Magic School . . . How to Play vs. Counters

[Mikeymike]

Try building a deck around Citadel of Pain.

 

[Limited]

Here's a deck I made a while ago:

Red 18
3x Spark Spray
3x Urza's Rage
4x Planar Chaos
1x Scrap
1x Lay Waste
2x Solar Blast
2x Slice and Dice
2x Chartooth Cougar
Green 15
4x Blurred Mongoose
4x Root Sliver
2x Barkhide Mauler
4x Scragnoth
1x Vexing Beetle
1x Krosan Tusker
Lands 26
1x Shivan Oasis
2x Contested Cliffs
4x Mishra's Factory
2x Ghitu Encampment
4x Treetop Village
7x Mountain
6x Forest

Fun on it's own, but insane against a counterhappy deck

 

[Oversoul]

This is interesting. I noticed that Spidey made this a featured thread...

Would it still be cool if I wrote an article on this?

 

[TheCasualOblivion]

Its a tough thing to define, I'm sure an article on it would be great.

Aside from the basic strategies of using discard, or throwing a weenie rush at it, what do you do to deal vs. Counters? What do you do without resorting to sideboarding? A lot of us casual players never bother with them.

I'm not sure I could write an article on it. I've always gone with my gut against counters. Kinda like playing poker. Its served me well, but I couldn't tell anyone else how I do it if I wanted to.

 

[Limited]

An article just about Facing Counters, or more of a Global Guide To Casual Decks: How To Prepare Without Sideboarding
Article 1: Preparing for Counterspells
Article 2: Preparing for Creature rush
Article 3: Dealing with Combo's

Would it be fun to make it a team effort?

 

[Ferret]

The one thing I used to enjoy was anticipating the counters. If I have the mana to play two different spells and I see two untapped Islands in front of me, I try to throw out the lesser of the two spells to draw the counter and then play the spell I REALLY wanted to cast.

-Ferret

"D'oh!"

 

[Spiderman]

Heh. And if he didn't take the "bait"?

Oversoul: Go for it.

 

[Killer Joe]

Write one about how to "HOSE" creature decks in large Multiplayer games with countermagic and other 'control' spells.

 

[Spiderman]

Even better! This is kinda like the "rap wars" of the East Coast vs West Coast where they'd dis each other in their raps!

 

[Killer Joe]

<Rap to a slow-grind beat of about 80 beats per min>

Your creature dek stinks
so deel wit dat
an' my conuter-riffic dek
will make yours SPLAT!
So iffin you feel you wanna duel
jes go ahead and deal
YOU Critter-lovin' FOOL!

The worst part would be to actually see and hear me say this

 

[Mikeymike]

Mating Magic with Hip-Hop is like trying to mate a supermodel with a lawn-mower.

 

[Spiderman]

KJ: I think you should do a video and give to me to upload here

 

[mythosx]

how to wreck a counterspell deck? I think I could get into a deep analysis on the different types of things that could be played.

But here is a simple solution that seemed to wreck havoc against me when I used to play counters, a silver bullet if you will.

Play spells that can't be countered. Sounds simple...I know, probably going to get some eye rolling for this.

Scragnoths go a long way in ripping apart counter decks. Can't be countered can't be targeted by blue, it's awesome. Root sliver's, kovarch's torch. Storm spells and Mirari both although do not make spells uncounterable, they do make it difficult to counter everything.

 

[Killer Joe]

No, Spidey, not the 80's techno-Pop group

But one would have know before hand if they're playing against a counter magic deck. The deck(s) I'll be writting about are counter magic decks that can deal with lots of different kinds of deck archetypes, not geared/tuned towards just one. An-anti counter magic wouldn't be able to pull it off that well.

Also, I'm speaking from a multiplayer standpoint both large AND small group size.

 

[Crackdown]

No, Spidey, not the 80's techno-Pop group

But one would have know before hand if they're playing against a counter magic deck. The deck(s) I'll be writting about are counter magic decks that can deal with lots of different kinds of deck archetypes, not geared/tuned towards just one. An-anti counter magic wouldn't be able to pull it off that well.

Also, I'm speaking from a multiplayer standpoint both large AND small group size.

I can easily make a Bobtown deck that makes life difficult for a Blue Counter Deck, but that's a fairly limited situation and one where I know ahead of time precisely what I'm facing.

More often, I have a Type 2 or Extended deck and run into countermagic. How should it be played and what needs to be done? Sure, Scepter-Chant will annihilate me, but I'll just say thanks and go play with a real person who has a personality and wants to play Magic with someone.

All Scepter-Chant players should play on line.

[g, d & r]

 

[Oversoul]

Okay, I've decided that I definitely want to write this article, although I will not be starting it today (which means its proximity on the frontpage to this featured thread won't be so tacky, if you think it would be tacky to have them close together). It SHOULD be submitted sometime this weekend though... *hands whip to Notepad*

On collaborating to make this some sort of larger project...

I had not planned on that, but it sounds like a great idea. The context of this article is going to be fighting counters in casual games (one-on-one) from the angle of different archetypes (not a ton of them, but a couple broad categories). If anyone wants to start some sort of series of articles based on "how to beat ____" or whatever, I'd be interested to hear about it...

 

[Limited]

Perhaps we can just make a list of "stuff to beat" (discard, counters, weenie...) and make a sort of checklist for the inexperienced deckbuilder.
When someone builds a deck, and has some open slots, he can use the checklists provided by the Guide To Casual Decks to see what an unfavorable match-up would be. Then he can fill those last slots with cards to better prepare his deck for any match.

So..
Preparing for counters
Preparing for discard
Preparing for a creature rush
Preparing for a combo deck
..
Any other suggestions?

 

[Oversoul]

Okay, I submitted the article. I think it is my best yet (which doesn't make it particularly amazing). Anyway, I hope that I did the italicizing correctly for the article (I don't think I've ever submitted one that had italics before, which might have been because I was lazy). But if I didn't, my editor (Spidey) can probably fix it...

 

[Oversoul]

Wow, if I read the clock on Everything2 correctly, a guy posted a writeup about the card, Counterspell a couple of hours before I finished my article. What an odd coincidence...

Anyway, the Counterspell node can be found here.

 

[Spiderman]

But one would have know before hand if they're playing against a counter magic deck. The deck(s) I'll be writting about are counter magic decks that can deal with lots of different kinds of deck archetypes, not geared/tuned towards just one. An-anti counter magic wouldn't be able to pull it off that well.

Also, I'm speaking from a multiplayer standpoint both large AND small group size.

Hey, that's kinda what I said on 2/23:

Unless you're in a setting where you play the same people a lot and they play the same type of decks, you never really know when or what kind of counter deck you might face. Which if you're lucky is what the sideboard is for (if you manage to play a best 2 out of three with a "stranger"). So knowing that, some decks are just bad matchups against counters.