[Deck] UW(x) Landstill

[Kaslan]

Finaly decided this week to build a 'fair' legacy deck, as my friend says. I went for Landstill after proxy testing it. I was looking through the pages and couldn't find a good sideboard for a UW version. I know sideboard are meta dependent, but can anyone give me a 'primer' idea? What is our bad/worst match up. I tested against TES which I crushed, RDW gave me trouble since main deck I had no way to gain life, Affinity was a joke and Esper Stoneblade was fine until they get some Spirits token online.

-Make a Etutor side board.

-I think burn in a really bad match up

[Ozymandias]

I run Landstill with Counter-Top main, and my current sideboard is:

3 Vendilion Clique
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Batterskull
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Wheel of Sun And Moon
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Sundial of the Infinite
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Wrath of God
1 Decree of Justice
1 Seal of Cleansing

Decree and Wrath oscillate between the main and the board. I run 1 e-tutor main with a mini-toolbox of O-ring, crucible, counterbalance, humility, E.E.

[Philipp2293]

I ran your decklist at a local last week as I wanted a change from Maverick and Nic Fit.

Is the Sundial a metachoice? It's been the only card I've replaced. I played Cursed Totem instead, which saved my ass against combo elves :)

Also, don't you feel you're a little light on gravehate?

[Shawn]

I played UWb Landstill to an unfortunate 5-3 finish at the Madison SCG yesterday. Beat BW aggro 2-0 (like Death and Taxes without the lock), Uwb Thopters 2-0, lost to Dream Halls 0-2, High Tide 1-2, then beat Reanimator 2-0, Ur burn 2-1, lost 1-2 to Canadian, then beat High Tide 2-1. The deck felt pretty sweet, but even with 3 Counterbalance, 1 Canonist, 1 Tutor side and 3 Top, 1Tutor main the combo matches were rough. I ran 2 Terminus and they were insane all day.

[Kaslan]

I played UWb Landstill to an unfortunate 5-3 finish at the Madison SCG yesterday. Beat BW aggro 2-0 (like Death and Taxes without the lock), Uwb Thopters 2-0, lost to Dream Halls 0-2, High Tide 1-2, then beat Reanimator 2-0, Ur burn 2-1, lost 1-2 to Canadian, then beat High Tide 2-1. The deck felt pretty sweet, but even with 3 Counterbalance, 1 Canonist, 1 Tutor side and 3 Top, 1Tutor main the combo matches were rough. I ran 2 Terminus and they were insane all day.

can you post your deck list please ?

[klaus]

As a long-time LS enthusiast (Speedstill: 2008-2011) I'm still attached to that cute enchantment.
I still ask myself (and hope I don't sound too sound arrogant): what's LS's advantage over Stoneblade.dec?
I've discarded that archetype and currently don't see a reason to go back.
Sad but true: my Standstills sit in my tradefolder waiting for someone to do better with them than I did during their last days..

[Shawn]

List and mini report:

24 lands
1 Fortress
1 Scrubland
1 Tar Pit
1 Sea
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Flats
2 Delta
4 Strand
4 Tundra
1 Waste
1 Dust Bowl
2 Factory

36 spells
2 EE
4 STP
3 Snare
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Top
4 BS
3 SStill
2 CS
3 Lingering Souls
2 Terminus
3 JTMS
1 Humility
1 Elspeth
4 FOW

SB:
4 LLOTV
1 Relic
1 Tutor
1 Canonist
1 Batterskull
2 Porphyry Nodes (sweet)
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Vindicate
3 Counterbalance

R1 - BW aggro
He casts some Bobs and other humans like Thalia which I deal with. I mess up here, I left up Counterspell mana when I could have had Standstill in play and he had a Cavern on humans. I Miracle Terminus and resolve a bunch of 4cc stuff and he eventually scoops. I sideboard like this:
-2 Cspell, -1 FOW +2 Nodes, +1 Vindicate

G2 is similar to g1, I kill some stuff, Miracle Terminus. I am forced to do so again, he Surgical Extracts my first, but I have the FOW and win comfortably.

R2 - Game one I am able to win through Jace TMS and Elspeth since I draw all three Lingering Souls and grind him out. G2 I FOW his t4 'walker, He Forces my Jace, and eventually stick an Elspeth and kill him with a soldier a million turns later. He must have not had much to bring in; he was drawing Wogs and STPs g2 while I had cards that did relevant stuff.

R3 I get crushed by Dream Halls-Conflux game one. Game two I have Terminus for his Progen, but he has the counter. Since I was able to put a land into play from Show and Tell I can cast turn three Jace, but it finds me a Nodes on the second Jacestorm instead of the first and I die.

