[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

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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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For myself, I'm a HUGE fan of FoF, but I feel its power is only truly abused with builds running Sweepers e.g. Wrath/Decree/Humility.

My list has no sweepers (something that I've been evolving towards), so my FoF flips do draw me cards, but are nowhere as spetacular as FoF with Humility/WoG. If the meta permits, I will return back to a 4cmc traditional Landstill list, and definitely play FoF over Top. However, I feel the traditional model failing, and the only reason why it fails is: Wasteland. If you run a heavy UW list, you can work with a higher curve, but I feel that UWx builds have an advantage in more matchups than straight UW.

Then again, if your meta is heavy Zoo and no decks with wasteland, then go for the traditional list, run sweepers, run FoF and pwn everyone. FoF is quite crappy in the 'incremental' builds that I've been testing e.g. no sweepers, only pin-point removals. Imagine going FoF into a pile of 2 StP + counters and they have a couple of dudes on board. It stiill is broken, but it's not as amazing as delving into sweepers that win the game. I feel that Top is stronger in the 'incremental' builds, since you are always in need for a relevant card at the right time.

The current ratio of removal/counter that I'm satisfied with is:

3 EE
4 StP
3 Helix

4 Counterspell
4 FoW

3 Standstill

4 Brainstorm
2 Top
2 Scepter

3 Jace
2 Elspeth

3 flex slots (currently: 1 Shackles, 2 Cunning Wish, interchanging with 3 Spell Snares with Shackles/Crucible sometimes)

This is my basis of counter/removal for my 'incremental' build. It's strong against tribal, but still has some issues with Zoo when they go Cat Cat Cat on turn 2.

In all honesty, FoF is more powerful than Jace IMO. By this I mean that you resolve it you should win. But this statement is ONLY true if and only if your list is tuned to abuse its power. And what I mean by that is you can't pack FoF in any list and expect it to win games for you. Your deck has to be designed to power it to its fullest, when you do that, FoF is both faster than Jace and puts you back into position immediately whereas Jace can't. However, things arn't that perfect in real-life playing. Bulk of the time, FoF is countered or you don't stabilize before you can cast it. Once again, it all depends on the meta, and quite critically on your deck, and the number of wastelands out there.

Frankly, Wasteland is not a problem for UWx if you can play around it.Now I'm running 7 basics only for the Wastelands and Stifles out there. We need to stabilize on 4-6 mana early in the game, I think that a nice amount of basics is really needed to accomplish this task. Play 6-7 basics (I even cutted a Tundra) and Wasteland is not a problem anymore.

Yeah I don't see any problem with 7 basics, it's quite easy to play around Wastes with 7 basics :P

The wasteland issue can be avoided if you play a light x-splash, but sometimes I find myself needing more than 4-5 off-color if I run more than 5 cards pre/post SB with the splash color. I stopped running the 4th Tundra since 1-2 years ago, not really needed. I guess against some decks you can certainly play around Wastes, but most of the time, playing around Waste means losing the ability to develop normally, where other decks are developing normally i.e. a tempo loss. E.g. playing against Merfolks, I do play around Waste, but I always have to consider how much Tempo I lose by doing so. How many x-color spells do you play kiblast?

So far I have a total of 3 red spells MD, with another 3 in the SB

Playing more basics generally doesn't help against Wasteland, against Landstill Wasteland will always have a target. Wasteland's effectiveness isn't dependent on the number of basics a deck has, it's the number of non-basics it runs. If you run too many basics, you open yourself up to mana-inconsistencies and mulligans. I fetch duals all the time against Wasteland, and some people, such as Wafo-Tapa, even went as far as adding a 5th Tundra (Glacial Fortress) to their lists with 8 fetches. Here is some reasoning behind it:

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...#comment-70332

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Posted by:David Price
The only time basics help against wasteland is when they are going to be casting more wastelands than you have nonbasics, which doesn't happen very often

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CTRL+F for David Price's comment.

