[Deck] UBGx Landstill

I went with this list today:

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
1 Dust Bowl
1 Eternal Dragon (61st card)
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Decree of Justice
1 Life from the Loam
4 Brainstorm
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
2 Cunning Wish
2 Fact or Fiction
1 Humility
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant


Sideboard:
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
3 Extirpate
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pithing Needle
3 Negates


I went 2-1-1 unfortunately drawing a match with GWB Land-D/Discard/Rock. In general the GB and rock matchups tend to go to time simply because of all the time wasted in recovering from their LD and Hymns. Not to mention Vindicate slows the deck's win-condition down. I'm an avid player of UW Landstill and I'm starting to enjoy 4c Landstill. There's much more raw power that I love in the deck, and I would like to share my experiences with the deck.

I find the lack of Wrath in replacement with Deeds to be tremendously beneficial actually. Deed is faster and controls the board better than Wrath. Good players play around Wrath so Deed does the same in terms of not making your opponents overextend. An inexperienced player however makes Wrath a better card since they're more likely to overextend.

Humility was freaking MVP and I'm tempted to fit 2 in the MD or 1 ETutor as the second copy. I feel that in my latest lists, I'll go with 3 Deeds and 1 Etutor instead of 4 Deeds.

Now, with my emphasis on the 2nd Elspeth and Pulse in the SB, I've found that fetching for white to be more critical than getting GB on the board, hence my motivation to drop Deeds to 4, and possibly run a Scrubland in place of an Underground Sea. I've been so wanting to fetch a Scrubland. This new list is an extended version of UWx (Elspeth) Landstill so the double white is a high priority.

The manabase was right, but I feel that the deck could benefit a lot more from tutoring. I've tried to find place for Intuition in Landstill but never really fit it in. Currently, I think that this build could go for an ITF approach without the full emphasis on Intuition (i.e. Intuition as a wish target), to be able to fetch up the Loam/Ruins/EE engine asap when needed. Here's my new list after today's matchup.


4 Mishra's Factory
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Academy Ruins

1 Eternal Dragon (61st card)
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Decree of Justice
1 Life from the Loam
4 Brainstorm
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Standstill
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Snares
2 Cunning Wish
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Fact or Fiction
1 Humility
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant


Sideboard:
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Intuition
2 Extirpate
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pithing Needle
3 Negates

The Etutor main accounts for the 4th missing Standstill, the 4th missing Deed, the 3rd EE, the 2nd Humility. I think the flexibility gives the deck more strength. I am dissatisfied with 8 Counterspell/FOW, and many times the UU on Counterspell kills this deck when facing against Wastes. I would love to play 3 Counterspell 3 Snares, but I can only find space for 2 Snares at the moment.

For the SB, I'm a fan of non-hate bears against combo. With 3 Extirpate and 3 Negates going into the MD, you can always fizzle MTutors with Extirpate and control the game with Negates. Negates > Counterspell in some matchup where getting UU is strained. It particularly frees the mirror and control MU, giving you extra hard counters. Pithing Needle is against vial.decs and Wastelands.dec, which give the deck a huge nightmare. Relic is simply amazing against Dredge/Loam/Thresh/Tombstalker/Goyf, and buys enough time for the deck to reach 4cc critical mass and resolve game-winning spells.

I think that this new list with a focus on Intuition package is going to be slightly slower in terms of how it plays, but would be much flexible compared to the previous lists. You can complain about my 61 decklist but Eternal Dragon as the 61st card is good in ensuring that I never miss my landdrop while avoiding manaflood problems by coming back as a beater. There's some conflicts with Humility, but it provides another recurrable win-condition that many decks cannot handle.

