[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[DirkGently]

I have no objection to interaction as removal. I object to counterspells. If you go to remove my thing I can respond in various ways in every color. I can blink my dude, I can play another dude, i can reanimate my dude, or give my guy hexproof.

Allosaurus Shepherd
Dragonlord Dromoka
Grand Abolisher
Prowling Serpopard
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Savage Summoning
Autumn's Veil
Veil of Summer
Insist
Overmaster
Conqueror's Flail
Myrel, Shield of Argive
Silence
Orim's Chant
Tidal Barracuda
Cavern of Souls

I feel like you've got some options.

Countermagic specifically is my problem and specifically when I bring fair decks. It's so tedious to play against a countermagic heavy deck - the gameplay is a lot different than removal because they can both stop your proactive plays and your defensive plays and stop you from interacting all with one card type.

Counterspells are the most versatile answer, but they also have the major downside - especially in multiplayer - that they force you to act proactively. Trying to block threats from 3 opponents with counterspells alone is pretty difficult unless they've already let you get way out of hand in CA.

If they're only using counterspells on you, then I'd try to figure out why that's happening and fix it.

It's at the point where if I'm not playing blue I have to hate the blue guys out first otherwise I end up with them dragging me down with them or having to 1v1 while they have simple generic answers to everything. Blech.

Why are they dragging you down, but not the other players?

I can easily drive these people out of the game in the mid game with focus fire or loam locks but I feel like a jerk for being like "sorry I can't beat countermagic 1v1 do I have to do strip all your islands now. Might want to go have a drink."

I don't think it's unreasonable to target a control player to force out their interaction in order to open the window for your real threats. Loam lock seems like an incredibly slow and high cost way to do it, though.

But I think ideally you'd use them as a tool against other players and then swoop in when their shields are down from dealing with everyone else.

There's one at every damn table. The guy who's going to counter my inkshield so I die to craterhoof with everyone else.

Wait, why didn't he counterspell the craterhoof?

I do think killing someone on the way out, who isn't currently killing you, is pretty BM personally - if that's an actual thing that happened. My last act in any game I lose is to do as much damage as possible to whoever is killing me.

Edit: I want to clarify I don't object to countermagic in principle, it's just a frustrating dynamic right now for me where when I play non-blue decks they struggle to deal with "CaSuAlBro" combo-control decks preying on fair metas. "i'm just sitting here with no board state why you hate met bro lolz"

Casual tables can sometimes be bad at judging the threat level of a deck whose power lies primarily in-hand. Might be worth giving them a bit of a (subtle!) nudge if that seems to be happening.

[toctheyounger]

These seem like real spite play style of strategies. That sort of person sucks to play with.

You could always just get the table to use them as the table police. Any time something big is on the stack lean on them to answer it. Strip their hand and make them realize if they want to be the counter guy they can manage it for everyone. That'd give you a bit more leeway to play reactively and wait till the guy is out of gas so you can get after the win.

[pokken]

Yeah I have been playing for a while and I realize there are things I can do. The whole countermagic play patterns are just kinda frustrating to me right now. The amount of derping I have to do to decks to deal with the every couple games someone %$#% my might up with too much blue for a casual pod is so lame.

I think what's really getting my goat lately is especially how annoying it is to play around free counters. Why are there so damn many? So boring.

I really do not want to be tutoring for Grand Abolisher

I think I'm just gonna solve the problem by seeing if I can change my play patterns. If bluebies don't like it they can stop playing pact and two forces in my vicinity

[toctheyounger]

Yeah I have been playing for a while and I realize there are things I can do. The whole countermagic play patterns are just kinda frustrating to me right now. The amount of derping I have to do to decks to deal with the every couple games someone %$#% my might up with too much blue for a casual pod is so lame.

I think what's really getting my goat lately is especially how annoying it is to play around free counters. Why are there so damn many? So boring.

I really do not want to be tutoring for Grand Abolisher

I think I'm just gonna solve the problem by seeing if I can change my play patterns. If bluebies don't like it they can stop playing pact and two forces in my vicinity

I mean Silence is a strong effect. Even if you just protect your wins with it could help. Otherwise there's rhystic and mystic or rules of law. Make him work for it.

Or just play Tayam, luminous Enigma and don't use the stack at all. I'm sure there's other decks that do similar but suggest what you know.

For free stuff Lavinia, Azorius Renegade has your back btw.

[Venedrex]

Yeah I have been playing for a while and I realize there are things I can do. The whole countermagic play patterns are just kinda frustrating to me right now. The amount of derping I have to do to decks to deal with the every couple games someone %$#% my might up with too much blue for a casual pod is so lame.

