Magic the Gathering Arena

[anvi]

Historic Ranked is the best thing ever! I am so happy. I never knew it was linked to the Standard Ranked rank. And I get matches even faster than Standard!

 

[RuySan]

What a bunch of cry babies.

There's been lots of power creep in MTG, except when it comes to counterspells.

When I played this game competitively in the late 90, we had Counterspell, Mana leak, force of will, dismiss. draw-go archetypes were viable and were fun to play with, and or against. Both trying to rush and tear down the barrier of counterspells or set them up yourselves.

I suppose people who whine about counterspells only like mid-range boring grindfests.

 

[anvi]

I agree with the principle, but counters suck. It is taking a gun to a knife fight, no manly man would do such a thing. I sometimes even feel guilty for using white, but when you are up against endless scumbags then you gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

"I play great henge for 0 mana and gain 2 life, now I draw 3 cards per turn for the rest of the game"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T PAY 3 MANA TO COUNTER MY 0 MANA EPIC RAMP + GAIN LIFE + DRAW INFINITE CARDS + GIVE COUNTERS CANTRIP NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

 

[anvi]

That's a good point well made. Although I prefer stealing it.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[RuySan]

"I play great henge for 0 mana and gain 2 life, now I draw 3 cards per turn for the rest of the game"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T PAY 3 MANA TO COUNTER MY 0 MANA EPIC RAMP + GAIN LIFE + DRAW INFINITE CARDS + GIVE COUNTERS CANTRIP NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

In a nutshell it's pretty much this.

People get so annoyed by shitty counterspells but are fine with infinite power creep.

I miss the guessing game that is playing against Draw-Go archetypes. Back in the 90s deck strategies were more defined. Aggro/Control/Combo. Mid-range decks were in the minority. And deck strategies like land destruction were absolutely viable, but like we've seen, some people also get annoyed by land destruction. I guess the problem with these kind of pussies is seeing their plans get disrupted. I suppose you all prefer to play MTG solitaire, which means playing with the minimum interaction until someone gets the ramp/ultimatum/great henge/doom foretold engine running.

 

[Gyor]

"I play great henge for 0 mana and gain 2 life, now I draw 3 cards per turn for the rest of the game"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T PAY 3 MANA TO COUNTER MY 0 MANA EPIC RAMP + GAIN LIFE + DRAW INFINITE CARDS + GIVE COUNTERS CANTRIP NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

I'm not saying there is no room at all for counter spells, it's just way fucking too many of them, being able to counterspell 25-30 or more times in a row it fucking goofy and unfun, surely there is a reasonable compromise.

Anyways have my first major winning streak with Purphoros Brawl deck in like a week so that was nice.

I do have one deck that royally fucks up counter spell brawl decks without getting lucky (like if my Purphoros brawl deck get Rob the Rich early against a counterspell deck and just keeps firing their own counter spells against the fuckers or something). That anticontrol deck is my Lurrus deck, because I can keep playing her when I need to because she isn't an expensive commander and she is out, she let's me keep playing creatures from the graveyard. And when his counter spells are drained enough I play Angel of Destiny for the win.

 

[Telemetry]

Lol at people complaining about counterspells.

In historic, hard counters are exclusively priced at 3 and above. 3 goddamn mana. you can't reasonably have more than 4 before your deck is slowed down to a crawl and overrun by pretty much anything.
If a control deck counters every spell you cast in historic then it's your fault for over-extending or just casting blindly into 3(!!!!!) untapped lands.

Also, to use the proper nomenclature, a control deck is never a pure control. It needs to have aggro or midrange elements in it to beat more than combo decks. You know, the meta game clock.
That leaves even less room for overpriced shit like Absorb or Disallow.

I would love to see all the people complaining about """"control"""" play against legacy counter top (R.I.P.) or the new bant miracles

4x brainstorm
4x ponder
4x force of will
4x force of negation

Spoiler

 

[anvi]

I played against someone in MTGO and he countered every single card in my deck. I was impressed. Legacy is an MTG freakshow though.

 

[Axioms]

You can have interaction in Magic without excessive counter spells. Counter-spells are anti-fun in the exact same way as land destruction. Especially as some mentioned because of their availability. Its one thing if you have 4-8 counter spells and you have to make tough choices about casting them. Its another when you just counter every spell. And then run sweepers on top of that. Furthermore control is incredibly boring because it takes forever while nothing is happening.

