[Archetype] CounterTop

[JCrawl85]

This weekend I won a 40 man tournament in Dallas for a Mox with the following list, going 7-1-1:

Creatures (11):
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Rhox War Monk
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Qasali Pridemage

Spells (29):
4 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Diving Top
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
2 Ponder
4 Sword to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Vedalkan Shackles
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands (20):
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains

Sideboard (15):

3 Faerie Macabre
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Mind Harness
3 Firespout
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Krosan Grip
1 Engineered Explosives

A couple thoughts from the tournament/decklist:

1. I used to play the NO version of CounterTop, and was never impressed. Natural Order was cute when it was a suprise finisher for the deck but one of the side effects of running 4 Hierarchs, 3 NO, and a Progenitus is that it significantly reduces the power of Force of Will. There were many times where in order to Force a crucial spell, I would have to pitch a blue spell I really didn't want to, i.e CB or say Rhox War Monk to prevent a first turn Vial (which is actually one of the best answers to Goblins and Merfolk in my opinion). Not running the NO/Prog package has significantly reduced this problem.

2. Jace 2.0 absolutely is better than Natural Order/Progenitus in the deck. He enables you to run more blue cards for Force of Will (Ponders, Cliques) and also pitches to Force easily in the Aggro matchups. He is also incredible late game (incredible in the mirror as his Fatesealing ability completely screws your opponent). Several times in the tournament, a game would be at a stalemate, I would play Jace, Brainstorm, establish a complete lock with CB 123 or 234 on top, and remove their library from the game shortly after.

3. Eliminating Hierarch enables you to play EE much easier, and EE is one of CB's best answers to both Zoo and Merfolk, which I consider the deck's weakest matchups.

I don't think I could write a useful tournament report as the details would be flaky, but my matchups were the following:

Round 1: Reanimator - Win - 1-0
Round 2: Mono-Green Chalice Aggro - Loss - 1-1
Round 3: Eva-Green - Win - 2-1
Round 4: Affinity - Win - 3-1
Round 5: Reanimator - Win - 4-1
Round 6: Imperial Painter - ID - 4-1-1

Top 8:
Quarters: Bant Survival - 5-1-1
Semi's: Imperial Painter - 6-1-1
Finals: Belcher - 7-1-1

Comments, questions, and observations on the list are appreciated.

[SMR0079]

The short answer - you take one step back to get much further ahead.

Classic card advantage (drawing more cards then opponent) is not really necessary in Legacy for the most part because tempo is so important. However, that doesn't mean that card advantage in the broad sense of the word isn't important.

The counterbalance lock itself creates massive card advantage, more then you could ever get from draw spells. When you combine this with silver bullets like Moat/bridge/ ect, and the Thopter combo - Enlightened tutor becomes a great investment. It sets up your both stack control, board control, and your win con, all of which create massive card advantage.

I won a lot of prizes with NO Ctop, but these Tutor based builds are the wave of the future.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=33479

Surprised no one's discussed the Countertop deck that took 1st yesterday. As, noted above, I believe Countertop Thopter to be THE build going forward.

I think the sideboard will need to be adjusted to improve the Zoo match. Pridemage and Grip are obviously really good. We 've been going back and fourth between Paths, Firespouts, and Perish in the board. Sitting behind moat is dangerous when they have grip. You have to survive the onslaught and set up thopter sword as soon as possible.

I'm not a fan of Crucible. Oblivion ring has grown on me as it's an answer to an opponents Jace and the Emarukul decks that are in development.

Check the SCG counter top lists that have made top 8 this year. There have been only 5 so far - 2 Natural Order, 2 thopter, and 1 Bant.

Thoughts?

[Whit3 Ghost]

If a deck needs help in the Zoo matchup, it isn't the way to go going forward. Zoo and New Horizons seem to be the two most consistent decks in the format.

Anyway, JCrawl, I agree with your assessments, especially with the thorough meh-ness of Natural Order, but I have concerns with your manabase. You run the same amount of three or more CC stuff that I do, but you run two less lands than I do as well as one fewer Ponder. I rather like the consistency of 22 lands and ten draw spells, but I'd definitely like to hear how a slightly more fragile manabase is working for you.

Also, why Daze over Spell Pierce? I feel like Daze's drawback is super relevant early game, because you really want three mana by turn three.

Anyway, this is what I think I'm going to start tweaking from here on out:
Lands:
2 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
4 Island
2 Academy Ruins

Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Trinket Mage

Draw:
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Sensei's Divining Top

Counterspells:
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Spell Snare

Removal/Utility:
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Firespout
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor
1 EE

Sideboard:
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Path to Exile
3 Spell Pierce
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Krosan Grip/Trygon Predator

The Ruins might be overkill without Shackles, but I really like lategame EE lock against a lot of stuff as well as ensuring that Top will stick. Trinket mage might be meh without Needle, but I dialing up EE against Zoo is super relevant, and I don't want to strain the manabase with Rhox or play such a fragile creature in Clique. Mage beats have gotten me there plenty and it lets me run fewer Crypts or other hate artifacts if I go in that direction.

