[Archetype] CounterTop

I've just begun testing Probasco's list -2 Krosan Grip +2 Firespout but don't have enough games under my belt to make any solid conclusions, I am going to meet up with a friend today to get more testing in.

I was also wondering about the strength of Trinket Mage right now and if Coatl deserves the slot over him. Also Pithing Needle doesn't seem that exciting except naming Vial so then your looking at running just Top/EE, which are the main targets in general but still not much of a toolbox. Cutting T. Mage does make your sideboard Crypt/Relic lose some value but may be worth the overall power gain of Coatl. One thing I don't like about Coatl is that he dies to REB effects post-board unlike Goyf.

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Originally Posted by Gekoratel

I was also wondering about the strength of Trinket Mage right now and if Coatl deserves the slot over him. Also Pithing Needle doesn't seem that exciting except naming Vial so then your looking at running just Top/EE, which are the main targets in general but still not much of a toolbox. Cutting T. Mage does make your sideboard Crypt/Relic lose some value but may be worth the overall power gain of Coatl. One thing I don't like about Coatl is that he dies to REB effects post-board unlike Goyf.

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Tutoring for a piece of the lock that wins you games is good.
Needle, while not always a house, can be randomly spectacular and against Gobs, shutting down vial is the difference between a win and a loss.
And IMO Coatl is kinda lackluster. Ive tested with it in a bunch of deck and most of the time by the time hes big enough to eat goyfs and such, all he eats is removal.

Okay so I decided to give a try to snakes... this is the proposed list.


4 Tarmogoyf
3 Lorescale Coatl
3 Qasali Pridemage

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Snare
3 Daze
2 Ponder

2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Vedalken Shackles
(Flexible Slots)

4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains


I'm thinking to change Shackles for Sower because of basic forest and plains, but i'm not a fan of. Also I'm not sure about Jittes, sometimes I notice I don't control any creature to equip Jitte so maybe I'm replacing em for Rhox War Monks. These are the flexible slots in my opinion of the deck. Other slots are fix for me.

for those having trouble beating merfolk, look up this card and put it in your sb.
Llawan, Cephalid Empress

also, i would just run 4 fire/ice main if my metagame was merfolk heavy. that card demolishes their whole deck.

I'm posting this list in the CounterTop thread as well as the MegaMan thread.

CounterTop/Painter by gamegeek2

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Academy Ruins

4 Trinket Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Painter's Servant
2 Sower of Temptation

4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
4 Brainstorm
3 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Grindstone
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives

--- Sideboard ---
3 Firespout
3 Trygon Predator
3 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle

I'm considering cutting a Foothills for another blue fetch, but I'm not going below 3 Foothills, I want to be able to easily fetch the basics.

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Originally Posted by gamegeek2

I'm considering cutting a Foothills for another blue fetch, but I'm not going below 3 Foothills, I want to be able to easily fetch the basics.

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I guess if you really want to run both basic Mountain and Forest then you should just keep the 4 Foothills since they can also get you blue mana anyway. I'm running an equivalent manabase in my UGw build and i haven't had any problems with it.

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Originally Posted by gamegeek2

I'm posting this list in the CounterTop thread as well as the MegaMan thread.

CounterTop/Painter by gamegeek2

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Academy Ruins

4 Trinket Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Painter's Servant
2 Sower of Temptation

4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
4 Brainstorm
3 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Grindstone
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives

--- Sideboard ---
3 Firespout
3 Trygon Predator
3 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle

I'm considering cutting a Foothills for another blue fetch, but I'm not going below 3 Foothills, I want to be able to easily fetch the basics.

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would a split of 2/2 or 3/1 between trinket mage/fabricate make sense here since it would get the painter's servant as well?

Fabricate is bad. Trinket Mage is an actual 2-for-1, the body is often important. I see this suggestion crop up many times. The deck doesn't actually need Painter's Servant to win, it's capable of just beating with Goyfs, etc.

This might be a bit off-topic, but I'm just wondering what you guys can do to a reanimated Empyrial Archangel. I know that's a very rare case, but if angel hits the board on say, turn two or three, or just anytime before counterbalance touches down, do you guys have any answers for her? I feel like most U/g/w thresh lists don't have an answer, and I'm just wondering if my suspicions are horribly wrong, or if you guys have something that I don't know about.

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Originally Posted by The_Red_Panda

This might be a bit off-topic, but I'm just wondering what you guys can do to a reanimated Empyrial Archangel. I know that's a very rare case, but if angel hits the board on say, turn two or three, or just anytime before counterbalance touches down, do you guys have any answers for her? I feel like most U/g/w thresh lists don't have an answer, and I'm just wondering if my suspicions are horribly wrong, or if you guys have something that I don't know about.

