In our last Focus on Legacy article we broke down individual card choices for Constructing UBG Landstill. In today’s article we’ll look more closely at constructing a sideboard from available options, sideboarding against common match ups, and some lines of play with the deck.
I think if Reanimator and Storm combo stay at low numbers in the coming months you’ll see more Blue control variants pop up, which is ironic because control should theoretically do well against those two decks. But the reason more Blue control will show up is if it has time to develop in the face of a slightly slower metagame, and when Blue control has time to develop it excels. In one of the recent Grand Prix Columbus Trials I played in there were 6 Landstill variants out of in 23 competitors. I don’t know if that was an aberration caused by people just at that particular Trial, or if there’s a general sense that Landstill and Blue decks in general are well positioned right now. With that in mind, I’m going to base this article on the version of UBG Landstill I presented in the last article with the Wasteland manabase, as it’s obviously better under Standstill against other Landstill and control decks.
To me the most popular decks heading into the fourth quarter of 2010 are as follows (alphabetically):
AggroLoam
Bant Tempo/New Horizons
CounterTop NOPro Bant
CounterTop ThopterSword
Goblins R/B
Enchantress
Lands.dec
Landstill and other Jace decks
Merfolk U
Naya Zoo
Storm combo (can include TES, Doomsday, Iggy Pop, Ad Nauseam, etc.)
Survival variants (too many directions to list)
This is based on what I’m seeing online, in tournaments, in tournament results, and what the general buzz in online forums seems to be. Dredge, Reanimator, and CounterTop Bant still seem to be around once in a while, but the decks above are the most common ones I’m seeing. With this in mind, let’s look at the pool of potential Sideboard cards that UBG can utilize most effectively.
Relic of Progenitus – this has been my favorite graveyard hate card since its printing, as it cantrips, can fit any color, is cheap, reusable, and incremental (unlike Tormod’s Crypt)
Extirpate – nothing really kicks Life from the Loam decks in the balls quite like a well-timed Extirpate; is also very good at removing the few win conditions from very narrow decks (like New Horizons) after you’ve killed their dudes
Coffin Purge – in my testing the past couple of months this seemed to often be the best graveyard hate card against Reanimator, and was also pretty good against Loam decks, while not being as stellar against Dredge; this is probably bested by Relic of Progenitus in the current climate
Planar Void – pretty solid mana to power ratio (and is an enchantment), this card truly does not suck if you don’t open with it in your hand (like Leyline of the Void) against decks where it matters
Leyline of the Void – if you like playing roulette and gambling that this will be in your opening hand, or plan to mulligan super aggressively, then this card may be right for you, but most of the time I think you’d be better off with a combination of the above graveyard hate
Ravenous Trap – has great surprise appeal and can be devastating at certain times, but it certainly underwhelming against decks like Reanimator or Survival variants
Hydroblast/Blue Elemental Blast – cheap and efficient answers to Goblins and Zoo alike, as well as having random game against things like Imperial Recruiter (in Aluren and some Painter/Grindstone variants), Sneak Attack, Burning Wish, Price of Progress, Vexing Shusher, and Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon
Engineered Plague – this used to be great, then was mediocre, and now is trending towards great again (against Goblins, Merfolk, Faeries, Thopters, Elves, Empty the Warrens out of Charbelcher decks, etc.)
Perish – a well timed Perish absolutely destroys Bant decks, and is also pretty good against Zoo decks (Wild Nacatl, Tarmogoyf, Qasali Pridemage, and Knight of the Reliquary)
Nature’s Ruin – a little known carbon copy of Perish except by name, this was only printed in Portal 1; only relevant against decks that might have access to Meddling Mage, so I like to split up my Perish/Nature’s Ruin count when using those
Maelstrom Pulse – Pernicious Deed is the best catch all answer available to this deck, but Maelstrom Pulse is very similar and is more spot removal that can gain you card advantage if the opponent plays out two Tarmogoyfs, for example. It also is an answer to Counterbalance, so I’m seeing this in a lot of sideboards taking the place of Krosan Grip
Krosan Grip – the best anti-enchantment and anti-artifact card ever printed, the split-second ability makes it very relevant against Counterbalance, Survival of the Fittest Crucible of Worlds, Form of the Dragon, Bitterblossom, Pithing Needle, etc.
