Counterspell

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Oldschool 93/94 Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Counterspell

Instant

Counter target spell.

wallisface on Cloaked Whispers

2 weeks ago

I’m not sure where the first iteration of this deck ended as it got deleted before I could read any closing comments. So apologies in advance if i’m stating something that’s already been discussed.

Your description has the opening statement of “I know the deck is slow, don't really care about that. These are the type of decks I like to build. So don't comment if you're not interested in helping try and help with the deck” - this commentary is at-odds with itself… in that the absolute-best way to make this deck more playable is to speed it up. It’s going to be very hard to offer suggestions that aren’t just “make the deck faster”, because that’s the primary thing this deck soo sorely needs.

Specifically, your deck needs to be doing something in all-of turns 1, 2, and 3 to progress the game… otherwise you just get left in the dust. Your options for that includes:

  • potentially having a ramp engine. Green has loads of 1-mana options for generating mana which could easily accelerate your win condition by a few turns. Ramp also helps mitigate some of the woes you’ll face with this extremely greedy mana curve.

  • potentially having control elements. If you’re wanting the game to go long enough to do your thing, you need to make sure the opponent isn’t just winning. Counterspell, Fatal Push, Thoughtseize etc all play a part in dragging the game out and allowing you time to assemble your pieces.

  • potentially dig through your deck to assemble all the cards you need. Your combo requires a lot of working pieces, and as said before, those Transmute cards are super clumsy. Cards like Preordain, Serum Visions, Opt, and Consider could all help you dig through your deck to try and get your card pieces asap - to try and make a turn 5 win as reliable as possible.

^ each of those three above options could be viable - the important thing is that your deck needs to be working towards achieving its goal from turn 1, not turn 3-4. At the moment your shell is both super slow and super fragile, which is just going to lead it to not-working.

Neotrup on Remand vs. Approach

1 month ago

The text to put Approach of the Second Sun into it's owners library is part of the resolution of the spell, so if the spell is countered or otherwise fails to resolve it will not be applied and go to the appropriate zone (in this case the hand). Compare to a card like Nexus of Fate which is a replacement effect that applies when it tries to go to the graveyard, or Gaea's Blessing which is a triggered ability that triggers when it is put into the graveyard (though only from library, not from the stack). Nexus of Fate will shuffle in if it's countered by something like Counterspell.

wallisface on Sheoldred Control

1 month ago

Some thoughts:

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

2 months ago

If I were building a deck with your colour and budget restraints, it’d be this. I’d suggest your list look very close to this, if you’re wanting to end up with an ”Azorius Aggro-Control deck”.

If you’re going down the route of specifically wanting to build around Ethersworn Canonist, it’s a completely different deck - neither aggro nor control, but instead some kind of artifact-based tempo build.

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

2 months ago
  • Preordain is miles better than Serum Visions

  • yes you can trigger Lion Sash multiple times. You’d presumably always do it in the opponents end step.

  • I should reiterate as I have been this whole thread that your artifact creatures aren’t very-well suited for a control or aggro shell at-all… this is why i’d suggested a bunch of creatures that would actually help you. I know you like Ethersworn Canonist but this is a really bad home for it - trying to force it into this deck is going to make it’s performance bad, and the deck worse.

  • Haughty Djinns 3-mana cost can be a little awkward, but i’ll note Murktide Regent is two mana and survives fine. The trick is to know the matchups well enough to gauge when to ”shields down” to cast it - or wait till you have 4-5 lands so you can also Spell Pierce or Counterspell.

  • Tolarian Terror is 1 mana and wins the game on its own. You’re in no massive rush to dump it down, but tempo-control builds could often get it down by turn 3-4 no problem.

  • Touch the Spirit Realm is fine, but not great. You’re unlikely to ever channel it, but it’ll still be decent-enough.

  • Detention Sphere is decent.

  • of course opponents will be paying 2 mana to crack clues, but only if its the best thing for them to be doing fir their turn. Them gaining clues is an advantage for them.

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

2 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • Last time you started a thread about a deck, it was described as you wanting to make a deck more competitive, but when those suggestions came through you decided you'd rather the deck be casual than strong. Is this the same scenario, or are you legitimately looking for advice on making a strong control deck.

  • Azorius Conrtol already exists as a well-defined meta archetype, consistently hovering between 1-5% of the meta. There is an established deck list here

  • The kind of deck your describing (being aggressive while also controlling the board state) is basically what the current Murktide Regent lists do - deck here. I think it is going to be very hard to justify playing white over red in such an archetype, because red brings most of the aggression, but it's probably still achievable with some concessions.

Some thoughts on your current list specifically:

  • For the deck to work, you need to be running the minimum amount of creatures possible - between 12-15. Running more than this makes it too hard to control the board, and running less than this puts you at risk of not being able to threaten damage.

  • All the creatures you run need to be able to quickly close-out the game on their own. If you check the Murktide list linked above, you'll notice all of those creatures are able to dish out extreme pressure. So far, NONE of your creatures are even remotely threatening. You want to be playing creatures that can end the game fast and can do everything they need to by-themselves. You should really be playing cards like Murktide Regent, Ledger Shredder, Tishana's Tidebinder and Solitude/Subtlety instead of these extremely weak creatures.

  • Any number of Academy Ruins is excessive when you have no real reason to want to recur any of these artifacts.

  • 3 mana countermagic is always bad - there's no reason to run Render Silent especially when you still have room to play another Counterspell instead.

  • Assemble the Players is a terrible card and shouldn't be here.

  • you need waay more wawys to powerfully interact with cards that the opponent resolves - Oppressive Rays is too weak for this. You need cards like Prismatic Ending and Leyline Binding.

  • You are severely lacking in efficient draw. I would expect Preordain instead of Peek at a bare minimum.

Femboy_baloth on Mystimechanics

2 months ago

I love this idea, always love to see control. You might want to use Dovin's Veto rather than Counterspell.

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