[Deck] UBGx Landstill

[honestabe]

Game two: I really wish I didn't let my teammate talk me out of running the miser's Back to nature in the board, so i just bring out innocent bloods, for 2 grips and darkblast (for his enchantress). He has a turn 2 enchantress, which i triumphently swords at the end of his turn :facepalm:. Like I said, I'm really unfamiliar with that deck.
Any questions??

Yeah, the swords thing was meant to tell you that I messed up, and didn't know she had shroud, just through lack of familiarity with the deck. Sorry if I wasn't clearer

[galeng]

I'm having a LOT of problems with Team America. Bubbled another top 8 due to running losses to the deck. Generally they're running the wasteland, stifle, sinkhole, vindicate package with spell pierce in the board. The deck seems to hard counter us and it's growing in popularity. Thoughts?

[Tinefol]

If they also happen to run Extirpate, you are doomed. The match up sucks, really.
If you want to beat TA you need at least 6 basics and 7 spot removal. If you don't have enough basics, there's almost no chance. I've crushed that deck with UWx shell (6 basics, 4 stp, 3 path). I've lost horribly with 4cc. I guess mid variant is UBG with 3-4 basics, 2 Loams and 4 Blood/3 Smother, so you'd have fighting chance here.

[JonBarber]

Why does no one seem to be playing the list from the GP?

[honestabe]

Why does no one seem to be playing the list from the GP?

Most lists here are pretty simaler, but without the wishes. I found them too slow, and clunky. I run spell snare in it's place and have never looked back

[nodahero]

So I have been testing the Freakaccidents list for a few days now and I keep comming to the same conclusion.... Factory is simply not good enough in that shell.

All to often I found myself needed an additional colored source in my opener (typically an island).
I also noted that the deck seems really weak to Wasteland and especially when backed by Stifle due to a lack of basic lands (1 island).
Given these notes are there any suggestions besides adding at LEAST 1 more island?

Other than that I have been VERY happy with the list Freak created.

ATM I am actually going to try testing 2 Mana Leaks in place of a counterspell and spell pierce and thus leave the Factorys alone.

[nodahero]

Sorry for Double post. Just curious if anyone would like me to post my tourney report? I went 4-0 against a wide range of decks. 8-1 in games.

[jamied1981]

I'd like to see it

[Ajsmirnov]

@ivanpei Your decklist is very good, thanks you for tons of info about this deck. I used a very close version and finished 3rd at my city's Legacy Championship(28 players), loosing in1/2 to affinity because i played 2 edict but not 2 pte - i could not kill myr enforcer with memnite also on board... I want to ask, maybe I missed something - why don't you play sensei's top? It was so good every time I had it in play. My list:

4 Sea
3 Tropical
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Wasteland
4 Mishra
9 Fetches for blue

4 FoW
3 Snare
2 Pierce
2 Counter
4 Brainstorm
4 StP
2 Diabolic Edict

3 Jace

4 Deed
1 Pulse(a lot of Tombstalkers here)
2 Loam
2 Sensei Top
4 Standstill

Now i changed 1 sea for 1 tundra and wasteland for basic island, 2 edicts for 2 pte

[kiblast]

Today I had a small tournament (8 people) and finished 1st. This is the build.

3 Sea
3 Tropical
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra
4 Polluted delta
3 Misty Rainforest

4 FoW
3 Spell Snare
3 Spell Pierce
3 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Innocent Blood
1 Ghastly Demise

4 Jace

4 Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Standstill

SB:

2 Hydroblast
2 BeB
3 Extirpate
3 E Plague
2 Perish
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Life from the Loam



1st round: 2-0 vs Imperial Painter
1st game I menage to keep him in mana denial using Wasteland, Spell Snare on Magma Jet and then Jace. He doesn't do anything impressive. G2 I side in 2 Hydro and 2 Beb (-1 Standstil, -2 Pulse and -1 Innocent Blood) and I menage to survive early game by countering or removing all his threats ( Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon in particular). Then I go for the control route and Jace wins. I feared particularly moon effects in this MU so I sided out the pulses because they require too many specifical mana.

2nd round 2-0 vs BR sligh (basically a Bob Sligh with Sinkholes and Tourach + various Burn, maybe Red Death?)
1st game I counter early threats but a Lavamancer and a couple of Magma Jets reach the table and do 10+ damages. I eventually find multiple Innocent Bloods (he dropped an Ashenmoor Gouger, too) and prevent to have him topdeck burn spells through Jace. Jace wins again.
G2 I do the same sideplan of the first round (I even saw some maindeck Moons and Maguses so I choose to drop Pulses). I see my hate and win easily, I even menage to find 1 each of all my basics so i let him resolve all his Moon effects and then I blow a Deed destroying 1 Moon 1 Magus and a Confidant. Next turn land Jace with Beb backup, I win.

3rd round ID versus The Damn Awesome Deck (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19724-Damn-Awesome-Deck)
We smoke some cigarettes.

4th round 1-1 vs Eva Green
Opponent needs to win to reach top4. He wins the roll and goes turn 1 Thoughtseize (picking Spell Snare), into turn 2 Sinkhole and turn 3 Wasteland. He steamrolls me with 4/5 Goyf and Stalker. I concede because I can't find any land. G2 ( -2 Standstill + 2 Perish and -1 Ghastly + 1 LftL) I counter turn 1 Thoughtseize (didn't want to have Deed or Jace discarded, I had Spell Pierce to counter his Seize), turn 2 Tourach meets my Snare, then he drops a couple of Goyfs , I land my Deed and win with Jace. We don't go for G3 because meanwhile the results of other matches cut my opponent from Top4 independently from the result of this match. He concedes.

Semifinals 2-0 against The Damn Awesome Deck (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19724-Damn-Awesome-Deck)
G1 I menage to keep him off green mana sources through 4 Wasteland on all of his Bayous, multiple Spell Snare and Spell Pierces on Explores, Living Wishes and Tops, then eventually land Jace to win.
G2 I don't side and replay G1, he eventually finds a basic forest but my full set of Wastelands (AGAIN!) destroy his mana ramp plans ( I take 3 Bayous and a Cabal Coffer) I counter all his tentatives of manipulating library/ wishing/ drawing, and kill all the Confidants he drops. I had multiple Brainstorms in both games and always Jace on my 4th turn, so a lot of deckthinning (that's how I found all my Wastelands in both games, with a bit of luck too ^^)

Final 2-1 against BR Sligh (2nd round one)
1st game I counter or destroy all his threats, land Jace and win (really I don't remember much from this game). 2nd game I side in 2 Hydro and 2 Beb, but I am mana screwed due to his Wasteland and turn 3 Blood Moon (no Pierce in hand). I concede when he drops his beaters.G3 we have a pretty long game (and the most difficult in the tournament for me) in wich I keep this hand: Polluted Delta, Brainstorm, Hydroblast, Hydroblast, Jace, Spell Pierce and Spell Snare. He goes turn 1 Thoughtseize picking Snare (I respond with Brainstorm finding an Usea and hiding double Hydro, here probably I misplayed because I should have played Spell Pierce, but I was in a hurry to find my second land drop, and I thought that if I had Brain in my turn and could not find a land, I didn't have mana open for Hydroblast or Spell Pierce in his turn), then he drops 2nd turn Confidant and start drawing and beating. I can't find my lands and I'm low @life, but 2 hydro save me countering Ashenmoor Gouger and Blood Moon. I start drawing some lands, and stabilize with all the mana I need +2 Mishra's factory. He drops Pithing Needle naming Factory and continue his beatdown. Then in late game, I stick a Jace, have a +0 Brainstorm, find Pernicious and a Beb, weep the board, then drop Standstill. He goes for Magus and I Beb, then he drops Needle (naming Jace I think) but I Fow. Game ends when he has got no cards left in hand while I topdeck Standstill and continue fatesealing him with Jace.

I played this deck for the first time today and I'm pretty satisfied with it. I need to check the sideboard again though I'll stick with 4 Beb effects for sure. In the last 6-8 months I played UWb Landstill but I feel this deck is superior in finding answers and controls better (Pernicious is so good). I need to check my manabase too as sometimes I screwed due to opponent's Wasteland. Overall a powerful deck.

[U.deck]

I've been having great success with this list:

lands//24
4 mishra's factory
1 island
3 grove of the burnwillows
4 underground sea
3 volcanic island
3 tropical island
3 flooded strand
3 polluted delta

board control//12
4 innocent blood
4 punishing fires
4 pernicious deed

draw//11
4 brainstorm
4 standstill
3 jace, the mind sculpter

permission//12
4 force of will
4 counterspell
4 spell pierce

life from the loam//1

sideboard//
3 krosan grip
3 firespout
4 extirpate
3 blue elemental blast
2 red elemental blast


The deck has a lot of removal, as well as threats, permission, and draw. Punishing fires really changes a lot of difficult MUs, and makes the deck's midrange aggro MU incredible.

This list does not lose to merfolk. After boarding it gets even worse for them with the addition of firespout, which dramatically effects their ability to deny mass removal with wasteland.

Vengevival has at least 20 creatures that die to punishing fires, and most of their critters usually die to two punishing fires. If they allow you to go to the mid-late game you can keep them on a clear board forever. Spell pierce usually eats up early survivals game one and forces them to either slow roll them or go for the much slower, much more vulnerable fauna shaman in games 2 and 3.

Spell pierce also slows down counterbalances by enough turns to let you land standstill or deed under them, dramatically decreasing it's impact on the game.

I play extirpate in the board to help in the survival and ichorid MUs... People seem to disagree with this for some reason, but I find that if I remove bridge from below I can usually beat ichorid with landstill of any color combination. The addition of punishing fires can really slow down a bloodghast/ichorid beat down plan, and can clean up any left over zombies.


I am in dire need of a good goblins player and a good combo player to test against on MWS, so if anyone would be willing to test with me that would be awesome.


The deck has been struggling with knight of the reliquary in the midgame, as a bunch of 1cmc guys deprive innocent blood, and they are usually far to big to punishing fires, which opens zoo variants up to a nice timing attack around the turn 4-6 mark for a massive amount of damage sometimes. Firespout comes in postboard, but I think the deck needs a bit more than that, does anyone have any ideas to solve that problem?


* What about running E.E. and squeezing in a singleton Academy Ruins?

[U.deck]

A list that I have been tinkering around with... let me know what you all think.

4 Deed
4 Innocent Blood
3 E.E.
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Life from the loam

4 FOW
4 Counterspell
3 Brainstorm
3 Standstill
2 Cunning Wish
2 Spell Pierce
2 Jace, the mind sculptor
1 Spell Snare

1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp


SB:
1 Standstill
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Hydroblast
1 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
3 Extirpate
3 Krosan Grip
1 Fact or fiction
1 Echoing Truth


Reasoning:

I went with 25 land over the stock 24 so that I could run 4 of each fetch. I wanted to make the mana base as stable as possible. It's no mono u merfolk list but I don't think it is too bad. In doing this I trimmed a few cards down. Namely Standstill(in the main) and Brainstorm. In testing I didn't always want to see standstill in my opener. I'd much rather clean up the board and then drop it. And 1 less Brainstorm I haven't found much of an impact in testing.

SB: Needless to say this is still a work in progress but I like most of it so far.

Card selection:

Standstill: To side in vs. combo for that bit of extra draw.
Diabolic edict: Wishable target to deal with a random emrakul or progenitus and with 5 mana with a wish...it isn't too bad. Also could help with zoo.
Hydroblast: Zoo and Gobbos
Spell Pierce and Spell Snare: Just wishable targets that are additional counter magic also come in vs. combo/counterbalance.deck
Extirpate: Dredge/Loam decks... also good to get rid of misc threats. Extirpate their jace etc...
K. Grip: Counterbalance and other deck who abuse enchantments/artifacts
FOF: Additional card draw if needed. I generally side it in if vs. another landstill deck card advantage is huge in this matchup.
Echoing Truth... empty the warrens tokens... pithing needle etc.

Please let me know what you all think. Thanks.

[honestabe]

No offense, but if your only running 3 Brainstorms, you're not casting it correctly. I often joke that this is actually UBG Brainstorm, because I often found that resolving a Brainstorm was more game breaking than resolving a Standstill. It's interaction with Loam is just insane, and it's invaluable against hand destruction. Play 4.

In the words of Patrick Chapin,

"It's Brainstorm!!! You've cast it before right???? AND IT RESOLVED???"

[The Treefolk Master]

No offense, but if your only running 3 Brainstorms, you're not casting it correctly. I often joke that this is actually UBG Brainstorm, because I often found that resolving a Brainstorm was more game breaking than resolving a Standstill. It's interaction with Loam is just insane, and it's invaluable against hand destruction. Play 4.

In the words of Patrick Chapin,

"It's Brainstorm!!! You've cast it before right???? AND IT RESOLVED???"

True, run 4.

Why only 2 Jace? Run 4, 3 isn't completely out of the question, but I think 4 is the right number.

[U.deck]

Running 4 brainstorm wouldn't be too much of a problem, I suppose I could just cut down the number of fetches to 7 vs. 8. I was just trying to make the manabase as stable as possible(i.e. no mana screw, and resilient to wasteland) But I suppose cutting one fetch won't have effect that are too adverse in relation to the gain of benefits from the 4th brainstorm.

I decided to only run two jace because I want to make sure when jace hit the table that I would have complete board control. I considered running 4 Jace and cutting either wishes/1x E.E. but decided that the board control was more important to me. I didn't want to run a jace out there and be used a a maze of for a turn, brainstorming, and then dying.

Comments?

[sdematt]

I'm trying the following list:

4 Wasteland
4 Factory
7 Fetches
4 Sea
3 Trop
2 Volc
1 Island
1 Swamp

3 Jace
3 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
3 Deed
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Top
4 Force
3 Counterspell
2 EE
4 Brainstorm
3 Standstill
1 Life from the Loam
2 Open (firespout most likely)

2/3 Firespout (board)
3 Duress
Mostly undecided, yet.


I found the white build to be good, but I'm trying red again.

I'll post more later.

-Matt

[Shimi]

@sdmatt: When I was playing this deck there was only one thing that make me lose...manabase issues, like not having G for deed or no B source after getting wastelanded because I needed to use UU at T2.
Even with this manabase:
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's
4 Sea
2 Tropicals
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Delta
3 Misty

I was also playing with 4 innocent blood and 3 ghastily demise so removals were never a problem but let me know if your 4c manabase is solid and the advantages of firespout.
Also did you think the land count should be 26?Aren't you flooding lands?

[honestabe]

Running 4 brainstorm wouldn't be too much of a problem, I suppose I could just cut down the number of fetches to 7 vs. 8. I was just trying to make the manabase as stable as possible(i.e. no mana screw, and resilient to wasteland) But I suppose cutting one fetch won't have effect that are too adverse in relation to the gain of benefits from the 4th brainstorm.

I decided to only run two jace because I want to make sure when jace hit the table that I would have complete board control. I considered running 4 Jace and cutting either wishes/1x E.E. but decided that the board control was more important to me. I didn't want to run a jace out there and be used a a maze of for a turn, brainstorming, and then dying.

Comments?

Personally, I'd cut the wishes. I tested them so much, and wanted to be good sooo badly, but in the end, the deck was better off without. I definitely understand just 3 Standstills, though I prefer all 4 maindeck, I definitely get where you're coming from. I'd also run the 3rd Jace. So often, you can use the first one to help you stabilize (ie, they use up precious resources to kill the first one), then run out a second to seal the deal. They're also invalueable in the control matchup.

I definitely like the FoF in the board, I tried running one maindeck, but in the end, couldn't justify it, but one in the board is definitely neat.






On another note, shouldn't Go for the Throat be replacing Ghastly Demise in the deck? I made the switch, and have been killing Bobs with ease ever since. Not to mention a resolved Tombstalker, which is pretty much the last creature I want to see across the table.

[Shimi]

On another note, shouldn't Go for the Throat be replacing Ghastly Demise in the deck? I made the switch, and have been killing Bobs with ease ever since. Not to mention a resolved Tombstalker, which is pretty much the last creature I want to see across the table.

I did not tested GftT but I'm afraid it can't answer an T1 lackey , also I don't know if it can make you more vunerable to daze/pierces.Let me just know your results.Thx.

[U.deck]

Thanks for the thoughts on the wishes. With that information I would imagine the board would take on a slightly different form. So I suppose the MD would look like -2 Wish +Standstill +Jace...? A part of me wants to run more countermagic though.

Probably my favorite card... aside from counterspell is fact or fiction... just so good.(drool)

I have been thinking about Go for the Throat and Ghastly and I think running the two ghastly is ok.. more testing might be needed though. It is mostly there because of the turn one lackey, EOT fetch and ghastly followed up by standstill. What about diabolic edicts vs. Go for the throat? A resolved natural order or a show and tell is a bit scary... and edict could be a nice out. Thoughts?

P.S. Thanks for the input.

[sdematt]

I've been flooding just a bit, so I'll probably cut a Waste.

Still more testing to do. It's not *really* 4C, it's 3C with Firespouts in the board (most likely). Most of the time, aggro players cut off my red pre-board, fearing Firespout, leaving me to rain hell upon them with Deed. Then, they just die in a fire(spout) postboard. It's been alright, but more testing to be done.

-Matt

[honestabe]

I did not tested GftT but I'm afraid it can't answer an T1 lackey , also I don't know if it can make you more vunerable to daze/pierces.Let me just know your results.Thx.

Honestly, I don't really care if my opponent gets a Lackey. So often, even if it connects, Goblins has a hard time pushing through a win when faced against Jaces, the countersuite, Innocent bloods and of course, big poppa Deed. It may be a bit arrogant, but all Goblins does that scares me is wasteland. I don't care what their hand looks like, if they don't play and activate wasteland, they simply aren't going to win. that being said, I think the loss of not being able to kill turn 1 lackies on the draw is outweighed by being able to kill creatures I care about, such as Goyf and knight (which early on, ghastly demise can miss), as well as Bob Maher and Tombstalker.

[jdsnider]

Here's a new list I've been wanting to try out but haven't had the chance... any thoughts?

4 Brainstorm
3 spell snare
3 spell pierce
4 innocent blood
4 counterspell
3 standstill
1 Go for the Throat
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will

3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 island
1 swamp
1 forest
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland

Sideboard: not finished
(changes depending on meta)

[god_campbell]

The list looks decent, though I would change out the 2 thruns, honestly for 4 mana I would rather be castign Jace 2.0's or Fof's then him. so I would cut the 2 for the 4th standstill and the 4th deed. I have been anxious to test a pair of go for the throats as I have alot of Tombstalkers in my Meta.

And the mana Base looks a little off, you really don't need green in the md apart from deeds, so I would remove the forest for the 3rd tropical island and consider swapping the bayou for factory number 3.

[rancOr_]

What do you think about 1Worm Harvest if u play the version with wastelands/2loam? Seems like a solid recurring extra win condition(like extirpate Jace,needle Jace,..).

[nodahero]

Worm Harvest performed extremely well in the Trisomy-21 lists that I helped test and create.

My question to you is what do you cut for it and why?

I have never had any issues with the win conditions in the deck.

[honestabe]

I mean, if your opponent is running mulitple extirpates, you'll probably just win because they're running multiple extirpates and not real cards. Plus, I feel like they'd be more inclined to go for your loams and forces before they went for your factories and Jaces

[Shimi]

Today I tested this list:

7 fetch
2 island
1 swamp
1 forest
4 sea
3 tropicals
4 mishra
3 waste

2 pierce
3 snare
3 CS
4 fow
4 BS
4 Jace
3 Standstill
4 innocent blood
3 GftT
4 deed
1 pulse
1 loam

and find GftT to be a very good card, removes Bob/Stalker and even KotR and Goyfs , the 2cc did not hurt.. also I find jace as 4of.. played with 3 but 4 is MUCH better, also standstill was cut because of many vial+waste decks.Pulse is here to solve pithing needle MD problems or other Planeswalkers, also it kill something with 3cc which is fair.

[kiblast]

I'm testing UBG and I would like to hear some response about my removal configuration:

Of course there are:

4x Pernicious Deed;

Then, for pesky enchantments/ artifacts and Planeswalkers:

2x Maelstrom Pulse;

Then, I need to fill 5 slots for creature spot removals. I tried 4x Innocent Blood and 1x Ghastly Demise, but I dislike Innocent in the Goblin and Merfolk MU. I need something more focused and fast ( Innocent is a sorcery, too.) I'm thinking of testing a mix of Ghastly, Go for the Throat, Smother.
Something like:

3x Ghastly Demise
2x Smother/ GftT

What do you think?

[Iron Buddha]

Looks good, I would run the same package. But consider EE (maybe with 4 counters) in place of Maelstrom Pulse.

[Shimi]

I like Innocent.. It Kills progenitus/Thruns , is just 1cc and sometimes deals with lackey on draw when your demise can't cause sometimes you don't have a fetch on T1.
Also my spot removals are only gaining some time for me until I pop the board with deed and play jace against merfolks..goblins are just a bit more dificult cause they have SGC and Ringleader to recover(also they have ports).

[kiblast]

Finally here's the list I'll be playing this weekend at a couple of tournaments (one on saturday, one on sunday, lovely MTG based weekend :3)
Decided to add the 4th colour because StP is...well, is Stp.


//Lands
3x Tropical Island (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tropical+Island)
3x Underground Sea (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Underground+Sea)
3x Polluted Delta (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Polluted+Delta)
3x Wasteland (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Wasteland)
4x Mishra's Factory (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Mishra%27s+Factory)
2x Misty Rainforest (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Misty+Rainforest)
1x Island (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Island)
3x Tundra (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tundra)
2x Flooded Strand (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Flooded+Strand)

//Spells
4x Jace, the Mind Sculptor (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Jace%2C+the+Mind+Sculptor)
3x Spell Pierce (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Spell+Pierce)
4x Pernicious Deed (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Pernicious+Deed)
4x Brainstorm (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Brainstorm)
3x Spell Snare (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Spell+Snare)
4x Force of Will (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Force+of+Will)
4x Standstill (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Standstill)
4x Swords to Plowshares (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Swords+to+Plowshares)
3x Counterspell (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Counterspell)
1x Life from the Loam (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Life+from+the+Loam)
2x Innocent Blood (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Innocent+Blood)

//Sideboard
4x Engineered Plague (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Engineered+Plague)
4x Extirpate (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Extirpate)
3x Circle of Protection: Red (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Circle+of+Protection%:+Red)
4x Meddling Mage (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Meddling+Mage)

EDIT: SB updated.
Any suggestion? I'm a bit worried by opponents Planeswalkers as I don't run Pulses/Vindicate. Maybe +1 Counterspell or +2 Explosives? But what should I cut?
I'd appreciate suggestions regarding sideboard, too.

[kiblast]

Did somebody try an alternative Win Con such as Worm Harves as suggested before?
I'd like to have something more reliable against opponents playing discard+ Extirpate post sb, or against other UB based controls, as they play Extirpates as well. Well, Worm Harvest too is Extirpable, but at least they're not going to do a 3x1 as when they Extirpate Jace. I am even thinking of Gigapede.

Maybe a split 3x J,tMS and 1x Worm Harvest or Gigapede?

WH is good if you play singleton Loam maindeck, too. What do you think?

