Arcane Denial?

[slave]

Hi,

I'm a bit new to Legacy - as some of you may already know from some of my posts.
And I've been looking at Counters.

Now besides the staples of Daze, Force, Pierce etc., I've been looking at what others are out there.
...and I found Arcane Denial.
A hard counter like Counterspell that has no "pay mana" drawback like Daze.
Plus it 1U, so it's very playable in decks that aren't mono-blue or filled with expensive lands.

Since almost all decks in Legacy are packed with 1-drops and even 0-drops, would it be playable as a swing-card?
Capable of either being a counter, or potentially cast this together with a low CMC spell you don't need to draw another 3 cards yourself?

Thoughts?

[Kich867]

There's this whole group of people in my local store who tries to run this card in legacy, they pack it into every deck, I can't even express to you how unbelievably bad this card is in legacy.

The power level of cards in legacy is way, way too strong to use this sort of thing; if you want a counterspell that cantrips, run Remand.

Here's how this card actually reads:

Counter target spell. Draw a card. The controller of that spell may draw two cards.

On their turn they literally get an ancestral recall essentially for free. The magnitude of how bad this card is is truly unreal. There are already enough amazing counterspells in legacy, and while there are few to no good draw spells in legacy, there's enough card filtering to shake a stick at, which is all you really need.

[Julian23]

I see no point in running Arcane Denial. Which kind of strategy are you pursuing by playing mana-hungry permission that comes back to bite you in the long run? The only sane option would be combo in which case I'd much rather have Spell Pierce, Daze, Remand or Misdirection. And, of course, Force of Will. Even Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek make more sense to me in this case.

[slave]

Cheers for the input fella's - this is exactly the kind of replies I was after.

This IS a bad card, but I was wondering if anyone thought it may have been playable.
Guess not. :wink:

.....and what about Disrupting Shoal?

[Kich867]

Cheers for the input fella's - this is exactly the kind of replies I was after.

This IS a bad card, but I was wondering if anyone thought it may have been playable.
Guess not. :wink:

.....and what about Disrupting Shoal?

Shoal may be playable in some sort of mono blue modern shell, perhaps a Merfolk or some-such. As it stands now, Force of Will is a debated card anyways depending on the deck. Some decks can't afford to withstand the card disadvantage, sometimes FOW's are boarded out in matchups in favor of more one-to-one counterspells.

I don't believe it'd be functional to run 8 2-for-1 counterspells in a deck. Furthermore, it's very restrictive and requires you to have a very flexible hand. However, it is far easier to hard-cast than Force of Will for the majority of spells you'll want to hit with it. In most cases it'll be a 3 or 4 mana counterspell.

[rufus]

Arcane Denial might be worth playing on your own spells if they're creatures cast with Cavern of Souls so they're uncounterable. Then you get net +2 cards for :u::1:.

[Lord Seth]

I think a comparison with Remand helps show why Arcane Denial isn't that great. It seems a reasonable comparison...both cost 1U, both counter a spell, and both get you a card.

Arcane Denial counters a spell, gets you one card, and gets your opponent two cards. This means you're down three cards in terms of card advantage (you lost Arcane Denial and your opponent gained two cards) but up two (your opponent lost a card and you drew a card). The problem is that this is a net loss of one card.

With Remand, you lose a card (Remand) and gain a card (the one you drew). Your opponent doesn't lose a card because they got it back. This is an even trade, however, it's slightly better for you because your opponent at least lost some tempo in doing so (e.g. they might have to wait a turn to cast it again, or if nothing else they have to spend more mana to cast it).

With simple math, it's not hard to see why Arcane Denial is worse; simply put, you gain a net loss in card advantage, whereas with Remand you don't lose any card advantage and instead gain some degree of tempo (whether that degree is "time walk" or "mild annoyance" varies, but it's always something).

Now you might say "wait a minute! Isn't Force of Will considered the best counterspell in Legacy? That card leaves you one card down also, as you lose two cards to get rid of one." Aha, but Force of Will has something that makes up for it: It's free to cast.

In fact, looking at it that way, it means Arcane Denial is essentially a Force of Will that, rather than being free, costs 2 mana. Which in and of itself kind of demonstrates why it's not a particularly good card. Would you play a Force of Will that required you to pay two mana in addition to the loss of 1 life and loss of a card?

