[Discussion] Is Standstill too slow (except in merfolk)

[Burk3n]

I've been testing without standstill in my 4c landstill deck, and i find it better without standstill actually, but instead i play 2 jace and counterbalance/top

[memnarch]

It works very well in Merfolk. You just slip a little ankle bitter like cursecatcher down or get a mutavault. You can get it online by turn 2 it works great for me and my opponent almost always pops it. So in that case I think it works better then visions and is just short of an ancestral recall. with force and daze as backup. It gives you card advantage often during your opponents next turn. Allowing you to counter. I would run 4 no matter what. Getting an early one can be the KEY to the game.

[dahcmai]

I actually did run 2 Standstill, but I still hate them. It's for the rare occurrence that you get the drop on someone and can drop it with a Mishra on the table and force them to break it. I cut them to two since the majority of the time it's true that it becomes FOW fodder. Especially against the newer aggro decks. Merfolk seems to be the only deck aside from Landstill itself that can really use a full set.

I never minded people sculpting a hand too much since I played Moat and Humility and would nullify anything that got out there. I enjoyed it for the land drops more than anything. My fourth land drop was vital in the deck I played hence the oddball Chrome Mox.

Personally, I think Standstill is amazing, but it really has to be in a deck that can play around it while it's on the table. Most of the time there's going to be a threat early enough to not want to drop it second turn. It's just devastating if they don't give you one.

AV is good, but I still think Standstill is better due to the style of deck you play it in. It's getting to the point of needing a replacement in some decks though. Jace is starting to shine now it seems. The fact he can take a hit to the face from an early Goyf usually if you used the top ability first is worth thinking about.

If I was still playing my W/U Landstill, I think I'd be leaning towards the Jaces. Sadly, I moved on to Bob also. I was entirely too frustrated with how people took me to time in Chicago and needed a faster kill.

[4eak]

Part of Standstill's decline in power is that it is played in decks that just can't make it asymetrical enough (duh). People try to barely build around the card, making it just asymetrical enough that random.dec would always be forced to break it. But Legacy isn't really random.dec; some of Legacy's commonly played cards are fantastic adaptations to Standstill, and that means that decks built around Standstill need to break the symmetry even further to keep that edge.

Playing a 4c Landstill deck may not be the best home to break the symmetry of Standstill; and if you're finding the card less useful, then build a deck that is better at breaking the symmetry. You'd just need to have substantially better odds of breaking the symmetry than your opponent, and the requirements to do that may be increasing.

There still are decks (or even possible decks) that break the symmetry of the card enough to make it a viable draw engine. Standstill isn't too slow, deckbuilders just have more work to do.

Although, in the end, Fish-type decks use of Standstill may be the natural evolution of the card. "Is Landstill with Standstill too slow?" is a different question than "Is Landstill too slow (except in merfolk)?" though.






peace,
4eak

[mujadaddy]

I played Moat and Humility...I was entirely too frustrated with how people took me to time in Chicago and needed a faster kill.

Oh, cry me a river