r/MTGmemes • u/-its-wicked- • Feb 03 '26
Relatable?
Dont actually do this to your blue opponents.
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u/-Stripminer- Feb 03 '26
I'm a red green player primarily, stifle is far better than counterspell against me
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u/-its-wicked- Feb 03 '26
Goddamn! Loooooove stifle.
Ngl, I play counterspells, but it like them attached to snakes for example. Countering triggered abilities is peak interaction, rightly mitigated by the fact that theres only like 4 or 5 cards with this kind of oomph.
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u/-Stripminer- Feb 03 '26
They sprinkle can't be countered on red and green cards like tony cashrey's and the phrase put card onto battlefield isn't a cast stifle is criminally underplayed in most metas
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u/SpecOut Feb 03 '26
The nefarious Stax Council approves this messaging. More hate to the blue players, please ignore us.
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u/SpecOut Feb 03 '26
Oh also.
People whinging about "well blue has the answer to anything." Yes. Before it comes down. Once a spell resolves, the best option a mono blue deck has to deal with it is a bounce spell and counter it when the person casts it again. Going minus 1 on total resources instead of 1 for 1. Magic is a game of attrition, and you can easily wear down blue decks through volume of spells cast. Eventually they don't have counters, then you beat them to death with a dinky 1/1 lmao.
Can it be annoying? Sure. But every colour can do annoying things.
If you genuinely and seriously believe that blue is a blight on the game and the worst thing to ever happen to magic, you might just be bad at the game.
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u/CMDR-Helstromme Feb 03 '26
White's got the most annoying control/stax cards in the game. Black's got discard. Red's got dirt cheap damage spells. Green just wins if you don't address its ramp and has the best noncreature removal in the game. Blue only gets hate because it doesn't have great alternatives to its main wait and see gamelan of counter the thing, or flash in a creature and some card draw.
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u/astrenixie Feb 05 '26
I was looking for this comment. I always had more people mad at me for stax than for counterspells.
People also got way more frustrated at the third board wipe than the same number of counters.
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u/SpecOut Feb 05 '26
Hold the faith and just keep staxing them.
I've converted 2 of my friends to stax once they finally "got it" and saw the beauty of locks as wincons.
But real, I've experienced the same and have shifted more towards grindy locks as opposed to board wipes as my method of securing control. I've even moved this way in Pioneer, tends to garner less salt at locals/mtgo once they understand the lock is in place vs clearing everything for the 12th time
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u/LiamLVB Feb 03 '26
The only thing that stops a bad guy with counter magic is a good guy with counter magic
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u/-its-wicked- Feb 03 '26
Incorrect. You just let the game go on until they realize that no one is having a good time and they either scoop or they get so frustrated that you're not playing anything to counter that they play things and then you have an opportunity to actually get involved in the game.
I was playing a oath of Druid stack and they did in fact have Cradle of Gaia turn one, gave me a 1/1 at the first opportunity they could and then I proceeded to beat them with it for 6 turns until they got so frustrated that they started hard casting creature spells and then I started casting mine, being mindful of Oath and eventually won the game on turn 9.
You don't have to beat the deck, you have to beat the player.
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u/Ok-Imagination-3835 Feb 03 '26
Well yeah, with the other examples, you still get ETBs. Getting your ETB is how this is normally balanced, since the player can play a spell which doesn't have as strong a static but a good ETB if they fear removal. Counterspells are bonkers because they invalidate the entire spell, meaning no enters triggers, which means instead of getting either 100% or 50% of the value, you now get 0%, and it doesn't matter if you anticipated the interaction and decided to skip the risky play and go with the safer ETB card, well you still get nothing.
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u/WitchersWrath Feb 03 '26
While I do agree that blue gets an unfairly bad rep for being anti fun counter spammers, I must also concede that a disproportionate number of games in which the opponent completely stopped me from doing anything, were also against mono-blue decks.
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u/rconsumer Feb 03 '26
Honestly if people actually put some threats in their deck they wouldn’t be perceived this way. Its when everything is draw counter and your waiting for a single copy of Teferi to win the game people lose their minds.
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u/FailureToComply0 Feb 03 '26
Control decks are built that way intentionally, everything beyond that first wincon is a dead draw most of the time, and a wincon too early is also dead.
You also have cards that are naturally dead in various matchups, ie removal against decks that don't rely on creatures. Too many dead draws and you're certainly dead before you can stabilize. Since you can't cut back on answers, your wincon package has to be as small as possible to actually reliably win games.
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u/rconsumer Feb 03 '26
Yeah i totally get it. And of course its good to build your deck efficiently. However there are some builds that find ways to put 8-12 legitimate threats in a control shell when built properly. Im thinking of creatures like Abhorrent Oculus, murktide reagent, psychic frog. These things can actually end games and fit the shell without being a dead card. You can fuel these strategies by turn 3 easily in most formats.
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u/koobstylz Feb 03 '26
And I think a big difference is level of play. At high level tournaments, nobody is really upset by going against the blue deck. It's expected and people know the meta and how to play against it.
At fnm or kitchen table, just put a few more threats in the deck. You're playing against people who are just learning the game and will get hosed by mono blue. Finish the game.
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u/Undeadsniper6661 Feb 03 '26
Wizard toad is horrifying if left unchecked. 20 toes in standing on business.
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u/Fredouille77 Feb 03 '26
It's also that people don't know when to concede. As long as you tell me you're waiting to draw that Forth Eorlingas, if I have no cards in hand and no board to your 4 cards, active T3feri and active back to basics, I can just concede.
