How do you rank the following:
-XU Counters (Power Sink/Syncopate/Broken Ambitions): The additional effects can mostly be ignored, IMO. They can counter everything on curve for 1U, but can be become quite mana intense later and outright bad if you are mana screwed or play against green with a lot of acceleration.
-Confound: A pet card of mine. It's mostly a weaker Shelter, but still pretty solid.
-Deprive: Unconditional cmc 2 Counter with tempo drawback. Bad early, doesn't matter later.
-Disdainful Stroke: I've only recently realised that this card might be really good as it hits pretty much all of the high impact cards, you actually want to counter. When it hits it's a guaranteed tempo gain.
-Dissolve: The best [card]Cancel/card].
-Creature Counter (Essence Scatter/False Summoning/Remove Soul): Narrow, but still creature removal for cmc 2.
-Force Spike: Good early, often useless later.
-Logic Knot: Bad early, good late.
-Memory Lapse: It feels more like a bounce spell than a Counter, but it technically is one. It's not really a permanent out, but instead buys you time to find one.
-Negate: Interesting in combination with the creature Counters.
-Prohibit: By far not as good as it is in constructed, but still not unplayable. It can't be better than going even or even in the negative tempo-wise.
Tier 7 Logic Knot (Without synergies) Confound (I ran this for a while but, it was a dead card more often than not. Although I was often more concerned with interacting with my opponent's stuff than my own.)
I don't think REB and BEB are Cube cards personally
Hence the honourable mention. They are strong pieces of countermagic.
I forgot Dispel and Spell Pierce. They are strong, but a bit too narrow for a limited environment. Maybe Spell Pierce is in the league of Faerie Trickery and Syncopate, and dispel's at the bottom with Confound and Logic Knot (without synergies), where it could be strong, but mostly will sit in your hand while your opponent plays creatures.
I really like Faerie Trickery because it feels like the extra 1 mana I'm paying over something the 2 mana alternatives is for a no questions asked, no nonsense kind of deal. If I counter a card with this, I don't to see it come back and haunt me. The Faerie clause has never been relevant (neither the tribal type).
I did cut Exclude from my cube month ago. Although its a nice 2:1 the cmc of 3 was often too slow. I prefer the X-counters, especially PowerSink.
They can counter T2 and are not useless in the lategame.
Force Spike is just mvp and better than manatithe.
Memory Lapse is baiscally paupers time walk
that said, if you really want to make blue counter control a thing, you need to add a bunch of flash creatures to have a real draw go archetype going.
I personally don't consider Arcane Denial cubeable at all. This card is only good in formats/decks, where card advantage doesn't matter like commander or some combo decks. In limited this card can very easily kill you. It doesn't generate more tempo than any other cmc 2 counterspell and in a real tempo deck I don't think counterspells are really good at all, except for like Daze and Force Spike.
Memory Lapse is baiscally paupers time walkRemand". I mean it's Time Walk in a way except for the whole taking a turn thing.
Memory Lapse is usually worse than a hard counter, since it only delays a threat you have to deal with on your next turn. On the other hand it's better than Remand most of the time, because if you counter a cheap threat with Remand you opponent will simply cast it again the very same turn, while it doesn't really matter what you counter with Memory Lapse. It's very similar to Chittering Rats in that regard.
The biggest question from my side is XU Counters vs. Essence Scatters. Any more opinions on that?
I'm also interested if I'm the only one who thinks, that Disdainful Stroke has a lot of potential.
Exclude is almost the best counterspell at common. The only reason why I pick Mana Leak over it, is that strong 2 cmc counterspells are at a premium, and I can always find card advantage somewhere else. Drawing a card on a 3 mana counterspell is bonkers. If you're looking for turn 2 plays, some of the cheap black removal on turn 2 followed by holding mana on turn 3 for Exclude is a hard to beat play. The single blue mana means you can splash blue for Exclude so you don't even have to be committed to the counterspell life style. Exclude is bonkers and there is no way my mind is changing on this. When you reach Turn 5 and your opponent still hasn't managed to stick a creature, you know it's going to be a fun match.
I dont like situational counter, so i dont run any remove soul. prefer X-counters for sure.
another reason why i cut exclude. its great in the flickercombo though.
Disdainful Stroke falls also into the too situative corner, so no ty. it all depends on the speed of you cube though.
you feel silly if you have them while your opponent resolves savannah lions into Raise the Alarm or llanowar elves -> Elephant Guide
When you reach Turn 5 and your opponent still hasn't managed to stick a blocker, you know it's going to be a fun match.
