UG Landstill

[BlackVise]

 I've been toying with using Regrowth and Reclaim (, Instant, Put target card from your graveyard on top of your library.) in conjunction with Standstill and have actually had some great results, especially when coupled with Snapcaster Mage.

 The reason I've actually been using this particular combination is for the fact that Regrowth and Reclaim both offer you a huge amount of options when you cast them, and rather than just being useful in combination with one or two cards in the deck, they actually work well with a vast majority of the cards included, thus giving you not only a strong draw engine but also a vast array of other options if a situation needs them.

 First, the deck list, and then a brief explanation of what it actually does.

Mana Base:
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Sol Ring
1x Forest
5x Island
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
4x Tropical Island

Creatures:
1x Blightsteel Colossus
1x Ninja of the Deep Hours
3x Snapcaster Mage

Disruption:
4x Force of Will
3x Mental Misstep
3x Spell Pierce

Card Draw/Tutor:
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
2x Gush
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Personal Tutor
1x Ponder
4x Standstill

Utility:
3x Noxious Revival
0x Reclaim
1x Regrowth
0x Twincast

Acceleration:
1x Fastbond

Board Control:
1x Echoing Truth

Brokenness:
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Time Walk
1x Tinker

Sideboard:
1x Energy Flux
2x Flusterstorm
1x Hurkyl's Recall
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Pithing Needle
3x Steel Sabotage
2x Tormod's Crypt
0x Trygon Predator

 The deck makes use of the Standstill engine, whilst using Regrowth and Reclaim to reuse Standstills and keep the engine going. Of course, Regrowth and Reclaim work well with a lot of other cards too, and I've often found myself using them to recycle Time Walk or Ancestral Recall. Snapcaster Mage has great synergy with most of the cards in the deck, and is brilliant later in the game for an EOT Reclaim --> Standstill/Ancestral Recall/Time Walk.
 I found that the deck often ends up drawing huge amounts of cards, so Fastbond is great in these circumstances, and with Fastbond in the deck Gush is a good inclusion too. Two seems to be the right amount, as any more often leaves the deck struggling with lots of land in hand and very little on the board if Fastbond is not out, and any less makes it a very random and almost pointless inclusion.
 Twincast is a card that I'm sure will raise some eyebrows, but I've found it can be a great card in counter wars, responding to an opposing Time Walk or Tinker, or copying one of your own more broken spells.

 The sideboard is very much open to change, but is currently geared towards combating Ichorid and Stax, which can both outrace the deck quite easily, and then includes the two Flusterstorms for matches where more counters are needed.

 So far I've found that the deck is able to keep up counter pressure from turn 1 at least, often turn 0, and by turn 2 will have a draw engine working. Most of my testing so far has been against Stax, and that matchup in particular is a difficult one - a turn 1 Lodestone Golem, Trinisphere, or Crucible/Strip Mine is pretty much an automatic loss, hence the heavy Stax hate in the sideboard.

 So, there's the deck and a brief explanation; any suggestions or feedback about it are welcome, especially about the sideboard as I feel this really needs some tweaking.

 Thanks!

[Copter]

Noxious Revival must be better then Reclaim

[TheWhiteDragon]

It seems that only 2 gush with fastbond is a waste.  I'd suggest either 4 or just cut the whole package and add more jace.  Also, there is NO reason to run reclaim over noxious revival.  Same cost, same speed, but revival has the flexibility of targeting your opponent, and can be cast for -2 life when you have no open mana.  It is just a strictly superior card to reclaim.  Twincast is really bad.  It might copy their tinker/walk, but it also lets theirs resolve as well.  Mana drain is superior.  Flusterstorm is probably even better.  I'd try to work in some number of flusterstorms if blue gives you trouble.  A steel sabotage or hurkylls (or both) are excellent against that turn 1 lodestone or tinker/bsc.  Cute deck, but overall I think you have too much recursion and not enough ways to abuse it.  I think 3 reclaim and 1 regrowth gets cut, twincast and the gush/bond gets cut, and you add in hurkylls, sabotage, 1-2 flusterstorm, 1-2 mindbreak traps, and 3 noxious revival (always a nice card)

[BlackVise]

You're both right, Noxious Revival IS better than Reclaim. I'd just somehow missed it - I'll put it in now!

I understand your points about Twincast and Fastbond/Gush, but so far my testing is proving otherwise, especially with Fastbond/Gush.

Thanks for the responses!

[Daenyth]

Have you tested against dredge? I might diversify the yard hate a little. Mabye 2 Crypt, 1 Pithing Needle? Needle can come in against a lot of decks (including stax)

[BlackVise]

I have, and it's definitely a bad matchup for this deck; I'll try cutting 1 Tormod's Crypt and adding a Pithing Needle, and perhaps even an extra needle and maybe cutting one of the Stax hate cards - Energy Flux seems a good candidate for cutting as it's got the highest mana cost out of my Stax hate, but then it has perhaps the best effect out of all the cards. Trygon Predator is just as expensive to cast, though, but provides a beater as well as artifact removal.

[Shax]

To be honest I would go the U/R Landstill route against Dredge. Just autoscoop.

