Miracle control is a Blue white centric deck that focuses on delaying the game out long by using sensei's divining top and counterbalance to perform a "soft lock" on your opponent. The different win conditions very by choice but all of the decks have jace, the mind sculptor as a primary win condition/ card advantage engine. The Blue white Counterbalance shell has existed for quite some time in the standstill styles but were brought to recession since the rise of Merfolk. Since the printing of Avacyn Restored's miracle mechanic the deck has taken off with multiple iterations.
What sets this deck apart from other control decks in legacy right now is its consistency and efficient card selection early game backed up with efficient removal and reusable counters and pseudo ponders in the form of counterbalance top.
This primer will focus on the Blue White versions of Miracle control but will branch off into the splashes including Red and Black.
Clearly there are no restrictions, but these are the trends.
The 4 of cards are ones you want in either your opening hand or to see multiples in nearly every game.
3 ofs you want to see every game relatively early on, and rarely in multiples.
2 ofs are cards you want mid to late game and only ever see one in a game.
These numbers correlate directly with your card choices.
Here is the most recent strict miracle control list:
Once you have figured out the "core" of the version you want to play you are able to branch out pretty wide to fill any gaps in the meta you wish.
Creatures:
Vendillion Clique: One of the best creatures in the deck. It is almost never a dead card. Against Thresh decks it can trade with a delver of secrets or Nimble mongoose. Against combo or control you can play it at awkward times to strip the best card from their hand. The same is true against a show and tell on the stack. One of the best applications of this creature outside of Show and tell is against stoneblade. You respond to the stoneforge trigger and remove the batterskull.
Snapcaster mage: A very useful utility creature. This creature is at best when able to flashback a swords to plowshare or brainstorm. A lot of versions of this deck have cut it in favor of Rest in peace(will be discussed later).
Venser, Shaper Savant: Mostly being played because of the rise of Show and tell/ Reanimator style of decks. The reason it saw play was Miracles was desperate for an answer for Griselbrand, Emrakul, the aeons torn that would also answer omniscience. I believe Joe Lossett found the answer in venser. It is able to bounce anything the show and tell player puts into play while also being able to be reoccurred with karakas.
Geist of Saint Traft: Efficiency at its finest. It hits like a titan for only 3 mana. It is immune to spot removal while also putting on a deadly clock. This card is usually in the sideboard and is only brought in during control mirrors or against combo decks where you cannot afford your opponent to sculpt a hand and you need a clock.
Stoneforge Mystic: Since the decks infancy people have tried mixing it with stoneblade. A few people have tried but it has not become popularized until a list topped GP Denver in 2012(list will be posted below). The addition of stoneforge greatly increases your matchup against aggro decks and speeds up the game against control mirrors. The biggest deterrent for stoneforge in the deck is the deck already has good matchups against aggro and adding in stoneforge just makes a good match better. However, Jund can be a rough matchup and they have an incredibly rough time dealing with a batterskull if they do not expect it coming.
Spells
Force of will: A necessary evil in the deck. Force doubles as the best card in the deck and the worst card in the deck. The only real reason to have this card in the deck is to not just die to combo decks. Late game you are able to "hard cast" force of will but the cost of a card early game really means you should not cast it unless you absolutely need to.
Brainstorm: I am not going to go into detail about "how to brainstorm" there have been multiple articles about how to do this, instead i will say some interactions with it in this deck specifically. Brainstorm is at its best when "digging" for a specific answer or setting up a miracle. This can also be used to find lands, or shuffle away extra counterbalances or cards not needed at this specific time in a game.
Jace, the mind sclulptor: One of the best blue cards in legacy right now. It is a good reason for playing blue. It gives you card advantage when you need it and also clears the board if need be. Late game once you have control it becomes a very good win condition. A lot of the time if you have a sensei's divining top in play it is best to +2 your self to remove cards you will not need instead of brainstorm. Mostly because assuming you have 7 cards in hand with top out. +2ing jace will increase the clock and threat level of jace while also seeing you more cards. If you brainstorm and put the two not needed cards back on top you really did not achieve anything.
Counterbalance: One of the best cards to have in play on an empty board. This is doubly true when paired with sensei's divining top. Together this can perform a soft lock on your opponent that can make it incredibly hard to deal with. By its self however, it very rarely will counter anything. You can "blind flip" if you are lucky which is one of the single most tilting things to do to an opponent. But, brainstorm will double as a single chance to counter something while also netting card selection.
Sensei's divining top: One of the best reasons to play this deck. While in play top virtually adds 3 cards to your hand. When paired with counterbalance it becomes incredibly useful. Top is also great at setting up miracles on your opponents turns. This can be anything from a terminus in a combat step while a land is animated or an Entreat the angels on your opponents turn to win the game on the spot. The only bad thing with top is if you are a slower player you can spend a lot of time topping and end up going to time a lot. Top is incredible with fetch lands as well, it can act as an instant speed ponder when in conjunction.
Some interactions with top is you can do it on your upkeep on your second turn if you need to dig for a specific card/land or if you do not have a turn 2 play at all. With multiple tops out you can use one as a cantrip and shuffle it away with a fetch land. If you were to crack a fetchland you should order your play like so: top, look at top 3, responding to that by cracking the fetch land. This is useful when playing against abrupt decay decks. They will usually wait until you are going to fetch to try to remove your top. This way ensures that if they do it you still get a chance to look at your top cards when you resolve your fetch.
Terminus/ Entreat the angels:These are being lumped together becuase i feel they should be talked about at the same time. Both are very powerful cards but are incredibly slow/clunky when not miracled. Terminus specifically was the reason this deck was able to do so well. It can be an instant speed 1 mana wrath effect. It also can remove cards that would hit the graveyard where that would help your opponent (ichorid specifically). Entreat puts in double work in this deck. It acts as one of the most threatening/efficient finishers but it is also a 3 when revealed off of a counterbalance. This is incredibly useful when playing against show and tell. The deck right now has a small amount of 3 drops to use currently.
III Variants:
Right now for Miracles there are 3 primary variants: UW miracles with red, miracles with Rest in peace Helm, and Esper color miracles with Thopter/Sword.
This is your stock UW miracles with red. The main reason people are playing red is for the addition of red elemental blast/ pyroblast. These cards work incredibly well in the mirror/combo and to a lesser extent show and tell. They act as removal for any blue card (jace, omniscience) while also being able to counter them. Its versatility is what makes it a well used addition in the deck.
Another reason to play red is the addition of blood moon. This deck plays 7-8 basics which is incredibly high for legacy deck. A resolved blood moon against the tempo/jund decks will almost always lock them out of the game.
The combo with this deck is you have rest in peace in play and you then resolve helm of obedience, you then activate it for at least 1. This will mill your opponent until at least 1 cards hit the graveyard. Since Rest in peace's replacement effect removes the cards from the game this performs an infinite loop milling out the library.
This combo can greatly increase the win chance against lot of decks. Decks like Reanimator/dredge usually have a very good game 1 against us we now have silver bullets against them and not just roll over. This combo also makes the games a lot quicker. If you are usually digging for a way to kill your opponent via Jace or entreat it could be a lot quicker with helm.
This version of miracles its a bit more combo oriented. It is trying to rely on counterbalance top in the early to mid game and close the game down with the combo. The combo works like this: You have thopter foundry in play and have sword of the meek either in play or in the graveyard. You then sacrifice an artifact (not foundry) to foundry and sword will be in the graveyard. Foundry will create a 1/1 token which will trigger sword. The sword will come into play and equip on the token. You can then sacrifice the sword to keep it going. Every time you do so you will gain a life as well. The combo is extremely grindy and mana intensive but has a snowballing effect. Once it is going it is very good and tough to beat. The only issue with this version of the deck is rest in peace is a card that is gaining popularity which could really hinder your combo.
IV Matchups:
Miracles regardless of the build has a lot of very favorable matchups. Most of these become good matchups because of the access of terminus and or counterbalance.
Against Strom/combo decks resolving counterbalance/top is back breaking. Majority of their decks revolve around 1-2 cmc cards. This is mostly true with ANT. A top against that deck it becomes incredibly hard for them to play through it.
Aggro. This deck has a very good matchup against almost every aggro deck, with the exception of goblins. This deck single handedly put maverick away. Having access to instant speed wraths and swords to plowshare makes it a nightmare for aggro decks.
Against control the late game always favor us. This puts other control decks in awkward positions, they are usually forced to play the aggressor in these matchups. They do not have the luxury of just sitting back and sculpting a perfect hand etc.
This deck does struggle against goblins. Game 1 is incredibly hard. Goblins can generate an intense amount of card advantage and put on a big clock fast. The inclusion of cavern of souls makes almost all of our counters/counterbalance useless in the matchup. Post board you can bring in more wrath effects/spot removal but the main hindrance is that we have too many dead cards.
As of note though, this thread used to be the UW(x) Landstill thread and if you want to read the old UW(x) Landstill primer it's in the spoiler tag at the bottom of this post.
This will be the new thread for any UW miracle control discussion so feel free to discuss and post your lists on UW miracle control with any splashes you might have too. I am going to try to get up a primer in a month or something. But anyone can help me with writing the primer as well just let me know.
With that being said, for starters here is Raphael Levy's First place UW miracles list.
The Old UW(x) Landstill primer is still intact and you can view it here:
UW(x) Landstill Thread Discussion
For years on end Landstill has always been a viable tournament choice for the Legacy format. Landstill is a deck that refuses to die because it can adapt to any given metagame and the deck runs a uniquely powerful draw engine(Standstill) to drive this archetype to dominance.
Landstill also is a highly consistent deck because of it's powerful draw engine(standstill) and the deck runs a vast array of tools to overcome threatening odds.
As far as strategy goes Landstill is still the same deck from 2004. Landstill plays countermagic, board sweepers, and pinpoint removal to reset the board state back to zero. After this, Landstill then plays standstill to get ahead in card advantage. When your creating a good deal of card advantage for yourself, your chances of winning increases by a huge margin. Landstill has always been good at taking advantage of standstill to propel itself to great success in any competitive Legacy event.
As you go through and read this opening post. You will see that there are currently three Landstill primers. Uwb, Uwg, and Uwr landstill. Each one of these variants have seen a consider amount of play and have all been successful in various Legacy tournaments.
I am going to first start with a Uwb Landstill decklist that has done well recently.
UWb Landstill Primer
Uwb Landstill By Geoff Smelski First place out of 47 players Date: 1-10-09
Swords to plowshares: Obviously this is a critical reason to play white in Landstill. Making devastating creatures obsolete then playing a standstill on the first few turns makes stp a invalueble tool.
Wrath of god: Still a decent board clearer in the metagame. Just like swords to plowshares another necassity to open more opportunities to cast a game breaking standstill.
Decree of Justice: Cycling into creature tokens breaks the fairness of standstill and gives you an unmatched winning position. Decree of justice is also quite the mid-range card in Landstill because it's efficient and almost impossible to counter. You can win quite alot of games with this card.
Eternal Dragon: Usually utilized as another fetchland to fetch for those critical plains and this type of landstill can stabalize it's manabase in a efficient and timely manner with even just one E. Dragon. Of course, E. Dragon has proved to be a huge finisher as well.
