Multiple Counterbalance Activations on the Stack

[GUnit]

The answer to this seems obvious to me, but the fellow I was playing against on MWS was so convinced that I was wrong (and was a real stickler for using phases, etc.) that I thought I'd better get a second opinion. Here's the situation:

I have counterbalance in play and I know that the top card of my library is a brainstorm. My opponent duresses me. I flip over the brainstorm to counter the duress and then he responds with ancestral recall, demanding that I reveal the second card of my library if I want to use counterbalance on the recall.

My understanding of this situation is that I don't flip the top card of my library until the trigger actually resolves, and that he has violated the rules by attempting to play a spell during the resolution of my triggered effect. Further, if he had played recall in response to his duress, or in response to the initial counterbalance trigger in either event there would exists two counterbalance triggers on the stack which both would reveal brainstorm, and thus counter both spells.

[Harlequin]

In short, Yes you have it right.  Both spells will be countered no matter how tricky he gets.

Firstly, you will never go to the 2nd card in the deck because the top card of your deck stays intact (you simply reveal it). 

That asside, you are correct in that reguardless of how the timeing goes. You will have two independant CB triggers, each of which will resolve independantly, and effect one spell each time.  Also, you only reveal the card when the CB trigger resolves (not before).

How the stack gets set up is up to your opponent:

1) If they respond to the first trigger the stack looks like this:

top- CB (for the Recall)
Recall
CB (for the Duress)
Duress

If that's the case, you will reveal the brainstorm to first counter the recall, and then as the stack continues, you will reveal it again to hit the duress.

2) If he alows the stack to partially resolve:

CB (for Duress)
Duress

Now he lets that partially resolve... so you reveal the brainstorm; Counter and remove Duress from the stack; and un-reveal the brainstorm - ALL with no one getting priority because it's all contained in the trigger.

Now he can choose to play Recall....(which seems foolish) because the CB will still trigger again, and brainstorm will still cost 1 mana.

[Anusien]

I have counterbalance in play and I know that the top card of my library is a brainstorm. My opponent duresses me. I flip over the brainstorm to counter the duress and then he responds with ancestral recall, demanding that I reveal the second card of my library if I want to use counterbalance on the recall.

There's no window to play spells and abilities between the start of resolving Counterbalance and the finish.  Once you start to flip, the spell is countered or not and neither player can do anything.

[GUnit]

Thanks guys!