MTG Salvation

Legitimate question time... How does one handle a deck that runs close to 30 counterspells and removal to wait and pull off its own win? Earlier, I had some people snerk at me because I ran such a deck and it's pretty powerful. But how does one attack the deck from which angle? And How do you counter the attacks?

Such as... I built an Edric deck that plays very differently from the traditional lists and the way it's designed it can end up controlling an entire table until I am ready to win outright. My boyfriend hates it, some others think it's BS, but I think it's very powerful because of the quality and card considerations I have put into the creation of the deck.

Is this regular commander or some form of one on one commander? The awncer will depend upon the senario, although if multiple people dislike it and you are still winning I am suspecting it is not multiplayer. Othervice they would all just gang up on you on first account, as the unwritten rule of multiplayer is to gang up on the strongest deck so increase the ods of winning. While counter spells are potent in any format multi player, they only target one card. Usualy a one for one trade, but as more people are drawing cards one for one trades tend to not be good. In my ear it just sounds like they are unexperiences players, do not know how to play through counterspells or their decks are just disproportianly worse then yours.

If this is some sort of one on one commander then what rules are you playing with? Decks that line up their draw with counterspells usualy die to early stuff that comes though. At least back in the golden 'draw go' style decks from tempest block. A higher life total in commander midigates that strategy by a lot. Why are they not playing spells suitet to the format in that case? Card draw and counterspells sounds like an excelent place to start. It should be noted that I find playing one on one commander games quite idiotic. Then you should play something like canadian highlander instead where the life total stays at 20.

By running more threats combined with card draw or cheap ways to protect against counterspells, like Spell Pierce

And if nothing else works, build a deck with Surrak Dragonclaw as commander.

Play multiplayer?
Seriously, one-for-one decks only work in 2-player. And if you're struggling there, decks like Surrak or Geist or other threat-heavy decks that can justify Aether Vial can pick up wins.

• Abeyance
  
• Abrupt Decay
  
• Altered Ego
  
• Aurelia's Fury
  
• Boseiju, Who Shelters All
  
• Bound // Determined
  
• Cavern of Souls
  
• Conqueror's Flail
  
• Counterflux
  
• Dragonlord Dromoka
  
• Grand Abolisher
  
• Hope of Ghirapur
  
• Insist
  
• Iona, Shield of Emeria
  
• Last Word
  
• Orim's Chant
  
• Overmaster
  
• Overwhelming Denial
  
• Prowling Serpopard
  
• Render Silent
  
• Savage Summoning
  
• Sen Triplets
  
• Silence
  
• Sphinx of the Final Word
  
• Supreme Verdict
  
• Surrak Dragonclaw
  
• Vexing Shusher

To name a few playable ones. Also, anything with Split Second.

Playbincointerable stuff. Stuff with split bsecond. Or just run more threats.

Lower your mana curve and play Uba Mask. Typical counter spells are 2+ mana, if you run a bunch of 1-3 mana spells they can't keep you off anything for forever.

counterspell answers one threat at a time. If the opponent is bulking up on permission spells, then either they are running the "cost efficient" counterspells that may not always be an ideal or situational answer (negate/arcane denial/mana leak/swan song), or they may have a higher curve of "hard counters" like dismiss/mindbreak trap/dissipate/dissolve/etc.

You can deal with the counter-happy player by lowering your curve so you can try to out-pace his permission. If they are running more "hard counters" that have a higher-cmc, then just try to out-race them with cheap ramp so you are able to play 2 spells per turn before they can.

Or you could just run akroma, angel of fury, surrak dragonclaw, dragonlord dromoka, or some other anti-control effects

Dosan the Falling leaf, City of Solitude, Prowling Serpopard
Silence, Grand Abolisher
Possibility Storm, Planar Chaos
Eye of the Storm, Summary Dismissal
Imp's Mischief, Contamination, Sadistic Sacrament

Split Second cards.

Hall of Gemstone is a great way to keep your opponent off counterspell mana they need during your turn, although it doesn't do anything about nonland mana sources.

I usually go with a destruction strategy with an akroma, angel of fury as my general. This deck is sort of angel stax and mostly plays more destruction than you run counterspells. The threat is akroma, everything is lands, mana rocks, and things that make "boom" happen. Failing that, a recursion strategy like karador, ghost chieftain with a few hate bears is about all it takes to destroy counter decks.

Counterspell decks for me are about the most boring thing to ever play against. I've never liked heavy counter decks, never will. A few counters in a deck are fine, though. I just refuse to play a counter-heavy deck again once I know what it does. I have no problem sucking away their "fun" doing that, and I patently refuse to spend a single cent to build an anti-counter answer deck.

Honestly, just play a Maelstrom Wanderer deck with a decent-ish curve. You can easily overwhelm the counters just by casting your commander, who they really, really do not want to counter.

During Kam/Rav standard I played a counter heavy fish/tempo deck. Red (Heezy Street) & Zoo probably gave my deck the most the most fits. They were quick enough to get under my counter suite and a single Kird Ape could go a long way.

The best way to combat a counter-heavy deck is to tell them that this next game will have at least 6 players. As the number of opponents goes up, counters grow progressively worse.

Honestly, play teferi, mage of zhalfir and watch them cringe lol.

While I'm not surprised if a newbie comes in and wanna play the counterspell deck, veterans should know better to build and play it. While you may win more games, you lose more friends and respect.