U/W/x CounterTop Walker

I played hyc8028's list Friday at the local, or as close as I could pull together. Coundn't find all of my dual lands. Didn't slow me much. Boy do people fear Shackles! Went 2-2 but was totally my fault. First time playing countertop, and first time playing a serious blue deck in a long time, not since Dr Teeth before Goyf showed up on the seen.

My SB differed.
3- Relic
3- Peacekeeper
2- Clique
2- Needle
2- EE
2- Energy Flux
1- Firespout

It's only what I threw together last minute. I'd really like to see some in depth discussion about SB thoughts I really liked Peacekeeper and Clique. Needle came in handy but was probably unnecessary. Flux was just to fill a slot and would be handy if anyone still played affinity (or thopter).

Definitely needed the three drops. It was the hole people usually walked through. Notably with Troll Ascetic and Deed.

Hey guys. Just registered to try to contribute here. :)

Seems like great minds think alike... haha. Or something like that. After playing fish for some months, I bought into some duals and figured I'd try to construct a true control deck for our local tournament. I didn't like how Landstill was extremely slow and had no source of reliable card advantage, so I built a UBR CounterTop variant that had Sedraxis Specter and Vendilion Clique, backed up by 2 JaceTMS. I had 2 open slots that should have been CC2, but I couldn't think of anything the list lacked, so I just crawled through my card boxes for a mostly unconditional drawspell. I found a playset of Predict and they were awesome the whole day through.

Sooner or later I found a UWx shell that looks almost like your list, Hanni, only it had Spell Snare instead of more spot removal.

This is it:

//Land
22, including 1-of Academy Ruins and Tolaria West

//Win Conditions
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Ajani Vengeant

//Permission
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
4 Counterbalance

//Card Draw/Selection
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Predict

//Removal
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Lightning Helix
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Engineered Explosives

The sideboard had Peacekeeper and the missing 2 StP from the maindeck as anti-aggro, can't remember the rest though.

Now, Counterspell has always been a 4-of for me, I've tried 3 and 2 of those but then I always wanted more flexible permission, as they answer just about everything someone might throw at you and fill slots in the most important cc2 section. Lightning Helix seems a bit odd at first, and the split with StP was solely because of mana curve reasons, but it was the nuts against Zoo, Merfolk and Goblins every time. Sucks balls against the undercosted fat everyone else is running obviously, but it's not like there's no other removal at hand. You can just counter the dudes too. I was very happy with that list and the amount of raw power combined with the synergy the cards have feels really good.

22 Lands is the go-to in my opinion, as I virtually never draw too few lands. Sometimes I flood out, but maybe that's because of bad Brainstorm use too.

Strange I couldn't come up with Kor Haven myself, as I'm running it in one of my EDH decks, where it's always teh nutz. This little gem will see play in my next incarnations for sure.

I crammed together some of the lists floating around here and came to this list last night:

//Lands
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Tolaria West
1 Kor Haven

//Win Conditions
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//Carddraw/selection
4 Brainstorm
3 Predict
4 Sensei's Divining Top

//Permission
4 Counterbalance
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

//Removal
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Smother
3 Vindicate

//Sideboard (15)
2 Smother (Possibly Edict effects against SnT)
3 Peacekeeper
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Spell Pierce
1 Academy Ruins

Testing results will probably come in the next days or weeks.

A friend of mine has been running a quite similar build (like 8 cards difference or something like that) but he has Lim-Dul's Vault (2 of), which according to him are just bonkers. Without CB, they are Vampiric Tutor for 2 mana and with CB they are Counterspell + Vampiric Tutor stapled together. He has no source of actual card advantage save for CB and Jace though, but you could also run LDV and Predict in combination as they have some awesome synergy with each other. Maybe someone wants to try LDV out, I've seen it live and in action and can only approve.

Won another, 16 person, local Legacy tournament. I'll post the report later. Went 4-0-1. In the last round I was the only one with 12 points, so I offered my opponent the draw. He refused. I beat the crap out of him in game 1 and offered the draw again. He thought for a while and accepted.

Beat mefolk 2-0, more on that later.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Treefolk Master

Won another, 16 person, local Legacy tournament. I'll post the report later. Went 4-0-1. In the last round I was the only one with 12 points, so I offered my opponent the draw. He refused. I beat the crap out of him in game 1 and offered the draw again. He thought for a while and accepted.

Beat mefolk 2-0, more on that later.

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Good Job on winning and beating Merfolk!

LDV with Predict seem interesting. LDV is also blue and 2 CMC.

I am glad this deck is getting more regonitions. I don't know why people still play Thopter CB when we have this.

