[Deck] Landstill - Former DTB

Slay hit it right on the head. I have done testing with different combinations of stifle and response. 3x Stifle and 2x Response are what I currently run in my U/W Landstill build. Yesterday I got the deck into top 7 of "WIn Ed Fear's Lotus" tournament and alot of it was due to both Stifle and Response blindsiding the opponent across the face. I can't say how many times I Stifled fetches and stifled Lacky's ability to get an extra turn. I also smashed Matrons and Ringleaders with stifle. Response worked very well as well. Against wasteland it was very effective, especially when I tricked them into attempting to wasteland one of my lands. In one of my matches I actually secured a game by Responsing STP on my Factory. Overall, 3x Stifle and 2x Teferi's Response is happiness.

:D

Cheers.

Look here:

About Stifle

Read everything about Stifle MD, and how it is good and stuff. Then ruin the deck by adding 4 Pyroclasm to the MB, because Clasm is such a "good" card. Then lose to Gobbos because they Ported your red Mana and complain about the deck and the bad luck.

Look, I got into an arguement on SCG over 'Clasm. In a field where at least 35% are playing Goblins, Clasm should be maindecked, at least in 2-3 copies. Zilla has said it before, R is much harder to be kept off of then WW. Honestly though, if you wan't to play URW(what I am working on) run Engineered Explosives.

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run Engineered Explosives.

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QFT. Seriously, this card is NUTS on a 1, 2, OR 3 drop VS gobbos (although, 2 is probably worst, nailing only piledriver), and an excellent drop on 1 or 2 VS gro. It takes out big mongooses, werebears, and mages, as well as dryads.

Why!?!?!? Did you play disk after rotation? naturalize, disenchant, and now needle. I'm aware that Engineered Explosives doesn't CIPT but still it has the same hate as disk. Now you don't want to tap 5 on your own turn to blow it either, so I don't want to hear but you can do it during the turn you play it. Test it I promise it will be awful I tried it when the format rotated.

For clarity, I always found the problem with EE was it didn't kill the Lackey, Warchief, Piledriver draw. God help you if a Ringleader is in the mix, because then you have approximately zero good options.

I think you just lose to the Lackey, Warchief, Piledriver, Ringleader draw anyway. Throw in a vial, maybe some Wastelands and Ports, and we'll send it home. What's the sense in talking about God Hands?

But on a more serious note: How many first turn options does this deck actually have for Lackey? On the draw, I see two, on the play, I see three. I suppose that's 8 cards on the draw and 12 on the play to answer 4 cards in the opposing deck, but it still makes me sad. I'm going to go play Gro now. :(

Well, if you go Wrath, Standstill on that draw they're reasonably kolded. Even if they have mana denial you can still stabilize from that position if you have a Plow. EE doesn't kill their entire team or turn one Lackey. That's the main issue.

KillerWhiteRabbit and I are testing EE in a build with more maindeck spot removal then what most landstill players are used to. Anyway, here's the list

4 brainstorm
4 standstill
2 FOF

4 Fire//Ice
4 STP
3 Engineered Explosives
2 pyroclasm
4 conterspll
4 FOW

2 crucible
2 DOJ
1 eternal dragon

1 mountain
1 plains
2 island
4 mishra's
4 waste
3 tundra
3 volcanic island
2 plateau
4 flooded strand

SB:
1 pyroclasm
3 phyrexian furnace
3 disenchant
3 sphere of law
2 pithing needle
3 BEB

... Does anyone agree with me that Engineered Explosives is balls? I personally think the card doesn't deserve a slot in landstill at all. Even if you are running U/W/R. Whit3 Ghost: In my opinion you should replace Engineered Explosives with 3 Stifles. See, Engineered explosives can be a pain in the ass to set up, also... it only kills non-lands equal to the sunburst. I remember goblins running several 1,2,and 3 drops. I personally see disk as a better choice over EE because if you have any control utlity in your hand you should be able to set off a disk. Also think of the advantages stifle has over EE. EE is nice and all but it doesn't stop matron, or ringleaders ability for brokeness. Stifle can make your opponent feel like an idiot for casting a 3 mana 1/1 with no ability. I actually run U/W Landstill and I run Powder Keg in the board. It works really well against vials and lackeys until I can blow up a disk or a WOG. Perhaps your build does suit well with EE, but I'd be interested to see some results with the deck.

Cheers.

As you can see, from GP Lille, Landstill is not totally dead. One of my friends just finished last of the T8 with it, losing againt the winner, who also defeated him during day 1.

