Cobra Cards Player Community ~ View topic - Counterbalance Strategies

LotR TCG Wiki

→ Card Sets:

All

→ Forums:

TLHH

Cobra Cards Player Community Forum Index

Forum index » Magic: The Gathering » MTG Strategy Article Contest

Author

Message

Rate this article!

5 (Best)

[ 0 ] 0%

[ 2 ] 100%

[ 0 ] 0%

1 (Worst)

[ 0 ] 0%

Total Votes : 2

bubble king

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:56 pm

Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 5 Location:

--- description ---
Looking at the application of Counterbalance in constructed formats with some sample deck lists.
--- end description ---
Introduction

So the summer drags on and a new set sneaks into standard. Most of the good cards are obvious - Scrying Sheets, Adarkar Valkyrie and Ohran Viper being the pick of the chase rares. There is however a certain uncommon that caught my eye that isn’t getting the attention I feel it deserves. In order to re-set this balance I wrote this article. The card, as you may have guessed by now, is Counterbalance.

First lets see what the Oracle has to say about this card:

Counterbalance
UU
Enchantment
Whenever an opponent plays a spell, you may reveal the top card of your library. If you do, counter that spell if it has the same converted mana cost as the revealed card.

There are a few things to note about Counterbalance, the first is that it costs no mana after the initial investment of UU. The second is that it is a re-usable effect that is easily fulfilled (most decks play with a good concentration of 0-3 mana spells). And finally, in conjunction with Sensei’s Divining Top produces a very efficient card advantage engine.

With the Top in play you can rearrange your library after Counterbalance has triggered but before its ability has resolved. If there is a card in the top three matching converted mana cost as the spell to counter and you get a free counterspell. If the spell costs 1, remember that you can tap the Top to draw a card and place it on the top of you library instead of re-arranging it. Since you are playing the Top, shuffle or sifting effects become doubly important to keep the in-hand card quality high as possible and rid the top of your library of dead cards.

Also because of the cost of UU then the deck wants to be either mono blue or blue with a small splash, at least 20 of your lands should tap for blue mana to ensure a turn 2 Counterbalance if you draw it.

Note on sideboards: I have not included sideboards for and of the decks since they are usually heavily metagame dependant - that is it depends on what sort of decks are popular locally. Usually an extra win condition or two, a set of Spell Snares or other counterspell, a set of creature removal/bounce and a set of anti-control cards sets you in good stead.

Applications in Standard

Sensei’s Divining Top rotates out in a few months, but until then works great. Scrying Sheets also allows you a peek at the top card as well (and working well with Telling Time) to provide a great long term card engine. Counterbalance is best at stopping zoo and other decks using multiple, low casting cost cards. Mono-blue control is the obvious option with something like:

Counter-Freeze (Standard Legal)

The Phyrexian Ironfoot and Mouth of Ronom are there to deal with resolved creatures and Repeal is a catch all answer. It definately has weaknesses however due to the high curve of standard decks, it can’t stop dragons and their ilk with Counterbalance and so you should save your Hinder, Rune Snag and Mana Leaks for those (Remand is also an option instead of Mana Leak). Sometimes you have to do nothing with Scrying Sheets in order to be able to counter a possible Mortify - a commonly played anti-enchantment spell, if they have 1BW the bluffing and double-bluffing element of the game can come into prominence.

Also this deck features the Repeal-Top trick to draw cards if needed. By casting Repeal on your Sensei’s Divining Top in response to its draw a card ability you effectively pay 1U and bounce your top to draw two cards – nice.

Applications in Extended

Extended has a few great tools to go with counterbalance, along with retaining Sensei’s Divining Top for the foreseeable future. Firstly Vedalken Shackles makes a great creature control cards for those creatures that slip through. Spy Network is a great utility card that I’ve been waiting to use for a while, early on it sets your draws and lets you see you opponents hand - invaluable for knowing what to counter. Late game it can do the instant speed rearrangement trick and digs a card deeper than the Top as well as letting you know what’s next for your opponent. Predict is a nice way to change the top card of your library after you know that you don’t want it and with the amount of library ’peeking’ cards should always draw you two. Combined with superior counters and card draw the deck is car-for-card more powerful. Additionally there is a lot greater use of low casting cost spells than in standard - Duress and Cabal Therapy particularly annoying for control decks top deal with.

Counter-Shackle (Extended Legal)

This deck can play with Chrome Mox since it accelerates into a first turn Counterbalance and has plenty of draw - it also has synergy with Thirst for Knowledge. The kill comes from Meloku or Kira, that latter is a backup against cranial extraction and very resiliant to targetted removal.

