[Deck] UBGx Landstill

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Originally Posted by Chimera87

Looks like a nice list... However, I can't help buy think that running anything less than 4 Mishra's Factory is wrong. They are so synergistic together that I would always play 4.
My current list actually runs 4 Factories and 2 Tar Pits. That's been working great so far. We're also testing 2 Dimir Charms in the maindeck to be a flexible answer to both combo-pieces and creatures (any creature that it does not hit, gets hit by Baleful Strix...).

I like the Cabal Pit. I've been thinking about it for a while now and it might be a nice addition to the Loam versions of Landstill.

How's the maindecked discard working out for you?

Oh, and basic Forest is the worst.

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My meta is full of aggro and Wasteland decks, so playing 6 manlands is too brutal for me, i just can't afford it. Plus, I'm playing 3 Counterspells, so I need my blue mana.

As for the basic Forest, I definitely lost games where I didn't have green mana. Sad but true. Maybe with more testing I won't need it, but, just irked me that I lost to get repeat Wastelanded on my Trops.

The small bit of discard is nice for information and "big-stuff" removal that Deed nor Abrupt Decay hit. It's also nice to have the opportunity to go Discard into Snapcaster + discard, which is a play I very much enjoyed from Esper control.

If I were to play it again, I'd tune the board more like:

2 Flusterstorm
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Engineered Plague
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Golgari Charm
2 Chill
1 Perish
2 Vendilion Clique

Why no Wastelands and side Targmo?

Your manabase is already atrocious. Adding Wastelands is only going to make it worse, and you're going to be less consistent at casting Counterspell on Turn 2 if need be. You also want lots of lands, so I don't want to go down a land just to try to put the off colour.

For the side, I don't need Tarmogoyf. He's fine, but there's few matchups in my meta where I'd want him.

-Matt

Finally got to play with this deck again. Went to a 5 round tournament + top8 with friends.
Here is what I played:

2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Wasteland
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp
1 Island

3 Jace, the Mindsculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage

3 Standstill
1 Life from the Loam

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce

2 Disfigure
1 Dismember
3 Abrupt Decay

SIDEBOARD:
2 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
2 Seize
3 Vendillion Clique

1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Tarmogoyf
3 Engineered Plague

Round 1 - Dredge
Game 1: I lead with Shaman. He drops 2 Trolls on the Grave. I remove one. He dredges only 1 dude, and try another Study, which I pierce. Winning from that was easy.
Game 2: I mull into a great hand. FoW his T1 play, drop Shaman, then drop 2nd Shaman. Was quite easy.
1-0

Round 2 - TES
Game 1: He Duress me T1, taking FoW, leaving me with only Goyf and Liliana. I draw Pierce. He cantrips T2. I Draw Fow, and drops Goyf. He goes for it, and I FoW Ad Nauseam. Better lucky than good.
Game 2: I just don't put any pressure, and when he sees a window, he makes lots of Tokens.
Game 3:I just have a shit ton of permission, with a Goyf and Clique beats. Nothing interesting.
2-0

Round 3 - Sneak Show
Game 1: Don't really remember the 1st game. Countered both attempts he had to SnT.
Game 2: I Duressed and Pierced and FoWed him. When he went for a SnT, I knwe he would drop the Emrakul, so let it resolve to put a clock into play, and cast Liliana and protected her. Won from there.
3-0

Round 4 - Bug Delver
Game 1: He plays Delver and Disrupts me a lot. Dismember takes care of one, but he has Shaman and Goyf that eat my removal-less hand.
Game 2: Don't remember much too. A standstill really help me get this game.
Game 3: I keep Fetch, 2x Shaman, FoW, Loam, Disfigure and something blue. He plays Shaman. I play Shaman. He plays a discard spell, takes my U card, and Decays Shaman. He Surgicals my Shamans. I pass. He passes. I Draw, and he plays Clique, which I FoW, managins to cast a Brainstorm, that finds a fetch, that finds a B source, that kills Shaman. Next turn I Loam 1 land, and Dismembers his Goyf. I Loam again, and get lots of goods. Eventually Loam underwhelm me with CA, and he ends up dying to Tar-Pit+Factory.
4-0

