Reading is tech. It's probably a good thing I couldn't find one this Sunday, then...Originally Posted by RainbowPenguin
The conspiracy goes deeper than you might think.Can I pay you for not posting in this thread?
While reading some posts, I'm not sure if you and I are playing the same Magic.
Clique is my MVP most of time, even when she is insta-bursted. It is information every time, u can still take away some problematic card and stay well.
The second Karakas will usually make that Clique even bigger in the long game, I'm never sad drawing multiples anyway.
Moat is such a powerhouse right now. It gives you time, period. Even when your opponent do has 1 or 2 outs to it, it doesnt matter. You just need some time and you will win. Of course you can die to DRS, Delver or Flickerwisp, but being hit for 2~3 a turn is something we are not that upset with, should be rly worse. My list runs 2 E.Tutors with Moat MD while I have Humility on SB. They dont play the same role as said, there's some matches I want both or just one of them.. or even none, ofc.
SCM is good, but since I run 3-1 Terminus, 1 Verdict, 1 Moat and 1 Venser, I cut to 3 StP and I'm rly fine about that.. so I'm not going to risk it only having Brainstorms to flashback. I'd rather play the fourth Jace.
I've been thinking quite a bit about good answers to True-Name Nemesis, mostly because I expect a lot of UWR delver or Stoneblade decks to be picked up, and we have seen this from the recent SCG tournament results. I kept coming back to permanent answers like Ensnaring bridge, Engineered explosives or moat, or more sweepers like Supreme Verdict. My main problem with this though is that the density of creature removal (in the main) becomes quite high, which can be quite punishing whenever you face a deck which doesn't care about creatures quite so much. So thinking about less punishing ways to increase the answers to TNN, I realized that another way to handle TNN was with the stack, namely with counterspell.
Now, I've always loved counterspell as a way to answer a very diverse set of threats from my opponents without over committing the deck to answering only a single type of card. It's really nice to be able to answer Jace or Show and Tell or True-name Nemesis or Batterskull with the same card (as I'm sure you all know quite well when you cast force of will). Frankly, just having a lot of cards to tell your opponent "No" to their spells feels pretty good. From experience, I can also say the counter-suite for post-board games where you have more counterspells is much more powerful compared to less counterspells. At least, the way I design my sideboards this tends to be the case since I usually want to devote some of my sideboard to stack control, regardless of the stack control I have in the main. So counterspells really help supplement that strategy quite well, and such a strategy really gives a lot of consistency and power when facing those decks where you really need stack control, like against Show and Tell decks. Counterspell also does a great job at rounding out the counterbalance curve, because in my experience the 2cc slot is often a pretty awkward one to fill.
Some of the downsides are that counterspell doesn't answer something that's already resolved. I think we have enough permanent answers for this to be an acceptable trade-off though. It's also worth noting that such a situation primarily happens in the early game, since at basically any time in the game past turn 4 you should have enough flexibility to always be prepared to cast counterspell. So, this really highlights the other main issue with counterspell, which is that it can sometimes be tough to use early game. This is certainly my major complaint with the card, but considering the versatility of the card, and that we can have other plays for early game, I find this to be an acceptable trade-off. But often, even just casting counterspell turn 2 (especially on the play) is very powerful to setting up your next turn.
The point of all this is that I think are a lot of upsides right now to having a lot of (pure) counterspells,. Counterspell seems at its best against some of the hardest things for our deck to deal with--Stoneblade, TNN, and Show and Tell decks. All of these style of decks seem to be pretty popular right now, and I would expect them to remain so. Considering this, I think that counterspell is a good card to have right now and would recommend that people consider increasing the number of counterspells (the card) in their deck to handle the changing meta game.
What do you guys think? Is counterspell potentially more worthwhile now compared to in the past?
I was starting to consider Desert.
It kills Flickerwis, Thalia and opposing Vendilion Clique. Why not? as a 1/1 MB/SB..
Anyway, really Vendilion + Karakas chump blocks.. anything that doesn't trample, let you see hand + disrupt 1 card. Also, provide pressure and an alternative WC.
SnapMage is good either
I've been there, I've tried it, I don't like it any more. Unless you did not play every version it's hard to start a constructive discussion. But as said serveral times, it's all about playstyle, if you prefer to play Enchantment after Enchantment (like I did at Strasbourg) it's fine - but I am under the impression that my current approach (Milano, Vienna) is superior to my older one, to yours.
Greetings
I think I would rather play Kor Haven, which I have done that in the past and actually been quite happy with as a utility 1-of land. It's more mana-intensive than Desert, but haven can force overextensions into sweepers, answers Equipment (particularly batterskull) like a boss, and can handle any creature that can be targeted.
the only enchantments I play is Counterbalance, Oblivion Ring Rest in Peace.
Oblivion Ring is for MD removal.. but the new 2cc white bouncer might take its place. What about it btw?? (Unexpectedly Absent)
Why not Maze of Ith then? for the colorless mana?
Tell me again, why are we discussing the usefulness of lands now? Lands that should deal with creatures?
And yeah, with Balance and RIP there come cards like EE, Moat, Bridge, Helm and the terribad E-Tutor.
