[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

Comparing Peacekeeper and Preacher isn't very fair, as both are heading for opposite strategies.
Preacher forces your opponent to overextend the board in order to pass through him (or they'll get chump blockt by their own fellows). As you mentiont early trading x-1 with a card like Wrath or Explosiv is the nuts and Preacher basicly drives your opponent directly to this point.

Peacekeeper on the other hand is great if you want to freeze the game in general, however creating a board state where only 2-3 cards in your deck can win doesn't seem to great. What I do like about Peacekeeper is that you can decide if he'll stay on board or leave, being able to set up a small army via Decree or Elspeth. Yet I don't like the fact that he's incredible slow, which isn't exactly promoting for a deck that is rather slow (assuming that your opponent can just outstall you, as you need several turns to find Jace, find couter to protect him, set him at 13, use his ulti and then wait 7-8 more turns for them to die. I know this is a normal way to win with Jace, but if your opponent can't win anymore there are only 2 possible things to do: surrender or stalling).

Speaking about the Merfolk MU, I'm looking forward to test Llawan in the spot of my 2 Preachers once more, as more and more lists including 2-3 Kiras have shown up in my meta recently.

I think Llawan is more narrow than Peacekeeper if it's just for Merfolks so Peacekeeper seems more natural to be tested over Llawan. I realized that having a static WoG/Humility effect that does not die to Grip is quite huge. It will basically put your Merfolks/Bant matchups in a favored position (bant is usually not a big problem) but there are NO/SnT decks with Green packing grips that still ruin Humility.

Anyway, the list that I've been working on 2 years ago, finally got some form. It's still definitely inferior to Landstill but this is a new 'Greedier' approach to Landstill, I call it Greedstill lol. Any input on N&D would be appreciated. It's my personal project that I've worked and scraped over the years since Mox Diamond in control usually leads to 'Ugh Mox Diamond sucks, should be more business spell' v.s. 'Mox Diamond turn 1 Bob/Chalice@1/Loam is broken, I want to try it with Standstill!'

Here's a sample list:
Lands: 23 (26 with +3 Maze of Ith)
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

Creature control: 10
3 Maze of Ith
3 EE
4 StP

Acceleration: 5
4 Mox Diamond
1 Life from the Loam

Card advantage: 15
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Scroll Rack
2 Cunning Wish
3 Jace

Counters: 8
4 FoW
4 Counterspell

SB:
3 Meddling Mage
3 Spell Pierce
2 Krosan Grip
1 ETutor
1 Intuition
2 BEB
3 Tormod's Crypt

You need a Tolaria West in this sucker. Loam + Tolaria West is a pretty sick tutor engine for your EEs and utility lands.

O_O Forgot that Loam returns TWest to hand, too used to playing Crucible and disliking TWest because not much synergy with Crucible lol.

Elspeth Tiriel

Will she see play in this version of Landstill? There's an entire topic on her in the Format & Article Discussion, but I'd like to talk about her role specifically in this deck.

She does a number of things to help Landstill as she can generate more tokens than Elspeth 1 (generates 1.5 if rotating between token and life gain effects). Her life gain ability is good for helping use stabilize after taking a beating from creature decks. Her Ultimate is useful for blowing up numerous things that would be an issue for this deck.

Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

Elspeth Tiriel

Will she see play in this version of Landstill? There's an entire topic on her in the Format & Article Discussion, but I'd like to talk about her role specifically in this deck.

She does a number of things to help Landstill as she can generate more tokens than Elspeth 1 (generates 1.5 if rotating between token and life gain effects). Her life gain ability is good for helping use stabilize after taking a beating from creature decks. Her Ultimate is useful for blowing up numerous things that would be an issue for this deck.

Thoughts?

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There has allready somewhat of a discussion a few pages back (around 212 I think).
I don't really think she is going to be better than Elspeth, Knight Errant;

- First of, there is the cost. 4 and 5 mana is a BIG difference.
- Also, her protection ability is a - one while Els 1.0 has a +. This is actually a very big deal against all decks playing burn.
- Her + ability is completely useless 99% of the time on the turn she comes in. Ok, you can set up a Nevinyrall's disc but this can be disrupted much more easily than an actual disc, costs more and nobody is playing Disc anyways so I don't see why this can be brought on as a valid argument to play her.
- Doesn't have the +3/+3 flying beatdown option.

