Negate vs Mana Leak in current Meta

[Killane]

Given the current metagame, I am having a real hard time deciding between these two spells. A few months ago, I would have said Negate for sure. however, given the rise in Fish decks I am concerned about loosing the ability to counter Goyf, Confidant, Meddling Mage, and Magus of the Moon. I am also not a fan of not being able to counter Goblin Welder in the Stax matchup.

Here's the context:

Playing: Oath (Iona + 2 dragons, with Karrthus in the board)

8 spots for Counterspells.

4 Force of Will (obvious)
1 Mindbreak Trap (instead of Misdirection) as  a pseudo 5th FoW to stop 1st turn broken plays and for a slight edge in the Storm matchup.
3 Negate or Mana Leak

Other control elements are:
4 Null Rod
4 Thoughtseize
1 Wipe Away

Negate

Pro's:

-hard counter
-keeps Time Vault, Tinker and YawgWin from resolving

Cons:

-cannot hit Goyf, Confidant, Meddling Mage, Welder, and Magus of the Moon, all of which present serious obstacles to the Oath plan (Goyf to a lesser extent, as I can usually race it, but the others off serious issues to my gameplan)

Mana Leak

Pro's:

- can hit all of the above mentioned spells
- 3 spare mana is hard to find in the early rounds of the game

Cons:

- YawgWin is often cast with 3 mana to spare
- Leak is more easily played around
- very little value in the Stax matchup, as they often have an abundance of mana

Negate sees more play right now, but my gut is telling me to go with Leak as I can see many instances where countering especially Mage could be very relevant in the current meta.

thoughts?

[MirariKnight]

What about Spell Pierce? It has the drawback of both Negate and Leak but it's one mana which I'd imagine makes a huge difference.

[Killane]

What about Spell Pierce? It has the drawback of both Negate and Leak but it's one mana which I'd imagine makes a huge difference.

You're right that the one Mana would make a huge difference, but 2 mana is also alot easier to come up with than 3. I can see this beign awesome in game one, but much easier for them to play around in game 2, plus it suffers the same issues that I'm having with negate. Fish dropping a turn 2 meddling mage on Oath with this in hand woudl feel very awkward to me.

[Bera]

I run 4 fow 4 duress 4 drain 3 leak in my tez list, never had the 3 mana issue, when the issue is relevant, I usually have a fow/drain in hand (I usually get a fow with merchant scroll sometimes demonic depending on my opponent.) you can't win them all but I would say go with the leaks, there's a TMWA player who places high in about all of our tournaments, the ability to counter the early bob/mindcensor/jotun grunt/goyf is a huge help. Nobody plays workshops in my area currently so I don't know how effective it is in that MU, more effective than negate I'd assume.

[Scyther]

I'll play in my future Oath list

4 Force of Will (obvious)
1 Mindbreak Trap /Misdirection
3 Spell Pierce
3 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Mana leak
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Wipe Away


Maybe I'll swap fo the Drain instead of the leak some day. But I think this loks really heavy.. =)

[MirariKnight]

That's a lot of countermagic/disruption for Oath. And EE is probably not the best, as you'd only want to set it for 1 because 0 is bad (tokens and moxes) and 2 is bad also (Oath). I could be wrong though

I'd imagine the tax effect is good against Shops because they can't use Shop to pay for it, making Mana Leak/Spell Pierce probably better than Negate for that matchup

[Killane]

Agree 100%, especially regarding EE. So far it seems like general opinion supports my instinct to use leak. Can anyone think of a matchup where this likely is not the best choice, or any personal anecdotes in which this spell choice backfired?

[silvernail]

in a creature heavy metagame leak is better than negate. There is also Miscalculation, only forces 2 like SP but also cycles in late game. Another alternative is Rune Snag which gets better late game if you use more of them. Finally there is Muddle the Mixture, which is double blue but also transmutes for Oath or any other 2cc card you want.

[Killane]

in a creature heavy metagame leak is better than negate. There is also Miscalculation, only forces 2 like SP but also cycles in late game. Another alternative is Rune Snag which gets better late game if you use more of them. Finally there is Muddle the Mixture, which is double blue but also transmutes for Oath or any other 2cc card you want.

