[Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sdematt

@ Poster hating on Standstill:

Standstill is great in a variety of matches, but is also one of the things that needs to be sided out in others. Example, Vial-based decks happen to be great against Standstill (Goblins, Fish) so I tend to side them out in those matches.

The catch side to this is that in the matches were it shines, it usually gets you out of tough situations by filling your hand with cards. Your opponent will definitely play tighter once he's set off a Standstill, as those three cards could be counters to his key threats. It's like the whole "Once you see a Daze, you always play around it." Such is the same with Standstill. It provides massive card advantage, and most of the time, you're the one getting that advantage.

I'm a fan of 3-4 of them. 4 Is nice, but if you needed another EE or something, I wouldn't be devastated in cutting the 4th. I usually play the 4th, or a Vision Charm.

Also, you should check out the "Dreadstalker" thread if you're interested on adding Tombstalkers to the deck. It's a pretty cool design.


Regards,
-Matt

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Thanks for the reply. I think I will try confidants in MD regardless, and ditch standstills which enables me to go for a 4th wastelands and maybe academy ruins as well.

Both confidant and standstill are somewhat unreliable draw engines (confidant dies easily, standstill is situational). I do think confidant is in favour here because if confidant is to be stopped, the opponent has to waste a removal or a counter (which then opens up for dreadnought) while standstill is often made ineffective by the virtue of the MU and not because of any specific action taken by the opponent.

In general, I see confidant as a bigger threat than standstill, which forces the opponent to deal with him. I realize I might be rambling nonsense here, what im trying to say is that I simply think, theoretically, that dark confidant is more interesting and that he is a much bigger threat than standstill and therefore, maybe a better card.

Maybe I should just have this discussion in the dreadstalker thread? :)

The best way to run Confidant is just take Tim Hunt's gencon list from 2009 and make a few adjustments: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=28699

Replace Sower with Trinket Mage, then take out the removal for Naughts and EEs.

I see your point in saying that Confidant is Force-bait, but then, in a way, why not just play Tarmogoyf and have him get countered if you don't plan to use him at all? Obviously, you're trying to get all your cards to stick, so I'd say try to avoid thinking of cards as Force-bait :D

Confidant is good, especially with Top on board, because it allows you to crush your opponent with card advantage. In the end, you do get more cards out of the Confidant, but they can't actually deal with the Standstill. They can try to Stifle it (I've had people try, it's great), but mainly, it causes people to slow-play around it. Standstill is not only a draw engine, it's a stall tactic. Most people will be hesitant to break the Standstill, whereas with Dark Confidant, they can play as they please, but you get more cards. Good opponents will usually crack Standstill right away, which is fine: You've just Recalled. Hooray! If you wait, every turn they don't play something is you essentially Time Walking another turn. Usually, you have Manlands, Top, or something on board, and they won't. Obviously, don't play it with Vial onboard, but against most decks, they will crack it for you eventually.

I've cracked my own Standstill before, but I won those games anyway. It was usually my hand was so full of gas anyway, I win no matter what (and I did). I played first against I don't know what, but I ended up laying down double Dreadnought with Force, Force, Daze, Spell Pierce backup with mana to spare. Suffice to say, games were won, dreams were crushed, children cried in the streets.

I think you should give Standstill a chance, but as we've said, Confidant is a good choice as well.

-Matt

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Originally Posted by keys

Is no one playing the U/g/r version anymore? Back when I played this deck, Goyf fit too perfectly with the strategy to leave out. Naught and Standstill make him a 6/7 very often, and I always found Naught to be too fragile as the only threat. Jace helps I suppose.

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I'm trying a Ugr version aimed at shutting down Zoo, Goblins and Merfolk and letting some of the otherarchetypes sort themselves out against the overall versatility of the deck. I'm going just 7 counters main and relying on the sideboard for when I need more.

