[Deck] Ugwr Intuition CounterTop

[Deady]

Red seems like it has become very, very important for Intuition Countertop, particularly because of the rise in popularity of MUD and Affinity decks and of course because of the Goblin matchup.

Ancient Grudge vs MUD.

Punishing Fire vs Affinity and Goblins.

So, what does this mean?

That it's time for the deck to maindeck Punishing Fire and to change more important stuff in order to keep a solid mana base, while being able to keep your good matchups into good ones and preferably not worsen your worse matchups.

So the SB becomes more important.

All of this can only be done with lots of experience and knowledge of the format. With the changes the deck desperately needs, white should be cut. No Swords anymore, just like NLT. So, what do we have instead? Instead we have Punishing Fire, Mage/Collar tech, Counterbalance/Top. I think that's the way to go for us now, if we want to add Punishing Fire to the deck. Remember Grove of the Burnwillows in the maindeck also makes EE-recursion easier to abuse (vs KotR for instance). Intuition AND Mage in the same deck should give the deck even more options, which is what the deck wants to do in the first place.

The goal is to set-up the CB/Top lock in the first place and to dominate the rest of the game, while Intuition and Mage can both search for answers in their own way without CB/Top (EE recursion, Mage or Goyf/Collar, Grove/Punishing Fire).

It's at least something to think about, especially with all the positive results of Collar vs Midrange (and vs Emrakul and Prog) and Punishing Fire vs Affinity, Goblins. Grudge can be added to the Sideboard and more…

Here's what I thought about. I haven't tested it yet, but hopefully it can lead to something: Discuss

[Deady]

3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

3 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
2 Intuition
2 Firespout
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[Valtrix]

Please tell me how basilisk collar is an effective tool against any deck when you're running only 8 creatures, none of which are recurrable. This seems strictly worse than swords to plowshares, even if you don't need to run white.

[Deady]

Collar can easily get replaced by Pithing Needle.

The thing is that you'll need something against Midrange (KotR/Terravore) in the board, so it's either a single Collar or some number of Gilded Drakes (2), more EE and Shackles. The deck should be able to function without white, but like I said earlier it comes much down to the sideboard.

-2 Firespout, +1 Forcefield, +1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor is also an option, to win through Jace (with Clique/Goyf backup). Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows is already there vs fast aggro and it's tutorable with Intuition, so Firespout can be cut from the maindeck.

3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

3 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
1 Pithing Needle
2 Intuition
1 Forcefield
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[Valtrix]

Collar just seems terrible in a deck with 8 creatures. I don't think trinket mage is a very good card in this deck in general. I've tried it and pretty much every time it's just a worse intuition. Besides, swords is one of your best cards against midrange, as well as pretty much just every deck, why do you want to cut it so bad? Additionally,I have found that ruins/EE should be fine against midrange, since you're usually not pressed for turns and can grind them out in the long run.

I have often considered cutting firespout from the maindeck. I think with the decline of zoo and addition of punishing fire/grove this is probably a fine thing to do at this point (though I do like them). That said, you need the creature removal density still so that either means replacing them with more punishing fires, path, shackles, or some combination of that.

[Deady]

Then you'll get something like this:

2 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Academy Ruins
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Intuition
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Actually I like this list very much. It gives many sideboard options like Ancient Grudges, more Counterspells, Pyroblasts/ReB, Needles...definately worth spending more time with, making the right tweaks to the SB.

1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Punishing Fire
2 Firespout
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Counterspell
2 Pyroblast
1 Red elemental Blast
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt

Punishing Fire can easily get sided out against combo/control, whether it's for Ancient Grudges, more Counterspells or some combination of them with a lonsesome Needle or Crypt...it all depends on the matchup. Again: lot's of options here.

[Valtrix]

Hello everybody! It's been a couple weeks since anything on this deck. I haven't got to do a lot of testing, but I did get to do a little theory-crafting, so let me know what you think. As I was playing the deck I felt a couple things:

1) Vedalken Shackles is incredibly good. I have won so many games on this card alone, so I wanted to up the count of this card in the deck.
2) Firespout isn't what it used to be with the way the meta has changed (ie, less zoo). Additionally, it doesn't seal up the goblins MU like I want it to, so I want to have a way to deal with this.
3) Jace/Intuition are insane, but I felt like 3/3 was making draws just a little too clunky.
4) Furthermore, I was hoping for just a little bit more win-cons.
5) With the types of combo that are around I want a strong countersuite.
6) I think punishing fire is enough to dominate the tribal MUs, though I would like more testing to confirm/deny this.
7) Dredge is an issue, so we probably need at least one piece of GY hate in the board, unfortunately...That said, I don't know if 1 crypt/3 intuitions is enough to actually matter against dredge...

