Bitterblossom is definitely not needed in UWb landstill. Considering just about every time you draw it it's going to be subpar compared to other cards you should be running in those slots.
Eternal dragon, decree, and mishra's factories are plenty of kills for UWb landstill already the deck does not need more. Besides cunning wish supplements your win conditions quite well and aids you in just about any matchup.
Runed Halo is another reason why you don't need bitterblossom considering halo compliments UWb LS much more. But the best thing about Runed halo is the enchantment is awesome just about every time you draw it.
Team Hammafist!
The New cards from Eventide.
Raven's Crime and Worm's Harvest.
If Loam starts playing these cards how can a landstill player still expect to win?
I know you are going to say extirpate, but ravens crime will cause major problems together with loam, and if we extirpate loam, the harvest will still pritty much make it gg. turning every land they draw into 7+ tokens.
Please negate my doomthinking
Leyline of the Void, Moat, Engineered Plague. Probably more. God I wish Runed Halo worked for tokens...
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
Also: Ruins+EE (assuming you've Extirpated Loam already), Meddling Mage.
Runed Halo may not work for tokens, but you can name Raven's Crime with it.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
Does it really matter if a bad matchup becomes worse or not? I don´t think so...
I played UWb landstill at the Monsters Den Black Lotus Tournament yesterday and went 5-2, missing top 8 by a point. Here's the report:
At 8:15, six of us left from Iowa for the tournament, and I still was unsure of what deck I was going to play. I had two decks in mind, either mono blue control or UWb landstill. I picked landstill since I didn't like the mono blue lists we had, and began piecing the deck together while listening to a playlist which included Beastie Boys, Dropkick Murphys, and RATM. I change my playlist to Eagles to relax once we arrived in Minneapolis.
We arrived, registered, made sure our decks were correct, and started around 1:20. More than 70 people were in attendance, and it looked like the field would contain a lot of thresh, landstill, dredge, and black aggro.
Here's my list:
Land (24)
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
2 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
1 Wasteland
1 Ruins
1 Tolaria West
4 Factories
2 Island
3 Plains
36 other
3 Explosives
4 Swords
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
2 Cunning Wish
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Fact or Fiction
3 Wrath
2 Humility
3 Decree
4 Force of Will
SB:
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
3 Runed Halo
3 Extirpate
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Wing Shards
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Dismantling Blow
No Dragons were run in the list since I find him really slow, and he's awful under Humility. The second Underground Sea should have been a Scrubland, but we didn't have access to any so I ran a Heath instead of the 2nd Delta. 1 Crucible was also ran since I needed a recurring win-condition because I didn't have any Dragons. The Wheels were in the board since I wanted more than 3 Extirpates to fight dredge and loam. The extra blast was obviously for Dragon Stompy, and goblins, and the pair of Dismantling Blows were were in against random/ Counterbalance.
Round 1: Josh
Game 1 he plays a blind Cabal Therapy, naming Phyrexian Dreadnought after seeing my Tundras and Factory. He plays some Wall of Blossoms and I find Crucible-Waste, and go to town. I Wasteland and Extirpate his Volrath's Stronghold. He eventually Vindicates Crucible but he's already to far behind for it to matter. I end the game with 13 Life.
1-0
Game two he Thoughtseizes and therapies away my hand and beats down with Goyfs and Bobs.
1-1
Game three I get Crucible-Waste on turn 3 and he scoops. He seemed really pissed.
2-1, 1-0
Round 2 I get paired against Ian Ellis, playing bg rack. I stall the board, and play a Crucible, which he scoops to a few turns later.
3-1, 1-0
Game two he has double The Rack, then lays a third. I blow them up with EE at 1, and he then plays an Augur of Skulls and Goyf, tapping out. I EE for two, and forget that the Augur can regenerate and wait a turn to blow it up. I get beat down by a 1/1.
3-2, 1-0
Game three he starts out with a Leyline of the Void in play, I Runed Halo'd a Hyppie, and then won with Decree for some dudes.
