Greetings all. I was over on the Modern boards reading discussions about blue control. Specifically, why there were no strong Blue based "draw go" permission decks- ie decks filled with lots of counterspells. The answer we decided was that Wizards felt counterspells were unfun to play against in large quantities, and therefore doesn't print lots of strong counterspells in recent sets. See this article for instance.
This just begs the question- why do counterspells feel bad? From a game mechanic standpoint, there is little difference between having a creature countered, or having it blown up immediately by spot removal (setting aside ETB triggers for the moment). And yet the counterspell feels worse. I've been playing Magic on and off for over a decade, and there is still that moment of frustration from having a spell countered that I usually don't feel for spot removal.
I also feel that I can say with some authority that, having lost to fast combo, Stasis/Kismet lock, Mindslaver lock, Iona, Shield of Emeria lock, and dedicated land destruction decks complete with multiple copies of Strip Mine, losing to a heavy permission deck is one of the least fun ways to lose a game of Magic.
I currently have two ideas on why counterspells feel unfun. The first is that there is an inherent sense of satisfaction from resolving a spell. Even if what you just cast gets immediately destroyed, you still get that moment of satisfaction. This ties in with the second idea. The worst way to lose is when you feel like you didn't really get to have a chance to actually play Magic. When you lose to a heavy permission deck, it feels like your opponent was just toying with you.
So, I ask you- why do you think counterspells create bad feelings? In addition, if anyone knows of any articles going into the psychology of playing against counterspells, please link them- I would love to read them.
Finally let me add the following disclaimer, because this is the internet: I am not bashing on counterspells in moderation. They are an important part of the game, and some spells need to be countered. It's only in excessive quantities that they become truly soul crushing.
Also I say from experience that while losing to a heavy permission deck feels terrible, winning with one feels awesome.
It's only in excessive quantities that they become truly soul crushing.
Define "excessive quantity".
A deck can have only one set of counterspells and it will make a format a desolate, unfun place (mental misstep, it isn't even that powerful compared to mana drain). The same goes true when mana leak was legal in standard.
So, basically, I disagree with the assertion that "excessive quantity" of counterspells is the problem.
What makes counterspells a problem is if they _work_. That's highly dependent on the meta. mana leak wasn't problem when it first came out. In the standard of recent years, however, with the fundamental turn becoming closer and closer to 2 and multicolor decks are the norm, mana leak became a stupidly effective effective card. Mana drain? No one really complains about in (in vintage). But whenever you see mana drain into a tinker or jace, the opponent's face is priceless. powersink is/was also considered underpowered, up until you got hit with a stasis later. And of course mental mistep, which is harmless in standard, beomes not so harmless when decks in formats where it is banned in have critical turn 1 players. I'm pretty sure cancel, which is virtually unplayable, will suddenly become a mosnter even if it's the only counter in the format if the fundamental turn in standard where raised to 4 or so.
It's only in excessive quantities that they become truly soul crushing.
Define "excessive quantity".
A deck can have only one set of counterspells and it will make a format a desolate, unfun place (mental misstep, it isn't even that powerful compared to mana drain). The same goes true when mana leak was legal in standard.
To be honest, I hadn't considered format health when writing my first post. In a meta game sense counterspells are healthy and often vital. I think most would agree that Legacy would be a much worse format without Force of Will.
Personally, I'm mostly curious about the visceral gut reaction to having a spell countered, or that sinking feeling when the draw-go list has countered the last 15 spells and hasn't even dropped its win con yet. Those irrational emotional responses.
It's worth pointing out that the concept of counterspells being unfun to play against is by no means universal. I actually learned how to play when playing against mono-blue permission, and to this day, I still have the most fun in those tight battles of wits.
I also strongly disagree with something like Mana Leak ruining standard. What happened however is that WotC used focus groups and learned that the most common reaction was that something countered did "nothing" whereas a creature killed was "answered". This illusion of non-interaction verses interaction became the the guiding principle for modern design.
@Mondu: I remember those decks. The Mirage-Tempest Type2 Mono-Blue was sweet.
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Buehler Blue hated Scragnoth. I played during that era and have nothing but fond memories of those days. Learning how to deal with counter magic was like a merit badge of our character as magic players. I chuckle at the idea that Mana Leak is a boogeyman that can "ruin formats, crush dreams" or other such hyperbole. Maybe I, as an older magic player who favors the older styles of gameplay, just understand the ruthlessness that was and can never be again?
