[Article] Counterbalancing Legacy

[frogboy]

http://strategy.channelfireball.com/featured-articles/maximum-value-counterbalancing-legacy/


Counterbalance is a perennial favorite in Legacy, and today Max examines how he would build it. With all the options available, check out his take on one of the most popular deck in the format!

[Forbiddian]

The deck doesn't seem functionally different from decks that MD swords and then board them out later against the few matchups where they're not wanted. Of the decks you listed, the only decks where you don't board in Swords are the Mirror and Belcher (and then ANT I'm assuming you'd only want it games 2 and 3).

For all the discussion about how you don't MD swords and how it's not needed, your board plans sure have a lot of +4 Swords to Plowshares.

[Skeggi]

I like the idea of that deck, however it looks like it would have problems against a turn 1 Lackey. His sideboardplan of siding out FoW against Goblins doesn't seem that thought-through. He also doesn't side in Swords to Plowshares against Dark Depths which may come in handy, I can tell you from experience.

In fact, he also sides out FoW against Zoo, Merfolk and Canadian Threshold. Especially against the latter I am sceptical. Usually I follow the rule of thumb to never side out Force of Will. I've tried siding out Force of Will a few times, but I generally regretted it.

[JACO]

Thanks for writing that article and contributing to the community. It's good to see more writers out there. I've got some thoughts on your article.

I played a nearly identical list (no crappy Seat of the Synod, which you'll never Trinket Mage for, as you'll be digging for Explosives 90% of the time) and a few different sideboard cards in testing for SCG Dallas $5K, but it was eerily similar to this. I can tell you that you are a major underdog to Zoo with this list, you'll beat combo of course, and your matchup with Canadian Thresh will be a coin flip. That doesn't seem like a good reason to run this version of CounterTop.

Both Nassif's deck from Worlds and the current crop of Natural Order Bant CounterTop decks all do what your deck does and have better game against the field than this deck. Nearly every version of CounterTop can beat combo, so what are you really hoping to accomplish with this list other than some cute tricks? To echo Forbiddian's thoughts above you're siding in Swords in nearly every match except the Mirror and Belcher (many of which DO play 4 Xantid Swarm in sideboard as a necessity against Force of Will decks, so you'll probably want Swords there too), and the mirror is a very limited percentage of the field. You already play all of the duals main, so you'd be better served playing Swords main.

On a semi-related note, I completely agree with the inclusion of Spell Snare and exclusion of Daze in these style decks.

[jazzykat]

A very interesting and well thought out article, which I appreciated. At this point though, the very long comment left by "durrr" casts some doubts on your strategies. I would be most interested to see a point by point rebuttal/response to it.

[psu42]

Good to see another Legacy article...too bad the deck sucks.

If you aren't playing Swords main you are doing it wrong. And if you don't want to run a finisher (Progenitus, Elspeth, etc.) fine, but I think you need it.

Trinket Mage blows by all accounts, Shacles and Explosives are way too slow compared to Swords. Ponder and Brainstorm is a lot of 1 mana cards and make your Counterbalance'ing much worse.

Firespout is underwhelming against zoo, especially after you play it the first time...maybe you can get a 3 or god pray a 4:1 the first time...but after that maybe you get a 2-1; they aren't going to overextend if they don't have too. Siding out Forces in every match seems really bad too.

All in all I think it's a pretty sad list.

[Anusien]

Nice article.

I don't agree with taking out Sower; I've found it's helpful to just randomly save your bacon from giant monsters like Tombstalker or Spiritmonger. I know that you added a Shackles, but Shackles is a full turn slower sometimes, and it's much worse agianst Merfolk.

I'm not sure I agree with your SB against Merfolk. I like keeping in FoW for their Vial, since you want to be tapping mana every turn. I've trimmed Trinket Mages and Counterbalances in the past. I'm not sure I'd cut an EE either, and I've totally brought in Grudge for their Vial + Jitte if they have it.

