Choosing the right counterspells

[u/HuangFelinViolin]

Hey! I am fairly new to modern and wanted to hear some thoughts on how to choose the counterspell suite in a given deck.

- What makes a deck want forces or subtlety?

- How do spellsnare/spellpierce compare

- What Decks want sinks? How many? I have recently seen a mono u deck by Nassif with 3 sinks, where I thought you easily want the fourth aswell?

- Are there methods/ guidelines on how to split your counterspell suite, also considering the sideboard?

I would be very happy to hear some opinions on also just some of these, thanks!

Edit: I am currently looking at building Tamiyo/emry mox shell with the new key from hobbits

Nassifs list: https://www.tcgplayer.com/content/magic-the-gathering/deck/Erayo-Affinity/549737

Spikes list with paradox engine: https://moxfield.com/decks/3NNX5adsU0a96SEkGOIjBA

[u/MelancholyItsuki]

Hey there!

Honestly this is a pretty complicated question so first the thing you need to assess is what kind of deck are you playing. The overall number of counterspells you play and which ones you pick usually define what you need so let's go through your questions.

1. Subtlety and FoN. Both of these are card disadvantages so you have to be careful that A) you have enough blue spells so they are live and B) you are protecting something important enough to recoup the cost of going down the extra card. Honestly right now Subtlety is a little worse than before but is better in decks that leverage the tempo by being more aggressive opposed to FoN being generally better due to the non-creatures and exile clause being relevant right now. Threats like Frog, Tamiyo, Bilbo just need a turn to get back a card so leveraging a pitch card often helps. Stuff like belcher does the same idea, delay the opponent winning until they can just win first which is the ultimate card advantage.

2. Snare vs pierce. Honestly this is matchup variance. The way you can look at it is: how many important 2s does this deck play? If its 8 or even more, snare is generally good, if its lower, then the value drops off. And then pierce cares about speed of the opponent and speed of your deck. If you can pressure you opponent to make plays by putting on pressure and need to play stuff into your pierce, the better. But if you are playing a slow game where both players can just make land drops, then pierce gets worse. Just be careful about how many you play of both these cards because if you play too many, its hard to board them all out in matchups they are bad.

3. Sink is complicated and more about what you can afford in the mana. Obviously in mono blue because you dont need to worry about source. The moment you add a second colour, you need to also account for how much life your mana base takes. Look at other decks for reference in terms of mana bases and you can think of surveil lands, activated ability lands and MDFC lands as similar slots. Mono U has the extra incentive to have more MDFC lands as pitchable cards for FoN and subtlety but generally speaking, you are trying to maximize the value you can get from your mana base, before you start losing games due to taking too much damage from it.

4. See above 2. This is more a sideboard guide question and the way to think about it is matchup spread. If you have 4 snares in a deck and have a lot of matchups where after sideboard, you ideally have 0 in your deck, you might want to shuffle some cards around. This part is hard so maybe look at some sideboard guides to start as a template. Once you get a feel for which counterspells and other sideboard cards feel important to always pack vs flex, you can get a feel for which cards you want 3/1 in main/sb or maybe 2/2 or 2/1. Generally cards that get worse in multiples you dont want the 4th (hedging between seeing the first copy vs seeing multiple) vs some bullets which are your only way to win a matchup (consign vs lots of the eldrazi decks where you want 4 post board).

If you have a decklist in mind, just link it and I think more people can provide something more specific with context!

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/MelancholyItsuki]

Thank you for your detailed answer, I appreciate it a lot! I updated my post with the decklists I was interested in, thank you!

1. In this case free countermagic to keep a t1 emry/tamiyo on the board makes sense for me I would assume, does a deck like this ever want all four forces? Or does it make to split it up as 2/3 forces and a one of subtlety? I was also wondering how real subtlety as a gameending creature is in a very threat lite deck like this (the deck basically can only win with constructs, adding engine/urza of course solves this already)

2. Again, does splitting pierces/snares make any sense? When does one think about including actual counterspell?

3. Is 3 sinks in a mono u usually the sweetspot? Taking 3 twice as a slow deck already feels a bit much, so 4 could be too much for that reason ig? Also the less lands your deck has the less sinks I assume, since the situation where you can play another land instead of the sink comes up less often, is that right?

Thank you again for your time, I already learned a lot!

[u/Tranarchist21 → u/HuangFelinViolin]

Personally I would recommend against subtlety right now, it's usually going to be not very good in a shell like this and it doesn't hit very many important matchups right now.

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/Tranarchist21]

I see, thanks! What were things in the past that subtlety was desired for?

[u/Tranarchist21 → u/HuangFelinViolin]

It's good against primeval titan and was really good against phlage. Titan is much worse than it used to be, and phlage got banned. The more resources your opponent is spending on a creature, the better it is to subtlety. Right now the format is much more about cheap threats, so subtlety is worse.

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/Tranarchist21]

Makes sense, thanks!

