Quote Originally Posted by Runner5678 View Post
Huh, that's very counter to my experience playing against DnT. Comparing our deck to Miracles and its counter-suite doesn't make much sense to me. We aren't trying to establish a lock and go long like Miracles. Their powerful anti-countermagic effects aren't as relevant because our plan doesn't let them fully leverage that ya know? We're just looking to get them on the backfoot and find an opening. It's not like we aren't bringing in all those Needle, Rod, artifact removal cards. We're just cutting Ponders, Probes, Spell Pierces, Wasteland, maybe a Daze, maybe another on the Draw, instead of Force. Against DnT, I'm just looking to make sure the game doesn't go long and keeping Jitte from getting counters any way I can. Force helps that. That may just be because I don't play any creature removal other than Submerge like the person asking for Sideboard advice though. I'd probably end up eyeing Force next if I had a Plow or Dismember to bring in.

DnT I can see what you're thinking and I'll be trying out your style in testing but the Burn I'm having more trouble. I'd love to hear your thoughts more. Burn traditionally has 6-8 instant speed removal spells+Fireblast (which I'd argue we always want Force for) post-board. They'll usually have the 4 bolts and 2-4 Searing Blaze. The vast majority of the deck does not answer our creatures at instant speed so we can comfortably play through the removal they do have as so much of our deck counters their removal. I'm much more interested in cutting the Probes, Ponders, Crop Rotate, Wasteland. And there's no creature removal in OPs or my list so I don't have those to bring in.
Yeah that's fair. Admittedly the comparison to Counterbalance was a bit far fetched, but my point was mostly that they have plenty of ways to circumvent counter magic between Vial and Cavern (and SFM if you're talking about Jitte). More on Burn below.

Quote Originally Posted by geneyquakes View Post
I disagree with this. Force of Will and countermagic in general are very good against burn. Outside of Invigorate, I think it is just one of your best cards against them. I agree that burn pilots will try to control the board and hold instants, but it is hard for them to fight us on the stack unless they have exactly multiple Bolts and our hand is awkward. In this case, adding more cantrips or spells that cost mana will not help, while free counters make a big difference. They have so few spells that actually matter, and even though their spells are cheap, ours are cheaper. Bolt is good, but Chain Lightning is a sorcery, Searing Blaze is awkward, and Fireblast comes at a very heavy cost. If we are fighting this with the maximum number of 0 and 1 mana spells, it is easier to come out on top.
I went back and looked up some old Tom Ross articles on the subject of sideboarding. The most recent article is dated from 2015, but it doesn't look like Burn and DnT have changed too much since then. Article can be found here.

With that in mind, I think I'll give the Forces against Burn another try. In recent memory, I've run a pretty dedicated white splash with upwards of 3x Swords to Plowshares, plus stuff like Absolute Law and Mother of Runes that all help a tremendous amount with the matchup. Without those cards, however, I can definitely see how the Forces are more necessary.