Originally Posted by
Einherjer
I just came back from a small local tournament, normally I do play popular decks like BUG/RUG Tempo or simply UWR Miracle. This week I was thinking of trying out something else. Something new, or maybe, something very old. I browsed some old archives of different forums and decided to play Landstill. So I came here to the thread and read through a few of this posts. Through my experience with the Miracles-archetype it wasn’t too hard to throw a solid list together, tailored to beat my meta, which constits out of different forms or creature-decks. Though the creature-decks themselves are pretty diverse. I do not know, wether Divining Tops, Terminus or Angels would have been a good improvement to this deck, I just played an kind of old-school-list, with the only difference: Wrath of God Supreme Verdict. So this is the list I threw together the night before:
Lands:
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
6 Island
2 Plains
4 Mishra’s Factory
Removal:
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Supreme Verdict
Counter:
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
CA/CQ:
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Humility
1 Crucible of Worlds
Win:
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight –Errant
Sideboard:
2 Path to Exile
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Detention Sphere
4 Rest in Peace
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Peacekeeper
The sideboard was probably pretty bad. In any way, it worked out.
R1: RW Goblins
I: I start and lead with Island, he isn’t doing alot of action until my turn 4 where I sweep for value, on T5 I drop an Humlity, followed by double-Mishra, an Crucible and an Jace.
II: He starts with Vial, I do nothing, then he drops Rest in Peace. I can’t stop myself from laughing a bit… wow, he seemed to have boarded a playset of hatecards vs my 1of Crucible? Sounds legit. I drop a Peacekeeper on T4 and he is digging for an answer. He casts Matron to grab a Ringleader at some point, but plays it safe so he can play the Commander and use his ability before I can Swords it. As I fateseal him during these process this takes serveral turns. In this time I’ve found a second Peacekeeper and he scoops soon after.
1-0
R2: MonoR Goblins
I: He mulls to 5, while I keep a shaky hand consisting of 4 Lands, an Verdict and double Force. Thought mulling to 5 he starts with Cavern, Lackey. I topdeck the sword and he is out of gas. When he found some more action I sweep, land an Humility followed by Elspeth.
II: I start with Tundra, followed by 2 Mishra. He then drops Blood Moon, I look at my hand and I scoop.
III: With the knowledge of Blood Moon I always keep an Counterspell in my hinterhand, but he doesn’t draw one whatsoever. He soon gets locked out by Mishra and Humility.
2-0
R3: UR Delver Burn
I: He is starting with an Goblin Guide and swings for 2. I reveal an Spell Snare, and Swords the Guide. He drops a second, and a Delver. And before I can handle them I am dead, burned out.
II: Infinite Removal keeps him from keeping creatures for all to long, and when he faces lethal from the Soldier Tokens that were brought to the battlefield via my Reinforcements he scoops.
III: This one was alot trickier. I kept a hand without any CC1 Removal, and he kept a hand with 2 Guides, an Delver and an Lavamancer. Gladly, his Delver isnt flipping for 2 turns, and when I sweep on my T4 I am on 6. He casts an Chain Lightning getting me to 3. I brainstorm and find double Reinforcements which are pushing his gameplane to an level of invalidity. He then soon gets killed by my creatures, while he keeps drawing lands.
3-0
R4: GW Maverick
I: I let him beat me down to 10 (the approximate level of life I prefer to keep, before sweeping), then sweep, swords his next turn and drop a Standstill. After I Ancestral Recall in his turn, I drop Humility and another Standstill, with 2 Mishra’s Factory in the game, and 1 more in hand. After a Jace follows and ticks up to 12 he scoops.
II: He has 2 or 3 Mothers, so I Force both of his GSZ, X=2, sweep, drop Jace and Humility followed by some Mishra’s and he is dead.
4-0
So I took first, nothing too fancy as it was a small tournament. Though it showed that this archetype is not completly invalid, though I’d like to share some thoughts.
Standstill was everything, from game-winning to a dead card. It was totally dead vs Goblins, obviously. I am not sure whether this is a good state of being for a core-card. I don’t think that you can actually move it tot he Sideboard, as this sounds terrible. What do you guys think, is it acceptable,for having a dead mainboard card versus an popular Archetype as Goblins is? Based on my experience with Miracle, I think that it still is superior to Counterbalance, as it can’t get crushed by Decay, which is huge, as our deck isn’t exposing itself to Decay alot, which is obviously pretty good. I think, when playing the full set of Standstills Mainboard, the rest of the deck should be able to beat Vial-Decks on it’s own – hence the 4 Verdicts Mainboard. While this may seem alot, it was just enough all of the time, as you really need to sweep twice in a game, before establishing an superior boardstate with Mishra+Humility or something of that kind.
The Sideboard was terribad and should be changed for an big tournament. Maybe adding a few more Counters like Flusterstorm seem like a good idea. Canonists are huge vs Show and Tell, considering the big amount and Counterspell we play. Plus it does represent a clock, while invalidating their Counters all together. I really like that kind of hate in an deck, that cannot flash a hundred Angels end of turn. Then there is the point of what is the best swiss-knife in terms of postboard Removal. In UW we only have Ring and Sphere, and I think Sphere is totally superior in this point, though being blue. I do not think that it is worth it, to splash in a third color just to enable EE or the eventual EE-lock with Ruins, when you have sufficent alternatives on-color.
Though I wouldn’t take this deck to a big tournament yet, I am curious now if we can tweak this deck to something truly powerful(again). I’ll do some testing and let you people know wether it’s going good or bad.
Greetings