I think what's really getting my goat lately is especially how annoying it is to play around free counters. Why are there so damn many? So boring.

I really do not want to be tutoring for Grand Abolisher

I think I'm just gonna solve the problem by seeing if I can change my play patterns. If bluebies don't like it they can stop playing pact and two forces in my vicinity

Hear me out:

Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

You get to run all the aforementioned anti-counterspell effects, and things like Cindervines and Domri, Anarch of Bolas. Play some mana dorks early, fill then get something like a Prowling Serpopard or Domri and let the good times roll. Also, Rhythm of the Wild. Sure, they only make your creature spells uncounterable, but the deck is 80% creatures lol. Don't forget Vexing Shusher mwahaha.

And if you can stomach the 40DK, Shadow in the Warp. Mmm, as a blue player, I can assure you that this type of deck will allow you drink deeply from their salty island tears.

Ruric also makes the games go faster, and getting him out on T3... oh boy.

Oh, and I don't see a Gruul deck in your sig, although Maelstrom is Temur. I know you love Esper, but maybe you just need a deck to smash those puny wizards with.

[toctheyounger]

Yeah I have been playing for a while and I realize there are things I can do. The whole countermagic play patterns are just kinda frustrating to me right now. The amount of derping I have to do to decks to deal with the every couple games someone %$#% my might up with too much blue for a casual pod is so lame.

I think what's really getting my goat lately is especially how annoying it is to play around free counters. Why are there so damn many? So boring.

I really do not want to be tutoring for Grand Abolisher

I think I'm just gonna solve the problem by seeing if I can change my play patterns. If bluebies don't like it they can stop playing pact and two forces in my vicinity

Hear me out:

Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

You get to run all the aforementioned anti-counterspell effects, and things like Cindervines and Domri, Anarch of Bolas. Play some mana dorks early, fill then get something like a Prowling Serpopard or Domri and let the good times roll. Also, Rhythm of the Wild. Sure, they only make your creature spells uncounterable, but the deck is 80% creatures lol.

And if you can stomach the 40DK, Shadow in the Warp. Mmm, as a blue player, I can assure you that this type of deck will allow you drink deeply from their salty island tears.

Ruric also makes the games go faster, and getting him out on T3... oh boy.

You had me at gruul stax. Ruric is awesome.

[materpillar]

Yeah I have been playing for a while and I realize there are things I can do. The whole countermagic play patterns are just kinda frustrating to me right now. The amount of derping I have to do to decks to deal with the every couple games someone %$#% my might up with too much blue for a casual pod is so lame.

I think what's really getting my goat lately is especially how annoying it is to play around free counters. Why are there so damn many? So boring.

I really do not want to be tutoring for Grand Abolisher

I think I'm just gonna solve the problem by seeing if I can change my play patterns. If bluebies don't like it they can stop playing pact and two forces in my vicinity

I like the gruul idea but I think the better one is to just slot in Pyromancy and Red Elemental Blast into your current decks. Not because they're actually good cards to deal with this particular issue mind you. You run those because I can guarantee some of your love of the game will be restored when you watch the control mage's face as he taps out for Cyclonic Rift in response to your lethal swing at him (or Force of Wills your game winning play) and he is forced to confront the terrifying reality that his castle of untouchable proactive color based stack superiority is in fact a only paltry defense against any non-blue player who wants to invest a mere R. Not only will you win you'll shatter that particular players confidence in the superiority of his Counterspells against you forever more when you slap down a Mountain.

Don't just win a battle with gruul stax, win the emotional war. You can even take them out later and they'll still have to play around them (assuming they're good players and will do that). I think its worth running a couple of suboptimal/frequently dead cards just so that every game from now on the control player will cast Force of Will and then have to look at you with the "does that resolve" nervous glance.

[pokken]

I like the gruul idea but I think the better one is to just slot in Pyromancy and Red Elemental Blast into your current decks

So here's the thing.. The fact that it's usually right to play Pyroblast tells you something is wrong, right?

At the very very top levels of CEDH they will play Compost and Verity Circle effects as color hate (but only because they are absolutely bananas amounts of card draw).

At every level of the game we play Pyroblast and sometimes Red Elemental Blast and usually Veil of Summer and stuff.

It's just so lame.

I think its worth running a couple of suboptimal/frequently dead cards just so that every game from now on the control player will cast Force of Will and then have to look at you with the "does that resolve" nervous glance.

This is kinda the problem I'm grasping at here. Like, why do I need to run critical mass of extremely narrow trash cards to play around overpowered free counterspells (and super cheap ones too, or ones that copy your crap..:shakesfist: Narset's Reversal -- like what am I supposed to do about that, particularly in Orzhov?).