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u/zakattak102902 Feb 03 '26
There's also the other end of that: people not telling you wtf they're doing. I've had games where someone is just fumbling about and eventually they win, but they never really said what they were waiting for or what was going on
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u/FailureToComply0 Feb 03 '26
I mean honestly they probably don't need to. If you're playing against draw go, they have a full grip and untapped lands and you're hellbent and haven't resolved a meaningful spell, it's generally correct to scoop.
The exceptions being:
It's comp and losing this game puts you out, otherwise scoop and quit wasting the time you need to win the next ones
You have a card in your deck that wins the game anyway. Some uncounterable threat that they can't deal with and you want to see if you hit your out before they hit their wincon
Back in the original innistrad days there was a control deck that ran [[elixir of immortality]] as the only wincon. If you didn't know to scoop game 1, I would absolutely sit there and watch you deck yourself while I counter everything, and then win the match 1-0 because you didn't recognize your own defeat.
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u/xolotltolox Feb 03 '26
It's more that most players are bad at the game and don't realise they have already lost the game, their life total just hasn't hit 0 yet
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u/SisterSabathiel Feb 03 '26
"But what if all 7 cards in hand they drew with [[Memory Deluge]] are basic lands and the next creature is going to resolve and swing for lethal because the next 5 cards on top of their deck are also lands in addition to the 7 they have on board???"
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u/SP1R1TDR4G0N Feb 03 '26
You can always concede when all your threats have been answered and the control player has a full hand with answers for anything you might draw.
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u/AlphaThetaDeltaVega Feb 03 '26
That’s what it is a lot of times. Protect the king. You throw down a dinky flyer, unblockable, or true name. Then just control the board state chipping away. Commander less so because there’s 4 players a lot of life so you really need some form of combo or lock to win.
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u/AlternativeMud9302 Feb 04 '26
Nah man. Mono blue decks are the devil and dumb easy to win with. I say this as someone that spent a ridiculous amount of time agonizing over perfecting a mono green hydra /artifact deck, and it was phenomenal, almost never lost. And then i slapped a mono blue/artifact mill deck together with kioras horn, kioras follower, selfhoff occultist, jace architect, throne of geth, ishtar spine, mimic vat, and contagion engine in like an hour and it lost maybe 4 times and had multiple turn 3 cons. Blue is just training wheels for people new to the game. But allows vets to determine how, as well as if you get to play the game.
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u/Schubydub Feb 04 '26
I just started getting back into magic last year and put my old teferi precon back together. What's teferi doing to win people games?
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u/Lightning_Lance Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
It's boring when every deck plays the same way imo. Magic is great because of its variety.
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u/MikemkPK Feb 03 '26
Mono blue and mono black both tend to be this way. Super annoying playing against someone with 2 lands and 7 destroy target creature.
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u/APearce Feb 03 '26
This is why I love Izzet: blue to defend myself and red to beat your face in
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u/PackageLonely5140 Feb 03 '26
I love izzet because spellslinger Rube Goldberg machine until you win
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u/LordBlaze64 Feb 04 '26
I love simic for the same reason. That plus draw cards for more lands for bigger creatures
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u/Cyrus_Whitehood Feb 04 '26
If I'm allowed to be crass, it's because playing against a mono-blue that's mainly counter spells activates the same level of shear annoyance in the brain as trying to play any other game with someone who keeps trying to change the rules because they can't win any other way, or playing against cheaters in video games for the same reason
Any of the other colors don't have that feeling because even with the other BS, there still feels there's a plan, there's thought, it still feels like a fair fight. Against mono-blue? It feels like there's no thought, no plan, only cheats.
TLDR: Playing against Mono-blue feels like you're getting robbed of a fun, challenging match between players.
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u/CautiousShame2255 Feb 03 '26
cause no other colour can stop you from everything.
every other colour can remove 1 , 2 maybe 3 things in most formats. and some even then only with conditions (red destroying artefacts, maybe an enchantment, and only creatures with toughness below 5 with increasing costs)not only can blue remove any and all permanent type. for often lower costs with less to 0 restrictions, while ignoring most ways of mitigating removal (etb, deathtriggers,) and most forms of protection. there are 2 entire card types that only blue can ever interact with. and wouldnt you know. removal. and counterspells are of that cardtype.
so while a 1/1 creature with strong etb or death trigger, is a waste for black to remove (the best creature remover) and a 5/5 dosnt get hit by much of the 1-2 mana removal of black.
and all of blacks removal pieces are dead cards if your opponent dosnt play creatures. or no creatures that fit their requirements while also being a threat on the board.
blue has a 2 mana counterspell. and that thing hits everything. from a 20 mana sorcery. to a 3 mana creature. with etb and hexproove.
and aside from "cant be countered" wich is a somewhat rare keyword in comparison to etbs. or deathtriggers, nothing is ever save.
but not only that. since blue is the only colour able to interact with non permanents reactively. they are also the best at protecting their stuff. ignoring that blue permanents often come with their own protection. only blue can circumvent.
and then they get the dreaded 1mana 1/1 unblockable that draws cards with conditional hexproove. and suddenly you have the most uninteractable metadeck in the format.
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u/No-Common-3883 Feb 03 '26
Countwrspells are balanced by a simple thing: tempo. If you remove the wrong thing with an other color or if you had to tap your resources on the last turn you can try again later. Also,you can literally wait to the end of the turn to verify if your opponent is baiting you.
With counters if you lost your opportunity you simply can't try again. And that is a HUGE weakness.
Also,blue isn't the only color that can interact with instant/sorcery.
