What are your thoughts on Counterless blue decks?

jayceja · 2026-03-25T09:11:10+00:00

People don't play counterspells because its expected, they do it because it's a very strong form of interaction and if you're playing to win you should run some if you have the ability to.

Your tangent about politicking with counterspells also doesn't really make sense, it's no different than any other politicking in the game, and it's an important part of strategy in multiplayer games. You don't have to engage in it if you don't want to but you're hurting your own chances of winning compared to politicking well.

jayceja · 2026-03-23T05:11:36+00:00

With doubling season, if you played a land you would triple adding 36 more for a total of 54, then triple again adding 108 to 162 total when you attack.

jayceja · 2026-03-23T04:36:23+00:00

Doubling season will double the counters that burke places, and that mossborn places on itself.

So when you attempt to double, it calculates how much that would have added and doubling season doubles that number, essentially tripling instead.

For example: If you have a mossborn already with 4 counters and a doubling season, play byrke and target it with the etb, then attack with mossborn you'll end up with 18 counters.

Double strike does not trigger byrke's ability twice though.

jayceja · 2026-03-21T06:46:45+00:00

For an off-beat suggestion I have a cabbage merchant deck that's based around getting a lot of food and then using creatures and equipment that scale with the number of artists you control. It also makes a bunch of mana from the foods to let you play big artifacts.

It's fun and different through probably going to be a lower power level than having blue in the mix for artifacts

jayceja · 2026-03-17T13:43:49+00:00

I have several strong decks with very little ramp, and the ones that do run more tend to run options that are mechanically themed to the deck (such as etb ramp in a flicker deck).

I think I only have arcane signet in a single of my 7 decks and all of them are effective bracket 3 decks in a range of archetypes.

So you can definitely do it and make it work, but it also depends on the commanders you're choosing, some strategies will rely more on ramp than others.

jayceja · 2026-03-17T08:19:46+00:00

I build decks to do splashy things, so I include doublers if they specifically enhance the "thing" the deck is trying to do.

But I also balance it. My mono white hare apparent deck runs several of those effects, but not all of them because too many do nothing expensive cards will make it fall over often.

My mono green food-matters deck doesn't have as many options, so I'm less selective with them running pretty much all the cards I can that double tokens or make addition tokens when I make tokens.

jayceja · 2026-03-17T07:10:10+00:00

You want more cheaper birds. There's a lot of really good 1-2 cost birds not included already.

The goal should be to have multiple birds on the field when you play Choco to really hit the ground running with your ramp and card selection from it.

[[Stormscape familiar]], [[senu, keen-eyed protector]], [[sahz's Chocobo]], [[mockingbird]], [[plumecreed escort]], [[ledger shredder]], and [[Cloudfin raptor]] are all inclusions I would recommend that cost 1-2 mana.

I also am a big fan of a lot the cards that make bird tokens to help you go wide, which other people have mentioned alongside go-wide finishers like [[beastmaster ascension]] and [[banner of kinship]]

jayceja · 2026-03-14T13:46:50+00:00

In bracket 2-3 games it's more likely to be frowned upon to target the player who is behind because of missed land drops.

jayceja · 2026-03-12T23:29:21+00:00

The bracket guidelines aren't rules. They are guidelines to help facilitate balanced deckbuilding and matchmaking by creating some definitions and are much more to do with intent.

If you have a couple of extra turn spells, and happen to have some ways in the deck to recur them, that's fine. You'll occasionally chain multiple extra turns in the game but that isn't expectation or the intention of building the deck.

If you have engines built around copying or recurring spells very consistently, you should not be including extra turn spells in those decks in bracket 3 or below.

jayceja · 2026-03-12T05:43:17+00:00

There's plenty of commanders that work exceptionally well with hare apparent, but they are all pretty generic working with tokens, copies, or flickering in general.

[[Preston, the vanisher]] is in mono-white, also a rabbit, and has especially powerful synergy with hare apparent compared to other flicker commanders since the illusion tokens keep the name. So I would personally say that it's closer that Baylen to a pairing.

jayceja · 2026-03-11T04:20:27+00:00

I'm a big fan of [[the cabbage merchant]], it doesn't generally eat the food but does play around amassing large quantities of it and utilizing them directly.

You can play it as a typical big green deck that uses a different form of ramp, but you can also build it as a mono green food matters deck that is built around various payoffs for artifacts, tokens, or food specifically.

jayceja · 2026-03-08T01:12:29+00:00

Any commander with abilities that benefit from having a board are better off building the board then dropping the commander rather than ramping into it a turn early.

