Accumulated Knowledge vs Brainstorm

[arj]

Running a Landstill (with isochron) deck and was wondering about accumulated knowledge. I've seen a lot of decks run it and it seems very cool, especially on isochron scepter. It also helps me thin the deck so that I get the right cards quicker.

Currently I'm running brainstorm (4) and 4 fetchlands and it has worked very good so far (not a lot of stifle in my meta) as a way to get rid of some of the late game cards early and to get me the cards I want. I would probably not consider exchainging brainstorm for  accumulated knowledge but I might try running both. What do you people think? Is accumulated knowledge worth it?

The bad side of accumulated knowledge is that it takes up 4 slots in your deck and it's already pretty filled up.

[johnstown713]

Akumulated Knowledge is awsome but if you run into a tog matchup then they can feed off your ak's.  its your call

[Ivantheterrible]

With Fetchs Brainstorm is broken. Ak isn't that good unless you have intuition and as mentioned already tog can feed off them. Also i dont no your exact list but 4 fetchs is too many in Landstill, brainstoms and Aks dont belong. You already have 5 ancestrals thats enough drawing. Isochron scepter has horibble synergy(dosnet have any really) with Standstill.

[arj]

Let me explain some more. My deck doesn't have any moxes (has anyone succesfully ran either chrome er lotus petal?) so mana is always an issue. Right now I'm running 4 brainstorm and 4 standstill and the worst part of standstill is that I have to pay the 2 mana which means I'm almost always unable to counter with a counterspell.  Acc. Knowledge doesn't have this disadvantage.

Maybe cutting it down to 3 brainstorm and 3 standstill and then taking out 2 other cards would enable me to run accumulated knowledge.

[arj]

With Fetchs Brainstorm is broken. Ak isn't that good unless you have intuition and as mentioned already tog can feed off them. Also i dont no your exact list but 4 fetchs is too many in Landstill, brainstoms and Aks dont belong. You already have 5 ancestrals thats enough drawing. Isochron scepter has horibble synergy(dosnet have any really) with Standstill.

Wow Intuition is really great with Ak. Thanx for the suggestion! Just for the record my deck is a very budget landstill deck, I don't own any ancestral (it's on my list of things to buy next ) but I have 1 Library.

[firebird365]

Library isn't considered budget, but more power to you (no pun intended).

Do you have a list for us to look at? You mentioned you almost always cant' counter something if you drop a Standstill... do you run Force of Will or Misdirection? If not, add those immediately.

As for your original question, it's a hard choice. AK is more of an aggressive card drawer, but in Landstill, you want to play a slower game. Most decks don't even use additional card drawing in Landstill outside FoF and Ancestral, though.

[arj]

Sure, Still playtest it:

4 Force of Will                                                                
4 Counterspell                                                                  
2 Mana Leak                                                                    
                                                                               
2 Isochron Scepter                                                              
                                                                               
2 Pernicious Deed                                                              
3 Fire/Ice                                                                      
1 Naturalize                                                                    
2 Diabolic Edict                                                                
                                                                               
4 Standstill                                                                    
4 Brainstorm                                                                    
                                                                               
2 Basking Rootwalla                                                            
1 Funky Monky        

1 Demonic Tutor                                                                
1 Skeletal Scrying                                                              
1 Regrowth                                                                      
1 Sol Ring                                                                      
1 Mind Twist                                                                    
1 Maze of Ith                                                                  
                                                                               
1 Strip Mine                                                                    
4 Mishra's Factory                                                              
1 Library of Alexandria                                                        
2 Island                                                                        
4 Tropical Island                                                              
2 Bayou                                                                        
2 Volcanic Island                                                              
3 City of Brass                                                                
4 Fetchlands (3 blue/black, 1 red/black)                                        

Notes:

The Basking Rootwalla is just to try how they work in this deck. They are a lot like the conclave but they also usefull against black discard. I hate the conclave, it's a land (not good because I have enough trouble just casting them already), it comes into play tapped and it requires 2 lands to activate.

Should change the city of brass for Underground Sea but I don't have any ATM.

So it's not strictly landstill it's more of a mix between landstill and keeper I think

I'm thinking about putting in Zuran Orb and Fastbond

[arj]

Library isn't considered budget, but more power to you (no pun intended).

Yes

Do you have a list for us to look at? You mentioned you almost always cant' counter something if you drop a Standstill... do you run Force of Will or Misdirection? If not, add those immediately.

I run Force of Will, I don't have any Misdirection but I have thought about using it. The problem is that if I use force of will to counter I will often use a counterspell or mana leak and I don't like loosing the counterspell unless it's something really good. I tend to counter a lot, especially against red burn just to keep pace.

