[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

@tom T: Your list is a classic 4cmc gas-list. Nothing wrong with it. And looks solid. To answer your question:

1. On sites like Deckcheck.org there are Lanstill lists similar to the one below, but this thread seems to vary a lot with lists. This is quite confusing: why would you all go in different directions while the 'top8-lists' from deckcheck all look almost the same?

Because Landstill is a metagame control deck. One does not pilot the 'best' Landstill list because there is non. In fact, a 'standard' Landstill list is either:
1) Have good matchups against decks x,y while losing horribly to other decks (e.g. classic Landstill beats aggro then dies to burn/combo)
2) Have good matchups across everything so becoming very tough to pilot correctly (e.g. IMO Countertop Landstill/Hanni's List, Chii's Scepterstill list). These are the non-normal non-classic lists that have quite a different selection of card choices.

Inherently, all these forms and choices are decisions made in response to the metagame. If there's more tribal around, then UWr Landstill is the better deck with REBs against Merfolks, Firespout killing a ton of crap. UWb is solid against slower Countertop meta with Bantish decks since UWr does nothing here (red does nothing big against these decks). If there's a ton of combo/burn, then the classic list just fails hard i.e. I remember trying so hard to beat burn, and I came to the conclusion it was about countering all burn, and drawing Pulse of the Fields. But instead of playing a classic list, if you just tweak some cards to incorporate Countertop it becomes much easier.

Now, if you disagree with my statement, just take a look at the very nature of Landstill. It has no fixed win-condition/gameplan. We say we win with Jace 2. But any deck can win with Jace 2. We beat with Factories, but so does Dreadstill. The deal with Landstill is: There's no fixed gameplan, it's inherently a control deck, and a control deck only does its best when metagamed. Unlike Dreadstill or Countertop, these decks actually have a gameplan e.g. winning with Dreadnought, or locking with Countertop. That's the reason why there's no universal best landstill list. In the same light, there's no universal best Dreadstill list, or Zoo list. It's all tweaked, but Landstill has a much higher degree of freedom when it comes to deck design, which explains the huge variants of cards played in various top8s, anything from Fact or Fiction, Decree, Crucible, Elspeth, Ajani, Jace 2, Eternal Dragons, Counterbalance, Scepter, etc



Furthermore, the primer doesn't have a matchup-analysis.
2. I wondered which decks UW(x) Landstill was good against?
Classic Landstill (e.g. your list): Aggro, Goblins, Bant, Countertop, Stax/Stompy (we have higher basic count and more lands compared against other control decks that rely on less basic/lands/more lower-cmc spells)

50/50 matchups: Zoo, Enchantress (this one is tough), combo
<50/50 matchups: Burn, Aggro Loam (this could be 50/50, depends if they draw the nuts)


3. What strategy should the Lanstill player pull of against Zoo, Goblins, Merfolk, AggroControl (as in New Horizons and Bant Control)

In that meta, UWr list would do well. Firespout kills Gobs/Merfolks. Run no less than 8 removal spell + 2-3 EEs, and things should be easy from there. Landstill inherently beats Aggro-control, that's its strength. However, against such a meta, I would not drop below 4 basics because all of these decks run either Wasteland or Price of Progress. Against Zoo/Gobs/Merfolk keep the board under control, EE the Vials, and stick a Planeswalker, against Bantish decks, play around Daze/Stifle, that way you don't lose tempo and you out-tempo them when they waste their turns holding back creatures. When they finally drop creatures, you have mana open to initiate counterspell/removal and you should win the counterwar since they have tapped out to play threats so you have more mana advantage. If that fails, you untap and play another removal spell or a Planeswalker that buys cards/time over turns.