Report time:

I used the same mainboard as before, but I'll post it again for completeness sake:


8 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tundra
1 Academy Ruins

4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Predict
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Path to Exile
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Vedalken Shackles

The sideboard however, was different:

1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgment
1 Oblivion Ring (had 1 slot, I thought this was the best option as a catch all).
3 Pithing Needle
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Meddling Mage
2 Energy Flux
1 Kataki, War's Wage

Round 1 vs. some guy who misread the tournament anncouncement and thought we were playing pauper. Not much to say here, he was trying to ramp with eldrazi spawns into Ulamog's Crusher and some random 7/7 eldrazi... Not worth more words.

2-0
1-0

Round 2 vs. UWb The Tezzerator

G1: I mull to 5. He keeps his opening 7 and mocks me for my mulligan. I proceed to go turn 1 top, turn 2 Counterbalance, while he is stuck in two lands, one of which is a Wasteland. I drop Jace, FOW it through, and he scoops.

G2: Everything happened during this game, both me and him made some horrid misplays. He lead with land Needle, naming Jace. I play land, top, go. He plays and academy ruins and passes. I play Needle naming academy ruins, which was very benneficial, as he spent the whole game with EE, Top, Needles and Thopter + Sword in the Yard. He drops Trinket Mage, and I don't counter it with fow, countering the top he fetches insted (facepalm). He then drops another trinket mage and begins to beat down, while I try to hold the fort with Elspeth. He drops Jace, and instead of bouncing my token/fatesealing, brainstorm. I drop Meddling Mage, which is spell snared, so he taps out. I pump a token, kill Jace. He then EE's for 1, blowing out mi Needle, and beats for 4. I fetch, drop needle (Ruins), another Mage, pass. Trade Mage with Mage. He passes, I drop Jace, brainstorm, kill the Trinket Mage and pass. He draws and says go. I fateseal him, ship Tezz to the bottom. He asks if I had nailed Tezzeret, I say yes, he scoops, showing me a hand of fow + Spell Pierce.

4-0
2-0

Round 3 vs. Ub Merfolk (facepalm)

G1: I keep THE NUTS: Island-Tundra-Top-Counterbance-3 x Swords. I lead with top, he fows, exiling a reejery. He plays Island => Cursecatcher. I drop Counterbalance and he sacs the Cursecatcher. I tell him to read his card and he frowns. I pass. All his dudes are countered/plowed (he drew 3 LOA) and he scoops when he is in topdeck mode vs countertop + Elspeth.

G2: I mull to 6 and keep 2 tops + 3 land. He plays island + cursecatch. I drop top, which resolves. He swings for 1 for a few turns why I keep drawing lands. He Thoughtseizes me, and takes 1 top. I find a counterbalance, and drop it. At some point, I draw with top, play another one and cast predict. He responds by extirpating my top. I'm about to hand him my deck when I remember counterbalance counters the extirpate. He is clearly frustrated, and then drops reejery and sygg and begins to beat down. He drops another Reejerey which I counter. A get beat down to 3. but I'm able to plow and O-Ring all his dudes, while countertoping his lords. He scoops with no board presence and no hand, vs. countertop and Jace.

6-0
3-0
Round 4 vs. BG Infectstompy.

G1: He gets me 1 poison counter before I kill 2 Ironclaw myrs with EE. He then draws about 18 lands and I land Countertop, Elspeth, Jace. I exile his library when he is at 4. GG.

G2: All his creatures are plowed & countered, but he puts me 2 poison counters. At one point, a Putrefaw slips trough, so if he has a pump I die. He doesn't and I go to 7 poison counters. Again, he floods and I stablish firm control with countertop + shackles, while he draws like 18 lands. However, I can't find a win condition for like 10 turns. Eventually, I see Elspeth, then Jace, and kill him while he keeps drawing lands.

8-0
4-0

Round 5 vs. UW Lark Control.

At this point I was the only one with 12 points, so I offer him the draw. He refuses. We play G1. I drop turn 1 top, turn 2 Counterbalance. I drop shackles. He counters with Counterspell but I had a counterspell on top. I then play lots of lands, force through with Countertop Jace + Eslpeth, draw lost of cards, play lots of creatures, and win without much opposition. I offer the draw again, and he accepts.

9-0
4-0-1

Pros:

Winning again.
Getting insanely lucky, dropping the countertop combo early.
Beating the merfolk player 2-0
Winning the control mirror, from a mull to 5, and a very bad position in game 2.

Cons:

I missed the 3rd colour, against the Tezz opponent I would have been able to EE for 3, killing both T. Mages and bringing the game to a close much faster.
Some misplays.
The prices were pure shit. I took home and Ezuri, Renegade leader...
WoG in the side. I wan't some peacekeepers instead.

Comments?

just a question in g2 i think it was how can he use jace when he named jace with his needle ? or did i miss something ?=)

I had a needle naming A. Ruins. He had needle naming Jace. He played EE for 1 and blew both his and my needle.