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Originally Posted by Shawn

Playing more basics generally doesn't help against Wasteland

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Seems like you never experienced Loam. Loam engine is'nt a very good matchup for landstill and playing too many non basics sure doesn't help it. Also Goblin has 8 lands to mantain mana denial, and making his Wasteland more worth sure doesn't help. Play against Goblin with 2 Islands and 2 Plains on the battlefield and play against it with 4 Tundras on the battlefield. Remember that losing a Mishra is better than losing a U/W source when you're screwed...

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Originally Posted by Metalwalker

Yeah I don't see any problem with 7 basics, it's quite easy to play around Wastes with 7 basics :P
How many x-color spells do you play kiblast?

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In my ''Classical'' UWx build, I play no x colour spells maindeck, and 6 SB. In my Cunning Landstill build I run 3 Wishes, so basically 3 cards that can be x colour.

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Playing more basics generally doesn't help against Wasteland, against Landstill Wasteland will always have a target. Wasteland's effectiveness isn't dependent on the number of basics a deck has, it's the number of non-basics it runs. If you run too many basics, you open yourself up to mana-inconsistencies and mulligans. I fetch duals all the time against Wasteland, and some people, such as Wafo-Tapa, even went as far as adding a 5th Tundra (Glacial Fortress) to their lists with 8 fetches. Here is some reasoning behind it:

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...#comment-70332


Posted by:David Price
The only time basics help against wasteland is when they are going to be casting more wastelands than you have nonbasics, which doesn't happen very often
CTRL+F for David Price's comment.

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You've totally taken David Price's comment out of context. If you're playing aggro/control like New Horizons (which was what he was referring to), then yes. His spells require alot of colors, UU, GG, GW, etc. Duals instead of basics is absolutely better in a deck like that, or like Vial Bant, and his argument is completely valid there.

In a Control deck like Landstill, that is completely wrong. Control decks are not just worried about having adequate color sources, they are also worried about having an adequate total number of lands. If you run a very strong U/W manabase with a minor splash, and a ton of basics, you are much better positioned against Wasteland, because Wasteland won't slow you down an entire turn or turns from dropping bombs like Shackles, Jace 2.0, or whatever.

A deck like New Horizons or Vial Bant isn't worried about Wastelock either, because they play enough tempo, non-land manasources, etc. In Landstill, a Wastelock is literally gg usually.

The most important aspect of any control deck is a strong consistent manabase. You can quote me on that.

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Originally Posted by Hanni

You've totally taken David Price's comment out of context. If you're playing aggro/control like New Horizons (which was what he was referring to), then yes. His spells require alot of colors, UU, GG, GW, etc. Duals instead of basics is absolutely better in a deck like that, or like Vial Bant, and his argument is completely valid there.

In a Control deck like Landstill, that is completely wrong. Control decks are not just worried about having adequate color sources, they are also worried about having an adequate total number of lands. If you run a very strong U/W manabase with a minor splash, and a ton of basics, you are much better positioned against Wasteland, because Wasteland won't slow you down an entire turn or turns from dropping bombs like Shackles, Jace 2.0, or whatever.

A deck like New Horizons or Vial Bant isn't worried about Wastelock either, because they play enough tempo, non-land manasources, etc. In Landstill, a Wastelock is literally gg usually.

The most important aspect of any control deck is a strong consistent manabase. You can quote me on that.

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Replied with Quote.

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Seems like you never experienced Loam

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Of course you have problems with recurring Wastes with fewer basics, but:

• Very few people actually play Loam, or Wastelock. We shouldn't be afraid of a deck that makes up such a small portion of the metagame.
• You can still run four to five basics and beat them by casting your 4cc bombs. It's a difficult match-up but very beatable.

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Play against Goblin with 2 Islands and 2 Plains on the battlefield and play against it with 4 Tundras on the battlefield.

