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Evolution of Landstill and SCG Nashville Report (10th)

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Introduction

While I was away, I was still working on developing my stream-lined control deck. I had tested about six different decks but eventually settled on using Landstill, as it was something I was familiar with, and was really the only shell to perform the way I had wanted it to.

Since the Grand Prix, there has been a large debate over which direction is optimal for Landstill. There is one camp that likes the strength of the bombs that the U/W/x builds provide for, (such as Elspeth, Moat and Decree of Justice) and then there is another camp that wants the power of Pernicious Deed. I tested with the U/b/g lists extensively and even tried a lot of variations on these builds, but never got to a place that really made me happy.

It wasn't just that I wanted access to the white bombs, but Swords to Plowshares is everything you could really ask for in a removal spell. The U/b/g lists only offered me choices that I wasn't too fond of for removal in the 1cc slot: Ghastly Demise and Innocent Blood.

Swords, Innocent Blood and Ghastly Demise all have pros and cons. Well, except Ghastly Demise, it mostly has cons, so let's start by discussing that one. Ghastly Demise is an instant, which gives it a bit of an edge over Innocent Blood, and puts it on par with Swords to Plowshares. However, it has two restrictions on what creatures it can hit. The first restriction being non-black, which generally isn't a problem considering that only a handful of black creatures even see the light of day in Legacy. The bigger concern with Ghastly Demise is its inability to destroy a creature (specifically a two power creature) on turn one without a fetchland. I'm sure that a lot of people will argue the validity of this argument, as Ghastly Demise is often able to kill most any creature in the format after turn three, but one-mana removal spells are generally used for the first three plays an opponent may have.

The big whammy that compounds the second drawback is the fact that you won't be able to kill a creature at end of turn and then untap into a Standstill. This same issue is also true with Innocent Blood's sorcery speed drawback, which makes these cards each lose serious points in my boo, but, Innocent Blood is a bit better because its drawback can also be a benefit. I'm not even talking about the symmetrical effect that it produces, but rather, the fact that the opponent gets to choose which creature to sacrifice rather than targeting one. This means that Innocent Blood can hit creatures like Nimble Mongoose, Inkwell Leviathan and Empyrial Archangel, but none of those cards have been serious metagame contenders in some time. Thankfully, Legacy is a format where people generally don't put too many creatures onto the table, so when you're forced to take the opponent's worst creature, as Innocent Blood will always do, you're going to either get their only creature or a pretty good one. Swords does it all. It kills any creature at any time and exiles it, so it most likely won't be coming back, and can do it at end of turn so I can follow it up with a Standstill on my turn. Enough on the removal suite, though.

Considering the splash at large again, it's my opinion that Cunning Wish is essential for any non-Counterbalance based control deck. The most common wish targets for me are all white: Enlightened Tutor, Pulse of the Fields and Path to Exile. Path to Exile is the only one that black can really replace, and moving away from all of the cards that I wanted to Enlightened Tutor for  are obviously made that less desirable. What about Pulse of the Fields? There was just no replacing it, and the U/b/g lists were already far weaker then non-Merfolk aggro decks. There was also the issue of losing Ethersworn Cannonist, which can ruin combo unassisted. However, the biggest loss of all these things was going to be Peacekeeper.

Rich Shay talked about Peacekeeper on Star City September 16th, and I discussed it the following week. While I don't know the guy, I'm guessing we've both known about it for a good deal longer than that. I had tested the card prior to the Grand Prix with some really interesting results, but the metagame wasn't prime for Peacekeeper to come on the scene just yet. Using the U/b/g list was going to make playing her a lot more difficult, and that is what finally tipped the scales in favor of a solid U/W base list.

Metagaming the Deck

Coming into Nashville I knew a couple of things were positively going to be true.

