Landstill: The Primer

[Dante]

PD said it best.  Fetchlands aren't permanent sources because they aren't 1. permanent 2. they don't produce mana.  They have to go get a land that does.  Not having the mountain makes getting the first red more likely (1 more way to get red), but without the basic mountain, it's less likely to have red stick around.  Of course with stifles and terferi's response it might be a moot point.  That's just my feeling on knowing mana bases, not testing this particular one - I've only tested unsideboarded and a version without lightning bolts so there was only Fire/Ice that required red.

[PucktheCat]

Quote Whether we call fetches "permanent mana sources" or "tutors" or "purple cows" doesn't change that fact.

The distinction between a card and a 0cc tutor for that card is irrelevent in any situation where there are enough targets for the tutor.

Leo

[Dante]

Quote (PucktheCat @ Dec. 11 2003,20:01)

Quote Whether we call fetches "permanent mana sources" or "tutors" or "purple cows" doesn't change that fact.

The distinction between a card and a 0cc tutor for that card is irrelevent in any situation where there are enough targets for the tutor.

Leo

That's true if you only need to use the card once (i.e. like DT and ancestral).  But you don't just want to use the lands once.  If you were facing a creature-based deck, would you want a deck with 3 STP and 1 DTutor in it, or 4 DT and 1 STP in it?  See the difference??  With more fetchlands you thin out your lands and use them up faster to get the same 1 land into play.  Whether 2 more fetches statistically will hurt much is up to debate, but....

Your mana base has fewer basic lands and fewer total lands that will remain in play to produce mana.  In a mana hungry deck that needs lands to feed its creatures, thinning out the lands isn't necessarily a good thing.  You also leave yourself no basic red source, meaning you'll have to stifle/response to protect a red source from wasteland unless you count on getting a second red source.

But maybe arguing over 2-3 land slots is losing the forest in  the trees.

[PucktheCat]

This may be getting to narrow, you are right, Dante.  Just one last thought that shouldn't be too inflamatory.

My feeling is that this deck is land hungry but not particularly mana hungry (compare with a deck like Keeper that needs to be able to cast and counter virtually every turn).  It wants to play a land every turn under Standstill but it isn't really that happy if it is playing lots of blue sources and no Strips/Manlands.

If that is the case then I think fetchlands are a no brainer.  Insofar as you may lose lands through the game and need to replace them fetchlands may lose you some games, but the same may be said in reverse: in games where you run out of spells the fetchlands can win you the game.  I think the later is more common than the former, and I think the importance of the deck's mana development in the first few turns outweighs either of them.

Leo

Edit: And the main point I wanted to make originally was that the Mountain was an unjustified luxery in a deck that ran so close to the edge on blue sources anyway.\n\n

[Shock Wave]

Quote I think this deck wants to use its land drop every turn for as long as possible, but it really doesn’t want to be dropping colored sources after it has 3-4 Islands and some way to make red.

That's incorrect. Take into consideration that you need blue mana to activate your Conclaves. It is not uncommon to attack with 2 Conclaves while holding a Drain, or a Drain and a Stifle/Bounce/some other blue spell. This is exactly why a higher number of fetchlands cannot be supported. They are *not* permanent sources of blue mana as you would suggest because they do not produce blue mana, they find it. That is really an important difference with respect to how this deck functions in the late game. The less blue mana *producers* you have at your disposal, the less chance you have to launch a protected attack with half of your arsenal.

Quote My feeling is that this deck is land hungry but not particularly mana hungry (compare with a deck like Keeper that needs to be able to cast and counter virtually every turn).

Your reasoning here is also fallacious. Mana expenditure in Landstill is always at a premium, regardless of whether spells are being cast or not. It is actually more mana intensive than Keeper, which is why it runs more mana sources. Can you please explain the difference between being land hungry and mana hungry?

Quote You guys are really arguing over the effectiveness of Fetch Lands period, not their place in this deck.

This is also incorrect. The argument is specifically regarding fetchlands in this deck. There is a delicate balance that needs to be struck with fetchlands in every deck. Some are capable of running more than others. There is a reason for this. If this were not the case, every deck would be running all/no fetchlands.

Does it not make sense that decks expending large amounts of mana need more methods of producing mana (in Landstill's case, more permanent mana sources) ? The reason most people are failing to understand this point is because Landstill is a very new beast and has very peculiar intricacies that are overlooked by most. It wants to drop a mana producing land every turn. The more fetchlands you activate, the less chance you have of achieving this strategy.

