[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

[GGoober]

Chii, I haven't tested Conclave but from experiences losing Factories to survive an aggro rush, it's a pretty terrible feeling (losing that landdrop is quite sad), and a 2/1 Faerie hardly kills anything except tribal. Do you find yourself chump blocking to survive often?

If no, then I think Colonnade maybe better on paper (never tested it), since I personally use my Manlands to win-games late game (5+ mana out). I usually don't risk swinging with manlands early since I'll be either tapping out or risk losing my land to an stP or have to counter their StP wasting my counterspell and opening myself to an opposing goyfs.

I can see the strengths in Colonnade. I've played it in some Standard and although being quite expensive to activate, it was a great win-condition. I think its main selling point is that it is left untapped after attacking and fucking FLIES to eat Planeswalkers, or the flying is great at racing when you're in the mid-game. I personally see myself playing 2 Colonnades over 2 Faeries since I never ever want to block and lose my creatures unless I'm forced to survive (to which I'm already in a bad position unless I can topdeck Jace or Scepter). What's nice about Colonnade is that it provides a similar win-condition like the good old Eternal Dragon but doesn't cost a non-land card slot in deck design (although most people treat EDragon as a landdrop slot in their decks). Colonnade is also quite beastly under Humility O_O

I might test it out in a heavier UW list with minimal splash color. Keep us updated kiblast.

[kiblast]

I can see the strengths in Colonnade. I've played it in some Standard and although being quite expensive to activate, it was a great win-condition. I think its main selling point is that it is left untapped after attacking and fucking FLIES to eat Planeswalkers, or the flying is great at racing when you're in the mid-game. I personally see myself playing 2 Colonnades over 2 Faeries since I never ever want to block and lose my creatures unless I'm forced to survive (to which I'm already in a bad position unless I can topdeck Jace or Scepter). What's nice about Colonnade is that it provides a similar win-condition like the good old Eternal Dragon but doesn't cost a non-land card slot in deck design (although most people treat EDragon as a landdrop slot in their decks). Colonnade is also quite beastly under Humility O_O

I might test it out in a heavier UW list with minimal splash color. Keep us updated kiblast.

Yeah Metalwarker, basically everything you said is true and describes perfectly why i'm running it. It is way more complete and resilient than Faerie Conclave, but it's used at the peak of its potential only in a very third-color light build. My build runs no black cards maindeck, so i can fetch only for U/W all the time, and then post side the black splash gets in...
Trust me, swinging for 4 flying damages, and then have him untapped to block again feels like omnipotence on the board; although this is achievable only on turn 11th-12th at least, but when you get there...it's quite beastly :)

[ChiiMagic]

Chii, I haven't tested Conclave but from experiences losing Factories to survive an aggro rush, it's a pretty terrible feeling (losing that landdrop is quite sad), and a 2/1 Faerie hardly kills anything except tribal. Do you find yourself chump blocking to survive often?

Not too often, because with my build the mana is way more important to the game plan, but I vividly remember getting to trade my faerie conclave up for a Gaddock Teeg and Vendilion Clique on different occaisons. To be honest, I still haven't had an opportunity to play ANY legacy since GenCon worlds, so this huge surge in survival's popularity hasn't impacted me at all, and my deck is still geared for slightly older metagame. I might want to look into the prospect of the Colonade again, but I might want to wait until after the December banning to see how things shift if anything takes place.
Which brings me to my next point.do you guys think survival is going to get banned? And if so, how do you see the metagame shifting, and do you think a ban in survival would bring more players back to UW Landstill?

[JamieW89]

I'm currently on this list:

// Main: 60
4x Brainstorm
3x Standstill
2x Top
2x Jace, TMS

4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Engineered Explosives
2x Firespout
2x Elspeth, KE
2x Pithing Needle

4x Force of Will
3x Spell Snare
2x Counterspell
1x Spell Pierce

4x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
4x Tundra
2x Volcanic Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Scrubland
2x Island
2x Plains
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Celestial Colonnade

// Side: 15
4x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Peacekeeper
3x Extirpate
2x Path to Exile
2x Perish
1x Firespout

Concerns:
My main issue with this list is that I don't have alot against control, which might be problematic.
The 2 Peedles main could also be paths, vindicates or something else.
I might replace the 4th Tundra with the 4th Delta as fetch is awesome in 4c.
I don't like top in quite a few matchups. I could cut it for the 4th standstill and something else.