As such, I took this into consideration in reconstructing a little bit of the deck. I decided to consider knight of the reliquary again, a card I had long wanted to see in the deck. It has obvious synergy with the deck since we want mana, we want shuffle effects, we want big creatures, and it can search out grove/ruins (which is particularly relevant G2 when you can side in extra copies of EE/fire). As such, I created the following:

// Lands
2 [IN] Island (2)
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [R] Volcanic Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [RAV] Forest (2)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Mountain (3)
3 [A] Tundra
1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TE] Intuition
2 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [CS] Counterbalance
1 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
2 [6E] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [TE] Intuition
SB: 3 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb
SB: 1 [CFX] Path to Exile
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt

I also switched the emphasis back to :R:, since we want a lot more :R: now to have fire combo dominate. This also has 3 (!) copies of knight of the reliquary. I originally wanted 2/3 for knight/shackles but thought that 3/2 might be a little bit better against faster decks. I definitely like him in the deck and have had very good success with him. Losing a Jace and intuition from the main makes me sad, but at the same time I think there were just too many and they were making opening draws more awkward. You really want to control the board first and then lay down one of these bombs, and I think that 2/2 lets us do so fairly well.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I think it could use a little tweaking still, but it looks very strong to me overall and I think that the deck is still very good, even in the current meta. I still lose a lot of games to play mistakes though, as this deck is super hard to play (also considering that a huge part of the success of the deck are the small tweaks made to the list in preparing for a tournament).

[Deady]

So, what do you guys think about the new Mental Misstep? It's finally a real answer to Vial, as well to Stifle, Lackey and Hierarch.

Especially Vial and Stifle were really problematic cards for us to deal with!

[Taurelin]

Just wanted to quote you here ...

4C Countertop worst nightmares always were Vial and Stifle; it's one of those decks that most likely WILL benefit from MM.

... but you brought it up yourself. What I think is that I desperately want it in here. The question is what to take out to make room for 3-4 copies.

[Taurelin]

Hm. No help here?

I did a bit of testing myself. My first try was to add 3 MMs dropping 1 Goyf and the Shackles going on 61 cards. Playing felt really awkward, even though I can't really say why.

The second try was 0 Counterspells, 3 StoP, 4 MMs. Surprisingly, this one works much better.

The overall impression is that we really want 4 MMs in the deck. It just helps so much to survive the early game in a variety of MUs. And even later in the game you can still counter removal, small critters, cantrips etc.

[Valtrix]

Sorry about no responses. It's getting to the end of the semester, so I've been a bit pressed for time.

As far as mental misstep goes, I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand I like the tempo. That can be very useful for us (especially against decks we have more trouble against), but at the same time I hate that it is a (somewhat) narrow card. In a lot of respects it feels like spell snare to me, a card that I gave up simply because I felt like we had more effective options, but it certainly is way better than spell snare because we can cast it for free.

That said, I'm not completely sure where to make the room as the deck feels pretty tight right now. I think cutting the counterspells would be okay, maybe a swords, and probably a shackles/knight/firespout depending on what list you're running so it's hard to say. 3 mental missteps would probably be fine, though I could also see an argument for 4 or even 2.

Anyway, sorry for my lack of a lot of content. I'm not completely sure how I feel about this card at the moment and haven't had time to test. What list are you currently running? It might be easier to look at space in that context.

[Taurelin]

Okay. At he moment I'm working with this list:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
3 [B] Tropical Island
3 [B] Tundra
3 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [CS] Snow-Covered Island
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Forest
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Mountain
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [TE] Intuition
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 [U] Swords to Plowshares
3 [SHM] Firespout
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [4E] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 [4E] Blue Elemental Blast

Cutting 1 StoP seems as ok to me as cutting 1 Goyf. It's probably just a question of curve.

[Valtrix]

9 2cc really won't work in my opinion for balance. I'd recommend running 3 MM and cutting one Jace for 2 counterspells. 10 2cc could also work, but having the 11th (and especially 10th!) helps a lot. Otherwise I think your setup is fine. I wouldn't recommend cutting goyf since you really want win-cons, it's great anti-aggro, and is a 2cc.

Also, I'm testing a list without firespout and more focus on punishing fire/grove to deal with tribal. I haven't gotten any testing versus tribal, but in general I like not having firespouts against non-tribal MUs. Furthermore, I recommend running 1x ratchet bomb in the board (probably over grip #3), as it's a great answer vs. needle (since you might not always have grip/grudge against something that brings needle in). Furthermore, I like 2 EE's in the board over grip because in most cases it works as well as grip, but it has a lot of utility in other MUs (And also gives you outs to GY removal of your lonely EE). In particular it gives you more flexibility against CBalance decks (by getting their goyfs or balances which can be huge), gives you a good answer against vial decks (though with MM maybe that argument is a little less), and with dredge on the rise can deal with hordes of tokens. Sorry if this was very tangential to what you really wanted suggestions on.

[Taurelin]

That's fine.

What I was trying to do is to maintain being able to Intuition for (almost) everything in the deck. That's why I wouldn't cut down Jace to 2 or run 2 Counterspells.

Damn, this is really difficult. The deck is rather tight.