Miscalculation is strictly worse than Mana Leak, IMHO: the cycling ability will never make up for the loss in power. Rune Snag is interesting, and in a Tyrant Oath shell that runs Reclaimation instead of Blessing I might consider it, however I think the issue is that the early game is the most important time for these counters, so at the end of the day I think that while in theory it may be as good as Leak, in practice the 1st and 2nd are going to be the only ones that matter, in which case it is also strictly worse than Leak. Finally Muddle the Mixture may warrant testing in an Oath shell due to being an uncounterable tutor for Oath that doubles as a Negate in a pinch, but I would test it in place of an Impulse or Intuition, not in place of one of the counterspell slots, as if I wanted to run UU counters, my counterspell list would look like this:

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain

[Scyther]

well.. i say it the other way around..: i dont know any reason why NOT to play spell pierce in oath right now.. oO

especially with thoughtsize as a duress replacement avalable.

further more its not that oath couldnt handle itself with more mana disruption packed. (1 more wasteland, Rod/ EE) all helps spell pierce.
its not like its a bad think if the opp plays a crea and we have the oath but no orchard in hand. and we still have 4 forces, thoughtsize and maybe that leak or drain packed.

sometimes i believe people ferget about whats the point of playing oath. its not that much more than just play that nasty 2CC enchantment and protect the shitty thing! so why fear THAAAAT much about cratures? i  know Bob is nasty but as said you still have other ways get those down...

[xouman]

In Oath, Negate > Mana leak and probably Spell Pierce > Negate since your idea is to play T1-Duress and T2-Oath/tutor oath and shouldn't be able to have 2 open mana most of the time (specially against fishes)

[Killane]

In Oath, Negate > Mana leak and probably Spell Pierce > Negate since your idea is to play T1-Duress and T2-Oath/tutor oath and shouldn't be able to have 2 open mana most of the time (specially against fishes)

Agreed that this is the plan, but what about when you can;t find Oath by turn 2? i woudl argue that if you are dropping Oath in the first two turns that the secondary counterspell is likely not going to come into play anyways, as you;re goign to use a pitch spell to protect the Oath, and then once the dude is Oath'd up you have 2 mana open to protect him, in which case leak is a better option then pierce because it makes it that much more difficult for them to remove the Oath dude. From that perspective negate seems to work best,

but what about when you don't have Oath yet on turn two, so you're sitting with 2 mana open (waiting to Impulse at EoT), and the Fish deck across from you drops a Magus or a Meddling Mage?

[honestabe]

right now, just about every deck is running creatures.

Play mana leak

[Scyther]

right now, just about every deck is running creatures.

Play mana leak

>_<'

but often u WANT your opp to play one...

-.-

[Killane]

right now, just about every deck is running creatures.

Play mana leak

>_<'

but often u WANT your opp to play one...

-.-

honestly though, I can count on one hand the number of times i've had 3 spare mana when resolving Oath in the last year. 2, yes (land, lotus, sac lotus, Oath), but 3.... really it hasn;t happened very often.

[Scyther]

so what does this tell us? oO

spell pierce costs only 1 mana.
sorry just dont understand..

all we wanna do is protect our oath as safely as possible. and with 3 mana available we can oath, spell pierce and FoW/ MisD..

just think that spel pierce is the way to go.

[sawechan]

Spell Pierce is a VERY NICE card in an Oath deck

possible plays:

turn 1 play a land int duress
turn 2 play orchard, moxen, cast oath, with Spell Pierce backup

gg from that point on.

[Killane]

so what does this tell us? oO

spell pierce costs only 1 mana.
sorry just dont understand..

all we wanna do is protect our oath as safely as possible. and with 3 mana available we can oath, spell pierce and FoW/ MisD..

just think that spel pierce is the way to go.

I disagree that in the current meta "all we want to do" is protect our Oath.

There are "so many insane plays" (to quote a rather conspicuous collumn about vintage) in the current Meta that end us, even with an active Oath.

Time Vault

This thing can kill us, instantly. Even if we Oath once, if we get no more attack phases we're caught high and dry.

Confidant

Doubles... that right DOUBLES the chances of Vault being drawn, and with counter back-up to boot.

Prior to getting Oath

T1 / T2 Oath is certainly not always possible, especially in the counter-heavy meta. Imagine cast duress and seeing:

FoW, Mana Drain, a blue draw spell, Island and some irrelevant other stuff when they already have a land down. Are we going to Oath anytime soon? no. This is a hand we could see in Fish, Tezz, Oath, Drain Tendrils, etc....