[mossivo1986]

JamieW89

I looked at your list and I really feel like it suffers from trying to be too cute. Land still is all about redundancy, and while a lot of times there are one ofs in the arch type they usually have a designed purpose specifically for meta game choices. Now as you didn't mention anything about your specific meta game i'm going to assume that you were thinking "slick tech bro" syndrome.

1x Celestial Colonnade
2x Pithing Needle (main)
1x Spell Pierce (main)
2 black duals with 3 pate in the board

1. Celestial Colonnade
This is legacy. Thats not going to be a difference maker. Unlike Monestary which costs two and thresh, this costs five and doesn't win you the game. Sure it's super sweet and gets around choke, but is that really what you had in mind as a win condition?

Clearly landstill "could" play this card, but I think the real question is does it "need to." Also Landstill hasn't had the ability to run CITPT lands since the format banned Mana Drain.

2. Pithing Needle
You didn't address what reasoning you had for even playing this card in the maindeck. Sure postboard its a fine card to side into specific matchups. I think clearly Path is the stronger answer preboard due to the immense aggro decks in this format that you would side it in against anyways. Simply put right now there are fewer times where you side path out then where you would side needle in.

3. Spell Pierce
Why is this in your deck? Your not a tempo oriented strategy IE canadian thresh, merfolk, bant, etc, and you don't run wasteland to make this at all effective. Cut it immediately. You run 4 cannonist post-board, so clearly your alittle combo heavy, but I think playing a 3rd counterspell is a much better option then wasting the slot on a tempo counter.

4. 2 Black Duals, 3 Extirpate.
This is just a "feeling" to me, but it feels wrong. Yes I know you have access to these duals through fetches, but then against firespout "feels" wrong to me in landstill right now as well.

0 Wasteland/ Dust bowl is clearly a mistake

[GGoober]

0 Wasteland/ Dust bowl is clearly a mistake

Very true. I have been trying to cut Wastelands due to the colored requirements of the deck but I felt that not running at least 2 Wastelands costs me more games than the color screw. You need to be able to answer Manlands and opposing ports in the tougher matchups. Landstill will never preemptively waste opponent's lands, but when you need to (against combo, if you get wastelock), it becomes an option. But I say that 2 Wasteland should be a minimum.

@Needle: There's seldom dead targets just as there's seldom dead targets for Stifles and Extirpates, but here I agree with moss. The main thing why Extirpate is still a bad maindeck card despite the current meta is due to the couple of reasons why good cards like Needle are still bad in the MD:

- Needle/Pate win games by themselves. That's true. But without Needles/Pate, you should still be able to win the games that you could have won without them. Needle/Pate will cost games where they are irrelevant or become dead draws. So you have to weigh whether you are truly expecting a meta that requires Needle/Pate to win games. If you can alwready have a favorable game without Needle/Pate (e.g. against VV just pack more Paths/StP that are great against a ton of other decks), then move those to the SB.

However if the meta is so skewed like Standard affinity v.s. anti-affinity, then MD Annul becomes totally a viable option (referring to Nassif's anti-affinity UW Exalted Angel control deck). But at this point, Survival is dominant, but nowhere as threatening as Flash Hulk etc. In fact, Landstill is one of those decks that already have a better matchup against Survival than other decks even without too much changes to the older lists. We all agree that more swords is better, UWb is better, Humility is stronger than WoG against Vengevival.

[JamieW89]

I actually do agree with you on the Peedles, they don't belong in the main. Now the question is what to replace them with? I'm considering Vindicates, Cunning Wishes and Path to Exiles mainly.
The wishes are a tad slow and take up extra SB slots (although I'd have the Path and Extirpate in there anyways), but offers some very nice versatility. It also ups the blue count, which is never a bad thing.
Vindicates are the swiss army knife of magic, but I don't like the WB in the manacost.
Paths are cheap removal and a great card in important matchups such as aggro and Vengevival.

The singleton Spell Pierce can counter vials, discard etc. T1 on the play. It might be a little random and the 4th Snare or 3rd CS is probably better in its place. I think I'd replace it with the 4th snare if I would.