But really, the rhetoric against counterspells paint them to be the devil in new shoes. They aren't that bad.
I think counterspells are great. I think counterspells are propably the most fun spell type there is. They create cool mind games which you don't really see with other card types.
I think it's the combination of fear and false hope. Against an "I win" combo deck like Storm, you know the game's over as soon as they combo off. Against a lock like Iona or Stasis or such, it's easy to see you're locked and just scoop. Against a permission deck, it's not so easy to make that call. Unlike staring down an Iona or a flipped Erayo's Essence with Rule of Law in play, you can't see the lock. It's hidden away in your opponent's hand. Facing down untapped lands when your opponent is playing permission is very unnerving. You keep hoping "maybe he doesn't have a counter for this one" every time you cast a spell, then hold your breath as you tap your mana and place your card on the table, praying that your opponent doesn't move his hand towards that untapped Island. The game draws on and on like this with no end in sight. You don't want to just scoop because you can't physically see that your opponent is holding enough card advantage, counter magic and removal to deal with anything you can throw at him, so you're left with that little glimmer of hope that you'll be able to fight your way through the counterspells, that your opponent will run out of them or you'll be able to sneak a card through and win.
I think that feeling is what makes playing against such a deck so much different than playing against a combo deck or a deck that locks you out in a very blatant manner. You're left fighting what usually turns out to be a rather long game and the entire time it's a frustrating uphill battle in which you feel like you're accomplishing nothing.
Quick question, how are most games played? Short answer spells. If everything you play is countered does that create a fun enviorment where you are likely to continue playing? Unless you play dredge or oops all spells no, not likely. So wizards tries to keep this from happening in the formats they control like standard and modern. Same goes for land destruction bc like spells players need lands to play and possibly win.
EDIT in my slightly drunken stupor I read over the thread I still stand by my original post and would like to expand and say that as a ub fae modern control player I do understand the power of mana leak and remand and would Honestly say most of the true power of the deck is in the discard. Inquisition and thoughtseize cover a LOT of weight and I would say disrupting a spell 2 or 3 turns before it even becomes relevant is a much bigger advantage. Not to say knowing what to counter isn't Huge bc it is. Simply seeing an opponent's hand is Huge against and for a control deck. I can keep cOunters and remOval for when they really matter most
The main difference between counterspells and removal is what they work on. Both will stop a creature, but the counterspell will also stop, well, anything. The scope of countermagic is far beyond what the best removal is capable of answering. It's far more appropriate to compare Counterspell to Thoughtseize, only at 1 more mana and without the life payment. Yes, countermagic is reactive instead of proactive, but a counterspell in hand is an immediate answer for anything.
Removal also has answers. Recently, Gods Willing has been in U/W heroic decks, and can answer removal. Can't do anything about counterspells, though. In fact, the only cards that can answer countermagic is to run your own countermagic, with strange exceptions like Cavern of Souls. Cavern was put in specifically because Mana Leak and Snapcaster Mage had such powerful synergy.
In general, Wizards keeps a close eye on disruption strategies: ones that prevent your opponent from putting out threats OR answers. LD, discard, and countermagic are all in this broad category that prevents one player from actually playing. By that, I mean that they prevent one player from being able to make any meaningful decisions, ones that can actually affect the outcome of the game. One-sided games are something Wizards (correctly) does not want for Standard, and especially does not want newer players to get hit with.
Countermagic specifically isn't a problem, but paired with heavy card draw, they become problematic. White is given less card draw specifically because it has cheap, versatile answers. Making countermagic stronger would likely mean either printing specific hate cards like Cavern of Souls again, or cutting Blue down to White's level of card draw. I don't see either one as a very good option.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
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Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
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People don't like losing. Countering important spells happens to be a pretty good strategy against a lot of decks. As for me, I will be off countering all your stuff with counterbalance, counterspell and force of will and complaining about how annoying it is to play against GBx midrange decks that overwhelm counterspells with value creatures or hymn to tourachs and destroy my counterbalance with abrupt decay.