4-2, 2-0
Round three I get paired against Ari, who is playing Ugb Goyf/counterbalance/dreadnought/painters servant.
Game one I stick a Humility, and win easy. He very deliberate in making his plays and took his time game one.
5-2, 2-0
Game two I counter some stuff and proceed to Runed Halo Grindstone when he has the combo in play. I also have the Swords in hand if he has the Grip on Halo. I EE for 1 one point in this game and blow it up at his eot, and he says ok, when he has both Top and Grindstone in play, and I point to the Top.
6-2, 3-0
Round for I get paired against Jim, who was the one who drove us from Iowa. I'm not only upset about getting paired against a friend, I know he's playing dredge since we've been playtesting the last couple of days.
Game one I keep an ok hand, and he eventually dredges into Narc,Narc, Ichorid, Dread Return. I scoop to save time for games 2 and 3.
6-3, 3-0
Game two I Extirpate Bridge since I have the Swords for the Ichorid he dredged into, and cast a turn 3 Wheel. He enters the scoop phase.
7-4, 3-0
Game three I notice the judge standing behind Jim, staring at Jim. He tells Jim he drew an extra card, and made him mulligan. He has a slow start, discarding an Ichorid, which I Halo, and he scoops; showing his hand without discard enablers.
8-4, 4-0
Round 5 I get paired against Blake, who played br suicide.
Game one he has a slow start and I cast Humility and proceed to win from there. I didn't see him fetch for duals the whole game, so I thought he was playing BG. I boarded in Dismantling Blows for possible Chokes.
Game two he has a slow start with Swamp, Wasteland. Turn 3 he fetches for Badlands and casts Magus of the Moon, which I kill. I untap and Waste his land. Eventually I make five dudes with decree, but he has the Fire Covenant to kill them off. I Runed Halo both Tombstalker and Hyppie, but he Bolts me then Smash to Smithereens my Crucible for the game.
8-5, 4-0
Game three he goes for Dark Ritual, Hyppie. I untap, draw Swords and Hyppie goes farming. He casts Magus, which I have to Wish for Blast to kill it. I have Humility and double Halo in play again, and I eot make 6 guys, which get killed by Fire Covenant again. A few turns later he Bolts me, and does it again for lethal, which I counter. I ask if Smash to Smithereens targets a player, which it doesn't. I attack with Factory, it gets Smashed, I respond with Swords, he responds with another, and that's ball game folks. Really fun match.
8-6, 4-1
Round six I get paired against Alex, who's playing 4 color thresh. I'm very exciting to be playing this rather than some of the other decks in contention, such as High Tide, and 42 lands.
Game 1 kill his guys, lay Humility, and win at 18 life. I feel really confident at this point, knowing if I win game 2 or 3 I can draw into the top 8.
9-6, 4-1
Game two I keep a two land hand, and then miss my next two land drops. He plays a Dark Confidant, and I can't play EE since I have a colorless land in play. He then plays Gaddock Teeg, and eventually double Goyf and I scoop.
9-7, 4-1
Game 3 I Force his turn one Goose, Counterspell his turn two Teeg. He eventually plays goyf, and extirpate. I have Ruins in play and an EE in the yard, so I point to the Humility he Forced. He takes it, and I put EE on top and kill his Goyf. He then plays Mystic Enforcer, and I didn't find an answer. My life total goes from 19 to 13 to 7 to 1 to 0. GG
9-8, 4-2
I'm pretty disappointed that I dropped two in a row, including one to thresh, especially after I crushed him game 1. We're told 5-2 has a shot at top, so I need to win this round.
I'm paired against Chris, who is also playing Uwb landstill, but without Facts and with a larger Wish-board. I really, really don't want to play the mirror, since I thought we'd end up going to time and drawing.
