[Card] Cabal Therapy

[Wallace]

SO you are playing first against one of the decks listed bellow. You have Cabal Therapy in hand, what card do you call. Keep in mind you don't know the build, but you do know what deck they are playing. Assume it is game one.

Belcher

Thresh

Breakfast

Ichorid Combo

Iggy Pop

Survival

TES

Solidarity

Sorry, You are playing some form of Dead Guy or other non-combo deck.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

It depends on what you're playing. If you have a combo that can win on first turn, Force.

Other then that, I don't know. I avoid the turn one Therapy unless I happen to have a free creature to feed to it.

[TheCramp]

SO you are playing first against one of the decks listed bellow. You have Cabal Therapy in hand, what card do you call. Keep in mind you don't know the build, but you do know what deck they are playing. Assume it is game one.

Belcher

Thresh

Breakfast

Ichorid Combo

Iggy Pop

Survival

TES

Solidarity


Well man, what deck are you playing. Your plan matters here I should think.

[sammiel]

SO you are playing first against one of the decks listed bellow. You have Cabal Therapy in hand, what card do you call. Keep in mind you don't know the build, but you do know what deck they are playing. Assume it is game one.

Belcher

Thresh

Breakfast

Ichorid Combo

Iggy Pop

Survival

TES

Solidarity

Sorry, You are playing some form of Dead Guy.

Against Belcher, i guess go for either belcher or etw if its game 1. seems like it would be very rare that therapy would be your only first turn play as deadguy.

Thresh: depending on your hand, mongoose or brainstorm.

breakfast: another bad deck to go in blind against, i'd probably go vial to slow down their combo speed.

ichorid: breakthrough, its their most broken turn 1 opener afaik

Iggy Pop: bad call to go in blind, since Iggy lists vary so much. brainstorm or igg, depending on your hand.

survival: survival

TES: burning wish, although once again I prefer not to go in blind

Solidarity: depends entirely on the rest of my hand, I would name remand if I have a hand full of disruption, otherwise i'd name high tide.

[Pinder]

Belcher: Belcher, probably. It's the way they usually win. If you don't nab Belcher, make sure they don't have EtW in hand either, though. Nab both if you can.

Thresh: Depends on what you're playing, but Force is always a good option.

Breakfast: Not sure, really. Force works here too. Also, you could hit their tutors as well, I guess.

Ichorid Combo: You're making them discard? Way to help, buddy.

IGGy Pop: Ill-Gotten Gains is probably a good call, although Infernal Tutor could mess them up as well.

Survival: Um, Survival? I don't really have enough experience against it to know what to name.

TES: LED? Once again I don't really play against it that much.

Solidarity: High Tide. You always want to nab the High Tide.

[frogboy]

Thresh: Depends on what you're playing, but Force is always a good option.

I disagree, but I tend to shy away from Therapy until turn three because then you can pretty much always hit unless their hand sucks.

[Nihil Credo]

Since you're playing a Deadguy Ale-ish deck...

Belcher: Belcher, if it doesn't kill you turn 1, can be handled by one of your four Vindicates; so it's either Wish or EtW. I would name Wish, because it is a 4-of, and if they kept the hand it's pretty much guaranteed they have six mana in hand.

Thresh: If your hand is mostly threats, call Force; if it has lots of answers, call Goyf.

Breakfast: I'd say Vial, because it can make your hate all but worthless. If you have a Vindicate in hand, call Force of Will instead. I'd say it's not worth it to call Illusionist, since they also have tutors for that.

Ichorid Combo: Breakthrough, it's one of the two cards they want to keep in hand (the other is LED, but Breakthrough is also good on its own).

Iggy Pop: Their namesake.

Survival: Ditto.

TES: Burning Wish.

Solidarity: Remand, since your game plan is to resolve a lot of LD spells on them. If you were forced to keep a LD-less hand, call High Tide.

[thefreakaccident]

when therapying against thresh, I would name creatures (mongoose), then use other discard spells to draw out their counter (or just bait with worse spells).

When against belcher or TES I would name burning wish... against Belcher you could get lucky to hit the belcher though.

Survival will always be survival.

Breakfast, you will go for their enablers like encor and inkshrouder... or just the countermagic if you got creatures kill.

Ichorid, you will name either breakthrough or LED, the rest they usually want to discard.

Iggy pop, you will name either infernal tutor, IGG, or intuition... This descision may change depending on their color variation (or if they run grim tutor).

