[Deck]Hadley Presents- Gro-still 2K4, How to beat up Togs

[Shock Wave]

The added pressure that faerie conclaves in a deck like landstill put on the opponent is hardly significant. Standstill is nearly as 'awful' (drawing 3 is awful because your opponent decides 'when' you draw 3? I still don't understand the logic) as it is in Landstill with nothing on the table. Landstill NEVER has anything on the table, at that.

How can you argue that Standstill is as effective in this deck as in Landstill? The difference in the effectiveness of the card is quite apparant: With Landstill, you can drop Standstill when there is equal board position and have a better chance of developing your mana base while your opponent hopes to TD land or is forced to break the Standstill on their turn. There is also a much larger probability that an opponent will be forced to break a Standstill during your turn when they are staring down 8 threats as opposed to a measly 3. With this deck, if you resolve a Standstill, you would have to be fortunate to be able to sustain any sort of pressure with just 4 factories.

You are not always going to have a Dryad on the board when you're in position to cast Standstill, so the point is that it is a very conditional card to be holding, especially in a deck with no removal.

[Eastman]

You are not always going to have a Dryad on the board when you're in position to cast Standstill, so the point is that it is a very conditional card to be holding, especially in a deck with no removal.

This point I won't argue.

There are 6 pitch counters and 4 Brainstorm to get rid of it, the disadvantage of having a dead standstill in hand is heavily outweighed by its strength when you're in the position the deck is built to create.

[DavidHernandez]

How can you argue that Standstill is as effective in this deck as in Landstill?

Just the fact that you're going to draw 3 at some point is strong enough.  I dont think it's less effective than in Landstill--it's just a different method of playing.

Dave.

[Shock Wave]

There are 6 pitch counters and 4 Brainstorm to get rid of it, the disadvantage of having a dead standstill in hand is heavily outweighed by its strength when you're in the position the deck is built to create.

Well, if you say so, I'll take your word for it. I haven't played the deck so I can't comment on how often you draw Standstill and wish it were something else. However, to optimize Standstill's effectiveness in any deck, casting it when neither opponent has a threat on the board should be to your advantage. If it doesn't give you any advantage, which on observation of your decklist I'd wager that it barely does (if at all), then its probable that there is a better card for the 3 slots it is occupying.

Just the fact that you're going to draw 3 at some point is strong enough. I dont think it's less effective than in Landstill--it's just a different method of playing.

.. but it IS less effective than in Landstill. At equal board position, Standstill is more of a threat than in this deck. That would make it more effective in Landstill.

[Eastman]

There are 6 pitch counters and 4 Brainstorm to get rid of it, the disadvantage of having a dead standstill in hand is heavily outweighed by its strength when you're in the position the deck is built to create.

Well, if you say so, I'll take your word for it. I haven't played the deck so I can't comment on how often you draw Standstill and wish it were something else. However, to optimize Standstill's effectiveness in any deck, casting it when neither opponent has a threat on the board should be to your advantage. If it doesn't give you any advantage, which on observation of your decklist I'd wager that it barely does (if at all), then its probable that there is a better card for the 3 slots it is occupying.

Just the fact that you're going to draw 3 at some point is strong enough. I dont think it's less effective than in Landstill--it's just a different method of playing.

.. but it IS less effective than in Landstill. At equal board position, Standstill is more of a threat than in this deck. That would make it more effective in Landstill.

The point is that it is still effective. Granted we lose to Landstill in the clean board standstill race, but against most other decks the Mishra's are enough that the opponent will eventually be forced to break it. With more counters and draw then they run you should be able to set up to your advantage after they pop the standstill.

I would argue that because landstill decks are bent over to maximize the efficiency of standstill in the cases you mentioned, the other spells they share with grostill are weaker. Landstill casts Mana Drain and double activates a mishra's factory or perhaps plays a Nevinyrral's Disk whereas Grostill can use the mana for an explosive Yawgmoth's Will. Landstill often denies it's opponent early mana only to allow the game to run so long that they can catch back up, whereas grostill will race them down with a clock before they can recover. Landstill's counters are used only for permission, Grostill's to pump and protect powerful threats and spells.

[Toad]

Two more questions about the use of Standstill in this deck then :

* Would you go "Island, Mox, Standstill, go" on your first turn?

* If you manage to drop a 3/3 or a 4/4 Quirion Dryad, why would you drop a Standstill, giving 3 or 4 turns to the opponent to find an answer under Standstill, when you can cast instants to pump the Dryad, draw into more counters and put him on a 2-turns clock?

[Grand Inquisitor]

Would you go "Island, Mox, Standstill, go" on your first turn?

Only if I knew what I was playing against, and the deck was one of the following:

FCG
aggro-workshop
o-stompy
workshop slaver
storm combo
GAT

possibly Hulk, depending on what else is in my hand (ie lots of strips or factories).

This may be an incomplete list, but the basic idea is if they want to play a faster tempo than you do, you drop the standstill.

If you manage to drop a 3/3 or a 4/4 Quirion Dryad, why would you drop a Standstill, giving 3 or 4 turns to the opponent to find an answer under Standstill, when you can cast instants to pump the Dryad, draw into more counters and put him on a 2-turns clock?

This depends on a few factors:

What am I playing against (does it have removal)?

Do I have a hard counter in hand already?

Do I have pro-active spells in hand?


The hardest deck to do this against is something like keeper.  This is because they may swords the dryad in response, which gives them the best of both worlds: no threat, and either a long window to set up or cards.

Most other decks don't offer such a combination of removal and counters, and the decision becomes a function of whether I need to dig deeper into my deck (to get counter back up) or if I can just try to protect my lead and force them to win through my current counters + 3 cards.

[Rico Suave]

I didn't see any mention of this, but with black in the deck, wouldn't Duress be very nice here?