Counter spells and red aggro are functionally solitaire decks even as control players shoot off their one single "solitaire omg wtf bbq" defense of their boring and unfun play style. This is mostly about standard though. Since historic is so fast that counter spells don't work against anything but jank.

 

[spectre]

Counterspells are one form of interaction and the only way blue can get rid of shit permanently. They print about 2-3 per set and it's not going away no matter how much you cry about it.
If you must, I think they have a weekly troll thread devoted to this particular topic on the official forums.

 

[anvi]

I liked Reality Acid.

 

[Scruffy]

so are you defending counterspells because you feel like playing blue is part of your identity (blue has always been the overpowered color, good job), or can you not read and understand the points made?

 

[spectre]

so are you defending counterspells because you feel like playing blue is part of your identity (blue has always been the overpowered color, good job), or can you not read and understand the points made?

Yes, I cannot read and understand retard-speak.
If you're playing a midrangy pile that can be easily picked apart by a control deck, the problem isn't counterspells.
If you seriously think blue and counterspells are overpowered in MtGA... dude, pls.

 

[Scruffy]

so are you defending counterspells because you feel like playing blue is part of your identity (blue has always been the overpowered color, good job), or can you not read and understand the points made?

Yes, I cannot read and understand retard-speak.
If you're playing a midrangy pile that can be easily picked apart by a control deck, the problem isn't counterspells.
If you seriously think blue and counterspells are overpowered in MtGA... dude, pls.

So you DO have reading comprehension issues
sorry about that

 

[anvi]

I think counters are op but not blue as a whole. Also there's having a deck with a few counters to protect your big stuff, and having a deck full of counters that wants to lockdown the whole game. I think what most people hate is the first one, because the second one is hard to make work. I tried it, you can have 100 counters but it wont stop them playing some 1 mana cards on turn 1, especially if they go first. If they go first they got a couple of turns before you get any counters, unless you use the 2 mana counters which are kinda shit because you can draw the essence scatter when they play a pw and you get the negate when they play game ending creatures. You can maybe bounce stuff back later but if you are having to save 3 mana to stop them playing even more stuff... as well as trying to bounce things already in play, then it is pita and you are probably gonna lose half the time. And there are a lot of 1 mana cards now which can become pumped later just by milling or whatever. So really you need to have a bunch of removal as well as counters, and then you start getting removal when you needed counters and vice versa. And then you gotta have enough draw to make sure you can counter at least once every turn... which is easier said than done. And adding removal and draw means less counters.

It is pretty legit if you can make that shit work long term. But the first deck is the one I think screws most people. That one counter that completely stops your big 6 mana game changer. I think there are way too many counters although I seem to get an easier time now than when that Simic flash counter deck was everywhere.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Axioms]

so are you defending counterspells because you feel like playing blue is part of your identity (blue has always been the overpowered color, good job), or can you not read and understand the points made?

Yes, I cannot read and understand retard-speak.
If you're playing a midrangy pile that can be easily picked apart by a control deck, the problem isn't counterspells.
If you seriously think blue and counterspells are overpowered in MtGA... dude, pls.

Blue white control has been incredibly powerful within the past year.

 

[Axioms]

I think counters are op but not blue as a whole. Also there's having a deck with a few counters to protect your big stuff, and having a deck full of counters that wants to lockdown the whole game. I think what most people hate is the first one, because the second one is hard to make work. I tried it, you can have 100 counters but it wont stop them playing some 1 mana cards on turn 1, especially if they go first. If they go first they got a couple of turns before you get any counters, unless you use the 2 mana counters which are kinda shit because you can draw the essence scatter when they play a pw and you get the negate when they play game ending creatures. You can maybe bounce stuff back later but if you are having to save 3 mana to stop them playing even more stuff... as well as trying to bounce things already in play, then it is pita and you are probably gonna lose half the time. And there are a lot of 1 mana cards now which can become pumped later just by milling or whatever. So really you need to have a bunch of removal as well as counters, and then you start getting removal when you needed counters and vice versa. And then you gotta have enough draw to make sure you can counter at least once every turn... which is easier said than done. And adding removal and draw means less counters.

