[Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

Unlike most of you who have been posting successful results with your Dreadstill or Dreadict decks. I on the other hand, went 1-4 at my local Legacy tournament of about 40 people.

I was 25th of 40.

Decklist:
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Island
3 Wasteland
3 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Trinket Mage

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

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

Unfortunately, I didn't take down the details of the matches.

Round 1: Steven with Burn. (2-1)
Game 1: Second turn Stifle Naught seals the game
Game 2: Grips + fast burn
Game 3: Early Counter top stopped all his burns and Dreadnought finished

Round 2: David with RG Goblins. (1-2)
Game 1: Forced his first turn lackey and he scoops after I drop a Dreadnaught on my turn.
Game 2: Drops a second Lackey after I Force the first one. Pays the echo cost for his Mogg War Marhals + Goblin Chieftains = gg.
Game 3: Misplay on my part. Kept a hand with no force but a bolt in hand for the Lackey. He drops an Aether vial which seals the game with multiples of warchiefs and ringleaders.

Round 3: Tom with G/W Survival. (1-2)
Game 1: Second turn Dreadnaught and dazed his swords which then he scoops.
Game 2: Had countertop online but couldn't stop the reoccuring of Vengevine + Knight of the Reliquary
Game 3: Had firespouts in hand but even then Knights of the Reliquary were too big later in the game with fetches in his grave. Really missed regular counterspells in this game instead of spell snares or dazes.

Round 4: Wilken with GBW Rock. (0-2)
Game 1: First turn Thoughtseize followed by Hym + Hynptoc Specter hurts.
Game 2: Long drawn out battle which led to the nullification of my Dreadnaught since he kept a hand full of Paths, Grips etc.

Round 5: David with 43 Lands. (1-2)
Game 1: Second turn Dreadnaught = win.
Game 2: Relic proved to slow him down quite a bit but eventually he gets his lock of Crucible + Wasteland + Port
Game 3: Grip + Loam + Wasteland + Port lock.

Round 6: Bye

A bit disappointed because I had high hopes for this deck. But it proves that I still have much to learn about this deck. Such as when to mull, what I should keep with which opponent, and how to sideboard.

Was very bummed out I lost to some of the 1-2 matches because I felt like I had a very good chance of winning it all if I made better decisions such as mulling to better suit the competition.

@ muradin

how is ur sideboardplan with this deck? how to board in most matchups? can u give us a more or less detailed plan?

One thing I can see with splashing green instead of black is having access to "Back to Nature." Grip is good, but getting rid of Moat, Humility, and a bunch of stuff off the board at once also seems like an upside as well. It helps with the Enchantress matchup, as well. Has anyone else considered the card, if they were splashing green in their build?

-MAtt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Muradin

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.

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Congrats on the finish... I played Van Phanel's list this past weekend (4-1-2) and was convinced that standstill is just too much of a liability.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Muradin

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.

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Care to expand upon your thoughts? What were the perceived week points and perhaps potential fixes. I see the near future leading to more dreadstill decks without standstill. One thing I noticed was you cut a land while adding 2 Jace and a fourth color. Was this ever a problem (I guess not as you said your mana was great al day)?

Perhaps a few questions would be useful to spark a discussion:

*2 Daze vs 3?
I like daze cause it lets you get a little more aggressive with Counterbalance or Jace against other control decks

*4 Counterbalance vs 3?
Was this ever excessively cumbersome? I guess with Jace you have even more ways to rid youself of extras

* 20 lands vs 21?
Care to elaborate on how you justified cutting a land while adding a color and 2 Jace to the deck? Perhaps factories only count as partial lands?

Thanks

Congrats on the finish Muradin. Did you ever find yourself sad to not be able to stall the game for multiple turns via Standstill? I find that to be one of the best parts about the card is sometimes how many turns you get to sculpt a nice hand etc. How was Jace btw? I'm sold on him in Dreadstill but probally only as a 1-of silver bullet card for me. I'm not totally convinced we want to be playing multiples in the deck, despite how good he is. I think a 1/1 split between maindeck/SB will be what i'll be using.

I'm also very interested in Muradin's decklist and the "weak points" he mentioned. It's definately very interesting to see dreadstill being played without standstill, was predict a satisfying substitute? Could Dark Confidant perhaps be another one?

Sideboarding:

Zoo: -4 Dreadnought, -4 Stifle, -2 Daze, -2 Trickbind
+1 Plains, +4 StoP, +1 Explosives, +2 Perish, +3 Firespout, +1 Jace

In tournament play I am 7-2 in matches against Zoo with this sideboard plan. My testing here were 20 games preboard, where I went 12-8 preboard (slightly better than even, as expected) and 16-4 postboard (pretty good). Those results are not faked. If you are interested I can give you my Zoo testing list as well. It is a standard list with 4 Path, 4 Qasali Pridemage, 2 Sylvan Library, 2 Knight of the Reliquary maindeck. The board has 3 Grip, 2 Pyroblast, 2 StoP effects that get boarded in for Helix and Chain Lightnings.
My plan is to have them sit on their useless removal (Path, StoP), not getting 2-1ed by Grip, have them grip your Tops, get new ones via Trinket Mage (that get pathed then, which doesn’t matter and gives you either life or extra lands). Your awesome removal suite helps you to kill all of their creatures most of the time.
Jace wins this matchup in the end by being a strong win condition they can’t Grip or Path. You don’t want land destruction effects here (and thus Daze is weak), because you try to stop their guys while they assemble burn, Paths and other useless cards and slowly get flooded with lands. You keep up your card quality threatening to drop the Counterbalance hammer on them and eventually win in a controlling way.