I personally would take out the Mindbreak Trap and 1 Orim's Chant for the 2 REB. I don't think you should be worring about Scapeshift.dec much UNLESS it's a significant metagame presence (like, multiple decks are playing the Scapeshift combo). Besides that, it's going to take 7 mana total to Wish for and cast MBT against a deck that plays Wastelands and possibly Ports. I think you should just ignore the matchup and hope to kill it with the GY hate/Chant lock. Also, while it's decent against combo, you've got CB, Negates, Counterspells, FoW, Jace, Wish for gas, and now REB to stop the cantrips. I think you'll be okay unless you REALLY are worried about combo.

-1 Chants because you'll still have the ability to Wish for it to Chant-lock people with Scepter, and you'll still be able to SB it in/Wish for it against Combo. Again, unless Combo is a significant metagame presence, I think you'll be fine with just 1 Chant.

I disagree with running the Negates over Pierce, but I understand your logic on them regardless. If you don't want to remove the Chant and MBT, then keep the board the way it is. There arent' any other reasonable cards to remove for REB other than Negates, which serve a similar, but less-focused purpose and are useful in more matchups. You do run Wish, so SB space is certainly at a premium.

Haha dude, why are people playing Scapeshift in your meta? I wouldn't worry about that at all, cut the Mindbreak Trap and just be more careful with your Wastelands. If you know the goof packing Scapeshifts is also packing Boseiju in a format mandated by Wastelands then make him pay for it. Sit on those Wastelands until you can tag Boseiju and counter those shitty Scapeshifts like you would any other garbage spell.

The deck is 'garbage' but it's so garbage that I cannot beat it D:

It's our playgroup, we always have a Scapeshift player, and as funny as it sounds, it usually beats any deck that isn't combo. Against aggro it gets the Tabernacle and wastelock plan, against control it goes for Boseiju and you can't do anything about it (he only gets Boseiju out when he goes off usually). But the last time I did lock out the combo with Scepterchant since he never got to play Scapeshift so I guess I'll focus on that strategy.

I'll cut MBT and possibly another slot to make room for 2 REBs. I'll most likely be playing this list this weekend. I have all these cool decks that I want to try out (Blue stompy/affinity and Dreadstalker and Elves) but I really hate being on the aggression and really miss plowing dudes and countering spells lol.

So this has been my mentality post-Survival ban:
1) I hate WotC for banning the only cool green card in MTG
2) metagames of Zoo/Gobs/Merfolks are INEVITABLE. With Survvial gone, Countertop resurges (combo in check by this as well), causing Merfolks to come in for free wins, causing Zoo and Gobs to convert to seafood diet, causing Gobs to have a tough time with Zoo, causing Zoo to have a tough time with Countertop, causing Countertop to be swimming with fishes and so on.
3) I have Gobs and Merfolks built so I was thinking which is the best deck of these to play (IMO Zoo is since it keeps both Gobs/Merfolks in check and can sometime steal wins against Countertop), but I thought to myself, why not play control that has a tough time with these matchups, but in general is favored except Merfolks. But once you tweak a list that can have not an abysmmal matchup against Merfolks, I think control is worth playing in such a meta. So with beating Merfolks primarily in mind,

The list I played this weekend:

Lands: 23
1 Academy Ruins
4 Factories
4 Strands
2 Tarns
1 Mesa
1 Plains
3 Islands
3 Tundras
3 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau

Draw/Filter: 12
4 Brainstorm
3 Top
3 Standstill
2 Cunning Wish

Removal: 11
2 EE
4 StP
3 Lightning Helix
2 Firespout

Counters: 10
3 Counterbalance
3 Counterspell
4 FoW

Wins: 5
2 Isochron Scepter
3 Jace

SB:
1 Path
1 ETutor
1 REB
1 BEB
3 Negate
2 Chants
1 Firespout
1 EE
1 Shackles
3 Relic

Not an exciting tournament due to a small showup (16 players) and the fact I got a bye round 2 (I actually wanted to play magic and playtest instead of trying to win).

Regardless, my matchups were: Mono-U Merfolks, Bye, 'Red Gate', UW Merfolks with Arbiter.

Brief notes (just to highlight the performance of the list iteself).

