Page 232 of 239 FirstFirst ... 132182222228229230231232233234235236 ... LastLast
Results 4,621 to 4,640 of 4766

Thread: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

  1. #4621
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Like if Dreadnought was a good card by itself as a big threat in a deck with stifle then why would it not be successful in a more generic kind of delver/tempo deck without standstill?
    If standstill was a good card by itself in a kind of stifle/tempo deck (with e.g. Factory, presumably, but not necessarily), why do we not see people having success with this kind of strategy without dreadnought?
    UR Standstill/Landstill can't beat combo [particularly GY-based] to save its life. It also really struggles to count to 20; which is a problem when you run Bolt. So while you could play some kind of UR Delver w/ Standstill, you have some significant problems with Chalice, and just like UR Delver the deck is completely unplayable vs DRS/Oko/Uro/Klothys/Cling-levels of lifegain. Standstill might feel cool in such a list, but Delver and Daze don't exactly play nicely with 7 enchantments (Standstill + Shark'nado), and you can't slow down b/c you're on the crappiest color combo vs Goyf. You just can't afford to play a card that will extend a game [Standstill] when you don't have a solution to the Goyf problem, and are sitting on Bolts you can't reliably pressure with...and also sit there drawing dead soft permission [Daze]...and also have >20 lands to further boost dead draws. This gameplan has too many holes to overcome. This Blue Moon-style of deck just isn't competitive - just play UR Delver or SnS or Dreadstill and take the higher win %.

    On the flip side [Delver + Dreadnought, no Standstill], you don't get to pick a spot; if Nought is in your hand and you can make it, you have to - you don't have a late game. If you want to play linear without any comeback mechanism or inevitability, play DS and stop 2-for-1'ing yourself. Also accept DS's complete inability to handle Chalice, and like I dunno...tell yourself you have game vs it b/c of Brazen Borrower. Also accept your unavoidable losses to Vial, Plow, Counterbalance, and Delver decks with Bolt.

    Both paths have either no meaningful asymmetry [StifleNought] or no effective asymmetry [UR Standstill/Landstill]. This is something of a problem since effective asymmetry is the wincon. If you had to choose one of those, you should recognize that Scroll of Fate by itself is more likely to win through dubious construction. In Dreadstill we have the tools to race combo and still have late game inevitability. If you only have one tempo reservoir [Dreadnought or Standstill], you have locked yourself into one speed of play. No matter how skilled a pilot is, they can't turn skill into win % outside of that speed the deck is locked into.

    What is the perfect confluence of factors that makes these cards necessarily pair with each other, in 2021?
    The difference is Standstill and Dreadstill have a strategy - most legacy decks don't. One way to tell if your deck doesn't really have a strategy is if a 1-card combo [power creep] invalidates your deck. If cards like DTT, DRS, Breach, Lurrus, DHA, Plague Engi, DRS, Shepherd, Muxus, and Uro are sending you to frown-town, it generally means you're playing mono 1-card combos yourself...so when they print a better one card combo, there's nothing really hiding behind your pile that insures continued relevance.

    So unlike your typical legacy deck, Standstill and Dreadstill are much less affected by change. Sometimes cards are ridiculous enough to affect our color selections or force us towards Dreadstill or Standstill/Landstill [ex. Oko, Wrenn], but these cards don't send our winrate below losses, and these cards get themselves banned. This is to be expected from decks that existed in entirely old-border and have maintained relevance while doing basically the same things as always [Standstill/Landstill, Dreadstill, Goblins, Elves].

    At this point the most realistic explanation is that those cards were simply the best options available at the time in terms of cheap threats and cheap card draw (this is like pre-delver, mind, years and years and years ago) and a post-hoc rationalization was made to justify that the deck was built with some kind of special synergy.
    So these decks average 70-75% winrates in competent hands. That's why we play them. We also get more tools more frequently, and that makes us the best Teferi [3 and/or 5cmc], TNN, Azcanta, manland, and/or Shark'nado users in the format, depending on our build.

    Why not try expressive iteration or etc etc
    Card is trash. Here today, gone tomorrow...like AK, Predict, Night's Whisper, Ancestral Visions, JTMS, Painful Truths. If I'm spending 2+ mana to cantrip, I'm going to enforce asymmetry [Standstill] or have lategame [Shark'nado, Azcanta] or react/control [SCM]; I'm going to get on-board and push a gameplan/enact a strategy. Blind value obviously works in magic, I just don't find it interesting or skill-intensive. I also don't like the tendency of blind value strats find themselves spinning their wheels trying to draw effects they don't have access to because they failed to enact a strategy b/c they wanted tap out and jammy jam Uro-types.

    But ultimately I think Dreadnought is just not a playable card (it's basically blue pox in the sense that people get a nostalgia buzz out of doing something old/cool that mostly sucks)
    People can keep thinking that all they want b/c they still lose to Dreadstill and Standstill/Landstill - especially if they're on tier 2 (that's like 85% or higher losing to Dreadstill). The main thing is that decks with Standstill lack dedicated pilots. Every so often we have more tourists than usual, but very few of them stick with the deck. They aren't leaving b/c they're bleeding money.