[Nantuko Rice]

you play a very..... wrong landstill

i would suggest fixing it up

black discard shouldn't be a problem for you, and if you're worried about black discard, run misidrections

you should cut black and green from the deck and play the conclaves

conclaves come into play tapped and require 2 mana to operate. so what? late game you'll have plenty of mana and landstill is a control deck. it doesn'tn eed to rush into victory.

cutting green and black mean you lose pernicious deed, but that's ok because you should be playing nevy's disk instead

scepter has low synergy with the deck. they also die to disk and deed which is bad. you dont need scepter. cut naturlize and the edicts, disk solves all your problems.

move maze of ith to the sideboard for your tog matchups. try to get some wastelands.

the black spells you run aren't at all beneficial. 4 standstills and 4 brainstorms works good already.

you MUST play 4 standstills. turn 1 factory turn 2 island/standstill = you draw 3 cards

also, since it appears that you're playing the red/blue version of standstill, you could play lightning bolts.

[arj]

Nantuko Rice:

I know how the classic landstill looks like. I'm not trying to run the classic since I do not particular like neither disc nor conclave. I like your point about the low synergy between deed and isochron. It has not been particular evident since I only run 2 of each but still it's suboptimal. I put in the isochron for another kill condition (and because I absolutely love them) since I'm not running conclave. The reason for running deed instead of disc was because I considered it superier, I don't know why actually When I think about it I like the disc more.

I started with landstill and made a lot of small changes that has shifted the focus of the deck making it perhaps more random. I've been trying to adapt the deck to my heavy aggro meta. Hence the edicts, fire/ice and maze.

I like your comment about misdirection, I should really get some of those.

[Tank]

wow, thank you! now I don't have to start my own topic on the subject...

Anyways, I've just returned form a T1-tournament here my keeper-deck lost to, yup, you guessed it! Land-still! Ugh. Well, my friends welder-mud was a nightmare as well... anywas, it got me thinking (and my friend laughing) and I've decided to try out a similar thing: landstill-keeper combine.

Anywas, I've made it black-blues, but am thinking of ditching the black in favor of red for lavamancers and fire/ice. I wanted to make a mutant-deck, because I just can't let go of controle Anyways, the decklist looks something like this:

Critters

4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Cloud of Faeries (if a card ever deserved to DIE, then this is it)

Draw

1 Ancestrall Recall (which I'm currently trying to buy somewhere... :-/)
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Standstill
1 Fact or fiction

Controle

4 Mana Drain
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
1 Fire/Ice
2 Isochron Scepter (figure ditching these for two fire/Ice and the four AKK for lavamancers might be an idea)

Search

1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Intuition (will be ditched if the scpeters and AKK go!)

Acceleration

1 Mox Jet (currently trying to buy... again...)
1 Mox Sapphire (see above)
1 Black Lotus (you guessed it!)
1 Sol ring
1 Lotus Petal

Broken

1 Mind Twist
1 Yawgmoth's Will (I GOT ONE! I GOT ONE! AND IT'S ASIAN TOO!)
1 Time Walk

Land

4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Library of alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 Wastealnd
3 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island


Anyways, I figure it's not far from yours (except for the power which I borrowed for the tourney). I prefer mana-drain over mana-leak, but I know thast the price is probably what's hurting you here... anyways, it's a deck I just redid to look like this, so I have no clue if it'll work or flop. anyone got any thoughts on this?

Oh, and I'm not trying to hi-jack your thread I just figured that, since uor decks look so much alike and we both want to know if they'll work, that folks out there might be able to give us both input without having to check two different topics

[arj]

Uhh another dane

I play lavamancer in my red burn deck and it's pretty effective. But then again it gets a lot of help from the other burn The number one candidate to take out for the cloud would be the faeries. I would not take out the Aks, drawing is the key Maybe change one Isochron for an fire/ice, I'm really fond of fire/ice.

How is Fact or Fiction working for you? I'm thinking of adding it. What about the petal? I was asking ealier if they were worth it. How about chrome mox?

[Milton]

I like your deck.  It isn't very well tuned, but it is a pretty innovative idea.

To answer your innitial question, though, Brainstorm is better than AK, but I would play both!

A good blue based control deck needs twelve card drawing spells, not counting Ancestral.  That means you need four Standstill, four Brainstorm AND four AK's.

Also, you could put Cunning Wish maindeck and pull the Edicts and Naturalize from the maindeck.  You have Deeds as in case of emergency, so you can pull the spot removal in favor of Wish.

Also, you could really tune that mana base.

[arj]

I like your deck.  It isn't very well tuned, but it is a pretty innovative idea.

Thank you.

To answer your innitial question, though, Brainstorm is better than AK, but I would play both!

Will try to fit them in.

Also, you could put Cunning Wish maindeck and pull the Edicts and Naturalize from the maindeck.  You have Deeds as in case of emergency, so you can pull the spot removal in favor of Wish.

Good idea, I have the Naturalize maindeck because sometimes I really need it, but I think more often it's just sitting idle in my hand. One of my biggest fears is when my opponent puts down 2-3 3/3 beaters very quickly. By the time I get around to playing the deed  I'm often dead.

Also, you could really tune that mana base.

Yeah I need some more duals, but they are pretty hard to come by these times if you don't want to pay insane amounts of money for them. I would definetly run some more Underground Sea and Volcanic Island if I had some.