Debian disable gnome autostart
From how to disable X server autostart
The disable didn’t work because the Debian /etc/X11/default-display-manager
logic is winding up overriding it.
In order to make text boot the default under systemd (regardless of which distro, really):
systemctl set-default multi-user.target
To change back to booting to the GUI,
systemctl set-default graphical.target
I confirmed those work on my Jessie and Stretch.