Here is where all the mathematicians chime and say "But the odds are so small blah blah blah... " . Please, save this argument. The odds are also small that if you run a 61 card deck, your draws will suffer very little. While this is true from a mathematical perspective, it has very little practical application. Why doesn't everyone play with 61 cards then?

The reason is because mathematical theory doesn't take precedence over deck building principles. Take into consideration the following calculation:

Deck X: 28 Mana Sources, 60 cards
Deck Y: 28 Mana Source, 61 cards

Odds of drawing a mana source with X: 28/60 = 0.466
Odds of drawing a mana source with Y: 28/61 = 0.459

Not much difference, is there? However, any deck builder will tell you that running 61 cards is not a good idea. What's the reasoning behind it? The reason is that you're building a deck for optimal configuration. Statistically, you can say that it is only .007% sub-optimal, but that's not the point. The point is that you are lessening the chance of drawing a given card in your deck by 1 card. Regardless of the number associated with that probability, it's counterintuitive with the principle of optimization.

It's this line of reasoning that applies to fetchlands in Landstill as well. Sure, a fetch only makes a minute mathematical difference, but the point is that thinning the manabase is not what the deck wants to do. It needs land, so why run 1 less mana source for the late game?

Quote How is getting Stifled 2 for 1? You lose a Land, they lose a card. How is it significantly different than getting hit by Sinkhole card for card?

Stifle is not a 2 for 1 trade. However, if you use a fetchland to find a non-basic mana source and that mana source gets destroyed, then yes, it was a 2 for 1 trade. The "2 for 1" lies in the fact that you've lost a mana producer and a mana source (see above for how I've differentiated the two). If you have 8 producers of a given mana source and 1 gets destroyed, you still have 7 methods left in your deck of producing that given colour. However, a fetchland, which functions as a quasi-mana producer or "mana source" would leave you with only 6 such methods.

Quote Hell, this deck should be running Brainstorm over Lightning Bolt to smoothe out its land drops, but if you think Lightning Bolt is the Tech then thats fine.

Well, if you're having trouble ramping up your mana with a deck that runs 25 lands, I'm really sorry about your luck.

Quote Your mana base has fewer basic lands and fewer total lands that will remain in play to produce mana.  In a mana hungry deck that needs lands to feed its creatures, thinning out the lands isn't necessarily a good thing.  You also leave yourself no basic red source, meaning you'll have to stifle/response to protect a red source from wasteland unless you count on getting a second red source.

But maybe arguing over 2-3 land slots is losing the forest in  the trees.

Absolutely not. The mana base is extremely sensitive and the alteration of 2-3 land slots makes all the difference. Your analysis concerning the configuration is spot on.\n\n

[PucktheCat]

Quote Can you please explain the difference between being land hungry and mana hungry?

That's simple enough.  Land hungry decks want to maximize their use of the free, uncounterable, unaffected by standstill play the game's rules offer it each turn.  That's what this deck wants.  It wants to be able to produce an effect with its land drop every turn.  Mana hungry decks need to produce a lot of mana.  If this deck is truly more mana hungry than Keeper I would tend to take that as a strike against its viability.  Keeper runs a lot of fast mana to support its hunger and even then it is often considered slow.  I think in fact this deck isn’t more mana hungry than Keeper because, as you said above, it can often tap out with a Standstill in play and also because its draw engine is so cheap.

Quote Here is where all the mathematicians chime and say "But the odds are so small blah blah blah... " . Please, save this argument. The odds are also small that if you run a 61 card deck, your draws will suffer very little. While this is true from a mathematical perspective, it has very little practical application. Why doesn't everyone play with 61 cards then?

Because there is no significant countervailing interest that would make a deckbuilder want a larger deck.  On the other hand there is a SUBSTANTIAL reason you might want to run fetchlands - better access to your colors.  If someone convinced me I would always draw an Island and a Volcanic Island with this deck if I played 61 cards I would do it.

This is even given that I accept that there is an ideal ratio of lands to spells for a given deck that stays the same throughout the game, which I don’t believe there is.  You want to guarantee your first two land drops, then you want to draw a mix of lands and spells.  Fetchlands facilitate that.

The statistic you need to be concerned with is how many games you will lose to lack of colored mana early compared to how many you will lose due to lack of colored mana late.  Lets look at the facts:

1.  Most T1 games have their most important plays between turns two and four.  Many games are effectively decided then.  In these games a fetchland manabase is vastly superior, statistically.  Even games that go to the 20th or even 30th turn are often decided (or strongly influenced) relatively early by a single Stifle, Mana Drain, Fire/Ice etc.

