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Hi all, I am pretty new to Legacy and I am thinking about putting together a Landstill list. I saw an interesting list somewhere and was wondering what you think about it, since I did not see anything like it here. The list includes Isochronscepter, Orim's Chant and Fire/Ice. Is this a viable option?
I agree that Supression Field is a huge problem if it lands within turns 1-2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viscosity
@Ludwitch: The problem with Isochron Scepter decks is the deck doesn't function well on it's own. If you don't see a scepter, then your deck is just draw, counters and removal with possibly mishra's factory as your win condition. You tend to give up a lot of the versatility that a standard landstill build has in terms of wrath, elspeth, eternal dragon, standstill and so on for a chance, game 1, to lock out your opponent but with so many people running grip it seems like a lost deck to me.
Scepter can be decent in other decks. But i am not a fan in landstill. As mentioned, it is too weak to removal and results in card disadvantage. Additionally, landstill decks need to run mass removal in EE or deed, which both kill your own isochron.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ludwitch
In addition to the obvious card draw, landstill can create virtual card advantage by not playing permanents that can be targeted easily (standstill, elspeth, EE)
Ok, I designed the scepter landstill deck that the starcity article was about, and have piloted it to countless top 8's and tournament wins. The scepter strategy gives you soo many free wins game 1 and crushed the landstill mirror by providing devastating card advantage by letting you use all your spells as many times as you want. You guys are obviously being very closed minded and obviously haven't played with the deck at all. Scepter is great in landstill decks, even though it has no obvios synergy with standstill other than the latter being used to draw you into the scepters and spells. It is just a different win condition or board control element like your lists probably play Elpeths or humility. I say go for it if you're new to landstill, just be aware that this version of the deck is very hard to play well, and near impossible to play perfectly.
- John Knapp
Thanks for the reply John. How did you deal with smart UG thresh players running grip on the side. It seems to me, that against a good thresh player, the straight card disadvantage of grip vs scepter would be undesirable. Scepter is also weak vs counterbalance. I'm not saying it isn't good. I'm just trying to explore it completely. Just based on your experience, I'll play test it some more.
Do you ever board out the scepters? What other kill conditions do you run?
Honestly, against that matchup you don't really care whether your scepters stick or not. The entire match is about finding your EE and your academy ruins. If you can use your scepters to buy you time to do so then that's great, but your gameplan is not based around it. Against threshold I like to use the deck more so as a pure landstill deck and crush their mongoose with EE and STP their Tarmogoyfs. They can almost never beat EE + Academy ruins.
I agree that counterbalance can be a real thorn in your side, but once you find you EE or Nevinyrral's Disk, it CANNOT keep you down forever. You will eventually break of, and they will lose after that.
I'm glad you asked about boarding out scepters, because it happens more often than you would think by looking at the deck. Against counterbalance decks, you do want to board out at least 1 and some number of orims chants, because if they land counterbalance before your scepter they will trump you with it. But then it's easy to switch into a landstill strategy until you can remove it.
Thanks for being open about the deck, and definitely ask anymore questions you might want to. I'm just sitting in genetics lecture and would love to occupy my time with this instead. LOL.
I don't know what we'll see in Chicago, but with the amount of thresh and Its The Fear in my meta, I'm a little skeptical about running maindeck scepters. I realize they result in first game win against many decks, but any deck that loses to a a scetper/chant I would argue is a sub-par deck that should be beaten with the normal landstill plan (exception may be enchantress, which bends over to Orim's chant). I'm going to test the build to develop an opinion from experience.
You run Decrees right?
Nope, no decrees. If you want to look over the whole list, go to the starcity article by kevin bindwanger last week.
I actually started building Landstill trying to encorporate Teferi/Chant lockdown, but you end up having to take too much out in order to fit the necessary pieces.
What's the general consensus for the splash here? Does green work better than red? Is black just as viable for hand disruption? If there's a current theory I would like to hear it. Obviously the differences in metagames will dictate alot of the answer, but I'd like to know if there's a generally accepted "best fit" for the third color.