Brainstorm: The first thing your going to ask is why only 3 Brainstorms in his list? Well this is what Geoff Smelski(Konsultant) said about it on the source.
“I too was in the same argument favoring cutting the 4th Brainstorm for the 3rd FOF. To many people use Brainstorm as a crutch and cast it at the first opportunity, few people utilize the card with it's full power in the mid game. For anybody that plays the deck like I do 3 is more than enough for what you need out of Brainstorm.”
That said, brainstorm is still the best card in legacy and you should run them in any blue control deck. Not to mention you can maximize it's full potential by supplementing brainstorm with shuffling effects and this particular landstill build has plenty.
Standstill: The main reason why Landstill is still viable in this format is because of it's powerful draw engine. Standstill can create a huge seperation between you and your opponent if Standstill is utilized in the right way.
Fact or Fiction: Fact or Fiction compliments Standstill pretty well considering Standstill can sometimes be a dead draw spell when your opponent has a dominant board position. While Fact or Fiction is huge anytime in the game whenever you have enough mana to fill it's casting prerequisite.
Spell Snare: I have tested Spell Snare in Landstill for awhile now and even though it seems underpowered on paper it's actually quite good against the modern environment there are many two casting cost spells in this format that you really want to counter to gain advantage.
Counterspell: Counterspell is still quite strong as a counterspell especially when paired with Spell Snare making your countermagic suite more relevant and active against the format.
Force of will: Pretty much a no brainer for it's inclusion.
Engineered Explosives: EE is obviously a necassity in landstill nowadays especially with all of those aggro-control decks with counterbalance floating around.
Vindicate: Another good card against aggro-control and it's proved to be a good swiss knife in a lot of Legacy matchups.
Basic Lands: Yeah you need these.
Fetchlands: Balances out your manabase so you can cast certain tools in a timely manner is definitely a good thing.
Wasteland: Opens up more opportunities to cast your standstills because when you have the ability to dismantle their manabase it can be difficult for them cast threats and other spells.
Mishra's Factory: Another threat you can play under a standstill and can create quite the leverage too for standstill and opposing creatures.
Sideboard Card Choices:
Runed Halo: Relevantly awesome card against most of the metagame. Runed Halo can also play a role as a psuodo circle of protection and can actually help you resolve your standstills to break even.
Meddling Mage: This is still relevant against a good portion of the metagame. Meddling Mage has always been a relevant tool at combating critical matchups.
Ajani Goldmane: Good against pure aggro decks. I imagine it would also be brilliant in pure control matchups as well such as the mirror. Ajani Goldmane is also another wincon you can use to make your threats more scary in the power/toughness ratio department.
Engineered Plague: Obviously relevant against tribal decks like elves and goblins.
Chainer's Edict: Good against untargetables like those nimble mongooses that you see in the most popular aggro-control variants.
Matchup Analysis:
Canadian Threshold: Favorable
You have several removal spells to combat this matchup supplemented with the relevant Spell Snare to halt Goyfs. Testing this matchup I often find Wastelands and even Vindicates good here since dismantling their manabase can leave them in the dust simultaneously giving you the chance to play standstill.
Once again Landstill has so many tools that you can incorporate in this matchup. Vindicates and engineered explosives is obviously good here since they both dismantle counterbalance. Wastelanding their non-basics can give you more leeway to cast a standstill and of course FoF is great against just about any matchup.
Balanced Ugb Threshold: Favorable
This is pretty much the same matchup as the other Threshold variants that I mentioned so far. Thoughtseize and Dark confidant and prove to be a pain though so it's best to watchout for those two. Spell snare is often brilliant in this matchup and you have Fact or Fiction to contemplate the loss from thoughtseize if it comes down to it.
Here is another favorable matchup for you with all of the tools you have against this variant of threshold. I would watchout postboard though because Gaddock Teeg can be a pain since they nullify your ability to play Engineered Explosives and Wrath of god. Once again Spell Snare and Vindicate will prove to be brilliant in this matchup.
This will be one of the hardest matchups for you especially since you have no way to dismantle their graveyard. Aggro Loam seems to be ahead of you by a wide margin preboard. Postboard however that's when your meddling mage and Ajani Goldmanes will help you win postboard and both cards can be brilliant in this matchup.
You can utilize standstill better then they can via Decree of justice, wastelands and mishra's Factory. Vindicate, engineered explosives, and other removal spells will play a key role in this matchup. Fact or fiction can also break a ton of ground in this matchup as well. Postboard your even more ahead with runed halo and chainer's edict.
Postboard: -1 Wrath of God, -1 Counterspell, +2 Chainer's Edict
Team America: Favorable
This matchup can prove to be more challenging then other Tempo Style Aggro-Control decks. Sinkhole company with wasteland can be a pain if they draw mulitples in the early turns. However you can easily dismantle their manabase as well with wastelands and your removal spells will definitely play a huge role once again.
Here is another interesting matchup. Tendrils has a way to counteract your countermagic thanks to AD Nauseam and so they can win before you can break even with them. However if you draw mulitple counterspells and spell snares in the early going this matchup can actually lean in your favor. Postboard obviously gets you ahead in this matchup considering Runed Halo and Meddling Mage still plays a significant factor here.
Postboard: -4 Wrath of God, -3 Vindicate, -4 Swords to plowshares, +4 Meddling Mage, +3 Runed Halo, +4 Engineered Plague(For empty the warren goblin tokens)
Ichorid: Not Favorable
This is a close to a impossible matchup for you. In order for you to have a chance in this matchup you need to have about 8 or so dedicated sideboard slots for this matchup. Leyline of the void and Tormod's Crypt comes to mind. However, I would try to counter their card draw and discard outlets and set engineered explosives for zero for their zombie tokens as soon as possible. Swords to plowshares on Ichorid can help out too but other then that there isn't really anything else you can do.
Ever since Tarmogoyf came into print legacy players from all over the world have adopted Tarmogoyf in their Landstill decks. Tarmogoyf is apparently quite strong according to the players that play with him in their Standstill decks. They further prove their points about their inclusion of Tarmogoyf by top 8ing in good size tournaments around the globe.
Here is a UWG Landstill decklist that that top 8'd in a 118 player Jan 2009 tournament.
As you can tell this version of Landstill plays totally differently from the Landstill list that I showed you earlier from the recent Hadley tournament. This particular Landstill list can play much more aggressively in the early stages of the game since it has Tarmogoyf. But the deck can also take control of the game similar to other Landstill lists since it still runs Standstill and runs efficient removal spells like swords to plowshares and engineered explosives. Also Counterspell and Wasteland provides more oppoturnities to play standstill in a timely manner for this build.
Card Choices
Tarmogoyf: Goyf is generally a optimal inclusion based on what he brings to the archetype and based on actual tournament results he seems to fit pretty well in some builds. Considering of Goyf's size he is pretty much a removal spell and a threat built into one card.
Counterbalance: A powerful control instrument in the current meta and a card that can win games on it's own. With the incorporation of Tarmogoyf counterbalance becomes drastically more lethal and having the ability to draw a good chunk of cards with standstill makes this build of Landstill a solid tournament choice.
Crucible of Worlds: Since Blue mana denial decks are extremely popular in the current environment Crucible can be a necassity especially in this build of landstill since it has more of a fragile manabase then the version with vindicates. Crucible also functions as an E. Dragon since it can bring back fetchlands to solidify your manabase. Also recursion of wastelands can also be brilliant against decks that like to pack other colors for utility and reach.
Sensei's Divining Top: Not only is Top broken with counterbalance it is also broken with standstill. Having the ability to manipulate the arrangement of your top three cards while having standstill in play is another efficient way to hit your land drops and play multiple mishra's factories to take advantage of standstills further. SDT is also a relevant tool on it's own as well especially since you have ways to shuffle your deck with the X number of fetchlands available.
Sideboard Card Choices:
Hydroblast/BEB: With quite a few players still playing X number of red decks in the modern legacy environment I believe Blue blasts are still necessary.
Krosan Grip: A obviously inclusion in the board since Grip has the ability to shore up highly classified blue decks that have tendicies to run counterbalance and/or Phyrexian Dreadnought.
Chalice of the void: Good against anything that has low mana curves.
Relic of Progenitus: The better option of Tormod's Crypt and can make Tarmogoyfs obsolete. Also good against decks that utilize their graveyards.
Matchup Analysis:
Vial Goblins: Favorable
Preboard can swing either way to be honest. Tarmogoyf and your removal will play a huge role in this matchup. Your first priority is to stop Aether Vial at all costs. Once you have an early assault going with Tarmogoyf and factories as well as nailing their threats with engineered explosives and stp you should be in good shape. Postboard gets much better for you obviously since the incorporation of Blue blasts helps a ton.
Team America: Varies
This matchup can vary especially since you have limited answers to their Tombstalker and if you can't counteract their early Tombstalker you should just concede and play game 2. However, if you can get an early counterbalance going while playing an early Tarmogoyf there is possibility that you can win this matchup even preboard. Tombstalker and Snuff out can be the most devastating since both cards ignore counterbalance and your only outs is swords to plowshares, counterspell, and force of will. Thoughtseize, daze, and their mana denial suite can be a pain but if you can get on a quicker start then they can then more power to you. By all means this matchup is still winnable but can still be rough if you don't play this matchup carefully. Also with the limited amount of creature removal you have compared to other Landstill lists you don't really have the option to stock pile on lands as nearly as much.
UGB Threshold: Favorable
You have counterbalance, spell snare, engineered explosives, and swords to plowshares to get rid of all of their threats and utility cards that prove a significant factor like counterbalance. Thoughtseize can be a pain in the butt but you should be fine if you can play a counterbalance and your draw spells. Postboard gets better for you since Krosan Grip will definitely come in however if your playing against a more tempo oriented version your mainboard should be enough.
UGW Threshold: Varies
Generally this matchup is favorable for you since you have a lot of cards that aren't dead in this matchup either and prove to be useful. However, if they play mystic enforcer you should definitely be ready to answer it as soon as you can since your removal suite is limited in that regard. Mystic Enforcer is just as deadly as tombstalker as well so it'll be wise to play this matchup more tightly and save your counterspells, force of wills, and stp for all mighty enforcer.
Ugr Thrash: Favorable
You should be able to win this matchup with no problem at all. Once again spell snare, explosives, stp, and counterbalance are your best friends here. I would always like to play an early counterbalance if possible in this matchup since they have limited answers for it preboard. Postboard however can be quite different mainly because of pyroblasts/red elemental blasts and Krosan Grip. Also Submerge can bring out the stakes in this matchup as well but as long as you remove their threats and cast your own you should be fine.
Aggro Loam: Varies
Once again a varying matchup since Aggro loam has all sorts of utility cards for landstill. Crucible, counterbalance, and your countermagic will play a significant role here. You have your own wastelands to counteract their duals if need be and that could help. Postboard obviously gets much better with Relic of Progenitus and blue blasts. I would highly advise to be the aggressor in this matchup and Tarmogoyf can be there for you in that regard.
AD Nauseam Tendrils: Favorable
You should be able to win this matchup even postboard since counterbalance, and other countermagic will be your tools in this one. Also putting the Storm player on a clock would also be a good idea and Tarmogoyf is known for that. Postboard obviously gets significantly better for you because chalice of the void can turn off a ton of their utility resources.
