MTG Salvation

As the title states, people are playing decks with fewer creatures and more spells. Even to the point where some of them have 0 creatures.

Combos are getting to the point of:
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind + Curiosity
Mono blue lands combo and control
Mono Blue Talrand 0 creatures
Most black decks running Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion plus Contamination

Now this might seem standard to you all, but for a while, very few had combos at all, or would require a lot of setup. Not every deck of mine can police nor can I keep trying to teach threat assessment.

I have a commander and deck in mind, but wanted to get feedback before I started trading for the cards: Kess, Dissident Mage --- storm and pure combo.

My first thoughts go to: What caused this shift? You have "how to counter" in your thread title, but building Kess is joining the arms race.

Was there an increase in something else that caused creatures to become less useful? Do you want to see if you can encourage creature use again?

Anyway, I'd counter a bunch of spellslinger decks with stax and prison. Rule of Law, City of Solitude, Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, Null Rod, Grafdigger's Cage, Torpor Orb, etc.. There's also stuff that will stop individual decks (Leyline of Singularity, Backfire, etc.) but I prefer more general solutions.

Gaddock Teeg

Quote from lyonhaert »

Anyway, I'd counter a bunch of spellslinger decks with stax and prison. Rule of Law, City of Solitude, Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, Null Rod, Grafdigger's Cage, Torpor Orb, etc.. There's also stuff that will stop individual decks (Leyline of Singularity, Backfire, etc.) but I prefer more general solutions.

This was my suggestion based solely on the thread title.

Yeah, rather than join the arms race, identify the various types of wincons and start to hate them out. Tutors are big in your meta? Consider Stranglehold, Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter. Sacrifice shenanigans? Leyline of the Void and Angel of Jubilation. Big X spells? Gaddock Teeg. Constant blinking? Hushwing Gryff and Torpor Orb. Spellslinging/Storm? Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Eidolon of Rhetoric. And so on and on. Abzan colours do tend to work best for this, but you could go with a 4-colour control/hate deck to add some blue to the mix, giving you more direct tools in counterspells as well.

I'd also like some clarity on what exactly you're trying to do. Beat them no matter what? Try to steer people back towards lower-powered decks? Is everyone playing high-powered decks, or is it some smaller subset? What are other people playing?

If your goal is to disarm the meta, my suggestion is probably less to play stax cards that will piss off everyone and focus on targeted removal to disrupt the specific combos (obviously this is less feasible vs storm combos, but countering a critical piece can still work).

As usual, I'm going to suggest a hearty dose of Phelddagrif for what ails your meta. You can take a look at the links in my sig (#3 probably is best) - basically it's the ultimate balancing tool, packing tons and tons of removal for breaking nasty combos and board states, while helping out the weaker players with tokens, cards, and life. You can make the most powerful deck come in last, and the least powerful deck come in...second. Obviously you're going to come in first (as long as you play it smart). Nothing for spitting in the face of high-powered decks than making them consistently lose to trash decks beating them to death with hippos.

Yeah, I'd lean towards a more disruptive deck to counter the prevalence of creatureless combo - a Tymna the Weaver + <something with green> (Tana, the Bloodsower is probably best, but you might not want to invest in a 4 colour manabase) hatebear-centric stax deck looks well placed to take advantage while pushing things back towards creatures. As people have pointed out, there are a lot of effects that impede combo players, many of which are attached to creatures, and, in a creture-lite meta, there's little to stop Tymna turning your hatebears and, if you don't need the mana, dorks, into a serious amount of card draw. "Blood Pod" is the top end list for this type of play and, even if you don't want to go that far, I'd look it up as it should still provide a good base to start from.

Quote from lyonhaert »

My first thoughts go to: What caused this shift? You have "how to counter" in your thread title, but building Kess is joining the arms race.

Was there an increase in something else that caused creatures to become less useful? Do you want to see if you can encourage creature use again?

Anyway, I'd counter a bunch of spellslinger decks with stax and prison. Rule of Law, City of Solitude, Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, Null Rod, Grafdigger's Cage, Torpor Orb, etc.. There's also stuff that will stop individual decks (Leyline of Singularity, Backfire, etc.) but I prefer more general solutions.

Sorry for the lengthy response...most (of my answers) are not clear cut responses. I have been altering my decks to shift with the times (ie added a few more GY hate pieces, 1 to 2 more single target land destruction to get rid of high value lands like maze of ith)
Secondly, sorry for the delayed post. I’ve had the page open for the last few days, adding to it when I have free time.

The shift was caused by a combination of a few factors. Now please keep in mind, there is no set playgroup - besides of one inner group of 4, no one sees or talks to each other besides the 4 hours we are there at the store playing EDH. There have been a few of us that has been around for a few years, but a lot have come and gone. On game nights, we have had 4 people to 20 people....it's random.

Before a newer crowd started to come in, most were playing fair decks with a mono U or U(x) here and there. That led to large battlecruiser decks (mainly green in them) that would ramp and win with overwhelming value or constant threats. No real control decks at that time, but a lot of board wipes around.

I have argued with 2 of guys in the store (that show up often and are a part of said group)....basically on spike issues. Mainly one of them citing rules that he can scoop and deny triggers (basically unfun and gotcha magic) and another always saying you have to have a combo in every deck (not to long ago, he was at our table, and playing a combo deck while the rest were playing fair decks. Two games in a row he combed turn 5-6. I asked him to play something else. When I pull out my Bant Good Stuff ETB Value Deck, he got impatient when he was top deck mode, while I had a full grip just slowly swinging away and gaining value. He taps his foot, keeps scrying when it is not his turn, and making comments about where is the combo).

