[Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

[jazzykat]

I love Divert and it is phenomenal when it works. The problem is that in all my sbing it in in both tournaments and playtesting I only used it once. Granted I sent a Hymn back in the guy's face so he lost that one pretty bad (Ancestral anyone?) but it is ONLY situationally a game winner. The problem is that your opponent is already playing around daze and maybe spell pierce. It would be hilarious in a deck that doesn't run daze or spell pierce because then your opponent is more likely to pitch something right into it.

[Jackehehe]

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
2 [R] Volcanic Island
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [PT] Swamp (4)
2 [A] Underground Sea
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
4 [MI] Island (3)

// Creatures
3 [JGC] Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 [JGC] Grim Lavamancer
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
2 [FD] Trinket Mage

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [WWK] Basilisk Collar
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [DD2] Daze
1 [TSP] Trickbind
3 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [DDD] Snuff Out
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [HOP] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 2 [5E] Pyroblast
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [6E] Perish
SB: 2 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds


So this is my latest list that im currently running. I posted my UBW list earlier in the thread and I'm currently comparing these 2 lists. I'm having quite a blast playing this list on MWS so far and I feel most of time where I lose its because I dont know how to play it properly, or how to SB properly lol. Anyway, this list is an attempt to further improve the tribal match ups but regrettably noone plays tribal on MWS so I didn't have that many opportunities to test and therefore I haven't got much to conclude so far.

I continued my testings with propaganda and the more I play that card the more I like it, mainly because it has been surprisingly good where I did not expect it to be. I had it in my board to tackle goblins as an initial thought, but it has proven to be a blast vs dredge as well and also effective vs these fast mean MUD decks or whatever they are called (which seem to be fairly popular as of lately)

grim + basilisk collar is really fun as well

[Nonkel]

Nonkel, why Jitte in your list? You don't have many creatures to carry it well. Perhaps consider some amount of Trinket Mage and include a Basilisk Collar. Combos with Grim Lavamancer and when equipped to a Dreadnought enables a massive life point swing.

Its there because Im running 4 Thoughtseize, 3 Bob and a good amount of fetch. An opponent doesnt have to do much damage to take my life total to the single digits. I agree there are not many creatures to attach it to, but still 3 bobs and 3 lavamancers and, if I got enough mana and needed be, 2 factories. It doubles as creature removal. Its enough to have the creature do damage 1 time, 2 counters gets rid of 1 or 2 creatures or nets 4 life. Basilisk Collar is not a good replacement, because it doesnt double as creature removal and you get 1 life for 1 damage, so its only any good on a dreadnought. And btw, I like the 2 dreadnoughts instead of 3. Divert has been a real blast in playtesting, I suggest you guys give it a try.

[keys]

Basilisk Collar is infinitely better than Jitte on a Lavamancer, and its decent with Bob and Factories.

[Shax]

I strongly believe that Dreadstill is a great deck since your running Nought ftw/ Standstill. One factor that keeps this thing from destroying major players in tourneys is what limits players anyways. Cost of cards. Waste, the duals and fetches along with a playset of FoW. If your running Green, then stuff like Goyf all of a sudden becomes a issue. The rest of the deck is not cheap, neither. Like if everyone had the 1k to shell out for Candelbra, we would see more candles.dec. The top decks.. (Tribal, Combo, Dredge.) Compared to control list are cheap. I only have about five hundred invested in my T.E.S with most of it coming from the duals on the opening page. Dredge is a joke for cost and Tribal decks cores are inexpensive and most of the time the most expensive card could be Wasteland now.

[Nonkel]

Basilisk Collar is infinitely better than Jitte on a Lavamancer, and its decent with Bob and Factories.

I disagree. If I have to choose between a Lavamancer equipped with Jitte or Collar, Jitte would be more versatile and usefull. It can give creatures -1/-1 and fire at them if they dont die from the counter. Suddenly taking down a Goyf is a possibility, all this without you having to sacrifice the lavamancer with the collar as a blocker.

[Pippin]

I disagree. If I have to choose between a Lavamancer equipped with Jitte or Collar, Jitte would be more versatile and usefull. It can give creatures -1/-1 and fire at them if they dont die from the counter. Suddenly taking down a Goyf is a possibility, all this without you having to sacrifice the lavamancer with the collar as a blocker.

What are you on about? Collar gives equipped creature deathtouch. This means that lavamancer will kill anything (bar indestructible creatures) it shoots at, while gaining you life.
With jitte one needs to attack to gain counters, so its only useful on a 'nought - rest of the bunch won't really live post attack.

[kiblast]

I agree. I just started testing this deck (as Landeed seems too slow for my meta wich is basically: Junk and taxes, DeadGuy, Rock, and Combo- Dredge / Ant / Spring Tide/ Hive Mind with very few controls...so I need to switch to another, faster and more flexible deck ) and one of the things I immediately noticed is that a Lavamancer equipped with Collar is the Red Power Ranger. Deals with almost anything for such a little mana investment.

Anyway, what do you think about MU's with the above archetypes? Is UBR Dreadstill a viable choice in this kind of meta?

