Quote Originally Posted by sdematt View Post
But why do you need Stage Depths? You could easily run BUG Stage Depths, just not sure if you need to.
This, the next problem is, how you gonna assemble the DD/Stage combo? Cus that would require some kind of tutor. Even in a grindy MU, chances are low your actually gonna pull off a DD/Stage. The real question is how do you want your games to look like? Dropping all the cuteness and go for BUG Depths. BUG Landstill is a solid deck, it really gained some with Fatal Push, i always felt that besides Decay and Deluge the deck was missing one mana (spot) removal. Push is just what was missing. Deed is there to, but often very slow and to late. Running one Life from the Loam can be very solid, pulling you thru the grind recurring factories, or sometimes force a waste+loam lock.

I have been on Intuition + Life from the Loam a couple of years back. Tried it in several shells, including BUG Landstill, UBg Tezzeret, BUG NicFit and BUG Midrange. Conclusion was that it was really slow and rather soft to gravehate. But if your going to go with something like this:

Intuition: Loam + DD/Stage
Intuition: Loam + Wasteland + ?
Intuition: Loam + Academy Ruins + EE or something
Intuition: Loam + Volrath's Stronghold + creature

Looping Goys or DRS isn't that spectacular, i'd rather navigate Baleful Strix, Vendilion Clique or even stuff like Reclamation Sage or Eternal Witness. While recurring creatures with Stronghold seems good, it does replace your natural draw, which at most points is a pitfall. There are off course situations where keeping pressure with Goyf is strong, but you also would need to be able to turn a negative board-state. Baleful Strix probably is the better recursion target.

I think another good option is to just play a one-off Volrath's Stronghold, Life from the Loam and Creeping Tar Pit coupled with some Wasteland in a BUG midrage/shardless shell.

DD/Stage is only worth it if you build around it. Aggro Loam, for example, has KotR to tutor up the combo. The DD/Stage fits more naturally in the deck. But even then, a lot of people stay away from DD/Stage in Aggro Loam. DD itself is a dead card, while Thespian's Stage itself provides some utility making up for it a bit. Lot of times, you'd have an active KotR in play, a window to snipe Marit Lage, but one of the pieces is in the yard...