[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

[Citrus-God]

So you guys are running FoF again? I would like the reasoning behind playing FoF maindeck again for this list, because you guys didnt have it a while back.

I like the cut of a copy of Cunning Wish because the toolbox is getting smaller and smaller. It's a really reasonable change.

2 DoJs makes my heart ache. I think that cutting the 4th Factory for another DoJ was the right move, but then again, maintaining the consistency of land drops early game should make up for the lack of the 3rd copy of DoJ. The 25th land is also helpful when you guys have to power out an FoF.

[Adan]

So you guys are running FoF again? I would like the reasoning behind playing FoF maindeck again for this list, because you guys didnt have it a while back.

I like the cut of a copy of Cunning Wish because the toolbox is getting smaller and smaller. It's a really reasonable change.

2 DoJs makes my heart ache. I think that cutting the 4th Factory for another DoJ was the right move, but then again, maintaining the consistency of land drops early game should make up for the lack of the 3rd copy of DoJ. The 25th land is also helpful when you guys have to power out an FoF.

I guess Clemens has always got better explanations than I have concering Landstill, the reason why I played it was because Clemens was whining around before the tourney. And so I simply copy-pasted his list and played.

Well, I don't know why exactly he cutted the 3rd Decree again. But his boarding plans were always "-1 Decree" and so I said: "Why are you running the 3rd Decree instead of a 4th Mishra if you are boarding it out against nearly everything?".

But I think it has rather to do with the inclusion of FoF. Crucible is somehow getting worse from time to time, and therefor it was cut for FoF. The 3rd Decree can therefore be cut for a second FoF, because Fof digs 5 cards deep, which can find the Decrees quite efficiently. Or solutions.

I find the last thesis more plausible than the first one, because I hardly have influence on Clemens' ideas when we are talking about Landstill. But I suggested to cut Wasteland, because a singleton Wasteland is pretty useless if you are not running Crucible anymore.

[diffy]

The reason why I played it was because Clemens was whining around before the tourney. And so I simply copy-pasted his list and played.

You, Sir, should better listen more often to me - Landstill was just the perfect choice for the tournament: three people played the deck and all of them top8ed. The third Landstill player in the top8 was Mario Hirstein with a pre-FoF list.

I played against RB Goblins (2-0), The Rock (1-2), NQG/w (1-1), UWB Fish (2-1), Suicide BW (2-1) and Mono R Painter (2-1), in that order.

Observations made during the tournament:

• I boarded Runed Halo every round, especially to replace mediocre cards from the maindeck which is just what I thought the Runed Halos would do in the non-combo matchups, which is great.
• The manabase has reached a point of stability at which you can often fully ignore Blood Moon effects. Wasteland still hurts sometimes if used as a tempo card (to keep you off 4 mana) though.
• I often wished to have that third DoJ back in especially since it is your very best tool to end a game that you have under control before the opponent can recover.

A short report can be found here.

So you guys are running FoF again? I would like the reasoning behind playing FoF maindeck again for this list, because you guys didnt have it a while back.

While I absolutely dislike Fact or Fiction as a card because its clunky and will most often only give you a net Card Advantage of one as the good opponent will always split the piles so that you basically have to take the smaller one, it is still one of the best draw spells available in Legacy, especially since it digs five cards deep which helps a lot in finding solutions.
I never felt the need for additional card draw with the old lists and so never felt the need for additional FoFs, but then, over the last couple of months, I increasingly grew to dislike Crucible of Worlds (slow, doesn't affect the board, often winmore) so that I wanted to try something else in this slot. I then wanted to replace CoW with a card that is also decent in the matchups in which CoW is rather good but better in the others and came to the conclusion that additional draw spells would fill the gap the lack of Crucible would open as more CA balances out the loss of Crucible in both the control and attrition matchups.
With a singleton Fact or Fiction in the deck, I then started to think about cutting another card I was increasingly annoyed with: Cunning Wish. I still think that Cunning Wish is essential in Landstill, especially to beat your bad matchups preboard, but, on the other hand, drawing two is often a devastating tempo sink in your average or better matchups. Now I asked myself if I wasn't hurting my bad matchups too much by cutting a Cunning Wish: you actually don't need to improve your average or better matchups in my opinion. I came to the conclusion that you aren't hurting your bad matchups at all if you replace a Cunning Wish with another Fact or Fiction as FoF can always help dig for the Wish so that with two copies of it main you're actually increasing your odds to hit the Wish in time.

2 DoJs makes my heart ache. I think that cutting the 4th Factory for another DoJ was the right move.

I too think that for the non-FoF lists this was the correct choice.
Me switching back to the old configuration was directly linked to the inclusion of Fact or Fiction as with even more expensive spells, you really need to be able to make those first 4-6 land drops consistently even in the face of Wasteland or you're going to make your life just too hard. Fact or Fiction also helps to replenish your hand after making all those land drops making sure that you don't run out of spells.