Here is his list :

Francois, Nicolas
UW Control

4 Tundra
2 Plains
3 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand

2 Exalted Angel

3 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
4 Fire/Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Brainstorm
2 Moat
3 Decree of Justice


Sideboard :
2 Pulse of the Fields
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Sphere of Law

About sideboard choices : He told me he would have remove the 3XTormod's, and would have replaced them with Wrath of God, because it is much more lethal to Gro than trying to temporize it.

Now, I don't know for sure if his decklist is the best one, but he went 12/3 so it musn't be the worst one:D

Further testing has revealed to me (and probably white_Ghost) that EE isnt what we're looking for. I'm ready to admit that one.

@Quodo: I really like your friend's list, but have to say, why disk over wrath?

I haven't given up on the UWR idea, though. If we want to perhaps optimize this, let's at least start with a shell. I'll try to make this non-controvercial.

UWR landstill shell V1.0

4 STP
4 brainstorm
2 fact or fiction
4 counterspell
4 force of will
4 standstill
24 land

That's 46 cards. IN the other 14 slots, there needs to be mass removal, but the other slots are pretty open.

Mass removal:
Wrath of god (requires a white-heavy manabase)
Akroma's Vengence (slow as death)
Pyroclasm (narrow...)
Disk (easily neutered)
EE (easily neutered, as well as narrow)
Earthquake (this might not suck. more on it in a second)
starstorm (requires RR)
Moat (I suppose this counts. Still, easily neutered, and WW cost)

That's about all I can think of for mass removal at the moment. Now, earthquake. Why don't we use this card? It can sewwp gobbos board turn 3, we can play angels, it essentially goes to the dome against combo. Only problem, it's a sorcery. But so are everything else listed here. I know I'm going to consider this. *I did not suggest rolling earthquake because I want to play angels. Not because I don't know about it. Besides, what flyers do we really have to have mass removal to get rid of?

So, now other stuff:

other stuff
Angels
Phyrexian furnace (CANTRIPZ)
fire/ice (force foddler, can 2 for one, cantrips in a pinch)
Crucible of worlds
Decree of justice
Eternal dragon
Disenchant
Stifle
Tefferi's response
Meddling mage (not so much)
lightning bolt
Pulse of the fields
Mystical tutor
E. tutor
About a million other things.

(Making this up as I go along at this point)

My proposed list (for MY metagame)

Skeleton+
4 fire/ice
4 earthquake
2 angelz
1 eternal dragon
2 decree of justice
1 crucible

Now to the manabase. It seems like there are two distinct schools of thought concerning this, no basics, and cautious (with basics). The first is very agressive, and often has no trouble getting colors, but is VERY vulnerable to wasteland. The latter can be built to be powerful, and it's much less vulnerable to hate. Given that I chose earthquake as my sweeper, I'll go with the latter.

Manabase skeleton:
4 mishra's factory
4 flooded strand
4 wasteland

Durrr. This leavs 12 slots left that can be filled with...whatever.

Lands to consider:
Dust bowl
faerie conclaive
island
plains
mountain
plateau
volcanic island
tundra
Windswept heath
Polluted delta
barbarian ring
Bloodstained mire
Wooded foothills
And a billion others

I think for myself, I will use:

Skeleton+
1 dust bowl
3 tundra
1 plateau
3 volcanic island
2 island
1 mountain
1 plains

So that finishes the Main board. Now to the ever present Side Board. For this there won't really be a skeleton, but more of a series of things the cards have to do.

Pwn gobbos: Pyroclasm, other small damage removal, sphere of law, moat, reverence

Pwn threshold: Graveyard hate. Furnace, crypt, whatever works for you. Reverence.

Pwn combo: Arcane Lab, rule of law, chalice of the void, pillar, whatever.

Then there are your metagame slots. Some stuff to consider:

Tefferi's response
stifle
spiritual focus
COP: red
extra crucibles, or decrees
pulse of the fields
chill
disenchant
almost anything else

I think I'll use

3 chalice
2 pulse of the fields
3 sphere of law
4 furnace
2 spiritual focus
1 crucible

Any thoughts?

Looks good, hopefully this time we can actually test it. I've said it time and time again, Dust Bowl is slow as balls, and doesn't give you a colored mana. I've lost games as a result of it. Anyway, I'd probably run another Crucible over Dragon, but again, that's just me.

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Dust Bowl is slow as balls, and doesn't give you a colored mana

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Recurring wasteland that works without crucible. More an anti-controll thing.

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Crucible over Dragon

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My thought on dragon is that it essentially acts as land #25, as well as a recurring beater late game. Not sure I want to cut the one, or want to play more, if you know what I mean.

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hopefully this time we can actually test it

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...I tested the last one. it sucked.

