Originally Posted by Misplayer
You guys that keep cutting Counterspell are really ballsy. Legacy is a relatively random format and you can't really depend on a narrower permission spell like Spell Snare to be your only other counterspell in the deck. Spell Snare is obviously amazing but I think you're under-evaluating plain old Counterspell.
It makes sense to cut Counterspell if a small, local metagame is predictable and vulnerable to Spell Snare but there are so many cards and strategies that Spell Snare doesn't hit that you don't want to resolve.
@Misplayer
If you did come under this assumption without any hints from D.I.F. or I; then congratulations as your on the right track. If not then give credit where credit is due.1. I've cut Counterspell from my latest build (only 4 Spell Snare/4 Force of Will permission main). I've found that not needing UU except to occasionally play Jace makes the manabase incredibly more stable. I'd be interested to know what others thoughts are on this.
As for how good it is, I think without Counter spell or Vendillion clique in that two slot you really are either focusing on a hate match up like merfolk or zoo, rather then diversifying your build. Here is what you should be thinking.
1. If my deck has many more efficient threats ala Vindicate disk ect. that which pertains a more mid range approach to various threats: then you should probably run counter spell in those 2 slots.
2. If my deck is trying to be better against control, as well as various other decks in this format such as aggro loam pre-board, or even just have a cheap 9th and 10th win condition to consistently be placing pressure on said opponent: then 2 vendillion clique is in order.
3. If i'm meta-gaming merfolk or zoo or goblins: then 2 path fills these slots.
Not. It's terrible and over costed obviously. Test it and you'll see.2. Wish Targets: How relevant is Tsabo's Decree?
It seems like auto-includes are
Its best if this is not a 1 of slot as path is amazing and stops a number of decks that run rediculous numbers of 1-2-3 drops like zoo.Path to Exile
Obviously goodExtirpate
Obviously goodPulse of the Fields
Terrible, been there done that; your better off runing intuition or better yet mystical tutor.FoF
Hey I wonder where you got this one? Its good if you dont run counterspell as it gives you an answer against stax matchups. wipes out affinity and delays enchantress.Fracturing Gust
Terrible negates simply better in the sb.Counterspell
Yes my list wish targets are neccesary.Other current SB cards include Ajani, Crucible, additional PtE and Crypt/Relicare these necessary with Wish->Extirpate? I'm leaning towards yes.
@Hitman82
Risk meets reward.You guys that keep cutting Counterspell are really ballsy.
Force suddenly dissapear from the format?Legacy is a relatively random format and you can't really depend on a narrower permission spell like Spell Snare to be your only other counterspell in the deck.
Actually the players who know what their doing legitimately can tell you the second best counter in this format is not counter spell, but actually spell snare. Look at all the blue control lists and I guarantee you, you will find more spell snares then counterspells. This thread specificly goes into endless discussions about why to run spell snare, now figure out that most of this format is 1-2-3 most of it being 2 cc cards and you'll see why spell snare rules.Spell Snare is obviously amazing but I think you're under-evaluating plain old Counterspell.
It makes sense to cut Counterspell if a small, local metagame is predictable and vulnerable to Spell Snare but there are so many cards and strategies that Spell Snare doesn't hit that you don't want to resolve.
WRONG.
It makes seance to cut spell snare in regards to better threats then a 1-1, ala vendillion, or better cheaper removal spells that don't get dazed or spell snared or counterbalanced easily.
You have to figure your going to play against counterbalance more then once every 8 rounds of magic you play. There's simply that much of a meta-game for it. At Chicago I played against counterbalance 3 times throughout the day and I am playing it even more frequently online. This makes spell snare better then counter spell for a multitude of reasons. As I said there's a whole argument on this, search it up.
@Benie Bederios
I like your deck. It looks a lot like mine, except it has a minor black splash instead of green. But isn't the single Humility a bit weird? Why not add another Eternal Dragon or Counterspell? Or a Wrath of God, if the metagame is very aggro.
And concerning the sideboard: Why the single Vedalken Shackles? Why not -1 Shackles, -1 Relic, +1 Crucible, +1 Path to Exile? Or +2 Humility (while removing the one in your maindeck)?
I typically don't think it is ever worthwhile to run a single of anything unless it is Legendary, has a unique redundant effect, or can be tutored.
@rsaunder
I typically see either 2/2 or 0/3 Elspeth/DoJ.
@Misplayer, Hitman82
To be honest, I agree with Hitman82. Cutting Counterspell is ballsy. It's of vital importance in mid- to late-game.
Then again, cutting Counterspell for Mana Leak has indeed occurred in the past with some success.