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Attack with creatures that have total power greater than or equal to 8.

I'm assuming you mean two tarmogoyfs then? It seems a bit infeasible for goyf and pridemage to sum to eight when goyf needs to hit six for this to happen.

Edit: I mean, you could argue for a Mongoose and a goyf at five, but then you still need goyf at five, and now you need threshold, which the newer U/g/x countertop lists get more slowly.

Llawan, Cephalid Empress

Wow nice SB card. Never thought of that but teamed up my SB shushers it would be good against mono blue control's morphing's too.

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Originally Posted by memnarch

edit - this new format is strange I have less reference to specific deck types in this thread. Can we please split it before it just gets insane.

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I totally agree with this. Was started following this thread as the UGW Threshold thread was closed. Now I get to read about NLU, Merfolk, Painter Servant decks etc. I find it amazingly hard to get any valuable info at all since the merge, since I find that I have to scroll past 5-15 posts about decks non relevant to my interest before finding anything of interest (if finding anything at all).

Regarding Hierarchs: I've tried them in both NLU and UGW Thresh, and while I really liked them, they just wasn't worth it. If I had one on my starting hand it was awesome, if I didn't I tended not to want to see them because they changed nothing. Past turn 4-5 you need threats, not more/stable mana. For the exalted boost, Qasali Pridemage does the same job while being a better creature for your rare free slots.

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Originally Posted by The_Red_Panda

This might be a bit off-topic, but I'm just wondering what you guys can do to a reanimated Empyrial Archangel.

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Swing once with Coatl. Coatl usually gets bigger than Angel quite fast.

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Originally Posted by memnarch

Llawan, Cephalid Empress

Wow nice SB card...it would be good against mono blue control's morphing's too.

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Bad plan. If you are playing against competent MUC players, a morphling getting played means that you have completely failed the game. Besides that, they have shackles, Call of the Skybreaker and in some cases factories. If your match against them is poor or something, target the actual cause of why it sucks, not how they finish you off as a result of you having a shitty match against them.

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Swing once with Coatl. Coatl usually gets bigger than Angel quite fast.

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Shwah? Most people seem to dislike playing hierarchs, so that begs the question of what the fuck are you guys doing to get these big coatls so quickly in a deck that runs about eight cantrips, four tops and seventeen land on average? Are you people sacrificing the consistency that makes the archetype awesome in the form of saving brainstorms to grow coatls or what? Are you lucksacking your three first land drops without needing to expend draw or use dazes? I'm baffled.

I have tested coatl more and they strike me as pieces of shit still. They Basically force me to either build the deck around them(the cold eyed selkie NQG decks) or play my draw spells far more conservatively because I need wait until the third or fourth turn to land my coatl. Seems like bullshit to me. If I need a bigger late game drop, I think I'll stick with enforcers and save myself a free slot with them too because two enforcers is the perfect number, whereas coatls basically require three slots.

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Originally Posted by Mordel

Shwah? Most people seem to dislike playing hierarchs, so that begs the question of what the fuck are you guys doing to get these big coatls so quickly in a deck that runs about eight cantrips, four tops and seventeen land on average? Are you people sacrificing the consistency that makes the archetype awesome in the form of saving brainstorms to grow coatls or what? Are you lucksacking your three first land drops without needing to expend draw or use dazes? I'm baffled.

I have tested coatl more and they strike me as pieces of shit still. They Basically force me to either build the deck around them(the cold eyed selkie NQG decks) or play my draw spells far more conservatively because I need wait until the third or fourth turn to land my coatl. Seems like bullshit to me. If I need a bigger late game drop, I think I'll stick with enforcers and save myself a free slot with them too because two enforcers is the perfect number, whereas coatls basically require three slots.

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First off, nobody's suggesting slow-playing your draw. I suggested Predict as a means to help further utilize Coatl, which isn't a huge reach given that Predict has found a home in this deck many times in the past.

Secondly, 17 land is too low. I've been running 19-20. The luxury of this is not having to rely on Brainstorm, Ponder, and Top to hit land drops (Instead I can sometimes dig for threats/answers with them). Also, because of four Tops being in my deck, I very often have something to sink excess mana into.

Third, there's no logical justification of having to run three Coatls to run him at all. It's worth noting, though, that excess Coatls pitch to Force, where Mystic Enforcer doesn't. And on Daze-heavy hands where you've got one Tarmogoyf possibly going the distance, this makes a huge difference.