I don't need to run trash cards to deal with any other color, I pretty much run general purpose interaction/card advantage/protection stuff.

It reminds me a lot of back in the day when we'd run High Market and multiple other sac outlets in every deck to dodge all the theft effects (and some of the tuck effects).

I feel like it's a real problem in the format for me; as you approach a certain power level, you become more and more likely to have to play around blue specifically because the game concentrates around blue interaction. And the best solve for it is to just add blue to your color identity and play Fierce Guardianship like everyone else.


-----

Anyway sorry drifting too on topic. If my ideas firm up on this I'll make a post or something I guess. It's more just that I've been pretty crabby about the games my non-blue decks have been having lately and wanted to vent a little

[Dunharrow]

The faster your playgroup, the stronger blue gets. If people can win consistently by turn 3 you need all the free counters.
If combat is irrelevant, then interaction reigns supreme.
I do not like cEDH because of all the tutoring. Makes games too consistent and monotonous.
But the overreliance on counterspells also makes it boring for me.


That being said, even in 75% metas someone can show up with a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir deck and it can be super annoying. I remember packing split second cards to beat blue decks.
But often people can gang up on the one blue player and knock them out, if it is a 75% meta.

[materpillar]

This is kinda the problem I'm grasping at here. Like, why do I need to run critical mass of extremely narrow trash cards to play around overpowered free counterspells (and super cheap ones too, or ones that copy your crap..:shakesfist: Narset's Reversal -- like what am I supposed to do about that, particularly in Orzhov?).

That's not exactly what I'm saying. I played Jaya Ballard, Task Mage for a while. Dropping a 20 mana Comet Storm directly into the mono-u control players face and then Red Elemental Blasting their Force of Will is one of the most satisfying experiences in the game. You Comet Storm a Ruric Thar, the Unbowed player and they'll shrug and move on with their life. They've accepted their deck has weaknesses and that you exploited one.

But mono-u control players don't think they have a weakness. All hail the unassailable answer Counterspell. So you set up the situation, a situation their deck uniquely setup to deal with, an opponent overcommitting into dumping a bunch of mana onto the stack. A thing their deck built to prey on. They strike! You let their Counterspell linger on the stack for a moment and then rip the rug out from under them. Watch them not only lose but also watch them lose faith in the strength of their deck because you haven't just beat them, you beat them at their own game.

Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Conqueror's Flail, etc. These are probably more efficient and "better".. You stick those and then beat people to death sure. But you don't get to watch the confidence burn out of their eyes. Look at this not as a frustration but a unique opportunity to utterly blow someone out.

A side note: Fierce Guardianship is some bull. The format would be better with that card banned.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@materpillar I prefer sticking goons down the control player's throat in the early game to playing color hate (funny how weak they become when you take 2/3 of their life by t6) but I am 100% onboard with the confidence-crumbling rebuke you're selling. It is such a thrill to watch paper tigers crumple, but even more to fundamentally shake someone's perceived sense of invincibility.

Edit: Have you ever seen Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog? I can't help but imagine their reaction to the blowout being exactly the same as Captain Hammer's when the death ray explodes in his hands.

[Hermes_]

counter spell tribal ftw....

[DirkGently]

Most of the set is cheap as dirt already, so I don't see the point in waiting for the bottom out like with other sets. I bought the two cards I wanted today and moved on.

I've already saved $20 by being patient

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Most of the set is cheap as dirt already, so I don't see the point in waiting for the bottom out like with other sets. I bought the two cards I wanted today and moved on.

I've already saved $20 by being patient

Given the shift in prices over the weekend, I think I spent a grand total of $1.45 in premiums to not have to worry about future LGS inventory. I still say it was worth it.

[DirkGently]

Given the shift in prices over the weekend, I think I spent a grand total of $1.45 in premiums to not have to worry about future LGS inventory. I still say it was worth it.

145 pennies saved is 145 pennies earned.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Given the shift in prices over the weekend, I think I spent a grand total of $1.45 in premiums to not have to worry about future LGS inventory. I still say it was worth it.

145 pennies saved is 145 pennies earned.

Dude, I once spent 800 clams on a Gaea's Cradle. That's like a week of work. For a thin piece of cardboard. Think about it. Granted, I would never do that again, but I think no matter the savings or expenditure, we have all been duped into a love of colored paper and realistically the practical economics of that will never really check out under any kind of scrutiny.

So yeah, pile the 145 pennies atop the mountain of finances I have squandered thus far between all the student/medical debt, cigarettes, magic cards, and chemicals consumed. I'm not sweating it.

