I thought so too until I re-read this post.Originally Posted by Viscosity
Co-Founder of Team Awesome - I heard Randy Buehler say a while back that good players give themselves the most number of turns to find the answer.
The Source on MTGO - Predator8785 and RockOut
The dragon also helps long, drawn-out control-matches by removing (almost) all of your land, ensuring superior draws. That's pretty tech.
Hello friend.
So then can we all agree that, while viscosity is likely a very nice and intelligent person, he's absolutely awful with this deck?
Dragon is a major component of the consistency of 3c landstill. It's one of the reasons 3c is favored in an unknown meta over 4c for right now, it runs more basics and more ways to get them letting you do mean shit like wrath and swords through a moon effect. Dragon, decree and elspeth are all the shit and should all probably be somewhere in the 75.
I couldn't agree more. Just being able to grab a basic plains under a moon effect makes E. Dragon worth the 1-2 slots.
Co-Founder of Team Awesome - I heard Randy Buehler say a while back that good players give themselves the most number of turns to find the answer.
The Source on MTGO - Predator8785 and RockOut
Why not anticipate the moon, fetch basics, and play an interactive game? Moon has never been a problem for me unless I walk into it blindly (player error).
i wasn't joking.
Under the immense amount of playtesting I've done, dragon is often a one cycle effect, and no more. Waste of a card IMO. As a win-con, he isn't good. Too much STP around to make a 7 mana 5/5 flyer worth casting. I'd rather cast a hard decree for two angels for one mana more.
I play 2 crucible; utilizing fetchlands to thin the deck in the long game. Also making wasteland lock common.
I also wouldn't run a LS deck without stifle. I also use mox diamond and city of traitors, what?!
It's obvious that I have a less common approach to this deck (or at least when compared to the other vocal members of this board), but it has been very successful. Legacy rating is around 1800+ right now with dozens of event top 8s and wins. Including a 7th place at the GP 55 person side event; and that was with horrible tie-breakers and a couple player errors.
EDIT: I have ONE reason i sometimes run a singleton dragon; MWS doesn't load plainswalkers without a creature in the deck. lawl.
speaking of that, I'd be more than happy to playtest on MWS with anyone who would like to.
While I completely disagree with your approach to the deck, I apologize for the antagonistic comment. I suppose our testing has yielded different results. Maybe your metagame is different to mine? I can't imagine trying to resolve a crucible early enough to make city of traitors or mox diamond at all worthwhile. But, hey, fair enough I guess.
Dragon comes in handy in the late game.
Someone said opponent have STP
So what? They probably wasted their STP on your Manlands, or else you would be winning the game already.
And if they STP it, well that's one less STP for your manland.
To not forget that Eternal dragon is USUALLY just a cycle. You can win most of your game without recurring him. But being able to get that land (EOT turn 2 or later, when your opponent does nothing) is a great advantage. To not forget that E Dragon also shuffle your library
Robert
Hi I have been reading this thread for a while and I've been trying to adopt speedstill's approach to the magic-league metagame. Some of the problems that i had been encountering were a lack of blue cards to pitch to FoW and a few problems in the Threshold matchups (UGw). The metagame is fairly diverse because of the ease of acquiring cards on magicworkstation but there do seem to be some definite trends that I have noticed in the recent minis. Theres generally one straight up aggro deck, occasionly a gobos deck, usually some sort of midgame nonblue control (survival or the rock), sometimes Combo, usually some deck featuring a good amount of discard, and always a couple threshold decks.
With this in mind I tried to create a UWg landstill that could handle this meta and have a very good matchup against countertop thresh. This is what I drafted.
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)
// Lands
1 [MM] Dust Bowl
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [5E] Forest (4)
2 [10E] Island (4)
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
1 [IA] Plains (3)
1 [A] Savannah
2 [R] Tropical Island
4 [B] Tundra
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
// Creatures
1 [SC] Eternal Dragon
2 [LRW] Jace Beleren
// Spells
4 [IA] Brainstorm
2 [7E] Counterspell
1 [SC] Decree of Justice
2 [ALA] Elspeth Knight-Errant
3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [TE] Humility
2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
2 [CFX] Path to Exile
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [A] Swords to Plowshares
1 [10E] Wrath of God
// Sideboard
SB: 4 [4E] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 3 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [SC] Wing Shards
There aren't any E dragons and there aren't very many DoJs because usually by the late game I don't for very much. I plan on boarding out the Humilities after game one against thresh because pretty much all of the lists have k-grips. Any advice?