    Your assessment of the deck as "worse shadow" is basically in line with my assessment, I don't even think the Shadow matchup vs UR is bad
    When it comes to StifleNought, yes. A pilot is better off playing Infect or Shadow; these are the exact same thing as StifleNought with less 2-for-1s, and a slightly different weak-to-X profile. I would however never want to be playing Infect or Shadow or StifleNought vs Dreadstill; this is a mirror these decks didn't come ready to play.

  2. #4622
    Member

    Join Date

    Sep 2011
    Posts

    4,776

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    This makes sense but surely there are better 1drop threats now right
    You can't even play early dreadnought + stifle that reliably compared to just casting Delver of Secrets or whatever other standalone card and you cant do the curve of turn1 threat turn2 standstill with nought either.
    I ~suppose~ you could make the argument that dreadnought is the only creature that's large and cheap enough to be meaningfully threatening both on turn 2 and also when your opponent cracks your standstill on an empty-ish board on like turn 6 but I don't find that entirely convincing
    Are there actually better threats that synergize this much with this plan?

    Dreadnought is a 2-turn clock. What other 1-drop or 2-drop comes close?
    Delver is a 7-turn clock if it even flips right away. (and you can't use cantrips to flip it if you curve T1 Delver T2 Standstill)
    Goblin Guide is a 10-turn clock.
    The difference between 2 turns and 7-10 turns is huge.

    With a 2-turn clock the opponent is forced to desperately crack Standstill immediately, even with just a cantrip, in an attempt to not die. That creates a game state where either Dreadnought wins (they whiff, or Standstill draws you answers) or they kill it but leave you ahead in cards, which sets you up to eventually deploy further threats from a more winning position.

    If you give them 7 turns, there is no imminent pressure to crack Standstill. They have more time to draw out of it and sculpt a better position to break Standstill. With a Standstill in play, there is a huge difference between "this 2/2 or 3/3 might kill me someday" vs "I am dead next turn if I do nothing".

    There are other clocks that could threaten a quick kill, but they typically involve more investment. Relatively speaking Dreadnought is very small investment for a 2-turn clock (2 mana + 2 cards), which allows the deck to rebound and establish subsequent threats even if the first one or two are removed, unlike more all-in decks that will run out gas if disrupted. A 2nd wind of 12/12 is relevant at any stage of the game. Most other "turn 1 creatures" look bad on turn 8.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    UR Standstill/Landstill can't beat combo [particularly GY-based] to save its life. It also really struggles to count to 20; which is a problem when you run Bolt.
    Even more simply, Landstill is control and red cards don't help that plan. Red cards do help count from 12 to 20.

  3. #4623

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    The difference is Standstill and Dreadstill have a strategy - most legacy decks don't
    I think everything you said prior to this sentence mostly made sense and everything afterwards mostly didn't, but I respect the effort

    Relatively speaking Dreadnought is very small investment for a 2-turn clock (2 mana + 2 cards), which allows the deck to rebound and establish subsequent threats even if the first one or two are removed, unlike more all-in decks that will run out gas if disrupted.
    It's very hard for me to get on board in legacy with the idea of playing a Drekavac that requires you to discard a card with a specific name, even if it is very large

  4. #4624
    Member

    Join Date

    Sep 2011
    Posts

    4,776

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    It's very hard for me to get on board in legacy with the idea of playing a Drekavac that requires you to discard a card with a specific name, even if it is very large
    See above about 7-turn clock vs 2-turn clock with Standstill.

    In a vacuum the Drekavac is not great no matter the size (which I assume is why Stiflenought is not a Tier deck without Standstill).

  5. #4625
    Bald. Bearded. Moderator.
    Mr. Safety's Avatar
    Join Date

    Nov 2010
    Location

    Hell in a Nutshell
    Posts

    5,246

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    See above about 7-turn clock vs 2-turn clock with Standstill.
    Often I have heard the criticism for mono-blue being that it isn't fast enough because you can't get there with one PD hit, you need a Bolt + Delver hit as well. I am convinced the difference between how viable UR Dreadstill and U-Dreadstill are in the metagame is negligible. Of course there is Pyroblast, etc, but that is metagame dependant (I am thinking mostly of your comments about go-wide strategies like Elves.)
    Brainstorm Realist

    I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner

  6. #4626
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Mystic Reflection has some problems of its own, especially that it only works alongside Dreadnought to be truly valuable.
    Oh no, this is the backup mode. All this turning things like Dreadnought and 0/0 Sharks into things like an army of TNNs, acting like a pseudo-Stifle for Dreadnought, copying Dreadnoughts with Scroll [there are mechanics at work here], and having text with Urza's Saga stage 3 trigger - this is all bonus.

