[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

A good landstill player can play EE@2 around Counterbalance, or EE@1 against Mental Misstep (e.g. tapping UU for EE@1 setting it at 2cmc on the stack, or tapping UWUW for EE@2 setting it at 4cmc on the stack).

No, it's definitely not bad to EOT Repeal setting up for Standstill, but what do you truly gain? You only truly gain +2 card (Standstill/Repeal cycle themselves). Your opponent still has the very same spell in his hand that probably needs to be answered so you're now only up by +1 card if it demands a counter. Now the situation will be different if GT played more x-1 spells e.g. EE. I don't think his lists needs to because dropping something like Jace/Shackles is essentially playing an x-1 spell.

Contrast this to Repeal in Counterbalance decks. You're not going to be up on cards, but they're now down on one card (i.e. threat is answered assuming Counterbalance can counter it), so a -1 card on their end is about equivalent to +1 on your end. I'm not here to argue details, but I hope you see that Repeal EOT into STandstill is a good play, but doesn't really strikes me as offering a whole ton compared to other decks where bounce is more meaningful (tempo decks, CBTop decks). In landstill, it's simply to buy a turn, and a turn in Landstill seldom translates to winning, but rather it is mostly to get a stable position.

I've tested a bit, and for those saying that the mid-game was weak, I beat Junk, the midrange deck by excellence, over and over again, maybe 10 games, and it wasn't even close.

On Repeal:

It's obviously not a definite answer, but many times the time + extra card is enough to find an answer for the threat. Plus, it's really versatile. Although I'm on the fence of replacing it with 2 EE + 1 Something (PTE or an extra Shackles). Note: I did go -1 Repeal +1 Swords in testing, as I can't get myself to play a deck with 3 Swords, its either 4 or 0, the same goes for Brainstorm and Fow.

Oh, and I found Repeal => Standstill to be utterly devastating, I found an answer for the bounced threat 99% of the times.

On Cunning Wish:

It's versatile, but it's slow and clunky, so it doesn't seem a very good idea imo.

On Jace:

On my testing, 4 proved to be the correct number, I ALWAYS want to see a Jace, save for the first 2-3 turns. If they kill one, you can just drop another, or pitch extras to fow.

On extra Shackles & EE:

It looks like a good idea, specially for an aggro metagame (my case), but it deserves further testing.

Thoughts?

PS: For those who watched the coverage, what do you think about Gerry's Choice to drop Standstill on games 2 & 3 (with grindstone on the table), it seems a misplay to me, I mean, it costed him g2, and nearly costed him g3, specially when he didn't have Mishra on the board (G3). Does anyone know where I can find the vids, cause I missed the last 5 minutes of G3 :frown:

if your are looking for the vids of coverage they are all posted here http://www.ggslive.com/ the only thing is that they take about a week to be posted

@ Treefolk
I watched Gerry play the standstills games 2-3. i personally would not have cast them in that situation either, but i couldnt see what was in his hands when they were cast. I also have not playtested this deck yet either, ive only played ubgstill. this new list has caught my eye though and i do plan on testing it.



after looking over the new list i feel like 2 tolaria west could be considered. add 2 tolaria 1 EE and 1 academy? this allows you to search for factory under still find EE or Single Academy. again i havnt tested anything nor do i have time ATM. If someone else wants to take the sugestion for a spin and let us know how it plays i would appreciate it.

Probably if you want to run 4 Repeal purely as a Standstill enabler,then you should probably be running Pernicious Deed and play UBG, or play Wog/ DoJ again.

Repeal is good in:
-situations where you face only one creature
-situations where you face two/three creatures and you have the possibility to: set up a Vedalken Shackles, or a Jace bounce, or playing Stp into Standstill/next turn Standstill.

-in any other situation is almost a dead card, since bouncing one of their 2-3 creatures while having others beating is not so good in prevision of a future Standstill, and buying a turn while cantripping seems not so good if you don't have another bomb ready in hand, like Jace to bounce the other creature or Shackles.
-As others said, Repeal+ Stp + Standstill is a 2 card advantage due to Repeal cantripping.
-Please note that Repeal'ing a Kotr coosts 4 as a Doj / WoG. Sure it's instant speed, but does that really count in a deck tuned to survive early game and play at its peak in the mid-late game,when you have lots of mana to work with? Wog into Standstill is a turn 6 play, it's not so impossible and actually is a very strong play that UWx can/has to do.

