Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I used to beat rawrlolsauce on a regular basis remember  and guess what guys and gals I have renounced my speedy ways and my tournament deck is almost more defense than offense  and it has beaten many a speed deck (21-1 yays)

you won't have the chance. Sauce beats me too fast 

But then Isabel can play Gabe first round and beat him so you can play Gabe !

(Oh, wait. Are we still talking about type 2?)

Gabriel (wa) is a great card against speed because you can knock out a few of their super can't be negated battlewinners, which will lengthen the game for you giving you the advantage. Speed is fast and potent, but small size (50 cards) means it usually won't be able to overcome losing it's battlewinning enhancements. Speed wants a short game, and if you can slow it down with many of the above mentioned counters, you will have the upper hand. Gabriel is also versatile against other deck types.
As was mentioned above, if you want to defeat speed, playtest it alot and figure it out so then you will better understand its weaknesses and then expolit them.
As far as the 16 card limit, I have not seen it really negatively impact the modern speed/aggro decks, but it does mess with the older original versions that used to draw the entire deck in a turn or 2. The limit also helps impact the massive card drawing that type 2 saw in clift/gabe's sin in the camp deck, where the card drawing would quickly setup the lockdown and game over.
High priest's plot can be alot of fun, too. 

I didn't see the artifact mentioned, but there's an artifact called Gift of the Magi... when my friend plays speedy, if it's out, I'm drawing as much as he is as fast as he is.  It's kinda pointless... the game isn't so dramatic when we're both doing the same thing.

the hand size was made to stop speed camp in tyoe 2. 

Also, when playing brown, I'll sometimes throw Broken Cisterns into the defense. It serves two purposes for me.