R4 I lose to High Tide 2-1, G2 I stole via Canonist+FOW+Counterbalance+blind flip to hit his Cunning Wish.

R5 I beat Reanimator 2-0. I stole game one since I Forced his Entomb and all he discarded was Elesh Norn off Careful Study. He counters my STP, but I have EE to kill Animate Dead and resolve Jace.

G2 I tutor for Relic, and have CB in play. I force through a Standstill, and Resolve TMS. I cast a Leyline and draw a bunch of cards and counters.

R6 I beat UR burn 2-1, nothing worth mentioning.

R7 I got paired against one of my friends from MN, who was playing RUG. I grind out g1, but make an error when I didn't play a Plains before casting Jace; I was hoping to draw a fetch off his Jacestorm, but hadn't considered Spell Pierce. He had his one of main deck, but I was still able to punch through another TMS, Elsepth, and Humility.

G2 was the stereotypical RUG win, keep your opponent off mana and spells just long enough to win.

G3 was drawn out, and I played my fetches way too conservatively in the early turns. I was unable to flashback Lingering Souls a million turns later when he flipped a Delver, and couldn't cast the Vindicate in my hand and I lost.

R8 I got paired against High Tide. He raw dogs a Time Spiral and whiffs, does so again the next turn, but eventually gets there. G2 I win via Canonist +CB+permission. G3 goes into extra turns and he concedes on his t5 since I had Canonist in play + a bunch of other dudes so even if he bounced one on my turn I still have lethal.


Notes

• Nodes was sweet, Lingering Souls was insane against aggro.
• Terminus was awesome.
• The combo matchups felt soft even with CB+Canonist, but I wouldn't expect to play it that often in most events. In a perfect world we would have discard +CB side, but there really isn't room and combo generally isn't played enough to worry about it.
• During several of my games I wanted another land that tapped for B; I might try swapping the Fortress for a 2nd Sea.
• I liked the Elspeth over the 4th Souls-Souls is nice at buying time, but Elspeth just goes over the top of most things in the format and adds a lot of inevitability and Souls by itself does a poor job of closing out a game.
• Vindicate was nice, a 2nd is probably better than Seal. Most of the stuff you kill with Seal can be offed via EE anyway through Tutor, and the 4cc stuff you care about (Jace or Elspeth) get killed by Vindicate and not Seal or EE anyway.
• The burn matchup felt like a coinflip, even with all the hate post-board. I am considering squeezing in a COP: Red.
• Standstill was great all day.

[Erdvermampfa]

So has anyone been testing this again recently? Terminus might make Standstill viable again since it's essentially a cheaper wrath of god (which was too slow lately due to Delver and Mongoose) and can deal with problematic shroud creatures like Thrun as well.

[mordraid]

So has anyone been testing this again recently? Terminus might make Standstill viable again since it's essentially a cheaper wrath of god (which was too slow lately due to Delver and Mongoose) and can deal with problematic shroud creatures like Thrun as well.

Yup, i'm currently testing a list with standstill and it works wonder. It's a kinda non-traditional standstill list. Non-traditional because it currently have a beat clock. Vs control it's devastating and VS aggro it can play full-on control. Geist of saint traft makes it a nightmare for other control decks. Hexproof is pretty strong in here since there are so few creatures.

I piloted my current list to a 2nd place finish at my local shop.

Here's the decklist:

Creatures
4x snapcaster mage
3x geist of saint traft

Planeswalker
3x jace the mind sculptor
1x elspeth, knight errant

Sorcery
3x ponder
3x terminus
1x entreat the angels

Instant
4x brainstorm
4x force of will
4x counterspell
4x swords to plowshares

Enchantment
3x standstill

Artifact
3x sensei's divining top

Lands:
3x mishra's factory
1x wasteland
4x flooded strands
3x misty rainforest
4x tundra
4x island
1x karakas

Sideboard:
3x surgical extraction
3x spell pierce
3x cursed totem
3x ethersworn canonist
1x terminus
2x (flex slot) currently being chill

[Ozymandias]

Sorcery [2]
2 Terminus
Instant [15]
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
Enchantment [9]
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Counterbalance
1 Humility
4 Standstill
Artifact [6]
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Sensei's Divining Top
Planeswalker [3]
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Land [25]
2 Plains
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
1 Marsh Flats
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tolaria West
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
Sideboard [15]
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sundial of the Infinite
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Batterskull
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Wrath of God
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Enlightened Tutor
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Decree of Justice

I played this deck at the local legacy tournament last night, going 3-1

Round 1 vs White Stax I lose the die roll
Game 1: I run out a top turn 1, but he only has Chalice on the next turn. Two turns later, I drop a kind of useless counterbalance (So I think), floating Force and Jace. He manages to make my Top irrelevant by trying to O-ring it, which makes me bounce it, but his next turn Geddon runs into the floating Jace. He shuffles it away, but I come back with an Elspeth which out-permanents him. Exalted Angel falls to humility, and I take this one down.
I board out the swords and counterbalances for the seal, the cliques, the crypt, the batterskull and a sundial.