Engineered Explosives – faster and cheaper than Deed, this can also help deal with opposing Pithing Needles, Empty the Warrens tokens, and decks with a million permanents (Enchantress or Stax, for example); because it’s not quite a powerful a sweeper it’s better as a supplement to Deed than anything, but UBG Landstill doesn’t have ways to search for this nor will it be recurring it with Academy Ruins
Mindbreak Trap – a total anti-combo card that is blanked by Xantid Swarm, most of the time I’d rather just have Duress or Thoughtseize
Duress/Thoughtseize – excellent at stripping away threats or counters from the opponent’s hand, but reactive decks don’t really want to do that against anything other than other control decks or combo decks
Pithing Needle – a pretty interesting and often overlooked answer to often problematic cards (Goblin Charbelcher, Mosswort Bridge, Aether Vial, Survival of the Fittest, Shelldock Isle, Sensei’s Divining Top, Wasteland, etc.); the only drawback is that it can be swept away by your own Pernicious Deeds
Jace Beleren – against control decks this can gain you precious card advantage, and against decks with Mishra’s Factory this will often be better than Standstill in your deck; this can also help gain you footing in the Jace battle against other control or Jace decks as it’s an additional copy of Jace and can be cast a turn earlier
Now I can’t tell you exactly how to build your sideboard because I don’t know what your local metagame is like, but I’ll just give you a couple of my recent sideboards and a brief rundown of how I have been attacking each of the commonly played decks listed above.
Sideboard D (Grand Prix Trial 07-17-2010)
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Engineered Plague
2 Krosan Grip
1 Perish
1 Nature’s Ruin
3 Hydroblast
2 Jace Beleren
Sideboard E (Grand Prix Trial 07-18-2010)
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Krosan Grip
3 Engineered Plague
1 Perish
1 Nature’s Ruin
1 Hydroblast
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Jace Beleren
Now in the sideboard above I’ve got Plague for Goblins, Merfolk, Elves, etc., Hydroblast for Zoo and Goblins, Perish/Nature’s Ruin for Bant and Zoo, and Jace against control. I liked that, but the next day I switched it up just a bit for more graveyard hate, as I wasn’t really comfortable with just 3 cards (and am not really comfortable with only 4 cards, either).
Playing Against AggroLoam
Because you as the Landstill player have relatively few basic lands, AggroLoam will attempt to Wasteland you out of the game and try to overwhelm you with card advantage using Dark Confidant and Life from the Loam recursion. Luckily you have more card advantage mechanisms in your deck (4 Standstill, 3-4 Jace, 1-2 Life from the Loam, 4 Pernicious Deed), and you can seek to shut down theirs completely after sideboarding.
When playing against AggroLoam I try to use Spell Snare and Innocent Blood to deal with Confidant and Tarmogoyf, and Ghastly Demise and Jace, the Mind Sculptor to handle Countryside Crusher/Terravore/Knight of the Reliquary (whatever version your opponent is playing). Pernicious Deed is kind of slow here, but will help clear the board after you try to force them to over commit, and can catch whatever sneaks through your counterspells. Obviously things won’t always go according to plan, but those are the goals pre-sideboard. With the sample sideboard above you’re looking at something like this:
+1 Perish
+1 Nature’s Ruin
+3-4 Relic of Progenitus/graveyard hate
+0-2 Krosan Grip/Maelstrom Pulse
-3 Spell Pierce
-2 (or more) Standstill
Relic of Progenitus is much better than Tormod’s Crypt against AggroLoam, because it slowly and constantly eats up their graveyard, and can also remove the whole thing if need be while cantripping. Post-sideboard opening hands with early Relic of Progenitus and your Black removal spells are very good against AggroLoam.
You have the option of siding in Hydroblast if your opponent is on a particularly Red heavy build with Countryside Crusher, Burning Wish, and Seismic Assault. Or if you see that they’re on a more Green heavy build with the Terravore/Knight of the Reliquary Package you can probably dismiss that more easily, and just focus on getting maximum value out of your Perish effects. If your opponent is playing the Chalice of the Void version (to shut off your 1 casting cost spells most likely) then Krosan Grip becomes very good against them, especially if they also have Seismic Assault as a Grip target.
Playing Against Bant Tempo/New Horizons
Like AggroLoam, Bant Tempo will seek to disrupt your manabase while trying to beat you down with large undercosted monsters. The last version of UBG Landstill I was playing had 2 Life from the Loams main deck, and in games where you see Loam it becomes very difficult for New Horizons to win, because their mana disruption is invalidated, and you can also destroy their manabase with your own Wastelands, all while accumulating card advantage.