@ Tinefol Nantuko Monastery has always felt too conditional and mana intensive, and I tend to have terrible luck with mana screw, also the point of this build was to have a good game against countertop thresh, which K-Grip tends to help out.
EDIT: Also what do you guys think of going for the SB -4 BEB +4 tarmo, I feel like they would come in the same matchups and tarmo could be better
Last edited by ebbitten; 03-13-2009 at 07:31 PM.
You're playing UWg and are not running Nantuko Monastery? Also, I don't think Krosan Grip deserves a maindeck spot.
Godfather is a new one, here is my perspective on Elspeth and Eternal Dragon and Decree of Justice.
Eternal Dragon is the 24th and 25th lands in the deck, situationally the card can be absolutly amazing. For example in the control mirror it can let you cycle like a madman and get you card advantage that isn't stoppable through countermagic. Against decks like Survival that have a hard time dealing with a deck that runs a ton of removal and 5/5 flyers that reccur. The majority of the time Dragon just gets a basic Plains (even under Bloodmoon) and sits in the yard.
Decree is the backbone of winning the game for Landstill, it isn't counterable other than Stifle, it replaces itself, it grows stronger the later the game goes and it is used at instant speed. Seriously what more do you really want out of a wincon? On top of all that you have the versatility of making Angels witch crushes most any deck without lategame strategies. If that wasn't enough the card isn't even affected by targeting removal. Let's not forget to tack on that it works under Standstill whitch is the draw engine we plan on using to win the game. Hands down this card should be in Landstill and if you are running into issues with draws while playing this deck add more Decree's into the MD. In 13 rounds at the GP I went to time once and it was because I was stubborn and refused to scoop to Moat.
Elspeth is interesting, yes it is a solid win condition and it has perfect synergy with all of Landstills removal strategies. So do all of the Plainswalkers, due to the existence of Krosan Grip Plainswalkers are the only non land permanent that we can play that is protectable. All of the Plainswalkers are worth testing. They do not have good synergy with Standstill nor can they be played at instant speed, they can be countered. They are inherantly versatile but you are still limited in what they can due. This is what I have found in my ridiculous hours of testing, if you are winning the game (the board is clear) casting nearly any Plainswalker will win the game for Landstill if it stays in play. If you are losing the game they tend to be subpar when compared to Decree. Yes Elspeth deals with a Goose or Goyf that is attacking every turn but you have a ton of other ways to deal with those cards and in all of the situations where dropping down a Plainswalker is good a Decree would also be good. Situationally the Plainswalker is better than Decree but I don't find myself in those situations very often.
I ran one Elspeth in my SB but I also ran the 4th Decree, if I could run 5x Decree i'd cut Elspeth and do so but that isn't an option. As it was in 13 intense rounds of Magic at one of the largest legacy tournaments ever against some of the best players the game has to offer Elspeth won me zero games and Decree won me 22. It's as simple as that. Yes I could be running more Elspeths but I have never ever looked at Decree in hand and said wow I wish this was Elspeth.
Elspeth is a fine card and if you play against decks running Extirpate frequently it is probably worth playing in the MD. In my experience I have never had the need to add Elspeth into the MD and so for me and the list I run that puts the card into the win more category. That is only my opinion and only in perspective to the list I run. I had found Ajani to be subpar now that it has become more popular and decided to switch it for the 4th Decree and the one Elspeth in my SB.
I put the 4x Planar Voids in the SB to actually give me a shot at beating Ichorid, it did well in testing but I was lucky and never ran into it at the GP.
The burn match up of round nine was one for the recoed books, I lost game one to standing next to the sign where the previous 8 rounds pairings had gone up and being late to my seat. I won game one at 1 life having drawn damn near every counterspell in my deck and riding a Dragon in for a quick win. Game 3 I thought I was done for, I mulled to a 5 card hand of EE, Wrath (the only one left in the deck), Counterspell, Waste and Mishra's Factory. I won game 3 at 1 life as well surviving an uncounterable Lighting Bolt when I was at 2 and an uncountered Magma Jet when I was at 2 again. Let me just point out I cut Ajani from the SB for this event. Karma is a mother fucker and if this guy hadn't called the Judge and got me a game loss for being literally 30 seconds late to my seat I may not have ripped every card I needed off the top for 2 games straight. Lesson of the day, don't be a dick.
Team Pandora
Team Disqualified Poster
Tonight's Tournament Report: - 15 man 4-Round Swiss
Round 1: 2-1 vs White Geddon Stax (this player won one of the GP trials)
Round 2: 2-0 Enchantress (solitary confinement build)
Round 3: 2-1 Thresh (BGw w/ mystic enforcer)
Round 4: 2-0 Vial Goblins (1900+ player, RW with MD swords)
4-0 - First Place.