Match 1 Merfolks: He leads off with Vial which I force. I stabilized at 10 after a Firespout but he proceeds to draw into more threats. The main note I took down was: Mutavault is what makes Merfolks so good. Despite the fact that the deck has all these lords and coralhelm, Mutavault is quite key to the deck's success and aggression IMO. I missed having 2 wastelands.

Game 2 I kept a really strong hand of 2 EE, this is where I make the mistake of trying to catch x-1 with my EE. He leads off with Cursecatcher and then a mutavault silvergill next turn. My hand was 1 Helix, 2 EE. I decide that I can save my EE to sweep later since he revealed a Coralhelm with Silvergill. Now, since he did not draw his Island, he swung for 5 with Silvergill, Cursecatcher and Mutavault. This was unexpected for me since I was anticipating Coralhelm so I can sweep 2 permanents next turn. So I took an extra 5 damage. I decide that he will play Coralhelm next turn again, so I did not EE away his Silvergill. He did not draw Island again, and instead wastes my red so my Helix is now dead in hand. He comes in with the same 5. I decided not to Helix the Adept to catch another 2-1 next turn with EE while saving Helix on his Mutavault (since I play no wastelands). In the end, he never drew that 2nd Island, and I took 6 points of extra damage as a result of anticipating and trying to be greedy with my EE. But on hindsigh, it didn't seem right to spend 4 mana on EE just to kill 1 Adept. Once again, Mutavault is really really good. And Merfolks is really really good. The game scorned me because I drew 3 EEs before I finally died. Looking back, I think I played really bad tying to do my x-1 strategy while thinking that I will be fine, stabilizing. I deserved this lost, but at the time, I thiink my reasons were still somewhat justified.

Match 2: Bye, sad face.


Match 3: Red Gate with Bob, Hymn, Burn, Magus of the Moon, Demigods, Sinkhole, Wastelands
IMO this is not too favorable a matchup. Landstill doesnt like Moon, Discard, Wastelands, Sinkhole, and a resolved Bob, so here we go!
Game 1: He doesn't have enough discard but plays dudes. I have Firespout in hand. He goes Lavamancer, Magus. I willingly take beats because unlike Merfolks, he doesn't run counters so I can let him overextend without me being afraid. He believes he has me locked under Moon and drops Bob, so I untap and Firespout away Magus, Bob, Lavamancer. From there he tried to recover but I stuck a Counterspell on an Isochron FTW to lock him out while Jace kills him

Game 2: Resolved Jace and fatesealed him away.

Match 4: UW Merfolks with Arbiter
Game 1: We play the same Merfolks v.s. control game. I Firespout away his dudes and was at 10 life. Being Merfolks, he eventually ended up with a board of 2 Arbiters, 2 Cursecatcher and a Mutavault. I have Jace out and miscounted the maths (i.e. missing 1 mana to activate 2nd Factory to block, I facepalm myself 3 times), Jace dies, but I have EE in hand with Ruins in play so he has to swing in to put on the pressure but my two factories will be 3/3s to kill off 2 Arbiters and EE will lock him out (I had double FoW 2 blue cards in hand as well).

Here comes the part where I lose to 'Jedi-mind' tricks and myself for not knowing very basic magic rules.
He says "Declaring attackers", I said "Okay". He says "Moving to blocking phase", I say "Yeah sure" (I knew he was trying to trick me into not activating my Factories so I thought to myself I will go onto blocker phase and activate my factories to block him, just to make sure everything was correct). And we moved onto blocking phase, and I lose because according to the rules of the game, once you enter the blocking phase, you have to assign blockers immediately, and it is too late to activate your manlands to block. He swings for 10 and I lose even though it was quite obvious that the play was to block two 2/2s with your 3/3 factories.

