Quote from MrTyx
I feel like you have to keep that weird dual mindset, where you play to win and don't play to win at the same time. Meaning that you build the deck and play it to win, but if you lose that's ok too and you can do so happy.
Right. Personally, I play to keep in the game and keep the game moving forward, with the vague hopes that I'll come out on top at the end.
This is probably a discussion branching too far off the original topic, but I think it's important to build a deck that challenges your playgroup, but doesn't overwhelm them. That applies much more to a casual playgroup than a competitive one, but either way people don't enjoy futile situations.
Anyway, good primer. Thank you.
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And then there are of course counter spells. If they play Jhoira and wait till last second to suspend, you can get them with split second cards. If they suspend a card like Obliterate and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, you can float mana before Obliterate and use a card like Swords to Plowshares. If they are using a lot of artifact ramp (which they should, otherwise why not just play Riku), you can use cards like Shatterstorm and Innocence. You can use cards like Distress to simply remove suspend targets out of their hand.
Does that help as a starting point?
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She's good in 1v1, but she's not completely broken like some other generals. Although "not as bad as it could be" usually don't comfort people. But I'd rather face Jhoira than say Vendilion Clique.
The trick is, find some low cost answers that do double duty in the deck and meta. Cards that are good versus X, Y and Z, where Z is Jhoira. She stomps noobs because they refuse to adapt their decks. Even in competitive Tetsuo Umezawa I believe you could run Venser's Diffusion in place of a card like Arcane Denial without a problem. At worst its a Disperse. You could also play Pithing Needle with Trinket Mage package, but that's not a perfect answer.
Also, off topic but you know what you should run in Tetsuo Umezawa? Freaking Shadow of Doubt. That card is awesome. Ok not really, but I wanted to mention it