[Rizso]

Arcane Denial might be worth playing on your own spells if they're creatures cast with Cavern of Souls so they're uncounterable. Then you get net +2 cards for :u::1:.

This is probly what you want to do with it tbh, quite mana hungry thought thing to do.

[Lord Seth]

Arcane Denial might be worth playing on your own spells if they're creatures cast with Cavern of Souls so they're uncounterable. Then you get net +2 cards for :u::1:.There's a card that will net you +2 cards for even less mana, though. It's called Brainstorm.

[Rizso]

Brainstorm doesnt give you anything, its 1 for 1. The Card you are thinking about is ancestral recall! :P

[rufus]

As an alternative counter, Pact of Negation with Stifle and Angel's Grace to mitigate the drawback might work in the right deck.

[Michael Keller]

I remember cracking Arcane Denial(s) in packs of Alliances when it first came out. It wasn't great or necessarily bad back then, as you're talking about sixteen years of devolution of competitive play and tens of thousands of new cards and interactions that have taken place since that time.

In short: Arcane Denial was halfway decent for "competitive" play in 1996 - not so much in 2012.

[Lord Seth]

Brainstorm doesnt give you anything, its 1 for 1. The Card you are thinking about is ancestral recall! :PNo, I'm thinking about Brainstorm, because if you shuffle the useless cards away it essentially becomes an Ancestral Recall. Still, I was being a bit facetious.

Though I feel I should point out that your claim of getting a net +2 cards for two blue mana is faulty, because whatever creature you target with Arcane Denial has to cost at least one mana, meaning you will have to pay at a minimum three mana.

[Jenni]

Now you might say "wait a minute! Isn't Force of Will considered the best counterspell in Legacy? That card leaves you one card down also, as you lose two cards to get rid of one." Aha, but Force of Will has something that makes up for it: It's free to cast.

Even with Force being free to cast, often it's better to just spell pierce or even daze, because 2-for-1ing yourself by discarding a jace to force can be a big disadvantage when playing against "Fair" decks.
The reason force is the best, as far as I can tell, is because it's a counter you can use literally at any time - like when the "unfair" decks try to go off while you don't have an island in play to bounce to daze (or they could just pay for daze) and/or you tapped out to play a threat on your turn, or for some combos, before you even played your first land for the game. Honestly, if force didn't provide so much protection from "unfair" decks, I would proably never care to use it, because I really hate to give up that extra blue card if I have an alternative.
Arcane denial has essentially all the disadvantages that force normally has (except that 1 life thing), plus you can only use it when you have 2 mana up, and remand does essentially the same thing, without the penalty. Even mana leak is a better counterspell, I think, since it normally trades 1 for 1, rather than always giving your opponent an advantage.
Using it as card draw, is kind of a stretch too, since you need to play a spell, then counter your own spell, for that to work, meaning for 2 cards and at least 2 mana (assuming you counter a memnite or something), you get to draw 3 cards (net gain of 1 card), more often though you will have to spend 3+ mana on this, in which case, Divination is actually just as good (3 mana for 1 card net gain), if not better, and even see beyond is probably a better choice, than using denial to counter your own spell as a draw mechanism, since you can use see beyond to shuffle away a useless land or uncounterable spell and improve the quality of cards in your hand, or after brainstorming to shuffle away bad draws, without losing a card.


Disrupting Shoal, might actually be playable, though, as a sort of poor man's force of will. It's clearly worse, since it depends on your having another blue card in your hand with the same CMC as the card you want to counter, but if you know what deck your up against and keep hands accordingly, with a little (lot?) of luck, you could probably use is similarly to how you would use force, 2 for 1 yourself to stop something of theirs for no mana. If you have to hard cast it, then I would say it's a bit better than force, for anything over CMC=3 you will be paying more than if you just hard casted the force anyway, but considering the number of low-cost spells in legacy that are worth countering, most of the time it would probably be cheaper.
If you have Force of Will, don't play shoal, force is just more versitile, but if you can't afford forces or can't get them for any reason, shoal might be a worthwhile budgeted alternate. I would not reccomend playing both in the same deck (unless you split it like 3/1 or 2/2), 2-for-1ing yourself to often is not a good idea.

