[ATW] Landstill

[Nightmare]

The original Legacy Control weapon, Landstill has waned in favor due to the domination of Goblins. With Goblins maintaining a shaky hold on the format, as well as innovations and new card printings, Landstill has seen a bit more play in recent months. Does this foreshadow a return of the once-king?

Running Gagg #2, Geneseo NY
Coverage
Top 8

Bazaar of Wonders Legacy Event, Germany
Top 8

January Iserlohn Legacy Tournament, Germany
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February Iserlohn Legacy Tournament, Germany
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Threads:
UR Landstill

UBg Landstill - Vorosh Control

UB Landstill - Duck Hunt

Old DTB Thread

BHWC Landstill

The typical Landstill shell will include the following blue cards:

• Standstill
• Brainstorm
• Counterspell
• Force of Will
  
  Other popular blue inclusions are the following:
• Fact or Fiction
• Mana Leak
• Stifle

Discussion Question: Is extra counter in Mana Leak and Stifle worth losing possible removal slots? Is Fact or Fiction still hot or not?

Landstill was a quite a few color variations. Blue is always included for counters and draw, but the secondary (mass, spot removal, win condition) colors are debatable.

Removal

• Red
• Pyroclasm
• Slice and Dice
• Fire/Ice
• Bolts (Lightning, Chain)
• Magma Jet
  
  Black
• Damnation
• Decree of Pain
• Ghastly Demise
• Edict (Diabolic, Chainer's)
• Innocent Blood
  
  Green
• Naturalize
  
  White
• Wrath of God
• Swords to Plowshares
• Wing Shards
• Disenchant
  
  Multi-color
• Pernicious Deed (GB)
  
  Artifact
• Nevinyrral's Disk
• Poweder Keg
• Engineered Explosives

Discussion Questions: What color provides the best, cheapest, and/or most cost effective removal options?

Win Conditions

• Black
• Haunting Echoes
  
  White
• Decree of Justice
• Eternal Dragon
• Exalted Angel
  
  Green
• Gigapede?
  
  Lands
• Nantuko Monastary (GW)

Discussion Question: Does White's seemingly superior win conditions make that color an automatic inclusion for Landstill?

Other Considerations

• Black
• Discard - Duress, Cabal Therapy, Hymn to Tourach
  
  Green
• Recursion - Gaea's Blessing, Regrowth
• Enchantment and Aritifact Hate - Naturalize, Tranquility
  
  Red
• Reach/To the Dome - various burn spells
• Artifact Hate - Shattering Spree, Meltdown
  
  White
• Life Gain - Pulse of the Fields, Life Burst
• Enchantment and Artifact Hate - Disenchant, Aura of Silence
• Storm Combo Hate - Orim's Chant, Abeyance

[Pinder]

I honestly think that the strongest combination is UWBG, as it gives you access to most of the best control elements in the game. Most notably it gives you Pernicious Deed, which is the best board sweep option Landstill has available to it, IMO. I certainly know that I hate to see Deed on the other side of the table.

Having access to green and white also gives you Nantuko Monastery, which is probably as good or better than Mishra's Factory, and speeds the deck's clock up.

Access to black also gives you EP out of the board for Goblins/ETW craziness, and for other Tribal Decks as well. It also gives you extra removal like Edict and Innocent Blood to supplement Swords to Plowshares.

And there's always discard either maindeck or board to help against combo, which if I recall Landstill has had a historically bad matchup against. White also gives you weapons against combo in the form of Chant and Abeyance.

[Anarky87]

I honestly think that the strongest combination is UWBG, as it gives you access to most of the best control elements in the game. Most notably it gives you Pernicious Deed, which is the best board sweep option Landstill has available to it, IMO. I certainly know that I hate to see Deed on the other side of the table.

Having access to green and white also gives you Nantuko Monastery, which is probably as good or better than Mishra's Factory, and speeds the deck's clock up.

Access to black also gives you EP out of the board for Goblins/ETW craziness, and for other Tribal Decks as well. It also gives you extra removal like Edict and Innocent Blood to supplement Swords to Plowshares.

And there's always discard either maindeck or board to help against combo, which if I recall Landstill has had a historically bad matchup against. White also gives you weapons against combo in the form of Chant and Abeyance.