I've been running this deck at local tournaments lately, but I'm feeling like it needs some tweaks. My game is pretty good against Merfolk, Goblins, and Zoo decks, but there are random black disruption decks that have been giving me trouble. Here is my list, I'd like to know what people's thoughts are on my choices. Thanks. Here's the deck:

1 Deust Bowl
1 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra

2 Engineered Explosives
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Humility

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Jace Beleren

3 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

1 Life from the Loam
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Board
1 Humility
3 Engineered Plague
1 Pulse of the Fields
4 Hydroblast
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Extirpate

I'm running a list similar to the ones listed above. I have 3 counterspells and 2 spell pierces atm.
Thoughts about spell snare vs spell pierce? I'm unsure which one I should use

Spell Snare was a new addition (I finally bit the bullet and bought some). They were definitely all-stars. I haven't tested with Spell Perice yet except against more casual decks, so I don't really have any good info for you there. I am considering switching to a 4/2 splie between Snare and Pierce, because Counterspell is a hard play in my meta, I'm usually forced to be more proactive than I would like.

I went 4-2-1 in the finnish national champs with 86 players. I was 1 round from top 8

Here's my list:

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Dust Bowl
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Decree of Justice
1 Life from the Loam
4 Brainstorm
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Standstill
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
2 Cunning Wish
2 Jace Beleren
1 Humility
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Enlightened Tutor

Sideboard:
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Extirpate
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Meddling mage

A quick report:

Game 1 vs affinity

First game he puts down a whole pack of artifacts. I play deed and its gg
g2: Same as g1, he cant find pithing needle

2-0

1/0

Game 2 vs Bant aggro
g1 ends horribly to me drawing all to much land and although I land a humility, he gets there with his 3-4 creatures
g2: He brakes 2 standstills, I get lots of cards and he eventually scoops when I land Elspeth
g 3: He mulls to 5, but I cant find a wincon before its too late, and its a draw. This I hate about the deck. Not saying I hade the control over the game, but with 2 extra cards vs this deck it should doable to gain controll and land a bomb.

1-1

1/0/1

Game 3 vs Panderburst
G1 and G2 he plays eladamri's vineyard and/or magus of the vineyard, and I abuse the mana horribly and win the both games easily

2-0

2/0/1

Game 4 vs Bant-countertop with progenitus
g1 I swords he's threats and manage to get controll with standstill. He scoops when I land elspeth
g2: this was a horrible game. I land an early standstill and he has top + 1 land and cant find mana for 10 turns. I',m not sure If I should have broken my own standstill, but never the less I win with ease

2-0

3/0/1

Game 5 vs ultimate walker
I really am lucky with my opening hands and draws or then the deck is just good, because I find an answer/counter to his planeswalkers, and land my own jace/standstill and win both games. Dust Bowl + loam ets his manabase g2. Allso, when ancestral visions is suspended, standstill really onws the game. He didnt resolve a visions throughout the game

2-0

4/0/1

Game 6 vs survival 0-2
This was the only game of the 7 that I felt I really had no chance. He thoughtseizes my keycards away, then plays witness. In the first game I land humility and thought it was gg, but I then see that it's a rockish type of survival with deed, that blows away my humility. No chance here really

0-2

4/1/1

Game 7 vs ANT
g1 I play stupidly when I thought he was playing show and tell / MUC. ANT does what it does best
g2 I get a canonist from a enlightened tutor which I felt was the best play I made the whole day, and think I'm foolish when I didnt side in the other tutor. I land 2 canonists and 1 meddling mage and they get there
g3 I keep a LOWSY opening hand. Have to say that I had a terrible migrain and if I had been thinking more clearly I would have dumped the hand.
Have to say to hes defence that he opens up with duress, but that would not have hit a potential canonist

1-2

4/2/1

Overall I'm very happy with the deck. The only game that bothers me is the survival game. I think I would need to find room for pithing needle.

props
-Jace
-Dust Bowl, which won me 2 games
-Spell pierce was better than I thought

Slops
-migrain
-5 anti-graveyard cards on sb, and the only ones I really used was relic

BHWC landstill (which is actually what this thread should be titled) is one of those decks that shine in the hands of a good player.

A good BHWC pilot can battle through most metagames, when a poor one can find a way to lose against everything.

This is a deck that requires an extensive knowledge of the game (something that most people lack, although they think they do).

I was fighting with myself about whether or not to post my list for a long time, as it is simply far too complex for most people to be able to play properly.

