[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

[GGoober]

Moat is just goddamn aweful in UW Landstill. Your factories/Elspeth tokens can no longer attack, and it doesn't stop one of the more difficult threats to get rid of i.e. Tombstalker. Moat does help Elspeth's second ability, but the limitation is not something good to have, especially in a deck that needs to have answers from many areas. Attacking with ONE flying Factory while the rest sit at home isn't that great. Landstill is perhaps more fearful of Tombstalker than Dreadnought/Goyf since our other removal EE cannot get rid of it. We have Spell Snare/EE/StP against Goyf, so although Moat stops that, it doesn't stop Tombstalker.

Not to mention that Moat dies to Qasali Pridemage which is popular in Zoo and in UGw Thresh. Humility shuts down ANY CiP abilities. Moat doesn't stop Imperial Painter from fecthing Servant and win, but Humility outright wins those matches and it has MUCH more synergy with Factories and Elspeth whereas Moat kills those cards. Since the printing of Qasali Pridemage, I think the incentive to run Moat has decreased unless you're running Exalted Angel in Stax, but you recently see more white Stax utilizing Elspeth as win condition since Exalted also dies to many of the removal in the format.

[FoolofaTook]

Moat beats about half the meta at this point. It's a dead card against the other half and it's no guarantee of a win against the decks it's good against but it really does make a lot of sad pandas.

Any deck playing Eternal Dragon or Elspeth as a substantial part of the win cons can find room for a Moat if it also has ways to go looking for it or promote it naturally. 2 Moats is too much main deck though because it is a dead card in a lot of matchups.

[johanessen]

Moat has it's pro's also, being able to side in Meddling Mage, and having the option to play Vendilion and Sower, which is THE answer for the feared Stalkers.

But who knows, I suppose playing Humility has more sinergy with Manlands.

[GGoober]

Moatstill would be interesting, but if you were playing Meddling Mages, the only MUs where you bring tranny in is against combo or aggro loam (I just bring in for combo and against Loam, Cliques/Relics/Paths/StP is more than enough). If you bring in MM, you automatically board out Humility/Wrath/StP. I can't think of a MU where I needed both MM and creature removal in play. Against Painter, I do the same by bringing in more path against Painter.

Moat definitely does not synergize well with manlands, and factories are the heart of the deck since it plays standstill. If you run moat, don't run factories, and hence don't run Standstill. I.e. Moat is probably good for a more aggro-oriented Landstill with Sowers/Cliques/EDragon, but other than that, I don't want to lose Factories + Standstill in order to run a bomb. I would rather play with a less-powerful but synergistic bomb i.e. Humility than Moat. Moat's playability is drastically decreased now by the popularity of Pridemage. It also suffers the same drawback that Humility does i.e. a Grip ruins your day. At least Humility stops the Pridemage from making it a dead card. Moat is dead if they have an unanswered Pridemage.

[mossivo1986]

Mossivo1986 : Mind listing a list? Or point out a what page it is? :)

Robert

That makes two people in 10 minutes who've asked me that. Here it is:

UWb_TeamAwesome_Wish_Still

Overall 61 Cards

23 Land:
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Island
3 Plains
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
1 Dust Bowl

10 Permission:
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
1 Vendillion Clique

10 Draw:
3 Standstill
3 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Devining Top
1 Jace

10 Removal:
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Wrath of God
1 humility

4 Utility Slots:
2 Cunning Wish
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Nev. Disk

9 Win Con's:
3 Mishra's
2 Decree
2 Elspeth
1 jace
1 Vendillion

Board:
3 Plague
3 Path
3 Negate
1 e tutor
1 pulse
1 return to dust
1 pate
1 crucible
1 relic

Key changes:
-1 spell snare
-1 Relic
-1 vendillion

+2 Counterspell

From the feel of things mid-range decks are getting stronger and the format is becoming much more stable for landstill to be dominant again. The main contender in the tier is Ant which for some reason isn't seeing as much play; thanx 2010 :)."

To answer some simple questions:

Do you keep counterspell in when you side in negate?

Yes; you side in negate as additional counter protection against certain matchups. These matchups include: MUC,Ant,Versions of thresh that use tops second ability for reach against us.

why play 1 relic in the main as a 61'st card instead of just boarding it?