2.  Even in those games that swing back and forth into the late turns relatively few will be matchups where your Islands are having trouble staying on the board.

Shock Wave, even in your tournament report you mention a game where you had two Fire/Ice in hand and had to use Ice and Stifle to stop a Lackey because you didn’t draw any red mana.

Here is the simple fact:  you want a given number of colored lands on the board with this deck.  Would you rather have them by turn 10 or turn 20?  If this deck is really as colored land hungry as you suggest run more colored lands.  Then run fetchlands.  That will get you more colored land early and the same amount later.

In my first post I asked why people keep telling me this deck can’t run fetchlands because it really wants to draw land and can’t run more colored land because it would result in less spells being draw.  Which is it?

Leo

Edit:  One possible answer to my question is that it wants to have control over its mana base and draw lands when it wants them and spells when it wants them.  If this is the case Breath Weapon might be on to something with his assertion that Brainstorm is a good call for this deck.\n\n

[pernicious dude]

Quote The mana base is extremely sensitive and the alteration of 2-3 land slots makes all the difference.

Absolutely.
For a while I tinkered with dropping a single Conclave for another business spell.
I figured, since it comes in tapped and all,
and I'd still have seven manlands,
and statistically nothing's much different,
and

It was horrible.

Quote In my first post I asked why people keep telling me this deck can?t run fetchlands because it really wants to draw land and can?t run more colored land because it would result in less spells being draw.  Which is it?

This is not a contradiction.
If you fetch, there will be fewer lands left to draw later.
If you put in more lands total,
there will be fewer business spells total.
The balance is correct as it is posted.

[PucktheCat]

Why should anyone care what the 'total' cards of a given type are?  Magic is played with the cards you draw.

Leo\n\n

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

I have never played Landstill, but I think experience with a different deck allows me to to get a good idea why he doesn't want to play more fetchlands. I played a 1.5 ScepterControl and had my opponents regularly locked under Orims Chant. Because of the deck Being T1.5 I played a full 8 Fetches in the deck. The manabase worked perfectly for the first 10 or so turns, but when I was going to finish my opponent up, I regularly had true problems getting enough mana to use my Scepter, counter and drop a winning thread. There just weren't enough manaproducing lands in the deck to satisfy the amounts of mana I needed lategame. I ended up not attacking with my Mishras ever (and therefor killing a lot slower) because I wanted to keep to Scepters active AND have counterbackup (I didn't want to die to PoP in response to my Chant. I just had all my fetchtargets on the table already, making the Fetchies dead and me wait for the few non-fetchable lands to finally end the game.  
The same will regularly happen here, if you replace real lands with Fetches. In the early game, the deck is NOT mana hungry, at least if I look at the decklist I can't think of a reason to assume it. BUT, and I think that's what Shockwave was referring to, when he said it was, the deck needs a hell lot of mana on the table as soon as it starts beatin down.
 
Think about it, every manland-attack taps 2-3 of you mana sources. And a single manland is a lot to slow to be a reasonable damage source. So you'll have to attack with at least two of them. (That makes at least 4, and up to 6 or even more tapped mana sources per turn, if you want to function at optimum effeciency). In addition to that you'll definitly want to be able to Mana Drain and, in that stage of the game, even hardcast FoW as well as cast topdecked Standstills and Disks without slowing the beatdown if in any way possible. This tells us, that the deck actually needs at least 10 mana on the table to successfully win the game on a regular basis.
Considering you only play 19 permanent sources right now, (not counting Strips, as you'll usually sac those pretty fast), only 8 of which are Islands, playing fetchlands will IMO probably cost you a lot of games because you can't keep up with your increasing need for mana in the course of the game, because this deck doesn't forgive if the third fetchland doesn't find a target any more.
I suppose that, with this deck, you'll actually often be happy to draw additional lands in the lategame, so you can further increase the beatdown.    

Quote Why should anyone care what the 'total' cards of a given type are?  Magic is played with the cards you draw.

To make what I just said shorter and to directly respond:
Because, if there are no more total cards of a special kind left, that decreases your chances to draw any of them by quite a lot.\n\n

[Shock Wave]

Quote If this deck is truly more mana hungry than Keeper I would tend to take that as a strike against its viability.  Keeper runs a lot of fast mana to support its hunger and even then it is often considered slow.  I think in fact this deck isn’t more mana hungry than Keeper because, as you said above, it can often tap out with a Standstill in play and also because its draw engine is so cheap.

Well, according to your definitions, Landstill is both mana and land hungry. It needs to tap mana in order to deal damage. That makes it both land *and* mana hungry. Whether or not it is moreso than Keeper is an irrelevant point to debate.

