FOW Legacy – Landstill
31 Mar 2010 | Desmond Ng
On Saturday 13/3/2010, Good Games Sydney held a legacy tournament, with first place winning a set of Force of Wills. Ever since Lorwyn and Shadowmoor rotated out of standard, I have been gaining interest in the eternal formats because I find Standard to be incredibly dull. Thus I decided to take my first step onto the Legacy scene and play in my first ever legacy tournament.
First off I needed to choose a deck, and the best aspect about Legacy in my opinion is the diversity of decks available. Unfortunately my Legacy collection isn’t as big as I’d like it to be yet, so I my choices are a bit more limited for now. I settled on the ‘Landstill’ deck, as I could build the majority of it (and borrowed the rest from Justin Cheung). Here is the deck list that I ended up playing:
UWgb Landstill
Lands
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra’s Factory
2 Wasteland
1 Tolaria West
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
Creatures
1 Eternal Dragon
Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Decree of Justice
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Moat
1 Wrath of God
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Life from the Loam
1 Humility
Sideboard
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
3 Krosan Grip
1 Path to Exile
1 Misdirection
1 Trickbind
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Submerge
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Extirpate
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Pulse of the Fields
I designed this using various deck lists that had top 8 finishes in other tournaments. I normally don’t like a particular deck list that I would want to copy card for card, so I normally make adjustments depending on what I expect to be in the meta-game. So here I will explain a few of the more interesting card choices:
Eternal Dragon – A flexible win condition that helps you fix your colours, as well as being a card advantage engine. The recursion ability is quite important, as it forces the opponent to deal with it permanently. It is great as a one-off, since you will not have enough mana to support more than one and there is not too many Plains cards to fetch out.
Cunning Wish – I like having the flexibility of a Cunning Wish package, and there are a lot of problematic cards which you sometimes need an answer to deal with. It is a little slow, which is why I kept the number down to 2. Having 3 would hurt the speed of the deck too much, and it is completely pointless to only play 1.
Decree of Justice – This is one of the primary win conditions once you have a Standstill in play, since you can cycle it and create soldiers without breaking the Standstill. The aim is to use the soldiers and Mishra’s Factories to force your opponent to break your Standstill and thus giving you a huge advantage to take control of the game.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant – Another win condition and she is very powerful in combination with Humility. She also absorbs a lot of damage, since she is so hard to kill. Her abilities are also great in combination with Standstill.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor – Some older lists ran Jace Beleren, so I decided to add a one-off of the more powerful version. His abilities are very versatile, and if you have a Standstill in play he will pull you ahead immensely. Having extra Brainstorm capabilities is also nice in addition with the fetch-lands. He also doubles-up as an extra win condition, although I didn’t need to use him for that purpose.
Moat – This wasn’t necessarily an entirely serious addition. I mainly added it because I had just bought it, and simply wanted to cast it at some point. It turned out to be incredible, but if I were to play the deck again I’d probably move it into sideboard. It is still great if you expect a heavy aggro meta-game though, as it is useful against decks like Merfolk, Zoo and Natural Order – Progenitus. Although keep in mind that there are ways for these decks to deal with Moat, such as Trygon Predator, Qasali Pridemage and other enchantment removal.
Crucible of Worlds – Another card which can be seen as a win condition in combination with Mishra’s Factories. It is good to have Crucible in play along with Standstill, as you have indefinite Mishra’s Factories, and can continuously Wasteland any problematic lands. It also provides nice card advantage with fetch-lands.
Life From the Loam – I wanted an alternative to Crucible, although it probably wasn’t too necessary. I just felt I wanted an extra way to recur lands, and having a 2nd Crucible can be redundant, so I added a one-off of Life From the Loam since I was planning on having the green for Krosan Grip anyway. I am still a little unsure about it, as I was only able to cast it once (although it did net me both my Wastelands plus a fetch). I don’t think it’s entirely necessary to include it, but it does make it much easier to keep Academy Ruins in play.