Lands
3x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Polluted Delta
3x Tropical Island
3x Volcanic Island
2x Island

Creatures
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Phyrexian Dreadnought

Counters
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
4x Stifle

Removal
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Firespout
2x Engineered Explosives

Card Quality
4x Brainstorm
3x Sensei's Divining Top

Enchantments
3x Counterbalance
3x Standstill

Sideboard
4x Ravenous Trap
2x Tormod's Crypt
3x Mindbreak Trap
3x Spell Pierce
2x Krosan Grip
1x Counterbalance

I'm using the heavy main deck red splash and Tarmogoyf because I was not happy with how the deck was performing on the days when the meta is heavy Merfolk, Goblins and Zoo. That's the side of the triangle that gives me the most trouble these days, lots of creatures and an effective gameplan to win early off of them. I went down to 3 Standstill because there are a bunch of matchups I don't want it in and that lead to the decision to go down to 3 Mishras. That and Zoo killing Mishra's on sight and Merfolk island-walking around them. The 4 bolts main deck are for Goblin Lackey, Wild Nacatl, Weathered Wayfarer, Cursecatcher, Birds of Paradise, Qasali Pridemage, Steppe Lynx, Noble Hierarch, Dryad Arbor, Stoneforge Mystic, etc. My meta is full of little creatures that will kill you if you let them stick around a turn or two. I dropped the Trinket Mages because they just don't work all that well with Firespout main deck and with no equipment possibilities I don't like them in this meta.

If you're playing a red splash in this deck, especially one geared against tribal aggro, IMO you're just doing it wrong if there's no Grim Lavamancer. This guy is just silly in the deck. It even gives you another early threat under standstill. It also allows you to run basilisk collar out of the board for him to deal with bigger threats in other decks like a Tombstalker. Furthermore, no Trinket Mage? It's finding you anything that you really want in the deck, artifact-wise. EE, Top, Dreadnought, or the Collar if you choose to play it.

This deck shouldn't need mindbreak trap in the board. If you aren't bending combo over a table and making it your girlfriend on a regular basis, I don't know what you're doing. Those three slots could be much better cards for your deck. You already have x4 Stifle and FoW, x3 Daze, AND the counterbalance package. And that's in the main alone. Post board you're bringing in Spell Pierce would should be more than enough. Combo should be a cakewalk with this deck.

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Originally Posted by TOGITwill

If you're playing a red splash in this deck, especially one geared against tribal aggro, IMO you're just doing it wrong if there's no Grim Lavamancer. This guy is just silly in the deck. It even gives you another early threat under standstill. It also allows you to run basilisk collar out of the board for him to deal with bigger threats in other decks like a Tombstalker. Furthermore, no Trinket Mage? It's finding you anything that you really want in the deck, artifact-wise. EE, Top, Dreadnought, or the Collar if you choose to play it.

This deck shouldn't need mindbreak trap in the board. If you aren't bending combo over a table and making it your girlfriend on a regular basis, I don't know what you're doing. Those three slots could be much better cards for your deck. You already have x4 Stifle and FoW, x3 Daze, AND the counterbalance package. And that's in the main alone. Post board you're bringing in Spell Pierce would should be more than enough. Combo should be a cakewalk with this deck.

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Spell Pierce is mainly for games when I'm playing second, as I don't like Daze as much in that situation and I'm playing bolts to handle early creatures. I also add it in when Standstill looks weak in the matchup, like against Aether Vial and other manlands. I'll put it in against combo because it's nice there, but as you point out the deck already has combo fairly well managed. Mindbreak trap comes in against storm combo because it's very useful there, but where it shines is against things like Aluren that aren't handled all that well by Counterbalance, since it's easy to go get stuff back out of the yard instantly at a later point, against uncounterable stuff as a hard cast later in the game and against mid-range control generally and mid-range countrol with counters in particular, hardcast again. Exiling a spell in the middle of a combo sequence is often very different than countering it.

You can make an argument for other creature layouts. This is the one I'm trying now: Firespout with no creatures that die to it in the deck.

So for now I have settled on two different lists of this deck, one of them being basically the deck played by Van Phanel:


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

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Trinket Mage

4 Stifle
2 Trickbind
4 Spell Snare
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Counterbalance
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives

SB:
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Firespout
2 Perish



First of all I point out what are the advantages of the usual Dreadstill builds:

- Mishra's Factory was good in most control matchups and provided another kill condition.
- Standstill draws 1 more card than Predict and is therefore the more powerful card draw effect.
- 4 basic lands

For me the weak points of regular Dreadstill lists are the following:

- Loses against resolved big creatures, especially if paired with Wastelands (Tombstalker, Knight of the Reliquary)
- Loses against Aether Vial
- Manabase issues (14 blue sources, only 3 Wastelands)

