Loving this list, awesome work as always with landstill! Thanks for sharing!

The list has 61 cards MD, is that intentional?

Secondary note! I am trying to get in touch with my round 2 opponent, completely unrelated. Does anyone know Adrian Becker or how I can get in touch with him?? Thanks!

Just something of note. At both this event and EE2 last year players were allowed to use paper print outs stuffed into sleeves as their proxies and were ruled allowed by the head judge both times. It is what it is, but not something that I prefer to see.

That wouldve been impressive since there were no shops present....

Cabal Therapy could be good with Bitterblossom tokens, but with the way the deck is built it would end up being a blind therapy pretty much every time. Not always bad but I think Thoughtseize is a better option to run with.

I am on the fence with Notion Thief. He is something I have considered but have not tested. He feels like a sideboard card in the this deck (otherwise why not just play grixis thieves?) and my SB is rather clustered for the shops and dredge matchups (trying to see how I can alleviate some of those slots though). I might test him out though.

I have played a few games cutting a flusterstorm for a thoughtseize and I have been very happy with it!

Thanks! I had an amazing time all weekend, you guys did an amazing job with the event.

Thoughtseize! This was a card I played with in my head but was never really sure what to remove for it, definitely worth playing around with!

Demonic Tutor struggled for me since I found myself usually unable to cast whatever I tutored for and was left two mana down and forecasting whatever I was doing. It also meant my opponents could plan their play around whatever they could assume I tutored for, in one case I grabbed a ravenous trap with tutor only to watch my opponent draw a card and then flash back therapy before dredging. With vampiric, either casting in response to sphere effects or at end of turn to get whatever I needed just proved to be much stronger and left me a lot more options.

Dreadbore is something to consider, I did run into opposing planeswalker issues, mostly when ones were powered out against me (Brian Kelly with a turn 1 Jace and Josh with a turn 2 Dack into turn 3 Jace) but in both those cases they just always seemed to have the right answers to my threats unfortunately.

Jailer is something I was considering as a 1 of but I really liked the ability to nuke opponents yards, Nihil Spellbomb came in against most blue decks to limit their digging through time capability or preventing bomberman from going off, and cutting down to 3 cage just did not feel right. I still think the Oath match can be troublesome.

My loses came to Paul with his Hangarback fro bots, game 1 he just went triple lodestone after a metamorph if I remember correctly and left me with no chance, game two again sphere effects prevented me from getting my Energy Flux to land.

Brian Kelly did his work on me, just had the answers when I had the threats. Plus Dramoka kinda takes the wind out of your counter sails.

Last loss came in roung 10 to Grixis Theives. Holy crap did he just have the counter everytime and more efficiently. I probably misplayed this game with the mind set "theres no way he can have ANOTHER counter" and paid the price for it. I would love to have that match back to play correctly but yeah, 10 rounds, fatigue set in.

At Eternal Weekend I had the fun of playing a budget Grixis Landstill with the inclusion of Bitterblossom.

4x Standstill
1x Brainstorm
2x Dig Through Time
1x Vampiric Tutor

4x Force of Will
3x Mental Misstep
3x Mana Drain
2x Flusterstorm
1x Misdirection
1x Mindbreak Trap

3x Lightning Bolt
3x Engineered Explosives
2x Bitterblossom
2x Crucible of Worlds
2x Dack Fayden
2x Jace, The Mind Sculptor

3x Volcanic Island
3x Underground Sea
2x Island
1x Mountain
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Polluted Delta
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
3x Mishras Factory
1x Faerie Conclave

SB
4x Grafdiggers Cage
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Energy Flux
2x Ravenous Trap
4x Ingot Chewer
1x Toxic Deluge

The deck worked wonders and I was extremely happy with it, especially playing a budget version without power. Running a full 24 lands made my shops matchup that much better, I ended up going 1-1 against two versions of hangar aggro. The large amount of board dredge hate made my one match against dredge manageable. This all left me susceptible to creature matchups where I had to rely on heavy counters or removal through bolt and EE to keep the board clear. The pair of crucibles along with Faerie Conclave proved to be a difference maker in the mirror and Bitterblossom stole the show. I lost only one game after resolving a Bitterblossom all day long. It was just that good and I cannot wait to play it more going forward.

Moving ahead to events where I can play with proxies I have been testing the following

+ Ancestral Recall
-Brainstorm (to me this is just a pure upgrade)

+Black Lotus/Mox Sapphire
-Island/Volcanic (again, upgrades)

+Energy Flux
-Engineered Explosives (3 felt like too many and the amount of damage Energy Flux did to even non shops decks was amazing)

+Spell Pierce
-Mana Drain (Getting to UU all the time was tedious and having that first turn counter is just more desirable. Keep 2 Mana Drains still because, Mana Drain)

Other cards I have tested

Demonic Tutor - I absolutely hated this in testing and then Vampiric was recommended to me. I am never looking back.

Sol Ring - for budget purposes but just could not do what I needed

Treasure Cruise - 3 cards is great, but doing things at instant speed just always was better for me

Pyroblast - Intrigued for the reason that I could potentially use it in combination with a dack ultimate but felt that having 7 automatic cuts versus shops was just too many. This is why the spell pierce coming main since it is still live against shops and also useful against Oath

Snapcaster Mage - Just not enough for me to want to flashback and doing so would often just require too much mana for what I wanted to do. At no point over the weekend did I wish I had a Snapcaster Mage in hand so I think this was the right call.

