General Fight Club
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
Help me find the best Counterspell options. These are already 100% in:
Counterspell
Mana Leak
Circular Logic
Hypnotic Sprite
Archmage's Charm
The first two are just essential, the other three support themes. But I need at least four more.
Which of these would you choose by power level?:
Choose your top four.
Syncopate is really neat, being able to exile problematic cards is always useful. Remand is a stone-cold staple of mine and I can't imagine ever cutting it just due to how well it plays tempo. Miscalculation has the cycling flexibility which I always like. Finally I'm going to recommend Remove Soul just based off the sheer number of hits we have in cube. Creatures are king and being able to snipe them on the stack is so powerful and underrated.
I like having a variety of different counterspells and removal so this mix is most appealing from the options you've listed. A little bit of everything across the board.
Miscalc and Remand are the two obvious picks for me. I particularly like Condescend over Syncopate because scry gives a lot of depth and decision-making to the game. Last pick is probably Memory Lapse personally, but I see the appeal of Remove Soul
Thanks all for your recommedations. In the end I decided to go with Syncopate AND Condescend. I really like how these X counterspells work in every stage of the game and didn't want to choose between graveyard hate and scry value. I also went with Memory Lapse but decided to exclude Remand – it's great in tempo, but tempo is already doing much better than control. And for the same reason I added Remove Soul in the last slot – being able to answer a two drop on turn two is key for Ux control to stand a chance against all the proactive creature decks in my format. And that one still works later where Miscalc becomes a bad cantrip – that's the decision I am least certain about.
Man. I love counterspells.
Man. I love counterspells.
I really like Lose Focus which was not on the list. It's not actually in my list either at the moment, just making sure you knew about it.
vs
Anyone played with both of these? How do they compare? I really like hangarback but the new one has cool art and less text and gums up the board less. Which is stronger? Which is more fun?
vs
Anyone played with both of these? How do they compare? I really like hangarback but the new one has cool art and less text and gums up the board less. Which is stronger? Which is more fun?
I run both of them currently and happy with both options. They play very differently where Hangarback is better to actually build up board presence and make a bunch of bodies for the artifact deck while Marketback is just more generically playable across the board for other decks. They both serve as fun mana sinks but they have very different roles for different decks. I've enjoyed cashing in both in Wildfire decks, but Marketback seems to have much more potential depending on how many +1/+1 granting cards you have ala Luminarch Aspirant or Bristly Bill, Spine Sower. The easier it is to proliferate the counters, the more powerful Marketback becomes as any non-exile removal becomes a touch choice for you opponents. I've also done the big brain play of blowing up my own with something like a Prismari Command on artifact mode just to cash it in for cards.
I'd run both, but if I had to choose one I think Marketback Walker might just be better overall. Very shocked by how well it has played, wasn't even really on my radar during spoiler season except as a maybe, but it really won me over in my last draft in a U/R Wildfire deck. It was pretty gross being able to bank away excess Vivi Ornitier mana for potential cards down the line.
I haven't played with Marketback Walker yet but I have a tangential question that's been on my mind since adding the card!
What are your favorite ways to make these better in your cube?
Off the top of my head a few come to mind:
But I'm curious what else you like it with in your cube.
What are your favorite ways to make these better in your cube?
Off the top of my head a few come to mind:
But I'm curious what else you like it with in your cube.
Make everything else weaker. The ravnic way.
is pretty fun with the constructs. Buffs them and also gives you more mana to dump into them.
Live the dream returning two of Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, Marketback Walker and Rishkar!
I dedicate a lot of space to combo in my list. On your list of XX-robo-fellas (and ghostfire-pal), Walking Ballista has a few 2-card combos that give it some extra juice, but as for the XX 'category' I like that they fill 2 combo roles (while also being so generally good):
- Excellent finishers for methods of infinite mana-pruduction: Walking Ballista kills outright, while the other 3 can enable alternative finishes if coupled with a sacrifice effect (which I support aplenty). If coupled with a Fires of Yavimaya build sometimes they can just stomp face quickly.
- Excellent Enduring Renewal support pieces. Enables infinite storm count and can outright kill when coupled with a Blood Artist effect
Walking Ballista was, for what it's worth, an eminently playable card while in Standard without requiring much in the way of support, so you probably don't need to depower your list all that much.
Joking aside, that's kind of what I wanted to imply. These cards look very solid, I don't think you need to do that michvat all to make them playable, unless your list it seriously broken power level.
Yeah, I'm significantly higher power level than ravnic* and the last draft I did the response to those cards - though I don't have Omarthis - was "aw man I could have had all three" from the monogreen drafter who passed, but didn't wheel, the third one. They're really good! You shouldn't be worried about them needing a boost, honestly, because even without any way to give more counters or pump the Thopters Hangarback Walker is likely good enough, and so on.
*in terms of our respective cubes, not as a human being
*in terms of our respective cubes, not as a human being
Aw man, I was going to challenge you for an arm wrestling match. (And probably lose.)
Your odds are better than you'd think! I was always one of the... well, you know how Terry Pratchett once described a pair of wizards side-by-side as "looking exactly like the number 10"?
edit: bringing a whole new meaning to "fight club" here, aren't we
Last edited:
Oh, mister Pratchett. Mostly (almost all) great books, some stinkers, but even those were more fun to read than most other books. Similarly to some movie stars like mister Cage or mister Reeves. The highs are really high. The lows are quite low, but fun nonetheless.
Sidenote, the game discworld is quite nice!
Sidenote, the game discworld is quite nice!
Lots of interesting suggestions! I get that the XX Artifacts don't really need help to be decent/good but I'm always looking for little ways to make my players feel clever, when they eek out a bit of extra mileage from their deckbuilding creations. Also, my environment is quite low curving, does not have big ramp (some dorks, Lotus Cobra,..) and is high tempo, which can make these a bit slow.
The ones I particularly like from all your suggestions are:
Drown in Ichor could slot right in as efficient removal with some synergy upside. I don't support +1/+1 counters specifically but somehow randomly 20% of my creatures interact with them in some way. Rishkar, Peema Renegade would be some nice redundancy for decks wanting to run Earthcraft. Arcbound Ravager and Emry, Lurker of the Loch are already in.
I have an unhealthy love for Fifth Dawn and Sunburst, so I really like Solar Array but it is too narrow for me, I think.
The ones I particularly like from all your suggestions are:
Drown in Ichor could slot right in as efficient removal with some synergy upside. I don't support +1/+1 counters specifically but somehow randomly 20% of my creatures interact with them in some way. Rishkar, Peema Renegade would be some nice redundancy for decks wanting to run Earthcraft. Arcbound Ravager and Emry, Lurker of the Loch are already in.
I have an unhealthy love for Fifth Dawn and Sunburst, so I really like Solar Array but it is too narrow for me, I think.
Cloudkin seems more flexible to me. Goes great in an aggro/tempo deck as an evasive beater, but also works great in control since the 2/1 can trade with most aggro threats (3/2s specifically). The 1/3 is nice but there aren’t a ton of things sea gate is blocking that you couldn’t just use the cloudkin to trade with, plus the cloudkin can stop flyers.
If sea gate was “scry 2 then draw a card” I would probably prefer sea gate I guess. Really just depends how important that aspect of the card is to your environment I guess.
and The only creatures sea gate does better against than cloudkin in a control deck are non-flying 2/1s and non-flying 2/3s. So just depends on if your environment gives aggro decks access to a lot of those kinds of threats.