Round 5- Zombies
My opponent had the absolute coolest deck ever. It was a variant of Sam Black’s Zombies list from a few weeks ago. It played Faithless Looting, Bloodghast, Lingering Souls and Goblin freaking Bombardment. This deck was all value, and if I ever actually wanted to play Magic without cards that said Draw 3 Cards, this is probably the type of deck I would bring to battle.
I take down the die roll and lay down a Sensei’s Top. He plays out a Carrion Feeder. I spin my Top finding Swords to Plowshares. I land Counterbalance, but he lands a Geralf’s Messenger. I go to Swords the undying Zombie, but reconsider and direct my Swords at Carrion Feeder instead. I buyback the Swords with a Snapcaster the next turn, killing the Messenger. I land Jace. He manages to land a Souls through Counterbalance, reanimating a Bloodghast with a land drop. I let him flashback the Souls and block Bloodghast with Snapcaster to keep Jace alive. Then I slam down my Wrath of God. Jace quickly takes over the rest of the game.
I board in all my graveyard hate, although I’m not confidant that Extirpate is very good against his deck. This is a match where an additional Path to Exile or two would have been awesome. I board out Edict, Dismember, Vedalken Shackles and a Counterspell.
The second game is uneventful, we both keep one landers, but I have a Top to filter. I Swords his Gravecrawler and land Jace before he finds his second land. He tries to discard a bunch of Bloodghasts and Lingering Souls, but I find a Spellbomb. I fateseal away all of his lands, and eventually he falls to a Jace ultimate.
It was nice to win, but the last game was pretty anti-climatic.
Round 6-Nic Fit Chris Higashi
I get called up for another feature match; shockingly I heard the announcement this time. I even show up to the round on time. Chris introduced himself and asked about the disqualification from Round one. He had watched most of my other feature match in Round three so he knew what I was on. Overall he struck me as a pretty cool dude, I’m extremely glad he made it into the Top 8.
I believe he won the die roll and opened up on Veteran Explorer. I played a land and passed. He played Cabal Therapy, I Spell Pierced. He flashed back it back sacrificing Veteran Explorer. We both search out a couple of basics. He names Counterbalance, I can’t help but think how unjust it is that he would know to name Counterbalance in the dark. No one has named Counterbalance with a blind Cabal Therapy since GP Chicago in 2009. Luckily he bricks on the Therapy, and passes back to me. I play a turn 2 Jace, and brainstorm. There are few feelings better than a turn 2 Jace, it just feels like Christmas morning. I remember him playing something important on Turn 3, but I just Forced it. From there I counter virtually every spell he plays for the rest of the game. At one point he lands a Liliana but my Lingering Souls and Snapcaster take it down.
I board into Perish, a Wrath of God and a Disenchant. I was most afraid of Thrun or Grave Titan running me over. I board out my Spell Snares, which seem to lack targets, and Karakas (He has no Wastelands and seems to want to give me lands).
In Game 2 Chris has a strange draw. He had a green producing land, Volrath’s Stronghold and a Phyrexian Tower. He plays a Wall of Blossoms, but bricks on land. I briefly consider Dismembering Wall of Blossoms to stop him from sacrificing it to the Tower. I don’t and he lands a Pernicious Deed. I land a Jace, and fateseal. The next turn I brainstorm with Jace. Chris comments that my line with Jace is weird, but I think it’s correct. When you’re tapped out, it’s easier to defend Jace by mana-screwing your opponent, but when you have untapped land, it’s easier to defend Jace with countermagic. Being able to play Spell Pierce and Counterspell, versus only Force makes a huge difference on the decision to brainstorm versus fateseal.
Chris lands a few Pernicious Deeds and keep my Lingering Souls and Counterbalance from destroying his chances. Eventually Jace goes ultimate, but Chris keeps on playing, using Volrath’s Stronghold to recycle his creatures. I eventually establish a Counterbalance lock and kill him with Lingering Souls.
Round 7- Dredge
This is my win and in round. A victory will let me draw into Top 8, a loss at this point would be a dagger to my chances. My opponent wins the die roll and elects to play. He opens up with Putrid Imp. I swear under my breath. Unlike older lists with Tarmogoyf or main deck Jotun Grunt, this current list has no way to pressure Dredge players in game one. It used to be that game one was not impossible to win, whereas with this list as soon as the Imp resolved the game was over.
He discards Grave-Troll during his next upkeep and gets to Dredging. I assemble a Counterbalance lock, but it doesn’t matter. He’s content to just Dredge a few cards at a time. Eventually he smashes my face with some Flame-Kin powered Zombies.
I board in my Spellbombs, Jotun Grunt, Enlightened Tutor and Extirpate, Engineered Explosives as well as the Flusterstorm. I board out Edict, Dismember, Shackles and some Counterbalance.
I mulligan my first hand, it had a Top and a Force, but lacked any graveyard hate. The next hand has Top, Jotun Grunt and land. I really couldn’t ask for better on six cards. He goes with the draw and discard plan. I land a turn 2 Grunt and start to eat his graveyard. I make an error and fail to see a Golgari Thug, I elect to put Bridges and Faithless Lootings on the bottom of his deck instead. A couple turns later he plays Double LED, Cephalid Coliseum, pitching his hand including 2 Lootings and a Grave Troll. I instantly know I’m dead. He Dredges virtually his whole library, I Counterspell the first Looting, but he still manages to Dredge most of his deck. He Cabal Therapies away the remainder of my hand and I die to a hoard of Zombies.