I suggested to cut Wasteland, because a singleton Wasteland is pretty useless if you are not running Crucible any more.

While I don't agree with this statement as the singleton Wasteland can always be useful to kill opposing manlands or utility lands like Volrath's Stronghold, the cut of the Wasteland for another fetchland does also make your manabase even more stable which is worth the loss of the added flexibility. Tolaria West is still great even after the cut of the toolbox Wasteland though.

[undone]

Ok, I am considering Playing this deck And was curious what is the optimal build for a combo heavy metagame, and Ichorid heavy metagame. There will probably be lots of goblins/aggro too.

[Burr]

A sideboard with Runed Halo + Meddling Mages should put an end to combo decks.

[thefreakaccident]

This is also a very good choice...

I rapes all those decks you said you would see, although I doubt you would survive the long tournament... here is my current list (I think it is the same as DIF's):

lands//24
1 underground sea
1 scrubland
3 island
3 plains
4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
4 mishra's factory
1 academy ruins
1 tolaria west
4 tundra

creatures//1
1 eternal dragon

removal//12
4 swords to plowshares
3 wrath of god
3 engineered explosives
2 humility

permission//8
4 counterspell
4 force of will

card advantage//12
4 standstill
4 brainstorm
2 fact or fiction
2 cunning wish

win//3
3 decree of justice


I have found this to be the best build I could get for my troubles...

My sideboard fluctuates:

4 meddling mage (non-negotiable)
4 runed halo/ghostly prison/engineered plague
1 pulse of the fields
3 extirpate
1 enlightened tutor
1 return to dust
1 slaughter pact


The runed halo slot is a meta choice, if you go with plague, you'll want to go:
-1 island
+1 underground sea

in the Md, the prisons are really good in a random meta like mine, where random agro is rampant, and it has the benefit of totally shutting off ichorid, which plague doesn't do... halo is good if you expect combo in force (by force I mean play it twice in a tourney)... Hope this helps.

[undone]

That looks interesting, What about the following few changes would these work

MD
-1 FOF
+1 Cunning wish
-1 FOF
+1 wincondition... whatever is best after DoJ

is FOF really that good?

[diffy]

What is the optimal build for a combo heavy metagame, and Ichorid heavy metagame. There will probably be lots of goblins/aggro too.

I have never built a variant for such a metagame, mainly because it is incredibly rare to find enough combo at a certain event to warrant metagaming for it.
Here're some thoughts though (taking this list as reference for all the changes):

• Playing Runed Halo main makes your combo matchup better while not really harming any others, I'd probably cut any combination of Fact or Fictions and Wrath of Gods for them as they're too slow in the combo matchups.
  
  • Try -3 Wrath of God +3 Runed Halo for starters. You're harming your 'random aggro' and NQG matchups with this change though as you're including more cards that can get hit by Counterbalance and cut your most powerful removal spell.
• If you expect lots of Ichorid, you should play Moat over Humility main: a resolved Moat often spells 'gg' against Ichorid whereas Humility only makes them slower.
  
  • -2 Humility +2 Moat. Again, you're hurting your other matchups by doing this change (random aggro, Goblins) but the most important matchup, NQG, isn't hurt too much. Against combo, both are close to irrelevant so that there's no real difference here.
• For a combo heavy metagame, Stifles are also an auto-include. I'd start cutting the clunkier cards for the Stifles, especially Fact or Fiction and Decree of Justice are just too slow.
  
  • -1 Decree of Justice -2 Fact or Fiction +3 Stifle. I absolutely hate this change though as, outside of the combo matchups, Stifle is a horrible card in Cunning Landstill - it doesn't affect the board, it's a bad topdeck and the tempo gain is often minimal as most decks can operate on 1-2 lands just fine.
• Moving the Runed Halos to the main, you free up 3 slots in the sideboard - those can be then filled with anything, the best options include Stifle/Runed Halo n°4, Engineered Plagues, or even more Blue Elemental Blasts. I'd probably go with more Blue Elemental Blasts (good against combo [Burning Wish, Vexing Shusher] and Goblins).
  
  • Sideboard: -3 Runed Halo +3 Blue Elemental Blast

But really, this is a variant to only be played in this particular, combo heavy, metagame - I would definitely not play it in a broader/unknown meta.

Is FOF really that good?

Fact isn't amazing but it's still good enough to be considered as a choice for the maindeck - it digs 5 cards deep searching you a solution for the current problem in 9 cases out of 10 and creates some card advantage while doing so (both in 'raw' terms meaning that you have more cards in hand after casting Fact and in 'virtual' terms meaning that you get the card which is best for the current situation). Replacing a Cunning Wish with it was definitely the right move since the Wish is extremely clunky and because Fact can also act as a pseudo Wish because of its dig. I wouldn't play it in aforementioned metagame though.