    [Brazen Borrower] answers Marit Lage in the cleanest possible way for any iteration of Dreadstill.
    To understand why we play Reflection, we look at Brazen Borrower and note that the only reason it sees play in legacy is that it is a maindeck card vs Depths. Now I'm sure you can find the V. Clique-style opinion that Brazen is a good enough card to see such widespread play on its own...but it's the anti-Depths card in the decks whose pilots would make such claims. We note that Brazen Borrower loses to discard [Duress became IoK], Veil, Olle Rade, NotW, and Sejiri Steppe...so really not a very reliable answer to Depths, since you're playing into all of their protections. For many decks Brazen may be the best answer they have to Depths - but that does not mean it's reliable (well, other than reliably able to be countered by cards in Depths). Meanwhile, every single one of those protections in Depths can't stop Marit Lage from entering as a meaningless 1/1 or 2/2 when we're targeting our own guy; they also can't discard face-down exiles. Depths can't adapt to an attack on this axis, which makes Reflection the cleanest possible answer.

    Bouncing a Shepherd so I can counter Natural Order seems pretty decent to me as well, another point in favor of Borrower.
    You have named 2 spells that are not allowed to do what they say. Both however are allowed to duplicate a 1/1 currently on board. There will be none of this letting Elves cast a Shepherd and turning their team into 5/5s while killing ourselves b/c Brazen Borrower was not called Mystic Reflection. We also take the hard pass on NO/GSZ or Hoof-from-hand happening and leaving ourselves with a bounce effect that will never change the fact that we're dead b/c we let something enter as not a harmless 1/1.

    We will also take the hard pass on letting PWs or Uros entering the battlefield as printed...but we will definitely let them enter as a self-killing 12/12 or an unflippable textless 2/2. Also hard pass on bouncing Thassa; not allowed to enter as printed.

    in order for Standstill to be good we have to clear the board and resolve it, we can't play Standstill while behind...My experience with Standstill is you have to deal with the first threat on board as a necessity, then play out Standstill.
    It is routinely correct to slam Standstills into opposing creatures from behind. See also: Shark'nado.

    I've heard the arguments a hundred times about 'you need bolt to count to 20'. Well if this is the case, there can really be no discussion about anything besides UR Dreadstill.
    You must have a strategy that everything works towards, yes. In the case of UR Dreadstill the combo is everything working together for counting to 20 (while having the tools to enforce a speed of the game most favorable to this counting to 20).
    UW Dreadstill has a different combo, where it adapts its play patterns to the opponent's decks. It finds weak points of construction and unravels the opponent's deck until they can't play magic - we play total mana denial, win by mill, and total stack control. Sometimes we even kill people with 12/12s. It's an overarching combo, but it plays very differently than UR Dreadstill. UR kills people dead, UW is more about methodically shutting opponents out of the game.
    UW/r Standstill/Landstill is about pursuing an endgame of outdrawing opponents 7 to 1 while exiling opponent's mana base. UBw Landstill is about playing like UW/r, except fixing the lifegain problem.

    In my limited experience the worst card to see for a Standstill deck is a resolved Aether Vial.
    These are tedious matchups, but pretty easily winnable. We got Vista vs Port/Waste, FoN x2, PWs that stop Vial, and opponents playing Trix Magus (i.e. no longer able to generate CA with Flickerwisp b/c they're too busy dealing with donated illusions).

    If I want to play Dreadnought, it's 90%+ a blue deck, so why mess around with options that give me a slight edge when I know the main parts of the deck are going to be either good or bad regardless of the splash color?
    The cost has never been lower, you have 8 perfect Fetches, and optimal dual amount is going down to 1x once Urza's Saga is out. You can play a unified combo (count to 20), rather than going all-in on 2 Dreadnought hits/not getting Surgical'd/hoping Scroll gets there. It's also important to recognize the Delver and Daze don't exactly play nicely with Standstill + Shark'nado + Scroll of Fate; lots of not-flipping there, and the increased incentive to stop picking up lands.