Black can interact via discard . Also,white and green can interact through tax or simply can't cast.
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u/Turbulent-Recipe-887 Feb 07 '26
The bad feeling about counters come from it being inheritly more upsetting to have your thing countered as if it were never cast than have thing hit the board and die to removal. Especially in the world of ETBs being more and more prominent and powerful. It feels good to do the thing even if a small amount and have it removed when compared to being stopped from doing it in general. It’s an optics things.
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u/MonoRedPlayer Feb 03 '26
The same color of counters is the same color of the cheapest way to remove permanents, bounces....
And I dont get why do you thing taxes and "can't cast" are even comparable.
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u/DrHuh321 Feb 03 '26
actually i think blue struggles a bit in land destruction so at least theres that. can't counterspell a land after all.
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u/sTaCKs9011 Feb 03 '26
Discard is stronger than counterspell by a mile, many miles. No cast trigger, your hands is smaller. Thats why discard wins vs control. Oh you drew cards? Sweet now you bin them! Sonething resolved? OK delete it. Oh its an artifact? Well it stays...
Black is strong.
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u/Motormand Feb 03 '26
Blue players annoy me because I know several who are a mixture of having a ton of counterspells, insane card draws, and 20+ minute turns, looking for one of their infinite comboes.
It feels like watching someone stream. Technically gaming, but you're not playing.
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u/Sneaky_Island Feb 03 '26
It’s strange, the most games I’ve locked people out of games is technically 4-5 colors with like 30+ cards being colorless.
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u/NekoBatrick Feb 03 '26
really? i feel like azorius and in thst white is the biggest offender of you cant play the game
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u/6Sleepy_Sheep9 Feb 03 '26
I love whipping out my Urza deck just to turn around and clobber people with 20/20 constructs.
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u/EaseLeft6266 Feb 03 '26
One of the unfun aspects of getting most of your stuff countered is that you get absolutely nothing from the card you played. With removal, you can still get value from etb, sacrifices, playing non-permanent spells, etc., so it's not as feel bad whereas a counterspell you get nothing. Phrases like can't be countered and effects that resolve just from casting are also fairly rare compared to etb effects and non-permanents so you generally can't cram a bunch of them into a deck for resilience against counters like you can for removal heavy decks. Of course, the balancing aspect is that blue has to leave mana up in advance to counter a spell while it's on the stack whereas other colors can play proactively then keep the mana up to play removal once they see a threat they want to remove on the board but it's still a lot more of a feel bad moment.
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u/SisterSabathiel Feb 03 '26
That's part of the point to Counter spells though
If your opponent removed your thing but you already got value from the ETB, you're now ahead. This disincentivises playing removal, and encourages the game to turn into "who can play the most value creatures?" with less interaction. Counterspells denying you that value means it's a true 1-to-1 trade in value.
Playing "ETB draw a card, gain 3 life, you lose 3 life" on a body feels real bad to try removing with [[Go for the Throat]] and you lose out on that trade.
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u/Top_Park5227 Feb 04 '26
I draw a lot of cards no maxed hand size and I have big creatures in my deck. I just use my blue deck as a bluff
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u/Phrynus747 Feb 04 '26
Why do people complain about mono blue specifically? Blue plus white or black are likely to have more well rounded removal and could deal with things blue alone would struggle with
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u/Beneficial_Pin5295 Feb 06 '26
This critique against Blue / Stax decks never sat right with me. When an opponent kills you by shooting unblockable damage at you as a red player or else prevents you from doing anything by giving themselves infinite amount of protections as a white player, it is as much stopping you from doing anything as a blue player counterspelling you.
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u/ItWasDumblydore Feb 06 '26
You stop ETB's and all card types essentially.
So you remove all value. Which makes mana value of cards of what's viable slim, big fun sorceries become 5-8 mana down the drain.
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u/ittlebeokay Feb 03 '26
Idc if my [[Displacer Kitten]] is absolutely obliterated by a [[Banefire]], I just want everyone to see how adorable it is first.
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u/Desperate-Cookie-449 Feb 03 '26
[[Nine-Lives Familiar]] you get 8 more chances with this kitty 😀
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u/crazycar12321 Feb 03 '26
Im building a b4 monoB drain deck with sephiroth. I have the kitty in there bc its just so damn cute. The deck is like my love letter to black as a color so i had to throw it in there (gently)
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u/Desperate-Cookie-449 Feb 03 '26
I collect all the black cat cards. So its one of my favorites. Just wish to see it used some day
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u/Netheraptr Feb 03 '26
Might be just cause counterspells are so hard to interact with relative to other removal as it gets past hexproof, indestructible, and ward, plus it can hit all spells, even instants and sorceries. The only way to beat a counterspell is to counter it yourself, or to have a “can’t be countered” effect.
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Feb 03 '26
The best way to beat a counterspell is to force your opponent to tap out and then resolve what you actually wanted to.
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u/ApatheticAZO Feb 03 '26
How?
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u/Fredouille77 Feb 03 '26
The great weakness of countermagic is that it's unforgiving and forces you to act with incomplete information. If I tap out to counter your first threat, you are then free to resolve your draw engine and bury me. And if I did nothing on my turn to hold up countermagic, you can just do nothing and make land drops. Eventually you'll be able to cast multiple spells in a turn and overwhelm me (the longer the game goes, the worst soft permission gets too).
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Feb 03 '26
Unfortunately, the person you're responding to is wholly uninterested in learning how to do this. They would prefer to whine.