This game starts slow. He has a factory, I don't. He drops an angel, I o-ring it, then he O-rings the O-ring. I drop a seal to get back my own O-ring, followed by a Jace, followed by a Sundial to answer his smokestack. Unnecessary, because I got a crucible to out-permanent him again.

Round 2 versus Belcher
Game 1: I keep a hand without force and lose after tundra, go. He tells me he has no sideboard, which makes things easy. I cut plows, crucible, and elspeth for cliques, canonist, and tutors.
Game 2: I mull to Force and e-tutor comes along for the ride. He goes for Warrens anyway, and I tutor for EE.
Game 3: I keep a 7 with force and e-tutor, he mulls to 5, that's all she wrote.

Round 3 versus Elves!
Game 1: I decline to plow his t1 Dryad Arbor, and make a turn 2 counterbalance. I reveal a Marsh Flats blind, and he makes 2 Heritage Druids and a Symbiote. I plow the Wirewood Symbiote of the ones he plays. The next turn, I blind flip standstill on his visionary and EoT fetch+plow Symbiote. I rip top, which sets up Terminus for the wrath and a Standstill for the soft lock. He scoops. I cut Elspeth and Crucible for Wrath and Canonist
Game 2: He opens on Llanowar Elf. I decline to swords, but EOT swords his t2 visionary. The next 2 turns go CB-Grip CB-Grip, and then I go Jace, bounce Elf. He goes cradle, nettle, nettle, Priest, and I wrath. From there, it's mostly a mop-up.

Round 4 versus Delver.
Game 1: I keep a super durdly hand and never get back in it. I cut standstills for Clique and Wrath
Game 2: I lead off with plains. He leads off with Volc, Go. I Eot-Etutor into a Daze, which is what I wanted to happen, tempo-wise. Turn 3 I clique his Force away, and then 2 turns later I drop a Humility, and start picking off threats. Best thing that happened all game? End of turn, swords your mongoose. Elspeth takes it down.
Game 3: I mull to 5. He goes t1 delver, t2 blind flip, force your swords. t3 waste, t4 waste, t5 waste, goose. I die horribly.

I am going to cut sundial and decree from the board. Nobody is playing decks those would be relevant against at the moment. Batterskull also seems kinda slow, but is a great threat I can recur with ruins. I am thinking Path to Exile in their place for the Maverick and Thresh matchups, or maybe Porphyry nodes to buy a lot of time.

[The Treefolk Master]

UWr Landstill Top 8ed GP Ghent, and won a Trial before the GP.


1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
1 Glacial Fortress
3 Island
1 Karakas
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island

3 Snapcaster Mage

4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Entreat the Angels
4 Force of Will
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Path to Exile
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Standstill
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Terminus

1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Disenchant
2 Gilded Drake
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Sulfur Elemental
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Terminus
2 Timely Reinforcements

Miracle spells splash into the list, which is probably the way to go now (Terminus is awesome).

Interestingly, the player said in his Top 8 interview that, while he'd change nothing from the deck, he'd just switch decks altogether... Gave no further explanation though...

[klaus]

UWr Landstill Top 8ed GP Ghent, and won a Trial before the GP.

lol. 2 stp/ 2 Pte...

Edit:
Apart from that weird choice - what do you guys think about the list and its potential? It's basically UW Miracles -CB +SS. SS is easier to cast has an immediate impact and clearly is stronger then ever combined with 3 1-mana Wraths.

[gustha]

I think that, as usual, it depends on meta choices. Full of merfolk/maverick/sneak show? Counterbalance doens't seem the way to go. Full of reanimator / rug / mirror? Easy choice. I don't understand the 2/2 stp/pte split, and i can't imagine playing less than 4 stp without land tax. I'd cut the spell snares for trinket mages / vendilion clique.
-2 snare
-1 top
+2 trinket
+1 entreat / clique / relic of progenitus / grafidgger's cage

All in all it's interesting to play mishra's factories again, and having 4 uncolored mana sources justifies not playing counterbalance maindeck. Well, I don't know if it justifies not playing counterbalance SB.

Truth is, it's fine to ancestral, with all the limits people who read this thread already know. I still think counterbalance, while more difficult to cast / protect, is still better than standstill and more synergistic with miracles. (Sweep, control, gg.)

[Ozymandias]

I've been trying to jam counterbalance and standstill into one deck for months now, and I came up with the following list, which I used to win a Mox on Sunday.

