a reason to run less is because in counterfights they are clunky as all heck. If you have like 2-3 in hand you run a high risk of being bottlenecked on mana on an important fight, its why people sometimes go all the way up to 2 dispel from sideboard. Dispel is incredibly efficient against an opponent who has a ton of cryptics. If thats not a concern you can max out on cryptics.
I still really really hate rakdos charm as a card. I much prefer relic. If you play mystical teachings I have to say rakdos charm is better, but outside of that I am not a fan. With all the love Tasigur, the golden fang is getting I'm very surprised people haven't started to adopt relic of progenitus they have some anti synergies but they also have some Very powerful synergies since you can target yourself with the relic to get bad/dead cards out of the yard making it much more likely to get a good card every turn from tasigur. Really think y'all should try more relics.
Sunken ruins seemed unnecessary now tbh. If you just run 3 or so checklands, like sulfur falls or drowned catacomb instead you can still have a decent amount of resiliency to cards like choke and boil while also smoothing out your mana to cast things like terminate. If you have ever had a terminate in hand and a sunken ruins and steam vents in play you will know what I mean, it is really frustrating. Sure it helps to cast damnation, cruel, and cryptic command but imo people used to play sunken ruins over checklands because we didn't have that great of a manabase to cast cruel ultimatum. Like we used to play 4 Scalding tarn and 3 misty rainforest. The mana was worse and so we needed sunken ruins to pull it all together. Now that isn't true anymore. Our manabase is much better and with 7-8 on color fetchlands we can reliably cast cruel ultimatum with almost no problems (unless something is really out of whack with your manabase).
Finally I had an idea that since you all seem to want to test with people who aren't random people on cockatrice, Why not test with each other? I assume you all use the woogerworks server and can just add each other on there. I would be willing to play some test matches myself if anyone wants to get some good testing in. What do you all think about this.
I like liliana I really do I just think that, like others have said, she is at her best in a midrange shell. This is because she sort of "Freezes" the game at around turn 4-5 in terms of power spiking. This is because she make both players discard cards(generally land cards at first) so that they are restricted on mana of course. So jund/junk loves her so much since she can freeze the game at around this level when they also Spike the most in power. A hard control deck like one that plays cruel ultimatum (7 mana) spikes at, you guessed it, 7 mana. So this is why they are a bit nonsynergistic. Also in a game where players dont play that many creatures, I think her card advantage only kicks in when she ultimates, since she cant make use of the edict effect. She can actualyl be pretty decent against infect since they like to sit back on a bunch of protect/permission cards to protect their infect creatures. I cant imagine shes good against affinity though, like edicting an ornithopter and then having lili get killed the next turn doesn't sound that good. Regardless of the bad matchups though she's proven to be worth mainboarding in the jund strategy as she is basically the 2nd strongest planeswalker printed in general. So yeah lili is actually good, just not in the "hard control" strategy for the reasons listed above.
Also lili is a strong card against us make no doubt about it. Sure you can command it to bounce in response to her plus one (but a seasoned player isn't going to fall for this, they will usually wait and hold a card in hand then plus 1 if they suspect you have a cryptic. Also the reason shes good against us is because we spike in power later in the game and therefore since the game is frozen in the turns 4-5ish where they have their midrange deck has the most power, we are disadvantaged. A really random example, its like fighting someone on their own turf, not smart and you're probably going to lose. The games where you can beat lili are only because, A: you destroyed her, B: you drew enough cards to make her not matter too much and advanced the game back to our home turf (turns 7 etc where cards like opportunity would be at their strongest). Because you could afford to NOT discard land cards, and play a couple more getting closer to your power spike/bigger mana costed cards like cruel ultimatum batterskull etc.
