[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

Personally I run 3/2/1 split too as of now. And I still want to squeeze in the 2nd Ajani, but I'm too clogged on 4cc spot already.
Played the FNM yesterday. 5 short 40 min rounds (I hate that). Went 2-1-2, losing to goblins 1-2 (screwed on 3 lands both lost games) and ended up drawing the won matches (I had complete control of the table game3, but alas, its short round and turns already).

The funny game to note, is where I played against Natural Order survival. My opponent sticked the survival for a while, casted two Orders (one of which I didn't counter) and I still managed to win xD

played in a local 14 man sunday.

m1. t.c.s.- played carefully. won by default as the model isn't finished yet.

m2 eva green. rolled with an excellent starting hand. dragged it out 45 minuted until 5 minute warning. then went to game 2 which we didnt get to play as we never resolved mulligans.

m3 fae manland tempo control. rolls me on a mull to 5 g1. g2 i have control and let a sower through vial take control of my mishra under still. my own fault. both games i get rolled by double standstill break into double force (g2 triple force.) ....must be nice hehe...

m4. mono red gobbos. g1 he rolls me. g2 i side and though i take a questionable hand i win with a ripped tundra off the top. g3 he rips kikki into ringleader into ringleader. then copies ringleader..... gg no re for me :). should have layed the disk.... cost me the game.

ill detail it more later. atleast im doing better since columbus's 1-3. overal finished 2-2 matches 3-4 games....

my list is the updated list i last posted with dragon and cow in the md again. however for such a small undeveloped meta i have determined that my landstill model shouldn't be played specificly because people bring in all types of hate and its too difficult to see where its all comming from.

i think im going to throw white splash tempo thresh at them next time so i can just clean house. its rediculous how good that deck actually is.

on another note. remember kids always print the notes for ur deck before a tourney. dont think. "well i dont need them. theres a reason they are there. take advantage of all ur hard work!"

So after it's lackluster performance I decided to cut Academy Ruins from my deck. It was in as the 24th land. My question is what I should do with the open slot?

Current contenders:
4th Mishra's Factory
2nd Humility
2nd Decree of Justice
1-of Path to Exile
1-of Vindicate

Any thoughts/advice/other possibilities?

A fetchland should be in place of that slot... That or another DoJ.

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Originally Posted by Citrus-God

A fetchland should be in place of that slot... That or another DoJ.

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I'd definitely up DOJ to 2.

Just for the laugh: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=11278

Its fun to read old card evaluations before they had a chance to really settle in the format. Like Elspeth is the weakest PW :)

Talking about Elspeth...

Here, more and more Elspeths are being runned in other decks. Of course, some landstill, but in Countertop and The Rock as well. Needless to say that that is bad for us. Elspeth is, besides combo, our biggest problem. I started looking for ways to deal with hostile Elspeths, and this is what I've came up with so far:
- Play 3 Elsepths ourself. Try it, it's fabulous. But of course, this doesn't garantee a win.
- Play a Vindicatebuild. Probable the best option.

However, I am really addicted to the versatility Cunning Wish grants us. I like Enlightened Tutoring up my Moat or Humilty against Merfolk, or my Ravenous Trap against Dredge, and of course, the MVP of many days: Pulse of the Fields. And of course, still Pathing/Returning to Dust every other stupid permanent.

So I started looking for some wishable (W, U or B Instants) answers for hostile Elspeths. I found this so far:
- Clockworking (way too slow)
- Capsize (could do the trick)
- other bounce: Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, Rushing River. The rest? Worse.
- Recoil, only succesfull when you're opponent is empty handed.
- Commandeer (knick your Elspeth for the marginal cost of two blue cards)
- Negate (meh)

I looked in some Token-makers too, to beat Elspeth to death, but Waylay was the only one that has potential, and even that is very, very weak.