When I first started playing, I was in a meta where there was power, and multiple counter decks, people with the 4 fow, counters, impulse, mana leak, etc. I learned to hate mono blue or blue based variants pretty fast. Turns out a turn 1 jackal pup was a nightmare for them deal with, and so I've been playing non blue strategies that stomp them to this day, even if I do lose to a white or black variant every once in a while (what a sideboard is for, naturally). In essence, yeah, I agree that going overboard with permission can be seriously not fun, but I manned up and learned to deal with it and it turns out that a deck with a ton of answers loses to a deck with a ton of threats, generally speaking. Even though I've been playing for the better part of 16 years, I still don't like counter strategies. My favorite eternal format strategy is now "Screw Blue!" with a pretty good success rate.
I personally don't see why people object to counterspells more than removal.
I completely agree, they shouldn't. But Wizards at the very least feels differently, based on the aforementioned focus groups, so I feel that it's worth exploring why.
Speaking of the focus groups, does anyone have links to more detailed information on those, or better yet, any kind of semi-scholarly article on the psychology of having a spell countered? I would be very interested in reading that.
I think it's safe to say that counterspells are an acquired taste, and that the people who like them least are new players*. Then the question becomes why don't new players like counterspells? One theory I thought up while sleeping on this is that a heavy permission deck feels like it's playing a completely different game than what new players experience.
I almost wonder if this is the result of how new players learn Magic. Don't quote me on this, but I feel that new players who borrow a deck, or get one of those free practice decks Wizards releases, or buy a copy of Duels of the Planeswalkers, usually start out playing creature decks, Green and Red ones in particular (In the first four Duels games, your choice of starting deck were a mono-Green stompy deck, or a mono-Red burn-ish thing.) In that environment, destroying creatures or trading up with them is the primary interaction. So when an experienced player with a control deck shows up, suddenly your creatures and spells are never even resolving.
Another idea I'd like to reiterate is that there might be an engagement curve to casting a spell that counterspells interrupt. When you have a spell in your hand, there's the anticipation as it sits in your hand, the excitement when you go to cast it, and the satisfaction after you're done. Counterspells interrupt that process in the middle, leaving the person whose spell got countered adrift.
Counterspells are just an element of the game. They have their place, their use. I'd hate the game without them; they're part of what makes the game what it is.
You'll get no argument from me when it comes to the importance of counterspells in the game. Nor will I deny that counterspells can be fun to play with. In fact, I feel that counterspells are an important part of learning that there are more ways to interact with your opponent in Magic than creature combat and creature destruction.
And yet Wizards at the very least feels that having a creature Mana Leaked is less fun than having it Doom Bladeded
And I stand by my statement that losing to a heavy permission deck is one of the least fun experiences in Magic.
*I've seen 20-year veterans of the game who will happily sleeve up Miracles in Legacy, but get really annoyed if anyone brings a heavy permission deck to an EDH game.
People like to play their cards. That said, I'm not particularly sure why counterspells feel worse to people than removal. Why do you care if you play a creature and I kill it as soon as I get priority or if I counter it before it hits the field? What's the difference?
I am usually just annoyed by the UWr players that pride themselves on the whole no win con excessively drain everyones soul and go to time thing. It drives me made that local shops don't strictly adhere to timed rounds. You should be punished for 45 minute rounds, its disgusting.
*I've seen 20-year veterans of the game who will happily sleeve up Miracles in Legacy, but get really annoyed if anyone brings a heavy permission deck to an EDH game.
I think that's mostly because EDH is seen as a casual format, and there's no real way for heavy permission to feel casual and friendly and not just Spikey. They same people that get frustrated by heavy permission in EDH usually get frustrated by Spikey aggro EDH decks, too. In any tournament format, I prefer control. I like the mind games, the strategy, the bluffing, I like everything about it. Sitting with a bunch of friends playing EDH though, I use that more as a way to just play with random cool stuff that I wouldn't otherwise be able to use. I still often have a couple counters and wraths, but usually just to stop someone from comboing off and to reset the field when one or two people's field gets out of hand.
But then, maybe that's why their focus groups disliked counters; the vast majority of people who play magic play mostly casual kitchen-table stuff, not go to tournaments and the like. I also think the point that newer players tend to dislike counters more is very valid. Magic has been very creature-centric for a while now, and to anyone starting out recently, playing in the older spell-heavy formats would likely feel like a very different game.