Sorcery [2]
2 Terminus
Instant [17]
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
Enchantment [7]
3 Counterbalance
1 Humility
3 Standstill
Artifact [6]
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Sensei's Divining Top
Planeswalker [3]
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Land [25]
2 Plains
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
1 Marsh Flats
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tolaria West
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
Sideboard [15]
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sundial of the Infinite
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Batterskull
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Terminus
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Porphyry Nodes

The deck is adding more and more miracles, which are insane with top+Brainstorm (thinking I wil turn Elspeth into 1 Entreat) but at the same time, Standstill gives me a bunch of raw card advantage, and is oftentimes easier to cast on turn 2 with 9 colorless-only lands.

[Mark Sun]

Still somewhat interested in the Ghent list.

No one has come up with rationale of 2 STP/2 PTE? I'm still trying to, as far as that goes. List looks pretty solid, and I followed some of his other finishes on TC Decks. I'd likely tune the board a little bit, but this seems like a pretty good shell.

[Water_Wizard]

Still somewhat interested in the Ghent list.

No one has come up with rationale of 2 STP/2 PTE? I'm still trying to, as far as that goes. List looks pretty solid, and I followed some of his other finishes on TC Decks. I'd likely tune the board a little bit, but this seems like a pretty good shell.

All I can come up with is the following:

Against certain decks (RUG Delver), PTE has limited drawbacks.
Because his list is not playing resource denial (no Wastelands, 2 taxing counters), giving opponents extra basics doesn't hurt him as much. The free shuffle effect is probably the biggest draw back against a Brainstorm deck.
The split provide redundancy against extraction effects in regards to Snapcaster Mage.
If he goes on the non-EtA beatdown plan (aka the Snapcaster Mage / Elspeth / Mishra's Factory), the life gain from StP could extend the game by an extra turn or 2.

I think the major reasons are -the limited drawbacks against RUG, and -Surgical Extraction redundancy.

[Einherjer]

Still somewhat interested in the Ghent list.

No one has come up with rationale of 2 STP/2 PTE? I'm still trying to, as far as that goes. List looks pretty solid, and I followed some of his other finishes on TC Decks. I'd likely tune the board a little bit, but this seems like a pretty good shell.

I stayed in the same hotel as this guy and we played a few matches (Terminator-vs-Landstill is fun hu? :P) and ofc I asked what this split was for, and he says that it is simply due to Surgical Extraction being a card.

Greetings

[Erdvermampfa]

Although that doesn't justify running Path to Exile instead of Swords in my view. Path is just terrible against Maverick.

[Piceli89]

I stayed in the same hotel as this guy and we played a few matches (Terminator-vs-Landstill is fun hu? :P) and ofc I asked what this split was for, and he says that it is simply due to Surgical Extraction being a card.

Greetings

I also heard from friends in common that he split for this very reason, and I'm convinced too that it should be a 3-1 split at maximum, because you don't want to give certain decks an additional land drop (or 2, if you were to Snapcaster it back).

I also played against him in a tournament and I really like his deck- now he's slinging some Jotun Grunt sideboard tech; although it takes a lot of time to setup and sometimes it's pretty slow. It also has the disadvantage of running into flashy creatures in response to a SS from time to time if you don't play it properly, and I think this will become an increasing issue if people were to pick up the deck and opponents would know that it plays SS.
I really feel it needs at least a couple of Vendilion Cliques to:
-have hand information, which this deck does not have at all and is pretty crucial in a control deck;
-clear the coast to land a Jace, which is the revolving engine of the deck, as well as protecting it at least for a turn against aggro decks to setup Terminus;
-better exploit Standstill;
-cycle away dead Termini stuck in hand in absence of BS effects.

This is what I'd run as a revamped form of the Gp list:

1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
1 Glacial Fortress
3 Island
1 Karakas
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island

3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique

4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare

4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Standstill

4 Swords to Plowshares (3-1 w/ PtE)
3 Terminus
1 Engineered Explosives

1 Entreat the Angels
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Flusterstorm
2 Red Elemental Blast

2 Disenchant

2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Vendilion Clique

2 Jotun Grunt
3 Surgical Extraction

1 Terminus

@Gustha: Spell Snare is still extremely good to stop Snapcaster, Counterbalance, and SFM if it was to be a problem from time to time. I wouldn't cut it all, especially because it allows you to drop t2 Standstill on the draw against certain decks, complementing the array of cc1 answers to early threats- Speedstill teaches.

[Shawn]

Regarding 2 Stp and 2 Path: What decks are bringing in Surgical that multiple STPs are needed where our other removal and counters won't handle their other guys? The situations where the land is relevant are far, far more common than STP getting Extracted and that having an actual impact on the game.