[bruizar]

I recon you shouldl read up on this material concerning arcane denial. Meadbert over at themanadrain has been working on arcane denial in vintage for a long time so any suggestions or know how you can get from him would be helpful in your pursuit to use it in legacy. http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36422.0

[Smea.gol.lum]

The only deck, where it can be good, is Affinity in my opinion.
It's a good tempo card once you have flooded the board with little beaters and just need to prevent your opponent to gain board control for 1 more turn and can also be a +2 draw spell later on, by countering your second useless Mox Opal or Memnite when a Goyf is on the board.

[rufus]

The only deck, where it can be good, is Affinity in my opinion.
...

I wonder if it work to counter your own pacts in Hive Mind decks

[frogczar]

Spell Pierce. Better than everything but Force of Will? Possibly.

[TsumiBand]

Play it with Chains of Mephistopheles. Not trolling.

[Lord Seth]

Even with Force being free to cast, often it's better to just spell pierce or even daze, because 2-for-1ing yourself by discarding a jace to force can be a big disadvantage when playing against "Fair" decks.Problem is that Spell Pierce and Daze a lot of the time can't even counter the card. Spell Pierce is impotent against creatures, and if they have the mana then you can't really do that much with them. Obviously there are cases where they would be better, but I'd hesitate to say it's "often."

Now, to be fair, Force of Will's loss of a card isn't negligible. My point is that in the majority of the cases, it's worth it. It's like how Swords to Plowshares is so widely played in White decks despite the fact it's useless against a lot of combo decks: The cases where it's useful occur so often that it's worth it to use them even if sometimes another card would be better (and in those cases, that's what the sideboard is for).

Still, regardless of what you think about Force of Will, Arcane Denial essentially gives you the disadvantage of Force of Will (-1 card) without the actual advantage of it (it being free).

As for Shoal, it looks like it gets played a decent amount in Modern, but I just don't see it as working in Legacy as anything other than a budget alternative to Force, in the same way Tectonic Edge/Ghost Quarter are a budget alternative to Wasteland or the shocklands are budget alternatives to the duals.

[slave]

Well I pretty much agree with almost all said here.
I should rename this thread more to do with counter-talk, but anyways.....

Counterspell seems to be considered overpowered by Wizards R&D.
Mana LEak is proof of that, but I'll always judge everything against Counterspell.

Force is no doubt the be-all and end-all for me for mono-blue.
I really dount any other counter will ever be printed to beat it!
I think the only other card that could come close to it is Mental Misstep, but it's no longer legal.:frown:

After that, I feel many of the other's are highly situational.
Pact of Negation is risky in most decks, and many of the "pay mana" ones like Daze, Spell Pierce are always gonna see play, but carry a certain amount of impotence too, as your opponent can simply wait to play around your counter.
I love them for combo decks that win by turn 2 or 3, but for game strategies that take longer I'd rather good ole Counterspell.

Disrupting Shoal is too situational for me to even consider putting in a deck, unless you're playing aganst delver and you a deck of 1-of's yourself. LOL.
I wouldn't say Arcane denial isn't bad, but I'm not writing it off - combo decks that play cards like Personal Tutor, stuff like Underworld Dreams - but it does have risk.

So what other counters are out there?
And what are the best five out there?
My aim with thread is to look for new counter interactions and ways to manipulate it.
Are there any other free counters, or otherwise, not mentioned in this thread as yet that may be playable in legacy?

[Gui]

The only way to make arcane denial good is to counter your own spell, imho.

[rufus]

...
Are there any other free counters, or otherwise, not mentioned in this thread as yet that may be playable in legacy?

You could look them up yourself in gatherer - Daze,Misdirection,Commandeer,Mindbreak Trap

There are some other permanent based counters that can be explored, such as:
Counterbalance
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant (Erayo's Essence)
Lifeforce/Deathgrip/Douse+Painter's Servant
Grimoire Thief
In the Eye of Chaos
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

[Morim_Brightsmoke]

If Owling Mine ever become a deck in legacy (i have no idea what this would require), but arcane denial might get played.

For those who don't know owling mine was a turboFog esque deck that ran ebony owl nesuke, and howling mine along with blue spells that bounced lands (and other permanents). it was a decent deck in Kamigawa Ravnica Standard.

[bowvamp]

Grimoire Thief would be good in Modern Merfolk.... /side-thought

I like the idea of pointing Denial at your own stuff. That seems sweet!
Maybe blue Nic Fit could use it with stuff like:

Volcanic Fallout

Thrun, the Last Troll
//or
Blurred Mongoose

Vexing Shusher

[dahcmai]

There are occasions where it's not totally horrible, but you have to purposely create that type of environment. It's not easy to do, but it can be done of course. Stasis is the one that comes to mind first.