Quote On the other hand there is a SUBSTANTIAL reason you might want to run fetchlands - better access to your colors.

Quote The statistic you need to be concerned with is how many games you will lose to lack of colored mana early compared to how many you will lose due to lack of colored mana late.

Quote Shock Wave, even in your tournament report you mention a game where you had two Fire/Ice in hand and had to use Ice and Stifle to stop a Lackey because you didn’t draw any red mana.

You're really overlooking the most important factors to consider in this argument:

1) How important red mana is in the early game
2) What purposes that red mana is used for

I ran 4 red spells (Fire/Ice) in the tournament you were referring to. Those spells are for removal purposes to stop early aggro assaults and problem cards such as Goblin Welder. That means I have 4 red cards and 8 sources of red mana. I'd say that's a very fair configuration. Furthermore, other spells such as Force of Will, Chain of Vapor, and Mishra's Factory are all cards that can get me out of a bind against aggro.

You can quote my tournament report all you want, perhaps you might even want to include this point:

1 mulligan in 19 games

So let me guess, I was lucky to draw the important coloured sources with that sort of consistency?

I understand that you disgaree, and that's fine. However, your logic isn't going to convince me that the mana base needs tinkering (outside of cutting the mountain, which I have a soft spot for). If you feel that it's going to work for you, then that's great. I'm eagerly awaiting results of your testing.

[PucktheCat]

Mon, how many fetchlands were you running?  This deck is arguing over the difference between 8:2 and 7:4 island to fetch ratios, and has 10 other lands besides.  The odds that you will run out of fetch targets are very low in both of these mana bases.  Besides that, the deck's mana is not stable in the early game.  It needs U just as much as any other control deck and runs less cheap manipulation.

Since everyone seems to be telling me that this deck always wants to draw more land then why doesn't it simply play more land?  That would fit with my initial purpose of making the blue mana base more stable.

Leo

Edit:  Hadn't seen Shock Wave's post.

What prompted my initial post was, in fact, the Mountain, which seemed to be insane in a deck this strapped for blue.

The fetchlands have become the issue only because I replaced the Mountain with one in my suggested alteration.  All of the debate over fetchlands ignores one other thing, which is that they are the second best two-color lands available after duals.  Painlands will lose you games too, afterall.\n\n

[Browser]

Just a passing thought...

Has anyone tested Oblivian Stone in Landstill?

There may be some key advantages to it. First of all, and possibly most important, is the ability to pop it on the turn you play it, when played late game. I feel this may be a huge advantage, considering the artifact hate that is seen in the average sideboard these days.  That also lets you avoid late game Welder Tricks.

Secondly, and this is possibly more cute than necessary, you can theoretically throw it out early, leave it out for a while, and still throw out a Standstill on a later turn, since you have the otion to protect the Standstill from the Stone if need be. This can bring about an earlier board possition of the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario that Landstill likes to create.

Also, the lower mana curve of getting it out 3rd turn may be minutely faster in some situations. Face it, most Mana Drains net you <4 mana anyway, making the Stone easier to throw out.

The biggest drawback of course is the larger activation cost. But since Disk usually pops on the turn after you have 4 mana, wouldn't "5, T, Sac:" be of a comperable speed? The activation can easily be done EOT in most situations.

There's also the possibility of playing both, which might give you the option of throwing out an early Stone, and still being able to throw out a disk later, in much the same way that Standstill can still be played.

Anyone interested in testing?

[BreathWeapon]

@Shock Wave, dude, you can't beat Math.

The reason its an inherent flaw to run 61 cards is because it significantly decreases the chances of drawing any single card, not just a Land. Reducing your chances to draw a Yawgmoth's Will, Mind Twist, Balance, Timewalk, Ancestral Recall, Future Sight, Fact or Fiction, Skeletal Scrying, Force of Will, Manadrain, Black Lotus and Library of Alexandria  in Keeper will stack in a much more severe exponential manor. Your trying to make a comparison between the effects on your Manabase and the effects on your entire deck ... and that isn't a fair or accurate comparison.

Also, by your same logic you can argue the converse. The absence of a Fetch Land decreases the chance you will draw important business spells like Timewalk and Ancestral Recall in this deck. Any deck builder can tell you that they would rather see an Ancestral Recall in their hand than an additional Manasource. Are the chances insignificant? Pretty much, but its still there.

10 Years of established deck building "science" DOES not replace 3 Thousand Years of established Mathematics. That notion is going just a little too far, IMO.