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I would would play against Goblins with 4x Tundra in play all day if I could. If they have double Waste, double Port, or Port and a Waste, I can still cast my UU and WW spells with Tundras. If they have a Port they can keep me off WW or UU if I only had a pair of Islands and a pair of Plains. Situationly I fetch basics, but they aren't preferred.

Let's say I'm playing against Goblins, post sideboard with Plagues, and I need to break my fetch to cast something:
Lands in play example:

Tundra, UW fetch, Mishra's Factory, Scrubland

I would most likely fetch a Tundra. If I have Island-Factory-Tundra-Scrubland in play, A Wasteland will either keep my off of WW or UU. If I fetch for a Plains, he can remove my lone U source.

If I have Tundra-Tundra-Factory-Scrubland, I will still have access to WW and at least U after a Wasteland. Situations like this show that it is correct to fetch duals in certain situations in the face of Wasteland.

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If you're playing aggro/control like New Horizons (which was what he was referring to), then yes. His spells require alot of colors, UU, GG, GW, etc.

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How is that any different than Landstill? We play spells that require UU, WW, and generally a splash color of red or black. We run even more colorless lands than they do, and more that only produce a single color. Running too many lands that only produce a single color will cause more mulligans; it happened to me in SCG Kansas City and has happened at many other tournaments. Konsultant said something similar a while back when he tried six or seven basics in a tournament, I can't find the link, though.

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because Wasteland won't slow you down an entire turn or turns from dropping bombs like Shackles, Jace 2.0, or whatever.

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Wasteland is going to kill a land against us and serve it's purpose, unless you draw all basics/all fetches hand, and the chances of that happening are slim. Double Waste will almost always be effective as well. We generally run over ten non-basics outside of fetches.

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You've totally taken David Price's comment out of context. If you're playing aggro/control like New Horizons (which was what he was referring to), then yes.

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He was talking about legacy decks in general (like the Survival example he gave), not just New Horizons.


(For reference: I play five basics in my current list, but I wouldn't recommend going much higher than that, and I wouldn't cut Tundra for more basics)

You're still running a decent number of non-basics (like 10-14?) so you'll usually end up needing to play one from your hand to even get adequate lands. I'd say there's no real reason to run much more than 4-5 basics, although I'd never run less than 4 either. You can function on 4 lands against loam as well anyways.

And I still agree on my post a few pages back stating you could just not run wasteland yourself. Even a UWbr list (red for Firespout, black for sb stuff) didn't get manascrewed that much and a plain UWb list with a solid 5 basics (2,2,1) felt even more stable.

I don't really play landstill atm, but FoF always felt weaker than Jace and Top for me. Top is your #1 card against storm combo, especially if they play without chants. It's also great against The Rock (Or Dark Horizons, however you want to call it) and other discard strategies.

Running 4-5 is solid , as you are able to cast any spell in the deck with them while still being able to have acces to WW /UW / UU on turn 2-3.

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Of course you have problems with recurring Wastes with fewer basics, but:

* Very few people actually play Loam, or Wastelock. We shouldn't be afraid of a deck that makes up such a small portion of the metagame.
* You can still run four to five basics and beat them by casting your 4cc bombs. It's a difficult match-up but very beatable.

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Nothing more to add.

Oh and by the way: Did we actually discuss anything else in the past weeks then FoF vs. Jace vs Top ? It seems to me that most of us have a linear view on this topic (given by there own experience) so let's move ahead, instead of posting the same old arguments over and over again.

