Drain in Confidant Control

[The Chosen One]

Ok, let's first state that I do not own any mana drains    So, in light of that fact, if I wanted to play with them I would need to use 4 proxies for a tournament. I had built a confidant control deck (with drains proxied) and realized that ALOT of the time, I had NO outlet for drain mana. I think that confidant control could get away with ruinning counterspell in this slot. I have noticed alot of builds only running a counter base of 4 Force of Will and 4 Mana Drain. I personally don't think 8 counterspells is enough... I would like to hear opinions on this matter. If I was to build another confidant control deck I would run a counterbase of
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 -4 Mana Leak

[Harlequin]

Couterspell is a rather sub-optimal card.  Even in a deck with very few outlets, drain is just 100% better even if you burn 3/4's of the mana you get with drian ... there were a few spells that cost 1 or 2 colorless less because of drain.

If I were cutting drain, I would not cut it for counterspell.  I would definately head for some of the good 1 mana counters.  So it from your post it looks like you've got 11 to 12 slots open for countermagic.  I would do something like:

4 Force
4 Leak (assuming now that you dont need proxied drains you have full mox compliment)
+ 3 or 4 other cards... Some options would be:

-> 3 Annul

-> 2 Annul, 2 Disrupt

-> 2 Annul, 1-2 Misdirrection

I think the next best counterspell for you after force + leak (assuming not Drains), Would definately be Annul.  This card is extremely powerful across basically every deck.  That said I would stay away from 4 annul.  Basically becasue against some matches like Gifts or Oath, haveing one annul in hand is POWER... haveing a 2nd annul is Force Food =/

[jazzykat]

Well if you have a lot of disruption/counter spots open I would suggest you look at duress as well. For a black you have preemptively stopped their greatest threat and know what else is in their hand. It serve a very different purpose from mana drain but can help you control the match.

[hollowbody]

I have noticed alot of builds only running a counter base of 4 Force of Will and 4 Mana Drain. I personally don't think 8 counterspells is enough... I would like to hear opinions on this matter. If I was to build another confidant control deck I would run a counterbase of
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 -4 Mana Leak

counters are great, but there is such a thing as having too many of them. its the same problem classic LD decks ran into. there would be points in the game where the opponent had little to no resources and extra LD spells were icing on the cake, when what they really could have used was a fatty to beatdown with. there are spells you just shouldnt counter because its card disadvantage for you, like tutors. you counter the card they tutored for, not the tutor itself, that way to get rid of a business spell and they spend two cards whereas you spend only one (unless you forced it). if you still think 8 is too low, than maybe go up to 10 with a misdirection and an annul as Harlequin suggested.

Well if you have a lot of disruption/counter spots open I would suggest you look at duress as well. For a black you have preemptively stopped their greatest threat and know what else is in their hand. It serve a very different purpose from mana drain but can help you control the match.

cabal therapy is also good in this regard. you can always sac dark conf to it if he starts banging you up a little too much.

[zeus-online]

Definetly mana leak before counterspell...i personally think annul is mostly just a sideboard card....sure its good against oath and stax...but i wouldnt want to draw it versus almost any other deck.

Duress is fine, but its only good for 2 things:
1) Pushing something broken through....!
2) Stalling the game by snatching a draw spell or something broken.

Cabal therapy is strictly worse then duress in these kinds of decks, you really want that confidant to keep drawing you cards! I know there are times when your life gets low and you want to get rid of the confidant.....but Cabal therapy is generally (like most discard spells) Best used early...and your life loss shouldnt have dropped THAT much in 2 turns.

MisD as harlequin mentioned mostly just wins counter wars, its not good at stopping a threat, unless its ancestral recall

I like disrupt, however...having 7-8 counterspells which are only good in the early game might be too much...!

Duress seems like the superior card here...but i think you'll run into a big problem mid-late game without a hard counter (I.E. Mana drain.)

/Zeus

[Harlequin]

I think people really underestimate Annul.

Here are basically the top 12 decks/architypes, in NO particular order, with cards that annul can counter.

Gifts - Timevault, LOTUS! <-- Basically the most commonly Gifted card is lotus
Oath - Duh
Stax - Everything
Fish - Null rod, Standstill, Curiosity... or Vial, jitte, and chalice (for that build)
Tog/Gat - Fairly worthless
Storm Combo - Jar, Lotus
Top combo - Top, Future Site, Helm ... basically every combo piece =P
Ichorid - ummm yeah nothing, but duress isnt going to get you anything in this match either =/
Zombie infestation - another deck NAMED AFTER an enchant.
Dragon - Animation effects
Gobs - Null Rod, Food chain
Zoo Stompy - Jitte, Null Rod (wichever they run)


overall a sassy card for one mana.  And im not even going to mention why its good that its a blue card =P

[The Chosen One]

I think you both have good ideas here. I think a base of
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
3 Duress
3 Annul

is Kosher. Although two slots of the sideboard could easily be designated for one 'ofs for these cards.