  1. There was going to be a lot of Merfolk.
  2. There was also going to be a lot of Vengevine Survival.

Merfolk

Merfolk has been Landstill's weak spot since shortly after the deck exploded last year, and since then a lot of great players have been driven away by what is now the format's more common deck. Optimizing board plans against Merfolk without wrecking match-ups against most other decks has been a delicate balancing act. However, this time I was ready to just buckle and play a number of cards in my board that had the sole purpose of hosing Merfolk: Peacekeeper. Theoretically, Peacekeeper is amazing because only eight total cards in Merfolk's entire deck can counter her, four if you play around Daze. Merfolk decks stopped running bounce in the sideboard ages ago, which means that there was literally no way out. Testing on this proved to be 100% correct as well. Merfolk is nearly always bringing in cards that in no way combat Peacekeeper, such as Spell Pierce and Kira, Great Glass Spinner, and they are often taking out Daze on the draw. I really want to thank Gerry Thompson and Luis-Scott Vargas for talking casually about how they don't like Daze on the draw with Reanimator, as it has caused Merfolk players to missideboard ever since. Merfolk was pretty much in hand, post board and with some of the best testing results we have ever had.

However, the issue wasn't with the sideboard tech, it was with game one against Merfolk. Late into the development of the deck, I nearly cracked and went back to an older version of the deck featuring a four-color mana base that really stretched for Pernicious Deed. Deed is so attractive against Merfolk because not only does it kill all of their guys but it takes Æther Vial along with it. Considering they have mostly cut the usage of Stifle, it seemed like Deed was going to be prime - so I decided to make the leap and play Pernicious Deed and wreck my mana for two copies of it. In retrospect, I probably should have tested with Nevinyrral's Disk in this slot, but it was a change made so late that I just had enough time to test it out and either commit to it or emergency change to something else. Even with the sloppiest mana base I've played in a long time, it was working, so we ran with it.

Vengevine Survival

It's generally my opinion that before you start figuring out how to beat a deck, especially a new one, you should really pilot it, get a feel for what it's strengths and weaknesses are and then you can better think of how to combat it. This was something I had done quite a bit previously with Merfolk, I understood how it worked and that is why it was so frustrating when I was trying to beat it and just couldn't. Maybe that’s why I started testing with Vengevine Survival, as I knew it was going to be a big metagame contender in Nashville. I played with a U/G build exchanging Stifle and a Trygon Predator for a set of Brainstorm to add consistency to the combo. However, as I was testing it there was an issue – no one was beating me, no one at all.

I was starting to get distressed over this because I didn't want to play this deck, I wanted people to give me additional insights on how to beat it. The observations that I was making were that it was a bit slower than I expected (something that the Hatfields and others have attempted to rectify), and was a pretty sup-optimal aggro-deck without Survival of the Fittest. The interesting part was that most decks in the gauntlet still couldn't beat the U/G madness plan, which was somewhat embarrassing to consider that so many decks in the format are so weak to underpowered 3/3s, but you take wins however you can get them.

I knew I wasn't going to have any trouble with a sub-par aggro deck, as  I've fought against them for years, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to get blown out by the combo aspect of the deck. I added in a 5th Counterspell in the form of Spell Snare. If you're expecting a field that is really heavy with Vengevine Survival you may want to try out a 3/3 split on Counterspell and Spell Snare. I also knew that Extirpate was very strong against the deck, as multiple Vengevine triggers are really the only thing that deck has to offer that frightens me, so I added in a second copy of Extirpate to the board to have one to board in and then one to Wish for. Had I had a bit more time, I'd have liked to find something more versatile for the second Extirpate to be, but it worked fine for what I wanted it for in that event.

When we finally sat down to test the Landstill vs. Vengevine Survival match, we had some pretty low expectations. When the first set of game one testing came out slightly favorably I thought it was a fluke and insisted that we do even more. When even more testing revealed that we weren't too far off, I was satisfied. Then we did post board games in which Peacekeeper was amazing. The stock lists couldn't do anything and even when given access to an answer they were left with a really tight space to fight with anemic draw and counter packages. Things were looking good:

Getting There

The trip to Nashville was 8 hours for us, a bunch of things happened on the car ride down and then we got to the site where it became evident that I was one Peacekeeper short of where I thought I was. We scrambled around trying to trade for one at the last minute. Predictably, no one that any of us asked had even heard of the card, or on the off chance that they had, had any. Just as I had given up hope a friend of mine sent out the signal that he had just traded for one. Now that we had the final Peacekeeper, sleep would come easily.

