[Deck] UBGx Landstill

[thefreakaccident]

I've been having great success with this list:

lands//24
4 mishra's factory
1 island
3 grove of the burnwillows
4 underground sea
3 volcanic island
3 tropical island
3 flooded strand
3 polluted delta

board control//12
4 innocent blood
4 punishing fires
4 pernicious deed

draw//11
4 brainstorm
4 standstill
3 jace, the mind sculpter

permission//12
4 force of will
4 counterspell
4 spell pierce

life from the loam//1

sideboard//
3 krosan grip
3 firespout
4 extirpate
3 blue elemental blast
2 red elemental blast


The deck has a lot of removal, as well as threats, permission, and draw. Punishing fires really changes a lot of difficult MUs, and makes the deck's midrange aggro MU incredible.

This list does not lose to merfolk. After boarding it gets even worse for them with the addition of firespout, which dramatically effects their ability to deny mass removal with wasteland.

Vengevival has at least 20 creatures that die to punishing fires, and most of their critters usually die to two punishing fires. If they allow you to go to the mid-late game you can keep them on a clear board forever. Spell pierce usually eats up early survivals game one and forces them to either slow roll them or go for the much slower, much more vulnerable fauna shaman in games 2 and 3.

Spell pierce also slows down counterbalances by enough turns to let you land standstill or deed under them, dramatically decreasing it's impact on the game.

I play extirpate in the board to help in the survival and ichorid MUs... People seem to disagree with this for some reason, but I find that if I remove bridge from below I can usually beat ichorid with landstill of any color combination. The addition of punishing fires can really slow down a bloodghast/ichorid beat down plan, and can clean up any left over zombies.


I am in dire need of a good goblins player and a good combo player to test against on MWS, so if anyone would be willing to test with me that would be awesome.


The deck has been struggling with knight of the reliquary in the midgame, as a bunch of 1cmc guys deprive innocent blood, and they are usually far to big to punishing fires, which opens zoo variants up to a nice timing attack around the turn 4-6 mark for a massive amount of damage sometimes. Firespout comes in postboard, but I think the deck needs a bit more than that, does anyone have any ideas to solve that problem?

[Mana Drain]

freakaccident, I'm not going to lie, that list is straight ballin'. I love the addition of Punishing Fire, and I have been fooling around with a bunch of different blue lists with it trying to make it work, but have yet to test it in Deedstill. It's an amazing engine and gives us a lot of reach for opposing PWs and utility dudes/enablers like Confidant, Noble Hierarch, Fauna Shaman, LoA, etc. I'm also glad someone else is having luck with the MD Spell Pierce. The card is great for slowing down the game and stopping serious early-game threats like other Standstills, NO, Vial, Equipment, etc. I'm going to try a list using yours as a base, but including white. STP/Path is just so many miles better than IB that I still think it warrents inclusion regardless of other color choices. If it goes anywhere I'll post the list.

[dahcmai]

I have to admit, I like that a lot. I already play red in mine since I am in love with my main deck Firespouts, but Punishing Fire might take it's spot since that's not a bad way to go at all. I will definitely try your list out.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

I definitely need to try that list out. There may not be a better list for an aggro metagame. I also like the ability to have access to Red Elemental Blast out of the sideboard when switching to an anti-control, anti-combo package.

[ivanpei]

Have not tested punishing fire -grove. Seems like it improves your merfolk matchup alot and is good against opposing walkers/bobs. Losing paths/swords hurts though. Difficult to deal with tarmo/venges/ quick kitties as well as having more non-blue lands. 17 blue sources in a 4 colour deck that runs counterspell is a bit wonky to me. Deck has 10 black sources, 12 red, 12 green. I don't want to sound like a sour grape that ruins the party but generally in any deck I play I like to have at least 12 sources of any single colour and 14 of the dominant colour. To reach this in landstill, I play 9 fetches plus 3/4 of any dual and that works for me. By playing grove, you're colour distribution is skewed towards R/G. I advise cutting an island and a trop for 2 more fetches.