Not sure I like bringing in the full 4 StP for maybe 6 targets in the Canadian Threshold mirror. I also think I'd rather EE than Firespout, Stifle be damned.

At least one of the StP you bring in against Tendrils should be EE instead. That way you have another set of EE in case they have EtW or something wacky. Ditto on Belcher.

Cutting EE and Needle against Dredge is pretty weak. EE is fine for Zombie removal and can randomly get their outlet, and Needle on their outlet can slow them down a long time. Instead I'd probably pull all 4 CB and all 4 Spell Snare for StP/Trap/Crypt/EE.

You board EE out far more than I do. I think the only time I board it out is against Goblins and the CB mirror. It seems really loose to have the second one in the board for just Zoo. Maybe that slot should be CoP: Red or CoP: Green or something.

psu42: If getting 4:1s against Zoo isn't enough to beat it, no deck can ever beat Zoo.

[psu42]

I mean, if you get a 4-1 the first time on a Firespout, awesome. But they aren't going to be baited again. It loses value after the first time you play it in the round.

[Anusien]

So you're saying in game 1 I'm going to completely blow them out with Firespout. And in game 2 they're going to slow down to play around Firespout, letting me keep the board clear and clean up with Counterbalance? Sounds like a good plan, actually.

[Kuma]

It's a well written article, but as an advocate/player of Bant CounterTop with Progenitus, I disagree with just about everything in it.

A few key disagreements:

You put way too much faith in Vedalken Shackles. The card was marginal before Qasali Pridemage was printed, making QP the final nail in its coffin. It can't come online earlier than turn four, and that's if you hit all your land drops and manage to untap with it. Goblins is going to run ragged over you, and Zoo seems like it could be problematic too.

The idea that you can just Force of Will Natural Order is hubris. They're running just as much countermagic as you are, and if you save a Force of Will for Natural Order, you're liable to lose to their Counterbalance, Tarmogoyf, Rhox War Monk, etc. They don't need Natural Order to win by any stretch of the imagination. In dozens of tournaments where I've ran CounterTop with Progenitus, I've had three game-changing Natural Orders successfully countered.

It's also worth noting that virtually all CounterTop lists currently putting up success at large events are Bant lists with Progenitus.

Merfolk lists don't even run Wake Thrasher anymore. Even if Rhox War Monk doesn't get to block, he still swings for 3-5 with exalted triggers canceling some of their attack. Zoo usually has to spend two cards to get rid of it, and if they don't/can't the 6-10 point life total swings will quickly put the game out of reach. These matches are also where spot removal shines, as you can get very favorable position when they make unfavorable blocks to get rid of your threats by making their blocks even more unfavorable.

I really don't know what to say to you if you think Vedalken Shackles is good in these matchups but Rhox War Monk isn't.

[hi-val]

So you're saying in game 1 I'm going to completely blow them out with Firespout. And in game 2 they're going to slow down to play around Firespout, letting me keep the board clear and clean up with Counterbalance? Sounds like a good plan, actually.

I think we both know that Zoo games postboard don't go that way : ) With 7+ ways to kill Cbal, either with Grip or Kitty Pride, it's not always gonna stick. With few valuable ways to get rid of Wild Nacatl, it'll hit through a lot. Then, there's that spectre of Price of Progress hanging over your head! That is, unless your Zoo opponent is playing without it...

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I often wonder why Cursed Scroll isn't paired more with Trinket Mage. Especially in lists like this, light in both MD removal and kill conditions.

[Volt]

What a twist. A few weeks ago, we had someone take a beating for writing an article about wanting to play 7 maindeck Plows. Now we have someone taking a beating for writing an article about wanting to play 0 maindeck Plows.

I suppose one of the reasons for all the Shackles and Sowers is because the deck is otherwise pretty threat-poor. And Max thinks pretty much all creatures suck, unless they have a useful cip effect, or they're goyf (begrudging). He'd much rather take your crappy creature away from you than deign to play one himself.