[Ajsmirnov]

I played WH and it was even worse than Decree of Justice. After all tests I used Relics of Progenitus against Extirpates. Remove your own cards, then in the late game just cycle the relic

[kiblast]

I played WH and it was even worse than Decree of Justice. After all tests I used Relics of Progenitus against Extirpates. Remove your own cards, then in the late game just cycle the relic

Today I played a small 14 people tournament. 1st round win 2-1 against UW CounterTop Thopter, 2nd round win 2-1 against Spanish Inquisition. 3rd I lose 2-0 to Burn, yesterday night I changed idea about SB an I ran 3 Hydro/Beb instead of 3 CoP:R. I'll go back to Cop:R or I'll add the 4th Hydro/Beb for sure, as only 3 dedicated counters are not enough. 4th round I play against Jund. It was a sort of Dark Zoo with Confidants, Tarmogoyfs, Blood Braid Elf, some Equipments to cascade in, Tops and Maelstrom Pulses. I lose first game due to color screw (I only see 2 Usea and a Mishra in the first 5 turns), and in the second game I have Wasteland on Tundra, followed by Extirpate on Tundra (while I had 2 Stp's in hand). Then Wasteland on Mishra's Factory followed by Extirpate on it. Then double Bolt on Jace, followed by guess what? Extirpate.
I need to go -1 Tundra, +1 Scrubland maybe?

And I strongly feel that this deck needs something to win beside Jace.

Ah, I was playing a singleton Creeping Tar Pit instead of the fourth U sea, with no Wastelands.

[rancOr_]

@kiblast,
I play almost the same as your list posted above,except -1spell pierce, +1 life from the loam,+1 Worm Harvest.
Life from the loam is such a good card in this deck,(keep the wastes),they make your mana base so strong as they cant mana screw you,you can waste lock them...
Worm Harvest is sick,but I think you should play 2 lftl to support it,so you always have it(the small chance of having 2lftl is nothing compared to the huge impact this card has on the game).

As for the sideboard I play this atm:
4 ethersworn cannonist(best anti combo card,gives an actual clock without having to tap mishra's)
4 Engineered Plague
4 BEB(zoo,goblins,burn,few vs tes,..)
2 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast

Grtz

[honestabe]

I've been running a couple of kitchen finks out of the board.

They're great blockers, gain you some live, alternate win condition, and live through deed

[Ajsmirnov]

I need to go -1 Tundra, +1 Scrubland maybe?

And I strongly feel that this deck needs something to win beside Jace.

Ah, I was playing a singleton Creeping Tar Pit instead of the fourth U sea, with no Wastelands.

my manabase used to be
9 blue fetches
3 tundra
3 sea
3 tropical
1 scrubland
4 mishras
1 random land(Creepitg, Wasteland, Basic Island... possibly Island is the best)
with 1 Life from the Loam
Scrubland is ok.

As for Extirpate - things you have described happen not very often and it's better to ignore them then to change the list. Also Duresses are great in SB and you can try them against decks like that Jund(Extirpate, Equipments, Tops, Bolts, Maelstrom Pulses)

[RandomTask]

Greetings. This is my first The Source post; I'm hoping this proves to be a valuable resource.

I've been playing this deck for awhile now, originally using a standard 3-color wish version, and then deciding to play white for Swords. I've been going back and forth about whether the white splash is worth it as it does make the manabase work that much harder. I've also been up and down about the wish package; it's been really good at times, and somewhat lacking during others. At any rate, the reason I'm posting is because, in my attempts to justify splashing white (StP is StP, as mentioned above), I came up with an idea that I thought might be interesting: converting the wish package to an enlightened tutor package. I love pernicious deed as much as anybody probably does if they play this deck, so being able to e tutor for one sounds pretty awesome to me. This also allows for more powerful sideboarding than running the wish package offers (obviously, wishboards, etc. etc.), so I'm curious to see what you guys think of this update. It very well may prove to be too janky, and I haven't tested it enough yet to know how good it is, but any thoughts/suggestions are welcome (the counterspell suite, sideboard, and manabase might still need some work as well). Without further adieu:

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Standstill
3 Counterspell
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Innocent Blood
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Jace, The Mind-Sculptor
2 Life From the Loam
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives

4 Poluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Srubland
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra

1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Thorn of Amythest
1 Ethersword Cannonist
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Engineered Plague
3 Spell Pierce
2 Krosan Grip
1 Pithing Needle

I've found that combo and Merfolk are the toughest matchups, with Goblins being difficult if you have a slower hand. I chose Bridge over Moat because I don't own one. Porphyry nodes is a bit of a pet card, and could be replaced, but it does kill a Progenitus, right? I could also see removing the Thopter/Sword combo from the deck as I'm not sure it belongs, but I thought it might be worth a try. I win with Jace most often, and factories/tarpit are often slow, although you should have the game dominated often by the time you swing with them, but another angle of attack seemed like it might add some overall power. The format, at least I think, is favoring more proactive decks right now (e.g. counterbalance falling out of favor), so having another win condition seemed like it could help. The crucible in the side is there mostly because it's tutorable for matchups where you really need it, but also because a lot of decks (junk is a good example) will try to waste you off your green or exile your graveyard with a loam in it, and I've definitely been hurt by such tactics. Of course, a 3-color manabase is harder to attack than 4 colors, but I'm being as greedy as possible if you couldn't already tell.

Anyways, let me know what you think of this list, but I'm also primarily interested in a discussion of an Enlightened Tutor package replacing the Wish package, or if the general consensus is to run neither, and stick to 3 colors with the extra removal/permission that replaces the wish package.

[Jason]

I don't run Cunning Wish (it wasn't doing too much) and I cut white from the main deck because I was having issues hitting correct colors, even with 25 lands. I left one Tundra in the main for EE @4, but also for Enlightened Tutor out of the sideboard. This is because I've found ANT/TES is immensely difficult to beat without Ethersworn Canonist. My sideboard looks like:
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Engineered Plague (this card is awful and should probably be some other enchantment/artifact; still in the process of figuring out what I like best)
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Vendilion Clique
Enlightened Tutor in the sideboard allows me to cheat on my hate cards, allowing me to run an "extra" 2 of each without taking up all those slots.

What interests me about your main deck, though, is the Thopter/Sword package. Thopter/Sword is really powerful and a great supplemental win condition. I might have to rethink white in the main deck and try it out.

[kiblast]

Cunning wish Vs Enlightened Tutor packages: I prefer E tutor, is faster and handles more situations. Cunning seems clunky these days. But I'd play (and in fact I'm testing it) only as a sideboard option, I dislike maindeck Tutors because give your opponent hints on what you will play post side, and for example in mirror opponent's Meddling Mages could name E Tutor screwing your post side plan.

Currently I'm testing this sideboard:

2 Enlightened Tutor (Side note: expect this to hit 15-20$ soon... I'm buying mine foils and you should start too. I'ts crazy good in legacy.)

2 Engineered Plague ( Merfolk, Goblins, Faeries, Elves, Dredge too naming Illusion, Horror or Zombie, almost always Illusion though. Versatile in various Mu's.)

3 Extirpate ( Ok, I run a Toolbox-like SB, but I can't cut these. Extirpate is MVP in so many match-ups. Plus I own exactly 3 foils so no way I'm not going to play em. Easy.)

1 Zuran Orb ( I play 2 Loams maindeck. Seems an obvious choice against Burn,Sligh etc.)

2 Ethersworn Canonist ( Still the best anti storm hatebear available. She's fighting with Revoker for a 1/1 split though.)

2 Cop: Red (Because it's sad when my 1.5k $ deck lose to his 120$ of crappy burn spells. This in conjunction with Canonist provide protection and a nice clock against those Sligh/Burn Mu's. Not less than 2 because we need to see it asap.)

1 Tormod's Crypt ( Obviously superior to Relic here because I run Loams and singleton Harvest.)

1 Thorn of Amethyst ( I need a different hate piece against storm combo and this seems good (even if not as ''definitive'' as Canonist). Another slot in wich I could fit a Revoker.)

1 Porphiry Nodes ( I don't run any Innocent Blood or Diabolic Edicts and I need o get rid of those pesky Mongooses. It's very good against other swarm decks such as Goblin, Merfolk, etc because gives you a free removal each turn. And if opponent actually decides to don't play against it and let it sac, you actually almost Time Walked him for the cheap cost of W. Seems good. You can play Drop of Honey for pimp purposes.)


Suggestions?

Regarding UBG vs UBGw, (read ''play Landstill without Swords'' or '' play Landstill with Swords'') I think that Swords (and PtE to a lesser degree) is so good that it's actually worth weaking your manabase for it. Plus as you see above, I use plenty of W in side as well, and there are not so many Mu tailored answers post side if you don't play W.
I see Cunning Wish as the sub-par answer of UBG to not having W for E Tutor. And the same is true for black removals too, such as Ghastly Demise / Innocent Blood instead of Stp / PtE.

[mchainmail]

Suggestions?

Regarding UBG vs UBGw, (read ''play Landstill without Swords'' or '' play Landstill with Swords'') I think that Swords (and PtE to a lesser degree) is so good that it's actually worth weaking your manabase for it. Plus as you see above, I use plenty of W in side as well, and there are not so many Mu tailored answers post side if you don't play W.
I see Cunning Wish as the sub-par answer of UBG to not having W for E Tutor. And the same is true for black removals too, such as Ghastly Demise / Innocent Blood instead of Stp / PtE.

I see no issue with not playing Swords. Ghastly Demise is insane against almost everything, and I've rarely had to try to grow it.

E-Tutor is ridiculous, I have foils too.

I would try Rule of Law / Arcane Laboratory if you're concerned about hte combo matchup, as it's harder for them to answer and makes your counters absolutely insane.

[RandomTask]

I'm glad to have received some feedback. I definitely agree that Enlightened Tutor will continue to appreciate in value; it's pretty good. I unfortunately am stuck with 2 white-bordered, and 2 mirage ones, so not exactly where you want to be.

I host a weekly legacy tournament, so I got some live action in with the list that I posted earlier. A few notes, and then whatever you guys have to say about it, I'm down to hear:

-The thopter/sword combo was actually surprisingly good for me. This deck is one of the best at completely nullifying the opponent's gameplan, especially if they are creature based, and I was able to exhaust their resources and then deploy the combo to close out the game. It is especially good because they can't just drop one dude that blocks your factories anymore, which I've found to be a problem in the past, if that is how you're trying to win. I've played the CounterTop Thopter deck for awhile, and this deck feels like a better version of that deck (assuming that the completely greedy manabase doesn't get wrecked) because instead of relying on counterbalance, you just kill the shit out of anything they do. Both decks try to win by stabilizing and dropping the combo, but this one feels much better at it, and to be honest, because you have so much time and draw so many cards, it's not that unrealistic to get the combo off in the same time window as the CounterTop version.

-Enlightened Tutuoring for Pernicious Deed is exactly as awesome as I expected it to be, which is to say the stone cold nuts.

-There were a few games where I was able to Enlightened Tutor up a Standstill. You only get 2 cards this way, but it was still a nice option to have at various points in the game.

-A few people said that there was a serious tension between Pernicious Deed and permanents that you'd want to tutor up. While I did notice it, I think with reasonably careful play, that tension isn't so great that the value of either the Deed or the tutor targets is noticeably diminished.

-I actually wound up having to break my own Standstill one game (which is always the lamest thing ever), but it was nice to have the tutor to do it with (although Cunning Wish also could do this) because I just got a Pernicious Deed, and it was a total blowout--I don't expect this to be the norm by any means, but it was probably the least lame Standstill break I've initiated in some time.

-Someone made a point that running the tutor main clues them into what you're going to be doing with your sideboard. This is a valid point, but I'm not sure that you can run the Thopter/Sword combo without it, and for now, I'd like to keep that combo in as it fealt pretty good tonight.

All suggestions are welcome. The sideboard is definitely still not right yet, and I'm pretty sure I don't have the mana right either, but I like how the deck played tonight, so I'd like to keep tuning it to see if it really gets there, or if I should be less ambitious and move back to the tri-color build.

[demosthenes]

Hey guys, I've been lurking on this thread for a long time now. It's good to see it getting some action. Anyway here is the landstill list I have been using to house people at my local legacy tourney for the last 3 weeks and some comments about some of the more unusual selections. I have been tweaking the list for quite sometime I'm finally happy with the numbers. The meta has been dredge, Counter-top thopter, bant, zoo, affinity, DnT, ANT, reanimator, and some random.

Land-25
3 Underground sea
3 Tropical island
3 Tundra
2 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
1 Island

Action-35
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Counterspell
3 Standstill
3 Stifle- Some people don't like this.Whether it is nabbing fetches, protecting me from wasteland, or hitting a ringleader, I always find it useful
2 Cunning Wish- One of my favorite mtg cards. Adds a lot of versatility. I am never disappointed to draw it.
2 Spell Pierce- Amazing at nabbing jaces and forces. Could maybe be spell snare, but I'm pretty happy with it right now.
2 Life from the Loam- Has been very effective, helps you recover from wasteland, hit land drops, and waste locking people is quite common.
1 Humility- Auto- wins against many aggro deks
3 Jace the Mind Sculptor- The sweetness, using this with Life is how would Charlie Sheen say? WINNING!
1 Gideon Jura- Newest edition, one of my drunk friends suggested this on St. Patty's day. I was drunk enough to try it! It took the place of decree of justice. It was amazing for me winning every game it showed up.

Tech-15
3 Meddling Mage- Combo, mirror, burn, basically anytime I have dead cards. Worst case scenario delays or makes burn waste a card.
1 Null Rod- Hoses affinity very well, comes in against counter top, good for thopter combo, and oddly Lands sb tech (mindslaver ect.)
1 Circle of Protection Red- Can't beat burn without this.
1 Engineered Plague- goblins and merfolk
1 Runed Halo- naming price of progress, tendrils, etc.
1 Collective Restraint- new edition, I didn't get to play this yet. I foresee siding this in against dredge, or other aggro decks.
1 Ravenous Trap- dredge
1 Extirpate- dredge, but good for random things like life from the loam too
1 Pulse of the Fields- aggro and burn
1 Fact or Fiction- sometimes you just need to get some card advantage. There have been many games where I have pulled ahead in resources and just needed to refill my hand.
1 Enlightened Tutor- Tutoring random sweet enchantments is sick. Fetching with cunning wish makes it almost like having 3 copies of an enchantment in the deck
1 Krosan Grip- Lame enchantments
1 Diabolic Edict- Good against Progenitus and Emrakul.


So thats it. Sorry I don't know how to link the cards, so hopefully it wont be too annoying to look them up. Here is a quick tourney report. It was a few days ago so its not too detailed.

4 rounds
round 1- Counter Top Thopter 2-1
game 1
I keep a sketchy hand and get mana screwed and he resolves foundry on turn 2 and sword on turn 3.
game 2
Get lucky with null rod in my opener. I let him play top and foundry, bait him with a cunning wish eot and then resolve null rod on my turn and he cant win.
game 3
wasteland and stifle + jace get there

round 2- Burn 2-1
game 1
Price of progress...
game 2
She misplays alot and I end up pulling it out with gideon and factory beats. Had to swords my gideon to live.
game 3
Live long enough to get cop down via cunning wish for e-tutor... winning is easy after that

round 3- Bant new horizons
game 1
i mull to 5 and get hosed by giant green men
game 2
wasteland and jace on his mana light hand get there. Cunning wish for fact pulls me ahead too.
game 3
long epic game where i get mana screwed in the beginning. We end up drawing at time, but I was in the winning position with gideon and jace out. I could possible have pushed the aggro and maybe killed him, but I didn't want to risk him killing me b/c I was at 1 life after receiving knight beats. Cunning wish for Edict gets me out of that jam.

round 4- dredge
round 1
dredge does what it does while i mull to 5
round 2
he mulls to 3, I am able to jace him.
round 3
I keep a sketchy hand with collective restraint and lands. Obviously he has duress. But I top deck a sided in Extirpate to delay him. Then bait a break through attempt and cunning with for ravenous trap.

Get hosed on tie breakers and get second to the guy i drew with in round 3. Decent night though use the credit and some trades to get some dual lands i needed. really happy with the deck though. I mulled alot, but that normally is not the case. I hardly ever get color screwed, only mana source screwed. Cunning wish was sick. Gideon was good, but maybe should still be elspeth.

[kiblast]

I was looking through my binder when I noticed a card that could be a viable finisher.

Sun Titan

I mean, late game, tap 6 drop a 6/6 vigilance dude, and get a free Standstill/Deed each turn, potentially blowing the board almost for free if you have 8+ mana or generating insane card advantage with Ancestral @ 0cc? I currently play 24 or 25 lands and when I menage to survive early in the game, I obviously stack up between 6-10 between Duals and Factories. So 6 mana is not so high cc for this deck.

[Holyste]

I was looking through my binder when I noticed a card that could be a viable finisher.

Sun Titan

I mean, late game, tap 6 drop a 6/6 vigilance dude, and get a free Standstill/Deed each turn, potentially blowing the board almost for free if you have 8+ mana or generating insane card advantage with Ancestral @ 0cc? I currently play 24 or 25 lands and when I menage to survive early in the game, I obviously stack up between 6-10 between Duals and Factories. So 6 mana is not so high cc for this deck.

i don't think it would be a useful card for two reasons:
1) It can be countered, or easily destroyed.

2) If u draw it at the beginning it's a dead card; u can't even use it for a FoW.

[Shawn]

I took 4c Wish Still to an Iowa City today GPT for Providence today, getting 1st place. I beat Dredge 2-1 round one, BW Taxes 2-1, some UW control deck 2-0, and drawing with 4c Thopters 1-1 (I made the mistake of not Extirpating a Sword of the Meek; he had two already in his grave and I figured he didn't play three) and id'd with Affinity to get into the top 8. I beat BW Taxes in the quarters 2-0, Dredge 2-1, and split with Affinity in the finals, with him giving me the byes.

I feel extremely confidant against Affinity with Deed and Wish into Enlightened Tutor into Deed, but I was worn out from playing all day and was a little hung over; and I didn't care too much about losing out on 7 or so packs. I plan on writing a tourney report within the next few days.

[sdematt]

Holy sweet necro, Batman!

Anyways, I was daydreaming in class and was making a list. With fast aggro on the return, as well as slow Combo, I think this is our chance for this deck to make a comeback.

So far, I've been fiddling with a list. but, some discussion:

1) I've dropped Standstill. It's terrible against decks designed to abuse Aether Vial, and I hear a few people play those decks.
2) I like Pernicious Deed, so I'm playing it.
3) Tombstalker is a clock that Landstill can use, since we don't care about the graveyard and is actually proactive against Goyf.
4) I think with slow Combo returning, Landstill is a good candidate, as we have infinite counterspells with a Jace clock, and now, possibly Tombstalker.

I give you: a deck without a fancy name as of yet.

4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island

3 Jace, TMS
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Firespout
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 The Abyss
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce
4 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
1 Go for the Throat
2 Mind Harness (basically for increased blue count/ F.U. Zoo)
4 Brainstorm
3 Tombstalker

1 Consuming Vapours
3 Engineered Plague
3 Arcane Laboratory
3 Extirpate
5 Open


Basically, you continually sweep the board then land The Abyss, or clear then drop Tombstalker. Neither Jace nor Tombstalker die to Deed at any relevant number, and basically you just protect your threats and get there. It's all removal and counterspells. Firespout does a number on Goblins, Elves, Merfolk, as does Deed. Deed takes care of any small, permanent based deck (Stax, Affinity, Enchantress etc.) and kills their Vials.

Arcane Lab from the board is designed against High Tide: they have only 4 Force of Will, and need to Cunning Wish for an answer to Arcane Lab before they combo. With Lab down, and with you having infinite countermagic, they can't get Cunning Wish through to actually combo. Plus, it can be used to slow down Tribal and works well with the Abyss.

Top is here instead of Ponder because most of the time you've got countermagic mana open anyways, so with Fetchlands, why Ponder? Mind Harness in the main helps against Zoo, Tarmogoyf, Knight, Grim, Siege Gang, etc. Or, you can pitch it to Force.

Tombstalker can be used to block for Jace or can end the game against slow decks anyway. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well with the Abyss, but what can you do. Plus, you're not using your graveyard, and you can shrink opposing Goyfs by getting rid of your enchantments/artifacts/stuff.

Thoughts?

-Matt

[JonBarber]

With fast aggro on the return, as well as slow Combo, I think this is our chance for this deck to make a comeback.

Isn't this exactly what landstill doesn't want to see? Fast aggro's wastelands tempo you too much to get enough value out of deed, and aether vial is such a pain for this deck. Slow combo wants to play vs decks who's "fast clock" is using Jace all day long. You offer virtually zero disruption or pressure and a board plan of 3 arcane laboratory's is not going to beat high tides 4 merchant scroll, 3 cunning wish, 3 repeal, 1 echoing truth, and 1 wipe away, not to mention the access to 7 hard counters for your hard counters.

The prevalence of green midrange decks makes this deck attractive, but its still too slow and too vulnerable to the decks listed above.

[sdematt]

Then let me know what you think you'd make your list as. I'm not saying Wasteland doesn't hurt you from fast aggro, but what hurts more is not running enough lands to truck through Wastelands (I mean, at least you can stay more in the game when you're not missing land drops). Firespout and Deed help against fast aggro, though. Even at 3, Deed's better that nothing, and there's not much else this deck could do anyway (it's not like we can play 20 creatures to try and improve the matchup, I'm trying to work within the confines of the deck's overall design).

I see your point regarding the whole clock versus High Tide, but what would you suggest instead besides not playing the deck?

-Matt

[Shimi]

@sdmatt: Tombstalkers can be a good adition to the deck against slow combos but I think your have so little T1 fast spot removal, aren't you missing some StP/Demise/Innocent Blood effects?

Deed is just game against many aggro decks but T1 Vial + T2 and T3 Wastelands are the main reason of my defeats against aggro decks.Firespout is a turn faster(you do not need to blow it ,but did no resolves vial problems) also a good way to deal with this aggros.But since Vial is the most annoing card against Ubgr landstill may be we should run EE MD.
I'm just brainstorming so what do you think?

[GGoober]

Holy sweet necro, Batman!

Anyways, I was daydreaming in class and was making a list. With fast aggro on the return, as well as slow Combo, I think this is our chance for this deck to make a comeback.

So far, I've been fiddling with a list. but, some discussion:

1) I've dropped Standstill. It's terrible against decks designed to abuse Aether Vial, and I hear a few people play those decks.
2) I like Pernicious Deed, so I'm playing it.
3) Tombstalker is a clock that Landstill can use, since we don't care about the graveyard and is actually proactive against Goyf.
4) I think with slow Combo returning, Landstill is a good candidate, as we have infinite counterspells with a Jace clock, and now, possibly Tombstalker.

I give you: a deck without a fancy name as of yet.

4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island

3 Jace, TMS
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Firespout
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 The Abyss
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce
4 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
1 Go for the Throat
2 Mind Harness (basically for increased blue count/ F.U. Zoo)
4 Brainstorm
3 Tombstalker

1 Consuming Vapours
3 Engineered Plague
3 Arcane Laboratory
3 Extirpate
5 Open


Basically, you continually sweep the board then land The Abyss, or clear then drop Tombstalker. Neither Jace nor Tombstalker die to Deed at any relevant number, and basically you just protect your threats and get there. It's all removal and counterspells. Firespout does a number on Goblins, Elves, Merfolk, as does Deed. Deed takes care of any small, permanent based deck (Stax, Affinity, Enchantress etc.) and kills their Vials.

Arcane Lab from the board is designed against High Tide: they have only 4 Force of Will, and need to Cunning Wish for an answer to Arcane Lab before they combo. With Lab down, and with you having infinite countermagic, they can't get Cunning Wish through to actually combo. Plus, it can be used to slow down Tribal and works well with the Abyss.

Top is here instead of Ponder because most of the time you've got countermagic mana open anyways, so with Fetchlands, why Ponder? Mind Harness in the main helps against Zoo, Tarmogoyf, Knight, Grim, Siege Gang, etc. Or, you can pitch it to Force.

Tombstalker can be used to block for Jace or can end the game against slow decks anyway. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well with the Abyss, but what can you do. Plus, you're not using your graveyard, and you can shrink opposing Goyfs by getting rid of your enchantments/artifacts/stuff.

Thoughts?