This combo seems promising, any extra reach/CA in a control deck is always welcome. At worse it's a 2 mana shock. I'm still not sold on it as IMO it puts more strain on an already vulnerable manabase and STP/path is just too important IMO.

On a constructive note, why not play UWRG? Black is essentially for innocent blood/ deed. By cutting black and deed, you can chop you're trops and essentially become a 3 colour deck MD splash green. This manabase looks much more reliable:

9 Fetch
4 Tundra
2 Volc
1 Trop
1 Island (Or 2nd trop)
3 Grove
4 Factory

12 Green, 13 White, 14 Red, 17 blue.

You have access to swords/path but lose deed. Deed is the mvp house for the deck so it's a heavy loss but maybe its worth testing. I'd go, -4 blood, -4 deed, + 4 Swords, +1path, + 3 spell snare. Spell snare helps nab some of the non-creature stuff that deed was supposed to nab like balance, survival. You start hurting slightly vs vial, but the reach of grove/fire should be enough to counter that. Also, STP works with punishing fire. :) Food for thought.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

I don't like the reliance on Innocent Blood over Swords or Path, but the sheer card advantage pushes this list over the top in an aggro metagame.

If your metagame is all combo and control this is obviously not the way to go because you are substituting the power and versatility of Spell Snare and Engineered Explosives for the ability to completely break aggro.

This is a great meta choice though.

[Monochrome]

Just placed 6th at the TOGIT Lotus event with ivanpei's exact list from a few pages back. Only difference was going to 4x Jace and only 1x EE. Here's a report:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...event&p=507309

[galeng]

What are our strategies vs folk? My record is god awful bad (like 20%) and I'm not sure if that's normal. I was considering the red splash for that entire reason but I hear the white version can manage. Btw my vial goblins MU is around 60% based on a large sample if that means anything. Here's the list I'm very used to:

// Lands (25)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland

// Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam

// Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Hydroblast
2 Duress
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pulse of the Fields
2 Extirpate

[Mana Drain]

What you use against Fish depends on your colors.

If you're straight UGB, use 4x EPlagues, and if you have additional cheap removal in your board (Diabolic Edicts, Ghastly Demises'), side those in too for LoA and other lords. EPlague isn't the greatest against Fish, but it still helps tremendously. UGB is by far the weakest against Fish, even though it has a relatively stable manabase.

If you're in red, 3x Firespout between MD/SB in addition to the Deeds, and at least 2-3 Pyroblasts/REBs in there somewhere is about all you need.
This combination (sans the blasts) is also very useful against Goblins.

If you're in white, addition Paths and 2-3 Peacekeepers will do it for you. I've had great success with Ugbw, mainly due to PK just blowing out decks. Folk has just no way of removing it other than counters, so just trying to land it through whatever means possible is actually an extremely solid strategy. The best color combination for fighting Fish, but you'll run into problems with Goblins as PK is useless there.

Remember to side out your Standstills. Dropping one against Fish will almost always backfire on you unless you're already winning.

[galeng]

I'm going to look into peacekeeper in testing for the next tourney. It's hard to decide what to cut, but it seems worth it. Fish is a large part of my meta as well as survival, so it seems like the pick.

[jparula]

For the Ubg version what do you guys think of including ivory tower in the sideboard? (since we don't have access to pulse of the fields)
On another note, has anyone tested counterbalance+top on the sideboard against combo? They're not that good with deed but against combo you should board deeds out anyways.

Regards

[Mana Drain]

For the Ubg version what do you guys think of including ivory tower in the sideboard? (since we don't have access to pulse of the fields)
On another note, has anyone tested counterbalance+top on the sideboard against combo? They're not that good with deed but against combo you should board deeds out anyways.