Meddling Mage

On Oath with lots of counter back-up can = GG.

Magus of the Moon 

We are running 2 basics. The rest of our land is turned into a nasty shade of red that does nothing for us. unless we already have basic forest in play or Oath in play, this is GG as well.

Tinker

While this is less of an issue for us than for most mages, as we have a decent shot of racing the Tinker target, it can be a problem. Sphinx can block our Dragons all day long for a net gain of 4 life , plus swing at us. And if the other targets come out before we get an active Oath, it can spell disaster.

While in the abstract I agree that Spell Pierce is likely the best second-string counterspell to use offensively, I question the basic assumption that we will be using our counters offensively all of the time. Who's the beatdown? We play a list that is very heavy on disruption because we recognise that Oath is no always on the beatdown in this meta. We often have to lock up the board with Null Rods, rip our opponent's hand apart with Seize effects, and counter some "key" (pun intended) plays before we can drop our threat and go for the jugular. In a world of 4 mana instant wins and aggro/disruptive decks built to fight them, Oath can't afford to go balls to the walls.

[Scyther]

of course your right...
i still dont undestand what this has to do with the topic?

half of these threads we can counter via spell pierce. the rest could be countered via force/ TS or removed via EE/ Bounce. or am i mistaken?

[voltron00x]

Oath almost always needs to be the beatdown.  Trying to force modern Oath into a control role is the best way to lose.  Oath wants to disrupt in order to resolve Oath, its win condition, or to buy time to find Oath.  Overloading on disruption forces Oath into a control role that it is ill-suited for, because it has no draw engine.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Spell Pierce in Oath.  It really does function as a "blue Duress" as Smmenen stated in his Zendikar review.  I discuss the card a bit in my article that'll go up on Monday.  I also played against Spell Pierce in a Noble Fish deck, and let me tell you, it is HELL for Oath decks.  Noble Fish is really becoming an extremely difficult match-up - between Pridemage, Trygon, Meddling Mage, Force, and Spell Pierce, its tough to even get Oath to fire once.  I have beefed up my sideboard for that matchup by running 2 REBs, Echoing Truth, Smother, Pithing Needle, and Death Mark (which also kills Goyf and, notably, Spihinx of the Steel Wind).

If you're playing a more controllish build of Oath, you probably want Mana Leak over Negate, but if youre running an aggressive build, I would think that Spell Pierce gets the nod over Negate.  Then again, I have a low opinion of Negate in general.  It has ALWAYS been very weak for me.

[Killane]

Oath almost always needs to be the beatdown.  Trying to force modern Oath into a control role is the best way to lose.  Oath wants to disrupt in order to resolve Oath, its win condition, or to buy time to find Oath.  Overloading on disruption forces Oath into a control role that it is ill-suited for, because it has no draw engine.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Spell Pierce in Oath.  It really does function as a "blue Duress" as Smmenen stated in his Zendikar review.  I discuss the card a bit in my article that'll go up on Monday.  I also played against Spell Pierce in a Noble Fish deck, and let me tell you, it is HELL for Oath decks.  Noble Fish is really becoming an extremely difficult match-up - between Pridemage, Trygon, Meddling Mage, Force, and Spell Pierce, its tough to even get Oath to fire once.  I have beefed up my sideboard for that matchup by running 2 REBs, Echoing Truth, Smother, Pithing Needle, and Death Mark (which also kills Goyf and, notably, Spihinx of the Steel Wind).

If you're playing a more controllish build of Oath, you probably want Mana Leak over Negate, but if youre running an aggressive build, I would think that Spell Pierce gets the nod over Negate.  Then again, I have a low opinion of Negate in general.  It has ALWAYS been very weak for me.

This makes alot of sense to me. the only thing I am confused about has to do with the portions of the quote that i have highlighted above.
What i am confused about is in the difficult match with Fish, 3 of 5 problem cards you mentioned don't get hit by Pierce at all, and the other two are cast at U and Pitch, making it much mroe likely that they may have 2 up to pay for the Pierce cost. I feel like i'm missing somethign here, but Pierce doesn;t feel like it woudl help in this match.

Unless you're suggesting that the overall amount of disruption needs to be reduced?