Arcane Denial was used in Stasis decks for a long time since those decks could care less if the opponent drew extra cards. In fact, they wanted you to get ahead on the draws.

Black Vise decks of old used to run Arcane Denial because drawing extra cards while several Black Vises were out was perfectly ok with people.

As mentioned before Chains of Mephistopheles actually negates the drawback though that's a rough card to play around with in the first place.

Any of the prison type decks could play it though it would have to be a lot better than what could be created today. Winter Orb just isn't what it used to be. Anything that could stop people from using the extra cards.



Anyway, for the most part, that card is pretty awful. It takes a lot to get it to work with what you are doing. Sadly casting on your own things that are uncounterable is probably the best use for it anymore.

[Eldariel]

If Owling Mine ever become a deck in legacy (i have no idea what this would require), but arcane denial might get played.

For those who don't know owling mine was a turboFog esque deck that ran ebony owl nesuke, and howling mine along with blue spells that bounced lands (and other permanents). it was a decent deck in Kamigawa Ravnica Standard.

This question is fairly trivial to answer. First, let's look at what Owling Mine does:
- Makes both players draw extra cards.
- Uses its extra cards to constrict enemy's mana, stranding the cards in their hand and then nuke them for having extra cards in hand.

As such, it has natural strength against reactive decks with a lot of expensive spells. Any deck with a lot of mana acceleration and cheap permanents is, on the other hand, a horrible match-up. As such, in Legacy, it would at the very least need a cheap, reliable and versatile tool that negates Aether Vial. It would also somehow need to be able to deal with creatures that do get through since Legacy is overrun with one-drops.

Finally, it would probably scoop the combo match-up no matter what (outside some super-efficient means to make all the cards they draw irrelevant by stopping them from playing anything with some hard lock) since it gives them all the tools they need to combo off and spends resources on that so it doesn't have resources up to stop the comboes.


In short, the closest it's ever been to playable has been when Mental Misstep was legal and it wasn't very viable back then since the metagame has never shaped up in a reactive enough way for Owling Mine to have anything to prey on. Chances are it'll never be viable in Legacy in any guise remotely resembling the Standard deck simply because the cardpool means you can't just ignore 1-drops (in Standard, it scooped to Gruul which had turn 1 Kird Ape as its most frightening play even post-sideboard).

And the chances are even lower than they are right now until Black Vise gets unbanned; not that it getting unbanned would really make it any more viable. Mental Misstep could help it a bit but even then, it's not just about printings but also the formation of a very focused and streamlined metagame, something Legacy seems to simply negate by having too many viable options.

[ryn ball_2]

if you want some counterspells at are in :1::u:, try memory lapse compare to remand this card doesnt generate cantrips but this card serves as a tempo loss to the target player spell cuz that card will be draw on the ff. turn instead of a new fresh card

[slave]

Cheers for the post Bruizer - that link was interesting, nice to see Arcane Denial does have potential in the right deck.

Remand & Memory Lapse have always looked risky to me - I understand there's times when you don't want a card to go to the graveyard (like reanimator), but against most matchups I want that threat going to the GY.
I run a few Dissipate or Faerie Trickery in some of the blue decks I own.
Considering cards like Remand do see play, what do you all think of Delay as an alternative?

Foil is another one that has me wondering.
Essentially it's another Force-alike, although the difference is discard instead of exiling *said* card.
I think this is worth mentioning, as discard is very helpful in some decks, especially as Foil doesn't stipulate it has to be a blue card.
Foil and Daze together in the same deck could have some good synergy, especially in an Infect deck running Ensnare, then pay 1 for Inkmoth to become a creature. :cool:

[Awaclus]

Foil is another one that has me wondering.
Essentially it's another Force-alike, although the difference is discard instead of exiling *said* card.
You have to discard two cards. You're trading three cards for one, which isn't a pretty good thing. People are sideboarding FoW out in games 2 and 3 against many decks, and the reason for that is the card disadvantage - and that disadvantage is only about ½ of the disadvantage that Foil gives you. Sure, discarding an Island is better than exiling a blue card most of the time, but on the other hand, you will have a blue card in hand more often than you will have an Island, because blue decks tend to run few lands and most of them are fetchlands or Wastelands, not Islands.