This specific model needed room for board tools like crucible of worlds for the harder matchups that focus on landbase as well as giving you the inevitability with disk + elspeth. The other 13 slots of wish targets as well as negate-plague-path are all slots that arn't changing for now. This leaves us with 1 slot (Which happens to be the second relic.) It is my belief that this type of a model only needs 2 graveyard removal spells, however atleast 1 needs to be main as the format is goyf infested as well as relic is just generally sick against 99.9% of the format.

Why no ajani?

Ajani although powerfull in the mirror and in the burn matchup really isn't that strong. It does occasionally prove more powerful then its normal intent; but overall buying yourself enough time with negate for wish pulse is what your going to need. For models that do not run wish but prefer vindicate I would say ajani is absolutely fine.

Whats so special about negate?

They made it a textless player rewards card. Have you ever countered a spell and said (I'll counter that with my umbrella made of lava!)

It's also just sick against opposing top's, random smokestacks, and just generally a great card. Kudo's wizards.

[GGoober]

Solid list Moss. I do want to stress that Negate is a good card, but if the situations arise where the meta is weak in LD and Wastelands, Counterspell is strictly better. Remember that our arguement to run Negate over counterspell was that the casting cost is difficult if you face against LD decks and wastelands. If the meta allows, Counterspell > Negate, otherwise Negate is strong too.

I'm starting to find 2 Pates excessive. I is needed, unless you're running MTutor so you can have 1 MD and 1 SB to wish for. I like the idea of Clique as another win con. Are you sad without Decrees? I've played with and without Decrees and I find that it speeds up many games, although it doesn't win us the less winnable matchups, in otherwords, it's a win-more card, but sometimes time constraint does make a win-more card a win-condition if you get what I mean.

Overall, I like the list, and 1 Disk is just right with ETutor in the wishboard. I'm debating on playing the second Ruins. It's just such a powerful land in the deck, especially with Disk. There's only one game where I saw double Ruins. Chances are its going to get destroyed sometime in the game. I'm happy people stop playing with the comfort of Crucible. I would personally add EDragon as the 61st/24th land rather than Relic. Relic is god-damn amazing from last weekend. It just beats the shit out of Team America, stops Goyf/Ichorid and other troublesome recursion, namely aggro loam. I definitely have 3 in my SB, and would play 4 depending on the meta. I think that although 1 Relic does help in MD against those Game 1 matches, but chances are you'll still lose them since Ichorid will beat you fast in Game 1 before you can ETutor -> Relic. I would rather have the 24th land and not miss my land drop against Ichorid Game 1. The same deal against Team America and many other decks. The 24th land drop is stronger than a hopefully tutorable answer since Landstill is meant to win matches if it doesn't miss its land drop. That's the moral of the story I learned from my matches. If I don't miss the 4th land drop, I'm in good shape to beat almost any deck out there.

And I agree with the mid-range decks favoring Landstill, and with ANT/combo being less popular due to M10, it's time for this deck to shine again. The deal is, a good combo player is not that much affected by M10 but since ANT is popular because of its relative ease of piloting the deck, we don't have a community of very pro combo players, so we would most likely see a drop in combo players after M10, although the good players will stay on and play and understand the deck as they used to do so.

[mossivo1986]

Remember that our arguement to run Negate over counterspell was that the casting cost is difficult if you face against LD decks and wastelands. If the meta allows, Counterspell > Negate, otherwise Negate is strong too.

I don't agree with this at all. Have rockout explain why; as I have to go see harry potter :) Get to it you troll troll troll

<3 Moss

[rockout]

You also board negate in against the mirror. Counterspell will always be a hard counter. Negate will sometimes counter what you want. Counterspell > Negate. Even if counterspell sits in your hand for the first 12 turns while you get wasted to shit you still will get your 2nd blue source at some point and be happy.

I also only run 2 wasteland now. My goal in life isn't to mana screw my opponent anymore. I've matured into a better landstill player. Dust bowl still sucks. I had someone ask me how to play landstill today. I think we need a new primer for the new lists running around.

If you want to run the 2nd ruins why not just run tolaria west instead. It fetches more shit. O wait we already ruled out tolaria west is too fucking slow and clunky after months of going this card sucks. If they are wasting your ruins you are winning.

What the hell are you talking about crz87? Combo will still be the same deck is has always been. Landstill has been DTB since I started playing it and I don't see that fading anytime soon.

[Rood]

Not sure I like the 1x random Vendillion Clique in there. I'd much rather like it being either

-The 4th Spell Snare
-3rd Cspell
-Another DoJ
-Cut it for 60 cards

It just seems like you could be running much more helpful cards in that slot.

