Review: Counterlash

Draft Priority: 4

Impact: 5

Stack Status: *6*
Stacker Pentecost. This card is only good in Type 4, and it’s very good indeed.

Discussion:

I’m sure somebody who read the Stack Status comment is already furiously hammering away at their keyboard on some serious NerdRoids, wanted to yell at me about how Counterlash is amazing in their stupid EDH deck or it’s part of a thirteen-part combo in their favourite ‘fringe’ Legacy deck. The reality is counterspells that cost a lot of mana are usually poop because they impede your ability to play your own game while you wait with baited breath for your opponent to dos something, only to say “no don’t do that”.

It’s not just boring, it’s also made super-ineffective when one of your ‘no’ cards is six mana. It does permit some cool tricks like effectively Flashing in a creature or casting Omniscience at a discount, but that’s just what those are: funny tricks. Tricks are great but we also all love seeing skateboards doing ‘tricks’ fall over and get their nuts racked on a handrail, so… uh… haha stupid skateboarders.

 

 

Anyway, this is a pretty good Type 4 card. It’s not world-ending like some people thought it would be in this format. I remember people pre-emptively saying during the drafting of this card in a few Academy Standard format games that it was “too powerful” without having played it. There are many built-in limitations that make the card effective but fair. It’s almost ideal in that sense.

Overall: Four and a half nut-rackings out of five

Review: Faerie Trickery

Draft Priority: 4

Impact: 4

Stack Status: 5
Boss/Hoss. A must-have as it’s one of the better counterspells.

Discussion:

* HUMOUROUS POST REDACTED DUE TO POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE NATURE *

This is a pretty good card. I like it. You can use it too (if you want). As long as it won’t hurt your feelings, which nobody has the right to do in any way.

* THIS CENSORSHIP BROUGHT TO YOU BY YOUR LOCAL BRANCH OF SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS *

Overall: Four and a half hugboxes out of five

 

Review: Fervent Denial

Draft Priority: 5

Impact: 5

Stack Status: *6*
Stacker Pentecost. This should be fairly obvious.

Discussion:

This is one of the best Type 4 counterspells that exists. It’s unconditional, it’s multiple-use, and it sits in the graveyard threatening everybody with having their favourite spell countered. There’s not a whole lot to say here.

In short, the picture of the guy in the card is what your reaction should be like if you’re able to pick it up in a draft, right down to the brain popping out the domepiece and the tentacles flipping out in the background.

Overall: Five impending tentacle bangs out of five, Stacker Pentecost glare of approval

Review: Controvert

Draft Priority: 5

Impact: 5

Stack Status: 1?
Cut. This card is too dominant, and eventually becomes oppressive… or is it? See discussion below.

Discussion:

Recover is a wonderful Type 4 mechanic. I wish there were more cards with the mechanic. Actually, looking at the boneyard of one-used and hastily-tossed mechanics that the nWo has left in trampled graves on their road to R&Domination (KILLED IT), there’s a lot of keywords that could use a revisit, but let’s not divert this train wreck even further into the abyss.

Counterspells are good, creatures die, and free cards are the business. Like going to bed at 8pm after a strict regimen of training, Controvert produced mad results but ended up feeling not very fun. If it ends up in a deck just… y’know… kinda posted up in there by itself, it wasn’t too bad. Maybe annoying. But if your man managed to draft it and Grim Harvest, or something like Reassembling Skeleton and a Carnage Altar or whatever? Well, then it was time to lose the game and club your boys knees as he went to the car in the parking lot. I keep a set of black masks in my trunk next to ol’ Tonya (as I refer to my tire-iron) just for such occasions.

While I proved exceptionally popular with the local orthopedic surgeons, I had to consider the health of my Type 4 stack first. Thus, in a controversial cut, Controvert came out.

I admit this might have been done in a moment of weakness. Nagging is one of my few weaknesses, right next to bullets to the face. After a game where SOMEBODY, who may or may not have been but definitely was me, straight up demolished a pack of jobbers largely due to heavy Controvert-ing, I agreed with the consensus that it should be cut. I discussed ‘bad feedback’ in a previous post, though… and this was feedback liberally sprinkled with tear-salt.

So, despite it’s initial ranking, I’m going to take this opportunity to put Controvert in a similar category as Kaho, Minamo Historian as a card I need to ensure gets played a lot in the future… for science! Expect a second review in the future where the final verdict on Controvert will be delivered.

Overall: BACK INTO THE STACK for more observation!

Review: Summoner’s Bane

Draft Priority: 4

Impact: 3

Stack Status: 5
Another high-costed counterspell with a fairly good ancillary effect, this is like a crappy Mystic Snake. And there’s nothing wrong with Mystic Snake.

Discussion:

Counterspells are pretty obviously important in Type 4. “Oh, one million mana? Yeah I’ll use that fairly and responsibly.” When the average creature crashing into play is 5/5 and the modern nWo design sensibilities, I’m sure you can figure out why the creature regulation pre-EtB is so important.

