Ah, I see. I have been away then.
Like I said, I quit playing around Judgement, so I should apologize in advance for little mistakes like this.
Although I was under the impression that you could Stifle a Standstill, casue triggered abilities like that only go on the stack once. But I can be wrong, I'm no guru.
Well, moving back to what I DO know about, and staying away from what I don't for the moment, and being this is a newbie thread, I figure this belongs as well here as anywhere. I know this isn't Type 2 related really, but it doesn't a whole new thread for it.
The advantages of letting your oponnent know what's in your hand.
Ah yes, the violation of Magic Dogma, you're not supposed to sit there and go "Look what's in my hand!" unless you're winning by just a stupid margin. This actually comes from a principle I learned when I was playing chess for a while, which is "The threat is stronger than the execution."
In chess it means the possibility/threat of taking a piece, or making an attack, is actually more effective than actually doing so. So how does this apply to magic? Take Seal of Cleansing for example. Me personally, unless playing against a green deck with Tranquility in it, I would rather have one Seal of Cleansing on the board, rather than one Disenchant in my hand. The reason is this: Your opponent sees the Seal in play, and knows any artifact or enchantment he casts is going to get destroyed, so instead of playing that Opalescence in his hand, he sits there and holds it back, waiting for a way to deal with the Seal.
The advantage being this, the more turns your opponent takes to do something, the more turns you have to make your own play.
Playing Blue/White Control for instance, laying a Seal of Cleansing on the board keeps the opponent from playing artifacts or enchantments until he was a way to get rid of the Seal. And anything he can view as a viable threat, so can you, so he's not gonna trick anyone out by playing Ornithopter. He knows that any potential artifact or enchantment threat he does play, is going to get immediately destroyed. So he waits, and waits, and waits. Meanwhile, you're drawing card, after card, after card, because he's not playing anything you readily have to deal with, so when he does finally have a way to get rid of Seal, by then he's waited so long, you've got another way to handle whatever he casts.
Now Magic is not Chess, and the disadvantage to this is that your opponent knows what you have in play, and can plan around it, versus the surprise assault of an instant Disenchant. It's my personaly preference to use Seal of Cleansing, usually in combination with Disenchant.
The principle of the threat being stronger than the execution is best shown by Standstill, and the players who still don't play anything because they're afraid of triggering it. Every turn that goes by that you don't trigger Standstill, is one card more they draw on top of Standstill. Or Daring Apprentice, which is a guaranteed counterspell, right there, staring your opponent in the face going "Play something and see what happens!"
That leads back to letting your opponent know what's in your hand. This mostly a blue tactic, but it could be applied VERY selectively to other colors.
Let's set up an imaginary game, a mono blue control deck, versus say, Replenish splashing black. (I know, humor me.
)
Say Replenish Duressed the blue deck in the very beginning of the game, and saw a counterspell in that hand. And now we're in the late game, Replenish has it's whole combo ready to go, but there's a problem. The guy playing Replenish knows there is at least one counterspell in his opponent's hand, he hasn't seen that one counter played since he Duressed and saw it. It may be the only one, but any player who's had experience with blue can tell you, all it takes is one counterspell entered in just the right point of a combo's execution to shut the entire thing down for several turns, and even spell doom for the opponent. In this instance it would be countering the Replenish.
So you know you've only got one Replenish in your hand, and every turn you wait, is one more turn he could possibly draw another counter. And you could try to play other cards to bait that Counterspell out of his hand, but what if he can deal with them with say, bounce cards, or what if they're not a threat at all?
The same advantages and disadvantages apply with this tactic as with using Seal, except that you can use this tactic to actually bait the card you want Countered and in the graveyard out of his hand. It's pretty much drawing another counter, and waiting for him to bait you again. When he does, go ahead and play that Counterspell he knows you've had since the beginning of the game, and more likely than not, he'll figure "well, now's as secure a time as I'm likely to get." and casts his Replenish, or whatever you've been waiting to counter, and Voila! Countered Spell.
The Top 5 Counterspells in Magic:
5. Rewind.
Reason: Because you don't necessarily have to untap islands with it. You can untap that Forsaken City, or those Stalking Stones you attacked with a turn earlier and need to block with this turn, or that Tolarian Academy. Not to mention free counters leave you with mana to cast other stuff, like draw power at the end of the turn, or other counterspells.
4. Force Spike.
Reason: I think Force Spike is undervalued by too many people. It's a first-turn counter, and it's cheap, so you don't have to waste a Force of Will and another card to stop that first turn Dark Ritual that would otherwise spell immediate death for your deck. It's just as good late game as well, since a lot of players don't expect to see Force Spike lomped in a deck with Arcane Denial, and Force of Will, so you can play down to one mana available, and they'll tap out, believing they can cast with impunity. Force Spike is definitely an out-of-left-field that can save you more often than not.
3. Arcane Denial.
Reason: Card advantage, card advantage, and oh yeah, card advantage. Arcane Denial is the only cantrip counterspell there is, or at least that's worth playing with. There is some debate that the card advantage it allows your opponent makes it more damaging to you than helpful, but experience has shown me, personally, otherwise. Card advantage almost always helps a blue deck more than the opponent. And if you play with Sapphire Medallion, well then it becomes a Force Spike, except without a way for the opponent to negate it. It costs the same as a Counterspell, and you draw a card on top of it. Can't get too much better than that.
2. Force of Will.
Reason: Alternate casting cost. Everyone knows Force of Will, it's the most infamous counter blue ever produced, and any blue deck worth its salt runs four of them. Force of Will's pay 1 life and remove a blue card from the game casting cost has saved many players in it's time, from being able to be cast on the first turn, to being able to be cast when tapped completely out. Having a tapped out blue deck be a safe haven for casting spells has LONG since gone by the wayside, as opponents never know if there's a Force waiting to take a piece of whatever they cast. The "invisible counter", you never quite know when it's there, but if it is, it can almost always be cast.
1. Counterspell.
Reason: Ah yes, oldie but a goodie. Short, simple, no drawbacks or potential drawbacks, and cheap. You don't lose a life, it's only two to cast, there's no way to negate it, and it doesn't give anything to your opponent. Simple, as usual, is best.
I'm sure I'm gonna fall under fire for putting things like Rewind and Force Spike up there, in place of Mana Drain. What have I been smoking? How dare I leave out Mana Drain!
The simple answer is: There wasn't enough room. Had it been top six, Mana Drain would've made it, but as it is, I withheld it for two reasons: First and most poertinent is the unfortunate potential for mana burn. If all you have is three Mana Drains, and a bunch of land, or nothing else at all, what are you supposed to use that extra three or four mana on? That's unavoidable loss of life. The second is that Mana Drain is EXTREMELY hard to obtain, it was only printed in Legends, and last I checked, it sold for about $40 apiece. I tried to use counters that most Friday Night Magic players can realistically obtain, (I know I fail with Force of Will, but c'mon, how could I not put Force of Will up there?) and most players just don't have that kind of money to put towards a counter, especially one that can ONLY be used in Type 1.
So, thoughts, suggestions, opinions, posts to say I'm full of crap, all are welcome. I'm trying to stimulate discussion here.