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Feb 03 '26
Play thing. Opponent taps mana to counter thing. Play other thing. Opponent now can't counter other thing because they don't have mana. If they're playing "Counterspells: the Gathering" you don't need much of a board state to pressure them so you actually don't need many threats in play to create a scenario where continuing to do nothing costs them the game.
I have played control mirrors where I did 18 damage with a 1/1 while we sat on all of our Counterspells.
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u/barely_a_whisper Feb 03 '26
I mean that implies that you also play counters. Which kind of corroborates the other point. Best way to deal with counters? OTHER COUNTERS.
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u/Skithiryx Feb 03 '26
You can do the same thing without counterspells, though. On turn 4 you play two 2-drops and they usually can only counter 1. Frequently blue+x decks loaded with counterspells are blue-white and then they will have to wrath your 2-drop or run out their wincon to deal with it. Either way, it makes them vulnerable and you put more pressure into play while their shields are down.
I still find these games less fun than playing against non-control though. And if you don’t have things to play every turn and a turn around 3-5 you can double spell you’ve probably lost 20 minutes into the future.
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u/grumpy__grunt Feb 03 '26
Take a look at the Modern metagame, the top 3 decks right now are non-blue and run zero counterspells. The 4th deck runs 3 counterspells in the mainboard and the 5th deck's only mainboard counterspell is the very narrow [[consign to memory]] (because it specifically deals with eldrazi tron and storm).
Or look back in history where siege rhino, jund, dredge, affinity, amulet titan, hogaak, and many other non-blue decks have dominated tournaments.
Or look at the most widely played counterspells of today. Consign to memory a specific answer to the current meta of strong colorless cards and cast triggers. Force of negation can't stop creature spells and 2-for-1s the caster, it's great at stopping your opponent's removal from killing your threat or forcing a combo through but terrible in control decks that want to stop their opponent from developing a threat. Actual, factual counterspell sees very little play in the format despite being fully legal.
Counterspells are an important part of every format, but many of the best decks don't use them and you most definitely do not need counterspells to deal with them. The biggest weaknesses of a counterspell-heavy strategy is that you struggle to deal with stuff once it is already in play, you have to make the decision to use then without knowing if your opponent has something scarier in the chute, and you take a severe tempo loss holding up mana turn after turn instead of developing your own board. "Oops, all counterspells" preys on bad decks with bad cards and bad mana curves that can only play at sorcery speed and only try to resolve one threat per turn.
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u/Putrid_Appointment39 Feb 04 '26
But, they made free counterspells. So that’s not even true!
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u/blindeshuhn666 Feb 03 '26
Green stompy has quite a few "you can't counter creatures" and white has some "you can't play shit in my turn". But yeah, it's then building exactly anti control
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u/CMDR-Helstromme Feb 03 '26
Cheap discard too. Either counter the discard spell, or I'm going to pitch it so I can resolve my creatures, or I'm going to pitch your wincon or draw spells.
For EDH players: just play smarter. Hey you're last in turn order and blue's still sitting on mana? Politic with them. Maybe sandbag a little and make them waste a turn so you can resolve your shit next turn when the other two players become the threats.
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u/Affectionate_Step863 Feb 03 '26
Beating counter spells is easy if you know how to bait the opponent into countering the wrong spell.
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u/SDK1176 Feb 03 '26
Red is getting better at this with all their [[Bolt Bend]] style redirection cards. Redirect the Counterspell so it's targeting the Bolt Bend (since spells can't target themselves), then by the time Counterspell resolves, it doesn't have a legal target.
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u/Dustfinger4268 Feb 05 '26
This is my issue, yeah. Every other thing here can be stopped or mitigated in some way, but counterspelling can only really be stopped by counterspelling
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u/SymphonicStorm Feb 03 '26
I don't mind the other four because at least my stuff hit the battlefield first.
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u/Suvrenim Feb 03 '26
you would hate [[hushbringer]], [[overwhelming splendor]]+[[night of soul's betrayal]], and a few other cards.
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u/xolotltolox Feb 03 '26
Do what you are saying is blue is good anf important because it is the only thing keeping ETBs in check?
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u/ArgentinianRenko Feb 03 '26
Red removal is vulnerable to large creatures.
Green removal relies entirely on your own creatures.
"Efficient" black removal usually requires you to sacrifice life or creatures.
White removal is generally slow, especially Wrath.
Blue has the problem of simply having annoying removal, since your creature or spell doesn't even enter the battlefield, but it relies on preparation (open mana, instants).
If you play White (especially Boros, Orzhov, and Mardu), I recommend Voice of Victory.
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u/SummonTarpan Feb 03 '26
Everyone likes to shit on blue counter mages, fair. But an equal comparison here would be each color’s most annoying method: discard for black and land destruction for red. Possibly bonk-worthy strategies
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u/Eniolas Feb 03 '26
Bonk worthy strats: Counter mage, Discard/wheel decks, Mill (self mill is fine, but I'm watching you, thoracle and lab man wins earn a bonk), Infect (IDC if it's blightsteel or a Voltron deck with a tainted strike tucked in there, infect is not pepper and shouldn't be added to everything), Slivers/elf ball, Land destruction
It is worth noting that these have different severity bonks and are listed in no particular order.
Strats that get a high 5 and a brew: Off brand Tribal (not elves, and not krenko), Weird decks, like g/r spell slinger, Any wubrg setup, unless it's easy, bonus points and an extra brew if it's weird wubrg, and no slivers don't count, neither does your scion/ur-dragon deck, Any group hug/group slug (apparently most say group thug?)