Game 2: I kept an insanely strong hand: 2 Helix, 1 EE, 1 Firespout. I don't think I can lose this one. He resolves Arbiter, and Arbiter no. 2. I have a Fetchland and I cracked paying 2 for the Arbiter and he poitned out there's 2 in play. I facepalm again (I was getting all worked up in game 1 so I was rageplaying game 2 too quickly lol). I ended up stabilizing. I go for Helix on a stick, he fows. I keep the board under control with my 2nd Helix and StP: I'm at 4, he swings in for 4, I helix Reejery, climb back to 5, and then Brainstorm into another Helix and recurred Scepter with Ruins. We went to time, so Helix on a stick starts pinging him while his 2 Merfolks try to race Helix. I won!

So we were both 2-1-0 and we drew and ended up being 2-1-1, missing top 4 :P

PROS:
- I'm quite sold on Helix. I need more testing though, the lifegain is very relevant although it might not be if a list is designed in another manner
- 3 Jace felt right. I miss 2 Jace 2 Elspeth builds since I win games faster, but 3 Jace feels that I am in control most of the time. I don't have much experience with 3 Jace.control but I think I need to rework the card choices to see how they play in with each other.
- Top was great all the time. I think it's hard for me to drop below 2 Top in any control build.
- For the first time in my life, my sideboard flowed. Well I only played against Merfolks, but sideboarding was not difficult.
- And as always, Scepter just wins games. Scepter + Helix means that not only can you hit Lord'd tribaldudes, but you can aim them at 2/3, 3/3 Zoo dudes, or hit them if you pair it up with Relic. More importantly, 3 damage to planeswalker/players grants another win condition and the lifegain makes it seem like you're playing Exalted Angel against aggro.

CONS:
- Counterbalance was weak this weekend but that's simply because of the matchups: 2 Merfolks
- Wish was usually pitched to FoW or I had no need to use it
- I think Firespout isn't optimal(sorry to those who like it). Here's my reasoning. Firespout IMO only shines against tribal. It's quite decent against Zoo but is not reliable and is still a little slow. So if the main reason is used against tribal, I still think it's a weak card. Any competent tribal player will not overextend unless he's pressured to win in 1-2 turns (which is oxymoronic against a control deck since you are not pressured to win fast unless it's dreadstill). When a Goblin player keeps a Ringleader/Matron in hand and a Merfolk continues to draw gas and Mutavaults, Firespout acts as a quick answer to the current board position. It does not stop the future board position from developing. I'm not saying Firespout is bad against tribal, but I feel that in control lists that don't intend to win fast e.g. non-Dreadstill and non-combo/control lists, then Firespout will be a temporarily answer for the player to draw and try to establish board control. In most cases, this is not too difficult, but against competent opponents who know how to play against sweepers, tapping out to play a Firespout with them following up with Ringleader/Adept rebuilds their board again. There's a reason why I liked Punishing Fire without thinking too much about it. PFires is a card that is a recurring engine that continues to keep the board under control until answered. For the same reason, this is my love for Scepter because Scepter just locks games out with a Counterspell/StP (let's not bring in Chants).

Anyway, from playing, I think the main thing I'm goign to do is to take out the Counterbalances. I really enjoyed having them in matchups like Burn, combo, Loam but at the moment these decks aren't too popularly played (at least in my meta). I think my new list would look something like:

Lands: 23
1 Academy Ruins
2 Wasteland (hate mutavault)
4 Factories
4 Strands
2 Tarns
1 Plains
2 Islands
3 Tundras
3 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau

Draw/Filter: 11
4 Brainstorm
2 Top
3 Standstill
2 Cunning Wish (or the other option is cut these 2, add 1 ETutor MD + 4th Counterspell and I prefer this but blue count will be down to 20 and I lose the ability to wish for REB/BEB/Path/Chant/Negate which is still valuable IMO)

Removal: 11
3 EE
4 StP
3 Lightning Helix
1 Vedalken Shackles

Counters: 10
3 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
4 FoW

Wins: 6
2 Isochron Scepter
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Jace

