[Report] U/R Landstill in NH 5/16

I figure I'll put this report in for what it's worth, as it could probably help someone out there doing card choice tracking, etc...

First off, The Deck:

4x Mishra's Factory
4x Faerie Conclave
4x Wasteland
4x Volcanic Island
3x Island
2x Flooded Strand
1x Mountain
1x Strip Mine
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
4x Standstill
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Force of Will
2x Mana Drain
2x Counterspell
2x Mana Leak
3x Stifle
2x Misdirection
3x Fire/Ice
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Chain of Vapors
4x Nevinyrral's Disk
2x Slice and Dice

SB:
3x Chalice of the Void
3x Rack and Ruin
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Maze of Ith
2x Hibernation

I chose to go with U/R Landstill, versus U/W or U/W/R, because I had been testing them for quite some time and I found that U/R was more stable and more consistent. I decided to Maindeck slice and dice for two reasons. #1 - It gets the 1 toughness creatures in the format including soldier tokens, welders, most of the creatures in fishless fish, and is generally in there for surprise value (I cycled one game in the tournament when mikeatog had dropped 2 welders in a row). Hardcasting (which has happened in the past, although not at the tournament) results in huge tempo swing which many decks can't recover from. #2 - it's readily evident which matchups the S&D helped out in. They're much easier to side out for a better solution.
I haven't been very impressed with Chalice in the side. it's to be cast off a drain target, but generally when will this happen? Once the opponent has set themself up, meaning that you need it for the late game. The problem is, decks that A. don't have a late game such as goblins and B. By that time, with all your burn and man-lands attacking, you should have won anyway. What do you set chalice to? I know it depends on the matchup but think about it. Chalice on one kills your bolts, and your chains. On two, you might as well scoop. I guess I could see you using it to lock the board down so that you have the only beaters, but that just doesn't seem like a good use of resources.
Anyway, onto the report. (As a sidenote, I was playtesting with my girlfriend the night before. She was running some weird U/B deck that ran maindeck back-to-basics, and it's kills were morphling, shade, and serendib efreet).

Round 1 - Griffin with Chalice Black
Before I start in with this round, I must say that I've played griffin many times and know that I should completely go nuts on the deck. Playtesting the night before combined with extreme lack of shuffling found my lands bunched as a result, I lost. Next time...I'll remember to sufficiently shuffle.

Game 1 - I see two land sources: Conclave and Factory. Those are opening hand. I decide to keep as I had standstill, disk, force, fire/ice and drain. However, griffin sees 2 opening wastelands, and goes house on me. it was all I could do to stabalize and top a volcanic right into his strip mine. Shade goes all the way.
-2 S&D, +2 Maze of Ith
Game 2 - I see ALL land sources except a disk. I open with conclave again. Griff opens with duress taking the disk. I draw into something that I couldn't use (I think it was a chain?) and griff duresses again. Things get worse as I top land after land. Finally, I start topping actual spells, but it's too late and griff goes wild with a yawgs will and some powder kegs. I was hoping to top a fire/ice to stop the bleeding, but instead I get flooded strands. Needless to say, I wasn't happy.

Round 2 - kid playing U/R Landstill

Game 1 - He makes a cardinal mistake and drops a standstill while I have manlands on the board. If there's one thing I know about playing the mirror, standstills aren't as important as having good beaters out. Factories and conclaves go all the way.
-2 Standstill, +2 REB
Game 2 - I draw into some goodness, but he draws into better goodness. We trade some forces over his standstill resolving, and he ends up with drain mana on his turn (after I EOT break his standstill) he goes to drop a disk, but I drain and drop my own disk. It's not enough though, as he drops HIS own disk and we lose disks and I lose the ever wonderful Mox Sapphire. His conclaves go in for the win as I hope to top a slice and dice, but don't
Game 3 - We're running a little low on time, so I decided to just go balls out aggro on him, and it works to cause him to make more than a few mistakes (he skipped his draw phase one turn, then broke his standstill on me with a force of will). Unfortunately, I was too aggro and started playing on his turn like it was mine. As he didn't get a game loss for skipping draw, I didn't get the game loss for playing my land. I drop a disk and pop it during his combat phase a few turns later. In response he pops his soon to die lotus and lotus petal and tries to float the mana for a disk. He burns for 4, and a slice and dice and some factories later, I win. Just before they call 5 turns left.

Round 3 - Mikeatog with Shahrazad
Game 1 - Mike doesn't see much and I top enough burn to end it quickly.
Game 2 - See game 1.
Apparently he boarded out his sharazads as he didn't think they'd do much for the matchup...they didn't. Incidentally, game 1 he dropped 2 welders and I EOT s&d'd them away. He was stunned and told me he'd never have seen that comming.

Round 4 - Cross with Goblins
Game 1 - I screw up and let a lackey resolve. As I had never played the goblin matchup, I wasn't ready for it. He ended the suffering fast with warchief and piledriver.
Game 2 - I mulligan into a somewhat quicker hand, but I don't see enough and his goblins own me.

Round 5 - U/B Zombie Infestation
Game 1 - I start out dominating, letting him resolve some draw with counter backup. I figure he's playing tog when I start seeing ak's and underground sea's. Unfortunately I was wrong. He dropped a bazzar, and confused me even more as I thought he was playing dragon with ak's for some reason. I keep pressure and burn on him bringing him down to one. Unfortunately he tops yawgmoth's win and inflicts silly amounts of damage with zombie tokens.
-2 standstill, +2 reb
Game 2 - He opens with a few spells, we trade some forces and after the dust clears I have standstill in my hand and he has zombie infestation on the board with squees in the yard. I lost horribly.
I was thinking of siding out the other 2 standstills for 2 chalice's, and then setting chalice on 2 in the late game. I didn't know how effective this might be, and decided not to risk it backfiring on me. Looking back, I probably should have.

Round 6 - Scott with Mono-U fish
Game 1 - I open with nuts hand of sapphire, lotus, volc, ancestral, disk. He drops a load, and an island, and then passes back to me. I drop a factory and a standstill, which he forces, and I respond with a force of my own. A few turns later, he breaks the still and factory goes house with lightning bolt backup.
-4 standstill, +2 reb, +2 chalice
Game 2 - I open with mox, conclave. he opens with mox island cloud of faeries, spiketail hatchling. I drop a volcanic, pass turn, he drops rootwater theif, I cycle s&d eot to take out some junk and leave a theif on the board. I go to drop chalice on two and laugh like mad, but he's got force. I can't recover and a voidmage prodigy and conclave take him the win.
He concedes game three for some unknown reason.

All in all, it was an interesting day, as I finally got to test something I had been learning to play for a while. Thanks go to Myriad and everyone who showed up.

Props
* Zw4liki (Domenic) for finally top 8'ing with something he's been working on for a while.
* Myriad games for having a pre-registration prize and hosting a tournament
* Slice and Dice for owning welders and fish
* Chicken Finger pizza... it's soooo good
Slops
* Yawgmoth's Will - why ANY R&D group let you through is beyond me
* People who shuffle every deck at a proxy tournament like all the expensive cards are proxied. Some of us actually own all of the cards in our decklists...shuffle gently.
* The Denny's up the street for serving us shoe leather and raw potato shreds.