Harcore damage on Elspeth isn't going to make it: Psionic Blast is the only one in our colors, and unless you've done something to -2 Elspeth already, it's really useless.

Do you have more options?

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Originally Posted by Elf_Ascetic

Do you have more options?

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Oblivion Ring. Conflicts with our EEs though.
In non black builds, I'd probably run it as a one-of, never random never dead.
In red-splashed builds, Helixes and Ajani V. can do the trick, too.
DoJ tokens also work just fine in the late game.

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@ RogueMTG:
I'd opt for the singleton Vindicate.
Cutting a land for one of the most mana hungry spells out there makes no sense.

Force of will and counterspell suddendly disappear from the format? Can't we legend other's elspeth with our elspeth anymore? Oblivion ring is a viablw option as well, without vindicate. or splashing the manabse for a 4th color (see Lampron's Ultimate walker). Talking about elspeth, I recognized its power soon so that I could take a couple of copies for little money when she come out and everybody thought sarkhan vol was the absolutely best PW of the saga :tongue: (I undervalued tarmogoyf as I first saw it, didn't want to commit the same error! :cool: )

I've also been playing her everywhere: countertop, rock, even stax (playing elspeth in less than 3 copies in armageddon stax means you want to hurt yourself hard): probably the most insane card ever printed, since shards of alara I don't ask anything to Richard Garfield Santa Klaus. Playing 3 in landstill is not mandatory, but I personaly recommend it unless you play vedalken shackles or lots of wrath of god/decree of justice, because you already have other board control elements. Way to deal with elspeth:
-counter her
-cycle a doj for 5-6 and kill her the next turn
-land another elspeth
-resolve vedalken shackles and kill her with her own soldier tokens + mishras
-vindicate her
-oring her
-capsize her (wow, someone appreciates my tech-is tech :laugh: ).

Definitely, not a card to worry about. if you are facing countertop, well they probably have only 1 preboard (so you beat them in number) and the surely will side her out for gaddock teeg, which is not that problem. And in any case, you have to worry about countering counterbalance, that's the gamebreaking card. Against the rock, they probably have 1 preboard too (garruck is just better in rock, I personally play 2 garruck 1 elspeth - beasts have more synergy with baloths than soldiers): you have to worry about confidant and witness/stronghold recursion (3 witness +1 elspeth usually means they have 4 elspeths). The MU is a little closer here. You have to really worry about elspeth in stax, if stax will be played widely again (I doubt it), and stax players recognize elspeth to be an auto-include in 3-of: it potentially comes down 2nd turn, and have lots of synergy with the rest of the deck, from smokestack to armageddon, and also keeps the board which is what she is meant to do, thus generating virtual card advantage that is what stax lack.

To sum up: opposing elspeths are not, strictly speaking, something to worry about (except if you are playing a mirror match, than ofc the first to resolve elspeth is in a bette position). Against other decks you mentioned, you must focus on other things: counterbalance and confidant/witness advantage. As for stax, passing immune through the increasing number of cc4 bombs is becoming more and more a problem.

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Originally Posted by klaus

Oblivion Ring. Conflicts with our EEs though.

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Is that so? I thought if an Oblivion Ring was played on a Planeswalker, and the Oblivion Ring gets destroyed, the Planeswalker enters the battlefield with 0 Loyalty counters, dying to a SBE? That would still mean it'll snipe your Elspeth, but that seems like a minimal conflict?

...or am I completely off now? :wink:

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Originally Posted by Skeggi

Is that so? I thought if an Oblivion Ring was played on a Planeswalker, and the Oblivion Ring gets destroyed, the Planeswalker enters the battlefield with 0 Loyalty counters, dying to a SBE? That would still mean it'll snipe your Elspeth, but that seems like a minimal conflict?

...or am I completely off now? :wink:

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Why should that be so? I think the card removed with oring enters the battlefield as a newly played card, so it "forgets" previous game informations. Planeswalker enters the battlefield with the number of loyalty counters indicated on the card, not one more nor one less.

