[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

[GGoober]

A good landstill player can play EE@2 around Counterbalance, or EE@1 against Mental Misstep (e.g. tapping UU for EE@1 setting it at 2cmc on the stack, or tapping UWUW for EE@2 setting it at 4cmc on the stack).

No, it's definitely not bad to EOT Repeal setting up for Standstill, but what do you truly gain? You only truly gain +2 card (Standstill/Repeal cycle themselves). Your opponent still has the very same spell in his hand that probably needs to be answered so you're now only up by +1 card if it demands a counter. Now the situation will be different if GT played more x-1 spells e.g. EE. I don't think his lists needs to because dropping something like Jace/Shackles is essentially playing an x-1 spell.

Contrast this to Repeal in Counterbalance decks. You're not going to be up on cards, but they're now down on one card (i.e. threat is answered assuming Counterbalance can counter it), so a -1 card on their end is about equivalent to +1 on your end. I'm not here to argue details, but I hope you see that Repeal EOT into STandstill is a good play, but doesn't really strikes me as offering a whole ton compared to other decks where bounce is more meaningful (tempo decks, CBTop decks). In landstill, it's simply to buy a turn, and a turn in Landstill seldom translates to winning, but rather it is mostly to get a stable position.

[The Treefolk Master]

I've tested a bit, and for those saying that the mid-game was weak, I beat Junk, the midrange deck by excellence, over and over again, maybe 10 games, and it wasn't even close.

On Repeal:

It's obviously not a definite answer, but many times the time + extra card is enough to find an answer for the threat. Plus, it's really versatile. Although I'm on the fence of replacing it with 2 EE + 1 Something (PTE or an extra Shackles). Note: I did go -1 Repeal +1 Swords in testing, as I can't get myself to play a deck with 3 Swords, its either 4 or 0, the same goes for Brainstorm and Fow.

Oh, and I found Repeal => Standstill to be utterly devastating, I found an answer for the bounced threat 99% of the times.

On Cunning Wish:

It's versatile, but it's slow and clunky, so it doesn't seem a very good idea imo.

On Jace:

On my testing, 4 proved to be the correct number, I ALWAYS want to see a Jace, save for the first 2-3 turns. If they kill one, you can just drop another, or pitch extras to fow.

On extra Shackles & EE:

It looks like a good idea, specially for an aggro metagame (my case), but it deserves further testing.

Thoughts?

PS: For those who watched the coverage, what do you think about Gerry's Choice to drop Standstill on games 2 & 3 (with grindstone on the table), it seems a misplay to me, I mean, it costed him g2, and nearly costed him g3, specially when he didn't have Mishra on the board (G3). Does anyone know where I can find the vids, cause I missed the last 5 minutes of G3

[spedn7]

if your are looking for the vids of coverage they are all posted here http://www.ggslive.com/ the only thing is that they take about a week to be posted

[Moosedog]

@ Treefolk
I watched Gerry play the standstills games 2-3. i personally would not have cast them in that situation either, but i couldnt see what was in his hands when they were cast. I also have not playtested this deck yet either, ive only played ubgstill. this new list has caught my eye though and i do plan on testing it.



after looking over the new list i feel like 2 tolaria west could be considered. add 2 tolaria 1 EE and 1 academy? this allows you to search for factory under still find EE or Single Academy. again i havnt tested anything nor do i have time ATM. If someone else wants to take the sugestion for a spin and let us know how it plays i would appreciate it.

[kiblast]

Probably if you want to run 4 Repeal purely as a Standstill enabler,then you should probably be running Pernicious Deed and play UBG, or play Wog/ DoJ again.

Repeal is good in:
-situations where you face only one creature
-situations where you face two/three creatures and you have the possibility to: set up a Vedalken Shackles, or a Jace bounce, or playing Stp into Standstill/next turn Standstill.

-in any other situation is almost a dead card, since bouncing one of their 2-3 creatures while having others beating is not so good in prevision of a future Standstill, and buying a turn while cantripping seems not so good if you don't have another bomb ready in hand, like Jace to bounce the other creature or Shackles.
-As others said, Repeal+ Stp + Standstill is a 2 card advantage due to Repeal cantripping.
-Please note that Repeal'ing a Kotr coosts 4 as a Doj / WoG. Sure it's instant speed, but does that really count in a deck tuned to survive early game and play at its peak in the mid-late game,when you have lots of mana to work with? Wog into Standstill is a turn 6 play, it's not so impossible and actually is a very strong play that UWx can/has to do.

Deed, or Wog, or Disk:
- Let you blow away almost everything, and facing 1-2+ creatures at the same time is not a problem.
- Are slower. That's probably the biggest issue, but if you are playing already 4 Misstep, 4 Spell Snare, 3 Counterspell, 4 Fow, your build is tuned to survive easily the first 4 turns, and you should be able to reach 4-5 mana and stabilize pretty easily.
- Deed / Wog or Disk into Standstill is 2 card advantage too, but actually you wasted one less resource (you just played 2 spells; instead of 3 with one actually blind-cantripping in a possible blank draw)
- All these spells, minus Disk, have multiple different specific mana in their mana costs, though.

