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Source: Atharva's Decklists & Strategies Thread

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CATASTROPHE

4 x Think Twice
3 x Ground Assualt
3 x Dissolve
2 x Archaeomancer
2 x Inspiration
4 x Shock
2 x Anger of the Gods
3 x Tectonic Rift
4 x Elvish Visionary
3 x Cultivate
2 x Terra Stomper
3 x Plekka Worm
1 x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

4 x Island
4 x Mountain
4 x Forest
4 x Izzet Guildgate
4 x Gruul Guildgate
4 x Simic Guildgate


Drawing, counters, and removal to hold off the enemy while you ramp to your big boys! Tectonic Rift has two uses murder off your enemies vital lands in hopes of crippling their ability to cast certain spells (which really can hurt in the current meta), or make your dudes unblockable for the killing blow!

I am currently playing around with this deck once more. It still works awesomely! I currently am tweaking lands as guildgates and cultivate seem counter intuitive. However, sometimes with less guildgates it takes a little longer to be able to cast certain key spells. (Anger, counters, archeo, sometimes the big boys.) I am thinking I had the land right the way it is currently reflected here.

So here's a deck I've been messing around with. Ramp plus counterlash because hilarity. I lived the dream the other night; turn 5 Counterlash into Kozilek = insta-quit. Not saying it's good by any means, but kinda entertaining. Looking for a little input, or a lot...I just really enjoy this color combo!

3 x Island
8 x Mountain
11 x Forest

4 x Traveler's Amulet
4 x Elvish Pioneer
3 x Ground Assault
2 x Guard Gamoza
2 x Anger of the Gods
4 x Cultivate
3 x Darksteel Ingot
1 x Stormbreath Dragon
3 x Meterorite
2 x Counterlash
1 x Soul of Ravnica
1 x Soul of Zendikar
1 x Inferno Titan
2 x Siege Dragon
3 x Pelakka Wurm
1 x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 x Volcanic Geyser

I think Siege Dragon is a very powerful metagame card that no one is using right now, that's a solid pick. I really dislike spending four slots on Traveler's Amulet, though, but I haven't played the deck so I don't know how it would run without it. Do you think you could cut them for two lands and two spells without sacrificing too much consistency?

Yeah, Siege has been pretty good. Even his EtB ability has been relevant at times with all the walls walling around About the amulets, never know if you don't try, right? Certainly haven't seemed essential. What would you recommend adding? Also not sold on Gomazoa, I think I'd rather be ramping up on turn 3, but that's not always going to happen, and he's a good blocker.

If you added some Mountains you could play Shock as creature defense in the early game. I think Gomozoa is great in your deck, but if you cut the Amulets you won't be able to cast him nearly as consistently in the early game. I think your selection of bombs is fine, so if you're going to add something, add removal or card draw. Inspiration could make the list as a potential two-of. Do you find yourself running out of gas much?

I LOVE counterlash, but not really in this list.

I have been taking my RUG build back out for some fun and it is still running great. I have been noticing a couple things this time around that could be a little better so I am currently testing some tweaks that will be reflected in the list soon if I decided to keep them.

Main change concepts, I was feeling that another bomb would be nice in my build. There were a few times where I had plenty of mana and it was just taking TOO long for my bombs to come so I added the third Plekka.

Also, I felt the build could use a little more removal so I am testing the three ground assaults. I did loose the inspirations and 1 cultivate to bring them into the deck however and I am not fully comfortable with that decision yet as it can cause the deck to be a little slower and speed was one big advantage about the deck.

I'm going to respectfully disagree. I think this is where are card like counterlash excels, with a whole bunch of bombs that can be cheated into play on your opponents turn.

I've been running it with a couple changes per Hakeem's suggestions and it has been running pretty well. Shockingly 9-0 atm, but not playing players of the highest caliber. Definitely should have had a few losses thrown in there.

-4 Traveler's Amulet

+1 Mountain
+1 Guard Gomazoa
+2 Inspiration

Inspiration has been great, and improved the consistency considerably, while multiple turn 4 Pelakka Wurms and Inferno Titans have so far convinced me that the Amulets are/were not necessary. They probably even hurt as drawing them pretty much any other time than turn 1 or 2 they are all but useless. This deck is definitely bringing out the Johnny in me. Good times.

My concern with counterlash in the particular build is the lack of other instants. I love it in instant heavy decks. You're deck appears like it should be attempting to rapidly climb the mana ramp and just start hard casting the bombs early. Not saying counterlash doesn't work here.

I will admit that at times I struggle with whether to cast a big fella or keep the mana open for lash and hope they play a dude. It mostly depends on what type of deck I am playing. Worst case scenario generally is it is a 6 mana counter to save one of my bombs.

It are those reasons that in my build I run the 3 cost and 2 cost counters. Leaves more room for my run to 6 and 7 mana to get the big boys on the table and then keep them protected. Or they help keep the table protected before the big boys come.

I think you have to look at Counterlash in a different way. Instead of building around it and maximizing it, build a fatty deck that loves the added bonus of counterspell protection while sometimes just grabbing free wins.

