DrainStill.dec

[Toast]

I really like the ideas behind both fish and landstill and while both are pretty solid decks I have some beta jugs sitting at home that I wanted to put to good use. I have not done much testing but I think that this deck definately has some potential once tuned since it borrows it's core from some of these very effective blue-based control decks. It is a hybrid of landstill and Ice Blue Zoo which I thought was a cool deck back in the day when people used it. Obviously standstill is used differently in this deck than in landstill because I can't sneak manlands under it, but a standstill following a juggy is often more deadly than a manland beatdown. This deck has the obvious advantage of having a good matchup against fish and landstill (which I expect to be seeing a lot of in New England) and those decks in turn have some pretty good matchups against other top decks so I think this deck might turn out pretty good.

DrainStill.dec

Counters

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Stifle
--------
11(14)

Fat

4 Juggernaut
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Voidmage Prodigy
-------
11

8 reasons to run basics

2 Back to Basics
2 Keg
1 Strip
3 Waste
-------
8

Blueness = l33tn3ss

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Standstill
1 Psionic Blast
-------
7

Mana

7 SoLoMox
1 Lotus Petal
15 Island
------
23(27)

Sideboard:

4 Energy Flux
2 Keg
2 Back to Basics
2 Gaea's Blessing
3 Psionic Blast
2 Masticore
--------
15




Juggernaut and Serendib Efreet are nice juicy undercosted fat with little to no color requirements. These guys are great drain sinks and are very vital to the deck. The main reason why I chose the Efreet over other fat (like core or su-chi) is because of the energy flux in the sideboard.

Voidmage Prodigy is very cool in this deck...it works as a counterspell and in the control matchup it pressures them from another angle because it can quickly spell doom if not dealt with.

Back to Basics: What made ice blue zoo so obnoxious to play against is all the non basic hate...non basic hate is still money in this environment of manlands, duals, bazaars, and workshops and many people have forgotten about this card and started cutting basics.

Keg is better than chalice in this deck IMO because it deals with 0 cc and 1 cc crap but it can also kill off animated manlands and annoying little verdant force tokens.

Standstill I pretty much explained up top....you can't afford to screw around when you are getting beaten down by things like jugs.

psiblast is good but a liability to run main if you are unsure about whether your opponent is running mis-D...1 is still good to have main and I can wreak havok post board if you don't run mis-d

A full set of jewelry is important because I want as large of a boost as possible to start dropping threats.

SB: flux is god against artifact prison. Anybody that has played TnT knows it is easy to keep a juggy alive under flux so that "problem" is really not a problem

more kegs and back to basics and psi-blast are very good in certain matchups so they are a fairly obvious inclusion

Gaea's blessing is great tech versus dragon because they now need to combo off mill you and then ancestral in response to deck you. Blessing turns a lot of the must counters into don't cares and makes the matchup a whole lot easier (especially if they don't expect it)

please leave comments and critiscism to help me tune my deck

[Shock Wave]

Well, my immediate concern is that your "draw engine" is really awful, considering that you run no man-lands. If you don't have a creature on the board, it's not very advantageous for you to drop a Standstill, especially in the control mirror.

[PucktheCat]

Quote (Shock Wave @ Dec. 03 2003,09:04)Well, my immediate concern is that your "draw engine" is really awful, considering that you run no man-lands. If you don't have a creature on the board, it's not very advantageous for you to drop a Standstill, especially in the control mirror.

I have to agree.  If you don't have manlands Standstill isn't a great option.  In order for it to be effective you pretty much need to be able to drop it on a clear board as early as possible, otherwise it isn't going to have an effect on the game.  Against most decks Standstill on a neutral board for this deck is worse than useless.

1.  Combo will set up its mana and hand completely then kill you all in one turn.

2.  Control will cycle a Decree and kill you, or will set up its hand with a Mind Twist and take away your hand.

3.  Aggro will probably drop a creature before you do.

In each of the above situations you only gain an advantage from Standstill if one of your 11 creatures is on the board.  This has several consequences.

