The counterspell you don't have to cast is the strongest counterspell in your deck. Make them have it, make them use it, and stop their draw engines... that's how you stop control

@bradleykyonizuka2558

Жыл бұрын

Seriously the number of times I've seen them dance around and WAIT to cast cards against crim or even Seth in standard/modern etc waiting and waiting for the perfect opportunity against the control player waiting for them to tap out letting them set-up and gain more and more advantage by the time they decide okay it's now or never and cast their crucial piece they've allowed their opponent to draw 15 cards and now they do have the counter or the removal. If you're waiting for the control player to tap out and never making them tap out they aren't ever going to. If you aren't pressuring them they're setup to win the long game. They can draw go you and cast stuff end of your turn the entire game until they have enough mana to play their wincon while leaving mana open

@Greg501-

Жыл бұрын

@@bradleykyonizuka2558 I've won like twice with Zenith Flare when my opponent thought they could tap out

@Wolfsspinne

Жыл бұрын

In 1v1 I'm totally on your side. But in 4 player games you should also consider the option to present yourself as the weakest player and let them counter your opponent's spells.

@Leftists_are_Losers

Жыл бұрын

Every blue player I know loves to bluff. They fake having a counter spell. And always leaves a couple lands untapped to pretend they can cast … Call their bluff. Force them to show their cards… every counterspell they cast is one they don’t have any more … Call their effing bluff.

@dontmisunderstand6041

Жыл бұрын

@@Wolfsspinne You're not going to trick them by lying outright like that for too many games. Unless you know you're only playing one game with this playgroup, that strategy shouldn't work repeatedly.

"The key to beating control is making them uncomfortable" Oh that's why all those guys at my LGS don't take any showers

Dropped at a perfect time: nothing like listening to the boys discussing Magic while mowing!

@bodaciouschad

Жыл бұрын

Use hearing protection and stop listening to music. You're gonna go deaf

@WiseHodor

Жыл бұрын

@@bodaciouschad Some mowers aren’t loud at all, like my electric one.

@SmashCentralOfficial

Жыл бұрын

@@bodaciouschad typical youtube commenter lmao. LIstening to "the boys discussing magic" = Music apparently. Thanks grandpa, I'll turn it down.

@TehSeksyManz

Жыл бұрын

@@bodaciouschad My earbuds actually block out more sounds than what they create. Maybe OP has similar buds.

@jamisonbebiak7917

Жыл бұрын

Bro!! I do the same thing lol

I've found an unexpected Pyroblast is effective against the likes of Cyclonic Rift and Notion Thief. In that instance, it doesn't feel like a one for one. And the versatility of being a counterspell and a destruction spell is useful.

@satansamael666

Жыл бұрын

And that's the floor. The decks Pyroblast and REB see play in have ways in built already to turn them into straight up 1 mana counterspell or removal (e.g. Gruul Painter).

I think the issue with blue is less the effects it has and more that people often struggle with how to actually assess a threat that isnt on the board infront of them. Blue at least the blue most people complain about is 90% in your hand and ontop of that has free spells which make it even harder to really assess well.

Spoiler: Richard has given away this answer before, the best removal is player removal. Just attack the blue player 🤪

@BobardeZanzibar

Жыл бұрын

The Codfather has endless wisdom.

@xaxscratchxax926

Жыл бұрын

They get real pissy that way...."thats not how your supposed to play magic....now its 3 people and its going to skew the game". "Shut the fuck up, I'm not letting you stay in this game for you to tutor up some bullshit like enter the infinite or expropriate" Proceeds to be butthurt and not play magic with me anymore.

@funa2865

Жыл бұрын

@@xaxscratchxax926 if they are engaging with the game honestly they have to realize that targeting out the biggest control player is a choice you make. If you kill the control player you are allowing yourself to be more likely to lose to random garbage combo but you are also preventing the control player from taking over the game.

@thedude5able

Жыл бұрын

This is where you ask them to 1v1 you in a 60 card formats.

@michaelcollins4534

Жыл бұрын

​@@thedude5able why the fuck would I willingly want to play against a control player

One time I was playing EDH 1v1 against a friend. He managed to reset the game with his Karn, getting to keep my Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger + my Tidespout Tyrant. So, he started the next game with those in play. We shuffled up and started the reset game. He had his turn 1, dropped a land and attacked me with the two creatures. My turn 1 went like this: Untap, upkeep, draw, dropped and activated Homeward Path. He scooped on the spot. XD

Tips for playing against blue. play at instant speed on their turn. Do something on their upkeep before they even draw. if they want to counter you they have to do it on their own turn and spend the rest of the turn cycle tapped.

My big thing is the most fun games, imo, are the ones with interaction. They ebb and flow, momentum swings back and fourth. Blue might leave people salty, but I think the format would get dull very quickly without the things it brings to the table

@donb7519

Жыл бұрын

i agree and disagree i run the most or second most interaction in every meta im in but not that many counters cause counters stop the ebb and flow where as its more fun to wait to destroy something until after you convinced them to attack someone else

@soleo2783

Жыл бұрын

​@@donb7519 problem is that a lot of stuff gets their value as soon as it resolves, so destroying it doesnt do anything

Tip: If you have Seedtime in your deck sit next to the blue player around the table so that they have their turn after yours which will make them more likely to cast spells during your turn like some carddraw spell in your endstep :P

@satansamael666

Жыл бұрын

Or just play it in decks you have Painter's Servant to do nasty things yourself anyway.

my card to beat blue has always been Dragonlord Dromoka. Don't have to worry about your commander being countered when it's uncounterable, and once it resolves you're free to cast all the spells on your turn that you want. It definitely isn't as popular now in modern commander, but I still enjoy busting it out from time to time.