This could likely explain why I don't find counters and other control aspects to be a big deal. At least for me, WotC's ideal of "we can't make Magic unfun" is making Magic unfun. Revised to Urza was my heyday. Those were my high school years, and I can't help but play around control to this day. One of my good friends (Who I still keep in touch with now that we're in our mid 30's, Yay Magic!) always played classic style U/W control. It was annoying, for sure, but I had to develop a way to beat that.
I was never much of a control player (Sligh or Ponza was more my thing), but I genuinely miss the cards that Wizards calls "unfun". Fearing "grouchy old man" mode being on, making shareholders happy and Pokemon 2.0 has drained the enjoyment out of new sets for me.
That said, I do understand that WotC is painted into a corner in a way. For Legacy, Vintage, and Modern, the cream is going to rise to the top, and they have to be careful of what they're printing.
Personally I don't think there's a draw go deck in modern cause there's just no reason to go to the end game. It's not the counters, it's the lack of end game advantage over midrange. Even in legacy miracles is the only really good one around. It's just that in non-rotating formats trying to one for one just isn't terribly great, especially in modern where they can't really easily gain card advantage. It's funny but I think traditional control is destined to be a standard thing.
I think removal also has this more satisfying sound to your card being foiled than being countered. Counterspells are like, your card never happened yawn. Meanwhile in removal-ville you can be all I shatter your colossus of sardia and it's like, awesome how you shattered a massive construct.
People like to play their cards. That said, I'm not particularly sure why counterspells feel worse to people than removal. Why do you care if you play a creature and I kill it as soon as I get priority or if I counter it before it hits the field? What's the difference?
There's a pretty significant difference between hitting Siege Rhino with Dissolve and hitting it with Hero's Downfall (unless you flashed in Hushwing Gryff in response and they didn't kill it before their Rhino resolved, I guess).
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I don't play decks. I solve optimization problems.
Currently solving:
Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
Neutering Counterspells and Land Destruction and Burn in standard was an overreaction. Although Akki_Akki primarily plays red, Akki_Akki kind of sad that blue got shrunk down to what it is. Counterspell wasn't unfun, it was tense yet enjoyable to play against. Now blue must try to be excessively aggressive in comparison with creature and bounce spells and the lighter forms of permission. Akki_Akki not surprised many blue mage look to EDH, Vintage, Legacy or Modern for counterspell better than what standard give.
Akki_Akki think...
If you find something unfun, its a personal issue. Sometime it is legitimately unfun, but more often people just want to call Cheap or Cowardly when they play against something that defeats their expectations. If you want to play against something that doesn't defeat your expectations that badly, go play mirror matchs all day, Akki_Akki personally find those with such mentality to be nonsense and Akki_Akki not care for such nonsense. If every color of magic was same with just different paint job, Akki_Akki would have quit long long time ago. Akki_Akki actually appreciate their is such diverseness in game.
People like to play their cards. That said, I'm not particularly sure why counterspells feel worse to people than removal. Why do you care if you play a creature and I kill it as soon as I get priority or if I counter it before it hits the field? What's the difference?
There's a pretty significant difference between hitting Siege Rhino with Dissolve and hitting it with Hero's Downfall (unless you flashed in Hushwing Gryff in response and they didn't kill it before their Rhino resolved, I guess).
Significant difference in impact of the game, sure. I'd obviously rather have my Siege Rhino removed than countered for the sake of my odds of winning. But why one feels more or less fun to some people is beyond me. You didn't get to really play with the card any more in one scenario than the other.
I think people hate them because they let you almost do you want before stopping you. Discard gets rid of it before you spend any mana on it, so its gone before it matters, and you can focus on something else. Removal lets it hit the board, and sometimes the permanent sits around a bit before they draw the removal spell, so it feels like you did something. Counters let you spend the mana, let you cast the spell, then yank it away at the last second. Its a more visceral feeling of being told no. They are also harder for noobs to use. Sure, removal and discard have nuances that you have to learn to use them effectively, but a noob can understand their baseline uses "terror their creatures to kill them" or "mind rot that guy and he loses two cards". The timing of counterspells makes them harder for noobs to pick up, especially when they see more experienced players use them so effectively. They feel shut off from a powerful component of the game. Once a player learns how to use counter spells, and how to play around them (these go hand in hand, as getting better at beating counter spells makes you better at playing them, and vice versa), their hate diminishes, or goes away entirely.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
People like to play their cards. That said, I'm not particularly sure why counterspells feel worse to people than removal. Why do you care if you play a creature and I kill it as soon as I get priority or if I counter it before it hits the field? What's the difference?
