Vintage Landstill Deck

[Baron Sengir]

Xtreme Games in Lindenhurst, IL (Like an hour north of here) runs vintage tournaments once a month so I'm thinking of heading up there for their November 20th one. I was talking to John via AIM and I think I'm going to make a Landstill deck since I have most of the cards for it. Here is what I have for it at the moment.

ARTIFACTS
4 Null Rod
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
2 Crucible of Worlds

ENCHANTMENTS
4 Standstill

INSTANTS
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Echoing Truth
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Hurkyls Recall
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Drain
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Steel Sabotage

PLANESWALKERS
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SORCERIES
1 Time Walk

BASIC LAND
3 Island

LAND
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Flooded Strand
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Mishras Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island

SIDEBOARD
2 Yixlid Jailer
3 Energy Flux
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Firespout
2 Underground Sea

[Maraxus of Keld]

How much of that do you still not actually have?

Basic idea of the deck is good. I'm guessing you followed my advice and looked at some decklists online. You should definitely playtest it some, if not against another player then at least play out the first few turns and see how long the deck takes to get its schtick going.

My only concern is with the sideboard. It looks like half the sideboard is specifically anti-Reanimator. Leyline of the Void is obvious, and I guess Yixlid Jailer foils Dredge decks (I don't have a great grasp on those so correct me if I'm wrong). That seems like a lot to foil one or two specific deck types that you may or may not encounter, but then I suppose you have to start somewhere.

Out of curiosity, why only one of each of the fetchlands? As far as I can tell they aren't restricted. Or are you just using what you have?

[Baron Sengir]

I have all of it now actually.

Dredge is very popular in Vintage right now from what I've seen/heard and it's very fast, so against it I need a decent amount of cards to shut it down. Some other decks are Workshop decks running artifacts so that's where the Fluxs come in. The extra red are for other blue decks such as Fish - Merfolk as it's one of this decks weaknesses.

I only did one of the Fetch Lands beacuse after some testing I found it was all I needed seeing as I basically have 4 that can fetch the duals, and Crucible of Worlds helps too.

[Baron Sengir]

Actually I have all but the Black Lotus. I sold my Lotus to buy the rest of the deck I didn't have. The place I plan to go play at allows up to 10 proxies for free and up to 20 for a $1 a proxy after 10, so I'll just use the Collector's Edition Lotus until I re-buy the real thing.

[Baron Sengir]

I ended up going to the tournament yesterday at the last minute despite feeling horrible, but the deck just didn't perform like I wanted, so I'll keep its idea on the back burner. For next month though, I'll probably bring something different.

[Maraxus of Keld]

What went wrong? Maybe we can figure out how you need to adjust it.

[Baron Sengir]

Well I actually won my first game executing the deck perfectly, but after that it all went down hill. The next two games I just never had a counter when I needed it; is ultimately what it came down to. The guy was playing a green blue deck with a Dryad that got pumped every time he played a blue spell and I felt so stupid that I couldn't deal with it or at least bounce it, since I didn't have a counter at the right time for it. The first game I was able to counter it and that's probably a huge reason I won.

The second match was against a workshop/artifact deck. The first game I just kept a hand I should have mulligan, and it screwed me hard core. The second game I side boarded in energy fluxes which slowed him down hard core, and was able to drop a Standstill, but I couldn't draw a Mishra's Factory to save my life; he however, did have a factory and an Ancient Tomb out, so we were trading 2 damage every turn. But then he got out a 2nd Factory to pay for the one and he killed me off since he didn't have to take damage from the Tomb.

I think I just need to add in some extra things and tweak the deck a bit. I like the deck but I just need more practice with it I think and just need to be more patient. Only having the Factory really hampered me, partly because I'm still new to the deck, so I was thinking of a build like this at least until I get better at the meta game of vintage. Let me know what you think and suggestions.