1.  Standstill is dead if you don't draw one of your 11 spells to make it work.  That is statistically the same as having your draw engine rely on a splash color with only 11 mana sources (or running Force with only 11 blue spells).  Since they want to kill and counter your creatures anyway they have a strong incentive to "cut off your color" in this case.

2.  Standstill's major advantage over other draw spells, its casting cost, is essentially made irrelevent because you can almost never cast it before third turn.

3.  You only get to draw cards in this deck if you resolve a creature and your opponent can't remove it.  If they CAN remove it they will do so in response to the standstill and you are back in the scenarios mentioned above.  That makes Standstill in this deck a classic "win-more" card.

Standstill has synergy with two card types - lands and cheap creatures.  Decks that abuse lands with Standstill include Landstill, Gay decks and any deck that tries the strategy of using Standstill to give the deck time to build a solid mana base (a Decree deck would fit this, Zevatog from old T2 sometime did this, etc.).  Gay decks also play cheap creatures to exploit this cards other synergy.

Virtually every deck in Type 1 fits one of these two descriptions better than this deck.

Leo

P.S. - Only 4 Strips/Wastes?  Have you thought about Bazaar's interaction with Standstill?

[Smash]

Standstill is amazing draw power. If it really just said 1U, draw 3 cards, I could see no reason not to play 4 in a blue deck (even at sorcery speed). I too, tried to fit them in about every deck I could find for quite a while.

The problem is, there are so many ways your opponent can work around them. They get to break it on THEIR terms. So if they have a slow no gas hand... they can build up a powerful hand by the time they break the standstill. Or, if they out manland you, they may even force you to break it.

The key to using it effectively, is you need to make sure it is broken on YOUR terms. Manstill does this with 8 manlands and 5 strips. Gay fish does this with manlands, strips, and small creatures that can sneak in early.

Trying to play a deck that drains into big stuff like Jugs is a, at least, tempting idea to try. Staying monoU so you can run maindeck B2B is also an interesting idea. As I said, standstill is always tempeting   However, the synergy between these 3 is very poor.

What do you do against sligh? FoW turn 1 lacky, drain turn 2 piledriver into a jug (assuming you went first), then drop a standstill next turn? That just isn't so hot. What do you do against dragon? When they save up the god hand and cast duress, they get the first shot at all your new cards. B2B does next to nothing against bazaar, because often all they need is 1 activation out of it. Keeper plays ~5 strips and often a decree. How do you beat that under the standstill?

[Toast]

hmm...some interesting points...I agree that this deck only wants to drop a standstill after it drops fat and currently that strategy might be too slow, but I was thinking of standstill as more of a lategame drawspell. deal with their early threats, lay fat, and then drop a standstill. They either lose, or replenish your hand, rinse and repeat except this time they have less life. I do think that there is a good way to abuse standstill like I am attempting to, but I agree this strategy needs work.

I do have access to workshops...if I went heavier on the artifacts and used a whole bunch of 4cc fatties as kill that would potentially speed up the rate at which I was dropping them. The main thing that detered me from taking this course of action in my initial build was workshops are nonbasic (making BtB strategy worse/not good enough to even run) and also it is a land drop I can't use towards any beefy non artifact spells and it does not help cards w/ UU casting cost like drain and voidmage.

if I were to travel this route I would probably go

-2 BtB -1 Psiblast + 3 mana leak
-3 Voidmage + 2 Masticore + 1 Stroke of Genius
-4 Efreet + 4 Su-Chi
+4 Workshop -4 Island
+1 Academy -1 Island

obviously the SB would need to change too...which one do you guys think is a better base to work with?

[suicide_slushy]

Is B2B so good right now that it's worth neutering your draw ingine for?

If you answered no then I suggest looking to something like landstill or fish.  

If you answered yes than why are you only running two maindeck?

My answer would be no...

Two three and four casting cost threats likely aren't going to come down in time to make standstill as good as it can be, that being said I really don't see the advantages of playing this over either of the above mentioned decks.