There's a pretty significant difference between hitting Siege Rhino with Dissolve and hitting it with Hero's Downfall (unless you flashed in Hushwing Gryff in response and they didn't kill it before their Rhino resolved, I guess).
Significant difference in impact of the game, sure. I'd obviously rather have my Siege Rhino removed than countered for the sake of my odds of winning. But why one feels more or less fun to some people is beyond me. You didn't get to really play with the card any more in one scenario than the other.
Though if you were playing a creature with a drawback etb effect like Hunted Dragon, you'd much rather have in countered
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Greetings all. I was over on the Modern boards reading discussions about blue control. Specifically, why there were no strong Blue based "draw go" permission decks- ie decks filled with lots of counterspells. The answer we decided was that Wizards felt counterspells were unfun to play against in large quantities, and therefore doesn't print lots of strong counterspells in recent sets. See this article for instance.
This just begs the question- why do counterspells feel bad? From a game mechanic standpoint, there is little difference between having a creature countered, or having it blown up immediately by spot removal (setting aside ETB triggers for the moment). And yet the counterspell feels worse. I've been playing Magic on and off for over a decade, and there is still that moment of frustration from having a spell countered that I usually don't feel for spot removal.
I also feel that I can say with some authority that, having lost to fast combo, Stasis/Kismet lock, Mindslaver lock, Iona, Shield of Emeria lock, and dedicated land destruction decks complete with multiple copies of Strip Mine, losing to a heavy permission deck is one of the least fun ways to lose a game of Magic.
I currently have two ideas on why counterspells feel unfun. The first is that there is an inherent sense of satisfaction from resolving a spell. Even if what you just cast gets immediately destroyed, you still get that moment of satisfaction. This ties in with the second idea. The worst way to lose is when you feel like you didn't really get to have a chance to actually play Magic. When you lose to a heavy permission deck, it feels like your opponent was just toying with you.
So, I ask you- why do you think counterspells create bad feelings? In addition, if anyone knows of any articles going into the psychology of playing against counterspells, please link them- I would love to read them.
Finally let me add the following disclaimer, because this is the internet: I am not bashing on counterspells in moderation. They are an important part of the game, and some spells need to be countered. It's only in excessive quantities that they become truly soul crushing.
Also I say from experience that while losing to a heavy permission deck feels terrible, winning with one feels awesome.
There are a few reasons for this. A lot of people today are netdeckers, they win because they googled "Winning PTQ decK' and copied it. Playing against Counterspells means you have to know how to play Magic, you cannot just drop cards in the manner in which some website described and win. You have to strategize and force the Counter deck into making bad choices. You have to sacrifice card A to draw the counterspell and let card B through, even though card A is "Really good". Many people have no idea how to strategize in Magic and so Counterspells are "Unfun" because they can't just memorize and regurgitate some internet strategy.
Then there's the Timmys, who put together this grand strategy hinging around getting these 6 cards on the board in order to have some infinite combo go off. He doesn't like it because he's already banking his win on a statistical improbability and one Counterspell tanks the whole thing.
It's the aggregate effect of the netdecker. As you have an increase in the number of players who play by regurgitating some strategy they read on the internet you have a corresponding increase in the number of players who don't know how to handle a non-standard deck. If you never learned how to handle adapting your play to disruption then disrupting feels like "Cheating" and you feel like you "Never had a chance" because you don't recognize your own bad play. "This is the way this deck wins" without any idea of how to play the deck differently.
There's a reason why the prevelance of netdecking corresponds to the diminishing presence of disruption, to the point where today almost all of the games are netdecks and almost none of the cards are disruption.
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http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/72
This just begs the question- why do counterspells feel bad? From a game mechanic standpoint, there is little difference between having a creature countered, or having it blown up immediately by spot removal (setting aside ETB triggers for the moment). And yet the counterspell feels worse. I've been playing Magic on and off for over a decade, and there is still that moment of frustration from having a spell countered that I usually don't feel for spot removal.