It is pretty legit if you can make that shit work long term. But the first deck is the one I think screws most people. That one counter that completely stops your big 6 mana game changer. I think there are way too many counters although I seem to get an easier time now than when that Simic flash counter deck was everywhere.

Disagree, the second one is the problem and it won worlds or w/e within the last 2 years. Blue/white control with sweepers. You can easily sit in mythic with control as a normie player as well. The problem with control is it is anti-fun. The same way land destruction is. The problems with the 2 are incredibly similar in fact. So if LD is bad then control is bad. If anything I prefer LD. But only one was gotten rid of.

If people had 4 counter spell cards in a deck no one would really care. You'd only draw half in a game on average and typically only one early on.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

main issue with counterspells is existence of white color. Should be purged

APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD

 

[Scruffy]

so are you defending counterspells because you feel like playing blue is part of your identity (blue has always been the overpowered color, good job), or can you not read and understand the points made?

Yes, I cannot read and understand retard-speak.
If you're playing a midrangy pile that can be easily picked apart by a control deck, the problem isn't counterspells.
If you seriously think blue and counterspells are overpowered in MtGA... dude, pls.

Blue white control has been incredibly powerful within the past year.

it indeed has been
i was not arguing that though, i clearly stated that my issue with counterspells is that they are bad design
a concept too complex for poor spectre apparently

 

[spectre]

Blue white control has been incredibly powerful within the past year.

And it wasn't because of counterspells (which just trade one for one) that made it happen.
The important and irreplaceable missing piece is the Magic Negro. Absorb you could theoretically replace with any other 3 cmc counterspell, veto can be replaced by Negate.
That ban was what brought the deck down. Rest of the stuff is still in standard, and yet UW control barely has any presence (unless you count WUB Yorion, which is a different deck entirely).

Sometimes control decks win. It's one of the main archetypes in the game, so it sometimes get .

The problem with control is it is anti-fun. The same way land destruction is.

You mean control or counterspells? It's not the same. Control decks are needed in the game or you would be whining instead about combo decks ruining it all for everyone.

Land destruction was nerfed to oblivion because it prevented you from actually playing the game. You can't do anything in MtG without lands. The problem wasn't perhaps in the land destruction mechanic itself (people make do in eternal formats),
but in the resource system used in MtG - fighting mana screw/flood is something people still struggle with, if you add the other guy messing with your lands, I can see this as being bad for the game.

If people had 4 counter spell cards in a deck no one would really care. You'd only draw half in a game on average and typically only one early on.

So, 4 is the magic number? I think the UW list from worlds ran 8 or 9 maindeck counterspells and you typically don't see more than that in competitive lists that rely on them.

i clearly stated that my issue with counterspells is that they are bad design
a concept too complex for poor spectre apparently

Ok, let's discuss this "bad design".
For reference:

there are definitely ways around counters, but counterspells as a concept are, in fact, bad design. The other colors don't get a free for all treatment, they can't stop every kind of spell, while blue can.
Red kills artefacts, green kills enchantments and flyers, etc, why does blue get a "stop anything" pass?

And to answer your question - blue gets the "pass" because it's the _only_ way it can make things go away. It can bounce things back to hand all day, but this isn't a permanent solution,
it also isn't effective as it leaves you at a card disadvantage.
There is a trade-off involved in this approach. For one, blue only gets the opportunity to counterspell stuff when it's being cast, once it resolves, too late. This means you need to keep mana open and have the appropriate card on hand at this very moment.
If you draw it one turn later, or if you're tapped out, oops. If these two conditions don't sound like a big deal to you, kindly sleeve up a counterspell deck and try it out. The experience might be educational.

The cost also serves to balance the effect. Unconditional counterspell costs three (yes, rip the original counterspell). To compare, how much does it cost to remove an enchantment? One mana for a destroy effect with frills (Light of Hope).
Two mana if you want it versatile and also remove artifacts (Disenchant), as well any card in a graveyard (Return to Nature). When it comes to artifacts, one mana lets you destroy one OR bolt a creature with flying with Reckless Air Strike.
Shattered Sails costs two, but ups the versatility by adding cycling. Turns out, if you want an artifact or enchantment gone, you're paying triple by cancelling it.

Furthermore, the catch-all solution isn't really that all catching. I'm not even talking about stuff that explicitly says "cannot be countered", but stuff that isn't played - shark tokens from sharknado, feasting troll king
eating three food to come back, man-lands, activated abilities, etc. No counterspelling any of those.

