A few weeks ago I did a then-rundown of all the decks I had played so far in Premodern weekly Leagues this season, since winning the last Championship with Elves. The least impressive (at the time) was a traditional LandStill deck. There's nothing "wrong" with LandStill in the abstract, other than it falls on the wrong side of what I believe to be Premodern's fundamental question as a format.

What is Premodern's "fundamental question"?

Are you...

• A deck that can play Tsabo's Web?
• Or a deck that is destroyed by it?

As Premodern is a non-rotating format, Tsabo's Web has, by definition, been legal since the beginning. But the various ban-driven evolutions that have arisen over the years helped to define a new metagaming paradigm.

There is no clearer representation of Tsabo's Web's defining identity than in the card's secondary market price.

For me, I've bought a lot of Tsabo's Webs here on Cool Stuff for a lot of prices. But at least a couple for under $2.50...

Whereas my more recent Tsabo's Webs have come in at $15 or so. (Tsabo's Web is sold out at the time of this writing).

What gives? Tsabo's Web is a colorless card that can, almost by definition, be played in any deck (any deck that is not destroyed by it, that is).

When I failed with traditional LandStill some weeks back, I took an unintentional draw at the hands of one of Premodern's strongest players: Dave Kaplan. Dave was of course on his signature deck he used to win the prestigious Sacred Torch Showdown: Mono-Blue Dreadnought.

In the past, many Mono-Blue Dreadnought decks used Mishra's Factory as an alternate way to deal 20 damage; but with the banning of Parallax Tide, almost no one does that any more. Guess what deck with only basic Islands in mana base also loves cantrips? All of a sudden, the strongest deck - not just "any" deck - has become a Tsabo's Web deck, too.

In our match, Dave had drawn both his sideboard Webs in his opening hand. It's not that I could never answer them... but I'd need to use valuable interaction like Annul, Disenchant, or Powder Keg that are also Cadillacs against Phyrexian Dreadnought itself. Even if I were "successful" in destroying the Web, I'd be down a card given any such interaction. Worse, my lands like Thawing Glaciers or Faerie Conclave might never untap, which would slow down my development and ability to react cost-effectively.

The various victims of Tsabo's Web tend to have different answers to it; some of which don't concede too much card advantage. TerraGeddon has Mox Diamond as a dump for non-basic lands, and Weathered Wayfarer as a parity-breaker, even through the Web; Wasteland, for instance, never has to untap to prove accomplishment. The Rock's Treetop Villages might never untap normally, but Tsabo's Web is just another cheap two-mana permanent that will get caught up in the next Pernicious Deed activation.

LandStill as a strategy is almost uniquely bad against Tsabo's Web. Imagine a situation where LandStill plays a Faerie Conclave and any other land (or an Island and a Mishra's Factory) to deploy Standstill on turn two. In most situations, LandStill will start out the game smiling. What are they going to do, break the Standstill?

But sure: What if they break the Standstill with specifically Tsabo's Web? The cantrip nature of the two-mana artifact will shave one of Standstill's three cards off just to begin with. The other two are necessary just to stay even with as many as both lands not untapping next turn. Any such creature lands become non-cards until Tsabo's Web leaves the battlefield (which would presumably require some assistance). This is bad enough on its own, but expensive cards like Decree of Justice simply won't get played. You can't even do the micro-cycles if they require you to tap a creature land later.

So instead of just being good - or even "destroying" the Azorius player as it often does - against LandStill, Tsabo's Web undermines their whole strategy and undoes the sacrifices and synergies of their very card selection while mingling real and virtual card advantage.

Given how closely the words "Blue/White Control" feel synonymous with "LandStill" in Premodern, historically, it is odd that some of the deck that best flip this Tsabo's Web paradigm are themselves Blue/White Control decks.

Consider:

Blue/White Control | Premodern | Aetavrenz, Challenge Winner

• Creatures (3)
• 3 Exalted Angel

• Instants (21)
• 1 Disenchant
• 2 Impulse
• 3 Fact or Fiction
• 3 Mana Leak
• 4 Accumulated Knowledge
• 4 Counterspell
• 4 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (5)
• 2 Wrath of God
• 3 Decree of Justice

• Artifacts (7)
• 2 Phyrexian Furnace
• 2 Tsabo's Web
• 3 Powder Keg

• Lands (24)
• 8 Island
• 4 Plains
• 1 Skycloud Expanse
• 3 Coastal Tower
• 4 Adarkar Wastes
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Brain Freeze
• 2 Circle of Protection: Red
• 2 Cleansing Meditation
• 2 Hydroblast
• 3 Meddling Mage
• 2 Rain of Blades
• 2 Warmth

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This Challenge winner by Aetavrenz just imagines what a regular Blue/White deck would look like if you simply weren't trying to specifically win with creature lands. It still has Decree of Justice as the big finisher, but just commits some spell slots to Exalted Angel to win instead. I think we can collectively agree Exalted Angel is a pretty good potential winner.