My hatred of blue is ancient, going all the way back to The Dark. Magic back then was very different. Counter spells were interrupts (think split second if you could respond with spells that have split second) and blue spells made up the majority of interrupts. My first run in with a control deck consisted of a mono-blue deck filled with Counterspell, Mana Drain, Boomerang, Remove Soul, Brain Geyser, and the most oppressive card at the time, Power Sink. The way the rules worked, Power Sink basically said “End your opponent’s turn.” Back then, haste was only on 4 total cards and recursion existed on 7 cards, only one of which was self contained. Here’s how it would go, if it wasn’t countered, it was bounced the moment it could attack. Nothing ever stuck and since interrupts resolved first, you could never go over the top of them like you can with instants, other than another counter spell. My problem with blue is that it’s too efficient. It has no downsides. It costs them nothing, sometimes not even mana. Cyclonic Rift- can’t be stopped by abilities like indestructible or protection. It’s universal, unlike exile effects. What’s the downside? It doesn’t hit your opponents lands? Counter spells- these are removal AND protection. These are not limited to just control players. Being down a card, in arguably one of the best, if not THE best, color to draw cards is not a downside. Blue should not have exclusively on these types of spells (being so bad that it’s not worth running doesn’t count). Extra turns- these always provide far more value than they cost to get an extra untap, upkeep, card draw, combat, and end step. Red has them, and cheaper, but at the cost of losing the game at the end of that turn. Blue extra turns have nothing but upside. For all of these reasons, blue is the color of EVIL and why I will always, ALWAYS kill the blue mage first.

@bye1551

Жыл бұрын

Fully agreed. The strength of counterspells is how they're a universal answer. Something like slip out the back is infinitely worse than counterspell despite being a mana cheaper, because even if you're only planning on using counterspell for protection, having removal every now and then can win you the game.

A fun way to fight a control deck is to play reverberate, dualcastermage and other such copy effects. If your opponent is counterspelling, reverberate will do the same. Cyclonic rift will then hit them too. Them getting too much advantage by card draw spells? Copy their card draw.

@alexandremould2071

Жыл бұрын

Thisthisthis

@AtingsQuest

Жыл бұрын

And almost a dead card in 70% of the rest of the game. Always leave 2~3 mana just to wait a spell worth you to copy is bad.

@6969pumpking

Жыл бұрын

@@AtingsQuest to be fair something as simple as a cultivate on the stack is still a great Target. Two mana instant speed draw a land and ramp I'll take that but I get what you're saying.

@AtingsQuest

Жыл бұрын

​@@6969pumpking As a long-time mono-red player, copying spells give you little in return. More limited than counterspell, and Wrath has no copy value except Cyclonic Rift. On the other hand, some multi-color commanders do have spell copy synergy, like Kalamax. As long as you have your own spell worth copying, it's totally fine to use it.

@AtingsQuest

Жыл бұрын

In this meta, the best way for the non-blue player who wants to against the counterspell is Grand Abolisher, Allosaurus Shepherd, and Vexing Shusher. If you want your spells to resolve, Veil of Summer, Deflecting Swat, Ricochet Trap, and Imp's Mischief. Bolt Bend is also good if you have a commander whose power is above or equal to 4.

I feel like people getting salty about counterspells is making a mountain out of a mole hill

@starmanda88

Жыл бұрын

I know it’s like these people just expect to play solitaire and have no one interact with them. It’s ridiculous.

@Ixidora

Жыл бұрын

Finally some reasonable people

A strong recommendation of mine is Mandate of Peace against your blue mass bounce instants (Cyclonic Rift, Aetherize, Aetherspouts). Mandate can act as a quasi counter at the cost of whoever's combat you cast it on. It "counters" uncounterable spells. It can also be used as a fog, a mass stifle effect on someone's attack/damage triggers, AND as a "We have Silence at home" to protect your spells on your second main phase if you're going for a combo win.

If your in green/red you can use Vexing Shusher to annoy the control player 😁

14:14 Crim is on the same wavelength as me. That is probably my favorite flavor text and it's the only card I have ever bought for more than 100$ "Amateur"

@adamfiliatreault3393

Жыл бұрын

I think this attitude is why I really hate Crim being on the Clash crew. He is there to make people feel miserable and will call people amateurs for trying to resolve a spell against a blue player. He spent the whole podcast laughing at people and being happy when the crew was talking about how bad some cards/effects made new players feel

@KingQuetzal

Жыл бұрын

​@@adamfiliatreault3393 It's a joke. He just knows how to have fun playing a game. Maybe you should grow up.

@adamfiliatreault3393

Жыл бұрын

@@KingQuetzal Players like that are toxic - end of story. I get that cEDH players want to exclude new players, but to hear such disdain from someone playing in a casual group is emblematic of the problem with EDH currently

@KingQuetzal

Жыл бұрын

@@adamfiliatreault3393 He's toxic since he wants to have fun? Also he doesn't play with new players, they play with the same group every week. You are calling 1/5 of the players toxic, maybe you just don't like the game?