I second this. The deck can pretty much be dubbed Answer.dec. A guy I play with played the 4c version for the longest time, but said he was going to switch for the GP, because he didn't know if he could handle the manabase for 10+ rounds in a row. I'm kind of on the fence about the manabase, at times it works beautifully and you get exactly what you need, but when you get color screwed, you take it hard. I know I just described every deck there is, but I finally stopped playing the deck because I could never get the right amount of colored lands. And with Goblins blowing a huge load at the number of non-basics I played it was a tad discouraging.

Though I did dabble in the U/B/g version of the deck for awhile before going back to U/b/g/w.

[Tacosnape]

Another potential black inclusion in the Sideboard of any Black variant is Extirpate (I run it in my Uwbg build.) I find beating Life from the Loam decks to be incredibly tricky without it, and while not the end-all against combo, it's debatably as useful as Duress against certain combo decks and often useful when combined with Force, Counterspell, Stifle, and Mage.

[Nightmare]

After doing some significant testing, I'm not entirely convinced the black splash is worth it. Basically, you get Deed (if splashing Green too), which is awesome, but has terrible synergy with Crucible; Engineered Plague, which helps in the Gobs match but you only need because you wrecked your manabase going 4c; and Duress, which is Good vs. other control (which you beat anyway), and Combo (which you can build to beat, if it isn't Solidarity). You sacrifice any kind of reliable manabase for it, and I think in a control deck it's much more important to hit the mana you need when you need it, rather than pack the deck full of powerful cards and not play them because you can't draw a manasource. I'm still unsure as to what colors are the best, but I know it won't be Black.

[jamest]

I find beating Life from the Loam decks to be incredibly tricky without it ...

Me too. I think a dedicated Loam deck just makes a better lategame deck than ours. I thought about running Cunning Wish in place of Disenchant with a small wishboard of Extirpate, removal, and Pulse of the Fields.

After doing some significant testing, I'm not entirely convinced the black splash is worth it. Basically, you get Deed (if splashing Green too), which is awesome...

The problem is that I can't find a decent replacement for Deed. The fact that Deed can come down Turn 3 to destroy Warrens tokens is key for me.

...but has terrible synergy with Crucible;

I've been running a Loam engine instead, partly because of this. Here's my current decklist:

7 Fetchlands
3/3/3 Trop/Sea/Tundra
4/3/2 Factory/Treetop/Monastery
1 Wasteland

4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
2 Intuition
1 Loam
2 Sandbar

4 Deed
4 Plowshares
2 Vindicate

4 Force
4 Counter
3 Stifle

Engineered Plague, which helps in the Gobs match but you only need because you wrecked your manabase going 4c;

I think the Goblins matchup is a big issue that has been subtly ignored. In my testing, this deck can't beat Goblins game 1. I wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong until I ran into this quote by Tacosnape (which everyone ignored):

Nick, I'm curious about your Goblins strategy. How winnable do you find game 1, and is it worth attempting the same strategy of conceding game 1 to mass-board for games 2-3? I tend to find myself drawing with Goblins a lot after losing game 1, winning game 2, and then finding insufficient time left for game 3.

Then again, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Originally, Goblins moved to 4x Port 4x Waste to combat UW Landstill back in the day. In my opinion, it's not just the manabase that's the problem, but the entire strategic approach. Basic maxim: Mass removal doesn't beat Goblins.

I think in a control deck it's much more important to hit the mana you need when you need it, rather than pack the deck full of powerful cards and not play them because you can't draw a manasource.

Agreed. I've tried to address this by increasing the number of color mana sources.

[Belgareth]

After doing some significant testing, I'm not entirely convinced the black splash is worth it. Basically, you get Deed (if splashing Green too), which is awesome, but has terrible synergy with Crucible; Engineered Plague, which helps in the Gobs match but you only need because you wrecked your manabase going 4c; and Duress, which is Good vs. other control (which you beat anyway), and Combo (which you can build to beat, if it isn't Solidarity). You sacrifice any kind of reliable manabase for it, and I think in a control deck it's much more important to hit the mana you need when you need it, rather than pack the deck full of powerful cards and not play them because you can't draw a manasource. I'm still unsure as to what colors are the best, but I know it won't be Black.

I agree, all my testing has indicated going 4 colours does not gain you enough to wreck your manabase.
I prefer the UWR landstill variant which is a solid deck and performs well against most of the field but is very dependant on the pilots abilities to make decisions.