[Guli]

i would go with 2 annul maindeck and 4 duress

[hollowbody]

i would go with 2 annul maindeck and 4 duress

yeah, i think 3 annul is too much. its nice to see one opening hand to stop that chalice or null rod, but topdecking one midgame is pretty useless. i think i would personally run 4 FoWs, 4 Leaks and 4 Duress. Annul is a great card, but in order to guarantee seeing it early, you need to run too many. it can easily be sideboarded in against stax etc in the second match, but the 4 duress are useful against every deck in match 1.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Very cautiously, I'd like to suggest Stifle over the Annul slots.  Whereas Annuling Smokestack is pretty good (but it can still be Welded back in), a well-timed Stifle on Smokestack can be game breaking.  Or Stifling Tendrils.  Or against Oath where it's an instant Time Walk for U.  The same is true against Control Slaver.

Stifle has the added benefit of acting as blue landkill that protects your lands.

I don't know if it's strictly better than Annul, but it's certainly worth testing.

[hollowbody]

Or Stifling Tendrils. 

ok, i really need to ask. maybe i'm just ignorant, but how does stifle affect tendrils? is the storm mechanic a triggered ability? other than that, i don't see how it would be relevant, and if that is the case, then i had never thought of it that way.

[zeus-online]

Actually, duress is often a pretty dead card mid-late game... I've played with duress alot, its a great card but usually i only want to see duress at two points in the game:
1) Turn 1, to get information and remove the most threatening thing in their hand.
2) Mid-late game to force something nasty through....mostly Tinker or Will

I think 4 is too much! 3 is much better


I dont think stifle would be good in this deck....the way i see it, its mostly just good at stopping a fetch or a wasteland...stopping a fetch is great and all, but only if you can back it up with wasteland or something.
Stopping a wasteland can be very good, but if they slam a Crucible down it seems pretty pointless unless you can just "go off" right away.

btw. Stifling a smokestack trigger seems pretty bad compared to annuling the damn thing

I'd rather play with annul instead of stifle.
Annul only seems to be game-breaking against Stax and oath. Eventhough annuling a lotus would be fun

About storm....storm creates X "copies"....you only avoid 2 damage by stifling it. Can be useful at times i suppose....but thats only if they can only storm for exactly your life total....

/Zeus

[The Chosen One]

Stifle stops all additional copies of tendrils. The storm ability is triggered, hence the wording " when you play this spell". So if you have a storm count of 40 and you play tendrils, and I stifle it, I lose 2 life, that's it.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Annul  on Stack is a one for one trade, and you'd probably net some tempo from it.

Stifle on Stack is a bit more complicated, but the goal is to get them to ramp it to 3 counters and Stifle it then.  A 3 permanent swing is arguably larger than a 1 turn tempo swing.  Though technically, Rebuild would do the same thing better.

[zeus-online]

502.30. Storm

502.30a Storm is a triggered ability that functions while the spell is on the stack. "Storm" means "When you play this spell, put a copy of it onto the stack for each other spell that was played before it this turn. If the spell has any targets, you may choose new targets for any number of the copies."

502.30b If a spell has multiple instances of storm, each triggers separately.


As i understand it, storm just puts X copies onto the stack, not just "storm" and then when storm resolves, the copies? :S Man i'm confused now...

/Zeus

[Guli]

The effect is a triggered ability and it gets countered by stiffle. So there are no copies the effect is countered.

[zeus-online]

Ok, cool, i seem to have misunderstood something...probably cause i havent played much against storm, and never ever slinged a stifle at them

/Zeus

[hollowbody]

502.30b If a spell has multiple instances of storm, each triggers separately.

if each triggers separately, every instance of storm on the stack triggers on it own as a result of a previous spell cast that turn. to me it sounds like stifle will stop the first copy, but when the second, third, fourth etc spells are counted up, storm is available to trigger again since each instance of storm is completely separate. remember, storm is not one giant spell, its several copies. if you wanted and had the cards and mana, you could counter each copy. i think because they are treated as separate spells, when stifle goes on the stack there are already X copies of the spell ahead of it.

[AmbivalentDuck]

If a card read:  U, Instant, Draw a card.  Storm.  Storm.

(they'd have to restrict it and) you'd have to Stifle each storm trigger separately.  Otherwise, the person who cast it would draw cards equal to twice the number of spells played before it that turn + 1 (for the actual card).

Since there are no cards with "double storm" and there are no ways to give a spell storm, this is very unlikely to come up in play.  That's what was meant by multiple instances of storm.