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Misstep's true home might be Aggro decks, but here's an LS draft that uses a playset that I kinda fancy.
4 Standstill
4 BS
1 Top
3 Jace
1 Elspeth
4 STP
3 Path
2 Shackles
3 EE
4 CS
4 Mental M.
4 FOW
4 Strand
3 Delta
1 Mesa
4 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Plains
4 Factory
1 Academy Ruins
SB:
3 Firespout
2 Meddling Mage
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Aura of Silence
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Red Elemental Blast
Nobody cares that new phyrexia also has an instant speed vindicate that's green (i.e. one of the most played colors of the format, along with blue)?
I'm testing a similar list, klaus, but:
-3 path
-2 shackles
-1 EE
-1 CS
+3 beast within
+3 wrath of god
+1 top
SB:
1 top
3 cb
3 Meddling Mage
1 canonist
2 clique
2 finks
1 shackles
2 don't remember (but something vs merfolk, sure)
If we are splashing a third color, why not just play Vindicate? I'd much rather have play Vindicate at Sorcery speed than give my opponents free Wild Nacatls.
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn
Not to mention that Beast Within makes our mana base more fragile...
my manabase is
3 island
2 plains
4 tundra
2 tropical
1 savannah
4 mishra
fetches
I really don't see it being fragile. Last pages of the thread contain only admiration for how stable wafo's.tapa-like manabase is, so your comment is a little pointless. (Also, sorry if I ask, but why wasting spaces with monoline comments like "+1" that absolutely lack of any constructive content to the thread?) Klaus and me are running this manabase since we played speedstill (and so before what has been know as WT manabase), manabase has always been our primary concern in landstill.
Then why don't we all play burning wish and are stuck playing cunning wishes, that makes us lose a turn and gives free time walk to opponent? (back in the thread there's mossivo's analisys on that, I think)Quote:
why not just play Vindicate? I'd much rather have play Vindicate at Sorcery speed than give my opponents free Wild Nacatls.
As for wild nacatls, since when a vanilla 3/3 is more difficult to answer than any other creature in the format? do you prefer facing a 5/6 tarmogoyf? or an active knight of the reliquary? recurring vendilion clique? active bob? mother of runes? qasali pridemage if you're going to drop something relevant like standstill? phyrexian dreadnought? (also note that cc3 spells will evade counterbalance more easily, since dreadstill will be packing lots of misstepps) iona on the board naming white? lord of atlantis? (assuming you misstepped vial)
As a creature removal, it has 4 advantages:
a) costs 3, so evades mental missteps, and, to a lesser concern, counterbalance (if you misstepped top)
b) can be used in combat phase at instant speed: acts as a time walk (you can protect your planeswalkers, and jace can bounce the token to exile next turn)
c) the 3/3 beast token is rarely relevant to landstill, i.e. more or less always less important than the threat we want to remove
d) does not fall under iona or chalice@1
But Beast within it's NOT only a creature removal. It's something standstill has wished for since it exists: an instant speed vindicate! With mental misstep countering early threats, we have some time to set up the manabase and we can curve better. Why destroying opposing jace on our turn wasting 3 mana, when we can just kill eot, then play our and bounce the token then proceed to win? Oppoents passses the turn with u/r/w open. Beast within the land, then wrath the next turn. Mental misstep top and beast within cb, jace the token and win.
You may object that's a waste of resources, I can respond that it depends, Beast within has pros and cons. I don't claim it to be god or something near, I clearly see its disadvantages. The question is: can we afford these disadvantages, to take full effect of its advantages?
As for pros and cons, i see it's pros being more valuable: if I have to give my opponent a vanilla 3/3 to have a vindicate effect that's light on my manabase and that I can cast any time in the game, giving me free time walks if it's used as a creature removal in combat, removing threats fairly easily, replacing them with a token i can chumblock with soldiers, or bounce with jace, or EE/wrath away, that acts as a permanent krosan grip to everything i need to grip away, as a sinkhole whenever I need to (acting as a counter if my opponent was open for pierce and I didn't have missteps), as a vindicate for opposing planeswalkers.... and i can fit all of these effects in my deck at instant speed and with a very light cost... why don't just try it?