Anyway, I think the article was written in a very agreeable way. And Max certainly does well enough with the deck, if only because he makes fewer play mistakes than just about anyone else. Not sure if I can get on board with the "zero maindeck Plows" plan, tho.

[Bardo]

Anyway, I think the article was written in a very agreeable way. And Max certainly does well enough with the deck, if only because he makes fewer play mistakes than just about anyone else. Not sure if I can get on board with the "zero maindeck Plows" plan, tho.

Worked surprisingly well for Probasco, who made it to the finals of the largest Legacy GP (running 0 StP w/ CT) and was beaten by a superior opponent (running 4 StP w/ CT). Strikes me how much StP is a crutch and how it's an auto-include if you're running white (like FoW in blue). If nothing else, it's worth considering and the design doesn't demand StP, though the format might.

My knee-jerk is that you really want StP to stop that turn 1 Nacatl or Lackey; though it's just that and not a thoughtful conclusion.

[Anusien]

I went back and dug up the Day 2 GP Chicago Metagame breakdown. While Zoo doesn't seem to be prevalent, Goblins was the second most played deck, and Merfolk the 4th. All had 10 or more players out of 132, so 13% and 8% of the metagame respectively.

And Counterbalance is better against Zoo than against both of those decks.

[frogboy]

@IBA: I have a million cards in my hand; Scroll is more inaccurate than a sniper with Parkinson's.


I think we both know that Zoo games postboard don't go that way : ) With 7+ ways to kill Cbal, either with Grip or Kitty Pride, it's not always gonna stick. With few valuable ways to get rid of Wild Nacatl, it'll hit through a lot. Then, there's that spectre of Price of Progress hanging over your head! That is, unless your Zoo opponent is playing without it...

If your opponent is holding creatures because of Firespouts that may or may not be in your hand you are certainly in very good shape.

Concerning Price of Progress, Spell Snare gets earmarked for that card pretty quickly after turn like four. Boarding in Grips dilutes threat counts, and it's not like you ever play Counterbalance into an onboard Pridemage, which is incidentally pretty easy to kill.

Cross posted:


@ “You only have four Force of Wills for Natural Order:” Yes. Natural Order is good in the mirror and difficult to counter if your opponent makes it his plan. I don’t think it’s particularly good against decks that can race it (viz. Zoo, Merfolk, Gobins, any combo deck) nor do I think it’s actively good in any matchups other than the mirror, so I am not playing it. I think it’s important to be able to answer, so I bring in Pierce to help break the symmetry. You can also construct a board state such that the board is stable, but if your opponent casts a Natural Order and you counter it, you move way ahead. Your opponent will usually be loathe to take such a high-risk plan.

@Prosak: I think Firespout is way better at stabilizing early blowouts than Plow. Plow is just a one for one, while Firespout brings their offense to a screeching halt. If you’re on the play, you even get to mise their Tarmogoyf occasionally.

@Dredge: I probably have way more respect for it than almost anyone else in the format. It is certainly true that I included Crypt because I wanted to win matches against Dredge, but it was not the impetus for adding Mage.

@Sower of Temptation: They were in earlier lists, but they get Bolted and Plowed pretty much all the time. They are good against Merfolk, but Shackles is better because you can rebuy. Having fours for Counterbalance is good, but I would rather play more twos anyway; if I added a four it would probably be Cryptic Command.

@Wall of Roots: You can’t really use it with Top if you are serious about blocking.

@Durrrr: I am perfectly willing to concede that the deck has problems against Lands and Enchantress. Neither deck exists, at all, in the Pacific Northwest, and I have no experience with them.