We get to the event with far less time than anyone was comfortable with, signed up, and then this happened:

Round 1 – MBC

Game 1: I lose the roll and my opponent starts off strong with a mulligan to six. A Thoughtseize takes a piece of counter magic as I draw into Jace. On his second turn he plays Dark Ritual into Nevinyrral's Disk, which I'm not all that concerned about. Neither of us have another play until I land Jace on 4 and Jace away his threats all the way to 13 counters.

Sideboarding: -1 Moat +1 Path to Exile. All of his creatures fly so Path just seems a bit stronger here.

Game 2: Neither of us have a turn one play but he has Hymn to Tourach on two which gets a Counterspell and Underground Sea. My Standstill on my second turn is broken by Vampire Nighthawk who is quickly Plowed, and I discard a Pernicious Deed at my cleanup step. I quickly land a Jace which is Pithing Needled, I play an Elspeth who is also Needled in a timely fashion. When he attempts a Shrikemaw, I Counterspell it. Meanwhile, a pair of Factories, along with my Soldier token from Elspeth, start to tick away at his life total. He finds a Tombstalker which is Pathed in the same end step that I chain a Fact or Fiction into another Fact or Fiction and the damage finally chips away at him.

1-0

(2-0)

Round 2 – Mono Red Goblins

Game 1: My opponent keeps a hand of Mountain > Æther Vial after winning the die roll. I play Engineered Explosives at one on my turn. He misses his play on turn two and I detonate my EE to take out his Vial. I play Fact or Fiction on turn four with very little resistance from him and Elspeth on five. I need to counter a Goblin Sharpshooter to keep my soldier tokens relevant and after that he really he starts to get back into the game a bit, but my hand is far too well developed for him to pull out a win without Vial. Elspeth goes to ultimate and he packs it in for game two.

Sideboarding: -1 Spell Snare +1 Path to Exile. You can't bring in Peacekeeper against Goblins or Zoo because they have too much removal, if you can Extirpate him, you can learn 100% if it is safe to bring them in for game 3.

Game 2: He mulligans into a fair hand of turn one Goblin Lackey, I don't have the plow. On turn two he puts in Goblin Matron from the trigger and plays a Wasteland. He plays Warchief on 3 and I decided not to counter it but rather try to set up Cunning Wish for Enlightened Tutor For Moat and save the Force of the long game. The long game never comes, though, because my opponent has drawn three Wastelands, which is exactly enough to keep me off Moat mana for the duration of the game.

My opponent has kept in Goblin Sharpshooter, which means that I won't be able to bring in Peacekeeper. I knew that I wanted to try to Extirpate him to see if he boarded out Incinerators and the Sharpshooter, but just having the Sharpshooter is enough to keep Peacekeeper tucked away in the board.

Game 3: I open a hand with Moat, three lands and a Brainstorm, even a Force of Will to keep everything tidy. The details are a bit hazy but my notes read “Moat on 4, Force Seige-Gang Commander on five” followed by two instances of “Play Decree of Justice” so apparently I flew over the Moat with a bunch of Angels. I remember countering a second Siege-Gang Commander and having him say that he had a third, but his life total ended at 16 so I probably attacked with four angels.

2-0

(4-1)

Round 3 – U/G Madness

Game 1: He win the die roll and opens up fast with Noble Hirearch on one and Survival on two. He is using Elvish Spirit Guides in multiples which is really unexpected. I have a chance to win this but decide that misplaying my Cunning Wish is a way better idea, he makes the correct play and puts some of his Vengevines into play in response and I can't hope to come back in time.

Sideboarding: +3 Peacekeeper, +1 Extirpate, -1 Elspeth, Knight Errant, -1 Moat -2 Decree of Justice. This is what I've been waiting for, victim number one for Peacekeeper!