And read: trying. I've not said there's not the possibility to dismiss beast within a simply not fitting in the deck. But without serious testing, how can you say the card is unplayable? For what I see, the card will be able to give new strength to landstill (a nearly dead archetype.. from the most part, as I read the topic, it seems that succes with this deck are limited most of all at local/medium metagames, and most of the most skilled landstill pilot turn to other decks - it's not subjective just track the percentage of posts per pages of the most active posters of the thread, and see how names changed after survival got banned). I may be wrong? Sure I could. At least I'm trying to test and being flexible, not just discard the card on paper for fear of a mere 3/3. (landstill can handle the most powerful creatures of the format, and we're scared of a mere 3/3?)
I can see this card being played as much as mental misstep, since that vanilla 3/3 is a little to no concern for most of the decks playing green: junk (kotr and goyf are bigger, and there's removal), GW maverick (strengthens wasteland plan), even zoo (getting rid of chalice/cb/exalted rhox war monk?). And all of these decks can now have access to a way to get rid of our primary wincondition against them (i.e. jace the fucking mind sculptor) at instant speed. Giving us a little 3/3 to face their goyfs and kotrs and progenitus and other hordes of similar beasts.
EDIT: lots of typos, I'm sorry. Now I gtg.
Straw man?Quote:
Then why don't we all play burning wish and are stuck playing cunning wishes, that makes us lose a turn and gives free time walk to opponent? (back in the thread there's mossivo's analisys on that, I think)
This is Landstill. Your goal main goal is to stop the opponent from killing you. Beast Within does a terrible job of doing so; it causes you to waste additional resources on the 3/3 which could have been spent elsewhere. Vindicate being a sorcery is much less relevant than giving your opponent free cards. The only permanent we care about that can't be handled by STP, Path, Humility, or Wrath is JaceTMS, and it can be handled if you adjust the mana for EE at 4, play Cunning Wish and have REB side, play Vindicate, play Jace, or attacking via Decree or Elspeth tokens, not to mention countering it.
While I completely agree with Shawn on running removal that leaves a 3/3 around usually being bad (how close is Pongify to StP, exactly, which is basically the comparison between Vindicate and Beast Within), there are two things that make this card interesting:
- It's an instant. As such there is finally a Cunning Wish target that can kill all kinds of Planeswalkers that also covers the need for a Disenchant-effect at the same time.
- There's one argument for Beast Within that I find rather intriguing that gustha hasn't been making: It allows Landstill to become much more aggressive if the opportunity arises. If you keep removal/countermagic open and the opponent happens to draw a blank (or attacks with something that just dies to a 3/3 - kill my sixth land, block your Warchief seems pretty good) you get to turn one of your lands into a 3/3 at instant speed. This gives any deck running it the ability to suddenly go aggro-control should the opportunity/necessity arise (this is particularly sweet postboard when the opponent should have cut most of his removal or against combo where I would happily trade my third turn landdrop to start clocking without tapping out) and makes it far easier to get Standstill online (eot make a beast, then drop a Standstill).
Giving the opponent 3/3's also happens to have great synergy with Moat, just a thought.
While the card does give that opportunity to do this, I would never use the card in this manner in 99% of the situations I can think of, since I would rather have the card in my hand to answer an opposing winning strategy than waste as a (2G instant, destroy a land you control, put a 3/3 beast into play) unless of course my opponents are playing a really really crappy deck that I do not have to worry about wasting a 2G instant spell to make a 3/3 Beast token.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mon,Goblin Chief
I've given Beast within some thought, and will probably go about testing it in UWg Wishstill. I don't think it is good in the maindeck at all, given that Landstill's maindeck is already very resilient to all decks except for 1) Merfolks, 2) Fast combo. Beast within does nothing for these 2 matchups, but for everything else, it has some value as a wishable Vindicate. The ONLY vibe I get from Beast Within right now that's deterring me from running it is:
1) UWg Landstill is inferior to UWb Landstill. This is my opinion. I feel that black offers way more in the postboard with/without Wishes. Extirpate is huge in control/combo, Perish is amazing against anything that tries to win with green creatures. It's one of the more unfair cards in the format (specifically against GW decks) right now. It allows goblins (which I tend to view as a crappy deck unless you connect Lackey, yeah I don't care about Vials in Goblins as much as I care about Vials in Merfolks, no offense Goblin players :P) to consistently beat their historically bad GWx matchups, all because of Perish
2) Beast Within can be a great card in Landstill, a great Wish target, but the most fundamental question remains: Does Landstill need Vindicate? I would argue that Landstill does not need Vindicate for most parts, but specific Landstill lists can benefit tremendously from Vindicate (namely Speedstill) or against a meta where vindicate shines. I feel that Beast Within will only benefit those variants, and provide very marginal benefits for most other Landstill lists.