And finally I like remand so much even in a control deck because it does have a use for card advantage. The "Trick" where you remand your own spell for card advantage comes up actually fairly often, also the fact that it hits flashback spells so well too is a huge bonus to it. In general the fact that it costs Two Mana and can sometimes be effectively a cryptic is just too good not to play imo. Any time I've played a deck that played think twices and remands, I've always wished for more remands because the person who has more gets a nice advantage from remanding the flashbacked think twices and in a game of pure card advantage, those edges matter. Finally the fact that remand can work well with your own snapcaster to provide a net +1 card, and tempo at the same time is imo just too good not to play. Sure it has some downsides but the upsides are worth it imo even in a control deck.
Some more notable tricks (you can remand something like emrakul or loxodon smiter or creatures where the opponent has a bunch of cavern of souls in play etc. just to cycle ur remands away, MUCH better than having ur manaleak not be able to do anything at all against these cards).
You can cast anger of the gods or another wrath and if you opponent responds by saccing their creatures to a sac outlet for something like a bunch of scrys from viscera seer(also in the case of anger of the gods, so that they can not have their creatures be exiled, potentially eternal witness'ing them back later on) then you can remand your own wrath for a REALLY nice profit. Something that came up for me was electrolyzing a spike feeder and they sacced it for 2 life so my electrolyze couldn't draw me a card since it would fizzle, then I remanded my electrolyze and used the electrolyze on their other 2 creatures. Remand is just such a great card, it just takes creativity to unlock its full potential, but you Do get rewarded for that.
I have played against tron a load of times, If you really play against it a lot you can really improve your matchup against it. It's one of those decks that gets a lot easier to play against when you know how it all works. Modern is loaded with decks like these.
Indeed, so not only do they print softer blue, they print harder blue hate.
I would think that is a pretty damning indication of what kind of play they want out of Counter spells.
not quite what i was trying to say, I was more saying
devs fear scenario A (20 counters in a deck)
They don't need to fear it because when it happened there weren't all these hate cards to keep it in check.
So, print counterspell, scenario A doesn't happen because of the hate cards.
not really damning at all.
This is also meant to address everyone saying "counterspell.dec" would be a thing. That deck is useless against these counter-hate cards, its clear to see.
well not only is the article years old, but that guy doesn't actually work for wizards anymore. You mention its not relevant the age of the article, but it actually can be something to consider. Opinions aren't set in stone and do change over time as well as exceptions being made.
Also like half the cards in that decklist aren't even legal in modern. A reprinting of counterspell wouldn't make a deck run a nightmarish 20 counters. Another thing is, Since that deck existed "counter-hate" has been printed in the form of powerful hosers to a deck like that, most notably Thrun, the last troll, cavern of souls, and Aether vial. If a deck tried to do the buehler blue in modern today it would be laughably bad against these cards.
when you want counterspells that cost 3 cmc or higher, you're playing incredibly innefficiently. The reason for this is usually in modern your 3 cmc counterspell will trade for a 2 cmc or less spell like a tarmogoyf. Thats not a good trade for the control player at all. This is why people play things like spell snare, it guarantees you always "trade up" since thats all it can ever do. This is also why disdainful stroke in standard is such a great counterspell, it can only ever "trade up". Also in counterwars mana is usually the bottleneck, and if all your counterspells cost 3 cmc, you're going to have a hard time winning that counterwar. Also you mentioned 2 cmc counterspells aren't great, but isn't that what this thread is about? A way to fix that by reprinting counterspell. I'm not completely clear on what you mean, maybe you mean something different. As a final point/example not all control decks have access to discard since only black gets it, and so with a control deck you're proposing, the guy above has a point. That deck is incredibly soft to cards like geist of saint traft since lightning bolt doesnt do anything, same with path or abrupt decay. Modern does have cards like this being played. Even with discard you're soft to them topdecking these things.
I hear prohibit being suggested a lot when it comes to reprinting counterspell, and its a good card, but are we even sure it would get played over mana leak? I'm not even actually convinced it would tbh.
