Counters

Counters exist in Weiss Schwarz as a way to interact with your opponent during their combat phase. The vast majority of counters in Weiss Schwarz exist as power-ups, but they may also carry many secondary abilities that may be even more important.

The baseline for most expected backups as of the writing of this post are as follows: a costless 2000 power bonus for any level 1 backup and around 2500 power for a level 2 backup costing a single stock. 1/1 backups that provide 2000 power used to be the norm for the game ages ago, however as of this writing, even 1/1 backups have adopted a minimum of 2500 power if they carry no other effects.

Many 1/1 backups are moving towards the profile of being base 1000 power while providing a 2500 power bonus. Older series usually carry the stock profile of 2000 base power and a 2000 power backup similar to the card on the right.

Backups, while useful and usually the main source of direct interaction with your opponent, are not quintessential to every strategy. Some decks play cards that only care about effects during your turn and carry very low baseline power to begin with. These decks are only concerned with player turn advantage, not really caring much about the field during their opponent’s turn. Alternatively, some characters may be specialized reversers that carry low power to begin with which defeat their opposing cards through card effects upon being reversed.

Decks which focus primarily on proactive plays rather than reactive plays have a lesser need for backups in general. It is important to remember that backups are strictly “reactive” meaning that they are used to react to your opponent’s plays. Furthermore, backups serve little to no purpose on your turn other than an emergency low-powered beater most of the time.

Even when taking into consideration the decks that do have strong opposing power during their opponent’s turn, it is debatable whether a backup is worth the deck slot or not. Many large powered cards nowadays also come with their own form of encore meaning that backups may not be necessary to maintain field.

The modern use of backups have shifted more towards utility rather than just the traditional field battle assist. Backups that are commonly ran now are prioritised for their alternative abilities rather than their power boosts. The power boost can still be relevant, but its more so of a bonus rather than the main purpose of use. This is all dependent on the particular deck of course.

Event counters are fairly prevalent, but most of the event counters played are usually for their non-power assisting effects. Events come with a very strong demerit which hinders their use and play comparatively to character counters. Events, unlike characters can rarely be fetched from another zone and put into hand unless by a specific effect on another card. Many card effects usually state that they fetch only character cards, thus pushing events into a disadvantage when it comes to consistency. Furthermore, events must also follow the colour rule during their use unlike character backups whom go straight to the waiting room, ignoring the colour clause entirely.

Thus, events fall into two categories. They either have to be good standalone to warrant running them. This means that the effect must be strong enough where the event is worth considering playing in the deck at multiple copies in hopes of drawing them. Alternatively, the events must be able to be fetched using some sort of bonding combo or draw engine like the combo below.

Regardless, at the end of the day, it is up to you to ultimately decide whether or not it is worth it to run backups and how many you wish to run. Counters are great as they promote interaction and have the possibility of saving a character or two to push your field advantage. The real question boils down to whether or not you think it is worth putting these types of cards into your deck. Let us know what you think.