[Valtrix]

While it seems nice to be able to intuition for everything in the deck, more often than not you just don't need to. Most of the time I end up setting up something with loam, then grabbing a piece of counter/top, and finally tutoring for removal (in that order). In fact, it's very rare when I actually go for a win-con (I think I've tutored for Jaces only once or twice. It can be really bad if they then deal with your win-con and you now have 3 less in your deck).

[Valtrix]

Hello all, just thought I would see if anybody is still playing this deck anymore. I haven't been playing a lot lately, though I might get a chance to do so some more this summer and do some more tweaking with the current meta (which currently seems hard to describe).

I do have a few comments though:
-- 2 Vedalken Shackles is way better than 1. The card is such a beating against a lot of decks and having twice the chance to get it is awesome.
-- Knight of the reliquary is incredibly useful. Can go toe to toe with any creature and can set up ruins/EE or punishing fire/grove very nicely, as well as also giving you some extra mana to work with. Helps against aggro and gives some more win-cons, though I don't like relying on creatures as much.
-- On that note, fire/grove is very good and can help you dominate problem matchups (merfolk, affinity, goblins), but is sometimes slow to get online. I'm not sure how much if any of the combo we want to run, because I don't like how much space it takes up.
-- Firespout in the main just doesn't cut it anymore I think. We're not facing the same type of decks, and against decks that we don't need it against it hurts a lot.
-- 3 Jace and 3 intuition is too much. I have moved down to 2 Jace and 2 intuition because we need to focus a little more on faster plays. Knight have sort of filled this role a bit.
-- I like mental misstep, though I just can't find room for it in the deck, let alone 4 of them.
-- Killing Jace with EE is still awesome.
-- I mostly intuition for ruins combo, punishing fire combo, top for huge advantage, CB if I have a top, or swords if I need removal ASAP.
-- I still lose a lot of games to playskill. Oh well.

The deck is very malleable to the meta I think and can be designed to target whatever you fear most. I haven't gotten a lot of testing lately, but it would be nice to know if anybody else has gotten a chance to play it more.

[Taurelin]

The last time I played it was on 1st May - pre MM - at a local tournament. I came in 9th of 20 players.

1:2 vs Dream Halls
2:1 vs RW-Weenie
1:1 vs UWb Jace Control
2:0 vs Faerie Stompy
ID vs GW Zenith Aggro (lost the fun matches 0:2).

The performance was indeed not perfect. And I agree on the Firespouts. They are mostly good vs tribals, and even then they offen don't suffice.

Also, I have no idea how to put 4 MM in it. I definitely would love to.

[Valtrix]

I think if I were to really try room for it I would use the list below (Though unsure about sideboard...A lot of slots devoted to fire/grove, not sure if it's worth that many without some in the main.) It only has three missteps, but that should be fine. I cut 1 Knight, 1 punishing fire, and 1 brainstorm for three missteps. Yes, I know brainstorm is awesome, but it's kind of redundant with top and not "necessary" in the deck. This makes balance pretty reasonable and our costs with a 14-11-6-2-4 cc curve. Definitely would need a little more tweaking to make sure we can stomp on merfolk though.


// Lands
2 [IN] Island (2)
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
2 [R] Volcanic Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [RAV] Forest (2)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Mountain (3)
3 [A] Tundra

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TE] Intuition
2 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [6E] Counterspell
3 [MB] Mental Misstep

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [TE] Intuition
SB: 4 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb

[Valtrix]

Hmm. Anybody still looking at using intuition in a control deck shell? I had a lot of success with it in the past, and would like to continue doing so.

With the printing of Terminus, I think that it is a tool that this deck could use, but we may have to cut the creatures and the deck may end up looking more like the UW miracles deck.

RUG Tempo is also a huge concern, for which I think we need to evaluate the main-deck and cut down to some cheaper answers. I made a mono-white list which absolutely stomps RUG tempo (I'm 16:3 W:L), and so I've basically tried to fuse that deck with intuition countertop because I love both so much. I don't use a lot of blue because I feel like to destroy RUG you need to have a huge redundancy of answers, the best of which are usually white. That said, Jace is the best win-condition ever, and we gain more board options, better lategame/searching with intuition, and more consistent terminuses with brainstorm. In the end though, this is a board control deck.

As such, I'm toying around the below list, which I haven't had much time to test yet, but it has felt pretty good so far. If anybody's interested I'd be up for some more discussion about this deck/variations on it because I think it's possible to tune it for the meta-game again, and I do think that we have things to gain over UW miracles by having intuitions. That said, this post is pretty light because I'm not sure if anybody is interested.


4 Porphyry Nodes
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Eternal Dragon
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Terminus
1 Runed Halo
1 Karakas
4 Maze of Ith
1 Batterskull
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
3 Plains
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Brainstorm
1 Academy Ruins
2 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
2 Tropical Island
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Counterbalance
4 Windswept Heath
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 3 Counterspell
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Memory's Journey
SB: 1 Terminus
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Nevermore
SB: 1 Ray of Distortion