Deed, or Wog, or Disk:
- Let you blow away almost everything, and facing 1-2+ creatures at the same time is not a problem.
- Are slower. That's probably the biggest issue, but if you are playing already 4 Misstep, 4 Spell Snare, 3 Counterspell, 4 Fow, your build is tuned to survive easily the first 4 turns, and you should be able to reach 4-5 mana and stabilize pretty easily.
- Deed / Wog or Disk into Standstill is 2 card advantage too, but actually you wasted one less resource (you just played 2 spells; instead of 3 with one actually blind-cantripping in a possible blank draw)
- All these spells, minus Disk, have multiple different specific mana in their mana costs, though.

I don't know what to think. I probably prefer a Wog / Doj approach to Standstill instead of a 1 on 1 bounce plan.Anyway,if he had a good result, and he had it, then it's probably right and it works.

[QUOTE=

PS: For those who watched the coverage, what do you think about Gerry's Choice to drop Standstill on games 2 & 3 (with grindstone on the table), it seems a misplay to me, I mean, it costed him g2, and nearly costed him g3, specially when he didn't have Mishra on the board (G3). Does anyone know where I can find the vids, cause I missed the last 5 minutes of G3 :frown:[/QUOTE]


I was surprised he played Standstill under those scenarios. I don't think I would have. It was pretty risky and basically cost him game 2 like you said. I was a bit shocked when he made the same play game 3. I guess he figured he could take some milling why he sculpted his hand in order to deal with the other threats.

In general I found Gerry T's list interesting. It finally convinced me that 2 color standstill is probably the way to go as it gives you a really solid mana base. However I think White has more to offer than just STP and I like the ability to have sweepers like WOG. Also, I think humility is still really good and would have been great in his match up against PainterStone. I also think that 4 Jaces it too much. I am still playing a 2Jace/2Elspeth split.

Basically Mental Misstep drastically increases the potency of Standstill because it allows us to counter the turn 1 threat and drop standstill. I think the card is going to start getting a lot more attention with MMS printed. I'm looking forward the the rise of Stanstill and straight up control decks that don't involve counterbalance.

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Originally Posted by Royal Ass.

I was surprised he played Standstill under those scenarios. I don't think I would have. It was pretty risky and basically cost him game 2 like you said. I was a bit shocked when he made the same play game 3. I guess he figured he could take some milling why he sculpted his hand in order to deal with the other threats.

In general I found Gerry T's list interesting. It finally convinced me that 2 color standstill is probably the way to go as it gives you a really solid mana base. However I think White has more to offer than just STP and I like the ability to have sweepers like WOG. Also, I think humility is still really good and would have been great in his match up against PainterStone. I also think that 4 Jaces it too much. I am still playing a 2Jace/2Elspeth split.

Basically Mental Misstep drastically increases the potency of Standstill because it allows us to counter the turn 1 threat and drop standstill. I think the card is going to start getting a lot more attention with MMS printed. I'm looking forward the the rise of Stanstill and straight up control decks that don't involve counterbalance.

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Humility doesn't stop Painter's Servant. Layers.

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Originally Posted by nayon

Humility doesn't stop Painter's Servant. Layers.

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That's true, however you shut down Welder and Trinket Mage.

I think that Gerry t's emphasis on basics is pretty important. Getting double white is gonna be tough. If you guys go for the double white plan, you're gonna need basic plains and that messes up the shackles plan. I still prefer shackles over humility though. I've died to 1/1s too many times. You've got to up the manland count so that humility is the most effective too.

I have altered my list after watching the Gerry T matches. I have not yet been sold on Shackles. I still want to run 2 WOGs and 1 Humility as well as 2 Elspeth and 4 Swords. I have a Peacekeeper in the board. I am running 2 basic Plains to support all this.

I also run 4 Factories. I always want to see that card. Gerry T only runs 23 lands. That seems way too low to me. I know most decks run 24. I actually run 25. With brainstorm and Top you can shuffle them away.

I think Gerry T should have at least run 24 by adding an extra Factory. Obviously he still won so perhaps it didn't matter, but there were some times in his semi finals match where he was wanting for a factory. Especially when he had Standstill out with a grindstone in play.

I actually have cut down to 1 Top from 2. It's one less MMS target, plus I needed to make room in the deck for 4 MMS.