This is how I was sideboarding:
+1 Perish
+1 Nature’s Ruin
+3 Relic of Progenitus
-4 Standstill
-1 Spell Pierce
Like AggroLoam, New Horizons also has incredible difficulty dealing with Relic of Progenitus. It keeps all of their creatures small and manageable until they’ve dealt with Relic, all while combating your Jaces, Black removal, and Pernicious Deeds. Waste-locking your opponent is a very real possibility in this match up if you can locate Life from the Loam. That’s all before you get to flash your trump card in this match up: Perish. Nature’s Ruin and Perish kill everything your opponent plays and will really set them back if they have two or more creatures on the board, because they typically only have 10-11 threats in their entire deck, and you have as many or more answers. If you are playing Maelstrom Pulse in your sideboard that can also come in here if you think you need it.
The one word of caution for playing against this match up is Stifle. Be weary of your opponent sandbagging Stifles for your Jace and Pernicious Deed activations, and keep this in mind when choosing when to use those triggers. Also keep in mind they may side in Krosan Grips (to deal with your Relics and/or Deeds).
Playing Against CounterTop ThopterSword
Counterbalance plus Sensei’s Divining Top is a formidable control shell that seems to be the most popular strategy for Blue decks currently. CounterTop has natural game against Combo decks and Naya Zoo, but is weak to Merfolk. It is also weak to Pernicious Deed, which indiscriminately deals with every non-land permanent that CounterTop can play. When possible the UBG Landstill player will want to save their Spell Snares for Counterbalance (and Counterspell, where applicable). Both decks have a lot of dead cards in this match up game 1, but UBG Landstill has 3-4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor to fall back on to ditch those useless cards, and to win the Jace war.
This is how I sideboarded most recently:
+2 Krosan Grip
+2 Jace Beleren
+2 Relic of Progenitus
-6 black removal spells (Ghastly Demise/Innocent Blood)
Between Standstill, Pernicious Deed, Life from the Loam, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Jace Beleren, you have tons of card advantage from the early through late game. CounterTop Thopter has 2-3 Jace the Mind Sculptor, their CounterTop package, and sometimes a single Crucible of Worlds with which to gain card advantage, so this should clearly be in your favor.
Unless there are some ridiculously bad hands for the Landstill player, the CounterTop player can’t realistically hope to win with the Jace route. Their only reasonable hope is via a war of attrition and then by landing the Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek combo to overwhelm you with creatures. They will have 1-2 Academy Ruins to recur their 2 copies of Thopter Foundry, so it is important to keep this in mind, and this is another reason why Wasteland can prove very valuable, as that essentially shuts down that half of their game plan as well. Between Pernicious Deed and Krosan Grip your odds of keeping the combo off the table or very limited are pretty good. CounterTop Thopter was not built to beat Landstill, and this plays very much in your favor.
Playing Against CounterTop NOPro (Natural Order + Progenitus) Bant
Like ThopterSword, NOPro Bant CounterTop decks have the formidable Counterbalance for you to contend with, but they rely on beating you down with creatures and playing out numerous non-land permanents, which plays into your removal package. Pernicious Deed is once again an All-Star in this match up and can help wipe out a resolved Counterbalance or a horde of invading creatures. Here’s how I sideboarded last with Sideboard E listed above:
+2 Krosan Grip
+1 Perish
+1 Nature’s Ruin
+1 Ghastly Demise
-2 Standstill
-2 Life from the Loam
-1 Spell Pierce
Theoretically it would be possible to attack their manabase and Wasteland them out of the game, but the prepared or intelligent Bant player should be fetching their basic lands first against you to mitigate this threat, so I’ll usually move away from that plan in post-sideboarded games. Krosan Grip shines against their Counterbalances, and Perish/Nature’s Ruin provides a one-sided Wrath of God effect, which can help gain you card advantage that would otherwise be lost by siding out a couple of Standstills and Life Form the Loams.
You’ll need to be weary of the opponent bringing in Krosan Grip for your Deeds, so most often the correct play is to wait it out until you can force one through and then sacrifice it to blow up their board immediately in light of the threat that Krosan Grip can present you.