Landstill Mirror: Varies
Counterbalance obviously is good here and so is mishra's factory and wastelands. Crucible becomes your best friend in this matchup since recurring wastelands and factories is always nice. Tarmogoyf can prove to be a effective beatstick but make sure you have plenty of countermagic and a active countertop in play beforehand.
Ichorid: Varies/Impossible Matchup
I would just concede game 1 against Ichorid and play out Games 2 and perhaps 3 if you win the second time. Relic of Progenitus will obviously play a role here but having just three graveyard hate cards isn't always going to cut against the likes of Ichorid.
Dreadstill: Even/Favorable
This is an interesting matchup. You both play almost the exact same cards. Its going to come down who plays counterbalance first and Wastelands become heavily involved here since dismantling their manabase and knocking out their manlands can be a important priority in this matchup. Crucible of worlds will also be a significant tool as well. Postboard obviously gets better with Krosan Grip and maybe even Chalice of the void set at 1.
UWR Landstill Primer
Top 8 at a Moxen Bazaar Tournament Number of players: 498 Date: 5-15-2010
Introduction: I really like this version of Uwr landstill, despite of it not running any wrath of gods. As you can tell this Landstill variant is designed to beat Merfolks and as well as have a decent game against Storm combo, especially, postboard. Although, the only bad side is it's unforgiving to play if you make a mistake as it doesn't run jace 2.0 and no efficient mass removal such as wrath of god. Not to mention, the manabase doesn't contain as many basic lands as most of the Landstill builds you see on this site.
Matchup Analysis:
Vial Goblins: Even to Not Favorable
You have several pieces of spot removal to hit Goblin Lackeys. You also have an answer for their first turn Aether Vial if you play first through Forces, EE's and spell pierce. Crucible is great here because it takes their wastes and rishadan ports out of the game when your able to recur fetches, duals, and wastes. Although, not having a counterspell to counter their ringleaders and siege gangs can be extremely problematic, considering, they can out play you with speed, card advantage, and threat density.
Postboard, it's slightly better for you since you can board in Cop: Red, pyroclasms, and disenchant for the Aether Vial. It's still a rough fight but if you can take their aether vials out of the game your chances of winning dramatically increases.
Merfolks-Favorable
Once again, you have several pieces of 1cc removal to hit their lords, cursecatchers, wakethrashers, and etc. Your primary objective is to stop AEther Vial at all costs since they can seriously outplay you with just one vial on the table. You have a good answer for their mutavaults in wastelands and spell pierce can be a lifesaver in this matchup.
Playing sower might be a problem with pyroclasm but then again I use sower after I clear the board with pyroclasm. I also like to use it to hold off onslaughts. The only thing I would watch out for are echoing truths on sowers. Other then that sower can steal lords which can help you get slightly ahead in the damage race. So, play sower as your second or third option not your first option because they are most like will be bolts, pyroclasms, stps, and engineered explosives.
Ad Nauseam Tendrils-Even to Favorable
I have found that in this matchup wasting their non-basics and spell piercing/spell snare their utility or tutor spells can increase your chances of winning. Your cheap countermagic actually makes your standstills more playable as well in this matchup. Also, fact or fiction can be quite awesome in this matchup since it's an instant that can net you a bundle of cards.
Boarding: -2 Crucible of Worlds, -4 Swords to plowshares, +3 Ethersworn Cannonist, +1 Echoing truth, +2 Relic. The reason why you board in graveyard hate is to stop their igg piles or also stop their ritual graveyard usage.
Postboard, should be much more of a breeze for you considering you now have ethersworn cannonist to drive their storm count to a halt and ethersworn can up your clock tempo too. The reason why I suggest boarding in echoing truth is if just in case they decide to use empty of the warrens but mainly it's an additional blue spell for force of will.
Dredge: Not favorable
Your chances of winning game 1 is considerably slim since they can just therapy or hypnotic you right out of the game. Your only chance in this matchup, especially, if your going first is to counter their spell pierce their breakthroughs and/or forcing their tireless tribes. I would also do everything in your power to slow them down or just go to game 2. You can slow them down by removing their narcomoebas with bolts, swords their ichorids, and also set EE at zero to blow up their zombie tokens.
You actually have plenty of answers for all of their threats through spell snare, swords to plowshares, engineered explosives, disk and lightning bolts. You should try to cut them off of green sources through wasteland and bolt their noble hierarchs so they will have a much tougher time getting progenitus in play. Also, fact or fiction is quite brilliant in this matchup since it can turn the tables into your favor. When you play this matchup tightly your chances of winning is actually pretty decent.
Boarding: -2 Crucible of Worlds, +2 Pyroclasm
The reason for pyroclasm is, I like to have more answers for noble hierarch, especially because of the lack of wrath of god for progenitus.
Aggro Loam: Not favorable to even
Watching out for devastating dreams and burning wish is the main key here as you have alot of removal for their countryside crushers, tarmogoyfs, and perhaps dark confidants. It's a tough matchup for you but if you can manage to get out crucible before they waste lock you out of the game with loam your chances of winning isn't that bad. Elspeth is probably the best card in this matchup as you need to be the aggressor and Elspeth provides you with this spark.
Boarding: -2 Spell Pierce, -4 Standstill, +2 Relic of progenitus, +2 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Sower of Temptation
Zoo: Even
You actually have alot of ways to kill their apes, wild nacatls, qasali pridemages, lynx, grim lavamancers. Although, their burn can still be a problem for you but you have wasteland to cut them off of a red or whatever other color when needed. Wasteland is great here since they have a huge vulnerability to it and it allows you to play standstill easier.
Boarding: -1 Nevinyrral's Disk, -1 Crucible of worlds, +2 Circle of protection: red.
New Horizons: Favorable
The first game can go either way, land drops are extremely vital in this matchup. You can also counteract their wasteland/stifle disruption by recuring your lands via crucible and fetching for basics. Wasteland can be good here to cut off green so they have a harder time playing their goyfs, knights, and terravores. This of course will help you play standstill easier too but even if they manage to play their threats you have swords to plowshares, nevinyrral's disk, and engineered explosives to help you stabilize the board in your favor.
Your draw spells like fact or fiction, brainstorm, and standstill are also really good in this matchup. You want to stay ahead in card advantage to subside their mana disruption and huge threats.
Postboard, actually gets better for you since sower can steal games by taking their biggest threat and you also have graveyard hate to shrink their creatures to irrelevant proportions.
Recent Top 8 accomplishments for UW(x) Landstill at 50+ player tournaments.
Awesome! It's about time this deck had a primer. I've been playing landstill for a while now. I'm taking this 4c list to a local tournament saturday, which will probably be the list I take to chicago as well.
This is my baby, it's been tweaked to hell and back and it's the best build I've ever settled on. What looks like a little enlightened tutor package is just a few cards that I feel are very strong in the deck, but marginally situational, so I play one shackles, ring and crucible with an enlightened tutor to hold them all together. I know five manlands with crucible/loam seems light as the only hard kill package (shackles can usually work for this too), but it's all I've ever needed. I love this deck and it's very fun to play, and definitely rewards playskill. Let's all grow a pair and stop being afraid of blood moon/magus of the moon, 4c is the strongest build of landstill there is.
Oh, also, as good as this deck is the matchup analysis up top are a little generous. I wouldnt call team america or nauseum tendrils even/favorable. At least preboard. Team America runs 12 ld slots with a curve of 0, 1, 2. Plus have you ever tried to deed a tombstalker against this deck? Far from fun. You need to land crucible or loam as quickly as possible. And now that TES has ad nauseum they can go off with multiple protection spells in hand, so since we don't play counterbalance it gets pretty grizzly. But chalice shores this match up a bit.
Thanks for the positive feedback you two. Yeah I always wanted to write a primer about landstill just haven't had the time to do so until now. But since its still the first month of a new year it seems appropiate.
As for the matchup analysis it's actually based solely on the Landstill build I presented so far. I am planning on adding more Deck lists soon and they will have their own matchup analysis and have explaination of some specific card choices. As for Elsepth it will soon come up. There will be a good chance that I will add more details to the opening post tomorrow since I have a pretty short day from work tomorrow. Stay tuned for the updates.
The TA and Tendrils is actually a favorable matchup for the UWb landstill build that I presented. Against both matchups your actually ahead postboard but preboard they could very well be about even or in their favor instead of UWb landstill's favor. I actually tested both matchups heavily with a vindicate style UWB landstill build and so the matchup analysis is fairly accurate. Vindicate is actually pretty good against Team America and they can be useful in the storm combo matchup especially if the storm combo player draws a slow opening hand. Also you don't really need crucible/lftl to be able to beat Team America you already have E. Dragon and you can just stock pile on lands to bypass their LD.
There will also be a 4c landstill primer coming up as well and I believe MishraMTG will be covering that landstill variant in a seperate thread from this one.
Finally!! We have a landstill thread!!! Thank You for doing this, its long over due. I'm quite fond of Blue/White/Green Cunning Wish Landstill and have played it quite alot. I'll post a list as soon as I can find it.
Finally!! We have a landstill thread!!! Thank You for doing this, its long over due. I'm quite fond of Blue/White/Green Cunning Wish Landstill and have played it quite alot. I'll post a list as soon as I can find it.
First, your welcome and it's the least I can do for you all. It's also good to wake up this Legacy Forums for a change anyway.
Nice I have an UWG Cunning Landstill build too but its outdated since I was building it in the middle of last year but yeah I would be interested in seeing your list. My list was running quite smoothly too and having Krosan Grip and pulse of the fields is definitely good for the environment.
Here was my current build of UWG Cunning Landstill in the middle of last year.
So starting from the top lets look at the landbase. If you'll notice the land count is @ 22. That may seem odd as general landstill runs 23-24 and a dragon or 2, but with the addition of x3 ponder hitting your lands should be cake. You have the general layout of non colored sources as well for utility. This is namely dust bowl, a. ruins, tolaria west, 3x mishra. Some versions run four, but generally speaking you will have less trouble and have more oppritunities to seal games with tolaria west under a standstill ect.
Moving on to the creatures you run x3 vendillion clique.
-Removes LFTL in the aggro loam matchup.
-Creates information by revealing your opponents hand if needed.
-3/1 flyer to be more aggressive in the matchups that depend on you needing additional aggresion.
Bottom line shes one hell of a pain to deal with, and when you figure that you can race with her on the table the mere fact that she gives you all of the bonus's that she does while also helping you mantain that mid-late game all landstill players love should be reason enough to atleast try her.
plainswalkers:
Most versions now run some combination of either elspeth or jace, most running x2 jace. It was realisticly a toss up of either cutting a decree or cutting an elspeth, and while I do understand that elspeth ends games quickly decree is irreplacable in its 2 slots in my opinion. Elspeth is still easily counterable and with this model you can't offord to get into too many counter wars as you only run 6 counters.
