"Counter Blitz" Deck Review
Hello there, humans and humanoids. Today, I’ll be going over the “Counter Blitz” preconstructed deck from ‘Final Fantasy’. This bant (white/blue/green) deck cares about putting counters onto your permanents. Usually, this shows up in the form of +1/+1 counters. But there’s also the use of keyword counters and more. So how does this deck hold up?
Ramp - There’s a surprising amount of draw power in this deck. The mana dorks (creatures that generate mana) are quite helpful too. However, I would have liked to have seen a bit more in terms of mana fetching capability. Otherwise, I think this section passes pretty well.
Recursion - One card? Oof! That’s not great. I know that recursion is kind of hard in these colors. But green has a fair amount of recursion capability; not to mention artifacts that help refill the library. A definite hit on the grade here.
Removal - I think the selection of removal here is decent. But I’d like to see less target (and less “Farewell”) and more board wipes. I understand why they went the route they did, given the lack of recursion to back it up. But fixing the recursion will allow the necessity for more board wipes.
Mana Rocks - Three mana rocks; none of which are signets?! Guys, c’mon! It’s a three-color deck. We need more mana rocks here.
Overall Card Quality - I can honestly say that the vast majority of the deck fits into either the good or “good with context” grading of card quality. There’s only a couple of cards here that I can say are legitimately bad. I’m very happy with the card selection for this deck and it helps to counteract what the deck is lacking.
Archetype Cohesion - The cohesion of each card here with what the deck wants to do is very strong. Not just the amount of counters that can be generated; but the various ways of using those counters as resources to do other things is a brilliant use of creative design. Having the capability to take a simple concept and expand upon it to this degree with a variety of gameplay options is a testament to the design team. Well done.
Commander Cohesion - I really like both commander choices for this deck. They both serve different functions for the same archetype and can play into different strategies. Personally, I like Yuna better as a commander for this deck, but Tidus serves quite well.
Final Grade - B+
I can recommend this deck for newer players and for veterans alike. I will say that it’s a bit daring to include a turn 2 win condition in to a precon. It’s unclear if it was intentional or not. But definitely something that people can abuse and opponents can look out for.