I hope more people come around to realize that Traveler's Amulet is just a terrible card. You read it and think, "Oh wow I can fix my colors" but if all you're drawing into is more Amulets then what's the point?

As I said, I can see the value in counterlash. However, I don't feel that really in a build that is built around ramping mana up and then casting big boys, that it is really as helpful here. There's no reason to be holding mana open (certainly not 6) in this style of deck in my opinion. Where as in a build predominately of instants, you're holding mana open far more often so it makes since to have 6 mana open.

Not casting a creature on your turn and passing the turn to your opponent in hopes he casts a creature for your to counterlash into your creature doesn't seem like wise play in this style of build. This build ramps up fast enough to just play the creatures. I find counterlash far more valuable in a deck that is not able to ramp up nearly as quickly.

I find it funny that you disregard it in my Grixis build but you say I should look at it differently in this style of build. It leads me to believe you haven't really ran it in a draw/go style of deck with a few creatures in your deck that will usually take far longer than 6 turns to get on the table.

I really respect your thoughts Hakeem, but more and more frequently i feel your opinion are more of a speculation based on paper magic than that of a person who actively has tested many of these theories here in the duels world.

I am a doer. I have never been one to theorize too much. I have an idea, and I put it in motion and test it. If it works, great I have succeeded. If it does not, great I have succeeded in finding another way NOT to do something. I would never advocate to NEVER theorize as that is often how new ideas and concepts are originated. But many people will get entangled in over theorizing and not taking as much action as they should.

Sorry, part of this thinking stems from my line of work. But it is very true.

In all fairness, you can't expect someone to play every deck you've built for the right to critique it. Like any card game, "theory building" is important to help define the meta for what cards are good and what cards are bad. I also think that theory is more objective.

Certainly, especially with how many 90 card bad decks there are right now, you can test many builds and brag a 9-0 record, completely selling yourself on the viability of a card. However, it may still be far less consistent to another variant.

It's important to let your deck's choices be challenged and be able to defend them. It's that back-and-forth that generates the meta.

Of course I wouldn't expect someone to try out every deck I create before critique. I was specifically talking about ONE card and the STYLE of decks it plays well in.

I'm just saying that putting Counterlash in your fatty deck does two things:

1) Protects your fatty on-board, with upside
2) Gives you free fatties ahead of curve, with "haste"

I haven't played the card, I'm speculating on it. Is it worth it? I don't know. I'm just putting things out there to make people think.

I wanted to read this thread to see if anyone else was making use of counterlash in a RUG deck. When I thought of a deck to put it in, the first thing I thought was a RG focused ramp build with a little U support. Basically ramp into fat with a little removal and card draw added, and counterlash + warstorm surge as added synergy.

My deck is still a work in progress, and while I have had *some* success with counterlash, the main problem is that it comes on the same place on the curve as most of my fat, and I usually need to cast the fat anyway in order to secure board position. Leaving mana open offers little advantage.

Warstorm surge suffers from the same problem. The card is plenty powerful, but it is difficult to take an entire turn to cast it when you have already spent several turns aggressively ramping and drawing cards. Turning each one of your fatties into a kill spell/ burn to the face is loads of fun.

I want to add some more defense to my deck, right now I basically have none except pioneer chumps, anger of the gods, and ground assault. I tried Saruli gatekeepers - but I no longer run gates so they are not an option. I like the Guard Gomozoa solution - I am normally pretty anti-defender, but this beefed up fog bank is actually pretty decent.

As far as the whole *theory* critique, you honestly can't expect people to test every build out there, especially in this game where there are many, many builds floating around. Ending every argument with "this deck works for me" is not persuasive because so many people can legitimately claim 90% winrates because the player base is often crap.

Nor do I think that playtesting and theory are at opposite poles. I use playtesting to *refine* my understanding of the meta and my theory of how my deck is supposed to work.

Explaining why a particular card choice works, via concepts such as mana curve, threat / answer ratio, card comparisons, etc. is valuable. It allows other players to understand the general concepts behind deckbuilding and helps so that you can learn to weed out good card choices from bad ones. Ultimately the reason I use these forums is to learn from other players and to teach what little I know. Explanation is important, because there are already 10+ different decklists available for the more popular color combinations, on these forums alone. I can't test all of them so I rely on which decks look intuitively good to me, and/or are well explained.

Great response Hakeem sir! Thought provoking I can always get behind.

HenWen that was my personally experiences too. It comes online when my fat boys do and generally I am aiming for green mana over blue to ensure the fat guys get on board sooner.

Once again, I wouldn't expect one to test EVERY BUILD. But the different types of builds, one can totally test those out!

And as I said before, I personally love counterlash! Probably more so than most people really do on these forums.

There's a lot of builds out there and a lot of testing that needs done. The game has not been out for all that long. I've got so many builds on my "need to test" list I wonder if I will get all of them tested at all, lol. I will try to note whether or not I have tested a build (or something similar) before commenting on it.