[SMR0079]

I agree. I just started testing this deck (as Landeed seems too slow for my meta wich is basically: Junk and taxes, DeadGuy, Rock, and Combo- Dredge / Ant / Spring Tide/ Hive Mind with very few controls...so I need to switch to another, faster and more flexible deck ) and one of the things I immediately noticed is that a Lavamancer equipped with Collar is the Red Power Ranger. Deals with almost anything for such a little mana investment.

Anyway, what do you think about MU's with the above archetypes? Is UBR Dreadstill a viable choice in this kind of meta?

Stiffle Nought (minus Standstill) would be an excellent choice for this metagame if it were not for all the GSZ decks that can tutor pridemage and kill nought.

Playing Lavamancer/Basilisk is not the answer though. Firespout and REB are great, but the white splash is probably just better.

[kiblast]

I'm trying both versions, UBR and UWB. While I absolutely love Grim+Collar and sb Reb and Spout, I have to say that the versatility added by E Tutor and StP probably make the W splash worth and superior to R. I'm sticking to the secondary B splash mainly for Confidants and some sideboard choices. Speaking about Confidants, could someone explain me why some lists play only 3? It is such a strong card in this deck due to the low curve and Top, and I want to stick one pretty early in the game. I am happy even when I see 2 of them cause this deck can handle 2 at the same time pretty easily; moreover one is always going to eat a removal saving Nought, substantially I can't really see any reason to play less than 4.

[AngryTroll]

I keep trying to come up with a Dreadstill list I like, but I can't seem to cut it down to 60 cards. This is the best I can do:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Stifle
2 Trickbind
3 Spell Snare
3 Daze
4 Force of Will

4 Ghastly Demise //or
4 Go for the Throat

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
3 Island

I really like running Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf together, and when paired with Dreadnought, you have 12 creatures that demand removal. I think 4 Dreadnought is necessary right now to give you a chance to race aggro and a clock against combo, so I went up to a second Trickbind to support the mana denial plan and the 12/12 plan. With 12 devastating turn two plays, Stifles for fetchlands, and Wastelands, Daze is hard not to include. It slows down casting Jace, so I'm not running a full set.

I'm on the fence about Counterbalance. If combo continues to be dominant, the enchantment is probably worth putting back in the maindeck. For now, I think Goyfs are more valuable overall.

I'd like to run Spell Pierces alongside Spell Snare, especially if I'm not running Counterbalance, but there is no room. I'd certainly run three or four in the board.

Unfortunately, that list is still 66 cards. What do you cut? Goyfs, and count on your Dreadnoughts alone to kill the opponent? Removal, and count on Goyfs and Dreadnoughts to get the job done against Zoo, Goblins, and Merfolk (or to race combo)? Ponder is amazing, and I want to fit four maindeck. It's especially important if you're running Goyfs. I wouldn't cut any more land, so I'm really not sure what six cards should go.

[kiblast]

I'd really cut 1 or 2 lands as 23 feels too much, I'm currently testing various lists that share a similar curve with yours and I feel comfortable with 20 lands and 3 Tops. I'd also cut the Ponders, I don't play them because I feel you have no time to play them as you want to stay open on turn 1 for Stifle, and on turn 2 you have plenty of powerful plays. Turn 3 is where you start playing them, but at this point I'd rather stay open and play Brainstorm, wich is more reactive to your opponent's plans, and open mana could simulate Trickbind.
So, I'd go -1 Island and -1 Misty rainforest, and -3 Ponder.

Also, no love for EE and Academy Ruins / Tolaria West? Tolaria can also fetch Tormod's post sb, or Wasteland, or fix your mana. I like it.

[Scrum]

I have been playing Dreadstill for years now. I absolutely love this deck. I know that people are now anti-Standstill and pro- Dark Confidant. I expect the metagame, where I will be playing, to have lots of aggro. I was wondering what the community thinks is the right metagame call, either red or white. I have this deck together now and it has been performing well. I would appreciate any feed back that the community might have, thanks.

4 brainstorm
4 force of will
4 dreadnought
3 counterbalance
3 sdt
3 daze
4 dark confidant
3 spell snare
1 EE
4 swords to plowshares
2 trinket Mage*
4 stifle
1 trickbindk

3 underground
2 tundra
4 flooded*
3 island
4 wasteland
2 polluted
1 academy ruins
1 plains

3 crypt
3 perish
1 pitying needle
3 peacekeeper
2 jace
3 spell pierce

[Rico Suave]

I'll try to break down what I've been enjoying recently. Firstly we have the engine to consider. I have been running this and think it works beautifully:

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Dark Confidant
3 Standstill
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

All of these cards are great and I feel that having a surplus amount of card manipulation, draw, and raw power is important when playing a deck like this. A lot of people seem to be back and forth on Bob vs. Standstill, but I feel that both complement each other very well and the increased card draw in the deck makes everything....just better. Some matches you can play Bob and ride him to victory, other matches you can rely on Standstill, and in most matches you get to use both to good effect.

