[Deck] CounterTop Thopter

Counter-top thopter

4x flooded strand
1x polluted delta
1x Misty rainforest
4x tundra
1x seachrome coast
1x underground sea
2x volcanic island
4x island
2x plains
1x academy ruin
1x wasteland
1x seat of synod

4x force of will
4x brainstorm
4x counterbalance
4x swords to plowshares
3x jace, the mind sculpter
3x enlightened tutor
3x sensei's divining top
3x spell snare
2x thopter foundry
1x sword of the meek
1x crucible of worlds
1x ensnaring bridge
1x pithing needle
1x engineered explosives
1x moat
1x future site

Sideboard
1x sacred mesa
1x cursed totem
1x moat
1x humility
1x ensnaring bridge
1x ethersworn cannonist
2x spell pierce
1x Nihil spellbomb
1x peacekeeper
1x serenity
1x blood moon
1x wheel of sun and moon
2x red elemental

Old list im looking at testing. Thoughts?

@sdematt I'm quite curious on your choice of snare in place of pierce. From my experience pierce is generally better in getting us through the early game, which is our main challenge. It also allows us to counter spells that escape CB-top (planeswalkers, GSZ, etc), whereas snare is generally dead once we've set up the soft-lock.

Snare counters problematic creatures that I dont want to see for an efficient cc. at the point where my opponent is casting noncreature spells I will have stronger options to " counter" they're line of play.

From my experience playing this deck, the two most important non-blue cards are Top and Enlightened Tutor. A really prefer to play a full set of four for both of these cards. I've noticed that I usually win with the deck if I resolve an early Top and the sledding gets much tougher if I don't. I've also found it useful to run an additional Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek, upping it to a 3/2 split. This makes getting your win condition more reliable. Players who opt for the 3/2 split over the 2/1 split, should probably only run two Jace, as you don't want your win cons taking up too many slots.

Future Sight is cute and I did test it for a while before finally dropping it. It's cool, but really not necessary in this deck. I would also move Crucible and Needle to the sideboard to make room for the other cards I mentioned above.

Justin.

I will retest top four.
I dont like the idea of dropping cow. I think its very important. It also fits my playstyle.

Referancing my last post. Maybe we should consider playing counterspell, and just outvaluing our opponents with superior cards as opposed to more efficiency? is the format slow enough?

Future site is the stone cold nuts in my opinion.
As for needle, that I could see as well. are vial decks/jace decks not a large part of the field anymore?

Back when I played UWx CounterTop Thopter, 2 Counterspell was pretty standard for most lists (some even played 3). Haven't touched this deck since Mental Misstep was printed, then quit Magic for about 8 months and just recently came back, so I'm unsure if Counterspell still has a home here (as an aside, Counterspell still finds it's way into UW Stoneblade decks to ensure a hard counter for late game bombs that Snare and Pierce can't hit).

Snare hits Thalia, Ooze, Qasali, Gaddock Teeg. Pierce does not hit these.

GSZ for Qasali, Ooze, Teeg is hit by Pierce, not by Snare.

Snare is still pretty good, but that's why I'm backing it up with Leak/Counterspell: both hit what Snare doesn't. They're casting Thalia so much on turn 2/3 that I'd rather have Snare atm. If they didn't have Thalia? Then it'd be more debatable for me.

-Matt

Why not just running PtE instead of Snare/Pierce? PtE is one of the few cards that deals efficiently with Delver of Secrets, whereas regarding the main-targets of Snare/Pierce it's pretty easy to find other cards that can deal those, maybe not as efficient as Snare on SCM or Spell Pierce on Jace, but that's a slower matchup anyway, where it rather comes down to power than to efficiency.

If you ask me, I would run a mix of PtE and Counterspell.

CoW and Future sight are pretty cool, but I wonder if you need both, since they actually do the same thing: straight out generating CA.

Future site is a tutorable jace, with the added bonus of outright winning the jace wars even when one is played against you.

Crucible fights the tempo style decks, also allows you to randomly waste lock an opponent. Both are great in aggro control and control matchups, but the main issues I see at this point is making g\w maverick favorable preboard.

