The Balance and the Counterbalance

The Balance and the Counterbalance.

Hello, everyone! Do you remember the good old days when the Counterbalance decks flooded Extended and everyone was spinning the top? This made the tournaments last so long Wizards had to eventually ban it! Ok, you should be completely confused by now if you don't know what I am talking about. You have already probably checked the card Counterbalance, which was mentioned 2 times so far. But how could that be possibly broken? It is... so random! Ok-ok, you can accidentally counter something for free if you are lucky, but even if you know the top card of your deck somehow, it's not much of a help really.

"Oh, wait!" - You might say, - "but what about that spinning the top?" How do you spin the top? The answer is simple really. A "Top" is a short name for Sensei's Divining Top. Let's have a close look at this particular specieman. It is an artifact for :1: mana that reads: :1: : look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. And it has :T: : Draw a card, then put Sensei's Divining Top on top of it's owner's library. So, you can look at the top three cards for just 1 mana and rearrange them as you like at instant speed without playing any cards. Ah! But now you see, where this is going!

Right, the CounterTop combo that we are going to talk about in this article is a combination of two cards that lock down your opponent by countering most of their spells without wasting any resources. When you have a Counterbalance and a Sensei's Divining Top on the table, in response to your opponent casting anything you may "spin the top" - pay 1 mana and look top 3 cards of your library, than put them back with the top card having the same mana cost as a spell being cast. Then, on the resolution of Counterbalance's trigger, that spell will be countered. This is the basics behind the countertop engine.

There are a few tricks to this tech though. Let's take a famous countertop list that did well and analyse it.

[quote]Gabriel Nassif's CounterTop
Grand Prix-Chicago 16 March 2009

Main Deck

60 cards

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20 lands

4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Underground Sea

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12 creatures

4 Dark Confidant
2 Sower of Temptation
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trygon Predator

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28 other spells

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Krosan Grip
2 Ponder
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Vedalken Shackles

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Sideboard

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15 sideboard cards

1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Darkblast
1 Energy Flux
1 Engineered Plague
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Hydroblast
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Krosan Grip
1 Perish
1 Planar Void
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Umezawa's Jitte
[/quote]

So, what are the cards that surround counterbalance to make it even better? Let's not walk too far away and start right with the first card in the list. That is Flooded Strand. This is basically a free shuffle effect. The main use of fetchlands in countertop (besides actually fetching a land you need) is to shuffle your library if you fail to find the right mana cost in your top 3 cards and try again. There are a few tricks with fetchlands which we are going to return to later in this article, but just remember for now that they are extremely important and cracking a fetch at the wrong time could cost you the game.

Another interesting card to look for is Brainstorm. This is a spin of the top if you don't have it yet, which is the basics of its use in countertop. But do keep in mind that Brainstorm is more than that. It also allows you to put the cards from your hand on top of your library. So, if you don't have a CMC of 3 in the top 3 cards, but you have one in your hand, you can put it on top of your library with Brainstorm and counter the spell.

Now to make it even more complicated, let's add fetchlands that we discussed earlier to the mix. You can put the two cards that you think you won't need any time soon (For example, another Counterbalance and a land) on top of your library from your hand with Brainstorm to counter a spell with CMC 2 (For example, a Tarmogoyf), then crack a fetchland at the end of turn to shuffle those "bad" cards away and spin the top to look at your new 3 cards. You might want to have a land on top now so you can draw it in your draw phase, leaving the important spells on top of your library. Now you might get a feeling of just how complicated it is to play countertop. And this was an example of countering a single spell in a realistic situation! And what if there are a few more spells? And what if you don't have enough mana?

Countertop is one of the most difficult decks to play. It is not for everyone. But if you really like to solve puzzles, you just might have what it takes to be a good countertop pilot. The combo does seem very simple to handle, but there are so many different interactions to consider that you may be thinking many turns ahead, trying to predict the course of the game and turn it into your favour.

Countertop was the second Legacy deck that I made and it took me 4 years to master the tech. And I am quite sure that there are still unique ways and interections, that I still haven't seen as each game is different and each time you have a different puzzle to solve.

Now, if you are still reading, you are probably ready to hold your breath and dive into this amazing "undertop" paradise, hidden from the eyes of the ordinary humans.

- Secret Techs -

We have covered the basics. Now we are going to analyse the engine more deeply. First thing to note - every single card in your deck is vitally important! Changing a single card can be dramatic for your performance as a pilot. Not only does the text on the cards matter, but their mana costs's as well! And this is the most important part of a counterbalance deck - in fact, your whole deck is important. In Legacy there is a great variety of different decks and strategies, some established decks and some rogue decks. They can be combo, agro or control (or agrocontol or comboagro, it doesn't really matter) which use different cards to achieve the same goal as you - to win. But if we try to sum up all these different decks and all the cards they could be possibly playing, we should start thinking really globally. What makes their decks work? Why are some cards good while others are not? There could be different arguments, but generally what makes cards good is effeciency. That is how much they can do for what price.