@mossivo1986
Spell Snare is definitely a good card, but think you're being a bit unfair to Hitman82's argument. I think he is trying to point out that Spell Snare does not offer the same versatility and dependability of Counterspell. Force of Will is good, but quite frankly, it is not as good as Counterspell in any situation where you have UU untapped, and it cannot replace it utterly. Much is the same for Spell Snare. Note that there are also threats out there that don't cost 2cc and cannot be removed by Vindicate.
"Look at all the blue control lists and I guarantee you, you will find more spell snares then counterspells."
What blue control lists? The only ones seem to be this one and CounterTop. xD
Countertop is a bit vague, but in a brief synopsis of things:
Dreadstill ugr, uwb, uwgb
Threshhold ugr,ugw,ugb
muc
landstill
merfolk
ITF "Sometimes, depends on the meta"
so thats 10 and i didn't go into all the different random countertop decks except maybe ugw thresh and dreadstill, which are completely different.
FYI If I have 2 untapped mana and my opponent is playing blue control and i'm countering a spell, say goyf for example. I'm not going to bait myself into getting dazed or snared, if its so serious that I need to answer it then i'm going to force. Counterspell leaves you dry to daze and if you force afterwards your still dry to another daze, so in essence double daze fucks you if you play counterspell or 1 snare, vesus just casting force and playing the safe game.
If the argument has changed to Counterspell being better then FOW your out of your mind. Counterspell isn't legitimate in anything besides maybe
landstill
MUC
ITF
Outside of these three decks whens the last time you saw counterspell played?
Mossivo, I think you are missunderstanding some points. Nobody says that u should cut spell snare, but as Hitman has mentioned we should play both and I agree with this. I think spell snare is one of the best cards in the format and it is still underplayed in aggro control lists but I dont want to give thresh players some hints....^^.
I play a split of 3 spell snares and 3 counterspells, you can also play 4/2 or something but I would never cut CS from a heavy control list. Otherwise you are playing something like permanent control with permission.
Furthermore it is obviously that spell snare is narrow in some points. I want to list some examples:
- spell snare doesnt counter spell snare (you are playing a standstill on an empty board and the thresh player plays a spell snare - sitting your own spell snare dead in your hand)
- all the 1-drops
- Force, Crucible, Planeswalker, Vindicate etc. etc.
Aggro control lists are only playing spell snare for obviously reasons (aggro <=> tempo). But for example when I play thresh I often wish I would play one or two random counterspells because you are loosing so poorly to landstill^^.
Well, play both^^.FYI If I have 2 untapped mana and my opponent is playing blue control and i'm countering a spell, say goyf for example. I'm not going to bait myself into getting dazed or snared, if its so serious that I need to answer it then i'm going to force. Counterspell leaves you dry to daze and if you force afterwards your still dry to another daze, so in essence double daze fucks you if you play counterspell or 1 snare, vesus just casting force and playing the safe game.
I agree with this but I think we are in the landstill thread.If the argument has changed to Counterspell being better then FOW your out of your mind. Counterspell isn't legitimate in anything besides maybe
landstill
MUC
ITF
I also want to mention some points according to the posts above:
- cut the E-Dragon. It looks maybe nice but it does nothing. It cycles for a land and thats it. U can play a land in that slot. Hard casting E-Dragon is not really a options, it's cc is too high and when you cast it, it gets sworded or you have humility already in play. And we have really perfect finishers in form of elspeth and decree.
And recurring dragon under a standstill should never happens, otherwise your opp. plays awful and you win anyway.
- Manabase:
I think 23 lands and additional draw in form of 4 Brainstorm, 4 standstills and 2 sensei's give you a stable manabase. I would not play more lands (assuming a standard manabase, 1 dust bowl, 4 mishra etc.).
- You have to play sensei's. It is just huge. I think 2 is the right number but you can also try 3.
- I saw some lists in this thread, which run only 3 standstills. I strongly disagree on this. Standstill is still the MVP in all matchups beside dredge and merfolk.
- 2 elspeth 2 decree. Dont go below this.
Um, ok. I’ve seen many on these boards profess how good Spell Snare is. I’ve never refuted that. I also cut Counterspell for manabase reasons as I explained.
Right now I feel like my list is strong against aggro and aggro-control, decent against control and relatively weak against combo. I don’t think straight control makes up enough of the metagame that tuning my build for aggro/aggro-control will be too detrimental. Also, playskill is usually more of a determining factor in the control mirror than whether you play Counterspell/Clique.As for how good it is, I think without Counter spell or Vendillion clique in that two slot you really are either focusing on a hate match up like merfolk or zoo, rather then diversifying your build. Here is what you should be thinking
1. If my deck has many more efficient threats ala Vindicate disk ect. that which pertains a more mid range approach to various threats: then you should probably run counter spell in those 2 slots.