I personally don't consider Arcane Denial cubeable at all. This card is only good in formats/decks, where card advantage doesn't matter like commander or some combo decks. In limited this card can very easily kill you. It doesn't generate more tempo than any other cmc 2 counterspell and in a real tempo deck I don't think counterspells are really good at all, except for like Daze and Force Spike.
Memory Lapse is baiscally paupers time walkRemand". I mean it's Time Walk in a way except for the whole taking a turn thing.
Memory Lapse is usually worse than a hard counter, since it only delays a threat you have to deal with on your next turn. On the other hand it's better than Remand most of the time, because if you counter a cheap threat with Remand you opponent will simply cast it again the very same turn, while it doesn't really matter what you counter with Memory Lapse. It's very similar to Chittering Rats in that regard.
The biggest question from my side is XU Counters vs. Essence Scatters. Any more opinions on that?
I'm also interested if I'm the only one who thinks, that Disdainful Stroke has a lot of potential.
The reason why I rate Arcane Denial so highly is because it's a great fit in tempo decks that want your opponent to never empty their hand. I wouldn't run it in anything even remotely grindy. It's the sort of card where if you are considering Vapor Snag (if that card is in your cube), then this is an auto-include in your deck. Another advantage of Arcane Denial is you actually get passed it, unlike Condescend. I would run Arcane Denial in U/g Man-o'-War tempo and W/B very efficient creatures. These decks want their 2 and 3 drops to go the distance and tend to emphasise mana efficiency, temporary solutions and cheap card-draw over card advantage and permanent solutions. Memory Lapse is another good counterspell for this kind of archetype. These decks definitely want Mana Leak and Force SpikeMana Tithe.
Essence Scatter is sort of a blue Doom Blade, the catch being is you have to have open mana at the right time, whereas with Doom Blade, you can do that whenever. However you do stop etb's from triggering. And you can Essence Scatter a turn 2/3 play while keeping tempo, as long as your opponent doesn't decide that this is the perfect time to resolve their piece of equipment. Sometimes during mid-game your opponents will be looking to resolve a game-breaking sorcery or get an equipment down to start shuffling around on creatures.
Syncopate can counter on curve at 2 mana, which is the main strength of this kind of card. And later turns your opponents can walk into the x is 1. However the more savvy your opponents are the worse this gets. It's an alright counterspell mid-game if you hold up enough mana, although you start losing out on mana effiency whereas with Essence Scatter you lose very little in mana efficiency mid-game (unless your holding for multiple turns, in which case hopefully you're doing something else. Late game if your opponent has been hitting land drops then Syncopate can kind of be a dead card at countering 2 cmc threats (when shields are down, a Topan Freeblade can carry a game).
I've avoided putting in many of the x cost counters (with the exception of Condescend), so I might not have a full grasp on how to evaluate them.
I think Disdainful Stroke has potential in the right deck. I just think that it will end up as draft chaff (instead of a more universally useful card), and I don't like how it can't counter almost any White card. In particular I am the resident White player of my cube and anyone maindecking it again me just lost one very valuable card from their 40 card lineup.
The reason why I rate Arcane Denial so highly is because it's a great fit in tempo decks that want your opponent to never empty their hand.
Playing a tempo deck, that aims to kill the opponent before they can play their hand to the full extend, doesn't mean that you have to actually fuel their hand with additional gas. No matter how much bounce you play it's also not for you to decide if this plan works. Against a super low curve aggro deck this plan will certainly not work.
I think Disdainful Stroke has potential in the right deck. I just think that it will end up as draft chaff (instead of a more universally useful card), and I don't like how it can't counter almost any White card.
arcane denial is pretty bad tbf. its nice that it gives you a draw and is a hardcounter for 1u, but its still too much advantage for the opponent. no matter how full their grip is.
How much counter magic would you say a typical 360 Pauper Cube needs. I'm sort of on the fence for this one. I know that all the strong counter magic down to about Miscalculation are typically auto-included, but after that how much counter magic do you include for the counter control strategies and in terms of redundancy. I'm making assumptions that people will spend early picks on cards that they won't ultimately end up playing rather than hard committing into whatever colour combinations they see first.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
Also Force Spike is better than I was giving it credit, mostly because I wasn't taking into account how valuable having a turn 1 tempo play is for Blue.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
As said, being counterheavy is only really good in the draw-go archetype featuring flash creatures and instant drawspells.
In a "normal" aggrocontrol youre often good with running 3-4 lowcost counterspells to protect your creatures.
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Interested in building your own Pauper Cube? Take a look at some of the lists and the following project: The "Evaluate Everything" Project (updated to M21/JMP)
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powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
In a "normal" aggrocontrol youre often good with running 3-4 lowcost counterspells to protect your creatures.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t