd land drop (into T2 Standstill?). 4/4 dragon available as early as T3. Jewel pays for both abilities.

So much Currency Converter value: 4 Sharks, 3 Timeless, 2 Lorien, Otawara, Heliod reusing Shark Typhoon, Jewel paying for more looting. Many 2/2s available.

Jewel pays for Saga and also +1 to Constructs, enabling early 4/4s without tying up your lands.

FTW

12-15-2023, 03:21 PM

Is Standstill dead as long as Beans exists?

It's tough to justify building a different game plan around Standstill when UWx can curve out Beans for 1G and jam every good control spell without as restrictive deck building. Beans has weaker mana, but it also doesn't "get got" by threats that sneak under Standstill. The only reason to play Standstill before was that it gave you the most efficient 2-mana draw engine if you were willing to accept the restrictions (non-spells or cheap instants). If Beans can outdraw it, then Standstill's payoff isn't worth the drawback.

FTW

03-19-2026, 11:10 PM

This ThrabenU video made me wonder if Standstill is still viable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlDIpB-jaE0&list=PLepb2rXbrHxHe3mgsxD8aWbDJBnWBmq9m&index=18

That league didn't go well, though the deck also had many deck construction issues, mana instability, and dead draws that doomed it from the start. But casting Standstill and Tamiyo didn't look bad.

UWx control in general has been putting up some results in this meta. Usually Narset-Days, Quantum Riddler, or Wizards. But the UWx control shell with any draw engine seems to work.

I think Enigma Jewel still deserves a look. You never miss Saga activations (common problem in other Saga decks). Bigger Shark ambushes sooner. Now it also cracks Tamiyo clues! This all buys tempo, speeding you up a lot when trying to stabilize against fast decks. Unlike Mox Diamond, extra copies drawn later will pitch to Force. Speeding up mana to keep up in a faster format is a good idea, but Enigma does it at +2 mana for 1 card vs +1 mana for 2 cards. Lategame crafting planeswalkers is funny.

UWr SharkStill 2026

//Lands: 22
4 Flooded Strand
3 Prismatic Vista
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Karakas
1 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Urza's Saga
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Spells: 19
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending
2 Force of Negation
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Lorien Revealed

//Creatures: 4
4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student

//Enchantments: 6
3 Standstill
3 Shark Typhoon

//Planeswalkers: 3
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//Artifacts : 6
3 Enigma Jewel
1 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map
1 Ghost Vacuum

//SB: 15
3 Consign to Memory
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Wrath of the Skies
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Deafening Silence
1 Serenity
1 Blood Moon
1 Torpor Orb

Last few SB slots are flexible.

Torpor Orb - Show and Tell, Reanimator, Aluren, Thassa decks, Energy, creature value decks. Also Wizards & Quantum Riddler (the latter 2 makes Torpor better in control mirrors than Dress Down or Humility)
Deafening Silence - Storm, tempo, any deck trying to cast multiple spells a turn
Serenity - Artifacts Blue, Stompy, Beans, Painter, Mystic Forge
Blood Moon - Greedy mana. Seems better than Alpine Moon in current meta of greedy surveil land manabases, better than B2B vs Lands and stuff like Pox's Hatchery.