-Matt


I was just going to say way too much creature hate and no outs to combo-control then I saw how you packed a shit ton of counters. Nice list, I'll play Cunning Wish over the Mind Harness slots, or just Standstills. Seriously, when you FoW that Vial, and play a Standstill, you teach them for playing a deck with Vials. Merfolk/gobs are scary, but the trick is to have a rock solid manabase, hit the mana to sweep, land Jace and win.

I have yet to take Jacedeed for a spin (whatever this deck is called), but your list is interestingly fitting enough of everything!

BTW, just to remind people on Standstills: Turn 2 Standstill is not necessarily a good thing for you. The same way Brainstorming for no reason when your hand is good is a waste of the card. The main benefit of Turn 2 Standstill is: If they don't crack it, you get to make land drops, sculpt a hand. The worst scenario of Turn 2 Standstill is you draw 3 cards. i.e. a turn 2 standstill at worst gives you +3 cards (or rather +2 cards over your opponents).

I'm going to make an argument that standstill is actually more powerful in the mid-late game, the same way Brainstorm or resolving Tops in Topwars makes the key difference in many game. Now, a mid to late game Standstill fetches as much value as an early Standstilll, in fact, it fetches much more value when you and your opponents both climb back to more cards in hand, but now you will always be +3 more cards than he is, and with an even more solid manabase. I'm really tired of seeing "standstill sucks against vial" arguments. It does suck, but the card itself doesn't suck in the deck that utilizes it, or plays with it correctly. Hope I've addressed the situation of Standstill resolving in the early/mid/late game, and hope that sheds some light. I do feel that 4 Standstill is weak for the very reason you say that "Standstill sucks against Vial" i.e. too many Standstills EARLY game being dead is bad. Once you get deed, sweep the board, you'll feel Standstills being very brutal for opponents.

[honestabe]

If "all I get" from a Standstill is +2 cards on my 2nd turn, I'll still run the shit out of it.

[Jason]

I've actually found the main benefit of a turn 2 Standstill is recovering from a Force of Will on turn 1. It is amazing in the mid game when I've stabilized but am low on cards; however, there is times when I top-deck it instead of an answer and just roll over and die. Obviously, Standstill is best when you have a Jace or something similar on the board so if you can afford to wait before dropping it on the table, waiting is better; however, it is still very useful early game.

[GGoober]

Yupp, Jason, an early Standstill is always good, not to mention they crack your STandstill you draw StP, plow and play another one. The point was to let people be aware that Standstill being a dead card early in the game e.g. against Wild Nacatl/Vial does not imply that the card is weak in Landstill.dec. A lot of false statements are made in regards to Standstill, because these people don't understand what Standstill inherently does.

Standstill resolving and uncracked for turns translates to landdrops and hand-sculpting. This is on parity for both the Landstill players and opponents, but most people don't realize that cracking the Standstill usually involves tapping out unless you crack the Standstill with a Brainstorm. This is the only point where Standstill isn't as hot as it would be, but regardless when that situation is reached, you already have a full 7-card hand with a ton of lands to deal with your opponent's turn.

If Standstill cannot be resolved in the early game and mind you this is usually against aggro decks in general (any non-aggro decks, Standstill ALWAYS resolves), then you are just playing control v.s. aggro without Standstills in the early game. You have one dead card in hand for the time being, your opponents are playing threats. Your deck runs x-1 sweepers, and 1-1 spells, so it just becomes a natural game as a control player, and most things are fair. Landstill without Standstill is fully capable on fightig aggro decks, much better than Countertop decks where Landstill has better answers to most aggro decks, not to mention more EE/Deeds against vials. So after you've dealt with these initial creatures, dropping the Standstill mid-late game when you're ready and having mana open because you're in the mid-late game phase is backbreaking. You will be up on cards, resources, lands, and everything.

The last few posts Im writing about Standstill is to address the fundamental flaw in thinking that Standstill sucks against vial.decks. It sucks if you don't deal with vial, and as a control player, playing with/without Standstill doesn't affect dealing with vial, it's your other cards in your deck that deals with it, not Standstill. There's no other control decks outside of Landstill that deals with vial decks with best efficiency (EE/Deed), which ironically is a deck that plays Standstill. I hope people will think twice before trying to cut Standstills against vial decks. The solution is not to cut Standstill, but rather, have other cards that deal with vial/creatures. If you do cut Standstills, then you're not really playin Landstill, and your control philosophy follows closely to those of Countertop walker or Countertop decks, which don't get raw card advantage, but rather pseudo card advantage from counterbalance etc.

This is my latest approach in matchups against Merfolks and Goblins. I have actually not cut any Standstills maindeck (unless I have no space in which case I drop from 3 Standstills to 2 STandstills). Rather, I have UPPED my solutions to Vials e.g. Pithing Needle, more digging (3rd Sensei's Top with 8 fetchlands) to consistently find EE. Once you solve Vial and remove creatures, playing the 'dead' STandstill puts you in a winning position, almost all the time.

[honestabe]

Honestly, the only vial deck that scares me is merfolk; and it scares the shit out of me.

Everything else though can't counter my deed, and therefore can't win. Even against vial decks, standstill is a valid late game play (once again, except for merfolk) and I can't tell you how sweet it is when you kill thier turn 1 or 2 creature and drop it when they dont have a vial.

even if they do have a turn 1 vial, (once again, merfolk is an exception here) they have no forms of straight up card advantage, where we have Jace, Brainstorm, standstill, and loam's interactions with them, to produce more CA. We should be getting 2 deeds for every 1 vial they have.

[ScatmanX]

even if they do have a turn 1 vial, (once again, merfolk is an exception here) they have no forms of straight up card advantage, where we have Jace, Brainstorm, standstill, and loam's interactions with them, to produce more CA. We should be getting 2 deeds for every 1 vial they have.
I'm sorry, but how aren't Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Gempalm Incinerator and Siege-Gang Commander not a "form of straight up card advantage"?

[honestabe]

I'm sorry, but how aren't Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Gempalm Incinerator and Siege-Gang Commander not a "form of straight up card advantage"?

I wasn't clear, I meant card draw and library manipulation. Only incinerator can actually draw a vial, and usually, if they're cycling it for value a vial is a pretty dead draw to them.

Also, a form of card advantage thats even better than Matron, Ringleader and commander is deed. The Goblins matchup usually comes down to:

-Try not to get wasted 3 times in the first 3 turns
-Resolve Deed
-Win

[ScatmanX]

The Goblins matchup usually comes down to:

-Try not to get wasted 3 times in the first 3 turns
-Resolve Deed
-Win

And of course, reach 4 to 5 lands to kill Ringleaders and SGC. OH, and have mana up next turn to counter Warhief+Piledriver, that will probably kill you.
You forget Port too. If we (and by we I mean goblins) have only 1 Port, you'll only be able to Deed for 4 on your turn 5! (assuming the goblin player is good). AND you'll be tapped out when you do it, which is when we will kill you.

If you were talking about other Vial strategies, like Merfolk or DnT, Then I completely agree. You just have to resolve Deed, and win.

[kiblast]

The Goblins matchup usually comes down to:

-Try not to get wasted 3 times in the first 3 turns
-Resolve Deed
-Win

Except for the little fact that it's impossible to save your land drops and reach 3rd turn with 3 free mana. Normally Goblins plays 4 Wasteland and at least 2 Ports. And I have seen lots of lists with 4 Ports. I used to run 4 Engineered Plague in sb only for Goblins.

[honestabe]

How do people like Maelstrom Pulse in this deck?

I cut the 3rd spell snare for the 1st pulse, and I've been digging it thus far

[Shimi]

I like Maelstrom Pulse in MD as a 1of.. it gives versatily against planeswalkers and helps to save your Deeds to remove 2 or more permanents from the table.It is also good dealing with tokens(read EtW and Siege-Gang Commander/Warmarshall)

[honestabe]

I played in a GPT yesterday, scrubbing the main event, but top 4 split the 30- person side event. Report is up in the report section.

I went to time 5 times in the 9 rounds that I played, which sort of makes me want another win condition. Granted, I ran pretty bad, and just never drew Jaces or Factories, but none the less, I want a way to end the game quickly. Initially, I came up with elspeth as a possible answer, but another player at the tournament said he used to run a 1-of Garruk, to help ramp his mana and provide a fairly quick win condition. What do you guys think?

Also, I did end up cutting the 3rd Spell Snare for the 1st Maelstrom Pulse and it was awesome all day.

I really think this deck is going to change a lot with the advent of mental misstep, and I'm beginning testing w/ new Phyrexia tonight. I'll test a few decks and post whatever has some potential

[The Treefolk Master]

Pro player Calosso Fuentes earned the indignity of 9th place at Charlotte SCG Open, with the following list, which the coverage team foolishly categorized as "Bant":


Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Sensei's Divining Top

Creatures
3 Knight of the Reliquary

Enchantments
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Standstill

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Teferi's Response

Planeswalkers
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Basic Lands
1 Plains

Lands
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Flooded Strand
1 Maze of Ith
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland

Legendary Lands
1 Academy Ruins

Sideboard:
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Counterbalance
3 Engineered Plague
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Go for the Throat

Now, after some testing, the Teferi's Response was too much in the area of "the danger of cool things", so I replaced it with a second Jace, which turned out pretty well. The bad thing about running knights is that, suddenly, all your opponents removal is turned on, but on the plus side, you can do all sorts of sick stuff with it.

The list runs extremely smoothly, and I would appreciate your thoughts on it.

Fast forward a few days, and Drew Levin posted the following list in his article, post NPH, which feels better in testing:

Artifacts
1 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Enchantments
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Standstill

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Swords to Plowshares

Planeswalkers
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
1 Innocent Blood

Basic Lands
1 Island

Lands
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Flooded Strand
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
2 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

Legendary Lands
1 Academy Ruins

Sideboard:
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Dark Confidant
3 Counterbalance
1 Humility
2 Enlightened Tutor
3 Hydroblast

(Note: I'm not sold on the confidants post board, and I would try to squeeze at least another top in the SB, plus some Plagues/a Moat.)

The one thing that I'm uncomfortable with is the number of lands, as I've flooded countless times with 25 lands. I think dropping 1 (1 Sea maybe, or 1 Scrubland?) for another SOMETHING (maybe another Innocent Blood) would prove to be a good change.

Any ideas?

[SMR0079]

I'm going to be playing Ubg Landstill once New Phyrexia is legal.

Drew's list is way to greedy going 4 color, white is simply unnecassary. Once you focus on Ubg the deck practically builds itself with a few decisions to make on which counterspells and removal you want, the sideboard being in flux of course. IT's basically 12 counters - 12 removal - 12 draw - 24 land with factories. I like the Countertop sidebaord plan for combo with Leylines and Grips.

I predict a surge in Merfolk and Junk decks, both of which Deedstill should be able to handle.

For the manabase try:
4 Factory
2 Waste
2 islands
1 swamp
3 sea
2 trop
1 bayou
9 fetch

[The Treefolk Master]

A question for you guys, I currently own 2 Seas and 0 Polluted Deltas. Is it better to buy 4 Deltas and 1 Sea, 2 Seas, just 4 Deltas?

Thanks!

[god_campbell]

I would focus on getting 2 seas, zero deltas first. Deltas can be swapped for other blue duals.

As far as those 4 color lists, I agree the mana base is just way to greedy, while powerful yes, it will be to easy to be screwed over by a timely wasteland and would rather be more solid at UBg then Ubgw.

For reference here is my list post NPH:

3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Island

4 Pernicious Deed
4 Standstill

3 Jace, the mind Sculptor

1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Life from the Loam
3 Innocent Blood

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 go for the throat
3 Spell Snare
3 Mental Misstep

[jparula]

I'm going to be playing Ubg Landstill once New Phyrexia is legal.

Drew's list is way to greedy going 4 color, white is simply unnecassary. Once you focus on Ubg the deck practically builds itself with a few decisions to make on which counterspells and removal you want, the sideboard being in flux of course. IT's basically 12 counters - 12 removal - 12 draw - 24 land with factories. I like the Countertop sidebaord plan for combo with Leylines and Grips.

I predict a surge in Merfolk and Junk decks, both of which Deedstill should be able to handle.

For the manabase try:
4 Factory
2 Waste
2 islands
1 swamp
3 sea
2 trop
1 bayou
9 fetch

I agree with you that white is unnecessary. However, i've tested the countertop sideboard plan countless times and it just doesn't work, combo players will just wait (cause you usually don't present enough pressure) until they can make enough storm count that it doesn't really matter that you have countertop and then kill you with tendrils or brain freeze. I think the answer for this match-ups are either stifles or mindbreak trap. I've been testing a sideboard with stifle, negate and spell pierces and i have greatly improved my G2 & G3 percentages against storm decks. With stifle, storm players can no longer sit back until they can make enough storm count and, in the early game stifle can be pretty awesome to deny their mana too. Also Negate is pretty awesome against noncreature based decks, especially since this deck has somewhat awkward mana from time to time and you are often stuck with just 1 blue source and wastelands+factories for some turns.

Oh and Merfolk will never be an easy match-up but it's not impossible either, especially since some merfolk lists nowadays are discarding spell pierces to improve their match-ups against aggro decks and including StP and Jittes which you don't really care about.

I've been playing ubg landstill for quite a while now and have had some success with it (http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/busqueda.php?nombre=Jo%E3o%20Alveirinho).

Regards

[SMR0079]

I agree with you that white is unnecessary. However, i've tested the countertop sideboard plan countless times and it just doesn't work, combo players will just wait (cause you usually don't present enough pressure) until they can make enough storm count that it doesn't really matter that you have countertop and then kill you with tendrils or brain freeze. I think the answer for this match-ups are either stifles or mindbreak trap. I've been testing a sideboard with stifle, negate and spell pierces and i have greatly improved my G2 & G3 percentages against storm decks. With stifle, storm players can no longer sit back until they can make enough storm count and, in the early game stifle can be pretty awesome to deny their mana too. Also Negate is pretty awesome against noncreature based decks, especially since this deck has somewhat awkward mana from time to time and you are often stuck with just 1 blue source and wastelands+factories for some turns.

Oh and Merfolk will never be an easy match-up but it's not impossible either, especially since some merfolk lists nowadays are discarding spell pierces to improve their match-ups against aggro decks and including StP and Jittes which you don't really care about.

I've been playing ubg landstill for quite a while now and have had some success with it (http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/busqueda.php?nombre=Jo%E3o%20Alveirinho).

Regards

Possibly, but they still need to generate a ton of mana, which is hard to do when you have them locked at 0-2, not to mention JAce will clock them

[honestabe]

So, for the new meta, I cut white from the list I played at the GPT, and opted for a more standard BUG Landstill list. However, I also tested a UWr version and liked it. A LOT. The aggro matchups just seemed so much better when I had not only Wrath and EEs as sweepers, but better spot removal (swords) and game breakers (Elspeth and Humility). My testing partner said he prefered to play against the UWr version because it didn't have deed, but I thought it was stronger. The results didn't lie, as I was winning much more with the UWr version. I tried testing online, and played against (and got rolled against) a lot of the Trinisphere stompy decks and Stax variants, and decided that I wasn't playing a deck without deed. Finally, I stumbled upon a really sexy 4 color Landstill deck that won a GPT. It was essentially UW landstill that splashes for deed and some wishboard cards. I added some mental missteps and have absolutely digging the deck thus far. It runs surprisingly smooth, and is possibly the strongest standstill list I've played. Ever.


// Lands
2 [B] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [B] Tundra
3 [R] Tropical Island
1 [U] Scrubland
2 [MPR] Wasteland
3 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)
1 [MR] Island (2)
1 [6E] Plains (2)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand

// Spells
1 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
4 [AT] Swords to Plowshares
1 [OD] Innocent Blood
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 [JU] Cunning Wish
4 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [OD] Standstill
4 [JGC] Pernicious Deed
3 [NPH] Mental Misstep
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [B] Counterspell
1 [TE] Humility
1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [IN] Tsabo's Decree
SB: 1 [DS] Pulse of the Fields
SB: 1 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 1 [B] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [ZEN] Ravenous Trap
SB: 1 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 2 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [ARE] Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 [ARE] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 [IN] Dismantling Blow
SB: 1 [CFX] Path to Exile


The Basic Island and Plains are there so you can wish up dismantling blow/Path to Exile and cast it with kicker to blow up Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon. I normally hate (I mean really despise) the Cunning Wish engine, (in fact, when I first picked up BUG Landstill, it was the first thing I ever cut, and never went back) but it's just really, really good here.

[The Treefolk Master]

Have you considered using Moat (assuming you have access to one) either MD or SB?

Really like the list, but have you considered going -1 Deed +1 EE in order to broaden your sweepers and be able to play against Pithing Needle shenanigans when you are Wish-Less.

What are your thoughts on Beast Within in the wishboard?

[Shawn]

Honestabe, I think you are referring to my list which has been doing very well for me in testing and in tournament play. I won an Iowa City GPT and a small cash tournament around a month ago with an almost identical list. I am pretty excited with the new version with MM and hopefully I will be playing at either SCG Louisville (most likely) or the GP (hopefully, but still working on a ride).

Treefolk,

I run 2 EE, 3 Deed in my current setup and I like it a lot. EE is a lot better against stuff like Zoo because of its speed and it doesn't force you to search up b or g duals in addition to the problem of Needle like you said.

I like Moat, but I wouldn't play one before a first Humility. Against stuff like Goblins and random decks like Elves I prefer Humility and there isn't much space for one in the main-you already run so many expensive spells and you don't want to have too many WW spells, the mana base is good enough, but you don't want to stretch it too far. Cutting a Deed for one might work. If I played one I don't think I'd play it in the sideboard, the creature matchups are pretty good already and you want as many slots in the board for the combo, it's definitely the worst matchup game one.

Beast Within as a Wish target was the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw the card. I feel it isn't needed, the only permanent that doesn't have an answer out of the Wishboard are planeswalkers, and they see little play. Jace 2 definitely sees the most play, and we have more hard counters than other Jace decks (Thopters/Counterbalance), as many or more Jace, and more card advantage spells to help put us over the top to win counter wars and resolving our own Jace. Not too mention Decree of Justice (or Elspeth, if you prefer that) does a great job of killing Jace. Even though it costs more mana, I feel Rootgrapple is much better as a Wish target than Beast-the 3/3 drawback is very relevant. Pat Chapin does a really good job in a article from this or last week talking about this card, if you have Premium, I'd recommend reading that part.

Here is the list I ran at the GPT, for reference:

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

2 Engineered Explosives
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Snare
1 Path to Exile

3 Standstill
3 Counterspell

1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Cunning Wish

1 Humility
3 Jace, The Mindscultpor
2 Decree of Justice

4 Force of Will


1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Path to Exile
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Tsabo's Decree
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
1 Extirpate

I've made a few adjustments but nothing too different with the addition of New Phyrexia outside of Mental Misstep, of course.

[honestabe]

I've been doing quite a bit of grinding lately, but I finally think I settled on a sweet list. I decided to revert back to 3 colors; I expect a LOT of Blood Moon and Wasteland, and wanted a manabase that can fight through that. So, without further ado;

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Forest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

3 Standstill
4 Pernicious Deed

3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

1 Engineered Explosives

3 Innocent Blood
1 Life From the Loam

4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
3 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
2 Go For the Throat

That makes 58. There's been 2 slot's I've been messing around with. One configuration I've been using is +1 Standstill, +1 Garruk, Wildspeaker. It's better against midrange, and Garruk is a good way to end the game quickly, which is one area that the deck usually is awful at. Making Beasts can have some dissynergy with Deed, but it can be played around, and often, you just want him to ramp a few times, and then overrun 2 Factories to seal the deal.

The 2nd configuration is +1 Standstill, +1 Sensei's Divining Top. It is sort of decent against everything. Top is almost a catch-all and is a pretty "ok" draw at any point of the game. It also has some dissynergy with Deed.

The 3rd and sauciest configuration (and the one I am still testing) is +1 Gifts Ungiven, +1 Regrowth. Af a Vintage player, I know just how insane Gifts can be. And although you won't be making the piles Ancestral, Time Walk, Demonic Tutor, Black lotus, Gifts is still a force to be reconed with. Imagine you're playing against goblins, or merfolk and falling behind. You can gifts for:
Pernicious Deed
Regrowth
Innocent Blood
Go For the Throat

Now this pile will put you right back into the game. They simply can't give you Deed, and if they give you regrowth, you can just get deed back, so they can't give you that either. So, out of this particular pile, 19/20 times, you're paying 3U at instant speed to get 2 top-knotch removal spells. Seems Good. Now imagine you're playing against that same deck, but the game state is more even, with them having maybe 1 or 2 creatures in play. You can get a pile like this:
Pernicious Deed
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Standstill
Go For The Throat

You'll probably end up with Standstill and Go for the Throat, which is just an insane investment of your 4 mana and 1 card.

It gets even more insane post-board, when you can gifts up
Engineered Plague
Pernicious Deed
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Go for the Throat

The possibilities just get endless.

It's also insane against the other control decks, when you can make a pile of
Standstill
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Counterspell
Regrowth

It gets even sexier when you already have regrowth in your hand, and your opponent doesn't know it.

The sideboard looks like this:
4 Engineered Plague
2 Thoughtseize
2 Extirpate
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Smother
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Krosan Grip
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Kitchen Finks

I wish I could fit either Damnation or Perish into the board, but I just don't know what to cut. I'm thinking it's going to be Relic, just because Dredge is such a bad MU anyway, I just don't think it's worth having one slot for. Also, the matchups I want extirpate in, Relic just doesn't really do anything.

Thoughts?

[justindz]

Hi, everyone. I played BUG Landstill yesterday at a 14-person Legacy event. I've been trying a few decks and attempting to settle on something that I want to play for a while and try to "master." I tried out CounterTop Thopter, Merfolk, ANT, Reanimator and UR control along the way. As you'll see below, my results were atrocious. However, I think they were variance/build-related and I like the idea of settling on this deck for the long haul.

Here's the list that I ran:

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
3 Ghastly Demise
2 Go for the Throat

2 Innocent Blood
1 Life from the Loam

4 Standstill
3 Pernicious Deed

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Wasteland
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Forest

SB:

4 Leyline of the Void

2 Krosan Grip
Tsabo's Decree
Ravenous Trap
Diabolic Edict
Extirpate
Submerge
Mindbreak Trap
Echoing Truth
Stifle
Back to Nature

In a nutshell, I went 0-2 drop and didn't win a game:

Round 1 - Emily (teammate) w/ MUD (blue w/ Thoughtcast and Staff)

Game 1 - One land and Brainstorm, but no Deed or Standstill and a Go for the Throat. Not going to get there. Mulligan. One land after mulligan, I think, and I draw a Factory but irrelevant as she barfs out a turn 1 Forgemaster, I don't have Innocent Blood or FoW (she presented nothing to Misstep) and I get Blightsteeled to death.

Game 2 - A keepable hand with two land! And I get stuck at two. And then I lose.

Round 2 - Jimmy P w/ BUGw Landstill

Jimmy is a really good, high-ranked, prize-winning player and also happens to usually host or organize these events. I figured I was screwed, but would try my hardest and would learn as much as I could.

Game 1 - No land. Mulligan. One land w/ Brainstorm, risky but so is going to 5. I keep. Brainstorm reveals no land. I lose handily.

Game 2 - One Factory. Mulligan. This time, I have land. However, he still has a full grip and is on the draw. I lose handily.

