|
Home Decks Combos Articles Visual Spoilers Features Art Links Search BLOG Forum |
|
|
|
In magic, you will sometimes come across a player whose single goal in life is to counter every-single spell you play in order to stall you long enough to play out the win condition in their deck. Editor's note: Or to just be annoying... If you have no idea what Russell is talking about, see Permission Sam from the UG Madness comic website... ~Streetz~
Sorry.. but I have to keep going... Did you know there are 87 blue instant spells that have the word counter in them? I won't mention ALL of them.
And that's just a few!!! OK. I'm done. Just had to do it. Sorry! :) Perhaps one day I will put together a visual spoiler for counterspells! ~Streetz~ This can get extremely annoying as you are just trying to play your deck, and nothing of yours can come out. Now there is a common misbelief that if you play a junk spell, then the person will counter it, thus allowing you to play whichever spell that you wanted to in the first place. This may or may not work on less experienced players, but not on a person that has played for a while. He or she can usually see right through this and will more often or not leave the ‘bait’ spell in preparation for the ‘real’ spell. There are a couple of ways for you to get past this. Anti-Counter Strategy. The first way to do this is do the unexpected-play the good
spell first with several lands untapped with a few cards in hand. This is a
means to bluff the other player out. However it is also important to try the
‘bait and real’ tactic first. Otherwise the player will just counter the good
spell.
And finally, use cards that don’t care if they hit the graveyard. Cards like Shard Phoenix, Squee, Goblin Nabob, and all types of cards that can bring themselves to your hand (or better, to play) are especially good. These guys can go the extra mile, as they can keep coming back, which will eventually exhaust the counter spells the player has. But, Wait! You could also just use the best weapon against control decks - spells that can't be countered. There are a total of thirteen of them (from what I can tell) like:
And then, of course, there are the cards that prevent other spells from being countered, like:
But you don’t need to use these concepts all the time. You can always look at the number of untapped lands the opponent controls, and the number of card in their hand. If they have one land untapped, then the only spell they will most likely play is a Force Spike. If they have two or more untapped lands and several cards in hand, then you should be careful. Don't forget about Force of Will! ~Streetz~ Giving Permission Players a Challenge. If you would prefer the more practical approach, then take a look at a couple of decks I have devised to combat countermagic using blue least favorite color, red of course.
The goal in this deck is quite simple - play as many spells as you can as quickly as you can and beat your opponent down.
It is usually too quick for a counter mage to keep up. And
if they counter a spell it doesn’t matter-there are three more copies in the
deck. There are also no Rares, making it a fairly cheap and easy deck to
construct. It can also double as a plain red aggression deck, for one-on-one
games. It is the conventional deck that I recommend for house games.
If you don’t have all the cards for those particular decks, then don’t worry too much. Just swap them for a card that you think would compliment the deck or fill in its place. And don’t think that this is the best way to make an anti-counter deck- they are just rough guides which you can choose to follow. And finally, just remember, if they counter a spell you really needed, don’t complain or show any sign that you cared- if they know that they have countered something good, then they have an advantage over you. If they don’t- then the advantage may be yours to take! Good Luck and Happy Gaming! You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here. Most Popular Articles of 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Convolute
The
third way is a bit more complex. If the player has seen both the ‘bait and real’
tactic, and the ‘bluff’, chances are they will just counter what they want to.
But if you really need to play a certain card, a real game winner, then you need
to play not only a bait card, but then a second bait card, that looks like the
card that you would need to cast, before playing the card you wanted in the
first place. It should be said though, that after a couple of turns of this
tactic, the other player will be able to see through that to, so save that
tactic for the things you really need.
Boseiju,
Who Shelters All
Cutting's
Weenie Red. 
This
deck is a bit different, as you can see. It has several creatures that can
reanimate themselves repeatedly, and they all are a good distraction for the
opponent to counter, as they are all good cards. It also features Leyline of
Lightning, a great rare as the spells that you play doesn’t have to resolve for
the ability to trigger. The two Warp Worlds are great because it puts your stuff
directly into play, beating counterspells. The Izzet cards included make your
non-creature spells go the extra mile, as the opponent has to waste their spells
on your copies, giving you great card advantage. The only problem in this deck
is getting the cards that are listed. Some of them are quite expensive. On the
plus side, this deck can be used as a decent control deck as well. The main win
condition is either beatdown by a Skarrgan Firebird or copied burn spells like
Lava Spike.