Counter Rebels - A Different View Alex Shvartsman When one mentions Counter Rebels these days, most players who pay attention to online strategy will assume you are talking about the deck played by Kamiel Cornelissen to a 2nd place finish in Chicago. In fact, there was a variety of Rebel decks played at that Pro Tour, varying from ultra-aggressive mono-white strategies like the deck played by Noah Weil to a U/W control deck that kept a Rebel chain in its sideboard played by William "Baby Huey" Jensen. The version I played can be called Counter Rebels, but it is far different from Kamiel's deck. It was designed by the group I worked with for PT Chicago - The Rejects. This team name is somewhat of a bitter joke on the fact that most players on this team were left behind after the various mergers and roster changes undergone by European Alliance and Mogg Squad. Our roster for this Pro Tour included myself, Brian Davis, Jakub Slemr, Trey Van Cleave, Mattias Jorstedt, Mattias Kettil, Skye Thomsen, Bram Snepvangers, and Jelger Wiegersma. We have arrived at the following version of the deck: Main Deck Sideboard 14 Plains 4 Ramosian Sergeant 4 Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero 4 Crusade 4 Parallax Wave 4 Disenchant 4 Rishadan Port 4 Adarkar Wastes 3 Defiant Falcon 3 Steadfast Guard 3 Reverent Mantra 3 Power Sink 3 Coastal Tower 2 Defiant Vanguard 1 Rebel Informer 3 Armageddon 3 Mageta the Lion 3 Wrath of God 2 Rethink 1 Reverent Mantra 1 Power Sink 1 Rebel Informer 1 Seal of Cleansing Jakub Slemr Most of us played this version, with almost no alterations. We also handed the deck to several friends. In the end, the final record of those who did play it were as follows, making it one of the most successful builds in the tournament: Mattias Jorstedt 14th Nicolai Herzog 16th Jakub Slemr 24th Alex Shvartsman 26th Sigurd Eskeland 37th Skye Thomsen 44th Brian Davis 60th Trey van Cleave 85th Mattias Kettil 131st Most of the Rebel players in the tournament all reached the same conclusion - it is an incredibly potent strategy, as long as your opponent does not break your back with Flashfires. Kai Budde added green to his deck. Tony Dobson added black. Most other players added blue. Adarkar Wastes and Coastal Towers would not only produce blue mana, allowing us to splash some neat blue cards - they would also act as damage control against Flashfires, making it far less effective. Once we've decided to add blue, the immediate and obvious question was what blue spells, if any, can help further improve the deck. We have tested a Counter Rebel design similar to Cornelissen's, but felt that a version more similar to a traditional mono white rebels would do better. We also wanted to run JUST enough blue where we would play no Islands. The matchup against Fires is favorable, but it becomes considerably worse if River Boa turns into a potent threat instead of being pretty much a dead draw for them under our current configuration. The blue card I miss not playing the most is Brainstorm. Brainstorm becomes almost broken with Rebel searchers. Since you do not have to re-draw the two cards you put away with Brainstorm, it allows for much greater amount of library manipulation - to put away any Rebels you've drawn when you already have sufficient searchers in play (and especially the Rebel Informer, which the deck cannot cast). Brainstorm also serves to find the important spells and to hide that extra Lin Sivvi should Tsabo's Decree be about to resolve. The reason for not playing Brainstorm after all is that there simply weren't enough sources of blue mana in the deck. We ran a total of 4 Adarkar Wastes and 3 Coastal Towers (we playtested 4 Towers and felt that a fourth "come into play tapped" land was one too many for this type of strategy). The only blue card we settled on actually playing is Power Sink. This is a perfect countermagic option for the deck. Once any Rebel searchers are in play, you sit there untapped during both yours and your opponent's turns, only tapping out during his discard step to search out more Rebels. This leaves plenty of mana available to counter that crucial spell an opponent is hoping to crush you with. There are very few spells that are really devastating, so when playing the deck use your Power Sinks very sparingly. If a spell your opponent is trying to cast does not break your back, let it resolve. You want to save countermagic for stuff like Tsabo's Decree, or an Armageddon cast at the time where you are at a disadvantage on the board. Outside of this little primer on taking advantage of your newfound blue mana, this deck pretty much plays in a very similar fashion to the Rebel constructions of the Masques Block PT-NY. When matched up against an aggressive deck such as Fires or Skies, the Rebel strategy plays a very controllish game. It does not attempt to outrace Fires. Instead, it takes great pains to make sure it always has two searchers in play (so that a well timed direct damage spell does not prevent you from continuing the engine) and simply outwaits Fires - as long as Rebels survive an early game, Fires with its fading permanents will find it increasingly difficult to build up any significant pressure. An eventual buildup of Rebels will take them down in due course. When facing a control deck, Rebel strategy transforms. Now it is a beatdown deck. Unconcerned with establishing a board position, it tries to force one searcher into play and then summon its Steadfast Guards to apply as much pressure as possible. Make sure to search out your rebels rather than casting them out of hand. A Wrath of God will likely happen at some point, and you want to make sure that you can drop a pair of Rebels from hand and continue applying pressure - even if multiple Wraths take place. Armageddon is the key card brought in from the sideboard against control decks. You want to cast Armageddon to prevent the control deck from casting a Blinding Angel. Although an Angel is a powerful card against a Rebel strategy, it is not devastating. With five mana available, you can simply recur a Defiant Falcon via Lin Sivvi to block the Angel, while your other creatures keep attacking. However, this slows down your offense and provides your opponent with a chance to cast a second Angel, or find other ways to break your engine (Dominating Lin Sivvi is one such unpleasant move). Last but not least is the mirror matchup. Like almost any other mirror matchup, it becomes redundant and luck based if both players are of equal skill. Fortunately for the better players, that is rarely the case. The key to winning this matchup is drawing lots and lots of land. Trey Van Cleave commented that his perfect hand for this matchup consists of a Ramosian Sergeant and six lands! As a matter of fact, one of the few differences between the deck I played and that of my teammates was that many of them added an Island to their sideboard, going up to 26 lands in this matchup. Others played as many as 27 or even 28 lands. Outside of the good land draw, the first player to get a Lin Sivvi into play gains further advantage. No other searcher is nearly as efficient, allowing you to "run away" and overwhelm your opponent. However, Rebel Informer changes all the rules again. Even if your opponent has got Sivvi but does not have an Informer, his chances diminish with every additional land you play. Six is a magical number, since it lets you "Submerge" a pair of Rebels to the bottom of their deck every turn. There are a number of other factors beyond Informer and Lin Sivvi. A well timed Armageddon can be key, especially if you held back some lands while your opponent didn't. Mageta the Lion provides immediate board advantage, since most Rebel decks cannot deal with it outright. Similarly, a player will often sideboard in Wrath of God to reset the table if an opponent has Lin, Informer or Lion advantage. After sideboarding, the matchup becomes a lot more skill based, and much of the skill involved is in the ability to outguess your opponent. Will he sideboard out his Parallax Waves? If so, should you take out your Disenchants or Seal of Cleansing? Will your opponent bring in Story Circle because he followed the same train of logic and expected you to take out your enchantment removal? There is no way I can offer you a comprehensive strategy for what to do - you have to base your sideboarding decisions every time based on your estimate of what you expect an opponent to do, and go from there. Rebel strategy, whether you choose this deck, Budde version, Cornelissen version, or one of many others, is more complex than it seems at first glance. If you plan to use this deck at your next tournament, take your time to practice some matches and figure out exactly how the deck works, before taking it into battle.