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I'll concede that I haven't played the game in quite a while, and that my understanding of the current state of the format when I posted that response may have been a little off.
Still though... I can still name a ton of problematic 2cc spells in most of those decks, and there are more than 7 decks that see play in Legacy.
Against RUG, yea the only cc you really care about is 1cc, I agree. 12 1cc spells, when 4 of those are Top (perma 1cc stoppage), is more than enough to handle 1cc spells. This has always been the case for this deck.
Against Maverick, they still 2cc stuff you want to stop. I agree that 1cc and 3cc seem more problematic, but they still have SFM, Jitte, Thalia, hardcast Teeg/Qasali/Ooze, among other things.
Against Miracles, 2cc stops opposing Counterbalances, Snapcasters, and Counterspells. If they are doing the SFM hybrid thing, it also hits SFM.
Against Show and Tell, yea I agree. You really just want a 3cc spell to float on top to secure that one. Hitting the 1cc cantrips is definitely relevant, but hitting 3cc is the main issue. My list runs 5 3cc spells, which is about as much as I can comfortably hit without cutting what I consider to be "other important spells." Of course, it's always possible to bring in some additional 3cc spells out of the sideboard (Detention Sphere sounds like a solid choice, for example).
Against Merfolk, if they have Vial or Cavern in play, Counterbalance is irrelevant regardless. If they don't have either of those, 2cc is the most relevant cc range to cover. All of their creatures, besides Cursecatcher and Merrow Reejery, are 2cc. Even Standstill is 2cc, for the lists that run it.
Against the other Tribal, yea you want to reliably hit 1cc. Against Goblins, they have such a varied curve that Counterbalance is usually bad even if they don't have Vial or Cavern. 3cc is usually the best range to hit, since it nabs their lords and Matron, but it can vary depending on their list. I board out all of my Counterbalances in this matchup anyway.
Against Stoneblade, the lists can vary alot, but you hit SFM, Snapcaster, Jitte, Counterspell if they run it, Standstill if they run it, among other things. 2cc is the most relevant spot to hit here. Now if you're talking about Esperblade, then yea, you want 1cc to hit their discard and 3cc to hit their Souls, but that doesn't make hitting 2cc any less relevant. 2cc can also hit Confidant in the lists that run him.
Against Belcher, I was under the impression that they ran a good bit of 2cc spells... two 2cc red rituals, Burning Wish... regardless, the last time I played against Belcher, 0cc was the most important target, hitting Petal/Mox/LED (their IMS and/or Belcher activators if they can't hit 7+ mana when going for Belcher). 1cc hits a few things, and is definitely relevant, but isn't 0cc and 2cc the more important range to hit?
Aside from the above... against the rest of the format, 2cc is still relevant, is it not?
That was my response to Koby regarding the Counterbalance curve. While I still believe that 2cc is a relevant cc range to be able to reliably counter, and while I still think 15 1cc spells is overkill to reliably counter 1cc spells, I do agree with you that hitting the 3cc range is really important these days. I did a bit of stress testing on the curve, and it seems as though dropping from 10 2cc spells to 8 2cc spells was sufficient. It's not consistently reliable, but it's not too difficult to get a 2cc spell on top if it's a range you need to stop in the given matchup. I still wish I could run more, but there is only so much room in the deck, and dropping below 12 1cc spells is literally impossible (literally). So even though I dropped down to 8 2cc spells, I was able to get my 3cc spells up to 8 as well. That's actually pretty awesome, considering that it improves my ability to counter so much more shit with Counterbalance.