  7. #4627
    Bald. Bearded. Moderator.
    Mr. Safety's Avatar
    Join Date

    Nov 2010
    Location

    Hell in a Nutshell
    Posts

    5,246

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    To understand why we play Reflection, we look at Brazen Borrower and note that the only reason it sees play in legacy is that it is a maindeck card vs Depths. Now I'm sure you can find the V. Clique-style opinion that Brazen is a good enough card to see such widespread play on its own...but it's the anti-Depths card in the decks whose pilots would make such claims. We note that Brazen Borrower loses to discard [Duress became IoK], Veil, Olle Rade, NotW, and Sejiri Steppe...so really not a very reliable answer to Depths, since you're playing into all of their protections. For many decks Brazen may be the best answer they have to Depths - but that does not mean it's reliable (well, other than reliably able to be countered by cards in Depths). Meanwhile, every single one of those protections in Depths can't stop Marit Lage from entering as a meaningless 1/1 or 2/2 when we're targeting our own guy; they also can't discard face-down exiles. Depths can't adapt to an attack on this axis, which makes Reflection the cleanest possible answer.
    First off, I haven't seen any lists with Mystic Reflection. I see decks playing Brazen Borrower main/side all the time, it's a legacy staple at this point. Regardless of the specific reason we play it (Depths) there are general reasons (tempo, card advantage.) As far as I can tell, all your points about MR are theoretical, because I don't see anyone playing the card at all. I get where you are coming from, if you get it down with Foretell t1 it can be a very clean answer...provided you have a creature to target. As a longtime Depths player, the only creatures that typically enter the battlefield are Vampire Hexmage and Marit Lage, and Hexmage is maybe 50% of the time at that. So you have a narrow window where you can make Marit Lage into a Vampire Hexmage. Sylvan Safekeeper is seen in sideboards, but that isn't a clean answer because it can give itself shroud. Most Depths lists play *1* copy of the elf-tutor, so that is your only other target. So you have to have a creature on your side of the board to target, which means Delver if you want to do it in enough time to count. Overall, I think this is an unreliable plan. With a Depths player's perspective, I would rather just play Brazen Borrower for the extended utility in other matchups and cross my fingers against Depths. It won't ever be a good matchup, but Mystic Reflection doesn't solve that, not by a long shot. If your plan is to make a Scroll of Fate token turn 4 to use Mystic Reflection to beat depths, I give you a hearty 'good luck with that'. You can skip all of the above text if you want and just read this: Brazen Borrower isn't a perfect answer to Marit Lage, but it's better than Mystic Reflection. It's a minimum of a two-card combo or relies on magical christmasland. Brazen Borrower is a one-card combo of bounce spell + flying blocker (aren't you always using that term?)

    You have named 2 spells that are not allowed to do what they say. Both however are allowed to duplicate a 1/1 currently on board. There will be none of this letting Elves cast a Shepherd and turning their team into 5/5s while killing ourselves b/c Brazen Borrower was not called Mystic Reflection. We also take the hard pass on NO/GSZ or Hoof-from-hand happening and leaving ourselves with a bounce effect that will never change the fact that we're dead b/c we let something enter as not a harmless 1/1.
    Well, Borrower is a reasonable plan during an Elves players' combo turn. Having Mystic Reflection available t1-2, without doing anything else (like Daze, Wasteland on Cradle) to fight a Shepherd seems like magical christmasland again to me. If I have a Borrower in hand, I will 100% keep my lands untapped and avoid using Daze so I can have Force of Will/Negation/Daze available to counter NO/Hoof from hand. I might even bounce it to Force a Glimpse of Nature. I haven't played Elves in a long time, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I don't think Mystic Reflection is very good in that matchup.


    Regarding the viability of mono-blue Dreadstill, to be honest, other than janky lists like a mono-black list or the BW list ThrabenU did a league with, mono blue is the only other Dreadnought deck to make any results in the past 6 months (edit: I used mtgtop8 data, which doesn't count all events. I'll look further.) If you go back a little further Rood Hannigan has a result with UR Dreadstill (and he's playing Dismember in his sideboard...curious why he would do that, Dismember doesn't work towards the Dreadstill plan...sorry, I couldn't resist, just bad attempt at a joke.)

    https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=27663&d=419733&f=LE


    https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=29113&d=429315&f=LE

    And we even have the illustrious Rood playing UR Dreadstill, however it's from August of 2020. Splashing red for only 3 maindeck Bolts and 4 sideboard cards. The cost is low, yes, but the gain is also negligible (IMHO.) Oh, and what is that in the sideboard? Dismember? Get outta here!

    https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24789&d=373481&f=LE

    The bigger issue for me, and worth discussing, is whether Standstill is better than Delver. All of those lists are Delver lists that play Stifle-Nought, not really Dreadstill.
    Brainstorm Realist

    I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner

  8. #4628
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    The ceiling on linear StifleNought is lower than Dreadstill. So while it's harder to punt, the trade-off is that you can't get out of a bad situation or change the gameplan. The only solution to a problem becomes throwing more bodies at the opponent and hoping they run out of the answers you know their list has.

    The mono-U StifleNought stuff literally can't beat an Ensnaring Bridge, and when you pair that with combat step + dudes is the only wincon, you end up saying "Brazen is the card for me." If you're on that mono-U stuff, you have deckbuilt yourself into this corner, and there is no escape.

    Decks with Standstill are playing a fundamentally different game. We do not care about the same cards/disaster scenarios as mono-U. We move around problems, b/c we pick fights on different and more numerous axes. When it comes to Dreadstill, this is a concept people really struggle with: we don't actually need to make Dreadnoughts.

    Here's the decision-making tree for Brazen in decks with Standstill: if Depths-type [multiple card sequence] leave in -> if I would bring in flash bear [i.e. C Priest vs a deck that isn't hurt by the passive] leave in -> if anything else board out.

