counterspells most boring way to play this game

[Lord Tony]

draw, go. ZZZZZZZZZZZ

Counterspells usually `on average cost 1-2 mana and can counter EVERTYHING

Only 1 color can stop counterspells, and that's blue with their counterspells. Yeah that's so fair.

Interact with everything and no one else can interact, so good.

[Θωμάς76]

Originally posted by Badgriuel:

Fast paced decks are the bane of them and also just playing smartly and baiting them to waste spells.

I was playing aggro and I managed to beat the deck one or two times because I got lucky and the opponent made a mistake. But a deck with 1 mana flyers that have flash and cheap counters is almost unbeatable. I might agree with you that counter discard and removal is equally unbeatable.

[Lord Tony]

the issue is wotc is not giving enough anti counters to stop this BS

and they have to be cheap too the chimil thing is 6 mana

we need answers that are 2 or less mana

[Snoot Boops]

its pretty fun to counter or kill or have a means of destroying scute players who only rely on 1 card to be as absolutely annoying as possible. watching them rage quit after you kill 3 of their scute swarms just 1 after another and then make them discard the rest of their hand into exile before they get any momentum is a pretty good feeling. if you're not running any type of counters or instant kill cards in your deck or if you are and never get them in your hand before it's to late, you'll understand very quickly why they're necessary against certain decks or annoying "play styles."

[Badgriuel]

Originally posted by ＯＮＹＸ:

its pretty fun to counter or kill or have a means of destroying scute players who only rely on 1 card to be as absolutely annoying as possible. watching them rage quit after you kill 3 of their scute swarms just 1 after another and then make them discard the rest of their hand into exile before they get any momentum is a pretty good feeling. if you're not running any type of counters or instant kill cards in your deck or if you are and never get them in your hand before it's to late, you'll understand very quickly why they're necessary against certain decks or annoying "play styles."

Haha yeah I agree. My counter/death deck only has a few creatures in it and rather annoying and beefy ones. Its funny watching them wondering how I managed to get out a 5/5 for 1 mana or a black creature that's power and toughness is equal to the number of creatures in both graveyards. Oh and it can also be used to mill them :P

[Snoot Boops]

Originally posted by Badgriuel:

Haha yeah I agree. My counter/death deck only has a few creatures in it and rather annoying and beefy ones. Its funny watching them wondering how I managed to get out a 5/5 for 1 mana or a black creature that's power and toughness is equal to the number of creatures in both graveyards. Oh and it can also be used to mill them :P

you're talkin about cruel somnophage. but unless you're playin strictly mill then that card is a pretty late game card. even still, you're risking it being on the table with ossification or pacify enchantments/auras or kill/fight cards. depending on decks being used or ones that were built. if you're not running a mill deck that's beneficial in any impactful way then you're likely to lose it just as quick as you played it. so that card is kind of a double edged sword.

[Badgriuel]

Originally posted by ＯＮＹＸ:

you're talkin about cruel somnophage. but unless you're playin strictly mill then that card is a pretty late game card. even still, you're risking it being on the table with ossification or pacify enchantments/auras or kill/fight cards. depending on decks being used or ones that were built. if you're not running a mill deck that's beneficial in any impactful way then you're likely to lose it just as quick as you played it. so that card is kind of a double edged sword.

I generally play it late game where they are top drawing and I have counters in my hand, also have counters that make them mill.

[Lord Tony]

Originally posted by ＯＮＹＸ:

its pretty fun to counter or kill or have a means of destroying scute players who only rely on 1 card to be as absolutely annoying as possible. watching them rage quit after you kill 3 of their scute swarms just 1 after another and then make them discard the rest of their hand into exile before they get any momentum is a pretty good feeling. if you're not running any type of counters or instant kill cards in your deck or if you are and never get them in your hand before it's to late, you'll understand very quickly why they're necessary against certain decks or annoying "play styles."

massacre wurm ends all scute swarm players

[Jubejubes]

Pro tip to those whining about counterspells,

don't counter my spell with a spell that copies my spell and picks new targets, when the only targets available are the one's i was countering/destroying in the first place..
congrats, i got my counterspell back in hand, your spell was countered, your creature ws destroyed. just hit the concede game button. much easier.

just getting that out there because woah nelly what a night on arena. All the big boiz are out.

Just goes to emphasize how much learning to play the game properly is important here..
shrugging my shoulders at why these players are in diamond tier 2.