At this point I was pretty despondent. I had essentially drawn the worst match-up of the win-and-in round. The tables surrounding me were all Storm, High Tide and RUG Delver. Those are the breaks though. The other slightly annoying thing is that I usually just ignore Dredge and board relatively few graveyard hate pieces. I defeated multiple Dredge players at SCG LA with Engineered Plague and two Extirpate as my only Dredge hate. This tournament I figured I would have to play against Dredge and built my board accordingly, it felt like a strange case of reverse karma. I can’t really blame anyone but myself though, I made a couple of mistakes and although I don’t think they would have impacted the result, it might have.
I took a few minutes to refocus myself; I could still make Top 16 with a victory.
Round 8- Maverick
My opponent wins the die roll, and open on Mother of Runes. I was pretty happy that I would get to test out all the theory about how Counterbalance can beat Maverick. Game one is a brief and brutal affair. I Swords the Mother, but he lands a quick Thalia. I have a Top and kept a four land hand, but he double Wastelands me and I stumble on drawing further mana. I’m holding a Snapcaster to buyback Swords, but I cannot because Thalia is constraining my mana. He lands a Knight and searches up a third Wasteland. I scoop them up.
I board into Perish, Wrath of God and a Disenchant. He flashed a Stoneforge in game 1, but decide that I really didn’t want to draw two disenchants, despite the possibility of Choke.
I open up with a few lands; I cast Swords on his fist two creatures. He attempts to Choke me, I Spell Pierce it. I play land and pass back. He doesn’t lay a land and attempts to play Sylvan Library, which I Snapcaster the Spell Pierce.
I land a Counterbalance-Top lock, but cannot seem to find a kill condition. My opponent manages to resolve an Umezawa’s Jitte, which I dismiss as unimportant because my hand is double Swords. The next turn he windmills Thrun. That Jitte suddenly became real relevant. I keep Topping and shuffling, trying to filter through my deck, looking for one of my five outs to Thrun. I block down Thrun with Snapcaster, and play Lingering Souls and flash it back. Instead of getting four free turns of chump blocking, I get one instead. At this point I have drawn my tenth land, including six fetches, but I still cannot find an out. He plays out a Knight, who is a 4/4, and has a Thrun with six counters on it. I play out a Jace and brainstorm. I brick once again. My opponent asks if I need a die for Jace, I do my best to look despondent, running my fingers through my hair and looking setting my hand down. I say I guess, but Jace is just going to die this turn anyway. I actually pray for my opponent to draw fetch land, so that he will just attack me for lethal and not kill Jace. He attacks Thrun at me, and Knight at Jace. I Plow the Knight and take ten from Thrun. My opponent plays another Knight post-combat. I draw my card and brainstorm with Jace. I brick. I use my Top. The last possible card has the beautiful full art of promotional foil Wrath of God. I flip my Top and Wrath his board. At this point there is only about 10 minutes left in the round. I fateseal with Jace, and Balance all his plays. I am literally just drawing Fatesealing and passing the turn. I ultimate, he scoops.
I don’t bother going to my board, there isn’t enough time. I shuffle quickly and present. My opponent mulls. I snap keep. He lays a Mother of Runes, which I Plow. He plays a Stoneforge Mystic which I Force. He lays out a Bird of Paradise and Noble Hierarch. He plays Gaddock Teeg. Then he lays down Sword of Light and Shadow. I go to Force but my opponent reminds me that I can’t. I Snapcaster, Plowing his Teeg, then I Force his Sword. We both have 0 cards, but I draw Shackles and play it. Time is called. He asks if I’m willing to concede to him. I said no. My board is Snapcaster and Shackles versus a couple of mana dorks. I’m a control deck with 5 lands and Shackles while at 18 life. I felt like a dick, and if I felt I was losing in any way shape or form I would have conceded. A draw would be bad for either of us. He signs the slip 2-1 for me and hands it to the table judge. I thank him. We flip over the top few cards of our decks to see the result. I drew Top, Wrath, Land. He flipped a couple lands and a Thalia or Scavenging Ooze.
I end the event at healthy 6-2, although losing in round 7 was a real dagger. I felt like I had one of the better decks in the room, people definitely were not prepared to be playing against Counterbalance. I had faced almost no hate, and Counterbalance hasn’t really been played in the last year or two so a lot of the newer Legacy players seems very unsure of how to play against it. So the question is why haven’t other players been successful with Counterbalance since Adam Prosak was tearing up the SCG circuit with it? I think the decks lack of success recently has to do with two factors:
- The deck has a steep learning curve. Decks with more proactive game plans leave less room to make costly errors and are more similar to what most players are used to trying to accomplish in other formats. Counterbalance is a different animal and requires some practice and commitment because the deck has some unique play elements.
- The Legacy community has failed to adapt Counterbalance decks to the changing conditions of newer metagames.
I hope everyone liked the article, and until next time keep spinning those Tops.
Props:
- Team Abong for their double Top 16 Finish.
- My Zombies opponent for having an awesome deck
- Lowell Thompson for his Top 32 with Doomsday
- Nathan Cardinell for his Top 8 performance and lending me some sexy Beta Disenchants
- Darien Bonney for lending me a set of foil Brainstorms.
Slops:
- Phoenix Convention Center, for not having any freaking food.
- Me, for being longwinded and making you read a 5000 [Ed. Note – Actually, Parts 1, 2 and 3 clock in at over 7000 words :P] word tournament report, and having a limited grasp of capitalization and punctuation.