2. If my deck is trying to be better against control, as well as various other decks in this format such as aggro loam pre-board, or even just have a cheap 9th and 10th win condition to consistently be placing pressure on said opponent: then 2 vendillion clique is in order.
3. If i'm meta-gaming merfolk or zoo or goblins: then 2 path fills these slots.
Agree, I’m at 3 SB right now.Its best if this is not a 1 of slot as path is amazing and stops a number of decks that run rediculous numbers of 1-2-3 drops like zoo.
Could you explain this further? FoF is straight card advantage, the cards you mentioned dig for an answer. What’s bad about it? The potential two-turn casting cost? That’s all I can think of.Terrible, been there done that; your better off runing intuition or better yet mystical tutor.
Yup, you mentioned it, provided reasons why it was good which made sense to me to I put it in. Thanks. Same goes for Citrus-God and SB Crucible.Hey I wonder where you got this one? Its good if you dont run counterspell as it gives you an answer against stax matchups. wipes out affinity and delays enchantress.
Again, clarification? Is it because you need 2UUU to counter a spell in a pinch? Or because you don't fear any creatures late game?Terrible negates simply better in the sb.
I was asking about Crypt/Relic, on top of Extirpate.Yes my list wish targets are neccesary.
@i_need_the_extra_turns
- Spell Snare also doesn’t get countered by Spell Snare. Opposing Snares hit ONLY Standstill in my latest build. I’d rather have that happen then lose a counter war. To flip your example: They play Confidant, you Counterspell into their Spell Snare. If you have Spell Snare in this situation, you just made their Spell Snare dead. I play 3 Standstill at CMC=2 in my list, making Spell Snare very weak against me.
- The 1-drops are mostly relevant on turn 1. Otherwise, Explosives/Vindicate are there to clean up the mess. What 1-drops are worth countering anyway? Nimble Mongoose and Aether Vial are all that I can think of. Mongoose you EE or trade with Factory/Decree tokens. Vial you always Force if possible or EE.
- This point is valid, as Counterspell is much more worthwhile in the mirror, as Landstill is one of the few decks that plays most of their cards outside the CMC 1-2 mana curve. I think if you use your Forces wisely, this is still a winnable matchup.
Well I don't know. This deck, opposed to a Wish build, has a slightly lighter curve. The Vindicates are a cheaper answers then Cunning Wish, directly usable from turn 3. Also with Elspeth instead of Decree the curve is down alot. The land I cut from the 24 land-manabase is Tolaria West, wich is a land that comes into play tapped.Gotcha. Still lighter than I like to run (as far as non-land mana fixers go) but it makes more sense now.
What did you think of the 2/2 els/DOJ split in that build? I haven't had time to test it out too much and I've been running a 1/2 split. Was the second els worth it?
The third reason was I didn't expect alot of mana-denial so I thought I could get away with 23. And it payed out.
The single Humility is very nice. The deck has alot of draw and that card wins games outright.
Quite some decks can play around Wrath of God( the other possibility) quite well. Humility has to be dealt with, if they want to win. The card doesn't show up often, but it resulted in quite some scoopes from the other side of the table. It also better then Wrath of God in decks like Thresh and Dreadstill. Where Wrath of God is a 1-for-1 most of the time, Humility forces them to overextend.
Finally it stops recurring strategies of Aggro-Loam and some Survival lists( Eternal Witness doesn't work.)
I wouldn't play more then one though, because the second 1 is dead. In most matchups you can control the game for quite some time, but need a permanent answer.
Post Humility looses it's strenght because opponents will board in Krosan Grip, so I wouldn't move them to the side.
Crucible of worlds is the answer for the mirror or other controldecks. I still can use it lategame so I chose to play one. Vedalken Shackles is actually Path to Exile #4, but a little more permanent. I won a game against Merfolk solely on Shackles, making sure he needed three creatures to do something, walking into my Wrath of God.
Also 7 1-mana spotremoval spells is enough. The only deck I can board in 4 Path to Exile is Merfolk, because it's easy to remove 4 Standstill. In other matchups it's rarely possible to board in 4 spot-removal spells.