[JCrawl85]

Whit3:

1. I haven't had any true noticeable problems with my manabase. I never mulliganed to 5 during the tournament, and as far as I remember only mulliganed 2 or 3 times if I recall correctly (also including sub-par hands, not just no-land hands).

2. I'm not sure if you meant to ask why not Spell Snare instead of Daze (and not Spell Pierce) but I will address both. Daze can be rewarding to good players by punishing players that play into it. On the flip side, good opponents that play around Daze may actually be setting themselves back a turn, which negates the tempo loss of you having to use Daze in the first place. Another thing to consider is the casting costs of the cards in your deck. You may find yourself running Spell Snare because you've noticed that you may have trouble flipping cards that cost 2. In your list you only have 8 cards that cost 2, and I would wonder how often you find yourself having to use Spell Snare because you don't have enough cards that cost 2 in your deck to flip with CB. You should be countering cards that cost 2 by setting that up at the end of your opponent's1st turn by casting Brainstorm, putting a 2 as the 2nd card down, and then casting CB on your turn 2, rather than leaving a mana open to cast Spell Snare. On the draw, Spell Snare is clearly better than Daze, but you also run Force for when absolutely necessary. Regarding Spell Pierce: I feel Spell Pierce has a much better home in tempo decks such as Canadian Thresh or Team America, and also in sideboards to deal with combo-heavy metagames, which CB already has an inherent advantage over in the first place.

3. If running Bant Countertop, Rhox War Monk is an auto include in my opinion. He is an enormous problem for Zoo, and also can gain the life back you lost to early Merfolk beats and clearing the way with EE.

[Malakai]

Rhox War Monk – This card is played in NO Countertop because they needed a green creature they could pitch to force that would help their abysmal Zoo matchup. He also happens to be randomly good against Belcher, as he stops them from winning through Empty the Warrens, but that’s so rare it’s hardly a good reason to run him.

The problem is that he’s bad against every other matchup. Goblins? He’s difficult to cast early, and by the time you do they’ll have such an army of goblins it probably won’t matter. He can’t even block Piledriver.

Merfolk? He’s difficult to cast at all, here, and tends to be pretty useless once you do since they’re just going to drop a Lord of Atlantis or Wake Thrasher, win the counter-war over their threat, then beat you. Post board Submerge makes him look stupid.

Canadian Threshold? Even more difficult to cast. Post-board he just dies to Pyroblast, or gets Submerged.

He’s obviously bad against other CounterTop decks, in which anything smaller than Tarmogoyf tends to be pretty useless. His role there is just to pitch to Force.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that he’s not even that great against Zoo. Without CounterTop out he just eats a couple burn spells, or a burn spell and Lavamancer activation (or Pyroblast post-board). His primary use has been to stabilize after CounterTop has been established, and he does this job well. However, I contest that there are other options that do this as well, and are far more effective in other matchups. Adding a Basilisk Collar to a deck with Trinket Mages, for example, works fine. Vedalken Shackles is also a far superior board-control card, with or without CounterTop.

Or Firespout. Or more removal to stabilize your life early game. Or Spell Snares to counter Tarmogoyf, which aside from KotR is about the only thing you really care about.

[JCrawl85]

One thing I would ask is why are people even considering playing Trinket Magel It's one of those things I consider cute... You get your Dreadnought and hope nothing happens. Countertop is THE control deck of Legacy, hands down. We need to consider how we're going to beat our weak matchups. (No offense to those that posted, Dreadnought is not the answer bc of Qasali). I honestly consider the deck I posted the best CB deck (bant version) available at the moment. 1) bc it literally beat the shit out of any metagame and 2) Jace 2.0 literally wins you the game.

Countertop players lets agree, our weakest are Zoo and Merfolk. I want to know other lists solving this problem besides the list I posted and what people are doing about it.

IMO, the best Zoo and Merfolk answer are Firespout plus a combination of LLawan and Mind Harness. Those that have tested.... Is this correct?

[Bongo]

While I think your list is very good, I don't agree with a few points.

I do not think Trinket Mage is cute - he searches for Engineered Explosives and chumps for a turn, which improves bad matchups like Zoo and Merfolk considerably. I also run maindeck Pithing Needle, which is crucial against tribal decks packing Vial and Wasteland.

Vedalken Shackles is a fine card, but I found it to be too slow against fast aggro, where this deck has the most problems. I also found it lacking against New Horizons, since Knight and Terravore are often too big.