@adamfiliatreault3393

Жыл бұрын

@@KingQuetzal nope I just don't like that kind of player at a casual table 🤷🏻‍♂️

MTGGoldfish: Blue is probably the weakest color in EDH Also MTGGoldfish: How to beat Blue

@SP-ik6cc

Жыл бұрын

exactly

@brandondrake4609

Жыл бұрын

I was gonna post this if no one else had already lol.

@pixelbomb97

Жыл бұрын

To be fair, that's mainly Richard's opinion and he's not here.

@SP-ik6cc

Жыл бұрын

@@pixelbomb97 They did multiple episodes ranking the colors for the important aspects of the game and blue was on the bottom on most of them while green was always either in 1st or 2nd place

@bodaciouschad

Жыл бұрын

Weakest mono color. Best splash.

You can rag on blue all you want (I'd be the first one to admit I don't like to be countered and that I HATE mill) but there's no denying that when a combo is about to go off, the entire table turns to the blue player and go "please have an answer!" because there are combos that can only be stopped on the stack. An aristocrat deck for example, once it has its pieces on the board, becomes very hard to respond to because they can sacrifice at anytime and more often than not for free; trying removal is just asking to get nuked.

@iNCoMpeTeNtplAyS

Жыл бұрын

You don't need blue to stop combo unless it's storm. You can stop combo otherwise with well timed removal, no blue necessary.

@lucascoutinho2441

Жыл бұрын

All colors have some amount of stack interaction. Just not on the same level as blue. Black has Withering Boon, Dash Hopes, Deathgrip, Muck Drubb, Word of Command. Red has redirects, copy effects, counters for blue spells and tibalt's trickery. White has Mana Tithe, Lapse of Certainty and silence effects. Green can give stuff hexproof/shroud/protection/can't be countered at instant speed and counter things that target their stuff (like Avoid Fate). Even colorless has one in Warping Wail.

@deifiedtitan

Жыл бұрын

People say this like the combo deck isn’t running blue specifically to hold up the counter when they pop.

@iNCoMpeTeNtplAyS

Жыл бұрын

@@deifiedtitan hit them with a dual caster mage. That boy has been ramp, counter spell, and removal for me.

@kickinwang1817

Жыл бұрын

I stop combos all the time outside of U. I literally just stopped Simic from going infinite with Kodama plus bounce land in a crappy Mono Red deck of all things. Outside of a very small percentage of combos every color can meaningfully interact with them with cards that are already widely played. While I agree with the sentiment that a lot of people who complain about U are misinformed, I think the notion that U is required at most tables to stop combo is pretty similar tbh.

Does Crim play confounding conundrum? Seems like it fights against exactly what Crim hates most….ramp

One of the reasons people have such an issue with Blue is that, with the exception of things like Veil of Summer, the only answer to Blue in the cards themselves is to play Blue. How do you answer Blues counters? With your own Blue counter.

@iNCoMpeTeNtplAyS

Жыл бұрын

I run pyroblast and the red elemental blast plus the red copy spells. I have copied my friends cryptic command for 2 red and countered theirs which is fun and red elemental blasting a cyclonic rift I always good. If I don't need it, I just discard it to thrill of possibility or any similar spell when there's no blue

@bye1551

Жыл бұрын

Exactly. Blue having a monopoly on the stack makes it infuriating to play against as any colour other than blue (maybe red if you have a tonne of redirect effects).

@wesleywyndam-pryce5305

Жыл бұрын

you're completely wrong, there's a lot of ways to hate blue in every color, also every color except maybe black has a way to make counter spells impossible to actually play but even then artifacts do the trick. this is purely an incorrect statement.

@wesleywyndam-pryce5305

Жыл бұрын

@@bye1551 that's purely untrue, stop running generic goodness and run hate. theres a SHIT TON of color pie breaking hate cards and counter spells and locks that shut down w.e it is you want to shut down.

Veil of summer and autumn's veil are both worth playing if ur in mono green or 2 color with green. Its such a blowout when it works. I play both in my cedh deck which is mono green Yisan. They're both amazingly clutch in a green creature deck and if you're playing green without blue its the best protection you can get in the format.

A recommendation for spellslinger decks is Overmaster. It’s a 1 mana red sorcery that draws you a card and makes the next instant or sorcery you cast this turn uncounterable.

@nicolascaccia5543

Жыл бұрын

And cost too much

@cOoO0o0OoO0Oo0OoO0o

Жыл бұрын

@@nicolascaccia5543 i just printed it = less than 10 cents

Our group has started running conquerer's s flail since it's been reprinted and that card is very very strong

If a creature has resolved, I have had a chance to interact with my own creature - and thus with removal. That can be as simple as a sac outlet, something that creates Dies-triggers (Moldervine Rec is lovely), or actual protection effects such as Endless Sands. Rakdos gets all of two spells (?) to interact with Counterspell, and Tibalt's Trickery can spin into the next Counterspell all the same - or something even worse. Cool. Yay Pyroblast I guess. Glad none of my relevant creatures can exist for even half a second, denying me of any form of interaction. That all is not even considering ETB effects. It's not *just* a psychological effect. The difference between "kill it immediately" and "make it never exist" is so very large, because interaction with the stack basically does not exist outside of Blue (counterspell) and Green (uncounterable) - but interaction with an existing creature is universal. But ultimately, the way to play "around" counterspells is to force their hand. Eventually a 4/4 resolves and they will die to a random 4/4 if they don't bounce it at which point they have less resources to say 'no'.

