UGw Standstill deck - Star City Games Tournament

[cardiffgiant]

The Star City Games Tournament on Saturday was the coming out party for a deck we've been working on. For want of a better name, I called it SnakeStill

4 River Boa
3 Birds of Paradise
2 Scryb Sprites
2 Argothian Enchantress

4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Standstill
3 Rancor
3 Curiosity
2 Daze
2 Null Rod
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Sigil of Sleep
1 Bearscape

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wastelands
3 Windswept Heath
2 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
2 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Emerald

SB
3 Chill
2 Worship
2 Orim's Chant
2 Aura Shards
2 Stifle
1 Misdirection
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Naturalize

Like Fish, the deck wins by getting early threats and using Curiosity and Standstill to gain card advantage. Originally it started as a UW Faeries deck, but a couple threads on TheManaDrain shifted the focus to River Boa (thanks Master and Thissa2). One concern we had with Fish was the clock seemed too slow. We couldn't find larger creatures with acceptable drawbacks. Pumping seemed to be the answer with Rancor on the top of the list (Unstable Mutation was probably second).

One desire was to be able to drop Standstill turn two with enough pressure to get the opponent to pop it soon. Flying men and Cloud of Faeries does this in Fish. However Birds had the advantage of accelerating the first few turns and had great synergy with Daze. Initially there were 4, but we reduced it because we were getting Birds with Curiosity too often. I've loved playing Enchantress in Extended and Type One so I think I originally added them. It has wonderful synergy with Rancor.

Using green facilitated supporting a splash color. With an initial configuration to deal with aggro decks, white for Swords was hard to resist.

The sideboard was dedicated to 3 categories: artifact decks, burn and little red men, and combos. Although expensive, Worship looked promising for gaining a few turns against artifact and red. Stifle and Chant were to help against combo. Shards, Hurkyl's Recall, and Naturalize were for artifact decks.

Please forgive my poor tournament report. I'm still working on those skills.

Round 1 - Nick - Meddling Mages/Exalted Angel

Game 1: A Wasteland followed by a Strip Mine stalled his deck. I didn't get to see much and he never recovered
Game 2: He got the Angel unmorphed and administer a harsh beating until I StoPped it. Meddling Mages naming Rancor and River Boa. I locked down the ground, StoPped the Rancor inhibiting Mage, and beat him down with a doubly curious Sprite.

1-0

Round 2 - Mike - 4 Color Control

Game 1: I got some early beats on, once again an Angel came out. After 4 hits from the Angel, I was able to StoP it and finish the beating. Rancor on Boa is wonderful
(-Bearscape, -Enlightened Tutor, +Misdirection, +Stifle)
Game 2: I got several small beats in. Then Angel came out, I had no answers. He ended at 26
(-Stifle,-2 Null Rod, -1 Rancor, +Hurkyl's Recall, +Naturalize, +Cloud of Vapor, +Naturalize) (I must have forgotten something or I was crazy to sideboard this way).
Game 3: He couldn't resolve any threats and I just kept beating.

2-0

Round 3 - Scott Limoges - Gro-A-Tog

Game 1: I receive a game lose because I had failed to write down my complete sideboard. Forgive me, it's my first major T1 tournament.
Game 2: I didn't get the details, except I beat him down to 5 and he took me out. I'm sure something interesting happened.

2-1

Round 4 - Bob - Gro-A-Tog

Game 1: He couldn't get started and I beat him down by ones and twos.
(-2 Null Rod, -Seal of Cleansing, +Cloud of Vapor, +Stifle, +MisD)
Game 2: He beat on me with a Dryad until it was StoPped, and beat him down by twos and threes. He really hated my deck

3-1

The tournament progresses, I get more and more lazy with keeping notes.

Round 5 - Nathan - Trinisphere Workshop
Game 1: An early Null Rod ended his game
(-River Boa, -2 Rancor, -StoP, +Aura Shard, +Naturalize, +Hurkyl's Recall, +Cloud of Vapor)
Game 2: I did a good job beating him down, Sundering Titan and Crucible of the World happened, and the end came quickly
Game 3: I did a lot of small beating, then my life went from 17 to 10 to 0. At least it was quick

3-2

Round 6 - Stephen Menendian - Tog
Game 1: I gave up keeping track. Lots of Brainstorms. I fail to attack, forgetting I have Islandwalk on the Boas. My head cleared. I walked in and won with Scryb Sprites.
Game 2: He had an incredibly busy turn with Lotus and Yawgmoth's Will getting 2 Psychatog to stay in play. I TimeWalk, and attack twice for the kill. My happiest memory was the WTF I received when I played Sigil of Sleep.