Firespout and Mind Harness have been good, but Llawan was subpar. The problem is that she's too slow (especially on the draw), and manadenial + Daze make it hard to resolve. My plan against tribal decks is to sweep the board with Firespout/EE and contain their development by Needling Vial (or Wasteland in the early game to stabilize).

[jimirynk]

Played this in 2 torn's this month and top 8'd both.

James Rynkiewicz

4 Counterbalane
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Tundra
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Rhox War Monk
1 Plains
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Windswept Heath
3 Natural Order
1 Forest
1 Progenitus
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Island
3 Tropical Island

Sideboard
4 Meddling Mage
2 Pithing Needle
4 Path to Exile
3 Spell Pierce
2 Krosan Grip

With 4 path in the board zoo is a cake walk.
Merfolk is a little harder but 4 path 2 needles get's 50-50.

[Scordata]

Hey fellas,

I've been a DDANT player for forever, but now with the death of mystical tutor i took it upon myself to switch sides.
I threw this pile together and was wondering if I could get some input.


// Lands
1 [B] Island (2)
4 [B] Tundra
4 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [REW] Wasteland

// Creatures
2 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
2 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
3 [AP] Vindicate
3 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [NE] Daze
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [A] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 3 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [NE] Submerge
SB: 2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 2 [TE] Perish

I have to say, so far it has performed quite well, but I wanted to see what you CBTop veterans had to say about it.
Thanks.

[Hanni]

One thing I would ask is why are people even considering playing Trinket Magel It's one of those things I consider cute... You get your Dreadnought and hope nothing happens. Countertop is THE control deck of Legacy, hands down. We need to consider how we're going to beat our weak matchups. (No offense to those that posted, Dreadnought is not the answer bc of Qasali). I honestly consider the deck I posted the best CB deck (bant version) available at the moment. 1) bc it literally beat the shit out of any metagame and 2) Jace 2.0 literally wins you the game.

Countertop players lets agree, our weakest are Zoo and Merfolk. I want to know other lists solving this problem besides the list I posted and what people are doing about it.

IMO, the best Zoo and Merfolk answer are Firespout plus a combination of LLawan and Mind Harness. Those that have tested.... Is this correct?

I have to disagree with you. CounterTop is the aggro/control deck of Legacy, not THE control deck.

You consider the list you posted as being the best CB deck, and I disagree. This is not to say that your list isn't good, but the word "best" is very subjective. There's so many different shells that Counterbalance can go into, and Bant is not the only viable one.

Your weakest matchups are actually Vial Aggro, Goblins and Merfolk, not Merfolk and Zoo. CounterTop (the actual lock) is great at shutting down the Zoo player if you can handle the early rush. I'd be more inclined to say that the Zoo matchup is highly dependant on maindeck configurations, color splashes, etc. If you have EE, Firespout, or both... chances are, your Zoo matchup is good.

I've seen this all over the place, where the common consensus is that Zoo beats CounterTop. Aside from being highly dependant on CounterTop's maindeck configuration, this is untrue. It's not highly favorable, but by no means is it a bad matchup, by and large.

[jin]

I have to disagree with you. CounterTop is the aggro/control deck of Legacy, not THE control deck.

You consider the list you posted as being the best CB deck, and I disagree. This is not to say that your list isn't good, but the word "best" is very subjective. There's so many different shells that Counterbalance can go into, and Bant is not the only viable one.

Your weakest matchups are actually Vial Aggro, Goblins and Merfolk, not Merfolk and Zoo. CounterTop (the actual lock) is great at shutting down the Zoo player if you can handle the early rush. I'd be more inclined to say that the Zoo matchup is highly dependant on maindeck configurations, color splashes, etc. If you have EE, Firespout, or both... chances are, your Zoo matchup is good.

I've seen this all over the place, where the common consensus is that Zoo beats CounterTop. Aside from being highly dependant on CounterTop's maindeck configuration, this is untrue. It's not highly favorable, but by no means is it a bad matchup, by and large.

I agree with Hanni. The weakest matchups are vial decks. Zoo is quite easy after countertop is assembled. My friend actually uses FOW's on nacatls and steppe lynx and it seems quite effective. After CBT lock is on, Zoo really isn't a problem. After that, we just have to wipe the board. Goblins is more of a problem because of their varying casting cost.

Also, I don't see how Mind Harness is better than Path to Exile. Llawan on the other hand is AWESOME against fish. I just hate it when they have their vial out when I use her. Then I just have to remove their vial first. Llawan is better than firespout against fish because cursecatcher can't hit that...