+ Her minus ability is very very impressive. On 2 turns she makes as much tokens as Els 1.0 in 6. Only problem is that you can only do this 2 times without using her +2 ability and this makes her kind of cluncky. Life gain isn't that relevant in Legacy imo except against red decks of course..
+ Ability to Disc can sometimes be relevant. Personally I do think it's a little to slow and easy to disrupt against the decks it would matter the most.
+ Awesome with Humility
+ I think she might be a complete game ending spell in DoJ builds.

All in all it just comes down to testing. I think a very standard use of her could be;
Play on turn 5 or turn six against Wasteland, Stifle, Daze, ...
Make 3 tokens,
Gain x life,
Make 3 tokens,
Gain x life,
When you have enough tokens to make him overextend, + another time and Disc away everything, ...
etc, ...
On paper this doesn't look bad imo. Only problem is that I think the life gain doesn't do much against a lot of decks and the red decks just burn her down when you make the first 3 tokens. Using the + abiilty when she enters does literally nothing in our deck because you'll have to spent even more mana to animate your factories.

Sooo.. I'm going to test her in a version with DoJ and Humilty to see what happens but overall I think she is a little to expensive. But like I said, I think this definately is a card that could be very good after extensive testing (and in the correct shell with DoJ and Humility).

This week, I brought an experimental version of Landstill in my metagame and I think the deck has quite some potential.

I've made some interesting experiments with the deck, adding 2 Maze of Ith as 'creature-removal' non land spots with 2 Intuition. Once I get a Crucible out (2 maindeck), Intuition grabs EE/Ruins/Maze/Wasteland and sets up an engine there. If I have either Scepter/instants in my hand, I can Intuition out instants/scepter etc. I spent about 1 hour debating if Loam Intuition > Crucible Intuition but I fell in favor of Crucible Intuition (takes no mana which is important in a control deck) and doesn't force me to play green, which sucks in control decks. Black/red is so much stronger as a splash color. Loam Intuition however opens the option for Forbid + Tolaria West shenanigans but those engines are too mana-intensive and 'countertop'-style for my tastes.


//Lands: 23
4 Strand
2 Delta
2 Plains
2 Island
3 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
4 Factory
2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins


// Card-advantage/tutors: 17
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Isochron Scepter
2 Intuition
2 Crucible
3 Jace 2.0

//Board-control: 11
2 Maze of Ith
3 EE
4 StP
2 Elspeth 2.0

//Permission: 10
2 Orim's Chant
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will


I personally enjoyed playing this so far even though it was my first time playing this list. Eventually I might cut the Chants (I still like Scepter + anything in the deck even without Chants) but I feel that those Chants have seriously improved Landstill's game-1 matchups against any matchups (enchantress/combo/control/no-Grip aggro game1s). I really need to squeeze the 4th EE. It's too good and I felt myself wanting EE in my opening hand all day long. Ideally I want to drop 2 Chants and fit in the 4th EE and 24th land but Chant has just saved my ass too many times lol.

I'm not sure if Scepters fit this decklist well since Elspeth 2.0 blows it up eventually, but in testing, when the Scepters stick, I'm winning anyway, so there isn't a need to use Elspeth's ultimate. With the recursion in the deck (easily setup with Crucible/Intuition/lands) Scepter can be recasted again after the ultimate. But so far I have not run into this issue i.e. either Elspeth/Jace/Scepter has been dealt with before I get the duo/trio out. However, I think that if the above list cut 2 Scepters and 2 Chants for 2 Decree, 1 EE and 1 Path, it could be very strong against aggro but weakening the non-aggro matchup.

Elspeth 2.0 testing is interesting so far. I like and dislike her. Her mana isn't too much of a problem surprisingly, the main problem is her loyalty being at 2 after using the -2, which in certain scenarios make her very prone to flyers/island walkers. But her ultimate has been quite impressive. At least in my deck, I can chant a turn and blow the board up. If I get my Peacekeepers, she's going to be pretty strong against Merfolks/Emrakuls and non-Zoo/Goblin decks. Her +2 is very underwhelming but sometimes even 2 life gains you enough room to stabilize. The biggest problem I have with her is that you always want to use her -2 first (this occurs most often) and that puts her in a risky position against flyers/islandwalkers and burn (burn is not too much a problem) and she needs another 2 turns to blow up. But situations where you can drop her off and +2 immediately, she is really really powerful.

