Hi everyone! A few weeks back, we started to check out all of the different counter spells you can play in Commander that lack the classic counter spell coloring of Blue. You can check that out here if you missed it!
Just to reiterate quickly, here are the criteria for cards we’ll be looking at:
- I’m going to avoid most counter effects that are tied to a creature. We’re going to primarily look at cards that can feasibly fill a similar role as a true counterspell. In a multiplayer format, these cards tend to act more as a deterrent than as a trade piece. If the creature has Flash and has the counter on an enter the battlefield effect, I will include it for the sake of it being usable as a practical counter.
- Devoid cards that have blue in their casting cost will also be excluded, even though they technically are colorless.
Here is the rating scale we’ll be using:
S: The only reason you wouldn’t include this is personal choice, other synergy, or budget.
A: Always a solid choice, can’t go wrong taking up a slot.
B:Â Generally a good pick, can work well in most decks or very well in others with synergy.
C:Â Good in niche situations, but might be outclassed by other picks.
D: Generally outclassed by other picks. Only playable in extreme niches or if you just like the card/it fits your deck’s theme.
As always when it comes to opinion based ratings, keep in mind that your mileage may vary and that these in particular tend to be more niche and less outright powerful than blue counterspells, which is an intentional design choice to maintain Blue’s identity in the color pie. We’ve got a bunch to cover, so let’s get cracking.
Equinox
This is a damn funny card. It’s a really good way to protect your lands if you’re in something like Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper or a man-land type strategy similar to it. At the least, it has a cool case of being able to counter anything that destroys all permanents, since it counters something that would destroy your land, not something that targets it. It won’t help protect from a Strip Mine or something similar though, which stinks because that’s likely the most common land destruction you’ll run up against regularly.
Rating: C, its mileage for you heavily will depend on how much land destruction is around in your metagame. Has some good other niche uses as well and has a low cost of entry.
Green Slime
Hell yeah, now we’re really cooking. This is a really powerful way to interrupt combos if you’re in Green since you can stuff an ability off the stack AND destroy it, which has some cases that will make this better than a regular artifact/enchantment removal spell. Being able to foretell this to make it super cheap is also a great upside, and being left with an extra body is just frosting.
Rating: A, I think it’s not quite powerful enough to be S tier, since it can have the potentially to be awkward in hand in some matchups. 3 mana also can be a lot to hold up if you’re not a deck that typically plays at instant speed. That being said, this is by far one of my favorite cards here and I think can be easily played in most mono-Green decks.
Gutteral Response
Do you have a bone to pick with your local blue player? Are you sick of having your stuff beaten into the dirt by stupid cards such as Controvert? Do you want to smack down a card nobody’s heard of to make the control player think twice on if they can really play that draw spell down on your end step? Give this bad boy a whirl.
Rating: C, Blue is common enough that it’s not too niche, but it’s still more of a “sideboard” card. It can be great to catch people off guard though, and one mana is cheap as chips.
Illumination
This card is a tricky one. At face value, it’s actually not that bad: it’s basically the lovechild of Counterspell and Swords to Plowshares, and what it does is not bad at all for the cost. The issue is that white has access to more flexible removal like Generous Gift that can hit any permanent, or things like Crush Contraband that can exile and target multiple things. What it really comes down to is if the value of countering a spell before it can hit the board is worth trading for the more flexible targeting (and less strict timing restrictions on when you can cast it) of some other options.
Rating: I’m genuinely pretty torn on where to place this. I’m going to go with B if you’re in White or Black/White, but if you have access to another color for some better regular removal I’d drop it down to C.
Lapse of Certainty
This is a card that is solid if you have other ways to interact with it, but I’ve never really been a fan of it otherwise. Countering any spell in White (mono-White in particular) is a really nice tool to have, but countering to the top of the deck just delays what they’re able to do for…potentially not even a turn if they can draw it back? If you have other ways to control their deck (shuffling, milling, etc.) this can be a cool way to deny someone a spell, but I’ve never been a fan of just buying yourself a bit of time. It can be really useful against spells you normally don’t have another way to interact with though, so there’s still plenty of merit for that.
Rating: C, but definitely gains a lot of value if you can manipulate the top cards of other player’s decks in some way.
Mana Tithe
It’s a simple counter: if someone taps out, they don’t get the card. It’s really useful in the early-to-mid game where players are constantly using up their mana to get out ramp and other setup spells, and keeping one mana open to use this is a small ask. I run this card personally in Sram, Senior Edificer and it has reliably been useful when I can get it early. It falls off pretty hard as players get excess mana, but it can still punish anyone who’s willing to tap out on a big spell.
Rating: B, it’s really solid with few frills.
Molten Influence
99% of the time players will take the 4 damage rather than have a spell get counters. Unless you’re in the highest of pressure burn decks, 2 mana for 4 damage is pretty crap.