Humility – This was probably the most impressive card for me the entire day. It shuts down every creature, while not being disadvantageous to my own win conditions. It does obviously make hard-casting Eternal Dragon bad, but you can use him as a recurring land-fetching engine anyway. You can also still use your Mishra’s Factories to pump an animated one. The best thing I like about it, is that it shuts down Qasali Pridemage and Trygon Predator which are supposed to be deal with enchantments.
Karakas – My own personal addition. I felt it is nice to have in place of an ordinary Plains. It is a nice answer to Gaddock Teeg, and has a nice interaction with Llawan Cephalid Empress in that you can save her or reuse her bounce ability if a Merfolk player uses Aether Vial to replay his creatures.
Llawan Cephalid Empress – I expected some Merfolk to be around, so I added Llawan as tech against it. An important thing to note is that they can still use Aether Vial to put the creatures back into play, which is why the Krosan Grips are there too. Also remember that they can no longer cast the Merfolk, meaning that Merrow Reejerey’s ability won’t trigger.
Cunning Wish Package
Finally I have a Cunning Wish package, where some of the cards were occasionally boarded in as well, e.g. Fact or Fiction was brought in against other blue decks. I tried to keep it as diverse as I could in order to give me good options against certain decks.
Diabolic Edict is for creatures that I can’t normally target, such as Progenitus, while Path to Exile deals with just about everything else.
Submerge is a nice cheap answer to Tarmogoyf, or it can serve as a nice tempo advantage when the opponent misses a land drop (especially if you can bring him down to 1 land by Wastelanding him).
Ravenous Trap is of course the graveyard hate for decks like Dredge, Reanimator and ANT (when they cast Ill-Gotten Gains).
Extirpate is an uncounterable answer to combo or reanimation strategies.
Fact or Fiction gives an option of refilling, if you happen to run out of gas.
Misdirection is there for any random single target spells as well as doubling up as an extra ‘Counterspell’ during counter wars.
Trickbind is primarily there as an answer to storm, but I was at a bit of a loss on whether I should have a Stifle or Mindbreak Trap instead. In hindsight, I’d probably just use Mindbreak Trap instead since it means I can wish for it on turn 3 instead of turn 5 for Trickbind, but at the time of building the deck I thought the flexibility of Trickbind was desirable as well as the split second making it an uncounterable answer.
Enlightened Tutor is there to give me the option of being able to dig out my Moat, Humility or Engineered Explosives if I’m getting smacked down, or dig up Standstill if I have board advantage, or dig up the Crucible of Worlds if I need to gain some land advantage. It is preferable to just wish up the Enlightened Tutor rather than having it in main deck, as it can just be a dead card sometimes.
Pulse of the Fields is for the aggro match-ups where you need some extra survivability to get out of burn range.
Krosan Grip is obviously to deal with any problematic enchantments or artifacts, such as Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Crucible of Worlds, etc. I always leave one in sideboard, so that I can wish for it in addition to being able to draw the other two copies throughout the game.
The Matches
I did not take notes for the tournament, so I apologise if this is not entirely accurate or detailed, but I just want to go through the more important parts.
Round 1 – Martin Kiss with Bant Countertop + Natural Order Progenitus
He was on the play and had a turn 1 Noble Hierarch, turn 2 Counterbalance, which I did not have the Force of Will for. I had Counterspell ready in case he tried to follow it up with Sensei’s Divining Top, but apparently he never drew one the entire game. His Counterbalance never hit anything for the entire game, which was unfortunate for him. I eventually resolve Elspeth and Jace, and he could not come back from it as I deal with his Tarmogoyfs with Swords to Plowshares.
Game 2 he had the same start with Noble Hierarch and Counterbalance, yet still no Sensei’s Divining Top. He followed it up with a Trygon Predator, which ate a Swords to Plowshares. Mid-game, I resolved a Humility and Elspeth while he only had a Noble Hierarch and a Tarmogoyf. He Natural Ordered his Noble Hierarch and dug out a nice fat 1/1 Protection from nothing Progenitus. I then bounced the Progenitus with my Karakas, which drew some “that was awkward…” type of comments. When he was searching his library for that Progenitus, he did already know that nothing he could do would save him while the Humility was still on the board, so he was a good sport for finding the situation humourous. I then pulled ahead with the Elspeth, and Jace soon joined him to lock in the match.