@bye1551

Жыл бұрын

This exactly. Counterspells have 1 form of interaction: other counterspells. Removal has 10.

With Crim, Veil of Summer was the best counterspell in Modern until it was banned.

@adamfiliatreault3393

Жыл бұрын

I am still so surprised that Veil was banned in as many formats as it was. Green got ONE thing to help fight counterspells and removal, and all the blue players freaked out. It was one card that made people play fairly for one turn (or even just use two counterspells instead of one)

@Spaced92

Жыл бұрын

@@adamfiliatreault3393 One thing? Really? Green has taken over being the enemy of Blue more than freaking Red at this point, there's nothing fair about about a 1 mana instant that replaces itself negating TWO COLOURS

@adamfiliatreault3393

Жыл бұрын

@@Spaced92 you mean the ONE card they have that gives them a chance against blue? They have uncounterable creatures that are then so easily removed. This card is so fair for green to just give them a chance

@BobardeZanzibar

Жыл бұрын

@@adamfiliatreault3393 You could not possibly believe that green struggles against blue.

@adamfiliatreault3393

Жыл бұрын

@@BobardeZanzibar it very much does. Green has to play at sorcery speed and blue just gets to hold up a near infinite amount of denial with no consequences

What can you do against blue, precious? Boil 'em, Choke 'em, stick 'em in a stew!

Boseiju, Who Shelters All has done some work in Storm decks that rely on a big "Storm starter" card like Mizzix's Mastery or Past In Flames. It is worthwhile in a list like that, in my opinion.

I haven't laughed this much through one of these videos yet. But man I was cackling.

Watery Dave had me dying XD

I think the biggest problem with blue is its asymmetry.. i.e. The blue player can unilaterally decide to stop you doing what you want to do, and unless you're also playing blue, you cant stop them doing what they want to do.

@peytonmillner6417

Жыл бұрын

Incorrect. Blue counters have 3 or more interactions against them. Stax based immunity such as uncounterable. Pre-cast interation, and recursion and recasting. Counters have 1 time when they matter and several colors have immunity to them. The problem is what counters counterspells people dont like using them. Dragon lord. Overmaster. Cavern. 5 land ramp spells and cast 3 or 4 spells in one turn. Use more activated abilities or splitsecond spells. Etc. People hate control because they have narrowed their entire game plan to winning and dont have interaction to anything, or the blue player got like 9 mana before turn 4 and went first and no one gets to play. Blues problem is not having a real wincon. But instead strangling peoples reasources until a few 1/1 birds win. They dont have enough craterhoof behemoths. They dont have torments. They have single target bounce that can hits lands that they spam them. Counters just stop people from popping off. Blue players have so few real wincons that they are forced to strangle others wincons.

@soleo2783

Жыл бұрын

​@@peytonmillner6417 the problem is that most of the cards that counter blue, are either blue, or dont do anything against any color that isnt blue, so most are not worth running unless you KNOW you are playing against blue.

@eon2330

Жыл бұрын

@@soleo2783 thats an issue with forcing everywincon on the stack now. Its infuriating. Especially since anti-blue cards when played cripple blue out of the game entirely. Like anti-island cards. Stack interaction should have never been this blatantly 1 sided or important anyway :(

With the Torghast reference I saw the opposite. Everyone I played with or read comments from online seemed to universally hate Torghast because it was just a lottery whether you get your OP powers or not and you smash the dungeon or you have to slog through it for an indeterminate amount of time. Horrific Visions were anywhere from disliked to well liked because they were deterministic. You knew what was coming and could add more mechanics to the vision through the masks at your leisure as your gear progressed so you noticed the change. Torghast's difficulty was just add more numbers.

My quick take on counter magic vs removal feel bads is this. In a deck building process when you assemble all your pieces together that you want to win with, you then add ways to protect them. Swiftfoot boots or lightning greaves to make creatures untargetable. Recursion so that if it ends up in the graveyard you still have a chance to get it back. Haste effects to help get things off to a faster pace, protection spells that prevent targeted removal or board wipes. However there are very limited answers to put into your deck to interact with counterspells other than counterspells themselves. Yes there are a few things that make spells uncounnterable or make it so they can't cast spells at I start speed. But even those answers are limited. So in short it often feels bad because there are so many various ways to interact with the board and opponent when they try to remove something, but when they try to counter a spell on the stack, if you aren't running counter magic yourself chances are you don't have a way to interact in your hand I'd you have one at all in your deck, thus the feel bad

Richard leaves the office and now the clash boys are getting rowdy, I like it! Clash On!

Control is completely fine and even fun to play against as long as the player is good at control! It sucks to be the person that goes right before a control player if they aren’t good because they feel like they need to counter something so they just counter all your stuff and nobody else’s. However a good control player will know what to counter and when to counter.

Counterspells in blue and ramp cards in green are very similar in the fact that yes, surface level even the strongest of them are relatively fair but the sheer quantity and draw power in both colors makes these far more of an issue and basically removes any shortcomings said cards would usually have.

@BobardeZanzibar

Жыл бұрын

Uh, blue still has bad creatures and has difficulty beating multiple players. This does not apply to 60 card.

Next one: how to stop Green (you can't)

War's Toll! Can definitely draw some aggro, but paints people into corners. Control players can't play out mana rocks, creature decks have to swing in with utility pieces.... It's great!