I have switched over to this deck from a CounterTop/Dreadnought list. This deck is much much better. The biggest problem I am having on MTGO is winning without running out of time. It is convienient how often people will scoop before I play a win condition though. Think I will add the 3rd Jace just to up win condidtions. I have played 15 matches so far going 13-3 with quite a few misplays. I'll write up some thoughts after another 10 matches or so.

+1 to adding the 3rd Jace.

I haven't had any time issues yet, the closest I came to end of the round was 12 minutes against the control mirror (he also played tops).

hyc8028: How did the tropical island work in the tourney? Did you ever EE for 4 or cast firespout against a bunch of faeries?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Treefolk Master

hyc8028: How did the tropical island work in the tourney? Did you ever EE for 4 or cast firespout against a bunch of faeries?

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If your manabase can support the additional dual land (which are mostly a liability in the matchups where you want to Firespout), you better be running the single Trop. Faeries is not a big factor, but let me tell you this:
I've ran FaeryNinjaFish for quite some months last year and when paired up against control, the ability to dodge your opponent's mass removal by having "flying" on almost any creature is HUGE. The CBtop and Landstill players here weren't usually splashing green if they were UWr. So they lost practically every game because they couldn't keep up with the Tempo those Faery decks can generate. Plus drawing dead cards sucks big time.

Oh yeah, and being able to blow up opposing Planeswalkers is nice to have too when you don't run Vindicate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Treefolk Master

+1 to adding the 3rd Jace.

I haven't had any time issues yet, the closest I came to end of the round was 12 minutes against the control mirror (he also played tops).

hyc8028: How did the tropical island work in the tourney? Did you ever EE for 4 or cast firespout against a bunch of faeries?

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Not in SCG, the trop was used against thopter in testing for FS. The trop is a wasteland decoy to prevent them taking my utility land and my red source. Most of the time people fall for it seeing I only have 1 green source and they thought it must be important. It also give my opponent false info that I am playing Goyf. Some of my friends suggests Seat of Synod back then when I was running Trinket Mage, but I like tropical island much better because I can EE @4 and use green for FS.

+1 on the 3rd Jace too

So I used my $100 I won from SCG to get me a 3rd Jace. I am thinking of -1 Predict and +1 Jace to try things out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hyc8028

+1 on the 3rd Jace too

So I used my $100 I won from SCG to get me a 3rd Jace. I am thinking of -1 Predict and +1 Jace to try things out.

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That's how I'm running it. The bastard is $100 now; wow.

My worst matchup seems to be dredge. I think it's just that I have never played the deck and am unsure what I am doing. CB, counterspell, FOW, Path, StP all seem bad. I have 4 relic in the side but have yet to draw one in 3 matches so that should help when I do.

Yes, CB just sucks in that match up. The counters aren't as dead, but aren't the most useful cards in the wolrd either. Test a bit more, and if you continue to consistently loose to dredge, just add more hate. If you're UWb, add leylines/spellbombs/extirpate. If you're UWr, add either Tormod's Crypt/Wheel of Sun and Moon.

Against Ichorid, Swords and Path are great, because they RFG their Ichorid's (their source of making Bridge tokens, using Cabal Therapy, and ultimately using Dread Return).

Making sure to counter their early Breakthrough is important, because it slows them down alot. FoW that when possible.

Postboard, a combination of Meddling Mage (if you run them) and Relic/Crypt is also very good. Peacekeeper can be pretty good against them, too.

Admittedly, Dredge is one of this decks worst matchups. Luckily, it can be sideboarded against.

What do you recommend for reanimator? I'm thinking of running Void in the side, seems more relevant than Relic in the early game. I've considered dropping the red in favor of black for extirpate. I know extirpate is less relevant with Survival gone, still seems good

Extirpate is good, tormod's crypt and relic are also good options. Do people play reanimator in your meta?

Shows up from time to time. I think it is getting a resurgence as it was played by people who were recently playing SoF. They are lost and looking for something familiar;p

It was heavily played at our shop last year. I believe the current is non survival ooze or similiar. Needling ooze works well but Inkwell is a litte hard for the deck to deal with when it manages to hit the board.

I'm going to Indy this weekend. As this is a new deck for me, I'll probably fall back on my mainstay for the last two years. It's potential of getting to the top is lower than this deck but I know how to play it, sideboard it, etc.

Thank god you are listening to me Joey. You wont regret it. Everything I have read about the upcoming meta suggests aggro is the deck to beat and your other option is significantly better.

Lemme know if you need to test against anything before this weekend or what not.

BTW I assume you realize who this is but if you don't... It's your favorite combo player. ^_^

Wait, the guy who plays Clerics?