I tried to solve those issues by making some changes. First of all I removed Standstill (and consequently Mishra's Factory) and afilled those 8 slots again with the following after trying several configurations:

3 Predict
2 Jace
blue lands #15 and 16
4th Wasteland

This makes the mana denial plan of the deck slightly better and gives us 16 blue sources which is pretty stable and makes you mulligan less frequently. Furthermore, by taking out Standstill the deck is less vulnerable to Aether Vial, as your draw engine still works if they get one and thus can help you to find a Nought or EE quickly. The changes simply give you the possibility to run very good cards as a 4 off, namely: Wasteland and Counterbalance.
This adds a lot of consistency to your draws.

Then I tried every kind of black and red removal and ultimately came to the conclusion that Swords to Plowshares is probably worth splashing for in the sideboard, which requires you to bring in a basic Plains however. Swords + Perish + Firespout + EE (+Jace) is actually a combination of removal that gets rid of nearly everything one could think of. I've tried several other ideas, like Etched Oracle +Academy Ruins (control matchups, tech from ITF) or running Pithing Needle but I've come to this list now that I am pretty happy with so far:

Decklist:
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
4 Wasteland
3 Island

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Trinket Mage

4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
2 Daze
2 Jace, the mind Sculptor
3 Predict
2 Trickbind

Sideboard:
3 Pyroblast
1 Jace, the mind Sculptor / 1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Firespout
2 Perish
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Plains
4 Swords to Plowshares


After playtesting many games I finally came to understand why Roodmistah has been playing 3 instead of 2 EE in his builds. With proper sideboarding this sideboard gives you exactly as many cards to board in as you want to take out in 90% of all matchups. So far testing (and I mean I really did quite some of it) has shown that this build has a ton of good matchups, however I still have problems with some special decks.

- Goblins as Mono R is pretty good, and VS Rb builds its roughly even, but Rg or Rbg builds featuring Krosan Grip, Warren Weirdings and some REB's, combined with their fast clock and good ability to recover after sweepers has proven to be very unfavorable. Any ideas?

- UGr / UBr Faeries and in general decks running Spellstutter Sprite, a stable manabase, landdestruction and Powerful threats (Bitterblossom, Tombstalker, Tarmogoyf, Jace2.0) backed up with some tempo are problematic. This is because Spellstutter Sprite trumps your removal and gives them CA resulting in some pesky 1/1 flying Faeries that prevent you from dropping Jace.

- Enchantress: If you know what they are playing you basically win as you can mull into a quick nought or set up a CB + Top lock with 3 and 4 on top and Jace them to death after some time. If you don't however, your average hand gets pwned by them pretty easily.

- Landstill in general is roughly even while it becomes usually better postboard but builds featuring 3 Decree of Justice are just a pain in the ass to play against as they can manage easily to kill all of your win options by killing your jaces with soldier tokens. This is a matchup that gets trumped by Etched Oracle.

Edit: Anyone knows a good site that teaches english punctuation rules? In school I learned: "In case of doubt just leave it out", so I am not very confident about my skills regarding this.

Muradin while I agree Jace is definetally worth of considering to include in Dreadstill I think the main issue was that Daze holds him back greatly. To run a 4 drop and setting yourself back a turn in Lands it makes it near impossible to consistently rely on Jace. Bant Aggro can get away with it because they run Noble Heirarch to make up for the tempo loss. I think that perhaps it might be worth it to consider Spell Pierce maindeck alongside Spell Snare if you want to go the 2-3 Jace route. I still would run Standstill however, IMO there are no cards that can ever take that slot.

Something like this if you wanted Swords there.

// Lands
3 [MPR] Wasteland
4 [JGC] Flooded Strand
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
2 [U] Tundra
2 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [TSP] Island (3)

// Creatures
3 [FD] Trinket Mage
3 [JGC] Phyrexian Dreadnought

// Spells
2 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [JGC] Stifle
3 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [AT] Swords to Plowshares
4 [BD] Brainstorm
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [OD] Standstill

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
SB: 1 [CS] Counterbalance
SB: 2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 [R] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
SB: 1 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [HOP] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [SHM] Firespout

Also, on another note...I think I might be running the 4th CB/3rd Top in my sb for Ur Dreadstill...there's alot of matchups where you just need to land that card. I feel postboard increasing it to 4x/3x might be the best call.