4-2

Round 7 - Jeff - Mindslaver
Game 1: Null Rod shut him down early and he scooped
(+Chain of Vapor, +Hurkyl's Recall, +1 Aura Shard, +1 Naturalize, -4 cards)
Game 2: Hurkyl's Recall didn't help at all. I tapped out for Aura Shard, and he went off big. Wow.
(Side in everything accept Chills)
Game 3: I played it slower. I got Worship out to eliminate the pressure. After I stabilized and started the beats he scooped.

5-2

Round 8 - Tommy - Goblin Food Chain
Game 1: He started the beats fast, got me to 6, but I was able to stabilize and recover.
(-2 Null Rod, -Sigil of Sleep, -Bearscape, -Standstill, -Rancor, -Seal of Cleansing, +3 Chill, +2 Worship, +2 Orim's Chant)
Game 2: I got Chill and Worship out with no creatures. He took me from 11 to 0 in one attack.
Game 3: Started with a land light hand. I popped my fetchland too early, walking to a Wasteland. And that was the end.

5-3

I finished 32nd.

The deck performed great. I think if I had played GFC before, I could have beaten it.

Workshop decks are a big problem. I think a better sideboard would be 2 Root Maze and 2 Seeds of Innocence.

I'd appreciate any help tuning this deck.

The Good - Star City Games, that was a great tournament. Thanks to Lincoln for playtesting and steering back to a faster clock. JP Meyer's, I saw you carrying your laptop around the tournament, talking notes and such. You deserve coolness points for that. Tommy, your deck was good, you played it well.

The Bad - The drive down from Philly was long. I wish there was food there.

The Ugly - Eating spicy pork rinds while driving back. Tasty but not a good idea.

[Sammy]

What about the sweet Mystical Snakes? Haha...

[cardiffgiant]

Sammy - Love the Mystic Snake, it really fits the deck name.  I don't think it would work, though. With the strip lands and manlands, I often ended the game at less than 4 lands. Worship is the exception because I will give up early control via mana denial to get it into play.

I keep thinking about replacing W with R or B. In R, Artifact Mutation, Gorilla Shaman and Grim Lavamancer are really attractive. B give Pernicious Deeds, Volrath's Stronghold, and Planar Void. But Swords to Plowshares is REALLY good.

[yodoblec]

I think that Meddling Mage would be very strong in this deck. Fish/Landstill can have problems with fatties like Pentavus and Exalted Angel so it would be good to stop them before.

I don't know if naming angel would work though.

[Jacob Orlove]

Originally it started as a UW Faeries deck, but a couple threads on TheManaDrain shifted the focus to River Boa (thanks Master and Thissa2).

Actually, I was the one who invented fish with Boas, first with Worse Than Fish (U/g) and then with Worse Than Fish: the Reprise (U/g/r). I'm pretty happy with the current U/g/r build, but the SB will probably have to change to accomodate some of the recent innovations in workshop decks.

One concern we had with Fish was the clock seemed too slow. We couldn't find larger creatures with acceptable drawbacks.

Call of the Herd is great for this, as is the amazing creature mix of boa/mancer/spiketail/factory. It's like the all-star team for fish.

Workshop decks are a big problem. I think a better sideboard would be 2 Root Maze and 2 Seeds of Innocence.

You have practically no artifact removal between MD and SB. Seal of Clensing has synergy with your 2 enchantresses, but Oxidize costs half as much, which is really key, and it can hit a mox turn 1 against random nonworkshop decks. If you run red, then you get Rack and Ruin and Artifact Mutation for the board, which are both excellent.

Your deck has a lot of interesting card choices, but it seems like you'd have a lot of trouble against anything with real removal, since it's so easy to get 2-for-1 or better against you. Also, your SB choices are really strange.

[Kowal]

Also, Jeff was playing Broodstarrunner.

[cardiffgiant]

Jacob - Thanks for the additional information.

I looked at Call too but didn't know what to cut. Knowing the little bit more that I know now, I would probably get rid of Bearscape or at least side it. It's a must counter against control, but I ended up not having any problems with that. It's sad to say it was also a bit too expensive. I wished I had another Sigil, though. It was great.

I like Oxidize and would have replaced Naturalize with it, but didn't have any. To be honest, I doubt it would have made a difference. The artifact decks I played had incredible critical turns. One artifact wouldn't have made a difference. I really want to try Root Maze and Seeds of Innocence. I think they could rock.

Artifact Mutation is the second biggest temptation that red offers (next to Lavamancer). That's an amazing card for adding pressure. And so cheap.