[Kadaj]

I might be the only person on the planet who still believes this, but I think old-school UW Landstill still has viability in the current metagame. With a properly built manabase (i.e, play enough basics so that port/wasteland doesn't wreck you) it can handle Goblins, maintain a good matchup against threshold through a critical mass of removal, beat other control by out landing them with Eternal Dragon and using Standstill and Crucible to maintain an advantage, and can take advantage of the sideboard to get a better matchup against High Tide and other combo (bring in Stifles/Meddling Mage and any other hate you might have).

Maybe it's not the best options for all the reasons it stopped being played, but frankly I really don't think 4c Landstill is the way to go either. A manabase that fragile causes a ridiculous amount of headaches and Pernicious Deed, as awesome as it is against most aggro, is unlikely to be fast enough against Goblins. Many players agree that 3 color Tog has no chance against goblins because of its clunky manabase, even though it also has access to Deed. I think the same principle applies here.

UWr Landstill might be a better overall option than straight UW, but I doubt 4c Landstill's manabase is worth the trouble it causes.

[Solpugid]

I would run UGB landstill (deed and damnation are available, with plenty of options for the swords slot) or UGW (access to krosan grip, which is better than disenchant, and nantuko monastery as a better finisher) before going UW or UWR.

That said, I've been testing 4c with the wastelands and plains removed for 1 polluted delta, and a scrubland, a savannah, and a bayou. This has made sure I have my support colors, and I also have one more blue source. So far the changes have been great. While I do feel rather odd running 0 basics, a single basic plains wasn't doing much to handle recurring wasteland anyway.

As another note, because I removed the plains the disenchant has become krosan grip (so much better in testing). And for anyone still thinking of using life from the loam over crucible, it's not worth it. Crucible is better.

[Tacosnape]

I might be the only person on the planet who still believes this, but I think old-school UW Landstill still has viability in the current metagame.

I agree. I think it's one of the strongest and most underrated decks around. UW Landstill's all over the Top 8 Page in Europe.

And for anyone still thinking of using life from the loam over crucible, it's not worth it. Crucible is better.

I stand in awe of the incredible logic behind your reasoning.

[Solpugid]

I stand in awe of the incredible logic behind your reasoning.

Haha, I guess I should elaborate a tad for those looking into it. Because 4c has such a fragile manabase, adding cycling lands is out of the question. Without those, loam doesn't live up to its full potential. Additionally, dredging is usually a bad idea in a deck that can (at times) have very specific answers. Needing green mana is also a pain.

But finally, crucible allows you to win attrition wars in which your manlands die frequently. I just played a match against a friend who was attacking me with large creatures (calciderm) that I couldn't just block and kill. So instead I just chumped with a factory and replayed it every turn. So really the utility of crucible given a long game (and you'll get to the late game for sure) makes it superior.

The final point I suppose (no really, it's the last one) is that crucible makes you less susceptible to grave hate taking threshold from monastery, but this point is minor.

On another note, I just tested smother in place of diabolic edict and I have been quite happy. It doesn't hit reanimator creatures (SSS or Akroma) or auriok salvagers, but I found pinpoint removal to be needed in aggro matchups.

And is there an artifact/enchantment removal spell with cycling, I hate getting stuck with dead cards.

[Bardo]

Hell, I'll hop in here too. A few months ago I had plenty of Life from the Loams in my collection but 0 Crucibles (this has changed). Seeing an earlier Landstill thread, I was pretty jazzed about LFTL since I didn't have the Crucibles and they seemed like a pain in the ass to acquire.

The shitty thing about LFTL is that it forces two things that are bad: continual mana upkeep and the very real possibility of breaking your or an opposing Standstill. Also, being in your off-color wasn't great in itself, though not a deal-breaker alone. Dredging I saw as a non-issue and helps if you're running Monastery, but is an otherwise negligible side effect. Sort of a bumb there.

So, I ran the LFTLs and they were very mediocre, often forcing me to keep counterspell mana open or regrow a Wasteland, etc. and I didn't like having to choose. A lot of times they would be in my hand, and I'd think "Damn, if only this were a Crucible."

Then I came into possession of a few Crucibles and dropped the LFTL and what a difference it made. Having no other mana commitments to regrowing your shit was priceless, as is doing so under Standstill. And if your Crucible gets countered or KGripp'd, that's why they printed Academy Ruins.