Goblins: -4 Counterbalance, -2 Daze, -2 Jace, -1 Spell Snare
+1 Plains, +1 Explosives, +4 StoP, +3 Firespout

This matchup depends heavily on their splash color. Luckyly, most builds today are mono R or Rb. While mono red is a rather favorable matchup I consider Rb to be even preboard and slightly favorable postboard. Rg however is slightly unfavorable preboard (if they have several Tin Street Hooligan maindeck) and Rgb is abyssal. They have Sting Scourger, Warren Weirdings, Tin Street Holligan, Krosan Grip, Red Elemental Blasts…. The worst of all Goblin builds combined. Goblins is a very explosive and strong deck and thus can always cause problems. They can recover quickly from Firespout via Ringleaders and have a lot of strong opening plays with Vial / Lackey.
Their creatures have haste, so Jace doesn’t work very well here and in general I found myself not capable of controlling them in the long run. However all the removal you bring in helps to keep them in check for several turns and stop their initial assault until you find a Nought and can protect it.

In general the matchup depends heavily on their build, but I consider every build without Krosan Grip to be roughly even, mono red favorable.

Merfolk: -4 Counterbalance, -2 Jace, -3 Predict, -1 Top, -2 Daze(on the draw), -2 Snare (on the play)
+3 Pyroblast, +1 Explosives, +4 Swords to Plowshares, +3 Firespout, +1 Plains

Unlike Goblins you can actually control them quite some of the time postboard, as they don’t have ringleaders to refill their hand. Dreadnought is a beating here and will end the game immediately 4/5 of the time you land one. Trickbind is very strong here as well for being uncounterable. Most merfolk decks don’t have any solutions for a resolved Dreadnought at all.
The matchup is roughly even to slightly negative preboard and becomes a lot better postboard. Merfolk is a difficult matchup most of the time, but it isnt’t all that bad in general because they get crushed by a resolved Nought.

4 Color Columbus Counterbalance: -4 Phyrexian Dreadnought, -2 Trickbind, -2 Daze,
+3 Pyroblast, +1 Plains, +3 Swords to Plowshares, +1 Jace, TMS

Quite some of the time they just get blown out by your land destruction. They have so much removal, that Dreadnought is not very likely to connect here, unless you have already won. Perish is not needed as they usually just have 4 Goyfs and 2 Cliques, those get handled pretty well by 3 Swords. Those are mainly brought in, so I can focus my Spell Snares on their Counterbalances/ Predicts / Counterspells.
We are the better control deck postboard for having more real card advantage and another angle of attack with Stifle + Wasteland. Furthermore their removal is rather inefficient against us, killing only Trinket Mager after he has done his duty.
Make sure you play quickly here, as the matches tend to last very long and your win conditions are not very fast. This matchup depends heavily on how experienced you are here, but will be favorable with good play on your part.

Pro Bant: -4 Dreadnought, -4 Stifle, -2 Daze, -2 Trickbind
+1 Jace, +1 Plains, +4 StoP, +1 Explosives, +2 Perish, +3 Pyroblast

This is a good matchup. However their manabase is pretty hard to disrupt as they run Noble Hierarch with a lot of cantrips and basic lands. Postboard their removal suite includes Trygon Predator, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Qasali Pride Mage and Krosan Grip. Thus it is near impossible to win with a timely Dreadnought here.
In general I try to act as the control deck postboard, while Perish is a total beating and they will struggle to threaten you any longer once you gain some card advantage while they are still holding their removal.
Preboard you are slightly favorable and postboard it becomes very good. I am glad to play this matchup every tournament.

Canadian Threshold: -4 Dreadnought, -2 Spell Snare, -2 Daze, -2 Trickbind
+1 Perish, +3 Pyroblast, +1 Explosives, +1 Plains, +4 StoP

Roughly even, slightly favorable preboard. Becomes better post board. While Dreadnought is very strong here preboard it becomes very hard to resolve one, once they have 4 Spell Pierce and 4 REB’s after sideboarding. Watch out for Vendilion Clique and Trygon Predator as they are their most scary threats before sideboarding.
Postboard keep their creatures of the table, protect your manabase with your stifles and kill them with Jace, once they start drawing Dazes and Spell Pierce in the lategame.
I take out Spell Snare here because we already have 4 StoP to kill their Goyfs and thus don’t need that many Snares here as they become redundant if you draw too many.
I only bring in 1 Perish here, because it costs 3 mana and we only have 1 Underground Sea and I don’t want to draw any redundant copies once they managed to destroy it via Wasteland.