Another note...the main issue with the control player is that they usually are not running pure control. The fishbowl agreed the control player is helpful against the combo player...usually they are the same nowadays. Funny enough Crim is kinda onto something...Green continues to get printed Uncounterable / Hexproof (Evasion) creatures which actually can pressure the control player's life total. See: A. Shepherd Toski Questing Beast Rhonas 1 & 2 etc.

for seedtime, if your blue player doesn't know to play around it and you're turn is before theirs you can snap it off in response to their cantrips they want off before they untap. thats even more narrow but adding up enough narrow uses makes it a little less narrow overall

58:05 Tomer carrying the team back to back haha

Multani's Presence needs some love too. One mana draw if a spell you cast is countered.

I think Hullbreaker Horror is the best uncounterable creature against control. Instant speed, uncounterable and can remand spells? It's control's nightmare.

@SSolemn

Жыл бұрын

but it is blue....

@efnfen

Жыл бұрын

@@SSolemn so is negate and fierce guardianship which they talked about....

My problem with blue is and has always been that it’s essentially the only color that can interact with the stack. Imo that is a huge unbalanced factor in blues favor. When the stack is a huge part of any mtg match and only one color has the ability to effectively interact with an entire part of the game that is unbalanced. The problem is if you are not playing a blue deck then there is almost NOTHING you can do about a blue player countering / bouncing your permanents and as Seth said there is an almost unlimited number of variations of bounce and counter for blue players to fill their decks with in singleton formats. This is the problem with blue. This is why blue can make people salty. Frankly it makes Crim look super cringe when he plays hide the ball with this. It is just a FACT. There is a reason that legacy decks, the highest power format, revolve around blue. Having access to counter magic ( and free counter magic at that !!! ) is so extremely powerful that it is game changing to not have it. Edit: Just to add to this a bit to address the "doom blade = counter spell" nonsense. No that is just 100% untrue. If they were essentailly the same why isnt doom blade a legacy staple while force of will is? Removing something at stack and preventing it from resolving is SUBSTANTIALLY more powerful than allowing it to resolve and then killing it. They are completely different. If you get doom bladed you can still: get ETB, bounce back to hand, phase out, protect color, instant speed bite, undying mallice, etc.. Compare this to counter spell where unless your also blue then you essentially have no options. Doom blade can be responded to in some way by basically all colors. Counter spell basically only by blue. There is a reason force of will and not doom blade is a legacy staple. Counter Spell is much harder to stop ( usually requires another counter spell ) PLUS its far more versatile as it can stop combo's and key creatures. Counter spell is nearly a guaranteed answer to anything your opponent does. Doom blade allows your opponent a much larger ability to respond, guarantees some value from ETB's, and only works on creatures.

@TeaHauss

Жыл бұрын

So what you're saying is we need to give all the colors counterspells? I'm down. White: colorshift remand or spell pierce, oppo gains life swords-to-plowshares style, give target spell ward 2 Black: pay life/lose life = cmc, exile target spell on the stack (maybe sac creatures=cmc of that spell) Red: chaos (i'd like a red spell that turned other spells into a morph) Green: doesn't get anything because they already have everything (LOL), at the very minimum, overcosted (like a 4 mana cancel since they have all the mana anyway)

@alexmichaelfriedman

Жыл бұрын

@@TeaHauss Not sure what the best solution is here. Giving every color a form of counter spell would balance the colors access to the mechanic for sure. However then it may increase counter spell usage substantially which would have other consequences such as making non-etb creatures substantially worse. This is a problem a MTG has faced for a long time and why we have seen increasingly powerful ETB effects. It seems to me that counter spells should have been printed much much more in-frequently and have came with a MUCH higher trade-off. Being able to interact with the stack is such a core part of MTG that having cheap ( or mana-free w/ some cards ) access to shutting it down is very very powerful. They played around with the idea of "split second" ( i think thats the term? ) cards for a while where once cast "ended" the stack. I.e. no further stack interaction. Increased usage of this could be another option but that seems to kind of be the nuclear option as well? So yea seems to me the problem here is a sort of no-win situation. The stack is just such a core part of MTG that counter spells should have been more carefully printed but you cant un-ring that bell. We cant erata / ban all counter spells ( tho i would love that 🤣 ) and it doesnt seem like we will get color shifted counter magic any time soon ( if that is even a good idea ) so we have a situation where counter magic heavy blue decks are CLEARLY going to be salty....

@smegmalasagna

Жыл бұрын

I would like to have other colours to also have counterspells. I am a firm believer that every colour should be able to do everything, but with drawbacks if it is in a colour that doesn’t really do those type of things. Feed the Swarm is a good example.

@maxreis9534

Жыл бұрын

Nobody would play blue anymore if other colors had good counterspells. It's the only thing that blue does well in edh.

@alexmichaelfriedman

Жыл бұрын

@@maxreis9534 If the only reason you play blue is counter spell then you don't deserve counter spell and are part of the problem 😛

Wait so if you give something hexproof on the stack when a spell it is already countering it or targeting it and it gains hex proof before the spell targeting it resolves it just fizzles out was this always how it operated or was that a recent change

This was a very good episode

Conquerer's flail is an equipment with grand abolisher text that really like

Crim with the "amateur". I LOVE IT!

wandering archaic triggers before your opponents counter spell if they don't pay, i haven't played in years but I don't think you could actually target their counter spell then could you? their spell won't actually be on the stack yet will it?