Spells:
Most of the spells are self explanatory. Most versions of wish still run the following
4 b storm
4 swords
2 decree
2 wish
2 wrath
1 humility
4 force
The real difference starts at maindecking x3 relic and x3 ponder. So many times while playing tough matchups landstill traditionally looses game 1's by not running the correct utility to deal with a given situation or not being able to generate enough card manipulation given by turn x. Turn x is usually turn 2 or 3, but given the different situations that legacy holds x can be up to t5. Relic is good against most everything in the current tier and while many may disagree with Dif about maindecking them I assure you once you test the full meta of decks you will surely change your mind or at the very least understand completely why they would fit into this model. Drawing multiple relics in a game can't really hurt you for the most part because they kantrip if you absolutely need them to, but most of the time they will be necessary for one purpose or the other. Either by keeping thresh off their 7 consistently or by making survival cry, or by keeping TA off that dreaded 5 cards in grave 3 mana open tombstalker situation. It's a thorn in almost every decks plan at one point in the game or another and if given time you will see that its more then worth the investment. Oh also its gold against aggro loam pre board for obvious reasons and I also hear stopping crucible wastelock is pretty good as well. Like I said bottom line you wont regret it.
That said the 3-1 split of standstill fof is kind of double reasoning. Number 1 drawing multiple standstills can be exceptionally bad in certain matchups. Number 2 it makes wishes worth quadrouple with relic of progenitus. Yes it may seem slow, but in the lategame if you are in a top deck war with the mirror or another aggro control or pure control deck wish can absolutely be a dead card. So eoting a fof only to get countered, then removing it and casting cunning wish for it next round can absolutely be a deal breaker in the mirror. This also works with swords, brainstorm, force, ect. ect. Wishes worth can deffinately help when called upon.
The 2-1 split between halo and ee is basicly the risk/ reward syndrome that this deck tends to have. You risk 1 slot because you run the equivilent of 3 ee's with west anyways, and to top that runed halo is for obvious reasons good against soo much of the field that nabbing it via enlightened tutor or fof splits or even just manipulating it via the top with 4 brainstorm 3 ponder can easily change games. Yes there are situations where it is not optimal compared to ee, but as I said before when you get in those situations its randomly unlucky and its the risk you take.
Im not going to talk about spell snare as its obvious and 1 of humility randomly wins about 30% of your games just by its ability to time walk you multiple turns and dramaticly change the tempo of any game with creatures in it.
The sideboard will have to wait as im really tired and need to get some sleep. Until then thoughts? Opinions? Testing questions?
How has Elspeth been for you? I've always preffered her over Jace as my main pet peeve for this deck is the ridiculous number of draws you'll have for running to time. I agree it's easily counterable. Have any of you tried Faerie Conclave? I've found it's super good when we don't have Humility on the board and can seriously win cames on it's own, because the current meta is atrocious at defending flying unless it's either Dragon or Faerie Stompy.
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5th is just a guy snapping his fingers. Maybe Nicol Bolas can get mana that way, but I can't.
I hate the CIPT clause of the conclave, but I could see it working... Especially with humility down, that spells game.
I feel the need for more man lands which is why I really love green in the build, for monastery.
I will be posting a UWbg build soon. Celicia asked me to make a separate thread though, as we feel it plays differently enough to justify it.
Your right 4c plays much differently then 3color. Access to deed rather then wrath. Though you are 10x more prone to stifle/wasteland/blood moon then 3c is. I would say if your blue based aggro control is weak in your meta then 4c is probobly the better overall stronger choice and it also simply comes down to raw power versus shear consistency/ resiliance.
As for elspeth other then the fact that it acts as a finisher with humility or just in the sense of letting the ultimate happen most times you just sit and laugh at the rediculous synergy that she has with the deck. I only run 1 because I run more manipulation which allows me to consistently see her more often then not. If I don't see elspeth in a game 1-2 things happened, either I shuffled her back in as I couldn't cast her reasonably or ive already lost. "both scenarios are rare."
I havent tested fae conclave as it was just generally too slow back yesteryear when I formulated my opinions on it. Its also a large mana dump for the cost if your not playing a deck that get mana out excessively quick it can lead you right into bad play situations. As far as cipt lands I prefer tolaria west as it tutors for winconditions/ other utility/ fixing/ or mini wrath aka ee.
Seems like a fairly Decent list I actually like Jace especially with Humility but you probably could say the samething about Elspeth as well. Jace seem to be like a decent addition in landstill since he draws you cards however I have never been truely sold on running Jace mostly because I'd rather draw the cards right now and Jace doesn't quite cut it in that regard. Also you should definitely run Engineered Explosives they are quite good.
So starting from the top lets look at the landbase. If you'll notice the land count is @ 22. That may seem odd as general landstill runs 23-24 and a dragon or 2, but with the addition of x3 ponder hitting your lands should be cake. You have the general layout of non colored sources as well for utility. This is namely dust bowl, a. ruins, tolaria west, 3x mishra. Some versions run four, but generally speaking you will have less trouble and have more oppritunities to seal games with tolaria west under a standstill ect.
Moving on to the creatures you run x3 vendillion clique.
-Removes LFTL in the aggro loam matchup.
-Creates information by revealing your opponents hand if needed.
-3/1 flyer to be more aggressive in the matchups that depend on you needing additional aggresion.
Bottom line shes one hell of a pain to deal with, and when you figure that you can race with her on the table the mere fact that she gives you all of the bonus's that she does while also helping you mantain that mid-late game all landstill players love should be reason enough to atleast try her.
plainswalkers:
Most versions now run some combination of either elspeth or jace, most running x2 jace. It was realisticly a toss up of either cutting a decree or cutting an elspeth, and while I do understand that elspeth ends games quickly decree is irreplacable in its 2 slots in my opinion. Elspeth is still easily counterable and with this model you can't offord to get into too many counter wars as you only run 6 counters.
Spells:
Most of the spells are self explanatory. Most versions of wish still run the following
4 b storm
4 swords
2 decree
2 wish
2 wrath
1 humility
4 force
The real difference starts at maindecking x3 relic and x3 ponder. So many times while playing tough matchups landstill traditionally looses game 1's by not running the correct utility to deal with a given situation or not being able to generate enough card manipulation given by turn x. Turn x is usually turn 2 or 3, but given the different situations that legacy holds x can be up to t5. Relic is good against most everything in the current tier and while many may disagree with Dif about maindecking them I assure you once you test the full meta of decks you will surely change your mind or at the very least understand completely why they would fit into this model. Drawing multiple relics in a game can't really hurt you for the most part because they kantrip if you absolutely need them to, but most of the time they will be necessary for one purpose or the other. Either by keeping thresh off their 7 consistently or by making survival cry, or by keeping TA off that dreaded 5 cards in grave 3 mana open tombstalker situation. It's a thorn in almost every decks plan at one point in the game or another and if given time you will see that its more then worth the investment. Oh also its gold against aggro loam pre board for obvious reasons and I also hear stopping crucible wastelock is pretty good as well. Like I said bottom line you wont regret it.
That said the 3-1 split of standstill fof is kind of double reasoning. Number 1 drawing multiple standstills can be exceptionally bad in certain matchups. Number 2 it makes wishes worth quadrouple with relic of progenitus. Yes it may seem slow, but in the lategame if you are in a top deck war with the mirror or another aggro control or pure control deck wish can absolutely be a dead card. So eoting a fof only to get countered, then removing it and casting cunning wish for it next round can absolutely be a deal breaker in the mirror. This also works with swords, brainstorm, force, ect. ect. Wishes worth can deffinately help when called upon.
The 2-1 split between halo and ee is basicly the risk/ reward syndrome that this deck tends to have. You risk 1 slot because you run the equivilent of 3 ee's with west anyways, and to top that runed halo is for obvious reasons good against soo much of the field that nabbing it via enlightened tutor or fof splits or even just manipulating it via the top with 4 brainstorm 3 ponder can easily change games. Yes there are situations where it is not optimal compared to ee, but as I said before when you get in those situations its randomly unlucky and its the risk you take.
Im not going to talk about spell snare as its obvious and 1 of humility randomly wins about 30% of your games just by its ability to time walk you multiple turns and dramaticly change the tempo of any game with creatures in it.
The sideboard will have to wait as im really tired and need to get some sleep. Until then thoughts? Opinions? Testing questions?
Looks like you tested alot with DIF's experimental list. I too like his experimental list as well. The most noticable aspect I like about Clemen's list is you can actually switch gears and play a more aggro-controlish role with his deck. I think the deck can be pretty good when you know the trick of switching roles.
How has Elspeth been for you? I've always preffered her over Jace as my main pet peeve for this deck is the ridiculous number of draws you'll have for running to time. I agree it's easily counterable. Have any of you tried Faerie Conclave? I've found it's super good when we don't have Humility on the board and can seriously win cames on it's own, because the current meta is atrocious at defending flying unless it's either Dragon or Faerie Stompy.
Elspeth is indeed quite good I actually started running one of her in one of my UWB landstill lists. Although I wanted to include another one of her as well in that list. You can find my list here: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=3397576&postcount=18
Elspeth adds a whole new aspect to Landstill making the archetype more aggressive then usual. She is definitely amazing in alot of matchups including UG(x) aggro-control, Loam, and also the mirror.
I hate the CIPT clause of the conclave, but I could see it working... Especially with humility down, that spells game.
I feel the need for more man lands which is why I really love green in the build, for monastery.
I will be posting a UWbg build soon. Celicia asked me to make a separate thread though, as we feel it plays differently enough to justify it.
That would be good to have a seperate thread for UWbg Landstill and your list seems quite solid from what you showed me yesterday. I am also not a fan of faerie conclave but I used to run conclave when I used moat in Landstill. This was awhile back of course.
Helpful primer, just a quick question. Will other forms of UW(x) landstill also get more individual primer's in this thread? And could there be some kind of explanation of all the different types of landstill? Because other then different color combinations (Uwr and etc) I've eveb seen some with Scepter CHant and etc.
Edit: I'm glad this forum has a Landstill primer, it's a very versatile and solid deck.
Helpful primer, just a quick question. Will other forms of UW(x) landstill also get more individual primer's in this thread? And could there be some kind of explanation of all the different types of landstill? Because other then different color combinations (Uwr and etc) I've eveb seen some with Scepter CHant and etc.
Edit: I'm glad this forum has a Landstill primer, it's a very versatile and solid deck.
Yes other forms will have their own matchup analysis and card choices as well but I probably won't repeat explaination of cards that I already went over though but if an UWG landstill list has lets say crucible of worlds and tarmogoyf in them I'll go over those two cards as well. In fact, I will do a primer on UWR landstill as well so yeah this thread is far from finished I just need more time to write these primers up but they will all be in the opening post and if I run out of room I will have to make another post about the primers as well. I am definitely planning on spending alot of time on this thread. All my UW(x) Landstill primers will be in this thread.
Edit: I just updated the opening post with another primer.
Hey thanx for the feedback cec. Im glad to see i'm not the only one testing dif's model. Though it seems you prefer vindicate still but atleast you did some testing.
As for the model yes I have tested it extensively. I had a group of guys on the source I was testing with and i've t8'd 2 20ish man tourneys so far with it. I'm planning on going to gp chicago, how about you?
Hopefully I will be able to go its about a 50/50 chance that I will as of now. Also, no problem I don't really have a problem with DIF's experimental list. I definitely think the list is quite strong. I mean it has alot of ways where it can take control of the game and it seems to be flexible enough where it can concentrate in several areas and still be efficient in each of those areas.