Now, i've got a reasonable grip on how to handle the Man Land angle of this deck and its not terribly difficult to tackle once you get the hang of it. With 4 Fetch Lands, the deck seems to run just fine. If by some absurdity of probability that I am forced to take 2 Mulligans out of 19 games, I can live with that. My 4th Stifle, and 4 Brainstorms have gone a long way in this deck to secure UU by turn 2 and protect my Manabase. The ability to find Nev Disk, Standstill, FoW and STP with greater regularity is an immense boon. This isn't intended as a derogatory comment in any way, but isn't it possible that your biases towards Mono-Color decks and the Manabase simplicity of Dual-Color decks are rooting themselves in your argument?

I don't presume to know more about this deck than you do. I only picked it up a month ago. However, in my brief and thorough investigation of the deck I have found the contrary of your arguments to be true. Undoubtably, this thread will continue to argue these points to a mutual impasse. Nevertheless, I strongly recommend you reconsider your position on the matter with more concrete reasoning.

[specialk]

Is Shockwave's List bad?  or wrong?  I would say no since he has tournament reports to back this up.

Are Everyone else list bad? or wrong? I would not know I see no reports for them backing they're strenght in the type 1 community.

What does a Primer do? I thought primers were about giving people a chance to understand a deck that they have little or no experience with.  I didn't know they were about arguing over decklist, if you got a good decklist go write a report.  If at anytime your deck does not perform upto snuff then go look at the primer for help.

[Shock Wave]

Quote @Shock Wave, dude, you can't beat Math.

For the love of God, I wasn't trying to beat math. Mathematical facts are what they are and cannot be denied. However that does not make them the ultimate deciding factor with respect to card inclusion. If mathematical analysis were so important, than why not run a 61 card deck? The margin by which it decreases your odds of drawing a card are so small that it makes almost no difference. Since "you can't beat math", then perhaps we should all adopt this philosophy. Is that what you're implying?

Quote 10 Years of established deck building "science" DOES not replace 3 Thousand Years of established Mathematics. That notion is going just a little too far, IMO.

I beg you to omit these sorts of comments from your posts. They serve no purpose other than to aggravate and they have no relevence to anything in my previous post (which you completely misinterpreted).

Quote I don't presume to know more about this deck than you do. I only picked it up a month ago.

Quote Nevertheless, I strongly recommend you reconsider your position on the matter with more concrete reasoning.

My concrete reasoning:

1) 2 years of experience playing an extremely diverse number of archetypes with diverse deck configurations
2) 4 strong finishes in different tournaments, in different countries, in different continents, in totally different competitive metagames
3) Theory in combination with play-testing experience

You, on the other hand, boast no achievements with the deck. That's fine, you don't need to in order to have a good grasp of how the deck functions. However, before you make recommendations that would drastically change the deck, perhaps you should post results that solidify the validity of your changes.

Quote This isn't intended as a derogatory comment in any way, but isn't it possible that your biases towards Mono-Color decks and the Manabase simplicity of Dual-Color decks are rooting themselves in your argument?

Actually, no. Somehow, that fact that my manabase gave me a problem once in 19 games seems to promote my configuration, not my apparant "bias".

Take this to heart: I would never jump into a thread for which somebody has written a primer and recommend changes after having only picked up the deck a month beforehand, and having relatively no experience with the archetype. It seems extremely foolhardy, that's why the majority of the members on this board do not behave in this manner.

Quote Has anyone tested Oblivian Stone in Landstill?

I've given it a few test runs, nothing extensive. However, in those few games, I found that Nevinyrral's Disk was always better for the reasons you've already stated:

- Oblivion Stone requires 3 + 5 mana to sweep the board
- Nevinyrral's Disk requires 4 + 1 mana

Furthermore, there aren't many non-land permanents in the deck to save. It might be a great addition in a Landstill version with more acceleration, thus making Oblivion Stone a more worthwhile investment. Thoughts?\n\n

[Shock Wave]

Quote How does deck fair against Artifact Aggro like TnT and Stacker? Same question with the new versions of Sligh. (With Scepter and actual good creatures, Wasp has a build)

It really depends how much fat you have to contend with in the early game. Fat decks are definitely the most fearsome of all, especially if they contain creatures with toughness of 4 of greater (Su-Chi and Triskelion are particularly bad). Traditional Sligh builds (Ankh) can be a problem, but are generally winnable matchups. My experience with R/G beats from the past is that it is a difficult match-up, (simply because River Boa is hard times) but still winnable (on the strength of Maze of Ith in games 2 and 3).