New Jace - Similar reasons to Snapcaster, just nothing really worth the extra card to recur.

Sudden Shock - I have used this in other decks for the Mentor matchup but Lightning Bolt proved to be just as good in all but 1 instance. Plus sudden shock will never take down an incoming Lodestone.

Fire//Ice - Dack/2 for 1 capabilities but just never quite did what I wanted it to.

Null Rod - One of my main sources of removal were the 3 Engineered Explosives. This just would not work.

Cards I am considering

Any piece of targeted removal. Whether in board or main deck, this was something the deck lacked. Whether it was a Terminate, Murderous Cut, maybe even a Dismember, but I needed something in a couple games that I just did not have. My best piece was a Toxic Deluge out of board and I never cast it in any game (but I would have loved to on at least 2 occasions)

Merchant Scroll - Grab Ancestral, Dig, a counterspell, lots of great options but not sure if I would like it better than Vampiric which I used all weekend to grab up necessary pieces at opponents end step. Having a hand full of permission and then tutoring up a Bitterblossom was the play most games.

I am very open to suggestions as I have fallen in love with this deck and plan to continuing learning it. Thanks!

 

I tested a whole variety of landstill decks going into eternal weekend and really like a lot of the choices and others just did not work for me in testing. Balance always felt like the wrong card for me, anytime I could cast it, it would only worsen my board state. 2 Mana Drains and 2 Fluster felt like the right number for me and I was playing 3 color (the faerie conclave made a huge difference to my sources but I ran the 4 waste/strip). I would go down to just 1 Enlightened Tutor and play an extra of something you would want to search for instead, I was a fan of 2 crucibles all weekend. Another consideration would be an adjustment to the colored sources. 5 fetches ended up being more than enough for me, especially with only brainstorm really needed to be filtered, and why 4 Scalding Tarn over Flooded Strand? I would cut one of the fetches for a second Island, makes you that much stronger against opposing wasteland decks (shops for example). I would also consider going up to a 2nd Dig Through Time. The card just finds anything you need in a pinch. Another card I would consider for either your SB or maybe in a Null Rod slot is Energy Flux. That card was a complete allstar for me.

Baby Jace just does not perform well in these decks, nor did I find Snapcaster all that great. 2 JTMS is a must, this card can and does just win games behind your control wall. I like myth realized as your win con, looks like a fun deck!

I've been playing a similar list with proxied power for a few events now and have been having a lot of fun with it.  In preparations to play in an unproxied event sacrifices were made but I must say that I have been overwhelmingly impressed with Treasure Cruise as a great fill in...

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Trygon Predator
Creatures: 10

4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
3 Mental Misstep
1 Misdirection
2 Flusterstorm
1 Steel Sabotage
Counter: 14

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
4 Treasure Cruise
4 Gush
1 Dack Fayden
1 Ancient Grudge
Card draw/Business: 18

4 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Island
1 Mountain
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Lotus Petal
1 Strip Mine
Mana: 18

Side Board
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Shattering Spree
3 Grafdiggers Cage
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Pyroblast
2 Xxxxxxxx

So there are a few spots I am still not sure about.  Big question is whether or not 4 gushes is still the right number with 4 Treasure Cruises. Gush has been great but a lot of times its just not the right time to gush and I end up feeling either behind or just stuck with it in hand. My thought is to go up to 4 Preordains and down to 2 Gush. Another concern is Trygon Predator.  Does it feel great to blow up other peoples moxen? Absolutely! Does it get pitched to Force more often than cast? You betcha! This makes it a concern that it is a incredibly weak link outside of shops matchups and with extra SB slots I still need to fill could it just be relegated to that? Would Vendilion Clique make more sense to have MD? Open to other suggestions as well.

Hi all,

My name is Chris from the central NJ area and this is my third stint into magic! First started around Ice Age by playing with older cousins cards (I mustve been around 6-7 at the time) and eventually started building up my own collection playing the great bombs like Craw Giant and making up my own rules as to what banding actually was. I played on and off in non-competitive natures with decks that I just found to be fun through middle school till I traded my whole (read small) collection for a handful of second hand video games.

Shortly after this happened I became friends with a new guy who had moved to the area from NY who had been playing in a fun nature and in HS renewed my love for the game.  Played in a more competitive nature but just at LGS's for Odyssey up through Mirrodin (primarily T2 as thats what my friends were playing but always with a lust for T1). College rolled around, friends moved away, and I was left again with a collection (much better this time around since I could actually buy things myself!) but no one to play with.

Jump ahead to about 2 years ago and I overheard a conversation about Magic while bartending.  Let me tell you that that is not a very common thing to come across hah.  I jump in and find out that the one guy is local and we hit it off just BSing about cards from 8-10 years prior and how I have roughly 7k (count) just sitting at home. Fast forward a few weeks and I am back to brewing and diving head first into legacy.  When I want to get into something I fully submerse myself into it.

After watching Joel Lim and others play at Champs last year and seeing "fair" decks standing a chance in Vintage I realized that this was something I just had to try out for myself. I have been creeping on this forum for close to a year now and finally went and created an account.  I just played in my second event this weekend at the TMD open and I could not be more infatuated with a format or community than I am now. You guys have been great that I have met so far and matches have just been a blast.  Looking forward to many more events to come!