I didn't realize that Humility didn't shut off Painter's Servant. I don't understand why it doesn't shut that off but it does trinket mage. Could someone briefly explain that to me? Thanks.

612.1a Layer 1: Copy effects are applied. See rule 706, “Copying Objects.”
612.1b Layer 2: Control-changing effects are applied.
612.1c Layer 3: Text-changing effects are applied. See rule 611, “Text-Changing Effects.”
612.1d Layer 4: Type-changing effects are applied. This includes effects that change an object’s card type, subtype, and/or supertype.
612.1e Layer 5: Color-changing effects are applied.
612.1f Layer 6: Ability-adding and ability-removing effects are applied.
612.1g Layer 7: Power- and/or toughness-changing effects are applied.


612.3a Layer 7a: Effects from characteristic-defining abilities are applied. See rule 604.3.
612.3b Layer 7b: Effects that set power and/or toughness to a specific number or value are applied.
612.3c Layer 7c: Effects that modify power and/or toughness (but don’t set power and/or toughness to a specific number or value) are applied.
612.3d Layer 7d: Power and/or toughness changes from counters are applied. See rule 120.
612.3e Layer 7e: Effects that switch a creature’s power and toughness are applied. Such effects take the value of power and apply it to the creature’s toughness, and take the value of toughness and apply it to the creature’s power.



Painter applies in layer 5 (see above). then humility apples in layer 6 so the changing effect applied by painter has already happened.

also there is an entire thread on how humility works for further instruction

Since we see alot of pridemage, I think that the manland, plains and humility may be equally effective too. You'd need to trim jace's to 3 though. I wouldn't run elspeth too because that's too many 4 drops. I'm not sure about the wastes, why not just play vaults? Vaults + factories + humility seems pretty strong.

It seems that the only reason for wastes is to compete with fish's lands under a still. Mutavaults serves the same purpose and is just ridiculous with humility.

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Originally Posted by ivanpei

I think that Gerry t's emphasis on basics is pretty important. Getting double white is gonna be tough. If you guys go for the double white plan, you're gonna need basic plains and that messes up the shackles plan. I still prefer shackles over humility though. I've died to 1/1s too many times. You've got to up the manland count so that humility is the most effective too.

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Getting double white isn't tough in UWx splash-x builds. But of course getting just U in Uw builds is easier, but WW spells do offer a ton more power avaialble.

UWx builds do support Shackles weakly for the reasons you mentioned, but they opt for other x-1 spells such as Humilty/WoG/Elspeth. To be fair, I've died to more 8/8 knights and Progenitus/Emrakul etc. Shackles v.s. Humility v.s. WoG are metagame calls. The consensus is that Humility/WoG is an answer all for any aggro deck out there and has proven well where Shackles was weaker. However, Gerry T is known to come up with innovative lists (e.g. his BUG Tempo deck which many mistake to be Team America which he piloted in the past that was built with a metagame of TA in mind) that work well for his top finishes, and given that he has plenty of byes, he can really focus on metagaming to what he expects are in the final few rounds of the circuits. This is highly important.

Shackles is the glue in MUC, and in some sense, GerryT's list resembles MUC but within a Landstill shell (manlands + Standstill).

I agree, byes have alot to do with it. His decks are extremely metarized. He doesn't have to fight through a couple of rounds of random first. The benefit of repeal at the top tables is that it's blue and pitches to force in the jace vs jace slugfest. More spot removal/sweepers probably aren't as important at the top tables where blue mirrors are king.

When I tested against it it felt like he was playing supreme blue. No real interaction minus one card you have to play around carefully. Once the situation has been voided, the game is over.

What was the sb card that GerryT and friends had that was the trump to Thrun?

I really like Landstill with Mental Misstep, but I fear Merfolks in this meta. Peacekeeper and StP seem like a fine plan, but has anyone tried U/w/r for Firespout? 3cc Sweep is ideal, as it follows Standstill and sets up Jace nicely. I think it shores up Aggro matchups, has anyone tried red?

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Originally Posted by conboy31

What was the sb card that GerryT and friends had that was the trump to Thrun?

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I believe it was their lovely 'Take Possession' they had in their tutor package board. They also discovered how good Decree of Justice is in the deck finally and took out those terrible Repeals. They still don't run Cunning Wish which is a giant mistake. Not a fan of their build. Gerry and Drew ID'd in round 8, our best guess is to avoid top 16 and their deck list being posted but I was standing there through their 'match' and saw most of their list. Was unimpressed compared to a Master Shake special but I'm biased.

