Once you start running Counterbalance, what is stopping you from just taking the next step and playing Dreadstill?
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Once you start running Counterbalance, what is stopping you from just taking the next step and playing Dreadstill?
Once you start running Dreadstill, what is stopping you from just taking the next step and playing Merfolk?
Because Merfolk is worse!
Because Landstill beats Dreadstill :P EE/StP FtW.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rico Suave
But in all seriousness, I was analyzing the Dreadstill list and thinking about 3/3 Countertop split, and I was trying to see if there were any flaws on using Countertop in Landstill the way Dreadstill uses countertop i.e. I don't want to end up playing a wrong engine in the wrong deck. Apparently many people think it's wrong, perhaps it is, perhaps it's not but so far it's working fine. Need more testing to determine if I'm better with/without it.
Metalwalker
I don't buy that your matchups against aggro decks are that good based on 4 stp, some tutorable utility, and some utility artifact that you have to have a stp on anyways. It just doesn't make sense. You cant count things that cost you excess mana just to get them as straight up removal.
If you really think your matchups are that good then test with me on mws. im (S)Mossivo on mws, and you can reach me at mossivo1986 on aim most of the time. I'll gladly whip you around for a while.
Also if we're talking about dreadstill lets atleast admit that atleast dreadstill has a clock + counterbalance, and a better positioning in general metagames; especially national ones. Who cares if landstill beats dreadstill; the real question shouldnt be yeah well it looses to this; but how freuent do you expect to play against this. IE nobody plays landstill. Well except us? lol And to be honest I only test it because it was my first real legacy deck forever ago and I know the ins and outs.
You bring up the idea of not wanting to play the wrong engine in the wrong deck. Let me use this idea to explain where I'm coming from a bit more clearly, because I didn't exactly go into detail before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Metalwalker
There is a fundamental problem. All of the talk here is assuming that Landstill is the right deck, and then deciding whether CB/Top is the right or wrong engine.
I'm suggesting that CB/Top is the right engine, and from there it's a matter of Landstill being the right or wrong deck.
I know it's not a popular thing when someone walks into the Landstill thread and says "hey guys your deck sucks." By all means, play whatever deck you want and think whatever you want about it. I'm simply presenting an option that if you really want to play CB/Top, and you want to play it so badly that you stuff it into Landstill even if it doesn't really fit, then perhaps you are looking at the wrong deck.
So when these people say that CB/Top doesn't belong in Landstill, they might be right. But you know what? It's sort of like saying Survival doesn't fit in a Zoo deck - it just means the Zoo deck isn't worth playing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mossivo1986
I think that people not putting the time into learning how to play true heavy control (Landstill) is a major factor in LS not seeing much play, in addition to incorrect metagame choices in cards. Landstill is never the best deck, ever. But it's never a terrible deck either, as we play 1) blue cards, which are always good and 2) a strong creature control plan, and seeing as how 90% of Legacy decks that plan on winning use creatures, this is also good. The printing of Jace has also given the deck a significant boost, but he's dangerous/inconvenient to as a draw engine sometimes, something that the deck could use an upgrade on.
And since we're being honest, I can say that I mainly play blue control because I just can't do a damn thing with aggro decks, I love countering spells, and the once a tournament control mirrors you get that just make Magic worth playing, not because it's the best strategy.
While the first part I can somewhat agree on. The second part I don't understand at all.Quote:
I think that people not putting the time into learning how to play true heavy control (Landstill) is a major factor in LS not seeing much play, in addition to incorrect metagame choices in cards.
The Jace argument is debatable. Jace does not shore any matchup in legacy currently. Its no better then running a redundant draw spell that has the word instant next to it. Which is why FOF is the stronger choice. Sure you can use the well what happens if jace sticks argument, but thats the same argument one could say about what if fof resolves and your opponent makes a mistake in splitting, or what happens if you kantrip back to back fofs, etc.Quote:
Landstill is never the best deck, ever. But it's never a terrible deck either, as we play 1) blue cards, which are always good and 2) a strong creature control plan, and seeing as how 90% of Legacy decks that plan on winning use creatures, this is also good. The printing of Jace has also given the deck a significant boost, but he's dangerous/inconvenient to as a draw engine sometimes, something that the deck could use an upgrade on.
The bottom line is Jace doesn't do anything that the deck couldn't do before, except give us a hidden win condition/ weak fof. That to me in redundant builds isnt worth playing or sacrificing to play.
I like countering spells too. I also like playing KOTR. so sick.Quote:
And since we're being honest, I can say that I mainly play blue control because I just can't do a damn thing with aggro decks, I love countering spells, and the once a tournament control mirrors you get that just make Magic worth playing, not because it's the best strategy.