Your main critiques seem to focus on the lack of ammo against beatdown and the presence of Trinket Mage. I will try to address those first; some other miscellaneous points are below. It is certainly true that War Monk is better in the Zoo matchup than Trinket Mage. I do not find either card to be of particularly high value against Merfolk, but I actually prefer Mage. Further, I do not feel that War Monk is necessary against Zoo, and that Trinket Mage adds value to many other matchups.

I’m not disputing that game one against Zoo and Merfolk is tough. If they resolve creatures on turns one and two and you don’t lock them or play Tarmogoyf, Firespout, Shackles, or Trinket Mage on turn three, you’re probably dead. If you have Force for Nacatl or Snare for their two drop, though, you have a ton of breathing room. Merfolk comes out of the gates even slower, although I will certainly grant that their midgame is much more impressive than Zoo’s.

After boarding, you get all of the removal spells, and because you have enough mana to cast your spells, you can spend your mana killing your opponent’s men and digging for more removal rather than digging for land. I am emphasizing this point because I don’t think people are aware of the opportunity costs of shaved lands in terms of how your in-game tactics are affected. It has been my experience in both testing and in tournaments that once I have four Plows, four Firespouts, and the extra Explosives, that I can present enough interactions in the early turns against beatdown to get into the midgame with a manageable board position wherein I can start to execute my own gameplan.

We can agree that you don’t want to simply board in a bunch of one for ones, correct? That you want to have enough cards to meaningfully interact with their beatdown strategy in the early turns (with Plow, Firespout, perhaps Rhox War Monk) before moving into a midgame where you have more powerful spells?

You are in the most danger in the Zoo matchup in the first three turns, when your opponent has the capacity to virtual Time Walk you by spending mana affecting the board while you spend mana drawing cards. To combat this, you obviously want to aggressively battle their permanents. Firespout will put you up cards and get you into the midgame with a clear board, which is all you really want. Plow picks up the stragglers from Firespout or allows you to keep tempo parity with Wild Nacatl.

In the Merfolk matchup, blocking is much more profitable barring Lord of Atlantis, but your opponent will lean on Lords to get combat to favor them. The best way to attack such a plan is to simply kill their Lords, and the best way to do that is Firespout or mid-combat Plows.

At this point it is reasonably clear that Plow and Firespout are the best cards, right? What about supplementing them with Rhox War Monk, probably by cutting Trinket Mage, Crypt, and Needle for probably 4 Rhox War Monk 1 Engineered Explosives?

First, having Top is virtually sine qua non for winning. Trinket Mage gives you more Tops and a nonzero amount of added value, both in terms of the body and in terms of the flexibility to get other targets.

Okay. The deck has a lot of manipulation. You can find Top other ways. Fair. How much impact will Rhox War Monk have?

On turn three, you will clearly prefer to Firespout, because the risk that your opponent will remove War Monk and continue attacking you is not worth the potential benefit of an extra card when they play more creatures while preparing an alpha strike.

But you do not have Firespout. Very well. You now have a ¾. Recognize that Tarmogoyf often is forced to trade for a creature and a burn spell, or perhaps a Path/Plow. Against Zoo, that is probably what will happen; you probably traded War Monk for Kird Ape, Bolt, and five to eight life depending on how you measure such things. This is not irrelevant, and it is true that your future War Monks and Tarmogoyfs are now less vulnerable to removal.

What about against Merfolk? If you are able to block against Merfolk, it implies that you have been successful in keeping their Lords at bay and are likely winning anyway. If you have not been able to manage their Lords, you probably won’t be able to block at all; perhaps next turn you will be able to gain three life from attacking. This is not so good. Trinket Mage might actually be superior by allowing you to destroy their Lord with Explosives next turn. Who knows.

Consider the other benefits of Trinket Mage:

Pithing Needle forces Vial decks to fight fairly. When you hit the midgame and they have Lotus every turn, it can be very hard to win just because your opponent has more velocity from all of the spells he gets to play. When you Needle Vial, they can only play one or two spells a turn and can’t pressure you as much with manlands and Wasteland. Also, yeah, Counterbalance, mise. Needle is also excellent against Qasali Pridemage or if the other guy has Top in the mirror and you don’t.
The ability to Trinket Mage for Crypt being critical to your chances of winning a match against Dredge are elaborated upon above.