Well here is the list I am running:

3 Factory
3 Waste
6 Fetch
3 Volc
1 Trop
1 Sea
4 Island

4 Naught
3 Trinket Mage

4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
2 Trickbind
3 Spell Snare
2 Daze
4 Force of Will

3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Engineered Explosives

3 Counterbalance
3 Standstill

2 Jace

SB
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Pyroblast
2 Firespout
2 Perish
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Krosan Grip
1 Crucible of Worlds

-Mishra's Factory is awesome. Its not too hard to get people to turn their Krosan Grips on them for some reason. Also, against control, having only 3 threats that don't 2 for 1 yourself is hopeless. Having extra blockers around is great.

-Jace maindeck is sick, since it is another threat against control and answers harder to deal with cards like Tombstalker and Knight of the Reliquary. Cutting down to 2 Daze hasn't given me any problems.

-I don't think cutting Daze for Spell Pierce is reasonable. It gives you a critically low amount of 2 drops for Counterbalance, especially for matchups where you want to board out Standstill but leave Counterbalance in.

-Splashing white for Swords to Plowshares just doesn't seem good to me, Lightning Bolt being my 1cc removal of choice. This mainly has to due with Lightning Bolt being playable with Volcanic Island. Having to set up Tundra and Volcanic Island against Merfolk leaves you wide open to Wasteland, using the same Volcanic Island to play REB, Bolt and Spout is going to win you games. Also, I don't think there are many cards that Swords is needed for. The biggest problems are Tarmogoyf, Rhox War Monk, and Knight of the Reliquary. The games where I can't counter these cards or control them with EE, I can usually just blank them by attacking with Dreadnoughts, and Lightning Bolt can help there by being aimed at the head. Postboard, having 2 Perish, 2 EE, and 2 Jace postboard makes it easy. A 3 Tundra white splash involving Meddling Mage and Stp would intrigue me though. Maybe Rhox War Monk in the SB to combat aggro?

I find my worst matchup to be against Thopters. Sometimes, I'm able to get the nuts or grind them out if I get counters first, but I can't deal with a resolved Jace (save by attacking him) or a resolved Moat. At least I can EE on 3 for Bridge, but resolved Moat makes me cry.

Just wondering what I can do about the resolved Moat dealy :P

For now, I'm playing Simon's list with a few minor alterations, and for the most part, it plays exactly how I want it to. I'm playing 4 MD spell pierce though, with no Spell Snare. It's helped too many times against non-creature threats (Jace, Moat, Fireblast, Edicts, Path, etc.). I might run a 2/3 split and take out a Daze, but I'll see how the matchups go tonight at my local Legacy.

-Matt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sdematt

I find my worst matchup to be against Thopters. Sometimes, I'm able to get the nuts or grind them out if I get counters first, but I can't deal with a resolved Jace (save by attacking him) or a resolved Moat. At least I can EE on 3 for Bridge, but resolved Moat makes me cry.

Just wondering what I can do about the resolved Moat dealy :P

For now, I'm playing Simon's list with a few minor alterations, and for the most part, it plays exactly how I want it to. I'm playing 4 MD spell pierce though, with no Spell Snare. It's helped too many times against non-creature threats (Jace, Moat, Fireblast, Edicts, Path, etc.). I might run a 2/3 split and take out a Daze, but I'll see how the matchups go tonight at my local Legacy.

-Matt

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Moat is a miserable card to have to deal with. When it lands game one it's game over. Game two we have grips in the sideboard for the green splash and that gives us a chance but it's just a chance. The Thopter matchup is highly unfavorable at this point because they play Moat, StP, CBTop and enough counters to make our 2-for-1 highly unreliable. Having a single hard to remove card shut down our entire attack is pretty devastating.

If Moat arrives, Jace them out. Simple.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Atog Lord

If Moat arrives, Jace them out. Simple.

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Thopters kill Jace easily and quickly and we have no blockers. If we have EE we can try to kill the foundry but Firespout doesn't work because they just make more Thopters in our EoT and over-run.

Jace doesn't kill the turn he lands (they can also swarm him/play their own Jace, which kills ours), and I don't play Jace.