New Horizons: -4 Dreadnought, -2 Spell Snare, -1 Explosives, -1 Trinket Mage, -2 Trickbind
+1 Plains, +4 StoP, +1 Jace, +1 Perish, +3 Pyroblast

They have 4 StoP, 4 Krosan Grip. Dreadnought won’t work here. This plays out very similar to the Canadian Threshold matchup. However you got a slightly unfavorable matchup here, because they have StoP and bigger creatures. Postboard you must kill or counter every single creature immediately and Jace is an absolute bomb here, bouncing guys and creating card advantage. This is where StoP really shines.

Landstill: -4 Dreadnought, -2 Daze, -1 Explosives
+3 Pyroblast, +1 Jace, +1 Plains, +2 StoP

My plan is to kill them with Planeswalkers and counter theirs. Thus I blank their removal and bring in an extra Jace with REBs to force him through and some StoPs to prevent their Mishras from killing my Plainswalkers in case they get more than I get Wasteland.
The matchup depends totally on their build, but in general it is favorable, especially the new Ubg builds, as Deed is not good against 6 Stifle effects and they don’t have Elspeth. If they are running Elspeth (most do), Crucible (some do) and 2-3 Decree of Justice(nearly nobody does) however I’d leave 2-3 Noughts in however as you will lose in the long run. Try to disrupt their mana then, drop a CB and kill them with a quick 12/12. This will still be an uphill battle in case they got many of the aforementioned cards.

Most types of combo are an easy matchup as well.

If you think, that I am too optimistic considering the matchup evaluation I can only say that this came from a lot of tournament play and serious testing. I’ll now mention some of the very weak matchups however that came up in testing:

Bad Matchups: Goblins Rgb, Ichorid (not abyssal, replace the 3rd Jace with a Crypt to make it a lot better), Uw Merfolk (in general Tribal decks with Grip or StoP), some Landstill builds (Geoff Smelski wise), Bgw Deadguy Ale (Tombstalker, Confidant, Sinkhole, Grip, StoP).

In general you see a pattern here. I use Phyrexian Dreadnought to improve my matchup to a point no other card could against aggro decks and otherwise difficult matchups (Enchantress, Lands). This allows us to run the strongest, blue control shell in the format which would otherwise be dead to any kind of Zoo or tribal deck and thus get an edge in the control mirror. Dreadnought is simply the most slot effective card to win against creature based strategies of any kind.

Considering the manabase I think it is actually quite strong, probably even more reliable than the traditional manabase. At a first glance, you will notice that I run only 20 lands total in my maindeck compared to the 21 in more traditional Dreadstill builds. But you have to take into consideration, that I have 16 blue mana sources total instead of 14 in other builds. This is especially important because I am running the full 4 of Counterbalances and thus need to be able to cast them reliably early on.

By running 8 fetchlands I have good access to all of my 4 colors and the basic Plains is very important in the board, as it makes StoP the beast it is in the matchups where it matters.
Furthermore, the maindeck is still mono blue, we have Stifle effects to protect our lands from Wasteland, and finally the deck only is 4 colored against matchups that don't have wasteland at all most of the time.

Considering 2 vs 3 Daze: If you run Jace maindeck I wouldn't run too many Dazes as those two cards don't play together very well, otherwise play as many as you can fit in. Roodmistah actually runs the full play set of Dazes, which is fine. In my list however, the 4th Daze got cut for the 4th Spell Snare because this card is better in the current metagame for me. The 3rd Daze got cut alongside with the 4th Predict for 2 Jace, to supplement my draw engine and to make my sideboard plans work.

Considering 3 vs 4 Counterbalance: I wanted to run 4 of those, I really did. The same is true for Wasteland. I think the decklist can't be optimal while running only 3 of those 2 cards as they are especially strong here, and therefore should be 4-ofs. While running 4 Mishra's Factory, you can't run 4 Wasteland because otherwise your blue mana count drops too low and thus your deck becomes inconsistent and will take a lot of mulligans.

My build simply gave me the possibility to run 4 of both. In general I dropped Standstill, consequently I dropped Factory. This gave me the possibility to run more blue mana sources and the full 4 Wastelands. After I had so many blue sources I could consequently add the 4th Counterbalance and drop it early on without any problems. After having removed Standstill I needed another draw engine, this was Predict.

Predict isn't as powerful as Standstill but fits this deck perfectly because it is card advantage and card quality at the same time. Namely: It helps you to get rid of superfluous Daze, Dreadnoughts, Stifles, Lands... To compensate the loss of raw card advantage and to give me a stronger control matchup I added 2 Jace, TMS. They are very versatile and strong, but I guess you all know, that they tend to win some games.

20 VS 21 lands: I have 16 blue mana sources, which was more important to me, than having 21 lands total. Not having factory makes the mana base stronger; however they were strong in many matchups and definitely gave the deck more punch.

Previously I have seen Dreadstill as a real: aggro-control-combo deck. In my build it has become control-combo. This has its advantages and disadvantages.