Basic Lands:
3 Island

Lands:
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Wasteland
4 Volcanic Island

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

Artifacts:
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Crucible of Worlds

Instants:
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Flusterstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Spell Pierce
1 Brainstorm
2 Mental Misstep
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Fire/Ice
2 Mindbreak Trap
4 Force of Will

Sorceries:
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Tinker

Enchantments:
4 Standstill

Planeswalkers:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard:
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Shattering Spree
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroclasm
2 Energy Flux
2 Ravenous Trap

[Maraxus of Keld]

Wow, I like Surgical Extraction. I have a deck I'd put a few of those in if I had them.

That looks like a better deck than the first posting. You have more counters, and now that I look you probably didn't need to maindeck that many Bolts. Although, what's the purpose of Ninja of the Deep Hours in this deck? I guess he provides a little bit of card draw when you ninjutsu him in for (presumably) a Factory, but is he efficient enough to use in this kind of environment?

If getting a Factory in play is a problem, Crop Rotation is your friend, especially since it's no longer restricted. Unfortunately, that would mean adding another color in your deck so it may not be viable.

Really, without seeing the deck play out I can't think of what else you could do to it.

[Baron Sengir]

The Ninja is just an extra cheap creature that lets me draw too; not sure if he'll stay in the deck though. I definitely want to test this one out sometime just to see how it plays out; I for sure need the practice with it.

[Baron Sengir]

I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to drop the third Mental Misstep and Flusterstorm to put in a second Fire/Ice and a Crucible of Worlds. Besides the obvious benefit of Crucible it serves as another artifact to sac to Tinker to bring in the robot.

[Maraxus of Keld]

My instinct is no to Crucible, yes to Fire/Ice for tournament play, but I'm second-guessing myself since I have so little experience playing against the caliber of decks you would face with this. For multiplayer, my advice would be the opposite (well, my first advice would be "don't play Landstill in multiplayer" but that's besides the point).

Anyway, Crucible has great synergy with a casual Landstill deck, and I do indeed use it in my own. It's even better when you have Fastbond, because then you can machine-gun away all the opponent's lands with Strip Mine and Wasteland. But it looks like you don't use Fastbond so that's irrelevant.

But in a highly competitive atmosphere, Crucible might be a bad idea. It has the weakness of being a permanent, which means it's subject to removal. But more importantly, all it really does for you is let you return Factories and Strip Mines/Wastelands from your graveyard to play. Since you're not tutoring stuff into your graveyard to play it from there, you're just getting back things you already had, and there are probably better ways to do that if you need to. Last and most importantly, Crucible doesn't directly help you win the game - it doesn't contribute to a combo that grants you victory (although there are such combos, you aren't using them), and it doesn't hinder your opponent's deck in any way.

For those reasons, I'd say leave it aside. Fire/Ice I'm less sure about, but the fact is it's a spell that can do two situationally useful things, and you have the ability to play both in your deck. It's worth at least testing out.

[Baron Sengir]

Yeah I hear ya. I'm also debating on if I should swap some of the counters in there with Mana Drain or leave them out?

[Maraxus of Keld]

Might as well if you can find a place for them, it's not like you need to worry about being able to use that mana on the next turn.

Mindbreak Trap seems to me like the counter you could most afford to spare from what you're using, but I'm not so sure.

[Baron Sengir]

Yeah to be honest I'm not sure how often I would use it, but maybe its far more important than I think.

[Maraxus of Keld]

Obviously it depends on what you're countering, but I can think of several hypothetical situations where it would be useful, such as:

1 - Say you have two Mishra's Factories in play, plus whatever gave you the for Mana Drain (assuming you didn't pop the Lotus for that). Having cast Mana Drain on the previous turn, you can use the mana from that to activate both of your Factories, and still have blue mana untapped to cast counters. Or if you did pop the Lotus to cast Mana Drain, then you would normally need to tap one Factory to activate the other, and this is better.

2 - You can put the colorless mana from Mana Drain toward casting Jace, Tinker, Crucible of Worlds, or hardcasting Ninja of the Deep Hours or maybe even Blightsteel Colossus if it was a particularly big spell.

On the other hand, you might not need all that mana at all. But at least it's not going to burn you anymore.