3) Beast Within really doesn't improve the bad matchups of Landstill. I'll go ahead and say that I am very confident taking Landstill to a meta consisting of every deck out there and feel that I have a good chance, and the only bad matchups I fear are fast combo (which I now solve to some degree with Counterbalance in the SB and playing 3 Top maindeck), burn (Counterbalance in SB solves this too, and if it's prevalent, a single Pulse of the Fields and BEBs will beat burn easily), Enchantress (more EEs/Disk/UWg variants work best here), and Merfolks (UWr Landstill does best here but still has a hard time, and UWr is the weakest build most specific to a metagame with Merfolks). Beast Within doesn't solve these problematic matchups (maybe except Enchantress, which something like Harmonic Convergence does better).
TLDR;
Name me situations where Landstill desires a Vindicate effect that the maindeck cannot already handle. I strongly believe that no-Vindicate lists that most people are running these days are very capable of dealing with permanents. Vindicate does shine in some variants of Landstill that work best in the correct metagame (e.g. Speedstil developed by Klaus/Gustha), but aside from those lists which perform best in the right meta, Landstill really doesn't desire Vindicates these days. It's a great card, but most lists these days are very capable on handling permanents with EE (a little more mana intensive but has the potential to sweep).
If we are concerned about non-Jace walkers and want to find a Wish target that kills them, why not play Rootgrapple? It costs more, but the decks that play walkers give you plenty of time to reach 5. Still, I don't feel a Wishable answer for something like Elspeth is necessary; non-Jace walkers doen't see enough play to warrant the slot.
2G and 4G is a huge cost-difference, especially with Wishes, making it even slower. I'm not saying that Landstill needs to run an instant wish-solution to Planeswalker, in fact I was pointing out that aside from those targets (which are played so rarely in Legacy), there's really not been a need to play Vindicates these days unless your meta demands it (i.e. a meta where Speedstill functions best).
I wasn't advocating to run Beast Within as a Wish target, but I was definitely pointing out that Beast Within is more of a Wish/SB-slot rather than a maindeck slot. If it is a maindeck slot, then it's probably only going to work for very narrowly meta-gamed Landstill lists, to which Vindicate already does the job pretty well (since those Speedstill lists usually don't play Cunning Wishes, the sorcery v.s. instant debate isn't too huge, and in fact giving your opponents a 3/3 creature from Beast Within doesn't really tie in line with the playstyle of Speedstill at all, which is primarily a deck of 1 for 1s).
To your point, yes, there is no need to run a narrow Wish card that picks off Planeswalker/enchantment/artifact. Dismantling Blow is the best target that I can think of, which provides even greater benefit when you're in the late-game. How many times have I lost to Planeswalker with Landstil? Not too much becauuse aside from CBTop decks and some Junk decks, no one else play Planeswalkers, and Landstill is already quite capable on beating Junk/CBTop decks.
Wish into Beast Within is only a turn faster than Wish into Rootgrapple, so it's not that much slower. (t3 Wish, t4 Beast as opposed to t3/4 Wish, t5 Rootgrapple).
Exactly.Quote:
How many times have I lost to Planeswalker with Landstil? Not too much becauuse aside from CBTop decks and some Junk decks, no one else play Planeswalkers, and Landstill is already quite capable on beating Junk/CBTop decks.
Beast Within is an awful Cunning Wish target. Have I proxied one into my sideboard? No. However, after testing against a slew of decks, I can say I am most regularly wishing for:
Enlightened Tutor
Pulse of the Fields
Extirpate/Surgical Extraction/Ravenous Trap/Mindbreak Trap
Blue/Red Elemental Blast (depending on what color(s) I'm playing)
Diabolic Edict/Path to Exile
Occasionally I wish for:
Dismantling Blow
Not once have I come to a situation where Dismantling Blow, Edict, Path, REB/BEB could not Vindicate whatever slipped through. I guess if my opponent cast Garruk and I didn't have a Counterspell and couldn't Cunning Wish for Negate, I'd be a little annoyed but in my testing, that situation comes up approximately zero percent of the time.