Third, when you hit a Coatl, he's going to go nuts if one of the following circumstances is true.

1. You have a Brainstorm in your hand. This is feasible. It's possible to hit more cantrips than you can play out in your first few drops, or to have spent turns one and two on other spells (Top/Counterbalance, Ponder/Tarmogoyf, Swords/Pridemage, etc)

2. You have a Top on the table. One top alone gives you the option to raise your Coatl by 2 per turn. Two tops give Coatl ":1:: Put a +1/+1 counter on Lorescale Coatl." Top will also help you find Brainstorm, Ponder, and Top.

3. You have time and defense. A Coatl on a light/empty board with a couple defensive cards will put an opponent under pressure. Given four turns, Coatl deals 18 damage without you drawing a single card. A single Ponder in the first three of those turns makes him lethal.

I understand what you are getting at and agree now with the potential that the card has, but I really do not see running under three as being a very good plan because the card thrives on getting out relatively early and it showing up consistently with minimal help from draw seems like the best plan for allowing it to reach maximum effectiveness.

With that said, you've piqued my curiosity in regards to what kind of list you're using right now. If you don't want to post it on the thread, feel free to shoot me a pm. I haven't played with predict in a long time and can't even think of what I would take out for them anymore.

I know what you're thinking, and I don't know how I'm doing it, but Coatl becomes a monster very quickly if my opponent doesn't remove it in the first turn. You don't need to slow play Brainstorms or Ponders. In a deck that runs 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Top, 3 F/I (like my list), I don't mind playing first turn Ponder, second turn Brainstorm. Because, when Coatl comes down, there's a big chance I'll have a Top that'll string me into more cantrips. And even without it, it's bound to me 4/4-5/5 by the second turn at the least.

I've had succes with it in Tournaments, it's a hell of a lot better than Goose at winning games, even without Shroud. I've given my reasons on page 2.

I love it
I love swinging into a 8/8 Terravore with a 5/5 Coatl and a Top on table because my opponent fears Brainstorm.
I love how my opponent had two big Goyfs, but I had three bigger Coatls.

Love it!

Anyway, if you don't like it after serious playtesting, that's up to you. Right now I'm inclined to giving it the "benefit of the doubt" if there is any

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Originally Posted by Mordel

I understand what you are getting at and agree now with the potential that the card has, but I really do not see running under three as being a very good plan because the card thrives on getting out relatively early and it showing up consistently with minimal help from draw seems like the best plan for allowing it to reach maximum effectiveness.

With that said, you've piqued my curiosity in regards to what kind of list you're using right now. If you don't want to post it on the thread, feel free to shoot me a pm. I haven't played with predict in a long time and can't even think of what I would take out for them anymore.

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The list I'm running at current is as follows (Though note despite my earlier comments about Predict, I'm thinking strongly of cutting them.) Sideboard's not listed as it's constantly a work in progress.

4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Lorescale Coatl
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Trygon Predator*

4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Daze

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Predict

4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Path to Exile*

*I got where I liked the one Trygon Predator over the third Qasali. Having one of each in hand was a nicer scenario than two Pridemages at times. I could Brainstorm away the one I needed less, or pitch Trygon to Force, or whatever the case may be. Plus, strangely, I like them better together than two of either one. Double exalted is nice, but Exalted + Flying + Removal = nice. That said, I pick the 2/1 configuration in favor of Qasali given that on the play, Qasali can beat Standstill or Counterbalance to the board.

**Stp #5. I didn't hit anything else I liked in this slot more. Without Predict I'd run either two more of these, or one more and a second Trygon.

The draw is nice. The two Predicts just help push Coatl a little more, and help clear excess land off the top. They're incredibly accurate with 12 deck stackers.

My personal favorite play was in early testing when I dropped a turn three Coatl with a Top on the board. End of Opponent's turn, drew off top (3/3), untapped, drew the top (4/4), played the top, drew with the top (5/5), played Predict naming top (7/7), drew into Tundra/Brainstorm, played the land, Brainstormed (10/10) into a Force, and swung for ten.

What's worth noting is that with a Top in play and without any of the other crazy elements, you can do the first part of that story incredibly reliably, and at least have him 5/5 by first swing.

@ Tacosnape

Any reason you aren't playing Spell Snare? I've found the card a pretty awesome 3x. It goes well with a heavier control version of CounterTop that wants to maximize Coatl.

If you haven't tried it already, considering cutting PtE and Predicts for SSnare. Our decks are nearly identical (besides these 3 slots, only trygon is different), so I thought you might find it worth trying in your deck as well.





peace,
4eak