I also feel that I can say with some authority that, having lost to fast combo, Stasis/Kismet lock, Mindslaver lock, Iona, Shield of Emeria lock, and dedicated land destruction decks complete with multiple copies of Strip Mine, losing to a heavy permission deck is one of the least fun ways to lose a game of Magic.
I currently have two ideas on why counterspells feel unfun. The first is that there is an inherent sense of satisfaction from resolving a spell. Even if what you just cast gets immediately destroyed, you still get that moment of satisfaction. This ties in with the second idea. The worst way to lose is when you feel like you didn't really get to have a chance to actually play Magic. When you lose to a heavy permission deck, it feels like your opponent was just toying with you.
So, I ask you- why do you think counterspells create bad feelings? In addition, if anyone knows of any articles going into the psychology of playing against counterspells, please link them- I would love to read them.
Finally let me add the following disclaimer, because this is the internet: I am not bashing on counterspells in moderation. They are an important part of the game, and some spells need to be countered. It's only in excessive quantities that they become truly soul crushing.
Also I say from experience that while losing to a heavy permission deck feels terrible, winning with one feels awesome.
Define "excessive quantity".
A deck can have only one set of counterspells and it will make a format a desolate, unfun place (mental misstep, it isn't even that powerful compared to mana drain). The same goes true when mana leak was legal in standard.
Compare this to the era of revised to urza. There was powersink, arcane denial, Force of Will, counterspell, etc. And yet blue control packing 16(!) or so couterspells wasn't _that_ frustrating to play again (it was stasis, tradewind rider, and capsize, and masticore that were the problem).
So, basically, I disagree with the assertion that "excessive quantity" of counterspells is the problem.
What makes counterspells a problem is if they _work_. That's highly dependent on the meta. mana leak wasn't problem when it first came out. In the standard of recent years, however, with the fundamental turn becoming closer and closer to 2 and multicolor decks are the norm, mana leak became a stupidly effective effective card. Mana drain? No one really complains about in (in vintage). But whenever you see mana drain into a tinker or jace, the opponent's face is priceless. powersink is/was also considered underpowered, up until you got hit with a stasis later. And of course mental mistep, which is harmless in standard, beomes not so harmless when decks in formats where it is banned in have critical turn 1 players. I'm pretty sure cancel, which is virtually unplayable, will suddenly become a mosnter even if it's the only counter in the format if the fundamental turn in standard where raised to 4 or so.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
To be honest, I hadn't considered format health when writing my first post. In a meta game sense counterspells are healthy and often vital. I think most would agree that Legacy would be a much worse format without Force of Will.
Personally, I'm mostly curious about the visceral gut reaction to having a spell countered, or that sinking feeling when the draw-go list has countered the last 15 spells and hasn't even dropped its win con yet. Those irrational emotional responses.
I also strongly disagree with something like Mana Leak ruining standard. What happened however is that WotC used focus groups and learned that the most common reaction was that something countered did "nothing" whereas a creature killed was "answered". This illusion of non-interaction verses interaction became the the guiding principle for modern design.
@Mondu: I remember those decks. The Mirage-Tempest Type2 Mono-Blue was sweet.
1 Rainbow Efreet
Instant (29)
4 Force Spike
3 Mana Leak
1 Memory Lapse
4 Counterspell
2 Dissipate
3 Forbid
4 Dismiss
4 Whispers of the Muse
Artifact (4)
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
Land (26)
18 Island
4 Quicksand
4 Stalking Stones
2 Capsize
1 Grindstone
4 Hydroblast
4 Sea Sprite
4 Wasteland
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
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My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
But really, the rhetoric against counterspells paint them to be the devil in new shoes. They aren't that bad.
Big Thanks to Xeno for sig art <3.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I think that feeling is what makes playing against such a deck so much different than playing against a combo deck or a deck that locks you out in a very blatant manner. You're left fighting what usually turns out to be a rather long game and the entire time it's a frustrating uphill battle in which you feel like you're accomplishing nothing.