Against Stax/Stompy/Enchantress, Elsepth 2.0 will be far more relevant in these matchups. Elspeth 1.0 still holds the defense at a faster speed, but I think her application is best against aggro or against control. Elspeth 2.0 is a much better overall card against various decks, so depending on your maindeck, you want to fit E1.0 or E2.0 in depending on what your deck needs. My meta has 1/3 decks comprised of Reanimator/Show&Tell/Emrakuls/Progenitus/Enchantress so E2.0 is much more relevant in my games. I support E2.0 with this new decklist (Mazes for early defense and strengthening standstills) by providing more early game cushion and letting her resolve into her ultimate. Maze + 3 soliders + factories hold any non-flyers/island-walkers off well.

I'm not sure if this build qualifies as Landstill (I call it Tezzeret the Hater), but here is a new list that I've invented and am tuning. I think it's pretty damn powerful:

4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
1 Trop
1 Savannah
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Seat of the Synod

4 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monastery
1 Celestial Colonnade
4 Maze of Ith

1 Academy Ruins
1 Riftstone Portal
2 Lonely Sandbar

4 Mox Diamond
4 Pithing Needle
1 Damping Matrix

4 Standstill

2 Wrath of God
1 Life from the Loam

4 Counterspell
4 Swords
2 Intuition

1 Jace Beleren
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Gideon Jura
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Tezzeret the Seeker

MD Pithing Needle might seem strange, but I assure you, it's powerful. Every top tier deck in the meta, with the exception of combo, can have their game plan severely compromised by a needle or two. Moreover, Needle on Wasteland (the correct play, like 80% of the time) makes many of the hardest match-ups cake walks. Once they are unable to disrupt your mana, there's nothing they can do to stop you from clogging the board with man lands then blowing them out with planeswalkers. Needle hits Vial, thus making Standstill a really good card again.
Vs 4c CB, needle on Top screws them sideways, since they rely on Top to not only lock the game, but fix their draws and get mana. And once you pull ahead in mana/manland development, then they're never going to touch you with goyf and its inevitable that you'll get a second needle to negate their Jace.

The wide spread on planeswalkers is so that opposing Needles never completely cripple win cons. Imo, Tezz is the best, because he wins so quickly but Ajani has been surprisingly good bc of his synergy with manlands.

Just wondering, whats a worse match for landstill these days (any variant), Ichorid or Lands!?

Your chances to beat both of this decks depends on your Sideboard and on some Maindeck slots. If you run a list with Wish and Extirpate/Trap in your board you might have a chance against Lands, as you can remove their LftL and win via Jace (at least until the point where they got a recurring Mind Slaver online). Against Ichorid you can Extirpate their Bridges and just throw pointremoval against Ichorid, however this is by far an even worse MU, as Ichorids is faster then Lands. Another option would be a turn 4 Humility, but let's face it: this will only happen in magic christmas land.
However this can only be said preboard, as each Sideboard usually contains several cards against both of these Decks, including Relic, Crypt, Meddling Mage or Trap.
I'd recommand to concede g1 as fast as possible (that means that you should know at which point of the game you've lost, even if you still have 20 life or something like this), if you aren't playing Wish or Maindeck gravehate.
Personally I don't think that one of this Decks can be classified as "our worst MU", as it all depends on the 75 cards you run.

as Lands, I've beat landstill after they extirpated loam on turn 4. I used Celestial Colonnade to crush their walkers and crush them.

Congratz, but the Deck has 4-6 Swords to prevent this from happening.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

Congratz, but the Deck has 4-6 Swords to prevent this from happening.

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its called wasteland and port, dude.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by antonius

Quote:

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Originally Posted by felidae

congratz, but the deck has 4-6 swords to prevent this from happening.

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its called wasteland and port, dude.

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duh!