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Originally Posted by KillerWhiteRabbit

@Quodo: I really like your friend's list, but have to say, why disk over wrath?

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Goblins is going to have a hell of a time keeping you off colorless mana. Keeping you off WW when you're playing 3 colors and 8 colorless lands on the other hand? Easier than Jander's mom.

More to the point, why Disk over Pyroclasm? Disk gets shut down by Needle and it has poor synergy with Exalted Angel. Doesn't answer other permanents, but what other permanents are you concerned with really?

Werebear. Nimble Mongoose. Mystic Enforcer. Fledgling Dragon.
-Slay

I think that Disk is far superior to Wrath or Pyro in the main just because :

- The meta is currently 1/4 Goblins, 1/4 *****, and neither of the 2 alternatives are preferable against both decks. Pyro cannot kill Mongooses or treshed creatures, whereas Wrath has difficulties getting its 2 colored mana.

- You sometime have to deal with decks such as LoamConfinment in which Disk can remove their main victory condition.

I think he made the right choice (and its Top 8 place confirms it :laugh: )

Alright, this is going to be rather lengthy. I compiled a list of every notable Landstill deck on the Wizards' Tournament Center, and listed every card, and in what quantity it appears in each deck. The cards are divided by function, and any card with multiple funtions is in multiple catagories, with an asterisk following any that have already been mentioned.

The first number in the list belongs to Nicolas Francois (8th Place GP Lille), the second is Andre Mamadi (88th Place GP Lille), the third is Jerome Vilm (42nd Place GP Lille), the fourth is Noah Long (1st Place GP Philly Trial, but is deck list is slightly wrong on the website), and fifth is Alex Lieberman (10th Place GP Philly). So why look at these lists? They did relatively well in a very competitive and varied metagame.

Now for the list:

Mana:
2/2/0/0/0 Plains
3/2/0/2/0 Island
4/4/4/2/4 Tundra
3/0/4/4/2 Volcanic Island
0/0/1/1/3 Plateau
4/4/4/4/4 Mishra's factory
0/3/1/2/3 Faerie Conclave
4/4/4/4/4 Wasteland
0/1/0/0/0 Dust Bowl

Mana Fixing:
4/4/8/4/4 Flooded strand
0/1/0/0/0 Eternal Dragon

Mana Denial:
4/4/4/4/4 Wasteland*
0/1/0/0/0 Dust Bowl*

Attackers:
4/4/4/4/4 Mishra's factory*
0/3/1/2/3 Faerie Conclave*
0/1/0/0/0 Eternal Dragon*
2/0/0/0/0 Exalted Angel
3/3/2/2/1 Decree of Justice

Life Gain:
2/0/0/0/0 Exalted Angel*
0/1/0/0/0 Pulse of the Fields

Draw:
4/4/4/4/3 Standstill
4/0/4/0/3 Fire/Ice
4/4/4/4/4 Brainstorm
2/2/2/3/2 Fact or Fiction
3/3/2/2/1 Decree of Justice*

Spot Removal:
4/0/4/0/3 Fire/Ice*
4/4/4/2/4 Swords to Plowshares
0/0/0/3/0 Lightning Bolt
0/2/0/0/0 Disenchant

Counters:
4/4/0/4/4 Counterspell
4/4/4/4/4 Force of Will
0/0/2/0/0 Stifle
0/0/0/3/0 Mana Leak

Mass Removal:
2/0/0/0/1 Moat
3/0/2/3/0 Nevinyrral's Disk
0/2/0/0/0 Akroma's Vengeance
0/0/4/0/2 Wrath of God

Recursion:
0/1/0/3/2 Crucible of Worlds

Toolbox:
0/0/0/0/3 Enlightened Tutor

Other (Toolbox Strategy):
0/0/0/0/1 Isochron Scepter
0/0/0/0/1 Null Rod
0/0/0/0/1 Pithing Needle

By taking the median usage of all the cards, we can extract a useful shell. This is not unlike KillerWhiteRabbit's shell, and contains every card he listed in his shell. Way to go, KWR! This provides what is generally common in some of the top performing decks. (note the KWR's shell is listed first, and then the nonzero median of every other card in the above list.

Base Land (24):
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand

2 Faerie Conclave
2 Island
4 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau

This manabase can probably apply to almost any landstill with a red splash. Plateau is useful as a way of getting red mana with Eternal Dragon, if you choose to run it, Conclave, while generally considered clunky, has its advantages:

- It flies.
- It's produces blue mana. (quite good in a blue deck, or so I hear)
- It can't be Disenchanted or Naturalized.
- It's a manland. (Can't be killed with sorceries (in most cases), trumps Humility, etc.)
- It's probably not very high on your opponent's priority of things to kill. (And if they do kill it, it's still really your worst land, which is all right considering how flexible it really is.)