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(Signature courtesy of Argetlam of Hakai Studios
EDIT in my slightly drunken stupor I read over the thread I still stand by my original post and would like to expand and say that as a ub fae modern control player I do understand the power of mana leak and remand and would Honestly say most of the true power of the deck is in the discard. Inquisition and thoughtseize cover a LOT of weight and I would say disrupting a spell 2 or 3 turns before it even becomes relevant is a much bigger advantage. Not to say knowing what to counter isn't Huge bc it is. Simply seeing an opponent's hand is Huge against and for a control deck. I can keep cOunters and remOval for when they really matter most
BWTeysa, Orzhov Scion Combo
GUEzuri, Claw of progress Morph
GUBSidisi, Brood tyrant
RWGisela, Blade of Goldnight Random red white cards i dont use.dec
GBLoam Pox
Modern
UBFaeries
GBWGoyfless Abzan
On Squirrels
On Risen Executioner
Removal also has answers. Recently, Gods Willing has been in U/W heroic decks, and can answer removal. Can't do anything about counterspells, though. In fact, the only cards that can answer countermagic is to run your own countermagic, with strange exceptions like Cavern of Souls. Cavern was put in specifically because Mana Leak and Snapcaster Mage had such powerful synergy.
In general, Wizards keeps a close eye on disruption strategies: ones that prevent your opponent from putting out threats OR answers. LD, discard, and countermagic are all in this broad category that prevents one player from actually playing. By that, I mean that they prevent one player from being able to make any meaningful decisions, ones that can actually affect the outcome of the game. One-sided games are something Wizards (correctly) does not want for Standard, and especially does not want newer players to get hit with.
Countermagic specifically isn't a problem, but paired with heavy card draw, they become problematic. White is given less card draw specifically because it has cheap, versatile answers. Making countermagic stronger would likely mean either printing specific hate cards like Cavern of Souls again, or cutting Blue down to White's level of card draw. I don't see either one as a very good option.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
- Scissors.
People don't like losing. Countering important spells happens to be a pretty good strategy against a lot of decks. As for me, I will be off countering all your stuff with counterbalance, counterspell and force of will and complaining about how annoying it is to play against GBx midrange decks that overwhelm counterspells with value creatures or hymn to tourachs and destroy my counterbalance with abrupt decay.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
I completely agree, they shouldn't. But Wizards at the very least feels differently, based on the aforementioned focus groups, so I feel that it's worth exploring why.
Speaking of the focus groups, does anyone have links to more detailed information on those, or better yet, any kind of semi-scholarly article on the psychology of having a spell countered? I would be very interested in reading that.
I think it's safe to say that counterspells are an acquired taste, and that the people who like them least are new players*. Then the question becomes why don't new players like counterspells? One theory I thought up while sleeping on this is that a heavy permission deck feels like it's playing a completely different game than what new players experience.
I almost wonder if this is the result of how new players learn Magic. Don't quote me on this, but I feel that new players who borrow a deck, or get one of those free practice decks Wizards releases, or buy a copy of Duels of the Planeswalkers, usually start out playing creature decks, Green and Red ones in particular (In the first four Duels games, your choice of starting deck were a mono-Green stompy deck, or a mono-Red burn-ish thing.) In that environment, destroying creatures or trading up with them is the primary interaction. So when an experienced player with a control deck shows up, suddenly your creatures and spells are never even resolving.
Another idea I'd like to reiterate is that there might be an engagement curve to casting a spell that counterspells interrupt. When you have a spell in your hand, there's the anticipation as it sits in your hand, the excitement when you go to cast it, and the satisfaction after you're done. Counterspells interrupt that process in the middle, leaving the person whose spell got countered adrift.
You'll get no argument from me when it comes to the importance of counterspells in the game. Nor will I deny that counterspells can be fun to play with. In fact, I feel that counterspells are an important part of learning that there are more ways to interact with your opponent in Magic than creature combat and creature destruction.
And yet Wizards at the very least feels that having a creature Mana Leaked is less fun than having it Doom Bladeded
And I stand by my statement that losing to a heavy permission deck is one of the least fun experiences in Magic.
*I've seen 20-year veterans of the game who will happily sleeve up Miracles in Legacy, but get really annoyed if anyone brings a heavy permission deck to an EDH game.
I think that's mostly because EDH is seen as a casual format, and there's no real way for heavy permission to feel casual and friendly and not just Spikey. They same people that get frustrated by heavy permission in EDH usually get frustrated by Spikey aggro EDH decks, too. In any tournament format, I prefer control. I like the mind games, the strategy, the bluffing, I like everything about it. Sitting with a bunch of friends playing EDH though, I use that more as a way to just play with random cool stuff that I wouldn't otherwise be able to use. I still often have a couple counters and wraths, but usually just to stop someone from comboing off and to reset the field when one or two people's field gets out of hand.
