U/B Confidant Counterbalance Control.

[Prometheon]

I've been playing a UB control deck with Counterbalance for awhile now, and it is very good. It's very strong againt combo, slaver and gifts, but has a very very difficult Stax matchup. It's decent against Oath, especially post-board. As a bonus, the SS matchup is an absolute joke, so if that's popular in your area, it's even more incentive to run this deck. Here's my list:

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Dark Confidant
2 Dimir Cutpurse
4 Mana Leak
4 Duress
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Rushing River
1 Darkblast
3 Mana Drain
2 Counterbalance
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Island
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Mishra’s Factory
1 Swamp


SB:
3 Annul
1 Darkblast
3 Phyrexian Negator
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Stifle

Card-by-card Rundown:

Brainstorm: A pretty obvious inclusion. Simply amazing, and even better with Counterbalance out.

Force: Self explanatory. Having a blue card is never a problem.

Dark Confidant: Your draw engine, and an amazing one at that. With Counterbalance and Top out, the deck simply goes insane. Since Darkblast, StP and Lava Dart all cost 1, you can just throw the top back on top of your deck to protect Bob from destruction.

Cutpurse: A recent addition, but it's been amazing.

Leak: An early counter, and very good. Still debating if these should become Rune Snags.

3 Drains: Only 3. I may go to a 4/3 configuration of Drains/Leaks instead of the current 3/4, as quite often Slaver or Gifts gets a shitload of mana sources down and the Leaks become irrelevant.

4 Duress: Amazing against everything but Stax, make you have a very good game againt Long.

Moxes, Lotus, Ancestral, Timewalk, Demonic, Mystical, Tinker, Colossus: All self explanatory. Sundering Titan is amazing in some decks, but here I think Colossus is the better choice here.

Rushing River, Darkblast: Just one of each, and both are ALWAYS amazing. River in particular has saved my ass an innumerable amount of times.

2 Top: Amazing with Confidant and the high number of fetches I run.

2 Counterbalance: So far, it's been unspectacular, but it did save me against R/G Beatz, and is solid against combo if it comes down. It is only "good" when you have Top already down.

The mana base: Very solid, with lots of fetches. The fetches are simply amazing with Tops, and tghe shuffle is SO good in this deck. The Mishra's Factories have been great so far. They provide more artifacts for Tinker, and can also join a Confidant or two to create a decent clock.

0 Vamp: I really really want to fit Vamp in here, but it is very difficult finding room. If Counterbalance does end up being a watse of time, I will probably go -2 Counterbalance, +1 Vamp, +1 Cutpurse.

The board: Annul comes in against Stax and Oath. Edict is NOT sided in against Oath. The plan against Oath is simply to keep Oath from resolving. Edicts are very important against other Fish decks which run more creaturs, and against Bomberman which almost always wins game 1 unless you manage to find and protect tinker very very early. Darkblast is for random decks like Goblins, SS, and against Slaver or Stax's Welders. I also often side the second one in against Long in anticipation of Xantids. The Negators are most likely coming out. The two MD Cutpurses are a new addition, and with them I've been tinkering with the board. Negators upped my threat density (a weak part of this deck) against Slaver and Gifts, but I will probably cut them and the 2 stifles for some combination of the 4th Annul (amazing against Oath and Stax), E Flux and Hurkyl's.


Some notes about the deck: As soon as Coldsnap came out, I knew Counterbalance would be a solid card. It didn't take much to run one more top and find room for 2 Counterbalances. The deck used to be something along the lines of -1 Top -2 Counterbalance -2 Cutpurse for +1 Lotus Petal, +3 Night's Whisper +1 FoF. I like my current version better.

I just recently added the Cutpurses (only played them in one tournament) and they were amazing all day. They are important because they cost 3 mana, which is a critical number to be able to counter.

Some points of Discussion: ery often this deck will give you hands where you have 2 mana on turn 1, and could do one of the following: Have Leak up, Duress your opponent, or play Confidant (or just two of these options). Against an unknown opponent going first, which would you do. This is a CONSTANT sticking point of this deck.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Going first on the play against an unknown opponent I would probably keep leak up, and here is why:  With fetch/sea/island, mox, go, you don't reveal what you are playing to your opponent.  You could be playing fish, SS, gifts, slaver, oath, or pitch long and they have no idea what it is.  Of these possible decks very few builds run mana leak (only some builds of oath and slaver) so it is likely not going to be expected by your opponent.  Leak also is effective also against basically any deck; control, stax, combo, oath, fish, SS, etc, whereas first turn duress or confident is more effective against some decks and worse against others (for example I would much rather have turn 1 leak/duress over confident against combo.  Against control I might prefer turn 1 Bob or perhaps turn 1 duress turn 2 Bob (depending on what they have in their hand))

The deck has a great deal of synergy with confident/top/counterbalance and of course the plethora of cheap disruption to take advantage of Bob.  One problem that I have noticed with these decks, however, is that without getting an early Bob down it is often difficult to keep up with one's opponent is the way of cards (amd playing him late game off a topdeck isn't very good unless your opponent is already out of gas).  Also, it is difficult to properly abuse Mana Drain without many sinks (top can soak up the burn but this is really a waste).  I would disagree with cutting Fof because it is an excellent drain sink and strong draw spell (something this deck lacks) and perhaps suggest adding in 2 or so skeletal scrying as a min-late game draw spell and drain sink.  What do you think about that?

[Purple Hat]

I really don't like bob decks that use tinker-->colossus as a win condition.  Average mana cost of the deck doesn't capture the full picture with Bob, variance matters too and colossus messes that up pretty badly.

on the Mana Leak vs. Rune Snag argument my feeling is that if you're playing 4 you want to be playing rune snag.  the reasoning here is that on turn 1 your opponent isn't likely to have enough mana to pay for either one, but in the late game snag gets better while leak gets worse.

[Prometheon]

Scrying would be an excellent card in this deck (it doesn't use it's graveyard for anything) but often Bob damage and mana burn from Drain mana keeps your life total relatively low, and I'm just not sure Scrying is the right card for the deck. FoF is good, but it's difficult to cast. Maybe I'll test it again. Also, keep in mind that Factories are also excellent drain sinks, in addition to the Tops.

Hale, you're completely right. Two tournies ago, I lost two seperate games to flipping Colossus, but it's simply a neccessary evil. Also, I will be testing Rune Snags very soon.

[wethepeople]

i have lost revealing DSC to bob, i dont really think they fit so well together =/

why not just run the regular SS kill? it is perfectly fine as it is, even if it is slow as hell.