I do, in fact, Trinket Mage for Seat. Usually it is because I need access to four mana on the next turn and can’t afford to cantrip. It isn’t routine, but it’s not irrelevant. Most Wasteland decks aggressively target colored mana, and Seat isn’t a popular target.

Miscellany:

Shackles is very good against Tropical Islands and any sort of midrange aggro deck. It is passable against Goblins, Merfolk and Zoo; you’re usually not unhappy about drawing one, but the second one is dead in the early game, so you board one out.

Your point that I should play less lands but also that I will lose games because I have a ton of threes and only two lands is not internally consistent; I play a bunch of lands so that I can cast all of my spells.

And yeah, you cut the Tropical over the Ruins because you do want to EE lock Zoo. Forcing them to draw creatures with different costs before getting anywhere is good.

[Forbiddian]

Worked surprisingly well for Probasco, who made it to the finals of the largest Legacy GP (running 0 StP w/ CT) and was beaten by a superior opponent (running 4 StP w/ CT). Strikes me how much StP is a crutch and how it's an auto-include if you're running white (like FoW in blue). If nothing else, it's worth considering and the design doesn't demand StP, though the format might.

My knee-jerk is that you really want StP to stop that turn 1 Nacatl or Lackey; though it's just that and not a thoughtful conclusion.

You didn't mention how Andy Probasco didn't play White. He's giving up the best removal in the game in order to have a more stable mana base. This might be right or wrong, but it's completely different than simply foregoing playing the best removal in the game but still running the color requirements for it.

Not running Swords MD seems like a cool selling point, but like I said earlier: I think the deck would perform almost identically to a similar deck with Swords MD. Slightly better or worse games 1s, but by game 2 you have the same 60 cards in your library.


It's interesting, though, that Frogboy is making the tough/unobvious decisions. Notice how often he boards out Force of Will and some of the more off-the-beaten path choices. If his decisions are accepted, this might be a sign of some desperation from the traditionally traditionalist CB/Top players or maybe a sign that CB/Top will soon return to the top of the podium with some new innovation. I don't know, but it's very nice to see the archetype/format evolve.

[Bardo]

Durrrr is Gearhart, right?

Good article.

@ Forbiddian - That's one way to look at it. Vaguely remembering Andy's interview in a Hi-Val article (post-GP), I think he said StP made the deck worse; not that he was trading Tundra for more Islands, though that's obviously a plus in some MUs.

[Forbiddian]

@ Forbiddian - That's one way to look at it. Vaguely remembering Andy's interview in a Hi-Val article (post-GP), I think he said StP made the deck worse; not that he was trading Tundra for more Islands, though that's obviously a plus in some MUs.

Not *just* bonus islands.

If you're already running four colors, how often do you have time/extra lands to fetch a tundra on turn 1 or 2 when Swords to Plowshares is useful? If I'm on 4 colors, I'd already be looking to cut a color, since already I need 4 specific lands to play all the spells out of my deck. Notice how his deck is really 3 color with black splash just for Duress to help in the combo MU.

Centralizing your color scheme stabilizes the deck in many more ways than letting you up the island count, especially when random things like mana screw, stifle, wasteland, get thrown around.

[Anusien]

You still have 4 Islands. It's not as many as Probasco had, but at the same time it's not like you need to start stealing Gathan Raiders through Blood Moon. Nor do you need to cast Sower of Temptation against Blood Moon decks. If you cut the Seat of the Synod because you'd rather dig up Top, then you have 5 Islands. I don't think you're in terrible danger manabase-wise. Remember that Andy was UGRB; Frogboy is just going -1 USea -2 Island +1 Seat of the Synod +2 Tundra.