Round 5 - UWmiralcehelm
ID

Top 8 - Canadian
Game 1: He leads with Delver, me with Shaman. He does nothing. I play Standstill. He tinks and let it resolve. Delver does not flip again, and I drop a Tarpit. He sees himself forced to break it. Shaman + Tarpit manage to outrun Delver.
Game 2: He goes to 6, me to 5. He passes. I pass. He play a Mongoose. I FoW. I play Stanstill, he Dazes. I draw 2 Goyfs in a row that resolves, he gets 2 Geese, while Dismember kills a Delver. I resolve a Liliana, that east a Geese, and the 2 Goyfs are just too big after she dies (6/7) and finish him easily. He got a lot flooded here..

Top4 - Reanimator
Game 1: I keep Conterspell and Pierce, T3 a Brainstorm locks me out of lands, so I play Standstill and hope for the best. He manages to reanimate Grislebrand trough it, But I have Jace + FoW + Pierce my turn, and Grisle is bounced. I let an Exhume resolve, and I Liliana his 5/8 angel. From there a Goy kills him fast.
Game 2: He seizes and see Nihil, Shaman, FoW, Pierce, Liliana, Duress, 1 land. Nice hand. He takes Nihil and FoW's Shaman. I drew very well, hitting landdrops, getting Clique to get the clock going. He was never in this game. Too much hate.

Top2 - UWiralcehelm
ID.

The deck felt awesome. Combo was delt very easily. The removal package felt great too.
Standstill underperformed I guess, but might be good in other matchups. Still, think Strix would have been better...
The side was ok. I'm a little affraid of fast agroo, and I'd like to put 2 Extirpate on the side, to have a chance against Punishing Fire. Nihil was great though, and I don't want to remove that (we don't have many things to fight Mongoose...). What would you guys suggest me to do?
Would like to add a 3rd Waste too, but don't know how to do that. 2 Tarpits and Factorys were awesome.

I'll be playing it again shortly. Any feedback is appreciated =]

In the current meta why would you pick BUG Still over Esperblade or RiP/Helm as a control deck? I'm currently on Esper and I can see where having access to Deed comes in handy against a host of fair decks but besides that what makes this a better pick over UW control options?

Esperblade is a very strong deck, I'll admit that fact. However, BUG gives you access to a ton of sideboard option, as well as access to Abrupt Decay.

Let's go over the similarities:

Similar manabase (some more nonbasics by us, but no biggy)
Jace.deck
Counterspells
Discard

Differences:

Lingering Souls
Deed
Abrupt Decay
Standstill


So, it really depends on what you're trying to do and who you're gunning for. BUG Landstill is very good against the creature based decks in the format at the moment. Deed, Strix, Decay, and such are all a beating. You straight up smoke Helm/RIP Esper. Standstill is a better draw engine than anything Esperblade currently has. This deck is good at playing under Standstill by killing threats, and waiting with Standstill to draw infinite cards.

Esperblade is going to be better at being the aggressive deck where it needs to be, and the control deck when it has to be. SFM and Souls allows you to be aggressive with SFM in creature matchups, and Souls harass other Planeswalkers and go long in the control matchups.

BUG Landstill is the control deck all the time, in all honesty. The question remains however, is which is better against Jund? Esper isn't amazing against Jund, but BUG has more tools at beating BBE, even though we don't have access to Souls. Running more removal is a big deal, and gaining advantage with Standstill is great.

I think choice comes down to: is a pure control deck better in your meta, are you good at knowing how/when to play Standstill, and personal preference. I think both are solid choices in the meta at the moment.

-Matt

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Originally Posted by sdematt

I think choice comes down to: is a pure control deck better in your meta, are you good at knowing how/when to play Standstill, and personal preference. I think both are solid choices in the meta at the moment.

-Matt

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And why would I use this over Miracle Control? It has arguably superior creature kill and a faster win con (Terminus and Entreat).

Actually, Miracle isnt faster at all.