Your a control deck.. but you don't run Null Rod? I can understand being able to use Regrowth for brokeness, but is it worth losing Red for artifact and creature hate, blue hate (pyroblast) that U/R Landstill has access too? Trygon Predator is cool and all, but I don't think Landstill is the deck for it. Your running Tinker without Tutors, so that does not seem like a 'optimal' idea.

[BlackVise]

To be honest I would go the U/R Landstill route against Dredge. Just autoscoop.

Your a control deck.. but you don't run Null Rod? I can understand being able to use Regrowth for brokeness, but is it worth losing Red for artifact and creature hate, blue hate (pyroblast) that U/R Landstill has access too? Trygon Predator is cool and all, but I don't think Landstill is the deck for it. Your running Tinker without Tutors, so that does not seem like a 'optimal' idea.

Null Rod just doesn't seem a necessity in this deck, especially as I'm running no other mana disruption - if I were running Crucible and Strip Mine/Wasteland then it would be an auto include, but it doesn't seem worth it in this list.

Creature hate is something that this deck feels like it's missing to a certain extent, but it's not yet been a problem. I agree it could be something that needs addressing though.

Artifact hate hasn't been much of an issue yet, but I'm starting to feel that Trygon Predator could be replaced by more Steel Sabotages.

As for Tinker and tutors - I'm running Mystical Tutor, plus a very reliable draw engine that is able to draw into Mystical Tutor or Tinker quite easily. However, you do raise a good point, as just drawing into a card isn't always the most reliable way to get it, so I'll try adding Personal Tutor to the list.

Again, thanks for the replies!

[Qube]

You know that if you have a Standstill in play and your opponent is playing a spell and you cast Noxious Revival in response, the Standstill will trigger again and your opponent is drawing three cards.

Rule for Standstill:

It only works once. If someone casts another spell after it triggers, but before that trigger resolves, then it will trigger again. The first time one of these triggers resolves, it will be sacrificed for the full effect. Any additional triggers on the stack will do nothing when they resolve because you will be unable to sacrifice it additional times.

So it would look like this:

Bottom of stack
Opponent is casting a spell
Standstill triggers
You cast Noxious Revival
Standstill triggers
Top of stack

So I don't know if this is such a good combination. But if you just play it for EOT-actions then it will be fine.

Regards

[ilpeggiore]

Your manabase is toooo abundant, the forest is quite useless and not having stripmine is a Huge loss ( with a noxius it's possible to strip a couple of time a screwed opponent and win. Don't Know if sol ring is worth playing,

Ninja is broken with snapcaster but is really bad w/o. So i'll play the forth mage before ninja. Chian of vapor / jace can replace ninja.
Ponder is so good in this deck ? I'll cut it.

The Gush engine is overkill, the twincast is simply worst than every other protection but I know you'll try it so....

I think you are really light on protection : vs artifact you have a lot of cards you don't want too see and only 4x force and 1 echoing to remove a 5/3.


Mana Base:      22
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Sol Ring
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Strip Mine
3x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
4x Tropical Island

Creatures:          5
1x Blightsteel Colossus
4x Snapcaster Mage

Disruption:         11
4x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
1/3x Spell Pierce
2/0x Flusterstorm

Card Draw/Tutor: 8/10
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Merchant scroll
0/2 x Ponder / Personal tutor / arcane denial
4x Standstill

Utility:               4
3x Noxious Revival
1x Regrowth

Board Control:     4/5
1x Echoing Truth
1x Hurkyll recall
1x Steel sabotage
1x Chain of vapors
0/1x Twincast / steel sabotage / arcane denial

Brokenness:        4
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Time Walk
1x Tinker

Why arcane denial ? It's a bad counter but combined with noxiuos is a good draw engine.LOL

[BlackVise]

You know that if you have a Standstill in play and your opponent is playing a spell and you cast Noxious Revival in response, the Standstill will trigger again and your opponent is drawing three cards.

Rule for Standstill:

It only works once. If someone casts another spell after it triggers, but before that trigger resolves, then it will trigger again. The first time one of these triggers resolves, it will be sacrificed for the full effect. Any additional triggers on the stack will do nothing when they resolve because you will be unable to sacrifice it additional times.

So it would look like this:

Bottom of stack
Opponent is casting a spell
Standstill triggers
You cast Noxious Revival
Standstill triggers
Top of stack

So I don't know if this is such a good combination. But if you just play it for EOT-actions then it will be fine.

Regards

Ah, I had wondered about that! I've only been using Noxious Revival for EOT shenanigans. Thanks for clarifying it for me!

ilpeggiore - the Forest has actually proved extremely useful in matchups where my opponent is running Wasteland. You're right that I've not got a huge amount of removal for dealing with artifacts, but between 3 Spell Pierce, 4 Force of Will, 1 Echoing Truth, and 2 Jace, the first round is survivable if you play carefully. Games 2 and 3 the sideboard allows me to throw a lot of hate at them, and in testing it's proved to be successful.

My most recent changes to the list are:

Main Deck:
-1 Twincast
+1 Personal Tutor

Sideboard:
-1 Tormod's Crypt
-3 Trygon Predator
+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Steel Sabotage

Again, thanks for the replies!