Touché dude ;). Guess you did a pretty damn good job if you managed to srew him out of white mana sources without Loam (hey if he got to cast a planeswalker it is even funnier).
The lack of a fast clock can give you enough time to slowly set up your board, however a board state where you got a Celestial Colonnade + 5 Mana to use it and your opponent has a planeswalker but not enough white mana sources or Wastelands to break through Port.... the world isn't fair.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

Touché dude ;). Guess you did a pretty damn good job if you managed to srew him out of white mana sources without Loam (hey if he got to cast a planeswalker it is even funnier).
The lack of a fast clock can give you enough time to slowly set up your board, however a board state where you got a Celestial Colonnade + 5 Mana to use it and your opponent has a planeswalker but not enough white mana sources or Wastelands to break through Port.... the world isn't fair.

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The game went for like two hundred turns. When it goes that long, even without loam, it's inevitable that the Lands player will have 2-3 times more land than the Landstill player.

Hi, first, scuse me if my english ixs not really good but I'll write as better as i can. I play 3 years ago landstill decks, always UWx and trying many splashes and versions, im working in a different variant of the deck, that have nice things, I called it tutor landstill because play with somes enlightned tutors and depend alot on it, this is the list:

1 Tolaria West
3 Island
2 Plains
4 Tundra
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Wasteland

2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Humility
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives

3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Standstill
4 Brainstorm

3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will


// Sideboard:
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Engineered Plague
SB: 2 Day of Judgment
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Aura of Silence
SB: 3 Negate
SB: 3 Extirpate

As you can see, i put it thopter-SoM combination, this is awesome vs agro decks if u can put it in game in early game and can be a life-generator that improves burn pairings more easy in g1. In my meta there are a lot of stifle.decks and enlightned-> crucible works really nice these days. In permission slots i put it 3 snares, but im not really sure about it or spell pierce, but i think that if i not have a WoG in MD for beat agro decks, i think is better snare because eat tarmos, confidants, etc etc..., same case in SB, im not sure about negate vs spell pierce, other think about im not sure is wasteland slot vs basic land, crucible + wasteland is strong lock but in other case and playing in early turns for put thopter on game, colorless lands or turn lose its difficult, but with a tolaria in deck, is same as have 2 wastelands if i need it with crucible. SB slots is the biggest doubt i have, i need 10 more slots!! pithing neddle, sacred ground, tsabo web, tormod's crypt, oblivion ring (oponent's Jaces for example), other engineered plage, porphyry nodes, more ethersworn canonist, or, as you think, more and more nice slots. I try many versions as Wafo-tapa or cunning landstills and i see this nice list too, thanks for reading and waiting for opinions.

@ Teown;
I've played with Enlightened Tutor lists for years but don't anymore. The reason is the extreme card disadvantage you get when you wish for something, play it and then it gets Krosan Grip'ed. Now you've spent 2 cards for nothing and you can't do anything about it cause of the split second. The other problem is that your sideboard is very weak against Disenchant effects cause all of the 1's. When they destroy the 1 of answer you have searched for, you're out of sideboarded cards for the rest of the game.
The last and most obvious thing is that topdecking E-Tutor sucks.. When I did play it, I also played 2 Sensei's Divining Tops because at least you then can search => flip top and immediatly have the card you searched for. But like I said, I don't play E-Tutor anymore, I now play a Wafo-Tapa like list where every draw is a bussiness spell or a land.
So, while I do like Thopter Foundry as a concept, I don't like E-Tutor in Landstill and I don't think Thopter is playable at all without it.

And what you think about tezzeret? I think that 5cc its too slow for a thopter lock. I know that e.tutor is a big card dissadvantage but gives versatility to deck, working this afternoon on deck i decide to implement 2-3 SdTop for tutor-draw, i really like thopter in landstill but i recognise is hard to optimize this lock on this deck. Any more ideas? In my meta i need versatility more than stability of wafo-tapa versions. Other things that i think about is put 3-4 cbalance for de more powerfull tutors but i dont like this enchant too much...