In short, Crucible > LFTL in Landstill.

Edit - Look at the mana requirements alone: regrow 3 Wastelands/Manlands with Crucible = 3 colorless mana; regrow 3 Wastelands/Manlands with LFTL = 3GGG*.

* Assuming you only have 1 of what you need available.

[Anarky87]

I also haven't seen posted yet how LFTL also makes you dump all the cards you need into your graveyard where you can't get them. What good is land recursion if you're dumping Deed, Fact, Swords, Brainstorm, and Edict into your yard where they are uselss?

[BreathWeapon]

I'm starting to get to the point where I don't think that Black is worth it in this deck, it forces the deck into a fourth color, and for what? MD Pernicious Deed and SB Engineered Plague and Duress?

Pernicious Deed is a serious design restraint on this deck, Engineered Explosives is similar to it in three colors and it's faster at removing specific targets, and while it isn't as powerful as Pernicious Deed, it doesn't require contortions to the manabase and doesn't remove the Crucible of Worlds, Vedalken Shackles and Chalice of the Void that are such amazing bombs in this deck.

Duress isn't needed, all the deck has to do is replace it with another combo hoser, like Orim's Chant or Chalice of the Void, and the deck is better off with out.

Engineered Plague is awesome, don't get me wrong, but there is bound to be another hose in U/g/w just for Goblins; Hunted Grounds and Chill aren't terrible ideas because they're useful against TES.

[Xero]

I'm starting to get to the point where I don't think that Black is worth it in this deck, it forces the deck into a fourth color, and for what? MD Pernicious Deed and SB Engineered Plague and Duress? Pernicious Deed is a serious design restraint on this deck, Engineered Explosives is similar to it in three colors and it's faster at removing specific targets, and while it isn't as powerful as Pernicious Deed, it doesn't require contortions to the manabase and doesn't remove the Crucible of Worlds, Vedalken Shackles and Chalice of the Void that are such amazing bombs in this deck.

I kind of agree with this. At that point though, is there any reason for Green? The only card you would need it for is Nantuko Monastery. That cards really good, but I don't know if its worth a splash color all by itself. I've been wondering for awhile if the old Uw color combo isn't just the best way to build the deck.

[BreathWeapon]

At this point, I'd rather use U/w/r instead of U/w/g just for 'Clasm, but after using Glittering Wish in this deck, I'd go back to U/w/g for it and Nantuko Monastery after the GP for certain, pulling Dueling Grounds, Mystic Enforcer, Loxodon Hierarch, Harmonic Sliver, Meddling Mage and Voidslime out of the SB is so good.

On another note, Engineered Explosives is amazing with a singleton of that land that recurs artifacts, and it protects Crucible of Worlds to.

[lyracian]

My personal oppinon is that you do not want more than three colours in the deck to have a decent mana base and since Nantuko Monastary is the best man land that points me towards using UWG.

Has anyone thought of experimenting with Epochrasite since it will come back as a 4/4 every time you destroy the world? or perhaps I am the only person that really like it as a card! :o)

[Tacosnape]

I sort of like UGW in theory, too. Glittering Wish ought to make it much more viable, and the ability to possibly run Witness is also nice.

The problem I run into with UGW is that I get absolutely crushed by Goblins. Teferi's Moat in board as a wish target might help, but I dunno. Anyone come up with any amazing tech on how to fix this? Should the deck just take the Glass Cannon approach and try to crush everything except Goblins?

You also lose Extirpate for Life from the Loam-based decks, but I'm not sure anyone besides me was running that.

[morgan_coke]

If you're UWG, I think Moment's Peace really could be the tech landstill needs to beat goblins' faces in. game one wishing for a teferi's moat or dueling grounds would also be some good. But mostly I think Peace is your best answer here, coupled with some form of discard to empty the dangerous goblins (ringleader, matron) out of their hands before they're cast. (or wrathing with countermagic up).

[Nydaeli]

The problem I run into with UGW is that I get absolutely crushed by Goblins. Teferi's Moat in board as a wish target might help, but I dunno.

Dueling Grounds is an amazing Wish target for the Goblins matchup. Obviously you can still get burned out by Siege-Gang + infi Goblins, but it buys you a bunch of time.