Application in Vintage and Legacy

Legacy has a few amazing cards to go with counterbalanc, the main one being Mystical Tutor:

This acts as a counterspell and tutor for one measly blue mana. Add in the ubiquitous Force of Will and you have yourself a winner! Again keeping the deck mono-blue allows for the inclusion of Back to Basics as additional disruption, the win condition is then almost academic. Brainstorm again earns its title of one of the most broken 1cc draw spells since Ancestral Recall, mid-game you put back cards you don’t need and then use a shuffle effect to clear the top of your library.

BBS 2K6 (Legacy Legal)

It gets even more fun in Vintage, even though you lose Mystical Tutor as a four of you gain the ability to easily counter Mox’s and Black Lotus. Since lands have converted mana cost of zero your are very likely to have one in the top three cards of your library almost all the time. Once more, unlike with Chalice of the Void, you can play your own Mox’s and Lotus’s after Counterbalance hits.

Hopefully this deck has given you a few ideas of your own. Have fun and remember, 1: Spin the top, Counter your spell! - enjoy

Bubble King

I can be contacted at bubble DOT king AT gmail DOT com, or just post below Smile

Last edited by bubble king on Tue Aug 22, 2006 5:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

Felipe Musco

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:28 pm

Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil

First of all, welcome to Cobra Cards! Always good to have another writer ’round, hope you stick for long.
Second, I play standard, so that’s where my tips will land.
Phyrexian Ironfoot is not that great, from what I’ve seen. I also think only 2 Meloku is not that great of a win condition, perhaps Rimefeather Owl, or maybe using Krovikan Mist, it’s GREAT with Meloku. Oh, and the deck has too much land, in my opinion, 22-23 should be more than enough. Mouth of Ronom is not that great, so you could drop’em and use Scrying Sheets. I was writing an article on Counterbalance, as well, but I liked your article, so instead or writing one of my own, I’ll post my ideas here, so you can see if you like them.
I think Remand IS a must, since it gives you card advantage WHILE tapping them out. If they play a spell you can counter, you can use the Divining Top, and cast Remand. They’ll think you didn’t find an answer, and cast it again, so THEN you’ll reveal the top card and counter their spell. They’ll have spent twice the mana, and you’ll be up by a card, at least. Also, you need some more card-drawing, maybe Compulsive Research, due to the low mana curve, and also adding some more 3-mana cost cards to the mix. You could also consider 2-3 Tidings, so you can counter 5-mana fatties or draw a nice amount of cards.
However, the greatest thing that I think you missed (which could even replace Compulsive Research) is Survivor of the Unseen! It gives card advantage, let’s you manipulate the top of your library even further, AND you’ll have plenty of mana lying around in this build to pay for his upkeep, until it gets too expensive, and you can just let him die to cast a new one. This, along with AT LEAST 3-4 win conditions (I REALLY like Rimefeather Owl for this purpose, it’s token ability can make it HUGE if you have enough counter power to keep it in play, 2-3 swings for the win!), will make into a VERY powerful standard deck.
And I think that you should post Sideboard ideas, at least for the Standard build, since most of us are tournament players and would appreciate some ideas. You see, posting a SB against something in your meta might give someone a new idea to tweak the main deck, if it’s their dominant meta, so they won’t have to resort to game 2 and 3 almost all the time just for boarding in the very same card. For this matter, Spell Snare is a must, at least in the SB, since it means both a one-mana cost card to counter Rusalkas, Llanowars, Birds and the liking, as it means dropping Counterbalance turn three without fear of having it countered (since most counters ARE 2-mana ones, unless they snare it themselves Wink

).
Well, that’s it for now. Hope you liked my ideas, I sure liked yours (after all, it’s almost identical to my build, except for Meloku and Scrying Sheets, I don’t think they’re all that great, and Mouth of Ronom costs too much to be an answer, if something slips past you defenses, it’s going to be bigger than 4 toughness, most likely), drop by my Articles too, if you can spare the time!
Oh, and keep ideas coming! Applause

I don't like YOU.

physcosick

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 2:17 pm

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 229 Location:

Quote:

will make into a VERY powerful standard deck.

It already is a deck, it’s called MUC Snow, and is already considered a competitive deck in standard.

Mouth of Ronom and Phyrexian Ironfoot are actually quite good in this deck. Both of which offers a solution for those spells that slipp through your many counterspell opportunities.

I think meloku as a 2 of is good. This deck doesn’t need many kill conditions but I would recommend running 1-2 copies of Keiga, the tide star so you have outs against the other dragons in the format.