How does this deck do Against 43 Land? There are two builds being ran in my area and face them weekly and am weery on playing something that loses to alot of decks in my area
How does this deck do Against 43 Land? There are two builds being ran in my area and face them weekly and am weery on playing something that loses to alot of decks in my area
Generally it can be a difficult matchup for Landstill but that's because 43 lands plays with a dozen or so manlands making it hard to gain advantage from standstill. Honestly I would board out standstills for meddling mages(naming life from the loam). Obviously Fact or fiction would be brilliant here so you keep those in. Vindicates, wastelands, and Ajani Goldmane are all considered to be good in this matchup too.
I have won games against 43 lands with landstill by keeping their explorations and manabonds off the table as well. Not sure if they still run exploration and manabond though considering its been awhile since I played that matchup. Your priorities is to stop their land recursion and mana acceration while toping it off by being the aggressor with Ajani Goldmane and Decree of justice.
its a rough matchup any way you look at it, but bottom line you stay away from loam/ wastelock, counter their exploration and remove their manlands you deffinately have a good shot at winning.
oh and sacrifice a goat to the magic gods for getting such lucksacient hand 2 games in a series.
its a rough matchup any way you look at it, but bottom line you stay away from loam/ wastelock, counter their exploration and remove their manlands you deffinately have a good shot at winning.
oh and sacrifice a goat to the magic gods for getting such lucksacient hand 2 games in a series.
What he said.
Also against a metagame where your expecting to play against 43 lands your much better off playing something else like Goyf Sligh or Moonthresh. I hear price of progress and blood moon effects wins you games. There are also other options as well like Tendrils combo either TES or Fetchland Tendrils will do.
On a more serious note, throw in a crucible of worlds or two and play with mulitple copies of wastelands if you really want to play Landstill against 43lands. Heck even Dustbowl sounds pretty good in the matchup and of course graveyard hate would also prove to be beneficial.
I am also going to update the opening post once again with another primer or two probably on my next day off from work which will be around this coming Monday or Tuesday. I might even get one primer up on Sunday night we'll see on how everything goes though.
I find the 4 color landstill builds have the least problems with land.dec. You have mainboard explosives, deed and swords to handle manlands plus plenty of countermagic to take care of loam. 4 tormod's crypt out of the board pretty much seals the deal since the deck sucks without loam and runs no burning wish. Plus once your own loam or crucible kicks in they're wasteland 'lock' is meaningless especially since exploration benefits both of you.
I find the 4 color landstill builds have the least problems with land.dec. You have mainboard explosives, deed and swords to handle manlands plus plenty of countermagic to take care of loam. 4 tormod's crypt out of the board pretty much seals the deal since the deck sucks without loam and runs no burning wish. Plus once your own loam or crucible kicks in they're wasteland 'lock' is meaningless especially since exploration benefits both of you.
Not really, I don't see how a 4c build would have less problems compared to a 3c build especially against 43lands. 4c builds seems to be much more vulnerable then 3c builds against the likes of wasteland. They can more easily keep you off a specific color mana source through the forementioned wasteland and rishadan port. Also exploration only benefits the controller. "You" is the "controller" of the enchantment and the only way your going to benefit from explorations is by playing your own. That's why I said before that keeping explorations and manabonds off the board would be some of your main priorities especially since they play every manland in the book it seems like.
On another note, 43lands doesn't really need to overextend as much as you think since they play way more lands then you do and it makes mass removal cards like pernicious deed not as nearly as effective. As for Engineered explosives you only can hit "nonland" permanents with it and even though nantuko monastery, treetop village and mishra's factory can turn into creatures instanteously they still count as lands.
Besides who plays 43lands anyways? Aggro Loam already outclasses 43lands by a large margin and there is just several storm combo decks floating around to make 43lands.dec a least of a metagame concern if you look at the overall picture.
Ha, you can tell I've never run into the deck, eh? Maybe you're right, but do think deed improves the matchup significantly.
Aggro-loam is definitely a more relevant match. Similar rules apply as you have to keep them off loam or they will waste you into oblivion. Plus they're usually running chalice of the void and/or discard allowing them to keep a fatass terravore on the table just long enough to win. That can become a frustrating match.
Ha, you can tell I've never run into the deck, eh? Maybe you're right, but do think deed improves the matchup significantly.
Aggro-loam is definitely a more relevant match. Similar rules apply as you have to keep them off loam or they will waste you into oblivion. Plus they're usually running chalice of the void and/or discard allowing them to keep a fatass terravore on the table just long enough to win. That can become a frustrating match.
Well then I guess I'll learn not to take some people as seriously then for next time. I still disagree about Pernicious Deed being that big of a liability for 43lands though.
Yeah I played against all sorts of versions of aggro loam with landstill so I know what to expect usually. Devastating Dreams is also another card to worry about as well and that should be pretty obvious. I even worry about dreams more then all of the cards you mentioned.
What is Miracle Control?
Miracle control is a Blue white centric deck that focuses on delaying the game out long by using sensei's divining top and counterbalance to perform a "soft lock" on your opponent. The different win conditions very by choice but all of the decks have jace, the mind sculptor as a primary win condition/ card advantage engine. The Blue white Counterbalance shell has existed for quite some time in the standstill styles but were brought to recession since the rise of Merfolk. Since the printing of Avacyn Restored's miracle mechanic the deck has taken off with multiple iterations.
What sets this deck apart from other control decks in legacy right now is its consistency and efficient card selection early game backed up with efficient removal and reusable counters and pseudo ponders in the form of counterbalance top.
This primer will focus on the Blue White versions of Miracle control but will branch off into the splashes including Red and Black.
II The Deck
The Base
All miracle control decks have these cards:
The 4 of cards are ones you want in either your opening hand or to see multiples in nearly every game.
3 ofs you want to see every game relatively early on, and rarely in multiples.
2 ofs are cards you want mid to late game and only ever see one in a game.
These numbers correlate directly with your card choices.
Here is the most recent strict miracle control list:
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Entreat the Angels
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
3 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Divert
1 Counterspell
3 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
5 Island
2 Plains
3 Tundra
2 Mystic Gate
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
2 Karakas
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Moat
1 Disenchant
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Rest in Peace
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Force of Will
1 Divert
1 Misdirection
3 Meddling Mage
Creatures:
Vendillion Clique: One of the best creatures in the deck. It is almost never a dead card. Against Thresh decks it can trade with a delver of secrets or Nimble mongoose. Against combo or control you can play it at awkward times to strip the best card from their hand. The same is true against a show and tell on the stack. One of the best applications of this creature outside of Show and tell is against stoneblade. You respond to the stoneforge trigger and remove the batterskull.
Snapcaster mage: A very useful utility creature. This creature is at best when able to flashback a swords to plowshare or brainstorm. A lot of versions of this deck have cut it in favor of Rest in peace(will be discussed later).
Venser, Shaper Savant: Mostly being played because of the rise of Show and tell/ Reanimator style of decks. The reason it saw play was Miracles was desperate for an answer for Griselbrand, Emrakul, the aeons torn that would also answer omniscience. I believe Joe Lossett found the answer in venser. It is able to bounce anything the show and tell player puts into play while also being able to be reoccurred with karakas.
Geist of Saint Traft: Efficiency at its finest. It hits like a titan for only 3 mana. It is immune to spot removal while also putting on a deadly clock. This card is usually in the sideboard and is only brought in during control mirrors or against combo decks where you cannot afford your opponent to sculpt a hand and you need a clock.
Stoneforge Mystic: Since the decks infancy people have tried mixing it with stoneblade. A few people have tried but it has not become popularized until a list topped GP Denver in 2012(list will be posted below). The addition of stoneforge greatly increases your matchup against aggro decks and speeds up the game against control mirrors. The biggest deterrent for stoneforge in the deck is the deck already has good matchups against aggro and adding in stoneforge just makes a good match better. However, Jund can be a rough matchup and they have an incredibly rough time dealing with a batterskull if they do not expect it coming.
Spells
Force of will: A necessary evil in the deck. Force doubles as the best card in the deck and the worst card in the deck. The only real reason to have this card in the deck is to not just die to combo decks. Late game you are able to "hard cast" force of will but the cost of a card early game really means you should not cast it unless you absolutely need to.
Brainstorm: I am not going to go into detail about "how to brainstorm" there have been multiple articles about how to do this, instead i will say some interactions with it in this deck specifically. Brainstorm is at its best when "digging" for a specific answer or setting up a miracle. This can also be used to find lands, or shuffle away extra counterbalances or cards not needed at this specific time in a game.
Jace, the mind sclulptor: One of the best blue cards in legacy right now. It is a good reason for playing blue. It gives you card advantage when you need it and also clears the board if need be. Late game once you have control it becomes a very good win condition. A lot of the time if you have a sensei's divining top in play it is best to +2 your self to remove cards you will not need instead of brainstorm. Mostly because assuming you have 7 cards in hand with top out. +2ing jace will increase the clock and threat level of jace while also seeing you more cards. If you brainstorm and put the two not needed cards back on top you really did not achieve anything.
Counterbalance: One of the best cards to have in play on an empty board. This is doubly true when paired with sensei's divining top. Together this can perform a soft lock on your opponent that can make it incredibly hard to deal with. By its self however, it very rarely will counter anything. You can "blind flip" if you are lucky which is one of the single most tilting things to do to an opponent. But, brainstorm will double as a single chance to counter something while also netting card selection.
Sensei's divining top: One of the best reasons to play this deck. While in play top virtually adds 3 cards to your hand. When paired with counterbalance it becomes incredibly useful. Top is also great at setting up miracles on your opponents turns. This can be anything from a terminus in a combat step while a land is animated or an Entreat the angels on your opponents turn to win the game on the spot. The only bad thing with top is if you are a slower player you can spend a lot of time topping and end up going to time a lot. Top is incredible with fetch lands as well, it can act as an instant speed ponder when in conjunction.
Some interactions with top is you can do it on your upkeep on your second turn if you need to dig for a specific card/land or if you do not have a turn 2 play at all. With multiple tops out you can use one as a cantrip and shuffle it away with a fetch land. If you were to crack a fetchland you should order your play like so: top, look at top 3, responding to that by cracking the fetch land. This is useful when playing against abrupt decay decks. They will usually wait until you are going to fetch to try to remove your top. This way ensures that if they do it you still get a chance to look at your top cards when you resolve your fetch.
Terminus/ Entreat the angels:These are being lumped together becuase i feel they should be talked about at the same time. Both are very powerful cards but are incredibly slow/clunky when not miracled. Terminus specifically was the reason this deck was able to do so well. It can be an instant speed 1 mana wrath effect. It also can remove cards that would hit the graveyard where that would help your opponent (ichorid specifically). Entreat puts in double work in this deck. It acts as one of the most threatening/efficient finishers but it is also a 3 when revealed off of a counterbalance. This is incredibly useful when playing against show and tell. The deck right now has a small amount of 3 drops to use currently.
III Variants:
Right now for Miracles there are 3 primary variants: UW miracles with red, miracles with Rest in peace Helm, and Esper color miracles with Thopter/Sword.
