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Why not try a single Chimeric Mass to fetch with the Trinket Mage? That should speed up your clock a bit.
I honestly have no idea about Bob in this deck. In paper he sounds good, giving you a lot of card advantage, but he is a hate magnet, so he might get killed too often. However, you should be able to protect him if you get the countertop online.
How does this deck (the UWb version) fare against Merfolk and Goblins? Are Peacekeepers enough?
I disagree about bob. Namely, the cost of running him is hurting your aggro MUs a lot. Goyf is a serious beater in that MU. Plus, by running bob you're not able to run firespout which is a huge disadvantage in my opinion. I like that he gets you cards, but a problem is that he won't actually run through opponent creatures and can't end a game quickly. The ability of goyf to close the game in 4 swings is incredibly powerful, and not worth passing up in my opinion.
For a 22nd land, what do you think would be best - another blue fetch or a Trop? I'm not playing a Mountain, it really doesn't seem worth it - Forest and Plains just do much more. Firespout is often just a one-time card, whereas you often plan to have multiple swords per game.Quote:
Originally Posted by DFY889
For reference, I have 3 Tundras, 3 Volcanics, 3 Trops, and a Savannah as the relevant duals for this deck (I traded 2 Trops and some other stuff for 2 Tundras and some other stuff sometime back). I have 4 of every blue fetch.
I've tried 3 Spell Snare, it's been OK for me. I might cut the O-Ring for it, but I really like having outs to random crap.
Elspeth has been great for me every time I've played her. As long as she keeps putting up results, I'll keep playing her. There's been plenty of times where she's done more for me than Jace. The Shackles is just something I'm trying out - I wouldn't play more than 1.
Bob just dies too quickly to be a reliable engine. He's pretty crappy against aggro even if they let him stick.
I might try out 1 or 2 Vindicate in the Prosak list.
EDIT: Moved to previous post.
For basics, I play 2 Island, 1 Forest, 1 Mountain, but you could run a plains in place of the mountain if you're set on it. Just out of curisotiy what matchups are you testing against? I've been trying pretty hard to tweak countertop against the vengevine survival decks, so spell snare has been insane.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamegeek2
I went back up to 3 Spell Snare
Honestly, I don't know why we can't go up to 4 Spell Snare.
I've been toying with this idea as well. I played 4 spell snare for most of the last extended season where dark depths was public enemy number one. The way the recent events have gone down it looks as though survival decks are really going to be the archetype to beat and spell snare certainly helps that matchup since a lot of the hands they keep fall apart without survival.Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzykat
3 Snare, 3 counterspell split is ideally what I would play if I was facing a survival-infested meta. I would play the 4th counterspell over the 4th snare as it is less narrow. If you see plenty of survival and the mirror, no harm in upping to 4 spell snares. Tempo threshold/canadian threshold in the old days played 4 snares and did well, however that was a meta deck. I see no problems playing 4 today with survival being the rage.
On a unrelated note among all the talk about U/G Madness, is there a reason Thopter Sword is not discussed in this thread? Is the deck simply too different and is classified as it's own arch-type? Is this thread not about all Counter-Top decks and it's variants? Isn't the Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek combo with the Counterbalance/Sensei's Divining Top a powerful and competitive combination?
There is a thread in the Established Decks forum devoted solely to that deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
I actually submitted an article to the SCG writing contest about countertop. I'll wait a bit, if it doesn't get published, I'll just post it here. In that article I examine countertop-thopters and why people are dropping it in favor of other decks. I also look at the various countertop archtypes and the evolution of the Martell/Sperling list. Let me know if interested and I'll put it up on google docs or something. But in summary, countertop thopters is very weak to krosan grip and spell pierce/reb post board. The card disadvantage built into the enlightened tutor engine makes the deck lose out after the opponent's dead creature removal is boarded out for "live" cards. I played the deck and my moat (which I bought just for the deck) has been sitting around sad faced in my box. :(
That's way after game 1 you side in creatures with CTT.Quote:
Originally Posted by ivanpei
You then have 3 Jace 2.0, 2 Thopter Foundry + 1 Sword of the Meek and 3-4 creatures as win conditions.
Thopter-Sword is awful. That's why it's over in its own thread.
I think the decision of how many Counterspell/Spell Snares to play comes down to how many cmc=2 you have. Your deck wants 10, at minimum. At least that's what I've discovered, and I've been playing Countertop since the card came out.
I'd say that's generally true if spell snare didn't read "target spell with converted mana cost two" basically making it able to hit a one via an enabled counterbalance or a two by, you know, casting it.
Yeah but we want to enable the softlock, not just counter one spell.Quote:
Originally Posted by DFY889
Our problem isn't winning with countertop down. It's beating a survival.
Wow. It's absolutely staggering how sick I am of hearing that. If I ever catch Evan Erwin on a bad day I'm just going to wring his overbearing, hyperbole-slinging neck...
Ehm,
with Spell Pierce and Needle, is it still THAT hard of a matchup?
If so:
WHY is it that hard?
(haven't come to test against G/W Survival yet.....)
It's nowhere near as hard as most people like to pretend it is. There's just a whole lot of hype around Vengevival. It's a good deck, with good MUs, but it's currently the "flavor of the month," as it were. It's been around for years, but Vengevine has given it a lot of press.