Krovikan Mist is a bad card with just Meloku. It’s a 2 card combo that is very disruptable much like any creature is. With out meloku, Krovikan Mist is useless, a dead card, so it’s pointless to run it, in my opinion.

I don’t like Musco’s idea of Survivor of the Unseen because in order for you to get full advantgae of it, you have to play it relatively early, which means you will be short on mana and the chances of your opponent slipping through your counters is highly likely.

Overall I like the idea of taking a deck and visiting it to all formats... however having a vintage deck would have been nice, rather thn just talking about it for a paragraph. But my biggest problem is the lack of playtesting or the lack of results. Without such data, the decks have no credibility.

Felipe Musco

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:29 pm

Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil

Hum... Yes, Vintage uses covers much more than what was discussed. However, I think you (and almost everyone, as of right now) underestimate Survivor of the Unseen. If nothing else, because Sensei’s Divining Top is about to rotate, so Survivor will be the best way to take advantage of counterbalance, and you don’t HAVE to drop it early, you have OTHER counterspells to do the job until then. However, some card-drawing (so you can fuel your hand, rather than only depending on Counterbalance) and Mnemonic Nexus (so you can refill the deck) might be good. Maybe even Flow of Ideas, since in mono-blue decks it usually means drawing INSANE amounts of cards, allowing you to set a perfect hand, but can help opponents deck you without some re-shuffling. I’m running my Monoblue Beats with it over Tidings, since I can’t get any of those, and it’s really nice!
Also, an idea that’s just ocurred to me:
Strategy Articles are supposed to be more useful to Standard players, and as I said before, covering all formats, WITH SB’s AND match-ups woul be a TREMENDOUS burden, so I’m thinking that we could try and write strategy articles on standard, including match-ups and options, and at the same time post the deck at the Deck Clinic (saving Cobra and the mods some work), and THERE discuss "other" formats for the deck, since tournaments on other formats (meaning vintage and theliking, of course) are fewer... Think

Of course, it’s just a loose idea, but maybe it would be nice, so we could have a tournament-oriented area, where wewould delve deep into strategy and go for the win, AND we would have options for players that like other formats. Myself, I like Extended a lot! What do you guys think? After all, this would mean that EVERY Article posted containing a deck list would ALSO stir up the other Forums, and we could atract more members.

I don't like YOU.

bubble king

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 5:26 pm

Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 5 Location:

Thanks for all the replies people, I’ll try to give some answers to the points raised. Firstly I’d like to say that the decks have not had extensive testing, I made them to show how counterbalance can be used, not to be the latest netdeck. Combined with the fact that I can’t play much magic over the summer means testing will be unreliable at best and won’t have "credibility" (My MTGO collection is miserable). They could form the basis of a deck or should do fine at a FNM (depending on your area) but probably isn’t ready for serious tournamnt play yet (due to the lack of playtesting). That said I’ll try to do some testing for standard and let you know how it gets on.

Phyrexian Ironfoot is there to stop the early beaters (savannah lions, kird ape, watchwolf, etc) that can easily be dropped before I can reliable have counter mana up. Their drawback is not a problem since you don’t attack with it until you have plenty of mana - you don’t need fast beats to win.

Krovikan Mist is not played simply because it think it is horrible. Without Meloku it is just a 1/1 and once you have Meloku and loads of Illusion tokens you should be in such a dominating position that you’ll win anyway. I’d rather play Frost Raptor that I can protect from removal if need be.

Survivor of the Unseen has a very nice ability that is synergistic with the deck. However I doubt you’d want to pays its upkeep cost more that once or twice. Even so you can use its ability before you have to pay its upkeep and it does put cards from you hand onto your library (this deck would KILL for brainstorm).

You also should remember that Scrying Sheets is a great draw engine. Since half the deck is snow (another plus for the Ironfoot) and in conjunction with the top you should be drawing an extra card each turn anyway. That is probably why I’m so against the Survivor - it ties up your mana in a way that this decks doesn’t like. As you say, without the Top the deck will need to re-think its game plan but I’ll wait for Timespiral to be released before I’ll do that.

Keiga is an option but then so is Govern the Guildless, the two would need careful consideration - Keiga definately the better in an aggro dominated metagame. Flow of Ideas is a good idea as it also Counterbalances dragons, I also considered Commandeer as a way to counter Simic Sky Swallower on the top while stealing their best cards (Blaze, Tidings, Gifts Ungiven, etc). However I was uncertain and so left it out.