    On Rood's Dismember use, I always give him a hard time about that. At the end of the day though, Goyf is a huge problem for UR color set. It takes 6 damage to kill it, and 7 damage if you want to be sure it dies. This is why DHA saw success in Dever decks; it passed the Goyf test [Bolt, recast Bolt]. With Oko gone, it's harder to get Goyf up to 6 toughness. Obviously you need to get enchants and artifacts out of your yard to keep Goyf below 6, which means Lavamancer is there, which then means Lavaman + Bolt & ability to make 12/12s & TNN & Reflection [change or copy duty] represents enough anti-Goyf tools. Urza's Saga and Relic will add additional anti-Goyf to postboard games. Note that Dismember does one thing, whereas the anti-Goyf build direction has more ways to be played. You also really don't want to invest Dismember's lose 4 life to Goyf when it's primarily played with Bolt.

    In terms of why we see more mono-U than Dreadstill, it's because it's a harder deck to play. There are not a lot of Standstill pilots, and even fewer whose range includes Dreadstill. There's like 10 people that have enough hours on UR Dreadstill to play at expert level and above, and we're mostly paper players. Of these Dreadstill players, exactly 5 have enough hours on UW Dreadstill to use the deck effectively.

    The majority of people playing mono-U StifleNought are mostly just passing through, playing the deck like normal legacy, and hitting some good matchups [leagues skew towards combo]. If a player isn't going to put in the hours, this is a good way to go....but even if they omit Standstills, they really need to be playing 4 Tarn, 4 Vista, 1 Mountain, 4 Bolt, and SB REBS. That's like 5-10% free winrate; just take it. Make decks that don't care about removal discard their blue cards to a kill spell that can be pointed at them. Also note that decks which don't care about Daze and Dismember are mostly decks weak to Pyroblast.
    --
    Edit: let's really pin down Dismember...
    -How many decks don't care that you topdeck'd Dismember: most...and if you forgot a list with Counterbalance or Hymn/SCM -> that went to Wrenn -> that moved to Oko -> that now has Uro, add it to the list.
    -How many decks that don't care about Dismember also don't care about Daze: again most.
    -How many of this slice of legacy care about direct damage [Bolt to the dome, rather than Dismember]: basically all of them.
    -Now Daze is still bad vs this slice, so how many of them care that you have Bolt and can swap Daze 1-for-1 with REB: the majority of this slice.

    -What are the names of the decks in legacy don't care about Daze, Dismember, and SB Blasts: Lands, Maverick, Loam, anything with Depths, Elves, Vial, and Post
    -What does every single one of these decks do: search their library.
    -What SB card do most of them have: FoV.
    -Now that you've forced them to care about Bolt, but Daze and Blasts still don't matter, and they mostly play FoV...what is the SB card you are adding to your deck: Ashiok (which also wins by mill, mills Emrakul out of the game, stops the Loaming)
    -Do we us Ashiok vs Vial: eh, not really; this is why we have access to cards like Torpor Orb and Humility [remember Moat is trash, that needs to be Humility - pretend like you want to beat Skyclave and SnT]

    Dismember is a cascading failure of a card - and we don't need to play a single game to know how it's going to end poorly. So yes, there's a huge difference between Bolt and Dismember
    Last edited by Fox; 05-20-2021 at 03:24 PM.

  9. #4629

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Any feedback on my current Dreadstill list?

    1 Snow-Covered Forest
    2 Snow-Covered Island
    3 Wasteland
    4 Mishra's Factory
    1 Waterlogged Grove
    2 Tropical Island
    8 Fetchlands

    3-4 Standstill
    4 Delver of the Secrets
    2 Noble Hierarch
    1 Brazen Borrower

    2 Torpor Orb
    4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
    4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
    4 Stifle
    4 Force of Will
    4 Brainstorm
    3-4 Ponder
    2 Daze
    1 Flusterstorm

    Sideboard:
    13 Other Sideboard Cards
    2 Scroll of Fate - Add to Torpor Orb against matchups where Dreadnought combo or Uro is the only way to race them or against control decks that play creatures with ETB effects. Swap in place of Torpor Orb vs slow controllish decks that either play Uro or do not play cards like Baleful Strix, Snapcaster Mage, Stoneforge Mystic or Skyclave Apparition.

    The deck's three best plays are either Turn 1 creature (Delver/Noble) into Turn 2 Standstill. Or Turn 2 StifleNought. Or Turn 2 Torpor Orb into Turn 3 Uro/Dreadnought. Torpor Orb is very fast and is incidental hate against 80% of the format

    I am going back and forth between the above list and my Kroxa based list (similar but plays Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Kroxa, Bonecrusher Giant and Lazav in place of Standstill, Delver, Uro, Noble Hierach and Brazen B respectively).