I haven't seen Wasp's latest aggro creations, but I welcome testing for those interested.\n\n

[BreathWeapon]

I disagree with the presence of Lightning Bolt in this deck and so do others. I disagree that Red is the optimal splash for the broader metagame and so do others.

If a Primer can't withstand scrutiny than it is of little good to the community. The Primer is lacking specific details concerning key match ups where your version of the deck will fail or have an extremely difficult time in comparison to others. I'm not bringing these points up to be annoying, I am asking them because I have not found a suitable answer.\n\n

[MolotDET]

Cleaned by your friendly neighborhood thread cleaning service.

If anyone has more mana base questions I would like to direct them to the post by Mon, Goblin Chief near the bottom of page 2, I think it aptly summarizes the issues anyone has brought up with the manabase, except with the issue of the Mountain.  And of course there has been sufficient discussion of alternatives (i.e.; a pain land, an additional fetch or an island).

Also when a person points out that they have been testing a deck for nearly 2 years, this does not mean that he/she has played it only 19 times.  This was an example of a performance at a specific tournament and should not be indicative of a sustained performance over two years, nor is it an example of someone having good or bad luck.

If someone would like to write a primer about luck I would be more than happy to get a few laughs from it.

Please attempt to talk about the deck that is being discussed.  And not the theoretical physics between a 4.164% chance and a 4.152% chance of something happening.

Mo.

[Toast]

Quote  dude, you can't beat Math.

It really depends on the context...61 cards is tech against the math of lazy combo players that mill you for 60 minus your hand, grave, removed from game and cards in play.


I think that 61 cards is something that should be avoided if at all possible, especially in a deck that has certain 4 ofs that it really wants to draw with little draw/search....but it is also not as bad as people make it out to be, sure getting fucked over a minute amount every game is not a good thing but if that 61st card adds a lot of consistancy it quite possibly can negate the slight loss of redundancy.

About fetchlands...it seems pretty obvious to me why SW is reluctant to run more than 2 (I would be too), land = good and drawing into it is very important. Fetchlands thin the number of lands you will see later on which is a bad thing because you don't want to miss a land drop until fairly late in the game.

@SW good primer by the way


EDIT: oops the cleaning service stopped by mid post\n\n

[Shock Wave]

Quote I disagree with the presence of Lightning Bolt in this deck and so do others. I disagree that Red is the optimal splash for the broader metagame and so do others.

That's fine. I've already addressed this issue and plan to discuss it no further.

Quote If a Primer can't withstand scrutiny than it is of little good to the community. The Primer is lacking specific details concerning key match ups where your version of the deck will fail or have an extremely difficult time in comparison to others.

I couldn't agree more. Exactly what match-ups would you like specific details about? If you make a request, I will honour it, that's what this thread is all about. I posted immediately following the primer that I would be more than happy to entertain whatever requests people have regarding matchups/omissions in strategy.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Well, a few question myself:

How is the matchup against Gro-Variants? Of the basic structure I'd say your matchup is pretty bad because they have really fast fat, that is often immune against all your removal besides Disk (I don't suppose Manland-block + Bolt will work regularly) combined with enough carddraw and counterpower to usually match you. From gazing at the decklist Landstill should pretty often play similar to UrPhid against Gro, which means it's matchup shouldn't be favorable. Is the best plan to hope to mana screw them or am I missing something?
CotV and Maze from the SB are great, though.

It would also be interesting to have a matchup- and especially playstyle-describtion against aggro-decks that actually do have a draw engine, like Madness, Vengeur and TNT. I suppose these should be more problematic than Sligh and Sui, you can't just say "live through the first turns and ride the carddraw to victory". I assume you depend heavily on timing Disk correctly?

And last but not least: What is the reason you have red but no Gorilla Shamans? With 5 Strips + Stifle additional mana denial that kills nonland sources could prove gamebreaking. Using Disk to destroy some moxen seems like shooting cannons at sparrows (is that saying actually existent in English?).
 I can only comment on Shaman from playing Keeper lately, but Monkey-man is awesome enough to make me want to run 3.... he breaks open so many games, one wouldn't believe it.

/edit: Bad grammar and just bad english in general.\n\n

[Shock Wave]

Quote How is the matchup against Gro-Variants? Of the basic structure I'd say your matchup is pretty bad because they have really fast fat, that is often immune against all your removal besides Disk (I don't suppose Manland-block + Bolt will work regularly) combined with enough carddraw and counterpower to usually match you. From gazing at the decklist Landstill should pretty often play similar to UrPhid against Gro, which means it's matchup shouldn't be favorable. Is the best plan to hope to mana screw them or am I missing something?
CotV and Maze from the SB are great, though.