---

So, I talked to Jimmy P for a bit afterwards and made some changes to my deck. Going in, I didn't like the wishboard, but I didn't really have the cards for an actual sideboard nor a clear picture of what one should look like. So I had already planned to take out the wishboard. In the end, I changed the main deck thusly:

-3 Cunning Wish (GTFO)
-1 Putrefy (good card, but not good when there are mana issues and I feel like I just need land more)
-1 Counterspell

+1 Engineered Explosives (some variance for Needle)
+1 Ghastly Demise
+1 Creeping Tar Pit (need more land)
+2 Spell Snare

and I made a new sideboard thusly:

3 Vendilion Clique (debated this vs. Revokers, but I don't like tapping out in the main phase for some strange reason - also, this is better against Jace, honestly)
3 Duress
3 Extirpate
2 Perish (debated this vs. Shackles and also cutting this and Llawans for 4x Engineered Plague but ended up with this)
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 Krosan Grip

Also, I would play another Tropical Island over an Island and possibly another Sea over the Swamp, but those are card availability limitations. In the long game, the basics are actually flat out awesome, but not so much in the short game.

In the meantime, my teammate keeps borrowing my Burn deck and placing in prize slots with that. He and Emily took 3rd and 4th, respectively. Perhaps I should give up and Just Play Burn. But, no, I'm a control player at heart and I <3 Jace pretty fiercely.

[Shimi]

3 weeks ago I won a Tournament with Ubg Landstill:

//24 lands
2 island
1 swamp
1 forest
4 sea
2 trop
3 mishra
3 waste
8 fetchs

//36 spells
3 Jace
4 deed
4 innocent
3 GftT
4 fow
3 MM
3 Counterspell
3 spell snare
3 standstill
4 brainstorm
1 pulse
1 loam

SB was junk but have 1 MM , 3 seize(for Hightide/combos/mirrors), 2 extirpate e 3 BeB and removals(see a lot of folks and aggros).

I did 3-1-1(suiss), lost to hightide and draw in last round with Junk(with witness and more lategame recurring engines), and went to he finals(split with Junk), MM was very good, BeB come in just against Zoo at Top8 but was safe since I have more ways to stop ReB and PoP.

The deck is very solid but I think I'll go back and play 4 Jace, TMS .. it is just to good.. mas become better with MM.. also Loam will go to my SB..and I'm think about playing Tarmogoyfs at my SB.. to deal with combo and surprise aggros.

[honestabe]

Game 1 - No land. Mulligan. One land w/ Brainstorm, risky but so is going to 5. I keep. Brainstorm reveals no land. I lose handily.


How long did you wait to brainstorm? Against the mirror (or any deck thats not applying pressure) if I need a 2nd or 3rd land, I will usually wait until I will have to discard until I cast a Brainstorm. Just because once you cast Brainstorm for lands and whiff, you've lost the game; especially with this deck



and I made a new sideboard thusly:

3 Vendilion Clique (debated this vs. Revokers, but I don't like tapping out in the main phase for some strange reason - also, this is better against Jace, honestly)

2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress


You don't want creatures in your sideboard, or anywhere in your deck really. They just have zero syngergy with Pernicious Deed (which is an auto 4-of) and Innocent Blood (which you should be playing at least 3 of). Thoughtseize has a simaler effect as v-clique and is easier to cast. For Merfolk, I like 4 Engineered Plagues, as they're also good against goblins and elves. The only exception to the "no creature" rule is Kithcen Finks, as you actually want it to die



Also, I would play another Tropical Island over an Island and possibly another Sea over the Swamp, but those are card availability limitations. In the long game, the basics are actually flat out awesome, but not so much in the short game.

I wouldn't reccomend playing basics in this deck unless you're really, really familiar with it. I've been playing this deck for almost a year, and have just added basics to it last week, and I still fetch poorly with them. The Bayou should be another Trop, for sure, and so should the swamp. A 1-of Island should be fine for you. You also want either 24 or 25 lands, 23 just isn't enough, as you simply don't ever want to miss a land drop for your first 7 turns. I'd also add another Wasteland if I were you, often, my biggest problem against Merfolk is thier manlands, as they can dodge Innocent blood, and they can play around pernicious deed with them.


In the meantime, my teammate keeps borrowing my Burn deck and placing in prize slots with that. He and Emily took 3rd and 4th, respectively. Perhaps I should give up and Just Play Burn. But, no, I'm a control player at heart and I <3 Jace pretty fiercely.

Don't play burn!!!!!

Hope I helped you out
-Abe

[justindz]

Regarding Brainstorm, I think in both cases I had a fetch and a Brainstorm in my opening hand. I waited one or two turns (depending on the match) and then fired off the Brainstorm because I was clearly either 1) dead on board unless it revealed something good OR 2) I was going to be too far behind to recover in the mirror. I am definitely in the camp that holds the Brainstorm as long as humanly possible. Against MUD, though, I can't sit at one land and hold a Brainstorm with a Blightsteel Colossus on the board. I pretty much had to dig into Innocent Blood or lose, you know.

I'm pretty good at playing with Brainstorm as I've played a Brainstorm deck of some form for years (not counting the years I spent playing Ice Ages itself, haha). I think I did everything correctly and just couldn't get land in my top 12 cards all day.

Re: Vendilion Clique, I would be bringing this in largely against Jace decks where Deed is not very good anyway. For example, in the mirror, I think Clique is pretty good. Deed is not so hot there, being sorcery speed, requiring the hardest color combination to assemble and really only hitting activated man-lands, not helping at all against Jace, etc. I would also see it coming in against things like Show and Tell that may not play Jace, but where Clique is good and Deed is pretty bad.

Jimmy was boarding in Meddling Mage in his sideboard (and he's a really, really good player). That's kind of where I got the idea, except that I prefer Flash and am obviously not playing the color white. I will take your advice as a healthy dose of skepticism and test this thoroughly before I pull the trigger and take it to an event, though. I suspect the worse anti-synergy is with Innocent Blood and Jimmy doesn't have that problem since he's using STP instead. I suppose I could cut them for E. Plague and rely on Duress, Extirpate and better draws to fight Jace mirrors.

Regarding the changes you recommend, from my updated build (24 land, on which I solidly agree), here's how I would interpret your suggestions:

-1 Ghastly Demise, +1 Innocent Blood -- seems like a slam dunk
-1 Mental Misstep, +1 Jace OR Wasteland? -- is this what you would recommend, and if so would you fit the 4th MM in the SB?

And do you think 3 Deed/1 EE is better than 4 Deed? I went with this split in order to give me some play around Pithing Needle since I was cutting the Putrefy (which many of you have as Maelstrom Pulse, but I liked instant speed and was comfortable against Empty the Warrens anyway).

Regarding the basic lands, as I said that's a card availability issue, so that's how I'd roll unless I could borrow or acquire another Tropical and Sea. I certainly don't think that's optimal, although I have found the one Island and the Forest for Loam to be quite solid and never disappointing. This is just one of those things where I'm going to double down on the deck and do some trading towards the last few lands (e.g. trade up my NM- Volcanic for a Trop or unload all my pimp Reanimator stuff now that it's cool again).

And, yeah, I'm venting. I don't want to play Burn. I built that deck so that when we get Legacy going at FNM, I can lend it to someone who wants to play but doesn't have a few thousand $$ lying around ;-).

Thanks a ton for the help. I really want to play this deck for the long haul. I've played control forever and even when it craps out on me, I feel like I had more of a chance than playing a less consistent combo deck.

[Shimi]

@Justindz: I play Pulse over Putrefy cause it can deal destroy planeswalkers(I really want to take some Elspeth or opposing Jace some time).
Also Clique is a good ideia if you are facing too many combo or pure control mirrors in your metagame.

[justindz]

@Justindz: I play Pulse over Putrefy cause it can deal destroy planeswalkers(I really want to take some Elspeth or opposing Jace some time).
Also Clique is a good ideia if you are facing too many combo or pure control mirrors in your metagame.

Okay, thanks. I might consider that for the sideboard as I mostly play against non-Planeswalker decks, though.

[honestabe]

Personally, I run 4 Deed and 1 EE. I understand the wanting to play around needle, but against half of the field, if you just resolve deed, you win, and I can't bring myself to not run the set.

I'd definitely cut one demise for another innocent blood. Innocent blood is the stones against reanimator and show and tell, as well as being strong against Team America/Canadian/Bant Tempo.

As far as demises go, I just run Go for the Throat, as it gets around Mental Misstep and can kill bob/tombstalker, but thats just a personal choice

I'd definitely want another wasteland in your deck, as manlands are just too much of a pain in the ass. I have tried 4 Jaces, and I'm not too big of a fan. They can get pretty clunky, and Jace wars just don't happen in Legacy as much as they do in t2. Plus, with the huge countersuite the deck runs, protecting him isnt that hard, and with brainstorms and standstills, finding him isnt that hard either.

I also don't run 4 missteps, just because the only 1-drops the deck really cares about are vial and goblin lackey, both of which can be easily dealt with by deed, and mental misstep is just an absolute brick in the late game

[Shax]

Business (36)
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Counterspell
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Landstill
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Ghastly Demise
2 Innocent Blood
2 Go for the Throat
1 Putrefy
3 Pernicious Deed

Lands (24)
1 Wasteland
4 Mishra’s Factory
2 Mutavault
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Consuming Vapors
2 Krosan Grip

This BoM list is outstanding, but when do you board in the Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant?

Do you think over the course of the following months Landstill will make even more of a impact than it already has coming up to Nationals/Legacy World Champs?

Landstill has always been a easy deck for me to pickup and win with (Much like Team America) since it does not require much skill on part of the piolet compared to stuff like DDTendrils pretty much. The cards Landstill runs have a much highler level of power compared to other decks as well since everything is static. Decks that run Jace,tms have unfair advantages of being caw-blade in Legacy. I approve of that last statement now that Mental Misstep has done as expected so far taking tourney's Top 8's pretty strongly. Landstill uses arguably some of the best win conditions in man-lands, but today I faile hard in testing when going up against Sneak&Show. That deck can get extremly lucky to find me without a single relevant counterspell for a enchantment.

Thanks again.

[honestabe]

The transformational board is genious

[nayon]

The transformational board is genious

It's cute/clever, but what do you use it for? on which matchups would you want to change into TA? Also, is it good enough of a plan to occupy 8 sideboard slots that potentially could have been used better?

[GexxX]

but today I faile hard in testing when going up against Sneak&Show. That deck can get extremly lucky to find me without a single relevant counterspell for a enchantment.

Thanks again.

I don't really know how you have to play SneakShow when you're running Landstill, but I can share my experience with multiple decks against it, since a good friend plays it.

MM and SpellSnare do nothing against the deck. MM at least counters some brainstorms, but that's about it. The best ways to fight the deck without enchantment removal is possible to lay down an early standstill and hope they break it and let you draw multiple counters. The other way to stop them from comboing early is attacking their manabase. Innocent blood is golden in this matchup unless they go with sneak, but that should give you time to have standstill and mana open for counters.

[Koby]

Ensnaring Bridge works against these decks, so long as they don't pack Woodfall Primus.

[Goddik]

Try playing preordain instead of the tops, it was a bit of a revolution for me, 3 preordains makes the deck about a million times more consistent

[justindz]

Try playing preordain instead of the tops, it was a bit of a revolution for me, 3 preordains makes the deck about a million times more consistent

I'm interested in this. I think Preordain is flat out amazing. It's vulnerable to Mental Misstep, but then again so is everything and it's at least a 1-for-1 trade if you don't count mana expenditure.

What would you shave to fit in Preordain if you weren't already playing SDT? Options for me seem to be:

1 piece of removal
1 counter (Snare or Counterspell)
1 land, going to 24, but relying on the Preordain to make up the gap

I would love to test this out and report back.

[god_campbell]

If I were playing in the GP I would play the following:

Business (36)
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Smother
2 Innocent Blood
4 Pernicious Deed

Lands (24)
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra’s Factory
1 Creeping Tarpit
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Island

SB:
1 Life from the Loam
1 Jace, The Mindsculptor
2 Extripate
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Llawan, Cephlid Empress
3 Spell Pierce
2 Maelstrom Pulse

I do like the BOM list, however not running any spell snares is criminal as they are just way to powerful, and help against alot of problem cards in alot of matchups, such as hym, bob, standstill etc.

Now I have been testing and I def think that a 5th manland is needed, and I don't wanna run mutavault as it colorless and I wanna be able to hit UU on turn 2, so tarpit is the best option.

With what I expect to be alot of landstill mirrors, I would rather run smothers over go for the throats as they can hit factories. I also feel like crucible is strong, as it allows you to recur lands even if you don't have access to green, allowing you to find that tropical or fetch, I also added a Loam in the sb, when additional land recursion is required such as the mirror.

[Arsenal]

Why Crucible maindeck and Loam sideboard? You're not running Academy Ruins to recur Crucible in the event it gets destroyed/countered, whereas Loam doesn't care about it getting countered/discarded as you can just Dredge it back to your hand. Dredge also interacts nicely with Brainstorm and Jace on multiple levels. Also, you should almost always have a single green available to you unless your opponent gets the absolute nuts hand with 4x Wasteland, and even then, you can crack a fetch, then tap Trop Island for green because you have priority.

[GGoober]

The transformational board is genious

I tested Bob in UWb Landstill last night in the SB. It was pretty amazing. I asked my friends who were playing aggro decks and they mentioned that they will almost always board out as much removal to fit in control-hate, leaving only a few removal spells that they can play if they still have space left.

I used to run Meddling Mage in the SB, but I think against control/combo/non-aggro decks, Bob is backbreaking. I'll have to test more but I'm enjoying him in the SB. The beauty is: Bob will win you game 2 alone because your opponents do not expect him. In game 3, you have the power to still keep some or all Bobs or cut them all, forcing your opponents to end up reboarding creature removal, which dilutes their deck against yours.

I don't play Goyfs in the SB since I was testing UWb, but Bob is the main reason for his sideboard, not Goyf.

Crucible is mana-efficient in every way despite the lack of Ruins. Sometimes when you play Landstill, seting up locks is tending towards win-more strategy. In most cases, if you've used Crucible or Loam at least 1-2 times, you should already be pulling ahead. I've played Uxg control lists and even then I still preferred Crucible. Not tapping out at Sorcery speed means more mana open = more power to a control deck.

[god_campbell]

Crucible is mana-efficient in every way despite the lack of Ruins. Sometimes when you play Landstill, seting up locks is tending towards win-more strategy. In most cases, if you've used Crucible or Loam at least 1-2 times, you should already be pulling ahead. I've played Uxg control lists and even then I still preferred Crucible. Not tapping out at Sorcery speed means more mana open = more power to a control deck.

This is why I play Crucible MD and the Loam in the sb, I like loam, but being able to just stick a COW and recur fetchs or wastes is awesome, and I can def see playing md loam sb cow but I just like cow better overall.

[Goddik]

I currently play the Frauenschläger list minus tops and a putrefy (i think) for 3 preordains and they have been contiunally awesome for me. Top is terrible when you are behind with hitting your landrops. If you just hit your landdrops and business there is no fair deck in the format capable of keeping up. Hence the emphasis on reducing variance.

With regards to the transformation it is really sweet in matchups where standstill is bad, like the mirror or spell based combo decks.

[Goddik]

It is also awesome in matchups where you need to apply preasure

[Shax]

Since my last post with that BoM list I have not lost a match since. Testing against plethora's of decks I have come up with really awesome game two's and three's partially because of Tarmogoyf and Bob. The thing is I have not ran against a single deck packing loads of creature removal that would be boarded out for my sideboard to work. My sideboard comes in and beats their face because Goyf and Bob win games anyways.

[Razorwynd]

I am thinking about playing this deck soon... just curious about what peoples thoughts are on the lack of wastelands in the BoM deck? I feel like you want wastelands to combat other manlands/wastelands while under standstill.

Isnt Crucible a little anti-synergistic with deed? Wouldn't this make loam a bit better mainboard?

[Arsenal]

I prefer 4 Wasteland, especially since we already run LftL/Crucible maindeck; I think people have forgetten that early Wasteland lock can actually just win you the game without bothering with anything else (countermagic, Jace, etc).

[Goddik]

I am also something like 13-2-1 with the BOM list, it is really good. I am loving the infinite manlands. It is inconsistent with loam/crucible but such is the price you pay. Manlands are as good as wastes under standstill (in fact they are better as they let you be agressive) and you win most matchups where wastelock is relevant anyway. The only place i miss it is in the mirror.

[ScatmanX]

What do you guys think about PV's list from the GP, where he top 8'd?

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gppro11/day1#12

[Koby]

Looks like stock BUG-still with changes to the removal quite to avoid getting countered by MM.

The shell isn't even that interesting - it's pretty much 10 months old! (http://www.classicquarter.com/decks/deckview.asp?DecklistID=2684)

[Arsenal]

To be fair, lots of Standstill lists are 98% the same as they were a year ago, with the only change, albeit a profound one, being the addition of Mental Misstep.

[Goddik]

The sideboarded vendillion cliques are quite nice, it is like Frauenschlägers Goyfs, just better in the matchups where you want them

[Razorwynd]

I love all of the cards in the deck atm but I am a little concerned about 4x standstill. Current lists have only two tops to control our draws under the standstill making it challenging to consistently smooth our draws draws. It has happened too often that the opponent is able to get their wasteland for my factory and then play a factory/mutavault of their own. Maybe I am just playing standstill at the wrong times, if so please help. If not, I think that given the current metagame standstill may not be the optimal choice for that slot (it probably still is but we will never know unless we exhaust all options).

My thought was that maybe intuition could be a better option. It works very well with LftL and wastelands. Additionally, since we are not playing manlands ourselves we can even cut a few to add some cycling-land for more card draw.

Thoughts?

[TheElvishPiper]

I'm currently running the following list:

Main Deck:

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Dismember
4 Force of Will
1 Innocent Blood
2 Life from the Loam
4 Mental Misstep
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Smother
4 Spell Snare
3 Standstill

2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:

1 Diabolic Edict
1 Dismember
3 Duress
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Putrefy
1 Vedalken Shackles
3 Vendilion Clique

You may be wondering why I am only running 3 Standstill. To explain, I have noticed that sometimes Standstill can be a straight up coin flip, and you may end up having to break it yourself. I have only had to break my own once out of about 12 games, but it still sucks having to do that. I find that they are an amazing source of card advantage when using them at the optimal time, but most will agree that it is still the worst card in the deck. I wanted to add a second Dismember to the deck, but didn't want to cut any of the other removal and I also did not want six main deck removal spells. Since Stoneforge Mystic is absolutely amazing right now, I wanted to add another Spell Snare to the main. I figure that with Mental Misstep in the picture, 2 drops are becoming more powerful. Adding the fourth Spell Snare is really great in the Landstill mirror and against other control decks in general. Overall, cutting the Standstill for another Spell Snare has been working great so far in testing. The other change that I made to the main deck from PV's list was cutting the Go for the Throat for a second Smother.

I have to say that the Vendilion Cliques are absolutely amazing in the sideboard. Im running Duress instead of Thoughtseize because I don't own any, and they still rock against combo and can strip a Batterskull out of an opponents hand. The only thing I would change in the sideboard is swap the Putrefy for a second copy of Maelstrom Pulse.

Please share any ideas on how I could improve my deck.


Thanks!

[sclabman]

Looks pretty good. I think the improvement to the deck will come as you play more and tune it to your liking. Your list is basically approaching what would be the ideal list, which is yet unknown and specific to your meta. I personally prefer 3 Jaces, and I definitely definitely like 4 Standstill. That card is unbelievably broken, especially in this deck. Furthermore, I run 7 fetchlands and 1 Creeping Tar Pit which has been pretty good, and adds another manland which I feel is always a plus.

[TheElvishPiper]

I like the idea of running a Creeping Tar Pit as the fifth man land in the deck. It can apply a lot of pressure.

What do you think about using a Mutavault. It still gets pumped up by a Mishra's Factory (since it counts as all creature types). It also seems pretty good against Merfolk.

[Goddik]

Both standstill and Jace are the reason to play the deck (i.e. they are how you win games) and anything less than 4 of each is insane unless you are reimagining the deck fairly drastically or replacing them with other high impact cards like visions or fact or fiction. I am personally not a big fan of many spell snares as it seems too inflexible, but if mystics become as widespread as it seems then running more than 2 is certainly defensible.

Mutavault is almost as good as factory and i currently run a 5/3 split with manlands and wasteland. I don't actually like the wastelands very much and almost prefer the Frauenschäger idea of running mutavaults instead. The reason you want wastelands is to let you play loam, otherwise i would prefer more manlands.
I like the idea of tar pit as a way to fit in more manlands, but i am not sure if you can handle the tap land

Vendillion cliques are extremely awesome in the board.

[Arsenal]

Spell Snare hits Hymn also, which is seeing an incredible amount of play right now, and a resolved Hymn can actually just bury us some games. I don't see any problem running 3 Snare maximum, I wouldn't advocate for 4 unless you know for certain that your meta is 2cc-concentrated.

[TheElvishPiper]

Spell Snare hits Hymn also, which is seeing an incredible amount of play right now, and a resolved Hymn can actually just bury us some games. I don't see any problem running 3 Snare maximum, I wouldn't advocate for 4 unless you know for certain that your meta is 2cc-concentrated.


I agree. I know for sure that at least 3 Spell Snare should be in the main. My brother plays GWB Junk (Zenith variant), and Spell Snare is insane against Hymn to Tourach. Basically the match becomes an attrition war, and the deck does perfectly fine with only 3 Standstill. There have been some situations in testing where I have wished that one of the Spell Snares in my had was a Standstill, but its rare.

Another point that I would like to talk about is cutting Wasteland. I have won about 4-5 games in testing (out of maybe 18 or so) by wasteland locking my opponent out of the game with Life from the Loam. They just simply could not recover. I could see cutting a fetch land from the deck for a fifth man land, but definitely not a Wasteland.

I know that Standstill is an amazing card, but I feel that the best non-land cards in the deck are Pernicious Deed, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Life from the Loam.

[Julian23]

Since I don't seem to be the only person disliking Standstill (PV, lsv and several people in here), I replaced 2 copies with Predict.

[nayon]

How about Ancestral Visions instead of Standstill? The UW lists have replaced it.

[TheElvishPiper]

Since I don't seem to be the only person disliking Standstill (PV, lsv and several people in here), I replaced 2 copies with Predict.

Sounds alright, I know LSV suggested trying to build the deck with only 2, but Im not sure how well it would work. I would definitely like to hear about your results using Predict!


How about Ancestral Visions instead of Standstill? The UW lists have replaced it.

I think only Drew Levin and Gerry Thompson have replaced Standstill with Ancestral Vision, and I'm not sure if that is correct. I can see why Ancestral Vision could be good, but I would still prefer Standstill.

Right now, I have taken in to account what others have said about 4 Spell Snare, and I have cut the fourth one. Im still running 3 Standstill, and Im currently testing a single Maelstrom Pulse in the main. It seems pretty good so far since it can hit Elspeth, Knight-Errant and opposing Jace's.

[GGoober]

How about Ancestral Visions instead of Standstill? The UW lists have replaced it.

The UW lists have not replaced it. I don't understand where this is coming from. GT/Levin are not playing UWx Landstill, they're playing their SCG control lists.

The Vision/Standstill debate is an ancient one. The verdict is up to you to decide, but I'll just say that Standstill is far superior to Visions. There's a reason why Ultimate Walker or control lists playing with Visions see little play or do not usually place in tournaments, whereas Standstill is recently gaining both popularity and playability thanks to MMS.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

The Vision/Standstill debate is an ancient one. The verdict is up to you to decide, but I'll just say that Standstill is far superior to Visions.
The debate may be ancient, but the context in which we're considering them right now is entirely different from 2 years or even 6 months ago. The thing about absolute statements is they're absolutely false outside of context. "Standstill is far superior to Vision" was only true given the prevalence of Counterbalance, Stifle and Goblin Lackey. Since those three cards are essentially no longer part of the Legacy meta (at least, nowhere near tier 1), Vision is now a much more attractive option.

On the contrary, cards like Mishra's Factory, Wasteland, Aether Vial and (obviously) Mental Misstep have all become much more prevalent than they were before Misstep's printing. All of those cards reduce the attractiveness of Standstill because they make fighting under it much easier for opponents and gaining value from it much more difficult for you. Given such dramatic changes to Legacy's landscape, it would be really naive not to reconsider the Standstill slot for Vision.