Well, I just don't think Thopter Foundry has a good home in Landstill. The combo also just isn't as powerfull as it was in extended. Legacy has A LOT more countermagic than Extended. Also you can't depend on Academy Ruins for recusion in a format dominated by Wasteland. Also, Legacy decks tend to play a lot of graveyard hate and this can really be a problem. My personal thought about a Landstill deck is that it should be as resilient and reduntant as possible and having a 2 card combo that doesn't do anything without both pieces in play doesn't fit that bill all to well.
If you want to play Thopter Foundry I would go outside of the Landstill shell to a deck with a lower curve and CounterBalance like this list => http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37482 but this isn't a Standstill list anymore.

I realize that this isn't quite the right place to talk about another of my strange experiments but do you guys feel that ensnaring bridge is fast enough to keep you from not dieing to all of the creatures of legacy? I realize they can draw Krosan grip but many successful decks (merfolk (only standstill+adept), Vengeviness, zoo) don't play much/any draw manipulation. You can still kill with JaceTM, scepter/burn, or decking them.

Bridge means that you should keep your hand small. The deck aims to have the hand full of cards. Especially when you're winning.

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Originally Posted by Tinefol

Bridge means that you should keep your hand small. The deck aims to have the hand full of cards. Especially when you're winning.

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Maybe this is the wrong thread then but using permanents like planeswalkers, bridge itself, counter/top, maybe Isochron Scepter (I know LOLZ newb GTFO...), humility, and perhaps ratchet bomb, would make your hand a bit smaller.

Why is Isochron Scepter newb? It's putting up its results for the pilots playing it. It;s just noe popular, and at my area, it's been good. Just under the radar and a good strategy.

For a control deck, having card pool is critical to decision so it prolly will not work, granted it is stronger in Countertop decks where you can rely on Top to basically have '3 cards-knowledge' and maintain a smaller hand size without suffering. I rather run Peacekeepers in the sideboard as a Bridge effect, cannot be gripped, and not conditional at all (Except paying 1W)

yo dudes...

does anyone know if wafo made a report about his gp columbus performance? if anyone know please tell me, im a bit curious about his list (heard he was playing TITHES)

thanxs

Has anyone attempted running both Spell Pierce & Spell Snare, by cutting Counterspell? This makes your manabase slightly better as you don't need UU before turn-4 anymore.
My meta mainly consists of Goblins, Merfolk, TES, Vengevival and (both UWb and BUG) Landstill.

I also have a few general questions about my list:

Maindeck: 60

Card Advantage & Quality: 10
4x Brainstorm
3x Standstill
2x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Removal & Board-Control: 16
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Path to Exile
2x Vindicate
3x Engineered Explosives
1x Wrath of God
1x Day of Judgment
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2x Humility

Counters: 10
4x Force of Will
3x Spell Pierce / Counterspell
3x Spell Snare / Counterspell

Lands: 24
4x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
1x Scrubland
2x Plains
2x Island
4x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
1x Marsh Flats / Swamp
4x Mishra’s Factory
3x Wasteland

Sideboard: 15
3x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Engineered Plague
3x Kitchen Finks
3x Extirpate
2x Pithing Needle
1x Telemin Performance

Sideboarding Plans:

Merfolk: (8)
-8 ???
+3 Engineered Plague
+3 Kitchen Finks
+2 Pithing Needle

Goblins: (8)
-8 ???
+3 Engineered Plague
+3 Kitchen Finks
+2 Pithing Needle

Vengevival: (8)
-8 ???
+3 Ethersworn Canonist
+3 Extirpate
+2 Pithing Needle

Landstill: (6)
-6 ???
+1 Telemin Performance
+3 Extirpate
+2 Pithing Needle

TES: (7-9)
-7/9 ???
+3 Ethersworn Canonist
+3 Extirpate
+1 Telemin Performance
+2 Pithing Needle (for Shelldock?)

_____________________________________________

tl;dr Questions:
- Cut Counterspell to run both Spell Snare and Spell Pierce?
- Should I run a basic swamp or 7th fetch as 24th Land?
- What would you side out (or side in differently) in the 5 matchups posted (Goblins, Merfolk, TES, Vengevival, Landstill)?
- What do you think about the Kitchen Finks slots for anti-aggro next to plagues? Should I run something else instead?
- Would you change anything else in the SB, with the above meta in mind.
- If you cut Counterspell would you replace Jace by a Decree to eliminate UU entirely (altering your manabase towards a little more white mana as well), or maybe +1 FoF, +1 Decree, -1 Jace, -1 ???