Im not trying to flame, but I don't see how isochron sceptor works in a meta full of,
stifle
krosan grip
counterspell
perniscious deed
Engineered explosives
force of will
daze
vindicate
ect. ect.
Now granted I understand how it COULD work, but if you look at what chant becomes if sceptor doesn't resolve its basicly a fog, which seems terrible regardless.
The other thing I would like to point out is that no stick "sceptor chant" was a solid deck in extended for a while because of the synergy with teferi and gigantic cunning wish board it ran, as well as the fact that the format is generally slower then that of legacys. The cards generally speaking are of a completely different power level. No sticks downfall however was that it cannot handle decks that can get around the chant effect "namely anything running grip".
That said im not trying to flame you I'm just making a strong argument of why it won't work.
Yes I do understand you may have numerous top 8's and I would like to see the metagame you played in ect, so if you could provide it would be incredibly insightfull.
thank you for your time
-Joel
I think we're having a misunderstanding about how the scepters are played and the role they fill. While I can agree that an orims chant without a scepter usually isn't the greatest, but it definitely has uses. Pushing a crucible through in the mirror match is crucial, casting it in response to a dreadnaught is funny, and randomly destroying ANT or belcher is awesome. Against many decks though, especially games 2,3, orims chant osntthe spell you want on you first stick. Something like counterspell or fire/ice are must answer situations. If they can answer those, recurring your sticks with academy ruins and slipping more devastating spells on them. Brainstorm on a scepter is ridiculous if you've ever seen it.
I really play in diverse metas all over the Midwest. The last really large tourney I played in before legacy worlds ( I went 5-2 drop before the last round) was the legacy side event at GP Indy where I came in like 5th out of like 120 or so. I play against Team America, Threshold, Goblins, 43Land, Landstill, Monowhite stax, Aggro Loam, Faerie Still, and pretty much anything you can think of.
-John
I'm going to step out of the Scepter discussion to talk about another problem I'm having... Merfolk.
Who here has experience against these new merfolk decks? What do you do to win? I've been doing some play testing and the match-up is strongly in Merfolk's favor.
I realize though, that Merfolk is the sort of deck that is built to beat the blue based control decks running around. And it does lose to things such as burn.deck and ichorid.
Basically it's the evil version of gobbo with fow. There are many version of merfolks, as I remember. Some play gobbo-style (but run mutavault instead of rishadan port, and that's pretty good for us): get your hands on basics, try to fow the 1st turn vial. Sword: lord of atlantis, merrow rejeerey. Save your counters for the t5 wrath (to avoid daze) and then it's reduced to topdeck, go on with EE+ruins. Obv if humility resolves you're in a good position: they generrally don't have bouncers MD (maybe just 1 rushing river), and monoU lists do not offer artifact/enchantment hate. They do run stifle so beware: some decks run phyrexian dreadnought too! (and some play goyf...) Post side should be easier depending on your sideboard, 3 engineered plague work very well ^^
the version I've been playing against is mono-blue with stifle, fow, daze, aether vial, standstill, etc. The problem I'm having is when they are on the play, I can't seem to get established before taking lethal damage. If they are on the play, it is hard to stop the first turn vial. Daze or FoW to match my own FoW and I pretty much lose to Aether Vial.
So far, I've only won when my hand had 2-3 swords and a wrath. The recurring EE is nice, but sort of slow.
I think I need to make room for the 3xplagues on the board.
Another problem is the fact that they play a first turn (forespike) critter and follow it up with wastes and muta-vault. All of which make playing a standstill an iffy situation. So far, when that deck plays its own standstills, I end up having to pop them, which totally blows.
I just wanted to add that cycling a decree in the face of a bunch of islandwalkers really sucks!
@Viscosity: If you can keep lord of atlantis off the board, you should have no problem dropping standstills. I would drop a standstill in the face of a 1/1 curse catcher because I don't fear 1 damage a turn with daze attached to it. If they play a standstill, then an optimal play is brainstorming at their end step to force them to draw 3 and discard three. It's not always the best play since you don't want to give the aggro deck 3 cards, but sometimes you need to tap out on your turn to play threats and bombs. Main thing: keep lord and vial off the board and you should win pretty easily. Don't forget that they run back to basics.