2 mox, 1 city, 2 crucible, 4 stifle, 2 els, 1 jace, 4 sword, 2 ee, 2 trinket mage, 1 dreadnought, 1 top, 3 brainstorm.
??????
Whats with the question marks?Tonight's Tournament Report: - 15 man 4-Round Swiss
Round 1: 2-1 vs White Geddon Stax (this player won one of the GP trials)
Round 2: 2-0 Enchantress (solitary confinement build)
Round 3: 2-1 Thresh (BGw w/ mystic enforcer)
Round 4: 2-0 Vial Goblins (1900+ player, RW with MD swords)
4-0 - First Place.
2 mox, 1 city, 2 crucible, 4 stifle, 2 els, 1 jace, 4 sword, 2 ee, 2 trinket mage, 1 dreadnought, 1 top, 3 brainstorm.
??????
I think I just threw up a little. Post your list.
Co-Founder of Team Awesome - I heard Randy Buehler say a while back that good players give themselves the most number of turns to find the answer.
The Source on MTGO - Predator8785 and RockOut
I won't post a big introduction.
Suffice to say that I took up the deck a month ago and I have been an avid reader of this discussion and am interested to learn more.
I took it to 1 tournament (40-50 players) and managed top 8 loosing to a black-green recurring nightmare/eternal witness/cabal therapy deck.
Since then I have playtested further and came up with the following deck.
Konsultant's list:
- 3 Wrath of God
- 1 Eternal dragon
+ 2 humility
+ 1 elspeth
+ 1 ajani
Allow me to explain.
Wrath of God: I don't like it MD. For too many an occasion it's just a 1 for 1. This is very much a metagame call of my part and I intend to keep at least 2 in my sideboard. It would take the place of humility more often then not post board. On other occasions it was useless because my opponent was playing manlands as well
Eternal dragon: instinctively my weakest choice. But I can't find an alternative to cut. I am already at 3 brainstorm which I don't like that much. My first idea was to cut 1 DoJ but I was very mistaken in this card. Although last time I tested my manabase was left untouched, so this may have warped my results.
Humility: Too good not to have first game. Cuts of CiP effects, which I feel I need. I would board it out most of the time (avoiding krosan grip and the like), but would probably side it back in 3rd game.
Elspeth: I started out with 2 but reconsidered. Your opponent puts a lot of effort in putting this guy to rest (which is nice) but quite often they actually manage that as well (which is less nice). From time to time I end up with 2 in my hand which puts me over the edge of playing just one.
Ajani: Everybody more or less agrees putting this little fella in the sideboard. But I feel it has main board potential. The +1/+1 counter is just crazy with humility back-up (not even mentioning vigilance fot the turn). It has great synergy with humility/manlands/decree tokens earning it a testing session (and maybe tournament) in the main board.
For sideboard I am for the moment considering:
4 meddling mage
4 engineered plague
3 planar void
1 elspeth
1 ajani
2 wrath of god
Elspeth is a debatable slot I guess. But sometimes I feel like I need 2. Planar void should be a 4-off but I am unsure what to cut.
Meddling mage for all it's obvious power is the most difficult card for me. I would very much like to learn more about boarding strategies in general but for this specific card especially.
For reference my metagame is quite diverse but consists of the following elements:
1) black or black/green disruption.
2) combo (as a combo player myself I am quite good at boarding for these match-ups)
3) tribal (elves, combo-elves, merfolk, goblins).
4) loam
5) ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh variants (although not very present I feel I am very weak in my sideboarding choices for this match-up).
Any help on this would be very much appreciated.
As an extra one more question. I played an UGR-ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh variant recently. It has only 8 threats (goyf and mongoose) and an assortment of burn/stifle/wasteland to disrupt my manabase and control my creaturebase.
Tips pre-board would be very much appreciated. But the real question is post-board. Since they are boarding in red blasts I feel that I cannot out-counter them. My counterspells get spell-snared, Daze is a pain and red blast makes FoW become discard. Would it be viable to just board out my counters and just try to gain card advantage through cycling and the like while trading spells 1 for 1 until I gain the upper hand?
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what's for lunch.
Considering Landstill is a popular deck, picture this. You're playing the mirror match. This matchup is based around who can have more resources. This involves getting as many lands into play as you can, and having more cards in your hand. This makes Eternal Dragon, Decree of Justice and Fact or Fiction the best cards in the match. None of these cards can be countered if you're playing them right and they all cause incremental card advantage. When you have more lands than your opponent does, you can tap out for a Decree at their EoT, then untap and attack. Even if they block all your guys you still have some getting through for damage and either drawing out a Wrath from them or keeping yourself ahead for the next Decree. Same reason Elspeth is good: the match is won with 1/1 soldiers. She makes a lot of soldiers, then makes them indestructible.