It really depends on the gro variant. It depends what their draw engine consists of, how fast they are accelerating, and what their permission/disruption base consists of. Sometimes you can just hose their mana base with Stifle and Wasteland. Also, Dryads are very Bolt-able, and if you're running Chain of Vapor, then you're in good shape. The plan against these decks is like always, to resolve Standstill ASAP. If they manage to drop a Dryad, that's ok, provided it is not too big. You can then just drop a Standstill and race. If a Dryad does manage to get big, you're toast.

Post sideboard, Mazes, Blasts, and Crypts come in (depending on the variant). The matchup improves considerably after boarding.

Quote It would also be interesting to have a matchup- and especially playstyle-describtion against aggro-decks that actually do have a draw engine, like Madness, Vengeur and TNT.

I'll do my best to add these matchups to the primer as soon as possible. You're right that TnT and Madness depend on the timing of Nevinyrral's Disk. Success against these builds relies heavily on how fat the early assault is. Lightning Bolts are great for Juggys, but Su-Chi can be an issue. Turn 1 and 2 fat is almost impossible to deal with, but that's tough for any deck to fight. Vengeur is probably the easiest of the matchups to win because it has a very sensitive mana base. You can hose it easily with Wasteland and burning away mana critters.

Again, these are very general notes. I'll do my best to give you a detailed analysis of some match-ups in the future.

[pernicious dude]

The lack of Shamans is because permanents are bad, m'kay?
This deck wants to Disk early and often.

Gro's a tough deck around here,
not in small part due to the fact that
Grand Inquisitor tends to be sitting behind it.
I'll be working on this matchup.

I haven't had much chance to test against the new Workshop aggro decks,
but playing Fish across from old school TNT,
it was all about the Psionic Blast targetting Mr. Su-Chi.
Funny how U has burn that hits harder than R.
I'm running one main, as much from superstition as anything.

Okay, I've had a couple of pints this evening.
It's time to 'fess up.
I've taken Shockwave's lovely deck in a completely different direction.
While every body else is talking Ur, or maybe Uw, or maybe maybe Urw,
I'm totally into Ub.

Four Bolts and four Fire/Ice became
three Duress, a Demonic Tutor, a Yawgmoth's Freakin' Will, and two Chain Of Vapor.
One Disk became The Abyss, God's answer to aggro.
The Abyss is just stupidly good right now.
Creatures are everywhere,
and none of them are named Morphling.
I'm okay with The Abyss on the board,
unlike most other permanents that have been suggested for this deck.
Against many opponents,
it's a Disk just for their side of the board,
and it doesn't blow itself up.

I run one Oblivion Stone on the side for the matchups where The Abyss is inappropriate.
I've been pretty happy with the Stone.
At three mana, it's just a little easier to sneak under the radar
against a deck that isn't liable to remove it.
It definitely sits there unprotected for a while,
because you can't just hold five mana open indefinitely.
Also, unlike Disk, it's bad if they Stifle it.
I wouldn't want more than one, but I've liked the one.

It's funny when they look at my Standstill,
and the look at the Stone,
and they look at four mana open end of turn,
and they go "Oh, shit. That's evil."\n\n

[westredale]

Here is an arguement against fetches at all. If you confur with this list of items:
-The color flow of this deck is really even.
-You'd rather have lands that can't be stifled (this is a huge tempo gain for many decks).

Also a long time ago when MeanDeck was working on Welder Mud Justin Walters brought to my knowledge an article on Brainburst which shows how a small number of fetchlands (2-3) really don't effect the draw of your deck.

Quote IIRC it took 16+ turns (draws) to realize an extra card even if you were playing 8 fetchlands in a 20-land deck or something like that. I forget how much life you ended up paying per card within the 16-turn time frame... something like 2.5 or 3 or something around here.
-Justin

This basically makes me think if the color flow of this deck is solid enough, is it really worth the pain for no effect on your deck? IMHO if this is what you are trying to accomplish I am completely off base.
-Max\n\n

[Shock Wave]

Quote Also a long time ago when MeanDeck was working on Welder Mud Justin Walters brought to my knowledge an article on Brainburst which shows how a small number of fetchlands (2-3) really don't effect the draw of your deck.

Quote This basically makes me think if the color flow of this deck is solid enough, is it really worth the pain for no effect on your deck?

