Forcing the Will: Landstill

Posted on June 4, 2010 by KillerOwen

You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “Forcing the Will: Landstill”.

 

  1. Awesome job Owen. I look forward to a merfolk article. It’s one of my favorite decks. =)

  2. nice vids thanks for the uploads my question is in match one versus fish why not use the fetches on your turn when some builds now run stifle in the deck and that would have sucked

  3. losing to merfolk makes me sad… oh wait i like to play merfolk… but yea very in depth article could help anyone learn the decks in the format. Is enchantress any good though

  4. In round 1, game 1 like you said you should’ve started using Jace’s +2 way sooner, to get that win condition online asap (and the first activation to keep him out of burn range).
    In round 2, game 2 I think it would have been a good plan to play the Standstill turn 2 as you’d have Mishra’s factory to take down the apes in two turns and then you’re unthreatened.
    Also, like you said, waiting one turn on the deed would have been preferable. Especially since you saw Qasali Pridemage last game and probably know he’s going to board in Krosan Grips.

    Anyway I really enjoyed the Deck Tech to start it off, with careful explanations of why each card is in and also what it does in this particular deck.
    And I like that you examine your play in a few sentences after each game. A great way to improve is to analyze your games, win or loss.

  5. I run UWb Landstill in real life, and I’m curious as to why you choose green over white. You would lose access to Deed in the maindeck and Loam (or Grip) in the side, but you not only get access to Wrath of God, Swords to Plowshares, Enlightened Tutor, Vindicate, and a bunch of stuff in the side, you also get Elspeth, Decree of Justice, and Humility – three cards I consider extremely useful in this archetype. Running double Elspeth and double Decree raise my number of win conditions from 5 to 9 (4 Factory + 1 Jace), and Humility is extremely effective at stopping aggro, especially against tribal decks where you can drop down Humility and E. Plague.

  6. Thanks for the responses guys I appreciate it!

    @ ctrl_alt_d1337 – It always depends on the situation. I usually wait on my opponents turn so that they have to sacrifice playing a card on their turn, but if I know my opponent is playing stifle I will use the fetchalands before they can cast stifle. It’s also to help protect us against wastelands.

    @ G.O. – Merfolk is actually very strong, but as far as Enchantress goes I don’t believe it is good in the format we have now. It does win occasionally, but when you have multiple people playing the same deck one of them is bound to win sometimes. The reason why is that it doesn’t have any counters or discard, and there are quite a bit of combo decks running around that can go off turn 1-2. If you can get the Enchantress all set up though you usually have the game.

    @ Zage – Thanks for the comments. I am a firm believer in constructed criticism, and to get better at magic you have to be able to admit the mistakes you’ve made and learn from them. I think this is an important rule to follow in Magic. I also like to see what other players notice since they pick up on things that I miss and am not aware of.

    @ Necrogeist – The reason I chose this version over others was just because of the online format. I do like the UWB build and it’s very good. If I were going to run UWB I would more thank likely be playing 2 Elspeths along with Moat. I also believe anything less than 2 Jace in this deck is just wrong. Back to the point though the reason is that the green is simply for deeds. With so many aggro decks running around its great to be able to throw down a deeds and clear the board. With Death and Taxes it also takes care of pesky cards like Vial where my opponent can cast a Magara at the end of my turn and exile my Moat/Humility where with deeds we can activate its ability and still clear the board. I have actually been experimenting with a Landstill deck that utilizes white, but I haven’t had much time to playtest it. One last reason is that I think adding in all the white with my version takes out more counters which are essential, but one could argue I could take out Innocent Blood and Ghastly Demise. What it comes down to is whats being played in the Meta, and a players preference as well as ability to play the deck sufficiently.

  7. hey oh. So I have to say a few things.
    1, nice article and thx for the hard work.
    2, Im not sure if your aware of this, but you misplayed like every single brainstorm in the first two matches. try condisioning your self to wait on playing it till you can sac a fetchland. Sure it says draw 3 but with out the shuffle its super bad, especially in a threat light deck like landstill. i winced every time you played it.
    3. with out acess to the fourth color how do you beat a iona in play naming black? that is the real reason hypno ran the fourth color. have u played the match up yet? cause it seems like your a dog to the deck w/out the other color of removal.

    thx.

  8. @ whiffy penguin – It’s true I do like to have a fetchland option when I am brainstorming, but I have a tendency to just play them within the first turns depends on the deck I am facing. If I am playing a discard deck I usually save them so I can tuck my cards away. I should try to hold onto them, but at the same time I like to dig fast. As for not running the 4th color when I play Show and Tell/Reanimator builds I rely on my counters to take care of them, but if not I have Jace’s bounce ability available to return Iona to my opponents hand. If I can’t counter or lay Jace down in time it’s usually good game, but I have been really successful versus the match so far. If I start losing to it I would definitely add the white. Like I stated earlier it comes down to preference.