Question about stifle

[KobeBryan]

Is stifle a good card to use against combo such as ANT and TES?

I'm not sure if you can stifle a LED.

[Wirrsturm]

Stifle can't counter mana abilities which LED is (although it is one with a bit of a weird timing restriction).

Whether Stifle is good against storm decks depends on the deck and the rest of your hand.

You can stifle their storm trigger, which is kind of a blow out, but I would think most storm decks would know better than to go off without figuring out whats in your hand when you're on blue.

You can stifle fetches to constrain storm's mana which can range from good to useless.

Can't stifle LED/Lotus

Basically stifle by itself will never beat storm but backed up with another counters it certianly presents another hurdle for a storm player.

[Goin Aggro]

You can't stifle an LED. Counts as a mana ability. That would be pretty wrong though. (Discard hand, no mana, whooooops)

Against Combo, you should theoretically be aiming to Stifle the Storm trigger, as that will ensure that they're completely out of gas, and options.

If you stifle the storm trigger, they will only get one (the original) copy of the spell, and two goblins or a Sorin's Thirst. (/Whatever the one that can actually target players is.)

[Hopo]

Is stifle a good card to use against combo such as ANT and TES?

I'm not sure if you can stifle a LED.

You cannot Stifle mana abilities.

[routlaw]

Against storm decks bagging fetchlands is usually the most productive usage of Stifle, especially in the early turns.

If they aren't playing a version with Chant effects, then you can keep open a U when they go to Ad Nauseam and force them to find discard effects with their flips for each of the stifles in your hand. Provided you have a clock, this makes their Ad Nauseam flips that much more intensive and Thoughtseize can get really tricky at this point.

It's honestly not a great card against Storm unless it is some balls to the wall version of an LED deck like SI or Belcher. Stifle gets you free wins versus those decks.

[Malchar]

You can stifle the storm trigger, which is amazing, but you can't stop their counters, chants, or discard spells, which any self-respecting storm deck will use proactively before attempting to go off. You definitely don't want stifle to be your only answer to storm.

[KobeBryan]

Can you stifle the hivemind copy? As in when he casts pact, you stifle the trigger of the HiveMind?

or is it better to wait until my upkeep to use?

[Julian23]

You can Stifle the triggered ability of Hive Mind that makes you copy his Pact. The best part is, that this will be triggering Hive Mind again, this time making your opponent copy Stifle. If there are no other triggered or activated abilities on the stack his copy will counter the trigger your original Stifle targets as well.

You could do the same thing during your upkeep, targeting the delayed triggered ability of your copied pact. For example, if you think he will then die to his pact on his turn. Considering he might be able to Pact of Negation your Stifle on his turn (making you copy Pact of Negation) it might usually be better to Stifle your Pact trigger on your turn instead of Stifle Hive Mind creating the copy for you.

/edit: However, if he has e.g. Pact of the Titan + Pact of Negation, his best play would be to play Titan, let you copy and resolve it, then Pact of Negation his original.

I don't wanna go into further strategic detail, but as you see, you gotta evaluate each situation in its own context and decide which way offers more EV.

[Esper3k]

I think in general, it's best to Stifle the upkeep trigger from a Pact. I can't really think of a situation where I'd want to Stifle the Hive Mind copy trigger instead. If they have double Pact in any situation, you're just as dead, but if they only have a single Pact and you Stifle your upkeep trigger, you get to just win on their turn (assuming they can't pay for their own Pact).