I'm liking the deck without wastelands though. They often served as a colorless land for me, and without Vindicate I was winning less games on LD anyways. Ofcourse destroying a utility land is very good, but it color-screwed me more often than it won me a game by destroying a manland or the like.
Because of this I want to limit the colorless lands to 5. I played the 4 Factories and 1 Ruins before but ruins didn't really do that much for me either so I'm testing the Colonnade in its place now. I could also play 1 Dust Bowl or even 3 Factory/2 Waste.

I play 4 colors to be able to play Firespout (and to a lesser extent: EE on 4). It's better than WoG against goblins and miles better than WoG against merfolk. It's also on time against EtW tokens more often and it kills vengevines just as good (or bad really). This makes my manabase fairly unstable. I will probably go up to 8 fetches (and I'll actually drop the 4th Tundra to do so). So despite only having 2 red and 2 black duals I still have 10 cards in the deck which can be one of them. As noted before, this is a reason not to play wastelands, as I'd have to cut 2 lands (and colonnade) to make room for them. I don't like 5-6 fetch with 4 colors and I cannot go below 2 black/2 red/3 tundra either. And not playing basics is just something I don't like, even in this 4c shell.

Sideboard space is also an issue. I want to play quite a few cards.. Assuming I'm playing the list posted above with wishes, how would you arrange the sideboard?
I'm thinking about something like this:
4 Ethersworn Canonist (I love em, they make combo a good matchup in g2/3)
3 Peacekeeper (Great card against merfolk and quite a few other decks)
2 Perish (Against bant, elf and goyf decks that still exist somewhere)
2 Path to Exile (Good spot removal and wishable)
1 Pulse of the Fields (Best wishtarget evar)
1 Negate (Wishing for a counter is nice)
1 Extirpate (I could play more, but is there really a need?)
1 Enlightened Tutor (Finding humility/top/EE/standstill can be pretty nice) - Should I play 1 Moat/1 Humility if I do this?

This means I miss out on Needle (good against vials, survivals, wastelands and quite a bit more), plagues (which still ruin goblins and people actually play elves sometimes as well here) and quite a few other cards I'd like to squeeze in there.

[kiblast]

1. Celestial Colonnade
This is legacy. Thats not going to be a difference maker. Unlike Monestary which costs two and thresh, this costs five and doesn't win you the game. Sure it's super sweet and gets around choke, but is that really what you had in mind as a win condition?

Clearly landstill "could" play this card, but I think the real question is does it "need to." Also Landstill hasn't had the ability to run CITPT lands since the format banned Mana Drain.

4. 2 Black Duals, 3 Extirpate.
This is just a "feeling" to me, but it feels wrong. Yes I know you have access to these duals through fetches, but then against firespout "feels" wrong to me in landstill right now as well.

0 Wasteland/ Dust bowl is clearly a mistake

1. I know this is legacy. But I've been testing celestial lately and it has proven to be quite strong, both as a board cotroller, and as a finisher. It blocks all those flying critters like Serra Avenger, Hypnotic specter and bitterblossom tokens. It removes planeswalkers by flying over the enemy lines.Wins games. I'm not saying that it should be THE win con, but has been impressive for me. I'm playing a very land heavy build with 26 lands, with the only win condition provided by manlands. On MWS (we all know that is not a very reliable testing device though) has proven to be reliable. I know it sounds absurd, but it's actually possible to win only through manlands...

4. I play the black splash. 2 black duals, 1 swamp, 4 polluteds. 3 Extirpate, 3 E-Plague and 2 Perish in sb. It works good. Instead of Firespout I maideck 2 Wrath of God, but I play 2 additional spot removal in the form of 2 Path to Exile.

One last thing: 3x Wasteland are mandatory imho.

[Royal Ass.]

I was wondering if anyone has tried running Mimic Vat? I realize it doesn't have a lot of synergy with Swords, but would with Wrath and Standstill. Plus the deck feels like it needs a 3 drop in its mana curve. I just ordered a playset of Standstills on ebay and am looking forward to putting this deck together.

[GGoober]

Vat will probably be alright in UGb landstill but I doubt even they would run it in place of other playables (Deeds, EE, more counters can never go wrong). UWx Landstill can't support Vat since you only get to Wrath once in a game if you're ever running wrath, everything else is EE, StP, and EE has a chance on blowing your vat up.