I think it may end up looking completely top heavy preboard, ie 2x moat, bridge, humility, etc. that way post board you have the greatest chance of beating them. In case your wondering ive had lots of trouble beating maverick before. And with the new 2 drop they picked up, thingd, seem harder. Any thoughts on hozer cardd guys?

New two-drop hozer card? I assume you mean Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Well, if you can't counter it, I suppose Swords for W1 isn't too bad. I still run a couple Counterspell and have run that card ever since I picked up this deck. I'm not sure if that's still the right decision anymore, though.

A lot of these silver bullet cards are really meta-dependent on whether or not you want them in the main deck or sideboard. I'd say this holds true for Needle, Humility, graveyard hate, etc. By the way, if you expect any Reanimator at all, Grafdigger's Cage is great because it wins G1 all by itself if you drop it. I would include one copy of that card somewhere in the 75 of any version of this deck.

You mention that you like Crucible because it helps fight decks that attack your mana base. Another way to improve your chances against those decks is to run more basic lands. Your list splashes both red and black. Is that really necessary? There are only a few cards that you run in those colors. It's only EE in the starting 60 and then Nihil Spellbomb, Blood Moon, and REB in the sb. I'm not sure how necessary those cards are. As mentioned, I like Grafdigger's Cage as graveyard hate. I'm not sure about REB, because I prefer sb cards that you can tutor for. I've found that a straight UW list can work very well. It helps against decks that run 4 Wasteland and allows you to cut Crucible from the main deck. The only card that I really want to run extra colors for is EE.

Have been testing Temporal and Terminus, but the lists are so tight it's really hard trying to make cuts. I went creature-less despite wanting to jam a few Snapcasters. I don't want Mystics I feel they are lacking against RUG and Maverick. So far I have this list;

[Artifact]
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of the Meek
2 Thopter Foundry

[Land]
1 Academy Ruins
1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
6 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra

[Planeswalker]
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[Enchantment]
4 Counterbalance
1 Humility

[Instant]
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares

[Sorcery]
3 Temporal Mastery
2 Terminus

SB is currently at ;

1 Back to Basics
1 Cursed Totem
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Terminus
1 Tormod's Crypt

I still like ee as opposed to o ring
I like cage, but thats still up in the air
Agree with manabase

Counter-top thopter

4x flooded strand
2x polluted delta
1x marsh flats
4x tundra
1x underground sea
5x island
2x plains
1x academy ruin
1x wasteland
1x seat of synod
1x karakas

4x force of will
4x brainstorm
4x counterbalance
4x swords to plowshares
3x jace, the mind sculpter
3x enlightened tutor
3x sensei's divining top
3x spell snare
2x thopter foundry
1x sword of the meek
1x crucible of worlds
1x ensnaring bridge
1x grafdigger's cage
1x humility
1x moat
1x future site

Sideboard
1x sacred mesa
1x cursed totem
1x moat
1x humility
1x ensnaring bridge
1x ethersworn cannonist
3x spell pierce
1x Nihil spellbomb
1x serenity
1x engineered explosives
1x volcanic island
2 Extra slots

Thoughts?

The previous model was centered around fighting jace/ centric decks, and therefore it gave up a safer landbase. This new model seems solid, though id like to see the sideboard cleaned up a bit. I think I still want a needle in the board, or aura of silence. Maybe an o ring in the main even if I dont like it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mossivo1986

I still like ee as opposed to o ring
I like cage, but thats still up in the air
Agree with manabase

---

Cage has a lot of disynergy with Future Sight, which seems pretty expensive to play for marginal benefit anyway (just flip SDT if you need the top card that bad).

@ Menace

I'm not sure if jamming 5-6 Miracles is the right idea, but let us know how it works out for you.

-Matt

How does cage interact with future sit when you play no creatures?

Futute site works with the deck in several ways.

1. Allows you to flood the board with perms. Its absolutely frustrating to be on the opposing side of a live future site.