Regards

CB in the board is great, if your running at least 3 Tops MD. Although, unless you're in some twisted metagame where combo was like 50%+ of the enviroment, I wouldn't SB 3/4 CB AND 3 Tops. I think that's way to much space to dedicate to any matchup. If you're not running any Tops MD, more Duress/Spell Pierce/Meddling Mage would do what you need to do, while also being effective in other matchups. Look at ivanpei's SB for some ideas.

On Ivory Tower, I haven't the slightest idea. The card was straight raw, about 12 years ago. Whether it would be worthwhile now to buy an additional turn or two is worth testing. How many are you thinking should be tested in the SB?

[jparula]

CB in the board is great, if your running at least 3 Tops MD. Although, unless you're in some twisted metagame where combo was like 50%+ of the enviroment, I wouldn't SB 3/4 CB AND 3 Tops. I think that's way to much space to dedicate to any matchup. If you're not running any Tops MD, more Duress/Spell Pierce/Meddling Mage would do what you need to do, while also being effective in other matchups. Look at ivanpei's SB for some ideas.

On Ivory Tower, I haven't the slightest idea. The card was straight raw, about 12 years ago. Whether it would be worthwhile now to buy an additional turn or two is worth testing. How many are you thinking should be tested in the SB?

Well the problem with playing duress/spell pierce (i can't play meddling mage since i'm Ubg), is that you end up siding out your creature removal and combo gets you with xantid swarm & co. I've tryed 4xduress and 4xdispel/spell pierce and i still lost to xantid swarm cause i didn't get to creature removal. So you actually need to draw the "right" answers in this case whilst if playing counterbalance it works every time (even top alone is good cause you can hide that FoW on top of Library and they can duress and thoughtseize you all they want).

Ivory Tower is versus Burn/RW steppe lynx/fast zoo kind of decks, in which deeds and pulses are not great (too slow). What happens to me in these match ups is being able to stabilize at 2-5 life and then trying to control the top of their decks with jace, but that doesn't always work and i need a way to recover life overtime without playing white. Besides Ivory Tower is actually card advantage against these type of decks sometimes and combined with jace drawing instead of controlling the top of their decks seems pretty good. In addition those fetch and dual lands you keep in hand at the end of the game to avoid PoP actualy give you life with ivory tower.

[honestabe]

I've been having great success with this list:

lands//24
4 mishra's factory
1 island
3 grove of the burnwillows
4 underground sea
3 volcanic island
3 tropical island
3 flooded strand
3 polluted delta

board control//12
4 innocent blood
4 punishing fires
4 pernicious deed

draw//11
4 brainstorm
4 standstill
3 jace, the mind sculpter

permission//12
4 force of will
4 counterspell
4 spell pierce

life from the loam//1

sideboard//
3 krosan grip
3 firespout
4 extirpate
3 blue elemental blast
2 red elemental blast

This list is straight heat. The only thing is, I miss Wastelands. Is running them in the board awful?

Also, I added one UR and one UG filterland to make grove more synergistic with counterspell and Jace

[honestabe]

I split the finals of a small event with this:

3 Waste
4 Factory
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
3 Strand
3 Seas
3 Trops
1 Tundra

3 Big Poppa Jace

3 Innocent Blood
2 Loam

4 FoW
3 Counterspell
3 Pierce
3 Snare
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Swords
4 Brainsteeze

4 Standstill
4 Pernicious Deed

SB:
4 Engineered Plague
1 thoughtsieze
1 duress
1 Darkblast
2 K-Grip
2 Tormods (should have been extirpates, but mine got stolen)
1 Mindbrrak trap
1 BeB
1 Smother
1 Persecute