Benie
I would understand if you were referring to vindicate still aka Konsultant's list or even Rockout's; but here is the problem, and I don't mean to sound like a prick, but this is Wish still. You simply don't need to extend your manabase for double blue in these lists. You also don't need to loose counter wars.Mossivo, I think you are missunderstanding some points. Nobody says that u should cut spell snare, but as Hitman has mentioned we should play both and I agree with this.
If I even thought it would work, just alittle bit I would say sure. But the problem is it simply doesn't. This is over relentless testing. Ask Rockout we've had the argument over and over again. It always comes back to the same damn problems. It's a 1-1 that looses to spell snare (The second best counter in the format." It doesn't improve your board position and it deffinately cannot win you a game.
alas enters Vendillion Clique.
Where isn't it played in blue agro control/control lists?I think spell snare is one of the best cards in the format and it is still underplayed in aggro control lists but I dont want to give thresh players some hints....^^.
Evolution my peer. The times they be a changin.I would never cut CS from a heavy control list.
Correct. So you find yourself at a standstill,"pun intended" with you having the advantage because they run a list of 2cc cards. Also if you've reached the mid-way point in the thresh matchup you shouldn't have 2 cards in hand some lands and thats it. This scenario is unlikely because of this reason, but if it were to occur thats fine. I'd rather have spell snare then give my opponent the chance to snare my counterspell that I may have. "This is assuming I have counterspell and snare in hand, and my opponent has double snare and on the stack is a standstill."I want to list some examples:
- spell snare doesnt counter spell snare (you are playing a standstill on an empty board and the thresh player plays a spell snare - sitting your own spell snare dead in your hand)
One drops get taken care of by ee,swords,factory. post board you can throw in a number of viable answers.- all the 1-drops
Force of will has once again suddenly dissapeared from the format. Also who cares about vindicate other then on a plainswalker. Who cares about crucible. you have ee/dustbowl or wasteland. Also note, if your playing crucible in the maindeck of a landstill model currently you need to tune your list more.- Force, Crucible, Planeswalker, Vindicate etc. etc.
If you read the argument again, then you would understand he was asking which decks played spell snare other then countertop decks. I then proceded to inform him.I agree with this but I think we are in the landstill thread.
You make some very good points. I'm running a 4-2 split of SS-CS but also am thinking of taking out the CS. Its difficult getting the UU in the early game but I worry about needing to counter Vindicates or Planeswalkers and not having Force or a card to pitch to it.
I run 2 Humility and 1 Wrath, I am finding that more useful than the 1-2 split but can't decide. Anyway I am considering using Vendilion Clique as well (in place of Counterspell). I'm not sold on it completely because I don't like them getting an extra draw to possibly topdeck a bomb but I may have to try it out. If I do, I'm just hoping the 2 Humility won't limit my Clique use.
Also, I see you are against Crucible in the maindeck. I currently use it with 1 of's of Tolaria West, Wasteland, and Academy Ruins, but I have been back and forth with the idea of using it. It has saved me on a few occasions and helps in the mirror but it may be a 'win-more' and not needed. Is it better to not use it maindeck?
@mossivo1986
I personally do not consider Merfolk, Threshold, or Dreadstill to be control decks. Merfolk I consider aggro; the other two I consider aggro-control. I mean, they have a short clock and focus on board threats without necessarily maintaining control of it. In situations like this, Spell Snare is obviously a stronger tempo card.
When I said Counterspell is better than Force of Will when you have UU open, I was obviously speaking in terms of ceteris parabis. I'm not about to list out the contingency plans for every situation. When you compare two objects of interest, you typically hold external variables fixed. So please don't go about arguing things that I had no interest in when I made the statement.
And I never did say I saw Counterspell being played elsewhere. Also, I did not say Counterspell is strictly better than Force of Will. The two cards are clearly different and situationally better than one another; for example, if you have no blue cards in your hand, Force of Will is a 5cc Counterspell; when you have UU open, typically, you don't want to lose card advantage by casting Force of Will (unless of course you have a good reason to do so, but I honestly don't want to get into contingencies). So yeah, please do not straw man me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
@Misplayer
"Also, playskill is usually more of a determining factor in the control mirror than whether you play Counterspell/Clique."
Skill is indeed a factor, but it should not be an excuse. Indeed, skill does include deck construction and metagame analysis. Gabriel Nassif, for instance, piloted his decks to pretty much the most second place finishes ever, relying often more on the surprise element of his constructed decks than his actual playing skill. (I am not saying he is unskilled, I am just saying that his creations are often much more successful than they would have been because they take others by surprise, an example being TwelvePost.) I am also sure that if I handed any Wold Champion a preconstructed deck and threw him into a Regionals, he would not get very far.