[Mana Drain]

The deck already has a host of playable, proven cards that Vat really can't compete with. Vedalken Shackles, Crucible, Vindicate, Firespout, and to the unproven but still more effective, little Jace (don't knock him until you try him). More importantly, it takes 6 mana and a removal spell that isn't Swords to have any effect on the gamestate whatsoever.

Also, the lack of three drops in Landstill is partly due to it generally being the main "try-to-stabilize" turn, either by Swording a dude and leaving Counterspell up, countermana + Factory block, or Firespout sweep. This is generally followed by a PW/Moat/Humility/WoG, which have far more impact on the gamestate and is a series of plays which more than likely result in a win. All of the cards mentioned above are also great in the lategame in addition to being useful in the early game, whereas Vat just sits on the table until you draw Vindicate/WoG/Firespout/EE, while Goofy beats you mercilessly with his hideous arms (or whatever those things are).

[mossivo1986]

The deck already has a host of playable, proven cards that Vat really can't compete with. Vedalken Shackles, Crucible, Vindicate, Firespout, and to the unproven but still more effective, little Jace (don't knock him until you try him). More importantly, it takes 6 mana and a removal spell that isn't Swords to have any effect on the gamestate whatsoever.

Also, the lack of three drops in Landstill is partly due to it generally being the main "try-to-stabilize" turn, either by Swording a dude and leaving Counterspell up, countermana + Factory block, or Firespout sweep. This is generally followed by a PW/Moat/Humility/WoG, which have far more impact on the gamestate and is a series of plays which more than likely result in a win. All of the cards mentioned above are also great in the lategame in addition to being useful in the early game, whereas Vat just sits on the table until you draw Vindicate/WoG/Firespout/EE, while Goofy beats you mercilessly with his hideous arms (or whatever those things are).

Took the words out of my mouth, I completely agree with everything you just said.

I would also like to add that it is this specific reasoning which makes cards like Colonnade and such not only win/more, but just not useful comparatively to playing a safer manabase or playing a more redundant deck. I'm not downing you for talking about this card, because I think I mentioned it before when the land was spoiled; but after testing it quickly became clear that you'd rather play better cards.

Your examples of what collonade does "Serra Avenger, Hypnotic specter and bitterblossom tokens" arn't relivent. I take that back, killing opposing Mind sculpters matters, but how often is that really happening? But creatures, are not the reason to run a 5 drop manland that comes into play tapped. Not to mention that if you pay 5 mana to get your land removed its like the worst time walk ever.

[mossivo1986]

I've been testing this model to some good results. I haven't played in sanctioned play with it yet, but I wouldn't at all be against it.

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [B] Island (2)
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [B] Tundra
1 [B] Underground Sea
1 [B] Scrubland
3 [JGC] Mishra's Factory
3 [TE] Wasteland
3 [B] Plains (1)

// Creatures
1 [SC] Eternal Dragon

// Spells
3 [B] Counterspell
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
1 [TE] Humility
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [OD] Standstill
2 [IN] Fact or Fiction
2 [SC] Decree of Justice
2 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 [JU] Cunning Wish
2 [CFX] Path to Exile
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [B] Wrath of God

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 1 [B] Counterspell
SB: 3 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 [DS] Pulse of the Fields
SB: 1 [6E] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 2 [US] Planar Void
SB: 2 [CFX] Path to Exile

I tried to give the board as many extra slots as I could while giving the deck the answers that it absolutely has. I think the md perhaps needs another humility. A third wish wouldn't hurt either. The counterspell in the board probobly needs to be a negate; it comes in against storm obviously. Planar void could probobly be 3, but I feel semi comfortable at 2 with all the testing ive done with dredge.

[GGoober]

I took a spin with Landstill this week and did alright (missing Top 4 at my local tourney losing 2 games which were very close games)

Lands: 23
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
3 Island
2 Plains

3 Engineered Explosives

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Counterbalance
4 Counterspell
2 Isochron Scepter
3 Standstill

2 Cunning Wish
1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Humility
2 Jace
2 Elspeth

4 Force of Will

SB:
1 Path to Exile
1 ETutor
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Orim's Chant
3 Negates
3 Extirpate
3 Engineered Plague
2 Peacekeeper

The list was strong. It's a unconventional list running Top + Counterbalance + Scepter. I won't go too much into defending the card choices because this list was cooked up playing Countertop Landstill and Scepterstill Landstill over a period of 1 to 2 years.