[Jubejubes]

Originally posted by Tom the Mime Artist:

Another hedge against counterspell heavy decks which people haven't mentioned is creature lands, especially given that counterspell heavy decks don't tend to have much board presence.

Defabricate stops creature lands, since most creature lands take up 5 lands total to activate, using them then getting defab'd basically wastes your turn. Defabricate has to be the most annoying 2 cost counter ever. In the same turn you activate your creature land and ult your planeswalker, i can dfab both these affects by paying 4 mana. I think there's a merfolk also that has built in defab for less.

[Jubejubes]

Originally posted by Ezra:

Originally posted by Jubejubes:

spells that can't be countered are overhyped.

The effect of "cant' be countered" is not actually as OP



cavern of souls doesn't protect your creatures against anything except stopping them from being countred..


woopty doo. they can still be

Exiled
killed
Returned to hand
Forcefull sacrificed
Turned into treasure tokens

Better lands you should be playing especially in historic include

Sunken Citdadel (comes into play tapped as a declared color, can tap for 2 of said color to pay for a land ability . Cycling your triome is a land ability, so this costs 1 mana to do, but works out to 2 lands)
The world tree (when you have 6 lands, makes your lands tap for any color. Sac to summon any number of gods for 2 of each color)
Phyrexian Scrap Yard (taps to discard a card and give you another phyrexian scrap yard which helps to get a land drop every turn and triggers discard effects. Sacrifice 3 lands named phyrexian scrap yard to summon a 6/6 artifact creature with an activated ability to give all your creatures indestructible. When said creature dies, it can be exiled from the graveyard to trigger said ability . Has the added benefit of consistently providing you with a land to toss in grave to exile with Death Rites shaman to produce 1 mana of any color or to trigger descend)
Fabled Passage - sac to fetch a basic land. If you have 4 lands in play , the land comes into play untapped.
The triomes ( series of 3 colored lands that can be cycled for 3)
Mana Confluence (comes into play untapped . pay 1 life to add any mana color)
The Shock Lands (Dual lands that come into play untapped at the cost of 2 life
Plaza of Heroes (sacs to give 1 legendary creature indestructable and hexproof until end of turn. Allows you to tap 1 mana of any color among legendary permanents you control)
Emergence zone (sacs to allow you to flash in all your creatures that you can cast when the opponent ends their turn and can't respond to them)
and arguably Crystal Grotto since it's the only land that actually comes into play untapped and scrys 1. Add in the mana fixing it's pretty decent.

All these lands actually do something..
Ie help you to get a land drop everyturn and fix your mana.
Sunken Citadel when combined with tons of treasure tokens essentially lets you summon all your gods by turn 6.

All Cavern of souls does is protect your creatures from 1 specific interaction in the game.. It also is useless if you don't have those creatures sitting around in hand to cast in the first place as it can then only pay for 1 generic mana.


You shouldn't be overly reliant on some silly lands effect to protect your creatures from being countered . THe land can be removed, at instant speed. Even if they don't do that, they can cast

Spell Queller
Divide by Zero
Obscura Interceptor

If you are casting a creature and hiding behind Cavern of souls , nothing is really being accomplished here.

Casting your dumb creature while an opponent has 6 lands up is not gonna help you get your spell resolved.

What will help you get your spell resolved is reading the board and learning to determine when your opponent has a counter or not.

What will help you get your spell resolved is pretending you don't have a spell to cast at all, then flashing said spell in when your opponent goes to opt or whatever at the end of your turn.

What will help you get your spell resolved is baiting your opponent into killing a smaller threat so that they run out of spells to counter your bigger threats

A dumb land that says the creature type you choose can't be countered , a dumb creature that says legendary creatures can't be countered..

these things will never accomplish anything as your creature will get returned to hand, then discarded by thoughtseize or killed immediately once it resolves and you just wasted yoru turn.

O but it has hexproof..

again, woopty doo. Multiple ways to kill hex proof indestructable creatures. such as searching for an aura card from your library and it can target the hexproof creature because no targets were legally declared (it's in the comprehensive rules) giving all your creatures -1/-1 counters, outright removing indestrutible and hexproof edict effects, exiling all creatures..etc etc.

The take away here is that you should come up with an actual strategy to fight these decks. Putting a card in your deck is not a strategy.

Also, mainly i'm hating on cavern of souls cuz it's such a letdown of a land compared to sunken citadel

I was just trying to give the OP some options. Until they figure out how to play around
Blue, Discover key-word abilities and start playing at or above a FNM level or comprehension.