With that in mind I'd like to ask you about the following: Preacher vs Peacekeeper:
At the time where Survival was the DtB good old Peacekeeper did pretty well in protecting our ass from raging Vines, but now, where the meta shifts back to where it was 1 year ago, she did lose some of her power.
Comparing both Preacher and Peacekeeper isn't easy, as both fullfill a diverent role on the board, but lets give it a try:
Preacher: Allows you to steal a creature of an opponent's choice, creating a board state where he's either forced to overextend or resolves an allternativ win con (Jace for example). His great strengh is given by the fact that the average player will side his removal out against us, so we can safely ride them to victory (the same is true for Peacekeeper). He also allows us to keep 2-3 Standstill in the deck against Merfolk , which wouldn't be such a good choice without him.
Peacekeeper: Locks the game state down, up to a point where you either win via Jace or an large army of tokens. Usually requires at least one Plains in play, to survive a srew on white mana, and enough counter to resolve your own wincondition. Her problem is that she is very slow (keeping digging for counter and Jace / Elspeth + the amount of time you spend on both of them) and that Standstill isn't so strong on her side (at least until you did resolve a way to win the game).

Lets take a look at some MU's where both of them might come in and how they impact the game:

Merfolk
Preacher forces them to play out a LoA or and level 4 Commander, in order to get aorund this guy, while we can rely on cheap spotremoval to prevent this. The 16 lord list is a problem though, as Kira is a problem to deal with.
Peacekeeper will lock down the game, until they find some way to bounce him. Usually if they don't have a way to do so they are likely to stall a bit (at least if they are smart enough), making it troublesome to end 3 games in the given time.

Ichorid
Preacher doesn't really do anything here.
Peacekeeper is able to buy you some time, in order to find the grave hate, only recuring Darkblast can be tough to play against.

Team America
Oh I can't count how often I'd beat them with there own Tombstalker, so awesome ;).
Peacekeeper does basicly the same that he does against Merfolk, the only problem is that Sinkhole, Stifle and Wasteland can hurt you to a point where he dies in the upkeep.

fast Zoo
Neither of them do anything besides catching a removal or die as a chump blocker.

Big Zoo
If you are able to counter there removal those guys can be awesome, however Preacher gets my vote here, as it is to cruel to get stomped from there horde after they found another piece of removal when you are light on counter.

Bant
Swinging with Goyfs is neat.
As they tend to run Jace on there own you can't rely entirely on Peacekeeper, but lets face it; Bant was allways one of our best MU's, even without Peacekeeper or Preacher.

Aggro Elves
Preacher creates an endless army of chumb blockers.. sweet.
Peacekeeper does win the game, if they haven't got acces to Living Wish -> Masticore.

Combo Elves
Preacher is to slow , as they can give you any random elv and still combo out,
Again Peacekeeper is the nuts.

Sneak and Tell
Did you ever swing with a Emrakul ? It sure does feel awesome.
Both Woodfall Primus and Form of the Dragon can kill Peacekeeper (well the first one can technicly do it), but overall he's still a bomb in the MU (the only given prob. is that REB seems to work great on Jace).

... to be continued.

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Originally Posted by Shawn

Of course you have problems with recurring Wastes with fewer basics, but:

• Very few people actually play Loam, or Wastelock. We shouldn't be afraid of a deck that makes up such a small portion of the metagame.
• You can still run four to five basics and beat them by casting your 4cc bombs. It's a difficult match-up but very beatable.

I would would play against Goblins with 4x Tundra in play all day if I could. If they have double Waste, double Port, or Port and a Waste, I can still cast my UU and WW spells with Tundras. If they have a Port they can keep me off WW or UU if I only had a pair of Islands and a pair of Plains. Situationly I fetch basics, but they aren't preferred.

Let's say I'm playing against Goblins, post sideboard with Plagues, and I need to break my fetch to cast something:
Lands in play example:

Tundra, UW fetch, Mishra's Factory, Scrubland

I would most likely fetch a Tundra. If I have Island-Factory-Tundra-Scrubland in play, A Wasteland will either keep my off of WW or UU. If I fetch for a Plains, he can remove my lone U source.

If I have Tundra-Tundra-Factory-Scrubland, I will still have access to WW and at least U after a Wasteland. Situations like this show that it is correct to fetch duals in certain situations in the face of Wasteland.