Point taken definitely. Which is why I'm testing it. I worked my list I guess primarily from the Countertop/Dreadstill lists, and filled in the Goyf/Noughts with more control elements. Could be bad, but right now, I feel that a lot of people don't see the interaction/power of Standstill + Top, Standstill + Counterbalance with the latter being more rare since only Dreadstill really get to work with it on a regular basis. Standstill + Counterbalance activations can be stacked to give you an even greater chance at countering spells (although with both out in play, I'd assume you're winning anyway).Quote:
Originally Posted by Rico Suave
My older experiments with Countertop in Landstill were failures. I was running 4 Planeswalkers, 4/4 Countertop, 2 WoG, 1 Humility. As you figured, I had trouble with the early game when Countertop didn't come up. After 2 years (I believe?) I revisted the list after reading pages of this thread (I've read this entire thread quite a few times since it's the deck that I truly enjoy playing) and the recent pages of Dreadstill since the innovation of UWb Bob/Peacenought. There were a lot of things that I picked up. I fully acknowledge Dreadstill has much stronger matchups than Merfolks/Combo and various other deck with its ability to dump Dreadnoughts out of nowhere to win, but at the same time, the appeal of having the deck that faces the least hate and creating multiple dead cards for the opponents e.g. Landstill still trumps my personal reasons to play the deck. So when I recalled my old lists, looked at my newer lists, I tried to make up for the missing holes. Scepters so far has always filled that hole for me.
But I will be doing quite a lot more heavy testing and take your points that perhaps the engine is not meant to be in this deck/shell. The last 2 tourneys, I was extremely pleased with how the deck did, but perhaps it was due to metagaming success rather than the success of the decklist/engine/deck itself. More testing will tell. Currently my meta over weeks consists of: 1-2 Gobs/2-4 Merfolks/1 Scapeshift Lands/2-3 combo/1-2 UGx Threshish decks/1-3 Zoo decks/1 Emrakul deck/1-2 Enchantress/1 Stax/1-2 Aggro Loam/1 black-based aggro/disruption/1-2 Rock decks.
Out of all these decks, the new list has a good shot against everything except for Loam and Enchantress. Zoo is still 50/50 but is attributed to my light removal (4 StP, 3 EE, 2 Scepters). Although Dreadstill can steal wins against Zoo with Nought, I believe Dreadnought is usually the tough thing to resolve against Zoo (Path/Pridemage/Grips), so in that respect, if Dreadstill can beat Zoo without Dreadnought i.e. with just Countertop and StP/EE, I don't see why Landstill can't do so (this is in response to Moss's point that I run too little removal, I just feel that on top of my removal suite, running +2 more WoG is usually overkill in most metagames). However, if metagames were very aggro heavy, then opting for +2 sweepers would definitely be the right decision. Right now I don't think the field will be as what it used to be. I feel the meta is shifting towards CBTop, Merfolks, combo, Gobs again, of which we only need to trul worry about Merfolks and combo (sadly our weaker matchups), which is what I'm improving my list against.
Peacekeeper is nuts. Is she Teferi's mom? Because Teferi was a badass.
I came up with a function: zoo beats Landstill is a function of the number of Wild Nacatl drawn and the number of burn drawn
Zoo_beats_Landstill(n(Wild Nacatl),n(Burn))
This function can usually be generalized to Zoo_beats_Legacy lol.
In my opinion Mossivo is right about FoF > Jace TMS. You have to activate Jace TMS twice in order to equal the effect of FoF and three times to surpass it. But FoF is already a hugely powerful effect, so no need for a bigger effect. Moreover, FoF is easier to resolve, as it is an instant and Jace is sorcery speed + Jace needs to survive a potential creature rush, or else it is just a really bad BS.
Yupp, having played both cards, FoF > Jace
BUT, Jace is relevant because it adds another +2 win-condition/win-density in the deck, while being able to act as a buffer to your life total where FoF could not do so. In terms of digging/drawing, FoF is more relevant than Jace in Landstill, and argubly FoF wins more games when resolved than Jace does. This I can testify, EOTFOFYL has always won me games 80-90% of the time. However, Jace becomes very relevant when you need to divert attention away from your life total, and incrementally setup to stabilize (e.g. 2 weeks ago, I resolved Jace in 2 games against Zoo. My sole intention was to buy myself some lifepoints. Jace got hit by Lightning Bolt + Helix (Helix countered) and a grim lavamancer activation. That saved me over 8 pts of damage. The funny thing was, the burn could have been aimed at my face, but if I brainstormed/fatesealed I would probably have won the game since if I untapped I had enough answers for his creatures and burn. There just wasn't enough mana to save Jace, who argubly saved me 8 frigging points of damage. Game 2 was similar, I think he saved me 9 points of damage.). FoF is much stronger in lists with sweepers and cards that answer multiple threats at once. If you don't run sweepers, FoF is very weak since your EOTFOF doesn't do much. Jace is stronger in incremental builds.
