Much Abrew: Teaching Arena Zoomers about Standstill (Timeless)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! There might not be another card in all of Magic that lives up to its name as well as Standstill does. The two-mana enchantment makes it so whenever a player casts a spell, Standstill gets sacced, and the player's opponent draws three cards, which often means the game quite literally comes to a Standstill (sometimes for a whole bunch of turns) before anyone does anything, out of fear of putting their opponent ahead. The card used to be a Legacy staple, but it's brand new to Magic Arena thanks to the reprint sheet from Avatar. So today, we're going to head to Timeless and see if any of our Arena Zoomer opponents know how to play against the enchantment! Is Standstill any good in 2025? Let's teach some Arena Zoomers about it and find out!
Much Abrew: Standstill
Discussion
- Record-wise, we went 8-6 with Standstill. While the deck doesn't offer a lot of free wins and most of our games were a grind, it actually ended up winning at a pretty reasonable rate!
- As far as Standstill itself, the main challenge of building around it is breaking the card's symmetry. Once it's on the battlefield, Standstill could end up drawing us three cards, or it could end up drawing our opponent three cards—it just depends on who blinks first! Since we are the ones spending two mana and a card to get Standstill on the battlefield, we need to make sure that if we play it, we're going to be the ones to benefit from the card advantage it offers. How can we do this? We have a couple of different ways.
- Our first trick for breaking the symmetry of Standstill is some creaturelands. If you think about how Standstill works, if we play the card on an empty board, it's possible that our opponent just chooses never to play anything to avoid breaking the Standstill, especially if they think we'll mill out first. Creaturelands like Restless Anchorage and Mutavault mean that we'll eventually win if we play Standstill on an empty board because sooner or later, we'll draw a creatureland and start beating down, which means our opponent will be forced to break the Standstill and give us the cards.
- The second way we break Standstill is by overloading on one-drops. If we can play Standstill when we are ahead on board, our opponent will be forced to break it, or else they'll die to whatever threat we already have on the battlefield. Our ideal curve is to drop a creature on Turn 1 and then follow it up with Standstill on Turn 2, which makes Phantasmal Shieldback, Hydroponics Architect, and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student essential to our plan. With any of these cards on the battlefield, we can safely drop a Standstill on Turn 2 (assuming our opponent didn't play something even better on Turn 1) and simply beat our opponent down while we wait for them to cast a spell and give us three cards.
- Oh yeah, Standstill is also pretty cute with Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student since we'll draw three cards if our opponent breaks the Standstill, which will also flip Tamiyo into its planeswalker form.
- We've also got a playset of Katara, Waterbending Master in the deck because I think the two-drop just might be pretty broken. As we cast our free and cheap interactive spells, often during our opponent's turn, Katara builds up experience until it's eventually drawing us several cards each attack. At two mana, it's a bit slow with Standstill, but I really wanted to test out the card a bit, and it generally felt solid. Expect some more all-in Katara builds soon because the card just might be way better than everyone thinks.
- As far as the rest of the deck, it's overloaded with cheap and free interaction. Flare of Denial takes advantage of our endless blue one-drops by giving us a free counter. Force of Negation helps keep the format's combo decks in check. Swords to Plowshares deals with any threat our opponent gets down for a single mana, while Subtlety and Brazen Borrower give us some bounce.
- Is Standstill still good in 2025? I think the answer is a solid sort-of. The biggest issue I see with the card today is that we have so many other ways of drawing tons of cards. Twenty years ago, drawing three for two was more than worth the deckbuilding work, but in a format with Treasure Cruise, The One Ring, and 20 years of card-draw power creep, drawing three for two isn't as impressive as it used to be. While Standstill still worked, I did occasionally find myself wondering if there were an easier way to generate card advantage in the deck that didn't require as much setup and work.
- So, how should you play against Standstill? While it does depend a bit on the situation and matchup, in general, I think the best way to play against it is by treating it as a two-mana draw three. If your opponent drops a Standstill, just break it as quickly as possible and hope for the best. The ideal time to break it is during our opponent's end step, so they can't use the card they draw off it during their turn and might have to discard some of the cards to hand size if they have a full hand, limiting its impact. What you don't want to do, in general, is to end up in a literal Standstill where you do nothing for a bunch of turns while the Standstill player sculpts the perfect hand. You have to assume that if someone is playing Standstill in their deck, they have a plan to take advantage of the Standstill, and that the longer you wait, the further you'll fall behind.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