Round 1, vs Adam w/ Stiflenought

Game One: He plays an early confidant, which I decline to force, due to the 2x innocent blood and deed in my hand. At his EOT, I brainstorm, and put one of them back. On my turn, i play blood, spell pierces, I force, He forces back. Crap. I have to wait until next turn to play the deed in my hand, and then the turn after that to pop it. However, he stifles the trigger, but counterspell comes to the rescue. My opponent is visibly upset that I countered his stifle with a white-bordered counterspell, but at this point, his bob has pulled him ahead, and I'm just trying to fight back. On his next turn, he plays a trinket mage, gets a top, and casts it into my spell pierce. On my turn, I innocent blood the mage, and drop a standstill. He immediatly breaks it for a threat. I answer it and drop another standstill. All the while I'm beating his down with factories. In his final hour, he gets desperate and starts stifling the activations of factory (ok...pay 1 mana again???). He scoops at 8 life to 2 factories and another standstill.

At this point, everyone else is done with their match, and they're only about 12 minutes left in the round. I already consider myself 1-0, because there's no way he's winning next game

Game 2: He tries to go balls to the wall with a dreadnought, but I have wayyy too much removal and counter for that to work. I'm sitting pretty with 2 deeds in hand vs his board of nothing. He plays a bob, which resolves, then a trinket mage, which also resolves, then a needle on deed, which he forces through my wall of countermagic. Uh-oh. I rip an innocent blood, so its just his bob vs my 2 factories. He flips a force to his bob (the only damage he took from it the entire match), and suddenly, I think I can actually just beat him down with factories and win the race. I get him to 8 before he rips his 2nd wasteland of the game. this changes my plan from win, to not die within the next 5 minutes. He then rips his 3rd wasteland, which kills my blocker. I proceed to draw all lands that don't turn into 2/2s and die in turn 4 of time. BOOO

0-0-1

Round 2, Micah, with countertop Dreadnought

Game one, my spell pierces and snares eat him alive, and my wasteland is laughing at the Dark Depths he just played. I drop a jace on turn 4, who immediatly begins sealing Micah's fate. He scoops early, as a deed joins the party.

Game two: Starts a lot like the first, as i get him with a spell pierce, and then get him with the duress effects i boarded in. His hand had a lot of spell pierces, dazes and stifle effetcs, but i just played around them, baited his spell pierces with a deed, baited his stifle effects with waste and fetchlands, and stuck a Jace to clean up the mess I left behind.

1-0-1

Round 3, ?? with UB Ad Naus

Game one: I'm pretty sure he's on storm, so I keep a hand w/ a deed, 5 lands, brainstorm and force. I then draw 2 lands in my next 2 turns and decide i need to blow the brainstorm, which nets me a spell pierce and 2 more lands.....I start beating down with factories, and he tried for an EOT ad Naus, which gets spell pierced. On my next turn, i drop a standstill, and continue to bash. He broke it, for a ponder, as i drew land, land, land. HE then shipped the turn. on my next go-round, I drop another standstill, which he breaks on his turn (guess what i drew.....)He starts blowing rituals, and chaining tutors, as the storm gets pretty high up. Luckily, all these lands mean i can hardcast my FoW, but I miscounted the number of cards in his hand, which allowed him to tutor up tendrils with 9 storm. He cast it, and I swordsed a factory to save myself at 1 life. I then beat him down from 22-0 life with my 2 factories.

Game 2: I hit him with an early thoughtsieze, then spell pierce, then duress, as my factories chip away at his life. Not before long, he's at 8 life, and is forced to go for the miracle ad naus, which just didn't get there.

2-0-1

Top 4

We discuss splitting, but the guy I'm paired up against really doesn't want to. I have no idea what he's playing, so off we go.
Game one: He mulls to 5 on the draw, and makes the first move with a utopia sprawl. At this point, I realize he's playing Enchantress, which I've never tested against, because honestly, who the fuck plays enchantress in real life? The lack of testing means I have to read all of his cards. His mulligan really hurts him, as i counter everything he does until he runs out of gas, then i drop a Big Poppa Jace, who wraps things up quickly.