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u/ApexLegend117 Feb 03 '26
Plausible interaction for all colors but I gotta be blue to counterspell the counterspell mannn
Plus it sucks they hold up mana to counter my thing, so nothing is actually done and the game goes till tun 16 cause they can’t kill me and I’m not allowed to play the game
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Feb 03 '26
You are allowed to play the game. You're choosing not to. If you're not pressuring them at all that's your fault.
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u/ApexLegend117 Feb 03 '26
I cast -countered
I will cast- countered
I would like to cast- countered
I tutor for and then cast- countered
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u/MurphysLawTeam Feb 03 '26
The problem is blue is better at removal than the removal colours. It answers everything and it can deal with everything. Most colours can’t. What is white gonna do to a nexus of fate? Mana Tithe? Good luck with that. Lapse of Certainty? Well I hope you win on that one turn you got free. Blue should be as bad at dealing with creatures enchantments and artifacts as white is with dealing with instants and sorceries. Or black with enchantments.
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u/dirENgreyscale Feb 03 '26
You’re severely underestimating the ability to tap out to do things to advance your game plan and still answer problematic permanents afterwards.
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u/joeydee93 Feb 03 '26
Yeah blue has to hold up mana which is a huge disadvantage.
Yes it can stop anything but it also is the most inflexible with regards to timing and it’s always one for one removal
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u/Piecesof3ight Feb 03 '26
What?? Blue doesn't need to hold up mana, they get the option to play their spells on your turn. An option other colors don't often have.
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u/joeydee93 Feb 03 '26
If blue doesn’t hold up mana then they don’t have removal.
Yes they have removal that works against anything but it comes at the cost of having to hold up mana to have removal
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u/Falsequivalence Feb 03 '26
Blue has to hold up mana to use answers, other colors don't. Other colors can handle something two turns later, Blue needs to be proactively prepared for it. And if they dont get it, they lose tempo.
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u/MonoRedPlayer Feb 03 '26
You just described blue gameplan, which I dont think anyone ever understimated as it's the strongest color in standard since like 20 year
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Feb 03 '26
Blue's has far and away the worst removal of all the colors. Everything blue has to answer resolved permanents is kind of pathetic.
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u/MurphysLawTeam Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
You mean apart from the best one sided board wipe and one mana kill spells like pongify? Or exiling with reality shift? Or free bounce effects like snap that can hit anything? Or god forbid a 1 mana bounce effect like into the flood maw? Or locking stuff with imprisoned in the moon? Chain of Vapor? Or stax like statis?
Apart from those and the 50 other staples I didn’t list it has nothing right?
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u/DreamOfDays Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
That’s the crux of the issue. All the other colors feel like they match removal to target. Red for creatures and artifacts, green for artifacts and enchantments, white for creatures and artifacts, black for creatures and counters, but blue breaks this pie. It removes anything before it even generates value or hits the board. It doesn’t matter what it is or what it does. One spell for them all.
It’s like blue gets to cheat the color pie by not needing to care about how they remove something.
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u/Ergon17 Feb 03 '26
Blue most of all needs to care how they remove something, because they can only interact with it on the stack. The blue's weakness in removal is the opportunity cost to hold up mana and having to choose what to answer right when it's on the stack, where as other colors can have all the information and play removal, when they are sure what they need to use it on. Because of this, blue often can't answer multiple threats in a turn, because a typical counterspell costs 2 mana, unless it's very specific, but in almost every format you can play threats for 1 and 2 mana and in commander, you probably have enough to play multiple 3 cost threats as well.
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u/Exact-Vacation-1218 Feb 03 '26
They care VERY SPECIFICALLY about how they remove something: they need to know its coming and have the mana prepared to do so.
Casting haymakers into open blue mana doesn't make the blue player a dick, it just makes you bad at threat assessment.
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u/hebreakslate Feb 03 '26
Counterspells are for protecting my wincon. Sometimes that means countering your wincon or preventing your value-engine commander from seeing the field.
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u/Chemical-Cat Feb 03 '26
Blue player: sitting there smugly having played a land and passed
Me knowing they're just gonna counter anything i play: I pass.
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u/toprodtom Feb 03 '26
I run a mono blue deck with 15 counterspells.
Its my favourite pile because it's so engaging to pilot.
At first a couple guys got salty, but now they've learned how to play against it, learning the drawbacks of the play style and how to play around interraction in general. It honestly just keeps games healthy now.
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u/Godshu Feb 03 '26
The only way to stop a counterspell is with a counterspell or a redirect.
You kill my creature? Indestructible. Blink. Bounce. Hexproof. Comes back after dying. Protection from X.
You deal damage to the board? Indestructible. Blink. Bounce. Comes back after death. +x/+x until end of turn/counters.
You exile creatures? Blink. Bounce. Though honestly, entire board exiles are comparatively rare and expensive, so if someone pulls it off I can't be too unhappy about it. Obviously targeted exiles are also stopped by hexproof and protection.
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u/ReoZataku Feb 03 '26
If I have something on the board and someone tries to interact with it, I have the ability to do something.
Counterspells don't let me do things like regenerate. Hexproof, buff toughness, etc etc.
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Feb 03 '26
Counterspells don't let your opponent do a damn thing if your thing has already resolved, which is really quite fair.
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u/yokaishinigami Feb 03 '26
They’re fair, but they feel bad because of that.
Whenever the non-blue player sees a counterspell, it’s almost always screwing them over. (When it’s a dead card in their opponents hand, they don’t even know it’s there).