  10. #4630
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    UG has some significant problems with keeping Standstill castable off the top due to a lack of interactive cards. Any build has to start with 8x perfect Fetches and a lot of snow-lands for 3-4x Ice-Fang. This is your Delver-killing card, such that you don't need to play your own Delver to threaten to trade on blocks. Uro triggers also counter opposing Delver attacks. Ice-Fang and Uro both kill Goyf. The Delvers do need to go in favor of Reclaimer; and we note that we'll be playing at least 2x GSZ.

    For as many problems as we just solved with Ice-Fang and Uro, we don't have a deck that has begun to support Standstill or Dreadnought. One thing to be aware of with Ice-Fang is that there are better lands to sleeve up (and tutor with Reclaimer) than Factory, which isn't good enough compensation for losing a snow-land. You already have the CA on Uro, and you're not getting tools from the Standstill side to cover the removal problem; this is where we move away from Standstill and specialize towards Nought. Also let's take a moment and recognize Uro gives life, Library turns life into cards, and unlike Standstill you can jam Library into any board state.

    We have the best on-color removal we can, we have this Uro ramping and GY use with escape, and the ability to tutor up Reclaimer which then tutors up any land, and we have this knowledge that throwing away snow-lands will undercut our removal ideas.

    Here you can play a normal legacy Uro pile [likely dropping the GSZ and Reclaimer ideas], or you can take everything that is happening and do something a generic Uro pile can't.

    The thing generic Uro piles can't do is justify Stifle targeting Lotus Field -> use Lotus Field to cast Nissa of the 5/5s -> send that Lotus Field as a hexproof 5/5 to the dome or opposing PW. If a deck fights over Stifle of Lotus, you can just sac 2 lands and have that much more Uro escape food. Beginning on land drop #3 you can cast Uro and choose to dump in Lotus off the trigger,, effectively ignoring the ETB tapped clause; and Reclaimer was going to bring it into play tapped anyways.

    You haven't really offered any sequence this far where an opponent can 2-for-1 you. Though variance is up, so is the power. Keep following the philosophy as you add in the Nought stuff:
    -Scroll main, not Torpor.
    -Karn main; no more turning on opposing Surgical any more than you have to.
    -Arbor is the only mana dork; recall the 2x GSZ.
    -FoN x2 main; these will be slower games, so no killing yourself by topdecking Daze.
    -We're not playing Ponder; that secondary cantrip almost certainly lacks 4 slots, and is definitely worse than going up cards with Library (Plow Nought = +3 cards. No way Ponder is anywhere near adequate compensation in this spot).
    -Lots of tutoring, recursive loops, and synergy going on here; we need slots not things like Uro #3 and 4 or Dreadnought #4.

    The list can be found buried in this thread and also in the thread @Clark Kant started in R&D section. The main problem is that casting Verdict off of Lotus is still the best removal you can get in otherwise straight-UG.
    ---
    You have to stop giving opponents ways back into the game. Topdecking Daze, Delver in a deck not counting to 20, playing into wrath with Noble - every single one of these are trashy topdecks after turn 2. No putting Noughts on the stack and letting people brazenly bounce your enabler [Torpor]. No playing Ponder after gifting all this interactive weakness to the opponent - you dont need selection, you need to go up cards...and Uro is getting hit by Surgical so you better have a backup CA source [that you can actually cast into whatever board state].

  11. #4631
    Bald. Bearded. Moderator.
    Mr. Safety's Avatar
    Join Date

    Nov 2010
    Location

    Hell in a Nutshell
    Posts

    5,246

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by Clark Kant View Post
    Any feedback on my current Dreadstill list?

    1 Snow-Covered Forest
    2 Snow-Covered Island
    3 Wasteland
    4 Mishra's Factory
    1 Waterlogged Grove
    2 Tropical Island
    8 Fetchlands

    3-4 Standstill
    4 Delver of the Secrets
    2 Noble Hierarch
    1 Brazen Borrower

    2 Torpor Orb
    4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
    4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
    4 Stifle
    4 Force of Will
    4 Brainstorm
    3-4 Ponder
    2 Daze
    1 Flusterstorm

    Sideboard:
    13 Other Sideboard Cards
    2 Scroll of Fate - Add to Torpor Orb against matchups where Dreadnought combo or Uro is the only way to race them or against control decks that play creatures with ETB effects. Swap in place of Torpor Orb vs slow controllish decks that either play Uro or do not play cards like Baleful Strix, Snapcaster Mage, Stoneforge Mystic or Skyclave Apparition.