The two best players in the world have flat out told us that Standstill is a coin flip. Vision is a great card by itself, doesn't run into many of the problems Standstill does (which PV and LSV both explicitly noted were reasons to cut it), doesn't have the same enemies is used to and is difficult to attack profitably with most blue decks' current control suites of 4 MM, 3-4 Snare, 4 FoW. If there was ever a time when Vision is better than Standstill (which I believe it is), now would be the time.


There's a reason why Ultimate Walker or control lists playing with Visions see little play or do not usually place in tournaments, whereas Standstill is recently gaining both popularity and playability thanks to MMS.
Right... because MM was only released about a month ago. Standstill was the first and most obvious choice because it existed in a pre-MM metagame as the best source of card advantage, but since then the format has slowed down and Standstill lost ground to the above cards, Vision will begin appearing in more winning decklists.

[Anarky87]

Business (36)
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Counterspell
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Landstill
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Ghastly Demise
2 Innocent Blood
2 Go for the Throat
1 Putrefy
3 Pernicious Deed

Lands (24)
1 Wasteland
4 Mishra’s Factory
2 Mutavault
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island

Sideboard (15)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Consuming Vapors
2 Krosan Grip


I was putting together my Landstill list based off of this BoM list and noticed I was at 61 cards. I then went through each choice and realized that the BoM list does not run a Life from the Loam or Crucible. I went ahead and cut the Putrefy and added the Loam in, but are people playing that list without any land recursion? But maybe with the extra man lands, he didn't really need that much recursion. Kind of off topic, I realize.

[TheElvishPiper]

I was putting together my Landstill list based off of this BoM list and noticed I was at 61 cards. I then went through each choice and realized that the BoM list does not run a Life from the Loam or Crucible. I went ahead and cut the Putrefy and added the Loam in, but are people playing that list without any land recursion? But maybe with the extra man lands, he didn't really need that much recursion. Kind of off topic, I realize.

Maybe the extra man lands, and the fact that he only has one wasteland. I personally would run a playset of wastelands and a 2 Life from the Loam

[TheElvishPiper]

The debate may be ancient, but the context in which we're considering them right now is entirely different from 2 years or even 6 months ago. The thing about absolute statements is they're absolutely false outside of context. "Standstill is far superior to Vision" was only true given the prevalence of Counterbalance, Stifle and Goblin Lackey. Since those three cards are essentially no longer part of the Legacy meta (at least, nowhere near tier 1), Vision is now a much more attractive option.

On the contrary, cards like Mishra's Factory, Wasteland, Aether Vial and (obviously) Mental Misstep have all become much more prevalent than they were before Misstep's printing. All of those cards reduce the attractiveness of Standstill because they make fighting under it much easier for opponents and gaining value from it much more difficult for you. Given such dramatic changes to Legacy's landscape, it would be really naive not to reconsider the Standstill slot for Vision.

The two best players in the world have flat out told us that Standstill is a coin flip. Vision is a great card by itself, doesn't run into many of the problems Standstill does (which PV and LSV both explicitly noted were reasons to cut it), doesn't have the same enemies is used to and is difficult to attack profitably with most blue decks' current control suites of 4 MM, 3-4 Snare, 4 FoW. If there was ever a time when Vision is better than Standstill (which I believe it is), now would be the time.


I understand that Ancestral Vision is an amazing card, but opponents can still Wasteland/Mutavalt/Aether Vial/Mishra's Factory etc. while an Ancestral Vision is suspended. Not only can they still do those things, they can also play spells. For instance, if I suspend an Ancestral Vision with no cards in hand and then my opponent casts a threat into a clear board, Im way behind and hoping to draw a removal spell in the next few turns, or off of the Vision if I'm not already dead yet. Had I played a standstill, my opponent either plays draw go, or casts a threat and I most likely draw an answer or counter magic off of the Standstill trigger. I know that the example I provided is very specific, but if played properly, Standstill is a way better card.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

It's equally arguable that "if played properly, Vision is a way better card." If I play Vision on turn 2 with a U source and a manland in play, my opponent can't waste my manland and then play his own under the Vision (or if he does, he's very far behind) whereas if the same happens under Standstill, I'm the one who's very far behind. Equally specific, equally applicable.

The point that Standstill's supporters seem to continuously miss is that having an opponent win at the waste+manland game is just as likely right now as it is for them to lose it because so many decks run 4 of both. There's literally nothing to suggest you should draw more of your 8 relevant cards than them. That makes Standstill a worse card than it was when Landstill was the only deck running that many combined Wastelands+manlands. On the other hand, situations where Vision is awful (resolved Counterbalance, t1 Lackey, vs. any deck playing Stifle) come up much, much less frequently than the aforementioned Standstill case. You're either guaranteed +3 cards in 4 turns or a 2-for-1 from their Force of Will, which benefits you in the long term if you've been aggressively trading on a 1-for-1 basis.

In your example where your opponent casts a threat into an empty board, depending on the threat, the Vision will almost definitely resolve before they can kill you anyway. That's not even the point though, because having an opponent cast Vial or play waste/manlands into a Vision doesn't mean anything to you, whereas against Standstill it probably means the game. It's easy to think of situations where one is better than the other; the point is that situations where Standstill is awful come up more often now and situations where Visions is great also come up more often now, both because of how decks are currently being constructed. Don't even take my word for it; take the combined words of the two best players in the world (PV & LSV) and the two best deck designers in the world (Chapin & Gerry). I'm pretty sure I'd rather trust any one of them as opposed to the entire internet, let alone all 4 at once. For my part, I'm at least going to try Vision before I casually write it off because years-old results suggest otherwise.

[egosum]

Just wanted to point it out since it seems taht nobody said it, though is pretty obvious, not only the stifle, CB, Lackey... make Visions worse, in the mirror if my visions will be completely dead if my opponent is playing Standstill.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[fallenphoenix]

From my testing with U/W/r-Walkerstill and U/B/G-Stalkerstill (gosh, I love those names :D) I can say for myself, that I've never liked Standstill, Predict or Visions.

They all lack in the same department: If you're under pressure they are pretty bad draws/plays.

With Standstill often found myself in a position, where the opponent had 4 Wastelands in his deck and new that I couldn't reliably win if he held on his Wastelands until I played my manlands.
Or even worse, I'd be forced to play a Standstill without having manlands/Wastes and my opponent topdecks 3 Factories/Mutavaults in a row.

When Standstill works it's fantastic, but I found the MUs where it shines to be good ones anyway, so Standstill is pretty much overkill here.

Predict is pretty much never dead, but it's just never stellar either. It's at its best when combined with Brainstorm or Top, but I found that setting it up with Brainstorm in the early turns just costs to much time for too little effect, and later or when I got Top going I didn't need it or wished it was a spell with more impact.

A. Vision has only ever been good to me, when I had it in my opening hand or found it with BS on my second turn. When someone's putting the hurt on you and you're looking for anwsers it's the absolute worst to draw (except for possibly Standstill).

Right now I have settled for Compulsive Research. While it's not as stellar, it's pretty much always a good draw and with Loam will turn chaff into business like a champ.
Even if you only net +1/+2 cards, you will see 3 new cards every time it resolves, which is pretty critical.

[TheElvishPiper]

It's equally arguable that "if played properly, Vision is a way better card." If I play Vision on turn 2 with a U source and a manland in play, my opponent can't waste my manland and then play his own under the Vision (or if he does, he's very far behind) whereas if the same happens under Standstill, I'm the one who's very far behind. Equally specific, equally applicable.

The point that Standstill's supporters seem to continuously miss is that having an opponent win at the waste+manland game is just as likely right now as it is for them to lose it because so many decks run 4 of both. There's literally nothing to suggest you should draw more of your 8 relevant cards than them. That makes Standstill a worse card than it was when Landstill was the only deck running that many combined Wastelands+manlands. On the other hand, situations where Vision is awful (resolved Counterbalance, t1 Lackey, vs. any deck playing Stifle) come up much, much less frequently than the aforementioned Standstill case. You're either guaranteed +3 cards in 4 turns or a 2-for-1 from their Force of Will, which benefits you in the long term if you've been aggressively trading on a 1-for-1 basis.

In your example where your opponent casts a threat into an empty board, depending on the threat, the Vision will almost definitely resolve before they can kill you anyway. That's not even the point though, because having an opponent cast Vial or play waste/manlands into a Vision doesn't mean anything to you, whereas against Standstill it probably means the game. It's easy to think of situations where one is better than the other; the point is that situations where Standstill is awful come up more often now and situations where Visions is great also come up more often now, both because of how decks are currently being constructed. Don't even take my word for it; take the combined words of the two best players in the world (PV & LSV) and the two best deck designers in the world (Chapin & Gerry). I'm pretty sure I'd rather trust any one of them as opposed to the entire internet, let alone all 4 at once. For my part, I'm at least going to try Vision before I casually write it off because years-old results suggest otherwise.

I completely understand where you are coming from in your side of the argument. Standstill and Ancestral Vision both have there own drawbacks, but I guess it depends on which ones you would feel more comfortable playing with. I personally am not a huge fan of either since the standstill could be a coin flip in some situations and vision could be a dead card if you are looking for an answer but cant afford to wait several turns.

PV and LSV both stated that Standstill was a coin flip, but neither said that Ancestral Vision was better or the correct card to play in the deck. PV said that he was willing to try Ancestral Vision in the deck though, and LSV said that we should just cut down the number of Standstills in the list.

[GGoober]

Also, since I'm not PV/LSV, you should just ignore the post I made above. Clearly, only the best of pros know what is best in the format/game. They are usually right, but that doesn't mean that people who have been playing the deck for years don't know what the hell they're doing (I'm not talking about me because I don't think I'm a good player, but I know a lot more veterans on the Source community who know more about the debate of Visions v.s. STandstill than I do).

Also, the pros should be playing Aluren. It's actually extremely well positioned in the meta now than it used to be.


EDIT: WOW, I accidentally deleted/typed over my original post on the Standstill/Visions debate... Too lazy to type, but I'll chime in later when I have time.

[Shawn]

Just wanted to point it out since it seems taht nobody said it, though is pretty obvious, not only the stifle, CB, Lackey... make Visions worse, in the mirror if my visions will be completely dead if my opponent is playing Standstill.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-


Not that I prefer Vision over Standstill, but if my opponent has Standstill in play I'd much rather have AV in my hand over Standstill; if he plays Standstill it means he is probably ahead on board and my Standstill is a blank as opposed to Vision eventually drawing me cards.

[metamet]

My thoughts on the Standstill/Visions debate:

When Standstill is good, it is really really good. When it is pitted against an opponent who works around it or is misplayed, it's really really bad.

So we have to consider how prevalent vial/wasteland/factory decks are in any given meta. Once we understand that, we know how effective Standstill may be.

And I'd say it's fairly obvious that there are quite a few decks that are okay with playing around a Standstill out there right now...

Visions puts you on a four turn edge-of-a-cliff hope fest. If you cast a turn 1 visions and your opponent sneaks a few creatures in AND you don't have deed, removal, or counters... well, you're in rough shape. But can the deck reliably stall the game until the visions resolves with (essentially) a 6 card opening hand? It's true that quite a few decks can have you dead by then...

Another thought I've had is siding in Dark Confidant over Standstills in matchups where Standstills are pretty poor. Anyone considered or tested this? So far seems to work pretty well here.

[TheElvishPiper]

My thoughts on the Standstill/Visions debate:

When Standstill is good, it is really really good. When it is pitted against an opponent who works around it or is misplayed, it's really really bad.

So we have to consider how prevalent vial/wasteland/factory decks are in any given meta. Once we understand that, we know how effective Standstill may be.

And I'd say it's fairly obvious that there are quite a few decks that are okay with playing around a Standstill out there right now...

Visions puts you on a four turn edge-of-a-cliff hope fest. If you cast a turn 1 visions and your opponent sneaks a few creatures in AND you don't have deed, removal, or counters... well, you're in rough shape. But can the deck reliably stall the game until the visions resolves with (essentially) a 6 card opening hand? It's true that quite a few decks can have you dead by then...

Another thought I've had is siding in Dark Confidant over Standstills in matchups where Standstills are pretty poor. Anyone considered or tested this? So far seems to work pretty well here.


I couldn't agree with you more!

I also like the idea of siding in Confidants in place of the Standstills in the few matchups where the Standstills seem bad. Im currently running Vendilion Cliques instead of Dark Confidants since I dont own any.

[Goddik]

CatinaHat: Nice post

Visions is actually much better in the mirror. Playing standstill is awfull if you don't have quite the advantage on board, whereas visions is always awesome. Suspending a visions into their standstill isn't even that bad. I can certainly think of worse ways to trigger a counterwar.

That being said standstill tends to be more awesome when it is awesome then visions.

I have been running the confidant sideboard plan and it is very very good in the matchups where you want it.

[ScatmanX]

Visions puts you on a four turn edge-of-a-cliff hope fest. If you cast a turn 1 visions and your opponent sneaks a few creatures in AND you don't have deed, removal, or counters... well, you're in rough shape. But can the deck reliably stall the game until the visions resolves with (essentially) a 6 card opening hand? It's true that quite a few decks can have you dead by then...
I'm sorry, but how can a hand do not have neither Deed, Removal OR Counters?
That looks like a mulligan to me...

[GGoober]

CatinaHat: Nice post

Visions is actually much better in the mirror. Playing standstill is awfull if you don't have quite the advantage on board, whereas visions is always awesome. Suspending a visions into their standstill isn't even that bad. I can certainly think of worse ways to trigger a counterwar.

That being said standstill tends to be more awesome when it is awesome then visions.

I have been running the confidant sideboard plan and it is very very good in the matchups where you want it.


It's not really what's 'awesome' when both cards draw 3. In both situations when draw spells draw 3, both are awesome (added bonus to Standstill allowing you to develop a board position if they do not crack it as soon as you cast it). The comparison is really the conditions on casting Visions v.s. Standstill.

Standstill suffers from being 'bad' against vial or aggressive decks. The truth is Standsill isn't the bad card here. It's the archetype control that has problems against Vials. If you don't solve Vial, you can't win. The only bonus here that Visions have is the ability to draw when Vial is in play, to dig for answers but Standstill cannot. However, against such an aggressive start such as Lackey/Vial/Steppe Lynx, Visions is also weak. Visions was a good suggestion by the pros because the meta at the time was very mid-range and fundamentally slow (Junk/TA/Merfolks/Bant). If the meta picks up speed again, you guys know how awfully slow Visions is against fast aggressive decks right? In this situation, if you can plow/MM a turn 1 threat, the Standstill is going to draw you cards whereas if you plow/MM a turn 1 threat, you won't get to draw with Visions until 3 turns later, which gives huge room for aggressive decks to steal some wins.

For most parts, Standstill is just unsituationally good, with the only exception being Vial.decks. My conclusion recently (since a few months ago) was to force myself to stop dismissing Standstill as being a terrible card against Vial. Rather, it's the archetype/deck that is weak against Vial. If you have ways to deal with Vial, then Standstill/Vision/the entire deck functions again.

Also consider a scenario here which exemplifies the OPTIONS that you can play with Standstill that isn't available with Visions. Say you're paired up against Bant NO. Your opponent opens with Hierarch and Arbor. You have a Standstill in hand with no Force/Counterspell/Removal (maybe some MM/Snares and Brainstorm). Your opponent has the potential to go either Natural Order or drop Knight which would really put you far behind the game given your hand. Do you drop the Standstill (assuming you play 2-3 Wastelands, 4 Factories)?

From my experiences, I almost definitely drop the Standstill and take 2 damage from exalted Arbors. The reason is simple. My hand is just not prepared to have the board state advance to a KotR/NO. I would rather take anywhere from 2-10 damage during thsi time, while prepare my hand against a matchup that can be won in the mid-game with 1-1'ing spells and possibly playing a sweeper later. In this situation, the worst scenario is you never draw a Wasteland/Factory, to which you'll possibly drop down to 10, but even in such a situation, you would have built up a manabase and break even on 7 cards each on both side (cracking Standstill EOT their turn), and untap with a full grip to play the remaining part of the game where initially your hand was terrible (it's a good hand, just not good in this situation). Now the best scenario you can get is to draw Wastelands/Factories, and they would have to crack Standstill in short. The medium scenario is if they decide to run out NO into your standstill when you're tapped. In this scenario, you would still have benefited from the Standstill since your initial hand pre Standstill had nothing relevant.

My example with this is just a case study. There are countless other situations where I run into that I actually power out a Standstill in a slightly less favorable position just because having the ability to build a hand and manabase while sacrificing life totals is totally worth slowing an opponent's gameplay down. This is something Standstill does that Visions will never do. Standstill can function more than just drawing 3 cards. The card is as defining as the archetype itself, being able to give control player options, and yet retain the powerful draw effects when you do resolve a Standstill.

(Now take this case study to Visions, which will draw you 3 cards after you're dead. We can keep coming up with a million case study to counterattack our views on Standstillv.s.Visions, but my point with the above case study wasn't to say STandstill is better than Visions, but was merely trying to point out that Standstill isn't simply a draw spell, it's much more than that).

[Goddik]

a nice reply, in my defense my post was mostly pertaining to the control mirror. God knows i have won my fair share of games by blindly putting a standstill on the table with a hand that was completely useless otherwise. Also there are alot of matchups in which i really want to board out standstill where i wouldn't board out visions. Standstill is the deck's engine, so the fact that you want to board it out in so many matchups is problematic though not insurmountable. This is of course solvable by having a secondary engine in the board like confidant or perhaps leaning on jace and deed to carry you through.

Am i wrong in not wanting standstill against merfolk and the mirror?

Also i think you underestimate how easy it is to keep yourself alive for the 4 turns it takes visions to resolve. I have gamed alot with it (Edit: in other decks) and it has rarely been a huge problem against anything else then spell based combo (i.e. storm). Stalling the game against both merfolk and goblins isn'¨t actually that hard. Winning the game when it does go long however is not always automatic.

I currently favour standstill, but i would like to experiment with visions in the deck.

[honestabe]

I tried Ancestral Vision in the deck a while ago; way before all the "cool kids" were playing it. It just seemed too slow for my taste. The deck is just better equipt to run Standstill

[DragoFireheart]

Let me make this simple.

Visions is ass compared to Standstill. It's too slow and in situations where it would be "better" than Standstill, said deck is too fast and will kill you.

[metamet]

I'm sorry, but how can a hand do not have neither Deed, Removal OR Counters?
That looks like a mulligan to me...

I suppose the key there should have been "a few".

There are plenty of hands where you have a snare, a removal spell, a brainstorm, a standstill/visions, and two lands. Not many would mulligan it.

But if your opponent is playing zoo or a creature deck with counters, it's not always possible that your spells will resolve and you'll get there. This is kind of obvious, though...

I've been testing it and I actually REALLY like Visions in this deck. It's good against zoo and merfolk and amazing against U/W. They took out Standstill for Visions and I see why.

A few play notes if you want to try Visions: If I'm on the draw and I have a misstep, snare, and visions my opening hand, I wont suspend it until turn 2 in order to be able to cast the snare. This should be obvious, but the possibility of countering their spell is worth more than the 1 turn earlier Visions you'd end up getting.

Visions is great in this deck because you can continue to remove their creatures and even land a jace while letting the Visions go off.

Since I've switched out the Standstills for Visions--as I believe Visions is far better in this deck right now than Standstills--I have also removed the Bobs from the side, as those spots eventually become my control/long game matchup slots.

And the sick sideboard tech? A janky +2 Raven's Crime, +1 Life from the Loam.

Establishing this in the long matchup can squeeze you out ahead and force your opponent to play from the top of their deck, which is quite alright with you as you'd only need one answer per turn.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

Wait, what? You took a reasonable suggestion based on solid evidence and others' testing, tried it earnestly for yourself and then found that Vision is actually a decent alternative to Standstill in the current meta?

Without first posting some long-winded diatribe or short, unequivocal cynical quip? Bravo. Even if you had found Standstill was still better (which at some point it will be again I'm sure), no amount of internet posting can replace actual experience; which, for me as well, has shown Vision is a more than fine replacement for the time being.

[metamet]

Wait, what? You took a reasonable suggestion based on solid evidence and others' testing, tried it earnestly for yourself and then found that Vision is actually a decent alternative to Standstill in the current meta?


I'm still not sure if this was meant as a sarcastic dismissal of my testing... because the second paragraph makes me feel like we're on the same page. :) haha.

I took top 4 (splitting prizes there) in some Legacy tournaments (one was smaller, about 20 people, and the other closer to 50) twice this week with Deedstill. Vision is, overall, a much more flexible card in allowing you to actually draw those three cards.

A lot of people play two drops, such as Bob, Stoneforge, and Goyf. On the draw, Standstill becomes terribly awkward without the most precise answers always available. There's a reason this deck runs Deed: so we can easily sweep up whatever managed to get around our reactive spells.

While running Standstill, if we began to fall behind in the board position race we'd be unable to cast Standstill. What's more is that the board would already have to be in our favor and/or cleared in order to confidently cast it. Sure, you can play Deed on turn 3 and then on turn 4 pop deed for 2 (not always catching everything) and cast your opening hand's Standstill. Then your opponent would likely break it on their turn. You're essentially getting the same value as suspending a Vision on turn 1 in this case, except you've been tapping out in order to keep up.

And many people have realized that the best way to beat control decks is to do it as quick as possible, before Jace even has a chance to resolve. That strategy is incredibly impressive if you're able to overwhelm the board before the control player can play a Standstill in order to get a bunch of cheap cards.

Now we can suspend a Vision one turn, with mana still open, and stick a Deed the next. Sure, they're still able to play spells, but so are we. And let's be honest: most people have begun to realize that the best way to respond to a turn two Standstill is to just crack it right away instead of hoping to play an instant at their discard phase in order to get some form of "advantage".

Once we reset the board, we'll likely only have two more turns before drawing three extra cards. Not only that, we can play Jace while waiting if we have to.

No longer do we NEED a Mishra's Factory in order to make the Standstill worth it while on the draw against Zoo. This adds a lot of match-by-match consistency by not having to worry about whether or not Standstill is going to work against us.

Another change I've made and been happy with is going -1 Mishra's Factory, -1 Wasteland in favor of 1 basic Swamp and 1 basic Forest.

The deck play(s/ed) 8 fetches, 6 duals, 2 basics, and 8 colorless sources. Since we no longer need Factory until later in the game, we no longer need it in our opening hand. My manabase looks like this now:

4 Misty
4 Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland

And I've been pretty happy with it. This stops us from getting wasted out, Mooned, or cut off all our green. Having a solid source of black is great for removal and green is wonderful for ALWAYS being able to Loam. Not only that, 4 basics ensures us that we'll always be able to play Jace.

I've been happy with it. Anyone else toying with basics?

[useL]

Metamet, can you post your entire list? Id like to start playing a landstill deck. If you can, please include your sideboard aswell.

[metamet]

Sure thing:



CORE cards: 16
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm

COUNTER suite: 13
4 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

REMOVAL suite: 5
1 Go for the Throat
1 Innocent Blood
1 Smother
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Maelstrom Pulse

RECURSION suite: 2
2 Life from the Loam

LANDS: 24
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Undergound Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest

60 Total
Current Sideboard

1 Damnation
1 Dismember
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Spell Pierce
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Thoughtsieze
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Misdirection
1 Perish
2 Raven's Crime
1 Life from the Loam

15 Total


Toying around with the sideboard yet. Dredge is a rough matchup and if you would like to sideboard against it, consider taking out all or some combination of Perish, Misdirection, Pierce, and Dismember in favor of your favorite GY hate tools. I prefer putting in the discard, clique, misdirection (which is good against Vindicate and Hymn and counter battles otherwise), and perhaps the damnation, and just crossing my fingers for now. You can always animate your factory and waste it if their bridges are going to overwhelm you, and you can counter/misdirect their dread return otherwise. Still, not the most favorable...