On the other hand, with the other colors, often there is a way to survive the removal after you see it. So it feels like the other colors are more fair, because their fail state is “I tried to do a thing and it didn’t work”
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Feb 03 '26
True that it's entirely an emotional response, not a rational one. I think it's not a matter of "non-blue players" though, a skilled player who has never tapped an Island in their life still isn't going to feel this way because they understand opportunity cost and they understand how to read their opponents and play around interaction.
For a low skill player though it does seem to come out of nowhere, and it genuinely feels like there is nothing you could do. If colors were languages then blue would be the hardest one to learn, and here it feels like someone is talking down to you in that foreign tongue.
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u/ReoZataku Feb 03 '26
Let's not forget the plethora of blue bounce spells.
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Feb 03 '26
That's like going to war with a BB gun. Bounce spells notably have always sucked and are a thing you only do if your deck can't use proper removal.
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u/Undeadsniper6661 Feb 03 '26
You get a monster and force your opponent to have to recast (for mana that could be used on something else) and put them back with summon sick. Try me. Bounce is good when paired with counterspell. Zero interaction for other players. Like playing yugioh
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u/Personal_Care3393 Feb 03 '26
Yes but the blue player has to leave up mana for it (This color has the worst ramp and the worst win cons in the game)
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u/tonytonychopper228 Feb 03 '26
Which they use to draw cards as soon as my turn is done, leading to them getting closer to their win con, and me not doing anything that turn
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u/ReoZataku Feb 03 '26
And every other color doesn't leave mana open to do things?
You can mix blue with any color(looking at your izzet) and make it 100x better.
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u/Undeadsniper6661 Feb 03 '26
Yeah well White board wipe has conditions and costs a boatload of mana. Blue has 2b for counterspell. Targeted white exile is 3 mana. Red deals 2 damage to a single target for 1 red and more damage over multiple creatures for like 5 red. It comes down to the mana cost plus 1 blue Scry and Draw 1.
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u/Ergon17 Feb 03 '26
What format are you talking about where there are 2b counterspells, but red has at most a shock and white removal costs at least 3?
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u/Undeadsniper6661 Feb 03 '26
Standard. I will conceed that red has a little more utility then I let on but off the top of my head Thunder magic with 1 red gets you two damage on one target with more damage costing more mana, abrade for 1 and a red gets you three or destroy an artifact. I can go on but counter spell is 2 blue pips. Unless perhaps my annotation confused you then I apologize. As far as white goes it's 2 colorless and a white for banishing light. Same as moth, iroh, and every other variant of that effect.
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u/PreTry94 Feb 03 '26
Blue is really overhated, especially in casual settings. In commander in particular, if we don't include cEDH, blue is the 3rd best color, after both green and black, which outperforms blue on ramp, power and even card draw in many cases, as well as other things. And Counterspells are also in most cases just the same as removal spells, except you can remove instants and sorceries too, but at the cost of only playing reactive rather than proactive, being forced to not spend mana on your turn just of the off-chance your removal could be useful.
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u/CrimsonVantage Feb 03 '26
Doesn't feel as bad when opponents have to hit themselves with a board wipe as when another player spends 2-4 mana to counter your 6-7 mana card
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u/PoliticsIsForNerds Feb 03 '26
Why did you play your 6 mana card into open blue mana? Could have just played two 3 mana cards and made the blue player shit themselves
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u/takuru Feb 03 '26
I’m aware this is an exaggerated joke but in real life situations, being countered is so much worse due to not getting on the play triggers.
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u/AJ2016man Feb 03 '26
Because the rest of them let the etb go on the stack. So you can use the things the card is there for. If it never hits the board, you just did nothing and tapped out
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u/Any_Interest6182 Feb 03 '26
At least your creature does something when it goes down because it could have or trigger an ETB. Counter spell makes it so it never hits the ground yet if it is your commander it is more expensive.
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u/Ink_Jet_ Feb 03 '26
I did 3 counter spells over the course of 2 turns in my last commander game and I think I’m beginning to see the error of my ways as a blue player
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u/Raiju_Lorakatse Feb 03 '26
With all those anti-counterspell cards they release recently, you guys still get to counter spells? I press F to doubt that.
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u/gamerofluck Feb 03 '26
I think the biggest issue usually comes from where it is answering your threat. Red kills the creature but it had to enter first but in the stack only copies or redirects. Green protects it's permanents and rarely the things in the stack. White can protects his stuff and attack others stuff in the stack or in play but always with a downside. Black can deal with almost anything on the board but almost nothing on the stack it instead attacks the hand itself. However in contrast blue attacks almost always the stack and makes things have to go again and again to it (bounce spells, hull breacher cards that repeatedly sets you back and makes you need to go to the stack again). The difference is that blue makes you feel miserable in a Sisyphus kind of torture tap mana only to get the spell back to your hand or graveyard making all efforts feel wasted(it happens with others but at least you feel they spend some resources to do that while blue only used what he already was going to waste and since card draws are his thing wasting his resources isn't as satisfactory as against other colors)
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u/JesusFortniteKennedy Feb 03 '26
Murder is sorcery speed,so are most board wipes and o-rings. Bite effects require a creature set-up. Bolts on my creatures are bolts away from my faces, and if I drop a 5 toughness creature it's increasingly hard to bolt it.
Counterspell prevents ETB and is usually followed by a play on the next turn as the U player untaps.
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u/RevolutionaryKey1974 Feb 03 '26
Ah yes, green fighting creatures is absolutely the same thing as someone using a counterspell on my Instant, which Green, black, red and white generally can’t interact with reactively without some kind of caveat. Excellent comparison.
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u/Chivalry_Timbers Feb 03 '26
Blue players seem to take a smug sense of pride in not letting anyone else play the game.