I am not a psychologist, but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. I believe the difference between a counterspell and a battlefield removal spell is not only psychological, it is also physiological. When you resolve your spell, that small success causes your body to release a small amount of dopamine (the pleasure hormone), and so you feel a degree of pleasure, a.k.a. sugar. You also get a similar release of dopamine as you progress toward a goal, in this case, whatever it is you want to accomplish in the game of M:tG. And resolving your spells typically progresses you toward that goal. When your thing is removed, either on the battlefield or from the stack, your body releases a bit of cortisol (stress hormone), causing you to feel some degree of negative emotion, a.k.a. salt. So here's the difference between doom blade and counterspell: Doomblade = some sugar plus some salt. You may not like the taste, but you can swallow it. Counterspell = all salt, no sugar. Tastes super yucky. In the counterspell scenario, there is no positive emotion to offset the negative emotion, so it feels worse, even though it is a similar result in game mechanics. I expect that stax pieces have a similar psychological and physiological effect, since they generally prevent you from progressing toward your goal, and generate feelings of frustration in the process. Having said all that, sensitivity to both positive and negative emotion varies from individual to individual. And a person could employ various mental strategies augment their response, such as planning to bait out a counterspell, which would elicit a feeling of success rather than failure when your spell is countered. And kudos to the Holiday Inn Express.

I'm glad I got the Torghast reference

I loved seedtime in kalamax. When people would counter my value engines id get 2 extra turns

I wish blue didn’t have this stigma with it when it came to commander. With the most blue cards available as any format basically, there’s so much more blue has/can do in its history throughout the game. I love adding blue to a gruul style deck and use it’s clones, shapeshifter shenanigans, legend rule breaks, p/t shifters, yaknow the FUN stuff.

I usually use the counter spells on certain conditions. a protection for my board state and if a player is about to combo off before I win. other than that if I'm far off from winning I let my friends do their thing. When I'm not playing blue I bait out those counters. make them use it so you can do a different thing. I like the challenge of going through something tricky but that's just me.

I feel so much for Crim. This is just a game of rock, paper, scissors: aggro, combo and control. Control is board police at the table whenever someone needs an answer, and in the same turn a villain when they're the one being answered. People just want to win, and I am surprised that nobody was man enough to admit that is really why they hate interaction - oh wait Richard was absent.

I was wondering why "Rhythm of the Wild" went up in price...Lol *Thanks for the Content* !

I play tons of blue (mono blue/esper/bant) and everyone's always ask me if "it resolves".... I always reply that counters are for win cons or to protect my winning turn, and that they assume I do not counter until they put something gross xD Plus not because of money, but because of self restriction, I don't play the free counters or mill. I still win lots of games, against stax, free counters and high power decks, so not everything is about the color.

@deathsquiggle

Жыл бұрын

People will ask if their opt or springleaf drum resolves, it's adorable

@bye1551

Жыл бұрын

@@deathsquiggle in fairness, sometimes the smart play is to counter their card draw to keep them off tempo. If they don't have a land drop for turn, or they're empty handed a counterspell can crush them and set them back far enough to where it's not just a 1 for 1 but basically ending 2 turns

@alaraplatt8104

Жыл бұрын

@@bye1551 good if you plan on running them over, not so much if its a long game and you have a limited number of answers for your opponents threats

My motto when dealing with control: Make them have it.

I have a Rakdos deck that has a bit of a hatred for Blue you could say, it is full of big clunky spells, so it's very vulnerable to Blue interaction. Thusly, it runs Boiling Seas, Omen of Fire, 3 other land destruction effects (two of which are on bodies), as well as Citadel of Pain. It's designed for a fairly weird meta, where 'hate' cards are allowed. It's all about Chaos in the deck, and Blue seems more of an 'order' colour, it's in Azorius after all, Rakdos' sworn enemy (along with Bant in general). I'd like to point out that if you build your Blue deck the right way, you can use Energy Flux in it, which is pretty savage to anybody running Artifacts, meaning that even if it hurts you, it probably will hurt everyone else way, way worse. Counterspells are really powerful if you know how to play them, they are a terrible strategy if you are incompetent. I think a lot of people who hate them also don't really know how to play them, and thus struggle to play around them effectively, it's also possible to build a soild mono-Blue deck with well over 10 Counters. I feel like Wandering Archaic is a pretty solid card, but the back is awful and you should never play it. It makes life a nightmare for Counter users. Pryoblast is actually pretty solid, you just need someone to have a Blue Commander for the card to have value.

DUDE! Seedtime is my new favourite card, I was looking for Rebecca Guay card and found this gem. I bought it last week and found that now it spiked XD Edit: great content BTW

there is several cards missed, and I'm glad cause I need to buy them still lol.

Fun topic!

I think the stax salt pieces are very misplaced because those cards really don't see play. Combos with thoracle and Urza are much more common and there's usually going to be blue if you're planning on comboing

Painters servant potentially makes veil of summer and seedtime alot better...if you are doing something else with it at least [ie- grindstone]

Blue: Control isn't so bad. Also blue: Counterspell solves everything. I gotta tell ya blue, you're in denial ;)

Would love to see a counterspell tierlist on the podcast

Tomer, me and my Black Serpent of N'zoth got your reference.