Chimera played CounterTop alot, even before Miracles and he's a good and quick player, however he ended up going 0-0-5 before giving up @ GP Ghent purely because the deck is slow as balls and people aparently play really slow against it.

The whole reason to play BUGStill over any other control deck is the fact that with Decays, Deeds and sideboard Pulses etc. you have to ability to wipe the whole board, regardless of permanent types.
Next to that you're playing the best CardAdvantage engines there are (Standstill, Jace).

On top of that, the deck is soooooooo much more fun to play than Esperblade/Miracles ;)

Also, the only reason you should be playing ANY deck over ANYTHING, regardless of meta, consists of two reasons:

1) Is it banned?
2) Do you know the deck?

I'd play RGBSA (Survival) if it would still be legal, regardless of the meta, since that was MY deck. Now I'm on Junk, and I'll run BWG until the end of time, regardless of the meta. Why? I'm good with it, I know how to tune, and I know the deck.

-Matt

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

And why would I use this over Miracle Control? It has arguably superior creature kill and a faster win con (Terminus and Entreat).

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Miracle Control has a glacial kill condition... Landstill can actually win well within time if you play with a good pace and know how to use your Factories and Tar Pits. I hardly ever go into time and if I do, it's mostly because of my opponents.
As Viridia said about Miracle Control: opponents apparently can't properly play against a countertop softlock, because the pace becomes even slower... and since you're digging for either the Entreat or the RiP+Helm, you're going to be running out of time rather quickly.

The current version of landstill that we run has 3 snapcasters, 2 cliques, 4 strixes, 3 jaces, 2 tar pits and 4 factories as win con. That's a pretty good clock if it's backed up by (arguably) the best mass removal spell in Legacy, i.e. Pernicious Deed.

I hope this helps ;)

I don't really get why people are posting and commenting lists that clearly don't belong in this thread. You already have the BUG control thread. This is the Ubgx landstill thread, clearly only 2 archetypes deserve to be discussed here:

-Bug Landstill variants
-4c UBgx control decks.

It's annoying to see the discussion bumped every now and then for decklists that have their obvious place in the BUG control thread. If your bug list doesn't splash a 4th colour, neither plays Standstill, you have more appropriate places to discuss it.

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Played this list yesterday to a first place, 3-1 finish:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Mishra's Factory
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Cabal Pit

4 Baleful Strix
3 Snapcaster Mage

4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
4 Standstill

4 Brainstorm
2 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Life from the Loam
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Disfigure
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

--BOARD--

2 Flusterstorm
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Engineered Plague
1 Darkblast
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Golgari Charm
2 Chill
1 Perish
1 Can't remember

I beat Reanimator 2-1, I beat Affinity 2-1, I lost to Sneak and Show 0-2, and won against BUG Tempo 2-0. Overall the list felt great, but I need a basic Forest. The Cabal Pit was spicy, though.

-Matt

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Played the same list last weekend in a GPT trial with one minor change:
-1 pernicious deed
+1 maelstrom pulse

There is not much aggro left in my metagame where combo (of all sorts) and BUG are currently dominating.

Also some sideboard changes but not very relevant.
Result was:

2-1 win against Belcher (had the force game 1 but had to force when he was threatening to go to 4 mana and he had the mana to play around that).
2-1 win against Ichorid (came close to winning game 1 where he drew crap. Game 2-3 I found the combination of surgical and snapcaster ftw)
2-1 win agains BUG control (lost game 2 because I sided out some removal and got caught off-guard by his sideboarded goyfs). I win the two other games although he resolves Jace first.
ID next two rounds.

2-0 loss against RUG Delver where I lose from triple wasteland and double wasteland (in about 6-7 turns play I guess) without resolving anything really useful because of color and mana screw.