So, what follows is that the counterspells are being balanced by making them an overpriced solution with a very narrow window of application. Other colors smash things, blue doesn't destroy, but bounces and counters.
It's been part of the color's identity since the game's start, so I find crying about it being poor design is rather laughable. There were balancing problems at first (Mana Drain), but as far as the effect itself, it's working the way Garfield envisioned.
Each color has its own gimmick no other does, this is another big thing about MtG's appeal.
Perhaps, blue could get a different kind of gimmick, but this is what it got in the current mechanical framework - it doesn't do to leave an entire color without answer cards.

Why would you even want to have a counterspell-type effect in the game?
Interrupt effects are present in a lot of card games. It's nothing outlandish, and canceling cards being played happen in a lot of games (I think it's actually special when you have games like Faeria which do not use any fast effects and still are mechanically engaging).
So, instants, the stack and interacting with spells and abilities on it is one of the big things about this game. You can change a spells color, mess with its targets, respond to it. Use one card, or as many as you like.
This is one of the game's strong points design wise (even though, again, it took a few years to clean this up). I believe counterspells are a vital part of these types of interactions (if you can interact with things on the stack, making the go away is a logical possibility).

Another part of counterspells is that it involves a mindgame - I have untapped blue mana and cards in hand. Are you casting a spell? A lot of people seem to have a problem with this (and too many guys playing blue have fetishised this play,
to the point that it became a bad meme), but it's a part of the game's identity (for better or worse). Since you signed up for a discussion about game design, let's focus on this instead.
For one, on the most basic level, it allows cards in your hand to interact with cards being played. This means you're not just playing with cards that are on the table for everyone to see, but it is also possible for cards tucked away in your hand
to affect the outcome of the sequence of play planned by you and your opponent. This is where interactivity comes because you now cannot guarantee that your plays will be coming through. This is a good thing for the game and its diversity
if players take a pause to consider how likely is that their opponent will throw a wrench in their plans. Once you take out "counter target spell" from the equation as a possibility, the game becomes much shallower.
Also, mind games for the sake of mind games are good. After all, it's what's keeping poker relevant.

For the record, let me say that fast effects interacting with stuff on the stack is something that isn't happening nearly enough in recent MtGA.
I suppose is up to debate how many counterspell-type effects should be in the game. Allow me to repeat myself - they print about 2-3 counterspells each set. A lot of those will not be playable in constructed, but some are.
This means the game's designers want such effects to be relevant in this game, and even after rotation, we will reach critical mass in just a few expansions.

So, why does MtG in eneral need counterspells? Apart from what's been said before and taking metagame into consideration, the short answer is - to keep combo decks and high value cards in check.
As long as there are cards that spell out (directly or indirectly) "you win the game" - as long as this card is allowed to resolve, counterspells well be needed in the ecosystem.
Otherwise, the only valid decks to play woild be fast combo that ends the game immediately, or ramp into expensive stuff. It's like spiders, remove them from the ecosystem, and you'll see things going to shit rather quickly.

Whenever people say counterspells are unfun or non-interactive, I respond with this: it's part of the game and will be. Perhaps it's you who could make the effort and make this matchup more fun and interactive.
The game has plenty of tools to do so, and if you can't or don't want to use them, you're missing out on a rather big chunk of the gameplay. It's not all about playing 6 mana beasts and turning them sideways to hit ass and leg.

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

pretty sure UW control hasn't been playable since 2019 rotation
anyway there are many very annoying things about mtg, such as coin flip to decide who goes first, counter spell tribal, discard tribal, flash decks, green's stupid 1 card combo infinite value engines, mono-red goes first nutdraw non-games, and whatever 2-5 busted bullshit cards WOTC decides to print each set that ruin the game

if you don't want to be annoyed in mtg you need IRL in person kitchen table magic where you can punch shitters who use fotm meta bullshit or build counterspell tribal decks, arena is flooded with spergs who only care about playing the top 2 or 3 busted decks and seeing "Victory!"

 

[Telemetry]

Excellent write-up spectre.