But I will go ahead and say a couple of things about the most recent lists in this thread, and why they simply do not work.

Jace: I never understood why people would ever run this card in lieu of FoF...
Jace dies... FoF doesn't. All the opponent simply has to do is have 1 threat or 1 lightning bolt (or if you used his ability once, a fire/ice) to kill him.
FoF lets you get a mixture of card selection and card advantage, at instant speed.

Spells with WW in the casting cost: Possibly needing GB turn 3 and then needing WW only a few turns later is just ridiculous. This deck already has troubles with mana-denial, how does this not make it worse?
You already have the best board control cards in the format in deed and explosives, why dilute the deck with anything worse?

Shouldn't standstill and deed both always be four ofs?

I mean, they're the powerhouses of the deck, aren't they? How could anyone ever consider cutting their numbers to anything less than four?
I just don't get it.

Anyways, I guess I just don't see why not to play BHWC, I mean it does happen to rape the current Tier one, doesn't it? With plenty of spot removal and mass-removal, creatures can't possibly be an issue, and with countermagic for dangerous burn spells (like PoP, or maybe just regular burn spells), how can you lose? I don't know.

And against merfolk... Less and less builds are running stifle nowadays. Deed just seems so damn good its not even funny, doesn't it? It been pretty good for me in testing, but take it with a grain of salt, I mean, just because I can win a MU doesn't mean most people could.

And threshold... Is it even a question? BHWC has ALWAYS annihilated threshold.

So, then that leaves DTWs, like UW landstill and Ad nauseum.
Lets look at this for a second:

Against UW landstill, who has more dead cards game 1? Of coarse they do, with wrath, humility, and standstill.

Against Ad nauseum, well, landstill has always struggled preboard with quick protected combo... But, you do have ways to punish them if they do not combo quickly (0cc artifacts), and you can board in counterbalance in the board mush more easily than UW (more 3cc and 2cc and 1cc cards, and 0-2 4cc spells).

I was friends with Mike Teresi (the creator) and Nick Trudeau (the pilot) when they first started with this deck, and I even remember when Nick took Landstill to a great finish at worlds. This deck deserves to be played much more than it is.

@ thefreakingaccident Could you post your list?

would Thoughtseize work in a ubg landstill deck?

Well... You have to remember, this is legacy, so everyone's decks are filled with good cards... Which means that if they are allowed time to draw cards, they will get good cards to play again.

Landstill is the definition of slow. You try to slowly squeeze the life out of your opponent with superior CQ and CA, eventually getting yourself to a point where you have a full hand and they have nothing... Then you proceed to kill them maliciously with your manlands.

So, no, thoughtseize is just not for landstill.

Ok and how does this list look:

lands - 23
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
3 Island
2 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest

Spells: - 31
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Stifle
2 Snuff out

Creatures - 6
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker

Sideboard - 15 (duh =p)
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Pithing Needle
2 Krosan Grip
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Diabolic Edict

Anything that I should change?

I just have to say no to that list entirely... I'm sorry, I am not trying to be mean or anything.

But... You should ALWAYS have four pernicious deed. That being said, there are a few card choices that are just not getting there:

snuff out

Tarmogoyf

counterbalance

Maelstrome pulse

Cricible of worlds

Here's why:

The two most common and most important permanents to be able to destroy with pulse happen to be goyf and counterbalance... If you run them yourself, you will eventually find yourself forced to rape your own stuff, which is bad.

Same problem with deed... Low CC permanents + deed= Nombo

Snuff out is simply a no, basically because you are a control deck, you don't want to be losing 4 life to one of your own spells... Life points and time are your ally, not your enemy.

I personally don't like crucible, but it can work at times. I run loam, as it can always come back to do its thing, has synergy with cards like brainstorm/top, and doesn't die to stupid shit like grip/pridemage.

You should also consider a white splash... Swords is the best removal in the format, it opens more SB options, and it gives you the best man-land of all time in Nantuko monastery.

Tombstalker can be low cc, and never dies to deed... with a 5/5 flying body it can race/do whatev... But it does turn on your opponent's spot removal that would otherwise be drawing you 3 cards.

ok, but how is my manabase?