The main highlights and strategic decisions in designing the deck are the following points:
1) I want to survive the early game.
My arsenal: 4 StP, 4 Force, 3 EE. I am losing 3 Spell Snares, but if my metagame demands it, I'll cut the wishes/wishboard and a Crucible to add in 3 Spell Snares. 3 Path could be another option but IMO it is inferior since the deck design takes into account of the need for more paths. The only situation I see more Paths relevant on turn 1 against decks in Legacy is: Goblins, which I already have a good matchup pre/postboard.

2) I want to maximize the power level of my cards i.e. every card I play has to be mana efficient for what it does
This dawned onto me one day (actually over 2 years) when playing the deck. Sweepers are quite critical in Landstill but my eventual opinion was: sweepers are only RELEVANT/critical depending on the meta and deck design. Landstill decks designing to sweep with Firespout/Wrath are designed to allow some threats to pass through, and force an opponent to overextend e.g. dropping Elspeth/Jace/Humility and then sealing a game with sweepers. Over years of playing, I realized that this concept was a fundamentally flawed one. Because in situations where you are setting up the game state to sweep, you have already won the game i.e. if you want your opponents to overextend, you already have won the game based on the strengths of your answers/cards. However, in situations where you lack the cards and your opponents have a crazy board, you lost. Part of the error comes with deck design. When you design a deck with sweepers, you are ultimately using the slots of sweepers over slots which could have been used to stop that situation from occuring. This lost could have been prevented if you chose a different deck design philosophy: "I do not want the board state to reach the situation where a sweeper is required to win games." And I cannot stress, at least from my personal experience/views, that the shift away from the 'sweeper' philosophy of Landstill to one that is based purely on looking at threat density v.s. answer has changed the way I view Landstill. It not only opens up more ideas to what I can play around with Landstill, but I think all in all, it's just a better philosophy. You do not want to create boardstates where you win games by sweeping, because when you fail to do so, you lose. You want to always play the control role, and never get anything out of hand. You do have 3 EEs to sweep, and they are good enough in most situations when you can get it at a two for 1. In addition, I think EE is the only true-deserving mini sweeper to be included in Landstill even if you perhaps want to go an entirely non-sweeping mentality. This is because of the flexibility of EE, and its ability to hit even non-creatures. And this flexibility is quite efficiently costed. EE is just truly beautiful in Landstill. I can never justify dropping to 2 EE (I tried) even when taking redundancy into deck design. Cards have to be dropped before the 3rd EE is considered to be dropped.

Cards that fall under this category in my decklist (lot of value for very low converted mana-cost) include:
- Brainstorm
- Swords to Plowshares
- Top
- Standstill
- Counterbalance
- Engineered Explosives
- Crucible
- Jace/Elspeth
- Humility
- Isochron Scepter

Cards that do not fall under this category (e.g. they are mostly 1-1) include:
- Force of Will (1-2 but seriously, it's just the best out there)
- Cunning Wish (it doesn't do too much, but is quite an important piece in an unknown meta).

You notice that in my list the overall curve of the deck has fallen tremendously. I used to run 2 FoF and 2 Crucibles, but I realized that running Tops did just as well in filtering relevant cards and maintaining landdrops, and is argubly sometimes more relevant than bombs like FoF/Crucible. The basis of the decklist fell on a single card: Isochron Scepter.

This card is quite underrated/undiscussed in Landstill. When I was playing Scepterstill basing off Chii's winning lists, there was one thing I noted. Scepterchant was quite potent game one, but the true culprit was Scepter itself. Scepter without Chant is very brutal, but it does the most important thing for Landstill: creating answers that do not require any card resources. If your Scepter resolves with StP/Counterspell, you will always be up 2 cards a turn (1 from answering your opponent's play, 1 from you not needing to spend the card since it was imprinted on Scepter). The only answers that hit Scepter game 1 are: EE, Pridemage, Vindicate, Pernicious Deeds, out of which Pridemage is most widely played, but you can always setup with a Plow before resolving Scepter. The power of Scepter becomes weaker in game 2/3 when they board in answers e.g. Grips/Trygons, but the whole story is: If they do not deal with Scepter in a turn, Scepter will simply become a 2 for 2 most of the time, and will continue to become a x for 2 until the opponent answers it.