@Roodmistah: I found myself happy to stall with Standstill countless times. However, quite often I had the problem that in some matchups I got to draw 3 of Standstill and still didn’t find myself in a very good position because I had to discard immediately EOT and my opponents deck had a much stronger late game, namely Landstill or Plainswalker control decks.

In this particular tournament, Jace was totally underwhelming. My matchups were:
5x Vial Aggro variants (3x Merfolk, 1x Goblins, 1x GW Death and Taxes) (obviously he isn’t that strong here)
2x Canadian Threshold (here he was a bomb for sure, but hard to resolve due to them having 4 REB, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 FoW postboard and thus he was only mildly effective). However he won some games here as well.
1x Staxx, 1x Bant: In both of those matchups he has shown his actual strength by singlehandedly winning at least 1 game in each of those matches on his own. Especially the game I described in my last post convinced me of his strength, as he allowed me to game back from a very unfavorable position and win the matchup against an abundance of hate cards.

Predict was strong all day long, especially against the 5 Vial decks I played, where Standstill wouldn't have been optimal. Dark Confidant is a strong card, but doesn't fit here as he gets killed by nearly everything and is weak against agressive strategies, which are pretty dominant all over the format at the moment.

I definitely think, that 1/1 Jace in the main and the board is fine here, as I also run another copy in the board. Considering my sideboard plans I really need 3 Jace postboard, as otherwise I am pretty low on win conditions.

Finally I have to note, that while I personally think that my build is pretty strong, I don’t say that the traditional Dreadstill build is any bad, or that my version is superior to it. It is still very close to the original decklist, as it does nearly the same in many matchups, I only tried to solve some of the problematic matchups and cards by making some changes that appear to be strong to me and have accomplished what I wanted them to do.

I will make some changes to my decklist in the near future. I will let you know eventually, when I figured out what is the correct way to strengthen some of the weaker points I found. But this will need some more matches.

Edit: This actually became pretty long

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Muradin

I will make some changes to my decklist in the near future. I will let you know eventually, when I figured out what is the correct way to strengthen some of the weaker points I found. But this will need some more matches.

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Thanks for the detailed report. It was greatly appreciated. My recent tournament with dreadstill was my first legacy event (and it was the most fun I have had playing magic in a long time). I look forward to seeing/helping the deck evolve in the time to come. If only I had more legacy events in my area.

Muradin,

Thank you. That is the best thing I have read on The Source in a long time. You have presented your reasoning well. And I plan to test your build and its sideboarding plan in the near future.

Muradin:

I sat down with The Atog Lord last night and we tested the build you presented. In our games he was playing Dreadstill, and I was playing Zoo. We played a number of pre and post boarded games and the Dreadstill deck used the exact sideboarding you presented in your most recent post. The Zoo deck in question was fairly standard and it looked like this:

// Lands
1 [B] Forest
1 [B] Plains
1 [B] Mountain
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [B] Savannah
3 [B] Plateau
2 [B] Taiga
4 [ZEN] Arid Mesa

// Creatures
3 [TO] Grim Lavamancer
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [ALA] Wild Nacatl
4 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
2 [WWK] Loam Lion
4 [ZEN] Steppe Lynx

// Spells
4 [B] Lightning Bolt
4 [LG] Chain Lightning
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
3 [LG] Sylvan Library
3 [RAV] Lightning Helix

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Lightning Helix
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 2 [M10] Pithing Needle

The maindeck is about what would be expected, if a little rough around the edges. The SB, and my particular approach in SB'ing, is worth some explanation.

Previously I've used a combination of 3 REB and 3 Choke, though in this testing session I was up to 6 REB which was inspired by the Japanese "Big Zoo" list. I was testing the 6 REB approach because I thought it might be an effective approach against the Show and Tell decks where Choke isn't so hot but REB is pretty good. So while I got to REB Jace/CB more often than a normal Zoo deck would, I never got to just end the game with Choke either. Ultimately I still feel that a 3 REB and 3 Choke approach is stronger against blue control decks like Dreadstill. The Pithing Needle is not there for anything in particular; it is mostly just a test card that I wanted to throw in but it had some application in this match too.

My first post-SB game was atrocious and I lost with Zoo. I forget exactly what I boarded in and out, but it was poorly thought out and I ended up with a bunch of burn while he was at like 15 life with CB/Top or something similar and knew I made a serious mistake. In our 2nd post-SB game I tried a different approach that ended up working much better. I won most of our following post-board games with these changes:
-4 Lightning Bolt
-4 Chain Lightning
-3 Lightning Helix
+3 Krosan Grip
+3 REB
+3 Pyroblast
+2 Pithing Needle

I kept Path because of respect for the Dreadnought plan, and also because I figured it would be more representative of actual tournament games. Were I to replay this series of games, I would ditch the Paths and keep the Bolts. In previous testing sessions I have boarded out Paths in this match-up but that was also a different Zoo deck. I would be loathe to board in MORE StP effects at any point though, as Zoo really does not want them in this match and they are actually quite bad in many situations.