2-0 Games
1-0 Matches
Round 2 – Dorian Gordon (sorry if I got your name wrong) with Mono-Black
Game 1 was pretty one-sided… he was on the play with turn 2 Nantuko Shade and turn 3 Hypnotic Spectre, which promptly got Swords to Plowshared and countered. From there, he missed his 4th land drop for what seemed like an eternity, while I always had an answer to anything he played from then on. I also play a couple of Standstills, which he was forced to break immediately as I had Mishra’s Factory on the board, thus giving me a huge amount of card drawing. I eventually have Jace and Elspeth in play, with a full grip while he had no cards in hand and it was time for him to move on to the next game.
Game 2 was much closer, despite him mulling on the play. He began with Duress on the first 2 turns and then followed by a turn 3 Hymn to Tourach. I made a mistake for my turn 2 land drop, because I had a Tropical Island in play and a Scrubland in hand. I had just drawn an Island for the turn, and instinctively played the Scrubland because I have a habit of focusing on playing the cards I have revealed to my opponent via spells like Duress. I should have obviously played my Island instead, as I had a Counterspell in hand. His Hymn proceeded to hit my Counterspell and a Decree of Justice. Next turn I drew a Counterspell, and countered his 2nd Hymn to Tourach. So my mistake cost me a Decree of Justice, which would’ve made the game a lot more in favour of me instead of being so close. After a barrage of discard followed by me answering his threats and also some land destruction (Sinkhole and Wasteland), we both are run out of gas and begin playing off the top but I was still ahead by 1 land (he had 3 lands, I had 4). We trade a couple of threats for answers, and eventually I find a Standstill that he broke. My hand becomes semi-filled, and I continue to create card advantage through Eternal Dragon (cycle + recur on upkeep). I find a Humility and play it, along with Jace. Elspeth comes down not long after that, and there was no way for him to come back from it.
4-0 Games
2-0 Matches
Round 3 – Paddy Dixon with Fish
There are only 4 rounds with a cut to the top 8, and there were only 4 people on 2-0. So we chose to ID, but we played a game for fun before I went to grab some lunch. It was a pretty close game, but he won in the end.
4-0 Games
2-0-1 Matches
Round 4 – Finkel Chang with Canadian Threshold
Both of us were 2-0-1, so we ID as well to lock into the top 8. We played a couple of games for fun, and we ended up drawing at 1-1 before we decided to have a break before the top 8. The second game was won by my Moat so I was quite pleased with that, although he wasn’t too happy to see it.
4-0 Games
2-0-2 Matches
Quarterfinals – Finkel Chang with Canadian Threshold
Finkel seemed quite upset to play me, so I guess the loss to the Moat took a much bigger beating to his confidence.
He opened with a Nimble Mongoose and a Tarmogoyf that were halted in their tracks by a lone Mishra’s Factory (the Tarmogoyf was only a 2/3). On turn 4 I begin to tap out, and he pre-emptively begins to move the creatures to the graveyard expecting a Wrath of God, but it was just an Elspeth that created a Soldier token. At the end of turn, he tries to Fire/Ice to deal 1 damage to the Soldier and 1 to me, which I Force of Willed. On his turn, he thinks for a bit before deciding to Lightning Bolt the Soldier, attack Elspeth and then Lightning Bolt to finish her off. I then play my second Elspeth, which he was unable to attack through. I then resolve Humility and he wasn’t able to come back from it.
Game 2 was more of a war of attrition, and eventually we had to play off the top of our decks with nothing but lands on the board. I managed to find my Academy Ruins, which gave me Crucible of Worlds for my next draw. The Crucible gets Force of Willed (hard cast), and Finkel finds a Tarmogoyf. However, I simply used Academy Ruins to put my Engineered Explosives back on top of my library and he just extended the hand.