Counterspell is a must and in my opinion in this deck snare is better than pierce because creatures are the bigger problem. I liked 6 fetches well enough personally and the ability to get EE to 3 for sure is useful. Finks is pretty much mvp against zoo and other aggro decks.

Just my two cents.

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Originally Posted by rayaj

Counterspell is a must and in my opinion in this deck snare is better than pierce because creatures are the bigger problem. I liked 6 fetches well enough personally and the ability to get EE to 3 for sure is useful. Finks is pretty much mvp against zoo and other aggro decks.

Just my two cents.

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I feel like the noncreature stuff is the bigger problem... this deck has plenty of answers to creature based options.

I would run Spell Snare for a different reason, perhaps Survival being the hottest deck at the moment would influence that. Something like:

4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2-3 Counterspell

Where is konsultant and all of the landstill old timers, we need their expertise in this changing metagame

mr. morbid throwing his two cents in on his old love. i think that a of snare may be justified in todays meta and spell pierces may deserve a spot somewhere in the 75

I don't think Spell Pierce is needed anywhere in the deck. You're not playing some sort of tempo deck where a 1 mana manaleak for spells is extremely profitable.
Now Spell Snare is a whole different story because the ability to stop Survival, Goyf, Counterbalance, Pridemage, etc., is a game winning proposition. I still play 4 Counterspells and no Snares or Pierces because my deck has 3 EE, 4 STP to allow a little more slack with the resolution of the above spells because I can always remove them cheaply.
That being said, it's my opinion that neither of those spells are needed, but I wouldn't fault anyone for playing Spell Snare because it does have it's applications, even though it may feel unnecessary to me.

With vengevine survival being the most hyped deck around i'm running even 4spell snare and lowered the cs to 2..
There is just no place for spell pierce,how good it may be(I play it in BUG-landstill) but switched UWx mainly because of vengevine-survival.

What is wrong with Spell Pierce? Most of the nasty stuff is non-creature spells like Survival of the Fittest and [card]Aether Vial[/cards] or other counterspells (that aren't Daze. If you counter a daze with a Spell Snare or a Spell Pierce, stop playing magic now).

Spell Pierce is conditional. It can be useful in mid game, but most of the time only if you run the mana denial, which this deck lagerly doesn't.
You don't want to have or topdeck useless cards. SP is more often than not dead mid game already. Snare always hits what it is supposed to hit. Ok SP stops Survival just as fine on turn2. But on turn 3 they're likely to have a mana-dork + lands, which is enough to pay 2 in addition. Snare hits it just fine.

SP is at high use in decks that provide mana denial and high pressure, which requires immedate actions from opponent, not letting him slow roll his answers, having enough mana to pay for conditional counters. Which is why it is good in Merfolk, and generally, in tempo decks. Landstill isn't one of them.

As Tinefol mentioned above, and similarly as ChiiMagic indirectly implied with why he still plays Counterspell over Spell Snare. Landstill is a slow deck. It does not set up fast soft locks or win conditions like Counterbalance, SnT, Survival, Tempo Thresh etc. Your cards in the deck have to do a lot, and by a lot, we mean that it has to be as diverse and flexible yet answer threats firmly.

Spell Pierce is a great card in Legacy, but in Landstill where the deck is slow and seeks to slow roll into turns 4-7 before it starts winning, Spell Pierce is not relevant most of the time when the deck is facing to stabilize against creatures. The only situation where I see Spell Pierce being relevant are the Enchantress/Combo/Stax matchup, but only as a supplement card to Counterspell/EE etc. It definitely helps the combo matchup, which is STILL a bad matchup for Landstill.

A thing to note about Landstill is that you don't have to counter everything. It all depends on your deck design. If you run Wish/EE/Academy Ruins/Intuition in any combination, or even additional creature removal such as Path/Fire//Ice/Edicts in any combination, you can afford to let certain creatures slip past. I would even go ahead and say that if you're on the play and playing against Vengevival, you can occassionally allow Survival to slip past then blow it up with EE and still be fine. It depends on the deck you're playing against and the situation. Often times, playing against Zoo/tribal decks, I would intentionally let creatures slip by, take about 5-8 points of damage before blowing the whole field with a single EE just to make the most out of the card. This strategy, again, is only possible if you design your deck to deal with the initial backlash of damage e.g. Cunning Wish with Pulse or a super win-condition/lock that is inevitable e.g. StP on Scepter or Scepter-Chant or Recurring EEs etc.