It has probably dawned on most LS players already, but with STP being the formats' #1 creature removal spell: Peacekeeper + Mental Misstep = win. I feel so safe when dropping that guy with a Misstep in hand and drawing more, while the game draggs on.

Uxr builds these days don't beat Merfolks. You beat Merfolks only if you solve:

1) Vial (if you can't solve this, you just don't beat it at all)
2) Having a clock/win/lock.

Number 2) is becoming pressingly important observation to this matchup. There is no point to sweep and pinpoint remove their creatures over and over again. Merfolks will always rebuild and match your 1-1 answer (they run card advantage cards and can utilize manlands as free creatures). It's very important when you understand 2) being the bottleneck to beating Merfolks. You can achieve 2) in a number of ways: Peacekeeper/Moat/Ensnaring Bridge. It is this reason why WoG/Firespout/EE/Disk is unimpressive agaisnt Merfolks but recurring EE/Peaceekeper/Moat/Ensnaring Bridge/Scepter+StP/Shackles are good answers to Merfolks.

However, the most challenging barrier for this matchup is 1). Unlike Goblins and other vial decks, Merfolk plays a TON of counters to force Vial through.

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Originally Posted by Neuad

I believe it was their lovely 'Take Possession' they had in their tutor package board. They also discovered how good Decree of Justice is in the deck finally and took out those terrible Repeals. They still don't run Cunning Wish which is a giant mistake. Not a fan of their build. Gerry and Drew ID'd in round 8, our best guess is to avoid top 16 and their deck list being posted but I was standing there through their 'match' and saw most of their list. Was unimpressed compared to a Master Shake special but I'm biased.

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How is Take Possession an answer to Thrun? My guess would rather be something that also answers Progenitus etc, like Phyrexian Metamorph or Tariff or the aforementioned Peacekeeper.

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Originally Posted by Serbitar

How is Take Possession an answer to Thrun? My guess would rather be something that also answers Progenitus etc, like Phyrexian Metamorph or Tariff or the aforementioned Peacekeeper.

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It isn't, as Take Possession has to target.

I talked with Drew before the event, but I'll respect the fact that they wanted to keep the decklist hidden.

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Originally Posted by Serbitar

How is Take Possession an answer to Thrun? My guess would rather be something that also answers Progenitus etc, like Phyrexian Metamorph or Tariff or the aforementioned Peacekeeper.

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Don't forget that GT and Drew aren't really building good control decks (as opposed to many other Landstill players who have been in the archetype for years, take Master Shake for example). All they need to do is to build a metagame'd control deck that does well in the last few rounds of the SCG circuit. This is a huge factor to consider and for most parts, people should not be netdecking their lists to other tourneys without carefully considering the strategies they were employing when designing their variants.

This is obviously not trolling, but rather to let others be aware that the 'unique' lists that you see floating around in the SCG circuits ranging from UW Repealstill, Ugr Misernought (lol slight troll here :P), are all metagamed decks that exemplify good deckbuilding skills and anticipation on a metagame. However, sadly, Top 32 SCG metagame isn't going to be representative of a Legacy metagame where you are intending to play out all or most of the rounds.

I've been experimenting with this deck lately. What is this deck's worst matchup, besides merfolk? It sounds to me like if you can solidify the fish matchup, you are in a position to do decent against almost anything (although, the mirror looks a little weird.)

I'm probably wrong about that though.

I guess I skipped the Thrun part sorr, I had just driven for 6 hours, but I tried my best to get a look as Gerry and Drew were playing. I guess I didn't see the super secret tech they had, because I have no qualms spoiling it to the rest of you.

I know their list included

Dust Bowl
Celestial Colonnade
Decree of Justice - About time

No more repeals.

I saw Drew was rocking a Moat, but no Elspeth or Humility that I saw

Their Enlightened Tutor package included

Take Possession
Wheel of Sun and Moon
Seal of Cleansing
Pithing Needle
Crucible
Energy Flux
Oblivion Ring
Threads of Disloyalty

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Originally Posted by Morbid-

It isn't, as Take Possession has to target.

I talked with Drew before the event, but I'll respect the fact that they wanted to keep the decklist hidden.