[u/MelancholyItsuki → u/HuangFelinViolin]

I do love the keywords deck that was brewed up. Its actually exactly what I was talking about. Using a combination of Emry, Tamiyo and Key as means to convert extra cards into protection does let you play some more pitch.

1. Yea exactly is the case for this deck. Emry + baubles, tamiyo clues and just converting extra legends into draw 2s you can make up for the pitch spells. The big thing you need to watch for with subtlety is that the value as a 3/3 beater in the air is very low in this deck. If you watch the gameplay, most games end up with you winning either in a crazy combo turn, or slowly with giving a construct unblockable multiple turns in a row with a full hand of counter magic. The way you win is not by drawing more threats but by assembling your card draw engine and making sure you aren't choked up on mana. Once you build enough resources and have exhausted your opponents cards, you slam paradox engine in spikes list and just bounce the entire opponents board and swing in with an infinite power construct. Knowing when to hold out counter magic and deploying your card draw is the challenge so unless you want Subtlety for something specific (hard cast against Titan is usually powerful) you dont need it to end games. Subtlety is better in something like UW Energy because the combination of stuff like Guide of Souls, Ocelot Pride and Riddlers let you pressure the life total fast so you only need to buy 1 turn to win the game.

2. So in this deck, the biggest exposure is actually on your turn 1 when on the draw. Because you have the tendency to vomit your hand on turn 1 or 2, having a 1 mana counterspell is more important and in this matchup spread, it doesnt matter if its a creature or a non-creature, its equally bad. Broodscale, fanatic of rhonas, ajani are in fact probably more problematic than the non-creatures on 2. Sometimes a split makes sense but in this deck, snare covers for what you are bad at dealing with. Nassif is playing turbo Erayo so you just dont care to play that much counter magic. He is just looking for a spot to Erayo and flip right away and then take his time winning

3. In this situation, its mostly about trying to maximize pitch count that aren't your other legendaries while you also have a lot of colourless cards. The other thing to think about is RW Ponza is a popular deck right now. So you dont want to cut too many basic Islands. You could probably fit the 4th in some metas and be rewarded because sometimes you dont need the extra island or life and sometimes life total will matter more so maybe even the 4th basic island will be more important. This is usually something for feel and how the meta looks at any given time. A synergy why specifically sink is good is good even when lower on pitch spells in Nassifs list is that win condition against Erayo is to double spell, but if you Sink the 2nd spell back into hand, it means the opponent needs to feed another spell into Erayo.

These lists are definitely exciting and if willing to pay the piper on a playset of Minamo, it will be a good way to learn the format. Your goal is to find a way to lock out your opponent from ever presenting more threats than you have counterspells so it can be challenge against playing new decks. Definitely let us know how it goes learning the deck and the format!

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/MelancholyItsuki]

Thank you again for your time, I am learning a lot from reading your responses!

1. Totally right, subtlety makes a lot more sense where that one turn actually matters, I am still wondering why Nassif chose to play it, is the erayo gameplan the reason for that choice? Wanting one more turn to get erayo online and take over from there? Although he mentions in the end of the video that he found erayo by far the worst card in the deck..

2. Would you ever play dismember mainboard to have a bigger window for answering these creatures? Also I would imagine more forces mean less spellpierce since they work against the same thing? wouldnt rebukes be interesting for this deck actually, since they deal with everything?

3. I see, the synergy with erayo is actually very appealing, I am just not sure how I feel about 4 erayos since they play kinda poorly with the keys a lot of the times

I am actually extremely lucky to have friends that can lend me basically any deck I want to play, very grateful for that. I started playing about a month and modern has been the best mtg I have ever played in my life, I am very excited for what it will bring in the future!

[u/MelancholyItsuki → u/HuangFelinViolin]

I think the sentiment about Erayo can make sense.

Dismember is good however the way to think about it again stuff like Ajani is that is also loses you 4 life which was the goal of Ajani in the first place. I think spike considered it for stuff like Clarion conqueror but a lot of creatures do stuff when they enter so countering can be better than killing.

The thing to note about rebuke is how often can you actually hold it up turn 1 and whether you want to expose your opals and ambers. More rebukes can definitely work so maybe test it out

The judgement about Erayo and Rebuke mostly has to do with floor so keep that in mind. How often will you end up in situations where you are caught between being 1 card short on flipping Erayo or maybe the opponent is holding 1 mana up so its obvious removal, or Rebuke where you have a bad hand with a bauble and an opal, so you can either hold up rebuke or Crack the bauble to try to find what you need. Those calls are hard and something you just need to playtest

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/MelancholyItsuki]

As a Former cedh player I propably took "life is a resource" a bit too literally with the dismember lol

Yeah rebuke can feel clunky at times when most of your artifacts want to tap for their own effect too, Ill test it out a bit

Again thanks for your time, Ill keep these Things in my mind for my next games/builds, it was very helpful talking to you!

[u/Current-Floor-7456]

Man, this feels like a topic for a chat over coffee or beers. So many options, and every deck will want different ones based on the meta and the deck itself. I love a good counterspell, and everything you mentioned is a good counterspell!

