Landstill - Why is it not seeing play?

[TylerEss]

For those of you who were playing landstill before and stopped, why have you stopped playing it?

Is it pressure from B2B/Crucible, or is it something else?

Posted in Newbie for being just a question, having no real content.

[Marton]

you have just listed the exact reason why it's gone thru the side. non basic land hate is everywhere. sundering titan does hurt you.

the deck can deal with those (except b2b which it cant deal well with), but in the end the deck just lacks brokeness. Oh also Oath owns you very easily since they have more counters and they don't have to play much spells either. Standstill is a nice card, but doesn't do much if your opponent can put down a 5/3 or 4/4 turn 1. If you try to get that mishra into play to block the 5/3 you're too likely to get it wasted and possibly loose the game.

landstill can fix pretty much all of those problems, but at the cost of being even more vulnerable to non basic land hate. The deck lacks the possibility of switching between aggro and control, which is basically why I stopped playing the deck personally. That and the fact that world+dog was playing those damned fish and/or landstill decks, so I moved on into something else than the boring mirrors.

[Conan_barberarn]

I don't think it's B2B that's stopped people from playing Landstill, you still have REB to side in and Disk main to deal with it. I think Landstills decline is all because of CoW. When a CoW lands on the opposing side of the table (which it does consistently in STAX) then there is just no way you can win that game.

I played Landstill until CoW made it unplayable and I scored some great results with it but after CoW found it's way into allmost every MWS deck those are now considered bad matchups when they used to be good.

/Gustav

[reBU5]

Besides Crucible/B2B/Blood Moon problem UR/URw/URg Landstill is just too slow as a control and has no bombs like Slaver or Oath. I don't say it's a bad deck but lock with Standstill and some Drains buckup is not enough right now. After U counter something with Drain U will spend mana on Nevyn'sDisk or Decree.
 It can still be good in some areas (budget meta?). But if U have 4xDrains and some power U will take Oath or Slaver becouse it's more popular right now and have more bombs.

my .2

[Shock Wave]

CoW is what makes Landstill unplayable. Whoever said that it loses to Oath is absolutely wrong. Landstill rapes Oath, if you're playing the deck correctly.

[HuntedWumpus]

I played landstill for a fairly long time, basically what has been said is correct. Playing a deck based off land, in a format where land is a heavily targeted entity stopped working. I played it awhile into the crucible meta, you can still have decent success if you pack a few annuls and a few T-responses into your MD. If you can manage to keep crucible off the board , or only shortly on the board things will work out.  My last versions also ran crucible, because it's a little silly in that deck, and a good way to combat a uncountered crucible until you can disk. I moved away due to the immense amount of speed the format has, and the death of 4Cc which presented a fairly simple match. Not to mention as soon as I saw Forbidden orchard in a spoiler I started testing oath.

[TylerEss]

You who think it's too slow to play a
deck that's based on draining into
a nevvy's--Do you think it would be
any better/more viable if you could
drain into winning the game instead? I'm
working on a landstill variant that would do that,
but right now, it's just something to think about when
I'm bored at work. It isn't anything like
competitive right now.

I'm thinking that if you're staring at a bunch of 5/xes, putting your
mana into the disk isn't the hottest idea ever, because you'll die
before you can untap it. Draining into a combo-kill seems like it
would be a lot better. Do you think so, too?
(Sorry about the formatting--I'm posting from lynx)

[MrZuccinniHead]

Wasteland is the biggest reason.  Waste kills the draw engine's offense.

[reBU5]

TylerEss: You can allways play with Your own Crucible even If it stay in play for 2-3 turns it will bring back Your manlands to play. As I wrote before I can't recall any other "bombs".


MrZuccinniHead: Crucible made Wasteland Landstill's biggest threat. Landstill was playble before Crucible now it's lack of their Crucible and your answers.

[Conan_barberarn]

MrZuccinniHead: Crucible made Wasteland Landstill's biggest threat. Landstill was playble before Crucible now it's lack of their Crucible and your answers.

Thats absolutely right! Up until CoW Landstill was a very viable deck IMO. I'm trying to find cheap answers to CoW that fits in Landstill and right now I'm thinking about Scrabbling Claws. It's a decent 1-mana drop and it is good against alot of decks if it can survive for a while. What do you think?

/Gustav

[J J P]

Well, what's the problem with CoW and disruption? You always can add CoW and wastelands yourself. But that is not the problem. Landstill just does not kill quick enough I think.

[the Luke]

The deck is a straight control deck, in a format where those decks almost always fail.  They are just too slow.

With Smmenen's one-off mono-blue deck as an exception, every recent Control deck has a combo win, for example Tog, Control Slaver and Oath.  4CC doesn't win for the same reason.

[Tash]

Well, what's the problem with CoW and disruption? You always can add CoW and wastelands yourself.

Because if you put in CoW and wastelands, then you have to change up your manabase. And besides, then you lose counterspells/card drawing when you slap in CoW.

Landstill just does not kill quick enough I think.

You think? No, land still DOES NOT kill quick enough. In a deck where you draw a card, play a land and then pass turn, you don't kill quick enough.

And also, no I'm not trying to be a jerk or whatnot. Just throwing my opinion out there.

[reBU5]

The deck is a straight control deck, in a format where those decks almost always fail.  They are just too slow.

With Smmenen's one-off mono-blue deck as an exception, every recent Control deck has a combo win, for example Tog, Control Slaver and Oath.  4CC doesn't win for the same reason.

I think "combo" is not the right word here. Playing Berserk or Oath of Druids is not a combo like active Welder+Mindslaver with Pentavus on table. "A BOMB" is a better world here and Tog or 4CC has BOMB like Yawgmoth's Will at least and what Landstill has? But You are right they are too slow (Landstill and 4CC)

I remeber UGR Landstill builds with Oaths and Darksteel Colossus in Sideboard now You may say "MeandeckOath is just like UGRLandstill after sideboarding+Orchards etc".  Otherwords: meta has changed so Landstill has changed too etc.

[Razvan]

Well, what's the problem with CoW and disruption? You always can add CoW and wastelands yourself.

Because if you put in CoW and wastelands, then you have to change up your manabase. And besides, then you lose counterspells/card drawing when you slap in CoW.

Landstill runs wastelands as far as I know. How would that be changing the manabase at all?

CoW isn't what the Landstill player wants to cast... at all. It has horrible interaction with Disk (obviously), and it's 50/50 with Standstill. It's fantastic if you cast it before, but rarely will you be able to do so, as you want a Standstill early.