Anti-Spike police / counterspell density

[materpillar]

I've just recently moved and found myself in a new metagame. One thing about this metagame is that there's often a huge gap in the powerlevel of many of the players/decks.

For example, the last evening I played one game was myself (Chromium artifact beats), someone piloting a worse-than-precon Mowu, Loyal Companion (it was running EDH staples like giant growth and Pollenbright Druid), The Scarab God (casual zombie tribal), Gitrog Monster (uninteractive graveyard combos).

Some of these games... end extremely poorly for the newer players. The two most egregious examples were Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder hitting the field Turn 3, followed up by casting Expropriate turn 5 and enough other spells to get the table to scoop. Another game a Titania, Protector of Argoth cast Nissa, Vital Force on turn 3, and then effectively stormed off with her emblem turn 4.


I've thinking of throwing together a Braids, Conjurer Adept deck with the intent of using it as a targeted group hug. Throw extra cards at the newer players and counterspells at the degenerate players. As I haven't played a whole lot of mono-blue, I was wondering what the recommended counterspell density to be highly disruptive to combo-ish decks but not enough that I'm just being a huge jerk countering everything.

I was wondering if there were any good anti-spike counterspells like Mental Misstep (since it is fantastic against low-curve murder machines and terrible against Timmy cards).

What are some good, targeted group hug cards? For example, Howling Mine isn't great here because it'll just allow the degenerate decks to do more degenerate things faster. Stuff more like Curse of Verbosity.

[Hawk]

Allow me to beat Dirk to the punch and recommend Phelddagrif. You can read his brilliant primer here: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/th ... r-strength.

Assuming you really wanna do Braids or stick to mono-blue, I'd say the key thing is to run as many answers as possible that cover as wide a range of problems as possible and to be as reactive as possible at instant speed.

- Rapid Hybridization, Pongify, and Reality Shift are crucial because they remove threatening creatures and force that opponent to "play fair" with dudes instead. Imprisoned in the Moon is valuable because it can lockdown commanders who are ill-prepared for it. Cards like Submerge, Wipe Away, and Commit // Memory is nice because it can cheaply buy time to find a more permanent solution and can be hard to interact with or protect against. Aetherspouts is devastating because you can use it when anyone, including squishy bad casual players, is attacked.

- You want at least 10 counterspells, possibly more in monoblue. Outside of the usual suspects (Counterspell, Force of Will, Force of Negation, Mana Drain, Mystic Confluence, Cryptic Command, Arcane Denial, and Swan Song, as your budget and collection allow), you also want some amount of cards like Tale's End, Summary Dismissal, Disallow, Mindbreak Trap, Time Stop, and Nimble Obstructionist to stop more obscure/challenging shenanigans (like planeswalker activations or EtB triggers) and to fight through cards like Boseiju, Who Shelters All.

- As you've noted, adding effects like Howling Mine, Temple Bell, Helm of Awakening, Tempt with Discovery, Minds Aglow, etc. to your deck is likely to end poorly as it just fuels the best player. Most "targeted group-hug" (or group-slug) is also pretty poor imo - Wheel and Deal, curses, etc are all bad. Intellectual Offering is a sole exception and a fine way to build up a potential ally. You could try cards that allow the "bads" to supercharge you (Fact or Fiction, Fumble) but personally I'd focus more on answers and some aikkido ways to reverse an enemy's strength (like Bribery, Acquire, and such things).

[Taleran]

You can play with cards like Howling Mine in a deck like that if you are also limiting peoples options.

Arcane Laboratory and its variants are a thing I go to when I build this kind of a Zedruu deck

[DirkGently]

Allow me to beat Dirk to the punch and recommend Phelddagrif. You can read his brilliant primer here: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/th ... r-strength.

You unimaginable bastard.

(but also thank you for your kind words )

But yeah, My phelddagrif build was designed almost completely to counter playgroup disparate-power-level blues. The powerful get removal, counterspells, and pain. The weak get hippo tokens, life, and free cards. Nothing feels more satisfying than ensuring the most powerful, try-hard deck at the table always comes in dead-freaking-last, beaten to death by a bunch of casual decks (helped by our benevolent hippo overlord).

