Originally Posted by
Jorge Le Douche
I was worried about the lack of Needle too, but after playing the deck I think Wasteland has a lot of advantages. Pithing Needle is much narrower than Wasteland. In my opinion, Wasteland does MORE "against the format at-large" than Pithing Needle. When your opponent has multiple Wastelands, Needle is better than Wasteland. If your opponent has a very specific permanent in play (Sneak Attack, Jace, Vial), Needle is better. Otherwise Wasteland is better. And that is most of the time. Wasteland is just a very good magic card. Against the decks without Wastelands (specifically combo decks), the Wasteland can be valuable, even game-winning, disruption, in situations where Pithing Needle would do stone nothing.
And you can get random Wasteland wins, of course. But... don't be too aggressive. Wasteland takes the Pithing Needle slot and has a specific goal: stop Wasteland, Karakas, Maze of Ith, etc. You can't be blasting away your Wastelands on your opponents first land drop, only to have them drop a Wasteland a turn later that stops your combo cold.