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Having 4 mana and being able to cast your UU and WW spells is of course good, but seems like you already stabilized your manabase to develop your gameplan properly. That's not the focus of what I'm saying. I'm saying that you need to be able to play against turn 1 vial and turn 2/3 Waste+Port, because against goblins, you can understand if the match will be a loss or a win within the first 3 turns, or even the first 2. Let's say your opponent goes mountain, Vial, go and you don't have Force. Then he drops Turn 2 Wasteland and Turn 3 Port, or Turn 2 and 3 double Wasteland. Clearly, if you dropped only basics and fetchlands in your first 2 turns you still have outs, but if you landed Tundra/Usea or double Tundra you are clearly drawing dead (Unless the goblin player has some awful draws)- Incidentally, the first turns are the ones where you start the stabilizing process and where a Wasteland and a Port are more efficient.
You can't tell me that playing more basics, and drawing basics instead of duals, is not awesome against 4 Ports and 4 Wastelands because in my humble opinion this is not true. Simply because your problem is not to reach that damn double W on your 4th turn, the problem is to reach 4 usable mana on your 4th turn against mana denial. I almost always fetch/land my Tundras only when I absolutely need that WW immediately.
Also, 4th tundra is redundant, I'd like to have a 6th/7th basic all day, or at least an utility land such as Tolaria West.

And, Loam can be a small part of the meta, but as a pure control deck you need to be able to have your outs against everything (or against as much decks as you can). Playing 4 basics and hoping that those will save your ass against Loam is a dream. It could even be non relevant ( despite I don't think so because Loam is maybe one of the most broken and abusable engines courrently available in legacy)
but it's a though MU for UWx and playing an insufficent amount of basics doesn't help it.
So:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

Running 4-5 is solid , as you are able to cast any spell in the deck with them while still being able to have acces to WW /UW / UU on turn 2-3.

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That's not always true.
I strongly believe that in a format where there are decks playing Stifle/Waste, Waste/port, or Loam/Waste, running less than 5-6 basics is suicide... you choose :).

If they have first turn Vial, play fetches, then basics and don't crack the fetches unless you need to. That's how to play against mana-disruption of Wastes and Ports. Even with only four or five basics you can accomplish this. If they have double mana-disruption, it's annoying, but if you have enough colored sources in your list, you're able to work out of it most of the time. Mana-disruption is just as affective against lists with lots of basic lands, if not more since they have more lands that only produce a single color. That is why Ugb Landstill runs so few basics. If you Waste a Tropical Island or a Sea, they will find another. (However, this is different if you cut down on the number of colorless lands for basics in your UWx lists) Wasteland is going to hit a land regardless, so you need to minimize it's effectiveness by having as many colored sources of both colors in play. (sometimes you can safely fetch all basics, but this is very uncommon) Sometimes decks nut draw you with double Waste/Port. This happens, but it's not like we don't have the tools to interact with them, and you should have enough lands in your deck to play out of it most of the time.

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And, Loam can be a small part of the meta, but as a pure control deck you need to be able to have your outs against everything (or against as much decks as you can).

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You only need outs for cards you play against. For example Gerry T ran 0 graveyard removal in his Counterbalance deck in San Jose. Why? The chances of him playing against Dredge were very small because of his byes and the general lack the deck being played, so they were a waste of space.

In all of the large events I've been to in the past year, Loam hasn't been played by much more than ten people, out of about an average of slightly under two hundred. Why should I worry about that 5%?