Rating: D
Not of This World
You need to realistically be in Eldrazi or some other Big Green deck for this to be useful, but honestly I’m a bit surprised that I’ve rarely seen this card in practice. The problem is that the base casting cost of 7 mana feels absolutely atrocious, but getting to cast this with the discount (i.e. usually free) is really solid protection for your commander or other big threats. It also only helps against targeted removal, which means board wipes will still mess up your day. Counting as an Eldrazi itself does give this some other niche utility in those decks which can be nice to have though.
Rating: B in Colorless Eldrazi, since you won’t get much instant speed protection protection otherwise. C if you’re in a deck that has enough targets that it’s usually free, and if you don’t it’s definitely a D.
Null Elemental Blast
This requires one colorless, so realistically you’re mostly going to be playing this in colorless decks. Although it’s a dud if you’re at a table with a lot of mono-color decks, Colorless (non-devoid ones, that is) commanders have very limited fast interaction options that I think there can be a good case made to put this in your deck. A one mana counter-or-kill that can hit a ton of different commanders and scary cards in the format is worth the slot for sometimes being stuck in your hand for a bit.
Rating: B in the context that this is basically a card in the identity of “colorless commanders”, but isn’t really playable outside of it’s intended target of Colorless-only decks or decks that can readily generate colorless mana.
Pyroblast & Red Elemental Blast
Bulking these together since they’re basically the same. Honestly, See above with Gutteral Response, although obviously being able to just kill something on board too makes this way more flexible. I do think blue is common enough that if you’re playing red and don’t have a ton of other ways to protect your board, having some specific hate towards one of the biggest things that can mess with your combos or finishers can be worth the spot in your 99.
Rating: C, it’s potent in mono-Red combo decks or Red decks that just need a bit more protection from the great Blue menace. It’s a “High C” since it’s really good when it’s good, but it’s still slightly niche depending on your meta.
Rebuff the Wicked
It’s not saving you against board wipes, but it can be a good protection piece. I think it’s fallen out of favor since there are a lot more ways now to protect your board entirely by giving things invincibility/hexproof or phasing them out. It’s only one mana though, but since it plays similarly to a regular protection spell (since it can only target things that target something of yours), it’s pretty outclassed by other white protection.
TLDR: Good in the context of a white counterspell, pretty mediocre in the context of white protection.
Rating: C unless you have a very high priority commander that you need to keep on board and you think might eat removal like candy.
Rust
Nah, this can be good against some one-time-use artifacts but I’d rather just run real artifact removal than use this to try and mess with combos when they’re going off.
Rating: D
Tibalt’s Trickery
It’s like Chaos Warp, but a counterspell, basically. Similarly to Chaos Warp, it’s a hard card to analyze because it’s got quite a bit of randomness tied to it. You could counter a spell into something scarier, sure, but the real value comes from when you use this to counter something that’s going to threaten to end the game. If there’s something terrifying being cast, taking the risk that it might roll into a scary card is worth it considering there’s a chance it just fizzles into something awful. It’s not 100% reliable because of this, but disrupting something that could win someone the game for two mana is always worth the risk, even if they could end up getting something decent out of it anyway.
Rating: A, unconditional cheap counterspells are good regardless of how you cut it, even if this one occasionally can have some bad repercussions. If you cast this with good threat assessment and target things worthy of being actually hit by it, it’ll almost always be a gain for you.
Verdant Command
I’m not sure if I can really consider this a counterspell. It’s such a niche counter stapled onto a charm with other pretty niche effects too. It’s good in Squirrels, it’s good against superfriends, and it’s flexible I guess?
Rating: C, it’s textbook niche.
Warping Wail
It’s decently flexible, and only hitting sorceries isn’t a huge deal when there are still quite a good number of sorceries that are worth countering, even if it makes it rough to include exclusively as a counterspell because it’s got such a restrictive targeting clause. Similar to Null Elemental Blast, it’s good because it’s going to mostly be used by Colorless identity commanders who just don’t have as many options for instant speed interaction. Worst case scenario, if you can’t exile a creature or counter something with it, you make a dork and move on with your game.
Rating: Like Null Elemental Blast, I’m giving this a B since it’s going to realistically be tied into commanders with the Colorless identity, and you won’t really see it outside of that. I quite like it where you actually can use it though.
Withering Boon
Black isn’t short on kill spells, but being able to deny an ETB effect by countering something can be extremely useful in a lot of situations. If you consider that this is basically just a two mana kill spell that denies ETB triggers but has a more restrictive timing on when you can cast it, it’s got a really nice appeal in a lot of decks. 3 life is meaningless as an additional cost – let’s face it, if you’re in Black, you’re used to it anyway.
Rating: A, it’s one of the more universally useful of the list for many decks.
That’s a wrap! Hopefully you found some of these cards interesting and might take a few out for a spin in your own games.
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