6 basics is actually a lot. I usually say that you should have at least 16 blue sources in landstill.

That said, you could probably cut the basic forest and one swamp for a sea and trop. You should also try and fit the 24th land in...
I know a lot of people see it as 'shavable', but I would rather occasionally get a few too many lands in this deck than occasionally not have enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by thefreakaccident

Jace: I never understood why people would ever run this card in lieu of FoF...
Jace dies... FoF doesn't. All the opponent simply has to do is have 1 threat or 1 lightning bolt (or if you used his ability once, a fire/ice) to kill him.
FoF lets you get a mixture of card selection and card advantage, at instant speed.

---

You are absolutly right. Jace is only nice on an empty board. It just often cantrips at sorcery speed ->just an average card compared to FoF.

Quote:

---

Spells with WW in the casting cost: Possibly needing GB turn 3 and then needing WW only a few turns later is just ridiculous. This deck already has troubles with mana-denial, how does this not make it worse?
You already have the best board control cards in the format in deed and explosives, why dilute the deck with anything worse?

---

Well, the point is, elspeth and humility >> format.
But here is the question: Do you prefer 4c non-creature Landstill (which is for me the best deck on the paper, but it struggles often with the manabase) or BHWC?

Quote:

---

Shouldn't standstill and deed both always be four ofs?

---

In BHWC definitely but in 4c landstill maybe not.

Quote:

---

And threshold... Is it even a question? BHWC has ALWAYS annihilated threshold.

---

Thats so true^^.


What do you play as finisher in BHWC? Tombstalker? And how many?

greetz

The reason I went down to 3 standstills, 3 deeds + 1 tutor is flexibility. Therea are times when I don't want to see one of these cards. Standstill because of a poor board position, deed because of 3CC.
Although I oftenly fetch a standstill with the tutor, I'we been very happy with the configuration

I think fact is better than jace, but I chose jace simply because of a lower cc.

I see both of your points very clearly... And here are my thoughts on the matter:

Tutor IS good, but while it can fetch either standstill or deed, sometimes you cannot afford to wait a turn and 'waste' a card. I would rather you find a way to make at least standstill a 4of, because the way this deck works, is right when you have cleared the board you want to immediately capitalize by playing FoF or standstill.

Yes Jace is 1 less than FoF, but he's sorcery speed, and you do want your mana open on your opponent's turn.

My 'finisher' is nantuko monastery. However, I did run 1-2 tombstalker back in the day.

Why does everybody think it's a bad thing if Jace gets bolted to death?

Given that you probably activated him right when he hit play, you're still getting card advantage off him in that he replaces himself and your opponent's still spending a bolt on him.

Jace's unchecked power is why to run him. If they don't handle him, you win. Period.

So what does everyone think of the new Jace? Definitely seems like it has the potentially to replace the old Jace despite its slightly higher mana cost. The fact that you can brainstorm for free is certainly appealing. The unsummon ability is also a nice addition.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2uu
[+2]: Look at the top card of target player's library. You may put that card on the bottom of that player's library.
[0]: Draw three cards, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order.
[-1]: Return target creature to its owner's hand.
[-12]: Exile all cards from target player's library, then that player shuffles his or her hand into his or her library.

For anyone who is interested I entered a 40 people online event with UBg landstill.

Went 5-1 in games but I scooped to the guy in 6th round because there would be at least 3 combo players in the top and He has a way better matchup against those.

The list:

// Lands
4 [A] Tropical Island
3 [A] Underground Sea
1 [A] Bayou
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ST] Island (3)
1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (2)
1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)
1 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (3)
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
1 [MM] Dust Bowl
1 [OV] Swamp
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ST] Forest (4)
1 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs

// Creatures
1 [LRW] Shriekmaw
1 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [ZEN] Sphinx of Jwar Isle

// Spells
3 [CHK] Gifts Ungiven
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
1 [LG] The Abyss
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [B] Counterspell
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
3 [CFX] Wretched Banquet
1 [LRW] Primal Command

You feel Gifts is better than Intuition?
For the extra card?