- AriLaxBrainstorm is only useful in certain situations? Brainstorm is useful when you hand is not the stone cold nutter butter blade Ranchington Q. Farnsworth Esquire best. When Brainstorm is "dead", the game is already over.
Cursecatcher and taxing countermagics (if you have the mana to pay for them) are pretty good as well against Hive Mind.
Of course my list is incomplete. I just posted my general rules.
I sort of forgot about Spellstutter Sprite. That guy would obviously work under Hive Mind. Thing is, I haven't seen that dude in competitive Legacy for quite some time now.
Cursecatcher, I kind of presume one sees that dude coming and keep a mana open.
Taxing counters can work, if you can pay for them yourself. But can is something else than will. And with a Hive Mind on the table, even pretty good players are prone to making mistakes. Even very good players I saw forget that the copy of a Flusterstorm doesn't storm, where the original does (copy is not played. just put on the stack, so no storm trigger happens). This is a good example of what errors you can make when Hive Mind hits the table. And believe me when I say that the Hive Mind player will have the experience and will capitalize on your errors. (No offense, Hive-guys!) So general rule stands: prevent that thing from entering the battlefield at virtually any cost.
I would counter burning wish. They usually play it a turn before playing show and tell. That means, that they have another turn to draw a counter before playing show. If you counter burning wish, they still can topdeck a counter, but there won't be a show and tell to protect.
If they want to get protection with wish, then you still need to counter wish. They want protection for a reason. The player is caucious, so he might not go off without protection and wait until he draws some (unless he gets killed soon or you have 0-2 cards in hand). That's a common strategy against blue decks without fast clock.
Sometimes they have protection and show and tell and they still play wish. In this case, it's just bad luck.
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You counter the mana source that gives Belcher 3 mana or you die to Elvish Spirit Guide + Empty the Warrens.
Here's another question, do you counter the High Tide?
Not always.
This happened to me last night playing Spiral Tide. My hand is High Tide, High Tide, Turnabout, Time Spiral and I have four lands in play. I lead with High Tide, opponent counters it. I cast the second High Tide. Now with 2 remaining lands I cast Turnabout to untap all and go for Time Spiral -> Win. If the opponent kept his single FoW for the Time Spiral or the Turnabout I would be dead in the water.
Indeed. Countering High Tide isn't always the answer. Its really difficult to tell but if you pay attention to stuff like Peer through Depths or Cunning Wish, you might have a good idea of how many High Tides they have. Otherwise, things like what bilb_o described can happen. High Tide, even Remand on your High Tide and then go off on the next turn, Snapcaster Mage on HT (if you run into Solidarity in these cases that is). In general, its probably the safer route. If you let it resolve, Solidarity in particular can just respond to everything you do and then eventually counter the FoW/Pierce, etc. Pierce on HT is pretty good cause then they lose 4 mana if HT resolves. I mean these decks are slower because they are designed to beat control decks.. so usually unless a High Tide player is an idiot will he have a back up plan for a counter focus on HT.
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What you counter is based in large part upon your strategy, your deck's goals, and timing.
If you are a very aggressive aggro-control deck, like Merfolk or the RUG Delver lists, then games often boil down to not how many cards your opponent has but how much mana they have available to cast their cards. In these instances, it is often best to wait until your opponent has tied up as much of their mana as possible with search and set-up before trying to fight over their attempts to win.
In other instances such as when playing a slower or more reactive control list, it is often best to pick a fight at your time of choosing - specifically when the opponent is at his weakest and is unable to defend (aka look at his available mana). For example if your opponent is playing Spell Pierce in his deck, and taps out on turn 2 to Burning Wish, it's probably a good idea to use your own Spell Pierce right then and there. The possibility of him untapping, playing an Ancient Tomb, and then cast Show and Tell with Spell Pierce back-up is frightening.
So here is a little guide:
1) Determine what is important
2) Pick a fight you know you can win (be active and aggressive in this regard)
3) Have the foresight to dodge fights you cannot win
Most people fail in step #1, for what it's worth.
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For hive mind, wouldn't it be more reasonable to let the pact resolve and then stifle the pay or lose trigger? That way you get w/e pact effect as well as not lose the game.
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Sometimes when you have Daze or Spellpierce it might be wise to actually counter the Brainstorm. This is especially true when you have a clock deployed and they seem to miss their land drop.
I can't count the times I just kept a hand with just mana/business with just Brainstorm + fetch to fix it. I would just think to myself, if they counter this I lose the game. They NEVER do. It almost feels like Brainstorm had freaking Split Second. This is especially true when they mulligan and for decks that need critical mass of spells (Storm, High Tide).
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