SB:
1 Path
1 ETutor
1 REB
1 BEB
3 Negate
2 Chants
3 Relic
3 Firespout (in the board makes much more sense IMO but these could be other slots e.g. Path although I'm not a fan of Path in control unless it's a last resort. I had to play FSpouts in the main for last week to have four 3cmc spells to flip for Counterbalance. I think Shackles main is still a lot stronger since it's as potent if not more powerful than Firespout when the board is slightly in control. firespout is definitely great when the board is out of control, but I rather always be in a slightly-uncontrolled board position than an out-of-control board position since the risks for the latter are higher and I'm fairly risk-averse when it comes to playing control and the philosophy to that is because control does not cheat as much as non-control decks so by being risk-avid, you tend to lose games because those decks can just draw something to blow you out. Once again, this depends on the control build, e.g. Dreadstill can afford to be less risk-averse because they can just go Stiflenought turn 2 on many decks and win games. Sometimes I wonder why I don't play that deck despite having all the pieces :P)

What do you think of the new manland from MBS? Inkmoth nexus could provide a nice alternative win condition, even better if paired with Elspeth.

For anyone who's to lazy to look the card up:

Land Rare
{T}: Add 1 to your mana pool.
1: Inkmoth Nexus becomes a 1/1 Blinkmoth artifact creature with flying and infect until end of turn. It's still a land.

Doesn't look to promising to me, infect is a bad mechanic if your deck isn't build around it + this card is weak in the defense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

For anyone who's to lazy to look the card up:

Land Rare
{T}: Add 1 to your mana pool.
1: Inkmoth Nexus becomes a 1/1 Blinkmoth artifact creature with flying and infect until end of turn. It's still a land.

Doesn't look to promising to me, infect is a bad mechanic if your deck isn't build around it + this card is weak in the defense.

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While testing, I noticed that it doesn't work well with Humility, as it doesn't take advantage of this global enchantment as Mishra's factory does. Maybe if the build is more concentrated on lands as a win condition, this land would provide a nice addition. I love it in conjuction with Elspeth for a very fast clock (3 turns, with no downsides from lifegain etc...)

On a different note,I've been testing a slightly tweaked version of the UWg Landstill piloted by Wafo-Tapa last year at the second place at the legacy event of Bazaar of Moxen (pretty much a classic Landstill list but without Wastelands, without Crucible and without Academy ruins). For your reference, this is the list I'm running: (with B splash instead of G splash):

//Lands
4x Flooded Strand
3x Island
3x Tundra
4x Polluted Delta
3x Plains
2x Underground Sea
4x Mishra's Factory

//Spells
3x Engineered Explosives
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Spell Snare
4x Standstill
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
1x Humility
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2x Wrath of God
2x Fact or Fiction
1x Story Circle

//Sideboard
2x Tormod's Crypt
3x Meddling Mage
3x Engineered Plague
3x Extirpate
4x Leyline of Sanctity

It's amazing how an UWx shell can be tweaked and changed to an infinity of versions. Wafo-Tapa's version ran 2 Tops maindeck where I'm running 2 Fact or Fiction. I think that the raw power fo FoF should not be overlooked. After all, we are probably the best tuned deck to survive early game. After early game, let's say turn 4+, I don't want to topdeck good. I want to dig for bombs. I want my 4cc's hit the table. So i prefer Fof, wich also is good to find silver bullets such as Humility and Story Circle. I'm testing singleton Circle instead of an Humility and I'm satisfied with it. The only thing that I can complain about is that it doesn't have built in pro-qasali as Humility has. But having a maindeck out (even if singleton) to decks playing loads of Burn is a great thing. It is also golden against Goblins, maybe even better than Humility; and let me explain why:after you dropped Humility, the goblin player is going to drop 1/1's all the turns, while you need to find a finisher or a sweeper to keep the control of the game state. And you need it fastly, because in my eperience,I have lost games rushed by a horde of 1/1's while I was drawing only Counterspells and Standstills. Circle gives you an out in this rare case. Also is 3cc, wich is good against any Tribal deck packing land denial.