[thefreakaccident]

Hey, we do have the same MD :D ...

My meta has hardly any red, hence the no BeB thing.. although, if DStompy became popular again, I would definitely put it in in place of the fourth halo..

That's funny :D

[Mulletus]

I was thinking about building this deck... but I want to try Bitterblossum. It makes threats under the standstill. Even with multiples it might be good.

[NQN]

It sucks cocks. You will die too often so Blossom because you never ever want to be the one who makes the pressure. I don´t know how to explain HOW bad this card is in a LS because of my missing english skills but it is just freaking bad :D

[undone]

BBlossome is about as bad in this deck, as writing on black lotus's to make proxies for wood elementals. There I said it most simply.

It is just like that in all versions.

All I know is that This version seems more stable then the UWbg versions with deed, granted a little less powerful because wrath doesnt destroy CB, 3Sphear, Blood moon, Vial exct but its STABLE.

[Adan]

What's the matter with Bitterblossom?! Why does everyone want to play it in almost every deck?

If you want to play a card that generates threats unter SStill without making lifeloss - and I mean useful threats - play Hoofprints of the Stag. You might replace Humilities with Moats then or play a split between Moat and Humility, the problem is just that one cards knocks out another:

Moat makes Decree suck,

Humility makes Hoofprints suck.

And as Clemens has already elaborated in several posts, you actually never want to play "pure" win-cons, you always want to play versatile cards that can act as winning conditions:

Eternal Dragon can be used to ramp mana,
Decree can do combat tricks, acting as semi-removal, generating CA and fog.
Mishra can beat the opponent and... yeah, it can produce mana.

But Hoofprints and Bitterblossom can only spawn critters. But Decree does it better in almost every situation.

[Citrus-God]

The kill mechanism in Landstill is usually within 2 Turns late game. Blitterblossom doesnt let you kill in 2 Turns... Just play DoJ. Also, Bitterblossom blows as a card in Landstill. The point of Landstill is to maneuver yourself in a dominant position, not play cute threats under Standstill. Factories dont count because they dont interfere with your control cards and deck space. They also make fantastic blockers and actually produce mana. Bitterblossom just stalls when what you're suppose to do is answer and start chaining draw.

[Illissius]

What about Vengeful Dreams for the wishboard?

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Vengeful Dreams seems to be too much risk for too little reward. If it resolves, it's an x+1 for x in any reasonable case. It can never be card advantage unless you're facing auras. If it's countered, you just lost a lot of cards for no effect with a spell on the most common Counterbalance spot.

Wing Shards, on the other hand, can be card advantage if paired with cantrips, counter spells, Wish itself, or against haste creatures all while avoiding Counterbalance and possibly counter spells.

[Illissius]

I didn't think of it to be Wished for against decks with countermagic; or at least, there aren't many decks around which both attack you with armies and also back them up with counters (Slivers, maybe). And it's meant to be the very opposite of card advantage: a way to cleanly and easily translate many cards from your hand into tempo (board position) in cases where you are very behind on that front.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Against what decks would Vengeful Dreams be effective? Not Goblins, you can't win against Goblins with one for one's. Not Aggro Loam, there are more efficient way to deal with Aggro Loam's threats. Not Affinity, artifact based removal would be better against that. Any Stompy deck is already a good match up.

If you use it to wipe the board, you're opponent may be in a bad position, but you're likely to be in an even worse one.

[Adan]

What about Vengeful Dreams for the wishboard?

Vengeful Dreams = carddisadvantage!

Too bad. But try Wind Shards if you want such a card. It's also "resistant" against Counters thanks to Storm (6 Mana are expansive, tho).

[konsultant]

I don't think there is room in the SB of any Landstill builds for "cute trick" cards like Vengefull Dreams. In fact the reason I eventually went away from wish was because I didn't have the room for the cards to fully power it. I understand the versatility that is still capable in the mini wish boards that are being run and how it give's you access to things like Extirpate and Pulse of the Fields whitch can both be very situational but still can be game breaking if you have them at the right time, but as it is nobody is even running a counter effect as a wish target I don't see how making room for things like Vengeful Dreams is a wise descision.

I'm glad that the Runed Halo's are finally being played in some side boards, it's the first powerful addition we have gotten for Landstill in a long time and I would hate to see that card being over-looked.

I believe to have worked all the kinks out of my current UWg without wish build. I have won 3 of the last 4 tournaments that I have entered with it and I took third yesterday losing to Imperial Painter, (a match about 90% in my favor) in top 4. My team mate couldn't have picked his hand better and I double mulled game 3. Hopefully the card god's will be kinder to me this coming week but either way I'll post the list after the event in Hadley this Saturday along with some card choice reasonings.

I will state this though, as much of an advocate for Cunning Wish that I used to be I don't miss the card at all anymore. Runed Halo provide's the diversity that was needed from Wish originally but is considerably faster and usually more effective.