UU FTW

I realized something while I was driving home from that tournament on Saturday night…

Counterspell is a necessary evil.

Well, maybe not Counterspell per se, but the double-blue casting cost is.

You see [pulls up rocking chair] back when I started playing [lights pipe, puts feet up] to reasonably counter a spell, your only really viable option was a good, old-fashioned Counterspell. It had three words in its text box: “Counter target spell.” And that’s all you needed.

Sure you could play Force Spike or Disrupt or Power Sink (before they neutered it with the stack), and later you could use Force of Will and Forbid, but even then you were relying on the old reliable Blackchick. This meant that to even threaten that you had a counterspell in your hand, you had to leave at least two blue mana at the ready during your opponent’s turn.

You would craft your own turn and order your spells specifically to make this happen. Otherwise your opponent was liable to look at your board and say, “Well, let’s just see what happens when I walk this ‘Geddon right into your untapped Island and FOREST!” And then they’re all like “Float two mana, Crusade, swing for eight.”

And you’re like, “Aw, peas.”

And then they’re like, “Make some mana, draw some cards, play some spells, Belch?”

And you’re like, “GAAAAAAHHH!!!” and diving across the table and stabbing them in the throat.

And they’re like, “Judge! Aaaaagggkk!”

And the judge is all, “Disqualification for stabbing in the throat.”

And the only thing you can think to say is, “Man, I’ma go play Pokemon as soon as it’s invented.”

Those were different times, for sure—raw, edgy, more primal.

I’m just kidding, no one played Blue-Green back then except me, and I probably would have already lost by the time my opponent had six mana.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh, right, Counterspell. See, today, instead of the good counterspells costing UU, they (Remand and Mana Leak, I’m looking in your direction) all cost 1U. That’s too easy to have up and running most of the time, so decks with heavy control components are just too good. Plus, once you get 1UU up and get to use Hinder, that’s even better.

The problem is that 1U is so much easier to bluff than UU. So easy, in fact, that it might happen just by accident when you don’t tap out for some reason. However, even though it’s easy to do and takes so much less skill than leaving UU open on purpose, you still have to play around it at times.

I mean, you really can’t just throw stuff out there to be countered every time, and with an eight- or twelve-card counter suite and a five-card hand, there’s a pretty decent chance that your opponent is holding something that can mess you up for at least one turn. Maybe it’s just my fault for still going out of my way to have two Islands untapped if there’s even the remotest possibility that I would have a counterspell in hand. Not Counterspell, mind you, the lowercase, non-specific one.

Anyway, I’ve written this blog in two sessions separated by four days, so I feel like I’m getting off track, for which I apologize.

What I’m trying to say, and I think I haven’t gotten to this point yet, is that “soft” counters like Mana Leak and Remand are really just as threatening as a straight-up “hard” counter like Counterspell. You can’t reasonably wait for three more land drops to be able to play around Mana Leak, because that makes Mana Leak just as good as playing Time Walk three times! You could try to bait it out, but that still takes at least a turn, and they’ll probably just play a draw spell and get another one or something similar ready for the next go-round.

Remand is basically the same thing. I love using that card in Vintage Fish because it’s like I have multiple Time Walks. “Go ahead and tap out for something game-breaking. I’ll Remand it and Force your Force to draw an extra card and take another turn. Then on my turn, I’ll Duress you and swing for six.”

Now I’ve forgotten what else I was going to say. Oh yeah: The threat (and generally the execution as well) of Mana Leak and Remand is just as good if not greater than that of Counterspell, so why not have it cost as much? That way there’s still some strategy that goes into actually setting up the counter, rather than just setting up the deck and knowing what to counter.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that counterspells are bad or even that I personally don’t like them. What I’m saying is that for all the thought Wizards has put into designing the proper counterspell, I’m not sure they’re quite there yet.

Counterspells are a necessary part of the game’s flavor. There really should be some incantation or whatever that negates other incantations. I mean, there’s that confusing part for beginners where they can’t understand why “Counter target spell” makes their Hill Giant go away because he’s obviously a creature and not a spell, but I think that’s overcome quickly with a little message about suspension of disbelief.

Plus, I think it’s better that they’re restricted to one color, rather than fair game for everyone.

They want counters to be almost exclusively blue’s realm, right? Green gets fat, white gets weenies, red gets burn, black gets a sort of mish-mash of everything that can even possibly be evil, and blue gets the fair and balanced ability to stop all of that (except for Ichorid, Elvish Spirit Guide, and uncounterable things like Scragnoth). So why not make all counters that effectively read “Counter target spell” start at UU? That is, the benchmark counterspell in an environment should put its player mostly into blue, not black or red with a blue splash for some card drawing and hosers for people who like to play spells.

This means that Hinder is properly priced, if not overcosted. Remand is probably correct since the countered card remains in the picture for at least a little while. Weaker counters like Force Spike, Daze, Envelop, Annul, etc., are all properly priced since they’re either so weak or so limited.

Mana Leak, however, should cost at least UU since there are so few times when it won’t act as a hard counter and right now that’s the counterspell that people are deciding on. Personally, I think it would still be played just, probably, with more expensive lands. People would still recognize its strength, and there really isn’t anything too much better in the current environments. Heck, I even play it in Vintage Oath, where it’s a hard enough counter to work most of the time and is a lot easier to play on a three-color manabase than Mana Drain is.

Speaking of Mana Drain, has anyone figured out why that card and Counterspell share a casting cost? Is it just because Mana Drain—even though it’s incredibly powerful in the right situation—isn’t really strictly better than its basic counterpart? Or were they just that bad at designing back then?

Anyway, until next time, counter this! (With the kicker).