2. Its a tutorable jace effectively. With the bonus of being better in jase based matchups.

3. With countertop in play you effectively can tutor counter 1/5.

4. With top you can fill your grip 1 mana for a card. So you font get land. Counterspell blocked.

5. With future in play e tutor turns into idylic tutor for 1.
I understand it looks costly, but consider for a minute the pure potency.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mossivo1986

How does cage interact with future sit when you play no creatures?

---

Don't forget the 2nd paragraph:

"Players can't cast cards in graveyards or libraries."

Oh man. Big rtfc there! I thought it was only creatures...
Well thats really not a huge deal. Then that slot changes to

Needle
Ee
O ring
Or ...

I went to a local tourney yesterday, doing not-so-good. I was mainly concerned with my mulligan descisions that day. For Instance, I lost 2-0 against a friend of mine playing Sneak Attack (he came in 3rd, so I'm actually fine with that), keeping a hand in G1 consisting of an Ensnaring Bridge, 3 lands, a StoP, an SD.Top and a FoW without a blue card. Yes, that hand invalidates Show and Tell, and if I find a blue card (which I didn't), I can counter once (which seems irrlevant, since he mostly has counter-backup anyway). At that time, the hand felt ok, since I don't think we are favoured G1 anyway (lots of dead cards, not enough counters), so having that Bridge seemed pretty good. I lost promtly to a Sneak Attack. G2 I kept an even worse hand of 4 lands, Canonist, Fow, Snapcaster Mage. Canonist is good with counters, since it invalidates their 10-12 counters, so they will never resolve a threat. Well, I played Canonist, he forced, I forced back, now my hand was 3 lands and I lost soon after that. In hindsight, I think there are a lot better 6 cards hands that completely blow him out, since I boarded 9 cards.

Now the real hand in question happend G3 against RUG Tempo. I won G1 after a mull to 6 pretty quickly on the back of CB, and lost G2 to his Delver, Mongoose, all Counters hand. I was on the play and had:

2 Plains
1 Underground Sea
1 SD.Top
1 Spell Pierce
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Back to Basics

I had early interaction for his threats in the form of StoP (2/3rds of his threats). If he happens to have a Mongoose, at least it takes some time before he starts bashing for 3. The idea was to find another land to get a basic Island in the top three, try to resolve B2B with Pierce backup and win from there. A friend of mine argumented that I should not keep a hand without a "reliable" blue source against RUG. Had the USea been a fetch, yes, that hand would have been better. I still think it's worth keeping, but I'm not sure. When you go down to 6, you can't expect more than 2 lands I think, and if you have duals in them, you will loose to Wasteland even more than the 7 card hand would. On top of that, if he didn't have Wasteland but Stifle instead, the 2 Plains 1 USea mana base is still ok.

Since the top 10 cards of my lib had neither a land nor a shuffle effect (E.Tutor for instance) and he obv. opened with Mongoose and wasted my USea T3, we didn't even have a game.

Nevertheless, I would really like to know if you would mull that hand or not.

The problem with that hand is this:

Ideally, you drop turn 1 Top and it resolves. Upkeep, you Top and hopefully hit Island. Otherwise, you drop Plains #2 and use Swords if you can. Turn 3, you drop Back to basics. Problem being, you can't use Spell Pierce to protect your Back to Basics. If that hand was Plains Plains Island, you'd be 100% fine.

-Matt

Hey guys. I've been a lurker for a long time over here and this is pretty much my first post (other than advertising a tournament I'm running around the corner). I just Top8ed a local 36-man tournament and wanted to share my decklist with the people here that don't frequent MTG Salvation Forums.


Artifacts: 12
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Expedition Map
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sword of the Meek
2 Thopter Foundry
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Enchantments: 8
1 humility
1 Moat
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Porphyry Nodes
4 Counterbalance

Instants: 17
2 Counterspell
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will

Planeswalkers: 2
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands: 22
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 Marsh Flats
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Tolaria West
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Wasteland
2 Plains
2 Tundra
3 Island
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand

Sideboard:
1 Blood Moon
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Cursed Totem
1 Engineered Plague
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Future Sight
1 Nevermore
1 Path to Exile
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing
3 Spell Pierce
1 Swords to Plowshares[/deck]

With 38 players, that meant 6 rounds before Top8 and I’d have to go 4-1-1 to lock it up.