I have about a 50/50 win ratio against Thopters, but if they land the Moat it's pretty brutal. I'd love to have Echoing Truth/Wipe away. I don't splash Green, so no Grip for me. The black splash is wonderful for Perish (seems more relevant with the Bant, Zoo, and such running around) and the Red is the nuts against Folk.


-Matt

I have been playing with:
4 Daze
3 Spell Pierce

in maindeck instead of:
3 Daze
4 Spell Snare

All nasty stuff from Moat/NO/Jace2 is easier to deal with. From sb I bring vs Zoo and decks that rely PTE/STP a card called Not of this World, it has been very successful so far.

I've been trying out "Not of this World" as well. The only problem is that it's very narrow, it's only for Naught protection. Is it good? Yes, it's hard to CB against, and most decks won't have an answer against it. But, like I said, it might be a good sideboard card. I'm trying it out tonight.

-Matt

Did you have Not of This World in your build, Matt? I don't think it got used at all when I "Snuffed" your Dreadnaught repeatedly :-)

It just seems...terrible. Even as a sideboard card. Better to go with Dispel.

Nah, it's too narrow. Although it's super secret tech, I'd rather have a multipurpose card.

So I'll write a tournament report now. Wewt.



So, I placed 1st at my local Legacy tournament playing my list of Dreadstill. The list is as follows:

4 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Island
3 Wasteland
3 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Trinket Mage

1 Vision Charm
4 Stifle
2 Trickbind
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Top
1 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard:
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
2 Perish
2 Firespout
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus


Round 1: Aaron with teched out Enchantress.

Aaron is a good guy, I've known him for a while. But, his build of Enchantress is slightly different, running Ghostly prisons, Disenchant, and Seal of Cleansings in the 75. He knew I was coming, so to speak.

Game 1: I win the die roll, and open a hand of Island, Fetch, Standstill, Stifle, Dreadnought, Force, Spell Pierce. Keep! I go for the fast Dreadnought and counter something relevant.

Board in: 1 EE.
Board out: 1 Standstill

Game 2: A Long game where I get Counter-Top down and get rid of a bunch of his relevant threats. I lay down 2 Noughts, but he ends up drawing the nuts like Grip. I have to counter the 2 Chokes he plays, and he ends up O-ringing my Counterbalance. He gets/lands a Choke, but I EE on three. Wewt. But, as I'm tapped out after the massive counter-war, he top decks Replenish. Ouch. I didn't bring in the grave hate since I figured I wouldn't need it.

In: 2 Relic of Progenitus, 1 Tormod's Crypt
Out: 3 Counterbalance

Game 3: I go first and we play a controlling game, with a t1 Crypt on board for all that nasty stuff I've countered. He plays Enchantresses, but I keep his Wild Growths off the board and deny him mana. He kills my Dreadnought (Grip), but I get there with a Trinket Mage, and 2 Mishra's Factories. Wewt. He tries to Replenish, but I Tormod's Crypt. He tries to respond with Grip, but it doesn't matter. I had Force in hand to counter Replenish, anyway.

2-1 Games, 1-0 Matches

Round 2: Bryn with Mud Stax

Game 1: I win the roll and play an island. He turbos into Trinishpere, but I daze it. I relay the island, and pass to having a Crucible played. I Spell Pierce it. Eventually, the board position looks like:

Him: Winter Orb, Rishadan Port, Smokestack on 1, Lodestone Golem, a ton of tapped out lands, Karn.

I managed to wait and do my Stifle Nought, and I swing into Karn with Nought and Factory. I do exactly lethal (6).

In: 2 Firespout, 3 Lightning Bolt, 1 Tormod's Crypt, 2 Relic of Progenitus.
Out: 3 Counterbalance, 4 Standstill, 1 Random.

Game 2: First turn Metalworker, I allow. I lay a land, with Top. He reveals 4 artifacts and lays out Crucible, Smokestack, and something else. I wait a turn, he ramps the Stack, I scoop.

Game 3: We get to the point where he's got multiple Chalices, a board full of artifacts etc. I've got Nought and multiple Factories, but he has Ensnaring Bridge, Lodestone Golem, the works. We go to time and he concedes to me, as I have a better record.