Miracles with Red
Joe Lossett 7th Place SCG Las Vegas
4 Brainstorm
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Spell Pierce
4 Counterbalance
1 Counterspell
2 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
4 Island
2 Plains
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
2 Mystic Gate
2 Karakas
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Disenchant
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sphere of Law
3 Rest in Peace
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Pithing Needle
1 Entreat the Angels
Another reason to play red is the addition of blood moon. This deck plays 7-8 basics which is incredibly high for legacy deck. A resolved blood moon against the tempo/jund decks will almost always lock them out of the game.
Miracles With Rest in peace/ Helm combo
1st Place by Alex Binek at SCG Indianapolis
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
5 Island
2 Plains
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Karakas
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Blood Moon
3 Counterbalance
1 Detention Sphere
2 Rest in Peace
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Terminus
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Energy Field
1 Humility
1 Counterspell
1 Disenchant
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Swords to Plowshares
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Vendilion Clique
This combo can greatly increase the win chance against lot of decks. Decks like Reanimator/dredge usually have a very good game 1 against us we now have silver bullets against them and not just roll over. This combo also makes the games a lot quicker. If you are usually digging for a way to kill your opponent via Jace or entreat it could be a lot quicker with helm.
RIP builds also play enlightened tutor which can help find the combo piece or even just a top if need be. Most versions will have a lot of 1 ofs in the board for increasing the virtual amount in the board usually consisting of: Moat, humility, engineered explosives, detention sphere and sphere of law.
UW/b Miracle Control with Thopter Sword
4-0 Modo Daily
4 Flooded Strand
5 Island
1 Karakas
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
1 Counterspell
1 Detention Sphere
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Entreat the Angels
4 Force of Will
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Moat
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Spell Pierce
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Sword of the Meek
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Disenchant
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Lingering Souls
3 Meddling Mage
2 Perish
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Terminus
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Vendilion Clique
IV Matchups:
Miracles regardless of the build has a lot of very favorable matchups. Most of these become good matchups because of the access of terminus and or counterbalance.
Against Strom/combo decks resolving counterbalance/top is back breaking. Majority of their decks revolve around 1-2 cmc cards. This is mostly true with ANT. A top against that deck it becomes incredibly hard for them to play through it.
Aggro. This deck has a very good matchup against almost every aggro deck, with the exception of goblins. This deck single handedly put maverick away. Having access to instant speed wraths and swords to plowshare makes it a nightmare for aggro decks.
Against control the late game always favor us. This puts other control decks in awkward positions, they are usually forced to play the aggressor in these matchups. They do not have the luxury of just sitting back and sculpting a perfect hand etc.
This deck does struggle against goblins. Game 1 is incredibly hard. Goblins can generate an intense amount of card advantage and put on a big clock fast. The inclusion of cavern of souls makes almost all of our counters/counterbalance useless in the matchup. Post board you can bring in more wrath effects/spot removal but the main hindrance is that we have too many dead cards.
V Links:
Here are links for reference
Joe Lossett 25th at GP Denver http://blog.mtgdeals.com/oarsman/gp-denver-25th/
Adam Yurchick One of the first articles on the deck http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10481
Previous UW Primers http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=3556448&postcount=1
As of note though, this thread used to be the UW(x) Landstill thread and if you want to read the old UW(x) Landstill primer it's in the spoiler tag at the bottom of this post.
This will be the new thread for any UW miracle control discussion so feel free to discuss and post your lists on UW miracle control with any splashes you might have too. I am going to try to get up a primer in a month or something. But anyone can help me with writing the primer as well just let me know.
With that being said, for starters here is Raphael Levy's First place UW miracles list.
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
1 Karakas
5 Island
4 Flooded Strand
Creatures
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Terminus
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Force of Will
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
1 Entreat the Angels
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterbalance
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Path to Exile
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Terminus
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Vendilion Clique
You can read about Raphael Levy's UW Miracles here:
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10555
In addition, you can also read Adam Yurchick's UW Miracles Article here:
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10481
The Old UW(x) Landstill primer is still intact and you can view it here:
For years on end Landstill has always been a viable tournament choice for the Legacy format. Landstill is a deck that refuses to die because it can adapt to any given metagame and the deck runs a uniquely powerful draw engine(Standstill) to drive this archetype to dominance.
Landstill also is a highly consistent deck because of it's powerful draw engine(standstill) and the deck runs a vast array of tools to overcome threatening odds.
As far as strategy goes Landstill is still the same deck from 2004. Landstill plays countermagic, board sweepers, and pinpoint removal to reset the board state back to zero. After this, Landstill then plays standstill to get ahead in card advantage. When your creating a good deal of card advantage for yourself, your chances of winning increases by a huge margin. Landstill has always been good at taking advantage of standstill to propel itself to great success in any competitive Legacy event.
As you go through and read this opening post. You will see that there are currently three Landstill primers. Uwb, Uwg, and Uwr landstill. Each one of these variants have seen a consider amount of play and have all been successful in various Legacy tournaments.
I am going to first start with a Uwb Landstill decklist that has done well recently.
UWb Landstill Primer
Uwb Landstill
By Geoff Smelski
First place out of 47 players
Date: 1-10-09
4 Swords to plowshares
4 Wrath of God
3 Decree of Justice
2 Eternal Dragon
3 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Fact or fiction
3 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
4 Force of will
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Vindicate
2 Plains
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Runed Halo
4 Meddling Mage
2 Ajani Goldmane
4 Engineered Plague
2 Chainer's Edict
Card Choices:
Swords to plowshares: Obviously this is a critical reason to play white in Landstill. Making devastating creatures obsolete then playing a standstill on the first few turns makes stp a invalueble tool.
That said, brainstorm is still the best card in legacy and you should run them in any blue control deck. Not to mention you can maximize it's full potential by supplementing brainstorm with shuffling effects and this particular landstill build has plenty.
Canadian Threshold: Favorable
This is pretty much the same matchup as the other Threshold variants that I mentioned so far. Thoughtseize and Dark confidant and prove to be a pain though so it's best to watchout for those two. Spell snare is often brilliant in this matchup and you have Fact or Fiction to contemplate the loss from thoughtseize if it comes down to it.
UWG Landstill Primer
Ever since Tarmogoyf came into print legacy players from all over the world have adopted Tarmogoyf in their Landstill decks. Tarmogoyf is apparently quite strong according to the players that play with him in their Standstill decks. They further prove their points about their inclusion of Tarmogoyf by top 8ing in good size tournaments around the globe.
Here is a UWG Landstill decklist that that top 8'd in a 118 player Jan 2009 tournament.
4 Tarmogoyf
Spells
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to plowshares
3 Counterbalance
4 Standstill
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Wasteland
1 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Hydroblast
3 Krosan Grip
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Relic of Progenitus
As you can tell this version of Landstill plays totally differently from the Landstill list that I showed you earlier from the recent Hadley tournament. This particular Landstill list can play much more aggressively in the early stages of the game since it has Tarmogoyf. But the deck can also take control of the game similar to other Landstill lists since it still runs Standstill and runs efficient removal spells like swords to plowshares and engineered explosives. Also Counterspell and Wasteland provides more oppoturnities to play standstill in a timely manner for this build.
Card Choices
Tarmogoyf: Goyf is generally a optimal inclusion based on what he brings to the archetype and based on actual tournament results he seems to fit pretty well in some builds. Considering of Goyf's size he is pretty much a removal spell and a threat built into one card.
Counterbalance: A powerful control instrument in the current meta and a card that can win games on it's own. With the incorporation of Tarmogoyf counterbalance becomes drastically more lethal and having the ability to draw a good chunk of cards with standstill makes this build of Landstill a solid tournament choice.
Crucible of Worlds: Since Blue mana denial decks are extremely popular in the current environment Crucible can be a necassity especially in this build of landstill since it has more of a fragile manabase then the version with vindicates. Crucible also functions as an E. Dragon since it can bring back fetchlands to solidify your manabase. Also recursion of wastelands can also be brilliant against decks that like to pack other colors for utility and reach.
Sensei's Divining Top: Not only is Top broken with counterbalance it is also broken with standstill. Having the ability to manipulate the arrangement of your top three cards while having standstill in play is another efficient way to hit your land drops and play multiple mishra's factories to take advantage of standstills further. SDT is also a relevant tool on it's own as well especially since you have ways to shuffle your deck with the X number of fetchlands available.
Sideboard Card Choices:
Hydroblast/BEB: With quite a few players still playing X number of red decks in the modern legacy environment I believe Blue blasts are still necessary.
Krosan Grip: A obviously inclusion in the board since Grip has the ability to shore up highly classified blue decks that have tendicies to run counterbalance and/or Phyrexian Dreadnought.
Chalice of the void: Good against anything that has low mana curves.
Relic of Progenitus: The better option of Tormod's Crypt and can make Tarmogoyfs obsolete. Also good against decks that utilize their graveyards.
Matchup Analysis:
Vial Goblins: Favorable
Preboard can swing either way to be honest. Tarmogoyf and your removal will play a huge role in this matchup. Your first priority is to stop Aether Vial at all costs. Once you have an early assault going with Tarmogoyf and factories as well as nailing their threats with engineered explosives and stp you should be in good shape. Postboard gets much better for you obviously since the incorporation of Blue blasts helps a ton.
Team America: Varies
This matchup can vary especially since you have limited answers to their Tombstalker and if you can't counteract their early Tombstalker you should just concede and play game 2. However, if you can get an early counterbalance going while playing an early Tarmogoyf there is possibility that you can win this matchup even preboard. Tombstalker and Snuff out can be the most devastating since both cards ignore counterbalance and your only outs is swords to plowshares, counterspell, and force of will. Thoughtseize, daze, and their mana denial suite can be a pain but if you can get on a quicker start then they can then more power to you. By all means this matchup is still winnable but can still be rough if you don't play this matchup carefully. Also with the limited amount of creature removal you have compared to other Landstill lists you don't really have the option to stock pile on lands as nearly as much.
UGB Threshold: Favorable
You have counterbalance, spell snare, engineered explosives, and swords to plowshares to get rid of all of their threats and utility cards that prove a significant factor like counterbalance. Thoughtseize can be a pain in the butt but you should be fine if you can play a counterbalance and your draw spells. Postboard gets better for you since Krosan Grip will definitely come in however if your playing against a more tempo oriented version your mainboard should be enough.
UGW Threshold: Varies
Generally this matchup is favorable for you since you have a lot of cards that aren't dead in this matchup either and prove to be useful. However, if they play mystic enforcer you should definitely be ready to answer it as soon as you can since your removal suite is limited in that regard. Mystic Enforcer is just as deadly as tombstalker as well so it'll be wise to play this matchup more tightly and save your counterspells, force of wills, and stp for all mighty enforcer.
Ugr Thrash: Favorable
You should be able to win this matchup with no problem at all. Once again spell snare, explosives, stp, and counterbalance are your best friends here. I would always like to play an early counterbalance if possible in this matchup since they have limited answers for it preboard. Postboard however can be quite different mainly because of pyroblasts/red elemental blasts and Krosan Grip. Also Submerge can bring out the stakes in this matchup as well but as long as you remove their threats and cast your own you should be fine.