Base Spells (30):
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

2 Decree of Justice
3 Fire/Ice
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Crucible of Worlds

Why run Decree of Justice?
- It cycles
- It produces more kill conditions, as an instant and under Standstill
- It can produce a flyer or two if need be

Why run Fire/Ice?
- It cantrips
- It can 2 for 1
- It can be sent to the dome

Why run Nevinyrral's Disk (Especially over other effects)
- No color dependency (which makes it superior in a three color build in my opinion)
- It's really inexpensive when it comes online.
- It destroys everything you want it to, and as an instant.

Why run Crucible of Worlds?
- Recurring Wastelands are good.
- Recurring Factories are even better.
- Recurring Fetchlands are hot.

This small set of cards should take the shell and make it a lot more flexible, the remaining six slots are for your personal taste and metagame.

Most of this has been said, and is common sense, but it's nice to compile it all every now and again. Of course, this isn't written in stone, but it's what all the versions of landstill that have been doing right (and have GP results to back it up) have been doing.

Other things of note looking at these lists:
- Eternal Dragon is not very prevalent. Maybe it's just under the mark, but I've always had a problem with his high recursion cost. Not that I haven't won games with him, he's just expensive to use to his fullest.
- The median amout of kill conditions is 8. This number is covered in my extended shell, but the highest placing decks stick really close to that number.
- The median amount of card-drawers is 13. That's almost a third of your deck that can replaces itself, or more. This does not include Fire/Ice. The extended core has 12. Atleast one of your six cards should be your favorite card-drawer.
- Fire/Ice and Swords are all you need for spot removal. Spot removal just isn't that good. You need to use cards that give you card advantage, not just a trade-off. And Fire/Ice can even fit that role. Not only that, but more untargetable seem to be showing up (Nimble Mongoose; while that's only one card, that's four in one in every four decks you might play. Plus random stuff like Troll Ascetic in RGSA, etc.)
- Force of Will and Counterspell are good enough for counters. Anything else is too situational. Ideally, I wouldn't want dead mainboard cards in any matchup (except those really bizarre ones where you can't help it.) And you just don't need that many counters when you are killing so much stuff. The only dek that ran Stifle was not running Counterspells, and the deck that ran Mana Leak lacked spot removal (only 2 Swords? Why???)
- The median of mass removal cards is 5. Take your 2 disks, add 3 more of your favorite mass removal (1 more disk woun't hurt) and you've got a good base.
- Crucible is mostly a matter of taste. It's good, it's a little slow, but all in all, decks seem to be as good with or without, depending on how the rest of the deck is built. Purely a matter of preference.

To sum up:
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Island
4 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau

4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Decree of Justice
3 Fire/Ice
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Crucible of Worlds

+1 Card drawer
+3 Mass removal
+2 Whatever you want

This is flexible, and offers some personalization. Honestly, I want to test Earthquake. It's a 'clasm for 3 mana, but at 5 mana, what isn't going to die? (Rhetorical question; point is, it seems good when you have the mana, and is still good at 1, when you need to cast it fast.) If you have life gaining effects, the damage dealt to you is negligible anyway. But those are just my thoughts.

I understand that the U/W/R build uses swords and fire/ice to hold off the hordes until a sweeper comes online but wouldn't pyroclasm do the job better than fire/ice? All the important goblins outside of lackey have 2 toughness which means fire/ice will usually cost the same mana as clasm but it only destroys one creature. I know the instant speed removal is important because of vial and the haste from warchief but pyroclasm is such a tempo stealer that you should be able to hold off goblins long enough to disk away the board.

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Honestly, I want to test Earthquake. It's a 'clasm for 3 mana, but at 5 mana, what isn't going to die? (Rhetorical question; point is, it seems good when you have the mana, and is still good at 1, when you need to cast it fast.) If you have life gaining effects, the damage dealt to you is negligible anyway. But those are just my thoughts.

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I have tested. About 20 games VS gobbos. Pretty optimized gobbos. 10 games SB, 10 not.

Win:14
Lose:5
Draw:0
lose intrest, have pizza:1

gro, had less positive (still positive, but less so, mind you) going 60-40 pre board and 50-50ish post board. Earthquake really took 'em by surprise :D One just has to remember to save counters/swords to take care of enforcers/dragons.

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uses swords and fire/ice to hold off the hordes until a sweeper comes online but wouldn't pyroclasm do the job better than fire/ice?

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it's much more narrow, doesn't cantrip, and is just plain dead in some matches. My reason for switching colors was to lessen the amount of situational cards.