What decks have "real removal"? I don't remember getting hit with any 2fers.

And yes, my SB is strange. Again, having never played against most of the decks, I had to guess at what would reduce their tempo. I feel good about everything except Aura Shards, Naturalize, and possibly Hurkyl's Recall. I know I'm the only one who likes Orim's Chant, but it really messes up a lot of decks.

Kowal - Thanks for the correction. I don't know the different artifact decks. All I remember was things going well, I tapped out, and things went VERY bad.

yodoblec - sorry I skipped you.

I looked at Meddling Mage but two things concerned me: 1) it wouldn't get through, and therefore was bad with Curiosity; 2) white is a splash and I didn't want to depend on getting it early when I need creatures the most. It's sort of bums me out, because I have 4 and it's a really cool card.

I could see moving to UWg and adding Flickering Ward which has great synergy with the Enchantresses, but that would be a much different deck.

Posts merged.  Don't doublepost.
- Kowal[/color]

[yugg]

I've been messing around with a WUG landstill deck, and I run a couple riftstone portals and 4 nantuko monastery.

Even if you don't want to run the monasteys, I would still think that riftstone portal would be helpful.  Even if your mana base is running really well, being able to produce g and w from any mana would allow you to actually cut some of the W/G mana and perhaps add another colour.  Maybe for tutors.

Just a thought.

[cardiffgiant]

yugg - Thanks for the suggestions.

Riftstone Portals is an interesting idea. It eliminates a lot of problems with Blood Moon. How do you get the Riftstone Portals into the graveyard? Vengeful Dreams would be a great way, but I knew I couldn't handle WW.

I like the Monasteries. The night before the tournament I was still debating whether to include two or not. With the fetchlands, I get threshold very easily. I couldn't get them to work reliably with my already minimal mana base.

I'd love to see your decklist.

[yugg]

Here's a rough decklist, I've only been working on it between other decks I've been putting together.  So right now it's still in heavy testing with all sorts of new cards.


//Land base
x6 island
x1 strip mine
x3 riftstone portal
x4 faerie conclave
x4 mishra's factory
x4 nantuko monastery


//Draw
x1 frantic search
x4 careful study
x1 fact or fiction
x4 brain storm
x4 standstill

//Control
x2 swords to plowshares
x4 mana leak
x4 force of will
x2 teferi's response

//Other - utility
x1 fastbond
x1 mox diamond
x1 lotus petal
x4 argivian find
x2 zuran orb
x1 crucible of worlds
x1 enlightened tutor
x1 balance

Ok, here's some reasoning.

Land base:  I have 12 manlands.  I figure that you can never have enough.  And threshold will come from cantrips and discarding cards when in standstill mode if you have a stubborn opoonent.

Draw:  It's pretty self explanatory, I just use careful study to drop a riftstone portal in my graveyard, I usually just hold onto a single careful study until I draw into a portal.

Control:  Has your basic counters, but in place of two teferi's it runs 2 swords.  I would switch them out if they're not running any creatures and pop in either 2 counterspells or another 2 teferi's.

Utility:  This is just a mix of different things that can be useful to me.  I added crucible of worlds, which basically makes their wasteland and stripmines useless.  And I tossed in a couple zuran orbs (another way to get riftstone portal in the graveyard), as well as a fastbond.  That's a nice little combo for infinite life, infinite mana and infinite strip mining.

Argivian find:  One thing that doesn't scare me about landstill, is that I know that they only have 4 standstills.  So, I just break one, let them draw 3 and pretend they just cast ancestral.  Then they have to draw another one.  Argivian find allows you to basically run 8 standstills.  So, as soon as they break one, you bring it back and all of a sudden it's a little worse to break a standstill.

Zuran orbs: Part of the crucible combo, and they help drop the riftstone.

Enlightened tutor:  Fetch whatever you're lacking.

Balance:  You never know when something bad is going to happen.


Right now, it's running pretty well.  I'm experimenting with replenish, just to see what it would be like to bring back 2-3 standstills.

[cardiffgiant]

yugg - Thanks for posting your deck.

It's way different. I'd love to discuss it, but I don't want to hijack this thread.

Would you like me yo PM you, ot do you want to start a new thread?

[urth]

I'm pretty sure you played Jeff Round 6 and not 7 cuz Jeff, Frank, and I all dropped after 6th round to get food. After you beat Jeff you said you wanted to come too, but you disappeared right after and we couldn't find you.

[cardiffgiant]

urth - You're right. I think Jeff had just played Steve. I was getting the "I REALLY NEED FOOD" headache. I went to grab a deck box and couldn't find you. Sorry.

I'll do better record keeping next time.