Aggro Loam: Varies
Once again a varying matchup since Aggro loam has all sorts of utility cards for landstill. Crucible, counterbalance, and your countermagic will play a significant role here. You have your own wastelands to counteract their duals if need be and that could help. Postboard obviously gets much better with Relic of Progenitus and blue blasts. I would highly advise to be the aggressor in this matchup and Tarmogoyf can be there for you in that regard.
AD Nauseam Tendrils: Favorable
You should be able to win this matchup even postboard since counterbalance, and other countermagic will be your tools in this one. Also putting the Storm player on a clock would also be a good idea and Tarmogoyf is known for that. Postboard obviously gets significantly better for you because chalice of the void can turn off a ton of their utility resources.
Landstill Mirror: Varies
Counterbalance obviously is good here and so is mishra's factory and wastelands. Crucible becomes your best friend in this matchup since recurring wastelands and factories is always nice. Tarmogoyf can prove to be a effective beatstick but make sure you have plenty of countermagic and a active countertop in play beforehand.
Ichorid: Varies/Impossible Matchup
I would just concede game 1 against Ichorid and play out Games 2 and perhaps 3 if you win the second time. Relic of Progenitus will obviously play a role here but having just three graveyard hate cards isn't always going to cut against the likes of Ichorid.
Dreadstill: Even/Favorable
This is an interesting matchup. You both play almost the exact same cards. Its going to come down who plays counterbalance first and Wastelands become heavily involved here since dismantling their manabase and knocking out their manlands can be a important priority in this matchup. Crucible of worlds will also be a significant tool as well. Postboard obviously gets better with Krosan Grip and maybe even Chalice of the void set at 1.
UWR Landstill Primer
Top 8 at a Moxen Bazaar Tournament
Number of players: 498
Date: 5-15-2010
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Fact or Fiction
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Academy Ruins
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Plateau
2 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Echoing Truth
3 Ethersworn Cannonist
2 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Disenchant
2 Pyroclasm
Introduction: I really like this version of Uwr landstill, despite of it not running any wrath of gods. As you can tell this Landstill variant is designed to beat Merfolks and as well as have a decent game against Storm combo, especially, postboard. Although, the only bad side is it's unforgiving to play if you make a mistake as it doesn't run jace 2.0 and no efficient mass removal such as wrath of god. Not to mention, the manabase doesn't contain as many basic lands as most of the Landstill builds you see on this site.
Matchup Analysis:
Vial Goblins: Even to Not Favorable
You have several pieces of spot removal to hit Goblin Lackeys. You also have an answer for their first turn Aether Vial if you play first through Forces, EE's and spell pierce. Crucible is great here because it takes their wastes and rishadan ports out of the game when your able to recur fetches, duals, and wastes. Although, not having a counterspell to counter their ringleaders and siege gangs can be extremely problematic, considering, they can out play you with speed, card advantage, and threat density.
Boarding: -4 Standstill, -1 spell pierce, +2 Pyroclasm, +1 Disenchant, +2 Cop: Red
Postboard, it's slightly better for you since you can board in Cop: Red, pyroclasms, and disenchant for the Aether Vial. It's still a rough fight but if you can take their aether vials out of the game your chances of winning dramatically increases.
Merfolks-Favorable
Once again, you have several pieces of 1cc removal to hit their lords, cursecatchers, wakethrashers, and etc. Your primary objective is to stop AEther Vial at all costs since they can seriously outplay you with just one vial on the table. You have a good answer for their mutavaults in wastelands and spell pierce can be a lifesaver in this matchup.
Boarding: -4 Standstill, -1 spell pierce, +2 Pyroclasm, +2 Sower of temptation, +1 Disenchant
Playing sower might be a problem with pyroclasm but then again I use sower after I clear the board with pyroclasm. I also like to use it to hold off onslaughts. The only thing I would watch out for are echoing truths on sowers. Other then that sower can steal lords which can help you get slightly ahead in the damage race. So, play sower as your second or third option not your first option because they are most like will be bolts, pyroclasms, stps, and engineered explosives.
Ad Nauseam Tendrils-Even to Favorable
I have found that in this matchup wasting their non-basics and spell piercing/spell snare their utility or tutor spells can increase your chances of winning. Your cheap countermagic actually makes your standstills more playable as well in this matchup. Also, fact or fiction can be quite awesome in this matchup since it's an instant that can net you a bundle of cards.
Boarding: -2 Crucible of Worlds, -4 Swords to plowshares, +3 Ethersworn Cannonist, +1 Echoing truth, +2 Relic. The reason why you board in graveyard hate is to stop their igg piles or also stop their ritual graveyard usage.
Postboard, should be much more of a breeze for you considering you now have ethersworn cannonist to drive their storm count to a halt and ethersworn can up your clock tempo too. The reason why I suggest boarding in echoing truth is if just in case they decide to use empty of the warrens but mainly it's an additional blue spell for force of will.
Dredge: Not favorable
Your chances of winning game 1 is considerably slim since they can just therapy or hypnotic you right out of the game. Your only chance in this matchup, especially, if your going first is to counter their spell pierce their breakthroughs and/or forcing their tireless tribes. I would also do everything in your power to slow them down or just go to game 2. You can slow them down by removing their narcomoebas with bolts, swords their ichorids, and also set EE at zero to blow up their zombie tokens.
Boarding: -4 Standstill, -1 Spell Snare, +2 Relic, +2 Crypt, +1 Echoing Truth
Countertop Progenitus: Favorable
You actually have plenty of answers for all of their threats through spell snare, swords to plowshares, engineered explosives, disk and lightning bolts. You should try to cut them off of green sources through wasteland and bolt their noble hierarchs so they will have a much tougher time getting progenitus in play. Also, fact or fiction is quite brilliant in this matchup since it can turn the tables into your favor. When you play this matchup tightly your chances of winning is actually pretty decent.
Boarding: -2 Crucible of Worlds, +2 Pyroclasm
The reason for pyroclasm is, I like to have more answers for noble hierarch, especially because of the lack of wrath of god for progenitus.
Aggro Loam: Not favorable to even
Watching out for devastating dreams and burning wish is the main key here as you have alot of removal for their countryside crushers, tarmogoyfs, and perhaps dark confidants. It's a tough matchup for you but if you can manage to get out crucible before they waste lock you out of the game with loam your chances of winning isn't that bad. Elspeth is probably the best card in this matchup as you need to be the aggressor and Elspeth provides you with this spark.
Boarding: -2 Spell Pierce, -4 Standstill, +2 Relic of progenitus, +2 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Sower of Temptation
Zoo: Even
You actually have alot of ways to kill their apes, wild nacatls, qasali pridemages, lynx, grim lavamancers. Although, their burn can still be a problem for you but you have wasteland to cut them off of a red or whatever other color when needed. Wasteland is great here since they have a huge vulnerability to it and it allows you to play standstill easier.
Boarding: -1 Nevinyrral's Disk, -1 Crucible of worlds, +2 Circle of protection: red.
New Horizons: Favorable
The first game can go either way, land drops are extremely vital in this matchup. You can also counteract their wasteland/stifle disruption by recuring your lands via crucible and fetching for basics. Wasteland can be good here to cut off green so they have a harder time playing their goyfs, knights, and terravores. This of course will help you play standstill easier too but even if they manage to play their threats you have swords to plowshares, nevinyrral's disk, and engineered explosives to help you stabilize the board in your favor.
Your draw spells like fact or fiction, brainstorm, and standstill are also really good in this matchup. You want to stay ahead in card advantage to subside their mana disruption and huge threats.
Boarding: -3 Spell Pierce, -3 Lightning Bolts, +2 Sower of Temptation, +2 Relic, +1 Tormod's Crypt
Postboard, actually gets better for you since sower can steal games by taking their biggest threat and you also have graveyard hate to shrink their creatures to irrelevant proportions.
Recent Top 8 accomplishments for UW(x) Landstill at 50+ player tournaments.
1. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18151-1st-MTG-BARATO-Legacy-Open-(Valencia-3rd-July-2010-138-players
2. http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcps2bjv_180hh3w9gff
3. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16327-06-12-2010-Lotus-Moxen-40-Duals-40-Fetchs-Goyfs-Forces-LED!-Play-the-Game&p=462642&viewfull=1#post462642
4. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16178-Bazaar-of-Moxen-BoM-4-13-to-16-May-2010-More-than-190-dual-and-38-pieces-of-P9/page3
5. http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=37428
I am pretty surprised not to see Elspeth discussed. Maybe she'll get some time in the sun in the next update.
I'd think a 5/5 flying Assembly Worker would be a pretty big threat under a standstill.
Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc
4 polluted delta
4 tundra
3 underground sea
3 tropical island
1 island
4 mishra's factory
1 nantuko monastery
4 brainstorm
3 fact or fiction
4 counterspell
4 force of will
2 spell snare
4 swords to plowshares
4 pernicious deed
2 engineered explosives
1 life from the loam
1 crucible of worlds
1 vedalken shackles
1 oblivion ring ( I guess planeswalkers are relevent in legacy now?)
1 enlightened tutor
4 blue elemental blast
4 tormod's crypt
3 krosan grip
Oh, also, as good as this deck is the matchup analysis up top are a little generous. I wouldnt call team america or nauseum tendrils even/favorable. At least preboard. Team America runs 12 ld slots with a curve of 0, 1, 2. Plus have you ever tried to deed a tombstalker against this deck? Far from fun. You need to land crucible or loam as quickly as possible. And now that TES has ad nauseum they can go off with multiple protection spells in hand, so since we don't play counterbalance it gets pretty grizzly. But chalice shores this match up a bit.
:symu::symw::symb: Vindicatestill
Vintage:
:symu::symb::symr::symw: sphinx slaver
As for the matchup analysis it's actually based solely on the Landstill build I presented so far. I am planning on adding more Deck lists soon and they will have their own matchup analysis and have explaination of some specific card choices. As for Elsepth it will soon come up. There will be a good chance that I will add more details to the opening post tomorrow since I have a pretty short day from work tomorrow. Stay tuned for the updates.
The TA and Tendrils is actually a favorable matchup for the UWb landstill build that I presented. Against both matchups your actually ahead postboard but preboard they could very well be about even or in their favor instead of UWb landstill's favor. I actually tested both matchups heavily with a vindicate style UWB landstill build and so the matchup analysis is fairly accurate. Vindicate is actually pretty good against Team America and they can be useful in the storm combo matchup especially if the storm combo player draws a slow opening hand. Also you don't really need crucible/lftl to be able to beat Team America you already have E. Dragon and you can just stock pile on lands to bypass their LD.
There will also be a 4c landstill primer coming up as well and I believe MishraMTG will be covering that landstill variant in a seperate thread from this one.
First, your welcome and it's the least I can do for you all. It's also good to wake up this Legacy Forums for a change anyway.
Nice I have an UWG Cunning Landstill build too but its outdated since I was building it in the middle of last year but yeah I would be interested in seeing your list. My list was running quite smoothly too and having Krosan Grip and pulse of the fields is definitely good for the environment.
Here was my current build of UWG Cunning Landstill in the middle of last year.