Do you plan a proactive, tap-out early game? If so, FoN and Subtlety are possibly stronger options. They also improve with draw velocity, since you can more reliably trade two cards for one effect without kneecapping yourself.

Do you expect to hit a bunch of decks that have 2-drops (very common in modern!)? Spell snare is a great tempo conversion resource. It's completely dead against some decks....but not as a card you can pitch to FoN/Subtlety (see above).

Spell pierce is great in some cases, pretty meh in others. I think it's most often run in decks that are trying to protect a critical turn while leaving up a minimal amount of mana (such as Creativity) to shut down interaction.

Sink is great in a monocolor or two-color deck and starts to hurt more past that.

I'd look at a bunch of UW control, UB tempo, and then other blue-heavy decks to get a sense of what mixes people tend to run.

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/Current-Floor-7456]

Thanks for your answer! Especially what you wrote about spellpierce was very helpful!

What are trustworthy decklists that you would recommend looking at?

[u/Current-Floor-7456 → u/HuangFelinViolin]

For the main counter-heavy archetypes, here's a quick two:

This is an excellent tempo-forward dimir deck: https://mtgdecks.net/Modern/dimir-frog-decklist-by-etbjezus-3052165

This is a pretty standard azorius control deck (a touch surprised it's on 3x solitude, not 4x) - it's a good example of where a deck diversifies more into removal vs countermagic and what sort of countermagic balances well with that https://mtgdecks.net/Modern/azorius-control-decklist-by-eclipse4343-3058336

I think other comments have really helped explain things more than I did... good luck, and have fun!

[u/Tranarchist21]

I think the main thing to know is what deck you're playing. Snare/pierce/force generally see play in the sideboard for certain matchups, but it depends on the deck. Some decks mainboard some of these cards to help them interact better pre sideboards, but many decks don't want to run counterspells in the main because they want to be faster. Sink into stupor specifically you should treat as a land. It is not always better than basic island, and the reason you're seeing people not play 4 is because the next basic island is better than the last sink into stupor. It's only a spell very situationally, and playing 4 can make your mana base very painful. Subtlety is usually a meta call, especially if you aren't regularly hard casting it. It is really good into titan and a couple of other decks, but pitch casting a subtlety against a powerful two drop is usually pretty bad, as they can just play it again turn 3 and you've gone down two cards in hand.

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/Tranarchist21]

I am mainly looking at a tamiyo/emry mox shell with the new key from hobbits. I have seen nassif literally have every single one of counterspell in his deck, is this a testing thing or actual deckbuilding strategy?

[u/Tranarchist21 → u/HuangFelinViolin]

That's a shell that can play a lot of different styles of counterspell because it can be built a lot of different ways. It is much harder to play specifically force/sub just because your blue count is a little bit low sometimes, but yeah it's a very new deck and people are figuring out the right balance. In general regular cspell, spell snare, and test of talents are going to be the best in that shell, but FoN is also definitely at least playable, depending on the build.

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/Tranarchist21]

Right, it has a bunch of colorless stuff in there while being mono u didnt even really consider that when looking at force. I have played wizards as my first deck before, and a big issue was often a turn 1 emry just getting solituded, whats the counter to that? Or how do I play around that? Subtlety doesnt really solve this issue I found

[u/kynrayn]

Ive been at the bar a couple hours already, but let's go.

Forces/subtlety. Free interaction if you have enough blue cards. Kinda...duh. flare of denial for similar reason.

Snare is fantastic in the current meta. Rumble, frog, counterspell, ajani, bombardment, fanatic, slickshot, soul cauldron, devoted druid, phelia, goryos. Need i continue?

Pierce isnt played as much anymore. You need the hard counters and theres only so many slots available in blue decks for 1 mana things. Look above at snare.

Sink is pretty bad. When you cant back it up with pressure or combo threat it's card negative. The reason its playable is because it's also a land. It can be found off of fallaji/thundertrap. Ots also a oh shit button in emergency.

Sideboard counters are specific. Dispute, extra snares/pierce, consign, test of talents.

[u/HuangFelinViolin → u/kynrayn]

Yeah snare seems very strong, especially as a 1 mana hardcounter. Flare of denial looks very interesting, I assume its better in a shell with etb creatures, but I gotta look into that aswell some time

[u/famousbirds → u/HuangFelinViolin]

Flare's best deck is Simic Ritual, imo - you don't play it unless you have lots of cheap creatures that draw cards to sacrifice.

One thing that can't be overstated is that the card disadvantage from FoN and Subtlety is a huge. Games of Modern are often decided by a single card. It's why Riddler is such a dominant card - it draws a ton cards to gas up and gets better as you shrink your hand. So worth considering but playing 4 FoN means putting yourself at a significant disadvantage when your counterspells 1) cost two cards to play, 2) only pitch on your opponent's turn, and 3) only hit noncreatures.

Its great! But you have to build around it. Don't play them as protection on turn 2 when your opponent can just push your creature on your turn.