It's not bad. I expect it would be better in some sort of Temur mid-range/control than Jeskai, mostly just because it's so expensive. But an x counterspell with blaze tacked on isn't bad at all. We still need a better counterspell for control, though. All of our good counterspells are three mana and now our wrath is five. This set is gonna hurt blue-based control hard if we can't get a good counter or cantrip to play with.
People really need to reevaluate the quality they're asking for in their counterspells. Dissolve is above the curve. Counterspell itself is a flat out broken card and nothing ever will or should ever come anywhere close to it.
As soon as you print a counterspell that's good against aggro decks you've irreperably warped and probably broken the format.
Spell snare hasn't broken modern, and it didn't break standard. And how is a good Counterspell against aggro any different from abrupt decay, lightning bolt, inquisition of Kozilek, path to exile, ect.?
The difference is all those cards don't answer everything. Counterspell answers stone cold everything.
Counterspells are naturally strong against combo and midrange decks. Combo wants you to not be able to interact with them at all. Well guess what, counterspells get to interact with you no matter what your combo is. Midrange decks slow themselves down in order to play higher quality threats that they hope will outclass their opponents' threats or that will be good enough that their opponent has no answers for them. Neither of those angles has any hope against counterspells. Counterspells don't care how good the card you're casting is, they send it to the graveyard no matter what. Counterspells mean that you can basically ignore their mana acceleration, because it doesn't matter what they're ramping up to. You can just counter it.
The only way to beat counterspells is to go under them. Play a low curve and take advantage of the fact that their spells are inefficient. When counterspells cost 3 or more, that's a viable strategy. When they cost 2 mana, it's not.
Literally every color has a way of getting around counterspells other than aggro. And if aggro has a bunch of 1 drops then 2 CMC counterspells aren't very good against it.
In a format with thoughtseize, maybe they could print a Counterspell with CMC UB that's a hard counter and makes you lose 2 life.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
This might actually be good in modern Grixis control as a 1 of. Syncopate + instant speed Fireball seems a good way to tap out late game... Can even get rid of a planeswalker to! I like it!
You forgot to mention counter's biggest downfall, though: They can't answer anything that's already on the board, which is a huge downside !
How did it get on the board, though? You have access to just as much mana as they do. If your counterspells cost the same amount or less than their threats, they're not going to get anything on the board unless you run out of counters before they run out of threats.
People Seem to be hating on this for modern but i think it could find a home in the right deck (tempo?). It's an aggressive card. Worst case scenario, they cryptic and counter+draw, second worse they remand (these two apply to pretty much any card). beyond that, they are either burning a counter from their hand, paying x to push their spell through and taking damage to the dome, or their spell gets countered and they get burned. It has potential it's just not really a control card, it's more of an aggressive tempo play.
You forgot to mention counter's biggest downfall, though: They can't answer anything that's already on the board, which is a huge downside !
How did it get on the board, though? You have access to just as much mana as they do. If your counterspells cost the same amount or less than their threats, they're not going to get anything on the board unless you run out of counters before they run out of threats.
Because your counters often times cost more or you run out of efficient counters or your counters are conditional or you had to tap low for something that isn't a counter ? People manage to get under/through/around counterspells all the time, you make them out to be a way bigger deal than they usually are.
That's because WOTC nerfed counterspells to all cost 3 mana or more. When we had good two mana counters, "counter everything the opponent does" was pretty much the premier MTG strategy.
I think I like this spell better for only hitting players. I think it'd be better than it's current iteration (a 2-for-1 counterspell would be sweet) but I don't think the flavor is quite there, and it's nice that it goes through hexproof.
I had to post after many years of lurking just to say how a card's templating can influence people's perceptions... If the card said:
Choose a spell on the stack. Mindswipe deals X damage to that spell's controller.
If that player doesn't pay X, the spell is also countered.
It would be getting much less flak, and people would be thinking of different deck archetypes to put it in. People see "counter" in the first sentence and think "control!". There's people on the thread for Crater's Claw clamoring for it to be instant, and this one is... You have to look at it from different angles, not just as a soft counter with ups and downs.