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Originally Posted by Shawn

If they have first turn Vial, play fetches, then basics and don't crack the fetches unless you need to. That's how to play against mana-disruption of Wastes and Ports. Even with only four or five basics you can accomplish this. If they have double mana-disruption, it's annoying, but if you have enough colored sources in your list, you're able to work out of it most of the time. Mana-disruption is just as affective against lists with lots of basic lands, if not more since they have more lands that only produce a single color. That is why Ugb Landstill runs so few basics. If you Waste a Tropical Island or a Sea, they will find another. (However, this is different if you cut down on the number of colorless lands for basics in your UWx lists) Wasteland is going to hit a land regardless, so you need to minimize it's effectiveness by having as many colored sources of both colors in play. (sometimes you can safely fetch all basics, but this is very uncommon) Sometimes decks nut draw you with double Waste/Port. This happens, but it's not like we don't have the tools to interact with them, and you should have enough lands in your deck to play out of it most of the time.

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If playing 4 basics against goblins works for you, it's ok. I feel more confortable playing a bigger number of basics.I almost always fetch basics only and stabilize nicely. But probably is only about your build and approach to the deck. I just feel that Landstill works better and is more reliable with 6-7 basics.

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Originally Posted by Shawn

You only need outs for cards you play against. For example Gerry T ran 0 graveyard removal in his Counterbalance deck in San Jose. Why? The chances of him playing against Dredge were very small because of his byes and the general lack the deck being played, so they were a waste of space.

In all of the large events I've been to in the past year, Loam hasn't been played by much more than ten people, out of about an average of slightly under two hundred. Why should I worry about that 5%?

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Of course. But I'm reasoning in a vacuum, I'm not metagaming. I think that even if small, Loam is here and in unknown metas coud be played, I mean you should be prepared to play against it. Then if in your meta/in the next big tournament you are going to play you already know that it is not played, that's fine.

Played my strange list again:
R1: BUG threshold
G1: I'm able to stabilize on turn 6 with Humility, followed by Decree for the win.
G2: Finished on confortable 18 life, as I just got an answer for everything he throws at me.

R2: BUG threshold
G1: I land Humility on turn 5 (notice a pattern :S ?) and Elspeth took the lead soon after.
G2: I struggle for a while as he had a Needle for Mishra and Stifle for Explosive. After some turns his treshed Mongose got there, as Elspeth can't stop 2 of those guys.
G3:Welcome to turn X,lets take a look at the board: 2xTropical, 2x Usea,Wasteland,Misty Rainforest and a treshed Mongose vs Counterbalance, 5 Islands, Steamvents, 4 life and a hand containing Path, Sword, Wrath, Elspeth and Decree. Guess who won ---

R3: RGW Midrange Aggro
G1: Humility is just that good (and actually I'm quite good at drawing my 1offs I guees).
G2: A small amount of burn and some large dudes usually don't win against UWx control.

R4: MUD
G1:Sword some guys, blow Explosiv up, draw some cards... dunno what actually happend in this game.
G2: He did basicly kill himself with Tomb, flying tokens took the rest.

3-1 and a shitty 5th place :(.

Lessons learned:
-I'm good at drawing 1 off's (actually this also happens quite often when I play the usual UWx LS)
-Counterbalance is a fine card, but a strong 4cc core can easily win without it.
-Basics are fine, but 7 are way to much ( won't cut them for Wastelands though, still a meta call ).
-a 3rd Top would help, but I just love Decree so much. I'm going to spend some time testing if 3 Tops are worth the slot.

Because its tHreshold.

Wow, i feel like an idiot now :D

I don't get it, how did you spelled Threshold? lol

Thats because I ninja edited the post, so you'll never find out :P. (well basicly I forgot the first h, yet I didn't know that threshold withouth h is a filthyword in the englisch language).

Who is going to SCG Indianapolis? Some of us are most likely heading from Cedar Falls on Saturday. I will probably play Landstill or Supreme Blue.

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Originally Posted by Felidae

Thats because I ninja edited the post, so you'll never find out :P. (well basicly I forgot the first h, yet I didn't know that threshold withouth h is a filthyword in the englisch language).

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Wow I did not know that Threshold without h is a filthy language. You learn something from MTG/Legacy everyday!