But then, maybe that's why their focus groups disliked counters; the vast majority of people who play magic play mostly casual kitchen-table stuff, not go to tournaments and the like. I also think the point that newer players tend to dislike counters more is very valid. Magic has been very creature-centric for a while now, and to anyone starting out recently, playing in the older spell-heavy formats would likely feel like a very different game.
This could likely explain why I don't find counters and other control aspects to be a big deal. At least for me, WotC's ideal of "we can't make Magic unfun" is making Magic unfun. Revised to Urza was my heyday. Those were my high school years, and I can't help but play around control to this day. One of my good friends (Who I still keep in touch with now that we're in our mid 30's, Yay Magic!) always played classic style U/W control. It was annoying, for sure, but I had to develop a way to beat that.
I was never much of a control player (Sligh or Ponza was more my thing), but I genuinely miss the cards that Wizards calls "unfun". Fearing "grouchy old man" mode being on, making shareholders happy and Pokemon 2.0 has drained the enjoyment out of new sets for me.
That said, I do understand that WotC is painted into a corner in a way. For Legacy, Vintage, and Modern, the cream is going to rise to the top, and they have to be careful of what they're printing.
Nice ominous warning about Jace the Mind Sculptor in that article though. Good times...
There's a pretty significant difference between hitting Siege Rhino with Dissolve and hitting it with Hero's Downfall (unless you flashed in Hushwing Gryff in response and they didn't kill it before their Rhino resolved, I guess).
I don't play decks. I solve optimization problems.
Currently solving:
Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
Neutering Counterspells and Land Destruction and Burn in standard was an overreaction. Although Akki_Akki primarily plays red, Akki_Akki kind of sad that blue got shrunk down to what it is. Counterspell wasn't unfun, it was tense yet enjoyable to play against. Now blue must try to be excessively aggressive in comparison with creature and bounce spells and the lighter forms of permission. Akki_Akki not surprised many blue mage look to EDH, Vintage, Legacy or Modern for counterspell better than what standard give.
Akki_Akki think...
If you find something unfun, its a personal issue. Sometime it is legitimately unfun, but more often people just want to call Cheap or Cowardly when they play against something that defeats their expectations. If you want to play against something that doesn't defeat your expectations that badly, go play mirror matchs all day, Akki_Akki personally find those with such mentality to be nonsense and Akki_Akki not care for such nonsense. If every color of magic was same with just different paint job, Akki_Akki would have quit long long time ago. Akki_Akki actually appreciate their is such diverseness in game.
That is Akki_Akki's thoughts on matter.
Significant difference in impact of the game, sure. I'd obviously rather have my Siege Rhino removed than countered for the sake of my odds of winning. But why one feels more or less fun to some people is beyond me. You didn't get to really play with the card any more in one scenario than the other.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Though if you were playing a creature with a drawback etb effect like Hunted Dragon, you'd much rather have in countered
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
There are a few reasons for this. A lot of people today are netdeckers, they win because they googled "Winning PTQ decK' and copied it. Playing against Counterspells means you have to know how to play Magic, you cannot just drop cards in the manner in which some website described and win. You have to strategize and force the Counter deck into making bad choices. You have to sacrifice card A to draw the counterspell and let card B through, even though card A is "Really good". Many people have no idea how to strategize in Magic and so Counterspells are "Unfun" because they can't just memorize and regurgitate some internet strategy.
Then there's the Timmys, who put together this grand strategy hinging around getting these 6 cards on the board in order to have some infinite combo go off. He doesn't like it because he's already banking his win on a statistical improbability and one Counterspell tanks the whole thing.
It's the aggregate effect of the netdecker. As you have an increase in the number of players who play by regurgitating some strategy they read on the internet you have a corresponding increase in the number of players who don't know how to handle a non-standard deck. If you never learned how to handle adapting your play to disruption then disrupting feels like "Cheating" and you feel like you "Never had a chance" because you don't recognize your own bad play. "This is the way this deck wins" without any idea of how to play the deck differently.
There's a reason why the prevelance of netdecking corresponds to the diminishing presence of disruption, to the point where today almost all of the games are netdecks and almost none of the cards are disruption.