Since we're running a basic Swamp here, the Dismember loses a bit of it's super appeal (as it can kill a resolved Magus of the Moon). I've moved it to the side in favor of the wonderful Maelstrom Pulse. Pulse can kill nearly anything, including a resolved Jace. It's sad when our only way to battle an opponent's Jace is with our own or with a Factory.

The Raven's Crimes and additional Loam come in for the attrition matches and against the control matchups/mirror. When games go long, being able to keep your opponent top decking while you sculpt your hand ensures keep the upper hand. Not only that, Crime essentially makes your opponent's counterspells absolutely worthless. Always Retrace away their card before attempting to play anything. Either they'll counter it or have to discard their counter. Either way, you'll be in the clear. It seems like a trashy miser's strategy, but it won me a game against U/W and against a midranged Bob/Stoneforge/Vindicate (+red for Grim and Pyroblast) matchup on the bubble.

I like it.

But, of course, tweak it according to your liking and your meta.

Be sure to keep us updated on your thoughts!

[metamet]

Oh, also: You never pass priority with Crime in the graveyard while Retracing it. So you can retrace their hand away on your turn without them being able to Extripate/Extract it on your turn.

Why someone would wait until you were able to cast a sorcery in order to remove your Crime from your graveyard is beyond me, but that information may be good to know in the case of your opponent not knowing how Retrace works.

[Marke]

I don't understand how people can think visions to be better or as good as standstill really. Visions is horribly slow and needs to be played early as a result, which conflicts alot with being able to have counters up. Visions must be played on turn 1 or 2 for good effects whereas standstill shines on any turn when your opponent has a non threatening board state.
Because of this standstill just works way better with the control shell, you drop it after dealing with their threats and doesn't need to be drawn early, visions however has to be played early meaning you have to pay 1 mana BEFORE dealing with their stuff, this greatly weakens the power of any spell pierce, spell snare and counter that you are playing.
Visions is never good enough imo, if standstill is good enough is a question of the metagame. On one hand mental misstep made standstill much stronger because it is much easier to obtain a good position for standstill by countering their crucial 1 drop, on the other hand mental misstep slowed down the format and more decks with a similar land count and land setup are being played now.
I don't know why this deck would even consider visions, if you just want blunt draw that doesn't need to be quick why don't you consider something like gifts or fact or fiction instead then? Gifts is actually pretty sweet with life of the loam and a package of 5 different removal spells.

Overall I'd say standstill definately belongs in the 75 now, against the decks where it is good it is fantastic now because of mental misstep. On the other hand matchups where standstill sucks happen more often now so they will need to be sided out more often now. As a result I'd say playing 2 standstill maindeck and 1 or 2 in the board is very good now. Standstill has always had a slight diminishing returns on it, ie. drawing 2 in hand is often bad because it conflicts with setting up a good board for standstill, which makes 2 or 3 a good number imo. Playing 4 of such a card is only worth it when the card is THAT important that you care less about seeing more then 1 occasionally, something which is not the case for standstill at the moment imo.

[metamet]

Marke,

While not the benchmark for goodness, here are the decks from SCG's Indianapolis top 16 that would run either Standstill or Vision:

6th Place, U/W Control (with Vision):
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38857

8th Place, U/W Standstill (with Standstill & Mystics):
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38861

9th Place, U/W Stone-Blade (with Vision & Mystics):
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38862

The most traditionally "Standstill" deck would be the 6th place deck. 8th and 9th both ran maindeck Stoneforge Mystics.

The pilot of the 9th place deck said he wouldn't change a single card in the main, especially the Vision.
(note: the site reports that he ran Spell Pierce, but they were actually Snares.)

While I know that you don't think Vision can be better than Standstill, I'd encourage you to either test it or play against me in the semi-mirror. :)

[TheElvishPiper]

I finally decided to test Visions in the deck, replacing the Standstills. After a few hours of playing deck with the Visions, I'm not really impressed.

The Visions do what you essentially want the Standstills to accomplish, but I would say that they are not necessarily better. They are only really great when in your opening hand, otherwise they are very slow. There have been several times where I drew an Ancestral Vision in the middle of the game, and wished that it was a Standstill. I can honestly say that I have never been better off in any of my matches playing Vision over Standstill.

My thoughts on the argument is that those who firmly stand by there Standstills are looking at how good they are against the entire meta, and those arguing for Vision are thinking about the mirror and Vial based decks. I believe that Vision is a better card in the mirror because your opponent can fight with his or her own man lands and wastelands, but Standstill is much better against just about anything else. In the matchups where Standstills seem bad, I believe that Dark Confidants or Vendilion Cliques can be boarded in, and the Standstills can be boarded out.

For reference, Ive been testing against GWB Rock and Bant.

[GGoober]

Like I said, there's nothing bad with Visions for most parts. It's a draw spell that's less situational, slower, and doesn't give you the options Standstill does (developing board position or abusing board position). If the meta picks up into faster decks rather than these sling of slower decks played in the recent metagames, Visions will be a very weak card against more aggressive decks. Visions is perfectly viable in today's meta, but as I've mentioned above, it is lacking in the other aspects beyond drawing 3 cards which STandstill can provide. and Marke hit my point there: Visions is much stronger than Standstill if you go turn 1-2 into Visions. When you are at the point on Top-decking with your opponents, STandstill is going to be a huge boost while Visions only draws you the cards turns later, and potentially your opponents could have well won under the time it was suspended.

There's a price for playing Standstill and price for playing Visions. I'm not sold on Visions because it is only truly better in control mirrors, or in a heavily mid-range meta. If the meta picks up just a little speed/aggressiveness, Visions will start showing the same issues it's shown in the past, being a card draw that does not draw you cards in the timeframe you are concerned with if it's not suspended on turns 1-2.

[metamet]

What has everyone discovered in testing against Zoo? The deck has been seeing a bit of a resurgence lately.

I've found Standstills to be fairly bad early in the game, as they overwhelm the board with one drops before you're able to land a well positioned Standstill. You typically need to wipe the board with a Deed or so before being completely safe.

I may be leaning in more favor for Vision because I have played Zoo a few times this past week in tournaments and I found Vision to net the same cards around the same turn with far less conditionality required to make it work. But a late game Vision against a top decking Zoo deck isn't as good as a Standstill, that's for sure. But if the game has gone on that late, we've likely got a Jace online or a Deed on board, so things aren't as threatening as otherwise may be.

I'd be curious to see an analysis for what matchups Vision or Standstill have an obvious advantage in and when it simply comes down to play style and preference.

[metamet]

Fourth place this weekend at the SCG open.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38946

Enchantments
4 Pernicious Deed

Instants
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
1 Putrefy
3 Spell Snare

Planeswalkers
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
4 Ancestral Vision
1 Innocent Blood
2 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse

Basic Lands
2 Island

Lands
3 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Extirpate
2 Spell Pierce
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Thoughtseize

[nayon]

Fourth place this weekend at the SCG open.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38946

Enchantments
4 Pernicious Deed

Instants
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
1 Putrefy
3 Spell Snare

Planeswalkers
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
4 Ancestral Vision
1 Innocent Blood
2 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse

Basic Lands
2 Island

Lands
3 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Extirpate
2 Spell Pierce
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Thoughtseize

I like the Visions instead of the Standstill. Sometimes Standstill puts you in really awkward positions.

[sclabman]

I like Standstill instead of the Visions. Sometimes Visions puts you in really awkward positions.

[god_campbell]

I generally prefer standstill over visions, its not to say visions is bad, but I think it comes down to a preference and which one better suits your play style.

During the coverage of the quaters, game 2 had the visions been a standstill, the bug player would have been in a much better position as he was in danger waiting for that visions to be played but he got lucky to have lived the 4 turns, but an example of why I will run standstill over visions.

[Razorwynd]

The Show and Tell-Hivemind deck is a pretty tough match up because of our terribly show clock. With Jace + Diabolic Edict, Show and Tell + Emrakul is not too much of a problem given proper play. However, Show and Tell plus Hivemind is a bit more challenging. Even post board with 3 Thoughtseize, 3 Vendillion Clique, and 3 Extripate things can be tricky. Perhaps, this is just a result of me being unfamiliar with the matchup.

Does anyone have any matchup tips or successful sideboard plans?

[Goddik]

Confidants are really good in that sort of matchup. It quickly gets difficult for them to win if they let him stick.

[kiblast]

The Show and Tell-Hivemind deck is a pretty tough match up because of our terribly show clock. With Jace + Diabolic Edict, Show and Tell + Emrakul is not too much of a problem given proper play. However, Show and Tell plus Hivemind is a bit more challenging. Even post board with 3 Thoughtseize, 3 Vendillion Clique, and 3 Extripate things can be tricky. Perhaps, this is just a result of me being unfamiliar with the matchup.

Does anyone have any matchup tips or successful sideboard plans?

Should not be a difficult MU. Post side you bring in Vendilions for a real clock, Confidants if you play them (as Goddik said, they substantially can't remove it and they fold to your card advantage), then you bring Extirpate and when they tap 3 for Intuition, it's GG.

[nayon]

I never feel like Dredging Loam in this deck, when is a right time to Dredge?

[Joqur]

I never feel like Dredging Loam in this deck, when is a right time to Dredge?
When you are looking to out-land an opponent or Waste-lock them as well as utilizing it with Brainstorm/Jace to dig.

[nayon]

When you are looking to out-land an opponent or Waste-lock them as well as utilizing it with Brainstorm/Jace to dig.

But usually you don't want to be too aggressive with your loaming, right? Unlike 43lands or aggro loam.

[fallenphoenix]

Unless you are in serious need of Factories to speed up your clock I wouldn't generally advise to dredge a ton, as most of your business is useless in your graveyard.

Another decent trick is, once you have cast loam, to put back the unnecessary lands with BS/Jace and the dredge them away to draw into some real cards. Rinse and repeat for humongous CA.

[nayon]

Unless you are in serious need of Factories to speed up your clock I wouldn't generally advise to dredge a ton, as most of your business is useless in your graveyard.

Another decent trick is, once you have cast loam, to put back the unnecessary lands with BS/Jace and the dredge them away to draw into some real cards. Rinse and repeat for humongous CA.

Yeah, the second one is when I usually feel dredging is safe.

On another note, what is the plan of this deck against combo? Especially Hive Mind and Reanimator. Hive Mind seems to top this whenever I see it being played, it just seems too fast for a slow deck like this. As for Reanimator, they play a lot of counterspells to protect their plan.

[Koby]

Yeah, the second one is when I usually feel dredging is safe.

On another note, what is the plan of this deck against combo? Especially Hive Mind and Reanimator. Hive Mind seems to top this whenever I see it being played, it just seems too fast for a slow deck like this. As for Reanimator, they play a lot of counterspells to protect their plan.

Extirpate is still ridiculous against their reanimation targets. Hive Mind can be beaten by countering their filtering (with MM), countering their Show and Tell, Extirpating their Intuition plan, and destroying their 2mana lands. You're going to be playing a long game as it stands, so an aggro approach (maybe Bob from the SB) would help to speed up your clock.

[sclabman]

I almost never Loam unless the game is already under control and I can Brainstorm or the opponent missed a land drop and I can Waste-lock them.

[Razorwynd]

Vendillion Clique is a 6+ turn clock. That not very fast. I agree bob helps the clock yes, but I am not sure I want to be tapping out on turn two. Maybe this is a risk we have to take. I was just wondering if there were more permanent solutions like angels grace. For a while I was thinking trickbind but that only stops activated abilities until the end of turn not triggered abilities.

[Joqur]

I understand we are not favored against Merfolk simply because a resolved Vial is hard to beat without landing a Deed early, however what else are you guys maining/siding against them? Needle, Repeal, Grip? What are the best options. I honestly want to try a Repeal in the main over a piece of spot removal, because the card is versatile as it is but I want other opinions.

[TheElvishPiper]

Does anyone feel that Damnation should be run in the sideboard?

[god_campbell]

I can see a 1 of damnation in a sb, it is a great sweeper.

[TheElvishPiper]

I can see a 1 of damnation in a sb, it is a great sweeper.

Thats what I'm running. I was wondering if anyone else is doing the same.

[god_campbell]

Its def something I wanna test out, I've just been lazy and havn't bought one yet hahah.

[TheElvishPiper]

haha, some dude walked into my local shop with a bunch of them today, and I snagged one for a couple bulk rares

[metamet]

My current sideboard is:

1 Damnation
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Extirpate
1 Spell Pierce
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Thoughtseize
2 Raven's Crime
1 Life from the Loam

I am not sure if I want three Cliques. Considering adding another Damnation or the all famous Vedalken Shackles. Crime + Loam are still absurd. Damnation is absurdly good and I can see having two of them being worthwhile. I think Paulo initially recommended it.

I've changed the main deck removal package to the following:

4 Pernicious Deed
1 Smother
1 Innocent Blood
1 Go for the Throat
2 Maelstrom Pulse


Pulse is too good for this deck to not be packing. I run two over the putrefy/pulse split because there's rarely a time when I absolutely need to kill something on their turn, and the fact that pulse hits enchantments and Jace is worth the sorcery exchange for me.

[TheElvishPiper]

My Current Sideboard is this:

1 Damnation
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Dismember
3 Duress (I dont have any Thoughtseize)
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Vedalken Shackles
3 Vendilion Clique

and my removal package is the following:

1 Diabolic Edict
1 Dismember
1 Innocent Blood
2 Smother

Im still testing the deck and messing with the numbers. The only reason I dont have maelstrom pulse in place of some of the main deck removal is that I want it to be as cheap as possible (Dismember can be played for 1 of course). Smother seems to be better than Go for the Throat because it hits factories in the mirror or UW matchup. Oh, and I have finally joined the Darkside and switched to Visions instead of Standstills :tongue:

[thoren_]

I like the idea of using Sowers in the sideboard, as most opponents sideboard their removal out against you.

What's interesting about how a large amount of BUG Landstill players have began to adopt the sporadic removal package (a whole lot of 1 of's, basically), is they have weekended their matchup against the new anti-control card - Thrun, the Last Troll. Just last year, that card would be scoffed at, as BUG Landstill decks usually ran 4 Innocent Bloods main (before Mental Misstep came out), along with the 4 Pernicious Deed.

I'm still wondering if 3 Innocent Blood in my 75 would be a good idea.

Someone suggested The Abyss MD in BUG Landstill in another thread. I forget which one. Terrible idea, because of how it doesn't work well with the 4x MD Deeds.

I haven't tested Visions in this deck vs Standstill. Having played Visions in UW and Standstill in UW, there's pros and cons of both.

[metamet]

@thoren_

I think one of the main reasons to run instant speed removal right now may have to do with Mishra's Factory.

While Innocent Blood and sacrifice focused removal spelled are still good, there are plenty of times where you would rather kill the Knight of the Reliquary or fresh Stoneforge Mystic over the Noble Hierarch or even Tarmogoyf.

[umbowta]

Someone suggested The Abyss MD in BUG Landstill in another thread. I forget which one. Terrible idea, because of how it doesn't work well with the 4x MD Deeds.

I personally like the idea of The Abyss in BUG Landstill but you're right about it being not so hot alongside Deed. E.E. could be a reasonable replacement as long as you also have a couple Maelstrom Pulse and maybe a Diabolic Edict or two. I just don't see anyone going out and spending the $150-200 on 2-3 Abyss.

[fallenphoenix]

I will take this deck to a small tourney on saturday, jjust don't have much time to get some testing on fringe cards in before that, so I guess I might as well ask.
Has someone recently tested one of the below and if so, what was your conclusion:

- Garruk Wildspeaker (in addition to Jace)
- Chainer's Edict (instead of either Diabolic or Inn. Blood)
- Mana Leak (10 non-blue sources ffs)
- Cabal Pit (possibly sb only)
- Explore (makes Loam/Wastes better, but uses up slots)

I know all these cards in theory/from other formats, so I don't need much explanation on how they could be good/bad, just real fist-to-the-face experience.

Eternal gratitude guaranteed. =P

[Goddik]

Garruk: Fact or Fiction gives you a similar kick in the teeth advantage but is easier to set up

Chainers edict: Diabolic and innocent blood are better in all but very long games, the thing is you very rarely loose the very long games against decks where you want removal, so the gain is almost irrelevant

Manaleak: I feel with you on this one, but i have a feeling the +3 becomes relevant in control mirrors and against combo decks when the games go long, i could be wrong though.

cabal pit: What problem does it solve?

Explore? You would rather get the semi timewalk effect by affecting the board with removal/counters


With regard to earlier comments, the reason why instant speed removal is so awesome in the deck is that it lets you set up the untap into standstill play on few lands much easier. This is also the reason why i am not a fan of pulse in the main, you need 5 lands to do the pulse+standstill move. Putrefy though is worth considering as a one of answer to vial that still works instant speed. I see the problem with Jace, but main you should have a veritable truckload of counterspells compared to most other decks so keeping him off the table isnt that hard. The problem arises when people board into infinite pyroblasts/spell pierce, but this is where i think vendillion clique is a better response.

My current certainly suboptimal sideboard is
3xClique
3xThoughtseize
3xRelic
3xConfidant
1xDamnation
1xDeed (i run 3 main)
1xGhastly demise

All of the cards in the sideboard have served me very well at times, Particularly the clique, seize confidant package against control and combo. The numbers should perhaps be slightly different though. The Damnation is also sweet and i would love to have 2.

What is your guy's experience with extirpate? Is scooping the dredge matchup worth it? Is it actually usefull against something like hive mind?

[Shawn]

Someone suggested The Abyss MD in BUG Landstill in another thread. I forget which one. Terrible idea, because of how it doesn't work well with the 4x MD Deeds.

When are you are ever going to need to Deed for more than 3 against a creature deck? Potentially Goblins, but A: It sees barely any play at the moment and B: You should be able to handle an 2/2 or two that no longer have any friends to play with. Just Deed for three and The Abyss will pick off stragglers. Not that we should be playing it anyway, but saying they don't play nice together isn't accurate. Same thing goes for Deed+Humility or Moat.

[planarvoid]

Extirpate is MVP against the mirror

Good against Hive mind

Good but not as good as Leyline of the void against dredge. :tongue:

[umbowta]

When are you are ever going to need to Deed for more than 3 against a creature deck? Potentially Goblins, but A: It sees barely any play at the moment and B: You should be able to handle an 2/2 or two that no longer have any friends to play with. Just Deed for three and The Abyss will pick off stragglers. Not that we should be playing it anyway, but saying they don't play nice together isn't accurate. Same thing goes for Deed+Humility or Moat.

In my experience, it's more like Deed becomes overkill with The Abyss in play. You just don't need to Deed as often, if at all. Truly, in that respect, they don't play nice together. As such, EE seemed a fine replacement for Deed while I was maindecking The Abyss. I remember a couple times I was able to completely lock out games against ugw tempo with an Abyss and an EE set at :2: . The only thing to worry about at that point was a resolved Pridemage, and Jace makes that a whole lot less likey. Fun but not always good. For example, in an unknown metagame (or even a small local tourney) where you might face decks like Affinity or Monobrown Aggro would you rather have 4x Deed in the main or 2-3 Abyss with 2-3 EE's?

I still play The Abyss/Engineered Explosives over Deeds because I like the nostalgia of it and I have more fun that way, but those are the wrong reasons to play a card competitively. 4x Deed is probably the better choice if you're actively trying to finish in the money.

[Fletch]

What would you guys think about having a couple of thruns in the board for standstill/control mirrors ?

[Shimi]

What would you guys think about having a couple of thruns in the board for standstill/control mirrors ?

Clique seems better... it is very good against Combo too.

Played a 5 round with top4 tournament today, won the hole thing, 4-1 suiss + 2-0 top8.I was testing a new manabase and ancestral visions.

Mini report and some considerations:

r1 Crime City(UWr)
2-0, just played around magus/blood moon, standstill would be better.

r2 GW Bombs(NO,Stoneforge,KotR,Zenith)
0-2, missplayed at game1 , I should have won.Ancestral Visions costed me 2 games, standstill would have give me the victory.

r3 Junk
2-0, no secrets.

r4 Elves Aggro
2-1, lost game2 to 4 elf ringleader + zeniths.Won the game3 in 5 min. with jace.WOW.Ancestral = Standstill at these games.

r5 High tide
2-1, lost game1 to combo + 2 protec , fast cliques and mishras killed him at games 2 and 3.I got a bit luck at game3, when meditate drew only lands to him.

top4- Merfolks (w/ dismember)
2-0, no secrets, this game ancestral was much better than standstill but was not key in the match.

top2- GW Bombs (round2)
2-0
Just drew jaces and he dig answers and removals for everything.Ancestral was bad, give him 4 turns to play KotR/Progenitus/Stoneforge and kill me.

[Razorwynd]

Did you build your deck around the visions or did you just swap the two. I do think there are some considerations to make when making the swap. That being said I think I prefer standstill.

[TheElvishPiper]

@Shimi- What did you sideboard look like? And what was the new manabase you were testing?

[Shimi]

Did you build your deck around the visions or did you just swap the two. I do think there are some considerations to make when making the swap. That being said I think I prefer standstill.

I wad playing with 3 Standstills(many merfolks and mirrors) , I switch to 4 Ancestral Visions(cut 3 standstill and 1 Mental Misstep).. I'm playing this deck since its creation and was always at standstill side but I woke up and decided to test new things so I could say with 100% that standstill was better than visions but now I'm not sure, I will test more with more matchs and diferent matchups.But I'm happy they helped me at some bad or even matchs because good matchs you should win.


@Shimi- What did you sideboard look like? And what was the new manabase you were testing?

My sideboard was:
4 leyline of the void(I was on 3 Extirpates(better at mirror and combo matchs) but I lost to 2 Dredges last champ(prize was a Travel to GP Amsterdam) cause could not find a mishra or a extirpate to deal with bridges and ichorids so I promised that I would not lose to dredge.Ofcourse I never got paried with 1 of 3 dredges at champ.So i'm happy cause the match is extremelly boring.

3 Cliques(mirror and combo, they shined even against GW which boarded out their removals and was punished)

3 Thoughtseize( same as Cliques).

1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Krosan Grip
1 EE
(they all remove guys AND take care of anoying permanents(read vials/needles/revoker/blood moon)

2 Perish( just to fight Progenitus/Thrun/Elves/KotR and other strange things, It is more a meta call but I'm always happy to have 2 3cc WoG and my deck, since merfolks is a very good match).


About my Manabase I have the following idea: The deck lose to Dredge/Blue combo(tide and hive mind pre-sb) and your manabase.
So I was playing with 2 island, 1 swamp , 1 forest , 8 fecths , 3 waste , 3 mishra , 4 sea and 2 tropical.. and avoided manascrew like happen when they draw 2 wastes.
So I decided to test 2 island , 1 swamp , 7 fetch , 3 waste , 4 mishra , 4 sea and 3 tropical... so I do not dillute the blue mana but I have 1 more mishra so I can hold the game against aggro and have time to resolve an Ancestral Visions.
It worked nice.. swamp was a MVP.. just killed 3 magus of the moon at g2 round1.The 3 wastes are the correct number.. you just don't want to screw their mana base, just solve some problematic lands(karakas/Volrath/mandlands) and have some wastelock edge with loam(so they need to have some way to deal with you loam at lategame).

[metamet]

Looking to spice things up with your deedstill deck? Feel the metagame has shifted and people know how to answer your Jaces and Mishra's factories? Well, do I have a build for you!

Not only does it have the janky appeal of packages, but it is actually... good. Let me defend myself before I need to:

1) Intuitioning for Worm Harvest, Loam, and Raven's Crime is a beaut. You can also snag two wastelands and a loam if your mana supports it and its time to lock your opponent completely out. Many options.