Right, exactly. As I was saying earlier in this thread, this card isn't syncopate with blaze tacked on, it's blaze with a syncopate tacked on. This card goes great in burn decks both as an instant speed blaze and as a potential counterspell, which is way more utility than blaze variants usually get. Control doesn't really need this card, but this plus the tripler plus ??? might be enough to push a decent burn deck in the meta.
I had to post after many years of lurking just to say how a card's templating can influence people's perceptions... If the card said:
Choose a spell on the stack. Mindswipe deals X damage to that spell's controller.
If that player doesn't pay X, the spell is also countered.
It would be getting much less flak, and people would be thinking of different deck archetypes to put it in. People see "counter" in the first sentence and think "control!". There's people on the thread for Crater's Claw clamoring for it to be instant, and this one is... You have to look at it from different angles, not just as a soft counter with ups and downs.
Right, exactly. As I was saying earlier in this thread, this card isn't syncopate with blaze tacked on, it's blaze with a syncopate tacked on. This card goes great in burn decks both as an instant speed blaze and as a potential counterspell, which is way more utility than blaze variants usually get. Control doesn't really need this card, but this plus the tripler plus ??? might be enough to push a decent burn deck in the meta.
There's a flaw in your analysis. Burn plays between 19 and 22ish lands (on the very high end), and that makes this card vastly worse. The reason this is good in a control shell is because the games get to a point where you have 10 mana, and not only being able to counter, but sling 8 damage to finish them off is very powerful. Burn really doesn't want a card that reads: counter spell, deal 1 or 2 damage, meanwhile hold open all your mana (which wouldn't be too bad if the deck was all instants, but in standard it isn't!). It's not like Burn has other plays like Aetherspouts, Jace's Ingenuity, removal spells (god I hope the other charms don't suck), etc.
Remember, Sphinx's Revelation was an absolutely terrible card. Cards with X costs that have a lot of preceding mana are always bad. After all, you had to pay four mana to even get the card to just cycle itself and for six mana, you only get a Concentration. It's pointless to talk about costs greater than 6, because any game will be over by then. And as we all know, a few points of life, up or down, are completely irrelevant. This is why Mind Rot is a much better card than Blightning, because it only requires one color to cast and those few points of damage that can't even hit a creature are irrelevant anyway.
Burn, discard, uncounterable spells, creatures off of cavern of souls, creatures off of Vial, your own counterspells, spells with flashback, creatures that come back from the graveyard, white control cards like grand abolisher, silence, thalia, guardian of thraben, judge's familiar, ect.
Literally every color has a way of getting around counterspells other than aggro. And if aggro has a bunch of 1 drops then 2 CMC counterspells aren't very good against it.
In a format with thoughtseize, maybe they could print a Counterspell with CMC UB that's a hard counter and makes you lose 2 life.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
How did it get on the board, though? You have access to just as much mana as they do. If your counterspells cost the same amount or less than their threats, they're not going to get anything on the board unless you run out of counters before they run out of threats.
That's because WOTC nerfed counterspells to all cost 3 mana or more. When we had good two mana counters, "counter everything the opponent does" was pretty much the premier MTG strategy.
Right, exactly. As I was saying earlier in this thread, this card isn't syncopate with blaze tacked on, it's blaze with a syncopate tacked on. This card goes great in burn decks both as an instant speed blaze and as a potential counterspell, which is way more utility than blaze variants usually get. Control doesn't really need this card, but this plus the tripler plus ??? might be enough to push a decent burn deck in the meta.
There's a flaw in your analysis. Burn plays between 19 and 22ish lands (on the very high end), and that makes this card vastly worse. The reason this is good in a control shell is because the games get to a point where you have 10 mana, and not only being able to counter, but sling 8 damage to finish them off is very powerful. Burn really doesn't want a card that reads: counter spell, deal 1 or 2 damage, meanwhile hold open all your mana (which wouldn't be too bad if the deck was all instants, but in standard it isn't!). It's not like Burn has other plays like Aetherspouts, Jace's Ingenuity, removal spells (god I hope the other charms don't suck), etc.
Wow. I just read this thread. Wow.
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THS-KTK: Rabble Red
RTR-THS: Dega Midrange
INN-RTR: Boros Humans
SOM-INN: B/u Control
Modern: Mono-Black Infect
lel this was the second post? this is probably going to be the most powerful card since delver of secrets.
You got Blaze in my Power Sink...