    The deck's three best plays are either Turn 1 creature (Delver/Noble) into Turn 2 Standstill. Or Turn 2 StifleNought. Or Turn 2 Torpor Orb into Turn 3 Uro/Dreadnought. Torpor Orb is very fast and is incidental hate against 80% of the format

    I am going back and forth between the above list and my Kroxa based list (similar but plays Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Kroxa, Bonecrusher Giant and Lazav in place of Standstill, Delver, Uro, Noble Hierach and Brazen B respectively).
    I don't think it's necessary to play Standstill if you're playing Uro and Ice-Fangs. Both of those are fine ways of recouping cards lost to Dreadnought and give velocity. Ponder doesn't play very well with Standstill either, but I think Ponder plays a lot better with IceFangs and Uros. I would straight up cut the Standstills and replace with Ice fangs. I would also cut 1 Torpor Orb and 1 Delver of Secrets (more on that below) for the other 2 Noble Hierarchs. They help you play Uros, play around Daze, help with getting a combat edge, and overall just advance your game plan really nicely. You could even look into playing something a little higher on the curve like Jace, the Mind Sculptor if you wanted to as well, although I don't think Jace is what he used to be in Legacy.

    Regardless of what you do, you have a serious Delver-flipping problem. You don't have nearly enough spells to flip it reliably. Even with Uro stealing graveyard cards, maybe Tarmogoyf or Hooting Mandrils would be better suited in the Delver slots. I also agree with Fox that Scroll of Fate is a very important card, for any version of Stiflenought. I think it's worth the Delver slots as well.

    Without Standstill, if you go that route, Mishra's Factory gets a little less important, too. More Snow-Covered basics, maybe even another Waterlogged Grove, would be good at establishing a base for Ice Fangs. Maybe even a Mystic Sanctuary or 2 would be ok.
    Brainstorm Realist

    I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner

  12. #4632
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Hierarch is a trap card; messes up Stifle early, marginally better midgame, and super suspect late game. It is also going to fail to incentivize an opponent to discard their removal [so you just killed your own Dreadnoughts, and maybe even played into a 2-for-1 wrath]. It's also fairly important that the deck can kill Karn with its dudes (Ice-Fang already took this space of dude that can't kill Karn). Hierarch creates more problems than it solves, so just play an Arbor and 2x GSZ...or play an Uro/Ice-Fang/Hierarch deck without Nought or Stifle.

    Mystic Sanctuary is a bad card. The only reason to include is if a deck can necro a value card or 2-for-1. It gets even worse if your U source can't cast Stifle. When you discard a card to the board to lose a draw [necro a 1-for-1], you are generating negative velocity. If the card you necro is a cantrip, you just janked up your manabase to create 1 turn of Mirri's Guile.

  13. #4633

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Excellent feedback Fox and Mr. Safety. Okay, I will play multiple maindeck Scrolls of Fate and sideboard the Torpor Orbs in against any matchups where they are effective hate or where the velocity of a Turn 3 Dreadnoughts or Uro is critically important.

    I really do want to get Dreadstill working again though, and this is the Dreadstill thread afterall. So I would prefer not to drop Standstill for Ice Fang. Besides, as far as card draw goes, I prefer Dark Confidant to Ice Fang. Confidant immediately draws out any removal your opponent is holding thus making it far more likely that your Dreadnought will stick around for 2 turns. And if Confidant sticks around, it deals a lot more damage and draws a lot more cards than Ice Fang. Between the lifegain from Uro and the size of Uro and Dreadnought, your guys are going to be bigger than anything your opponent has.

    Turn 1 threats (Delver+Noble) are essential alongside the Factories to making a turn 2 Standstill playable. It doesn't much matter if Delver takes multiple turns to flip, you can spend as long pinging your opponent for 1 damage with a Noble or Delver as they will let you, since this deck has excellent late game thanks to Uro, and each ping gets them one step closer to a single Dreadnought swing finishing them off. But perhaps MoM is better than Delver as a turn 1 threat that also protects our Dreadnoughts and Uros.

  14. #4634
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    UG does not play Standstill b/c it can't get ahead, stay ahead, nor keep Standstill live off the top. This is a spot removal and Wrath problem. You also need to be able to deal with known problems like Leo/Narset/Chains/Hullbreacher and Karn and the idea of uncounterability; otherwise the deck does nothing.

    Standstill and Dreadnought aren't about doing a linear thing and ignoring that huge problems exist which stop you flat. You begin construction against worst case scenarios, build around them, and tick each one off the list until you come out with a deck. Build backwards, not forward. Forward construction is for modern.

    Have a plan for the stuff listed above and as many of these as possible: Goyf, Counterbalance, Hymn/SCM, Echo/LED, Uro, Thassa, E-Bridge, Vial, Shepherd, Depths, Chalice, SnT, and GY-using combo.

    Building a deck is easy; like I can make artifacts and Thoughtcast + Reverse Engineer + TFK, but at the end of the day it's dead on construction b/c it can't work around problems. Drawing all the cards for the sake of drawing cards isn't really a solvent gameplan.

  15. #4635

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    That's pretty insightful Fox.

    I would be curious to see how your Dreadstill list looks so I could see how it plans for all those different problems that you mentioned.

  16. #4636
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Below is a non-exhaustive list [for UW Dreadstill] with a mix of SB, maindeck, and Karn wish interactions. Making 12/12s is seldom important.