Game one he misses his fourth land drop, and is very despondent. I begin to play faster, excited that he's light on lands, and go on offensive, making 2 decree tokens and a Factory. He Swords the Factory than Wrathed away my board. He has a Factory, which eats a Swords from me. I cycle my second Decree for 3 and beat him down to 14. At the end of his turn I cast Cunning Wish, which causes a counter war. He Wishes for Pact of Negation with six lands in play and counters it. I have a Wasteland in play and realize if I draw Crucible, I win on my turn. I draw Brainstorm, drawing EE, Crucible, and Counterspell. I play Crucicle, Waste, and Waste again. Awesome. GG
10-8, 4-2
Game two we trade Factories for Swords. He casts Crucible and I Force it, then Extirpate it on my turn, seeing a hand of Force, 2 EE, STP, Humility, Decree, and Wrath. He continues to miss land drops and I make some decree tokens. He kills them with EE, which I Extirpate. I make more tokens and swing with those and Factory, which he tries to Swords. I have the Counter for it. He untaps and says go, and I attack. He scoops, since he was dead even if he cast the Wrath due to the Factory. I had the Counterspell in hand if needed. This match only lasts a suprising 25-30 minutes.
11-8, 5-2 match record
I watch some of the other matches in contention, and find out that I'll miss top 8 by a point. Oh well.
Props:
The store owner for running a nice tournament
Brainstorm into my 1-of Crucible
My opponents. All of my games were enjoyable, and the ones against Blake and Alex were awesome. (even though I lost both matches)
Slops:
Gas for being expensive
The Chinese food buffet for having cold food
Me, for never finding Wish into Pulse against Br
Me, for not blowing up the EE right away against BG rack
The guy that tossed his Gatorade bottle at the van we were in on our way to the tournament, wtf.
Interesting plays I saw throughout the day:
*Teferi in response to Dreadnought (it got Forced, though)
*A mono blue counterwar with at least 7 counters on the stack
*TES making 14 green men turn one against aggro loam, loam plays land, Mox Diamond, Burning Wish for Clasm, take 14, Clasm, next turn chalice for 1, Goyf
*Muc beating affinity in 9 turns total, taking the match in 3 minutes. Powder Keg away lands both games, and Needle on Plating in the second
Thoughts about the deck:
I think the deck needs another mana source, whether it's another land or Dragon. I made my first land drops almost every time but would sometimes stall after 5 or 6. A lot of my Brainstorms were digging for lands. Not being able to finish off br before he drew his burn was annoying, another way to get pulse or a faster win-condition would've been nice. I didn't miss the Meddling Magi, and I don't think I would've boarded him in often to be worth the slots. I only saw one combo deck in the room.
Last edited by Shawn; 07-01-2008 at 11:44 PM.
"Attack with Order of the Ebon Hand."
"K, block with Jotun Grunt?"
"It has pro white."
"Swords?"
"It still has pro white."
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE Team RTD
Twitter: @shawnldewey
Nice job. A few questions.
No Mages? They would have been great in the Deed Landstill pseudo-mirror. EDIT: Nm, read below.Originally Posted by Shawn
If you don't run Eternal Dragon, then I would say that a second U.Sea is better than a Scrubland, especially since you run 3 Plains and 2 Islands already. Getting your black source Extirpated is neither likely nor terrible.No Dragons were run in the list since I find him really slow, and he's awful under Humility. The second Underground Sea should have been a Scrubland, but we didn't have access to any so I ran a Heath instead of the 2nd Delta.
Chokes? Did you mean Blood Moon?Round 5 I get paired against Blake, who played br suicide.
Game one he has a slow start and I cast Humility and proceed to win from there. I didn't see him fetch for duals the whole game, so I thought he was playing BG. I boarded in Dismantling Blows for possible Chokes.
I assume this is just a typo, but no matter.Game 3 I Force his turn one Goose... My life total goes from 20 to 14 to 8 to 2 to 0.
Keeping Humility and Wrath in for the mirror seems quite... odd. I wonder what his SB looked like.Game two we trade Factories for Swords. He casts Crucible and I Force it, then Extirpate it on my turn, seeing a hand of Force, 2 EE, STP, Humility, Decree, and Wrath.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
I didn't see any Bolts or Badlands game one so I figured it was Eva Green. People were asking for Chokes before the tournament.Chokes? Did you mean Blood Moon?