I find this kind of behavior and way of thinking rather childish and very different from how people on this site usually approach RPGs.
Take as an example Fallout 1. There are optimal ways to play the game if you want to beat it.
- You know that by taking better criticals at lvl 9 and then sniper at lvl 18 you will be an unstoppable killing demigod. Let's say you choose to neglect Speech.
- But if you disregard the shooty shooty stuff and chose to be a speech 30000% char you will get your ass handed to you in combat.
- If you focus on gambling instead and disregard both combat and speech you will have a sub-optimal char that sucks at everything.

in the first case, do you complain that the speech checks are too many and ruin the fun?
in the second case, do you complain that the super mutants are OP and should never have been in the game?
in the last case, do you complain that the game is broken and all those people that finished the game are try-hards and goddamn it you want to play your game your way?

No, cause you are a rational human being and you know that the game has rules that govern its systems. You know that in any ruleset there are bound to be more optimal or, shall we say, ''better'' ways to play and progress because that's just how life fucking works. Some things are better than others. So you adapt, either play in a way that let's you finish the game or play your way but being full aware that you might not beat the thing.

Back to Magic.
In case you haven't noticed Magic has a thing called land cards. Just by them existing Magic becomes a back and forth resource management game between you and your opponent. Who can get the most out of their limited resources and defeat the other guy.

Let's say one guy has 60 creatures with haste that can kill in one hit. The other has 60 counterspells. for the sake of argument let's say both are priced at 0. The game will go on until the guy who played second loses the game because he can't draw any more cards. Which deck was better? None and both.
The creature guy decides to put 30 counterspells of his own. Suddenly he wins every time. He can get one of his dudes to resolve and now he can just cruise to victory.
The counterspell guy then decides to put 30 creatures of his own but adds some destroy target creature type of spell. The matches suddenly became more complex and skill intensive (not by a much but still).

Add resource management to the mix and suddenly you have a card game that managed to stay relevant for 30 years.

You need ways to win the game but you need ways to stop your opponent from winning the game before you do. Creatures are the only card type basically that can do both of those things. They can switch roles at a whim. The game could have just as easily been all about creature combat. I would have hated it, the way I don't like limited, too much combat math that I don't find interesting. Luckily Garfield gave us more than that. He gave us effects that can get rid of such a flexible solutions that don't involve direct confrontation.
Example: lightning bolt in red, swords to plowshares in white, doom blade in black and, Yes, my attentive reader, counterspell in blue.
But if you look carefully at counterspell it has no power and toughness, it doesn't do 20 damage to the opponent, it doesn't win you the game by itself. A counterspell is a strictly reactionary card, designed to be a part of this resource management dance between you and your opponent.

Which is better, Nissa, shaker master or a counterspell? Pretty obvious in a vacuum, Nissa wins you the game, a counterspell does jack shit. But in the context of this aforementioned dance the answer is: it faking depends. Is the opponent way behind and if he can resolve the nissa he will pull ahead (the dance)? Then the counterspell is infinitely better because it denies your opponent additional advantage that could lead to your loss. Is the opponent ahead and the Nissa is just another nail in the coffin? Then you can pretty much wipe your ass with the counterspell because it doesn't matter if you counter or not. It just became worthless.

This dance, the resource management, you can divide in other smaller dances such as card advantage, board presence, variance (kinda) and so on that each influence eachother and matter during a match.

Good decks are finely tuned resource harvesting machines. You need a blend of resources (lands), threats (creatures and/or spells), answers (removal, counters, enchantments etc.) and tools that decrease variance (variance being randomness) to be able to win.
Variance is much more relevant for midrange/control because they are an answer based deck low on threat density, they need to find the right answer when it's needed. Speaking of legacy because that's what I'm familiar with, the best tools for that are fetch lands and the dastardly duo of brainstorm and ponder. A control deck in legacy runs 19-20 lands, half of them being fetch lands, a land that can't produce mana, just because those three tools are so good at decreasing variance. In historic you need to run 27 to not miss land drops, which cuts 7 slots from your threat/answer pool while still having enormous variance.

With all that said, ''counterspell decks'' don't exist, ''discard decks'' don't exist. There exist good and bad decks trying to achieve the ultimate goal of winning the game through whatever means the player deems to be the best or more in tune with his preferences.

A deck with only counterspells is a bad deck and your deck is even worse if you lose to such abomination.

In short, git gud

EDIT: sidenote for people that still hate counterspells, play legacy. Run aether vial and allosaurus shepherd. Never worry about a counterspell ever again.

Man, I wish everyone played legacy