Round 1: Affinity

Game one I have a Bridge in the opener and get it out while I’m at 18 life still. He swings then plays a Plating and next turn he’ll have enough black to equip after swings. On the end step I ETutor for humilty but I’m down one mana to play it. After drawing humility I flip my Top and luckily get the last land to play humility and lock him out of Game1. I think I also Pithing Needled Tezzeret at some point.

Game two I had an early Porphyry Nodes and a Seal of Cleaning which I had to use to kill Phyrexian Revoker before Nodes took care of it so that I wouldn’t die as he just decided to try to power through Nodes. I had my Nevermore in hand and was trying to guess his last card. I either name Krosan Grip to stop that or I name Tez. Since I didn’t have anything else he could Grip and a Tez kills me on the spot. I trade a spot removal or two for his guys, Needle on Cranial Plating to make his Ornithopters useless, then get Jace online and start fatesealing him. That winds up being more than enough as I give him more Platings, Tezs, Ornithopters, and a bunch of permanents that tap for mana.

Affinity is a deck that likes to mulligan aggressively and tries to get lucky. Because they play flying creatures and equipment and Walkers and low power dudes, they’re actually a little tricky to lock out. It helped a lot that this guy was my friend and I knew what he was playing. I do think having Energy Flux is a good card to have in the board because of how versatile the deck is but I’m not packing it. Generally, for me, I would say the plan is to try to get lucky (like Affinity) and hope that you wont even face this matchup. If you can win a few rounds, you’re usually in a position where Affinity isn’t around though I do think the deck is good. I decided before this tournament though that I was going to cut cards from my board that just hose one or two archetypes.

Round 2: Ru Burn

Game one I see Volc, Goblin Guide, Mountain, Goblin Guide, Goblin Guide. There’s really no beating that. It’s actually the nuts.

Game two he Thunderous Wraths me after a Brainstorm and burns me a bit. I go for a CB when he’s tapped out, and he then untaps and REBs it. I blind flip and miss, unfortunately. When I have the CoP:Red, I only have 2 life left, and he shows me his burn spell in hand with my CoP on the stack. ☹

Burn I think is kind of a toss-up but it’s so popular that I think it is worth keeping the CoP in the board- especially considering it’s actually pretty versatile. Game 1 was obviously a little unfair and Game 2 was very close. I usually win the boarded games but both ThopterSword and CounterTop are good here so it’s not unwinnable without the CoP. The trick is sometimes just having the right answer. If they have dudes, CBTop wont win it, and Thopter Sword can lose to them having lots of big spells.

Round 3: Burn

Game one I keep a hand half the ThopterSword combo and an ETutor knowing he’s playing burn. He’s got the turn one Goblin Guide but doesn’t throw down two more the next turn. I keep his Goblins and Marauders and Hellsparks at bay once I have the combo online and the game is pretty much wrapped up with me with a Force of Will in hand for backup.

Game two I drop a Counterbalance and a Jace and honestly, that was pretty much enough. I had the CoP:Red in a few turns to prompt the concession but even at that point I was at >10 like at Jace was sitting pretty at ~7.

That’s how the matchup goes more often than not. Many people have opted for no hate cards for Burn and it may be right though Hate is the only thing that’s going to stop their really powerful starts so it can be good to have.

Round 4: TPS

Once I get to the later rounds in the tournament I just always pretend my opponent is playing RUG. I kept 4 lands, Jace, Swords, and CB. After a turn one Delta from my opponent, I still didn’t really know what to expect but a turn two Gemstone and I could figure out what was up. I put my Counterbalance out on my turn two and it was pretty much over from there.

Game two he has turn one Dark Ritual into Inquisition + Defense Grid. His discard spell only has three choices; Ethersworn Cannonist, Counterbalance, and Counterbalance. This game worked out to be pretty much the same after I got the
Counterbalance on board. He played Chrome Mox to try to get me to blind flip. I just let it resolve. Then I let Silence resolve with him with one card in hand, USea untapped, and two LEDs in play. He I wound up sacrificing Thopter Foundry to itself each time I drew it to apply some pressure and the game was over 10 turns later with him unable to combo.