To those of you running Wrath of God: What do you think is the right number for WoG-effects?
3 WoG
2 WoG + 1 Humility
3 WoG + 1 Humility
(However, I'm very sure that I want only one Humility, because I fear Krosan grip too much.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iron Buddha

To those of you running Wrath of God: What do you think is the right number for WoG-effects?
3 WoG
2 WoG + 1 Humility
3 WoG + 1 Humility
(However, I'm very sure that I want only one Humility, because I fear Krosan grip too much.)

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I'm for 2 WoG + 1 Humility, although 3 Wog can be considered too. 3 Wog + 1 Humility seems overkill.

Not that this will be played, but I think it is fairly decent as a Wish target:

White Sun's Zenith XWWW
Instant
Put X 2/2 Cat creature tokens onto the battlefield. Shuffle White Sun's Zenith into its owner's library.

The WWW is a problem, but aside from not drawing a card, this puts out quite a lot of P/T on the board for its mana cost at instant speed. I'm thinking of testing it in a Wishbuild. Still not a good card IMO to squeeze inside a tight 15 SB, but it's borderline playable. The question becomes: Does Landstill need a Wishable win-condition? Will that speed up games? Is this card flexible enough as both win-con/defense to justify its inclusion in the 15?

EDIT: It also shuffles back for future use (and Landstill gets a thinned library late-game usually :D)

If I ever try it in a tournament, I'm pretty sure I'll get a game loss due to forgetting to take it out of the deck.

Not really sure on what verdict to give, seems somewhat weak compared to other finishers, and I don't run wish anyway, so I don't think it will see play.

As a mainboard card it's obviously really bad, I don't even need to test it (just compare it with Decree of Justice), but a wishable win-con is truly amazing...

As you mentioned WWW kinda sucks plus we can't do cool tricks with Standstill. Also if playing Cunning Wish there are only a few amount of situations where I'd pick this card over pate, pulse etc.

Dunno if it still fits Landstill but I played a very odd list at my local tourney today:
3 Tundra (not owning a 4th copy of Tundra sucks)
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Scrubland
1 Steam Venst (not owning Volcanincs sucks also :( )
4 Strand
1 Delta
4 Mishra
5 Island
2 Plains

4 Brainstorm
4 Fow
3 Snare
3 Counterspell
3 Counterbalance
2 Top
4 StP
4 Standstill
3 DoJ
2 Elspeth
2 ORing
1 E.Tutor
3 Explosiv
1 Humility

Side
3 Meddling Mage
2 Path
2 Wrath
2 Negate
3 Hydroblast
2 Relic
1 Crypt

So this deck was tuned to beat our local meta, nothing more nothing less.
R1: GBW Junk
G1: Turn 1 Top, Turn 2 Balance, Turn 4 Elspeth turn 5 scoop
G2: This one was funny: His Hymn gets 2 lands, then he Vindicates both of my Islands and has 2 Wastelands in play for Mishra and Tundra. Sad Panda is sad.
G3:The usual stuff, I sword some of his guys, play some counter and cycle 2 Decrees for the win.

R2:UBR Dreadstill
G1: He gets Top while I get the Balance, his Noughts fall right into my removal and Elspeth won once more.
G2:His first Nought meets an O Ring, his second Path and his 3rd Explosiv, while I beat him down with tokens in the mean time.

R3: Zoo
G1: I can trade Explosiv 3 -1 and win via flying Mishras
G2:He burns me out on turn 5
G3: This was a very long game, as he got Libary, Goyf and Teeg while I got 2 Mishras , some tokens and an incredible amount of lands. At the end i got to path his Teed, counter the Fireblast, pop Explosiv for the board, drop Elspeth and keep drawing Forces for the next Turns. I did actually survive 5 turns on 1 life against a libary, sworting your own Mishras still does the trick.