Regardless, this SB plan is fairly close to what I do against a stock blue-based control deck that is likely to be sitting on tons of removal after boarding. My plan is quite simple:

1) Play a single creature, no more and no less
2) Attack
3) If the single creature is removed, then replace it with another creature
4) Support the creature with utility such as REB, Sylvan Library, Grip, and Path

Essentially...the critical element for the Zoo player here is to not run into mass removal. Whether it is Firespout or Perish or EE, a good Zoo player will likely know that the blue deck is up to something and will only play one creature at a time. Why would it need to play more? A single Wild Nacatl can apply quite a strong amount of pressure all on its own. The Zoo player knows that he cannot be raced, and he can win a game of attrition provided he doesn't run into a card like Firespout that just blows him out. Without a card like Factory, there is no reason for the Zoo player to put 2 creatures on the board. This leaves all the mass removal as simple 1:1 trades.

Because most blue decks tend to board in removal of some kind, whether it is a little or a lot, boarding out creatures against these decks is very silly. And because CB decks can so easily remove early creatures and lock the game with CB (shutting off burn), the actual burn spells do not provide inevitability like they do against a classical control deck such as Landstill (which must manually counter each and every lethal burn spell). Thus, boarding out removal/burn in this match is perfectly valid. In fact, after boarding I only had 4 such spells in my entire deck and I felt very strong directly because of this.

The poard-SB match was pretty rough for Dreadstill with this plan. All of the cards that help the blue deck pull ahead, namely CB and Jace, were quickly shut down by the Zoo deck. And without a way to generate an advantage, it is an uphill struggle for the blue deck because it is the Zoo player who has inevitability here, whereas I feel that in the example where the Zoo player is boarding in things like StP it is then the Dreadstill player who has inevitability. Either way it feels pretty close and most of our games tended to be long, drawn out affairs.

At the very least, I did not feel our games played out in a manner that would suggest the Dreadstill player was favored in a 16-4 ratio, and in fact I would be hard pressed to say that Dreadstill is favored at all after boarding. Perhaps Rich can share some of his insights from the other side of the match.

The matchup between DreadDict and Zoo was decidedly even, pre- and post-board. While much could be said about the matches, I would like to focus on those differences between the performance of DreadDict against Zoo, and the typical performance of DreadStill against Zoo.

In the games before sideboarding, the typical difference between DreadDict (DD) and DreadStill is found in the names. DD has predict and more blue-producing land, whereas DreadStill has Standstill and Mishra's Factory. Unfortunately, this is a net negative for DreadDict when facing Zoo. In the Dreadstill on Zoo matchup, there is no card I like more than Standstill. It is quite easy to get into play against an empty or at least matched board. And from there, the Zoo player has no choice but to pop Standstill, or die to the eventual Mishra's Factory onslaught. Predict, while a fine card, does not pack quite the same punch as Standstill.

First, Standstill draws three cards while Predict draws at most two. That's the difference between Night's Whisper and Ancestral Recall. The difference between keeping a hand and Mulliganing that hand. Second, Standstill takes less setup than Predict to make work. Which is not to say that Standstill takes no setup -- but that is generally done in deck construction, rather than during a game. A second turn Standstill is much, much easier to make work than a second turn predict. And by the time Predict has been established, the game against Zoo has often been won or lost. Which is not to say that Standstill is flat-out better than Predict; that must be evaluated across several matchups. But against Zoo in particular, I would much prefer Standstill.

Then there are the sideboard games. As Brad pointed out, it became quite difficult to get value out of my mass removal; quite often, I would be forced to fire a Perish merely to kill one Nacatyl. It was that or continue taking three damage per turn for the foreseeable future. If Brad weren't playing well, I could have hoped that he would overextended into my mass-removal. But he is a first-rate player and I could hold no such hope.

I also missed Mishra's Factory in the matches. Factory successfully blocks Loam Lions and Kird Apes, and trades with Wild Nacatyls. Being able to become a 3/3 alone, or 4/4 with help from a friend, Factory is quite good against Zoo. But once Dreadnoughts are boarded out, we're left with mass-removal spells and Trinket Mages to hold off a creature-fueled onslaught. So this leads to having to throw a Firespout to remove a Loam Lion. And the mass removal runs out.

What did I like about this build? Swords to Plowshares was quite good. It hits large Goyfs, unlike Lightning Bolt or similar removal. And with the Dreadnoughts cut, giving the opponent an extra six life is perfectly fine. Overall, though, I dislike what the changes do to the Zoo matchup. That said, if they can help facilitate victory in other tough matches, they may indeed be worthwhile. But for Zoo, the changes make the matchup more difficult for the blue mage.

Today I participated in a smaller local tournament (42 participants) going 5-1 with my known build with minimal changes.

My matchups were the following:

2-1 Zoo with Lynx: I lost game 1 after having resolved CB + Top against his Nacatl and Mancer, because I couldn't find a stifle for 5 turns of brainstorming, predicting, fetching and toping. Happens.
G2 +3 I managed to completely crush him as I got card advantage on him with mass removal and managed to ride the card advantage to an easy victory.