@Chiimagic: I have played scepter chant before and I don't think it's any better than a typical build of landstill. You take out a lot of your removal and add in an artifact that requires a lot of main deck slots to be good. For example, you have to run 3-4 chants, 3-4 scepters, 3-4 fire/ice, and maybe e tutor. I'm sure stealing a game 1 is fun from time to time but I know I would just drop an early ee @ 2 before I got scepter locked. Either way, I can see you swaying my judgment.
@rockout: Let me ask you two questions: A) have you read the Star City Games article over Scepter-Still? You might want to do that, because there are a few things that might clear up any fuzziness in your logic regarding the Scepter list. B) I won't say that Scepter landstill is better than a traditional UWx list, but is it worse? I don't think so. It has another resource base outside of the draw engine, Wraths, EEs, and Crucibles in Scepter that allow it to out-grind other decks (namely control) if you can keep the scepter for a while, and in game one it will most likely put you far ahead.
Also, in regards to the "yeah, Scepter-Chant takes some game ones, but K-Grip, etc" line of logic (in general), have you thought about the fact that most games don't get to finish Game 2? So, basically you're saying "yeah, it'll completely steal some games just on the back of Scepter-Chant, but... I still don't like it for not much reason." Does that sound right to you?
Don't know how fast you guys playing, but I have played a lot of game threes with Landstill. You absolutely want to be able to to this, because a lot a matchups would be nigh unwinnable preside.
Especially if you happen to land Scepter-Chant and your opponent has no outs whatsoever (read: you win by it) it will be a quick game 1.
Different match-ups call for different imprints. Stifle and Krosan Grips are a valid argument here. Pernicious Deeds, EE and Vindicate shouldn't resolve if it's, let's say, a Control match up. Chances are, you will probably imprint a Counterspell here.Quote:
Originally Posted by mossivo1986
Daze and FoW aren't very unique; you have to deal with it no matter what.
Who said you had to play Chant?Quote:
Now granted I understand how it COULD work, but if you look at what chant becomes if sceptor doesn't resolve its basicly a fog, which seems terrible regardless.
No-Stick got it's name by using Scepter to gain card advantage, not achieve the lock. Scepter Chant wants to achieve the lock.Quote:
The other thing I would like to point out is that no stick "sceptor chant" was a solid deck in extended for a while because of the synergy with teferi and gigantic cunning wish board it ran, as well as the fact that the format is generally slower then that of legacys. The cards generally speaking are of a completely different power level. No sticks downfall however was that it cannot handle decks that can get around the chant effect "namely anything running grip".
Many players at the time saw the Chant as weak or unnecessary when an imprinted Fire // Ice or Counterspell can basically serve a similar purpose in the same match up; the difference obviously is that Counterspell on a stick can protect itself and Fire // Ice probably drew you a ton of cards before it got answered therefore helping you either break even or gain immense card advantage making the removal of stick not matter anymore. That purpose allows No Stick to be good post-board. So they packed Orim's Chant in the Sideboard instead as a Wish target to steal Game 1s.
The time constraint issue has really never been a problem for me, but I play really fast with the scepter version of the deck. Landing a scepter with a chant basically buys you enough time to kill, because it really takes away their ability to think about whatever moronic plays they would usually. From there on, the game usually is chant you; draw go; draw, hit with conclave, go; until their life hits zero. Just like when playing any other version of landstill, the amount of games you do not finish is entirely up to you, and your skill with the deck.
Theories are nice, but application is what matters. I could be totally wrong but I would argue that yes, it is worse. Too often have I played scepter and it turned into card disadvantage in the control mirror, plus loss of tempo.Quote:
Originally Posted by raharu
I think the best and only real way to back that statement up would be to play scepter version and non-scepter version in back-to back testing against at least 10 unique meta-game decks.
Maybe I'll do that this weekend. If it is better, then I'll play scepter.
Kevin, who wrote that starcity article, will be at the tournament tonight. So I'll pester him about it tonight. Maybe I'll be lucky and we'll play each other ;)