R4: UWB Countertop Walker (sort of)
G1: His Balance meets my Snare while I'm able to stick my own into play, the rest is the usual control mirror stuff, oh and countering Elspeth with DoJ is awesome.
G2: My Deck shows that it really loves me, as I got everything that I needed to do the following: Drop Meddling Mage, counter Shackles ,O Ring Elspeth and blow away his Explosiv for 3 while he had only 1 Mana available.

4-0 feels pretty good, as I didn't thought that the deck would have any chances at all.

so long

cheers

Felidae, what are your secrets to playing Landstill with 22 lands??

Seriously, I play 24 lands and I still get land-screwed every once in awhile (4 basics). Your list is interesting but I can see the reasons for Orings etc. They're actually really decent for an easy to cast 2W. They're another answer to Emrakul decks without being terrible in game 1 (most people don't have enchantment hate MD game 1).

I would personally cut the 3rd DoJ for the 3rd Top (especially with a land-light 22 lands, running 3 top over 3 DoJ would justify that a little more IMO).

Did you like Counterbalance in your matchups/testing? I'm still on the fence because I know it's super against a huge portion of the meta, but Countertop isn't best implemented in the Landstill shell, which I am still trying to fit them in smoothly in a correct shell for my meta.

He has sensei's top+ fetches+ brainstorm: solves any land problems but i think you have a good point in suggesting the 3rd top over DoJ. But then he's running a lot of nice removal like o-ring explosives etc so that works too. + he mentioned it was a metagame tuned deck. As long as he doesn't run into wastelands and stifles the deck works fine

Nice little report. I'm always happy to hear about Landstill kicking ass. I have to agree though, you're a sicko for running only 22 lands. I can see how the low land count could have worked throughout 1 tourney bc of such a small sample size, but I would 100% recommend pushing that land count up by at least 1. Just my 2 cents.

@Metalwalker: Actually I didn't saw this as a real Landstill deck (dunno how to call it), like I said it was a pure meta call, because usually we have zero Merfolk players and only 1 Goblin player, so I could cut the Wastelands for more basics. However I'd put the list together about 5 minutes befor the actual tourney started, so I didn't got any testing at all.
As for Balance; it sure was an awesome feeling playing it, but in terms of a spot in the classic Landstill shell I have to disagree, the hight amount of lands and 4cc spells with little to zero 3cc spells don't look so promesing in my eyes. I know you tuned your list with Wish and stuff but it still looks kinda odd, or maybe I'm just not used to see a CB deck with a high amount of 4cc bombs.
Then yet again I did only play 4 games with the deck :S.

@the rest:
As for any bigger tournement with 40+ people I'd play my usual UWx Landstill with 23 lands + Dragon, no question there ;).

@Metalwalker: Have you tried 2x Fact or Fiction over 2x Top? Wasting mana on the Top always seems to interfere with me using Isochron mid-game. I thought about trying Fact or Fiction, because it's pitchable to FOW. Also, I saw you switched from Counterbalance to Spell Snare in your two lists. Have you tested Spell Snare much and, if so, how useful has it been?

Cheers,

Jimmy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JimmyC27

@Metalwalker: Have you tried 2x Fact or Fiction over 2x Top? Wasting mana on the Top always seems to interfere with me using Isochron mid-game. I thought about trying Fact or Fiction, because it's pitchable to FOW. Also, I saw you switched from Counterbalance to Spell Snare in your two lists. Have you tested Spell Snare much and, if so, how useful has it been?

Cheers,

Jimmy

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Also Fact or Fiction gives an amazing tempo boost when looking for a Jace or a WoG. Considering that you can play it eot, it lets you look at 5 cards, and then the 6th from turn draw. Top normally takes 3 turns to look at those 6 cards, especially since you don't always have a fetchland/shuffle effect to shuffle blank draws. FoF is a powerful tool (maybe the most powerful excluding Jace) and should not be overlooked in any Landstill build. 95% of the times I menage to EotFoF I win.

Edit: Not to mention when you chain an EotFof into another Fof, or into a Brainstorm. Now that's digging.