We obviously don't need Beast Within for creature removal (as it gives the opponent a creature)
We shouldn't need Beast Within for enchantment or artifact removal because EE and Cunning Wish into Return to Dust, Fracturing Gust, Dismantling Blow do the same thing.
So that leaves Planeswalkers... which few people run... so why would I want a card that is fringe playable?
Shawn, being a turn slower is one thing, but don't forget that 2G v.s. 4G is still a big cost-bump, it's not really a turn slower, 2G is a turn faster + 2 more mana open on the earlier turn, or you can have the potential to cast both Wish and Beast Within on the same turn with 6 lands.
Regardless, I don't think Beast Within is the card that I'm concerned for Landstill. Mental Misstep on the other hand, is going to make me play this deck a lot more than I used to. I cannot stress how relevant this card is for a slow control deck like Landstill. You no longer have to look at the hands with FoW and worry about using FoW to a good opposing FoW bait (a good FoW bait by a competent opponent is a spell that HAS to be FoW'd but in fact he has another spell that is also FoW worthy).
I mean, it is relevant from so many angles that SPECIFICALLY hurt Landstill (I'm listing the most common plays that really set Landstill back, and MM is a card that solves these big setbacks very nicely)
Discard/Junk/TA: Misstep on Thoughtseize/Duress, which really sucks for Landstill when you get Duressed on the play/draw and don't really want to FoW.
Goblins: Vial + Lackey
Zoo: Nacatl, Lavamancer. I mean we now no longer have to FoW that Nacatl if we don't have an StP in hand! That's huge!! If Zoo does not get turn 1 Nacatl, the speed loss is at least 2 turns, which is tremendous for Landstill to gain control.
Tempo decks: You can play around Tempo decks all day long as long as you run a stable manabase. Tempo decks will be great utilizing Mental Missteps, but you will blank a lot of their strategies because unlike Countertop, Landstill isn't in a rush to assemble anything. It just wants to hit land drops, try its best to trade spells 1:1, and sweep for x:1
Combo: The very fact that your opponents have to play around both FoW + MM slows them down yet another turn. Most competent combo players will not go off unprotected against a deck that has 10+ hard counters and another +3-6 hard counters postboard. MM can now really hit a combo player's cantrip and reserve FoW for bombs. Landstill did not have the luxury to FoW cantrips unless you drew like a 2-3 FoW hand with additional counters/locks.
The only matchup that I am truly fearful now when MM is legal in Legacy is Merfolks. I feel that MM will be a huge boost to Landstill's ability to fight against bulk of the meta. But Merfolks will still be a problem, and Merfolks with MM is going to be a bigger problem. I think 3 Peacekeeper Postboard should still be able to fight decently, once again, as long as the manabase is stable.
I absolutely agree with you there, Metalwalker. MM is getting a lot of hype, but its two true homes are obvious: UWx Landstill and Tempo decks. That it gives us a hard counter early in the game, where we're typically weakest, is an amazing boon. And yeah, 3x Peacekeeper has been making my Fish matchup post-board rather good.
Beast Within just isn't going to cut it, IMO. It belongs in decks that don't care if their opponent has a 3/3, like Team America. We care quite a bit if they have a 3/3 unless we already have Humility or Moat out -- and if that's the case, we're already in a good position.
Goblins thread is making me very happy. They are cutting Ringleaders to play MM and Force! (well, they're theory-crafting :))
I don't think mm deserves a slot in landstill. Vial is the only reason to play it, and if your talking about combo breaker, pierce is just a better card out of the board. as for vial, yes its a problem, but its deffinately not the end of the world. Your sideboard should be addressing the vial matchups, mm is not going to transition you ahead of your opponent. and if its not in your opener its only going to set you behind with bad draws in the future, IE drawing more mm's.
as for beast; it seems very valuable. Stopping a jace with wish, as opposed to splashing a third or fourth color for a card like blast seems bad. This is a universal answer. a wish board with green could look something like this
1 e tutor
1 beast
1 pulse
1 path
1 seed spark, ray of distortion.return to dust
1 fracturing gust
1 new free extirpate
1 mindbreak trap
1 ravenous trap
1 negate
5 slots open. That seems fairly reasonable. As for a maindeck
24
4 flooded 1 misty 1 windswept
4 tundra 1 savannah 1 trop 1 plateau
3 island 2 plains
1 karakas
3 mishra
1 ruins
1 bowl
8
4 force
4 cs
11
4 stp
3 ee
2 wrath
1 humility
1 moat
10
4 bs
3 still
1 top
2 jace
3
1 elspeth
2 decree
4
3 wish
1 loam
This is really a rough picture. Add some more removal to the board in the form of path's, peacekeepers, and pierces and it looks pretty saucy to me.