Oh, right, I'm having a brainfart. Nevermind :smile:

@ Gustha: Of course, there are a lot of ways to deal with here. I've crushed Elspeth with an Eternal Dragon, once.. But I like having more options. I've settled on Capsize in the board once, it does some nice tricks against Iona as well.

I'm sad that there hasn't been much activity here recently, this is probably my favorite thread (and deck) on The Source.

Anyways, I'm working on getting the cards for an actual competitive build of Landstill, and I'm wondering what direction I should take it in - I'm hoping to play with it in some of Starcity's legacy tourneys next year.

While the core of the deck seems pretty much agreed upon, I see a divergence based on what cards are used for versatility.

UWb with Cunning Wish - seems like the most popular
UWb with Vindicate - one card to do most of the things Wish can
UW with Counterbalance maindeck - something like Hanni's builds, with O-Ring as pseudo-Vindicate
UWr with Ajani V, Firespout, maybe Helixes - in the direction of Ultimate Walker

I wouldn't consider any of these to be inherently better than the other, but instead having relative strengths vs. a given metagame.

Zoo, Merfolk, Dredge, and Reanimator are what concern me the most. After laying out the options, and considering the threat of fast aggro, I'm thinking that UWr might be the way to go. That, and Underground Seas are expensive.

Or am I barking up the completely wrong tree, and is this the wrong deck to play in an aggro meta?

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Originally Posted by grahf

Or am I barking up the completely wrong tree, and is this the wrong deck to play in an aggro meta?

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UWr is still underestimated imo.
It's a powerhouse in mixed meta's and currently my personal weapon of choice.
This is partially due to those SB REBs. They will definitely give you an edge against the MUs you mentioned:
Countering 1st turn discard outlets VS Dredge and Reanimator, feasting on Merfolks while being generally superb in a blue-ish meta, makes them a solid four-of in your meta'd SB.
I'd still suggest, you playtest other versions just to see what suits you best.

I'm still really tempted to try out a UWr build that plays r almost exclusively for Burning Wish. Maybe just a "cool thing," but it seems VERY powerful.

I tested burning wish landstill for about 3 months and I felt that it was really strong. I used solemn judgement, armageddon, call to the skybreaker, wrath of god and firespout as my wish targets and let me just say that going the "LD" approach with crucible, wasteland, wish for geddon, and ajani vegence was probably the most fun I'd ever had playing landstill. I felt like everytime I cast burning wish I was either winning the game or putting myself so far ahead that they weren't able to recover. Also, I ran volcanic fallout out of my board just as a fun techy way to beat merfolk and later zoo became the aggro deck to beat so I decided that more firespouts was a better idea. You also get reb/beb out of the board which handles a large portion of the format.

Wish targets I tested:
Mindspring
Call to the skybreaker
teraschi's grap
solemn judgement
pyroclasm
telemin's performance
rolling earthquake (the portal earthquake not sure if I put the correct title)
Banefire, Fireball, sorcery with buyback fireball fanning the flames?
mimeofracture
bribery (funny against progenitus + no)

The reason I don't run burning wish landstill anymore is burning wish usually takes a full turn to effect the board where as cunning wish can be cast in response to stuff or at someones eot and be set up for your turn to do what you need to do. I choose instant over sorcery but both are really solid.

Half of why I'm so curious to try it out is the curve it builds. It makes CB@2 a decent probability.

3 standstill
3 CS
4 CB (out of the board)
2-3 B. Wish

Sounds good, along with a button of one-drops... But I digress. I don't know what I think about it, exactly because of what Rockout said, it's a 2-ish turn card, which landstill doesn't need. Also, the SB would be hideous, 4 wish-board slots, 3+ REB, 4 CB, so you have... 4 other slots?

And by improving your own CB, you're making your countertop matchup worse. I've wished for CB-removal plenty of times.