[Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

[Tangle.Wire]

Last Saturday I went 4-2 with the list I posted above:

R1: UWx Landstill 1-2
R2: MonoR Burn 2-0
R3: UGW Zoo? 2-0
R4: RGB Zoo? 2-1
R5: MBC 1-2
R6: Same UGW Zoo 2-0

Grats, but was the pithing needle needed at all? i'd cut it for either another daze or explosives.

[Xero_2285]

Grats, but was the pithing needle needed at all? i'd cut it for either another daze or explosives.

The Needle was great. Against MBC I named either Staff of Domination or Oblivion Stone, against the burn deck I named either Hellspark Elemental or Hell's Thunder, against the UGW Zoo I dropped and named Windswept Heath turn 1 and watched him reveal 2 from his hand (he did not get a land until 4th turn), against Landstill I drew it too late but would have named Academy Ruins and game 2 and 3 Grindstone, against the RBG Zoo I named Putrid Leach (the rest of that deck was jank it seemed).

I was thinking about adding a 2nd Needle main for the MBC and Landstill match ups. Another Daze would be nice (trying to fit that in) and 1 explosives has worked out well for me.

[pippo84]

Needle is an underrated card. It's really good. Think at planeswalkers, explosives, fetches, deed, quasali, manlands, sdt and the list goes on and on.

[FoolofaTook]

Last Saturday I went 4-2 with the list I posted above:

R1: UWx Landstill 1-2
R2: MonoR Burn 2-0
R3: UGW Zoo? 2-0
R4: RGB Zoo? 2-1
R5: MBC 1-2
R6: Same UGW Zoo 2-0

I like the list. I wonder a bit about 2x KGrip as dead cards in some matchups and as cards that you really do not want to see in the opening hand because of that.

The matchups I'm having some trouble with right now are Landstill, Merfolk and anything that uses The Rock's general gameplan of destroy everything with 12+ pure removal effects.

KGrip doesn't address enough of the issues in those matchups to clearly swing the game in my favor. At that point I wonder whether or not having it MD is just weakening the deck overall to somewhat improve it's chances in the tough matchups.

I do like the idea of being able to kill vial on turn 3 before it has caused major problems.

[Xero_2285]

I'm sitting here looking at my deck and thinking the same thing about Grip. I was thinking maybe -2 Grip +1 Needle +1 Daze, or just -1 Grip +1 Needle because 2 Daze has worked pretty well and see how it works because I did side Grip out in most of the match ups the other day because I didn't see any NLU at all. I hope I don't end up missing them.

Needle hits Vial, Mutavault, Cursecatcher, Sovereign, Acedemy Ruins, if Landstill gets WasteLock on you it could be a good idea to name Wasteland even thought it screws your own. I don't see Rock at all in my meta but I can imagine naming Deed, Pridemage.

[J.V.]

ps: Are there any UR/UGR Dreadstill tournament reports beside the one vsTheWorld wrote?

Hadley 4th out of 42
The Source Anniversary tournament, 1st
Hadley 3rd out of 36

[Alexfrog]

The Needle was great. Against MBC I named either Staff of Domination or Oblivion Stone, against the burn deck I named either Hellspark Elemental or Hell's Thunder, against the UGW Zoo I dropped and named Windswept Heath turn 1 and watched him reveal 2 from his hand (he did not get a land until 4th turn), against Landstill I drew it too late but would have named Academy Ruins and game 2 and 3 Grindstone, against the RBG Zoo I named Putrid Leach (the rest of that deck was jank it seemed).

I was thinking about adding a 2nd Needle main for the MBC and Landstill match ups. Another Daze would be nice (trying to fit that in) and 1 explosives has worked out well for me.

How do you know quickly enough in game 1 what your opponent is playing, to do stuff like name Windswept Heath against Zoo? Are you playing mostly against people you know, so you know what deck they are playing?

Obviously there are matchups where you could figure out what they are playing and then play needle before they can play the key card, but often making it good would seem to rely on prior deck knowledge.

[Xero_2285]

How do you know quickly enough in game 1 what your opponent is playing, to do stuff like name Windswept Heath against Zoo? Are you playing mostly against people you know, so you know what deck they are playing?

Obviously there are matchups where you could figure out what they are playing and then play needle before they can play the key card, but often making it good would seem to rely on prior deck knowledge.

People in my meta often switch decks but our regulars like me normally stay with one. The 2 rounds where I named Heath against the guy, I know he normally plays Zoo and I had seen him using the Heath's the round before so it was a pretty safe drop. He was also running Delta's and Strand's, I just happened to guess correctly the 4 games we played that day. Even when I went 2nd and after he cracked his first Heath, I still dropped Needle and named Heath because it was a safe bet that he might have more in his hand and the card advantage was too great for me to pass up.

Now it's obvious to do things like this only when you know who and what you are playing. In a much more diverse meta in a larger field, these would not be the correct actions of play because you never know what your going against in the first turn or so.

[pippo84]

I just read again some parts of the older posts. No one recently plays old suggestions that had a boom for a while and then got forgotten and every one just sticks to UGR, correct?

I refer to white splash with StP and Oblivion Ring; kira; bob; crucible and so on..