1 Savannah
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
2 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
1 Academy Ruins
2 Island
1 Wasteland
1 Nantuko Monastery
Creatures
2 Eternal Dragon
4 Counterspell
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Decree of Justice
4 Standstill
2 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Humility
3 Wrath of God
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pulse of the Fields
2 Krosan Grip
2 Meddling Mage
2 Hydroblast
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Runed Halo
1 Teferi's Response
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Nantuko Monastery
2 Wasteland
STUFF
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Standstill
4 Wrath of God
3 Humility
3 Jace Beleren
3 Cunning Wish
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Meddling Mage
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Krosan Grip
2 Stifle
2 Misdirection
1 Pulse of the Fields
Now to the model I run. There are only a few changes to the experimental list that dif runs. I'll explain them as we go.
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tolaria West
1 Dust Bowl
1 Academy Ruins
3 Plains
3 Island
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
// Creatures
3 Vendilion Clique
// Plainswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
// Instants
2 Cunning Wish
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Decree of Justice
3 Ponder
2 Wrath of God
// Enchantments
3 Standstill
1 Humility
1 Runed Halo
// Artifacts
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Runed Halo
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Hydroblast
1 Ajani Goldmane
3 Meddling Mage
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Extirpate
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Dismantling Blow
So starting from the top lets look at the landbase. If you'll notice the land count is @ 22. That may seem odd as general landstill runs 23-24 and a dragon or 2, but with the addition of x3 ponder hitting your lands should be cake. You have the general layout of non colored sources as well for utility. This is namely dust bowl, a. ruins, tolaria west, 3x mishra. Some versions run four, but generally speaking you will have less trouble and have more oppritunities to seal games with tolaria west under a standstill ect.
Moving on to the creatures you run x3 vendillion clique.
-Removes LFTL in the aggro loam matchup.
-Creates information by revealing your opponents hand if needed.
-3/1 flyer to be more aggressive in the matchups that depend on you needing additional aggresion.
Bottom line shes one hell of a pain to deal with, and when you figure that you can race with her on the table the mere fact that she gives you all of the bonus's that she does while also helping you mantain that mid-late game all landstill players love should be reason enough to atleast try her.
plainswalkers:
Most versions now run some combination of either elspeth or jace, most running x2 jace. It was realisticly a toss up of either cutting a decree or cutting an elspeth, and while I do understand that elspeth ends games quickly decree is irreplacable in its 2 slots in my opinion. Elspeth is still easily counterable and with this model you can't offord to get into too many counter wars as you only run 6 counters.
Spells:
Most of the spells are self explanatory. Most versions of wish still run the following
4 b storm
4 swords
2 decree
2 wish
2 wrath
1 humility
4 force
The real difference starts at maindecking x3 relic and x3 ponder. So many times while playing tough matchups landstill traditionally looses game 1's by not running the correct utility to deal with a given situation or not being able to generate enough card manipulation given by turn x. Turn x is usually turn 2 or 3, but given the different situations that legacy holds x can be up to t5. Relic is good against most everything in the current tier and while many may disagree with Dif about maindecking them I assure you once you test the full meta of decks you will surely change your mind or at the very least understand completely why they would fit into this model. Drawing multiple relics in a game can't really hurt you for the most part because they kantrip if you absolutely need them to, but most of the time they will be necessary for one purpose or the other. Either by keeping thresh off their 7 consistently or by making survival cry, or by keeping TA off that dreaded 5 cards in grave 3 mana open tombstalker situation. It's a thorn in almost every decks plan at one point in the game or another and if given time you will see that its more then worth the investment. Oh also its gold against aggro loam pre board for obvious reasons and I also hear stopping crucible wastelock is pretty good as well. Like I said bottom line you wont regret it.
That said the 3-1 split of standstill fof is kind of double reasoning. Number 1 drawing multiple standstills can be exceptionally bad in certain matchups. Number 2 it makes wishes worth quadrouple with relic of progenitus. Yes it may seem slow, but in the lategame if you are in a top deck war with the mirror or another aggro control or pure control deck wish can absolutely be a dead card. So eoting a fof only to get countered, then removing it and casting cunning wish for it next round can absolutely be a deal breaker in the mirror. This also works with swords, brainstorm, force, ect. ect. Wishes worth can deffinately help when called upon.
The 2-1 split between halo and ee is basicly the risk/ reward syndrome that this deck tends to have. You risk 1 slot because you run the equivilent of 3 ee's with west anyways, and to top that runed halo is for obvious reasons good against soo much of the field that nabbing it via enlightened tutor or fof splits or even just manipulating it via the top with 4 brainstorm 3 ponder can easily change games. Yes there are situations where it is not optimal compared to ee, but as I said before when you get in those situations its randomly unlucky and its the risk you take.
Im not going to talk about spell snare as its obvious and 1 of humility randomly wins about 30% of your games just by its ability to time walk you multiple turns and dramaticly change the tempo of any game with creatures in it.
The sideboard will have to wait as im really tired and need to get some sleep. Until then thoughts? Opinions? Testing questions?
Pullus per Mucro
I feel the need for more man lands which is why I really love green in the build, for monastery.
I will be posting a UWbg build soon. Celicia asked me to make a separate thread though, as we feel it plays differently enough to justify it.
Your right 4c plays much differently then 3color. Access to deed rather then wrath. Though you are 10x more prone to stifle/wasteland/blood moon then 3c is. I would say if your blue based aggro control is weak in your meta then 4c is probobly the better overall stronger choice and it also simply comes down to raw power versus shear consistency/ resiliance.
As for elspeth other then the fact that it acts as a finisher with humility or just in the sense of letting the ultimate happen most times you just sit and laugh at the rediculous synergy that she has with the deck. I only run 1 because I run more manipulation which allows me to consistently see her more often then not. If I don't see elspeth in a game 1-2 things happened, either I shuffled her back in as I couldn't cast her reasonably or ive already lost. "both scenarios are rare."
I havent tested fae conclave as it was just generally too slow back yesteryear when I formulated my opinions on it. Its also a large mana dump for the cost if your not playing a deck that get mana out excessively quick it can lead you right into bad play situations. As far as cipt lands I prefer tolaria west as it tutors for winconditions/ other utility/ fixing/ or mini wrath aka ee.
Pullus per Mucro
Seems like a fairly Decent list I actually like Jace especially with Humility but you probably could say the samething about Elspeth as well. Jace seem to be like a decent addition in landstill since he draws you cards however I have never been truely sold on running Jace mostly because I'd rather draw the cards right now and Jace doesn't quite cut it in that regard. Also you should definitely run Engineered Explosives they are quite good.
Looks like you tested alot with DIF's experimental list. I too like his experimental list as well. The most noticable aspect I like about Clemen's list is you can actually switch gears and play a more aggro-controlish role with his deck. I think the deck can be pretty good when you know the trick of switching roles.
Elspeth is indeed quite good I actually started running one of her in one of my UWB landstill lists. Although I wanted to include another one of her as well in that list. You can find my list here: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=3397576&postcount=18
Elspeth adds a whole new aspect to Landstill making the archetype more aggressive then usual. She is definitely amazing in alot of matchups including UG(x) aggro-control, Loam, and also the mirror.
That would be good to have a seperate thread for UWbg Landstill and your list seems quite solid from what you showed me yesterday. I am also not a fan of faerie conclave but I used to run conclave when I used moat in Landstill. This was awhile back of course.
Edit: I'm glad this forum has a Landstill primer, it's a very versatile and solid deck.
Thanks to Spiderboy4 of High~Light Studios!
Yes other forms will have their own matchup analysis and card choices as well but I probably won't repeat explaination of cards that I already went over though but if an UWG landstill list has lets say crucible of worlds and tarmogoyf in them I'll go over those two cards as well. In fact, I will do a primer on UWR landstill as well so yeah this thread is far from finished I just need more time to write these primers up but they will all be in the opening post and if I run out of room I will have to make another post about the primers as well. I am definitely planning on spending alot of time on this thread. All my UW(x) Landstill primers will be in this thread.
Edit: I just updated the opening post with another primer.
As for the model yes I have tested it extensively. I had a group of guys on the source I was testing with and i've t8'd 2 20ish man tourneys so far with it. I'm planning on going to gp chicago, how about you?
Pullus per Mucro
Thanks to the boyz at Kracked Graphics
Generally it can be a difficult matchup for Landstill but that's because 43 lands plays with a dozen or so manlands making it hard to gain advantage from standstill. Honestly I would board out standstills for meddling mages(naming life from the loam). Obviously Fact or fiction would be brilliant here so you keep those in. Vindicates, wastelands, and Ajani Goldmane are all considered to be good in this matchup too.
I have won games against 43 lands with landstill by keeping their explorations and manabonds off the table as well. Not sure if they still run exploration and manabond though considering its been awhile since I played that matchup. Your priorities is to stop their land recursion and mana acceration while toping it off by being the aggressor with Ajani Goldmane and Decree of justice.
oh and sacrifice a goat to the magic gods for getting such lucksacient hand 2 games in a series.
Pullus per Mucro
What he said.
Also against a metagame where your expecting to play against 43 lands your much better off playing something else like Goyf Sligh or Moonthresh. I hear price of progress and blood moon effects wins you games. There are also other options as well like Tendrils combo either TES or Fetchland Tendrils will do.
On a more serious note, throw in a crucible of worlds or two and play with mulitple copies of wastelands if you really want to play Landstill against 43lands. Heck even Dustbowl sounds pretty good in the matchup and of course graveyard hate would also prove to be beneficial.
I am also going to update the opening post once again with another primer or two probably on my next day off from work which will be around this coming Monday or Tuesday. I might even get one primer up on Sunday night we'll see on how everything goes though.
:symu::symw::symb: Vindicatestill
Vintage:
:symu::symb::symr::symw: sphinx slaver
Not really, I don't see how a 4c build would have less problems compared to a 3c build especially against 43lands. 4c builds seems to be much more vulnerable then 3c builds against the likes of wasteland. They can more easily keep you off a specific color mana source through the forementioned wasteland and rishadan port. Also exploration only benefits the controller. "You" is the "controller" of the enchantment and the only way your going to benefit from explorations is by playing your own. That's why I said before that keeping explorations and manabonds off the board would be some of your main priorities especially since they play every manland in the book it seems like.
On another note, 43lands doesn't really need to overextend as much as you think since they play way more lands then you do and it makes mass removal cards like pernicious deed not as nearly as effective. As for Engineered explosives you only can hit "nonland" permanents with it and even though nantuko monastery, treetop village and mishra's factory can turn into creatures instanteously they still count as lands.
Besides who plays 43lands anyways? Aggro Loam already outclasses 43lands by a large margin and there is just several storm combo decks floating around to make 43lands.dec a least of a metagame concern if you look at the overall picture.
Aggro-loam is definitely a more relevant match. Similar rules apply as you have to keep them off loam or they will waste you into oblivion. Plus they're usually running chalice of the void and/or discard allowing them to keep a fatass terravore on the table just long enough to win. That can become a frustrating match.
:symu::symw::symb: Vindicatestill
Vintage:
:symu::symb::symr::symw: sphinx slaver
Well then I guess I'll learn not to take some people as seriously then for next time. I still disagree about Pernicious Deed being that big of a liability for 43lands though.
Yeah I played against all sorts of versions of aggro loam with landstill so I know what to expect usually. Devastating Dreams is also another card to worry about as well and that should be pretty obvious. I even worry about dreams more then all of the cards you mentioned.