@Benie Bederios
Agreed. I run 2 maindeck Humility right now. But I also run 3 Wrath of God. ^^
Well, I reason that if a Humility doesn't cause them to scoop, then they have an answer for it. If they have an answer for it, I might want an extra copy.
I run 6 spot-removal cards maindeck to deal with local aggro. Losing to a turn one Hypnotic Specter, turn two Hymn to Tourach, is a reality where I am. With another 6 in the sideboard (4 of which are for the local red).
What about the Cunning Wish? I feel you need to change up the SB to make better use of that card.
@mossivo1986 (AGAIN)
OHHH... WE'RE TALKING ABOUT WISHSTILL? HAHAHA...
I thought we were talking about Landstill in general. Man, I don't even run Vindicate (I'm still UWg), so I need my Counterspells. xD
As far as Wishstill goes, I will defer to you. I have never tried my hand at a Wishstill. It feels clunky to me.
@ultimoman
I assemble U/W + U in the start, then try to find the second W by turn 4. I really don't see why it is so hard. You won't need WW for much in the beginning.
My RoFlCoPtEr, it goes SwA SwA SwA SwA SwA SwA SwA!!@mossivo1986 (AGAIN)
OHHH... WE'RE TALKING ABOUT WISHSTILL? HAHAHA...
I thought we were talking about Landstill in general. Man, I don't even run Vindicate (I'm still UWg), so I need my Counterspells. xD
As far as Wishstill goes, I will defer to you. I have never tried my hand at a Wishstill. It feels clunky to me.
All seriousness aside yes I was refering to my build and his build. "misplayer"
As far as uwg is concerned I have no interest in debating counterspell in uwg because I find the whole deck to be too difficult to manage sb slots. Theres simply too many variables per tournament.
Has anyone thought of taking Tolaria West out? Sometimes its great to draw it but I hate drawing it early; its non-basic, comes into play tapped, and its ability is too slow until at least the mid-game so you aren't tapped out. Landstill can have problems getting a stable mana base early and against some decks its brutally hard. Tolaria West does not help in that situation and quite often I wished it was a basic land or a fetch.
You could always treat it like a spell and sub in another land if you are concerned about it screwing up your land drops.
Who still plays tolaria west? Jk.
But seriously don't play tolaria west. It's clunky as hell and in my opinion outdated as no one really plays crucible main anymore and it doesn't tutor for enough effects for that horrendous transmute cost.
I agree. Aside from the fact that it's too slow, it's not even flexible with the 1UU activation cost. The deck is better off with just a regular land.
You know, I tried out Sanctum Plowbeast today. I think it's better than Eternal Dragon since it can fetch basic Islands and Underground Seas, can recur with Ruins, and pitch to FoW. However, I also took out Plowbeast since I'd rather just have more land.
I've also tried replacing 1 of the plains or Tolaria West with Mistveil Plains and so far it works great :)
Getting 2 white permanents in our games should never be a problem... (soldier tokens)... so the 2nd ability proves to be quite useful...
Not to mention it can be fetched via fetches or even eternal dragon too :)
Oh I see I'm not the only one! I replaced it with another fetch land but Mistveil Plains is an interesting choice especially since it can be fetched, although I don't like that it comes into play tapped.
I like how the Plowbeast can be recurred with the Ruins, that could make things interesting.
I hate to knock off both of these ideas because they are both incredibly "here goes that word everyone hates" intuitive, but honestly the statistics on said cards are terrible. Dragon is simply better then a 3/6, and even though the cycling is a bit more efficient the mere fact that it relys on you controling academy ruins makes me sick to my stomach that it really was more then a; thats a cute concept. Dragon does soo much more for said deck.
@Mistveil Plains: Once again another one of those cards thats neat, but really doesn't give you an advantage unless you count ultra late game shuffling affects. Come on now, in a format where the top 50 cards cost 2cc or less "other then force of will which incidentally has an alternate casting cost. This is not only wasting a precious basic land wasteland or tolaria west slot. Its slower and doesn't procede to immidiately apply pressure.
West isn't mean to be cost efficient. It's meant to serve as a spell slot and also as a way to get dust bowl, a ruins. EE, or Factory, and under severe conditions your second white source or first white source.
West is good replacement bad.
I have an outdated Landstill...
I used to love this deck when the UW version was enough to kick any deck`s ass.
Now I see a lot os versions/splashes and meh...
I stilllike this deck engine, could you please post some decklists with diffirent splashes?
P.S. Mossivo, your avatar is so sexy... *_* Bale`s circular saw
ty a lot....
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.
Black Knight
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