If you're in a meta that's especially imbalanced and other people will consistently be big targets, there is less necessity in having such a low threat count as my current Phelddagrif build, so you could definitely throw in some fun "i win" buttons for yourself so you don't have to win via Phelddagrif beatdown every game. My personal favorite is Ezuri's Predation. Give away a ton of hippo tokens, then wipe most of the board while filling your own board with 4/4s.

[MrMystery314]

If you're trying to disrupt actual competitive decks, cards like Arcane Laboratory, Cursed Totem, Pithing Needle/Sorcerous Spyglass, Damping Matrix, Grafdigger's Cage, Back to Basics, and Null Rod (the latter is a bit expensive, although your options are limited in mono-blue) will do the most damage while generally not hurting the more casual decks as much. Cards like Ezuri's Predation aren't going to cut it against Gitrog. Definitely play more counterspells as you suggested, and maybe consider cards like Shared Fate and Knowledge Pool too that let you and the other casual players take the good cards from the competitive player's deck. I wouldn't worry about targeting them too much; if they get salty because they aren't running you guys over any more, that's on them, and they will have more interesting games too. Some of this does vary on the power level of their decks too; if they're not playing full competitive decks but merely decks that are just better than yours, it may ruin the experience if they're unable to deal with targeted disruption and stax.

[Kemev]

Are you sure you want to be in mono-blue?

I get a lot of mileage as table police out of Kaervek the Merciless. Lots of removal, Red Blasts and Reverberates to out-counter the counter decks, plenty of card draw, and Kaervek to say, "Quick everyone! Cast your stupidest Timmy spells! Spike'll take 15 every time."

[folding_music]

re; counterspells vs spike, as a casual and budget player I'd look to Annul and Ceremonious Rejection which often counter a surprising percentage of spike's deck for one mana. Agree with the mention of Swan Song above. I've had success with mono-blue Braids running stuff like Flood, Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor and Tradewind Rider and it works well in multiplayer; Aboshan's abilities can be timed to leave Spike defenseless so anyone who untaps before them gets to attack their planeswalkers! Aboshan generally is a great equalizer at a mismatched table (I've played this deck with Aboshan as the Commander) and although he can definitely be used for evil he does cost six, so you earned the evil!

Torpor Orb in Braids just seems natural. Wash Out can be tailored to hit some harder than others.

In a more literally equalizing sense I've seen Giant Fan used to provide immediate reparations vs. planeswalkers - Spike's Liliana gets one less loyalty, Timmy's Sphinx becomes just that little bit more worrying. It's clunky, though, and it seems like hardly anyone lets you play silver-bordered cards.

[Kelzam]

I've found that playing a number of Simic Commanders has been pretty beneficial to maintaining an enjoyable power level, while being Creature-based and vulnerable but not helpless. Ezuri, Claw of Progress is a solid, powerful Commander that is more than fair if you leave out the outliers like Sage of Hours or Simic Ascendancy. You can race degenerate players while still being able to pack enough counter magic and recursion to keep degenerate players under control. You can play a chunk of counterspells while being able to just bring them back and advance your experience counters thanks to cards like Archaeomancer, Eternal Witness and Glen Elendra Archmage that do both for you.

As for anti-spike Counterspells? If you go Simic you get access to Repudiate/Replicate. Disallow and Stifle could be considered anti-Spike. Being able to counter activated and triggered abilities is huge because it can stop early game combos dead in their tracks. You of course have Force of Will and Force of Negation which are probably the most effective anti-Spike counterspells. For other Spikes that play a lot of counter magic themselves there's Seedtime and Last Word.

Also, have you met my friend Titania's Song?

[materpillar]

First off, thanks for all the card suggestions guys. I've really appreciated them. I'm going to throw a rough draft together tonight.

I was thinking Braids, Conjurer Adept solely because it's one of my favorite magic cards. Used to roll a casual 60 card deck that would put Progenitus and Akroma, Angel of Wrath into play. It was one of my most fair decks that scaled incredibly well against newer or more tuned decks. Kind of what I want to do again here.

Intellectual Offering is kind of exactly what I was looking for. Is there anything else in that vein of card, is it extremely unique?