Someone I know tried running Foil in his Solidarity list four years ago. Solidarity is a deck that often couldn't care less about discarding Islands, and discarding Flash of Insight is usually something you can profit from. Despite that, it sucked back then, when the decks weren't even on the power level of the Legacy decks of these days. He ended up going 1-4 in that tournament.

It's true that foils win the game, but that's referring to the shiny cards, not this specific counterspell.

[Nelis]

They should errata Arcane Denial to 'must draw two cards' instead of 'may'. At least that way it's abusable. It wouldn't mean much in legacy but it might in more casual environments like EDH or Peasant.

[Lord Seth]

Considering cards like Remand do see play, what do you all think of Delay as an alternative?I don't know. What makes Remand good is its cantrip. This means that it can be worth countering even a weak card, as it at least might slow your opponent down a little and can draw you a card. It can honestly be better than Counterspell in a number of situations. Delay does get rid of the card for longer and does force them to play it when it comes back (rather than possibly at their own choice), but the lack of the draw a card really hurts it and basically makes it a worse Counterspell. Now to be fair it is 1U instead of UU, but my point is that Remand costs less than Counterspell and isn't strictly worse, whereas Delay is strictly worse.


Foil is another one that has me wondering.
Essentially it's another Force-alike, although the difference is discard instead of exiling *said* card.
I think this is worth mentioning, as discard is very helpful in some decks, especially as Foil doesn't stipulate it has to be a blue card.You're missing the more important difference: Foil requires you to discard two cards, whereas Force of Will requires only one (and the 1 life too, I suppose). And as good as Force of Will is, that card disadvantage can be pretty bad sometimes. Foil just takes that and makes it even worse. And it is true that discard can be helpful in some decks, but surely there are better ways to do it than play a card that requires you to lose two cards (one of which has to be an Island). For example, Careful Study may cost 1 mana, but you get two cards out of it and can discard two of your choice.

On a minor note, Foil's name has always bugged me because it makes it harder to search for it because it keeps popping up foil cards instead. Ditto with Time Spiral, which is both a card and a set.

[slave]

RE: Foil,
I agree that it's no Force - that's a given!:laugh:
My thought is mainly about decks that love to have something in the graveyard to abuse. So let's say you're running a deck with cards like maybe Reanimate or Goblin Welder, maybe some flashback mechanics etc.
And maybe you're after a budget alternative to Force to stop Storm combo;
Could Foil help here?

In Reanimator decks, I've seen peeps Thoughtseize themselves to get a beasty to the graveyard, setting themselves back a swamp/underground river etc in the process.
Yes it has mana issues in a streamlined Reanimator shell, for lack of island targets, but if we're looking at budget options, the deck won't be full of Underground rivers either.....
I know Foil is no alternative for Force, but I'm still not sure it's completely bad, maybe as a budget utility option?
Surely there are more ways to abuse the fact you're discarding any card and an island, instead of exiling a blue card?

[Awaclus]

Surely there are more ways to abuse the fact you're discarding any card and an island, instead of exiling a blue card?
Surely, there are. None of them are good enough.

[kwis]

The only time I ever saw this card used effectively as a counter it was paired with Chains of Mephistopheles and the draw and extra card on your turn was used to dredge Life from the loam, which powered ravens crime.

It was a pretty cute deck but I don't really think it was competitive.



Was just thinking that this actually turns into a delayed draw 3 if you're using it in combination with a cavern of souls creature. You could probably make it work with a few wizard targets in some weird delver build. Being able to cast snap and draw 3 cards next turn might be a very strong option. However I can't help but think it's a bit too cute to be reliable.

[rufus]

Was just thinking that this actually turns into a delayed draw 3 if you're using it in combination with a cavern of souls creature. You could probably make it work with a few wizard targets in some weird delver build. Being able to cast snap and draw 3 cards next turn might be a very strong option. However I can't help but think it's a bit too cute to be reliable.

You could also play 'I counter myself' with Blood Funnel Multani's Presence and Remand...(Yes that's terribad.)

[Shawon]

I faced a BUG deck today that ran Shardless Agent on MWS.

His play: Shardless Agent, Cascade into Arcane Denial, he draws three cards on his next turn. I still beat his ass, though (with Affinity! and he ran Deed!).