4-2 Games, 2-0 Matches

Round 3: Matt with Saito's Merfolk

Game 1: I win the die roll, and play Island. He plays a fetch, and passes. I lay a Fetch, and fetch. He fetches in response. He lays Standstill, and he gets Mutavault online. I waste his Muta, and proceed to lay down 2 Factories. He laughs at the fact I'm winning under Standstill, and he cracks his own Standstill for Cursecatcher. I don't counter it, and I manage to Stifle Nought him.


Board in: 2 Firespout, 3 Lightning Bolt, 3 REB, 1 Pyroblast
Board out: 4 Standstill, 3 Counterbalance, 2 Random

Game 2: He goes first, and I waste, Stifle, and plunder my way through the first few turns. He has basically nothing on board, and I'm slowly building up lands. I set an EE to 2, and he runs out a Coralhelm commander. I REB. He gets a really annoying Cursecatcher down. I let him build up, and I tap out for Firespout. He tries to Daze, I daze. So, he cracks Catcher. Fine. He lays out 2 Reejeries. I Firespout again. He cries. He puts me to one with a Lord on board, but I kill it. My hand is: Vision Charm, Trickbind, Spell Pierce. I have Nought, tapped Factory, and Tricket Mage. If he drew any Merfolk, he says he could have won by tapping my Trinket and going for lethal. I said a Lord of Atlantis works wonders, too. He doesn't draw one off the top, he draws a land. I reveal my hand and state my answers.

"Vision Charm turns Islands into Mountains, you don't Islandwalk over me. I trickbind the tap ability, then proceed to murder you with Dreadnought."

He laughed, and it was good fun. The other match was still going, so we hung out a bit. R/W goblins won at the other table, so we had to face off. But, we had more points, so we drew and I took home 15 packs of M11 for my troubles.

6-2 Games, 3-0 Matches

Goodstuffs: I love swinging with a 12/12. It brings out the inner Timmy. Also, I didn't face against Zoo, as I was slightly worried, but I figured I still could have won. I'm liking the decklists, and I'm finding I love Spell Pierce more and more. Yes, I did wish at times it was Spell Snare, or counter any spell or pay 2, but it hoses the stuff that I find most worrisome: Moat, Jace, etc. It makes those guys cost 6, which they usually don't want to wait for when I've got the Nought down.

Vision Charm has saved my ass in testing, and possibly today. I've phased the Nought out many times, whether it be during casting or when it's already in play. It allows me to use my Stifles a little more loosely, for stuff like Fetchlands, Wastelands, etc. I'm really liking the card, and it taking away Islandwalk for Merfolk has saved my ass. Even just running the one copy has been great for me. I don't I'd like more, but perhaps in a different build more would be better. Right now? 1 seems tech.

Not so good stuffs: When I played against the Goblins, I felt like maybe some BEB were needed, but it was also a weird build. Swords and Disenchants, just for me. Hooray....

I'll test against Gobbos a bit more. Enchantress seemed to be a rough matchup if they get down a Grass or something early, and I don't have the mana to get there. Choke is really good against us, as is Seal of Cleansing. I would suggest if you're playing against Enchantress, keep mana open/counters open for shenanigans like that.

The other Dreadstill player suggested Rack and Ruin and H. Recall for the board in my meta, which may be the right call, as we have 4/15 people who have Stax built. Seems like a meta call, but I may switch it up.

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All in all, I liked playing the deck, and there were very few times were I felt totally helpless (only as a creature based deck that attacks versus a Stax deck, that hurts). Tell me what you guys think of the report, and ask any questions!

-Matt

I took the exact list I posted to the German Legacy Championship with 200+ participants yesterday and finished first going 8-1 with tiebreakers and opponent score from hell.

My matchups were the following:
Staxx 2-0
Uw Merfolk 2-0
Canadian Threshold 2-0
Ub Merfolk 2-1
Canadian Threshold 1-2 (wrong sideboarding on my part and an insane amount of hate coming out of his board)
Rb Goblins 2-0
Mono U Merfolk 2-1
GW Aggro 2-0
Bant Loam/Aggro (with KotR, Jace, Loam and Explosives) 2-0