@ChiiMagic: Any updates to your list? Are Peacekeepers working out for you? Are the Descendants in the SB stronger than other lifegaining cards e.g. Pulse of the fields? I've stopped playing Scepter-Chant for awhile to experiment with personal 'landstill' lists. In particular, are you still playing 2 Chants 2 Fire//Ice 2 Crucibles main? I'll follow up with that when I have more results. Designing outside the core of Landstill is pretty tough considering the deck has a historic success with certain collections of cards. But I'm always willing to test new things.

Here's a 4c list I've been tinkering around with... It uses the punishing fire/burnwillows combo in conjunction with humility.


lands//25
4 tundra
1 tropical island
2 volcanic island
4 grove of the burnwillows
1 plateau
4 flooded strand
1 island
1 tolarua west
1 plains
4 mishra's factory
2 polluted delta

creature control//13
2 humility
3 engineered explosives
4 swords to plowshares
4 punishing fires

spells//22
4 brainstorm
3 jace, the mind sculpter
4 standstill
1 life from the loam
4 force of will
3 counterspell
3 spell snare


The deck has been testing really good against agro in general, but sometimes too many wastelands can spell total disaster... Anybody have any suggestions about making the manabase reliable?

@thefreakaccident

Could a Grove and the Tolaria West be turned into fetches? I'm thinking turn them into Scalding Tarns along with the 2 Deltas. If somebody sides in Needles against you they're going to be naming EE or Jace or Factory, not a fetch. 1 Grove triggers all your Fires, so the rest just become more non-Islands/non-Plains. West is just slow and you have plenty of redundancy in the deck. The full 8 fetch help with mana consistency, wasteland defence, and power up Loam, BS, and Jace.

How has the list farred against Fish? CB?

Also, nice list. Interesting engine (Punishing Fire). Just hope you have 2-3 Firespout in the board, correct?

nice list, freakaccident.
here's what I'd do about your manabase:

4 flooded strand
2 Scalding Tarn (Delta doesn't fetch Plateau)
1 Windswept Heath ------------- Yes. Heath. It fetches every land in your deck barring Basic Island and Volc, but most importantly, other than Tarn/ Rainforest, it gets you: Basic Plains. Heath>Mesa cause the latter won't get you Tropical Island.

4 tundra
1 plateau
1 tropical island
1 volcanic island -------------- I went down to 5 red sources because you won't be able to efficiently do the combo trick before turn 10 or so. At that point you should control 2 red sources anyway. Also added a fetchland, so I lowered the virtual red count by merely 1, from 13 to 12, which is plenty, considering you have just 4 red spells in the MD.

2 island-------------------- the second Island is mandatory. I'd even consider adding a third.
1 plains

3 grove of the burnwillows ------------------see Volcanic explanation
4 mishra's factory
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So these are 24 mana sources, leaving you one flex slot, which could be filled with Academy Ruins, Basic Island or the 8th fetchland (Tarn).
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Also, here's a SB approach for an open meta:

3 Firespout
3 Spell Pierce
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Krosan Grip (you will mostly need it against non-wasteland decks: CB.dec, Enchantress, Affinity_2.0, so that singleton Trop is fine)
4 Faerie Macabre --------------debatable choice, but since Relic is a nono..
1 Flex Slot, possibly a lifegainer. Pulse of the Fields looks entertaining with Groves.

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EDIT: I'm almost certain, that 25th land should be Sensei's Divining Top! It will find you land if you need it AND make it easier to assemble the combo.
Also 24 land looks rock solid, considering there's a Loam somewhere in there too.

