What would be the point of running this? I mean, you'll almost never have more Moxen on the board than cards in your hand, and sacrificing board position is just as bad, maybe worse than discarding some cards in your hand against problem decks like 5/3.

No.

Not because I don't want to, but because it's not really feasible for me to drive out there twice or rent a hotel room.

Honestly, I think you would be better off just having a huge magic party at someone's place than having an official day 2.

I think that the problem with Meloku is that it detracts from 4CC's effectiveness, and turns it back into Keeper. I'm not a 4CC player but IIRC one of 4CC's strengths (and one of Zherbus' reasons for switching away from Keeper) is its ability to not play control, and play proactively instead of reactively with the turbo-Angel plan.

The problem is you will not have a game vs. Workshops. They're really permeating throughout most metagames, and you HAVE to take them into consideration if you're trying to build a top tier deck.

That seems like an awful lot of sideboarding for the mirror match... I can't think of an alternative, but intuitively I feel that there should be some better way. Also, it costs 3 - too much for such a situational card.

Honestly, reverting to UR Landstill seems to be the way to go, right now. I'm currently playing 5 basics so I don't auto-lose to Crucible, plus 2 MD Crucibles of my own help out a bit... plus, I don't lose to Blood Moon or B2B.

Honestly, I feel every Landstill deck should run Crucible. Sure, it's a permanent (and non-land permanents are bad), but it's SO. DAMN. GOOD. It fits into the style of play so well.

I really like the way that BUGStill deck looks, though... can you consistantly drop Deed early to take care of beaters?

River Boas don't work - it would be like playing suboptimal UG Fish. Landstill wants as little non-land permanents as possible, and River Boa really wouldn't help the deck at all. It's just another 2-power beater that takes up your Drain mana or your Standstill.



People play Keg, it's just not worth it to most people since it takes so long to get going. The bigger stuff (Arrogant Wurms, Titans) will kill you long before the Keg will get running, and Landstill has enough was to get rid of Welder and Fish creatures.



No. The main reason why Mono-U works is because, as you said, Back to Basics and an invulnerability to Wastelands. Landstill has to run at least 8 non-basics, 9 almost all the time. Red gives you ways to deal with creatures, better matches against Artifact and Aggro - blue gives you a slightly more resilient manabase, but the difference is almost nothing.

I think Landstill has some promise - it is a solid deck, and, with the slower metagame, should be a better option. However, we should first ask ourselves this question before going off in random directions and tossing in colors: How would this change impove Landstill? This seems obvious, but I feel like many of the changes meant to improve the deck really don't merit a change.

Let's look at the UGB version. To quote Batle:



There are really only a couple things we need answers for. Looking at this decklist, it provides only one thing that traditional Landstill doesn't: hand disruption, but at the cost of more reactive cards. Landstill is inherently a reactive deck, and taking away from that weakens the strategy. As Shockwave said, it creates a huge vulnerability to aggro, which leads me to believe this change isn't strategically sound.

I haven't been testing Landstill extensively as of late, so it's very possible I'm missing something. If so, let me know - I feel like the reasoning behind these strategies is flawed.

Well said. Honestly, Dragon is a tough deck to beat, and that's what makes it good. It has the ability to fight through a huge amount of hate.

For example: I played against a Dragon deck playing UWR Landstill at Myriad Games. I was running the following cards that hurt dragon:

Maindeck:

4 Stifle
4 Swords to Plowshares
11 counters (FoW, Drains, MisD)

I brought in:

3 Annul
3 Tormod's Crypt

He took it 2-1, because he dropped Xantid Swarm. I had to Stifle the trigger to stop him from going off, and he Forced. I had an Annul in my hand, which didn't help much. You can't look at the decklists and say "Well, you did something wrong" - testing is the only way to figure it out.

I will probably be there, possibly with 1-3 other people.

Personally, I dislike Standstills in this deck - have you thought about adding Deep Analysis instead? Also, something to protect your graveyard would be nice because you really get slaughtered if your Squees and Horrors are removed. Stifle would be a good solution (takes care of Deed, Tormod's Crypt, etc.) It also takes care of Wasteland.

I think you should ban certain key cards, ie Mindslaver, Psychatog, etc. - posting the decklists publicly could be a bad idea. It's very hard to define a "rogue" deck, so this might prove difficult.