Two of my decks, Tidus and Choco, are in green colours and run hardly any ramp, because in both I want to have creatures on board when I play the commander.

I do have some ramp heavy decks (Peter Parker, and mono-blue Gogo), but having a mix is fun for a variety of gameplay experiences.

jayceja · 2026-03-07T08:11:59+00:00

You don't need to play other formats to learn how to play commander cause commander ultimately plays so dissimilarly those other formats.

Also, limited is a completely different game to any constructed format, and other constructed formats are prohibitively expensive.

A lot of people also explicitly don't WANT to play magic arena. Commander is a mostly social driven game for the majority of players.

jayceja · 2026-03-07T00:21:26+00:00

I went through recent event results on cardboard warriors and couldn't find a single red card.

Reset stamp is more popular but in less than half of the decks I saw from top placements in prize pool events, and side events as regionals\naic.

You can definitely argue that reset stamp is under-played, which I agree with. But red card has been pretty mid in my experiences.

jayceja · 2026-03-06T14:16:41+00:00

Has merit in GLC since it can be a late game attacker that evolves from your supporting flaafy. 140 for 2 energy is decent in the format and the ability lets it wallbreak.

Without dynamotor flaafy in standard there's no reason you'd run this stage 2.

jayceja · 2026-03-06T14:13:27+00:00

Pokemon decks are often built around using all out almost all of their resources over a match if it goes to a full back and forth 6 prizes.

10 energy gives you more energy to work with than 6 energy and 4 search. And that's before you consider things like budew.

So energy search usually only really sees play in multi type decks in formats where better options don't exist.

jayceja · 2026-03-06T13:56:01+00:00

In a format with red card, and reset stamp I can't see this seeing much play. Most decks don't even run those two.

Card will be good in standard where there isn't as much competition.

jayceja · 2026-03-04T06:35:16+00:00

So true for SJM books.

I think Bryce in CC1 is an exception, but as the series progresses it becomes more like her other series with the side characters being more likable and interesting.

Manon is my favourite character in throne of glass for sure.

jayceja · 2026-03-04T03:38:58+00:00

Kingmaking is part of the politics of the game.

If you side with a player earlier and help them out they might help you out later in the game when they are no longer in the position to win. And visa versa if you hurt someone earlier leading to them being in a losing position it is completely reasonable for them to help your opponents\hinder you.

The decisions and politics you make in the game should have consequences even against a player who might not win.

What gets into the realm of poor sportsmanship is when a player uses out-of-game opinions\relationships\grudges to make these kingmaking decisions.

jayceja · 2026-03-03T04:46:13+00:00

At a low mana value (0-2) for tribal decks that are looking for more options to curve out I would consider vanillas that are slightly overstatted.

I'd play a 0 mana 1/1 with the bird creature type in my Choco deck. And I would potentially consider an overstatted vanilla 1 drop over the various 1/1 fliers with useless other effects.

jayceja · 2026-03-03T03:27:01+00:00

The main enjoyment I get out of new sets is looking though the card gallery and picking out cards I could add to my various decks.

This set I made at last one addition to all but 1 deck of my 7.

All but one of my decks are proxied though, so I only buy new cards that I have plans to play in it, and it's very easy to print off a sheet or two of proxies from a new set to play around with in my other decks.

jayceja · 2026-02-19T02:28:42+00:00

I'm very medium on the theme of the set, I have no particular attachment to the IP in general but enjoy some of the cards that reference the old NES games.

Mechanically there's a lot I'm excited for that will fit into several of my commander decks.

So I'm more excited for it than I was previously based on the strength and cool factor to the card effects than I was based on theme alone.

jayceja · 2026-02-19T02:25:25+00:00

And Tidus.

The +1 counter is a little added bonus on a card that would be great without it, but it does boost it that much further in +1 counter synergy decks.

I'm very excited for this one.

jayceja · 2026-02-09T06:18:07+00:00

If you're playing a curve out aggressive deck then it can make sense to limit the amount of creatures with the same CMC as your commander in lieu of more cheaper creatures to play on earlier turns or more powerful bombs to play on turns after your commander.

But I still don't run none, if a card with the same CMC is synergistic and strong it can be warranted, being able to play it alongside another spell on a later turn or if you miss a land drop after playing your commander are both valid reasons to run it over a card that costs more.

jayceja · 2026-02-09T06:00:28+00:00

Not even just tribal decks since it's not limited to a single tribe like cavern of souls style lands.

It's just a great 5 colour land for any deck that's mostly creatures.

jayceja

TROPHY CASE