Playing Against Goblins Red/Black (R/B)
Playing against Goblins is always a challenge, whether you’re playing board control, Naya Zoo, Reanimator, or sometimes even Combo. They can just get those explosive Goblin Lackey draws, or the Goblin Ringleader into Goblin Ringleader draws that are just too tough for most decks to beat. However, Landstill has a lot of removal and a lot of counterspells, so all is not lost. Here’s how I sideboard with the list above:
+3 Engineered Plague
+1 Hydroblast
+1 Ghastly Demise (or Hydroblast, Maelstrom Pulse, or whatever else you’ve got in sideboard)
-4 Standstill
-1 Spell Pierce
An argument can be made to not side out all Standstills and to instead side out the Spell Pierces, which are really only useful against Aether Vial on the first turn. If you can keep the board clear for a turn you can drop a Standstill to at least recoup some card advantage, so you can judge that for yourself based on what you’ve got to side in, and if you’re on the play or draw first (obviously Spell Pierce is worse when you’re on the draw).
The strategy here is pretty clear. You want to use Innocent Blood and Ghastly demise to make sure Goblin Lackey doesn’t connect, and you want to fetch basic lands when possible so you’re not set back by opposing Wastelands. You want to aggressively dig for your Engineered Plagues, because after landing a single one the game will slow to a crawl, and after you’ve landed two Engineered Plagues the game is pretty much over. Theoretically they could side in Dralnu’s Crusade to try to pump up their Goblins, but that usually doesn’t see play, as the Goblins R/B player usually has more problems to worry about and can’t afford the sideboard space. If your opponent has a Taiga in their deck it’s almost exclusively for Krosan Grip, so be cautious of that.
Playing Against Enchantress
Enchantress decks typically have a great match up against a lot of Blue based decks, because Enchantress has a very strong draw engine, can cast a lot of cards in a single turn, and has the ultimate fall back plan called Replenish when things are not going well. Luckily UBG Landstill has lots of counterspells, Pernicious Deed, and Innocent Blood to deal with Argothian Enchantress.
Most Enchantress decks only have 2-3 win conditions (usually 2 Sigil of the Empty Throne, with possibly of Words of War thrown in if they feel like adding to the inconsistency of the deck for the power of Words of War). That doesn’t mean that you can sit back and let them go bonkers while you try to wait to just counter their win conditions. That is a poor plan against Enchantress. The best idea is to attack their draw engine, and prevent them even developing and going off to begin with.
Realistically they need to keep a hand with an early Enchantress effect to start their draw engine, and they need to cast it early. You have Spell Snare, Force of Will, and Innocent Blood to deal with their first or second turn Argothian Enchantress. You have Spell Pierce, Counterspell, and Force of Will to deal with their second or third turn Enchantress’s Presence. If they lead out with a first or second turn Sterling Grove and you have just an ok hand, don’t take the bait. Save that Spell Snare for their Argothian Enchantress, or save that Spell Pierce for their Enchantress’s Presence. Now it you have a really good mana denial hand, you can also go that route by Wastelanding them, Spell Piercing a Wild Growth effect, etc. It really will come down to your opening hand. Here’s how I like to sideboard:
+3-4 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Krosan Grip
-3 Ghastly Demise
-1-2 Life from the Loam
-0-2 Standstill
You really don’t care about much of what Enchantress does other than their draw engine, their 2 win conditions, their 1-2 City of Solitudes that are probably main decked, and their 2-3 Replenishes. After sideboarding they’ll have 1-2 Chokes probably to cause you additional headaches, so this will not be easy by any means. But you still have Pernicious Deed to wipe away their sideboard eventually, and you have to hope Relic can keep their graveyard empty so invalidate their fallback Replenish plan. Be weary of random Aura of Silences or Oblivion Rings.
Playing Against Lands.dec
Landstill traditionally has a very tough time against Lands.dec, because of the nature of them not casting a whole lot of spells other than Loam, which is reusable, coupled with the fact that part of their strategy centers around recycling Wastelands to disrupt the opponent. Your chosen graveyard hate will definitely come in here, and this is one of the main reasons I prefer Relic of Progenitus over anything else. You can either slow roll it and bust it out after they’ve filled their graveyard, or you can play one on turn one and try to keep their graveyard empty. Additional top-decked Relics are never a bad thing either, and are very easy to cast at any point in the game. Here’s what you’re looking at for sideboarding with the list above:
+4 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Jace Beleren
-3 Innocent Blood
-3 Standstill
Jace Beleren is better than Standstill in this case because given the option, it’s not worth struggling against their attacks on your manabase when you both have 4 Wastelands and both have 4 Mishra’s Factories. It’s better in this case to just draw cards one at a time over a few turns with either Jace to put yourself in a better position to win and to slowly gain control of the board.