Side note: my counter to the green decks was MLD. Most accept it because I can win the turn after it. Or I can soft lock the board with Living Plane and Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Usually ends with a scoop unless someone announces they can handle it or kill me. Doesn’t bother me because you have to accept being the target stax.

The cards you listed are in my decks. I have an enchantress deck that does run City of Solitude and Null Rod and Stony Silence. Bant runs creatures that remove graveyards. Red running Blood Moon and War's Toll and Price of Progress.

Talking about having creature decks or no dedicated combo decks won’t do much as most have 1 deck. I have set a few store rules in place like sorcery speed scooping and no gatcha magic (draw your extra card if you missed it or retract something if one did not fully understand an interaction or combo).

Quote from DirkGently »

I'd also like some clarity on what exactly you're trying to do. Beat them no matter what? Try to steer people back towards lower-powered decks? Is everyone playing high-powered decks, or is it some smaller subset? What are other people playing?.

Perhaps I am the problem....I haven't looked there yet. I would like to increase the lower decks' power but at the same time, not winning a single game for 3 weeks (even with editing my decks in between each Thursday night) is tilting. I do encourage people to run more than 1 single target removal and 1 boardwipe. I do ask as we sit down power levels and combos.

Play Ruric Thar, the unbowed. Ramp to him and then MLD. Play Blood moon, Stranglehold, Manabarbs, Price of Glory, Citadel of pain, Predatory Advantage and let's swim together in the sea of fire, the Grull's way.

Depends on how you want to interact with it, but a strange answer might be a mishra, artificer prodigy deck with cards such as possiblity storm. You can break it yourself, but that card just seriously hoses combo and counter decks whereas it won't affect battlecruiser players as much. Even sunbird's invocation gets to be zany card advantge played in the right deck. It also leaves you in black, blue, and red with some form of answer to most of the bs.

Quote from RichardCardfield »

Haven't tried the RG way yet, but can confirm that UW control does not work against combo decks like Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and I'm rather pessimistic about the format as a whole. I think 'battlecruiser edh' as we knew and enjoyed it is dead and WOTC allowed the format to degenerate into a combo mess.

The only alternative I can think of is to create a UB deck hoser which includes all the Extract and Jester's Cap effects which exist, but even then the problem remains: If you stop Player2 from comboing, then Player3 will. You can't sabotage all of them at once.

I think that's a pretty pessimistic outlook. Commander was always a broken format. Mike trike has existed for a long time, as have many powerful combos. And mana rocks certainly aren't getting more powerful than the ones that already exist. If anything it's the midrange decks that have gotten more problematic with cards like prossh, derevi, kess, maelstrom wanderer, teferi, etc, as those are the cards that wotc tends to push really hard since they know they're unlikely to make waves in eternal formats. Efficient tutors and fast combos don't show up very often.

And for all that, I think the format is far from dead. You just need the right people to play with, people who aren't trying to break the format and aren't trying to build as powerfully as possible. In my experience that's not particularly hard to find. If you're in a combo meta and don't want to be, then leave. Find another group. Or maybe try to convince everyone to play precons.

Also I'm like 99% sure a decent UW control deck could easily sabotage mikaeus if it focused decent attention on him, knew what to expect, and had efficient answers, but if everyone is playing combo and you don't want to be, then really the only reasonable choice is to find someone else to play with, not try to take on everyone at once (although if you are, I'd recommend child of alara. Let's see mikey recover from a repeated global ruin, lul).

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from RichardCardfield »

Haven't tried the RG way yet, but can confirm that UW control does not work against combo decks like Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and I'm rather pessimistic about the format as a whole. I think 'battlecruiser edh' as we knew and enjoyed it is dead and WOTC allowed the format to degenerate into a combo mess.

The only alternative I can think of is to create a UB deck hoser which includes all the Extract and Jester's Cap effects which exist, but even then the problem remains: If you stop Player2 from comboing, then Player3 will. You can't sabotage all of them at once.

I think that's a pretty pessimistic outlook. Commander was always a broken format. Mike trike has existed for a long time, as have many powerful combos. And mana rocks certainly aren't getting more powerful than the ones that already exist. If anything it's the midrange decks that have gotten more problematic with cards like prossh, derevi, kess, maelstrom wanderer, teferi, etc, as those are the cards that wotc tends to push really hard since they know they're unlikely to make waves in eternal formats. Efficient tutors and fast combos don't show up very often.

And for all that, I think the format is far from dead. You just need the right people to play with, people who aren't trying to break the format and aren't trying to build as powerfully as possible. In my experience that's not particularly hard to find. If you're in a combo meta and don't want to be, then leave. Find another group. Or maybe try to convince everyone to play precons.

Also I'm like 99% sure a decent UW control deck could easily sabotage mikaeus if it focused decent attention on him, knew what to expect, and had efficient answers, but if everyone is playing combo and you don't want to be, then really the only reasonable choice is to find someone else to play with, not try to take on everyone at once (although if you are, I'd recommend child of alara. Let's see mikey recover from a repeated global ruin, lul).

Hell, just run RiP. Mike doesn't bring Trike back from being exiled.