Game two: I really wish I didn't let my teammate talk me out of running the miser's Back to nature in the board, so i just bring out innocent bloods, for 2 grips and darkblast (for his enchantress). He has a turn 2 enchantress, which i triumphently swords at the end of his turn :facepalm:. Like I said, I'm really unfamiliar with that deck. Regardless, I pretend to have nothing, and let him overextend the board. Things got scary with a choke and luminarch ascention, but I then drop one of the two deeds I've been gripping, followed by a Jace. At his point, I'm in good shape, and he scoops to my 2nd deed, which i play preemptivly along with my jace.

Top 2: we're tired, and split. Hooray


Overall, I love the deck. Getting on color mana was sometimes annoying, but ultimatly never cost me any games. That being said, I was scared a few times, so I think next time, I'll cut a basic Island for another fetch. 3 waste seems like the right amount to me. With all the card manipulation, you'll always have one when you need one, and loam allows you to waste multiple times if you need to.

Any questions??

[jrp]

Good report, thanks for that.

Question about the list. If you're getting into a fourth color (white) for Swords, why only play 1 Tundra and 2 Swords? It seems more stable to stick to 3-color and just use Innocent Bloods/Ghastly Demises - or more powerful to switch your Swamp to a Plains add another Tundra, and just play 4 Swords. I also like to play a Crime//Punishment or some EEs to suppplement my Deeds, but that's more of a personal preference.

[honestabe]

Good report, thanks for that.

Question about the list. If you're getting into a fourth color (white) for Swords, why only play 1 Tundra and 2 Swords? It seems more stable to stick to 3-color and just use Innocent Bloods/Ghastly Demises - or more powerful to switch your Swamp to a Plains add another Tundra, and just play 4 Swords. I also like to play a Crime//Punishment or some EEs to suppplement my Deeds, but that's more of a personal preference.

Honestly, I just copied the manabase and removal suite from Lewis Laskin, one of the deck's pioneers. I must admit I did cut a few non-basics for basics, but the gist of it is still there.

I like the option of having all of the different removal spells, as they're an awesome way to get around meddling mage, and simaler disruptive cards. Using different colors for removal is also good if your opponent goes after your manabase. They might try and take out your tundra to get around swords, so you use your sea to play innocent blood. Innocent blood is also the stone cold nuts against reanimator, creatures with shroud and decks that run few threats, such as 4 color counterbalance, and new horizons, while swords and ghastly demise are stronger against swarms, notably merfolk and gobbos.

As far as the one white mana source goes, as long as you're not stupid about fetching up lands, it just isn't really a problem. Even if they do waste it, you'll more likely than not have a loam to just get it back.

[Mana Drain]

Congrats on the finish. The list looks solid, but I have to agree with jrp on the Sword/white issue. If you're going to run Swords, run 4. If not, stick to UBg. Swords is too powerful to run less than 4, but it does shake the manabase a bit to include white. I think you should run 4 or none.

Also, that counter-suit is a beast. I really like having those early-game Snares/Pierces too. They're extremely useful in matchups like Tempo, Dreadstill, Zoo, and especially Combo. Good call on that one.

[Antonius]

wow. Ubgr with punishing fires looks so so gangster.

Have you ever considered throwing 2 intuition up in there? Being able to prep for the late game by putting two fires and a loam in yard seems pretty damn good to me. I have to say though, i agree with others that say no wasteland really sucks. It hurts the consistency of the standstill engine... I would consider dropping 1 standstills for some other kind of draw, or removal, pulse or ghastly...maybe even terminate. Have you considered running CB in your 75? You could drop the MD pierces for 2 top, 2 intuition, then put 1 Top and 4 CB in your board. Bringing CB in against burn improves that matchup tremendously.

[Fuzzy]

Game two: I really wish I didn't let my teammate talk me out of running the miser's Back to nature in the board, so i just bring out innocent bloods, for 2 grips and darkblast (for his enchantress).

Any questions??

Enchantress has Shroud. Why side in Darkblast and side Innocent Blood out?