How would u play against my 38 counterspell baral chief compliance deck

I always felt terrible playing blue because it does feel like the color that deprives other players of their fun the most often. I still do a large amount of control with my decks, just through things like board wipes and artifact/enchantment removal instead of counter spells.

A big difference between counter magic and doom blade is that you can react to doom blade on the stack. You can Teferi’s pro, blink, phase, give indestructible, etc to your creature. You have a chance to respond, you can sac it for an effect, you get the ETB of the creature, you can tap it for an effect of another card. There are many ways to interact and do something before the doom blade resolves. When something is being countered, the only thing you can do is counter the counter and if you’re not in blue you didn’t get a chance to interact.

@adamfiliatreault3393

Жыл бұрын

This is a key point - there is no way to stop blue unless you are also playing blue, which perpetuates the format turning into "play blue or lose" (much like cEDH is now)

Like Tomer mentioned... Aggro is a type of control deck, only its form of control is just ending the game before it starts.

How to beat blue: - Play 2 spells that combine into the strength of 1 bigger spell. They can only counter one of them usually, and probably won’t if it’s a 3 cmc creature. - use these lower cmc creatures to chip away at their health total. - don’t overcommit. If you have them on a 3-4 turn clock it’s good enough. - make value plays that make it so you can handle the 1 for 1’s better than they can in late game. - don’t get baited into counter wars. A counter war is good for control players since you put resources into stuff that doesn’t pressure their life and they will win if they have mana open. Only counter war when you see they need to tap out for the first counterspell.

Dumb question: in commander’s multiplayer format, if the active player has multiple creatures and decides to attack, can he attack multiple opponents? Example: Player A has five creatures in play and decides to attack player B with two creatures, player C with one creature, leave his other two creatures untapped to block against an anticipated attack from player D. Is this legal ?

Brand vs Insurrection. Epic

Countering is the same as removal - like being hit with Swords to Plowshares.

Something that works wonders is betting face, is looking at every one at the table and politicing. To covince everybody to attack the blue player. Is not a nice solution or something that I agree with. But it works.

@fernandotanigushi8310

Жыл бұрын

I was asking myself how my friend who always brought mono blue and comboed off, at least once every week, aleays got away with it and it hit me. He kept salt at minimum, he choose the "worse" line possible because it didn't angered the table, while he sculpt his hand for the win. His playstyle looks like Richard's in a sense he is great at redflecting and keeping a low profile

So one of the best way of killing an controll player is to play the hunted creatures or everything that fills the board outside of the controll players?

Richard literally *just* played Lifeforce. Pretty sure that stops a Torment of Hellfire ;)

Blue has a place in the format. However, it's easy to get tired of it when the control is focused on too much.

Run Dispel if you have blue. 1 mana is easy to spare and counters target instant, just to make the blue player think “Maybe I should hit someone else” Your one mana will get mad respect

As a control player, some more nightmare creatures are Koma, Cosmos Serpent and Ulamog, Ceaseless Hunger.

I like price of glory for these situations.

Isachron seedtime scepter :)

I think the thing that gets people anoyed most often is indirect the card draw. Because this scenario which Seth mentions a few times where "all your stuff gets countered and bounced" can only happen if the blue player drew like 30 cards (I personaly think the problem is that these decks that do that just lack enough wincons). TBH I dont care if somebody removes my card or counters it, in "casual" I dont even think that except for the free ones counterspells are especially good as you 1 for 1, loose a lot of tempo and risk that nobody plays something impactfull and take an even bigger tempo swing for nothing (in some metas you have to play counters i guess, if people play more on the stack then on the battlefield)

@peytonmillner6417

Жыл бұрын

The problem is most of blues wincons are 1. Easily countered by standard decks such as mill and eldrazi/gift anything that cycles or replaces the deck OR mass production kill the treasure, etc. 2. High expensive spells that do nothing immediatly and usually gain value off of the cmc of the next spells cast (extra turns/shark typhoon/metalurgic summonings style effects/ copy effects etc) 3. Are combo win cons that are either cedh thoracle or risky self mill. Blue lacks the solid I dropped this and win/gain advantage without needing anything else. Most rely on an opponent or multiple turns/more casts. Making blue less offensively explosive. As blue lacks ramp.

My biggest problem with blue is that early in my mtg playing, it always seemed like playing blue the most efficient/only way to counter blue. How do you beat counters? Either with efficient counterspells of your own or draw more threats than the blue player has counters. How do you beat excessive card draw? Only blue has the asymmetrical effects of notion thief and Narset.

@maxreis9534

Жыл бұрын

Quick answer: Establishing a board and gaining card advantage. Very very easy in 2022.

@brningpyre

Жыл бұрын

Blue definitely has an effect on newer/less-experienced players. They get one threat countered, and all of a sudden they have to adjust their gameplan, and they really overvalue that 1-for-1 trade. How do you beat excessive card draw? Other colours draw more cards, LOL (see Green). Plenty of colours have assymetrical effects, it's just that same effect of running into something once, and overvaluing and becoming scared of it.