This is a fun spell that fills that role and also doesn’t get played elsewhere and provides a body to do what you will with. It’s nothing crazy but it’s plenty good, and you should always consider drafting it fairly high as all the quality countermagic goes.

Overall: Four “Let’s make the creature an illusion because fuck it” out of five

Review: Dash Hopes

Draft Priority: 1

Impact: 2

Stack Status: 1
Benched. This card is awful, and there’s always something better to put in, like nothing. That said, my Type 4 Stack isn’t engineered to be some marvel of game design and if yours is, fuck off and play something else.

Discussion:

Dash Hopes is one of those cards that just isn’t good, anywhere, but still has to be sort of brought up on the fringe of all kind of discussions. In my anecdotal and thus extremely important and discussion-worthy experience, both online and offline during Magic-related discussions on unconventional cards or odd deck inclusions, Dash Hopes pops up.

“Oh, maybe try Dash Hopes?”

“Black actually does sort of have counterspells, like Dash Hopes.”

…and almost as soon as the words leave the mouth of the speaker, you can see the regret in their eyes and almost panicked efforts to retract the statement. There’s the ever-popular attempt to pass it off as sarcastic, or the side suggestion that maybe the guy building a deck is bad enough to try to play it. After all, what’s more important than retaining your credibility as a “good” Magic player?

The reality is Dash Hopes is pretty much a gallon of garbage juice being sprayed up your nose. Most spells in Type 4 are worth 5 life to push through if they’re worth countering. I cut it from my stack and you probably should too. It does create some fun little games when it’s played, but almost nobody likes drafting it and if you rip it off the top in a single-stack game, you feel like you’ve been robbed a draw.

Overall: One and a half depressed rag-clad Wizards out of five

Review: Lay Bare

Draft Priority: 4

Impact: 4

Stack Status: 4
Staple fo sho. Again, unconditional counterspells are always welcome; expensive ones with extra abilities even more so.

Discussion:

Imagine:

My usual Magic group more or less

You’re sitting at the velvet-covered mahogany table of your local Magic: The Gathering and Equestrian Sporting Society. Between sips from the brandy sifter and repositioning your $45,000 cufflinks, you note the beautiful person (well, everyone here is beautiful, of course) across from you throw a single card onto the table with a practiced elegance. “Insurrection,” the androgynous Adonis says with hint of challenge.

Through a gold-encrusted spectacle, you survey the board; heavy-hitting creatures populate the table’s impossibly soft surface, now turned against their impeccably dressed masters. A soft gasp of shock escapes the lips of the elder socialite lady at the table, whose servant promptly begins cooling her with a hand fan made of unicorn horn and the Magna Carta.

You smile—not arrogantly, but confidently—and reveal your own play. “Lay Bare.”

The Insurrection caster’s teeth softly clamp down on a white-gloved hand as your eyes lock. The sexual tension in the room would require a servant to get Excalibur off the wall behind you to cut.

“My word… is this strip Magic now?” Says the youngest man at the table as he leans forward, raising an eyebrow.

CUT TO NASTY RICH PEOPLE ORGY

Now, stop imagining. You’re playing Magic on the carpet floor at Andy’s apartment, surrounded by sweating nerds desperately trying to outdo one another in a reverse-hygiene contest. The strip Magic prospect makes you vomit a lung.

Welcome back to the real world son. Anyway, can’t go wrong with a little Lay Bare. It not only mangles somebody’s plan, but because most cards in Type 4 tend to be tremendously threatening, it can also turn the table against somebody in a flash. In this sense, it’s actually very good to counter an early play to draw attention to a specific opponent. Countering their Opt and causing them to show a hand of Dominate, Vengeful Archon and Cabal Conditioning can only work in your favour.

Overall: Four impossibly elegant designer dresses ruined by passionate sex out of five

Review: Dismal Failure

Draft Priority: 5

Impact: 4

Stack Status: 5
Boss. An unconditional but expensive counterspell that produces card advantage? C’mon son.

Discussion:

There was a while where the American version of “The Office” having something as a topic was a great indicator as to something being totally played out. Network TV being arguably the slowest-adapting limb of old media’s withering husk, you know saying something was an “epic fail” had utterly run it’s course when Ed Helms as Andy was talking about it.

Getting hit by Dismal Failure on a key spell is almost as painful as watching one of the later Andy-centric episodes of The Office, so I guess it’s fitting. A strong counterspell in a format that needs them to be playable, there’s no excuse not to run this in your stack.

Overall: Five stocks in the Michael Scott Paper Company out of five

Review: Geist Snatch

Draft Priority: 4

Impact: 3

Stack Status: 5
It’s a conditional counterspell that will almost always have good targets that also gives the caster something. The perfect type of counterspell for Type 4.

Discussion:

I’m pretty sure that ghost is slam dancing.

This card is a good, solid pick that gives you a bonus twerp. I could just recount exactly what it does and treat you like you can’t read, but if you need that you can probably read a set review from anywhere.

Overall: Four houses about to burn down because of poor candle discipline out of five