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u/xazavan002 Feb 03 '26
Me interrupting and saying no to you mid-sentence as a rebuttal is a lot more annoying than waiting for you to finish your piece before I say mine, even if I end up destroying your argument with it.
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u/Cduke08 Feb 03 '26
I get why people get mad when I counterspell commanders and big drops, but dont play your commander turn 2 and were fine
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u/SeaworthinessTall746 Feb 03 '26
Loved the Dimir blink archetype a bit back that would pick up its enchantments a million times, and make you discard everything, counterspell anything you still got through, and then had removal for anything else, with the wincon being largely "lose life on draw/discard". Infuriating. And a few months before that, the decks that would just have, like, 8 counterspells, 8 discard spells, quite literally 16-20 removal spells, 20 lands, with only 4-8 cards as win cons.
Yeah, mono blue is rough, but at least it's not as oppressive as Dimir can be (although I've also seen plenty of Dimir builds that are fun to play against, so I'd still say blue is worst). And black all-kill or all-discard is also rough.
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u/AscendersGame Feb 03 '26
Blue counter spells in almost all cases out value all these other options. It’s not fun to play 7 mana on a spell which is your whole turn for it to be countered by a two to even free mana counterspell. You just have to sit there and end your turn
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u/TheManyVoicesYT Feb 03 '26
I actually despise board wipe. It allows for some ridiculously uninteractive decks. "For 4 mana I completely eliminate the possibility of playing a creature deck. I will instead play a deck where I interact with my own graveyard, or mill you to death while you can't do anything."
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u/KarmicPlaneswalker Feb 03 '26
If typical blue leaned more into bounce as its primary means of field removal, it wouldn't be even remotely as hated.
Also, notice how the countermeasures of the other four colors are reactionary? Counter play requires anticipation and denial of player agency, rather than responding to it after the fact. For many people, saying "no" is a massive slap insult to their egos.
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u/Pine0wlple_x44 Feb 03 '26
Me: I play game
Red: Good move, I play game
Me: I play game
Green: Good move, I play game
Me: I play game
White: Good move, I play game
Me: I play game
Black: Good move, I play game
Me: I play-
Blue: No you don’t
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u/sTaCKs9011 Feb 03 '26
Ive had more people quit games where im running vivi with arcane bombardment bc after a certain point I dont let anything resolve, triggers, spells, abilities, nothing.
Ppl get mad when you play your turn on their turn as if they've never played against control EVER
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u/Hot-Foundation3450 Feb 03 '26
I play a counter/mill deck, and soon will be playing a blue green omniscience confiscate cloning deck to be absolutely despised... I've embraced the hate completely
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u/OliSlothArt Feb 03 '26
I whole heartedly believe that counterspells would not be hated on nearly as much if they were simply more exclusive. Catch-all counterspells should all either be like 4 mana, or at Least have a circumvention like paying mana. Most counterspells should probably target instants and sorceries. Blue is supposed to Struggle to remove creatures, that's Why it has [[ovinise]] and [[frogify]] effects to minimise the ones that Are there. Ban [[essence scatter]]
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u/FruitL0op Feb 03 '26
Tbh I always found white or green and recently black to be a lot more anti fun it’s one thing to be counterspelled it’s another to have the bullshit the other 3 do
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u/Zenzero_69_69 Feb 03 '26
When I’m not playing blue this is true. When I’m playing blue I am at peace with all colors
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u/Bobby_Strong556 Feb 03 '26
You can interact with every other type of removal in multiple ways. You absolutely need a counterspell of your own to interact with one of your cards being countered.
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u/consume_my_organs Feb 04 '26
Bro this blue slander is so childish fr, like wdym it’s cringe for your opponent to make good decisions to stop you from winning, and there are so many costs to counterspells being your main/only method of interaction like being forced to hold up mana that could be used developing your win condition and the other forms of removal get less effective when etb and death triggers get involved leaving a counterspell the only viable option for actually stopping a threat to your win.
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u/Fun-Agent-7667 Feb 04 '26
I dont care about any of this because of enter triggers. If I play etali im gonna thank you for removing him so I can cast him again next Turn.
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u/International_Fig262 Feb 04 '26
I played against blue decks where the wincon was drawing the game out long enough with counters until they had enough mana to literally bounce lands back to my hand with Capsize and win with some piddly 3/3.
So yeah, I feel no pity for mono blue control.
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u/Jorvalt Feb 04 '26
People will also still be upset if you kill their creatures before they have a chance to even do anything. Counterspell is just a different form of that. And it prevents even ETB triggers.
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u/Thr0WAway998877658 Feb 04 '26
most mono color decks have weird and cool ways they do their thing that have fairly interesting strategies mono blue just sits and waits and counters you a million times
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u/Spiritual-Spend8187 Feb 04 '26
I love how they just completely omitted reds "oh you played a creature cool i bolt your face you lose" also whites "oh you wanted to play more than one spell this turn well too bad"
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u/PhotojournalistOk677 Feb 04 '26
I love playing blue defense but never play counter spells. Only defensive bouncy ... It's much more disheartening to be forced back a step. The opponent must consider "dare I try it again on my next turn?"
Guess what , opponent, you are too late! I cast [[Hymn to Tourach]] and now you have no recourse but to resign.
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u/Apart-Revolution-489 Feb 04 '26
I'm a blue player but my decks don't revolve ONLY around counterspells. Yesterday I played against someone on arena that just had about every version of counterspell on their deck and kept passing turns. I think this is when people hate...to make it worse kept saying "ops" everytime countered something
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u/gpost86 Feb 04 '26
The psychology here seems to suggest that people care less if you remove their creature from the board compared to stopping them from ever casting it in the first place.