    -If Goyf: Plow, Verdict, Karn wish EE-type, ambush-block with 12/12 and Scroll
    -If CB: try to resolve Scroll or get a PW and turn off their Brainstorm...or in strange games Karn -> Liquimetal -> Coat CB, animate, kill spell. Postboard remove their library from the game (Ashiok).
    -If Hymn: activate Scroll response to discard, dome them with manlands if Teferi active (or YOLO them if tokens from Field or Urza's). Pursue gameplan of protecting Standstill, target mana denial at red if possible. Board in Mastery of the Unseen, velocity-positive yard hate (Ashiok, Relic-types). In general, keep SCM away from GY recursion.
    -If Echo: fast Noughts & build to Karn. Use Powder Keg and Rain of Salt their artifact lands.
    -If Uro: kill their GY, Plow it, Karakas it. Focus on their PWs as the anti-Uro cards don't usually affect PWs.
    -If Thassa: Stifle, crack Standstill to mill out, Ashiok. Consider Humility.
    -If E-Bridge: manifest Dreadnought -> uptick JVP to make Nought 0/2 -> swing and flip to deal 10. Crack Standstill into them to turn off Bridge. Tef bounce. Karn animate Bridge -> kill spell.
    -If Vial: build to Karn & Torpor, build to Scroll, build to Humility. Make them hemorrhage Wisp triggers trying to kill donated illusions.
    -If Shepherd: build to Humility, Torpor, wraths +/- instant speed, turn off payoff spells with Ethersworn/Ashiok/Mystic Reflection. Stifle Craterhoof trigger.
    -If Depths: Karakas, Plow, Wasteland, Reflection, Teferi vs Crop Rot types, Humility.
    -If Chalice: Tef bounce, Karn uptick, tap Scroll.
    -If SnT: establish Teferi passive, Humility, Ethersworn. Consider letting SnT resolve (dump in Typhoon or Scroll) and fight after. Karakas if appropriate. It's mostly a race to 7 perms while staying above 15 life. Ashiok to stop Shared Summons.
    -If GY combo: race with 12/12s. Consider killing Bridges with Shark cycle for 0 and suicide Noughts. Build to Karn for yard hates. Karakas if appropriate. Build to Ashiok.

  17. #4637

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Wow. That's awesome and very exhaustive. Thanks.

  18. #4638

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Dreadnought decks just got a new tool...

    Disapprove 1U
    Enchantment
    Flash

    When ~ enters the battlefield, draw a card.

    Creatures lose all abilities.

    At the beginning of the next end step, sacrifice ~.

    Its basically a Stifle that only effects creatures and costs 1 more but it also cantrips which is nice. Counters Scourge of the Skyclaves, Thassa's Oracle, Prime Times ETB etc.

    The big plus is that it avoids 2 for 1s, since you can cast it first and then cast Dreadnought only if it resolves, and you still get to draw a card regardless.

    Also has corner uses like removing hexproof or indestructible from your opponents creatures. If you cast it after Ice fang deals deathtouch damage to an indestructible creature, does the indestructible creature die?

    Not sure its superior to Torpor Orb or Scroll of Fate but it atleast pitches to FoW/FoN/MisD so might be worth testing.

  19. #4639
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    It's a far better card than Torpor Orb; it replaces itself. It also hits Emrakul's protections, Lage's indestructible, strips Hexdrinker's level text, strips Thassa, hits every ETB played by dude decks, and acts like a Cursed Totem for a turn (vs Mother of Runes for example)...all of those things and more, while making Dreadnoughts....and you wait and EoT it, you untap, make Noughts, and even buy it back with Teferi bounce if UW.

    It's the first card in a long time that has looked good for StifleNought specifically. You don't get quite as dumpstered by Surgical target Nought with this card as compared to stacking Torpor-types...but this also doesn't replace Scroll. So there is this problem where you want Scroll and Disapprove....and Karn to beat Surgical & Chalice...and Teferi to do the rebuy trick and have the passive for Scroll.....so you kind of actually do want to be on UW Dreadstill...and uh...we're going to add 1-2x already.

    So the question becomes why should we reward opponents for playing kill spells by going all-in on 4x Disapprove? Why are we playing this without Bolt or Teferi/Plow?

    Especially on the UW side, why are we not also still playing UW Dreadstill and adding a free 1x Suspend. It's just a 5th Plow with Teferi passive, it plays nicely with followup Standstill. It saves Dreadnought. It casts anything I manifest face-down with Scroll like it's SnT....so I just wish for something stupid with Karn without any significant deckbuilding drawback.

    I just don't see the advantage to trying to capitalize on this and not play Standstill with Dreadnought...but like ya, StifleNought does a limited amount of things with it. It looks a lot better than sitting on useless redundant copies of Torpor effects. Rite of Undoing starts looking a lot better than Brazen again.

  20. #4640

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Why is humility blue ???

    Why is Yawgmoth will green ??

    Nothing makes sense this set

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)