So, here's the list with everyones suggestions:

lands//25
4 tundra
1 tropical island
2 volcanic island
3 grove of the burnwillows
1 plateau
4 flooded strand
2 island
1 plains
4 mishra's factory
2 scalding tarn
1 arid mesa

creature control//13
2 humility
3 engineered explosives
4 swords to plowshares
4 punishing fires

spells//22
4 brainstorm
3 jace, the mind sculpter
4 standstill
1 life from the loam
4 force of will
3 counterspell
3 spell snare


sideboard//
3 krosan grip
3 firespout
4 spell pierce/blasts
5 graveyard hate, some mix of crypts/macabres... I wouldn't run relic b/c of the fires/loam.


The Folk matchup has been great, as the fires combo generally shuts them down by itself... Sometimes your forced to slow roll b/c of their mutas, but as long as you sit back and press your advantage you will win. The lists that run 1-2 ports in addition to wasteland hurt a lot though, especially if they draw 2-3 wastes relatively early.

Big zoo can be troublesome as the punishing fires combo sometimes doesn't kill their large creatures, but the zoo lists with stepp lynx and such can be easily shut down with well timed removal... The lists running KotR + waste can sometimes screw over the engine and just win right out if you can't land a humility... So I'd say that the zoo MU kind of depends on their list and the draws of both players.


Counterbalance decks vary a lot nowadays...

If they try to win with a bunch of dudes (i.e. heirarch/goyf/whathaveyou) then you're just fine, but if they try to win with jace you either draw fire/willows or lose, as you have nothing to attack with besides factories (which will get sword's 99/100 times)... You can sacrifice your own jace to kill theirs but it is extremely painful as a player to have to do that.

Try your best to get the counterbalance/top lock off the table, as the deck becomes far more resilient with it down.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by whiteshepherdman

Where is konsultant and all of the landstill old timers, we need their expertise in this changing metagame

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Alas I am just running Vengevines. I've won/split in finals pretty much every week at my local for the last 3 months with Vengevines. It's of course a drastically different build than I see anyone else playing but it's been working well enough for me.

There are 4 glaring problems for Landstill right now;

1. The prevalence of Wasteland, the card is pretty much the most played card in Legacy and no matter how well a mana base is designed Landstill will always be a multicolor control deck and Wasteland will always have the potential to steal games from Landstill. Running a surplus of basics can help and hinder you as it dodge's Wasteland but forces you to draw all the colors you need with less duals/fetch's. If you increase the land count it creates more mana flooding hands and does nothing to help the tempo loss of being hit by Wasteland while they have a man in play.

2. Spell Pierce. This card was the nail in the coffin for me; it is difficult but not impossable to play around Daze from the tempo decks but Spell Pierce is pretty much a hard counter for 1 mana vs Landstill for the first 5-8 turns whitch is where we either lose the game or stablize.

3. The general speed and power level of the cards in the format, we can lose with out ever having a turn vs multiple different combo decks. 2 and 3 mana creatures in the format kill us in 2-5 hits putting a ton of pressure on us to stop every single creature as fast as possable eliminating our ability to gain card advantage or atleast tempo through cards like Wrath of God.

4. Most of all our "combo" of manlands and Standstills is just not that powerful anymore. People don't run crappy red/green beat down decks anymore. Every experienced Legacy player is very experienced playing vs Landstill, they know all of our tricks. It makes it nearly impossable to outplay opponents. The fact that Merfolk steals our "combo" and does it better than Landstill really hurts us. Merfolk is beatable but requires a very dedicated plan and numerous sllots dedicated to creature removal that are nearly worthless in alot of other match ups.

All this adds up to one thing; it is nearly impossable to consistently win in Legacy. Too many things nead to fall perfectly into place for Landstill to win each game. Yes Landstill can beat any deck in the format but it can also lose to every single deck in the format. Landstill has no auto wins anymore. Anything you want to beat requires dedicated side boarding and with only 15 slots vs the entire field of competitive Legacy you just don't have the room to beat every deck anymore. So all it takes is one bad match up and one round of bad luck and you are out. Landstill's tools are just very outdated and are not versatile enough for what is in Legacy right now. Like I said you can beat any individual match up you want all day long with proper side boarding but finding that key pile of cards that will take down everything just doesn't seem possable anymore. Everything I have tried for the last several months that seemed like it was capable of winning would have huge issues vs the tempo decks in the format.

In my case atleast I just built a more consistent, faster deck with considerably more options where my opponents don't know every card in my deck when we sit down.