Edit: I do think I have an ethical duty to disclose that I ultimately sold the aforementioned cradle for a profit of about 200 bones, which may undermine my ultimate point but I think high end RL stuff is in a league of its own, in both the ways their values shift over time and what exactly drives said value.

[materpillar]

@materpillar I prefer sticking goons down the control player's throat in the early game to playing color hate (funny how weak they become when you take 2/3 of their life by t6) but I am 100% onboard with the confidence-crumbling rebuke you're selling. It is such a thrill to watch paper tigers crumple, but even more to fundamentally shake someone's perceived sense of invincibility.

Edit: Have you ever seen Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog? I can't help but imagine their reaction to the blowout being exactly the same as Captain Hammer's when the death ray explodes in his hands.

"Agh! I'm in pain! I think this is what pain feels like!" xD

I don't really view Pyroblast as color hate. I view color hate as something that locks a color out of multiple spells ala Contamination / Douse / Karma. Pyroblast is just a Dispel/Swords to Plowshares.

Ramming things down people's throats so isn't my style at all. They tend to get really salty and likely will just escalate their decks powerlevel over time to compensate for your aggression. I tend to enjoy standing all the pile of my opponents corpses having killed only the final one.


My favorite play this year was someone was jamming Wyleth, Soul of Steel in a 6 player game and had a pile of equipment on him making him extremely lethal. The resident control player said "If you attack me I'll kill your general." I responded with "If you attack him, I'll counterspell his removal spell." Wyleth, Soul of Steel attacked, control played died. Delicious salt flew.

[Lifeless]

The resident control player said "If you attack me I'll kill your general." I responded with "If you attack him, I'll counterspell his removal spell." Wyleth, Soul of Steel attacked, control played died. Delicious salt flew.

I believe they call this the Spirit of the Format.

[toctheyounger]

I don't really view Pyroblast as color hate. I view color hate as something that locks a color out of multiple spells ala Contamination / Douse / Karma. Pyroblast is just a Dispel/Swords to Plowshares.

I totally agree. It's limited access to stack interaction for colors that aren't blue, and while it can be niche, it's worth the slot if you're dropping bombs you need to resolve and have no other recourse on the stack. They're better than they look. I'd love to see more in other colors, but for now these and Deflecting Swat are super nice. The only color really lacking in ways to keep control players off the stack is green. Every other color has something.

Personally I'd love to really challenge how far the control player's resources will even spread just for the salt of it. Play Krark, the Thumbless and let them see what a truly full stack looks like.

[Venedrex]

The Spirit of Commander
Legendary Creature — Avatar (M)
Every stinking keyword, let's be real.
Will of the council — Whenever The Spirit of Commander enters the battlefield or attacks, each player votes for what they think the Spirit of Commander does/represents.
My deck's power level is definitely a seven.
5/5

[duducrash]

The Spirit of Commander
Legendary Creature — Avatar (M)
Every stinking keyword, let's be real.
Will of the council — Whenever The Spirit of Commander enters the battlefield or attacks, each player votes for what they think the Spirit of Commander does/represents.
My deck's power level is definitely a seven.
5/5

5C goodstuff goes against thr spirit of commander!!!!!1!11!

[RxPhantom]

I hope so, cause we're barely paying overhead lol
We do pay writers what we can, but yeah, it's not much.

I don't like this. Become Patrons, you bums!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I hope so, cause we're barely paying overhead lol
We do pay writers what we can, but yeah, it's not much.

I don't like this. Become Patrons, you bums!

Easy there, kimosabe. We're all doing our best. Times are tough. Lemme find a decent job first.

[kirkusjones]

AITA time:

Third time playing with a newer, more casual group tonight. Built Slogurk, the Overslime with no tutors (other than Explore the Underdark and Reshape the Earth) and two win cons: Maze's End, which requires an animated gate and Sakashima the Impostor and @TheGildedGoose's Bee Sting combo.

Playing against Narset, Enlightened Exile, The Locust God and Kethis, the Hidden Hand.

We're an hour and a half in when I Reshape the Earth for the gates and Maze's End only to find the deck is one gate shy of the win, with or without Sakashina. So I durdled around, drew some cards, binned some lands. Watched Narset wipe the board. A few very long turn cycles later (The Locust God player was learning his deck), I draw Bee Sting. Some serious digging turns up Turnabout and Shigeki, Jukai Visionary then a little while later, Regrowth comes off the top.

Narset is sitting next to me with Omniscience in the yard and I decide to go for it. I demonstrate the combo. No one has disruption. Nobody is happy our 2+ hour game has come to an end. Whoops.

Next week I'll bring Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss and turn creatures sideways as @TheAmericanSpirit intended.

[Hermes_]

nvm realized you meant graveyard