[Grand Inquisitor]

I didn't see any mention of this, but with black in the deck, wouldn't Duress be very nice here?

Duress doesn't fit for a few reasons.

First, early in the game you're usually fetching trops for dryads.  Needing black early would stretch the manabase too far.

Also, the mana-denial element dictates a strategy where we're already restricting the spells they can play.  This forces them into our counters (daze & misd), and makes them 'waste' tempo.

Against combo we employ pro-active elements like null rod and ground seal.

[DavidHernandez]

Quote:

Would you go "Island, Mox, Standstill, go" on your first turn?

Only if I knew what I was playing against, and the deck was one of the following:

FCG
aggro-workshop
o-stompy
workshop slaver
storm combo
GAT

possibly Hulk, depending on what else is in my hand (ie lots of strips or factories).

Ok, so that's basically everything out there.

Toad: would you cast Ancestral on turn one?  I know I dont always do that, especially without counter backup.  To me, playing a 1st turn Standstill is safer than playing first turn Ancestral.

After Standstill hits, what is the opponent going to do?  It doesnt matter, because if they intend to have any game at all, they have to let you draw three cards.

If you manage to drop a 3/3 or a 4/4 Quirion Dryad, why would you drop a Standstill, giving 3 or 4 turns to the opponent to find an answer under Standstill, when you can cast instants to pump the Dryad, draw into more counters and put him on a 2-turns clock?

...Because you will draw 3 more cards, and the overwhelming advantage of that alone will probably give you an answer to what they cast, while growing your Dryad to 6/6 and allowing you to swing for the win.

Dave.

[Toad]

Toad: would you cast Ancestral on turn one?  I know I dont always do that, especially without counter backup.  To me, playing a 1st turn Standstill is safer than playing first turn Ancestral.

Except you can go "At your upkeep, Ancestral Recall" even if you don't know what you are playing. Considering you only run 3 Factories, you'll never do that here because It's an horrible opening against many decks.

...Because you will draw 3 more cards, and the overwhelming advantage of that alone will probably give you an answer to what they cast, while growing your Dryad to 6/6 and allowing you to swing for the win.

Except a single Brainstorm would have shown you as many cards, hence you would have as many counters as if the opponent blew the Landstill. When you have a 6/6 Dryad on the board, you don't want to effectively draw cards. You just want to dig into counterspells. Killing the opponent > drawing cards. Now Landstill is useless in your deck as long as you don't have a big Dryad on the board, while a cantrip is not.

[walkingdude]

I haven’t seen this mentioned on this thread, but it was one of the first things I noticed testing the deck. It looks very vulnerable to chalice and when I tested v meandeck slavery, it seemed to be a problem.

Chalice for 2 shuts down:

80% of your threats (note i don't count factory b/c its too slow by itself)
87.5% of ways to actually draw cards
50% of your counter base
60% of your counters that can stop permanents
and 100% of your answers to artifacts.
Plus DT and Time walk for good measure
Of the 4 cards in the side to combat artifacts 50% of them get shut down as well, leaving only 2 oxidize in a deck that can’t draw any cards.

It’s not hard for workshop decks to drop a chalice for two on the first or second turns. I’m wondering whether you guys didn’t think they would be a major presence or if you decided to just write the match off or if you are just incredibly confident in your ability to always get force of will in you opening hand.

[hulk3rules]

* If you manage to drop a 3/3 or a 4/4 Quirion Dryad, why would you drop a Standstill, giving 3 or 4 turns to the opponent to find an answer under Standstill, when you can cast instants to pump the Dryad, draw into more counters and put him on a 2-turns clock?

You're not giving him 3-4 turns to find an answer, you are giving him 3-4 turns to top-deck an answer.  If he wants to try to search for answers, then he has to break standstill, and after giving us 3 more cards it just makes it that much harder to remove the dryad

[DavidHernandez]

Toad Wrote:

Killing the opponent > drawing cards.

I contend that Drawing Cards = Killing the Opponent.

Dave

[PucktheCat]

Except a single Brainstorm would have shown you as many cards, hence you would have as many counters as if the opponent blew the Landstill. When you have a 6/6 Dryad on the board, you don't want to effectively draw cards. You just want to dig into counterspells. Killing the opponent > drawing cards. Now Landstill is useless in your deck as long as you don't have a big Dryad on the board, while a cantrip is not.

As far as I can tell no one is suggesting running Standstill in place of Brainstorm in this deck.  It would be in addition, if anything.  That means the comparison needs to be with some other card that can go in that slot.

In general, I think Standstill is way underrated by a number of people on this site.  It is a situational card, I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but it is also very powerful.

There are several things about T1 that make Standstill more powerful than it is in other formats.  Here are a few of them:

1.  Manlands, obviously.

2.  Cheap spells.  Force of Will, Cloud of Faeries, Moxen, etc.  All these make the famous "wait until they have 6-8 cards in hand then Brainstorm EOT" play harder to pull off than it is in other formats because the Standstill deck will often only have 2-3 cards in hand when the Standstill is played.

3.  The overall weakness of creature strategies.  Like Curiosity, Standstill requires a creature to be effective.  In a format where control and combo tend to disdain all notice of creature strategies as much as possible these cards are much stronger than they would be in many other formats.*

I have played a lot of games with and against Standstill.  I find that, in spite of all the potential tricks that can be used to beat a Standstill (using it as a setup window, killing creatures in response, etc.) it is still a very strong card against virtually any deck that doesn't run Manlands.

I have no idea how Standstill works out in this deck, because I haven't played it, but I think it is fairly shortsighted to simply dismiss it.

Leo

*Like Standstill, Curioisty was a very weak card in Tempest-era T2, but no one is suggesting it is weak in the appropriate decks today.