Especially this last match has shown me how strong the deck is in the current metagame:
G1: I open on Fetch->Island go. Opponent goes Tropical, Top go.
I waste his Tropical. Opponent tries to fetch, I stifle, he forces, I daze and the game is over as he doesn’t have any other lands and quickly gets trashed by a nought.
G2: Opponent now has Grip, STOP, Explosives, Maze of Ith (to be fetched with KotR) and eventually Path to Exile. I mull to 6 on the draw into: 2 Island, 2 Fetchlands, Brainstorm, Spell Snare. My opponent keeps his 7 and starts strong on top, then Goyf (Spell Snare) followed by 2 Knight of the Reliquary while I draw into 2 more lands and Brainstorm into 2 more lands and a Counterbalance which I immediately drop.(getting rid of 2 lands)
My Counterbalance blind flips on all of his cards miss, but eventually I draw a predict and predict away a Dreadnought(which I revealed via CB for his knight) getting me a Force + blue card for his 2nd knight. He beats me with his first knight, drops a Loam, untaps it with Maze of Ith after damage and searches for Academy Ruins to go with his Engineered Explosives. I get a Brainstorm of the top finally getting rid of some lands from my hand and while I am still completely flooded I can drop Jace and bounce his KotR. He drops it again and in the end I find a STOP for his Knight, get card advantage on him with Predict, find a Top to go with my CB and Jace him to Death while stifling / hitting with counterbalance his attempts to blow up my Counterbalance lock with Explosives + Academy Ruins.

I was really pleased how I could come back in a pretty difficult matchup after a mulligan to 6 and getting pretty unfortunate draws.

I was happy I had Predict instead of Standstill all day long and it worked very well whereas Standstill would have been a liability in half of my matchups. Swords to Plowshares out of the board were awesome hitting exactly what they are meant to hit (Lackey, KotR, Tombstalker, leveled Coralhelm Commander, Tarmogoyf, Vengevine and everything Bolt kills as well of course) and will definitely stay. Counterbalance and Dreadnought were MVP's all day long, doing what they are supposed to do.

Jace obviously got boarded out a lot as I played against aggro decks a lot, but won the matchups he was supposed to win on his own (Bant, Staxx). I didn't have to play against 4 color CB control, Landstill, Thopters or typical NOBant and those are the matchups where he shines.

My manabase was rock solid all day long giving me all the colors even if I faced 9/9 rounds decks with 4 Wastelands. All my Merfolk opponents got pretty strong draws and in the 9 games I played in this matchup my opponent only once didn't have a turn 1 Aether Vial.

However I have to admit that my deck was actually not as good as I expected and only worked in a disappointing way in several games. I could still win the tournament and now I know the weak points of my deck and will adjust it accordingly. Thank you all for posting your lists and especially your criticism, it helps me a lot to tweak and improve this a bit more.

I actually feel that the real strength of Dreadstill is its stronger game against aggro and tribal decks like Goblins and Merfolk compared to most other counterbalance variants where I couldn't achieve any similar matchup percentages against those archetypes in testing, no matter how many War Monks, Firespouts and Goyfs I added. Here you gotta draw Dreadnought/Trinket Mage + Stifle effect which makes it inconsistent, but when you do (and you got plenty of tools to delay them and to protect it once it resolved) you win most of the time. I have played in a lot of tournaments with Dreadstill already but especially this one has shown me again why Dreadnoughts are the way to go and not Goyfs.

Dreadstill gives you a fuck ton of random wins with:
1. Dreadnought + Stifle
2. Stifle + Waste
3. CB + Top

More importantly we achieve to play all of this while having a minimum of dead/bad cards in every matchup:
1. Control matchups: here Dreadnought is bad most of the time. This is a total of 4 cards while other counterbalance decks that are tweaked towards beating aggro got 4 STOP, 3 Firespout, +X
2. Aggro matchups: We manage to turn this matchup into a coinflip preboard by running 4 cards (Dreadnought) and the rest of the deck is simply a blue control shell and thus pretty strong in any control matchup for not having many dead cards here. Postboard everyonce has the possibility to use his splash of choice to improve those matchups till they are favorable.
3. Combo matchups: we all know that Dreadstill is one of the best decks you can play in those ones.

EDIT: Link to the top 8 decklists from the tournament: http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=5551

I'm assuming you took the Predict list to the tournament? Seems interesting. I'll give it a try and post my results on here. I like Swords out of the board, it seems hot.

Did you end up using the Perish very often. If so, when, and how successful was it?

-Matt