[emidln]

Belcher: Brainstorm if they play it. LED

Thresh: Brainstorm

Breakfast: Brainstorm

Ichorid Combo: LED

Iggy Pop: Brainstorm

Survival: Brainstorm if they play it. Survival otherwise.

TES: Brainstorm

Solidarity: Brainstorm



Against decks with Brainstorm I always name Brainstorm turn 1 on the play unless I have a specific reason not to (i.e. I'm playing something that turn that I don't want forced, or I lose to specific turn 1 play). In other news, I believe that Brainstorm and LED are two of the most powerful cards in the format.

[Hummingbird TG]

If you're playing something like Deadguy Ale...drop Cabal Therapy, cause you don't have creatures you actually want to sacrifice, and therapy isn't that good withouh Flashback...

[Wallace]

If you're playing something like Deadguy Ale...drop Cabal Therapy, cause you don't have creatures you actually want to sacrifice, and therapy isn't that good withouh Flashback...

I said a Dead Guyish deck. I am not really worried about flashing it back. In case you arew wondering why not just duress, I am playing that too. This is just a general question. If therpy is your only first turn play what do ya name. I know there are many things that will affect what you name. I just want a general Idea of what should be named without looking to far into it.

[Tacosnape]

This is a rather pointless discussion without knowing the following:

1. Your deck.

2. Your hand. This makes a bigger difference than your deck.

[zulander]

Belcher
Empty the warrens

Thresh
Goyf

Breakfast
Illusionist

Ichorid Combo
Breakthrough

Iggy Pop
Intuition

Survival
Survival

TES
Dark rit? Never really played against tes

Solidarity
High Tide

[Bane of the Living]

SO you are playing first against one of the decks listed bellow. You have Cabal Therapy in hand, what card do you call. Keep in mind you don't know the build, but you do know what deck they are playing. Assume it is game one.

Belcher

Thresh

Breakfast

Ichorid Combo

Iggy Pop

Survival

TES

Solidarity

Sorry, You are playing some form of Dead Guy or other non-combo deck.

The premier Therapy deck I play is Ichorid. Heres what Id name playing that deck.

Belcher -> Goblin Charbelcher. Duh? If its not turn one and I know they dont have belcher since they havent killed me, Id name Burning Wish to stop possible combo or Cave In/clasm.

Thresh -> Force of Will if I have Breakthrough/LED combo Tarmagoyf if not.

Cephalid Breakfast -> Same as Thresh, naming Illusionist over goyf.

Ichorid (mirror) -> Lions Eye Diamond is always the call.

Iggy -> Dark Ritual or Cabal Ritual.

Survival -> Survival of the Fittest

TES -> Burning Wish

Solidarity -> High Tide

I cannot believe how many people think calling Breakthrough for Ichorid is correct over LED.

[Iranon]

It's understandable really, because Breakthrough is the card that serves all their needs and is the single best enabler for ridiculous things.

I wholeheartedly agree with LED against Ichorid though. If they have a good hand, you really need to hit the right one and it's a toss-up. For Breakthrough, they require a land, and preferably something that lets them toss cards. LED is just as likely to enable great great plays (Deep Anal, Street Wraith).

Many mediocre but keepable hands, however, are made significantly worse by nabbing their LED.

[Maveric78f]

emildn is right according to me.

When you play cabal therapy your goal is to hit bad on the flashback (except if you plan to combo the same turn of course), that's why brainstorm is clearly the first call when your opponent can't answer with it.

Against Ichorid, LED is what makes the deck broken and is not living into the grave. LED is your first call.

Against belcher, it depends a lot on your deck and your hand. It's you're playing 4*pyroclasm + 4*rolling earthquake, the only threat for you is belcher. But if you don't, you would maybe better try to hit their mana base by naming LED.

Against thresh, frogboy is not wrong but I would try anyway to hit brainstorm as long as I can. In order to flashback efficiently on turn 2 or 3.

[Brehn]

Against belcher, it depends a lot on your deck and your hand. It's you're playing 4*pyroclasm + 4*rolling earthquake, the only threat for you is belcher. But if you don't, you would maybe better try to hit their mana base by naming LED.


Never ever name a mana source against Belcher if you get the chance to cast Therapy. Standard Belcher lists play 11 win-conditions and 49 mana sources, what are they more likely to draw? You should always name Belcher, unless
1) you have Force of Will -> name Empty the Warrens.
2) your deck has absolutely no way to deal with EtW tokens [huh?] but you have a random Disenchant effect you can cast turn 2 in your hand -> name Burning Wish.