If you're not again specifically trying to win with lands you might play Accumulated Knowledge instead of Standstill. Accumulated Knowledge is a better card generally, doesn't accidentally give opponents with Treetop Village or Dust Bowl extra super powers, and makes some two landers look like likely wins instead of likely losses.

Of course you also get Tsabo's Web access.

Is the Aetavrenz deck "worse" than LandStill?

It doesn't get some of the potential free wins, but it is also less exploitable. Exalted Angel turns on opposing Swords to Plowshares... but can also run away with games. Like, what is a Mono-Green StOmPy or BEEFCAKE deck supposed to do about an effectively unblockable eight life swing per turn?

To the tune of being less exploitable, have you seen Sam Black's take on Blue/White?

Gush-Tithe | Premodern | Sam Black, Premodern Tucker Cycle: Fall Winner

• Instants (23)
• 1 Abolish
• 1 Absorb
• 1 Intuition
• 3 Abeyance
• 3 Fact or Fiction
• 3 Gush
• 3 Tithe
• 4 Foil
• 4 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Decree of Justice
• 1 Deep Analysis
• 2 Armageddon
• 2 Wrath of God
• 3 Gaea's Blessing

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Scroll Rack
• 1 Tsabo's Web
• 4 Mox Diamond

• Lands (22)
• 8 Island
• 8 Plains
• 2 Treva's Ruins
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Aura of Silence
• 2 Deep Analysis
• 1 Disenchant
• 1 Library of Leng
• 1 Masticore
• 4 Meddling Mage
• 1 Tormod's Crypt
• 1 Warmth
• 1 Zuran Orb

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This is technically a Blue/White (or I guess Bant) Control deck... But it doesn't play a lot of cards you would assume to be present. Not just no Standstill: No enchantments at all. Sam's thought? People play cards that interact with enchantments. Let's strand those cards in their hands the same way we do creature kill.

Not just no Standstill. No Counterspell! No actual - Counter target spell. Yes, this deck can counter spells. But it does so with Foil and Absorb (and sometimes Abeyance). Foil might look like a head-scratcher at first but this is a Gush deck. You can pay for Foil. This is a Gush-Tithe deck. Paying for Foil might make your next Tithe even more card advantageous.

Absorb might be the bigger head-scratcher. Why play the expensive three-mana Counterspell when we don't play the default two-mana one? Sam is actually playing Absorb to gain life. It's his "Exalted Angel" which he gets to "attack" with over-and-over again due to Gaea's Blessing.

The trick to this deck is you don't really want to cast Gaea's Blessing. You can. Sam deigned to give the deck Wasteland targets (that also set up Tithe) in Treva's Ruins. The Mox Diamonds that make both Tithe and Armageddon so good here do enchantment-dodging mischief with Gaea's Blessing also.

But really it's just Fact or Fiction. Your opponent might think they are all clever. "I'm ready to Counter your Gaea's Blessing," the theoretically clever opponent thinks... Never suspecting they also have to stop every FoF. Scroll Rack does work in this department of course.

All these cards - Mox Diamond, Scroll Rack, Gush, Tithe, and Gaea's Blessing - make each other better, and better at the one thing Sam Black is mostly interested in: Casting the most Swords to Plowshares of anyone in the room.

Again we see a Blue/White deck with Tsabo's Web. Not too many Webs, but enough to make Sam's deck an obvious challenge against something like traditional LandStill. to be fair I'd guess Aetavrenz is a favorite against LandStill (quasi-mirror but with a mirror-breaker); and Sam's deck is a favorite against Aetavrenz, but also LandStill to a lesser extent.

The end results are somewhat different, or potentially very different, ways to cast Blue and White cards in Premodern. You can get a lot of the same experience as LandStill mages from ancient days. But instead of being one of them, destroyed by Tsabo's Web... With only one or two copies, it may be you doing the destroying.

LOVE

MIKE