I generally don’t care about my opponent resolving an Exploration, but if I’m able to counter it on the first turn using Spell Pierce I probably will. Manabond is much better against you if they do manage to get their draw engine going. The most problematic cards from the Lands.dec player are Life from the Loam, Manabond, and Intuition. The rest of the stuff is just fluff (congratulations, you’ve got 2 Maze of Ith, Windswept Heath, and a Tropical Island in your opening hand; that sucks against Landstill!). You can’t do much against Loam itself because of the recursive nature, but you definitely want to point your counterspells at Manabond and Intuition. You don’t care about much else they do, because if they really feel like attacking with Factory you Ghastly Demise it.
The best line of play is often to just fetch out your basic lands and drop a Jace, the Mind Sculptor as soon as possible and protect it. They can’t do much to deal with Planeswalkers other than trying to attack them, and you have defenses for that. Aggressively seek out your own Life from the Loams to offset theirs, and then try to use Jace to refill your hand and fateseal the opponent out of the game.
Playing Against Landstill and other Jace decks
There are a ton of various Blue control variants in the Landstill or Jace control mold out there right now, and there’s too many to list, so I won’t go into great detail here. In the last couple of tournaments I played in I was running a pair of Jace Beleren in my sideboard to help gain advantage against these decks, and it worked pretty well. Jace Beleren comes out a turn earlier, draws you cards, and since the card type reads ‘Planewalker – Jace’ you can always Legend-rule theirs out of the game if they manage to stick one, and you’ll have more in reserve as the game goes on.
Many of the other Blue control decks play suspect manabases that can be attacked, so if you see a Life from the Loam early this can be a great way to both recoup card advantage as well as limit the opponent’s ability to do anything relevant if you can recur Wasteland. This again is a reason why I prefer Wasteland in this UBG Landstill variant, as it allows you another avenue to defeat opponents in what are usually tightly contested match ups.
Playing Against Merfolk
Merfolk is one of the tougher match ups for Landstill, because they come out of the gates so fast, have so many threats, and have Aether Vial to trump your countermagic. Lord of Atlantis and Aether Vials are their best plans of beating you, so it is often worth letting something like Silvergill Adept resolving if it means you can save your Spell Snare for a Lord of Atlantis or Coralhelm Commander. When watching coverage online, playing test games, playing in tournaments, and through logic, it has become abundantly clear that it is much more difficult for Merfolk to win when they don’t have a first turn Aether Vial. Even if you have plenty of removal or Deed in hand, it is better to Force of Will or Spell Pierce their earlyS Aether Vial, because it makes them have to pay the full cost for everything they do, which dramatically slows them down (less attacks with Mutavault, less leveling up of Coralhelm Commander, etc.).
Tomoharu Saito’s most recent GP Columbus winning Merfolk list splashing Black is actually a better match up for you than the mono-Blue version, because their manabase is weaker and much more susceptible to disruption via Wasteland, or Wasteland recursion with Loam (which will also bring back your Mishra’s Factories after they have been Wastelanded by the opponent). The Green and White splashes all suffer the same problem against Landstill in that they have weaker manabases, so use this to your advantage. This is how I sideboarded most recently:
+2 Krosan Grip
+3 Engineered Plague
+1 Ghastly Demise
-4 Standstill
-1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-1 Counterspell
Unlike other aggro match ups this is most often a coin flip, depending on each player’s draws through the game. The things you can do to make it more in your favor are play patiently, seek out your basic lands with your fetchland activations, use your removal wisely, and keep opposing Spell Pierces and Stifles in mind. Krosan Grip/Maelstrom Pulse can be used to combat their Aether Vials or Back to Basics they might bring in from their sideboard.
Playing Against Naya Zoo
Zoo, and particularly Price of Progress, is not an easy thing to face. Like when facing other creature based decks, removal-heavy opening hands are at a premium with Landstill. I often end up soaking up some damage from dudesweats early on while digging for removal, Deeds, and Jaces to buy further time. When I can help it I will always keep a Spell Snare or Force of Will for Price of Progress, because it’s their best card against you. You have a lot of removal to match their guys, and they often have to play out a couple of guys at a time to gain any traction against you, and this is where Pernicious Deed ultimately shines. Be sure to fetch out your basic lands to reduce potential damage from Price of Progress, as that is their trump card in this match.