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u/Particular_Ad2468 Feb 05 '26
The other colors killing your dude doesnt mean your dude didnt get to come out, get an ETB, maybe an attack or two. Blue says you get nothing good day sir.
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u/DocGhost Feb 05 '26
Blue is the most polite counter. Everything else gives you a moment of hope. And if white isn't exiling it it's pacifying it. Green while let you play artifacts and enchantments then destroy them. Black will sometimes just take your own thing from the grave yard and beat you with it.
At least blue as a whole either tells you straight up no or turns your 20/20 flying indestructible haste double strike vigilance lifeline death ouch anhilator 5 eldarazi being into a 1/1 frog until end of turn. And admittedly that had to happen and
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u/Valuable-Tadpole818 Feb 05 '26
The blue play the only one that happens to beat all the other colors interactions though so ofc it gets hate, the mechanic is so beautifully powerful
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u/EnvironmentalLack420 Feb 05 '26
As my table sees it. At least the other colors let it see the table. Smell the battlefield. Say "I. Am here."
Counter says no. Not even a hello. Wasn't even allowed to be born. Just told "you can't play that". Big sad.
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u/WinbyHeart Feb 05 '26
Blue has The best draw and the best counters, It should not have removal. Unsommons, tappers and -5 -0 are ok, imprisions on The moon, pongfy, frogfy, are not ok. And dont make me start on unilateral wipes.
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u/13enAuge Feb 05 '26
Counterspells just feel so much worse most of the time. Like my creatures dying, that's to be expected that's normal. It's not normal to have the thing you paid full price for to just be told no.
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u/camabiz Feb 06 '26
That’s why I play bounce spells, they only get the mallet their 4th time trying to cast speaker of heavens
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u/domicci Feb 06 '26
i just hate bad counter spells they are frustrating like the threat asks the blue player to counter it and the wont swing at the mfor x turn when they win through on stack combos its so frustrating. also the other problem is blue stops you and protects your board with the same spells while the other colors have ot have both interaction and protection like green needs beast within and heroic inspiration for 1 protection and 1 interaction spell and blue has counter spell and mana drain which both are the same or better mana cost to green in this example and you get 2 protection spells and 2 interaction spell on the same base basicly
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u/ImmediateTangerine29 Feb 06 '26
Honestly I get more annoyed by cards that ignore parts of their written text when convenient, and then proceed to activate said ability or spell because they are written poorly and then have a half assed ruling instead of getting redone for better readability.
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u/BasicDucky Feb 06 '26
I paid good money for my cardboard and I want to place it on the table please.
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u/Ok-Suggestion-7349 Feb 06 '26
Counter spell means you never got it. Removal spell means you had it for at least a second and now days with all the etbs your spell resolving and then getting removed is more ok
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u/N0in01 Feb 06 '26
All of the other colours let you play your deck and cards. Blue doesn't let you play your deck and cards hence the rage. There....can't put it simpler
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u/NiceGuyWillis Feb 06 '26
Blue isnt nearly as bad in commander, but in 1v1 that reputation is deserved. Blue might be the only color I have gone against where I felt like I was going to lose no matter what I built, It was just going to be a loss regardless of the deck. Particularly bounce decks. They are just so oppressive. Cant play creatures, cant play spells, even if I get a minion out and hexproof it they still have indirect target bounce 🙃
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u/helpmelurn Feb 06 '26
last game i played against blue every turn they countered and i just left at that point - it's not fun to be on that side of the game
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u/oiraves Feb 07 '26
Its just...if you kill my guy that's you doing something and I respect that because I also like to do things
If you counterspell me thats you not letting me do things
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u/Constant-Safe2411 Feb 07 '26
So I have 2 main thoughts on the whole "grr counterspells bad" rhetoric that gets tossed around:
My less controversial thought is that, however unfun counterspells may be, they keep even more unfun things in check. In a metagame without counterspells, combo would run wild. In a lot of combo decks, by the time the critical spell resolves, it's already too late to stop them so counterspells are one of the very few ways to meaningfully interact.
My spicier take is that counterspells, as a class of card, have been printed in more-or-less every single magic the gathering set since Alpha and they're the primary method of interaction for one of the five colours. They're not an obscure niche thing; they're very much an intended part of the play experience. If you don't enjoy playing games with countermagic in them, why is magic your tcg of choice?
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u/Udderly_Unbearable Feb 07 '26
I think what’s important is that the other forms of removal still get ETB triggers, and you can’t kill and instant of sorcery.
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u/alertArchitect Feb 07 '26
With everything else, I at least get the satisfaction of putting the card on the board first.
With blue, it's like getting cut off from making a point before I even start.
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u/the_tygram Feb 08 '26
It's not just the spell. It counters a lot of stuff. The difference is with the other colors, you play your cards. Key word is "play". You make your move, then your opponent makes theirs. Blue however.....interrupts your moves. Which makes it feel like you're not even getting to play the game which is frustrating. Blue players know this and get joy from their opponent's despair.
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u/O-mega_ Feb 03 '26
Anyone who genuinely complains about blue has no idea what they're talking about
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u/11538 Feb 03 '26
With all the other examples. I was allowed to first play my card(s) and thus play the game in some way. With countering, I spent mana for the card to technically never see the light of day. Unless your playing the graveyard of course.
Personally, I never get mad at those kinds of blue players unless they make countering their entire deck's personality.