Ploy and Counterplot

noun

• An opening remark intended to secure an advantage for the speaker.
  • synonyms: gambit
• A maneuver in a game or conversation.
  • synonyms: gambit, stratagem

• (v.i.) To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision; -- the opposite of deploy.
• (n.) Sport; frolic.

noun

• A plot intended to subvert another plot.
  • synonyms: counterplan

verb

• Make a plot in response to another plot. .

• (n.) A plot or artifice opposed to another.
• (v.t.) To oppose, as another plot, by plotting; to attempt to frustrate, as a stratagem, by stratagem.