So recently I watched podcasts asking is blue the worst color I'm commander then to see one needing to be dedicated on how to beat blue 🤪

I do think a lot of the blue hate comes from mindset. I say this as a luke-warm-on-blue player in a blue heavy meta. A common perspective that makes people salty is if they like playing threats then they want to compete with their opponents in terms of playing threats. If an opponent wants to play on different terms that may be their weakness, that person might feel the opponent has an unfair advantage. The thing is all the colors of Magic have their own strengths and weaknesses and with four players you are bound to have at least one opponent who is (or has a deck that is) good at what you are bad at. I also think there is some element of 100 card singleton effecting deck archetypes so much that people don't have a clear understanding of how to play or play against certain archetypes. I've learned a ton from Modern and Limited players that I would never have known if I only ever played EDH (and that is one of the advantages of watching this channel btw). It can seem like there are fewer viable archetypes to play (which I do consider true at this time), so people can easily assume everyone is playing the same general archetype. I have noticed WotC designing to make more archetypes viable in EDH, and it's in their interest to design for a wider range of people. That's a good thing in my opinion and everybody just needs to get used to it, because everyone else is not exactly like you.

Counterspells are very flexible and inflexible. You can't do anything if a bomb revolves and sitting there with a bunch of counters doesn't do anything. In regards to the psychological stuff: mtg Players should reflect and critique their own feelings more.

what seth said about pressure the blue player is 100% right but winning through that is also far more satisfying a win for the blue player

Autumns veil also doesnt specify that you can target but opponents cant unlike hexproof. It doesnt draw And you dont get as big a reward casting it on your opponents turn. Veil of Summer has the problem of cantripping during the blue players turn and threatening uncounterable interaction.

I made a blue permanents deck with Nezahal to break the stigma that blue is nothing but instants and sorceries plus counter spells

I can watch a Podcast of them talking about WOW XD

My issue is with hard counterspells. They don't require an equal investment, or really even close. I can set things up over multiple turns and spend X mana on some big thing, and then 1 card and 2 mana NOPE, you don't get to do that thing and you've wasted your turn. Even with things like force of will/negation, most of the time you are trading two cards to essentially remove something and skip their turn... thats a pretty good rate. Now counters like force spike and mana leak, the taxing counters, those are fine with me, its a lot easier to play around those and its more of a "fair" situation, being taxed for whatever I'm trying to do.

yes tomer I agree as someone who also played bfa and shadowlands XD

Uba mask is my favourite low key control hate, exile those draws and play them right now or lose them. Makes counters really poor.

So Seth and the rest of the crew have kept making the comparison that counterspells are just removal and that having spells countered is just a emotional thing. While I do believe there is some amount of emotion involved, I think the comparison undermines the power of counterspells and undervalues the listeners. First while most removal only hits creatures, most counterspells hit everything. Secondly countering a creature doesn't just remove the creature, it also negates both its enter-the-battlefield and leaves-the-battlefield triggers. Using Solemn Simulacrum, a MTGGodfish commander favorite, if it is just removed you still draw a card and search up a land, while if it is countered you get nothing. Another thing is that there are various ways of protecting creatures once they are on the battlefield from protection with God's Willing, to indestructible with Heroic Intervention or even just bounce, while very few cards allow you to protect creatures on the stack. And lastly there are various ways to get value from creatures on the battlefield from various sacrifice engines like Phyrexian Altar or Deadly Dispute. Once again countering the creature prevents all of this. Now I want to close this off by saying I'm not personally bothered by counterspells in commander and in fact don't believe most are very good (you are trading one card of yours with one card from a single opponent, while the others players lose nothing) but I do believe we need to stop equating counterspells to removal as it does disservice to all

I love tibalt trickery in my none blue red decks

There is more than one Cyclonic Rift if you have enough Islands - Spectral Deluge

Can we get 'Dunk on Crim' merch with Scoops

As a professional game designer, Tomer definitely has the basics of game design down, but definitely doesn't understand foundational principles. The only bad design is design that doesn't achieve your goals. You may not agree with the design of free counterspells, or like what they do to the game, but if the design of these cards help reach the games overall design goals, then it's good design.

@deifiedtitan

Жыл бұрын

You can achieve a goal while creating a terrible game environment. That just means you have terrible vision regardless of how well executed your card is. Design is more than the sum of its parts.

@AdelaarGD

Жыл бұрын

@@deifiedtitan you can absolutely say you don't like the current design direction of the game, but design direction is about setting goals, and design reaches them. You're right that design direction is part of design, but saying any individual card or mechanic is bad design without knowing the goals is simply dishonest

@smegmalasagna

Жыл бұрын

I agree, all though I think that wotc just wanted to put a busted card in all of the precons (the free card cycle) so that more people would buy them.

@deifiedtitan

Жыл бұрын

@@AdelaarGD Untrue, because it implies you have to know the intent of anything to know whether or not it’s good for you, the game, its use, etc. That is not a factor for the end user. They don’t care about the design like that, they just care that it functions both individually and as part of the larger whole. They don’t care what the designer ‘meant’, they care what it actually ‘does’. Just because something has been designed to function in a certain way for a certain outcome does not mean that it is the best way to achieve that outcome, nor that the outcome is a desirable one, nor that it will actually achieve the intended outcome even if it should in theory. Designers aren’t gods, they accidentally create things they didn’t intend to all the time. Emergence is a factor, always. Every single design is a tool. Just because you’ve designed a hammer, and designed it to smack nails in really well, it doesn’t mean the end user won’t find ways to smash things up with it or use a wrench to smack nails. It happens with absolutely everything. It’s why design is an art, not a science. There’s too much human to account for. Look at any banned card for examples.