[Deck] ICBE Countertop-Control

[Citrus-God]

I got very bored with Threshold recently. But Counter-Top will always be fun. I hate Goyf though.... of course, that will force me to play pure control. The skeleton of the deck was originally Wastedlife's Angel Control skeleton, but since CB is much better at gaining card advantage, I cut Skeletal Scryings from the deck. And after much testing, I cut the Angels as well for a better win condition; Decree of Justice.


// Lands 23
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
2 Plains
5 Island


// Spells 38
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cunning Wish
2 Moat
1 Humility
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Chainer's Edict
3 Decree of Justice


// Sideboard 15
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Enlighten Tutor
1 Disenchant
1 Return to Dust/Dominate
1 Extirpate
1 Counterspell
1 Pulse of the Fields
3 Tombstalker
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Haunting Echoes


The deck looks like some odd Landstill/CB deck that Zvi used. It kinda is. The deck, however, is designed to be better than Landstill, beat the mirror, and make the most out of information thanks to Thoughtseize. Your game plan with the deck are simple;

1. Resolve Thoughtseize
2. Resolve Countertop
3. Control the board
4. C-Wish for Mystical Tutor which turns into DoJ.


Odd card choices:

2 Chainer's Edict: 2cc spell, amazing thanks to Flashback, and kills Geese and Enforcers.

2 Haunting Echoes: Post-board against Control and Threshold. You can fetch the singleton off C-Wish for MTutor.

1 E-Tutor and 1 MTutor: Adds awesomeness to Counterbalance. Shuffles and finds threats. Cunning Wish to essential, and so are the Tutors.



Goblins:
Havent been tested yet. My teammate and I assumed it would be 50/50. We'll get back to this later. But the game plan against Goblins should be

1. Keep yourself alive by snatching cards like Warcheif and Piledriver from hand with Thoughtseize.

2. WoG, Swords, stall until you get your mana together.

3. Use Cunning Wish and FoF to dig for Moat.

4. Win

Threshold:
Very favorable. Even Mr. Nightmare claimed that Threshold has trouble against dedicated control decks. I'm inclined to agree. With Moat, Cunning Wish (which is amazing here), and other goodies, we have lost very few games to Threshold.

Thoughtseize is amazing. snatching Goyfs early, and taking down CB pieces. Keep Goyf off the board, and pressure will be very likely be off your back.

Side out 4 FoF for 3 EE and 1 Haunting Echoes.


BHWW Landstill (Wastelandd version):
Very good match-up. You have Thoughtseize and DoJ which help a lot. It's very straight forward if they play Standstill. If they're aware that you're immune to Standstill, find ways to get Deed in the yard so you can Cunning Wish for Extirpate. From there, you control the game. The same applies to EE. Also, you have Cunning Wish, you could try and get that on Top to counter Deeds. Game 2, side out a WoG for a Haunting Echoes which can be fetched by Cunning Wish -> Mystical Tutor -> Echoes.


Survival:
An awkward match-up. The version we tested has 8 maindeck discard spells. It seemed kind of in their favor because they obviously apply lots of pressure towards us. The most we can do is take out Rofellos when we have the chance. Cunning Wish for E-Tutor for Humility is probably the best you've got.



I'll add more on to this later.