Playing lists with/without Scepter made me realize that whenever I played Scepter, I had a better chance at winning games, mostly from
1) Opponents not being able to answer it and lose to it
2) Opponents answer it with a Force, to which I 2-1'd them, and eventually bring it back with Academy Ruins
3) I just generated way too much advantage with Scepter.

You can say all you want how Scepter is bad in Landstill, but this has been my approach taking a non-sweeper perspective of Landstill and into one that is focused on maintaining a non-sweeping game state. Scepter does quite important in that respect. Postboard, Scepter becomes stupid against control/combo decks when you add in 3 Extirpates, 3 Negates, some Chants.

Counterbalance made its way into my list because I am constantly dropping 2 Tops in and out of Landstill. Tops alone didn't really do much in Landstill despite still being incredibly awesome since it fixes draws/lands while at the same time being a mini card'draw' in the deck. The more I played, the more I wanted Tops but could not justify it in a list that didn't truly abuse Top. That is when I looked into Countertop again in Landstill. I dislike Countertop in Landstill but playing more games made me realize the strengths of Landstill over regular Coutnertop lists.

It was simple: Standstill. Countertop has no Standstill but Landstill has Standstill, in synergy with manlands, and the ability to play 4 Planeswalkers and argubly more answers. Now, the question becomes, is Countertop truly good with Standstills + manlands? Countertop is inherently a control deck, but the purest form of control is Landstill since Countertop v.s. Landstill has Landstill taking on the control role. Initially I dismissed Counterbalance in Landstill because it didn't do much for the deck, but the more I realized the shift of my sweeper mentality into a non-sweeper mentality, Counterbalance became a crucial piece in the puzzle. I needed a card, that could generate me advantage over turns if it resolves. You do blind flip Counterbalance once in awhile but you have 4 Brainstorms, 3 Tops, 2 Jace, and possibly 2 Scepter/Brainstorm to filter it. Your curve primarily focuses on 1/2, and will give some decent chances with blindflipping. Putting technicalities aside, Counterbalance has performed tremendously well in my list. One big reason was: I have a lot of things my opponents have to answer: Top, Counterbalance, Isochron Scepter, Planeswalkers. The amount of must-answers in my deck increases the chances of either my Countertop engine or Scepter-engine sticking in play.

Counterbalance + Standstill + Top also provides you with even more digging to flip for Counterbalance. You put CB/Standstill trigger on stack, and resolve according if you want to draw 3 first before flipping CB or flip CB before drawing. But the true power of Standstill was improved with the addition of Top. Top not only sets up a board state for Standstill (by digging for answers to clean the board before dropping Standstill), but a Top under Standstill just maximizes your gamestate if they do not crack the Standstill. You will always filter for lands or keep relevant cards in your hand under Standstill with Top. And when they finally cracked Standstill, you draw 3 , and dig 3 deeper with Top. All in all, once again, mana cost-efficiency for what the cards do are key in the philosophy of my card choices and deck design.

There are many games where dropping a Scepter early or Counterbalance early aids in setting up either engine. I think I'm drifting quite off-topic, but this was a list I wanted to share. I worked on it over 2 weeks, but the idea has been there unexplored for over 2 years. I'll probably never drop 2 Scepters off my list when I play Landstill, but I'm still testing configurations of 3 Top, 3 Counterbalance in my list, and testing if this supplments the overall goals of the deck. And to people thinking this deck needs 4 Top and 4 Counterbalance, please go to the Countertop thread. My list is not a Countertop list. It is a Landstill list that uses Countertop as an additional source of resource. And I feel 4 Top + 4 Counterbalance is a weak combination of cards since you are saying that you are solely relying on the back of Countertop to win games, which once again differentiates the differences between Landstill and Countertop (Landstill being the more diverse metagame true-control deck).