Game 2: My opponent sideboards in three cards. Guess how many obviously differently colored sleeves are in his deck. He gets a game loss, but not before deciding that he wants to be the worst opponent anyone could play against that day.

Game 3: We open up with him calling the judge to get me a game loss. I explain how my opponent is fishing for a win, then the judge honors his request to a limited extent. However he then decides that my opponent is, in fact, fishing for a win. I have a hand with Peacekeeper on three with Force backup. This seems good, especially considering that I have two basics to pair it with. He starts off very fast again and I'm actually concerned that if I wait to play around Daze that I'll lose on his turn four, so I go for Peacekeeper on turn three. He has the Daze and two more cards in his hand. I have to Force the Daze and hope his last two cards are neither Force plus a card nor another Daze and, thankfully, they are none of these cards. At this point my opponent decides that the best way to win is to attempt slow-playing for 25 minutes, a short judge call later he is playing at a reasonable pace, I draw Jace the Mindsculptor and end the round.

We make up at the end of the day when I congratulate him on his finish, so there are no hard feelings.

3-0

(6-2)

Round 4 – U/G Madness

Game 1: For the fourth round in a row, I lose the die roll. He establishes a very quick Survival and has Shield Sphere to enable a quick pair of Vengevines, I can't really hope to beat it and we move on to game two.

Sideboarding: +3 Peacekeeper, +1 Extirpate, -1 Elspeth, Knight Errant, -1 Moat -2 Decree of Justice. It worked last time, let's see if I can do it twice.

Game 2: I open up a hand with an Extirpate and am able to grab Vengevine early. My opponent has brought in the Natural Order board plan and has cut down to only a pair of Vengevine. It's interesting to bring in Natural Order against a control deck because it's generally a weak plan, but it probably would have caught me off guard had I not been aware that it was a possibility. I land a Peacekeeper on four after seeing that his hand was Survival of the Fittest, Spell Pierce and Natural Order off the Extirpate and that his library contained no answers to it. He stuck in the game for a few turns and eventually decided to pack it in and advance to game three, but not before he does some additional sideboarding.

Game 3: My opponent is forced to double mulligan and keeps a poor hand, I eventually Extirpate something, I didn't even note what it was. His hand was Natural Order, Waterfront Bouncer, Survival of the Fittest, Wonder, Vengevine with only Tropical and Wasteland as mana. Earlier he had two other Wastelands available to him, but decided to aggressively Wasteland me. In return I stripped away a Tropical Island of his and played Crucible of Worlds. I land a Jace without the protection of Peacekeeper and Jace him off of lands, simply countering his threats and that was all there was.

Matthew, the name of my opponent this round, was a really great guy to talk with, which was a relief after the previous round. Thanks for being pleasant even while losing, playing against you was a pleasure, regardless of which way it went.

4-0

(8-3)

Round 5 – Team America

This was the Feature Match.

I'll only make a couple of notes on this.

Game 1: I lose yet another die roll and then I didn't see anything after my opening seven. Watching how well he draws is sort of upsetting.

Sideboarding: -1 Engineered Explosives +1 Path to Exile. You saw how bad EE is against Tombstalker if you watched the coverage.

Game 2: He is obviously mana screwed, which is great. He considers conceding in response to Extirpate, which he probably should have. I scope out his deck to see if he has any answers for Peacekeeper any longer, he doesn't. He concedes once Jace comes down.

Sideboarding: -1 Moat -1 Decree of Justice -1 Elspeth, Knight Errant, +3 Peacekeeper. You can't Krosan Grip these!

Game 3: The only time Dispel comes up in our entire match, and it’s huge. He has to take Peacekeeper because he only has Jaces as an answer to it. He ends up drawing really well, which I think you can see in the video. I stop drawing cards that do anything.