Lets compare these two cards. Concentrate and Ancestrall Recall. Which one would you put in your deck if you could choose only one? Probably, you would choose Ancestrall Recall. Why? They have the same effect! "Ah!", - You say, - "But Concentrate costs 4 and Ancestrall Recall costs 1!" That is the logic behind many choices, whichever deck you are using, You want to be effecient and thus you try to use cheaper spells if possible. Well, we could turn this against you! By playing many cheap spells in our countertop deck we can increase chances of having one of them in the top 3 cards. That is why most countertop decks would have a lot of CMCs of 1, 2 and 3. The number 3 is particularly important to us. There is a single Krosan Grip in the deck from the example. Besides having 2 Trygon Predators! Is that just a metagame choice? May be. But there is another side to this equasion.

- Weaknesses -

Now that we more or less know how our deck works, we can move forward. In any case, no deck is perfect and there must be something to counter our plan. And there is! The most fearsome card is... Pithing Needle! Not really. We can just activate the Sensei's Divining Top in response. And even if there is no mana cost 1, we can then draw a card to put the "Top" on top! And besides, since we are playing blue, there might be a few counterspells to deal with it anyway. The real threat is a green instant - Krosan Grip. This card is amazingly bad news for us. Not only does it cost 3 which makes it hard to counter with our deck, packed with 1's and 2's, but also it has an interesting ability "Split Second" which doe sn't allow us neither to play spells, nor to activate abilities. This means that we cannot counter it, cannot brainstorm in response and cannot spin the top either. That... is really bad. However, just one thing we have still works! And that is triggered abbilities. Counterbalance itself. Now, this is a tricky part. A lot of thinking is involved when playing around Krosan Grip. I mean, even more thinking than usual. The answer is, if you expect a Krosan Grip, all you have to do is float a card with CMC 3 on top of your library. That is, you leave it as a top card for their turn and either spin it as a second from the top at the end of turn or before you draw. This works quite well against new players! But if you look closely, you can see a giant hole in this plan. The problem is that the card is not always on the top and there clearly are moments when it can't be your top card (because you are about to draw and you don't want to draw it). That is exactly the right moment to break through counterbalance lock! Just before the player tries to draw his card for turn.

- The Master -

That leaves us with a question. Is it possible to counter the uncounterable? If they know how and when to play the best spell against you, how can you possibly survive? You can. And that is why I enjoy playing countertop so much! There seems to be no way out, but there is. That is... your intuition! After you play countless games against all sorts of decks and players, the countertop becomes more than just a deck. It becomes one with you. You breath in the same way, you think in the same way, you fight in the same way. Countertop engine is nothing but just a means to express yourself, your attitude to the game. There are many different combinations and decks still named countertop even if countertop engine is the only card combination th ey share. Once you start to feel the deck, you can adjust it as you wish so it becomes closer to you and reflects your play style and ideas. Don't worry, be innovative! Is it a flashy combo finish? Which combo then? Is it an agrocontrol? Which creatures do you use? Be inventive and let the deck tell you what it wants! :D

- PS -

There are also a few other things I wanted to cover before we finish here.
- Shuffling effects. This is your strongest weapon... which can be used against you! Remember, that if you crack a fetchland, you may fail to find a land, but you absolutely have to shuffle your library. If something tries to kill your top in response, you can activate the top in response to that and "hide it", but the shuffle effect will still trigger and your top will be lost.
- Vexing Shusher. Not only is this great guy immune to countermagic, including counterbalance, but he can also make spells uncounterable! When playing against counterbalance, remember that once the card is revealed, your spell will be countered. Yo u cannot do anything after that. Pay the mana right after the counterbalance player passes with the trigger on the stack. Since vexing Shusher doesn't have shroud, he can still be destroyed later so it could be a bad idea to play him too early. You might want to play him and a critical spell (with some mana open) in one turn to break through the lock.
- Think ahead. Try to imagine playing for your opponent while you play. Try to think the way they think, play the game they play. Use all the knowledge you can to predict what cards can be in the deck you see judging by what you have already seen. Playing countertop is all about thinking many turns ahead for both players! Once you master the deck, you can find yourself "spinning the top" less and less as you predict your opponents cards and alre ady have the right CMC on the top, ready for them. Practice is the only way you can achieve this level of playing. So don't panic and enjoy the best control elements of the game!

Thank you for reading!

- Article written by Jim

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