Phelddagrif is pretty sweet. After looking over the primer, the Phelddagrif deck is going a little too hard on the politics. Don't get me wrong, I love me some politics and manipulating the table to come out on top. A lot of my decks are built with that in mind. However, I also love me some durdly beef like Stormtide Leviathan to actually be able to close out games. I more want to be able to politic and police the first 1-7 turns, to allow an actual game to happen. Not go full politics turn 1 until the last person dies.

[toctheyounger]

I used to run Braids, it's a weird vibe but fun. Not sure if it'll do what you want it to, but best of luck, and most importantly I hope it ends us fun.

Fatespinner could pull some weight maybe. Tidespout Tyrant too - ordinarily it's pretty expensive, but Braids will see to that. Void Winnower hits a lot of the points you'd need to hit to stop some of the aforementioned decks too.
In terms of control I really like Disallow, Imprisoned in the Moon, Swan Song, Aetherize, Wash Out. I'm repeating what's been said before, but there's some good recommendations here. Also, as much as he is reviled, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir seems like he's really limiting for a spiky combo deck. Just....make it abundantly clear you're not running Knowledge Pool or you'll be public enemy #1.

[TheTuna]

If you really want to hose people who rely on casting stuff for free or off stuff like Mana Crypt early game, there's always Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. I've been meaning to build her as a "degeneracy police" (without any lockouts) myself. She doesn't do much against Titania, though. She's also small enough for you to suicide her reliably if she hasn't been removed by the time you want to open things back up.

Given that fast win/combo often relies on tutoring, Mindlock Orb seems like a solid inclusion as well if you plan on building a blue deck which can keep explosive players in check.

[Dunharrow]

What I like about Braids is that she helps the timmy decks more than the spike decks.
I would also look at things like Back to Basics, since spikey decks tend to play fewer basics.

I feel like Humble Defector would be great, unfortunately I can't think of blue cards like this...

My Zedruu deck tries to slow down the table by giving things like Statecraft to opponents. There are a few monoblue ways to Donate this.

Narset, Parter of Veils + Temple Bell lets you make all but one person draw extra cards.

[DirkGently]

Phelddagrif is pretty sweet. After looking over the primer, the Phelddagrif deck is going a little too hard on the politics. Don't get me wrong, I love me some politics and manipulating the table to come out on top. A lot of my decks are built with that in mind. However, I also love me some durdly beef like Stormtide Leviathan to actually be able to close out games. I more want to be able to politic and police the first 1-7 turns, to allow an actual game to happen. Not go full politics turn 1 until the last person dies.

That's fair - playing Phelddagrif can be a bit of a slog sometimes because of how long it takes to close out games, depending on the circumstances.

The downside to the stormtide leviathan plan is that, obviously, a single stormtide leviathan is not exactly a reliably wincon, since it dies to any given removal spell, and is a slow wincon even in the ideal scenario. So you have to have a lot of stormtide leviathan-esque wincons, which waters down your control and means your odds of drawing a hand that doesn't have early-game answers to must-answer threats (along with a keepable amount of mana and such) is going to increase - and not all answers answer any given threat, further complicating things. Depending on your meta and how fast and reliably you expect people to try to go off, that might be totally fine or a major risk.

Phelddagrif is as answer-dense as it is to maximize your ability to interact meaningfully in the early turns - if you're trying to fend of multiple cEDH or near-cEDH threats, I don't think you can go too much lighter and still expect to block them reliably. Which then, by necessity, means Phelddagrif is the ideal commander by being both a near-unstoppable (if slow) threat, as well as a massive source of value when used politically. Basically it starts by asking the question "how do we stop competitive decks as hard as possible" and the rest of it works itself out from there.

Anyway, all that to say - I think your objection is a totally reasonable one, but you should definitely think about how many answers, and what kinds of answers, you'll need to block the things you need to block, and how many slots that leaves you to dedicate to cards that won't have any utility in accomplishing that. Because you'll still presumably want to fit in some draw, some ramp, some tutors, etc, and it can be really easy to squeeze those answers down a bit and realize that your odds of stopping a certain combo within the first couple turns are actually fairly small, especially if we're talking multiple opponents at once.

One last note - Blue braids specifically seems like a very risky choice of commander for this sort of thing, especially if you want counterspells to be your only line of defense against combo, because you're giving your opponents an easy way to totally circumvent your counter wall.

Just some stuff to keep in mind.