2) Worm Harvest is an alternative win condition in itself. Not only is it nearly impossible for people to deal with once loam is online, creating an overwhelming board position to swarm in for the kill or take care of opposing Jaces, but it also fogs all non-flyers (even killing them by ganging up!) all day long.

3) Raven's Crime is absurd against any control decks and any decks you want to maximize your Deeds on. If you have a deeds on board and the Crime/Loam engine up, you can put your opponent into topdeck mode so that they must play what they draw or end up discarding it, which maximizes your Deeds.

4) It's fun. A lot of fun. Tired of simply Fatesealing? Want to overrun someone with 1/1 B/G Worms instead, all while stripping their hand and wastelocking them? Well, me too. Plus, Raven's Crimeing and Worm Harvesting for the win makes for a good story.

I think this package is actually supportable now, as we have a solid MM and counter package frame to work with.

Without further ado:

SomethingwittyStill (even though we don't run Standstill?)

CORE suite: 15
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Ancestral Visions
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm

COUNTER suite: 12
4 Mental Misstep
2 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

REMOVAL suite: 4
1 Smother
1 Innocent Blood
2 Maelstrom Pulse

NUMMY suite: 5
2 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
1 Raven's Crime

LANDS: 24
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Undergound Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest

Current Sideboard

2 Damnation
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Spell Pierce
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Darkblast
3 Thoughtsieze
3 Extirpate
1 Spell Snare


Sideboard can use tweaking. Darkblast is a great intuition target against a fair number of decks, but the intuition package could possible see more exploration in the side.

Considering running +1 Academy Ruins and +1 Zoran Orb for burn/aggro, as you typically stablize at about 3-4 life, which is yucky. Could also toss in a needle in there, too, but then I feel we've gotten greedy.

So everyone knows, here's what I cut for the Intuition package:

-1 Life from the Loam
-1 Pernicious Deed
-1 Spell Snare
-1 Go for the Throat

After testing and playing it, I will attest that the deck doesn't loose much by trimming those cards, but rather gains consistency with the Intuition lockout package... no longer relying on establishing Jace is nice, as we're able to approach winning from multiple angles.

Cheers!

[metamet]

I should also note that I lost to Burn on the bubble with this deck (sans the Intuition package) at GP KC for the side event last weekend. I then made adjustments and took top 4 in a weekly 40-man here last night, losing to a bursty Zoo deck after stablizing at 1 life.

Had I had Orb to gain back some life, I feel I would've been just fine. Same against Burn. May be too slow, as I wouldn't be able to get it online until t4 at the absolute earliest (relying on Intuition), but that's about when the deck usually wants to not die.

Any thoughts on other artifacts that'd make the Ruins splash worth it?

I'll likely be playing this weekend in the big 1.5 where I'm from, which usually tracks a large crowd (as prizes are Duals and FoWs).

I also just realized the possibility of playing utility lands to compliment Intuition/Loam. Might not be worth it at all, as Maze and Karakas are the others lands that come to mind, but hey. Now's the time to fool around with goofy things and see what works. Like Worm Harvest.

[Lim-Dul]

I am playing an avarage BUG-Still list for ages now. i am happy to see that this deck is doing better lately.. it wasent always like this in the past..:-(

i am just addapting it to changeing meta (for example adding the pulse to fight the SFM.dec) in my store from time to time...and adding MM for obviouse resaons :-)

Draw (13):
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
3 JTMS
2 LftL

Counters (14):
4 MM
4 FoW
3 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell

Removals (10):
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Smother
1 GftT

Lands (23):
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Undergound Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

SB (15):
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Damnation
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Smother
1 GftT
3 Engineered Plague -> i am very unhappy with these slots, but i dont know what else. EP can be very good, but it seams that i am the only one playing this card in the Sb. lots of deck have 3 Thoughtseize in these slot. whats the reason? just to improve the combo MU?

could anyone explain why he is playing the Thoughtseize? Experiance? i can see them being really good, but does this deck really need it?

[honestabe]

If you're going to run Intuition, just pay the 1 more mana and run Gifts. I've been continually impressed with it in this deck, and it's the stoneblade with Regrowth, loam, and retrace cards.

[Lim-Dul]

We had a small legacy event this week and i started with 2-0 untill i had to play against Gobos and Burn. I lost both games 1-2 and finished with 2-2 and went home frustrated...:cry:

I could have won the gobo match, but in g2 and g3 my lands where hideing from me. Only the mishras-factorys where showing up :eyebrow: But i think i have to consider some SB slots for this particular MU. Especially because the gobo was able to bring in 8 REB/Pryoblast from the SB!!! Suggestions?

Against Burn i made a horrible mistake in g1 which gave him the win. In g2 i was able to control him and kill him with the Cliques. G3 was very tight, he killed me the turn before i could have killed him. But i realized that i need the have a very good hand/draw to win this MU. Any SB suggestin for this MU?

Or should i just add some Blue Elemental Blasts to improve the MU against all red decks?

[Theonlyone]

Have you tried 3x kitchen finks in the SB?

[honestabe]

I run 4 Engineered Plagues, 2 Kitchen Finks and 1 Beb, and I haven't been having a problem with Burn, Merfolk or Goblins

[motormaster]

I've been running 1x Nev's Disk main and 1x in the SB lately... it doesn't kill Jace, and serves nicely as a "Blood Moon-immune" Deed.

I've also added 1x Mutavault to the usual manabase. I did this primarily to up my land-count to 25, and it's been treating me well.

I'll also vouch for the BEB's. They can help solve some tough matchups, and also kold Blood Moons.

[Reagens]

Has anyone tried vampire nighthawk yet as a sideboard option instead of kitchen finks. I have been playing the UW(x) version of landstill for ages and was very happy with finks both against zoo and merfolk. But nighthawk seems interesting as well and puts the same strain on your manabase as finks.
I understand that finks has a CiP that is always useful whereas nighthawk needs to block or attack to be useful. On the other hand nighthawk has evasion and kills everything it blocks and thus acts as removal for big threats. It is also immune to grim lavamancer which is huge in my opinion. Is the printing of misstep enough to protect it long enough to be a real contender for a SB slot in UBG landstill? Is the extra versatility it brings worth it?

[honestabe]

It's been my expierience that nighthawk kills 1 goblin/merfolk and gains 2 life. Kinks kills 2 goblins/merfolk and gains 4 life

[toor]

Split and Got 2nd at my last 2 legacy tournaments with this deck.

2 Creeping Tar Pits
3 Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Delta
1 Verdant
1 Misty
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Tropical island
3 Underground Sea

4 Jace TMS
4 FoW
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
4 Mental Misstep
3 Standstill
1 GftT
1 Dismember
1 Innocent Blood
1 Smother
4 Brainstorm
3 Deed
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest

SB:
3 Vendillion Clique
3 Thoughtseize
2 Extirpate *wouldn't mind a third over Thoughtseize
2 Krosan Grip
2 Innocent Blood
1 Go for the THroat
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Damnation

Deck felt close to perfect. The maindeck shackles and intuitions make a huge difference against batterskull and jace decks. Depending on your meta I could see cutting Krosan Grips for GY or Hive Mind Hate ( don't really exist in my area).

[metamet]

Nice! What're your typical Intuition targets? Loam, Harvest, Land?

I've been loving Raven's Crime. A little slow, obviously, but it stops decks from rebuilding momentum late game and do so much good in the mirror.

[Gix]

Funny Suggestion as I hear people talking about possible creature includes like Tombstalker and tarmogoyf, which seems okay in decks that don't play Humility.

Has anyone ever considered.... "Here's Jhonny!!?"
http://www.mtgmintcard.com/images/products/351/MAGIC-THE-GATHERING-ODYSSEY-PSYCHATOG-ODYU067.jpg

It's been a while, but I used to play this guy in legacy all the time, and the deck then was a very similar concept to Landstill except it did not run Standstills. Life from the Loam made a really neat addition to the deck, which a lot of the suggested builds seem to be running now- mainly because you loamed to get lonely sandbars and cephalid coliseum and this guy just got lethal fast. Like landstill, it was a deck that rain Pernicious Deed and a bunch of counterspells and removal.

Some potential advantages include:
Psychatog gets +5/+5 with every Landstill break
Psychatog gets +6/+6 with every Fact or Fiction resolution
Life from the Loam makes him utterly sick.
People do not swing their goyfs into an untapped psychatog, because tog wins the wrestling match on most occasions - he's Moat for 1UB
People always block psychatog, forcing them to sacrfice a creature - he's The Abyss for 1UB
If Psychatog attacks and is not blocked, he can end the game in a single turn giving opponents less of a chance to draw out.
Jace, Deed, and copious removal spells help get to the point where tog can attack unblocked.
Gives advantage in mirror match when opponent sides out removal or does not have as fast of a kill condition.

Some possible concerns:
Playing any creature in landstill forces one to cut answers from the main deck
Playing Psychatog may force one to run specific cards that are good with psychatog, cutting more landstill staples
Tog must be protected by counterspells
One must spend stifles on things like Tormod's Crypt
His boost is temporary while other creature options are always the size they are
You can't be a whimp and not attack with him when he's leathal.

------------------------------------------------------------------

U.Deck, I'd play Edict any day, unless you want to lose to natural order or show and tell. Edict does the job against most creatures, even small ones, and reduces the amount of damage you'd take even if something like Wild Nacatal is sacrificed instead of a tarmogoyf.

[metamet]

Has anyone had any success with playing Creeping Tar Pit?

Since I'm running an Intuition package, I've also been tampering with playing Academy Ruins and something along the lines of EE (and perhaps Zuran Orb in the side).

Any thoughts or experiments?

[Shawn]

I've been running one instead of a 3rd Factory to reduce the likeliness of stumbling on too many colorless lands in my four color build and I really like it. It's also awesome in a stalemated board or against other Jace decks. It's more mana-intensive, but generally you don't want to be attacking with Factories early anyway.

[god_campbell]

I defiantly feel tar-pit should be a 1 of as the fifth manland, as it adds another win con and source of u/b mana which will help color consistency.

[Razorwynd]

I defiantly feel tar-pit should be a 1 of as the fifth manland, as it adds another win con and source of u/b mana which will help color consistency.

I 100% agree

[den_rudy]

After playing merfolk for over 2 years (resulting in lots of top 8th's) I recently switched to this deck. Because junk & maverick isn't merfolks favorite matchup.
I ended 2nd with following list

Deck
# Card Name # Card Name

4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest
3 tropical island
3 underground sea
2 island
1 swamp
1 wasteland
4 mishra's factory
2 mutavault


3 spell snare
4 metall misstep
2 counter spell
4 force of will
1 dismember
1 diabolic edict
4 Jace the mind sculptor
1 life from the loam
3 pernicious deed
4 standstill
4 brainstorm
1 maelstorm pulse
1 repeal
1 smother
1 innocent blood
1 Go for the throath


Total # of cards in deck: 60

Sideboard
# Card Name # Card Name
1 batterskull 1 nihil spellbomb
2 extirpate 1 explosives
1 hydroblast 3 thoughtseize
3 vendilion-clique 1 ghastly demise
1 pernicious deed 1 Relic of progenitus

Didn't used the batterskull/hydroblast cause no merfolk/goblins/zoo matchup

This were my matches

Round 1: White staxs 2-0
Round 2: Maverik 2-0
Round 3: Standard still 2-0
Id: Maverik
Id: Ichorid

Quarter: Rock: 2-0
Semi: Maverik 2-0
Finals: Ant 1-2

Only lost 2 games in this tournamant, was realy happy with the list.

[Hanni]

In regards to Intuition/Loam, it really defines the deck it's played in, and as you continue to optimize your Landstill deck with it, the deck will eventually become another deck altogether. I've tried to run Standstill and Intuition in the same deck before, and ultimately, I ended up just building a straight Intuition/Loam Control deck without the Standstill's.

In regards to the black splash specifically, one really needs to question if Pernicious Deed is worth running over Engineered Explosives, when you have access to Academy Ruins. Intuition for Loam/Ruins/EE sets up a pretty powerful removal engine. At that point, the white splash offers Swords to Plowshares, and it becomes a really difficult to justify staying in black. Especially if you run Mox Diamond, which you likely should be.

There is no denying the power of Intuition/Loam powering out Worm Harvest tokens, though.

In regards to Psychatog: with no evasion, no shroud, no recurrability... Worm Harvest is just a vastly superior win condition that is tutorable and nearly impossible to deal with once it gets going.

[The Treefolk Master]

Hanni, would you care to share a list for the Intuition/Loam control deck? It sounds fun

[Hanni]

Well... I haven't messed around with the deck in quite a while, so the list I have on my MWS is a little dated.

I did some minor updating to it, but I still haven't worked in any Mental Missteps yet (although I'm not sure if the deck actually needs them).

U/G/W ILC

Intuition/Loam Control

// Lands (24)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [R] Tropical Island
3 [R] Tundra
2 [R] Savannah
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Forest
1 [UNH] Plains
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [TE] Wasteland

// Spells (36)
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
3 [5E] Wrath of God
3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [SH] Mox Diamond

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 4 [WL] Peacekeeper
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [JU] Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [LG] Karakas

The list is still a little rough. I'm sure a Zuran Orb in the sideboard is likely necessary, for example.

It's obviously nothing remotely close to Landstill at all, which means this is the wrong thread for it, but there you go.

[kiblast]

I'd like to hear some serious advice (by people who actually tested the cards,sadly I don't have enough time lately) regarding the playability, strenghts and weaknesses of the following tweaks (seen on TCdecks):

-1 Jace the mind Sculptor + 1 Liliana Vess (I know it seems a strange and standardish choice, but I carefully thought about it and the built-in double Vampiric Tutor seems really good, while the fatality screams GG against almost any aggro/aggrocontrol deck currently played.)

-1 Deed, +1 Vedalken Shackles ( while Shackles are powerful in almost all U-based control decks, I'm afraid that 4 Wastelands and 5 Manlands might mitigate their power too much. I'd say they're good in the tribal matchup, but then isn't the 4th Deed straight up better? Also I hate to loose permanents to my own Deed @ 3-4.)

[Goddik]

Play 4 Jace, you win almost every game in which you resolve him, so you want him on turn 4 every game. Liliana is just a worse version for a mana more.

Cutting a deed is certainly possible, i ran 3 deeds for quite awhile but has started adding the 4th back in as it is so essential against merfolk. I don't think shackles can really compensate as it is a bit too slow. I might be wrong on that one though, so by all means test it out ;). 4th deed is not a holy cow, it is just incredibly good.

4 jaces and 4 standstills are though.

[kiblast]

Play 4 Jace



Cutting a deed is certainly possible, i ran 3 deeds for quite awhile but has started adding the 4th back in as it is so essential against merfolk. I don't think shackles can really compensate as it is a bit too slow.


Jace is broken, Deed is good against tribal. K. Substantially what pag. 1-60 say.

Now somebody else who actually tested Liliana and Shackles?

[jandax]

Yeah I have a miser Shackles maindeck. You can sand bag it or run it out as bait. It can help out, or it can be a dead card. Liliana I haven't tested but I can see paying five mana for that would or could be better than Shackles+activate. At least Liliana isn't conditional.

[toor]

Have now played 5 tournaments in the last 8 weeks where the prize pool was $400+.
top 2ed two. Split another today. 2 losses playing for top 8 (one was pre worm harvest).

Spicy little brew today:
// Deck file for Magic Workstation

// Lands
3 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Polluted Delta
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Forest

// Spells
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Spell Snare
1 Innocent Blood
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Life from the Loam
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Intuition
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Mental Misstep
1 Smother
1 Worm Harvest
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Thoughtseize
1 Go for the Throat
3 Cunning Wish
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Misdirection

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Intuition
SB: 1 Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Innocent Blood
SB: 3 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 1 Consume the Meek
SB: 1 Stifle
SB: 1 Forbid
SB: 1 Fact or Fiction
SB: 1 Darkblast

I was trying two things with this deck. The obvious Cunning Wish Package. And also making myself immune to Spell Snare (hence thoughtseize over counterspell). Both worked out pretty well today. I lost to GW getting manascrewed but beat him handily in the top 8. Beat a couple of merfolk/bant decks as well. Only problem was winning in time.

I remain convinced that you are doing it wrong if you don't have at least one tarpit. If there are Jaces deck in the area, Harvest + Intuitions are a must. If there are batterskulls, Shackles is better then Deed. Go deed if there are more swarm decks. My meta is mostly blue control/aggro with a lack of non-creature combo (making this the perfect choice).

[Omega]

I finished 6th-8th in a tournament with around 36-40 persons. (4-1-1 in the swiss, and lost in the rounds of 8 against a NO deck)

1) 2-0 against Loam deck. My opponent said I was lucky to win because his deck was supposed to eat control deck. Tombstalker put him severely under pressure.

2)1-1 against Dredge. He plays a discard creature on his turn one (1 white for a 1/1, discard a card +0/+4). For some reason, I let it pass and decide to waste one of his land on my turn one. He then proceeds to discard creatures and win the game. Should I have not wasted his land, I would have been able to destroy his creature on my turn 2. His dredges weren't good, but my stupid move of turn 1 costed me the game for sure.
Game 2, I just play some extirpate here and there, and land a relic of progenitus. He is so slowed but I can't find any kill condition. Finally, I play my pernicious deed, and use it at 0 to destroy his tokens. A missplay from his side allows me to take this game.
Game 3 : he dredges alot and I just remove his ichorid from the game, and also some of his dredgers (mistake from me). His narcoemoba are beating me though. Time is called. He can kill me. But instead of attacking, he dread return on the 'vindicate creature' and aim my mishra's, which I turn into a creature to remove his remaining bridges. Should he have attacked before sacrificing the 1/1 flying to the flashback, he would have dropped my life enough to kill me with the vindicate creature.

3) 2-0 against BW stoneforge deck
Game one, I stop him from getting the early stoneforge out but gets destroyed by his hymn to tourach. However, topdecked tombstalker + pernicious allow me to win the game!

Game 2, Standstill early + him being mana screwed by my wasteland give me a huge boost early on. However, he breaks the landstill with double hymn, I'm losing pretty much all the card I've drawn (I drew 0 counterspell). I have no choice but to go all-in with my tombstalker (because he had 5 cards, against my 3). I use my wasteland to bring him down to 3 mana and play my tombstalker. For the 3 next turns, he attempts to destroy my Tombstalker. Each time, I save him with a topdecked counterspell. Finally, a vindicate wins the war of attrition. He's down on three life. I drop the Jace and start sealing the game. He decides to go all in with a dark confidant!! I check his top with Jace, its a 3cc card. I leave it on top. He reveals it and die to his own Bob.

4) 0-2 against Basalt monolith + mesmeric orb combo deck. First time playing against such a deck. His discard + counter win him both game.

5) 2-1 against a friend playing UBW stoneforge deck.
Game 1, a deed cleans the board, and my counter prevent any spell from being played. 2 standstill make hims surrender.

Game 2 : He starts the game with a chrome mox + land and a turn 1 stoneforge for a batterskull, turn 2 batterskull with SFM ability. I lose the game shortly after. Damn you spell snare, why can't you be free?

Game 3 : I manage to set up a Life from the loam + wasteland lock early on, shutting him down to his mox and 2 basic lands. Tombstalker + a standstill seal the game.

6) I'm 3-1-1 now, and can't make top 8 unless I win. So we play the final game. I 2-0 against a BW stoneforge deck. He plays an early stoneforge that resolves for a Batterskull. He then plays it on his turn 3 (mistake, he should wait to play at end of my turn...). I maestrom pulse it. He beats me down to 11 life with his stoneforge (he is mana screwed, only having access to 1 plain and 1 swamp, all his non basic died to wasteland) and I manage to finally stabilize with a tombstalker.

Game 2 was one of the greatest game today. He plays turn 1 thoughtseize removing my spell snare, turn 2 hymn to tourach. I had the option of forcing, or not. I decide to force, because I had a deed, 2-3 land and tombstalker that could be useful. He hymn again on his turn, removing both my tombstalker and pernicious deed, leaving me with lands. The path is free, he plays a stoneforge for his batterskull. With it, he manages to land 2 succesful hit before I stabilize with life from the loam + wasteland + mishra's to block. I destroy his equiped creature, but I'm down on 3 life though. So I decide to throw down a standstill. I have 2 mishra's factory, against a stoneforge and a 2/2 (remove a card from my hand when it comes into play). Seeing how the board was somehow at my advantage, he breaks my standstill on his turn because most of my mana was tapped. But the standstill gives me too much power. I deed at 2 on my turn to clean everything the board, including the chrome mox. A tombstalker end the game shortly after.

Top 8, I play against NO deck. Game one, he wins because I played too safe early on (fetching basics with my 2 fetches) and played blindly into Daze (lost my standstill to it). Should I have kept my mana open, I would had 2 open blue source to try and stop his turn 3 sylvan library. Turn 3 sylvan library pass. He draws during the next 3 turns a total of 9 cards (losing 12 lifes to sylvan library). He then plays the most ridiculous Tarmogoyf army backed by 3 force of will. I lose.

Game 2, I start the game with a strong hand. Play a turn 1 land and pass the turn. On his turn 1, he tries to play Noble hierarch. Because of Daze fear, I use the alternate cost to misstep and try to counter. He misstep mine so it pass. I then try to be greedy and play a turn 2 standstill that is dazed (Damn). Turn 3, I play a waste, smother his creature and then waste his land. He is down on 1 land. I play the Tombstalker and manage to land a few hit before losing it to a STP. I decide to not waste my countermagic to protect the Tombstalker. I had more lands than him, and more cards. His only way of winning is NO into progenitus. I try to stop any creature from staying alive. In total, I've countered 2 NO, and used my perish to destroy the third NO that passed. He gg

Game 3, I keep a greedy 1 land, 1 wasteland 1 brainstorm hand with a force, mental misstep, jace and standstill.. I play a turn 1 land, turn 2 wasteland + stanstill. He red blast it, I mental misstep, he mental misstep, I FOW it removing my Jace, he fows in return. At this point, my only relevent card is Brainstorm. Turn 3, I draw no land. Cast brainstorm, find 2 tropical island and a maestrom pulse, not what I needed. For the next few turns, I draw blindly bad cards. He doesn't do much neither. He finally plays a brainstorm to play 2 tarmogoyf. and start pressuring me. I'm down on 5 life, his next attack will kill me. So I make an insane play, yet the only one that can save me. I play a vendilion clique at the end of his turn. We fight a bit over the clique with some counters. I win the war and use Clique on me!! I remove one of the card and put it on the bottom, pray to get a swamp. Don't get it. So its now my turn. If i do not draw a black mana, I'm dead. If I draw one, he loses everything (our battle over the vendilion clique exhausted his hand too). I draw, its not a swamp. I lose the game :(


Here's the list

lands : 24
4 mishra's factory
3 wasteland
4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest
2 island
1 swamp
1 forest
3 underground sea
2 tropical island

Removal 9
1 maelstrom pulse
2 go for the throat
1 smother
1 diabolic edict
4 pernicious deed

Draw 9
4 brainstorm
4 standstill
1 fact or fiction

counterspell 14
4 force of will
4 mental misstep
3 spell snare
3 counterspell

kill 6
2 jace the mind sculptor
2 TOMBSTALKER
2 life from the loam

Yep, 62 cards. I wasn't sure what to cut, and just threw in some random cards because I was missing : 2x jace, creeping tar field... So I threw in 2 tombstalker and a fact or fiction... and to my surprise, Tombstalker was MVP all day. Should tombstalker have been Jace in these games, I feel I would have lost at least 2-3 of the games played.

So... am I crazy, or should we play Tombstalker in Landstill? Having a 4 turn clock, another win condition seem to have worked for me

[god_campbell]

Hmm Tombstalker sounds spicy, I'll have to test 1 or 2 and see how I like them, but as to running 62 cards, I would have cut the fact or fiction and 1 life from the Loam.
I am not a big fan of multiple Loams unless your aggro loam.