I don't know what to think. I probably prefer a Wog / Doj approach to Standstill instead of a 1 on 1 bounce plan.Anyway,if he had a good result, and he had it, then it's probably right and it works.

[Royal Ass.]

[QUOTE=

PS: For those who watched the coverage, what do you think about Gerry's Choice to drop Standstill on games 2 & 3 (with grindstone on the table), it seems a misplay to me, I mean, it costed him g2, and nearly costed him g3, specially when he didn't have Mishra on the board (G3). Does anyone know where I can find the vids, cause I missed the last 5 minutes of G3 [/QUOTE]


I was surprised he played Standstill under those scenarios. I don't think I would have. It was pretty risky and basically cost him game 2 like you said. I was a bit shocked when he made the same play game 3. I guess he figured he could take some milling why he sculpted his hand in order to deal with the other threats.

In general I found Gerry T's list interesting. It finally convinced me that 2 color standstill is probably the way to go as it gives you a really solid mana base. However I think White has more to offer than just STP and I like the ability to have sweepers like WOG. Also, I think humility is still really good and would have been great in his match up against PainterStone. I also think that 4 Jaces it too much. I am still playing a 2Jace/2Elspeth split.

Basically Mental Misstep drastically increases the potency of Standstill because it allows us to counter the turn 1 threat and drop standstill. I think the card is going to start getting a lot more attention with MMS printed. I'm looking forward the the rise of Stanstill and straight up control decks that don't involve counterbalance.

[nayon]

I was surprised he played Standstill under those scenarios. I don't think I would have. It was pretty risky and basically cost him game 2 like you said. I was a bit shocked when he made the same play game 3. I guess he figured he could take some milling why he sculpted his hand in order to deal with the other threats.

In general I found Gerry T's list interesting. It finally convinced me that 2 color standstill is probably the way to go as it gives you a really solid mana base. However I think White has more to offer than just STP and I like the ability to have sweepers like WOG. Also, I think humility is still really good and would have been great in his match up against PainterStone. I also think that 4 Jaces it too much. I am still playing a 2Jace/2Elspeth split.

Basically Mental Misstep drastically increases the potency of Standstill because it allows us to counter the turn 1 threat and drop standstill. I think the card is going to start getting a lot more attention with MMS printed. I'm looking forward the the rise of Stanstill and straight up control decks that don't involve counterbalance.

Humility doesn't stop Painter's Servant. Layers.

[mosaic]

Humility doesn't stop Painter's Servant. Layers.

That's true, however you shut down Welder and Trinket Mage.

[ivanpei]

I think that Gerry t's emphasis on basics is pretty important. Getting double white is gonna be tough. If you guys go for the double white plan, you're gonna need basic plains and that messes up the shackles plan. I still prefer shackles over humility though. I've died to 1/1s too many times. You've got to up the manland count so that humility is the most effective too.

[Royal Ass.]

I have altered my list after watching the Gerry T matches. I have not yet been sold on Shackles. I still want to run 2 WOGs and 1 Humility as well as 2 Elspeth and 4 Swords. I have a Peacekeeper in the board. I am running 2 basic Plains to support all this.

I also run 4 Factories. I always want to see that card. Gerry T only runs 23 lands. That seems way too low to me. I know most decks run 24. I actually run 25. With brainstorm and Top you can shuffle them away.

I think Gerry T should have at least run 24 by adding an extra Factory. Obviously he still won so perhaps it didn't matter, but there were some times in his semi finals match where he was wanting for a factory. Especially when he had Standstill out with a grindstone in play.

I actually have cut down to 1 Top from 2. It's one less MMS target, plus I needed to make room in the deck for 4 MMS.

I didn't realize that Humility didn't shut off Painter's Servant. I don't understand why it doesn't shut that off but it does trinket mage. Could someone briefly explain that to me? Thanks.

[Moosedog]

612.1a Layer 1: Copy effects are applied. See rule 706, “Copying Objects.”
612.1b Layer 2: Control-changing effects are applied.
612.1c Layer 3: Text-changing effects are applied. See rule 611, “Text-Changing Effects.”
612.1d Layer 4: Type-changing effects are applied. This includes effects that change an object’s card type, subtype, and/or supertype.
612.1e Layer 5: Color-changing effects are applied.
612.1f Layer 6: Ability-adding and ability-removing effects are applied.
612.1g Layer 7: Power- and/or toughness-changing effects are applied.