2-1 TES: Good matchup, lost to a protected 2nd round kill one game while he did nothing in the other 2 games and I overkilled him.

2-0 GW Vengevine Survival G1 I 4-1ed him with Trinket Mage->Explosives, by killing 2 Noble Hierarch, 1 Mother of Runes, 1 Aether Vial after he had kept a good 1lander with those cards and waste him out after this. G2 Counterbalance + Firespout quickly make short work of him.

1-2 Rb Goblins: G1 I win with a timely Dreadnought. G2 I manage to drop a Dreadnought and he closely wins on 1 life with a nice topdeck. G3 I mulligan to 6 and lose in a long, drawn out battle against 2 Aether Vial while he taps 2 of my 4 lands with Ports every turn. I die with 2x Firespout, 1x Dreadnought, 1x Trickbind in hand while having a Top in play,unable to find a another land.

2-0 Aggro Rock: G1 Dreadnought with FoW backup wins. G2 is a long, drawn out game, where I finally manage to win with my 3rd Jace after he destroys my 2 previous ones via Vindicate.

2-0 Natural Order Elves: G1 I get the nuts hand with 2nd turn Nought with FoW backup and he has no chance. G2 I kill a Progenitus and some elves with Perish, drop a Jace and control him out easily from there.

I won a nice dual land and the prices were very good.
The deck worked pretty well and Jace was really strong this whole tournament.

But now to the more interesting part with the Zoo matchup:

The maindeck I tested against had no Steppe Lynx and only played 2 Libraries, while featuring 4 Kird Apes, the full 4 Lavamancers and 2 KotR

Especially the board with the blasts seems to be truely effective. Usually I expect a Zoo board to look much rather like this: (what I tested against)

2 Krosan Grip
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Pyroblast
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Vexing Shusher

The 6 blasts plan, combined with Grips and Needles will definitely give Dreadstill headaches, by making it difficult to attain any card advantage at all. Getting card advantage is actually the whole purpose of my whole sideboard plan and if they manage to prevent me from doing so, it'll be a coin flip most of the time. Especially their strong ability to keep me from using Top, which is a total trump card here, makes me feel much less confident in this matchup.
I am already having trouble facing builds running the usual 3 blasts, as they were already very strong for them in testing. Even more so, most of my Zoo opponents in tournament play might have followed a wrong plan and consequently got fucked by mass removal after they overextended.

I will definitely revise my testing against Zoo and I truely believe, that your results are correct. But to tell the truth, I am not worried at all about real tournament play. When playing in big tournaments (Milan, GPs,GP Trials, Germanmagic, Aschaffenburg), those being the ones I go to, I've never met a Zoo deck with such an effective sideboard against me. They actually didn't even seem to know my deck at all and more than half of them were totally surprised by my abundance of removal postboard while they saw a mono blue Dreadnought deck the game before.

I am actually convinced, that most of those players I faced in larger events were above average, as I actually did pretty well in all those events and they wouldn't have come that far / made day 2 if they were bad.

Still, this doesn't influence my testing and view on the matchup. I will do some games and will see what I can do against the suggested list (and playstyle). If the Zoo matchup proves to be less than still favorable this is unacceptable for me and I will find a solution.

This solution is not a way to stop the initial assault, but much rather a card that helps you to gain card advantage on them in an untouchable way, or force them to race.

This could be:

1. A stronger white splash (also helps against Goblins and Merfolk) featuring Elspeth, knight Errant as a, "un-blastable" way of winning the game and generating card advantage against aggro decks with a lot of BeB's. Elspeth is also one of the cards I am currently testing in some of the "weaker slots", but so far I am still trying to successfully adjust my mana base to support her. I already figured out, that she is suboptimal in the maindeck (anyway, this would take a lot of our advantages away and turn us more or less into landstill). But postboard she has proven to be strong in some matchups, control as well as aggro. I will post when I come to a conclusion about her inclusion in the board and the consequently needed manabase adjustments. Her role here would be the threat card zoo has to race and thus overextend into mass removal.

Elspeth is especially strong as she is a solution for, well, Eslpeth. She is one of the last cards I fear in the control mirror (alongside Decree of Justice and Crucible of Worlds. This is my most promising solution so far. This would however force me to drop the Underground Sea and consequently Perish for mana base stability. To tell the truth, I fear Natural Order as it is pretty strong against Dreadstill and always liked the card a lot against Elves, KotR and other green guys as well. (I even killed a Troll ascetic with it in tournament play and was happy about the non-regeneration part) However I already found a replacement that might be nearly as good.

2. A sideboard plan that leaves Dreadnoughts in. To make them strong against Grip I'd add Kira, the Great Glass Spinner (savage Merfolk tech). This is however also weak to REB. A card I also already tried with some success is Quagnoth (manabase adjusted, also giving you the ability to kill otherwise devastating Serra Avengers or Vampire Nighthawk via Firespout, which can be a very strong and unexpected play)

3. Another very simple possibility is adding 1 Academy Ruins in the maindeck. Then you run the 3rd explosives in the board in one Firespout slot and add an Etched Oracle alongside a Crucible of Worlds (SB for manabase stability, Wasteland lock and inevitability) for the 3rd Jace and another card. This however goes along with several other small, but important changes and gives the deck a very strong lategame against everything without a lot of mana denial[/B] When running Academy Ruins and Trinket Mage in the maindeck it would be terrible not to run 1 Tormod's Crypt as well in the board. This single card improves the Ichorid and Lands matchup so much in the Dreadstill shell with Ruins, that is is probably worth the inclusion even if it is not very commonly needed.