IDK about Cavern being a letdown, It's pretty powerful when paired with Nykthos, Shrine
and similar lands alongside Devotion / tribal element such as Goblin's, Merfolk, Elves, Humans, hell even Zombies would probably be fine in brawl. Lots of options.

The issue with cavern of souls is that once your creature is in play ..that's it. It doesn't protect i, it doesn't even let you use the mana to activate it's abilities like Secluded Courtyard Does. It simply just stops your creature from being countered. THe problem with this effect is that players are used to this "can't be countered" as some of th emost powerful counters and removal spells "can't be countered" and will usually mainboard or sideboard a spell that returns spells to hand, and there are far too many of those to choose from.

So for a creature support land, this doesn't seem like a great affect to me. Secluded Courtyard seems much better , or plaza of heroes to protect legendary creatures.

Pit of offerigns, Echoing Depths are much better lands. Even Volatile Fault is arguably better due to it's 1 mana Tap cost to destroy a basic Land. Sure you get a treasure token, but you don't have to search your library shuffling your deck, you trigger an abilities of "when an artifact enters play" , you trigger affinity, etc etc. Even Forgotten Monument turns all your caves into a mana confluence.
OF course, all of this only matters in historic where there are a million and one ways to get around "can't be countered" I'm sure that Cavern of Souls is pretty OP atm in standard.

[gothferret22]

Blue has always been the second most unimaginative color (next to mono red). It's so easy to be able to counter, copy, control, or bounce your opponents' spells. To be honest, I believe that the target audience for mono blue decks are people that would say "NO!" a lot when they were children and never quite grew out of that...

[Lord Tony]

Originally posted by Jubejubes:

Pro tip to those whining about counterspells,

don't counter my spell with a spell that copies my spell and picks new targets, when the only targets available are the one's i was countering/destroying in the first place..
congrats, i got my counterspell back in hand, your spell was countered, your creature ws destroyed. just hit the concede game button. much easier.

just getting that out there because woah nelly what a night on arena. All the big boiz are out.

Just goes to emphasize how much learning to play the game properly is important here..
shrugging my shoulders at why these players are in diamond tier 2.

There are about 50 blue counterspells on arena

1 red counterspell

1 white counterspell, 1 pseudo white counterspell

Less than 4 copy/redirects in red


This is the issue non-blue colors are having against blue there is very little interaction support to counterspell unless you play blue

it's the only color in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game where only 1 color can effectively stop counterspells and it is itself

[Lord Tony]

every color (including blue) has creature removal

Every color has ways to protect their creature from removal

every color (yes even white) has some form of card draw

Every non-green color has some form of ramp, red planeswalkers, treasures, loyal warhound, etc

But counterspells only blue can effectively and efficiently interact with them. That's not fair at all. There are some non-blue outliers that can handle a counterspell but as I said before there are 50+ blue counterspells and less than 5 answers for non-blue.


Next you'll tell me what about "can't be countered" so not only blue can just counter Rythm of the wild. Say it resolved, blue can just bounce rythm and then counter your creature.

Also blue now has effects like "exile target spell" which gets around "can't be countered" that's right, they gave blue answers to can't be countered.

Blue has another BS spell that ends your turn which not only counters your "can't be countered" spell mid-cast but is basically a timewarp for blue,

[Berserkr]

Originally posted by Jubejubes:

Defabricate stops creature lands, since most creature lands take up 5 lands total to activate, using them then getting defab'd basically wastes your turn. Defabricate has to be the most annoying 2 cost counter ever. In the same turn you activate your creature land and ult your planeswalker, i can dfab both these affects by paying 4 mana. I think there's a merfolk also that has built in defab for less.

The real annoying one is the white spell that perpetually takes away a creature land or planeswalkers abilities, swung in with a land once and got hit with that lol

[gothferret22]

I miss the old counterspells from other colors (you have to go a ways back to find them), but some of the best ones were red elemental blast/pyroblast. They were sideboard cards to be sure, but just having one mountain untapped can ruin a blue player's day. Another good one was Avoid Fate. IT was a green spell that only cost one green to cast. Its original form countered enchantments or interrupts from targeting your creatures. Back then, not that handy, but once Sixth Edition came out in 99 all interrupts got changed to instants and suddenly all removal became null and void - of course, Hasbro/WotC will never reprint those cards because of their obvious love of blue.