[Antonius]

I've brainstormed up this list and look forward to testing it:

4 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Plains
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island

2 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

1 Academy Ruins

3 Jace, TMS

4 Standstill
1 Humility

1 Life from the Loam
3 Firespout

4 Engineered Explosives

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
2 Intuition
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Path to Exile

SB--

2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Sell Pierce
1 Firespout
2 Krosan Grip


The mainboard, for the most part, is pretty standard, with the big new inclusion being intuition + loam (something taken from the ubg playbook) and spout from the red splash. I really want to find room for MD Nature's Claims (soooo hot in the meta right now, such a good card) and maybe more removal in the from of lightning bolt or Fire/Ice. However, there's just not enough room. Only things that might be on the chopping block are an EE or two and Humility. If humility goes, then maybe i can cut the second basic plains, as the deck should run smoothly with 23 lands.

[kiblast]

I had a small (very small) tournament here in my hometown yesterday with an UWb build (3x Enlightened Tutor, 2x Jace, and the rest is almost the standard list) and I realized one thing: you can't beat AggroLoam, unless they screw and we have a damn good hand.I had a 4 rounds swiss, ending 2-1-1 , with my only loss to AggroLoam after a single 48 minutes match. I end up loosing at semi-finals, 0-2 to the same AggroLoam. I'm currently running 3 Enlightened maindeck, with a little tutor box in the main and MU dedicated- box in sb.

My sb was:

2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Extirpate
2 Engineered Plague
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
1 Energy Flux

If they menage to drop turn 1 Chalice at 1, we're basically screwed unless we hit an EE, wich is hard considering that we can't play Brainstorms and Tutor. Even post sb a single Chalice wrecks our entire hate, considering that our only hope is to topdeck a Crypt or transmute into one. I'm considering adding the 3rd-4th spell pierce in sb, so i can have some hope against fast Chalices and Loams. Buying tempo by countering their Loams is not so good, but sometimes you need to do it. I even thought adding a 4th spell snare in sb, considering that their key spells are at 2 cmc (Loam, Chalice at 1, 'Goyf, Confidant). Another option would be a singleton tutorable Karn, to eat his Moxes and Chalices.What do you think?

[Felidae]

I have to admit that I'm still suprised that most of you consider Aggro Loam a real thread, as I never had any problems. My plan was usually to drop G1 as soon as they had Loam + Wasteland (pointless to fight here without a way to remove Loam) and them board in enought hate to smash them G2 /3 .
For reference my sideboard (stand Nov.2010)
3 Meddling Mage
2 Relic
1 Crypt
2 Preacher / Peacekeeper
2 Negate
2 Vindicate
3 Hydroblast

Would you mind sharing your list, as I'm curious about your Enlighted toolbox ( and where you got the place to squeez in 3 Tutors, as I'm allways deperatly looking for space in my list).

[kiblast]

I have to admit that I'm still suprised that most of you consider Aggro Loam a real thread, as I never had any problems. My plan was usually to drop G1 as soon as they had Loam + Wasteland (pointless to fight here without a way to remove Loam) and them board in enought hate to smash them G2 /3 .
For reference my sideboard (stand Nov.2010)
3 Meddling Mage
2 Relic
1 Crypt
2 Preacher / Peacekeeper
2 Negate
2 Vindicate
3 Hydroblast

Would you mind sharing your list, as I'm curious about your Enlighted toolbox ( and where you got the place to squeez in 3 Tutors, as I'm allways deperatly looking for space in my list).

Here's my list:

md:

2 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Academy ruins
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Tundra
1 Tolaria West
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Volcanic Island

3 Engineered Explosives
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Spell snare
3 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Wrath of God
1 Humility
2 Path to Exile
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

sb:

2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Extirpate
2 Engineered Plague
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
1 Energy Flux

I noticed that you use Meddling Mages in sb. Do you side them in against Loam? Calling Loam is really SO helpful considering that they have a lot of way to remove them (Pernicious and EE come to mind)?

[GoldenCid]

In the last posts i noticed in the list you share that yuo're running just 1 PW for the win...elspeth or jace but not both? What is this due to??

[Felidae]

Yeah, I side them in against nearly everthing, Loam,Lands, Enchantress, TES, Ichorid , Control ... the list goes on ;).
And yes calling Loam, Burning Wish or any kind of removal for him is damn helpfull (you do realize that we can handle their removal right?)