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As mentioned, Tariff makes sense as it has been in and out of the vintage metagame to answer tinker bots. Essentially thrun would be the decks hard casted "robot".

And, the new kid on the block, phyrexian metamorph which is like a cheaper duplicant at answering show and tell/natural order and thrun.

I would admit a little surprise if they had an answer that was clearly better than either of these choices. Though I have not put too much thought into coming up with ideas.

I'm going to laugh when their 'super secret techy answer' is something real Landstill players have known about the whole time, like Humility, or Decree.

Take Possession is cute, but is in everyway a huge narrow card against a deck with Jace. If you can hit the mana to play Take Possession on an opposing Jace that has been spending tons of turns to generate advantage, I think you must be in a overly winning position or your opponents suck. I mean sure you get their Jace but they have a ton of cards/advantage while you spend over 10 mana to gain a Jace. Seems pretty bad, but I mean Drew and Crew are the ones full of tech right? From Repeals to the newest tech Decree..

I know we've done this a few years back playing Bob in the SB, but I've tested it again in the SB and he's been pretty amazing. The initiation came from The BoM5 1st place BUG Jacestill list. I don't agree with 8 creatures in the SB but I'm sure the main creature he was intending to board in was Bob (not Goyf).

Regardless, I've tested over 20 postboard games (not enough but limited time) with my buddies and Bob is pretty amazing against non-aggro based decks and/or decks with very little creatures e.g. Team America/Tempo. For most parts, my opponents mentioned that they will board out all removal for control-hate cards, leaving only removal if they can no longer board anything. The list with MM allows for Bob to ride some games to easy victory. Once he has drawn 2 cards, the game is usually over soon.

Here's the list that I've tweaked over the past 2-3 months that's been doing very well for me.

Lands: 23 (+1Edragon could be 8th fetchland instead)
1 EDragon
4 Strand
2 Delta
1 Marsh Flat
3 Tundra
2 Sea
1 Scrub
2 Plains
2 Island
4 Factory
1 Wasteland
1 Ruins

Cantrips/Draws: 11
4 Brainstorm
3 Top
4 Standstill

Permission: 12
4 Mental Misstep
4 Counterspell
4 FoW

Removal: 9
3 EE
4 StP
1 Disk
1 Humility (Moat could be here but Humility is stronger these days, against TA)

Win: 5
2 Jace
2 Elspeth
1 Crucible

SB: 15
1 Misdirection/Relic/Negate/BEB (flex slot)
3 Counterbalance
3 Dark Confidant
2 Extirpate
1 Relic
2 Perish
3 Peacekeeper

Notes:
3 Top:
2 Top is usually the right call, but there were games in the past where I will usually ETutor for a Top instead of Standstill (due to board position) and Top will win games. Top is backbreaking against mid-range/control decks and is still powerful against aggro decks. With 7 fetches, you can usually avoid ever drawing multiples. In a format with Misstep, the 3rd Top ain't too bad either to force itself through. 3 Tops allow for a powerful SB of Counterbalance + Dark Confidant against mid-range/control/Junk/discard decks. 3 Top is also inherently my answer to 2cmc Hymns and other attrition decks since I've cut my Spell Snares (since Top beats discard strategies very well).

4 MM: I'm not a huge fan of MM. But I've come to the conclusion that MM helps power out turn 2 Standstills strongly. I originally ran 13 permission suite of 3/3/3/4 MM/Snare/CS/FoW which was incredible but I've decided on this configuration. It involves shifting gears in playing the deck i.e. I have to handle 2cmc drops with StP/EE/FoW/Counterspell, but the trade-off is that I get a stronger setup to STandstill, and postboard stronger setup with Bob/Countertop when needed. Testing will show if I go back to the 3/3/3/4 split. I do enjoy having 4 Counterspells.

The only bad matchups that I currently face are:
- Turbodrazi (fuck this deck)
- Merfolks (I have a 50-50 or better matchup postboard now. I board in Bobs + Peacekeeper to win the permission war resolving Peacekeeper. I am pretty confident in this matchup but Merfolk has so far drawn super-above-average hands v.s. me that it's annoying the shit out of me).
- Burn (fuck this deck too, CB helps a bit postboard)

I used to play Meddling Mage over Bob, since Mage is incredible against NOShow and Spiral Tide. However, I realized that the card advantage of Bob over these 2 matches are what decides games, for NOShow the maindeck of Humility/Disk/Jace/Peacekeeper and permission with postboard Perish is surprisingly strong, so the only other bad matchup is Spiral Tide. Bob is slightly weaker than Mage in this matchup, but I think for every other control/mid-range matchup, Bob is going to win you the game easily. It's almost like playing Vintage when your opponents board out removals.