612.3a Layer 7a: Effects from characteristic-defining abilities are applied. See rule 604.3.
612.3b Layer 7b: Effects that set power and/or toughness to a specific number or value are applied.
612.3c Layer 7c: Effects that modify power and/or toughness (but don’t set power and/or toughness to a specific number or value) are applied.
612.3d Layer 7d: Power and/or toughness changes from counters are applied. See rule 120.
612.3e Layer 7e: Effects that switch a creature’s power and toughness are applied. Such effects take the value of power and apply it to the creature’s toughness, and take the value of toughness and apply it to the creature’s power.



Painter applies in layer 5 (see above). then humility apples in layer 6 so the changing effect applied by painter has already happened.

also there is an entire thread on how humility works for further instruction

[ivanpei]

Since we see alot of pridemage, I think that the manland, plains and humility may be equally effective too. You'd need to trim jace's to 3 though. I wouldn't run elspeth too because that's too many 4 drops. I'm not sure about the wastes, why not just play vaults? Vaults + factories + humility seems pretty strong.

It seems that the only reason for wastes is to compete with fish's lands under a still. Mutavaults serves the same purpose and is just ridiculous with humility.

[GGoober]

I think that Gerry t's emphasis on basics is pretty important. Getting double white is gonna be tough. If you guys go for the double white plan, you're gonna need basic plains and that messes up the shackles plan. I still prefer shackles over humility though. I've died to 1/1s too many times. You've got to up the manland count so that humility is the most effective too.

Getting double white isn't tough in UWx splash-x builds. But of course getting just U in Uw builds is easier, but WW spells do offer a ton more power avaialble.

UWx builds do support Shackles weakly for the reasons you mentioned, but they opt for other x-1 spells such as Humilty/WoG/Elspeth. To be fair, I've died to more 8/8 knights and Progenitus/Emrakul etc. Shackles v.s. Humility v.s. WoG are metagame calls. The consensus is that Humility/WoG is an answer all for any aggro deck out there and has proven well where Shackles was weaker. However, Gerry T is known to come up with innovative lists (e.g. his BUG Tempo deck which many mistake to be Team America which he piloted in the past that was built with a metagame of TA in mind) that work well for his top finishes, and given that he has plenty of byes, he can really focus on metagaming to what he expects are in the final few rounds of the circuits. This is highly important.

Shackles is the glue in MUC, and in some sense, GerryT's list resembles MUC but within a Landstill shell (manlands + Standstill).

[ivanpei]

I agree, byes have alot to do with it. His decks are extremely metarized. He doesn't have to fight through a couple of rounds of random first. The benefit of repeal at the top tables is that it's blue and pitches to force in the jace vs jace slugfest. More spot removal/sweepers probably aren't as important at the top tables where blue mirrors are king.

[mossivo1986]

When I tested against it it felt like he was playing supreme blue. No real interaction minus one card you have to play around carefully. Once the situation has been voided, the game is over.

[conboy31]

What was the sb card that GerryT and friends had that was the trump to Thrun?

[troopatroop]

I really like Landstill with Mental Misstep, but I fear Merfolks in this meta. Peacekeeper and StP seem like a fine plan, but has anyone tried U/w/r for Firespout? 3cc Sweep is ideal, as it follows Standstill and sets up Jace nicely. I think it shores up Aggro matchups, has anyone tried red?

[Neuad]

What was the sb card that GerryT and friends had that was the trump to Thrun?

I believe it was their lovely 'Take Possession' they had in their tutor package board. They also discovered how good Decree of Justice is in the deck finally and took out those terrible Repeals. They still don't run Cunning Wish which is a giant mistake. Not a fan of their build. Gerry and Drew ID'd in round 8, our best guess is to avoid top 16 and their deck list being posted but I was standing there through their 'match' and saw most of their list. Was unimpressed compared to a Master Shake special but I'm biased.

[klaus]

It has probably dawned on most LS players already, but with STP being the formats' #1 creature removal spell: Peacekeeper + Mental Misstep = win. I feel so safe when dropping that guy with a Misstep in hand and drawing more, while the game draggs on.

[GGoober]

Uxr builds these days don't beat Merfolks. You beat Merfolks only if you solve:

1) Vial (if you can't solve this, you just don't beat it at all)
2) Having a clock/win/lock.

Number 2) is becoming pressingly important observation to this matchup. There is no point to sweep and pinpoint remove their creatures over and over again. Merfolks will always rebuild and match your 1-1 answer (they run card advantage cards and can utilize manlands as free creatures). It's very important when you understand 2) being the bottleneck to beating Merfolks. You can achieve 2) in a number of ways: Peacekeeper/Moat/Ensnaring Bridge. It is this reason why WoG/Firespout/EE/Disk is unimpressive agaisnt Merfolks but recurring EE/Peaceekeper/Moat/Ensnaring Bridge/Scepter+StP/Shackles are good answers to Merfolks.

However, the most challenging barrier for this matchup is 1). Unlike Goblins and other vial decks, Merfolk plays a TON of counters to force Vial through.