Are you sure that's true? I think the abilities would go on the stack like so:

1st: spell (a Mox for the example's sake)
2nd: Chalice ability
3rd: Coretapper ability

Let's say the Chalice has zero counters and a player plays the Mox. Mox goes on the stack, and Chalice triggers because the CC of the Mox equals the number of counters (0). Then the Coretapper is activated. The 'Tapper resolves, giving the Chalice 1 counter, but the Mox is still countered because the Chalice already triggered.

It's sort of irrelevant though, because you could just tap the 'Tapper first.

He is referring to this post, in which the player in question dropped his cards on purpose to influence his opponent. I guess the question is, what happens if the player actually drops his cards by accident?

I checked by the Wizards of the Coast website to check out what the new 9E vote was going to be, and I stumbled upon this article, Design 102. I think it is a great resource (along with Design 101) that serves as an important guide to creating balanced cards, and although it restates some points that are obvious, it is a great tool for newer members trying to create some of their own cards.

Hopefully this will be a valuable "checklist" for card creation.

Got one.

If you have an extra one, I'll try it. Thanks.

Definately get rid of Prodigal Sorcerer. I don't see any reason why you would keep him in there - it's basically like a slower, weaker, non-recurrable version of Triskelion.

Don't even talk about that. T1 players allow proxies, but trying to dupe other people into thinking that yours are real is really dishonorable. Get the real thing if you're going to spend the money.

It's sort of scrubby, but Serendib Efreet is a solid body for 3cc that evades and is blue. Would that fit the bill?

edit: sarnath'd

http://www.magictraders.com will also work. If you're not really trying to trade, try the Sales / Auctions forum, and you can probably pick up a Demonic for ~4.

That's a flawed idea, because you'd need another person to play against (because you can't play the same person 2x in a row)... so the other people would have to be playing at the same rate as you.

It depends on your point of view, but in my opinion, UR has the edge in the mirror, mostly because of the manabase stability (even though it's not THAT much more stable). Generally, UWR runs fewer manlands, so UR has the advantage on the creature side of things, even though UWR runs Decree - in the mirror, I find Decree isn't too effective because of the high opposing Stifle count (as well as the inability to get WW). UR will also be able to get R in the early game more reliably, which means they'll have an edge in the counterwars with REB.

My explanation was a little roundabout, so to sum up the points:

- "Creatures": UR wins (barely), because DOJ is less effective in the mirror due to lack of Drain targets and mana problems, and UR runs more manlands.

- Counterspells: UR wins, because in the early game, they'll have Red quicker as opposed to trying to get Red and White.

A FOW deck seems to be a deck that does nothing except use Force of Will.  

I don't think Conjurer's Bauble will work, partly because you only have 1 Ironworks (which might be the right number) but because it's a bad card. It has synergy with Ironworks, but so what? So do all other artifacts. And honestly, Vampiric Tutor for Yawgmoth's Will would do a whole lot more than tutoring for whatever you're putting on the bottom of your deck. I'm no Long player, but I would suggest replacing them.

I may be misunderstanding you, but are you basically saying "against Landstill or Fish, use Wheel while they have a Standstill out and then counter their counters?"

It's a very cool deck, but I feel that you need two more things:

1) More Deep Analysis. It's just such a great card that you should be running more in conjunction with the Bazaars.

2) More recurring creatures. I forget what the creature is that used to be used in Bazaar decks, but could you try to include some? 4 Squee is going to strain your draw if you're trying to use both Bazaar and Infestation in a turn.

Personally, I would go like this:

-1 Chain of Vapor (I read your analysis, but I feel like it just wouldn't come up enough to be effective)
-1 Stifle (see CoV: It's so situational that I can't imagine you having it when you want it)
-1 Intuition (seems too many, although I suppose you can go for Squees)
-1 Mystical Tutor (Cunning Wish is probably better)

+1 Deep Analysis
+2/3 Oldschool Creature Things (depends if you want 60 or 61 cards).

I would remove the DA in the SB and make it a Chain of Vapor so you still have your ohshit button.

To bring it a little back on topic, how many did Finkel or Zvi (popular votes?) get? IE, how much support would have to be raised to get Zherbus in?

Forget GAT, this card will break Sui Black wide open!


On a serious note, I think this is a great card. I don't really keep up with 5D previews at MTGNews, so I haven't seen this before, but I'm definately going to toss this into some builds and see how it goes. I never really liked TFK, but I'm not sure if this is strong enough to replace it, maybe just supplement it. It's nice, however, that it's not blue (REB) or targeted (MisD).

Zherbus: it's little consolation, but I'm 99% sure that myself and a couple friends (1-4) are still going to yours, and if you continue having them, we'd probably attend those as well.