The combo matchups for this deck are honestly just very easy. I rarely test them and manage to do very well each time. The only combo decks that I sometimes have problems with are Elves and Hivemind. The Ethersworn Cannonist in my board is more for those. While it’s not the best against them, it’s still good and it’s just so versatile that you do want it. One important thing to realize against Hivemind in particular is that they have incredible inevitability. Against some decks, you really just want a clock. Likewise, sometimes you just board out all win conditions ☺

Round 5: Dredge

I’m actually pretty sure this guy is playing Dredge since I’d just seen two copies of the deck near the top tables. Game one I’m pretty sure it was simply an Ensnaring Bridge plus Thopter Sword. There was a turn where I tapped out and opened myself to Cabal Therapy on Enlightened Tutor but my opponent didn’t think of that play.

Game two I keep double Spell Pierce get to keep both after his turn one Cabal. His turn two I counter his blue spell and my turn two I get rid of his land with my Wasteland. He’s gotta spend sometime drawing from the top here to refill his hand now. My turn three I lay down a Counterbalance which is huge against Dredge. I spend a turn to play a Foundry and sacrifice it to itself on his endstep, then make this play again, Spell Pierce mana open all the while. Swinging for two here does two things. Firstly, it puts him on a clock. Secondly, it made him make worse plays. When he was at 11 he kept around a pair of Narcomoebas to block before he had too many Bridges. This was probably the right play for him as him loosing his Bridges would ultimately be a loss, and he would have to kill at least on of my guys eventually. Also, Caballing while I had CB in play wasn’t too appealing for him. I Swordsed a Narc, untapped, and ORinged the second, putting him down to ten. Soon I got a Top and then a Bridge, which was protected from Nature’s Claim/Chain of Vapor by CBTop. That was pretty much all I needed to get in the final points of damage, though Karakas was certainly good too.

Dredge is a good matchup and I’m pretty confidant that we need zero hate cards since almost every card in our deck is good against them. You don’t always need to beat them either since decking them is a pretty legitimate strategy. One thing I forgot about during my second game (and my opponent did too) is that he can point Cephalid Coliseum at me to get under a Bridge so it is a legitimate Pithing Needle target. The deck is pretty versatile and honestly, the games against it are actually fun with this deck. That being said, you really need to face a very good pilot to even have a shot at losing. I would recommend playing Dredge a few times yourself so you know what to fear and know what to play around. With CounterThop it REALLY helps to know exactly what game plans other decks will have and one of the best ways to test is actually just picking up other decks and playing them. I’m not incredibly well versed in Dredge but playing it a few times helps me stay calm and realize I really don’t have much of a shot at dying turn one.

Round 6: ID

Top8: UR Delver

Both games were very quick and pretty much the same. He spent his first two turns playing multiple 1-drops and proceeded to only miss one chance to flip, nailing all the others blind. Game two it seemed I had more of a shot but he just let my Bridge resolve since I had four cards in hand and I wasn’t able to use Force of Will so I lost. Maybe I should be Forcing the turn one Delvers more. I don’t know- and I’ve written enough about what I do know already so there should be enough to read there rather than me just guessing.

Some of my thoughts on some recent discussion points you've had here;

@TkDodo- Both of those hands are very good, IMO.
I am a fan of Future Sight, shaving a Spell Pierce so that I could keep it around.
I don't like Cage for the reasons listed above.
I could very well see myself playing Terminus in the future. I don't think it's worth cutting slots for Temp Mastery though. TM seems very much win-more.
I like Spell Pierce over Spell Snare every day. Both are bad against Maverick so I just look at where else they come in. Pierce is much better everywhere else.
Also, Top and ETutor aren't the best non-blue spells in this deck. IMO, They are the best spells, period. They just let you play so many random cards with such consistency and power.

I look forward to joining the discussion!