2
2
1
1
Sunken ruins seemed unnecessary now tbh. If you just run 3 or so checklands, like sulfur falls or drowned catacomb instead you can still have a decent amount of resiliency to cards like choke and boil while also smoothing out your mana to cast things like terminate. If you have ever had a terminate in hand and a sunken ruins and steam vents in play you will know what I mean, it is really frustrating. Sure it helps to cast damnation, cruel, and cryptic command but imo people used to play sunken ruins over checklands because we didn't have that great of a manabase to cast cruel ultimatum. Like we used to play 4 Scalding tarn and 3 misty rainforest. The mana was worse and so we needed sunken ruins to pull it all together. Now that isn't true anymore. Our manabase is much better and with 7-8 on color fetchlands we can reliably cast cruel ultimatum with almost no problems (unless something is really out of whack with your manabase).
Finally I had an idea that since you all seem to want to test with people who aren't random people on cockatrice, Why not test with each other? I assume you all use the woogerworks server and can just add each other on there. I would be willing to play some test matches myself if anyone wants to get some good testing in. What do you all think about this.
2
Also lili is a strong card against us make no doubt about it. Sure you can command it to bounce in response to her plus one (but a seasoned player isn't going to fall for this, they will usually wait and hold a card in hand then plus 1 if they suspect you have a cryptic. Also the reason shes good against us is because we spike in power later in the game and therefore since the game is frozen in the turns 4-5ish where they have their midrange deck has the most power, we are disadvantaged. A really random example, its like fighting someone on their own turf, not smart and you're probably going to lose. The games where you can beat lili are only because, A: you destroyed her, B: you drew enough cards to make her not matter too much and advanced the game back to our home turf (turns 7 etc where cards like opportunity would be at their strongest). Because you could afford to NOT discard land cards, and play a couple more getting closer to your power spike/bigger mana costed cards like cruel ultimatum batterskull etc.
And finally I like remand so much even in a control deck because it does have a use for card advantage. The "Trick" where you remand your own spell for card advantage comes up actually fairly often, also the fact that it hits flashback spells so well too is a huge bonus to it. In general the fact that it costs Two Mana and can sometimes be effectively a cryptic is just too good not to play imo. Any time I've played a deck that played think twices and remands, I've always wished for more remands because the person who has more gets a nice advantage from remanding the flashbacked think twices and in a game of pure card advantage, those edges matter. Finally the fact that remand can work well with your own snapcaster to provide a net +1 card, and tempo at the same time is imo just too good not to play. Sure it has some downsides but the upsides are worth it imo even in a control deck.
Some more notable tricks (you can remand something like emrakul or loxodon smiter or creatures where the opponent has a bunch of cavern of souls in play etc. just to cycle ur remands away, MUCH better than having ur manaleak not be able to do anything at all against these cards).
You can cast anger of the gods or another wrath and if you opponent responds by saccing their creatures to a sac outlet for something like a bunch of scrys from viscera seer(also in the case of anger of the gods, so that they can not have their creatures be exiled, potentially eternal witness'ing them back later on) then you can remand your own wrath for a REALLY nice profit. Something that came up for me was electrolyzing a spike feeder and they sacced it for 2 life so my electrolyze couldn't draw me a card since it would fizzle, then I remanded my electrolyze and used the electrolyze on their other 2 creatures. Remand is just such a great card, it just takes creativity to unlock its full potential, but you Do get rewarded for that.
1
1
not quite what i was trying to say, I was more saying
devs fear scenario A (20 counters in a deck)
They don't need to fear it because when it happened there weren't all these hate cards to keep it in check.
So, print counterspell, scenario A doesn't happen because of the hate cards.
not really damning at all.
This is also meant to address everyone saying "counterspell.dec" would be a thing. That deck is useless against these counter-hate cards, its clear to see.
1
Also like half the cards in that decklist aren't even legal in modern. A reprinting of counterspell wouldn't make a deck run a nightmarish 20 counters. Another thing is, Since that deck existed "counter-hate" has been printed in the form of powerful hosers to a deck like that, most notably Thrun, the last troll, cavern of souls, and Aether vial. If a deck tried to do the buehler blue in modern today it would be laughably bad against these cards.
1
1