Some people I've seen complain that Mishra's Factory is a "drawback" of playing Standstill. I would probably play Mishra's Factory even without Standstill, so I'm not sure what is going on here. Factory is a great card in its own right and it acts as extra business that squeezes into the mana base, so even when you're "flooded" you still have plenty of things to do and you'll still be able to develop your mana base. Speaking of which, I'm working on 22 mana right now with 14 sources of blue and 4 Factory + 4 Wasteland. It works great.

We are already playing black with Confidant, but one of the biggest reasons to play black is actually for the SB. Perish is incredibly good, even if green creatures aren't as popular as they once were. Being able to sweep the board of green creatures is still incredibly useful though and it helps tremendously with a lot of aggressive matches. Then we come to white. Have you guys played Peacekeeper? It's incredibly good. It can cause decks like Merfolk or Elves to scoop on the spot. It's Dredge hate without eating into your SB options. It dominates decks like Show and Tell or Reanimator. The combination of Perish and Peackeeper, along with StP as spot removal (there is no substitute for that one) allow you to control pretty much every aggressive match you might face except for Goblins. If you fear Goblins, you could always run Engineered Plague though. Or just combo out because you're playing Dreadnought/Stifle.

Most of the rest of the deck can be fine tuned, but I feel everything I've talked about in this post is extremely important for the foundation of the deck yet I see so many people who struggle to understand it.

[sdematt]

Are you running the rest of the list like Rich's?

-Matt

[Scrum]

I completely understand what you are saying Rico. I got ninth at SCG in Nashville with Rich Shays ubw list. I was very happy with the decks performance. I am just not sure if there is a better list to play. Do you have an updated list with sb that I could test or is Rich Shays list the one you would play?

[Rico Suave]

Well it's important to fine tune and adjust the deck for an expected metagame. If aggro is big thing near your local store, you could play this to great effect:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckd...p?DeckID=36649

This build has been around for a while and was used when things like Goblins were doing well, but it's still great even today. If you wanted to focus more on fighting the recent uprising combo decks, you could always go back to a more traditional build and just sub out StP for relevant cards, then sub out the E.Plague (which are sort of narrow anyway) for a variety of other SB options.

The deck can easily be adjusted to a metagame. That's not the hard part, just sub out the situational "answer" cards for things that are good against what you expect to face. The problem is that the core of the deck needs to remain intact because it brings everything together. Were I to play a tournament tomorrow, I'd probably play something like this:

6 Blue Fetch
3 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

3-4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Stifle
0-1 Trickbind

2-3 Trinket Mage
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
3 Counterbalance
0-1 Daze
0-1 Pithing Needle
1-6 Flex

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Dark Confidant
3 Standstill
2 Jace, TMS

SB:
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Plains
3 Peacekeeper
2 Perish
3 Spell Pierce
0-1 Pithing Needle
4-5 Flex

I'd lean towards playing the full combo of 4 Dreadnought and a Trickbind main for maximum combo potential, then SB'ing 2-3 copies of StP. This isn't as effective against aggressive decks as the one in the link above, but it's still pretty strong and it opens up some space to fight other varieties of decks.

Additionally I'd probably run a Relic of Progenitus or maybe Nihil Spellbomb for extra Dredge reassurance in the SB, since people seem to be hopping on that bandwagon recently. And those cards are also important for some matches like the ones based on Loam recursion.

Spell Snare has been a mainstay of builds in the past, though its effectiveness against High Tide decks isn't as flattering as it could be. It's also possible to just run a copy of Spell Pierce main, which would also open up additional SB space. I'd be careful of running too many Dazes, because Jace tends to be at odds with Daze and when in doubt I'd rather be playing Jace.

If you're in doubt, you could also just run some filler like Ponder, Preordain, or maybe a 3rd Jace.

[Tammit67]

What would you recommend as an effective answer against GWB decks?

[Rico Suave]

What would you recommend as an effective answer against GWB decks?

It really depends what's going on. Spell Snare is strong against the versions that don't play Aether Vial, and especially against Hymn to Tourach and/or Bob.

Vial will give you more troubles, and Pithing Needle is pretty solid against both Vial and the equipment builds.

Plow is generically fine.

I'd say the two strongest cards against decks with GWB are Jace and Standstill. Like, if you land Bob against a deck with GWB you'll often just see it eat a Plow, but if you land Standstill you draw 3 cards and what can a fair deck do against that? And Jace is an MVP too, especially if you can bounce their creatures and make them replay those creatures through CB, Standstil, or counters. Ultimately I don't think having direct answers to a Junk-like deck matters much because everything is useful against them but no specific answer is going to do too much either. The best thing to do is simply overpower them and draw more cards than they can deal with. /shrug

[Solar Ice]

Rico, what do you think of Propaganda replacing Plague in the board against creature decks in general? I'm running Rich Shay's list almost card for card (currently -1 Daze +1 StP) and it can be tough against fast aggro decks like Zoo as well as resolved creatures in general (with removal for Peacekeeper) assuming no Dreadnought on the table.