[Jay_Gatz]

A friend suggested I try out 2 of Explore in my list.

4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Mental Misstep
2 Spell snare
4 Brainstorm
2 Go for the Throat
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Dismember
2 Life from the Loam
2 Explore
3 Jace, The Mindsculptor
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Standstill
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Creeping tarpit

SB is currently
4 Dark Confidant
3 Thoughtseize
2 Perish
2 Extirpate
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Krosan Grip

Thoughts?

[honestabe]

Ive tried explore, it's crap. Just doesn't do enough

[Shimi]

Ive tried explore, it's crap. Just doesn't do enough

Agree.. of course you can do some wired things with Explore on T2 but it sucks many times when you are without greenmana or under pressure.

[Hanni]

For those who are running Intuition, I question why you wouldn't just play a deck built around that engine instead of trying to combine it with Standstill. Standstill + manlands is a great engine. However, much like how Standstill is much better in a shell that is built around it, Intuition/Loam is much better in a shell that is built around it.

[Jay_Gatz]

Yeah, explore didn't pan out as well as I had hoped. Any input on Goyfs vs Bobs in the board?

[Omega]

For those who are running Intuition, I question why you wouldn't just play a deck built around that engine instead of trying to combine it with Standstill. Standstill + manlands is a great engine. However, much like how Standstill is much better in a shell that is built around it, Intuition/Loam is much better in a shell that is built around it.

I agree with Hanni. Intuition may not be what this deck needs. However, Life from the Loam, much like COW, allows you to stabilize your mana base. I am liking Loam more and more. The ability of getting 3 lands for the cost of 2 is huge. Plus, it can work well with a brainstorm!

Robert

[kiwi]

Im starting to play this deck, but I have a problem with the match againts burn, I think that with this deck Im a bye vs burn, whats the solution for solving the problem againts burning decks ?

[Maëlig]

For those who are running Intuition, I question why you wouldn't just play a deck built around that engine instead of trying to combine it with Standstill. Standstill + manlands is a great engine. However, much like how Standstill is much better in a shell that is built around it, Intuition/Loam is much better in a shell that is built around it.

Thing is, you might want to side the intuition package out g2/3 if GY-hate comes in. You can't do that if you devote too many slots to it.
Opinions on the thopter-sword combo in an intuition build, in addition or instead of worm harvest?

[Ajsmirnov]

Im starting to play this deck, but I have a problem with the match againts burn, I think that with this deck Im a bye vs burn, whats the solution for solving the problem againts burning decks ?

You can do nothing, unless you can afford to keep 4 Blue elemental blasts in sideboard. But it's better to ignore a bad matchup against Burn.
Or side 4 Goyfs and try to race them. Not the best idea, but might work.

Playing against burn I usually die to Price of progress + Red elemental blast, even thinking I've stabilized.

[Antonius]

has anyone tried switching over to Visions and then reducing (or removing) factory to strengthen the mana base?

Also, thopter-sword with intuition/loam sounds hot as fuck. Add in ruins/ee and you might just be on to something. Or it might just be too slow to compete, but you never know...

[metamet]

Cheers everyone!

Hope all is well. I've made a few developments--and have a few brainstorms--to throw around with this deck.

I've definitely gone more in the direction of an Intuition package. I pushed Worm Harvest/Raven's Crime/Loam for a while, and still stand by that, but I've also squeezed in an Academy Ruins/Engineered Explosives to the main.

Overkill? I'm not sure yet... but it has won me many a game where I would've lost.

Now I'm onto tinkering with Ancient Tomb.

With more emphasis on Intuition and Jace TMS, Ancient Tomb is bombdigity. Dropping a t3 Jace or a t2 Intuition can be absolutely amazing. I've brewed up this list, but I haven't tested it as much as I'd like. I am going to ring it out on Thursday.

I've been unimpressed with Mishra's Factories lately. I think Ancient Tomb is a better option there.

With that, however, the loss of life can be harsh, even though you can lock and stablize much quicker (note: Ancient Tomb helps with blowing up a big deeds and popping an EE immediately as well). I've been tossing around the Thopter Sword combo, but I don't know how viable it is here.

For example, what do you Intuition for? Academy Ruins, Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek? What if they give you the Sword? You're now really needing a Loam in order to go off... which you may or may not have. That said, Worm Harvest can be a little slow and I think Thopter Sword helps stablize so much more, especially with the lifegain.

I think Gifts is a little too slow... but Ancient Tomb may be a way to argue that.

I've also decided to try out Daze instead of Counterspell/Spell Snare, as people have come to no expect Daze, and when it's a Jace Race, Daze can be a blow out if you don't have two Blue or a FoW. Sure, it sets out tempo back because of the land bounce, but I think Tomb will help counter that.

Anyway, current list:

Still BUG by Tyler Tyssedal (you know, because there isn't any Standstill... haruh har!)

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Ancestral Visions
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm

COUNTER suite: 11
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
4 Force of Will

REMOVAL suite: 3
1 Innocent Blood
2 Maelstrom Pulse

NUMMY suite: 7
3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
1 Raven's Crime
1 Engineered Explosives

LANDS: 25
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Undergound Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins

61 Total (oofta...)

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Ancestral Visions
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm

COUNTER suite: 11
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
4 Force of Will

REMOVAL suite: 3
1 Innocent Blood
2 Maelstrom Pulse

NUMMY suite: 7
3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
1 Raven's Crime
1 Engineered Explosives

LANDS: 25
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Undergound Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins

15 Total


Since I believe that moving the deck further into the Intuition direction, perhaps now's the time to completely reproach the deck. Here are a few things I've been tossing around:

- Dark Confidant (duh)
- Mox Diamond (couple with Bob, Ancient Tomb, Intuition, Jace... yup, might be worth it)
- Volrath's Stronghold/Eternal Witness (get back that lost Jace/Deed/whatever)
- Torpor Orb (in side for Burn, but Thopter Sword might be better)
- Bojuka Bog / Artifact GY hate (Intuitionable hate, power it out T2 with Tombed Intuition)
- Vedalken Shackles (with Ruins as an Intuition target)
- Thopter/Sword Combo (with Ruins/Loam) // Gifts Ungiven?
- Sword of X & X (might be good to Intuition for, especially if you have a Bob or tokens... a little slow)
- Crucible of the Worlds (Intuition for Crucible/Loam/Academy Ruins can speed up a Waste-lock)

But these thoughts come back to this: Jace is amazing. Deeds is fantastic for stablizing. Ancestral Vision is absurd card draw. Counterspells are good.

Thoughts? I will keep brewing with this, even though it's being heavily weened off of the traditional DeedStill lists. Maybe even write an article on it here soon.

[xfxf]

How do you guys compare Ubg Standstill decks to UW Blade control decks in terms of pros and cons? SFM is strong against aggro but so is Pernicious Deed, is the difference in their combo mathcups? Why is the increase in SFM decks in SCG open series, does Ubg have obvious weaknesses to be the lesser control deck or is it just that it's games take longer and people prefer not to play with it in tournaments?

[Lim-Dul]

what do you think about the new lilian? i can see her fitting in the deck quite well.

she is a edict and maybe even a repetable edict. if you get one creatur and she dies after that is ok too for three mana.

and with the loam it should be possible to discard lands to make her grow.

lilly together with jace on the borad is the nuts..allmost double CA and nothing is going to stay on the board..


sure she doesnt win and she is not the bomb under the standstill, but as a edict that might live on.. as a oneof..

and this way jace would have a girl to play :-)

[lordofthepit]

Black creature removal is obviously more conditional and restrictive than the most frequently played removal spell in the format (i.e. Swords to Plowshares), and I've seen compelling arguments for diversifying the removal suite for this reason.

Is there anything resembling a "standard" removal suite? I noticed PVDDR ran Innocent Blood, Diabolic Edict, Smother, Dismember, and GftT at Providence.

[Goddik]

In the current meta counterspell is far superior to spell snare, you don't really need the tempo, but you do need to counter cliques, jaces, GSZ for 2, Knights etc. SFM can be dealt with by your removal package. Reanimator is a real deck so the edict effects should be diabolic rather then blood so you can dodge misstep and kille their jin-gitaxis instant speed. Dismember has been awesome and i currently run 2-2-1 edict, dismember, demise.

I am quite happy with visions. The decks seems substantially less broken with it, but i want a card advantage engine i can rely on.

New liliana seems awesome, but we need to reemagine the deck with her in mind.

[fallenphoenix]

What do you guys board in against Zoo?
I find that MU harder than I imagined, especially since a lot of effects cost life to pay (Force, MMS, Dismember, Fetches) and you have no way to regain any of it. I also don't see any SB-cards around here that solve that issue.
A quick search has brought up the follwing playables:
- Kitchen Finks (which I already tried but GG is somewhat prohibitive)
- Obstinate Baloth/Ravenous Baloth (see Finks)
- Consuming Vapors (also has other applications as a solution to Progenitus/Winrakul)
- Vampire Nighthawk (Bolt, duh. Also, lifegain the turn after you play sth might be too slow)
- Selkie Hedge-Mage (somewhat durdly if you don't get 2 Forest and worse than Finks if you can't bounce... so i'd pass on that one)
- Zuran Orb/Dark Heart of the Wood (Zuran is tutorable with Tolaria West, but saccing lands still seems bad, as mana-restrictions are an issue vs Zoo)
- Ivory Tower (most swingy card, worst topdeck and also no immediate lifegain)

I'd say 1-2 Finks and 1 Vapors for now.

How do you approach the Zoo-MU?

Btw here is the full list, before anyone asks:

3 Jace the Mindsculptor

2 Life from the Loam
3 Compulsive Research
4 Brainstorm

2 Diabolic Edict
1 Go for the Throat
2 Dismember
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Damnation

3 Spell Snare
4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
1 Mana Leak

1 Tolaria West
1 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tarpit
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest

SB:
3 Cliques
some discard
some counterstuff
etc...

[Jim Higginbottom]

compulsive research is awful. where is standstill?

[fallenphoenix]

Standstill is awful, therefore Compulsive Research, which is not :)
That is just my opinion and needless to discuss, as I have played with both Standstill and Visions and just don't like them very much currently.

[Benie Bederios]

Standstill is awful, therefore Compulsive Research, which is not :)
That is just my opinion and needless to discuss, as I have played with both Standstill and Visions and just don't like them very much currently.

Can you elaborate a bit more about Compulsive Research? I can understand your point about Standstill and Visions, but I don't understand how Compulsive Research fills the hole. I understand it's nice if you have Loam online. But then it's still a draw 2 for 3 mana at Sorcery speed. If you didn't say life was an issue, Sign in Blood is better.

Have you tried Fact or Fiction? One mana more, digs 2 cards deeper and is an instant. Or add Sensei's Divining Top and try something like Predict, which can draw 2 cards to and mess up with topdecktutors from your opponent.

If I look at your build, playing Intuition wouldn't be a strange choice too. You're deck is terribly close to ITF.

But if I'm really honest, play Standstill, that card is amazing. Wins the game against bad players, and next to Visions it's the better topdeck (allthough not perfect.)

[Julian23]

To be fair, cards that are good against bad players is not what we're looking for. Standstill is subpar against quite a lot of decks in the current metagame. That's why a lot of people adopted Visions.

I tried 2 Predict in the past and really liked them with 4 Brainstorm 4 Jace TMS. However, I went back to Visions now because it provides the most raw power...not saying that I'm completly satisfied with it.

[fallenphoenix]

Can you elaborate a bit more about Compulsive Research?

But if I'm really honest, play Standstill, that card is amazing. Wins the game against bad players, and next to Visions it's the better topdeck (allthough not perfect.)

I already did that somewhere on page 56 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?9413-Deck-UBGx-Landstill&p=557934&viewfull=1#post557934).

Standstill is far from amazing against anything with a decent amount of creatures or manlands or wastelands and/or a good pilot behind it (which is about 90% of the metagame for me). I've lost several games to Standstill being Standstill.

From a more general point of view, what you want to when running a draw spell in a controldeck is: Refill your hand when out of answers, get ahead of your opponent and dig for specific answers.
Both Standstill and Visions are awesome in this department if they work and pretty much dead if they don't. Compulsive Research is fine when it works and never a dead card, easily the best topdeck of the three and digs just as deep when you need to find something specific.
3 mana is a little bit on the costly side, but still affordable as long as your answers are cheap. Basically it's a lot like TfK without having to warp your deck to play a bunch of artifacts.

[xfxf]

So what do you guys think happens to UBG Landstill after the Mental Misttep ban? Do you think we can use Spell Snares and Spell Pierces as 2of 3of replacements and still succeed in the new meta (somewhat a mystery currently)?

[god_campbell]

I think a switch to more spell snares/counter spells will be sufficient and we can adept our removal suite to the new metagame.

[ScatmanX]

So what do you guys think happens to UBG Landstill after the Mental Misttep ban? Do you think we can use Spell Snares and Spell Pierces as 2of 3of replacements and still succeed in the new meta (somewhat a mystery currently)?
Before MM the deck run something like 2-3 Snares and 2-3 Pierces. I guess it'll go back to that.

[Impulze9]

How about throw Daze in there?

[Shimi]

Before MM the deck run something like 2-3 Snares and 2-3 Pierces. I guess it'll go back to that.

I think we should rise the number of removal spells(maybe add 1of new liliana) and some tool to deal with CB/Vial/Zoo(EE could fit both slots).This decks was very good before MM.. it just had a terrible goblins matchup.. it won't be too popular because without MM it becames a much more dificult deck to pilot in a vial metagame.

[SpikeyMikey]

Really liking Liliana in testing. She's not game-breaking, but she's all around solid. Since Landstill gets a lot of mileage out of either draw (Visions/Standstill) or wipe (Deed/EE), you generally have more shit in hand to pitch than they do, meaning that you really can use her every turn and net value.

[Koby]

Hey Spikey, how many are you running in your list? I was going to start off my testing with a pair.

[RJM]

Hey Spikey, how many are you running in your list? I was going to start off my testing with a pair.

I've been running a pair, and it's popped up most of the time when I wanted it. I also dropped Jace down to 3 copies instead of my former 4. Partly to make room for lil' Lil, and partly because I don't think 4x Jace is a good choice since the format is a little faster again post-Misstep ban. I found an early Jace was now more often clogging my hand while I was fighting to stabilize.

The two of them on board at the once though... is just so game breaking 95% of the time... I really want to see them starting ~turn 4 whenever possible. It's just a balancing act of leaving in enough answers to faster cards to make sure you CAN get to them though. I don't think I've ever lost a game when they both stuck though, that I can recall.

[juppal]

Playing standstills is the correct choice as is playing goyfs and bobs in the board for the aether vial MU, the bobs are good for anything non aggro. For the aether vial match, board out counterspell for goyfs, laying a goyf + standstill is devastating. For combo, board out targeted removal and board in bobs.

[RJM]

Playing standstills is the correct choice as is playing goyfs and bobs in the board for the aether vial MU, the bobs are good for anything non aggro. For the aether vial match, board out counterspell for goyfs, laying a goyf + standstill is devastating. For combo, board out targeted removal and board in bobs.

Really seems like you're filling up your SB with creatures, and not giving yourself enough room for anything else.

[RJM]

Pretty quiet in here. No one brewing on this deck since the MM ban? We were doing ok before it was printed, I think we should still have options now.

This is approximately the build I've been working with lately:

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

4 Standstill
3 Pernicious Deed

1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
2 Innocent Blood

4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
2 Intuition
1 Go for the Throat
1 Dismember
1 Smother
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Pierce

2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea

SB: 3 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Innocent Blood
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 Ghastly Demise


I think what I'd really like to fit in still from testing, is some more targeted discard, 2-3 Flusterstorm in the SB, & a basic forest (-1 Tar Pit?) for the one or two times when a savvy opponent has been able to keep me off green even just for Life from the Loam.

It also has some problems against resolved opposing planeswalkers. I had to work extra hard just to remove an Elspeth that slipped in under counter-magic in a recent game that would have run away with it all if it weren't for some seriously backwards Jace/Lili shenanigans on my part. Maybe a MD Pulse? I dunno, seems clunky...

Thoughts?

[RJM]

Pretty quiet in here. No one brewing on this deck since the MM ban? We were doing ok before it was printed, I think we should still have options now.

This is approximately the build I've been working with lately:

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

4 Standstill
3 Pernicious Deed

1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
2 Innocent Blood

4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
2 Intuition
1 Go for the Throat
1 Dismember
1 Smother
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Pierce

2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea

SB: 3 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Innocent Blood
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 Ghastly Demise


I think what I'd really like to fit in still from testing, is some more targeted discard, 2-3 Flusterstorm in the SB, & a basic forest (-1 Tar Pit?) for the one or two times when a savvy opponent has been able to keep me off green even just for Life from the Loam.

It also has some problems against resolved opposing planeswalkers. I had to work extra hard just to remove an Elspeth that slipped in under counter-magic in a recent game that would have run away with it all if it weren't for some seriously backwards Jace/Lili shenanigans on my part. Maybe a MD Pulse? I dunno, seems clunky...

Thoughts?

[somethingdotdotdot]

One thing that I'm not sure about is the large amount of 3 drops in your deck. I've tried intuition in my deck as a 2 of back when MM was around. Even then, it was a bit slow and sat dead in my hand until i stabilized. I was wondering if you had that same problem. I was thinking you could potentially take those out and add in thoughtseizes?

How has Liliana worked for you? What matchups do you like her in? For me, I found that BB was restrictive at times (i run 1 of each basic in my list and tend to fetch them first in order to establish a more solid manabase; also i don't run the 2 tar pits) and it was usually just an edict + fog. I also didn't find myself using the +1 much until i established control already (when it didn't really matter).

[Gustavoslash]

Im working on this deck too but i dont like Intuition at all.
like somethingdotdotdot said, the card is too slow and a dead card ultil the game is stabilizes.
Im using 1 Liliana, no forest, 4 Innocent blood and 2 Ghastly demise main deck, because i dont wanna lose for a Lackey -.-
ill post my list later.

An other card i removed from my list is Worm Harvest, idk about u, but usually i dont have 5 lands in play.

[ScatmanX]

There are some things I'm worry about this deck, concerning it's viability in today's meta.

- The best cards of the deck are Deed, Standstill and Jace. They are all bad against too many deck, like Combos (TES/AdN/Dgredge/Belcher and Reanimator), and are bad against a deck full of creatures with Flash (Snapcaster and Vendilion). Innocent Blood is bad as a removal against those things too (apart from Reanimator), but is the best 1cc removal this deck had access too.

With these ideas in mind, do you guys think UBGLandstill is still a good option today?

ps: If I were to run this, 4 Spell Snares would be maindecked for sure.

[Gustavoslash]

Hey ScatmanX,
The first time i played this deck was in Cambuquira, where i played vs you. U won an easy match.
I know u are a really good Spiral Tide player, idk about other decks, but i know that u know how to combo.

Do u really like this BUG Landstill?
I love BUG in Legacy. Ill probably play it or maybe Team America on Nacional Legacy.

What u said is true. Deed, Standstill and Jace are all bad vs Combos decks. Standstill is bad vs Aether Vial decks too. Idk if this decks will be good with the meta we will face here.
Im testing a version with Snapcaster, but it doesnt work at all.

[DragoFireheart]

There are some things I'm worry about this deck, concerning it's viability in today's meta.

- The best cards of the deck are Deed, Standstill and Jace. They are all bad against too many deck, like Combos (TES/AdN/Dgredge/Belcher and Reanimator), and are bad against a deck full of creatures with Flash (Snapcaster and Vendilion). Innocent Blood is bad as a removal against those things too (apart from Reanimator), but is the best 1cc removal this deck had access too.

With these ideas in mind, do you guys think UBGLandstill is still a good option today?

ps: If I were to run this, 4 Spell Snares would be maindecked for sure.

- No and for exactly the reasons you listed. This deck is too slow against Combo, Merfolk can still easily give this deck trouble, and now tempo decks using snappy and Delver of Secrets are going to be making a comeback. Landstill decks are going back into hibernation for a very, very long time.

[RJM]

One thing that I'm not sure about is the large amount of 3 drops in your deck. I've tried intuition in my deck as a 2 of back when MM was around. Even then, it was a bit slow and sat dead in my hand until i stabilized. I was wondering if you had that same problem. I was thinking you could potentially take those out and add in thoughtseizes?

Yeah. I'm a little stuck on the Intuitions. First, because it's a personal favorite card of mine. And two, in the past it's been really strong digging up Loam/Worm Harvest/a land & closing out the game. Of course, this is all once you've stabilized... And nowadays, that's something we're having a harder time doing.


How has Liliana worked for you? ...I also didn't find myself using the +1 much until i established control already (when it didn't really matter).

Well, she's been great in conjunction with the Dredge/Retrace stuff above. But that all segways right back into whether or not it's fast enough or good enough. At least as far as her +1 goes. Maybe a MD Darkblast might be worth trying out.

Even just as an edict/fog machine for BB1 though, she'd been really solid. I'm never sad to see her in just about any match. But honestly, I don't think she'd good enough unless you're running some sort of GY engine to supplement the +1 ability.

Which leaves the question: Is it good enough to run a GY engine in this deck on it's own or just to put Lil in, or is Lil good enough to warrant putting in a GY engine on her own?

And on another note... What do people think of Garruk Relentless as a 1-of or something? He'd play a lot like a pseudo-Elspeth in similar UW lists, and just be a token machine at worst. But with the added benefit of being able to kill mana dorks, Lackey/Piledriver, etc.

[HAVE HEART]

- No and for exactly the reasons you listed. This deck is too slow against Combo, Merfolk can still easily give this deck trouble, and now tempo decks using snappy and Delver of Secrets are going to be making a comeback. Landstill decks are going back into hibernation for a very, very long time.

It is too slow against the resilient storm decks that are viable again. It still crushes Belcher; combos that are going all in without discard/Chant. It also crushes all the Show and Tell decks not running Hive Mind. It can beat the tribal decks, but it needs to dedicate a lot of slots (and sideboard slots) towards winning those matchups. Also, Jace, the Mind Sculptor is not as strong as it was when Mental Misstep was legal. It is still very good, but Vendilion Clique has picked up too much momentum for Jace to be the win condition it was a year ago.

[Setherial]

Is it really that bad guys? I've been wanting to play landstill for a long time and I'm finally warming up to the idea of actually playing it.

This is what I came up with


4 Counterspell
4 Spell snare
4 Innocent Blood
1 Go for the throat
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition

3 Pernicious Deed
4 Standstill
1 Life from the Loam

3 Jace, the mind sculptor

1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Bayou

Sideboard

4 Flusterstorm
3 Blue elemental blast
4 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tower of the Magistrate
3 Perish

[Einherjer]

Im new to this archetype and thats the list Id come up with.

//Lands
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

//Counter
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
4 Counterspell


//Removal
4 Dismember
3 Innocent Blood

//Cardadvantage/quality
4 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Standstill

//Sweeper
4 Pernicious Deed

//Bombs
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil


Does this look legit? What do the pros think?

[Razorwynd]

//Lands
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

Does this look legit? What do the pros think?

I am no pro but you prob want 3 more land.

[Setherial]

I agree, you are low on land and I don't get why you want fact or fiction over Life from the loam. Life from the loam with jace and fetch is nuts (ancestral recall for 2, every turn) and it is also good with Liliana. You also need it to reccur your manlands (and you will be sacrificing them) and your wasteland (that for some reason you don't seem to play).

A 4th Innocent blood is better then a 4th dismember concidering you play 4xdeed.

The rest looks good.

[ivanpei]

Anybody have any success with the abyss? It's probably not very good, but I'm going to acquire a copy and was looking to play it somewhere. It seems to me liliana is better in the recurring removal spot as she costs less. Is the abyss a totally irrelevant card now? Still, it's a pretty cool card to collect.