4-1

(9-4)

Round 6 – Canadian Threshold

Game 1: I lose yet another die roll, doing pretty well on that front. He opens up with Nimble Mongoose, and once I see Volcanic Island join the fray I grimace. While Canadian Threshold is a terrible match for me, apparently no one gave Ben Weinburg the memo about that deck being dead. He goes on to top 8 and I have now played against the two tempo decks in the entire room. What luck.

Sideboarding: -1 Cunning Wish +1 Path to Exile

Game 2: I let myself get defeated and keep a sub-par hand, I could have played better but the agony of seeing Nimble Mongoose paired with burn is just too much for me to handle at that point. I couldn't target that guy, not at all.

4-2

(9-6)

Round 7 – Enchantress

The good news is, one of my friends was doing fairly well: in fact he was doing exactly as well as I was. The bad news is, we had to play it out.

Game 1: I win my first die roll of the day. He keeps a slow hand that I'm able to punish. I play Standstill on two and don't have a counter for whatever he breaks it with, thankfully its only Sterling Grove and I'm able to counter his Enchantress's Presence and quickly get Jace in on turn four. I counter the first Oblivion Rings that aims for Jace, but the second gets him. After I EE away one Oblivion Ring, Replenish undoes all that work, this time hitting Elspeth too. Deed shows up and clears his side of the table while my planeswalkers come back to play. Elspeth helps me end game one as Jace sits back and draws cards.

Sideboarding: +2 Ethesworn Cannonist, +2 Negate, +1 Extirpate, -4 Swords to Plowshares, -1 Moat. Jeremy, my opponent, is very familiar with Ethersworn Cannonist, as he has to play against it just about every week. He hates that card.

Game 2: I start with a pair of Negates, Tundra, Savannah. I'm worried about the amount of hate that is coming in, but this hand can probably take it. He leads with Carpet of Flowers and is shocked when my turn one play is Savannah, he plays a second land and passes. I play my Tundra and Negate his Enchantress's Presence. He builds up an army of Forests and I wasteland his non-Carpet of Flowers mana source. I'm hesitant to play a second Island, which will enable Force of Will and Counterspell in my hand, but will give him double white mana for nasties such as Sigil of the Empty Throne and Sacred Mesa. Eventually I submit to the urge and he plays a Moat which means the Ethersworn Cannonist I topdeck isn't going to get the job done, but I play her anyway. Now he really has to kill her before he can hope to resolve a relevant card. I get a Jace into play on the next turn and then Engineered Explosives his Carpet of Flowers away. With his mana stymied, I'm able to Jace away white sources. At the end of the game he shows me his hand, which is all of the white cards I dreaded.

Round 8 – B/g Dark Depths.

I figure I've broken my streak of losing rolls and feel pretty confident that I'm going to be able to do this. I promptly lose the roll.

Game 1: My opponent opens on the play, Verdant Catacombs, go. I play a Flooded Strand. His second land is Dark Depths which is alarming, and then he passes the turn. I play a Standstill on two and he misses his second [real] land drop. I'm able to get a couple of attacks in with Mishra's Factory and he eventually breaks the Standstill with Hymn to Tourach, which takes Cunning Wish and Force of Will. He starts drawing lands like a champ and we have a real game on our hands. The pinnacle of it is when he finally locates a Vampire Hexmage, because he has a single Wasteland and I have a pair of them. I actually make a pretty dangerous misplay and go for an end-of-turn Fact or Fiction, leaving a pair of Tundras up rather than two Wastelands. He Wastelands my Wasteland, which targets his Dark Depths, he sacrifices Vampire Hexmage and gets Marit Laige on the battlefield. My Fact or Fiction is really strong, and has Jace, but no Plow. He gives me a 4-1 pile with Jace on one side and 3 counters and a Cunning Wish on the other. Having the second Jace in my hand, I decide that it would be wise to draw four cards. I untap play my Jace and Mairt Lage goes back to his hand. This turns into a four-for-one, so maybe some misplays aren't that bad after all.

Sideboarding: -1 Cunning Wish +1 Path to Exile. I've seen Hexmage and Goyf, so Moat is fine to stay in. I don't know what he has in the way of removal so I hold back on Peacekeeper.