For reference, the current disruption package I'm suggesting is:

4 FoW
1 MisD or MindTrap
4 Duress/Seize
4 Null Rod
1 Wipe Away
3 Mana Leak / Spell Pierce / Negate

Do you think it's too much?

[voltron00x]

Oath almost always needs to be the beatdown.  Trying to force modern Oath into a control role is the best way to lose.  Oath wants to disrupt in order to resolve Oath, its win condition, or to buy time to find Oath.  Overloading on disruption forces Oath into a control role that it is ill-suited for, because it has no draw engine.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Spell Pierce in Oath.  It really does function as a "blue Duress" as Smmenen stated in his Zendikar review.  I discuss the card a bit in my article that'll go up on Monday.  I also played against Spell Pierce in a Noble Fish deck, and let me tell you, it is HELL for Oath decks.  Noble Fish is really becoming an extremely difficult match-up - between Pridemage, Trygon, Meddling Mage, Force, and Spell Pierce, its tough to even get Oath to fire once.  I have beefed up my sideboard for that matchup by running 2 REBs, Echoing Truth, Smother, Pithing Needle, and Death Mark (which also kills Goyf and, notably, Spihinx of the Steel Wind).

If you're playing a more controllish build of Oath, you probably want Mana Leak over Negate, but if youre running an aggressive build, I would think that Spell Pierce gets the nod over Negate.  Then again, I have a low opinion of Negate in general.  It has ALWAYS been very weak for me.

This makes alot of sense to me. the only thing I am confused about has to do with the portions of the quote that i have highlighted above.
What i am confused about is in the difficult match with Fish, 3 of 5 problem cards you mentioned don't get hit by Pierce at all, and the other two are cast at U and Pitch, making it much mroe likely that they may have 2 up to pay for the Pierce cost. I feel like i'm missing somethign here, but Pierce doesn;t feel like it woudl help in this match.

Unless you're suggesting that the overall amount of disruption needs to be reduced?

For reference, the current disruption package I'm suggesting is:

4 FoW
1 MisD or MindTrap
4 Duress/Seize
4 Null Rod
1 Wipe Away
3 Mana Leak / Spell Pierce / Negate

Do you think it's too much?

In reference to the Noble Fish match-up, the problem there is that ALL the options are bad.  Mana Leak is too slow (but I would consider it the most relevant in the match-up - at least it hits Pridemage and Meddling Mage), Negate is too irrelevant, and Spell Pierce will help resolve Oath through Force of Will but doesn't handle Daze or threats like Pridemage and Trygon Predator.  Sadly, Noble Fish is the one Fish deck that is actually problematic for Oath.

I don't think that list of disruption is too much, no - I just think its important to differentiate between disruption and control.  Negate tends to skew towards being a control card; most lists don't run enough mana to utilize it that way, so Spell Pierce is probably better.  I believe my current list packs something like this:

4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
2 Spell Pierce
1 Ancient Grudge

I'm not running Chalice / Null Rod because I play no Blessing and run Yawgmoth's Will - but the list I played in NYC did run Chalice and had Null Rod in the SB as well, so either option is most definitely viable.  I also sideboard two REBs and another Grudge for additional disruption.

[Killane]

Oath almost always needs to be the beatdown.  Trying to force modern Oath into a control role is the best way to lose.  Oath wants to disrupt in order to resolve Oath, its win condition, or to buy time to find Oath.  Overloading on disruption forces Oath into a control role that it is ill-suited for, because it has no draw engine.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Spell Pierce in Oath.  It really does function as a "blue Duress" as Smmenen stated in his Zendikar review.  I discuss the card a bit in my article that'll go up on Monday.  I also played against Spell Pierce in a Noble Fish deck, and let me tell you, it is HELL for Oath decks.  Noble Fish is really becoming an extremely difficult match-up - between Pridemage, Trygon, Meddling Mage, Force, and Spell Pierce, its tough to even get Oath to fire once.  I have beefed up my sideboard for that matchup by running 2 REBs, Echoing Truth, Smother, Pithing Needle, and Death Mark (which also kills Goyf and, notably, Spihinx of the Steel Wind).

If you're playing a more controllish build of Oath, you probably want Mana Leak over Negate, but if youre running an aggressive build, I would think that Spell Pierce gets the nod over Negate.  Then again, I have a low opinion of Negate in general.  It has ALWAYS been very weak for me.