[Frid]

This list made top2 split in a 138-man event in Spain last weekend:


Top2 Split: Hugo López with BANT

1 Plains
2 Tundra
2 Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
4 Rhox War Monk
1 Trygon Predator
1 Progenitus
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Natural Order
4 Force of Will
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Daze

Sideboard:
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Krosan Grip
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Spell Pierce
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Ravenous Trap


Any opinions? I find interesting the 5-jitte sideboard plan against merfolk, because in my experience one of the biggest troubles playing merfolk decks is dealing with an early resolved jitte.
Maindeck seems pretty solid with mostly 4x of everything, four basics and nine fetchlands. No qasali pridemage though but a single trygon predator that can be tutored with natural order if really needed

[RexFTW]

ee@2 > fish with jittes

PS, now tarmogoyf is the best instant, not force of will

[Hanni]

So I watched some videos today from the scg open series, and I caught a game with Jesse Hatfield playing a Supreme Blue list with Knight of the Reliquary.

He ran only Goyf and KotR as his creatures, but he ran a rediculously large number of cantrips, including Portent. He also ran Horizon Canopy.

He ran several EE's as well.

So this got me thinking. Now, I disagree with alot of his card choices, but at the same time, I was very interested with the way he built the deck.

Here's my spin on it:

U/g/w Supreme Bant

Lands (21)
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Academy Ruins
1 Kor Haven

Creatures (8)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary

Spells (31)
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
2 Predict
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives

The deck only has 8 creatures, which act as early game blockers and late game finishers. In most matchups, you are the control deck.

The Knight of the Reliquary is central to the way I've designed this deck, particularly because of his land tutoring ability. Horizon Canopy gives the deck a draw engine out of excess lands, and Academy Ruins can set up an EE lock. Kor Haven can help to protect my Planeswalker's, and is just really good in general. A lone KotR can grab a Kor Haven to help defend against multiple attackers until I can draw an answer.

KotR has a big body to block with, and he can still use his tap ability while doing so. Functioning in two different roles at the same time (blocker + utility) is a big reason why he works so well in this deck.

Since this deck is attempting to be a control deck, I replaced Ponder's with Predict's. The deck has enough means of enabling Predict's with Brainstorm/Top/Counterbalance/Jace, and Top + Predict is really good.

Elspeth is a great finisher if you have a big guy on board, pumping them and putting them in the air. On an empty board, Elspeth can come down and end the game on her own. Her ability to lay down chump blockers, especially when the deck already has a blocker or two in play, is a great trump against aggro decks, and if she needs to remain defensive rather than put a creature in the air, her indestructibility can literally seal games up against them.

Jace is also really strong, drawing a bunch of cards, or fatesealing into a win. Fatesealing with a CounterTop on the board means that the opponent is more than likely not going to be able to draw into their way out of the bad situation they are in, with Jace wrapping it up with ultimate a few turns later. The utility to bounce an opponent's creature is a nice little bonus too.

Thoughts?

[Frid]

I wouldn't play such a list in an unknown metagame. I mean, playing KoTR over rhox and cards like predict and planeswalkers clearly improves the mirror match and control matchups in general, but what about the bad matchups? Goblins, merfolk, and probably even zoo (which of course isn't as hard as the other two) are very difficult to beat playing just 8 creatures and slow cards like the planeswalkers and the predicts.
I really like your list more than mine, which is the one I posted two posts before, but I need to beat the bad matchups at least post board, at with your list it seems a really hard work.

[Malakai]

I play six creatures in my countertop and don't have any difficulty beating zoo, and post-board have favorable matchups against tribal decks.

[Frid]

Sorry but I simply can't believe that

[jin]

Sorry but I simply can't believe that

does he have thopter foundry combo? moat main?

it's really hard to tell if we don't see a list...

[BantFTW]

There's a list with it^^
Klick on it and you'll see the deck, and yes with the moat and combo :)

[dorkogoyf]

Hi guys,

I'm kind of new to Legacy. Just picked up a deck before the Starcity 5k in Los Angeles a few months ago at the encouragement of my friends. This format is a blast to play, but some card choices are mystifying me. I originally played the Natural Order version of Countertop, but ended up getting frustrated at the sometimes shoddy manabase (opening on Dryad Arbor and basic Plains with Hierarch in hand gave me fits!) I adopted the recently crowned 5k Champion in St. Louis: the Thopter variation of Countertop.

Now, the sideboard runs 4 Ethersworn Canonist and I'm not sure what matchup they come in for. I know the card is strong in the ANT matchup, but I also remember Countertop variants being a tough cookie for the ANT decks to handle; also given the general notion that the ANT deck is dropping off in popularity due to the banning of Mystical Tutor, I was not sure why the deck needed all 4 copies in the board.

Also, how would this deck board against a traditional Natural Order/Countertop Deck? It looks like the Back to Basics are in for sure, along with Extirpate maybe? Finally, what is the lone copy of Serenity for?

Thanks guys...