I really would love a 3rd Jace but in general Crucible is much more powerful than the 3rd Jace, troll on, control players would know how invaluable Crucible is to an eventual winning game plan. I can't seem to cut any ratio of Counter/Draw/Removal though. The other most likely cut is -4th Standstill for the 3rd Jace.
In game 3, they can board back removal, but you just cut down to 2 Bobs or no Bobs, and you have a superior deck fighting against their deck with dead cards.

If someone wants to chime in on why the fuck do I just not play Uwb Dreadstill, then my answer is: It's much harder to hate against Landstill's maindeck/strategy than it is to hate against Dreadstill. Landstill is a much more resilient deck, whereas the benefit of Dreadstill is being able to have very strong matchups while weaker ones in game 1. I personally feel that cards like Counterbalance/Bob are incredibly more powerful in the SB against the right matchup. For most of the time, Counterbalance these days no longer serve as a hard lock (except against relevant matchups e.g. mid-range, control mirrors, combo). I tend to view Counterbalance as being a SB card for my list to significantly beat my weaker matchups, otherwise the maindeck currently handles a ton of other matchup where Dreadstill is weaker to (e.g. Bant/Junk/TA/control-mirrors).

Also can someone remind me not to ever cut that 3rd EE? Everytime I cut it to make space for something, I tend to do worse. EE is so fucking unbelievably good. Too bad we can't run Deed in UWx landstill without splashing 4 colors, so EE is like the best thing we can have when not playing Deed. Also, the lone Disk has been very impressive that I'm tempted to up to 2 Disk dropping the Humility. It's essentially a deed, but a turn slower and a little weaker against Pierce.

I wonder if you really want to prefer Counterspell over Spell Snare. Sure, Counterspell is way more flexible, but i've encountered situations in which I was unable to cast it due to too many offcolor Lands ( Mishra, Plains ) and otd it seems kind of slow in general. What do you guys think about this?

Thanks in advance

Gerry wrote an article about his U/W list in Louisville. His tech against Thrun was Decree and Humility.

Way to be 6 years late on that boat, sirs.

Long time countertop player here and I decided to give landstill a try since I love playing control so much and countertop is not as good as before. I tried the BUG version and I don't like it. I decided to go with a traditional UWB list and took it to a 18 man event yesterday and got 5th after swiss. There were ton of control in the room and 0 merfolk, which seem kinda odd.

Spell: 36
4x Brainstorm
4x Sword to Plowshares
4x Force of Will
3x Standstill
3x Spell Snare
3x Counterspell
3x Engineered Explosive
3x Mental Misstep
2x Sensei’s Divining Top
2x Wrath of God
2x Elspeth, Knight Errant
2x Jace the Mind Sculptor
1x Crucible of World

Land: 24
4x Mishra’s Factory
4x Flooded Strand
1x Polluted Delta
1x Marsh Flat
3x Underground Sea
3x Tundra
2x Plain
4x Island
1x Academy Ruin
1x Wasteland

SB: 15
3x Dark Confidant
2x Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2x Peacekeeper
2x Extirpate
2x Perish
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Humility
1x Energy Flux
1x Nihil's Spellbomb

Round 1: BW Homebrew w/MM 2-0
-3 Standstill, +3 Bob

Round 2: UW Landstill w/Mystic and Batterskull 0-2
-1 Elspeth, -2 WoG, +3 Bob

Round 3: Elves 2-0
-2 Elspeth, -1 EE, -1 Crucible, -3 Standstill, +2 Perish, +2 Peacekeeper, +3 Bob

Round 4: Burn ID
I felt like this is worse match up I could see and I was actually getting paired up, so I asked for an ID and he accepted.

Round 5: Bant 2-0
-3 Standstill, -2 WoG, +3 Bob, +2 Perish

I love swapping bob for standstill in game 2. It is just so good. People usually side out some removal and I try to not to fetch black mana in game 1 to give false info to opponent that I have black splash.

