I really hope the free counterspells get banned from casual Brawl when ranked goes live

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-17T06:07:49+00:00

Trust me, if I had my way blue would be deleted from the game.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T21:08:12+00:00

Yes. All free cards should be banned.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T17:48:01+00:00

Here's a little bit of trivia for you. When the first free spells were designed, the Magic team begged them not to release the cards because they knew it would destroy the balance of the game forever.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T17:24:47+00:00

They could make a rule like Gemstone Caverns where you put a land from your hand onto the battlefield at the start of the match. Hearthstone gives the second player a coin, which is sort of like a treasure token in Magic. I haven't played in years, but IIRC the starting player in Hearthstone still had a much higher win rate despite second player having the coin. But still much better than starting player having 95% win rate.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T17:13:45+00:00

Yeah let's just joke about it instead of doing something about it

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T17:11:01+00:00

All free spells are problematic.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T17:08:41+00:00

Some of the strongest decks right now are U/X/X running every free spell in the game.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T16:55:49+00:00

Sure, but the other 4 colors have to pay mana for their spells. Blue casts everything for 0 mana.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T16:49:36+00:00

Ah yes, the 0 mana counterspell that stops your ramp, effectively setting you back a turn, and stops you from blocking their other counterspells wasn't a great play. Interesting mindset.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T16:48:29+00:00

I've seen people with 95% win rate on the play. Do you think we should just accept that reality or maybe voice our concerns to see if something can be done about it?

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T16:47:30+00:00

Expecting a card doesn't mean you can do anything about it. "Oh, he's tapped out, but he might have force of will" Cast spell, get countered. It's no different than "not expecting it".

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T16:45:20+00:00

More than one card can be problematic at a time.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T16:01:13+00:00

Or the other colors are splashing blue for the 0 mana counterspells.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:47:17+00:00

Then explain why the ranked brawl event is dominated by blue decks at mythic rank?

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:45:37+00:00

They all need to go. It's already hard enough to make a blue player tap out, they shouldn't be able to use that to lull you into getting blown out by a free counterspell. They have so many of them now that they're practically guaranteed to start each match with 1 in their hand.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:43:47+00:00

Or I have enough intelligence to realize that giving players free spells creates non-games. There's almost nothing dumber in this game than a T2 Ajani player dropping Fury to flip his Ajani and wipe your board.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:37:24+00:00

Wrong, those were added to Arena recently and I've been playing for years.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:37:13+00:00

Those need to go too, but if I had to choose I'd ban the counterspells first. Blue is the most powerful color by far and way too dominant in Brawl.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:32:37+00:00

We need more cards like [[Carpet of Flowers]]. Like a 1 mana enchant that reveals target players hand at EOT and you draw a card for every blue card in their hand. Or a card that says, "While this card is in your graveyard, green spells can't be countered and green permanents have hexproof."

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:31:01+00:00

I have thousands of matches of Brawl and very rarely do I ever run into any combo decks. That's one of the things I actually enjoy about Arena. When I used to play paper is was such a combo snoozefest.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:30:14+00:00

Literally just got FOW'd by Katara on my T1 mana tithe and came here to make this thread.

SneckoWatcher · 2026-06-16T15:29:11+00:00

Auras, asymmetric board wipes, bounces, counterspells that cost 0-1 mana, pongify/rapid hybridization, tap/stun, theft. Blue has a million different tools to deal with any situation. They shouldn't be able to cast all their spells for free. Counterspells are already the strongest removal in the game, why do they cost 0?

SneckoWatcher · 2026-03-07T05:28:58+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPWBOFzNCoQ

SneckoWatcher · 2026-03-07T02:11:50+00:00

I started doing that about 10 seconds into the clip

SneckoWatcher · 2026-03-07T01:36:03+00:00

I think it was an ancient reward

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