Possible Standard Sideboard Cards:
Spell Snare - so good against other counters and aggro cards (not least Umezawas Jitte)
Evacuation - More useful against decks that commit lots of creatures to the board or make lots of tokens (like Snakes!)
Govern the Guildless - Steals dragons and harder to deal with that confiscate
Threads of Disloyalty - Extra help against aggro
Moratorium Stone - If you have a big problem with graveyard decks

I agree that the vintage section is pretty scarce, that is because I don’t think that it can be a main part of a vintage deck without good knowledge of the current vintage metagame which I lack. Also vintage has tended to drift away from pure control stratergies meaning counterbalance must supplement a decks main focus rather than being it (and have no idea what to put it in, Gifts? SS?.

Felipe Musco

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 5:43 pm

Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil

I still don’t think Survivor compromises your mana THAT much. It can be a Top, if need arises, and it speeds up the deck, which is one of the major flaws I see so far. I’d rather see a Compulsive Research than a Scrying Sheets, although you’re right that it DOES help in a Snow-filled deck. Also, you DO have Repeal to bounce pesky creatures back when you can counter then, so I think some Boomerangs and/or Evacuations could even be better suited.
But yes, since Divining Top IS still standard-legal, I can see why you can’t even look at Survivor of the Unseen.

I don't like YOU.

La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:37 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

counterbalance is too vulnerable and too unreliable for standard... I’m not sure how it could possibly make the jump to extended. Kami of ancient law? Also, picture this. You cast counterbalance. The next turn, you go divining top and use it to counter a spell... if you guess the right mana cost. The thing is, you’ve still spent two cards for one, putting you at a disadvantage. Then, if you do it again the following turn, even if you pull it off, you’ve played 2 cards for 2, at the cost of 6 mana!

I do like the creativity here, and I think it’s great people are trying this out, but I think taking it one step at a time is a better idea. Plus, there aren’t almost any tourneys where snap and K-block are in standard together... it’ll just be like another moneht and change.

bubble king

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:26 pm

Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 5 Location:

La_Sin_Grail wrote:

And if it works the next turn, and the next? Sensei’s Divining Top is hardly useless by itself (it loves scrying sheets). It is a little unreliable and hence the counterspell backup for threats that are expensive or come at an inoppertune time. However in the long game if it counters four or five spells it can seriously effect you opponents play too (at least you can see the top three cards of your library, they just have to cast and pray).

What wrong with:
T1: land, top, go
T2: land, Counterbalance, go
T3: Land, go

Now you can use the the top in response to the counterbalance trigger, if you have a suitable spell stick it on top otherwise remand/mana leak/rune snag it (I definately recommend swapping in remand for repeal)With the amount of 2cc spells in this deck counterblanace can be like free spell snare whenever you need it. Sometimes it does come out after sideboarding, in matchups where you would rather have a counterspell (like Solar Flare) and you just revert to mono-U snow control.

La_Sin_Grail wrote:

I do like the creativity here, and I think it’s great people are trying this out, but I think taking it one step at a time is a better idea. Plus, there aren’t almost any tourneys where snap and K-block are in standard together... it’ll just be like another moneht and change.

There is two months of FNM before Time Spiral is legal for standard - the perfect place to play "unproven" decks like this for a bit (cheap too, with no duals) even if it does turn out to be a dud.

I’ve also been thinking about a possible white splash for creature control. Gives you condemn, wrath and the 1/3 impulse knight to play with at the expense of a near bulletproof mana base. Counterbalance comes down more as a mig-game control engine in this sort of deck but may not be needed at all.

RE: Suvivor of the Unseen
I think the problem with Surviver is that you have to pay his upkeep if you want to use his ability to counter spells with counterbalance. However, mid game when you have 6+ mana I see how he could be amazing, I’ll have to do some testing (hopefully I’ll be able to play a few games with it next week).

La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:13 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

and I still ask. Kami of ancient law? He was one of the most commonly played critters in the game last time I looked... Or what about a deck that slaps down Kird ape turn one, mauler turn two?

If you tap out to play an ironfoot to stop that stuff, you know a char is coming next.

I don’t know... it still seems a little too fragile to me.

physcosick

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:16 pm

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 229 Location:

Thats why his deck runs repeal and why he might consider boomerang. Also Ironfoot helps a lot! Plus mouth of ronom... it’s all good.... But I dont think this deck is on-par with the rest of the Counterbalance decks from Japan Nationals... even though I kind of find their list a little... weird.

Forum index » Magic: The Gathering » MTG Strategy Article Contest

All times are UTC - 4

Page 1 of 4 [33 Posts]

Goto page: 1, 2, 3, 4 Next