Game 2: Interesting and long, so I'll give you the short of it. My opponent Legend-rules his own Urborg and Dark Depths in this game to enable Tombstalkers. I am forced to Plow a Marit Lage and end up using Decree of Justice tokens and Factories to battle him down from 45 life. He commented on how it was the longest match of his day. Not even close for me, though.

I had a slim chance at top 8.  None of the 6-2's made it in, so it was so close, yet so far. I was able to cover my trip and even made a new friend in round three, so overall, everything worked out in the end.

Conclusions from Nashville

My placement wasn’t as well as I had obviously wanted, but it was a placement that I was pleased with. The deck performed in all of the matches that I had intended for it to and it is satisfying to see that work pay off. My friend played the same 76 card list that I did in the event and overall, we were very happy with it. The matches that we were aiming for were a bulls-eye and the splash damage from Peacekeeper is pretty far-reaching.

However, coming back into my local metagame, things are as hostile toward control as ever. Playing in Nashville was actually easy on several levels, because no one was familiar with the list. That unfamiliarity the opponets have allows you a lot of opportunity to outplay the opponent. When everyone knows basically what deck you’re playing, what its weaknesses are and how well that player normally does, you are inclined to metagame against them. Which probably means its time for me to back off on Landstill for a while and start investigating some other options.

I’m toying around with the idea of trying to make a Reanimator list work in the current metagame maybe even something that hybridizes it with Counterbalance. This idea was proposed months ago while Mystical Tutor was still legal, but why would you dilute and slow the deck? It will probably turn out that a list close to what I played prior to the Reanimator list being optimized, which was close to this:

This list is incredibly rough and is directly taken from the work I was doing nearly a year ago. I had a fair amount of success with the build because of how aggressive it was and how well it could fight through hate. This will probably be close to my starting point for working with the deck again. The Putrid Imp and Cabal Therapy package seems clunky on paper but in execution works quite well, for my taste. However, the current metagame may be one that warrants a slower approach centered around Thoughtseize, but probably not Personal Tutor. One of the attractive qualities to the deck is the fact that it is black, which gives you access to the graveyard hate that really punishes U/G Survival Madness, which is a deck I really want to discuss.

U/G Madness and its mono green and G/W counterparts have firmly positioned themselves as top tier decks now. There is a lot of talk about the power level of Survival of the Fittest right now, possibly even the card being too powerful for the format. Not only is there the strict Vengevine beat plan but also the Necrotic Ooze combo (Triskelion and Phyrexian Devourer in graveyard, Ooze in play) and that’s on top of the previously established combos that the deck enables. I want to say that everyone should just hold the presses. Let’s wait on banning it at least until March. Why? Let me explain:

As we know, Legacy has few large events. With such a huge number of competitive decks it’s a fairly slow process for a deck to designate itself as a deck to beat, even if the numbers are there. What we currently have is recognition that this deck isn’t quite the joke that everyone wrote it off as, but rather, a real metagame contender that deserves attention. This means we should be seeing more Spell Snares and a heavier shift toward decks in black with access to Thoughtseize, Duress and most importantly, Extirpate. If people are going to remain stagnant and unwilling to shift their approach to the game to beat this deck, then they deserve to lose to it. I want to see how well the deck does when people build decks and sideboards with it in mind. If Survival of the Fittest is banned in December then there will simply be no time for the format to adjust to what was widely considered a fluke. This isn’t even to mention how upsetting it will be to see one of the flagship cards of Legacy gone. Of course, we could always try unbanning Land Tax or any number of other cards to try to draw attractiveness away from Survival engines, but that is probably all wishful thinking.

Conclusion Conclusion

That about wraps up what I have to discuss this week. Next week I’d like to discuss some deck building pitfalls that people fall into and do an overview of what I think constitutes effective testing. I’d also like to perhaps do an overview of what the most important decks to test against for the current metagame are. Thanks for dropping by and reading.

~Christopher Walton

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