I'd be a little more conservative in my list of superior counterspells, but it'd still be pretty long. These are only counters that I'd consider superior in any environment, no matter how fast or how slow.
For a fast meta, "rhystic" counterspells are going to usually be quite effective. In slow metas, prohibit is really bad, and rhystics will still be able to counter on-curve bombs or big game-winning x-spells, so long as they aren't infinite.
For a fast meta, a 1-mana counterspell that's more restrictive is still probably a lot better. For a slow meta, at least they can counter heavier spells even if they're type-restricted, which is generally more useful imo.
For a powerful meta, the extra blue cost should usually be NBD since you're playing tons of fetches, duals, etc. and easily worth the added flexibility. For a more casual meta, you shouldn't need to counter spells early anyway, so waiting until later when you hit your second blue is fine.
For a fast meta, mindbreak is a really good counterspell to many combo strats that requires no untapped mana. For slow metas, at least it's a flexible, if overpriced, counterspell that can hit uncounterables permanently.
And personally I think the 3-cmc counters are well worth the extra cost even in a fast environment. It'd have to be really, really weirdly fast to not justify the extra cost imo.
3drinks wrote: ↑4 years ago
It's totally OK to counter those rampant growths and kodama's reaches, guys.
In 1v1 I agree, but in multiplayer, absolutely not. Uninformed people often rag on 1:1 trades in commander saying that you'll end up burning up your hand because you're trying to trade against 3 people, but that's simply not the case - when you're playing control in multiplayer, you've gotta save your answers for the things that really need it. That's where 1:1 trades are excellent. With the buffer of 40 life, multiple other opponents to distract from you, and the (reasonable) tendency to play defensively in multiplayer, most decks only have a few truly must-answer threats, and many lesser threats that can be cleaned up with a wipe when they hit critical mass.
Rampant growth doesn't "really need it". Rampant growth is fine. On turn 2, you have no idea who the threat is going to be in most games. You could easily be countering the rampant growth of the player whose help you're going to want in a few turns in order to rein in someone else, and maybe because you countered that rampant growth they won't be able to help you. But even if that person is the threat, I'd almost always rather have the answer to the threat they're ramping into, rather than just delay it for a turn by countering their ramp.
For that matter, I think the person "bolting the bird" is also making a mistake. 1:1 trades against small potatoes is just not a viable strategy in multiplayer. Maybe if you already know for a fact that a certain player is going to be the threat, because their deck is way, way better than everyone else's...but then it sounds like your meta is kind of bad and maybe you should try to fix that rather than playing archenemy?
