In my experience ant/tes games tend to drag out when faced with cards like MM, chant, canonist etc, I was just guessing.
Edit: I guess it breaks the landstill mirror and countertop attrition wars in a nice way.
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@ectoplasm
Didn't want to be rude, sorry.
I haven't played a lot the matchup landstill VS ANT/TES, so i might be wrong. The recurring discard ability can be a pain for sure against combo.
The point is, if they have wait so long to go off, i don't think that one card that THEY choose will be revelant enought to go off, but once again, i might be totaly wrong.
who did?
How playable is she with 1 sea/scrubland and a swamp?
I don't really find 3 DoJs all that strange. More often than not, they're useful to make a token or two for blocking or pressuring a control deck. And if I really don't want one, I can cycle it on turn three.
3 FoF used to be "normal." Most people run 2 now though, such as myself.
Elspeth is pretty good... but I'm always awkward around Planeswalkers. I guess I'm old-fashioned. Heck, I'm pretty awkward around all sorcery-speed cards in general, too much Draw-Go; I usually just think of Planeswalkers as killable enchantments with sorcery speed abilities anyway. I really think I need to get with the times though; once you get a Planeswalker down, they tend to be very difficult to remove. =(
On a sidenote: Elspeth, Knight Errant vs. Ajani Goldmane. Which do you prefer?
In Legacy, I doubt your splashlands will stick around too long to cast too many two-of-a-color sorcery speed spells. So if you only got two of those lands, better make them count. I personally tend to make it a policy not to depend on sorcery-speed splash cards though.
I like both elspeth and ajani, but the fact that elspeth protect itself make her better. Though, you could run both in the MD i think, because you'll be able to abuse ajani second ability more easily than most deck (it is even more true if you run humility). EOT cycle decree for X toekn then drop ajani attack with X 2/2 vigilance token is really great.
Moreover, ajani first ability is great again burn (a bad matchup i think), while the third ability can push you over the top in the control miror.
All in all, not enought space in the MD, thus elspeth MD and ajani SB is usually what we do.
Elspeth is a killcon and boardcontrol in one, effectively telling your opponent to drop more creatures so you can axe him with a WoG.
Ectoplasm
Yes the vindicate models tend to play this with a 3-3 split of the delta and strands.Quote:
How playable is she with 1 sea/scrubland and a swamp?
Taishaku
This seems like an oxymoron to me.Quote:
I usually just think of Planeswalkers as killable enchantments with sorcery speed abilities anyway. I really think I need to get with the times though; once you get a Planeswalker down, they tend to be very difficult to remove. =(
They arn't difficult to kill, yet they are difficult to kill?
Plainswalkers proved themselves in the Legacy format along time ago. What you see as far as the number of plainswalkers is a standard 2X Elspeth Maindeck, 2X Ajani Goldmain in the sideboard. Ajani is placed in the Sideboard because he doesn't protect himself and he's selectively awesome.
I get that, that's what I run as well. That brings us to 3 delta's, a scrubland, a sea and a swamp of which we'll need to draw 2. Which brings me to wondering how playable she is, since we'll need to be (on average) 20 cards deep into our library before we see the lands we need, granted we'd spend our deltas on black sources.
Then again it doesn't seem like much of a problem to play for 13 turns in the mirror or vs countertop decks. I just hoped for some discussion since I like the idea of running more cool cards like planeswalkers.
Haha I missed the she part in my last post. I thought the question was regarded as to how playable is the landbase. My answer then follows.
I do not agree with Lilliana. I think she's mediocre at best for this deck to be quite honest. Sure the abilities are powerfull, but your better off just running a jace for the cc. I do not think building a heavier black splash is in our "landstill archtypes" best interest at the current stage. I think if the format starts leaning towards even more basic lands then before and wasteland/stifle/daze sees less play "which is not going to happen nomatter how much i'd like it" then I think it could be possible to run a heavier black splash only then.
But for now, just stick with your traditional u/w control package with a light splash for removal or grave hate in black.
@Mossivo1986
"This seems like an oxymoron to me.
They arn't difficult to kill, yet they are difficult to kill?"
Killable as in you can kill them like a creature or player. Difficult to remove as in they're probably going to be defended.
As far as splashing goes, I only keep a bit of green to run Krosan Grip and to destroy 3cc permanents with Engineered Explosives. But the problem here ties into the aforementioned Planeswalkers. Without black, I don't have access to Engineered Plague or Vindicate. Thus, I don't have too many options to deal with Elspeth, Knight Errant. Oblivion Ring? Pithin Needle? Humility? They're pretty vulnerable to removal themselves. I have considered Vendillion Clique, which can kill her in two attacks (and what about Archon of Justice?). Then there's Nevinyrral's Disk, but that's slow. Sometimes, it seems that my only solution is to drop my Eternal Dragons and play Elspeth, Knight Errant myself (That or stock up on Flame Javelins -_-").
Then there's that random idea I had before of replacing my 2 Eternal Dragons with Mystic Enforcers. (Yeah, I was around in the days of Enforcer Control. xD)
It seems that more and more lists are getting away from using E. Dragon. I tested it and it was good for getting a land to my hand obviously but other than that, it didn't do well for me. With Swords and Paths around, you can't rely on it going to the graveyard and even then its slow to bring back and use.
On another note, how many Tops are the recommended amount in most Landstill builds? I've seen 1-3 but nobody seems to be able to agree on a general amount, and its not easy to find room for another non-blue card.
I've seen Dust Bowl being used quite often as well but I'm just not sold on it yet. In builds with Crucible, I believe Wasteland is the superior option due to the cost (fo the ability) being much cheaper than Dust Bowl.
This isn't how you use E dragon.
(made-up percentages incoming)
80% of the time it just counts as a plains/scrubland.
15% of the time it's a deck-thinning engine, recurring multiple times under a standstill, getting all the irrelevant lands out of your deck, making you the king of topdecking
5% of the time it comes back as an additional beater.
The true purpose of E dragon is really just to be a nuisance while standstill is down :)
I definitely recur EDragon as a beater way more often than I recur it as a deck-thinning mana engine. Especially post board when players board Swords to Plowshares out against me.
Although since the addition of Elspeth, I haven't been recurring Dragon as often as I used to.
Little off topic, but why are there two landstill threads?
Does the additional colors really alter the gameplay of the deck that greatly?
Yes it makes a HUGE difference in gameplay. What it comes down to is the following:
-3c plays a much safer/smoother landbase then four color models.
-4 color offers a variety of different answers and better utility cards.
-Also 4color has in incredibly difficult time playing against wasteland/stifle.
I can't honeslty imagine why the 4 color model is still in the DTB section currently. To me it's worse then playing dreadstill or even merfolk.
The other Landstill isn't just about the 4c lists. It also contains Ubg lists that aren't horrible.