1 of Crucible is really good. Every time I drew it, I wasn't disappointed. I actually wasteland lock my Bant opponent in round 5 game 2.

One of the cards in the main that I always dispute is Elspeth. On one hand, she is really good at defense and offense. On the other hand, Elspeth doesn't put someone away immediately. It ll take couple turns and longer to do that unlike Jace. It also doesn't stop Jace across me.

I would make the following changes:

Main:
-1 Elspeth, +1 Jace TMS

SB:
No Changes

I piloted UW Landstill to a 113th place finish at the GP. No Wish, no duals for EE at 3. Day two was very disappointing; I had a couple of close games where I had poor draws in pretty good matchups and my play began to diminish after those losses. The list felt fine, but I'd adjust the sideboard from what I ran. I am very comfortable with the Team America/BUG matchup at the Fish matchup with this list, I went 3-0 vs BUG and 2-1 vs Fish. (I mulled to five g1 vs the Fish deck I lost to and he Misstepp'd my Misstep on Vial g2, I missed some land drops and he crushed me) At the moment I am undecided if I will right a report or post the list; a bunch of the matches blurred together and only one or two matches were interesting.

Would still love to see a list :)

Anyway, I think there's no reason to not go 3-colors. You get a more stable manabase with UW, but a lot of times, it's fetching correctly (high fetchlands = stable manabase even with 3 colors) against Wastelands. I mean look at PV's BUGstill list. It runs 4 Waste + 4 Factories and is 3-color heavy compared to most UWx builds. He still went by fine except with a couple of manascrews in the Top 8. I think UW maybe overly stable (which is a plus) but you lose out on EE@3 and a multitude of SB slots (primarily black for Perish, and other cards that people don't usually play but are decent in the current metagame e.g. Extirpate/Bob)

@Hyc8028: Nice list dude, I run almost the same with probably -3 cards off from yours. I think I'm going back to the 3/3/3 MM/Snare/CS split instead of the 4/4 MM/CS split. I think with 3 EE, you can afford to go down on MMs. MMs main function is to act like a FoW 5-8 on turn 1 against 1cmc spells. It's pretty bad when you draw it mid-late game. Snare is always going to be amazing (more amazing now as people shift to higher cmcs to get around MM)

How did the Bobs turn out for you? They were promising from my testing. I love them but I need to play them a little longer to make a verdict. They only come in against relevant matchups, which might be win-more considering that we have favorable control matchups (a little weaeker on the combo matchup but combo is on a low these days). Also, why Llawans? Peacekeeper is just everything better. Merfolks with Vials still beat Llawan. Llawan doesn't stop Emrakul/Dredge/Elves but Peacekeeper just says NO to too many aggro decks that don't pack real-removal.

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Originally Posted by Metalwalker

Would still love to see a list :)

Anyway, I think there's no reason to not go 3-colors. You get a more stable manabase with UW, but a lot of times, it's fetching correctly (high fetchlands = stable manabase even with 3 colors) against Wastelands. I mean look at PV's BUGstill list. It runs 4 Waste + 4 Factories and is 3-color heavy compared to most UWx builds. He still went by fine except with a couple of manascrews in the Top 8. I think UW maybe overly stable (which is a plus) but you lose out on EE@3 and a multitude of SB slots (primarily black for Perish, and other cards that people don't usually play but are decent in the current metagame e.g. Extirpate/Bob)

@Hyc8028: Nice list dude, I run almost the same with probably -3 cards off from yours. I think I'm going back to the 3/3/3 MM/Snare/CS split instead of the 4/4 MM/CS split. I think with 3 EE, you can afford to go down on MMs. MMs main function is to act like a FoW 5-8 on turn 1 against 1cmc spells. It's pretty bad when you draw it mid-late game. Snare is always going to be amazing (more amazing now as people shift to higher cmcs to get around MM)

How did the Bobs turn out for you? They were promising from my testing. I love them but I need to play them a little longer to make a verdict. They only come in against relevant matchups, which might be win-more considering that we have favorable control matchups (a little weaeker on the combo matchup but combo is on a low these days). Also, why Llawans? Peacekeeper is just everything better. Merfolks with Vials still beat Llawan. Llawan doesn't stop Emrakul/Dredge/Elves but Peacekeeper just says NO to too many aggro decks that don't pack real-removal.