Yeah, it should read 19-13-7-1-0.I assume this is just a typo, but no matter.
I thought that as well. He said he had a huge wish-board, and I saw an Echoing Truth and Pact.Keeping Humility and Wrath in for the mirror seems quite... odd. I wonder what his SB looked like.
At one point against Ichorid I wished one of the Seas was a Scrubland; I had a Fetch, plains, Extirpate and Wheel in hand. I drew another white source the next turn, and it didn't end up mattering.If you don't run Eternal Dragon, then I would say that a second U.Sea is better than a Scrubland, especially since you run 3 Plains and 2 Islands already. Getting your black source Extirpated is neither likely nor terrible.
"Attack with Order of the Ebon Hand."
"K, block with Jotun Grunt?"
"It has pro white."
"Swords?"
"It still has pro white."
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE Team RTD
Twitter: @shawnldewey
Hehe...that was me. I Explosives'd for one the next turn. Dead Dreadnought
End of turn...Morphling
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE
C'mon, c'mon....don't keep us hangin'!!!
So do we get to see it yet? If not, you should PM me the list.
Last edited by Citrus-God; 07-03-2008 at 02:02 AM.
ICBE - We're totally the coolest Anti-Thesis ever.
"The Citrus-God just had a Citrus-Supernova... in your mouth."
So I have a question about landstill for you experts out there. I'm trying to decide on the best removal artifact for strictly Uw landstill. I like the explosives because it hits all nonland permanents, but you can't get it bigger than 2 unless you splash other duals. Powder keg rocks as far as cost and killing most things small, I think if I ran any I would run four. Finally, disk is more of a mana and time investment but rapes the board. Can anyone give me some insight into which will be better in most situations?
I'm not by any means claiming to be an expert, but you can easily splash black (or possibly green) in UW Landstill to use explosives while also giving you powerful sideboard options/necessities. This also lets your powerful enchantments/ artifacts live (like humility/crucible) while selectively dissecting your opponent's board. That would IMHO be the best option.
If you are absolutely set on only 2 color, my vote is for disk. Resetting the board while you run card advantage, permission, and removal is pretty strong.
P.S.-Konsultant, still waiting on that list. Please pm me if you're not up for sharing it publicly. Those are my favorite colors, and I'd really like to see them work.
Gotcha. If I were to splash black just to fuel the explosives and for sideboard how much mana would I need? Would 2 Underground Sea and 2 Polluted Delta be sufficient? Basically-
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strain
2 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Faerie Conclave
3 Island
2 Plains
Does this work? Not exactly on a budget, but not trying to spend another $100 on land.
Tolaria West and Academy Ruins seem awesome too, how could I fit them in?
Cut 2 Wastelands for 1 Academy Ruins and 1 Tolaria West. Also, cut an Island for a Eternal Dragon. Also, cut a Sea for a Scrubland. There, you saved $20 on a black source.
ICBE - We're totally the coolest Anti-Thesis ever.
"The Citrus-God just had a Citrus-Supernova... in your mouth."
I've been playtesting with:
4 Fl. Strand
2 P. Delta
4 Tundra
3 Plains
2 Island
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's
1 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
1 Eternal Dragon
This was DerIF's original base, and I really like it. It's very robust against wasteland, moon effects, and color screw. Recently he removed e. plagues from the board...allowing him to go -1 U. Sea, +1 Island MD.
// Lands
1 Academy Ruins
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Tolaria West
4 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Wasteland
1 Faerie Conclave
// Creatures
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Jace Beleren
// Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Cunning Wish
2 Decree of Justice
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
2 Humility
4 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Oblivion Stone
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 3 Extirpate
SB: 1 Hydroblast
SB: 4 Meddling Mage
SB: 1 Pulse of the Fields
SB: 1 Return to Dust
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 3 Runed Halo
Thats my list, i put in a Faerie Conclave for an Island, because of the mirror match up. What do you say to my list.