It made me think that perhaps the manabase needs some work. Specifically I would consider replacing basic swamp since there are quite a few sources that produce black besides underground. I am even considering taking non basic since it's very difficult to play around wasteland with this deck and you could try and overload on their wasteland game 1 and consider teferi's response (or a second life from the loam) on sideboard. With a second life it might be feasible to play basic forest but that's a big if I guess :)

Nice result and too bad @ the loss against RUG. That's typically how I loose my games against them. They only really stand a proper chance with a hand loaded with Wasteland, Stifle and/or Loams. Otherwise, you can go to the lategame and beat them. Hardly any deck can beat the multiple wasteland draw, I'm afraid. Especially if it's backed by a turn 1 Delver or Mongoose.
I don't think you can really fix this issue, unless you go back to the old 4 Innocent Blood, 2 Life from the Loam, 2 Liliana of the Veil, 1 Worm Harvest build... which just tears RUG apart... but it's too slow for the rest of the meta right now.

Hey guys what do you think about this deck? I know it looks a little bit old fashioned but I want to play Wastelands and Life along with Liliana and Deed. I played it in two events so far winning all the games.

4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
1 Darkblast

2 Innocent Blood
2 Life from the Loam
2 Thoughtseize
1 Duress

2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Jace
3 Lili
3 P Deed
2 SDTop

3 Sea
1 Bayou
3 Tropico
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Wasteland

Side:

2 Clique
3 Goyf
1 Thrun
2 Flusterstorm
1 Cage
2 Surgical
1 Raven's Crime
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Krosan Grip

(side is a little bit random)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScatmanX

Finally got to play with this deck again. Went to a 5 round tournament + top8 with friends.
Here is what I played:

2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Wasteland
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp
1 Island

3 Jace, the Mindsculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage

3 Standstill
1 Life from the Loam

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce

2 Disfigure
1 Dismember
3 Abrupt Decay

SIDEBOARD:
2 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
2 Seize
3 Vendillion Clique

1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Tarmogoyf
3 Engineered Plague

I'll be playing it again shortly. Any feedback is appreciated =]

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In case you haven't seen it, your deck was mentioned in Caleb Durward's article: http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...ewing-control/

Congratulations

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Originally Posted by The Treefolk Master

In case you haven't seen it, your deck was mentioned in Caleb Durward's article: http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...ewing-control/

Congratulations

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Sweet! Thanks. I really like his articles.

The list/report got 0 comments here. Is it because it is too traditional, or is it that Standstill usually is played alongside with Deed, not Shaman?
I made some tweaks on the deck and took another small tourney here. I'm really enjoying it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScatmanX

Sweet! Thanks. I really like his articles.

The list/report got 0 comments here. Is it because it is too traditional, or is it that Standstill usually is played alongside with Deed, not Shaman?
I made some tweaks on the deck and took another small tourney here. I'm really enjoying it.

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Mmm, I dunno, I guess it was the fact of Tarmogoyf/Shaman alongside Standstill, which hasn't been seen in these forums for quite a while. Care to post your updated list?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScatmanX

Sweet! Thanks. I really like his articles.

The list/report got 0 comments here. Is it because it is too traditional, or is it that Standstill usually is played alongside with Deed, not Shaman?
I made some tweaks on the deck and took another small tourney here. I'm really enjoying it.

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Basically that yes :)

Both Chimera and i prefer to play pure control rather then a more midrangy aproach like yours and thus can't really say anything about it either, as we havent tested a version like that at all :)

Well, thanks for the honesty then =]
There is no update on the version. I tested with Strix in place of Standstill, and didn't liked it, and put 2 Extirpates on the side in place of 1 Nihil and 1 Goyf. On the MD I'd like to add a 3rd Wasteland, and probably the 4th Goyf, but don't know what to take out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chimera87

Miracle Control has a glacial kill condition... Landstill can actually win well within time if you play with a good pace and know how to use your Factories and Tar Pits. I hardly ever go into time and if I do, it's mostly because of my opponents.
As Viridia said about Miracle Control: opponents apparently can't properly play against a countertop softlock, because the pace becomes even slower... and since you're digging for either the Entreat or the RiP+Helm, you're going to be running out of time rather quickly.

The current version of landstill that we run has 3 snapcasters, 2 cliques, 4 strixes, 3 jaces, 2 tar pits and 4 factories as win con. That's a pretty good clock if it's backed up by (arguably) the best mass removal spell in Legacy, i.e. Pernicious Deed.

I hope this helps ;)

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This post and Viridia's post helped. Thanks.