4. Coming up with a different deck I consider strong enough to do better in the current metagame.

Is Bloodmoon a good way to combat zoo? OR Perhaps it is just to slow.

In theory, it seems capable of hindering their development (and keep them off green) long enough that we can establish control with counterbalance top. I am just throwing out suggestions. We don't have factories to worry about with Bloodmoon.

Another thought I had from the past ext season is recurring executioners capsule with academy ruins. We do have trinket mage to tutor up the capsule just need a reliable way to get academy.

Thoughts?

Edit: This may be a suggestion that is too rooted in standard but calcite snapper/wall of denial block really well and force them to over commit making perish/firespout a lot better. Again, entirely untested and probably a bad idea. There is not a strong legacy following here so it is hard to get testing in for these ideas.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Muradin

This solution is not a way to stop the initial assault, but much rather a card that helps you to gain card advantage on them in an untouchable way, or force them to race.

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I believe that Standstill itself qualifies as such a card in the Zoo match.

Were I to play against Zoo all day I would much prefer Standstill to Predict. However the presence of other decks, particularly Vial centered decks, does make Predict a more appealing option. I suppose the ideal goal is that Predict will help smooth all of the aggro matches at the same time, and that losing ground in the Zoo match is acceptable if the Merfolk/Goblnis matches improve significantly.

One of your reasons for playing Predict was that you described it as being good against Vial decks, where Standstill would be lackluster. But then I noticed you were SB'ing out Predict against Merfolk anyway. I am left confused. If Predict isn't worth playing against Merfolk, is it worthwhile to play it in place of Standstill?

I actually don't see why Standstill is strong against a 6 basts plan. I couldn't drop Standstill during the first few turns against Zoo most of the time, but more often during the midgame. It was especially strong against the aforementioned playstyle of Zoo only playing 1 threat at once, because you could simply bolt it and drop your Standstill eot. But this also gets much weaker once your opponent gets 6 blasts.

Strategy

I actually think that against such a strong anti blue board (as well as against Canadian Threshold with a whole lot of blasts) Force of Will is not only bad, but rather a card that is disadvantageous for you. It will be hard to capitalize on the tempo gain from FoW against zoo, after having dropped all Noughts. Once I see my opponent is strong on blasts (considering I am 1-1 after g2 and lost against the blast + 1 threat plan) I would not hesitate to tell them honestly, that I boarded out all of my Noughts in fear of their removal and that I only lost because of this stupid idea. Then I will put back, not 15 as I usually do, but rather only some cards and show them a Nought in the process(dropping it on the table in a inept but not eye-catching way. Don't act as if you were a noob, they won't belive you, much rather like you "tried something new and figured out it must suck.")
After this you will have to play very quickly anyway, because games where you play the attrition war against zoo tend to take long and you won't have a hard time acting as if you were in a hurry.

You have to be good at this though.

Then proceed to pull out all but 1 Nought again, but keep the Stifle effects (as they are especially strong, once you are on the play in g3). Attack their mana base as hard as you can. This works especially well, as you didn't put any pressure on their lands in G2 and they might make a riskant keep here (possibly a 1 lander, but this is bad play on their part if it happens as they focus too much on 1 possible strategy Dreadstill can follow) because they don't want to mull fearing another attrition war.Consequently they have a hard time pressuring you while keeping up mana for blasts at the same time.Once they tap out, resolve your card advantage. Sometimes you might also manage to completely screw them and get a nice random win like that. Without FoW you will also find yourself in a stronger possition if they don't overextend, because 2-1 trades just aren't that good here (which is also why I drop my Noughts postboard)

strategy end

I managed to pull this of just in my last tournament, where my Zoo opponent had a Zoo build with a very strong lategame, featuring 3 KotR, 2 Elspeth ans 2 Sylvan Library. G3 I managed to screw him to 2 lands, resolve 2 Trinket Mage, consequently getting the 3rd Top only through his Grips and win via card quality and advatage after he had to Path both of them because he boarded out all of his burn and they threatened to put serious pressure on him after I had wasted and stifled 3 of his 5 land drops during the first few turns.

Mishra's Factory is a totally different story however. It is good, especially preboard to make them overextend. But in all those tournament games I played with Dreadstill, and those are about 10 times more than I played with the predict list (which I am not about, whether it is better or too weak) I didn't find myself capable of holding them of with Mishra's Factory very often.