"Michael opens with Lotus Petal, Academy Ruins, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and Stifle. I Force of Will the Stifle, but he has Force of Will backup. I Ponder on turn one and again on turn two, but fail to find a Swords to Plowshares before he has smashed me twice. " That's losing to Mike Sanchirico.
Team Bad Guys.
Ok, for starters: Brainstorm is the best card in the whole format. Yes, really. No, don't go to three unless you're absolutely certain that last card gives you more wins.
About a second Else. Your reasoning (getting two Elses in your hand) is debatable. Most of the time I have an Else out, I win. If they kill it, I have a second. It's comparable with Counterbalance: if you got it, you win, if they kill it, you have another one! And if you really don't need Else, just shuffle it away with Brainstorm. (Play 4!)
Ajani isn't mainboardmaterial because there are much better cards. Unless you have MB MMages or something, most of the time it's +1/+1 counters don't really matter. It's lifegain doen't really matter against a lot of decks. Elspeth is just better, for the same cost.
I really dislike the 3 decrees and 2 dragons in K's list.
DCI L1 Judge, admin of www.BeNeLegacy.nl and member of Team Nijmegen (T.N.T.=Team Nijmegen Tendrils).
@Elf_ascetic: I was skeptical about the 3 brainstorm as well when it was first proposed, but Konsultant did sum it up nicely: brainstorm doesn't serve the same purpose in this deck that it does in many others. It doesnt fix mana on the first turn, it's a mid-game draw spell that you couple with a shuffle effect to generate massive card quality advantage. When it's playing this role, 3 brainstorm is plenty. I'd run FOF#3 right now if I wanted another draw spell over brainstorm #4.
Concerning SB choices, I've still been running the 3x Mage 3x Halo package for combo hate. Perhaps it's my expected environment (having to deal with Bryant's mad combo skyllz), but I wouldn't pack any less than 6 cards against combo. Especially when runed halo is so effective in other matchups as well.
What are everyone else's thoughts on this? Do you guys prefer to play a reactive game with orim's chant?
[3 mage
3 halo
3 extirpate
2 ajani
4 plague]
I'm here to kick ass and play card games.
BZK
Last tournament I played a board with 4 MMage, 3 Tidehollow Scullers and 2 Ajani's. Really liked it, I've beaten Solidarity in a game starting with 5 minutes on the clock. :) Scullers are an alternative to Halo, but I have to admid I didn't test the Enchantment yet.
DCI L1 Judge, admin of www.BeNeLegacy.nl and member of Team Nijmegen (T.N.T.=Team Nijmegen Tendrils).
I have to disagree with you here: Brainstorm is the best draw spell in Legacy, and I'd go as far as claiming "regardless of the resp. archetype, as long as the deck provides 5+ fetches". What you say about BS being awesome in the mid-game when paired with a fetch land is true but stating it's not a mana fixer in the early game boarders on blasphemy..
Compared to decks packing Ponder (aka. BS 5-8) BS becomes even more crucial as a mana fixer (regardless of the overall land count, LS needs more land online than those ponder.decs anyway).
The ideal LS starting 7 consist of 3 land 4 other rather low-costed cards [allowing you to comfortably reach the mid-game]. Well, more often than not we end up with 2-land-hands, praying for good topdecks. Quite frequently Brainstorm functions as earlygame land drop #3 and consequently as land 24-27/25-28, which is fantastic.
-
Many U-control players misplay BS as an early-game manafixer, though.
Say they made their 2nd land drop (no fetchies among them), having no more land in hand but a BS - I'd say 90% would go BS @ the end of their opp's turn, regardless of what else they're holding. I won't go in depth here because it's not the appropriate post for this, but playing that BS in turn let's you see one more card and thus increases the chance of making that vital 3rd land drop quite a bit.
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Being able to shuffle those Decrees and Elses and Wraths etc away between turn 2-4 is slick tech, too.
Anyway, I'd run 7 if I could.
For the longest time I ran 4 brainstorm 3 Ponder, but eventually when the format slowed down I changed over and ran 4 brainstorm 1 ponder 2 sensei's devining top. As i'm only running four fetch the extra shuffle really does come in handy when I need it. also its clearly not dead with a top in play where as brainstorm is. The really sad part is I want to run a second fof for consistency reasons but I just cant seam to replace the ponder for an fof.
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