Greetings
While these two cards may seem to fill a similar role, do not fool yourself into thinking this. Unexpectedly absent is a card that buys time, with occasional usefulness as actual removal if your opponent has a shuffle effect on the stack. That said, you still need to be able to answer their card eventually. It's at least card parity, but unfortunately with how cheap most spells are in Legacy it's not really going to buy you any tempo. ORing on the other hand actually does answer a card, although your opponent has the chance to get it back. I prefer Oblivion Ring because it's much more consistent for actually answering threats. Plus, on top of that, ORing is much, much better when you see a Show and Tell cast on the other side of the table.
Yes, the colorless mana makes a huge difference. Since Maze produces no mana, it takes the place of a removal spell. So then the real question for Maze is if it's the best removal spell for your deck. I personally really love maze's ability to answer Batterskull and force extension into sweepers, but I don't really think it's the best removal spell to have right now. There are a lot of wastelands, and I'd rather play a sweeper or something else to try and gain CA in its place.
Kor Haven on the other hand functions basically as a colorless land which later you can cash in some extra mana for some help in defending against creatures when you need it. The fact that it produces mana is a huge difference compared to Maze, because it allows you to keep your mana consistency to play your higher cost spells consistently. So then the question for Kor Haven is the best utility land for your deck. Typically we don't see Kor Haven, but I am a fan of it. Especially when you're running 23 lands you have a fair amount of flexibility in running some utility lands.
Because somebody had a question about them, so it was worth discussing.
I imagine it's disappearing because we need more room for sweepers to deal with Nemesis. Sulfur Elemental has too much overlap with Supreme Verdict and we need Supreme Verdict.
Although RUG isn't one of them, there are quite a few MUs that I leave in Snapcaster and bring in RIP. They are mostly combo though, so RIP is usually game and any Snapcasters before then just add redundancy. RUG games can sometimes get grindy, so I might be a little worried about the nonbo there, but overall it's probably fine. Against Jund and Shardless which are always much more grindy, I'd want to avoid leaving in both.
That actually seems like a huge house against Sneak Attack. I'm not sure it's any better than Humility, but at least it can't be Pierced if you want to hard cast it. I'd imagine it doesn't see more play because 1) as a 1-of, it's hard to find and 2) it's pretty narrow.
I think you should really give Moat a shot, again. The new direction R&D has really taken shape and we've hit critical mass in regards to the number of insane 1-3 CMC value creatures targeted for eternal play. You can only assume it'll get worse as more sets are released. Just looking at the tournament results you can see that midrange creatures decks are essentially the entire Top 8 of most SCG tournaments.
Calling RIP a "2 mana Moat" is obviously an exaggeration, but I agree that you don't want to cut another 2 with only 6 in your deck. What I'd do if I owned a Moat is cut the Verdict and put it in the sideboard.
Plus, a lot of these decks simply can't win if you resolve this single card. They have to shock you to death with a Deathrite Shaman. Resolving a 4 CMC spell is rough, but is Jace unplayable? Post board, most decks will have enchantment removal, but pre-board only planeswalkers are relevant out of these midrange decks once you resolve Moat. Not advocating cutting Jace, or anything, but it's worth taking into account.
Imo u should play D.Sphere MD and O.Ring on SB.. sometimes Sphere is just way better and only against Painter the O.Ring seems a bit more reliable..
I would agree with this, although I don't know that either one is very good at the moment.
I'm a huge fan of D-Sphere. I play it over Wear & Tear in the board as well as the one in the main. Not playing a Vindicate in a high-mana deck seems like suicide.
That being said, I have had suggestions of playing Black in here, so playing Vindicate may not be a terrible idea. Better against BGx, slightly worse against S&T (okay basically unplayable) but I think that's a goof trade off, as we are much worse against Shardless than we are Sneak. There was the suggestion of playing Night of Souls' Betrayal alongside RiP. RiP shuts off a large avenue of their Creatures, and then NoSB basically turns everything in the format that is being cast for legitimate mana off. Someone better than me can tell me why this is terrible. The best part is that is doesn't die to Abrupt Decay, meaning that even just resetting the Graveyard can keep RUG and such at bay for long enough.
The conspiracy goes deeper than you might think.Can I pay you for not posting in this thread?
Humility along NoSB seems sweet. But I like having Blood Moon, Wear/Tear and REB right now.
I've thought about it before but thein Night of Souls' Betrayal seems horrendous and I'm not certain that -1/-1 kills enough things to be useful by itself. It doesn't even necessarily kill a Nemesis that's equipped. As far as clunky 2-card combos go, Humility + Moat seems better, or even just Moat by itself.
Oblivion Ring doesn't do much against a Show and Tell (unless the pilot is dumb enough to drop an Emkraul against a miracle player who plays by definition: Terminus, Supreme Verdict, Jace and Oblivion Ring, occasionally).
About the rest, yes Oblivion Ring is (often) a hard removal for anything but 1cc less (for CB curve and not only) and Instant speed make me want to test 1-2x Unexpectly Absent in place of O-Ring. Now I'm playing a 2/1 Ring/Absent split
It gives you a 5th and 6th FoW effect. I don't care who you're against; Sol, Petal, Show, Spaghetti is always good on the play. Maybe we flip Terminus, maybe we drop in a circle or ball, and maybe there's a small city named Unsummon, but maybe we just don't have it, and maybe we just take 15 damage and sacrifice the Land we opted to put in.
The conspiracy goes deeper than you might think.Can I pay you for not posting in this thread?
you don't win that matchup with Ring. You win that matchup with REBs Pierce and Flusterstorm (imho)
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