Here is how I most recently sideboarded with the sideboard E example above:
-4 Standstill
+1 Perish
+1 Nature’s Ruin
+1 Hydroblast
+1 Ghastly Demise
After sideboarding you have access to things like Perish (a one sided Wrath of God), more removal, Hydroblast/Blue Elemental Blast (another one mana answer to Price of Progress), or whatever you’ve chosen. This gives you more tools to fight their threats, and ultimately make it to a point where you can let Jace take over, or tempo them out by sneaking through damage with your Mishra’s Factories. It may sound like a stretch, but that’s exactly what happens in most of the games I’ve played against Zoo. You end up with a ton of removal for all of their creatures, and they have to try to burn you out before Jace can take over.
Playing Against Storm & Other Combo (can include TES, Doomsday, Iggy Pop, Ad Nauseam, etc.)
There are a number of interesting combo variants floating around Legacy right now. There are Doomsday-centric builds that rely on a Tendrils or Shelldock Isle + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn finish, there are more traditional Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT) builds using Grim Tutor and/or Ponder and Preordain for more search, there are Force of Will-laced Hypergenesis decks that want to kill with Emrakul and Progenitus, and there are still yet other decks like Aeon Bridge that will try to run you over with an Emrakul or Phyrexian Dreadnought. These all have their strengths and their weaknesses against you, so I’ll just briefly run down how I approach some of these match ups.
Against the Doomsday decks you will have to stop multiple avenues of attack, often backed by some combination of Orim’s Chant, Duress, and Thoughtseize. They can try for the Storm plan or the Shelldock Isle into Emrakul plan. You have Innocent Blood and Jace to combat Emrakul if the game lasts long enough to where you have enough lands. You can sideboard out Ghastly Demise in favor of Jace Beleren, Thoughtseize, Mindbreak Trap, or whatever else you have of use in your sideboard. I like to keep Innocent Blood in to combat Emrakul or Dark Confidant if you think they’ll be siding that in.
The ANT decks are much the same, but not as flexible against you. They have to be more aggressive against you to chain together a bunch of spells, and you don’t have to worry about Emrakul usually, so you can sideboard out even more removal spells for whatever else that might be useful in your sideboard. Relic of Progenitus limits Cabal Ritual, shuts down their Ill-Gotten Gains plan, and cantrips so it’s better than relatively useless removal (unless you see Green, in which case they’re probably siding in Xantid Swarm, which you must be able to deal with immediately).
Against the creature based combo decks like Hypergenesis and Aeon Bridge your removal is actually very relevant, and it helps make it very difficult for them to win through your counterspells, Jace, and removal. Ghastly Demise is bad unless you see Angel of Despair in an opposing Hypergenesis deck, which Demise can frequently kill. Otherwise these can be sided out for any combination of Duress/Thoughtseize, Maelstrom Pulse, Krosan Grip, or whatever might be lurking in your sideboard to help you.
Playing Against Survival of the Fittest Variants
Survival is another archetype that relies on playing out multiple permanents to gain board advantage against an opponent. Obviously it’s better to never let Survival resolve if you can help it (Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, Counterspell, and Force of Will can all help fight this very early game 1), because they can try to get the engine going with Squee immediately and fetch an Eternal Witness to get back Survival in the event you destroy it. But if it does resolve this plays to the strength of your deck by gaining multiple card advantage with Pernicious Deed to reclaim ground in a war of attrition.
If they do get the Survival/Squee engine going they will probably try to grab relevant threats like Tarmogoyfs first to bait your counters and removal, and then ultimately search up the Iona, Shield of Emeria (or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn) + Loyal Retainers combo to try to shut you out. So Deed will be a very attractive option or reset button if they do get Survival and creatures out. If Iona hits play they will most likely name Black to shut off your instant speed removal and Deed, but the game is not lost. Jace, the Mind Sculptor can still bounce Iona to their hand and get you right back in the game.
Wrapping this up, I’ll just note that we don’t like to get into “match up percentages” and other relatively useless garbage like that here on Eternal Central. We merely hope to provide a guide for you how to attack some of the common match ups you’re likely to face, and your own theory, testing, and tweaking will give you a good idea of what you’d like to face in a tournament and what you’d like to avoid. We’ve now run through all of the main choices for constructing your main deck when playing UBG Landstill, and now we’ve also addressed sideboard options and some strategies for sideboarded games against decks you’re likely to see. This should give you a solid understanding of building, tuning, and playing UBG Landstill in the coming months.
If we missed anything or if there’s something else you’d like to see us touch on more in depth, please let us know in the forums or in the comments section below. Thanks for stopping by, and check back soon for more great Legacy and Vintage content here on Eternal Central.