Btw how do you generally play/board in against landstill? It's one of the mu's I hate most..
And what about pox?

[Shimi]

I just read again some parts of the older posts. No one recently plays old suggestions that had a boom for a while and then got forgotten and every one just sticks to UGR, correct?

I refer to white splash with StP and Oblivion Ring; kira; bob; crucible and so on..

Btw how do you generally play/board in against landstill? It's one of the mu's I hate most..
And what about pox?

I have a friend who plays 8-pox deck with tombstalker so i this MU the key is counter cruciable(waste lock and mishra's ruin us) , beware of tombstalker and only drop nought if it is well protected(remeber you could use mishras to couter pox effect but u will lost TONS of lands), standstill may be a good call but becarful they have 4 mishra's and 4 wastes and we just 3 of each.
So sideboard is something like this:
-1 nought
-1 trickbind
-1 CB
-1 standstill

+3 Krosan Grip
+1 Relic of progenitos/pitting neddle.

Obs:You could also bring in bounces and cruciable if you play them.

[J.V.]

from my current list, this is my side-boarding strategy against Landstill.
Lands:21
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island

Creatures:9
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Trinket Mage

Noncreature Spells:30
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Standstill
3 Spell Snare
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Daze
1 Trickbind

Sideboard:15
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Firespout
3 Krosan Grip
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt

-3 Standstill
-2 Daze
+3 Krosan Grip
+2 REB

[FoolofaTook]

from my current list, this is my side-boarding strategy against Landstill.
Lands:21
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island

Creatures:9
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Trinket Mage

Noncreature Spells:30
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Standstill
3 Spell Snare
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Daze
1 Trickbind

Sideboard:15
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Firespout
3 Krosan Grip
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt

-3 Standstill
-2 Daze
+3 Krosan Grip
+2 REB

Have you thought about finding a 4cc spell to put in the mix so you can lockout their Planeswalkers with CounterTop? I'm actually doing much better against Landstill with the list I posted above and one of the big factors is that as soon as I find Fact or Fiction I do everything I can to keep it second on top, under a Trinket Mage, to keep Elspeth off the board. It works fairly well in that capacity too because I usually have about 10 turns to find it before Elspeth becomes inevitable.

[pippo84]

Anyone has ever thought of adding 2 Trygon Predators in the main deck? It could be helpful in a meta with many counterbalance etc..
I was brainstorming with a friend of why the red splah instead of the white one is more popular and why play Lightning Bolt. Swords is a better removal, and red offers Red Elemental Blast. I then added that we play Firespout as a mass removal and white as mass removal has Wrath of God, but with 2W it's unplayable and costs four.. He then pointed out Planar Collapse.
The idea could be interesting.. With just 2 mana you can kill all creatures, so helping against aggro decks. True it goes under Krosan Grip and Stifle, but it doesn't seem so bad for me..
Thoughts?

[keys]

The wonderful thing about Firespout is that it hits most of the format, but leaves your Noughts and often your Goyfs untouched. The same isn't true of Wrath/Planar Collapse/whatever.

[pippo84]

True, but removes Tombstalker, a threat that our deck can't remove. And you can always cast 'nought after using Planar Collapse..

[lorddotm]

The wonderful thing about Firespout is that it hits most of the format, but leaves your Noughts and often your Goyfs untouched. The same isn't true of Wrath/Planar Collapse/whatever.

That and not sucking against Stifle and Krosan Grip, two of the most common cards in Legacy.

[Tangle.Wire]

My current list plays 2 control magic in the mainboard, they are awesome and imo much better than sower of temptation cause they just don't die as fast. I personally never came to the situation countering a planeswalker with a cc4 spell on the counterbalance but true its possible even for spells like moat,wrath,sowers(opponent),elspeth etc.

For trygon predator, they are pretty good especially under the counterbalance protection but i had no space for 11 creatures on the mainboard so i board out 2 trinket mages for 2 predator normally and it works pretty good.

[lorddotm]

My current list plays 2 control magic in the mainboard, they are awesome and imo much better than sower of temptation cause they just don't die as fast. I personally never came to the situation countering a planeswalker with a cc4 spell on the counterbalance but true its possible even for spells like moat,wrath,sowers(opponent),elspeth etc.

For trygon predator, they are pretty good especially under the counterbalance protection but i had no space for 11 creatures on the mainboard so i board out 2 trinket mages for 2 predator normally and it works pretty good.

The reason this deck loves using creatures is that protecting them with CounterTop is not a hard thing to do, while protecting against Krosan Grip is a big problem.

[Tangle.Wire]

thats true but if u run a list like this:

3 dreadnought
2 trinket
4 goofy
2 predator
+ maybe 2 sower

please tell me how you will be able to drop all those creatures by keeping enough mana free for counter/top action, it can only work on the mid-lategame where we normally only want to have a dreadnought on the table. Also a bunch of creatures gets blocked by our own standstill. I already often thought for myself that even 9 creatures is pretty much.

[pippo84]

So, Sunday I'll attend a tourney and obviously I'll play dreadstill.. You can find my list some posts above.. Probably the other page..
Well, I expect a meta full of Bant (survival, countertop or vial); landstill and merfolk. Then there will be loads of other decks since it will be a 70-80 people tournament. Suggestions?