I read this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Metalwalker
Now that I'm done laughing, I'm curious, though. How many of these types of whack scenarios are going to appear at the GP? I'm just curious what people think is going to be prevalent, in case my friend does indeed go (we can get playtesting in)Quote:
Originally Posted by bloodbrother
Let time tell whats going to happen. People have been trying to break blue in goblins for a long time. It doesn't make it good. It just makes it.... well goblins. They still have less lords then folk, worse card quality then zoo, and all of them lose to tendrills combo, besides perhaps merfolk, which is arguable.
I forgot to put snare in that list. I would probobly drop the top for a snare.
Moss I like the list, but it seems to me to be focused more on an aggro game one meta. Strong list overall. I myself have moved away from Decree and 3 Wish MD (I would still play 2 Wishes). Most of the time, I felt the 2nd Top is definitely much more invaluable than the 3rd Wish. The past few playtesting I've done have told me that when I survive to the mid-game where my opponents and I have been exchanging spells v.s. answers, whoever resolves Top will almost 90+% win the game right there. And many times, when both opponents and I are having only Top in play with no cards in hand, using the EE to blow the Top up forcing them to tap-draw and then following up with a Counterspell on Top wins the game as well. The evolution of including Top in mid-range deck is most exemplified with Junk (previously they did not play top) but ever since they had the Mox Diamond + Top + Bob engine, they were doing really well. Meandeck MUD is also almost useless without Tops i.e. I can plow a couple of dudes and win the game right there, but if they have Top, it becomes problematic.
Top is not just good early game, but late-game as well. I'm currently playing with 3 Tops which I'm not fond off (I prefer 2), but I'm accomodating for the 3 SB Counterbalance to aid in matchups like fast combo, Show and Tell and Spiral Tide. I've tested against Spiral Tide and it is almost impossible to win the game without postboard Meddling Mages/Canonist/Counterbalance.
This is the list I'm bringing today, will post results back.
UW(x) Landstill
4/13/2011
24 Lands
4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Marsh Flats
2 Plains
2 Island
3 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
11 Draw/Tutor
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
3 Standstill
1 Enlightened Tutor
10 Removal
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Wrath of God
1 Humility
1 Nevinryal's Disk
10 Permission
3 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
6 Advantage
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant
3 Jace, the Mindsculptor
1 Crucible of Worlds
15 Sideboard
2 Perish
3 Peacekeeper
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Extirpate
3 Meddling Mage
3 Counterbalance
Last few weeks of testing, singleton Disk was invaluable. It maybe a tad slow, but I think the speed is comparable to Deed with the bigger benefit of being entirely colorless (easier with the manabase) and freeing up mana when you're activating it, and being able to kill any cmc permanents sans Planeswalkers. The Meddling Mage is quite needed against combo decks as it complements the Counterbalance package well.
AGainst NoShow, 3 Peacekeepr + 3 Meddling Mage + counterbalance is pretty strong (Perish if needed). Just Counterbalance alone still faces a tough time against Spiral Tide but with MM, they are quite pressed from multiple angles. I used to run Canonist, but I think MM is more invaluable and flexible since it stops NoShow much better than Canonist.
As for MM, I'l get down to testing it when it's released. 4 MM would not be ideal in the MD, but I think 2-3 is great, because Landstill has a ton of outs to 1cmc spells without MM, but it definitely could use the MM because it's exactly these 1cmc spells if resolved tends to put Landstill in a terrible position (Vial/Lackey/Thoughtseize/Duress). If there's a deck other than Stompy that sucks and dies to Duress, it's Landstill (because fundamentally Landstill is built to win the late-game, so one Duress can cost us the early game when the early counters/removals are taken away)