Landstill has been a fringe-ish archetype in Vintage over the last couple of years. It never rises to the same popularity as Workshops, Dredge, Oath, or other Time Vault decks, but U/R variants put up an awesome performance every couple of months, powered by Lightning Bolt’s efficiency against threats like Lodestone Golem and Monastery Mentor and the power of Standstill plus Mishra's Factory. As the format shifts toward bigger monsters and flooding the board with tokens, Thiim has some thoughts on how the deck needs to adapt:

U/W Landstill ? Vintage | Thiim, 3-1 Vintage Daily Event

• Creatures (1)
• 1 True-Name Nemesis

• Spells (36)
• 1 Ancestral Recall
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Dig Through Time
• 1 Echoing Truth
• 1 Mana Leak
• 1 Mindbreak Trap
• 1 Negate
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Flusterstorm
• 3 Swords to Plowshares
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Mental Misstep
• 1 Time Walk
• 2 Supreme Verdict
• 2 Stony Silence
• 4 Standstill
• 1 Black Lotus
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Lotus Petal
• 1 Mox Pearl
• 1 Mox Sapphire
• 1 Pithing Needle

• Lands (23)
• 1 Plains
• 2 Island
• 1 Strip Mine
• 2 Tolaria West
• 3 Dark Depths
• 3 Tundra
• 3 Wasteland
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Thespian's Stage

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Annul
• 2 Containment Priest
• 1 Disenchant
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 1 Karakas
• 3 Rest in Peace
• 3 Steel Sabotage
• 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• 1 Tormod's Crypt
• 1 Vapor Snag

Buy This Deck

The shell of this deck is largely the same as previous U/R variants. Counterspells, spell-lands, and Standstill are the core of the deck. This combination allows you to use Standstill to hit land drops and sculpt your hand while denying your opponent colors or mana sources and applying pressure with your lands. The key difference between the Red splash and the White splash is swapping Lightning Bolt for Swords to Plowshares, which is stronger against huge threats like Griselbrand, Dragonlord Ojutai, or Wurmcoil Engine.

Additionally, you pick up Supreme Verdict to fight against decks like Merfolk or cards like Monastery Mentor. Perhaps most importantly, you gain access to powerful hate cards such as Stony Silence and Containment Priest. This gives you the ability to power out a hate card backed up with free counterspells and then follow up with Standstill – the idea being your opponent will have to answer your hate card and give you three cards or just die to your lands.

The most interesting innovation in Thiim’s deck is the inclusion of Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage over Mishra's Factory. This is interesting for a number of reasons, but primarily because it gives you a way to race combo decks. It takes a long time for Mishra's Factory beats to get the job done, and you have to commit mana on your turn to even begin applying pressure. The tradeoff is that Mishra's Factory functions as a normal land during the early game, which is certainly valuable. However, the upside of Dark Depths is you can kill opponents out of nowhere and trump threats like Griselbrand and Dragonlords in the air.

The hidden upside is Thespian's Stage gives you a mana sink under Standstill. You can copy your own Wastelands or opposing Wastelands to keep the pressure on your opponent’s mana sources. You don’t have to care especially much about throwing lands away, since you want the game to go long and you can eventually find and resolve a Crucible of Worlds. Alternatively, you can just force your opponent to crack your Standstill, which will help you find a few extra mana sources.

Personally, I’m a huge fan of pure control decks like Landstill, and the addition of the Dark Depths combo seems like it shores up a lot of the deck’s weaknesses. If this innovation brings more pure control decks into the format, then it’s certainly something I’m ready to get excited about.