This makes alot of sense to me. the only thing I am confused about has to do with the portions of the quote that i have highlighted above.
What i am confused about is in the difficult match with Fish, 3 of 5 problem cards you mentioned don't get hit by Pierce at all, and the other two are cast at U and Pitch, making it much mroe likely that they may have 2 up to pay for the Pierce cost. I feel like i'm missing somethign here, but Pierce doesn;t feel like it woudl help in this match.

Unless you're suggesting that the overall amount of disruption needs to be reduced?

For reference, the current disruption package I'm suggesting is:

4 FoW
1 MisD or MindTrap
4 Duress/Seize
4 Null Rod
1 Wipe Away
3 Mana Leak / Spell Pierce / Negate

Do you think it's too much?

In reference to the Noble Fish match-up, the problem there is that ALL the options are bad.  Mana Leak is too slow (but I would consider it the most relevant in the match-up - at least it hits Pridemage and Meddling Mage), Negate is too irrelevant, and Spell Pierce will help resolve Oath through Force of Will but doesn't handle Daze or threats like Pridemage and Trygon Predator.  Sadly, Noble Fish is the one Fish deck that is actually problematic for Oath.

I don't think that list of disruption is too much, no - I just think its important to differentiate between disruption and control.  Negate tends to skew towards being a control card; most lists don't run enough mana to utilize it that way, so Spell Pierce is probably better.  I believe my current list packs something like this:

4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
2 Spell Pierce
1 Ancient Grudge

I'm not running Chalice / Null Rod because I play no Blessing and run Yawgmoth's Will - but the list I played in NYC did run Chalice and had Null Rod in the SB as well, so either option is most definitely viable.  I also sideboard two REBs and another Grudge for additional disruption.

that do you think of EE in the match-up? shouldn't be too hard to set it to 2 or even 3 and wipe out the creature based threats. then use Pierce to force through Oath.

I'm thinking replace the Null Rods in my list with 3 EE and 1 CoV (as 4 EE feels like too much to me). Move the rods over to the board in place of the 3 mindbreak traps that are there now.

[Scyther]

what do u want with 1 chalice? oO

[voltron00x]

EE is a pretty good board sweeper, and obviously has the benefit of Mox control in other match-ups and is very flexible... I'm probably going to test Firespout in the SB, given my red splash.  For 3 mana, it kills everything I worry about except Goyf... and I'm ok with them having one creature so that I can Oath after I sweep the board.

[MirariKnight]

Firespout was decent when I used it, and slightly more versatile than Pyroclasm, but I'm not sure what has 3 toughness but not 2 aside from Goyf.
Isn't EE better off as Pernicious Deed? Doesn't get owned by Null Rod that way, and is much more flexible in my opinion.

[TrollMcSmash]

  Just from my experience Mana Leak works very effectively game 1, because it has that "hi, surprise counter!" factor that people do not necessarily expect (especially if you're sitting only on one U source). Games 2 and 3 it doesn't work quite as well because people play around it some.
   However, that is actually part of the strategic benefit of Mana Leak. I've had many opponents, after seeing 1 mana leak, start slowing down their strategy some to play around the possibility of a second Mana Leak (I'm not sure why either, given an environment filled to the brim with pitch counters. I think it's the psychological benefit of saying "ha, your counter is useless"... or they're just not that fantastic). This buys Oath some time -- not necessarily tons, but some. Against the more experienced players this kind of benefit won't be quite so pronounced.
 
     Personally, I would run it over negate because there's been plenty of games where I've been staring at a creature counter going "I wish I could counter tinker right now."

[Harlequin]

Isn't EE better off as Pernicious Deed? Doesn't get owned by Null Rod that way, and is much more flexible in my opinion.

EE is an amazing answer to sphere effects as you can answer two sphere effects with 2 lands and an untap.   Where Deeds is never going to see play against Sphere focused Shop decks.

[MirariKnight]

Shop decks run Null Rod though which would make Deed seem like the better choice. It also happens to entirely nuke their board, jot just hit some Sphere and whatever.

And nothing against the points for Mana Leak, but Negate can counter Tinker.

[voltron00x]

Firespout was decent when I used it, and slightly more versatile than Pyroclasm, but I'm not sure what has 3 toughness but not 2 aside from Goyf.
Isn't EE better off as Pernicious Deed? Doesn't get owned by Null Rod that way, and is much more flexible in my opinion.

It kills Trygon Predator.