how yr play group reacts to various counterspells

[gilrad]

You seem to be completely ignoring my man point: Counterspells are both super narrow answers that are only useful in very specific game plans, AND the most effective, efficient ways to stop players from winning the game... depending on the meta.

Table 1: Everybody's deck is trying to race toward an isolated board state win. Player one is chaining ramp and artifact mana into debt to the deathless for 20, player two is chaining tutors into a protected hermit druid win, player three is hoping to stick a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to get an uninterrupted combo win after his untap. Each strategy can possibly be dealt with through other answer cards, some can only be dealt with by a counter, and a counter could stop any of them. In this meta, anything that doesn't bring me closer to victory should be a counterspell to stop other people from getting their winning board.

Table 2: Everybody here has a primary game plan of winning through combat damage or through medium-sized bursts of noncombat damage. Threats survive 3-8 turns on average, dealing plenty of damage to various players when an opportunity arises. The removal of choice here would be cards like anguished unmaking, which can remove threats that are about to reduce your life total, or open up a third player (possibly the player in the best position) to attacks from the threat. In this table I'd never want to counter a creature unless I was absolutely certain that creature would cause me to lose the game in the immediate future.

[folding_music]

and there's hundreds of creatures out there you'll still wanna counter because so many have crazy tap abilities or token generation capabilities, or what have you. you're gonna want to have a say in whether an experiment kraj or a heartless hidetsugu hits the board, right?

my original post was about what sort of counterspells you found suitable for the groups you actually played in but either everyone's theorycrafting or is so far past the question being necessary that i don't understand casual anymore, lol

[Mookie]

and there's hundreds of creatures out there you'll still wanna counter because so many have crazy tap abilities or token generation capabilities, or what have you. you're gonna want to have a say in whether an experiment kraj or a heartless hidetsugu hits the board, right?

my original post was about what sort of counterspells you found suitable for the groups you actually played in but either everyone's theorycrafting or is so far past the question being necessary that i don't understand casual anymore, lol

Addressing this point directly: I've played games in which people at the table are packing a bunch of cheap and efficient countermagic (force of will, pact of negation, swan song, etc). I've also played games in which the blue players are packing zero countermagic, or very weak options. My experience is that the games which have more countermagic are usually more interesting. Not because counterspells make the game more fun, but because when a blue player isn't packing countermagic, they often aren't running any meaningful interaction at all.... which results in one player being more likely to run away with the game. Games where multiple players are capable of interacting on the stack tend to be pretty interesting (also, watching a counter war is really fun). The best games I've played are the ones where every player is able to meaningfully interact, whether it be with countermagic or with removal.

Counterspells, with a few exceptions, are usually cards which trade one-for-one with a problematic spell. While they may be a tempo advantage, they are rarely also a resource advantage (minus stuff like Mystic Confluence or Overwhelming Intellect), which means that it is very difficult for a player to establish dominance over a game by countering everything relevant - the other players are usually going to be able to generate enough threats to fight through the countermagic, by running the blue player out of either cards or mana. This is true no matter how powerful your countermagic is.

I would generally say that it is extremely difficult for countermagic (or any other 1-for-1 removal) to be oppressive by itself. The times when countermagic feels oppressive are when it is being backed up by a lot of card draw or recursion - stuff like Bident of Thassa drawing cards off a Talrand, Sky Summoner's drakes, Kefnet the Mindful, or Deadeye Navigator + Archaeomancer. And even then, most card draw engines can be shut off if people are running sufficient interaction (assuming you can fight past any countermagic protecting the card draw, at least).

So, to answer concisely: powerful countermagic isn't a problem, but powerful card draw (or people not running enough interaction) can be.

[DirkGently]

Counterspells are a necessary evil. By which I mean - using a counterspell in commander is usually kind of a bad thing. You'd really prefer not to do it, because they're mostly kind of bad cards in terms of managing a table of opponents. Usually on-board removal is more efficient, it lets you wait until you're certain a card is your problem, it's easier to make 2-for-1s or better with board wipe or multi-target removal, etc. But, some things require a counterspell, and counterspells do answer the widest swath of problems, provided you have them available at the right time. If you're playing control, you're playing them, because sometimes they're the only thing that works.

All that to say - people who hate counterspells are idiots. if someone is counterspelling your card, it's probably because it was a very dangerous card and you shouldn't expect people not to interact with you when you play that sort of stuff. And if they're countering your mediocre cards, then they're a bad player and they're probably going to lose.

I disagree with this assessment pretty strongly of both counter spells and other single target spells often overlooked in this format, good application of stopping one thing is often what you need most of all.

I don't think that contradicts what I've said. I'm always happy to have a counterspell (or removal spell) in hand. My main deck is almost entirely removal and counters. Counters are great. My point was that I'm rarely happy when I actually have to use one. Not that I won't use one when I need to, but I'd much prefer it if someone else used their removal, or the threat wasn't pointed at me and could be ignored, for example. A counterspell (and a removal) is a weapon of last resort, because once you've used it, you no longer have that nice comfy shield of safety around you.

A big part of effective use of removal and counters, imo, is being able to avoid using them as much as possible, and save them for the absolute most critical moment.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Really, no issues. As usual, it depends on how it's played. Spite plays are bad, but TBH counterspell decks aren't likely to be nearly the threat they are in multiplayer, without help. (Think Winter Orb.) And even that really should be easy for at least one player to remove.