Same here. Or PM it to Clemens ( Der_imaginäre_Freund ). I'd really like to see some innovation...
Team SPOD
<Der_imaginäre_Freund> props:
Adan for being the NQG God (drawer)
Some comments:
- I've recently grown to dislike Crucible of Worlds because it's '3 mana: do nothing' at first with the effect not really getting that much more impressive later on: with the current very stable manabase you actually don't need the mana fixing effect that much. I think you can safely cut it.
- Oblivion Stone is suboptimal - you shouldn't be playing it especially not over Wrath of God:
- It costs 8 mana total (wasting two of your turns completely) making it slower than Wrath of God and a horrible topdeck.
- It is vulnerable to too many commonly played cards (Stifle, Krosan Grip, Pithing Needle, Counterbalance).
- It is unneeded - most of the time you're going to kill creatures with your sweepers: there are just not that many non-creature permanents out there and even less you care of... the few that could bother you (Survival, Counterbalance, all of the relevant Enchantress stuff etc.) can be handled by Engineered Explosives which are most of the time even better at handling Artefacts/Enchantments than other options like Oblivion Stone or Nevinyrral's Disk because they are cheaper and therefore faster. The rare things that aren't handled by Engineered Explosives (there are really not many of them... the Affinity stuff, Smokestack, Moat etc.) can be shut of by Cunning Wish for Return to Dust so why play a sweeper that is worse in 90% of the cases if you even have outs for the remaining 10%?
- I don't like Jace Beleren either:
- He's very slow - if you compare him to the already clunky Fact or Fiction, you can clearly see yet another difference in speed terms: Jace will need until turn7 to dig as deep as FoF and gives your opponent Card Advantage (CA) while doing so too. This makes him both a terrible dig and a questionable CA-Creator.
- He's too vulnerable - you really want your CA-Engines as reliable as possible.
- I also think that you shouldn't be playing the Enlightened Tutor in the main - for sure it's a very flexible card and can search a wide array of good (or even gamebreaking) spells but you always have to keep in mind that it creates Card Disadvantage and that it's rather slow too (you only get the thing you Tutored up a turn later). I'd rather play more Draw or actually broken cards over him which will have the same effect than playing the Tutor: you'll have a better access to good cards.
Here's the list I'm currently playing:
The most notable change since the last version is the addition of the second Eternal Dragon - playing more winconditions that actually end the game after getting cast is important as more and more decks can actually try and recover during the time you've taken control of the game but not ended it yet (e.g. any deck that can force an Intuition or similar engine through). It is especially good if you can include more winconditions without actually hurting your consistency much: Eternal Dragon can still act as a pseudo-fetchland which is from time to time even better than its Onslaught counterpart (e.g. against a resolved Blood Moon). The Dragon also partly plays the role of the formerly removed Crucible of Worlds (producing mana-advantage in the control mirror) - playing two will therefore not only increase your kill speed but also compensate the loss of a strong engine in the control matches.Code:/// Maindeck (60 cards) // Lands (23) 4 Flooded Strand 2 Polluted Delta 4 Tundra 1 Underground Sea 1 Scrubland 2 Plains 3 Island 1 Tolaria West 1 Academy Ruins 4 Mishra's Factory // Winconditions (5) 2 Eternal Dragon 3 Decree of Justice // Card Advantage (12) 4 Brainstorm 4 Standstill 2 Cunning Wish 2 Fact or Fiction // Permission (8) 4 Counterspell 4 Force of Will // Removal (12) 4 Swords to Plowshares 3 Wrath of God 2 Humility 3 Engineered Explosives /// Sideboard (15 cards) 4 Meddling Mage 3 Runed Halo 3 Extirpate 1 Blue Elemental Blast 1 Enlightened Tutor 1 Slaughter Pact 1 Pulse of the Fields 1 Return to Dust
Team SPOD - ...land of the brave...
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