They usually assemble a critical mass of useless burn in their hand and by activating Factory you give them a very good target all of a sudden. And while Standstill is definitely a trump card here when you are on the play (Hell, you can even drop it over a Nacatl with a Factory in play), I always had a lot of trouble making it work when I was on the draw, especially since a lot of Zoo lists in Germany have started to run 4 Wastelands:

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37512
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37515
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=32847

Postboard however, this is different. This is where Factory shines after they dropped most of their burn and will hesitate to path it, they become really strong and will eventually force them to overextend, especially once you get 2-3 of them. Elspeth + Academy Ruins / Explosives makes up for a lategame Zoo definitely can not compete with. If they don't kill you quickly you will eventually get one of those 2 or possibly both only and win. Those 2 plans are what I consider to be strong, not only because they fit pretty well in the shell as it is. And believe me, both cards were already included several times in earlier testing incarnations of the deck, but ultimately I dropped them because I figured out, my Zoo matchup was excellent as well without them.

You give me real results however, that show that I am overconfident there, given a good Zoo player following the right strategy and having a nice sideboard. A lot of my board is geared towards beating zoo. If my testing (I'll do this week) shows the same (it probably will as I consider you to be very competent), then I will make some changes and see if it works.

hey muradin, congratulations on the latest results;) especially on winning the german legacy championships!


how did you sideboard against the vengevine survival deck? just like you did against new horizons or is there a difference?

@ Kira >> Thought about this.. doesn't work. You can't stifle your dreadnaughts afterwards.

@ academy ruins >> I like academy ruins but the 12/12 goes farming more often than does it dies, so iunno about the plan. EE, I find, is very weak in this deck as anything 0 is ok, but above that, you hurt yourself more than you hurt your opponent. at 1, your own naught goes, at 2 your CB and if you can get the mana for 3, which you usually can't, then you hit your own trinket mage. I find that perish or firespout is better because although your trinket mage goes to the yard from firespout, the manalands and the 12/12 doesn't get affected. Also, if they over extend, Explosives doesn't necessarily punish them as sometimes you want to get rid of the 3 cmc knight because it is too big as well as the hordes of 3/3 and 4/5 but can't deal with both ont he saem turn. (I hope that wasn't too confusing)

@ bloodmoon against zoo >> too slow, ineffective against their creatures that have alrady resolved. It dosen't solve the problem in which zoo has a threatening board position over dreadstill

I find that removal is simply better. Then set CBT lock to lock out their removal and beat them down with a dreadnaught. Don't be worried to block with your factories as every bit of life counts. STifle/wasteland package should hurt them quite a bit already, blood moon is counter intuitive as it costs you more resources to not really deny them of that much more mana.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jin

@ Kira >> Thought about this.. doesn't work. You can't stifle your dreadnaughts afterwards.

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ZZzz this has been explained 10 times in this thread, you are not targeting the nought but the trigger, thus it works.

I've been running this deck lately (similar to Muradin's I guess)

// Lands

4 Island
7 Fetch
4 wasteland
2 volcanic island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Academy Ruins

// Spells
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's divining top
3 Spell Snare
3 Predict
3 Daze
1 Trickbind
1 Engineered explosives
1 Crucible
2 Jace the mindsculptor

// Creatures
4 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
3 Trinket Mage

// SB
1 Jace the mindsculptor
1 Plains
4 Swords to plowshares
2 Engineered explosives
2 Firespout
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Tormod's crypt

As you can see I've tried running white splash in the SB as well. I havent really playtested the deck extensively but I'm starting to really appreciate what I've seen from it so far; namely the possibility of reconstructing the deck to complete controll. Having Jace offers an undeniably huge utility to the deck which can be exploited in many ways.

The deck runs a reasonable amount of 3-drops (for being dreadstill, that is) so when siding out dreadnoughts vs, for instance, Zoo, this deck basically becomes a countertop deck which makes the Zoo MU easier. Oh and I suppose the same is true for MUs when countertop decks are in favour.

I'm really not missing standstill in this deck (so far hehe). Not having Mishra's opens for a 4th wasteland (is there a limit to how many matches you can win by stifling fetch > follow with waste?) and I mull less hands as well due to mana stability. I'm in love with predict as well, amazing card that can be used in so many different ways but best of all is probably that you can cantrip when YOU actually want to.

I'm not sure about running crucible, I think I have to test it some more. I'm also not sure about running only 1 explosives. Incidentally, I run 3 dazes which doesnt really synergize with Jace. Maybe cut 1 daze for another explosive?

I think removing standstills in favour for predict adds some really interesting elements to the deck and frees up some card slots. Jace is also a massive tech which can and should be utilized in many different ways. Above all, running 4 counterbalance should be mandotary I think. I realize that I've previously underestimated the power of having CBT in play, its just such a massive advantage to have and in some MUs its pretty much a must-have to be able to support a nought.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dsck

ZZzz this has been explained 10 times in this thread, you are not targeting the nought but the trigger, thus it works.

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oh like the piledriver thing.. +2/+0 thing
gotcha.
sorry I don't follow this thread enough.
I also searched kira and kira, on the thread search and nothing showed up, so you can't really blame me.

then why does dreadstill play countertop at all (ignoring the post from above due to the lack of comparison between CBT and Kira)? Kira is way faster.