Semi-Finals – Graham Croucher with Fish
For the first time today I was on the play, but I also had to take my first mulligan for the day. Graham had a turn 1 Cursecatcher, followed by a turn 2 Standstill. I try to counter the Standstill, although in hindsight I didn’t really need to, but I figure that he would try to protect it, and it would be advantageous for me if he uses a Force of Will or even a Daze would be fine as it sets him back a land drop. Sure enough he Dazes my Counterspell, but I follow up with a Mishra’s Factory. He never drew a Wasteland, while the Mutavault he later played got destroyed by my Wasteland. Thus the Mishra’s Factory brought him down to 4, before he finally decides to break his own Standstill. The extra cards I got off that were enough for me to take control of the game, as I never missed a land drop for the entire game thanks to a recurring Eternal Dragon.
Game 2 he locked me out with Back to Basics after I used Wrath of God. Not much else to say there, as it was a pretty thorough beating.
Game 3 was very tight. I had to play my Moat to stop his beats that had gotten me down to around 10 life. He then plays Back to Basics, which got me cringing. I was able to dig out lands using Crucible of Worlds + fetch-lands and I saved up to play a flier. When I reached 6 mana, I decided to go for a hard cast Decree of Justice since he had Merrow Reejerey out and I didn’t want to risk him drawing a Merfolk to tap my non-basic lands. A counter war began, but due to the lack of mana on my side he ended up winning it, so I was back to my lone two basic lands. I save up again and play Llawan Cephlid Empress to bounce his creatures, but he still had an Aether Vial that allowed him to replay his Merrow Reejereys, but at least he can’t tap my lands (since he can no longer cast blue creature spells). By this point I only have one Tropical Island left in my deck, which I was going to save until I found a Krosan Grip. Unfortunately I never saw it, but I did find a Tolaria West. I had to use the Tropical Island to transmute it, but I used it to find my Wasteland and start destroying my own lands. I then replayed them using the Crucible of Worlds, but time was called (sighs at top 8 being timed) and the remaining 5 turns was not enough to find the Krosan Grip and finish it. I then lost because I was on lower life, which really sucked for me as I should’ve won that eventually with a recurring Eternal Dragon. I was also under the impression that it was going to be first life change would win but apparently that got changed to lowest life total after five turns, so there was a bit of confusion there.
General Opinions
I had a great time considering it was my first go at Legacy, and I did a lot better than I expected to. It was fun to try out a new format and was an appreciated changed from the Jund-dominated Standard format.
If I were to play again, I most likely would not play Landstill again purely because there are other decks I want to play, but I think the Landstill deck is still a very solid choice for the current legacy format. If I were to play the deck again, I’d probably cut down the colours a bit and play a build like this:
UWg Landstill
Lands
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Mishra’s Factory
2 Wasteland
1 Tolaria West
2 Plains
2 Island
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
Creatures
1 Eternal Dragon
Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Decree of Justice
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Wrath of God
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Life from the Loam
2 Humility
Sideboard
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Moat
2 Krosan Grip
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Path to Exile
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Submerge
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Hydroblast
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Wing Shards
The changes I’ve made are mostly minor, but keep in mind that these types of decks need to shift depending on the meta-game you expect. I have increased the number of basic lands by cutting the black, in order to allow the deck to more easily fight against Back to Basics and Blood Moon. For similar reasons, 1 Krosan Grip was changed to a Ray of Revelation for the times where you do not have Green as readily accessible. I increased the Humility count to 2, because I think it’s an awesome card for the current format given that most strategies use creatures as their kill condition. If you expect there to be a lot of storm decks or 43 lands, then you can reduce the number accordingly. The Wing Shards was a replacement for Diabolic Edict in order to kill creatures with protection or shroud. The board is a little light on anti-storm cards, but you adjust it if you expect a lot of storm decks.
This design is more favoured towards fighting control, so if you expect a heavy zoo meta-game you should adjust it accordingly. I would probably cut an Elspeth, Life from the Loam and Eternal Dragon, for 3 Path to Exile in that case.
The thing to keep in mind for Landstill and other similar control decks is that there is no “correct” build all the time. The idea with control is that you adjust your deck to combat against the decks that you expect to play against.
For discussion.