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Thanks. Bob has been just good all day and that is one of my reason to splash black. Against stuff like Merfolk and Elves, it is just a beating for them once I land it. Against other Landstill/Merfolk deck, They pack 4x wasteland and 4x man lands. I don't think I can beat them under standstill, so bob will come in. Bob can also act as a clock since decks will take out removal to side in anti-control stuff.

MM was aright on Sunday, nothing amazing happen except I counter couple brainstorm. Most of the time I just pitch to FoW. Snare on the other hand is just amazing, but it get hit by MM, which happen to me in round 2.

With 3 EE and 3 MM, i don't feel vial is much of a problem. The good thing about Llawan is that even if they have vial out, it temporary reset their board, which is huge. It has a decent body, which I can use to beat as well.

Peacekeeper on the other hand is good also, but the problem now is merfolk pack dismember and echoing truth. I have lost game like I resolve a peacekeeper from counter war, only then he get bounced during the merfolk player main phrase. We have to keep in mind that peacekeeper is not
a win con, but more like buy more time, so we can take out their dudes or land a Jace and fateseal away. People in my area never scoop to peacekeeper even if they have no answer to it becuase they know it will still take a while to kill them. Another issue is time. Let say you lose game 1, peacekeeper might have keep you alive in game 2. The only win con we have when peacekeeper in play is Jace. Let say you win game 2. I don't think you going to have enough time to finish game 3. A draw in the swiss is almost equal to a loss IMO. I have play against merfolk using peacekeeper in the top 4 local tourney in the past and beside game 1 where I usually die quickly, any game involving peacekeeper just take a long time.

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Originally Posted by Shawn

I piloted UW Landstill to a 113th place finish at the GP. No Wish, no duals for EE at 3. Day two was very disappointing; I had a couple of close games where I had poor draws in pretty good matchups and my play began to diminish after those losses. The list felt fine, but I'd adjust the sideboard from what I ran. I am very comfortable with the Team America/BUG matchup at the Fish matchup with this list, I went 3-0 vs BUG and 2-1 vs Fish. (I mulled to five g1 vs the Fish deck I lost to and he Misstepp'd my Misstep on Vial g2, I missed some land drops and he crushed me) At the moment I am undecided if I will right a report or post the list; a bunch of the matches blurred together and only one or two matches were interesting.

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Sorry, I was barely around Day 2 and we were pretty much gone by the afternoon. Congrats on getting to Day 2. Would love to see a report as well.

Why would I play UW/x over BUG Landstill? BUG Landstill has deed, which is amazing for sweeping fishes and other another permanents. What do I gain by staying two colors (other than saving money that I would need to blow on getting Underground Seas).

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Originally Posted by dragofireheart

why would i play uw/x over bug landstill? Bug landstill has deed, which is amazing for sweeping fishes and other another permanents. What do i gain by staying two colors (other than saving money that i would need to blow on getting underground seas).

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enlightened tutor

Moat, Humility, stronger mana base, STP, Peacekeeper. It's pretty much a matter of tastes and you personal opinion about power vs. consistency though.

Sea R Hill is right about Enlightened Tutor too.

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Originally Posted by The Treefolk Master

Moat, Humility, stronger mana base, STP, Peacekeeper. It's pretty much a matter of tastes and you personal opinion about power vs. consistency though.

Sea R Hill is right about Enlightened Tutor too.

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I prefer consistency and a stronger mana base. I have a odd habit of being color screwed if there is even a small dent in my mana base. Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but to me having a stable mana base is important.

I have a few questions in regards to making the deck list:

1- I don't have a single wasteland to my name. Traded them awhile ago for Jaces. It's a decision I sorta regret, thought at the time it was a good trade. Anyways, my options for land destruction are somewhat limited. Is Dust Bowl the only good option I have for killing problem lands?

2- What is with some lists running Repeal? How has it been? It's an interesting card to say the least: you can bounce Vials that are already down or other annoying creatures, allowing you to counter them later.

3- Now that many merfolk decks are adopting Dismember, what should we do now that Peacekeeper is going to be less of a hard lock?

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Originally Posted by conboy31

And, the new kid on the block, phyrexian metamorph which is like a cheaper duplicant at answering show and tell/natural order and thrun.

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doesnt work with s&t.
Humility/Moat/WoG are efficient enough not to bring this shitty 7ccm Take Possession. Thrun should not be feared and metagamed at all.