Well, it's great to hear someone is on your side. This is precisely the point I tried to get across with the statistics I posted. The downside of fetchlands in the deck is that they lessen the number of land drops in the mid-to-late game, while hardly improving your draws.

Now, if you're wondering why I run even 2, it's only because I would rather run fetches than pain lands. Without those 2 fetches, I simply do not have enough ways to find red mana. The loss of 2 lands for the late game as a result of fetching is almost negligible, whereas I've found that with 3 or 4 fetchlands, my land drops start to really suffer.

Quote I'm totally into Ub.

I ran a U/B build at Carta Magica that is seemingly similiar to yours. I piloted it to a 4-2 record, losing to Goblin Sligh and High Tide Combo (don't ask how, it was a combination of me being extremely unlucky and him being extremely fortunate). The Goblin Sligh just raped me, as I predicted it would. The thing with U/B is that it doesn't strengthen the aggro matchup as stated in the primer. The Abyss is great if you can get it down, but it is really slow, and black has no good removal for the early game. Otherwise, it's a great choice in a non-aggro meta.

Also with U/B, I noticed that I get just rocked against Stax and needed to sideboard Energy Flux. The reason is because unless you counter the Welders, there's no fucking way to get rid of them! I found it really hard to justify black removal in the deck when the majority of it is shit anyways. I tried Edicts and Smother main and side, and neither configurations performed. I'd be interested in seeing your list, perhaps you can PM it to me and I will add it to the primer as consideration for a U/B version.\n\n

[westredale]

Quote
Well, it's great to hear someone is on your side. This is precisely the point I tried to get across with the statistics I posted. The downside of fetchlands in the deck is that they lessen the number of land drops in the mid-to-late game, while hardly improving your draws.

Now, if you're wondering why I run even 2, it's only because I would rather run fetches than pain lands. Without those 2 fetches, I simply do not have enough ways to find red mana. The loss of 2 lands for the late game as a result of fetching is almost negligible, whereas I've found that with 3 or 4 fetchlands, my land drops start to really suffer.

Great. Good primer.\n\n

[jshields]

maybe its my style to create a minor questioning that starts a major manadrain debate, but what is the reasoning behind running no wishes in this deck?  also, what are the advantages and disadvantages of running red?  next, what is the advantage in running isochron scepter?  also, what changes could be done that do not leave this deck as a t1.5 design for making it a budget build?  last, why was the u/r/w build included in that earlier posting of the landstill thing and this post not continued in that thread?    enough questions.  now to see about some answers without getting flamed like the others who dared to ask about running wishes did

[Dante]

Quote (jshields @ Dec. 13 2003,20:28)maybe its my style to create a minor questioning that starts a major manadrain debate, but what is the reasoning behind running no wishes in this deck?  also, what are the advantages and disadvantages of running red?  next, what is the advantage in running isochron scepter?  also, what changes could be done that do not leave this deck as a t1.5 design for making it a budget build?  last, why was the u/r/w build included in that earlier posting of the landstill thing and this post not continued in that thread?    enough questions.  now to see about some answers without getting flamed like the others who dared to ask about running wishes did

running scepters/any permanents in a deck that wants to disk as often as possible is a bad thing.


What exactly are you going to wish for that you can get early?  Without moxen, you're looking at turn 3 wish which is slow.  Plus, you're going to want to cast standstill, which means you can't wish until the opponent breaks the standstill.

Bill

[pernicious dude]

Hadley tourney for a Pearl just finished.
Wicketsnatcher played U/r Landstill,
after prowling The ManaDrain at 3 this morning looking for a deck.
He ran two Chain Of Vapor in two of the Bolt slots,
and he fit some Mana Leaks in there somewhere.
I played him with my U/b, and we drew, one game each.

If he played Standstill, I could break it with Duress.
If I played it, he was just in trouble.
On the other hand, Fire as land destruction was good for him,
and being able randomly throw a bunch of burn at my head
won him game two when my awesome secret tech had it in the bag.

I've spent some time playing the U/b, and went 2/2/2.
He picked it up the U/r this morning, and won it all.
'Nuff said.

Nice work, Shock Wave.

[Mykeatog]

@jshields,

Do you have any reasons behind these questions? It is highly unacceptable to just post a list of questions without so much as a drop of actual work from yourself. I could say things such as "Why not splash black? Why not use Will? Why not use Timetwister?" But unless I have a valid reason behind why I think they should be used it serves no purpose to the thread or community. If you have the desire to learn why there isn't a peticular feature being used that you think should be, then why don't you write out a post explaining the choices that you think should be made, and why. There is no reason to not put the effort into this site, that others like Shockwave have.