[VonDoom]

The Abyss is too slow for Legacy at this point and there are too many commonly played cards that avoid it, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Nimble Mongoose, Mishra's Factory and Mutavault being the obvious ones before you get into rogue decks still playing Gigapede and Masticore and other holdovers from days gone by.

I recently win a medium tournament (76 players), and The Abyss was one of best side in cards against all aggro.
The Abyss fits perfectly in Landstill strategy --> "Take your time"
This means that the opponent must cast 2 creatures at time, because one isn't enough.
Just to give you the idea:
I won g2 in the final match activating Jace last ability, because of The Abyss slowing him down (Nassif style deck).
I won g3 in the fourth turn against goblin... simply decking him, because of The Abyss slowing him down

Generally speaking, The Abyss fits the strategy I've posted some page ago: I'm boarding in more targets than Kgrips you're boarding in

@Johansen: black gives you also perish, not so bad cards in these bant times

[Ectoplasm]

I won g3 in the fourth turn against goblin... simply decking him, because of The Abyss slowing him down

I must have misinterpreted it but are you telling me that you removed someone's library in turn four? How did that happen?

@Rockout, 2 wastelands IMO is pushing it since personally I like to be able to shoot some wastes at my opponent's mutavaults/factories when I'm playing against something like merfolk, rock or the mirror. Any thoughts?

[Darkenslight]

I must have misinterpreted it but are you telling me that you removed someone's library in turn four? How did that happen?

More likely the Gobbo player milled himself with Ringleader, and because of the Abyss, he managed to get Jace's Ultimate off to mill FTW.

[NQN]

So you mean you basically won when Abyss hit the table...?

@Moss:
I played "your" list but with 60 cards, 4 brainstorm and 4 Snare and 8 SB cards against RG and STILL lost to it...How do you win if you f.e. don´t get an early swords/snare?

[VonDoom]

More likely the Gobbo player milled himself with Ringleader, and because of the Abyss, he managed to get Jace's Ultimate off to mill FTW.

Nono, I misexplained.

In the fourth match of the turney, I was paired against goblin.
After 10 minutes we were going to play G3.

The match went so far, also because of The Abyss, and we arrived with myself at 6lp, and him with creatures for 6 damages in the battleground.

I counted cards in his deck, and these were 4.
I checked that he had used all haste goblins
I resolved a standstill.
Then I played stp over 1 of his creatures, forcing him to draw 3.
Then he had 1 card in his deck.
Then I passed.
He drawed the last card of his deck, but he cannot kill me in that turn.

DECKED!

[NQN]

Sounds very unrealistic and strange, but if it´s right: Congratz^^ Where can the top8 lists be found?

[VonDoom]

Sounds very unrealistic and strange, but if it´s right: Congratz^^ Where can the top8 lists be found?

Here's the link to lists

http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12274

[rockout]

@Rockout, 2 wastelands IMO is pushing it since personally I like to be able to shoot some wastes at my opponent's mutavaults/factories when I'm playing against something like merfolk, rock or the mirror. Any thoughts?

It hasn't been a problem so far. Running less wastelands gives me another basic and forces me to play tighter which I am ok with. I also run vindicate.

[GGoober]

@Rockout: I've been running 2 Wastelands and find it to be color-optimum with 4 Factories and 1 Ruins. I find that 8 cololrless sources is too much and 7 is barely pushing it and optimal. I would rather have 4 Factories than 3 Wastelands since I have detracted from LD as a strategy in Landstill. I also run Vindicates in the maindeck. Are we both doing Vindicate and Wish in one build? I might be the only person testing that list. It has been good sometimes although I feel that a pure wish build maybe better, but having both Vindicate and Wish has not created too huge a problem. In fact, it's made my solutions more flexible in the MD.

[rockout]

I'll post my list after this weekend. I stand by what I said above. Granted I was drunk and got back from the casino really fucking late it still makes sense.

[Ectoplasm]

It hasn't been a problem so far. Running less wastelands gives me another basic and forces me to play tighter which I am ok with. I also run vindicate.

I just love the idea of being the king whenever someone drops a standstill, be it me or my opponent. Getting trampled by mutavaults isn't my idea of being the king
Factories go medieval on vaults but they can get wasted from the other side of the table

I dont know :) Playing just two wastelands feels a bit like stretching it.