So I take back my statement "I would run FoF over WoG" in the earlier posts. You would have to run both, if you played FoF. I think the main reason why FoF isn't played is because most people tend to prefer the versatility of Jace as a buffer/win-con/card-draw over the raw power of FoF, and with the additional reason on not wanting to run WoG these days, FoF's power is diminished. I don't think it's fair to argue that Jace.Landstill > FoF + WoG.Landstill. I personally think the latter is more powerful, powerful bombs/cards, but sometimes, you just can't hit 4cmc in a 3-color build with the popularity of Knights/Merfolks/Wastelands these days. And once you shift to less 4cmc spells, you have to drop either FoF/WoG or a combination, and find that the lists don't perform as strong because their power/synergies are dependent on each other. This is where Jace fills in as a weaker hybrid slot of removal+defense+card draw.
People tend to get caught up in the idea that Landstill gains virtual card advantage by running no creatures, so the opponent is stuck with dead creature removal. What usually gets lost in this process is the fact that people board out all their dead creature removal against Landstill, so this advantage is gone after boarding, and furthermore there is no way to punish someone for running a light amount of creature removal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Metalwalker
I find that against Zoo, more games are won by Stifle on a fetchland than Stifle on a Dreadnought. In fact I tend to board out X number of Dreadnoughts against Zoo while keeping all the Stifles. But the mana denial plan is only an afterthought for most Landstill decks.Quote:
Although Dreadstill can steal wins against Zoo with Nought, I believe Dreadnought is usually the tough thing to resolve against Zoo (Path/Pridemage/Grips), so in that respect, if Dreadstill can beat Zoo without Dreadnought i.e. with just Countertop and StP/EE, I don't see why Landstill can't do so
People with that idea apparently don't understand that Mishra's Factory in fact IS a creature upon activation, and therefore the opponent's Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolts ARE relevant creature removal. Just sayin.Quote:
People tend to get caught up in the idea that Landstill gains virtual card advantage by running no creatures, so the opponent is stuck with dead creature removal. What usually gets lost in this process is the fact that people board out all their dead creature removal against Landstill, so this advantage is gone after boarding, and furthermore there is no way to punish someone for running a light amount of creature removal.
...and it is mana denial, too. Bolt on a Factory is a very bad thing. Stp is tragic, because you can't even recover it with Crucible...Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanni
Yupp, which is why my Factories no longer swing until I have control of the game or reached a stable manabase. If they board out removal, it's one less counter I have to waste on my beloved Factories.
@Rico: which to my point, boarding out Dreadnoughts against Zoo does imply that the Zoo matchup sees some deadweight with Dreadnoughts, emphasizing my point why Landstill should be more favorable against Zoo since you have less deadweight in game 1. Stifle does slow down or if lucky, beat Zoo, but that's assuming the Zoo player is crippled from Stifle/Waste entirely, which isn't the case most of the time. I won't deny that just 1 stifle is enough to slow it down such that Dreadstill/Landstill can be in a good position, but note that drawing Stifles past turns 2 is again deadweight. What I attribute to beating Zoo isn't solely the use of Stifles. It helps, but since Dreadstill has answers (Counters, countertop), the stifle is in fact creating time to establish the lock/advantage to beat Zoo. Outside of a turn 1-2 Stifle, Stifles don't work well against Zoo except on a Pridemage aiming at your Countertop (but you should be winning if you have Countertop out against them right? :P)
Did anybody metion that jace can win games by himself???
Jace TMS is retardedly good, and those who think otherwise are only fooling themselves, Cid. No point in trying to convince people that don't want to be convinced.
Given the fact that FoF > Jace, (mind, I'm not judging whether this is true or not, as it is just a valid point of view from wich i'd like to start the reasonement) I'd like to know what 4cc bombs are you playing in a build that includes Fof. I'm sure that if you want to play Fof, you have to play 2x as 3x seems overkill and 1x is too situational. Against blind metagames I think i would go:
2x Fof
2x Jace, TMS
1x Humility / Elspeth
1x Wrath
1x Elspeth/ 3rd Jace
In a very aggro meta, like the one in wich i currently play, i'd go:
2x Fof
2x Jace, TMS
2x Wrath
1x Humility.
I love the fact that, in a random aggro meta, EOTFOF functions almost as an istant tutor for a WoG or Humility, saving your ass. As said by Metalwalker, Fof is not played anymore because people recently stopped packing sweepers like WoG.
Am I right if I say that I play in an heavy aggro meta ---> I need sweepers ---> I have to pack Fof ?
Fof+ Wog+ Decree Landstill is not necessarily inferior to modern 3 Jace. Landstill, but I figure an hybrid between the two builds should be better in any meta. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Running FOF and Jce togehter sound good, indeed. I was thinking about that for a long time, so i cut 2 vindicate and the decree to incluye 2 FOF:
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Path to Exile
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Brainstorm
1 Humility
2 Wrath of God
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
3 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
2 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Scrubland
2 Fact or Fiction
SB: 3 Chill
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 3 Perish
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
I think that with this configuration a resolved FoF is game...
I am not going to go into too much detail, or why I feel you have a few misconceptions about this particular match, because the biggest problem here is that most Landstill players simply cannot give up the concept of a traditional Landstill deck. They will play it regardless of whether it is right or wrong to play it, and then make up excuses to justify this. And until people acknowledge this, there is little point arguing specifics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Metalwalker